My Fitness Triumph

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:28:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:18:00 +0000

Stressful times...

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:12:00 +0000

DT2

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 14:55:00 +0000

Both

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:34:00 +0000

Amish

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:43:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:12:00 +0000

End of Summer

More on "Fit & Fat"

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:57:00 +0000

Better to Be Fat and Fit Than Skinny and Unfit

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Published: August 18, 2008
The New York Times

Often, a visit to the doctor’s office starts with a weigh-in. But is a person’s weight really a reliable indicator of overall health?

Increasingly, medical research is showing that it isn’t. Despite concerns about an obesity epidemic, there is growing evidence that our obsession about weight as a primary measure of health may be misguided.

Last week a report in The Archives of Internal Medicine compared weight and cardiovascular risk factors among a representative sample of more than 5,400 adults. The data suggest that half of overweight people and one-third of obese people are “metabolically healthy.” That means that despite their excess pounds, many overweight and obese adults have healthy levels of “good” cholesterol, blood pressure, blood glucose and other risks for heart disease.

At the same time, about one out of four slim people — those who fall into the “healthy” weight range — actually have at least two cardiovascular risk factors typically associated with obesity, the study showed.

To be sure, being overweight or obese is linked with numerous health problems, and even in the most recent research, obese people were more likely to have two or more cardiovascular risk factors than slim people. But researchers say it is the proportion of overweight and obese people who are metabolically healthy that is so surprising.

“We use ‘overweight’ almost indiscriminately sometimes,” said MaryFran Sowers, a co-author of the study and professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan. “But there is lots of individual variation within that, and we need to be cognizant of that as we think about what our health messages should be.”

The data follow a report last fall from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute showing that overweight people appear to have longer life expectancies than so-called normal weight adults.

But many people resist the notion that people who are overweight or obese can be healthy. Several prominent health researchers have criticized the findings from the C.D.C. researchers as misleading, noting that mortality statistics don’t reflect the poor quality of life and suffering obesity can cause. And on the Internet, various blog posters, including readers of the Times’s Well blog, have argued that the data are deceptive, masking the fact that far more overweight and obese people are at higher cardiovascular risk than thin people.

Part of the problem may be our skewed perception of what it means to be overweight. Typically, a person is judged to be of normal weight based on body mass index, or B.M.I., which measures weight relative to height. A normal B.M.I. ranges from 18.5 to 25. Once B.M.I. reaches 25, a person is viewed as overweight. Thirty or higher is considered obese.

“People get confused by the words and the mental image they get,” said Katherine Flegal, senior research scientist at the C.D.C.’s National Center for Health Statistics. “People may think, ‘How could it be that a person who is so huge wouldn’t have health problems?’ But people with B.M.I.’s of 25 are pretty unremarkable.”

Several studies from researchers at the Cooper Institute in Dallas have shown that fitness — determined by how a person performs on a treadmill — is a far better indicator of health than body mass index. In several studies, the researchers have shown that people who are fat but can still keep up on treadmill tests have much lower heart risk than people who are slim and unfit.

In December, a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association looked at death rates among 2,600 adults 60 and older over 12 years. Notably, death rates among the overweight, those with a B.M.I. of 25 to 30, were slightly lower than in normal weight adults. Death rates were highest among those with a B.M.I. of 35 or more.

But the most striking finding was that fitness level, regardless of body mass index, was the strongest predictor of mortality risk. Those with the lowest level of fitness, as measured on treadmill tests, were four times as likely to die during the 12-year study than those with the highest level of fitness. Even those who had just a minimal level of fitness had half the risk of dying compared with those who were least fit.

During the test, the treadmill moved at a brisk walking pace as the grade increased each minute. In the study, it didn’t take much to qualify as fit. For men, it meant staying on the treadmill at least 8 minutes; for women, 5.5 minutes. The people who fell below those levels, whether fat or thin, were at highest risk.

The results were adjusted to control for age, smoking and underlying heart problems and still showed that fitness, not weight, was most important in predicting mortality risk.

Stephen Blair, a co-author of the study and a professor at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina, said the lesson he took from the study was that instead of focusing only on weight loss, doctors should be talking to all patients about the value of physical activity, regardless of body size.

“Why is it such a stretch of the imagination,” he said, “to consider that someone overweight or obese might actually be healthy and fit?”

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:38:00 +0000

See ya' in 2 weeks...

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:51:00 +0000

????

The Overflowing American Dinner Plate

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:51:00 +0000

The New York Times is reporting, that according to the Department of Agriculture, the average Americans' weekly consumption of food has grown by almost two pounds in the last thirty years - WOW!

Concurrently, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of obese adults between the ages of 20 and 74 has more than doubled during the same period.

To read the article go to: The Overflowing American Dinner Plate

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 22:34:00 +0000

Vacation

Exercise is Key to Keeping Weight Off

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:11:00 +0000

Ramp Up Your Workouts to Shed Pounds, Keep Them Off, Study Shows

By Kelley Colihan
WebMD
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

July 28, 2008 -- How much do you have to work out in order to lose weight and keep it off? The answer is hotly debated among people who study weight loss.

