Advice for a Sagging Stomach?

A reader asks for advice about getting rid of sagging skin around her stomach. She says;

I am a 42 year old female who had a heart attack at 39 because of my weight and family history. Since the heart attack, I have lost a tremendous amount of weight which has caused a lot of sagging skin in the stomach area. I am not a viable candidate for cosmetic surgery because of the CHF. However, I am becoming increasingly upset about my appearance. I don't know what to do about the sagging stomach. It's bad enough being sick, but to look terrible as well is painful. If you have any suggestions, please send them to me. Thanking you in advance!

Can anyone who's lost a lot of weight provide some comments here?

The photo above is of the extreme girdle; the Brazilian Waist Cinchers.

Fast Food Blues

Dr. Flum specializes in surgical management of gastrointestinal disorders and surgical treatment of morbid obesity.

What is his advice for people who want to lose weight? He says if most people changed two things in their lives they would lose weight.

One is to avoid fast-food, the other is to walk on a regular basis (do 10,000 steps per day).

He says "One of every five Americans eats at least one meal per day in the car. Most of those meals come from fast-food franchises. There are fast-food meals with 1,400 calories (way more than half of a healthy amount for the day) and up to 800 of those calories come from unhealthy fats. If you can make one change in the way you eat, I would recommend not eating fast food or treating it as the very occasional splurge."

See more of Dr. David Flum's discussion about BMI, pear-shaped and apple-shaped bodies here.

Ten Best Weight Loss Sites

Here's a great list of some of the top Health and Wellness sites. It includes the ten best sites for each of the categories of weight loss blogs, diet blogs, walking and other exercises, as well as a few other key health categories.

The list was put together by people at the Nursing Online Education Database. Enjoy and happy reading!

Gaining 75 Pounds While Pregnant

Actress Mila Jojovich has gained seventy five pounds so far in her pregnancy. This photo was taken about three or four weeks before her due date.

Most doctors tell women that the ideal weight gain for women of normal weight during pregnancy is between 25 and 35 pounds. But Milla was probably underweight at the beginning and her body may have needed to gain more than the recommended amount.

Health Benefits of Pumpkin Seeds

We carve pumpkins for Halloween each year and usually I throw away the pumpkin seeds. But this year I'm going to roast them in the oven. It's really easy, you just need some salt and butter. (See the recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds).

Pumpkin seeds have a lot of nutritional health benefits. A quarter of a cup of pumpkin seeds provides you with about 52% of the daily recommended amount of manganese. You may not have heard of manganese, but high-manganese foods will

* Help your body utilize several key nutrients such as biotin, thiamin, ascorbic acid, and choline
* Keep your bones strong and healthy
* Help your body synthesize fatty acids and cholestorol
* Maintain normal blood sugar levels
* Promote optimal function of your thyroid gland
* Maintain the health of your nerves
* Protect your cells from free-radical damage

That same quarter cup of pumpkin seeds also provides 46% of the daily recommended amount of magnesium, 40% of phosphoros, 28% iron and 16% protein. See all about the health benefits of pumpkin seeds here.

Pumpkin seeds, raw 0.25 cup 34.50 grams 186.65 calories
Nutrient	Amount	DV (%)	Nutrient Density	World's Healthiest Foods Rating
manganese	1.04 mg	52.0	5.0	very good
magnesium	184.58 mg	46.1	4.5	very good
phosphorus	405.03 mg	40.5	3.9	very good
tryptophan	0.11 g	34.4	3.3	good
iron	5.16 mg	28.7	2.8	good
copper	0.48 mg	24.0	2.3	good
vitamin K	17.73 mcg	22.2	2.1	good
zinc	2.57 mg	17.1	1.7	good
protein	8.47 g	16.9	1.6	good

The above pumpkin poster is by Diane Pedersen.

Fast Weight Loss with the Atkins Diet

Kent used to weigh over 400 pounds. He's lost 200 pounds by adhering to the Atkins diet. The weight loss was fast for him, though it was not easy initially to give up all his comfort foods such as pizza and a 4 liter per day Diet Mountain Dew habit.

He has maintained the weight loss for over two years now and is running his first marathon this week. Read his story and see him at his heaviest weight here.

Half-Assed : A Weight Loss Memoir

Jennette has lost almost 200 pounds. She has one of the best personal weight loss blogs out there and a few months ago she was approached by publishers about writing a book about her story.

I'm excited the book will be available soon. But I was disappointed to read that the publisher didn't accept Jenette's title suggestion; Half of Me: The Last 200 Pounds are The Hardest.

Instead they picked a title which I don't find half as appealing; Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir
Even worse, I wonder why they didn't include her whole picture on the book cover? Why just include her lower half? It's so much less appealing, don't you think?

Height: 5'9"
Age: 26

Starting Weight: 372 lbs
Current Weight: 176 lbs
Goal Weight: 160 lbs

Total Loss: 196 lbs
Left to Lose: 16 lbs

Starting BMI: 54.9
Current BMI: 25.9
BMI Lost: 28.9

Jennette already has such a large online following that I wonder if it wouldn't have been better for her to go the self-publishing route. She could have created her book with Lulu.com, sold it on Amazon, and attracted a lot of attention through word-of-mouth reviews around the net. I wonder if her book would have been an even larger success if she was in control of the marketing herself.

