We have created a new page (and new section, all for various trouble areas!) on how to get thinner outer thighs, something for which so many women struggle.  We explain, detail by detail, how to do these outer thigh exercises, and we also tell you how they burn that area, and how to get the most out of each one.

Women, including myself, struggle very hard with the outer thighs, because they do seem very tough to get smaller. The saddlebag area is one of the most fretted over in the female mentality (again, including mine). But these exercises, when done correctly and diligently, will get your thighs smaller, more scultped, and much more toned.

Lately, everyone is talking about fitness as a perfect goal.  The question is, what is fitness?  How do we define it?  Can you tell by appearance who is fit and who is not?  It is all cardiovascular, or do you actual count bulging muscles among your greatest fitness conquests?

Most of us define fitness by looking at a person’s appearance and attach fitness to a list of physical traits.  You don’t have to be thin or the typical “buff” look to be considered physically fit.  There are a lot of mistaken beliefs about fitness and physical appearance. 

One huge benefit that I personally notice from working out, is that I seem to keep a lot of the mushy, smushy pesky water weight off my problem areas like my thighs and my belly (althought that used to not be a problem area, as I get older, it’s getting harder to maintain). 

Why would working out regularly help you to lose water weight? Well first off, you lose a lot of that water weight through sweating. When you lead a sedentary lifestyle, you probably don’t sweat a whole lot, which means you aren’t getting rid of excess water weight on a daily basis.

For decades, running shoes have been cushioned and designed in various ways to cushion and coddle our feet with many layers of rubber and gel.  The theory behind all of these layers was to be a kind of “shock” absorber for our arches, heels, knees and backs.  The traditional running shoe provides needed support for many runners and they should stay with them if it’s working well for them.

For some runners, however, particularly runners who have had frequent pain and injuries, these runners may want to look into a gradual transition into “minimalist” running.  There are some in the field of the science of running that feel that barefoot running, or as close to it as possible, is better. 

Aging really sucks in general. At least when it comes to how aging affects your body, your facial appearance, and the many other fun health things that go with aging. But aging doesn’t have to be all together terrible when it comes to how you physically feel and look.

There are a ton of things you can do to maintain the way you look. Mainly, you can do this by exercising and eating well. But sometimes even doing that doesn’t prevent certain things from happening. Things like “turkey neck” and our necks getting saggier and looser are some of the ones that happen to even the best of us.

I am constantly on my husband about stretching before and after he works out. He never does it, and always wonders why he easily gets injured. While I can get him to do it occasionally, he stubbornly believes that he doesn’t need to stretch before he exercises, especially if he’s just weight lifting.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. You should always warm your body up before you work out, no matter what kind of workout you’re doing. Think of your muscles as a rubber band. If you warm a rubber band up, it would be less likely to snap and break or tear because you’ve warmed it by stretching it out, making it more pliable and less brittle.

My husband recently was trying to lose weight, but he also wanted to simultaneously build lean muscle, and keep the muscle that he had. He has long been a fan of the muscle preserving and building supplement creatine.

Creatine has been around for a while, and is a staple of many body-conscious weight lifters and people who just want to get lean and muscular quickly.  It used to be that you had to drink creatine with grape juice, but there are many kinds now that you do not need to do this with.

It used to be that whether you were young or old, if you needed an extra boost of energy, you just simply brewed yourself a cup of caffeinated coffee.  If you needed a little more boost, you’d just have a second cup or make your coffee a little stronger.

Increasingly, the younger generation is turning to energy beverages for a boost in their level of pep.  This sounds harmless enough but, to start with, the energy drinks are highly caffeinated and have a varied and sometimes bizarre combination of ingredients added to them. 

I remember, with great fondness and a big smile, when my mom and dad used to take me and my little sister to the park, where at the time, they had a big trampoline. We were so young at the time, that the trampoline seemed absolutely huge to me, but I’m sure looking back that it was just the same as the big ones people have so often in their backyards.

Back then, you really couldn’t buy them for your backyard easily like you can now. You couldn’t just run to your nearest Dick’s Sporting Goods store and charge it – it was more like a special order thing. 

I wrote a while ago about how I was going to treat myself to a set of body wraps at a local place that specializes exclusively in herbal body wraps.  I wasn’t a huge believer that it would reduce my butt and thighs, which have forever been my biggest problem area, without diet or exercise, but I figured it might at least help me to reduce my cellulite problem areas.

Sometimes, merely reducing cellulite actually makes you look a lot thinner and fit into your clothes better. Not to mention, a good cellulite reducer will also make you feel like a million bucks when you’re standing in front of the mirror naked after a shower.