Pinching pennies? Then you might have to switch to diet soda if you're in the New York area. NY Governor David Paterson is unveiling a so-called 'obesity' tax of 15 percent on all drinks except milk, juice, diet soda and bottled water. This means, of course, that a one-Litre bottle of regular Coke will cost $1.15, while a same-sized bottle of Diet Coke will cost just $1.00. It doesn't seem like much, but it can really add up.

I like the idea -- and diet soda is sure better for your waistline -- but is it better for you? The jury's still out on that one.

Will it work? In tough financial times (like now), it just might -- people who are addicted to soda might switch to diet to save, if they can stand the taste, that is. But I suspect those who are really addicted to soda will splurge for their favourite brand, tubby tax or not. What do you think?

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Calorie counts have popped on menus in New York, and they could be coming to a restaurant near you too. Per my earlier post on the topic, we know The View co-host Joy Behar doesn't like looking at calorie totals when she's ordering. She's pretty sure she knows what she's getting when she picks her meals. She doesn't need anything in writing or in her face. You -- all you readers out there -- now, you seem to be of a different mindset. Look at what 106 of you shared when polled on your thoughts about the whole calorie count thing.

• 89.6% of you like calorie counts.
• 2.8% of you don't like them.
• 7.5% of you don't really care.
  
  

The majority of you like calorie counts on menus. I think I do too. Like Joy, I do generally know what I'm getting when I order but like most Americans, I'm sure I underestimate when it comes to numbering the calories in my favorite foods. And since underestimating tends to lead to overeating, I think it's wise to have a little reminder system in place, because if that seemingly healthy salad, for example, comes with a whopper amount of calories, well, then, I'm ordering something else.

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The co-hosts on The View like to discuss hot topics -- please, oh please, let the election be over so they can stop fighting about that hot mess -- and on Wednesday, they hit on the topic of New York calorie counts. You know, the whole thing where New York restaurants must post calorie counts on their menus -- yep, if you're in the Outback and are about to chow down, you're going to be faced with the cold, hard facts about your favorite Bloomin' Onion: 2,275 calories.

The calorie-count mandate was effective this past April, but the buzz is still buzzing: Some like it, some don't, and co-host and comedienne Joy Behar -- well, she's on the not-liking-it side (she doesn't like John McCain either, by the way). Here's exactly what she says about in-your-face calorie counts: Listing calories on a menu is like listing STDs at a brothel. No beating around the bush for this gal. The way she sees it, when you walk into McDonald's you know what you're going to get: Lots of calories. When you walk into a brothel, well same thing, except for the calorie part.

What do you think? Do you like calorie counts? Not like them? Or do you not really care?

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Over the past few years, the fashion industry has received a fair amount of criticism for using too many skeleton-thin models. And it seems they're paying attention and trying to 'beef-up' -- well, if the recent New York Fashion week is any indication anyway. Nian Fish, the chair of fashion designers health initiative is insisting that all models used in the various shows were size 2 or 4 -- not 0 or 00, as was the previous standard. "I think there's progress," says Fish, "The girls are still slim. We didn't want them not to be slim. We wanted a projection of health"

Still, the fashion industry is a long way from embracing curves. "Thin is going to be the ruling look -- until someone says, 'I want voluptuous,'" said Fish. "I don't know if that ever is going to come back." And in London, plans to make models pass a health examination were dropped because of not enough international support.

Your thoughts?

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According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), if you live in Austin TX or Boston MA you might want to think twice before going out to eat.

CSPI has ranked 20 US cities from best to worst using criteria from the city's food inspectors. The ranking considers "how often city inspectors found five major health hazards and five less critical concerns in 30 high-end, medium-range, and fast-food eateries in each city." Hand washing, maintaining food at a proper temperature, and improper cooking are some of the major health hazards. Minor infractions include poor employee cleanliness and hygiene, rodent and/or insect infestation, presence of sick restaurant workers, and contact of bare hands with food.

