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Fur flies as Daisy Lowe is accused of being overweight
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London Fashion Week does not begin until Friday, but tempers are already beginning to fray. Sasha Volkova, the Marks & Spencer model, has suggested that her fellow mannequin Daisy Lowe, a former girlfriend of the Doctor Who star Matt Smith, is overweight.
To add insult to injury, Volkova, who comes from humble origins in the Ukraine, adds that if Lowe was not the daughter of a well-known couple, she would be asked to go on a diet.
“If Daisy Lowe’s parents weren’t famous, if she had gone to a model agency, they would have told her to go and lose some weight,” Volkova tells Mandrake at Mark Fast’s “creative talent” dinner at the Corinthia hotel. “That might not be right, but other girls get treated like that.”
Daisy, 23, is the daughter of Pearl Lowe, the pop singer turned fashion designer, and Gavin Rossdale, the rock singer.
Volkova, 26, was engaged to Dan Macmillan, the great-grandson of the former prime minister Harold Macmillan and heir to the Earl of Stockton. “I don’t know what is it with London,” she adds, “but the fashion world here is always in love with famous offspring, aren’t they?”
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Fur flies as Daisy Lowe is accused of being overweight
Primary care program helps obese teen girls manage weight, improve body image and behavior
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Public release date: 13-Feb-2012
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Contact: Emily Schwartz
eschwartz@golinharris.com
415-318-4371
Kaiser Permanente
February 13, 2012 (Portland, Ore.) -- Teenage girls gained less weight, improved their body image, ate less fast food, and had more family meals after participating in a 6- month program that involved weekly peer meetings, consultations with primary care providers and separate meetings for parents. Those results from a study published online today in the journal Pediatrics.
Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the study is the first to report long-term results from a weight management program designed specifically for teenage girls. Most other programs have included younger children and interventions focused on the entire family. This program included separate meetings for parents with the rationale that teens are motivated more by peer acceptance than parental influence. Unlike previous programs, this one was conducted in a primary-care setting, rather than an academic or specialty-care environment.
"Nearly one-third of teenage girls are overweight or obese, and many of them are likely to become obese adults," said Lynn DeBar, PhD, MPH, lead author and senior investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research. "Our study shows that intervention programs can help these girls achieve long-term success managing their weight and also learning new habits that will hopefully carry over into their adult life."
"Many teenage girls are still growing taller, so for them, maintaining weight or slowing weight gain is an acceptable goal," said Phil Wu, MD, a pediatrician who leads Kaiser Permanente's effort to prevent and treat childhood obesity and is also a co-author of the study. "Girls in the program gained less weight than those who weren't in the program, and they reduced their overall body mass index, improved their self-image and developed healthy lifestyle habits, so all of these are successes."
The study included 208 girls, ages 12-17, in Oregon and Washington during 2005-2009. All of the girls were classified as overweight or obese, according to standards set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards. Half of the girls were assigned to the intervention group and half to usual care.
Girls in the intervention group met weekly with their peers and a behavioral counselor during the first three months, and then every other week during months four and six. The girls were weighed and asked to keep a food and activity diary, which they discussed during each meeting. The program focused on decreasing portion size, limiting consumption of energy-rich foods, establishing regular meal patterns, substituting water for sugar-sweetened beverages, reducing fast food, increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, and having more family meals.
The girls were encouraged to exercise at least 5 days a week for 30-60 minutes, and to limit screen time to 2 hours a day. They also received yoga instruction, and a physical-activity video game to use at home. Discussion topics included ways to avoid disordered eating, coping with family and peer teasing and developing strategies to combat negative self-talk.
Parents attended separate weekly meetings to learn how to support their daughters. The girls' health care providers received summaries of the girls' current health habits, including meal and physical activity patterns. After receiving training in motivational techniques, the providers met with the girls at the beginning of the study to help them choose one or two behaviors to work on. The providers had a second visit with the girls at the end of the six-month intervention to check their progress.
