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From the Fit Community: Leave Your Phone at Home When You Work Out

Fit Community — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:25:08 PST

FitSugar reader JessicaSmithTV wants you to know: you're hurting your workout when you bring your cell phone into the equation. She shared her three reasons you should stay cell phone-free at the gym in our 10 Pounds Down! community group.

1. It’s hurting your workout (and could cause you to get hurt)

If you can text or talk on the phone during any part of your workout, you aren’t working hard enough. Exercise requires a mind/body connection (yes, even the time you spend on the treadmill) and your cell phone seriously disrupts the communication signals between your mind and your body.

Even if you think you are the most talented texter, or multitasker to ever walk the earth, don’t kid yourself - many studies have shown cell phone distraction as even worse than being drunk – so if you wouldn’t run that mile, take that spin class or do Pilates totally wasted, then your phone shouldn’t be out during your workout. Not paying attention during exercise is dangerous and can cause you to hurt yourself - in a big way. Not to mention, it slows you down! Even if you stop to text in between exercises, you are slowing down your flow - and your heart rate. Not a good way to get results.

Read more reasons for keeping your cell phone at home after the break.

Heat Up Your Home Workout With These Burlesque Dance Moves

FitSugar — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:34:44 PST

Dancing is a workout! And in honor of Valentine's Day we've created our own burlesque dance workout inspired by Christina Aguilera's sexy moves in Burlesque. Get hot and sweaty with these steamy dance grooves created by a dancer, choreographer, and fitness instructor who moonlights on the burlesque stage. Her moves will tone your physique and get your heart rate thumping. The dance class begins when you start the video.

6 Strategies to Save More This Year

Kiplinger — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:27:21 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Kiplinger story here on Savvy!

Saving doesn't come easily for us young adults. Entry-level salaries don't give you a lot to work with. And, well, we also tend to spend what we make - and then some - on the latest gadgets and flashiest fashions.

But don’t worry. We’re not doomed to frivolity and the wreckage it can make of our finances. Here's how you can start saving smart throughout 2012:

Periodically calculate how much you spend. What better time to review your budget than at the start of a New Year? “It’s really hard to [track your spending] each month, so aim for just once or twice a year,” says Jill Boynton, a certified financial planner in Newington, New Hampshire.

Just be sure when you do it that you track everything. Boynton recommends filling out a spreadsheet with a month’s worth of spending. Or you can try an online budgeting tool such as Mint.com (See our slide show: Which Budgeting Site is Best for You?). But note: Mint works best for those who deal mostly in plastic as opposed to cash. When you make an ATM withdrawal, the site labels the transaction as “Cash & ATM.” Unless you diligently manage your cash transactions (you can manually edit Mint’s labels), you can easily lose track of where the money goes.

The drudgery of tracking spending can pay off when you find surprising expenses you could easily cut. At the end of 2011, I crunched my own numbers and found that I shelled out about $200 a month at Starbucks and other restaurants. I’m sure I could cut that by at least half. That’s like finding a $100 bill every month in my back pocket.

Read on for more strategies.

Cardio Workout: Elliptical Incline Booty Workout

Susi May — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:33:50 PST

I like to power up my cardio and make it work double time, like this elliptical workout. By playing with the incline on the machine, you can really target your glutes and hamstrings. That's right! You get your heart rate up while toning your backside. Talk about a win-win. Increase your booty work and focus on keeping your heels down while doing this workout.

Ready to go? Take a look at the workout.

A Reader Answers: Can Exercise Help With Migraines?

Fit Community — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:52:16 PST

FitSugar reader JessicaSmithTV wanted to know: can exercise help with migraines? She asked an expert and posted the answer in our Fit Community.

Today's post comes to us from special guest contributor and medical expert Paul Rizzoli, MD, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School:

When you’re prone to migraines you’re forced to think through whether or not something you do will invite a headache into your life. Exercise is definitely one of those things. Should you skip a workout because you feel a migraine coming on? Or is it better to push through in the hopes a little sweat will make you feel better?

Most headache specialists recommend exercise and an increase in overall physical activity to their patients. However, to date, there’s skimpy evidence to support the idea that working out actually guards against migraine attacks. A few studies have shown that taking regular exercise can reduce the severity, though not the number of headaches.

Keep reading to see what studies say about exercise and migraine relief after the break!

