DIET-BLOGGING, CONT’D: Jeez, if you want email, forget politics. Write about dieting, and especially the Atkins diet.
Reader Joe Zengerle sends a link to this story in The New Republic, and adds: “Aerobics and weights are good — but don’t forget the essential third leg of stretching, or your stool will fall down (is there a better metaphor?).” Uh, I hope there is. But he’s right about the importance of stretching. I neglected it for a while this summer, and I’m still trying to get all the limberness back.
Reader Mark Martino sent a link to the site of bodybuilding lawyer Clarence Bass. Uh, I don’t look like that. But I have more hair.
Reader Mark Brittingham, who has a Ph.D. in (I think) exercise physiology, writes:
I run a software company that provides health and fitness assessment software to clubs, universities, wellness centers and hospitals around the world. . . .
Regarding BMI – you are quite correct. Bodyfat assessment is far superior to BMI in assessing body composition for individuals. BMI is widely used in population studies since the great majority of people simply aren’t as “hypertrophic” (extra-muscular) as you are: they simply have too much bodyfat. So BMI provides an easily obtained proxy for “real” body composition measures like %bodyfat.
“Extra-muscular” — I like the sound of that!
On the Atkins diet, Oliver Willis writes:
I was skeptical of the Atkins diet. No longer.
But I think the last word on the subject comes from Doonesbury.
Some things never change.