In my research, this is the WORST advice anyone, male or female, could receive.

First, osteoporosis is not a female disease. In Singapore, men get osteoporosis much more frequently than women. Here in the United States, where I'm writing, the increase of osteoporosis in those with XY chromosomes is on the rise. Everyone my age (yesterday was my 45th birthday) had better worry about fossilization. (My son was referring to my mental state, but here I'm talking about bones!)

Second, osteoporosis has many causes. If your body lacks calcium, supplementation is a very good idea. The problem is, up to 62% of my customers have a calcium utilization disorder. Their bodies can not absorb the calcium they swallow. For them, the standard advice not only wastes their money. It makes them believe they are really doing something to protect their bones, when, it fact, it can hasten the osteoporotic process.

How do you know if you have a calcium absorption disorder? My lab can tell you exactly. But if you want to do some free research before sending me greenbacks, answer this question: How much sugar and aspartame do I eat each day?

If you answered the question honestly, you'll have a fairly accurate answer. If your sugar consumption is out of control, you probably have a calcium absorption problem. Yes, my friends, those diet soft drinks and Famous Amos cookies (in my case, chocolate mousse cake and fresh cherry pie) are making us prime candidates for the dowager's hump.

Too much sugar, you see, can cause insulin resistance. I'll skip the chemistry class, but here's the result. If you eat too much sugar, your insulin levels become too high in your body. One very bad result of too much insulin: the substance literally robs your bones of their calcium. That's right. It pulls healthy bone material out of your limbs and deposits it in your soft tissues.

And you know what else too much insulin does? It prohibits your bones from absorbing those calcium supplements you're swallowing. Ditto for the calcium in the milk and cheese you're consuming. Since the calcium can't go into your bones, where it is sorely needed, it ends up in your soft tissues, where it can even cause harm.

So, if you take a calcium supplement and wash it down with a diet soft drink, or have a glass of Merlot (my fav) with your meal, forget about any calcium absorption. (I'm picking on soft drinks because aspartame acts just like sugar when it comes to insulin reactions. Saccharin is the only sweetener that is OK).

How do I know this? I see it every day in my work. Calcium levels are the first thing my lab tests in a Tissue Mineral Analysis. Normal levels of calcium are 26 to 46 parts per million. My tissue calcium levels have topped 248. I've seen readings as high as 900.

So, giving up sugar is crucial. My hero Shannon Lucid taught me the second cardinal rule of bone loss prevention.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration physicians discovered astronauts lost bone in space at the dizzying rate of 1.5 percent a month. Dr. Norman Thagard, for example, spent 115 days in space on the Russian space station Mir last year. He lost 11.7 percent of his bone material and 17.5 pounds of overall muscle and weight during his sojourn. Most of this loss came from the hip and lower spine. (Does this sound familiar?)

Dr. Frank M. Sulzman, director of life science research at NASA, says a trip to Mars, which takes a year or two each way, may leave an astronaut permanently crippled upon return to Earth.

Guess what these NASA experts discovered was the solution? Pumping iron! (Duh. Your tax dollars at work?*^&!)

Yes, resistance training against gravity is the best way to build bone, even in space. The astronauts, of course, lost bone because they faced no gravitational resistance in a weightless environment. Even though you fight gravity every day, you still need to pump iron at least twice a week to keep your osteoblasts -- the cells that manufacture new bone material -- working at high gear.

Tufts University did a study of older women, giving them a weekly weight lifting routine. Since the youngest ones were in the 70's, this was new stuff for this group, who probably grew up thinking it was unladylike to sweat.

After 12 months, the weight lifters increased the bone mass in their hips and lower spines by an average of 1 percent. The control group of sedentary women lost 2 to 2.5 percent of their bone mass. (Compare that to Dr. Thagard's 11.7 percent loss!) That made the sedentary ladies 2.5 times more likely to suffer a broken bone than the ones who pumped iron.

A secondary finding: strength training can ease depression.

My conclusion: Throw out the calcium supplements and the Prozac and Zoloft. Buy some hand and leg weights and don't worry, be happy.

P.S. The Tufts researcher, Miriam Nelson, wrote a book about her findings called "Strong Women Stay Young." It's a very good primer if you've never pumped iron before, regardless of your chromosome make up.

Freud once said ignorance is no excuse for dumb behavior. In the Meltdown interpretation of those words, ignorance is a choice we make to prevent ourselves from making difficult changes in our lives even though we really know better. Now you have no excuse not to get healthy!

If there's one thing us '90's women take for granted, it is that we don't get enough calcium. You can't read a woman's magazine or go to the gynecologist without hearing about the importance of calcium supplements: how they'll prevent us modern women from the dowager's hump so commonplace among our grandmothers.

We women are taking that advice to heart. Last year calcium supplements were the second best selling nutritional in America.

Last year, at the same time, the august (my word) New England Journal of Medicine wrote, "the usefulness of calcium supplementation for the entire populace appears to be questionable." In my experience, calcium supplementation can be downright dangerous for a whole lot of women. Women just like me.

