http://fitlist.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/04/24/167206.aspx

When you were a kid, your mom told you to brush up and down not side to side or you wouldn’t get your teeth really clean. The same theory applies to fitness: Do it right and it will work.

Many of you undoubtedly have tried various exercise programs, lost a bit of weight at the beginning, and then became frustrated because your body stopped changing. Being unable to get past the “plateau” (as it is called) isn’t your fault — it’s because the program has been poorly designed.

These six exercise-training principles are the cornerstone of a good program design that will guarantee that you’ll break through the plateau and maximize results:
1. Individual Differences: Every person is different, and each person’s response to exercise will vary. A proper training program should take individual differences into account. Whether you are a beginner or more advanced, there is a safe place for you to start and a challenging place to which you can strive!
2. Specificity: To become better at a particular exercise or skill, you must perform that specific exercise or skill. In other words, to tone and strengthen your abdominals you have to include abdominal exercises in your program. To tone up your thighs you have to include specific exercises for your thighs. If you want to improve your ability to jog then you have to include jogging in your training.
3. Use/Disuse: You have to move your muscles or they become soft and flabby. Many people try to lose weight by working out just sporadically — when they feel like it — but they soon give up because they don’t see results. You must be committed and consistent to see results.
4. Adaptation: By repeating an exercise, the body adapts to the stress and the skill becomes easier to perform. This also explains the need to continue to apply the principle of “overload” (see next entry) to continue to see improvements and changes in your physique.
5. Overload: A greater-than-normal load on the body is required to create change. If your body is already used to walking then it is necessary to start incorporating an incline or jogging intervals. If your body is use to lifting 3-pound weights, then you have to move up to 5-pounders to see results. The more you do, the more you become capable of doing. This is how all the training adaptations occur in exercise and training. The human body is an amazing machine. When you stress your body by lifting a weight that is more than you are accustomed to, your body will react with physiologic changes that will enable you to handle the stress the next time it occurs. This concept is the same in cardiovascular training relating to the heart, lungs and endurance muscles. This is how people get stronger, bigger, faster and increase their physical fitness level.
6. Progression: There is an optimal level of overload that should be achieved, and an optimal timeframe in which this overload should occur. Overload should not be increased too slowly or improvement is unlikely. Overload that is increased too rapidly can result in injury or muscle damage. Therefore it’s important that you start slowly and then progress to the next level as your body adapts to the exercise.

http://fitlist.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/04/24/167206.aspx

From MSNBC.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18134004/

New research is strengthening evidence that following mom’s admonition to eat your vegetables may be some of the best health advice around.
A large study of 500,000 American retirees has found that just one extra serving of fruit or vegetables a day may reduce the risk of developing head and neck cancer.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that diet plays a role in cancer. Cancer experts now believe that up to two-thirds of all cancers come from lifestyle factors such as smoking, diet and lack of exercise.
Researchers at the National Cancer Institute queried men and women aged 50 and older about their diets, then followed participants for five years to record all diagnoses of head and neck cancer, which is the sixth-leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide.
Tobacco and alcohol use increase the risk of head and neck cancers, which affect the mouth, nose, sinuses and throat.
The study found eating six servings of fruit and vegetables per day per 1,000 calories cut the risk of head and neck cancer by 29 percent compared to eating one and a half servings.
The typical adult consumes around 2,000 calories a day.
A second study of food consumption in more than 183,000 residents of California and Hawaii found that a diet high in flavonols might help reduce pancreatic cancer risk, especially in smokers.
Flavonols are common in plant-based foods but are found in highest concentrations in onions, apples, berries, kale and broccoli.
The study found that people who ate the largest amounts of flavonols had a 23 percent reduced risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared to those who ate the least.

Healthier food and drinks are slowly finding their way into U.S. school lunchrooms, just under a year after leading companies first voluntarily agreed to ban high-calorie, low-nutrition products from schools.
These are welcome changes since 17 percent of Americans between the ages of 2 and 19, or 12 million of them, are overweight. But nutrition experts said the food and beverage industry needs to do more.
The first big move toward healthy products in schools came in May 2006, when Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Cadbury Schweppes Plc, along with the American Beverage Association, established guidelines to provide more nutritious beverages at schools.
The agreement was brokered by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint initiative of the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN1235695620070413

From MSNBC.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11044374/

In ‘The Road to a Healthy Heart Runs Through the Kitchen,’ Joseph C. Piscatella offers nutritional analysis and recipes.

Assessing Your Risk
Coronary heart disease would be a lot easier to manage if we could trace it to a virus or some other single source. Instead, we’re dealing with a disease that involves more than 250 risk factors. Some of these factors may seem relatively obscure. For instance, research suggests that men who are severely bald on top have up to a 36% greater risk of heart attack than those with full heads of hair. But other factors are out there in plain sight as possible risks that we all have to take into consideration. Elevated cholesterol is one of the best examples. According to data from the Framingham Heart Study, a 1% rise in your total cholesterol level can produce a 3% rise in heart attack risk.
Focus on Diet
Some of the most important cardiac risk factors are influenced by what and how much you eat. These factors include not only total cholesterol, but also LDL and HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, weight, blood pressure, diabetes, coronary inflammation, blood clotting and metabolic syndrome. And that’s good news because it means that once you know your risk levels, you can neutralize many factors that can penalize cardiovascular health by taking the right steps to change your diet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11044374/

o Add vegetables and fruits in your diet chart.
o Drink 12-16 glass of water daily.
o Avoid excess eating of fried things.
o Try to buy meat which contain less fat.
o Avoid excess sugar in tea and coffee.
o Slice vegetables into big pieces, so that it won’t loose vitamins.

http://www.webindia123.com/women/tips/health.htm

Spring is here and it’s time to get healthy and get in shape. Time to loose the extra pounds we gained this past winter. Great way to put yourself in great shape this year is to go run a race. There are tons of 5K and 10K races all over the Philadelphia and suburban region. Running a small 5K race is a great way to feel better about yourself and to get yourself in great shape for this summer.

Visit our calendar on our homepage for a listing of races throughout Philadelphia this spring and summer and let’s make 2007 the year to get back in shape.

Our calendar is listed at the bottom of our home page.

Quick Tip: Consistency is key to enjoyable running.

Run/walk: Builds run volume (another way of saying how long or far you can run without needing to stop and rest) by alternating intervals of running with intervals of “recovery” walking. To do it: After warming up, run for three minutes, then walk for two; repeat for the full time prescribed. After a recovery day, repeat the sequence. As this gets easier, gradually increase the length of the running interval and/or decrease the walking interval. A typical progression might be: 3/2 run/walk; 4/1 run/walk; 5/1 run/walk; 6/2 run/walk; 6/1 run/walk; etc. As you progress, your goal is to shorten the recovery time and increase the total volume of running time. If using a heart-rate monitor, stay in the 50 to 96 percent range (of the average heart rate from the eight-minute run test); if using RPE, aim for a six or seven.

http://www.cookinglight.com/cooking/hl/fitness/article/0,13803,1189792,00.html