Don't go stuff yourself

Why Overeating Hurts and How You Can Avoid It on Thanksgiving

Excerpts:

There's some debate among the experts about stomach capacity, but the average stomach ordinarily holds about one or two cups of food. On Thursday it may be contending with twice that amount or much more. To accommodate the added bulk, the stomach stretches like a balloon. If you were accustomed to overeating, frequent expansion and contraction would have exercised this muscle, allowing it to expand more easily, Sandon says.

If not, though, you'll be feeling the discomfort of a muscle stretched beyond its normal capacity.

And that feeling's going to linger. You may fill up with so much fatty food -- which the digestive enzymes are slow to digest -- that you'll delay the process by which your pyloric sphincter (the ring-shaped muscle at the tail end of your stomach) pushes liquefied food into the small intestine, where the nutrients are absorbed.

Keep reading for some suggestions on how to avoid this.

And more tips here.

FYI:

• Fat flummoxes digestive enzymes and makes food linger longer in the stomach.
• Fiber, which the stomach can't digest, can help speed food through your system.
• Liquid leaves the stomach more swiftly than solids.

To combat this:

• Eat breakfast: Don't starve yourself during the day. Otherwise, you'll be so ravenous come turkey time you'll stuff yourself silly.
• Move the mealtime: Eat at 1:00 instead of 4:00, Salge Blake recommends. Wait till it's late and you may find yourself saying, "It's a long time between breakfast and 4:00. I'm noshing!," she says. "The absolute worst that will happen," she says, "is that we may be hungry again at 6:00. So you pull it all out again then" to eat when your stomach is really ready for more.
• Allocate alcohol: Nothing kills willpower like too much to drink. If alcohol is part of your celebration, sip wine with your meal; don't imbibe on an empty stomach.

Finally, Salge Blake says, "Remember, this is not the Last Supper. It's not the last time you'll ever see turkey and mashed potatoes. This is America. If you want to make turkey in July, make turkey in July!"

Send in the Marines

Maine man sheds 140 pounds to join the Marines

Army and Navy recruiters took one look at 330-pound Ulysses Milana and told him to forget about joining. "'You've got to lose weight,'" Milana remembers them saying. But Marine recruiters were willing to work with him as he began his weight-loss journey in December 2007.

Now, 11 months later, Milana is 140 pounds lighter as he leaves Monday for Parris Island, S.C., to begin boot camp.

Click on title for whole story.

More reasons to lose weight

Fat Chance: On the Scales of Injustice, Overweight Women Always Lose Out

Squeezing into her office clothes, squeezing on to the train and then squeezing behind her desk are all in a day's work for a fat woman. Until she gets fired, that is.

Overweight women, according to medical research, are far more likely to lose their jobs.

They are also more likely to be a victim of crime - or a criminal. And as if all that wasn't enough, they are also more likely to be broke.

Click on title to read the rest.

Week 2 begins

Week 1 was great except for one little day, Saturday. Blown. But I lost One Pound anyway. Took one walk and did a few push-ups on two days. The plan is to gradually increase the exercise to 4 times a week.

Tell us about your week. And let me know if you've ever heard of anyone using chocolate pudding as a topping for ice cream. My skinny 17 year old son did this the other day. It struck me as over-the-top, though I admit I was intrigued. (And thought it could use some whipped cream.) Next time I'll take a picture and post it. That's as close as I'll get to eating it. Good grief. That would not make me feel good. Life must be different when you have a metabolism that metabolizes.

Trigger foods

The Thin Commandments Diet contains lots of wisdom about weight loss and maintenance. The author understands how and why some of us have problems with over-eating.

He suggests that we think about which foods have been major problems for us in the past. He calls these "trigger foods." We can either eliminate them entirely, or set up rules for consuming them (only in a restaurant, only at your mother's, only on Christmas, only on the weekend, whatever makes sense to you). The key is to be honest with ourselves about our history with these trigger foods and how well we can handle them.

From Amazon:

In Part One, Dr. Gullo shares his Thin Commandments, including:

• Think historically, not just calorically--identify trigger foods that can undermine weight loss

• Slips should teach you, not defeat you--uncover the "24 hour secret" and never gain weight from binging again

• Success is about substitution, not denial--discover the 10 most common diet-busting foods and their satisfying substitutes

Exercise: interval training, not just for Olympians

We have to exercise. And once we get started, we feel so much better when we do it.

Here's a little article about interval training from about.com.

Workouts for Stress Relief
by Paige Waehner

How do you deal with stress? If you’re like most people, you probably have a mixed bag of tools. Some are healthy, like taking a day off or getting a massage, and some are not so healthy, like eating sweets or drinking too much. It’s a good idea to have a variety of ways to reduce tension so you always have something to reach for (besides those chips or glass of wine) that offers relief. Exercise is one of the best ways to ease stress and anxiety while giving you a sense of confidence and mastery when other parts of your life feel out of control. These workouts offer you new ideas for reducing stress.

Interval Training

Higher intensity cardio is great for stress reduction because your body releases endorphins, feel-good hormones that boost your energy and mood. Interval training helps relieve stress by allowing you to work at higher intensities for shorter periods of time, making the workout effective and efficient.

Try it:

• Choose any activity you like (running, walking, etc.)
• Warm up for 5-10 minutes
• Increase intensity (adding hills, incline, resistance and/or speed) so that you're working at Level 7-8 on this perceived exertion scale for 30-60 seconds.
• Reduce intensity and recover for 2 or more minutes
• Repeat intervals for 20 or more minutes

More Interval Workouts

• Beginner Interval Workout
• Sprints and Hills
• Treadmill Intervals

Day One

11 weeks from today is my birthday. If my goal is to lose about 15 pounds (actually, 12-17 pounds), I need to lose 1.5 pounds a week. Sounds easy, but not really. From my extensive experience, I know that I can't lose weight quickly; my metabolism moves at the speed of molasses in January. I'm going to have to be very careful, and endure some hunger.

Anyone want to join me?

Starting tomorrow . . .

I've got a goal:

126 pounds by 1/26 (my birthday)

I've been stuck with these 15 (or so) extra pounds for months and months. If I don't get serious, one day soon something (like a seam) is gonna give.

I'm hoping public humiliation will do the trick. I might even do a public weigh-in in a week or so. :-/

(Honestly, I'd settle for 130 by 1/30, or even 131 by 1/31. But that's my final offer.)