Another good reason to skip dessert: Your health. Photo: sxc.hu

Last week, a flurry of studies reminded us that there are a lot of good reasons to stay fit, and not one of them has to do with looking good in your skinny jeans (though that doesn't hurt):

• The first study, from Virginia Commonwealth University, discovered that weight-loss surgery can lead to long-term control of type 2 diabetes. Ninety percent of patients in the study had normal blood sugar levels within a year, and over half maintained that control 15 years later.
• A second study out of Sweden found that women who had bariatric surgery reduced their risk of obesity-related cancers. (Men, however, did not benefit from losing weight.) In the past, obesity has been linked to certain cancers, and this study strengthened the notion that losing weight -- for women, at least -- can reduce that risk.
• A third study found that being overweight as a young adult increases the risk of pancreatic cancer, while being obese in middle age can reduce a person's chance of surviving the disease.

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Have fitness questions? Fitz has your answers. Our That's Fit 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. Hi Fitz. I'm a tall, mostly trim guy, but I have a bit of a gut. My sister's always nagging me about it, but since I'm trim, I tend to ignore her. She says it's worse to have fat on the gut than fat in the butt, but I say fat is fat. What's your spin? Adam

A. Wow, Adam! What a saucy way to deliver a question. I'll do my best to respond accordingly. Here goes: Big bums can be sexy. Big bellies can be lethal. My little scenario didn't rhyme as well as yours, but you get the gist, right? Your sister is correct, pal, and you'd serve yourself well to force that waistline of yours to jump in line with the rest of your trim body.

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We all know that people tend to use time as a so-called "legitimate" reason to eat poorly. Those people never like me much. Why? Because the excuse is lame and doesn't hold water, and I'm fairly upfront about it. The truth: Bananas are quicker to peel than any package can be opened. Apples don't even need peeling!

Cooked food can also be insanely quick. In fact, I always keep giant bags of various frozen vegetables in my freezer so I can toss them in a bowl and heat them in the microwave in under five minutes. Is it gourmet? Not really. Do I care? Hell no!

What matters most is that we choose fruits, veggies, lean meats and whole grains. Those are a few of the things that are vital not only to weight maintenance, but they support a nourished, energetic and disease-free body. If you are hell-bent on eating poorly than just get on with it. But if you truly want to make fitness happen and change your life, you're going to have to kick excuses to the curb.

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I'm training a woman right now who walked through my door several weeks ago nearing 300 pounds. I'll call her Crystal. At her morbidly obese weight, Crystal was desperate to lose about 150 pounds. One goal: To be able to sit on the floor with her kids.

Ever think your weight might spiral so completely out of control that you wouldn't be able to do something so simple? Neither did she. But it happens all the time. Here comes the great news.

Crystal found herself kickboxing with me on my heavy bag that first day. Since then, she's learned an arsenal of strikes and has been more mobile in the past three weeks than she has in the past few years. Could this be you?

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Mushrooms are getting healthier, with all that extra vitamin D, and tomatoes are getting healthier too. Well, the purple ones, anyway.

Purple tomatoes, you ask? Yep. Purple they are in Britain, where researchers are engineering the fruit to contain even more nutrients than we find in dark berries. The good news about this: More protection against the ills that ail us, like cancer, heart disease, and some neurological issues.

Here's how it's all going down: Cancer-prone mice (poor mice) eating the purple food are living on average 40 days longer than animals fed a standard diet. This is even more significant than researchers anticipated and is quite encouraging --- I mean, just by changing specific components in a diet, we can improve health in, well, mice -- but hopefully humans too, although human studies are a long way off.

Something you might consider before getting your hopes about these tomatoes: They are genetically engineered, and this may scare you off if you prefer your food in its most natural state. Do you?

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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. Hi Fitz. My sister lost a bunch of weight recently. She's thirty years old and the weight loss was necessary, but now she looks closer to forty. She's not smoking or sunning, so why does she appear older? Rachel

A. I've heard this before Rachel, so you're not crazy. I've also seen people look decades younger due to major weight loss as well. For the most part, I think people just associate a fuller face with youthfulness. Know many angular -faced children? Probably not. Know any gaunt elderly folks? Yeah ... we all know a lot of them!

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I'm not a big believer in the whole superfood concept. I think any diet that's filled with a variety of healthful, nutritious foods is going to be beneficial.

The other day, however, I got into a discussion with the mother of one of my son's teammates. She's reading Anticancer: A New Way of Life and is really learning a lot. Reviews of this book state that, while many of the recommendations are grounded in science, some are a little fuzzy around the edges. But, in my humble opinion, if a food is tasty, good for you in other ways, nutritionally sound, and may potentially ward off cancer or other diseases, then by all means ... go for it.

The book's author believes that 85% of cancer causes are environmental. The foods we eat are one of the most easily controlled factors. Three of the foods he recommends in moderation are garlic oil, red wine, and dark chocolate. Check out the gallery for more cancer-fighting foods.

