I found a great new resource for those trying to lose weight to share helpful tips with each other! Read and learn, or post an article to help someone else. Here is one that will probably hit home with all of you who love eating out!
After much research and personal experimentation, I am more than convinced that the key to longevity, vitality, and aging gracefully is through the proper balancing of the body’s alkaline and acid pH levels.
Here are what some of the experts say:
Writer Sang Whang in his book “Reverse Aging” proposed a Theory of Aging: we age because we gradually accumulate organic acid wastes. These wastes show up as uric acid, urate, sulfate, phosphate, kidney stones and other organic wastes often surrounded by cholesterol. Cellulite is a gel-like substance made up of fat in which are trapped acid wastes in pockets below the skin.
Dr Robert Young, author of “The pH Miracle” has been saying for years that “Obesity is an acid problem, the fat is saving our lives.” Why? Because the body creates fat cells to carry acids away from your vital organs, so these acids literally don’t choke your organs to death. Read more here.
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that alkalizing diets improve bone density and serum growth hormone concentrations; the acidosis resulting from acidic diets contributes to bone and muscle loss.
Why? Because calcium is the body’s most potent alkalinizing agent. When you drink an acidic soft drink, for example, the body reacts swiftly by drawing huge amounts of organic calcium from the bones and teeth and pouring it into the bloodstream to neutralize the excess acid so that it can quickly restore alkaline balance.
So how do you change your body’s pH? It’s all in what you eat and drink. Big culprits are things most people consume everyday: coffee and sodas. Here is a list to print out and keep on your refrigerator. It shows which foods have an alkalinizing or an acidifying effect on the body. If you want to stay fit and healthy in your thirties, forties, and beyond, you will do it easily by eating from the left side of this chart as much as possible! And if that list doesn’t seem user friendly to you, here’s another chart.
Bariatric surgery has become very popular among those people with large amounts of weight to lose. A new study out of Sweden now finds that cancer risk among women who do, is lowered by 42%!!! Read the article on HealthNews here.
When I was in sixth or seventh grade, the most popular girl in school, T____ who got all the boys’ attention, started to have to share the limelight when a new, equally pretty girl named N____ came to school mid-year. Feeling the lapse in attention didn’t make T feel good, and in an effort to bring the focus back on herself, she started resorting to extreme, attention-grabbing measures. She’d wear flashy clothes and when that didn’t steal N’s thunder, she’d break out the dramatic makeup look - you know the one- the blue shadow and Tammy Faye mascara.
Before too long, the school’s attention turned to a canned food drive, and with everyone engrossed in their own struggles to get ahead in the contest to win an ice cream party, less attention was payed to the girls. Soon, both girls were desperate to recoup their audience.
It was like a bad episode of The Facts Of Life with dueling popular girls competing for the number one spot on their peers’ radar with Mrs. Garrett playing referee. N would show up Monday with a crazy hair do, and by Friday, T would counter with a half-shaved head. N sported a fake tattoo of a butterfly, T responded with double-pierced ears and big hoop earrings.
Now, imagine the girls as magazines named Time and Newsweek. The playground is the news stand. The boys’ roving eyes are the diverted attention from magazines onto electronic media. The other peers in the school are all of us, called potential readers. The canned food drive distraction is today’s poor economy (causing attention and expendable income to be drawn away from the dueling mags). Instead of Mrs. Garrett as referee, it is the rest of the media. (Today Show mentions Time magazine article- 2 points! Larry King mentions Newsweek article - 3 points!). And of course, the flashy glitz and glam getups of the dueling girls are equivalent to overblown or sensationalized controversial stories about two of the most popular “kids” (topics) in “school” (America), pushed out by skilled marketing and PR teams.
A couple of new studies seem to confirm what has been rumored in the past - that chewing is more than just a mechanical process necessary for satisfying hunger and filling our bellies.
The first study involves gum. And yes, it was funded by Wrigley, but it was done at Baylor University and seems to be legitimate. We’ve all heard that chewing gum may be a good dieting strategy because it can keep you from putting, other, more fattening things in your mouth. But the study seems to prove that it’s not just an issue of keeping the mouth busy, chewing gum seems to actually remove your craving for snacks.
An open letter from Fit After Thirty to Obama’s Pick for Surgeon General, Regina Benjamin:
Dear Dr. Benjamin,
Some of your critics are calling you a bad word, that rhymes with bat, hat, and rat. As in, I tip my hat to you: I am going to bat for you; and critics of your weight are a bunch of rats. The bad word they call you begins with “F”. It is a word that we, here at Fit After Thirty, call “the other naughty F word”.
It’s a word that we try not to use in its adjective form, and that we believe is overused in the media and in society at large, to reduce women to nothing more than a number on a scale, while ignoring the various other numbers that may define a woman. Any woman.
Numbers such as her IQ score, her college GPA, her salary, the number of kids she may have mothered, her Scrabble score, to name a few. Numbers like how many grandkids she has loved, the number of hours she’s spent perfecting a skill, the number tears cried for family members she has lost to disease, the number of hours spent caring for those ill loved ones, the people she calls friends, the number of years she’s been alive, and oh, I don’t know, the number of years say, that a woman may have spent in medical school earning a degree, and the number of patients she’s treated with that degree, which qualifies her to be nominated for the position of the top doc in the nation.
Some people overlook those numbers where you (and other women) are concerned, considering such numbers trivial, while making weight and/or waist size the be all and end all. I don’t.
