Diet is indeed the fastest route to a svelte shape. It is so much easier to cut out the extra calories than to spend the extra time in the gym burning those 500 calories, says Timothy Church, M.D., Ph.D., director of Preventative medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research center at Louisiana State University http://www.cardiometabolichealth.org .  Nice. But that sounded too easy didn’t it?!

Don’t give up your gym time just yet. Working out not only helps you burn more calories it also helps you consume fewer of them. A study published in the American Journal of Physiology found that 60 minutes of high-intensity cardio would trim your appetite for up to two hours afterward. “Aerobic exercise lowers gherlin levels and increases the amount of an appetite-suppressing hormone in your body,” says David Stensel, Ph.D. http://www.lboro.ac.uk Maximize your workout with intervals. Four minutes of moderate exercise followed by one minute of all out intensity for 30 minutes works wonders.

The beauty of the Nutrifit program is Keller and her team will devise a personal meal program based on the kinds of foods you prefer and your exercise regimen. Nutrifit provides fresh food delivered daily to your door. It’s an amazing program. I loved receiving my green food bags on my doorstep each morning. It was like opening a daily Christmas package. The food was portion controlled and divided up into six small meals throughout the day and outlined on a daily meal program sheet. Eating regulated portions in two to three hour intervals will keep your metabolism stoked all day long making your system utilize calories at optimal levels.

If you need an extra something to keep your diet on track, smelling food has been proven to fool your brain into thinking you’ve eaten. A recent study found that people who took a whiff of peppermint every two hours ate 2,700 calories per week than they normally did. That is a one-pound loss. Banana, green apple and vanilla also had the same affect. The more often you sniff these scents the more weight you’ll lose, says Alan Hirsch, M.D., neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago http://www.smellandtaste.org

If you tend to eat when you are stressed out hold your left nostril closed and sniff through the right one to activate the side of your brain where emotions are processed. It could help reduce your anxiety and your appetite.

At the end of the day the best way to lose weight is a healthy combination of exercise, eating right and a bouquet of peppermint leaves.

Just when you think it’s safe to take a bite the labels have you fooled. Here are a few foods in your grocery aisle that you should think twice about before tossing into your cart.

1. We love to snack on granola or granola bars. It’s one of my favorite treats but it is actually no less fattening than chowing down on an Oreo cookie. One Oreo cookie contains 53 calories, 3g fat.http://www.nabiscoworld.com/oreo/. While a chocolate chip granola bar contains 4g of fat.  If you look at the labels on granola bars you will see they contain high levels of high fructose corn syrup and other sugars, and some bars have as many as 10 grams of fat. If you love Oreo’s go for it…eat one.

2. Lean meats are an excellent source of protein. I much prefer white ground meats to reds. Ground turkey is a household favorite but it can sometimes contain more fat a pound of ground beef contains. Why not mix up your weekly meals and include both light and dark ground meats. Just be sure and check the labels to find the lowest fat content. Laura’s Lean Beef http://www.laurasleanbeef.com/ is a good choice.

3. Another place for serious diet sabotage is in the bread aisle. When you see a brown bread wrapper with the words multi-grain, wheat, or some other healthy description you probably automatically think, “healthy.” Yes and no. You’ll score higher in the healthy column by purchasing bread that is whole grain.

4. Energy and protein bars are marketing primarily to women who want to shape up and lose weight. These are a marketing geniuses best fake.  Beware, because oftentimes energy bars have as much sugar and fat as a regular candy bar. Better off having a Dark chocolate Reeces Peanut Butter Cup http://www.hersheys.com/products/details/reesespeanutbuttercups.asp. The peanut butter is a good protein source and dark chocolate is healthier than milk chocolate. Eat half for a special dessert treat.

5. The biggest deception dieters face is the “low-fat” fallacy.  Manufacturers may have taken out the fat, but that doesn’t mean the sugar is gone. Low-fat foods often contain loads of sugar that is converted into carbs in your body and pack on pounds, read the labels carefully.

Everyone’s favorite snack for example ‘ potato chips. These can be labeled all natural and seem like less of a guilty pleasure, but even natural potatoes become fattening when they get fried and coated with salt. So don’t be fooled by creative packaging. A marketing professional helped to design the package. Instead focus on the label that lists nutritional values.

