Happy New Year!

A New Year Blessing

I hope for you in this new year ...

That the single, most significant dimension of life is your relationship with the Source of Goodness who never ceases to sing love songs to your soul


That you find meaning, purpose, and vitality in what you do daily


That you treasure your loved ones and let them know how dear they are to you


That you make choices and decisions that reflect your truest self


That you look in the mirror at least once a day and smile in happy amazement


That you remember relationships are what count above all else - more than work or money, or all the material things we spend so much time tending


That you live in an uncluttered manner, enjoying the freedom to be content


That you keep your sense of humor when things don’t go the way you want


That you find adventure in each new day and marvel at the wonders of creation
which constantly present themselves to you


That you never give up on yourself when others turn away or do not understand


That you are attentive to the health of your body, mind and spirit


That you take risks and accept the growth-full challenges that come to you


That you draw on your inner strength and resiliency when you are in need


That you carry peace within yourself, allowing it to slip into the hearts of others
so our planet becomes a place where violence, division, and war are no more


© Joyce Rupp January 2004

Merry Christmas!

Directionally Challenged

Today I tried out a water aerobics fitness class for people with arthritis. Boy am I directionally challenged! "Start with your left foot," says the instructor and I'm moving my right. "Go this way" and I'm going the other way. Outward is inward and I follow my knees backward. Oh well. I had fun and got a pretty good workout. My biggest challenge was balancing myself--the other members of the class say that will come with time and practice. I'm not sure about being off step though...that's been a lifelong thing with me. I never did learn to polka because I can't get the 3 step movement down.

I need to do a lot more water aerobics to work off everything I've eaten in the last couple of days though. It comes off so slowly yet comes back so quickly!

I won't give up!

How easy it is to fall...

My youngest had a Christmas party last night and invited 8 friends. We went shopping for party stuff the day before ... cookies, chips and soda. I was able to resist it all until the bags were opened. About 3 hours into the party, I was into the chips and cookies, mindlessly and voraciously. :P

All I can do is get back on program again and go work out...and I'm taking my son with me. He's home from college for the break and he brought back more than the "freshman fifteen" too!

Happy

I lost another .6 this week. I wish I'd lost more but I look at it like this: I'm going in the right direction again. Since joining WW again in the beginning of October, I gained and lost 3 pounds, plus an additional 4.6. I won't rag myself about gaining the 3 pounds. What matters now is what I'm doing today. I'm also really happy because I think I am down a size--I'm back into a pair of jeans I couldn't wear anymore because I gained so much weight! Yaaay!

Best Laid Plans...

On Saturday, the girls and I met with Jason the personal trainer at the club. I learned some useful stuff! Apparently, I have been curling my toes when I pedal and that will cause spasms. I also had the arch of my foot centered on the pedal and that's not the correct way to do it. Once I had the balls of my feet on the pedals and the toes relaxed, I was able to do a good 20 minute workout. I was very happy! I also did some stretching and strengthening exercises on some of the other machines.

The big drawback was the stupid left ankle which is now hurting and burning in new areas. Jason suggested I put ice on it and I did, it helped. I am not going to give up my exercise program!

Yesterday, Heidi and I went down to the gym again. I must have picked up something in my rear tire and then rubbed against the curb because we heard a loud POW as we were pulling into the gym parking lot. The tire was flat even before I pulled into a spot. I called TB, who called AAA and they arrived immmediately to replace the tire.

Meanwhile, I managed to get in another workout. Heidi got tired and pooped out early but I wasn't about to. My ankle throbbed and burned again and I had to put on more ice. It's very frustrating to have that happen!

TB called around to get a new tire for my car...and it'll need to be tomorrow. It's a drag because I planned to try and work out again. I was going to go into the pool and swim. Well, it'll work out somehow. I'm not giving up!

Motivation

I lost another 1.2 pounds and I feel good about that. I've been talking myself out of going to the gym and I do not feel good about that. I have got to really push myself and get my butt over there tomorrow come hell, high water, or snow!

Intuitive Eating?

I was just about to do a post on how I have to schedule exercise like it's a doctor's appointment when this article caught my eye:

Professor Loses Weight With No-Diet Diet By BROCK VERGAKIS, Associated Press Writer
Sun Dec 4, 5:17 PM ET



SALT LAKE CITY - When Steven Hawks is tempted by ice cream bars, M&Ms and toffee-covered almonds at the grocery store, he doesn't pass them by. He fills up his shopping cart.


It's the no-diet diet, an approach the Brigham Young University health science professor used to lose 50 pounds and to keep it off for more than five years.

Hawks calls his plan "intuitive eating" and thinks the rest of the country would be better off if people stopped counting calories, started paying attention to hunger pangs and ate whatever they wanted.

As part of intuitive eating, Hawks surrounds himself with unhealthy foods he especially craves. He says having an overabundance of what's taboo helps him lose his desire to gorge.

There is a catch to this no-diet diet, however: Intuitive eaters only eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full.

That means not eating a box of chocolates when you're feeling blue or digging into a big plate of nachos just because everyone else at the table is.

The trade-off is the opportunity to eat whatever your heart desires when you are actually hungry.

"One of the advantages of intuitive eating is you're always eating things that are most appealing to you, not out of emotional reasons, not because it's there and tastes good," he said. "Whenever you feel the physical urge to eat something, accept it and eat it. The cravings tend to subside. I don't have anywhere near the cravings I would as a 'restrained eater.'"

Hawks should know. In 1989, the Utah native had a job at North Carolina State University in Raleigh and wanted to return to his home state. But at 210 pounds, he didn't think a fat person could get a job teaching students how to be healthy, so his calorie-counting began.

He lost weight and got the job at Utah State University. But the pounds soon came back.

For several years his weight fluctuated, until he eventually gave up on being a restrained eater and the weight stayed on.

"You definitely lose weight on a diet, but resisting biological pressures is ultimately doomed," Hawks said.

Several years later and still overweight at a new job at BYU, Hawks decided it was time for a lifestyle change.

He stopped feeling guilty about eating salt-and-vinegar potato chips. He also stopped eating when he wasn't hungry.

Slowly and steadily his weight began to drop. Exercise helped.

His friends and co-workers soon took notice of the slimmer Hawks.

"It astonished me, actually," said his friend, Steven Peck. "We were both very heavy. It was hard not to be struck."

After watching Hawks lose and keep the weight off for a year and a half, Peck tried intuitive eating in January.

"I was pretty skeptical of the idea you could eat anything you wanted until you didn't feel like it. It struck me as odd," said Peck, who is an assistant professor at BYU.

But 11 months later, Peck sometimes eats mint chocolate chip ice cream for dinner, is 35 pounds lighter and a believer in intuitive eating.

"There are times when I overeat. I did at Thanksgiving," Peck said. "That's one thing about Steve's ideas, they're sort of forgiving. On other diets if you slip up, you feel you've blown it and it takes a couple weeks get back into it. ... This sort of has this built-in forgiveness factor."

The one thing all diets have in common is that they restrict food, said Michael Goran, an obesity expert at the University of Southern California. Ultimately, that's why they usually fail, he said.

"At some point you want what you can't have," Goran said. Still, he said intuitive eating makes sense as a concept "if you know what you're doing."

Intuitive eating alone won't give anyone six-pack abs, Hawks said, but it will lead to a healthier lifestyle. He still eats junk food and keeps a jar of honey in his office, but only indulges occasionally.

"My diet is actually quite healthy. ... I'm as likely to eat broccoli as eat a steak," he said. "It's a misconception that all of a sudden a diet is going to become all junk food and high fat," he said.

In a small study published in the American Journal of Health Education, Hawks and a team of researchers examined a group of BYU students and found those who were intuitive eaters typically weighed less and had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease than other students.

He said the study indicates intuitive eating is a viable approach to long-term weight management and he plans to do a larger study across different cultures. Ultimately, he'd like intuitive eating to catch on as a way for people to normalize their relationship with food and fight eating disorders.

"Most of what the government is telling us is, we need to count calories, restrict fat grams, etc. I feel like that's a harmful message," he said. "I think encouraging dietary restraint creates more problems. I hope intuitive eating will be adopted at a national level."

___

On the Net:

National Institute for Intuitive Eating http://www.intuitiveeating.com

Well, doesn't this sound swell? It also seems to make some sense...but what about people who binge on junk because they think they feel "hungry"? What if the "stop" button doesn't work? This is a concept I'd love to try but I'd be afraid to buy certain red light foods like chips and chocolate.

The other thing is...the article says that exercising "helps". I have a feeling exercise plays a more important part than is being given credit for here. I wonder if these people would have weight loss if they didn't exercise?

Wouldn't it be nice if it did work, though? One good point I think made was that diets ultimately fail, mostly because of all the restrictions. Whatever it is we do has to become a permanent change in our lives, a whole lifestyle change.

More on Intuitive Eating:

The concept of intuitive eating is an anti-dieting philosophy that replaces external eating with a hunger-based approach. It has come to include several keys:


1. The ability to clearly recognize the physical signs of hunger, satisfaction, and fullness. The intuitive eater only eats when physically hungry, and stops eating when satisfied—well before fullness is reached.


