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Until the last decade or so most adults did not have the opportunity to consume enough energy to enable fat to be stored. However, with the increased availability of inexpensive food in larger portions, fast food, and fewer families eating together and eating while distracted (e.g. while watching TV), eating behaviours are changing, and this may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.

Professor Iso and colleagues recruited over three thousand Japanese men (1,122) and women (2,165) aged 30-69 between 2003 and 2006 to examine whether eating until full and speed of eating are associated with being overweight. Participants were sent a diet history questionnaire about their eating habits including questions about eating until full and their speed of eating.

The researchers report that around half (50.9%) of the men and just over half (58.4%) of the women said they ate until they were full. And just under half (45.6%) of men and 36% of women said they ate quickly.

The group of participants who said they ate “until full and ate quickly” had a higher body mass index (BMI) and total energy intake than those who did not “eat until full and did not eat quickly”.

The researchers also found that both men and women in the “eating until full and eating quickly” were three times more likely to be overweight than the participants from the “not eating until full and not eating quickly” group.

The authors conclude that a combination of eating until full and eating quickly has “a supra-additive effect on overweight”.

These findings demonstrate how current eating patterns may contribute to the current epidemic of obesity, say Elizabeth Denney-Wilson from University of NSW and Karen Campbell from Deakin University in Australia, in an accompanying editorial.

They call on doctors to work with parents to encourage healthy eating habits in their children like eating slowly, serving appropriate portion sizes, and eating as a family in a non-distracting environment.

Sources:
BMJ-British Medical Journal
Science Daily

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1.Step-Ups: The bench needs to be at least 15″ off floor. My bench was 17″ off floor. Make the leg on the bench WORK!  Transfer all weight to that leg. Other leg should be inactive as much as possible.  Abs pulled in will help stabilize the movement. Do 12 reps, 3 sets on each leg.  You can also use dumbbells in this exercise.

2.Quadruped Hip Extensions: Keep back straight. Controlled movements. Squeeze glutes as you extend hip backwards. Draw abs in. Do 12 reps, 3 sets on each leg

3.Front Lunges: Keep body upright. Keep knee behind toe. Don’t lean forward when you lower yourself. Do 12 lunges, 3 sets on each leg. You can also use dumbbells in this exercise.

4.Four-Way Hip Extensions: I put one end of this tube into the doorway then I closed and locked the door so the band wouldn’t pop out. I was using a blue band (approx. 10 lb weight resistance). Each tube color has a different weight resistance. The weight resistance and colors varies by company. Do 12 reps, 3 sets on each leg
Here are my bands:  GO FIT PRO GYM IN A BAG

ANKLE WEIGHTS
I’m using ankle weights in all the exercises except the 4-Way Hip Extensions. The only reason I don’t have them on in that exercise is because I forgot to put them back on. My ankle weight are 5lbs each and they can be made lighter by removing the pins.
Here’s a pair like mine:  TKO 10lb Ankle Weights
Here’s a cheaper pair that’s just as good: Fitness Gear 10lb Ankle Weights

THE STUDY BY UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN (Click Here)

What are the ones affecting us the most? And more importantly, how can we better fight back?

First, here are the top seven diseases to keep in mind…

• Diabetes. 60% more common in Blacks than in whites. Blacks are up to 2.5 times more likely to suffer a limb amputation and up to 5.6 times more likely to suffer kidney disease than other people with diabetes.

• Asthma. Blacks are three times more likely to die of asthma than whites.

• Sarcoidosis. Deaths from lung scarring — sarcoidosis — are 16 times more common among Blacks than among whites. The disease recently killed former NFL star Reggie White at age 43.

• Lung Cancer. Despite lower tobacco exposure, Black men are 50% more likely than white men to get lung cancer.

• Strokes. Strokes kill 4 times more 35- to 54-year-old Black Americans than white Americans. Blacks have nearly twice the
first-time stroke risk of whites.

