My favorite holiday ritual: On Christmas morning, we always make breakfast and everyone eats before we open any presents. I makemuffins and homemade applesauce, which I don’t think anyone likes
as much as I do … I just love the way it makes the house smell!

When I need an energy boost, nothing beats … an apple with peanut butter. Has to be natural peanut butter, though … I just can’t do that peanut butter with all the extra sugar.

When I hit an exercise rut, I … call a friend to meet me for a walk. It always helps to make exercising a social opportunity!

The thing that surprises me about myself: I’m not as good at multitasking as I think I used to be, and I’m starting to sound like such an oldlady (“Turn that music down,” “Ow, my back”)!

My favorite natural beauty trick: Drink lots of water!
And sleep ….wish I had time to get more of that, but at least drink water. Oh, and sunscreen—is that natural?

The secret to a happy marriage is … separate bathrooms—and closets.

My best advice for juggling work and family is … separate bathrooms—andclosets!

My happy-life mantra: Make time for friends and family. Giggle, eat good food.

Doug and I would never … use Cool Whip instead of real whipped cream.

Next page: I refuse to feel guilty about…

Ericka McConnell

The doc-patient relationship can be weird. Your doctor sees you at your most vulnerable (two words: paper gown) and is privy to your most intimate info (the number of sexual partners you’ve had, the precise location of that suspicious mole).

But while you’re an open book, your doc isn’t—and that’s a big mistake. You’re left wondering what he’s thinking when he raises an eyebrow or murmurs a cryptic “hmmm.” Well, wonder no more. We asked top docs to spill the beans on how you can get the best possible care.

Don’t think you’ve got every ailment out there
“A patient will say to me, ‘I saw that pill for toenail fungus—I want that pill.’ And I’ll say, ‘But you don’t have toenail fungus.’ Then they say, ‘My toenails look just like the toenails in the picture!’ Medicine is not like buying a new shirt because the new color is Concord purple and you want to have a purple shirt, too. I tell people, ‘Be glad you don’t have toenail fungus!’” —Zoe Diana Draelos, MD, president of Dermatology Consulting Services in High Point, North Carolina

Just spill it
“Every doctor has those ‘By the way, doc’ patients. They’re the ones who, when I’m getting ready to leave the room, say something like, ‘By the way, doc, I’ve been having burning when I’m urinating.’ It’s an important issue, but they wait until I’m on my way out to mention it. Tell me something like that right away.” —Raul J. Seballos, MD, vice chairman of preventive medicine at the Cleveland Clinic

Forget what you saw on TV
“I hear a lot of, ‘I want this test. I saw it on TV. ’ You should get the test you need, but it may not be what you saw on television. Just because a TV personality and her best friend had CT scans of the heart doesn’t mean you need one.” —Nieca Goldberg, MD, medical director of the Women’s Heart Center at the New York University Langone Medical Center and author of Dr. Nieca Goldberg’s Complete Guide to Women’s Health

Don’t worry about your hairy legs
“I don’t care if you haven’t shaved, OK? Please do not apologize for the state of your toenails, your legs, or anything else. I am so not looking.” —Katharine O’Connell White, MD, MPH, OB-GYN at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts

Next: Be honest about exercise

Istockphoto

You know those women who always order the burger and never gain a pound? It’s not all DNA: They have a few smart secret weapons on their side. Time to steal them!

Cute, comfy shoes

We’re not talking workout shoes, but everyday shoes that are stylish enough to actually wear to work or out—and so darn cushiony you almost long to take the stairs. We like the Cole Haan Air Miranda Pump and Kenneth Cole New York Silver Trophy sling-backs.

A friend who is hard-core about fitness

If you hang out with a fitness buff—whether she’s a gym diehard, Pilates instructor, or league-joiner—the latest get-fit secrets are automatically on your radar. Plus, research shows that we mimic the exercise and nutrition choices of our close friends, so her active lifestyle is sure to rub off on you.

Great knife skills

It’s a fact: We eat healthier when we cook at home. And women who know how to slice, dice, and chop are more motivated to use those skills to whip up healthy, vegetable-filled meals like stir-fries and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink salads. You don’t need a designer set of cutlery, either. Many professional kitchens use sturdy, inexpensive Dexter-Russell or Forschner knives, and you can do most veggie prep work with just three blades: an 8-inch chef’s knife, a paring knife, and a bird’s-beak peeler. Need to bone up on your skills? Try a class at Sur La Table or Whole Foods.

A local “skinny” restaurant

Women who keep the pounds away know how to eat out without doing in their waistlines. They cultivate go-to joints that grill fresh ingredients and never give attitude when they ask them to hold the butter or put the sauce on the side. Don’t have a mom-and-pop spot that is as light as you’d like? Try Chipotle or Panera Bread, both in the top 10 of Health’s America’s Healthiest Fast Food Restaurants.

