Do it for you, and for your life. Looking good for bikini season or showing off the results of those crunches is terrific, but seeing your grandchildren grow up is also pretty fantastic. That’s why, when it’s time to put your Lifetime resolution into practice, you’ve got to make the right choice and diet to live. Read on, and you’ll feel good about doing right by your body!

A balanced diet is a time-tested healthy choice. The best way to treat your body is not by withholding needed nutrients, but by being smart about what you eat. Trimming down can involve a few adjustments, but radical changes, drugs (this includes many “supplements”) and extremes are giving your body a beating, and it will remember, especially if this is an annual ritual. You’ll find that eating well is its own reward, and will actually help fight cravings naturally!

Extreme results can vary from increasing your risk of osteoporosis (and brittle bones even in your 20’s!) and losing your muscle mass, to heart problems and even death. Rather than risk denial in saying “well, that’s not me…” check your habits and find out whether it really is you or not. It’s your choice, of course, but it should be a fully informed one.

First, check the food pyramid. Are you keeping up with it? If you’re not, you may not be getting the nutrients you need. If your particular diet requires an extreme adjustment, like near zero fat intake, very low carbs, or a lot of protein, realize that is going to confuse your body, no matter how short term. Your body always tries to make do with whatever you give it, or handle excesses if you overindulge. Sometimes it will start robbing from muscles or vital organs to meet your needs. As the old commercial once said, “it’s not nice to fool mother nature,” so diets that trick your body may come back to haunt you.

Next, are you taking any appropriate non-diet vitamins and supplements? This is not the diet aids, but just plain old multivitamins and other nutrients your body needs. You may find that, if you’re not getting the right nutrition from food and supplements, your body is giving you cravings which add weight as it tries to direct you to the foods you need. If you can’t find the right fresh foods when they are out of season, multivitamins might be a reasonable answer to keep your body in balance.

Are you messing with your metabolism? It’s a lot more than “fat burning rate,” it’s your internal temperature, energy level, stress on your heart and on the organs that make up your endocrine system including adrenal glands, thyroid, pancreas and more. This is one area where a checkup might help. Your doctor can order tests to ensure that your system is in good regulation - it could be a simple thyroid or blood sugar problem is affecting your weight and overall health. If you’re a diabetic or possibly could become one due to heredity, weight or “Syndrome X,” this is a particularly risky area to mess with by yourself – your body may already be struggling without your interference. In any case, supplements that affect this area could give you unnecessary stress on your body, and since they are usually not prescribed exactly for you, some users find that the regular dose can be an overdose of potent stimulants, and a night of anxiety or a trip to the ER is all you get out of them. If you love yourself, love your body and be kind to it.

Finally, there’s exercise. Yes, it’s time for the gym for everyone stuck indoors in winter, and a good workout feels great. It really feels like you’re doing something, even the first day. This is another metabolism thing, though. A slow start, and looking for long-term results is the way to go. It’s true, very new exercise gadget or technique promises to throw away that outdated concept and give you instant results, but perhaps they are only promising the results that they can deliver, and not what you really need to be healthy. Why just burn calories when building muscle mass (which adds healthy weight!) adds calorie burning muscle to your body? Check with a trainer for more information.

ALL Year, resolve to be good to yourself for the long run. Take good care of your body and your health, and you will be rewarded for years to come, not just for the coming summer beach season. You’ll be surprised how you good you feel when you eat right and take care of yourself, and you might even cut yourself some slack in the bikini department because of it!

Exercises to fit into your Skinny Jeans Skinny jeans are the latest must-have fashion at the moment but many women worry that they will not fit into theirs as they are not as lean as they could be. By following an exercise regime you can fit into your skinny jeans and be able to strut your stuff like you were on the catwalk!  The best exercise to perform to give you thinner legs and lose your saddlebags is the Penguin Shuffle and this is how to do it: 

• Hold the ends of a resistance band in each hand and stand on the centre of the band with your feet hip-width apart. There should only be a few inches of band between your feet.
• Then curl your hands up towards your shoulders.
• Keeping your arms curled, take one step in the to the right with your right foot until the band is taut.
• Then take one step in the same direction with your left foot.
• Continue side stepping 6 to 8 times to right and then reverse the direction and do the same.

