Skinny Thin Girl

Lab Notes: Marinating Cat Saved by Traffic Stop; Surgery Reverses Stretched Ear Lobes is a post from: CalorieLab Diet News

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Lab Notes: Spindles in Brain Block Noises During Sleep; Spinal Cord Nerve Cells Regenerated in Young Mice is a post from: CalorieLab Diet News

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Contributor: “Dr. J”
Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200.

The concept of willpower has always intrigued me. It’s very common to read in discussions arguing the merits involved with health and fitness about the importance and necessity for willpower, usually voiced as, “They don’t have any willpower, that’s why they’re fat and out of shape,” or “I wish I had willpower,” or some similar, helpful phrase.

I was running the other day and noticed an interesting example of willpower. One of the streets near my course needed some repairs to the asphalt, and the workers had dumped some of the extra material on the dirt next to the side of a nearby road. The asphalt was at least 6 inches thick or more. I was amazed to see a few grasses and even flowers that had managed to grow through that asphalt to reach the sunshine. Now that’s willpower!

Just as only a few of those stems had the willpower to overcome, so it is, I think, with most of us. Willpower is great if you are in the minority that truly have it, but I think it is not nearly that common, and even those with plenty of it will face situations in their life where, for them, it is lacking.

Don’t feel bad if you are in the, shall we say, willpower deprived majority, as you are not alone in feeling this way. Willpower can certainly be important to help you actualize a fitness plan. Most likely, though, everyone who is successful has two other powerful allies, which along with your fledgling willpower can sustain your early efforts until you are on the pathway to your desired health and fitness.

These Allies are Won’t Power and Don’t Power

The advantages of these are fully activated if, rather than like the ethereal willpower, you make your won’ts and don’ts powers very concrete and specific. Some examples of this are:

• I won’t eat after 8 PM.
• I won’t miss exercising more than 2 days a week.
• I don’t make excuses for overeating; I make plans so I won’t do it again.
• I don’t eat more than one plate full of food on holidays.
• I don’t avoid trying on my skinny jeans every week.
• I won’t let anyone force me to eat if I don’t want to.
• I won’t let myself get more than five pounds over my desired weight before I take action to correct it.
• I don’t buy foods without reading the nutrition label.
• I won’t eat processed foods for breakfast.
• I don’t let my past behaviors rule my present actions, or become my future problems.

I’m sure you can come up with a better list than me.

I’ve talked about the concept of self-esteem before. I think willpower is much like self-esteem. If you look at the term self-esteem, it’s easy to see the esteem part and really pay little attention to the self part! The good news is that self-esteem comes from the self. The difficult part is that self-esteem is not something that is given to you. Oh, it’s always nice to be supported by someone else, but it’s like having muscle. If you are the one with the muscle, you don’t get weaker when someone else withdraws his or her help.

Self-esteem is something we all have to build from within. We can do this by taking on small, challenging, but accomplishable tasks, and succeeding in doing them. Over time we build confidence in ourselves, and with this, we build our self-esteem. Willpower needs to be thought of like self-esteem. It is not something that you just have or that someone gives you. It is something that you build with your own behaviors. Every small success you accomplish will move you toward your goal and will add to your motivation to have the willpower to take the next step. Take those steps toward your health and fitness, and you will succeed.

Remember, you’ve got your won’t power and don’t power to help you along!

Dr. J on Willpower is a post from: CalorieLab Diet News

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It’s a Wii Bit Safer, but a Wiik Substitute for the Real Thing

A lot has been made of the potential for Nintendo’s Wii games to be the answer to the question, “How can we get the growing legions of the overweight-and-computer-addicted off their butts and engaged in healthy, calorie-burning physical activity?” Certainly Nintendo has been banking a lot of money on the notion that their video versions of everything from tennis to tetherball are reasonably effective exercise substitutes for the actual activities themselves.

But only now has anyone undertaken a serious comparison between the video workout and the gym, footpath or playing field. Ohio State researchers analyzed an array of data and came to the conclusion that, although both realms of activity have their advantages, those of the real world outweigh those supplied by Nintendo.

To Wii’s credit, its exercise videos are significantly less hazardous to the body than the typical gym, where you are four times as likely to injure yourself lifting weights, and 1.5 times more likely to get hurt running on a treadmill than when working out with your Wii. But the Wii is far from hazard-free; based on a sample of 100 hospital records, an estimated 308 Wii users had to visit emergency rooms with game-linked hurts ranging from bloody noses to low back strain, just in the first nine months of Wii’s existence.

More importantly, the researchers found that Nintendo’s virtual physical activities burn only half as many calories per minute as those consumed by their real-life counterparts. The difference was significant enough for the Ohio State team to conclude that, even accounting for injuries, the resulting health benefits of real world activities gave them a clear edge over their Wii versions.

In This Context, “Winner” Seems Somewhat Ironic

In the Italian village of Forcoli, near Pisa, they have an annual Miss Cicciona beauty pageant, which in English translates as Miss Chubby. Thirty young women vied for the title this year — the only requirement for entry being that you are female and weigh at least 220 pounds. Some wore gowns, some wore a whole lot less. The winner was 33-year-old Angela Scognamiglio, who weighed in at 379 pounds.

