I finished my juice fast yesterday. I did 5 full days. Not a full week, not two weeks, but a great start. What's even better? I didn't blow it when I came off. I realized I was dizzy and hungry and needed food. So, I came home and had some chicken and green beans. Today, lunch was an enormous salad with mixed greens. I feel great ... it was a fun experience.

I stayed up fairly late last night putting the finishing touches on our year-end newsletter. I'm very excited about the progress we've made!

I'm revamping the site. You may have noticed the new front page and the navigation. We'll be consolidating, polishing, and updating more as we go forward. You'll also find our forums have grown ... and are integrated with our online training solution.

We'll kick things off with a holiday gift-giving guide.

Are you ready for the new year? Take this quiz to find out! One suggestion: make a list, check it twice, and be certain it's focused on fighting fat.

A local doctor came up with this interesting idea that involves using special attachments to keep your metabolism high as you drop fat.

The latest study that claims to prove milk helps burn fat was conducted on only 10 women ... hardly a decent sample size.

Watching diet trends is like watching a ping-pong game. First, we had to watch calories. Then, it was the glycemic index. Now, apparently it's calories again. Had enough? Tom Venuto's article gives a very balanced explanation of the glycemic index.

The U.S. isn't the only place with too many people who smoke and suffer from obesity. Recently, Russians were warned to cut back on drinking, limit smoking, and lead healthier lives.

You might think it's breaking news that a modified Atkins (low-carb) diet helps prevent epilepsy in children, but Lyle McDonald was writing about this months ago — in fact, this was studied as far back as 1921! It seems quite a few people are confused about carbs — I think it's always easiest to just focus on whole foods rather than sugars, glycemic indexes, or other ways of categorizing. Another view on carbs in the diet.

In an interesting aside, a movie director experienced King Kong-sized weight loss while making the show by switching from hamburgers to yogurt and muesli.

In a news item worthy of being posted at QuackWatch, CBS News reports an "
amazing new tool that finds where fat is located. They mentioned that "the 3D scanner will be most helpful as people are losing weight so they can target problem areas." I guess they missed the memo about how spot-reducing isn't possible (or at least not probable). "Gee, your fat seems to be located mainly on your outer thighs." "Okay, so what exercises will fix it?" "Uhhh ... you can't spot-reduce, so you're just gonna have to lose the weight until it comes off." "Why'd we spent so much money on this machine?"

I found a very inspirational story about a solider who lost hundreds of pounds ... out of patriotism!

Kids are more likely to exercise when it's fun rather than just to lose weight, a study just found. Did they really need to conduct a study to figure this one out? I have a strong feeling that the same holds true for adults, but we'll wait for the scientific research to confirm it all.

Here's a gift-giving idea I whole-heartedly agree with: wrap up nutrition books to help others get fit and healthy!

The U.S. Food Pyramid is now available in Spanish. This is one goal that we have for Natural Physiques: to create a Spanish language version. Keep your eyes out for that in the future!

Here's a plain-as-day wake-up call: obesity could be killing our children. WAKE UP!

On the other hand, fish oil can boost children's brains. Vitamin D3 can boost asthma drug effectiveness.
Vitamin D could cut risk of bone fractures. It's all over the news... yet some people still debate whether nutrition is all that important for good health!

That's your news for today. Until next time...

Blessed be,