More and more people are becoming aware of the real danger obesity poses and have begun to take much better care of themselves.

A hot topic on this subject is that of Cholesterol and Triglycerides  .

The common misperception is that all cholesterol is bad, but in fact there is both good and bad cholesterol that play different roles in your body.

This is why it is important to learn about cholesterol and triglyceriides and how they affect your health so you know what your treatment options are . Basically there are two types of cholesterol LDL and HDL .

LDL And HDL

The bad cholesterol is know as LDL and this is the one responsible for building up in the arteries which feed the heart and brain with blood and oxygen  .

In addition, LDL can work with other substances in the body to form plaque which is a thick, hard deposit that can eventually clog the arteries causing a condition known as atherosclerosis .

 On the flip side, HDL is considered to be the good cholesterol, HDL is needed by the body and in healthy levels will actually protect against a heart attack and too low a level will allow LDL to build up and increase the risk of heart attack  .

Triglycerides

When discussing cholesterol there is one other factor you should consider and that is triglycerides .

These are a form of fat that is found in food but is also made naturally in a persons body . The triglyceride level plays a vital role because the higher our triglyceride level the higher the bad cholesterol LDL and the lower the good cholesterol HDL  .

It is very important to have your levels check regularly in order to keep yourself healthy and fit . Everyone’s health is affected to a large extent by cholesterol and you need to know when your LDL levels are too high, when your HDL levels are two low or when you have a combination of both. It is also a good idea to know when your body is healthy .

Although you need to check your levels regularly since they can change quite dramatically rather quickly . If you were checked about a month ago it doesn’t mean you are still healthy today. So it is important to make LDL and HDL levels a part of your regular checkup at the doctors office .

This way you can stay on top of your health and know when you need to make the necessary lifestyle changes to prolong your life and reduce your risk of heart disease. You doctor can recommend the necessary lifestyle changes and medications that you may need if they find you have high or low levels.

There have been many "facts" over the years about fitness exercising. People still believe that many of them are real, when in fact they are completely false. Here are 3 very important facts about exercising.

Myth # 1- The best way to reduce the hips and butt is to perform exercises to isolate the area.

FALSE – It is physiologically impossible to spot reduce. You cannot lose in only one area of the body because the body fat comes off all over the body. Typically the first place you tend to gain is the last place you lose. Again, the root to success for these stubborn hips and butt are resistance exercises, cardiovascular exercises, and remaining consistent under the healthy diet you have chosen. You definitely want to perform exercises for stubborn areas, but DO NOT think that the movement will reduce the area. It will work the muscle in that area, but only body fat reduction will make the area smaller.

Myth # 2- Lifting light weights will make your muscles more define and toned.

FALSE – Muscle responds to overload. If you lift heavier weight with sufficient intensity you will create more micro trauma in the muscle. When the muscle recuperates it becomes tighter and stronger. For your upper body you should work in a range of 8 to 12 repetitions per set. For your lower body you can go as far 12 to 15 repetitions. If you surpass these rap ranges you will only improve your muscular endurance but you won’t achieve any other success.

Myth # 3- A woman will get muscles as big as a man if she lifts heavier weight.

FALSE – This myth never seems to die. A woman has approximately around 1/3 of the testosterone of a man. Unless she is on a chemical enhancing drug, a woman will never achieve the muscular size of a man. However, she can get a degree of muscularity that makes her lean and tight. Many women say: "I don’t want to look bulky." That is very legitimate. I don’t want you to look huge as well but bulky is the combination of fat on the top of muscle. As you reduce the fat on your body, your muscle will start looking lean and tight. For every pound of muscle you gain your body burns 30 to 50 additional calories per day. If you gain 3 pounds of muscle you will burn additional 1000 calories per week, which comes to 4000 calories per month. You should make your body work FOR you not AGAINST you.

These were 3 solid fitness myths, and now you defiantly know the truth. Let’s get it started!

My name is Gergana Ganeva and I am the owner of website called Healthy Body Exercises. I have been intensively involved in sports for 18 years now. A few years ago I ended my professional career as a tennis player and since then I have been working with people who want to lose weight by exercising. My main goal is to teach you how to stay healthy and lose some extra weight the healthy way.

By now it’s obvious that we believe whole, unprocessed foods to be an integral part of a healthy diet, but here’s another reason to ditch the packaged foods – even those that claim to be "diet" or "healthy" or "low in fat": it seems that additives and food enhancers so common in these products actually are making us fat, not to mention causing a wide range of health problems. Yep, it’s true. And many of these additives, because they can be manufactured from natural products, slip right under the radar and into many "health" foods that claim "all natural" status. So make a list of the following names and scan the ingredients of your favorite foods for likely offenders – or better yet, skip buying anything with an ingredient list that you can’t pronounce. When it comes to food, simpler is most often better!

