At a recent Mary Kay skincare event, sleep scientist Jan Yager, Ph.D. shared tips for getting your best beauty rest

1. Lose weight: Drinking water helps you lose weight because it flushes down the by-products of fat breakdown. Drinking water reduces hunger, it’s an effective appetite suppressant so you’ll eat less. Plus, water has zero calories.
2. Natural Remedy for Headache: Helps to relieve headache and back pains due to dehydration. Although there are many other reasons contribute to headache, dehydration is the common one.
3. Look Younger with Healthier Skin: You’ll look younger when your skin is properly hydrated. Water helps to replenish skin tissues, moisturizes skin and increase skin elasticity.
4. Better Productivity at Work: Your brain is mostly made up of water, thus drinking water helps you think better, be more alert and more concentrate.
5. Better Exercise: Drinking water regulates your body temperature. You’ll feel more energetic when doing exercises and water helps to fuel your muscle.
6. Helps in Digestion and Constipation: Drinking water raises your metabolism because it helps in digestion. Fiber and water goes hand in hand so that you can have your daily bowel movement.
7. Less Cramps and Sprains: Proper hydration helps keep your joints and muscles lubricated, so you’ll less likely get cramps and sprains.
8. Less Likely to Get Sick and Feel Healthy: Drinking plenty of water helps fight against flu and other ailments like kidney stones and heart attack. Water adds with lemon is used for ailments like respiratory disease, intestinal problems, rheumatism and arthritis etc. Another words one of the benefits of drinking water can improve our immune system.
9. Relieves Fatigue: Water is used by the body to help flush out toxins and waste products from the body. If your body lacks of water, your heart, for instance, need to work harder to pump out the oxygenated blood to all cells, so are the rest of the vital organs, your organs will be exhausted and so are you.
10. Good Mood: Your body feels very good and that’s why you feel happy.
11. Reduce the Risk of Cancer: Related to the digestive system, some studies show that drinking a healthy amount of water may reduce the risks of bladder cancer and colon cancer. Water dilutes the concentration of cancer-causing agents in the urine and shortens the time in which they are in contact with bladder lining.

Can you see the importance of water to your body after understanding the above benefits of drinking water?

The problem is, we often don’t know we’re overdoing it until it’s too late.  If you exercise all the time, you may not think twice about heading outside for your usual workout, not realizing that your body, no matter how fit it is, needs time to adapt to hot weather exercise.  A few tips:

• Watch your heart rate:  High temperatures and humidity can send your heart rate soaring.  Many of us try to run, walk or cycle at the same pace we normally do, sometimes pushing ourselves even when we’re clearly struggling.  Wear a heart rate monitor and check your heart rateregularly.  If it’s very high, you know to back off, cut your workout short or move it indoors.
• The sweat factor:  If you stop sweating, that’s a major warning sign that your body can’t regulate your temperature and you should stop your workout and head indoors.
• Look for signs of heat exhaustion:  Besides the sweat factor, stop your workout and get indoors if you feel nausea, fatigue, dizziness or so hot that your head might catch on fire.  Treating yourself right away (with fluids, a cold shower, an air conditioned room, etc.) can help you avoid heat stroke, which is much more serious and usually requires emergency treatment.
• By Paige Waehner, About.com Guide  June 9, 2011

http://beachbodycoach.com/esuite/home/tena4fitness?bctid=895599538001

Finding balance in your life is different for everyone but also very important. I am working on trying to find balance in my life so that I can have more time with my family and still feel like I am geting everything done I need to. I totally enjoy everything I do so by prioritizing and organizing my day, week and even my month in advance I have more control over my life and feel more balanced.

Here are a few tips on how to hopefully find more balance and more hours in your day, and mine too.

1. Make a plan. Sit down and spend some time writing out all the things you do and put them in order of importance. You should do this at least once a month but you can do it more if you need too. At the first of each week sit down and write out all the things you have to do. When you see them in writing you are better able to get everything done.

2. Have a family meeting. Sit down with everyone and discuss where you need help and what everyone else has going on. By including your family you make it important to them and they are more likely to help. Each child can have age appropriate chores to do to help with the balance.

3. Eliminate what is not working. This is the hardest part for me because, as I said, I love everything I do, but you really have to look at your life and see where you need to make changes or delegate or even eliminate. It can be hard at first but once you get into the habit of writing things down, having your family help and making the changes you need to make you will find more time and balance in your life.

I am writing this because I need to find more balance in my life and in doing so more time to spend with my family and friends.

I hope you enjoy this information and it can help you in some way. Let me know. Enjoy your day.

