Jane Glenn Haas

Join Me?

2011-01-09T15:50:00.000-08:00

So no one wants to be my diet buddy…..hummmm.

I mean, I am serious about this diet. I’m not even putting my name in the hat Tuesday for the free dinner for two with wine that WomanSage is giving away.

Well, actually La Vie en Rose restaurant in Brea is giving it away as a Valentine’s Day special. Or I suppose you could change the evening to suit you.

Everyone who comes to the Tuesday Jan. 8 meeting of WomanSage (see womansage.org) is automatically entered. Except me.

I’m on a diet and a week ago I asked for a buddy and got no one.

OK. I’ve done this alone before. Granted not with long term success.

I was hoping someone would join me in support by phone or e-mail (to this web site) because I think that’s the best way to make sure you stick to a plan. At least in the beginning.

What I hope to do is reduce my calories and increase my exercise.

Now, I know that’s basic. It’s usually basic. A diet plan, that is.

I’ve been trying to do that all week. But so far, the scale seems basically stuck.

My hope is to lose a big 20 or 30 pounds, actually. At least 10 would be helpful.

I know that diet and exercise is a daily grind and I know hoping to lose that much weight will take me several months.

Plus I find out Monday if I need to have surgery on a shoulder that seems frozen with arthritis. It’s the darn arthritis that sets me back on my exercise schedule. There is no point in trying to lift weights or do those types of exercise, the doctor told me, until I figure out what’s really wrong and whether I need surgery.

So if I need surgery that means physical therapy. We know that’s a given. And PT doesn’t necessarily include exercise.

So since none of you are in the mood to buddy with me on this journey, I’ll just have to make it on my own.

Of course, if you change your mind, you can always e-mail me at jghaas@aol.com. Or I’ll just go it alone. Sigh.

WILL YOU BE MY WEIGHT-LOSS BUDDY?

2011-01-02T13:28:00.000-08:00

By JANE GLENN HAAS
This sounds like a no-brainer but it’s a topic that gets written about every new year. So why should we be different?
I’m talking about losing weight. Latest article on the perennial subject is in AARP’s magazine issue for January and Febuary.
Is this because the older you get, the chunkier you seem?
“I’m not sure that obesity is tied to aging,” says Gabrielle Redford, editorial projects manager for the magazine. “What it is, probably, is we don’t move like we used to and there is food all over the place, including fast food.
“We eat mindlessly. We need to trick ourselves into eating mindfully.”
Q. How do you trick yourself about food?
A. Use a 9-inch salad plate instead of a 12-inch dinner plate. You will automatically eat less.
Use tall, thin glasses instead of short, wide ones. You will pour almost 30 percent less liquid.
Keep the mains serving dish on the counter or stove. You are less likely to eat seconds. Studies show a decrease of 19 percent less food consumed when this trick is used.
A couple more – store all your snacks in small, single-size bags so you’re not reaching into that big sack of chips, for example. You’ll eat 20 percent less.
Q. You say there are “danger zones”?
A. Yes. Meal stuffing – overeating at meal time; desktop and dashboard “speed eaters”; restaurant indulgers who eat out often and are used to enormous portions; snack grazers who reach for food just because it is there and then eat more than they should.
Q. So how do you change your foodie lifestyle?
A. You have to make your own changes based on what works for you. Write your food intake down on paper as well as your “danger zones.” See how many changes you adhere to.
A lot of diets fail because they ask you to give up too much. Do three small things at a time and slowly change your eating habits.

The article quotes James O. Hill, professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He says the trick is to make subtle changes in our environment – changes that cut out 100 to 200 calories a day – so we gradually alter our eating habits and lose weight. After all, the best diet is the one you don’t know you’re on, he sats.
Here are his simple tips:
* Include a fruit and a vegetable with your lunch and dinner.
* Don’t eat white foods at dinner (i.e. baked potato)
* Use the half-plate rule – fill half your plate with veggies.
* Have a sweet or salty afternoon snack only if you eat a piece of fresh fruit.
* Drink one glass of water before every meal or snack.
* Use the Restaurant Rule of Two: Limit yourself to two items other than your entrée.
* Never eat in front of the TV.
* Eat a piece of fruit on the way to work every day.
* Save desserts for weekends.
* Freeze half of what you make and serve the other half.

And if you live alone, find yourself a diet buddy.
Q. A diet buddy? Like someone to call or e-mail every day and admit if you broke down and ate that chocolate grand marnier soufflé (which I did at Christmas dinner.)
A. Everybody needs a buddy.
Okay. I’m good for that.
Big question – who wants to be my buddy?
And maybe we can all buddy-up on this.
I have a new web site, janeglennhaas.com. Check it out and post your regular diet info.
Here’s to a skinnier new you in the new year!

Email Jane at jghaas@cox.net

Let Me Hear From YOU

2011-01-02T13:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader,

If you're at midlife, you should be feeling fulfilled. Or at least on the edge of being fulfilled.

You tell the world COUNT ME IN! but the response is not always positive.

There are the positives – your family, your health, your wealth.

And the negatives – your family, your health, your wealth.

There is no end to the opportunities ahead. Kids are grown and gone. They don't need you anymore and maybe you don't need your husband? Divorces are said to increase at this age.

You start to feel the tugs of aging: a little arthritis maybe; a little breast cancer at worst.

Join in the conversation here. Ask your questions. Give your opinions. We will do our best to comment on it all.

There is an important lesson --
You are in control of your own life now. Or you should be.
Your Second Adulthood has arrived.
E-mail me here and let’s talk!

Jane

Helping Holiday Hands For Seniors

2011-01-02T13:26:00.001-08:00

Maybe Karrol Schemmer has multiple sclerosis and a couple of new knee replacements.
That doesn't stop the 72-year-old Brea resident from celebrating the holidays in her own personal style.

