Wendy's Life Changing Experiences

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2011-09-23T21:22:00.003-04:00

New Blog " Watch Wendy "

2011-06-24T16:35:00.003-04:00

My dear dear Blog followers...

I have started up a new blog...

please join me and my new trainer for weekly updates

http://watchwendy.wordpress.com/

Junk Food

2011-06-24T16:34:00.001-04:00

Junk Food Producers Pay Scientists To Fudge Link Between Health And Nutrition

Posted: 06/23/11 10:59 AM ET

React

Yet another major long-term study, this one published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has conclusively demonstrated the link between weight gain and junk food. The study showed that soda is "the number one problem related to weight gain," Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the Nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, told MSNBC.

But that's not the story that major food companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola or Mars Co. want you to believe. And a new report by ABC suggests that these companies are willing to pay scientists to help produce evidence refuting the link between bad health and a bad diet. The terms of the payments, of course, do not explicitly require the scientists to fudge study results. But scientists who receive big grants from major food companies have been known to testify in favor of junk food in court and in front of Congress. Some have compared such scientists to those who obfuscated the link between smoking and cancerbefore it became incontrovertible—which casts "big sugar" in the same role as "big tobacco."

OMG... This story sounds soooo familiar

2011-06-19T09:59:00.000-04:00

Back to Canada’s youth face obesity epidemic

Canada’s youth face obesity epidemic

June 18, 2011

Michele Henry

Sarah Telfer of Cambridge would rather stay home than go out with friends because she is self-conscious about her weight.

GLEN LOWSON

Sarah Telfer’s dreams are what most 19-year-olds call life.

She wants to shop at cool clothing stores, jump into a friend’s car without worrying the seatbelt won’t fit around her waist, and teeter on dizzying stilettos at strobe-lit nightclubs. Having just reached legal drinking age, she’s eager to test-drive her new adult status.

But at 5-foot-6 and 260 pounds, which means she is morbidly obese with a body mass index of 42, she can’t.

“I don’t really get out that much,” she says. “I love to dance, but I just don’t feel comfortable. I feel like people are looking at me and talking about how fat I am.”

Telfer is part of a growing number of overweight youth who medical experts say are on an inevitable path to become morbidly obese adults.

Unchecked, Telfer will face health complications such as heart disease and diabetes, further reducing her quality of life and straining Ontario’s healthcare system.

The Star is probing obesity in a series that began Saturday. More and more people in Ontario are overweight and the province lacks a coordinated strategy to tackle the problem.

There are 212,000 obese children in Ontario and another 420,000 who are overweight. To fight back, Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children created the SickKids Team Obesity Management Program (STOMP) a little more than a year ago.

STOMP has enough money to help just 50 kids between the ages of 12 and 17 each year and SickKids doctors have hand-picked Ontario’s most dire cases.

Telfer has felt like that for years. Once active on the soccer field, she began eating more and exercising less as a teen. By 15, she knew she had a problem.

An emotional eater, she fights stress with comfort foods like fried chicken, a grilled cheese sandwich or a late night bag of chips.

High school was tough. Classmates would berate her for being the “bigger twin” in relation to her thinner, blonder identical sister. They would snicker “go home! — it isn’t working!” if they saw her jogging.

Telfer wants to become a nurse and hopes to get on the list for a weight reduction operation. For the summer, she is packaging hot dogs at a Schneider’s plant.

At one point, she spent more than $2,000 on an herbal weight-loss product. That ended in more weight gain.

Telfer recently abandoned a low-calorie diet that prohibited carbohydrates and egg yolks, and allowed some protein, salads and eight grapes a day. It made her light-headed and dizzy.

In the past six months, the Cambridge native has been diagnosed with fatty liver disease, a build-up of too much fat in the liver cells.

Telfer’s back aches. Her knees creak like they belong to a woman four times her age. Doctors think she might have sleep apnea.

Her weight has caused polycystic ovarian syndrome, which can cause infertility and makes it more difficult for her body to relinquish fat.

By the time she is 40, if her problem remains, obesity experts say the weight will wreak havoc on every organ, causing problems like heart and gall bladder diseases, cancer, cataracts, stroke and pancreatitis to name a few. Knees and hips, already aching from the stress of carrying too much weight for too many years, crumble. This is when things get costly.

The price of obesity is difficult to measure. Excess weight can create many problems that are a huge drain on the healthcare system, experts say. Expensive treatments aside, a Queen’s University study in 2009 estimated that an obese woman around Telfer’s age costs OHIP $682 a year in extra doctors’ fees alone. By the time men and women pass middle age, the cost jumps to as much as $1029 per year in doctors’ fees.

Telfer is hoping she will be accepted as a candidate for the OHIP funded bariatric surgery that costs the healthcare system between $16,000 and $18,000.

A few months ago she wrote her family doctor pleading for a referral. “I want to live a long happy life . . . I know gastric bypass surgery can be dangerous, but I am ready to make a change in my lifestyle.”

Telfer is now on a year-long wait list just to find out if she qualifies for the procedure.

There are only seven hospitals in Ontario that offer the operation for adults.

Since the SickKids program began, five Ontario teens have had the surgery.

But bariatric surgery is not a focus of the two-year STOMP program. Changing food behaviour is. In addition to discussing portion size and expounding on the benefits of exercise, STOMP counsellors and kids spend biweekly group sessions trouble-shooting ways to handle real-life food situations, like the dreaded buffet-style family dinner.

One participant’s suggestion: send a parent to fill your plate, quashing the urge to pile it too high.

“Most programs are just about teaching people what to eat, what to limit,” says STOMP director Dr. Jill Hamilton. “They don’t often deal with the underlying reasons for why it’s hard.”

STOMP’s approach is attracting a lot of attention and the eight month weight list is growing.

Chelsea, 15, a program patient, said she is thriving because it offers her

Something else it does: Connect her with peers who understand exactly what it’s like to go through life plus-sized and a target of what obesity experts call society’s last acceptable prejudice.

Chelsea, who asked that her name not be usedss, has plump arms that curve alongside a rolling waist, and almond-shaped blue eyes inset above wide cheeks. She doesn’t know exactly how much she weighs, she says, and wouldn’t tell anyway. It’s a sore spot.

Because of her weight, she lived in fear of being shoved down the stairs at her elementary school. “Oh my god,” her tormentors would yell, “the world just shook.” The group of boys succeeded in toppling her over more than 10 times between Grades 6 and 8. Each time they stood by laughing.

Humiliated, Chelsea would pluck herself off the steps, fix her eyes on the floor and sprint home. “I was the only one they picked on,” she said. “I was the chubby girl.”

Crippled by anxiety, she dropped out last year to be home-schooled. It is hard for her to go out in public alone without the shielding presence of her mother.

She is grappling with big issues that started when she was little.

As a youngster, Chelsea, like many children of working parents, would find herself at home alone after school peering into kitchen cupboards. Hungry, she would eat a granola bar and, unable to stop herself, pick away at more until she devoured the entire box. “I didn’t realize I shouldn’t eat so much,” she says.

Her mother, Donna, who has also spent a lifetime struggling with her weight, would hide junk food in the basement and sneak it to her older, thinner son when she thought her daughter wasn’t looking.

STOMP is helping Chelsea embrace her physique emotionally while physically trying to improve it. Already she has lost 40 pounds and dropped two dress sizes. But it’s a constant challenge. Part of the solution has been setting a realistic weight-loss goal: to become a size 16, which would mean she’d be free of health complications and able to wear cute clothes.

The cost of fat

At 52, Leonard Labelle has already forgone about $1.5 million in wages, depriving the province of some $50,000 in taxes since he stopped working almost three decades ago.

His life as an adult shows how expensive weight is to a person and society.

Labelle busted both knees lifting a 54-kilogram load as a 23-year-old labourer. Since then depression and inactivity have caused his weight to swell. Always barrel-chested and burly, but once active as a runner and swimmer, he now weighs 400 pounds and is unable to do anything that involves too much moving or standing.

His knees buckle after only a few minutes upright. Sweat drips from his forehead, and his breathing becomes shallow and rapid after he walks fewer than 20 steps. He chain-smokes and has diabetes.

In the past seven years he has visited the doctor about 150 times and had his blood analyzed 58 times, costing OHIP $4,053.

Qualified to receive money from Ontario’s disability pension plan, he says, he has opted not to take the money. It would mean a clawback to his wife Kathleen’s income. She works from home, coordinating orders for Pizza Pizza.

Like many obese people, who he keeps himself hidden, spending his days and most of his nights in the dark basement of his Scarborough bungalow. His black swivel chair bears permanent indents in the shapes of his buttocks and thighs. In front of him is a movie-sized TV screen hooked up to his computer and a camera that watches over his driveway. It helps him screen visitors because he can’t easily “get up in case someone knocks at the front door.”

He receives a $300 monthly pension from Ontario’s Worker Safety and Insurance Board. He recently asked the WSIB for more money for his injuries, but his request and appeal were both denied, in part, because his “obesity... more likely than not prevented the worker from returning to any form of work,” the ruling states.

The medical expenses are growing.

Labelle’s blood pressure and cholesterol levels are high and he is at extremely high risk for heart disease and stroke. A coronary bypass costs hospitals $23,800, according to hospital data and that doesn’t include cardiologist or surgeon’s fees, which could add another $1,000. If he suffers heart failure, hospitals bill OHIP $9,700. Stroke: $26,300. And if he has complications like pneumonia, it will cost a hospital $8,100 to treat him.

“It's very hard. I feel like I'm useless and helpless. And I wish I could lose weight. I'm trying. I'll keep trying,” Labelle said.

We are Fat, So What's Ontario doing about it?

2011-06-18T12:12:00.000-04:00

Back to We are fat. So, what’s Ontario doing about it?

We are fat. So, what’s Ontario doing about it?

June 17, 2011

Moira Welsh, Michele Henry and Emily Mathieu

Diane Eley, 55, a registered nurse, photographed the day before she had the bariatric bypass surgery that removed 90 percent of her stomach.

CHRIS SO/TORONTO STAR

Frank Vaccaro is trying to get out of bed.

He weighs 500 pounds. The simple act of standing this morning creates such pain that he lies still for 15 minutes, mentally preparing to take it.

Vaccaro’s ankles are swollen and infected. His wife, Mary, helps him into the shower of their rented Malton home. They are careful because he fell once and broke the bathtub. No joke.

Vaccaro is among the almost 60 per cent of Ontario adults who are overweight or obese (grossly overweight) and the percentage is increasing every year. One in four Ontario children is overweight or obese and those numbers are increasing as well.

More than one-third of this group fall into the obese category and these 2.1 million people will likely suffer a myriad of expensive health problems — diabetes, heart disease, destroyed knees, strokes, blood clots, infertility, sleep apnea or cancer.

Ontario lacks a coordinated strategy to deal with obesity, but municipalities and doctors are trying numerous band-aid approaches.

The provincial Ministry of Health Promotion and Sport declined repeated requests to respond to the Star's findings. Friday, health minister Deb Matthews said in an interview that the province is not doing enough.

“This is a big problem and we have to do better. We have to do better. This is going to take all hands on deck. We really are committed to a healthier Ontario.”

In York Region, ambulances have been retrofitted to accommodate a ramp, winch and pulley system strong enough to load stretchers bearing more than 1,000 pounds. Toronto Emergency Medical Services bought extra wide stretchers and dedicates four larger sized vehicles – previously used for tactical calls – to transport patients.

Some 9,000 Ontarians including Frank Vaccaro have paid private medical clinics $18,000 to have an inflatable ring surgically inserted around their stomach to limit food intake, a procedure not covered by OHIP.

Across Ontario, nearly 8,000 patients have been referred for an assessment for a new provincially funded surgery called bariatric bypass that reduces the stomach to the size of an egg. (A normal person’s stomach is the size of a small cantaloupe.) Many wait a year for that initial appointment.

Back at Vaccaro’s house, it’s time for work.

He slowly slides on his shoes. Mary ties the laces. They are white Reebok sneakers, size 13 wide. He buys a new pair every three weeks because his weight wears down the padding so quickly that the bones in his knees burn.

Frank is 44 years old. He drives a coffee wagon. There isn’t room behind the wheel of the truck for his girth, so he sits in the middle, driving with his arms and legs stretched to the left.

Mary waves goodbye. She is 44 years old, a credit union manager and weighs 290 pounds. They have two Shih Tzu puppies, no children. She is on a new diet, buying low-carbohydrate food from a Thornhill doctor.

Together, the couple has spent $40,000 trying to lose weight, including surgery that was supposed to limit an eating habit Vaccaro describes as an addiction.

The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) says the many problems obesity brings annually drains the health care system of at least $1.1 billion and another $1.5 billion in lost productivity.

The OMA wants to make obesity a provincial campaign issue this fall.

Nurse Diane Eley’s breast cancer was related to her obesity. Three weeks ago, the 55 year-old Brampton woman had bariatric bypass surgery.

