Living Well

Can you use tapeworms to lose weight?

I remember when I first heard about tapeworms back in 7th grade.  One of my co-students wanted one in the worst way - she saw it as the perfect approach to weight loss.  Eat as much as you want and all the weight goes to the worm!

Turns out that tapeworms were used in the early 1900s as a weight loss program.

Why treadmills work so well for me

Treadmills work really well for me.  I've always felt like it was something besides the obvious and I figured it out when I read this study about interval training.  Treadmills are helpful to anyone looking to exercise regularly because:

• You can work out in any weather.
• You can work out at any time.  Running outside at midnight is not for the faint of heart  - there was the time Teddy started growling at something and it scared me to death until I figured out she was growling at the sprinklers running in a yard!)
• They keep you moving quickly.  When I'm not in good running shape and I run outside, I tend to find myself walking a lot. I use the treadmill to push myself and to run a consistent speed.
• You can workout when the kids are sleeping.
   
• And the new one: you can run intervals!  Intervals - running as fast as you can for a minute and then at a more comfortable pace for 3-5 minutes and then repeating - are really good for you.  They can improve your endurance and your speed.  I like to use the treadmill to see how fast I can run for 1-2 minutes.  Then I usually walk instead of run for my "rest" phase.  I started doing intervals when I was trying to work up to a six minute mile as intervals really help me increase my speed.  (I didn't make it to the six minute mile but I could run a six and a half minute mile there for a while.)

I started running on treadmills when I started traveling a lot for business.  Running around strange cities at ten o'clock at night didn't sound very appealing so I discovered the hotel workout room - usually a lone treadmill and a nautilus in a converted hotel room.  I decided they were a good addition to my normal workouts.  Last winter between all the snow and having two kids, I finally invested in a good treadmill for the house.

And for those that say running on a treadmill is boring ... I say audiobooks!