Going to the gym is intimidating enough, but not knowing how to pick the right weight to use for an exercise can make a novice’s trip to the gym even more uncomfortable. If you grab too light of a weight, you’ll feel you wasted your time, while too heavy of a weight can lead to injury.

But it is very important to grab the right weight. In a 12-week long study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers found that subjects gained the most strength when using a weight that corresponded to 70% of their 1 repetition maximum (meaning 70 % of the heaviest weight they could lift in the exercise).

Bodybuilders have long known that if you eat too little for too long, you can actually decrease your resting metabolic rate (the number of calories you burn at rest).  

Now, scientists are catching up to what our muscle-building friends have known in the real world for a long time. Researchers from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisana studied long term dieting in 48 normal-weight subjects. 

File this one under “hard to believe”. But still, researchers from California believe they have found a simple, free way to lose weight.

The researchers found 173 premenopausal overweight women (aged 25-50 years) who reported drinking less than one liter of water per day. These women were then instructed to increase water consumption, and were studied for 1 year.

I’m a huge fan of eating raw nuts for health and weight loss, but each time I recommend them, I’m confronted with folks asking me, “Won’t all the calories and fat in nuts make me gain weight?”

The answer will surprise you.

There is a new weight loss secret to report, and this time it is from our Swedish friends. But no, it’s not, “Stop eating Swedish meatballs”. Instead, the Swedes have discovered Online Weight Loss Programs.

Strength and muscle mass are two of the most important components of healthy living in older men and women. If you don’t have strength, every activity is going to be harder than it should be. Fortunately, you can prepare for your later years by building strength and muscle with the help of two nutritional supplements.

Summer’s just about over and I’m starting to hear a lot of excuses about why people are skipping workouts and eating crap again.

So here’s what I would do if I were you…and wanted to lose fat and stay lean over the upcoming holiday season (it’s never too early to start building healthy habits to avoid over-eating in the Fall)…