Eley’s procedure is part of a $75 million provincial program created to give the morbidly obese a second chance at health. More than 1,600 of these surgeries have been performed in the past 16 months.

Under the knife

It is 8:30 a.m. at St. Michael’s Hospital, and Dr. Teodor Grantcharov slices five holes into Eley’s abdomen and begins to remove 90 per cent of her stomach. A video of the operation can be seen on thestar.com.

Grantcharov’s iPod is plugged into the operating room’s stereo system. His playlist is loaded with The Killers, AC/DC and U2.

Bono is singing “City of Blinding Lights” as Grantcharov slips a tiny laparoscopic camera into one incision, then slides his surgical tools down the others.

High-definition video monitors above the operating display colour images of Eley’s digestive system. A registered nurse with a quick smile, Eley wouldn’t shirk from the sight of her pink small bowel stretching metres longer than its name implies.

Something else appears on the screen: layers of bumpy, yellow fat.

“Obesity is the new smoking,” says Dr. Lloyd Smith, who like Grantcharov, performs bariatric surgery at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, where he is chief surgeon.

“Surgery is dealing with the disaster, it’s not dealing with the problem.

“We’re taking people who are killing themselves (with food) and saving their lives. (Obesity) is an example of something that’s entirely preventable.”

Eley has always struggled with her weight. So have her parents and sisters. She is a mother to two adult sons, she raises her 17-year-old granddaughter, and she works long hours as the hospital’s manager of operating room purchasing.

After starting work at 8 a.m. and leaving at 7 p.m., Eley rushed into her evenings, eating pizza or hamburgers with no time to exercise. She grew to 400 pounds. The weight destroyed her knees, leaving bone rubbing on bone. At least one knee needs replacing.

Excess estrogen stored in her body fat was the likely cause of the breast cancer she suffered five years ago.

Eley has a body mass index (BMI) of 52, a measurement that uses weight and height to measure fat. Her BMI puts her in the highest-risk category. A healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9 per cent. Anything above 30 is obese. A BMI above 40 is considered morbid, which is usually accompanied by serious health problems.

Before surgery, Eley went through seven months of counseling and visits with dieticians. Each operation and the pre and post-op follow up costs the health care system about $18,000. To be successful, she will have to completely change her lifestyle, eating nutritious food and exercising.

“There are two people sitting in this body and I would like to be down to one person,” she said in her office at St. Mike’s the day before her surgery. “I was waking up at night, holding my pads of fat, crying that it is going bring my cancer back.”

Big problem, small solution

Grantcharov and two residents stare at the monitor as they first shorten Eley’s small bowel by 1.5 metres. That means food will move more quickly through her digestive system, which will absorb fewer calories and fewer nutrients.

Then, as R.E.M.’s “Bang and Blame” plays in the background, Grantcharov moves to Eley’s stomach and starts cutting. It takes just a few minutes before most of it is gone. He attaches what’s left to her newly shortened bowel, cauterizes the connection, and then closes everything with shiny staples.

Eley’s stomach is now the size of an egg. In time, with healthy eating, it will stretch to the size of a tennis ball. If she sticks with the program, in a few months that yellow fat inside her body will simply burn away.

OHIP used to pay for some patients to have the surgery in U.S. hospitals, but the new Ontario program will get better results, ministry officials say.

Only the morbidly obese or those with deadly health conditions, like Eley’s cancer, are accepted as candidates for this surgery. Those who are simply obese are out of luck.

The program first sends patients through an intense screening program to winnow out those who are not committed to changing their eating and exercise patterns after surgery. The ministry says up to 35 per cent of prospective patients are rejected, roughly 10 per cent of them by their own choice.

So far, $9 million of the program’s $75 million has been spent to expand bariatric centres in hospitals across the province. Some hospitals have used the money for wider operating room beds, new laparoscopic surgical tools and toilets that can bear up to 1,000 pounds.

Excess weight is incredibly stressful on bones. One Toronto area medical worker described a morbidly obese woman who stood up, sheared off her weakened ankle and bled to death.

OMA president Dr. Stewart Kennedy says Ontario has made “good first steps” but little more.

In government, the responsibility for preventing obesity lies with the Ministry of Health Promotion and Sport. Its annual budget of roughly $470 million a year is just a fraction of the $46 billion allotted to the Ministry of Health.

Though the province lacks an overall strategy to reduce obesity there is one positive development.

Starting next September, the province will ban hot dogs, fries and other junk food from school cafeterias.

In the United States, one of the world’s fattest countries, some southern states have been fighting obesity for years. Arkansas’ programs, for example, were the first to halt the rapid rise of obesity among its youth, something Ontario has been unable to do.

Starting eight years ago, Arkansas health officials went into schools and measured the height and weight of elementary students. They discovered that 18 per cent were obese. It was a shocking find.

All three levels of government, federal, state and municipal, worked together on solutions. Officials took junk food out of schools, stopped allowing soft drink companies to give money to the education system, created exercise programs, and built bike paths to get families out of their cars.

The health officials weigh students every year now, turning the scale backwards so children cannot see the results. A report is sent home to their parents with advice on healthy eating and weight loss.

“It is not just policy,” says Ed Barham of the Arkansas public health department. “It’s bigger than any agency or non-profit pushing for this.

U.S. president Barack Obama’s government created a new law forcing all large restaurants to add calories on their menu boards, one part of its strategy against obesity. The changes are expected in 2012.

In Ontario? There are no plans for calorie labeling.

NDP Health critic France Gelinas twice introduced a private member’s bill to get calorie labeling. The OMA has pushed for labeling in fast food chains and high school cafeterias, to no avail.

“It is so important to educate children and parents of children regarding caloric literacy — I think it will have an impact,” said the OMA’s Kennedy.

It isn’t necessary, says the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association. Spokesperson Garth Whyte notes consumers can already find the information on pamphlets or online.

“We want to avoid a knee-jerk, quick-fix political approach,” Whyte says.

Entrepreneurs have created a surgical solution to the obesity epidemic, making millions of dollars in the emerging marketplace that caters to the overweight or obese.

For a private fee starting at $16,000 (or $21,000 on the four-year payment plan) doctors will surgically insert a silicone band at the top of the stomach to control eating. It can be filled with increasing amounts saline to tighten to band’s grip, or “de-filled” to loosen it.

The clinics that perform the laparoscopic surgery operate with little government oversight. No data is collected on their complication rates, making it difficult to see the results beyond testimonials of success.

Vaccaro had the surgery in May 2009 at Mississauga’s Surgical Weight Loss Centre. He used his savings to pay the $18,000 fee.

In the following nine months, Vaccaro lost 100 pounds. He felt great. But the lap band didn’t stop his emotional drive to eat. It’s just so hard to stay on a diet, especially when food brings such instant pleasure.

Ice cream slid past the band, and so did chocolate, which Vaccaro really, really likes.

Dr. Chris Cobourn performed the surgery. He said all patients are at risk of going back to old eating habits, adding that any bariatric surgery should be viewed as tools “rather than magic solutions.”

Vaccaro says he wishes the clinic had a weekend support group or counsellors available to meet in the evenings, when he was off work.

The band is still in his body, but has deflated over time, so he can eat what he likes now. Often the food is healthy, sometimes it is not.

The simple idea of working off calories through exercise is a moot point, since Vaccaro’s knees are so damaged they cannot hold his weight.

Vaccaro used to be a chef, at an Italian restaurant and a steak house. He’s a big, happy man who enjoyed preparing food for others as much as eating it himself. It was his life: the aroma, the taste and the laughter around a table holding a beautifully prepared meal.

He can’t stand up long enough to do his job now. Instead, he works 11 hours a day driving a coffee wagon to construction sites. He’d rather sell coffee for little money than stay at home.

“I would eat,” Vaccaro says. “I would die.”

Leah Davies got the $16,000 surgery at The Slimband Clinic on Prince Arthur Ave. last August. The private clinic’s website promises easy results and “no more temptation.” Her grandmother saw the advertisements and offered Davies her savings to cover the payment.

“I wanted this to work so badly,” said Davies, 26, who weighs 350 pounds.

Davies told the Star her version of the story: She called the clinic for a telephone consultation in late July last year and signed up. They told her to get blood tests and an electrocardiogram. The lab sent in her results.

Within several weeks of her telephone consultation, Davies said she was on the operating table.

For the first few weeks post-op, she drank liquids. When the first tiny bits of food were allowed, she started choking it up. She vomited her food nearly every day. Davies says she called the clinic repeatedly for help.

“They just asked the same questions over and over, like ‘Are you chewing your food properly?’ I followed the directions perfectly, I was very motivated to make this work.”

After months of vomiting the smallest bites of food, Davies says, she begged her surgeon to remove the band, crying, “I’m starving, I’m starving.”

Slimband’s vice-president of communications and marketing, Lisa Borg, said the clinic’s surgeons could not comment because of patient confidentiality. Borg said Davies should have taken her complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

On April 12, the surgeon removed the band. Davies said she called the clinic the following day and asked for her grandmother’s money back. She is still waiting.

If the long-used BMI measurement shows that Ontarians are getting fatter, a new method shows the weight gain is even more dramatic.

Dr. Ian Janssen, of Queen’s University’s Centre for Obesity Research and Education (CORE) said researchers are now measuring people’s size based on waist measurements – and have concluded the number of obese in Ontario is much higher.

Fat stored in the abdomen metabolizes differently and is loaded with hormones that circulate throughout the body, increasing the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

“We are actually seeing a shift in the way people distribute fat in their bodies over the past 30 years,” Janssen said.

“It is kind of frightening, actually. For the same weight, people have more fat in their body than 30 years ago. It’s frightening because of the health implications due to abdominal fat.”

It is going to take a massive education program, like the anti-smoking campaign, to teach parents about the impact of low-cost junk food, he said.

Dieticians working in some of Toronto’s low-income neighbourhoods describe children who drink thousands of calories a day in cheap soda pop.

One health worker in the Jane and Finch area gave nutritional counseling to a 280 pound, 11-year-old girl. Her mother didn’t believe anything was wrong with her weight. Eventually, the girl stopped coming.

Data analysis by Andrew Bailey

My HERO!

2011-06-12T10:11:00.000-04:00

Click here to print

A new Dawn: Funnygirl Ms French shows off three stone weight loss at Glamour awards after overhauling her diet

By Ben Todd

Last updated at 11:45 AM on 9th June 2011

She says her priorities are her daughter, writing, chocolate and kissing.

But not so much of the chocolate these days, it seems.

Dawn French, who once tipped the scales at 19 stone, looked a new woman at an awards ceremony in London.

Because The Vicar Of Dibley star has lost three stone since her divorce from comedian Lenny Henry, the Mail has learned.

Shrinking woman: Dawn French looks slimmer as she arrives at the 2011 Glamour Women of the Year Awards in Berkeley Square, London

Weight loss: The self-confessed chocaholic has slimmed down, left, compared to this time last year, right, not long after her split from her husband at the time, Lenny Henry

A friend said: ‘She hasn’t been dieting excessively or anything like that. She’s just been healthy eating.

‘It’s that simple. Dawn is generally taking care of her health and is feeling very happy.’

The weight loss had nothing to do with her split from Henry, 52, the friend added.

Miss French announced their separation 14 months ago and their divorce after 25 years of marriage was finalised in October.

Good time girls: Dawn French with friends Davina McCall and Tess Daly at the Glamour Awards after party last night

Winner: Dawn won Writer Of The Year Award for her books including last year's A Tiny Bit Marvellous

Beaming: The former Vicar Of Dibley star cuddled up to So You Think You Can Dance judge Louise Redknapp at the do too

At the Glamour magazine awards, Miss French, 53, won Writer of the Year for her first fictional novel, A Tiny Bit Marvellous.

The novel, which tells the story of a family melting down as the mother approaches 50, will be released in paperback this month.

She was accompanied by her adopted daughter Billie, 19. Accepting her award on Tuesday, Miss French revealed her priorities to be, ‘my daughter, writing, chocolate and kissing’.

She once famously said: ‘As far as I’m concerned there are two types of women, the ones who like chocolate and complete bitches.’

Saucy: Dawn was seen doing a spot of shopping at a Soho branch of sex shop Ann Summers last month

But she has been criticised by a diet expert for her stance in the past. Clinical nutritionist Mary Strugar said: ‘Dawn French is one our most loved comediennes but she has also, perhaps unwittingly, become a role model for the obese.

‘Her “big is beautiful” statements are sending the wrong signals.’

Despite her svelte look, the actress, who is just 5ft, insists she’s still single.

In an interview in October, she had hinted she was dating again, saying: ‘I’m not lonely, let’s put it that way.’

And last month, Miss French was seen shopping at lingerie specialists Ann Summers. She was later spotted with a mystery man.

But one friend said: ‘Dawn insists there isn’t anybody.’

