When you're feeling an energy slump, it's good to know which things will keep your tank full —and which will leave you sputtering on empty

 

By Tamar Haspel -- Womens Health Magazine

 

Of all the things we'd like more of —time, sleep, another finger-scoop of cake icing —energy is at the top of most of our lists. For almost all of us, energy levels swirl down the day's drain as more hours pass. Slowly leaking. Until. We. Finally. Crash. Sometimes, we don't know what makes us tired, whether it's too little sleep, too little exercise, too much stress, a lack of sunlight, or just the evening news. But we do know many of the cures —and they come in the form of what you drink, eat, and pop. So here's a guide to the major myths about energy-boosters, and what you can do to make sure you have energy to spare.

Myth: Sweet snacks give you a sugar high and then a sugar crash.
If you're sluggish at 4 p.m., conventional wisdom says you're hypoglycemic. Your blood sugar's low, and a handful of M&Ms will make those levels —and you —spike and then plunge. But that line of thinking has as much truth as the Loch Ness legend, without even a grainy photograph to back it up.

"There's no evidence to support the idea that midafternoon tiredness is caused by hypoglycemia, or that healthy people feel normal fluctuations in blood sugar," says Phillip Cryer, M.D., professor of endocrinology and metabolism at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "The threshold for symptoms of low blood sugar is 50 to 55 milligrams (mg) of glucose per deciliter of blood, and it's very, very rare for a healthy person to get to those levels."

Rather than being low on blood sugar, you're low on serotonin —the brain chemical that makes you feel focused, attentive, and energetic, says Judith Wurtman, Ph.D., a researcher in women's health at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Instead of the celery sticks: Bring back the carbohydrates. Carbs become glucose in your bloodstream, and as insulin goes to work on the glucose, it starts a chain of chemical events: An amino acid called tryptophan travels to the brain and converts to serotonin to keep your energy up. Dr. Wurtman goes against conventional wisdom by recommending snacks that are almost pure carbohydrate —which means the vending machine licorice or a small bag of pretzels isn't necessarily off-limits anymore.

 

 

A fading memory is more frustrating than a dying cell phone battery. Five tricks to keep your brain on top of its game

By Allison Winn Scotch -- Women's Health Magazine

We all forget to drop off the dry cleaning, where we left those blasted car keys, and if we already put on deodorant for the day. Brain atrophy already? I know the feeling well. My mind used to be sharper than the scent of patchouli at a Phish concertuntil my son was born. For the past year, I've been blaming my scattered self on "mommy brain" until I learned that women actually become sharper after they give birth. Recent research from the University of Richmond found that the brain cell structures vital for communication double during pregnancy and that postdelivery the pathways to the hippocampus (where learning and memory are focused) are redefined and more efficient. Crap. There goes that theory. That's why I enlisted the help of a few experts like all-time Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings (after all it's hard to forget a guy who won $3 million) to tell me their best memory-boosting tricks — and tried them out myself.

BRAIN BOOSTER Focus on What Fascinates
My father is a brain surgeon, so I've spent most of my life bombarded with talk of aneurysms, cerebrums, and hypothalamuses. Not that I can remember any of it. So when my dad asked me to attend a talk on his latest research, I challenged myself to retain some of it. The problem? I find science so damn dull.

"If you think something is boring, you just haven't been hearing the right facts about it," says Jennings, author of a book on the phenomenon due out in October 2006. "Try to explain ballet to people who hate it and they'll be bored stiff. But they might be a little more interested if you told them about the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, where the audience actually rioted because the music and choreography were so shockingly modern." Or just make the information at hand more relevant to your life or the lives of your listeners to maintain attention span.

 

Bye-Bye, Baby Belly!
The best way to get rid of that pregnancy paunch

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By Beth Howard

If you really want to get rid of your pregnancy paunch, you need to strengthen the innermost layer of abs, the transverse muscles, says Julie Tupler, R.N., author of Maternal Fitness. Her new DVD, Lose Your Mummy Tummy (available at Maternalfitness.com), features exercises designed to close up a diastasis — a separation in the central abdominal muscle that can occur when your belly expands during pregnancy. Here's one exercise to get you started:

 

 

It started when my daughter, Samantha, was born 16 months ago. After two sleepless nights, the nurses and my husband urged me to send her to the hospital nursery so I could get some shut-eye. Deep down I knew it was best, but I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt — how could I abandon my newborn daughter?

That was just the beginning. During the months that followed, I was ashamed letting my husband, who had work the next day, help with night feedings. I panicked that I wasn't giving Samantha enough tummy time. Even now, I feel bad if I feed her grilled cheese two days in a row.

Apparently, I'm not alone. "So many devoted moms think that no matter what they do for their children, it's not enough — and our culture plays into that insecurity," says Susan Douglas, Ph.D., coauthor of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women. But you can end the self-flagellation. Here, the top reasons that new moms feel guilty, and what you can do to get beyond it.

