A Pot Belly Can Be Caused By Heavy Smoking

A common fear among smokers is that they'll pile on the pounds if they quit the habit. But new research has found that heavy smokers are more likely to get pot bellies.

Scientists say that while people who light up may have better control of their overall weight, heavy tobacco use tends to push fat into central areas, resulting in a protruding tummy.

Having an "apple shape" is known to be less healthy than being "pear-shaped." People with apple shapes have more weight in their waist and belly areas. People with pear shapes have more weight in their hips and thighs.

The researchers reviewed data from 29 studies involving 148,731 people with European ancestry who were either smokers, former smokers, or people who had never smoked. The information detailed the smoking habits of the volunteers, as well as their weight and waist circumference.

The analysis, published in the BMJ Open journal, revealed that some smokers had a genetic variation linked to smoking more and having a lower body mass index (BMI). But it also showed that while overall BMI in heavy smokers was lower, their waist circumference was higher than non-smokers once BMI was accounted for.

Bigger Tummies

Professor Naveed Sattar, of the University of Glasgow, who helped lead the study, explains that while smoking lessens weight overall, it tends to push fat more into the belly area.

"So, when smoker[s] put on weight, they will show bigger tummies for same weight gain than non-smokers, and this may also be linked to their greater risk for diabetes," Sattar said in a statement.

"If confirmed, a tendency for smokers to acquire an 'apple shape' might provide a novel health promotion message to encourage smoking cessation," he said.

In my personal opinion, I think smoking or any other addiction the mother might have can get passed down to the child. The nicotine in the tobacco will be in the bloodstream of the mother and will be passed through to the child. So addiction like smoking or drinking alcohol can be passed through to a newborn. 

Also if the parent has this Pot Belly shape from smoking and has his or her body fat concentrated around the waist I believe the child will inherit the same tendency to have their body fat located in the same areas regardless of whether they smoke or not.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want. 

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon, BN.com, iBook, Kobo, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smash words.com. If you use the smash word promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (PJ42H). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Mark Bittman's VB6 Diet

Reviewed by Michael W. Smith, MD

The Promise

Could you go vegan part time? You will if you go on the VB6 plan.

If you follow TheNew York Times food section, you probably know Mark Bittman’s column, and you may have heard of his approach to eating: VB6, which stands for Vegan Before 6. That is, you eat like a vegan (no meat, dairy, or other animal products) until 6 p.m.

I first read this post recently and this plan could work. It's not that hard to stick to it. He says you can eat what ever and as much as you want after 6 pm, but he also has a "but" clause in there. But if your trying to lose weight go easy eating  and drinking things like meat, dairy and Alcohol. I do have a few concerns. Personally I encourage people not to eat heavy at night. It's too close to bed time and you don't have time to digest a big meal, but I do like the idea that you could change the time of the day. I think it might work for me if I had my heavy meal at breakfast, then go Vegan the rest of the day. I don't think this is a quick weight loss plan, that said, I do think this would be a healthy way to eat and over time you would lose body fat.

Bittman isn’t a doctor, nutritionist, or health professional, but he has been cooking and writing about food and food policy for more than 25 years.

He also has firsthand experience. At age 57, Bittman's doctor told him that he was 40 pounds overweight, pre-diabetic, and had high cholesterol. He says his doctor recommended that he go on a vegan diet. Bittman decided to radically change his diet but not totally give up all animal products, to see if that would help improve his health without medication.

Bittman writes about his diet in his book, VB6.

What You Can Eat and 

What You Can't

On this plan, you’ll become a part-time vegan, eating mostly fruit, vegetables, grains, and beans until dinner, when you can eat whatever you like, in moderation. Bittman also gave up processed foods, like white bread, junk food, and pasta -- until 6 p.m.

The VB6 28-day plan includes much more fruit, vegetables, and other plant foods than you’re most likely used to eating. You can eat some of them in almost unlimited quantities. However, legumes (beans, lentils), nuts, seeds, whole grains, starchy or fatty veggies or fruits, and oils you should eat in moderation.

