Last week, I told you five food tweaks that can make your Buddha belly less ... um .... Buddha-ish. But if changing what you eat isn't your thing, Prevention Magazine recently revealed another five tips -- no diet changes necessary. Here they are:

• Stand -- and sit -- up straight. Good posture instantly slims your whole body, but especially your ab area.
  
• Imagine there's a magnet behind your belly button drawing it to your spine. It's an old Pilates trick that works wonders. Do this often.
  
• Sit like royalty. Allow your spine to curve naturally and hold your shoulders back.
  
• Become a cardio queen ... or king. It's effective in burning stubborn fat.
  
• Clean your house. Seriously. Vacuuming, sweeping and scrubbing uses your core muscles.

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Your mother was right -- stop slouching and sit up straight! Why? Perfecting your posture is an easy way to look 10 lbs slimmer instantly. And that's just the icing on the cake -- having good posture will help your keep you spine healthy and flexible for years to come. After all, who wants to look like Quasimoto in their golden years?

Check out Divine Caroline to learn the ins and outs of good posture -- and straighten up with these quick tips:

• Sit on the tip of your chair. That way, you're unable to lean back and slouch.
• Check in with your posture every few minutes -- you might be slouching without realizing it. Sit up straight and squeeze your shoulder blades together.
• Get on the ball. The exercise ball, that is. Get one for your home office or ask your company to supply one for you.

How do you keep preserve your posture?

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Proper posture while standing usually means keeping yourself as upright as possible. But when it comes to sitting down, some researchers believe that leaning back a bit is better for your spine.

Using magnetic resonance imagine (MRI), Scottish and Canadian researchers found that sitting up straight may actually be bad for your back.

Scanning the spines of over 20 volunteers, researchers from Aberdeen, Scotland found that leaning back 45 degrees off vertical is ideal for back comfort and safety. I suppose this is good news for my old elementary school principal, who used to lean back in his chair and stare down his nose at troublesome students -- not that I know that from experience, of course ;)

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Just yesterday I wrote about the ill effects slouching at your desk can have on your cognitive ability. Leaning over restricts blood flow from certain arteries to your brain, thus making it a bit more difficult for you to ... to ... to think clearly (sorry, I was a bit too hunched over).

As a follow-up, I thought you might want to know about a recent Cornell University study on poor posture and long-term back problems. According to the study, about 30 percent of all workplace injuries are back-related -- and in most cases they comes as the result of sitting improperly at a desk.

The types of injuries to result from poor posture do not occur overnight; sometimes they can take years before showing signs. However, take this other Cornell University study into consideration, revealing the potential for musculoskeletal damage one faces by working on a desktop computer, as opposed to a more adjustable work station. This particular study was actually done using middle school students, showing that risk of injury can start this early. Now, factor in all the years most kids will spend at desktop computers, and then add them to the number of years they will later spend at similar workstations as adults, and it becomes quite obvious how these injuries can occur.

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Freeze! Now, moving only your eyes, take a look at your posture as you sit and read this post. Are you sitting upright? Are you slouched? Are you leaning to one side more so than the other? Chance are, whatever your current position is, it is also the way you sit most of the time during other computer activities. This may not be so much of an issue of most of your day is spent mindlessly watching YouTube clips. But, if your goal is to be productive -- which, at least ostensibly, is also your boss' goal for you -- you may want to realign yourself.

If you happen to be the person who found themselves sitting properly, then bravo to you. Feel free to stop reading now and to carry on with your day. If, however, you're a bit of a slouch, know that you are decreasing blood flow to your brain by compacting your spine and compressing arteries. This, in turn, deprives you of a little something called oxygen, which ultimately impairs mental capacity.

A great solution for the "office chair slouch" is to replace the chair altogether. In its place, try sitting on Swiss ball. Not only will it help ensure proper spinal alignment, but it will also force you to work your core muscles in order to remain seated (and not fall off the ball and make an utter fool of yourself).

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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 two per week to publish on That's Fit! Learn more about Fitz here.

Q. Hi Fitz, I am a person with T-12 incomplete Paraplegia. I'm interested in learning about some decent ab workouts (including obliques) that I could do at the gym or at home. Just to provide you with a little more information, my T-12 vertebrae are connected by rods. I'd really appreciate some guidance. Thanks! Jon

A. Hello Jon, What a wonderful question! I really feel there's a gaping hole in the fitness industry which needs to address fitness training for people dealing with injuries and/or disabilities. You are the perfect example of that. A guy who's had a spinal injury, but still strives for better fitness beyond rehab facilities. I love it. I also love the spinal cord, and appreciate the sensitivity of it. Long ago, while I was earning my Master's Degree in Exercise and Sports Sciences at the University of Florida, I took a magnificent course on the spine from a brilliant woman, Dr. Christine Stopka, Professor of Adapted Physical Activity & Medical Terminology. She taught me to respect the spine first, and then went on from there. A major aspect of the course focused on educating her students about the things people with disabilities could do. She spent far more time on the could dos than the can't dos. That's one of the most important things I took away with me. I thought your question deserved the most expert advice, so I passed it on to her.

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Your back is the key to everything. If you have a weak back you're suddenly weak all over. Injure your back and you're pretty much useless until it gets better. Having back pain means you hurt all over. The spine is the center of the human body, and all the muscles that connect to it help make up the core of who you are -- take care of your back and your spine and you're well on your way to taking care of everything else.

