Reasons for having an Active Sex Life

Talking about your sex life — the good and the bad could be potentially embarassing! Recently, I came across an article from Healthy & Green Living about how an active sex life contributes to a longer and more fulfilling life – for you not to rile up that three-letter-word.

Sex boosts your immune system. “Honey, I have a headache,” may now be the best reason to have sex! A startling number of physicians are now recognizing how sexual and emotional health affect our entire well being. In other words, how our brain directly impacts our immune system. “We know that people who enjoy a regular, satisfying sex life (i.e. regular orgasms) are less stressed, less depressed and generally more well physically, mentally and emotionally,” says Wendy Strgar, loveologist and CEO of Good Clean Love. In a recent article, Dr. Paul Pearsall, director of Behavioral Medicine at Detroit’s Beaumont Hospital, concludes that many of his patients had experienced sexual dissatisfaction prior to a heart attack. He also claims that sexual contentment leads to less severe headaches and reduced discomfort from arthritis in both genders.

Sex burns calories. Oh yeah, forget those fad diets and get busy gettin’ busy. A mere 30-minutes of sex burns 90 calories and while that may not sound impressive, at an average of three times a week, you’re burning 5 pounds in a year! Or, according to Forbes magazine, having sex just twice a week for a year will burn off the equivalent of seven huge spaghetti dinners. Seconds, anyone?

Sex relieves pain. Orgasm is one serious narcotic! Oxytocin, a naturally occurring chemical in the body surges during and after climax while working in conjunction with a few other endorphins to make sure you feel no pain. In his book, How to Treat Arthritis, rheumatologist Carter V. Multz asserts that sex can reduce pain, swelling, and inflammation associated with arthritis, headaches and menstrual cramps.

Sex decreases aging. “Use it or lose it” has never been more applicable. Regular sex releases a plethora of “happy” chemicals into your bloodstream, including testosterone. As we age, our testosterone levels decrease. Sex is a wonderful way to build your reserves back up, helping build new bones and muscles while putting a youthful glow on your face. According to a study by Dr. David Weeks, a clinical neuropsychologist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Scotland and co-author of Superyoung, men and women who reported having sex an average of four times per week looked approximately 10 years younger than they really were.

Sex is great for depression. “The release from orgasm does much to calm people. It helps with sleep, and that is whether we talk about solo sex or sex with a partner,” says Jennifer Bass, the head of information services at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Bloomington, Ind., in a recent MSNBC article. Researchers believe that sex helps the brain produce serotonin which, in turn, prompts new neurons to grow. Most chemical, antidepressant medications, like Zoloft, work to increase serotonin levels. These drugs take three to four weeks to begin working–about the same amount of time required for new neurons to form. One reason these drugs could be an effective treatment is because they increase cell growth–just as sex does.

Exercise Myths

In the world of fitness, myths and half-truths abound -- and some of them may be keeping you from getting the workout you need.

Here are a few myths busted by Lucy Danziger of SELF, that exercise misconceptions may divert your attention from pursuing your better body goals.

MYTH: Muscle turns into fat
REALITY: Muscle and fat are two completely different tissues that have different functions, so it's physiologically impossible to turn one into the other. If you stop exercising, your muscles atrophy, so you lose the tone you worked so hard to create. And if you eat more calories than you burn, you'll gain fat.

MYTH: You need to exercise 30 minutes straight to get fit.
REALITY: Three 10-minute cardio stints offer the same healthy payback as a single 30-minute one. If you are trying to peel off pounds, of course, the more you do, the faster you'll succeed. But don't feel guilty if all you can squeeze in is a few minutes here and a few minutes there—it all adds up.
Short on time? Ratchet up the intensity of your workout: Go hard for 30 seconds on the elliptical or jog for a minute in the middle of your walk to maintain your fitness level and your habit. And remember, anything you do—whether it's a brisk 5-minute walk or carrying heavy groceries to your car—for any period of time, provides some benefit.

MYTH: Overweight people have a sluggish metabolism.
REALITY: Though some folks do have metabolic disorders that slow their metabolism, fewer than 10 percent of overweight people suffer from them. In fact, the more you weigh, the more calories you'll burn during exercise at the same relative workload as a slimmer person. If you notice the scale climbing higher, worry about your activity level, not your metabolism. Try this fat-burning workout to really see results.

