I live in Michigan, a beautiful state with a weak economy and a whole lot of fat people. Our governor, Rick Snyder, sees a connection between our economic and waste-line problems. He may have a point. Technically, I'm one of the fat Michiganders. My current body-mass index (BMI) puts me in the "overweight" category. I've improved from obese, and am still losing, but for the moment I'm overweight, at least according to my BMI. (See my latest progress report.) About two-thirds of Michigan's … [Read more...]
Progress Report 9-5-11: Six months on a low-carb diet
After half-a-year eating the low-carb way, I have good news to report on my weight and other health factors. Last Friday I had my annual physical exam. The doctor's scale confirmed that I was 44 pounds lighter than at my physical a year ago, and 47 pounds lighter than my all-time highest recorded weight. My doctor characterized my blood lipid numbers as "the best ever." "I'd prescribe a lot fewer meds if my patients just lost weight like this," he said. He noted that my Body-Mass Index a … [Read more...]
Targeting a healthy weight loss
In weight-loss and all other endeavors, goals are vital to success. To put it less pretentiously, we may not always hit what we aim at in life, but the odds go up when we are, in fact, aiming. Dumb luck carries you only so far. (Believe me, I've tested the limits of dumb luck. Planning is better.) Some goals are obvious. For a mountain climber, only getting to the top will do. But there will be intermediate goals along the climb to the summit. Other goals are trickier to set. Over … [Read more...]
Loathsome, tiresome exercise
When it comes to exercise, I'm a Mark Twain kind of guy. At his 70th birthday party, feted by 170 people in the Red Room at Delmonico's in New York City, Twain said, "I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; I was always tired" (The New York Times, Dec. 6, 1905). Twain lived a few more years, dying at age 74. Seventy-four was a decent old-age in that era, and it would be … [Read more...]
Progress Report 8-6-11
On May 7, already a couple months into my low-carb way of eating, I set a weight goal of 215 pounds by Labor Day 2011. At that time, I weighed 241 pounds. Today, I weighed in at 219.8 pounds. Five weeks ago, on July 3 when I gave my last progress report, I weighed 227.6 pounds. Thus, I lost a touch under eight pounds in those five weeks, an average of 1.6 pounds per week. My weekly weight-loss average since May 7 is 1.63 pounds. Before setting my goal, I had already lost about 20 … [Read more...]
Protecting discs, joints, bones: other motives for a low-carb lifestyle
Yesterday I was talking shop with one of my department colleagues when she suddenly switched the topic: "How much have you lost?" she asked. "Twenty-five or thirty pounds?" I told her it was more like thirty-five or forty, but who was counting. She asked how I was doing it, and I said "low-carb," but before I could elaborate, she added: "It's very important for your back." I gathered that by "your back" she actually meant her own back. I haven't had any back pain for years, but the … [Read more...]
Reviewing some good and bad advice for spotting bogus diets
Is a diet "bogus" because it bans "fat, sugar or carbs"? Yes claims an article at USA Weekend: Five ways to spot a bogus diet. I'll get to the other signs of dietary bogusosity in a minute. Let us first examine the assertion that banning or limiting particular foods or nutrients from your diet is "both nutritionally deficient and not sustainable." Sure, banning all fat would create a diet that is seriously deficient and unsustainable; in fact, it would kill you. Therefore, no one ever … [Read more...]
Healthy weight loss is a patriotic duty
“Today, the state with the lowest obesity rate would have had the highest rate in 1995.” -- Jeff Levi, Ph.D., executive director of Trust for America's Health, in 7 July 2011 press release. Yes, America, you are getting fatter, and sicker, too. So says F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2011, the latest in a series of annual reports on American weight-gain and fitness by the Trust for America's Health (TFAH). In the past year, obesity rates increased in 16 states and didn't … [Read more...]
Health science short-takes
Even in mid-summer, science marches on. Here are a few diet/science related stories that caught my eye this morning. Healthy Lifestyle Makes Women Less Likely to Die Suddenly | Medpagetoday.com The focus of the study being reported on here is how to prevent sudden cardiac death (SCD) in women. The study (published in the July 6 issue of JAMA) followed over 80,000 women, mostly white professionals, aged 30 to 55 at the start, from 1984 to 2010. The participants completed lifestyle … [Read more...]
Progress report 7-3-11
On May 7, I set a weight goal of 215 pounds by Labor Day 2011. At that time, I weighed around 241 pounds. Yesterday, I weighed in at 227.6 pounds. So in the past two months I have lost 13.4 pounds on my low-carb way of eating. The pace has slowed. In the first two months of low-carb eating, I lost about 19 pounds. Nevertheless, I am on schedule to meet my Labor Day weight goal, perhaps with time/ pounds to spare. Frankly, weight loss is a secondary issue for me. More important is … [Read more...]
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