Girls assigned to the usual-care group received a packet of materials that included a list of online reading about lifestyle changes. They also met with their primary care provider at the beginning of the study, but the providers were not given health habit summaries for these girls.
Both groups had health assessments and lab tests at the beginning of the study, at six months, and then again at 12 months. The girls started out with an average weight in the 190 lb. range, and an average body mass index in the 97th percentile, which by CDC standards is considered to be obese. At the end of the study, girls who participated in the program were in the 95th percentile, while girls in the usual-care group were in the 96th percentile.
Authors say the weight changes were statistically significant but modest compared to some other weight loss interventions. They point out that the girls were severely obese to begin with and possibly treatment-resistant due to previous involvement in other weight loss programs. The program purposely de-emphasized calorie counting, focusing instead on lifestyle changes, and the authors acknowledge that this approach may have produced more modest weight changes than they had expected.
This study is part of ongoing Kaiser Permanente research into weight loss. Previous studies include:
A Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study published in the International Journal of Obesity last year found that people trying to lose at least 10 pounds were more likely to reach that goal if they had lower stress levels and slept more than six hours, but not more than eight hours, a night. Another Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study published in 2010 found that the more people logged on to an interactive weight management website, the more weight they kept off. Researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research also reported in a 2008 study that keeping a food diary can double a person's weight loss and that both personal contact and Web-based support can help with long-term weight management.
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Authors include Lynn L. DeBar, PhD, MPH; Victor J. Stevens, PhD; Nancy Perrin, PhD; John Pearson, MD; Bobbi Jo Yarborough, PsyD; John Dickerson, MS; and Frances Lynch, PhD, from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore.,; and Philip Wu, MD, from Northwest Permanente in Portland, Ore.
About the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research (http://www.kpchr.org)
Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research, founded in 1964, is a nonprofit research institution dedicated to advancing knowledge to improve health. It has research sites in Portland, Ore., Honolulu, and Atlanta.
About Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America's leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, our mission is to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve 8.9 million members in nine states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: http://www.kp.org/newscenter.
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Primary care program helps obese teen girls manage weight, improve body image and behavior
Foods to Speed Up Metabolism
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A calorie is a calorie, and cutting them is the best way to lose weight, right? Not so fast. New research shows that eating certain types of foods can rev your metabolism, curb your appetite, and help you lose more weight than others. The Active Calorie Diet, an eating plan based on this research, explains how some foods take more work to eat so you burn more calories during digestion. In fact, just the act of chewing foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean cuts of meat can increase your calorie burn by up to 30 percent.
In this diet plan, foods are broken down into four types of "active calories"--chewy foods, hearty foods, energizing foods, and warming foods. Here’s how each one encourages your body to burn more calories.
8 Things You Didn’t Know About Calories
Chewy Foods
(lean meats, nuts, whole fruits and vegetables)
These calories make your body work right off the fork. To maximize the chew factor, choose food in its most "whole" state—apples instead of applesauce, for instance. High-protein foods really are your best ally in the Active Calorie Diet because they take more work to chew and longer to leave your stomach so you take more time eating—and have more time to register that you’re full.
Hearty Foods
(fruits, vegetables, brown rice, whole grains and cereals)
In addition to being chewy, these Active Calories are packed with fiber, so they take up more room in your belly (compared to other foods with the same number of calories), and leave less room for second helpings. Foods that take more work to chew literally make your mouth work harder (ramping calorie burn by 10 percent) and increase the thermic effect of food, the calorie-burn bump we get from eating and digesting any given type of food.
Energizing Foods
(coffee, black and green tea, dark chocolate)
You can get metabolism-boosting caffeine in coffee and black tea; just be careful not to load them up with milk, cream, or sugar. Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant, so your daily java or black tea can boost your metabolism by 5 to 8 percent ---about 80 to 128 calories a day. Green tea doesn’t have much caffeine but it does contain catechins, an antioxidant that raises resting metabolism by 4% (about 80 calories a day). Dark chocolate contains both catechins and caffeine, but stick to 1 ounce per day to limit fat and calories.