Happy: The funnygirl was spotted with a mystery man on her shopping trip after hinting that she was seeing someone

2011 GLAMOUR WOMEN OF THE YEAR AWARDS WINNERS

Presenter of the Year - Davina McCall

Designer of the Year - Sarah Burton

Filmmaker of the Year - Jane Goldman

Theatre Actress of the Year - Naomie Harris

TV Personality of the Year - Dannii Minogue

Pandora Breakthrough of the Year - Ellie Goulding

Writer of the Year - Dawn French

Sportswoman of the Year - Jessica Ennis

Band of the Year - The Saturdays

Accessory Designer of the Year - Victoria Beckham

Radio Personality of the Year - Fearne Cotton

TV Actress of the Year - Lenora Crichlow

Comedy Actress of the Year - Miranda Hart

Entrepreneur of the Year - Kim Kardashian

UK Solo Artist of the Year - Adele Adkins

Film Actress of the Year - Gemma Arterton

Woman of Tomorrow - Jessie J

Editor's Special Award - Rosie Huntington Whiteley

Man of the Year - Garrett Hedlund

Outstanding Contribution - Stevie Nicks

New Show... inspiration lurking...

2011-06-02T22:25:00.001-04:00

Chris Powell
Trainer/Transformation Specialist on ABC’s “Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition”

Chris Powell exploded onto the fitness scene with his unorthodox approach, becoming a pioneer for a new hybrid of fitness professionals. He has captured national attention with the largest and fastest natural weight loss ever documented, transforming the life of David Smith who lost 401 lbs in 26 months. It was Chris’s unyielding dedication to another that captured the heart of America as he shared his story on such national shows as “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “20/20,” “The View,” as well as a one-hour documentary for TLC.

Chris is currently traveling the country in ”Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition,” a documentary-style series, where he will use his innovative techniques, education and expertise to guide extremely overweight individuals as they shed hundreds of pounds over the course of a year. “Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition,” scheduled to air in spring of 2011 on ABC, will assemble each participant’s story into a stand-alone episode.

Chris will be taking an extra step as he guides the participants through their transformations by moving into their homes. By assuring that they have the proper nourishment and exercise movement, he will provide a fresh perspective to individuals whose lives have become unmanageable because of their weight.

Chris is well-equipped to take on this latest assignment. He holds a degree in Exercise Science, with concentrations in biomechanics and physiology and the training accreditation: The Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS). He has been the Transformation Pro on KTVK’s “Good Morning Arizona” for the last six years – delivering tips, shortcuts, and tricks of the trade to the largest news viewing audience in Arizona.

“The human body is an amazing machine that we can transform naturally,” Chris says. “I have devoted my being to developing innovative lifestyles and tools to enrich the lives of others – and each life changed has been a remarkable gift.”

Unbearable Lightness..Portia De Rossi

2011-02-13T16:57:00.003-05:00

Dressing up

2011-02-04T15:33:00.003-05:00

Try to find a way to dress up you boring ol chicken salad... make the plate look like it could have been served in a expensive restaurant!

Video Blog - Week 3 - Stay Honest with yourself!

2011-01-23T11:05:00.003-05:00

Video Blog Week 2 - Stay Positive!

2011-01-15T11:39:00.003-05:00

Wendy's Weekly Video Blog- Week 1

2011-01-09T11:36:00.003-05:00

Week 1 - Success!

2011-01-08T10:19:00.003-05:00

Week 1 - 7 lbs lost

Got on the scale today for my first weigh - in in 2011.. and success!

I have been analyzing myself and my weight gain for weeks now! And I have found the reason , I think, for my failure.

As you know I had started my diet on January 1, 2008 with joining a gym and get a personal trainer. I had worked hard with my trainer, weighed in every week for her and stuck to my diet of eating less as well.

Back in September 2009 my trainer had to stop training me because of her own move up the corporate ladder from going from trainer to gym manager. She still wrote out exercises for me, but it was never the same. She left me hanging! I had asked her for new trainer and she said she still wanted to train me but from watching me from her office as she worked... that's where she made the error, I kind of blame her for not getting me another trainer to train me as she did before, with seeing her twice a week, and being with me for the full hour right beside me. Because she disrupted the ' project'

I compare it to, as a student, say you are preparing for a big audition and you have you weekly lesson with your teacher to prepare, and 4 weeks before the audition your teacher ups and leaves you.

I lost my motivation, my guru, my teacher, my disciplinarian. I tried working out on my own, but just lost the motivation, but more importantly I started staying home at night and started watching TV again. Back in January 2010 I got sick with a bad flu ( I think even it was a light strain of H1N1) and I was in bed for about 2 weeks. Then the Vancouver Olympics started. Now I really stayed home and was glued to the TV watching the wonderful competitions!

I was slowly gaining all the weight back...every morning I would say to myself.. okay Wendy that's enough! .. but by the time the evening came after a day at work, I came home and sat and watched TV and started eating my old favourites and additive foods.

The inspiration to go to the gym was lost.. why should I ? my trainer is not there.. she isn' t there to see my through, ' hold my hand' .. my PROJECT!

There it is- PROJECT that was what this is all about! Every one says.. it's a life style change.. well that's not the way I see it now! it's a project until reach your goal!

Win the Audition! then.. after your life ' style' starts! I hadn't reached the goal yet!

So my new 'project' has now started again, and this time I will succeed!

On the Biggest Loser you see all sorts of success stories of weight-loss, but you don't hear or see them after the show... that's because over 50% gain the weight back.. that's not good TV!

So they don't report that part!

So this week was very very hard, I must admit, but I stuck to my guns! My family knows all about this new endeavour, and is very supportive! and that's what counts!

I have started with walking and eating right. My weight gain was enormous as you can see, that's why I have to take it slow. But at least I have my eating under control again! All those addictive foods are out of my house. I have totally emptied my freezer! it's empty! I go to bed at 10pm so as not to get that late night snack urge.

Yes food is addictive, and I have an addiction, so I just stay completely away from it ! not even a 100 calorie bag of popcorn, that leads to eating more bags in one night... Carbs and sugar are my pit falls.... so I just cut them out.

My diet consistes of Fibre, Veggies, Fruit and protein.

My ' Project ' is now off to flying start... see you at the finish line!

New Year... Big Revelations ....

2011-01-01T11:10:00.003-05:00

Hello again... I'm sure I'm all alone on cyberspace here in my blog... as all my followers have lost hope... and I don't blame you!

But it's a new year and I have done tons of soul searching as to why my diet did not work.

This is a posting for myself!

Motivation, Strength, Determination, and being really,really strict with myself are the key elements in making any changes.

As you know I have been busy with trying to lose weight for the last 3 years. Back in January 2008 I pledged to start my big diet. A new big Project!

Well as you all know, I gained back ALL the weight I lost in the last 2 years. I gained back in 12 months, the work that took me 2 years, and it's very disappointing! I'm very disappointed in myself.

Well I"m back to square one! I am determined to get this weight off again, and then some

So I weighed in this morning, wrote my weight down on my kitchen calendar, this time for ' my eyes only'... and will continue weighing in every Saturday for now on!

I have to analyzed too death the reason why I ' fell' off the diet.. and those revelations are to follow in my upcoming posts....

Stay tuned Wendy! and stick to your goal... and this new fresh start!

It's a project... PROJECT is the key word!

It's been a long looooong time...

2010-12-30T11:00:00.001-05:00

I'm back!.... tune in on January 1st...

A whopping 414 Calories!

2010-06-10T11:21:00.000-04:00

Ikea cinnamon bun is cheap, cheerful and chock full of calories

June 9, 2010Megan Ogilvie
HEALTH REPORTER

DISH: Cinnamon bun with cream cheese icing

RESTAURANT: Ikea’s “Exit Café”

LOCATION: Ikea Burlington, 1065 Plains Rd. E.

PRICE: $1.30

Serving size: 114 grams

Calories: 414

Fat: 13 grams

Sodium: 752 mg

Protein: 8 grams

Carbohydrates: 67 grams

RECOMMENDED DAILY ALLOWANCE

Men/Women

Calories: 2,500/2,000

Fat: 60 to 105 grams/45 to 75 grams

Sodium: 1,500 to 2,300 mg

Carbohydrates: 281-325 grams

Street meat
Steak burrito
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Lemon tart
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Food isn’t usually on the top of the shopping list for Ikea-goers. But once inside the sprawling space, it’s hard not to get sucked into wanting everything the neat, sleek, Swedish life has to offer.

Most of us have been known to come away with an “I-don’t-really-need-but-would-look-nice-on-my-couch” cushion or an architecturally pretty glass vase or a cinnamon bun from the conveniently located “Exit Café.”

Suddenly, it becomes nearly impossible to get out the door without a warm, sticky cinnamon bun in hand. That’s what half a million of us found last year, anyway.

According to Ikea, 500,000 cinnamon buns were sold at the four GTA stores in 2009.

You might have thought: “I just spent $50 on a lamp. What’s $1.30 for a tasty, to-go treat?”

Well, a lot of calories.

Ikea’s cinnamon buns aren’t the biggest — they’re about the size of a thick-slice of bread. But that impulse buy still packs 414 calories.

“That’s really what you should eat in a meal,” says registered dietitian Zannat Reza. “While this is good for your wallet, it’s not great for waistline if you eat this on a regular basis.”

And the bun is pretty salty. With 753 mg of sodium, it contains about half of what your body requires in a day and is the equivalent of 12 shakes with the salt shaker.

People who grab and go know they aren’t getting a nourishing snack. But Reza says they might be surprised that a single cinnamon bun has about the same amount of calories as two maple-dip donuts.

“You might think twice about eating two donuts, but not give a second thought to eating a cinnamon bun.”

The calories come from processed and refined carbohydrates, which cause blood sugar levels to spike, then crash, leaving snackers hungry soon after eating the bun.

“These 414 calories are not satiating,” Reza says. “There’s no protein here, there is no whole grains and hardly any fibre, the things that help you feel full.”

Those looking for a sweet after the check-out could opt for a cone of frozen yogurt, which likely has about 100 calories.

And cutting the cinnamon bun into two — or, even better, into four — pieces to share with your shopping buddy or your kids will cut the calories to a reasonable snack amount.

JUST BLAME THE HORN

2010-05-29T08:34:00.003-04:00

No... not really... but, it would be nice to blame someone for these last 6 months of diet disappointments...

But life is a roller coster ! Right ?

Yuup... back on track.. for the gazzilionth time I've said this in the last 6 months... this time I mean it... why you ask...

Just because!

Sylvie my personal trainer has been very patient and understanding, but now she is on my case, and it helps.. I weigh-in EVERY DAY at the gym! up or down... just get on that dam scale...

I lost 6 pounds this week... it's something.. but many, many more to go

My trainer says.. " Wendy ! STOP !!! just stop looking back... only look forward... forget about what your weight used to be, you know how to do it, and you can do it again.. ! "

Okay!

Slow but steady

2010-05-07T10:18:00.003-04:00

HEY EVERYONE... I'm still here... been going to the gym almost everyday for 2 weeks now!

I have to be honest... it's really, really hard to get back on track. I haven't lost any weight yet, because even though I have been going to the gym, I still need to cut back on my eating, and sometimes bad choice eating as well. I'm getting there though... I have cleaned out my cupboards and fridge of all the crap... now to just stay away from the stores late at night...

here's an interesting story FYI

Will posting calorie content on menus lead to healthier choices?

May 7, 2010

Comments on this story (4)

Megan Ogilvie
HEALTH REPORTER

The Dish: Steak burrito...

The large steak burrito from the popular Burrito Boyz chain weighs in at 1.2 pounds.

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Toxic dilemma

Students at the University of Waterloo will soon have an edge on the rest of us when they grab lunch at the school’s food court.

They’ll know, from just a quick glance at the menu, whether the healthy looking salad will do more harm to their waistlines than the meat-covered pizza, or if the benign-sounding turkey club is in fact a lurking calorie bomb.

Unless policy-makers make a sudden move, the students will be the only ones in Canada to see a restaurant list an item’s calorie content alongside its price tag.

It’s all part of a new study to test whether posting nutrition information on restaurant menus helps people to make healthier food choices. The study, funded by the Canadian Cancer Society, is the first of its kind in Canada.

“This is potentially a high-profile policy issue, it’s surprising that more hasn’t been done,” says the study’s lead researcher David Hammond, an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo.

“The reality is Canadians are eating more and more outside the home and really don’t know anything about what they’re eating. . . . It’s difficult when you can have coffee products that either have 20 calories or up to 800 calories.”

While no jurisdiction in Canada has moved to label menus, a half-dozen U.S. states, including California and Oregon, as well as New York City, have passed legislation requiring restaurant chains to post calorie information on their menus. And the newly signed U.S. health-care bill contains national regulations that will require any restaurant with five or more locations to put the calorie content of their meals on menus.

With more than 60 per cent of Canadian adults and close to one-third of children overweight or obese, Hammond says it is critical to look at whether changes in our environment can help stem the obesity epidemic.

