Want to lose weight? Shut up

(CNN) -- Anita Mills was 382 pounds when a family doctor gave her four simple rules to lose weight:

1. Eat 8 ounces of food every 3 hours

2. No sugary drinks

3. Do not skip meals

4. Do not tell anyone what you're doing

Now 242 pounds lighter, Mills credits that last tip for helping her through the most difficult months of her weight loss journey. Not having someone questioning every bite or trying to persuade her to relax on weekends helped her focus on the goal.

"It's so much better to walk into a room and have someone say, 'Hey, did you do something different?' than to announce, 'I'm on a diet,' and have people pointing fingers at you," she said.

The advice seems counterintuitive. Weight Watchers and similar groups tout support as a major reason for their programs' success, and studies have found that accountability is important in accomplishing a goal. But telling family, friends and Facebook about your diet plans could have a detrimental effect, some experts say.

Mills' doctor, Jon Walz, gives all of his weight loss patients the same rules. He blames the need for secrecy on the culture of obesity. Since childhood, he says, we've searched out people who look and act like us.

"People who are obese live with obese people. They find obese friends. Most (patients) don't recognize how bad a lifestyle they have, how self-defeating a lifestyle is.. They think that culture's normal."

As human beings we have a difficult time with change, Walz continues. So when someone we love alters his or her lifestyle, we have a problem dealing with it -- even if that transformation is positive.

"Deliberately or not, the family, the friends, the other people who are part of that individual's culture will resist the change," Walz says. "(They) will try to change them back to what the culture tolerates."

Mills has discovered the truth in his theory. After she dropped a significant amount of weight, she couldn't hide her diet anymore. That's when friends started drifting away.

"People are mean -- people who you would normally think would be supportive. One friend told me she liked it better when I was the fat friend. That hurt," Mills said.

There are other reasons to keep your weight loss plans to yourself.

Dr. Peter Gollwitzer, a professor of psychology at New York University, studies how goals and plans affect cognition and behavior. In his research paper, "When Intentions Go Public," Gollwitzer describes how spilling the beans -- and the resulting response -- can change someone's actions.

Everyone has what Gollwitzer terms an "identity goal" of some kind, whether it's to be a good mother or a better scientist. In the case of weight loss, that goal is to be a successful dieter.

To reach an identity goal, you need indicators of your accomplishments. For a scientist it's published research papers or a boss' recognition. For a dieter it could be pounds dropped or praise from friends/family when they see how great you look.

Gollwitzer's studies found that when you tell people what you intend to do, and that intention is acknowledged, the recognition qualifies as an indicator of accomplishment.

"The danger is that you feel that you have already reached the goal and because of that you don't have to act on it any more," Gollwitzer says.

In other words, when you tell a friend that you're planning to drop 20 pounds and she notices your good intention, you no longer feel the need to follow through with exercise or healthy eating.

There are a number of ways to avoid this phenomenon.

"One is simple -- you can keep your mouth shut," Gollwitzer says. "Another one is to form different kinds of intentions, not only say what you want to do but also when, where and how you want to do it."

Such planning helps create situational action control, he explains. When you find yourself at the gym before work, the situation you mentally mapped out controls your behavior instead of your intention to exercise more.

The third way, Gollwitzer says, is to tell only one or two people who hold power over you (metaphorically) so that they help you stick to your intentions.

Select those people carefully, fitness and nutrition expert Bonnie MeChelle warns. The author of "Accountability is Key" says people with negative energy or a trainer that doesn't fit your style, won't help. But if you do find someone who will hold you responsible, share away.

"Tell them everything," MeChelle says. "Accountability is key because if you keep everything to yourself, no one is going to know what you're doing -- no one is going to know if you fall off the wagon."

Whether you choose to share your diet plans or keep them secret, it's important to remember exactly who you're losing weight for.

"If you're losing weight to please other people, your motivation will not be sustained to keep going when the going gets rough," MeChelle says.

And until you drop those extra pounds, you're the only one who has to know.

