A Serious Post - Starving in a Land of Plenty

A French model died yesterday, of anorexia. She was 28 years old, weighed something like 59 pounds, and had struggled with anorexia since she was 13.

It's stories like this that make me worried every time I hear Michele Obama maundering on and on about how our children are too fat, and need to eat less and exercise more. Girls are unable to get away from boys obsessed with their looks as it is, and obsess over their weight from an early age already, now a horror of weight gain is going to be institutionalized in schools? Kids are going to have to be weighed every day to make sure they aren't ...horrors! 5 pounds over weight? How many more cases of anorexia is this going to engender?

Yes, anorexics take this weight obsession to extreme, and lets not forget there are bulemics out there also....women who eat, but then vomic it all up again. (That's something I'll never understand. Better to eat nothing than to vomit everyday, I've vomited when I've been sick and it is the most unpleasant experience. And they do it after every meal!)

That is why, in this blog, I urge you not to concern yourself with your weight. I don't even want you stepping on a scale more than once every 2 weeks or so. Find a pair of jeans that are just a leetle bit too tight, and use them as your measuring stick once a week. If they are loose, you're losing weight. If they continue to be too tight, then you're taking my advice about a relaxed approach to weight loss a little too relaxed.

I can't emphasize enough...you should not be losing weight because you're concerned about your appearance to other people, in particular boys. You should be concerned about being at a healthy weight, because it is the healthy thing in order for you to live a long and enjoyable life. Eating well is part of that enjoyment.

French Model Dies of Anorexia

Ironically, the 28 year old model and actress, Isabelle Caro, who told aspiring models in an online video, "Believe in life" has died of anorexia, on November 17th, in France. The young French model told friends and interviewers, that she had struggled with anorexia since she was only 13 years old.

Caro was featured in a controversial Italian ad campaign shot by Oliviero Toscani in 2007. The ads were run in the United States and Europe, after a 21 year old model from Brazil died from anorexia. Caro appeared in the ads which contained headlines which said "No Anorexia". In these displays, Caro was pictured naked, with jutting out check bones and back bones. The model stated that she weighed only 59 pounds at the time the pictures were made.

Vincent Bigler, a singer from Switzerland had been at work with Caro on a music viideo, for lyrics he wrote for a song about anorexia. Speaking of Caro, he said, she "left me with many images, and much hope."

Distributors of pro-anorexia sites on the Internet have posted her obituary and photos of Caro containing the words, "Die young, stay pretty." [Apparently, pro anorexia sites, or 'pro-ana' are quite popular on the web. These people believe anorexia is a lifestyle choice, not a mental illness, and their goal is to be as skeletal as possible! Sorry, folks, it may be a lifestyle "choice" but its an incredibly stupid one.)

Anorexia is an eating disorder characterized by an unrealistic fear of weight gain, self starvation, and the conspicuous distortion of one's body image. 90% of all persons suffering from anorexia are female. On-set of the disorder usually begins in females between 14 and 18 years of age. Anorexia is a serious public health problem. Over the past years, the number of persons suffering from the dis-order, have increased. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric disorders.

What to eat on your "diet"?

Several weeks ago, on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, he talked about a guy who had lost weight on a "McDonald's Diet". The guy had eaten fast food instead of "healthy food" and just by counting calories, had lost weight. (Whether he'll be able to keep it off is another story.)

In any event, Limbaugh seemed to think this was news. It's not news. Everyone knows - or should - that that's how you lose weight. Not by eating skinless chicken or giving up potatoes or chocolate, but by eating less calories per day - 2000 calories a day instead of 3600, for example. (3600 calories = 1 pound).

Now, whenever you go to these fast food restaurants, they have to, by law, tell you how many calories there food is. And a Big Mac is something like 1,000 calories. A chocolate shake is probably 1000 calories, and so on. So it does help you to know how many calories are in food, but for all that, you don't need to dwell on it too much.

