I paid $657.98 on a gym membership that I used 3 times. That means that each visit cost about $220. 

Like most people on the pudgy side of life, the gym was out of my comfort zone. People running a six-minute mile on the treadmill. Men with big necks lifting weights that were the equivalent of a compact car. Spandex.

It was too much for my self-esteem. I slinked out of the gym—in my baggy t-shirt and sweats, recovering from my 2-mile stroll on the treadmill—vowing to never return.

It appears that I’m not alone. Researchers from the Center for Obesity Research and Education and Temple University report that several mental barriers keep obese women from exercising to lose weight.

The new study looked at data collected from 278 women who were enrolled in a year-long physical activity encouragement study.

The women completed a questionnaire when the study began and during three- and 12-month follow-up assessments. The questionnaire dealt with mental barriers to exercise, including:

• Feeling self-conscious
• Not wanting to fail
• Fearing injury
• Perceived poor health
• Having minor aches and pains
• Feeling too overweight to exercise
 
At every assessment, the obese women reported greater barriers to exercise than their normal weight counterparts. The barriers that the obese women identified at the beginning of the study predicted how much they would be exercising at the 12-month follow-up.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to systematically look at what stops obese women from getting the activity they need,” Melissa Napolitano, an associate professor of kinesiology and clinical psychologist at the Center for Obesity Research and Education, said in a university news release.

Napolitano said that programs that are tailored to overcome these barriers can help obese women feel more comfortable exercising.

The good news is that your primary care giver, surgeon and nutritionist know where you can find exercise centers that cater to your particular health situations. These centers are also staffed with people who can help you overcome those mental barriers. And you won’t be the only one in the gym in a baggy t-shirt and sweats, struggling to get fit.

Ask. You’ll be glad you did.

Diabetes does a lot of damage to our bodies—especially our heart. A recent UK study has found that consuming broccoli can reverse damage caused to the heart blood vessels of diabetics due to the presence of a sulfur compound.

Lead researcher Professor Paul Thornalley and his colleagues from the University of Warwick in the UK found the compound – sulforaphane – provoked production of a protein called nrf2 that was beneficial to blood vessel health, even those damaged by hyperglycemia.

It looks like mom was right again. It pays to eat our broccoli.

Last spring, Massachusetts state Rep. Byron Rushing sponsored anti-weight-bias legislation which would outlaw discrimination based on a person’s weight. While he’s proposed similar legislation in the past, this bill received much more attention.

“What was clear from the public hearing we had is there is a growing number of people who think this should happen and an even larger number of people who think we should at least be talking about it,” he said in the article. (You can read the article here.)

The argument against legislation: “Legislation happens when people are too childish to police themselves,” said Sue Ann Jaffarian, author of the Odelia Grey mystery series starring a 220-pound heroine who is a reflection of her creator.

“But, as a fat woman, I don’t want a green light,” said Jaffarian, 55, who worries that such a law would validate what some consider unhealthy weight. She added, “The downside of legislation is that the prejudice would go more underground.”

The argument for legislation: “I think it would help mostly because it would send a message that fat people are equal citizens. It’s not in the litigation rates, but the rights consciousness that comes after legislation,” said Anna Kirkland, an assistant professor of women’s studies and political science at the University of Michigan.

“Right now, fat is just a marker of bad character, an undesirable personal trait that people bring on themselves,” said Kirkland, who prefers the word fat to the ambiguity of overweight and the clinical-sounding obese. “What you’re doing is forcing the law to force social change.”

Your thoughts?