Author Archive

Waaay back on August 25, I asked you to tell us about your favourite Health & Wellness Club workout and fitness video for a chance to win one of three mini-libraries featuring books from all nine of this year's Read for the Cure authors, including Ian Brown, Margaret Atwood, Linden MacIntyre and more. (For more information, visit readforthecure.ca.)

Congratulations to our winners, Jeanette R., Irene and Kara!

Jeanette R. says:
"I really got a lot out of viewing Boot Camp Workout - Week 2.  The "mountain climber" was just the challenge I needed, as I feel like my workouts have been feeling a little drab lately. This is an excellent video!"

Irene says:
"I love the Boot Camp Workout Video - Week 4 where Pam, the fitness instructor, teaches how we can increase our strength with simple equipment that is not too expensive. Simple exercises with dumb bells, which I already have, are very useful. I could do them even when watching TV."

Kara says:
My favourite video is the Boot Camp Workout - Week 5 video. I really like the wood chop move as it works your whole body and you can feel every one of your muscles working. The videos have definitely helped me tone my muscles and I have discovered many new moves, such as the wood chop, to vary my workout and keep me motivated!

Hey - have you checked out our fab, new Yoga 101 video yet?

Also! Did you know that we'll be running Sexy Boot Camp after the holidays? Starting January 3, it's time to shake those January blues and get your groove back with six weeks of free daily e-mails to inspire you to become your strongest, sexiest, most confident self in time for Valentine's Day.

You'll receive fun daily challenges and make-at-home menus for romantic Saturday night dinners. Plus you'll get great workout tips, style guides and advice for how to heat things up in the bedroom. Yeow! Sign up for the newsletter today!

Last week, Canada made the dramatic move of declaring bisphenol A (better known as BPA) toxic.

The Globe and Mail reported this in an Oct 13 article, Canada first to declare bisphenol A toxic:

"Canada has become the first jurisdiction in the world to declare the everyday plastic-making compound bisphenol A to be toxic, an action that, while hailed by environmentalists, is shining a spotlight on the major use of the chemical in nearly all food and beverage cans sold in the country."

On the same day, Macleans published Canada first in the world to rule BPA toxic, which reported:

"BPA has become a health concern because it is able to mimic estrogen, leading to concern that it could cause cancers and other illnesses linked to having excessive amounts of the female hormone. Experiments with animals have found it to be biologically active, many using exposures in the range to which humans are subject to. According to federal reviews, nearly all Canadians are exposed to trace amounts of the chemical."

The New York Times also reported the story, placing it in an international context in the story, Canada declares BPA, a chemical in plastics, to be toxic:

"The compound, commonly known as BPA, has been shown to disrupt the hormone systems of animals and is under review in the United States and Europe.

Canada’s move, which was strenuously fought by the chemical industry, followed an announcement by the government two years ago that it would eliminate the compound’s use in polycarbonate bottles used by infants and children."

There are plenty of BPA-free containers to choose from, including glass and stainless steel varieties. Brita pitchers are also a good choice. Brita's Director of Marketing Tim Pellerin guarantees their safety. "Our pitchers and filters are 100 per cent BPA-free," he says. "That was a conscious decision on Brita's part at the outset." Check out 4 more BPA-free water pitchers and bottles here.

Are you concerned about BPA? How do you feel about the government declaring it toxic?

Season 10 of 'The Biggest Loser' premiered last week, and if you're like me, you'll be spending your Tuesday nights guiltily enjoying the controversial weight loss reality game show.

I checked in with Canadian Living's Facebook fans and they confirmed that it's a show that many love to hate (or hate to love, like I do).

Case in point, Barbara says:

"I do watch 'The Biggest Loser'. It is one of the only reality shows that is doing something positive and saving and transforming lives."

While Joyce disagrees:

"I can't stand the way those people are abused. It's hard enough to lose weight without somebody yelling at you and standing on your neck. Phony as a $3 bill if you ask me."

(I must have missed the neck-standing episode. Must check my PVR.)

For me, the behind-the-scenes controversy surrounding the show's feel-good diet and fitness extreme makeovers make the show that much more compelling.

Last November, in the article On ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Health Can Take Back Seat, the New York Times reported that season one winner, Ryan C. Benson, who lost 122 of his 330-pound starting weight, had gained back much of the weight he lost and admitting to using dangerous dieting tactics on the show:

"Mr. Benson is now back above 300 pounds but he thinks he has been shunned by the show because he publicly admitted that he dropped some of the weight by fasting and dehydrating himself to the point that he was urinating blood.”

