Gift Guide: Be Super-Healthy On A Shoestring Budget
Are you tired of watching expensive gadgets turn your friends into Abercrombie models? Well, my pudgy popper, we’ve got a holiday gift guide that’ll give you five more ab packs without breaking your piggy bank.
Standing Desk Vs. Cardboard Box
Or, if you’re like the former CEO of Hulu, you can use the good ol’ 20th century technology of a cardboard box. This geometrically sound paper-based tech comes in all shapes and sizes; with enough digging users can find an ideal height for them. At TechCrunch, it took me five minutes to find some boxes laying about.
Treadmill Desk Vs. SurfShelf
Or, for a price of Comcast’s shoddy Internet ($39.95), you can own the portable miracle, the SurfShelf, a laptop shelf that attaches to the face of most treadmills. I brought it with me on a three-week tour of the East Coast and it worked marvelously. You still need a gym membership (or a hotel with a treadmill), but it’s a great excuse to get out of the coffee shop and into a gym.
Juicer Or Blender Vs. Teeth
But both juicing and blending are probably terrible for your body. Fructose can be toxic to humans; Mother Nature naturally wraps its sugary sweetness in a fiber shield that protects the human body from blood sugar spikes and liver damage. University of California, San Francisco health guru Rob Lustic told a crowd at the Aspen Ideas Festival that if you’re going to juice, the only non-toxic foods are pure vegetables (icky).
Unfortunately, pulverizing foods into an indistinguishable mush could destroy much of the nutrients. It’s unclear how much survives the shredding process, and it allows people to consume foods far faster than the body prefers to process them (leading to overeating and blood sugar spikes).
Teeth are a healthy, free alternative to mashing food. Designed by mother nature, these calcium-based chompers are perfectly tailored to each individual users’ digestive operating systems. The chomping co-processor safely throttles the bandwidth of nutritional uploads, protecting vitamins in a salty liquid sheath.
Poke pedometer Vs. Wrist Thingies Vs. iPhone Counter
Or, according to the University of Iowa, you could enjoy the most accurate of pedometers, the Pikachu-friendly Pokewalker ($43). This smile-inducing trapper of pixelated Japanese gladiators will count your steps each day while providing hours of endless entertainment.
Sleep: Apps Vs. Sunglasses And A Clock
Fortunately, the brain has a built-in timer that naturally sends dreamy signals to the brain if a regular schedule is kept. However, the piercing fluorescent blue light from computer monitors is wreaking havoc on our evolutionary response of being awake at sunlight. To get our melatonin pumper back into shape, blue-light filtering sunglasses, a.k.a. “blue blockers, ($15.99) are scientifically proven to improve some sleep-related diseases. I wear mine every night two hours before bed (and try to turn out the lights, as well).
There you have it, folks. How to be super healthy on a shoestring budget. In the comments section, please post photos of your rippling abs, as you roll around in a pile of one-dollar bills and Ivy-league diplomas.
You can check out our complete Holiday Gift Guide 2013 right here.