If you've just given birth, you don't need us to remind you that you and your body have been through a journey together recently. As beautiful as that journey is, we get that you may be ready to get your body back to where it was in the first place. Maybe that means regular exercise. Maybe it means resuming a certain eating routine. Maybe it simply means being able to wear your favorite pair of jeans again.

Back in the day, you could eat whatever you wanted, not think about it, and not worry about weight gain or any health effects, or at least that's how it seemed. But today, it's a different story. You're a little older, perhaps less active than you'd like, and now, eating whatever you want means your jeans aren't as comfortable anymore.

Have you ever wondered: What's the easiest way to lose weight? Or better yet, what is the easiest way to lose weight without dieting — in other words, without constantly counting calories and worrying about following a set of restrictive rules? The tricky truth is that to lose weight, we have to eat less energy — aka fewer calories — than we burn.

It can be daunting to start something new. If you're considering trying a fasting schedule to improve your eating habits, lose some weight, and get on a health kick, you might be anxiously thinking, But how do I even start with intermittent fasting? Let's take the worry and wonder out of the equation so you can get to feeling confident, calm, and in control.

You've been dabbling in the intermittent fasting info pool, thinking about getting started on this lifestyle that's been claimed to be an easier and more flexible way to gain control of your health and maybe lose some weight. There are many types of intermittent fasting methods to choose from, but we're going to compare two of our favorites around here at Simple: intermittent fasting 14:10 vs. 16:8.

We've all been there: that day when you put on your pants and … ouch. The waistband is scrunching your stomach. The elastic isn't elastic-ing quite enough. Or the belt holes seem to have suddenly shifted in the wrong direction. Whatever the reason, you might have had at least one encounter with clothing waistbands that made you think: could I change my belly shape and size?

Somewhere along the way, carbohydrates (think bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice) became the villains of the nutrition world. We don't see them that way at Simple, however. The truth is that our bodies need carbohydrates — it's the best energy source we've got. Where we can get into difficulties is when we eat too many carbohydrates and simple sugars (like honey and sweets); don't eat enough protein (such as chicken, fish, or tofu), healthy fats (like avocado or olive oil), or fruits and vegetables; and don't move our bodies enough during our daily lives.

Cholesterol is a substance that our body makes naturally. We need some of it for good health and function. But when it gets out of whack, it puts us at risk of health problems. Almost 2 in 5 adults in the United States have high cholesterol, and high cholesterol doesn't have any symptoms.

Possibly the only thing worse than getting that urge — the one that has you clutching at your stomach and running for the bathroom at an inopportune time — is when that urge hasn't come knocking for days, and you feel like your gut is a tight, uncomfortable coil that won't unwind. Since modifications to what and when you eat can affect your bowel movements, it's natural to be nervous that a new eating routine could also mean a new bathroom routine.

Over the past several years, taking regularly scheduled breaks from eating — in other words, intermittent fasting — has become something of a phenomenon. But does intermittent fasting really live up to the hype? Is fasting really good for your health, or is it an unhealthy option in the long term?