Secrets of 5 High-Energy Women
Warming Foods
(peppers, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, cloves, mustard, vinegar)
To fully activate the calories from every meal, add some heat. Dieters taking capsaicin, the chemical that gives peppers their burn, doubled their energy expenditure for several hours after eating, according to a new study from UCLA. Even mild peppers contain compounds that help erase up to 100 calories a day by binding to nerve receptors and sending fat-burning signals to your brain. Cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, and garlic help, too.
Fat-Burning Meal Ideas
Following The Active Calorie Diet is easy and doable because you’re probably eating many of the foods on a daily basis already.
Your meals will consist of mostly chewy and hearty foods, plus at least one energizing or warming food. You can have a daily snack that contains at least one type of Active Calorie food. Keep your calories to around 1,500 a day and you could lose up to 14 pounds and 4 inches in just 4 weeks.
Meals That Burn Calories All Day Long
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Foods to Speed Up Metabolism
Do not starve yourself to lose weight: researcher
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‘Right food at the right time is an effective medicine'
Starvation should not be adopted as a means to tackle obesity. A lot of lifestyle factors, including proper diet, exercise and good sleep are very important in the management of obesity as ‘vaata', ‘pitha' and ‘kapha' considered to be the basic elements in one's constitution in Ayurveda, should be in perfect balance, said C.R. Agnives, Ayurveda researcher and winner of Dhanwantari Award instituted by the Kerala government.
He was delivering a lecture on the Ayurvedic perspective on obesity at the Global Ayurveda Fest here on Saturday
The former Director of Ayurveda Medical Education M.R. Vasudevan Nampoothiri, who spoke on the relevance of Ayurveda dietetics in the management of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), pointed out that the ancient scriptures of Bhavaprakasha and Charaka Samhitha, cited improper diet as the main cause of NCDs.
“Eating undesirable food, having a meal within three hours of the previous one, and eating untimely food can all harm one's health. Food should be eaten slow so that digestion takes place fast and no food should be consumed so that one feels full,” he said quoting scriptures.
In short, right food at the right time is an effective medicine for good health, Dr. Namboothiri said.
Renowned teacher-clinician of Ayurveda from Tamil Nadu L. Mahadevan, spoke in detail about the basic concepts of ‘dhatu' (tissue systems), ‘dosha' (vatha, pitha and kapha' ) and ‘ritu' in Ayurveda and how these influence one's health, with special reference to hepato biliary diseases.
Director of Manipal Life Sciences Centre who spoke on ‘NCDs — genomics and prakrithi,' elaborated on how the body's DNA-repairing capacity diminished with age and how ‘rasayanas' could help in DNA repair and maintaining the original functioning of the cells.
Mark Rosenberg, Chief Executive Officer, European Academy of Ayurveda from Germany, said that Ayurveda as complementary medicine was gaining popularity in Germany. He spoke about how people were more bothered about holistic health, and how in Germany, Ayurveda was helping modern medicine heal body and mind.
Holistic cure
An Ayurveda practitioner in Europe for the past 15 years, E.P. Jeevan, pointed out that depression, psychosomatic disorders, rheumatic ailments and metabolic disorders were very common in Europe and that more and more people were thinking about good health beyond simple cure. Ayurveda was gaining popularity because of its holistic nature of treating the mind, body and spirit to gain good health, Dr. Jeevan said.
Parallel sessions dealing with degenerative diseases, liver disorders and NCDs with a special focus on diseases affecting women were also held.
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Do not starve yourself to lose weight: researcher
Open casting call for moms who want to lose weight
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Are you looking for a lifestyle makeover, and have some weight to lose?
The producers of "The Biggest Loser" and "Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition" have created a new daytime talk show, "The Revolution." The ABC show features inspirational stories of people who have made drastic changes to their lives.
Do you have 50-100 pounds to lose? You could be the next Hero on "The Revolution."
PHOTO COURTESY ABC
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On Saturday, Feb. 11, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. there will be an open casting call for women who are ready to lose 50-100 pounds. If you're inspirational or have overcome challenging circumstances that might have caused you to gain the weight, you could land a part on the show. They are specifically looking for women who may have a career or family situation that has taken over, but who are now ready to regain control.
