For the next six weeks, follow these six simple guidelines.5. Drink 10 to 12 ounces of fluid every time you eat.
Go for water, sparkling water, or iced unsweetened green or herbal tea (add fresh lemon, lime, or berry juice for more flavor) instead of diet sodas. Good news: You can treat yourself to a cup or two of black coffee or tea a day.
6. Pop your vitamins.
Take a daily high-potency multivitamin for overall good health; cold-water fish oil (2 to 3 grams twice a day) to fight inflammation, reduce sun damage, and improve skin; calcium (350 to 500 milligrams twice a day) to build strong bones; and magnesium (200 to 400 milligrams twice a day) to help your body absorb the calcium. Also, be sure your multivitamin contains 5 micrograms of vitamin D to help with calcium absorption.
Want to reverse age-related weight gain? There’s no magic pill. But there is a magic plan. Follow this 6-week diet-and-exercise program, created by Christine Lydon, MD, and you’ll wipe out 15 pounds—and look a decade younger.You want to lose a few pounds. And you’d love to look younger. To help you on both counts, Health teamed up with fitness-and-weight-loss expert Christine Lydon, MD, to put together this groundbreaking plan based on her new book Ten Years Thinner: 6 Weeks to a Leaner, Younger-Looking You. The program not only blasts off fat but specifically targets the zones where women tend to accumulate fat as they age (belly, butt, thighs, and upper arms). Plus, it fights inflammation, a common culprit behind dull skin, wrinkles, low energy, and flab.
To give you great results in six weeks, Lydon devised 20- to 25-minute combined cardio-and-strength routines with bursts of high-intensity activity that rev up metabolism (which naturally slows over the years).
“Those bursts are the way to maximize calorie afterburn—the number of calories your body continues to burn after you stop exercising,” Lydon says. “Plus you’re building more muscle to boost your metabolism for more around-the-clock fat-burning.” The result: A slimmer, younger-looking you … fast. Sound good? Read on.
No more eating for two in the new guidelines for a healthy baby.Gaining 35 pounds during pregnancy used to be the standard. Now the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommends 20 to 25 pounds at most, says Frances Crites, M.D., an OB-GYN at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas: “Patients were getting enormous, which led to delivery problems.”
Weight gain between pregnancies can also be a problem. In a study of more than 150,000 Swedish women, Harvard and Swedish researchers found that, even in normal weight women, gaining just seven pounds between pregnancies can up the risk of high blood pressure, and stillbirth. And the chance of diabetes rose 30 percent from that small weight gain. But weight loss between pregnancies has its dangers, too. An Irish study found that women whose BMIs lowered by five or more units raised the risk of premature births.
Being overweight can up your risk for certain diseases.Heart Diseases
If you’re 40-something and overweight—even if you have normal blood pressure and cholesterol— you’re much more likely to get heart disease as you get older. Researchers at Northwestern University studied almost 18,000 people for 32 years and found that the obese were 43 percent more likely to die of heart disease later in life than those of normal weight. Fat itself, especially abdominal fat, produces hormones and chemicals that can damage blood vessels, upping the risk of blood clots and diabetes.
Diabetes and Kidney Disease
The higher your BMI, the higher the risk for these conditions. But according to The Diabetes Prevention Program, which studied people on the verge of diabetes, losing just 7 percent of body weight can cut risk of full-blown diabetes by 60 percent.
Osteoporosis
Extra weight appears to protect women from osteoporosis and fractures by upping bone density. In fact, weight loss of ten percent or more at 50 or older can actually increase the risk of hip fracture in both men and women. “But the number of deaths due to fractures is very small, so to gain weight to prevent osteoporosis is foolish,” says Willett. “Instead, be active, get enough calcium, take vitamin D, and if needed, take medication.”
Cancer Fat, particularly tummy fat, affects levels of hormones (including estrogen) and growth factors, which in turn appear to spur the development of cancer cells. Fat also hikes the body’s inflammation level, also fanning cancer risk. In fact, this year, the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund linked excess weight to six cancers: breast cancer in post-menopausal women, esophageal, pancreatic, colon, rectal, endometrial, and kidney cancers.
