Step away from the scale, people. It's not the only thing that matters in weight loss.
Everybody has a morning ritual. Some wake up and have their coffee as they listen to the birds sing. Others turn on the news as they iron their clothes. But those who struggle with their weight tend to have the same old routine: You wake up, go to the bathroom, get on the scale. Does this sound like you?
“Oh no, I actually GAINED weight!” you think to yourself. “This can’t be right, let me try again.” So you step off the scale and try again only to see the same result. “Maybe if I move the scale over it’ll be better. This tile looks uneven.” But the scale reads the same number yet again, and your day is off to a not-so-great start.
If this sounds like you, I have some good news: You don’t need to step on the scale to see results. The number on the scale is only a fraction of the story.
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Has this ever happened to you? Share your stories with us.
A friend from D.C. posted what he titled a “Vegan Rant” yesterday on his Facebook page, and I thought it interesting. I asked him if I could share it here—name and all—to get your opinions, and he obliged. So here goes:
 I’m not vegan, so I wanted to ask all the vegan (and even veggie) Be Wellers out there: Is this something you’ve ever experienced? A restaurant gypping you on portion size simply because you order a meal sans meat? If this has happened to you, have you ever said anything? And if so, how did the restaurant react?
Lay it on me, folks.
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England's latest diet craze has just landed here in the States. Will the Fast Diet catch on?
 • The Brits are going positively nuts over a new diet craze, reports the New York Times. It’s called the Fast Diet, and its book by the same name has been a seriously hot seller in England since its January debut. The basic outline is this: eat whatever you want for five days, fast for two and—presto change-o!—lose weight. Actually, there’s no magic involved here, according to the Fast Diet creator and author physician Michael Mosely (who is described by the Times as Britain’s own Sanjay Gupta). The idea is that by going hungry two days a week, your body begins to blow through its fat stores, which, of course, means you’ll lose weight. And “fast” here doesn’t mean eating nothing; the diet’s guidelines allow 500 calories for women and 600 for men on fasting days, which means you could feasibly eat two light meals (say, breakfast and dinner) and simply skip lunch and count it as a fast day. Mosely says his diet is backed up by scientific research and his own experience losing 20 pounds in nine weeks (though, I should point out, some critics are crying foul). The book was just released in the States last week. Read about it here.
• Did you catch the amazing story about the Mississippi toddler who was born with AIDS but now appears to be cured? No? Check it out here.
• Here’s one for your recipe box: The Kitchn rounds up 15 whole-grain breakfast ideas, and these suckers looks pretty darn delicious. Find it here. (If you’re more of a breakfast-on-the-run type, we’ve got you covered here.)
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A study that's rocking the Internet today found that eating more fish, nuts and olive oil could seriously cut your heart-attack risk.
 Wow, this is pretty crazy: A large new study published on the New England Journal of Medicine’s website today found that sticking to a Mediterranean diet—that is, one rich in fish, nuts, olive oil, beans, fruits and veggies—can cut your risk for heart attack, heart disease and stroke by as much as 30 percent. Reports the New York Times: “The study ended early, after almost five years, because the results were so clear it was considered unethical to continue.” Say it with me, folks: Daaaang.
People are kind of freaking out over this study for three reasons: 1) it was huge, involving 7,447 people who were randomly assigned to follow either a Mediterranean diet or a low-fat one; 2) researchers intentionally used subjects who were either overweight, had diabetes, smoked or demonstrated other risk factors for heart disease; and 3) it took place in Spain, rather than a Mediterranean country, where previous studies on the diet have been conducted, weakening the linkage between the Mediterranean diet and good health (critics say the good results in those studies could have been attributed to a variety of factors).
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Steve lost five pounds since the babies were born! And then ... he gained it right back. Is there any plan that doesn't suck when you're trying to lose the baby weight?
 Now that the twins are seven months old and thriving, my wife and I have some time for ourselves in the evening. So the other night I headed for the gym.
I climbed on the treadmill feeling physically worn out but mentally proud of myself for getting to the gym. Then I ran, lasting for about five minutes before a cramp in my right abdomen started strong and got worse.
Now, I’ve fought off “side stitches” many times in the past. The key: exhale on the foot strike opposite of the pain. But this time, that fail-safe advice didn’t work for me. I kept pushing. But half way into my planned half-hour run, the pain was doubling me over. The guy on the treadmill next to me started looking at me like I was “that guy”—you know, the one shouting too loud while he bench presses or sweating so much a pool is forming under his feet?
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Experts at Temple University put the question to the test.
 There’s been plenty of conjecture that diet beverages hinder weight loss, but Temple University is putting it to the test in a brand new study, asking, “Do diet drinks help or hurt when it comes to weight loss?”
Weight loss experts at the local university are pitting diet beverages against nature’s zero-calorie beverage, water, to see which is better for losing weight. They say that when comparing weight-loss programs of equal calorie intake, there should not be a difference between zero-calorie diet beverages and water—at least, academically.
In practice, it might not be as straight forward. In an interview with Action News, Gary Foster, director of Temple’s Center for Obesity Research and Education, suggests that the sweet flavors in some diet beverages may lead to further cravings of that sweet taste, which can cause diets to fall off track. That’s the hypothesis, anyway, and it’s what the current study, which is still underway, is exploring.
