As obesity rates in children have been rising, we’ve heard how lack of exercise and a bad diet are to blame. Now, a surprising new study from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says the amount of physical activity among U.S. teens has not changed that much over the past 20 years, but teens have still gotten heavier. So, is diet the only reason for the weight gain? Or will we see another study in the future with different results about how much teens are exercising?

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The answer, from a new study – it depends. Researchers stress not all weight-loss podcasts are equal, and caution that the programs should be engaging and offer sound diet and exercise advice or they won’t have much benefit. More on the most effective types of podcasts for weight loss here.

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What is it about city and state rankings that we all love so much? Maybe just a good healthy competition between our hometowns? Some FFTV favorites have been Obesity Per State, America’s Fittest Cities, and the Best and Worst Walking Cities. Now, SELF magazine has released the Healthiest Places For Women. In at number one…

Burlington, VT. According to SELF, women there have low rates of diabetes, cholesterol, hypertension, smoking, and cervical and ovarian cancer deaths. Residents exercise and walk to work in large numbers. And Burlington has more farmers’ markets than any town on the list, with most now taking food stamps to help more people eat right.

SELF looked at the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas and came up with their ranking based on many factors, including rates of diseases, access to health care, air quality, crime rates, exercise, diet and smoking. So, here are the best and worst of the list…

2009 Healthiest Places for Women, according to SELF Magazine and Self.com:

1. Burlington, VT
2. Bethesda, MD
3. Portland, ME
4. Cambridge, MA
5. San Francisco, CA
6. Honolulu, HI
7. Stamford-Norwalk-Bridgeport, CT
8. Madison, WI
9. Santa Barbara–Santa Maria, CA
10. Fargo, ND

In at the bottom… 2009 Unhealthiest Places for Women, according to SELF Magazine and Self.com:

90. Dayton, OH
91. Daytona Beach–Deltona–Ormond Beach, FL
92. Las Vegas–Paradise, NV
93. El Paso, TX
94. Birmingham-Hoover, AL
95. St. Louis, MO
96. Toledo, OH
97. Indianapolis-Carmel, IN
98. Oklahoma City, OK
99. Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI
100. Tulsa, OK

Some other interesting results from the report:

• Exercises most: Madison, WI

• Exercises least- Miami, FL

• Fewest health clubs: El Paso, TX

• Most health clubs – Portland, ME

• Most fast food outlets: Nassau-Suffolk counties, NY

• Fewest fast food outlets – Provo, UT

• Cleanest water: Raleigh, NC

• Most allergies and asthma: San Francisco, CA

• Most toxic sites: Riverside, CA

• Least unemployment: Billings, MT

• Most unemployment: Detroit, MI

• Longest commute: New York, NY

• Fewest STDs: Rockingham County, NH

• Fewest Pap smears: Las Vegas, NV

See the complete list from SELF here.

So, how did your hometown do? Where I live – Columbus, OH  – is #78.

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(Lose It! app, Photo Credit: Apple)

Health and fitness applications for Blackberries, iPhones, and other mobile phones keep popping up, but I have yet to use one. I’m pretty boring with my apps, still fascinated by the ones that let me know the weather and time in different cities and countries! But after seeing Apple’s list of its top FREE health and fitness apps, I think I’m ready to take my apps to the next level.

1. Lose It!
Set diet and exercise goals and stay on track by recording your food and workouts easily using a searchable database. You can also quickly re-enter foods you’ve had in the past.

2. SixPack App
Features more than 100 exercises with detailed explanations of not just how to do them, but why. Comes with pictures showing proper technique and illustrations of which muscle groups you use in each exercise.

3. WebMD Mobile
Trusted medical information on the go. You can look up symptoms, find drug or treatment information, and answers to your every day health questions.

4. Weight Watchers Mobile
Track your food and activity from anywhere, plus search more than 31,000 food options and calculate POINTS values anytime.

5. Restaurant Nutrition
View nutrition information about restaurant menus and track what you eat. More menu information will be added to the database over time.

All five of these apps can be used with both the iPhone and the iPod touch. And check out That’s Fit’s list of these FREE fitness apps.

