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.”

# 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)

Artificial Sweeteners: How Bad Are Saccharin, Aspartame?

Too much sugar will make you fat, but too much artificial sweetener will … do what exactly? Kill you? Make you thinner? Or have absolutely no effect at all? This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to ban cyclamate, the first artificial sweetener prohibited in the U.S., and yet scientists still haven’t reached a consensus about how safe (or harmful) artificial sweeteners may be. Shouldn’t we have figured this out by now?

The first artificial sweetener, saccharin, was discovered in 1879 when Constantin Fahlberg, a Johns Hopkins University scientist working on coal-tar derivatives, noticed a substance on his hands and arms that tasted sweet. No one knows why Fahlberg decided to lick an unknown substance off his body, but it’s a good thing he did. Despite an early attempt to ban the substance in 1911 - skeptical scientists said it was an “adulterant” that changed the makeup of food - saccharin grew in popularity, and was used to sweeten foods during sugar rationings in World Wars I and II. Though it is about 300 times sweeter than sugar and has zero calories, saccharin leaves an unpleasant metallic aftertaste. So when cyclamate came on the market in 1951, food and beverage companies jumped at the chance to sweeten their products with something that tasted more natural. By 1968, Americans were consuming more than 17 million pounds of the calorie-free substance a year in snack foods, canned fruit and soft drinks like Tab and Diet Pepsi.

But in the late 1960s, studies began linking cyclamate to cancer. One noted that chicken embryos injected with the chemical developed extreme deformities, leading scientists to wonder if unborn humans could be similarly damaged by their cola-drinking mothers. Another study linked the sweetener to malignant bladder tumors in rats. Because a 1958 congressional amendment required the FDA to ban any food additive shown to cause cancer in humans or animals, on Oct. 18, 1969, the government ordered cyclamate removed from all food products.

Saccharin became mired in controversy in 1977, when a study indicated that the substance might contribute to cancer in rats. An FDA move to ban the chemical failed, though products containing saccharin were required to carry warning labels. In 2000, the chemical was officially removed from the Federal Government’s list of suspected carcinogens.

In 1981, the synthetic compound aspartame was approved for use, and it capitalized on saccharin’s bad publicity by becoming the leading additive in diet colas. In 1995 and 1996, misinformation about aspartame that linked the chemical to everything from multiple sclerosis to Gulf War syndrome was widely disseminated on the Internet. While aspartame does adversely effect some people - including those who are unable to metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine - it has been tested more than 200 times, and each test has confirmed that your Diet Coke is safe to drink. Nor have any health risks been detected in more than 100 clinical tests of sucralose, a chemically altered sugar molecule found in food, drinks, chewing gum and Splenda.

The fear-mongering and misinformation plaguing the faux-sweetener market seems to be rooted in a common misconception. No evidence indicates that sweeteners cause obesity; people with weight problems simply tend to eat more of it. While recent studies have suggested a possible link between artificial sweeteners and obesity, a direct link between additives and weight gain has yet to be found. The general consensus in the scientific community is that saccharin, aspartame and sucralose are harmless when consumed in moderation. And while cyclamate is still banned in the U.S., many other countries still allow it; it can even be found in the Canadian version of Sweet’n Low. Low-calorie additives won’t make you thinner or curb your appetite. But they help unsweetened food taste better without harming you. And that’s sweet enough.

Whatever happened to just enjoying good food, in moderation, without guilt? These global tricks reveal it’s possible, and show you how.

1. Stop eating before you’re full.

The Okinawans, whose average BMI is 21.5 for those who eat a traditional diet, call this hara hachi bu, or eating till you’re 80 percent full. Of course, we’re not suggesting that you leave the table hungry. But eating until the buttons pop stretches the stomach by about 20 percent each time you do it, so you inevitably need more food to feel satisfied, explains Bradley Willcox, MD, co-author of The Okinawa Diet Plan. He says that putting your fork down “when you feel that first twinge of fullness” gives your brain a chance to realize that you are full before you overdo it.

2. Drizzle on the healthy oils.

Healthy fats like olive oil, a staple of the Mediterranean diet, and canola oil, a staple of Okinawans, make vegetables tastier, so you’re likely to eat more of them. And, as we know, eating a diet rich in produce is key to maintaining a healthy weight.

3. When you’re eating, just eat.

No other culture multitasks meals the way Americans do with our TV dinners, fast-food drive-throughs and grab-’n-go food that’s designed to fit into a car cup holder and be eaten with one hand. In Japan, it’s considered rude to eat while walking. And you’ll never catch the French gulping coffee in the car. “In France, there are no car cup holders because you don’t drink coffee while driving,” explains Will Clower, PhD, author of The Fat Fallacy: The French Diet Secrets to Permanent Weight Loss. “Eating and drinking aren’t errands. It’s not what you do on the way to something else.” Good advice. When you’re distracted by work, traffic or the TV, you’re apt to overeat without even realizing it, notes Dean Ornish, MD, author of Eat More, Weigh Less. “If you really pay attention to what you’re eating, you enjoy it more fully and don’t need as much food.”

