Researchers at Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Baton Rouge , Louisiana , reported findings from a study involving 464 women who weren’t exercisers. After six months, a group who walked an average of 72 minutes a week at two to three mph that’s about 10 minutes of mall-pace striding a day had significantly improved heart strength and general fitness, nearly matching the efforts of women exercising almost twice as long.

“Your body responds very positively, very quickly to even small amounts of exercise,” says lead study author Tim Church, MD, PhD. “If you’re sedentary, you’ll see a lot of your greatest gains going from zero to 10 minutes a day.”

More exercise is definitely better, but based on Church’s findings and the studies below, there’s evidence you can take your time easing into those longer workouts.

Why 10 Minutes is Better Than None

Build Muscle
A seven-week study of 22 couch potatoes found that those who did just one set of 10 repetitions of seven strength-training moves (about 10 minutes of lifting) three days a week gained as much strength as those who did a 30-minute, three-set routine.

Boost your mood
In a recent study of 48 men and women, spinning on a bike for 10 minutes led to a mood lift and drop in depression and fatigue similar to what they’d get riding three times as long.

Protect your joints
After tracking nearly 4,000 women in their 70s for three years, researchers found that those who reported of having arthritis pain needed only 75 minutes a week of moderate exercise like brisk walking to reduce the frequency of symptoms by nearly 30 percent.

Manage your weight
Both Church’s study and a larger study of 13,711 men and women reveal that just 70 to 75 minutes of brisk walking or about 40 minutes of jogging a week is enough to begin shrinking your waistline. And targeting the waist is important because belly fat is directly tied to heart disease, diabetes, and early death.

Quell stress
“We’ve seen significant changes in the autonomic nervous system fewer incidences of the fight-or-flight stress reflex being triggered with even 70 to 75 minutes a week of exercise,” says Church. “A little exercise can do much more than people think, so there’s no excuse for not getting up and just doing something.”

Tomato-y Treats That Are Truly Tops

Whether it’s revving up our veggie burgers or toning down our barbecue sauces, ketchup is one condiment few people could live without.

So squeeze more out of it by going organic. Organic ketchup packs three times more lycopene than the regular stuff and almost twice the level of flavonoids. Here’s what all that extra nutrition means for your body. Lycopene gives fruits (like tomatoes!) and veggies a rich red color, and it may give your body a leg up on loads of diseases — from cancer to clogged arteries.

Here are a few more tricks for getting more lycopene from your tomatoes with less effort:

1. Slice, dice, or puree them. Processing tomatoes helps unleash the lycopene.

2. Eat them with a bit of fat. Lycopene must latch on to fat (so you might as well make it healthy, like olive oil) to be absorbed by the intestinal wall.

3. Heat ’em up. Heat converts the lycopene in red tomatoes into a form that’s easier for your body to absorb.

And what about that superfood synergy we were talking about creating…

Well, here is an easy way to boost the power of another favorite tomato-y food: salsa. Just because good things are in your salsa doesn’t mean you’re getting all the good out of it. If you toss some avocado chunks into the spicy red stuff, you’ll absorb 400 percent more lycopene from the tomatoes.

Water is the true elixir of life on planet Earth. But it is far more popular for water sports than for its natural purpose—hydrating your body to maintain life.

I have often heard complaints in response to my counselling to drink more water. The most common are “I don’t like the taste of water” and “I can’t drink that much water.” As much as I like to be gentle in my counselling, I have to emphasize that water is essential, not only to life but also to the success of any nutritional program. So…get over it!

The fact is only water is water. That’s been proven by peer-reviewed scientific studies.

Before we proceed any further, let’s look at a few basic facts about this wonderful, wet substance:

• Muscle is 74.8% water (on average). That’s why muscle is approximately three times heavier per inch than fat.
• A person’s total body weight is typically about 59% water weight.
• On average, a person’s fat weight is approximately 21.2% water weight.
• Blood (which is mostly water) makes up about 8% of the average person’s body weight.

What we have learned

Imagine that a food-deprived, water-deprived rat comes upon a tube full of liquid. At first it does not know what is in the tube. How will it know how much to drink? Until it tastes the liquid, it will not know.
If the liquid is plain water, the rat will drink a certain amount based on how long it has been deprived of water. If the liquid is sugar water, the rat’s intake depends on its need for food, not its need for water. If the liquid contains saccharin, again the rat’s intake depends on its need for food. The rat treats the solution as food, even though it is not.

Taste tells the rat whether to use its thirst system or hunger system. If the rat were also salt-deficient, salty-tasting liquid could trigger yet another mechanism.

The similarities between rats and other mammals (including people) concerning hydration and satiety (satisfaction) are very alike. The only difference is that we humans add our likes and dislikes in terms of taste, while most other animals are very happy drinking water.

Your satiety receptors will tell you if it is water or liquid food. If the brain detects water, it uses the liquid for what water was intended for—hydration of cells and tissue. If it detects liquid food, you will only derive a partial hydration benefit because only the mechanisms for food digestion are set in motion. This means ice tea, soda pop, coffee, etc. register as liquid food by the brain—not as water.

“How much do I have to drink?”

How much water should you drink? That’s a big question since we are all genetically and biochemically unique. However, we do have some good general guidelines: Twenty-four hours per day you lose water. You lose water with every breath you exhale because there is moisture in it. You lose water all day through the pores of your skin even when you don’t know you are perspiring, and even if you are absolutely still. Of course, you also lose water when you urinate, and even solid waste contains water.

The point is you must have water not only to live, but, if you become dehydrated, to feel well again. Headaches, fatigue, weakness, etc. may result from inadequate hydration. If you do nothing strenuous, you need at least 48 ounces of water daily to stay hydrated. The more you push your system, the more water you need.

Also, the more excess body fat you have, the more water you must drink since fat lowers your hydration efficiency. People trying to lose weight should avoid scales since water is heavy and clouds your measurement of true fat loss. If you want to lose weight, a general rule is to drink half your body weight in ounces. Example: 200 lbs. require 100 ounces of water daily (for tough weight-loss cases, not minimum hydration).

Remember: Only water is water, and water is essential to your health and wellbeing.

Steve Nugent, NMD, PhD