“We need to make it easier for Canadians to make healthier choices and this is one option,” says Hammond, noting the Canadian Cancer Society funded his work because of the growing link between obesity and cancer risk.

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, healthy diets, being active and maintaining a healthy body weight may reduce the incidence of cancer by up to 35 per cent.

Right now, many fast-food chains in Canada voluntarily provide nutrition information for their menu items either on their company websites or in a brochure at the restaurant. Consumers have to make an effort to find out Tim Hortons’ BLT sandwich contains 420 calories, for example, or McDonald’s Caesar salad with crispy chicken has 670 calories.

Hammond’s study will investigate whether posting calorie information on menu boards at fast-food outlets on the University of Waterloo campus affect food choices of students and faculty.

The study will also determine what kind of menu labelling is most effective by providing 600 adults with four different kinds of menus featuring Tim Hortons fare.

Hammond says the two-year study, for which he received $276,000 from the Canadian Cancer Society, will help move the policy debate forward in Canada.

“We want to provide evidence to decision makers in Canada to help them determine whether or not this is a good thing to consider,” Hammond says. “And if they do want to do it, what is the most effective approach.”

U.S. studies have shown mixed results about whether menu labelling helps consumers make healthier choices. Hammond says there is evidence that women, people who already pay close attention to their diet, and those who are well-educated and of a higher socioeconomic background make use of the nutritional information.

However, he adds, since the policy has potential to reach millions of people a day, even a modest impact will translate into a huge benefit at the population level.

“There is some research showing that even if only one out of 10 people changes what they order and eat, and that change only amounts to about 100 calories a day, that is still millions of pounds in the population that won’t be added.”

Back to the sweat shop!

2010-04-22T09:07:00.002-04:00

"mmmmm, OKAY... I have been going to the gym every day this week... I'm sore... but at least I'm putting the effort back in this battle of the bulge! TBC

OKAY.. I'M BACK

2010-04-05T11:20:00.004-04:00

" A MOMENT ON THE LIPS ... FOREVER ON THE HIPS... "

Well... hello everyone... now that Easter and all the other distractions are behind me it's time to get back on the diet wagon. No I'm not going to be one of those 90% that gain it all back... although I'm confessing that I have gained a lot of weight in the last 8 months... I really want to try to lose it again. There are too many reminders around me of why I started this whole life style change/quest in the first place.

Yesterday I spent the day with my family. And in our many wonderful conversations, surrounded in gorging overabundance of food. The conversation came up about taking care of your body; a close friend and extended family member is undergoing Cancer treatment, and she really hit home with this comment.... " we really need to take care of our bodies, because when we get hit with a very serious disease, like Cancer, our bodies need to be strong and healthy enough to undergo Chemo, or other treatments to fight it! .. and believe me, we all will get sick at one point! "

A very serious and depressing realization.. that yes we all get old, and can get very sick.. if not Cancer, than may Heart problems or other things... aging sucks! that's all there is too it.. but to make it less a blow.... I really need to get healthier, and start back at exercising... it's the only way to age gracefully! as depressing as it sounds...

soooo... back on track... back to the gym... and besides I'm going to Europe this summer, and I need to get my walking legs back so I can participate in all sorts of wonderful sight-seeing...

stay tuned...

MIND SKILLS FOR LASTING WEIGHT LOSS

2010-02-04T09:59:00.001-05:00

Mind Skills for Lasting Weight Loss

By The Weight Watchers Research Dept.

Knowing what to do to lose weight and applying that knowledge to daily life are two very different things.

For many years, weight-loss programs have expanded education to include several techniques from the field of behavioural psychology. Examples include self-monitoring food intake, exercise and body weight; altering the environment to avoid problem foods, and goal setting.

CBT Techniques
More recently, behaviour modification methods have expanded to include techniques from the field of cognitive therapy. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, or CBT, involves the identification and modification of thinking patterns and negative mood states that can undermine lasting weight loss.¹

It is widely recognised that the development of behavioural and cognitive skills learned during weight loss is critical to successful maintenance. Indeed, lacking coping and problem-solving skills appear to be important factors in weight regain after a loss.² Black-and-white thinking, a cognitive style characterised by viewing actions as being good or bad and as right or wrong, is also a significant predictor of weight regain.³

People who have never been overweight as well as those who have successfully achieved a lasting weight loss share the characteristics of confronting problems directly (95% and 60%, respectively) and using personally developed strategies to help themselves. Those who have lost weight only to regain it are much more likely to eat unconsciously in response to emotions (70%) and not confront problems directly (10%).⁴

Role of Coping Skills
Successful weight-loss maintainers are less likely to be emotional eaters (using food to regulate their mood).⁵ They have developed coping skills to deal with stress as well as the skill of flexible restraint,⁶ which refers to a moderate level of control on eating. The development of coping skills is particularly helpful in dealing with food temptations and preventing the abandonment of weight-management efforts.⁷ Mental simulation, a cognitive skill that involves creating the process for reaching a goal or dealing with a stressful situation, has also been shown to produce positive results.⁸

view footnotes

The Weight Watchers Approach:

Behaviour modification is one of the pillars of the Weight Watchers approach and includes traditional behaviour strategies like self-monitoring as well as a unique CBT approach called Weight Watchers Tools for Living.

RELATED INFORMATION

WW Meetings Matter....

2010-02-03T10:28:00.000-05:00

Meetings Matter

After

Before

Name	Elizabeth
Age	36
Height	5'0.5"
Was	192 lbs
Lost	35.4 lbs*
Weight	156.6 lbs
As of	28/07/2009

*Results Not Typical

A funny thing happened when I decide to go back to meetings; the weight started coming off again!

A hiatus from meetings made Elizabeth painfully aware that they are the key to her success.

I work as an administrative assistant for a vascular surgeon. My sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition had contributed to some weight gain through the years. Because I am around doctors all day, I became concerned when I noticed that my feet and ankles were swelling. I had gone from a size 10 shoe to a 12 in no time. I asked one of the doctors in the office to take a quick look and was shocked when the doctor informed me that I had developed edema, a swelling caused by fluid in your body's tissues. The main cause of edema is eating a poor diet high in salt and carbohydrates.

Nutrition knowledge
The diagnosis was the wake-up call that I needed, and I started to change my eating habits, tackling weight loss on my own. I had a small amount of success, but became frustrated and decided I needed some additional support. I joined Weight Watchers meetings and started following the POINTS® Weight-Loss System. I immediately fell in love with the plan and all that I was learning. I quickly realised that I simply had lacked knowledge of proper nutrition. Suddenly I had resources and information about how to feed my body to keep it healthy.

As time went on, I decided that I would stop attending meetings and could continue on my own with the plan. Within a few weeks I realised that without the accountability and support of the meeting I was putting the weight back on. I got scared. I saw myself going right back to where I had started. As difficult as it was, I took myself back to meetings and the support and accountability I enjoyed there.

Return and lose
A funny thing happened when I decide to go back; the weight started coming off again! As I sat there the second time through, I realised something. During every meeting I received not only the tips and education I needed to lose the weight, but got well needed support from people who were going through exactly what I was. This isn’t a simple process and being around others who struggle along with you is inspiring.

I love the new me. I can finally buy clothing that I like in stores and have energy and confidence that I thought was gone for good. In meetings I learned skills that have helped me tackle cultural, emotional and physical challenges. I am active and healthy and there is no looking back for me now!

Elizabeth’s tips
Think about your goals. Attend meetings. Learn how to read nutrition labels. Exercise. Only you have the power to take charge of what goes in your body. Have the will power to say no. Dance while cleaning and when out at parties! It's good to keep yourself moving and music always helps! Remember you are never a failure. If mess up one day, the next day is a new beginning.

WW week 3

2010-02-02T10:00:00.003-05:00

Week 3 - Weight Watchers.. going strong... lost another 10 pounds!

so 20 pounds in two weeks... if you are not a member of Weight Watchers ... what's stopping you?

It works!

nice that I hit this milestone again!

Drive -Thru Dieting

2010-01-30T10:25:00.004-05:00

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Evan Sung for The New York TimesChicken Supreme Burrito from Taco Bell.

The words “weight loss” and “fast food” aren’t often used in the same sentence, but that may be changing soon. Taco Bell is promoting its new “Drive-Thru Diet” after a 27-year-old Pensacola, Fla., woman claimed to lose weight on a diet of fast-food tacos. And chains from Dunkin’ Donuts to Kentucky Fried Chicken are now touting lower-calorie fare.

But just how healthful can food served through a window really be? Is it possible to lose weight on a diet of mostly fast food? To hear the answers, read the latest Skin Deep column, “Forget Jenny Craig: Hit the Drive-Thru,” and then please join the discussion below.

What do you think of the lower-calorie foods offered by fast-food companies?

Staying Motivated.... a story of success...

2010-01-29T15:48:00.001-05:00

Shelley Rhinehart ... and how she loses 136 pounds...

Shelley was one of the organizers of the Saint John X-Weighted event. Her motivation for wanting to be involved and help other people lose weight, came from her own success which has been partially motivated by her love of the show.

Before making the decision to lose weight Shelley was 358.8 pounds. "That was my heaviest,” she says. She started going to Weight Watchers, although she initially went to support her friend, and not because she was really that bothered about losing weight herself. “But I found that I loved it and in the 2 ½ years that I have been going to Weight Watchers, I have only missed three meetings in total. I’ve organized my life around that, I try really hard not to miss meetings,” she says.

Shelley says that she got to that 358.8 pounds through mindless eating and although she knew that she was big, she says that she got a real shock when she saw the number on the scale. "I had done a couple of the quick fix diets before that, where I'd drop 30 pounds and then put it back on soon after. But they really were diets, and not sustainable, Weight Watchers just clicks for me and matches my lifestyle," she says.

Too Big to Exercise?

Initially, Shelley was not exercising much as she felt like she didn’t know what she could do when she was that size. She had been using the elliptical trainer, but was flicking through the channels one day when she came across the episode of X-Weighted where Paul Plakas was saying that he thought elliptical trainers were useless.

“I missed his reasoning for that and so I e-mailed him. He emailed me back with the explanation, and I then asked his advice on what I could do when I weighed as much as I did," she says, "and he was really good and helped me lots.”

With Paul's advice, Shelley started to use the treadmill, holding on to both rails at first. "He told me that at one point it would just happen for me, and eventually I would be able to run on the treadmill," she says, "and it was true, eventually I let go of the rails and I was able to up the speed. Eventually one day it was too slow when I was walking and all of a sudden I was running and I really have never looked back."

Plateau Busting

Shelley is taking part in the National Challenge, and is trying to lose another 50 pounds.

In the 2 ½ years of her journey, Shelley has reached plateaus and says that being part of Weight Watchers was really helpful for getting through those times. "It lets me know that everybody has been there, and for me it's about mentally not getting down about it. I've been stuck at this weight for a long time now and I think it's because I'm really getting close, and that was one of the big benefits of having Paul here: He gave me a different kind of workout to do that would step it up and help me get back to losing weight," she says, "the workout he suggested is really kicking my butt.”

"I just really like Paul's approach," say Shelley, who became such a fan that she now says she could probably recite what was said on every episode there is. "I don't want anybody to sugarcoat it, because I don't sugarcoat it for anybody else," she says, "I do take a lot of things that he says on the show and use that advice."

Shelley says that if you do reach a plateau, it is important not to let it derail you. “Every day is a new day, that is the way I have approached it. There are days when you get off-track but I have never let myself regret it, I just start again that day,” she says.

Staying Motivated

Shelley says that to succeed, you need to keep your goal in mind at all times. “I have a clear goal so when I'm a restaurant I have no problem asking them for an alternative meal or to bring the fruit instead of desert and they are usually quite accommodating," she says.

Shelley says that she never focuses on the big numbers of how much weight she wants to lose, she just kept focusing on losing the next 5 pounds. "Because really, when you think about having to lose 150 pounds, it is a lot of weight and it is demoralizing to think of that," she says.

"I am also a little embarrassed to say that I have a screensaver of Paul Plakas looking right at me, so when I am tempted to eat something in my office that I shouldn't, there he is staring at me," says Shelley. She watches the show faithfully, and says that doing so motivates her. "Wanting to do better on the fitness test when Paul comes back here in six months is probably the biggest motivator", she says.

It really works!

2010-01-26T09:07:00.004-05:00

So this morning I went on the scale....

WOW.. this Weight Watchers program does work!

I've lost 10 pounds!

Week 1 of the program.. of course week 2 will be less.. but most importantly I'm not really hungry any more... I am eating a lot but more healthy.. and choices, it's all about food choices !

yooooohooooo.. yeepee...

now that's more like it!

Sunday morning breakfast...

2010-01-24T09:49:00.002-05:00

Just had my first WW breakfast... 1 egg, 1/4 cups egg whites, 2 slices Chicken Bacon, 2 slices of WW toast, 1 Latte, I bowl of fruit = 10 points ...

