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Dieting is no fun, and many of us, once we make the decision to peel off a few pounds, we want to lose the weight as quickly as possible. But is quick weight loss safe?

While many people are looking for specific diets and instructions on how to diet, but there are many simple ideas to remember when attempting to lose weight! 

Here are things to be aware of when trying to keep your body fit while dieting.

1. Breakfast! It's the most important meal of the day. This is so true, and therefore whatever you do, don't skip your breakfast! A balanced good breakfast will get your metabolism going and help you from getting too hungry and overeating through the day.
2. If you are serious about quick weight loss, do not drink your calories. Soft drinks, sweetened teas and flavored coffees do not fill up the stomach in the same way that real food does, and it is unlikely that you will compensate for the added calories by cutting back on food.
More Here...

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When I was growing up, I went through a two-year-long chubby stage right as I entered middle school. It was partly due to a lack of growth spurt, but it was also due in part to a lack of exercise. In retrospect, I wonder why my parents didn’t step in and encourage me to be more active. The weight came off when I started to play sports and grew a few inches, but my parents didn’t know that was going to happen and I could have been headed for some real health issues. At the same time, I really appreciate that my parents were supportive of me and didn’t try to make me feel bad about my weight.

This month's Oprah magazine has an interesting essay on this very topic, written by a mother and her now-grown daughter. The mother, concerned that her daughter was gaining weight, imposed strict rules about dieting on her daughter and also made comments like, “Are you sure you really want seconds?” More Here...

Starting in high school health class, women are taught certain guidelines for maintaining their breast health. Women have long been encouraged to perform breast self-exams each month. The idea behind this is that if you know your breasts, you can recognize any potentially hazardous changes and have them examined. There has also been a long-standing rule about mammograms: have your first mammogram at 40 and make it an annual check-up for the rest of your life. Now, a recently released study is completely reversing this common wisdom. What gives?

The taskforce of scientists and doctors who ran this study found that breast self-exams are of no value in detecting cancer. They also found that women are getting mammograms too early and too often. Because mammograms are not as effective on dense breast tissue, this taskforce found that women should not have mammograms until age 50, when breast tissue begins to lose some density. Mammograms performed before age 50 often lead to false alarms, not to mention painful and unnecessary procedures, while doing very little to improve women’s chance of survival. The panel also recommends having the screening every two years, rather than every year. In most women, tumors are slow-growing, so the longer gap between screenings supposedly won’t impact the effectiveness of the test.

These new recommendations were met with mixed reactions. The American Cancer Society has strongly challenged this advice, arguing that the benefits of testing far outweigh the risks and that the taskforce is looking at this like a numbers gain. Dr. Otis Brawley, the ACS’s chief medical officer, wrote that this study “is essentially telling women that mammography at age 40-49 saves lives, just not enough of them.”

What do you think about these new recommendations?

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According to LiveScience.com, a new study finds that students who live in coed housing at college are 2.5 times more likely to binge drink, along with higher chances of watching pornography and engaging in sexual activities with multiple partners.

Interestingly enough, about 90% of college dorms in the United States are coed.

"In a time when college administrators and counselors pay a lot of attention to alcohol problems on their campuses, this is a call to more fully examine the influence of the housing environment on student behavior," reported Jason Carroll, a coauthor of the study and a professor at Brigham Young University.

Also, a 2007 study found that - in a nutshell - college can actually bring out the predisposition in some students for alcoholism.

What do you think of this study? Are you surprised, or no? If you have ever lived in a coed dorm, did you think that you developed unhealthy habits (like drinking, doing drugs, unsafe sex, etc..)?

 

For the full article, please visit www.LiveScience.com.

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This post was submitted by truebritt@xanga, and is from www.Cancer.org.

Today marks The American Cancer Society's 34th Great American Smokeout®!

"As the official sponsor of birthdays, the American Cancer Society marks the 34th Great American Smokeout, today! - November 19 - by encouraging smokers to use the date to make a plan to quit, or to plan in advance and quit smoking that day. By doing so, smokers will be taking an important step towards a healthier life – one that can lead to reducing cancer risk and creating more birthdays. Researchers say that quitting smoking can increase life expectancy – smokers who quit at age 35 gain an average of eight years of life expectancy; those who quit at age 55 gain about five years; and even long term smokers who quit at 65 gain three years.

Research shows that people who stop smoking before age 50 can cut their risk of dying in the next 15 years in half compared with those who continue to smoke. Smokers who quit also reduce their risk of lung cancer – ten years after quitting, the lung cancer death rate is about half that of a continuing smoker’s. Some of the health effects of quitting are almost instant, too – heart rate and blood pressure drop 20 minutes after quitting. More Here...