The article of Sam Murphy in Guardian.co.uk entitled ‘Get Fit, Not Fat, this Christmas’ is really appealing to everyone especially for fitness and weight conscious individuals. Festive Season is always a challenging period of the year when it comes to diet and exercise. With parties scheduled one after the other and the scrumptious array of food in every event, it is easy to gain extra weight and slack off from your exercise regime.

The article ‘Get Fit, Not Fat, this Christmas’ offers suggestions on how to combat this issue during Christmas and it is really interesting because the suggested ideas are very practical. It considers too the usual scenarios that everyone faces during this season.

One of the suggestions is to organize seasonal activities. It is indeed difficult to workout when you have families and friends visiting you during the Festive Season. To solve this challenge, you can organize activities such as ice skating or winter walking. These activities keep you active and in a way replace the workout you miss for the day. This is a better option than staying at home watching TV and munching the leftover food from the party.

Read the ‘Get Fit, Not Fat, this Christmas’ as it is a good source to pick up few tips to help you stay fit all throughout the Festive Season.

Read the full article, ‘Get Fit, Not Fat, this Christmas‘ from Guardian.co.uk - Life and style.

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Yes! You read it correctly – cookies for weight loss. Are you wondering how on earth can cookies help you lose weight? Apparently ‘cookie diet’ is the latest craze now in the arena of weight loss.

In the article ‘A Few Cookies a Day to Keep the Pounds Away?’, Abby Ellin has written an in-depth details about the cookie diet.  The mind behind this revolutionary diet program is Dr. Sanford Siegal and it is claimed that there are approximately 500,000 people who have lose weight using cookie diet. You can expect to lose up to 10 pounds in a month by eating cookies.

Hence, it is no wonder that this concept of weight loss hits the market because we are in an era where people want quick-fix solution and instant results. We forget that those extra kilos in our bellies and thighs were gained in weeks or months of overeating. And now, we want to get rid right away those extra weight without sweat.

Though the cookie diet is a success, it also gains numerous criticisms. Critics are concerned about its nutritional value and the side effects of consuming below 1000-calories. It is a fact that the basic equation for weight loss is diet and exercise, a formula that withstands the test of time. If we want to lose weight for good, it means changing our eating habits and keeping a healthy lifestyle. And this doesn’t happen overnight.

Let’s face it. There is no magic formula for weight loss. Perhaps there are quick-fix options but still in the end, it is all about being healthy for longer life. So before you succumb to any diets, remember that you have only one body. Make sure that you prioritize first your health and safety.

Read the full article, ‘A Few Cookies a Day to Keep the Pounds Away‘ from NYTimes.com - Fashion and Style.

Are there really foods that keep you from gaining weight? It is inevitable for us to be caught in disbelief to know that such foods exist because we always associate eating with gaining weight. We have the notion that eating though depends on the quality and quantity of food can lead us to adding extra kilos in our body.

Well, not anymore! Lucy Danziger has given us hope in her article ‘8 Foods That Fight Fat’.  We can eat without feeling any guilt and fear of gaining weight by choosing the fat-fighting foods. All we need is to identify these eight foods that can make us slimmer as we munch.

According to Lucy Danziger, these eight fat-fighting foods include almonds, berries, cinnamon, mustard, oranges, soy beans, sweet potatoes and Swiss cheese. An excellent tip to incorporate one of these fat-fighting foods in our daily routine is by adding ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon in our morning coffee or cereals.

However, the Swiss cheese is quite the most interesting in the eight fat-fighting foods. How can a cheese be considered as fat fighting food? As explained in ‘8 Foods That Fight Fat’, taking a calcium rich foods can lead to reduction of fat producing enzymes while it increases the level of fat breakdown. More so, Swiss cheese is believed to have the richest calcium content among the cheese family but remember to still opt for the low fat version of it.

So are you interested to know the reasons behind why the rest of the eight foods can fight fat in your body? You can read the full article from Yahoo! Health ‘8 Foods That Fight Fat‘.

By: Eric Wise

Health and fitness starts with a conscious choice, and the best place to start is…well, at the beginning!

In our aging society physical fitness is playing a major role in keeping people healthy. There are numerous fitness programs that are available to people. The main thing to consider with any program is to have a balance between nutrition and exercise.

Each physical fitness program claims to be the best. Not all programs are right for everyone. You do need to check with your physician to see which fitness program is best for you and your goals. Each person should develop goals that they want to achieve and review them with their physician. Keep your goals in mind as you are joining a fitness program.

Getting involved in a fitness routine does not mean that you need to spend money by joining a gym or purchasing equipment. There are many pieces of equipment that will improve your physical well being, but you can also achieve this without making purchases. Some people do find that purchasing equipment or fitness tapes are a way to motivate them to start using muscles that may need extra conditioning or to get started exercising. A variety of activities help keep you motivated with your quest for getting into shape. A variety of different exercises also help to condition all muscle groups. It is important to start out any exercise routine by stretching. This will help to avoid muscle strain and injury. A physical activity can be as simple as walking around the neighborhood, or biking on your favorite trail. By choosing to walk to do some of your errands or by parking further away from the door you can incorporate exercise into your routine without adding extra time.

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by: Gergana Ganeva

Can you acknowledge how many times in the past year you have openly told yourself, “from now on, I start working out every day so that I can get in shape, lose some weight, and look better?” Now, think of how many times you actually made this happen? I am almost sure that you have not had a serious reason for not starting to exercise, you were either lazy or tired, am I right? The truth is that laziness and tiredness are the top two opponents of fitness.

Is it a sin to be lazy?

I believe that there is not a single person in the world who would honestly say that he/she has never been lazy. Even people whose whole lives are surrounded around sports tend to get lazy sometimes. It is simply in our nature to get sluggish, and honestly it is very hard to fight this feeling. It is normal to relax and get lazy sometimes but we should not let it happen very often.

Many years ago in Christianity laziness was viewed as one of the top seven deadly sins. Although over time the nature of this concept has overcome a big change, today it is still perceived negatively. Psychology defines laziness as a mental problem, medicine as a medical condition, and biology defines it as an instinctively behavior of saving energy.The only positive effect that comes out of laziness is that we can relax by doing nothing. Relaxing is a great feeling but we do not want to make it a constant daily routine.

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By Andrew Martinez

According to the McKinley Health Center at the University of Illinois Student Affairs, people who engage in regular, consistent aerobic, resistance, and flexibility exercises gain many benefits. Everyone responds differently to exercise. Even if participating in the same program, benefits may vary from person to person.

Exercise can improve flexibility, cardiovascular & cardiorespiratory function, immune system functioning, strength of muscles and tendons, skin tone (making it more elastic), sleep patterns, self-esteem, ability to relax, personal satisfaction & self-image, perceptions of acceptance by others, productivity, and overall quality of life.

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We oftentimes blame our lack of will power for failed weights loss. In ‘Why We Eat Too Much, And How to Get Control’, Rachel Grumman features three factors that we can blame for over eating.

How many times we include weight lose in our New Year’s resolution?  We are actually quite effective in the first few weeks of our diet - no chips, midnight snack, ice cream, cheese cakes and fries.

Then one afternoon, we have a big argument with our boss. We go home very pissed off and start ravaging the fridge. And then you find a scrumptious rich chocolate cake.  You convince yourself to cave in for one day only and viola! You savour each spoonful of cake. Unfortunately, that one day is followed by another until eventually you slip from your healthy lifestyle.

Then months later we put on more weight and conclude that we don’t have the will power to lose weight!

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