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Clinton motorcade hit with eggs in Manila

(CNN) -- A motorcade carrying Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Philippines was pelted with eggs and other objects Wednesday, the State Department confirmed, but the car carrying Clinton was not hit and there were no injuries.

The incident occurred at 2:45 p.m. in Manila, when the motorcade was traveling from the presidential palace to another location, deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters in Washington

"The secretary's motorcade ran into a crowd of approximately 40 to 50 people, protesters," Toner said. "They threw objects at the lead vehicle -- I believe it was eggs and paintballs, they maybe threw rock -- and the motorcade pulled out of that area and went to the next scheduled meeting place."

Toner later clarified that the "paintball" was more likely a balloon filled with paint. He also said that at no time was Clinton in danger.

Clinton is in the Philippines for commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty. As part of that treaty, she signed the Manila Declaration binding the countries to work together on a variety of mutual interests.

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Studies: Stem cells reverse heart damage

(CNN) -- On a June day in 2009, a 39-year-old man named Ken Milles lay on an exam table at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. A month earlier, he'd suffered a massive heart attack that destroyed nearly a third of his heart.

"The most difficult part was the uncertainty," he recalls. "Your heart is 30% damaged, and they tell you this could affect you the rest of your life." He was about to receive an infusion of stem cells, grown from cells taken from his own heart a few weeks earlier. No one had ever tried this before.

About three weeks later, in Kentucky, a patient named Mike Jones underwent a similar procedure at the University of Louisville's Jewish Hospital. Jones suffered from advanced heart failure, the result of a heart attack years earlier. Like Milles, he received an infusion of stem cells, grown from his own heart tissue.

"Once you reach this stage of heart disease, you don't get better," says Dr. Robert Bolli, who oversaw Jones' procedure, explaining what doctors have always believed and taught. "You can go down slowly, or go down quickly, but you're going to go down."

Conventional wisdom took a hit Monday, as Bolli's group and a team from Cedars-Sinai each reported that stem cell therapies were able to reverse heart damage, without dangerous side effects, at least in a small group of patients.

In Bolli's study, published in The Lancet, 16 patients with severe heart failure received a purified batch of cardiac stem cells. Within a year, their heart function markedly improved. The heart's pumping ability can be quantified through the "Left Ventricle Ejection Fraction," a measure of how much blood the heart pumps with each contraction. A patient with an LVEF of less than 40% is considered to suffer severe heart failure. When the study began, Bolli's patients had an average LVEF of 30.3%. Four months after receiving stem cells, it was 38.5%. Among seven patients who were followed for a full year, it improved to an astounding 42.5%. A control group of seven patients, given nothing but standard maintenance medications, showed no improvement at all.

"We were surprised by the magnitude of improvement," says Bolli, who says traditional therapies, such as placing a stent to physically widen the patient's artery, typically make a smaller difference. Prior to treatment, Mike Jones couldn't walk to the restroom without stopping for breath, says Bolli. "Now he can drive a tractor on his farm, even play basketball with his grandchildren. His life was transformed."

At Cedars-Sinai, 17 patients, including Milles, were given stem cells approximately six weeks after suffering a moderate to major heart attack. All had lost enough tissue to put them "at big risk" of future heart failure, according to Dr. Eduardo Marban, the director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, who developed the stem cell procedure used there.

Cedars-Sinai: Helping the heart heal itself

The results were striking. Not only did scar tissue retreat -- shrinking 40% in Ken Milles, and between 30% and 47% in other test subjects -- but the patients actually generated new heart tissue. On average, the stem cell recipients grew the equivalent of 600 million new heart cells, according to Marban, who used MRI imaging to measure changes. By way of perspective, a major heart attack might kill off a billion cells.

"This is unprecedented, the first time anyone has grown living heart muscle," says Marban. "No one else has demonstrated that. It's very gratifying, especially when the conventional teaching has been that the damage is irreversible."

Perhaps even more important, no treated patient in either study suffered a significant health setback.

