While motherhood brings lots of joy, it also brings a whole lot of changes to your body. One change many women don’t talk about is diastasis recti, a condition that affects the abdominal muscles and connective tissue. Let’s take a look at the causes of diastasis, how to spot it, and what you can do about it. What Is Diastasis Recti? Diastasis recti (DR) occurs when the front fascial connection between the two muscle bellies of rectus abdominis—also known as the linea alba—thins. In other words, the connective tissue that holds the two sections of your top abdominals together stretches out … [Read more...]

With all the different diet techniques available, it’s sometimes difficult to know what actually works. You may hear “low carb” or “Whole30” on the daily, but those diets restrict certain types of foods—and nobody likes to say no to foods they enjoy. Enter intermittent fasting (IF). This protocol, which is less of a diet and more an eating pattern, focuses on when you eat instead of what you eat. To do it, you simply have short and recurring cycles of not eating (called fasting) followed by windows of eating. IF is based on the notion that regular, short fasts help your body burn fat more … [Read more...]

Most people don’t realize it, but probiotics have a long history. Fermented products, such as kefir and miso, have been used therapeutically for 10,000 years or more. In the early 1900s, Russian scientist Elie Metchnikoff theorized friendly bacteria in yogurt enhanced physical and mental health and prevented aging, which sparked an uptick in yogurt consumption in Paris and other places.As scientists have further uncovered the role of the human microbiome in health, and the development of various diseases in the past few decades, probiotics have become a hot health trend once again. Today, … [Read more...]

When you picture a healthy diet, what do you see? Lots of salads, maybe some smoothies, a little steamed broccoli? It’s easy to guess what you’re not envisioning, though, and that’s sugar. Cookies, cakes, and ice cream are sweetly seductive, but what about naturally sweet eats? Sugar occurs naturally in many foods, including fruit. In fact, because fruit is naturally higher in sugar than, say, vegetables, some popular eating plans (such as Atkins, Paleo, and Keto) strictly limit fruit intake, at least for a period of time.However, fruit is packed with good stuff that many of us don’t get … [Read more...]

How connected are you during your workouts? Life is full of distractions which can get in the way of a solid workout whether you exercise at home or in the gym. TVs, phones, and mental distractions such as work or family stress can leave you with lackluster results in the gym.Cue the mind-muscle connection. Getting rid of distractions allows you to tap into your true strength potential and build quality muscle. Let’s dig into what it means to connect your mind and muscles, plus the best strategies to do so.Unfolding the Mind-Muscle Connection Simply put, the mind-muscle connection … [Read more...]

It seems that everywhere we turn, we’re encouraged to drink more water. That makes sense since adults in America are, on average, chronically dehydrated. So, it comes as little surprise that more and more options for more palatable drinks have bubbled up all over.There are sparkling waters, seltzers and tonic waters, for starters. And then there are soft drinks (both regular and diet), beer, champagne and other sparkling wines. But when it comes to your health how do these bubbly beverages compare to good old still, unflavored water? Is a can of LaCroix seltzer the equivalent of a glass of … [Read more...]

Whether you get the flu shot or not, influenza (commonly called the flu), is all but guaranteed to affect you or someone you know. Flu season in the U.S. generally occurs between October and April. While the exact timing changes—and will depend on how active the virus is in your area—flu season affects a lot of people: 5 to 20 percent of the U.S. population gets the flu each year.Flu symptoms do not change much from year to year, although the strain of the influenza virus that causes the illness often does. If you get the flu, you can expect symptoms including fever, body aches, headache, … [Read more...]

Tired all the time? Join the club.Poll five people and odds are good at least one of them cops to feeling tired. In fact, chronic exhaustion is so pervasive the medical field has coined a new acronym for the condition: TATT, or “tired all the time.”This helps explain why there are countless resources devoted to teaching people how to get better sleep. While that information is hugely important, it’s not the end-all be-all of fatigue. Sometimes, tiredness isn’t the result of poor sleep habits. It can also stem from a variety of conditions that have been proven to zap people of their … [Read more...]