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AFL chief Andrew Demetriou opens up about the footy now and in the future. Pictures: Chris Scott Source: Herald Sun

GLENN McFarlane and Shane Crawford have an in-depth chat with AFL chief Andrew Demetriou - and nothing is off limits.

MONEY TALK

GLENN McFARLANE: Your income went down (in the AFL report released on Friday) How does that happen, given the AFL has record attendances, signed a big broadcasting rights deal and finally settled on a new collective bargaining agreement?

ANDREW DEMETRIOU: As the chairman announced, part of the ($2.2 million) last one was a base salary, a bonus component and a long-term incentive retention bonus component. So last year was basically a base and a bonus, and it meant that it was less than the year before.

SHANE CRAWFORD: How are you going to cope?

AD: Probably get some more good publicity.

FAMILY TIES

SC: You have four kids; I have four kids. You have twins; I have twins.

AD: You and I have a lot in common. Both former champions of the game (laughs).

SC: What advice can you give me about being a good father while still leading a busy life?

AD: Busy people get things done. It is probably one of the greatest times of your life. We had twins first then we had the other two. You had twins the other end, so that will be an interesting thing. Any support you can provide your wife is priceless because people underestimate how much work is involved with four children on a daily basis.

SC: Do you change the nappies and all that?

AD: Still do with the two-year-old.

SC: For this interview can you say that you don't, so when my partner reads it, she won't ask me to do more.

GM: Do you have rituals such as being home at a certain time?

AD: Every night I do. We just had a month and a bit off down at our holiday house, and we spent every minute with the children. We love watching them grow. It has been an amazing thing to see our four-year-old about to turn five go off to prep this year. It was an emotional day for my wife and I. Someone once said to me that they grow up quickly, and I thought that is a strange thing. But it is absolutely true.

GIANTS CHALLENGE

SC: GWS is about to start.

AD: That's another baby ...

SC: You must be very excited to see them in?

AD: It is from an historical perspective. You couldn't help but admire how the Gold Coast went about it last year. People admired how the club was run; the young kids; the Gary Ablett factor; Metricon Stadium. With GWS coming in, people know it is going to be a massive challenge. They know it is different to the Gold Coast, but I think people respect the fact that Sheeds has gone up there and is giving it a crack, that Mark Williams is there. Sheeds has the most to lose; he has done it all.

For him to uproot his family and go up to western Sydney and be an ambassador for the game and publicise it with great passion, for him to get fit, lose weight, and re-educate himself to coach is a great credit to him. Our guys have put in a lot of work over a number of years to help the club to get to where it has got - it is now on its own two feet, and it is going particularly well off the field. It is going to get belted and smashed on the field at times, which we all kind of expect, but the atmosphere and the club culture that has been created is fantastic. But we are not delusional. We know it is a massive haul.

SC: Can they win a game this year?

AD: They might. I think it is going to be hard for them to win a game. I didn't expect the Gold Coast to win many games last year (they won three), but I think everybody knows that in three years' time they are going to be winning some games. I can write the script now, they will be losing games, some by big margins, (people will say) `this is a disaster for the AFL'. My counsel to everyone is to be patient. This is a 20 to 30-year generational strategic move and you will not see the benefits of this football club's efforts for a long time.

GM: You must have been concerned about a few off-field issues at GWS - the departure of a CEO; the Tom Scully saga with his dad?

AD: They are not concerns. As Shane would know, things happen at football clubs and they happen often when you least expect them. But there are capable people at the football club. The board, chaired by Tony Shepherd, is a good board. The coaching and support staff is very capable, with Sheeds, Mark and Alan McConnell.

You have Graeme Allan, who is a very experienced general manager of footy. We have Dave Matthews up there as the CEO, who I have got a lot of time for because he worked here for many years. We have the right people in place. I haven't seen any panic within the club. They are going to have a lot more hiccups along the way. Make no mistake.

GM: Do you regret saying the decision to employ Tom Scully's dad in the recruiting department was a "stroke of genius''?

AD: Not really. I maintain that people might not approve of what happened, and they are entitled to have that view. But what they did was they saw an opportunity to exploit the rules, and they did it legitimately. They have put it in the salary cap.

People are entitled not to like that. I respect that. But it was all above board. His money is in the salary cap, it is not being hidden anywhere. I hope it works for all concerned. Tom Scully is a person is a fine young man, and he has great football ability. I hope he can play football and not be distracted. And I hope his father proves to be a good recruiter.

GM: No team since Fitzroy in 1964 has failed to win a game in a season. You were three back then, Andrew. How embarrassing would that be for the GWS brand?

AD: Look, it is highly likely that they win a game. But my expectations are that they will - with a number of young guys - be on a learning curve.

GM: Is that it for expansion for a long time?

AD: You never say never. It won't be my decision. Someone else might decide that they will down the track. We have said that 18 teams seems to be the right number. I have said before that with the growing population and economic booms in various states, you can see one day, for us, that it is a fertile ground in Queensland. Why wouldn't you look at it? There could be a team in Tasmania, then there's the north-west of Western Australia, who knows?

THE DEBT DRAIN

SC: Which team worries you the most financially?

AD: Port Adelaide does. They are making a real effort. I think the CEO, Keith Thomas, is very capable, and they have added value to their board. But they have got two really difficult years ahead because that's when they go to the Adelaide Oval. We expect to see an upgrade to their earning capacity. They will get some increases in revenues and we think membership. People know AAMI Stadium is on the way out. But Port Adelaide is the club that we have spent a lot of time trying to help over the past couple of years, along with the SANFL.

GM: Does the debt of a number of the clubs really concern you?

AD: Yes. The total debt of the clubs in the competition today is the highest it has ever been.

GM: What's that figure? Is it a major concern.

AD: It is a concern. The debt is the highest it has been combined. Some clubs can afford to carry debt. Geelong, for example, has taken out a debt for its grandstand, but it has the capabilities of paying it back. But there are some clubs carrying debt that they are not making inroads into. Part of what we did last year with our five-year distribution plan is that every club that is getting additional funds has got a debt reduction plan. You have seen clubs do remarkably well in tackling their debt. Melbourne, under Jim Stynes and the board, removed $5 million of debt. Incredible.

Hawthorn have done a great job from a number of years ago. It can be done. But there are some clubs, including North Melbourne and Richmond, who are trying to make inroads. They have debt demolitions which I congratulate them on. St Kilda has got some debt now. Our preference is to have less debt in the competition and less debt here.

GM: Will you police that more stringently and act against boards or CEOs who don't do the right thing?

AD: We have worked with the clubs and we have listened to them and what they need in so far as their personnel, whether it is football departments or admin. Their plan is what we have listened to. To give them funding, which all the clubs have signed up to, particularly to get all the clubs to agree that one club is going to get $10 million and one is going to get $5 million, that is not an easy thing.

The clubs have all bought dis-equalised distribution. But they expect policing; they expect conditions, and they expect more rigid adherence to the plan. We have given them an undertaking that is what we will do. We have flagged this is a year of consolidation. We have brought in two new clubs; we have a CBA; we have re-signed our sponsors; we have done all the big deals. We are going to look after the existing clubs and get some control over debt. We have helped set up a club services division to offer people to go into clubs to help them out.

LIVE FOOTY

SC: Congratulations, Andrew, we have finally got live footy. Are you worried it might affect attendances?

AD: No. We saw live tennis recently have record crowds, and turning away people. People want to watch sport today live. The great thing about sport and sports broadcasting, and the reason the rights bring what they are worth, is that sport delivers the unpredictable. It is the unknown. It is the comeback. It is the uncertainty.

OPTUS

GM: Is that what makes the Optus case so frustrating for the AFL?

AD: The Optus situation is a really serious thing. It has serious implications for sport, not just the AFL. We have already done our deal.

GM: What about future deals?

AD: It has the potential to significantly hurt further revenues which we rely on to plough back into our sport. I am not just talking about our players or our clubs. I am talking about putting money into programs, community football, community facilities, and indigenous programs. So the thought of Optus deciding to lift our content and not pay for it, and pretend and purport to be doing it for the consumer, is a complete disgrace.

They should be ashamed of themselves because what they are really doing is charging for a start, so they can benefit to their shareholders, not the consumers. They are not paying for it, they are lifting it. It is akin to stealing. And all it will do, is that if sports can't rely on that revenue, they will slug the consumers. Optus should take a good look at themselves. If you are an Optus subscriber, switch to Telstra, do everyone a favour, get out of that company. Stop subscribing to them, it is a disgrace. I'm not the only sport saying that.

