If youve ever thought to yourself Ill quit smoking after this one, last cigarette you might want to think again. New research claims that a womans risk of stroke (yes, young women, too) increases with each cigarette you smoke.

Women who smoke just 1-10 cigarettes a day are 2.2 times more likely to have a stroke than those who don’t. Women who smoke 21-39 cigarettes a day are 4.3 times more likely to have stroke than those who don’t smoke. And women who smoke 21-39 cigarettes are day are nearly 10 times as likely to have a stroke than those who don’t smoke. Kind of a sobering thought.

Despite this news that confirms what we’ve known all along — that smoking is bad for your health, there was silver lining in the report. Researchers also found that once you stop smoking, the risk for stroke diminishes again — as early as 30 days after quitting.

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This years Opening Ceremony restored faith in many that these marathon parades of pageantry are actually worth our while. The Chinese certainly got the opening showcase right entertaining with dramatic artistry.

But heres something they got wrong. Way wrong. Cheerleaders.

Really? As if the intermittent blast of 80s rock wasnt bad enough on the beach volleyball court, cheerleaders at the Olympics? Sure we can appreciate the Chinese trying to honor the origins of beach volleyball played on boardwalks with music and food and drinking. But this is the Olympics.

And to think that these glorified dancers are necessary to maintain the interest of an international crowd is insulting its insulting to the knowledge base of the fans, its insulting to the level of play of the athletes, and its insulting to women to have scantily clad dancers shimmying around on an international stage as a form of entertainment when serious female athletes are there to compete.

Of course the Olympics is commercialized. And while these generic, rent-a-cheer dancers were meant to entertain, theres no place for them at the Olympics. Anyone who needs them to enjoy their experience may as well watch the events from home.

So leave the cheerleading to high school and college sidelines when they really are cheering for their home teams. Leave them to the pro sports arenas for those who just love to perform. But keep them out of the Olympics so we can keep the focus where it should be on the achievements and competition of the dedicated athletes who have sacrificed so much to get there.

After all, if spectators aren’t doing their part to cheer on exciting plays and home teams, there’s something terribly wrong with the state of the Olympic Games.

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If you ever needed another reason to start your day sunny-side up, how about this? Eating two eggs for breakfast might help you lose weight.

A recent study has found that eating two eggs at breakfast helped a group of obese adults keep with their reduced calorie diet and drop more weight than those who ate bagels. How much more? 65%.

Another benefit was the egg-eaters had a greater reduction in body mass index and reported having more energy, too.

Researchers say they believe it was easier for the egg eaters to stick to their diet because they started the day off feeling more satisfied and energized by their breakie.

But remember, eggs are not the holy grail of dieting. They just helped people start the day off right so they could keep on track with the rest of their reduced calorie plan.

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Great sports moments are defined by stunning athletic feats.

Legendary sports moments, however, play out like the best motion picture action drama.

Sunday nights mens 4×100 Olympic swim relay was a legendary sports moment.

The cast of characters? If played out on the silver screen, Team France would have been cast as the bully taunting the underdog Team USA with its top-seeded position.

Leading the pack of bullies with a swagger seen on land and in the pool was Alain Bernard, publically throwing the gauntlet (more like a shammy given the results) and asserting, very publically, his team would not only smash the Americans. But thats what they came to Beijing to do.

Enter the underdogs.

The Star
Michael Phelps the swimming phenom attempting to earn 8 gold medals with a grueling competition lineup. Would he be able to help his team win and reserve strength for his individual events as well?

The Steady
Garrett Weber-Gale — the Olympic trials champion in the 50 and 100 meters.

The Dreamer
Cullen Jones a competitor whos goal isnt to earn Wheaties box fame, but to use Olympic glory to help get more minority kids into the sport through community programs. His swim in the prelims helped secure the Americans a spot in the finals.

The Vindicator
Jason Lezak the veteran anchor who had something to prove after close losses in previous Olympic swims.

And then, the start gun went off. By the time Jones touched the wall as the third leg of the race, Frances Bernard was already on his way into the pool. Lezak knew this. He also knew that this Frenchman came by his boasting honestly. He was the world-record holder in this distance.

But you never know in sports. It happens in track a runner cramps up and cant finish the race. It happens in gymnastics, the overall leader makes one misstep and loses the gold. And Sunday it happened in the pool not because of any misstep by the leader, not as karmic pay-back for talking smack, but because one team refused to give in to expectations of a less than gold performance. Because despite trailing the world-record-holder, one athlete, Jason Lezak dug deep into his athletic soul and tapped into some Olympic magic.

So what is Olympic magic? Its the same drive that allowed the US team to beat the Russian hockey favorites in 1980. Its the same drive that allowed gymnast Kerri Strug to help lead her team to gold on a broken ankle. Its the kind of magic that transcends pure physical talent and taps into a special place in our psyche that we all rely on to propel us past barriers we doubt we can overcome. And thats what makes moments like this so legendary.

When Jason Lezak out-touched Bernard by .08 of a second, we cheered for the thrill of a come-from-behind win. We cheered for the underdog everywhere who exceeds expectations. We cheered because the American win gave us faith that we too, can achieve what people say is impossible, or at least improbable.

The fact that Lezak was particularly humble and team-focused after a particularly heroic effort was just icing on the cake. Or in this case, the croissant.

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Today, millions of eyes are trained on the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Over the next few weeks, the summer games will wow crowds with an appreciation of profound physical feats, grit and competition. They will also shine a public relations light on China and political policies for which they are widely criticized.

But half a world a way, in the suburbs of Nairobi, Kenya theres another little story to be told, a little story about Willis and Kenneth Yoga that illustrates how you dont have to be an Olympic trained athlete to drive beyond your personal best.

We first heard of these brothers from Bruce Northam, veteran travel writer and explorer extraordinaire. Their claim to fame? They each hold world records in soccer ball juggling. Yes, that skill of keeping a soccer ball off the ground by continuously bouncing it up off of various body parts (excluding your hands).

Willis holds the world record for bouncing the ball with his head only. How many times in a row do you think he did this to claim the title? 500? 5000? Nope. Willis bounced the same ball on his head 55,000 times in a row. And it took him 7.5 hours to do it. Thats 7,333 bounces an hour. One-hundred-twenty-two bounces a minute. Or approximately two bounces a second. And you think your endurance training is tough?

Kenneth holds the record for juggling a ball with one leg while seated 35,000 bounces in 5 hours. While this might seem like a strange skill to cultivate, it actually made a lot of sense for Kenneth who, at 10 years old, was bitten by a puff adder one of the most toxic snakes around. Damage from the bite left his leg covered in untreatable open wounds for 18 years until a doctor figured out a way to save his leg.

Now, the point of this story is not really to sing the praises of overcoming adversity. Or that hard work can get you a world record or to the Olympics. Its more to remind you that you, too can have fun challenging yourself.

So if youre caught up in the Olympic Spirit, why not hop off the couch for a quick run, a walk around the block, or to see how many pushups you can do? Youll probably find that even the littlest goals like trying to bounce a ball just one more time, are worth pursuing.

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