Hidden Fat Traps

You noticed that your pants were getting a little snug, but didn't think much of it. When you could barely button your favorite skirt, you forced yourself onto a scale and discovered you'd gained eight pounds. But why? You haven't changed your eating or exercise habits.

Chances are you overlooked some of the most common weight-gain culprits. Frequent dining out, nighttime snacks in front of the television and even your fondness for coffee can all cause a slow-but-steady weight gain. Once you identify and combat these "hidden" fat traps, you'll find it easier to shed pounds and maintain a healthy weight.

Loss of Muscle: Getting older is one of the most frequently overlooked reasons for gaining weight, says Sheah Rarback, R.D., a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association based in Miami. "You're more susceptible to weight gain with every passing decade because your metabolism slows and you lose muscle mass," says Rarback. "What that means is you can't eat the same way you did when you were twenty. If you do, you'll gain weight."

The solution: Strength training helps build muscle mass and combat this effect of aging, says personal trainer Brad Schoenfeld, author of Look Great at Any Age. "Generally speaking, a pound of muscle burns about fifty calories a day," he says. "So if you add a pound of muscle, you'll increase your metabolic rate by about that much." Adding muscle keeps your bones strong as well.

Late-Night Snacking: If you spend most evenings curled up on the couch watching TV, chances are you snack, too. And those snacks can add up to hundreds or even thousands of calories. Eating in front of the set distracts you from how much you're consuming, causing you to eat even more. Studies also show that women eat less when they concentrate on their food. "If you sit in front of the TV every night and eat, then every time the TV comes on you'll have the urge to eat," warns Jackie Berning, R.D., an assistant professor of nutrition at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

The solution: Women tend to undereat during the day, so they overeat at night, says Berning. Make sure you eat enough at mealtimes so you're not hungry for a snack after dinner. Most importantly, turn off the TV whenever you eat.

Plentiful Portions: Americans' waistlines have been growing along with portion sizes. Even snack foods are growing increasingly larger. But the battle can be won. Leah Ingram of New Hope, Pennsylvania, has kept 17 pounds off for more than a year and a half just by controlling her portions. "I have peanut butter on toast every morning for breakfast. Before I lost weight, I slopped peanut butter on the toast," says Leah. "But now I measure out a tablespoon and make it last. Eyeballing doesn't work because it's too easy to add more, and suddenly your pants are tight."

The solution: "Have the treat but control the portion," says Rarback. "Even if it's a snack food, such as chips or peanuts, put a small portion on a plate. If you're reaching into the bag, you don't realize how much you're eating." You can also buy individual snack bags at the grocery store or make your own portion-size snacks using sandwich bags.

Is There An Anti-Aging Diet?

Can the food you eat help extend your life and improve your health?

Plenty of research suggests that it can. Studies reveal that a healthy diet can help you sidestep ailments that plague people more as they age, including heart disease, hypertension, cancer, and cataracts. But information gleaned from news flashes, best-selling diet books, and even government sources is often contradictory. And occasionally scientific studies blown out of proportion in the news or in popular diet books make dietary divas or pariahs of certain foods.

Will tripling your intake of olive oil or banishing carbohydrate-laden breads from your menu ward off illness? Taken alone, these steps simply can’t do enough to help. To reap dietary benefits, you gradually must work in more sweeping changes, such as cutting down on red meat; eating more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains; and striking a healthy balance between calories in and calories out.

Perhaps the easiest way to understand what changes you should be making in your diet is to review the healthy eating recommendations made by Professor Walter C. Willett in Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating (see Healthy Eating Recommendations). As you may notice, these recommendations share a good deal with new government dietary guidelines for Americans issued in January 2005, a vast improvement on the seriously outdated USDA food pyramid that had held sway since 1992. There are, however, key differences, such as Willett’s recommendations for choosing healthy fats and his more marked emphasis on a diet built largely around plants and whole grains. In addition, the healthy eating guidelines described in this section encourage a more limited intake of dairy products, as well as a combination of poultry, fish, beans, or nuts rather than red meat.

Know Your Chocolate

Some kinds of chocolate, rich in antioxidants called flavonoids, have been shown to benefit heart health. But all types of chocolate aren't the same, and too much chocolate can negate any benefits, the Cleveland Clinic says. The clinic offers this additional information:
-Dark chocolate is richest in flavonoids, so choose dark chocolate over milk chocolate.
-Chocolate does contain fat, but it contains both saturated (unhealthy) and unsaturated (healthy) fats. Chocolate should still only be consumed in small amounts.
-Processed chocolate is higher in fat and lower in flavonoids, so avoid candy bars loaded with caramel, peanuts, nougat and other fattening fillings.