Finally, watch your portions or servings. Most labels that offer calorie content information are based on a one half cup serving. Depending on what food you’re talking about, one half cup just might not be enough to satisfy you. So then, the calories you thought you were consuming, based on what you read on the label, have just increased.

My rule of thumb is not to diet and fall into the lowfat no fat trap. You need to change your way of life. Shedding pounds and staying healthy and fit is more about eating the right fresh foods (traditionally not packaged goods). The secret is portion control. It is healthier and more flavorful to eat all the regular full fat foods you like in smaller portions that chow down on a cardboard flavored cookie. Drink lots of water, eight 8-ounce glasses and exercising every day. Research has indicated that mid-life women need 60 minutes 7 days a week to lose weight. Get out and move your body.

Want to get a handle on your heart health? Stretch. That’s right. In a 2009 study researchers found that your ability to touch your toes is an indication of your cardiac artery health. Sit on the floor and extend your legs straight out. If you are limber enough to touch your toes then your cardiac arteries are probably flexible too. Supple arteries allow blood to move freely says researcher, Kenta Yamamoto, PHd at the University of North Texas health science center in Ft. Worth.

Not quite able to reach your twinkle toes? I know you know what’s coming next…then you gotta get your aerobic game on.  Endurance exercises such as walking, cycling, or swimming for at least 30 minutes a day will do the trick. Best of all, exercise doesn’t need to be extremely vigorous to be beneficial to your health.

Aerobics improves cardiovascular health because it helps you get a handle on high blood pressure and cholesterol. Walking, cycling and swimming puts positive stress on your muscles, bones, joints, heart, lungs and blood vessels that deliver the necessary oxygen for energy. The more you get your heart pumping the better the flow the better you feel. It is a happy self fulfilling prophecy.

Just think, a brisk walk around the block can help you people with high blood pressure to reduce both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Blood sugar regulation improves, thus decreasing risk for Type II Diabetes or improving blood sugar control for people already diagnosed with diabetes. Exercise helps raise healthy HDL cholesterol, and helps lower blood triglycerides.

Guess what, a healthy by-product of getting your ticker jamming is the calories you’ll burn. For example, an hour of brisk walking burns about 350 calories. Once your metabolic rate increases, you will continue to burn calories even after you’ve finished exercising. Regular exercise helps reduce the amount of fat stored inside the abdomen area. Excess fat is this location increases the risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Other side bene’s of a regular fitness routine is an improved outlook for arthritis, osteoporosis, insomnia, and diabetes can literally be eradicated. Exercise also helps prevent and treat depression, improve memory and problem-solving ability. It’s a great stress reliever and improves quality of life.

Convinced yet???

After your doc gives you the thumbs up, the best way to get started is to start slow. A 10-minute a day workout walking, swimming or cycling is best. If you got a few extra pounds and don’t want to stress your lower body too much the bike or swimming is best. After you get into a routine and shed a few pounds, a month to six weeks you can incorporate walking into your exercise regimen. Add two minutes to your daily routine every week until you max out at 60.

Mild to moderate exercise intensity is best. This can be determined by finding your target heart rate zone. Calculate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Your target heart rate is 60-75% of your maximum heart rate. In order to determine your heart rate, you must take your pulse. Taking your pulse: Using your middle and index fingers, locate your pulse on the thumb side of your wrist. Press lightly. Count your pulse for 10 seconds starting with zero. Multiply by 6. Too much work? Then take the talk test. If you can carry on a conversation without losing your breath you are in the zone. Keep it up! Be sure to do a solid three to five minute warm up and cool down within your 60 minute workout.

Once you get into the swing of exercising start to incorporate 2 to 3 days of strength training for a minimum of 20 minutes. Strength training helps women manage osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and preserve muscle tissue. The beauty of this is the more muscle tissue you build the more metabolically active your body will become. Hello! You will burn more calories and lose weight. Who doesn’t love that!

The number of reported walking trips has more than doubled from 18 billion in 1990 to 42.5 billion in 2009. Bicycling trips saw a similar increase, from 1.7 billion to 4 billion during the same period. “Americans want and need safe alternatives to driving,” said Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, “By making biking and walking safer and more accessible, we’ll be able to provide Americans with more choices and help foster more active, livable communities.”