GM: Last week you and other sporting codes went to Canberra to talk to the Federal Government about a possible legislative amendment. How did that go?

AD: I said to the Federal Government and the Opposition, it is very unusual for every major professional sport in this country to be aligned to an issue. This is bad news for sports who are about to do their rights. It creates uncertainty. How can you do a rights deal with uncertainty.

GM: Did you get a good hearing?

AD: We were pleased that three Federal Government ministers made themselves available on the first day back of Parliament sitting. The Prime Minister popped in. We got to see the Opposition. We got bipartisan support. They gave us a lot of comfort that they understood the issue. I think they are looking for a way for legislation to catch up with technology. Technology has got ahead of the legislation. It would be far more preferable if Optus just dropped this shenanigans and got into the real commercial world and starting just paying for things.

FREE AGENCY

GM: Clearly some fans are fearful of what free agency will bring. Is that something that they will have to get used to?

AD: We are pleased with the arrangement that we made with the players on free agency. It is not everything we wanted, and it is not everything they wanted. We found the right compromise, but it is the right thing for the competition, to allow players more movement. It allows clubs to try and retain their players if they want.

And we were one of the only sports, after doing all the research, that didn't have free agency, that had a draft, I am confident that Adrian Anderson and (AFLPA boss) Matt Finnis got the balance right. I think the clubs have embraced it, and understand it. There has been a long lead in time so they could plan for it. I would say to all supporters, the competition will be better for having free agency in it.

GM: Are we going to see more players moving?

AD: I honestly don't know. One of the things that should give people comfort is that as long as we have got a salary cap, this proposition that all the great players are going to go to one club is just not right.

GM: There is a fear poor clubs will be pillaged?

AD: I can't see that happening with the salary cap. It just can't.

PLAYER RELATIONS

SC: What about your relationship with the players? Is everything all right there now?

AD: Yes, we have a dinner next week to celebrate the CBA which has been organised. I think the relationship is very good. We had the signing just before Christmas. Look, any negotiation is a hard fought negotiation. And when the ink is dry, you put those things behind you and move on to work collaboratively. I think it is a fair collective bargaining agreement. it has the right balance between the clubs' needs and the players' needs.

Some will argue it is too generous; some will argue it is not enough. We are dedicated and committed to looking after our players, not just in their playing lifetime but the retirement fund and welfare component has been substantially improved. This is a great career choice if you are a talented athlete out there.

GM: Do you think there is still some residual damage to your relationship with the individual players?

AD: Things get said along the way. I think the people at the AFLPA are very decent people, and I haven't heard from (former AFLPA media advisor) Ben Hart (laughs).

GM: What about your relationship with Matt Finnis? Was it damaged?

AD: My relationship with Matt is very good. The players should be very pleased and proud of the way Matt represented them. He represented them faithfully and honestly and took up the issues that the players wanted. He should be congratulated for that.

GM: Was your wage an issue with the players?

AD: I don't know, Glenn, you would have to ask them that. I had questions from players when I went around, and I tried to answer them as honestly as I could. No player ever said to me that was ever a significant issue.

MEAT LOAF

SC: Have you listened to Bat Out Of Hell since Meat Loaf slaughtered it at the Grand Final?

AD: I have watched on YouTube the Grand Final performance and I wish I hadn't really.

GM: Can you tell us your first thought that went through your mind after you saw it again?

AD: Madonna.

SC: Please get Madonna.

AD: It has always been an easy throwaway line, when people say you are better off not having anything. It is part of the day, part of our brand, and it is important to get it right. When we had Lionel Richie at the (2010) Grand Final replay people loved it, and I think with what we saw last year, people still talked about it. So on the biggest day of the year it is important that we get that right. We have some ideas this year.

We have got a workshop them and see if we can get them right. It doesn't mean we will spend big money, we are not that sort of sport. GM: If you had a blank canvas, or blank cheque, who would you go after?

AD: Gee, if I could get Nicki Minaj, Usher, Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Rihanna and Bruce Springsteen ... all rolled in together

GAMBLING

SC: You've made a crackdown on gambling a real focus in the last few years? Will that continue?.

AD: For us, one of our key challenges, and one of the things we are focused on, is maintaining the integrity of the game, and maintaining the integrity of the players. That is about our drug code - the ASADA drug code and the illicit drug code. It is about salary cap compliance, and it is about gambling, protecting the code from people who want infiltrate it to get information. We have got a sophisticated work force in that area, and we have put funding into sophisticated means of tracking surveillance and so forth. We have arrangements with all the better agencies. And you have seen last year if there is anyone out there gambling (on football), they will be found. We hope people have learnt the lessons from last year, there have been some silly errors of judgment made.

But if your sport gets infiltrated by corruption or has a challenge of integrity, whether it is doping or whatever it might be, people lose faith in it. They want to see a pure contest, and if they question the contest, that's not good. Did he really drop that catch? How come they lost six wickets for 10. Or he won this particular cycle race, was he clean? We don't want questions like that in our game.

GM: Are you certain there are people out there trying to infiltrate the code?

AD: Of course.

GM: Will you spend even more money this year in trying to stop that happening?

AD: We are. We have got Abraham Haddad, who heads up the unit. He is an ex-United Nations person. I get frightened when I walk past his office. We have supported Adrian Anderson's recommendations to invest heavily in integrity. We make no apologies for the fact that we have arrangements with betting agencies, a): to access information and b): importantly the revenues and commissions that we derive, we plough back into our integrity.

PRESSURE ON THE PLAYERS

GM: How much pressure and scrutiny is on the players these days?

AD: As a general comment, if you are a young person in the public eye - it doesn't matter which sport you play - then the scrutiny is incredible because of the new media age. It is now designed that everything is quickly transmitted. Our guys are now getting stories off Twitter now.

That sort of scrutiny is different to when Shane played, and certainly different to when I played. We are dealing with different issues - players who might say something silly on Facebook and they have to retract it, or someone impersonating someone on a Twitter account. There are all sorts of issues, including cyber bullying. I think all of us, as a general comment, have to educate and get education on how we deal with this instantaneous new media, and new technology.

Some clubs are now starting to put into place systems where their players get education for this new technology, but it is changing so quickly that we need to be ahead of it. I do sympathise with some of the lads who get into strife. We saw with Majak Daw some of that stuff being sent around. Some of it was not accurate and some had partial accuracy. It can cause a lot of distress. And that can be dangerous.

DEPRESSION

GM: Depression is largely a silent issue in society. If you listen to some people, it is a real problem in AFL football too?

AD: I think mental health is a serious issue in the community and you have seen awareness campaigns around it. I think what Jeff Kennett has done with Beyond Blue should be applauded. We saw Nathan Thompson when he came out about it; we have seen Wayne Schwass and you will more of an awareness around mental illness because it is a silent illness. I don't think it is just prevalent in football, it is prevalent in society. I agree with the Patrick McGorrys of the world that there has to be a lot more focus and a lot more funding around trying to help people with mental health issues.

SC: Speaking of Jeff, how has it been without him?

AD: I miss him. Jeff did a fantastic job at the Hawthorn Football Club. Financially they are a very strong football club, and what he did in Tasmania was fantastic. He genuinely loved Tasmania, and Launceston. And the club won a premiership under his reign. He picked the time of his choosing to leave and he didn't change that. He was a vocal voice at the presidents' meetings, and we welcome that. Eddie (McGuire) and others do the same. In my dealings with Jeff, it was always professional, sometimes hard fought, but I have got a lot of respect for him.

Gm: Jeff used to say that the AFL organisation was too big. It is getting better with the new AFL media. What's the rationale behind it?

AD: In our case, with AFL Media, there were things that we were already doing through AFL Publishing and our licencing. We had AFL Films brought back in house from David Barham. We were starting to produce the content for our website, which is very important for us.

We thought if we were going to do all that, why don't we do some production? We have set up an AFL Media department that has about 115 people in it. Of those, I think 30 or 40 are new appointments because the others were already existing. We see it as a really important tool for the AFL a) to protect the value of our rights going forward, and b); to make sure that we are producing the content for our website fairly and reputably.

GM: Not controlling the agenda?

AD: I believe in editorial freedom; I don't believe in censorship. It won't be vanilla sugar-coating any stories, it is just another avenue for people to get their information.

GM: Will this lead to AFL TV in the next broadcasting rights?

AD: Who knows?