Remember in my plan you are not trying to lost 30 pounds in 30 days. You are going to take a whole year to do it. You're going to do it gradually, because in that way you'll be able to maintain that weight loss for the rest of your life.

I've been urging you to keep a journal in which you record many things, including what you eat, and when. And really, bu looking at this journal you should know where you need to cut down in order to lower your calorie consumption.

Do you have a bowl of icecream after dinner? Cut it down to half a bowl.

Do you have a donut for a snack to tide you over between lunch and dinner? Cut it down to half a donut.

Do you have a candybar or something before you go to bed to ease those hunger pains? Replace those with carrots.

Do you have hunger pains at night? So what! Yes, at some time during the losing weight process, you're going to have to go to bed feeling hungry. Get used to it! You dont have to go to bed starving! Just jave a handful of carrots to take the edge off.

You are going to gradually be cutting back on what you eat, so it will take a while for your stomach to shrink, but eventually your appetite will lessen, which will enable you to keep a rein on what you eat, and maintain your new weight.

And of course, you need to exercise.

In future entries I'll give tips on weight training - all women should train with weights. Not to "bulk up" - unless you want to, of course, but to keep muscle tone and to aid in the weight maintainence process.

Then there's biking - my sport of choice. Jogging is good, but can behard on the knees. Walking is perhaps the easiest sport of all - I always find it boring but if you get some good music or an audiotape, that helps.

The new year, and the new you, is one day away.

We are prepared for it.

When Do You Choose To Stop Re-Gaining Weight?

Was reading a message board today. A woman posted:

And, I discovered I'm within 2 pounds of gaining back all the weight I lost a couple years ago, so I joined Weight Watchers online today. Not going to get too excited about it until after New Years, I plan to make the other half of my Thanksgiving turkey and trimmings to go with it. But I'm starting to track as of today just to get an idea of what I'm eating.

So for two years this woman has been gradually gaining back all the weight she'd lost - she doesn't say how much weight she had lost - and it is not until now, when she is within 2 pounds of that original weight loss, that she is going to go onto a diet again to try to lose the weight again?

Why didn't she go back on her diet after she'd regained five pounds, or even ten? (I'm going to go out on a limb and assume she'd lost 50 pounds or so.)

Well, for that matter, why doesn't everybody? See, that's the whole thing. 90% of people who lose weight gain it all back within 5 years...not only that, they even gain more back.

Why is it that they can't step on a scale, see that they've regained 5 pounds of all the weight they've lost, and stop right there?

Well, it's psychological. When someone has been on a diet for a long time - a "diet" being something temporary that they only have to do until they achieve a goal, and then they can stop and go back to their old habits - tension builds up and builds up. Then, once they've achieved their goal, the tension relaxes, and it's like a muscle tensed up for too long, it begins to shiver uncontrollably. People need a release...and that release is to start eating ....and keep on eating and eating and eating.

That's why the key is not to "diet" temporarily - the key is to have a total lifestyle change, so there is nothing to go "off" of.

And once you've lost however many pounds you desire to lose, you know exactly how much food you can add to your portions on a daily basis - one extra portion - to maintain your new weight.

And again - don't deprive yourself of anything. Eat white bread, if you like it, eat white rice if you like it. A calorie is a calorie.

The only thing that you really need to cut out, if at all possible, is soft drinks like Pepsi or Coke. 150 calories per can, and if you drink 5 a day, as I used to do... Drop it down- as gradually as you have to - until you're only drinking one a day...if that.

5 Days To Go

Have you made your new years resolutions yet. Lots of people - mostly women - do, and the main resolution is to lose weight.

Well, 2011 is the year you're going to do it.

But you've got to start plannnig now.

I've been advising you in several posts to start a journal, in which you record everytyhing. This is gong to help you when you start on your quest to lose weight - and then maintain the healthy weight that you achieve.