Looking to Escape? 9 Flash Sale Travel Sites With Great Deals

Emily Co — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:26:08 PST

It's a good idea to start planning your trips for the year now, so you can keep your eye out for the best deals and you won't have to resort to paying expensive last-minute prices. If you already have several destinations in mind, check out travel flash sale sites, which can save you hundreds of dollars! Here are a couple to browse through:

Groupon Getaways

Groupon partnered up with Expedia to launch a travel deals vector that features new deals every Tuesday. The deals stay live for seven days or until they run out. The site offers a good mix of national and international travel deals.

Hot recent deal: $39 for $100 toward a round-trip Virgin America flight from San Francisco to Chicago. The deal has already sold out, and over 5,000 Grouponers bought this deal.

Jetsetter

A luxury travel site that offers deals up to 50 percent off only the most luxurious and exotic hotels around the globe. Each sale lasts about five to seven days. You can pay 10 percent of the trip price to "hold" a trip for three days to decide whether to book it. If you decide not to purchase, the 10 percent becomes Jetsetter credit that never expires.

Hot recent deal: A hotel in Rome, Italy, that's going for $130 a night. This compares with the regular nightly rate of $220.

Read on for more sites.

Uh Oh! Watch Out For These 12 IRS Audit Red Flags

Kiplinger — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:06:09 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Kiplinger story here on Savvy!

The IRS audits only slightly more than 1% of all individual tax returns annually. The agency doesn't have enough personnel and resources to examine each and every tax return filed during a year. So the odds are pretty low that your return will be picked for review. And, of course, the only reason filers should worry about an audit is if they are fudging on their taxes.

However, the chances of being audited or otherwise hearing from the IRS increase depending upon various factors, including your income level, whether you omitted income, the types of deductions or losses you claimed, the business in which you're engaged and whether you own foreign assets. Math errors may draw IRS inquiry, but they'll rarely lead to a full-blown exam. Although there's no sure way to avoid an IRS audit, you should be aware of red flags that could increase your chances of drawing unwanted attention from the IRS.

1. Making too much money

Although the overall individual audit rate is about 1.11%, the odds increase dramatically for higher-income filers. IRS statistics show that people with incomes of $200,000 or higher had an audit rate of 3.93%, or one out of slightly more than every 25 returns. Report $1 million or more of income? There's a one-in-eight chance your return will be audited. The audit rate drops significantly for filers making less than $200,000: Only 1.02% of such returns were audited during 2011, and the vast majority of these exams were conducted by mail. We're not saying you should try to make less money - everyone wants to be a millionaire. Just understand that the more income shown on your return, the more likely it is that you'll be hearing from the IRS.

Read on for more red flags.

Shocking Truths About the Underemployment of College Graduates

OnSugar Blog — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:15:10 PST

OnSugar blogger Beauty and the Budget shares the shocking unemployment statistics of college graduates.

As a teenager, it seemed as though the next few steps in my life were going to be easy. You go to college and you get a job. That's what all of the older kids did. What I didn't know was that I would graduate college one year after the recession began and that my dream job would be even harder to grasp, much less finding a job with a good salary and benefits.

Since graduation, I have not been able to find a job that pays more than $10.50 an hour. Even though I have liked my jobs, that doesn't mean I am not financially stressed. I have around $40K in student loan debt - and that's even after receiving a $10K scholarship. Sometimes I feel like I could have skipped college altogether considering I have worked jobs that don't even require a college degree. On the optimistic side of things, I still feel like getting a college degree is a good idea. I just wish I'd have known then what I'd be getting myself into and that I wouldn't just magically graduate with a good job.

Read on for more.

Savory Sight: Soup-Filled Dumplings

Yum Community — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:55:42 PST

National Soup Month is still going strong and these soup-filled dumplings from coltkels are perfectly relevant, and sound incredible.

I have an intense love for dumplings. You will rarely ever find a time when I am not craving them. My favorite dumpling place is in downtown Sydney so I couldn’t think of a better time to plan a visit for myself and my friend, who had never tried them. I originally found this place because my favorite magazine, Time Out Sydney, rated them ‘the best dumplings’ in Sydney and I had to find out. Let me tell you they weren’t only the best dumplings in Sydney but the best dumplings I have ever had, and my opinion didn’t change the second time around.

For more on the story of soup dumplings, visit her blog, and upload your awesome food photos and stories to our Savory Sights community group.

The Secrets of the World's Healthiest Women

Health — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:45:10 PST

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Health.com here on our site.

From 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.

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.

Health.com: Weight-Loss Secrets From Around the World

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, Japan, Greece, California, and Costa Rica where the people have traditionally stayed healthy and active to age 100 or older.

Keep on reading for more great tips from around the globe.