This is a copy of a column I wrote for El Pueblo, the official publication of the All City Employees Benefits Service Association of Los Angeles. It contains some good info on health.

By JOE DONATELLI

You eat healthy foods and you exercise regularly. But no matter how hard you try, you can’t lose those last 20 pounds. If you’re like most people, you find this frustrating.

Fortunately, there is something you can do about it.

According to a recently published report in the journal Diabetes, losing more weight means rethinking your entire approach to weight loss. Yes, food and exercise are very important, but there is a third element that most people miss.

Americans are awake for approximately 16 hours a day. Let’s say you spend half an hour a day exercising and another hour a day eating. That leaves 14.5 hours a day in which you’re not thinking about your health. You’re thinking about your job, your children, etc.

A research team at the University of Missouri has discovered that when we sit – and most of us spend most of our days sitting – the enzymes that are responsible for burning fat shut down. When you stand up and move around your enzymes begin burning fat again.

The missing ingredient to increased weight loss is simple. You need to get up and putter around as much as you can during the remaining 14.5 hours of your day.

Marc Hamilton, leader of the University of Missouri research team, said that moving your arms while typing on the computer does not burn fat. The big muscles in the human body that are critical for burning fat are located in the back and legs. These are the muscles you use when you stand up and move around. I call them your puttering core.

“To hold a body that weighs 170 pounds upright takes a fair amount of energy from muscles,” Hamilton said. “You can appreciate that our legs are big and strong because they must be used all the time. There is a large amount of energy associated with standing every day that can’t be easily compensated for by 30 to 60 minutes at the gym.

“Many activities like talking on the phone or watching a child’s ballgame can be done just as enjoyably upright, and you burn double the number of calories while you’re doing it.”

If you sit for long periods of time, you could try:

• Taking walks around the building or block
• Standing while you are talking on the phone
• Walking outside to make cell phone calls
• Drinking plenty of water, which will force you to get up for more water and, ahem, dispose of it
• Organizing that wastebasket basketball league you’ve been dreaming about

I used to work in an office in which the engineering team walked around the outside of the building for 15 to 20 minutes every afternoon. The engineers routinely worked 12-hour days, but they were mentally sharp and relatively healthy. Was it solely because of their afternoon walk? It was probably a number of factors. But the walk was good for their health and had the pleasant side effect of building camaraderie.

The research has spoken. We are a species of born putterers.

(Photo by Alyssa Ratowski)

My resolution: No matter what happens in 2009, I will continue spending my afternoons with this giant beaver.

Happy New Year,
Joe

(Photo by scragz/Flickr) 

I am a proponent of lowering the drinking age and have been for a long time. I was probably 16 the first time I thought, “They should really lower the drinking age – as soon as possible. This afternoon would be ideal.”
 
Were those the foolish thoughts of a selfish teenager? Or were they the intelligent thoughts of a teen aware of the effect binge-drinking was having on his generation? I like to think they were a little bit of both, even though that would be not true.

My cause now has a proper champion. This summer more than 100 university presidents and chancellors signed their names to a public statement that says the 21 year-old drinking age is not working. They say it has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on campus. The group calls itself the Amethyst Initiative, which is not what I would have named it, but I doubt The Washington Post would take the group seriously if it called itself, “The Everyone Just Cool Out and Booze-It-Up Responsibly Coalition.”

(Above: The first annual meeting of The Everyone Just Cool Out and Booze-It-Up Responsibly Coalition. philipshannon/Flickr.)

The Amethyst Initiative is led by John McCardell, whom foxnews.com writer Radley Balko describes as “the soft-spoken former president of Middlebury in Vermont.” He might just be the best man for the job because he is, in a word, sobering. He is the kind of man who looks like he wears a grey suit to bed.

(This guy, on the other hand, merits consideration the Spirit Award, but it’s doubtful that lawmakers would take him as seriously as Old Man McCardell.)
 
In 2004 McCardell wrote a powerful Op-Ed in The New York Times that said “the 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law.”

