When it comes to getting fit, you know what you should do (hint: move more and eat less—or at least better). It’s actually doing it that can be so difficult. Cold morning? I’m the first one to want to sleep in! My muscles will be too stiff to jog in the park, I tell myself. I know, I know—just get on the treadmill.

If only it were as easy to make it to the gym or order the salad as it is to concoct reasons not to, we’d all look like, well, Jillian Michaels. Which is why we went straight to the Biggest Loser trainer and SELF contributor—a woman who simply doesn’t do excuses—to get her cures for wavering willpower. Keep Michaels’ stick-with-it advice in mind when you’re looking for a way out. Staying the course will come more easily, and so will getting a standout body!

Excuse: “I have zero time to exercise!”
Michaels says: “I feel your pain—my life is crazy, too. But good-for-you habits are the last thing that should go. If you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll have less energy to be that supportive person in your loved ones’ lives. I tell working moms to ask for help. It used to take a village to raise kids; you can’t do it on your own.”

Excuse: “I can’t afford a gym or fresh produce.”
Michaels says: “Commit to a $100 investment in 10 fitness DVDs and you’ll have enough variety for six months at least. You can do a whole workout—sit-ups, jumping jacks, squats—without any equipment. And imagine the cost of taking diabetes meds for the rest of your life—much more than the extra $50 a month you should spend on groceries and fish.” Try this free, do-anywhere workout created by Michaels to get started.

Excuse: “The cookies in my cabinet are calling me!”
Michaels says: ‘I don’t keep junk in the house or let waiters bring bread to my table. I have no discipline, so I protect myself from temptation.” Stock up on some of these 30 healthy snack options instead.

Excuse: “I can’t get up early to work out, and I’m tired at night.”
Michaels says: “When the alarm goes off, ask yourself, ‘Will going back to sleep help me reach my great goal?’ If the workout isn’t attached to a larger reason—like having the confidence to get back in the dating game—it won’t stick.” Got 10 minutes? Try this superfast workout you can do in your living room.

Excuse: “I’ve hit a plateau; I give up.”
Michaels says: “Get selfish! Don’t think you’re asking too much of the world or of yourself. Push through by believing the new, improved you is your destiny. There’s no reason you can’t have it all.”

Excuse: “I start off Monday with the best intentions, and then life takes over and I flake on my workouts.”
Michaels says: “Set a daily or weekly target and reward yourself every time you meet it. I get my eyebrows done or download songs from iTunes.”

Excuse: “I get so bored counting all those weight reps or running.”
Michaels says: “As you exercise, think about what you’re trying to achieve. Having intention behind your actions is extremely powerful. And nothing beats a good beat to keep energy high. I want to die when I don’t have my music! Any song by The Roots totally gets me psyched. Finally, you don’t have to kill yourself to get a workout. Running is one of the best ways to get smaller, but I hate it, so I do only one 10-minute mile.”

Excuse: “But the couch is so comfy!”
Michaels says: “If you need a couple days off, take them. You don’t want to get bitter or burn out.”

Here are the seven secrets to a long life: Stay away from cigarettes. Keep a slender physique. Get some exercise. Eat a healthy diet and keep your cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar in check.

Research shows that most 50-year-olds who do that can live another 40 years free of stroke and heart disease, two of the most common killers, says Dr. Clyde Yancy, president of the American Heart Association. The heart association published the advice online Wednesday in the journal Circulation.

The group also is introducing an online quiz to help people gauge how close they are to the ideal. If you fall a bit short, it offers tips for improving.

“These seven factors — if you can keep them ideal or control them — end up being the fountain of youth for your heart,” said Dr. Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, a cardiologist who was lead author of the statement. “You live longer, you live healthier longer, you have much better quality of life in older age, require less medication, less medical care.”

Specifically, those with ideal cardiovascular health can answer yes to the following seven questions:

• Never smoked or quit more than one year ago.