By keeping a journal in which you record how you feel aftr you eat a meal, or even a snack, you can learn about yourself. What foods give you a "sugar high" and then lead to depression afterward, if any. Can you eat "just one" potato chip, or is this impossible. Are there any snacks that you can eat that don't cause you to crave even more of them, and so on.

Do you feel sluggish after eating any particular foods? Carbohydrates are important, but too many and you feel tired.

ONce you learn how your body reacts to food, the easier it will be for you to lose and maintain weight.

HOw many pounds overweight are you? Let's say you're 100 pounds overweight. Well, you can only safely lose 2 pounds a week. So to lose 100 pounds, it will take you 50 weeks, or a whole year.

But it will take more than that, because when you first start changing your eating and exercise patterns, you won't see any changes for at least two weeks. Indeed, if you start weight training, as I advise you to do, you may even initially gain a couple of pounds, because muscle weighs more than fat. But, once you improve your musculature, and achieve your desired weight, you can eat a bit more than normal - because muscles burn more calories than fat.

Losing 2 pounds a week is ideal. You don't want to lose more than that, because you don't want your body metabolism to change. If you lose weight too quickly, then start eating the same foods in the same quantities that you had done previuously, you'll find yourself gaining weight back much more quickly, because your body won't burn calories as quickly as it once did.

So, it's time to start preparing yourself mentally for your resolution to lose weight. You're going to aim for two pounds a week. You're not going to starve yourself - you're going to eat all the foods you want, just in smaller portions. YOu're going to increase your exercise - biking, walking, tennis...whatever it takes. If it's too cold to go outside you'll walk up and down your stairs while listening to music. No stairs, build a stair stepper - jut get a few pieces of wood which you nail together, so that you have to lift your legs at least four inches.

Don't let yourself be guilted into losing weight. After every Christmas, the ads from Weight Watchers and Slimfast and so on seem to triple. Women, in particular, are never allowed to be comfortable with themselves. "Oh, cover up those skin flaws with this product." "Can you pinch an inch! You must lose weight immediately!" Ya da ya da.

You're going to lose weight because it'll be healthy for you, and for no other reason. Keep that in your mind at all times.

Willpower is a Muscle

If you've tried diet after diet and failed, you have probably said to yourself, "Well, I'm going to give up. I just don't have the willpower."

Well, there's no need to despair. You may not have the willpower now, but willpower is a muscle. If you exercise it, it will grow stronger and stronger.

That's one reason why I advise people who have a lot of weight to lose - like over a hundred pounds - to do it gradually. To spend a year doing it. Because losing weight is just the first part of the process - you then have to keep it off, and that is actually harder for people to do! Statistics show that most people who lose a lot of weight, gain it back, plus a bit more, within 5 years. And if you watch the commercials for Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, all of them have a bit of text in tiny white letters, "Results not typical."

You don't need to use Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, you don't need to replace one of your meals with a Slimfast milkshake.

All you need to do is practice portion control and increase your exercise level.

How do you practice portion control? You eat what you want, just not as much of it.

And at nght when the hunger cravings hit, you eat a few carrots instead of a candybar.

It all takes willpower - and you have to develop that willpower.....or learn how to work with it. (For example, as I've said many times, I can't cook fresh-baked cookies, because if I do I eat the whole batch in one sitting. But if I have Oreo Cookiesin the house...I can eat two for dessert, and that satisfies my chocolate craving. The rest of the Oreos are quite safe until the next day.

I had a long struggle in cutting back on Pepsis. Up until I was 40 I drank several pepsis a day, because I biked a great deal and was able to maintain my weight even though I was drinking a lot of extra calories. But when I hit 40 and my metabolism slowed down...the weight wasn't coming off. So, I had no choice but to scale back on Pepsis, and I wasn't happy about it, I can tell you. But, it had to be done.