2. The intuitive eater is capable of sensing the nutritional needs of the body. Since there are no restrictions on eating, the intuitive eater considers the full range of food possibilities and carefully weighs available choices against physical promptings. On any given day a chocolate shake may be desired, while on another day it might be cream of broccoli soup. In either case, the nutritional urgings of the body are honored without reference to emotional states or external plans.


3. For the intuitive eater, the physical effects of food consumption are carefully monitored in terms of satisfaction. Food is not consumed unconsciously while driving through rush hour traffic, but is instead fully appreciated as it satisfies the nutritional and hunger needs of the body.


4. The intuitive eater has come to recognize external motives for eating (environmental, social, emotional) and has learned to effectively manage such situations to avoid emotional overeating and/or deprivation. Emotions are no longer dealt with through consumption of food and environmental and social eating occasions are managed through hunger-based eating with an emphasis on avoiding feelings of deprivation.

...

There's more there, why not check it out?

Now I better go make an appointment to exercise!

Abdominal Fat

I need to pin this up where I can see it all the time.

Getting Rid of Deep Abdominal Fat

The fat that contributes to diabetes, high cholesterol and heart disease accumulates around abdominal organs at a pretty fast rate but can be reduced via regular exercise. A study of overweight sedentary adults published in the October 2005 issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology showed that brisk walking can help you hold the line on the accumulation of deep abdominal fat as long as the total time you spend walking adds up to at least three hours per week. The study also showed that for reduction of deep abdominal fat, three hours of brisk walking worked as well as two hours of more vigorous exercise. Study participants who performed various types of exercise gained no additional abdominal fat, but participants who didn’t exercise at all registered a nine percent gain in abdominal fat over six months, reported researchers at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina. Those in the study who got the most exercise – the equivalent of jogging 20 miles per week – lost both deep abdominal fat and more visible layers of fat.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9672891/

Causing my own problem

My daughter and I are still hanging in with Weight Watchers...and we've been to a gym to work out three times. Hmmm...we need to do better but I guess everything is baby steps? Still, I feel like I need to push myself. I've been saving this bit of inspiration from Beliefnet and it's very timely for me:

Are You Causing Your Own Problem?

A wise person once told me "You're holding on to your excess weight." Can we talk candidly about that?

For many people with weight problems, the truth is we are simply holding onto and continuing habits and psychological hang-ups that keep us fat. There's some part of us that is MAKING OURSELVES FAT.

Get to the root of this, attend to it, and you will no longer have a weight problem.

For me, I discovered that I was avoiding intimacy. Being obese is an excellent, effective way to avoid intimacy and committed relationships! As a teenager, I was terrified of expressing my sexual desires. This is because I had had some traumas in that area as a child. I unconsciously made myself weigh 400 pounds. Through a lot of work, some therapy, a lot of spiritual surrender, a lot of risk taking in letting myself be who I was � I have been healed of this terrible problem. It took awhile, though, and it was a lot of difficult work.

Facing the truth about yourself takes courage and diligence. It starts with the desire to really unlock the mystery behind the symptoms.

I encourage you to rally the courage in you, and face your demons. God is here, with you, with all of us, and will always help.

When I was younger--a teenager--I think I wanted to stay fat because I could avoid intimacy. I remember that as I lost weight and young men expressed interest in me, I felt really scared. I think it's one of Heidi's issues but when I brought the subject up (talking about me in those years), she didn't really respond and so I let it drop for now. I told her about how people's attitudes toward me changed once I lost weight and she seemed to get annoyed about that. Maybe I shouldn't put that idea in her head!

As for what's going on now...it's not fear of intimacy anymore. There's something else going on, a sense of fatigue and a "oh, what's the use?" I think it's because I tried and failed so many times I've set myself up for that again. I have to change that or it'll just be a self fulfilling prophecy.

I joined the exercise club hoping I would feel motivated to go and work out now that I'm paying for it. I'm finding that I'm going to have to keep pushing myself. It would be too easy to come up with reasons not to go...

...it's too far
...it's too cold
...I'm tired
...I've got so much else to do...

I've got to do what the newsletter says and give myself a big kick in the tush!

More About Obestatin

Yesterday, I had every intention of staying on track. Here is what I ate:

no fat yogurt, 2 points
2% milk, 3
hard boiled egg, 2
orange, 1
baby carrots, 0
Weight Watchers frozen lunch, 5
granola bar, 3

Going into dinner, I had 15 points left. I planned to eat a small potato, 1 point, and broccoli/cauliflower--0 points-- and I planned to have 6 oz of left over turkey for 6 points. That would still leave me with plenty of points for another piece of fruit or popcorn if I needed it.

My dh was grilling kielbasa. Normally, that's not a food I crave. My daughter and I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and we came in at about 5:30. I could smell the kielbasa cooking and my mouth started watering. Dinner was ready and suddenly I wasn't going to take the couple of minutes to get the turkey out and nuke it. I sat down and had like 20 points worth of kielbasa! And I wasn't even really thinking about it or savoring it, either! :(

I need this suppressant thingy...yesterday!

Appetite-Suppressing Hormone Discovered
By Ed Edelson, HealthDay Reporter
Source: HealthDay

(HealthDay News) -- There's a new entry in the field of weight-controlling hormones, a finding of potential importance to the millions of Americans trying to lose weight without giving up their zest for eating.

The Stanford University researchers who discovered it have named it obestatin. It acts to suppress appetite, and its commercial possibilities are noted by sponsorship of the research by the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson.

Obestatin joins leptin, melanocortin and ghrelin, hormones identified in the last few years as acting on appetite and weight. So far, work with those molecules has not produced the hoped-for cure for obesity.

The obestatin discovery comes with a couple of twists. One is that it's produced by the same gene that produces ghrelin, which acts to suppress appetite. Another is that major credit for the discovery is given to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

The principles of evolution led to identification of obestatin, said Aaron Hsueh, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford, in whose laboratory the work was done. He also credited the information gathered by the Human Genome Project, which produced a complete human gene map.

Hsueh and his colleges used human genome data to study small-peptide hormones, which are active throughout the body. Specifically, they looked at the receptors for those hormones -- the cellular molecules to which the hormones are attached when they go into action. There are about 300 such receptors, of which 100 had no known hormone partner.

The search for missing hormones was narrowed by focusing on receptors that have been around for hundreds of millions of years and are found in many species. One of those receptors is for ghrelin. Further studies showed that ghrelin actually had another protein tacked on to it -- obestatin.

When the researchers injected obestatin into rats, "to our surprise, we found that treatment with it suppresses food intake," Hsueh said. And so, he added, "it could have potential as an appetite-suppressing drug, by injection. Or it might be possible to deliver by nasal spray. It also allows us to screen for new drugs that might suppress appetite."

The study findings appear in the Nov. 11 issue of the journal Science.

But Matthias Tschop, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati, and co-author of an editorial in the journal on obestatin, is sounding a note of caution.

"The effect of obestatin on body weight seems to be relatively limited," Tschop said. "Also, it might cause some sort of illness or nausea that causes a decrease in food intake."

The effect of obsestatin was discovered in research with rodents, Tschop noted. "The most obvious question is, does obestatin work in obese animals?" he said.

And the business of weight regulation is complicated, Tschop added. "There are many other players involved," he said. "And obestatin may have many other functions. For example, it could regulate physical activity."

But with all those caveats taken into consideration, the discovery of obestatin is "a step in the right direction," Tschop said.

Anti-Ghrelin

This is what I need...if it works! Since finding my daughter's encouraging notes, I've been forcing myself to stay on the path and actually managed to lose 3 pounds! My daughters and I joined a gym (with a pool, a must because of my ankle) on Friday and are looking forward to getting some exercise. The biggest drawback is that it's 20 miles away...but this is something I must do. I just wish I didn't feel half starved most of the day. How much was I really eating?

This has been my typical day since I last posted:

6 oz. non fat yogurt
1 cup 2% milk for my coffee during the day
10 baby carrots
1 orange
1 apple
1 Weight Watcher or Healthy Choice lunch, usually 250 calories or about 5 points
6 oz of protein for dinner
vegetables
no-fat popcorn, 1 bag

All that adds up to my allowable 31 points per day. I get 35 points extra per week and believe me, I do use them up.

I drink water to the point it makes me sick instead of filling me up.

How do they do it on Survivor?

Encouragement

My 17 year old daughter left me messages of encouragement on each page of my food diary, how thoughtful and sweet! And it strengthens my resolve not to give up because she is along for the ride now too.

My darling husband (dh) TB found an online article about binging from the APA. At first I felt very discouraged, thinking how hard a battle I've been fighting only to suddenly binge thoughtlessly and without control. The article does help me understand why binging happens and it's not totally hopeless--as long as I keep away from the junk and don't "diet" (deprive myself).

Here is what I have to figure out: how to combat hunger pangs after I've had normal sized portions of stuff. Example: the night before last, I had eaten up to my points except for having an apple. I had that as my snack.

It wasn't long, though, before I suddenly felt ravenous. I craved my old enemy, cheese, and it so happened (unfortunately) I had some in the house. Well, I'll just have an ounce, I said to myself. I sat back down to watch TV after having the cheese and I was just filled with this overwhelming desire to get "just one more ounce". Well, I ate about half the block (4 oz) of cheese before I stopped myself.

