• Avoid snacking when you get home from work by distracting yourself for at least 15 minutes. As if you needed an excuse to hop on Facebook.
• Instead of guzzling several high-cal drinks when you’re out for a cocktail, order one strong drink with hardly any mixer that you’ll nurse all night long. (Like a tequila with a splash of orange juice. That has about 100 calories, versus a few frozen margs at about 250 calories a pop).
• Eat before you overeat. If you’ve been banking calories all day long, saving up for dinner out, you could go gangbusters. Have a snack (try to keep it under 200 calories) like string cheese, a non-fat yogurt, or a soup, and you’ll eat less at dinner.
• Sleep enough. Getting fewer than seven hours of sleep over several nights causes your cortisol, a stress and appetite-inducing hormone, to jump. Cut caffeine after 2:30, and avoid booze within three hours of bedtime.

Pedestrians walk across the street near Times Square in New York. About two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, putting them at an increased risk for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, osteoarthritis, stroke, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems and even some cancers.

By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY

Weighing too much may take as much as a decade off your life, according a new analysis of studies that involved 900,000 people.

Adults who are obese — about 40 or more pounds over a healthy weight — may be cutting about three years off their lives, mostly from heart disease and stroke.

Those who are extremely obese, about 100 or more pounds over a healthy weight, could be shortening their lives by as many as 10 years, the study found. Being extremely obese is similar to the effect of lifelong smoking, says Richard Peto, one of the lead researchers and a professor of medical statistics at Oxford University in England.

Study co-author Gary Whitlock, an epidemiologist at Oxford, says, “Obesity causes heart disease and stroke by pushing up blood pressure, mucking up blood cholesterol and triggering diabetes.”

Overall, about 66% of adults in the USA are either overweight or obese. About one-third of people in the USA are obese, meaning they have a body mass index of 30 or greater. BMI is a measure based on height and weight.

The researchers and their colleagues examined the findings of 57 studies involving about 900,000 adults who were followed for 10 to 15 years. Most of the people lived in the USA or Western Europe. The scientists analyzed 70,000 deaths.

Among the findings reported online today and in an upcoming edition of The Lancet:

•Above a healthy weight, every 5-point increase in BMI increases the risk of early death by about 30%.

•People who are overweight but not obese, with a BMI between 25 and 29.9, could be shortening their life span by a year.

•People with the lowest risk of dying early are in the high end of the healthy weight range with a BMI of about 22.5 to 25.

This is a “valuable study that provides a much clearer picture of the risk associated with various levels of being overweight or obese,” says Michael Thun, emeritus vice president of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society.

“What is particularly worrisome in the United States is that more than a third of people now qualify as obese, and a subset of people are becoming progressively more obese. Once you gain weight, it’s hard to lose it and easy to gain more. So the goal to stop your weight gain now.”

Both obesity and smoking are dangerous to your health, Thun says.

“There has been an artificial horse race between obesity and smoking over which is worse. This is fundamentally silly.

“If you continue to smoke, it takes an average of 10 years off your life. Being very obese has about the same effect.”

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Tommy Mygrant is no longer fat. His wallet, however, is a different story.

For losing about 112 pounds, the 33-year-old Bellevue resident won $50,000 March 14.

That’s about $446.50 for every pound he shed.

Most people don’t gain extra cash for losing weight. But Mygrant is a special case.

His weight loss resulted from his use of the P90X exercise system — developed by fitness expert Tony Horton. The 90-day training routine is a celebrity favorite and continues to grow in popularity.

Eager to market P90X, a fitness company calledBeachbody asked users of the program whose bodies dramatically improved because of it to send the company their stories and photographs. The company was hunting for people to help promote the product.

Thousands of submissions flooded into the Beachbody office.

From there, Beachbody narrowed the list to four women and four men of varying ages.

Mygrant was among them.

Like Mygrant — who decided to change his life after learning he was too unhealthy to donate a kidney to a loved one — all the finalists had touching stories.

“Collectively the finalists have lost 685 pounds,” Beachbody spokeswoman Carol Eisner said.

Climbing aboard a plane on March 7 headed to southern California, Mygrant knew at least $50,000 in prize money was in his future. All finalists were guaranteed that much.

But he also had a shot at $250,000.

At Universal Studios in Hollywood, Calif., the finalists learned who won the Million Dollar Body Game grand prize.

Alas, Mygrant didn’t win the big bucks. But he said that did not darken his experience one bit.

“It was the most incredible experience of my life,” Mygrant said.

He spent his time in California meeting famous trainers. He was also the subject of professional photo shoots. Beachbody, meanwhile, has helped spread Mygrant’s story nationwide.

Mygrant said he receives about 100 e-mails each day from people facing the challenges he once did. The biggest reward, Mygrant said, was turning his life around and serving as an inspiration for others to do the same.

“It’s great to know all the hard work and effort I’ve put into changing my life is going to be used to help them change their life,” he said. “For me, it’s never been about the money … I would have paid $50,000 to do what I did.”

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The bus stop weight scale is part of an ad campaign by a fitness gym called Fitness First. They want to shame people into joining their gym. This takes the cake. What nifty advertising ideas will we see next?