Go Green!

Enjoy coffee or tea?

Why don’t you switch your usual morning wake-up for a refreshing cup of green tea? Recent research has shown that green tea can help increase your metabolism and could help you burn an extra 78 calories a day. It tastes delicious and is an easy addition to your day.

Celebrity Fitness: Katherine Heigl

Before filming her new movie, Knocked Up, Katherine Heigl hated working out. But since meeting Hollywood trainer Harley Pasternak, the actress raves, "I'm in the best shape I've ever been in."

Still, Heigl, one of PEOPLE's 100 Most Beautiful in 2007, didn't get there without putting up a fight. "I hate dieting. I hate the whole thing!" she tells PEOPLE in its new issue. A revealing love scene in Knocked Up gave her the motivation to hit the gym with L.A. trainer Pasternak, who is known for his intense, time-efficient workouts. "Katherine had a beautiful body, but it had never been toned," says Pasternak, who has worked with Halle Berry, Jessica Simpson and Sheryl Crow.

Heigl, 28, met with him for cardio and circuit-training sessions of 25 to 50 minutes, up to five times a week for six weeks prior to shooting. On-set, she'd jump rope or lift dumbbells outside her trailer. All the while, she ate Pasternak's 5-Factor Diet, which delivered five high-protein, high-fiber meals a day. Even with a scheduled weekly "cheat day," says Pasternak, Heigl soon looked "tighter and more toned."

Typical Workout for Heigl:
• 5 minutes of jump-roping, jogging, or stair-climbing for a cardio warm-up.

A circuit of 4 sets each of the following:
• 25 dumbbell flies
• 25 lunges
• 25 low-body crunches

Followed by:
• 5-25 minutes of cardio running, elliptical training, stair-climbing or biking, with the last five minutes working as a cool-down period.

Sample Day's Meals:
Breakfast: French toast with ricotta pillows
Mid-morning snack: A mixed-berry shake
Lunch: TexMex salad with chicken and black beans
Afternoon snack: Hummus crudite
Dinner: Sea Bass with brown rice and edamame

Flaxseeds For Your Health

Loaded with alpha-linolenic acid, an essential fatty acid that helps reduce inflammation, flaxseed has been used for centuries for medicinal and health reasons.

Gandhi himself proclaimed, "Wherever flaxseed becomes a regular food item among the people, there will be better health." Bauman adds, "The seed itself has terrific nutritional value, very usable protein, tremendous fatty acids, and minerals like magnesium, potassium, and zinc." Additionally, they're a great source of fiber.

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Using Flax Seed Oil

-Don't use flax oil for cooking - heat can turn the essential fatty acids into harmful fats. Add flax oil to foods after cooking and just before serving.
- Flax has many virtues, but it also has a vice: it turns rancid quickly. To prevent spoilage, follow these tips. Keep the flax oil refrigerated with the lid on tight. Minimize exposure to heat, light and air and try to buy it in smaller containers.
- Flax oil taken with a meal can actually increase the nutritional value of other foods! Research shows that adding flax oil to foods rich in sulfated amino acids such as cultured dairy products, vegetables in the cabbage family, and animal, seafood, and soy proteins helps the essential fatty acids become incorporated into cell membranes. Mixing it with yogurt improves its digestion and metabolism by the body.
- Flax oil works best in the body when its taken with antioxidants, such as vitamins E, carotene, vitamin B6 and magnesium.

While a tablespoon of flax oil a day may not keep the doctor entirely away, its bound to help!

Carbohydrate Basics

Just a couple of decades ago, carbs were the dietary rage. Athletes filled up on pasta before events and high-carb (low-fat) diets were thought to be the answer to everything from weight loss to the prevention of heart disease. Then came the Atkins diet and a spate of other spinoffs. With the advent of these carb-counting weight-loss plans, people mistakenly got the message that all carbs were bad. Recently, a more moderate view on carbs has taken hold which differentiates between them, categorizing them as bad, better and best. To understand the difference, however, we need to understand that the term carbohydrates really means.

