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.