PRIORITY PICKS

GM: Clubs have been asked to make submissions on the future of priority picks. What's your view?

AD: I can't give you my view because it is a matter before the Commission and I am on the Commission. All I can say is that as Adrian Anderson has forewarned, it is being reviewed. It is not being reviewed this year because of some sort of response to an outcry about priority picks. It is being reviewed in the timing that we always said it would be reviewed.

SC: With the draft, can you see a lottery amongst the bottom four as being an option in the future?

AD: We don't believe in that. We would hate to have a situation where a bottom team that has won one game or zero games - even for the draft, not talking about a priority pick - would not get a pick above a team that finished 14th but had won 10 games. Then, due to a ball pullout, they have got first pick. We would hate that situation to arise.

GOING ABROAD

GM: We have never played a home-and-away match for premiership points in the history of the game. Are we finally getting closer?

AD: I think it is inevitable. We have got great desire to play a game in China. I think it has got huge potential. I don't see why we shouldn't being viewing international expansion from the point of view of growing our audiences and growing our talent pool as something we shouldn't aspire to. I am optimistic about an international focus. As an objective, we would like to play a home-and-away game overseas in the next five-year cycle.

LET'S GO TO THE VIDEO

SC: Do you like the third umpire decisions in cricket and tennis?

AD: I like it in tennis, but I'm not sure about cricket. It is very quick in tennis. It is limited to challenges and has been an improvement in their game.

SC: What about in AFL footy, especially when it comes to goals.

AD: We are trialling it in the NAB Cup and Adrian (Anderson) has given an undertaking that you can't take more than 40 seconds. If it can be done in such a way with the help of the broadcaster, and they can do a quick turnaround, we will see what happens. We all like the continuity of the game and the flow. It doesn't happen that often in a game, so it should not be that big an issue.

THE FUTURE

GM: Throw forward 20 years if you can, what do you think the game will look like?

AD: Here's my serious response to that question. Go back 20 years, 1992, and look at the changes that have happened in that period. I defy anybody to say with hand on heart that they could have predicted what happened over the last 20 years. The first part of my answer is whatever we think it is going to look like; it will look different. I think it will look for the better.

You think about 1992, there is now a stadium with a roof, there is no Waverley, Port Adelaide and Fremantle have come into the competition, Port Adelaide has won a flag, Brisbane Lions won three in a row, we have GWS and Gold Coast, we have had Metricon Stadium built, Adelaide Oval will have footy back, we are playing in every state and territory. The salary cap is $9 million, In 1987 broadcasting rights were $1 million a year, so $5 million for five years. In that period we have seen them go from $450m to $780m and now $1.25 billion. Every game live on television.

Every game on a device, iPad, iPhone, T-box, Xbox, Foxtel, Channel 7. The mind boggles about what will happen in 20 years. What I can tell you unequivocally is that the viewing experience will be different because the stadia will be state of the art with new technologies. There will be new ways of going to the footy and new ways of watching it. You will be using a hand held devise to avoid traffic and to buy your seats and your food. Everything will be automated.

The viewing experience will be different, but my hope is that we have 18 strong, healthy football clubs, and that the game has gone to infinite levels. You think about the athletes of today and the science behind GPS. Imagine what it will be like then.

See more here:
Boss with a giant challenge

TORONTO - Harley Pasternak works behind the scenes helping to transform the physiques of Hollywood A-listers, but the Canadian fitness guru was initially reluctant to step in front of the cameras to share his expertise.

The Toronto-born Pasternak, who has worked with star clients such as Orlando Bloom, Jennifer Hudson and Lady Gaga, said he was approached by "The Biggest Loser" co-creator J.D. Roth to be a trainer on the first season of the weight-loss series, but declined.

"I just thought that the kind of fitness and weight loss that makes for good TV had to be sensational and over the top and screaming and yelling and drill sergeant, and that really wasn't me," he said in a recent interview.

However, when Roth reached out to Pasternak nine years later to discuss participating in "The Revolution," the trainer seized on the opportunity.

The series, which airs weekdays at 2 p.m. ET/MT on Citytv, features Pasternak among a team of experts from the worlds of health and wellness, style and home improvement, including Tim Gunn and Ty Pennington.

Each week, "The Revolution" also highlights one woman's personal journey with the co-hosts assisting as she makes a turnaround in multiple facets of her life.

For Pasternak, the appeal of the series was having viewers watch an on-air transformation that they could relate to and potentially adapt to their own experience.

"It wasn't about people leaving their friends and family and jobs and being on a fat farm boot camp for five months," he said. "It was about how difficult it is staying with your job and your family and taking care of your kids.

"The great things that I could teach them from knowing how to cook and grocery shop and move well are things that people watching can really use and benefit from."

Pasternak is well-known for his 5-Factor program which consists of five small meals a day and five, 25-minute workouts encompassing cardio, core and strength training exercises. The foundation for the workout and wellness philosophy he brings to "The Revolution" and his work with clients was first developed while training stars like Oscar winner Halle Berry on film sets.

"The workouts were done on 30-minute lunch breaks on film sets," he recalled. "I didn't have a lot of equipment, I didn't have a lot of space, and these people had less than 30 minutes to do a workout. So I had to create something that delivered results and did it in very little time with very little equipment."

Pasternak sees his role as finding solutions when individuals aren't reaching their goals. For example, if a client loves hamburgers, he doesn't necessarily see the answer as simply cutting the food out of their diets, but perhaps seeking a substitute or consuming smaller or healthier portions. It also involves taking a holistic view of individuals and their routines, such as determining whether they're getting enough exercise, he noted.

"Everyone's already motivated. Nobody needs to be screamed at, nobody needs to be yelled at, nobody needs to be explained what the benefits are to looking great and feeling great — everyone already knows," Pasternak said. "It's just `How can I give you the tools that you already need to build the body that you want?'"

In the case of Hudson, the Oscar and Grammy winner has previously credited her weight-loss program and Pasternak for helping achieve her slimmed-down figure.

"He was the one who started me out with walking," she said of Pasternak in a 2010 interview with The Canadian Press.

"He said, `All I need you to do is make sure you get up and you walk,' and you start that out, and also the strength training."

For his part, Pasternak said that just getting Hudson walking was tough at first. "She's so great. There's an example of somebody who really is fuelled by the results she saw."

As for individuals who may have seen their get-fit resolutions for the new year fall off the rails, Pasternak said the problem is typically trying to accomplish too much too quickly.

He recommends people take a more scaled-down approach by opting to make one small change in their routine with which they can become comfortable. Eventually, the series of adjustments compounded over time will yield results.

"Don't look at the scale (and say) `Oh, gosh, I need to lose 80, 90 pounds.' Start with one pound. Start with one change and one pound."

———

Online:

The Revolution:http://www.citytv.com/toronto/show/micro/173139--the-revolution

5-Factor: http://www.5factor.ca

See the article here:
Canadian celeb trainer Harley Pasternak brings workout wisdom to 'The Revolution'

One of the interesting things that came out of my chat with Blake Beavan this morning was a story he relayed to me about his father. Turns out dad had played some college hoops in his day and is a pretty big guy who knows about working out.

Anyhow, here's what father half-kiddingly said to son late last year.

"He told me, maybe when you turn 23, you'll get your 'Man Strength','' Beavan said. "He'd always tell me I had little boy strength. Well, now I'm 23, so I guess maybe I'm getting there. I want to believe my Dad. Maybe I'm getting my man strength, finally.''

And that's when it hit me.

Beavan Sr. had hit upon the very phrase I've been looking for going on several years to describe the process in which young major leaguers become men. I've used words like "maturation process'' and "becoming a pro" to describe it.

But it's usually a physical and mental combination.

We've all seen it, where younger draft picks finally lose their baby fat and put on the kind of physique you'd expect would seriously differentiate them from the average guy in the street. Where that happy-go-lucky look of just being glad to be in the majors gets replaced by the steely-eyed toughness required to stay there.

That doesn't mean every player has to look like King Kong, since even great athletes can be born into more slender frames. It doesn't mean a guy can't have fun on the field, or must be a grouch all the time, either. But there is a time and place to get serious, especially when your career could be riding on it.

Go shake Steve Delabar's hand and you get the feeling he can crush yours like a grape. Try arm-wrestling Miguel Olivo and you'll feel like your UCL is torn for the next week. And Olivo still managed to go out and drop 15 pounds this winter while maintaining his strength.