And the only way to do it was to do it gradually. I kept track of how many Pepsis a day I drank, and when I drank them - basically everytime I finished taking a break from my computer, I'd grab a Pepsi and then get back to work. It was a habit. I broke it slowly...spacing out the time between Pepsis more and more, substituing water for one Pepsi, and so on, until I was down to two Pepsis a day. (I don't drink Diet Pepsi - awful stuff!)

You keep a journal to record many things, among them how your strength is improving due to your weight training regime. Well, keep a journal on how your will power improves, as well. It may take you several months to work it up to snuff, but you can do it!

Appetite and Drinking Water

While you're waiting for December to be over, so you can implement your new - and permanent - lifestyle change, you must be doing many things.

1. Keep a journal of what you eat and drink every day...and why. By this I don't mean breakfast, lunch and dinner, but the in-between snacks and so on.

2. Look at your portions. Do you eat the equivalent of two servings of mash potatoes as one serving?

3. Watch your calories. A bowl of ice cream a day is not that bad...a couple of hundred calories. But do you pour chocolate syrup over it? That adds another hundred calories. Do you chop up a candy bar and add that? That also ads calories.

4. A salad may be healthy for you - but it does have calories. A lot of people, apparently (according to a college study I once read) believe that if they eat a salad alog with a couple of huge hambuger and fries...the salad doesn't have any calories. Not so. Unless you leave off the dressing and toppings. So eat a large salad, or eat a large meal, not both.

I always tell the people whom I'm helping to lose weight that it is not necessary to count calories - it is only necessary to use portion control.

If you become familiar, over the course of a month (in this case December) with what you eat, and you are overweight by 50-100 pounds, then the solution is obvious. You're eating too much, and not exercising enough. Don't cut out all carbohydrates, that's ridiculous. Eat everything - just in smaller portions!

I'll explore this more in later entries.

Ever heard of Jenifer Ringer?

Back in late November, ballet critic Alastair Maccaulay was reviewing a performance of the New York City Ballet's Nutcracker Suite. Jenifer Ringer, a featured ballerina in the Ballet, was cast as the Sugar plum Fairy.

McCauley said in his review, "She looks like she's eaten one sugar plum too many." (Translation? She's overweight. She's fat.)

However, in the same review and in the same paragraph, Macauley also gave his opinion that one of the male ballet danceers also looked like he'd spent to long at the sweet trolley. Translation, he also was fat.

But all the brouhaha since then has been about the fact that he called a ballerina - someone with probably no fat on her bones, fat.

So of course there's a double standard, but that's because guys don't mind being fat. (Well, most guys, there are always exceptions to the rule.) But most guys can have a gut out to here, and they still think that they are irresistable to the ladies.

Women, on the other hand, don't have that luxury. Jenifer Ringer, indeed, is a recovered anorexic, which made Macaulay's comment not only all the more hurtful, but dangeorus. God forbid this perfectly fit and healthy-weight woman should think to herself, "Oh, god, I weigh a pound too much, I've got to stop eating right now."

The reason I bring this up is that it just goes to show that women just can't win. There's always going to be someone in a position of "power" - a critic, a boss, a boyfriend - who, no matter what they weight, is going to say, "Hey, you should lose a few pounds." And more often than not the woman is, unfortunately, going to take this to heart and start starving herself.

In any event, the point of this rant is simple. Do not stress out about your weight. Your goal is to become physically fit and have weight in proportion to your height. You can't please all of the peole all of the time, so go with what's healthy.

Gradualness is your enemy...and your friend

Unless you're bound and determined to gain weight quickly (having 3 or 4 Blizzards a day in addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner), you probably have never gained more than a pound a day. If you've skipped walking or biking for a week, and not only not left off a portion of food from your dinner, but added an extra portion, you'll gradually put on weight. A half pound one day...a half pound the next, and so on. It's so gradual you don't even notice it until one day, a month later, you find out not only that your slacks are getting a bit tight, but now you can't even zipper them up.

Time to reverse the process - and do it gradually.

