Some days I feel like my vitamins and supplements are holding my apartment hostage. In a small city space, if I’m not constantly cleaning up, my dresser and medicine cabinet get a little overwhelmed whenever there’s a new addition. While some ladies have their own go-to morning cocktail of nutrients and vitamins women may not be getting enough of and others don’t worry about vitamin deficiencies to the same degree, I’m curious as to what you think. Do you share my sentiment and feel like your vitamin and supplement bottles have taken over your life? Chime in with your comments below. Are Your Cabinets Filled With Vitamins? Yes – they’re packed to capacity. Nope – I don’t take too many vitamins.

Nancy Klinger is one of seven CNN viewers participating in the CNN Fit Nation Triathlon Challenge. Klinger applied to the Challenge after experiencing various personal setbacks, including a separation from her husband of 26 years. Depression is a challenging, albeit important, discussion. It is even difficult to write about. I am one of many who occasionally suffer from depression. It is usually just a minor case of the blues, but on occasion it turns into all out sadness – so much so you ache. You purposely stay away from things that make you happy, you don’t like yourself, and you cry a lot (when you’re alone). You hate yourself for feeling badly while really being so incredibly fortunate. My guess is that this fact would be a shock to the great majority of people who know me or work with me because I hide it so well. On the outside, I am always thought of as the happy one, the positive one, the person who is always smiling. If I were in a beauty pageant I would be in the running for Miss Congeniality! On the inside, my life is filled with pain and emotions that are either incredibly high or incredibly low. It’s exhausting. Last year when my husband and I separated, my world seemed to spiral downward; the sadness seemed to be overtaking me. There were no more ups, only downs. Time spent with a therapist did some good, but when the recommendation was made that I consider a low dose of an antidepressant, I needed to decline. I am as stubborn as they come and felt that I needed to work through this on my own. Fast forward to the CNN FitNation Triathlon Lucky Seven . In 150 days from today I will be participating in the Nautica Triathlon in Malibu with six incredible teammates. Being selected to participate was indeed a blessing. From the start, I began exercising on a regular basis and slowly, but surely, my mood started improving. With great help and support from a wonderful trainer, I get assigned a schedule for each day through a website called TrainingPeaks. I started setting goals for myself, something that I have always shied away from, probably for fear of not achieving them. I started sharing my goals with others to hold myself more accountable. I started feeling better about myself, about life. My Fit Nation teammates slowly became my soul mates. Other positive things started to happen. To get everything done that needs to get done each day, I started to compartmentalize parts of my life. My week is scheduled to make sure that I can get all my training done without negatively impacting the other important aspects of my life. I leave the house early one to two days a week for a morning swim workout. I run at work some days during lunch. I set aside time to read two nights a week. Long bike rides are done on weekends. Cleaning the house and outdoor chores are now done on set days, rather than me freaking out about it on a regular basis. I know that may sound funny but a lot of people probably know what I mean. Sundays are now my “no shower” days, and I try my best to leave my car in the garage. Time is set aside for volunteer activities. My life now seems to have a good and healthy rhythm; I am calmer and more relaxed. The exercise feels more like habit – a good habit. Over the past several months, I have recognized and acknowledged many things about myself and my life. I am starting to realize that it is okay to be happy and it is great to have goals. The finish line of the triathlon, for me, will be the starting line for the next part of life’s journey, and I am looking forward to it! Filed under: 2012 Fit Nation Triathlon Challenge , Nancy Klinger Tagged: Nancy Klinger – Fit Nation Participant

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Health.com here on our site. By Su Reid St. John I’ve been struggling a bit recently with old, not-so-great eating habits. I’ve made a few halfhearted attempts to stem the tide, but it wasn’t until last week, when I found my favorite jeans a little hard to button, that I realized I’d gotten pretty far off track. So I turned to a simple mantra for help: It’s not an option. I repeat it every time a plate of brownies shows up in the break room, my husband bakes gingerbread cookies and leaves them on the counter, or I’m simply contemplating a second helping of tortellini. 5-Minute Fat Burners I actually got it from Lisa Delaney, author of the funny, insightful book Secrets of a Former Fat Girl (and former executive editor at Health magazine). She came up with the phrase in a desperate moment, trying to stop her formerly out-of-shape self from quitting yet another workout. “Those four little words ended the internal argument right there,” she writes. Bam. Done. It’s not an option. The finality of this particular mantra is what makes it so effective for me. It simply slams the door on the possibility of doing something I don’t need to do – this is the way it is, no arguing. It’s oddly freeing, too, because as soon as I say it, my inner waffling comes to a halt and I no longer have the stressful “should I or shouldn’t I?” debate running nonstop through my brain. More tips after the break.

