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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Health Care for Baby

One of the most important things you need to do before giving birth is decide on a doctor for your baby. Don't wait until after you baby is born to choose a pediatrician! Babies need frequent check-ups, shots and sometimes get sick. So you'll want to find a doctor you like and trust.

Some tips on choosing a pediatrician include:

• Call your health insurance company for a list of doctors covered under your plan.
• Find out where they trained and how long they've been in practice. Some insurance companies and hospitals have this information. Details on some doctors can be found on the DoctorFinder on the website of the American Medical Association.
• Request an interview with the pediatricians you like best.
• Find out about their office hours and how they handle concerns and emergencies after office hours.
• Talk with other parents for referrals.

To get regular check-ups and important vaccines, your baby will need health insurance. If you're worried about paying for health care, there are programs for women and children in need.

Fertility Awareness

The Menstrual Cycle

Being aware of your menstrual cycle and the changes in your body that happen during this time can be key to helping you plan a pregnancy, or avoid pregnancy. During the menstrual cycle (a total average of 28 days), there are two parts: before ovulation and after ovulation.

• Day 1 starts with the first day of your period.

• Usually by Day 7, a woman's eggs start to prepare to be fertilized by sperm.

• Between Day 7 and 11, the lining of the uterus (womb) starts to thicken, waiting for a fertilized egg to implant there.

Your Mommy Body
A head-to-toe guide to the changes — and what you can do about them

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By Jeannie Ralston from parenting.com

I was getting out of the shower recently and did something I normally don't dare do. I took a glance at my body in the mirror. The glance turned into a stare.

My body, once so lithe and lean, looked shockingly like the lumpy, droopy bodies of older women I used to pity smugly in locker rooms. What happened? I thought.

Kids are what happened. Ever since my body endured two pregnancies, childbirth, and nursing, it's never been quite the same, even now, eight years later. "Creating a baby and giving birth, your body has gone through some remarkable changes," says Iffath Hoskins, M.D., an obstetrician in Savannah. "Many parts of your body will revert back to normal, but not everything. After kids, your body redefines what normal is."

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

By Sarah Lorge Butler

You're no rookie when it comes to birth control. You've carefully selected condoms, compared notes with friends about various brands of the Pill, and culled as much info as possible during the frantic 15 minutes a year you spend with your gyno. Still, some aspects of protection leave you curious — maybe even a little worried. So we asked the top doctors in the contraception field to address our most common queries. Have a few more? Jot them down and hand 'em to your doc at the start of your appointment — because it sure is easy for a girl's mind to go blank when faced with the business end of a speculum.

I'm traveling for a month and don't want to bother taking a pill. Can I switch to, say, the NuvaRing and go back to the Pill when I get home? Yes. It's fine to use a different method for a single month every once in a while, says Lee P. Shulman, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. But you may notice an increase in cramping or mood swings if the new product contains a higher or lower dose of hormones, or a different progestin, than your usual method. Just be sure to go back to your old birth control ASAP. The effectiveness of any contraceptive relates directly to how consistently you use it. Once a year isn't a big deal, but hopping methods every other month will up your odds of getting pregnant. Here's how to make the switch: On the day you'd normally start a new pack of pills, insert the ring. Remove it 3 weeks later. Then, after another 7 days, start your new pack of pills.

Choosing a Multivitamin
Healthy foods, such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables, are the best sources of vitamins and minerals. But because it is sometimes hard to get all the nutrients we need from foods, all adults should take one multivitamin per day. It is especially important for women who can become pregnant to get enough folic acid. Folic acid, a B vitamin, helps prevent birth defects of the brain and spinal cord when taken before and very early in pregnancy. It is available in most multivitamins, as a folic acid-only supplement and in some foods. The March of Dimes recommends that all women of childbearing age take a multivitamin with 400 micrograms of folic acid every day, as part of a healthy diet. During pregnancy, a woman needs more of some nutrients, such as iron, calcium and folic acid. For this reason, it is wise to start taking a multivitamin before pregnancy.

