Weight Loss in the Information Age
Let's start with the internet. If you're looking for nutrition and weight-loss information, this is either a great place to start or a way to become totally confused and overwhelmed. Keep in mind that there is just as much, if not more, quack science on the web as there is legitimate information. For sound advice, visit my Nutrition Notes Archive at www.gelsons.com, or use gateways from reliable institutions to track down what you're looking for. Tufts Nutrition Navigator at www.navigator.tufts.edu is great, as is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Healthfinder at www.healthfinder.gov. For comprehensive and reliable answers to nutrition and medical questions, WebMD is indispensable at www.webmd.com. Once you've educated yourself about nutrition and weight loss, many helpful free websites can help you stay on track. To help calculate your calorie needs visit (www.dallasdietitian.com/rd/calorie.htm); to download comprehensive weight management programs try (www.dietpower.com, two-week free trial). If you're keeping track of your calories in a food journal, which I highly recommend, you can go to the source of most calorie and nutrient databases at www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp. For those of you who would rather journal electronically than on paper, www.nutridiary.com and www.fitday.com provide some good online diet and exercise diaries. If you use a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), there are programs that you can download to your device which allow you to conveniently track your diet while taking advantage of your PDA's portability. Palm offers a "Diet and Exercise Assistant" for a reasonable price at www.palmone.com. There is also a desktop version for those of us who like the program but only own a computer. You may be ready to start cooking healthfully, too. The number of recipes available on the internet is overwhelming and you could have a dining disaster if you download a recipe from a random website. The recipe page at www.gelsons.com has over 150 of my healthy, delicious, and tested recipes. Cooking Light Magazine at www.cookinglight.com requires either a subscription to their magazine or to AOL to access their recipes, but they also have a lot of healthy cooking ideas to offer. In the kitchen, you may want to utilize a food scale to weigh out your portions, since most overweight people tend to underestimate the amount they eat. Portion control is an important part of a healthy weight loss plan and a food scale can be useful. Alternatively, a low-tech but tried and true way to keep an eye on your portions is with a set of dry measuring cups. Both gadgets are available at Gelson's. Speaking of scales, if you don't have one, I strongly suggest that you purchase a digital bathroom scale (digital scales are high-tech and have fewer moving parts to break). You'll need to know your starting point so that you can monitor your progress, so get up and take the plunge. People who have lost weight and continue to track their weight are more likely to maintain their loss. You could also take the bathroom scale concept one step further and add a body fat monitor to your repertoire of tracking devices. The home versions use a method called Bioelectrical Impedance (BIA) but they are only sensitive enough to detect changes in body fat every two months. Tanita and Omron make scales with built-in body fat readers and Omron makes a hand-held version which I use. As you well know, being a couch potato is not going to help you achieve your weight-loss goals. Exercise is the other part of the challenge. Exercise DVDs are a great way to infuse your routine with novelty, variety, and fun, which are keys to motivation. If you don't have a DVD player, you may be able to play the DVDs on your computer. On the opposite end of the technology spectrum, plain old walking is low-tech, but it can help your get the job done, too. Gadget-wise, a pedometer can help you keep track of the steps you log each day. Technology is growing at an astounding rate and it will continue to have more to offer for those of you who love your gadgets and want to lose weight. Just keep in mind that people have been losing weight since before any of this technology was available, so losing weight on your own is still possible—it just won't be as fun! 
Weightless Whole Grains
With age, we all lose muscle, which causes our metabolism to slow down. Weight gain is all but inevitable. The researchers in this study conjecture that there are components of whole grains that slow the drop in metabolism and since intact grains promote satiety and have a low energy density, they help prevent long-term weight gain (see Appraising your Appetite in this issue). Whole grains can benefit everyone, not just aging men. They can be found in whole-grain breads and cereals, whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, oatmeal, barley, taboule, and quinoa, to name a few. When buying items like bread and cereal, be sure the package says the word "whole" on the label.
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echnology certainly has changed the way we live our lives. It can make daily activities faster, easier, and more convenient. However, all this convenience at the touch of a button or the flip of a switch may be getting us into trouble with our weight. If your behind is glued to a chair for most of the day and you're thinking about losing weight, there are endless high-tech resources that can help transport you to your goal weight.
recent Harvard study of 27,000 middle-aged men has found an inverse association between eating whole grains and age-related weight gain: The more whole grains the men ate over the years, the less they gained. Every 40 grams of whole grains eaten daily kept about one pound off the study participants. Fiber-rich fruit appeared to help prevent weight gain, as well.