Entries for July 2009

Your oomph, your zoom, your zip, the spring in your step, the get-up-and-go in your giddy-up: Whatever you call it, if you exercise long (and hard) enough, you may risk losing it at some point, feeling stale or tired during workouts, and seeing your race times get slower and slower. That kind of performance decline has a variety of possible explanations, most temporary and fixable but some more serious. Here's a field guide to what might be keeping you from doing your best.

I'm the type of person who loves to look through cookbooks and even occasionally buy them but has a far poorer track record when it comes to actually, you know, cooking. So it was a high point for me to make (or help make) two recipes from a cookbook within five days of getting it—edamame succotash and spice-simmered red lentil dal with pan-grilled tofu.

The book is the Whole Foods Diet Cookbook by husband-and-wife team Ivy Ingram Larson and Andrew Larson, and it's full of recipes based on simple, minimally processed foods like whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean protein (including some animal protein), and, in moderation, essential fats. (There's no connection to the Whole Foods grocery chain.) Ivy first got interested in the impact of diet on health when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 22; her husband, a surgeon, joined her in her research, and together they developed an eating strategy they say has improved their health. I recently talked with Ivy about the notion of eating a whole-foods-based diet. Edited excerpts of our interview:

If you're trying to lose or maintain your weight, must you give up your favorite alcoholic drink? At first glance, it might seem so. The average American gets 400 calories a day from beverages, according to obesity researcher Barry Popkin, and some findings suggest our bodies may not get the "I'm full" signal from liquids as we do from the same number of calories in solid form. So you'd think that alcohol, with 7 calories per gram (more than carbs and protein, less than fat), would place high on the list of things to cast aside in pursuit of a leaner body.

But it's not so simple. No one is suggesting that teetotalers start drinking, but if you already do drink moderately, you may be getting some health benefits. And there may be strategies you can adopt that can fend off a beer belly (or a beer behind, depending on where your extra fat tends to land). First, you do need to acknowledge the calories. They count, says Lona Sandon, a nutritionist at the University of Texas Southwestern School of Health Professions and a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. Check out this calculator from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) to figure out how many calories are in your chosen poison.

Bayer will change the packaging and health claims for its vitamins targeted at men, on the heels of research that casts serious doubt on one ingredient's ability to prevent prostate cancer. In an E-mail, Bayer HealthCare spokeswoman Tricia McKernan said the company is "in the process of revising the packaging and promotional materials for its One-a-Day Men's and One-a-Day Men's 50+ to exclude reference to the qualified health claim regarding the relationship between selenium intake to the reduced risk of certain cancers."

The company's website seems to have already been changed; it says the men's vitamins provide "key nutrients to support heart health, eye health, and healthy blood pressure," plus ginkgo to "promote memory and concentration." There's no longer any mention of prostate health, and selenium isn't singled out as a key ingredient, though both vitamins still have 150 percent of the recommended daily amount of selenium. McKernan's E-mail said Bayer would not change the products' formulations.

Everyone gets into fitness ruts. Mine is the gym; I go several times a week. I occasionally shake up my routine, but the surroundings—same workout equipment, same jockeying for position in the stretching area, same woman with the bobblehead running style on the treadmill—get old. It’s embarrassing that it took me until halfway through the unusually cool New York summer to realize that I don’t need the gym to get a great workout.

On a recent Tuesday morning, my boyfriend and I headed over to the playing field a few blocks away. At our disposal: a baseball diamond on artificial turf, a high bar perfect for pull-ups, and a bench. Inspired by this Men’s Health video we found online, we designed a workout that certainly felt as if it covered the major muscle groups:

You now really have no excuse; a review of research finds that strength training improves strength and the performance of daily activities in older adults. That's the word from the Cochrane Collaboration, which publishes evidence-based reviews in the Cochrane Library.

[See a slide show of 10 excuses for not exercising, and why they won't fly.]

Progressive resistance training—training that increases the weight or resistance as you improve—not only strengthens older people but improves their ability to perform activities like walking, climbing steps, and even taking a bath or making dinner, says the review. It also appears to reduce pain from arthritis. The authors' one caveat: The 121 trials whose data they analyzed did not give enough evidence to assess the risks of strength training or the effects over the long term.

[Here's information on how strength training fits into a plan to avoid losing muscle as you age. And if you're already a fan, here are 7 tips to shake up your strength-training program.]

With the jury still out on the benefits of vitamin and mineral supplements—including multivitamins—the mantra you'll most likely hear from doctors and nutritionists is to get your nutrients from food whenever possible. But that's not always easy, especially within a limited calorie budget. Harvard Women's Health Watch consulted two nutrition experts to find out if a supplement-free, nutrient-rich, low-calorie diet is possible to achieve. Their conclusion: yes, with the exception of vitamin D, which is tough to obtain through diet and sun exposure alone (unless you live in the southern latitudes and spend a lot of time outside).

[Read about the evidence for the use of vitamins and supplements.]

We're still getting fatter, albeit at a slightly slower rate. That's the chief takeaway from a yearly report on the U.S. obesity epidemic, which found that rates of obesity rose in 23 states (last year, rates rose in 37 states). Almost two thirds of states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent, according to the report, which was produced by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (Obesity is defined as a body mass index, or BMI, of more than 30, which translates to upwards of 197 pounds on a 5-foot, 8-inch person.)

Some other themes gleaned from the report:

The South is a trouble spot. Mississippi tops the list of fat states, with an obesity rate of 32.5 percent. Eight of the 10 states with the highest rates are in the South, and those states also rank high in physical inactivity and in rates of adult diabetes and hypertension. It's a similar story among children; the percentage of obese and overweight (a larger category encompassing BMIs of 24.9 and up) 10-to-17-year-olds in Mississippi is 44.4 percent.

[Photo gallery: See the top 10 fattest states.]