• Body mass index less than 25.

• Get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week.

• Meet at least four of these dietary recommendations: 4 1/2 cups of fruit and vegetables a day; two or more 3.5-ounce servings a week of fish; drink no more than 36 ounces of sugar-sweetened beverages a week; three or more 1-ounce servings of fiber-rich whole grains a day; less than 1,500 milligrams a day of salt.

• Total cholesterol of less than 200.

• Blood pressure below 120/80.

• Fasting blood glucose less than 100.

The online quiz calculates a score based on the answers, 10 being the ideal.

Doctors say the quiz is a good way for people to get a handle on how they’re doing, especially since people often think they’re doing better than they actually are.

The heart association found just that in a recent survey that showed 39 percent of Americans thought they had ideal heart health, yet 54 percent of those had been told they had either a heart disease risk factor or needed to make a lifestyle change to improve heart health, or both.

With America’s obesity epidemic, weight especially is a pitfall for patients trying to meet these seven health factors, doctors say.

“Many people are surprised to find out how overweight they may be,” said Dr. Randal Thomas, director of the cardiovascular health clinic at the Mayo Clinic.

Lloyd-Jones, also chair of the preventive medicine department at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said, “People I think are far too accepting of their waistlines.”

Thomas praises the online tool for giving people a score so they’ll have something to work toward. It offers advice for problem areas: for instance, advising someone who’s over weight to set a goal of losing a pound a week by burning up to 3,500 more calories than are taken in.

Yancy, the heart association president and medical director of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute in Dallas, said the organization has a goal for 2020 of improving cardiovascular health of Americans by 20 percent while reducing deaths from cardiovascular diseases and stroke by 20 percent.

He said that in the last decade, there’s already been a nearly 40 percent reduction in death from heart disease and a nearly 35 percent reduction in death from stroke. He said those goals were achieved with improvements in treatments and prevention.

Linda Alvarado, 54, of Houston, said she knows how hard — and important — the changes can be. After having a quadruple bypass at the age of 47, she improved her diet and exercise, losing 40 pounds. Recently though, with a new 40-minute commute, some of those diet and exercise commitments have been put aside. While she’s kept the lost pounds off, she would like to lose five more pounds.

“It’s really up to you,” Alvarado said.

The worst kind of damage we do to ourselves over the holidays, says Dr. Oz, is packing on the belly fat which causes inflammation. We’re literally “poisoning” ourselves because the belly fat sends chemicals to the liver which irritates it and sets off all kinds of unpleasant reactions. Our joints hurt, our energy is gone. It is, as he says, a short circuiting of the body.

But there is hope.

Here are the five most important things a person can do to undo holiday damage:

#1 Start walking today.

#2 Tell people. Go public about your goals and get enablers who reinforce your bad habits out of the way.

#3 Sleep. If you sleep the 7 hours you’re supposed to, you won’t crave carbs as much.

#4 Trick your body. Fool yourself when you’re hungry by drinking water instead or eating or eating simple things like mints that “blow out your taste buds.” It works.

#5 Automate your life. Eat the same healthy option for breakfast. Bring a healthy lunch to work every day. Keep snacks like nuts in your pockets, your desk, anywhere that’s in easy reach, so you will never feel hungry. That, he says, is the real key to weight loss.

There are certain “power” foods that we should all be eating more of. Foods that “come out of the ground looking exactly the way they look when we eat them,” he notes.  These include antioxidant-rich vegetables, blueberries, apples, whole grains with lots of fiber and spicy foods!
*An interesting tip: if you eat spicy foods for breakfast, you won’t eat as much at lunch.

There are also food we should start avoiding like the plague: trans fats (processed foods have lots) and saturated fats and anything with high-fructose corn syrup, especially soda. When you drink soda, he explains, it actually makes you hungrier and you end up eating more calories.

Muscle-building exercise is also key to undoing damage, as muscles burn calories even between workouts. This is even more important for women, says Dr. Oz, because we generally have less muscle mass than men.

