The story of Atlas and Heracles Atlas knows how it feels to carry the weight of the world; but why, he asks himself, does it have to be carried at all? In Weight — visionary and inventive, yet completely believable and relevant to the questions we ask ourselves every day — Winterson’s skill in turning the familiar on its head to show us a different truth is put to stunning effect. When I was asked to choose a myth to write about, I realized I had chosen already. The story of Atlas holding up the world was in my mind before the telephone call had ended. If the call had not come, perhaps I would never have written the story, but when the call did come, that story was waiting to be written. Rewritten. The recurring language motif of Weight is “I want to tell the story again.” My work is full of Cover Versions. I like to take stories we think we know and record them differently. In the retelling comes a new emphasis or bias, and the new arrangement of the key elements demands that fresh material be injected into the existing text. Weight moves far away from the simple story of Atlas’s punishment and his temporary relief when Hercules takes the world off his shoulders. I wanted to explore loneliness, isolation, responsibility, burden, and freedom too, because my version has a very particular end not found elsewhere. —from Jeanette Winterson’s Foreword to Weight

The negative body-image epidemic that affects millions of women is also a hidden problem for millions of men. In spite of a decade-long emphasis on health and fitness - or perhaps because of it - more men are suffering from a variety of eating disorders and self-abusive behaviors. Using vignettes from their patients, the authors present a new program to help men overcome these problems. They offer ways to enhance self-image, facts about why diets fail, information about the dangers of using steroids, and a section for women who want to help the men in their life.

Racing Weight is a proven weight-management program designed specifically for endurance athletes. Revealing new research and drawing from the best practices of elite athletes, coach and nutritionist Matt Fitzgerald lays out six easy steps to help cyclists, triathletes, and runners lose weight without harming their training. This comprehensive and science-based program shows athletes the best ways to lose weight and avoid the common lifestyle and training hang-ups that keep new PRs out of reach. The updated Racing Weight program helps athletes: Improve diet quality Manage appetite Balance energy sources Easily monitor weight and performance Time nutrition throughout the day Train to getand staylean Racing Weight offers practical tools to make weight management easy. Fitzgerald’s no-nonsense Diet Quality Score improves diet without counting calories. Racing Weight superfoods are diet foods high in the nutrients athletes need for training. Supplemental strength training workouts can accelerate changes in body composition. Daily food diaries from 18 pro athletes reveal how the elites maintain an athletic diet while managing appetite. Athletes know that every extra pound wastes energy and hurts performance. With Racing Weight, cyclists, triathletes, and runners have a simple program and practical tools to hit their target numbers on both the race course and the scale.

Fat isn't the problem. Dieting is the problem. A society that rejects anyone whose body shape or size doesn't match an impossible ideal is the problem. A medical establishment that equates "thin" with "healthy" is the problem. The solution? Health at Every Size. Tune in to your body's expert guidance. Find the joy in movement. Eat what you want, when you want, choosing pleasurable foods that help you to feel good. You too can feel great in your body right now—and Health at Every Size will show you how. Health at Every Size has been scientifically proven to boost health and self-esteem. The program was evaluated in a government-funded academic study, its data published in well-respected scientific journals. Updated with the latest scientific research and even more powerful messages, Health at Every Size is not a diet book, and after reading it, you will be convinced the best way to win the war against fat is to give up the fight.

The primary purpose of fitness and body composition standards in the U.S. Armed Forces has always been to select individuals best suited to the physical demands of military service, based on the assumption that proper body weight and composition supports good health, physical fitness, and appropriate military appearance. The current epidemic of overweight and obesity in the United States affects the military services. The pool of available recruits is reduced because of failure to meet body composition standards for entry into the services and a high percentage of individuals exceeding military weight-for-height standards at the time of entry into the service leave the military before completing their term of enlistment. To aid in developing strategies for prevention and remediation of overweight in military personnel, the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command requested the Committee on Military Nutrition Research to review the scientific evidence for: factors that influence body weight, optimal components of a weight loss and weight maintenance program, and the role of gender, age, and ethnicity in weight management.

