England
Retreats
Yoga and Singing in Devon
- Who: Yoga on a Shoestring, with instructor Sue Pendlebury
- What: Four days of yoga and meditation at an English country house, plus singing and dancing workshops in the evenings to "free your creative spirit."
- Where: South Devon, England, with accommodations at the Hazelwood House
- When: August 23 - 26, 2010
- Why: Imagine a romantic Austen-esque summer in the English countryside, then add yoga and fun workshops. FYI, the whole nightly singing and dancing thing is totally optional.
Old Country
London Builds Playground for Old People
Breaking news from Hyde Park: A playground. For retirees. Huh? Well, how else are they going to get exercise? They're not welcome on the kid's swingset, and it takes a very brave senior to shuffle into your typical David Barton or Equinox, or whatever fancy urban gym Brits go to.
Every park has a children’s playground. But there are few facilities for adults and very few for older adults. We hope in the future that every park will have a playground for older people.
So says one Madeleine Eldson of the Knightsbridge Association. You go Madeleine! The park's six pieces of equipment include "a cross-trainer and sit-up bench...a body-flexer, free runner, flex wheel and an exercise bike." (Apparently all brought in from Denmark, which one must assume is the hub of sleek outdoor playground materiel). No fighting over the body flexer! The BBC says that playgrounds for old people were first popular in Europe and China. My thought? Where's America in all this, and what about playgrounds for those of us 20 to 60?
Scientific
Happiness Keeps Your Heart Healthy and Britain is Ballooning
- If being happy isn't reward enough for you, new research shows happiness can also keep you from having a heart attack. Researchers followed a group of almost 2,000 people for ten years, and during that time period the happiest people were 22% less likely to develop heart disease.
- British people: Not known for being outlandishly happy. But even if they were, it probably wouldn't be enough to save them from their latest predicament. According to the UK's National Heart Forum, if current trends continue, 8 out of 10 men in the UK will be overweight or obese by 2020.
Holiday Polls
Walking Off the Feast
Holiday statistical from jolly old England: Your typical festive Brit eats three times as much on Christmas as he or she does on a normal day. Specifically, one quarter of Brits — the feasting types we assume — will consume 6,000 calories on the day, as compared to a recommended daily allowance of 2,000 calories. This according to a poll sponsored by Sainsbury's a U.K. supermarket chain, which we expect is delighted by the numbers. Nothing wrong with the occasional feast, of course, but it does suggest the post-feast walk is a good idea.
Emergency Holiday Additions
England Walks on Christmas and You Should Too
Christmas in England is about more than figgy pudding and bottomless goose. So says the UK's Department of Health which, spooked by the country's serious out-of-shapeness, is heavily promoting what it calls "the traditional Christmas walk." Tally-ho! "Whatever the weather, a traditional festive walk is a great way for families and friends to avoid that sluggish feeling," announced Britain's ruddy-cheeked Public Health Minister.
As previously noted, Brits are, in fact, painfully out of shape. So the big Christmas walking campaign is cute, but also serious. The initiative has an impressive 850 free led walks planned between Boxing Day and January 3rd. We like to mock the Brits, but we know a good idea when we see it, and so we're importing it. Effective immediately, the Emergency Holiday Challenge has a new feat: Take a walk on Christmas day. Walk with family, ideally with woolen mufflers flying and a hot tea waiting for you at home. Walk across the heath and moor, and then tell us all about it. Prizes on offer for most invigorating stroll. Cheerio!
Newslinks
Group Training and Nutcracker Fitness
- Relaxing your jaw can help your athletic performance, reports the New York Times. Apparently this is easier said than done, and performance mouth guards seem to be the trick. They're pricey, and sort of throw off the look, but, ooh, that relaxed jaw feels good.
- Small group personal training, as opposed to personal personal training, is a trend on the rise, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. Cause it's cheap (or comparatively cheap).
- Professional ballet choreographer Stas Kmiec debuted a new class, "The Nutcracker Workout," at the Philadelphia Sports Club. Think Balanchine choreography set to Tchaikovsky, but with sneakers.
- Only one in ten people who think they get enough exercise actually do, says a new study. Though the study took place in England, so you have to account for the fact that these are British people.
Not a Snickers Ad
Great Britain vs. Wine
The British Government has declared war on obesity, and among its first targets are drinkers. According to British government intel, "The average wine drinker consumes an extra 2,000 calories a month - the equivalent of 184 bags of crisps." This comes via The Telegraph, which further notes: "Few middle class drinkers realise that a couple sharing a bottle of red wine a night are both consuming the equivalent of a Snickers chocolate bar in alcohol." Appalling. You'd never see the French government release such data.
Here's the problem: New Yorkers go from work to gym, and then out to dinner. Londoners skip the gym, go directly to the pub, and load up on "pork scratchings." (L.A. people, of course, drive to yoga, and then go for sushi.) Anyway, we blame the pork scratchings.