Don’t dwell on your mistakes. Instead, shake it off and get right back on track at your very next meal… or the very next day. And always remember, nobody gains weight from one rich dinner or a single slice of cake. The real trouble starts when you allow that one “splurge” to snowball into an all-out eating frenzy. Take it one meal at a time and learn to forgive yourself; every dieter has slip-ups, but the successful ones know how to keep those occasional lapses contained.

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(Source: Reuters.com)

The United States ranked last when compared to six other countries — Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth Fund report found.

“As an American it just bothers me that with all of our know-how, all of our wealth, that we are not assuring that people who need healthcare can get it,” Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Previous reports by the nonprofit fund, which conducts research into healthcare performance and promotes changes in the U.S. system, have been heavily used by policymakers and politicians pressing for healthcare reform.

Davis said she hoped health reform legislation passed in March would lead to improvements.

The current report uses data from nationally representative patient and physician surveys in seven countries in 2007, 2008, and 2009. It is available here

In 2007, health spending was $7,290 per person in the United States, more than double that of any other country in the survey.

Australians spent $3,357, Canadians $3,895, Germans $3,588, the Netherlands $3,837 and Britons spent $2,992 per capita on health in 2007. New Zealand spent the least at $2,454.

This is a big rise from the Fund’s last similar survey, in 2007, which found Americans spent $6,697 per capita on healthcare in 2005, or 16 percent of gross domestic product.

“We rank last on safety and do poorly on several dimensions of quality,” Schoen told reporters. “We do particularly poorly on going without care because of cost. And we also do surprisingly poorly on access to primary care and after-hours care.”

NETHERLANDS RANKED FIRST OVERALL

The report looks at five measures of healthcare — quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and the ability to lead long, healthy, productive lives.

Britain, whose nationalized healthcare system was widely derided by opponents of U.S. healthcare reform, ranks first in quality while the Netherlands ranked first overall on all scores, the Commonwealth team found.

U.S. patients with chronic conditions were the most likely to say they gotten the wrong drug or had to wait to learn of abnormal test results.

“The findings demonstrate the need to quickly implement provisions in the new health reform law,” the report reads.

Critics of reports that show Europeans or Australians are healthier than Americans point to the U.S. lifestyle as a bigger factor than healthcare. Americans have higher rates of obesity than other developed countries, for instance.

“On the other hand, the other countries have higher rates of smoking,” Davis countered. And Germany, for instance, has a much older population more prone to chronic disease.

Every other system covers all its citizens, the report noted and said the U.S. system, which leaves 46 million Americans or 15 percent of the population without health insurance, is the most unfair.

“The lower the performance score for equity, the lower the performance on other measures. This suggests that, when a country fails to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, it also fails to meet the needs of the average citizen,” the report reads.

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We recently spoke with the fitness trainer about a common struggle: managing belly fat (it is summer, after all). Here are her top five tips, in her own words:

1. A big part of ab definition is managing water weight. This means that you should reduce your sodium intake to 1,500 milligrams a day and up your water intake to 80 ounces a day. The more water you drink, the less water you will hold.

2. Eat foods that are high in potassium (like watermelon). This will help you reduce bloat, giving definition to your abs. Other things to try: cranberry juice mixed with water, dandelion tea, asparagus, and try taking a couple teaspoons a day of apple cider vinegar. This vinegar helps to maintain healthy levels of potassium in your body.

3. You can spot-reduce belly fat, but you have to engage in a regimen that burns body fat. This means counting calories so that you are burning excess body fat.

4. When you hit the gym, go hard. Work at 85 percent of your maximum heart rate for optimal fat-shedding results. Try workouts that are core-based and use multiple muscle groups, like mixed martial arts or Yoga flow.

5. Avoid processed foods, alcohol, and lack of sleep. Those three things increase cortisol levels, which is one of the hormones believed responsible for storing belly fat.

Jillian’s on her own this summer, starring in a new show, “Losing It With Jillian.” The premise is simple: Jillian travels across the United States, helping families who are desperately in need of health and wellness improvement. Sure, she is dominant and occasionally yells (it’s her signature method for motivation), but she is also kind, encouraging, and very insightful. Just like its sister show, this one is sure to inspire America.

(Source: TV.Yahoo.com and YouTube.com)

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(Self.com)

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(Yahoo News) Even if you eat healthy all the time, you’re bound to experience the occasional hankering for something that’s not exactly waistline-friendly. The fact is, you can and should indulge every so often. I know when I ignore my need for chocolate, I end up settling on a second-rate substitute–and then the chocolate wins me over later anyway, sometimes in quantities I’m not exactly proud of.

The good news is you can treat yourself to smarter, more sensible options that taste equally delicious. Next time you have a yen for something yummy, try these healthy swaps to keep you satisfied morning, noon or night.