It won't make Delabar into Mariano Rivera, or Olivo into Johnny Bench. But you get the feeling they are maxing out physically to where they need to be and therefore, whatever talent they have to offer up won't be getting cheated.

You see an item out of New York today on Michael Pineda weighing 280 and admitting he needs to lose 10 pounds? Yeah, he could probably do with a little more work dropping the baby fat. Getting his man strength.

Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, like David Wells or C.C. Sabathia, both of whom have said they perform better with added girth. But why tempt fate by trying to buck the odds? And this isn't only about trimming fat, it's about taking your conditioning and strength and endurance and focus to that elite level that's better than everybody else in your street corner gym.

Let's face it, if you can't get your physical act together, where is the mental stuff going to come from? How many first-rounders have we seen flame out around the game -- or just in the Seattle organization -- because they just couldn't produce when it was on the line? These guys all have talent. But it takes mental toughness to flip that switch when you need to. The smart players figure that out quickly: that it doesn't matter how sick, injury-prone, or bad-luck-ridden you are, or how unfair the game has been to you. You only get a certain number of chances and that's it.

The quicker you figure that out and get your body in top, physical shape by shedding your baby fat so that your mind can be free to think like a seasoned pro, the better your chances of succeeding at a difficult game.

Believe me, after 15 seasons of watching MLB up close, it gets easier to tell who the drivers are versus the passengers. Gets easy to see the guys hitting the gym the way you or I might do it, versus the ones paying big bucks to attend elite physical training institutes.

You can tell which guys are fighting for their professional lives out there versus the ones who expect that something better will always be sitting around the corner just waiting for them to bump into it.

Part of it might be the team's fault. I mean, who was kidding who last year when the team marveled at Franklin Gutierrez having less body fat than Ichiro when camp opened? Um, yeah, the fact he was sick probably had something to do with it.

You look at Gutierrez today and he's a different human being on the outside. Different than even three years ago when he wasn't sick. He was still a slender, lean muscled kid back then. Now, he looks like some Man Strength may have been found. Looks like someone has instilled a sense of urgency in him, as fair or unfair as his plight may have been.

So, yeah, I like this whole "Man Strength" term. Because I can tell you, listening to Eric Wedge this spring, over the winter and late last season, you could see he definitely wanted some of his boys to gain some man strength. To shed the baby fat. To make themselves look visibly different from the average dude in the street.

You could see Mount Wedge about to blow last year when too many of his players -- mostly young, but some older guys too -- began fading fast as August rolled on. All the young "kids" that some Seattle fans gushed about and the older players who'd been carrying the team much of the year went out and hit the wall collectively. It wasn't pretty. It was 15 strikeouts per game at the end, some bad glove play in the field and a ton of losses that piled up between the first week of July and final week of September.

Has it changed? I don't know. This is where the talk has to stop and the action has to begin.

What I can tell you is that the Mariners visibly look to be much better conditioned as a group overall. Anyone can write weight-loss stories or tell muscle-building tales on an individual basis in spring training.

I'm as sick of those types of stories -- unless legitimately warranted, like a Mike Carp body transformation in 2011 -- as you are. But this is different, because we're talking about a team-oriented shift. One ordered up by Wedge when he probably got tired of thinking he could take about 80 percent of his squad into a dark alley one-on-one and get the better of them in a fistfight.

That should never be the case with a 42-year-old manager and a roomful of major league baseball players in their 20s and early 30s.

But this is what it looked like last year. The "kids" were here to play and they were kids. The older guys were here, too, and looked like they'd run out of gas at the all-star break.

That had to change. For what it's worth, last year wasn't the first time I've seen it. I've seen a lot of too-skinny, or bad-body young guys parade through this clubhouse the past several seasons.

It's one thing for a 43-year-old sportswriter like myself to walk around knowing I could lose another 10 pounds if I gave up my love of red wine. Quite a different story if you're a 20-something professional athlete getting paid six or seven figures to perform with that same body. At that point, you give up the wine and lose the fat. Or, you moderate the wine and train that much harder and longer with a serious pro who can help you get the body you want while having a drink with dinner.

You'd be surprised how many pro ballplayers don't really get this idea the full 100 percent. How many of them don't completely grasp how this is now their full-time job and that it will sometimes involve huge sacrifices in how they've lived up to this point.

It sounds easy. But it isn't. I sometimes catch myself sitting here and wondering whether I could ever make those sacrifices and truly train the way these guys all need to be training and gearing up their minds. I suppose I could for seven figures. But it's not quite as easy as it all sounds. It's hard work. But so is getting up every morning and going to the factory for minimum wage. Nothing comes easy, and when boys become men in this world, they figure it out.

Right now, the Mariners as a group are looking like they are in better shape. And that's half the battle. You can be the greatest athlete in the world, but you're cheating yourself if you go at things with only 65 percent of your physical capabilities.

Not just bench-press strength, either. We're talking endurance. How many of these guys can run a six-minute mile with all of their muscle? How many can run three six-minute miles in one shot?

When Roger Clemens was with the Yankees, I ran into his trainer, Brian McNamee, who I knew from Toronto days, in a hotel bar. This is back when those two were still on speaking terms and not filling up TMZ air time and McNamee told me he had The Rocket running a seven-minute mile. Clemens was in his late 30s and went about 230 pounds in those days, so that wasn't a bad time. But I figure if he could do that, most of the game's middle infielders should be able to approach six minutes. Heck, I know sportswriters who can run a six-minute mile. A professional athlete should be able to. But not all of them can. Not all of them train hard enough to do it.

Some of them run out of gas midway through a season.

But even the ones who do train well don't always get to that next level right away. Some are just too young and are still maturing physically. Or, they don't do the right diet combination to go with the exercise.

There's training and then there's real, serious training. Look at an older major leaguer who's been around and they have that hardened look. They have the grip of someone who's done what it takes to survive in this game.

You can just tell.

And now, thanks to Beavan, I have a name for it. We'll call it Man Strength.

Let's hope the Mariners found theirs this winter. The quicker they do, the quicker the kids will become men and we can all look forward to something other than 95 losses per season.

Link:
These Mariners kids need to get their "Man Strength" going

It has been six weeks since you started that New Year's Resolution Diet (again). And it's not working (again). How do you know if you should consider bariatric surgery instead?

For the answer, we interviewed Dr. Thomas E. Lavin, bariatric surgeon, Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery Tulane University School of Medicine and founder of The Surgical Specialists of Louisiana, which has offices in Covington, Slidell, Metairie and Lafayette. Lavin's group also performs the new POSE (Primary Obesity Surgery Endolumenal) procedure, which he describes in more detail below.

Q: How can someone know when to try weight-loss surgery instead of just dieting?

A: We are laparoscopic surgeons that help people lose weight, but we’re all about wellness and fitness. We work with people who want to lose weight just by changing their habits. They might want to lose 20 to 30 pounds and that group really needs to look at their whole lifestyle as far as what they eat, what exercise they do. I recommend that they sit down with someone who specializes in weight loss and look at their exercise and eating habits and start making a plan to change it and do it one day at a time. Change your eating patterns and start planning your meals. People have a very difficult time changing their lifestyle patterns. But once you do something for a month, it becomes a new lifestyle. They need someone to help them get to that point.

We work with three groups of people. This first group, they have to change everything in their food environment at home and go on a new eating plan. We make a plan for them that involves simply getting processed foods out, bringing in more fruit and vegetables and more of a protein-based diet.

The second group, those who want to lose 30 to 70 pounds, they have a significant amount of weight to lose, but they don’t quite quality for laparoscopic surgery. With these patients, I always check to see if they’ve made good efforts in the past to lose weight through diet and exercise and if they have, we have an endoscopic procedure we offer.

On a side note, I don’t like to use the word “diet.” It implies that you can’t eat this. We like to talk about lifestyle change through a new eating plan, so you just replace what you’re eating. It’s the processed foods and high-carb foods that are mostly at fault for our obesity problem. These are easy foods to find and eat when you didn’t plan your meal. You’re busy running around, you didn’t plan and all of a sudden you’re extremely hungry. You look up in search of something to satisfy your hunger quickly and there’s McDonald’s, Taco Bell, or a convenience store with chips and candy.

Once we see they have a history of dietary failures, we offer them a POSE. The procedure is ... endoscopic, outpatient, incision-less. Basically, I go down though the mouth and I shrink the stomach. I sew it endoscopically, from the inside. What that does then is decrease the patient’s capacity, so they’ll fill up sooner when they eat and second, it will decrease their hunger drive and cravings.

