Everyone wants a set of killer abs. If you have a svelte midsection and you automatically feel healthier and sexier. But are you clocking in hours at the gym and hundreds of crunches a week with no results? There’s a new fad diet out there that’s sending everyone atwitter.

The editors of Prevention magazine have come up with a diet plan that aims to send your excess gut to the gutter…or so it seems.

“The Flat Belly Diet” boasts a flat tummy in 32 days. The flagship website gives you everything you need to get started (read: sh*t you have to buy) including cookbooks (with cupcakes on the cover), exercise DVDs (for the “optional” exercise component), and online subscription program to track your progress. Best of all, what kind of diet would it be without a catchphrase (so you KNOW it works): “A MUFA at every meal!”

What’s a MUFA, you ask? Short for monounsaturated fatty acid, MUFA foods include almonds, peanut butter, olive oil and dark chocolate. The Flat Belly Diet encourages you to eat a serving of one of these foods at every meal. That’s right, glob some peanut butter on your crackers for lunch, and grab some dark chocolate cookies to nosh on with dinner. Does anyone else think this sounds a bit too good to be true?

Just from evaluating the website and the basic diet facts, I don’t feel so confident that the Flat Belly Diet could yield real results. Optional exercise? Chocolate with dinner? It sounds like a recipe for Too-Tight-Jeans-Syndrome, if you know what I mean. Not to mention that the “after” photos of alleged Flat Belly Dieters look like they simply donned a pair of Spanx (see above).

Ladies, what do you think?

[image courtesy of flatbellydiet.prevention.com]

We’ve all heard of the crazy lengths that people go to for weight loss: diet sunglasses that tint everything blue and supposedly make food less appealing, torturous diets that consist of only cabbage soup, and my personal favorite: slimming soap. Because washing away your fat is just so much easier than just eating healthy and exercising.

Well, now researchers at UC San Diego have performed the first U.S. gastrectomy, a procedure where 80 percent of the stomach is removed, through an area that should never have anything other than a baby coming out of it.

Yup, that’s right, they removed a chunk of stomach through a woman’s vagina.

All in the name of weight loss.

I was baffled after reading this and had to find out details… Apparently, the procedure is very promising for the future of obesity surgery. According to the article, “This new ‘natural orifice’ technique may be an attractive alternative for the 200,000 U.S. patients who undergo surgery for the treatment of obesity each year.”

I’m sorry, but I think I’ll keep my ‘natural orifice’ off limits as an exit route for parts of my insides. Read More »

…At least that’s what happened to Angela Stokes. Once nearly 300 pounds, the girl stopped eating anything that was cooked and lost almost half of her body fat. CNN reports:

She stopped eating meat, animal products and processed foods and instead switched to a diet that consisted of uncooked and unprocessed vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds.

“To me, the thing with raw food is that it just makes sense. It’s simple and natural, eating food straight from the earth. There’s no rocket science, no mystery,” said Stokes. “Once you understand the simple principal that no other animal in the wild eats cooked or processed foods. That’s it.”

She makes a very good point - especially considering all the hormones and crap that goes into everything we eat. We should all hop on this raw food bandwagon! We can all be healthy! We can all lose weight.

It can’t be that hard, right? I mean, we would never have to cook again!

Wait, what? Cheddar and Sour Cream chips aren’t raw? Ramen isn’t raw? BEER ISN’T RAW?!

Jesus H. Christ; that Allison chick is crazy. What the hell did she eat? HOW DID SHE SURVIVE?  I really don’t know anyone who can do this - most definitely not anyone in college.

Kim Kardashian addresses life’s biggest issues….on video.

Splenda may kill you, but it’s not as bad as the other stuff you’re using!

A how-to guide for sex in some very public places.

The 12 Types of Beer Pong Players.

Prada runway roadkill.

Funniest ad ever…or most offensive?

Melissa Joan Hart can’t even get on Dancing With The Stars? HAHA.

In case you were wondering: Martha Stewart’s thoughts on long weiners…

Mmmmm. Breast milk ice cream?

The Britney Spears comeback continues. Next up: sell the house.

Nick Hogan is gettin’ out of the clink early. Shocking!

Mama Spears always has something to say.

