There's a big sale on at Lane Bryant online for the next three days (until July 9th). All their clothes are 40 to 50% off as part of their July 4th Celebration. If you need plus sized clothing from size 14 to 28, check them out for some real bargains.

Heidi Klum is helping McDonald's sell their new chicken wrap offering. It's an expensive campaign by McDonald's to attempt to alter their image as kings of junk food.

The wrap she is holding here is a grilled chicken breast strip with cheddar jack cheese, shredded lettuce and honey mustard sauce in a flour tortilla. It is about 240 calories. It seems much more nutritious than the typical McDonald's fare in that the calorie count is low and it provides 11% of the daily recommended amount of calcium and iron. However, it also includes 33% of daily recommended amount of sodium, which is alarmingly high given the nutritional value it provides. And the fiber content is low at 4%, you'd have to eat 25 of these (at 6,000 calories) to get your fiber quota for the day.

And remember you are not exactly getting free range chicken here. We don't want to think too deeply about where these chickens come from.

Here is a surreal video commercial of Heidi lining up for her lunch at a McDonald's in Germany with a couple of other unusually beautiful and slim models -- the kind you would typically see in your local McDonald's lineup.

Wii Fit is going to be the first really big-selling virtual fitness video game. It includes several different types of exercise options: aerobic exercise, muscle conditioning, yoga and balance games.

Check out Nintendo's Wii Fit video trailer below (if for no other reason than to see some really neat living room furniture and design makeover ideas).

The Yummie Tummmie company got a big boost by being featured on Oprah recently. Heidi Klum introduced their tank top and said she wished she had known about this when she had her children "because it kind of sucks it all in and keeps it nice".

The Yummie Tummie tank top is made to smooth away lumps and bumps, while looking stylish. It's being promoted as an everyday tank that is perfect for layering and will slim your middle area. It's made of cotton with a spandex tummy panel. It's available in 10 different colors but four of the colors are already sold out online thanks to the Oprah effect. Cost is $62.

See also some tops and tank tops that are perfect for women who have some mommy tummy.

Researchers at Standford University have found that people who are trying to lose weight will be more successful if they see their own virtual model losing weight.

The Virtual Human Interaction Lab created sophisticated virtual model images of their test subjects and then showed them these models on a treadmill getting slimmer and slimmer. They also showed them their own virtual model getting fatter as they ate junk food.

The tests showed that people were very motivated by these sophisticated 3D models that looked just like themselves. The majority of participants exercised more often after having seen this virtual weight loss simulation.

Hear an interview about this at NPR radio.

We can't wait for this sophisticated tool to get out of the lab and become available for general use. Until then though, you can always try our virtual weight loss model here.

Cyntia Nixon (one of the stars of Sex and the City) has just told People Magazine that she got in shape for the movie with regular gyrotonic exercises. Gyrotronics is getting lots of buzz these days. It's being called the pilates of the 21st century.

Elle Magazine says that,

While it looks like an instrument of torture, New Age fitness fanatics and body-conscious celebrities like Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Teri Hatcher and Kim Cattrall call Gyrotonic the best new exercise-think yoga with resistance. It has
already taken off in trend-setting centers like New York, L.A. and London, and has spread through most of Europe, Australia and even Southeast Asia.

The San Francisco Chronicle had a good article yesterday on the anti-aging effects of exercise. Regular exercise helps shed extra pounds and reduce heart disease, diabetes and hypertension.

But the new evidence is that it also helps keep us younger on a cellular level. There's something called telomeres on some of our cells and these telomeres shorten as we get older. But people who exercise have longer telomeres and are biologically as much as nine years 'younger'.

See about the benefits of exercise for anti-aging.The jogging photo above is by DISCOSTU.

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis turns 50 this year. She's featured on the cover of AARP magazine (the May/June edition that comes out this Monday).

Curtis feels great about turning 50. And she's worn her hair naturally gray for a few years. She tells the magazine she lost 20 pounds a couple of years ago (over one year) and feels much better. Her height is 5'9". She has much more energy now and gets up at 5:00am every day. She plays tennis three times a week and does yoga.