Category Archives: Health

Seaweed Invasion Town of Palm Beach 2019

Disturbing Footage of Seaweed Overtaking this Popular Beach!

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So far it’s not as bad as 2019 in Palm Beach County. But, it’s pretty bad. The Sargassum bloom is out of control again. This is in Ocean Ridge, Florida.

Sargassum is a seaweed that can accumulate along the shoreline in large amounts, making the shoreline inaccessible for swimming, boating, and other recreational activities. This beach seaweed overflow is happening again.

If you live near the coast and have experienced the beach seaweed overflow in the past, then you already know what to do! Be sure to check out our site for more information on this and other coastal issues!

See the feature story I did in 2019 when it was really bad in Florida, the Caribbean, and South and Central American coasts:

See my feature story [article and video]

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#1 Bicycle Racer in the World Still on Track for Tour de France Race After Crash

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April 28, 2023

Tadej Pogačar’s six-week program of recovery from his Liège-Bastogne-Liége crash and injury may still include a spell of altitude training from mid-May to early June, Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reports.

After a busy and highly-successful first part of the season, the Slovenian star had always planned to use the next two months as his build-up for the 2023 Tour de France, with a repeat of just one stage race, the low-key Tour of Slovenia, on his program prior to July.

There had been fears that the scaphoid fracture (wrist) caused by his crash in Liège-Bastogne-Liège could have seriously affected that process.

But according to the Belgian newspaper report, citing team sports manager Joxean Fernandez Matxín, Pogačar could yet be training as planned at an altitude camp by mid-May.

On his way to another Tour de France win even with this setback?

See More [CyclingNews]

Shark Attacks in U.S. Total 28 So Far This Year

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Unprovoked bites, while rare, have been raising the alarm for some beachgoers this summer

Sources: Florida Museum of Natural History (1837-2021); trackingsharks.com (2022 data from media reports)

Brownie Bytes Take: As a surfer with 40 years experience in Florida, New Smyrna Beach has the most shark bites and sharks in the surfline than anywhere else. I’ve been bumped, chased, and seen others bitten there in 3 ft. of water right along the shore. Even though the blacktip shark migration during the late Fall and Winter happens in S. Florida with 10,000 sharks per mile per day cruising near the coast, they rarely bother anyone.

– R. Michael Brown

News of shark attacks off the coast of New York’s Long Island this summer raised the alarm for many beachgoers, surfers and divers. Shark bites, although rare compared with the number of people who get into the ocean, still happen in coastal areas of the U.S.

According to Tracking Sharks, a website that specializes in reporting shark attacks and bites across the globe, there have been 28 shark attacks in the U.S. in 2022 as of Aug. 1. Two of the attacks were provoked and none was fatal.

There were 47 confirmed cases in 2021, returning to prepandemic levels, and 33 in 2020.

Unprovoked shark bites are the most common incidents, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack Files, a global compilation of all known shark attacks. Florida leads the U.S. in shark attacks, followed by Hawaii, California and South Carolina.

The most frequent type of unprovoked bites are so-called “hit and run” attacks, the museum says. These normally happen in the surf zones as coastal shark species follow schools of fish close to shore. There, sharks can encounter swimmers and surfers—and sometimes confuse people with their usual prey. The sharks don’t return after inflicting a single bite or slash wound.

Shark attacks and deaths from shark bites are extremely rare, experts say. The yearly average of unprovoked shark bites globally is 70, resulting in about 5 deaths, data from the Florida Museum of Natural History shows.

See More [Wall Street Journal] Subscription May Be Required

CyclingDiet Product Review

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By: R. Michael Brown, Freelance Writer [Follow on Facebook: @RMichaelBrownLLC]
📸: Let Ideas Compete is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

After joining a bunch of Facebook cycling groups I started to receive ads for CyclingDiet. You may be getting them too because you are part of the Facebook groups or post about cycling.

As a former US Olympic Cycling Coach and professional freelance writer, I thought I would take a look at their plan and write a review to be helpful to other cyclists.

The bottom line, BUYER BEWARE!

According to their Facebook ads and their Facebook page [@cyclingdietforweightloss] they say, “Fun, easy, and safe way to lose weight! Find what will work for you with 60-sec quiz approved by cycling coaches and experts and get your personalized plan & diet!”

So I purchased the program to check it out and it cost $66… not including the international charges because the company is based in Lithuania (Didn’t know that when I registered).

In addition I paid an extra, $4.99, to get the “rush” evaluation on the quiz I took. They say the personal evaluation is done by cycling coaches and experts.

I signed up as a beginner to see what they were teaching new cyclists. When I received my plan it included some generic daily workouts for before and after stretching, calisthenics, and bicycle training. You could easily come up with these on your own via the web for free.

