Love handles, muffin tops, beer-bellies, overhang, middle-aged-spread … all terms favoured by the media for that unwanted belly fat so many of us seem to have.

A survey recently named excess belly fat as the UK’s biggest body hang-up (or hang-over?). So the most logical way to beat the bulge it is to jump on the Swiss-Ball and crack out 100 sit ups a day, right?

Wrong, according to Gareth Cole, head of education at the Third Space gym in London’s Soho. He says by focusing too hard on the ‘core’ muscles, people neglect other important muscle groups integral for fitness and health.

Another fitness expert, Jean-Claude Vacassin, agrees. He says: “There is a place for sit-ups but not for people who spend a lot of time hunched over a desk. If your lower back is often rounded – spinal flexion – you don’t want to create more flexion. To say it is all about core training is like looking at the world through a straw.”

Millions of people in the UK spend all day shackled to their office desks, often hunched over their screens. This only increases the likelihood of injury when they do finally get a chance to exercise.

Although spending 15 minutes in the morning doing sit ups may seem like a good idea, doing isolated exercises can lead to back problems caused by damaged spinal discs.

Sports rehabilitator Christnoel Buhay believes men are more likely to get obsessed about the abs because they tend to only train the muscles they can see. A man’s typical training session focusses on the chest and biceps, whereas he should be looking to open up his posture by strengthening the lower back instead.

So what exercise should we be doing to fight the flab? Gareth Cole suggests trying something called the ‘Plank Matrix’:

Start in the basic plank position, then roll onto your side and lift each of your legs into the air in turn. This will strengthen the muscles around the spine and improve your posture.

Other recommended exercises include lunges, squats, push-ups and dead-lifts.

So the moral of the story? Vary your workout – try not to focus too much on just one area because this could lead to injury.

Some life coaches specialise in personal training. If you would like to find one, simply type ‘personal training’ into the box on the top right hand side of the homepage, titled ‘search entire site’. 

View and comment on the original London Evening Standard article.

Obesity is at an all time high, good parenting is at an all-time low. Have we ‘squandered’ our chance to create an Olympic legacy of fitness, as sports medicine specialists claim?

One leading sports medicine specialist, Dr Andy Franklyn-Miller, has warned that the government’s failure to give PE the same priority as other subjects has put future generations at risk of obesity and resulting health problems.

Lessons in ‘physical literacy’ would, as Dr Franklyn-Miller claims, improve cardiovascular fitness and co-ordination.

“Let it be competitive and let us test our children against each other and identify those who need support,” he said.

The call for PE tests coincides with a statement made by the Youth Sport Trust, announcing its aim to train thousands of primary school teachers across England in specialist PE skills.

The training scheme, known as ‘Start to Move’, will be funded by private medical firm Bupa and aims to reach all primary schools in England by 2014.

Some, like Christine Blower from the National Union of Teachers, have disagreed with the idea of compulsory PE testing. Blower believes that the ‘testing’ aspect could increase negativity and only cause children to be less willing to participate.

If you are interested in encouraging your children to be more active, you may wish to consult a life coach for advice and guidance. Our sections on Relationships and Health will give you a better understanding of how a life coach can help. 

View and comment on the original BBC article.

Figures show that the sales of GPS trackers is booming as the nations women become more and more paranoid about their husbands having affairs.

Earlier this month a top London oncologist became so paranoid that her husband was having an affair that she hired a detective agency to place a GPS tracking device underneath his car.

Unfortunately, the device had been positioned rather clumsily and its flashing red light rather embarrassingly and inconveniently sparked a bomb scare which saw the whole of Sutton high street being cordoned off.

The husband in question wasn’t having an affair after all, but it seems his paranoid wife is not alone in thinking her husband might have been playing away from home.

According to The Sunday Telegraph, a firm selling tracking devices has seen a huge increase in the sales, mainly to suspicious wives.

The cost of hiring a private detective varies but can cost around £500 for one-man surveillance for a day, with back up from the office doubling the cost.

