Many years ago, I had a friend visit from Santa Barbara, and she’d changed since we’d last seen each other. The major focus of her interest at the time was colonic enemas and how cleansing they were. Yuck, right? I mean, how much talking can you do about that subject over glasses of wine before the conversation kind of closes down?

That friend, whom I haven’t seen nor heard from since, came to mind when I caught wind (no pun!) of another similar movement (another non-pun!), this one involving foot spas that promise to “cleanse” your body of toxins. You soak your feet while this device plows ions into the water, and voila! During the process, the water changes color, signifying that the bad stuff is leaving your body, to get thrown out with the bath water.

For $190, the Dual Ionic Ion Detox Aqua Foot Spa Chi Cleanse Machine provides you with the capability to detoxify with the one you love (After all, I couldn’t imagine going into detox with somebody you didn’t love…) and says it performs “internal cleansing with full body purge, [enhancing the] immune system.” Plus, it “inactivates viruses, bacteria, yeast or fungus” and provides “relief of joint pains.” According to the description, you will enjoy “increased energy and reduced stress.”

Best of all, it includes a built-in MP3 player, so you can listen to music while getting healthier (or at least a little cleaner).

As the experts in these matters point out, there’s one born every minute (and many of those end up in Santa Barbara). Personally, if I wanted to see liquid change color to prove that the science is working right, I’d go for a Scientific Explorer’s Tasty Science Chemistry in the Kitchen Kit. After all, I’d save about $170, plus I’d get the chance to make fizzing grape flavor-ade.

Garmin’s known for its global positioning system devices, so it makes sense that the company would include a GPS in its heart rate monitors.

The Forerunner 405 fits in this category. Priced around $350, the Forerunner is loaded with training features for the serious athlete. Regarding basics, it’ll monitor your time, distance, pace, calories and heart rate. Each session (or run or walk or swim) is stored in memory for later review. You can also download that data wirelessly to your computer when it’s in range and turned on, to maintain a workout log.

The silver bezel around the face of the monitor is actually a touchscreen. You use that bezel to make a selection, toggle menu options and change pages. To switch modes, you keep your finger on one of four labeled areas. You put two fingers on the bezel to turn on a backlight. Once you have the display in front of you that you want to maintain, the device allows you to lock it in by pressing enter and quit at the same time.

Because the monitor includes a GPS, you’ll have to wait a few minutes for the GPS satellite signals to be acquired. (The antenna is located between the watch face and the wrist strap. But once that GPS mode is turned on, you can keep track of your route, follow a pre-planned route that others are following, and save the route for later sharing.

This is the first monitor I’ve seen that includes a battery in the chest strap too, which Garmin refers to as the “heart rate monitor”). Also, the wrist device includes a rechargeable battery, another first for me.

If that black color doesn’t appeal to you, the Forerunner also comes in green.

Last, here’s a cool feature: You can race against a “Virtual Partner.” You set the specifics about how fast and far your partner is running and then try to keep up with or beat your competitor. Of course, at the end of the race, you’re the only one who can buy the beer; but then again, with a virtual partner, you’ll also be the only drinking it too.

Oregon Scientific offers a bargain-priced heart rate monitor that includes calorie tracking, which is probably a good fit for somebody who’s new to the whole business of keeping track of beats per minute. As with the other models I’ve written about here, this one comes with a chest belt that sends your heart rate data to the wrist device. You set lower and upper thresholds and the monitor will beep and flash when you’re above or below your targets.

The gadget includes a stopwatch function, though if you take classes where you’re using this device, you’ll hardly need a stopwatch to tell you when it’s time to collapse — you’ll have an instructor bellowing at you to do so.

If you’ve signed up for one of those 24-hour agony walks/runs/bike rides, this monitor includes an alarm function, so that you won’t oversleep during your brief breaks. And it includes a backlight for looking at the numbers in the dark. Also, it’s water resistant up to 164 feet, which means you can keep it on during the water event portion of that next triathlon you’re entering.

Regarding its calorie counting functionality, be prepared to enter data to receive an accurate count. There’s no monitor in the world that can help you with this if it doesn’t know your age and your weight. The instructions, which come on a big fold-out sheet, are pretty informative about how to do this.

Finally, I’m partial to red. This one’s definitely a keeper.

If a $200-plus heart rate monitor is beyond your budget, Polar offers a bargain monitor too, that does exactly what it’s supposed to do — tell you how many times your heart beats in a minute. The FS1 model ranges from $60 to $70 and has “extra large” digits, one button functionality for the simple-minded among us (I count myself in that category), and a watch feature, in case you need to know just how much longer your spin class is going to last.