The twin findings are a boost to the notion that the heart contains the seeds of its own rebirth. For years, doctors believed that heart cells, once destroyed, were gone forever. But in a series of experiments, researchers including Bolli's collaborator, Dr. Piero Anversa, found that the heart contains a type of stem cell that can develop into either heart muscle or blood vessel components -- in essence, whatever the heart requires at a particular point in time. The problem for patients like Mike Jones or Ken Milles is that there simply aren't enough of these repair cells waiting around. The experimental treatments involve removing stem cells through a biopsy, and making millions of copies in a laboratory.

The Bolli/Anversa group and Marban's team both used cardiac stem cells, but Bolli and Anversa "purified" the CSCs, so that more than 90% of the infusion was actual stem cells. Marban, on the other hand, used a mixture of stem cells and other types of cells extracted from the patient's heart. "We've found that the mixture is more potent than any subtype we've been able to isolate," he says. He says the additional cells may help by providing a supportive environment for the stem cells to multiply.

Other scientists, including Dr. Douglas Losordo, have produced improvements in cardiac patients using stem cells derived from bone marrow. "The body contains cells that seem to be pre-programmed for repair," explains Losordo. "The consistent thing about all these approaches is that they're leveraging what seems to be the body's own repair mechanism."

Losordo praised the Lancet paper, and recalls the skepticism that met Anversa's initial claims, a decade ago, that there were stem cells in the adult heart. "Some scientists are always resistant to that type of novelty. You know the saying: First they ignore you, then they attack you and finally they imitate you."

Denis Buxton, who oversees stem cell research at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health, calls the new studies "a paradigm shift, harnessing the heart's own regenerative processes." But he says he would like to see more head-to-head comparisons to determine which type of cells are most beneficial.

Questions also remain about timing. Patients who suffer large heart attacks are prone to future damage, in part because the weakened heart tries to compensate by dilating -- swelling -- and by changing shape. In a vicious circle, the changes make the heart a less efficient pump, which leads to more overcompensation, and so on, until the end result is heart failure. Marban's study aimed to treat patients before they could develop heart failure in the first place.

In a third study released Monday, researchers treated patients with severe heart failure with stem cells derived from bone marrow. In a group of 60 patients, those receiving the treatment had fewer heart problems over the course of a year, as well as improved heart function.

A fourth study also used cells derived from bone marrow, but injected them into patients two to three weeks after a heart attack. Previous studies, with the cells given just days afterward, found a modest improvement in heart function. But Monday, the lead researcher, Dr. Dan Simon of UH Case Medical Center, reported that with the three-week delay, patients did not see the same benefit.

With other methods, there may be a larger window of opportunity. At least in initial studies, Losordo's bone marrow treatments helped some patients with long-standing heart problems. Bolli's Lancet paper suggests that CSCs, too, might help patients with advanced disease. "These patients had had heart failure for several years. They were a wreck!" says Bolli. "But we found their stem cells were still very competent." By that, he means the cells were still capable of multiplying and of turning into useful muscle and blood vessel walls.

Marban has an open mind on the timing issue. In fact, one patient from his control group e-mailed after the study was complete, saying he felt terrible and pleading for an infusion of stem cells. At Marban's request, the FDA granted special approval to treat him. "He had a very nice response. That was 14 months after his heart attack. Of course that's just one person, and we need bigger studies," says Marban.

For Ken Milles, the procedure itself wasn't painful, but it was unsettling. The biopsy to harvest the stem cells felt "weird," he recalls, as he felt the doctor poking around inside his heart. The infusion, a few weeks later, was harder. The procedure -- basically the same as an angioplasty -- involved stopping blood flow through the damaged artery for three minutes, while the stem cells were infused. "It felt exacfly like I was having a heart attack again," Milles remembers.

Milles had spent the first weeks after his heart attack just lying in bed re-watching his "Sopranos" DVDs, but within a week of the stem cell infusion, he says, "I was reinvigorated." Today he's back at work full time, as an accounting manager at a construction company. He's cut out fast food and shed 50 pounds. His wife and two teenage sons are thrilled.

Denis Buxton says the new papers could prove a milestone. "We don't have anything else to actually regenerate the heart. These stem cell therapies have the possibility of actually reversing damage."

