Commentary on Weight, Food and “Now What?”
Cookbooks tout such recipes and on a subtle level, they communicate "you must suffer for your fat sins" or even more dangerously, "you can lose weight while not having to think or substantially change your life and how it looks."
I've yet to meet an maintainer who subscribed to either philosophy. It's one subtle example...
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In a previous column I explored definitions of weight maintenance used in the scientific literature. Let’s use a familiar example to illustrate some of these definitions. The TV show The Biggest Loser features obese people losing weight through diet and exercise. There is a prize for those who lose the greatest percentage of their...
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Sliding scale, meet slippery slope. How do you define something as elusive as maintenance, and why does it even matter? Do you know it when you see it, feel it on your clothes, or in your food tracking? What does it all mean? As our science reporter Angela Baldo reported in her column, “Strength...
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In 2005, researcher Joanne Ikeda wrote that the National Weight Control Registry’s sample size and data methods limit its credibility. What’s more, Ikeda argued even focusing on successful weight maintainers is highly unlikely, and research efforts were better spent elsewhere. “We challenge health professionals to stop focusing on weight loss as if it were...
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J. Graham Thomas, one of the investigators of the National Weight Control Registry, still fields calls from journalists asking about “weight maintenance being impossible” statistics. So much for impossibility: Thomas can fire back the 30-plus studies the registry began since its 1994 creation, and an even larger pool of individuals who back up the...
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Watch your thoughts, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. - Author unknown People always wonder how I pulled it off losing three movie stars worth of weight while...
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Dr. Barbara Berkeley constantly explains that weight management isn’t like a balloon; you don’t just deflate to a new body and that’s that. The process is closer to exchanging a dull piece of latex for a shiny Mylar. Similar to be sure, but it’s made of different stuff. And she walks her talk. Aside...
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It’s a common practice for nationwide chain restaurants to provide nutritional information, but it’s much less common in more foodie-oriented independent restaurants. A new Web site, Fitmenu.net, fills the void. The Web site, envisioned by longtime fitness professional Chris McNeil, features a database listing dishes at a number of restaurants as well as their...
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A growing number of plastic surgeons actually understand the differences between loose skin hanging past your knees and a would-be celebrity nose job.
And this is a good thing for those who elect to have the surgery. You can read about my experience in"You're So Vain," but anytime a doctor or plastic surgeon understands the...
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Pushing through the posh doors to my first and only visit to a plastic surgeon consultation, part of me didn't want to go. But I did it anyway: the countless opinions I heard before from trainers, friends and family contradicted themselves so much they were meaningless. I needed to information about my body I...
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