The perfect pair of jeans

Slim types don’t switch to fat-day clothes as soon as they gain a pound or two. They keep themselves honest by staying in their fitted denim. They know the power of a pair of jeans so flattering that you never want to grow out of them—and just tight enough to make you think twice about grabbing a last slice of pizza. Don’t have a pair like that yet? Then, try one of these: The Club by Adriano Goldschmied, Zoe by Lucky Brand, and Tab Watch Pocket by Riders by Lee.

 
Related Links:

Stuart Pettican

Grammy-winning singer and actress Alanis Morissette struggled with eating disorders in her teens and 20s. But then she discovered how good it felt to treat her body right—and this fall she ran a marathon to prove it. Here, Morissette, 35, opens up about her long, winding road to becoming healthy.

Crossing the finish line of my first major road race, the Bizz Johnson Marathon in Susanville, California, was incredibly empowering. It really drove home that my body is an instrument, not an ornament, and that food really can be delicious fuel. I was running to raise awareness for the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), a cause that couldn’t be closer to my heart.

As a teen, I was both anorexic and bulimic. I was a young woman in the public eye, on the receiving end of a lot of attention, and I was trying to protect myself from men who were using their power in ways I was too young to know how to handle.

Disappointment, sadness, and pain hit me hard, and I tried to numb those feelings through my relationship with food. For four to six months at a time, I would barely eat. I lived on a diet of Melba toast, carrots, and black coffee.

I began recovering at 18, when a sweet friend confronted me. A very wise and experienced therapist really helped, too. And as I started getting into women’s issues, suddenly I didn’t feel alone in these quandaries about food and my body. Still, eating issues dogged me through my 20s. I wasn’t as focused on the number on the scale, but I was a workaholic, pulling 24 hour days, so I ate breads and salty processed foods. Despite my career success, I wasn’t my healthiest me. Yet.

Next: My “aha moment”

Ericka McConnell

“Doctors have favorites, and they’re lying if they say they don’t,” says Katharine O’Connell White, MD, MPH, an OB-GYN at Baystate Medical Center, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Here, docs reveal how to score some major points.

Send a note
If your doctor has gone above and beyond for you, send a thank-you card or e-mail; doctors treasure them. “Every doctor I know has a box of notes from patients,” Dr. White says. “On the days doctors are feeling really bad and overwhelmed, they pull out those letters to remind them that they do make a difference.”

Take their advice seriously
Put some real effort into following your doctor’s suggestions for getting healthier. “A lot of things I ask patients to do are really hard: quitting smoking, exercising, losing weight,” says Sharonne N. Hayes, MD, director of the Women’s Heart Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “You’ve got me at ‘Hello’ if you walk in 20 pounds lighter and say, ‘I’ve been exercising 30 minutes a day, and I quit smoking.’ If you add, ‘You helped me do it,’ boy, that lifts me. It gives me that extra encouragement to work harder with the next patient who maybe hasn’t heard the message.”

Be friendly
Sure, you need to discuss your symptoms, but doctors really appreciate it when they can relate to patients on a more personal level. Suzanne Trupin, MD, clinical professor of OB-GYN at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says some of her favorite patients are “my fellow knitters who bring in their current projects and show me what they’re working on. Or my patient who buys books at tag sales and leaves me one to read every time she comes in.”

Spread the word
Love your doc? Refer your friends and family to him or her. “A referral is the best compliment to a doctor,” says Raul J. Seballos, MD, vice chairman of preventive medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. Adds Marta I. Rendon, MD, medical director and founder of the Dermatology and Aesthetic Center in Boca Raton, Florida: “My favorite patients are my ambassadors. When they refer a friend, and that person comes in and says, ‘Oh, my friend so-and-so just loves you,’ that wins me over.”

 
Related Links:

• Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving are more likely to have chowed down on venison than to have gorged themselves on turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. So how did these foods become the Thanksgiving staples we can’t wait to sink our teeth into? [MentalFloss]

• If you’re saving up for a big Thanksgiving splurge, you might be looking for healthy ways to cut corners right now. Try lightening up your lunch with these seven steps to a healthier sandwich. [FitSugar]

• When you come down with the sniffles or a sore throat, how do you know if it’s a cold, the flu, or something else? For now, check out our sympt-o-meter, but soon you might be able to use your cell. Scientists are developing mobile-device software that diagnoses respiratory illnesses when you cough into the phone. [Telegraph]

• Yoga is one of our favorite ways to stretch and strengthen our muscles while we relax and de-stress. It’s a personal practice, not a contest against others. Or at least it didn’t used to be. Competitive yoga is apparently catching on; there was even a recent New York Regional Yoga Championship. [New York Times]

• We were surprised to find out today is World Toilet Day, and a little confused as to what such a day entails. But at least it promotes a good cause: raising awareness for the 2.5 billion people living without suitable sanitation worldwide. In honor of the day, here’s a brief history of the porcelain throne.  [Time]

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Robert Ascroft

You’d expect a TV icon to live in a fabulous home in Malibu, California. You may not expect her to greet you in the driveway wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and bare feet. But Valerie Bertinelli is not your typical TV icon.

