Mrs.Spratt

Weight Loss Progress

2009-04-07T10:00:00.004-04:00

Diabetic Living's Eating Out Guide

2008-06-16T15:10:00.000-04:00

Eating Out Guide
From Diabetic Living magazine
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When at a restaurant, read the descriptions on the menu carefully and learn to read between the lines. Cooking techniques and ingredients can make all the difference. Try to pinpoint healthful cooking methods, such as foods that are baked, grilled, broiled, or roasted. And look for vegetables in the recipe title or description — tomato sauce versus cream sauce, for example. With our ordering tips and practical tactics in your back pocket, you'll be making smart choices in no time. Mangia!

Just for Starters
Starting with a healthful small soup or salad can help you eat less overall. This strategy also gives you something to nibble if your meal mates are feasting on garlic bread or fried mozzarella sticks. For soup, may we suggest the vegetable-rich variety? And for salad, select the house or another small green salad, with the dressing on the side. If you choose oil and vinegar, go heavier on the vinegar and lighter on the oil.

Use Your Noodle
Pasta has suffered some hard knocks during the recent low-carb mania. But there's no need to erase pasta from your list of healthful foods. Mary M. Austin, M.A., R.D., CDE, immediate past president of the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE), and a full-blooded Italian, suggests: "If you order pasta, be prepared to share it. Most restaurant portions are at least two cups, which may be more carbohydrate than your eating plan recommends." Pasta is made mainly from enriched flour and water, so the calories come from carbohydrate and a little protein, not from fat. However, when you choose stuffed pasta, especially one that's filled with cheese, the fat content can soar. It might help you to know that 1 cup of cooked pasta contains about 30 grams of carbohydrate or two carb choices. The bottom line? When you order pasta, select an unstuffed shape, opt for an appetizer portion, or share an order, then top it with a low-fat sauce.

Sauce Smartly
Topping pasta with a healthful sauce can have dramatic results. According to the book Restaurant Confidential, an average serving of spaghetti with red or white clam sauce can have about 900 calories and 26 grams of fat, compared to an average serving of fettuccine Alfredo at 1,500 calories and 97 grams of fat. And, even though it's lower in calories and fat, you should still split the spaghetti.

Pizza by the Slice
Pizza can be a healthful restaurant meal or takeout food, as long as you take steps to trim the fat and serving size. Control portions by ordering the right number of slices — about two per person. Just so you're not tempted, don't let slices linger in front of you. Box up the extras when the pizza first arrives. For toppers, the more vegetables the merrier — go wild with onions, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, or spinach. Skip such high-fat toppers as extra cheese, pepperoni, sausage, or meatballs. For the crust, thin is in. Choose thin-crust pizza (whole wheat if available) and avoid deep-dish or stuffed pizza. And to make sure you have something else to nibble besides pizza, order a side salad.
Last Updated: 03/26/2007
Diabetic Living magazine helps readers manage their health while providing them with a wealth of diabetic-friendly recipes, nutrition tips, exercise hints, health information, and the lastest recommendations for diabetes care. Subscribe to the magazine now and get two full years for the price of one — and as a bonus you'll receive the current issue e-mailed to you right now. Or sign up for the online Diabetic Living Diet, with hundreds of delicious recipes and an interactive meal planner customized just for you, and get a year of Diabetic Living magazine FREE.

Healthy Snacks

2008-06-15T16:26:00.004-04:00

Keeping snacks around the house is a necessary evil for my husband TB and me in case our sugar gets low. When that happens, we need a quick carb pick-me-up and the healthier the better.

The best choices begin at the bottom of the food pyramid and contain 15 grams of carbohydrate per serving. Good options include air-popped popcorn, baked tortilla chips and salsa, graham crackers, pretzels, bagels, and cereal.

Fresh fruits and vegetables also make excellent snacks, and they're portable. To make a snack more substantial, add a source of low-fat protein, such as a glass of low-fat milk. Add reduced-fat peanut butter to a slice of bread or a bagel, low-fat cheese on crackers, or a slice of turkey breast on whole-wheat bread.

These are snacks that won't put on the pounds as quickly as the junk will.

Now I have to figure out a snack that I can carry along with me. I have emergency sugar tablets in my purse at the moment and in a real pinch, they'll do.

Fat Cells Established in Childhood?

2008-06-03T08:43:00.003-04:00

Oh noes....

Number of fat cells remains constant in all body types

A new study by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Bruce Buchholz – along with colleagues from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden; Humboldt University Berlin, Foundation of Research and Technology in Greece; Karolinska University Hospital; and Stockholm University – applied carbon dating to DNA to discover that the number of fat cells stays constant in adulthood in lean and obese individuals, even after marked weight loss, indicating that the number of fat cells is set during childhood and adolescence.

...

In a study of 687 adults, the researchers found that number of fat cells increases in childhood and adolescence, but levels off and remains constant in adulthood. The group looked at whether the number of fat cells changes under extreme conditions such as drastic weight loss by radical reduction in caloric intake, such as through bariatric surgery.

The treatment resulted in a significant decrease in BMI and fat cell volume; however, it did not reduce the number of fat cells two years after the surgery. Similarly, significant weight gain (15-25 percent) over several months in non-obese adult men resulted in significant increase in body fat volume but no change in number. Subsequent weight loss back to baseline resulted in a decrease in fat cell volume but no change in the number of fat cells.

“If you are overweight and you lose weight, you still have the capacity to store lipids because you still have the same number of fat cells. That may be why it’s so hard to keep the weight off,” Buchholz said.

What's further inspiring to note is that one conclusion is to focus on children and preventing them from becoming fat when they are young. It all sounds very discouraging but I refuse to believe that it's already too late for TB, my kids and me to slim down and be healthy!

Let's All Eat Like Cave Men!

2008-05-28T08:04:00.002-04:00

This article comes from the Vital Choices newsletter I get in my email. I thought it was fascinating.

The case for eating like a caveman is based on evidence from modern hunter-gatherers, whose diets resemble those of prehistoric ancestors, and from chemical and physical examination of the remains of prehistoric people and their habitats.

From these studies, it is clear that prehistoric hominids and humans ate diets high in wild game (meat and/or fish) and green plants, with no grains and relatively few seeds or starches (largely from tubers).

Scientists call stone-age eating patterns Paleolithic or hunter-gatherer diets, using the terms almost interchangeably due to the diets’ similarity. ...

Pilot clinical trial affirms healthful impacts of “caveman diet”

Last year, scientists at Sweden’s famed Karolinska Institute placed 20 healthy volunteers on a caveman-like diet for three weeks (Osterdahl M et al. 2007).

Before and after the study period, they measured the participants’ weight, body mass index, blood pressure, and cholesterol profiles.

The volunteers were then given a list of “caveman” foods they could eat, including fresh or frozen fruit, berries or vegetables, lean meat, unsalted fish, canned tomatoes, lemon or lime juice, spices and coffee or tea without milk or sugar.

Banned foods included any dairy, cultivated or processed foods, such as beans, grains, salt, peanuts, milk, cheese, bread, pasta or rice, sausages, alcohol, sugar, and fruit juice. ...

So far it doesn't seem too bad except if I did this I'd have to give up cottage cheese, which I love, and garbanzo beans. No more sandwiches! No bread, no processed cold cuts...hm, maybe not so easy. But the results are cool!

At the end of the study, all of the 14 volunteers who completed the diet successfully lost weight, reduced their blood pressure, and slashed blood levels of a clot-causing agent.

These were the average changes (Osterdahl M et al. 2007):

* Lost five pounds.
* Calorie intake dropped by 36 percent.
* Body mass index (BMI) dropped by 0.8 (Healthy BMIs range between 18.5 and 25).
* Systolic blood pressure fell by 3 mmHg.
* Levels of the clotting agent plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 dropped by 72 percent.

Supposedly we are not different from our Neanderthal ancestors in terms of what we should eat and that's why we are having such problems with obesity. I think I'll read the book mentioned in the full article. Fascinating stuff!

Anti-Inflammatory Diet

2008-05-20T08:04:00.003-04:00

When I see a title like that, I'm thinking BRAT (bread rice applesauce toast) diet or something similar that you eat when you are sick. When I read the article, though, I realized that it's the same common sense food plan promoted for people to lose weight and stay healthy. I'm not sure why it would be called an anti-inflammatory diet unless the alternative (what most Americans eat) is an inflammatory diet.

This is what Dr. Weil suggests:

Step One: Look at your carbs. The majority of carbohydrates in your diet should be in the form of less-refined, less-processed foods with a low glycemic load. You can do this by replacing your snack foods made with wheat flour and sugar with whole grains, beans, winter squashes, and sweet potatoes.

Step Two: Replace your cooking oil. Instead of safflower and sunflower oils, corn oil, cottonseed oil, mixed vegetable oils, butter and margarine, use extra-virgin olive oil as your main cooking oil (for a neutral tasting oil, use expeller-pressed, organic canola oil).

Step Three: Decrease your consumption of animal protein. Except for fish (such as omega-3 rich salmon) and reduced-fat dairy products, animal derived protein should be limited. You can easily replace meat with vegetable protein such as beans, legumes and whole soy foods.

Step Four: Eat more fiber. Try to eat 40 grams of fiber a day, simple to do if you increase your consumption of fruit, especially berries, vegetables and whole grains.

I really like Dr. Weil's website. I've learned so much from it. He offers so much useful information and tips. Want to learn more? Click here.

2008-05-19T08:29:00.003-04:00

There are more and more stories out there about obesity increasing among kids and it's scary. Kids are now at risk for the same complications we adults have with obesity: heart disease, diabetes, and so on. I got an article in my email newsletter about ways parents and grandparents can help kids by setting a good example...even if we ourselves are heavy:

1. Incorporate a vegetable into every meal, especially in casseroles. Peas, broccoli, asparagus, red, yellow or green bell peppers, spinach - you name it, vegetables provide nutrients and fiber.
2. Use more beans and legumes, and less meat. Chickpeas, lentils and beans of all varieties are good sources of fiber and protein.
3. Serve up whole grains. Brown rice and bulghur wheat provide a delicious, grainy taste and texture - and have more fiber and protein than their white counterparts. Choose true, relatively intact whole grains like these over grains that have been ground into flour.
4. Switch sweets. Instead of soda, stock the pantry with sparkling waters. Pour fruit juice into a pitcher and dilute it to lessen the sugar content. Stock your kitchen with fresh, whole fruits, and leave the cookies in the store.

If we start healthy eating habits when kids are little, they're not going to know the difference and they won't miss the sweet or salty junky things. The whole article is here.

Becoming the deadly apple

2008-05-01T08:51:00.002-04:00

So now I've become an apple: a woman with a 35-plus size waist. I have high blood pressure already and am now at an increased risk for a heart attack. Why did I let this happen to me? Here's another good reason I must lose weight:

According to the research, elevated health risks seem to come along with a waist measurement of greater than 35 inches in women and greater than 40 inches in men. Abdominal fat is worse than fat on your buttocks or thighs because that extra fat surrounds important organs such as the liver and pancreas. When you have fat in this area of the body, your body can't use the insulin produced by your pancreas efficiently — and that leads to insulin resistance, which causes high blood glucose levels. In turn, the high blood glucose puts your organs at higher risk. If you lose weight, the amount of fat stored around your waist and important organs will decrease, and they will work better, helping you stay healthy.

The advice to reduce abdominal fat is an exercise program that doesn't skimp on other areas of the body:

The best approach is a well-balanced program that includes aerobic activity (anything that gets you breathing hard), strength exercises for your entire body and stretching. For health gains, try to do at least 30 minutes daily.

I need a good chair exercising program or a swimming pool but we can't afford a gym. What a bind! :(

Write It Down

2008-04-25T11:29:00.002-04:00

I know I'm supposed to keep a food journal. When I do, it does help me stay in line. My problem is that I keep forgetting. I'm really good about it for the first 3 or 4 days but then I begin to forget. Why is that?

From Everyday Tips:

...a food journal gives you a tool to monitor your progress and identify patterns in your eating habits.

The feedback from your food journal can also strengthen your weight-management skills. Write down a complete list of your meals and snacks within 15 minutes of eating. Most successful record keepers total their numbers at the end of the day or the first thing each morning on a weekly summary sheet. Keeping good records is a skill that takes practice. Most people don't enjoy keeping records, so you may stop and start from time to time. But even done sporadically, it's worthwhile work so you can check in on your diet.

So I guess starting and stopping every three days isn't too bad after all. Still...I'd like to remember to do this everyday!

Apatrim

2008-04-24T13:21:00.001-04:00

Has anyone seen something that seems to be an article in their newspaper called "Demand soars for 'fast acting' diet pill"? The article goes on to talk about this miracle drug, apatrim, that suppresses appetite and makes people lose weight. It's so popular, according to this article, the phone lines are jammed with callers and supplies are limited. Wow! A miracle drug, just what we've been waiting for!

What could be wrong with it, too? There was this research study that shows the drug works within minutes to suppress your appetite. Even better, dieters "don't have to starve or suffer through intense exercise and it's been clinically shown to get great results."

And also, "Apatrim contains an amazing compound that has a known ability to help control hunger pangs*. This allows people to eat the foods they want, they just eat less*."
Aha. We'll get to those stars in a minute.

How does it work? "The active ingredient in Apatrim comes from a plant that grows in India. This 'miracle' plant is Caralluma Fimbriata and it has been used by native tribes in India for centuries to reduce hunger and quench thirst during times of famine and drought."

TB and I saw this in our Burlington County Times and thought it sounded great but a little too good to be true. And was this a real news article or an advertisement? I decided to check it out online. Well, well. Here's what I found:

Diet Drug Report

Newspapers around the country are running full-page ads -- disguised to look like regular news pages -- filled with misleading claims for a new 'miracle' diet pill called Apatrim that allegedly enables dieters to lose weight without either cutting back on eating or increasing their exercise.

The pages contain a bylined story from the Universal Media Syndicate (intended, no doubt, to be confused with the Universal Press Syndicate, which carries columnists such as Dear Abby and William F. Buckley Jr.) urging overweight readers to phone a toll-free number to order "every dieter's dream." ...

What we can confirm is that Caralluma Fimbriata, like the South African "succulent" plant Hoodia Gordonii, has indeed been chewed for many years by Indian tribesmen during long hunts to suppress appetite and enhance endurance.

But from there, the breathless weight-loss claims for Apatrim not only become more suspect, but seem likely to ultimately involve its distributor, PatentHEALTH, LLC , with the judicial system. ...

The so-called clinical trial referenced in the ad, an anemic study that involved only 26 participants followed for four weeks (a serious Phase III clinical trial of a diet drug would involve thousands of participants tracked over at least a year), was sponsored by the developer of Slimaluma -- not Apatrim. ...

Slimaluma was the first to start marketing a weight loss pill using Caralluma Fimbriata. Gencor Pacific, which makes Slimaluma, has sued the company making Apatrim for

false advertising, false comparative advertising, and a variety of other charges stemming from their efforts to sell a a non-extract Caralluma fimbriata powder product.

And those stars? Well, at the end of the article, there was a * and it read: "These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration..." Why is this is such small print?

Another miracle drug bites the dust as far as I'm concerned!

The Me In My Head

2008-04-10T07:28:00.003-04:00

I wrote several times about the person I see in my head compared with who is really there is the pictures and the mirror. TB was messing around with photoshop last night and sent me this picture. This is just about spot on to the person I see in my head.

I think I will print it and tape it up on my desk so that it can motivate me. Here's what I really look like:

Weight and Inadequate Sleep

2008-04-09T05:38:00.002-04:00

As I sit here wrestling with insomnia it occurs to me I'm totally not surprised that there's a link between lack of sleep and being overweight/weight gain. In my case, pain and complications of being overweight prevent me from getting a good night's sleep. By day, I'm more listless and less likely to exercisse than I would be if I had enough sleep (roughly 7 hours). Lately, I've been sleeping 2-4 hours, waking for several and then sleeping again for another 2-3. That's just messed up.

The Everyday Health newsletter had an article about being starved for sleep last month. They cited two studies conducted about weight and lack of sleep.