If chosen, "The Revolution" will provide you with a trainer and nutrition plan to help you lose weight in your own environment.
Bring a non-returnable photo of yourself to the Long Beach Town Center at 7575 Carson Blvd. (near Edwards Stadium on the Promenade stage). You must be 18 or older to apply; for more information on eligibility, go to thereveolutioncasting.com.
Get more information about the show or watch full episodes online.
O.C. woman gets a life makeover on "The Revolution": Read about local mom Jennifer Cahalan, who was recently on the show
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Open casting call for moms who want to lose weight
Linda Robson inspired to lose weight by co-star Pauline Quirke
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Linda Robson has said that she was inspired to lose weight after seeing her Birds of a Feather co-star Pauline Quirke shed over eight stone.
Quirke, who recently made her on-screen Emmerdale exit, lost eight and a half stone after dieting during her time on the ITV1 soap.
© Rex Features / Steve Meddle
Speaking on Daybreak, Robson said that between herself and Quirke, they had lost 12 stone in weight: "So quite a lot - I didn't realise that until this morning. Pauline's lost eight and a half, and I've lost three and a half."
She continued: "I saw Pauline looking so fantastic - I mean the last time I saw her she was probably the biggest I'd ever seen her, she was over 19 stone. And then she went off to do Emmerdale and then when I saw some pictures in the paper, I thought, 'My God, she looks fantastic'.
© Rex Features / Steve Meddle
© Rex Features / Steve Meddle
"And then I went onto This Morning and surprised her, and I just couldn't recognise her. Her whole frame - I mean you think shoulders, they're bones, they're not going to get smaller - but they have. I mean she's got this tiny little frame and I thought, 'Right, I've got to do something about it'."
The comedy duo will reunite with former co-star Lesley Joseph for a Birds of a Feather stage tour, which kicks off next month.
Discussing her friendship with Joseph, she added: "She keeps texting me 'skinny', and I keep texting her back 'fatty'! But she's not, she's always been tiny."
> 'Birds of a Feather' cast reunited on 'This Morning': Picture
> 'Emmerdale' Pauline Quirke: 'I'd love to return'
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Linda Robson inspired to lose weight by co-star Pauline Quirke
Eat dessert for breakfast to lose weight
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Those with a weakness for sweets can now include cookies and cake in a 600 calorie breakfast menu with some proteins and carbs to shed weight in a pleasurable way and also stay slim.
Attempting to avoid sweets entirely can create a psychological addiction to these same foods in the long-term, explains Daniela Jakubowicz, professor at Tel Aviv University?s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, who led the study.
Over the course of a 32-week-long study, participants who added dessert to their breakfast - cookies, cake, or chocolate - lost an average of 40 pounds more than a group that avoided such foods, the journal Steroids reports.
What?s more, they kept off the pounds longer. A meal in the morning provides energy for the day?s tasks, aids in brain functioning, and kick-starts the body?s metabolism, making it crucial for weight loss and maintenance, according to a Tel Aviv statement.
And breakfast is the meal that most successfully regulates ghrelin, the hormone that increases hunger, explains Jakubowicz. While the level of ghrelin rises before every meal, it is suppressed most effectively at breakfast time.
These findings were based on 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults, who were randomly assigned to one of two diet groups with identical caloric intake - the men consumed 1,600 calories daily and the women 1,400.
However, the first group was given a low carbohydrate diet including a small 300 calorie breakfast, and the second was given a 600 calorie breakfast high in protein and carbohydrates, always including a dessert item (i.e. chocolate).
Halfway through the study, participants in both groups had lost an average of 33 pounds per person. But in the second half of the study, results differed drastically.
The participants in the low-carb group regained an average of 22 pounds each, but participants in the group with a larger breakfast lost another 15 pounds each.
At the end of the 32 weeks, those who had consumed a 600 calorie breakfast had lost an average of 40 pounds more per person than their peers.
