Every year as Thanksgiving gets closer, you’ve probably seen the depressing reports: “Most people gain between 5 and 10 pounds of body fat in the six weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.” I’m not sure if this worries you or not, but a lot of people are terrified about getting fatter in the next two months. They anticipate the workouts falling by the wayside and the holiday food calling out to them irresistibly, defeating even the strongest willpower. There’s good news and bad news about this.

Good news: According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the average amount gained is much more modest - just over a pound.

Bad news: A study by the National Institutes of Health found that this seasonal weight gain - even just a pound - is the kind of weight gain that most people don’t lose when the holidays are over; it simply adds to the “weight creep” that “sneaks up” on you as you get older.

People often wonder how it’s possible to wake up one morning at age 40 or 45 and “suddenly” they’re 30 pounds fatter - or more - than they were in college. Mystery solved.

Of course, some people really do pack it on over the holidays, but whether its a pound or ten pounds, did you ever ask yourself why does holiday weight gain happen at all?

So head over and start getting in shape now…

Tom Venuto’s Holiday Fitness Challenge To You For 2010

David Grisaffi, Author
Firm and Flatten Your Abs

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Objectives: Yoga and exercise have beneficial effects on mood and anxiety. γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA)-ergic activity is reduced in mood and anxiety disorders. The practice of yoga postures is associated with increased brain GABA levels. This study addresses the question of whether changes in mood, anxiety, and GABA levels are specific to yoga or related to physical activity.

Methods: Healthy subjects with no significant medical/psychiatric disorders were randomized to yoga or a metabolically matched walking intervention for 60 minutes 3 times a week for 12 weeks. Mood and anxiety scales were taken at weeks 0, 4, 8, 12, and before each magnetic resonance spectroscopy scan. Scan 1 was at baseline. Scan 2, obtained after the 12-week intervention, was followed by a 60-minute yoga or walking intervention, which was immediately followed by Scan 3.

Results: The yoga subjects (n=19) reported greater improvement in mood and greater decreases in anxiety than the walking group (n=15). There were positive correlations between improved mood and decreased anxiety and thalamic GABA levels. The yoga group had positive correlations between changes in mood scales and changes in GABA levels.

Conclusions: The 12-week yoga intervention was associated with greater improvements in mood and anxiety than a metabolically matched walking exercise. This is the first study to demonstrate that increased thalamic GABA levels are associated with improved mood and decreased anxiety. It is also the first time that a behavioral intervention (i.e., yoga postures) has been associated with a positive correlation between acute increases in thalamic GABA levels and improvements in mood and anxiety scales. Given that pharmacologic agents that increase the activity of the GABA system are prescribed to improve mood and decrease anxiety, the reported correlations are in the expected direction. The possible role of GABA in mediating the beneficial effects of yoga on mood and anxiety warrants further study.

Chris C. Streeter, Theodore H. Whitfield, Liz Owen, Tasha Rein, Surya K. Karri, Aleksandra Yakhkind, Ruth Perlmutter, Andrew Prescot, Perry F. Renshaw, Domenic A. Ciraulo, J. Eric Jensen. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. November 2010, 16(11): 1145-1152. doi:10.1089/acm.2010.0007.

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Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may blame their daytime difficulties on simple sleepiness, but new research suggests that their brains may be to blame. Specifically, their cognitive challenges may be caused by structural deficits in gray matter, brought on by the intermittent oxygen deprivation that comes with OSA. The good news is that these deficits may be partially or fully reversible with early detection and treatment, according to Italian researchers.

“OSA patients demonstrate several neuropsychological impairments, but current knowledge of the brain structures affected by OSA is limited. This study provides the first evidence that structural brain abnormalities exist in regions susceptible to hypoxemia, and they can change with treatment,” said Vincenza Castronovo, Ph.D., clinical psychologist at the Sleep Disorders Center, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University and San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, Italy.

The study was published online ahead of the print edition of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

To determine whether there were quantifiable structural differences in the brains of OSA patients when compared to individuals without OSA, and whether any differences found could be reversed with treatment, researchers compared 17 treatment-naïve individuals with severe OSA and 15 age-matched controls. They gathered baseline measurements of brain anatomy using MRI, as well as individual performance on cognitive performance tests that assessed short- and long-term memory, executive functions, constructional abilities, vigilance, attention and abstract reasoning. The subjects also completed the Epworth Sleepiness Scale to assess daytime sleepiness and the Beck Depression Inventory to evaluate mood.

