I've learned a lot about becoming more healthy and losing weight this week. Some new information has come from friends, while some other info has come from books. That's right, I'm reading non-fiction. Don't tell your friends. Here's some of what I've learned.

Lifting weights is a huge benefit to weight loss. People think of losing weight and they think of cardio, aerobics and jogging, but lifting will help you lose weight. A pound of muscle is not only half the size of a pound of fat, but just having that muscle helps you to burn fat without doing anything.

I laugh when I see infomercials for an abdominal exercises, too. They all "target" your midsection to eliminate that stubborn fat that just won't go away. The funny thing is, you CAN'T target fat. When you burn fat by running, do have chicken legs and a Kool-Aid Man torso? No, because you can't target where to burn fat by working out that area. Now you know, those are all scams.

This one was tough to believe but makes sense to me now. Dietary fat in no way leads to body fat. For years people have been using low fat diets to try to lose weight, but they don't work. In fact, high fat diets like a Mediterranean diet are far healthier than traditional American low fat diets. Eating fats from nuts, flax seeds and fish will speed up your metabolism and help you lose weight.

This explains why delicious yet clearly bad for you foods like "Red Vines" can boast that they are fat free.

Trans fats are REALLY bad for you. They never occur in nature and are the best way to slow your metabolism and pack the weight on. You should never eat trans fats; they're worse for you than starchy carbs or sugars.

So these are some of things I'm going to try to implement: lifting weights in addition to cardio exercise, increase in dark fresh vegetables, whole grain breads instead of white, flax seeds and nuts every day and never eating trans fats.

Any thoughts? Any success with any of the ideas previously discussed here? Let me know at jackhoops@gmail.com.