Social Workout

Catching Up

New Challenges, Victory Parties, and Barreling into the Future

Way back in January, just as we began the New Years Edition challenge, we started building a new site. We wanted to allow anyone to create a Social Workout-style challenge, and to make our mlogging and flogging and blogging much more intuitive and powerful. Words are great, but tracking things with words AND numbers is the bomb. Well, the New Year's edition gave way to The Love Challenge, and the Love Challenge to the Feralicious, and the Feralicious, in turn, to the Longest. Challenge. Ever. And through it all, we were bent over our sketches and screens, writing code and arguing about color schemes for the New Thing.

Eight months later, we've just arrived at, well, at the starting line. Some of you have been hanging out on the New Site, and telling us what you like and what sucks, and we've been making changes, and very soon, damn the torpedos, we're going to launch Two-Point-Oh to the world. It's exciting and slightly terrifying, and that's about par for the course, I think. There's still an enormously long way to go, and much more to say, but I'll save most of that for the SW 2.0 LAUNCH PARTY and the official Million Minute Month(s) VICTORY BASH....

YES, it's time to celebrate, and to step into the future. On or around Labor Day, we're going live with our new site, and about the same time we're kicking off a storm of new challenges. We're honored to announce two of these today....

Live from Wall Street

Yoga is the "Fastest Growing Sport" in America

Bloomberg news visits I.AM.YOU yoga and files an in depth report on the yoga economy. Salient facts: 16 million Americans now do yoga, and the "sport" is "gaining practitioners more quickly than golf, tennis, and mountaineering." Watch video for disorienting feeling of yoga discussed by financial analysts.... (Via mizzFit.)

Mother of Demand

Mom and the D.I.Y. Hula Hoop

Heartwarming: A New York mom and teenage son make and sell hula hoops to pay for his summer school. For each $20 hoop they sell, they give one away free to local kids. Entrepreneurial initiative, philanthropy, and hula! If you live near Inwood Park, and are looking for a hoop, go here. Otherwise, you might just consider making your own hoop with a bit of irrigation hose and duct tape....

Research News

Slim Fast Recalls Every Single Can, But It's Not a Big Deal, And Other News

• Slim Fast is recalling ten million (get that? ten million!) cans of its diet drink for fear of possible "bacterial contamination." This is not the diet we signed up for! Call it a slim faster. Anyway, the "voluntary" recall applies to virtually every size and flavor. Not to worry, though, Unilever says the chances of a problem are "remote...." (Via ThatsFit.)
• Attention partiers: Coffee does not make you sober. It simply makes you think you're sober. Thus, says the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, don't pound a cup of coffee after that last glass of wine and think you're good to drive home.
• But don't beat yourself up for that coffee habit either. Another new study shows that men who drink coffee regularly are "60% less likely to develop advanced prostate cancer than non-coffee drinkers." Coffee is so confusing.
• FYI: New data shows that African American women, ages 35 to 44, have a death rate twice that of white women the same age. NPR reports that, for them, putting off mammogram testing -- as per recent government guidelines -- may not be a good idea. 

Links

Disappearing Breasts, Fat Non-Smokers, and Snoring Ravers

• Oh boy, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons has decided that grafting fat from buttock or thigh to breasts is a now an acceptable method of breast enhancement. “I love that it’s just mine, my own fat,” said one recent breast enhancer to the Times. “I didn’t have to put anything foreign in my body.” The technique had been blacklisted as being unreliable, and complicating mammogram testing; but now some doctors champion it as the "natural" solution. Nevermind the problem of "oily cysts" though, get this: If you lose weight, your new, natural breasts disappear: “They decide to run a marathon and their breasts go away,” explained one doctor. Ha!
• It's official, all the health gains America made by quitting smoking, have been offset by our collective weight gain. WebMD reports that while roughly half as many adults smoke today as compared to the 1970s, the number of obese people has spiked. Thirty-four percent of U.S. adults are obese today, compared to 15% in 1980. Nobody's making the point, but isn't it obvious: When you quit smoking, you hit the fridge harder.
• How many times did we have to tell our raver junkie friends that all that Ecstasy couldn't be good with them — that there could be negative long term consequences. They'd just smile, and give us a hug and a glow wand. Well, guess what, the results are in: Ecstacy makes you snore. A recent Johns Hopkins medical school study found that "users of ecstasy had upwards of eight times the risk of apnea or hypoapnea (shallow breathing) episodes while asleep compared with those who did not use the drug."