The Times also reported:

“Some contestants have claimed that dangerous weight loss techniques were common among contestants.

Kai Hibbard, who lost 118 pounds and finished as the runner-up in Season 3, has written on her MySpace blog and elsewhere that she and other contestants would drink as little water as possible in the 24 hours before a weigh-in. When the cameras were off, she said, contestants would work out in as much clothing as possible.

Ms. Hibbard, who weighed 144 pounds at the show’s finale, wrote that she added 31 pounds in two weeks, most of it simply by drinking water. That experience is not isolated. Including Mr. Benson, the winners of the first four seasons of the show each have added at least 20 percent to their weight at the end of the show.”

The contestants’ transformations are designed to inspire us to live healthier lives. But how healthy are their transformations if they’re using extreme and sometimes dangerous methods to lose the weight?

I want to believe that the contestants can redeem themselves and start a healthy, fit new life full of potential. I want to believe that they can achieve their dreams. That's why I keep watching.

But do the ends justify the means? If you were overweight or obese, what lengths would you go to to lose weight? And would you ever go so far as to want to be a contestant on 'The Biggest Loser?'

Loading up on "the sunshine drug."

Vitamin D has been all over the news recently. So what's all the fuss about?

An August 25 Montreal Gazette story, 'Vitamin D deficiency linked to cancer, autoimmune disease genes,' reports:

"Scientists have found that vitamin D influences more than 200 genes, including ones related to cancer and autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis -- a discovery that shows how serious vitamin D deficiency can be.

Worldwide, an estimated one billion people are deficient in vitamin D, and a team of scientists from Britain and Canada said health authorities should consider recommending supplements for those at most risk."

Back in March, CBC News reported on Canadian deficiencies in the story 'Vitamin D deficiency in 1.1 million Canadians':

"Most Canadians have enough vitamin D in their blood for bone health, but only one third are above the level increasingly believed necessary for overall health and disease prevention, Statistics Canada says.
More than 1.1 million Canadians or about four per cent of the population are vitamin D deficient, or low enough to cause nutritional rickets in children and osteoporosis in adults.

If you're worried about your vitamin D levels, the Canadian Vitamin D Society urges you to be tested. Their website homepage states:

"Have your physician administer a calcidiol test (also know as a 25-hyrdoxyvitamin D test). More important than your daily intake of vitamin D are your actual vitamin D blood levels. Optimal vitamin D blood levels are 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L)‚ according to The Vitamin D Council."

Do you take a vitamin D supplement? Are you concerned about your vitamin D level? Would you consider undergoing the calcidiol test? Post a comment and let us know.

On August 3, I asked you how you have cut down on your salt intake for a chance to win a collection of 10 McCormick Gourmet spices.

Congratulations to our winner, Rumiko, who says:
"I've really come to love cooking and make many things from scratch, and we try to avoid prepared and processed foods as much as possible. Even then, I am conscious of how much salt (and sugar) I use and found great natural flavours such as herbs, spices, vinegars, dried fruit, kelp stock, ginger, etc. Even adding a tomato to a stir-fry sauce adds flavour, I find. But the best trick I've come to love is when preparing vegetables, whether steamed, stir-fried, boiled or whatnot, instead of adding more salt for flavour I squeeze a bit of fresh lemon at the end and it really seems to enhance the natural tastes, not to mention vitamin C and a bit of a kick!"

There has been some controversy in recent days over the validity of Body Mass Index (BMI) as a tool to measure if you're a fatty or not.

For years, the BMI has been considered the standard measure of obesity. It takes into account a person's weight and height and comes up with a percentage that indicates whether the individual is overweight or not.

An article in the New York Times on Monday, Weight Index Doesn’t Tell the Whole Truth, challenges the validity of the tool because it doesn't account for differences in weight between fatty and lean tissue.

Here at Canadian Living, we've run a few articles over the years touting the merits of the BMI as a tool to help you help you keep your weight in check, like this one:

Decode your BMI: Learn what it is, how to improve yours, and why you should know your rating.

We've also questioned the value of the BMI against other measurement tools, like in this article:

Waist to hip ratio beats BMI: A new way of measuring your heart health.