The first time I ate in my college dining hall was the first time I realized that putting on that Freshman 15 wasn’t due to just drinking more alcohol. How on earth can I avoid the temptation of returning to the dessert bar…three times?

Never in my life had tons of food been readily available to me and all paid for. The moment I saw the glimmer of that giant soft serve machine was the moment I knew I was doomed. But I’ve found the solution, people! By keeping some delicious (and healthy) snacks in my room constantly, it’s easier to avoid extras at every meal in the dining hall by reminding myself I can healthfully indulge in between meals. Worried about looking like a food hoarder? I’ve included some cute ways to display your morsels of goodness.

1. Hershey’s Kisses
If you haven’t had a Hershey’s Kiss in a while, let me tell you– they last WAY longer than you’d expect, especially if you let them melt in your mouth. At 25 calories each, you could have four or five before you hit the hay. Plus, they look really cute in a curvy apothecary jar, and I promise you’ll have friends stopping by juuust a little more often if the jar has easy access to visitors. Bonus points for buying the red and green foils during the holidays.

2. Energy Bars
I don’t know about you, but I’m a HUGE energy bar fan. I love trying new ones and have found a few winners for both taste and nutrition: Kashi TLC bars, Powerbar Pria bars (110 calories) and Luna Bars (usually around 180 calories– or try the Mini versions at 80 calories!). Read More »

Let’s face it - you’re busy! In between classes, homework, mixers, meetings, parties, and dates, every college student’s dream is to find the 25th hour in the day. And that’s not generally so they can use it to head to the gym for a strenuous cardio session.

Unfortunately, if you spend all your time in a sedentary position, snacking to kill boredom and keep yourself awake, you’re body will have no choice but to store the extra caloric energy as fat. When it comes to weight gain, all you need to worry about is whether the number of calories you expend is greater than the number of calories you ingest. In order to not gain weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat.

Making sure you hit the gym a couple of times a week (4-5 times would be ideal) for at least a half hour is a great way to jumpstart your metabolism and burn some extra calories. But when you can’t make it to the gym there are ways to make sure you’re still being active and moving around—even on the busiest of schedules. Read More »

I’ve always considered myself to be pretty savvy about food and diet… but since there are SO many psychological layers to eating; food, body image, etc., it’s easy for us to abandon our rational brain and wholeheartedly believe things about our bodies that may not be true. Even the savviest of us all may be tempted to believe weight-loss fabrications, which is why I investigated some of the things people have told me (which I believed!) by speaking with a nutritionist.

“If you eat protein and carbohydrates at the same time, your digestion is less efficient because the stomach is using different enzymes at once, as opposed to focusing on one type of food at a time.”
–Every nutritionist I’ve talked to has said this is complete garbage. And I’m glad to hear it, because my faith in my beloved In-N-Out burger has been restored (sorry to everyone who’s not in California or parts of Arizona. They truly are the best burgers on Earth…worth the airfare, I promise). In fact, it’s better to eat both protein and carbohydrates together– the carbohydrates give you quick glucose for energy, but the protein ensures your blood sugar doesn’t drop later because it takes longer to digest. When your blood sugar doesn’t drop (like it would if you ate simple carbs alone) you won’t get hungry as fast and you won’t become a sugar junkie.

“If you eat within three hours of when you go to sleep, your food will instantly turn to fat because you don’t have time to burn it off”
–Again, nutritionists tell me they can’t believe stuff like that gets published. Read More »

(Last week one of our writers opened up about her personal use of Adderall. We have since received tons of feedback regarding Adderall and the many ways it is used. Here is another coed’s story…)

Sunday night at 3 a.m. again. The lines on the page have long since run together. I have written the same sentence three times. My roommate is blaring the television set that is constantly tuned to E!. I have seen all of the True Hollywood stories. Twice.

“Bailey*, can I have an Adderall?”
“Sure. You know where to find them.”

I rummaged around in the clutter of her desk drawer, and my fingertips having connected with the plastic of a prescription bottle, I tipped a tiny capsule into my palm.

Ah, yes, here was my chemical savior. Focus city, here I come.
This amphetamine derivative was going to help me get through my stack of reading and get that assignment down on paper.

I lay back down on my bed and set my alarm for 4 a.m. With Adderall in my system I would be able to get back up in just an hour and get back to work. And I did. Read More »