Just from doing a quick internet search you can see just how many services such as these now exist, most of which operate within the law as obviously bugging your own home or tracking a car on which you are insured is legitimate, as is taking photographs and videos in public areas.

According to FollowUS, a company specialising in DIY trackers, eight in ten callers wishing to buy equipment for personal use are women.  “You would think that we would sell hi-tech equipment mainly to men but in fact 80 per cent sold for personal use are to ladies. We have a couple of calls a day from women and maybe one a week from men,” said a FollowUs spokesperson.

If you are concerned about your partner’s fidelity then ideally your first steps should be to discuss matters through with your partner, or to seek help from a professional such as a couples counsellor or relationship coach. For further information about relationship coaching and how it could help you, please visit our fact-sheet to find out more.

View and comment on the original Telegraph article.

Autumn leaves falling, frost laced trees and snow covered country scenes, it all sounds so very picaresque but for many, the reality of autumn and winter is far less story book. 

We now know for certain from research that the dramatic reduction in sunlight hours during winter can have a serious physical and emotional impact upon the human body.

With the clocks now having gone back, the number of hours during which we are exposed to natural sunlight has been reduced, a change which will have a serious impact on the energy levels of many individuals up and down the country.

With the average worker waking up in darkness and returning home in darkness, it’s no surprise that people are beginning to feel less energetic and are craving more sleep.

During the summer months the body learns to react to certain light cues from the sun, producing active and energetic hormones when the body clock receives the right type of light so that our energy cycles will be regulated. A perfect example of this is waking in the morning. During the summer months the rising sun is a natural cue for us to wake and for the body to begin producing the hormones that are required to help us wake and feel active. During the winter we wake without this natural light signal, without which the body struggles to stimulate the production of the necessary hormones.

The feel good hormone serotonin also takes its cue from natural light, which could be why almost one in five of the UK population have reported feeling unenergetic and low between September and April each year.

Sunlight is key to our happiness so if you are feeling lethargic and low during the colder months of the year then make a conscious effort to get outside into the daylight at least once everyday.

Stepping out of your warm office or cosy home and into sub-zero temperatures may not seem that appealing, but even just 10 minutes worth of sunlight each day could really make a difference to your overall mood.

Individuals who are experiencing symptoms of depression during the winter months may be suffering from a condition know as Seasonal Affective Disorder, a serious and debilitating form of the winter blues which can prevent sufferers from going about their everyday lives as normal.

If you are concerned that you or someone you know may be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, your first port of call should be you GP who will be able to diagnose your condition and refer you for appropriate treatment.

View and comment the original BBC News article.

Today we live in an era of technology and progression. We’re inundated with hundreds of products claiming to improve our lives. But, of all of our incredible inventions, big ideas and medical breakthroughs, we’ve yet to produce anything to reduce the 100% mortality rate.

Dr Sarah Brewer (of the Telegraph) believes that we’re all conditioned to think of death in terms of ‘the big 5′: stroke, heart attack, cancer, respiratory failure and pneumonia. She says: “Once you start travelling, however, you encounter a smorgasbord of new ways to die”.

Here is a selection of Dr Sarah Brewer’s slightly less common ways to die, and how to avoid them:

1. Boredom: Heard of the phrase ‘bored to death’? It’s not to be taken lightly – research shows that civil servants experiencing a large amount of boredom in life are twice as likely to suffer from a heart attack or stroke within the next 25 years, than those who don’t feel bored. So get off Facebook and sign up to something new to prolong your life!

2. Heartbreak: Suffering from unrequited love or a broken heart? Put away the Ben and Jerry’s and stop pining- it could kill you! There really is such a thing as broken heart syndrome, known as ‘takostsubo’ cardiomyopathy after a Japanese octopus-catching pot. It is named after such a contraption because acute emotional stress can cause the tip of the left ventricle (part of the heart) to temporarily dilate, and apparently make it resemble a takostsubo. The abnormal heart rhythms that sometimes occur as a result of a broken heart can often be fatal.

3. Kitchen: Need an excuse not to cook tonight? We have one- you might not make it out alive. 42% of accidents happen inside the home. The kitchen, with heavy objects, hot surfaces and sharp implements, is particularly dangerous. In the UK, half the population experiences a domestic injury every year, with the risk of dying from it currently at 1 in every 1,500.