YOU CRAVE: A chocolate cream-filled doughnut (307 calories, 20.8 grams fat)
TRY INSTEAD: A plain glazed doughnut (239 calories, 11.5 g fat) or a raised sugar doughnut (205 calories, 11 g fat)

You’ll save 60 to 100 calories and nearly 10 g fat but still get a sweet treat to go with your morning joe. (Also, try cutting it in half or quarters and slowly eat it in bits to see if you even want the whole thing!)

YOU CRAVE: Bacon and eggs (461 calories, 35.4 g fat)
TRY INSTEAD: Two slices of bacon with two small whole-grain pancakes and 2 tablespoons syrup (364 calories, 12.4 g fat)

This sensible substitute allows you to eat breakfast like a champ without chomping a third of your fat for the day. Or be even more virtuous and opt for an egg-white omelet instead of the pancakes.

YOU CRAVE: Potato chips (155 calories, 10.6 g fat per ounce, about 15 chips)
TRY INSTEAD: Lighter baked chips (84 calories, 3.2 g fat)

The same crunch as you munch with about half the calories and a third of the fat.

YOU CRAVE: French fries (537 calories, 28 g fat per 6-oz order)
TRY INSTEAD: Baked frozen fries (260 calories, 7 g fat per 6 oz)

Skip the drive-thru and hightail it to your freezer–you’ll save calories, fat and cash. Try sweet potato varieties for a dose of skin-smoothing and vision-helping vitamin A. If you’re out and ordering a burger, ask for salad instead of fries on the side, and try to retrain your brain to not need a side of fries with that burger meal.

YOU CRAVE: Chocolate milk shake (544 calories, 12.3 g fat per 16 oz)
TRY INSTEAD: Chocolate smoothie (372 calories, 5.4 g fat)

Whip up this calcium rich alternative at home: Blend 2 cups lowfat milk, 1 frozen banana, 1 tbsp chocolate syrup and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract in a blender. Delicious! You can also try simply having a cup of skim milk with 1 tbsp of chocolate syrup for 141 calories and just over 1/2 gram of fat!

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1. Eat for energy. “If I eat too much before a show, I just want to sit down. Too little, and I’m starving. So I eat something small, like Quorn, a tasty meat-free protein, and green beans.”

2. Keep a food diary. Carrie has been tracking her intake for three years! She counts her calories on a regular basis, to see how it all adds up. “Once you realize, it’s like, ‘No wonder I’ve plateaued! No wonder I’ve been gaining weight!’” she says. “Little things really do add up.”

3. Enjoy your favorite foods, healthfully. In 2007 Carrie told SELF “My food indulgences are pizza, and I love… cheese. I have a big problem controlling myself with the cheese.” Two years later, it looks like she found a way to have her pizza and eat it too! Here’s her recipe favorite formula for a healthy, 250-calorie personal pizza: 1 Flatout wrap with 1/4 cup sauce, 1/2 cup fat-free or 2% cheese and loaded up with veggies.

4. Cut the sugar. “My sugar intake is way down, and I have a lot fewer breakouts. Now when I drink tea, it’s unsweetened. Or I’ll have water,” the start told SELF. “Also, I’m off soda. For so long, I’d have a Diet Coke with breakfast!”

Sure, you can probably tone up pretty quickly taking a Louisville slugger to headlights and slashing tires but it turns out that is not the way country idol Carrie Underwood maintains her rockin’ bod. Here are some of the slim and sexy superstar’s favorite fitness secrets:

1.) Make exercise accessible. “I have Exercise TV on cable. Jillian Michaels’s videos will kick your butt. She’s my trainer, and she doesn’t even know it!”

2.) Work toward an event. “Everybody has things they want to look nice for: anniversary, birthday, reunion. I’ll think to myself, Oh, that award show is coming up. Or, I have a photo shoot in four days! It’s nice to set goals.”

3.) Revel in success. “I love it when I feel good about myself. I’ll look at a photo and think, My arms look great!–and then I go work out my arms. Once you’re enjoying things about your body, you realize how much you want to keep them that way or make them better.”

4.) Favorite ab improver: “When I gain weight, it’s in the spare-tire area. I’ve told trainers abs are a physical impossibility for me. And every single time, they’re like, ‘Well, we’ll get you abs!’ So do I have them? No! But they’re as flat as they’re probably going to get. Push-ups work out everything. If you do them right, you’ll feel it in your abs. I do four sets of 10 to 20.”

