Day in and day out, your That's Fit bloggers are in search of fitness and nutrition news, the latest fitness products and the skinny on healthy (or unhealthy) celebrity lifestyles. Some of our scoop is helpful -- stuff you can take action on right away. Some is inspirational -- people and events who can motivate you to become more fit. Some of it is just plain odd, because we all need a laugh from time to time.

Now here we are in the last days of 2008. So, inspired by Health.com's America's Healthiest lists, we've decided to comb through That's Fit's Best Tips of 2008. Check back each morning at 10 AM between now and the New Year for a new "Best of..." list. And, just for the fun of it, we might throw in a "Worst of..." list or two for good measure.

Source

My fellow fitness pro, Chris Freytag, spent some time on NBC's Today, dishing out some great fitness tips. Her segment is titled Worst Workout Mistakes, but honestly ... I think the video should be titled "shake some sense into yourself." She answers a lot of the common questions I hear all the time. Spend a couple of minutes viewing this and learn a lot!

Brie Cadman over at Divine Caroline gives a humorous and right-on run-down of the 10 worst fad diets. Sure these diets, like Slim Fast, The Cereal Diet, The Subway Diet, and Dr. Siegal's® Cookie Diet™ might work -- try them and chances are, you will lose weight -- but if you're looking for weight loss that sticks around or if you want to just plain enjoy your food, these diets are, as Cadman calls them -- just plain ridiculous.

Cadman says of Slim Fast that yes, you will lose weight, "until you grow so bored and tired of eating the exact same thing for two meals a day you quit, and realize that -- wow -- there are a lot of other foods out there that cost a lot less. Say, fruits and vegetables."

About The Writing Diet, Cadman can't figure out why all writers are not size twos because according to Julia Cameron, author of the new book The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Sized, they should be. Cameron says that people overeat not out of hunger, but because of emotion. Says Cadman: "By writing daily, we tap into our emotions, and put them on the page instead of in our mouths. While I can concede that having your hands on a keyboard will prevent them from grabbing a bag of Doritos, I can't figure out how sitting on your butt is supposed to make it smaller." One of Cadman's readers disagrees, stating that the book does a pretty good job of promoting exercise too.

Source

Surely, you know by now that there's nothing good about trans fat. Restaurants are abandoning it, food makers are ditching it, and companies are more than happy to report "0 Trans Fat" on their boxes, bags, and packages. Still, it's not gone from everything and if we're not careful, bits and pieces of trans fat might make their way into our bodies. This is bad news -- experts say there's no safe level of this unhealthy fat.

There's good news too, though: Trans fats disappear from your body at a rate of 15 percent a year once you stop eating them. More good news: You can stop eating them by eliminating these 10 foods from your diet. Here they are, Prevention magazine's 10 worst trans fat foods.

• Cake mixes

• Cereal and energy bars

• Chips and crackers

• Dried soups

• Fast food

• Frozen entrées

• Margarine

• Nondairy creamers and whipped topping

• Packaged cookies and candy

• Packaged doughnuts, pies, and cakes

Source

Boy Scouts, nature lovers and other outdoor enthusiasts alike have something in common: we all come into contact with nasty critters that sting and bite. You don't even really have to be outside all the time to feel the burn from such a bug. Regardless, here are some of the worst stingers in mother nature.

The first that jumps out at you is the bullet ant. This sucker ranks with the highest on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index -- a scale of pain for insects created by an entomologist. Thankfully the ants hail from South America, so I wouldn't worry about stepping on one in your backyard. Either way, I wouldn't want to experience something described as "like fire-walking over a flaming charcoal with a tree-inch rusty nail in your heel."

How about the Tarantula Hawk Wasp. That's three animal names in one! It usually doesn't go after humans, but instead uses its terrible sting to paralyze the infamously terrifying spider. After that, it's all over. The wasp lags narrowly behind the bullet ant in sting-power according to Schmidt's scale. Still hungry for more? Check out the complete list here, if you dare.

Source

Health care for the elderly takes a huge amount of money. In fact, taxpayers subsidize over $70 billion a year on nursing homes alone. That's the reasoning behind why the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have released a list of the worst nursing homes in our country.

Since there are 16,400 of these facilities in the nation, people have been wanting full disclosure of this information. Interested in hearing which locations were the worst offenders? Check out the list here. They don't enumerate the facilities in order, but they do label which ones were newly added, and which locations had improved. There are over 50 listed as high-risk facilities and did not show much improvement.

While it is up to the states to determine which nursing homes get qualified for this list, they follow a few guidelines to assess the quality. Those places labeled as needing improvement did things like used an unnecessary amount of medication. But this list alone is not a reason to go pull your grandmother out of her bed if you have someone in a nursing home. It might warrant a double-check, but providing health care is difficult and the CMS administrator says this is one step they are taking to stimulate improvement across the others.

Source

Some of the time the posts on That's Fit can be a bit gloomy -- stories about all the things that will give you cancer and how death rates are rising because of obesity, aren't exactly feel good fare. While these posts offer important information, I always enjoy the pieces that are a bit silly or goofy, because if we only ever talked about the serious side of health, we'd be a pretty stressed-out bunch.

So for that reason, I thought that today I'd highlight a fun but serious series of books that offer real advice for ridiculous and bizarre situations. The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbooks tell readers, in detail, how to:

• Survive if your parachute fails to open,
• Build a shelter in the snow,
• Treat a scorpion sting,
• Crash-land a plane,
• Survive in a plummeting elevator,
• Stop a car with no brakes,
• Fend off a shark,
• Wrestle an alligator, and
• Use a defibrillator to restore a heartbeat, among other things.

There are books dedicated specifically to Travel, Dating and Sex and Work situations, in addition to the original handbook. While the books can be quite funny as it's unlikely that any of the crazy stuff they discuss will ever actually happen to you, the advice given is sound and you just never know when it might actually save your life.

Source

Ah, a day at the beach. Sunscreen? Check. Bikini? Yep (you worked out hard this summer.) Towels and umbrella? Of course. You're ready to roll.

Hold up. How safe are your beaches? Are you aware that there is an alarming increase in pollutants in the waters where you swim? While you're busy protecting yourself with sunscreen and shade, your beaches may be infecting you with bacteria, viruses and parasites. Contaminated beach water can cause a wide range of diseases, including ear, nose and eye infections; gastroenteritis; hepatitis; encephalitis; skin rashes; and respiratory illnesses . Most at risk are small children, pregnant women, cancer patients and others whose immune systems are weak or compromised. So before you head out for a fun day at the beach, check to see if yours has made the grade. MSNBC gives us the best and the worst beaches here in the U.S.

The Best

• North Carolina: Kure Beach and Kill Devil Hills Beach
• Wisconsin: Sister Bay Beach and North Beach
• California: Laguna Beach
• Michigan: Grand Haven City Beach and Grand Haven State Park beaches
• Maine: Libby Cove, Mother's, Middle, Cape Neddick, Short Sands and York Harbor beaches.

The Worst

• California: Avalon Beach (north of Green Pleasure Pier) and Venice State Beach
• Maryland: Hacks Point and Bay Country Campground and Beach
• New Jersey: Beachwood Beach West
• Illinois: Jackson Park Beach

How do you think your beach measures up?

Source