So how do I deal with that?

Stumbling Badly

I seem to be having a lot of trouble getting my mind around this Weight Watchers program. I have to admit the last time I joined, with Michele and Linda way back when, I had the same problem -- an attitude about the program. Is it because I've tried Weight Watchers so many times? I tried to tell myself to follow the program and get to maintenance (which I've never done before) but for the last 3 or 4 weeks, all I've done is gain weight. So now I'm checking into other programs. One is Curves and the other is Global Fit. Curves would be great, it's very convenient but I'm not sure how my ankle would hold up. Global Fit gyms have pools--but they're not women only. Have to visit each place and ask questions!

Kick in the Tush Club

I subscribe to lots of inspirational and informational newsletters about weight loss. One of my favorites is Our Lady of Weight Loss and I tried looking around for a subscription address but my eyes failed me. Check out the link, though, and maybe you'll have better luck!

I enjoyed this message:

The color Orange represents the changing of the seasons. It is a color on the edge - on the threshold – of change. Orange transports us from the hot dog days (not hotdog days) of summer to the fragrant first oranges and mandarins of the fall. Orange is the color of October sunsets, and it evokes images of autumn leaves, pumpkins, and together with the color Black, Halloween.
Orange is the color of October.
Orange - a mixture of red and yellow - is a brilliant and dazzling color. It symbolizes energy, warmth, and the sun. Orange commands attention as does red, but with the presence of affable yellow, orange gives way to a slightly less intense experience.
Orange is a stimulant. It stimulates emotions, thoughts, conversation and even appetite. With Halloween upon us and its pumpkins piled high at every green market, perched on every doorstep, along with those mountains of haunting little orange devils called candy corn found at every turn of the supermarket, it’s no wonder we’re in danger of caving-in to the call of the candy-filled Jack-O-Lantern.
Stay strong my friends. Limit your treats, lest Halloween haunt you for months to come.
Fun Orange Facts:

In Ireland, the color orange is associated with the protestant religion.

Black boxes on airplanes are painted orange so they are more visible to the human eye. (Why not call them orange boxes?)

If you dream in orange, you can expect an unexpected change in your life! (Expect the Unexpected, I always say.)

Orange has the optical illusion of making objects look like they are in the foreground, whether they are or not.

Orange Blossoms are a symbol of love.

There was a little table that explains the colors:


RED - The color of power, vitality, motivation, strength
ORANGE - The color of confidence, energy, joy, warmth
YELLOW - The color of strength, intelligence, joy,
happiness, optimism
GREEN - The color of balance, harmony, caring,
tenacious self-reliance, and healing
BLUE - The color of calmness, concentration,
healing, relaxation, loyalty, and trust
INDIGO - The color of soothing, power, connection
with knowledge, idealism, introversion.....and martyrdom?
VIOLET - The color of creativity, intuition, spirituality,
self-awareness

Check out the link for the entire newsletter as well as links to other articles, pictures and information!

Portion Size Shock

For week 2, Heidi and I got booklets called "Portion Smart" (from Weight Watchers. Our leader stresses that Weight Watchers doesn't try to tell us what we can or cannot eat. All they ask of us is to stay within our point limits for the day or week.

It seemed so easy years ago.

I think it's because portion sizes have become so much bigger. I looked through the booklet to get an idea of portion sizes. It's a bit of a shock!

A serving size of cereal is like a tennis ball. Only my tiniest Tupperware bowl holds that amount. All of my cereal bowls hold at least 2 cups or more.

A side dish--like mashed potatoes or baked beans--should be about the size of my computer mouse. Whaaat! You mean that stuff isn't supposed to fill the huge dinner plate?

A portion of fish would be the size of a cassette tape. Good. I don't like fish anyway. However, all the meat I do like -- steak, pork & chicken -- also should be about the size of a cassette tape.

A mouse and a cassette tape...this is supposed to make me feel full? Thank God for vegetables!

Peripheral Neuropathy

About a month ago, (where have I been? it's been a busy month!) I wrote about bariatric surgery. It's an option I'd been considering until I started doing some real research and have become more and more convinced it's not for me. I got a comment from a reader who suggested I read up on peripheral neuropathy (PN). I'd heard of it before and kind of understood what it was but didn't get the connection between it and bariatric surgery. Then I began reading.

I knew that neuro had to do with nerves and so figured it must relate to touch, the ability to move, and so on.

Because every peripheral nerve has a highly specialized function in a specific part of the body, a wide array of symptoms can occur when nerves are damaged. Some people may experience temporary numbness, tingling, and pricking sensations (paresthesia), sensitivity to touch, or muscle weakness. Others may suffer more extreme symptoms, including burning pain (especially at night), muscle wasting, paralysis, or organ or gland dysfunction. People may become unable to digest food easily, maintain safe levels of blood pressure, sweat normally, or experience normal sexual function. In the most extreme cases, breathing may become difficult or organ failure may occur.

Wow, that's bad stuff!

The commenter suggested I look into the research published in the AMA. I fought this article. They compared groups of really heavy people who'd had abdominal surgery--bypass compared with gall bladder surgeries. They found that patients having gastric bypass were more likely to develop this PN.

"People who had had bariatric surgery were significantly more likely to have PN than the people in the control group," Dr. Dyck said. "The most common PNs were carpal tunnel syndrome and sensory neuropathy, but a small number had a more severe form of PN which can lead to extreme pain and weakness, sometimes confining people to a wheelchair."

"The risk factors that we found correlated with PN included very rapid weight loss, not taking vitamins and prolonged nausea and vomiting. Factors including age, gender, pre-surgery BMI and general health had no association," Dr. Dyck said.

The doctor seemed to imply that the patients got PN because they didn't go for nutritional counseling after surgery. I don't know if that's so or not. I did get that you can get PN because your body's not absorbing the vitamins and minerals it needs. I think that should be emphasized strongly!

I read some more on bariatric surgery and will write more later. So far, Weight Watchers is going well for me and my daughter. We'll stick with that!

Weight of the victims in the boat accident tragedy

On a calm, sunny day a charter boat carrying 48 senior citizens on a tour of Lake George, NY was swamped and sunk. No one could figure out what happened. Was it the wake of another boat? Was it because most of the passengers were sitting on one side? It couldn't be because there was just one crew member (the captain) instead of the required two!

Maybe...it was the fact that we weigh more than we did when the regulations were set for how many people could get on a charter boat.

Just days before the boat overturned, the Coast Guard began rethinking its per-passenger weight limits to take into account Americans' expanding waistlines. The current standard, set 25 years ago, assumes a 140-pound average for each man, woman and child.

At the time it flipped over Sunday, the 38-foot Ethan Allen was just under its capacity of 50 people — a figure that was arrived at by using a New York standard that assumes a 150-pound average, authorities said.
...
The Coast Guard awarded a contract a few weeks ago to a research firm to determine how increasing the average weight per passenger would affect vessels around the country, spokeswoman Angela McArdle said.

McArdle said the Coast Guard knew the weight requirement has been outdated for some time, but it did not move on the issue until the NTSB warned about the problem after five people were killed when a water taxi sank in Baltimore.

Asked why the Coast Guard did not move more quickly, McArdle said: "It has such wide-ranging implications. You need to address the economic impact on the industry, looking at the scope. It's not something where we can just say, `Now passenger ferries must carry 20 fewer people."'

Read the whole article here.

Today, my daughter and I are joining Weight Watchers--first time for her, fourth for me...this time, though, I'm going until I get to maintenance.

Rut Roh

Study: Most Will Be Fat Over the Long Haul By ALEX DOMINGUEZ, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 4 minutes ago



Just when we thought we couldn't get any fatter, a new study that followed Americans for three decades suggests that over the long haul, 9 out of 10 men and 7 out of 10 women will become overweight.

Even if you are one of the lucky few who made it to middle age without getting fat, don't congratulate yourself — keep watching that waistline.

Half of the men and women in the study who had made it well into adulthood without a weight problem ultimately became overweight. A third of those women and a quarter of the men became obese.

"You cannot become complacent, because you are at risk of becoming overweight," said Ramachandran Vasan, an associate professor of medicine at Boston University and the study's lead author.

He and other researchers studied data gathered from 4,000 white adults over 30 years. Participants were between the ages of 30 and 59 at the start, and were examined every four years. By the end of the study, more than 1 in 3 had become obese.

The study defined obesity as a body mass index, which is a commonly used height and weight comparison, of more than 30.

The findings, published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, show obesity may be a greater problem than indicated by studies that look at a cross-section of the population at one point in time. Those so-called "snapshots" of obesity have found about 6 in 10 are overweight and about 1 in 3 are obese, Vasan said.

The findings also re-emphasize that people must continually watch their weight, Vasan said.

The research subjects were the children of participants in the long-running and often-cited Framingham Heart Study, which has been following the health of generations of Massachusetts residents.

Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which supported the study, said the findings show "we could have an even more serious degree of overweight and obesity over the next few decades."

Susan Bartlett, an assistant professor of medicine and an obesity researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said the study was one of the first to look at the risk of becoming overweight.

"The results are pretty sobering, really," said Bartlett, who was not involved in the research.

