Burning 100 calories isn't overly challenging -- a 15-minute run here, a couple hours of vacuuming there. But burning 500 calories requires quite a bit more effort -- and anyone who pays attention to the 'calories burned' sign on the elliptical or treadmill knows that.

Shape magazine recently revealed some ways to burn 500 calories:

• Play golf for an hour and 45 minutes
• Row for 55 minutes
• Box for 45 minutes
• Take an hour-long aerobics class
• Do this yoga routine that Bev told us about a while ago.

That doesn't sound too hard, right? And remember, burning an extra 500 calories a day will help you lose one pound a week.

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Yoga? A good calorie burner? Yoga is well-known for the many health benefits it provides, the strength and flexibility it develops, and the mind/body balance it creates, but it's not usually touted for calorie burning.

Fitness Magazine shares a 60-minute yoga routine that can burn 500 or more calories (depending on your weight). The routine revolves around the sun salutation -- each circuit begins and ends with that series. Other series include half-push up, lunge jump, warrior, and chair with twist.

I tried one rotation of each move this morning -- far short of the recommended hour. It certainly does provide a good variety of moves and stretches almost all muscle groups. I can see where an hour of this workout would be great. Try it out and see for yourself!

For more yoga information, check out AOL Health.

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For general health, any cardio workout that gets you moving and sweating is great. But when you want to lose weight in a hurry go for maximum burn.

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Not only will the combined competitors, coaches, and staff at the Summer Games be consuming 800,000 eggs, they'll also be throwing down more than one million apples, 936,000 bananas, 312,000 oranges, and 684,000 carrots. Courtesy of the Olympic food provider Aramark, here's what else the group dining at the Beijing Athletic Village will be ingesting.

• 93,000 pounds of seafood
• 260,000 pounds of meat
• 38,000 pounds of pasta (dry)
• 134,000 pounds of rice (dry)
• 70,000 gallons of milk
• 400,000 boxes of cereal

In total, 28,000 Olympic folks will eat 3.5 million meals. Now, that's a lot of food. Fortunately, most of the crew will be burning their fair share of calories.

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When I took up running, I noticed a few changes to my body, namely:

• I felt taller and leaner
• I had more energy
• My knees hurt like heck.

I'm working on the knee thing, but all things considered, I think my decision to take up running was a good one. Truth is, running does some amazing things to your body, and taking up a regular running routine will do you a world of good.

Not convinced? Check out this article on the great benefits of running. The gist of it? You'll strengthen your heart (thereby reducing your risk of heart trouble later in life,) you'll increase your cardiovascular endurance (so no more huffing and puffing when you climb the stairs from the basement,) and you'll train your body to burn fat as its energy source (and who doesn't want that?)

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If you're into losing weight and transforming your body -- but you don't want to give up your favorite habits and lifestyle, there may be hope yet.

Well, according to Lyssie Lakatos, RD, LD, CDN, anyway. Instead of reaching for impossible goals and crashing & burning on all those fad diets, how about incorporating small changes into your daily life and keeping them permanent?

Instead of limiting calories to insanely low levels (which triggers starvation mode), try upping your metabolism instead, says Lakatos. Getting your metabolism to burn calories in the most efficient way is the answer. Determine those needs, get those small meals going throughout the day (instead of a few large ones) and keep moving -- don't remain sedentary all day.

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Experts are weighing in on the best approach for preventing and controlling diabetes as they consider whether exercise or weight loss is better. Any ideas?

It all depends on a three-pronged approach. And the three prongs are: Diet, exercise, and quality of food consumed. But one is more important than the others for prevention, and one is more important for control of the disease. Place your guesses now.

For prevention, weight loss is better. The Diabetes Prevention Program established that losing seven percent of one's body weight can cut the risk of developing diabetes by 58 percent. Exercise doesn't hurt either, and exerting yourself physically for 150 minutes per week will help you achieved this decreased risk.

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This is a hard concept to swallow: to lose one pound of weight, you must burn 3,500 calories. Now, given that an hour on the treadmill will burn about 500 calories for most of us, it seems crazy that it takes seven times that amount to lose a pound.

