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Download a trainer, learn the drill
How many of your workouts go something like this: Stride purposefully into gym whistling favorite tune, hum through 10 minutes of cardio warm-up, bang out a set of chest presses, then, let's see, maybe some leg extensions, then, hmm, maybe bicep curls? Next, where were we? After 15 minutes you've lost a little steam and a lot of focus, and you're not at all sure you're getting the full benefit of your gym time. Enter digital workouts, pictoral move-by-move guides that you download from the Internet to any handheld device capable of displaying photos. When I first heard of these, I envisioned a pricey download and workouts led by a painfully merry cheerleader, backed by thumping techno tunes. What I got, via a program called PumpOne, was a basic, easy-to-follow full-body strength routine (PumpOne's free sample workout), with clear photos of some super-fit guy performing each exercise and accompanying notes on proper form.
Photo proves to be a motivating force
Kim James, 42, credits her son's science experiment for motivating her to lose weight. James, a Phoenix mother of five children ages 3 to 13, said two years ago her son took a picture of her holding a lighter and a balloon as part of his science project. When the 5-foot-3-inch woman saw the photo, she decided the time had come to address her weight.
"It's not so bad when you look at the little screen on the back of the camera, but when you see the picture on the big screen, I was just aghast. I couldn't believe it," James said.
James, who at the time weighed more than 165 pounds, printed the picture. For a few weeks, she tried unsuccessfully to lose weight. A friend suggested she join Weight Watchers. She has since lost 50 pounds and kept the weight off. .
State, Council Majority Oppose Septic Tanks, But May Approve Them
State regulators and at least three members of the Bartow city commission share doubts about the wisdom of allowing homes within the city limits to have septic tanks, rather than requiring them to be connected to sanitary sewer lines. But in an effort to move toward approval of a 172-home subdivision on 72.5 acres in Connersville, city commissioners and the Florida Dept. of Community Affairs have reached an uneasy compromise to allow “advanced on-site treatment methods" instead of conventional septic tanks. Planning Dir. Robert Wiegers described the settlement reached with DCA as “an agreement to disagree." The DCA, which exercises oversight over city and county growth management programs, previously had ruled that allowing septic tanks on the Connersville development violates the city's own comprehensive plan.
Nobel Laureate Attacks Medical Intellectual Property
An anonymous reader writes "Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who was fired by the World Bank blasted drug patents in an editorial in the British Medical Journal titled 'Scrooge and intellectual property rights.' 'Knowledge is like a candle, when one candle lights another it does not diminish its light.' In medicine, patents cost lives. The US patent for turmeric didn't stimulate research, and restricted access by the Indian poor who actually discovered it hundreds of years ago. 'These rights were intended to reduce access to generic medicines and they succeeded.' Billions of people, who live on $2-3 a day, could no longer afford the drugs they needed. Drug companies spend more on advertising and marketing than on research. A few scientists beat the human genome project and patented breast cancer genes; so now the cost of testing women for breast cancer is 'enormous.'" .
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