In 1989 I made a routine trip to my dentist. He took routine X-rays. He discovered I had lost all but 3 centimeters of bone in my jaw around my four back molars since the last X-rays six months previous. Two days later I was in a hospital operating room having my molars grafted back onto my jaw with bone from a bone bank, an operation more painful than child birth, by the way.

How did this happen? I drank milk. I inhaled yogurt. I lifted weights three times a week. Why did I get so osteoporotic that my jaw evaporated?

Two years later I had a routine mammogram. (Always on my birthday, so I won't forget.) My gynecologist called in a panic when he got the results. The mammogram found two \ calcium deposits on my right breast; they could be cancerous.

The next day I found myself at the Komen Breast Center at Baylor Hospital for a lovely day of magnification films. It turned out those two calcium deposits were actually a veritable beach of calcium. The calcium deposit looked like a massive sand dune. For some reason all the calcium I was eating was ending up in my right breast and not in my bones or jaw. Why?

As it turns out, I had a calcium utilization problem. My body could not process the trace element properly; my breasts got bigger while I developed severe osteoporosis. And, judging by the Tissue Mineral Analyses I see, this is a common problem in American women. Their bodies become toxic with calcium (mostly due to calcium supplementation) as their bones shrink.

Osteoporosis is a terrible problem in America. Adult women face a 17.5% lifetime risk of a hip fracture, which will cost the U.S. $45 billion over the next 10 years as we baby boomers go through menopause.

By the way, this is typically an American problem. In Singapore, more men than women suffer from osteoporosis.

Let me explain how your body builds bone. Bone is a composite of two materials: tendon-like organic collagen and hard, inorganic calcium phosphate. Together they make a structure that's strong and tough.

If you are a healthy adult, you lose 500 milligrams (or half a gram) of calcium from your bones every day. It wouldn't take long for your bones to become powder at that rate .... if you didn't add 500 milligrams of calcium back into your bone structure every day. It's a constant tearing down and building back up.

Where does the calcium from your bones go? It goes into your blood plasma, which must have a specific concentration of calcium at all times. Your body maintains this precise level of calcium even at the expense of the structural integrity of your bones. For the record, this level is 10 milligrams per 100 milliliters of plasma, in case you just needed to know.

The Meltdown philosophy believes you can change your body from inside out without chemical intervention. I'm positive you can prevent osteoporosis by changing your eating habits.

1. Stop drinking sodas or eating baked goods and highly processed foods.

All three contain high levels of phosphorus. Too much phosphorus prevents the proper assimilation of new calcium into bone tissue.

2. Cut your sugar consumption radically. This includes the artificial sweetener aspartame as well as all liquor, including wine.

When you eat too much sugar, your body becomes insulin resistant. This means your pancreas constantly secretes insulin, even at inappropriate times. Too much insulin interferes with calcium absorption.

3. Lower your fat intake.

Excess fat reduces the body's ability to use calcium.

4. Reduce your estrogen levels and/or increase your progesterone levels.

Your body needs a specific balance between estrogen and progesterone to build bone. Estrogen reduces the rate of bone loss by reducing the activities of the osteoclasts, the cells that resorb or return calcium phosphate back into the blood plasma.

But slowing bone loss is just part of the problem. You also need help from cells called osteoblasts, which manufacture new bone tissue. They have special progesterone receptors that trigger them into action. If you don't have enough natural progesterone, you can't build enough new bone to prevent osteoporosis. By the way, synthetic progesterone will not work here.

These two hormones work like a bank account. Estrogen keeps as much money as possible in the bank by stanching the out flow. But progesterone replaces the money you've spent and even adds some.

Unfortunately, here in America we women have too much estrogen and not enough progesterone. I maintain this is one of the primary reasons for the increase of osteoporosis among us. J.D. Prior, a researcher, wrote in a magazine called Endocrine Reviews, "Osteoporosis may be, in part, a progesterone-deficiency disease."

The best way to right your progesterone levels is to eat foods high in zinc and low in copper. I discuss this in great depth in my Web page under the PMS section, so I won't waste time and repeat it here.

5. We women aren't acidic enough!

No joke. The British Medical Journal reported that gastric hydrochloric acid helps the absorption of dietary calcium. I now take 10 grains (about 750 milligrams) of HCL with every meal.

6. Don't drink chlorinated water.

Chlorine is a calcium antagonist. Drink bottled water if you can afford it. Or, pour tap water into a pitcher and place it in the refrigerator for 24 hours. The chlorine will dissipate in that time.

7. Use laxatives, diuretics, antacids and cortisone treatments as little as possible.

Yup, they keep your body from absorbing calcium properly.

Here's what I did right:

8. Lift weights.

Resistance training is crucial to building strong bones. I developed osteoporosis in my jaw because I didn't pump iron there (even though I have been accused of being a big mouth!) You don't have to put the pin in the middle of the weight stacks. Just lift enough weight so the last three reps of a 12 rep cycle are almost too heavy to press.

A 1990 study is eye-opening. H. Klitgaard at the August Krogh Institute in Copenhagen studied master level swimmers and runners. The average age of these male athletes was 69; they had been training in their sport for at least a dozen years.