Bittman encourages snacking when the urge strikes, as long as you don’t eat when you’re not really hungry and don’t choose processed foods. He recommends reaching for fruit when you crave something sweet, even if that means eating two or three pieces and nuts when you want salty, but only a hand-full, they have lots of calories.

He cautions against eating chips, and fries or too many white potatoes.  He suggests treating fatty avocados and olives as snacks or alternatives to cheese but says eating an “avocado instead of a cheeseburger is always a fair swap.”

VB6 does not allow animal products, sugar, white flour, white rice, pastas, or processed foods before 6 p.m., or dinnertime. After 6 p.m. or at dinner, you may eat whatever and however much you want, including meat, cheese, alcohol, and sweets. But if you’re trying to lose weight, Bittman suggests that you eat and drink them in limited quantities, or use as garnish rather than centerpiece of a meal.

Bittman also gives you some margin. If going vegan apart from dinner doesn't work for you, could you do it for another part of the day? The time is arbitrary, Bittman writes.

Level of Effort: Medium

Limitations: From the time you wake up in the morning until dinner or 6 p.m., you may eat only a vegan diet, featuring fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds. For dinner, nothing is off-limits -- you may eat whatever you like. 

Cooking and shopping: You’ll prepare and eat far more fruit, vegetables, and grains than you ever have before. Bittman provides very easy recipes and cooking techniques for a wide range of foods. Plus, the book gives you the tools you need to make the diet work, even if you eat out frequently and don’t like to cook.

Packaged foods or meals: No.

In-person meetings: No.

Exercise: Encouraged. Bittman suggests you get moving because exercise helps bolster your physical and mental health. He doesn’t give specific recommendations.

Does It Allow for Dietary 

Restrictions or Preferences? 

Vegetarian or vegan: This diet is a great fit for you. The VB6 diet emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes and requires you to eat vegan at least part time. It wouldn’t be difficult to continue the vegan plan or make it simply vegetarian for dinner.

The plan is not necessarily low-fat, but you’ll eat mostly heart-healthy fats from avocado, olive oil, nuts, and seeds, and as much or as little salt as you like. Bittman stresses that the plan is flexible, and you should do the best you can, rather than strive for perfection. 

Gluten-free diet: This diet doesn't focus on gluten, but you could opt for whole grains that don't include gluten.

What Else You Should 

Know

Cost: You’ll spend roughly the same amount on groceries.

Want To Lose Weight

Gym memberships, diet pills and weight lose counselors all cost money. When in fact, you don't have to spend a dime. You can even save money while you lose the unwanted pounds. We don’t always realize it, but as we go threw your work day, we can spend a lot of time and money snacking. You can consume a lot of junk food and drinks and it all costs money.

Maybe you start your day at a coffee shop and you don’t just buy coffee. Starbuck's claims that most coffee customers will buy something sweet with their coffee. You get to work and there’s pastries in the break room, so why not. I use to do it. I’d look for something to snack on every time I took a break. The average person adds 2 or 3 pounds a year, even if their careful and don’t over eat. Between the ages of 30 and 40, I personally gain 40 pounds. I had changed jobs when I was 31. I had a construction job, outside all day and was very active and left that for an office job, sitting all day and eating and drinking too much. I didn’t over eat on purpose, I would go along with the others and was eating throughout the day.

