If you don’t have time to paint on your abs everyday like Gerald Butler in 300 then you probably are like me and need to hit the gym to stay looking healthy. I have read countless articles and have had even more conversations about how to work out and eat to stay in good shape. Just recently I unlocked the puzzle to all of this so I thought I would share some of the things you may not know that recently figured out.

Keep in mind there are basics not covered here like eating less carbs vs what you burn daily, getting a trainer for proper form, stretching before a workout, supplements, and so many more. This article is more about things you might not know already.

1. Drinking 16 glasses of water a day will actually help you trim down. Professional boxers routinely do this weeks before a fight to lose weight and flush out any toxins. You might have a full belly of water for a couple days but shortly after you will feel better and trim down a notch. I highly recommend getting a water dispenser.

2. Go to the gym almost everyday. Trainers always say day on to break down the muscles and a day off to recover. I think this is only important if you are a pro body builder and spend 5 hours each time at the gym. For the rest of us, getting to the gym everyday even if you just do cardio means you will keep your metabolism up and it’s just easier to not have to follow a routine of when to go and when not to. I go Monday through Friday and reward myself with the weekends off, works great for over a month now.

3. Do a 10 minute cardio warm up before lifting. The reality is no matter how big you are if you have fat covering your muscles then it’s not going to be healthy. Doing cardio gets your heart rate up, blood circulating, which helps burn more carbs during lifting. Ideally you would do another 20 minutes of cardio afterward as well.

4. Eat simple. Carbs or no carbs is always the hot topic for dieting. But nothing helps you burn carbs better then if they come from simple natural foods. Processed carbs like pasta, sugar, dairy, and whatever in’s fast food do not break down easily. Your body has to take more time and work to burn them off or it will just store it for later (not good). I eat more carbs now then I ever have before, but have lost 15 pounds in two months (I know crazy, but true). The difference is I eat only healthy natural foods like rice, eggs, fruits, vegetables, seafood, grilled chicken, ect. I eat almost the same meals everyday,  mainly because my assistant is an amazing cook and makes rice taste like heaven.

5. Alcohol is a biggie. Not drinking for me is not an option (snicker), hold on I’m not going to Betty Ford’s just yet. I work from home so I need to go out just to stay sane, this means social drinking most of the time. So if your like me and must drink (snicker) then here are some safe low carb drinks: Rum or whiskey and Diet Coke, Vodka and Diet Red Bull or Diet Ginger Ale (hard to find) and non dirty martinis are o.k. If you are pounding drinks like more then three all night then stay away from regular coke, any beer, and anything with sugar period. Ideally the perfect drink would be Organic Vodka with Diet Organic Ginger Ale.

6. Stay Happy. Cortisol is real and when you stress it kicks in and stores your carbs in bad places. Basically it thinks you are getting ready for winter and stressing over the possible lack of food. (Remember our bodies adapted to land living for thousands of years before civilization and those adaptation are still in us.) Staying happy not only causes a domino effect around the world of something good but helps you stay trim and motivated. Remember we all have flaws, embrace them as part of life and don’t worry too much just do the best you can and let the chips fall as they may. (If you worry about not doing your best, then that is doing your best and defeats itself)

Written by Charles Yarbrough

Needless to say, stress sucks and so does getting hurt. But like a cut stress needs to be taken care or it can metaphorically get infected and become worse. Bottling up stress is like having ticking time bomb inside of you. So consider getting it out of you before you randomly start causing causing harm to innocent people around you (that was a exaggeration, I hope).

Read Some Fiction
If I’m seriously worked up, upset or stressed, one of the best things I can do is to grab a book. Fiction seems to help stress better because it kind of takes you away from real life. I you can forget everything that’s troubling you, for just ten minutes, it will help.

Meditate or Pray
Often, the best thing we can do to instantly stop stress is to focus on something else. I highly recommend meditation, the purpose of mediation in it’s simplest form is to focus on one thing for a allotted amount of time. I like to use a candle with as much silence as I can make happen. There is deeper theories that meditation is a form rem sleep entrance like hypnosis that basically resets your mind so you can have fresh thoughts again. I also recommend to pray – if this suits your religious/spiritual persuasions, it can be a very powerful way to get outside of your own head and call on a higher power for some much-needed help!

Watch A Funny Movie From Your Childhood
I don’t know about everyone, but I can’t stay stressed out when I’m laughing.Nothing makes me laugh more then a movie I cherish from childhood. Time Bandits, Weird Science, or Karate Kid always makes me feel better.