While the health risks of being obese are much more severe than being overweight, those who are overweight are much more likely to go on to become obese, Bartlett said.

The study shows Americans live in an "environment in which it's hard not to become overweight or obese. Unless people actively work against that, that's what's most likely to happen to them."

Obesity raises the risk of heart disease, some cancers, diabetes and arthritis, and being overweight raises blood pressure and cholesterol, which in turn can raise the risk of heart disease.

The number of deaths linked to obesity has been heavily debated. Earlier this year the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said obesity caused only about 25,814 deaths annually in the United States — far fewer than the 365,000 deaths the agency had earlier reported. Other scientists have disagreed with the revised conclusion, while organizations representing the food and restaurant industry think weight-related ills have been overstated.

As for the Framingham study, Mark Vander Weg, a Mayo Clinic psychologist who researches obesity but was not involved in the study, said it is one of a few to track a group of individuals over an extended period.

"What's particularly concerning is that these results actually may underestimate the risk of becoming overweight or obese among the general population" because minorities, who are at increased risk for obesity, were not included in the study, Vander Weg said.

Recent trends also suggest that people currently coming into middle age may be even more likely to become overweight or obese than those who were studied, Vander Weg said.

While more studies that include more diverse populations are needed, he said, the results "add to a growing body of evidence that makes it increasingly apparent that more effective prevention and treatment strategies are urgently needed."

Spammed

What a PITA. My blog's been spammed with a dozen or more comment messages so I've turned on word verification. I hope that keeps the spammers away. :P

More on Bariatric Surgery

From this online article:

Weight-Loss Surgery: Is It Right for You?
Posted by Cheryl Koch, R.D.
on Tue, Sep 13, 2005, 1:41 pm PDT Post a Comment
Do you feel like you have tried every diet and gimmick to lose weight and nothing has worked? Have friends, co-workers, and relatives reported success after weight-loss surgery? There may be some merit to their reports. The scientific literature shows that surgery can help severely obese people meet their long-term weight goals and improve their overall health.

You may have heard the term bariatric surgery, which refers to all types of weight-loss surgeries. Gastric bypass surgery, a procedure in which the stomach is made smaller to limit food intake and limit the absorption of some nutrients, is the most common type of weight loss surgery performed today. Studies have shown the following improved health outcomes after gastric bypass surgery:

Diabetes has completely resolved in 77 percent of patients and resolved or improved in 86 percent of patients who had the surgery.
High blood pressure was resolved in 62 percent of patients and resolved or improved in 79 percent of patients.
Abnormalities in lipids were improved in 70 percent or more of patients.
Obstructive sleep apnea was resolved in 86 percent of patients.

The improved health was one of the things that attracted me to checking into bariatric surgery. That and the first question asked--my answer was a resounding yes! As for the second, the answer was a worrisome 'no'. One good friend died after the surgery. I have heard a great many initial success stories but in the long run, it sounded like people were gaining a lot of the weight back!

I know I meet the requirements for having the surgery and I could call and make an appointment to start the process. I also know that just because I call and make an appointment doesn't mean I'd actually have the surgery. My doctor told me a good surgeon will make sure I go through a program and counseling to make sure I would be psychologically able to handle making the lifestyle changes.

The surgery changes the way your body absorbs vitamins and minerals, so you will need to take daily vitamin supplements. Also, the quantity of food you consume will be drastically less because the size of your stomach -- originally the size of a football -- will be reduced to the size of an egg.

I could deal with taking vitamins on a daily basis. I do that now. As for the quantity I eat, that's one of my issues. I have to relearn portion control.

You most likely will not be able to tolerate high-fat foods and carbonated drinks after surgery; if so, these foods may need to be eliminated from your diet.

No more diet soda? And as for the fat, I'm still learning to get the amount of fat I take in under control.

Many patients report diet-related problems such as lactose intolerance, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, and other symptoms, called "dumping," when food travels too fast down the small intestine.

I don't like the sound of any of that.

All patients considering bariatric surgery want to know how much weight they will lose. Weight loss varies from patient to patient, but the average loss is between 60 percent to 70 percent of excess weight.

Ah so it doesn't all come off? Still, losing 60-70% would get me out of that awful sounding "morbidly" obese range. I used the 60% figure and found that it's definitely a number I could live with until I can get the rest of it off.

Just like more traditional methods of weight control, many patients report regaining some of the weight lost. But unlike some diets in which patients regain all the weight they'd lost -- and sometimes more -- patients who have had bariatric surgery usually regain 5 percent to 10 percent of total weight lost and, overall, maintain a greater weight loss than those who lose weight through traditional dieting.

Yes...I think that's because it's really hard to give up on favorite foods forever. It can be done. I quit a 2-pack-a-day smoking habit and haven't had a single cigarette in almost 20 years. But it was too difficult for my first husband to give up cigarettes forever--and he had a heart condition! He would sneak a cigarette or two a day and I don't know how much that contributed to his premature death. I'm sure it didn't help.

My TB has diabetes and it's really hard for him to stay 100% on his healthy eating plan. He stays away from almost all of the bad stuff but every once in a while he'll have an ice cream or pretzels.

As for whether bariatric surgery is for me: not at this time. I think I have a long way to go in changing my eating behaviors before I can consider messing with my body to such a great extent that I'd have to deal with nausea, diarrhea, and "dumping".

Interesting study, but is it legit?

Once again, which helps you lose more weight when you exercise -- eating more protein or eating more carbs? Back and forth we go. There was a low carb craze just a couple of years ago that boosted diets like Atkins and South Beach. It emphasized eating lots of protein and very little carbohydrates. Well, those diets aren't "in" anymore because while people following those diets lost a lot of weight at first they plateaued and, overall, lost about as much weight as those on Weight Watchers.

It's not about diet. It's about life style change.

Still, I'm like anyone else struggling with getting my weight under control. Is there any truth to the rumor that eating more protein and exercising is more beneficial than eating less protein? Here's a study, unfortunately conducted by the beef and dairy industry. Of course their study would find that we need to eat more meat, drink more milk and consume more cheese.

Protein Diet, Exercise Aids Weight Loss

By JIM PAUL
The Associated Press

URBANA, Ill. - A high-protein diet can make regular exercise more effective for women trying to lose weight - helping to build muscle while trimming body fat, a small study suggests.

In a four-month period, the protein-rich diet along with exercise significantly reduced abdominal fat and triglycerides, risk factors for heart disease, according to findings published in the August issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

"People thinking about doing exercise want a return on that investment," said Donald K. Layman, a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois' Urbana-Champaign campus, who led the study. "Our way of looking at it is the protein-rich diet basically boosts the benefit of doing exercise."

The study was largely funded by beef and dairy interests. A nutritionist not involved with the study said that what the research really showed is that exercise is important for losing fat and preserving muscle.

"That's exactly what we want to have happen in a weight reduction diet," said Roberta Anding, a clinical dietitian at the Baylor University College of Medicine who works with the Houston Texans football team.

She cautioned that diets should not be protein-dominant and noted that the average American eats "more protein than we need to begin with."

Many high-protein diets, such as the Atkins plan, have fallen from favor with consumers in recent months. Layman's diet for the study was lower in fat and called for more fruits and vegetables than the Atkins diet.

The research was funded by the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Kraft Foods and the Beef Board.


Forty-eight women took part in the study, eating about 1,700 calories per day. Half ate a diet rich in meat and dairy while half ate a diet that contained more complex carbohydrates, such as rice or pasta.

Each group was then split between women who were asked to walk 30 minutes a day, five days a week, and women who were required to walk at least that much and participate in two 30-minute weightlifting sessions per week.

The low-exercise group was voluntary and averaged less than 100 minutes per week. The other group was supervised and averaged more than 200 minutes of exercise per week, Layman said.

All the women who exercised at least 200 minutes per week lost about the same amount of weight whether they ate a high-protein or a high-carb diet. But almost all the weight lost by those who ate the protein diet was fat, while almost one-third of the weight lost by those on the high-carb diet was muscle.

While the research involved only women, there is no reason to believe that men would not have the same results, Layman said.

Shirley Washington swears by Layman's diet. Even though she is still overweight at 267 pounds, she has lost 90 pounds while following it.

"It's been really easy," said Washington, a 55-year-old Chicago grandmother. "I tell anyone if you can't make it on this eating plan, you can't make it."

---

Is this true? I really would rather lose fat than muscle!

Update

I've been feeling better as each day goes by. I'm not able to exercise yet but I began driving a little the other day and I figure I'll be able to go to a WW meeting next week. Once I'm sure I won't fall I'll begin to exercise again.

I lost some more weight after having the surgery and have been trying to watch what I eat. My daughter's 17th birthday was on Monday and it was too hard not to have a piece of cake. Next time, though, we'll get a much smaller cake. It didn't need to be big enough to last 2 days!

I was just reading an article about how more obese seniors are opting to get gastric bypass surgery to improve the quality of their lives. It seems like such a good thing, doesn't it? Still, I've read more and more about people who've had the surgery who are slowly gaining the weight back...and it seems that they don't lose everything they need to in the first place.

