You have probably noticed that the More Than Surviving site and Weight Loss and the Type 2 Diabetes programs have a new look. The Healthy Baby program is scheduled for a similar upgrade and will be functional in April 2010. The Smoking Cessation programy will also have a new look in Spring 2010. The Prevent Diabetes will be available in early May. Spanish versions of the Type 2 Diabetes, Weight Management and Healthy Baby programs will also be completed soon.
A New Look for the More Than Surviving Programs
February 22nd, 2010Biggest Loser 2010
February 4th, 2010The TV show The Biggest Loser has been a big hit for NBC. Many people watching this show have learned much about weight management and found inspiring examples of determination and success. The amount of weight people are losing this season ranges between 4 and 15+ pounds per week or one to three percent of total body weight. This is achieved entirely through learning how to safely increase physical activity and improving eating patterns.
Contestants have a unique opportunity in that they are immersed in a supportive culture 24/7 with a professional and medically supervised staff. Many contestants who are sent home have continued to implement changes and lose significant amounts of weight.
The variety of contestants with their wide range of body types should encourage people who have come to believe that their body just can’t lose weight the way other people can. You see almost all contestants losing four pounds or more each week, week after week. It can be done.
Yet these people are getting a level of support most of us could never afford. You can learn most of these same principles from other well designed evidence-based weight management approaches—even if you don’t have the incentives and hands-on professional support each day.
Several of the contestants on The Biggest Loser have baseline weights in the 300 to 500+ range. This makes it possible for them to lose such large amounts each week—and they deserve credit for each pound lost. In the OneSizeFitsMe program we recommend a more modest goal of one to two pounds per week. If you are very heavy you may be able to easily exceed this goal. But most people using our program will not have the incentives, time, support staff or medical supervision to match the weight loss rates achieved on the program.
If you haven’t seen The Biggest Loser, you might want to check it out as it might be a good resource to help you. We have no relationship with this show or NBC.
Healthy Babies in the U.S.
December 22nd, 2009During recent debates about healthcare reform you may have heard talk about how the U.S. ranks # 30 in term of infants who die during pregnancy or within one year of birth. This might be especially concerning if you are pregnant. In November 2009, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention completed a detailed analysis comparing infant mortality in the U.S. to other countries and found that “The main cause of the United States’ high infant mortality rate when compared with Europe is the very high percentage of preterm births in the United States.” (The full report is available at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.pdf.)
You can take some comfort that the quality of care for most women in the U.S. is comparable to countries with much lower infant mortality rates. Most women in the U.S. do not have a known risk for a preterm birth. If your doctor identifies that you have a risk for a preterm birth, it is important to work with him or her to manage these risks.
Higher preterm birth rates in the U.S. have been associated with African American women and women with few economic resources. For these women, getting prenatal care and having a doctor or certified nurse midwife to support them is very important.
What are your chances of succeeding with a weight loss program?
December 16th, 2009Understanding the results of medical research can be frustrating. Often TV, newspapers and magazines cover anything related to diets because consumers are so interested. This coverage is often superficial, distorted and in some cases tainted by people using a news-type approach to market their own product.
If you want to know more, it is now very easy to access medical journals online. Yet, many of the well-designed studies only report the average weight lost for a given program or approach. Intuitively you know that some people will lose more weight than others. Some people enrolled in a study probably were not very motivated to lose weight and may have actually gained.
Average weight loss doesn’t tell you what percentage of people actually lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off. To help a person better answer this question, several researchers re-analyzed study results. Among participants in intense programs where people committed about an hour per week, about half of the individuals lost five percent or more of their starting weight—about a third of those lost more than ten percent. In less intense programs, about a third of people lost five percent or more. If you are reading this right now your chances of success are probably higher that the results of several weight loss studies because you are starting with an interest in succeeding. (The full results of the analysis will be published in the International Journal of Obesity in 2010.)
