Weight Loss:

Fat Burning Exercises

Ignite Your Fat-Burning Furnace

Muscle building videos and a world-class plan to supercharge your metabolism

Switching to a circuit-training routine burns fat by picking up the pace of your workouts. You'll elevate your heart rate and burn more calories by not resting between exercises. Want to speed up your metabolism even more? Try what trainer Vern Gambetta calls "circuit plus," in which you splice aerobic exercise into a circuit of resistance-training moves. Gambetta, who's the former director of athletic development for the New York Mets, says you'll burn calories even more rapidly this way because the tag team of aerobic and anaerobic exercise increases the challenge to your heart, lungs, and muscles.

The Workout

This routine conditions all your major muscle groups, with an emphasis on the lower body, which contains more than 50 percent of your body's muscle mass. Instead of resting between sets, do 30 to 45 seconds of cardio, such as jumping rope, running on a treadmill, or riding a stationary bike.

Don't be concerned if you can't use as much weight as you regularly lift. Without rest, your muscles will fatigue faster than usual, but that doesn't mean you're getting weaker. In fact, when you switch back to a plan that's more focused on building size and strength, you'll see faster gains than ever, because every muscle will be in peak physical condition.

Because this is a full-body plan, start by performing the workout twice a week and work up to three times a week, with at least a day for recovery between workouts.

Week 1

Create your routine by . . . Picking 1 move from each section (A, B, C, and D)

Sets of each exercise: 3

Your total workout should be . . . 12 sets

Repetitions per set: 12–15

Speed of each repetition: 1 second up, 3 seconds down

Rest between sets: None

Do this workout . . . Twice a week

Week 2

Create your routine by . . . Performing the 4 moves you didn't do in week 1

Sets of each exercise: 3

Your total workout should be . . . 12 sets

Repetitions per set: 12–15

Speed of each repetition: 1 second up, 3 seconds down

Rest between sets: None

Do this workout . . . Twice a week

Week 3

Create your routine by . . . Doing both moves in section A, then in B, C, and D

Sets of each exercise: 2

Your total workout should be . . . 16 sets

Repetitions per set: 12–15

Speed of each repetition: 1 second up, 3 seconds down

Rest between sets: None

Do this workout . . . 2 or 3 times a week

Week 4

Create your routine by . . . Doing both moves in section A, then in B, C, and D

Sets of each exercise: 2

Your total workout should be . . . 16 sets

Repetitions per set: 15–20

Speed of each repetition: 1 second up, 3 seconds down

Rest between sets: None

Do this workout . . . 2 or 3 times a week

6 Sex Mistakes You're Making

1. Sex is a Race
Break it: Explore her. Focus on her thighs and lower belly. Make a mental circle 2 inches around the outside of her vagina, and don't cross the line while you kiss, lick, and caress, says Gloria Brame, Ph.D., author of Different Loving. You'll ignite her nerve endings and bring her close to her red zone. It makes sex about discovery, not some destination. "Goal-oriented sex isn't sexy," Brame says.

2. Same Time, Same Place
Break it: Relive the past. Take her to the garage and reclaim the space you long ago ceded: Seduce her in the backseat of the car. It feels a little public, it's steeped in testosterone, and there's a throwback, high-school quality to it. Make it a quickie, which has its place in the sexual diet; having lots of sex begets more sex, because you stay connected, says Laura Berman, Ph.D., director of the Berman Center in Chicago.

3. Predictable Foreplay
Break it: Work out together. Think of it as fat-burning foreplay. It will raise her dopamine levels, easing her anxieties. "She'll feel the sex is about her and not some random need she has to accommodate," says Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D., a professor of sociology at Washington University. Bonus: Your post-run sweat has androstadienone, a testosterone derivative that spikes her arousal when she smells it.

4. Lopsided First Moves
Break it: Tie her hands. It's now up to her to figure out how to remove your shirt, tie, cuff links, and pants. You'll share a few laughs and marvel at her ingenuity. Whether you tie her up or she binds you, the game will break your predictable, first-move habits. The bonus: "It acts as an automatic foreplay extender," says Berman.

5. TV, Then Sex
Break it: Read to her. It doesn't have to be erotica. It's an intimate activity that makes her focus on your voice. The deeper, the better. Low voices are a sign of high testosterone, which ups her attraction to you, according to a Scottish study. Read lying in bed with your head up, to dip an octave; it forces you to push air with your diaphragm instead of your lungs.

6. Habitual Hand Holding
Break it: Caress her neck. Sure, holding hands can work as an aphrodisiac: It shows her you're devoted and proud to tell the world. But after a while, its poignancy wanes. A stepped-up PDA will deepen her connection to you, so she'll be more willing to really give herself to you in the bedroom, says Schwartz.

http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/have_better_sex/index.php#ixzz0HhrEuwFX&D

Gentlemen, 5 Easy Steps to Living Long and Well

Mike Mergen for The New York Times

FRISBEE, ANYONE? Exercise is linked to living longer.

Living past 90, and living well, may be more than a matter of good genes and good luck. Five behaviors in elderly men are associated not only with living into extreme old age, a new study has found, but also with good health and independent functioning.

