In the comments thread of my last post I confessed that in my first year at MRU I regained about ten of the pounds I've lost. I will freely admit that it is my fault and I have been working to remedy my poor behavior. My weight gain is the result of severely cutting back on the amount of exercise I was doing (from running 35 miles/week to running 5ish miles per week), eating far too many of the lab snacks I had been bringing in for students, going out for too many meals with new recruits/students/visiting scholars, eating out while traveling to conferences, and an increase in the amount of alcohol I've been consuming with colleagues. I deserve every pound the fat fairy has placed on my more ample posterior.
But, the issue goes beyond vanity over ten pounds or the way the afore mentioned slightly more ample posterior looks in a pair of jeans. The issue is a particular lifestyle that could make me more prone to cardiovascular disease and diabetes and whose warning usually comes in the form of ten extra pounds. That's what Dr. Isis has had to put the kabosh on.
Pal has an interesting post up right now updating us on the status of his own reformation. In it, he says this:
The biggest problem is time management. I'm a great cook, and I could whip up a delicious half a chicken breast and brussels sprouts in no time at all---if I had time to stop at the market on the way home and whip it up at 10 at night. I'm going to have to match this lifestyle change to the immaleable bits of my life.
This is one of the biggest challenges to any sustained weight loss. It not only takes a change in what one is eating, but also a change in the way one is living life. I'm about five weeks in to the return to a healthy lifestyle and I have lost exactly two pounds of the ten I gained back. That's right. Two. That's just under one half pound per week for the last four weeks. I appreciate that it will probably take 8-10 weeks to completely rectify my weight gain. That has required me to largely restructure my life around the goal of maintaining my health and fitness.
This has meant a change in the way I shop for food. Over the last year I started trying to shop in bulk to try to save time. We ended up with a lot more processed food in our diet. Now, I only shop in bulk for meat and paper products and I try to make shopping for food an event with Little Isis (and Mr. Isis when he is so inspired). I've found a local produce and dairy market/bakery and we head there twice a week for supplies. I buy only what I'll need for the next few days. It takes more time and effort, but I also think I am teaching him the importance of making good food choices. I also find I am spending less money because I only buy what I know we will immediately eat and I don't throw away a lot of wasted food. It has also meant finding a gym open 24 hours a day with free child care.
These changes have not been easy, and that brings me to the topic of today's rant. One of the most challenging things about losing 85 pounds was dealing with my own unrealistic expectations -- the ideas that it should happen faster or more easily. While I have been at the gym over the last month I have been watching the part dance competition/part weight loss show Dance Your Ass Off on Oxygen. A huge part of me (pardon the pun) likes it because I identify with some of the people on the show. I have been as large as they have and it's motivating to watch them succeed. Part of me feels frightened by the message the show sends. I am concerned that the contestants on the show are losing weight at a rate that most people would not be able to sustain and that this sets people up to believe that they are failing. It took me a year to lose 85 pounds at a rate of 1-2 pounds per week with a combination of exercise and modifying my diet. People on Dance Your Ass Off are losing 3-6 pounds per week. They are also exercising >4 hours a day and eating as many calories as I ate yesterday.
Still, I think many people have the expectation that you should be able to take a casual 30 minute stroll a day and lose 20 pounds/month. I realize today that this includes physicians. After being pointed there by Coturnix over at Blog Around the Clock, I went over to Dr. Charles Examining to read his post titled Why Exercise is Not the Best Prescription for Weight Loss.
I cringed to imagine what I might find within. Dr. Charles discusses a study published in PLoS, writing the following (emphasis a la Isis):
A recent study, published this year by PLos One, looked at 464 overweight women, and divided them into four groups. Women in three of the four groups were asked to work out with a personal trainer for 72 minutes, 136 minutes, and 194 minutes per week, respectively, for six months. Women in the fourth group acted as a control and were told to maintain their usual routines. All the women were asked not to change their dietary habits.
...
All the groups lost weight that was statistically significant from their baseline - that's the good news - but the absolute amount was only 2-5 pounds. Unfortunately for the American Heart Association and College of Sports Medicine, there were no significant differences between groups in terms of amount of weight lost, including the control group that didn't increase exercise at all (P>0.05 for all between-group comparisons).
As an aside, I've learned that the study was also covered in Time. I don't have the heart to read it.
