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Yesterday afternoon I went skydiving for the first time at a facility called Lake Elsinore in California.  Among more practical considerations, I chose this facility because the name recalled the locale of HAMLET, my favorite play.  Like watching Shakespeare's play,  jumping out of an airplane requires you to face your own mortality.   As I drove to Elsinore from LA with my friend Scot, the final, fleeting days of whose bachelorhood we were celebrating with this jump, I kept reminding myself “There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”  I just hoped that divinity wasn’t going to shape my end into a crumpled pile of quivering human tissue with a stupid grin plastered on its face. I’m what you might call a go-along thrill-seeker.  I don’t usually seek out ways to risk my life, but if I’m with a group of people and a handful of them peel off to do something that smacks of danger, I’ll usually sign up as well.  So when Scot suggested we skydive, I agreed.We made the trek, two guys pushing 40 who were either no longer sufficiently titillated or perhaps simply too cowed by the women in our lives to go in for the typical bachelor party fare.  We got up early, had ourselves a workout and some breakfast, and headed on down to the site of our possible demise.  Prior to the morning of the day itself, I’d had very few misgivings about the adventure.  But suddenly I started having some low-level catastrophic rumblings:  the very real possibility of death and dismemberment flickered in my mind.  But then I’d tell myself how it couldn’t be all THAT dangerous; after all, thousands of people jump from planes every day with no problems.  Er, don't they?(Good thing I didn’t do a quick YouTube search for “skydiving accidents” prior to jumping.  I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but, for the prurient they're out there.  Oh yes, they are.)  We had to do a fair amount of waiting around to make our jump, but eventually, the big moment came.  Scot and I, Lelo and Pat, the respective instructors who would be riding on our backs, and another dozen or so other jumpers loaded up into the noisy, fumey plane, which rattled its way down the tiny runway and unsteadily took flight.  My palms were clammy, my stomach tight.Jammed as we were on the plane, all suited up and decked out in parachuting gear, I couldn’t help but think of soldiers going into battle:  the possibility of death very present in your mind, as you sit jostling against a half-dozen others who are dealing with similar thoughts.  Now, I don’t for a second pretend to know what it’s like to really go off to war; nor do I pretend that I was really in any serious danger:  I had an instructor quadruple-chained to my back who carried two chutes, one of which would deploy automatically even if it somehow slipped our minds to pull the first one.  Still, the unknown aspect of the whole thing, the rattle-trapping plane, the palpable nerves, the mixture of bravado and stoicism among the pros, all made the experience feel distinctly foxhole-like.  Scot and I exchanged looks as his instructor went over the steps with him; I tried to joke some life into my Brazilian instructor sardined in next to me.Skydiving novices are manhandled.  You don’t really know where to sit or what to do, it’s impossible to hear over the engine, and chances are you're too scared to understand English anyway, so the pros sort of shove you around like cattle on conveyer belt to a higher place.  I was sitting on Lelo’s lap as he yanked and clipped and strapped me to him in four different places, then crab-walked the two of us towards the door, my arms and legs flailing helplessly above him like some kind of  mutated ... [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Here’s what I want to see more of:  not JUST studies that show that some behavior or another facilitates weight loss, muscle gain, longevity, the cure for manic depression, rickets or sweaty palms, but WHETHER THOSE BEHAVIORS CAN REALISTICALLY BE ADOPTED AND MAINTAINED BY ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS [italics mine].  No matter what a study purports to prove, or how well it seems to prove it, if it doesn’t take into account what humans do in life, well, it isn’t worth much in the real world.  I tend not to get too excited about a study that tells me, for example, that if I eat 12 crates of kale a day I’ll lose 10 pounds of fat in a month,* because the likelihood that I’ll do that is exactly nil.  Tell me that drinking a glass of green tea per day has various health benefits, including more efficient fat metabolism?  Can do.The latter type of study takes into account that people live in the real world; the former most decidedly does not. I read about a lot of studies that proclaim that such-and-such behavior which is commonly thought to help people lose weight in fact DOESN’T, so quit wasting your time, say, drinking lots of water or eating lots of small meals instead of one huge one, because It Just Won’t Help You, and The Science Proves It.With all due respect, baloney.The small, frequent meals thing, for instance, has been questioned in a few studies and, according to a handful of smarty-pants types with lots of degrees, been largely put to rest. Control for caloric intake and macronutrient profile, and there’s no difference in weight gain whether you eat those calories over two meals or six.  But the point of eating small, frequent meals is that it’s inherently better as a diet; it’s just that people TEND to eat less overall when they that way, and they TEND to eat more when they eat bigger meals less often, a fact that is completely obscured in a study that compares the two diets while controlling for caloric intake.Think of the last time you had an overstuffed and stress-filled day:  You might have been good and eaten breakfast out of sheer habit; maybe a few hours later you had a decent snack and then a healthy lunch at, say 1:30.  Not too shabby so far.  But then, after seven or eight stressful hours of working, running around, sucking up to the boss, dressing down slacking co-workers, and road-raging your way through your commute home, you’re famished and edgy.  All you want to do is crack open a beer, grab three pizzas with extra cheese and sausage, and cram it down your gullet like a goose being force-fed.  And so you do, because dammit, you’ve had a hard day and you deserve it, right?  I’ve been there many times myself.  We have a stressful day and fall off the good-diet wagon, and then pretty soon we just abandon the wagon altogether.  