My Daily Domestic Clips 06/12/2011 (a.m.)

• Middle-aged dieters hit a brick wall after 10 pounds or so – USATODAY.com tags: diet menopause fitness
  • Cindy Groover, 54, of Palm City, Fla., who cut calories and  walked 3 miles a day to lose 15 pounds since late September, says: “When I was  young, I could drop 10 pounds in two weeks by going on a low-carb diet. These  days, it just doesn’t happen fast.”
  • Losing this much is the “sweet spot” for many people, but  if they “want to go beyond that 10% loss, there is going to be some pain and  suffering,” says Tim Church, director of preventive medicine research at the  Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. “You are going to have to  limit your calorie intake without starving yourself.”
  • The postmenopausal women in one study burned an average of  100 to 150 fewer calories a day just resting and doing their everyday  activities, and they were less physically active for a total drop of about 200  calories a day after menopause, says lead researcher Jennifer Lovejoy, who now  works for a health coaching company, Free & Clear in Seattle.
  • The lower metabolism appears to have to do with changing  levels of estrogen and not changes in muscle mass, she says. And there is  evidence that a lack of estrogen increases appetite and can cause specific  cravings for certain foods, especially carbohydrates and fats. That means women  need to be careful about consuming too many cookies, cakes, candy bars and  chips, she says.
  • One of her recent studies showed that middle-aged women lost an average of 21  pounds over several months if they did 45 minutes of aerobic exercise five days  a week and limited their calories to 1,200 to 1,800 a day. Those who were the  most successful wrote down what they ate, prepared food at home instead of  eating out and made weight loss a priority
• Q&A: Midwife Ina May Gaskin on Her Book ‘Birth Matters’ – TIME tags: birth childbirth homebirth

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.