When you’re traveling it can be tough to stick to a healthy diet. And when you’re traveling to a country where you don’t speak the language it can be even harder! How are you supposed to make a healthy choice when you can’t read the menu? That’s why I love Budget Travel’s Menu Decoders.

If you’re lucky enough to travel to the Olympics in Beijing, use their China version. It’s a good reference of Chinese to English translations for food terms, destination staples, drinks and popular dishes. You might want to stay away from dishes with the word guòyóu (flash fry in hot oil) and gravitate to shucài (vegetables) instead.

When I head to Portugal later this summer, I’ll have a menu decoder to follow too. So I can be sure to choose cozido de grão com vagens á alentejana (chickpeas with green beans) instead of migas à alentejana (fried bread with pork and/or beef). You can also read up on eating in Barcelona, Morocco, Prague and France. That said, I fully support breaking your diet abroad–sometimes you’ve got to try the local fare even if it doesn’t fit your usual low cal plan–but all in moderation, right?

Recently I asked our contributing personal trainer and coach Jason Onserud (remember his great rundown on how to create a resistance training program?) to talk about the best ways to warm up before you start strength training. Here’s what he said…

First of all you should know why it’s important to warm up. It’ll help improve the performance of your session and in turn the result of your hard work. Warming up helps reduce the chance of injury and wear and tear on your joints too.

Start with a cardio warm-up: Complete 10 minutes of a low intensity exercise at 50% of your maximum heart rate. If you aren’t tracking your heart rate, this is a pretty easy pace–think a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. Try jogging, biking or skipping rope. This will increase your heart rate and actually warm up your body and muscle temperature as well as your mind. Read the rest of this entry »

I just heard about an environmental festival that’s going on this week in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. Outdoors in Mammoth is a two day family festival on August 5th and 6th packed with events centered around our environmental impact and the theme ‘Summit to the Sea - Everything is Connected.’

All of the activities are outside and bring eco issues to life from experiencing geothermal heat and discussing energy sources to going on a nature walk with the region’s native people to see how they lived sustainably in the mountain community. And Jean-Michel Cousteau (yes, he’s the son of Jacques Cousteau) who has spent his life exploring the world’s oceans and working to protect them will also be a featured speaker.

Even if you can’t make it to Mammoth this week, it’s great to see events like this that bring young and old together to learn what we can do for the enviornment and why it needs to be done, all while enjoying what nature has to offer.

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

- Ella Fitzgerald

Anytime you add an element of instability to your ab workout, you’ll make it more challenging. The Prone Jackknife from Oxygen Women’s Fitness is one way to do it.

Start in a plank position with your arms slightly wider than shoulder width apart and your feet and the tops of your shins balanced on an exercise ball (choose a ball that’s at a comfortable height). Keeping your arms and back straight, engage your abs to bring your knees toward your chest rolling the ball along with your feet. Keep squeezing your abs and return to the starting position. Do 2 to 3 reps of 15.

Plenty found a way for us to row, row, row our boats greenly down the stream with Echo Paddles made from sustainably harvested local wood certified by the Managed Forest Program.

Fit Sugar shares five reasons why watermelon is a wonderful summer treat.

BeThree asks, “Are You an Exercise Addict?” and offers solutions to break the pattern.

The Budget Ecoist found ways to be green on the go with tips to cut down on your summer vacation waste.

If you’re looking for a new innovative and HARD workout to try, sign up for Budokon. Developed by Cameron Shayne, Budokon is a fusion of martial arts and yoga that’s designed to create a healthy body and a sound mind which rings true to the JivaFit motto. And celebrities like Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston have been fans for awhile.

It’s a workout that requires you to use every inch of your body and every single muscle from head to toe. This class will help you get stronger without lifting a single dumbell–it’s all about using your body. The class starts with a yoga session, though you’ll do dancing dogs in addition to your downward dogs and classic Vinyasa movements will be modified to the rolling wave. The moves get progressively more challenging as the class gears up for the martial arts set. The crocodile for example requires you to jump to a fighting stance from lying flat on the ground. The practice finishes with kicking, punching, blocking and so on in a martial arts series.

If you want to give it a try, search the site for an instructor near you or watch one of Shayne’s workout DVDs. I tried a couple of them and unlike some fitness videos that aren’t don’t even compare to taking an actual class, these were pretty challenging.

Thanks to everyone who entered the Skin Appetit beauty giveaway a few weeks ago. We have a winner! Congratulations to Pamela Scott who revealed her favorite super food saying, “Gosh, this is hard. I love all of them, but I guess I would have to say dark chocolate.” She’ll get a set of all five Skin Appetit products.

But if you didn’t win, you’re not entirely out of luck! Click through to read more for a printable coupon that’ll save you $2 off any Skin Appetit product at Walgreens, Rite Aid, Longs or Duane Reade. Happy shopping!

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I love So You Think You Can Dance–the show is an awesome showcase of talented dancers and choreographers. The dancers prove that the art takes not only artistic skill, but athletic skill and strength too–just take a look at their bodies! Every week, six dancers end up at risk for getting kicked off the show and are forced to perform their solo, ‘dancing for their life.’ Time and time again, the dancers that end up leaving the show are the ones that don’t give it their all and show off everything they have during their solo.

As these dancers put all of their passion out there on that stage, I always think about how there are times in our lives where we have to do the same thing. There are times when we have to prove ourselves and throw everything we have out on the table.  We have to dance our hearts out in a lot of different ways showing the world the best pieces of ourselves and letting our strengths shine. And when we’re put to the challenge, whether it’s opening up our heart to someone, nailing a presentation at work or finishing a race, we have to remember to dance for our life no matter what stage we’re performing on.

Here Twitch, a breaker, shows everyone exactly why he deserves to return to the stage as he gives 125% to his performance–let it inspire you the next time you need to give it your all.

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

-Ayn Rand