It is clear to me after reading his post that Dr. Charles doesn't understand the study. First, let's be clear about what the authors of the study did find. The cohorts with the lowest activity lost 1.4 and 2.1 kg respectively. The highest activity group lost 1.5 kg. Of note, and in the authors' own words, "All exercise groups had a significant reduction in waist circumference which was independent of changes in weight" with the 95% confidence interval extending out to a 5 cm (about 2 in) decrease in waist circumference.
Dr. Charles writes this off as a loss for the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine. As a member of both organizations, I am fairly familiar with their current recommendations. To maintain cardiovascular fitness the American Heart Association's 2003 consensus statement recommended 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day of the week. That's more than any of the cohorts in the PLoS study performed. In order to achieve weight loss, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends 60-90 minutes of exercise five days a week. That's 106-256 more minutes than the most active cohort in the PLoS study performed. Yet, even with this mild exercise regimen, participants in the study saw a decline in waist circumference of up to 5 cm.
Beyond that, the researchers aimed to test whether individuals would volitionally increase their caloric intake to match their new expenditure. Participants were told to eat as they pleased. In the groups with the lowest exercise loads, they didn't. The mean weight loss was equivalent to that predicted by the researchers. The mean weight loss in the group with the highest exercise load was blunted, indicating that they did compensate by increasing intake. But, let me emphasize this again:
These individuals had no counseling in how to make appropriate food choices.
As I wrote on Dr. Charles's blog, I imagine that the obese individuals in the study did not become obese eating a proper diet. With behavioral therapy and dietary modifications, they might have been even more successful. Exercise is a fantastic prescription for weight loss and valuable in preventing heart disease and stroke, with the proper supportive therapies, as long as we have realistic expectations.
Reading the interpretations of this article makes my eyes bleed. It also makes me realize that there is a reason people are not successful losing weight -- there are not easily accessible, comprehensive resources available to help people make the right choices. What are available are wackaloon, sensational headlines that frustrate people and make them feel unsuccessful.
Now Dr. Isis is all riled up. I need to go for a run...
Medicine & Health
Life Science
Comments
I totally heart Dance Your Ass Off. I agree that some are losing weight way faster than can be sustainable, but if you want crazy fast weight loss, check out the Biggest Loser...I still watch it but I hope they realize they can't expect to continue that rate of loss at home (and those watching can't either).
I hope you had a great run! I managed to work in four runs whilst at the beach this past week!!
Posted by: minerva | August 9, 2009 3:11 PM
Weight isn't much of an issue for me - I look like the offspring of a string bean and a fence post, but I do feel badly when I'm not eating well - I'm tired and I get more frequent migraines. So eating well is really important for me, but it definitely isn't always easy. I'm a student and I work full time and I have an itsy bitsy budget.
I'm a good cook, but most of the things I grew up learning to make take quite a long time. In the last couple years I've finally worked out how to eat well most weeks. Joining my local CSA was good because it forces me to primarily eat veggies and helps me plan meals around the produce I get every week. I make a lot of soups that I freeze in individual portions. The Three Dollar Dinner and other such cookbooks are full of cheap, fast, and healthy food that get me through my busiest weeks - make one or two recipes in an hour on a weekend and eat it all week! I also try not to eat baked goods unless I've made them myself.
I like how eating well has changed my lifestyle. Cooking does take time, so my social life now revolves around food. Cooking for and with people is very fun and satisfying.
Posted by: sarcozona | August 9, 2009 3:38 PM
I find the depiction of the Nun in such a provocative pose to be distasteful. As a Catholic I find it obscene.
I am reminded of JM Coetzee's novel Elizabeth Costello in which the protagonist upbraids Paul West for "obscene" imagining: "Through Hitler's hangman a devil entered Paul West."
Could there really have been witnesses who went home that night and, before they forgot, before memory, to save itself, went blank, wrote down, in words that must have scorched the page, an account of what they had seen, down to the words the hangman spoke to the souls consigned to his hands, fumbling old men for the most part, stripped of their uniforms, togged out for the final event in prison cast-offs, serge trousers caked with grime, pullovers full of moth-holes, no shoes, no belts, their false teeth and their glasses taken from them, exhausted, shivering, hands in their pockets to hold up their pants, whimpering with fear, swallowing their tears, having to listen to this coarse creature, this butcher with last week’s blood caked under his fingernails, taunt them, telling them what would happen when the rope snapped tight, how the shit would run down their spindly old-man’s legs, how their limp old-man’s penises would quiver one last time?
By giving undue life to such an event he contaminated himself and the readers of his work when ironically his intention was most likely to warn of such evil.
When one is forced to think oneself into the position, and reproduce the mentality, of abhorrent individuals (whether it be in writing or "art") one's own self is compromised.
