Tag Archives: Victor

How do you get your exercise?

Fitness, , , , ,

The Victor crew just found out about MET. This stands for Metabolic Equivalent of Task. The measurements are rated as < 3 (light intensity activities), 3-6 (moderate intensity activities), and > 6 (vigorous intensity activities). Each activity you do is given a rating. If you are a coach potato, your level is 1.0. At a desk, writing or typing: 1.8. Walking 2.5 mi/hr only brings you to 2.9 while 3.0 mph will give you a 3.3 rating and 3.4 mph a 3.6. Jogging gives a 7.0 and rope jumping a 10.0. Some of these ratings may change due to your actual size and how vigorously you do them.

So what does this all mean? Well, it is recommended by the CDC you have at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activities per week or 75 minutes of vigorous activities.

Here are few places to find some activity charts:
Harvard.edu
TopEndSports.com
AppliedResearch.Cancer.gov

Steve Victor

More on sitting too long

Fitness, , , , ,

The Victor crew found another solution for sitting too long. It’s called Darma. It is a new seat cushion designed to help with your posture and sitting habits.

There are highly sensitive fiber-optic sensors to aid in your posture. It will give you customized stretches to help counteract any bad habits it senses from your sitting posture. If you start to slouch it will give you pointers to get into a better posture.

It is an “inactivity tracker” and reminds you when it’s time to stand up. It also helps identify areas of neck, back and hip pain to personalize the stretches.

Darma communicates through your iPhone or Android app or through your desktop. It will give your heart rate, respiration, and even stress levels in addition to your posture.

Darma is named after Bodhidharma, the father of meditation and Zen.

Right now Darma is on kickstarter and it looks like it will retail for $199.

Steve Victor

Are you still sitting too long?

Fitness, , , , ,

The Victor crew has written before about the affects of sitting too long. You lose blood circulation for one. Try to get up and walk for a few minutes every hour. There are stand-up desks and treadmill desks to help as well. There are also desktops that give you the feeling of a stand-up desk but they allow you to sit as well. They are also less expensive than most stand-up desk. These are to allow you to raise your monitor and keyboard up so they are at a comfortable height when standing.

One is Varidesk. This desk sits on your existing desk. They have several models to choose from. If you are using just a laptop, you can opt for the cheaper model as you won’t need the keyboard lift. If you have a monitor and a keyboard, make sure you purchase a model with the keyboard lift. Then the monitor and keyboard can be adjusted for height independently.

Another we’ve mentioned before is the ErgoDesktop. They make the Kangaroo and Wallaby desktop solutions. There’s is a little more permanent as you have to connect your monitor to the VESA bracket. After working with the Kangaroo Pro Junior for a few years now, I can attest it really helps counter sitting all day.

It is best to alternate standing and sitting through the day as you don’t want to stand in place for too long, either. Play some music and move a little (but not so much you can’t type!) They are calling “sitting” the new “tobacco” as far as health related issues go. So get up!

Steve Victor

Go you chicken fat, go!

Fitness, , , , , ,

You may have heard that lyric in an Apple iPhone commercial lately on TV. A member of the Victor crew wondered about the song. We found the following:

The song is called “The Youth Fitness Song” and throughout the song you can hear why. There are series of exercises through it as it is sung. The singer is Robert Preston, known for the lead role in the 1962 movie “The Music Man”. It was written by Meredith Willson, who actually wrote “The Music Man”. It was sent to school districts throughout the United States to accompany the official U.S. Physical Fitness program of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.

You can hear the full 6 1/2 minute version of the audio on President John F Kennedy’s Presidential Libray and Museum website. You can see Apple’s commercial here. Apparently Apple is showing us some of the fitness capabilities of its iPhone.

Steve Victor

Eating “healthy” restaurant options not always better

Healthy Eating, , , , , , , , ,

Jody Victor‘s crew found that Time published information from the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior of research conducted by Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania of more than 2600 menu items at full-service restaurant chains. These included Olive Garden, Red Lobster and T.G.I Friday’s. They found that most exceeded the recommended calories, sodium, and saturated fat for a single meal.

Over half the menus analyzed were classified as “healthy” options but what this was based on differed from restaurant to restaurant. They found that most meals that included an adult entree, side dish and shared appetizer were about 1495 calories, 28g saturated fat, 3312mg sodium. If you added a drink or dessert then your are over the recommended 2000 calories per day for adults.

~ Steve Victor