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Showing posts with the label Talk Diet

Back on the Treadmill Again (But with a Whole New Respect)

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We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear. --Martin Luther King, Jr. For two days, I have been eyeballing that stupid treadmill, not wanting to have anything to do with it. But the truth of the matter: the treadmill accident was entirely my fault because I did not offer due respect to a powerful machine with a surface that was moving at 3.9 mph. It might seem counter intuitive, but my doctor said I should move around and not sit or lie still for too long because my injured muscles might spasm. So with my husband close by, I climbed back on the treadmill, albeit at a lower level of intensity: No elevation and 3.2 mph. Given that I'm in overall good shape, this was doable and I didn't overtax my body or exacerbate my injury. I made sure treadmill was OFF before getting on, and I stood on the rails before starting it up. So that others may learn from my mistake (or be reminded once again), here are some basic treadmill safety tips. --ALWAYS appr

What I Write When I'm Not Sure What I Want to Say: On Weight Maintenance and Vanity Sizing Redux

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Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. --George Herbert What a strange power there is in clothing. --Isaac Bashevis Singer On Wednesday, Dr. Oz featured Susan and Pete, a couple who started Weight Watchers three months ago. So far, they have done very well, lowering their weight (Susan, 18 pounds lost; Pete, 33 pounds), BMI (she, from 29 to 26; he from 35 to 29), and body fat (she, from 41% to 37%; he, 33% to 28%). Kudos to them! The truth of the matter: all diets work very well at taking the weight off. However, what I would like to see: follow-up shows on Susan and Pete, a year and two years from now, to see how well these Weight Watchers members have maintained their weight and healthy lifestyles. You see, I am convinced that this is the missing element from all commercial diet programs, and I'm trying to unde

Please Practice Safe Exercising

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Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed. --Wayne Dyer I got sloppy yesterday and ended up injured because of it. Treadmills seem pretty innocuous, but they can be very dangerous as I have discovered. I jumped off the treadmill to get my phone, and I thought I had paused it, but I hadn't. Long story short: I jumped back on, lost my balance, and it threw me off. I landed hard on the small of my back. Very painful. I ended up in the emergency room for about five hours. Soon, I'll write about treadmill safety, but later when I feel better. Meanwhile, treat the treadmill with GREAT respect. Not what I planned for today.

An Open Letter to My Friends Who Have Recently Lost Weight

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Lile Ordev and Jennifer Semple Siegel Skopje, Macedonia, an awesome outing on Kale, a fortress March 2010 ______________________________ In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths. --Graham Greene Dear Friends, Be kind to your former self. Love her, love him. Don't be so hard on that person who decided to take matters seriously and lose weight and gain a healthier body. Remember, it was that brave person who made an important decision to spend a significant amount of money and admit publicly that he or she needed help. Do you remember that day so many months ago, how tentative you felt about going to the center and how it all seemed so difficult and impossible? Do you remember hiding in the back of the room, trying not to be noticed? Well, you came back the next week, and the next week, and the next week... You have made it this far and it was because of your strong fatter self that you are still here. So instead of dissing him or

Breaking News! Consumer Reports Offers a Lame Response to the Critics of the Diet Program Rankings

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If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? --Albert Einstein Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals. --David Ogilvy The critics are finally discovering what I posted about last month about Consumer Reports' ranking of diet programs . Meanwhile, the media machine has already spread the "best" program "news" like a virus. The Google search term "Jenny Craig Best Program" (with quotes) has returned (as of June 7) about 47,000 results. Very few "critical" entries of the Consumer Reports diet program rankings. No exact results for the terms "critics of diet ratings" or "critics of diet rating." Nothing for "critics of Jenny Craig diet rating." Zip for "critics of Consumer Reports diet rating" and zero for "critics of Consumer Reports diet ratings." But buried within the rah, rah po