Since a cell phone is something many of us have with us at all times, it seems like the perfect tool to track our food and exercise, and get health info on the go, doesn’t it? I’m going to start with the WebMD Mobile and Restaurant Nutrition apps.

Do you use any health and fitness apps? Which ones do you like?

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Meet: Lori (Finding Radiance)

Age: 41

Occupation: Medical Transcriptionist

Where she lives: Upstate New York

Height: 5′2″

Weight: 145 pounds

Pounds Lost: 105 pounds

How long it took to lose the weight: About 4 years

How long she has kept it off: 1 year 3 months

This is one person who not only lost a lot of weight and kept it off for over a year, but along the way found out she could eat things and do things she had never imagined. Her blog, Finding Radiance, is a must read for inspiration, healthy recipes, and oh yes, The Great Veggie Experiment. I am so proud of your accomplishments, Lori! Here’s your Weight Loss WooHoo! – Just FatFighterTV’s fun way of celebrating healthy weight.

How Lori gained the weight:
“I was pretty much overweight most of my childhood. And in college, it was very easy to gain weight. I would kind of lose some over the summer, and then I would gain more. I just liked to eat. My weight just kept creeping up and creeping up.

“When I got married 13 years ago, I’d hit 220 and I was very upset about that. I decided to get down to about 180, but I never really had a handle on what was the proper way of eating. It was always restrict calories or follow a program.”

Turning point:
“I hit 250 and that was a shocker for me. I thought, that’s halfway to 500 pounds. I don’t know why it was 2-5-0 that did it. I didn’t know what to do at that point. I knew it couldn’t continue, but I didn’t really know why I couldn’t lose weight and keep it off.”

How she shed the pounds:
“I was really trying to move towards getting rid of all the sugary stuff and the processed foods. I had started gradually weeding the sugar out of the diet, moving to whole grains, and trying to eat more vegetables, which is difficult when you’re not a veggie lover. I’m getting better. I’ve learned to like some vegetables that I never thought I would like. That’s been a big change for me because I do eat vegetables every day, whereas before, it would probably be once a week maybe, and it would be iceberg lettuce! Growing up, I ate broccoli and carrots and potatoes, and that was it.

“I started really paying attention to what I eat – making sure that my meals are balanced, that I’m getting good carbs, protein, and fat with all my meals and my snacks. That’s just been the last year and a half that I’ve been grinding it out – playing with food, making sure my meals are balanced, and trying new foods and cooking new recipes or trying to lighten up the other ones we’ve always liked to make them better, but still taste good. It’s very important for me that the food taste good because I like food.

“[For exercise,] I was doing a lot of things like Walk Away the Pounds tapes, biking, and The Firm. Then I stepped it up to the next level with real strength training. I loved it. I love feeling strong.”

Weekly workouts:
“I do strength training three times a week for about a half hour or so – three full-body workouts a week – and I run on the alternating days of that. I just started increasing my mileage. I used to run about 10 miles a week and now I’m averaging about 15. My big love is biking. My husband and I bike together, which is nice. Saturdays are usually our biking days where we try to plan to go somewhere further that’s maybe 20 or 30 miles away.”

Diet Philosophy:
“Eat good food and don’t feel guilty about it. The association of guilt with food causes a lot of problems. The thing is to make everything that you put in your mouth something that you want to eat. I decided no more guilt with food.”

Daily challenge:
“I have to be careful with portions. I like dark chocolate, but that’s one of those foods that I have trouble portioning. There are things like that that my husband has to keep out of reach for me because I work from home. That’s the big challenge because the fridge is 20 feet away all day long. He’ll put things really high up on top of the cupboards if I’m having trouble with it so I don’t snack on it, and that’s really helpful for me.”

Tips from Lori:
“I think writing down what you eat is very important, and everything, too. There are a lot of things that go by the wayside if you don’t record your food – let’s say when you grab two or three chips, but if you do that five or six times, it’s a whole serving and you haven’t counted it. It’s surprising when you really write down everything you eat.”