People who go on crash diets to lose weight actually mess with their metabolism, and by the time they are finished, they will be unable to eat the same amount of food that they used to eat, without gaining weight. That's because their metabolism has slowed down, to compensate for what the body believed was a starvation process.

When the body doesn't get enough to eat, that's what it does. It goes after muscle first, before fat - it tries to conserve the fat to keep you alive.

That is one of the reasons why so many people who successfully lose a hundred pounds or so...gain it all back within a year. They go back to their old eating routine...and even if they maintain the exercise routine they started while they were losing weight, they still gain back all the weight. Why - their metabolism has slown down. It's busy (I'm anthropomorphising here) trying to get back all that weight it lost, so it will start storing fat quicker than ever before.

That is why it is important to lose weight gradually, so you don't play havoc with your metabolism. Be satisfied with losing 1 pound a week. A goal like that is eminently doable, does not require you to starve yourself or feel hungry, and once you reach your desire weight, will be easy to maintain, as I explain in future entries in this blog.

Outdoors too cold in winter?

As I've said here often, I'm not a winter girl. I bike in the spring, summer and fall, but in winter time I hibernate indoors.

Yorktown, Virginia wasn't so bad. The weather there didn't fall much below 30 degrees, and so I'd bundle up a couple of days a week and be able to bike around my housing area.

That's not possible here in Cheyenne. It doesn't get very cold...but that horrible wind...terrible.

Solution? My stairs.

I've got a single flight of carpeted stairs leading from the first to the second floor. There's bannisters on either side, but they really aren't necessary. The stairs are wide and perfectly safe.

And I run up and down them a dozen times a day. All at once, of course, because the idea is to get my heart beat going. And because I'm going up and down stairs, my legs get a pretty good workout as well.

If you don't have stairs where you live, or if it's not convenient to run up and down them, there is always your local mall. Typically the doors are opened early in the morning for those people who want to go walking in relative safety.

SO even if you hate winter with a passion, there are ways you can get out and get some exercise.

Do so.

Don't Dread Christmas

In twenty more days it'll be Christmas. And whether you're allowed to celebrate Christmas or have to celebrate with "Holiday" parties (I'm an atheist, but I celebrate Christmas. Peace on Earth, good will toward men - that's a great sentiment whatever your spiritual leanings) chances are you'll be surrounded by food for the rest of the month.

If you've changed your eating habits already (I hate to use the term "dieting" - to be successful in weight loss/maintenance, you don't "diet" you "eat properly") then you will be able to get through this Christmas season and gain only a couple of pounds, if that. I say that because if you "know yourself" - you know what treats you can have that won't trigger an eating binge.

If you're just now thinking of starting a diet....why not wait until January 1. Make it a New Year's Resolution - and one that you'll be able to keep.

So if you're not going to start your "eating properly" now, what constructive things are you going to do during this month?

1. Set your goal now to obtain a healthy weight in the New Year.

2. Realize that you are going to lose 1 pound a week, or 2 at the most. That is the healthy way to lose weight, and the best way. Anything else will alter your metabolism - slow it down, as a matter of fact, and you don't want that!

3. Realize that for the first two weeks - or even three - of the New Year, you are not going to step on a scale.

4. Before you can start to lose weight, your body must use up any extra calories it has, and achieve a "caloric imbalance." This can take up to two weeks! If you step on a scale and haven't lost a single pound, or even have gained a couple of pounds, you may give up and start binge eating.

5. Realize that you may gain weight before you start to lose it. Why? Because in addition to moderating your food intake, you are also going to increase your physical activity, and if you are wise, you will start weight training. And since muscles weigh more than fat, you may initially gain weight. Just for a week or so, until the weight starts to come off.

6. Realize that muscles burn more calories than fat does. The fitter you are, the more calories you burn (and the more you can eat - up to one extra portion a day.)

7. Don't be misled by the term "portion" - you can eat until you're full. Don't settle for a couple of pickles and a sprig of celergy for dinner!

