<p>Here is one more reason for females to keep their weight in check:</p>
<p>[Gaining</a> a Pound a Year After Age 20 Nearly Doubles Women’s Breast Cancer Risk](<a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos)</p>
<p>Send it to your DDs.</p>
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<p>Scary stuff.</p>
<p>Here’s the flaw in the logic of the health scare (pharmaceutical) industrty. Look at the languge in the report. They talk about how everyone gains weight as they age from 20 to 50, but the scale used for “normal” weight is the one applied to 20 year olds. Obviously, “normal” weigth for 50 is NOT the same as “normal” weight for 20 year olds.</p>
<p>The folly of this way of thinking was the notation in Barack Obama’s recent health physical that he was borderline overweight! I dunno, maybe the cameras take weight off or something, but he doesn’t look like an “overweight” middle-aged man to me. If that’s overweight, where does that leave most of us?</p>
<p>Of course, there’s a correlation between gaining weight and breast cancer. Women gain weight as they age. The average 50 year old woman would literally have to starve herself to death to maintain her late teen weight. It’s absurd. And, lo and behold, the risk of cancer is higher as you get older. Doh.</p>
<p>Voila: gaining weight means a higher risk of cancer.</p>
<p>They do the same thing with blood pressure. The “normal” systolic blood pressure is 120. If you are “above normal”, you must buy pharmaceutical products to “fix” it. But, if you look at the charts of “normal” by age, 120 is only “normal” for twenty year olds. Blood pressure increases with age. “Normal” for fifty year olds is 131. Doctors used to know this. The rule of thumb was that your blood pressure was OK if it was less than your age plus one hundred. But, that doesn’t sell enough blood pressure prescriptions, so the pharmaceutical lobbiests makes sure that the guidelines now define “normal” for a fifty year old as having the same blood pressure as a teenager.</p>
<p>Too bad they don’t use a similar kind of ruse and publish a “normal” scale for common sense as it relates to age. Then we could have the breath taking news that more than half of American teen agers have below normal common sense!</p>
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<p>Not true, idad. I’m living proof. I weigh what I weighed in high school. I eat light, and I exercise, but I’m definitely not starving myself.</p>
<p>IDAD…I think you’re right to be skeptical. I saw a great article in the NY Times a few years ago on the folly of these research studies. It’s pretty darn impossible to control for everything and bottom line…correlation does not mean causation. </p>
<p>I also agree that the bar might be different for 50 year old folks. And probably for males and females (males have more muscle which mean they tend to weigh more). </p>
<p>You can’t argue though, with what you and many other on this board are doing. Eating less and moving more. </p>
<p>Regarding what’s in your control and when drugs make sense, that’s an interesting question. My blood pressure has always been on the low side and continues to be. I think I’m just lucky. Now, my cholesterol has starting inching up…even though my diet is really good. Doc says it’s my age…loss of estrogen, etc…and that it’s still in a very healthy range. Still, it bothers me that it’s going up even though my habits are actually BETTER than they were 15 years ago.</p>
<p>Edit: I was VERY skinny in high school so getting to my high school weight would be just ridiculous…lol.</p>
<p>I have always had very low blood pressure but have a family history of high cholesterol and diabetes. Some things are just out of your control. I hate to think how much higher my levels could be were I not trying to control them through diet/exercise etc.<br>
Good point, toneranger, re: the correlation/causation. </p>
<p>This month’s been a bit of a struggle for me. Don’t think I’m going to lose any weight, but I’m still getting in the exercise. Son is back home so getting into a routine of what he’ll eat, etc.</p>
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<p>No. I’m all for that. I think the unrealistic scare standards put in place by the pharmaceutical lobby and popularized in the media probably serve as a negative motivation to just do the simple stuff. I mean, if my goal is to get down to my teenage weight or reduce my blood pressure to my teenage blood pressure, what’s the point of even trying? Those standards codify disappointment and negative motivation from any reasonable exercise/eating program. You want people to feel good about losing ten pounds, not tell them that they should weight what they did in high school at age fifty.</p>
<p>I’m skeptical because I’ve seen what the pharmaceutical companies and their sponsored “research studies” have done to smoking quit rates in the United States. The current health policy in this field has basically stopped a long trend of increasing numbers of successful quitters in its tracks. It’s crazy. Never has smoking been more shunned by society. Never has it been more expensive ($8 a pack here in Massachusetts). Never has it been banned in more places. Never has more money been spent on quit smoking programs (thanks to the Tobacco company Master Settlement dollars). Yet, the percentage of smokers quitting is lower today than it was 20 years ago. What’s wrong with this picture?</p>
