Blog With Sally

Believe it or not, I have taken on another project working with a new start-up called Jackpot Rewards. I am writing for their health and fitness “MiniMag” and I am a real supporter of what they are trying to do. They have committed to give away 50% of their profits every year to children’s charities around the world and are trying to set a new philanthropic standard for other corporations in America.

Jackpot Rewards is an online shopping club where you get on average 10% cash back when you shop with their 550 retail partners (Nike, EMS, Target; all the big ones). It’s a pretty compelling proposition but the most interesting aspect is they are attracting people to their site through an unprecedented sweepstakes promotion. As a member, you are automatically entered into their weekly $100 million (yes, million) sweepstakes. If you are not lucky enough to win that, you could win their Sunday night guaranteed $1 million giveaway. They just launched so the odds of winning the $1 million are amazing. They offer a free week also so you can try it with no obligation. If you like what you see, become a member, get some discounts, help needy children and potentially win $1 million. Does it get any better than that? Oh, and don’t forget to choose my “MiniMag” so you can read more every month about staying healthy and fit!! Click here for your free trial: www.jackpotrewards.com

You are at work. Your company wants to lower business health care costs. The enterprise is secretly monitoring your blood pressure and heart rate – your mental and physical condition. Your health wanes or you have marital problems. You are fired because of the potential health increase in premiums because you are a health risk. This scenario is totally possible with the publication of Microsoft’s patent on software that can continually monitors and analyzes your facial expressions, body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure to chronicle your psychometrics. And, it doesn’t stop there. According to Microsoft’s patent-pending publication, the hardware-software combination can be used with laptops, mobile phones, and PDAs. The software uses the animated pop-up assistant used in Office – Clippy – to offer suggestions like, “Are you feeling depressed today?” Big Brother might soon have you roll into your cubicle, strap on a bunch of monitoring devices, and then just lock onto every aspect of your work habits to determine your job performance. Is that invasion of privacy or is that sound business practices?

There is a rush on new pills to solve America’s obesity epidemic. Don’t expect dramatic results from these medications. Three weight loss drugs* were reviewed by Canadian researchers with 20,000 participants in three different trials. The participants weighed an average of 220 pounds. And, the results from those taking the medication were disappointing – an average of 5 percent of total weight or less than 11 pounds. The good news is that other research shows that a drop of 5 percent body weight can have a positive health effect with improvement in blood pressure and improvement in cholesterol and blood sugars.
What to do? The best medicine for weight loss is healthy active living. Period.
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*The three weight loss drugs were: orlistat (marketed as Xenical and Alli), sibutramine (Meridia) and rimonabant (not available in the USA)

There’s a dramatic increase in the number of girls and women participating in sports today. The negative term “tomboy” for athletic females has almost vanished. For 75-years, females were gaining on male performance records in the short distance swimming, running, skating races. For example, in 1936 sprinter Jessie Owens set the world record of 10.2 seconds for the 100 meter dash. Helen Stephens, that same year, lowered the women’s record to 11.5 seconds. Yet, in 2006 the men’s 100 meter record stood at 9.77 seconds and the women’s records was 10.49 seconds. After studying the historical data, the rate of improvement for males now exceeds that of females. The gender difference in races that take 10-60 seconds is no longer narrowing. Why has the trend reversed itself with males getting faster than females? According to Heart Zones faculty member, Carl Foster, Ph.D., the widening in gender performance differences appears to be the result of pharmacological agents not differences in training methods, equipment improvements, or cultural improvements. Twenty years ago some researchers reasonably predicted the eradication of gender performance differences. It now appears that these predictions were wrong. Recent data clearly shows and indirectly proves that the gender difference is widening with the widening use of illegal performance –enhancing drugs.

Stephen Seiler, Jos J. De Koning, and Carl Foster. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise: Volume 39 (3) March 2007 p 534-540. The Fall and Rise of the Gender Difference in Elite Anaerobic Performance 1952-2006.

Using a Heart Rate Monitor for Deer Hunting is Dangerous for Both of You

Hunting deer for those at risk for heart attacks might get you before it gets the deer according to a report of 25 middle-aged male deer hunters. Pulling the trigger kills the deer but the activities associated with it might be the demise of you as well.

Deer hunting activities include stressful walking over rough terrain, adrenaline rush, exposure to cold weather, and dragging a heavy carcass a long way. In the study reported in the American Journal of Cardiology, these activities boost the risk of heart attack or cardiac arrest. In their research, they discovered that these activities led to potentially dangerous heart-rhythm disturbances or restriction of the oxygen supply to the heart. In the study, ten of the men exceeded their peak heart rates deer hunting than they did vigorously running on a treadmill.

Deer hunting causes excessive cardiac demands so avoid it at all costs.

SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, July 15, 2007.

A new company is matching the beat of your heart monitored by your heart rate device to your digital tunes. The movement started with the MP3 player being used on cardio machines. Then came the Wii to link exercise to digital entertainment. In August, watch for Yamaha to break into the game with their new “BodiBeat”, a wearable player that will become the first music player married to a heart rate monitor that selects and plays songs to match your workout pace. It decided on the songs to play to match the beats per minute of your heart rate monitor coupling your exercise intensity to the beat of your heart.

