That's Fit

After watching her weight zig-zag through a range of about 100 pounds over the years, Oprah Winfrey has done it again. Apparently, she's regained the weight she once worked so hard to lose and is stuck at 200 pounds, in a very uncomfortable position.

Oprah reveals that she had envisioned a beautiful dress to wear to President-Elect Obama's inauguration but is now worried she won't be able to fit into it.

"How could this happen again?" she wonders. After losing weight following very public liquid diets, marathons and detox diets, we're all left to wonder: Will Oprah ever keep the weight off for good? Oprah is clearly wondering the same thing.

Overfeeding your child is fairly serious -- some even feel it's a form of abuse. Now animal rights groups are saying the same thing ... about your pets. And the government in the UK agrees -- according to the Daily Mail, new controversial rule under the animal welfare act could have serious consequences for pet owners who don't put their fat animals on a diet.

Overfeeding pets is a 'serious welfare concern' and can lead to suffering, according to the new law. Therefore, people who allow their pets to become dangerously obese can face fines of around $30,000 or even up to a full year in jail. There's no word on whether similar laws could be adopted here in North America, but maybe they should be. After all, if you can't give your pet the necessary amount of exercise, maybe you shouldn't have one.

Too harsh? What do you think?

Now that he's been elected the leader of the free world, Barack Obama is the subject of intense scrutiny. But it's not just his foreign policy that's attracting attention -- his eating habits are being examined and copied throughout America.

It could be worse -- the Obamas are pretty healthy folks, after all. They make fitness a priority and they eat well to boot. According to Steady Health, Barack's favourite foods include chili, Mexican food, almonds, pistachios and vegetables. His dislikes include mayonnaise, beets, soft drinks and ice cream. And he never skips breakfast.

His one unhealthy weakness? Cookies. At Baby Boomers Cafe in Des Moines, next door to Obama's campaign headquarters, they can't make enough of his favourite chocolate chunk cookies to keep up with demand.

BMI classifications are accepted universally: 18 to 24 is considered normal, 25 to 29 overweight and 30+ obese. Correction -- BMI classifications were universal but now, one country is changing the standard.

India is re-defining what it means to be overweight or obese. Whereas the old standard classified people with a BMI of 24 as normal, anyone who ranks over 23 will be considered overweight. And those who have a BMI of 25 or over will be considered obese.

This means, of course, that hundreds of thousands of people who thought they were healthy will have to think again under the new guidelines. Kind of seems unfair, huh? The government doesn't think so. "This revision has been long overdue," said Anoop Misra of Fortis Hospital, New Delhi. "The new values will have tremendous public health implications."

What do you think? Is setting a new standard a good idea? Should the rest of us follow suit?

(via Calorie Lab)

Remember a while back when I asked you if a implementing a 'Tubby Tax' was appropriate to compensate for the amount of extra cost it takes to transport obese travellers? Sixty-six percent of you were against the idea, and it looks like the Supreme Court of Canada agrees with you -- and has gone a step further. In a recent ruling, officials declared that people 'functionally disabled by obesity' have the right to be given two seats on an airplane for the price of one. Pretty significant, huh?

What do you think of this decision? Is this fair? On one hand, it seems unfair to make people pay double for a flight just because they weigh more. On the other, it's unfair to other passengers to give two seats for the price of one to people who can't control their eating. Does it depend on the situation?

According to People magazine's December 1 issue touting the "Sexiest Man Alive," the guys in this gallery have the best chests in Hollywood. I have to admit, they've done a really great job of choosing the winners in this category. The only one I can think of who may have been wrongfully left out is 50 Cent. But a ton of other hottie bodies were included, so we'll forgive the People folks for that oversight.

If you'd like to develop your chest to look like hard, rounded mounds of muscle, try some of the advanced push-ups in this video.

To see even more of the sexiest men in the world ...

Yesterday I rejoined one of the most athletic guys I know, and he taught me both the most insane and brilliant exercises I've ever tried in a gym. His name is Anthony Field, and yes ... he's the Blue Wiggle from the children's TV show The Wiggles.

Anthony and I have trained together before, and he's impressed me each time. But yesterday ... I have a hard time finding words to describe. He started doing pull-ups almost two years ago, and he lost about 40 pounds. Then he added rings to his routine, which made things more fun. And now, well, the average person would just think he's lost his mind.

He is addicted to strength training while using nothing but his body weight, and his physique is proof that this strategy works like a charm. We spent a ton of time in a hotel gym shooting a bunch of fun and exciting fitness segments, which I'll be airing here soon. We giggled through it, but mostly because he doesn't speak "American" and I'm not so good at "Australian."

In Britain, people are dying to be thin -- literally -- and one company is pulling in a profit of about $30 million because of it, according to this article from the Daily Mail.

A popular diet program in the UK, called LighterLife, is wildly successful these days, but it's costing some people their health -- and their lives. The program advocates an extreme calorie deficiency -- participants consume shakes that give them a total daily caloric intake of only 500 calories, and they end up losing weight at an alarming rate. LighterLife claims it's all perfectly fine because the body doesn't need those excess calories, adding that this type of starvation has been used healthfully for over 30 years. Yeah, right.