New research suggests that people who don't get enough sleep tend to weigh more -- and that sleep can affect levels of the appetite-regulating hormones leptin and ghrelin.

"There is a dynamic balance between proper sleep and proper health. Sleep deprivation affects weight and a lot of other things. If you cheat sleep, there are a number of consequences, including affecting your hormones, appetite and mood," said Dr. Patrick Strollo, medical director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Sleep Medicine Center.

The article suggests if you don't get enough sleep, pay attention to your eating habits. If you can't get the sleep you need, go for a short walk rather than snacking on foods. Right...that's if you're not too tired to go for the walk!

Say No To Coffee Mate

2008-04-08T18:44:00.000-04:00

Well, someone is always finding out harmful details about tasty products. Now it's Coffee Mate, which is something I enjoy occasionally. I knew it was fattening but I liked to pretend it wasn't so bad. But...here is what I found out:

A serving size is a teaspoon. Who takes a teaspoon of creamer? C'mon, be honest! One teaspoon won't flavor the 20 ounces I drink at one time. There's almost 15 calories and .99 grams of saturated fat in a teaspoon of Coffee Mate. As I say, who uses just a teaspoon? Most of us use more like a tablespoon. It adds up!

Just because it says "fat free" doesn't mean it is.

If a product has less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving – trans fat, saturated fat or total fat – a manufacturer can round the number down to zero. So if an unrounded teaspoon has 0.27 grams of fat and you add a rounded teaspoon to a warm beverage a few times a day ...

That adds up too!

What to do? There's always good old milk and, happily, there's either fat free Land'o'Lakes half'n'half or fat free International Delight dairy creamers. Thank goodness!

The whole article is here.

Exercisiing and the Neighborhood

2008-04-07T10:54:00.000-04:00

Should I be surprised that the neighborhood can influence how much exercise you get? Of course not. But here's another article that identifies a problem but hasn't any suggestions for a solution. The problem is too big to be solved. If you live in a neighborhood where you are afraid you might be robbed or killed of course you will be less likely to go for a walk. If you live in a such a neighborhood, you're also very likely to be too poor to afford a gym--otherwise you'd move to a safer place, right? Therefore the obesity level would be higher in poorer, high crime neighborhoods. Amazing, Dr. Watson! The whole article is here.

I would love to be able to walk in my neighborhood. There are no sidewalks but I would be able to walk along the side of the road down to the lake and back. The reason I don't exercise in my neighborhood has more to do with pain than anything else. I'm also afraid I'll fall or faint and not be able to get back up. Still, I need to do something. I can't lose weight anymore just by dieting.

Why am I trying to lose weight when I want the surgery anyway? The less I weigh the better off I'll be!

Not Doing So Well

2008-04-05T06:47:00.000-04:00

We've been under a great deal of stress recently and I know I gained weight instead of losing it. :( I have to look around a find a food therapist--one that will help TB and me with our emotional eating.

Weight Watchers had an interesting article about couples and weight gain. It's no surprise to me that couples gain weight together! It's certainly true that TB and I have similar BMIs! On the upside, we are "more likely to achieve better results if they tackle weight loss as a couple." The whole article is here.

I have read several articles now that tell me even drinking diet soda can lead to weight gain. I'm still not sure I agree but I sure can't dispute the fact that I'm gaining. Doubters? Read this article. Now I see some acceptable alternatives to soda and I need to try them:

1. Water--I always used to drink ice water until we moved to NJ. The water around here is full of iron but I guess I can drink bottled.

2. Green tea--I am not a fan of tea but I do like this on occasion. It's full of anti-oxidants too.

3, Sweet stevia--I never heard of this one! Apparently it was banned for a while because the FDA needed to research it. It has no carbs nor calories and seems to help with diabetes and glucose intolerance! Let me go try that one!

4. Diet tonic and lime--I've never tried gin and tonic but this is what it is minus the alcohol. Hmmm....

5. Low sodium vegetable juice--I like V-8!

6. Coffee--without all the yummy creamer I've been drinking! I have to switch back to first 2% and then 1% milk

So...I just have to keep on trying.

Nana Needs To Lose A LOT of Weight

2008-03-30T15:09:00.000-04:00

I've posted before that I have an image of myself that is thinner than I actually am. It gets me into trouble when I'm trying to maneuver around and sometimes I've been shocked and embarrassed when I couldn't fit somewhere. Mostly, I can't bear to look at pictures of me.

Who is that? That can't be me,. I think. I don't look like that!

But I do. And now I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life which is why I need the surgery. I haven't been able to get the weight off using other methods and I'm tired of pain and tired of people staring at me like I'm a freak. Usually when I post pictures, I either don't post any of me or I crop everything out except my head. But here is the truth of it from when I was outdoors blowing bubbles with Little T.

I remember feeling surprised when people didn't notice or realize I'd had a breast reducton. Now I understand why--that's a big belly that takes up a lot of the picture!

I have a pretty smile but I don't think that's what people are staring at when I walk by. They don't smile at me--that's how I know. There's a look of distaste or disgust which really annoys or upsets me. It's definitely time to do something!

I realize I won't get down to what I weighed when I graduated high school. Maybe I won't be able to even get this far. This picture was taken a little over 15 years ago. I was about 25 poounds overweight.

I'd e happy with my weight in this picture, taken 5 or 6 years ago.

That's my darling TB on the left of me, by the way. He's in on this with me too.

So here is the big reveal. I'm at 318 lbs now and need to lose at least 100 to feel healthy again. Wish me luck!

Just another thing to add to the list of complications...

2008-03-27T13:31:00.000-04:00

After posting about our decision to get bariatric surgery I read an article that came in my email from CBS news:

Fat Belly Linked To Dementia
NEW YORK, March 26, 2008(CBS/AP) Having a big belly in your 40s can boost your risk of getting Alzheimer's disease or other dementia decades later, a new study suggests.

It's not just about your weight. While previous research has found evidence that obesity in middle age raises the chances of developing dementia later, the new work found a separate risk from storing a lot of fat in the abdomen. Even people who weren't overweight were susceptible.

That abdominal fat, sometimes described as making people apple-shaped rather than pear-shaped, has already been linked to higher risk of developing diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

"Now we can add dementia to that," said study author Rachel Whitmer of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.

So if we're not done in by a heart attack or a stroke, we might just lose our minds. Wonderful. If ever there was good reason to lose weight, it would be the risks of getting hit by any one of these things.

Read the whole article here.

Surgery or Not Revisited

2008-03-27T13:02:00.000-04:00

Well...never say never. I was positive I did not want weight loss surgery and if I even considered it, I would only be interested in the lap band. Many months later of pain, increasing disability and inability to enjoy life, TB and I have come to the conclusion that we need and want the surgery.

Yesterday we went to the N.J. Bariatrics Center. This wasn't our first visit. A couple of weeks ago, we went to an informational seminar about the two types of surgery and we had the opportunity to meet both of the doctors, Dr. Brolin and Dr. Chau. The seminar provided a great deal of information and input from a man who'd had a bypass a couple of years ago. We were especially impressed with this man and decided to schedule ourselves an appointment to see Dr. Chau, the surgeon who does the lap bands. Dr. Brolin does riskier bypass surgeries.

If we thought we were informed at the seminar, we learned even more at the consultation. We met with Dr. Chau who explained in detail the benefits and risks of each surgery and what they entail. We also met with a dietician who explained what our lives would be like -- food wise anyway -- post surgery. An insurance specialist explained all the steps we needed to take for precert. The whole process will take 3 months.

TB and I decided that since he is in the most intense pain and the one who needs to get back to work, his procedure will come first. Our next step is to get letters of support from our doctors and to begin a paper trail that shows we are getting counseling about the surgeries.

TB decided that although he is terrified of it, he wants the bypass because it will help him faster. It scares me but I can't sit here and dictate to him what to do when his pain is so severe he gives his quality of life a 1 on a scale of 5. That's pretty sad for a man of only 54.

And so we're off on this new journey.

Always Hungry

2008-03-22T07:57:00.001-04:00

One of my biggest stumbling blocks to eating healthier to lose weight is that I always seem to be hungry after the second dzy on the plan. Some plans say I shouldn't let myself get to the point of feeling hungry; others say I just ought to suck it up and get used to it. To lose weight, we have to suffer the hunger pangs. So when I got my daily Managing Diabetes newsletter I was interested to see an article about constant hunger. The link for the article is here.

The first question I have to ask myself is: am I feeling genuinely hungry or do I just want to eat? Hunger is a physiological response and all you want to do is fill that empty stomach. Appetite is different. You just seem to want a specific food--like potato chips, maybe?

How many calories would I need to not feel hungry all the time? The article says:

If you go on a very-low-calorie diet of less than 1,000 calories each day, you will feel very hungry much of the time. It is better for you to eat more calories each day — say 1,200 to 1,500 — for a slower but longer-term weight loss. In the long run, severely restricting calories can backfire, leaving you feeling constantly hungry and constantly wanting to eat. And no matter how much you cut back while you're on the diet, you can't eat so little forever. You'll eventually need to learn to eat at a higher calorie level to maintain your weight.

Well, I don't know about this...when I was on Weight Watchers, I'm assuming I was eating the upper limit of calories 1500-1600 and I still felt hungry! I can only stand feeling hungry for so long before I start raiding the pantry for everything I can find and then I gain it all back! I don't seem to have the will power I did when I was younger.

I should see a nutritionist...

2008-03-20T09:45:00.000-04:00

Here I am, like the proverbial bad penny, showing up here again. I'm sticking with blogger this time--it's just easier.

I really enjoy reading my newsletters about diabetes. One offers some delicious recipes and the other very useful information. This article is about insulin resistance:

10 Fascinating Facts about Insulin Resistance
By Amy Tenderich of www.DiabetesMine.com

If you have diabetes, you're surely familiar with the phenomenon of insulin resistance, or the body's reduced ability to respond to the action of the insulin hormone. Insulin resistance is typical of Type 2 diabetes, in which – unlike in Type 1 – the body still produces insulin but is unable to use it effectively. What happens is, your cells fail to break down glucose molecules to generate energy, so your blood glucose (or blood sugar) runs abnormally high.

Having spent the last three years researching a variety of topics around diabetes, I've learned some fascinating facts about insulin resistance, which remind me what a complex system the human body is. For one thing, I've learned that what scientists really know about it seems to fit into a walnut shell. For another thing, it's far more widespread than you might imagine.

Let's have a look at some of these amazing particulars about insulin resistance:

1. Scientists are still not sure what causes insulin resistance, and massive research efforts are underway to determine the cause. Some researchers think a defect in specific genes causes insulin resistance, but little more is currently known.

2. People with insulin resistance often over-produce insulin that their bodies can't use. This causes something called "reactive hypoglycemia" or low blood sugar following meals. In other words, the body "overshoots" its own insulin needs, causing a large spike in insulin, followed by a drop in blood sugar. Over time, these repeated insulin spikes may lead to a decrease in pancreatic reserve, or more insulin resistance, and eventually Type 2 diabetes. Therefore – counterintuitive as it sounds -- hypoglycemia is often an early sign of Type 2 diabetes.

3. Here's one that puzzled me: it's estimated that 20-25% of the healthy population may be insulin resistant, but not all people with insulin resistance develop diabetes. Scientists simply do not yet know why some people with insulin resistance eventually develop diabetes and others do not.

4. What we do know is that insulin resistance is aggravated by physical inactivity and obesity, because too much fat interferes with our muscles' ability to use insulin. Lack of exercise worsens this effect. A recent study showed that even in sedentary people aged 60 and older, adding regular short-term exercise into their routines not only improved insulin resistance, but also significantly enhanced their beta-cell function – which helps the pancreas continue to do its job producing insulin.

5. Ever heard of Syndrome X? This much-hyped combination of physical problems is now more commonly referred to as "Insulin Resistance Syndrome." The reason is that people with insulin resistance and high glucose levels tend to have the following factors in common: excess weight around the waist, high LDL (bad) blood cholesterol levels, low HDL (good) cholesterol levels, high level of triglycerides (yet another fat) levels, and high blood pressure. This can be a deadly combination, leading in particular to heart disease, if not treated aggressively.

6. When it comes to diagnosing insulin resistance, there is no single test that can directly detect it. Instead, a doctor has to look at the full clinical picture, including checks for the above-mentioned indicators of Syndrome X, and several others. Nothing is ever easy with diabetes!

7. There's a link between insulin resistance and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a health problem that can affect a woman's menstrual cycle, ability to have children, hormones, heart, blood vessels, and appearance. Many women who suffer from PCOS have problems using the insulin produced in their bodies. Some researchers conclude it's insulin resistance that causes the PCOS, but others say the cause is unknown. It's estimated that 30-80% of women with PCOS are also insulin resistant. PCOS is the most common cause of infertility, which – in case scientists can eventually prove a cause-effect relationship – would mean that insulin resistance indirectly presents itself as a leading cause for infertility.

8. ... and men get hammered, too. There's some scientific evidence that men who are insulin resistant also have low levels of testosterone secretion, the most important sex hormone in the male body. Low testosterone can spur decreased sex drive, erectile dysfunction (ED), and lowered sperm count that reduces fertility.

9. Osteoporosis is another potential problem resulting from insulin resistance. As noted, insulin is a "master hormone" that controls many anabolic hormones such as growth hormone, testosterone, and progesterone. Your bones are actually built upon the command of such hormones. When these hormones are reduced, the amount of bone building is reduced, and the amount of calcium excreted is increased. So you end up with brittle bones, susceptible to fracture.

10. Finally, the good news is that you can heal insulin resistance. I don't say "cure" because that concept is quite controversial. Changes in your diet and exercise habits can substantially aid the body's ability to balance insulin levels. This begins with avoiding processed food, sugar cereals, high-sodium snacks and soda, and instead concentrating on lean meats and dairy, high-fiber grains, and vegetables. Regular exercise of 30 minutes or more per day, 3-5 times a week is also beneficial for regulating metabolic function and hormonal balance. Many new drugs are also available to increase insulin sensitivity, including Metformin, Januvia and Byetta. But does bringing your insulin resistance into check mean you have cured it, or "cured your diabetes"? Most doctors would say no. As long as your glucose levels are in good range, and you're living healthy, it depends on your perspective, I suppose.

Amy Tenderich is creator of the popular web log www.diabetesmine.com and co-author of the guidebook, "Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes."

I didn't mean to do this but I've learned that copying the entire article--even when I mention the author's name--still violates copyright. I was looking to try and find a direct link to the article and haven't been able to yet. The blog by the author, Diabetes Mine, has so much useful information! That link is here.

Doctors Treating Fat People

2007-10-31T15:46:00.000-04:00

I can feel for these people. They are in a real bind. Obesity is on the rise and it causes any number of health problems. It's probably the leading cause of premature death--or if it isn't yet, it will be. Doctors know this and so do us fat patients. So what is there to do?

Most doctors will mention your weight one time and then delicately not bring it up again unless you do. They figure you know what's what and if they nag, you might not come back to see them when you get really sick.

Then there's the other doctors who tell you they can't help you until you lose weight. Even when they mean well, they can do more damage to you than the ones that ignore the issue. My husband TB and I saw a pain management doctor the other day. TB has been out of work since mid September because of intense pain from spinal stenosis. He was referred to this guy by the rheumatologist and we thought TB was going to get an epidural.

But the doctor wouldn't do it. He told TB, "I don't want you to break my table." He said it very matter-of-factly, not contemptuously. Still words like that hurt. So was he supposed to spare our feelings by putting it another way or covering up by saying he wanted TB to try water physical therapy first to see if that helped? I'm not sure. I was very annoyed, though, when I asked if he treated other types of chronic pain and he answered, "Most of my patients are obese, if that's what you're asking me."

It wasn't.

He didn't rule out the epidural entirely. He just wants TB to lose weight first. What he did do, however, was prescribe another medication for pain and physical therapy in water. He recommended that I go along and follow the exercises because it would benefit me too. That stung a bit.

He also recommended we cut out red meat--we don't eat it every week any more so that's not new--and chicken! Chicken too? Apparently yes. We should be loading up on beans, fish oil to make us feel full, and fish. Hmmm.