Exercising on an empty stomach isn’t good either. Skipping meals before exercising can cause low blood sugar, which can make you to feel weak and light-headed. You also need some energy in the form of the right types of food to properly fuel your work out. Eating a light meal before exercise may actually increase your fat-burning potential.

Eating Before Exercise

If you eat a large, protein, fiber and fat filled meal, wait about four hours to exercise. If you eat a light meal, you only have to wait about two hours to work out. Your body prefers to use carbohydrates as fuel, so your pre-workout meal should include plenty of carbohydrates from bread, pasta, fruits and vegetables. You don’t need to avoid protein and fat, however don’t overdo either of these nutrients if you will be exercising in an hour or two.

If your timing is off and you feel hungry when it is time to exercise, pick a small snack like piece of fruit, a sports beverage or some fruit juice.

Eating After Exercise

Eating after exercise is important as well. Your muscles need the raw materials to recuperate after your work out. A light meal or snack within 2 hours after exercise is perfect. This post-work out meal should contain some protein, some complex carbohydrates and some healthy fats too. A Balance Bar or a lean turkey sandwich on whole grain bread would make a nice after workout snack.

When I was younger, I struggled with my weight. I was not really over weight but my dad was and I lived in fear that I would be overweight when I got older. He became a diabetic in his 40′s and also had to take medication for High blood pressure and High Cholesterol. He did not work out and even though my mom would try her hardest to help him eat healthy, he would sneak deserts and treats behind her back. I made up my mind that I was not going to follow in his footsteps and decided to stay active.

I started teaching aerobics when I was 24 years old. The church I belonged to wanted to start up an exercise program so a few of us decided we would help get it started. It was a big hit. We packed the room and I fell in Love with working out and seeing the changes that our participants were making.

Over the years I have continued to teach aerobics, have become certified as an instructor and personal trainer, and I have loved every minute of this journey. I am just an average person, but I do feel my calling is to help others reach their goals. We are all different shapes and sizes. Some people are really thin while others are not, but I believe that where ever we are we can be the best. You have to focus on you, not your friend or mother or father. I realize heredity plays a big role in our lives, but I also believe we can change a lot of that by what we do and how we take care of our lives. God gave us one life to live and I believe He wants us to take the best care we can of the life we are given.

I am not perfect either. I don’t always eat right, but I do always realize today is a new day and yesterday is gone so I press on to be the best I can be.

Because I want to help end this Obesity Trend that we have, I decided to also become a Beachbody rep. I truly believe this company cares about me and about you. They have helped me not only in my fitness journey but I have met so many wonderful people that are changing their lives and also the lives of others.

So where do I want to be in the next 10-20 years? I want to be able to say that I am still working out, doing the things I enjoy like playing golf or scrap-booking and that because of my healthy lifestyle I did not have some of the same issues my dad had. I know I can not predict the future, none of us can, but I can at least do my best to stay as healthy as I can for as long as I can.

If you are interested in helping others End the Obesity Trend, please let me know. We need more people to help, and it could be you.

The term cellulite refers to the dimpled appearance of skin that can occur at any point on the body where the skin is thinner. Under the upper layer of skin, there’s a layer of connective tissue that holds fat into place. In most women (and some men), this connective tissue has gaps in it, which allow the fat to push through, creating a bumpy appearance. The difference between fat and cellulite is simply where the deposit lies in relation to these gaps in the connective tissue. That, and the fact that even with weight loss and muscle gain, so-called “normal” fat may disappear, while cellulite seems to want to continue keeping your thighs company indefinitely.

Cellulite can occur in the thinnest of women and men (sorry, guys) and doesn’t seem to discriminate based on nationality, financial standing, age, or weight. There are believed to be hormonal and hereditary issues that can contribute to causing cellulite. Other causes may include poor circulation, lack of exercise, and even too-tightly fitting undergarments. But no one really knows for sure why 10 percent of the female population is gifted with not having to deal with cellulite, while the rest of us have rear ends that look like a giant golf ball.

So when faced with the appearance of orange peel on your thighs, what should you do? Well, there’s good and bad news. The bad news is that there is no actual way, surgical or otherwise, to get rid of cellulite completely at present. No amount of vacuuming, injections, creams, or painful massage will eradicate it permanently. But there are many things that can potentially improve the appearance of cellulite. The following is a list of options, ranked from the least to most invasive and/or expensive.

