Want to have your cake and eat it without feeling guilty for weeks too? Here's a tip:

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You know what I like about Madonna? There's no halfway for her; she isn't sort-of fit on the days she doesn't have something better to do. She doesn't eat right when she can and then do fast food when it suits her cravings. For this star, it's all or nothing.

Wouldn't it be nice to be that dedicated to a healthy lifestyle? Madonna practices Ashtanga yoga for fitness, so she's finely tuned, mind and body. I'm jealous just knowing that there are people out there who can spend a good portion of every day working out the way they love best, rather than grabbing a little cardio when they have a half hour free.

Now, for her diet: she doesn't eat out and she follows a strict macrobiotic diet. What -- no chocolate?

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About her anti-aging secret, 54-year-old Meredith Vieira says: "I don't have one." She does have good people, though -- none of whom are plastic surgeons.

One good person is NBC President Jeff Zucker, who hired Vieira as Today co-host. Passing up for the job folks in their 20s and 30s, Zucker told Vieira, who has been in front of a camera for nearly two decades: "I want someone with experience. I'm not looking for a number, I'm looking for a human being."

"I give him a lot of credit [for] that," says Vieira, who joins the ranks of women like Jamie Lee Curtis who take aging as it comes and accept it with simple grace. Vieira's kids help the cause. They don't care about her celebrity or anyone else's obsession with it, she says.

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A bunch of successful dieters -- well, they changed their lifestyles, really -- are featured in the June issue of Ladies Home Journal. One lost 156 pounds. Another whittled away 140, and several others shed 100 pounds or more. Successful seems like an understatement. These woman simply rock at taking off weight -- and keeping it off too. Here are some of their secrets.

• Don't eat snacks at work, says Lydia, who is tempted all day if she takes just one bite. If she's going to indulge, she does it on her own time when she has more control.

• Don't step on the scale every day, suggests Rebecca. Your focus shouldn't be on the number on the scale but on how you feel.

• Kristine says: "Eat like you've got manners. Chew slowly, and sip some water between bites of food. Keep your head up instead of looking down at your plate."

• Eat before you go to the movies. Buttered popcorn was once Leah's favorite theater treat. Eating before she even walks out the door or bringing along a small snack keeps her temptations in check.

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When Matthew McConaughey trains, he doesn't need a watch and he doesn't need any sort of mile marker to tell him when he's done exercising. The boy just goes and goes and goes ... until he's drenched and exhausted. He simply just tries to run as far away from his starting point as he can.

This is his argument for doing so: "The return trip is always easier. Think about it. One, you can anticipate the road you've already traveled. Two, when it's time to eat the hay, the horses get home no matter how tired they are. Third, you're past the hump. You're in. Each step gets you closer to sitting down and relaxing." He says the beauty of all this is that the path can be different every single time.

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Model extraordinaire and Project Runway pioneer Heidi Klum reveals her stay-slim secret in May's Good Housekeeping magazine. She doesn't whisper anything about strict diets and hard-core workouts, though. Nope. It's all about her kids.

Klum's three children -- ages four, two, and one -- keep her busy all the time, says this beauty who reports that staying active with her little ones is how she stays in such good shape. I'm not sure that's all it takes -- I'm a mom too and simply moving with my boys just isn't enough -- but apparently it's one piece of the puzzle for this Supermom who says working in the garden, jumping on the trampoline, climbing trees, and feeding ducks in the park top her activity list.

Do your kids keep you in shape?

For more celebrity diet and fitness scoop, check out this AOL Body site.

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How many times have you heard a startlet credit her fabulous body with good genetics or a busy lifestyle. You know, "I swear, I eat junk food all the time! I just don't put on any weight!" Well, I don't know about you, but I generally want to punch those girls. You know, good for them and all, but most of us just aren't that lucky.

Well, it turns out most of them aren't, either. We're always hearing about celebrity diets and fitness routines, and this article in the Daily Mail gives us nine reasons why most of us don't look like most of them. And trust me, these are not things you want to do in order to get bodies like theirs.

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The world is a big place and it seems like we get news items and magazine articles all the time about which nations are the healthiest or most-fulfilled. If you've ever wondered about how people in different locations around the globe stay fit and happy, this piece is pretty fun and interesting.

It includes tips and secrets from people as near and far as Florida, Mexico, South Africa, Ireland, Japan, England and France on how to maintain a healthy mind and body. I don't imagine these people are experts or anything but sometimes it's nice to take advice from people based on personal experience.

Some of the secrets doled out include doing a water fast once every couple of weeks (Japan), get ting outside and walking as much as possible (Ireland) and breathing to lower stress (South Africa). If you're interested in all of the tips and the perceived benefits then read the piece in full.

Have you got any health or wellness tips you can share?

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Recently, I wrote a post about "What Not to Wear's" resident make-up artist, Carmindy, and her tips on how to get great, glowing skin. The Californian beauty always looks fantastic without being overly made-up, so I thought it would be cool to check out her advice on how to get that naturally beautiful look.

Those of you out there who are also Carmindy fans, especially New York City-area residents and fashionistas who'll be in town for NYC Fashion Week, are in for a treat as the artist will appear at Byrant Park on Monday September 10th, as a part of the Word for Word Author Series.

