August II, 2010
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Page 7
MATTFRS
First Lady Talks Health, Fitness
Shares personal,
family experiences
Anti-Aging
For Ruai
Women
(AP) - Michelle Obama dishes on the first
family's health and eating habits in a new
magazine interview, admitting she can't stand
beets and that she does an occasional di­ Take Years Off
Your Body
etary "cleanse" to clear her palate and change
her mindset.
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In an interview for the Septem ber issue ON DENTAL BILLS
of Ladies' Home Journal, Mrs. Obama says
she recently was "on a sort of cleanse" in WEEKEND
UPDATES
which she was just eating vegetables. The
first lady, who's on a cam paign against
childhood obesity, also says she never
ALL NEI
talks about weight with her daughters
because the topic's too sensitive, and that
she made the girls take up tennis under
protest.
"I have them do a sport that they like
and sport that I like," the first lady said. "1
want them to understand what it feels like First Lady Michelle Obama talks health
to do som ething you don't like and to and fitness in the new edition o f Ladies'
improve. Because in life you don't always Home Journal.
get to do the things you want."
Daughters Sasha and Mafia resisted
tennis at first, she says, “but now they’re
starting to get better and they actually like
it. And I'm like, ‘Mom was rig h t!’”
The first lady also made a point to show
sh e’s human when it com es to diet and
exercise: She said there are days when she
her typical 4:30 a.m. workout and that on
a recent weekend in Chicago she “ate
everything that was available. In fact, we
had a take-out food-fest.”
And, she can't stand beets.
“Neither the president nor I have the
beet gene,” she says,
Mrs. Obam a doesn't give a lot o f detail
about her cleanses, saying that she might
do one for two days but that "it isn't a way
o f fife because I like food too much."
The cleanses, she said, “help me clean
out my palate. Because when you start
adding things like sugars into your diet,
you start craving them. And the more you
eat, the more you crave.”
A cleanse can involve a tem porary
change in diet prom oted to rid the body of
toxins and improve w ell-being.
The first lady's cleanse involves eating
as many fruits and vegetables as possible
and cutting out fats, oil, dairy, m eat, c af­
feine, sugar and starch for a short period
of time, according to the W hite House.
Heather M angieri, a registered dietitian
and spokesw om an for the Am erican Di­
etetic Association, said o f a cleanse such
as the one described by the first lady: "I
definitely wouldn't recom m end it because
you're m issing food groups." W hile m iss­
ing food groups for a couple of days may
not result in deficiencies, she said, "it's
really not necessary. You can still feel
good by having a balanced diet," eating
w hole foods and rem oving processed
foods and saturated fats.
Some more radical cleanse regimens in
which people give up solid foods for days
and eat only liquid solutions can be danger­
ous, Mangieri said.
The first lady has the cover photo in the
September issue of Ladies’ Home Journal.
Uninsured Help
D k . G erald F. J oseph
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Dr. Gerald F. Joseph is presi­
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by
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