Sleeping In Tomorrow Could Save Your Life

Think shorting yourself on sleep has no effect on your health? Think again!

Those of us in North America set our clocks back Sunday night, and more than 1.5 billion people worldwide live in countries that use daylight saving time. As a result, many of us enjoyed an extra hour of sleep. For a few of us, that might have saved our lives.

Time for Some Calorie-Free Halloween Fun!

Happy Halloween! (We're having some fun around the dailySpark office today, as you can tell from our photo!) By now you're probably up to your eyebrows in candy and chocolate. Looking for some calorie-free fun? Try this game from kidshealth.org. It's meant for children, but I had a blast feeding the pumpkin too much candy!
It's almost like you're eating by proxy!
Halloween Candy Game
Did you play? What did you think?

Read on to find a comparison of all your favorite Halloween candy!

Long John Silver's Debuts Healthier Menu

Long John Silver's, a fast food restaurant known for seafood that's batter dipped and deep fried, has debuted a healthier menu.

The company's new Freshside Grille Menu is significantly lower in calories and fat than its standard menu, some highlights of which are Crumblies (bits of deep fried batter that weighs in with 170 calories and 13 g fat) and buttered lobster bites (250 calories and 9 g fat).

All items on the Freshside Grille menu have 10 grams of fat or fewer, with zero trans fats.

10 Lessons on Being a Girlfriend to Someone Going Through Cancer

Girlfriendology founder Debba Haupert made her debut as a guest blogger on the dailySpark last month, when she wrote about the importance of forging friendships, in honor of National Women’s Friendship Day! Now that girlfriend guru is back, with plenty of good advice culled from interviews and chats with her own girlfriends.

You probably know a woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. There are 2 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S. alone. It is the most common cancer in women in the U.S. and, until a cure is found, the survivors and all their friends will continue to deal with the challenges, fear, sadness and grief that this evil disease can bring.

What cancer also brings is often a confusion or hesitation in how to be a friend to a girlfriend dealing with it. We’re scared for our friend, many of us fear our own mortality, and many of us just don’t know what to say. So, we do two things:

• We talk about it--and hope we don’t say the wrong thing.
  
• We don’t talk about it--and risk losing our friendships out of fear or uncertainty.

Is it a Cold or Just Allergies? How Do You Know the Difference?

Yesterday, my co-worker woke up with a full-on case of the sniffles. Red eyes, a runny nose, and a sore throat plagued her all day. Today my throat is scratchy and my head hurts.
She says hers is allergies. I'm worried mine is a cold.
This time a year, how are you supposed to tell?
Easy! I did a bit of research on the Internet, consulted some people in the know, and voilà!

Surviving Halloween, One Tip at a Time

A holiday that revolves around hoarding candy and eating as much of it as possible? Sounds like a healthy eater's worst nightmare.

Halloween needn't be a scary time--even with all that candy lying around the house.

One of our favorite blogs, FitSugar, has a Halloween survival guide. Her best advice: Give out candy you don't like. Then you won't eat it!

Updated: 'DWTS' Men: Lose Weight, Ladies!

UPDATE: The men are defending themselves and said their comments have been taken out of context. Read on to find links to their explanations!

We recently debated the hypocrisy in the media when it comes to a star's weight. Cheryl Burke's recent weight gain made the two-time Dancing with the Stars champion a tabloid favorite. Now a fellow female dancer, Lacey Schwimmer, is also coming under fire for having gained a few pounds over her summer break.

The source of the latest criticism of both ladies' figures: their male counterparts on DWTS.

NEW: Subscribe to the dailySpark

Getting your daily dose of healthy lifestyle news just got easier. The dailySpark is excited to announce email subscriptions. Now you can be among the first to know about contests, new posts and product reviews on the dailySpark. By signing up to receive email notifications from the dailySpark, you'll never miss a motivating story by Coach Dean, one of Stepfanie's product reviews or Coach Nicole's fitness tips.
Great news, isn't it?

Save the Pumpkins! Eat Them, Don't Just Carve Them!

