Don't stress about how much you eat during the holidays!

Advice from Bob Greene:

Although the scale may inch up during or after a holiday, keep in mind that weight fluctuations are perfectly normal. To gain an actual pound of body fat, you'd have to consume a lot of calories: 3,500 to be exact—and this is on top of what you normally eat in a given day. And even if the number on the scale does climb, that doesn't always mean that you've gained actual body fat. When you step on a scale, you're weighing muscle, bone, body fat, water (one gallon weighs eight pounds), undigested food, and waste that your body hasn't eliminated yet.

And don't forget that some foods weigh more, even when they don't provide more calories. For example, one half cup of black beans weighs about three ounces, but one tablespoon of olive oil only weighs about one-half ounce, even though they have the same number of calories. If you eat foods that are "heavier" due to their water or fiber weight, you may weigh more on the scale until all of the food has been digested and the waste has been eliminated.

So don't stress about what or how much you ate. Instead, focus on getting back on track with your workouts and healthy-eating plan.

Paula Begoun rocks!

Not only does she do all this exhaustive testing and research to write books about all the makeup and beauty products available, she also created a website about them. What a wonderful woman!

Here's the home page: http://www.beautypedia.com/default.aspx

Here's the Master List of all the different brands with reviews of some of their products: http://www.beautypedia.com/brandlist.aspx

If you pay a membership fee of $24.95 US per year you have access to all the individual product reviews and her list of "Best Products" as well as the latest reviews as they arrive. Or you could buy one of her books which covers the same ground but obviously goes out of date very quickly...

Great way NOT to waste money on useless beauty products as she does all the work to find out what's best for you to use- fabulous!

RealAge.com

So do you REALLY wanna know how good condition your body is in? I'm not talking about whether you look good in a swimsuit or can do 50 push ups in a minute. I am talking about your overall well-being and whether or not you are living well on a day to day basis. Do you want to know the truth?

Then go to RealAge.com.

These 2 doctors are the ones that came to fame on Oprah (yes, I admit I do watch her show a lot!) but their main aim is not to preach or lecture or dictate health rules. They want to empower you to take good care of yourself and give you a hell of a lot of information here on how to do it. From diet to exercise, illness and preventative medicine, all the way to explanations of how your body works so you can understand exactly what it's doing when it goes wrong.

The best part is when you sign up for FREE they take you through a thorough health questionnaire which can give you an indication of what your "real" age is- not the number of years you've been on this earth, but the youth of your body based on the way you treat it.

There are some technical questions like what your blood pressure level is or what your cholesterol levels are, but on the drop down lists you can choose "I don't know" so you don't need to abandon the test just because you have the numbers on hand. Next time you go to your doctor ask for your numbers and then you can always go back and update the test so it can give you a more accurate assessment.

But once you've done that you can log on to the site a few hours later and it'll give you an overview of your health and suggest how to make change and improvements that will help you to improve your health. And it's all for free!

Oh and by the way, my real age? 33.7 years old. And as I'm turning 35 next week, I'm pleased with that result!

Start counting!

I just heard on the radio that apparently people who have 100 or more moles tend to live 6-7 years longer than everyone else.

Bizarre enough fact to probably be true...

23andme.com

This is a website started by two women with a vision who hired a bunch of scientists. They've developed what TIME magazine hailed as the Idea of the Year in 2008.

You buy a kit from them, which they send to you, and then you spit in the tube they supply and return it to them. 6-8 weeks later you log in to their website and they have a complete gene analysis ready for you. This is what the kit looks like- nothing to be scared of!

This analysis can highlight medical conditions you may be a carrier for, diseases you may be prone to falling victim to, indicate what conditions your future children may be susceptible to, analyse your ancestry- all sorts of cool and interesting things.

Here's the link: https://www.23andme.com/