Hello everyone. As is a lot of other people right about now, I’m getting ready to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Before I go out, and before you go out if you’re going somewhere other than your own home or a hotel (which I highly advocate – very safe and very fun!), I wanted to wish everyone a very happy new year!

I also want to thank everyone profusely for hanging around this new magazine and reading us. Without our readers, we wouldn’t have anyone to share our news, tips, reviews and tricks with for everything fitness and exercise involved.

Well, I went almost a full week without working out, which is almost unheard of for me. I literally feel like I’m going to go nuts when I don’t work out for that long.

SO, I try to keep my sedentary periods as short and as few and far between as possible.  I become impossibly short fused, tired and moody and unable to focus otherwise.

There’s several prices that sedentary people pay actually, and they may not even know it, especially if they’ve pretty much lived their whole lives that way, just not moving around much.

Hello everyone. I wanted to wish everyone a wonderful and safe and loving Christmas with their families.  Let’s take this time to remember those that are not as fortunate, and send some positive thoughts and prayers to those that are going through tough times.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! SEE YOU BACK HERE AFTER CHRISTMAS FOR THE LATEST IN FITNESS AND HEALTH!

I’ve had asthma since I was a relatively young age. I remember it very clearly, the first time I had a bad asthma attack. The ragweed and the queen anne’s lace, a common weed/flower that grows here in the midwest, really gave me a run for my money when I was a kid.  I was eight years old, and we were at an outdoor YMCA hiking.

I was running up a hill, something that I could always do when I was a kid with no real problems. I noticed that I suddenly felt like there was a vice around my lungs.  I started wheezing, which was totally foreign to me. This probably freaked me out more and made my asthma attack worse.

It’s the holidays, and there are two things that are almost inevitable. While it is a time of great joy and comfort, so to speak, it’s also a time for two baddies to show up.

The baddies I speak of are stress and weight gain.  They always seem to go hand in hand, don’t they? Except this time it’s really because there’s so much good food staring you in the face.

And there’s also the stress of all the parties, the gifts you feel you have to buy for everyone, feeling like you shorted people on certain things, the work functions, the family functions you have to juggle your schedule for…..

Well, the long running and highly successful show about ordinary people’s struggles with weight loss, “Biggest Loser” is losing one of their greatest assets.

Jillian Michaels, who calls herself TV’s toughest trainer, has announced that she is leaving the show next year.

And for a very good reason. Ms. Michaels says she really wants to be a mother, and is taking a year off to start a family.

She said that she realized what she was missing when doing another of her shows, where she actually sort of lived with people to help them lose weight and change their lifestyle habits in order to lose weight. She worked with whole families, and I supposed she was touched by what it means to have kids.

Walk More in Your Own Home

Apparently, as a shorty myself at about 5’4″, I have some benefits I’d never thought of when I do my every day walking.

I guess that short people actually burn more calories when they walk. Which makes sense, because they actually have to work harder than people with longer legs, who have to take less strides to walk the same distance.

As a short person, I have noticed that when I’m walking next to a very tall person, I have to work a bit harder to get the same distance.

There are some newly release

d workout DVD’s that are being released just in time for the holiday season. So, you can look into these as potential gifts, whether to yourself or to a loved one, for the fitness enthusiasts on your list – or for you, the fitness enthusiast!

First on our list is the workout video maven herself, and movie star with a gorgeous bangin’ body even in her later years, Jane Fonda.  She’s got a new workout DVD out that’s called Jane Fonda : Prime Time Walkout.  The newest one is geared toward a lower impact set, so perhaps this would be good for beginners or people who may have injuries, be a little older, or just do not want high impact types of workouts.

It’s the holiday season, and I’ve already seen a few Facebook posts from friends and acquaintances saying that they were really hoping their families bought them a treadmill or a bike or some other such piece of exercise equipment so they could really have something at home to work out on.

Especially the women and men who have kids at home and care barely ever find any time, if any, to get out anywhere to an exercise class or to the gym.

One of the most powerful ab exercises that I have ever done, and ever felt the next day results from, are plank poses.  Not just the gentler version of the plank pose that you typically think of when you think of this yoga posture, but the more dynamic planks, where you are jumping and moving around, and really working deep into those ab muscles for maximum burn. And maximum pain the next day I might add!