Make A Herbal Tea
If you’re feeling stressed, caffeine probably isn’t going to help. A warm, soothing mug of herbal tea might, though. The act of making yourself a drink can be calming: it gets you away from your desk, and it gives you a chance to concentrate on something physical. You’ll probably also feel a psychological boost from doing something positive and nurturing for yourself.

Punch A Pillow
Depending on where you are when you’re feeling stressed, and on your personality, throwing a few punches at a pillow might help. Think of the stress leaving you through your fist with every punch.

Take Slow, Deep Breaths
When we get stressed, we tend to breath more quickly, taking shallow breaths. Concentrate on your breathing (you can do this in conjunction with meditation or prayer). Imagine breathing from your stomach, not your chest. Take slow, deep, fulfilling breaths.

Listen To Chill Music
I recommend Coldplay, Beetles, Billy Joel, Thievery Corporation. The idea here is to have music that you know relaxes you. I actually have a CD called “chill CD” that I play when  I need to unwind.

Work Out Or Jog
Getting lost in a work out is easy and you will always feel to some extent better after working out.

Hang  Out  With An Animal
There is no question that animals lifts are spirits and they also teach us so much about life. Like getting outside should be one of the best parts of your day. And it’s o.k. to show how excited you are physically.

Aroma Therapy
Scents can go along way for relaxing which in turn helps to stop stress. So no matter how cool or tough you are next time you have tough day heat of some lavender or hazelnut oil.

Do Yoga
Yoga is said to connect your soul and body well I wouldn’t know what that was if it did happen. But without a doubt you will feel better and your body will thank for the stretching and muscle work outs. If you are not sure how to do Yoga check out a Youtube video and follow along in full screen mode. -Namaste

If insomnia is derailing your sleep, a prescription sleeping pill may not be the best cure. Here are some options to explore:

Practice good “sleep hygiene.” This does not mean making sure your bedding is clean! It means following good sleep habits, especially ensuring the bedroom environment is conducive to sleep. Among experts’ recommendations: Use the bedroom only for sleep and sex; keep regular sleep and wake times; eliminate afternoon caffeine; banish pets (and snoring partners) from the bedroom; ensure the bedroom is a dark, cool, quiet place; and get computers and TVs out of the sleep environment, because they stimulate the brain and their light tells the body “it’s daytime,” disrupting the internal clock.

Break the rules when necessary. While experts’ common-sense recommendations about sleep hygiene should be the first line of defense against insomnia, selectively breaking them can sometimes help, too. TV isn’t recommended, for example, but a DVD or show (make it a boring one) may put some people to sleep. “Listen to experts’ rules; don’t throw them out,” says Gayle Greene, 65, a lifelong insomniac who has learned to cope. But “bend them, make them work for you.”

Develop a pre-bed relaxation ritual. “Adults need these rituals, too,” says Meir Kryger, director of sleep research and education at Gaylord Hospital in Wallingford, Conn. “You’d be amazed at how helpful they can actually be.” To develop a nonstimulating evening ritual, you might recall what your parents did when you were young to get you in sleep mode. Or try taking a hot bath or sipping a warm cup of chamomile tea; either will raise your core body temperature, which leads to a drowsy feeling as you cool down, says Lisa Shives, medical director of Northshore Sleep Medicine in Evanston, Ill.

Try not to self-medicate. “I personally don’t recommend that people just go out and treat themselves with over-the-counter medications,” says Kryger. “They never solve the problem; they’ll just help you get through.” Pharmacies certainly offer lots of sleep remedies. There are antihistamines, like Benadryl, which have a sedative side effect. (The ingredient that causes drowsiness is also found in products like Tylenol PM and Advil PM.) But those medications can induce next-day grogginess—what some patients call “sleep hangovers”—and they can actually have an alerting or a disorienting effect on the elderly, says Shives. Other OTC options include melatonin supplements and valerian extracts, although evidence of the effectiveness of either is slim, a National Institutes of Health insomnia consensus panel concluded in 2005. And, as Shives says of melatonin, valerian, and similar substances, “Nobody’s regulating this stuff.”

Don’t drink to sleep. Sure, sloshing down a little Pinot Noir will put you to sleep, but as the alcohol is metabolized by the body, it fragments sleep, which tends to cause nighttime awakenings and next-day tiredness. “People have the misconception that alcohol helps,” says Ralph Downey III, chief of sleep medicine at the Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. “It doesn’t.”