Karrol Schemmer, 72, center, enjoys a light moment with Senior Helpers (North Orange County) owner Heather Yost, partially visible, and Senior Helper caregiver Donna Rodriguez, at right. Schemmer was receiving help wrapping up some of her Christmas presents. Senior Helpers is a caregiver organization that during the holiday season provides an extra service helping their senior clients prepare for the holidays.H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
MORE PHOTOS »ADVERTISEMENT More from Jane Glenn Haas
•A lesson in mixing drugs
•Simple new website caters to those over 80
•National Alzheimer's strategy discussedShe just needs a little help. And that's what Donna Rodriguez is there for a couple of days a week. To help her wrap packages as well as to help her to just get around.
"I feel more secure with her around because she is trained," Schemmer says. "When you're coping with two knee replacements on top of everything else, a trained caregiver gives peace of mind."
Schemmer has been coping with multiple sclerosis since 1977. She knows more than she wants to about relying on others for help.
Rodriguez helps out four hours a week. Meanwhile, Schemmer expects to soon graduate from a scooter to a walker – with a seat!
"I call it my Cadillac walker," she says.
Her husband, Dr. Ken Schemmer, is a surgeon. He's around to help her in the evenings.
She has a cleaning woman also, an important addition since her children moved away.
"All of our clients vary in needs," says Heather Yost, owner of Senior Helpers in Yorba Linda, where Rodriguez is employed.
Some want to stay home and age in place rather than move to assisted living, she says. Others need 24-hour care, including bathing and incontinence care.
Senior Helpers is one of several firms serving Orange County. Others include Home Instead, LivHome, Silverado at Home, Caregiving Companions at Home, Right at Home and others listed in telephone directories under elder care providers or caregiving.
"We find that normally, the adult child or spouse is having a hard time providing care – not because they don't want to," Yost says, "but because they have to work full time or live in another state. They rely on professional caregivers to take up the slack."
Most professional caregivers are paid $18.50 to $22 an hour.
"There is a great need today," Yost says. "The senior population is constantly growing, and there will be a huge increase as the baby boomers reach 65. People are living longer.
"So there is greater demand for caregivers. The important consideration is that these caregivers are professional – and that they are insured and bonded."

Contact Jane: jghaas@cox.net

The Importance of Deciphering Your Insurance

2011-01-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS

Health insurance is getting more complicated, and consumers don't always grasp the details. But there are some steps they can take to avoid being surprised by unexpected bills and coverage limits.

The problem affects both company-provided and individually purchased policies. Employers seeking to cut health costs are adding charges that workers pay when they get care. At the same time, the plans insurers are rolling out for people who buy their own coverage sometimes offer low premiums that are offset with thinner benefits or higher fees.

The new charges and caps make these plans harder to understand, even as many people still struggle with the basics of health insurance. Fewer than half of consumers feel strongly that they understand their health plans, according to a 2009 McKinsey & Co. survey. Another survey, sponsored by eHealth Inc. in 2007, found only 36% knew that HMO stands for "health maintenance organization," and just 35% were very sure of their own plan's maximum out-of-pocket charges.

Lawmakers and regulators in states including Texas, Vermont and New York are pushing new efforts to make health insurers' consumer communications clearer, though many states already have some requirements on their books. Rhode Island's health insurance commissioner wants to make insurers write all documents at an eighth-grade level. A California bill would classify insurance plans by their levels of coverage.

Prominent Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate proposed a bill last month that would force insurers to provide "coverage facts" boxes similar to the nutrition information that appears on food packages. Bill sponsor Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.), who chairs the health subcommittee of the powerful Senate Finance panel, says he will fight for it as a priority in health-reform efforts.

The government focus comes as consumers like Tampa, Fla., real-estate broker Thomas Bosso grow increasingly irate. Mr. Bosso, 56 years old, bought a plan from Assurant Inc. two years ago partly because he thought everything would be covered completely after he paid a $3,500 annual deductible, which is the amount a person has to lay out before the insurer starts paying for care.

Instead, he says, he's been peppered with unexpected bills for thousands of dollars tied to a knee-replacement surgery last December. He hired Healthcare Advocates Inc., a Philadelphia firm that represents consumers on insurance issues, to help him fight the fees.

"It's like you need to go to Harvard to understand what your insurance company is going to pay or not pay," Mr. Bosso says. "It's ludicrous." Assurant says it "strives to provide clarity so that our customers can make informed coverage decisions."

Mr. Bosso says he never read the full 76-page description of his plan before he picked it, but relied on a summary and an insurance agent's advice. Yet even people who actually scan the longer documents can find themselves flummoxed.

Linda Sharkus, 55, of Belmar, N.J., went through her 59-page Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey document with a yellow highlighter after she was billed thousands of dollars for a scan and lab tests connected to a breast-cancer surgery. The booklet said her plan would cover only $500 worth of "Out-of Hospital diagnostic tests."

"A literary genius didn't write this," says Ms. Sharkus, who is starting a medical-device firm. She figured that the MRI done before the surgery and the lab tests performed to evaluate tissue removed during surgery shouldn't be subject to the $500 cutoff. Both took place in a hospital and were tied to the operation, not diagnosing her disease. But her appeal, which was filed by the nonprofit Patient Advocate Foundation, was denied.

A Horizon spokesman says the insurer urges members to call to check coverage. In addition, he says, Ms. Sharkus's doctors described her tests as diagnostic, not pre- or post-operative, in their bills. She can appeal again on that issue, he says.

Some insurers are already moving to make consumer materials easier to understand. Among other steps, Cigna Corp. has banned employees from using industry acronyms and jargon like "provider" to refer to a doctor or other caregiver. Aetna Inc. is reworking its materials to simplify the language, with marketing documents provided to consumers written at a fifth-grade level.

To protect yourself from surprises, start by making sure you have the full plan explanation, sometimes called the certificate of coverage, certificate of insurance or evidence of coverage. Though the document may be tough reading, the briefer summaries in marketing brochures can be "misleading," says Mila Kofman, superintendent of the Maine bureau of insurance.

Closely check your out-of-pocket maximum, which represents the most you should have to pay for care in a given year. This important protection often comes with subtle qualifications. California legislators heard testimony last year from a woman who thought she would have to pay an out-of-pocket maximum of just $3,500 a year under her Blue Cross plan. In fact, only her hospital and outpatient surgery bills counted toward that amount -- and she piled up thousands of dollars in fees for services, including doctor visits, lab tests and imaging scans, when her hospital and surgery charges failed to exceed $3,500.

Wellpoint Inc., the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross -- which now insures the patient -- says it is "committed to providing consumers with information regarding covered services in clear and concise terms" and that its marketing materials list exclusions and limitations.

Some insurers are putting the onus on consumers to track their own costs. In an analysis released last month, researchers at Georgetown University found that several health plans required consumers to inform the insurers when they reached their out-of-pocket totals.

Pay attention to the terms of your deductible. A Maine legislative committee heard in April from a woman who said she thought her plan from HealthMarkets Inc.'s MEGA Life & Health Insurance Co. had a $10,000 "family deductible" that she'd pay before coverage kicked in. In fact, each family member had a separate deductible, so she actually owed $30,000 before the plan would pay. HealthMarkets says it can't comment on individual cases due to medical-privacy regulations.

