Eighteen months ago, I wrote about the high cost of being overweight or obese. George Washington University researchers had estimated the cost of being overweight for women as $524 annually and for men as $432. (While overweight and obese women earn less than those at a healthy weight, men are not disadvantaged this way.) Their […]
Tag: weight loss
Must You Exercise?
In a word, yes. If you want to be healthy, you really must exercise. You may manage to be disease free, but you cannot be truly healthy – experiencing physical, mental and emotional soundness, vitality, and proper functioning – without it. While there are many, many reasons why exercise is essential, let’s consider just this […]
Alignment Enhances Wellness
“Alignment” is our theme for the week and the definition is: the correct position or positioning of different components with respect to each other or something else, so that they perform properly. When it comes to wellness, the concept applies to many things. Consider eating and activity. When calorie intake equals calorie expenditure, there is […]
Eat Less, Lose More?
The idea that the less you eat, the more weight you’ll lose has been around a long time. So has the opposing starvation mode theory. In the early 2000s we in the weight loss industry used to talk a lot about starvation mode, the idea that eating too little slows down the metabolism, because the […]
False Ideas about Fat
There are many misconceptions about obesity, such as most people can’t lose weight. The problem most Americans have is not losing weight, it’s keeping it off. However, just because most people aren’t successful maintaining a healthy weight doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Just as the alcoholic in recovery knows it will take a daily […]
In Wellness Terms, the “F” Word is “Fat”
In my world of wellness consulting, “fat” is the bad word no one wants to hear. We don’t want be fat, eat fat, or have our fat measured. We’d rather not look at it on our plates or in the mirror. And perhaps most of all, we don’t want to be called “fat.” So health […]
Closer to the Goal
I recently heard a variation of the adage, “practice makes perfect.” It went “practice makes progress.” This new version appeals to me because perfect sounds very intimidating and something we may never achieve (or sustain anyway), whereas progress can be experienced daily. I also relate to practice and progress because they are what creating new […]
Alzheimer’s Disease vs. “Normal” Memory Loss
As baby boomers age, many people are becoming more aware of Alzheimer’s disease. They are particularly concerned as they notice changes in their ability to recall names and facts or occasionally misplace things. When do we need to be concerned about ourselves or a loved one? Here’s a chart compiled from the Alzheimer’s Association and […]
The Powerful Heart-Healthy Diet
The February edition of Prevention magazine boldly states that up to 70% of heart disease can be prevented with the right life style choices. This is big news since heart disease is the number one cause of death for both men and women in the U.S. What caught my attention was the assertion that diet […]
Living in Balance
Did you know that in 1973, the median number of hours worked per week was 40.6? By 1997, it had climbed to 50.8 hours per week. Work, as defined for this research by Louis Harris & Associates, includes working for pay, keeping house, and going to school. The median number of leisure hours per week […]