That's Fit

There's been all kinds of stories circulating around lately on what a ridiculously huge amount of calories Olympic athlete Michael Phelps consumes every day while still managing to be totally ripped and toned. Talk about efficient calorie-burning! But you don't have to be on a crazy athletic training schedule and headed for the Olympics to learn how to burn calories better (although that certainly helps, I'm sure!), just try these 5 tips:

• Eat breakfast
• Tune in to your body's hunger cues
• Drink plenty of water
• Encourage healthy bacteria (take probiotics, eat yogurt)
  
• Go heavy on the spices (cayenne pepper, paprika, chili peppers)

Late the other night, I was watching a re-run of Denise Richard's show on TV. I caught the episode Jacki told us about -- where Denise was discussing the lemonade diet with her friends.

The lemonade diet isn't the only ridiculous plan out there. DivineCaroline counts down what they consider to be the top 10 most ridiculous diets out there. Some of their picks include the Cookie Diet, the Subway Diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet, and the Apple Cider Vinegar Diet.

Personally, I think that if you want to lose weight you should go old school. Eat healthfully, exercise, and get plenty of rest. There's a reason that advice like that has been around for years and years -- it works. It may take time to lose weight, but in the long run that's the best way to do it. Fads come and go. They rarely have lasting power and while many of them give you quick results, it's often difficult to maintain the loss.

If you're considering a diet plan, take a look at AOL Health's Diets A-Z.

Losing weight can be a tricky business. Despite all the fancy programs and diet claims, weight loss boils down to one thing: burning more calories than you consume. But if you're not careful, you may be consuming more calories than your realize.

Counting calories seems so hopelessly 1980's, though, doesn't it? And, let's face it, tracking every calorie is a bit of a pain. But a food diary doesn't have to be an obsessive tabulation of every little thing -- it's merely a way for you to ensure you're getting a balanced, nutritious diet in the range of calories you want to consume.

It's a habit that is well worth the effort. A Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study found that participants who kept a food diary lost almost twice as much weight as those who didn't.

Sometimes even the best-laid plans go wrong. If you're trying to lose weight and you expect to never falter and never get off track, well ... you're fooling yourself. It's a rare person indeed who can change his or her activity and eating habits and never slip a little bit from their new ways.

Many people who are trying to lose weight succumb to "all or nothing" thinking. As in "I screwed up on my diet this morning, so I might as well just quit."

Occasional slips are just a part of weight loss. Heck, they're a part of life. You may have a slice of cake at a birthday party. You may cave in to a second helping of your yummy dinner. You may skip your fitness routine for a day. And you know what? That's OK. The trick is to not let one little slip become a big slide. One small piece of cake isn't going to negate all of the other efforts you've made toward weight loss. One skipped day of exercise isn't going to throw off your whole routine. Just be sure to get right back on the wagon and keep moving forward. AOL Body has some tips to help you stick to your diet no matter what, including how to regroup after relapse.

I breastfed both kids -- my firstborn for nearly seven months and my second for 13 months. Why the difference? I had this fantasy that if I stopped breastfeeding I'd lose those last stubborn pounds. So I switched my first bundle of joy to the bottle and watched the pounds simply stay there. It wasn't until I joined Weight Watchers and started eating less and moving more that the pounds came off.

According to this study in the American Journal of Epidemiology cited in Women's Health, I should have been sleeping more. Women who slept five hours a night were three times as likely to retain 11 post-pregnancy pounds as women who slumbered seven heavenly hours each night. Sleep-deprived cells releasing more appetite-stimulating hormones or stress hormones may be the culprit.

Granted, switching to the bottle did allow my husband to help with middle-of-the-night feedings -- our first did not sleep through the night until 11 months. But I do have a bit of regret I stopped breastfeeding so early in hopes of instantly losing the weight. It just didn't work. Diet and exercise ... and maybe more sleep over time did.

When I know I haven't been eating right, I like to pretend my bathroom scale doesn't exist. But there's one place you can't avoid the truth, and that's the doctor's office. It's unavoidable -- you think you're going to get past the regular weigh-in, then the nurse turns a corner and there it stands...the scale.

When researchers asked nearly 500 college students how they felt about being weighed at the doctor's office, they found that many women admitted to finding it uncomfortable, especially because it's often done in high traffic areas. Researchers were concerned that regular screenings might be put on the back burner because women want to avoid the scale, especially if they have weight to lose.

Personally, I've never had a problem being weighed at the doctor, even if I'm not proud of what I'm going to see. Nurses are usually very discreet, and I've never felt like people walking by were peering over my shoulder at my weight. But maybe that's just me. What about you? Do you get bothered getting weighed at the docs, or is this study making something out of nothing?

It's February, time to check-in on those New Year's resolutions. If you resolved to lose weight, then chances are you're already seeing some positive benefits of your new routine. Or, maybe, you're not. Did you slip up after those first few determined weeks? Have you lost your way? If so, you're probably not alone and maybe, just maybe, you made one of these common weight loss mistakes:

• setting an unrealistic goal
• depriving yourself of every treat
• trying to look like someone you're not
• viewing your diet as a temporary thing
• focusing only on exercise, not on your diet
• avoiding exercise
• not writing things down

It's ok if you did. The beauty of long-term weight loss is that it's a marathon, not a sprint. You don't need a New Year to make a new plan that will help you reach your goals. Find out where you went wrong, then pick yourself up and begin again, this time being mindful of common pitfalls. Good luck!

A friend recently sent me an invitation to StickK , and I found it kind of interesting. There are a lot of online support communities for people who are trying to create healthier lifestyle habits, but StickK is the first I've seen that asks you to put your money where your mouth is.