One other important thing to keep in mind— expect to fail. The main reason we fall off the rails this time of year, he says, is because we think we have to be perfect which, of course, is impossible. If we slip up, we should simply do as our GPS tell us when we miss a street, “make the first authorized U-turn” and get back with the program.

How safe is the water that flows out of your tap? The answer very much depends on where you live.

It’s now easier than ever for consumers to find out what’s in their tap water. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) today released the results of a three-year investigation of municipal water supplies across the U.S.

The research and advocacy group looked at water quality tests performed by water utilities since 2004 and created an extensive database that contains info on the contaminants found in 48,000 communities in 45 states.

EWG also rated 100 big city (population over 250,000) water utilities. Below are the top and bottom results.

Cities with the best water:

1. Arlington, TX
2. Providence, RI
3. Fort Worth, TX
4. Charleston, SC
5. Boston, MA
6. Honolulu, HI
7. Austin, TX
8. Fairfax County, VA
9. St. Louis, MO
10. Minneapolis, MN

Cities with the worst water:

1. Pensacola, FL
2. Riverside, CA
3. Las Vegas, NV
4. Riverside County, CA
5. Reno, NV
6. Houston, TX
7. Omaha, NE
8. North Las Vegas, NV
9. San Diego, CA
10. Jacksonville, FL

If you live in one of the few areas that weren’t investigated, you can get an annual report of what’s in your public drinking water. If your water comes from a well, then see the EPA’s guidelines for those who use private wells.

The results of the investigation raise some concerns about municipal water supplies in the U.S. EWG says 316 different contaminants were found in the nation’s tap water. The group also points out that more than half of those contaminants aren’t regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Establishing more effective source water protection programs and developing enforceable government standards for contaminants would go a long way toward improving the nation’s water supply, according to the EWG.

In the meantime, no one is suggesting that you go out and start drinking bottled water (although, of course, in emergency situations it can be necessary). Experts still agree  that drinking tap is preferable to drinking bottled water. Bottled water is much more expensive than tap, it takes a huge toll on the planet, and it’s not necessarily any safer than tap. “Bottled water is not regulated in the same way as tap water,” says Olga Naidenko, a senior scientist at EWG. “With bottled water, consumers often do not know what they are getting, and 25 to 40 percent of bottled water on the market is simply tap poured into a bottle.”

Knowing what’s in your water is the key. Once you know which contaminants are present, you can find the best filter to get rid of them.

How safe is your reusable water bottle? That’s a question many consumers are asking thanks to a recent announcement from Sigg, the manufacturer of trendy aluminum water bottles.

Some consumers switched to the brightly colored metal bottles in an effort to avoid bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical that interferes with the female hormone estrogen. The controversial chemical has been linked to a long list of health concerns including early onset of puberty, neurotoxicity, and some cancers.

BPA can leach from polycarbonate plastic bottles when it comes into contact with hot liquids and from regular wear and tear. Parents and other concerned consumers thought they were doing a good thing for their family’s health and the planet’s by choosing metal over plastic.

However, all metal bottles are not created equally. Aluminum bottles typically have epoxy liners, which may contain BPA and other unwanted chemicals. In the past, Sigg would not reveal the ingredients in its liners, claiming that it was “proprietary.”

Now, the company admits that the epoxy liners in its bottles used to contain trace amounts of BPA. Sigg says it switched to a new “EcoCare” liner in August 2008, but angry consumers wonder why the company wasn’t upfront about the fact that BPA was in its liners.

Sigg says its old bottles didn’t leach any BPA. But, how safe are they? “It is possible that very low levels of BPA will leach from the bottle, especially when something hot or acidic is placed in there,” says Sarah Janssen, a staff scientist the Natural Resources Defense Council. “As the bottle ages and the resin begins to break down, there will be more leaching. It’s the same process as with any other BPA containing container.”