Bolli says he'll have to temper his enthusiasm until he can duplicate the results in larger studies, definitive enough to get stem cell therapy approved as a standard treatment. "If a phase 3 study confirmed this, it would be the biggest advance in cardiology in my lifetime. We would possibly be curing heart failure. It would be a revolution."

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Sandusky admits he 'horsed around,' but insists he's innocent

State College, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky insisted in an interview Monday he is "innocent" of charges that he sexually abused young boys, denying to NBC's Bob Costas that he's a pedophile.

In a telephone interview with NBC's "Rock Center With Brian Williams," Sandusky admitted that some details in the graphic 23-page grand jury report released earlier this month are correct.

"I could say I have done some of those things," he said. "I have horsed around with kids I have showered (with) after workouts. I have hugged them, and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact."

Still, Sandusky claimed he has been falsely accused of crimes. When pressed, the 67-year-old Sandusky said the only thing he did wrong was having "showered with those kids."

Costas asked directly: "Are you sexually attracted to underage boys?"

Sandusky repeated the question, paused, and responded, "No. I enjoy young people."

Asked if then-head football coach Joe Paterno had ever spoken to him about his behavior or expressed disapproval, Sandustry said simply, "No."

And asked if he felt guilty over the spreading fallout that has affected the university and prominent university figures including the fired Paterno, Sandusky responded, "I don't think it was my fault. I obviously played a part in this ... I shouldn't have showered with those kids. That's what hits me the most."

Sandusky's lawyer, Joe Amendola, said Monday night that showering with children does not equate automatically to sexual assault.

"Jerry Sandusky is a big, overgrown kid. He's a jock," Amendola told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "The bottom line is jocks do that -- they kid around, they horse around."

Sandusky was arrested on November 5, after the release of the grand jury report detailing alleged crimes that he committed between 1994 and 2009. Some of those allegedly happened on Penn State's campus, including one witnessed by then-graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary in 2002.

McQueary told Paterno what he had seen, and Paterno then alerted then-athletic director Tim Curley, but law enforcement didn't learn of the alleged incident until years later.

In the interview with NBC's Costas, Sandusky flatly denied that McQueary witnessed what has been described in some accounts as Sandusky's rape of a young boy. He said instead that he and the boy were in the shower, "snapping towels" and engaging in horseplay.

Regarding the 2002 incident, Amendola said "the kid was messing around and having a good time" in the shower with Sandusky, adding that McQueary felt "uncomfortable" upon seeing it. He denied the more graphic details offered in that and other allegations, claiming that the prosecution's case lacked sufficient evidence and witnesses.

"They have throwing everything they can throw up against the wall," Amendola said of prosecutors' case. " And they're saying, (out of) all these accusations, some of them have to be true. But when you take it apart, they don't even have victims in several of their cases."

After Sandusky was charged this month with 40 counts of sexually abusing children, Judge Leslie Dutchcot freed him on $100,000 bail, against the wishes of prosecutors.

A biography of Dutchcot posted on the website of the law firm Goodall & Yurchak lists her as a volunteer for Second Mile. It is not clear whether Dutchcot currently has any affiliation with the organization.

CNN tried to contact the judge but has not received a response.

School trustees fired university President Graham Spanier and Paterno last week on the heels of Sandusky's arrest, while McQueary was put on administrative leave.

And on Monday, in an indication of the scandal's fallout spreading beyond Penn State, U.S. Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Alana Garas said that the U.S. Navy secretary recommended that Spanier "be removed from the board of advisers to the presidents of the Naval Postgraduate School and Naval War College."

Also on Monday, the board of directors for the charity that Sandusky founded -- Second Mile -- announced that its CEO had resigned. The CEO of 28 years, Jack Raykovitz, a licensed psychologist, "and the board believe this is in the best interests of the organization."

David Woodle, the board's vice chairman, will take over day-to-day operations.

Saying that the "safety and well-being of the children" is central to its mission, the board announced it will conduct an internal investigation and make "recommendations regarding the organization's future operations. We hope to have those findings by the end of December."