Behind the Scenes: Carrie Underwood Cover Shoot

The singer rolled up to the set in sweatpants and brought her own snacks: a sandwich, a cup of tea and a bag of baby carrots. Carrie loooved the colorful options SELF’s fashion team brought to the shoot (check out what goes into creating the cover look!), but despite the glam treatment from our hair and makeup team, she admitted that she’s more comfortable out of the spotlight. When is she most confident? Watch our exclusive behind the scenes video from the shoot to find out!

(Source: SELF Magazine)

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Jennifer Love Hewitt may be rockin’ a bikini on our cover, but she has the same insecurities as every woman. “I’m a girl, after all!” says the 30-year-old actress. “For the most part, yeah, I’m happy with my body, but there are days when I’m like, ‘Ugh! Really? Why is it so hard to fit into my jeans?’

That’s when I say to myself, ‘I look this way because I’m supposed to. If we all looked the same, we’d be boring.’” Here, she reveals her stay-healthy-and-happy strategies as well as her work out that she uses to stay slim and confident.

Put your fridge on a diet To keep her food choices healthy and fresh, Jennifer hits the super-market every two days. “Instead of piling up food in my fridge that says ‘Come eat me!’ I keep enough for only a couple of days.

And I rarely have treats around that might tempt me late at night, which is when I usually crave something really fattening. What am I going to do? Drive out at 11 at night just to satisfy a craving? No, that’s crazy.”

Always eat lunch It’s no secret that over the last few years, young actresses have become fixated on being super thin, a trend Jennifer finds really disturbing. “Hollywood used to revolve around women with curves, like Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe,” she says.

“But now it’s so different. Not that long ago, I went to this celebrity luncheon, and I was the only person in the room eating. The other girls looked at me like I hadn’t gotten the memo, but I was hungry! All of these girls were afraid that if someone saw them eating, it would be a disaster. It makes no sense at all.”

(Source: Shape Magazine)

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The sexy mom of Sean, 3, and Jayden, 2, can credit her slamming new body in part to the Sunfare diet, a gourmet meal delivery company. Sunfare, which counts stars such as Eva Longoria Parker, Marcia Cross and Khloe Kardashian among its fans, incorporates a balanced, low-carb approach of three big meals and two snacks per day, all documented through the delivery system.

“When Britney is on Sunfare, she consumes approximately 1,100 to 1,200 calories per day,” a source reveals to OK!.

Britney doesn’t eat fruit or have fruit juice because of its sugar content. Instead, her meals consist of chicken, salmon, avocados and rice. Breakfast at the Pop Princess’ table would be egg whites and has turkey burgers for lunch limiting her total caloric intake to 1,200 calories per day.

She says “it may not sound like it’s much but it’s actually a lot of food if you eat the right things.” She has foregone the frappuccinos she used to enjoy so much but she admits to still drinking coffee.

The other major factor behind Brit’s renewed physique is good old-fashioned hard work in the dance studio and on stage. “Her outlet is dance,” the longtime friend says. “She’s still dancing at least two hours a day and sometimes she’ll rehearse up to eight hours a day.”

Still, says another insider, “It didn’t come easy. It was a long, hard road. Britney dedicated herself in such a focused way. We are all so proud of her, not just for her physical achievements but also for her mental and emotional ones.”

(Source: OK! Magazine)

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And yet as any woman knows, those innocent-looking strips of Lycra can be a terrifying sight – especially for someone just shy of her 49th birthday (April 23), who only two years ago tipped the scales at 172 lbs. – more than 40 lbs. over her goal weight for her 5’4″ frame. But after whittling herself down to 132 lbs. in about 9 months on Jenny Craig (for whom she serves as a company spokeswoman), Bertinelli, who had last worn a bikini when she was 20, was ready for a new challenge.

“I thought, If I’m so afraid of a bikini, there’s something wrong. And so I had to get back into one!,” Bertinelli says in the new PEOPLE, available on newsstands Friday.

And so – after about a year of exercising on her own while losing weight, primarily by walking 10,000 steps a day – she hired a personal trainer in December. Before long she was running up to five times a week. During what she calls the bikini “homestretch” – the last three weeks – she trimmed her daily caloric intake from 1,700 to around 1,200, and gave up her regular “splurge” glass of champagne. “It was crunch time,” she says, “like getting ready for your class reunion!”

The result? Bertinell says she is now in the best shape of her life. “I never, ever, ever had deltoids!” she says. “Oh my God, when I’m doing exercises and I see them pop out, I’m like, Yes!”
(People.com)

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She’s was on the cover of Vogue in a sleeveless silk sheath. Then there was the purple sleeveless Narciso Rodriguez she wore to the president’s joint session of Congress on Tuesday. And she’s on the cover of the latest People magazine in a lacy pink number, also without sleeves.

Those toned arms are becoming a trademark. And a source of inspiration for some women.