Or to put it another way: it is said that the censor responsible for passing material as fit for publication is the one most likely to become debauched.
The argument you make is persuasive however the blasphemous drawing is, IMHO, gratuitous and perpetuates what you are clearly at pains to prevent.
Posted by: Pete Rooke | August 9, 2009 5:07 PM
Sorry, wrong place.
My comment should have been placed here:
http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/2009/06/ask_dr_isis_--_dealing_with_pr.php
I had two separate posts up at the same time.
Posted by: Pete Rooke | August 9, 2009 5:11 PM
I was pretty sure none of the nuns I have ever known dressed much like the illustration on this post.
Posted by: Harold | August 9, 2009 6:26 PM
LOON ALERT!
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | August 9, 2009 7:16 PM
HA HA HA! That comment was hilarious. When I first saw that comment I thought, "Wait! None of the nuns I saw in mass this morning were dressed like the bare-assed voluptuous fairy who leaves ten pounds on my ass in the middle of the night!"
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | August 9, 2009 8:04 PM
I read the Time piece, most of it was arguing that people eat more to reward themselves for having exercised. To me that sounds less like an argument for not exercising, than an argument for finding a form of exercise that doesn't feel like punishment, maybe one you actually enjoy? Is that such a weird idea?
Hard to believe people actually get paid to write crap like that.
Posted by: Charlotte | August 9, 2009 8:33 PM
LOON ALERT!
You have no idea just how much.
Dude used to post some of the most awkward and WTF analogies about necrophiliac milkmen who got raped because they were wearing a short skirt (or something along those lines) at PZ's place before he got banned. I mean, shit, you have to be a real fucking wackjob to get banned from there.
Posted by: LostMarbles | August 9, 2009 9:18 PM
What frustrates me the most about this is that it's just going to discourage people from exercising. Exercise is more than just a prescription for weight loss - it's a way to stay active.
I don't run just because I want to stay fit (the weight loss associated with it, in combination with a good diet is an added bonus), but because I love doing it. There's nothing better than taking an hour out of my day to enjoy the outdoors. But that's just me.
Instead of telling people that exercising won't be helping them, perhaps they should be emphasizing the importance of a healthy, balanced diet in conjunction with exercise.
Posted by: x-ine | August 9, 2009 9:27 PM
I'm a bit of a lurker (okay, I AM a lurker!), so I thought I'd actually post a comment (gasp!), because right before I read this I noticed that exact issue of TIME sitting in my living room. Sadly, the roommate who reads it tends to have a bit of calorie phobia, so hopefully she skips this one... Couldn't agree more with you on there being SO much bad information out there for people to pick from.
I'm starting a Ph.D in Psychology this fall, and have really been trying to make more of an effort to question the articles I read that reference "new studies" (since, apparently, this is good for grad students...). It's rather scary how many of them are misinterpreted, or have their main points just overlooked because it somehow didn't agree with the theme of the article (i.e OMG EXCERCISE DOESN'T MATTER, probably will sell more magazines).
Anyways, back to lurking for me, thanks for all your great posts :)
Posted by: Lindsey | August 9, 2009 10:56 PM
None of the nuns I know are as callipygous as that fairy. At least... not so far as I know. Hmmm.
Posted by: becca | August 9, 2009 10:59 PM
Hi Dr. I,
Just a few comments to perhaps lessen your ire, and clarify things.
Not sure if you read my whole post, but I also speculated that a decrease in waist circumference might be good independent of the narrow focus on absolute weight loss, since increased abdominal fat stores are associated with insulin resistance and even some forms of cancer.
Secondly, the American College of Sports Medicine (cool that you’re a member… I can still dunk a tennis ball)…. the ACSM recommending 60-90 minutes of exercise 5 days a week… that’s pretty hard for most people to budget, and probably leads to a lot of people giving up before they’ve begun. Is that 60-90 minute recommendation evidence-based? Can you point me to the relevant Category A/B evidence the ACSM used? I’d really like to read it as a counterpoint to the PLos One study (which probably falls into Cateogry B evidence). Or was this just a “consensus statement” which as I’m sure you know carries less weight, and is very prone to dogmatic repetition of thought leaders' conjecture (see deteriorating evidence that very tight glycemic control in diabetics improves outcomes, very counterintuitive, but thoroughly disproven, and thought leaders and most physicians are still dogmatically chasing HBA1c levels below 6.5, to the possible detriment of their patients' health)
http://firstwatch.jwatch.org/cgi/content/full/2009/421/2
I would guess that if you asked the authors of the Plos One study if they had required a cohort of the women in their study to cram in an additional 106-256 minutes of exercise per week, they might speculate that the “compensatory mechanisms” (that rendered all four cohorts’ weight loss statistically insignificant when compared with one another) might also be expected to occur. Unfortunately, they might hypothesize that the extra exercise might not break the trend, and would certainly be unsustainable as a lifestyle, and that a successful weight loss strategy includes many other factors including dietary education as you mentioned, but that was outside the scope of this article and my post on it.