The organization vowed to cooperate fully with the state attorney general's investigation.

Sandusky molested young boys after developing close relationships with them through Second Mile, according to the grand jury report.

The group said Sandusky has not been involved with its children since he told officials in November 2008 he was being investigated over "allegations made against him by an adolescent male."

Sandusky and his wife were a host family through another charity, the New York-based Fresh Air Fund, which sends inner-city children to volunteer families and camps in non-urban locales, spokeswoman Andrea Kotuk said. She added that the charity isn't yet sure when the Sanduskys were hosts, saying workers there were reviewing records and cooperating with authorities in Pennsylvania.

On November 7 -- two days after Sandusky's arrest -- the ex-wife of Sandusky's adopted son filed a petition for "temporary emergency modification of custody," according to a filing by the woman's lawyer Justine F. Andronici.

Jill Jones asked that her ex-husband, Matt Sandusky, "not permit the children to be around Jerry Sandusky and that the children not be taken to Dorothy and Jerry Sandusky's residence." The document claims that Matt Sandusky took the children to his parents' home on the day before the request was filed.

The Sanduskys' neighborhood has been affected as well, with the road to his home blocked off and private property signs up on his lawn after police said a cinder block was thrown through a window there.

Prosecutors: Coach went from mentor to predator

Since Sandusky was freed, an elementary school bordering his home has taken steps to ensure student safety. Sandusky's backyard is next to the playground at Lemont Elementary School.

When he was released on bail, Sandusky, the former Nittany Lions defensive coordinator, was told not to go near children.

State College Area School District Superintendent Robert J. O'Donnell told The Patriot-News newspaper by e-mail that the school principal "has taken additional administrative action to ensure our children are safe." O'Donnell didn't say what steps were taken.

On Sunday, Melissa and Carl Anderson, the parents of two little boys who live near the school, questioned why he was out on bail.

"It baffles my mind," Melissa Anderson said.

"The presumption of innocence -- we all like to believe in that and we do in this country -- but I think there's a level of protection that a neighborhood and community is entitled to," Carl Anderson said.

The Andersons were once such fans of the coach that they own an autographed, limited-edition copy of his book, "Touched -- The Jerry Sandusky Story."

"For me ... it alternates between anger and sadness," Carl Anderson said of his sentiments now. "It really is a loss of wholesale community innocence."

How Paterno can promote healing

Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz have been charged with failing to report the abuse to authorities and misleading investigators. Prosecutors determined they had a legal duty to report the alleged abuse, but not McQueary and Paterno.

On Monday, the Big Ten Conference announced that Paterno's name is being pulled from the football championship trophy to be awarded next month at the conference's first championship game in Indianapolis, Indiana.

"The trophy and its namesake are intended to be celebratory and aspirational, not controversial," Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said in a statement. "We believe that it's important to keep the focus on the players and the teams that will be competing in the inaugural championship game."

The trophy was going to be named after both Paterno, the winningest coach in top-level college football history, and Amos Alonzo Stagg, a founder of the Big Ten. It will now be called the Stagg Championship Trophy.

New Penn State President Rodney Erickson, meanwhile, tried to help his school move on Monday -- after a week that he said "tested the character and resilience of the Penn State community."

In a statement on the school's website, Erickson said he wanted to say "how proud of I am" of the school. He cited a candlelight vigil for abuse victims that thousands took part in Friday night and the Penn State-Nebraska football game on Saturday, which included a moment of silence.

"Today, we are back to class and the business of running this university," he wrote.

"Collectively, we need to show the nation and world that Penn State cares, and that Penn State is a community of individuals committed to moving forward with a shared sense of purpose."

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Pink shares her secret for successful motherhood

(PEOPLE.com) -- For new mom Pink, balancing a busy career and motherhood is really just a matter of proper timing.

"As long as my boobs are at home at a certain hour, I can do whatever I want," the singer-actress, 32, told PEOPLE at the Hollywood premiere of "Happy Feet Two."