Carmindy, who has penned a book called The 5-Minute Face: The Quick and Easy Makeup Guide for Every Woman, will appear at 12:30 p.m. and 1:45 p.m., and give away some of her best secrets and tricks of the trade including tips on how to enhance your best features and how to look great without spending hours primping. The author will also be available to sign copies of the book. If you love to look great and have fun with makeup, mark the event in your calendar.

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Most supermarkets may appear like straightforward places, but you may be surprised to learn what goes on behind the scenes. Like when it comes to how your meat is packaged and priced, and why you have those few items in your cart at the checkout that weren't on your list when you walked in. Grocery stores and supermarkets are big business, and there's a lot of planning that goes into seemingly simple things. Like did you know that cartoony packages and other kid-friendly items are usually stocked at children's eye level, while healthier items are put in harder to reach locations that may require inconvenient bending and stretching?

That's just the tip of the ice berg -- for the rest check out this list of the 10 things supermarkets don't want you to know. Shifty bunch, those supermarkets.

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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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Like many of you, I have a "weight loss" secret that has helped me maintain a rather slim figure for many years after being very overweight for a decade or so of sitting behind a desk and eating cheeseburgers every day. Gone is that lifestyle, but it did take "secrets" to get to where I am today.

The term "secrets" is pretty big, since it encompasses several methods of eating healthy (while feeling fulfilled) and eating the right portions while exercising as well.

My "secrets"? Here we go:

-- Avoiding as much processed food as you can (this is a hard one). Refined foods and sugars are also to be avoided, like high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils and table sugar. I also try to avoid fake sweeteners and food additives and dangerous chemicals in foods as well. Get used to reading the "Nutrition Facts" of everything you eat and researching the ingredients. Be prepared to be scared a little. Want a sweet snack? All-natural granola without heavy or refined sweeteners is excellent. I like Bear Naked myself. Fried foods? None of them -- get out of that mindset completely if you can.

-- Get regular exercise as much as possible. Even wearing a pedometer and counting the steps you take everyday is good. Never take elevators -- use the stairs if you can. When the weather is nice -- walk outside. You'll walk a mile before you even realize it.

-- Cut down on dairy, red meat and other "fatty foods" as much as possible. I rarely drink cow's milk -- even skim -- regardless of the "calcium" marketing angle from the dairy industry. Instead, I use liberal amounts of soy milk as a replacement and I eat fresh fruits and blended real fruit juices for breakfast -- not cow's milk and sugared breakfast cereal (that's not the way I want to start my day).

Some of these sound harsh, but they have worked so well for me that the new lifestyle is worth it -- and so are all the pounds I obliterated to...well, somewhere.

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They say ignorance is bliss. In the case of fast food restaurants, you may choose to remain in that category because some information is just plain disgusting. It's no secret that fast food places don't have a strong reputation for being the cleanest places in America. But most of us turn and look the other way when we see subpar service.

However, imagine if someone told you that an employee dropping a piece of meat on the floor and picking it up within the 10 Second Rule was only the tip of the iceberg. We've heard the rumors before: there could be dropped food that's been sitting on the floor and served to unsuspecting customers. The author speaks from experience when she tells about the horrors behind the counter, and if you think it ends with dropped food, you're wrong.

One fast food employee told her about their facility and how they never cleaned the ketchup dispensers. Ever wondered how something like that could get so caked up with old ketchup that it won't even work? Now you know why. But what you probably don't want to be aware of is that these never-been-cleaned dispensers may have maggots crawling in the bottom.

The egregious misconduct does not end there. What's really appalling is that there might even be more cases we don't know about! Having said all this though, it needs to be known that not all eateries function in this manner. Fast food is not necessarily a cesspool of disgust, since some are better (and worse) than others. Just remember that anything you don't prepare yourself carries that risk.

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You can call me the extroverted type. Sharing is caring -- like it or leave it -- with inner secrets slim to none. Personally, I usually find a tremendous amount of comfort and relief in getting secrets off my mind. Be free, I cry, be free! When I've confided my silliest and darkest stories eating me up inside to friends or complete strangers, I often found I wasn't alone with many of them. Will I be sharing some of them here? Not today, but let's talk about secrets. Is keeping secrets a healthy thing to do or not?

Last year I was completely turned on and freaked out by Frank Warren's PostSecret project, where hundreds of people could confess anything from munching on boogers (sorry) to having experienced childhood abuse by sending a postcard to an address in Maryland. From those postcards a book was born called PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives. Checking out the PostSecret site will give you an idea of some of the stories shared, and apparently how revealing has lead to healing.

On the flipside, I just came across this Newsweek piece which discusses why keeping secrets can be a healthy thing. The article first speaks on the new Secret deodorant campaign urging women to spill the beans and applauding them for doing such. Moving onto how and why keeping secrets can be considered an ill and toxic thing for the mind and body, researchers went on to explore to the effects and health of people carrying secrets. In their study scheduled to be published in the Journal of Personality in October, they found that people hiding something had fewer psychosomatic symptoms than those with clear consciences. They also note that well-chosen secrets can preserve a more idealized and healthier self-image.

Take a look at both sites and let us know what your take on confessing, confiding, sharing and shouting your secrets is. Does it make you feel good or sick and sad inside?

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