MYTH: Lifting heavy weights make women bulk up.
REALITY: Women don’t have enough of the muscle-building hormone testosterone to get bulky, even using heavy weights. The truth is, some people will gain muscle faster than they lose fat, so they may look bigger until they shed some of the flab and reveal the slim, toned muscles underneath. Shape sleek muscles with this workout from The Biggest Loser's Jillian Michaels.

MYTH: You can’t lose any weight by swimming.
REALITY: OK, it’s true that long-distance swimmers who navigate colder waters tend to retain body fat for insulation. But ask anyone who laps it up while training for a triathlon: You will sizzle off pounds in the pool, since swimming burns 450 to 700 calories an hour! One reason you might not shed flab doing freestyle? If you throw in the towel and cut your workout short. Keep it going with this full-body water workout from gold medalist Amanda Beard.

MYTH: Stretching before exercise prevents injuries and enhances performance.
REALITY: Researchers are still scratching their head over this one, since studies have yet to show conclusively that limbering up has any effect on staving off strains and other injuries. But they do know that stretching regularly can make bending, reaching, twisting and lifting easier. Best move: Save your stretching for post-exercise, when muscles are warm.

MYTH: You burn more calories exercising in chilly weather.
REALITY: If you shiver through a long run in the frigid winter air simply to experience the extra calorie burn, you might want to come in from the cold: You do torch a few extra calories during the first few minutes, but once you get warmed up, the caloric expenditure is the same whether you’re exercising in Siberia or the Sahara. Try a treadmill circuit workout with a great playlist to keep you going!

MYTH: When your body gets used to an exercise, you'll burn fewer calories doing it.
REALITY: Unless you've adjusted the intensity, you'll burn as much jogging or cycling today as you did last week, last month, even last year. Experts say that this principle only applies to exercises that we're naturally inefficient at, such as using the elliptical machine: After five to six sessions, you'll be smoother in your movements and expend fewer calories—but the difference is only about 2 to 5 percent.

MYTH: The calorie readout on machines is accurate.
REALITY: If only! Research has shown that some types of machines can be off by as much as 70 percent. The culprit? Contraptions such as the elliptical machine haven’t been around long enough for exercise scientists to develop the appropriate calorie-burn equations. On the upside, stationary bikes and treadmills, the grandfathers of the gym, generally give a fairly precise reading, particularly if you enter your age and weight.

Rather than swearing by what the machine says, use the calorie readout to monitor your progress. If the tally climbs during the same workout for the same duration, you’re working harder and getting fitter. An online calorie calculator can give you a sense of which activities burn the most.

Get Those Sexy Abs

The majority of your abdominal training should occur within other exercises. You can also take common exercises and put unusual spins on them to really stimulate training.

If you loathe crunches, you’ll love the following easy, no-equipment moves. Work a few of these moves into your exercise routine three times a week (easing them in minimizes soreness), and then after two weeks, do them all together in one session. Then don’t be surprised if you find yourself surfing the web for bikinis, preparing to reveal your sleek new abs surfside.

Plank pose
Balance on toes and forearms (or palms) for up to a minute, pulling belly button to spine and keeping back straight.
 
Standing bicycle
Stand with feet hip-width apart, knees slightly bent, hands clasped behind head and elbows pointed out to sides. Straighten left leg as you lift right leg, knee bent, and thigh parallel to floor. Keeping knee lifted and steady, twist torso toward right. Return to start. Repeat on other side for one rep. Do 10 reps.

Side winder
Stand with feet hip-width apart, knees slightly bent, hands clasped behind head and elbows pointed out to sides. Lift right leg to side, knee bent, and thigh parallel to floor. Keeping knee lifted, bend torso to right side, bringing elbow and knee toward each other. Do 10 reps; switch sides; repeat.

Seesaw
Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, hands on hips. Lift right leg, knee bent, and thigh parallel to floor with foot flexed. Straighten right leg, pressing heel toward floor, as you lean torso backward. Return to knee lift position and repeat five times. Switch sides and repeat.

Forward bend
Stand with feet hip-width apart, knees slightly bent, arms overhead with palms facing in. Lift right leg, knee bent, and thigh parallel to floor. Keeping knee lifted and arms raised, bring torso and knee toward each other as close as you can. Return to start; switch sides and repeat for one rep. Do 10 reps.