It’s this totally human, behavioral aspect of dieting and fitness that studies often don’t take into account, and that kinda drives me nuts, because with few exceptions, perhaps, most of us live in a little place called ‘the real world,’ where ‘life’ and ‘jobs’ and kids’ and ‘stress’ actually exist.Look, if pressed, I could come up with ten different diets right now that, if followed to the letter, would affect weight loss in 100 out of 100 people.  Pretty much everyone with a modicum of knowledge about fitness could.  It’s easy:  eat ONLY high-quality protein sources, a cornucopia of a zillion low-calorie veggies, and some fruit every day of your life.  Drink only water and green tea, and throw in some fish oil and maybe a protein shake or two if you’re exceptionally active.  Don’t eat anything else, and never, ever, deviate so help you God.  Guess what?  EVERYONE would get healthier on this diet.A no-fail diet!  ... [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Diesel might be a cool nickname, but, apparently diesel fumes are really bad for your lungs. Reuters reports: Inhaling diesel exhaust triggers a stress response in the brain that may have damaging long-term effects on brain function, Dutch researchers said on Tuesday.Previous studies have found very small particles of soot, or nanoparticles, are able to travel from the nose and lodge in the brain. But this is the first time researchers have demonstrated a change in brain activity. More bad news for chemicals, Gulf War illness is now being linked to chemical exposure. More from Reuters: "Convergent evidence now strongly links a class of chemicals -- acetylcholinesterase inhibitors -- to illness in Gulf War veterans," Dr. Beatrice Golomb of the University of California, San Diego, said in e-mailed comments.She said some of the chemicals linked to these illnesses continue to be used in agriculture, and in homes and offices for pest control in the United States and throughout the world. Tara Parker-Pope of The New York Times tells us all about the importance of the simple push-up. Take a look: “It takes strength to do them, and it takes endurance to do a lot of them,” said Jack LaLanne, 93, the fitness pioneer who astounded television viewers in the 1950s with his fingertip push-ups. “It’s a good indication of what kind of physical condition you’re in.”The push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness. It tests the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs. It requires the body to be taut like a plank with toes and palms on the floor. The act of lifting and lowering one’s entire weight is taxing even for the very fit. Do your children eat snow? Yeah, you might want to stop them, because eating snow could be harmful. Our Smart Baby is on it: A recent study suggests that possibly harmful bacteria is in the freshest fallen snow. After learning about this study I started thinking about whether or not I would allow my boys to continue eating snow. We have never allowed our kids to eat snow off of the ground but we have let them pick up snow off of something like a table or chair outside thinking that the snow there was cleaner. Our kids, like many others, have also turned their faces to the sky and let the snowflakes fall right into their mouths. Chances are that many of you, myself included, did just the same as kids and we turned out OK ;) However, now research suggests that the snow is just plain dirty and that it may have harmful bacteria no matter how you eat it or where you eat it from. More kudos for Yoga! It seems breast cancer survivors do quite well with specialized Yoga training. From WebMD: "We knew that some data found yoga helped reduce hot flashes among healthy women but no one had studied the effects among cancer survivors," Duke University's Laura Porter, Ph.D., says in a news release.Breast cancer survivors aren't good candidates for hormone replacement therapy. And some breast cancer treatments, such as tamoxifen, "tend to induce or exacerbate menopausal symptoms," write Porter and colleagues at Duke and Oregon Health & Science University. It pays to be smart. New research has determined the more educated you are, the longer you live. HealthDay News reports: In fact, those with more than 12 years of education -- more than a high school diploma -- can expect to live to 82; for those with 12 or fewer years of education, life expectancy is 75."If you look in recent decades, you will find that life expectancy has been increasing, which is good, but when you split this out by better-educated groups, the life expectancy gained is really occurring much more so in the better-educated groups," said lead researcher Ellen R. Meara, an assistant professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School."The puzzle is why we have been successful in extending life span for some groups. Why haven't we been successful in getting that for less ... [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Roger Sinasohn of ParentDish wants to exercise—he really does—but with the kids’ busy schedule he just can’t find the time. Here’s his dilemma: After that, I would sit in the hot tub and kibitz for a bit and then walk home, often stopping at a coffee shop to drink a cup of joe and work on my novel.I was down to my lowest adult weight ever and well on my way to hitting 200lbs. Then, we had kids. Rachel leaves very early in the morning, so I have to stay home with the kids until it's time for school or until someone is here to watch them. After work, I come straight home and get started on dinner, and cleaning up, and getting the kids to bed -- the whole nine yards. By the time they're in bed, and I'm working on stories for ParentDish, my vision is getting blurry and my brain starts shutting down for the night. Well, if Roger figures out when to exercise, he might want to give this abdominal workout from The Detroit Free Press a try. Take a look: Lie on a mat with your arms extended out and palms facing down. With your legs in the air directly over your hips, position a stability ball between your ankles. With your abs tight, squeeze the ball.With your right shoulder pressed to the floor, rotate your legs to the left as close to the floor as possible. Then, engage your abs to raise the ball back to the starting position and repeat to the other side. Try 12 repetitions to each side. I’ve used a ball before—it’s okay—more for beginners. How do you work your abs? Oh, and please head over to ParentDish and give Roger some exercise advice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]