We are pumped to share one of our fave stories from Prevention here on FitSugar! By the Editors of Prevention A toned, flat tummy is a goal many of us strive to achieve in time for bathing suit season, but endless crunches and ditching all your favorite foods until July 4th isn’t the right-or fun-way to do it. A sculpted core and trim tummy can be attained by incorporating small changes into your day, like holding in your abs while you walk and adding the right healthy fats to your diet. In our lean belly guide , you’ll get diet and exercise tips that will help you eliminate hard-to-reach ab flab and reveal a sculpted, sexy midsection. Here, learn 6 ways to flatten your belly by summer. Make Time For Cardio If you want to burn the most belly fat, a Duke University study confirms that aerobic exercise is the most effective in burning that deep, visceral belly fat. In fact, aerobic training burns 67% more calories than resistance training or a combination of the two, according to the study. Top 10 Reasons Your Abs Exercises Aren’t Working Fight Fat With Fiber For every 10 grams of fiber you eat daily, your belly will carry almost 4% less fat. Thankfully, there are more enjoyable ways to increase your fiber than scarfing down a box of bran flakes: Two apples, ½ cup of pinto beans, one artichoke, or two cups of broccoli will all give you 10 grams of belly-flattening fiber. More flat-belly tips after the break.

It seems like Tracy Anderson has trained half of Hollywood , and one of her biggest fans, Nicole Richie , even enlisted her to help her get in shape for her 2010 wedding . “Nicole worked out six days a week, she learned dance aerobics, she did her muscular structure work, and she did it in such a healthy beautiful way,” Tracy says of her client’s devoted wedding prep. If you want to look like a starlet on your wedding day, here are a few tips Tracy Anderson shared with us for brides-to-be who want to get in shape. First, start early: Don’t wait until the last minute to try and lose weight and then expect miracles, Tracy warns. “The thing that is most unfortunate is when a bride comes to me and has never done anything before and is like ‘Oh my god, I have to lose 30 pounds in a month,’” Tracy says. She recommends you figure out your diet and exercise plan as soon as you start looking for venue locations, at the beginning of your wedding planning, so you don’t end up resorting to juice cleanses or feeding-tube diets to lose pounds weeks before your big day. (Tracy jokes, “If I were the husband-to-be, I can think of nothing less sexy than my fiance installing a feeding tube to look 120 pounds thinner on the wedding day. I’d probably call it off!”) Read on for Tracy’s diet and exercise recommendations for brides!

We’re smack dab in the middle of Spring, and with all the new colors popping up at the farmers market, I couldn’t be happier. If you’ve been picking up Spring produce (like fava beans, English peas, artichokes, carrots, avocados, and asparagus) and are wondering what to do with your new bounty of veggies, here are 40 healthy recipes to inspire you the next time you’re in the kitchen. View Slideshow ›

Look at all the money you’d save if you started bike commuting – Blisstree 9 low-carb snacks to eat on the go – Shape How to lose weight without even trying – Self 5 types of people who think they’re healthy (but really aren’t) – Mind Body Green 7 foods with more fat than a stick of butter – HuffPost Healthy Living The best and worst nuts for your health – Health Now is the day: sign up for one of these races in your area – Fitness

Pasta is one of those go-to simple suppers that is always a hit, but sometimes things can get a little heavy. Looking to Spring clean up your favorite recipes and lighten things up a little. Try one of these nine pasta dishes, all boasting seasonal veggies, and you’ll be in business. Click through to check them all out. View Slideshow ›

A bowl of cereal makes the perfect breakfast. It’s fast, easy, and inexpensive, and the right bowl of cereal is a good source of fiber, calcium, and protein. But if you make the wrong choices, your cereal may actually be contributing to weight gain. Avoid these mistakes when it comes to your morning bowl of cereal. Your bowl is too big: Depending on the box of cereal you choose, a serving size is about three-quarters to one-and-a-quarter cups. If you use the biggest bowl you have and just mindlessly pour, you could be devouring over 400 calories instead of the usual 120 to 200 – and this is just the cereal alone! You’re a little nuts: Sliced almonds, pecans, and walnuts offer healthy fats and protein, but they’re also pretty high in calories. Two tablespoons of walnuts is almost 100, so be mindful about how nutty you get. Keep reading for more ways your cereal bowl can cause weight gain.

Trainers are incredibly helpful in teaching better form and correct alignment, but no matter how astute a trainer is, he or she may miss a few things. To help protect your body from injury or strain, keep these questions in mind during your training session. Even though it’s a trainer’s job to keep you safe, it’s still important to develop a keen eye for any bad habits that could present potential problems later. Where Should I Be Aligned? Everyone’s body has different tilts and asymmetries, and your trainer might not always be able to see the one-inch difference between your left and right shoulders, for example. If you are aware of any asymmetries in your body, verbalize them to your trainer so he or she will keep you in check. You also want to remind yourself of common alignment issues like keeping your shoulders down and back, abs engaged, hips even, and weight on the heels of the foot when doing squats or lunges. Click here for more questions to ask.