8. Prepare your family for your new weight loss program. They must be supportive without being nagging. Do not accept any jokes about your weight, even if they are meant honestly as jokes in a misguided attempt at support. You need positive support - you deserve positive support.

9. Start a journal.

I'll tell you what to put in it in my next entry on Wednesday.

Your Goal is to Achieve a Healthy Weight, Not to Become a Skeleton

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you realize that your goal is not to lose weight, but to become fit. If you become fit, the weight loss/maintenance, naturally follows.

There are three types of skeletons, or frames - small, medium and large. People with large frames cannot healthily weigh the same as someone the same height, but with a small skeleton.

Being five pounds underweight is much unhealthier than being five pounds overweight, and if you're 20 pounds underweight, you're extremely unhealthy, whereas if you're 20 pounds overweight...that's nothing. Start riding a bike, give up one candy bar a day, or forget your weekly Blizzard, and you'll lose that weight in no time.

This blog is really aimed at people who are 50-100 pounds overweight or more.

If you're that overweight, you need a complete - and permanent - lifestyle change.

And no, it doesn't mean you have to give up chocolate completely, or carbohydrates completely, and so on. All it means is you have to practice portion control and increase your physical activity.

But of course that is easier said than done, which is where this blog comes in.

What is one reason dieters fail?
Because you expect too much, too soon. You can gain two or three pounds in a day...it will take you three weeks to lose it.

If you lose the weight quickly, chances are you'll gain it back again quickly, plus a little more, because your metabolism will be out of whack.

If you lose the weight gradually, over the course of several months, there is much more likelihood of you maintaining your new weight.

I suggest NOT taking diet pills, appetite suppressant drugs or metabolism increasing drugs. ALL drugs have side effects. And you don't need them. (If you are healthy. If you have diabetes or some other disease of that type, consult your doctor, My advice is ONLY for healthy people who simply struggle with their weight for a variety of reasons.)

More than one way to lose and keep off weight

I lost weight and have kept it off for 3 years by eating anything I want, including cookies, in moderation. The story below is from a Dallas paper in which a man lost 300 pounds and says that there should be no cheat days.

Well, what I do say is that you have to know yourself. If you have a cheat day, does it stop at that, or does it extend to a week. If that is the case, then of course you can't have a cheat day.

Dallas man loses 300 pounds and keeps it off

05:01 PM CST on Monday, November 29, 2010
By DARLA ATLAS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

Rick Salewske hasn't tasted ice cream in 10 years.



RON HEFLIN/Special Contributor
Rick Salewske has found daily exercise and an almost fervent stance are the keys to maintaining his size. Until October 2000, the treat had been his favorite source of comfort, and he often overindulged.

"I'd always have ice cream at night," says Salewske, 48. "Those Nutty Buddy bars – I'd have four of those. Or I'd go to Braum's, where they have the hot-fudge triple sundae. Sometimes I'd go to the store at midnight just to get my ice cream."

Back then, Salewske was a different person in mind and body. He weighed 538 pounds and was almost defiant about it: "I'd think, 'I'm a good person. I love my parents, I don't do drugs. I support myself. Why do I have to change?' "It took an intervention of sorts, followed by unwavering dedication, to lose 300 pounds, which he's kept off for eight years. While his weight has fluctuated by 30 or 40 pounds now and then, Salewske sees himself not only as a weight-loss success story, but a weight-maintenance winner as well.

For Salewske, a production scheduler at ClarkWestern Building Systems in Dallas, going back to his unhealthy self isn't an option.

"I can't believe there are people out there who lose 300 pounds and gain it right back," he says.

He'd be surprised. Maintaining a weight loss – be it 50 or 200 pounds – is a challenge many aren't up for, says Dr. Edward Livingston, director of the bariatric surgery program at UT-Southwestern Medical Center.

After all the work it takes to lose the pounds, why do people regain?