So ladies, there is no better time than now to channel your inner pedal power. Cycling tones your leg muscles, keeps joints healthy, increases blood flow and lung capacity. And of course, it’s great for burning up the cals.

Ever notice how long and lean cyclists are? That is the goal. Pedaling your two-wheeler is a great workout for your larger lower body muscles. It will strengthen your quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves. Cycling engages your shoulders and arms to tighten and tone without bulking up your upper body. Your core and spine are also at work when you pedal, keeping you balanced on the bike, especially if you challenge yourself on uneven terrain.

Spending time outdoors on a bike is breezy, beautiful and fun. It’s like burning calories without effort. For example a 150 lb women can kill an average of 140 calories for a moderate 20-minute ride. Kick it up a notch and try an intense bike ride and your calorie burn increases to 190 for a 20 minute ride. To really get your body going the best kind of bike workout is an interval ride that combines five minute moderate riding followed by intense three minute sprints for a total of 20 minutes.

Utilizing that infusion of government cash and an Obama inspiration my hometown of Long Beach is making an effort to be the most bike friendly city in the country. Last year they hired cycling, pedestrian and livable communities expert, Charles Gandy as our Mobility coordinator, http://www.charliegandy.com. Soon after Charlie’s installation the city’s transportation department quickly installed these cool green lanes in my local business district, Second Street, called “sharrows”. They are street lanes designed so bicycle riders and automobile drivers can peacefully share the road. Riders no longer have to fear the dreaded driver door ding and car commuters cannot pass bike riders on the road.

More exciting innovations for our fair city, in the next two months Long Beach will be creating Bike Boulevards and Bike Lanes to make it easy to travel from the East side of the city to Downtown. I can make this commute in a speedy 20 minutes each way. That is a good healthy dose of daily cardio! Encourage your local community to do the same. It’s a healthy living biking revolution in the making.

To see what else Long Beach has in store check out http://www.bikelongbeach.org and view the video to the right. Stay tuned as we update Bike Long Beach progress monthly!

Primarily important in the reproductive process, estrogen and progesterone work together to thicken the lining of the uterus to prepare for the possible implantation of a fertilized egg. Equally important estrogen also influences how our body uses calcium, an important mineral in the building of bones, and helps maintain healthy levels of cholesterol in the blood. Progesterone is a critical component in fetus development but it also works side by side in keeping estrogen in balance. Without it estrogen can become toxic. http://www.natural-progesterone-advisory-network.com/what-does-progesterone-do/

As menopause nears, the ovaries reduce their production of these hormones causing the infamous hot flashes, night sweats, moodiness and medical conditions such as osteoporosis. Hormone replacement therapy helps to replenish our hormonal balance thus relieving the ugly symptoms of menopause.

A study published in the January/February 2006 issue of The Journal of Women’s Health showed that the risk of heart disease demonstrated in earlier HRT research may have been related more to the advanced age of the participants as opposed to the HRT itself. The study further found that HRT given to younger women, at the onset of menopause, appeared to instead decrease the risk of heart disease.

Finally, a study published in the March 5, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association reported on study participants three years after they stopped combination HRT. They found that “many of the health effects of hormones such as increased risk of heart disease are diminished, but overall risks, including risks of stroke, blood clots, and cancer, can remain high and must be monitored.

I am here to tell you that for me HRT was a welcome relief from an unfamiliar and uncomfortable emotional rollercoaster. I’d cry at the bat of an eye and lose my cool for no good reason. I spoke to my doctor and he recommended a low dose combo HRT called Angeliq. It immediately took the edge off. Of course there is no pill replacement for exercise to help subjugate the physical affects of menopause. Over the long term being physically fit is the healthiest answer to combat the dark side of menopause. But it has been reported that in the short term women may reap more benefits than risks associated with not taking HRT. Discuss the risk/benefits and the best HRT combination with your doctor. Also understand that HRT does not prevent heart disease or minimize osteoporosis prevention but it can go a long way to easing you through the challenging days of the dreaded “M” phase of your life.

There is a new H2O in the market, one that promises to decrease the signs of aging and increase our bodies’ functionality, now that is a welcome relief my Gen Jones gal pals.