How Do You Get Your Kids to Eat Their Veggies

Despite our son’s rather challenging food allergies, my wife and I have had it easy as parents. In the four-plus years since our daughter’s birth, we’ve been to the emergency room just once. There have been no scary choking moments, no broken bones, no serious bouts with the flu.

Both our kids sleep through the night and take naps (they’ve even been known to request them). And they eat their veggies—or at least they did until recently. Four-year-old Elise, who would eat peas, corn, green beans, and carrots as a toddler, began putting up resistance around age 3. She now eats only green beans and refuses to try anything new.

And 21-month-old Graeme has recently entered the veggie Olympics, turning carrot slices into discuses and peas into shot puts. (Thank God for the new dog.)

I’ve read lots of advice recently on how to get kids to eat veggies. Of course, there are entire books written on the subject, and controversies over books—most famously, Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food.

With Elise, we tried some of those tricks and sneaked green, healthy things into food she’s willing to eat—zucchini into muffins, squash into spaghetti sauce. We even convinced her that vegetarian corn dogs have real meat.

Not everyone’s into the deception thing. Blogger Tanya Steel, author of the new book Real Food for Healthy Kids, argues against hiding veggies. She recently offered up suggestions for getting picky kids to eat their greens.

• Serve kids veggies first; hungry kids are more likely to eat them
• Use examples, like the Olympics, to reinforce good eating habits
• Be a role model and eat your own veggies

(Speed-food maven Rachael Ray also serves up some tips in the September issue of Health magazine.)

The problem is, we’ve tried all these suggestions with little success. Graeme’s too young to understand the correlation of Olympic dreams and a diet rich in green beans. Elise is outsmarting us with the argument that she doesn’t want to be an Olympian.

I’m pretty frustrated, and that’s where you come in. How do you get your kids to eat their veggies? I’d like to hear. Post your suggestions in the comments field below, and I’ll share Graeme and Elise’s favorite solutions in a few weeks.

How Do I Find The Right Gym

Bikes in a Gym

If you’re in the market for a gym membership, there are plenty of details and amenities that may help boost your motivation and success. Today, fitness facilities aim to provide individuals with unique and wide-ranging services, from group fitness classes to child care support, you should check out the specifics before signing any gym contract. Below is a list of questions to pose when you are seeking a new gym membership.

What Specific Details Should I Look For?

When investigating gyms, consumers should always check for 8 details. When investigating these details, consumers can also ask a gym employee or salesperson specific questions to provide further insight and information.

Location - Is the location convenient to your home or place of work? Will the location be convenient to access during rush hour traffic?

Cost - Can you afford the cost of the membership? Are there any promotions? Are there any added membership fees or sign up fees? Can you pay the full year’s membership up front for an added discount?

Hours - What time of day do you like to work out? Do the gym hours accommodate your workout preferences? What hours are the busiest times

Equipment - Does the equipment suit your needs? Are there both cardio and weight machines? Are there free-weights? Is there enough space in the workout area to comfortably exercise and utilize the equipment?

Group Fitness - Are group fitness classes available? What are the types of classes and times of classes? Is there an added charge for group fitness? Who are the instructors, and are they certified and professionally licensed?

Amenities - Are there childcare services, and is there an added cost? Are there towels and personal care items included in the membership? Are there spa services included? Is there a pool and/or Jacuzzi and sauna available? Does the gym provide personal training services?

Staff - Do the instructors and trainers seem qualified? Are staff members licensed and professional? Are staff members friendly and welcoming?

Atmosphere - Is the gym more family oriented or adult professional oriented? (In other words, do you personally prefer a gym that incorporates child care and children’s activities, or do you prefer a gym that caters only to adults?) Is the atmosphere friendly and social, or is it quiet and reserved? Does the gym promote any social functions, such as community races or holiday gatherings? (Many gyms are involved in the extended community, which some potential members may prefer and enjoy).

Before Signing the Contract

Ultimately, before signing your gym contract, try to find out if the gym offers a free trial pass, or a free guest pass. Oftentimes gyms will allow potential members to test out the facilities before signing up. If this is an option, you’ll be able to personally assess the quality of the facility. Adding to this, try to speak with fellow-members before joining the gym; find out what their insight is about the pros and cons, so you’ll be able to make a more informed and educated decision.

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