You all know my favorite three *f.a.t. topics in the world are sex, men, and hormone health, so it shouldn’t surprise you that after a posting hiatus of a week or so, I’m chomping at the bit and jumping back in with an article that covers all three in one! 

So, ladies, since it’s not all about us all the time, let’s talk about our men. You love yours, I love mi….I mean, if I had one, I’d love him. In fact, I’d love him to pieces and wouldn’t want any bad thing to befall him. But since I don’t have one, let’s talk about yours. Assuming you aren’t living your own version of Sleeping With The Enemy, I’m sure you want the best health possible for your husband, boyfriend, object of desire, Neanderthal-like animal creature you call significant other……you get the idea. 

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If you’ve ever run the bleachers at a high school or college stadium, you know the feeling of triumph obtained by getting to the top once, let alone multiple times. You also know what a nice burn it gives your legs while getting your heart rate going. In Los Angeles, the beach stairs are the place to achieve this; namely, the Santa Monica stairs.

The world famous Santa Monica stairs are a great cardio destination for locals and visitors, and are a great way to enjoy the outdoors while breaking a sweat. This video will give you a sneak peek if you haven’t yet braved them.

The best thing about living in Los Angeles is that the near-perfect year round weather makes it easy to stay active without having to be a gym prisoner. There is never a shortage of fitness oriented outdoor activities, which makes staying in shape easier and more fun.

For you locals or any of you out of towners who may be visiting L.A. this summer, I’m passing along a list of fun suggestions to keep you active, from About.com

Also, if you are looking for some family entertainment, between July 8th and August 2nd The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Zing Zang Zoom show is going on in Los Angeles, Ontario, and Anaheim. A four-pack of tickets is specially priced at $44 when *f.a.t. readers enter in the code “mom” in the Ticketmaster coupon code.

 Promotion Details:

• Code is the word “mom”
• Code needs to be entered in the “MC Promotion Box” on Ticketmaster
• Must purchase AT LEAST 4 tickets for code to be valid. Each additional ticket after 4 is still priced at $11
• Not valid on Circus Celebrity/Front Row/VIP seats and facility fees do apply.

Anyone who has ever gone on the birth control pill to see cellulite suddenly appear out of nowhere, and then seen it disappear as quickly as it came, once stopping the pill, will probably have considered that hormones play a key role in developing it.

Obviously, exercise and the way you eat have a lot to do with any development of fat on your body but there are plenty of lean, fit, muscular women that are still walking around with lumps and bumps on their butt and thighs in spite of their size 0 body. And there are just as many larger women, with pounds to shed, who only know orange peel as what covers a piece of citrus.

Therefore, there must be other factors at play than diet and exercise. I’ve uncovered one blog article, on Cincy Chic, which covers all the main cellulite contributing factors. It is well worth the read!

In my Butterfly Girl post last week, I addressed hypothyroidism and the importance of not relying solely on the TSH blood test to determine whether you have a thyroid problem. I found a great blog post, by Dr. Jeffrey Dach, which explains the reasons why Free T3 and Free T4 levels are so important. I encourage everyone to read this!!

Yes, people, print media is dead. I for one, don’t mind visiting the cemetery and placing a flower on its tomb out of respect for the life it lived, but I think my post from a week ago, regarding Newsweek’s irresponsibility, explains why I won’t be the one giving the eulogy at its funeral.

The article, which attacked Oprah for her shows about bioidentical hormones, was laced with incorrect claims, heavily slanted in favor of synthetic hormones. It was not only misleading, but downright false, in some instances.

I am passing on an article by Dr. Jeffrey Dach, originally printed on his hormone blog, JeffreyDach.com, which expounds on my claim that Newsweek’s article was a desperate attempt at trying to resuscitate itself, as it, like many forms of print media, are dying a slow death, due to the increasing popularity of electronic media formats.

Journalistic print media giants are finding out that people looking for unbiased news are no longer willing to tolerate agendas that masquerade as responsible journalism. Dr. Dach’s article highlights all of the financial reasons why Newsweek misguidedly, feels the need to do it.

Twelve years ago I worked in an office with a gal who desperately wanted to shed 30 pounds - and needed to- but one fad diet after another never resulted in much change in her weight. She’d give one diet the ol’ college try, then get discouraged, give up and a month or two later be on to the next one.

One day, I found her in the lunch room consuming the components of her newest eating plan, which, looking back on it, must have been what is now popularly known as The Atkins diet. She was munching on a block of cheese and some brown, crunchy protein snacky things that were the shape of a palm sized lopsided frisbee, and looked like the texture of the puffy kind of Cheetos, with none of the flavor. These things were unappetizing as sin and reminded me of those pig ears you give dogs to chew on. I can’t remember what she called them, but I was unequivocally grossed out.

As she devoured one of them, in a manner not altogether dissimilar to a ravenous lion caged too long at the mercy of a zookeeper who has been asleep at the wheel, she explained excitedly that she could have all the fat and protein she wanted on this new diet. She gnawed off a chunk from her bright orange slab of cheddar as she watched me take a bite of my homemade pasta salad. I watched her. She watched me. Both of us in mid-mastication of our food. I imagined her cheese melted in a bowl with big corn tortilla chips being stuck into it - by me- with a little salsa on the side. I didn’t tell her my fantasy, because that would add carbohydrate insult to carbohydrate injury.