4. Night-time: It seems that hiding under the covers works- you are 3 times less likely to die at night than you are during the day. Among other reasons, this is due to the diurnal rhythms which influence blood pressure, heart rate and brain activity.

5. Mondays: We often feel like staying in bed on those dark, cold Monday mornings. Well, now we have even more of an excuse to- we are 18% more likely to die on a Monday than we are on a Sunday due to the stress of returning to work.

Until a cure for death is discovered, all we can do is delay the moment for as long as possible. This can be helped by maintaining a healthy, balanced lifestyle- and enjoying ourselves. If you are unhappy or unhealthy, you may wish to consult a life coach who can get you on the road to recovery and improvement. To find out more how a life coach could help you, please visit our Life Coaching Areas section.

To read Dr Sarah Brewer’s full list, please visit the original Telegraph article.

Social networking site Facebook causes 1 in 5 online divorces, according to a recent claim by divorce lawyers.

With a staggering 800 million users logging into Facebook on a regular basis across the globe (equal to the population of the whole world only 250 years ago), you have to wonder what everyone’s really getting up to.

The site allows users to stay in touch with friends, find old ones and search for new ones. According to Mark Keenan, Managing Director of Divorce-Online, some users are getting very friendly indeed, with more and more people using the site to conduct extramarital affairs.

With adultery only a click away, having an inappropriate sexual chat with a stranger can be as easy as ordering a book from Amazon.

20% of online divorce petitions have cited unreasonable behaviour on Facebook as a cause for divorce. This disconcertingly high percentage could only be the tip of the iceberg, with many more illicit cyber relationships continuing unchecked.

Computer firms have cashed in on the rise in Facebook affairs. Now suspicious spouses can keep track of their partner’s Facebook habits by buying spy software to record all of their online activities.

One DIY detective, a 35-year-old conference organiser called Emma, only realised her husband was divorcing her when he updated his status to: ‘Neil Brady has ended is marriage to Emma Brady’.

Another woman, 28-year-old Amy, split from her partner David after discovering that he was ‘sleeping with’ an escort in the virtual life game ‘Second Life’.

Mr Keenan has predicted a soar in divorce rates over the next few years, with a combination of stress from the recession, and the easy accessibility of potential partners on Facebook.

If you or your partner is having an affair, you may wish to consult a life coach to discuss your next steps. To find a life coach working near you, please visit our homepage and use the search tool. 

View and comment on the original Telegraph article.

Despite the increasing popularity of social networking sites, a recent study has revealed that adults have an average of just 2 close friends.

Cornell University assistant professor Matthew Brashears asked 2,000 adults to name anyone with whom they had discussed something important with within the past six months.

According to the results, almost half of the of those surveyed (48 per cent) listed just one person, 18 per cent named two people, 29 per cent named more than two people and four per cent said they had not shared important details with anyone.

Interestingly, a similar study was conducted 25 years ago, with the results showing then that most adults had an average of three close friends.

These findings may come as a surprise to many, especially those who spend much of their leisure on social networking sites, adding and chatting to ‘friends’ online.

According the Facebook, the average number of friends for each user is 130, which is far more than the average number of real life friends.

Researchers have said that this drop in the number of close friends is not overly concerning and could simply mean that individuals have become more selective about who they trust with very personal information.

View and comment on the original Telegraph article.

According to a recent study that has been published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health, not putting the clocks back each October could help in the fight against rising childhood obesity rate. 

Despite the changing clocks allowing us one extra precious hour in bed, a new study has revealed that the negatives could far outweigh the positives.

According to the research, children are heavily influenced by the daylight weather when they are deciding whether or not to go outside and play.

The research in question investigated the activity levels of 325 children between the ages of eight and 11. All of the children involved in the study were asked to wear accelerometers, a device used to record the amount of exercise they did. They were also asked to keep a diary of their activities.

The results of the study showed that the children engaged in more exercise outside during summer evenings when it remained lighter for longer than they did in the winter.

