A very high proportion of children who are having surgery are overweight or obese, and because of the excess weight have a greater chance of experiencing problems linked to the surgery, as per a new study from the University of Michigan Health System. Scientists looked at a database of all 6,017 pediatric surgeries at the U-M Hospital from 2000 to 2004, and they observed that nearly a third of the patients - 31.5 percent - were overweight or obese. More than half of those children qualified as obese, as per the study, which appears in the new issue of the Journal of the National Medical Association........

Increase your morning walk time and get more regular

Many of us make plans for a walk as a way to lose some extra pounds. But we exactly did is just make the plan for walking and never looking to implement it. And if any way we are able to go for a walk, we do not have regularity in that. To have some real results for our health, we need to take walking regularly and for longer hours.

If you can suggest me any ideas how I can be more regular about my walking? I welcome all of your ideas. I have seen different people use different ideas as a way to have some healthy walking in the morning regularly.

Some people ask their relatives and friends to help him/her get up in the morning. That does not seem to be a good idea, as that will rarely bring regularity in your walking. Some people use Alarms or some reminders as a way to get up in the morning. What I have noticed about it is that all of us get up in the morning just to off the alarm or reminder than for walking.

What I feel is we cannot be regular about our exercise if we do not have proper planning. We all need to know what we are going to get if we are going for the walk daily and what we are going to lose if we miss it. We have greater chance of success if both of our mind and feelings want to do it.

I like some of my friend’s regularity about their morning walk. Some of them use to go for walk in the group of two or more people. When you go for walk in the group, you do not get bored but enjoy it.

Some others have their pets with them when they went out for walking. This idea seems to be really seems to be work for everyone. I have decided that I am doing to bring a pet and going for a walk with him in the morning daily. What I am going to get while walking with pet is regularity with my walking program. It will also help me to increase my walking speed as well as my walking hours daily.

If you people have some big ideas how you are able to walk daily then you can either mail me or can leave a message in the comment section. Your ideas are going to help millions of people to be regular with their exercise program.

By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If knowledge is power, perhaps Paula Franetti can empower you to shed those extra pounds you've put on in the last few years, and to keep them off for the rest of your life.

Ms. Franetti, who has a master's degree in exercise physiology from the University of Pittsburgh, is the proprietor of MetaFitness, at 977 Perry Highway, Ross.

Ms. Franetti uses two relatively new diagnostic tools to determine how many calories you burn in the course of a normal day, and how you burn them. Then she and Terri Spirk, a dietitian, design diet and activity plans to fit your personal metabolic rate, your daily routine, and your likes and dislikes.

The first device, which looks like a breathalyzer test administered horizontally, can determine your resting metabolic rate by measuring how much oxygen you consume. (It's called the Reevue, for resting energy expenditure view.)

We burn calories every minute of every day, even when we're sleeping. (If we didn't, we'd be dead.) Typically, 70 percent of all the calories we burn are the calories we need just to keep our body functioning.

The number of calories we need each day to sustain life is our basal metabolic rate. (The resting metabolic rate the Reevue can measure is just a bit higher.) It's different for each one of us, and it diminishes with age. A 1997 study at the University of Colorado indicated post-menopausal women have a BMR 10 percent lower than that of the pre-menopausal women studied. If you're in your 40s and 50s, and your diet and exercise patterns are the same as they were in your 20s and 30s, that alone may explain why you've put on a few more pounds.

We burn more calories when we're active than when we're lying in bed. Ms. Franetti measures this with a small device with five sensors that you strap on your arm and leave on for a week. By measuring the amount of heat your body expends, the Sensewear can determine how many calories you burn during the week, and when you burn them.

Understanding and manipulating your metabolic rate is the key to weight loss, fitness, and retarding the aging process, Ms. Franetti said.

Bigger people typically have higher BMRs than smaller people, because it takes more energy to lug the heavier weight around.

Active people have higher basal metabolic rates. The University of Colorado study cited above indicated the decline in BMR was much greater for sedentary women than for women who exercised regularly.

But often the biggest difference is between those people who have proportionally more muscle, and those who have less. It takes energy to sustain muscle mass, while fat just lies there.