Adele answers her critics and talks body image and cleavage – Blisstree Before your workout, to eat or not? – Real Simple Get inspired by celeb before and after weight-loss pics – Shape Get a leg up! Three steps to stronger thighs – HuffPost Health and Fitness SFO just got a little more chill: yoga room opens at airport – Newser A handful of ways to lose weight at Walmart – Prevention Submit your best asana to be in the pages of the magazine – Yoga Journal Get the skinny on weight-loss supplements – Health

California children’s hospitals aren’t dishing up particularly healthful fare, a new study shows. Researchers from UCLA and the Rand Corp. report in the journal Academic Pediatrics that of the 16  food venues serving 14 hospitals studied in July 2010, 81% offered unhealthful “impulse items” — think freezers stocked with ice-cream treats — near the cash register. Only 31% offered nutrition information at the point of purchase, while just 25% sold whole-wheat bread. Half the hospital cafeterias offered no healthful entrees  — defined as having no more than 800 calories (650 for sandwiches), no more than 30% of calories from fat and 10% from saturated fat. In fact, of the 384 entrees or sandwiches served by the hospitals, only 7% were categorized as healthful, the study says. There was some good news: all the cafeterias studied offered low-fat or skim milk and diet soda, while 94% offered fruit without added sugar. Three-quarters had a salad bar and non-fried veggies, and more than half offered low-fat or fat-free salad dressing. The cafeterias aren’t directly serving the young hospital patients, though, so why does it matter whether they’re selling cookies and fried foods? Two reasons, says Lenard Lesser, primary investigator of the study and a family-medicine physician at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. First, he says, there’s an educational piece. “Hospitals should be exemplars of healthy eating because they’re places of health,” he tells the Health Blog. ( Previous research cited by the study authors found that families surveyed at a children’s hospital with an on-site McDonald’s were twice as likely to think the restaurant’s food was healthful than families surveyed at hospitals without a McDonald’s.) Second, “lots of people come through the hospital to see a pediatrician or another doctor, and they may eat at the hospital’s food venue,” says Lesser. And “besides patients and visitors there are thousands of staff who eat their meals there,” he says. “Hospitals have a vested interest in getting their employees” to eat healthfully, he says. Lesser says some of the hospitals studied have already made changes — things like lowering the price of salad-bar items and eliminating sugary beverages. The study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Image: iStockphoto

The Empowered Patient is a regular feature from CNN Senior Medical News Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen that helps put you in the driver's seat when it comes to health care. Looking back over the past nine months, Gabrielle Giffords’ neurosurgeon remembers several high points in his patient’s recovery – and the most recent one involves his suit and tie. “I usually wear scrubs to my appointment with her, but one day I wore a suit instead, and she looked at me and said, ‘Wow, you have a suit on today. What’s with the necktie?’” remembers Dr. Dong Kim . “She really gave me grief with great fluidity,” he says, laughing. “It was such a great moment that we could interact at that level and hang out and talk.” Speech is Giffords’ biggest challenge right now, says Kim, director of the Mischer Neuroscience Institute at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. She has expressive aphasia, which means she knows what she wants to say but often has trouble finding the right words, whether she’s speaking or writing. “We all have times where we can’t remember someone’s name, or we see something and we just can’t think of the word. Imagine what that’s like when it’s happening 80% of the time,” he says. Kim says her speech has improved by “leaps and bounds” during the nearly nine months that Giffords has been his patient “In the old days, if she was hungry, she would point to her tummy,” he says. “Now she can say ‘I’m hungry.’ She might not be able to say ‘Gosh, I really feel like having a hamburger right now,’ but she can definitely get the sentiment out.” Kim says he expects her speech to improve for about an additional two to four years. “She’s nowhere near a plateau right now,” he says. He adds that he thinks she could return to Congress at some point in the future. “I expect her to be speaking really well at some point, given the progress she’s made,” he says. “It may be different speech than what she had before [the gunshot wound] but it will be very effective speech.” Physically, patients do tend to plateau at about a year. Giffords’ gunshot wound was on the left side of her brain, and Kim says her left arm and leg are fine. Her right leg is weak, and her right arm is weak, too, but less so than her leg. Even with that weakness, she’s able to walk and get up from a chair on her own. Now she’s learning how to do everything with her left hand. “Mobility is not going to be a big deficit for her,” he says.