The CSPI encourages cities to adopt a restaurant grading program similar to a program in LA County where restaurants have to post what health inspection grade they received -- A, B, or C. (Lower grades would result in temporary or permanent closure).

Keep reading to see the CSPI's "Dirty Dining" list from worst to best.

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Powerstrike Forza is a fitness class taught in New York City, but this is no ordinary class. The moves are all based on Samurai sword techniques and it generates quite a workout. Participants work their arms, legs, glutes, and core muscles. According to the Powerstrike web site, participants can burn around 500 calories per class.

Don't live in NYC? Or don't have the $399 to shell out for the class? (Whew! That's pricey!) Self Magazine shows us how to get the workout at home. Just grab anything that's sturdy and a few feet long (for example: an umbrella or a wiffle bat) and you've got an instant "sword." You can also use a bokken (wooden sword for martial arts training).

Self's slideshow gives you eight different moves to start with.

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Are you one of the 1/3 of Americans who live in a smoggy city? Smog -- a heavy, dark fog primarily composed of ozone -- can trigger asthma symptoms, cause coughing, chest pain, wheezing, or even premature death. The top 10 smoggiest cities are:

• Los Angeles, CA. The air quality is slowing improving in LA, but, on average, it still has 90 days per year with unhealthy ozone levels.
• Bakersfield, CA. Bakersfield has an average of 83 days with unhealthy ozone levels each year, as well as other air quality issues.
• Visalia, CA. Lying near Sequoia National Forest, Visalia has an average of 68 high ozone days per year.
• Houston, TX. Nearly 400,000 Houston residents have asthma -- a condition that can be exacerbated by the city's average of 36 unhealthy ozone days per year.
• Fresno, CA. In 2000, Fresno had 87 unhealthy ozone days. Now, the city is averaging only 34 unhealthy ozone days per year -- still high enough to land it in the top 10, but amazing progress.
• Sacramento, CA. The fifth city from California's Central Valley to make the list, Sacramento has an average of 25 unhealthy ozone days per year.
• Dallas, TX. Dallas has an average of 22 unhealthy ozone days per year.
• New York, NY. With such a constant flow of traffic, it's almost surprising that New York doesn't have more than an average of 12 unhealthy ozone days per year.
• Washington DC/Baltimore. Our capitol region has an average of 11 unhealthy ozone days per year.
• Baton Rouge, LA. Baton Rouge averages 11 unhealthy ozone days per year.
  

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Using statistics from such organizations as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Zagat Survey, the magazine Cooking Light ranked the most healthy major metropolitan areas in the U.S.

Some of the cities to appear on the list may be expected, while others may be a bit surprising. Either way, if living healthy is your goal, a good start may be taking up residence in any one of these health-conscious locales.

After reading through the list, you can then check out an explanation for why these cities made the list by clicking here.

1. Seattle

2. Portland, OR

3. Washington D.C.

4. Minneapolis

5. San Francisco

6. Boston

7. Denver

8. Milwaukee

9. Philadelphia

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Highlighting just how hard of a habit smoking is to quit, New York state is running a new ad campaign that features a lifelong smoker. Skip Legault, 48, shares his smoking-related health problems -- including two heart attacks before age 30 -- in ads that will reach viewers through TV, Internet, and newspapers.

The fact that Mr. Legault is still smoking has brought the ads some criticism, but state health officials say that his smoking status shouldn't matter. The whole point is to show people the damage that smoking can do, and how hard it is to stop once you've started.

You can view the ad here. What do you think about it?

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I think that, in most cases, it's almost always healthier to eat in than eat out. You have control over what goes into your meal and can control your portion sizes. New York recently required that restaurants share nutritional information with their customers, and a similar bill in California was recently ignored by their governor. Why is nutritional information such a big deal? Because in some cases, what you're eating is really, really bad in terms of calories, fat, and sodium.

Men's Health recently went behind the scenes to find out why nutritional information is such a well-kept secret. In some cases, what they discovered was stunning. For instance, did you know that an order of Aussie Cheese Fries at Outback Steak House has a whopping 2,900 calories?