Now had I had regular ingredients it would have equalled = 16 points

Skip Breakfast, Get Fat

Brain Craves High-Calorie Foods When You Skip Breakfast, Study Shows

By Kelli Miller Stacy
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

June 15, 2009 -- Skipping breakfast is often a big no-no if you are trying to lose or maintain weight because it leads to high-calorie cravings later. Now researchers think they know why that happens.

Forgoing the first meal of the day actually tricks your brain into thinking you want higher-calorie foods -- foods that can make you fat, or at least increase your risk for weight gain.

A team from Imperial College London presented the news at the Endocrine Society's 91st annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The researchers used a scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at how feeding behaviors affected the brain's "reward" center, which plays a role in pleasures and the body's response to them.

Functional MRI allows doctors to look at how blood flow increases in response to brain activity.

The study involved 20 healthy, non-obese people. They skipped breakfast before the fMRI exam. During the test, they looked at random photos of high- and low-calorie foods. The high-calorie foods included pizza, cake, and chocolate. The healthier options included vegetables, fish, and salad.

The brain's reward center lit up more vividly, or became more active, when the person saw a high-calorie food as opposed to a low-calorie choice. (The taste and smell of food can also activate the brain's reward center.)

However, when the participants ate breakfast and had the same test repeated 90 minutes after eating breakfast, the brain's reward center did not show any significantly greater activity when shown the high-calorie photos.

The study participants also rated how appealing they found each food picture. When skipping breakfast, high-calorie foods topped the list of favorites. After eating, however, the group did not show a strong preference for the calorie-laden foods. Their choices corresponded with the MRI findings.

Breakfast has long been touted as the most important meal of the day, and researchers say their findings add credence to that adage.

"Our results support the advice for eating a healthy breakfast as part of the dietary prevention and treatment of obesity," Tony Goldstone, MD, PhD, a consultant endocrinologist with the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre at Imperial College London, says in a statement. "When people skip meals, especially breakfast, changes in brain activity in response to food may hinder weight loss and even promote weight gain."

Researchers hope the findings could one day lead to the development of weight loss medications that target the brain's reward circuitry and disrupt the craving bias between high-calorie and low-calorie foods.

its Friday... yaah!

2010-01-22T08:49:00.002-05:00

So now my first weekend...need to do lots of reading... so many books to read... not much to write today, WW day 3, still going strong.. have a great weekend everyone!

WW - day 2

2010-01-21T11:43:00.001-05:00

WW - day 2.. hit my maximum points last night after dinner.. so no late night snacks aloud.. tough!

but I did succeed!

Today's recipe:

Cheesy Chili-Mac

Favorites

main meals

POINTS® Value: 5
Servings: 8
Preparation Time: 16 min
Cooking Time: 28 min
Level of Difficulty: Easy

A hearty meal in a bowl. It's full of great stuff like lean beef, pinto beans and chili peppers. Turn leftovers into burritos.

Ingredients


	1 spray(s) cooking spray
	2/3 pound(s) raw extra lean ground beef
	2 medium onion(s), chopped
	29 oz canned stewed tomatoes, Mexican-style (undrained)
	2 1/2 cup(s) canned tomato juice
	4 oz canned green chili peppers, diced, drained
	2 tsp chili powder
	1 1/2 cup(s) uncooked macaroni, elbow-size
	31 oz canned pinto beans, rinsed and drained
	1/2 cup(s) low-fat shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions

Coat a large skillet with cooking spray; set over medium-high heat. Cook beef and onion until meat is browned, stirring and breaking up meat with a spoon as it cooks, about 10 minutes; drain off fat.
Stir in undrained tomatoes and their juice, tomato juice, chili peppers and chili powder; bring mixture to a boil.
Stir in macaroni and beans; return to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until macaroni is tender, about 15 minutes. Spoon chili into bowls and sprinkle with cheese. Yields about 1 cup chili and 1 tablespoon cheese per serving.

Notes

This recipe is part of our Make Ahead Soups, Chilies and Stews series. To learn more about this cook-and-freeze feature, click here.

Recent WeightWatchers.com Recipes

Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges
Cheesy Chili-Mac
Spicy Broccoli Rabe with Cannellini Beans
Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto

WW - Day 1

2010-01-20T09:19:00.001-05:00

Wendy Limbertie WW ... day 1... just entered all my food points for this morning.. amazing that my breakfast( haven't changed it) equals 9 points! ... I've got now 23 left...

WEIGHT WATCHERS!

2010-01-19T20:30:00.002-05:00

Now here is my new motivation!

Tonight I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting. Why didn't I do this months ago? this is perfect. Need to find a place where you can be yourself, pour out all your frustrations.. plus get weighed - in ? well WW is the place!

I'm excited and happy to have found my new " church"

= my place of worship, my place of peace, my place of joy, my place of a cure, my place of new friends, my place of new mentors ... etc.. etc..

next tuesday is my second weigh-in.. stay tuned!

WOW! ...in 10 months????

2010-01-13T13:28:00.000-05:00

January 13th, 2010

Losing a significant amount of your body weight is no easy feat, let alone losing 164 pounds in 10 months, which is what Kevin Hennessy was able to do.

Hennessy's start weight was 320 pounds, and he had a 52-inch waist. Hennessey says that the weight just crept up on him over the years: One day he just woke up and was too big for a seat on an airplane. "I'd drink up to 20 triple cream double sugar coffees a day, food for me meant going through a drive through, then I'd drink quite a lot of alcohol so that I could sleep every night, only to get up and start again the next day," he says.

The decision to get healthy was a sudden one. "I came home from work late one night, and my 13-year-old daughter was still up. I asked her why she wasn't in bed, and she said that she couldn't sleep because she was worried that I was going to die. She told me that she had heard of so many people having heart attacks because they were fat, and she was scared. That was the turning point for me, I knew I wanted to be around to watch her grow up," says Hennessey, "It was like a switch went off in my head and from that moment I was done, I started eating right and looking after my body."

Once Hennessy started his weight-loss journey, he watched X-Weighted whenever he could. "It was very motivating, because Paul Plakas was on there helping people like me. It would give me strength; I saw where others failed just like when I failed. When I binged, it made me get up and start again the next day," he says "I learned through Paul that you just put your foot forward and you keep going."

At the beginning, working out was not easy for Hennessy, "When I first started I could do about 2 1/2 minutes on the treadmill, and then I would spend 15 minutes in the pool - that was about as much as I could manage," he says. Over time, he got much fitter and he was working out for an average of 2 1/2 hours a day. "There were a lot of hard things about being fat and working out at the gym. One day I got stuck in a piece of equipment," he says, "then there were the occasional rude comments from people and people staring at me when I was working out."

There were periods in his journey where Hennessy's weight loss was fast, at one point he lost 18 pounds over 14 days, but he also had his fair share of plateaus. "Sometimes I wouldn't lose weight for a couple of weeks, but through watching the show and talking to other people I was expecting that to happen. You just keep pushing it, I changed up my exercise routine and soon started losing weight again," he says.

The transformation that Hennessy affected was incredible. He went from clothes that were a size 5XL being too tight, and having trouble finding clothes that would fit, to having the opposite problem - now he is so slim that he has to shop in completely different stores.

His friends are amazed at how much has changed. "I've run into friends that haven't seen me in a year, and they didn't know who I was," he says, "Until they heard me talking they had no idea it was me."

To those that are starting their own journey towards fitness, Hennessy has this advice: "If you fall off the cart, don't beat yourself up over it. Just get up in the morning and start over again. We are going to fail, the secret is not to get so depressed about it that you give up, because you can't give up."

Categories:

Get Motivated

Throwing out perfectly good food.... it's hard!

2010-01-12T16:17:00.001-05:00

From X-Weighted.com

January 12th, 2010

As fans of the show will know, the X-Weighted experts advise getting unhealthy foods out of our homes in order to avoid the temptation of eating them.

Although the idea of just throwing everything unhealthy into a garbage bag might sound pretty easy to some people, there are many reasons why it is a daunting task for others.

Most of us were brought up not to waste food, so there is a deep seated conflict that comes to the surface when we think about throwing large quantities of food away.

There is also the question of money. Food is expensive, especially treats and packaged foods. The idea of throwing away $100 worth of groceries is scary.

Another factor that stops us from being able to just get rid of the bad stuff is the emotional attachment that we have to it. When food is your comfort, the thing that never lets you down and makes you instantly feel better, it is hard to just dispose of it.

Because of all these reasons, it is difficult to do the big purge. But, you really do have to do it.

Realize that the good health you are working towards has more value than could ever be put in a dollar amount, and in the grand scheme of things that $100 worth of groceries is not worth worrying about.

Believe in yourself - you will have the strength to get through without the safety net of always having those foods nearby. Over the next 26 weeks, you will develop coping strategies that do not involve eating.

When you do purge your home, consider donating that food to the local food bank or homeless shelter. By doing that, you aren't just throwing away the food - you're making a difference and helping people as you help yourself.

Categories:

NEW - Weight-loss challenge...

2010-01-09T13:19:00.003-05:00

This morning I got up bright and early to went down to the Extreme Fitness Yonge/Dundas location to sign up for this newest weigh-loss challenge set up by X-Weighted.com

Down at the gym, I signed up, got weighed, got measured, did a fitness test an as you can see in this picture I met with some of the experts from the show- Dr David Macklin and an X-Weighted show producer.

Click here to sign up for the Challenge

Dr David A Macklin

As one of Canada’s leading physicians in the field of lifestyle medicine, Dr David A Macklin brings a wealth of experience to X-Weighted. He has committed his career to helping others change their behaviour, develop a healthy lifestyle and manage their weight.

He is board certified in Family Medicine by the Canadian College of Family Physicians, a member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the college of Family Physicians of Canada and the Ontario Medical Association.

Macklin says that one of the most interesting parts of X-Weighted is that he is able to go in to participants’ homes. “That way I can better identify the obstacles they face” he says. Macklin founded the Weightcare Clinic in Toronto in 2005, where he teaches people to lose weight permanently.

To watch Dr David Macklin's Intro Video, click here.

here is the criteria:

On January 9th 2010, we’ll be launching a nationwide fitness challenge where you can have your own X-Weighted experience and be in the running to win some major prizes. By registering for the XWEIGHTED.COM NATIONAL CHALLENGE you’ll be joining an online community designed to help you succeed. Sign up and you’ll be able to:

Take the 26 week challenge

A challenge designed with the X-Weighted experts to help you succeed on your own weight-loss journey.

Form Groups

Get together with other XWEIGHTED.COM users that share the same goals as you, form groups with real life friends or anyone you choose to support through this journey.

Choose Fitness Goals

You’ll be able to choose a fitness goal from a list of those featured on X-Weighted, from other community users, or your very own unique goal.

New Goals!

2010-01-06T09:13:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I saw and worked out with my trainer, Sylvie, for the first time this new year of .. back on track.. with a new goal set! The both of us are planning and training to run the Scotia Bank Toronto Waterfront 1/2 marathon in September 2010! Wow!

click here for more info on the marathon

My Continuing Journey - Year 3

2010-01-04T14:45:00.002-05:00

So now we are in year 3 of my journey .... I have had some requests about the bodybugg, the most important invention in Diet Tools in the last 10 years!

Available to purchase for Americans via 24hour fitness, and for Canadians only through Ebay

Or click here for more info

Riding an Elephant

2010-01-03T09:28:00.016-05:00

Yesterday I was watching the great film "The Bucket List" ... and while watching that scene with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman riding the back of a jeep, singing a song from the Lion King, as they watched African wildlife run around them.

I thought, god before I die, I sure would like to experience an African safari like that!

Watching this scene did jog a memory though, of how I did get a little taste of Africa right here in Toronto when I was 12 years old.

We were living in Don Mills at the time, and it was the year of 1972. My mom just told me that the great " Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus " is coming to town, and she just saw an ad in the newspaper about the announcement of a poster designing contest to win free tickets and $200 worth of Mattel Toys, plus a RIDE ON A ELEPHANT!

I was 12 at the time, and I thought, that is so cool, I want to enter! So off to Fairview Mall and to Grand & Toy I went, to buy the arts supplies. I wanted the brightest poster paper and paint there was! florissant almost.

I spent the next week down in the laundry room designing and trying out different designs for the poster. Finally, day 6 I had it! My mom sent the poster in and now we wait.

About 2 weeks later, I received the news that my poster had won!

Wooo hoooo!

I won tickets to the circus for the whole family, $200 worth of Toys and the most important and coolest thing, a ride on a real Elephant!

The Circus arrived on a warm spring day in June 1972 to the CNE. The animals arrived by train. My dad drove me to the CNE with his ' Bolex' movie camera in hand to film the entire event.

We drove up to the area where the animals were being unloaded from the Train box cars. I remember I was so excited and nervous, especially when I saw the elephants starting to come out of the Train Cars one by one; they was so tall, and big ! Towering over everything and every one. It was so cute, how the elephant handlers were coaching the elephants to start kneeling down one by one in-front of me and about 5 other kids that were also invited to ride them.

