Playing Chess Burns Calories

There’s a brilliant new talk on TED.com by Stanford Professor of Neurology Robert Sapolsky on the uniqueness of human beings.

Among other smashing revelations, he shares a different way to burn calories:

Playing chess.

Or, for that matter, exercising the brain.

“… [with] chess masters in the middle of a tournament, they are going through six to seven thousand calories a day thinking. [They are] turning on a massive physiological stress response simply with thought and doing the same thing with their bodies as if they were some baboon that’s just ripped open the stomach of their worst rival — it’s all with thought.”

Of course, these competitors play for full days, so playing one game of chess will not burn thousands of calories.

Engaging your brain more often will help to burn up some marginal fat:

• Tackle analytical problems at work
• Read about game theory
• Learn a new language
• Do a crossword puzzle

Announcement: We’re going to be speaking at the Toronto IamYoga studio about Burning Fat at Work on March 3rd, 2010. We’ll be sharing the podium with a Team Canada athlete who will talk about Olympic Workouts. The cost is $10, or $5 if you are an S-Drive member. Sign up here.

How “Glycation” Causes Wrinkles

Gisele shops from One Lucky Duck, a cafe which minimizes the A.G.E.s in their desserts & cheeses

A large reason why we obtain wrinkles is as a result of glycation, a side-effect of cooking food, says Dr Laurence Anderson of the Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australia.

Glycation is the result of a sugar molecule bonding to a protein or lipid molecule without the controlling action of an enzyme.

Dr. Gabriel Cousens MD also reports that glycation is a hazardous thing for our bodies: it gets in the way of our vital organs functioning, damages internal tissues, and impairs proteins from doing their job inside our bodies.

Most people are unaware that we ingest tens of thousands of glycated molecules through all food that has been processed.

The more pure, whole, unadulterated food you can eat, the more you can prevent A.G.E.s from creating new wrinkles in your skin:

• Raw fruits & vegetables: negligible amounts of A.G.E.s
• Steamed veggies: 10 to 100 A.G.E.s
• Any food that comes in a box or package: 1000s of A.G.E.s
• Dairy or meat: 10,000s of A.G.E.s
• Traditional thanksgiving dinner: 100,000s of A.G.E.s(Source)

The Journal of the American Diabetic Association advises that it’s better to eat things raw, steamed, boiled or lightly roasted – once it’s going past 100°F through broiling and frying, the A.G.Es quickly pile up.

We’re hosting a live-food detox retreat with Marni Wasserman, CNP, on the weekend of May 14 to 16, 2010 – all foods will have virtually no A.G.E.s, and the exercise and spa treatments we chose actually help to naturally create new collagen in the skin. Learn more here.