Look down at your gut. Or ladies, look at your man’s gut. How did it happen? Poor eating habits? Lack of exercise? Too much beer? Get off the couch and jumpstart your weight loss with Dr. Oz’s gut-busting plan!

It’s time to ditch the extra pounds and increase your overall health (and sex drive!) Don’t worry guys – you can even keep the beer.

This plan teaches you easy-to-implement changes in your diet and physical activity that promise to trim the waistline.

First things first…it’s all about Portion Control!

1. Beer: You don’t have to totally give up your draft of choice. Instead, switch to light beer! Initially you can even drink the same volume of beer.
2. Meals: With some simple substitutions and changes to your favorite meals, you won’t feel like you’re giving up the foods and tastes you love!

Action Plan
Portion Control: The Basics

Keep portions the same and reduce calories with your food choices Lower meals by 100 calories while keeping the tastes you love! Use reduced-fat cheese, whole grains and cut back on sugars. You’ll be surprised how easy this is!

#1 Breakfast

Eat breakfast! It helps to speed up your metabolism. Try peanut butter on toast to get a dose of healthy oils on a piece of bread. It’s heart-healthy and can even lower cholesterol.

#2 Lunch

Try adding lettuce and tomato to your sandwich. It adds bulk and nutrients. Add salad to your menu for vitamin C, E, and folic acid.

# 3 Dinner

If you’re eating pizza: go for thinner crust! It cuts calories and carbs. Plus, tomato sauce adds cancer fighting lycopene – not to mention, it tastes good!

# 4 Dessert

Here’s the only place Dr. Oz is asking you to make a real sacrifice. Lose the sundaes! It’s metabolic suicide. The calories go straight to your gut with a whopping 1000+ calories!

# 5 Exercise – 3 Point Plan

Stationary bike or elliptical 2-3 times a week Weight training or core exercises once a week that include crunches and twists to strengthen your stomach muscles!

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Maybe fad diets aren’t your thing, but you are looking to improve your total health including the mind, body and spirit combined. The book, The Seven Pillars of Health, is a holistic guide to improving your health that dosen’t just rely on diet and exercise alone. Christian author and medical doctor, Tom Colbert, MD, has put together a list of seven essential components to leading a healthy life in seven weeks.

His seven ingredients are: water, sleep and rest, eating living food, detoxification, supplements, exercise and coping with stress. Each of the pillars is to be practiced one week at a time.

Developed under Colbert’s belief that Americans are some of the most unhealthy people in the world, he puts forth a 50-day plan that seeks to change your life, challenge your thinking, motivate, and impact your entire community forever

The Seven Pillars of Health encourages eating a living diet, meaning that food should be fresh and minimally processed. Therefore, saturated fat, sugar, artificial sweeteners and meat are all not allowed.

Since the first pillar is dedicated to water, it should come as no surprise that consuming plenty of fresh water each day is a staple component of The Seven Pillars of Health. In addition, you are instructed to take certain nutritional supplements, most of which Dr. Colbert’s company makes and sells.

Exercise is a key component to leading a disease-free life, according to The Seven Pillars of Health. Exercise is viewed as not just a way to keep the body in shape but to get in touch with nature and improve mood and self-confidence. You are encouraged to exercise on most days of the week by engaging in such activities like walking, jogging or biking outside. Aerobic exercises and fun alternative exercises are described and can be practiced by just about anyone.

The Seven Pillars of Health is a lifestyle guide to optimal life. Focusing on the mind, body and spirit, each of the pillars are broken down, studied and applied for one week at a time. At the end of the seven weeks, you gain a complete approach to healthy living that is supposed to inspire and motivate you to a new way of living.

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Women, want to enjoy good health in your golden years?

Lose weight. Now.

A study published online last night in the British Medical Journal shows that women who are overweight in midlife are at increased risk of various health problems, from chronic diseases to cognitive impairment, once they pass age 70.

Conversely, the study found, women who were lean at midlife were most likely to be healthy after 70.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (both in Boston) analyzed data for more than 17,000 women collected through the ongoing Nurses’ Health Study, which started in 1976. Just under 10 percent of the women in the study who had lived to age 70 or beyond (their mean age was 50 when the Nurses’ Health Study began) reported being free of the 11 major chronic diseases the researchers tracked, maintaining good mental health and cognitive and physical function.