This F word they call you, Dr. Benjamin, is a word that Fit After Thirty strives not to use as an adjective or as a label in describing a person. This website believes it’s a word that tends to be hurtful and demeaning, rather than supportive, uplifting, or inspiring. Therefore it is a word that we have chosen to spin into an acronym - *f.a.t. - from a positive set of words - Fit After Thirty - in order to create a positive mindset around the naughty “F word”. We hope that the new positive association will encourage and inspire.
Some of your critics say that because this naughty “F word” describes your physicality, that you aren’t a credible expert in the area of health. To that I say, I’ve known a lot of decent hair stylists who have really bad hair- dos, themselves. And I’ve also known of a lot of really lean people with clogged arteries in need of coronary bypass surgery. (David Letterman and Regis Philbin are two who come to mind, who I am sure your critics are familiar with). And let’s not forget; we all know of a Treasury Secretary who doesn’t pay his taxes and whose role as President of The Federal Reserve Bank of New York likely played a huge role in one of the biggest economic crises in our country’s history. And he still gets to play with the White House calculator.
Lean doesn’t necessarily equate to health. A Surgeon General’s job isn’t only about dealing with the disease of obesity. A body size doesn’t determine the quality of work you do. (Whereas, the quality of work you’ve done in the past, does). And you’ve done quality work, Dr. Benjamin. The way I see it, your confirmation hearings should be a walk in the park, because if Timothy Geithner is qualified to hold a position where he even gets to look at dollar signs, a few extra pounds shouldn’t disqualify you from doing what you have always done well, and with passion and compassion. Medicine.
Dr. Benjamin, it makes me sad that people don’t recognize that those who practice medicine, like yourself, are human beings prone to succumbing to the same pitfalls and struggles that the rest of us have. It would be great if all doctors could be genetically superior in the body department, as most of you are in the mind department, but alas, the majority of you are in fact, subject to the same hereditary misfortunes and genetic cruelties as the rest of us. I for one, feel that imperfections such as these make you doctors more human, and better able to understand me and my struggles as a patient.
Your critics believe that since we have an obesity epidemic in this society, that you would be hypocritical or lacking in expertise and motivation to discuss this issue, because you, yourself carry a few extra pounds. Let’s just agree that the next time you hear them say these things, you say to them, “hey, moron - would you take advice from a virgin-sex therapist? (pause) I didn’t think so!” (The “I didn’t think so” is important. Make sure to include that to show you’ve got spunk, Dr. Benjamin.)
I believe most Americans will come to realize that a Surgeon General who has eaten a Twinkee or two, prior to discussing how and why we should give them up, is necessary. Because truly, if you didn’t know how good they taste, then how could we know that you empathize with how difficult it is to give them up? You are relatable, and that’s what I like.
I for one, think that there may be no better person to help me inspire America and the world to redefine “fat”. To turn the word upside down (for some incline sit ups, perhaps) and to truly lead people to a healthy transformation in mind, body, and spirit. Hell, the fact that every blog and media outlet is raising the decibel level on the obesity problem where you are concerned, is a sign that you could be a powerful force in exacting change in the health of millions.
And who better, than a woman with a mother who died of lung cancer caused by smoking, a brother who died of HIV, and a father who died with diabetes and high blood pressure, to truly comprehend many of the complicated health issues America faces, not just from the perspective of a doctor in your professional role, but as a human being. As a daughter. As a sister. As a fellow woman in America.
All of these reasons are why I wholeheartedly support your nomination. I hope you’ll take comfort in knowing that during the media mudslinging process and the public debates that ensue regarding your weight, I got your back. Regardless of the size blouse you wear on it.
With Sincere Admiration,
*f.a.t. Suzy
You have probably heard that oil and vinegar dressing is a better dieting choice than Ranch or Bleu Cheese dressing. Like me, you probably assumed it was better for your weight loss efforts because of a lower fat content. Well, that may be true, but new evidence from Japan also gives you another reason to top your salads with the dynamic duo.
Vinegar, long used in folk medicine internally and externally, contains acetic acid, which is now believed to help break down fat accumulation. In a study just published in The Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, (you didn’t know such a Journal existed, did you?), a guy named Tomoo Kondo seems to have proven that a component of vinegar might be your friend in the war against fat.
Giving new meaning to the phrase “like mother, like daughter”, a British mom, Chantal Marshall, who is definitely a *f.a.t.ty (Fit After Thirty Hotty) has inspired four of her daughters to get boob enhancement surgery just as she has did. Be sure to read the full story here.
I’m conflicted about this. On the one hand, I want to be critical of a mom who has sent the message to her daughters that they aren’t good enough unless they have huge ta tas. On the other hand, I want to applaud her for staying fit and sexy, especially for a 50 year old mom of 4!
Back to the other hand, I want to slap them all for becoming cookie cutter sex objects of each other, instead of embracing their uniqueness, yet considering how beautiful they all are to begin with, my guess is they weren’t getting enhanced as a desperate attempt to assuage feelings of ugliness, which is a good thing.
So what do my *f.a.t. readers think? I need you to weigh in on this…I’m so curious to hear what you all think!
Not long ago, I was sitting at lunch with two business colleagues - a female in her late fifties who had had a hysterectomy the year before, and was struggling to keep weight off, and a 34 year old, muscular guy with pecs the size of two, small European countries, and biceps that protruded from out beneath the seams of his short sleeves in an annoyingly similar way to how Pam Anderson’s cleavage begs recognition in a button up blouse. It was just too much muscle for his 5′8″ frame, and I always felt he must be overcompensating for either his lack of height, or perhaps other anatomical parts.
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.