Curious about “what’s next” in the world of training tools? Join the Heart Zones USA faculty at the seventh annual Heart Zones International Fitness and Training Conference in Denver, Colorado November 7-9^th for a weekend of playing with the latest technologies. This year’s Conference 2007 theme is in tune with Yamaha’s BodiBeat, Tomorrow’s Technologies’ Today.  Tomorrow’s training toys are now available to you today if you join me at this year’s Conference. Test drive the Zephyr Bio-harness (www.zephyrtech.co.nz/) for a spin using their bio-sensing smart fabrics to measure your breathing rate, skin temperature, posture, and activity level. Have fun. Meet lots of folks who love training and using the toys to do better and enjoy cardio training with them.

To attend the Heart Zones International Fitness Training Conference log onto our site: www.heartzones.com and sign up.

A high school physical education class led by one of Canada’s best physical education teachers, Bev Robinson, Calgary, Canada, uses heart rate monitors to assess their health. Bev, a Heart Zones Master Trainer, uses inquiry based learning to engage her students. The student’s then devised workouts and tests to

Bev Robinson, High School Physical Education Teacher
Heart Zones Level 5 Master Trainer

answer their questions. Here are just a few of the priceless questions that they asked.  I challenge you to answer them as well as design a few of your own to discover more about your heart health:

• What is a good heart rate number?
• Why both using a heart rate when you can tell how hard or easy it is just from breathing?
• I thought it was dangerous to take your heart rate over 190 bpm but is that true?
• Why are my run heart rate numbers and my jogging heart rate beats-per-minute the same?

What’s going on in your school’s physical education classes? Are they using heart rate monitors to study their heart health?

If you had to choose just statistically who is going to die first - someone obese, a cigarette smoker, or a poor person who would you select? The answer is lying dead in the cemetery and can be answered based on the height of the tombstone. In the early 1990s, a Scottish researcher asked the question, “Does the height of a Victorian grave marker related to the individuals longevity?” He compared the height of each grave market to the age of the person buried below it when she or he died. He found a direct correlation between the height of the grave marker and the ages at death. The taller the marker, the longer the life on the average by women living an extra seven years and men three. The taller the gravestone the wealthier the deceased and the greater th prestige and wealth of the deceased. Those who are the wealthiest, regardless of their addictions to cigaretters or their body weight, live the longest. The more the affluence, the more health services that one can purchase throughout a lifetime, the longer one lives.

To validate this research, last weekend three of us journeyed to Virginia City, Nevada and toured the cemetery. Virginia City is now a historic relic of it’s former glory days as a mining town in the mid 1800s. We carefully noted the age at death of those buried under the tallest obelisks. From our research of near 20 tombstones, there was no correlation between height of the grave marker and the plot holders age. All present concurred from our own evidence-based research that even today one’s socioeconomic position is the best predictor of longevity. They did then, and they do now.

A very good friend of mine for some 10 years now wanted to do something to support me with the launch a few weeks ago of my new business, The Sally Edwards Company. In that effort, she wrote this to me, “My therapist asked me to do something today that would make me feel good. When I was in her office I couldn’t think of anything (that’s how bad I have felt lately). Anyway, for a while now I have been wondering how to let more people know about you, Sally Edwards. So, today I e-mailed the Ellen Degeneres Show. I told them about your accomplishments with the Danskin Women’s Triathlons and how you have motivated so many women to do things that they never thought possible. I really want to see you get recognized for what you do. Your awesome! I hope you don’t mind that I did this.”

Karen.

From Sally: Thank you, Karen, from the bottom of my heart for your support and encouragement. I know that you are aware of this because you are acting on it - by helping someone else, you usually help yourself even more. When you are down or as you write “how bad I have felt lately” by sending help and support to someone else, you help yourself even more.

Karen, I hope you are feeling better! SALLY

Use your heart rate monitor for more than just a training tool. Your heart rate monitor is a motivation monitor. Your heart rate monitor is a weight loss monitor. Your heart rate monitor is an emotional monitor. Your heart rate monitor is a performance monitor.

But, your heart rate monitor can do more than that for you. There are lots of different ways to use a monitor to learn more about you and your responses. Here are a couple of novel and new applications:

Compatibility with Your Partner. Reality television show “Dinner Date Challenge” pairs together people they find the most attractive. Participants are fitted with special heart rate monitors and must seduce, flirt and do whatever it takes to get their partners’ pulse rates soaring. First show pairs Jermaine Jackson, Michael Jackson’s brother with former Hollywood star Shilpa Shetty. The power of the heart rate monitor, the emotional link between you, your heart, and your mate is a new way for you to connect.

Sex and the Heart Rate Monitor. In my book, The Heart Rate Monitor GUIDEBOOK, I dedicate a complete chapter to using a heart rate monitor during intimate moments. It might surprise you the differences in the male and female response during sexual activity (the books is available through www.heartzones.com). You can read about sex and the heart rate monitor or alternatively, use your heart rate monitor in a new way, with your partner and do your own research.

And, I don’t need to know your results on this new way of using your monitor. I already know.