Month: November 2013

I think we are three or four episodes into the new season of the Biggest Loser and so far I am really enjoying it.

This year we again have three trainers, Dolvett Quince, Jillian Michaels, and Bob Harper and a new format and rules as well as a much shorter episode every week. I will dive in with my views, but they matter a lot less then everyones views overall as the show will only succeed with big ratings.

New One Hour Biggest Loser Episodes

This is a big one. I have complained for years that they were dragging things out and making us watch long workouts with no knowledge gain for the viewer and this year with a one hour episode I think the show moves along a lot better with a lot more punch to the segments and no dragging out the “Last Chance Workout”.

I know that it is nice to see the different sides of the characters and this season they seem to be trying to pull that together for few people per episode and faster and that is nice. We still get to see a lot of the struggles of the contestants and some tears and pain, but no recaps after commercial breaks (very great)

More About the Trainers

Lets face it, for a crazy show like the Biggest Loser where the goal is to lose 100 pounds or more in a very short period of time it really has to come down to the trainers and their methods and the way they either train or motivate and we are getting to see a lot of that. Just the idea that each trainer was allowed a save of one player was a big step.

I am also liking the fact the the trainers are really getting into the heads of their team and explaining why instead of trying to build up the drama of someone always failing and having to be picked up.

Great Contestants this season

I’m not sure but it seems like the people this season are not as big as in past seasons except for a notable singer, Ruben Studdard, so all of the people have a background but it is more about their battle than their terrible past. I like seeing people work really hard against adversity but the last few seasons it seemed like the show was going deeper and deeper to try and find people that were just about to die and bring them on. I know that helps the ratings but it is harder for most of the audience to relate to.

On a slightly different note, I have loved that the teams seem to be getting along quite well this year and they are really working well together. No threats to quit in mass like last year, no whining and complaining about teammates, although I am sure gameplay will start coming quickly enough anyway.

So what are your thoughts? Have you been watching the show? Do you like or dislike the way the Biggest Loser is going? I am excited to watch the rest of the season this fall and winter for sure!

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My wife turned me onto this story today about the Lululemon founder apparently coming up with crap about who should or more importantly shouldn’t wear Lululemon Yoga Pants.

Dennis “Chip” Wilson, the owner of Lululemon told a Bloomberg Television reporter that “some women’s bodies just actually don’t work” in the pants, reiterating that “they don’t work for some women’s bodies.”

He went on to explain that “it’s about the rubbing through the thighs and how much pressure is there” and how often they’re worn over time. Even seatbelts and purses worn a certain way would affect the fabric, he said. When pressed about whether he meant that some consumers can’t wear Lululemon pants, Chip just said – “I just think it’s how you use them”.

Lululemon had to pull its black yoga pants from shelves in March after customers said the fabric was sometimes a little too see through. Within a few weeks, Chief Product Officer Sheree Waterson stepped down and was replaced by Tara Poseley from Kmart.

The Lululemon Yoga pants, which accounted for 17% of the company’s sales, returned in June after undergoing a series of tests.

My LuluLemon Yoga Pants Rant

This is where I get to rant a bit. I know there is fat shaming going on, and in this case I don’t think it is entirely true. A couple of months ago the owner of Abercrombie and Fitch. Mark Jeffries said that he did not want overweight ugly people wearing his clothes and I certainly thought he was a jerk for even thinking that. In this case Chip Wilson is coming up with flimsy excuses.

Right from the breaking of this story my wife and I were talking about how women seem to buy Lululemon pants that are a couple sizes too small or are to large to fit the pants. There is nothing wrong with a little “junk in the trunk” but Lululemon pants are not designed for that. If you were sheer pants that are way too tight… well you are going to see through them. This is the very reason why my wife has never bought a pair of Lululemon yoga pants, she knows they wouldn’t fit her properly.

All the blame can’t go to the customers though. I myself have taken a few yoga classes and I know that people that do yoga all come in different sizes and shapes, not everyone is some skinny twenty-something stick figure and the company should really cater to the audience that would want the yoga pant, not just the Yoga crew that we see on TV.

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Some allergies are widely thought to be outgrown. Usually kids will outgrow egg and milk allergies but do not outgrow nut allergies. A recent couple of studies by John Hopkins looked at childhood milk and egg allergies

The prognosis for a child with a milk or egg allergy appears to be worse than it was two decades ago, said Robert A. Wood, M.D., a co-author of both studies, and colleagues. Rather than outgrowing the allergies by the time they start school, only about 20% to 40% of children do so with milk and about 4% to 26% with egg. Twenty percent of patients with milk allergies and 30% of those with egg allergies don’t develop tolerance till age 16, found the researchers.

“We may be dealing with a different kind of disease process than we did 20 years ago,” Dr. Wood said. “Why this is happening we just don’t know.”

Childhood Milk and Egg Allergies

Cow’s milk allergy, the most common allergy, affects 2% to 3% of infants and young children, and egg allergy, second after milk, affects 1% to 2% of young children, the researchers wrote.

The purpose of both studies, which followed children for more than 13 years, was to define the rate of allergy resolution over time and identify the clinical and laboratory features that may predict the outcome with passing years. In both studies the children came from pediatric allergy clinics.

In the milk study, the investigators collected a clinical history, test results, and final outcomes for 807 children (a 2:1 male:female ratio) with IgE-mediated cow’s milk allergy. Data collection began in 1993. The findings of this study are in marked contrast to an often quoted study that suggested that three-quarters of children with milk allergy outgrew their condition by age three, the researchers said.

In the Hopkins study, only one-fifth of the children outgrew the milk allergy by age four.

The authors suggested that the poor prognosis in this study may result from the highly atopic referral population. Thus, they wrote, “other markers of the high degree of atopy in our population include 91% having at least one other food allergy, 49% with asthma, 40% with allergic rhinitis, and 71% with eczema.”

Changes in Allergies Over Time

However, it may also be that the character of milk allergy has changed over time, Dr. Wood said.

Similar trends were seen for 881 patients (68% male) in the egg-allergy study. When tolerance was defined with the most conservative criteria (egg IgE 2 kU/L), 4% outgrew their allergy by age four, 26% by age eight, 48% by age 12, and 68% by age 16.

Individuals with persistent egg allergy had higher antibody levels at all ages up to 18, the end of the period studied.

A limitation of the egg study, the researchers wrote, is that many patients being evaluated for atopic dermatitis or other food allergies before egg was added to their diets were diagnosed on the basis of IgE alone and did not have a history of reaction to egg. However, Kaplan-Meier survival curves suggested that these children did in fact have a true egg allergy.

The researchers concluded that antibody tests are highly predictive of allergy outcomes and should be used in counseling patients on prognoses of egg or milk sensitivity. Because some patients do not develop tolerance until adolescence or later, follow-up and re-evaluation of these patients is important in their care.

Even though these studies seem to bring up more questions than answers it seems to be true that more kids are ending up with childhood milk and egg allergies.

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