Jakubowicz conducted the study with Julio Wainstein and Mona Boaz from Tel Aviv and Oren Froy of Hebrew University Jerusalem.
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Eat dessert for breakfast to lose weight
Toss Cravings, Lose Weight
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Newswise — Of 190 million obese Americans, approximately 10-15 percent engage in harmful binge eating. During single sittings, these over-eaters consume large servings of high-caloric foods. Sufferers contend with weight gain and depression including heart disease and diabetes. A new clinical trial, called Regulation of Food Cues, at UC San Diego Health System, aims to treat binge eating by helping participants to identify real hunger and to practice resistance if the stomach is full.
“Most weight-loss treatments for obese adults focus very little on the reduction of binge eating,” said Kerri Boutelle, PhD, principal investigator and associate professor in the department of psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “With this study we use a variety of techniques to train the brain to identify and respond to hunger and cravings and to learn resistance to highly craved foods.”
The one-year study will recruit 30 participants who will undergo weekly 60–90 minute sessions held over 12 weeks. Participants will learn how food cravings originate, how to detect and monitor true hunger, how emotional factors influence eating habits, and how to manage cravings and impulses to eat.
“Binge eaters often consume food in response to their environment, even when they are not hungry. This could be a response to watching TV, long commutes, sitting on the couch, time of day, even loneliness,” said Boutelle, who is also a licensed clinical psychologist. “The goal is to reduce cravings to overeat by up to 50 percent.”
Teaching obese people to recognize hunger signals is based upon the principles of behavioral psychology, which has proven effective in treating conditions such as anxiety and bulimia. Boutelle and her team have developed a treatment model that shows that binge eating often results from response to environmental food cues. Exposure-based treatments help eaters improve their sensitivity to hunger and fullness and reduce their sensitivity to the sight and smell of food.
Similar programs aimed at overweight youths have yielded promising results and an ability to maintain reductions in binge eating at six and 12 months after treatment.
Participants who join the study will be asked to complete interviews and surveys before and after treatment groups. In addition, they will complete food logs in which they will be asked to monitor levels of hunger and fullness as well as cravings.
To learn more about this clinical trial, please call 858-405-0263.
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Toss Cravings, Lose Weight
Can Chocolate Cake for Breakfast Diet Help You Lose Weight?
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A new study by Tel Aviv University found that eating a small dessert as part of a balanced breakfast actually helped dieters lose more weight and keep it off with more success.
The study was conducted by Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz, Dr. Julio Wainstein and Dr. Mona Boaz of Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Medicine and the Diabetes Unit at Wolfson Medical Center and by Prof. Oren Froy of Hebrew University Jerusalem.
According to them, slipping in a slice of chocolate cake with a breakfast that boasts protein and carbohydrates is one of the keys to staying trim, both in terms of short-term weight loss and to avoid gaining the pounds back.
But who, exactly, was in the study, and how many were tested? How did people eating dessert for breakfast compare to those who avoided sweets? Is this study just too good to be true?
Who participated in the study?
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In the Tel Aviv study, researchers split 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults into two groups. Men were set on a diet of 1,600 calories a day, while women were restricted to 1,400.
Once the groups were divided, half the subjects were given 300-calorie, low-carb breakfasts in the morning, while the other half ate 600 calorie breakfasts that included a small piece of chocolate cake.
What were the results?
Halfway through the 32-week study, both groups had lost an average of 33 pounds per person.
In the second half of the study, however, those eating a light, dessert-free breakfast gained back an average of 22 pounds per person, while those eating chocolate cake in the morning lost another 15 pounds apiece.
By the end of the 32-week study, the dessert for breakfast group had lost an average of 40 pounds more per person than those who had eaten a light, carb-free meal each morning.
Why dessert in the morning?
According to Prof. Jaubowicz, the key to healthy indulgence is to do so in the morning. That's when our body's metabolism is at its most active, and it gives us the whole day to work those extra calories off.
Breakfast is also the meal that can best regulate ghrelin, the hormone that increases hunger. Although ghrelin levels spike before every meal, it is the most suppressed at breakfast, meaning you'll likely eat less and feel full faster.