"Obesity Problem": Results From a Casual Google Search Term

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Physiological Impact of Obesity Image from Drexel University College of Medicine _____________________ I couldn't open up a magazine, you couldn't read a newspaper, you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the obesity epidemic in America. --Morgan Spurlock, Supersize Me Obesity: Pandemic or Nonsense? Out of curiosity, I did a search on the term "Obesity Problem," just to see what is being said in the media and medical sites. Here is what I discovered : Obesity defined: An obese person has accumulated so much body fat that it might have a negative effect on their health. If a person's body weight is at least 20% higher than it should be, he or she is considered obese. If your Body Mass Index (BMI) is between 25 and 29.9 you are considered overweight. If your BMI is 30 or over you are considered obese. -- Medical News Today Are YOU obese? Use this handy CDC widget to find out: BMI For Adults Widget According to the Nati

A Difficult and Inconvenient Truth...

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If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die. --Maya Angelou This is a difficult truth to accept: The more weight I lose, the better strangers treat me. I wish it weren't so because while this better treatment might benefit me personally, this suggests that our culture has much work to do in terms of accepting difference on all fronts. And that saddens me. I don't want to be privileged over someone else just because I'm thinner (or younger, prettier, etc.). Privilege ought to be earned, through accomplishments and good deeds, not because of superficial features, such looks, race, age, or size. As I continue to slim down, I'm going to keep this thought firmly in mind and treat all people with the respect they deserve. It would be so easy to forget where I started; this post is my reminder. Peace and respect to all.

Diet Programs and Weight Maintenance

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I am the one who got myself fat, who did all the eating. So I had to take full responsibility for it. --Kirstie Alley Let me say this right up front: I have failed at EVERY diet program I have tried. Yes, in almost every case, I have taken off the weight successfully. That has never been the problem for me. I'm the Queen of the weight-loss program circuit; I have spent most of my adult life in search of the Holy Grail, the definitive answer to my weight problem. But I have never been able to keep the lost pounds off. I want this time to be different; I want to be part of the 5%-7% who keeps the weight off for two years or more. Who doesn't? None of us join a program expecting failure in our future. However, NONE of the existing weight loss programs really address weight maintenance. I believe that Weight Watchers comes the closest but is not quite there yet. Perhaps it's because there is little profit in maintenance programs. Diet programs make their

Shame on You, Jenny Craig for Hawking Your "Breaking News," "Best Program" BS!!!

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Advertising is legalized lying. --H. G. Wells When I wrote the May 12, 2011, article Shame on You, Consumer Reports , I was careful not to include Jenny Craig in any negative way, for JC did not make the decision to use the Jenny Craig sponsored trial "Effect of a Free Prepared Meal and Incentivized Weight Loss Program on Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance in Obese and Overweight Women" to decide "the best" program, but, rather, to test long-term efficacy of diet programs that provide both food and program fees to members for free. I even stressed the following: ...this article is not meant to disparage the Jenny Craig Program, which may be a fine program; I have never been a Jenny Craig member. My issue is with Consumer Reports and its research source for its rating of Jenny Craig. I believed (and still believe) that the underlying objective of the research was to prove that overall program efficacy and members' overall health would improve if

USDA's New Logo: The Food Pyramid is Out! "My Plate" is In!

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Food is our common ground, a universal experience. --James Beard The USDA's message is the same: Balancing Calories ● Enjoy your food, but eat less. ● Avoid oversized portions. Foods to Increase ● Make half your plate fruits and vegetables. ● Make at least half your grains whole grains. ● Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk. Foods to Reduce ● Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals ― and choose the foods with lower numbers. ● Drink water instead of sugary drinks. For more info, go to Choose My Plate The USDA hopes that the plate as a symbol of sensible eating will be more intuitive than the old pyramid. My take: Yes, it will be easier to understand, but the pyramid wasn't all that complicated, especially with the accompanying narrative. The new logo is a start, but the government needs to go further in its efforts to get Americans to eat healthier and exercise more: ● Reward food manufacturers, restaurants, and gr

Space and Your Place in It

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You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. --Johnny Cash Imagine this: You are a normal-weight earthling who finds herself transported permanently to Planet Skinny where everything is half the normal earthly size. The average chair is wide enough for a very slim earth person and able to hold a maximum of 110 pounds, which is considered obese on Planet Skinny. The space between table and seat in restaurant booths can comfortably accommodate someone with a 36" chest, so if you are any larger, you are resting your boobs on the table. Flying is a nightmare; you must book your flights carefully, often paying for First Class or buying two seats. In short, everywhere you go poses a hassle, so eventually you give up going out in public. Not only is the too-small infrastructure all wr

Women's Clothing: What in the World Has Happened to Women's Sizes?