As another side note – and this goes for both the POSE and the laparoscopic bariatric surgeries – everything we do decreases capacity, which everyone understands. We decrease the stomach size. The thing that people don’t understand, the second thing that happens when a patient has a procedure, is it decreases their hunger and cravings.

Q: How do these procedures accomplish that?

A: This is what people do not understand: the gastrointestinal tract, meaning the stomach and intestine, are an endocrine organ that produces hormones. The gastrointestinal tract produces hormones just like a lady’s ovaries, pituitary gland or your thyroid gland (does). These hormones do a lot of things, but what pertains to weight loss is they create hunger and cravings at the hypothalamic level of the brain. The hypothalamus in the brain is the hunger center, and the hormones from the stomach and intestines create this hunger-drive and cravings. When we do a procedure, these hormones are changed so patients have less of a hunger drive and less cravings.

Q: How are the hormones changed?

A: There are a lot of pathways from the stomach and there have been tens of millions of dollars put into this research to look into the different pathways. They’re very complex. I actually went to a whole weekend presentation a couple of months ago, and this is all cutting-edge research, on why these hormones create cravings. All of these hormones are changed when we do procedures, whether it’s a POSE or the laparoscopic procedures, which are sleeve and gastric bypass.

Q: What about the third group of people?

A: The third group of people are 80 pounds overweight up to, our patients are as much as, 500 pounds overweight. With the third group, it is very clear that their chances of losing weight to a healthy range and keeping it off are less than one percent. So that group of patients I recommend that they look into laparoscopic bariatric procedures.

Q: And why does this group have so much trouble losing weight? Is it just the sheer amount of weight they need to lose?

A: A lot of research has gone into why certain people can’t lose weight and other people live their life thin and they can’t understand why people are 100 pounds overweight. The theory today is called “Set-Point Theory.” You can take any patient based on their genetics and their environment and they will have a curve that will trend up over time. And what it means is there’s going to be a weight for any person where they feel comfortable. My weight is 175 pounds and I feel very comfortable. If I tried to lose 10 pounds, my hunger hormones would increase, and my hunger drive and cravings would make me live my waking hours consumed with all the food that I cannot eat because I am trying to live 10 pounds below my set point. And eventually I would go back on that curve which is my set point, which is where my body says I should live. This is really cutting-edge, this is hot off the presses.

Q: Is the set point totally mental?

A: No. It’s a combination of genetics and environment. And some people’s set point at age 35 might be 220 pounds, so they could lose 40 or 50 pounds, but when they’re in that weight-loss mode, they are consumed every waking moment with all of the things they can’t have to eat which eventually drives them off of their “you can't eat that” diet. This puts them back on their curve which is their set point.

This even works in reverse. If a Hollywood actor, a John Travolta, weighs 220 pounds and he gets that great role for a person that is 260 pounds, it becomes very uncomfortable for him to get there and when he quits trying to eat all that food, his body will go back to that set point of 220 pounds.

Also, everybody's set point trends up year to year.

What we do with bariatric procedures is we drop that set point. So a 300-pound person after the procedure now has a new set point of 200 pounds where they feel comfortable. So over the year, they’re gradually going to go down to 200 pounds and that’s where they’ll live. So the body goes down to this new set point and so that’s where they live and that’s where they feel comfortable.

Q: How does the procedure lower the set point?

A: Because set points are hormonally and neurally modulated, meaning the hormones I talked about earlier from the gastrointestinal tract, and there are also nerves that go to the brain from the gastrointestinal tract. Those hormones change and once again, our brain is the center that determines everything in our existence, so now our body wants to live at a lower weight because these hormonal and neural inputs to the brain have changed. So patients after a procedure, say after a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, one of the most popular procedures, have very little hunger drives or cravings after the procedure.

The world thinks that hunger is emotional because of Dr. Phil and Oprah and all the books written on emotional hunger, but the reality is hunger is mostly hormonal. And the way I like to help people understand it is, think about going grocery-shopping when you’re starving and think about that behavior. And then think about going to the grocery store after you’ve had a very large lunch and you are very full. Your behavior is totally different. There is nothing emotional about that; it’s hormonally-driven behavior. After a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, it’s like grocery-shopping after a big meal. You’re not driven to buy those foods.

Q: What are the best ways to avoid surgery?

A: The best way is to not get to the point where you’re 100 pounds overweight, but then you say, “I’m already there.” So if you’re already 100 pounds overweight, you look at your lifelong history of weight-loss attempts. It’s usually what we call a yo-yo diet.

My patients have a lifelong history of this yo-yo diet, where they’re 100 pounds overweight, they might lose 30 pounds over six months or four months on some diet, but then over the next two months they regain their 30 pounds plus 10. It is very common in all my patients to have this yo-yo weight loss over their life until they get to a point where they’re really emotionally defeated because they can’t get the weight off and keep it off. These patients may be extremely successful in every area of their life except for weight. And that gets back to the Set-Point Theory – they can overcome it for three months or four months but lifelong, to overcome your set point is virtually unheard of. In fact, Jason with Subway is the only one I have heard of to do it and he gets paid a lot to do it. It’s still impressive that he’s been able to do it. But it’s extremely uncommon for people say 100, 200 pounds overweight to lose that excess weight and keep it off long-term through diet and exercise. A diet is a temporary solution to weight loss. I mean you can’t go on a water diet, a cookie diet, whatever diet for the rest of your life.

With that weight comes a whole host of medical problems, such as diabetes being the worst, but also high blood pressure, sleep apnea, joint problems, heart disease and cancer. Many of the cancers like breast and colon cancer, the risks are greatly increased by being 100 pounds overweight. And infertility. Infertility is a big problem in ladies in their childbearing years. When you’re 100 pounds overweight, your infertility problems will be markedly greater than if you lost the weight. Because of those medical problems, we do the laparoscopic weight-loss procedures, which take about an hour and involve a one-night stay and low risk in our hands, relative to the risks of living 100 pounds or more overweight. And most of the medical problems will resolve themselves, including frequently, the diabetes. It will improve or resolve with the weight-loss procedure.

Q: What reasons would the second group have for losing weight? Does the weight contribute to medical problems in their case as well?

A: You can imagine if you’re 30 to 70 pounds overweight, you would rather be thinner. There’s a cosmetic, quality-of-life improvement with losing the weight in addition to the resolution of medical problems like diabetes and high blood pressure.

Q: Tell me about the POSE procedure. What’s new or different about this procedure?

A: First, I make it clear to everyone that these procedures are not magic and they still involve people working with our team to take responsibility in their own lives. I don’t see it as an easy way out. Results can appear magical when people are responsible and work with us. It’s a two-way street. We’re going to give you a tool to help you lose weight and that tool will do two things – decrease your capacity and cravings, but you will have to take responsibility in your own life to make good choices. You have to be responsible and make good choices. We take care of over 1,000 patients a year and for the most part, they are very responsible, knowledgeable people that understand we give them the tool but they still have to use the tool to lose the weight and become healthy.

Q: What are the most common misconceptions about these procedures?

A: I think the biggest misunderstanding is that it’s only an anatomic restrictive procedure and they don’t understand the hormonal aspects. They don’t understand the patient’s hunger drive and cravings are decreased, which is ultimately the most important thing to help them lose weight.

The three procedures that I’ll get into are the lap sleeve, gastric bypass, and the lap band. Those are the three procedures we offer.

Q: How does body type affect weight loss?

A: There are two basic body types. There’s more the central obesity, which is the male-pattern obesity, where patients wear their weight in the middle – and that is the dangerous kind, which leads to diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. And that’s more the male pattern, although women can have that pattern of obesity also. Now the female kind of obesity is more the pear, where most of the weight is in the legs and buttocks. That weight actually doesn’t affect diabetes, but it still leads to musculoskeletal problems like lumbar disc disease or osteoarthritis of the knees which leads to knee replacement. Female pattern obesity, they don’t get as much of the serious medical problems like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Q: So do you recommend different diet plans for each body type?

A; That’s still a pretty debatable thing. There are so many different kinds of diets – low-carb, low- fat. Once again, we encourage getting away from all the high-carb and processed foods like chips and Fritos and candy and fast foods, the Taco Bells and all the brightly lit signs that appear when we’re hungry, and getting to more planned meals with fruits and vegetables and foods that you would buy at the grocery store and prepare.

Q: Is there anything you would like to add?