Should we feel upset with the doctor for refusing to give TB the epidural?

Some years back I went to a doctor because my breasts were so large and heavy I was getting spasms in my neck and back. The doctor said, lose weight and I'll help you.
I was still suffering in 2005 and told my rheumatologist (same one who recommended TB to the pain doctor), telling him what the doctors said previously. He said, "That isn't always possible and this way, you'll get some relief from the pain." He referred me to a surgeon who did the breast reduction and I did feel so much better.

Around this time in 2001, a friend of mine had a bypass surgery so that he could lose weight and have spinal surgery to relieve pain he was in. My friend seemed to be doing okay after the surgery but died suddenly on the day he was supposed to be discharged from the hospital. Would it have been different if the spinal surgeon had operated in spite of my friend's weight? I don't know...and I guess that's why I don't know what to feel about the issue.

In desperation

2007-10-22T15:59:00.000-04:00

I have decided to write to Dr. Phil. Even if his producers just blow off my letter, it's got to be therapeutic, right? TB and I are under so much stress it's going to kill us sooner than later. Well, I have a very long soap operish sob story to write so I better get to it!

Chinese Food Been Very Very Bad To Me

2007-10-16T20:25:00.000-04:00

What's up with that? I've ordered shrimp and Chinese vegetables--cabbage, carrots, snow peas & water chestnuts--and steamed dumplings, didn't eat any rice and still my sugar after two hours was 207. This is the second time it's happened and it's really throwing me for a loop. I thought this type of Chinese food should be healthy? I went online, looking for answers and found this:

Sometimes, even when you think you’re doing everything right, your blood sugars may not respond as you expect. Often this will be due to one or more of the biologic curiosities that affect diabetics. The purpose of this chapter is to acquaint you with some real phenomena that can confound your plans, but which you can frequently circumvent if you are aware of them. ...

The explanation lies in what I call the Chinese restaurant effect. Often Chinese restaurant meals contain large amounts of protein or slow-acting, low-carbohydrate foods, such as bean sprouts, bok choy, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts, that can make you feel full.

How can these low-carbohydrate foods affect blood sugar so dramatically?

The upper part of the small intestine contains cells that release hormones into the bloodstream when they are stretched, as after a meal. These hormones signal the pancreas to produce some insulin to prevent the blood sugar rise that might otherwise follow the digestion of a meal. Large meals will cause greater stretching of the intestinal cells, which in turn will secrete proportionately larger amounts of these hormones. Since a very small amount of insulin released by the pancreas can cause a large drop in blood sugar, the pancreas simultaneously produces the less potent hormone glucagon to offset the potential excess effect of the insulin. If you’re diabetic and deficient in producing insulin, you might not release insulin, but you will still release glucagon, which will cause gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis and thereby raise your blood sugar. Thus, if you eat enough to feel stuffed, your blood sugar can go up by a large amount, even if you eat something undigestible, such as sawdust.

The first lesson here is: Don’t stuff yourself. The second lesson is:
There’s no such thing as a freebie.* Any solid food that you eat can raise your blood sugar.

Hmpf. So why do I feel hungry again after loading up on Chinese food...an hour later? That I still need to find out.

2007-10-13T12:18:00.000-04:00

I lost a half a pound, woo hoo...okay, it's not much but I think of it as 2 sticks of butter. It's also great considering all the stress we've been under this week. All the females in the house are having wild mood swings and it's nearly unbearable! The lunatic behavior of women have even extended to our grandson's bus driver!

And now for something completely different: a lot of grown food has so much chemicals and hormones added to the fertilizer and water you're better off getting the organic varieties. And yet, here are some that -- according to Dr. Weil -- are still okay to buy:

11 Items You Don't Have to Buy Organic
The best way to reap the health benefits of fruits and vegetables without exposing yourself to potentially harmful pesticides is to choose organic produce whenever possible, especially those varieties which are more likely to be contaminated. But if organic produce is cutting into your budget, it's okay to buy non-organic varieties of the fruits and vegetables listed below, which tend to contain the least amount of pesticides. However, make it a habit to wash them thoroughly before eating or cooking, to remove dirt and bacteria.

Asparagus
Avocados
Bananas
Broccoli
Cabbage
Corn (sweet, frozen)
Kiwi
Mangos
Onions
Pineapples
Peas (sweet, frozen)

It's a relief because you know that organically grown foods are twice as expensive!

Update on Us

2007-10-09T13:56:00.001-04:00

TB and I are wearing down under the enormous stress we're under. My sugar is out of whack again, I've gained weight and I have tingling toes and fingers which could be stress, diabetic neuropathy or Reynaud's. I already know that I have Reynaud's phenomenon and am hoping it's just an episode of that and not neuropathy or something equally evil. For years, I noticed that sometimes my fingers and toes would look blue and feel cold and a doctor told me it was Reynaud's and probably due to low thyroid function. I think stress plays a role in it too--probably more malevolency caused by too much cortisol!

TB is struggling to cope with what's happening to him. He's not able to work right now because of spinal stenosis. He is in so much pain he can barely stand to walk for more than a few minutes at a time. He has no sick leave and so there's no money coming in which adds to the depression and stress he's feeling. It's a terrible thing to be vitally healthy and the support of the whole family and to suddenly have your health do a crash and burn like this.

The adultolescents are not much help and to add fuel to the fire, TB and I are also members of the sandwich generation which means we have elderly parents who are becoming needy. Right now most of that burden is on his sister and my brother but there is only so much that those two will be able to bear without help.

I need to regroup and refocus and try to relax all at the same time!

What! What happened to my menopause?

2007-10-05T18:50:00.000-04:00

ARGH, I thought my periods stopped at least a year and possibly even longer ago. I can't remember the last time I had a real period although looking back there may have been times when I had a very very very light day or two ... does that count? If that counts then it hasn't been a full year! I guess I better call my "groinacologist"! That's what you are supposed to do if you have bleeding post menopause.

The cause of uterine bleeding postmenopause may be harmless; however, it's important to understand that there may be other causes of abnormal bleeding such as:

* uterine fibroid tumors
* a hormonal imbalance
* the use of birth control pills
* non-cancerous growths in the lining of the uterus

I need any of the above like I need another hole in my head! Isn't it bad enough I have another infection and my sugar has been too high for the last 10 days?

However...I have to relax and not think about it because I don't want any more cortisol coursing through my body wreaking more havoc! Time to play mindless online computer games!

Pink For October

2007-10-03T20:04:00.001-04:00

I lost two of my first cousins to breast cancer. My first husband's aunt lost her nearly 20 year battle around this time last year.

My aunt had surgery to remove a mass several years ago. Another cousin had a scare. I had a scare.

Cancer is an ugly insidious disease.

October is breast cancer awareness month and that's why I'm going Pink For October.

Healthy & Unhealthy Carbs

2007-09-21T13:42:00.000-04:00

Low carb diets like Atkins or South Beach limit the intake of carbohydrates, encouraging increased portions of protein and fat. Well...we all know what happened to Dr. Atkins, dropping dead of a heart attaack--was it all the animal fat? I'm learning from The Insulin Resistance Diet that it's more a matter of the quality of carbs than it is of strictly limiting their intake.

These carbs will cause those nasty insulin spikes in my blood that lead to higher sugar levels, increased appetite and unwanted weight gain:

Flour
Sugar
Sweetened dairy products
Most snack foods and baked goods
Processed grains, crackers, rice cakes, most breads
Soft drinks
High fructose corn syrup

Note: These are all processed foods! Another thing I learned from the book is that our ancestors didn't have this stuff and so for them, it was better to have spiking insulin levels. Now that most of our foods come from factories and we sit on our butts almost all day, those spikes are very very bad and so is processed food!

All foods have carbs. However, these are the "good" ones:

Whole grains (such as dense whole grain bread, basmati rice, barley and quinoa)
Beans
Nuts
Vegetables and fruits

They're all natural.

And more expensive...but the cost is well worth it!

What Helps Control Insulin Resistance

2007-09-16T18:09:00.000-04:00

This seems a no-brainer: nutrition and exercise. I'm learning about what it is and so I figured I'll make note of it, especially since I'm not doing so great in those areas anyway.

The medication I used to take, metformin, tries to work against insulin resistance by limiting the amount of glucose the liver releases. I didn't know that overnight, when I'm sleeping and not eating, my liver seems to think I might starve and releases sugar! I don't need it but my body doesn't realize it. Now the doctor has changed my medication to glucovance. It's got metformin plus another medication in it. Some medications have the sugar released for energy.

There are natural supplements that can help to reduce glucose:

Chromium supposedly stabilizes glucose in the blood and can help curb my cravings for carbs.

People with insulin resistance often don't have enough magnesium and potassium. What do these two minerals do and why are they so important? The book didn't explain.

Something called vanadium acts like insulin. What foods can you eat to get it? I don't know--the book didn't say, not yet anyway.

Garcinia cambogia is another one I've never heard of. Something in it signals the liver to store the glucose there and not as fat.

The book warns that taking too much of the supplements can be toxic. I intend to research more on each of these things but won't take any of them until I talk to the doctor.

September is fruits and vegetables month!

2007-09-16T16:56:00.000-04:00

I love Dr. Weil's newsletters. Better late than never, here are 10 good vegetables we should keep on hand:

September is Fruit and Vegetable Month, and we’re doing our part by offering this list of the 10 vegetables that Dr. Weil recommends you have on hand in your kitchen.

1. Onions: This classic, pungent vegetable adds flavor to any meal. Allicin, a phytonutrient found in most varieties of onions, may be responsible for its health benefits, including lowering cholesterol and blood pressure.

2. Garlic: This fragrant bulb contains many of the same phytonutrients as onions, as well as antibiotic and antiviral compounds. It may help boost the immune system, prevent colds, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, and fight fungal or yeast infections.

3. Spinach: This dark leafy green (and others like it, such as kale and collards) contains lutein and zeaxanthin, antioxidant carotenoids that may help prevent cataracts and macular degeneration. Spinach is also a source of calcium and folate, a B vitamin that helps to prevent birth defects. Buy organic spinach, since pesticides are commonly used on conventionally grown varieties.

4. Cabbage: This low-cost yet highly nutritious cruciferous vegetable contains nutrients called indoles, which may protect against both breast and prostate cancer. It also provides significant amounts of fiber and vitamin C.

5. Sweet potatoes: Rich in beta carotene, these vegetables may help boost the immune system, deliver vitamin C and folate (which may reduce the risk of heart disease and prevent certain birth defects), and are low on the glycemic index and glycemic load charts.

6. Beets: The deep red color of these root vegetables comes from anthocyanins, phytonutrients that protect against carcinogens and may help prevent heart disease. Beets are delicious hot or cold, versatile, and inexpensive.

7. Squash. With a wide variety of types, flavors, shapes, and sizes, squash is very versatile - it can even be used in pie! It provides beta carotene, potassium, and fiber, nutrients that are necessary for good overall health.

8. Tomatoes: This red fruit (often considered a vegetable) contains lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that helps fight heart disease and some types of cancer, particularly prostate cancer. Use tomatoes in everything from salads to sauces, but know that the lycopene is most easily absorbed when the tomatoes are cooked with a little oil.
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9. Broccoli. This vegetable platter classic and other cruciferous vegetables offer cancer-protective benefits. Broccoli is also a good source of vitamin K and calcium - both of which help keep bones strong. It is tasty both raw and cooked, and can be a stand out in soups, casseroles, and salads.

10. Mushrooms. Prized for their tonic effects, mushrooms can help address a host of illnesses. Maitake mushrooms (known as "hen of the woods" for their resemblance to the fluffed tail feathers of a nesting hen) are particularly valued in Asian cooking, as they have anti-cancer, anti-viral and immune-enhancing properties, and may also reduce blood pressure and blood sugar. Shiitake, enokidake and oyster mushrooms also have immune-boosting qualities, and are easily included in many main courses.

I'm not a fan of spinach or mushrooms but do keep them on hand for TB who loves them. I guess I should be giving them another try too!

We're Not #1 In Longevity

2007-09-16T16:43:00.000-04:00

It seems like people are living longer and longer thanks to technology but ... the United States is not #1 in the world for longevity! Surprised? I know I was!

Lifelong Health: Life Expectancy in U.S. Drops to 42nd in World
Dr. David Lipschitz
The life expectancy of Americans is at an all-time high. But, before you get too excited, I must let you know that the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics report that America ranks poorly in life expectancy among the world's developed countries. Twenty years ago, America ranked 11th in the world. Today, it has dropped to 42nd. We spend more health dollars per capita than any other nation, and yet Japan, Singapore, Macau, most of Europe, Jordan and the Cayman Islands are all ahead of us in longevity.

The straight statistics are embarrassing, but dig a little deeper, and the story grows worse. Longevity is not just an "American" issue, but a socioeconomic and ethnic one as well. The life expectancy among affluent whites -- 77.9 years of age -- competes well with most countries in Asia and Europe. However, the life expectancy of black males averages 69 years, lower than in Cuba, Iran and Syria.

Perhaps the most alarming statistic of all is that the United States has a higher rate of infant mortality than most other developed countries. Here, the United States ranks 41st behind most developed Asian countries, Europe and Cuba. The average infant mortality in the United States is 6.8 deaths per 1,000 births. However, infant mortality among blacks is 13.7 deaths per thousand births. Before you start pointing to infant deaths as the main cause of our lowered life expectancy, realize that even when excluding deaths during the first year of life, America still ranks 42nd.

So why the declining rank of life expectancy in the United States? First, the National Center for Health Statistics now tracks information from many more countries than it did 20 years ago. However, I do not think this detracts from the fact that most developed countries are doing much better than we are.

In an interview on British Broadcasting Corp., Dr. Robert Butler, president of the International Longevity Center, blames the decline in life expectancy on disparities in socioeconomic status, the lack of access to quality health care and the fact that so many Americans are uninsured. He points out that a black man in Harlem, Baltimore or New York has a lower life expectancy than a man living in Bangladesh. He puts much of the blame on commercial health insurance with its massive overhead for marketing, claims adjustment, administrative costs and salaries for senior executives. Butler urges immediate and substantive health care reform -- reducing the number of uninsured Americans, improving access to care and eradicating reduced longevity among minorities and the poor.

Although I often complain about America's focus on acute, high-technology care, this is clearly not a contributing factor in our poor longevity ranking. When it comes to major surgery of any kind, including open heart, abdominal or cancer, the United States ranks at or near the top. Similarly, we rank high in treatment of cancer by chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Clearly, an American with cancer will likely have a better outcome than a Bangladeshi with cancer.

But the huge investment in acute care comes at a cost that is much more than financial. Most medical student training concentrates almost exclusively on managing acute illnesses and serious medical problems. Doctors flock to these exciting and well-reimbursed fields at the expense of primary and preventive care, fields in which lack of physicians is approaching crisis levels. It is not surprising, therefore, that the quality of primary and preventive care and the management of chronic diseases leave much to be desired.

There is another likely culprit in America's low ranking in longevity -- unhealthful lifestyle choices such as eating poorly, being sedentary and smoking, all of which contribute significantly to a higher risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer. This in turn leads to a lowered life expectancy.

For a nation with the resources of the United States, disparities in health care, high infant mortality and an inability to address the obesity, diabetic and heart disease epidemics should always remain center stage in the debate over our nation's priorities and the use of its precious resources.

========

Dr. David Lipschitz is the author of the book "Breaking the Rules of Aging." To find out more about Dr. David Lipschitz and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. More information is available at www.drdavidhealth.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

What terrible statistics! I realize our own behavior is to blame for some of this--eating too much fast food, not exercising, etc--but how can we have such an abysmal infant mortality rate? We have got so much money, how is it these babies are dying?

The Insulin Resistance Diet

2007-09-12T15:39:00.000-04:00

I started reading the book again and this time I thought I'd take notes on what I learn...maybe I'll remember? Who knows! Anyway, I think I'll read it more slowly this time and maybe the concepts will stick this time!