<p>You can go to any government smoking website and you will not find one single shred of advice for people considering the most common approach to successful quitting (the approached used by over 90% of all successful quitters). In fact, you will find that smokers are told to not even consider those methods. Why? Because those methods don’t add a dime to sales of a billion dollar pharmaceutical product category, an industry that completely stocks the government health advisory panels writing the policy. It’s a scandal. You basically have the goverment, the health care industry, and the pharmaceutical companies telling smokers it is “hell” to quit smoking, virtually impossible. That’s not a positive motivational message. You don’t have a quit smoking policy, you have a government endorsed division of the lucrative nicotine addiction market for two of biggest lobby groups in the country: tobacco and pharma.</p>
<p>I weigh about what I weighed as a teenager, but I realize I am not the norm. Women DO gain weight as they age, and it is hard to keep it off! No fair!</p>
<p>Agree with everything interesteddad says in his last posts about studies, realities, and who’s making money!</p>
<p>Maybe I’m another anomaly. After shaking off the unneeded pounds, I weigh about the same as I did after graduating from college. And I still eat like a horse! Anything less than my 2000 calories, and I’m not a happy camper. There was no excuse for me to gain those pounds and keep them. Period. (I was at the lower end of the “normal” BMI for my height to begin with, and at the peak of my weight I was at was at the higher end). I do not torture myself with exercise. 15 miles per week is not much running. 20 minutes of weights 3 times a week is not much weightlifting. Flawed or not, if this study lights a fire under one more lazy butt and gets it moving, it’s all good.</p>
<p>Well, I didn’t top 100 lbs until I was 28 years old, so at age 52 I don’t think I can get down to 98 lbs again without killing myself.</p>
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<p>Not much running? That’s a 5k race, five days a week. You might as well tell the average 50 year old American who needs to start exercising that they have to climb Mt. Everest to get back in shape.</p>
<p>Goodness! I’d love to get back to my HS weight but I had to starve myself back then! Not gonna happen now! Gosh Bunsen…I do way more than 15 miles and I’m not shaking off any pounds! 
I must be doing something wrong!</p>
<p>Rode the bike for 30 minutes today and then moved to the treadmill for 35 minutes. Used upper body weight machines after my cardio. Can tell the difference in my knee if I take off a day so will be working out a minimum of 6 days and perhaps even every day.</p>
<p>Well, I USED to run 15 miles per week too. Basically 2 or 3 miles per day, most days. I loved it but I can’t do it anymore. I agree with Idad. Honestly, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect most 50yr old folks to be able to do that. I read the other day that most folks in the 50-65 age group can’t even climb 10 stairs without getting winded and stopping. </p>
<p>I’m also in alignment with idad on the impact of the pharmaceutical industry. The mantra has been to take the easy way out…drugs for everything including, lowering bp, kicking the habit, getting enough sleep and even “kicking it up a notch” in bed. Ridiculous. The commercials make me want to gag. </p>
<p>But honestly, the food industry is also a partner here. Salt for example. RDA is 2,300 mg…less for those with high BP. Yet, a newspaper article today said that you can’t find ONE dish on the Chile’s menu with less than 2300 mg of salt. And they’re not required to to publish it. Look at the back of any soup can. Again, ridiculous.</p>
<p>To live a healthy lifestyle, requires extra vigilance and time. Most folks just go with the flow though…take the drugs, eat the junk food in so-called healthy restaurants. It’s a shame…</p>
<p>interesteddad,</p>
<p>I weigh the same at 58 as I did at 22. (BMI of about 19) I most certainly do not starve myself. I stay active, and I don’t eat much junk at all. </p>
<p>A few years ago I did put on some weight, but I was still in the “normal” weight range for my height. However, I felt awful–sluggish, lazy, lots of little aches and pains. After losing all the excess weight and exercising more, I feel great. No pains, no medications of any sort.</p>
<p>I can’t eat like I did when I was young, but staying slender has not required starvation or privation, for me.</p>
<p>“…most folks in the 50-65 age group can’t even climb 10 stairs without getting winded and stopping”</p>
<p>Oy. As a nation, we are definitely in very sad shape if this is the case. I heard on the radio that some branches of the military had a hard time finding recruits - about one third of young men do not pass the initial fitness tests and health exams.</p>
From the same link:
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Seems quite reasonable to me.