The likelihood of making it into that elite group decreased as BMI (body mass index) increased. Obese women were nearly 80 percent less likely to be healthy after age 70 than lean women. The least likely of all to remain healthy in later years were women who were overweight at age 18 and who gained more than 22 pounds by the time they turned 50. And whether they were lean, overweight or obese at age 18, women who gained weight by midlife had less chance of being healthy over 70 than those whose weight remained steady.

The study controlled for socioeconomic status and for smoking, diet and other lifestyle behaviors that could affect physical and mental health. One caveat: Most of the women studied were white, so researchers aren’t sure their findings extend broadly across the general population.

Still, the study adds new fodder to the often-heated debate about how closely body weight correlates to health. While the common wisdom is that being overweight puts people at increased risk of life-shortening diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, others say no such cause-and-effect relationship has been scientifically established and that people can be very healthy even if they’re overweight or even obese. The new research is the first, according to its authors, to examine the role of overweight and obesity in overall health among women who survive to older ages.

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Spavelous is a proud sponsor of the Dr Phil Weight Loss Challenge

Dr Phil Amazing Weight Loss Reveals

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BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON – In these tough economic times, the family food budget is under closer scrutiny than ever. Add to that the time parents are spending working, or taking on extra shifts to make ends meet, and home-cooked family meals are becoming endangered species. March is nutrition month, so it’s a great time to take a closer look at how families can balance time, budget, and nutrition.

For many families, packaged foods are the answer. But how can they know which packaged foods are best? Nutrition labels help, but don’t tell the whole story. And since not all packages base nutrition information on the same serving size, comparing labels while shopping can be next to impossible.

To simplify the task, HealthCastle.com (http://www.HealthCastle.com), the largest nutrition site run by registered dietitians, is launching Go UnDiet: Packaged Food Review, the first ever online tool to compare, rate, and review packaged food, so that users can easily see which packaged foods make the most sense for their families.

“The Packaged Food Review provides all the information families need in a consistent, easy-to-understand format,” said Gloria Tsang, RD, founder of HealthCastle.com. “It’s a way of helping families eat healthy in a realistic way.”

Go UnDiet: Packaged Food Review provides the key information traditionally found on food labels, but adds extra details like whole grain and high fructose corn syrup content, and identifies whether the product contains artificial sweeteners. Each product review features an “RD’s take” summary to help interpret the nutrition facts.

Users can also sort products by the amount of fat, calories, sugar, fiber, carbs, and more. Based on what’s most important for your family, you can choose the item that appears at the top of the list. Or, if trying to choose between two products, compare them head-to-head.

“We hope families will use the tool to make their packaged food choices before they go shopping,” Tsang said. “That way they’ll come home with healthy packaged foods, rather than just grabbing whatever was sitting at the end of the aisle.”

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NZ scientist’s gene research could be the answer to the obesity epidemic

Both of these mice were obese, but the one on the right lost weight after being injected with genetic material.

A world-leading New Zealand researcher wants to start human trials of gene therapy to control obesity, after proving the technique in animal experiments.

Professor Matthew During, of Auckland University and Ohio State University in the United States, was the lead investigator of the ground-breaking animal trials. They are reported online today in one of the world’s top medical science journals, Nature Medicine.

Based on the success of the animal trials, Professor During, a neuroscientist, wants to start human clinical trials.

“We believe we could be in the clinic with this approach within 12 months treating morbid obesity.”

The treatment is similar to Professor During’s gene therapy to the brain for Parkinson’s disease, given under local anaesthetic, which is being used in phase 2 human clinical trials.

Obesity is a major problem throughout the West. In New Zealand, 26.5 per cent of adults are obese. The Ministry of Health is considering spending $16 million on obesity surgery for around 900 people each year who are extremely obese, because other treatments rarely work long-term in this group.

Obesity experiments by Professor During’s team involved injecting up to three kinds of genetic material into the brains of various kinds of mice and measuring the effects on their body-weight and markers of diabetes.

