‘Interval walking’ a more efficient way to lose weight

Tired of the same old exercise routine? Changing it up could do more than just beat boredom. Interval walking may help jump-start your metabolism.

It's one thing to get your exercise through walking. But in his book "The South Beach Diet Super Charged," Dr. Arthur Agatston advocates something called “interval walking.”

“Instead of going at a steady state, warm up for three, four or five minutes,” Agatston explains. “Then, walk almost as fast as you can for 30 seconds. Then, recover for 30 seconds, a minute.”

Agatston suggests repeating the cycle throughout the workout. He says it's a more efficient way to lose weight.

“You will burn more calories, more fat, in less time,” he said. “The time will go much faster and you'll improve your fitness levels.”

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7 Steps Newly Diagnosed Diabetics Should Take

Diabetes sufferers may be able to give up their cake and eat it, too. According to a new study, people who lost weight in the 18 months after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes experienced sustained benefits even if they regained the weight later. They were up to twice as likely to reach their targets for blood pressure and blood sugar as those who didn't lose weight, although by the end of the four-year study, most of them had regained the weight they had lost.

Read More at USNews and World Report

Abortion clinic prayer vigils coming to 100 cities - For 40 days and nights, Christians will seek end of killing

In two previous campaigns by Christians to disrupt America's abortion industry with continuous prayer, officials with the 40 Days for Life campaign say 35,000 have participated in vigils, 514 babies have been saved and five abortion industry workers have lost their jobs.

Now a third campaign is on the calendar, with a signup deadline of July 29 for cities to take part in the outreach. Most locations will have prayer warriors on the sidewalks outside abortion clinics 24 hours a day from Sept. 24 through Nov. 2.

Spokesman David Bereit said the first campaigns have seen 150,000 people praying and fasting for an end to abortion in the U.S., and half of the 35,000 marching in vigils were on the lines for the first time.

He also said two abortion centers have closed their doors following the campaigns.

"We have had 340 cities express interest [in the new campaign,]" he told WND. "We are well on our way to having more than 100 actually registered.

"It's a massive undertaking. People are committing to call on believers to pray and fast for 40 days – that's 960 hours with people physically present," he said.

More from WorldNet Daily

The 20 Best Curing Herbs

Today, many people looking for alternatives to prescription and over-the-counter drugs are turning to herbs for relief from everyday ailments and chronic diseases. But, with so many herbs to choose from, how can one be sure which are the most useful and effective? For our Fifth Anniversary issue, Veggie Life clears up some of the confusion by gathering the most effective, well-researched herbs we've covered since our debut. There's a brief synopsis of each herb, including when and how to use them and recommended dosage for optimal healing power.

More from The Wellness Blog

Detoxify Yourself: 101 Tips to Remove the Poison from Your Body and Your Life

With air pollution, harmful pesticides and an unhealthy diet, your body is probably full of chemicals and poisons that you don’t even think about. If you want to detox your entire body, mind, spirit and life, turn to this list, which has over 100 ideas for removing the poison.

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Saving at the Supermarket: 15 Great Grocery Shopping Tips

A shopping list is a useful way to remind yourself what you do and do not need to purchase. But most frugality experts emphasize shopping with a list because it prevents impulse purchases. Impulse purchases wreck grocery budgets. In Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Paco Underhill writes:

Supermarkets are places of high impulse buying for both sexes — fully 60 to 70 percent of purchases there were unplanned, grocery industry studies have shown us.

More than half of all grocery purchases are unplanned! No wonder creating and sticking to a list can bring down grocery costs.

But that’s not the only way to save money at the supermarket. Over the past two years, I’ve published a lot of tips for saving money on your grocery bill. Some of these have been obvious — others less so. All of them can help you save at the supermarket. Here are some of the best:

More from Get Rich Slowly

Also: 20 Of The healthiest Foods Under $1

Josh Hamilton - An amazing story of faith and overcoming drug addiction

Not a Great Night to be an Atheist

Josh Hamilton had a dream that he would be in Yankee Stadium in a Home Run Derby contest. The 27 year-old slugger from the Texas Rangers had his dream come true July 14, and he put on the greatest display of power and consistency in the history of the event. It wasn’t long ago that Hamilton wasn’t a professional baseball player at all. He was a cocaine and heroin addict. He had dropped out of baseball for three years.Once a prospect for the Tampa Bay Rays, Hamilton’s addiction cost him his job.

The thrill of being at the ball park was not as great as the craving for the next high. Drafted in 1999, he started using after an auto accident in 2001. Hamilton’s drug addiction led to a suspension by Major League Baseball for violation of the league's joint drug treatment and prevention program on February 18, 2004.