Most people, it seems, have forgotten that pumpkins are edible. This time of year, those gorgeous orange orbs are in season, which most people have interpreted to mean that it's time to decorate with them. While I'm a big fan of keeping healthy food on display--I keep platters of tomatoes, vases full of fresh-cut herbs, and bowls of brightly colored fruit on the counter in lieu of flowers--the pumpkins in yards and on porches are too often left abandoned to rot away as November arrives.

Therefore I'm starting a campaign to SAVE THE PUMPKINS!

SparkPeople Wins Best Health Website--Again!

I must admit that life around the SparkPeople/dailySpark offices is usually pretty good. But life just got better: We recently heard some great news here at the dailySpark!

For the third straight year, the readers of BusinessWeek.com have chosen SparkPeople.com as the "Best of the Web" in the Health category--ahead of popular sites like WebMD, Yahoo! Health and others. (Check out the groovy sign we have hanging outside our office!)

Be Flexible during World Vegetarian Month

October is Vegetarian Awareness Month.

Have you ever thought about giving up meat? If you're not interested in going vegetarian, have you ever considered flexitarianism?

While about 3 percent of American adults are vegetarian, about 10 percent are mostly vegetarian (occasionally indulging in poultry or fish).

One in four Americans follows a "flexitarian" diet, according to the American Dietetic Association, meaning they eat meatless meals at least four days a week.

What Healthy Food Do You Want to Learn to Like?

I pride myself on being an adventurous eater. During my travels (in my omnivorous days), I ate some pretty wacky foods: still squirming raw squid, sea squirts, pigs' feet, squid ink bread, horse sausage (I didn't know what it was until it was too late), quail eggs, foie gras, pheasant, goat, sweetbreads… you name it, I've tried it. I try to give every food a fair shot, and I'll eat anything once.

There are very few foods I don't like. There are foods I can't eat (peanuts and cashews) because of allergies, and there are foods I won't eat (overly processed foods and sugar substitutes) because of personal taste.

Even if I've decided that I don't like a food, I'll still eat it if it's served to me (especially if I'm traveling in a country where it's impolite to refuse food). I think I've found one exception to that rule.

Quick Tip: Brown Rice is Better (and Not That Hard to Cook)

It's a staple in cuisines around the world, from Chinese to Japanese, Indian to Thai, even Italian, African and Caribbean. It comes in an array of colors and all different lengths and shapes. It's found in dishes sweet and savory.
Rice, it seems, is a pretty versatile food. So why are you still eating run-of-the-mill white rice (with butter, no less)?

Step away from the boil-in-bag, and say no to the white rice. (Whose bright idea was it to create rice that doesn't clump together? Have you ever tried to eat it? It's mushy and hard to keep on your fork!) There's better rice out there.

Brown rice.

Celebrate Love Your Body Day!

When you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, what's your reaction? Do you pick apart your flaws? Critique the face smiling back at you? Avoid the mirror altogether?

Starting today, look into the mirror and find one part of your body that you like. Whether it's the curve of your hip, your pearly whites, or big brown eyes, take a look at that body part and remember that you're beautiful, no matter what the scale says, no matter how you feel on the outside, and no matter how much other people try to tear you down. (And don't even think about a disclaimer after that compliment.)

Today is the National Organization for Women Foundation's Love Your Body Day, and it's as good a time as any to start loving yourself. If you didn't love yourself, you wouldn't be embarking on this journey to good health.

Are We Hypocrites When it Comes to a Star's Weight?

I’m so glad I’m not a celebrity. I criticize my own body more than I probably should. I can't imagine how I'd feel if the rest of the world were doing the same.

Cheryl Burke, the two-time champion from ABC's Dancing with the Stars has gained weight. She admits that, after having the summer off for the first time in years, she relaxed, indulged and added a bit of weight to her size 4 frame.

"Very comfortable" in her own skin, Burke, 24, didn't think much of the extra five pounds on her petite, strong frame. Then the tabloids and bloggers took aim at her. Pregnancy rumors, awful name-calling and other hateful lies spread around the Internet and the tabloids, Burke told ABC's Diane Sawyer on Good Morning, America recently.