Southern cooking brings to mind images of bountiful plates laden with fried foods swimming in puddles of grease. Just the mere thought sets many tongues to salivating. Unfortunately, traditional Southern cooking has had to be nixed from many diets because not too many of us want to ingest so much grease and fat into our precious arteries.

Luckily, Southern cooking is getting a bit of a makeover do to the South Eats Diet. The new approach to Southern cooking concentrates more on the beauty of vegetables and grains that have long been a staple on Southern tables while skipping the deep frying parts. By celebrating the slow cooking processes of varied veggies and promoting so many flavors, the fat is cut out of the food. For more on this new idea, click here and enjoy Southern cooking in a new light.

She was 39, athletic, a non-smoker and a healthy eater. Kathy Kastan thought she had taken all the right steps to prevent heart disease, and when she started to feel symptoms of a heart attack, she was shocked. She was diagnosed with a heart blockage and underwent lifesaving surgery but even after the surgery, she felt ill and anxious. She promised herself that if she ever got her health back, she would help others with her firsthand knowledge of heart disease.

Well, She did get her health back and she's kept her promise. Kastan is now the president of the board of directors for WomenHealth: The National Coalition of Women with Heart Disease, and she's reached out to others in her situation by writing a book, called From the Heart: A Woman's Guide to Living Well with Heart Disease. To learn more about her story, check out this article.

None of us are immune to heart disease, and I'm glad Kastan is using her unfortunate experience to reach out to others who may living with this killer disease.

Bill Cosby has always been a funny man, and although laughter is a healthy habit he had plenty of other less healthy ones that recently started to catch up with him. Last year he was diagnosed with high cholesterol and a partially blocked carotid artery, which spurred Cosby towards some major lifestyle changes like being more physically active and eating better. In his latest book I am what I ate...and I'm Frightened!!!, Cosby takes the very serious issue of health and puts a light hearted and easy-to-relate-to spin on it in his own signature way. It seems the smoking and bacon grease eating comedian has made some major lifestyle changes and is looking to inspire others, through humor, to do the same. I can think of few people better for the job!

A few years ago I gave the South Beach Diet a trial run. I bought and read the book, went shopping for the ingredients and started preparing the meals. Unfortunately, my attempt was short lived because I felt the recipes were rather complicated and with a newborn child on my hip, I just couldn't commit to the plan. However, after reading a post by Brian White on our sister site, That's Fit, I am thinking about revisiting the South Beach Diet.

Dr. Agatston's new book, The South Beach Heart Program: The 4-Step Plan That Can Save Your Life, goes beyond recipes and meal plans. This book takes a comprehensive look at cultivating and maintaining a life-long heart healthy lifestyle. The intent of the book is to teach readers that healthy living is for all people of all ages and all lifestyles.

This approach to healthy living sounds much more palatable than simply following a meal plan. Although I have not yet read the book, I am planning on giving it a read, and I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm sure there's research to support what I'm about to say, but I think common sense is more than enough support. As for what I'm going to say: Fitness starts with education. A friend may suggest Pilates or Yoga, or a co-worker may say that doing lunges and stiff-legged deadlifts are great for your legs. Whatever the case, if you are not educated in fitness, these friendly suggestions will do you little good if you don't even understand what they mean.

You could find an entire library of books on fitness and nutrition -- which, of course, wouldn't be a bad way to begin your education. But, if you just don't have the time to read through a tome on physiology and kinesiology, then here are a few much quicker and to-the-point magazines and websites that can at least start you in the right direction.

MAGAZINES: Men's Health/Women's Health - both are great resources for easy-to-follow exercise plans and nutritional 411. A personal favorite of mine is the very quick sidebar "The Crime/The Punishment" -- where unhealthy food choices are truly put into perspective (ex. The Crime: Denny's Extreme Grand Slam and a Large Orange Juice (1,396 calories). The Punishment: 127 hours you would have to shovel snow for in order to burn 1,396 calories).

WEBSITES: MyFoodDiary.com -- provides you with a very detailed breakdown of how many calories, carbohydrates, protein, fat, cholesterol, etc. in many types of food and helps you keep an active log of your consumption.

BOOKS: "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Losing Weight." Don't be offended by the title. This book offers great advice on fitness and nutrition, geared especially to the beginner or relative beginner. And, it is completely free of any diet or exercise fad nonsense -- something that is almost unheard of these days.

There are a number of other valuable resources out there, but I feel these are a great place to start. If anyone would like to post suggestions of their own, please be my guest.

Men's Health and Women's Health are two of the best health magazines out there. Period. Admittedly more geared toward people who have already involved themselves in healthy lifestyles, still both magazine offers advice, tutelage and interesting health facts that just about anyone -- regardless of whether or not you've ever exercised or dieted a day in your life -- could benefit from knowing.

The information on cardiovascular health, strength and endurance conditioning, diet, disease and prevention -- all of it is backed by credible research and presented succinctly and in an interesting way. Thumbing through a back issue (December 2006, featuring comedian Dane Cook on the cover), I noticed a running blurb sort of thing the magazine does called Facts of Life. Every four or five pages, you'll see a small, yellow box situated somewhere on the page, showing a specific number. A quick read into it (and by quick, I mean a sentence) reveals that this number is representative of a health factoid.

Some of the few I thought were worth reiterating from this December issue are the following:

27 = Percentage more likely you are to suffer a stroke or heart attack on your birthday than any other day.

41 = Percentage of lard that's actually oleic acid, the same heart-healthy fat that's in olive oil.