Links

Gray Hair is Fated, But Not Loneliness

• Stressed out women of a certain age, please don't panic about your hair. Turns out stress itself has nothing to do with your hair going gray. That's all determined by your genes. This according to a study by Unilever on 200 pairs of identical and non-identical Danish twins....
• Also, loneliness is contagious, reports WebMD. University of Chicago Researchers followed 5,214 people over 30-plus years, tracking their reports of feeling lonely. Get this: In the study, people felt lonely an average of 48 times a year. Also, the researchers found that each new friend made was good for two fewer lonely days a year. Loneliness apparently feeds on itself, with lonely people "pushed to the periphery of their social networks." Hmm. Three words: Group fitness classes....
• Finally, drumroll please, the American Council on Exercise has released its prediction of top fitness trends of 2010. We'll summarize them in twelve words: More technology, and cheaper, faster workouts with better trainers, especially for boomers....

Good Intentions

Training For Tots

Born on Park Avenue, but, dammit, they're not going to be spoiled. Or fat. Straight out of Gossip Girl or Woody Allen film: Rich Manhattan parents are hiring personal trainers for their kids, some as young as five years old.

Link Love

Bikes, Burqas, Cheetahs, and Fatal Diets

• Spirituality: Muslim American women struggle to keep fit in a world of co-ed, sexed-up gyms, reports The Times. Baring skin and working out around guys is a no-no for some. Modesty does have its advantages, like escape from oppressive popular body culture. But staying healthy is an important part of Islam, so some Muslim women are donning long sleeved Under Armour gear and hitting the local treadmill. “Even if you wear a burqa, you should be bikini-ready," says a Muslim personal trainer in New Haven....
• Tabloid: She went on a crash diet to prepare for her wedding. And it killed her. Note to self: Avoid the Lighter Life diet.... Entirely unrelated: A cheetah in the Cincinnati Zoo was clocked running 100 meters in 6.13 seconds, reports The Post. Now the Cinnci Zoo is looking to race other cheetahs. Is that kosher? Regardless, that's roughly three seconds faster than Usain Bolt's world record. Of course, he's sponsored by Puma....
• Local Doings: Tonight is the premiere of No Impact Man at The Bell House in Brooklyn (7 P.M., Gowanus).... Also, don't forget, yogi Aarona Pichinson (of Kula Yoga, Yogaworks Soho, Reebok, and the Park Slope Yoga Center) is hosting the cool-sounding Yoga Soundscape..... Also, this Sunday is the first annual New York Bike Jumble: "From inexpensive "beater" bikes to high end merchandise, the Jumble aims to get more people on the road, whether you’re a kid or an adult." (East Village, All Day.)

All Dry Now

Flood Watch

Alert to way-downtowners: Lululemon Soho is back in business THREE MONTHS after the upstairs neighbor's burst water pipe flooded the joint. Now you can do the Topshop - Lulu circuit, and then stop off for a cocktail at The Mercer, or Fanelli's, depending on your tastes. No need to schlep up to Union Square. Just keeping you posted.

New York

In Summary

Annals of Cellulite

The New York Times has gone deep into the dicey cellulite question, (and Gawker has noted the attempt with cynical glee.) Here's the summary: Women get cellulite, and men don't. Not fair. The former spent $50 million in the U.S. last year to try to make it go away. They bought creams, did liposcution, and even tried products involving lasers, with names like SmoothShapes and Vela Smooth. Serious Doctors say the benefits are dubious, and that for many woman it's just a "secondary sex characteristice," like breasts and remembering birthdays. The creams give you a temporary lift by -- get this -- irritating the skin and inducing swelling, which tends to smooth things out. Here's the good news: Exercise and eating right helps alot, though, of course, "spot reduction" is a fools game.