Exercising but Gaining Weight– I think this research study is very helpful as I know a lot of people out there think just exercise alone can lead to weight loss. I was one of those people for many years. The research here talks to how for some people if exercise is the only new variable you could in fact end up gaining weight. “Those women who were losing weight after four weeks of exercise tended to continue to lose weight, while the others did not. “What that means in practical terms is that someone who wants to lose weight with exercise” should step on the bathroom scale after a month, Dr. Gaesser said. If at that point your weight remains stubbornly unchanged or has increased, “look closely at your diet and other activities,” he said.”

What 200 Calories of Everyday Food Looks Like– I for one find visuals to be very impactful when trying to learn or understand something new. When I came across this article talking about a new app Calorific where it shows you what 200 calories looks like across various foods I had to go check it out. Learning what proper portions should be took me a lot of time when I started my weight loss journey. This app quickly shows you exactly what 200 calories looks like across all of the different foods groups like fruit, vegetables, breads, meat, dairy, and sweets. In order to get more features with the App you have to pay,  but I think the basic info it has is pretty handy to take a look at.

Lost Art of Self Monitoring– I like this blog post because the author is very matter of fact. We as a society do not do a great job at monitoring what we eat and usually underestimate exactly how much we are in fact consuming. I for one track what I eat daily, but I am probably realistically off by a couple hundred calories a day by thinking the small handful of nuts or the grapes I snacked on where lesser in size then they actually were. “To get anywhere close to the physique most of us desire takes a fairly high degree of self-monitoring and tracking.”

The Quickstart Guide to Quitting a Bad Habit– I think this article has some great pointers on how to quite bad habits. I for one have quite a few in my life, socially smoking cigarettes, diet soda and artificial sweetener, and learning to adopt healthy eating and exercise into my daily life. I can say it is not easy at first, but once you get into the routine it becomes second nature and is a lot easier to manage.

Health Tip: Find Purpose in Life– “This point is one for cultural change in medicine, I think, and the embrace of a holistic approach that includes not just the scientifically-grounded diagnostic tests and treatments that doctors recommend, but the abstract concepts that might explain why those science-based recommendations go ignored and unused.”

Photo from Huff Post