It makes for interesting reading. I don't think there's anything wrong with eating out now and then, or even indulging in some cheesy fries, but I do think that savvy consumers should be concerned when a restaurant won't open up about what's in their food. If you have to hide it, it makes me wonder why. What do you think?

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Thanks in large part to their high chocolate and cola consumption (in addition to drinking quite a bit a coffee), Chicago was ranked the most caffeinated city in the U.S. according to a poll conducted by Prince Market Research.

Other cities to appear on the list include:

5- Tampa

4 - Miami

3 - Phoenix

2 - Atlanta

The least caffeineted cities were:

5 - San Francisco

4 - Philadelphia

3 - New York

2 - Detroit

1 - Baltimore

The study looked at consumption of tea, coffee, energy drinks, chocolate, soda, and caffeine pills in 20 major cities in the U.S. by interviewing 2,000 people.

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If you're a guy who's sporting a good size beer belly these days, you may want to consider some measures to trim down. That's because larger waistlines are characteristic of metabolic syndrome; an aggregation of unhealthy physical traits that increases one's risk of heart disease and diabetes.

As if a risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease weren't reason enough to slim down, research from Cornell Medical College in New York revealed that waist size is also a fairly accurate predictor of potential prostate problems. In the study, 88 men (Note: the average age of study participants was 62 years old) who experienced moderate-to-severe untreated unrinary issues symptomatic of enlarged prostates were grouped according to waist circumference.

The researchers discovered that prostate volume, prostate specific antigen level, voiding symptoms, erectile dysfunction, and ejaculatory dysfunction were at increased levels in men with larger waistlines.

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I'm not so sure that I would call it a vacation, per se, but I did recently take a ten day road trip with my husband and new baby to see both our families. We rented a car and went from Brooklyn, New York to Cleveland, Ohio, down to Louisville, Kentucky (my home town), back up to Delphi, Indiana, on to somewhere in Pennsylvania and then back to New York City.

The entire event was mind-boggling. Trying to juggle dealing with an infant, spotty directions, managing an SUV (and gas) and seeing all our friends and family really put a damper on our efforts to exercise.

That said, I did get a few runs in, all of them in Louisville. There is a one mile track all the way around my parents' neighborhood that I ran around over and over and over. It was so repetitive that at one point I forget where I was and thought I'd gone a lot farther than I had; turned out I had just decided to go the other way for a bit of variety. Sheesh.

I knew going into it that it would be difficult to find time--and places--to run on this trip. Since we were spending so much time in a car, which we're not used to doing, we got less time in walking as well. We sat and sat and sat and sat some more. We tried not to eat too poorly but there were times when we had to eat something and the only thing around was fast food joints.

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All the drama from New York City's recent regulation requiring fast food restaurants to post calorie counts on menus is about to come to a head as the deadline, this Sunday, approaches. Burger King, McDonalds, and Wendy's are all openly planning to defy the order and will not be making any changes to their menus anytime soon. And due to a pending lawsuit by the New York Restaurant Association the city won't be handing out any fines until at least October, if the new law is still standing by then.

In the meantime fast food chains say it's not that they don't want consumers to know calorie counts (many of them make the information available voluntarily anyway), but they say that putting them on the menu in print as big as the price would make for a messy, hard to read display that would look like "a bad day at the eye doctor's office."

What do you think? I like the idea of easily accessible calorie information, but I don't know that it needs to be in huge print right on the menu board.

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The Taste of Buffalo is one of the nation's largest food festivals and attracts more than 450,000 people each year, and this year some of the fare will be just a little healthier. Scheduled for July 7th and 8th, the 24th annual Taste of Buffalo has made some healthy changes by requiring all food vendors to have at least one item on the menu that meets pre-set guidelines for fat, salt, and cholesterol.

The idea is not to completely change the flavors of the festival or force people to make healthy choices, but instead to give people the option of trying healthier fare and to show that foods with less salt and fat can still taste good. Some vendors have already been offering low-fat and low-salt options in years past and have had good success, so this year should be no different.

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