For most of us, the holidays are a time of mixed emotions. You’re excited and anxious to spend time with family, and you’re dreading the extra weight that you know you’re bound to gain. Are these holiday pounds inevitable? Lean in close to catch these seven secret ways to help you fend off extra weight through the holidays. And once you’re done, don’t keep it a secret. Go tell somebody!

It may not speak quickly enough all the time, but you know your body is constantly telling you things.

What is the perfect healthy poop? “An ideal stool looks like a torpedo – it should be large, soft, fluffy and easy to pass,” says Dr. Foxx-Orenstein, the president of the American College of Gastroenterology.

 

Let’s face it: bowel movements aren’t the most popular topic and chances are you aren’t chatting about your bathroom habits with friends and neighbors. And yet there are an increasing number of researchers who have chosen to study poop and its importance to overall health.

Many people carefully tend to the skin on their face, regularly exfoliating, cleansing, and moisturizing. But when's the last time you tended to the skin on the rest of your body?

Your skin is your largest organ, after all, and there is one simple step you can add to your morning routine that can greatly improve its health –dry skin brushing.

I'm not only referring to your skin's aesthetic appearance, either (although many would agree this is important to). The benefits of dry skin brushing go beyond skin deep, offering whole-body benefits to your health.

John Dryden famously said, “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.”

Confucius said, “Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.”

And Aristotle noticed that, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

It’s pretty clear that the habits you adopt will shape who you are.

Do you eat the same thing for lunch, go through the same exercise routine, and fall into bed at the same time each night? Or maybe you’ve made a habit out of eating something sweet before bed, avoiding the gym, and staying up as late as possible.

There are a few things that all of us do from the moment that we are born. We all breathe and eat and sleep, and we all pee and poop.

Despite the fact that going to the bathroom is such a shared experience, talking about it is strangely uncomfortable.

What comes out of our bodies when we move our bowels gives us a lot of good information about how well we are eating and our overall health. 

That is because our stools are what is left of the food that we eat.

The color, texture and smell of our poop not only tells us about whether we are eating right but also about how our body is digesting it.

When you stop to think about all the little tiny organisms you can’t see, and how many millions...billions...of them there are, it’s pretty mind-blowing.

While many are floating around in the air, there are also hundreds of them inside your body.

No, this isn’t a new version of the movie Alien - none of them are going to try to take over your body - but in a sense, this really is a symbiotic relationship.

You thought your unique fingerprint is pretty cool, right?  What about your unique 

As you might know, sweating is a great way to burn calories and rid your body of unwanted toxins. But how do you sweat when you’re injured, or unable to exercise?

I like to sweat in an infrared sauna. Infrared saunas help your body release a number of toxins, including heavy metals like mercury and lead, and environmental chemicals. The benefits don’t stop there. With infrared sauna technology, you can also lose weight, relax, relieve unwanted pain, increase your circulation, and purify your skin.