Since the 49-year-old actress first appeared on One Day at a Time beside co-star “sister” Mackenzie Phillips, she’s been through the gamut of Hollywood headlines: After a more-than-20-year marriage to rocker Eddie Van Halen (they had one son, Wolfgang), she went through a public divorce.

In 2007 after reaching 172 pounds, Valerie became a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig and lost 50 pounds; she now stays around 128 pounds.

She’s since written two books: 2008’s Losing It was a number-one New York Times best-seller, and the follow-up, Finding It, just debuted in October.

Valerie—who looks as amazing in person as she does in pictures—lives with her boyfriend of five years, investment-fund manager Tom Vitale, her son “Wolfie,” 18, and Tom’s 19-year-old son, Tony. Sitting on her patio overlooking the Pacific, Valerie fields all your questions—about her weight, divorce, and happy, new life.

Next: Deciding to losing weight

• Whether you’re cooking your first turkey or bringing a special someone home for the first time, the holidays can be quite anxiety inducing. All the attention to food doesn’t help either. Here, how family holidays fuel body-image anxiety. [Huffington Post]

• Michael Wardian is a decorated runner. He’s won the JFK 50-miler, the Washington, D.C., marathon, and is the world’s fastest treadmill marathon runner. Now he’s training to break another record he currently holds, with the help of his 11-month-old son, Grant: world’s fastest marathon with a stroller. [That’s Fit]

• Department store Santas are uniting—not to divvy up fake beards and plush costumes—but to lobby for priority for the swine flu vaccine. They’re not just worried about the sneezy kids who will sit on their laps, but about the added risk for catching H1N1 that may come from the trademark Santa pot belly. [New York Daily News]

• An Israeli company is hard at work on what it sees as the next generation of cosmetic surgery: bra implants. Regular implants might not be impervious to gravity, so women looking for continuous lift and support should try attaching this silicon bra implant to their ribs. We’re not convinced. [Bust]

• Forget online dating: Some genetic testing companies are promoting biological compatibility as the new way to find Mr. or Ms. Right. There’s not much research to back the idea, nor any happily matched couples, but there’s no denying that a simple cheek swab sure would be easier than another blind date. [U.S. News & World Report]

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• In a surgery that lasted more than 26 hours, 2-year-old Bangladeshi twins Trishna and Krishna, who were conjoined at their heads, were successfully separated today. Doctors expect it will take at least two weeks to determine if the twins suffered brain damage in the process. [CNN]

• We were surprised to find out that condoms aren’t vegan friendly, because many are made with casein, a protein that comes from milk. Glyde claims to be the only brand to have approval from the Vegan Society for its rubbers made from thistle extract. [MomLogic]

• According to doctors, we’ve got bigger worries than whether or not to get the flu shot. The most common and dangerous flu season medication mistake we make is overdoing it on painkillers. Too many of us take Tylenol or Advil plus cold and flu medications like Nyquil that already contain painkiller ingredients. [Caring.com]

• Worries about the possible side effects of sleeping pills don’t have to keep you from getting some good shut-eye. Musician Moby suffers from such severe insomnia that he often hallucinates, but he says he’s hesitant to take sleeping pills because he doesn’t want to get hooked. [FitCeleb]

• We’re all for natural remedies, but when we heard that a Dutch soccer player is planning to seek medical treatment involving a massage with placenta fluid, we couldn’t help but feel a bit squeamish (and a little skeptical too)! [Guardian]

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• Thanksgiving is just over a week away and we can’t wait to dig in. We’ve got plenty of fresh, simple, and seasonal dishes to make your holiday healthy—the exact opposite of these monstrosities, the 13 fattiest Thanksgiving creations. [MSNBC]

• We’re determined to nip sniffles in the bud this cold and flu season. The creator of a new all-natural remedy thinks he may have the solution. He dreamed up a nasal spray packed with capsaicin pepper, after realizing his allergies cleared up after he got hit with pepper spray in the self-defense classes he once taught. [Vital Juice]

• Cold and flu season also means the cold weather will soon be wrecking havoc on our skin. For a new tactic for soothing dry, itchy, and even painful winter skin, why not give marigolds a try? [New York Times]

• Parents concerned about lead poisoning generally fret over the most common culprits—paint, water, dust, and dirt. But a new report suggests that some vinegars might also contain traces of lead and could therefore be dangerous to children. [MomLogic]

• Plenty of foods are rumored to get you in the mood, but perhaps none as unabashedly as a new dessert created by a team of students at a Colombian cooking school. The key ingredient? Mixed in with the pudding, chocolate, and whipped cream is Viagra. [IBN Live]

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