Read more, including the Happy Ending at Drug Addiction Support

Happy thoughts may dampen cravings for a Smoke

Want to quit smoking? Next time the urge to light up strikes, think of snow-capped peaks instead of the fleeting pleasure of a white cigarette. That's the conclusion of a new brain study which shows that thinking happy thoughts could help dampen cravings.

Mauricio Delgado, a cognitive neuroscientist at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and his colleague Elizabeth Phelps of New York University measured the brain activity of 15 volunteers as they played a simple game.

More at NewScientist

Also - Working Out May Help Prevent Addiction - From CNN

Accidental fungus leads to promising cancer drug

A drug developed using nanotechnology and a fungus that contaminated a lab experiment may be broadly effective against a range of cancers, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.

The drug, called lodamin, was improved in one of the last experiments overseen by Dr. Judah Folkman, a cancer researcher who died in January. Folkman pioneered the idea of angiogenesis therapy -- starving tumors by preventing them from growing blood supplies.

Lodamin is an angiogenesis inhibitor that Folkman's team has been working to perfect for 20 years. Writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, his colleagues say they developed a formulation that works as a pill, without side-effects.

More at Yahoo News

Girl, 3, uses song lyrics to call 911 for mom

A 3-year-old girl used the simple song lyrics "911 green" to call 911 and get help after her pregnant mother fainted. Jessica Eaves, 24, taught her daughter Madelyn the song a week before she fainted due to a medical condition called vasovogal syncope.

When Eaves fainted, Madelyn picked up her mother's BlackBerry phone and pressed 911 and the green button and was connected to a dispatcher.

In the recently released 911 call, Madelyn was able to answer questions about her house and cars outside that led emergency workers to the home.

And this isn't the first time Madelyn has used a phone to call for help for her mother.

Eaves first learned of her condition a year ago and taught her daughter the lyrics "green, green, green."

When Eaves lost consciousness then Madelyn picked up a cell phone and pressed the green button which called the last person Eaves had called and that person called for help.

From Yahoo News

Scientists find childbirth wonder drug that can 'cure' shyness

It can turn anything from job interviews to the most routine of family gatherings into a sweat-inducing ordeal.

But a 'love drug' produced naturally by the body during sex and childbirth could offer hope to the millions of people blighted by shyness, scientists have said.

Investigators believe oxytocin - a natural hormone that assists childbirth and helps mothers bond with newborn babies - could become a wonder drug for overcoming shyness.

More from This Is London

Vitamin D May Help Patients Survive Cancer - New Report Suggests Sunshine Vitamin May Have Significant Cancer Benefits

When Joanna Fuchs was diagnosed with colon cancer last year, a blood test revealed she was severely deficient in vitamin D.

"I was obviously very concerned and very worried," Fuchs said.

So, too, was her husband, Dr. Charles Fuchs of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, who is the senior author of a study published today that found colon cancer patients deficient in vitamin D were almost twice as likely to die over a 10-year period than patients with healthy levels of the nutrient.

"These findings make considerable sense," Dr. Fuchs said, "because in the laboratory we find that vitamin D reduces the growth of colon cancer cells, prevents its spread to other organs, and actually reduces the growth of blood vessels to these tumors."

More from ABC News

Weight loss after gastric bypass controls diabetes

Obesity surgery can cause type 2 diabetes to go into remission, but much depends on how much weight the patient loses within the first few months, a new study suggests.

Gastric bypass surgery for severe obesity has been shown to control type 2 diabetes, a disorder that commonly goes hand-in-hand with obesity. The procedure involves sectioning off a small portion of the stomach, creating a pouch that limits the amount of food a person can eat in one sitting.

The surgeon also adds a bypass that reroutes food past the rest of the stomach and part of the small intestine to limit calorie and nutrient absorption.

It's thought that the surgery creates hormonal changes that, in turn, improve diabetes control.

More from Reuters

Coffee drinkers may live longer than non-drinkers

Middle-aged adults who enjoy a few cups of coffee every day apparently have a lower risk of dying from heart disease than people who don't drink coffee, researchers reported Monday.

The findings, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, come from two studies that followed nearly 128,000 U.S. health professionals for more than two decades.

The researchers found that men and women who regularly drank a few cups of coffee each day were slightly less likely to die during the study period -- mainly due to a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

More at Revolution Health

What's the big deal about agave?

As Prevention’s nutrition director, Grocery Guru columnist, and the R.D. behind the Flat Belly Diet, I receive a lot of info from food companies about new products hitting store shelves, and I’ve noticed a few trends, particularly in the past six months.

More and more companies are ditching artificial or highly processed ingredients (yay!) and embracing natural ones; and one of the most interesting swaps has been agave in place of sugar. This plant-based sweetener is now an additive in everything from granola to ketchup.