You're more than a mom
"Moms today believe that they should be focused on their babies like a laser beam, so when they take a moment for themselves, they feel like they're being neglectful," notes Douglas. For many women, coffee with a friend or even a shower can be enough to ignite feelings of guilt. Lindsey Coffman of Springfield, Missouri, says she often puts off eating lunch until her daughter, Darby, takes her afternoon nap — which can be as late as 3 p.m. "If Darby needs help coloring or wants me to read a book to her, I feel like it's more important to do that than to eat."

Seven signs that you're sweating your way to max results

By Katie McDonald Neitz

Few things in life — besides chocolate and sex — provide instant gratification. But you can add exercise to that A-list if you know what to look for. These seven signs mean you're well on your way to incinerating fat and maximizing your strength and endurance. It may take a few weeks before you sport spandex at the gym, but it's possible to know within 24 hours of a workout if you're exercising smart. Just look for these telltale clues. (To prevent injury, check out "When Your Workout Isn't Working" to make sure you're feeling your exercise in all the right places.)

Sign No. 1 You feel like Rocky.
No, you're not slurring your words (that would be a bad sign) — you simply feel strong. What used to be a 30-minute treadmill death march now whizzes by, and you can do a pullup for the first time since, well, ever. Need numerical proof of improvement? Rate your level of "perceived exertion" — how challenging the workout feels — using a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means you don't have enough breath to hold a conversation, suggests Bill Sonnemaker, C.S.C.S., director of strength and conditioning at Catalyst Fitness in Kennesaw, Georgia. If you're training properly, that number should go down every few weeks. When you dip below a 5, it's time to up the intensity. Postworkout, jot it all down in an exercise log. Our pick: The New York Road Runners' 2007 Running & Fitness Log ($15, Amazon).

 

Too busy to stick to your 3-day-a-week routine? No sweat. When it comes to staying fit, doing a little can mean a whole lot.

By Selene Yeager

When your schedule is overloaded like a sherpa on Everest, there are days, weeks, even months when you make it to the gym as often as the paparazzi spot TomKat's offspring. But luckily, that doesn't mean you're destined to morph into Kirstie Alley before she met Jenny Craig. In fact, U.S. military studies show you can stop the skid toward mush by doing just one- to two-thirds the exercise you usually do. "Women make the mistake of thinking, 'If I can't do my full routine, why bother?'" says Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts. "But just one workout a week will maintain your strength. And if you exercise at the same or greater intensity, you can keep your fitness while doing much less than usual." Just how long will this kind of bare-minimum workout keep you in decent shape? If you can devote about 20 minutes to exercise once a week, you can preserve fitness for up to 2 months — plenty of time, we hope, for whatever's clogging your schedule to ease up. Until then, here's precisely the least you need to do to keep your endurance, strength, and flexibility intact.



Endurance
Expert Rec
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) prescribes 20 to 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity (brisk walking, running, or a cardio-intensive class) on most days of the week to keep your heart and lungs pumping like champs. To keep your pounds in check, the USDA recommends 60 to 90 minutes.

 

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Appeared in the October 2006 issue of Women's Health

So you went out for dinner with friends and ended up polishing off a fried appetizer, a mammoth entree, and a vat of tiramisu (along with a couple of cocktails). Don't panic. "Feeling guilty has never burned a single calorie, but learning from your error can save you thousands," Dr. Gullo says. Everybody slips — the key to success is to take it in stride.

To bounce back after a binge, the most important thing to remember is that all the effort you put into eating right before your little lapse was not in vain. "No one ever got heavy from one slipup. It's when you let it become a chain that you get in trouble," Dr. Gullo says. So instead of declaring that you blew your diet and cramming your face full of every high-calorie treat you see until nightfall (since you'll just wait and start fresh tomorrow), begin eating healthfully again with your very next meal — or snack.

And no matter what, don't step on the scale at the end of the day. "Weighing yourself after overindulging isn't healthy or helpful," Dr. Kearney-Cooke says. Depending on your salt intake or where you are in your menstrual cycle, your weight can fluctuate several pounds. Instead of trying to assess the damage every time a stray cookie slips between your lips, pick one day each week for your weigh-ins and stick to it.

To battle the bulge, get your brain on your side.

By Megan McNamara

womenshealthmag.com

You already know the secret *to weight loss: Eat fewer calories than you burn and you'll be zipping up those size 4 jeans in no time. So why aren't we all as svelte as Heidi Klum? Because lasting weight loss has little to do with crunching numbers. "In focusing on calories in and calories out, the field of nutrition has ignored the most critical variable: behavioral and cognitive changes," says Stephen Gullo, Ph.D., a weight-loss expert in New York City.

