Blog Posts by Health.com

From this day forward forget what you did (or didn't do) to your skin years ago. There are moves you can make today to turn back the clock and look more gorgeous than ever.

By Kimberly Goad

OK, so you baked yourself silly in high school. Who didn't? What counts-at least in terms of looking younger-isn't so much what you used to do, but what you're doing right now. "Studies show you can reverse the damage," says Debra Jaliman, M.D., author of Skin Rules: Trade Secrets from a Top New York Dermatologist. "You can actually take 10 to 15 years off your age."

We know what you're thinking: Sure-if you're willing to empty out your savings in the name of skin care, anything's possible. But you don't have to go to extremes: Pricey procedures at the dermatologist's office aren't the only anti-aging options that work.

"You can reverse skin damage with three basic tenets," says New York City dermatologist Neil Sadick, M.D. "Turn over skin cells, stimulate collagen, and add volume." In the last

A sleeker, stronger body could be just a tweet or a Facebook post away.

By Jamie Beckman

One of the best tools for peeling off pounds is already in your bag: It's your smartphone or iPad. In fact, all that texting, tweeting, and posting-the average woman spends more than 80 minutes a day on her phone, according to a recent report from the mobile apps analytics firm Flurry-can tip the scales in your favor.

And one in three of us are already using social sites like Facebook to get slender, reports research from the University of Arizona. So go ahead and steal these suggestions from women who took their shape-up viral.

Tweet your way thin
Nancy Tessier, 50, lost 28 pounds by posting all her meals and snacks to Tweet What You Eat (@twye), an online food journal that lets others eyeball your noshes. "Sometimes it was a lot easier to decide not to eat something than to have to tweet it for the world to see," she says.

Posting your weight-loss numbers can help, too. The University of

By Paige Greenfield

It's true: Certain foods have a very high thermogenic effect, so you literally scorch calories as you chew. Other eats contain nutrients and compounds that stoke your metabolic fire. Feed your metabolism with these.

Whole grains
Your body burns twice as many calories breaking down whole foods (especially those rich in fiber such as oatmeal and brown rice) than processed foods.

Lean meats
Protein has a high thermogenic effect: You burn about 30% of the calories the food contains during digestion (so a 300-calorie chicken breast requires about 90 calories to break it down).

Health.com: Best Superfoods for Weight Loss

Low-fat dairy products
Rich in calcium and vitamin D, these help preserve and build muscle mass-essential for maintaining a robust metabolism.

Green tea
Drinking four cups of green tea a day helped people shed more than six pounds in eight weeks, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports. Credit EGCG, a compound in the brew that temporarily

world's-healtheist-womenFrom pouring on the olive oil like the Greeks to slashing stress like the Scandinavians, what we can learn from the happiest, slimmest, longest living cultures around the globe.

By Valerie Frankel

The secret to a long, healthy life in America? According to longevity researchers, it may be to act like you live somewhere else.

It seems like every year another country's lifestyle is touted as the new magic bullet to cure us of obesity, heart disease, and premature death: For an unclogged heart, herd goats and down olive oil like a Mediterranean. Avoid breast cancer and live to 100 by dining on tofu Japanese-style. Stay as happy as Norwegians by hunting elk and foraging for cowberries.

The places we're usually told to emulate are known as Blue Zones or Cold Spots. Blue Zones were pinpointed by explorer Dan Buettner and a team of longevity researchers and are described in his book The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest. They're areas in Italy,

The fitness guru spills her best healthy life lessons
The top trainer and life guru reveals the one question that'll get you to your goal-plus the single best workout to keep you feeling great for life.

By Alison Prato

Jillian Michaels catapulted to fame as the punishing trainer who got results on The Biggest Loser and Losing It with Jillian. But the 38-year-old has always been just as interested in building confidence as she has in sculpting rockhard abs.

It's no accident that her most recent book is Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life. Everything Jillian tackles-including her recent gig as life adviser on The Doctors, her DVDs (such as her latest, Jillian Michaels Kickbox FastFix), and her intimate podcast-is meant to help the rest of us claim a healthier, happier life.

Sitting high in the hills of Southern California, the woman who calls everybody "buddy" is surprisingly funny and self-deprecating. And, as expected, she's incredibly open, talking about her tough tween years, how she stays motivated (and how you can, too),

A large part of how we relate to people emotionally may be hardwired into our DNA.By Amanda MacMillan

A large part of how we relate to people emotionally may be hardwired into our DNA. A new study suggests that character traits such as being open, caring, and trusting are so strongly linked to a certain gene variation that a total stranger, simply by watching us listen to another person, may be able to guess whether we have the variation with a high degree of accuracy.

Previous studies have linked several personality traits to variations in this gene, which acts as a docking station (or receptor) for the brain chemical oxytocin-often referred to as the "love hormone" because it plays a role in social behaviors such as bonding, empathy, and anxiety.

People who have two "G" variants of this oxytocin receptor gene tend to have better social skills and higher self-esteem, research has shown. Conversely, those with at least one "A" variant tend to have a harder time dealing with stress, worse mental-health outcomes, and a greater likelihood of being

Alternative medical treatments, such as massage, acupuncture, and Echinacea, are embraced by 38% of Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health. So what percentage of celebrities are into cupping and high colonics? No one really knows, but their choices fascinate and influence us. Here are 20 of Hollywood's hottest who, for better or worse, have embraced natural medicine.

Keep reading: Health.com: 21 Celebrities Who Embraced Natural Medicine

More from Health.com:

10 Celebrities Who Battled Postpartum Depression

25 Shocking Celebrity Weight Changes

11 Famous People With Rheumatoid Arthritis

Natural Cold Remedies: What Works?

Need help being less sedentary? Here are the best ways to sit less and move more, from easiest to hardest.

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