Sports and Fitness
Tracking Your METs in Exercise — Rethink Golfing
METs, or metabolic equivalent of task, is a measure of energy. Dr. Bill Haskell from Stanford University conceptualized the Compendium of Physical Activities Guide according to the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health.
We've learned from the Guide that "METS for certain golfing activities were revised downward from 1993 estimates based on measurement of the activity using indirect calorimetry." Uh-oh. Put down the putter and pick up a mop, ax (if you're like the late President, Ronald Reagan, and like to chop wood while vacationing) or a jump rope.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
All my life I have lived within pitching distance of Fenway Park — well not quite, but never more than twenty miles from the Green Monster. Yet I have never attended a baseball game. The closest I’ve come is viewing an inning or two on TV when the Red Sox have been World Series contenders. Other than that, I’ve had zero interest. The old clichés come to mind — for me it’s like watching grass grow or paint dry. In other words, b-o-r-i-n-g!
EWG Recommends Only 8% Of Sunscreens; What's That About Vitamin A?
Many in the US population now should legitimately fear the effects of the sun on their skin, regardless of age. However, most of the aging population find themselves in dermatologists' offices with 'things' being burned or peeled off in one way or another nowadays. And if you think that tanning salons might prove an alternative, think again.
The fourth annual Sunscreen Guide by Environmental Working Group (EWG) gives low marks to the current crop of sunscreen products, with a few notable exceptions. EWG researchers recommend only 39, or 8 percent, of 500 beach and sport sunscreens on the market this season.
The reason? A surge in exaggerated SPF claims (SPFs greater than 50) and recent developments in understanding the possible hazards of some sunscreen ingredients, in particular, new government data linking a form of vitamin A used in sunscreens to accelerated growth of skin tumors and lesions.
Utterly Unsuitable: Choosing a Swimsuit for an Older Woman
by Julia Sneden
The week ahead
Holds lots of dread:
I have to buy a bathing suit.
I’d be a dope
To have much hope
Of finding fit (don’t mention cute).
In fact if my long search is fruitless
I may well have to dive in suitless.
It’s an annual chore for most people, this business of buying a bathing suit. For me, it comes around every six months or so. Actually, the one I’m wearing these days has lasted longer than most, but what was once a trim, simple, black suit is now a saggy, baggy brownish body drape covered with odd spots where the color has disappeared altogether, so that dapples of flesh (mine) show through. In a mud-and-sand camouflage contest, I’d be a winner. When other people at poolside start staring and snickering, it’s time for a change.
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