Lillian McTernan

Health & Wellness

TheList.com •

Things you should do if you want to live to 100

Let's start with the glaringly obvious: don't smoke. Smoking, as we all know by now, has a strongly negative impact on overall health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking causes nearly one in five deaths per year in the United States. As the CDC notes, smoking-related illnesses like lung cancer, coronary heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and stroke kill more people each year than AIDS, car accidents, firearm-related deaths, alcoho
TheList.com •

Easy ways to sub healthy food into your diet

Baked goods are the holy grail for almost everyone, but particularly for people who are trying to watch their calorie intake. Instead of eliminating baked goods altogether — which would be sad, and really, no one needs that — you can make key substitutions that help turn a baked treat into something actually good for you. The Mayo Clinic recommends using half of the butter or oil in a recipe, and replacing the other half with applesauce or prune, pear, or banana puree. This not only helps cut d
TheList.com •

Healthy ways to lose weight without dieting

Trying to lose weight is, for most of us, vexing, exhausting, and filled with contradictory information. In a 2016 article published in The New York Times Magazine, author and neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt notes that there's a robust body of research showing that "in the long run dieting is rarely effective, doesn't improve health, and does more harm than good." The crux of the issue, Amodt writes, is the fact that each person has what's referred to as their body's "set point" — a certain weight
TheList.com •

Hacks for arranging your bedroom

The bed is the most important element of the bedroom, and numerous experts recommend starting with bed placement and then arranging everything else around it. Start by determining the best placement for the bed, notes Becki Owens, a California-based designer interviewed by Apartment Therapy: the best place for the bed is usually the "longest uninterrupted wall." But, that said, sometimes small or a wonky floor plan can make this nearly impossible — so, Owens noted, "Don't be afraid to put your b
TheList.com •

Food and drinks to help bolster your immune system for cold and flu season

Food and drinks to help bolster your immune system for cold and flu season Aaah, fall: the leaves are turning, pumpkin spice everything is here (insert happy dance!), and sweater weather is around the corner. Oh, and everyone has a cold. Talk about a buzzkill. With cold and flu season upon us, most of us could stand to improve our ability to fight off viruses. As just about anyone who works in healthcare will tell you, the two most important germ-fighting tactics you can deploy are to wash you
TheList.com •

These are the signs that you're healthy

These are the signs that you're healthy In the last ten years or so, I've become increasingly interested in health and wellness. In light of my own health issues, I've wanted to learn as much as I can about how to be as healthy as possible, and how I can assess my own health outside the doctor's office. As it turns out, though, there's a ton of conflicting information out there. Some say weight and health are perfectly correlated, but others don't. There's a veritable cornucopia of opinions on
TheList.com •

What I learned from having cancer and infertility

What I learned from having cancer and infertility When I think about the last four years of my life, the first thing that comes to mind is the beginning of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song: This is a story all about how My life got flip-turned upside down And I'd like to take a minute and sit right there And tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air Granted: I am, alas, neither royalty nor living in Bel Air (sigh) — but I have learned quite a few t
TheList.com •

11 Celebrities who have struggled with infertility

11 Celebrities who have struggled with infertility Infertility sucks. There's no getting around that fact. It's emotionally draining, physically exhausting, and more than a little bit crazy-making. Throughout my own experience with infertility, I've found it incredibly helpful to know that I'm not alone, and that other people understand how hard it is when you can't have babies the old-fashioned way. (Seriously, reproductive system: You. Had. One. Job.) Strangely enough, hearing about cele
TheList.com •

4 ways to know if you have seasonal affective disorder

4 ways to know if you have seasonal affective disorder Winter can be a tricky time of year for almost everyone. First there's the issue of navigating the holidays, which can run the gamut from being joyous to stressful to downright miserable. And then, of course, there's the fact that the holidays are followed by the many dark, cold months of winter. For me, thanks to glittering holiday lights (they're so pretty!), pre-holiday festivities (yay!), and, let's be real here, eggnog (get in my
The Manifest-Station •

Uterus Of My Discontent

The first night in a new apartment is almost always weird for me: leftover adrenaline, my fanatical desire to get unpacked, and the disorientation of being in an unfamiliar environment usually join forces to give me serious insomnia. Given this long-standing trend, my first night in the apartment I moved into in 2010 with my then-boyfriend — the man who quickly became my fiancé and is now my husband — stands out as a huge anomaly. That night, I quickly fell into a deep sleep. I dreamed that I w
Girls Gone Sporty •

Reclaiming healthy beach bodies

The New and Improved Meaning of "Beach Body" Every spring, use of the term “beach body” becomes more prevalent than blooming flowers and more widespread than pollen-induced allergies. TV commercials entice you to eat low-sugar yogurt while encouraging you to envision yourself in that itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie, yellow polka-dot bikini. Meanwhile, magazines advertise the bajillion ways you can get bikini-ready and achieve your beach body in time for that Memorial Day BBQ (where you won’t eat mor
Girls Gone Sporty •

5 Tips for eating organic without breaking the bank

Organic foods are all the rage these days, and a food-lovin’ gal can barely finish typing “organic foods” into Google without drowning in a bajillion website hits. A ton of celebrities extoll the virtues of eating organic, too, which adds to the intrigued buzz…. and makes us mere mortals wonder if we, too, can look like 20-year-olds once we’re well into our 40s if we just go organic. Despite the buzz and the collective interest in organic foods, a lot of people are deterred by the cost. Organic
Girls Gone Sporty •

Part two: Learning to follow your gut

How To Trust Your Instincts If the thought of “listening to your heart” makes you want to grow your hair out, drive a VW van and start wearing fringe, it may be time to reevaluate your perspective. The phrase can sound a little hippie-dippie, but the reality is quite different. As important is it is to approach life with a measure of reason, it’s equally important to pay attention to the inner leanings of your heart. While personal accounts of positive life change help validate the impact of fo
Girls Gone Sporty •

Heart health tips: How fiber helps your heart

Fiber: people talk about it all the time. Doctors, nutritionists, actors in TV ads, the list goes on — but while a lot of people pay lip service to fiber, it still gets a bad rap. The usual shtick? “It’s good for you, but it tastes awful.” Even though fiber is a veritable rock star when it comes to heart health, many people think eating fiber-filled food is like chewing on some unholy combination of cardboard and tree bark. I mean, there’s even a commercial in which a dude says “Fiber makes me