That's Fit

A couple of days ago, I told you how to sleep more deeply. But why is sleep so important? Here's list of what a lack of sleep can do to you:

• You body has difficulty processing glucose -- meaning you can't metabolize sugar properly, which makes your cells unhealthy ... and the rest of your body too.
  
• You're in a constant state of alertness, because your levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, are spiked. This means you'll be under constant stress and will have trouble resting -- meaning you'll have trouble sleeping
• Your immune system weakens. I know about this all too well. When I was a starving student, pulling all-nighters and working evenings and weekend to make ends meet, I was constantly sick. Now that I get a proper amount of shut-eye, I haven't been sick in ages.
• You're moody.
• You're not mentally sharp
• You crave junk food. And because you're not at you peak performance, you're more likely to give in to those cravings.
  

So remember folks -- make sleep a priority.

I'm a chick who has pulled out a standard ice axe on a snowy ascent, but my pick has never chinked into an ice wall. Calling all women out there, if ice climbing has always intrigued you, check out the 2008 winter ice climbing clinics offered by Chicks With Picks.

They offer 5-day, 4-day and 3-day clinics on ice walls in Ouray, Colorado and North Conway, New Hampshire. I've seen the Ouray ice wall up close, and this is a stellar destination! Ouray is nestled amongst breathtaking mountains, and the town offers several hot springs for a good soak after a day of icing it. Never been to New Hampshire's White Mountains, but I've heard the Whites are worth the trip.

Be a little daring this winter. No machismo, just a friendly group of world-class female guides to teach you the ropes of ice climbing in a safe, comfortable environment. I'm impressed with their philosophy -- Chicks With Picks promotes self reliance through learning technical skills, and they give back big through several charitable endeavors. Their theme is Women Climbing with Women, for Women.

If you're tired of hearing your kids sneeze, sniffle and cough, you have probably investigated allergies as the cause of all that mess. Nobody likes to hear those sounds coming from any kid, but outside of drugs and medical processes that may just mask allergies, what can you do?

First off, provide a good complement of solid, nutrition-packed foods like tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers and fish, according to this story.

The regular consumption of those foods end up causing a 40 percent reduction in allergy symptoms, according to a study published recently in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology. Although the link between these foods and the expression of allergies is unknown, it's still rather intriguing. The battle for many of us is to get our kids to eat these great foods.

Kids these days! They seem to be doing all the trendy fitness activities, just like mom and dad -- including yoga and even weight-lifting. But what about pilates? Is it safe, or even helpful for kids who want to be like mom or dad and get in shape?

According to the experts at eDiets, pilates is a great activity for kids -- provided you and your little one train with a qualified instructor who can modify certain moves for a growing body.

With the obesity rates among kids on the rise, it's awesome when children show an interest in exercise -- so find a way to accommodate their interest and build some life-long healthy relationships in your kids.

Although the virus is generally associated with sickness and even tragic, terminal health conditions, one virus may actually be incredibly helpful if the conclusion from a new study this week is correct.

There is at least one virus that has cancer-fighting abilities which could be harnessed to treat some metastatic cancers, according to the study published in the November 7 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

There has always been a debate amongst muscleheads regarding the single-best exercise a person can perform. Invariably, it always comes down to the same three choices: The Bench Press, The Squat, and the Deadlift. Each incorporates a number of major muscle groups, and each should be a part of everyone's workout in some way, shape or form. Unfortunately, the muscleheads of the world won't accept that as an adequate answer. They want to know which of the three is THE BEST, and they're not exactly the type of people that you want to make wait.

Another food recall is in the works, as General Mills began recalling up to five million frozen pizzas yesterday sold under the Totino's and Jeno's labels. Cause: possible E. coli contamination.

So far, information suggested that certain lines of pepperoni from a General Mills plant in Ohio may have been contaminated with the bacteria, which can cause extreme illness but generally is not fatal except to those with weaker immune systems.

Here is the list of frozen pizzas that were recalled along with the UPC numbers for each.

• Totino's Party Supreme, 42800-10700
• Totino's Three Meat, 42800-10800
• Totino's Pepperoni, 42800-11400
• Totino's Pepperoni, 42800-92114
• Totino's Classic Pepperoni, 42800-11402
• Totino's Pepperoni Trio, 42800-72157
• Totino's Party Combo, 42800-11600
• Totino's Combo, 42800-92116
• Jeno's Crisp 'n Tasty Supreme, 35300-00561
• Jeno's Crisp 'n Tasty Pepperoni, 35300-00572
• Jeno's Crisp 'n Tasty Combo, 35300-00576

Want to lose weight? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Maybe you don't even need to. Or maybe you do, and you just don't feel like putting forth the effort. It's your body, which means it's your choice. Health matters and professionals, barking personal trainers, and even societal pressures aside, your decision to lose weight is ultimately yours to make and yours alone.

But, still the question lingers - How do you lose weight? Exercise works extremely well, but some people are loathe to even imagine themselves trying this route. Eating a proper diet is also a great way, but some people simply enjoy the food they eat far to much to make the sacrifice. Exercising and diet together are a synergistic powerhouse when it comes to losing weight, but if a person is not willing to do one of these two, they're almost certainly not going to do both. So, welcome back to square one - How do you lose weight?

