Fitness Trackers: Take them on a test run.

With so many fitness trackers on the market -- and more emerging every day -- it's hard to know which one is right for your needs.

10 Myths About Body Fat

by Maria Trimarchi

What's one of the things about body fat that most people believe is true? How about this one: Muscle burns more calories than fat. While yes, our skeletal muscle does burn more calories every day than our body fat does, it's not as notable as you may think. It's really a surprisingly negligible difference when you're talking about how many calories are consumed for energy while you're just sitting around. The calories the body needs just to take care of its survival is called our resting energy expenditure, and when you're not exercising or expending your energy, your fat tissue burns two calories for every pound of your total body weight — but your skeletal muscle burns just six calories per pound [source: McClave].

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7 Misleading Health Claims that You Should Never Believe

from care2.com

Here are the seven misleading health claims that top my list.

1. Natural. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t have a definition for the word “natural,” so companies use it with abandon.

2. Real. Really? Food companies use this term to highlight a “premium” ingredient. As Mr. Bradley points out: “One ingredient does not make a box or bag REAL food.”

3. Organic. This one is interesting because the FDA does regulate the use of the word “organic.” But did you know you can buy organic jelly beans? And organic pizza rolls? Those aren’t healthy choices. Organic doesn’t mean healthy.

4. Whole Grain. All it takes is a minute trace of a whole grain in a product for food companies to be allowed to label it “whole grain.” And the benefits of whole grains are frequently offset by added sugars, artificial colors, and other additives.

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He pours water over his Bacon !!!

Want to know how to make the most perfect bacon ever? Don't we all! In this video, America's Test Kitchen shows us how to make it, and it's probably even easier than you'd think!

And if you're scared of the water and grease popping, the experts say that the water will simmer away, leaving you with your perfect piece of bacon!

courtesy of Felicia Thompson

Warning: note that you do NOT add the water to the cooking bacon, you start with the bacon in water.

From America’s Test Kitchen, we’ve added them to our “Recipe, Nutrition and Fitness Blogs” list/feeds (right sidebar)

How long should your naps be? Seriously.

• The Power Nap:
  10-20 minutes, sleep is limited to a lighter sleep that enable you to ‘snap back’ waking up.
• Sleep Inertia:
  30 minutes, leaves you with a nap-hangover for about 30 minutes before you feel any benefits.
• Slow Wave Sleep:
  60 minutes.  Best for remembering facts, faces, and names. A deep sleep with nap-hangover.
• Full Cycle Sleep:
  Lighter & deeper sleep both, REM sleep, dreaming stage. Lead to improved ‘procedural memory’.
  Tends to lessen nap-hangover.

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Weight Loss Magic Soup

This recipe has been all over the internet via Facebook.

To meet my requirement for fewer ingredients and KISS (Keep It Simpler Stupid) I cutout the highlighted ingredients, substituted at least two packages of frozen vegetables and added a cup of frozen diced chicken and another cup of diced meat such as cutup turkey sausage.

I also eliminated the first step of the instructions and throw every thing into a crock pot for 2-3 hours. For this I increase the broth and V-8 juice (on a 1 to 1 basis) until the crockpot is full. Makes me a supply for a week.

Decoding your produce:

What’s with the barcode on your produce?  Yes there is a code and a number that identifies the product when you check out. BUT, there is more to the code than just pricing:

The stickers or labels attached to fruit and some vegetables have more of a function than helping scan the price at the checkout stand. The PLU code, or price lookup number printed on the sticker, also tells you how the fruit was grown. By reading the PLU code, you can tell if the fruit was genetically modified, organically grown or produced with chemical fertilizers, fungicides, or herbicides.