Things I've learned so far:

1. Insulin regulates my blood sugar but it also stores fat. If my insulin level spikes to bring down levels of sugar, it'll store more fat. If I can keep my insulin levels from shooting up, I won't store so much fat and I could lose weight! The fatter I am, the more insulin resistant I become, meaning that my cells won't take incoming glucose--which means they become stored as fat!

2. Insulin resistance used to be known as "Syndrome X". Researchers knew in the late 1980s that a cluster of dangerous health conditions existed in some individuals but they didn't know what was causing it. More recently, they found that insulin resistance is the culprit in metabolic syndrome--cardiac artery disease, hypertension, type II diabetes, obesity and stroke are all health problems stemming from it. Scary!

3. I have high blood pressure and even though I'm taking medication for it, damage is still occurring. Scarier!

4. Skin tags can be an indication you're developing type II diabetes--I sure wish I'd known that!

5. What makes insulin resistance worse? Caffeine and stress cause insulin levels to rise. Guilty guilty guilty! I drink lots of coffee and am under a great deal of stress. Am I doomed? I hope not!

Immune For Life? Think Again!

2007-09-10T09:15:00.001-04:00

I was born in 1954 so I actually got a lot of the childhood diseases: measles, mumps, scarlet fever, and possibly even whooping cough. My kindergarten teacher was sure I had it and my mother was furious. I have the scars on my shoulder to show where I got my polio vaccinations--boy did they hurt! I knew that I'm supposed to get a tetanus booster every so often but figured I had immunity for life against all the other nasty kids' disease. But wait! There's this:

The Adult Vaccines You Need

If you can't remember the last time you got a vaccine, call your doctor now.

On a mid-August morning two summers ago, Debbie Twenge started coughing. Just a cold, thought the resident of Dundee, OR, now 56. But the body-racking cough got worse--much worse. Over the next 6 weeks, Twenge had to make two trips to the emergency room. One particularly frightening evening, her daughter called 911 when Twenge's throat closed up during a coughing fit. "I thought I was going to die," she recalls.

By the end of September, her doctor was suggesting tranquilizers--"as if I was just a nervous female," Twenge says with outrage. That's when her husband read about a local outbreak of whooping cough, aka pertussis. A test quickly revealed she had it, but it took 6 months for her to recover from the lingering inflammation and injury to her breathing passages.

So it was with great interest that Twenge recently learned that the CDC now recommends all adults get a booster shot to protect themselves against this "childhood" disease. Health officials estimate that the vaccine could prevent more than 8,000 adult infections and 30 to 40 deaths each year. "If I had known what pertussis was like, I would have jumped at the chance to be vaccinated," says Twenge.

Chances are, when you hit adulthood, you figured that you were pretty much done with vaccines, except for the occasional flu shot. But it's time to roll up your sleeve. Experts say the right vaccines can prevent pain and misery--and could even save your life.

Still hesitant? Worried about side effects? Don't be. Here's the lowdown on the shots you need and when--and why you want them.

Get It Now

Tdap booster: Prevents whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetanus

You probably got a pertussis shot as a child, or maybe even had a bout of whooping cough, and think you're immune. But experts now realize that neither immunization nor infection provides lifelong protection. In fact, immunity wanes within 10 years, explains Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the CDC's National Immunization Program. That's a big reason there's been a massive resurgence of pertussis over the past 20 years--more than 25,500 cases in the United States in 2005.

Protect yourself: The next time you're due for your 10-year tetanus-diphtheria shot (Td)--and yes, you should be getting a tetanus booster every decade--ask for the Tdap booster, which includes protection against pertussis. Get the shot now if you're in close contact with a baby or someone whose immune system has been weakened by age, chemotherapy, or HIV infection--they might not survive if you pass pertussis to them. (You can get a Tdap booster as soon as 2 years after a previous Td vaccine.)

MMR: Prevents mumps, measles, and rubella Just when we'd almost vanquished mumps, the viral infection is making a comeback. In a typical year, fewer than 300 Americans catch mumps, but in 2006, there were more than 5,800 cases! The reason may be found in England: Lagging childhood immunization rates there have led to a comeback of this disease, and tourists may have carried it here. In adults, mumps can be serious: 1 in 20 women develops swelling of the ovaries; 1 in 5 men, inflammation of the testes. Rarely, adult mumps can cause potentially deadly encephalitis (an infection of the brain).

If you were born between 1957 and 1967, you're particularly susceptible to catching mumps, because the version of the vaccine your pediatrician gave you wasn't effective enough to provide reliable lifelong protection.

Protect yourself: If you're not sure you had mumps or received two MMR doses after 1967, get this vaccine ASAP. (Kids need two shots 28 days apart; as an adult, you'll get only one.)

Flu vaccine: Prevents flu--and potentially deadly pneumonia Late in 2003 and into 2004, doctors in the Baltimore area were helpless to save a previously healthy man in his 50s when he developed an antibiotic-resistant form of pneumonia on the heels of the flu. Three others--women in their 20s and 30s--nearly died the same way.

The bug behind those drug-resistant pneumonias is a new and nasty strain of Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA--and researchers say flu raises the risk of catching it. There are plenty of other reasons to avoid the flu: 36,000 people die each year from flu-related complications. That's why the CDC now says that all adults should get an annual flu shot.

Protect yourself: This fall, get a flu shot or a spritz of the new nasal vaccine, FluMist (approved for adults up to age 50). It's best to get immunized in October or November, but immunization as late as January is still worthwhile--the flu often peaks as late as March.

Get it When You Turn 60

Zostavax: Prevents shingles and postherpetic neuralgia

One in four people who have had chickenpox eventually develops the blistering rash of shingles--caused when the chickenpox virus, Varicella zoster, is reactivated. Around 40% will go on to suffer what's been described as the worst kind of pain imaginable. Called postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), it is so agonizing that it's been known to lead some people to suicide.

Protect yourself: As soon as you hit 60, get a dose of Zostavax, approved by the FDA last year. Schuchat predicts that people in their 50s will eventually be urged to get the vaccine, too, if ongoing tests show that it's equally effective in their age group. You've never had chickenpox? Then definitely get the chickenpox vaccine, Varivax, as well. Adult chickenpox has a substantially higher risk of complications, such as pneumonia and potentially deadly encephalitis.

Get it if You're Dating

HPV vaccine (Gardasil): Prevents cervical cancer

The benefits of the HPV vaccine for women under 26 have been all over the news. But the headlines overlooked something important: Gardasil may also be lifesaving for older women, especially those who are divorced or in a nonmonogamous relationship. Younger women were studied first because they're more likely to be exposed to the cancer-causing human papillomavirus, but research is under way on women over age 26. The vaccine targets four of the viral strains most commonly associated with cervical cancer and genital warts and, says Schuchat, "the chance that any woman has been exposed to all four types is tiny. So the vaccine will probably benefit everyone who gets it."

Protect yourself: Consider getting the three-shot HPV series if you've been mutually monogamous--or abstinent--but are now dating again. (Think about getting a hepatitis B vaccine, too; that sexually transmitted virus sometimes causes liver cancer.) If you're over age 26, your insurance may not cover the $350 cost of the series, at least until Gardasil is approved for older women or a similar shot, called Cervarix, gets okayed (that vaccine was recently green-lighted in Australia for women up to age 45). However, one or both approvals may happen soon.

Put Vaccine Fears to Rest

Fear: Mercury

Fact: A few years back, researchers raised the concern that people (especially babies) might accumulate a toxic dose of mercury from thimerosal, a vaccine preservative that consists largely of the metal. To be on the safe side, thimerosal was removed from many pediatric vaccines. But since then, studies have shown that the form of mercury found in the preservative, ethyl mercury, does not build up in the body.

Fear: Allergic reaction

Fact: These do occur, so tell your doctor if you have an allergy to egg (flu vaccine), gelatin (MMR vaccine), or yeast (HPV and hepatitis B vaccines). If you have an unexpected reaction, the doctor will give you an antihistamine, or a shot of epinephrine if your allergy is severe. It's worth noting, though, that vaccines cause only one death or serious reaction per million shots given--and save many more lives by preventing disease.

Fear: The flu vaccine actually causes the flu

Fact: The flu shot contains no live virus, while FluMist contains one that has been weakened so that it's incapable of causing infection. Neither can give you the flu, says Andrew Kroger, MD, a CDC epidemiologist and vaccine information specialist. But if you were exposed to the flu right before you were immunized, the protection may come too late to keep you from getting sick.

Fruits High In Antioxidants

2007-09-08T20:55:00.000-04:00

There are cranberry bogs all around my community but I never see them for sale on the roadstands. Does Ocean Spray buy them all up? I wonder...

What brought this to mind was fruit salad. This morning TB and I went out to a diner for breakfast and I was in the mood for fresh fruit. I was in luck! I was served a platter of melons, strawberries and blueberries. I know from talking to one of the folks at a farmstand that the berries aren't in season anymore so I know what was in my salad wasn't local. Still, it was very tasty.

These fruits are especially high in antioxidants:

Blueberries
Cranberries
Blackberries
Prunes
Raspberries
Strawberries
Red delicious apples
Granny Smith apples
Sweet cherries
Black plums

Ah, and these are some of my favorite fruits although raspberries and blackberries are usually too expensive for us to buy.

I think our community used to be on a blueberry bog because our backyard sand has a blue hue to it when you dig down under the surface. I am wild for blueberries and never pass up an opportunity to buy them even if they are getting to be expensive now and imported from elsewhere at this point.

But where are all the cranberries?

Eating catfish!

2007-09-07T16:18:00.000-04:00

I actually prepared and ate a catfish fillet! I have had a "thing" about fish since I was a little girl. I remember my mom got some bones caught in her throat and was choking. I was terrified and after that, whenever I would eat fish I would feel a choking sensation. It didn't help if the fish was overcooked, bony or tasted strongly fishy. If that happened, my gag reflex got engaged. It was all very unpleasant and so I tried my best not to eat fish at all, except for the tuna in a can.

That changed with TB's grilling. First I tried salmon and after my initial bout of squeamishness, found it to be very tasting. The same followed with tuna and tilapia. I didn't think I'd ever want to try catfish, though. I have a picture in my head of these things scavenging around with their long whiskers--ick. They were on sale at the store, though, and I said to myself, be a grown up and just try it.

Again, I had the squeamishness I've always gotten with fish. I got past that and realized it didn't taste fishy at all. I used a recipe from About Southern Food called "Catfish Provencale". You make it with fresh tomatoes and onions and it just sounded delicious...and it was! I ate almost the entire fillet before I began seeing whiskered fish faces in my head--then I had to quit.

The one reason I put myself through this squeamishness is my health. I want the omega-3s in the fish because it reduces my cholesterol and triglycerides. Deep ocean fish have the largest amounts of omega-3s but they also have a lot of mercury. Too much mercury can cause heart and neurological disorders. I try to make one fish meal tuna and the other salmon or tilapia.

Wait a minute though--the farm bred fish may not be so high in omega-3s after all! It depends on what they are being fed. The example given was catfish, which has very little beneficial omega-3s unless they are specifically fed it in their diet. I just saw an article from the online Malaysian News Agency that talked about omega-3 catfish raised in ponds. They are a special mix of food to produce fish with higher levels of omega-3.

I wonder if I ate Malaysian catfish? Probably not...

I think I'll have to stick to tuna and wild salmon and hope the mercury doesn't get me! If not one thing, than another, right?

Depression

2007-09-07T15:29:00.000-04:00

What a vicious cycle! In my father's family, almost every one of my aunts, uncles and cousins have a mood disorder or alcoholism. My mother seems to be the only one of her siblings afflicted with any kind of emotional problem. She was definitely depressed when I was growing up and now that both my daughters have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there wasn't some of that going on too. I just remember being afraid of her rages. My own battles with depression and anxiety started when I was in my teens.

I wish I knew more about my grandparents' (both sides) generation and back. Were other members of the family depressed? I don't think I'll be able to find out because mood disorders were (are?) so stigmatized. It was a shameful thing to have to see a shrink, something the family was embarrassed to admit and often they'd refuse to get any help for themselves or their loved ones. And being depressed--well, aren't you supposed to just "snap out of it"?

What I do know is that one grandfather was a heavy drinker and the other suffered from rages and terrorized his whole family. Both grandmothers, being women, had to tolerate a lot of crap--that's just the way it was. After the raging grandfather died, my grandmother wrote in her diary that she was finally free. I read her diary after her death and felt so sad...and had a bit more understanding and compassion for my mother.

I read an online article that said:

Physical factors such as genes, hormones, and brain function aren’t the only contributors to depression; life events also play a role. Profound early losses, such as the death of a parent or the withdrawal of a loved one’s affection, may resonate throughout life, eventually expressing themselves as depression. When an individual is unaware of the wellspring of his or her illness, he or she can’t easily move past the depression.

The italics are mine. My grandfather, in a rage, would knock my mother's head against a wall. He'd go after my grandmother or one of my uncles. Also, my mother and her sister were placed in a school for the deaf in the city. They were separated from their families for months at a time. My mother had rages and periods of depression when I was little. Sometimes she was physically abusive and sometimes she'd try to kill herself. I didn't feel her love. In fact, she told me she'd never wanted to have children and that my father forced her. That sure affected me!

What might have happened to my daughters? I made sure I was affectionate with them and supportive and told them I loved them. Even from early childhood, Heidi had mood swings and depression--that biological gene? The girls were 12 and 9 when their dad died and so I think if anything triggered a spiral downward it would be that. What is more traumatic to a kid than arguing with your father one night and waking up the next morning to find out he'd died while you were sleeping, before you could say I didn't mean it, I love you?

So...do I have a depression gene that was dormant until it was triggered by a traumatic event in my teen years and did I pass it on to my girls?

Can you tell I have guilt issues as well?

If that wasn't enough, there is this, from another article:

Parental stress or bullying by peers can make it even tougher for overweight or obese children to get healthy, a U.S. study finds.

"If a parent is distressed, that seems to impact a child's symptoms of depression, which then impacts quality of life. It's the same with peer victimization. It impacts depression, which then impacts quality of life. And it seems to affect not just the emotional aspect of quality of life, but also their health status," lead author David Janicke, assistant professor of clinical and health psychology in the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions, in Gainesville, said in a prepared statement.

That is very distressing! I do feel guilty because my older two kids are very obese and Kristin is about 40-50 lbs overweight. Okay, it happened mostly after my first husband died and it was true that I was so flattened by grief that I didn't make sure they were eating the right things or exercising. By the time I "woke up" we'd gained about 300 pounds between the 4 of us.

What is there left to do? I know from my own experience as a heavy adolescent that nagging and ridicule doesn't work. I know the motivation to get healthy has to come from within. But as a mother, it's hard sometimes to think about their futures if they don't lose weight and exercise. They'll end up like me--with health problems and in pain. I don't want that for them. I can offer healthy foods here and not buy junk which is what I do. They've seen me struggling with weight issues all their lives and I haven't been the best role model when they were growing up.

And guess what? Even though weight is a problem on both sides of my family I wouldn't doubt it if my struggles didn't stem from my mom's inability to respond to me when I was little.

A vicious cycle indeed!

Different Types of Meditation

2007-09-03T17:28:00.000-04:00

My stress level over the last few days has been so high it's worrisome to me--I can feel the tension and feel my heart racing sometimes. I know what I need to do--I have to learn and practice until I master some stress reducing techniques. I just read an article about meditation. It's not an easy skill to master and I appreciate the fact that more than one method is explained.

Benefits and Different Types of Meditation Techniques
From Elizabeth Scott, M.S.,
Your Guide to Stress Management.

Techniques for Relaxation

Benefits of Meditation

Meditation is widely recommended as a healthy way to manage stress, and for good reason. It provides many health-enhancing benefits, like slowing your heart rate and breathing, normalizing your blood pressure, actually slowing the rate at which your body ages and more! (Read this article for more information on the health benefits of meditation.) Basics of Meditation:

Meditation can be practiced in many different ways. While there are numerous different meditation techniques, a common thread runs through virtually all meditative techniques:

Quiet Mind: With meditation, your thinking mind becomes quiet. You stop focusing on the stressors of your day, your life’s problems, or solving these problems. You just let that voice in your head be quiet, which is easier said than done. For example, start thinking about nothing now. (It’s okay; I’ll wait.) If you’re not practiced at quieting your mind, it probably didn’t take long before thoughts crept in.