<p>I would look at those guidelines, as an out-of-shape, fifty year old sedentary male, and say, “screw it, there’s no hope…”</p>
<p>When, in reality, I now know that there is not only hope, but starting on a path to weight loss and better fitness is as simple as “eat a little less, move a little more”.</p>
<p>Here’s a lesson I have learned from stop smoking support. If you tell a smoker to stop smoking forever, you might as well tell them to jog up Mt. Everest. You scare the bejeezus out of them. It’s negative motivation of the worst kind because it demands something of them that they can’t yet grasp. Instead, you want them to focus on something they can achieve: not smoking for the next 60 minutes. Then, use that as a victory (see, you can do it!) to power their way thru another hour and another big win. Hours, become days, which are hugely motivating victories. Days become weeks. And, now you can start talking about forever because it’s something they can actually picture themselves accomplishing and feeling good about. You know the minute I knew I would never smoke again (after 38 years)? It was the very minute that I knew I could do it. For me, it was the morning of the third day when I had just proven to myself that I could go 48 hours without nicotine. It wasn’t a moment of dread at all. It was exhilarating.</p>
<p>The same with exercise. Ten weeks ago, I couldn’t think about an “hour a day six days a week”. But, I started with 20 minutes, three days a week. That gave me some victories. I started to feel that it was getting easier and the desire to continue winning those battles made me WANT to increase the exercise. Not because I was SUPPOSED TO, but because I ENJOYED THE RESULTS. I liked the path a simple decision to eat a little less, move a little more had put me on. Think of all the poor newbie exercises who get hooked up with somebody like Toneranger’s personal trainer and learn to associate exercise with intense physical pain?</p>
<p>You are always better off if you can get people motivated by enjoying positive concrete benefits rather than instilling negative fear and deprivation. That’s why the whole concept of “dieting”, i.e. depriving yourself of food you believe you enjoy, doesn’t work.</p>
<p>And I’ll add that I’m not even a “newbie” exerciser…I’m certainly not ultra fit but I keep active every day - and do long distances on my bike. And my Personal Trainer STILL killed me. Granted, she looks terrific and is almost 50 herself, but a slower approach is better. I read an article the other day that said that Physical Therapists just LOVE personal trainers… they get LOTS of their business from them 
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<p>BB…given that you wear size “0” pants, I know it must look doable for most everyone from your perspective. But getting to high school weight may be too much for many…just getting in the proper BMI range would be great for most!</p>
<p>toneranger - no, I do not wear size 0 pants. I was just laughing at a certain clothes maker who thinks that women are so stupid they’d fall for his dumb sizing trick . 
Europeans still think I’m size M or L. I would not want to go back to my HS weight - I was a skeleton and could hide behind a broom handle according to my little sister. LOL. I’m back to my weight that I had in my early 20s.</p>
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<p>I wore a dress on Monday from H&M (Swedish company). It is a size 10 and the same physical size as a similar dress I have from Ann Taylor Loft that is a size 0.</p>