I had so much fun and a good experience from readers of the blog a couple of days ago by posting some great articles from other blogs that I decided to share a few more. I just found these posts yesterday and it seems that lots of bloggers are writing some really high quality stuff, I am going to have to pick up the pace here.

How to get a muscular body

Zen to Fitness has a great highlight type article on how people get muscular. One of the highlights is that there is a great old pic of Arnold before he was governor of California at the top of the post. Eating and exercise tips.

Are School lunches healthy?

I have two kids in school and so I thought this would be an interesting read, but it was even more. Did you know that only 80 cents a day goes into food at a typical school made lunch?

TV in kids rooms can make them fat

I keyed into this article because I also think that having a TV in the kids rooms can cause them to be antisocial as well but my kids each have a TV and we make sure that the kids realize that the TV is for when everyhting else, inluding playing is done. The TVs will leave their rooms if it becomes a problem.

Finding a little time to exercise

Sometimes I think it would be great to write a book about how to exercise in 5 minutes (10 times a day). People hate a time commitment but here are four quick ways to get more exercise in. Oh and the logo for the website is great.

Building weight loss momentum

I am a sucker for a quick and easy top 10 list as you have probably realized from this blog. Here is a list of 10 ways to build momentum in losing weight. They are not altogether obvious so I think that these tips will really snap your thinking into the right frame of mind.

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

I was going to write a little article today on how to make Christmas shopping more pleasant and funny enough I see that Laura over at Starling Fitness beat me to it just a few days ago.

Anyway Laura had some ideas on the subject and I would like to add my two cents as well. Here are six tips to make Christmas shopping a little better for you than it was last year and years past as well.

1. Don’t eat the food. If you are going to spend a few hours at the mall try to make sure that you are well fueled up beforehand. Eat lunch or dinner before you go so that you are not stuck eating that crappy food fair fare.

2. Chop the trips up. In the past I would go out on December 24th with the plan of buying everything for everybody in one long day of shopping. Not only did I feel horrible when I left the house having all this pressure on me but with this pressure I had no choice but to get all my purchases done no matter how poorly. Instead, start a few weeks early and only go out for a couple or three hours at a time.

3. Shop for one person a trip. The most important thing about Christmas shopping is that Christmas is supposed to be about the people around you. Go out with ideas of what you would like to get that one or maybe two people that day and have a list of their interests and small ideas to help guide you.

4, Stretch, Drink water, and take care of yourself while you are out. This includes making sure that you stash your heavy jacket somewhere. Malls are notoriously dry and they really feed on you going and buying drinks and snacks to keep yourself going. With all the walking, noise and people cutting you off you want to be limber and hydrated so that your Christmas shopping will be successful and pleasant and you do not feel beat up when you get in the car.

5. Try to shop with only one or two people with you. The last thing that you want to do when rushing around a mall is getting lost and being dragged in every direction because you are with so many people trying to go to so many places. You want to have fun being with one or two people but at the same time you want to make sure that you are not having to try to keep up or wait for the rest of your crew while you are out.

6. Stay away from the hype to save money. I find that sometimes the money flows a bit easy at the mall with all the excitement and the ringing of the cash registers being more than a little reminiscent of Las Vegas. If you keep a budget for the day you will be much happier once January and the Christmas credit card bills come around. If you see a great deal first make sure that it is a great deal compared to what you were planning to spend and remember that just around the corner you will need to pay for an unexpected big purchase.

This list was just a few thing that I thought of off the top of my head. We all know how stressful Christmas can be and I think that the shopping is the worst. So if you can break up your shopping and not feel as rushed I believe that this Christmas will be a much easier shopping time for you.

Biggest Loser Season 3" src="http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/wp-content/uploads/biggestloser.jpg" width="116" height="111" hspace="5" align="left">Well the wait is finally over for the Biggest Loser 3. Last night they started with a two hour season premiere and this year the format is a little different. The show started with one contestant from each state with the trainers, Bob Harper and Kim Lyons choosing seven people each for their teams and a promise from the host Caroline Rhea to the other 36 contestants that they were still in it and that two more would be brought back. The start of this season brings more questions than answers, namely:

How will they bring back two more people? Will there be a decision to have the two biggest weight losers over the first two or four weeks come back? Will they just have the two biggest losers come back for the finale show?

You can keep track of the “other 36″ over at the NBC Biggest Loser site but the show should tell us a bit more as it goes along.

The other problem that I have with the starting format this year is the fact that having 50 people start and then only 14 continue somehow dilutes the show. We got a good 20 minutes of people telling their stories ( my wife teared up more than a bit) and then they leave 10 minutes later with a few parting gifts…that really sucks for the contestants as well as the viewers.

I will post again about the show itself but I just wanted to put in my two cents about that part of the show that we will hopefully get answers to in the next few weeks.