4. Get moving.

People in Asian countries, France and the Mediterranean tend to be slim because they’re more active. Not that they spend hours at the gym; they simply walk a lot.

5. Enjoy regular meals.

One reason French women don’t get fat is because French women eat three meals a day. You may think skipping meals cuts calories, but all it does is evoke a primal “fear of hunger response” that causes overeating later, explains Dr. David Katz, MD, author of The Way to Eat. “Throughout most of our history, we had too little to eat. So when you go for long periods without eating, you stir up all that native programming, which says eat like crazy when you can, because all too often you can’t.” Start with breakfast. Studies show that breakfast-eaters are slimmer than skippers.

6. Dine with others.

Eating with family or friends vs. alone in your car, at your desk or on the couch is part and parcel of traditional cultures. Not only does camaraderie make the meal more enjoyable, it’s slimming. “Eating with others restrains your own behavior,” notes Dr. Katz. “You eat more slowly, which increases the likelihood that you’ll register when you’re full before you’ve eaten more than you should.”

7. Chow down only when you’re hungry.

Americans eat for all sorts of reasons besides hunger, especially from boredom, loneliness, stress or fear, a foreign concept in other cultures. “You can’t make food the solution to every issue in your life and expect to be thin,” says Dr. Katz. “If you eat from boredom, find a hobby. If you eat to relieve stress, learn meditation or yoga.”

8. Have a glass of wine.

A staple of French and Mediterranean tables, wine adds joy to the meal, and because it contains potent antioxidants, is at least partly responsible for why these cultures traditionally have lower rates of cardiovascular disease and mortality despite their higher-fat diets. And while some studies show that we tend to eat more when we drink, a Finnish study actually found that male drinkers were leaner than abstainers.

Sorry coffee lovers — downing a few cups of coffee throughout the day may spark alertness, but it’s unlikely to protect the aging brain from mental decline or dementia, according to researchers from Finland.

Some studies have suggested that coffee has a protective effect on brain function in old age, while others have not shown this association.

One of the latest studies on the topic, which appears in the September issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found no association between coffee consumption and declining cognition or dementia scores in either men or women.

Dr. Venla S. Laitala, at the University of Helsinki, and colleagues assessed the coffee drinking habits, as well as other social, demographic, and health data, of a large population of twin pairs who were 50 years old on average.

At this point in time, 75 percent of the men and 83 percent of the women drank more than 3 cups of coffee a day. Only 4 of men and about 1 percent of women reported no daily coffee consumption.

When the group was just over 74 years on average, the investigators conducted telephone interviews in 2,606 of the study participants (48 percent women) to specifically screen for declining cognition and dementia.

They found that each year of increasing age was associated with declines in thinking abilities, regardless of gender.

However, in this study, middle-age coffee consumption was not protective against “cognitive decline or preventive against dementia,” Laitala told Reuters Health in an email correspondence.

As expected, heart disease, diabetes and dissatisfaction with life were significantly associated with lower cognitive performance, the researchers report.

Therefore, Laitala’s team suggests further investigations concentrate on the role heart disease, diabetes, and life satisfaction play in altered and age-related thinking and analytic abilities.

Added sugars, which are sprinkled on and processed into packaged foods and beverages, have become all too common in the American diet, says the American Heart Association. The group argues that sugar bingeing is helping drive the uptick in metabolic changes in the American population, including the exploding obesity rate, and has now recommended an upper limit on daily consumption. Women should consume no more than 100 calories per day of added sugars, and men should not top 150 calories per day. There goes the soda habit: One 12-ounce can contains about 8 teaspoons or about 33 grams of added sugar, which equals approximately 130 calories, notes the AHA. One gram of sugar serves up 4 calories, according to the American Dietetic Association. Too much sugar causes wrinkles.

With math like that, it’s not surprising that the average American rings up an average of 22.2 teaspoons, or 355 calories per day, of added sugars, mostly from sugar-sweetened beverages. But those who shun sweet-tasting drinks are not off the hook. Part of the challenge of avoiding added sugars, argues the AHA, is that they have become far more prevalent over time; the amount of added sugars in Americans’ food options increased 19 percent between 1970 and 2005.

Here are 11 sneaky dietary sources that are surprisingly high in added sugars. The per-serving figures allow you to calculate your own added sugar intake, both in grams and calories, if you use more or less.

1. Fortune cookies. Just one fortune cookie packs about 3.6 grams of added sugar.

2. Flavored booze. Exercise good judgment when you drink: One ounce of crème de menthe has 14 grams of added sugar; 53-proof coffee-flavored liqueur has 16 grams of added sugar per ounce.

3. Baked beans. A one-cup serving of canned baked beans with no salt added will cost you nearly 15 grams of added sugar.

4. Dried, sweetened cranberries. Without the sweetener, this fruit can be incredibly tart. But one serving-a third of a cup-of this treat will hit you with 25 grams of added sugar.

5. Ketchup. A favorite condiment, a single one-cup serving of regular-or low sodium-ketchup racks up nearly 40 grams of added sugar.

