Healthline

IF YOU ARE like most Americans, you have a good chance of gaining about 2 pounds a year, what's often called "weight creep." Researchers say that the best way to stop the creep is to eat 100 fewer calories a day or burn 100 more a day. Or both.

"It makes sense," says Lori Wiersema, a nutritionist at St. Joseph Medical Center in Baltimore. "Our metabolism slows down as we get older, and we tend to get more sedentary. Tightening things up a bit could help prevent weight gain."

If you want to keep those 2 pounds off, here's a rough idea of what you have to forego, or do, daily:

Give up:

1 tablespoon butter;

2 chocolate chip cookies;

8 ounces cola;

1/3 cup vanilla ice cream;

11/2 tablespoons blue cheese dressing;

Or get going:

Swim for 10 minutes;

Dance at a club for 30 minutes;

Ride your bike for 20 minutes;

Climb stairs for 20 minutes;

Walk briskly for 20 minutes;

Garden for 20 minutes;

Make love for an hour.

MAY 7 is the second annual National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. The message: Sex has consequences.

Beginning May 7, teenagers can take an online quiz at www.teenpregnancy.org that encourages reflection on what to do in tough sexual situations. Last year more than 75,000 teenagers took the test.

That day, television talk show host Ricki Lake will discuss pregnancy and parenthood with teenagers at 1 p.m on WMOR-Ch. 32.

On the Noggin network, available to digital cable subscribers on Channel 125, the evening's episode ofA Walk In Your Shoes at 9 exposes a teenage couple to the rigors of parenting through another teenage couple with a child. The network's Web site, www.the-n.com also will have information.

Despite declines in teen pregnancy and birth rates, four out of 10 girls become pregnant by 20. May 7's events are sponsored by the nonprofit National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Teen People magazine and more than 100 other organizations.

BRAIN TUMOR therapies will be the subject of a free talk by Dr. Steven Brem, program leader of neuro-oncology at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute.

The speech will be at 5:30 p.m. May 6 at Moffitt's Research Center auditorium, across from the main building at 12902 Magnolia Drive in Tampa.

Those who wish to attend should call (813) 972-8400, ext. 1049 and leave their name and phone number by Friday or e-mail obadiamc@moffitt.usf.edu

Each year more than 185,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with a brain tumor. The condition is the leading cause of cancer death in children younger than 20.

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