do burpees count as exercise

Say I do 4 sets of 25 2 sets of 20 And 2 sets of 10 Would that be interfering with my 2 weeks of no exercise or am I good?

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Should I count my labor-heavy work as exercise?

On the weekends, I have a job that requires me to be really physically active. For about 5-6 hours I'm constantly standing, moving around, and lifting heavy boxes. On these days, I'm usually too tired to work out when I get home. Can I just count this as my exercise for the day? How many calories would I burn doing this? 

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Would this count as a cheat meal?

Hi all,

I was out shopping in town today and foolishly didn't think to bring any lunch! As part of my healthy eating plan I aim to eat about 90% fresh, home-made or self prepared stuff. Anyway, I tried to go somewhere healthy and ordered a Pret a Manger houmous wrap (449 kcal, about 40% fat) - oh, and an apple. Would this count as a cheat meal to you? I am wondering because I usually have 2 times a week that I do not eat well, and tomorrow am going out to a bar with friends and may have a drink or two.

Please let me know what you think!

Cheers

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Your Pooch Could Raise Your Home's Bacteria Count

Study found more germs and a wider variety of bacterial types in houses with dogs

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 22 (HealthDay News) -- Man's best friend may bring millions more microscopic pals into the average human home, a new study suggests.

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado found that homes with dogs have more bacteria than other homes, including germs rarely found in households without dogs.

"We can tell whether you own a dog based on the bacteria we find on your television screen or pillowcase," study co-author Rob Dunn, associate professor of biology at NC State, said in a university news release.

The researchers involved 40 homes. Dunn and his colleagues wiped nine of the common surfaces in these residences -- TV screens, kitchen counters, toilet seats, refrigerators, pillowcases and door handles -- with sterile swabs to determine the types and amount of bacteria present.

The researchers found more than 7,700 types of bacteria in the homes, with unique groupings of bacteria depending on the location tested. For instance, bacteria found in refrigerators, on kitchen counters and on cutting boards were usually similar since they all related to food. The bacteria on doorknobs, pillowcases and toilet seats were also similar, but came more often from humans.

"We leave a microbial 'fingerprint' on everything we touch," Dunn explained. "Sometimes those microbes come from our skin, sometimes they're oral bacteria and as often as not they're human fecal bacteria."

But what about differences between houses? "The biggest difference we've found so far is whether you own a dog," Dunn said. "For example, there are bacteria normally found in soil that are 700 times more common in dog-owning households than in those without dogs."

The study showed bacteria in homes can be grouped into three "habitats" or categories: places people touch, places touched by food and places that collect dust. The researchers pointed out the bacteria found on pillowcases in two different homes is likely more similar than bacteria found in the same home but in another "habitat."

"This makes sense," Dunn added. "Humans have been living in houses for thousands of years, which is sufficient time for organisms to adapt to living in particular parts of houses. We know, for example, that there is a species that only lives in hot-water heaters. We deposit these bacterial hitchhikers in different ways in different places, and they thrive or fail depending on their adaptations."

The study was published May 22 in the journal PLOS ONE. The researchers plan to conduct a larger study involving another 40 homes as well as samples from a national survey of 1,300 homes across the country.

"The larger sample size will help us better understand the range of variables that influence these microbial ecosystems," Dunn said. "Does it matter if you have kids or live in an apartment? We expect the microbial populations of homes in deserts to be different from the populations of homes in Manhattan, but no one knows if that's true. We want to find out."

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TV Viewing Linked to Lower Sperm Count

By Nicky Broyd
WebMD Health News

Feb. 5, 2013 -- Healthy young men who watch TV for more than 20 hours a week have almost half the sperm count of men who watch very little television. But men who do 15 or more hours of moderate to vigorous exercise every week have sperm counts that are 73% higher than those who exercise for less than five hours a week, according to a new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Allan Pacey, PhD, British Fertility Society chairman and senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, says the findings fit with what fertility experts already know.

"We know that men who wear too tight underwear have poorer sperm. So it’s not a million miles away from sitting on the sofa ... for too long and heating up your testicles for too long. It’s the same mechanism I would suspect."

And the findings about helping sperm quality with exercise also fit. "Men who are out on the golf course are not only getting cardiovascular benefits from doing even light exercise, but there are also some metabolic benefits as well.”

Semen quality appears to have deteriorated in most Western countries over the past few decades for reasons that are not clear. The study authors set out to find if an increasingly inactive lifestyle might play a role.

They analyzed the semen quality of 189 American men, all from New York state, between the ages of 18 to 22 in 2009-10.

The men were asked about the quantity and intensity of weekly exercise over the preceding three months and how much time they spent watching television, DVDs, or videos over the same period.

They were also asked about factors that might affect sperm quality, including medical or reproductive health problems, diet, stress levels, and smoking.

The men were asked to say how many hours they usually spent a week doing vigorous, moderate, or mild exercise. They also said how much TV they watched on an average day, from none or almost none at all to over 10 hours.

Men who were more physically active tended to have a healthier diet than those who watched a lot of TV every week.

The analysis showed that those who were the most physically active -- 15 or more hours a week -- had a 73% higher sperm count than the least physically active.

When analyzed by exercise intensity, the results showed that light physical exercise made no difference to the sperm count, no matter how frequent it was.

TV viewing had the opposite effect. Those who watched the most -- 20 or more hours a week -- had a sperm count that was 44% lower than those who watched the least.

Unlike smoking or weight, the amount of TV viewing seemed to counteract the beneficial effects of exercise, although this may be a chance finding, the authors say.

The authors caution that a reduced sperm count does not necessarily curb a man’s fertility or his chances of being able to father a child. But the findings do suggest that a more physically active lifestyle may improve semen quality.

The type of exercise might also be important, they say.  "Future studies should also evaluate the extent to which different exercise types affect semen quality."

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