McCardell continued, “State legislators, many of whom will admit the law is bad, are held hostage by the denial of federal highway funds if they reduce the drinking age. Our latter-day prohibitionists have driven drinking behind closed doors and underground. This is the hard lesson of prohibition that each generation must relearn. No college president will say that drinking has become less of a problem in the years since the age was raised. Would we expect a student who has been denied access to oil paint to graduate with an ability to paint a portrait in oil? Colleges should be given the chance to educate students, who in all other respects are adults, in the appropriate use of alcohol, within campus boundaries and out in the open.”
 
I have been drinking alcohol legally for 11 years. On paper, it does not appear that I have a dog in this fight. But I do.

I’m tired of people who drink like assholes.

Much like Kegmeister General McCardell, I believe that drinking like an asshole – that is to say, repeatedly drinking to the detriment of oneself and others – is learned behavior. (Not all of the time - but in a large number of cases.) If you’re 16 and you’re drinking at a party with no adult supervision, odds are you or one of your friends is going to act like an asshole. Without seasoned drinkers around to veto your idiocy with a timely, “Don’t be an asshole,” this asinine behavior is repeated, copied and reinforced – for years. Anyone who goes to bars often enough sees the end results.

(Above: The end results. Bistrosavage/Flickr.)

Teenagers are socialized by their peers. None of my friends in high school sipped an aperitif while discussing the issues of the day before a delightful repast of Burger King. We drink fast and hard – the better to catch a quick buzz and avoid being busted. This is not the proper role of alcohol among civilized people.

The proper role of alcohol is to lower one’s inhibitions so that social gatherings are more enjoyable. Alcohol is a social lubricant. According to my Caveman Theory, which will be the subject of an upcoming column, human beings spent thousands of years suspicious of other human beings – for fear that outsiders might kill them or steal their valuable pelts. As a result, there is a natural tendency to eye newcomers with apprehension. Alcohol can lessen our anxiety in social situations and allow us to be open to meeting new people. It also can help us enjoy spending time with people we already know. The proper role of alcohol is to un-pucker the human sphincter – symbolically, of course.

A 16-year-old drinking in the back of a Buick LeSabre does not learn this valuable fact.

According to the Amethyst Initiative, the word amethyst comes from the ancient Greek words meaning “not” (a-) and “intoxicated” (methustos). According to mythology, Amethyst was a young girl who incurred the wrath of the god of wine, Dionysus, after he became intoxicated with red wine. (Who didn’t see that coming?) Amethyst asked the goddess Diana for help. Diana turned the girl into a white stone. (Some help.) Upon discovering what had happened Dionysus wept (he was probably drunk again), and as his tears fell into his goblet the wine spilled over the white rock, turning it purple.

The purple gemstone amethyst was widely believed to be an antidote to the negative effects of intoxication. (This was before Chaser.) In Greece, drinking vessels often were made of amethyst and used during feasts to ward off drunkenness, promote moderation and keep whiney Greek chicks from being turned to stone.

The ancient Greeks were smart. They crafted their beer mugs out of a material that reminded them, “Don’t drink like an asshole.”

American teens don’t have that type of guidance when it matters most – in the moment.

(Above: The ancient Greek way of saying, “You go sober up now, pal.” tourist_on_earth/Flickr.)

We learned how to drive from our mothers, fathers and older siblings. We learned how to read from our teachers. We learned about sex from a 55-year-old health teacher/defensive coordinator. But we never learned how to drink properly from people who do. We were left to our own devices. It was like handing a loaded gun to a guy who doesn’t know what a loaded gun does, but enjoys aiming things at people. Bad things were bound to happen. They did.

As a columnist for Brides magazine, I often encourage couples to personalize their weddings.

This is why.

I love that this small-town newspaper gave this wedding The New York Times Pentagon Papers treatment. I am now a fan of The Daily News Record in Harrisonburg, Va.

Good column, this totally explains why the guys at the Mac store have been getting more and more attractive to me over the years. - Heather T.

• download Moonraker

I think you’re right. Women will continue to look for new attributes in men as time changes, which is hard on male spouses. Know how I kept my girlfriend for five years? I wear other people’s skin. - Soren