The genetic material is injected into the part of the brain called the hypothalamus, after boring two holes through the skull. It is carried in a harmless virus whose genetic material has been replaced by the therapy.

The main active component is part of the human gene that causes the production of a substance called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). This is a protein involved in weight regulation. It is coupled with genetic material that triggers auto-regulation of the BDNF to control the weight loss once the process is well under way.

A third genetic component was developed for a subsequent neurosurgery injection, if needed, to knock out the introduced BDNF gene as a rescue device that halts the weight-loss process.

In one of the trials, the body weight of obese mice reduced by 20 per cent in three weeks and stabilised for the remainder of the 11-week experiment.

The researchers noted suppression of food intake and increased energy output contributed to weight loss in diabetic mice given the gene therapy, but energy output – both at rest and from spontaneous activity – was considered the more significant factor.

Professor During said many genes had been found to be involved in obesity, but little had been achieved in converting that knowledge into effective treatments – until now.

“The efficacy and the degree of weight loss is very dramatic. We haven’t seen that in any study previously … We have very high expectations that this would also work in humans.”

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Camp Shane, the world’s leading children’s weight loss camp, announces the launch of its unique and affordable Summer 2009 program for young adults ages 18 – 25 and for adults over 25. The Shane Diet & Lifestyle Resorts Weight Loss Spa & Resort program is located at the Honor’s Haven Resort & Spa in Ellenville, NY.

 The Shane Diet & Lifestyle Resorts program is opening a weight loss spa this summer at The Honor’s Haven Resort & Spa. For men and women ages 18 – 25, Shane Diet is a highly affordable and one-of-a-kind program where young adults will lose weight, get fit, make life-long friends, and have a fun summer vacation.

Shane Diet also offers a customized weight loss spa and retreat program for adults over the age of 25 looking for an effective weight loss and fitness summer vacation in a stress free and rejuvenating environment. “The adult program is ideal for couples, friends, and parents and their adult children wanting to lose weight and get fit together,” says founder and President, Ziporah Janowski.

“This weight loss program works,” says Janowski. “In today’s economy, it is more important than ever that overweight young adults improve their appearance, self confidence, self esteem and health to help land and keep those hard to find jobs. Shane Diet is the only program specializing in the needs of 18 – 25 years old men and women, and at an extremely affordable price,” Janowski added.

Last year’s guests, who came from all over the globe, continue to rave about the changes Shane Diet made in their lives:

• Francisco – NY: “The results are great and the environment awesome. I loved every minute of it and made everlasting friends.”
• Alexis – Florida: “I have a healthier outlook on life and feel as if my spirit was renewed with this program.”
• Fabiana – Switzerland: “Shane Diet changed my life; I miss it and the people there.”
• Gaby – Venezuela: “I’ve lost around 40 pounds so far and feel amazing. Shane Diet gave me the tools I needed to do this myself and I will always be grateful for that.”
• Anna – Maryland: “Shane Diet is a good jump start to your new lifestyle.”
• Daniel – Canada: It’s crazy to see how far I have gone since Shane Diet. Without your support and all the great effort from your staff, I would not be where I am today.”

The Shane Diet program will be run at The Honor’s Haven Resort & Spa, on several hundred acres in the Catskill Mountains, just ninety minutes from New York City. Honor’s Haven recently underwent a multi-million dollar renovation and features state-of-the-art facilities. Activities include water aerobics, dance, circuit training, yoga, boxing, Pilates, walking and hiking, and day trips to local attractions such as river tubing and Woodbury Commons, a famous outlet mall. “The hiking and tubing were popular but the favorite excursion was shopping for new clothes in smaller sizes!” comments Janowski. 

Healthy, delicious, and portion controlled meals are designed by a team of nutritionists and food service experts. Guests will learn about portions and how to keep the weight off and stay fit when the program ends and they return home. “Shane Diet’s weight loss program has been validated by a recent two-year National Institute of Health-funded study that found that it’s not about what diet you follow, it’s how much you eat. It’s all about portions,” explained Janowski.

The young adult program offers two, four, six and eight week sessions from June 21 to August 16 with single, double and triple occupancy. For adults over the age of 25, programs of one week or more are available. Enrollment is under way. For more information visit Shane Diet & Lifestyle Resorts.

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