• High Blood Pressure. Blacks develop high blood pressure earlier in life — and with much higher blood pressure levels — than whites. Nearly 42% of Black men and more than 45% of Black women aged 20 and older have high blood pressure.

• Cancer. Cancer treatment is equally successful for all races. Yet Black men have a 40% higher cancer death rate than white men. African American women have a 20% higher cancer death rate than white women.

Why These Disparities?

Genes. Genes definitely play a role. So does the environment in which people live, socioeconomic status — and, yes, racism, says Clyde W. Yancy, MD, associate dean of clinical affairs and medical director for heart failure/transplantation at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Unique Cultural Issues. Yancy says that all humans have the same physiology, are vulnerable to the same illnesses, and respond to the same medicines. Naturally, diseases and responses to treatment do vary from person to person. But, he says, there are unique issues that affect Black Americans.

“We must recognize there are some arbitrary issues that are present in the way we practice medicine and dole out health care,” Yancy tells WebMD. “It forces us to think very carefully about the very volatile issue of race and what race means. At the end of the day, it is more likely an issue of socioeconomics and political issues of bias as well as physiologic and genetic issues.

Agreeing with Yancy is LeRoy M. Graham Jr., MD, a pediatric lung expert who serves on the American Lung Association’s board of directors, is associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, and serves as staff physician for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

“I just think we as physicians need to get more impassioned,” says Graham. “There are health disparities. But we as doctors need to spend more time recognizing these disparities and addressing them — together with our patients — on a very individual level.”

Black Americans & Lung Disease

A 2005 report from the American Lung Association shows that Black Americans suffer far more lung disease than whites do:

• Blacks have more asthma than any racial or ethnic group in America. And Blacks are 3 times more likely to die of asthma than whites.

• Blacks are 3 times more likely to suffer sarcoidosis than white Americans. The lung-scarring disease is 16 times more deadly for Blacks than for whites.

• Blacks are 50% more likely to get lung cancer than white American men.

• Blacks are half as likely to get flu and pneumonia vaccinations as white Americans.

Why? “There are a couple of reasons for this,” Graham says. “One is that 71% of Blacks versus 58% of white Americans live in communities that violate federal air pollution standards. When we look at Blacks in terms of demographic distribution, they are more likely to be located near, if not next to, transportation corridors, and to places where the air is drawn.”

Another reason is that a higher percentage of Blacks than whites live close to toxic waste dumps — and to the factories that produce this waste.

“The environment is involved, and there is potential genetic susceptibility — but we also have to talk about the fact that Blacks’ social and economic status lags behind that of Caucasians,” Graham says. “And low socioeconomic status is linked to more disease.”

Blacks & Heart Disease

Heart disease and stroke also disproportionately affect Blacks. Why?

“What sets the stage for the more aggressive and higher incidence of heart disease in Blacks is a very high incidence of high blood pressure,” Yancy says. “This predisposes Blacks to more heart disease, kidney disease, stroke and heart failure.”

Clinical trials show Blacks and whites respond differently to treatments for high blood pressure. Indeed, treatment guidelines suggest that doctors should consider different drugs based on a patient’s race.

But Yancy says that a closer look at the data shows that race tends to be a marker for more complicated high blood pressure treatment.

“Data suggests that  all therapies do equally well — but patients at higher risk need more intensive therapy,” he says.
A similar situation exists for heart failure. A promising treatment for heart failure didn’t seem to be working — until researchers noticed that it worked much better for Black patients than for white patients. A study of Black patients confirmed this finding — and provided tantalizing evidence that the drug will help patients of all races with certain disease characteristics.

Blacks & Diabetes

Blacks have twice the risk of diabetes as whites. In addition, Blacks with diabetes have more serious complications — such as loss of vision, loss of limbs, and kidney failure — than whites, notes Maudene Nelson, RD, certified diabetes educator at Naomi Barry Diabetes Center at Columbia University.

