When David suggested I read an article in The New York Times yesterday about weight-loss plans, I thought I’d scream. How many more articles, books, brochures and DVDs can possibly be published about what we should eat and how we should eat it? If the US is so jampacked with nutrition geniuses, how is it that we’re still so darn fat?

Alas, the article wasn’t about a specific diet, but about new, long-term research from Harvard University on the factors affecting weight gain. More than 120,000 men and women were followed in the study, for 12 to 20 years.

Among the revelations:

1.  Say adios to the conventional wisdom that it’s ok to eat everything in moderation, eat fewer calories and stay away from fatty foods.

Small isn't okay

2.  There really are bad foods and good foods and we need to eat less of the former and more of the latter.

3.  Physical activity is important but eating the good foods is more important for weight control than physical activity. If you’re pretty active but eat the wrong foods, you’ll gain weight.

Don't sweat it if you don't eat right

4.  We all know the A foods by now: Veggies, fruits and whole grains. And the F foods: Fried foods, drinks loaded with sugar, red meats, sweets and desserts, refined grains, carbs and butter. Refined grains and carbs slow metabolism.

Good for you

Not good for you

Fight the urge to eat red meat

5.  Increasing your intake of dairy products, including full-fat milk and cheese, doesn’t actually cause weight gain. And yogurt, peanut butter and nut lovers can actually lose weight,  because these foods help ward off hunger longer. But overdoing any of these isn’t wise, either.

Yes to yogurt

Yipee for Skippy

6.  Lolling around and watching TV, sleeping less than six hours or more than eight a night, and drinking hard liquor also contribute to loss of weight control.

Stay away from the hard stuff

Nope

All quite logical, I think. But we’re not always logical, are we? And I don’t think Lay’s is going to lay off the production of potato chips or Coke its soda,  just so we can be healthier, do you?

“When you’re with your child, you’ve got to be present,” said Adam, my beloved Iyengar yoga teacher. He and Eve (yes, Adam and Eve) have a delicious, adorable and happy five-month-old son, Max, and Adam believes it’s important to stay focused when he’s with his child. Stay focused on Max, that is, not on 52 other things, such as his work, his Vespa, his best friends, his cell phone or the latest doings on his Facebook wall (I don’t actually know if Adam is on FB, but I used the example to emphasize my point). This doesn’t mean that you’ve got to be with your child 24/7 (you can still have a job and a life), but that you need to be there when you’re there.

 

Adam and "Maximo"

Bravo for Adam. I didn’t/couldn’t be  totally present when my kids were little because I let my work distract me. I would hold my baby in one hand and the phone in the other; we’d take  the kids on a trip and I was obsessed with staying updated on whether we were making our sales quota; I was obsessed with Edgar, so I went off into a trance (literally and figuratively). I did all this too often.

I can never give back my kids the attention I denied them when they were little. I robbed myself, too. Although my personality/limitations/neediness, and goodness knows what else, prevented me from being like Adam, I think he’s doing the right thing. And anyone who has a young child should try to be like him, too.

P.S.  BTW, if you live in New York City, and you want to learn from the best Iyengar yoga teacher in the universe, Adam’s your guy.  Anyone who was able to teach me how to stand on my head is a miracle worker. Adam pays as much attention to his students as he does to his son.

Now that the weather is warm, and no one is wearing bulky coats, I have noticed an alarming number of FOFs who look as if they’re anorexic. Their painfully thin arms and legs expose their knee and shoulder joints. Their chests are sunken. Their faces are drawn.

Most of these women are well dressed, so I don’t think they are simply malnourished. Is this a phenomenon? Do FOFs think they’re more desirable if they look like scarecrows? Do they think thinness will compensate for advancing age? Is FOF anorexia different than teenage anorexia?

Have these women suffered from anorexia for years?

I have a FOF friend who has been thin as long as I’ve known her, but she has definitely developed a severe eating disorder in the last few years. She pushes the food around her plate and eats three tiny bites, at most. She looks sickly. I don’t say anything to her because I know my words will fall on deaf ears. I hope she recognizes her problem before it’s too late.

I thought it would be fun to share with you some interesting things I saw and did this beautiful summer weekend.  New York City is endlessly fascinating, anywhere you turn.

 

There was a two-hour wait to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum, but if you buy a $70 membership, you get in immediately. So that's just what David and I did. This is a lavender leather and horsehair dress. McQueen was a fashion artist.

Mr. Jazzman played in front of the museum to an audience on the steps, where people love to sit and watch the passing parade on Fifth Avenue.

 

 

 

 

 

Two FOFs relaxed on a bench in front of a church on Fifth Avenue, across the street from Central Park. One really relaxed, stretching out to read, making the bench her sofa.

This fruit seller parks his cart at the corner of my apartment building on Lexington Avenue and 89th Street. He is there 24 hours a day, six days a week, and does a sweet business.

The family and friends of a 27-year-old woman who died in 2002 planted a tree outside the apartment building where she grew up. So touching.