If you own a Sigg bottle, the first thing you should do is check to see if you have an old liner or a new one. Even if you bought it after August 2008, you still may have an older bottle that was shipped to the store before the company made the switch. The former lining has a shiny copper bronze finish. The EcoCare liner has a dull yellow coating.

If you have an old liner, then you can trade in your old bottle for a new one. Sigg’s voluntary exchange program is available through October 31, 2009. You can pay to have your bottles shipped back to Sigg, or check to see if a local retailer will take it back.

You’ll have to decide for yourself if you want to support a company that wasn’t completely transparent in the first place.

There’s also no guarantee that Sigg’s new epoxy liner is completely safe. “Just because a bottle is labeled ‘BPA-free’ there is no guarantee that another toxic chemical wasn’t used as the replacement,” says Janssen.

Stainless steel is your best bet if you’re in the market for a new reusable bottle or just want to choose the safest option around. “I would recommend going with a stainless steel bottle and avoiding any questions about what the new chemical is,” says Janssen.

In general, all aluminum bottles have epoxy linings and just because Sigg has changed its lining doesn’t mean other manufacturers have changed theirs. “Consumers should be wary of buying any aluminum water bottle as many are still made with an epoxy resin lining that contains BPA and can leach significant levels depending on the quality of the product,” says Janssen.

Luckily there are plenty of safe choices for consumers. Kleen Kanteen, ThinkSport, and Nalgene all sell stainless steel water bottles that are BPA-free and, most importantly, don’t have any liners (so there aren’t any potentially dangerous secret ingredients to worry about).

For small children, there’s a growing array of “sippy cups” made from stainless steel. They’re less expensive than Sigg’s Kids Bottles, but pricier (yet more durable) than plastic versions. Learn more about buying safe baby bottles.

Loneliness, like a bad cold, can spread among groups of people, new research finds.

While a runny nose might spread through handshakes, people likely catch the loneliness bug through negative interactions. A lonely person will be less trusting of others, essentially “making a mountain out of a molehill,” said study researcher John Cacioppo, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. An odd look or phrasing by a friend that wouldn’t even be noticed by a chipper person could be seen as an affront to the lonely, triggering a cycle of negative interactions that cause people to lose friends.

The upshot: A lonely person is likely to lose touch with another person, who in turn gets cut off from others, and both end up on the fringes of a social group.

“A lonely person who anticipates others are going to act negatively toward them finds evidence in their environment for that, partly because they anticipate it and partly because they elicit it,” Cacioppo said.

The finding, published in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, suggests that loneliness is not a character trait, as in “that person is such a loner,” but more of a state such as hunger, which evolved as a cue to motivate our ancestors to go find food.

“We’re fundamentally a social species so we need others with whom we can cooperate and work,” Cacioppo said. As such, loneliness may have been a cue to look out for anyone who might ostracize you, he added.

Counting friends

The results come from a study of more than 5,000 individuals who took part in the Framingham Heart Study between 1991 and 2001. Every two to four years, subjects completed questionnaires that measured depression and loneliness, gave their medical history and underwent a physical examination.

For instance, participants indicated how often during the previous week they had experienced a particular feeling, including loneliness, with four possible answers: 0-1 days, 1-2 days, 3-4 days and 5-7 days.

Participants also indicated friends and relatives, many of whom also took part in the study.

From this information, the researchers pieced together social networks showing connections between each individual and the average number of lonely days for the participant and that person’s links.

Loneliness spreads

They found loneliness is catchy with three degrees of separation. So a person’s loneliness depended not just on his friend’s loneliness but also on his friend’s friend and his friend’s friend’s friend. Participants were 52 percent more likely to be lonely if a person to whom they were directly connected (one degree of separation) was lonely. For two degrees of separation, the number drops to 25 percent and 15 percent for three degrees.

The number of family members had no effect on loneliness scores.