The smell of them was pungent, be that didn't matter, I was going to ride an actual elephant! So one of the trainers came and got me, all the while my dad was filming away on his ' Bolex' movie camera, I had to climb up on the knee of the elephant, and then grab his ear, and pull myself up onto the neck of the elephant and there I was to hold onto his B & B collar. ( just like the one in the picture above)

So now the elephant was going to stand up. As I was to hold on very, very tight, first his right leg, as I keeled over to the left, and thought I was going to fall off, the finally his left leg, as it leveled out again, and up, up ,up we went ! So high in the Sky now! I was 15 feet up in the air!

The other elephants now grabbed onto each others tails and the handlers started leading them for a walk through the CNE grounds.

I was on the very first, lead elephant, as I had won 1st prize in the poster contest, which made good filming for my dad. My dad quickly got into his car and drove ahead of the pack of elephants, got out filmed, jumped back in his car again and continued driving ahead a few 100 metres, and thus filming the entire event.

It was so much fun! exciting and scary at the same time. You were holding onto that collar for dear life! Falling off was not an option. My elephant all of a sudden lifted his truck and gave out a call..... Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... and then a sort of snort... it scarred me, but I kept on holding on....

I remember the smell of the elephant, it was not pleasant, and it was also very dirty. Stupid me, I was wearing white pants that day, and when I got off at the end of our 30 minute walk, they sure as hell were not white any more!

So we came a full circle around the CNE grounds and arrived back at the train box cars. The elephant leaned down onto his knee again so as I could get off. I almost fell forward over his head when he did this, but didn't, thank god. Wow... what a great experience.. and my dad got it all on film. We have the home movie somewhere, hopefully one day we will transfer all the 100's of home movies onto DVD's so we can watch them all again in the comfort of our own homes.

The Circus Tickets were handed to me at the end of the elephant ride, I said my goodbyes to all the elephants, and handlers. That night we were to come back to the CNE to see the whole show! At the show that night, in the big old Colosseum at the CNE, the elephants entered the arena, and the announcer actually announced that earlier that day a few lucky children were invited to ride the elephants because they won our poster designing contest, and there they announced my name over the p.a to everyone!

My poster was published in the paper earlier that week, and now also hung on the wall in the Colosseum at the CNE. What ever happened to it after that who knows? ( this poster to the left is not it!.. but the actual vintage poster from B&B in 1972)

What a great experience! do you know anyone that has ridden an elephant? for real?

Strangely the $200 worth of Toys never arrived... but that was okay, I was 12 and well I didn't play with toys any more, and besides.... I had won something more important...

... the ride of my life-time!!!

New Years Resolutions

2009-12-31T10:18:00.004-05:00

2010 will be the beginning of the 3rd year of my Diet/Life Style Change. As I started this journey 2 years ago, I really did not know it would take this long, and how many ups and downs I needed to conquer. I still have not reached my goal of weighing 150 pounds, and not only that because I have been off track for about 6 months now, by not going to the gym 5 -6 days a week, I have gained back some of the weight I had worked so hard to lose. But the biggest realization is my addiction to food! I do have a sort of disease, and this is really the root of the problem. I have to keep my bingeing under control, and this will be with my all of my life! Discipline is the only way! being strong and saying no to that piece of Chocolate, or no to that cracker with French Cheese!

Back in July , my 50th birthday I had set a goal of weighing at first 150 pounds, that didn't happen, and I had to reset it for 200 pounds, and even that didn't happen, it was around 230. Still of course not bad.

I recently met a good friend at Christmas who has gone another diet route of ' Weight Watchers'.. and she now has met her goal! she started at 220 and is now 150. I feel so sad that I have not met my goal yet, and now coming clean, I weighed-in today at 280!

Yes my dear blog friends and followers.. I have let you down, but let my self down! I have gained 50 pounds! ... so frustrating.. so crazy that you can gain this weight back so frikk'n fast too!

It takes such hard work, sweat and dedication to lose 1 - 2 pounds a weeks.. and in 6 short months I gain 50 back! CHRIST!

well.. here I am confessing.. coming clean to you all.... this New Year brings on a new challenge and realization... it's not a DIET ... it really is a Life Style Change... because I can, as proven in the last 6 months, fall back into old habits! I love food, and want to gobble up as much as I can all the time! But I have to be strong, strict and true to myself! If you are not following a strict successful diet program like Weight Watchers, then indeed you have to go to the Gym, no if and butts about it!

I will keep on truckin'g , keep smiling.. and keep trying.. this will not conquer me! I will win this quest!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! .....NOW GET TO WORK!

Here are some fun Diet Quotes:

You can't lose weight by talking about it. You have to keep your mouth shut. ~Author Unknown

When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty. ~Woody Allen

Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork. ~English Proverb

Your stomach shouldn't be a waist basket. ~Author Unknown

A diet is the penalty we pay for exceeding the feed limit. ~Author Unknown

More die in the United States of too much food than of too little. ~John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society

The cardiologist's diet: If it tastes good, spit it out. ~Author Unknown

One should eat to live, not live to eat. ~Cicero,Rhetoricorum LV

Inside some of us is a thin person struggling to get out, but they can usually be sedated with a few pieces of chocolate cake. ~Author Unknown

I've decided that perhaps I'm bulimic and just keep forgetting to purge. ~Paula Poundstone

In the Middle Ages, they had guillotines, stretch racks, whips and cahins. Nowadays, we have a much more effective torture device called the bathroom scale. ~Stephen Phillips

It's okay to be fat. So you're fat. Just be fat and shut up about it. ~Roseanne Barr

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on. ~Jean Kerr, "Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall," The Snake Has All the Lines, 1958

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas. ~Author Unknown

Albert Einstein, who discovered that a tiny amount of mass is equal to a huge amount of energy, which explains why, as Einstein himself so eloquently put it in a famous 1939 speech to the Physics Department at Princeton, "You have to exercise for a week to work off the thigh fat from a single Snickers." ~Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns 50

Reality check: you can never, ever, use weight loss to solve problems that are not related to your weight. At your goal weight or not, you still have to live with yourself and deal with your problems. You will still have the same husband, the same job, the same kids, and the same life. Losing weight is not a cure for life. ~Phillip C. McGraw, The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom, 2003

The one way to get thin is to re-establish a purpose in life. ~Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave

If nature had intended our skeletons to be visible it would have put them on the outside of our bodies. ~Elmer Rice

Avoid any diet that discourages the use of hot fudge. ~Don Kardong

I keep trying to lose weight... but it keeps finding me! ~Author Unknown

I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond. ~Mae West

I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is fourteen days. ~Totie Fields

Rich, fatty foods are like destiny: they too, shape our ends. ~Author Unknown

I'm on a seafood diet. I see food and I eat it. ~Author Unknown

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat are really good friends. ~Author Unknown

Forget love - I'd rather fall in chocolate! ~Attributed to Sandra J. Dykes

Stressed spelled backwards is desserts. Coincidence? I think not! ~Author Unknown

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2009-12-25T08:45:00.001-05:00

Boot Camp - Day 4

2009-12-25T00:34:00.002-05:00

Boot Camp - day 3

2009-12-23T23:34:00.002-05:00

Boot Camp- Day 2

2009-12-23T09:26:00.005-05:00

bodybugg results - Boot camp day 1

2009-12-21T22:29:00.000-05:00

DAY 1 - Wendy Boot Camp

2009-12-21T09:59:00.007-05:00

As you all know, on February 12, 2010 will be the day the Vancouver Olympics open. Toronto has had the honour of welcoming the Olympic flame, as it makes its way all the way to Vancouver. In this picture I am posing with one of the Olympic flame runners, John Staton, owner of ' The Running Room'

I am a strong believer in 'signs'... and this 'sign' of me posing with John Staton, is to remind me of not letting go of my weight loss goals!

I have to get back on track! Therefor this post is labeled - ' DAY 1- Wendy Boot Camp' .... I am off on vacation from work for 2 weeks, and starting today I am going to make my Gym my office for 2 weeks. I am planning to go and workout for 6 -8 hours a day for the coming 2 weeks....

If the contestants on the BIGGEST LOSER can do it! ....

...So can I!

I will post my Bodybugg results here on my blog for the next two weeks, as well as my facebook!

Wish me luck!

links:

The Running Room

Vancouver Olympics

the Bodybugg

The Biggest Loser Resort! Wow.. now this would be great!

2009-12-09T09:27:00.004-05:00

I sure would like to win the lottery and go to THIS resort one day!!

http://www.biggestloserresort.com/

The Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge

The Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge provides the most affordable, calorie-controlled, structured program in the weight loss resort industry. Selected to be the exclusive weight loss destination to NBC's television show "The Biggest Loser", The Resort offers a boot camp style program for men and women of any fitness level. Our program is aligned with The Biggest Loser lifestyle and features incredible hiking, stimulating cardio and stretch classes, delectable spa cuisine, and practical education to help you succeed.

Whether your goal is to lose substantial weight or to enjoy a fitness getaway, the personal attention that our program, experienced trainers, and supportive group atmosphere provide will help achieve your goals. Join us for the perfect place to start or maintain your healthy lifestyle..

90% gain the weight back

2009-12-03T07:46:00.002-05:00

Here's an article I found on weight gain... so many sources out there on the web... who's advice are you suppose to follow... eat protein, don't eat protein.... only eat vegan, cut down on carbs, only exercise,eat what ever you want.... so frustrating... who has the right answer??

Weight gain and Weight loss

There’s nothing worse than to be watching your calories and exercising, but the scale just doesn’t budge…. You just feel like, ‘My efforts are for naught.’ That’s when people tend to give up."

- Thomas Wadden

Most nutritionists would have you believe that counting calories is the best way to lose fat. Here’s their theory, in a nutshell:

· Calories in vs. calories out determine your weight.

· Consume more calories than you burn and the rest turns to fat.

· To lose weight, you either consume fewer calories or burn more with aerobic exercise.

But have you ever noticed that the people who frantically count calories are forever overweight?

Here’s the problem: Your body is not a simple machine. It’s a living, sentient system with its own "intelligence." It decides how to use the calories you consume. In fact, over the long run, what your body decides to do with calories appears to be more consequential than how many you consume.

Of course, some people just eat way too much. But for people making a serious attempt to lose weight, excess calories are not their problem (although most are made to believe it is).

Conventional diets just don’t work. Five out of six people who try to lose weight fail. And more than 90% of those who do succeed in losing weight gain all the weight back within two years.

When you consider the flawed strategy these diets use, this is no surprise. You can’t achieve and maintain your ideal weight by starving yourself thin. Even if you could, it would be bad for your health. Losing weight has been hard because you have the wrong tool for the job. If you drop your calories and go hungry - forcing your body to lose weight - your body will fight back.

This is your body’s built in "intelligence." It reacts as if you are starving and will do everything it can to preserve your fat. And when you lose weight by starving yourself, you lose important muscle, bone, fluids, and even vital organ mass.

Your body has mechanisms for setting your weight where it wants it to be. It is similar to the way you set the temperature of your house with a thermostat. So the right tool for the job of losing weight is one that changes your body’s set point. Said another way, you need to change your metabolism.

Changing your metabolism is the key to - NOT counting calories.

The good news is that you can change your metabolism with food or exercise or both. But not with the kind of diet and exercise you’re used to. It involves eating differently, not less - and exercising differently, not more. You see here are the two most important principles of healthy fat loss: You must (1) over-consume protein and (2) train your body to store energy, not fat.

Why should you eat more protein than your body is going to use? Because it throws the "metabolic switch" and changes the way your body decides to store and use the excess calories.

You see, your body has choices. It can use that energy in a nearly infinite number of ways. It could, for example, decide to use extra calories for something like building bone or repairing damaged tissues.

Doctors, nutritionists, and the media all miss this point. They still cling to the idea that your body always stores excess calories as fat. Surprisingly, this has rarely been considered in clinical research. Yet when studied, the results back me up. For instance, a study published in Obesity Research found that people could lose weight independent of calories consumed when the ratio of protein and carbohydrate changed.

The trick is to change your metabolism. By throwing your metabolic switch, you can accomplish these two important goals of sustained fat loss:

· Increase the calories you use for maintenance and repair.

· Decrease the calories you shunt toward fat deposition.

Your body makes its decisions about its energy reserves for the sake of survival. It’s an instinct that goes back to caveman days, when a drop in protein and calories signalled the body "These are bad times. So to survive this famine/plague/winter, we’d better store as much energy as possible." And when protein and calories were up, the signal was "Times are good, so we can burn that energy."

During good times, your body "invests" in procreation and fat loss. It uses the extra protein to boost levels of growth hormone and sex hormones and burn fat stores by lowering insulin. Having sex and babies requires lots of energy, and your body makes these adjustments only when "times are good."

If your body senses that times are bad, it decides that this is not a good time to have children. So the production of growth hormone and sex hormones is suppressed. And to protect itself against the threat of starvation, it boosts insulin to promote fat gain.