The Good, the Bad and the Not-So Bad

Carbs encompass a large range of foods that vary from a teaspoon of white sugar to a cup of cauliflower to a loaf of bread. But there are huge differences in how our body reacts to different kinds of carbohydrates namely because of two factors: the carb’s effect on our blood sugar and its nutrient density (how much fiber, and how many vitamins and minerals it delivers).

The best carbs contain fiber, such as vegetables and fruits. They're loaded with vitamins, minerals and hundreds of important phytochemicals like cancer-fighting indoles (found in the cabbage family), lutein and zeaxanthin, which are the superstars of eye nutrition (found in watermelon and spinach), and quercitin, a natural anti-inflammatory (found in apples). To avoid these carbs makes no sense.

On the other hand, there are carbs that deliver sugar and little else (think soda). Most of the carbs you want to avoid come with a bar-code: They’re highly processed and offer little in the way of nutrition. Unfortunately many of the carbs we routinely eat fall into this category, including refined breads, cereals, pastas and most desserts. These are the carbs we’d be much better off without, especially if we’re trying to control our blood sugar or weight.

Whole Grains

Many foods cannot just be picked from a tree like an apple and eaten. Wheat for example, has to be processed before it's edible. You don’t have to eliminate foods like pasta and rice altogether; instead, the goal should be to eat the least processed form of these foods. White rice, for example, has been far more processed than whole grain brown rice (it's had the bran and outer shell removed, along with much of the nutrients). Same goes for white bread versus whole wheat. So how do you know how processed a food is? A good indication is fiber, which is usually lost when a carbohydrate is highly processed. When shopping, read food labels and use the five and five rule: Look for five or fewer grams of sugar, and five or more grams of fiber per serving. If a grain-based food meets that criteria, it's probably worth eating.

Check back soon to learn about portion control!

Girl talk

We want to hear from you. ...... sooooooo....... just double click on "comment" ----- give us your thoughts, and let's get rolling here.


Who doesn't need a little girl talk? Especially when it's almost time for the dreaded bathing suit !!!!!!

What makes you roll your eyes when you're looking at yourself in the mirror??????

How to Look Thinner In Pictures

It's spring. And if you're like us, the results of your swimsuit diet aren't quite showing yet. If you've got any graduations or weddings coming up in the warmer months ahead, you're likely to get your picture taken. If the thought of a photographer makes you want to run, relax: We've found a few tips -- online, in books, from experts -- on looking thinner in pictures.

1. Use flashes in sunlight. According to "Geek Sugar", it's all about the lighting. Flashes are good because they override the shadows that overhead sunlight might cast on your face, making for pronounced under-eye and chin shadows.

2. Lean in towards the camera. Digital Camera Tracker says leaning slightly towards the camera is helpful: "Think of having a long neck like a gazelle, and tilt your chin down just a bit to avoid the appearance of a double chin," the site suggests.

3. Stand like a ballerina. No, we're not kidding. While it stops short of recommending you wear a tutu, the 'Rocky Mountain News' says you need to pose like a ballet dancer: "The most flattering (read slimming) pose: Face front and cross one leg in front of the other, then turn your body at a 45-degree angle away from the camera and turn head and shoulders toward the camera. Place feet in ballet third position (one foot angled in front of the other)."

4. Put your hands on your hips. The 'Rocky Mountain News' says your soldiers might look less rounded this way.

5. Get a shot from below, as if you were on the runway. In Camilla Morton's new advice book for women, 'How To Walk In High Heels,' model Giselle Bundchen is interviewed about how to look good, both in front of and away from the camera. For pictures, the runway-veteran agrees that lighting is crucial, but she adds a few tips on angles and poses: "For long legs, point one leg into the center of the frame and get the photographer to shoot looking up your body," says Bundchen. We just hope it's not up your nose, Giselle!

6. Get a shot from above. The best way to hide that double chin is to have someone shoot your face from a few inches above your head. Just find someone who's taller than you. Either you'll look up at them, which makes double chins disappear, or the area below your chin will be in shadow, and won't show up in the picture at all. For a group picture where you want everyone to look good, stand on a chair and have everyone look up at you: We've been using this technique at parties for years. It works!

7. Forget about looking thin and just relax. Not all experts agree with the stand-up-straight, pose-like-a-movie-star advice. We spoke to Edward Keating, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning photographer for the 'New York Times,' who was the principal photographer for the newspaper's 'Vows' column for seven years. He says that the best thing a subject can do to look good in photographs is to be relaxed and happy. "Look at the photographer, not at the camera," says Keating. "If they're connected with me, they're not thinking about the camera and the lens."

