8 Ideas to Make Your Home Help in Your Weight Loss Goals

Home: a time to relax, to be with your family, and, unfortunately, a trigger for straying from your weight-loss goals. It’s all too easy to grab a “convenience” snack or sit on the couch for hours on end, watching television or surfing the ‘net. Here are ten ways for you to make your home help, not hurt, your progress:

A Remote Remote. If you tend to watch television to relax, move the remote so that you must physically get up to retrieve it to change the channel.

Clean Sweep. Get rid of all non-nutritious snacks: sodium and calorie-laden chips, candy bars, or whatever your vice may be. If it’s not present, and you would have to actually leave your home to go get it, chances are you will elect to do without.

5 Simple Ways to Improve the Quality of Your Life!

As a new year begins, most people decide to change something about their lifestyles to improve the quality of their health, relationships, and/or working life. Some of those desired changes can be daunting, however. Fortunately, there are many small steps all of us can take to help us live a better and more fulfilling life. Here are eight ways to get started:

Eat More Fruits and Vegetables. It’s advice we have all heard but instead of just acknowledging the benefits (among them, reducing your risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and eye problems, as well as keeping your blood sugar steady, thus reducing your appetite), actually do it. For both fruits and vegetables, the most nutritious are the colorful ones: orange, yellow, red, and dark green. Add fruit to your cereal; take a piece or two with you to work. Make sure both lunch and dinner include fresh vegetables.

How Long Should It Take to (Safely) Lose Baby Weight?

These days, it seems like everywhere you look, there's a photo of a celeb strutting around Cabo in a string bikini -- just weeks after giving birth! That's some seriously fast weight loss.

But at least one actress, "The Fighter" star Amy Adams, recently said she's taking it nice and slow. Baby comes first. Body comes second.

This got us thinking ... when it comes to losing post-baby poundage, what's realistic -- and safe -- for you and your little one? Here's what the experts say:

"New moms need to be respectful of the ordeal their body has just undergone," says Mary Jayne Johnson, Ph.D., spokeswoman for the American Council on Exercise. "They need rest and healthful nutrition. This is not the time for crash diets, fad diets or weight-loss supplements."

Yoga for Runners

Not only am I an avid practicer of yoga, I am also a marathon runner. These two might sound completely opposite, but they have much more in common than you would think. Especially if you are the kind who likes to learn something deeper from what you do. Both activities provide many metaphors for life.

I have talked about the lessons of yoga, and how they apply to life. Well, the same is true for running. The insights I learn from yoga help my thinking and performance in running. Occasionally it is the other way around. Both benefit me tremendously in my daily life. The management of your mental chatter in these activities allows you to do the same in the rest of your day.

How to become a runner

Did you resolve to take up running this year? Maybe it’s not even the first time you’ve set such a goal. If you don’t know where to begin or have tried running before, but didn’t stick with it, we can help you become a runner for life. And who doesn’t want to reap running’s weight-maintaining and mind-clearing benefits for life?

Runner’s World has the perfect 10-week plan designed to get you to the point where you can run 30 minutes without stopping. The simple program designed by Budd Coates, Director of Employee Fitness and Health at Rodale, Inc. (parent company of Runner’s World), begins with more walking than running, and gradually evolves into more running than walking.