Who you know influences how you behave, a growing body of research is showing. Networks of people who know each other can spread the good ( happiness ) and the bad ( obesity, STDs and loneliness ). But it's not just any social network that propagates behaviors and diseases. New research published in the journal Science suggests that having social network contacts of similar gender, weight and body-mass index could help people pick up on healthy behaviors. The study did not conclude which of these factors is most important, but that will be the subject of follow-up work, says Damon Centola, study author who is a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  It also does not prove that the network caused behavior adoption, but puts forth questions for further study. Researchers recruited 710 participants from online fitness programs. They were all randomly assigned to work with volunteers in social networking communities.  However, some participants were assigned to so-called "clustered communities," where they were connected to 6 heath buddies, who shared similar body mass index, gender and age.  Other trial participants were assigned to "non-clustered communities," which meant they were connected randomly with participants, with whom they didn't necessarily share any traits. Each participant got a personalized "health dashboard" showing his or her own health behaviors and those adopted by health buddies. The study set up the situation where participants had to decide whether to adopt (or agree to use) an online diet diary.  A notification from the dashboard would tell participants if their health buddies had adopted the behavior. In each network, participants received a notification that a person in their network with above-average fitness, high exercise minutes and low BMI had chosen to use the diary. In reality, researchers sent out that notification to see how the behavior would spread. Researchers found that three times more participants in clustered social networks adopted healthy behaviors from the diary than their counterparts in the unstructured networks did. Relative to their study population sizes, a greater percentage of obese participants chose to adopt the diet diary in the clustered networks compared to non-obese volunteers. And not a single obese participant in the unstructured networks signed up for the diary. Generally speaking, the clustered networks greatly increased the likelihood of adopting the diary, especially among the less physically fit volunteers, according to the study. How does this happen? Researchers looked at the data again in terms of who got exposed to the diary via notifications from others in the group. Once an obese person adopted the behavior, clustered networks allowed other obese individuals greater exposure. Scientists conclude that being in these similar clusters gave obese people more access to the behavior and increased their chance of adopting it. "Our findings suggest that obese individuals may be more dependent than healthier individuals on the compositions of their social networks for making decisions about adopting health behaviors," Centola wrote in the study. It remains an open question as to why this was the case among obese individuals, Centola told CNN. "It was a way of clearly identifying how one feature of social structure could affect behavior," he said. "In terms of more substantive implications, there is more work to do." This line of research suggests that policy makers might benefit from designing online social networks, and arranging the connections between people to reach certain goals, Marco J. van der Leij wrote in an accompanying Perspective article in Science.

If you’re worried about devouring a huge Thanksgiving meal and what that will mean to your waistline, have no fear. You can have your cake – I mean pie – and eat it too, you just have to get moving afterward. Check out the calorie amounts for your favorite Thanksgiving foods and find out some ways you can work off those tasty calories.

We are excited to share one of our fave stories from Prevention here on FitSugar! White potatoes don’t make you fat, carrots aren’t made of sugar – and other myths about the produce you grew up on, dispelled By Karen Ansel, RD If the low-carb diet craze of the early 2000s left you believing that potatoes equal pounds and corn is no better than candy, it’s time to wake up and taste the produce. Truth is, even vegetables you may think of as nutritional duds are packed with vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, not to mention varied colors, flavors, and textures. If you’ve been avoiding these “produce outcasts,” your diet — and health — are missing out. Here, we debunk the biggest myths about a few unfairly maligned vegetables — and provide easy and healthful ways to eat more of them. Feed Your Family for $100 a Week White Potatoes Make You Fat One medium baked potato has only 161 calories, plus 4 g of filling fiber Added bonus: Chilled, cooked potato is packed with resistant starch, a fibrous substance that could help you lose weight. (For more information on resistant starch, visit prevention.com/resistantstarch .) “If you keep portion sizes in check — no more than one medium potato in a given meal — and eat the fiber-rich skin, potatoes make a satisfying, low-cal, nutrient-rich side dish,” says Michelle Dudash, RD, a Gilbert, AZ-based nutritionist. They also: Fight disease When scientists from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service tested more than 100 potato varieties, they discovered 60 different vitamins and phytochemicals. For starters, they found flavonoids (which are credited with improving heart health and protecting against lung and prostate cancers) including quercetin, which may boost immunity. Help maintain healthy blood pressure Potatoes are loaded with kukoa-mines, plant chemicals that help lower blood pressure, found the USDA researchers. In addition, one medium baked potato (including the skin) provides 20 percent of your daily potassium, a known hyper-tension fighter. Try this: To make a fat-burning potato salad, boil new potatoes in water until cooked through. Cut into one 2-inch slices and then quarter. Toss with olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, and chopped fresh parsley, and chill. Or for a hearty meal, skip the sour cream, butter, and cheese, and top a baked russet potato with vegetarian chili. 9 Eating Habits to Naturally Boost Your Health Learn why you should be eating carrot and celery after the break.

