Nutrition Corner

4 low-carb recipes you'll love: Low carb is hard to avoid at Thanksgiving but these four low-carb and keto-friendly dishes are delicious alternatives.

How Do Smartwatches Calculate Calories? Discover how smartwatches accurately calculate calories and track your fitness progress.

Recipe for The Day

Gozleme (Turkish Flatbread Recipe): Gozleme, a Turkish flatbread, is one of the most popular Turkish street foods. Learn how to make it with our vegetarian gozleme recipe.

Lifestyle & Fitness Focus

Need Motivation? 4 Unexpected Benefits for Your Happiness

• Exercising outdoors has a effect on your brain similar to meditation: Exercising outdoors has an immediate effect on mood that is extremely powerful for depression and anxiety. Because it induces a state in your brain that is very similar to meditation, the state of open awareness.

• Exercise can help boost your confidence: Exercise helps boost your confidence because when you workout, you're doing something challenging along with other people (ideally) which gives you a sense of shared accomplishment and teamwork.

• Exercise helps reduce anxiety and depression: When you exercise, it increases endorphins, dopamine, adrenaline and endocannabinoid -- these are all brain chemicals associated with feeling happy, feeling confident, feeling capable, feeling less anxiety and stress and even less physical pain.

• Movement helps you bond with others: Movement itself primes you to connect with others. That's just the brain chemistry of it. When you get your heart rate up, when you use your body, when you engage your muscles, it changes your brain chemistry in a way that makes it easier to connect with others and bond, trust other people.

Apple Cider Vinegar Benefits: 5 Ways It Can Help You

• Can Help Kill Germs: All types of vinegar contain acetic acid, a byproduct of fermentation. Acetic acid gives apple cider vinegar its strong, sour aroma and flavor. Acetic acid also has antifungal and antibacterial properties, making apple cider vinegar a natural disinfectant.

• May Help Improve Varicose Veins Symptoms: Researchers of a study published in 2016 studied the effects of applying apple cider vinegar topically on varicose veins. In addition to a regular treatment plan, people who applied apple cider vinegar to varicose veins on their legs saw reductions in the following: Pain, Cramps, Swelling, Itching, Anxiety, and the veins' appearance.

• Might Improve Heart Health: Research has found that drinking 1 ounce of apple cider vinegar daily may reduce triglycerides and total cholesterol and raise HDL cholesterol. And in people with obesity or type 2 diabetes, even a half ounce of apple cider vinegar daily may lower triglycerides and total cholesterol.

• Helps Manage Type 2 Diabetes: Some evidence suggests that apple cider vinegar helps manage type 2 diabetes. This includes findings from a 2019 study that showed positive effects of apple cider vinegar on some diabetes measurements. The people who had apple cider vinegar with their water saw significant reductions in fasting blood sugar and hemoglobin A1C.

• May Help With Weight Management: Consuming apple cider vinegar may help with managing weight. For a small 2018 study, 39 people cut out 250 calories from their daily diet for 12 weeks. The people who consumed apple cider vinegar significantly reduced the following: Body weight, Body mass index, Hip measurements, Visceral fat (deep, internal belly fat), and Appetite.

4 Benefits of Meditating in the Morning

• Starting the day off right: Morning meditation lays a foundation of calmness and balance for the day ahead. It helps in centering the mind, managing stress, and enhancing overall emotional well-being.

• Managing extra-stressful days: Morning meditation may help you manage feelings of worry, anticipation, and anxiety on particularly stressful days.

• Morning peace and quiet: Early mornings give an opportunity to have time alone, while everyone else continues to sleep. This time can be for you, and you alone. And that’s something that’s pretty rare to experience, in a world that’s ever more connected by technology.

• Easy opportunity to practice meditation: One of the great things about meditation is that you don’t have to set a significant period of time aside for it, especially when you’re just starting out.

The 4 Best Calf Exercises for Lower Body Support and Power

• Donkey Calf Raise: To develop the calves, you need exercises that provide a stretch — achieved with a longer range of motion (ROM) — and the ability to add lots of weight. The donkey calf raise fits the bill.

• Seated Calf Raise: The soleus muscle makes up one half of the calf, and it sits under the Gastrocnemius, which is the round, visible calf muscle. Although the gastrocnemius looks impressive, the soleus is what creates calf thickness and girth.

• Single-Leg Calf Raise: The single-leg calf raise is a tried-and-true basic exercise for recruiting more lower leg muscle. The main benefit of this move is that you’re able to focus on one leg at a time, helping you even out on any muscular imbalances that may be developed over time.

• Sled Drag: Many calf raise variations have you isolating the calf muscles to build and strengthen them. However, this sled drag variation trains the calves in unison with your quads, hamstring. This is a functional way to train your calves as you force them to work in a way that mimics more realistically the movements you engage in daily.

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