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How did Shannon Jack Lose 55 Pounds?

That's Fit Club, Diet & Weight Loss, Reviews & Products

that's fit club

That's Fit Club is our feature devoted to you, the reader! We have all learned so much on our paths to becoming more fit, and now it's time to learn from and inspire each other! That's Fit Club members are constantly working to shannon jackbetter themselves. Some are perfect; some are not. But all have health on the mind. Besides showing you off, we want to reward you for all of your hard work! Everlast and Everlast Woman are giving gorgeous workout T-shirts to each featured member! To join, please send Fitz your answers to these questions with a photo of yourself. Time for you to be the motivator!

Name: Shannon Jack

Age: 32

Occupation: Child Care Provider

How often do you exercise? Four to five days a week

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That's Fit Club: Christian Mayoros

That's Fit Club, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness

That's Fit Club is our feature devoted to you, the reader! We have all learned so much on our paths to becoming more fit, and now it's time to learn from and inspire each other! That's Fit Club members are constantly working to better themselves. Some are perfect; some are not. But all have health on the mind. Besides showing you off, we want to reward you for all of your hard work! Everlast and Everlast Woman are giving gorgeous workout T-shirts to each featured member! To join, please send Fitz your answers to these questions with a photo of yourself. Time for you to be the motivator!

Name: Christian Mayoros

Age: 39

Occupation: Computer Systems Architect

How often do you exercise? Three or four times a week.

What type of exercise do you do? Running, biking, and weights.

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That's Fit Club: Janeen Glenn

That's Fit Club, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Nutrition & Supplements

That's Fit Club is our feature devoted to you, the reader! We have all learned so much on our paths to becoming more fit, and now it's time to learn from and inspire each other! That's Fit Club members are constantly working to better themselves. Some are perfect; some are not. But all have health on the mind. Besides showing you off, we want to reward you for all of your hard work! Everlast and Everlast Woman are giving gorgeous workout T-shirts to each featured member! To join, please send Fitz your answers to these questions with a photo of yourself. Time for you to be the motivator!

Name: Janeen Glenn

Age: 35

Occupation: Retail Management and Mom

How often do you exercise? Five times a week.

What type of exercise do you do? Running and working out with exercise DVDs.

To see how Janeen's fitness level landed her a spot in televsion production read on!

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That's Fit Club: Dr. Evelyn R. Wells

That's Fit Club, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Reviews & Products

The That's Fit Club is our feature devoted to you, the reader! We have all learned so much on our paths to becoming more fit, and now it's time to learn from and inspire each other! That's Fit Club members are constantly working to better themselves. Some are perfect; some are not. But all have health on the mind. Besides showing you off, we want to reward you for all of your hard work! Everlast and Everlast Woman are giving gorgeous workout T-shirts to each featured member! To join, please send Fitz your answers to these questions with a photo of yourself. Time for you to be the motivator!

Name: Evelyn R. Wells, MD

Age: 37

Occupation: Physician

How often do you exercise? Four to five times per week.

What type of exercise do you do? Everything, including jogging, running, lifting weights, boxing, kickboxing, yoga, etc.

To see Evelyn's "before" photo, as in "before she lost 70 pounds in one year" read on!

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Find your niche at a custom gym

Fitness

When you go to the gym, you don't want to feel uncomfortable. Working out should be a positive experience -- something that makes you feel better about yourself.

That's why custom gyms are all the rage. Niche health clubs design their services, equipment, and space around the needs of their target demographic. There are gyms that focus mainly on the hard body weight lifters, those that are designed to get you in and out as quickly as possible, all women's or all men's gyms, gyms that are geared to people who are trying to lose weight, gyms for the baby boomers, and even gyms for kids.

While you certainly have plenty of options for fitness outside of a gym's walls, if you're trying to get fit you may want to find a gym that suits your needs. The trainers at the gym can offer valuable advice and the variety of classes and equipment can keep you motivated.

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Study reveals top 10 healthiest drinks

Diet & Weight Loss, Nutrition & Supplements

If water isn't enough to quench your thirst, you're in luck. A new UCLA study reveals the top 10 healthiest drinks, and AOL News features the nitty gritty on the whole lot right here. And guess what? Nine of them are fruit based. Here they are.

  • Apple Juice
  • Tea
  • Orange Juice
  • Cranberry Juice
  • Acai Juice
  • Black Cherry Juice
  • Blueberry Juice
  • Concord Grape Juice
  • Red Wine
  • Pomegranate Juice

What makes these drinks so healthy? Antioxidants, mostly. The more vivid the color, the more antioxidants there are. No wonder so many berry drinks made the cut.