Be sure to check how your plan handles doctors who don't participate in your insurer's network. Typically, plans that do provide out-of-network benefits pay only a percentage of so-called usual-and-customary fees. That can leave you with a significant charge.

Kevin Flynn, president of Healthcare Advocates, says his rule of thumb is that 80% of a usual-and-customary payment will cover just one-third of the bill. That's because insurance companies' projections tend to be lower than doctors' actual charges.

Watch out for excluded benefits and coverage caps, including lifetime and annual limits on payouts. Some plans pay only a set fee per day of a hospital stay, for instance, which could leave you on the hook for thousands of dollars. Drug benefits don't always include every medication. Some plans exclude maternity coverage, and some individual-market plans may not include care for pre-existing conditions. Insurers typically refuse to cover treatments they don't consider "medically necessary."

Just because something isn't in the "excluded benefits" section of your plan doesn't mean it's actually covered. The first page of a short summary of Phillip Fine's Aetna dental benefits said crowns were covered at 50%. Then the 49-year-old securities broker, who lives near Princeton, N.J., got billed for the full cost of some work needed to prep his tooth for a crown last year, around $140. This procedure, called a "core buildup," wasn't specifically named in the summary's 21-item list of exclusions.

When Mr. Fine appealed the charge, though, the insurer's response noted that core buildup also wasn't listed as a covered item in the full plan document. Mr. Fine says the human-resources department of his employer, which supplied the dental benefit, hadn't given him this document. He got a copy from the insurer when his appeal was rejected.

Aetna says "feedback like this helps us make improvements to materials." The company says it encourages members to ask their dentist to check with the insurer to determine coverage before doing procedures.

Contact Anna Mathews at anna.mathews@wsj.com.

What's Your Backup Plan?

2011-01-02T13:23:00.000-08:00

By ALEX WILLIAMS

IN more than a few circles — publishing, finance, automotive design — small talk at cocktail parties has shifted from real estate (too depressing) to the Plan B career (a fatalistic, yet somehow sunnier topic).

How about chocolatier? Organic farmer? Therapist?

Plan B typically offers less money and prestige than Plan A, but promises a more hands-on, stress-free and fulfilling existence.

That’s the fantasy anyway. After a few days spent test-driving a few new careers, however, I started to suspect that Plan B should really be called Plan G.

For grind.

It Won’t Hurt, Really

The economy had barely started to tank when hollow-eyed financial executives started talking about dropping out to take up a second career in the wellness field — acupuncture, massage, Reiki. It made sense that stressed-out professionals would want to spend their second act working toward a remedy, like asthma sufferers might volunteer for their local Clean Air Coalition.

I decided to try my hand at massage therapy. But, really, who wants to caress freckled strangers all day to a zither soundtrack? I decided to massage dogs instead. With them, back hair is a good thing. Also, I, as a complete amateur, thought they would be less likely to call the state health authorities.

Daniel Rubenstein, an owner of the Paw Stop, a dog-training and pet day care center in TriBeCa that offers pet-massage workshops, put me in touch with the resident therapist, Melissa Belkin, for a lesson. Ms. Belkin, 30 and tattooed, bounds up to you with the friendly enthusiasm of a border terrier. She trained at the Swedish Institute, which is interested only in humans, but has expanded her business to dogs in recent years. Massaging dogs, she said, involves unique challenges.

“With people, you don’t have to take them for a run for 20 minutes beforehand to settle them down,” she explained.

She led me downstairs, where a massage table sat covered in a white towel. My first client was a chocolate Labrador retriever, Boomer. As Bach wafted overhead and three tiny jasmine-scented aromatherapy candles flickered nearby, I laid hands on.

Or tried.

As I strained at Boomer’s collar and tried to pin his 60 muscular pounds to the towel with one hand, I tried some effleurage (stroking) techniques, down his spine, to the tip of the tail, as Ms. Belkin instructed. But Boomer would not respect me as a therapist. I knew massage therapists must deal with boundary issues — especially because their clients are half-clothed. But how often do their clients lick them on the lips during treatment? On second thought, don’t answer that.

My next client, J. J., made me feel like a mere bellman cadging for tips at the Delano Hotel in South Beach.

J. J. is a purebred Jack Russell.

J. J. is owned by Mariah Carey.

J. J. is working on his own TV pilot.

J. J. was going to be a challenge.

To J .J., the massage table was a stage, and he used it to perform. He spun, he bounded, he danced. He paused only long enough to cock his head in pose (you could almost hear him yelling, “Makeup!”).

I tried to calm him with series of petrissage (kneading) strokes on the scruff of the neck. To many dogs, this move is pure Vicodin. To J. J., it was Ritalin. I could barely tame him, even when I pulled out every dog masseuse’s secret weapon — a delicate, circular rubbing of the tips of his ears.

But J .J. was a model client next to Macy, a golden retriever. Macy was sweet, but New York had gotten to her. At Ms. Belkin’s urging, I tried tapotement (gentle tapping) on her chest to get her to settle in. She writhed like a marlin caught on a line, then scooted backward on the towel like a lobster. The session finally ended — with Macy in the corner of the room, her tail between her legs.

But the experience was not a total failure. I felt great. Multiple hours with my fingers in fur had resulted in some unexpected therapy, and I felt at peace, ready for a bone and a late afternoon nap.

Green, Bloody Acres

I knew I wasn’t cut out for country life within 30 minutes of arriving at Northwind Farms, a 197-acre poultry, pork and beef farm in picturesque Tivoli, N.Y., about two hours up the Hudson River by car.

On the way to feed the hogs early in the morning, I paused and circled back toward my rented Mini Cooper, Starbucks venti in hand. “Sun block,” I said, pointing to the sun breaking through the clouds, and reaching into the hatch to grab a tube of Aveeno SPF 55.

Richie Biezynski, who along with his wife, Jane, bailed out of Queens 30 years ago to farm this land, looked at me as if I had said I just needed a second to slip into my leotard.

I’m not alone in idealizing the rural life. It’s become common to the point of cliché for harried New Yorkers, Michael Pollan books in hand, to attempt their own “Green Acres” fantasy in this region. The lush landscape seems safely distant from city pressures, but is still dotted with enough antiques shops and stylish bistros so that they don’t feel like, well, hicks.

That vision ended for me 30 minutes into my new agrarian life, with my right hand buried up to the wrist in a still-warm chicken’s hind end.