As a clinician, not a researcher, I can tell you that some people are very successful in losing weight, and most do it with diet and exercise. I also see a lot of people who are unhappy, because they are exercising like crazy, trying to eat right, and their weight is not budging. As I mentioned in the very first paragraph and in multiple other places in my post – exercise is wonderful for a lot of reasons. Exercise may not need to be terribly vigorous, but rather the accumulated exertions of an entire day. Did you check out the fidgeting stuff? Interesting. I recommend exercise to just about all my patients without contraindication… but perhaps telling single moms, middle aged professionals with arthritis, and grad students preparing for their oral defenses to find one and half hours, Monday through Friday, for the rest of their lives (?), to dedicate to running on a treadmill as a way to lose weight…. Please show me the concrete evidence, ala this PLos One study, that this is effective and sustainable. The real world lacks your consummate will power!
What and how much we eat seems a better prime determinant of whether we lose weight or not, with exercise being very important for many reasons and certainly not detrimental, unless people are given the wrong expectations. I guess that’s the bigger question… do you think people will stop exercising if more studies like this fail to reinforce current dogma?
I wish I could work out for 2 hours every day, and on some days I do. No one is telling people not to.
Posted by: drcharles | August 9, 2009 11:52 PM
I've actually been attempting to figure out how to readjust my diet and pick up the right kind of exercise to battle the unhealthyness I feel I've picked up in the last year. I wasn't exactly healthy to begin with, because I am not a cook - I am in fact a ridiculously lazy eater, which means I lived off of premade fruit smoothies and bagels for about the first three years of living on my own before moving in with someone who cooks and cooks well. But I've definitely gotten bigger and that bothers me - partly vanity, partly practicality. I quit my job to go to grad school and since my significant other is supporting me as it is I really can't ask him to buy me a bunch of new clothes because I can't fit into my old ones because he's nice enough to feed me. Anyway, I've been having trouble figuring out what I actually ought to eat, how much of it to eat, and what to do with myself to make sure calories get burned and muscles get worked (and I don't hurt myself - I can't run and I hike with poles because I have bad knees, for example) and there's a LOT of conflicting stuff out there.
Posted by: Avery | August 9, 2009 11:54 PM
* Had a roommate in grad school who lost four dress sizes by switching to the bus rather than the car: the bus stop was three blocks away, maybe four.
* My mom started parking her car a mile from the MRU and walking in each morning. Sure, she had to budget a bit more time, but she saved at least $400 in parking fees per semester, didn't have to pay for a gym, and didn't need special clothes or equipment.
* I myself experienced a weight change of almost 15 pounds when I moved from a five-story building with an inaccessible elevator to a one-story building.
Exercise *is* out there to be had, and you can build it in to life. Building it in helps you succeed. The same is true with food, as Isis points out. Your habits determine your results.
Posted by: kt | August 10, 2009 12:19 AM
Arrrrrgggghhh!
They lost waist circumference (and I'll bet a good bit off the butt and thighs, too.) They lost a modest amount of weight. The waist loss isn't fully accounted for by the weight loss.
That's not a hard calculation to do.
I will -- grudgingly -- forgive the average Chris-in-the-street for not distinguishing between "weight loss" and "fat loss" but a flipping research study has no excuse. There's no reason that they couldn't have done a body-fat assessment before and after, but noooooo they just read the scales and wrote it up.
I'd be ripping my hair out if I had any left.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | August 10, 2009 12:54 AM
What I find so frustrating about these articles (I braced myself and read the Time article) is that they seem to focus so intensely on 1 factor. Exercise, or diet, but not diet AND exercise. So, yes, if you walk a couple miles and eat a muffin that you wouldn't have otherwise eaten as a reward, you are not going to lose weight. But if you walk that mile and eat what you would normally eat, that is 100-somethin cal less/day. Which over a long period, every day, adds up.