In other words, if you don't want to fall headfirst off the diet wagon the next time Mom rips into your new haircut, you have to retrain your brain. "To deal with unhealthy eating behaviors, we must challenge the thoughts, feelings, and cues that have been built up over a lifetime," says Cynthia M. Bulik, Ph.D., the Jordan Distinguished Professor of Eating Disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Not to get too Freudian, but many doctors and weight-loss experts say that permanently altering your waistline means permanently altering your relationship with food.

From the very beginning of your pregnancy journey, your breasts are at work. They are evolving and preparing for the arrival of your baby.

What changes can I expect?
Your breasts go through a number of changes during pregnancy. These changes include:

• Growth and enlargement
• Tender and hypersensitivity
• Darkening of nipples and areolas (the skin around your nipples), due to hormones that affect pigmentation of the skin
• Darkened veins along your breasts (due to increased blood supply to your breasts)
• Your breasts may start leaking a yellowish, thick substance known as colostrum
• Nipples stick out more; the areolas and nipples will grow larger
• Small glands on the surface of the areolas called Montgomery's tubercles become raised bumps.
• Your hormones are the cause of these changes and you may experience some effects more than others.

How can I handle some of the changes?
Here are some helpful suggestions you can do to make some of these changes more comfortable and easier to manage.

Growth and enlargement: For some women this is something to look forward to, finally you will have some curves!. For women with large breasts there may be less enthusiasm. Buying a good supportive bra can help. If your breasts size increases greatly, you may want to sleep in a cotton supportive sports bra at night.

What to look for in a bra

• Good support
• Deep band beneath the cups
• Wide shoulder straps
• Adjustable closure (back-fastening bras give you more flexibility to adjust than front-fastening bras)
• Avoid under wire bras

Sensitive and tender breasts: Hormones in your body are preparing your breasts for lactation. The milk ducts are growing and being stretched as they fill with milk early in pregnancy. All this causes your breasts to be more sensitive, particularly your nipples. This can be a bonus for your sex life or can cause you discomfort.

Colostrum: This is known as pre-milk, which is a sweet and watery fluid that is easy to digest. During your second trimester your breasts will begin to produce colostrum. Colostrum appears thick and yellow at first and as birth draws near it becomes pale and almost colorless. Colostrum will provide your baby with his first few meals before your milk comes in. Discharge may occur at any time, when your breasts are massaged, or when sexually stimulated. There is no need to be alarmed when this happens and there is no need to worry if it does not happen. Women who do not experience discharge in pregnancy still produce and provide milk for their baby.

What about breast cancer?
Continuing with self-breast exams during pregnancy is important. Unfortunately during pregnancy it is more difficult to accomplish because of all the changes your breasts are going through. Your breasts are growing in size, are tender, and sometimes may even be lumpy due to all the preparations for your baby. It is still important for you to exam your breasts during pregnancy every 4-5 weeks.

Very common lumps found among women during pregnancy are clogged milk ducts. These are red, tender-to-the-touch, hard lumps in your breasts. Warm compresses (running warm water over your breasts in the shower or applying a warm wash cloth) and massage, will probably clear the duct up in a few days. If you are unsure of any new lump, tell your doctor on your next visit. Keep in mind breast cancer is rare among women younger than 35.

If you are planning on having a baby and are over the age of 35, you may want to consider asking your doctor about a mammogram before you get pregnant.

Permission to republish granted to Julie Snyder. All rights reserved and protected under all International Treaties and Agreements such as the Berne Convention.

Little-known facts about contraception--for women who (almost) know it all

The IUD. If your insurance doesn't cover it, an IUD and insertion cost somewhere around $500 (less if you go to a family-planning clinic, more if you go to a swanky doctor). Even if you're paying as little as $15 per month for the Pill, after 3 years the IUD becomes the better bargain.


I've heard IUDs can increase the odds of getting an STD. True?
You learned this in high school health class, but it's worth repeating: Condoms are the only BC method that prevents STDs. That said, the IUD/STD connection is a misconception. Here's where it comes from: In the first 20 days after you get an IUD, the risk of bacterial transmission to the uterus is slightly higher—which has nothing to do with the device itself. "Any time you have a procedure or surgery that involves some instrument going inside your body, there is an increased risk of infection," Dr. Cwiak says. Doctors advise women to watch for signs of infection, such as fever, abdominal pain, or unusual discharge. After those 20 days, there's no increased risk of STDs. (By the way, if your mom freaks out when you tell her you're considering an IUD, it's probably because she's thinking of the Dalkon Shield, an IUD from the '70s that did cause infection, miscarriages, and infertility in women because of its design. Today's IUDs are completely different.)


Is it true that IUDs cause heavy periods?
Not necessarily. Some women who use the nonhormonal ParaGard have heavier periods than women who use hormonal Mirena. But that's because, like the Pill, the progestin released by the Mirena thins the lining of the uterus so less tissue is shed every month. So it's not that the ParaGard makes your period heavier, it's that hormonal methods sometimes make it lighter.