The researchers found significant reductions in gray matter (GM) between OSA and non-OSA subjects. Moreover, the specific locations of the deficits indicated that specific brain functions were more strongly affected than others, including executive function (which controls high-order brain functions such as problem-solving) and abstract reasoning.

“We found reduced GM in the OSA group when compared to the non-OSA group in several key regions of the brain,” said Dr. Castronovo. “Of particular note were the deficits in the left parahippocampal gyrus and in the left posterior-parietal cortex. We found that these two regions have significant bearing on abstract reasoning and executive function. Deficits in the left posterior-parietal cortex were also shown to be associated with daytime sleepiness.”

This is a great article

More info about sleep and how to improve sleep patterns

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We all have our reservations about exercising and most people just do not have the determination and resilience to keep at it. Choosing to chisel your core has numerous benefits, and the results are simply amazing once you stick to it and work hard.

Your core muscles are not listed on the human anatomy, and they are classified or called your core muscles because they make up the core. They are not distinctively marked as core muscles, but they are a group of muscles that play a very vital and crucial role when it comes to playing sports, having stamina and so forth.

Core muscles are those muscles that are found in and around your trunk and pelvis area. They girdle that area. Your core muscles are vital when it comes to maintaining stability when reaching, stretching and when you bend. The benefits of building, strengthening and chiseling your core are countless and broad. Strengthening your core muscles is also great because it will definitely improve your posture, and it will protect you from lower back problems and pain.

If you do Pilate exercises effectively, consistently and properly, you will be able to lose inches in six weeks or sooner. If you do power Pilates and high energy walks, you will chisel your core in no time, and again you will lose inches less than six weeks. There are a lot of muscles groups involved when it comes to building core strength, and you can either focus on one at a time, or you can work and build all of them at once. Another great variation when it comes to chiseling, building and strengthening your core is through a very good and powerful walking program.

That is, you should have a daily walking power program. In your power walking program, you should vary the walking speeds and the walking tempo. On day one, you can start off at a moderate and steady pace but you as you progress during the week, you must increase and decrease the tempo, do not keep walking at the same tempo. These exercises might seem hard on paper and in theory, but if you do it, you will find out that it is not too hard to do.

You should also incorporate 6 to 8 very good and solid Pilate exercises into your routine. You can include star fish extensions, double leg exercises; seated side twists with triceps extensions, breast stroke and scissor Pilate exercises. All these exercises are very good, and they will add diversity into your workout.

Click here for a free copy of Stubborn Fat Solution

David Grisaffi
http://www.flattenyourabs.net

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Everyone walking on the face of this earth has an abundance of fat cells throughout their bodies. In fact, if you’re a healthy adult with normal body composition, you have approximately 30 billion fat cells. This is an astronomical number when you think about it. Did you ever wonder why you have so many? Have you ever wondered what those fat cells are for?

The answer is, fat cells are part of our genetic code and they allowed us to use stored energy when food was scarce. This survival mechanism is very much the same today as it was 10,000 years ago. However, today our needs have changed. There is an abundance of food in modern society today.

When you consume too many calories, your body goes into storage mode for that “rainy day,” so to speak, but the “rainy day” does not happen. So your body simply stores those extra calories as fat. When you eat less calories then your body demands your cells release stored fat for energy. Pretty simple equation, however it does not appear that all fat is the same.

The placement of fat deposits on our bodies varies depending on each person’s genetic influences, lifestyle choices and nutritional intake. Men tend to store their body fat around their bellies and chest. Women tend to store it around there hips, buttocks, thighs and back of their arms. A complete discussion of hormones and fat storage would be beyond the scope of this article, but let it suffice to say that certain hormonal process do determine body fat distribution.

There is one major factor that many people do not realize when they are attempting to lose body fat and this can be a stumbling block in anyone’s long term success. Many people approach fat loss and fitness with great enthusiasm and determination. With this attitude, they lose body fat and feel great, but even so, they just do not seem to get rid of ALL they fat they want to. They lose fat successfully for a time, but ultimately get stuck just before all of the fat is completely gone. Read more…

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