Here’s an early peek though: Study participant Valerie Branham-Wakefield has lost 14 pounds following Temple’s weight-loss program while—ready for it?—drinking diet beverages. Huh. Well, that certainly muddies the water. Now we really can’t wait for this study to wrap.
Photo: Shutterstock
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He called her a “hack” and said she should “shut up.”
• Oh, my. Whatever you do, don’t call New Jersey governor Chris Christie fat—at least, not on television. Christie went on the offensive yesterday after former White House physician Connie Mariano called him fat on CNN. “It’s almost a like a time bomb waiting to happen unless he addresses those issues before running for office,” she said. ”I’m worried about this man dying in office.” Christie responded by calling her a “hack” and saying she should “shut up.” In an article that appeared on Bloomberg.com yesterday, he said, “I find it fascinating that a doctor in Arizona—who’s never met me, never examined me, never reviewed my medical history or records and knows nothing about my family history—could make a diagnosis from 2,400 miles away. She must be a genius. She should probably be the surgeon general of the United States, I suspect.” Ouch—them’s fighting words. Check out a video of the CNN segment over on the Philly Post.
• First we learned that vegetarians have a lower risk of heart disease than carnivores, and now a new study says that diets high in veggie consumption might lower the risk for a certain kind of breast cancer. Now, someone make me a kale smoothie, please. HuffPo has more.
• Blerg. New projections show that in 40 years, the number of Americans with Alzheimer’s may triple if no progress is made against the disease. The calculations say Alzheimer’s will affect 14.7 million by 2050; in 2010, the number sat at 4.7 million. More here.
Photo: L.E.MORMILE / Shutterstock.com
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This Royersford native not only steered clear of the Freshman 15—he trimmed off over a hundred pounds.
 Adam Speelhoffer, before and after For most college kids, the Freshman 15 is almost inevitable. Adam Speelhoffer isn’t most college kids.
When the Royersford native left for school two years ago, he decided to make a change—a big change. It led to a dramatic 117-pound weight loss, a whole new approach to eating, and a newfound love of fitness. Read his incredible weight-loss story below.
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NextAdvisor.com sampled a week's worth of meal plans from top diet-delivery programs and ranked them by taste. See who made the grade.
 A Diet-to-Go Meal. Photo via Facebook For those of us who are too busy to write an extensive grocery list and plan a strategic attack on our local food store, meal-delivery diet programs can be a life saver. Healthy? Check. Convenient? Check. Easy-to-follow? Check. And, while all of these aspects of delivery diet programs are awesome in both theory and practice, the most important factor to consider is, of course, taste. Fear not, Delivery Diet Programmers—NextAdvisor.com, an independent consumer information and research web site, has announced the results of its 2013 diet meal-delivery taste test.
NextAdvisor anonymously ordered a week’s worth of meal plans from leading diet programs—including Diet-to-Go, Jenny Craig, and Nutrisystem—and ranked them from most delicious to least yummy. Ten individuals of varying ages, male and female, sampled each meal and (without knowing exactly what they were eating) rated the taste on a scale of 1 to 10. “We had no input from the diet companies and the tasters had no way of knowing which brand they were trying. This was a completely independent taste test,” NextAdvisor lifestyle editor Polina Polishchuk said in a press release.
So who came out on top? Diet-to-Go came in first, with feedback noting its “excellent consistency and good flavor.” In second place came Jenny Craig, which scored highest for its breakfasts. Third was Bistro MD, the previous taste-test winner in 2012, and fourth went to Nutrisystem, whose meals were described as unappetizing in look and “mediocre” in taste. In fifth place was eDiets Fresh Prepared, which scored low taste points across the board for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Other factors that were incorporated into the overall rankings were price, fitness tools and support strength and availability.
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All hail veggies!
 • At the risk of belaboring the point … you should really think about going vegetarian—even for just a day or two a week. Why? A new study found that vegetarians are 32 percent less likely than meat eaters to wind up in the hospital with cardiovascular disease. One-third! Less likely! That’s something to hang your hat on. The mega-study included 45,000 subjects from England and Scotland, a third of whom were vegetarians. Researchers found that in addition to having a significantly lower heart-disease risk, vegetarians also had lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels than non-veggies. “Vegetarians also tended to be slimmer and there were fewer cases of diabetes, but these two factors were not found to significantly affect the study results,” HealthDay reports. And while the study has its critics—among them, a doctor who points out that the vegetarians in the study were, on average, 10 years younger than the meat-eaters, which could skew the results—there’s really no downside to eating more broccoli, carrots and kale, right? I say just do it.
• Um, guys? You may need to throw out everything you thought you knew about weight loss. A new study found that some of the most popular assumptions about weight loss—that small changes in diet or exercise can result in steady weight loss; that slow, gradual weight loss is better than rapid, dramatic weight loss—are myths. Read more here.
• I’m loving this: Our friends over at GPhilly wrote about a study which found that “out gay and lesbian people are mentally and physically healthier than straight people or those who have yet to come out of the closet.” More here.
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