“The theory is that maybe it is access to health care, or maybe a cultural fatalism — thinking, ‘It is God’s will,’ or, ‘My family had it so I have it’ — not a sense of something I can have an impact on so it won’t hurt me,” says Nelson.

There is, indeed, evidence that Blacks may have a genetic susceptibility to diabetes. Even so, Nelson says, the real problem is empowering patients to keep their diabetes under control, since patients often have the sense that they are not as much in charge of managing their diabetes as their doctor.

It’s easy to say people with diabetes should learn how to control their disease. But the tools for this kind of self-empowerment often aren’t available in Black neighborhoods, says Elizabeth D. Carlson, DSN, RN, MPH. Carlson, a postdoctoral fellow in the division of cancer prevention and education at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, studies the social determinants of health.

“I go to this Black neighborhood 20 minutes from my house in a white neighborhood, and the health education they get in school is much worse than the health education my kids get,” says Carlson. “It is not just formal education, but everyday things. It’s being afraid to go out and exercise because you live in a high-crime neighborhood. It’s not having transportation to your health care provider. It’s not having decent fresh fruits and vegetables in the local grocery.”

Blacks & Sickle Cell Anemia

By now, you probably know that sickle cell anemia affects Blacks far more than it does whites.

This, clearly, is a genetic disease that has little to do with the environment. Yet even here — with a killer disease — social and political issues come into play. Graham notes that the cause of sickle cell anemia has been known since the 1950s. But for many generations, he says, sickle cell anemia has not had the funding and research attention it deserves.

“If you look at the time and attention devoted to sickle cell anemia, it pales when compared to cystic fibrosis and other genetic diseases,” Graham says. “There are actually more Americans with sickle cell disease than with cystic fibrosis — 65,000 to 80,000 versus 35,000 to 40,000 — but the amount of money spent on cystic fibrosis research outstrips sickle cell anemia by many fold. This is a shame on the medical research arm of our nation.”

How Are These Disparities Being Dealt With For The Future?

To its credit, Graham says, the National Institutes of Health is changing this situation. One reason for this change — as research into lung disease, heart disease, and diabetes shows — is the growing realization that the health of Black Americans isn’t a racial issue, but a human issue.

What does overcoming these issues mean? It means overcoming disparities in health care. It means investments targeted to the health of Black Americans. And the evidence so far indicates that these investments will pay health dividends not just for racial minorities, but for everyone.

By Lorraine Jones, BDO Staff Writer  (BlackDoctor.org)

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“Exercise can be beneficial and not harmful for breast cancer survivors,” Armer said. “Each individual should balance the pros and cons of the activity she chooses, but keep in mind that being sedentary has risks and being active is beneficial in many ways, including possibly reducing the risk of cancer recurrence.”

Lymphedema can occur any time after cancer treatment and is usually caused by the removal or radiation of lymph nodes as part of the treatment process. Armer found that patients who exercise had no greater risk for developing lymphedema than those who do not exercise. In addition, patients with lymphedema did not worsen their condition by exercising. She says future research is needed to determine whether exercise prevents the condition.

“Breast cancer survivors do not need to restrict their activity as we once thought,” Armer said. “If patients want to be active, they should carefully condition their bodies by increasing repetitions of resistance exercises under proper supervision.”

In another new literature review, Armer and her colleagues examined published literature pertaining to the surgical treatment of lymphedema. They found that in most studies surgery did not eliminate the need for traditional compression garments in patients with lymphedema.

“Many people think surgery will correct the underlying lymphatic problem, but that is not correct,” Armer said. “There are several surgical techniques that may reduce the swelling associated with lymphedema. In most cases, it is recommended that patients undergo traditional therapy using specialized massage and compression garments and bandages to reduce fluid and swelling before considering surgery.”

The literature reviews were the first two in a series of thirteen reviews to be published in conjunction with the American Lymphedema Framework Project (ALFP). Established in 2008, the ALFP aims to increase awareness of lymphedema, improve patient care and enhance training for professionals caring for persons at risk or with cancer-related lymphedema. The ALFP has two main goals: maintain up-to-date best practices supported with evidence-based lymphedema treatment guidelines for health practitioners, and create a minimum data set of all available lymphedema research and clinical data.