I never ate breakfast at home except maybe on the weekends. I started out at the coffee shop with a roll and coffee, usually one of those designer coffees, I don’t even know how much sugar I was consuming. Mid-morning we’d take a break after being on the phone for 2 or 3 hours and staring at the computer screen, we'd go for coffee and another sweet roll, more sugar. But in those days I didn’t thing I was fat. Everyone was the same, except for a few guys that had a real weight problem. At lunch I usually had a burger and fries and maybe a beer. I was on the phone all day, we didn’t meet with customers. No break in the afternoon but drinks after work. About an hour of beers or cocktails after work. Now that I thing back, I was probably consuming 3000 calories before I came home for dinner. Usually dinner starts with a cocktail or maybe a bottle of wine with dinner and then a meat and potatoes type dinner with dessert, about 2000 more calories and then maybe a nightcap before bed. I had that job almost 12 years, I don’t know how I survived. I should have died of a coronary. After I changed jobs my routine changed a lot. I was over 40 and my doctor told me I weighed too much. “ You have to lose at least 20 pounds.”

I joined a HEALTH CLUB, It did help me get in shape but after several years of membership fees, I had barely lost any weight. I was working out but because of the extra exercise, I was hungry all the time. I hadn't changed my diet and I was eating more between meals. My job kept me busy and often I would skip lunch and just snack or grab fast food at a drive-in window. Finally my wife told me, “you can’t lose weight if you keep eating like this. You grab a Hot Dog for lunch thinking you’re saving on calories because your not eating a big meal, but there’s no nutrition in a hot dog and diet snacks, that’s all empty calories. You have to eat foods to fuel your body, your metabolism is falling asleep. When you don’t metabolize food the food turns into fat. You have to eat foods that your body can use to create energy for your heart and other organs, and for your muscles to have strength. Your body is living off of today’s fat and you’ll never burn the old fat.”

She was rights I started by changing my diet. Nothing crazy, I was eating better food. I stayed out of the restaurants for a few months, brought my own food from home. I stayed away from ice cream, I changed to skim milk and non-diary creamer. I quit buying processed meats like lunch meat and look for better cheese. I’d get the cubes of cheese, I read that if your trying to lose weight you should eat one ounce of swiss cheese before every meal. Swiss cheese will help you metabolize your food. I bought the package of cubes and they where the perfect weight, one ounce, and it did work. It’s also really filling. Another little trick that helped me was drinking water with your meal. Even now that I lost 50 pounds, if I go out an eat and we order beer before a meal, I still get a glass of water to drink while I’m eating. I quit the gym membership after a few years, I work out at home. I started running after I lost the first 20 pounds. I had a lot more energy and running is one of the best exercises I know for your body and to lose weight. We'll cover exercise in a later chapter.

Why Am I Always Hungry?

There's a good article in Health Magazine in the September Issue about food cravings. 

You daydream about lunch at 10:30 am, a half hour after you finish eating your sniffing around the fridge. It seems like your always hungry, so what's going on. There can be two possible answers, one is that your on a diet and you cut too many calories. But that's not usually the problem, number two is you can eat lots of calories and still not be satisfied. 

Your not eating nutrient-dense foods. If your body didn't get the nutrition it needed from your last meal, and that might take 30 minutes or so, your body will send another signal to your brain in the form of a food craving that you need to eat again. And these cravings will keep coming until the body is satisfied it has enough of the vitamins or minerals it needed.

You can fix your problem. You can start with 11 or 12 grams of protein in the morning. Like two eggs or greek yogurt with berries. And be careful how much fat you cut from your diet. Your body needs the good fats (fat from plants) not animal fat. There two types of body fat and that's one reason some people can't lose their body fat, there is white fat that your body can not burn and there's brown fat that your body burns to create energy. That why it's so important to know what your eating. The bad fat that you eat will be stored and you will probably never get rid of it. The good fat is critical for body functions. So a low-fat diet is okay, but cut the bad fats and eat the good fats from olive oil, nuts, avocados and salmon. Check the internet for a list of good fat, they also keep you full longer.

Watch which kind of smoothie your drinking. It's better to make your own. Your want that 12 grams of protein and you won't get it because you added milk. If you like smoothies, try a protein smoothie and add some protein power. The best is Whey. But it has wheat and you don't want wheat, look for one with another plant protein like almonds or greek yogurt. 

