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In case you wondered, this is me.

Jane feels tired all the time, her muscles ache non-stop, she can't sleep at night and she feels depressed for no reason. And, on top of it, lately she's been exercising more than ever, which means she should be feeling great, right? She comes in to the gym every morning at 5 a.m. and does the elliptical machine for an hour at level 9 of 10. She's proud to say that she hasn't missed a single workout in six months, no matter how bad she felt because she only got three hours of sleep the previous night. (Nobody's going to get a chance to call her lazy!) In the evenings she comes in to lift weights or take a session of Pilates. Then, in the weekends, she runs 8 miles - Saturday and Sunday.

She just doesn't get what's wrong!

Exercise is an important thing to get in order to stay healthy. However, as with anything else in life, getting too much of a good thing turns the good thing into something bad. Exercise is certainly no exception.

It seems the answer to Jane's woe is simple: she's overtraining.

The first mistake Jane makes is not to take one day off per week when she does nothing but perhaps takes a leisurely walk. The second mistake is going to the gym twice a day (one hour of vigorous exercise per day is enough!) The third is pushing herself to go work out when she only got three hours of sleep. It's more important to get adequate sleep every night than to miss your regular workout once or twice a week.

The following ten symptoms are signs that you might be overtraining:

- Heavy legs
- Low sex drive
- Sore muscles
- Elevated resting pulse rate
- Loss of motivation
- Sleep disturbances
- Unintended weight loss
- Depression
- Frequent sickness or infection
- Loss of appetite

Well, this doesn't sound like a problem I have because I don't work out that much, you might be thinking now. Yes, you do work out at a high intensity, but you only work out the recommended amount - one hour a day and you generally take one day off per week. Sometimes you run, sometimes you do resistance training, and sometimes you do power yoga. So you definitely vary your workouts just like the experts recommend. Of course, you can't say that you particularly enjoy your training sessions and you do experience just those symptoms Jane does...

You might not be overtraining per se. However, your body might be out of balance, which is likely to be the reason your body isn't adapting well to exercise. Consider the average professional. He or she usually spends hour upon hour in front of a computer screen in a dysfunctional posture. Humans weren't designed to be still for that long. Anyone who spends more than two consecutive hours a day in a day (without doing any corrective exercises) in a certain position will have significant musculo-skeletal imbalances. Often these imbalances lead to painful overuse injuries and inflammations. Did you know that our bodies have a built-in anti-inflammatory mechanism? We do, and its primary agent is called cortisol, which is produced by our adrenal glands.

The human body has a limited amount of cortisol and is allocated according to the hierarchy of control systems within us. This system's highest priority is respiration, about middle priority is the visceral system (internal organs) and at the bottom is the musculo-skeletal system. For example, if there is a lot of visceral stress, then there is less resource for musculo-skeletal stress if the two stressors were experienced simultaneously. However, this system also works on a "first come-first serve" system. So if the client is constantly stressing his musculo-skeletal system, then there is less resource for any other stressors that may be experienced next.

When body tissue is stressed (example: your left hamstring) and then begins to swell or inflame, the nervous system sends a message to the brain. The brain then tells the adrenal glands that the hamstring has been stressed and needs some cortisol to control this inflammation. This is a good and normal response within the body. What would happen if your body was for some reason depleted in cortisol? The inflammation would progress.

Any time the body is stressed it evokes this reaction from the adrenal glands. The ability of a person to manage stress, their energy, and their endurance depend on proper adrenal functioning. This is where the aforementioned types of stress really come into play. Stress is not only blind but also cumulative. The body cannot differentiate sources of stress. For example, if every time you come home from a workout (musculo-skeletal stress), your significant other gets upset with you (emotional stress). Your brain interprets these stressors and calls on the adrenal glands to release cortisol. The problem now is that cortisol has been either used to handle your emotional stress rather than the musculo-skeletal stress from the workout or the cortisol has been allocated to two systems. This means you won't recover properly from the workout nor are you likely to deal well with the emotional stress either. If you aren't aware of what's going on you may go out and train hard the next day, and the same situation happens again. The cycle can go on and on with the end result being OVER-TRAINING and/or overuse injuries combined with an increasingly dysfunctional relationship.

Do you see now just how important it is to strive to live a balanced, low-stress life?

Please read my tips for a more balanced life in the Fitness for the Mind section.

1. Find an exercise buddy. If you can't find one among your friends, join exercisefriends.com.

2. If you're competitive, make a bet with someone that you'll lose weight by a certain date and tell everyone you know about it so there is no way out...

3. Book a beach vacation three months in advance. Miami and Los Angeles are great choices because everyone there looks fantastic, so you better too.

4. Sign up for an event like a 10 K, triathlon, or half-marathon and train for it.

5. Do a Demi! Get a much younger boyfriend/girlfriend. I can guarantee you that you'll find time to go to the gym...

6. Hire a funny, likeable trainer. Some people are motivated by a hot trainer.

7. Become a trainer or group exercise instructor. Few will come to your classes if you're out of shape.

8. If you're single, join a volleyball league or runner's club instead of going to bars to meet your new significant other.

