Here's validation to what I've been telling you for some time: Keeping a detailed food journal will help you lose weight.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25573436/

according to a new study that found that people who kept daily food diaries lost twice as much weight or more as those who didn’t keep a tally of their meals.

“There’s a myth in this country now that weight loss is almost impossible and very few can lose weight,” said Victor Stevens, a researcher at Kaiser’s Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., and co-author of the study, which appears in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

“But we showed that with a simple, straightforward approach, nearly 70 percent of participants were able to lose enough weight to make significant improvements in their health.”

Overall, two-thirds of the study subjects lost nine pounds or more during the six-month study. But those who kept a food diary every day of the week dropped up to 20 pounds, more than twice as much as those who didn't record their every bite.

 “It had a very big impact,” Satterwhite said of the diary. “If I was walking through the kitchen and wanted to grab a cookie or a brownie, I would think twice because I knew I had to write it down.”

That was a common experience among those who kept diaries, noted Stevens. “Study participants said, ‘I thought about eating a second helping of chocolate cake but I didn’t because I didn’t want to see it in my food diary,” he said.

The food diaries helped people see where extra calories were coming from, and also to recognize the hidden calories in familiar foods.

Satterwhite said it was easier to maintain the weight loss using the food diary than her past efforts using Slim-Fast, the Atkins high-protein regime or other fad diets.

“The difference was that it was a slower stable lifestyle change than doing some crash diet that you see on TV or read about in a magazine,” she said.

It seems as though these days everyone takes some kind of dietary supplement. Whether it’s a multivitamin or creatine, supplementation has become so commonplace as to be taken for granted. This article will address a common concern about this confusing and misunderstood topic: Should I take supplements? If so, what kind?

First of all, supplements aren’t magic. Any supplement will only work as much as you work with it. Supplements are meant to supplement – that is,

From Scott Sonnon's blog on some research done by the Joslin Diabetes Center and reported in March 2008

http://www.rmaxinternational.com/flowcoach/?p=199

Many people know that I don’t use refined sugars - the world’s most popularly abused drug. Since the fitness industry is finally collapsing and reforming into the wellness revolution, understanding the global impact of drugs on your health, performance and aging is of critical importance. I for one intend on hitting at least 3 digit age. If you want a long, high-quality life, then pay attention!

“Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have shown that insulin has a previously unknown effect that plays a role in aging and lifespan, a finding that could ultimately provide a mechanism for gene manipulations that could help people live longer and healthier lives.

The paper, published in the March 21st issue of Cell, reports that insulin inhibits a master gene regulator protein known as SKN-1, and that increased SKN-1 activity increases lifespan. SKN-1 controls what is called the Phase 2 detoxification pathway, a network of genes that defends cells and tissue against oxidative stress — damage caused by elevated levels of free radicals (byproducts of metabolism) — and various environmental toxins. The new finding was demonstrated in experiments on the digestive system of C. elegans, a microscopic worm often used as a model organism.

“We’ve found something new that insulin does and it has to be considered when we think about how insulin is affecting our cells and bodies,” said Dr. T. Keith Blackwell, senior investigator at Joslin and author of the paper. “This has implications for basic biology since under some circumstances insulin may reduce defense against the damaging effects of oxidative stress more than we realize.”