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Ask Fitz! Your Fitness Questions Answered -- A Creative & Calorie Torching Pool Workout

Healthy Habits, Healthy Places, Womens Health, Ask Fitz!, Cellulite, Obesity, Healthy Events, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Celebs & Entertainment, Reviews & Products, Motivation, Alternative & Green Health, Nutrition & Supplements, Men's Health

Have fitness questions? Fitz has your answer. Our ThatsFit.com fitness expert -- and now your own virtual personal trainer -- will help you get fit, increase your overall health and do it in a fun way. Drop your questions here in the Comments section below and we'll choose one per week to publish on That's Fit! Learn more about Fitz here.

Q. Dear Fitz, I love the summer weather, and really want to use the large outdoor pool at my gym. I do water walking and swim a couple of laps, but then I get so bored! Swimming 20 laps in a row is not fun for me. I'm pretty sure swimming burns a lot of calories, which is my goal. Help! Deanna

A. Hi Deanna, I'm so excited to help you, cause I too love the benefits of training in the water. We always hear that it's a terrific workout for those who want to avoid trauma from high impact activities. It also happens to be a fantastic workout for those who want to burn a massive amount of calories! Quick personal story. About eight years ago, while in the midst of a competitive kickboxing career, I tore my right hamstring. This made it impossible for me to do almost any sort of activity that involved any sort of impact. I also happened to be about 5% body fat at the time. I thought there was no way in the world that I could lose another pound. At 5'6" and 114 pounds, I was sitting on my bones. Having said that ... after swimming most nights for three weeks I actually lost three pounds. I was sold! Swimming is awesome exercise!

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Surprise yourself at the gym

Healthy Aging, Healthy Habits, Healthy Places, Womens Health, Cellulite, Obesity, Healthy Events, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Motivation, Nutrition & Supplements, Men's Health

I ran really far on Sunday, and when the time came to go to the gym with my husband on Monday, I thought I'd be too beat to perform. I literally was contemplating stretching for an hour as I walked through the front doors. But then! Then I saw something beautiful to my left. Over the dozens of cardio machines to my side, I saw Tom Cruise plopped down on the couch with Oprah and was drawn over to the treadmills.

Curiosity got my goat, and up I climbed on to the machine before me. Now strangely enough, because of a back injury, walking hurts more than running. So with emotional bricks in my shoes I cranked up the speed to six miles per hour and got going. I swear to you that before I turned that darn machine on, I would have never imagined my legs would take me half a mile. Apparently I was wrong.

Turns out that even though I felt sluggish and was full of doubt, I was capable of running for an hour straight! Isn't that insane? I think so. Listen. I've been in this business a long time, and have made a living out of proving to people that they could do the things they thought they couldn't! Feeling slow, tired, and unmotivated is not unusual. What is unusual, though, is finding the inspiration to yank out your personal best, even under those circumstances.

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Actress Kelly LeBrock will never diet again

Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Celebs & Entertainment, Nutrition & Supplements

Actress Kelly LeBrock, of 80s films Weird Science and The Woman in Red, no longer sports her famous size two figure. She doesn't even sport the trimmed down bod she got on VH1's Celebrity Fit Club -- LeBrock started the reality show weighing 175 pounds and signed off at 144 pounds. Nope, this hot mama -- who virtually starved herself to lose those TV pounds and exercised twice a day to keep the weight off -- vows to never diet again.

While LeBrock may find herself cutting back on a few things -- mostly lasagna with crème béchamel sauce -- when her pants get a little snug, you won't find her striving for size two ever again. She won't weigh herself either.

"I could be like everyone else [in Hollywood] and stop eating," she tells PEOPLE magazine. "But that wouldn't make me happy."

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Ride with the group or go it alone

Fitness

Sometimes, going it alone has great value. Sometimes, being part of a group has a certain appeal. According to those involved with AthletiCamps -- home to cycling camps designed to help riders enhance their performance -- one of the most splendid attractions of road cycling is the feel of rolling down the road in a big collective pack.

What do you think -- ride with the group or go it alone? Before deciding, you may want to better understand the anatomy of a group ride.

A typical group ride consists of any number of riders -- maybe three, maybe 150 -- and typically lasts between two and four hours. Common to group rides is a psychological factor. There's usually at least one person in the group more aggressive than the others, a person who either inhibits or inspires riders.

There are two types of rides, neither of which are races, both of which prepare riders for races. There are training rides, where riders work together on a skill. And there are club rides, where it's not clear who will show up and where a lack of focus can present a challenge.

There's so much more to consider about group rides, and you can learn more here. But the bottom line is this: each athlete's fitness level and goals are unique. For those new to race preparation, it may be wise to avoid unstructured group rides. For those with a little training under their belts, the group ride may be in order. If you're up for it, give it a go -- see how you feel when you're rolling the down the road in that collective pack. I can only imagine it must feel exhilarating.

