Marcia Brady Joins Celebrity Fit Club

I used to watch Brady Bunch when I was a kid. Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) was the beautiful oldest daughter on the show. And now it's been announced she's joining the Celebrity Fit Club because she wants to lose weight. McCormick is 5'3" tall.

How old is Maureen McCormick now? I was amazed to find out she turned 50 this year.

She says she has put on about 25 or 30 pounds since her mother died. She has one daughter who thought it would be a good idea for her to sign up for the Celebrity Fit Club show.

She is joined in the fifth season of VH1's weight-loss series by Tiffany, Kimberly Locke, Da Brat, Dustin Diamond, Warren G, Cledu T. Judd and Ross Matthews.

Red Apples for Christmas Cheer

Designing Spaces decorator Veryn Yip has some great (and inexpensive) ideas to get your home ready for the Christmas season. One is the red apple (and low-calorie) trick;

Put a large bowl in the entry way or on the dining room table and fill it with bright red apples (yes, real ones). It costs less than $10 and will last about a month. Best of all, it instantly adds a mass of red to your room.

The apple photo above is by Bialy-Fox.

Fatter than Oprah at her Heaviest

Sour Girl, 28, has just started a site about her new weight loss journey. She says she's now fatter than Oprah was at her heaviest. She wants to lose 85 pounds. She is starting today and wants to reach her goal weight of 150 pounds by the end of September. She's just joined L A Weight Loss. Her mom has given her the membership as an early Christmas present.

The above photos are examples of the before and after success stories at L A Weight Loss. One of their clients, Michele pictured here, lost 125 pounds in 41 weeks.

See Sour Girl's story from the beginning and help encourage her here.

An Artist Loses 50 Pounds

Lon Calhoun is an artist with a studio. He's lost about 50 pounds by joining a fitness center that opened up next door to his workplace. He's also tried sticking to Weight Watchers principles in his daily eating habits.

Two years ago he was up to about 250 pounds. He says he was pudgy as a kid and never did any kind of exercise and started to gain a lot of weight in his thirties.

He's happy he's been successful in losing the weight because he was starting to suffer from painful back problems.

Five years ago, I started having back problems. For about three years, my back would go out about every six weeks. I would be flat on my back for a few days. In the past two years, my back has gone out once and I was only down a day with it, so I've obviously strengthened my back. That is one of the greatest reasons to do all this - to not be in that kind of pain.

To help people motivate themselves to become more fit, he has this to say;

There are a lot of other benefits than just looking better, such as back pain. Your energy level is much higher when you exercise. This is coming from a person who did everything I could to get out of gym when I was in high school. I was never an active, physical person, but there are so many benefits. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you're just getting older.

Another great thing is that if you build up the muscles, the muscles really do burn calories [more than fat], even when you're just sitting around. You can get away with a little more with your diet.

See the full article about his weight loss here.

Karen's Rapid Weight Loss Story

Karen Wright, 46, weighed 342 pounds and lost an astounding 164 pounds in 50 weeks.

She got her start by joining a local TOPS program ('Taking off Pounds Sensibly') and wasn't very optimistic about succeeding. She didn't like the idea of writing down everything she ate. She gave herself one week to try out the program. In the first week she lost 17 pounds and was hooked.

After she lost a bit more weight she started walking. Initially she couldn't do even a quarter of a mile, but she gradually increased the distances.

She says the key to her continued weight loss was having the support of people around her who were struggling with the same problems. These days she walks three to five miles a day.

See her story and a more recent photo here.

Adriana Lima Gains a Few Pounds

Here's a couple of photos of Adriana Lima getting outfitted for the Victoria Secret's 2006 Fashion Show. It looks like she's put on a few pounds recently. See her earlier this year on the GQ cover. It's refreshing to see a supermodel who isn't stick-thin.

Got Calcium? The Best Non-Dairy Alternatives

Getting enough calcium helps us maintain strong bones and avoid osteoporosis. Over 20 million people in the US have osteoporosis.

Calcium has also been found effective in preventing and treating colon cancer, kidney stones, PMS and inflammatory bowel disease. Aside from deteriorating bones, people who are not getting enough calcium often suffer from muscle pain and spasms as well as tingling or numbness in their hands and feet.

How do you know if you're getting enough calcium? Dairy products are the main source of calcium in the North American diet. Three glasses of milk daily would give the average adult about ninety percent of their recommended daily amount. If the milk is 2%, that would add up to about 370 calories.

I don't drink milk (except in my coffee) and I don't see my friends drinking milk. I eat other dairy products which are high in calcium, especially lots of cheese, but this is probably not the healthiest choice of calories on a serious weight loss regiment (in my case I usually eat it with bread and rich slathers of butter). And I can't be smug about pouring milk into my coffee because coffee is actually one substance that depletes calcium reserves in our bodies.

Fortunately there are some great alternatives to dairy products. Topping the list would be spinach, collard greens, sardines, tofu and soya drinks.

Eating four cups of boiled spinach in a day would provide you with 100% of your calcium requirement for only 165 calories. Spinach is so incredibly rich in other nutrients though that you would be getting mega doses on some of the other key nutrients such as Vitamin K; four cups of spinach provides 4,500 percent of daily requirement(!), Vitamin A; at 1,200 percent; folate; 260 percent, iron; 140 percent, vitamin C; 120 percent; dietary fiber; 70 percent, and the rich list of spinach nutritional benefits keeps on going. (Read more here.)

Calcium is not sensitive to cooking. So boiling or frying your spinach until it is complete mush will not cut down on the calcium count.

No one is going to eat four cups of spinach on a daily basis, but the other foods mentioned here also provide an incredible wealth of other nutrients. Dairy products don't stand much of a chance in this competition. It's worth checking out their health benefits and incorporating them more often in your diet. See more about the benefits of collard greens, sardines, tofu and soybeans here.

The photo above is a tofu-based lunch by Blue Lotus.