17 = Average number of pounds people gain in just 8 months of working in a sedentary office job.

45 = Percentage boost in cycling performance at altitude after taking Viagra, which improves blood flow to the lungs.

Like I said, these Facts of Life are short and to the point. You'll find that most of the health information listed in these magazines are presented in a similar fashion, making them much easier to read than an academic journal, yet still providing the gist.

Feeling fat and hopeless? Feeling defeated by un-fun dieting tactics? Fear not -- Our Lady of Weight Loss is here to help you save your day!

Five years ago, Janice Taylor -- inspiring weight loss coach and artist -- lost 50 pounds and kept it off by finding her passion and motivation. She quit her job of 17 years as a business manager to make art about weight loss and help others "lighten up in every way." Now, she runs her own website filled with funny stories, Righteous Recipes, Pious Projects, and a free weekly motivational e-newsletter -- the KICK in the TUSH Club. You can also get a copy of her new book "Our Lady of Weight Loss: Miraculous and Motivational Musings from the Patron Saint of Permanent Fat Removal."

We know how important it is to maintain a healthy weight for the health of our hearts -- and Our Lady of Weight Loss helps adjust your attitude to one of motivation and support, helping you shed those extra pounds! Check out her Reuters Life! interview -- she's hilarious!

Everyone's fitness goals are different, as they probably should be. Not everyone can be a triathlete (especially people who can't swim), just as it's impossible for every person on the planet to be able to bench press five hundred pounds. I say all this as almost a preface, because the title of the book I am about to recommend may seem a bit -- oh, I don't know, daunting.

"The Men's Health Cover Model Workout," written by Owen McKibben with Kelly Garrett. Okay, let's revisit what I said above -- everyone's fitness goals are different. I bought this book because I wish to elevate my current fitness level to an even greater degree. I truly don't have any desire to be a cover model, but having the physique that gives me the option wouldn't exactly be a bad thing, either. Anyway, that's me -- that is my goal. Your's may be entirely different. You may look at Owen on the cover of his book, shirtless and very fit and say "I have no desire to look like that guy" (especially if you're a woman). That is perfectly fine. Instead, perhaps your goal is to lose five pounds, or to gain ten, or to walk a mile a day, or to walk a mile a day dragging a Buick Skylark -- whatever it is, it is yours. You own it. It's your responsibility to see it achieved. And while a book that seems to have a title rooted in an extremely lofty goal, I feel that there is much from it that people of all fitness levels can learn.

Aside from being featured on the cover of Men's Health more than any other model, Owen McKibben has a history of heart disease in his family. He explains that his father died of a heart attack at the age of 41, so Owen essentially began his commitment to working out and staying healthy out of fear that he was predisposed to facing a similar fate. He talks about this and other tragedies in his life very candidly, and his triumphs over each and "If I can do it, anyone can" mentality serves as a great motivation. Beyond that, there is an abundance of useful and easy to follow information on health and diet contained in its 198 pages. There are many instructional photos, progress charts and even a fold-out abdominal workout that are there to assist you every step of the way.

Without giving away too much, but at the same time giving you a good look at how easy this information is to follow, here's a quick passage taken from a chapter on diet: "1. Eat early and often throughout the day, including a mid-afternoon meal or snack, so you won't be ravenous at dinner time. 2. Avoid dry carbs. 3. Drink plenty of water." Here's another: "When you eat five times a day, and often eat before you feel any hunger at all, you can eat less at every meal -- sometimes substantially less. Five 500-calorie meals can feel like more food than three 1,000-calorie meals."

Like I said, it's easy to understand and just as easy to see how the program can work. Remember, your goals are your own. They may not involve you looking like a cover model for a magazine, but they should at least center around you maintaining good overall health. Whether you follow the program suggested in this book to a T or not, you will still learn a great deal with respect to how you can effectively achieve your chosen fitness and health goals. And if you Do follow it to a T, who knows, maybe you have a future in front of the camera!!

Intuitive Eating is about making peace with food. Fostering a healthy relationship with food. Giving yourself permission to eat anything you want. The philosophy is more practical common sense than it is revolutionary -- but perhaps it is revolutionary in the common sense of learning to listen to your body when it sends you both hunger signals and then when it tells you it is full. The very nature of dieting teaches us to ignore all signals. Over time, we lose touch.

In the book Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works, Evelyn Tribole, former nutrition expert for Good Morning America and currently a dietitian with a counseling practice, and Elyse Resch, nutrition therapist for 24 years, specializing in eating disorders and preventative nutrition states that you can learn how to reject the diet mentality forever; learn how the three eating personalities define our eating difficulties; and how to honor hunger and feel fullness by following their program.

To begin, they offer the Are you an Intuitive Eater? quiz on the Intuitive Eating website. While there, you can read research and articles that explain more about learning to unlearn everything most of us have been taught about losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight. Although eating anything you want might seem absolutely backwards, it might be the most forward approach suggested in the last 40 years.

Happiness is the way to health -- and a healthy weight. According to Joe Vitale, author of The Attractor Factor and Life's Missing Instruction Manual, those who focus on what they want -- instead of what they don't want -- achieve physical fitness more easily. Happy people also burn calories more efficiently than angry or depressed people.

Vitale lost 80 pounds by simply doing what makes him happy. The Vitale weight-loss program focuses more on inner happiness than dieting -- the success is found in an increased self-esteem and motivation to take slim-trimming actions. According to Vitale, people get fat by bottling up their anger, frustration and sadness -- instead of doing something about it.