Jimmy Moore interviewed her last week. Here she talks about how surprising it has been to have such a great affect on other people. She mentions that;

I once got a comment from a woman who had spent several days secretly reading my blog at work. Afterwards she said she didn't feel like she wanted to die anymore. I was stunned that words typed into a text box could do that to someone. I felt a heightened sense of responsibility afterwards to remain honest and open about my experiences. Words have a lot of power.

I write a post about once a month where I try new fruits and vegetables and people have told me they've tried golden kiwi or mangoes because I wrote about them. It's funny to think I'm influencing the profits of the mango farmers of America in some small way. I learn a lot from my readers too. An entry might start about one topic and spin off onto something else, like how to cook radishes that sound really tasty or discussion of what a super-taster is.

See the very interesting interview here.

Losing Weight for the Wedding

Claire Barnes was engaged to be married a year ago but she really wanted to lose lots of weight before the wedding. She started her diet and exercise in August 2006. A year later, when the wedding took place, she had reached her goal and had lost a whopping 84 pounds.

See her story as well as the larger before and after pics here.

Losing Weight One Day at a Time

Leelee wants to weigh 140 pounds. She now weighs 184 pounds and her highest weight was 220. She'd like to lose 15 pounds before Christmas. She's started her own weight loss blog for motivation and inspiration.

Cheer her on at Losing Leelee!

Walking Off the Pounds

Jodi Davis has lost 162 pounds. She did this five years ago and has kept the weight off. It took her 16 months to lose that much weight.

She succeeded in her weight loss with the help of a daily walking routine. She's the mother of three children and could never find the time to walk before, but somehow she became determined to do it on a daily basis.

She's written an e-book about her experience. It's free to read and sponsored by the Blue Cross of Michigan. See her inspiring walking for weight loss blog here.

Tori Wins Best Post-Baby Body

Tori Spelling gained 40 pounds during her pregnancy and now seven months later she is back to her prepregnancy weight of about 115 pounds. She says she achieved this with the help of the NutriSystem diet which is delivered to her door every day. She's also spent a lot of time working out.

Tori is the cover story for this week's Life & Style magazine. They gave her the best post-baby body award. See a larger photo at The Skinny Website.

From Size 22 to Size 8

Melissa was a size 14 for much of her adult life but gradually moved up to size 22 by the time she was 28 years old.

Now, two years older, she is wearing size 8 clothes. She's gone from being a couch potato to an active person and she speaks very highly of the Curves program which helped her lose the first 65 pounds.

She said the most weight she lost in any given month was six pounds. It's taken her two years to lose 92 pounds.

See her very inspirational before and after pics here.

Stop Telling People to Lose Weight

On her blog, Losing Leelee points out what everyone should know;


When people tell you to lose weight

First of all, overweight/obese people do think about it or at least attempted to lose once in their life. It is not that they don't want to, it's deeper than those words, 'lose weight'. Being overweight myself, I can tell that it is not easy to change yourself. To lose weight, you have to find the core of the problem of your weight gain. It varies for every individual. My problem was stress and boredom. Whenever I was frustrated I would stop what I was doing and head towards the fridge. Eating took my mind off work because it was an excuse to take a break. Then there were times when I had nothing else on my mind that I would think of what to eat. In the end I paid the fridge another visit. It took me about 3 years to stop this habit by going on different diet plans (took me a while to find one that suited me). I wasn't losing much at the beginning, but I gained knowledge in return.


When people tell you to lose weight when you are losing weight

I understand people can't read your mind to know that you are losing weight. But the fact that some of those who know you have lost weight will tell you to lose more weight, or imply it. For instance, when I had lunch with a few friends I remarked how stuffed I was. It didn't take long for someone to say 'you should lose a bit of weight'. Uh yes, I am already working on that, thank you! And what's wrong with me anyway? After feeling refreshed from losing 20 over pounds at the time, did you think I looked as big as ever? See, when you dictate to people on what to do, especially a delicate matter such as weight, it agitates them. Why? Weight is also an emotional part of us. Ask anyone who has been taunted at school as an overweight child, left out among a group of friends, mocked while walking down to their local shop because of their weight.

Sometimes talking about the past hurts, and on top of that having people tell you what and what not to do is degrading another.



See her weight loss blog here.

Marie Osmond Loses 20 Pounds

Marie Osmond, 47, signed up with Dancing with the Stars in the hope that all the dancing would help her lose weight. She's succeeded in losing 20 pounds so far. Her mother died early of heart disease and Marie wants to improve her own health. See her story at OK! Magazine.

Cathy Works Out at the YMCA

Cathy Baughman works out at the YMCA for about an hour five or six days a week. She used to weigh 310 pounds, and has succeeded in losing 142 pounds.

She pedals up and down on an ARC trainer, a machine designed to take pressure off the knees while exercising the legs and arms.

See her inspirational story here.

Losing Weight After a Heart Attack

Huey had a heart attack when he was 58 years old and had to undergo two surgeries to clear his blocked arteries. It was at that point that he decided to lose weight. He's gone on to lose 135 pounds.

He used to eat a lot of meat and that was the most drastic thing he changed about his diet. Now he eats no meat at all. He remembers how the fat would clog up his sink pipe and could imagine what effect it had on his arteries.

He also exercises very intensively, seems like too much according to what he's told the reporter at the Daily Iberian. But the reporter says that even though Huey is about to turn 72 soon, he has "the vital signs of a teenager".

See his weight loss story here.

(The photo above is the popular poster "Growing Old is Not for Sissies")