Being In The Now: Rather than focusing on the past or the future, virtually all meditative pracgtices involve focusing on right now. This involves experiencing each moment and letting it go, experiencing the next. This, too, takes practice, as many of us live most of our lives thinking toward the future or relishing and rehashing the past.

Altered State of Consciousness: With the quiet mind and focus on the present comes an altered level of consciousness that isn’t a sleeping state but isn’t quite your average wakeful state, either. Meditation increases brain activity in an area of the brain associated with happiness and positive thoughts and emotions, and alter brain waves from beta to gamma waves, which have been associated with higher functioning and heightened awareness. Research comparing Tibetan monks, who are practiced in meditation, with typical college students, found that those who practice meditation techniques regularly may actually enjoy permanent positive changes in brain functioning.

Types of Meditative Techniques:

There are many different ways to meditate. Here I’ll mention some basic categories of meditation techniques so you can understand some of the main options and how they differ from one another. This is not an exhaustive list, but it can give you some ideas.

Basic Meditation Techniques: This involves sitting in a comfortable position and just trying to quiet your mind by thinking of nothing. It’s not always easy to do this if you don’t have practice with it, but a good way to begin is to think of yourself as an ‘observer of your thoughts’, just noticing what the narrative voice in your head says, but not engaging it. As thoughts materialize in your mind, you just let them go. That’s the basic idea.

Focused Meditation Techniques: With this technique, you focus on something intently, but don’t engage your thoughts about it. You can focus on something visual, like a statue; something auditory, like a metronome or tape of ocean waves; something constant, like your own breathing; or a simple concept, like ‘unconditional compassion’. Some people find it easier to do this than to focus on nothing, but the idea is the same: staying in the present moment and circumventing the constant stream of commentary from your conscious mind, and allowing yourself to slip into an altered state of consciousness.

Activity-Oriented Meditation Techniques: With this type of meditation, you engage in a repetitive activity, or one where you can get ‘in the zone’ and experience ‘flow’. Again, this quiets the mind, and allows your brain to shift. Activities like gardening, creating artwork, or practicing yoga can all be effective forms of meditation.

Mindfulness Techniques: Mindfulness can be a form of meditation that, like activity-oriented meditation, doesn’t really look like meditation. It simply involved staying in the present moment rather than thinking about the future or the past. (Again, this is more difficult than it seems!) Focusing on sensations you feel in your body is one way to stay ‘in the now’; focusing on emotions and where you feel them in your body (not examining why you feel them, but just experiencing them as sensations) is another.

Spiritual Meditating: Meditation can also be a spiritual practice. Many people experience meditation as a form of prayer—the form where God speaks, rather than just listening. That’s right, many people experience ‘guidance’ or inner wisdom once the mind is quiet, and meditate for this purpose. You can meditate on a singular question until an answer comes (though some would say this is engaging your thinking mind too much), or meditate to clear their mind and accept whatever comes that day.

Whichever meditative techniques you use, the potential benefits are clear and numerous, making it one of the more commonly recommended stress management practices.

Exercise and Diabetes II

2007-08-27T20:08:00.000-04:00

Well, here is a good reason to push myself into an exercise regiment:

Lowering Blood Sugar through Physical Activity
Exercise can do more than help you lose weight. It can increase circulation, decrease stress, and reduce the risk for heart disease and strokes by lowering blood pressure and cholesterol. Getting some exercise is recommended for overall health. For people with diabetes, exercise can do even more. It can help keep blood glucose levels in range, and can go a long way towards preventing the complications associated with diabetes.

...

People diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes usually have something called "insulin resistance." This means that their bodies still produce insulin, but it's not as effective at lowering blood glucose any more. Sometimes the insulin receptors aren't as sensitive, and sometimes the pancreas just doesn't make as much insulin as it used to. This insulin resistance is usually associated with increased fat and decreased muscle mass. Muscle cells use insulin much more efficiently than fat cells do, so building more muscle and reducing fat helps the body use the insulin that is produced thereby lowering overall blood glucose levels.

...

How To Begin

Aim for 30 minutes of moderate activity five days a week. There are lots of different kinds of exercise. Try some of these or come up with your own:

Walking, biking, hiking, or dancing
Exercise videos and DVD's at home
Classes at the local Y such as yoga, tai chi, or pilates
Team sports like volleyball, martial arts, basketball, raquetball
Winter sports like cross country skiing, snowshoeing, or mall walking
Before beginning an exercise program, be sure to check with your doctor.

My favorite exercise is swimming not only because I've always loved it but also because of arthritis in my neck, spine, hips and ankles. Water keeps you buoyant and so you don't have any weight on the affected joints. I know what I should do and I even have a place where I can swim...it's a matter of making myself do it.

Fibromyalgia Funk

2007-08-26T12:55:00.000-04:00

I don't know from day to day whether or not I'm going to experience a fibromyalgia fog or funk. Many times, I feel great the day before. Sometimes I have some warning, like symptoms of IBS. Today I was supposed to go to a birthday party/clan gathering for TB's mother. I wasn't feeling well yesterday and when I woke up this morning, I knew I was in trouble. It wasn't just the pain, which is mostly from arthritis is my spine and hips.

When I'm in a fog or funk it's hard to move. I feel like I'm in a big vat of molasses. I'd like to get moving but it takes a great deal of effort and it's easier not to. My brain seems to slow down too--or this molasses like malaise gunks up the brain cells and the neurons don't fire. I can't remember words for things that I know and can't seem to put together a coherent sentence. If I am in the store, I can't seem to make a decision about whether or not to buy something--which brand? do we need it?

People don't understand. I mean, I didn't used to understand and many times I still don't. They think it's an excuse to get out of doing something or if you take some herbs and other remedies it'll take care of all the problems so you can live your life. Well, I don't know about that. I see the doctor every six months about it unless there's a big issue going on (like the bursitis in my hip). Ibuprofen isn't working so now I'm taking Alleve and it the pain is really bad I take tramadol.

Tramadol works but I don't like to take it because it can cause seizures especially in someone like me who also takes zoloft. With the other medications I take, the combination also tends to slow me down even further and makes me very very sleepy.

Needless to say, I didn't go to the party and I've taken some tramadol. TB, who worries a lot about me, also stayed home. He is worried about me because on days like this, my ability to move around is very limited and I become very depressed and also feel guilty. I was going to push myself to go to the party because I know that the family would be disappointed and upset. I think I would have been able to pull it off were it not a 2-1/2 to 3 hour drive one way. On days like this, it just hurts to sit that long and when I do get out of the car I feel like I can barely walk.

I really start my day out with lots of good intentions. I mean to stay in touch with family members and friends, mean to take my grandson out to have a fun time, go exercise, have fun with my own kids...and then all of a sudden I just feel like I got hit with a sledgehammer. I'm only 52. I don't like feeling this way at all.

This is one I have to show my kids...

2007-08-20T11:55:00.000-04:00

In this house, we all love to drink soda--diet soda because we are diabetics and overweight. Water is much better for us and we know it but sometimes we just want something that has more taste to it. My two older kids are basically addicted to diet soda and so is TB. I think we could easily go through $50 of soda in a week, diet Pepsi, Coke Zero and Diet Coke. The thing is, it's probably hurting us! After reading this, I must try my hardest to have a diet soda only with a meal, say dinner.

Study: Soda, even diet, can up heart risk
BOSTON (UPI) -- Drinking one or more soft drinks a day -- even diet -- may increase the risk of developing metabolic risk factors for heart disease, says a U.S. study.

"We were struck by the fact that it didn't matter whether it was a diet or regular soda that participants consumed, the association with increased risk was present," senior author Dr. Ramachandran Vasan, of the Framingham Heart Study and Boston University School of Medicine, said in a statement.

"In those who drink one or more soft drinks daily, there was an association of an increased risk of developing the metabolic syndrome."

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk factors including excess waist circumference, high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, low levels of high-density lipoprotein "good" cholesterol and high-fasting glucose levels. Three or more of the risk factors increases a person's risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Individuals consuming one or more soft drinks a day had a 48 percent increased prevalence of the metabolic syndrome compared to those consuming less than one soft drink daily, according to the study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

Fat Cell Protein, Diabetes & Obesity

2007-08-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

Another example of body chemistry working against us:

Obesity, diabetes tied to fat cell protein
CLEVELAND (UPI) -- U.S. scientists suggest a protein involved in the transfer of fat in the blood may influence how fat cells store fat linked to obesity and diabetes.

The study, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, looked at how the protein -- called cholesterol ester transfer protein, or CETP -- is involved in the cellular storage and regulation of cholesterol and other fats.

Richard E. Morton and Lahoucine Izem of the Cleveland Clinic say CETP may be essential for lipid metabolism and storage in fat cells and that fat tissue is not only an energy storage tissue but also a major endocrine organ.

"CETP is known to shuttle different types of fat between lipoproteins -- combinations of fat and protein that transport fats in the blood," Morton said in a statement. "In this study, we show that CETP also shuttles fats inside fat cells between two separate areas and that fat cells with reduced levels of CETP are unable to process fats normally."

CETP deficiency disrupts storage of important fats in fat cells, which can lead to insulin resistance -- a major contributor to diabetes -- and the abnormal release of cytokines, proteins that stimulate the immune system, according to Morton. "This unexpected contribution of CETP provides a new understanding of how our body stores and regulates fats and of conditions such as obesity and diabetes," said Morton.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

The first step to solving a problem is always understanding it...so I hope that now scientists are working on a way to fix CETP deficiency.

Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing Baby

2007-08-20T10:46:00.000-04:00

A lot of recent research has been showing that taking vitamin supplements and other herbal pills don't really help that much fighting heart disease and reducing cholesterol. I used to take echinacea, tons of Vitamin C and Vitamin E because I thought they would help me. Well, it turns out that echinacea doesn't work as well as people hoped it did to prevent colds, Vitamin E can be deadly if you take too much of it and you piss out all the extra Vitamin C your body doesn't need.

I don't buy all the alphabetical supplements any more. I just stick with a multivitamin. I looked at the label contents and my goodness! Some provide way more than the recommended dosage to begin with so why would I need to get an extra bottle of B-12 or E? I used to buy all the minerals I could get my hands on but now I just stick with calcium (with D). The other stuff I take are: flaxseed oil, MSM, glucosomine chondroitin and CoQ12.

I still take the flaxseed oil in spite of the fact that I didn't see a reduction in my bad cholesterol or triglycerides.

Here is the bottom line truth: there is no substitute for the real thing. Eating fish (and not tuna fish in cans) brought down my bad cholesterol and triglycerides dramatically. For the other vitamin and minerals I go with expensive fresh produce: broccoli, corn, tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, peaches, plums, zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant from the local farmstand. Now that we are eating fish twice a week, our red meat consumption has gone down to once or twice a week and that is healthier for all of us.

My continuing major gripe: why should it be so much more expensive to eat healthy foods?

I've got the fibromyalgia fog blues

2007-08-09T09:18:00.001-04:00

It doesn't take much for the fog to set in these days. A couple of days ago, my grandson who has PDD-NOS (a form of autism) had a major meltdown and it was scaring and draining to watch his mom trying to restrain him so he wouldn't hurt himself. It hurts to be helpless.

I was still feeling okay but then my son came in just now to tell me that the battery or alternator in my car died while he was at work last night. He couldn't get the car to start and so he called home. Luckily his sister was awake at the time (I guess this was about 1 in the morning) and went to pick him up.

He tells me that she came in to wake me after they got back and told me what happened. I have absolutely no memory of it although my son says I answered that we'd call AAA in the morning.

I feel like a balloon that's been popped, sluggish and unable to think clearly. I know what I should do now. I just feel like I'm moving through a ton of molasses.

Eat Blue Tortillas!

2007-08-06T10:41:00.000-04:00

Blue?? I think I've seen tortilla chips that were different colors but I sure don't remember any that are blue. However, I found this fascinating and will have to check into it:

Blue tortillas may help dieters, diabetic
CARACAS, Venezuela (UPI) -- People with dieting blues should try swapping white corn tortillas for blue, according to a study in Mexico, suggesting colored flatbreads are healthier.

Scientists in Mexico found that tortillas made from blue corn had less starch and a lower glycemic index than their white counter parts, and the blue tortillas had 20 percent more protein than white, according to the study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

Foods with a lower glycemic index are considered healthier as they slowly release sugar into the bloodstream reducing the fluctuations in blood glucose and insulin levels, said study author Juscelino Tovar of the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas.

Low glycemic index foods are said to have long-term health benefits, reducing the risk of heart disease and diabetes as well as aiding and maintaining weight loss, according to Tovar.

One important benefit of the lower glycemic index blue tortillas is their potential role in preventing or controlling metabolic syndrome, a combination of disorders that increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

The blue coloring in the blue corn is due to the presence of anthocyanins -- the same health-promoting compounds found in berries and red wine.

I am looking for foods that have a low glycemic index number so this is worth looking into. I guess health food stores would have blue tortillas, even if the regular grocery store doesn't?

Dr. Weil's 3 Nutrition Tips for Arthritis

2007-08-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

I really like Dr. Weil's website for all the useful information that can help me to live better and healthier. For instance, it's from his website (and not doctors) that I first learned how omega 3s can help my heart.

I suffer from arthritis in my neck, hands and spine and some days are pretty bad. So I find this information helpful:

3 Nutrition Tips for Arthritis

Stiffness, pain and swelling of joints are common symptoms of osteoarthritis. Aside from getting regular exercise (low-impact is the best) and maintaining a healthy weight, consider the following nutritional changes to help prevent or lessens symptoms.

Eat foods rich in antioxidants. Fresh fruits and vegetables are good sources, and may help reduce tissue damage from inflammation.
Get enough omega-3s. Oily fish such as wild Alaskan salmon, walnuts, freshly ground flaxseed or a good omega-3 supplement may help reduce the inflammation and pain of arthritis.
Regularly use ginger and turmeric for their natural anti-inflammatory properties.

Here again are the omega-3s. Luckily I have a new taste for fish I never had before! Also, I had no idea that ginger and turmeric had any anti-inflammatory properties. Well, I learn something new every day that can help me!

Ten Foods For Longevity

2007-07-27T08:39:00.000-04:00

Ah, lucky me! Except for the spinach, these are some of my top 10 favorite foods!

Ten Foods for Longevity

Tomatoes. A major source of the antioxidant lycopene that reduces the risk of cancer by 40% -- notably prostate, lung and stomach cancers -- and increases cancer survival. Tomato eaters function better mentally in old age and suffer half as much heart disease. Concentrated tomato sauces have 5 times more lycopene than fresh tomatoes, and canned tomatoes have three times more than fresh.

Olive Oil. Shown to help reduce death from heart disease and cancer. Recent research shows that heart-attack survivors on a Mediterranean diet had half the death rates of those on an ordinary low-fat diet. Olive oil is also high in antioxidant activity.

Red Grapes, including red grape juice and red wine. Red grapes have moderate antioxidant power, while purple grape juice has four times more antioxidant activity than orange or tomato juice. Red wine (not white) has about the same antioxidant capacity as purple grape juice or tea. French research show that drinking red wine in moderation increases longevity, but excessive drinking has the opposite effect, so limit to two glasses per day. Drink grape juice.

Garlic. German researchers have found that garlic is packed with antioxidants know to help fend off cancer, heart disease and all-over aging, and prolong cancer survival time. Let crushed garlic "rest" about 10 minutes before cooking to preserve disease-fighting agents.

Spinach. Second among vegetables only to garlic in antioxidant capacity and is also rich in folic acid, which helps fight cancer, heart disease and mental disorders. New University of Kentucky research shows folic acid may help prevent Alzheimer's disease. Eat both raw and steamed for best benefit.

Whole grains. A University of Minnesota study suggests the more whole grains you eat, the lower your odds of death by 15%. Whole grains contain anticancer agents and help stabilize blood sugar and insulin, which may promote longevity. Whole-grain "dark" breads, cereals such as All Bran, and "old fashioned" oatmeal are an excellent source.

