Is 2015 the Year We All Sequence Our Microbiomes?– So this article is not as much about how one should practice health and fitness as it is about what is new and upcoming in terms of technology for the upcoming year. Blocks of vegan cheese, a device that measures how much vitamin D you are getting daily, devices where you can swab yourself for bacteria and send in to get analyzed, to even a posture shirt. It will be interesting to see if any of these take off in the next year or if they stay as little niches.

Exercise to Lose Weight, Stay Warm– I think the statement of working out in the cold burns more calories then working out in warmer weather is one we have all heard. I of course never researched it, but figures it must be true. This study actually shows the opposite. “Over all, the volunteers felt more ravenous after working out in the cold and loaded their plates with more food than when they had been warm during their workout.But they had not burned more calories during the exercise session in the cold. In fact, the researchers’ data showed, they had expended significantly fewer calories then than when walking while warm.”

Make Your Resolutions Stick Finally– It is that time of year again for New Years resolutions. I for one am admit that they can work if you set your mind to it. For me it was NYE 2011 I  made a commitment to lose weight. I started with an achievable goal, to lose 20 lbs. Once I started and I saw how good it felt I kept going. I really like this article because it is straight forward and tells you like it is. I think it gives great advice for setting goals and sticking to them. I in fact have a new goal for the year I am just getting ready to start. Cant wait!

No Phones In Bed– “When subjects read on the iPad as compared to the paper books (hereafter referred to as “books”), the people reported feeling less sleepy at night and less alert the following morning. Of course, this is not a blinded study, the kind with a placebo—the participants could have been biased in reporting how they felt. But, empirically, they also took longer to fall asleep on the iPad nights and spent less time in the REM phase of sleep. And the blood tests showed that on average, the brain’s melatonin secretion on those nights was delayed by an hour and a half.”

Hit the Weights, not the treadmill, to reduce belly fat– “Results showed that the men who increased the amount of time they spent lifting weights by 20 minutes a day had a smaller waistline gain during the time period (-0.67 cm), compared with those who increased their aerobic exercise by 20 minutes a day (-0.33 cm) or who increased yard work or stair climbing (-0.16 cm).”

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5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Running– Now I tend to not post a lot of articles from popsugar as mainly I don’t know the validity of their pieces. However after reading this one and being a runner myself I thought the tips were actually pretty good. My biggest advice for someone who is just starting to run, especially longer distances. Buy nice running shoes! Yes it is a big investment to spend over $100 on a pair, but if you get an injury that will end up costing you way more in the long run.

Eating At Night Does Not Make You Fat– “When you have your meals does not directly influence weight gain. Don’t misunderstand that message. If skipping breakfast causes you to binge the rest of the day, then breakfast is the right option for you. Or if more food at night sends you straight to your snack panty, you want to be mindful of your late night eating. These are both behavioral triggers and dependent on your reactions to eating patterns. Just as you can be perfectly healthy and skip breakfast every day, you can also be lean, fit, and energized by having your biggest meal at night.”

What’s Tylenol Doing to Our Minds?– I for one have probably taken more then my fair share of over the counter pain medications over the years. I was raised if you have a pain just pop a pill and get rid of it. This new research is intriguing, but also a little scary considering how many people take Tylenol. and “New research this week found that Tylenol altered the way subjects passed moral judgments. The way people pass moral judgments is not necessarily indicative of their level of existential anxiety. But acetaminophen indeed appears to be affecting people’s perspectives, which further muddies our already complex relationship to the drug. ”

 The Myth of Comfort Food– The short story of this article is comfort food really does not make you feel better when compared to other foods.  “Let’s not say we’re allowed to eat something because it will make us feel better about whatever we’re suffering,” she said. “People are looking for a justification to eat something unhealthy. Just eat the ice cream! It’s not magical. But it is yummy.”

You Can’t ‘Turn Fat Into Muscle’– It is funny, having gone through a big weight loss I never paused to stop and think about where all of the fat was actually going. It looks like metabolized mainly into carbon dioxide, and some water that goes into urine. Who knew?

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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.”

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The Caffeine-Alcohol Effect– In college it was a staple to mix red bull with almost any booze when going out. You had been up late the night before, at class all day, and needed a pick up in order to rally throughout the night. This article brings some good insight into the risks of doing this. “People who add caffeine to their cocktail are at greater risk of being in an accident or making a decision they will later regret (like getting in the car with a drunk driver) than those who stick to straight booze.”

Year 1 of Legal Marijuana Lessons Learned in CO– Oh my home state. I personally think it is good to see what the effects of legalizing marijuana are prior to more states legalizing. It is always good to take findings and see how you can improve off of them. It will be interesting to see where this goes. “Wolk, the state’s public health director, expects to have a clearer picture of legalization by spring 2015, when the Retail Marijuana Public Health Advisory Committee will release its findings on the first year of legalization. The report will look at hospital visits, impaired driving incidents, teen use, rehab visits, and many other metrics. In the meantime, he believes the state is doing all it can, given the mandate to allow and regulate legal sales issued by voters in 2012.”

Great Vacation? Don’t Brag To Your Friends– “But the pleasure of a social encounter is built on commonality. People are more likely to enjoy talking about an ordinary experience they have all had rather than hearing about the fabulous one they didn’t. So sharing the details of your singular experience in a social setting can indeed backfire, leading to feelings of being excluded.”

Thinking about the long-term impact of your food choices may help control food cravings– This article is interesting, it is all about how you think about things and the impact it can make. “A new study adds evidence to the current thinking that individuals with obesity can successfully reduce cravings using distract tasks.”

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Revised Food Labels Still Won’t Tell Whole Story– I for one am really excited about our new food labels. Although I agree with the article, there is still quite a bit of room for improvement, it is at least a step in the right direction. I personally think the bigger challenge is not just giving people more information, but educating them on what it means. Like how many calories is needed for an individual’s body to be healthy.

How Can Exercise Boost Your Brains – “Tellingly, the children who had attended the most exercise sessions showed the greatest improvements in their cognitive scores.  Meanwhile, the children in the control group also raised their test scores, but to a much smaller extent. In effect, both groups’ brains were developing, but the process was more rapid and expansive in the children who ran and played.”

Against The Grain-First warning, this article is really long! However it is very interesting. The article discuss’s the growing phenomenon with people becoming gluten free. It asks the question is it gluten or is it due to carbohydrates or how bread is now being processed. “For reasons that remain largely unexplained, the incidence of celiac disease has increased more than fourfold in the past sixty years. Researchers initially attributed the growing number of cases to greater public awareness and better diagnoses. But neither can fully account for the leap since 1950”

Do You Really Understand Elite Performance?– This article discuss’s what it takes for elite performance and narrows it down to 6 key skills. “Put simply, the quality of your technical, tactical, mental, physical and lifestyle skills combined with the quality of your performance culture will dictate success or failure.”

The Science of the Midnight Snack– This article stems from jawbone who is one company in the growing pedometer category who just released information on their customers eating habits. Through the data it was found that people’s want for sugar, salt, and fat increased at night. In another study it found the same to be true from a group of volunteers. “And while their desire for vegetables stayed more or less the same throughout the day, their hunger for sweet, salty, and starchy foods increased dramatically around 8 p.m.—suggesting that our appetite for junk is governed more by our internal body clocks than by genuine hunger.”

Photo from Huff Post