In our modern environment, excessive stress and a nutrient-poor diet can cause your body to think times are bad.

This puts your metabolism in a perpetual state of preparing for the worst. The result? You not only gain weight, you also feel sluggish and tired.

If you want to burn fat, you have to stop starving your body. Forget about the burgers and whole-grain breads. The good news is you can start eating the hearty foods you’ve been denying yourself - like steak and eggs. These are the foods we used to think were healthy. (My father said they would "put hair on your chest.")

With a little planning, you get naturally lean by eating the foods you enjoy. Start by eating at least one gram of protein per day for every half a kilo of lean body mass. You can find your lean body mass by having your body composition measured. (Ask your doctor or the trainer at your gym for help with this.)

Here’s an example: If you weigh 90 kilos and have 30 kilos of body fat, your lean body mass is 60 kilos. That means you should get at least 120 grams of protein a day. When you consider that an egg has about 6 grams of protein and a 100 gram of T-bone steak has about 20 grams, 120 grams is far more than you get from the standard diet.

To further shift your metabolism away from storing fat, cut your carbs. Your ancient ancestors never ate grains, and you should keep yours to a minimum. Take a scientific approach to this by using the glycaemic index to determine how much insulin various foods will stimulate based on the carbs they contain.

Lastly, to maximise your fat loss and boost your lean body mass, exercise in ways that burn lots of energy fast. This is important because fat is a slow-burn fuel. So if you ask your body for higher energy output than it can get from fat, it will get the message to stop shunting calories to fat. Instead, it will store more energy as glycogen in the muscles.

The kind of exercises that burn lots of energy fast will feel like a short sprint and leave you panting after you finish.

You can do this with calisthenics, weight training, or routines that focus on your legs, like running or biking uphill. (Start off easy and gradually increase the intensity of the exercise as you become conditioned.)

(Source: National Geographic)

What is the power of Christmas?

2009-11-16T09:08:00.007-05:00

So what does Christmas mean to me? and why does it make me feel so warm and fuzzy? FAMILY! and especially my sisters...

I have the most wonderful memories of my family get-togethers at Christmas. From being a little kid in Don Mills and waking up Christmas morning to not only seeing our Christmas Tree for the very first time, but it was also full of presents. You see my mom and dad were great at keeping us kids in suspense and making a big production of Christmas. Christmas morning we were aloud to sneek out of our ' bunk beds' and get our stocking that was hung on the staircase banister.

It was full to the brim of all sort of small toys,games, and candy ( pez) . Then when my parents finally woke up, around 9am, we would get our ' best' dressed and come downstairs to see the wonderful surprise of the Christmas tree and presents. The tradition was that we were aloud to open one present before our breakfast. The traditional Christmas breakfast was a boiled egg with some toast, and a slice of Dutch Christmas bread. So after breakfast was done, we helped clean up, then we all sat on the floor in the living room in front of the tree waiting to open the packages. We were only aloud to open them one at a time. Stretching out the excitement of the gifts for as long as possible.

By the time all the gifts were open, it was 3 hours later. We happily played with our new toys, and games the rest of the day! My sisters and I were real ' Games' lovers.

This year at the Santa Claus parade, which rolled into Toronto yesterday, there was a float from ' Hasbro' , a very old long standing games company.

Seeing the games on the float brought back a flood of memories to me. Operation, Clue, Monopoly, Twister, Kerplunk, Jenga, Masterpeice, Life, Mousetrap, Mastermind, Battleship and of course Scrabble where all our top loved games. I especially loved Masterpeice, but that was always a bit ' artsy fartsy' for my siblings!

So the answer to the question for me, ' what is the power of Christmas'... I guess when I think about it, is the time I spent with my sisters playing hours and hours of games together on Christmas Day . My sister Melinda was the most powerful Monolpoly player, and my older sister Ineke always won hands down in Scrabble. My talents were always with Clue, Battleship, Mastermind and Masterpeice, the more logic games.

I only wish now that I could find that same enthusiastic game playing attitude with my present family and friends... no one seems to want to take the time to play a game now a days ! Sad really, you create the best laughing memories in those game moments!

TORONTO WINS PAN-AM GAMES BID!

2009-11-07T10:36:00.004-05:00

Jubilation as Toronto gets Pan Am shot

November 07, 2009

Canadian athletes prepare for the final hour-long pitch to the Pan American Sports Organization in Guadalajara on Friday as Mounties stand by.

ALEJANDRO ACOSTA/REUTERS

GUADALAJARA, MEXICO–It started with cocktails in an Annex backyard, in a city desperate to shed its loser label.

It was the fall of 2005, and Bob Richardson, a key organizer in the failed 2008 Olympic bid, wanted to help out his old Carleton University roommate, Jim Watson, who had just been appointed Ontario's health promotion minister.

Ontario had fallen behind with its sports facilities. Our pools, rinks, running tracks and arenas were failing future athletes.

A decision was made. The gathering of 20, several Olympians among them, realized the only way to secure the money needed to transform the sports scene was to win a major international event.

On Friday, the idea conceived four years earlier at Richardson's house became a reality when Toronto was awarded the 2015 Pan Am Games.

When Pan American Sports Organization president Mario Vazquez Rana announced Toronto was the winner, the bid team jumped, cheered and screamed for joy. The relief was palpable. Toronto was no longer a loser.

Now, "People can say, `We got something," said bid chair David Peterson.

"Now we can turn this into something big. If you think big and you have big dreams, this can be a mood changer for Hamilton, a mood changer for Toronto, and a mood changer for Ontario."

It was all done with a $2.4 billion bid involving venues from Welland to Oshawa and calling for new aquatic centres and stadiums, plus an athletes' village – later to be turned into affordable housing – near Toronto's eastern waterfront.

The vote wasn't close: Toronto's 33 votes blew away the competition in the first ballot. Lima, Peru, got 11 votes, and Bogota, Colombia, had seven.

After nearly 18 months of lobbying that sent them criss-crossing the hemisphere for votes from the 42 members of the Pan American Sports Organization, the bid team arrived in Mexico this week both hopeful and optimistic.

While arguing the city had the best technical bid, organizers were reluctant to talk about a win, fearing it might jinx our chances or even backfire if the city seemed too confident. Toronto had been down this road before, with two failed Olympic bids.

"You have to be very circumspect," said bid chair David Peterson.

But when it became clear there would only be one round of voting, Toronto's organizers became more confident, letting out some expectant hope that a win was finally within their grasp.

As the ballots were being sorted into three piles at the front of an enormous hotel ballroom, one pile was clearly much bigger.

"I was trying to follow the pen as (an official) was writing the name of city beside the pile and the number 31," said Jagoda Pike, the bid's chief operating officer.

"When they announced, my heart stopped."

It was actually 33. Bid chair David Peterson and Premier Dalton McGuinty were among the first on stage to celebrate.

The room was electric, just as it had been earlier in the day when Toronto made its final sales pitch, a crucial hour-long presentation that can sometimes knock a city out of contention.

After rehearsing over and over, the team of athletes and politicians hit it out of the park, with a passion. It opened with gymnasts, volleyball players and a tennis player bouncing into the ballroom, followed by a 60-strong delegation dressed in smart black blazers with the bid crest.

Interspersed through the show were videos from athletes across the hemisphere extolling Toronto's benefits, including the world's fastest man, Jamaica's Usain Bolt, who was in town last summer.

The final video offered a moving tale of what the Games might be: youngsters from across the Americas and Caribbean training and growing up to compete in Toronto in 2015.

"It makes me cry every time I see it," said Peterson, adding he told staff that if it didn't make him weep, the team wouldn't show it.

Toronto's hour drew hearty applause throughout, unlike Bogota's and Lima's more formal presentations, which featured wrap-up speeches from their national presidents: Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and Peru's Alan Garcia.

The Canadian politicians were all smiles afterward.

"It's a moment of tremendous celebration for us," McGuinty told the delegates. "Our promise is to present you with the best Pan Am Games ever."

Also grinning was Mayor David Miller, who had been initially reluctant to sign on after a previous world's fair bid – ironically also for 2015 – failed to get off the ground because of senior government squabbling over debt guarantees.

"I was always a little nervous. Bitten once, twice shy," said Miller.

But this time, Ottawa and Queen's Park agreed to put up $500 million each, with the province promising to cover any cost overruns. The 14 municipalities with venues are putting up their own shares.

LIST OF COUNTRIES THAT PARTICIPATE IN PAN AM GAMES:

Antigua and Barbuda (ATG)
Argentina (ARG)
Aruba (ARU)
Bahamas (BAH)
Barbados (BAR)
Belize (BIZ)
Bermuda (BER)
Bolivia (BOL)
Brazil (BRA)
British Virgin Islands (IVB)
Canada (CAN)
Cayman Islands (CAY)
Chile (CHI)
Colombia (COL)
Costa Rica (CRC)
Cuba (CUB)
Dominica (DMA)
Dominican Republic (DOM)
Ecuador (ECU)
El Salvador (ESA)
Grenada (GRN)
Guatemala (GUA)
Guyana (GUY)
Haiti (HAI)
Honduras (HON)
Jamaica (JAM)
Mexico (MEX)
Netherlands Antilles (AHO)
Nicaragua (NCA)
Panama (PAN)
Paraguay (PAR)
Peru (PER)
Puerto Rico (PUR)
Saint Kitts and Nevis (SKN)
Saint Lucia (LCA)
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (VIN)
Suriname (SUR)
Trinidad and Tobago (TRI)
United States (USA)
U.S. Virgin Islands (ISV)
Uruguay (URU)
Venezuela (VEN)

As If I had been Struck by Lighting!

2009-10-31T10:35:00.008-04:00

Happy Halloween everyone!

... not so happy for me...

I must say this has been a very scary week! A real awaking for me too!

Why?

On Thursday I received news of getting a new job as project manager at the City of Toronto.. I was real happy! and as a sort of reward to myself.. instead of going to the gym ( as I should have! ) I ended up staying home planning to watch a film and snack on some popcorn!

OMG.. that was such a BAD idea!

Because half way down the bag of popcorn I chomped down .. and CRACK !! .. I heard this terrible sound in my mouth, realizing I just chomped down hard on a popcorn kernel and .. yuup.. I firkin broke my tooth!! AAARRGGGGG!

I broke my "upper right 1st bicuspid" or " First premolar" it broke right down the middle.. split in two.. this was bad !

So I called my dentist (@ 10pm) luckily I had his home phone number.. and he replied.. " well Wendy this doesn't sound good, see you tomorrow morning at 7:30am "

So off to bed I went.. but first throwing out that dam cursed 1/2 bag of popcorn and cursing all the way to the trash!

So next day... 7:30am... my dentist looks at the tooth and with a face of dome and gloom he says.. " sorry, I can't save the tooth , I have to pull it out!"... OMG... shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit !

So in goes the freezing needle... and 1 hour later of prodding and poking and pulling and yanking it was finally removed! with a very difficult extraction I had to have 2 stitches as well.. I have lost my tooth! that tooth has been a part of me for 40 years!

I am soooooo MAD at myself... !!! as you can imagine!

A huge sign has just been really mad clear to me... as if I had been struck by lighting... ' Wendy you can't eat that crap... enough ... is enough... now you really physically can't eat it.. as you well know now.. it will break your teeth! '

So now 24 hours later, I'm on Tylenol 3's and Antibiotics, having to eat only soft food and soup, I have major major major! learned my lesson..

I have to stay on track of my lifestyle change, only eat healthy foods... ( but now I can't even eat nuts... as they will now get stuck in my new gapping hole, and also possibly break other teeth! )

This sucks big time!

Shocking Story!

2009-10-22T09:09:00.008-04:00

" Fat Family' Children Taken from Parents" ** See the article below my comments...

If this had happened in Canada, it would have meant that me and my sisters should have been taken away at birth too, as my own mother weighed over 250 pounds when giving birth to us!

The British authorities should keep there f***'ing hands out of private family matters. What the british government should be doing is sending a social worker, dietitian to the home and work with the PARENTS to teach them proper eating habits!

The parents need to set an example...! yes true... but they, the government, should protect the children that are getting sexually abused and or battered... not because they don't know how to eat right!

Arrgh.. so wrong of them to take away their children!

Education is this case in this key!

shocking!

*What do you think about this story? please fill free to add your comments here on my blog...

12:01pm UK, Thursday October 22, 2009

Kirsty Donald, Sky News Online

" Fat Family' Children Taken from Parents" - Seven children, including a newborn baby, have been taken from their overweight parents and put into care because of concerns over their welfare.

Some of the children, who cannot be identified, also have weight problems

The family from Dundee was split up by social workers following a meeting of the Children's Panel.

The youngsters include a girl born earlier this week at the city's Ninewells Hospital and taken from the arms of her 322 pound mother shortly afterwards.

The 40-year-old woman and her 53-year-old husband, who weighs around 252 pounds, have not been named to protect the identity of their children.