Over time, lonely individuals become lonelier and transmit such feelings to others before severing ties. “People with few friends are more likely to become lonelier over time, which then makes it less likely that they will attract or try to form new social ties,” they write. Such friendless individuals ended up on the outskirts of their social networks.

Loneliness has been linked with various mental and physical illnesses, including depression. And so the findings could have practical implications. “Society may benefit by aggressively targeting the people in the periphery to help repair their social networks and to create a protective barrier against loneliness that can keep the whole network from unraveling,” Cacioppo said.

# Step 1

Drink a mixture of 1/2 tsp. of baking soda stirred well and dissolved in a 1/2 glass of water to relieve the rumble of acid indigestion or heartburn. Drink the mixture quickly and repeat two hours later, if needed. Adults under 60 can safely do this up to seven times in one 24-hour period.

# Step 2

Eat a banana. Bananas soothe the stomach and counteract the acids that can cause an upset stomach. They are also easily digested and can help ease diarrhea.

# Step 3

Drink strong ginger ale or tea, or chew on a piece of candied ginger to relieve nausea. In China, ginger has been used to treat upset stomachs for over 2,000 years.

# Step 4

Drink peppermint tea. The peppermint calms stomach muscles.

# Step 5

Relax. Take a warm bath, lie down and listen to calming music or curl up with a good book. Let go of stress in a way that works for you.

# Step 6

Avoid foods and drinks that may cause upset stomach or gas. Some of these are coffee, onions, milk, cauliflower, chocolate, fried foods and baked beans.

Since we’re not big juice drinkers in our house, OJ usually only makes its way into our fridge when guests come to visit. Even then, it still takes us a few weeks to polish off the carton. I never thought much about keeping the OJ for a few weeks. After all, it still tastes good—and we usually finish it before the expiration date. Then I read this study that showed opened OJ loses all antioxidant benefit after just one week! Seriously? Well, as you can imagine, this led me to wonder if other items in my kitchen lose their health punch over time.

Keep track of how long you store these 4 items. Here’s why: certain nutrients are unstable when exposed to oxygen (from the air), heat (from cooking) and light.

Orange juice: 1 week
One cup of OJ can offer a full day’s dose of vitamin C. But OJ that has been opened loses all antioxidant benefit after just one week. To get the most vitamin C, buy frozen concentrate and drink within a few days. Frozen concentrate is exposed to less light and air.
Green tea: 6 months
A 2009 study in the Journal of Food Science showed that catechins (antioxidants linked with a reduced risk of some cancers) in green tea decreased markedly over time. After six months, catechin levels were 32 percent lower. Make the most of the antioxidants by storing tea in a sealed container in a dark, cool place.

Olive oil: 6 months
Extra-virgin olive oil contains more than 45 heart-healthy antioxidants, but after six months of storage their potency decreases by about 40 percent, according to researchers at the University of Foggia in Italy. Why? Oxygen bubbles in the bottle destroy the antioxidants.

Honey: 6 months
Researchers at the University of Illinois found the antioxidant power of clover and buckwheat honey decreased by 30 to 50 percent after six months. Consider buying buckwheat honey—it generally has more antioxidants to start with.

As you aware about todays living conditions modern era you can understand it’s easy to understand why toxins build up within our body so heavily. All Environmental toxins those found in pesticides insecticides, herbicides, fertilizers, fossil fuels, and also other synthetic chemicals create an elixir of toxins to bombarding us on a daily basis.

Not properly cleaned water, harsh household cleaners, and the prevalence of over-processed, artificial foods also more contribute to the body’s poisoning. For these reasons it is actually sometimes necessary to engage in natural body toxin cleansing to help the body to purify itself and eliminate poisonous waste.

First choice to eat well is a beneficial first step in the whole process of toxin cleansing. To truly purge the body’s waste and also to support the cleansing systems (the lymphatic system, liver, intestines and blood), organic food choices are vital. Along with the consuming primarily organic, whole foods, it is even also wise to include food choices that known for their natural detoxification effects.

