How many times have we said this to ourselves: “If only I could lose 10 pounds, then I would be happy,” or “I can never be truly happy as long as my back continues to hurt.”

What it takes to be happy may not be a consequent of losing weight or having a pain-free lumbar spine, but rather, making the choice to be a happy person irrespective of weight or pain may determine just how healthy we can be.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Rick Foster, one of the co-authors of Happiness & Health. Rick and fellow author Greg Hicks discuss their breakthrough research and findings on what it takes to find the two things we covet most in life: Happiness and Health. Rick and Greg are also the authors of the bestselling and international sensation How We Choose to Be Happy.

Continue reading to see the interview.
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What do you do for others that you do not do for yourself? Do you clean more deeply when visitors are coming? Even though most people enjoy the results of a put together home, many are a bit more lax when just the family will see the contents. Do you only use the soft towels when you have guests? Do you get something fast and less healthy when it is just you? Are you more likely to cook with the freshest ingredients when you have a dinner guest? How would your family dinner be different if Jillian Michaels was coming for a visit? Are you more likely to go to exercise every day when your high school reunion is approaching?
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A new study just released in the Journal of Human Brain Mapping showed that obese individuals have eight percent less brain tissue than normal-weight individuals and their brains look 16 years older than the brains of individuals who are at normal weights. In addition, the brains of overweight individuals looked eight years older than those of leaner individuals.

Lead researchers of the study call this “severe brain degeneration” a great risk for degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, in addition to other diseases that affect the brain.
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Your teen or tween may not have the perspective yet to recognize what they need to do or not to to get healthy and/or avoid falling into unhealthy habits. As a caring, involved parent, you want to provide guidance, but you don’t know what to say or how to get him or her to listen. Your child is probably listening to you less and less as he or she is turning more to the guidance of peers. Luckily, modeling has been shown to be a very powerful way of shaping your child’s behavior. They will do what you do more than they will do what you say.
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If Time magazine dedicates an entire cover story to it, then it must be big.

New research about the benefits of exercise is running counter to the conventional health wisdom we have been taught thus far. While exercise burns calories, which is necessary for weight loss, it also makes us hungry. And what do we do when we are hungry? We eat. And if we know we just clocked a few miles on the treadmill, what do we do then? We give ourselves free license to devour a plate of pasta or chicken quesadillas, and maybe even a piece of tiramisu for those extra crunches we kicked out. The problem is not that we’re eating, but rather the hunger that comes from exercise may be leading us to consume more calories than what we just burned off. This therefore negates our good intentions of creating a calorie deficit in order to lose weight.

The question that health researchers are now asking is, “Is exercise really needed for weight loss?”

The answer may surprise you.
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