Salmon, and other fatty fish. Contains high amounts of omega-3 fat that performs miracles throughout the body, fighting virtually every chronic disease known. Without it, your brain can't think, your heart can't beat, your arteries clog, and joints become inflamed. You need one ounce a day, or two servings of salmon, sardines, mackerel, herring or tuna per week.

Nuts. Eating more than 5 ounces a week can cut heart-attack deaths in women by 40% and help prevent deadly irregular heart beats in men a Harvard University study found. Almonds and walnuts lower blood cholesterol. Most of the fat in nuts is the good-type monounsaturated and/or omega-3. Unsalted nuts are best.

Blueberries. High in antioxidants, Tufts University researchers say a half-cup of blueberries a day can retard aging and can block brain changes leading to decline and even reverse failing memory.

Tea. Green or black tea has equal antioxidant benefit. One cup a day can cut heart disease risk in half Harvard researchers found. Make from loose tea or tea bags, instant and bottled tea has little effect Tufts University shows.

~Author Unknown~

The importance of sleeping

2007-06-26T09:47:00.000-04:00

I'm learning that sleep is tied to good health and that tie can't be broken. I've learned that with broken sleep, my fibromyalgia bothers me more. I'm more stressed (no surprise there) and I even begin to gain weight when I don't get enough sleep! I've had a tendency for a long time to nap in the afternoon. Napping, I see from the article I just read, is actually a good thing--if it's the right length. If I sleep too long, I enter a deeper cycle which makes it harder for me to wake up and makes it harder for me to fall asleep. So now I've got to train myself to set my alarm clock to go off a lot sooner than I have been!

Sleep Benefits: Power Napping for Increased Productivity, Stress Relief & Health
From Elizabeth Scott, M.S.,
Your Guide to Stress Management.
Stay up to date!
The Benefits of Sleep and The Power Nap
Why A Power Nap? Facts on Sleep:
While small children typically take naps in the afternoon, our culture generally frowns upon mid-day sleep; however, even in those who get enough sleep (but particularly in those who don’t), many people experience a natural decrease in drowsiness in the afternoon, about 8 hours after waking. And research shows that you can make yourself more alert reduce stress and improve cognitive functioning with a nap. Mid-day sleep, or a ‘power nap’, means more patience, less stress, better reaction time, increased learning, more efficiency and better health. Here’s what you need to know about the benefits of sleep and how a power nap can help you!
How Much Sleep Do You Need? The body needs 7-8 hours of sleep per day; 6 hours or less triples your risk of a car accident. (Interestingly, too much sleep--more than 9 hours--can actuallybe harmful for your health; recent studies show that those who sleep more than 9 hours per day don’t live as long as their 8-hour-sleep counterparts!)

The Effects of Missed Sleep: Sleep is cumulative; if you lose sleep one day, you feel it the next. If you miss adequate sleep several days in a row, you build up a ‘sleep deficit’, which impairs the following:

Reaction time
Judgment
Vision
Information processing
Short-term memory
Performance
Motivation
Vigilance
Patience
Fatigued people also experience more moodiness, aggressive behaviors, burnout and more stress.
The Benefit of a Power Nap: Studies show that 20 minutes of sleep in the afternoon provides more rest than 20 minutes more sleep in the morning (though the last two hours of morning sleep have special benefits of their own). The body seems to be designed for this, as most people’s bodies naturally become more tired in the afternoon, about 8 hours after we wake up.

How Long Should I Sleep? When you sleep you pass through different stages of sleep, known together as a sleep cycle. These stages include light sleep, deep sleep (which is believed to be the stage in which the body repairs itself), and rapid-eye movement sleep, or REM sleep (during which the mind is repaired).

Many experts advise to keep the nap between 15 and 30 minutes, as sleeping longer gets you into deeper stages of sleep, from which it’s more difficult to awaken. Also, longer naps can make it more difficult to fall asleep at night, especially if your sleep defecit is relatively small. However, research has shown that a 1-hour nap has many more restorative effects than a 30-minute nap, including a much greater improvement in cognitive functioning. The key to taking a longer nap is to get a sense of how long your sleep cycles are, and try to awaken at the end of a sleep cycle. (It’s actually more the interruption of the sleep cycle that makes you groggy, rather than the deeper states of sleep.)

As there are pros and cons to each length of sleep, you may want to let your schedule decide: if you only have 15 minutes to spare, take them! But if you could work in an hour nap, you may do well to complete a whole sleep cycle, even if it means less sleep at night. If you only have 5 minutes to spare, just close your eyes; even a brief rest has the benefit of reducing stress and helping you relax a little, which can give you more energy to complete the tasks of your day.

Tips For a More Effective Nap If you want to obtain more sleep, and the health benefits that go with getting enough sleep, here are some tips for more effective napping and sleep at night:

Avoid caffeine after 3pm. It’s a stimulant that can disrupt your sleep and stay in your system longer than you think; its half-life is four to six hours!
If you don’t want to nap a long time, set an alarm.
If you don’t have time for a power nap, or don’t feel comfortable napping during the day, try meditation; it gives your body a rest and produces slower brain waves similar to sleep.

Us Women Aren't Treated As Aggressively For Diabetes II

2007-06-25T20:10:00.000-04:00

I read this article from "Everyday Health" and it made me mad. I thought about all the months when I was "pre-diabetic" and didn't know it. As for now...I am not going to willingly let this happen to me. I am getting the best care I can!

U.S. Women Lagging in Diabetes Care, Study Suggests

Published: 06/18/07
MONDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- In a finding that partly challenges the conventional wisdom that women live longer than men, a new study suggests that the medical advances of the last few decades against diabetes haven't benefited women.

Researchers found that the death rates of diabetic men dropped in recent decades, while those of diabetic women increased. It's not clear why the discrepancy exists.

"I do not have a clue," said Dr. Larry Deeb, president of medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association (ADA), when asked why women are falling behind. "But I do know that it argues that something we're doing isn't right. If you're a woman, and you have diabetes, it may be we're not aggressive enough about taking care of you."

In the new study, researchers led by Edward Gregg, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examined health surveys spanning 1971 to 2000 to determine the death rates of Americans with diabetes. The researchers looked at about 27,000 people.

They found that among diabetic men, the death rate from all causes dipped from 42.6 to 24.4 deaths per 1,000 persons between the two time periods.

Among men, "their mortality rates have declined," Gregg said, "and they've kept pace with their non-diabetic counterparts."

But among diabetic women, the death rate actually rose from 18.4 to 25.9 per 1,000, even as the life span of non-diabetic women grew longer.

Death rates from cardiovascular disease, in particular, stayed steady among women with diabetes while dropping among diabetic men.

The researchers reported their findings in the June 18 online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Why are women with diabetes at such high risk? "We can speculate on a few possibilities, that risk factors for things such as heart disease haven't declined as much among women as in men," Gregg said. "Another possibility is that women haven't gotten as aggressive or comprehensive treatment as men have over the years."

The ADA's Deeb, who's familiar with the study findings, said the research appears to be sound. "I don't think we can discount it," he said. "I think it's real."

An estimated 9.7 million American women have diabetes, and almost one-third of them don't know it. Women with diabetes are more likely to have a heart attack, and at a younger age, than women without diabetes, according to the ADA.

Diabetes is at least two to four times more common among black, Hispanic, American Indian, and Asian/Pacific Islander women than white women. The risk for the disease increases with age. Given the increasing life span of women and the rapid growth of minority populations, the number of women in the United States at risk for diabetes is increasing, the ADA said.

Meanwhile, a new U.S. study released Monday said that women are now about as likely as men to get recommended screening tests and treatments to manage their diabetes.

According to the latest News and Numbers from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, for Americans age 40 and over with diabetes:

The percentage of women who report being given three key recommended exams for diabetes -- blood sugar, retinal and foot -- increased from 37 percent in 2000 to 47 percent in 2003. During the same period, the percentage of men who reported receiving these exams rose only 3 percent from 46 percent to 49 percent.
The proportion of women whose blood sugar level was optimal increased from 38 percent for the period 1988 to 1994 to 47 percent for 1999 to 2002. In contrast, the proportion of men with optimal blood sugar level fell from 44 percent to 43 percent during the period.
In spite of the narrowing disparities between the genders, less than 60 percent of Americans, as a whole, receive optimal care for their diabetes.

Less than 60 percent of us receive optimal care! Why is that? Does it have to do with insurance issues?

Menopause Changes How I Should Treat My Diabetes!

2007-06-25T20:07:00.000-04:00

There is some information in this article that I didn't know. I didn't realize that estrogen protected the heart and I didn't realize that hormones affected insulin and levels of glucose! This is important to me, especially now that I've been one year without a period. I'm post menopause, technically!

Hormones and Blood Sugar: A Message for Women
Shifting hormones can cause shifting blood sugar levels.

Like anything else that affects your hormones, menopause can change how you need to treat your diabetes. Menopause occurs when production of estrogen and progesterone slows and finally stops. Many women achieve menopause (technically, that's when periods have stopped for a full year) between the age of 45 and 55, but it could be sooner or later for you. Unpredictable changes in estrogen and progesterone levels affect your blood glucose levels during the 10 years leading up to menopause, so it's important to be aware of the possible effects starting in your late 30s to early 40s.
Estrogen and progesterone counteract the effects of insulin in your body, so when these hormones are high, your blood glucose may also be high. When levels of these hormones fall, your blood glucose may be lower than you expect — and if you don't adjust your treatment plan, you may develop hypoglycemia. If you use insulin or diabetes pills, you may need to decrease the dose. Watch for the signs of menopause: the top two are irregular periods and hot flashes, but you may also notice sleep disturbances and skin changes. When you notice these symptoms, be wary of low blood glucose and monitor your levels more often.

Also, be aware that estrogen protects your heart, and you lose that protection after menopause. You also may notice that you tend to gain weight, especially in the abdomen, which is a heart disease risk factor. Take extra time to care for your heart now.

How Sleep Affects Your Weight

2007-06-17T12:09:00.000-04:00

This is from Dr. Weil's newsletter:

Research suggests that appetite-regulating hormones are affected by sleep and that sleep deprivation could lead to weight gain. In two studies, people who slept five hours or less per night had higher levels of ghrelin - a hormone that stimulates hunger - and lower levels of the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin than those who slept eight hours per night. So make sure getting adequate sleep is near the top of your optimum health checklist!

Yeesh! I have interrupted sleep due to insomnia--have trouble falling asleep and then I get up early to get Tomas off to school. So if I take a nap later and I have a total of 7 hours, does that help? Or do I need to get 8 hours uninterrupted? Have to check this out...

A Somewhat Dismal Update

2007-06-16T14:46:00.000-04:00

I haven't spiralled totally out of control but I've been very discouraged with my lack of progress over the last six months. In fact, I've done a big backslide! I've gained 10 pounds and my most recent sugars show my A1C has gone from 6.5 to 7.5. I feel like I'm having mood swings and suspect I may actually have some bipolar going on after all. This is a check list I plan to show to all my doctors:

GENERAL
__X__ Fatigue, made worse by physical exertion or stress
__X__ Activity level decreased to less than 50% of pre-illness activity level
__X__ Recurrent flu-like illness
____ Sore throat
____ Hoarseness
__X__ Tender or swollen lymph nodes (glands), especially in neck and underarms
____ Shortness of breath (air hunger) with little or no exertion
__X__ Frequent sighing
____ Tremor or trembling
__X__ Severe nasal allergies (new allergies or worsening of previous allergies)
__X__ Cough
__X__ Night sweats
____ Low-grade fevers
__X__ Feeling cold often
__X__ Feeling hot often
____ Cold extremities (hands and feet)
____ Low body temperature (below 97.6)
____ Low blood pressure (below 110/70)
____ Heart palpitations
__X__ Dryness of eyes and/or mouth
__X__ Increased thirst
__X__ Symptoms worsened by temperature changes
____ Symptoms worsened by air travel
__X__ Symptoms worsened by stress

PAIN
__X__ Headache
__X__ Tender points or trigger points
__X__ Muscle pain
____ Muscle twitching
__X__ Muscle weakness
____ Paralysis or severe weakness of an arm or leg
__X__ Joint pain
____ TMJ syndrome
__X__ Chest pain

GENERAL NEUROLOGICAL
__X__ Lightheadedness; feeling "spaced out"
__X__ Inability to think clearly ("brain fog")
____ Seizures
____ Seizure-like episodes
____ Syncope (fainting) or blackouts
____ Sensation that you might faint
__X__ Vertigo or dizziness
___X__ Numbness or tingling sensations
__X__ Tinnitus (ringing in one or both ears)
__X__ Photophobia (sensitivity to light)
__X__ Noise intolerance

EQUILIBRIUM/PERCEPTION
__X__ Feeling spatially disoriented
__X__ Dysequilibrium (balance difficulty)
__X__ Staggering gait (clumsy walking; bumping into things)
____ Dropping things frequently
____ Difficulty judging distances (e.g. when driving; placing objects on surfaces)
____ "Not quite seeing" what you are looking at

SLEEP
__X__ Hypersomnia (excessive sleeping)
__X__ Sleep disturbance: unrefreshing or non-restorative sleep
__X__ Sleep disturbance: difficulty falling asleep
____ Sleep disturbance: difficulty staying asleep (frequent awakenings)
____ Sleep disturbance: vivid or disturbing dreams or nightmares
__X__ Altered sleep/wake schedule (alertness/energy best late at night)

MOOD/EMOTIONS
__X__ Depressed mood
____ Suicidal thoughts
____ Suicide attempts
____ Feeling worthless
____ Frequent crying
__X__ Feeling helpless and/or hopeless
__X__Inability to enjoy previously enjoyed activities
__X__ Increased appetite
____ Decreased appetite
__X__ Anxiety or fear when there is no obvious cause
____ Panic attacks
__X__ Irritability; overreaction
__X__ Rage attacks: anger outbursts with little or no cause
__X__ Abrupt, unpredictable mood swings
____ Phobias (irrational fears)
____ Personality changes

EYES AND VISION
____ Eye pain
__X__ Changes in visual acuity (frequent changes in ability to see well)
__X__ Difficulty with accommodation (switching focus from one thing to another)
____ Blind spots in vision

SENSITIVITIES
____ Sensitivities to medications (unable to tolerate "normal" dosage)
____ Sensitivities to odors (e.g., cleaning products, exhaust fumes, colognes, hair sprays)
____ Sensitivities to foods
____ Alcohol intolerance
____ Alteration of taste, smell, and/or hearing

UROGENITAL
__X__ Frequent urination
____ Painful urination or bladder pain
____ Prostate pain
____ Impotence
____ Endometriosis
____ Worsening of premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
__X__ Decreased libido (sex drive)

GASTROINTESTINAL
__X__ Stomach ache; abdominal cramps
____ Nausea
____ Vomiting
____ Esophageal reflux (heartburn)
____ Frequent diarrhea
____ Frequent constipation
____ Bloating; intestinal gas
____ Decreased appetite
__X__ Increased appetite
__X__ Food cravings
__X__ Weight gain (10 lbs)
____ Weight loss (____ lbs)

SKIN
____ Rashes or sores
____ Eczema or psoriasis

OTHER
____ Hair loss
____ Mitral valve prolapse
____ Cancer
____ Dental problems
____ Periodontal (gum) disease
____ Aphthous ulcers (canker sores)

COGNITIVE
____ Difficulty with simple calculations (e.g., balancing checkbook)
__X__ Word-finding difficulty
__X__ Using the wrong word
__X__ Difficulty expressing ideas in words
____ Difficulty moving your mouth to speak
____ Slowed speech
____ Stuttering; stammering
__X__ Impaired ability to concentrate
__X__ Easily distracted during a task
____ Difficulty paying attention
__X__ Difficulty following a conversation when background noise is present
____ Losing your train of thought in the middle of a sentence
____ Difficulty putting tasks or things in proper sequence
____ Losing track in the middle of a task (remembering what to do next)
__X__ Difficulty with short-term memory
____ Difficulty with long-term memory
____ Forgetting how to do routine things
____ Difficulty understanding what you read
____ Switching left and right
____ Transposition (reversal) of numbers, words and/or letters when you speak
____ Transposition (reversal) of numbers, words and/or letters when you write
____ Difficulty remembering names of objects
__X__ Difficulty remembering names of people
____ Difficulty recognizing faces
____ Difficulty following simple written instructions
____ Difficulty following complicated written instructions
____ Difficulty following simple oral (spoken) instructions
__X__ Difficulty following complicated oral (spoken) instructions
____ Poor judgment
__X__ Difficulty making decisions
____ Difficulty integrating information (putting ideas together to form a complete picture or concept)
____ Difficulty following directions while driving
____ Becoming lost in familiar locations when driving
____ Feeling too disoriented to drive

This is my action plan for now:

I'm going to test my sugar 2 hours after my heavy meal (keep forgetting to do the fasting)

I'm going to re-read The Insulin Resistance Diet, something the authors suggested when you fall off track. I'm going to make healthier food choices and be aware of what I'm putting into my body

I'm going to try and swim a half hour 3 times a week

I'm going to journal more about my health

We Have The Heaviest Kids Under 5!