6 Ways to Stay Sharp

Challenge your mind. Staying mentally active appears to help ward off memory loss. Engaging in challenging board games, reading, working crossword puzzles, playing a musical instrument, and acquiring new skills keep your mind fit. Such activities seem to expand the web of neuronal connections in the brain and help keep neurons nimble and alive.

Challenge your body. Just like cells anywhere else in the body, brain cells crave a steady diet of oxygen. Physically active people are more likely to stay mentally active, too. Two Journal of the American Medical Association studies published in 2004 underscore this notion. After testing nearly 19,000 women ages 70–81 enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study, researchers found that those who engaged in regular physical activity scored higher on tests of attention, recall, and other markers of cognitive function and exhibited less mental decline than more sedentary peers. Vigorous exercise wasn't necessary — walking at an easy pace for at least 1.5 hours a week was nearly as effective as more active pursuits. Similarly, walking reduced the likelihood of dementia in a study of more than 2,000 men ages 71–93. Compared with those who walked over 2 miles a day, men who walked less than one-quarter mile a day had a 1.8-fold higher risk for developing dementia.

Get your rest. Too little sleep can affect memory. Six hours may be the minimum needed, although researchers testing college students found those who had eight hours were better able to learn new skills. Interestingly, some experts believe sleep inhibits stress hormones.

Limit stress. Researchers speculate that consistently high levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol, may impair nerve cells in the hippocampus, which oversees certain types of learning and recall. In a randomized study, healthy adults were given a daily dose of cortisol for four days — either a low dose that mimicked the amount released under everyday stress or a high dose. Those who had higher doses recalled fewer details of texts read to them each day. Their memory impairment was reversible once the cortisol wore off. Meditating, performing yoga or tai chi, or using other stress-reduction techniques regularly helps ease stress.

Watch your weight. Staying within a normal weight range lowers your risk for illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, and stroke, which can compromise memory to varying degrees.

Check with your doctor. Are you getting annual checkups for hearing and sight? Are there any factors — such as medications, vitamin deficiencies, or chronic conditions — that could be better managed to help you stay as mentally sharp as possible? Discuss these issues with your doctor.

Chocolate: A Sweet Deal

Chocolate is made from plants, which means it contains many of the health benefits of dark vegetables. These benefits are from flavonoids, which act as antioxidants. Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure through the production of nitric oxide, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Heart Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate:
Dark chocolate is good for your heart. A small bar of it everyday can help keep your heart and cardiovascular system running well. Two heart health benefits of dark chocolate are:

Lower Blood Pressure: Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can reduce blood pressure in individuals with high blood pressure.
Lower Cholesterol: Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by up to 10 percent.

Other Benefits of Dark Chocolate:
Chocolate also holds benefits apart from protecting your heart:
-it tastes good! (duh.)
-it stimulates endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure
-it contains serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant
-it contains theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants

Doesn't Chocolate Have a lot of Fat?:
Here is some more good news -- some of the fats in chocolate do not impact your cholesterol. The fats in chocolate are 1/3 oleic acid, 1/3 stearic acid and 1/3 palmitic acid:
Oleic Acid is a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil.
Steari Acid is a saturated fat but one which research is shows has a neutral effect on cholesterol.
Palmitic Acid is also a saturated fat, one which raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.
That means only 1/3 of the fat in dark chocolate is bad for you.

Chocolate Tip 1 - Balance the Calories:
This information doesn't mean that you should eat a pound of chocolate a day. Chocolate is still a high-calorie, high-fat food. Most of the studies done used no more than 100 grams, or about 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate a day to get the benefits.
One bar of dark chocolate has around 400 calories. If you eat half a bar of chocolate a day, you must balance those 200 calories by eating less of something else. Cut out other sweets or snacks and replace them with chocolate to keep your total calories the same.

Chocolate Tip 2 - Taste the Chocolate:
Chocolate is a complex food with over 300 compounds and chemicals in each bite. To really enjoy and appreciate chocolate, take the time to taste it. Professional chocolate tasters have developed a system for tasting chocolate that include assessing the appearance, smell, feel and taste of each piece.