It’s sweeter than sugar, so less is needed in its place (use 1/3 cup of agave syrup for every 1 cup of sugar in recipes). One tsp of syrup contains about 20 calories and can be used in a variety of ways, including in hot or cold beverages (it dissolves in both perfectly), baking, marinades and sauces, and in cold desserts (like sorbet or pudding).

More at Shine

NY health official: Higher tax helps smokers quit

New York smokers have been sent outside in all kinds of weather, coughed at in disdain, and now they are burdened with the most expensive cigarette taxes in the nation. Now, to add cost to injury, the state is declaring its highest-in-the-nation cigarette tax a success.

The number of calls to the state's Smoker's Quitline quadrupled to nearly 10,000 calls during the week of June 2, when the full $2.75-a-pack tax kicked in, New York Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines said. Fewer than 2,300 people called for help during the same week in 2007.

"Not everyone that tries, quits," Daines said. "We estimate about 140,000 New Yorkers will successfully quit smoking. We may have more than a million try to cut down or stop, but this is how you get people to try: give them multiple chances and multiple reasons to stop."

More from Yahoo News

Drinking four cups of tea a day cuts heart attack risk

Drinking four cups of tea a day cuts the risk of a heart attack, according to a review of studies by the British Nutrition Found-ation.

The review suggests that tea can also improve your mood, strengthen bones, boost hydration and increase alertness, reports the Daily Express.

For her study, Carrie Ruxton, a dietician and member of the independent Tea Advisory Panel, reviewed existing scientific literature on black tea, the type found in most teabags in Britain. The advantageous properties include reducing the risk of a heart attack.

More at Yahoo News

Pediatrician Says Try Discipline before Ritalin

"Could it be that America would rather give unruly kids a pill than a swat?"

That's what Dr. Lawrence Diller asks in a recent article. The behavioral pediatrician in Walnut Creek, Calif., said he thinks Ritalin is prescribed too often.

"There's good solid evidence that when you give parents permission to give one or two smacks on the child's bottom if the child defies the rules of the timeout procedure, the family is more often successful with the approach," he told U.S. News & World Report. "Nobody wants to be pro-spanking. I'm not pro-spanking. I just think a well-thought-out spank ain't so bad and shouldn't be banned."

Dr. Bill Maier, psychologist in residence at Focus on the Family, said: "Spanking is most effective when used rarely, judiciously and as a 'backup' measure for other forms of discipline such as consequences and timeout.

"A parent should never spank a child if their anger is out of control, and they should always follow up with a loving embrace and a review of family rules."

From CitizenLink

People with type 2 diabetes can help control the disease by taking better care of their teeth and gums

That's the case dentists were expected to make at the American Diabetes Association's annual meeting in San Francisco this weekend.

"Several recent studies have shown that having periodontal disease makes those with type 2 diabetes more likely to develop worsened glycemic control, and puts them at much greater risk of end-stage kidney disease and death," George W. Taylor, an associate professor of dentistry at the University of Michigan schools of Dentistry and Public Health, said in a prepared statement. "Given the numerous medical studies showing that good glycemic control results in reduced development and progression of diabetes complications, we believe there is the potential that periodontal treatment can provide an increment in diabetes control and subsequently a reduction in the risk for diabetes complications," he said.

Intensive periodontitis intervention, for example, can significantly lower one's levels of A1C, a measure of long-term glucose control.

More from US News

Mike Huckabee knows how to save a life - PERFORMS HEIMLICH ON NC LT. GOV. CANDIDATE

He may not be the next president, but he’s a savior to at least one.

Former Arkanas Gov. Mike Huckabee performed the Heimlich maneuver on a choking Robert Pittenger during Saturday’s North Carolina GOP convention breakfast, Huckabee’s former campaign spokeswoman confirmed Sunday.

Huckabee was the keynote speaker at the convention, and was sitting next to the Pittenger, who’s running for the lieutenant governor’s seat, when Pittenger began choking.

Huckabee noticed Pittenger couldn’t breathe and took action, giving Pittenger the heave in the chest needed to dislodge the offending food bit.

“I’m glad that Mike was in the right place at the right time and continued to lead by example,” former South Carolina Lt. Gov. candidate Mike Campbell told The Palmetto Scoop. “We all know that [Huckabee] is pro-life, and once again he has lived up to it.”

The newspaper noted that Pittenger apparently suffers from acid reflux, which likely caused the incident to occur. It added that Huckabee, who is also known for losing 110 pounds and promoting healthy living, was trained as an EMT in college and this may not be the first time he’s sprung to action when needed.

From Fox News