Too Fat to Exercise?

By Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & FitnessMSN Health & Fitness ExclusiveQ: I am severely obese—I am 5 feet 4 inches and weigh 300 pounds. I stand all day at work and by 5 p.m. my knees are screaming. I would like to start exercising, but I don't want to damage my knees. What should I do and how do I begin?A: It's not easy to decide to start exercising when you are in pain and feel physically limited. But it's great that you've decided to do so, since you can improve many aspects of your health by becoming more physically active.It's likely that your extra weight is putting more pressure on your knees, and with an all-day, on-your-feet job, you could be standing in such a way that your knees are out of alignment (either hyperextended—locked out straight—or rotated), which...

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Posted in: Exercise,Fitness

The Ultimate Over-40 Fat Fighter

By Selene Yeager, PreventionPreventionIs your wardrobe suddenly shrinking? If you're over 40, it's probably not your clothing (or an overactive dryer) but, rather, an underactive metabolism that's to blame. It can dip by as much as 200 calories per day from your mid-20s to your mid-50s—enough to pack on nearly an extra 30 pounds in that time. And that old weight loss strategy of crash dieting will just make it worse. What you need is a smarter approach to losing fat while building muscle, which powers your calorie burn and is key to reversing a slow metabolism.We combed through the very latest research and talked to top experts to create our Ultimate Over-40 Fat-Fighting Workout. It's a unique blend of calorie-blasting cardio, supercharged...

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Posted in: Exercise,Fitness

The Most Sugar-Packed Foods in America

By Dave Zinczenko and Matt Goulding, Men's HealthMen's HealthThink your sweet tooth is harmless? Well, it just might bite you back. The average American is wolfing down 460 calories from added sugars every day. That's more than 100 pounds of raw sugar per person per year (enough to make 3,628 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!).What's at risk with all this sugar intake isn't just another cavity; refined carbohydrates cause spikes in your blood sugar levels, tell your body to store fat, and put people at increased risk for diabetes. That's another way of saying that it puts people at increased risk of blindness, sexual malfunction, heart attack, and premature death. All that from a simple candy bar or soda? Consider this: A dollar will buy you about 75 calories' worth of fresh broccoli, but food manufacturers...

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Posted in: Diet

You're Eating … What?

A guide to 7 sketchy additives that may be lurking in your food. Want some dead bugs with your dinner? Well, that's just one of the freaky ingredients involved in making some popular processed foods. And while all seven of these sound incredibly icky—though presumably used to help make your food tastier or look better—some additives are decidedly more disturbing than others. Here's what you're eating—which may inspire you to start contemplating those ingredient labels a lot more closely.CarmineAccording to the FDA, this red food coloring (also known as cochineal extract) is made from dried, ground bugs . The Dactylopius coccus costa insect is native to Peru and the Canary Islands, where it feeds on red berries. The berries accumulate in the...

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Posted in: Diet

Drinking Raises Cancer Risk for Middle-Age Women

By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter"Even relatively low levels of drinking -- on the order of one alcoholic drink per day -- increase a woman's risk of developing cancer," said lead researcher Naomi Allen, from the cancer epidemiology unit at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. "Because a high proportion of women drink low amounts of alcohol regularly and because most of the increased risk is for breast cancer, the risk among women associated with drinking alcohol is of particular importance."In fact, the study found that moderate drinking accounts for 13 percent of breast, liver, rectum and upper respiratory/digestive tract cancers among women.The association between moderate alcohol intake and breast cancer in women is well-known, the researchers point...

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Posted in: cancer,Diet,Women's Issues

Eating for a Better Mood

By Joy Bauer, PARADE MagazinePARADEThe next time you feel blue or irritable, you may want to take a look at what's in your fridge. Researchers who study the food-mood connection have found that certain vitamins and other compounds in food can change brain chemistry. Foods influence the activity of neurotransmitters, the chemicals that convey information from one neuron to the next. Anything that affects these chemical messengers affects your mood—making food a pretty powerful "drug" when it comes to how you feel and act.For example, several studies have shown that omega-3 fatty acids may be effective at combatting depression. One study found that a group of pregnant women taking 3.4 grams of omega-3s per day had significantly fewer depressive symptoms than those taking a placebo....

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Posted in: Diet

Feed Your Face

 Healthier skin starts with these five foods.Here's a beautiful reason to stop by the supermarket today: Certain foods have powerhouse ingredients that keep skin supple and smooth and help fight age-related damage, says Nicholas Perricone, M.D., a board-certified dermatologist and author of Ageless Face, Ageless Mind(Ballantine, 2006). Wondering what to eat and what to smooth on? These skin-saving foods help both ways. (Be sure to do a skin-patch test first, and wait 24 hours to see if you have an allergic reaction.)StrawberriesStrawberries have more anti-aging vitamin C per serving than oranges or grapefruit. And research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that people who eat foods rich in C have fewer...

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Posted in: Diet,Skin Care