The first article, “Exercise in patients with lymphedema: A systematic review of the contemporary literature,” was published in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship. The second, “The surgical treatment of lymphedema: A systematic review of the contemporary literature,” was published in Annals of Surgical Oncology.

SOURCES:

University of Missouri-Columbia
Science Daily

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Drinking a Protein Shake Before a Workout
Protein is digested much slower than carbs, so too much pre-workout can give you stomach cramps and prevent the carbs you need for fuel from getting absorbed and becoming available to your working muscles.

The Fix: Reach for a smaller quantity of protein, along with slow burning carbs pre-workout, and choose higher protein shakes, snacks or meals afterwards.

Exercising on an Empty Stomach
It’s physiologically impossible to burn pure body fat — during aerobic exercise you burn a combo of carbs and fat. When carbs aren’t readily available, your body is forced to break down its own muscle mass and convert it into blood sugar. That means by skipping a meal, you may end up eating away at your own muscle instead of building it!

The Fix: If you don’t like the feeling of food in your stomach when you exercise stick with a liquid, like a small smoothie made with unsweetened frozen fruit and organic skim or soy milk.

Overusing Energy Bars
Overusing them can cause you to “eat back” the calories you burned exercising, preventing you from seeing results. A lot of my non pro athlete clients grab a bar post workout and eat a meal a few hours later, which may be overload when you consider that many bars are the equivalent of a turkey sandwich — and most people wouldn’t eat a turkey sandwich, then sit down to chicken stir fry a few hours later.

The Fix: If you’re going to eat within an hour of the end of your workout, skip the bar, or go for it and pare down the portions in your next meal.

Not Eating Enough “Good” Fat
Every cell in the human body is partially made out of fat, including muscle, so “good” fat is needed to heal and repair post workout — without it you can stay sore and fail to see an improvement in strength and muscle tone.

The Fix: Include small portions of foods like extra virgin olive oil, avocado and almonds at every meal, and be sure to include a daily source of omega 3 fatty acids

Buying Into the Afterburn Myth
While it’s true that you will torch more calories in the hours after a workout, for most women it amounts to just an additional 50 calories burned, not enough to sanction a splurge (note: a medium original Pinkberry = 230 calories).

The Fix: My general rule of thumb: the 50/50 principle — if you’re trying to trim down you can afford to add about half the calories you burn to your usual intake, preferably about 50 percent before to help fuel the activity, and half after, for recovery. For example, an hour on the elliptical burns about 500 calories (for 150 pound person), which means you can safely “spend” an extra 125 calories both before and after hitting the gym — that’s the amount in about one slice of whole grain bread spread with one tablespoon natural peanut butter before, and a half cup each nonfat Greek yogurt and sliced strawberries topped with a tablespoon of sliced almonds after.

SOURCES:
Shape.Com
Cynthia Sass is a registered dietitian with master’s degrees in both nutrition science and public health. Frequently seen on national TV she’s a SHAPE contributing editor and nutrition consultant to the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays. Her latest New York Times best seller is Cinch! Conquer Cravings, Drop Pounds and Lose Inches.

The Heart Rate watch I had on (click here)

Do you know your maximal heart rate (MHR)?

The intensity or how hard you workout has a lot to do with the calories you burn. The more your heart beats per minute the more intense your workout is. There are formulas that uses the number 220 – your age = your maximum heart rate (MHR). Take your MHR number and multiply it by theses following percentages:

Low intensity range:  0.65 % – 0.75%  ZONE 1

Moderate intensity range: 0.80% – 0.85% ZONE 2

High intensity range: 0.86% – 0.90% ZONE 3

After you calculate your training range using your MHR then chose the range that best suits you and stick with it!  Most individuals can burn calories and reduce fat in all three zones while conditioning your heart at the same time.