MSG: Ah, this one has been on the offenders list for years, primarily for giving people headaches, but this flavor enhancer, the most popular in the world, is now suspected to cause weight gain, according to scientists. Mono Sodium Glutamate has been shown to cause obesity in lab rats by damaging the appetite regulation center located in the hypothalamus area of the brain, thus causing resistance to Leptin, the hormone that tells us how much to eat. It’s a pretty good bet that if something has MSG in it, it probably is not very good for you, as MSG is typically used to make unpalatable foods more appealing – it does this by releasing more dopamine into the brain, tricking you into a sense of well-being. Besides weight gain, MSG is also thought to cause a rash of other problems including liver inflammation. Since MSG is a natural substance, it can be snuck into many foods you wouldn’t think would have it and this practice is condoned by the FDA – it pays to read the labels. Other names MSG goes by in food products’ hydrolyzed vegetable protein, autolyzed vegetable protein, textured vegetable protein, hydrolyzed yeast extract, autolyzed yeast extract, plant protein extract, sodium caseinate, calcium caseinate, yeast extract, textured whey protein, and textured soy protein, spice, and yes, even the words natural flavor.

Aspartame: This is one sugar substitute that is surprisingly still found in everything from chewing gum to diet sodas. Like MSG, Aspartame is an excitotoxin, meaning that it causes the brain’s neurons to be overexcited, causing early cellular death. It is suspected of causing weight gain by destabilizing blood sugar, making us crave sweets, and making us retain water and look bloated. Of course, that’s not all – the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a list of 61 reported adverse reactions including: chest pains,depression asthma, arthritis, migraine headaches, insomnia, seizures, tremors, and dizziness. Time to ditch the diet soda along with the full sugar versions.

Pesticides: Along with chemicals in our detergents and plastics, the pesticide residue on our fruits and vegetables, as well as on the corn used in many packaged products and in high fructose corn syrup, is now being studied and tested with the preliminary theory that it is causing the rapid weight gain seen in the last twenty years. Many pesticides end up in our liver, disrupting the function of our metabolism and endocrine system, especially our thyroids and many mimic hormones that cause the body to gain weight and/or increase appetite. While eating organic is more expensive, the health benefits are numerous – organic food contains more vitamins and minerals than conventional food.

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Scientists are now talking about a new class of people at risk for heart disease; they are called the "skinny obese". Perhaps you know somebody in that category? The skinny obese eat whatever they want without gaining weight. The skinny obese stay skinny without working out. (I usually call them something else but I can’t mention that here.) But while many consider these people "lucky", Mayo clinic researchers consider them "at risk".

Scientists at the Mayo Clinic have discovered that too much body fat is associated with early signs of heart disease, regardless of whether a person is considered overweight. Sometimes, the scale lies! Mayo Clinic cardiologist Franciso Lopez-Jiminez, M.D. calls this syndrome "normal-weight obesity". Skinny people should not assume they are healthy just because they fit nicely into their jeans!

There are many people with normal BMIs who have too much body fat. A study at the NIH looked at data from over 2,000 normal-weight adults and found that almost half had too much body fat! And those normal-weight adults with too much body fat were much more likely to have diabetes, heart disease and other weight-related abnormalities than normal-weight adults with normal body fat levels.

It seems that the internal fat that sits around the vital organs (and which can’t be seen from the outside) is even more dangerous than the external fat that sits under the skin (and is more obvious). So you really can’t judge a book by its cover!

A study from the Imperial College in London found that people who maintain their weight through diet had more dangerous, internal fat than those who maintained their weight with exercise.

The most dangerous part of all of this? Skinny obese people mistakenly think they are healthy and aren’t as careful as they need to be. Thin people can get heart attacks and diabetes!

All of these studies confirm what many have know for a while; fat but active people may be healthier than skinny obese people! "Normal-weight persons who are sedentary and unfit are at much higher risk for mortality than obese persons who are active and fit," said Dr. Steven Blair, an obesity expert at the University of South Carolina.

Remember, the goal is to be healthy, not just thin. And studies are showing if you want to be healthy, you absolutely must exercise!

Joanna Dolgoff MD is a Pediatrician, Creator of Dr. Dolgoff’s Weigh: Online Child & Teen Weight Management and Mommy of two.
Dr. Dolgoff’s Weigh has been featured on NBC, ABC, WPIX & My9 News & boasts a 96% success rate!
Help your child lose weight today with Dr. Dolgoff’s Weigh at http://www.DrWeigh.com.