Why not just cut dessert altogether?
If one reason for having dessert in the morning is to lessen its impact, why not just cut out the calories altogether?
That's a lot easier said than done, however, and according to Jakubowicz, trying to cut desserts entirely can end up creating a psychological addition to the same foods over time.
Adding desserts like cake or a cookie in the morning, on the other hand, can help those with a sweet tooth keep their diet under control.
"The group that consumed a bigger breakfast, including dessert, experienced few if any cravings for these foods later in the day," Jakubowicz says.
Sugar in the morning, meanwhile, if balanced with some complex carbs and some proteins, can give your energy a boost, kick-start your metabolism and aid in early-morning brain functioning.
Too good to be true?
For those looking to scarf down chocolate cake every morning, take note: this is only one study, and even this one can provide different answers as to why participants lost weight.
The group that lost more weight, and kept it off, was eating chocolate cake every morning. This same group, however, was also having more calories in the morning in general, a fact which on its own could have helped participants stick to their diets throughout the day.
This second group was also having more carbohydrates in the morning, regardless of whether it came from cake or from complex carbs in their breakfasts. As a result, this group would likely have had more energy and felt less need to consume more calories.
Jakubowicz's point about sugar cravings, however, is likely on the money. Having a slice of chocolate cake or a similar indulgence each morning would likely make dieters less likely to feel they were depriving themselves throughout the day.
A recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that weight loss is far more dependent on how many calories dieters are consuming, not what makes up their diets.
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Can Chocolate Cake for Breakfast Diet Help You Lose Weight?
Exercise can benefit fibromyalgia patients
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Q My wife desperately wants to lose weight and be healthier but she suffers from a condition called fibromyalgia. Do you know anything about this condition, and is there any way that she will still be able to exercise and lose the weight with all of the pain and symptoms from it? — Larry (a concerned husband)
A I have really good news for you. We have successfully worked with and helped hundreds of women with fibromyalgia, and we can help your wife also. There are also many studies that show the benefits of exercise and proper nutrition with fibromyalgia patients.
An exercise program that incorporates strength training and stretching can improve daily function and alleviate symptoms in women with fibromyalgia. These benefits appear to be enhanced when exercise is combined with education about managing the disease.
Patients with fibromyalgia experience chronic pain throughout their bodies for at least three months, along with specific sites of tenderness.
Daniel S. Rooks, Sc.D., from Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and now with Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Inc., Cambridge, Mass., and colleagues recruited 207 women taking medication for fibromyalgia.
For 16 weeks, the women were randomly assigned to four groups: 51 performed aerobic and flexibility exercises only; 51 added in strength training; 50 received a self-help course on managing fibromyalgia; and 55 participated in all the exercises and the education course. The exercise groups met twice weekly, gradually increasing the length and intensity of their workouts, with instructions to perform a third day of exercise on their own.
A total of 135 women completed the study and underwent a six-month follow-up assessment. As measured by two self-assessment questionnaires and one performance test, women who participated in all forms of exercise improved their physical function, an effect that was larger in the combined education and exercise group. “Social function, mental health, fatigue, depression and self-efficacy also improved,” the authors write. “The beneficial effect on physical function of exercise alone and in combination with education persisted at six months.”
“The present study suggests that progressive walking, simple strength training movements and stretching activities are effective at improving physical, emotional and social function ... in women with fibromyalgia who are being actively treated with medication,” the authors write. “The findings suggested the need for inclusion of appropriate exercise and patient education in the treatment of individuals with fibromyalgia.”
Journal reference: Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(20):2192-2200. This research was supported by an Arthritis Foundation Investigator Award (Dr. Rooks) and National Institutes of Health grants.
Fitness Expert and Fitness Hall of Fame recipient John DeFendis is the Director of Exercise and Fitness at Coop’s Health & Fitness in Spartanburg, Anderson and Greenville. A former Mr. USA and a personal trainer for more than 34 years, his specialty lies in weight loss and health.
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Exercise can benefit fibromyalgia patients