Mr. Biezynski, who looks like Old McDonald, but talks like Al Goldstein, was teaching me to eviscerate chickens manually, because when you run a boutique-size meat farm, that’s what you do. I thrust my fingertips past the rib cage, past the heart, through seemingly yards of oozy intestines, looking for the giblets. They are not, it turns out, wrapped in paper.

“You’re at four minutes,” Mr. Biezynski, said, scolding me. “A good farmer can do 50 chickens an hour.”

The task would have seemed easier if I didn’t feel directly responsible for the chicken’s death. A few minutes earlier, in a nearby barn, I had chased down this chicken and 69 others, grabbed them mercilessly by the legs, and stuffed them, wings flapping plaintively, eight at a time into orange plastic bins, which were then transported to the nearby killing room.

There, in a windowless cinderblock cell, a skinny, bearded farmhand who looked like an Old World cobbler but flashed the gap-toothed smile of a mid-70s Philadelphia Flyer, dispatched them dispassionately with a clean knife cut to the neck.

“That’s Billy the Bleeder,” Mr. Biezynski said, adding. “Before, I had Augie the Ice Pick.”

Not hoping to measure up, I decided to help out on a marginally less grisly task, the castration of new calves. It’s not as bad as you think. Castration involves no knives, no gore. You simply fasten a rubber band around the calf’s testicles and wait for them to wither over the course of two weeks (O.K., maybe it’s worse than you think).

To castrate a calf, you have to catch it. And calves, it turns out, can move as fast as collies at a dog run. I gave a halfhearted chase to two, then turned to a few more sedentary ones grazing in a nearby wood. Once there, I paused at the sight of several low shrubs with eerily shiny leaves, three on a branch. Mr. Biezynski, standing knee deep in the patch, could not sympathize. “Billy eats poison ivy,” he said.

Over a lunch of fresh pork sausage, Mr. Biezynski told me that he never looked back once he left the city, but that city dilettantes wandering upstate often don’t know what they’re in for.

Want to grow corn? You’re up against the industrial farms. Open a dairy? Nowadays, you need $500,000 in startup capital, just for the equipment. Raise a few pigs? The margins are thin.

“Feed is expensive, livestock gets sick,” he said.

“The farmer eats well,” he added. “That’s about it.”

My Sure-Hit Chocolate Recipe

I like chocolate and chili peppers. I like tequila and potato chips.

Why not put them together — in one very special truffle?

My chocolate tutor, Rachel Zoe Insler, was not so sure. In February, Ms. Insler opened Bespoke Chocolates, a high-end chocolate shop in the East Village. Ms. Insler had bailed out of a doctoral program in cognitive neuroscience at Columbia to pursue her own Plan B fantasy. After training at the French Culinary Institute, she nudged the truffle toward the avant-garde. Some contained rosemary, others balsamic vinegar.

To make my own mark, I figured I would have to push the envelope a little further. I showed up for a day of work carrying a backpack full of ingredients culled from my kitchen cabinets. As I produced each one — Parmesan, panko, Grape-Nuts — Ms. Insler gave me the look of a child who unwraps her birthday presents to find socks and toothbrushes.

She seemed appalled but intrigued by my idea for a truffle I christened the Tijuana Bender, blending tequila, red chili flakes and Lay’s potato chips.

Combining the chili pepper and chocolate was reasonable, she said. “That’s a classic combination,” she said. “The Aztecs used to make spicy chocolate with cinnamon.” But that was a bit staid, no? No bender is complete without a potato chip chaser, so I suggested we add the Lay’s. “Maybe we could crush them up and use them for texture,” she said, feigning enthusiasm.

It’s not that hard, I learned, to make truffles. It’s just hard to make them well.

After settling on a 70 percent cocoa Colombian Santander to use as a base (it’s terroir seemed to match the tequila), I started a recipe Ms. Insler provided. First, I created an infusion from the chili flakes by dumping two tablespoons into a pan of heavy cream simmering on the stove. After straining out the flakes, I added 200 grams of chocolate wafers — or coins. As they melted, I whisked the concoction into a ganache. We took a short break to let the mixture cool and hoped for the best.

During that time, Ms. Insler talked about the challenges of changing careers. By combining food and retail, she managed to find the human interaction she never found in neuroscience.

“I love making chocolate,” she said. “For me, the hardest part is everything else.” Negotiating with the landlord, bookkeeping and meeting city codes can keep you at the store from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

After the ganache had finally solidified into a thick paste, we scooped small globs of the gooey mixture and then rubbed it between our palms into truffle-size balls. Ms. Insler’s model truffle was smooth and spherical, like a pinball. I missed spherical, and felt lucky to achieve elliptical. On the cookie sheet, they looked like the droppings of a large forest animal.

We each took tentative bites. The potato chips had been a misfire. They were too oily and had congealed into gummy lumps. But the overall flavor, with its pleasing sizzle on the back of the tongue, was promising. We nodded approvingly.

Then, our smiles evaporated. The sizzle was growing into a conflagration. When mixing in the chili flakes, Ms. Insler had let me season to taste. I apparently had seasoned to injure.

“If I took a week to work on the proportions, it could be delicious,” Ms. Insler said. “But nobody is going to spend $2.25 for that.”

My efforts as a chocolatier resulted in another failure, but at least an informative one. I had learned to temper chocolate. I had learned a bit of retail.

But I also learned, once again, why most of us work in cubicles.

Find Christina Binkley at NYTimes.com.

Dr. Oz's Top 5 Mistakes Dieters Make

2010-12-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

You ate and sipped your way from Thanksgiving to New Year's. The food was delicious; the eggnog and champagne divine. But now, well, now your pants won't zip. Holiday weight gain is hands down the most unwanted gift of all. Fortunately, you don't have to keep it. America's favorite doctor, Mehmet Oz, better known as the host of "The Dr. Oz Show," is here to share his most effective weight loss strategies for shedding those holiday pounds. Dr. Oz explains how to avoid the biggest dieting blunders so you're sure to start off your post-holiday weight loss plan right.

Mistake No. 1: You Crash Diet
Of course, diets that promise big weight loss fast sound great. After all, who wouldn't want to drop every pound you gained in just a few short weeks? And sure, if you radically cut your calorie intake, you will lose weight. But here's the catch: You can't eat like that forever. And once you go back to eating the way you usually do, you'll regain what you lost and possibly even more. "The fundamental problem these diets have is that you cannot overwhelm your biological drive to eat with willpower. That's why 98 percent of these diets fail," said Dr. Oz. "Any diet that eliminates an entire food group or that replaces meals with mysterious concoctions aren't good for long-term weight loss."