A couple of reviewers have weighed in on this monitor, and here’s what they say:

Jibreger calls it “easy to use straight out of the box. Perfect for those who want an accurate heart rate reading for an affordable price.” The one weakness the reviewer notes is that you have to wear a chest attachment in order to get the heart rate reading. That’s the band with the signal that stretches around your chest as you work out. The alternative is a monitor that counts beats through your pulse. The chest band does tend to get sweaty, yes, but the advantage of wearing one is that you don’t have to attach the monitor it transmits to to your wrist. You can have it hanging off your handlebars.

microg from AZ points out that the FS1 lets you set lower and upper limits for your desired workout heart rate. The monitor beeps when you hit a threshold telling you you’re in the zone, then beeps again when you’re out of the range you’ve set — when you’re out of the zone.

If you’ve ever heard about the zone, you know that working out at an aerobic pace makes for great fat burning. This is in contrast to an anaerobic workout, where you’re gasping for air and the whole body quakes with agony while it slowly eats up your muscle tissue. The bottom line on this highly complex science that I hardly ever worry about: Aerobic good; anaerobic to be consumed in small doses, say, about 10 percent of your total workout. (I prefer to follow the sweat measure: If I sweat for more than half the class, it has been a decent workout.)

The two essential features that I mentioned in my review of the pricier Polar F55 were readability of the beats per minute on the face of the monitor and the ability of the monitor to continually show BPM without having to push a button first. The FS1 meets both goals admirably.

But since I don’t want to count other monitors out too quickly, next time I’ll look at an offering from a competitor. There are some truly amazing sports tools out there.

Polar heart rate monitors are the ones I’ve used in the past. So let’s look at one that’s less pricey than the Suunto X6HRM but still does the job of counting the number of heartbeats in any given moment.

Two features that are important to me: The numbers have to be big, so I don’t need to wear my reading glasses during workouts in dim rooms. (I take an early morning class, and bright lights and early mornings don’t go together.) Plus, I want the monitor to stay set on the heart rate so I don’t have to push a button every time I need to read my heart rate. There’s nothing more frustrating than to glance down at the face of the monitor to find your BPM and to get the time of day instead. I don’t need a reminder about what time it is. (Besides, if I have to take my hands off the handlebars at 5:45 in the morning to push a button, somebody could end up in the hospital.)

One of Polar’s newest models is the F55, which everybody seems to be selling for around $220 — not so bad compared to the cost of a month’s training with a personal coach. And, my, oh, my, the features it includes!

The package comes with the wrist unit as well as the strap that goes around your torso to transmit your heart rate signal to the wrist unit. Without those, nothing else about a heart rate monitor matters.

But beyond the basics you get such features as OwnCal, which counts and displays calorie expenditures — not just for a single exercise session, but the accumulated calories for a complete training program.

OwnIndex measures your aerobic/cardio fitness in five minutes. This is a useful baseline to know when starting or changing your fitness routine.

U Fit, helps you stay on track to personal fitness goals, telling you how often, how hard and how long you need to exercise.

The OwnRelax is a quick way to test how relaxed your body is. If you’re a person who goes in for power naps or deep breathing exercises, you can now integrate them into your training session with all the vigor of a minister taking tea with a parishioner.

Finally, there’s Polar Body Workout, which provides guidance in strength training — including the count of sets, repetitions and weights recommendations. It’ll tell you how far along you are in the workout and whether your heart has reached the goals you’ve set.

If you haul around one of those postcards that are popular in gym classes showing what a given percentage of heart rate is translated to heartbeats per minute, this monitor does the translating for you. The device displays heart rate beats per minute or percent of maximum.

When the monitor reaches a given goal, it shows you on the display and gives an alarm beep.

You can download the data from the monitor into your computer-based training program via infrared for overall tracking.

The monitor has the capacity to maintain data such as exercise time, time in target zone, target zone limits, average heart rate, maximum heartrate and calorie expenditure for up to 12 exercises.

If you’re a triathlete, the water resistance goes to 50m.

So, is the display big enough? Not in my opinion. The monitor needs to add so much other text to tell you what you’re seeing and doing, that the number that really matters ends up being kind of dinky. And do you have to push a button to read the heart rate? Actually, no, you don’t. It keeps that heart rate front and bottom, even while it’s displaying other data to you. The photo shows 129. That number will stay up there as long as it knows you’re doing exercise, even while everything else above it changes.

So this one gets a one lung rating.

More on another Polar device next time.

Let my heart rate monitor’s untimely demise be a lesson to you. It is dead because that’s what happens when you don’t properly close your water bottle, then jam it into your gym bag, and the water drips all over that oat bar you had opened but were saving for after your weightlifting class. The oat bar turns to mush and coats in a sticky goo whatever resides in your gym bag. The numbers on my heart rate monitor only partially appear now. I think its electronics are, as the experts call it, “toast.”

But that’s all right, because it gives me the chance to pore over the current options and find a gadget that’s cool, affordable and has features I never knew existed when I bought my last monitor at a yard sale in Santa Cruz, one of the healthiest cities in the United States.