Preterm Labor and Birth: A Serious Pregnancy Complication
What you need to know: Preterm labor is labor that occurs before your 37th week of pregnancy. (Most pregnancies last 38-42 weeks; your due date is 40 weeks after the first day of your last menstrual period.) Preterm labor can happen to any woman: Only about half the women who have preterm labor fall into any known risk group. About 12 percent of births (1 in 8) in the United States are preterm. Babies who are born preterm are at higher risk of needing hospitalization, having long-term health problems and of dying than babies born at the right time. Three groups of women are at greatest risk of preterm labor and birth:

* Women who have had a previous preterm birth * Women who are pregnant with twins, triplets or more * Women with certain uterine or cervical abnormalities

Preterm labor may sometimes be stopped with a combination of medication and rest. More often, birth can be delayed just long enough to transport the woman to a hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and to give her a drug to help speed up her baby�s lung development.

Second Wind
''Big Brother'': It's a do-over! After technical difficulties on last night's telecast, a new HOH competition yielded interesting results by Lynette Rice

I actually started writing this column the minute Tuesday's episode was over, mostly because I knew that Kaysar's ouster was a fait accompli and that Janelle wouldn't be able to convince enough floaters that James was playing both sides. Too bad — not because I thought Kay-Kay deserved to stick around (his dour intensity was matched only by his inability to say or do anything even remotely interesting), but James was such an idiot for bidding for prizes during that veto competition that he deserved to be back-doored. What a duplicitous, indignant boob he's turned out to be. Didn't he learn anything last season by putting Sarah and himself at risk that when he attempted to play both sides? All I can say is, poor Danielle. Will was right to point out how harsh it was that the house's only mom was stuck in solitary confinement (not that I didn't enjoy watching her eat crow. Girlfriend gets awfully cocky when you give her a little power). Still, she deserved better from her partner-in-crime, James. As the shrewdest female player in BB history, Danielle came into this house with a pretty significant target on her head and a bitter enemy in Marcellas. And though she suffered a tremendous brain fart during the first week, she made a necessary course correction, kept her mouth shut, and look how far she's come! Of course I attribute her staying power to her secret alliance with James and Chill Town (yes, I learned that by watching the feeds. No, I don't always acknowledge them because this is about the TV show. So ease up on the smack talk, will ya, folks?). But Danielle is still smart enough to stand on her own. Gotta hand it to home girl for not giving into pressure Tuesday to nominate Marcellas when she knew that picking a Sixer was the wiser way to go (but I also gotta hand it to Chill Town for shrewdly positioning Marcellas as the greedy new owner of $5,000 and a plasma TV. Can Will get any better at playing this game?). But that's ancient history now, especially since we have a more pressing issue to address: the next HOH. No, it is not boring Erica (cue Hallelujah chorus). For anyone who doesn't have the privilege of an internet feed (or the patience to pull a late nighter while waiting for a damn answer), you didn't learn from last night's episode that BB opted for a do-over on the HOH competition because Howie couldn't push his button. Now I'm sure there wasn't a soul in the BB universe who thought Big Boy was robbed of a much-deserved win (it's not like he's normally a lightning-fast thinker). They just thought he faced some unfair technical difficulties so a new competition was deemed necessary. All I can say is, hell yeah! [SPOILER ALERT! Stop reading if you don�t want to know the results.] The contest finally commenced around 11 p.m. PT with the HGs using those silly wheel thingies instead of the unpredictable buzzers. And though the questions were far less interesting than the first time around, the results were much more enjoyable (and well deserved). Janelle won again! Now my first thought was how James was probably thinking to himself, ''Man that fat beeyotch is gonna come after me now. Probably shouldn't have bid for those prizes this week.'' Then my second thought was how that skinny tool deserved to be the next to go because he bid for those prizes this week. And my third thought? What a lovely time it must be for Will and Boogie. A win for Janelle means another free week in the house — though those guys would be wise to stop relying on Will's uncanny ability to schmooze the women and start actually competing for a change. Seriously, has Will managed to go beyond the first round of any of the competition? But that's a problem for later. I do hope Janelle goes with her gut and nominates James; if there's anything he's done this week, it's proven how much he lies. But my fear is that James and Chill Town will convince her to pick Marcellas, who I don't believe deserves to hit the road when far more useless players remain intact (hello, Chicken George? Erica? Chicken George? Erica?). So what do you think? Do you like the sound of the coup d'etat twist? Were you disappointed to see Kaysar go? Did CBS do right by Howie by staging that do-over? Will Janelle put her Sixer alliance in jeopardizing by targeting James?