Another fix to the cravings is to keep a food journal for a few weeks. Add all the calories your eating everyday and you may be surprised to find your consuming 1000 calories more then you need. If you have a smartphone you can get a free app that will count the calories for you. MyFitnessPal is a good one. The average person only needs about 1500 calories a day but we are all different and if you use the app I suggested it will tell you how many calories you need. You can also go on their website and get the same information.

Lie's We Tell Ourselves About Our Weight

I really think that most people are in denial about the weight and about their health. They just don't want to take the time to deal with it. This post brings out all those lie's we tell ourselves just so we don't have to deal with our weight. This blog post first appeared on WebMD.com

1. “I know how much I’m 

eating.” 

An extra bite here, a snack in the car there …“It’s surprising how often people don’t know exactly what they’re eating,” says Terese Weinstein Katz, PhD, a clinical psychologist who specializes in diet issues. Instead of trusting your gut, start tracking daily calories in a food journal (or on your smartphone). In one study, women who kept a food journal lost up to 6 pounds more than those who didn’t.

2. “I can’t eat anything 

good when I’m dieting.” 

“Diets shouldn’t be ‘all or nothing,’” says nutritionist Carolyn Brown, RD. Researchers have found that being too rigid about what you eat leads to food cravings, which can hamper weight loss. “Allow yourself to have a treat meal or dessert once a week, and don’t think of it as cheating,” Brown says. Occasionally indulging yourself will help you stay on track. When I reward myself, I have a small glass of red wine. It's a treat, but a healthy treat.

3. “Skipping meals will help 

me lose weight faster.” 

“Skipping meals is one of the worst things you can do,” Brown says. Once hunger kicks in -- and it will -- “you’ll overeat, and probably not something healthy.” Missing a meal also puts the brakes on your metabolism. To keep your blood sugar stable and hunger cravings to a minimum, Brown recommends eating breakfast within 2 hours of waking up, then having a healthy snack (like guacamole and carrots, or a small handful of trail mix) or meal every 3-4 hours.

4. “If I’m not hard on 

myself, I won’t lose 

weight.” 

Instead of berating yourself for choosing chocolate cake instead of an apple, show yourself compassion. “We’re more likely to change when we’re kind to ourselves,” Katz says. “Staying sympathetic makes it easier to examine how we can prevent those same setbacks from happening again.”

5. “If I cut calories, then I 

don’t have to exercise.”

Actually, the two go hand in hand. Cutting calories will help you shed pounds, and with regular exercise you can keep the weight off, says Alison Massey, RD, director of diabetes education at Mercy Medical Center. “The people who successfully maintain their weight loss beyond a year are the ones who exercise at least 45 minutes most days of the week.”

6. “I can’t eat out if I’m 

trying to lose weight.” 

Going on a diet doesn’t mean putting your life on hold. “The changes you make to your food choices and meal planning should be lifestyle changes that are sustainable,” Massey says. Go ahead and meet friends for dinner. To avoid overindulging: “Research the restaurant ahead of time to find healthy menu options,” Massey says, “and request a to-go box for half your food at the beginning, rather than the end, of your meal.” I quit trying to find something on the menu. I like to eat in a restaurant where I know the menu. I go for a nice seafood restaurant and I usually order a salad with tuna and a glass of wine. The trick is the dressing. go for a low-cal dressing or just get oil and vinegar.

7. “I’m embarrassed I’m 

dieting.”

Trying to get in shape is nothing to be ashamed of. “Really owning your goals will help you succeed,” Brown says. “Accountability and support are key for weight loss.” Let your friends know your goals, and don’t shy away from admitting when you’ve had a setback. “Sometimes you need other people to cheerlead for you,” Brown says. “Remove the shame and guilt about losing weight, and you’re far more likely to reach your goals.”

8. “Losing weight is all 

about cutting carbs.”