Two of their kids, aged three and four, were taken into care earlier this year.

Now the other five, including the newborn and a 13-year-old boy who is said to weighs 224 pounds, have been taken from their parents.

The local authority insisted it was not its policy to remove children from their family home solely on the basis of weight problems.

Councils will always act with the welfare and safety of children in mind and there can be many reasons for action being taken.

Dundee City Council spokesman

But the family's solicitor Kathleen Price has previously claimed obesity was the main reason for the children being taken from their parents.

She said the couple had not been given a fair hearing and had been "victimised".

A spokesman for Dundee City Council said: "Any decision about a child's situation is given full and careful consideration.

"In many cases social workers will have been providing a high level of professional and caring support to a family for many years in a bid to keep them together.

"However, the welfare and safety of a child or children is the over-riding priority and in some cases, despite the strenuous efforts of the agencies providing this support, the best option is for them to be looked after away from their home.

"Councils will always act with the welfare and safety of children in mind and there can be many reasons for action being taken."

You know that Chocolate would make a great door stop!

2009-10-21T14:03:00.000-04:00

New Weapons in the War Between Willpower and Willy Wonka

By: Tom Jacobs | October 20, 2009 |

If you pictured these chocolates are doorstops, would that curb your temptation to eat them? New research suggests it might.cacaobug / flickr.com

Research suggests certain mental games may help chocolate lovers resist the temptation to overindulge.

Wilhelm Hofmann, like a lot of us, finds certain varieties of fine chocolate virtually irresistible. But the German psychologist, along with colleagues from the Netherlands and the United States, has discovered a creative way of decreasing the temptation to indulge.

Simply gaze at the delectable confection and think to yourself:

Wouldn't this make an excellent doorstop?

In two studies, "participants instructed to imagine a chocolate in a nonconsummatory manner exhibited significantly less automatic positivity with regard to the product," researchers reportin the European Journal of Social Psychology. This suggests certain self-control strategies can affect the "impulsive, automatic pathways of behavior determination" that too often lead us to give into temptation.

The studies — one conducted in a laboratory, another via the Internet — are part of Hofmann's ongoing research on impulsivity and self-control. In an earlier paper, the University of Wurzberg assistant professor noted that many people "are torn between their long-term goals to restrain behavior and their immediate impulses that promote hedonic fulfillment." His work helps explain these competing forces and describes under what circumstances self-control is more likely to succeed.

For his most recent paper, Hofmann focuses on a popular German chocolate product marketed as "the white temptation." He describes the dessert in mouth-watering detail, noting "the chocolate has a spherical shape and can be described as a delicious composition of almonds and smooth milk crème surrounded by a crispy waffle and a fine white coconut coating."

Who could resist something so scrumptious? That was what he and his colleagues tried to ascertain in their first study. Seventy-one undergraduates from the University of Landau were shown samples of the candy and then assigned to one of three groups.

Those in the first group were asked to spend three minutes imagining how the chocolate would taste and feel in their mouths.

In contrast, those in the second group "were asked to imagine, as clearly and concretely as possible, odd or novel settings or uses for the chocolate." Those in the third group (the control group) read an unrelated text about South America.

Afterwards, an Implicit Association Test was used to measure the participants' automatic, impulsive evaluations of the chocolate. To conclude the study, participants offered their explicit opinions, rating the candy in terms of taste and overall enjoyment.

The results: Both the automatic and conscious evaluations of the chocolate were lower among those who were instructed to come up with creative uses for the product.

The second test, conducted via the Internet, featured 506 people, average age 35. While some participants duplicated the first study, others were instructed to visualize times and places where they would be tempted to indulge and then form a "clear intention on how to avoid eating the chocolate in these particular situations."

Once again, those who "cognitively transformed" the chocolate displayed less automatic positivity toward the palate-pleasing product. But the largest reduction in automatic positivity occurred among those who had visualized themselves saying "No thanks."

The researchers call these results encouraging, noting they suggest two different mental self-control strategies may be useful in fighting temptation. Of course, they only measured the short-term impact of these strategies; it's impossible to say how long they might continue to work.

Nevertheless, before accepting offers of Halloween candy or Christmas cookies during the upcoming holidays, it might be worth taking a moment to think of these sweets in a different way. This research suggests a tempting treat loses some of its allure when you've pondered its usefulness as a garden tool.

And a Gym Rat is born

2009-10-20T09:12:00.007-04:00

Back to the grind... the sweat factory... the gym that is.. !!

Since last sunday I have been going to the gym not once, but twice a day! = 4 hours a day!

Yesterday my bodybugg exploded with a whopping 4000 calories burnt!

I couldn't sleep very well though last night... I was tossing and turning all night. I guess my body is not used to all this working out, and well, I was strangely very hot last night... had my window wide open, but that didn't help. Maybe it was hormones?

Any ways... I am going to try to keep this up, going to the gym twice a day keeps me from eating stuff I shouldn't.

keep on truck'ing as they say!

ps: I still don't dare post today's weight.. I am too embarrassed, and sad about it. When I feel I can say it out loud all you blog followers will be the first to know... deal?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

2009-10-11T10:42:00.003-04:00

okay.. bring on the Turkey and Mel's Pumpkin Pie...

so I got on the scale, closed my eyes and prayed...nope.. still not good news! I don't dare post my present weight!

I am disgusted with myself... I had done so well... but you see just like that old habits can creep up on you.. you have to stay on-top of this weight loss, all the time! grrrrh! so frustrating..

my weight today is about the exact same as last year october.. there that's all I'll say!

so... last weekend of food enjoyment.. and back to the gym! promise! I promise myself that is! because, it's all about me! me, me me me me.. I have to do it for ME!

Melinda makes this MOST AMAZING Pumpkin Pie ever! believe me I've tried them all !

I wrote about it on my blog way back in 2004

click on this link to read the recipe!

this picture above, Melinda with her daughter, shows how we love the pie soooo much in our family! ... so tonight is the night.. pumpkin pie for all.. then back to the sweat shop!

I'M BACK!

2009-09-28T09:09:00.006-04:00

Pheeew.... thank you...

' BIGGEST LOSER' show!

I watched the first two episodes of the BIGGEST LOSER show last night.. and you know what? I used to compare myself to the biggest contestant in the show, like ... okay she weighs 370 like me, and I can do this too... and now.. I can compare myself to the SMALLEST contender of the show... okay she weighs the least at 245 pounds.. like me... off to races we go!! that itself is great incentive!

So today ... yes... I'm back on track.. this morning I have a private training session with my trainer Sylvie.. I got on the scale.. sad news... but 1 week from now I will post my weight , I promise!

Speaking to some friends and workers at my gym, they all say it's normal that people slack off in the summer months.. August was a dead month.. no one came to the gym and now in the 3rd week of september they are starting to come back again.

I guess with the nicer weather, and being outdoors more, you don't really feel like going to the gym. But like today, it's pouring rain, and feeling like Autumn, and then snow right around the corner, the gym seems and is the perfect place to go to forget about the shitty weather outside!

So to all those of you out there that follow me and my blog... I pledge to now stay on track, with an average of losing at least 2 pounds a week ! promise !

And to those of you that are trying to get started again... watch the BIGGEST LOSER show.. now that's incentive !

Incentive....

2009-09-23T09:23:00.002-04:00

A guy calls a company and orders their 5-day, 10 lb. Weight loss program. The next day, there's a knock on the door and there stands before him avoluptuous, athletic, 19 year old babe dressed in nothing but a pair of Nike running shoes and a sign around her neck.

She introduces herself as a representative of the weight loss company. The sign reads,

'If you can catch me, you can have me.'

Without a second thought, he takes off after her. A few miles laterhuffing and puffing, he finally gives up.. The same girl shows up for the next four days and the same thing happens.On the fifth day, he weighs himself and is delighted to find he has lost10 lbs. As promised.

He calls the company and orders their 5-day/20 pound program.

The next day there's a knock at the door and there stands the most stunning, beautiful, sexy woman he has ever seen in his life. She is wearing nothing but Reebok running shoes and a sign around her neck that reads,

'If you catch me you can have me'.

Well, he's out the door after her like a shot. This girl is in excellent shape and he does his best, but no such luck. So for the next four days, the same routine happens with him gradually getting in better and better shape. Much to his delight on the fifth day when he weighs himself, he discovers that he has lost another 20 lbs. As promised.

He decides to go for broke and calls the company to order the 7-day/50 pound program 'Are you sure?' asks the representative on the phone. 'This is our most rigorous program.' 'Absolutely,' he replies, 'I haven't felt this good in years.'

The next day there's a knock at the door; and when he opens it he finds ahuge muscular guy standing there wearing nothing but pink running shoes and a sign around his neck that reads,

'If I catch you, your ass is mine.

' He lost 63 pounds that week!!
**************************************

Not to be ashamed!

2009-09-06T09:06:00.001-04:00

Couture's new curves

September 4, 2009

Comments on this story (51)

Dave Feschuk
FEATURE WRITER

Girl, 6, ill with swine flu...
New HIV strain discovered
Lipo patient 'almost lost...
911 call after liposuction...
Still grazing after all...

In the photo that has made plus-size model Lizzie Miller momentarily famous, her smile is radiant, her blonde hair elegantly pinned back. But the eyes drift to her midriff, where resides a deposit of fatty tissue that is undeniably foreign to a fashion magazine.

Pick up the September issue ofGlamour magazine and you'll see it: Tucked amongst the familiar images of stick-thin posture queens, there, on page 194, is Miller hunching and laughing in her underwear while forgetting to tuck in a charming little paunch.

"The reaction to that one picture – that one little, three inch by three inch picture – has been incredible," Miller said yesterday, speaking over the phone from her fourth-floor apartment in midtown Manhattan.

Miller's career might never be the same. The 20-year-old from San Jose, Calif. – a size 12 or 14 who stands 5-foot-11 and weighs between 175 and 180 pounds – said this month is shaping up to be the busiest of her seven-year career.

And there are those who are hoping the buzz surrounding Miller's belly might spur the fashion business – long criticized for its seemingly insatiable lust for pencil-limbed models of dubious dietary habits – to change for the better, too. One Glamour reader wrote in to call Miller's signature shot "the most amazing photograph I've ever seen in any women's magazine." Another urged the editors: "Put her on the cover."

"I think it's a sign of the times that women are looking for a little bit more authenticity, a little less artifice, in every part of their lives," Cindi Leive, editor of Glamour, said in an interview with the Today show. "Will (Miller's photo) change our approach (as a fashion magazine)? I think it will."

Miller said she has received emails and Facebook messages from hundreds of people, including a woman who said the picture inspired her to throw away her diet pills and laxatives; and from a man who claimed that only now, after Miller's un-self-conscious image hit newsstands, will his similarly proportioned girlfriend believe him when he tells her she's pretty.

"This whole frenzy has shown that people want to see these kinds of photos – of real women in real situations," she said. "So hopefully (the industry) will take notice and they'll say, `Okay, we should do this, too.'"

It's difficult not to be skeptical about the fashion industry's appetite for reimagining its place in the culture. It was only a few years ago that Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died due to complications from anorexia, her 5-foot-8 frame weighing a mere 88 pounds, an event that spurred at least one runway show to institute minimum height-weight ratios for models. And earlier this month the editor of Self magazine defended the retouching of a cover photograph that made singer Kelly Clarkson look decidedly skinnier.

"(Self magazine is) meant to inspire women to want to be their best," Lucy Danziger, the editor, wrote on the magazine's website.

Miller, for her part, said she understands the inspirational aspect of what she calls fashion's "fantasy world."

"But the problem is, a lot of women are trying, but they can't look like a size-two model, and it's a horrible feeling when you don't see anyone else who looks like you (in magazines)," said Miller. "I've been that self-conscious girl."

Miller will not lie: At first, she didn't love her signature photo. And she hasn't always been the picture of plus-sized confidence. In grade school she says her diet veered between stuffings of McDonald's and Ferrero Rocher chocolates. A post-class bag of Doritos – "A big bag," she says – was a daily ritual.

"At the rate I was gaining weight, I was like, `Wow. I am going to be huge by the time I get to high school.' I was like, `I don't want to be the fat girl,'" said Miller.

In Grade 6 she joined Weight Watchers; she dropped 60 pounds. And by the time she was 13, she was 5-foot-11 and existing somewhere in the neighbourhood of her current body weight, which she now maintains playing co-ed softball in Central Park and belly dancing. Even then, she said, she didn't begin to feel good about her body until she saw herself in the silhouettes of entertainers Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé.

"I'm a pear shape. I'm small at the top, but I'm thick on the bottom. I started seeing J-Lo and Beyoncé and saying, `They're curvy. They're sexy. If I get in shape, I could look like them.' If I can be the person that girls are looking at now and saying, `She's beautiful. I can look like her,' then I'll be doing my job. I think it's just something people have really, really wanted to see. Let's hope they'll see more of it."

Toronto Star