It’s back to rehab for dear Lilo.

8 tricks to help you suppress that appetite.

Were these people drunk when this happened?

Halloween according to the cast of Modern Family.

The many (fabulous ways) to wear a scarf.

Truth: I am deathly afraid of what this might look like.

JCrew’s holiday collection makes me drool.

As do these Louboutin bags. Hello, lover.

The Do’s and Don’ts of using your laptop in class.

Whether you are still feeling bloated from everything you ate on the Fourth of July or you’ve been hitting the Dublin Mudslide a little hard to beat the heat, you may feel totally disgusted with your bikini body summer eating habits right about now. No worries! Redeeming yourself is a lot easier than you think.

Drink Water
You know that feeling you get when you want to eat something but you don’t know what you want? That means you’re not really hungry. It could mean you bored, agitated, or excited. In the middle of this sweltering summer, though, it most likely means you’re thirsty. If you’re actually hungry, you’ll know exactly what you want. Then you should eat! If your stomach seems confused, it’s trying to tell you it wants water. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Those cheese fries won’t make a thirsty body feel better, and you’ll be racking up a lot of unnecessary calories in the meantime.

Don’t Throw a Good Day Away
So you were off to a pretty good start. Maybe a veggie omelet for breakfast, a salad and a sandwich for lunch but then a half-dozen cream puffs or a bag of Reese’s Pieces found their way into your mouth. If you’ve got an all-or-nothing personality like me, you’ll feel miserable at “ruining” your good eats and drown your sorrows in a double cheese pizza, believing all hope is lost anyway. But it’s not! Everyone needs a guilt-free treat, at least once in a while. If you fall off your balanced eating plan, get right back up. Keep your later meals for the day a bit lighter to compensate.

Pack Your Own Lunch
You’re stuck at work or your internship for the whole glorious, sun-filled day. How do you feel better? The gals get together and order lunch, of course! A steady diet of lunch-time take out is draining your wallet while racking up calories. Brown bag something you feel good about eating and stick it in the fridge. It’s always more satisfying to eat a lunch you make yourself. Plus, there are no hidden calories and no hidden costs. Read More »

The 4th of July is only a week away and the store mannequins have certainly arrived in their starred and striped bikinis to make sure we don’t forget it.

It’s an American holiday that takes barbecues, fireworks, and beach parties to a whole new level and with it coming up fast, it’s time to pledge our allegiance to our diets. These diet shape-ups will have you ready to don your nautical wear from the first notes of the Star-Spangled Banner and beyond.

Smoothie Sailing: If no one has let you in on the secret yet, let me be the first to inform of the word of the day: SMOOTH-IES. Smoothies can be counted as a meal substitute or an afternoon snack and they are absolutely delicious (provided that you put the right stuff in them). These 8-ounce concoctions will leave you feeling fuller longer and they are great for sitting by the pool. Simply add ¾ cup of milk, 1/2 cup of berries, whey powder and peanut butter and sip your way to slim! Read More »

"Am I skinnier yet?"

Ah, weight loss: the subject that’s sold a thousand glossies. I just got finished reading People magazine’s latest “Half Their Size!” spread, a semi-regular feature that celebrates regular people who have shed an entire person’s worth of pounds. While their stories are certainly inspirational—at least, as long as you believe that those who are overweight are inherently worth less than people with low BMIs—the madness that surrounds the weight-loss industry is chock-full of bad advice for women.

It’s hard to focus on just one bad advice source here, since weight-loss tips are always a mix of the glaringly obvious (did you know that if you drink water instead of Mountain Dew and eat carrot sticks instead of bacon-wrapped candy bars, you’ll get thinner?) and the mind-numbingly ridiculous (try eating only these processed cookies! Try eating dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner! Try not eating!).

Even so, while perusing Good Housekeeping’s “30 Ways to Drop 5 Lbs …and keep it off for good,” I came across a few pieces of advice silly enough to make me slap my forehead with my palm and groan. For instance, here’s what the ladies at GH think you should do if you’re in the mood for something sweet:

“Try an almond stacked on top of a dried apricot — it tastes like a cookie. Really.”

Um… no. I’m not exactly a foodologist, but I’m pretty sure that this snack would taste like a nut on top of a dried piece of fruit. That is not the same thing as  an Oreo. Tell us to eat fruits and nuts all you want, Good Housekeeping—just don’t piss on us and then tell us it’s just raining.

And also, if you’re craving a cookie, why not just eat a cookie? As long as you don’t eat, like, twelve cookies, you should be fine, right? Again, I am not a licensed diet advice dispenser, so you should take my recommendations with a grain of salt. (Unless the lady mags have decreed that even a grain of salt is too much sodium.)

Then there’s this gem:

“Laugh Off 40 Calories! A study from Vanderbilt University showed that you can burn up to that many calories by laughing genuinely for 10 to 15 minutes. (Watch Groundhog Day to giggle off even more weight.)” Read More »

This is probably going to sound crazy to a lot of you, but I promise, the underlying principle of what I’m about to write is worth while.

According to telegraph.co.uk, The University of Wisconsin-Madison recently did a little study about food consumption. The study required participants to take pictures of their food before eating it, which  would have sounded ridiculous 10 years ago, but let’s face it – digital cameras and Macbooks make it easier than ever to take pictures on a whim. After reviewing their findings,  researchers at Wisconsin-Madison concluded that photographing meals does in fact aid an individual in losing weight.

Do I think you should literally photograph all of your meals before eating?  I mean, not unless you’re compiling some sort of ironic food-on-the-table coffee-table book.  But I do think that you should take a mental picture of the things you eat before you eat them.

Ask yourself how the picture would look. Read More »