By Stacey Colino

Ask any woman you know how she feels about her body-no matter what her weight - and get ready for an earful. Odds are, she'll launch into a laundry list of what she doesn't like about her looks. For Kenda Smith, 36, the big problem is the tummy pooch from her second pregnancy. It's been two years and the bulge still won't go away. "My belly is so embarrassing," says Kenda, who lives in Worcester, MA. "It makes me feel sloppy and uncomfortable with myself." Sometimes she'd rather just stay home in baggy sweats than go out. And her self-consciousness is also taking a toll in the bedroom. "It's very hard for me to feel at ease getting intimate with my husband because of how I look," she admits. Photo by Getty Images
Related: Check out 9 bad habits that are good for you.

Whether it's occasional or constant, nearly every woman struggles with the way she feels about her body. A Cornell University study found that 87% of normal-weight women wish they were a size

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You eat right, and exercise regularly, but that final plateau is feeling insurmountable. Get over the hump with this simple, 10-move routine from celebrity trainer Amie Hoff, who suggests repeating each exercise for one minute with 30 seconds in between, and doing the circuit twice, three to four times a week. More good news: You don't even have to leave the house to see big results. By Holly Corbett, REDBOOK.

Losing that last 10 pounds isn't just about counting calories, because stress plays a big part in weight management. Many women have an extra "stress weight donut" around their middle due to the chronic overstimulation of the stress hormone cortisol (a chemical that triggers your body to hold onto belly fat). This workout not only decreases stress, but also raises your heart rate to burn body fat while at the same time challenging muscles. The result? A powerful exercise cocktail that helps lower cortisol and increase muscle, which will help you keep the weight off for good.

Hip

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You're probably well-versed in the perils of having too much salt in your diet. But what about in your beauty products? That depends on the issue you're trying to address.

Salt on Your Skin: Pros and Cons
Sea salt can leach moisture out of your skin. But it's a wonderful exfoliant. "In its raw, crystal form, salt stimulates skin renewal and boosts radiance," says Idit Gandelman, Global Head of Training at Ahava (a skincare company based on Dead Sea minerals). A handful of coarsely ground sea salt, mixed with skin-nourishing grapeseed oil can slough off dead skin cells, while the oil replenishes moisture.

MORE: Sea Salt's Secret Beauty Uses

If you're looking for salty skincare that's also going to moisturize, search labels for products containing Dead Sea salts. "The Dead Sea has a much lower concentration of sodium chloride than normal sea water, and its salts contain a mix of other important minerals, including magnesium, potassium, calcium chloride and

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Ad campaigns for maxi-pads and tampons tend to look like commercials for exotic resorts, replete with beachside strolls, yoga at sunset, and well-absorbed blue dye the color of a crystalline sea. With that Zenlike imagery on the one hand, and on the other the misguided stereotype of the crazy PMSing woman, it must be awfully confusing for men--or at least it was for one Richard Neill, whose amusing tongue-in-cheek comment about period confusion posted to the Facebook page of Bodyform, a British brand of maxipads, has now inspired a national campaign.

"As a man I must ask why you have lied to us for all these years," Neill wrote. "As a child I watched your advertisements with interest as to how at this wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things, I felt a little jealous. I mean bike riding, rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, why couldn't I get to enjoy this time of joy and 'blue water' and wings !! "

His clever jab at the brand got 80,000

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Did you buy six boxes of Girl Scout cookies this year because you couldn't say no to the world's cutest 7-year-old in a Brownie uniform? Did you take that extra helping of your sister-in-law's whole wheat carob cake because you didn't want to hurt her feelings? When your BFF is waffling over ordering dessert, do you agree to share it with her even though you don't want it - and then match her bite for bite?

If you could answer yes to any of these questions, you may suffer from sociotropy - the scientific term for having the need to please others. While that might make you the right candidate to broker peace in the Mideast, excessive niceness is a recipe for excessive girth. And it's only one of the character traits that can lead to unhappy mornings on the scale.

We all know the major triggers of emotional eating: anger, loneliness, rejection, guilt. Most of us, at one time or another, have taken out our fury on a bag of crunchy corn chips or tried to beat the blues with a pin

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