This is a story that just supports the way that we live as a society and it is not just about quitting smoking but also about drinking, losing weight, doing drugs and buying new cars. The fact is that when people that we are around and share values with make a change in their lives then we do too.

You may have heard sometime in the past that if you want to make more money then hang around people that make more money. The same is true if you want to get in shape, hang out with people that are in shape. We all pick up on the habits of those around us and reading about the following study helps us to understand that changes do in fact come in a large part due to those around us.

A team of researchers who showed that obesity can spread person-to-person has found a similar pattern with smoking cessation: A smoker is more likely to kick the habit if a spouse, friend, co-worker or sibling did.

What’s more, smokers tend to quit in groups, and those who don’t stop puffing increasingly find themselves pushed to the edge of their social circles, the researchers found. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Tags: alcoholism, California, co-worker, Harvard Medical School, infectious disease, James Fowler, Jennifer Unger, large social network, lead author, medical sociologist, National Institute on Aging, New England Journal of Medicine, Nicholas Christakis, obesity, San Diego, social network, University of California, University of Southern California

Mens Health is a great magazine ofr telling it like it is, sometimes with a liitle to much brovado. I think this article is really worth it to read though for food substitutions that can make a real difference.
If you keep eating the way you always have, you’ll never improve on the body you’ve got. And the prognosis — on the mom diet, at least — isn’t good. Look at your dad. That’s why we’re providing you with 15 sneaky ways to improve your diet. Same foods, better results. And nobody needs to be the wiser. Just think of these food strategies as the cork in your bat, the glue on your glove, your own personal, syringe-wielding East German Olympic swim-team coach. Only difference is, each one is simple, nutritionally sound, and perfectly legal in all 50 states.

1. Whey your options
Add a cup of ricotta cheese to your fruit smoothie. Ricotta is a soft, mild cheese that’s made almost entirely of whey, the liquid that separates from curd during the cheese-making process. Whey contains cysteine, an amino acid that helps produce a cancer-fighting antioxidant called glutathione. When Ohio State University researchers treated prostate cells with whey protein, glutathione levels jumped by 64 percent.

2. See red
Got leftover tuna salad? Stuff it into a red bell pepper instead of sandwiching it between two slabs of Wonder bread. Red peppers and other red-fleshed fruits such as tomatoes, watermelons, and ruby-red grapefruit are high in lycopene, a phytochemical that can reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 20 percent. Bake the pepper and you’ll make it even more potent; heat makes lycopene easier for your body to absorb.
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