A while back, Kate Harding of the awesome Shapely Prose blog created the eye-opening Illustrated BMI Categories Project to show what people deemed "underweight," "normal," "overweight" and "morbidly obese" by the BMI index really look like. (You can see the project's Flickr pool here. )

According to the BMI, I'm seven pounds overweight right now, and in my case, my tight waistbands agree. But in your case, it could be that the BMI indicates that you're overweight but really you're just super muscular and at a perfectly healthy weight. (Sadly, this is for sure not true for me.)

Do you use your BMI to help you determine what a healthy weight is? Do you find it accurate for your body? Do you think it's way off? Post a comment and let us know.

Canadian Living boasts a library of fab Health & Wellness Club workout and fitness videos that you can use year-round to help you get and stay in shape. You can find all our Health & Wellness Club videos here.

Tell us which of Canadian Living's Health & Wellness Club videos is your favourite for a chance to WIN one of three mini-libraries featuring books from all nine of this year's Read for the Cure authors, including Ian Brown, Margaret Atwood, Linden MacIntyre and more. For more information, visit readforthecure.ca.

You have until Sunday, October 31, to post a comment to let us know which Heath & Wellness Club video is your favourite. I'll announce the winner here on November 11. Good luck!

On July 22, I asked you to tell us about what you do to enjoy life for a chance to win a copy of The Mayo Clinic Diet, by the weight-loss experts at Mayo Clinic.

Congratulations to our winner, Sue, who says:
"Here's what I do to enjoy life:

• I play beach volleyball (I started when I was 47)
• I camp and canoe
• I Rollerblade
  
• I bike
• I cook and bake
• I sew
• I spend time with my family
• I am lucky to have a fabulous, sexy husband!"

Wow, lucky indeed! Sounds like you enjoy an active life, Sue. Way to go!

You may have read reports online over the weekend that Health Canada's sodium advisory group says we need to cut our daily salt intake by one third, from about 3,400 milligrams to 2,300 milligrams daily (that's about a teaspoon of salt a day, max).

Sounds good to me. I'll just put away the saltshaker, right?

Hmm . . . turns out that's not going to cut it. In an editorial on Friday, A Roadmap to Less Salt, the Toronto Star reported:

Canadians are putting themselves at risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and other ailments by consuming more than twice the recommended intake of salt. But the culprit is not the shaker on the kitchen table. More than three-quarters of the salt we consume is added by the food industry during processing, long before dinner gets to anyone’s table.

And a Thursday editorial in the Globe and Mail, We're in a Pinch Over Salt, had this to say:

Reducing salt is the single best approach to saving lives, preventing disability and trimming billions of dollars from the health-care system.

"The vast bulk of the burden of cardiovascular disease is preventable through a single, inexpensive, cost-effective measure – primarily, through a strategy to reduce consumption of dietary salt across the population,” the Public Health Agency of Canada says.

Reducing salt intake would do as much for the heart as a reduction in obesity or cholesterol, or the decline in cigarette use. But Canadians can't reduce salt in their diets on their own; 77 per cent of salt intake is from processed foods. They need the government to show leadership.

So in addition to putting away the saltshaker, we need to cut down on processed foods. That means cooking from scratch at home more often and carefully checking the sodium content on your groceries' nutrition information label.

We're here to help

• Here are 44 things you can do with salt (besides eating it).
• Here are over 8,000 delish recipes you can make from scratch at home.
• And here's a fab and easy contest where you can WIN a collection of 10 McCormick Gourmet spices to help you spice up your food without reaching for the salt shaker:

For your chance to WIN, just Subscribe To This Blog and post a reply telling us about how you plan to cut down on your salt intake. You have until Tuesday, August 17 to let us know. I'll announce the winner here on Wednesday, September 8.

Any diet program that invites me to toss out the food scales and calculators gets my attention.

There's something about weighing my food that makes me wonder if I'm taking my eating too seriously. (Also: I'm not really that interested in how much that chocolate Danish weighs. I'm more interested in seeing how fast I can cram it into my mouth.)

The Mayo Clinic Diet book says: "Toss out the food scales and calculators! Eat well. Enjoy life. Lose weight."

Sounds great. And don't we all want to eat well and enjoy life?

For a chance to WIN a copy of The Mayo Clinic Diet, by the weight-loss experts at Mayo Clinic, just Subscribe To This Blog and post a comment telling us what you do to enjoy life. Needlepoint? Horseback riding? Gardening? Soap operas? Dinner with the fam? Tea and a good book? A long, hot bubble bath? Riding your bike?

Whatever it is, let us know by Wednesday, August 11. I'll announce the winner here on Monday, August 16.