Want another reason: Our bodies are built to help prevent us from starving when there's not enough food to go around. But since our bodies don't know the difference between famine and a crash diet, they react the same way -- by slowing your metabolism, which makes it even harder to lose weight. "Your body is not going to let you waste energy, so it rapidly adjusts its metabolism based on caloric intake," Dr. Oz said.

Dr. Oz's Fix: Eat a variety of healthy foods so you don't feel like you're depriving yourself. Then track your calories with a food diary and find ways to eat just 100 fewer calories every day. "Every long-term weight study ever done in which people kept the weight off for more than two years came back to this same basic rule," said Dr. Oz. "It's not hard to do. And 100 calories is such a small amount, your body can't tell you're on a diet, so your metabolism doesn't slow down and you'll naturally lose the weight."

Mistake No. 2: You Skip Breakfast
You'd think that bypassing breakfast would be a quick and easy way to shave some extra calories -- except, you're actually more likely to consume those calories (and more) later in the day. Thinking you have some calories to play with because you didn't eat breakfast, you may supersize your lunch or grab snacks that aren't particularly good for you simply because you're hungry. In addition, skipping breakfast prompts your body to store fat rather than metabolize it. In fact, research shows that breakfast skippers tend to be heavier. While breakfast eaters consume more calories, they're also slimmer, more active and have healthier diets overall. In a study of people who'd dropped at least 30 pounds and kept it off, 78 percent said they routinely ate breakfast.

Dr. Oz's Fix: Eating something within an hour or so after waking up boosts your metabolism by as much as 10 percent. Go for things like oatmeal sprinkled with nuts and raisins or a tablespoon of peanut butter, a veggie omelet with whole-wheat toast, or low-fat cottage cheese with fruit. The mix of protein and fiber holds off hunger through the morning so you're less inclined to help yourself to the powdered doughnuts at the office or overeat later on. In a recent University of Connecticut study, when volunteers had eggs for breakfast, they consumed 100 to 400 fewer calories at lunch than when they ate bagels, even though both the bagel and egg breakfasts contained the same amount of calories. Other research suggests that fiber-rich breakfasts help you burn more fat when you exercise. No time to sit down to eat? Do what the Oz family does: Drink a Magical Breakfast Blaster as you head to work or drop off the kids at school. "It's fast, it's filling and has everything you need in the morning," said Dr. Oz. "It's purple so kids like it, too."

Magical Breakfast Blaster

This recipe makes two 136-calorie servings.

½ large banana, broken into chunks
1/3 cup soy protein
½ tablespoon flaxseed oil
¼ cup frozen blueberries
½ tablespoon apple juice concentrate or honey
1 teaspoon psyllium seed husks
1 cup water
Powdered vitamins (optional)

Put everything into the blender. Blend and drink.

Mistake No. 3: You Drink Extra Calories
When we eat a big meal, our body knows it's been fed and we eat less at the next meal. But that doesn't happen when we drink high-calorie beverages, which are estimated to add about 235 extra (empty) calories a day to our diets. Our bodies don't seem to register liquid calories the way it does solid calories. So even after guzzling a jumbo-size soda at the movies, we don't eat less when it's time to eat again. Specialty coffee drinks, fruit drinks, sodas, energy drinks and alcohol are some of the biggest calorie traps. Alcohol is actually doubly so because drinking relaxes our willpower. Have a few cocktails and suddenly having that slice of cheesecake seems like a pretty good idea.

Dr. Oz's Fix: Choose lower-calorie drinks. Like coffee? Leave out the whipped cream, syrups and chocolate shavings, and drink it black or with a little sugar. "A teaspoon of sugar is just 16 calories, a tiny amount," said Dr. Oz. "People aren't getting fat because of 16 calories." Can't give up your soda? You can have both soda and fruit juice if you add a splash of your favorite 100 percent fruit juice to club soda. You get the fizz with fewer calories. "If I'm sitting down to a meal, that's what I'll get," said Dr. Oz.

More on That's FitDr. Oz's Shortcuts to Losing Weight
Dr. Oz Reveals the Chemicals Making You Fat
Dr. Oz: Fun and Fit in the City
Mistake No. 4: You Don't Snack
Snacks get a bad rap because we think of them as junky foods we shouldn't eat. But nutritious snacks are actually a dieter's best friend, because eating frequently can actually help you consume fewer calories. "Thoughtful snacking keeps you from getting ravenous between meals and making poor diet choices later on," said Dr. Oz. "People who eat several small meals and snacks a day are more likely to control their hunger and lose weight." He should know. He snacks constantly. "I'd bet that at least half the calories I eat are snacks," he said. "I don't like being hungry, and I don't like the threat of being hungry, so I keep healthy foods near me all the time. Whenever I feel a little tinge of hunger, I throw a handful of something in my mouth." The snacks he relies on: apples, radishes, carrots and nuts.

Dr. Oz's Fix: Each day, pack several healthy snacks in small containers or snack-size baggies to keep in your purse or an insulated tote in your car. If you always have diet-friendly snacks at hand, you'll be less tempted to raid the vending machine. Just watch the portion sizes, cautioned Dr. Oz, "so you don't overdo it."

Mistake No 5:You Don't Drink Enough Water
The next time you feel hungry, take a big, long drink of water and you may not need to eat. Because the hormones in our intestines that tell us we're hungry are very similar to the hormones that let us know we're thirsty, we're not very good at distinguishing hunger from thirst, which is why we typically reach for food when we should be drinking. "Often hunger pangs are just your body screaming for a little extra H20," said Dr. Oz. And when we're not well hydrated, our metabolism drags. "Water is essential for burning calories," said Dr. Oz. "Adults who drink eight-plus glasses of water a day burn more calories than those who drink less."

Dr. Oz's Fix: Drink water before every meal and snack and a few more in between. According to a study done at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, overweight or obese study volunteers who drank a 16-ounce bottle of water before every meal lost 44 percent more weight after 12 weeks than volunteers who didn't drink water before dining. That may be because water drinkers ate about 75 fewer calories when they drank water before their meals, as another Virginia Tech study found. "I carry a water bottle with me wherever I go so I'm constantly sipping," said Dr. Oz.
If eight glasses a day seems daunting, try this mind trick: Drink from larger bottles, so instead of consuming eight glasses, you're sipping just three and a half bottles. Easy! And there's no reason to always drink it plain. "I completely get that people think water is bland," said Dr. Oz. "In our house, we make water more appealing by adding slices of fruit or a splash of fruit juice to give it a different taste."