Learning that you have an allergy or sensitivity to products containing gluten - anything containing wheat, barley, or rye – can be stressful in and of itself, let alone trying to find the extra funds to support your new diet. If you’ve given up gluten, you’ve probably noticed after trips to any health food specialty stores that gluten-free food items are not cheap. Even though it’s estimated that one in every 133 Americans is afflicted with celiac disease (that’s roughly 2.8 million people), premade gluten-free foods are significantly more money than their gluten-filled counterparts. Which is why I’ve come up with some tips for how to live gluten-free without breaking the bank. Buy the Basics: Rather than get caught up with all of the shiny, expensive new gluten-free items your local grocery store has started stocking its shelves with, stick to the basics. Vegetables, fruits, fish, meats, brown rice, potatoes, corn, quinoa, and nuts are all gluten-free, so try getting creative with foods that are gluten-free to begin with. Keep reading for more tips.

Is vitamin C protecting us from the common cold? Is chicken soup efficient when you have a cold? These are questions everybody asks because the cold is the most common respiratory infection. You may have noticed that some women catch a cold easier than others while some of them barely get a running nose all through winter. The average woman has around 200 colds during her lifetime and they usually last around 9 days, the genes being responsible for the predisposition towards the cold. You should know that the mystery of the common cold remedies holds valuable helping hands but also simple myths which do not make a difference. That is why you should know the truth about the matter. It is said that a weak immune system makes us vulnerable in front of the cold. This is not exactly true. A cold manifesting strongly is not the sign of a strong infection but rather the reaction of the immune system fighting to eliminate it. Vitamin C protects you from the cold. This is a highly studied matter and after a lot of clinical studies the conclusion was that the cold risk is diminished with 50% in people with a very active life. For the rest of us, Vitamin C does no have a spectacular effect in preventing the cold. The cold is not transmitted through a kiss. The rhinoviruses causing the common cold are usually transmitted through sneezing or by touching a contaminated surface. There are far little odds to catch a cold kissing a sick person compared to working at the same computer the sick person used. The chicken soup is a very good cold remedy. This ancient treatment has been around for centuries and surprisingly it actually works. The Nebraska University scientists have studied the matter and concluded that the chicken soup does wonders for the common cold.

Even as the situation worsened at a Japanese nuclear-power complex , levels of radiation in the area eased off from their weekend highs, the WSJ reports. And so far, the immediate health risks of the radiation appear minimal, the WSJ reports . Radiation levels outside the plant have so far remained at safe levels, an expert tells the paper. But the situation is volatile, and a full meltdown could produce a range of health problems, including birth defects, thyroid and other cancers and immune-system damage. The danger stems particularly from inhaling, ingesting or absorbing through the skin radioactive chemical elements including iodine-131, strontium-90 and cesium-137, the WSJ explains . One precaution: iodine pills, which prevent the thyroid from taking up the radioactive iodine that’s in the air. Meantime, the NYT reports that crew members on the deck of an aircraft carrier in the Pacific were exposed to “a month’s worth of radiation in about an hour,” as winds carried material from the troubled reactors out to sea. No health problems were associated with the exposure, the paper says. Other military personnel who were helping to rescue earthquake survivors were also exposed to low levels of radioactivity, the paper reports . They were decontaminated and again, aren’t expected to suffer any health problems. Photo: European Pressphoto Agency/Asahi Shimbun

My first job in the natural health industry was as a sales clerk in a health food store. A desire to sell dietary supplements and health foods wasn’t the underlying reason why I chose this line of work. It’s true that I needed to earn money. But I could have made more working as a Related posts: Natural Alternative for Impotence Best Of Fenugreek Research New Omega 3 Research Krill Oil Research Magnesium Research