I think everyone needs to really look at their overall health and their whole lifestyle to really live healthy, and so it’s not, I don’t want to be looked at as just a surgeon. We’re concerned with people’s health and wellness and that involves people’s choices that they make every day. The group that is 100 pounds overweight is best served by a laparoscopic bariatric procedure. The people that aren’t, that don’t need it, they’re either going to use the endoscopic procedure or just get with a healthcare professional or someone trained in weight loss and just make a plan as far as changing their lifestyle and their approach to eating as well as exercise.

One more misconception is that exercise is the solution to losing weight. Exercise is great for overall health but if you want to lose weight, you need to change your overall consumption of calories, as for the amount and type.

Visit link:
How can you tell if it's time to ditch the diet and consider bariatric surgery?

Enlarge M. Spencer Green/AP

The FDA hasn't approved a new weight-loss drug since 1999. In the meantime, Americans' waistlines have continued to grow.

M. Spencer Green/AP

The FDA hasn't approved a new weight-loss drug since 1999. In the meantime, Americans' waistlines have continued to grow.

Tammy Wade knew she had to try something else to lose weight when she stepped on the scale and saw the number: 203 pounds.

Wade, 50, of McCalla, Ala., is only 5 feet 3 inches tall. She had tried everything. Nothing worked.

"I had problems with my feet and ankles, and they were saying I was borderline diabetic," Wade says. "I'm like, well, I gotta do something, you know. So, I needed, really did need to lose the weight."

So Wade volunteered to help test Qnexa, an experimental drug pending before the Food and Drug Administration. She quickly noticed a big difference.

"I didn't feel ravenous, and I didn't want to snack all day long," she says.

 

Over the next year, Qnexa helped Wade slowly drop about 40 pounds, and keep it off for another year. "It makes you feel so much better," Wade says. "Your back don't hurt, your feet don't hurt."

But the FDA rejected Qnexa in 2010 because of concerns about side effects, especially possible heart problems and birth defects.

Update Feb. 17, 10:30 a.m.: The FDA posted a 200-page review of the possible risks and benefits of Qnexa on the agency's website. The review noted continued concerns that Qnexa can increase the risk for several possible side effects, including increased heart rate, birth defects and thinking problems such as memory lapses and confusion.

But the agency also noted Qnexa does appear to help many people lose at 5 percent of their body weight, In addition, it was "somewhat reassuring" that the drug also appears to produce some health benefits beyond weight loss, including lower blood pressure.

Among the questions the agency plans to ask an advisory committee meeting Feb. 22 to review the drug, is whether Vivus Inc., which makes Qnexa, should conduct a study better assessing the drug's affect on the heart before the drug is approved.

In its own 166-page review, Vivus called Qnexa a "significant advancement in the medical treatment of obesity" and detailed the potential benefits of the drug. The company also outlined a plan to minimize the chances that women of childbearing age would take it.

Qnexa's rejection came amid a flurry of failed attempts by drug companies to win approvals of new weight-loss drugs. The setbacks put a spotlight on how the FDA handles these drugs.

Even though obesity is at epidemic levels, the FDA hasn't approved any new weight-loss medicines since 1999.

"We have two-thirds of all Americans who are overweight or obese, and the costs are nearing $150 billion a year," says Christine Ferguson, a health policy professor at George Washington University. "The sheer magnitude of the problem really requires us to address it more aggressively and thoughtfully than we have."

Ferguson has been helping to organize a series of meetings involving public health experts, anti-obesity advocates, government officials and others to try to figure out what the FDA should do.

"We actually have this huge gap," says Joe Nadglowski of the Obesity Action Coalition, who has been participating in the meetings. "We go from Weight Watchers to bariatric surgery. And the fact that there isn't ... medical treatments for obesity, including pharmaceuticals, really is a challenge, considering how big the problem is in this country."

Part of what's going on is that the FDA has gotten a lot more cautious about approving new drugs in general after some serious drug-safety problems, such as heart problems linked to the painkiller Vioxx.

The FDA has been especially tough on weight-loss drugs because of previous problems with those drugs, such as the diet drug cocktail fen-phen.

"There's been a long history with obesity drugs that we've had to take off the market. You recall the fen-phen episode where a significant number of people got heart-valve defects," says Janet Woodcock, a top FDA official.

Woodcock argues that the agency has to be extra-careful with weight-loss drugs, because chances are it won't just be obese people taking them.

"When you're talking about a drug where it could go into literally tens of millions of Americans, there has to be attention to safety," Woodcock says.

What might look like a rare problem now could turn into another public health disaster, she says.

But some say the agency's aversion to accepting any risks is outdated. They say the FDA wrongly still tends to view weight-loss drugs as diet pills — something frivolous and used primarily for cosmetic purposes.

"We are not talking about medications to help someone lose five pounds to fit into their prom dress or wedding dress. We're talking about medications to help those who are struggling with the health impact of obesity," Nadglowski says.

So Nadglowski and others are pushing the FDA to take into consideration whether the risks of new drugs may be outweighed by their benefits beyond weight loss, such as reducing the risk for heart disease, diabetes and other complications of obesity.

Woodcock says officials realize they may have to think about things differently.

As the FDA works through this, many are watching how the agency handles Qnexa. An FDA advisory panel is scheduled to review Qnexa again on Feb. 22.

Barbara Troupin of Vivus, the company that is developing Qnexa, says the drug appears to do a lot more than just help people lose weight.

"We see decreases in blood pressure. We see decreased rates of progression to diabetes. We see improvements in sleep apnea. We see improvements in quality of life. Pretty much all of our data shows significant benefits," she says.

Vivus hopes the FDA will agree that those benefits will outweigh some of the risks, including the concerns about birth defects. The company is submitting new data it says show that the risk is lower than had been feared. Vivus also has a plan to minimize the chances that pregnant women will take it.

Some see Qnexa as a test of the FDA trying to recalibrate how it weighs risks and benefits for weight-loss drugs.

For her part, Wade just wants to be able to start taking it again. She's gained back half of the weight she lost.

"I need to lose 20 more pounds again," she says. "And I need the help."

Original post:
Weight-Loss Drugs Face High Hurdles At FDA

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Have a "white girl problem" and don't know where to turn? Babe Walker, Twitter's snarky, self-obsessed socialite has produced the definitive guide on how to deal with life's trivial issues in a new novel out this month.

A lot of work has gone into producing the "White Girl Problems" brand. What started as a phrase coined during an alcohol-fueled conversation one night in 2010 between friends, quickly became a business plan as brothers Tanner and David Oliver Cohen and friend Lara Schoenhals realized they had a viral trend at their fingertips.

The next day, they registered the Twitter handle @WhiteGrlProblem, then began tweeting quips such as "It's 5:16. How much weight can I lose by 8:00?" and "Judging me will only make you fat," with the hashtag '#whitegirlproblems.'

"We all realized Twitter's amazing and we thought this was incredible and a real opportunity to get out there," said Cohen, who also registered the website domain WhiteGirlProblems.com.

When "Valentine's Day" actress Emma Roberts quoted White Girl Problems on her own twitter account, the team saw their trend come to life as thousands of new followers flocked to them with their own "white girl problems."

The three writers developed a universal voice for their Twitter account and accompanying blog, creating Babe Walker, a self-obsessed 24-year-old profanity-spewing college graduate and spawn of wealthy Beverly Hills parents who is annoyed by many of life's mundane tasks.

"She's an amalgam of everything that is going on right now in pop culture, all the socialites and real housewives and these women that we kind of aspire to be, but we also think their lives are ridiculous. She is an accumulation of all of that in one explosive package," said Schoenhals of Babe.

Unlike Babe, her three creators don't hail from Beverly Hills or the incredibly wealthy upbringing of their creation.

Oklahoma City native Schoenhals, 27, serves as the "post-college white girl" of the creative team, while the Cohen brothers David, 31, and Tanner, 25, are natives of Washington D.C. and both actors supplement Babe's acid wit.

The Cohens currently live in New York, while Schoenhals lives in Los Angeles.

TWITTER TO BOOK TO TV

With celebrity fans like Roberts, Jessica Alba, Nicole Richie and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, the "White Girl Problems" creators worked hard to sustain the popularity and growth of the trend they created.

"Everytime I see something that just explodes (online), it just dies because I don't think the people who are in control of it know what to do. We really took a slow path to the success. We've never had more than 6000 new followers a day," said Cohen.

The novel "White Girl Problems," currently on book shelves and online, serves an a mock-autobiography of Babe Walker as she documents her rise from pampered kid to Beverly Hills princess, from her ostentatious birthday parties, to her scandalous dating life and constant pursuit for physical perfection.