When you join StickK, you create a contract that outlines exactly what you want to do. Then, if you're interested, you commit a dollar amount to help keep you accountable, kind of like making a bet with yourself. If you reach your goal, you get your money back. But if you don't, StickK deducts the money from your account and gives it to the recipient of your choice (a charitable organization, for instance).

I could see where StickK might be highly motivating, especially if you were to put a high dollar amount on your goal. But I'm not sure if it's for me or not. What do you think? Could reinforcement like this keep you on track toward your health or fitness goal?

I can't tell you how many people have mentioned to me that they're having a hard time coming out of the rut they've found themselves in post-holiday this year. The major complaints seem to be that they ate too much, spent too much, or just can't seem to find their groove now that the rush and anticipation of the season are over. If you're finding yourself in the same boat, check out Canadian Living's 10 ways to rebalance after the holidays.

The first tip is deceptively simple -- drink a glass of water with the juice of one lemon. According to the author, though, drinking water spiked with lemon juice can help regulate your body chemistry. Other tips include snacking on raw almonds, eating your greens, and drinking peppermint tea, as well as old stand-bys eat your veggies and take a long walk.

December is often about indulgence, and that means January is about settling that debt. Take some time today to focus on finding your balance again for a healthy and happy new year.

A spate of processed food recalls in 2007 was responsible for making the American food consumer more aware of healthier eating habits in my opinion. From folks I've talked to, just the fact that recalls were plentiful gave rise to research on just how much processed food items many of us eat.

So, research company NPD Group says that many Americans are turning into healthier eating lifestyles and shunning diets. Is that a good move? I would say so -- eating healthy has been, for me, a complete replacement for participating in the "diet fad of the month" that grabs headlines and participants, but results in long-term eating lifestyle failure for others.

And NPD says it all in its report about as perfect as it could be said: "The problem with diets is most people feel deprived, or they're disappointed with the results. Of course, results will come if you stick with it." Do you stick with diets? Millions do not. But, changing to a healthy eating lifestyle is just that -- a lifestyle change. It's certainly not a diet change.

Fit Gadgets is a weekly feature focusing on products and technology that will help you get fit and stay motivated or simply make life easier. It may even be a gadget that could help to save your life. From the mainstream to the obscure, I'll let you know what works and what doesn't.

While walking is a great way to burn a few extra calories, it can be hard to make walking an actual cardio workout -- one that burns enough calories to lose any significant weight anyway.

One way to make your walking workout a little more challenging is to use weights. On the average, walking alone burns anywhere from 3 to 8 calories per minute - roughly 200-500 calories per hour. Walking with added weight significantly increases the amount of calories burned - up to triple the amount.

The problem: Holding barbells gets old quickly and most of the ankle weights are clunky and awkward.

The solution: These "anatomical leg weights" from Gaiam that I found.

The leg weights are ergonomically shaped, weighted sleeves that you can slip on under your clothes. You can wear them to walk around the neighborhood or put them on just to do chores around the house. You could even wear them to work and no one would know you have them on. They weigh 4 pounds each and come in three different sizes, so you can get a set that fits nicely. The weights cost $129 for a set.

For anyone who's lost a lot of weight and needs motivation to keep it off or for anyone who currently needs to lose a lot of weight but doesn't know where to start, this list of inspirational and rational thoughts might just be what you were looking for. It's not from a doctor, so as the author says ... you should take it with a grain of salt.

But that said, it is from someone who has lost over 100 pounds on their own, someone who's been there, done that. With over 100 personal thoughts listed, I can't share them all ... but I will list a few of my favorites:

If you've ever heard the saying "a few extra pounds won't kill ya," you may or may not have believed it based on who told it to you. If from that special grandmother, you probably did believe it as you scarfed down her delicious food.

Maybe grandma was right. New government findings state that a person being 25 pounds overweight does not appear to raise any risks of dying from cancer or heart disease. While some extra weight may not be bad for you, 25 pounds is too much for me. Is it for you?

It is surely to no problem to be "fit and fat" for some, although the "fat" part of that equation concerns me if the extra weight comes from processed foods and other foods filled with chemicals and other nastiness. I'd rather be overweight on healthy foods (who wouldn't).

When you begin weight training, you gain muscle and lose body fat at roughly the same rate, so initially you may not see a difference in your weight -- or you may even be surprised to find that your weight may go up a bit -- even though your body really is changing.

Don't be afraid: Gaining muscle is a good thing, it burns more calories than fat does, which will boost your metabolism and help you continue to lose weight and stay slim.

Rather than measuring your success by the number on the scale (which 99.9 percent of us do -- myself included at times), a better gauge is to go by how your clothes fit. After a few weeks, you'll probably find that they're looser than before -- even if you haven't lost much actual weight -- because even though you're replacing fat with muscle, muscle is more compact taking up about 25 percent less space, pound for pound.

So don't let the scale fool you, instead let your jeans be your guide and keep on lifting weights.

If your a female of middle age, you might want to think about losing weight at a normal rate (over the course of a year) instead of in a month or so. According to a new study, women who lose weight fast may be more prone to dementia and diseases like Alzheimer's 20 years later.

Sounds like an odd connection to me, but that was the conclusion. The 481 dementia patients studied were compared against those without dementia (same age levels) and that is when the fast weight loss scenario was discovered as a commonality.

I suppose this is yet another reason to lose weight in gradual, healthy fashion (for health) instead of rapid fashion (for looks, usually). Do you agree?