Courtney Love Loses 44 Pounds

Courtney Love, 42, made a New Year's Resolution to lose weight in a healthy way. People Magazine spotted an entry on her website where she says she's lost 44 pounds since the beginning of this year and that she would like to lose another six to eleven pounds. She's done this with a macrobiotic diet focused mostly on vegetables and fish. She has also been getting lots of exercise as well as partaking in regular yoga workouts.

Health Club Weight Loss Programs

Duncan joined a weight loss program at his local health club twenty weeks ago. This customized program includes personal training, consultations with a dietitian and even group therapy. He has been successful in losing 30 pounds. He also dropped six inches around his waist and lowered his blood pressure and bad cholesterol reading.

The health club he belongs to has only two locations (Seattle and Bellevue). But they have a very sophisticated weight loss program available for their members which includes meeting with a dietitian once a week, getting instruction and motivation with a certified personal trainer three times a week and meeting with a support group once each week.

Maybe we will be seeing more health clubs adopt this kind of approach in the near future. Visit Duncan's site, he will be posting more details about his experience here.

The Health Risks of Being Overweight

What are some of the main health risks of being overweight?

Studies have shown that being even just five to ten percent overweight can increase the risk of getting certain chronic diseases including high blood pressure, heart disease, gallstones, colon cancer and stroke.

You are considered overweight if your BMI is over 25 and obese if your BMI is over 30.

Calculate your BMI here. As an example, a person who is 5'6" tall would be overweight if they weighed more than 155 pounds. They would be obese if they weighed more than 186 pounds.

If you are tired of hearing the health risks of being overweight, and such facts don't help you in your quest in losing weight then rest assured that most other people also feel this way. See more about different motivation methods for changing lifestyle habits here.

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The photo above is by Colin Gregory Palmer

Alkaline Versus Acidic Foods

Most people eat too many acidic foods these days. This creates a real imbalance in our bodies. When the body becomes imbalanced and overly acidic the condition is called acidosis. According to the bible of nutritional information, Prescription for Nutritional Healing, symptoms can include insomnia, water retention, recessed eyes, rheumatoid arthritis, migraine headaches, abnormally low blood pressure, dry hard stools and frequent sighing.

The highest acid-forming foods include alcohol, meat and pasta.

Most fresh vegetables and fruits are alkaline-forming foods.

See a four minute video here where Elaina Love, a raw foods chef, discusses alkaline vs acidic foods.

Star Jones in Bathing Suit at Age 45

Star Jones Reynolds celebrated her 45th birthday this Saturday. Here she is on a beach in Miami with friend and actress Vanessa Bell Calloway. (Photo and scoop via Just Jared).See more about Star Jones and her dramatic weight loss story here.

Can You Simply Change Your Lifestyle?

Knowing the health risks isn't enough to stop people who have bad eating habits. This is also the case for people with other bad habits or addictions such as smoking or drinking.

As one example written about by Carol Crenna, over 1,500,000 people get a coronary bypass or angioplasty each year and this costs $60 billion. Doctors tell patients that to stop heart disease before it kills them they have to change their lifestyle. But two years after surgery, ninety percent haven't changed. People find it incredibly difficult to change.

Alan Deutschman is a doctor who wanted to investigate something aside from just giving the scary facts about bad habits to people. He describes a study done on 194 people who suffered from severely clogged arteries. These people underwent a program where they were given help in switching to a vegetarian diet and quitting smoking. They also participated in group discussions, meditation, yoga and exercise classes. After the year-long program they were on their own but it was found that three years later 77 percent were still sticking to the lifestyle changes and had halted or reversed their disease.

Alan Deutschman has written an interesting book about this called Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life He says the way to successful lifestyle change is not by using facts, fear or force to change people but rather to help people change deep rooted patterns of how they think, feel and act.

When Dieting and Overeating Become a Vicious Cycle

Most people on a diet are doomed to failure. The statistics say that only four out of a hundred people who diet are able to lose the weight and keep it off.

Studies have also found that ninety percent of American high school girls are dieting, even though many of them are not overweight and obese. A 2001 study of female high school students found that 11 per cent had used laxatives to lose weight, 15 per cent had taken appetite control pills, and nine per cent had made themselves vomit after eating.

This is a set-up for a lifetime of weight loss failure. A diet is typically seen as a temporary route to success, but the only real long-term solution is to change lifestyle habits. If you are wanting to lose weight consider making a complete overhaul of your daily lifestyle, in a way that you feel you would want to maintain for years and years.

As my doctor recently said to me, just eat many more fruits and vegetables and get some regular exercise. Consider making fruits and vegetables at least fifty percent of your daily consumption of food, forget a specific diet, limit the white flour and sugar habit and the benefits will be astounding, although gradual.

It all sounds so simple...