Living Well

Getting rid of the hiccups ... in New Orleans

While at the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans, I got the hiccups. We happened to be passing a witchcraft/voodoo type shop and someone jokingly said, "You should see if they have something for hiccups!" So we went on in and met the rudest woman I've talked to in quite a long time. She said:

No, I don't have anything for hiccups. Lemon and bitters - everyone knows that!

So we went to the bar next door, asked for lemon and bitters. The bartender took a slice of lemon, added a few drops of bitters and some sugar and handed it to me. Five seconds later, the hiccups were gone!

Bitters are 45% alcohol so use with caution - it only took a splash on the lemon.

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!

Do you really want to eat that cookie? How bad can it be?

Here's a trick I use to figure out if I really, really want to eat a cookie or not.  I figure out how much weight I would gain if I had that same snack every day for a month.  So an oreo a day is half a pound a month.  A bud light a day is a pound a month.   Would you rather eat an oreo every day (assuming you can stop at one) or would you rather weigh half a pound less at the end of the month?

Key to losing weight: tracking what you eat

Study after study has shown that people that lose weight and keep it off write down what they eat.  Writing down what you eat makes you aware of what you eat.  There are too many opportunities in today's world to consume calories without even noticing.  The piece of candy as you leave the restaurant, a couple of chips before dinner, a cookie from the cookie jar at the office, the handful of M&Ms from the receptionist's desk.  They all add up.  Just 11 M&M's a day would be a pound a month - that's 12 pounds a year!

Writing down everything you eat will help you realize how many calories you consume without even noticing.