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Simple New Website Caters To Those Over 80

2010-12-17T14:14:00.000-08:00

Let's talk about chestnuts. Not the ones roasting by the open fire. I mean the old ones you hear all the time.
Like: You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
ADVERTISEMENT More from Jane Glenn Haas
•A lesson in mixing drugs
•Helping holiday hands for seniors
•National Alzheimer's strategy discussedThat's the one that shoves people over 80 to life's sidelines, figuring there's nothing left there except maybe some estate money to skim or scam.
Well, meet Trey and Wendy Denton.
In late November, this couple, both marketing specialists in their fields, launched a web site for Wendy's parents, Nina and Papa, who are in their 80s. The Dentons live in Georgia. They thought the parents, who live in Michigan, should learn to use the web for fun and education.
So we have seniordashboard.com. The easiest web site to navigate I've ever seen.
There's a photo of a dashboard up in the right corner but none of the dancing, moving, zooming, cluttered space a homepage usually displays. And no ads.
It cost the Dentons about $1,500 to set the page up, Wendy says. And another $12 a month to host it on Web.com.
Take a look. There's a list of about six sites for four topics – news, information, interests and staying connected. One easy click takes you to "world news," for example, and that connects with options for CNN, The New York Times and so on.
"Oh, it was a big commitment to put this together," Wendy says. "And we're always adding to it."
I think what's amazing is the site's simplicity. We forget the Internet operates without bells and whistles – "stuff" we usually find messing up sites.
What motivated the creation of seniordashboard.com?
"My parents just don't leave the house as much as they used to," Wendy says. "We thought if we could get them on the Internet their lives would be more interesting, more informed, even more fun."
The elders don't use a computer now. In fact, they don't even know there's a site created for them.
"That's really a surprise," Wendy says. "For Christmas, we're giving them an iPad, complete with e-mail and Facebook accounts, setting this up as their home page and keeping our fingers crossed.
"So far they have resisted computers, but we're hoping this new set-up will be enticing enough to get them online."
The Dentons launched the site early to "check it out, of course," Wendy says.
Their biggest surprise: Without fanfare, without publicity, seniordashboard.com has already become an international favorite. Of the 10 top users, four are from Japan.
"I don't know how they found us," Wendy says.
Maybe they were looking for what the Dentons offer: A simple, non-intrusive format that gives web surfers a "safe place" to return as they build Internet confidence and proficiency.
"There are no video ads, no dropdown ads, in fact, no ads at all on the opening homepage," she says. "Nothing happens that the user does not choose to happen and the page looks the same each time the user returns."
The Dentons have decided to invest in search ads during December to offset some of their monthly costs.
"If it proves helpful and some use is sustained after the holidays, we will consider doing more promotion," Wendy says. "If usage stalls after the promotion period ends ....well, it's a nice site for our parents to use and anyone else is more than welcome."
Kudos to the Dentons for what they've created. The simplicity of the site masks its depth.
But here's the best part: The Boomer Dentons are also creating an easily sustainable business for themselves.
Follow your passion. Start your own business. Become an independent entrepreneur.
Buzzwords for the 21st century.
Many try. Few succeed.
I'll be interested to see how the Dentons fare. He's a marketing professor and she heads a marketing team at a local bank. And they're taking your suggestions now at the web site, seniordashboard.com.
Wouldn't it be refreshing if simplicity trumps the sophistication of most web sites featured today?
Simplicity in our complicated, convoluted world. What a concept as we launch the second decade of the 21st century!
Contact Jane: jghaas@cox.net

Study Of Longevity Can Lead To Many Changes

2010-12-05T14:01:00.000-08:00

I have been lugging around lots of extra pounds for years. And now a new study – a huge new study – says being just a little bit overweight is definitely associated with an increased risk of death.
ADVERTISEMENT More from Jane Glenn Haas
•A lesson in mixing drugs
•Helping holiday hands for seniors
•Simple new website caters to those over 80 Well, there’s a reason to start counting calories and I’m starting right now.
Seriously.
But, at the same time, I’m thinking about this good friend of mine who almost died as a result of tripping in her driveway. Which forces me to conclude nothing in life is certain – no matter how much you strive to do the “right” thing.
I’ve known Mary Ann for more than half a century. She has never been overweight. In fact, she is the most organized, focused, determined friend I have.
Both of us did the life expectancy calculator (see livingto100.com) designed by Dr. Thomas Perls, who has spent his professional lifetime studying longevity.
I was lucky to reach 90 on the calculator. Mary Ann topped 100. And I wasn’t surprised. I expect her to dance at my funeral.
She never loses control. She never over-indulges in food or drink. She never loses her place on the life-page.
So what happened?
She tripped, she told me last week when she could still talk. She fell in her driveway and hit her head against the stucco at the edge of her house.
She lay there, hoping the mailman or someone would come along. But no one did.
So Mary Ann, the widow, got herself up and walked into her home, up a short flight of stairs to the first floor, used the chair lift installed for her late husband to reach the second floor of the house, and went to bed.
Around midnight, she says, the pain was so intense she called paramedics. She even has her house organized so pushing a few buttons by her bed lets her open the garage and door.
They rushed her to the hospital and found out she had broken three vertebrae in her neck.
When she woke up, she was in a halo medical fixation device that prevents her head and neck from moving while the vertebrae heal. And she’s healing well, the doctors told her brother.
She spent Thanksgiving flat on her back in an assisted living home. She told me she would be there until February. That was about a week ago.
Then she stopped breathing. Literally.
They slapped an oxygen mask on her face and called the paramedics.
Mary Ann has developed clots in her lungs. Big ones.
She’s back in the hospital and for a few days, her prognosis was not very good.
Meanwhile, I’m reading that two-thirds of U.S. adults are either overweight or obese. Overweight begins at a BMI (body mass index – a measure of height and weight) measurement of 25 and obese at 30 and morbidly obese at 40.
The study was published in the New England Journal of Measurement the same day I learned Mary Ann’s condition was extreme and the same day I did my regular water therapy, which includes exercises to improve my balance.
I’m glad to tell you that my friend is improving.
Still, it may be easier for me to lose weight than for Mary Ann to get rid of the blood clots. I hope I’m wrong. But, then, I thought she was a model of healthy living and I am the gal who limits her life because she loves pasta and ice cream.
The irony could be obvious. I pray it’s not.
Contact the writer: jghaas@cox.net