"We made a caricature based on the relationship we all have with reality shows, it was a big inspiration for us in the way that a Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton is created," said Cohen.

"White Girl Problems" is not the first Twitter trend to be developed into a brand. In 2010, CBS's sitcom "$#*! My Dad Says" starring William Shatner was derived from Justin Halpern's popular twitter feed and best-selling novel of roughly the same name. Almost 3 million Twitter followers embraced his posts about amusing comments made by his 74-year-old father.

The "White Girl Problems" team said they were working on ideas for a television show, mainly focusing on the reality genre made popular by shows such as "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" and the "Real Housewives" franchise.

"We've prided ourselves on making content that's very subversive and pokes fun at a lot of the women we see on TV and what's going on in pop culture, so a show would make sense to be in that reality format," said Schoenhals.

Twitter trends are in nature short-lived, and unfortunately for Halpern, the "$#*! My Dad Says" sitcom starring Shatner was cancelled mid-season by CBS, a fate not gone unnoticed by the "White Girl Problems" creators.

"It's definitely something new and that's hard in TV, because TV is a genre that gets stuck sometimes. But we need somebody who's going to get on board with us, and it's not a rush," said Cohen.

"White Girl Problems" is currently at No. 28 on the New York Times Paperback Trade Fiction list.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Got white girl problems? Babe Walker does, too

ROME — For Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan in Rome this week, there will be banquets and dinners, wine and laughter. There are places like the Ristorante Cesarina Roma, which offers, he noted, “magnificent fettuccine Bolognese” and excellent veal piccata. “Then they have a tray of dolce that is just unbelievable,” he said.

But Archbishop Dolan, 62, robust and rotund, is also on a diet, and he is candid about his struggles with his weight. “I actually have a Ph.D. in dieting,” he wrote in a recent blog post. “On and off for the last 40 years I’ve tried and tried.”

In the past year, he has successfully shed about 25 pounds from his 6-foot-3 frame, according to his New York diet doctor, Howard M. Shapiro, an osteopath who has guided dozens of firefighters and police officers to slimness. But the archbishop has not visited Dr. Shapiro since Thanksgiving, and as he spends 10 days celebrating his elevation to cardinal in Rome, he faces a dieting minefield, where a bowl of pasta and a scoop of gelato lurk around every corner.

Dr. Shapiro is praying that Archbishop Dolan will heed his advice and choose fish over meat, fruit over dolce. The archbishop still wants to lose 25 or 30 pounds, he pointed out.

“I wouldn’t expect him to lose an ounce, and I don’t expect him to be perfect,” Dr. Shapiro said of the archbishop’s visit to Rome. “If he doesn’t gain weight, I would consider it a victory.”

Dr. Shapiro’s technique helps his patients visualize how high in calories their food is, by showing them pictures of fattening foods and healthier options. “When he’s making choices, I would like him to make the better choices,” he said of the archbishop.

Archbishop Dolan seems to have listened to the doctor. Ask the archbishop about his favorite meals in Rome, and his tone normally changes into a kind of gentle chant as he pronounces with a thick Italian accent the names of the rich sauces and cheese-filled pastas he relishes: the cannelloni, the spaghetti carbonara, the paglia e fieno.

But when he arrived at the Rome airport on Sunday, he spoke about how it was easy to eat in a healthier way, even in Italy. “If you get a pasta with some red sauce, and you don’t overdo it, and you get some good fish or chicken with some vegetables, and you get some fresh fruit, that’s a great meal, and it’s not that bad,” he said.

Breakfasts in Rome are light, he pointed out as he waited for his bags — fruit, yogurt, cup of coffee. And though one might have a nice large meal for lunch, dinner can be very simple, he said, suggesting “a minestrone verdure and maybe a salad.”

Then his voice turned wistful. “But the temptations are going to be the rich, creamy pastas,” he said. “You don’t like to come to Rome without trying out your old favorites.”

Later that day, went out for one of the Roman meals of his dreams.

“We went to the Abruzzi,” he said on Tuesday, describing a small family-owned restaurant on the Piazza dei Santissimi Apostoli. “They’ve got the greatest cannoli I’ve ever had. They have a wonderful abbacchio alla Romana; that’s lamb. They have fresh spinach and a tiramisu that’s worth the flight. And some pretty good red wine.”

Dr. Shapiro, who practices on the Upper East Side, said in a telephone interview that he had met Archbishop Dolan shortly after he was appointed in 2009, at an event hosted by Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis. The subject of weight control came up in the conversation, and the archbishop said he was interested. “I said, ‘I’d be happy to see you anytime you want; just call me,’” Dr. Shapiro recalled.

Nothing happened until a year later, when the archbishop and the dietitian met at another event.

“I said to him, ‘It’s time to start the diet,’” Dr. Shapiro said. “Better to be direct about it. If I beat around the bush, it would be another year.”

The archbishop called, and began to visit weekly, to discuss his food choices. The dietitian also spent a day talking to Archbishop Dolan’s cook at the archdiocese, to train him in healthier food preparation, advising, for example, broiling rather than sautéing. Within three months, the archbishop had lost 25 pounds, and in the following months, he stayed within about five pounds of that accomplishment.

When Archbishop Dolan first consulted with the doctor, he was walking a lot, “about four miles a day,” and exercising on a stationary bike, according to Dr. Shapiro. But his food portions were large. He didn’t eat a lot of desserts, but “he did eat doughnuts and pastries in the morning sometimes,” Dr. Shapiro said. “He had snacks of pretzels and peanuts. He likes beer; also, he did a lot of stress eating. He did what typically everybody does.”

Dr. Shapiro said he was hoping that even in the food paradise of Rome, the archbishop would listen to a steady voice of nutritional reason.

“If he’s going to have a glass of wine, maybe he could have a glass of club soda first,” he said, offering one practical tip. “Because the first glass, when you get somewhere, goes down very quickly.”

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City Room: A Test for Dolan in the Land of Pasta and Gelato

ROME — For Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan in Rome this week, there will be banquets and dinners, wine and laughter. There are places like the Ristorante Cesarina Roma, which offers, he noted, “magnificent fettuccine Bolognese” and excellent veal piccata. “Then they have a tray of dolce that is just unbelievable,” he said.

But Archbishop Dolan, 62, robust and rotund, is also on a diet, and he is candid about his struggles with his weight. “I actually have a Ph.D. in dieting,” he wrote in a recent blog post. “On and off for the last 40 years I’ve tried and tried.”

In the past year, he has successfully shed about 25 pounds from his 6-foot-3 frame, according to his New York diet doctor, Howard M. Shapiro, an osteopath who has guided dozens of firefighters and police officers to slimness. But the archbishop has not visited Dr. Shapiro since Thanksgiving, and as he spends 10 days celebrating his elevation to cardinal in Rome, he faces a dieting minefield, where a bowl of pasta and a scoop of gelato lurk around every corner.

Dr. Shapiro is praying that Archbishop Dolan will heed his advice and choose fish over meat, fruit over dolce. The archbishop still wants to lose 25 or 30 pounds, he pointed out.

“I wouldn’t expect him to lose an ounce, and I don’t expect him to be perfect,” Dr. Shapiro said of the archbishop’s visit to Rome. “If he doesn’t gain weight, I would consider it a victory.”

Dr. Shapiro’s technique helps his patients visualize how high in calories their food is, by showing them pictures of fattening foods and healthier options. “When he’s making choices, I would like him to make the better choices,” he said of the archbishop.

Archbishop Dolan seems to have listened to the doctor. Ask the archbishop about his favorite meals in Rome, and his tone normally changes into a kind of gentle chant as he pronounces with a thick Italian accent the names of the rich sauces and cheese-filled pastas he relishes: the cannelloni, the spaghetti carbonara, the paglia e fieno.

But when he arrived at the Rome airport on Sunday, he spoke about how it was easy to eat in a healthier way, even in Italy. “If you get a pasta with some red sauce, and you don’t overdo it, and you get some good fish or chicken with some vegetables, and you get some fresh fruit, that’s a great meal, and it’s not that bad,” he said.

Breakfasts in Rome are light, he pointed out as he waited for his bags — fruit, yogurt, cup of coffee. And though one might have a nice large meal for lunch, dinner can be very simple, he said, suggesting “a minestrone verdure and maybe a salad.”