The researchers involved in the study have said that not changing the clocks would mean more opportunities for children to play outdoors, strengthening the daylight saving bill debate which proposes putting the clocks forward by one extra hour all year round.

Daylight saving was initiated during World War II, when the government decided to move the clocks forward by an hour to increase productivity at munitions factories and to ensure people got home safely before the blackouts.

However, health experts are now arguing that this tradition needs to be changed in order to give children more time to play outside during daylight hours. It has also been argued that the changes would make it safer for them to make their way home from school.

Tam Fry, a spokesperson for the National Obesity Forum, said: “The longer the daylight hours, the longer kids will play. They really don’t seem to care much about the weather but they do care about the dark.

If the changes were to go ahead the UK may adopt Central European Time, with BST plus one hour in summer and GMT plus one during the winter.

View and comment on the original BBC News article.

If you thought the vogue for tight lycra hot pants was safely confined to the 80s along with catsuits, perms and Wham!, you’d be sadly mistaken.

Proskin has recently launched a range of ‘cellulite-busting hot pants’ called ‘Zagorra Hot Pants’, designed to miraculously absorb inches of fat from thighs and bottoms.

The skin-tight garment is ‘impregnated’ with caffeine to make the wearer heat up and sweat. This is supposed to boost circulation, reduce cellulite and help the wearer drop a dress size in 14 days.

With claims like this it’s no wonder they’re shifting at 15,000 pairs a week. Already 40,000 people have ‘liked’ a Facebook page dedicated to Zaggora Hot Pants, with many exclaiming about the fantastic results.

One user wrote: “have lose six lbs! I ride my bike in them, wear them at work, sleep in them and run in them! Just love them so much.”

Of course, there’s no way of telling if the weight loss is down to the wearing of the shorts, or to the fact that people are wearing them while exercising.

The only thing we can be sure of, is that the marketing team at Proskin know what they’re doing. Cosmetic surgery expert Antonia Mariconda describes the campaign as ‘a lot of clever wording’. The sweating out of fluid is bound to contribute to a loss of body mass.

According to London Evening Standard journalist Victoria Stewart, the hot pants are uncomfortable, unsexy and can cause extreme thirst due to the dehydration effects of the caffeine.

If you are hoping to lose weight by changing your lifestyle, you may wish to consult a life coach. Visit our homepage to search for a life coach near you.

View and comment on the original London Evening Standard article.

Leading mental health charity ‘Mind’ advocates the great outdoors as a great way to improve mental health.

Research shows that as the clocks go back in October, beginning a long winter of dark afternoons, our happiness levels drop due to the reduction in sunlight.

According to Mind, our habitual patterns of sleep, appetite, sex drive, temperature, mood and activity rely on natural light cycles, so when light cycles change, so do we.

Many of us feel less inclined to exercise, socialise or get out of bed in general during the winter months, and this can have a drastic impact on our mental wellbeing.

‘Ecotherapy’, otherwise known as being outside, increases our exposure to sunlight and therefore can have a positive impact on our moods. Some research shows that physical exercise can be as equally effective as anti-depressants in treating mild to moderate depression and anxiety.

Mind’s ‘ecotherapy’ campaign is being supported by the Holly Willoughby of the vegetable patch, Gardener’s World’s Rachel de Thame.

Rachel has said: “At this time of year it is vital that we all take advantage of the therapeutic effects of the great outdoors and look after our own mental wellbeing. As winter approaches, I will definitely be out rain or shine and hope you too will give it a go.”

Exercise has many benefits, from releasing feel-good hormones, to increasing energy levels, to improving physical fitness- thus probably improving self-confidence.

Mind has organised group activities known as Ecominds projects, where people can meet up and get involved in the great outdoors. The schemes are funded by £7.5 million worth of Big Lottery money, and provides 130 outdoor exercise projects across England. The projects are designed to improve the confidence and self esteem of those suffering from mental health problems, and involve activities like walking, farming and gardening.

If you would like to read and comment on the full article, or find out more about Mind’s campaign, please visit the Mind website.