That's Fit

Hungry at the ball game? Wave down that snack vendor and order peanuts in the shell. It's your healthiest option. The worst? Nachos with cheese. Tummy grumbling while you're stuck in the airport? Pizza, no pepperoni, is your best bet. There's protein in the cheese, and the tomato in the sauce counts as a veggie serving.

According to the Today Show and Real Simple magazine, a small bag of plain pretzels or whole wheat crackers with peanut butter from a vending machine are tops compared to any variety of chips or candy bars. Headed to the movies? Pick a child's size popcorn -- no butter -- and if you must have a sweet something, Junior Mints have less fat than most other sugary options. Two more tips: Avoid all "Jumbo" choices, and definitely don't opt for Milk Duds. A whole box will fill you with more than 500 calories.

Is a stop at a mall food court in your future? How about the mini-mart? Before you head to these locations, be sure to check out this article.

Fitzness Fiends is a section devoted to you, the reader! We all have learned so much on our path to becoming more fit, and now it's time to learn from and inspire each other! Fitzness Fiends are constantly working to better themselves. Some are perfect, some are not. All have health on the mind. Please send Fitz your answers to these questions with a photo of yourself. Time for you to be the motivator!

Name: Jim Stephens

Age: 79. I'm a Scorpio. Watch out Baby!

Occupation: Gym Rat

How often do you exercise? Eight days a week!

What type of exercise do you do? I use the rowing machine for 40 minutes each day, and use the hand bike often too. I also do the structured 'line' of strength training equipment here at my gym.

Fitzness Fiends is a section devoted to you, the reader! We all have learned so much on our path to becoming more fit, and now it's time to learn from and inspire each other! Fitzness Fiends are constantly working to better themselves. Some are perfect, some are not. All have health on the mind. Please send Fitz your answers to these questions with a photo of yourself. Time for you to be the motivator!

Name: Bob Rose

Age: 45

Occupation: Morning Radio Talk Show Host, The Bob Rose Show

How often do you exercise? Five times each week.

What type of exercise do you do? A mix of machines and free weights, push-ups, and core work. I alternate body parts three times a week. I play basketball and tennis for cardio on the other two days.

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

My guests this week are a bit dear to my heart, as they share the same passion for fighting as I do. Doug Anderson, a highly decorated Iraqi war veteran from New Jersey traveled across the world with Jimmy Smith, a young Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter. Their journey had them test their skills against locals and various fighting styles, often styles they had never seen before. Always exciting, often painful, and always real....the Discovery Channel's Fight Quest stars went on an adventure of a lifetime and returned home with bruises and scars to show for it.

Fitz: Most folks dread the thought of even verbal confrontation. You guys volunteered to go fight a bunch of unknowns from around the world, many of which were yielding weapons you didn't know how to use! What scares you?

Doug: I was shot at in Iraq and had bombs explode 100 yards from me while there. None of that stuff ever scared me. But fighting like we did on this show was different. In Iraq I was part of a team; on Fight Quest I was alone. If I failed.....the onus was on me. I was always most nervous right before each fight, but I'd lose those nerves as soon as I got hit. It made me want to go running face-first into the other guys fist. Just to get it over with!

Jimmy: What scares me is not putting my best foot forward. It's OK to lose to someone better than me, but I hated the idea of losing to someone because I was fatigued or didn't put forth my best effort. As far as nerves go, you can't kill what's inside you. It's best to use those nerves to make you react; make you sharper.

Tyra Banks has a few words for those recently poking fun at her weight. "Kiss my fat a--," she says. She says a whole lot more to her studio audience in this video clip.

Wearing the same swimsuit that caused the media to comment on her weight, Banks shows fans of The Tyra Banks Show how a camera angle or body stance can manipulate the way weight is portrayed in photographs.

On her critics, the 33-year-old says: "Luckily, I'm strong enough and I have a good enough support system. I love my Mama, and she has helped me to be a strong woman so I can overcome these kinds of attacks, but if I had a lower self-esteem, I would probably be starving myself right now. That's exactly what is happening to other women all over this country."

Banks makes no secret of the fact that she's put on 30 pounds since her runway days. She also makes no secret of this fact: "I still feel hot."

What were Ellen and Carmen Electra doing in bed together on Tuesday's Ellen Degeneres Show? They were, well, exercising.

With Carmen in her romantic, vixen-like bed and Ellen in her Hello Kitty-themed bed, the pair worked up a sweat while practicing routines from Electra's new DVD, Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease: Vegas Strip. The duo did a few leg lifts and some lunges from their side-by-side beds and if laughter counts as a workout, they surely got a good one.

Wanna see a video clip? Here it is.

I just spoke to the health expert for the Oprah Winfrey show, Dr. Oz, as I'll be featuring him in an upcoming Celebrity Fitzness Report. Fortunately for all of us, we spoke for almost an hour and the man filled my brain up with so much great information that I'll be sharing it with you for a long time to come.

Dr. Oz's tips for staying fit over the holidays:

1. Never walk around a holiday party with both hands full; one with a drink and one with food. Keep a hand free to greet people and you'll cut lots of calories.