Favorite healthy recipe: Pumpkin Cranberry Oat Bars

Lori’s Weight Loss WooHoo!:
“I think it was when I did a triathlon this summer. It was something I never thought I would ever want to do, or let alone, be able to do. For whatever reason, to me, it was a big pinnacle moment. I had real difficulty at the end of the course because I was crying. I was trying to hold it together. I felt so emotionally overwhelmed. I thought, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Here I am at the end, I’ve lost 100 pounds, I’m doing a triathlon, I’m 40 – Who would have ever thought? There’s no way I would have ever thought I could do this. They were tears of joy. I was so moved by it. I can’t believe all my weight loss sort of culminated with the finishing of that. It was a big personal challenge.

###

What an emotional and awesome finish – congrats, Lori! I hear you have a duathlon coming up in October. Go Lori, go!

Want to see who else got a Weight Loss WooHoo!? Check out the Wall of Fame!

If you know of someone who deserves this honor, just let me know – send me an email at sahar [at] fatfightertv [dot] com

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[Full Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Propel® for the You.Propelled Program]

If I wasn’t in good enough shape to be able to hike and explore places like the one in this picture – Silver Creek Falls, Oregon – I don’t know what I would do. My vacation earlier this month to the Pacific Northwest reminded me why I choose to live a healthy lifestyle. Of course, it’s not always easy. It’s a constant effort – you have to keep exercising and eating a healthy diet. Forever. So what motivates me to do this?

Yep. I’ve got a thing for chocolate!

But besides that little obsession, my biggest motivator to try to be healthy is my genes. Heart disease runs in my family and I want to do what I can to avoid it. Both my parents had high blood pressure. My father has had a heart attack. My mom died of a stroke. I may not be able to control my family history, but I can control my lifestyle.

Another motivator comes from all the years I spent as a TV News Health Reporter. After covering so many health issues for 15 years and interviewing hundreds of doctors and patients, I learned that your odds of preventing serious illnesses are better if you take care of your health.  Of course, there’s still a chance you could get very sick. But if that happens, at least you’ll know you’ve done all you can.

This was one of my favorite moments on my vacation – watching the sun set on a beach along the Oregon coast. Hearing the waves crash is so peaceful. I took a little time to relax and really soak it all in… and I remembered how much easier it is to experience everything life has to offer when you have your health.

Taking the time to enjoy nature always enhances my life. What about you? How did you enhance your life today? There’s a new community waiting to hear your thoughts and inspire you to get where you want to be. And you could win some cash while you’re at it, so check it out! Chime in every day at You.Propelled on DivineCaroline for a chance to win $5,000 to pursue your dream. The more friends you bring, the better your chances of winning.

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I know, I know. Just in time for those weekend indulgences, a new study finds eating fatty food seems to take its toll – almost immediately – on our short-term memory and exercise performance.  Of course, we already know that eating a high-fat diet can eventually lead to weight gain, heart disease and hurt our memory and other mental functions. But the new research shows indulging in fatty foods over a period of a few days can affect the brain and body long before you pack on those extra pounds.

Want more News Nuggets? Follow me on Twitter!

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Ah, Bumpits – You know, those little things you put in your hair to make it go “from flat to fabulous”… brilliant, really. But how on earth can they make you look thinner? The gals over at Does This Blog Make Us Look Fat? have it all figured out right here!

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If you’re hoping to get pregnant, you might want to watch what you eat early on. A new report shows a mother’s health and diet before conception may take its toll on the child’s health in the long run. Researchers say the effects of nutrition, like a high-fat diet or not getting enough vitamin B and folate, could leave your children with problems like obesity, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular disease.

Want more News Nuggets? Follow me on Twitter!

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An experimental drug for weight loss looks promising so far. Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. says research shows its obesity drug, Contrave, helps patients lose weight, lowers the fat around the waist, and improves levels of “good” HDL cholesterol. Orexigen says Contrave also reduces food cravings and lets patients have better control of their eating. The company will ask the FDA to approve the drug in early 2010.

Want more News Nuggets? Follow me on Twitter!

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