True, you don’t want to load up your plate with refined carbs like white bread and cookies. A better choice: complex carbs like those in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, says David Grotto, RD, author of 101 Foods That Could Save Your Life. “Carbs are [our] main source of energy,” so Grotto says that a better strategy is to monitor your overall calorie intake and include a variety of healthy foods in your diet.

9. “If I fall off my diet, I 

might as well quit.”

“It’s better to dust yourself off and try again, rather than quit once something’s gone wrong,” Katz says. Setbacks are an inevitable part of dieting. So, next time you’re derailed, think about what habit or thought undermined you. Then plan exactly how you’ll react differently -- and successfully -- next time.

WebMD Feature

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want. 

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon, BN.com, iBook, Kobo, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smash words.com. If you use the smash word promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (PJ42H). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

It's You That Makes The Food Choices

When you pay attention and discover that your morning coffee drink and muffin is nearly 1,000 calories AND you know your body burns about 1,800 calories a day, you are empowered to make a smarter choice. When you use measuring tools to find out that your morning bowl of cereal is five times more than it should be, you can make an adjustment. When you read the nutritional guide in a restaurant and see your favorite salad is over 1,200 calories, you can choose something else.

Counting every single calorie to the point of obsession is probably not healthy, as most obsessions aren’t, but getting and staying informed about your body, your activity level and your food choices is 100 percent empowering. In my opinion, tracking is not a chore but a choice. A choice to pay attention and stay in control of my body and my health.

2/3 of adults in this country are overweight and 1/2 of those are obese, which simply means their BMI is 30 or more. BMI is the way a Doctor can determine your percentage of body fat compared to body mass. It’s not a perfect guide, but it’s widely used and it can be simply done without a lot of expensive tests. Doctors will use BMI as a guide to whether you need diet counseling or not. Under the new Affordable Care Act Doctors will get paid extra if the patient needs diet or weight loss counseling.

What you put on your plate might affect what you see in the mirror. But a few tweaks to your dining habits can go a long way to keeping your skin youthful and your body healthy. The key approach? Eat better.

"Poor-quality foods, like trans fats, cause inflammation -- and aging is basically a chronic inflammatory state," says Timothy Harlan, MD. He's assistant professor of medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine. "Can you look older because you're eating crap? Absolutely."

For example, eating too much sugar and processed carbohydrates (like some pasta, bread, and baked goods) can lead to damage in your skin's collagen, which keeps your skin springy and resists wrinkles, says Andrea Giancoli, MPH, RD. She's a policy analyst for Beach Cities Health District.

“What's more, these foods put your overall health on the line. They are tied to diseases like heart disease and diabetes”, she says. Did you know that Obesity can cause heart damage without any symptoms.

Other foods, like fruits and vegetables, are good for your body and your overall appearance. When you look good, you feel good and your body is working the way it should.

A person can be considered middle-age even past 65 or even 70 by the condition of their body. Your body doesn’t know what the calendar is.Your body only knows that your not fully grown or that your are fully grown and that your getting close “to end of life”. And your body can determine this by the condition of your body. This is what is call your “biological age”.

Aging is really not about how old you are in chronological years, aging is about how old you are in biological years. A study done in a university in New Zealand recently showed that out of the 1000 people in the study of people in the late 30’s, Some had a biological age as high as 60 and some of them have actually stopped aging.




You can’t reverse aging but the study shows that in some cases people have actually stopped aging. Yes, some of this may be caused by the genes you were born with, but most of these people have stopped aging because of their diet and activity levels.

Part 2 How To Lose Weight

There's are many small changes that anyone can make that can help you lose weight without dieting.  We can touch on some of the important ones.

Getting more sleep is very basic to the weight-loss process. What ever changes you make in your exercise or diet if your not getting enough sleep you will probably continue to fight your battle with weight.