A new study says that obese and overweight women need to cut calories and exercise 275 minutes a week more than their baseline physical activity -- or at least 55 minutes a day, five days a week to lose weight and keep it off.

The research was led by John M. Jakicic, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues.

They tracked 201 overweight and obese women over a two-year period; 170 women completed the study.

At the start, all of the participants were sedentary. They were randomly assigned to one of four groups based on how much and how intensely they exercised and how many calories they burned.

The participants were told to eat or drink no more than 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day. Researchers tracked them by talking to them on the phone and having face-to-face talks.

Participants were encouraged to spread the exercise out over five days during a week, done in at least 10-minute chunks. The women were given treadmills to use at home and taught to monitor their own heart rates.

At the end of the two-year study, women who had lost 10% or more of their initial body weight reported that they had done more physical activity compared with those who did not lose as much weight.

After six months, women in all four groups had lost an average of 8% to 10% of their initial body weight. But the hard part was keeping that weight off. Most of them regained the weight.

Nearly 25% of the participants managed to keep 10% or more of their original body weight off over the two years.

But, those women who exercised about 275 minutes a week more over their baseline activity levels were the biggest losers.

They also got the most support, completing the most telephone calls from researchers, and said they participated in more eating behaviors recommended for weight control than those who gained the weight back.

Those who lost and kept off the weight also increased their leisure time physical activity, doing things like taking the stairs and moving about more at home and work.

A couple of limitations the study authors note are that diet alone was not included as one of the options and that the participants themselves reported what physical activity they did and how well they did it.

The study authors conclude that a relatively high level of physical activity is needed to lose weight and keep it off.

These results are likely to add fuel to the debate over how much is needed to lose pounds and keep them from creeping back.

General recommendations are for 30 minutes a day, or 150 minutes a week, of moderately intense activity most days of the week. But the debate rages on over a magic formula for sustaining weight loss.

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:42:00 +0000

Food Safety

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:56:00 +0000

CNN

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:58:00 +0000

TODAY

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:34:00 +0000

TR Follow-up

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:55:00 +0000

Dara Torres

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:36:00 +0000

Happy 4th of July!

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:18:00 +0000

Research

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:56:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:23:00 +0000

T.R.

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:15:00 +0000

Heart

Fit and Fat?

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:20:00 +0000

A new study questions ''Fit but Fat'' theory

(AP) -- New research challenges the notion that you can be fat and fit, finding that being active can lower but not eliminate heart risks faced by heavy women.

Heart disease risk was 54 percent higher in overweight active women than for normal-weight active women.

"It doesn't take away the risk entirely. Weight still matters," said Dr. Martha Gulati, a heart specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Previous research has gone back and forth on whether exercise or weight has a greater influence on heart disease risks.

The new study involving nearly 39,000 women helps sort out the combined effects of physical activity and body mass on women's chances of developing heart disease, said Gulati, who wasn't involved in the research.

The study by Harvard-affiliated researchers appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine.

Participants were women aged 54 on average who filled out a questionnaire at the study's start detailing their height, weight and amount of weekly physical activity in the past year, including walking, jogging, bicycling and swimming. They were then tracked for about 11 years. Overall 948 women developed heart disease.

Women were considered active if they followed government-recommended guidelines and got at least 30 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week, including brisk walking or jogging. Women who got less exercise than that were considered inactive.

Weight was evaluated by body mass index: A BMI between 25 and 29 is considered overweight, while obese is 30 and higher.

Compared with normal-weight active women, the risk for developing heart disease was 54 percent higher in overweight active women and 87 percent higher in obese active women. By contrast, it was 88 percent higher in overweight inactive women; and 2½ times greater in obese inactive women.

About two in five U.S. women at age 50 will eventually develop heart attacks or other cardiovascular problems. Excess weight can raise those odds in many ways, including by increasing blood pressure and risks for diabetes, and by worsening cholesterol. Exercise counteracts all three.

"It is reassuring to see that physical activity really does make an impact," said lead author Dr. Amy Weinstein of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. However, she added, "If you're overweight or obese, you can't really get back to that lower risk entirely with just physical activity alone."

University of South Carolina obesity expert Steven Blair, a leading proponent of the "fit and fat" theory, said the study is limited by relying on women's self-reporting their activity levels. That method is not as reliable as a more objective fitness evaluation including exercise treadmill tests, Blair said. These tests include heart-rate measures to see how the heart responds to and tolerates exercise.

In Blair's research, overweight people deemed "fit" by treadmill tests did not face increased risks of dying from heart disease.

Dr. Laura Concannon, who specializes in treating overweight patients at Chicago's Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, said the study's message that exercise can help reduce health risks isn't new, but it's important.

"Anything that can motivate the public is useful because heart disease is becoming a bigger and bigger problem as levels of obesity increase," Concannon said.

noreply@blogger.com (C3R) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:01:00 +0000

@#$%^&*