1. Diet. There are several diets out here that claim to remove cellulite from the body. After a bit of research, you’ll find that most of them are just healthy eating plans that tell you to reduce caffeine and alcohol consumption, avoid processed foods, and drink plenty of water. This, of course, doesn’t really bring anything specific to the table for cellulite. It might help you lose overall body fat, which will reduce the appearance of the lumpy stuff, but no amount of pineapple consumption will completely remove it.
2. Exercise. Magazines are full of articles on exercises to ban dimpled thighs. Again, these exercises are designed to promote muscle growth and fat loss. Unfortunately, a lot of them are exercises that only target very specific areas, which will not benefit your overall fitness level and are fairly pointless, considering that you can’t spot-reduce fat. Hard cardio and a toned physique will go just as far, if not farther, for reducing the appearance of cellulite. Overall, continuing with your P90X or INSANITY^® workout plans will do more for you than will any number of leg lifts alone.
3. Tanning. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has again come out with studies on how horrible the effects of tanning beds and baking in the sun can be. Tanning has now been compared to cigarettes and arsenic. Which is unfortunate, because a little color on your skin can do more to mask extra bumpy tissue than just about anything else. Luckily, there are an abundance of tanning creams and spray-on tans out there that can give you a similar effect without the risk of skin cancer. Just be careful with application, and if you go the professional route, make sure the folks you choose know what they’re doing. I once attended a black tie event with hands the color of a pumpkin. Not pretty.
4. Creams. There are thousands of topical treatments available that can cost anywhere from 10 dollars to several hundred. Most of them have the common “active” ingredients aminophylline, caffeine, and theophyilline. Sad to say, none of these creams can deliver the needed concentration to the necessary depth to make much of a difference in the connective tissue. They’re promoted as increasing circulation, but ultimately, you’re just using a very expensive moisturizer.
5. Massage. Massage is another attempt at breaking down connective tissue and increasing circulation in the area. Unfortunately, cellulite is a tougher problem than can be fixed by a single day at the spa. However, there have been studies that consistent, rather aggressive massage techniques can really assist in the cottage cheese reduction process. Before scheduling a daily visit from your massage therapist, though, try intensely rubbing the affected areas on your own with a moisturizer for a few weeks and see if there’s any change in appearance. Thankfully, most cellulite appears on areas of the body you can actually reach.
6. Wraps. Wraps have been around forever and still have devoted followers all over the world. The idea of the body wrap is to dehydrate the area, removing all excess water, supposedly creating a leaner appearance. Wrestlers and ballet dancers alike are infamous for wrapping themselves in plastic and sitting in a sauna for ridiculous amounts of time to try and drop “weight.” These results are temporary and will usually return to normal with any intake of water. Wraps may in fact moisturize the skin, but so will a bit of inexpensive aloe vera cream.
7. Supplements. Supplements can be extremely effective in helping you achieve fitness goals, but like all things I’ve mentioned thus far, no combination of herbal remedies has been proven effective in the fight against cellulite. Most contain some sort of ginkgo biloba, sweet clover, grapeseed bioflavinoids, oil of evening primrose, fish oil, and soy lecithin. All might assist your metabolism, and possibly your immunity and brain function, but none will make the dimples disappear.
8. Injections. Here’s a cellulite remedy that can cause actual discomfort. Mesotherapy is a series of injections to the cellulite-affected area. Very similar to Botox^® for your back end, it’s highly controversial and can require up to 10 visits to see any results. The medication injected has been approved by the FDA for other cosmetic issues, but wasn’t designed for use on cellulite, and is so new that all potential side effects haven’t been discovered yet. Before you choose to go this route, make sure to discuss it thoroughly with your medical practitioner.
9. Suction massage. Endermology was created in France about 15 years ago for the temporary reduction of cellulite. The machine creates suction, pulling and squeezing affected areas, which eventually seems to redistribute the fat somewhat, but in truth, it doesn’t change the fat’s makeup. Sessions last about 45 minutes, require 10 to 12 visits, and are rather expensive. Without regular maintenance visits, the appearance of cellulite will simply return.
10. Lasers. The FDA has approved two different laser options, both used with either a suction device or massage therapy. A low-level laser is radiated on the skin as some type of massage is administered. Both TriActive and VelaSmooth^® require as many sessions as Endermology, in addition to continued follow-up maintenance, and can cost thousands of dollars. The effectiveness of laser treatments on cellulite is still unclear, but for individuals with enough cash to spare, this presently seems to be one of the best possible options for cellulite reduction.

Remember, while many of these approaches can improve the appearance of cellulite, none seem to remove cellulite completely or permanently. Until a method is found that will accomplish the total eradication of cellulite, it might be better to spend less money on expensive creams and injections and more on nutritious foods and activities that support a healthy lifestyle. Not only will this help to improve your skin tone, but it’ll make you feel better about your whole body, inside and out. And isn’t that more important than a few extra dimples? Issue:

From Beachbody Newsletter #201, January 12, 2011