Rylan Duggan, a personal trainer who runs Go Sleeveless, a blog that instructs women how to tone up flabby arms and “eliminate bat wings,” said that in addition to asking how to get “Madonna arms” or “Kelly Ripa arms,” clients are now asking about getting “Obama arms.”

“The Obama effect has been that women of all ages have been inspired to take responsibility for their health and their body,” said Duggan. “As the first lady of the United States, at 44 years old, and with two young children, Mrs. Obama has shown the world that you are never too busy to take care of yourself and look good doing it too,” he said.

Exercise advocates are also fans. “She’s a great role model,” said Jessica Matthews, a continuing education coordinator for the American Council on Exercise. “Women shy away from strength training, because they’re afraid of big muscles. She shows nice toned arms and that it’s not going to lead to this myth of a bodybuilder type.”

Women don’t have the hormones to develop huge muscles by strength training, unless they’re working out to an extreme or taking steroids, Matthews said.

Obama has said she exercises in 90-minute workout three times a week with a personal trainer. The first lady told People magazine that during an average day in the White House, she and the president get up at 5:30 a.m. and usually work out and have breakfast.

When Obama emerged with uncovered arms on Tuesday, some grumbled about her showing too much skin on an occasion where other women were wearing long sleeves or suits.

Boston Herald columnist Lauren Beckham Falcone wrote to Obama, “It’s February. Going sleeveless in subzero temperature is just showing off. All due respect.”

But others were amazed, like 25-year-old Jessie Rosen. After seeing Obama at the speech Tuesday, she went to the Adidas store in New York and bought two five-pound dumbbells. “It was her arms being so toned in spite of her life,” she said.

“This woman is redecorating White House, trying to raise two children and backseat driving the nation,” Rosen said. “She seems to have time to keep her arms toned, so why can’t I?”

It’s only the second day of Rosen’s new dumbbell routine. She does 15 minutes with four to five different exercises in front of her television, before going to bed. She hopes the arm exercises will get her ready for beach season and upcoming weddings.

But personal trainers say arm exercises alone are not enough to get toned arms. First, a person has to get rid of body fat from the body, meaning “you can’t spot reduce and just eliminate fat from the arms,” Duggan said.

Also, an exercise program has to target all major muscles of the body.

Personal trainer Matthews recommends moderate intensity cardio for 30 minutes, five times a week or vigorous intensity cardio for 20 minutes, three times a week.

Both cardio exercises and strength training are needed to speed up metabolism and burn body fat.

“Even if the goal is just the upper body, you want to train all major muscles,” said Matthews. “If you fail to strengthen the entire body, it limits lean mass. When we strength train, we are building lean body mass and decreasing body fat.”

Strength training increases muscle mass and revs up the body to burn fat at a higher rate, allowing for the lean muscle definition to show. Matthews recommends strength training twice a week, on nonconsecutive days to allow muscles to repair themselves.

“Women are just really terrified of weights,” she said. “They’re on cardio machines, elliptical for 60 minutes and wondering why they don’t see definition and tone. The missing link is strength training.”

The arm exercises sculpt the muscle underneath, which should protrude as the fat fades.

It’s unclear what kind of exercises Obama does to maintain her buff arms, but it appears to be both back and arm workouts, said Michele Vourliotis, author of “Amazing Arms: Get Toned Triceps, Beautiful Biceps, and Sexy Shoulders in Just Minutes a Day.”

“She may be working out on machine, dumbbells, bands or using her body weight,” Vourliotis said. Pick the option that seems most suitable to you, she advised.

So how does a normal woman, who doesn’t have a personal trainer or healthy meals from the White House chefs, get tight and taut biceps?

For beginners, Vourliotis recommends getting a suitable set of dumbbells (five pounds or more) and doing 12 to 15 of each exercise — bicep curls, tricep kickbacks to exercise the back of the arm, shoulder and lateral raises. Visit the American Council on Exercises library for detailed instructions on these arm exercises.

Everyone’s body is different and the definition in the arms can take a while to show, so don’t get discouraged if the results don’t show after just two weeks, trainers said.

“Certainly with strength training, you see great benefits in weights you can lift, within four to six weeks,” Matthews said. “When it comes to starting developing muscle mass, it really varies. There’s not a specific timeline.”

Another component is to maintain a healthy weight, said Marisa Moore, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

“Focus on a nice, balanced diet, with lean protein, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, that’s the way to maintain a healthy physique,” she said. “When you’re trying to maintain muscles, choose lean protein, like fish, chicken without the skin, eggs, beans. Those are great sources of protein.”

The protein portions should be four ounces during a meal.

It sounds complex, but Duggan is optimistic that women of any age, no matter how saggy her arms are, can improve.

“You can have toned and sexy arms at any age regardless of your current fitness level or how bad your arms are sagging right now,” he said.
(CNN.com)

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