Create a barrier between work and sleep. You want to have some sort of break from the day’s stress before sleep, advises Lawrence Epstein, medical director of Sleep HealthCenters in Boston and coauthor of The Harvard Medical School Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep. If you know you’re going to bed at 10:30, stop your day at 10:15, or sooner if you can. Shortchanging that break can be a recipe for insomnia. Write down all the things you need to worry about on a piece of paper, and do your best to leave them behind. Whether asleep or awake, there’s likely nothing you can do about them until tomorrow, anyway.

Don’t “catastrophize.” People who can’t sleep tend to compound the problem by fretting about the consequences of their sleeplessness, like the possibility that they’ll do a bad job at work and get fired. Catastrophizing a sleep problem, however, tends to further engrain it, says Shives. “I try to get [people] to calm down,” she says. “But that’s kind of like telling a depressed person to perk up.”

Retreat to a “safe room.” Don’t stew in bed. Create a “safe room” to retreat to when sleep escapes you, Downey advises. If awake for more than 20 minutes after your head hits the pillow, get out of bed and go to that room. Don’t turn on a light, don’t go on the Internet, don’t read a book; just relax, he says, for 20 minutes, or until sleepy. Repeat as necessary, all night long. This process is called conditioning. You want to prevent your bedroom from becoming associated with frustration. If you live in a dorm or a studio apartment, Downey says, use a screen to carve out a sitting nook away from the bed.

Exercise. While experts advise against vigorous exercise too close to bedtime, a morning or evening workout can be beneficial. “We know that it promotes the slowest waves of sleep,” says Mary Susan Esther, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Not working? Talk to your doctor. Everybody may have episodes of sleep trouble. But if insomnia persists for several weeks, especially if it’s disrupting your daytime activities, discuss it with a doctor or ask to be referred to a sleep specialist. (A survey released this week by the National Sleep Foundation found that only 32 percent of Americans who have sleep problems discuss them with their doctors.) Some people may be physiologically susceptible to chronic insomnia, says Epstein, while others may bring it on by developing bad coping habits. If an underlying psychiatric condition isn’t to blame, says Downey, untreated insomnia could end up contributing to one. “Jump on [insomnia] within six months or you [may] end up treating depression, anxiety, and [other psychiatric] disorders” later, he says. Prescription medications may be explored but are usually a last resort, says Kryger. Cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps people unlearn bad behaviors, is another possibility.

McDonald’s Corp. said Monday its global same-store sales jumped 8.2 percent during the month. That beat the company’s own prediction for a rise similar to the one it recorded in its last quarter, when same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, jumped 7.1 percent worldwide.

The results were a bright spot in what was a dismal month for most restaurant operators. Many sit-down chains have reported steep declines in same-store sales during October as consumers grew more anxious about the possibility of a prolonged recession.

But U.S. consumers kept spending at McDonald’s, even as Congress passed a bill to bail out the economy and credit markets froze.

Same-store sales rose 5.3 percent in the United States, helped by new menu items, including the Southern Style Chicken sandwich, and continued demand for breakfast items. The company’s popular Dollar Menu and its annual Monopoly promotion also drew in value-hungry consumers.

“McDonald’s strong October sales show that we are delivering what customers count on from McDonald’s — choice, variety and high-quality food and beverages at affordable prices,” Chief Executive Jim Skinner said in a statement.

Same-store sales rose 9.8 percent in Europe and grew 11.5 percent in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa region. Demand was particularly strong in Australia, the company said.

Same-store sales are a key indicator of restaurant performance since they measure growth at existing locations rather than newly opened ones.

The nation’s No. 1 hamburger chain said total sales rose 5.4 percent during the month.

Wall Street analysts had been concerned that a stronger dollar in October might inhibit sales increases. Chains translate their sales overseas into dollars so for a company like McDonald’s, which has a large overseas presence, shifts in the strength of the dollar can lead to skewed results.

But most analysts said the stronger dollar seemed to drag on sales only slightly.

Goldman Sachs analyst Steven Kron said in a note to investors that business momentum at the chain is “overpowering” any shift in the strength of the dollar.

Overall, Kron said the results “temper lingering concerns that a global economic slowdown will impact the company’s results.”

Morningstar analyst John Owens said the results show McDonald’s is likely benefiting from diners who might ordinarily go to pricier sit-down restaurants but are gravitating to fast food to save money — a phenomenon called “trading down.”

“It definitely shows they are recession-resistant,” Owens said.

So people are eating much worse to save money

Most people are worried about the health of the economy. But does the economy also affect your health?