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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, My mom has learned that if she doesn't get healthier, she'll get diabetes! She wants to lose weight and all that, but her job has her up all night! She has to get some sleep during the day. Are there any really good exercises you can do in a chair, or ones that aren't too tiring for the days? Please help! Jerry

Hi Jerry. What a thoughtful child you are! You're concerned for your mother and you have great reason to be. Diabetes is a very serious disease, and if she has the opportunity to avoid it, she should. The night shift sounds difficult, but to be honest ... so is the day shift. Mom just sleeps and works at opposite times than you do.

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Love the rich, flavourful, fresh cuisine of Greece and Italy? Eat up! Not only is the Mediterranean diet effective and recommended by medical professionals, but a recent study shows that it protects against all major chronic diseases, according to this article from the Daily Mail.

That's a pretty bold claim, but it seems to be legit. Researchers in the UK analyzed data from 12 different studies worldwide that took place over time periods of up to 18 years and found that those who followed a Mediterranean diet closely had a significantly longer lifespan and a lower risk of diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and heart disease.

The Mediterranean diet is high in nuts, fish, whole grains, healthy fats, fresh fruits and veggies and even red wine in moderation. To find out how you can incorporate it into your diet, click here.

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I'm a bit of a sucker for memoirs. I even read A Million Little Pieces after James Frey was deemed a fraud. (He's still working, by the way. No such thing as bad press, right?) I just finished The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan.

Jacki Donaldson read and posted about the book a while back. But I read it after a new friend of mine recommended it. She recently went through the excruciating experience of losing her mother to ALS while living an airplane ride apart. I am currently going through the same thing.

The Middle Place instead involves dealing with cancer, but the themes involving parent-child relationships, distance, disease, and faith are the same. Kelly, who survived her cancer, struggles with all of it, but particularly faith. She is baffled by the Buddhist truth of detachment, "even to people." She still struggles with faith to this day, several years later. I struggle with it a bit as well and I suspect all of us do to some degree. It's the very nature of faith, after all. It's transparent, intangible.

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All too often, we're quick to judge someone who is obese, labeling them in our mind -- and sometimes out loud -- as weak-willed and lazy. Obesity is a very serious health risk, but as far as it's cause goes, it's considered self-inflicted, or as one author says, 'a moral failing.'

But is obesity a disease? Some of you will say no -- cancer is a disease, eating too much and getting fat is not. Calling it a disease implies that the person affected had little to do with the problem. But according to Divine Caroline, The Institute of Medicine says yes: "Obesity is a heterogeneous disease in which genetic, environmental, psychological, and other factors are involved. It occurs when energy intake exceeds the amount of energy expended over time. Only in a small minority of cases is obesity caused by such illnesses as hypothyroidism or the result of taking medications, such as steroids, that can cause weight gain."

What do you think?

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Forget anti-aging creams, plastic surgery, and time machines. The only thing you need to live like you're 10 years younger is exercise.

Studies show that the most physically active folks show signs of being as much as 10 years younger on a cellular level. How can this be? Well, exercise keeps telomeres long and healthy. Telomeres are the caps on your DNA in all of your cells. Over time, they shorten, stop regenerating, and eventually die. Shortened telomeres cause us to age, and they also leave chromosomes vulnerable to damage, which can lead to diseases such as cancer. Exercise and you'll keep these buggers fit for a young life.

Pretty basic stuff. Exercise = healthy telomeres = younger cells = younger you. Got the formula? Good.

Here, more tips on how to keep your telomeres alive and well.

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Curious to know how celebrities squeeze fitness into their daily lives? Want to know the secrets of the stars? Bi-weekly our That's Fit fitness expert Fitz sits down with the celebs we want to know more about, and digs out their great and not-so-great methods to staying healthy.

Nutrition expert, Elizabeth Somer, and I recently sat down in New York City at the Prilosec OTC round table event to chat about aging without feeling or looking OLD! She tosses out tons of great advice about living well, living long and looking hot while doing it. The interview was fun and her books are great!

View Elizabeth's books below:

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I typically like to address my Stress Less installments to everyone, but this one is for parents of preschoolers who are potty training. That's because I've noticed potty training tends to cause the most stress amongst my fellow parental cohorts. I'm not going to offer magic tricks for how to get your kids to use the potty. But I will aim to ease minds about doing so in public restrooms.

I actually find it strange that parents allow their kids to romp without a care on pesticide laden grass in public parks, identified as such with those handy little flags, but freak out if their child touches anything in a public restroom. Fifty percent of American women won't sit on a seat and they teach their kids to do the same. But in an ABC News test, the toilet turned out to be the cleanest thing in the public restroom. As the subsequent report points out, you're not going to get germs from your backside. You're going to get them from your hands.

There really is little need to worry anyway. At least not about genital herpes or HIV. But you might worry about staph infections. It's possible to contract an infection from potty seats, but it's not as likely as you might think. The bottom line: as long as you wash your hands after a trip to the bathroom, you and your kids will likely never acquire anything by way of the public potty.

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I'm not one to buy into claims that a pill can suppress my appetite or a chocolate shake can keep me full from morning until dinnertime. I prefer natural remedies for feeling full -- like eating healthful foods.

There's another natural way to suppress appetite, says RealAge. It also happens to burn fat, fight disease, strengthen bones, and improve mood. Any guesses?

It's exercise.

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