The researchers were hardly surprised these guys were exceptionally fit. But they were shocked to discover that these lean and vigorous athletes had no more muscle mass or strength than their male buddies who spent the last 12 years with a beer can in front of the TV (the control group.)

Then the physicians examined weight lifters. These guys were 67, no spring chickens either. They, too, had been pumping iron for a decade. Here was the shocker: The weight lifters were not only stronger than their running and swimming counterparts. Oh no. They were stronger than the average 28 year old man!

And get this: Muscle biopsies from each weight lifter's thigh found they had the same muscle fiber mix of men old enough to be their sons. Muscles are composed of two kinds of fibers. Slow twitch fibers are used for strenuous exercise -- like running or swimming. Fast twitch fibers are designed for extraordinary bursts of power.

Young people have an even amount of fast and slow twitch fibers regardless of their exercise patterns. Fast twitch fibers disappear as we age. But in this study, the fast twitch fibers of the swimming and marathon runners had withered away! But the weight lifters still had hefty fast twitch fibers in their muscle architecture.

The results here are discussing men, who are not plagued with the estrogen deficient bones of menopause. Can you imagine what weight lifting will do for women? Ladies, head to the gym. (Here's an added bonus: the scenery is gorgeous in the weight lifting room.)

9. Don't smoke.

Cigarettes inhibit bone manufacture.

Osteoporosis is not a given. You can control your life. Just eat right!

P.S. How do you know if you are toxic with calcium? A TMA tissue test will tell you for sure. It will also tell you what to eat and what not to eat to solve your biochemical imbalances. Given the high cost of osteoporosis, can you afford to wait?

What is the best way to lose weight? The answer: With patience, you can burn those pounds off with the proper exercise routine and the correct diet.

One of THE best ways to lose weight is to construct a well-rounded exercise program that is based on cross-training. Doing something different every day helps eliminate the drudgery of exercise and allows one group of muscles to rest while you're pushing another group to the limit.

Be sure to include weight training in that exercise regime. Dr. Wayne Prescott, national strength training consultant for the YMCA, has discovered weight lifting "plays a significant role in weight management and fat loss."

Prescott worked with 282 participants whose average age was 45, old fossils like me. The group that combined endurance exercises (aerobics, swimming and running), strength exercises (weight lifting or using free weights in a "body sculpting" class), and dietary changes experienced the greatest weight and body fat loss. The differences were significant.

For example, the group that changed their eating habits and spent 30 minutes using a stationary bicycle or doing step aerobics lost 4 pounds, experienced a fat loss of 4 pounds and experienced no muscle gain. But the group that followed the same dietary changes plus 25 minutes of endurance exercises followed by 15 minutes on Nautilus machines lost 8 pounds, experienced a fat loss of 10 pounds and gained two pounds of muscle.

The study also discovered muscle gain is mainly dependent on strength exercise. This is an important fact for people on a weight loss program. The best way to lose weight is to burn fact, turning it into the sugars the body need for energy.

The muscle tissue is the place where this fat burning takes places. It's the corporeal oven, if you will. The bigger the oven, the more fat it can burn. Increasing muscle mass speeds up the weight loss process by being able to burn more fat in the same time period. Besides, good muscle tone is attractive!

Dr. Daniel Kosich, consulting senior director for professional development for IDEA, an exercise trade group, has conducted research which found strength training not only causes changes in muscle fiber, but also in the endocrine output. The endocrine glands control everything in the body, from moods to feelings to heart rate and metabolism, the physiological process of burning fat. Raising the body's basal or normal metabolic rate means the body burns the hated fat faster.

Here's the good news: Dr. Kosich found that almost 20 percent of the increase in body strength occurred within the first four weeks of training. The results are immediate. However, the change in muscle size and weight loss occurred later.

More good news: You only have to work out three times a week for 45 minute sessions to achieve these results! That's doable.

Here's the bad news: The results are lost if you do not maintain the training program. We're talking commitment here. Resistance training won't work with mental resistance; it must become a lifelong habit.

The philosophy of weight training is important to obtaining results. In weight training, the exerciser pushes himself or herself to overload. In anaerobic exercise like weight lifting, exercisers do repetitions, trying to push the muscles to 110 percent. Fatigue is the prize.

This is the opposite of aerobic training, which stresses endurance. Exercisers strive to stay within the cardiac target zone, which is 65 to 80 percent of the maximum cardiac output. Fatigue in aerobic exercise defeats the purpose of the activity.

I've noticed in the gym people lift weights too fast. Try to take 30 to 60 seconds to complete one repetition. Fighting gravity is very difficult and really forces the muscles to perform. I only do 12 repetitions. Trust me. One set is enough at this pace.

If you've never used weight machines, a service trainer at your health club will be happy to show you the circuit. Circuit training allows you to work every major muscle group during a 45 minute session. Or take a step interval class, which is very popular now. These classes alternate aerobic exercise with weight training. I also like the tubes which are great for resistance training. I take a tube with me when I travel because they are a whole lot lighter than weights inside a suitcase.

Of course, the Internet is a vast resource on all aspects of weight training. If you don't use it, you won't lose it!

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