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Cheese is bad for your heart. Well, it’s complicated. Yes, most cheeses are rich in LDLraising saturated fats, says Brian St. Pierre, RD, CSCS, director of nutrition at Precision Nutrition. But certain cheeses contain "milk fat globule membrane," or MFGM. This lipid-protein structure may limit the harmful effects of saturated fats in cheese. Aged cheese has the most MFGM, fresh cheese has less, processed cheese has little. It’s addictive. Nope! “The theory comes from the fact that casein, a protein found in all dairy, releases opioid casomorphins as a digestive by-product,” says Kelsey Kunik, RDN, of Graciously Nourished. “But the amount of opioid peptides you get from eating a piece of cheese is nowhere near what medication provides.” (This is why cheese also won’t get you high, unfortunately/fortunately.) Eating cheese…

When I think back to my time in high school and college, the message was clear: Going to the gym was for losing weight and becoming smaller. The weight room—and building muscle—was solely for guys. I had that stereotypical fear of “looking like a bodybuilder” and lived by the assumption that lifting was an activity for the male body. Falling victim to the misinformation directed at women, I spent my time on the treadmill, ending up with a stress fracture…and a wake-up call. Three months of rehab in a walking boot tanked my running performance. Ready for a new fitness challenge, I started lifting weights. Gaining more muscle gave me resilience and confidence—and showed me firsthand that those sex-based fears were more myth than science. That shift sparked my love…

1 You can turn fat into muscle Fat and muscle are two totally different types of tissue, so it’s impossible for one to turn into the other. Muscle is active tissue that burns calories, while fat tissues store excess energy. When you train hard it is possible to burn fat and build muscle at the same time, giving the appearance that one has turned into the other, but this isn’t the case. 2 Cardio training is best for fat loss High-intensity cardio, such as sprints or hill runs, is great for fat loss. Long and slow steady-state sessions, however – while good for aerobic conditioning and heart health – aren’t very efficient at burning fat. In fact, long sessions increase the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the body,…