"One way it happens is that we sort of slide off the wagon slowly," Livingston says. "One cookie becomes two and then three, and then it's the whole bag. The other thing I've seen happen is that there's a life event, and the person just gives up and gets depressed."


Family Photo
Salewske, who weighed 538 pounds 10 years ago, was almost defiant about it. They begin eating – which, unfortunately, helps for a moment.

"Food activates the same pleasure centers in your brain as some drugs do," he says.


'The Biggest Loser'

Even losing weight in the limelight doesn't guarantee keeping it off. At the end of every season of The Biggest Loser, victorious contestants are seen pumping their newly toned arms as confetti falls around them. Check back a year later, and several have ballooned back to their former sizes.

"It's strictly a willpower issue," Livingston says. "If you've got the willpower, you can do it."

Salewske has enough of that and then some, but he didn't in 1981, when he moved from Michigan to Dallas and ate out of loneliness. By the time he drove home for Christmas in 1999, his family was distraught by what he was doing to himself.

"My parents sat me down and told me, 'Your sisters were crying last night. They think you're going to die,' " he recalls.

By 2000, Salewske had a 66-inch waist and wore 6X shirts. He turned down a job back in Michigan, which he'd landed sight unseen, because of his weight.

Also Online Restaurant critic Leslie Brenner loses nearly 30 pounds on 'The Restaurant Critic's Diet'

Full coverage: Weight loss news
The CEO at his job in Texas was grateful he'd turned down the other position, but he was also worried about Salewske's health.

He said, 'Rick, I want you to work for me for the next 20 years. But if you don't lose the weight, you're not going to be around for 20 years. Go find a program, and we'll support you,' " he recalls.

That led Salewske to the Cooper Aerobics Center, which helped transform his eating and exercise habits. By 2003, he'd lost 300 pounds, was named Cooper's Man of the Year, appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and in People magazine, and married his wife, Kelley, with whom he now has two sons. Success was his.

That success could easily have been fleeting.

"I haven't been perfect, believe me," he says of the fluctuations. Earlier this year, for example, he'd started making late-night trips for fast food again, and he'd find himself snacking on the kids' potato chips.

"I got on the scale in March of this year and weighed 284 pounds, which was probably the heaviest I've been since I lost the 300 pounds," he says. "I go, 'Man, this has got to stop.' "

After quitting the junk food again, he dropped back to 245 pounds. As for exercise, Salewske works it in every day by going to the gym or jogging around his neighborhood.

Salewske takes an almost fervent stance on maintaining his size.

"In our lives, so many things can be taken away from us," he says. "We could lose our house, our jobs, money in the stock market. If you lose the weight and stay committed and feel good about yourself, nobody can ever take that away from you. Nobody's going to put that 300 pounds back on you."

Except, of course, the person who lost it in the first place. To formerly overweight folks like himself, Salewske has some not-so-fun maintenance advice.

"If we're the type of people that gain 50, 60, 100, 200, 300 pounds, that's who we are," he says. "It's kind of like being an alcoholic. You always have to watch it."


Ditch the falsehoods

Which means giving up the excuses or little mind games that lead to backsliding. Among them:

•It's OK to have a cookie here and there.

"I don't think so," Salewske says, "because before you know it, it's been a week, two weeks, and you've had a cookie every night. Now you have to break that habit again."

•Life is too short to deny yourself all of its pleasures.

"I've never known anyone who hasn't lost a lot of weight who isn't much happier," Livingston says.

"They feel better and they're more energetic. So it's a tradeoff."

•After the weight-loss goal is reached, it's fine to have a "cheat meal." Or a whole cheat day, even.

"If you believe you should have a cheat day, then you believe you need those bad foods to get through," Salewske says. "That's just like an alcoholic saying, 'Hey, I can go three months without drinking, but I deserve one day when I can drink!' "

Livingston agrees that "if you cheat once, it's hard to stop cheating. Your brain just seeks that holiday day."