The product is called Evolv http://archaeaactive.com/

Aptly named it is not just any old cool clear drink of water. The secret ingredient in the product is Archaea Active™, a formulation 15 years in the making. Evolv looks and tastes like premium spring water BUT the Archaea Active formula demonstrated through in-vitro lab tests to provide increased oxygen utilization at the cellular level and promotes a healthy inflammatory response.

“What this all means,” says John Gustin, government water consultant and patent inventor, “is that Oxygen, the most important element in our survival, is transported more efficiently through your bloodstream to all the living cells in your body”. Your muscles will work at higher efficiencies allowing for better endurance, increased stamina, lower resting heart rate and faster recovery. Gustin went on to comment that, “the absorption of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins and other important nutrients will get a super charge. Evolv water has also been clinically proven to help neutralize harmful toxins in cells, tissues and the bloodstream thus improving your immune system”.

What I love most about Evlov is the anti-aging benefits. Hydration is key to plumping up skin and minimizing wrinkles. Plus the peptides in Evolv water help fill out the collagen depleted cells in your bodies. That’s the same stuff your favorite PS uses to plump up your Angelina Jolie lips look a likes. Hydration has also been shown to prevent cognitive decline. Evolv’s Archaea Active makes the O2 more accessible allowing for better concentration, alertness and improved memory – we could all use a little of that!

Do you want to know more about Evolv water? You’ve got to talk to my friend Jonathan Colbert. He’s the guy that turned me onto this amazing product in the first place. He promised me to give you all special treatment. http://www.colbert.myevolv.com.

There is an extraordinarily important hormone in your brain called leptin and you are gonna want to get in tune to your fellow L’s. They are the buddies in your head that let your belly know when it’s full. We’re talkin’ appetite control people.

Back in 1994 scientists believed that if they created a pill that released more leptin in your head it could fool you into feeling full and you would lose weight. Seemed like a logically simple solution. Sadly it was not, they got it wrong.

In the last decade they’ve learned that overweight people were not short on leptin, instead they were overloaded with it. In fact they were so leptin loaded they weren’t hearing the L’s screaming in their heads at all! Their brains shut down the messaging and it actually had the reverse results. To make matters more fattening, leptin also serves to rev up your metabolism. So when you don’t hear it, it is so not working. That’s a double “my bad” on the weight control issue.

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2009/01/07/44758.aspx

How to get back in tune with your L’s is what researchers are working on now. Scientists have uncovered that resistance may be caused by stress to cells in the brain’s hypothalamus. That is the part of your brain that controls body temp, hunger and thirst.  Dr. Umut Ozcan, MD at Harvard Medical School has identified two medications that prompt the brain to hear leptin’s roar and he is searching for more. Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut magic pill yet.

In the meantime there are a few things you can do by simply changing your diet. What they’ve found is that high-fat binges can alter the brains responsiveness to leptin. What you eat one day has a direct effect on how much you want to eat for days afterwards.

To keep your brain open to leptin, it’s key to control the kinds of fats you consume. Palmatic acid, a saturated fat found in cheese and beef, is the bad kind. These fats get into your brain, affect the hypothalamus, and change your hormone’s ability to manage satiation cues thus affecting body weight. In other words if you OD on a weekend binge of fast food, come Monday your brain is completely dead to the leptin signals playing in your brain. It’s a nasty head game encouraging weight gain.

Oleic acid rich foods are a better choice. This heart healthy fat is found in olive oil, olives, avocados, almonds, peanuts, sesame oil, pecans, pistachio nuts, cashews hazelnuts, and macadamia nuts. One to two tablespoons of olive oil per day is recommended for adults. Or better yet munch on a handful of nuts and other whole foods, the time release activation from digestion appears to be more beneficial than swallowing down the entire daily amount in a single dose.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=84

Some Oleic acid eating tips:

High heat, light, and oxygen destroy Essential Fatty Acids (EFA), so when consuming foods for their EFA content, try to avoid cooked or heated forms. For example, raw nuts are a better source than roasted nuts. Don’t use flaxseed oil for cooking, and never re-use any type of oil.