It does, but not always in ways you might expect. The data on how an economic downturn influences an individual’s health are surprisingly mixed.

It’s clear that long-term economic gains lead to improvements in a population’s overall health, in developing and industrialized societies alike.

But whether the current economic slump will take a toll on your own health depends, in part, on your health habits when times are good. And economic studies suggest that people tend not to take care of themselves in boom times — drinking too much (especially before driving), dining on fat-laden restaurant meals and skipping exercise and doctors’ appointments because of work-related time commitments.

“The value of time is higher during good economic times,” said Grant Miller, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford. “So people work more and do less of the things that are good for them, like cooking at home and exercising; and people experience more stress due to the rigors of hard work during booms.”

Similar patterns have been seen in some developing nations. Dr. Miller, who is studying the effects of fluctuating coffee prices on health in Colombia, says that even though falling prices are bad for the economy, they appear to improve health and mortality rates. When prices are low, laborers have more time to care for their children.

“When coffee prices suddenly rise, people work harder on their coffee plots and spend less time doing things around the home, including things that are good for their children,” he said. “Because the things that matter most for infant and child health in rural Colombia aren’t expensive, but require a substantial amount of time — such as breast-feeding, bringing clean water from far away, taking your child to a distant health clinic for free vaccinations — infant and child mortality rates rise.”

In this country, a similar effect appeared in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, according to a 2007 paper by Dr. Miller and colleagues in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The data seem to contradict research in the 1970s suggesting that in hard times there are more deaths from heart disease, cirrhosis, suicide and homicide, as well as more admissions to mental hospitals. But those findings have not been replicated, and several economists have pointed out flaws in the research.

In May 2000, the Quarterly Journal of Economics published a surprising paper called “Are Recessions Good for Your Health?” by Christopher J. Ruhm, professor of economics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, based on an analysis measuring death rates and health behavior against economic shifts and jobless rates from 1972 to 1991.

Dr. Ruhm found that death rates declined sharply in the 1974 and 1982 recessions, and increased in the economic recovery of the 1980s. An increase of one percentage point in state unemployment rates correlated with a 0.5 percentage point decline in the death rate — or about 5 fewer deaths per 100,000 people. Over all, the death rate fell by more than 8 percent in the 20-year period of mostly economic decline, led by drops in heart disease and car crashes.

The economic downturn did appear to take a toll on factors having less to do with prevention and more to do with mental well-being and access to health care. For instance, cancer deaths rose 23 percent, and deaths from flu and pneumonia increased slightly. Suicides rose 2 percent, homicides 12 percent.

The issue that may matter most in an economic crisis is not related to jobs or income, but whether the slump widens the gap between rich and poor, and whether there is an adequate health safety net available to those who have lost their jobs and insurance.

During a decade of economic recession in Japan that began in the 1990s, people who were unemployed were twice as likely to be in poor health than those with secure jobs. During Peru’s severe economic crisis in the 1980s, infant mortality jumped 2.5 percentage points — about 17,000 more children who died as public health spending and social programs collapsed.

In August, researchers from the Free University of Amsterdam looked at health studies of twins in Denmark. They found that individuals born in a recession were at higher risk for heart problems later in life and lived, on average, 15 months less than those born under better conditions.

Gerard J. van den Berg, an economics professor who was a co-author of the study, said babies in poor households suffered the most in a recession, because their families lacked access to good health care. Poor economic conditions can also cause stress that may interfere with parent bonding and childhood development, he said.

He noted that other studies had found that recessions can benefit babies by giving their parents more time at home.

“This scenario may be relevant for well-to-do families where one of the parents loses a job and the other still brings in enough money,” he said. “But in a crisis where the family may have to incur huge housing-cost losses and the household income is insufficient for adequate nutrition and health care, the adverse effects of being born in a recession seem much more relevant.”

In this country, there are already signs of the economy’s effect on health. In May, the market research firm Information Resources reported that 53 percent of consumers said they were cooking from scratch more than they did just six months before — in part, no doubt, because of the rising cost of prepared foods. At the same time, health insurance costs are rising. With premiums and co-payments, the average employee with insurance pays nearly one-third of medical costs — about twice as much as four years ago, according to Paul H. Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.

In the United States, which unlike other industrialized nations lacks a national health plan, the looming recession may take a greater toll. About 46 million Americans lack health insurance, Dr. Keckley says, and even among the 179 million who have it, an estimated 1 in 7 would be bankrupted by a single health crisis.

The economic downturn “is not good news for the health care industry,” he said. “There may be slivers of positive, but I view this as sobering.”