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Working out at home is a great way to get fit -- no gym memberships or expensive trainers necessary, just the great outdoors, your garage, even your living room floor. And don't think you need to shell out a load of cash on DVDs to whip your body into shape. CafeMom says there are free exercise videos all over the Internet.

CafeMom names Exercise TV as a favorite for videos featuring quality moves taught by certified fitness professionals. Whether you want rock-hard abs or a strong and sexy shape, you'll find plenty of inspirational tutorials here.

That's Fit blogger and certified Pilates instructor Lisa Johnson made the CafeMom cut, too, for this core-strengthening Pilates video. "She makes it look so easy and has such good form," says Cafe Cynthia.

You'll want to be careful when shopping for exercise videos online, though, because there's no way to tell for sure if "instructors" are certified or not, and you may end up with unsafe advice. Check with a fitness professional or your doctor if you have any doubts about the information streaming across your computer screen.

This treadmill workout is one you might want to avoid.

Photo: Caitlinator, Flickr

We talked recently about the eScale (a pricey little gadget that lets you monitor your weight on the Internet), and CafeMom is talking about using the Internet to track the steps you're taking on your walks and runs.

BeWell Miles offers a free "Map Your Route" feature that allows you to plug in your zip code, landmark, city or full address for a quickly-generated map of your area. Click on your starting point (a pink marker will appear) and keep clicking along your course until you reach your finish line. The whole time you're clicking, you'll see an updated total miles counter in the bottom left corner. Play around until you find the perfect path, and then get yourself out for a workout.

When you're done plotting, you can save your work, and you can even make it public. Might be a good way to motivate friends to pound the pavement -- map out a journey and invite them to check it out.

Or better yet, work out directions that have you meeting a buddy at a mutual destination. Fitness friends can make workouts a whole lot more fun.

Given the current economic climate, you're probably trying to pinch your pennies a bit more than usual. But that doesn't mean your healthy habits should suffer -- you can still find great workout inspiration without having to spend tons of money. How? With all the thousands of free fitness videos available on the internet. As the "LA Times" points out, there's no reason why you should be paying for advice when there's so much of it available for nothing. Some recommendations?

• Our friends at "Fitsguar" recommend BeYOU.tv, which offers free full-length DVDs covering activities like yoga and Tai Chi.
• Exercise.tv is always a handy, comprehensive source.
• "Fitness" magazine's website offers lots of great tips for the fitness enthusiast.
• Spark People not only has ton of fitness videos, but they have great calorie counting resources too.
• And, of course, our in-house fitness expert Fitz offers tons of great advice in her Fit Kicks Videos.

There -- your lack of money excuse is busted, so get moving!

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Turn your social network (and what many people consider a bad habit or even an addiction) into something positive and motivational: Twitter your way to weight loss!

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Bethany announced on May 22 that Google has launched its own health information service. Called Google Health, this internet-based system allows individuals to store and manage their personal health details in one convenient location. Privacy issues aside -- who knows how many crafty folks will tap into your confidential matters -- Google Health might just work for you. And here is exactly how it works.

Log In -- If you already have a Google account, you won't need to sign up for anything. Just log in. If you don't have an account, you'll need to create one. Then you can begin building your profile.

Add Information -- This is the hard part. Gather your paper records, prescription receipts, lab test results, and other important documents and start creating your profile. Be sure to include all conditions, procedures, and allergies here.

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As far more learned people than I have stated, we are drowning in information but starving for knowledge. The Internet has opened up almost limitless possibilities for the inquisitive mind, making it a wellspring of instant answers but also a highly attractive distraction.

With all its bells and whistles, the lure of finding yet another celebrity website or a quick read of someone's snarky comments on growing trends in fashion can sometimes be enough to keep some people from more important, real life activities. Choosing between watching a new StrongBad Email clip and making it to the gym in time before it closes can sometimes be a very real dilemma ... for me ... ahem. Damn it, I hate it when the truth accidentally spills out of me. I wish that Bill Gates could invent something -- a single key or mouse movement, perhaps -- that allows you to delete what you wish you hadn't written ;)

Fortunately, one major benefit of the Internet is having a breadth of fitness knowledge right at your fingertips. Besides That's Fit, there are a number of other great sites out there from which you can choose to learn about everything from diet and nutrition to yoga, strength training, and interval training. One site that I find particularly helpful is 5min.com, which offers a wide variety of instructional videos, all designed to teach you a lesson in 5 minutes or less. Insofar as fitness is concerned, you can find a number of great video tutorials on just about anything you can think of.

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Anyone who's contemplating suicide needs help. They need someone to help them realize that whatever difficulties they're facing, they aren't trapped. They can get through their problems with someone by their side. Most teens who have attempted suicide state that they didn't really want to die, they were just trying to escape from a situation that seemed unresolvable at the time.

But if someone turns to the Internet for help, researchers from the UK's University Bristol, Oxford and Manchester have discovered that they're likely to get the wrong kind of help. The researchers entered a dozen suicide-related search terms into four Internet search engines to see what results they would get. They used the first 10 sites from each search for a total of 480 web sites. Out of those sites, only 13% were geared toward suicide prevention. Only 59 sites strongly discouraged suicide. The remaining sites offered information on suicide methods -- not the type of information that someone who is contemplating suicide needs to read.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please seek help immediately. See a counselor, talk to a trusted adult, visit your religious leader, or call a suicide crisis line (1-800-442-HOPE) or your local emergency number (911).