Replace hydrogenated fats (like margarine), cholesterol-based fats (butter/dairy products), and poly-saturated fats (common cooking oils) with healthy EFA-based fats when possible. For example, instead of margarine or butter on your warm (not hot) vegetables, use flaxseed and/or extra virgin olive oils with salt. (This tastes similar to margarine, as margarine is just hydrogenated oil with salt.)

Sprinkling flaxseed meal on vegetables adds a slightly nutty taste. Whole flaxseeds are usually passed through the intestine, absorbing water only and not yielding much oil. Also, it’s best not to use huge amounts of flaxseed in its meal (ground seed) form, as it contains phytoestrogens. The oil is much lower in phytoestrogens.

In many recipes calling for vegetable shortening, replacing the shortening with half as much virgin olive oil, and a very small pinch of extra salt, often yields similar results. Adding flaxseed and/or virgin olive oil to salads instead of supermarket salad oil is another healthy change. Replace oily snack foods, like potato chips and corn chips, with nuts and seeds. Extra virgin olive oil or grapeseed oil are best to use for cooking oil, as they withstand high heat well.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/703259

Hot flashes affect about 75 to 85% of American women. They are like a sudden flash of heat that spread over your entire body particularly reddening your face and upper body and curling your fringy follicles. So Shirley T., but not necessarily as cute on you as it was for the lollipop sweetie. Uncomfortable and unsightly they are the body’s reaction to a decreased supply of hormone estrogen, which occurs naturally in the midst of menopause.

When the hot flashes occur at night they are aptly called night sweats but more intensely heated then the day player version, Great! It is not a sleep disorder but it is a common side affect of this precious time period.

Your monthly pal that averages a visit every 28 days can amp up visitation to every 24 days or skip several months in a row than show up and stick around for 30 days in a row. Again this is a common condition for women in there 40’s and 50’s. It is a lack of hormonal balance or a decrease in estrogen production that causes the irregularity.

Loss of libido and vaginal dryness are hand in hand issues. When your estrogen levels drop the walls of your vagina, which is normally very supple, thin and lose their elasticity. Your vagina becomes dryer and takes longer to become lubricated. This of course makes intercourse uncomfortable and certainly not topping your list of must do’s.

My favorite symptom, mood swings and sudden tears. Oh joy, I get to be even more weepy than just once a month. It’s like being on your very own personal rollercoaster.  The feelings can be intense, sudden and very very real.

http://www.breastcancer.org/tips/menopausal/facing/hot_flashes.jsp

Want to take control of this all-encompassing and inevitable life process? Well then, you better get your body moving. That’s right, my lifelong mantra is the answer to your soaking PJ’s and unexplainable sobbing. Four to six hours a week of working out will get you back on an even keel.

Women who committed to exercising daily spent significantly less time suffering menopausal symptoms, says Nananda Col, MD, director of Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, at Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Portland. Gotta keep up the pace for at least four times a week and optimally six. It’s never too late to start and the positive results will take hold within the first eight weeks of beginning an exercise program.

And as an extra bonus keep the inevitable menopausal weight gain at bay exercising at a moderate pace for one hour everyday.

We all should live in a perpetual state of satiated and healthy. How do you get there? And how do you know what your perfect body weight balance is?

BMI, Body Mass Index or dividing height x weight, traditionally the gold standard for determining your perfect number has recently come into question. Certain studies have found that women with an old school  ”overweight” BMI have a lower incidence of lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, anemia and osteoporosis than their thinner counterparts. For example, one bene in carrying a few extra LB’s, particularly muscle weight, is that it helps strengthen bones and fends off osteoporosis.

Even better, in a long-term studies showed that people with “overweight” BMI scores have a lower risk of mortality than any other weight group. Pear shaped women fare the best because thigh, hip and bottom fat is chemically very stable, and stable fat traps free radicals released during digestion. Thigh fat secretes adiponectin, which helps the body metabolize sugar, and leptin, which regulates appetite. Plus yo-yo dieting overtime will lead to your metabolism slowing down and eventually the possibility of weight gain.

Caution ladies, this is not a wholehearted endorsement to indulge your inner jelly donut. Fitness and strength building is the key to balancing your perfect weight rather than simply the number on your ever-lovin bathroom scale. No matter what your BMI, it is your body fat composition, the ratio of  lean vs. fat mass, that clearly reveals a picture of your well-being. Exercising reduces your mortality risk by 50% regardless of your weight. Let me say that another way, daily training will give you a 50% better chance at living longer. Can’t get those kinda success odds in any other part of your life. You are completely in control of your destiny!

