Diet & Weight Loss Archive

Don't get scared. Be proactive by improving diet, exercising, and tracking your symptoms.

There’s something satisfying about getting immediate feedback about exercise, sleep, and other activities. That’s why more and more people are joining the “quantified-self” movement. It involves formal tracking of health and habits, usually using apps and devices that feed data to them—from heart rate, activity, and sleep monitors to Bluetooth connected scales. But with so many apps and connected devices on the market, it can be hard to decide which ones are worth trying. Wellocracy, a website launched by the Harvard-affiliated Center for Connected Health, aims to give people impartial information about fitness trackers, mobile health apps, and other self-help technologies. It reviews dozens of sleep trackers, wearable activity trackers, mobile running apps, and mobile pedometer apps, lets you compare apps and devices in each category, provides a guide for beginners and offers tips for adding activity “bursts” throughout the day.

William Howard Taft was America’s heaviest president. He would have preferred being seen and remembered for something else, and took steps to lose weight. Taft’s story of weight loss and regain, described in today’s Annals of Internal Medicine, sounds completely familiar today, more than 100 years later. Using correspondence and archival sources, Deborah Levine, an assistant professor at Providence College in Rhode Island, tells the story of Taft’s struggles with his weight. In 1905, with the help of a British physician, Taft went from 314 pounds to 255. He was pleased with his accomplishment. But three years later, when Taft was inaugurated as the nation’s 27th President, he tipped the scales at 354 pounds. His story and struggle with weight are no different than what many people experience today.

You can ignore the carb counts, but pay strict attention to serving size, calories, and fat types.

One of the keys to making better choices in your diet is learning to read a food label—not marketing promises such as "high fiber" and "heart healthy," but the Nutrition Facts label. It takes a little know-how, so we turned to Kathy McManus, director of the Department of Nutrition for Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital.

New research finds that having a high body mass index (BMI) can increase the risk of gallstone formation in women, independent of factors that may be associated with obesity.

Postmenopausal weight gain and loss of muscle tone aren't inevitable—you just need to work a little harder.

Remember when you could eat whatever you wanted (within reason) and you still looked great in a bathing suit? As long as you ate a generally healthy diet and stayed active, you were able to keep your weight in check. Now those pounds stick much more stubbornly, and it seems like no matter how much you exercise and how healthy your diet, you just can't take them off.

By making smarter food choices, you can eat less sugar and lose weight without feeling deprived.

Our sugar-laden diet is literally killing us. That's the conclusion of a study reported at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) in March 2013. The study authors attributed 180,000 annual deaths worldwide—25,000 in the United States alone—to sugary beverages. Sodas and fruit drinks aren't our only sources of sugar. The average American eats between 22 and 30 teaspoons of added sugar each day, according to the AHA.

Q. My doctor says I may have too much visceral fat. Why is this a problem and what can I do about it?

A. Visceral fat (sometimes called abdominal fat) is fat that accumulates in our abdomen, padding the spaces between our abdominal organs. Unlike the fat just beneath the skin—the kind we can grab with our hands, called subcutaneous fat—visceral fat seems to be more harmful to our health. It is linked to insulin resistance, which may lead to type 2 diabetes, and to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease. In women, it is also associated with a higher risk of breast cancer and the need for gallbladder surgery.

Strengthen muscles to fight back.

Here's another reason to fight the battle of the bulge: fat that lies deep in the abdomen is linked not only to heart disease and diabetes, but also to bone health. "Men with increased deep belly fat, the visceral fat that surrounds our organs, have decreased bone strength," says Dr. Miriam Bredella, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

Breaking down the bulge

Subcutaneous fat, just beneath your skin, is the kind you can grab to "pinch an inch." While too much isn't good for you, subcutaneous fat does have some molecules that actually benefit health, such as adiponectin, which may have an anti-inflammatory effect on blood vessel linings and decrease the risk of insulin resistance.

Poor eating habits, smoking, and obesity add to the risk of developing kidney disease. The National Kidney Foundation is urging people lower kidney disease risk by losing weight and quitting smoking.