Ironically, healthy food is sometimes high in calories. For instance, avocados are very calorically dense, but are actually a good weight loss option-when eaten in moderation! Native to Mexico, the avocado is an key ingredient in party foods like guacamole, but it can be a key ingredient in your weight loss diet as well.  Read More

Photo: lululemon athletica

There are so many different reasons why we struggle with our weight– family, heartbreak, hectic work schedule, a love for ice cream with chocolate sauce– but they all revolve around the same thing: Stress. Tense emotions make it difficult to feel like yourself, let alone lose weight.

By making simple changes to your lifestyle one step at a time, you can escape the vicious cycle of stress and start reshaping yourself for the better immediately. Weight, stress and sex are all affected by one another, so this plan addresses all three at once.

Start by writing down everything that you eat – it will surprise you to see it on paper. This plan will work for you if taking baby steps is more your speed. If you’re interested in giving these weekly challenges a shot, you could start at the beginning or go in your own preferred order. You could also build each week on top of the next or simply tackle one weekly challenge at a time.

Check out our eight week-long “healthy living and stress reducing” challenge… Read More

Photo: I-5 Design & Manufacture

By: Melaina Gasbarrino

When you walk into the grocery store do you ever notice how each one is created the same? The milk, meat and eggs are in the back corner, flowers at the front, candy at the checkout, produce at the start and all the processed foods you can think of in between.

As you start off your grocery shopping adventure, you’ll notice the produce is where it all begins. Of course, this is where you want to purchase almost all of your food to ensure you’re leading a healthy lifestyle. But little did you know that by beautifully displaying those bright colored fruits and vegetables actually creates a ‘strong psychological impression on you’. After picking out your produce you’ll pursue the aisles with a happy hop in your step, as produce is placed at the start of your journey to ensure you’ll continue to fill up your cart. Read More

Photo: Stephanie Vacher 

Have you ever heard of, or experienced, “sensory overloads?” Phenomena like these are no longer restricted to psychedelic artwork or IMAX films. WebMD’s Cari Neirenberg recently discussed a study that suggests that even though you eat with your mouth, your nose may serve as a significant gauge as to how much you will eat.

In the study, ten volunteers were served vanilla custard, while the researchers rigged the setup in order to determine exactly how much the volunteers ate at one time, in addition to how much “vanilla essence” they could perceive through their noses. By picking a relatively “safe” food, the experimental design clearly avoided two traditional biases against sizes of bites, namely that people naturally eat less of unfamiliar and undesirable foods. This alone does not address the subjects’ hunger, which would also be a variable. For this, it should be reasonably assumed that nobody was starving during the experiment. Through this experiment, it was determined that highly concentrated smells (as opposed to “low”-intensity aroma and none at all–the control) resulted in a five to ten percent reduction of each bite of custard. Read More

Photo: Tom Mooring

By: Michele Wolfson

If you tuned in yesterday, you would’ve seen that we started an 8-week health challenge to help you drop those extra pounds and beat stress. Click here for Part I of the 8-week health challenge. Below is Part II of our challenge, with advice for weeks 5-8 of tips to help you lose weight, reduce stress, and live and overall healthier life.

Read on to see how you can live healthier… Read More

Photo: lululemon athletica

By: Michele Wolfson

There are so many different reasons why we struggle with our weight- family, heartbreak, hectic work schedule, a love for ice cream with chocolate sauce- but they all revolve around the same thing: Stress. Tense emotions make it difficult to feel like yourself, let alone lose weight. Often, we make excuses for ourselves like, “I’m going to lose a few pounds once my work load dies down,” or, “I’ll stop drinking soda when the warm weather comes around and I will be wearing shorts.”

Weight, stress and sex are all affected by one another, so this plan addresses all three at once. By making simple changes to your lifestyle one step at a time, you can escape the vicious cycle of stress and start reshaping yourself for the better immediately. Read More

Photo: Official U.S. Navy Imagery

By: Michael Engle

In a recent New York Times article, “Workouts May Not Be the Best Time for a Snack,” Gina Kolata examines the intersection between food and exercise.  Though there are some universal truths in fitness nutrition, most “rules” are, in fact, personal and must be discovered on a person-by-person basis. So what are some good food tips for working out?

A general list of rules of thumb Read More

Photo: o5com

What more can we say about making New Year resolutions, besides the already-said like making goals small and planning out ways to keep them? But if one of your resolutions this year is to lose weight, then here are a few tips to help you attain your diet goals for this New Year.

Instead of starting some daunting and extreme diet, why not take subtle tips and slowly change your routine that can help you shed the extra pounds without the added stress of an intense diet. Try these slow but steady tips for a healthier you in 2012 Read More

Photo: www.iangibbphotography.com

By: Michele Wolfson

Christmas is over and New Year’s is right around the bend, which most likely means that you’ve sipped on far too much eggnog and eaten about two-dozen Christmas cookies. Can I get an amen? If you are like most blue-blooded Americans, you’ve gained an average of 6 pounds since Thanksgiving. Each holiday season no indulgence seems too big and one small cookie here and there doesn’t seem like it could do much harm. Let me add it up for you- That extra jiggle probably came from all of those holiday parties at work and with your friends plus cheerful neighbors bringing over freshly baked cookies and cakes and let’s not forget the highly caloric holiday beverages that we all use to wash down those calorie-packed treats.

2012 is the year that we should vow to eat higher quality foods and consume less in general. In fact, there are foods that can actually help you lose weight while also tasting delicious. Here is a list of 10 flat-belly foods to add to your everyday diet. Some may really surprise you!

Also click here to read our list of Stress Relieving Foods. Read More

Photo: Joe Lencioni

By: Dylan Rodgers

It’s Monday! Many of us need a special something to help us wake up today and get our week going (you know who you are), and what better way to do so than with coffee? Coffee is a, if not the, remarkable-tasting beverage with the capability of pulling people from catatonic states in the morning.  Read More