6. Cream substitutes. A one-cup serving of a liquid “light” cream substitute packs 22 grams of added sugar, while a one-cup serving of a powdered “light” cream substitute adds a whopping 69 grams.

7. BBQ sauce. A one-cup serving of this summertime favorite adds 9 grams of added sugar onto those ribs and chicken.

8. “Reduced” salad dressings. A one-cup serving of reduced-calorie French dressing heaps 58 grams of added sugar, and a one-cup serving of reduced-fat coleslaw dressing hits a home run with 103 grams of added sugar.

9. Lemonade. A cup of lemonade powder has a massive 200 grams of added sugar. A single serving of the drink has almost 17 grams of added sugar.

10. Flavored popcorn. Think the added sweetener can’t be that bad here? Fat-free-syrup caramel popcorn has 18 grams of added sugar per ounce serving.

11. Granola bars. Often deemed a healthful snack, some are tricky-a 1-ounce serving of a granola bar with oats, fruit, and nuts has 11 grams of added sugar.

A new study finds obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than normal-weight individuals. Their brains look 16 years older than the brains of lean individuals, researchers said today.

Those classified as overweight have 4 percent less brain tissue and their brains appear to have aged prematurely by 8 years.

The results, based on brain scans of 94 people in their 70s, represent “severe brain degeneration,” said Paul Thompson, senior author of the study and a UCLA professor of neurology.

“That’s a big loss of tissue and it depletes your cognitive reserves, putting you at much greater risk of Alzheimer’s and other diseases that attack the brain,” said Thompson. “But you can greatly reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s, if you can eat healthily and keep your weight under control.”

The findings are detailed in the online edition of the journal Human Brain Mapping.

Obesity packs many negative health effects, including increased risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and some cancers. It’s also been shown to reduce sexual activity.

More than 300 million worldwide are now classified as obese, according to the World Health Organization. Another billion are overweight. The main cause, experts say: bad diet, including an increased reliance on highly processed foods.

Obese people had lost brain tissue in the frontal and temporal lobes, areas of the brain critical for planning and memory, and in the anterior cingulate gyrus (attention and executive functions), hippocampus (long-term memory) and basal ganglia (movement), the researchers said in a statement today. Overweight people showed brain loss in the basal ganglia, the corona radiata, white matter comprised of axons, and the parietal lobe (sensory lobe).

“The brains of obese people looked 16 years older than the brains of those who were lean, and in overweight people looked 8 years older,” Thompson said.

Obesity is measured by body mass index (BMI), defined as the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters. A BMI over 25 is defined as overweight, and a BMI of over 30 as obese.

The research was funded by the National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Center for Research Resources, and the American Heart Association.

What exactly is the Glycemic Index? In 1981, professor of nutrition, Dr. David Jerkins was looking at how different carbohydrate-rich foods affected blood sugar levels in people with diabetes and discovered that, contrary to popular belief, many starchy foods affected blood sugar levels quite dramatically, while some sugary foods had little effect. From his research, he developed a scale called the Glycemic Index (GI), which simply ranked foods based on the effect they had on blood sugar levels.

Foods that have only a slow, small effect on blood sugar have a low GI value, while those causing a rapid and massive rise in blood sugar have a high GI value.

Low GI value slowly release sugar into the blood, providing you with a steady supply of energy, leaving you feeling satisfied longer so that you’re less likely to snack. In contrast, foods with a high GI value cause a rapid - but short-lived - rise in blood sugar. This leaves you lacking in energy and feeling hungry within a short time.

In general, most nutritionists and dietitians are supportive of the basic principles of the GI diet, which emphasizes low GI foods. They do, however, believe that you shouldn’t get too hung up about avoiding all high GI foods because when foods are eaten together in a meal, they can have a very different GI value to the individual foods it contains.

The best time to choose high GI foods is after extended periods of exercise lasting more than 30 minutes. At this point, the body needs the extra kick in blood sugar.

I believe information about choosing foods based on the Glycemic Index will become common house hold knowledge in the future. Try it out for a few days and see how you feel. See the Glycemic Index list below to get started:

LOW GI (>55)
Beans
Legumes & Lentils
Barley
Berries
Dairy
Fruit (most - see high GI for exceptions)
Lentils
Nuts
Oatmeal (slow cook)
Vegetables (above ground)
Wild Rice
Yogurt
Quinoa***
Hemp hearts***
Goji berries***

MODERATE GI (56-69)
Bran Cereals
Bananas (under-ripe)
Beans (canned)
Buckwheat
Cantaloupe
Grapes
Oatmeal (regular)
Peas
Pineapple (mod to high)
Popcorn
Rice (brown)
Rye
Sweet Potatoes
Whole Grain Bread
Whole Wheat Pasta
Yams

HIGH GI (70-100)
Bagels
Bananas (ripe)
Baked Goods
Breakfast Cereals
Corn
Crackers
Dates
Pop
Raisins
Rice Cakes
Steamed white rice
Root Vegetables (ie: potatoes, carrots and beets)
Sugar
Sport Drinks
Water melon
White Flour