But then, do the math: one hour-long session with the treadmill per day (for seven days, which is a stretch, I know) and you have the caloric burn equivalent of having lost a pound.

It's pretty easy to see that losing a pound a week is a pretty reasonable goal, as opposed to the idiotic television commercials that promise 10 times that while still being able to eat high-calorie foods. Just remember: 3,500 calories equals one pound.

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The Mayo Clinic has posted a list of the activities that burn the most calories in an hour. What do you think tops the list? Running is the number one calorie burner, which should not come as a surprise to anyone who runs on a regular basis. What are some other great workouts?

• Aerobic Dancing: 416-533 cals
• Backpacking: 448-574 cals
• Biking: 512-574 cals
• Jogging: 512-656 cals
• Racquetball: 448-574 cals
• Rope Jumping: 640-820 cals
• Running: 864-1107cals
• Skiing, Cross-country: 512-656 cals
• Swimming: 384-492 cals
• Tennis: 448-574 cals

Most of these aren't surprising, but I didn't know aerobic dance was such an effective exercise. What about you?

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It's possible to lose weight by diet alone. But it's much more effective with exercise. Exercise speeds up the calorie-burning process, increases energy, triggers heart health, boosts mental health and according to a study published in the December 2006 Archives of Internal Medicine, exercise strengthens bones too.

Dieting without exercise can cause bone loss, say researchers at Washington University. Female dieters who lost weight by only cutting calories lost 2.2 percent of bone density in the spine and hips, two areas prone to fractures. Tack on some exercise to that diet plan, and get enough calcium too, and you can lose weight without losing bone.

Seems a simple formula to me. How about you?

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It's hard to find the time to exercise, so being as efficient as possible is important to all of us. If you could burn more calories in the same amount of exercise time just by taking a break in the middle, would you do it? Because that's what recent research in Japan found -- people get a calorie-burning and fat-metabolizing boost when they take a 20 minute break in the middle of a one hour workout session, as compared to working out for one hour straight without a break.

Although it does add 20 minutes to the overall workout time I have no problem putting my feet up and catching my breath -- and I'm sure I can find something I can cross off my to-do list during that down time, like paying a few bills or something.

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In an interesting study done recently researchers found that your body burns different fuel during different intensities of activity. During mild to moderate exercise your body is burning mostly fat and some glucose (carbs), but as the activity gets harder that ratio starts to shift to the other end of the spectrum where intense exercise burns almost exclusively glucose and very little fat. This theory could explain why athletes sometime "hit the wall," and researchers hope to figure out how and why this change happens so someday fat burning could be made to continue into the more intense workout sessions also.

This article is confusing and I don't think they were very clear and on their findings. After all, exercise is exercise, isn't it? They make it sound like if you always workout intensely you'll never burn fat, but those calories have to come from somewhere.

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When personal trainers get together and give advice it's usually a good idea to listen. And so here's a list of 13 fat burning "secrets" from some of America's top trainers (I guess they're not secrets any more!):

• Warm-up before a strength training session (not just before cardio). Just 5 minutes can get your blood flowing and give you better muscle contraction and therefore better results.
• Vary your cardio. Switch regularly between 2 or 3 different exercises .
• Use several cardio techniques, such as continuous, interval, circuit, and speed play training styles.
• Schedule workouts in phases, meaning a few weeks at longer lower intensity sessions followed by a few weeks at shorter but higher intensity sessions.
  
• Circuit train, with cardio and strength training.
• Choose strength training moves that work more than one joint at a time.
• Workout first thing in the morning.
• Eat a small balanced meal prior to working out for more energy and more fat burning.
• Exercise intensely. Push the limits (safely) of what you're used to -- break out of the box.
• Stay hydrated!
• Perform bursts of activity throughout the day, i.e. sprint to the mailbox for the mail.
• Journal -- writing, tracking, and documenting both your goals and your progress is a proven way to get results.
• Get an exercise buddy, and stick it out together.

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