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There's really no big secret to losing weight and keeping it off. Burn more calories than you consume and you'll see what I mean. Eating a healthy diet, exercising well, minimizing stress, and getting enough sleep will help your cause. So will another factor, according to this LA Times article.

The Internet may help you lose weight -- you're using the Internet right now, after all, and look at the wealth of diet and weight loss information That's Fit has to offer. But communicating with real people is just as important.

According to a 30-month multi-center study conducted at Duke University Medical Center and three other research institutions, participants in a personal-contact support group gained back 8.8 pounds of the 18.7 they lost. Those in an Internet support group and control group regained 11.4 and 12.1 pounds.

These maintenance results might be modest. But the research supports what has been previously established -- that continued support from people who help with the weight loss process is associated with keeping weight off.

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Compulsive text messaging, urges to get online and surf the web, cravings to play video games... What do all of these activities have in common? They're practices people do on the Internet, and one doctor says psychiatrists should recognize it as a bona fide mental illness.

Technology certainly has made things easier to get work done. But it can also be a great distraction to "unplug" from the rest of the world. After all, have you ever looked at your watch and gotten online to check your email, only to realize hours have passed in what seemed like minutes? Making time fly is one thing, but a doctor from the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland says this habit can be taken a step further to addiction.

According to Dr. Block, getting hooked on the web has all the same traits of a typical "offline" addiction: withdrawal and tolerance and requiring more time to get the same satisfaction, for example. He also says that 86 percent of Internet addicts have other mental illnesses -- so I'm wondering if those traits contribute to this computer-aided dependency. Either way, it'll be interesting to see if psychiatrists diagnose "web addiction" in the future.

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The Internet is big. It can feel even bigger when you're scouring search engines for valuable medical information. Spam, sites trying to sell you stuff, and bad directions plague every corner of the information super highway. That's why there are articles like this one giving a handful of tips on how to navigate the wild wild west of the world wide web.

For starters, try using search engines that won't give you garbage as search results. Google is great, but as we all know sometimes it can be misleading. Sites like MedlinePlus are made specifically for health and medical purposes. If you're looking for trusted info, start there.

Tutorials are also helpful. Why? Because they can teach you how to decipher the jargon behind so many of the research and medical articles you see online. This literature can be helpful, so it would be to your advantage to know what they're saying if you want a complete picture. Of course, if you ever come across a website that you aren't sure about, do a background check. Many sites (especially the ones you can trust) have an "About Us" page which you can use to learn more about them. These are just a few examples, so check out the full article here!

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X-Box, Playstation, Wii, Game Cube -- oh yeah, and let's not forget the internet. Throw in some standard television programs and cartoons, and before you know it, every waking hour of a kid's day is spent doing something that involves zero physical activity.

Some may argue that the Nintendo Wii system, which requires you to move in a manner that dictates the movement of the character on the screen (for example, if you are playing a tennis game, you have to "swing" the game controller), does involve physical exertion. But let's face it, it's still a poor excuse for exercise. Obesity rates continue to climb in youth and adolescents, and now research points to the fact that high blood pressure may also be on the rise -- all due to spending too much time engaged in sedentary activities.

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If you'd bother to check, you'd find debates -- sometimes as heated as last night's debates in New Hampshire -- on internet forums about the number of sets required to achieve maximum strength gains.

Unlike some of last night's presidential debates, there seems to be a conclusive answer in this case. A study, published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, divided participants into four groups: 1 fast set, 3 fast sets, 1 slow set, and 3 slow sets. (Note: by speed, the researchers referred to the speed at which the exercise was performed).

After training for three weeks, performing exercises with a 6 to 8 rep max, the researchers found that performing 3 sets at a fast pace produced the greatest strength gains of all the regimens.

Now, if we could just get some straight answers about the economy!!

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Right now you can find almost anybody in the world using the internet, whether it's through paying a high-tech online service or simply "Googling" names and seeing what pops up. But what if, in searching for long lost relatives in particular, there was an enormous online DNA database you could check? Now that would be cool. Creepy, sure. But cool.

Well we're one step closer (practically there, actually) to that possibility with Ancestry.com. You can order a DNA kit, swab yourself, and send it in to their system where they'll check you against all the other DNA in their system. If a match is found they'll notify both parties and if everyone agrees, contact information is exchanged.

Interesting idea, and it's all supposedly private and anonymous, but I'm skeptical to say the least.


Via Book of Joe

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When I was a kid, one of the greatest things in the world was getting to watch "My Show" before I trotted off to bed. The A-Team, MacGyver, and so on -- all were part of my nighttime ritual. Today, it seems that many of my last hours of the day are spent in front of a different screen: My computer.

Not cool. At least, that's what the research says. According to a recent study, about one-third of people who claim to spend an average of two-and-a-half hours surfing the internet at night tend to have restless sleep.

Researchers speculate that this late-night excitement (that was the word they used -- which made me wonder just what kind of sites they were looking at) could potentially throw off sleep/wake cycles.

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