There is, and it doesn’t mean adhering to a strict vegan diet (though that is an applaudable and sound way to feed yourself if you can hack it). The fact is, few humans who can afford to buy meat will steer clear of it entirely. At the same time, those of us who eat red meat in a typically American way eat far too much of it. On average, Americans eat about half a pound of it per day....
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[sidebar]Gingersnap Oatmeal Bring 1/2 cup apple juice and 1/4 cup water to a boil in a small, heavy saucepan. Add 1/4 cup oats, reduce heat to low, and simmer uncovered 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and let stand 2 minutes. Spoon into a serving bowl and sprinkle with 1 roughly broken gingersnap and 1 tablespoon chopped pecans. Garnish with fresh fruit if desired. Serves 1 [pagebreak] Blueberry-Pomegranate Smoothie Put 2/3 cup frozen blueberries (unthawed), 1/2 cup yogurt, 1/3 cup soy milk, and 1/4 cup pomegranate juice in a blender....
The former competitive gymnast, who once trained with Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton, could no longer do a single push-up. An extremely humbled Edington looked around the abandoned warehouse. It was a bare-boned CrossFit gym, the newly opened Fit Club in Columbus, Ohio. It had a few barbells in the corner and pull-up bars made out of pipes hanging from the ceiling. When they drove up that first day, her daughter had taken one look at the building and decided she’d be safer sitting in the car in the parking lot....
Swap out sugar, not the foods you love. Sugar hides out under a bevy of confusing names, so it’s no wonder we’ve become inadvertently hooked on the stuff. Check the nutrition facts and ingredients list of breads, crackers, pasta sauces, soups, and condiments—products that frequently contain excess sweetness. “Then see if you can find alternative brands with fewer or no added sugars,” says Wendy Bazilian, RD, author of The SuperfoodsRx Diet....
Multiple studies have shown people who listen to music while working out tend to run harder, swim faster, or complete more repetitions than their poor, tuneless counterparts. And no, you don’t have to crank quick-tempo party beats. Even sad or emotional ballads can inspire you to spend a few extra minutes on the track or elliptical. The only requirement is that the music invigorates and inspires you, says Costas Karageorghis, PhD, of Brunel University London, author of the most recent study on music and exercise....
Gather your goods. Amish Cook’s Family Favorite Recipes Good news: No fancy equipment needed here. All you need is a cup of coarsely ground coffee (go for a dark roast, since concentrate is all about maximum flavor) and a large mason jar. (Learn what else you can do with a mason jar in theand bring more than 300 original dishes from Amish country straight to your kitchen.) Put your coffee in the jar, add water, and stir....
Researchers examined more than 900 novice runners’ training logs over the course of a year and found that more than a quarter of them suffered an injury. The most common problem: medial tibial stress syndrome, also known as shin splints. MORE: Build The Ultimate Home Gym There are many factors behind shin splints, but one might be that your tissues have to adapt to the new load. When you first start running, your tibia, or shin bone, isn’t strong enough to support the amount of force produced with each step....
Happy 2012! Most of us start off the year with good intentions, whether it’s trying a new exercise program or dropping a pants size. But, it can be a challenge to keep these resolutions beyond January. The problem is that we set ourselves up for failure by setting unrealistic goals. Deciding to lose 20 pounds by February or committing to working out two hours every day is not practical (and it’s not that fun)!...
When it comes to managing the health of my microbiome—the community of microorganisms in the gut—I thought I was doing everything right. I eat lots of fiber and probiotic-rich foods like yogurt, tempeh, miso, and pickles. I try not to go crazy with added sugar or refined grains. And I can’t remember the last time I took antibiotics. (Read these 3 ways antibiotics do more harm than good.) So when the probiotic company BIOHM asked if I was interested in trying their new at-home gut sequencing test ($180 for one-time use or $117 for a quarterly subscription, biohmhealth....
If you’ve never heard of snow ice cream, here’s the gist: Take some snow, mix in milk and sugar (or sometimes sweetened condensed milk), add a drop of vanilla extract, and devour before it melts. Apparently it’s an old tradition, a practice that’s been around for hundreds of years—maybe even millennia! Sounds enticing—and with a few weeks of winter left, there’s still time to start shoveling the snow from your front stoop into the kitchen....
100 Percent Organic All ingredients must be organic–that is, they’re produced without the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, antibiotics, growth hormones, bioengineering, or ionizing radiation. Organic At least 95 percent of the ingredients have been organically produced. Made with Organic Ingredients At least 70 percent of the ingredients are organic. Organic Appears within the Ingredients List Fewer than 70 percent of the ingredients are organic. Only individual components within the ingredients list–rather than the entire product–can be identified as organic....
So is this the year you should vow to find a new gig? With employment numbers still lagging, it’s a task that can seem daunting—but it may also yield serious health benefits. Job satisfaction plays a significant role in overall happiness, with an estimated one in six cases of depression being caused by work, according to a recent Australian study. “Most people know if their job isn’t making them happy,” says Ralph Raphael, a Maryland-based career counselor and clinical psychologist....
Over a 10-year period, researchers measured melatonin levels in the urine of 740 women and found that those with less of the hormone were roughly twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared to those with more. This was regardless of other factors known to increase diabetes risk, like BMI, diet, smoking, and family history. Previous studies have shown that melatonin plays a role in how the body processes sugar, but beyond that, experts still aren’t sure how levels of the sleep hormone are related to diabetes risk....
In a series of four studies, associate professor Meryl Gardner, PhD, and her team at the University of Delaware found that the key to being able to curb an emotional eating habit is being able to look toward the future, rather than dwelling in the bad mood that brought on the binge in the first place. The fact that we usually fixate on a present bad mood harkens back to our caveman ancestors, says Dr....
Thanks to the popularity of TV shows such as Dancing With the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance?, getting your groove on has become more popular than ever—which is music to the ears of women like Diane Fisher of Lodi, CA, who first tried the S Factor, a striptease-based workout, eight months ago and became so hooked she installed a pole in her kitchen. Before trying it, Fisher, 45, thought dancing was simply a light form of real exercise....
Seven months later, researchers used ultrasound to measure fatty deposits and the thickness of the participants’ artery walls. The TM group had a decrease in artery wall thickness, which could reduce heart attack risk by up to 11 percent and stroke risk by up to 15 percent. Artery wall thickness increased in the education group (Stroke, 2000). There’s “very strong evidence from this and other studies that meditation has health-promoting effects,” says Prevention advisor John Astin, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore....