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Football players forced to pack on pounds

Fitness, Nutrition & Supplements, Men's Health

Imagine working so physically hard you can't keep on the pounds. Imagine stuffing your face until you can stomach it no longer. Imagine being called lanky and undersized, despite the overload of fuel you consistently dump into your body. For some University of Florida football players, this is no lesson in imagination. This is reality.

It seems a bit backwards in a day and age when overeating is taboo -- and terribly unhealthy -- but every Tuesday morning at 7:30 AM, several Florida players meet at a campus dining hall for The Breakfast Club. Their mission: Pack on the pounds. With their strength and conditioning coordinator and nutritionists looking on, these guys eat as much food as they can tolerate. They eat eggs, pancakes, anything to help them gain weight, says freshman Duke Lemmens who weighs in at 240 pounds but still has room to grow.

"We don't really like it but it's for our own good," says Lemmens. "It makes me not want to eat anymore."

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Family Ties star welcomes baby, new body

Diet & Weight Loss, Celebs & Entertainment

You may remember her as Jennifer on the classic TV show Family Ties or as the 34-year old wife and mom struggling to lose weight on VH1's Celebrity Fit Club 4. What you should remember now is that Tina Yothers has made some pretty impressive health and fitness strides. She just had a baby on September 24, in fact, and at her five-month pregnancy mark, she weighed less than she did when she first stepped on the Fit Club scale.

Mom to an almost two-year-old daugther and two sons from her husband's previous marriage, Yothers says, "I was triple this size when I was pregnant with Lilly since I only worked out my hand and mouth."

What joy Yothers must be experiencing. A new baby boy -- Jake -- and a new body. Yothers, who says her weight loss is due to a modified NutriSystem diet and working out three days a week, arrived at a bikini-ready body last October. I think congrats are in order all around.

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Skip the gym -- head outside

Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness

I'm not a gym girl. There's something about paying to join a health club that leaves me feeling obligated to huff and puff all the time. There's also the driving to and from the facility that always becomes a burden. For me, it's just too much pressure. I prefer to do my own thing. I like to walk and run on my treadmill at home, lift a few weights, stretch some resistance bands, hold a plank position for as long as I can stand it, master a handful of push-ups -- and spend lots of time outdoors.

There are seven steep hills in my neighborhood that cover a distance of 2.5 miles. I regularly tackle these inclines. Mostly I walk; sometimes I make a feeble attempt at running uphill. I've also mapped out another 2.5-mile trek through a nearby neighborhood. This is my running route. Sometimes I combine these two excursions into one. Lately, I've been doing a little bike riding with my 6-year-old -- he's new to the world of cycling and has quickly outpaced me -- and on occasion, I'll bike with my mom. I like the outdoors. It seems others do too.

Fresh air is linked to working out more. According to a blurb in the September 2007 issue of Good Housekeeping, people who walk, hike, or bike on trails at least once per week are twice as likely to get 30 minutes of exercise almost every day as those who don't head outdoors. This doesn't surprise me. Fresh air is refreshing, invigorating, and the scenery is so much better than indoors. It's motivating to witness the wonder of nature while exercising. So in the spirit of the great outdoors, I say: Skip the gym. Head outside. And take a stroll around this site for more tips from the folks at Good Housekeeping.

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Fitting in at the gym

Healthy Places, Womens Health, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Motivation, Men's Health

As I write this, I'm literally sitting in a big comfy chair (using my laptop) at the big fancy gym I attend in my hometown. I just finished training by the way......not only here to write. Nonetheless, I'm looking through the gigantic window which separates myself from about 100 cardio machines and I can see about every type of person there is.

The men and women I see range in age from about 16 to 70 years old. I see Caucasians, African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and more. Some of the tushies I see are hard and small, and some are larger and looser. It's AWESOME!

Opposed to decades before where only the uber-fit worked out, now everyone does and everyone fits in. I even see two wheelchairs rolling around the workout floor as well (which I usually do). Wow! So if you're one of the folks who think you 'have to lose weight' before you can go to the gym... change your mind. You heard me. Change your mind!

Beauty salons the new evening hot spot?

Fitness, Motivation, Alternative & Green Health

It's a Saturday night and I just want to go out and relax, listen to to some music, and have a drink or two -- see you at the...spa? Yep, the latest rage in beauty treatments and relaxation seems to be for spa and beauty salons to stay open late into the night, serve drinks, and play music you'd probably expect more in a club setting.

The salons that have joined this craze say it makes for a nice social mix of young "up and comings" getting dolled up before heading out on the town and the older more mature crowd that's winding down for evening. It's not only less crowded at that time, but the atmosphere caters to mingling and meeting people -- beauty salons are becoming the new social hot spots.

Yes, sexy lawyer, come over and talk to me while I sit with foil in my hair under a large dryer that looks like a space helmet. Perfect.

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