9. Play badminton on the beach or in a park. Position yourself with your friend in a crowded area and start playing. The worse you're at it, the higher the chances are the ball will land in a group of people. Great excuse to make a connection!

10. Become a fitness magazine junkie. Vow to read every fitness book out there. The more you educate yourself about health and fitness, the harder it becomes to not take their advice.

11. Update your Ipod with great new uplifting music every Sunday so that you have something fun to listen to during your workout. A cool new exercise outfit won't hurt your motivation either.

Ask Julia - Is It Better to Do Cardio Before or After Resistance-Training? Q: I'm a 32-year-old woman who loves to work out and stay active. My fitness goal is to be toned (not bulk up) and strong. In this case, is it better to do cardio before or after weight training?

You will definitely not become as strong as you would like if you do cardio before your resistance training. This is because cardio burns fats and carbohydrates for energy, so those carbs won't be available for energy for the resistance session. The only reason you should do cardio before resistance training is to warm up your muscles. Keep a low intensity and don't exceed 10 minutes.

The best approach is to try do cardio and weights/Pilates on separate days. I do realize that this might not be functional for most individuals in today's time-crunched world, which is why I recommend that you do a light cardio session immediately after your resistance training (no more than 45 minutes). Doing light cardio after resistance training can help rid the body of lactic acid, enabling the muscles to recover more quickly between workouts. If you're worried about weakening the muscles by doing cardio after weights, mix up the muscle groups you're using. (If you used your upper body mostly during resistance training, bike or run on the tread mill. If you used mostly lower body, swim for cardio.)

Some people won't do any cardio at all if they don't do it before their resistance training. If one fuels his or her body properly before and after a workout, then doing cardio first won't affect the resistance training as much. It's more important that you do cardio at some point than not at all.

The study -- the first to examine this phenomenon -- finds that if one person becomes obese, those closely connected to them have a greater chance of becoming obese themselves. Surprisingly, the greatest effect is seen not among people sharing the same genes or the same household but among friends.

If a person you consider a friend becomes obese, the researchers found, your own chances of becoming obese go up 57 percent. Among mutual friends, the effect is even stronger, with chances increasing 171 percent.

Christakis and Fowler also looked at the influence of siblings, spouses and neighbors. Among siblings, if one becomes obese, the likelihood for the other to become obese increases 40 percent; among spouses, 37 percent. There was no effect among neighbors, unless they were also friends.

The researchers analyzed data over a period of 32 years for 12,067 adults, who underwent repeated medical assessments as part of the Framingham Heart Study. They were able to map a densely interconnected social network of the study's subjects by using the tracking sheets (which had previously been archived in a basement) that recorded not only the subjects' family members but also unrelated friends who could be expected to find them in a few years.

Also immediately apparent were distinct clusters of thin and heavy individuals. Statistical analysis revealed that this clustering could not be attributed solely to the selective formation of ties among people of comparable weights.

"It's not that obese or non-obese people simply find other similar people to hang out with," said Christakis, a physician and a professor in Harvard Medical School's department of health care policy. "Rather, there is a direct, causal relationship."

Further analysis also suggested that people's influence on each other's obesity status could not be put down just to similarities in lifestyle and environment, to, for example, people eating the same foods together or engaging in the same physical activities. Not only do siblings and spouses have less influence than friends, but also geography doesn't play a role. The striking impact of friends seems to be independent of whether or not the friends live in the same region.

"When we looked at the effect of distance, we found that your friend who's 500 miles away has just as much impact on your obesity as [one] next door," said Fowler, an associate professor of political science at UC San Diego and an expert in social networks.

In part because the study also identifies a larger effect among people of the same sex, the researchers believe that people affect not only each other's behaviors but also, more subtly, norms.

"What appears to be happening is that a person becoming obese most likely causes a change of norms about what counts as an appropriate body size. People come to think that it is okay to be bigger since those around them are bigger, and this sensibility spreads," said Christakis.

"This is about people's ideas about their bodies and their health," Fowler said. "Consciously or unconsciously, people look to others when they are deciding how much to eat, how much to exercise and how much weight is too much."

"Social effects, I think, are much stronger than people before realized. There's been an intensive effort to find genes that are responsible for obesity and physical processes that are responsible for obesity and what our paper suggests is that you really should spend time looking at the social side of life as well," said Fowler.

The policy implications of the study, the researchers say, are profound. The social-network effects extend three degrees of separation -- to your friends' friends' friends -- so any public-health intervention aimed at reducing obesity should consider this in its cost-benefit analysis.

"When we help one person lose weight, we're not just helping one person, we're helping many," Fowler said. "And that needs to be taken into account by policy analysts and also by politicians who are trying to decide what the best measures are for making society healthier."

"It's important to remember," Fowler said, "that we've not only shown that obesity is contagious but that thinness is contagious."

This research was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging.

Check out Martha's useful nutrition blog at CityGirlBites

In today's time-crunched world, most people experience stress from the moment they wake up in the morning till the moment they pass out - if they're lucky! - in bed at night. If you're one of them, you need to de-stress and aim for a more balanced, peaceful life. (I think you'll find that you're a much happier person too if you become more relaxed.) Try the following tips, based on the book "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff..."

