Growing up in Wichita, Kansas, 30-year-old Matt Long was never apt to be idle.

“I guess you could say I was raised in an active household… there was always something going on, or someone coming to visit,” says Matt. “There was always work to be done and there wasn’t time to sit around relaxing and eating.”

Matt was in great shape in high school and like many young kids with rocketing metabolisms, he could eat anything. However, once he moved out of his parents’ home, Matt began to see his weight increase.

The seeds of unhealthy eating may have been planted in high school when his weight fluctuated dramatically by his own doing for sports.

As a freshman, Matt weighed 180 pounds for football season. When wrestling season came along, he lost weight dramatically, getting down to 119 pounds. Matt says he was “a cranky hot mess for the rest of the season.”

After wrestling, Matt put it all back on and then some for football, moving up to 200 pounds, repeating the cycle for the next three years.
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Research has shown that online diet programs are a highly effective way to lose weight. Whether it’s the convenience, tools, or accountability and motivation related to an online weight loss community, it works… as long as you are willing to put in the effort.

Beyond Diet is yet another online weight loss program. While there doesn’t seem to be a particularly new or innovative approach with the Beyond diet, what they do have is plenty of helpful features for its users.

For instance, there’s the “Ask a Question” section where you and other members simply type in a question which is answered by a team of certified coaches who will give insightful answers. You can see other people’s questions as well, which is handy. Not to mention other members can chime in with their experience to provide inspiration.
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Last year, the organizers of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival announced they will be having two concerts over consecutive three-day weekends this year, April 13 to 15 and April 20 to 22. There’s good reason: last year’s festival sold out its 75,000 tickets in six days.

Before the announcement, this year’s roster fueled wild speculation, with detailed investigations on tour schedules for suspected artists to see if they were open on those dates. Now that the lineup has been announced, here’s a workout playlist from some of those who will be performing:
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U.S. News & World Report just added diets to its year-end best-of list. The number one spot for this year is held by the DASH diet. While that may be getting much of the publicity, right behind it at number two is another catchy-sounding plan: the TLC diet.

One thing both diets have in common is they were created by divisions of the National Institutes of Health, with the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes Diet (TLC) being created by the NIH’s National Cholesterol Education Program.

Since government health agencies aren’t in the business of creating or endorsing fad diets, you can expect a no-frills approach. And since this one was created by a program related to cholesterol, healthy levels of cholesterol are a central goal.

Endorsed by the American Heart Association, the TLC diet can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by minimizing fat, particularly the saturated variety found in meat, fried foods and whole-milk dairy. These foods increase your levels of LDL, or bad, cholesterol and your risk for a heart attack or stroke.
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There may be some negative preconceived ideas about weight loss surgery, the thinking being that it’s an easy way out or that it’s giving up on yourself. No matter what your views are on the subject, there’s one thing for sure: it saves lives.

According to a new study from Sweden, obese people who have gastric bypass surgery performed are less likely to die from heart attack and stroke than those who take part in conventional treatment for their weight issues. The 4,000 Swedish patients who participated in the lengthy study were recruited between 1987 and 2001.

One of three weight loss surgeries were performed: They either had gastric bypass, banding, or vertical banded gastroplasty. Taken together, they all lost between 16 and 23 percent of their body weight over the time of the study.
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