Dissatisfied With Sex

2010-11-29T07:43:00.000-08:00

Sex.
I'm bored with it.
ADVERTISEMENT More from Jane Glenn Haas
•A lesson in mixing drugs
•Helping holiday hands for seniors
•Simple new website caters to those over 80Talking about it, that is, not engaging in it.
The latest discussion is a survey by The Associated Press and LifeGoesStrong.com. The survey says baby boomers – 76 million of them – are the unhappiest Americans when it comes to having sex.
And I thought Viagra, Cialis and Levitra solved their problems.
(I know there is no similar product for women because they don't have to perform the same way. I mean, we just lie there. Right?)
Only 7 percent of the people between 45 and 65 say they are satisfied with their sex lives, the pollsters say. Two in five men say they're having problems performing, despite the "assistance" of available drugs. Only 19 percent of the women report the same, but they don't have to work so hard at having sex. Right?
Ah, there are solutions beyond medications, says Ruth Westheimer, the "Dr. Ruth" sex therapist. "Older people can learn new tricks," she says, leading to mental images of couples coupling on walkers or getting high reading each other's blood pressure cuffs.
I know, I know. Being a senior isn't being "old" today – but what is Dr. Ruth talking about?
In an interview, she says aging men and women need to work on being "sexually literate – to really know what they need, what their partner needs and how to pleasure each other."
Sexually literate? OK, Dr. Ruth, I thought this was the sexually liberated generation, the first one to be able to claim to be sexually literate because they talk about it publicly. All the time.
Is there a point where sex can be ... well ... boring? Are we wearying of trying to figure out why we do it, when we do it and where we do it?
The AP survey concludes the information that boomers are dissatisfied with their sex lives is a "stark turnaround" for the group who spearheaded the sexual revolution, coming of age as birth control became readily available, premarital sex gained wider acceptance and abortion was legalized. Boomers also were many of the first victims of the AIDS epidemic – a disaster Pope Benedict XVI now says Catholics can avoid by using condoms.
"Men do tend to have higher sex drives," says Debby Herbenick of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University. Women, she says, have hot flashes and they're tired. You betcha.
She adds that messages about sex are unreal. "The media make it sounds as if everybody should have sex from morning to night, and that's not realistic," she says. Another you betcha.
Instead of talking about sex, maybe we should be talking about love. And respect.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw a lot of love on the dance floor of the Senior Senior Prom, sponsored by Age Well Senior Services in Laguna Woods.
There were men bent over with stenosis and women who could barely walk from their table to the dance floor. But they were out there – swaying to the music, holding on to each other and looking like they really cared about each other.
What a concept!
Are they beyond caring about sexual intimacy? Well, what is intimacy anyway?
Sometimes it's just plain snuggling up to someone you care about. Just letting him or her know you're there.
Anyone can think about, talk about or have sex. But not everyone can claim to be loved.
AP says "boomers are the unhappiest Americans of all when it comes to making love."
I think it's time we separated the action from the emotion.
Contact the writer: jghaas@cox.net

How Does Your Family Stack Up As A Family

2010-11-20T22:02:00.000-08:00

I'm raising a glass on Thanksgiving (one of the two glasses of wine doctors say I should drink daily for good health) to my spot-on American family.
We are so demographically correct, we win the prize for non-uniqueness. OK, so that's not a word but you know what I mean.
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•Does marriage define what a family is?
More from Jane Glenn Haas
•A lesson in mixing drugs
•Helping holiday hands for seniors
•Simple new website caters to those over 80Here we are in the midst of a supposed recovery and everyone is still married. Or widowed.
And one widow, my daughter-in-law, has a 6-month-old without a husband, which is so trendy it makes me pop my buttons. Seriously.
There is a rise of "new family forms," says the latest study from Pew Research Center. Researchers found a "marriage gap" increasingly aligned with a growing income gap.
Nearly four in 10 Americans say marriage is becoming obsolete. But even as marriage shrinks, family – in all its emerging varieties – remains resilient, the survey finds.
There's an expansive definition of what constitutes a family today. And most adults say their own family is the most important and satisfying element of their lives.
I might raise another glass here.
Family occupies almost all of my kids' non-working time.
My son, who lives in New Hampshire, has two boys who play hockey. This requires traveling to practices, going to out-of-town tournaments, buying uniforms and padding.
"I wear a cup for my pee-pee," my grandson Connor, then 5, told me last year as he donned his padding. I told him that was a good idea. He nodded wisely.
Connor and his brother, Peter, 8, are playing in a tournament in Rhode Island this weekend. "It's part of an extended family – the teams and the tournament," said my son, Andy.
Closer to home, my daughter in Long Beach seems to be somewhere every Saturday and Sunday – at soccer games, gymnastic classes, outings to the park.
Her kids, Mark, 8 and Meghan, 6, never sit still.
"Sitting is for girls," Mark told me at Halloween, as he and other fellows ran up and down the stairs playing something fierce that involved a lot of yelling. The girls, by comparison, sat at a table stringing necklaces before they went trick-or-treating.
Can I have a third glass?
My Hawaiian daughter-in-law, mother of my late son's three boys, decided not to marry again when she found herself with child last year.
She said she was unsure and still felt married to my son.
Yes, I was proud of her. Why marry without a full commitment?
Her new baby, Jordan, is wonderful, she says. My oldest grandson, Travis, 16, says, "He's OK, for a baby."
Jordan has just discovered he can make loud noises. And so he does.
Maybe I'll have a fourth glass as I consider the pleasures of absentee grandparenting...
Back to the researchers. What they left out of their report is a comparison with marriage rates during The Great Depression.
In the 1920s, when women first won the right to vote, the concept of a 50-50 marriage became a popular phrase, says University of North Carolina professor Peter Filene. There was even talk of gender equality, a concept that crashed with the stock market.
Indeed, women were told to stop working after the crash because they were taking jobs away from men, the traditional head-of-the-household.
Men, Filene reports, were shamed to depend on a woman to pay for food and lodging.
We don't hear much talk like that today.
Instead, women are encouraged to work and families depend on a 50/50 division of labor in most cases. That's what the studies say. (Reality is, 50/50 is a nice goal but women still carry most of the household burden. At least, that's what the gals in the trenches say.)
Which brings me back to the first glass – in reality, the only one I'm raising: Let's hear it for our adult children and for their love of family.
They had to get that attitude somewhere.
Now you can raise that second glass and toast yourself.
Contact the writer: jghaas@cox.net