Try these tips for having a healthier spine:

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For several days now, I've been writing an ongoing series of diet and fitness posts titled "Why the Pounds Are Sticking Around," which are a collection of tips sourced from the health magazine Self. Since the response has been so positive, I decided to forge ahead with an idea I had for a series of healthy living posts. Since exercise and training are more my forte, I sought out information from an outside source -- Men's Health magazine. To that end, I found ten great health and wellness tips that I thought would be perfect for pieces on healthy living.

So, just as I have been doing with the diet and fitness posts, I will also be posting one healthy living tip per day as part of a series I think I'm going to call "Living Well." I think you'll find these tips to be as interesting and as helpful as I did.

Healthy Tip #7 - Stop being so upright

Maintaining proper posture while standing -- that is, keeping your shoulders directly above your pelvis and your back straight -- is highly advised by medical professionals. But when it comes to sitting down, some researchers believe that leaning back a bit is better for your spine.

Using magnetic resonance imagine (MRI), Scottish and Canadian researchers found that sitting up straight may actually be bad for your back. The research, carried out at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland, involved scanning the spines of twenty-two volunteers, leading to the findings that leaning back 45 degrees off vertical is ideal for back comfort and safety.

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Prevent muscle mutiny with these four feel-good moves from the April issue of Women's Health, on newsstands now! Instead of letting a great workout leave you feeling miserable, use some of these suggested exercises to prevent muscle imbalances in your: back, knees, neck, and shoulders.

Ball Squat with tubing

Pain-prone area: Fronts and sides of the knees
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and wrap resistance tubing around your knees so there's no slack in the band. Place a stability ball between the middle of your back and a wall, but put only enough pressure on it to keep the ball from falling. Squat down as if sitting on a chair, pushing out against the tubing to keep your knees from caving inward. Press back up to start. Do two sets of 12 reps, resting for 30 to 60 seconds between sets.

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Stand up straight! No, that's not my impression of a military drill sergeant or a parochial school nun; rather, it's sound advice that can benefit your overall health.

Poor posture can, over time, can cause increased wearing of the joint surfaces, something that can potentially lead to arthritis. What's more, in cases where a person's posture is extremely poor, an actual change to the anatomical characteristics of the spine can occur. This, in turn, can wreak havoc on your muscles and nerves, as well as your lifestyle.

Does this mean that you should resort to walking around with a book on top of your head? Not unless you're the type who likes to get strange looks from people. Otherwise, being aware of how you are standing and sitting should be enough of a reminder to keep your back from rounding too much.

According to this website, proper posture includes:

• Keeping your head directly over your shoulders;
• Your shoulders should be directly over your pelvis;
• Tighten the core abdominal muscles;
• Tuck in the buttocks; and,
• Place the feet slightly apart with a slight bend at the knees

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"Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head..," says Paul McCartney in the well-known Beatles tune A Day in the Life. It's a very common thing to do, isn't it? You wake up and immediately begin your day of activities; showering, brushing your teeth, combing your hair, eating breakfast, racing to work, and so on. A day in the life, indeed.

Could it be that this routine is what causes sixty-five percent of Americans to report feeling back pain in the morning? Because circulation is slowed during our inactive state of sleep, inflammatory substances can become trapped in blood, thus reducing the flow of healing oxygen and nutrients. As a result, many people wake up feeling quite sore.

Doctors suggest stretching your spine when you wake up to get your blood moving again. For a list of simple stretches you can do after your morning alarm sounds, click here.

I am sore. I train hard, I play hard, and I am sore. But, I just treated myself to something I think will allow me to be less sore in the future. An iNeed shiatsu massager pillow from Brookstone. Mmmmm. It makes me so happy. If you're unfamiliar with this thing, it's a pillow you attach to a chair and lean back on. Then these thumb-like knobby things move around and massage the sore parts on your back and neck.

In fact, right now as I'm writing this I have that weird look of ecstasy on my face. I'm using my shiatsu pillow. Usually folks come to me on advice on how to become more sore. Training equipment, strategies, etc. Today you get the opposite. My $59 pillow of pleasure from Brookstone will satisfy my aching back for much longer than any single massage at a spa. (Although I love those too).

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In university, I worked as an office assistant for a Chiropractic clinic. Perks of the job included free adjustments, an offer I never took up. I sometimes wonder if that was foolish of me but at the time I had no back aches or pains so I really didn't see a point. Now, almost a decade later, I still haven't seen a chiropractor, but I've been considering it.

Not so fast, according to researchers from Australia -- You'll recover from your back pain quicker with exercise and mild pain killers. In an extensive study, it was shown patients who received spinal manipulation or strong anti-inflammatory drugs didn't feel any better than those who took over-the-counter pain killers. These findings raised a few eyebrows because both anti-inflammatory drugs and spinal manipulation are controversial.

Still, I don't think this study properly addressed the long-term effects of treatments -- rather, it was more concerned with who felt better fastest. What do you think? Do you see your chiropractor regularly?

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Urinary Tract Infections are a problem that plague many people, particularly women. And if you're a woman that gets them often, you know the routine -- the visits to the doctor, the cranberry juice, etc. But did you know that the health of your back and the health of your bladder are connected?

According to Shape Magazine, sports and exercise-related injuries can lead to your spinal discs being compressed, which can affect the nerves that control your bladder. Poor posture when working out or lifting too much weight can lead to this problem, so if you notice that your infections coincide with a particularly strenuous activity, talk to your doctor.

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