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... It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. --Carl Sagan In the past few days, I have been shopping for some new shorts; my "fat" shorts are too big, and my "skinny" ones are too small. I figure I'll, more or less, be my current size for the entire summer, so I decided to buy 2 or 3 pair. Well. What a production. Now I must admit: I haven't bought shorts in about 11 years. Thick or thin, I simply dug through That Secret Closet Which Harbors Several Sizes , and, when summer rolled around, I selected the correct shorts, usually in the larger sizes. I pretty much knew which ones to choose. I thought this would be a straightforward shopping expedition. I had just a few simple criteria for my new shorts: --My butt and part of my legs/thighs had to be covered. And, PLEASE , no possibility of butt crack... --I wanted to buy shorts that were slightly snug in the butt

The (Rigged) Bingo Game

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All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. --Aristotle Last night, I dreamt that I was playing a high-stakes Bingo game. The prize: $1,000,000 But some of the numbers on the Bingo card were wrong; for example, "1" was placed under "I." To win, I needed just one number; unfortunately, that was the "I-1" number. I tried to tell the Bingo caller that my card was faulty. He couldn't (or wouldn't) hear me, so the game played on. In the face of impossibility, I kept rooting for "I-1" to be called. But in my heart, I realized that my winning number would never be called; the game, fixed in favor of someone else, had been stacked against me. I awakened angry and lamenting the unfairness of life. However, I have come to realize that we often play games that offer no chance of winning. Extreme dieting, defined as an eating plan that no normal-weight

Would YOU Eat Lab-Grown Food (a.k.a. "Frankenfood")?

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I like meat--I never became a vegetarian. But it is hard to justify the way animals are treated on this planet. Growing meat without inflicting pain seemed a natural solution. --Willem van Eelen* In the future, lab-grown food may be coming to your local supermarket. According to a May 23, 2011, New Yorker article ("Test-tube Burgers") by Michael Specter, scientist Willem van Eelen has developed "in-vitro meat" by scraping a few cells from the muscles of animals and placing them in a special solution, where they are grown into a hamburger-type substance, which could be cooked and eaten just like hamburger from slaughtered animals. Of course, growing lab meat on a grand scale is not likely to happen any time soon, but PETA and various environmental groups are interested in promoting research efforts that would result in mass market lab-grown meat becoming a reality. At first, van Eelen's colleagues scoffed at the idea of growing meat in a petri dish, b

"An Apple a Day Keeps the Food Police Away?"

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Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying . --Aldous Huxley I hate overweight, because it implies that there's a weight standard I should be adhering to. --Camryn Manheim The other day, Dr. Oz had some "experts" on his show who believe that fat children are "abused" and should be taken away from their parents and placed in foster care. Really? Are we getting so ridiculous here in the U.S. that we are going to hunt down overweight children and penalize their parents? Call in the Fat Police? Arrest parents? Set up government orphanages and boarding schools for overweight kids? Look. I agree that good eating habits begin at home, and, perhaps, parents need some refresher courses in proper nutrition, but even to suggest that children should be removed from their homes because of excess weight is just beyond the pale. I mean, does Children's Social Services remove kids because their parents smoke cigarettes

Consumer Reports (Again): Will MSNBC Investigate?