Before I go tinkering with my insides, I have to thoroughly buy into a permanent lifestyle change. It can't be, oh, well, I can eat this or that fattening thing every now and then. The reason why it can't is because "every now and then" inevitably becomes every day. Eating some of these foods is like drinking too much alcohol. I cannot have just a little bit. That's why I want to go through Weight Watchers first, all the way through maintenance. I think I would have a better chance of sticking to a healthier lifestyle permanently.

The article about seniors and gastric bypass is here.

9/11/2005 

Food Logs

I've lost weight since I first started making goals and keep track every week and so I made a new ticker to keep myself motivated.




Logging really helps, especially using the Fit Day website. I can look back at my daily intake and figure out which foods I need to eliminate or cut back on. Before my surgery, I'd noted that I was eating way too much fat in my food although I thought I was mostly eating fresh fruits and vegetables. It's true, I was, but the fat I did take in was the wrong kind and too high.

For example, as a snack I'd have some cheddar cheese and a cup of grapes. An ounce of cheese looks small and harmless but it's got a high fat content! I love Ken's raspberry walnut vinaigrette ... but it's got a high fat content! Antipasto seemed healthy--all those veggies and cheese with little to no carbs, right? Once again, the fat in the cheese and olives and other goodies is very high.

I made changes in what I ate before going into the hospital. One day, the only cheese I had at all was 1 slice of provolone on a sandwich. It had 8 grams of fat in it. I had a cup of cinnamon toast crunch as a snack and that had 9 grams. Anything else was 4 grams or less. I ate poultry, fresh fruit and fresh raw vegetables at meals and used dijon mustard on my bread instead of mayo. That day, my fat consumption was just under 20%.

Thanks to keep the log and looking at the charts, it's easier for me to see which choices I need to make. If I want to have cheddar cheese as a treat then I need to make sure I'm not getting fat from too many other sources. Cheese has to become one of those "once in a while" treats.

I don't always remember to log and need to make it a bigger priority. It's such a useful tool that I need to totally internalize it -- like setting an alarm to get up and go to work or something. It has to be done. I got this the other day in my email, from beliefnet:

What is it about logging that makes you stop after only a few days? Is it too much work? Are you suffering a problem with the discipline? Is it making you painfully aware of some things you'd rather not face?

OR, please allow me to really get deep. Is it that you don't want to lose weight or get healthy at all? Let's be real with each other. If you do not change some habits, like starting to eat less or healthier, or use your body daily, you will not lose weight.

I used to think, oh, I know what to do, what to eat and what to avoid. I don't need to keep a log. Now I realize I shouldn't be so arrogant & self confident. Obviously, I didn't know everything I should avoid. It's not too much work. I can discipline myself to do this regularly and I wil.l.

Women & Exercise

One week ago at this time, I was in the operating room. I am so happy with the results of breast reduction surgery. I'm looking and feeling more better every day. Another thing I'm looking forward to is walking again--more strenuously. My posture is so much better. I can really feel the difference! When I'm able to walk again regularly, I'm sure I'll see my fluffy tummy flatten out.

This was my "tip of the day" yesterday from Heart Health newsletters:

Women: Reasons to Get Active!

Physical inactivity raises your risk of heart disease — more than you might think. It boosts your chances of developing heart-related problems even if you have no other risk factors. It also increases the likelihood that you will develop other heart disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and weight gain.
Yet most women aren't getting enough physical activity. According to the Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, 60 percent of women in the United States don't get the recommended amount of physical activity. More than 25 percent of women are not active at all during their free time. Physical inactivity is especially common among African American and Hispanic women. Besides the elevated risk of heart disease, lack of physical activity leads to more doctor visits, hospitalizations, and use of medicines for a variety of illnesses.

For women, physical inactivity also increases the risk of osteoporosis, which in turn may increase the risk of broken bones. This is worrisome, since women tend to become less physically active as they age. Fortunately, research shows that 30 minutes of moderate activity on most, and preferably all, days helps to protect heart health. This level of activity can reduce your risk of heart disease as well as lower your chances of having a stroke, colon cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other medical problems. Examples of moderate activity are taking a brisk walk, raking leaves, housecleaning, or gardening. If you prefer, you can divide your 30-minute activity into shorter periods of at least 10 minutes each.

Walking is my favorite exercise and I'm sure I'll work it in where ever I can when I'm stronger...I mean, I'll do the 30 minutes fast walking but also fit in more periods of strolling and meandering just because I like it!

No To Ice Cream

I am totally amazed with myself. I'd gotten my dh to go out and buy me a pint of Ben & Jerry's peanut butter cup ice cream and not only did I not devour it all, I felt totally dissatisfied with it. I asked hubby to go out only because I am bored with being unable to do anything. I knew it was stupid the minute the words were out of my mouth. I didn't tell him to forget it, though, because I thought, well, maybe it will be distracting, it's just this once, and everyone else seems to want a snack.

As I began to eat the ice cream though it felt too thick and too sweet in my mouth. I was surprised because I've always been weak for ice cream, especially when it has peanut butter in it. I guess after a year of no ice cream, my taste buds have changed. Gee, what a waste of money I thought. I really should try to finish it.

Then I wondered: why? My body was obviously communicating with me. Why force this stuff down my throat when I know it's emotionally and physically unhealthy for me? Why not just stop now and put it away? So I did...I'd eaten less than half a dozen bites, maybe not even one serving.

After I put it away, I noticed my TB put his ice cream back too.

This is the right direction!

Yes, I'm still fluffy but I'm also flat! 

Reading the Charts

As my surgery date approaches and I realize I have not lost a single pound, I think to myself: what could I have done differently?

One thing: I could have logged more faithfully.

Second thing: I could have printed out the logs I did have and try to analyze them to see what I've been doing wrong. That's the thing...it's not just about writing it down. It's also about being honest about what you ate and then trying to figure out where the problem is. If charts and numbers are boring, this is the point to sail on to another blog.

Okay, so I went back and looked at one of my worst weeks. This is how it averaged out:

Where Did My Calories Come From in August??
Total Calories = 1780
	Grams	Percent	% Total
Fat	84	755	43
Carbs	177	641	37
Fiber	16	0	0

The first thing I saw, to my dismay, was that I wasn't getting nearly enough fiber as I thought I should have been! It doesn't even show up as a percentage. What about all the wonderful fruits and vegetables I was eating? Unless...I was taking in too much fat, that was very clear. Where was it all coming from?

I took my food diary and looked at it. I wish there was a way to import the entries over here but I can't do that anymore unless I buy a kit and I don't want to do that. I got my daughter's help to create a table and it's taken me the last couple of hours to get one day's menu down:

What I Ate Today
Food Name	Servings/Size	Cals	Fat	Carb	Prot
Vegetable Salad (no meat)	3 cups	39	1	8	2
Ken's vinaigrette	1/3 cup	192	14	17	0
Cabot's cheddar cheese	4 oz.	440	36	0	24
2% milk	3/4 cup.	91	4	9	6
chicken breast	5 oz.	277	11	0	42
Rice	1/2 c.	103	0	22	2
mixed vegetables	1 cup.	107	0	24	5
Glucosamine	3 pills.	18	0	6	0
Cinnamon Toast Crunch	2 c.	347	9	64	3
Totals		1623	76	150	84

Well, right away I can see one major problem. Cheese has got to go, especially cheddar cheese. That hurts because I love it so much! Still, the cost is too high!

I'll be back later with another day's breakdowns. I have to rest my fingers!

One thing I'm wondering: where did all that extra space around my tables come from?????

Insurance Coverage

I was curious to see what kind of assistance the family can get with weight loss counseling, nutrition, and fitness.

There are 2 nutritionists with the plan -- well, what I mean is that they're willing to give a discount to members with our insurance. The trouble is they are both like a 2 hour drive away.

The customer service rep (CSR) advised me the only other thing I could do was go to an organization affiliated with Global Fit and we would be able to receive discounts in gym memberships and in programs like Weight Watchers. Well, okay, that's better...at least these places are more convenient to get to.

The CSR asked, "Are you considering like a lapband or gastric bypass?"

Not really. I have concluded the surgery's not going to help me unless I make permanent life style changes and get my priorities reordered which is what I told her.

She seemed confused.

Surgery. Is that the answer du jour nowadays so that CSRs don't get another concept?

I want to get to the maintenance level on Weight Watchers. WW has worked well for me before but I never got to maintenance. If I can get the weight off and keep it off by rewiring my brain I would have more success than by trying to rewire my body!

Fries & Cancer

The article that caught my eye said California AG Wants Warning Label on Fries. Ah, so are they going to address the problem of frying and how it can clog the arteries? I wondered.

But no. This is about the possibility that you might be ingesting some carcinogen when you eat french fries and potato chips. Who's going to listen to that? These days, you can get cancer from eating or drinking just about anything -- including fresh foods (sprayed with chemicals).

I read a little further, past all the scoffing by the companies that make french fries and potato chips. The chemical in question, Acrylamide, was originally thought to come from processed packaging. It's also used, ewwwww, to treat sewage. It turns out, though, that this toxin occurs in low levels when you fry certain starchy foods...like french fries and potato chips.

Ah well. It's not like these two things are on my menu list anymore anyway.

I just wonder if a warning on the label would really be a deterrent? After all, how many smokers even look at the AG's warning label on a pack of cigarettes?

