Weight Loss Guidelines for Women

One hour of daily moderate activity may help prevent weight gain in normal-weight women.
The New York Times (4/1, Rabin) reports that, according to research published in the March 24/31 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, "an hour of moderate activity a day...prevented women of normal weight from gaining more than five pounds over any three-year period." Researchers arrived at that conclusion after following 34,079 women, average age 54 at study start, for a period of 15 years. But, "women who got the same amount of exercise but were heavier to start with were not able to avoid gaining weight," nor were those "women of normal weight who got less than seven hours a week of moderate activity."
Certain "red flags" should prompt avid exercisers to visit physicians. According to the New York Times (4/1, E1, Kolata) Personal Best column on the front of its Thursday Styles section, most avid exercisers should avoid visiting physicians if they "have the usual sort of aches and pains that plague almost everyone" who is regularly active. There are, however, "red flags that should prompt you to get medical" attention, such as "pain that gets progressively worse, pain at rest or at night, joint swelling or bruises that do not heal, and knees or elbows or other joints that lock or seem unstable." In addition, "Dr. Thomas Best, the president-elect of the American College of Sports Medicine...advises seeing a doctor if you are not recovering in your usual period of time from whatever injury or soreness you typically get."
Weight training injuries becoming more prevalent. The Los Angeles Times (3/31, Stein) "Booster Shots" blog reported that as interest in weight training grows, ED are seeing more injuries. "From 1996 to 2007 overall injuries increased 48.4%, with men sustaining the most injuries at 82.3%," compared to the 63% of women who did. Still, that figure, coupled with fact that "people age 13 to 18 had the highest number of injuries," indicates that "their presence in the weight room is growing," according to the paper in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. "As to how these injuries happened, the No. 1 reason was dropping a weight on some part of the body."