This is why exercise programs that include weight lifting and other forms of resistance training tend to be more successful in inducing weight loss than cardiovascular exercise alone, even though you can burn many more calories in an hour on the treadmill or the exercise bike than you can in an hour lifting weights.

If those of us who are not athletes get to the gym three or four times a week, we're doing well. Our metabolic rate spikes while we are exercising, but once we get off the treadmill or the bike, it pretty quickly drops back to normal. Building additional muscle mass will burn additional calories 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If you're planning to go on a diet, it's very important not to reduce your calorie consumption below your BMR, Ms. Franetti said.

"Your body will think you're starving, and it will lower your metabolic rate as a defense mechanism," she said.

This is why people who go on low-calorie diets often see dramatic results in the first week or two, but then their weight creeps back up.

The key to long-term weight loss is to consume more calories than are required to sustain your BMR, but fewer calories than you burn in a typical day.

Armed with the results of her tests and an interview, Ms. Franetti prepares for her clients a 13-page Metabolic Efficiency Profile that outlines nearly precisely that range, and then proposes a customized plan to increase the rate at which her clients burn calories.

Typically, the changes she proposes in diet and exercise are modest, and are geared to her clients' likes and dislikes. Small, incremental changes are easier to make and easier to stick to, she said, and, over time, can produce dramatic results.

"It's kind of fun to figure out for people that it is easy to do this," she said.

The results of the Metabolic Efficiency Profile are sometimes startling, Ms. Franetti said.

"I had a client who walked and worked out to exercise tapes for exercise," she said. "She liked walking, but didn't like the exercise tapes.

"Our analysis indicated she was burning more calories on her walks and doing housework than she was when she was working out to the exercise tapes."

When she learned that, the client dumped the tapes and went for longer walks. She was happier, and began making more rapid progress toward her fitness goals, Ms. Franetti said.

"Paula gives you the tools to let you know what your body is doing," said another client, Jill Cueni-Cohen, 41, of Allison Park. "Your excuses are finished."

Ms. Cueni-Cohen said she also appreciates the coaching she receives from Ms. Franetti.

"Dieting can be lonely, and it's great to have Paula encouraging me, showing me I can do it," she said.

Ms. Franetti usually charges $299 for drawing up a Metabolic Efficiency Profile and a customized diet and exercise plan, but is running a special through February for $199. Her telephone number is: 412-247-4957.

Why not include healthier Pizza in your diet

When we think about our weight loss diet, there are a number of foods, which seems to be prohibited. One of such food is Pizza. I think we can lose weight effectively with a bit of control over self and balanced diet. There is no one among us who do not like pizza. But all of us know that pizza with its white flour crust and melted cheese and high fat meats can add up in calories fast.

We can include pizza in our diet and it will not affect our weight loss mission in any way if we follow some rules:

• Try lower fat crust
  Why not try thin crust pizza in place of pan pizza as thin pizza contains lesser amount of fat and thus lesser calories.
  


• Use tomato sauce
  Always use traditional tomato sauce as a way to save some additional calories consumption.


• Have some salad with pizza
  It is a good idea to have salad with your pizza. With this you will not only be able to enjoy your pizza but also be able to have smaller size of pizza and thus able to save some big calories.
  


• Stay away from high and extra fat toppings
  Pepperoni and sausage add a lot of calories to pizza. Choosing Canadian bacon, vegetable, or just plain cheese can help you avoid excess calories.
  

Original pizza dinner
3 slices of pan pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni
12-ounce soda
Total: 1140 calories

Pizza dinner makeover
2 slices of regular crust pizza with tomatoes and mushrooms
1 side salad with ranch dressing
Water
Total: 530 calories

Second pizza dinner makeover
2 slices of thin crust pizza with tomatoes and mushrooms
1 side salad with ranch dressing
Water
Total: 470 calories

So you can go ahead with your favorite pizza. But what you need is control and balance in diet. So enjoy your diet on your way to your weight loss goals and have some fun with your favorite pizza once awhile.

Packed lunches taken to school by 7-year olds are even less healthy than school meals used to be before Jamie Oliver set out to reform them. The Children of the 90s study, based at the University of Bristol, revealed today that in the year 2000, school meals were every bit as bad a Jamie Oliver suggested - but that children given packed lunches instead were even worse off nutritionally........