Last week, I tuned into the Victoria's Secret fashion show on television. Wow! What fun they have with bras and panties! And watching the models strut up and down the runway with their enormous angel wings and teeny underthings made me want to do some crunches at ten o'clock that night.

Now, of course the girls are ten feet tall and they are quite trim. But they are not the anorexic looking waifs we see on other runways. In fact, these chicks are fairly curvy and mostly resemble women. NOT THE TYPICAL WOMAN, but they look womanly.

Today on The Martha Stewart Show, Martha and her healthy initiatives consultant, Dr. Brent Ridge talked cravings. They discussed the reasons for cravings:

Genetics -- an ancestor's need to get their hands on calories.

Habits -- you traditionally eat sweet cereal in the morning, so when you wake up ......you crave sweet cereal.

Emotional correlation -- It's a birthday and birthdays are happy times, so you crave cake.

Pica -- A pregnant woman's odd and dangerous desire to consume non food items like soap, soil, or starch.

Physical need -- You are low on iron, so your body craves steak. This is the craving you should give in to!

If you are craving unhealthy food and truly don't want to give in to it, Dr. Ridge suggests you distract yourself for eight to fourteen minutes. He says that's the time our bodies take to kill a craving. Go for a walk, do some laundry or chat on the phone. Fourteen minutes is survivable!

He's lost more weight than he ever imagined, and he's still losing. He's dropping more weight at home, in fact, than he did as a contestant on NBC's The Biggest Loser. And that makes him a winner, despite his eviction from the show.

Jim Germanakos, 41, is 136 pounds lighter today than when he first set foot on the Biggest Loser set. He's dedicated everything to his weight loss, he told Today Show host Ann Curry on Tuesday. He left the comforts of home, left his wife and kids, and set forth on a journey he says is still not complete. Germanakos wants to lose another 35 pounds. I have a hunch he'll do it.

How exactly will he do it? Well, he'll work hard, hit the gym, and continue practicing what trainer Jillian Michaels has been drilling into his head about nutrition. He will (1) count calories, (2) avoid trans fats, (3) limit processed foods, and (4) consume mostly organic products. That should do it for the man who is putting his health and family first, the man who has inspired his wife to lose 45 pounds, the man who has happily become: one big loser.

If there's one crummy disease that flies in the face of good health, it's cancer. Stupid Cancer is what Matthew Zachary calls it.

Cancer-surviving Zachary, founder and executive director of I'm Too Young For This -- a rockin' place for young adults with cancer -- does all he can to support those under 40 trying to reclaim their health. You name it, he does it. Advocacy? Yep. Excursions, camps, and retreats? You bet. Scholarships and financial aid? Right on the money. This guy hosts his own streaming live Stupid Cancer Show on Monday nights, serves on the Google Health Advisory Council, sports a website TIME calls one of its Top 50, and now this inspiring cancer guru is making a splash in Hollywood.

Zachary will appear in an episode of Lifetime's Side Order of Life on Sunday, September 30 at 9:00 PM (ET/PT). In this episode, Vivy Porter (Diana Maria Riva) is dealing with cancer treatment and looking for the right kind of support. She finds it, at the hippest support group in town: a Stupid Cancer Happy Hour! Enter Zachary, who is there to greet Vivy when she arrives.

Check out this ground-breaking episode, won't you? Zachary promises you'll witness an accurate and hip portrayal of young adult cancer survivors. And I promise you'll love this guy, who is doing so much for so many. Like me.

I was recently a guest on Dr. Fitness and the Fat Guy, and it was a blast. The guys are hysterical and they're pretty on top of the health and fitness industry. To listen to the June 21st podcast click here. We talk all about my infinite broken bones from my kickboxing career, movie stuff, and more.

I used to work in the music industry and as a part of my job, from time to time I would have to meet a band after a performance. I was always amazed by the amount and variety of food and drinks that had been procured for the group after being asked for in their rider (a list of requests made by the band and their people for anything from stage equipment to a specific kind of local microbrewed beer).

Some dressing rooms were filled with fruit, cheese and vegetable plates, while others were filled with chips, cookies and deli-meat sandwiches. One band even brought their own cooking equipment on the road in order to cook healthy, homemade food each night. Usually there was a mix of healthy and greasy snacks to satisfy a hungry crew before and after a show.

Ever wonder what some of your favorite singers request while on the road? Our buddies over at Slashfood recently put up a post about what the world's biggest divas demand to satisfy their cravings. If you think you know what your best-loved music-makers like to munch on after a performance, check out this quiz and see how high you score. Choose your answers carefully though as, while few will find it surprising that Britney Spears asks for Doritos, there are definitely a few celeb cravings that might throw you for a loop!

TV and obesity go hand in hand, there's no doubt about that. But are some shows worse than others when it comes to eating more and gaining weight? That is actually true, according to recent research. At first my thought was that boring TV, like when you're just surfing around because there's nothing better to do, leads to more mindless snacking, but that's not the case at all. The more entertaining the show, the more people eat.

It has to do with being distracted, and when you're distracted by that awesome movie, you pay less attention to your body's signals telling you you're full and have had enough. You just keep on eating, happy and oblivious.

Wow, that sucks!