I’ll start with the most expensive monitor (because it’s getting close to Friday Fantasy Happy Hour), then look at the ones that are closer to my budget.

If money is no object, then you’ll want to consider the Suunto X6HRM, which sells for between $550 and $600. This device comes from a company in Finland (which explains those cool double u’s in its name) and is almost twice as costly as the Suunto Advizor Wrist Computer worn by that guy Sawyer on Lost when Ben informs him if his heart rate goes over 140, his heart will explode. (That beats any threats my instructors have barked at me during my gym sessions…)

The Suunto X6HRM is more than a simple heart rate monitor. It’s an over-the-top computer that will keep you informed about any number of data points, whether you’re cross-country skiing across the Arctic snowcap, rock climbing in Afghanistan, or cave diving in the Gulf of Mexico.

Besides the requisite heart rate monitoring (with interval timer, average/highest/lowest heart rate and altitude profile memory), you can record altitude, vertical speed, altitude difference and cumulative ascent with the on-board altimeter, gauge sea level pressure and weather trends with the barometer, establish your bearing with a compass, and set three alarms or monitor two time zones with the watch. The monitor comes with a transmitter belt (the thing you wrap around your chest so it can count your heart beats).

The challenge in using a monitor that’s jam-packed with this many features is that you need to learn which buttons to push and for how long in order to measure whatever is important to you at the moment. In other words, it’s mightily complex. If you choose your toys by the number of buttons it has or the complexity of its menu interface, then Suunto is your company. (I mean, if it were a company that made more ordinary products, it would probably only have a single u in its name, right?)

Next time I’ll look at something a mite simpler, in case your goals are more modest.

Roller derby is a making a big-time comeback — and the girls are getting wild! This is a full-body contact sport where the tougher you are on the rink, the louder you fall, the harder you use your elbows, the more the crowds adore you. (With rink names like Broadzilla, Eva Destruction and Myna Threat, you know these are not people to be messed with.) As writer Brian Haney puts it, “Clobbering one’s opponents is not only legal, but highly encouraged.”

I’m still waiting for derby wear to show up at my local Target. But quad skates are everywhere.

Since I know nothing about skates, I’m going to venture that the more you spend, the better you get.

That’s why my pair — when this lower back pain eases, mind you! — will be a set of Riedell Vandal Derby Quads. These pitbulls of the roller rink cost $274. The description talks about things like plates, wheels, bearings and top stops. (You can get “optional jam plugs,” while you’re at it, whatever they are.)

Reviewer Princess Rotten declares, “Put these babies on and you’ll be flyin around that rink. Perfect fit. Super smooth and derby tough!!!” Anything that gets said with three exclamations surely must be true, right?

So, until that lower back problem dissipates, I’ll spend my time thinking up a rink name for myself… Derby Di is a bit milquetoast. Di Another Day? Bomba Mama? I’ll keep working on that. In the meantime, watch that jammer. She is coming through, headin’ for you!!!

Summer’s here, and the living is easy. In fact, it’s downright besotted, what with baseball games, neighborhood potlucks, riverside picnics and work-time happy hours come a Friday evening. But how do you know if you’ve quaffed too much alcohol to get behind the steering wheel? Face it, somebody who’s had a few isn’t the best judge of whether or not he or she is sober enough to drive.

That’s why a little gadget like the AlcoHawk Elite Digital Alcohol Detector might be a smart gift for the designated non-drinker in your life. This is a device that person can make you breath into to find out your blood alcohol concentration, thereby preventing arguments.

There’s one button on the unit, which presumably makes it easy to use. And it comes with a carrying pouch and five mouthpieces. So, here’s a clue: If the person to be tested can’t see the single button, it’s probably best not to waste a mouthpiece. Just hide the car keys before you begin.

According to the vendor, Q3 Innovations, the Elite has an electronic airflow sensor to ensure the user continues to blow through the unit. This is a “vital new function,” says the company, “because only samples of air from the deep lung are proportionate to blood alcohol content. This new innovative sensor ensures the user exhales through the mouthpiece over the 4-5 second exhale.” No quick breathing to get a favorable reading.

The detector also includes a temperature sensor that displays the temperature at the time of testing. If it’s too hot or cold, apparently, the readings may not be accurate.

How does it work? You put in a new mouthpiece, prime the sensor by having the subject blow into it for a few seconds, then turn the unit on. A beep will sound and the temperature will display. Then a countdown occurs and another beep sounds. RDY will show up in the little display. From there, the user takes a deep breath and blows steadily into the unit until another beep sounds to signal that the test is over.

If the number showing is greater than .02, the vendor advises against driving. This is, of course, way below the .08 that most states consider you intoxicated. But as the saying goes, never drink and drive.