Will Surgery Help?

I have been doing a lot of thinking about my upcoming breast reduction surgery and the possibility of having a lap band afterwards. I see the benefit of the reduction although I worry I won't wake up from the anesthesia.

The lap band is another story. I've been reading some articles about how bariatric surgery won't solve all my problems. Yes, I would lose some of my weight, enough so that my blood pressure and other risk factors would go down. I've often wondered, though, what about the emotional baggage I'm carrying around in the first place?

I am an emotional eater. I've been working hard on it and I think I've come a long way. Last year at this time, I was sending TB out on nightly trips to Wawa for a pint of ice cream or a bag of candy. I put the brakes on that but I've substituted. Instead of ice cream, I have a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch or some cheddar cheese and grapes. I'm eating so much better I was sure the pounds would start melting away, especially when I began exercising again.

Well...they haven't. I weigh about the same now as I did last year when I was eating all that ice cream. I tell myself, yeah, but if you werestill eating Ben & Jerry's you'd probably have gained at least 25 lbs. I bet that's true but it's still discouraging.

So...if I had this lap band, everything would miraculously change, right? Obviously I would be very limited in how much I could eat. Obviously I'd start losing a lot of weight, right? I read an article a couple of days ago about a woman in Britain who had a gastric bypass and lost a lot of weight. Soon after, though, she was back to eating the same unhealthy stuff she'd eaten before the surgery. Sure, she was suffering the consequences but she just couldn't seem to live without the junk. She isn't an isolated case I bet.

You have to be in your right mind for it to work. I mean, I could have this surgery but if I don't have a healthy substitute for my comfort food then it won't help me that much will it?

I read an article called Weight Loss Surgery...the End or the Start? and there were several points made that addressed the worries I have.

Bariatric surgery - including several kinds of operations that reduce the size of the stomach and may also change the way food is digested - can be a great weight-loss tool, but patients still need to deal with the behavior and emotions that made them heavy in the first place.

"The psychological thing is that they have to come to grips with the fact that they've chosen a complete change in lifestyle," said Gus Slotman, who does gastric-bypass surgery at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, in Camden. "I tell them they're like recovering alcoholics. They're always going to have that fat person in their head." ...

While the dramatic weight losses and substantial risks associated with the surgery get much of the attention, it's also important to think about the psyche and emotions before and after shrinking the stomach, say surgeons and psychologists. Yes, they note, the operation creates a tiny stomach that makes patients feel painfully full after eating more than a couple ounces of food, and yes, it seems to depress their appetites.

But most of us know that we don't eat just because we're hungry or stop eating when we're full, and that radically changing the way our bodies look and feel is bound to have emotional repercussions. ...

Mann and other surgeons want patients to realize that losing weight won't solve all their problems. Many are depressed - often at least partly because of their weight and the social isolation it can cause - but sometimes their problems go deeper.

"There is a sub-segment of this population where their life is so messed up and dysfunctional that you can help them lose 100 pounds and you're really not helping them," Mann said. "This is not going to make somebody's life great if they're otherwise miserable. It will make their life better if weight is the central issue."

Surgeons and others who work with the patients say that many patients whose weight levels off early don't follow doctors' orders. Unfortunately, to succeed in the long run, patients have to do what they were unable to do before surgery: eat small amounts of food - up to about 1,200 calories a day - and exercise. That's a huge behavioral change for people for whom food has been comfort, celebration and fun, and who often have little interest in exercise. ...

After the weight starts dropping off, patients often feel ecstatic. Their other medical problems generally improve quickly. They have more energy and endurance.

But, therapists and patients said, they need to understand that losing weight can upset the balance of all their relationships. Stories are common of couples who got divorced after one partner had surgery. Patients often become more assertive, and not everyone likes that.

A patient told Cathy Reto, a psychologist who works with a bariatric-surgery program in San Diego, a story that Reto thought was especially insightful in explaining how people and relationships change after the surgery.

"I liked you better when you were fat," one of the patient's acquaintances told her.

"I probably liked you better when I was fat," the patient replied.

This isn't to say I'm turned off the surgery now. However, I think I do need to figure out what's going on in my head for it to be a successful procedure. Lots of "food" for my thoughts...

The Rates Just Keep Going Up & Up

Report: Obesity Rates Up in Most States

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Like a lot of people, the nation's weight problem is settling below its waistline. The states with the highest percentages of obese adults are mostly in the South: Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana and Tennessee.

In the entire nation, only Oregon isn't getting fatter.

Some 22.7 percent of American adults were obese in the 2002-04 period, up slightly from 22 percent for 2001-03, says the advocacy group Trust for America's Health, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Alabama had the biggest increase. There, the obesity rate increased 1.5 percentage points to 27.7 percent.

Eight states came in under 20 percent: Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Montana, Utah and New Hampshire. But their figures were all rising. Oregon held steady at 21 percent.

Hawaii was not included in the group's report Tuesday.

While certain regions of the country fared worse than others, particularly the Southeast, the organization said that no state met the federal government's goal of a 15 percent obesity rate for adults by 2010.

An adult with a body mass index of 30 or more is considered obese. The equation used to figure body mass index is body weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. The measurement is not a good indicator of obesity for muscular people who exercise a lot.

"Bulging waistlines are growing and it's going to cost taxpayers more dollars regardless of where you live," said Shelley Hearne, the organization's executive director.

Why the geographic patterns? Experts don't have any one clear answer. Some suggest that urban sprawl plays a role. Others say it's easier to find a burger and fries than apples and asparagus in poor communities.

If you're on a limited or tight budget, you have to try and make your money stretch. No, I would not go for burger and fries...but I might opt for beans and macaroni, cheap foods that feed more mouths. The good, fresh stuff is expensive. I buy it because I have the money but I well remember the days I didn't!

Dr. Delia West, a professor of public health in Arkansas, said demographics play a part. The South has a larger percentage of minorities, who have shown an increased risk for obesity. She said Southerners also tend to lead a more sedentary lifestyle than their counterparts in states such as Colorado or Oregon. People will find fewer jogging trails in Little Rock than in Denver, she said.

Also, the Southern diet probably plays a role, said West, a professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

"We know the difference between purple hulled peas and speckled butter beans," she said. "But we make them with bacon fat or salt pork, so even though we're getting the micronutrients, it often comes laden with these extra calories."

Hearne said the United States is stuck in a "debate limbo" about how to confront obesity. She urged government action on several fronts, such as ensuring that land use plans promote physical activity, that school lunch programs serve more healthful meals, and that Medicaid recipients get access to subsidized fitness programs, such as aerobics classes at the local YMCA.

It'd really be helpful if the school day included recess! Anyone else notice that recess periods are getting shorter and shorter? At high school, there is no recess. I remember in Maryland a kid didn't even have to take PE after 9th grade!

I like the idea of subsidized fitness programs...I think it would definitely cut down on the amount of money the government has to spend on obesity related complications, especially among poor people.

Radley Balko, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said he was wary of the call for more government action on obesity. The institute is a think tank that prefers free-market approaches to problems.

"I think obesity is a very personal issue. What you eat and how often you exercise, if that comes within the government's purview, it's difficult to think of what's left that isn't," Balko said.

Health policy analysts maintain that obesity increases the burden on taxpayers because it requires the Medicare and Medicaid programs to cover the treatment of diseases caused by obesity. The report issued Tuesday said taxpayers spent $39 billion in 2003 for the treatment of conditions attributable to obesity.

Balko said it's not clear the government really knows how to persuade people to make better decisions. He said open-ended entitlement programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, don't provide much of a financial incentive for people to watch their weight. The government just picks up the cost of treating diseases for those patients, regardless of the amounts, he said.

He prefers that the government give Medicaid and Medicare recipients an incentive to open medical savings accounts, which would allow them to save money when they do not access the health care system.

"If they knew they only had so much to spend, or what they did not spend could be saved, then maybe you could instill a certain sense of responsibility and ownership," Balko said.

Tiny Dorm Rooms

Moving in day for my son in upstate NY 

Well...if ever there was an incentive for my kid to lose weight, it's his dorm room! See the above picture? You can see just about the whole room -- and 3 guys are supposed to live in that teeny little room! It's located in the basement ... there's no elevator and steep stairs down. Billy should get plenty of exercise going up and down those stairs, particularly if there are no elevators in the whole building. He brought his bike, too, and riding around campus will provide lots of exercise for him.

As for me...I'm still working on it and sticking to my food plan. As you can see by the picture, though, I don't seem to be losing anything. :(

It Figures

With all the concern about the increasing childhood obesity and the health risks involved for overweight adults and kids, you'd think that after creating this new food pyramid the government might invest some of their money toward subsidizing the healthier foods? After all, they already subsidize farmers for growing grains. Many of them sell their grain to other farmers as animal feed. We get the milk, eggs and meat we need as a result of that but we also get cheap stuff used in processed foods.

Subsidies encourage an abundant supply of corn, wheat, rice and soybeans. Much of the corn and soybeans is fed to livestock. Some also is turned into nutrition-poor ingredients in processed food for people. For example, toaster pastries contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil that gives them a flaky texture, and they contain high-fructose corn syrup to sweeten their fruit filling. That translates to lots of calories, lots of artery-clogging fat and little or no fiber.

