Continued from Tyra Banks’ Weight Loss: Tyra Banks Lost 30 Pounds.

Tyra Banks can’t attribute her recent weight loss of 30 pounds to just hard work. When she appeared on The View on April 26, Tyra showed Rosie O’Donnell her jiggle-free secret — Spanx!

(Tyra has admitted to wearing Spanx on 80 percent of her own talk show’s episodes).

“I’m trying to get rid of some of this in my booty so I don’t have to wear Spanx,” she said about the girdlelike undergarments. “But I’m not going to obsess.” (more…)

Tyra Banks’s weight loss is quite impassive. In just six months, Banks lost 30 pounds by eating healthy and exercising. What a “novelâ€? approach! Tyra’s current weight is estimated to be around 140 pounds.

Life & Style is reporting that in order to lose weight, the 5-foot-10 Banks has switched her old food habits for better choices like fruits, vegetables and protein, which rev her metabolism and keep hunger at bay.

“It’s more of a lifestyle change than a diet,” says an insider. Tyra starts the day with an energy-packed meal of eggs and papaya slices or a bowl of whole-grain cereal and fruit, says the insider — that’s a far cry from her old IHOP breakfasts.

Another strategy is portion control. For lunch and dinner, she eats a serving of lean protein (chicken, shrimp or fish) with veggies, salads and soups she makes herself. Finally, she snacks on fruits and vegetables that satisfy her sweet tooth and keep her feeling full. (more…)

Let’s face it, we are obsessed with six-pack abs. A look at the facts behind that hard-to-tone part of our figures.

60: Percent of Americans who say they’d choose toned abs over any other muscle group.

40: Percentage of women who said they would choose to have Janet Jackson’s abs, as compared to 21 percent who would want Julia Roberts’s smile.

1993: Year in which trainer Kurt Brungardt is credited for kicking off the washboard-look craze with his exercise guide Complete Book of Abs.

924: Average number of ab exercisers for sale on eBay in early 2007.

80: Percentage less of a workout an Ab Rocker gives the ab muscles than traditional crunches do, according to an American Council of Exercise study.

10: Body fat percentage below which ab muscles become visible on men.

14: Body fat percentage below which they become visible on women. (more…)

True or false? My current body fat percentage is below 10 percent and I once ate 23 donuts in one seating after a particularly grueling deadlifting session. Find out the answers after this health and diet news roundup. (more…)

Since the premiere of Dancing With the Stars, Olympic-gold medalist, Apolo Anton Ohno has been a favorite to skate to victory.

He has been following a strict diet and has a personal trainer and nutritionist, John Schaeffer, who likes to hand out at Real Food Daily, L.A.’s premier health-food restaurant.

In a recent interview, Apolo answered some questions about his diet and training:

What is your diet and exercise regimen?

It’s very intense. John is my strengthening and conditioning coach; he’s also my nutritionist. He writes my entire program of what to eat, when to eat.

For my sport, I want to have a certain body-fat percentage, I want to be a certain strength and a certain body weight. I’m secretive about what I eat. I can say that I eat many times a day, every couple hours. (more…)

Continued from The Best Diet: Fats, Sweets, and Alcohol.

Keep tabs on what you’re eating. For example: Cut serving sizes of foods. One way to reduce calories is to cut back on the size of the portions you eat. The smaller the serving, the fewer the calories. Obvious? Yes, but this is vital in low-calorie meals.

First, take a look at the size of portions you now eat. For instance, say you now eat a large bowl of soup, 5 ounces of meat, and 2 tablespoons of dressing on your salad.

How much less could you get by with and still have a nutritionally adequate diet? Next time, try a cup of soup, 3 ounces of meat, and only 1 tablespoon of salad dressing. (more…)

Excessive heat dries out hair. “Cut down on your blow-drying by shampooing at night,� says Nick Arrojo, owner of NYC’s Arrojo Studio and hairstylist on TLC’s What Not to Wear. “Then, in the morning, use soft sponge rollers to freshen up.�

Use a shower cap to maximize the potential of conditioner. “Instead of rinsing conditioner out, leave it in and pin a shower cup into place, covering all of your hair,� explains Arrojo. Let the treatment steep for 20 minutes and then rinse.

“Apple cider vinegar is an incredible, effective way to add health and shine to your hair,â€? says Arrojo. Wet hair and rub a small amount throughout hair before rinsing. (more…)

Continued from Gina Kolata on Weight Loss.

Isn’t there any one diet that’s better than all the others?

If there were a magic diet, we would have found it by now, so I don’t think there’s a profound, earth-shattering difference in diets. I’d say, Go on whatever diet excites you. I think about one of the guys in my book.

Some years before he took part in the diet study I was writing about, he had lost all this weight on Jenny Craig and then gained it back. I would say to someone like him, Don’t go back to Jenny Craig, because the magic is gone. (more…)