Perfect Your Posture

It's a fact: slouching can make you look as if you're carrying an extra ten pounds. Plus, poor body alignment sets you up for aches and fatigue. Straighten up and look slimmer with these tips from orthopedic surgeon Peter Slabaugh, MD, of Oakland, California.
Reflect: Study your profile from all angles in a full-length mirror. A slight roundness of your spine is natural, but avoid exaggerated curves in your upper or lower back.
Zip it: Practice the pelvic tilt. Imagine zipping up your snuggest pair of jeans. Tightening your buns throws your pelvis forward and automatically straightens your shoulders.
Work out: Strength training, stretching,and activities such as swimming work your shoulders and back and improve muscle tone for flexibility.

Parents magazine

"You Are What You Eat"

--Carol Iberia
I'm sure that you have hold that old adage. Well, guess what?--It's true! Think about it--the very first requirement for health is a well-balanced diet, which contains all the vital nutrients in proportion to your age, sex, lifestyle and physical frame. Try to avoid all kindsof junk food, refined sugar, fried or heavily processed food and saturated animal fats.Here are some foods that you should emphasize in your diet:

For the overweight body: Eat lots of fresh fruits, yogurt, raw vegetables and sunflower seeds.
For the underweight body: Eat more milk, meats, fresh vegetables and fruits, eggs and cheese.
To have healthier nails: Eat more eggs, whole grain cereals, blackstrap molasses, apricots, liver and almonds.
To reduce dandruff: Increase your intake of what germ, fresh fruits and vegetables, liver, unsaturated vegetable oils, protein-rich foods.
Reduction of oily skin: Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats, whole grain cereals, fish skinless poultry, eggs.
Rid yourself of dry skin: Eat more protein-rich foods, polyunsaturated vegetable and nut oils. You might also increase your daily intake of vitamins A and E.
Clearing up oily hair: Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Increase your amount of lean meats, fish, poultry (with as much skin/fat removed as possible), and whole grain cereals.
Dealing with dry hair: Increase your daily consumption of vitamins A and E. Eat a tablespoon of unprocessed vegetable, nut or seed oil daily.

Sleep Your Way to Beauty

It sounds too good to be true. All those jokes we made about "getting your beauty sleep" weren't so silly after all. Scientific studies now confirm what most of us always wished. Sleep is essential to beautiful skin.
The pituitary gland secretes growth hormone, which is responsible for the cell regeneration essential for glowing, supple skin. Apparently, our bodies are too "preoccupied" when we're awake and active to work on cell regeneration and repair. This activity increases by 300% when we're sleeping, peaking at 1 AM (but only if you're asleep then). At around the same time, estrogen and progesterone--two hormones crucial to healthy skin--are also peaking.

The Science Behind Fat Burning

One of the biggest misunderstandings and “myth-conceptions” in the field of exercise and weight loss has been around the field of fat burning. Aerobic teachers are constantly admonishing their students to work at a slower rate so they can “burn more fat.” Almost all cardio equipment in the gym has a “fat burning” program, and we fitness professionals are constantly bombarded with questions from clients about how to get their heart rate in the target “fat-burning zone.” The misconceptions come from a basic confusion between percentages and absolute amounts. See, at rest, the body is always burning a mix of fuels. All other things being equal, it doesn’t like to burn protein, so that leaves fats and carbohydrates (more technically, fatty acids and glucose). At rest, the “average” person burns about 70% fat and 30% carbs. As one moves from rest to activity, the percentage of fuel coming from fat decreases and the percentage coming from carbs increases. The more intense the exercise, the more carbs and the less fat in the mix, until you reach the point called the “anaerobic threshold,” where you’re going at about your intensity limit. At that point, 99% or more of your fuel is pure carbohydrate and 1 percent or
less is coming from fat. This situation has led many people to assume that in order to “burn fat” they need to exercise at lower intensities. They’re missing the boat. Why? Because while at rest, although a higher percentage of your calories is indeed coming from fat, you are ultimately burning a lower absolute number of calories. At higher intensity exercise, the percentage of calories from fat goes down, true—but it is a percentage of a significantly higher number. To illustrate this critical difference, I often ask audiences to picture multi-millionaire Ross Perot standing next to me. Then I ask them, “Would you rather have 90% of all the money I have in the world, or 3% of all the money Mr. Perot over here has?” When they give the obvious answer, I say, “But why? 90% is so much higher than 3%!” They get the picture. So let’s say you’re exercising at a fairly low intensity that burns, oh, 100 calories in a half-hour. Let’s say that 70% of those calories come from fat. Your neighbor, however, is working out much harder, outside the magical “fat burning” zone: She’s burning up, say 300 calories in that same half hour, but only 50% of those calories are from fat. Now do the math. You’re burning a higher
percentage of fat, but 70% of your 100 calories equals 70 fat calories burned. Your neighbor, on the other hand, is burning a lower percentage of fat, but she has burned up 50% of 300 calories, or 150 fat calories, more than twice what you’ve burned in the same period of time! Get it?