2007-06-03T15:48:00.000-04:00

Hello, I'm back and here's a timely article:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NJ Starting Agency to Battle Obesity
By: LINDA A. JOHNSON (Wed, May/30/2007)

TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey's health department is escalating the battle against the bulge by starting a new Office of Nutrition and Fitness to better coordinate programs to prevent obesity.

The agency is particularly needed in New Jersey , possibly the first state to create such a government body.

The Garden State has the highest percentage of overweight and obese children under age 5, at 17.7 percent, according to a 2004 survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Fred M. Jacobs, commissioner of the state Department of Health and Senior Services, said young people are a crucial target for the new agency because it's easier to instill good diet and exercise habits to prevent obesity in the young than to reverse weight problems later; adults almost always gain back any weight they lose , and then some.

Jacobs says he wants to tackle the obesity problem through education, support groups and encouraging physical activity, rather than by banning particular foods. One goal is to "de-normalize" the massive portions served in restaurants.

"I want to do that without creating a further stigma on individual people," Jacobs said. "It's bad enough when you're fat that people think less of you. I don't want the government piling on."

He is mulling the idea of having schools notify parents, via report cards, about children with weight problems.

Morton Downey, spokesman for The Obesity Society, which represents doctors, researchers and others in the field, said he knows of no other state with a dedicated agency fighting obesity, although federal grants in recent years have helped numerous states develop plans to fight obesity. He called New Jersey's initiative a very encouraging step that could become a national model.

"There's not really been an institutional base for people with ideas to go to gain support for their ideas" and funding for new programs, Downey said.

Obesity has become the country's No. 2 cause of preventable death, after smoking. Excess weight raises risk of heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, asthma, depression, arthritis and several types of cancer.

In New Jersey, almost 23 percent of residents are considered obese and another 37 percent are overweight, according to the CDC.

Setting up the anti-obesity agency was one of many recommendations in the New Jersey Obesity Prevention Action Plan, written by a large task force established by the state Legislature.

Jacobs said the new agency will begin operations within weeks, and may be able to win more federal and private grant money. He said it will coordinate spending of more than $2 million in nutrition and fitness programs, including promoting physical activity at all ages, providing fresh fruit and vegetables to eligible women, children and senior citizens, and encouraging breast-feeding, which can reduce the baby's chances of a weight problem later.

Other state agencies will be working with the health department. The Agriculture Department, for example, has been boosting the number of farmers market bringing fresh produce to seniors and city residents whose local stores don't stock much produce, said its head, Charles Kuperus.

More than half of all schools have already complied with the department's new rules limiting the amount of high-calorie, high-sugar foods available, a strategy meant to prevent kids from bypassing nutritious lunches and getting french fries or snacks from vending machines, he said. Every school is expected to be in compliance by the September deadline.

,,,

On the Net:

NJ Obesity Prevention Action Plan: http://www.nj.gov/health/fhs/documents/obesity,prevention.pdf

The Obesity Society: http://www.naaso.org/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article's URL:

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/94-05302007-1354091.html

I've Moved

2006-02-08T18:50:00.000-05:00

As much as I like Blogger, I'd become frustrated with the lack of imaginative templates and also because it's been down recently.

I moved to the family website, same title, and a template I enjoy looking at:

Mrs. Spratt

See you there!

Stomach Balloons--Quick Fix?

2006-02-02T12:39:00.000-05:00

The balloon technique is being tried out on big patients in Louisville, Kentucky but hasn't been approved by the FDA yet. What is it? A silicone balloon is slipped down the patient's throat, inflated with some saline solution and placed in the stomach for about six months. During that time, the balloon makes the patient feel fuller and so they don't eat as much.

I think of the things that people find so attractive about surgery is that the weight starts coming off...fast. The average weight loss is 33-44 lbs over the six months the balloon is in the stomach. That's an average loss of up to 1.6 lbs a week.

But what about those people who knock off at least that all by themselves? Well...I don't know how many people can lose like that but I sure can't anymore. My loss has been agonizingly slow so I can understand why a "quick fix" like balloon surgery would be appealing. After all, it's definitely less invasive than the lap band and let's not even discuss gastric bypass.

Some of the side effects include nausea but hey, I could live with that. But...what about other concerns?

What if it leaks? There's a blue dye in it to detect a leak.

What if it moves? It won't--it's too big.

Will it show through my abdomen? Nope.

I'm not sure why the magic number is six months, but at about that point the balloon is deflated and removed. If you still need to lose weight (as I would) then you'd get another one put in.

There is still one big concern: what happens when you're done losing weight and the balloon is removed? Does the weight stay off? In about 1/3 of cases, yes. Another 1/3 gains some weight back and another 1/3--OH NO!--gain it all back.

By the time the balloon comes out, though, doctors hope that the patients will have made lifestyle changes so that the weight stays off. This is definitely not one of those "as soon as this thing comes off, I'm getting a big piece of cake!" deals. Supposedly you get post-op support as well.

It's something I want to learn more about. I read the article here.

I'm Obese, I Have A Virus!

2006-01-31T08:04:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist that title. For the last 10 days, I have been so sick with a virulent nasty virus and this is the first time I've felt well enough to sit at the computer and focus a few thoughts. My TB found a fascinating entry in Science Blog called Contagious obesity? Identifying the human adenoviruses that may make us fat. My first reaction was to laugh, which set off a painful coughing spasm. On TV, anchors said people ought to be careful to wash their hands so that they didn't become obese. Still incredulous, I went and read the article.

I don't know about this one. I've read it twice and I have a gajillion questions. When there weren't so many of us fat folks, people generally believed you got fat from being lazy and not eating enough. Over the years, we've learned much about metabolism and fat genes and people have been getting bigger and bigger. Now that we've reached epidemic proportions isn't it "better" to say hey, I'm fat because I caught a virus? What about lack of exercise? What about "super size me"?

"It makes people feel more comfortable to think that obesity stems from lack of control..."

Um, no, not if you're the fat one. If you're the fat one you can beat yourself up pretty good because of not using more "control". It's a whole lot easier to say, "I can't help it, I was made this way" (gene) or "I can't help it, I'm sick" (virus).

Why are so many of us fat and getting fatter? I always thought it had to do with our couch potato mentality. Let's face it, we really have changed over the last 30 years or so. When I was a kid and even a young adult, I didn't spend nearly so much time sitting as I have in the last 20 years. I played outside until it got dark as a kid. I was on several different bowling leagues and swam as a young adult. And then came... "Pong". Yes, that first video game. We all sat there for a couple of hours at a time, mesmerized. Or we'd get heavily into "Space Invaders".

Add to the lack of activity, the "super size me" mentality of the fast food restaurants--and nearly all other eateries. Bingo, there you go, fat adults and kids.

Now this:

The theory that viruses could play a part in obesity began a few decades ago when Nikhil Dhurandhar, now at Pennington Biomedical Research Center at LSU, noticed that chickens in India infected with the avian adenovirus SMAM-1 had significantly more fat than non-infected chickens. The discovery was intriguing because the explosion of human obesity, even in poor countries, has led to suspicions that overeating and lack of exercise weren't the only culprits in the rapidly widening human girth. Since then, Ad-36 has been found to be more prevalent in obese humans.

...

There is still much to learn about how these viruses work, Whigham said. "There are people and animals that get infected and don't get fat. We don't know why," she said. Among the possibilities: the virus hasn't been in the body long enough to produce the additional fat; or the virus creates a tendency to obesity that must be triggered by overeating, she said.

Could this be really true? Wow, bring on the vaccine...oh wait, that'll be years in the future.

So for now, the best way to avoid becoming fat and the best way to lose it is to eat healthy and sensibly and exercise!

This news story is all over the place. Just google on "fat virus" and see what comes up!

This Week's Goals

2006-01-19T11:39:00.000-05:00

Last night was Weight Watchers and to my complete surprise, I'd lost 2 pounds. But did it make me happy? I think, but I've been feel really down so I didn't feel happy. I didn't exercise at all so far this week. Over the weekend, I was in a great deal of pain. In the beginning of the week, I'd begun to feel better but I was afraid to exercise because I thought the pain would come back.

Now it's just depression.

I made some goals for this WW week, which begins today and ends next Thursday. I think I need to do more active fighting of this depression and I plan to do it by making myself get out and do stuff:

1. pick up around the house
2. spend time outside with the dog, kick a ball to him, etc
3. go shopping for birthday gifts for my daughter and grandson
4. while I'm there shopping, walk around the mall
5. most important of all, swim at the club at least 3 days before next Wednesday

Super Size Me

2006-01-18T13:14:00.000-05:00

Last night, I finally watched the documentary, "Super Size Me". I'd heard of it, of course, and I'd also heard about the people who were suing McDonald's for contributing/causing their obesity. I didn't see the film because I thought, come on, no one eats three meals a day at McDonald's. Still, when my youngest borrowed it from the library I figured I would watch it.

Wow. This is something that would swear me off fast food for the rest of my life. Not long after this film was released, McDonald's stopped super-sizing their meals...not because of "Super Size Me" of course. I don't think a whole lot else has changed because early on, Morgan Spurlock (the self appointed guinea pig in the experiment and the director of the film) pointed out there are powerful food lobbies in Washington that are in place to make sure their industries are looked after. That means...no bad laws about fast food or food content and as many supportive laws as possible. An example: Congress enacted legislation to prevent obese people from suing McDonald's or any other fast food restaurant.

I think Spurlock took the experiment on because the judge in the original cases declared that the victims couldn't prove that McDonald's made them sick. Spurlock was a healthy young man at the beginning of his experiment, which was to eat 3 McD's meals every day for a month. He wasn't going to ingest anything that wasn't on the menu, including aspirin and vitamins. Now that's a bit extreme but I guess he wanted to be "pure". Well, three doctors examined him and pronounced him to be in excellent health with all his blood levels and weight to be in just the right place.

Half way through the experiment, the doctors were freaking because he'd gained like 17 pounds and his liver was being destroyed by all the fat.

It was scary.

Even scarier were the interviews he did with kids. Little ones could identify Ronald McDonald but not George Washington or Jesus. Middle school kids were eating lunches consisting of french fries, candy and soda...and my youngest confirmed that this is so at her school. Spurlock tried to put the cafeteria staff at the middle school on the spot about all the french fries and candy. They preferred to believe that these kids had brought in healthy lunches in brown bags and were just supplementing with the junk. Spurlock dragged them to several tables and asked the kids point blank--and all they were eating was junk. The cafeteria manager started this "aba dabba" stuff that made her sound like Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden stuck in a lie.

Back in the kitchen, the larders are crammed with crap the government sends to the schools to serve ... or it's crap sent by a big vender who doesn't want the schools going to a healthier provider--this is where the lobbyists come in again. Meanwhile, the lobbyist who agreed to be interviewed admitted that they were part of the problem...guess what? He isn't working there any more!

Anyway, it took Spurlock 1 month to gain almost 25 pounds and screw up his health. It took 8 weeks of a "detox" vegan diet to get his blood work back to normal and five months to lose all the weight he'd gained.

It's too bad he focused only on McDonald's because then someone had to come forward on their behalf and prove you can lose weight just eating their food. Sure...but you have to be very careful about your choices. As Spurlock found out, nutritional information wasn't easy to find in the restaurants.

But it's not just McDonald's that is the problem. It's all the fast food, the processed sugary fatty junk we're offered day after day.

Healthy food is expensive. If you are on a limited income, it's hard to shop healthy.

I think the biggest stumbling block to us getting healthy (through better choices, switching vendors, getting soda out of schools, etc) are the food lobbyists.

What can we do? Boycott, boycott, boycott all those unhealthy products. Maybe something will get done.

In other news, I saw this article today about leptin, the weight loss hormone:

Leptin, a hormone tied to body weight, may ease depression, a new study shows.

I'm really interested in that! I mean, here I am--probably full of leptin--and I'm still depressed! What's up with that?

The whole article is here.

Stupid Blogger Navigation Bar

2006-01-17T18:30:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling pretty frustrated trying to get a template that works. This one is pretty but look what happened to my title! How can I fix this? Waaaaah....

To help me get started again tomorrow...

2006-01-16T15:33:00.000-05:00

I had a great week last week. I went and participated in water aerobics all 3 days and also swam a half hour each day. Tomorrow class begins again.

From Beliefnet:

Overcoming Inertia
Man oh man it's hard to get started sometimes, isn't it? Hard to get going in the morning, hard to get your daily activity started. Hard to get up off of that couch. Hard to stay on your weight management program. So many people confirm what I have found to be true, myself!

But once you do, once you get the old ball rolling, moving isn't so hard. And once you're done you have that pleasant glow of achievement (rather than the weight of guilt and regret).

So I suggest when you're having a sluggish start-up--remember that once you get going, it's not hard. Just begin. The task at hand is not as hard as you think it will be.

The only thing hard is getting started, and you've done it before, so you can do it again. I know you can!

Isolation

2006-01-10T19:22:00.000-05:00

I'd bookmarked this newsletter from Beliefnet because I think it applies to me, to a lot of us.

Connections
Pay close attention to this fact: obesity is a disease of isolation. We are heavy because we are afraid of living, afraid of others, afraid of being a full person, afraid that truly changing is going to be too much effort. Something happened to us, or is currently happening and we want to feel better. We've learned to do it by popping edibles into our mouths. We soothe ourselves by watching too much TV, and eating too much. We avoid a lot of activities, and barely let anyone know us.

It's easier, we think, to stay home and avoid people. It's easier to feel better for a moment by stuffing a piece of cake or an extra sandwich into our mouths than it is to walk somewhere, or participate in a community event. (Sorry to be so dismal, but you know I'm telling the truth).

Fat people trade their lives for food.

Do you really want to get thinner forever? Connect with other people, and with nature. Ask God for help to get out of the kitchen or restaurant, out into the world with others and make some connections today. You may discover that there are other people who share the same feelings and problems as you.

I admit that I have a tendency to isolate myself. What worries me even more than that, though, is that I see my kids isolating themselves--the older two anyway.

Today my son and I went back to the gym and I got involved with water aerobics again. There were about 8 other people there and none of them were skinny Minnies. I can see that they might share some of the same feelings I have...how 'bout that? It's not just me!

How can I help my kids see that too?

Surgery quick fix worth the risk?

2006-01-09T14:35:00.000-05:00

I read this article a month ago, around the time I needed to take my car in for an oil change and got to talking with a bunch of people in the waiting room about bariatric surgery. Everything I hear raises red flags with me. In spite of the fact that the surgeries are riskier than first believe, doctors are still recommending the procedures.

Study: Obesity Surgery Risky

Fast Facts

Among patients 65 to 74, nearly 13 percent of men and about 6 percent of women died. In patients 75 and older, half of the men and 40 percent of the women died.

I'll stick with the old fashioned way of losing weight...

The rest of the article:

(AP) A new study shows that the chances of dying within a year after obesity surgery are higher than previously thought, even among people in their 30s and 40s.