Also, I think the articles overlook how even a small weight loss can dramatically improve a person's health. I have seen patients with type 2 diabetics who make small but significant life changes--walking 30 minutes almost every day, paying more attention to their diet (carb counting, etc)--who lose something like 15-30lbs over the course of a year, and at the end of that year they are making significant progress. They have reduced the amount of diabetic meds they need, they have more energy, they have hope of living happier and healthier lives. Are they swim suit models? No. But that's not the goal. They are more motivated to continue to work towards being healthier.
For myself, I know that I'm a vastly happier person when I am fit. Maybe only 5lbs skinnier or so, but feel 100x better. The trick for me is maintaining fitness when I get knocked down by a cold, an injury, or another pesky life interruption.
For most people (at least for myself, friends, and many patients I know) one of the biggest helpful factors is support. Work-out buddies. Healthy food buddies. People that encourage you when you're good and help you to be better when you're not. The last time I got out of shape, I asked my dad to call me on some mornings to tell me to get out of bed and go for a run before work. He thought it was hilarious and I thought it was helpful.
I want to see a study where friends/family members are paired up and given exercise plans and diet counseling, and are tasked with helping to keep their friend/family member on track and encouraged--working out together and cooking for each other at least once a week, comparing food journals, etc. I think it would be awesome.
Posted by: jean | August 10, 2009 2:35 AM
You've made some strong points, in that realistic expectations and preparing to treat fitness as a life change are important. Over the past eight years, I've remolded the way I shop, cook, eat and exercise which has resulted in losing 50 pounds and several percent body fat. I think the one other key thing I had to stay motivated, particularly when progress was slow was a workout partner (I'm married to mine).
The TIME article is misleading nonsense. The author is complaining about his lack of weight loss progress (it's because he's doing it wrong. . .) and trying to justify it by citing science - and doing it badly. I'm blogging about it now.
Hang in there. I view it as a journey. I've learned a lot of things from that journey and found resources. You will too. Good luck.
Posted by: JLowe | August 10, 2009 6:52 AM
I am also quite a voluptuous woman-- a doctor with a sedentary lifestyle, who attends to conferences every now and enjoy the food that is associated with these "scientific" gatherings. I have tried to keep some weight off myself, buying exercise dvds and trying on fad diets.
I have tried South Beach diet and believe me, I shed a lot of pounds with it. Plus, I am learning the power of walking. I do not use the elevator sometimes; I'd rather take the stairs. I walk several blocks from home to work and vice versa. I think diet and exercise should go together.. and DISCIPLINE.
Well, that's it folks. For now, Id like you to take a look at something: http://www.plantstemcells.net/.
Posted by: Gabs | August 10, 2009 7:34 AM
It is one of the great ironies of life that the Fat Fairy herself has a marvelous ass. Damn you, Fat Fairy! ;)
Posted by: kalieris | August 10, 2009 8:09 AM
I second D.C. Sessions' ire, and raise it: How hard would it have been to actually have measured something other than just weight (or even body composition)--I mean, they couldn't check blood chemistry too? Exercise isn't just good for weight loss. Even if you don't lose weight, exercising improves your overall health. People get so hung up on weight loss that, when they start an exercise program and don't lose weight, they get discouraged and stop--even if the exercise has improved their cardiovascular fitness!
Posted by: Dr. Kate | August 10, 2009 8:22 AM
Or even if they've dropped 5-10 cm off of their waist sizes and are fitting into clothes that they haven't been able to wear for years.
Blessings to $HERSELF: she makes a point of noticing the progress I'm making on belly-reduction. Perhaps too little is said about the importance of having an appreciative audience.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | August 10, 2009 9:44 AM
We might do well to examine what the bible has to say on this issue: gluttony is a sin.
However, not only must one avoid being greedy because it is intrinsically sinful but because it also leads to sinful implications. For instance, it strains relationships by weakening levels of intimacy - the partners may then stray in an effort to fulfil their lustful desire (this is not to excuse this sinfulness which must be seen as equally abhorrent). You might also be interested to note the high proportion of lesbians who are overweight. My own humble opinion is that sapphic love is often nothing more than an excuse for putting on weight.
Posted by: Pete Rooke | August 10, 2009 10:40 AM
Pete Rooke @ 23
Dude, are you at all aware of your surroundings or do you honestly think that everyone has minds as fucking repulsive as yours?
I'm not sure whether I should RAGE, laugh, or cry at your comment. That's how fucked up it is.
Posted by: LostMarbles | August 10, 2009 11:18 AM
I'm going to vote "laugh."