Chocolate Tip 3 - Go for Dark Chocolate:
Dark chocolate has far more antioxidants than milk or white chocolate. These other two chocolates cannot make any health claims. Dark chocolate has 65 percent or higher cocoa content.

Chocolate Tip 4 - Skip the Nougat:
You should look for pure dark chocolate or dark chocolate with nuts, orange peel or other flavorings. Avoid anything with caramel, nougat or other fillings. These fillings are just adding sugar and fat which erase many of the benefits you get from eating the chocolate.

The Positive Side of Stress

As many people have noted, the stress response can be enormously helpful. Surging adrenaline enables people to perform Herculean feats. Fight-or-flight responses are appropriate and essential in such overwhelming situations. When appropriately invoked, the stress response helps us rise to many challenges. These challenges may be external forces, such as a fire or an earthquake, or internal threats, such as your circulatory system teetering on the brink of a deadly collapse. The fight-or-flight response can prove beneficial under far less dangerous circumstances, too.

Physiologist Hans Selye, whose work helped shape modern stress theory, advanced the idea that physical and psychosocial stressors trigger the same physiological response. Selye explored the line between short-term stress that stimulates people to summon the resources to hurdle obstacles (so-called "good" stress) and chronic or overabundant stress, which wears down the ability to adapt and cope ("bad" stress or distress).

Two Harvard researchers, Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson, likewise demonstrated that a jolt of stress isn't necessarily bad. They noted that as stress or anxiety levels rose, so did performance and efficiency — up to a point. At this turning point, further stress and anxiety led to significant decreases in performance and ability.

Where that line is drawn or where that turning point falls seems to differ from person to person. For while the stress response is hard-wired into humans and other animals, the events and perceptions that set it off vary widely. What you perceive as a threatening situation, your neighbor may easily brush aside or even relish.

Who knew stress could be a good thing!?

Setting personal goals..

IDOL CHATTER:
Put your sunglasses on, and let’s get ready to look into that Hollywood glare, and see just how all the media to-do about starlets affects you, your body image and goals you set for yourself. We can all imagine those glamorama lives, waking up when your hair stylist and make up artist arrive to "work on" you, and tell you how amazing you are; your dietitian feeds you the perfect combination of energy and ego boost; your personal trainer shares fitness and encouragement; you’re stylist finds the perfect outfit; the masseuse kneads knots; manicurist fixes nails; brow master shapes the ultra brow; wax artist scours both bikini lines and upper lips, and there’s still time for that routine facial before designers arrive with fabulous dresses and jewelry that spotlight their work . How bad could a day be with all of that????????.
If all that doesn’t work, then the plastic surgeon can nip, tuck or suck out whatever’s not working. Waist too big, take out a rib bone, breast too small, add a few saline sizes, gravity pulling things down, get lifted. There’s collagen for bigger lips, lasers for fresher skin, botox or fillers for line freedom. Still not perfect? Make sure only the best photo angles are used, and get out those air brushes. Hollywood packages only ideals.


SWEET MORNING DO:
Who wouldn't look so much better with all that attention to grooming and ego? Can you imagine going to school or work after your hair, make up, and outfit have been styled by professionals, all the time sucking up; paid to make you feel good? How ‘bout only being seen airbrushed, at our most perfect angle, after a staff of 10 have worked their magic??? Sweeeeeet, isn’t it?????. How can we compete with that?


INSIDE OUT:
Don't we all want to be dreamy looking, eyed by the hottest boys and men, envied by the A-list girls and women, even ‘tho we’ve all been told that beauty comes from the inside, and being a good person is what’s really important. Honestly, if we had a choice between being stunningly beautiful or honored as a saint, which would we choose? ?????? And it doesn't matter how old we are!!!!!!!!.

How we look affects how we feel; how we look compared to others is key. Ever know any female who can really focus when she's having a bad hair day? Let’s face it, no one cares about inner beauty if there’s a huge pimple growing on their chin!!!!!!!!.

* Whey word for today: We all care about our looks, and want to look better. Sooooo – let’s set some goals for our personal best. We're gonna stop comparing ourselves to everyone else, and work it with what we've got, until we get that glow. .... a radiant style that's all our own.!!!!!!!

They'll be exercise, diet, healthy living and styling tips every day. So set some goals - make them reasonable - and let's go after it. If I'm not talking about something and you want to know about it - just ask. If you know something and want to share it - please do.




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