Pink, who voices the character of penguin Gloria in the 3D computer-animated film, finds participating in family-oriented movies more meaningful now that she and husband Carey Hart have daughter Willow Sage.

"It just touches a different part of your heart," she says.

And while 5-month-old Willow isn't yet old enough to see her mom's movie, Pink says she is looking forward to showing it to her in the future.

"In a couple years, I'm going to scare the crap out of my daughter with this movie!"

See the full article at PEOPLE.com.

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Wife: Cain 'totally respects women'

(CNN) -- Herman Cain's wife said she doesn't believe the sexual harassment allegations against her husband because "he totally respects women."

Gloria Cain made the remarks in an interview to air Monday on Fox's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren."

"I know that's not the person he is. He totally respects women," Gloria Cain said.

Last week, during an appearance on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Cain said he still has the support of his wife.

"My own wife said that I wouldn't do anything as silly as what that lady was talking about, because she does know me," Cain said about one of the accusers, Sharon Bialek.

"I've been married for 43 years to the same woman and I'm proud of it."

At least four women have accused the GOP presidential hopeful of sexual harassment.

In a statement last week, Cain campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon said, "There have been a number of interesting revelations that the public has learned about these women over the past few days. We hope the court of public opinion will take this into consideration as these women continue to try and keep this story alive."

The attorney for a woman who accused Cain of sexual harassment in the late 1990s said Thursday his client is not prepared to hold a news conference about the allegations until all the other reported victims agree to join her.

Joel Bennett said his client, Karen Kraushaar, has tried to reach two other women who also claim they were sexually harassed by Cain during his 1996-99 stint as head of the National Restaurant Association.

Another accuser, Bialek, has agreed to attend a joint news conference with Kraushaar, but without the participation of all the alleged victims, Kraushaar doesn't want to proceed, Bennett told reporters.

The sexual harassment accusations have dominated Cain's campaign since they were first reported October 30 by Politico. He had surged to the top of the polls with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, but now faces questions about his moral fiber as well as his campaign's ability to deal with the controversy.

While controversy swirls around Cain, his campaign is continuing to see a major financial boost.

The campaign announced Thursday it has brought in more than $9 million since October 1.

Cain has repeatedly and vehemently denied the sexual abuse allegations. Some analysts have said the accusations are helping him to build support among conservative activists and the impressive fundraising totals are one sign of that.

While Cain has soared in popularity in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, his wife has remained out of the spotlight. Gloria Cain is rarely seen on the campaign trail and had been unavailable to media outlets clamoring to speak with her.

Cain, 65, has said previously he's trying to keep his family protected from the ups and down of running for president. Gloria Cain had a pacemaker implanted in 2005 to help with a serious heart fibrillation, according to his book "This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House."

"Gloria continues to be a steady source of devotion and inspiration, never more so than now," the candidate writes in his book.

"Some people have certain expectations concerning the traditional politician's wife, though, and I'm often asked: 'Where is your wife? Why isn't she campaigning with you?'

" 'She is at home,' I answer.

"And Gloria will tell them that she's not running but she supports me 100%. That's all I need."

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Norway terror suspect to appear in court

(CNN) -- Authorities in Norway have tightened security as the man accused of killing 77 people in a shooting rampage and a bomb attack makes his first court appearance in person Monday.

Until now, the proceedings for Anders Behring Breivik have been held behind closed doors.

But on Monday, the families of the victims will be able to see Breivik as officers bring him in to Oslo City Court with his hands and feet cuffed, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

At the hearing, a judge will decide whether to keep Breivik in jail until his trial in the spring.

Breivik is charged in the July 22 attacks that killed 77 people.

Survivors return to scene of island rampage

Eight were killed in a bombing in Oslo; 69 young people were killed on nearby Utoya island, in the deadliest attack in Norway since World War II.

The young people were attending a Labour Party youth camp. Most of the 700 campers ranged in age from 16-22, with some as young as 13.

Breivik has pleaded not guilty.

Described by authorities as a right-wing Christian extremist, he purportedly authored a 1,500-page manifesto critical of Muslim immigration and European liberalism.

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