I found a new site

today. FitSugar.com A rather interesting site. I've found a couple of good ideas:

cooking grains in juices instead of water

using different types of grains,

adding chopped veggies to the grain. Not necessarily a new idea, but a good one.

measure and weigh your food.

I have a feeling FitSugar will be a new favorite of mine.

Sleep More, Weigh Less—Are the Studies True?

Sleep More, Weigh Less—Are the Studies True?

By Linda Vongkhamchanh | June 08, 2009

A new study from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine revealed today that people who deprive themselves of sleep gain weight despite a decrease in appetite and food consumption. In a world where even cell phones could potentially give you cancer, are they trying to tell us that our calorie-counting and healthy eating go completely out the window just because we have busy lives, preventing us from getting our recommended 7-8 hours snooze each night? If that’s the case, life’s not fair—bring on the donuts if we’re already doomed to obesity. Why not live it up while you can?

Read the rest of the article here

The Flat Belly Diet

this seems to be the latest "diet" to hit the market. It was apparently developed by Prevention magazine.

I'm not saying it's a fad, or that it won't work. I just don't know enough about it. I have to say I'm intrigued. I'm always intrigued in something new if only because it's new. New studies are coming out every day, so there's new information out all the time. That doesn't mean it's good. It just means that it's something new. And that new idea might be what gives one person the motivation to lose weight and become healthier. Of course, just because it's new doesn't mean it's good. We learned that lesson with the New Coke.

My hardest area to take off the fat is the waistline. I know I'm not alone. I also know that fat around the internal organs cause them to work harder, or less efficiently. The heart has to work harder to beat, the lungs to provide oxygen, the arteries and veins to transport blood and oxygen, not to mention the nutrients to the various cells, tissues, and organs, kidneys to cleanse the blood, the liver to do whatever it is the liver does (know it's important, I just don't remember what the liver does right now!)

Anyway, it's the fat around the midsection that's really hard to get rid of and the Fat Belly Diet is designed to do just that. It promises weight loss around the mid-section (the belly) without doing crunches! Now, this has me intrigued. Thirty minutes a day of exercise, alternating types - apparently one day is walking - (cardio) (walking? Right up my alley!), the next strength.

I'd love to have some input from my loyal readers. Have you tried it? Did it work?

What Your Waist Size Reveals

Use a simple tape measure to determine if your belly fat is helping--or hurting--your health

Flat Belly Diet experts and scientists have known for years that excess body fat isn’t good for you. Obesity (which means “overfat”), is considered as deadly as smoking, according to some analyses. Traditionally obesity was determined by the number on a scale or, a bit more accurately, by taking the Body Mass Index (BMI), which calculates your body size while trying to account for bone mass. If your BMI is over 30, you’re considered obese.

One of the problems with the BMI, however, is that it doesn’t take into account muscle mass (as a result, some athletes with low body fat and a high percentage of muscle mass would be computed as obese, when clearly they aren’t).

More recently, however, studies have begun to show that while obesity isn’t good, carrying excess body fat specifically around your belly is really, really bad.

In research published in the medical journal Lancet, doctors concluded that a person's waist measurement is a more accurate forecaster of heart attacks than the body mass index (BMI). The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have set a waist measurement cutoff point at above 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men--no matter how much you actually weigh--as an unhealthy sign of excess visceral fat, the dangerous hidden fat that surrounds vital organs deep inside your body.

Another measurement that is slightly more targeted to belly fat is the waist-to-hip ratio, which reflects the concentration of fat around your belly as opposed to around your hips or thighs. Analyzing data from 27,000 people in 52 countries, scientists found that heart attack sufferers had similar BMIs, but higher waist-to-hip ratios, than those who’d never had a heart attack.

Measuring Your Waist: Two Ways

The waist-to-hip ratio compares the measurement of the narrowest part of your waist to the broadest section of your hips. Your waist measurement should be taken in the spot that falls between the ribcage and the hipbone as viewed from the front.

Your hip measurement is truest if you turn sideways to the mirror and make sure you incorporate your derriere in the measurement. Now, divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. For example, a woman with a 30-inch waist and 37-inch hips has a waist/hip ratio of 0.81.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a healthy waist-to-hip ratio for women should not exceed 0.8.

Measuring Visceral Fat: High Tech Methods

As we understand more about visceral fat and the various chronic--even deadly--diseases it can cause, researchers are developing increasingly more accurate, and expensive, ways to measure it. The latest test (as of December, 2007), is one that detects levels of a protein called RBP4 (retinol binding protein 4), which is produced in higher quantities in visceral fat compared with subcutaneous fat (the kind of fat you can see on your body when you “pinch an inch.”). In overweight people, blood levels of RBP4 are double or triple the amount compared with normal-weight people. But other tests are used, including:

CT (CAT) Scan

MRI

Sonogram/Ultrasound

DXA

The scary part is that you don’t have to be overweight to have too much visceral fat inside your body, putting your health at risk. This understanding is relatively new, and describes those who are thin on the outside but have excess fat on the inside. It’s hard to imagine that one could be thin and fat at the same time, but Jimmy Bell, PhD, a professor of molecular imaging at Imperial College, London, has shown that it is possible. Dr. Bell and his team have been using MRI machines to scan nearly 800 people in an effort to produce what they call “fat maps.” His findings will surprise you: About 45 percent of the thin women and 65 percent of the slim men he tested carried excess visceral fat. Because the Flat Belly Diet is designed to help you reduce levels of dangerous belly fat, you can follow it even if you don’t need to lose pounds.

More on Plantar's Fasciitis

From Wikipedia:

Many different treatments have been effective. Without treatment resolution may be delayed for up to and over a year.[2] Initial treatment includes stretching of the Achilles tendon and plantar fascia, keeping off the foot as much as possible, weight loss, arch support and heel lifts, and taping.

There are a few simple maneuvers that may bring relief without need for further intervention.[3] Many sports medicine practitioners suggest placing a frozen bag of corn or even a cold beverage can under the affected foot and rolling it back and forth using the foot. This method provides a stretch and an ice massage simultaneously.

However, if these strategies are ineffective, the problem may require referral for Physiotherapy. The mainstays of Physiotherapy include myofascial release and scar tissue breakdown of the plantar fascia, and supervised stretching. People with plantar fasciitis should be careful to wear supportive and stable shoes. They should avoid open-back shoes, sandals, and flip-flops.

To relieve pain and inflammation, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin and ibuprofen are often used but are of limited benefit.[4]. It's important to lessen activities which place more pressure on the balls of the feet because these increase tension in the plantar fascia. This is counter-intuitive because the pain is in the heel, and the heel is often sensitive to pressure which causes some people who have plantar fasciitis to walk on the balls of their feet.

Local injection of corticosteroids often gives temporary or permanent relief, but may be painful, especially if not combined with a local anesthetic and injected slowly with a small-diameter needle.[5] Recurrence rates may be lower if injection is performed under ultrasound guidance.[6] Repeated steroid injections may result in rupture of the plantar fascia. This may actually improve pain initially, but has deleterious long-term consequences.

In cases of chronic plantar fasciitis of at least 10 months duration, one recent study has shown high success rates with a stretch of the plantar fascia.[7][8][9]

Pain with first steps of the day can be markedly reduced by stretching the plantar fascia and Achilles tendon before getting out of bed. Night splints can be used to keep the foot in a dorsi-flexed position during sleep to improve calf muscle flexibility and decrease morning pain. These have many different designs, some of which may be hard and may press on the origin of the plantar fascia. Softer, custom devices, of plastizote, poron, or leather, may be more helpful. Orthoses should always be broken in slowly.

Recently, extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) has been used with some success for symptoms lasting more than 6 months.[10] The treatment is a nonsurgical procedure, but is painful, and should be done either under sedation, or with local anaesthesia either with or without intravenous sedation (twilight sedation). Local anaesthesia by injection of drugs into the area can also be painful, and may incur the risks of neuritis, bleeding, and infection. ESWT re-inflames the area and in doing so increases blood flow to the area as a means to heal the area. It can take as long as six months following the procedure to see results. Results are variable, and one 2002 study reported ESWT for plantar fasciitis had no benefit.[11][12]

Most often plantar fasciitis improves within one year of beginning non-surgical treatment, without any long-term problems. Surgery is sometimes required, and is successful about 95% of the time.

Surgery

Surgery carries the risk of nerve injury, infection, rupture of the plantar fascia, and failure of the pain to improve.[13] Surgical procedures, such as plantar fascia release, are a last resort, and often lead to further complications such as a lowering of the arch and pain in the supero-lateral side of the foot due to compression of the cuboid bone.[14] An ultrasound guided needle fasciotomy can be used as a minimally invasive surgical intervention for plantar fasciitis. A needle is inserted into the plantar fascia and moved back and forwards to disrupt the fibrous tissue.[15]

Coblation surgery (aka Topaz procedure) has been used successfully in the treatment of recalcitrant plantar fasciitis. This procedure utilizes radiofrequency ablation and is a minimally invasive procedure.[16]

1. a b Barrett, Stephen L.; Robert O'Malley (1999). "Plantar fasciitis and other causes of heel pain". American Family Physician 59 (8): 2200–6. PMID 10221305.

2. Young, Craig C.; Rutherford, Darin S. and Mark W. Niedfeldt (2001). "Treatment of Plantar Fasciitis". American Family Physician 63 (3): 467–74,477–8.

3. Patel, NH; Holman, JR (February 2007), "Plantar Fasciitis: Office Management", Consultant 47 (2)

4. Lynch, D.; Goforth, W., Martin, J., Odom, R., Preece, C., & Kottor M. (1998). "Conservative treatment of plantar fasciitis. A prospective study". Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association 88 (8): 375–380. PMID 9735623.

5. Genc, Hakan; Meryem Saracoglu, Bans Nacir, Hatice Rana Erdem and Mahmut Kacar (2005). "Long-term ultrasonographic follow-up of plantar fasciitis patients treated with steroid injection". Joint Bone Spine 72 (1): 61–5. doi:10.1016/j.jbspin.2004.03.006. PMID 15681250.

6. Tsai, Wen-Chung; Chih-Chin Hsu, Carl P. C. Chen, Max J. L. Chen, Tung-Yang Yu, Ying-Jen Chen (2006). "Plantar fasciitis treated with local steroid injection: comparison between sonographic and palpation guidance". Journal of Clinical Ultrasound 34 (1): 12–16. doi:10.1002/jcu.20177. PMID 16353228.

7. Digiovanni, Benedict F.; Deborah A. Nawoczenski, Daniel P. Malay, Petra A. Graci, Taryn T. Williams, Gregory E. Wilding, and Judith F. Baumhauer (2006). "Plantar fascia-specific stretching exercise improves outcomes in patients with chronic plantar fasciitis. A prospective clinical trial with two-year follow-up". The Journal of bone and joint surgery (American) 88 (8): 1775–81. doi:10.2106/JBJS.E.01281. PMID 16882901.

8. Crawford, F (2004). "Plantar heel pain and fasciitis". Clinical Evidence (11): 1589–602. PMID 15652071.

9. "BestBets: Is Ultrasound effective in the treatment of plantar fasciitis?". Retrieved on December 6, 2008.

10. Norris, Donald M.; Kimberly M. Eickmeier and Bruce R. Werber (2005). "Effectiveness of Extracorporeal Shockwave Treatment in 353 Patients with Chronic Plantar Fasciitis". Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association 95 (6): 517–524. PMID 16291842.

11. http://prolotherapy.org/article.asp?prolotherapy=74

12. Buchbinder, R, et al. (2002). "Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy for Plantar Fasciitis:A Randomized Controlled Trial.". Journal of the American Medical Association 228: 1364–1372. doi:10.1001/jama.288.11.1364.

13. Kauffman, Jeffrey (2006-09-21). "Plantar fasciitis". MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia. National Institutes of Health.

14. "Endoscopic Plantar Fasciotomies / Heel Pain". FootLaw.com.

15. "Treatment of recalcitrant plantar fasciitis by sonographically-guided needle fasciotomy". Am College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons.

16. http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00189592

I haven't been walking

for the last couple of months. As you may know, walking is my preferred choice of exercise. I guess I overdid the walking or something and now I have Plantar's fasciitis.

From Wikipedia:

Plantar fasciitis is a painful inflammatory condition of the foot caused by excessive wear to the plantar fascia or plantar aponeurosis that supports the arches of the foot or by biomechanical faults that cause abnormal pronation.[1] The pain usually is felt on the underside of the heel, and is often most intense with the first steps of the day. It is commonly associated with long periods of weight bearing or sudden changes in weight bearing or activity. Jobs that require a lot of walking on hard surfaces, shoes with little or no arch support, a sudden increase in weight and over activity are also associated with the condition.

Plantar fasciitis was formerly called "dogs heel" in the United Kingdom. It is sometimes known as "flip-flop disease" among US podiatrists. The condition often results in aheel spur on the calcaneus, in which case it is the underlying condition, and not the spur itself, which produces the pain.

This isn't my first time with plantar's fasciitis and knew that I needed to stay off the foot as much as possible and take Aleeve. So, instead of walking on my vacation, I did as little walking as possible and popped Aleeve twice a day. It helped some, but not as much as I would have liked. I finally went to the podiatrist two weeks ago and had x-rays, a nice foot bath in the hydrotheraphy machine, and finally the doctor taped my foot.

The first time my foot was taped, I just couldn't imagine how it could help, but oh, Baby! Did it ever help! I could walk with no pain! I nearly danced out of the podiatrist's office it felt so good. I had another inflammation and couldn't wait to get in to get the hydotheraphy and taping. This time, I kept putting it off for some dumb reason. The first taping helped some, but not as much as I would have liked and so I went back for a follow up last week.

I saw another doctor and he taped my foot differently from the way the first doctor did. I don't know it was the difference in taping or just passage of time, but my foot is better. I was offered a steroid shot, which I know can help, but I just don't want injections unless the pain just won't go away. I still have some pain, but not as much and for shorter periods of time. I also found out that I was actually scheduled for a sonogram. The first doctor forgot that the doctor who does the sonograms was scheduled at another location. Anyway, the sonogram was re-scheduled and we'll talk about my options after the sonogram. I understand this is one of the newest treatment options. Another option is shock wave therapy for those suffering from long-term plantar's fasciitis.

My current options, until I know what the sonogram will suggest, are more taping, Aleeve, and/or steroid shots for the short-term. Longer term options include orthotics, which were suggested previously. Since my insurance didn't pay for it, I opted to go with taping and Aleeve.

It's been more than three years since my last flare-up so maybe insurance now pays for orthotics. I'll find out when I have my next appointment. I'm sure it will come up as an option.

So, that's my story for now.

Chocolate Angel Food Cake with Berries

Angel food cake rises to new heights with this chocolate-rich recipe. For an added treat, drizzle with melted chocolate or caramel sauce.

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

10 egg whites, at room temperature

1 1/4 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups assorted fresh berries

confectioners' sugar

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Sift the flour, 1/2 cup of the sugar, cocoa, and cinnamon into a medium bowl.

3. Place the egg whites in a large bowl. With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla extract. Continue beating until stiff peaks form.

4. Fold in the flour mixture 1 cup at a time, just until blended Place in a 10" tube pan, spreading evenly and deflating any large air pockets with a knife.

5. Bake for 40 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool upside down on a bottle neck for 40 minutes. Turn right side up and run a knife around the rim of the cake to loosen it from the sides. Remove the cake from the pan and place on a rack to cool completely.

6. To serve, top the cake with the berries and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar.

Nutritional Facts per serving

Calories 136.8

Fat 0.5 G

Saturate Fat 0.2 G

Cholesterol 0 MG

Sodium 47.2 MG

Carbohydrates 29.1 G

Total Sugars 18.7 G

Dietary Fiber 1.8 G

Protein 4.8 G

I found this recipe at Prevention magazine online. Not too high in calories, the fat is under 1 gram! Four grams of protein and almost 2 grams of fiber. Not bad! One I'd be trying if I could find someone to share it with. Since it's just me, I don't like to have too much in the way of sweets around the house. My resolve isn't too good these days.