•Once the weight is lost through a plan such as the Atkins Diet, it's fine to gradually go back to normal eating.

Livingston calls such diets – along with contests such as The Biggest Loser – unnatural programs for weight loss. "After a while, you get tired of it and regain the weight. You need to make a lifestyle change you can live with, and live with forever."

•Weight-loss surgery prevents people from putting the weight back on.

Wrong, Livingston says. "With bariatric surgery, lots of people are completely unmotivated and think surgery will fix the problem. They gain it back."

At the other end of the spectrum are weight-loss winners such as Salewske, who work at it every day.

"You get used to saying, 'You know what? Maybe I can go the rest of my life without ever eating a doughnut,' " he says. Or ice cream, even. Salewske is confident that Nutty Buddys and Dove bars are forever part of his past.

"Ice cream was really, really bad for me," he says, recalling the hold it had on him and his life. "I haven't had it, and I won't. And it's OK. I don't need it."

What the "War on Fat People" Leads To

Yes, this blog is about helping people obtain a healthy weight, and then maintain that weight, but occasionally I do have to rant about what's going on in the world today. Overweight people are quite simply under attack - they're treated with scorn, looked on with contempt, all because of social engineering (it used to be being overweight was a sign of being successful, now it's a sign of being "over-indulgent").

Women of course are the main victims, and for the last few years kids have come under attack, now its babies.

Should parents put their babies on diets?
New York – Some "fat-fearing" moms are taking worries about their infants' weight to extremes. Is this utter insanity or a natural reaction to the obesity epidemic?

A recent "Saturday Night Live" episode featured a parody ad for a product called Baby Spanx, with a pair of neurotic parents squeezing their adorably chubby infant into a slenderizing undergarment. The joke, apparently, is not that far from the truth: Pediatricians across the country report that they're seeing concerned parents putting their tots on diets even before they reach their first birthday. Here, a brief guide to the alleged trend:

What exactly has been reported?
According to ABC's "Good Morning America," parents who've struggled with their own diet issues are fretting over their children's weight long before the kids are out of diapers. "I have seen parents putting their infant and 1-year-old on diets," says Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, a Georgia physician who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics' nutrition committee. And, Dr. Blair Hammond, a pediatrician in New York City, says "some parents... are very pleased when their children are thin."

Is this really a common practice?
So far, the evidence is mostly anecdotal. At the mommy blog Mom Logic, Jessica Katz says that she was shocked to learn that a mother in her play group had put her 7-month-old son on a diet. Katz says she has since concluded that the practice is "fairly common": "People get caught up in a baby's growth percentile and are disappointed when they have bigger babies."

Is excessive infant chubbiness a documented issue?
In the United States, one in 10 children under the age of 2 is now obese — "an alarming statistic that has doubled over the past two decades," says Kayla Webler at Time. At the same time, eating disorders have also risen sharply among children under 12. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the rate of hospitalization for eating disorders among pre-teens more than doubled between 1999 and 2006.

How dangerous can baby diets be?
Earlier this year, a young couple in Washington state took the weight-watching to extremes. Brittainy and Samuel Labberton were accused of starving their baby daughter, and Child Protective Services found traces of laxatives in the infant's bottle. Brittainy allegedly said, "My husband has a weight problem and we didn't want our daughters to be fat." The couple's children are currently in foster care as their parents undergo counseling and attend parenting classes.

What should parents do to raise healthy babies without obsessing over their weight?
Dr. Bhatia recommends breast-feeding: "Breast-fed babies tend to gain weight faster early on and then slow down in the next six months," he says, while babies reared on formula tend to keep gaining weight and are often overfed by their parents, some of whom then grow alarmed. "We need to stop the notion that fat, cuddly, cute babies are a good thing," he says. Mom Logic's Jessica Katz says baby diets aren't the answer, but therapy for the obsessive parents can be.