By Maggie Harvey This is a bit late but…Happy New Year everyone! And of course, the question that begs to be asked is: how are your New Year’s weight loss resolutions going?
We’re still in the third week of the New Year but I’m betting some are already slightly off the beaten track in terms of their weight loss resolutions.
Don’t worry if you are. It’s entirely the norm—start with a bang on the first week, follow through with determination on the second week, hang on to your resolve on the third week, and somehow, by the start of the next month, your efforts are fizzling out.
You’re not alone. Almost all of humankind has “Lose more weight!” at the top of their New Year’s Resolutions list every year. In an informal survey for 2012 alone, weight loss was second in the top five 2012 New Year’s resolutions of Americans. You can bet the rest of the world had weight loss in their 2012 goals, too.
But studies reveal we start ignoring most of our New Year’s resolutions by February. By December, we’re not only back to where we started, we’re even worse off. Why do our efforts to improve ourselves fizzle out?
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By Maggie Harvey The other day, I had a pretty interesting chat with a new online friend. We started discussing the pros and cons of blogging and somehow, because she’s added skipping breakfast to her weight control plans, I ended up lecturing her about the importance of breakfast in weight loss.
Ever since I could remember, I’ve had my Mum tell me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. She always echoed Adelle Davis:
“Eat breakfast like a king,
Lunch like a prince, and
Dinner like a pauper.”
Turns out Mum was right again as always. Because in the world of losing weight, her oft-repeated quote about eating was spot on.
The Importance of Breakfast to Losing Weight
My new online friend—40something and battling 20 extra pounds—has just promised herself to skip a meal so she can lose weight faster. And she’s chosen breakfast as the meal that’s easiest to do away with.
I was horrified to say the least! Skipping meals is a big no-no when it comes to sane, painless weight loss but skipping breakfast is just a double whammy that I believe is a recipe for disaster.
Breakfast isn’t the most important meal of the day for nothing.
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By Maggie Harvey It’s that time of the week again, when we catch up on health research news that could help us tweak our healthy lifestyle for the better.
This weekend, we have an interesting study on rapid weight loss—with monkeys as subjects, and two equally curious findings on aging from our friendly (not so) neighborhood scientists. In the near future, there might be a no-hype way to reverse or at least stop aging in its tracks.
There’s also a couple of new research on arthritis, something that I’m sure plagues or worries us these days, one way or the other.
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Some really fat monkeys were given a drug therapy used in cancer treatment–and they lost weight rapidly–within a month actually. Cancer researchers from the Anderson Cancer Center saw “early success” in using adipotide—a synthetic peptide which is an active ingredient in 15 drugs linked to cancer therapy for the brain, kidneys, colon and lungs.
The monkeys were given a daily dose of the drug for a month followed by another month without the treatment. The monkeys lost 11% of their body weight and 39% of fat deposits on average, mostly in the three weeks following the end of the treatment.
After the treatments stopped, the monkeys ate less; lost belly fat by as much as 27%; and improved insulin resistance, minimizing the risk for Type 2 diabetes.
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By Maggie Harvey Before I started doing yoga, weight loss was always associated with it in my mind. I think of incredible acrobatic poses and I believed I could lose weight just doing it. They certainly looked exhausting enough!
Now, I think more of yoga as a great way to build up bone mass and de-stress and less as a specific weight loss exercise. Probably because I’m more into Hatha than power yoga!
There’s Life Beyond Yoga and Weight Loss
Yoga arose out of India eons ago it seems but it was developed in the northern part of the country and has been around for at least 5,000 years. Yoga though has become so mainstream in the Western world that in America alone about 15 million adults have done yoga at one time or another.
These days, the younger generation seem to be yoga obsessed, particularly upwardly mobile career women and young mums. That’s why the exercise has been more identified with a younger crowd than with women my age (think over 40 and 50 women).
If you ask these younger ladies, they’ll mostly tell you yoga is a way for them to lose or maintain their weight. Others would claim they actually lost weight—which is possible—doing yoga.
Unfortunately, not all yoga is for weight loss. Continue reading »
By Maggie Harvey Hello, gurrls! I just love the idea of weekends—no need to be somewhere quickly, a couple of days to slow down my steps and smell the roses…and time to catch up with some personal stuff that I put off during the week. Like health research news!
In honor of the weekend, I’m starting something I call Quick Health Research Reads—a collection of the important health research news that I’ve come across during the week. I’m sharing this because they have an impact on the healthy lifestyle we’re trying to achieve or maintain.
SIDEBAR:
I love reading health research news, not only because they help me live a better life but simply, because I’m just a geek that way. 
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There’s a way to “incinerate” the flab we might put on during the coming holidays. Yep, that “E” word—exercise.
Staff scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory studied the diets and exercises of about 100,000 runners and 40,000 walkers (that’s a lot of subjects!) and found that even those who had “high risk” diets avoided gaining “large amounts” of weight. Their exercise regimen helped prevent the higher body mass index and wider waists that went with obesity.