Aerobic exercise and resistance training will work your body slimming the fat you can see and the visceral fat you cannot detect, in fact exercising can prevent the visceral fat from even forming in the first place. A skinny gen joneser who wants to keep her weight down by not eating and not exercising is far less healthy and attractive than my plump gf’s who hit the gym.

What numbers should you be concerned with? Let me share some solid medical barometers.

Body fat percentage. If you are a member of a gym ask your instructor to hook you up with calipers to get an accurate reading. If not, with a cloth measuring tape in hand there are several on line resources you can check out to help you determine this calculation at home. Here is an easy one, http://www.healthcentral.com/cholesterol/home-body-fat-test-2774-143.html. Women between the ages of 41 to 60 years old should range between 23% to 35% for good health.

Blood pressure. This calculates how intensely your heart is working to pump blood through your body. There are two parts to this measurement, the systolic which measures outgoing blood flow and diastolic which assesses incoming flow. This is measured with the cuff at your doc’s office or some pharmacies have blood pressure machines at end aisles you can use free of charge. The healthy range is 90/60 to 120/80 systolic/diastolic.

Resting heart rate. This measures how many times your heart beats per minute when you’re at rest with no stress. Take your pulse for 60 seconds in the AM by placing a finger on your carotid artery located just below your right ear. The healthy range is 60 to 100 beats per minute.

Cholesterol. This is made up of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) the “bad” stuff and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) the “good” stuff. Cholesterol is measured with a simple blood test. LDL should be below 100 and HDL  above 50.

Fasting Blood Glucose. This tallies the amount of sugar in your bloodstream. A high score means your body is unable to metabolize all the sugar in your food you are eating. A simple blood test is all that is necessary and can be checked at the same time as your cholesterol.  A healthy range is 70 to 100.

Waist-to-hip ratio. Measure your waist by wrapping a measuring tape around the narrowest part of your stomach, just above the belly button. then measure around the widest part of your hips and bottom. Divide the first number by the second. Your range should be between 0.6 – 0.8.

Keep all these measures in check year after year and you will always have the perfect balance.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070628162055.htm

Researchers at Princeton University recently conducted a study on our buddies; the rat, where one group of rats was allowed to run and the others were not allowed any physical activity at all. Then all the rats were placed in a stressful situation, swimming in cold water (which they hate, I’m not so fond of swimming in icy water either). The brand new brain cells, those that were born from running, were legitimately biochemically, molecularly calm and those rats with the fresh baby neurons were chill. The old neurons in the unexercised rats were amped out of their minds and those rats were stressed.

There have also been studies on the relationship between exercise and the release of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and antioxidant powers of moderate exercise. Anxiety in rodents and people has been linked with excessive oxidative stress, a condition characterized by the release of free radicals, which can lead to cell death in the brain. Moderate exercise seems to dampen the effects of oxidative stress that in turn saves our cells.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Exercise-and-Decrease-Your-Stress-Levels,-Study-Reveals&id=3373145

In another study led by researchers at the University of Houston rats whose oxidative stress levels had been artificially heightened with injections of certain chemicals were extremely anxious when faced with unfamiliar terrain during lab testing and hid in the corners of the maze. Rats that had exercised, even with the injection of oxidizing chemicals were nonchalant under the same terrain stress, they just kept on exploring. It appears that the “stress” of exercise prepares cells, structures and pathways within the brain so that they’re more equipped to handle stress in other forms. The purely physical stresses we endure through exercise ultimately positively affect psychological stresses like afternoon drive time traffic or tiffs with our bosses.

How long before this magical exercise induced calm kicks in? No one is exactly sure, but somewhere between three and six weeks according to the rat research. Three weeks was not quite long enough but by the time the rats had been at it for six weeks the new baby chill neurons were firing away happily. What we know for certain is that exercising, aerobic activity specifically, without a doubt, creates calm brain cells. Once you start a workout program you must keep it up. You may not feel the reduction of stress after your first power walk but the molecular biochemical changes will begin and eventually the results will become profound.