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Sexual dysfunction that commonly occurs in morbidly obese men improves after weight loss surgery, according to a new study.
“Sexual dysfunction should be considered one of the numerous potentially reversible complications of obesity,” the study team concludes.
Dr. Ramsey M. Dallal, from Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, Philadelphia, and colleagues measured the degree to which 97 morbidly obese men suffered from sexual dysfunction and then analyzed the change in sexual function after substantial weight loss following gastric bypass surgery.
Before surgery, the morbidly obese men had significantly lower sexual function relative to that of a previously published reference control group of men before surgery, the investigators report.
After losing an average of two thirds of their excess weight, men experienced significant improvements in sexual function, with the amount of weight loss predicting the degree of improvement.
“We estimate that a man who is morbidly obese has the same degree of sexual dysfunction as a nonobese man about 20 years older,” the investigators report. “Sexual function improves substantially after gastric bypass surgery to a level that reaches or approaches age-based norms.”
“Sexual function is an important aspect to quality of life and is now well documented to be a reversible condition,” Dallal explained.
“We are interested in examining sexual function in females, as well as understanding the mechanism of obesity-related sexual dysfunction,” Dallal added.
SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Surgeons, December 2008.
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DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I am a 37-year-old man, I weigh 310 pounds and I am 5 feet 7 inches tall. I know this could do me in, but I have tried everything I can think of to lose weight, without any success. I have dieted and have exercised, but weight doesn’t come off. My wife is careful about what we eat. She wants me to have the operation for losing weight. She’s worried about me. I have three young children. What do you think of weight-loss surgery?

— B.D.

You have a body mass index of 48.5. The body mass index is a better predictor of future health than is body weight. Your number puts you in the category of morbid obesity, “morbid” meaning “most unhealthy.” Obesity raises the risk for heart attack and stroke. It fosters the development of diabetes and high blood pressure. It promotes cancer of the colon, liver, prostate, kidney, pancreas, breast, cervix and uterus. You aren’t exaggerating when you say that your weight is a significant health problem.

A weight loss of only 10 percent (for you, 31 pounds) of body weight reduces the consequences of obesity. You should lose more than that, however. If you cut back on your daily calories by 500, you should lose a pound a week. In seven months, you’re close to the 31-pound goal. The only way to achieve results is to get a book with the calorie content of all foods. Such books are available in bookstores. Add up your daily calorie intake for one week and then average the result. Deduct 500 calories from that and you’ll have your recommended daily calorie intake. Combine calorie restriction with daily exercise, which can be half an hour or more of brisk walking.

If this regimen fails, then I’d consider surgery. There are several different operations. All of them create a smaller stomach so you cannot eat what you ate in the past. Laparoscopic (surgery done through small incisions and employing a special scope) stomach reduction surgery often can be done, and recovery from this kind of surgery is rapid. It saves lives. Your body mass index qualifies you for this kind of surgery if other methods of weight loss have failed.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: From time to time you mention body mass index, and I read about all the time in the health magazines I subscribe to. I would like to know how to obtain mine. How do I?

— S.P.

Your letter came at an opportune time. It follows on the heels of B.D.’s letter, where the topic came up.

Divide your weight in pounds by your height in inches squared. That means multiply your height in inches by itself. Take that result and multiply by 703 to obtain body mass index, BMI.

Canadians, used to the metric system, can obtain BMI by dividing their weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared.

A normal BMI is 18.5 to 24.9; 25 to 29.9 is overweight; 30 to 39.9 is obese; 40 and above is morbidly obese.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: You frequently write about ovarian cancer. I wish I had known the symptoms a long time ago. In 1972, my daughter, age 17, was finally diagnosed from it and died at that age despite treatment. She had symptoms that our doctor didn’t recognize. I went to a larger town for an opinion. She had surgery and cobalt treatments. There is no history of cancer in our family. I am writing to show that age doesn’t matter when it comes to this cancer.

— M.B.

I don’t have words to express the sorrow I have for parents who have lost a child. The most common kind of ovarian cancer, epithelial ovarian cancer, is a cancer of older women. Bloating, increased abdominal size, fatigue, weight loss, back pain, abdominal pain, pelvic pain and constipation are some of the signs that suggest ovarian cancer. They’re often overlooked.

Germ cell ovarian cancer is the kind of ovarian cancer that occurs in the first two decades of life. Germ cells are the cells that give rise to ova. This cancer grows rapidly. I have a doctor friend whose daughter died of ovarian cancer at the same age as your daughter.

Readers may write to Dr. Donohue or request an order form of available health newsletters at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Readers may also order health newsletters from www.rbmamall.com.

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Kate Smith, a school teacher in Foster City, lost more than 100 pounds.

In her 20s, Kate Smith had just accepted she was going to be big.

The 32-year-old English and journalism teacher at Bowditch Middle School in Foster City had been large since she was 7 years old. The trend continued until Smith gave birth to her now 4-year-old daughter Elena. That’s when Smith decided she wanted better for her own little girl. Her loss of more than 100 pounds earned her the cover of People magazine last week in a two-piece bathing suit no less.

Getting down to her goal weight wasn’t an instant fix, nor is it over. It’s a daily battle for Smith to maintain her weight and stay healthy for herself, her family and her students.

Extra pounds always weighed Smith down. She was extremely insecure in school and was teased a lot in middle school.

Before entering high school, Smith went to a Weight Watchers summer camp. She entered her freshman year at a healthy weight, however, didn’t maintain the lifestyle changes taught during camp. Slowly the weight piled on.

After graduating from San Mateo High School in 1992, Smith headed to the University of the Pacific then Fordham University for her master’s degree. It was after college that Smith simply accepted her large physique as the way it would always be.  

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