1. Let Go of the Idea that Gentle, Relaxed People Can't Be Super-Achievers
Actually, gentle and relaxed people are more successful because
a) other people respond more positively when you approach them in a gentle manner
b) fearful, frantic behavior and thinking take an enormous amount of energy and drain the creativity and motivation from our lives.

2. Be Flexible with Changes in Your Plans The examples of times our plans suddenly change are many: something we thought was going to take place doesn't, someone doesn't do what they said they would do, you make less money than you thought you would, someone changes your plans without your consent, you have less time than previously planned, something unexpected comes up etc. Instead of fretting about them, if you view them as an alternative way of getting closer to your ultimate goal (a way not entirely disclosed to you yet), you'll feel more relaxed and you're likely to become more productive because you won't waste energy being upset and worried.

3. Lower Your Tolerance to Stress Our current level of stress will be exactly that of our tolerance to stress, i.e. people who say, "I can handle lots of stress" will always be under lots of stress. Nip your stress in the bud before it becomes unmanageable. When your schedule is getting out of hand, it's a signal that it's time to slow down and reevaluate what's important rather than power through everything on the list. A better strategy is to relax, take a few deep breaths, and go for a walk. When your mind is clear and peaceful, you'll be more effective and therefore get everything done.

4. Get Comfortable Not Knowing How many times have you been wrong when you assumed something would become a certain way? If you're anything like me, a lot...Some people may say they remember quite a few times they were right when they read something into an event and predicted an outcome. This is kind of like airplane accidents -- we remember and notice these because they happen so rarely! We don't know what's going to happen, we just think we do. Often we blow up scenarios in our minds about all the terrible things that are going to happen. Most of the time we're wrong. If we keep our cool and stay open to possibilities, we can be reasonably certain that, eventually, all will be well.

5. Mind Your Own Business Minding your own business goes far beyond avoiding the temptation to solve other people's problems when your help isn't solicited. It includes eavesdropping, gossiping, talking behind other people's backs, and analyzing or trying to figure out other people. A major reason we focus on the shortcomings or problems of others is to avoid looking at ourselves. When you catch yourself involved where you don't belong, congratulate yourself for having the humility and wisdom to back off. Suddenly you've freed up tons of extra energy to focus your attention where it's truly relevant or needed.

6. Give Up on the Idea that "More Is Better" America inhabits only six percent of the world's population, but we use almost half of its resources. If more were actually better, we would live in the happiest, most satisfied culture of all time. Yet we live in one of the most dissatisfied cultures on record. It's not that having a lot of things is bad in and of itself, only that the desire to have more is insatiable. As long as you think you have to have more, bigger, "better", you"ll never be happy. Each time you think your life would be great only if you got that one item, gently remind yourself that, even if you got what you think you want, you wouldn't be more satisfied because that same mindset that wants more now would want more then. Learning to be satisfied with what you have doesn't mean you shouldn't aspire for having more than you have, just that your happiness doesn't depend on it.

7. The Next Time You Find Yourself in an Argument, Rather than Defend Your Position, See if You Can See the Other Point of View First Contrary to popular belief, this attitude doesn't make you weak nor does it mean you admit to being wrong. You're just trying to see another point of view - you're seeking first to understand. It takes enormous energy to constantly prove a rigid position. It takes NO energy to allow someone else to be right; in fact, it's outright energizing. When you understand other positions and opinions you often learn something new and your horizons expand. Also, when the person you are talking to feels listened to, he or she will appreciate and respect you far more than when you jump in with your own position. A side benefit is that the person you speak to may even listen to your point of view...

8. Lighten Up! People are frustrated and uptight about virtually anything - being five minutes late, someone showing up five minutes late, being stuck in traffic, someone looking at us wrong or saying the wrong thing, paying bills, waiting in line, overcooking a meal, making a mistake, etc. The problem is we don't want to accept life for what it is (unpredictable!), for differing from our rigid expectations. The first step to recover from over-seriousness is to admit that you have a problem. You have to want to change and become more easygoing. You have to see that your own uptightness is largely of your own creation. The next step is to understand the link between your expectations and your frustration level.

Einstein

Should you work out in the fat-burning zone? If there's no pain is there no gain? And what's the best way
to lose those love handles? Find out how your exercise knowledge shapes up with this true/false quiz.

1. If my muscles aren't sore the day after a workout, I haven't pushed myself hard enough.
True
False

2. Doing sit-ups will help me lose my love handles.
True
False

3. Brisk walking is enough to keep my heart healthy.
True
False

4. Brisk walking is enough to give me the body of an underwear model.
True
False

5. Women shouldn't lift heavy weights because they will "bulk up."
True
False

6. You can be fit and fat.
True
False

7. To lose weight most efficiently, you should work out in the "fat-burning zone."
True
False

8. If you stop exercising, muscle turns to fat.
True
False

Click for correct answer!

Explanation

(Courtesy of msnbc.com)