• More important to be in shape than thin
• Want to Lose Weight? Eat Your Breakfast
• Karo Syrup Increases Appetite
• McDonald’s chief executive dies
• The Physics Diet
• Eating without rules

More important to be in shape than thin

By Dr. Ben Lerner on mercola.com: A number of studies have shown that movement is more important than weight loss. In today’s day and age, I know that sounds like complete heresy, but it’s true. With Atkins, Dr. Phil, the South Beach diet and weight loss programs in general becoming a cornerstone of our society and one of our top grossing products, weight loss has become a national past time and foundational health belief.

Be Good to Your Heart—Get Into Shape

Yet, extensive research is now showing that how much you weigh is not nearly as important as what kind of shape you are in. This is why heart disease and cancer wards have thin people too. It has been discovered that losing weight without getting in shape only means you will die lighter.

A recent study of 906 women published in the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) showed that when it comes to heart health, it’s more important to be fit than to be thin. The research done showed that those who were the most fit were least likely to have clogged arteries, had the fewest heart attacks, and far fewer risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The same correlations did not hold true based on measurements of body fat (BMI or body mass index).

An additional commentary published in the same edition of JAMA said, “While the evidence linking obesity to health problems is indisputable, the role of fitness is equally clear.”

What’s important for all of us to begin realizing is that research is consistently showing that a moderately fit, but obese person is about half as likely to die of heart disease than an unfit person of normal weight. Of course, to be overweight and unfit is also completely deadly.

Want to Lose Weight? Eat Your Breakfast

The majority of people who are successful at losing weight and keeping it off eat breakfast every day. Researchers at the National Weight Control Registry analyzed data on nearly 3,000 people who had lost an average of 70 pounds and kept the weight off for a year or more. 85% of the subjects said they eat breakfast at least six or seven days a week. Only 4% said they never eat breakfast. [via http://www.earlytorise.com]

Karo Syrup Increases Appetite

From onemorebite.com...

McDonald’s chief executive dies

Jim Cantalupo, who led a business revival as chairman and CEO of the fast-food giant McDonald’s Corp., died early Monday of a heart attack, according to company officials. He was 60.
[via http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4778305/ ]

It must be extremely difficult to be the CEO of an international company whose products are generally so unhealthy. This article notes that he was overweight during much of the 1990’s, and he worked hard to return to a normal weight over the past few years and had made significant progress. He was responsible for part of the shift to making healthier alternatives available at McDonald’s, although clearly they have a LONG way to go in that respect. I’m looking forward to the day when it is possible for people on the move for business or vacations to get heart-healthy alternatives. My personal experience with a McD’s salad was that there was very little “vitality” in the lettuce they served, a bit like calling the lettuce and pickle on your Big Mac your “vegetable.”

The Physics Diet

Want to lose weight? Easy! Just remember the first law of thermodynamics: conservation of energy. Oh, and you'll have to not mind being hungry.

Most dieters are so concerned about second-order effects, such as daily fluctuations in weight and changes in metabolism, that they lose track of the first law of thermodynamics: conservation of energy.

Want to lose a pound of fat? You can work it off by hiking to the top of a 2,500-story building. Or by running 60 miles. Or by spending 7 hours cleaning animal stalls. (It is amazing what scientists have actually measured. This last example is tabulated in the book Exercise Physiology by G. Brooks and T. Fahey.)

Exercise is a very difficult way to lose weight. Here's a rule of thumb: exercise very hard for one hour (swimming, running, or racquetball)--and you'll lose about one ounce of fat. Light exercise for an hour (gardening, baseball, or golf) will lose you a third of an ounce. That number is small because fat is a very energy-dense substance: it packs about 4,500 food calories per pound, the same as gasoline, and 15 times as much as in TNT.

If you run for an hour, you'll lose that ounce of fat and also a pound or two of water. By the next day, when you've replenished the water, you might think, "the weight came right back!" But you'd be wrong--you really did lose an ounce. It is hard to notice, unless you keep running every day for a month or more, and don't reward yourself after each run with a cookie.

There is a much easier way to lose weight, as we can learn from the first law of thermodynamics. Eat less.

A reasonable daily diet for an adult is 2,000 food calories. That's 8.36 megajoules per day, or about 100 joules per secon--in other words, 100 watts. Most of that ends up as heat, so you warm a room as much as a bright light bulb. Cut your consumption by 650 calories per day and you'll lose a pound of fat every week. Most diet experts consider that a reasonable goal. Don't drop below 1,000 calories per day, or you might get lethargic. But at 1,350 calories per day, you can easily maintain an active life.

Of course, there is a catch. You'll be hungry. [read more]

Eating without rules

People are more likely to stick with long-term improvements in their diet if they eat smaller portions of a wider variety of foods as opposed to focusing on a narrow set of restrictions, research suggests. [read at MSNBC]