Trying the popular, healthy Mediterranean diet could benefit not just you, but everyone you live with, new research suggests. Family members of people who followed a Mediterranean diet lost weight and improved their eating habits, even without doing a specific diet program themselves, according to a study published March 3 in the International Journal of Obesity. The Mediterranean diet, based on traditional eating patterns in countries like Spain, Italy, and Greece, is one of the most res...

Frozen foods have gotten a pretty bad rap over the years thanks to the rise of T.V. dinners and microwaveable mac and cheese. Traditionally, freezer meals are loaded with sodium, preservatives, synthetic flavors, and other sketchy ingredients to help prolong shelf life as well as enhance flavor that's seriously lacking. So to say that most frozen meals are unhealthy is pretty accurate. But stepping into the freezer section isn't all that bad. Along with all the bad of prepared froze...

The outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) has rocked our world and caused all of us to isolate in ways we never dreamed of doing before. For some of us who have a severe mental illness diagnosis, this isolation is more than we might have ever experienced with our most extreme symptoms. While I have to fight my tendency to self-isolate as a result of my schizoaffective diagnosis, recent days have caused me to think about my routine and how it can, not only keep me s...

Deciding on the healthiest cooking oil to use in your dish isn't always quite as simple as it seems, because you've actually got a good number of options. Despite the ubiquity of ever-popular olive oil, there are plenty of other nutrient-rich cooking oils that deserve a spot in your pantry. While most cooking oils have pretty similar nutritional profiles in terms of calorie and total fat content, they do differ considerably when it comes to flavor, odor, and cooking properties. S...

Losing weight in general is hard, but dropping belly fat in particular can feel insurmountable. It’s not all in your head: “It’s essentially impossible to tell one specific region of your body to accelerate fat metabolism,” says Chris DiVecchio, a NASM-certified personal trainer and author of The 5 x 2 Method: Revealing the Power of Your Senses. Still, it’s a worthy goal to lose belly fat because it’s “unfortunately the most dangerous location to store fat,” says Lawr...

Art therapy is a way of using art and creative expression to support healing and health.  Anyone can benefit from art therapy, but it's particularly useful for people who might have difficulty processing their emotions in words. That includes children, people with trauma, and people with dementia.  "Art therapy is the use of the creative process, alongside a masters-level art therapist [a mental health therapist with formal art therapy training], to increase resiliency...

If you prefer the A/C blasting on high when you do your squats and planks, hot Pilates may not be the class for you. But for thousands of people taking hot Pilates classes across the country, the buckets of sweat rolling down your back as you work your muscles are the whole point of this sizzling new workout. “Hot Pilates is a low-impact, high-intensity workout performed in a room heated to 95 degrees,” explains Gabriella Walters, the founder of Inferno Hot Pilat...

Exercising is one of the best ways to keep your heart healthy and reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease, which causes 25% of deaths among Americans each year.  At the same time, skipping exercise can increase your risk. For example, it's estimated that 35% of deaths from coronary heart disease are caused by physical inactivity.  "Even without having risk factors, physical inactivity can lead to heart disease and dying from premature cardiovascula...

For parents of kids who are picky eaters, introducing any new food item into their diets can be a challenge. That challenge gets even more complicated when parents try to introduce kids to vegan or vegetarian diets—especially when they’re doing it at older ages The good news? There are a lot more options now than in the past. Carolyn Scott-Hamilton, a holistic nutritionist, vegan chef, cookbook author, and television personality, points out that plant-based food products have improved in...

With the constantly rotating “super” foods and nutrition fads, it can be easy to forget some of our most fundamental dietary needs, like calcium—especially if you’re a woman. “If your calcium levels aren’t high enough, your body will go ahead and remove it from your bones, leaving them weak and brittle and putting you at higher risk for bone conditions such as osteoporosis,” explains Valerie Agyeman, a registered dietitian (RD) and founder of Flourish Heights, a nutrition website and platf...