A few of these organic and detoxifying foods include:

* Broccoli
* Other cruciferous vegetables (cauliflower, asparagus, etc.)
* Green vegetables
* Fruits (berries and apples)
* Onions
* Garlic
* Lemons
* Broccoli sprouts
* Liquids (green tea, pure water and algae drinks rich in enzyme)

You lock your front door to ward off intruders, carry an umbrella when the forecast calls for rain and sock a bit of money into savings each month “just in case.” When it comes to protecting yourself from cancer, there are other easy, everyday things you can do to help reduce your chances of falling into harm’s way.

By following these cancer-fighting commandments, as well as a healthy diet, researchers tell us you can significantly lower your cancer risk today, and every day. Just as beneficial, you’ll replace the fear of putting your health at risk with the sense of power that comes from taking steps to safeguard it.

Break a sweat.

Need motivation to unstick yourself from the sofa? Being sedentary increases levels of circulating estrogen (a risk factor for breast cancer) and insulin, which may cause healthy and unhealthy cells lining the colon to multiply faster, research finds. You don’t need to be a gym rat to claim the benefits of breaking a sweat. Take a cue from Scrubs star Sarah Chalke, who made a concerted effort to live healthfully after losing her aunt to melanoma. “I mix in hikes and long walks to keep my workouts from feeling repetitive,” Chalke says. Jaunts with Lola, her chocolate Lab, also keep Chalke out and about. “She’s the best fitness partner. Even when I feel unmotivated, I know I can’t let her down.” My golden retriever, Jenny, has the same mobilizing effect on me! No furry friend? Pinpoint any heart-pumper that rings your bell, whether swimming, Spinning or just putting one foot in front of the other and pledge to be active for about 30 minutes a day five days a week to lower your cancer risk, as well as your weight.

Watch your drinks.

Raise a glass, by all means—just not every night! Any more than one tipple a day can up your risk of breast cancer, colorectal and oral cancer, according to studies. When you do have a libation, you may want to make it red wine (I love Pinot Noir). The studies suggest that the resveratrol in red vino inhibits the way your body metabolizes estrogen, preventing cancer cells from developing. Cheers!

Kick the sticks.

You know that smoking is like sending an invitation to lung cancer, but puffing can also make you a target for at least a dozen other varieties of the disease. Smoking endangers not only your lungs, but your mouth, nose, sinuses, throat, larynx, esophagus, digestive system, pancreas, kidney, bladder, cervix, colon and even your bone marrow, plus every other organ (just writing that list made me a little out of breath). Need I say more? Butts out!

Cut back on beef.

If you’re like me, sometimes nothing but a juicy burger will do, but new research tells us limiting red meat consumption can lower your cancer risk. The kind of iron contained in it may harm the colon, say researchers, and processed meats such as bacon and hot dogs contain cancer-causing nitrates. Stop at two 8-ounce servings of red meat a week to help stay in the clear. And whether you’re cooking beef, chicken or fish, don’t let it linger too long on the grill. Research suggests charring your food can turn amino acids and other substances in the meat into cancer-causing compounds, so avoid the burnt bits!

Chill out.

While no studies have shown that stress causes cancer, high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, may prevent a key gene from suppressing tumor growth, a study in the journal Genes, Chromosomes & Cancer found. Anxiety can also make you more likely to turn to other risky behaviors such as drinking and smoking. And new research shows that feeling optimistic and happy can help defend women against breast cancer. One way to get those nothing-can-bring-you-down vibes flowing? Having a dependable way to decompress. (See: Destress in Mere Minutes.) For me, that’s usually going outside to walk, jog or bike in my city’s beautiful parks. To mellow out when you’re angsty, try a few minutes of deep breathing, a hobby that involves repetitive motion such as knitting, or even a quick roll in the hay. Or try one of these creative calmers.