With Father’s Day upon us, daughters of all ages are preparing to celebrate their fathers and all they have done to positively impact their lives.

But what about the daughters who do not have fathers present in their lives?

The balance for physical fitness is 80% nutrition and 20% exercise.

Well, that’s what most health professionals agree on. There are slight variations in those figures, but they all agree that what you eat has the largest impact on your health and fitness. Nutrition plays an integral part in your health, and there is no question that staying active is also important. 

As a matter of fact, while some nutrients tend to gain endorsements (vitamin D, for example), others fall short of their promised values (such as excessive amounts of protein). Controversial food groups are added or eliminated from diets often. However, exercise continues to be a constant in all plans for healthier living.

Doctors and nutritionists agree that increasing your heart rate via exercise at least five times weekly is one of the best ways to prevent serious chronic diseases. Along with an exercise routine, it is crucial to have the adequate nutrients to support your body throughout the process. Each time you exercise, your body will have some muscle breakdown which requires fuel to rebuild.

Any workout routine requires ample amount of dedication and sacrifice to see positive results. Many people fuss that in spite of their four months of effort, they have seen absolutely no change and wonder where they went wrong. 

Each individual is unique. While some can lose weight quite quickly, others won’t see the same results with a similar routine and diet plan. Even if you can lift over 250 pounds or run miles upon miles effortlessly, you will not necessarily get shredded. 

Every ineffective workout can be a result of multiple reasons. Keeping a good check on those factors can get you back on track and allow you to see the results you’ve been desiring. 

Keep reading for the six reasons why your workout might not be working out.

Despite exercising regularly and eating healthy foods, many of us experience difficulty in losing weight.

The reason for reaching this plateau, most of the time, is the slowing down of metabolism. When you have had the same workout regimen for a while, your body gets used to it, and despite working out and eating healthy, you start gaining weight or find it hard to lose any more weight.

Oat flour is something I use very often in my recipes.

It’s one of my favorite ways to adapt a conventional recipe to a gluten-free version by substituting oat flour for the wheat version. 

If you haven’t tried oat flour yet, keep reading for some ways you can easily swap it in your recipes at home (and why you should!).

As May turns into June and the temperature steadily increases, we start finding any reason to get outside and get moving. 

After spending the long, cold winter cooped up indoors (where we may have packed on those few extra pounds we like to call winter weight), the arrival of shorts, tank tops and bathing suits has managed to sneak up on us and is inspiring us all to knock off those pounds. 

I know I can speak for myself, and I am sure for a few of you, when I say that I am sick of looking at that wall in front of my treadmill and exercise bike and I now want to take my exercise outside!

There are many added benefits to an outdoor workout to include production of vitamin D3 when the sunlight hits one’s skin, which is important to bone health and metabolic function, decreased depression, anger, and tension due to enjoying ones workout outside and saving money on those monthly gym memberships. 

On the other hand, it is important to remember that exercising in the heat can be dangerous if you’re not prepared. Here are some tips to remember to ensure a safe workout when exercising outside this summer...

We all live busy lives and ailments come and go.

Nobody feels perfect all of the time.

My husband and I are always busy. We enjoy cooking, but we have so many projects going that sometimes it's tough to prepare a healthy meal in a hurry. 

Both of us have daytime careers. We also have after-hours activities; I dance and sew while he writes. 

Fortunately, we only have dogs to depend on us when we're not meeting deadlines. Over the years, we've eaten many ready-made meals from Trader Joe's and freezer pizzas. But, we haven't owned a microwave since 2005, which drastically cuts back on our convenience food options.

With my health scare at the beginning of the year, it was time to make some dietary changes… fewer preservatives, less processed food, even more produce. But, we're busy people and it is hard as hell to cook every meal from scratch without losing valuable production time. 

I know many of you feel me on this one. How the devil can we eat healthy when it takes so long to make meals?

Here are the four solutions in our household.

Finding a good aesthetic plastic surgeon can be a daunting challenge for many patients. 

Thankfully, there are some relatively easy first steps that can be done to narrow the field down. 

There are many excellent surgeons, and most patients will end up visiting with a few surgeons that they like and trust. The following information represents a guideline to make your search easier, and is essentially the process by which I would personally find a plastic surgeon.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to get through this thing called life." 

Music shapes our lives. 

Almost everyone has a favorite song, or a song that brings you back to a memorable time in your life. 

There might be a handful of songs you’ll never forget the lyrics to, no matter how long it’s been since you heard them. 

You may have a favorite soundtrack (I have many) or immediately think of a movie when you hear a certain tune. For me, the movie Pretty Woman always comes to mind when I hear Prince’s song, Kiss… you know, that scene where Julia Roberts is in the big bathtub, headphones on, oblivious to Richard Gere watching her rock out in the bubbles. 

There are also iconic artists. 

We lost David Bowie earlier this year, Merle Haggard, Phife Dawg, Joey Feek, Maurice White, Glenn Frey, just to name a few.

Yesterday, we lost another.

It’s a fact. Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. (43.8 million, or 18.5%) experiences mental illness in a given year, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health.

We also know how exercise is one of the best drug-free ways to improve mental health and wellbeing, and not just in the short term. Research has shown that exercise can alleviate depression for the long run as well.

But, just why is exercise so beneficial for alleviating depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses? What is it about exercise that makes it such an effective all natural anti-depressant?

The answer lies within us.