But when I got to the diet part, and you are led to believe with a name like CyclingDiet this is the robust part of their offering, all it had was a Cycling Recipe book in a PDF showing calorie amounts for the few dozen recipes they provided. No daily plan, no meals to sync with the daily cycling and off-day workouts, no technology to track your calories… Just two mentions above the recipe “book” that showed total daily calories you should stay within to maintain weight and total calories you should target to lose weight.

Honestly, you could buy a paperback weight loss cookbook for under $10 and get more information.

What they sent me is what their “cycling coaches and experts” came up with?

After working with Olympic cycling sports nutritionists and many nutritionists over the years on my own diet and my daughter’s because she has Type 1 Diabetes, the CyclingDiet isn’t a diet or diet plan by any stretch of the imagination.

The whole plan is basically – stay under 1,500 calories a day and you add it up on your own. Oh, and exercise a lot. Not worth $5 let alone $66.

If you’re used to MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, WeightWatchers, or the many other online programs, CyclingDiet looks like a bad joke.

Plus, when I attempted to get a refund after telling them the deficiencies in their product, they gave me some back and forth customer support static and said they would refund only half ($33) and it may take 2 weeks to process.

So just to check on them by doing a Google search, turns out the company for CyclingDiet, UAB Kilo Grupė, in the first few Google results, are about “unauthorized charges” and scam alerts.

Now I’m going to have to watch my PayPal and bank accounts to see what happens.

They buy a lot of online ads. They’re everywhere. I blocked them.

As you can imagine, I won’t recommend this product. Far from it.

In fact this is the best $33, hopefully, I’ve ever spent if it helps you not fall for this waste of your time and money.

If you need a diet, talk to your medical doctor or a licensed nutritionist. They work with you and legitimate online programs for you to evaluate, plan, and track your diet. That’s the safest and will get you the best results.

Happy cycling!

For more free reviews and stories go to BrownieBytes.net

What an Olympic Medalist, Homeless in Seattle, Wants You to Know

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By Scott Greenstone, Seattle Times staff reporter

When Rebecca Twigg was 7, she rode a bike for the first time. There were no training wheels, but Twigg took off like she’d done it in a previous life. She fell only when she realized she didn’t know how to stop, and steered into a wall.

“I took to the road like I was born to do it,” Twigg says today. “Except for the little part about stopping. I’m not a very good planner.”

The Seattle-raised athlete went on to become one of the most famous American cyclists in the ’80s and ’90s, winning six world championships and medaling in two Olympics. She appeared on cycling magazine covers, in sponsor ads and in features in Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair.

Rebecca Twigg was the darling of the cycling scene in the 1980’s & 90’s

But then, in 1996, she left the team abruptly during the Olympics and the next year, retired from cycling. She re-entered the workforce. It didn’t work out.

“Once you’ve done something that feels like you’re born to do it, it’s hard to find anything that’s that good of a fit,” Twigg says today. “Anything else that feels that way.”

Rebecca Twigg has now been without a home for almost five years in Seattle, living first with friends and family, then in her car, then in homeless shelters and then, for a night, under garbage bags on the street downtown. She hasn’t had a bike for years, and no one recognizes her anymore, she says.

See More [Seattle Times]

BrownieBytes Take

I was in the US Olympic Cycling Coaching Program in the late 1980’s and early 90’s and met Rebecca once and saw her working out many times in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center. She seemed to be a very dedicated and down-to-earth person. It’s a shame that this has happened to her.

So many athletes put it all on the line with very little financial backing during their amateur athletic career. Once that career is over most don’t have any financial backing and struggle to reinvent themselves. I speak from experience on this, both as a reinvented athlete and coach. Reinvention skills are the key to life.

— R. Michael Brown

Finally Got Back on the Road Bike Today after Years of Riding the Fat Tire Bike

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Freelance writer R. Michael Brown started riding his road bicycle again.

By R. Michael Brown, Marketing Consultant & Freelance Writer

Even though I have over 150,000 miles riding a road bike. my Specialized was like riding a foreign ice skate. Took over 30 minutes before I got comfortable on it again.

Had it refurbished with new wheels and tires, new handlebar tape and tuned up by Bicycle World Lake Worth.

Freelance writer R. Michael Brown's Fat Tire bicycle.
Retiring the Fat Tire for now. Back on the road.

They did a great job and ran info a familiar face, Jeffrey Langlois, a former photojournalist at the Palm Beach Daily News. We covered a lot of the same stories in the Town of Palm Beach. Small world.

So I’ll be riding that road bike again, hopefully a lot. Need the exercise.

Small American Cities are Making Attractive Offers to Lure Tech Workers Away from the Metros

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Fayetteville, Arkansas

Cities in North-West Arkansas are making offers to workers in New York and Los Angeles that’re simply too good to pass. Incentives including cash bonuses, free mountain bikes and year-long discounted rent prices.

Are you ready to move out of the big metro areas and why?