The chances of dying within a year after obesity surgery are much higher than previously thought, even among people in their 30s and 40s, a study of more than 16,000 Medicare patients found.

Some previous studies of people in their 30s to their 50s — the most common ages for obesity surgery — found death rates well under 1 percent. But among 35- to 44-year-olds in the Medicare study, more than 5 percent of men and nearly 3 percent of women were dead within a year, and slightly higher rates were seen in patients 45 to 54.

Among patients 65 to 74, nearly 13 percent of men and about 6 percent of women died. In patients 75 and older, half of the men and 40 percent of the women died.

"The risk of death is much higher than has been reported," said University of Washington surgeon Dr. David Flum, the Medicare study's lead author. "It's a reality check for those patients who are considering these operations."

The study involved 16,155 Medicare patients who underwent obesity surgery between 1997 and 2002. It was published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study lumped together all deaths, with no breakdown on the causes. But obesity surgery's life-threatening complications can include malnutrition, infection and bowel and gallbladder problems. Also, surgery in general can be a deadly shock to the system, especially in older patients.

Dr. Neil Hutcher, president of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery, said that Medicare patients are probably sicker than the general U.S. population and that complication rates have declined as surgeons' expertise has increased.

But Flum said some previous research on the safety of obesity surgery consisted of "reports from the best surgeons reporting their best results," while the new study is more of a real-world look.

The American Society for Bariatric Surgery predicts obesity surgery will be performed more than 150,000 times this year in the United States. That is more than 10 times the number in 1998, according to a second JAMA study. The increase parallels a surge in the share of American adults who are at least 100 pounds overweight, from about 1 in 200 in 1986 to 1 in 50 in 2000, that study said.

Obesity surgery is usually reserved for "morbidly" obese people more than 100 pounds overweight. These patients often have life-threatening medical problems brought on by their girth, including heart trouble, diabetes and breathing difficulties — problems that surgery can sometimes resolve but which can also make the operation riskier.

Flum said the new study suggests that in many cases, obesity surgery may not be right for an older person "who already has the burden of 60 years of obesity on their heart" and other organs.

Medicare covers obesity surgery if it is recommended to treat related conditions such as diabetes and heart problems. The government is considering whether to cover surgery to treat obesity alone.

Medicare is for younger Americans with disabilities and for patients 65 and older. Flum said most of the patients he studied were under 65 and probably qualified for Medicare because of obesity-related ills, including heart and joint problems.

There are several types of obesity surgery, but the most common one in the United States, gastric bypass, involves creating an egg-size pouch in the upper stomach and attaching it to a section of intestine. That reduces the amount of food patients can eat and results in less food being absorbed. Flum's study lumped together data on the different operations.

Researchers said one reason men may have higher post-surgery death rates is that they tend to wait longer than women to seek medical help and may be sicker when the operation is performed.

A third JAMA study cast doubt on whether obesity surgery reduces health-care costs. It found that among patients followed for about three years, an average of 8 percent were hospitalized before surgery, mostly for obesity-related complications, compared with 20 percent a year afterward, mostly for surgery-related complications.

That study's lead author, Dr. David Zingmond of the University of California at Los Angeles, said some people mistakenly view obesity surgery as a cosmetic procedure and "may greatly discount the chances that they're going to have problems after surgery."

Hutcher said patients should seek experienced surgeons who meet his group's guidelines. Those include thoroughly evaluating patients before and after surgery and giving them long-term follow-up care.

Most patients "will receive a good outcome. A good outcome does not mean there's no risk for complications or mortality," Hutcher said. But he said the surgery is riskier than, say, a tonsil removal. And "these patients are very sick," he said.

Now, check out that last paragraph again. A good outcome does not mean there's no risk for complications or mortality.. So what the heck is a good outcome? Just the successful completion of the surgery without death? Eh, that's not a good enough outcome for me, thanks.

Here's another one...

2006-01-05T12:19:00.000-05:00

...another diet, I mean. It's called the Sonoma Diet and there is an exerpt of it here.

I felt leery because I don't like the word "diet" anymore. It's a lifestyle. I was curious, though, and so I read the original story on CBS here.

I thought some things sounded pretty good. The author of the book (same name) is Connie Guttersen and she names 10 power foods:

Among them, whole grains: Not only do they contain fiber and nutrients that are going to sustain you with energy and keep you satisfied, but they are very important during weight loss.

Another power food? Almonds, which Guttersen describes as "a healthy type of fat for your heart that also keep you from getting hungry in between meals.

Yet another? Olive oil, a "heart-healthy fat."

Not to mention fruits and vegetables loaded with antioxidants and flavor, specifically, grapes, tomatoes, blueberries.

So far so good. Except for the almonds, these are foods I already eat and enjoy.

The drawback?

The plan includes three "waves."

"Wave One" lasts ten days, and is "an introduction where you experience the most rapid part of your weight loss, but it actually targets those extra pounds around your waist," Guttersen says. "You may not like how those pounds fit with your clothes, but that's really a red flag to heart disease, diabetes and possibly even Alzheimer's. Wave One also shifts your body into new gear, where you're not craving sugary high fat foods. You're satisfied with these nutrient rich foods and that's going to keep you motivated to keep going."

Participants stay on "Wave Two" until they reach their goal weights, and "Wave Three" is a maintenance mode.

Oh...so that's like Atkins and South Beach and other diets. So what happens if you mess up while you're one wave two? Do you go back and do wave one again? And usually the first stage is really tough because of being so limited in portions and types of food. I dunno...but I'm still curious enough to want to read the book. Wonder if I can get a copy from the library yet?

Last night, my daughter and I went back to Weight Watchers. We'd both gained about 2 lbs apiece which isn't too bad considering all the food we ate while on vacation to Tennessee over the holidays!

Bypass Surgery...Again

2006-01-04T07:44:00.000-05:00

Before the holidays, my son and I took my Sienna in for an oil change. We sat in the waiting room with a crowd of other people and watched TV. There was a news story about gastric bypass and at the end of it, several of us said we'd never consider it because we've heard too many bad stories about failure rates (people gaining the weight back) and complications that could pop up even a year after the surgery.

Today, I read this article called Doctors Debate Safety of Obesity Surgeries. I thought it meant that doctors were re-evaluating the safety of even doing procedures but I should have known better. Although they clearly say that "No surgery gives lasting results unless people also change eating and exercising habits" and although studies are showing gastric bypass surgery is a lot riskier than previously thought "surgeons still favor it for people who need to lose weight fast because of heart damage or other serious problems."

I guess at that point they figure what have we got to lose but our lives--which we may lose anyway because of heart damage and other serious problems?

The article talks about all the different methods of bariatric surgery and the fact that the government has begun a study to compare them.

The more I read and learn, the less likely I am to ever consider any kind of bariatric surgery.

Here's another article:

Gastric Bypass Surgery Gone Bad

Gastric bypass surgery, the drastic procedure used to help some obese people lose weight, continues to grow in popularity.

It's estimated that 140,000 people had this procedure in 2004, with the number expected to grow even higher this year. And for the majority of patients, this surgery is a lifesaver, but not for all, reports The Early Show correspondent Melinda Murphys.

Like many people who seek out this surgery, Dave Weindel had been morbidly obese for most of his life. So he was eager to have surgery to help him lose weight, get healthy, and live longer to watch his four young children grow.

"I graduated from eighth grade a couple years later," Christy Weindel says, crying. "And he wasn't there for that. And he wasn't there for prom. And I just got married in September. And he wasn't there for that. It's really tough.

Christy Weindel lost her father when she was 12 years old. Dave Weindel died three weeks after having gastric bypass surgery.

"I had to come home and had to tell the kids that their dad died. Was very, very hard," says, Cathy Weindel. According to Weindel's wife, it wasn't supposed to turn out this way.

She says, "Well, they told us it was major surgery. But they said, 'You know, you're going to be home in three days.' "

Weindel's surgery was July 17, 1998. His stomach was reduced to the size of an egg and his intestines were re-routed. The surgeon told Cathy Weindel the operation went well. But within days, Weindel's health worsened.

He was transferred to a second hospital, where a CT scan revealed a large abscess. Weindel was treated, but his health continued to decline.

Cathy Weindel says she thinks her husband knew what was happening to him.

"I still remember, and I still see this in my mind," she says very emotionally. "When they're shutting everything down and there was nothing else they could do. I was talking to him. And I saw a tear come out of his eye. And, I mean, it still stays with me."

Dave Weindel died three weeks after his surgery. He was 38. The official cause of death: abscess, pneumonia and a pulmonary embolism.

Was Dave Weindel's case a complete anomaly? Not really.

A recent study by researchers at the University of Washington found that 1 in 50 people die within one month of having gastric bypass surgery, and that figure jumps nearly fivefold if the surgeon is inexperienced.

Attorney Herman Praszkier says, "You want to know, basically, as much information about the surgeon's background as you can. Anyone who evades your question, get up and walk out."

Praszkier represented Cathy Weindel in her lawsuit against her husband's surgeon and the hospital. It was settled days into the trial and was the first of a dozen gastric bypass malpractice cases he's handled.

Praszkier explains, "The most common problem in bariatric surgery in the cases I take (which are only death cases) is that the post-operative care was insufficient."

Nora Malone is Praszkier's most recent client. She tried to talk her husband, Ron, out of the surgery.

"I said, 'Let's go. Let's just go.' And he said, 'Oh, I'll be OK, honey. You'll be so proud of me when I get out of here,' " Malone recalls.

Nora Malone met her husband when he was a naval officer stationed in the Philippines in 1973. They had three daughters.

Their daughter. Liberty. says, "When they went to talk to the doctors, they came back thinking it was a good thing. You know, he'd get off his high blood pressure medicine, his diabetes medicine."

Malone had laparascopic gastric bypass surgery just before Thanksgiving 2003.

"They said there's no risk," Nora Malone says.

But days after the surgery, Ron Malone became very ill. Doctors told his family there was a leak - and operated again. He didn't improve.

Nora Malone recalls, "And I said, 'I think you have to do something, doctor.' And he said, 'Mrs. Malone, trust me, your husband is OK.' "

On Dec. 9, 2003, Ron Malone died during his third surgery. The official cause of death: cardiac arrest. More accurately, Malone died from complications of gastric bypass surgery.

Dr. Harvey Sugerman says, "There is a risk of a leak following gastric bypass that can be fatal."

Dr. Sugerman is a retired bariatric surgeon and the president of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery (ASBS). He says early diagnosis of a problem is the key.

"I think some doctors got into it without adequate training and experience and felt that they could do this," Dr. Sugerman says, "The ASBS is very concerned about deaths after obesity surgery. And we are doing everything we can to improve quality care by establishing the Center of Excellence program."

This program will have stringent guidelines that must be met in order for a bariatric surgery facility to be called, "a Center of Excellence." When the program launches in June, information will be posted on a Web site to help patients find quality doctors and hospitals. Unfortunately, it comes too late for Ron Malone.

And too late for Dave Weindel, whose wife no longer believes in the surgery.

"I don't think it's worth it," Cathy Weindel says "It tears your family apart."

Like these stories, the other finding in the University of Washington study is that men are more likely to die than women. However, the study did find that if a patient survived more than a year after the surgery, then the benefits to their long-term health far outweigh the risks of the procedure.

So what can a patient considering this surgery do to stay safe?

Evaluate the center/hospital where you are having the surgery. Ask the surgeon doing the operation how many procedures have they done, what's their complication rate and what's their mortality rate. And ask what steps will be taken if a complication occurs.

A good idea...

2006-01-03T18:28:00.000-05:00

-------------------------------------------------
MountainWings A MountainWings Moment
#4362 Wings Over The Mountains of Life
-------------------------------------------------
Don’t Lose Those Pounds!
========================

Don’t Lose Those Pounds!

As we move into a new season the number one resolution will be to lose weight.

In one form or another whether it involves increased exercise, or dieting, the bottom line is that the number one resolution in America will be to lose weight.

And I’m here to tell you, "Don’t lose those pounds!"

As we sat in our board meeting for my company, I set goals for the coming season. As I set the goals for the company I urged each employee to do the same for themselves personally.

I told them they needed to be specific and that they needed to write down their goals and bring them into the next weekly meeting and we would openly discuss any of the goals that they wanted to share with the rest of the company.

At the meeting as person after person spoke there was one goal that stood out; many wanted to lose weight.

I heard, “I want to lose 20 pounds, 30 pounds, 40 pounds.” Everyone set their goal based on how many pounds they wanted to lose. As I listened to everyone who wanted to lose weight, I made a correction. I told them,

“Don’t set your goal to lose pounds.”

I know you’re saying, “Why?” “Why wouldn’t someone want to lose pounds to get in better shape, to be healthier, to look better, why wouldn’t they want to lose pounds?”

Because it’s a temporary solution.

When they lose the pounds, the goal is over and as a result it’s not long before the pounds come back.

What I told them to do instead was this:
Don’t set a goal based on how many pounds you’re going to lose, set a goal for the weight that you’re going to maintain.

If you are 180 pounds and you want to get to 140 pounds don’t say, “I want to lose 40 pounds,” say “I want to maintain a weight of 140 pounds.”

When that becomes your goal it changes things. Once you get to 140 and you creep back up to 145 your goal is still there, the goal to maintain a weight of 140. So now you focus on getting the five pounds off instead of waiting until you hit 180 again and then begin the 40 pound routine all over again.

I’ve seen people take our product at Cerum7.com and lose weight. The same phenomenon happens, it happened within the company, they lose the weight, then in a few weeks or months they’re back up to where they started and repeating the same mantra,

“I want to lose weight...
I want to lose weight...
I want to lose weight.”

Trust me; it makes a difference in just the simple way that you state your goal.

So don’t lose those pounds.

State where you want to stay and stay focused on that weight.

Then WRITE IT DOWN and place it where you can see it each day.

Leave it there, even after you reach your target weight,
leave it there.

So, what weight do you want to maintain?

~A MountainWings Original~

A Little Inspiration

2006-01-02T14:17:00.000-05:00

I didn't really want to start off the new year talking about weight loss surgery and I didn't really want to make resolutions. What to talk about then? Well, I found something to inspire me in a Beliefnet newsletter. The issue was called Joy of Weight Loss Success Stories and what I found to be particularly helpful was that four of the five people lost a significant amount of weight (like I need to) and kept it off.

So, having said that, I am going back to Weight Watchers with my daughter and also going back to the gym. We were on the right track and had begun losing weight--now we just need to get back on board and get back with the program.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

2005-12-31T19:47:00.000-05:00

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!

2005-12-25T18:55:00.000-05:00

Directionally Challenged

2005-12-19T20:22:00.000-05:00

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...

2005-12-17T21:51:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-14T13:55:00.000-05:00

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...

2005-12-13T09:37:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-08T17:53:00.000-05:00

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?

2005-12-05T08:05:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-02T16:41:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-02T14:39:00.000-05:00

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

2005-11-15T13:58:00.000-05:00

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

2005-11-14T12:37:00.000-05:00

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

2005-11-09T14:37:00.000-05:00

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

2005-11-08T12:04:00.000-05:00

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

2005-10-24T16:15:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-22T11:03:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-20T12:26:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-05T15:02:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-03T22:14:00.000-04:00

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

2005-10-02T07:16:00.000-04:00

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

2005-09-25T16:22:00.000-04:00

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?

2005-09-23T16:42:00.000-04:00

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

2005-09-21T13:15:00.000-04:00

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.

2005-09-11T08:25:00.000-04:00

9/11/2005

Food Logs

2005-09-10T08:55:00.000-04:00

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

2005-09-09T08:58:00.000-04:00

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

2005-09-07T08:50:00.000-04:00

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!

2005-09-06T10:19:00.000-04:00

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

Reading the Charts

2005-08-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

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

2005-08-29T19:30:00.000-04:00

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

2005-08-28T15:50:00.000-04:00

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?

2005-08-26T08:23:00.000-04:00

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

2005-08-23T17:24:00.000-04:00

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

2005-08-21T12:52:00.000-04:00

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

2005-08-11T09:27:00.000-04:00

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.