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...I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place. And I really believe good journalism is good business. --Christiane Amanpour Yesterday, I was reading on the MSNBC site an article about the death of heiress Huguette Clark, when at the bottom of the page, I saw a form, calling for possible investigative news pieces, so I shot off the following: Hello, In its June 2011 issue, in its article "Pick your ideal diet," Consumer Reports selected Jenny Craig as the top diet plan. Unfortunately, they selected a study that had been financially supported by Jenny Craig. There are other problems with their research methodology, for example, only Jenny Craig was studied in this particular trial. So I wrote a rebuttal on my blog, picking apart their methodology: http://www.thoughtfortheday.us/2011/05/thought-for-day-may-12-2011-shame-on.html I also wrote some follow up posts: http://www.thoughtfortheday.us/2011/05/thought-for-day-may-13

Thought for the Day--May 19, 2011: Should McDonald's Fire Ronald McDonald?

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According to CNNmoney.com , a group called Corporate Accountability International is calling for the ouster of Ronald McDonald. Very Interesting, but it's not likely going to happen. As long as the money continues rolling in, the red-headed spokesclown will remain as a McDonald's mainstay and icon. Corporate Accountability International contends that McDonalds' product--fast-food--is making an entire generation of children sick and overweight and will ultimately shorten their lifespans. I have noticed that children are getting fatter; just go to any school or read any article with photos of kids, and you will see for yourself. When I was very young, very few fast food restaurants existed. That is not to say that you couldn't get a greasy burger or fatty hot dog at the local diner or carhop (or even at home), but it was a big deal, not an everyday meal. Moreover, kids generally ate out less and exercised in a more natural and organic manner, playing outside, doi

Thought for the Day--May 17, 2011: Start Where You Are Right Now and Never Forget Where You Were

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Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. --Arthur Ashe If you are getting down on yourself because of your weight, STOP it right now. It's not productive and, in the long run, will likely sabotage your weight-loss and healthy life-style plan. Your weight has little to do with what's between your ears and in your heart. Your weight is what it is, nothing more. Never mind what other people and Madison Avenue say about what someone should weigh. Just vow to start where you are now, without negative judgments about your weight. So begin your plan (whatever it is) with a good attitude and good feelings about yourself. Don't begin it as an angry person about to kill bear. Instead, take stock of what's right in your life by making a list of your blessings: children, spouse, career, friends, etc. You see, in the past, I would "go on a diet" with negative feelings, gritted teeth, and a lot of anger at myself, always the same question

Thought for the Day--May 16, 2011: Fat Lady Fantasy (a poem)

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Oh, Lord, I’m just another fat lady. What song would You want me to sing? I’ll sing my song all over this place, praise Thee! I’ll mix the blues with a symphony of paisley. Tell me, Lord, what colors may I bring? Oh, Lord, I’m just another fat lady. Tell me, Lord, You think I’m red hot crazy? Please bestow me with rainbow pitch, no strings. I’ll sing my song all over this place, praise Thee! I promise, Lord, to bend lines into curves--maybe Not today, but surely tomorrow when the sun rings. Oh, Lord, I’m just another fat lady. My palette sings epics: russets of woe and malady. But, Lord, my kaleidoscope spills bloodstone tidings. I’ll paint my song all over this place, praise Thee! Strip from me some slivers of red--now maybe You know what happens when I, the fat lady, sings Naked before all. No, I’m not just another fat lady. Yes, I sing: ruby rocks, alla cappella --praise me! _________________________________________ "Fat Lady Fantasy," copyright 1994, by Jennifer Sem

Thought for the Day--May 15, 2011: "How Did _______Get SO Fat?"

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... Instead of beating myself up for being fat, I think it's a miracle that I laugh every day and walk through my life with pride, because our culture is unrelenting when it comes to large people . --Camryn Manheim Other variations on the title question, often asked by both the well-meaning and the just plain mean: "How could she let herself go like that?" "Doesn't she know that she looks like a horse in that outfit?" "Why doesn't he do something about his weight?" "She has such a pretty face, but..." "He's such a smart guy, but..." We have all heard such rude comments, usually about other people, although if these people are tsk tsking about others to us, they are probably doing it about us behind our backs. Not much what we can do about it. It is what it is... However, I can explain to those who have never seen a fat day in their lives how fatness can creep up on us like a stealthy thief. Have y

Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment