Holiday Pounds Are Coming!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and for all of us food addicts, you know what that means.

Good for you if you can navigate yourself around the feasts without overindulging. That would be the best choice, but if you're like me and have no self control, the extra pounds will come.

So let's start diet planning now. Tomorrow till Thanksgiving Day, let's diet very strictly. Eat healthy in small portions and take off a couple pounds. Hopefully when Thanksgiving comes, we'll have accomplished two things. The first being that we'll have a head start so if we do overeat for the holiday, we'll hopefully just be the weight we are now and not over. The second thing is maybe we'll have trained our eye, and stomach to be satisfied on less food. Good luck and don't forget to consult your doctor before making any radical diet changes.

photo by David Gljay

Easy Indicator Of Early Death Found

A study that involved nine different countries in Europe dicovered that simple waist size was a "powerful indicator" of early death.

Every two inches around the waist raised the risk of early death by 13% to 17%.
We've all heard about the extra weight around the middle being an indicator, however this study being so large gives a much more accurate result.

They studied 360,000 people who were an average of 51 years old for about ten years. During that time 14,723 died.

The interesting thing about this study was the conclusion that although the body mass index was still a good indicator, it doesn't seem to matter whether the person is normal weight or not. As long as the waist measurement, or the waist to hip ration was large the risk was also large. For instance men whose waists were more than 47 inches doubled their risk of early death compared to men whose waists were under 31 inches. For women it doubled with a waist measurement of over 39 inches compared to those with measurements of under 25 inches.

Every two inches over increased the risk for men by 17% and women by 13%.

It could be that the fat around the waist is different from the fat that elsewhere in the body. Whatever the reason it's not going to take lab tests to figure out what your risk of early death is. It all comes back to simple diet and exercise to live a longer and healthier life.