Why does life keep demanding decisions? Why can't I just have a week off now and then?
Maybe two or three weeks off, actually.
Here I am, on a well-earned vacation, enjoying a breakfast bagel with cream cheese and orange marmalade, and I turn the page of the complimentary newspaper left outside my door to read this headline:
"Middle age isn't too late to lose. Women must commit to diet."
The writer says I can lose "significant" weight if I make the right lifestyle changes.
Researchers presenting papers at the annual meeting of the Obesity Society say "women who are committed can lose 20 pounds."
I start to scrape the cream cheese off my bagel. I'm looking for new. I mean, tell me the secret.
You know what it is, don't you? I mean, that's why you're scraping the butter off your pancakes and picking the frosting off your coffee cake.
Count calories. Plan meals. Eat lunches made at home. Don't skip meals.
That's the secret from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Somebody got paid big bucks to figure that out?
And there's more. Put down the bacon and let me share:
Middle-aged dieters need to write down what they eat, prepare food at home instead of eating out and make weight loss a priority, says lead investigator Anne McTiernan.
The researchers recruited 439 overweight postmenopausal sedentary women.
Average age was 57 and average weight was 185.
They were assigned to one of four groups: diet only, exercise only, diet and exercise and no lifestyle change.
The diet group worked with registered dieticians weekly for six months then monthly for six months to change their eating habits.
USA Today reports the exercise-only group did moderate workouts of about 45 minutes five days a week.
Then there were the folks who watched food and did exercise and the fourth group that continued life as usual.
You know what happened, don't you? I mean, we don't need a hefty grant and months of research to predict this outcome.
After a year, the diet-and-exercise group had lost 21 pounds. Diet-only lost 18 pounds. Exercise only dropped five pounds and the other bunch, who did nothing, stayed about the same.
The conclusion is obvious. You need diet and exercise to lose weight.
What a revelation! I'm thinking about this as I plan my time aboard a first-class cruise ship. I'm wondering if walking from my cabin to the dining room counts as exercise?
I'm also asking myself if I care.
Reading diet "news" while on vacation is a dumb thing to do.
Concluding that a combination of diet and exercise is the best ways to lose weight seems pretty obvious.
I'm compromising. I'm spreading my bagel with "light" cream cheese.
There's oatmeal in the cupboard at home and many long days of winter ahead.
Besides, by middle age, I've learned to live with a few of these extra pounds. Best not to rush into any major change before the spring...
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(Jane Glenn Haas writes for The Orange County (Calif.) Register. E-mail her at jghaas@cox.net)
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(c) 2009, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.). Distributed by Mclatchy-Tribune News Service.