Will The Cost Of Chocolate Rise Out Of Reach

2010-11-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

The WomanSage Buncoettes were holding their monthly party – a gala that includes food, conversation and tossing the dice around – when a few of us noticed an overabundance of chocolate in the evening's hostess offerings.
Chocolate crisps. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Chocolate chips and M&Ms in abundance in the peanut trail mix.
ADVERTISEMENT More from Jane Glenn Haas
•A lesson in mixing drugs
•Helping holiday hands for seniors
•Simple new website caters to those over 80"Eat up, ladies," one of the Buncoettes said. "In 20 years, chocolate will cost as much as caviar."
What was she saying?
Twenty years seems a long time away to worry about a candy bar going from a dime to $40, as this woman claimed.
Besides, I said, the government won't let that happen.
Some things are sacred to the American way of life: Military defense, medical care, Social Security and chocolate.
Ah, but our reliance on chocolate to soothe our spirits in good times and bad might, indeed, be threatened.
Last year, we consumed 3 billion pounds of chocolate, which seems like a lot but falls short of the Europeans who eat more of the stuff than we do.
If it were just the French, I'd say that's a comment on their always depressing lifestyle. But that forces me to admit that when the French rioted over raising their pension age to 62 from 60 they lost my empathy. Not that I ever felt particularly sorry for the French, but let's move on.
To return to the price of chocolate, the fact is the cost of cocoa has doubled in the past two years. Indeed, demand has exceeded supply.
Part of this has to do with some reforms in the cocoa bean countries that, frankly, we should applaud. Changes in child labor laws and exploitation of labor.
But then there is the soil erosion and other natural forces at work.
Tim Wall, of Discovery News, points out that chocolate was once the drink of Mayan and Aztec kings and, if prices continue to soar, cocoa could be the food of kings again.
Chocolate could become as rare as caviar, says John Mason of the Ghana-based Nature Conservation Research Council. Which means chocolate treats could become unaffordable for the average person.
The price of cocoa, the raw ingredient for chocolate, has been skyrocketing in international markets, Wall says. Demand for dark chocolate, which uses more cocoa, has helped fuel price increases.
Cocoa trees originally came from the rainforests of the Americas. They live naturally for up to a century in the shady understory of biodiverse forests. The cocoa beans ripen in pods on the trees.
But modern cultivation techniques – including the techniques used in the Ivory Coast countries that are the major cocoa producers – call for clearing rain forests and planting the trees in the full sun. This limits their lifespan to about 30 years and means the farmers must constantly replenish the forests.
It's important to know that Ivory Coast cocoa farmers earn less than $1 a day, according to Tony Lass, chairman of the Cocoa Research Association. So they are leaving the farms for the cities where they can earn more.
Wall says candymakers need to share more of their profits with the cocoa farmers. And the farmers need to change the way they grow cocoa trees. Both those objectives are admirable but are certainly long-term.
Would you be surprised to learn the commodity traders – the folks who buy and sell stuff to make money – are already in the cocoa business? In July, a British investor bought enough cocoa beans to make 5.3 billion quarter-pound chocolate bars. The beans are stored in British warehouses.
When the commodity traders get involved, price increases aren't far behind.
So there you are: Armed with the facts.
You can take action by writing Hershey's and Reese's and all the other chocolate makers and demand they do something now so our grandchildren can enjoy cheap chocolate.
Or you can ignore the mounting evidence of the obesity crisis in America and just eat more chocolate.
Frankly, nothing gets me through blue days more than non-fat yogurt sprinkled with crumbled Reese's pieces. And I can't imagine a better way to celebrate a good day than with a bowl of non-fat yogurt sprinkled with crumbled Reese's pieces.
Yes, I see the idiocy of non-fat yogurt and candy – but I give myself credit for cutting calories somewhere.
Chocolate the price of caviar? What will we turn to in times of despair or moments of triumph? Please don't tell me celery and carrots.
Contact the writer: jghaas@aol.com

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2009-04-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

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2009-04-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

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JANE GLENN HAAS Biography

2009-04-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

Jane Glenn Haas
Journalist/WomanSage Founder

JANE GLENN HAAS is a multi-media personality – a newspaper writer, national columnist, book author, television host, professional speaker and founder of WomanSage, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering, educating and fostering mentoring relationships among women at midlife.

As a testimony to her vision, in less than four years, WomanSage has become a national organization reaching more than 6,000 women with regular e-mails, web site updates and blogs (www.womansage.org) and a newsletter. There are four established chapters and more than 20 in formation.

Haas currently is writing a book – “Shift Happens” -- on the many ways women deal with second midlife crisis events – from loss of a job to divorce and widowhood. She has collected more than 3,800 surveys from midlife women world-wide talking about how their lives are different from their mothers’. The survey is posted on the www.womansage.org web site.

In November, 2006, Haas retired, ending a 25-year career as a writer for The Orange County Register. However, she continues to write two columns weekly for the newspaper. “Our Time” and “Our Health” are distributed to 300 newspapers by McClatchy News Service. A recent column on remarriage at midlife garnered 493 survey responses in eight days.

Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, she has been honored for Excellence in Aging Reporting with the Hugh Downs Award of the International Longevity Center; the American Society on Aging Media Award; the American Medical Writers Association Rose Kushner Award; the American Heart Association C. Everett Koop Award; the Alzheimer’s Association Rosemary Award, and many others.

Her research on women at midlife already has led to coverage by TIME magazine, as well as The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and other publications. She was asked to be a featured writer in a special TIME report on women at midlife.

She has appeared on the Today Show and was recently a featured speaker at the Texas Governor’s Conference for Women, the Massachusetts Governor’s Conference for Women and the Xerox Women’s Alliance. Los Angeles CBS-TV commentator Stacey Butler featured Haas and WomanSage in a two-part series on the Channel 2 evening news in December.

She is a speaker at a variety of local and national events, including panelist at the International Longevity Center in New York; featured speaker for AARP conventions and meetings; a regular presenter at the American Society on Aging; emcee and host for many local and state events. She is the author of “Time of Your Life: Why Almost Everything Gets Better After Fifty” (Seven Locks Press). For seven years, she hosted a call-in television program on aging issues on the former OCN cable station. She appears regularly on PBS stations KCET and KOCE.

She can be reached at jghaas@aol.com.

Contact Jane Glenn Haas

2009-04-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Contact Jane

By Email:

jghaas@aol.com

By Phone:

(949) 679-6912

By Mail:

Jane G Haas
Suite E72
52 Seton Rd
Irvine, CA 92612