For so many people, whether your addiction is to a substance or merely to a certain way of thinking or acting, a profound humbling occurs when you realize that your problem is bigger than you are. The terror of realizing, even dimly, that you have no control over a self-destructive pattern of behavior that as much as you would want to, you simply cannot stop can mark a crucial turning point in your life. At that point, you go in one of two directions: either way, way down, or way, way up. . . . This book is for you if you know in your heart that you are an addict, and that you are powerless before your addictive behavior. As the title promises, Marianne Williamson looks at weight loss from a spiritual perspective, bringing you 30 lessons that can be done separately or in conjunction with any other serious spiritual path. These 30 lessons are completely separate from anything related to diet or exercise they will retrain your consciousness in the area of weight in order to break the cycle of overeating, dieting, and shame that rules so many lives. Finally, Marianne has brought you what you've been waiting for: help to heal your addiction once and for all!

As women of childbearing age have become heavier, the trade-off between maternal and child health created by variation in gestational weight gain has become more difficult to reconcile. Weight Gain During Pregnancy responds to the need for a reexamination of the 1990 Institute of Medicine guidelines for weight gain during pregnancy. It builds on the conceptual framework that underscored the 1990 weight gain guidelines and addresses the need to update them through a comprehensive review of the literature and independent analyses of existing databases. The book explores relationships between weight gain during pregnancy and a variety of factors (e.g., the mother's weight and height before pregnancy) and places this in the context of the health of the infant and the mother, presenting specific, updated target ranges for weight gain during pregnancy and guidelines for proper measurement. New features of this book include a specific range of recommended gain for obese women. Weight Gain During Pregnancy is intended to assist practitioners who care for women of childbearing age, policy makers, educators, researchers, and the pregnant women themselves to understand the role of gestational weight gain and to provide them with the tools needed to promote optimal pregnancy outcomes.

There is now enough basic work to sketch out the principal systems at all levels of the brain, from prefrontal cortex to lower brainstem, which are orchestrated to provide control of food selection, preference and consumption. At the same time, the complex interplay between central systems and signals generated from peripheral systems include the gut, liver and fat stores, as well as the interactions with the neuroendocrine system can be described in some detail. A continuing theme throughout the book is that the functional analysis of appetite and food intake cannot be limited to a single focus, e.g. hypothalamic neuropeptides and their interactions, but must be based on a fully integrated view of the several contributing systems. Appetite and Body Weight: Integrative Systems and the Development of Anti-Obesity Drugs provides an expert guide to the neural, neurochemical, autonomic and endocrine interrelations which underpin appetite and the controls of food intake and body weight. The book covers many of the neurochemical entities that are currently under investigation, including: neuropeptides, leptin, insulin, monoamines and endogenous cannabinoids in relation to appetite and body-weight control. In addition to the neuroscience analysis, there are also chapters that provide an expert guide to some of the key psychological concepts that the researchers believe are essential in trying to understand the phenomena under investigation. The volume will also serve as an authoritative guide to the current emphasis on the development of novel, efficacious anti-obesity medication. - Provides an integrative view of the many systems involved in appetite how they interact to effect food intake (i.e. the brain, endocrine, gut, liver etc.) - Considers psychological aspects such as incentive, preference, liking and palatability, and sets these concepts in their behavioural, pharmacological and neural contexts - Examines the development of novel anti-obesity drugs, drawing on experience of pharmacological development work, pre-clinical tests for anti-obesity efficacy, and clinical trials of candidate anti-obesity compounds

A poetic, gifty offering that combines first love, friendship, and persistent courage in this lyrical immigration story told in verse. Carrying just a suitcase and an old laundry bag filled with clothes, Kasienka and her mother are immigrating to England from Poland. Kasienka isn't the happiest girl in the world. At home, her mother is suffering from a broken heart as she searches for Kasienka's father. And at school, Kasienka is having trouble being the new girl and making friends. The only time she feels comforted is when she's swimming at the pool. But she can't quite shake the feeling that she's sinking. Until a new boy swims into her life, and she learns that there might be more than one way to stay afloat. The Weight of Water is a coming-of-age story that deftly handles issues of immigration, alienation, and first love. Moving and poetically rendered, this novel-in-verse is the story of a young girl whose determination to find out who she is prevails.