As I pondered a day without carbs, let alone a few weeks or months, it dawned on me that indeed, dieting would make me feel like I was stuck in a cage; and I got the sense from the sadness in her eyes that the fat she was trying to be free from, and the food constraints she had to live under to try to lose it, were her private little hellish prison that she felt stuck in. I decided the caged lion analogy really wasn’t too far off, but it saddened me,  so as I nonchalantly pulled my brown lunch bag in front of my tupperware container of pasta to block her view, I made a mental image of her as a beautiful butterfly that was being birthed from its cocoon into a new world, for a new life,  with a new body, wearing new pretty colors.

The butterfly morphed into her, spinning around like Wonder Woman in a sexy bright patterned dress, as I toyed with whether or not I thought it could happen by eating more sharp Cheddar in one sitting than most people do  in a year. I imagined the economy of Wisconsin would be forever indebted to her. I continued to ponder: regardless of whether she could achieve Wonder Woman-Butterflydom  by eating that way, could it be healthy to not eat fruit? I felt sorry for her. How desperately she must have wanted to lose weight to go to such extremes.

As I contemplated whether I could smuggle my saran wrapped, homemade chocolate chip cookies from the brown lunch sack, into my pocket, without her noticing, and make it back to my cubicle for a little dessert snack, she casually mentioned that it was probably her thyroid causing her problem. It was the reason she couldn’t lose weight.

Knowing that the thyroid gland is shaped like a butterfly, her comment made me wonder if she had read my mind with the butterfly image. How ironic, I thought, as I shamed myself for automatically thinking that her  ”low thyroid” theory was just an excuse  to justify laziness and a lack of willpower. that was how I thought back then. But today, I know differently. There was probably more truth to her theory than even she knew, because due to the increasing number of environmental toxins that we consume everyday, the thyroid is under more assault than it ever has been before.

It is the key to vitality and healthy energy levels, and it regulates metabolism. Nowadays, more doctors are recognizing that even when someone falls within textbook “normal” ranges, symptomatically, he or she could still have hypothyroidism. It is great to get tested when you are perfectly healthy, to obtain a baseline level of what is normal for you, in the event that you one day develop thyroid problems. But if you are already having symptoms of low energy, difficulty losing weight, skin problems, depression, foggy thinking and fatigue, see an experienced doctor with regulating hormones. And when getting tested, it is key to not only test TSH level but also the free T3 and free T4 levels. If you are seeing a doctor who only tests the TSH level, you are with the wrong doctor!

So, you may be wondering if my office mate ever achieved her weight goals. I left that job too soon into her protein/cheese diet to know the final results. I just know she had moved onto Swiss by the time I left. But I can tell you that today, whenever I see a butterfly, I think of her.

I’m a little ticked off at Newsweek! Have you heard about their cover article admonishing Oprah for not giving sound health advice on her show, citing examples of having Suzanne Somers on her show discussing vitamins and bio-identical hormones. 

I’m sorry, Newsweek, but when you bash my two heroes as they try to help women improve their health, I’ve got to come to their defense. I wrote about the Suzanne Somers appearance on Oprah back in June, and touted it as a great day for television!

I am tired of people discrediting Suzanne Somers and acting as if she is a woman who knows nothing on this topic and shouldn’t be listened to. And since when is a talk show host not supposed to or not allowed to bring ideas to the public from all perspectives? Aren’t they expected to? I for one, think Newsweek is jealous that Oprah beat them to the bioidentical hormone subject and when they saw ratings soar, they wanted a piece of the action. What better way to sell magazines than incite fear and controversy over a topic of great interest, in an Oprah-adoring public, with a title like: Oprah, Wacky Cures & You.

Unfortunately, it does a disservice to people who need to be informed that the standard modus operandi in healthcare is dead, and just doesn’t cut it anymore. It does a disservice to the collective body of people seeking answers about diseases and health problems that are not improving with the typical, old model of western medicine. In fact, there is substantiated proof that some synthetic hormones cause some forms of cancer, so to say the old way is not working, is an understatement!

Sadly, Newsweek’s article proves why mainstream print media is also dying right along with the old school approach of allopathic, Western medicine and the terminally ill patients who were victims of its ignorance and shortsightedness.

I just found the perfect blog for those of you who want to combine two loves: love of hiking with love of wine! CaliforniaWineHikes.com is a a great wine-hiking resource! Whether you live in California and need some new fitness ideas, or are someone out of State, who likes the idea of combining a winery vacation with some good exercise, here is a great site for you! Remember, both activities - drinking wine and hiking - are great for your health and will help you stay Fit After Thirty!

Check out the ten humorous reasons hiking is better than a gym membership! To buy the above wine carrying case, or to search through many other wine accessories, check out Winevine-imports.com

It may sound counterintuitive, but a new study confirms that overweight people receive less pleasure from drinking a milkshake than normal weight people do. As does almost everything, it comes down to chemicals in the brain, as to what level of gratification one derives from food, resulting in overeating or not. 

Dr. Eric Stice, a scientist at Oregon Research Institute, conducted a study in which women savored milkshakes inside a brain scanner. Those whose brains did not perceive gratification, tended to overeat. 

Simply put, the brain scan showed that the dorsal striatum, a dopamine-rich pleasure center of the brain, lit up like a lightbulb in response to the taste of the milkshake, in lean people, but was far less active in the brains of overweight people. This, undoubtedly supports the theory that the tendency toward obesity, is at least in part, genetic.

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