That's not what we need and yet there are no subsidies given to farmers growing produce.

Know what that means? Junk food is cheaper; the healthy food is expensive. Using the above example of the toaster pastries, it's cheaper to feed your family buying a package of those things than it would be to get the whole grain bread and fresh fruit.

What if you are on a fixed income? How can you go buy a cartful of fresh fruit and vegetables that will take a big portion of your check and not last as long as the cart full of processed food?

And now again: the Department of Agriculture subsidizes the lunch programs in our schools. Which types of foods do you suppose they are going to provide, even though they recommend more fruits and vegetables?

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has begun a series of "listening sessions" across the country to gather input for the next farm bill, which dictates how subsidies are distributed. But the department doesn't write the farm bill. Congress does.

I see what I need to do. There are big lobbies that work to keep things the way they are. Maybe I can't change a thing but at least I can speak up and use my vote.

Read the full article here.

A Scare

We had a pretty good scare this weekend. My hubby TB, who is diabetic, hurt his toe somehow and on Friday evening he showed it to me. It was swollen, bright red and blue and the nail was coming off. We went straight to the emergency room. I knew that it was infected and felt that they'd send him home with a strong antibiotic. Imagine my shock when the doctor said he had to be admitted!

TB's sugar was running high and had been for a while. He needed to have one of his prescriptions filled and we'd put it off because of a lack of funds. Also, he hasn't seen an endocrinologist in over a year (same reason...and distance).

Well, this was a wake up call.

He is home from the hospital now and we've put the prescription in. If another bill doesn't get paid, so be it. This is much more important. So is going to the endocrinologist and getting on a better nutritional program.

Thank God he is okay ... but we can't get complacent again!

Kids' Waist Sizes and Later Health Problems

All 3 of my kids are overweight. I try not to beat myself up too much about it but I have to admit that I feel very guilty in spite of the fact that there are a lot of big people on my side of the family. I'd like to say it's all genetics, but let's not go there.

I went a couple of rounds with my younger stepdaughter about genetics and obesity when I cautioned her against giving her baby soda in a bottle and sweet treats. "You don't want him to become predisposed to sweets and get fat," I warned. She weighs as much as I do, just looked at me, and said, "Well, if it's genetics we can't help it."

I don't agree with that and said so ... but on the other hand, what kind of example have I set?

Okay, anyway, after my first husband died, the 3 kids and I must have gained about 400 lbs -- almost the whole man at the time he passed. I "woke up" to the severity of the issue in time to put the skids on the youngest becoming severely or morbidly obese. She also grew a couple of inches in height and so I would say she is, at most, about 25 lbs overweight. My older two kids are in the same morbid boat as me and it upsets me to no end.

As it happens, doctors are now looking into ways to predict if and how kids will develop serious health problems later when they start out as obese kids.

doctors are on the lookout these days for a group of risk factors known together as metabolic syndrome.
They include excess weight, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, low levels of HDL or so-called good cholesterol, glucose intolerance, and elevated insulin levels.

They want to see if simply measuring a kid's waist can be a predictor of future problems. It would be nice if it was that simple, eh?

The researchers analyzed data from 84 kids aged six to 13, of whom 68 were overweight or obese. They found children with abdominal obesity determined by a waist size above the ninetieth percentile of the study group had increased metabolic syndrome risk factors such as high blood pressure, insulin resistance and high cholesterol. The researchers say abdominal obesity may be an especially important risk factor for insulin resistance syndrome in children.

It would be very important to have that information. I know my kids need diet and exercise. If these measurements had been taken when my kids were younger maybe I would have been more aware and actively involved in their eating habits. I would like to think I would have been.

There was yet another reference to smoking and belly fat:

The study, in the journal Circulation, found that six percent of teens aged 12 to 19 had metabolic syndrome, and that the numbers increased with exposure to tobacco smoke. In kids who were overweight, the numbers increased even more. Although it's not understood how tobacco smoke might contribute to metabolic syndrome, obviously we cannot forget the important effort to prevent kids from smoking and to protect them from second hand smoke.

The whole article is here.

Smoking and Belly Fat

I am not an advocate of cigarette smoking but I was always under the impression there was a link between it and weight loss -- or, at least, not gaining weight. After I lost all that weight when I was 17, I took up smoking. I know, I know...it was a dumb thing to do. Sometimes I'd gain 10-15 pounds but always managed to get the weight off quickly.

When I was 32, I got pregnant with my son. I'd been smoking (almost 2 packs a day) about 15 years by then. I decided I was going to quit because I knew smoking would be bad not only for me but for the baby. The doctor was very supportive and said, when I gained 80 pounds, better to gain than to smoke.

I used to like to blame my weight on the fact I quit smoking...it's easier to blame something like that than your age or poor will power.

Well...think again!

When I saw this article I was sure that it was going to talk about a link between smoking and losing belly fat. Imagine my complete surprise to read that these doctors feel that smoking contributes to metabolic syndrome, particularly in kids 12-19.

Whaaaaat?

I'm not sure I buy it. The percentages aren't that high and I'm thinking that other things must have a greater impact ... like sedentary lifestyle, poor eating habits and so on.

It's a great argument to use to try and keep kids away from cigarettes though...maybe. Used to be we'd say, "don't smoke, you'll get cancer." No kid thinks he or she is ever going to get cancer...not now anyway. But if you say to a kid, "don't smoke, you might get fat" ... would that make a difference?

Hmmm.

No More Soda!

I love Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. Sometimes when I felt hungry, a glass of diet soda made me feel more full than several glasses of water. I enjoyed the taste of different flavors: cherry, vanilla, and now lime. Earlier, I read a connection between drinking soda and gaining even more weight that alarmed me. Could it be all the sodium in soda? The study seemed to think not -- it seemed to have something to do with triggering a hunger response.

Eh, I thought, that doesn't happen to me. Until we hit a tight financial patch, I continued to drink a lot of diet soda. For the last week or so, though, I've restricted myself to water and gradually seem to be losing the craving for soda.

Today, there was another article about diet soda and gaining weight. This was more ominous to me and I think I will have to give up my beloved Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. According to this article, researchers are linking a sweetner used in diet drinks to replace sugar with messing with your body's metabolism. The sweetner is fructose and what might be happening is that it causes your body to store more fat. Geez, that's the last thing a person wanting to lose weight needs!

To prove it, scientists conducted a test with mice, all beginning at about the same weight. They were split into groups: some were given all the water they wanted, some were given a diet drink, some all the water they wanted flavored with sucrose (regular sugar) and some all they wanted flavored with fructose.

The mice on the fructose didn't take in as much calories. I guess they felt 'full'. Still, the scientists saw that they gained a lot more body fat over the weeks than the other groups did.

The other new tidbit of information I learned from the article is that in the last 30 years, soda manufacturers have switched over from using sucrose to fructose. Now, I don't know why they did that. The studies show, though, that soda drinking Americans have been gaining more and more weight ever since.

Is there fructose in diet soda? I don't know ... but I think it would be better to stay away from it until I find out!

A Very Useful Tool!

This chart shows that I've been burning more calories over the last three days than I've been taking in. This is good! 

I like using the Fit Day website. It's only been three days, I know, but I'm able to track how much fat I'm taking in compared with how many carbs and how much protein. So far I'm seeing that I'm taking in too much sodium and not enough iron. Interesting...

Well, according to the chart, since I'm burning more than I'm intaking and since I'm exercising I ought to be losing weight...

I think keeping up with this food journal at the website over the next several weeks should be helpful. Maybe I can figure out what's going on.

More Support

I decided to go back to another website I've used in the past to help me track what I eat and how much I exercise: Fit Day.

One thing I especially like right now about the website is that it's "non-judgemental". I mean, I can make a goal of eating up to 1700 calories a day without the website blocking me and telling me in red letters to go talk to my doctor. The USDA website doesn't give you an option of clicking that you've been to the doctor and now want to create a healthy living food plan. On the USDA plan, the site would only let me "maintain" my weight. Waaaaaaaaaay too many calories there, that's the problem!

I filled in my half hour walk at 2 mph and the information was neutrally recorded, a big improvement over being reminded so in-my-face that my activity level is "poor". :) So far, I've had low fat Columbo yogurt with a cup of fresh fruit (melons) and for lunch I had a large tossed salad with low fat raspberry vinegriatte dressing and an egg. I've been drinking water.

My stomach needs to shrink.

I went to see the orthopod about my left ankle. The brace is doing a lot of good and providing support. He was able to manipulate my foot so that it had a better arch than it's had in a year and he was happy about that. He said I need to keep walking. He said I should come back in six months and we could talk about whether I wanted the brace to be a permanent part of my life.

Okay, I should have asked.

I guess it means that if I lose a lot of weight in six months I might not need it? That would be nice!

I told the doctor that I am having a breast reduction in September and that I'm looking into getting a lapband. He was very positive about my plans and just emphasized again that I should keep walking.

My daughter called me from TN to tell me that her neighbor is going in for a laprascopic bypass. I'm not interested in bypass but I was interested in the website the neighbor used to find a doctor and support, Obesity Help. I kind of shudder inwardly everytime I think to myself, you are morbidly obese. But ... it's true. So now I'm off to surf the site and see what I can learn.