One small trick that works for some people is to only allow yourself 20 minutes to eat. I understand that on paper this might seem like a good way to control portions. It's been used by the military in boot camps with big success for decades, so it can work, but you need the will power to resist food between meals, and only eat 3 meals a day. And don't forget the exercise. In these boot camps a person can burn more than 5000 calories a day. That's really the biggest problem overweight people have. They burn less then 2000 calories a day and they're eating too much food that their body can't process so if the body can't process your food it will be turned into fat.

Eat more veggies is the best way to eat more food that your body can process.  It doesn't mean that you should become a vegetarian, but it does mean that we all eat too much meat and meat is one food that's hard to digest. It takes your body about 3 days to digest red meat, less time for poultry and only one day for fish. Fish may be the best way to get meat into your diet. A good example of a good diet that limits meat would be the Mediterranean diet. The diet of the Mediterranean people before they started to eat like Americans. You can read about their diet on the internet or on the Front page of this blog, check the diet page. Eating this way gives you more nutrition then the traditional American diet. You will lose body fat over time, but the real plus for this diet is that you will become a healthier person with more energy and be more productive. A good way to get more veggies is to eat more soup and more salads. This is a way to get more good vegetables like tomatoes, celery, okra, zucchini, cabbage plus beans and grains like barley, brown rice.

Grains are also a food that most of us don't get enough of. Today things are changing and good grains can be bought in our favorite foods. We can now find whole grains like oats, brown rice, barley and buckwheat in foods like waffles, pizza crusts, english muffins, breads and pasta. So we really have no excuse for not being able to find good nutritious foods. I know that some of us get sticker shock in the grocery stores but remember when you don't buy the snack food, bakery goods, candy and bottled drinks you will save more money then you might think. You can actually save money on groceries after you adjust to this new diet. And another plus with the Mediterranean diet is that your not limited to quantity of food and there's no calories to count. You just follow the food pyramid and get your exercise.

Foods to skip. A big part of losing weight is to stay away from certain foods. Processed foods top  the list if you're trying to compile make your own list. One big problem is not enough people know which are processed foods. I'll boil it down to one sentence. If it's food that's made by man, it's processed. Bacon, lunch meat, most breads and bakery goods, pre-made food in the grocery store. Those whole roasted chickens you buy in the chain stores. The salads that they make in the chain stores. Any desserts you buy fresh or frozen. Except for frozen vegetables that are just vegetables without additives, there is nothing in the frozen food section that is not man-made. Another very important thing to skip is cooking oil. Be very careful when buying cooking oil. Olive oil and coconut oil are the best that I know. Coconut oil is better when cooking with high heat, but both are good choices. If your not cooking olive oil is the best. I even drizzle olive oil on my popcorn before I season it.

Another food group would be bottled drinks and snack foods. The only good snack food that I buy is unpopped popcorn, bulk nuts and seeds. Bottled drinks include soda, juices and alcoholic drinks I avoid. The only alcoholic drink that can be considered healthy would be wine, but it's full of added sugar. Beer is the only alcoholic drink that doesn't add sugar.  Drinks and snacks add more calories to the average daily diet then food eaten during meals. The reason I include juices with sodas is because of the added sugar. Juices have in some cases more added sugar then soda. Any juice you drink and want to continue to drink should be done in small quantities. Forty or fifty years ago juice was always had juice on the breakfast table, but what I remember is that what ever the juice, it was served in a 3 oz. glass and breakfast was the only time anyone drank juice. We use to be more aware of the foods we ate, and somewhere through the years you lost that. If we are going to eat healthier we'll need to make our meals at home. We should only be eating food if we know what's in it.

More tips on losing weight might be to shrink your portions. When eating out with friends I usually eat a salad but sometimes I'll just order an appetizer. After your meal you want to get the taste of food out of your month. This avoids food cravings later on. Chew a strong mint gum or maybe strong black coffee or tea. Try to do more walking. It takes 20 minutes to walk one mile. By walking one extra mile everyday you'll loss about 10 pounds a year.