Make Any Exercise Harder

If you want  to make an exercise harder, add weight. If you want to make your whole body work harder while performing an exercise, change your stance. "Altering the way you place your feet on the ground forces you to use more stabilizing muscles, which compounds the challenge of the move,"says Bruce Mack, co-founder of Thrive Training Systems.

Working your stabilizing muscles strengthens your core, which will help you move heavier loads in the future, Mack says. He suggests advancing your stance for standard exercises like the biceps curl. While foot placement won't increase the stress on your biceps, stabilizing yourself will strengthen muscles in addition to those in your arms. The result: a bigger calorie burn and a greater total body strength-building effect.

Exercise makes low-calorie food more appetizing

By Shereen Dindar | Shine On

As many of us pledge yet again to make this the year we finally get to the gym and banish those unwanted pounds, some new research might give us a little incentive to keep at it.

New research shows that physical activity makes low-calorie foods seem more appetizing.

In a small study published last month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers from the University of Birmingham found that after exercising the brain regions associated with reward were more active when viewing images of healthy food verses unhealthy food.

"Exercise increases neural responses to images of low-calorie foods and suppresses activation during the viewing of high-calorie foods," write the researchers.

Exercise can override libido-dulling effects of antidepressants: study

An unfortunate side effect of taking antidepressants is loss of libido and inability to reach orgasm, but a new study finds that this can be mitigated with a dose of exercise, for women at least.

5 Surprising Sleep Myths & the Truths You Need to Know

It's as much a part of your daily existence as your diet and exercise routine, and yet, even those who prioritize movement and nutrition are a bit misled when it comes to sleep. Much of this in-the-dark behavior stems from a misunderstanding of some of the most important factors affecting your sleep (which, by the way, affects your waistline as well as your performance at work and in the gym). To set the record straight, we asked Equinox advisory board member and sleep expert James B. Maas, Ph.D., author of Sleep for Success!, to dispel five of the most common falsehoods.