A “high risk” diet, in this instance meant too few vegetables and fruit and too much intake of bad fats from meat–something that the holidays are plenty of. Aerobic cardio workouts like running and walking in this instance are very efficient in burning off the fat, and the more the study subjects exercised, the greater the amount of unwanted flab they burned…and, or course, the healthier they were.
SOURCE: New York Times
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It’s official: losing weight with someone is better than dogging it alone. A study by the Birmingham University reported that women who attended a commercial weight loss program could lose weight by up to 3 times than those who consulted with a GP or who received counseling.
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By Maggie Harvey One of the things that my doctor insisted on when I turned 40 is to boost up my calcium intake to shore up my bone strength and prevent osteoporosis. Bless my doctor but after that visit, a study by the University of Tennessee also released the awesome finding that calcium can help in weight loss.
You can bet I made sure I got my 1,300 milligrams of calcium daily after that!
So how is calcium and weight loss linked?
Calcium Burns Stored Fat, Leads to Weight Loss
In a study done by the University of Tennessee researchers, they fed mice a high-fat, high-sugar diet. After six weeks on this special diet, the mice gained 27% in body fat.
The mice were then placed on a strict low-cal diet—complemented with calcium via supplements and dairy milk.
The mahvelous results? Those who were on calcium supplements had a 42% reduction in body fat while those with a “high-dairy” diet lost 69% body fat!
The study on the mice was replicated in 2004 with adults and the findings were consistent.
So how does the calcium-weight loss link work?
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By Maggie Harvey Ever heard of “smoker’s skin?” Since 1985, it has become part of every doctor’s dictionary…and it’s all due to the effects of smoking on skin.
A smoker’s skin is older skin—even if you still don’t see it or you’re not yet in your middle age.
Don’t mistake it. There is a link between smoking and skin aging, particularly wrinkly, gaunt, grayish skin. And I’ve got the evidence to prove it, too!
Or rather, those friendly (not-so) neighborhood scientists who’re always studying ways to make our lives better and longer. 
Smoking and Skin Aging are Linked Together, Says Scientists
As early as 1971, the Annals of Internal Medicine has already published a study confirming that smokers have “enhanced facial aging and skin wrinkling”, compared to their non-smoking counterparts in the study.
The Division of Dermatology of the University of Utah Health Sciences in the late 80s also sought a link between older skin and smoking. They took pictures of their subjects’ skin around the temple—where you’d often see crow’s feet and thinning skin in the eye area—and after controlling for age, sex and sun exposure, their findings could make you sit up and take notice!
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By Maggie Harvey Last time, we discussed sleep and weight gain. We’ve established the importance of sleep in our weight loss plans. This time, we’ll look into sleep and weight loss. At least, how to sleep so losing weight won’t be an uphill battle.
Tips on How to Better Sleep to Lose Weight
At one time or another, women lose some sleep because of a variety of reasons, not least of which is our careers and concerns. (Like I said, we women go menstrual quickly over a lot of things.) For some, though, lack of sleep may be an enemy we have to grapple with nightly.
I read it somewhere that sleep is the natural state of our body, that we only wake up to eat to provide the fuel needed by our body to survive. Imagine if we’re awake longer. Our bodies will not only age quicker, we’ll also be more stressed. Intense stress leads to weight gain. And obesity encourages restless sleep. Seems both stress and obesity are surely irrevocably linked to our ability to sleep and lose weight. 
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By Maggie Harvey Many research and studies have been done linking lack of sleep with weight gain, but many do not know why this is so. I asked a friend and she said, “It just does. Period.”
I’m going to change that period into an ellipsis and segue into why depriving ourselves of sleep makes weight loss even harder—generally, across all ages and genders, not just women in their 30s, 40s and 50s who’re trying to lose weight sanely.
Studies About the Link Between Sleep and Weight Gain
A Columbia University Study looked into the results of the 80s era National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey among 18,000 Americans. They stumbled upon the fact that if you’re used to sleeping about five hours nightly, you’re twice as likely to be more obese than those who had a full night’s rest. A full night being the regular 7-8 hours of sleep that the body needs to recover and recharge.
Another Swedish study published in May of this year found something intriguing regarding the link between sleep and weight gain. The young male adults who were the subject of the study were deprived of sleep for a number of days (a control received enough sleep), fed the same calorie count, but on the final day were allowed to eat whatever they wanted.
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By Maggie Harvey Everybody likes free, right? I do! That’s why I enjoy searching for free exercise videos online. For this, YouTube is my BFF, girl.
And you’re in luck because today, I’m going to lead you to five of my favorite finds of free(!) cardio workout videos online. Good cardio workout videos that aren’t only complete but are also downloadable to your PCs.
What’s best, you can do these cardio exercises indoors, right at home. You won’t need to sweat it out with those nubile young bodies at the gym. All you need is a PC, a cable to connect your PC to your TV, and you’re good to go.
Of course, it’ll be best if you can get your girlfriends to do these aerobics cardio workout with you. Studies have shown that losing weight with a friend is more effective in achieving weight loss goals than when you go solo.
Free Cardio Workout Videos Online
A word of caution though.
Before you start following the routines in these free cardio workout videos that I found for you online, make sure you get your doctor’s go ahead first.
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