Putting It Together

I've been feeling quite cranky about my lack of dramatic weight loss. I think Mama Mouse is right in that my age and metabolism are wreaking some havoc but to be honest, I thought I'd better go back and look at other factors.

As many times as I've read this information, it never falls to shock me:

Portion Sizes

By understanding the average portion size of different foods, you can avoid overeating. The following are general estimates for a variety of foods.


Protein: one serving is no larger than the size of your palm, or 3 oz.
Starchy side dishes: the size of a tennis ball
Medium piece of fruit: tennis-ball size
One ounce of cheese: 4 dice
Cabbage family: 1 cup raw, ½ cup cooked
Dark leafy greens: 1 cup raw
Water: 6 to 8 8-oz. glasses per day
Beans and legumes: one-half cup cooked
Whole grains: 1 slice whole-wheat bread, ½ cup cooked grains, cereal or pasta, 1 oz. ready-to-eat cereal

I've got the water down easy. But the other portion sizes ...?? I don't think so. That's part of the problem, I think ... these portion sizes leave me hungry.

Well...let's see how many of these things I can have a day.

I went to My Pyramid Tracker and plugged in what I ate for breakfast. So far, so good. What I can eat the rest of the day, according to the USDA guidelines:

7 oz. protein
1 more cup of milk
4 cups of vegetables
2.5 cups of fruit
8 more oz of grains

I am going to have to go back and forth between how big a serving size is supposed to be and how much I have left to eat. Maybe all the measuring and figuring will keep me too busy to feel hungry?

These are useful tools for me except for the part where I'm trying to get recommendations for a plan to get to a healthy weight. I just keep getting this message:

The weight and height you entered in your Personal Profile page indicates that you need to consult a healthcare provider about weight loss strategies prior to starting a weight-reduction program. Overweight adults, who need to lose weight, should aim for a slow, steady weight loss by decreasing calorie intake while maintaining an adequate nutrient intake and increasing physical activity, thus improving their Body Mass Index (BMI). The BMI is a measure of body fat using the body weight relative to the height among adults age 19 and older. People at a healthy weight should strive to maintain their weight, and underweight individuals may need to increase their weight. Click here to see your BMI.

Um...thank you, I know, I've seen a doctor and discussed the strategies so let me get my recommendations already! I don't see a place to click...

The result summary of my 30 minute walk on the dreadmill:

Result Summary

Click directly on the numbers or word in the table for more detailed physical activity information.
Credited Minutes 0
Total Calories Expended from Physical Activity 137
Physical Activity Score (Out of 100) 0
Physical Activity Assessment Poor

Oh, thanks. That's a real drag. At this website, you don't get credited minutes for what they consider "light" exercise. Walking 2 mph is considered "light". I haven't gotten up the stamina yet to go faster. I think maybe I won't use this tool so much ... at least not until I can walk faster and be more encouraged with my assessment.

More About Fibromyalgia

Wow, I was surprised to see in my comments that so many others have FMS too and I appreciated everyone's advice and input.

I walked on the treadmill several times since I last posted and I think I feel better. I seem to have more energy than I usually do and although I feel a little sleepy in the afternoon I haven't taken any marathon naps in over a week. My ankle bothers me some when I walk and so I'm hoping to use the leather brace while I'm exercising. I've been hesitant to do that because the last time I walked on the treadmill with it, I got blisters on my foot.

The main problem I'm having now with pain is in my wrists, thumbs and shoulders. I think the surgery will help alleviate the pain in my shoulders but I guess I'm going to have to go and get a shot of cortisone in my thumbs. . I imagine this all ties in with FMS somehow. I wonder if a lot of people who are overweight also have FMS?

I found another article by Dr. Weil:

With fibromyalgia, a syndrome that combines pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression, you have to separate “cause” from “trigger.” New research suggests that this mysterious syndrome is caused by imbalances of chemicals and hormones in the nervous system that amplify sensation, making even a slight touch feel painful. In a study published last year, Daniel Clauw, MD, a rheumatologist at the University of Michigan, used MRIs to show what happens in the brains of fibromyalgia patients in response to minimal pressure to their left thumbs – blood rushes to areas involved in pain perception. To get the same response from healthy people Clauw had to apply twice the pressure.

The super-sensitivity to pain that characterizes fibromyalgia seems to be genetic. The disorder runs in families, and researchers have identified one gene believed to be involved in the syndrome. Patients also have higher than normal levels of a neuropeptide called substance P that is involved in pain signals and subnormal levels of serotonin and norepinephrine, hormones that modulate pain.

If you are born with a predisposition to fibromyalgia, you still need to experience an event to trigger the disorder – that is, something must happen to set it off. This can be a viral infection, emotional stress, an accident or injury or even exposure to certain drugs or chemicals. My colleague Iris Bell, MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Research here at the Program in Integrative Medicine, tells me that multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and fibromyalgia often overlap. In fact, according to a recent paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine, 33 percent of fibromyalgia patients also suffer from MCS. Dr. Bell adds that 60 percent of all MCS patients are able to identify the specific exposure that set off their initial reaction.

We may soon have new drugs to improve treatment of fibromyalgia by reducing substance P and increasing levels of norepinephrine and serotonin. In the meantime, your best bet for dealing with this condition is 30 minutes of daily aerobic exercise such as swimming, walking or biking. Breath work, meditation and yoga can help you cope with stress, and acupuncture, manipulation, and massage may help relieve symptoms.

I was thinking about what my trigger might have been because I don't seem to remember that I always had this kind of trouble with pain and fatigue. I thought of a couple of things -- my son and I were in an accident that totalled the car in 1995. Neither of us were seriously injured at the time but within the month, my appendix ruptured and I had to have emergency surgery. After that, I had a lot of trouble maintaining my fitness routine (walking and swimming) but I figured it was just because of recovering from surgery.

The other trigger I thought of would be Rich's death. That's when I can clearly remember the beginning of problems with pain and marathon sleeping. I gained more than 50 pounds and was diagnosed with sleep apnea. So grief could be a trigger too because of the deep emotional stress?

There's one big problem I see at the end of that article. It talks about increasing the levels of norepinephrine and serotonin...I'd have to check it out but I do believe my meds inhibit those because of my anxiety and depression. Isn't norepinephrine like adrenaline? And I take an SSRI...which is supposed to inhibit the uptake of serotonin? Back to the online textbooks...

Fibromyalgia & Exercise

Some days, for no particular reason that I'd been able to figure out, my joints, back and shoulders would ache so much I didn't want to move. Some of it is due to arthritis, some to old tendon injuries in my hands and some I just attributed to excessive weight and aging. I finally went to see a rheumatologist and was totally taken aback when he said that I have fibromyalgia.

Since then, I've been reading some material and learned that one thing it seems to do well is enhance pain you already have. I've been trying to get my mind around that one. Does that mean I should "tough it out", "suck it up", "deal with it"? I think in part, yes.

The doctor told me how important it is to exercise. Oh, I know that ... I used to walk everywhere and used to be physically fit even if I was somewhat overweight. Now, though, it hurts. But that's the part I've just got to tough out because exercise would make me a little more flexible and reduce the pain.

Today I got on the treadmill and walked 30 minutes. I walked at a rate of about 2 mph and I don't think that does anything for me cardiovascularly but I figured I could increase the speed as I build up tolerance. I started out walking 15 minutes, then 20 and now am up to 30 and I'd started at 1.5 mph (a real snail's pace!). My left foot throbbed painfully about 15 minutes into it but I figured I would just keep going.

I got another one of those inspirational messages in my email box today saying that every time I try to get out of exercising and everytime I am about to eat something I shouldn't, I should say to myself: Why are you trying to hurt yourself? That's a good idea...and I think if I can't come up with a logical answer then I should get on that dreadmill or put back that extra serving of chili.

I also got this from Dr. Weil's Wellness Bulletin:

Weekly Bulletin

07.21.2005

Featured Article
Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a syndrome that combines pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression. Research suggests it is caused by imbalances of chemicals and hormones in the nervous system that amplify sensation, making even a slight touch feel painful. The super-sensitivity to pain that characterizes fibromyalgia seems to be genetic - the disorder tends to runs in families. However, if you are born with a predisposition to fibromyalgia, you still need to experience an event to trigger the disorder - that is, something must happen to set it off. This can be a viral infection, emotional stress, an accident or injury, or even exposure to certain drugs or chemicals.

If you do have fibromyalgia, your best bet for dealing with it is 30 minutes of daily aerobic exercise such as swimming, walking or biking. Do what you can - it may be painful, but exercise is one of the best ways to lessen the effects of fibromyalgia. Breath work, meditation and yoga can help you cope with stress, and acupuncture, manipulation, and massage may help relieve symptoms. Dietary changes may help too. Try the following:

Eliminate polyunsaturated vegetable oils, margarine, vegetable shortening, all partially hydrogenated oils, and all foods that might contain trans-fatty acids (such as deep-fried foods). Use extra-virgin olive oil as your main fat.
Increase intake of omega-3 fatty acids.

Eat more fruits and vegetables, preferably organic.

Eat ginger and turmeric regularly.