Then his voice turned wistful. “But the temptations are going to be the rich, creamy pastas,” he said. “You don’t like to come to Rome without trying out your old favorites.”

Later that day, went out for one of the Roman meals of his dreams.

“We went to the Abruzzi,” he said on Tuesday, describing a small family-owned restaurant on the Piazza dei Santissimi Apostoli. “They’ve got the greatest cannoli I’ve ever had. They have a wonderful abbacchio alla Romana; that’s lamb. They have fresh spinach and a tiramisu that’s worth the flight. And some pretty good red wine.”

Dr. Shapiro, who practices on the Upper East Side, said in a telephone interview that he had met Archbishop Dolan shortly after he was appointed in 2009, at an event hosted by Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis. The subject of weight control came up in the conversation, and the archbishop said he was interested. “I said, ‘I’d be happy to see you anytime you want; just call me,’” Dr. Shapiro recalled.

Nothing happened until a year later, when the archbishop and the dietitian met at another event.

“I said to him, ‘It’s time to start the diet,’” Dr. Shapiro said. “Better to be direct about it. If I beat around the bush, it would be another year.”

The archbishop called, and began to visit weekly, to discuss his food choices. The dietitian also spent a day talking to Archbishop Dolan’s cook at the archdiocese, to train him in healthier food preparation, advising, for example, broiling rather than sautéing. Within three months, the archbishop had lost 25 pounds, and in the following months, he stayed within about five pounds of that accomplishment.

When Archbishop Dolan first consulted with the doctor, he was walking a lot, “about four miles a day,” and exercising on a stationary bike, according to Dr. Shapiro. But his food portions were large. He didn’t eat a lot of desserts, but “he did eat doughnuts and pastries in the morning sometimes,” Dr. Shapiro said. “He had snacks of pretzels and peanuts. He likes beer; also, he did a lot of stress eating. He did what typically everybody does.”

Dr. Shapiro said he was hoping that even in the food paradise of Rome, the archbishop would listen to a steady voice of nutritional reason.

“If he’s going to have a glass of wine, maybe he could have a glass of club soda first,” he said, offering one practical tip. “Because the first glass, when you get somewhere, goes down very quickly.”

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A Test for Dolan in the Land of Pasta and Gelato

By K.J. Pilcher and Rob Gray

DES MOINES — Cedar Rapids Prairie’s Josh Wenger has wrestled in plenty of big tournaments throughout his wrestling career.

None of those competitions prepared him for this event.

The Hawks third-ranked 113-pound freshman tamed the butterflies and then tamed his first-round foe in the Iowa High School Athletic Association Class 3A state tournament Thursday at Wells Fargo Arena.

“I was so nervous,” Wenger said. “I knew I couldn’t look up in the stands. Seeing all those people was kind of scary in some way.”

The atmosphere, intensity and fields can overwhelm the most experienced wrestler. Wenger was able to compose himself before decking Sioux City North’s Dalton Hanson in 5 minutes, 16 seconds.

“I had to sit down by myself, think about it and take a couple deep breaths,” Wenger said. “It was my chance and I had to go do it.”

Wenger, who claims he is most at ease on a wrestling mat, was part of the second wave of matches for the opening round. The quick call prevented the nerves to resurface. He was able to warmup, jump around and get to work quickly. Once he placed on his ankles, he was ready to improve his mark to 43-4.

“I feel a lot more comfortable now,” Wenger said. “Coming out and having that first match and being able to pin him. It really did help.”

Wenger said he applied pressure on top until the pinning maneuver opened up. Prairie Coach Blake Williams said Wenger appear unfazed, becoming the first of five Hawk quarterfinalists.

“He went out and did what he does best,” Williams said. “I think he’ll carry that into tomorrow.”

THAT’S THE FACT, JACK

Cedar Rapids Xavier’s Jack Boland has come a long way.

And that may be an understatement.

The senior 195-pounder — who moved up from 182 before districts — toppled No. 7 Dane Jones of Oskaloosa 5-3 in his first state tournament match.

Two years ago, he was a varsity newcomer, struggling to a 6-28 record.

“That was horrendous,” said Boland, who stands 37-8 this season. “Three of those six wins were forfeits. It was good for me, though, to take my lumps, learn how to lose and learn from my mistakes. Losing isn’t nice, obviously, but it’s nice to learn from your mistakes.”

Boland credits his uncle, Saints coach Ryan Chambers, and his staff for his burgeoning success on the mat.

“They lay the foundation work for all that we’re able to do,” he said.

HEAVY LOSS

Cedar Rapids Jefferson’s lone representative, 113-pounder Patrick Rashed, didn’t make weight for his opening-round match, so could not compete in the tournament. Rashed earned district runner-up honors and posted a 30-10 record this season.

THOMSEN WINS

Brothers Max (113) and Logan (138) Thomsen won their opening-round bouts. The Union Community wrestlers, ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in their weight classes, each seek to attain the Knights’ first state titles since Brett Hakeman topped the medal stand at 160 pounds in 2005.

Max Thomsen (44-1) beat Winterset’s Derek Miller 4-0. Miller took third at 103 last season.

“Bigger lights, bigger (arena), tougher kids,” Max said. “But I just look at it like it’s just like a home dual meet.”

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State tournament notes: Wenger handles nerves and opponent

February is National Heart Month and a great time to step back and ask yourself; “What am I doing to keep my heart healthy?”

I have written often how important taking care of your heart is and I am passionate about spreading the word.  Feb. 3 was Go Red for Women in which everyone was encouraged to wear red in an effort to raise awareness of heart disease and women. It’s important to understand that men don’t have the monopoly on heart disease. It is just as prevalent in women as well.

Heart disease is a preventable condition and it’s never too late to get it under control. The American Heart Association (AHA) has developed the Simple 7 as a strategy to help you improve your heart health. It’s named the “Simple 7” for a reason, it is an easy plan to execute.

The Simple 7

1. Get active. Getting more physical activity is as easy as walking around the block. You would be amazed how quickly you can become accustomed to taking that daily walk. Physical activity of at least 150 minutes (a little more than 21 minutes of moderate intensity activity per day) or 75 minutes (just shy of 11 minutes of vigorous intensity activity per day) each week is a great start. You’ll soon find that you will want to add more time to your walks.

2.  Control cholesterol. Your total cholesterol should be less than 200 mg/dL. If it is greater than 200 mg/dl, see your physician for help bringing that number down. Treatment can be prescription medication, increasing your physical activity, diet modification, or all of the above.

3. Eat better. Eat foods high in fruits, vegetables, low in saturated fats, and whole grains.

4. Manage blood pressure. Resting blood pressure should be 120/80 mm Hg or lower. High blood pressure can be treated by increasing physical activity, adjusting your diet, or prescription medication.

5. Reduce blood sugar. A fasting blood glucose should be less than 100 mg/dL. Measures over 100 mg/dL could signal type II diabetes. Diabetes is when the body has difficulty making enough insulin to control the blood sugar. Often times type II diabetes is associated with obesity and treatment consisting of weight loss and increased physical activity has been very affective.

6. Lose weight. Maintain a healthy body weight and a body mass index (BMI) of less than 25. The BMI is your body weight in relation to your height. Any measure great than 25, is a flag to drop some pounds.

7. Stop smoking. If you smoke, stop. I you don’t smoke, don’t start. The detrimental effects of smoking are well document. Smoking is a leading cause of cancer, heart disease, and stroke.

It’s as simple as following the above seven steps. The AHA has a great website loaded with great information. They have a My Life Check assessment tool that only takes a few minutes to fill out a questionnaire. It gives you a heart health score along with strategies on how to get started on a heart healthy lifestyle. Go to; http://www.mylifecheck.heart.org/ for all the great resources.

If you take a look at the Simple 7, you will notice that physical activity is a common remedy. I have written over and over how important regular physical activity can be the magic pill for a great number of health maladies. Get started today for a healthier heart. Do it for you, do it for your loved ones.

Today marks the first day that I am writing this column not as the fitness director at the Rochester Athletic Club, but as the new Sports and Athletic Performance Manager at Olmsted Medical Center. I am excited to join the team at OMC and to help them expand the Sports Medicine department’s brand in Rochester and the surrounding communities. It was a tremendous experience serving as the fitness director at the RAC for over 18 years. I have forged many bonds with members and staff which I will cherish forever. I now look forward to the same experience working at OMC.

Wes Emmert is Sports and Athletic Performance Manager for the Olmsted Medical Center.

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Wes Emmert:Taking steps to improve heart health is simple

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