Apart from the methods already mentioned, there are very few ways to drop some pounds. However, if what you are looking for is a workout and diet-free approach that can still at least knock off a few pounds, researchers from Harvard suggest that the easiest way to go about doing so is to replace sugary soft drinks (such as Mountain Dew and Coke)with water or diet versions of these drinks. It appears that sugary soft drinks short-circuit the complicated interplay of hormones that are responsible for telling us when to eat and, more importantly, when to stop eating.

I just recently happened upon an interesting website called EnergyFiend.com. Pretty straightforward in its purpose, Energy Fiend offers a calculator of just how many servings of your choice caffeinated beverages it would take to kill you (based on your weight only -- so, clearly it's not an exact science, but interesting, nonetheless). For example, if you weighed 175 pounds, it would take consuming approximately 45 Starbucks tall coffees in one sitting to kill you.

It's kind of fun, in a strange and slightly macabre sort of way. But, it also lead me to uncover some interesting facts about how much caffeine is in some products, many of which I didn't expect to rank so high. For example, I was rather surprised to discover that many fruit-flavored sodas are relatively high in caffeine. And, I also was amazed at the fact that the aforementioned Starbucks tall coffee actually contains more caffeine than a dose of Maximum Strength No-Doze pills.

The jury is still out on whether or not caffeine is healthy (I've read opposing views on this matter), but one thing is for sure, is that too much of anything -- be it caffeine or, well, anything else -- is not a good thing. Therefore, you should try to limit your caffeine intake to 250mg per day, which is about what you'll find in an average (read: Non-Starbucks) cup of coffee.

For those who have lung cancer, a new piece of research suggests that quality of life is single largest predictor of survival. Not drugs, not food -- but quality of life (which can be hard to quantify).

Instead of data like tumor size, development stage or other medical concerns, the actual quality of a cancer patient's life is is utmost concern according to the research. This is very interesting and flies in the face of strictly empirical data concerning cancer patient longevity.

What qualifies as higher "quality of life," you may ask? Being married of having a partner in life was among the highest.

Do you get cold sores? I do, so I know how much of a pain in the you-know-what they can be. And if it's not bad to enough to be cold sore-prone, there's more bad news for sufferers -- we're more likely to develop Alzheimer's later in life. The reason? The infection seems to radically increase the production of amyloid, the toxic protein that clogs the brain cells in Alzheimer's sufferers.

Armed with these new findings, researchers will try to look at how cold sore drugs may lessen or eradicate this connection. But in the meantime, all we cold sore folks can do is wait. And those who don't get cold sores should take precautionary measures to make sure they don't get the virus.

It seems that the social healthcare environment in the U.S. is escalating (whether you support it or not), but a new study finds that almost two million U.S. veterans are without health insurance along with many civilians.

Does that strike you as odd? Let's put it this way: do you agree or disagree that those citizens that have fought for the U.S. should be given complimentary health insurance for life when they have returned to the U.S.? That is a question sure to spark a firestorm of comments, so let 'em roll!

The study reported that t12.7 percent of the uninsured veterans were under the age of 65, which is quite a few all things considered. Additionally, over 3 million family members of those veterans are also uninsured.

Outside online offers over two dozen health and fitness tips in their October article The Greatest Fitness Tips. Ever. They established the list through wisdom gained over 30 years in the health and fitness biz. Let's take a look at a few of their suggestions:

• Maintain base fitness: Never get so out of shape that getting back into shape becomes extremely difficult. Continually train for that annual marathon, 10-mile walk, climbing a new peak or whatever goal suits you.
• Cross train with the right sport: Runners should cycle, cyclists should run and row, rockclimbers should perform calisthenics ... you get the picture.
• Flexibility is important: You don't need to fold into a pretzel, but greater flexiblity also boosts muscle endurance.
• Don't blame food: Start exercising and you'll lose weight. It's not all about bad carbohydrates or bad food.

To Outside's credit, they mock poor advice they gave in the past, such as pro-tanning and saying exercising above 85 percent of your maximum heart rate has little or no cardio benefit (not true)! But in 1979, they did ridicule one physician who said a woman's weak abdominal muscles could cause her insides to fall out while jogging, as they're perforated by the vagina. A medical doctor actually said that? Oh yeah, this was 1979.

Drugmakers that actually manufacture drugs outside of the U.S. see an American inspection team perhaps every decade, according to a new report from congressional investigators.

I don't know about you, but that is terribly scary. An inspection every ten years to plants and processes that make prescription drugs (and OTC drugs too) used by millions of U.S. citizens really makes little sense. It's a global village, yes -- but it's not a global regulatory environment apparently.

What do you think? Do all those medicines in the bathroom cabinet have a clean bill of health when it comes to safe manufacturing? Are there any guarantees? Do things change in 10 years?

Everyone's favourite celeb doctor, Dr. Oz, has some great advice on how to healthify your life, and now he's offering advice on how to improve your mind too. Here are some tips:

• Teach people. You're far more likely to retain information if you have to teach it to someone else.
  
• But don't just teach -- learn. You should never stop learning. Why? People who are willing to learn throughout their lives have better memories. In short, use your brain or lose it. So take a class, pick up an informative book, watch a documentary or take up a new hobby!
• Think about thinking. Instead of doing everything on auto-pilot, think about what you're doing, and notice what's going on around you.
  
• Take care of your body. You brain can only be as healthy as the body that sustains it. Eat well. Exercise. Get lots of sleep. It will all pay off.
  

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