A woman had never been crowned The Biggest Loser before last night when Ali Vincent won the $250,000 grand prize for shedding a whopping 112 pounds, the most ever for a female contestant in Biggest Loser history.

Vincent, a 32-year-old hair stylist from Mesa, Arizona who nows weighs 122 pounds, first arrived on the Biggest Loser: Couples ranch with her mom Bette-Sue Burkland -- mom was voted off the show a while back but still lost 86 pounds -- and impressed both her competitors and TV viewers with her dramatic transformation.

Why did she take a leave of absence from her every-day life to work her butt off in front of a national audience? "I want to be strong and healthy and I want to look good and I want to set a good example," she says.

Vincent's inspiring story will be featured in PEOPLE magazine, available on Friday.

Source

Science has shown us in the past that being married has it perks. Those people are more likely to be healthier, and some folks even attribute longevity to their marital status. But a new study shows that being in a happy marriage can keep your blood pressure in check too. Otherwise, you're healthier off being single according to researchers!

Couples who reported a low level of satisfaction, meaning that their relationship could be turbulent, had a higher systolic blood pressure reading than couples that were happy. Those people in a stressed marriage were shown to have blood pressure approaching an unhealthy level.

But a good level of satisfaction helped the blood pressure of those other couples. This seems like common sense to some people, but it's interesting to observe concrete feedback regarding the heart health of stressed individuals. Of course, there's also that one guy who lived to 100 allegedly thanks to staying single (if only he knew that couples who fight together live longer together).

Source

When deciding what to look for in that special someone, you might want to add "healthy" to your list of desired characteristics. A new study has found that you and your future spouse will probably copy one another's choices when it comes to habits like smoking, drinking.

For instance, the odds of smokers putting down the pack were five times higher if their husband or wife had already quit, while others were just as likely to give up alcohol if their spouse wasn't a drinker. The same pattern held true for preventative medicine -- like flu shots, for instance.

I guess that makes sense. Since moving in with my fiance I've changed the movies I watch, the clothes I wear, and the food I eat -- it's only natural that my health habits would follow suit.

Source

There are lots of things that we partnered people do as a couple -- eat out, go shopping, go to movies. But would you ever consider dieting with your partner or spouse? Couples dieting is a trend these days, and a study from Yale University shows that those who tackle weightloss alongside their significant other can have better results than those who go at it alone. Of course, if you're single, that doesn't mean your doomed to fail -- finding a friend to take the journey with you works just as well.

I wouldn't do a couples diet, only because my significant other, Jon, is really quite lean (despite a horrendous calorie-laden diet, the jerk.) But I think dieting with a friend would work well for me. What do you think?

Source

It may not appeal to everybody, but more and more couples are finding both fitness, fun, and a way to release stress in putting on some boxing gloves and letting loose on each other. Gyms across the country are offering co-ed boxing sessions.

Obviously most of the time the guys hold back a little while the women are really able to let loose, but not always -- It depends on the couple. And don't think just because the husbands and boyfriends aren't hitting their hardest that they aren't getting a workout -- they still get to hone their ducking, dodging, and defense moves!

Would you consider doing something like this with your significant other? Do you think it's healthy or harmful to a relationship?

Source

I saw a clip on some entertainment show last night on Joan Collins. She told the cameras that she's against plastic surgery and instead, her secret for looking young is having sex at least three times a week. What a coincidence, because I just came across this article that says the exact same thing.

That's not to say that you should start being promiscuous -- that holds a whole new set of problems, and the study really only connects beneficial results to couples in long-term, stable relationships. Still, if you're in a relationship, here's one less reason to use to 'I've got a headache' excuse, and it you don't have to spend an arm and a leg on fancy anti-aging creams with lofty promises.

Source

Not too long ago we found out that happy couples already exhibit a kind of therapeutic measure on each other when researchers discovered that holding hands can reduce stress. Now it looks like they've discovered new information which reveals how a spouse's personality can affect how their partner recovers from major health challenges.

In the case of their study, researchers watched over a hundred coronary artery bypass patients and their significant others. Once again, it looks like marital satisfaction plays a larger role in the effectiveness of the study. Those who were married to to an anxious or even neurotic spouse reported symptoms of depression 18 months after their surgery.

Those couples in more optimistic circumstances reported fewer symptoms of depression and appeared to have less of a burden in recovery. It all points to a universal truth: even though they may be independent, personalities among couples can manifest themselves in physical and psychological ways.

Source

All the jokes and sitcom situations making light of couples fighting over one or the other's snoring habit may not be so funny after all: a recent study suggests that snoring not only interferes with getting enough sleep, for all people involved, but can also tear relationships apart. And sadly, the two play off each other -- lack of sleep making both parties tired, irritable, and less likely to be interested in intimacy.

There are treatments for chronic snoring, including everything from simple earplugs to more drastic measures like surgery. Experts warn that splitting into separate bedrooms should be viewed as a temporary fix for a problem like this one, and both should agree on a clear "plan of attack" for returning to a shared situation as soon as possible. For many couples, the time spent catching up on the day and visiting with each other while getting into bed is some of the only "alone time" they get all day.

So if this is something you're dealing with, be proactive! Don't let a little snoring action ruin your relationship.

Source

Perhaps The Beatles were on to something with their hand-holding 1963 hit. As far as couples are concerned, holding hands may just be an easy yet effective way to reduce stress. After all, who doesn't get that warm and fuzzy feeling inside whenever someone reaches out to grab you?

A study suggests that married couples who are both happy in their relationship tend to benefit from holding hands under stressful situations (at least from the woman's point of view anyway). After being hooked up to electrodes and subjected to mild shocks around the ankles, women who held the hand of their male counterpart were found to have calmer minds than when they held no hand at all.

Couples who were in the happiest relationships were shown to have better results than marriages rated slightly lower (but still happy). Strangely enough, they didn't scan the brains of the husbands during these tests, so they have no idea how it affects them. This kind of study appears somewhat obvious: any happy couple can list the benefits of holding each other's hand! However, it just proves the saying that indeed "no man is an island."

Source

If you're trying to lose weight, it can be pretty hard to get, and stay, motivated. But what if you had someone around you who could tell you how great your doing, commiserate with you when you're tired of it all, all the while offering ongoing support and encouragement. That would be great, wouldn't it? So why don't you enlist your significant other as a weight loss buddy? Together you can rid yourself of the junk food in the house, and you'll have someone who will remind you that you should be at the gym instead of on the couch. You won't have to prepare two meals - a healthy one and a regular one. Plus, weight loss is a life change, and if you both change your lives, you're less likely to fall back in to bad habits.

For some people, this isn't quite so clear-cut. Take me, for example. My partner is very lean and has no need to lose any weight. But together we can make a commitment to eat better and even though he won't go to the gym with me, I can plan other healthy activities with him, like going on a hike. It's better as a couple and I feel more at ease knowing that he is making the same healthy changes, even if his changes aren't motivated by the need to fit in a certain pair of jeans.

For more inspiration and tips, check this out.

Source