The behaviors are abstaining from smoking, weight management, blood pressure control, regular exercise and avoiding diabetes. The study reports that all are significantly correlated with healthy survival after 90.

While it is hardly astonishing that choices like not smoking are associated with longer life, it is significant that these behaviors in the early elderly years — all of them modifiable — so strongly predict survival into extreme old age.

“The take-home message,” said Dr. Laurel B. Yates, a geriatric specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who was the lead author of the study, “is that an individual does have some control over his destiny in terms of what he can do to improve the probability that not only might he live a long time, but also have good health and good function in those older years.”

The study followed more than 2,300 healthy men for as long as a quarter-century. When it began, in 1981, the subjects’ average age was 72. The men responded to yearly questionnaires about changes in health and lifestyle, and researchers tested their mental and physical functioning. At the end of the study, which was published Feb. 11 in The Archives of Internal Medicine, 970 men had survived into their 90s.

There was no less chronic illness among survivors than among those who died before 90. But after controlling for other variables, smokers had double the risk of death before 90 compared with nonsmokers, those with diabetes increased their risk of death by 86 percent, obese men by 44 percent, and those with high blood pressure by 28 percent. Compared with men who never exercised, those who did reduced their risk of death by 20 percent to 30 percent, depending on how often and how vigorously they worked out.

Even though each of these five behaviors was independently significant after controlling for age and other variables, studies have shown that many other factors may affect longevity, including level of education and degree of social isolation. They were not measured in this study.

Although some previous studies have found that high cholesterol is associated with earlier death, and moderate alcohol consumption with longer survival, this study confirmed neither of those findings.

A second study in the same issue of the journal suggests that some of the oldest of the old survive not because they avoid illness, but because they live well despite disease.

The study of 523 women and 216 men ranging in age from 97 to 119 showed that a large proportion of people who lived that long and lived with minimal or no assistance did so despite long-term chronic illness. In other words, instead of delaying disease, they delay disability.

Dr. Dellara F. Terry, the lead author and an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University, said the study showed that old age and chronic illness were no reason to stop providing thorough treatment. “We should look at the individual in making treatment decisions,” Dr. Terry said, “and not base our decisions solely on chronological age.”

Josephine Briggs, M.D., Named Director of NIH's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director, Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., has named Josephine P. Briggs, M.D., to be the director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). An accomplished researcher and physician, Dr. Briggs brings a focus on translational research to the study of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to help build a fuller understanding of the usefulness and safety of CAM practices that nearly two-thirds of the American public uses.

Josephine Briggs, M.D.

“We are pleased to have Dr. Briggs return to NIH to lead NCCAM,” said Dr. Zerhouni. “She has been a leader in trans-NIH activities and her in-depth understanding of NIH and translational research will bring new opportunities to the study of CAM.”

“I am honored to be selected to lead NCCAM and welcome the opportunity to develop further the NIH investment in this exciting field of biomedical investigation,” Dr. Briggs said. “Alternative approaches to health and wellness are of enormous public interest, and we need a strong portfolio of science in this area. The NIH has already taken significant steps to build research programs to explore the potential of CAM. I look forward to working with scientists and the CAM community as well as my colleagues across the NIH to strengthen our understanding of the potential of CAM and to examine the opportunities for integration of proven CAM approaches into our Nation’s health care delivery.”

NCCAM has an annual budget of $121 million and supports CAM research at more than 260 institutions throughout the country, funds research training and career development, and provides science-based information to the public and health professionals.

On November 7, 2006, Dr. Zerhouni announced that Stephen E. Straus, M.D., NCCAM's first Director, who stepped down from his leadership of the Center for health reasons, would become a special advisor to him. At the time of Dr. Straus' death in May of 2007, Dr. Zerhouni recognized Dr. Straus' contribution to NCCAM as having articulated "an uncompromising and compelling agenda" for the new Center. In the interim, Dr. Zerhouni named Ruth L. Kirschstein, M.D., formerly the Acting Director of NIH, to be the Acting Director of NCCAM. Dr. Kirschstein has also served as the director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and was the first woman to be named an institute director at NIH in 1974. "We are grateful to Dr. Kirschstein, for having provided experienced leadership during this transition," noted Dr. Zerhouni today.

Dr. Briggs received her A.B. cum laude in biology from Harvard-Radcliffe College and her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency training in internal medicine and nephrology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, followed by a research fellowship in physiology at Yale School of Medicine. She was a professor of internal medicine and physiology at the University of Michigan from 1993 to 1997. From 1997 to 2006 she was director of the Division of Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. For the last year and a half she has been senior scientific officer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Dr. Briggs has published more than 125 research articles and is on the editorial boards of numerous journals. She is an elected member of the American Association of Physicians and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also a recipient of the Volhard Prize of the German Nephrological Society. Her research interests include the renin-angiotensin system, diabetic nephropathy and the effect of antioxidants in kidney disease.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine’s mission is to explore complementary and alternative medical practices in the context of rigorous science, train CAM researchers, and disseminate authoritative information to the public and professionals. For additional information, call NCCAM’s Clearinghouse toll free at 1-888-644-6226, or visit the NCCAM Web site at www.nccam.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.