But now, some people are speaking out about the side effects of this diet. One former participant claims her vision is now permanently blurred and she suffers from ongoing memory loss; another, a dentist, says the lack of calories ruined his wife's teeth; another claims it led her to become anorexic. Other side effects include hair loss, menstrual disruptions and constipation. And if that's not frightening enough for you, consider this: One 25-year-old participant died from heart troubles believed to have been caused by the diet. Click here for some more horror stories.

Is your weight determined by which team you bat for? I'm not talking baseball here -- I'm talking your sexual orientation and its connection to the numbers on your scale. Sounds like a pretty ridiculous notion, right? I mean, we know that some races, nationalities and genders are predisposed to certain body issues due to genetics, but sexual orientation is believed to have little -- if nothing -- to do with your genetics and body, so how could it affect your weight?

Still, that didn't stop a team of researchers from looking into it. What they found is this: "Body mass index was not significantly associated with sexual orientation, age at first intercourse, frequency of heterosexual intercourse, and the number of lifetime or current male partners. Overweight women and obese women were more likely to report ever having male sexual intercourse."

So, not surprisingly, whether you're gay or straight doesn't have a significant impact on your weight -- that is, unless you're a straight woman. Then you're more likely to be overweight or obese. Lucky us, huh? Your thoughts?

(via Crabby McSlacker)

In Mexico, a country-wide initiative called Oportunidades encourages healthy habits in citizens and has been heralded as a model for the rest of the world. Under it, impoverished families were given cash rewards for attending medical check-ups and nutritional counseling -- the aim being, of course, to help the country slim down and get healthy. But recent reports are showing that this is not happening. In fact, it's quite the opposite -- residents are gaining weight.

What gives? It's not clear, but one hypothesis is that the cash rewards given to citizens weren't used to buy fresh fruits and veggies like they were intended. If that's the case, what's the solution? Providing vouchers that are only good for healthy fare? Would the promise of free fruits and veg be enough to entice low-income families to visit health professionals? What do you think?

Kate Winslet might look positively flawless in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, but she has the same insecurities she had as a teen, saying in the interview, "Once a fat kid, always a fat kid." However, Winslet insists that her body was not retouched for the nude shoot -- after her fury at GQ's retouching back in 2003, it's hard to imagine another magazine putting Kate on a digital diet.

She was teased about her weight in high school and called "Blubber" when her weight neared 200 pounds. And because of that, she never had aspirations of becoming a famous actress.

Even though she now has an enviable figure (which she maintains through moderate exercise rewarded with a glass of Chardonnay), she still feels self-conscious, particularly when she does the school run for her two kids.

Former Mademoiselle editor Valerie Frankel recently published a book describing -- in vivid detail -- her time in the fashion industry, and it's not what you would call glamorous. Thin Is The New Happy provides a graphic insight into the bizarre, weight-obsessed world of fashion magazines, courtesy of one of it's former key players. According to Frankel, "We'd sit in our offices smoking cigarette after cigarette and talking about who ate what, the calorie counts of our lunches, the latest dieting trends, who on the staff looked heavy." Yikes.

Some other tidbits from the book?

• She used to do 'hillocks' of cocaine -- in the office, no less -- to keep the numbers on the scale down.

Gastric bypass surgery is generally regarded as a quick and effective (albeit somewhat dangerous) way for clinically obese people to slim down. But now that it's been available for a while, we're starting to see a new phenomenon: Patients gaining the weight back. So what do you do if gastric bypass doesn't work in the long run? Do you get to the root of the problem and address the real reason behind obesity? Nah -- just get more surgery.

According to this article from the Washington Post, that's just what's happening -- after gastric bypass surgery fails, patients are getting a second surgery, called gastric lap-band surgery. Gastric band surgery is thought to be more progressive and effective than bypass surgery, but I can't help but wonder -- what next? What happens after the weight creeps up after two times under the knife? A third surgery? A fourth?

Myself, I can't imagine going under the knife once, let alone twice, to lose weight. Your thoughts?

Let's be honest: Most of us are unhappy about our weight, and Gastric Bypass surgery seems like the perfect quick-but-painful fix for all our weight woes. But such an extreme medical procedure is usually reserved for those who are clinically obese and/or suffering health problems because of their weight -- not for people who simply want to rock their skinny jeans again.

That's why many people are traveling to other countries to have the surgery, an article out of the UK reports. These so-called 'Gastric Bandits' want to get the surgery but are told by their doctor they're not fat enough for it, so they shell out for surgery in another country.

Obviously, this kind of procedure is not without its share of controversy -- would you defy your doctor and head to another country for major weight loss surgery? Myself, I'm firm believer that good old diet and exercise is the way to go but hey -- that's just me.

A while ago, we told you about a woman who was poisoned by her seemingly harmless 'detox' diet. Then, famed health nut and TV celeb Gillian Keith came under fire for calling herself a 'Doctor' when her PhD designation had little to do with her dietitian career. Now, British Dietitian Jane Clarke has weighed in on the subject in this article, saying you shouldn't trust just anyone -- after all, your health is at stake. Read the full article here.

Bottom line: Not all nutritionists are quacks -- but you have to be cautious about who you trust. And here's something to keep in mind: In the United States, the term 'Dietitian' is legally protected, but 'Nutritionist' is not -- make sure yours is accredited and licensed. Check credentials. And remember: Trust your instincts. If something seems odd, unhealthy or just not doable, speak up.