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | August 10, 2009 11:35 AM
I also second DC Sessions complaint about body composition. If this was poker I would also raise the complaint by the lack of information about pre- to post- changes in fitness. This little gem was in the methods:
WTF - why not give the pre-post data, they only give one value for VO2max. If there were changes in VO2max during the training period [expected], some indication should be given and also the exercise training intensity [50% of VO2max] would have changed. The training effect was not noted in other simple ways, such as changes in perceived exertion and heart rate at the given intensity.
Other simple things could also be done, like look for positive changes in cholesterol fractions, fasting blood glucose, psychological self-assessments etc. And the skinfold method for body composition has its pitfalls [and those mean %ages look suspiciously low to me]. And it isn't a good indicator for intraperitoneal fat, the fat that really counts in determining health risk. In sum, the key question is not whether they lost weight, it's are they healthier in spite of minimal weight loss? and that needs to be emphasized, rather than the headline that could be interpreted as meaning that exercise really doesn't count
One of the valid criticisms that Dr. Charles has about exercising 60+ minutes per day is the time constraint. This is probably the prime issue in the lack of exercise many young professionals. Time management for sufficient exercise is a problem, but many have managed it - unfortunately to the detriment of other important things. However, time is probably less an issue with the participants in the study - post-menopausal women. Probably most of them are empty-nesters or retired. There are large segments of our society, probably a majority, that could devote 300 min/week to exercise. Just look at TV, video and recreational computer use [excepting vitally important goddess blogs, of course].
Posted by: natural cynic | August 10, 2009 12:34 PM
I'm just going to roll my eyes at Rooke. And only partly because he forgot sloth.
Posted by: natural cynic | August 10, 2009 12:39 PM
Dr. Isis's fat fairy is seriously hot.
Posted by: yolio | August 10, 2009 2:18 PM
If I looked like the fat fairy, I would consider myself at goal weight! :)
Posted by: speedwell | August 10, 2009 4:12 PM
As someone who used to hate to run (and I'm still not crazy about it in the cold) and just finished her first 5K, all I can say is I wish that, as a biped, being bipedal counted more towards greater fitness/weight maintance. I walk a lot for work (because it would make too much sense to keep the lab in a single building/campus!) and I found that even while training for my 5K, or using my WiiFit every day (min 20 min aerobic) I did not ever see a substantial change in my weight.
Endurance, yes, weight/body fat, no. On some level I feel bad because I shouldn't care, since I am healthy, all that I'm doing by thinking about my weight is giving in to advertising. Or something. But now I do understand where the Goddess comes from when she talks about running being a good thing!
Posted by: JustaTech | August 10, 2009 4:19 PM
My own humble opinion is that sapphic love is often nothing more than an excuse for putting on weight.
Now THAT is some fucked up speculation. You are one of the craziest motherfuckers I've read in a long time. Go find your Bible and smoke it.
Posted by: Candid Engineer | August 10, 2009 6:51 PM
It's very difficult to get people (including myself sometimes) to acknowledge that they overeat, and to intervene in even a simple way like keeping a food diary for a few days. People are tricky.
Posted by: PalMD | August 10, 2009 8:03 PM
I THINK THAT TILTE TO THAT PROGRAM 'DANCE YOUR ASS OFF' IS UNRESPECTABLE SPCIALLY FOR THE YOUNGSTER, COME ON MAN THATS WHY THE ARE THEY THEY ARE, SHOWS LIKE THAT KIDS WILL NEVER HAVE RESPECT TO THIER PARENTS, PUT YOURSELF IN THERE POSITION, HOW WOULID U LIKE FOR YOUR KIDS TALK LIKE THAT IN SCHOOL TELLING LITTLE OVERWEIGTH GIRLS 'SAY FATSO WHY DON'T U DANCE YOUR ASS OFF' THEY ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE IT THAN WHAT HAPPENS THEY WIND UP GOING TO THE PRINCIPALS OFFICE.THATS JUST AN EXAMPLE.SO IF I WERE U I GET RID OF THAT STUPID TILTLE'DANCING YOUR WEIGHT OFF' SOUNDS MORE APROPIATE.I LIKE THE DON'T GET ME WRONG , BUT THAT NAME HAS TO GO 'BOTTOM LINE!
Posted by: R.C. HERNANDEZ | August 26, 2009 8:20 PM
Is it really loud where you are, R.C. Hernandez?
Posted by: ginger | August 26, 2009 8:31 PM
And illiterate.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | August 26, 2009 8:32 PM