WEIGHT LOSS TIPS

Marcia Brady Joins Celebrity Fit Club

I used to watch Brady Bunch when I was a kid. Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) was the beautiful oldest daughter on the show. And now it's been announced she's joining the Celebrity Fit Club because she wants to lose weight. McCormick is 5'3" tall.

How old is Maureen McCormick now? I was amazed to find out she turned 50 this year.

She says she has put on about 25 or 30 pounds since her mother died. She has one daughter who thought it would be a good idea for her to sign up for the Celebrity Fit Club show.

She is joined in the fifth season of VH1's weight-loss series by Tiffany, Kimberly Locke, Da Brat, Dustin Diamond, Warren G, Cledu T. Judd and Ross Matthews.

Designing Spaces decorator Veryn Yip has some great (and inexpensive) ideas to get your home ready for the Christmas season. One is the red apple (and low-calorie) trick;

Put a large bowl in the entry way or on the dining room table and fill it with bright red apples (yes, real ones). It costs less than $10 and will last about a month. Best of all, it instantly adds a mass of red to your room.

The apple photo above is by Bialy-Fox.

Sour Girl, 28, has just started a site about her new weight loss journey. She says she's now fatter than Oprah was at her heaviest. She wants to lose 85 pounds. She is starting today and wants to reach her goal weight of 150 pounds by the end of September. She's just joined L A Weight Loss. Her mom has given her the membership as an early Christmas present.

The above photos are examples of the before and after success stories at L A Weight Loss. One of their clients, Michele pictured here, lost 125 pounds in 41 weeks.

See Sour Girl's story from the beginning and help encourage her here.

Lon Calhoun is an artist with a studio. He's lost about 50 pounds by joining a fitness center that opened up next door to his workplace. He's also tried sticking to Weight Watchers principles in his daily eating habits.

Two years ago he was up to about 250 pounds. He says he was pudgy as a kid and never did any kind of exercise and started to gain a lot of weight in his thirties.

He's happy he's been successful in losing the weight because he was starting to suffer from painful back problems.

Five years ago, I started having back problems. For about three years, my back would go out about every six weeks. I would be flat on my back for a few days. In the past two years, my back has gone out once and I was only down a day with it, so I've obviously strengthened my back. That is one of the greatest reasons to do all this - to not be in that kind of pain.

To help people motivate themselves to become more fit, he has this to say;

There are a lot of other benefits than just looking better, such as back pain. Your energy level is much higher when you exercise. This is coming from a person who did everything I could to get out of gym when I was in high school. I was never an active, physical person, but there are so many benefits. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you're just getting older.

Another great thing is that if you build up the muscles, the muscles really do burn calories [more than fat], even when you're just sitting around. You can get away with a little more with your diet.

See the full article about his weight loss here.

Karen Wright, 46, weighed 342 pounds and lost an astounding 164 pounds in 50 weeks.

She got her start by joining a local TOPS program ('Taking off Pounds Sensibly') and wasn't very optimistic about succeeding. She didn't like the idea of writing down everything she ate. She gave herself one week to try out the program. In the first week she lost 17 pounds and was hooked.

After she lost a bit more weight she started walking. Initially she couldn't do even a quarter of a mile, but she gradually increased the distances.

She says the key to her continued weight loss was having the support of people around her who were struggling with the same problems. These days she walks three to five miles a day.

See her story and a more recent photo here.