Most of the contestants saw the pageant as a blessing, a respite from a world of discrimination, pointed stares and mockery from second-class citizenship. One report noted that all the entrants had won the prize of increased self-esteem. On those terms, the Miss Chubby Pageant is a worthy and admirable enterprise.

But those aren’t the only terms. The photos of the happy Miss Chubby 2010 immediately call to mind the phrase “morbidly obese,” and show a woman so grossly heavy that a life beset by diabetes, hip and knee and foot ailments, respiratory difficulty and simple mobility problems appears virtually inevitable. All in all, there are far healthier routes to self-esteem.

Incidentally, the only actual prize, which was shared by all the contestants, was “a huge cake.” Somehow that seems like rubbing it in.

(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News):

Wii Workouts Versus the Gym, and the Miss Chubby Beauty Pageant is a post from: CalorieLab Diet News

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The Verdict is in on Vitaminwater, and You Win

To anyone who may have thought I was overly negative in my recent post that characterized vitamin-enhanced bottled waters as overpriced, oversweetened and only marginally beneficial, if at all, to the health of the consumer: Take it up with the judge.

That would be Federal Judge John Gleeson, who ruled this week that Vitaminwater’s promotional claims that it was “all you need” and would “keep you healthy” and “help bring about a healthy state of physical and mental being” were, if not complete hogwash, at least so misleading as to possibly constitute consumer fraud.

As Judge Gleeson saw it, Vitaminwater is essentially a sugary, non-carbonated, fruit-flavored soft drink with a few vitamins added for marketing purposes, which is pretty much how we saw it here. Now we may get to find out how twelve ordinary citizens see it, because Gleeson’s ruling allows a class action suit filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest against Coca-Cola, the product’s parent company, to go to trial.

Coke could probably avoid that unpleasantness, however, either by cutting the sugar and seriously punching up the vitamin and mineral content of the beverage, or just giving it a new name. Our guess is, in about six months we’ll be inundated by an ad campaign for new Power Punch!

If You’re Looking for Someone to be Mad at, You Might Try the Parents

When it comes to the increasingly thorny and controversial subject of obese airline passengers and how, or even whether, to seat them, Southwest Airlines can’t seem to catch a break. First, they elect to deny an overweight passenger a seat a few months back only to find out that said passenger was Kevin Smith, a motion picture actor and director with a widespread fan base and his own publicist, and now they are receiving some grief for removing a woman about the size of a jockey from a Las Vegas flight in order to provide a second seat to another passenger who was too wide for just one.

The poor lady, all of 5-foot-4 and 110 pounds, had been flying standby and managed to get the last available seat and was onboard with her baggage stowed when she was unceremoniously told to leave to make space for another, last-minute passenger. The airline later expressed great regret at the whole affair but explained that they chose to inconvenience the woman rather than create an embarrassing situation for the obese passenger, who was, in fact, a 14-year-old girl.

Given that aspect, we might well do the same if we were in Southwest’s position. After all, anyone who has become so obese that they require two airplane seats by the age of 14 clearly deserves some degree of sympathy. Maybe their thinking was, This kid is not going to have an easy life, at least let her have an easy flight.

(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News):

Beefed-up Water Takes a Hit, and a No-Win Overweight-Airline-Passenger Situation is a post from: CalorieLab Diet News

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Guest contributor: Karen Collins, M.S., R.D., C.D.N.
Karen Collins holds a B.S. degree from Purdue and an M.S. degree from Cornell, both in nutrition. When she’s not writing or speaking, she conducts a private nutrition practice in Jamestown, New York.

Which provides more vitamin C, refrigerated ready-to-drink or frozen concentrate orange juice?

Freshly-squeezed orange juice is generally tops for vitamin C content, providing at least a day’s worth in just one six-ounce glass. However, more convenient options such as frozen concentrate or bottled juice (100 percent juice made from concentrate or not) are all excellent sources of vitamin C.

The vitamin C content varies some among brands compared to official USDA information, but you can usually count on the six ounces (the recommended serving) supplying 50 to 75 milligrams of the vitamin. That’s half to three-quarters of currently recommended daily amounts. Of course, vitamin C is just one of many vitamins, minerals and protective plant compounds we get from vegetables and fruits, so be sure to focus on getting a wide variety and plenty of produce. Whichever form of juice you choose may be based on price, convenience or flavor.

Is it safe to lose weight while breastfeeding?

Certainly, in fact the extra calories you use in producing breast milk may even help. Exclusive breastfeeding, meaning giving your baby nothing else, is recommended as the optimal choice for baby’s and mother’s health for the first six months. In addition, it is associated with greatest weight loss.

To maintain successful milk production, the key is to make sure you are losing weight gradually and with healthy food choices. Limit consumption of high-sugar drinks and watch out for high-fat or high-sugar snack foods and desserts without totally depriving yourself. Portion control can be important as well; if you’ve gotten used to larger portions during pregnancy, taking three-quarters of your usual portions of meat and starchy foods (pasta, cereal, potatoes) can make a significant difference. Remember, too, that adding in physical activity, such as taking your baby for a walk every day, also helps to create the difference between calories consumed and calories burned that leads to weight loss.

(This article was provided by the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C. A registered dietician is available to respond to questions about diet, nutrition, and cancer at the free AICR Hotline at 1 (800) 843-8114 during business hours.)

Vitamin C in Orange Juice and Losing Weight While Breatfeeding is a post from: CalorieLab Diet News

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