By following this exercise you will see results within a week and be able to fit into your skinny jeans in not time! 

One exercise that gets rid of the dreaded “muffin top” over hang is the Plank and here’s how to do it! 

• Lie face down and the floor and raise yourself up, balancing on your forearms and toes, clasping your hands together, align your spine and pull your abs in so that your lower back does not sag.
• Hold this position for 10 to 60 seconds (you will get better with practise and be able to hold it for longer each time) focusing on keeping your torso straight.
• Perform 1 to 2 sets each day for maximum results.
• Admire your fantastic flat abs!

Another way of making sure you fit in to your skinny jeans is to stand up properly, this may seem a little like common sense but you would be surprised as to how many people don’t stand up correctly. Here’s how to do just that: 

• Stand with your back against a wall, keeping your feet at a comfortable distance from the wall, heels together and toes apart.
• Pull in your abs and gently press your entire back, as well as your neck and shoulders into the wall. Letting your arms hang down at the sides.
• Drop your chin to your chest and then peel your neck off the wall, followed by your shoulders, upper back, middle back and the lower back.
• Keep your tailbone and butt against the wall and hang forward for a moment and the slowly reverse the movement, pressing your entire spine back onto the wall.

By following this exercise you will improve you posture and by standing up straight you can instantly shed 10lbs – so will look and feel amazing. Use these exercises every day and in no time at all you will be looking amazing in your skinny jeans. 

Sleep is one of the essentials of our lives, because through sleeping our bodies restore the necessary level of energy and our nerve systems can get relieved from daytime stress and tension. Thus, ‘Are you sleeping enough?’ question is not a matter of curiosity, but rather is a matter of balancing your sleep and adjusting it in such a way, that you can lead longer, healthier and more satisfying life. Therefore, let us try to obtain an answer to ‘Are you sleeping enough?’ question and to learn how the excess as well as lack of sleep can affect your life and health. During the last decades there has been carried out a great number of sleep researches. The results of some of them plainly contradict to each other. However, others provide quite convincing data and arguments as to finding an answer to ‘Are you sleeping enough?’ question. Let us take a look at some of these discoveries.
The majority of us have been taught that 8 hours sleep makes an average sleeping standard. However, some of the latest researches, which involved over one million of Americans, showed that it is not true. Moreover, this research indicated that 7 hours sleep is the best for an average person and that oversleeping can be even more dangerous and harmful than under sleeping. That indeed provides certain alternative answer to ‘Are you sleeping enough?’ question and forces us to revising our conceptions about sleep. According to this research 6 hours sleep is better than 8 or 9 hours sleep. For, people who under sleep an hour or two on regular basis, run lower risks of shorter life span, than those, who over sleep the same amount of time. The research also indicated that people who regularly have 10 hours of sleep a day run 34 % risk of early death versus 17 % among the people with only 5 hours of sleep. A sleep more than 7-8 hours leaves you feel lethargic throughout the day.
Nevertheless, the same research has indicated that constant significant shortage of sleep can also resolve in some health problems. This lack of sleep not only affects your health but indirectly it brings down your concentration level and your work efficiency level as a result. For, in this case, your body may not feel completely renewed and your brain may send signals for refilling energy by other means, such as consuming extra food. Thus, if you have certain overeating or extra weight problems, you may consider it useful to find proper answer to ‘Are you sleeping enough?’ question. Maybe couple of extra hours of sleep will only help your body to maintain proper energy balance.
In any case, scientists agree that people have to get enough sleep, so that they would not feel sleepy during the day time and their work efficiency and output is affected. This could be an easy rule to go by in answering ‘Are you sleeping enough?’ question.

Copyright March 2003 Womenlink

Almost every woman is searching for a new hairstyle! Change is good every once in a while, and we all know it! It’s 2008 and you probably have started your search for new short hairstyles for this coming summer or just some new 2008 hairstyles for winter. We have found photos from some of the latest celebrity events in 2008 to help you find a new 2008 hairstyle.

View all of the new celebrity hairstyles below! Looks like 2008 is going to be a big year for short hairstyles with a bob cut and long hairstyles with bangs.

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