Weight loss and Weight Chat Blog

June 25, 2009

Keeping Your Brain Active: 10 Tips For Improving Your Brain

The other day I was listening to an interview on National Public Radio with Dean Oshler who has just written a book called From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords. During the interview I was surprised to hear Mr. Oshler challenge the widely held belief that regularly doing crossword puzzles is good for your brain fitness and can help stave off Alzheimer’s disease. Oshler’s problem with crossword solving is twofold: first, he believes the clinical data showing an advantage for puzzlers is both weak and only observational (”[The researcher] never said that there was a cause-and-effect relationship. He said there was a correlation. Maybe it just so happens that people who are mentally fit have a tendency to want to do crosswords in the first place”); second, we need variety in our mental exercise (”[Crosswords are] kind of the same activity over and over again. But the Alzheimer’s […]

Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com

April 21, 2009

Earth Day: Improving the environment and your health

April 22 is celebrated every year as Earth Day and this year I’d like to encourage you to think about changing your diet in ways that would benefit both your health and the health of the environment. And I can think of no better way than to follow the precepts set forth by Michael Pollan, Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism, and author of the excellent book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which I highly recommend. Mr. Pollan summarizes his philosophy in seven words:
Eat food
Not too much
Mostly plants
I’ll explain his idea more fully in a minute, but first I’ve got to tell you why you should change your diet. First, we know that four of the top ten causes of death today are chronic diseases with well- established links to diet: […]

Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com

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