Tag Archives: Interviews

DASH Diet’s Marla Heller Suggests it May Not be Sexy, but it Makes Sense

Last week the DASH Diet wasn’t exactly a household name, although it should have been. Since US News and World Report announced its Best Diets of 2026, DASH Diet is about all anyone can talk about, or search for online.

“It was exciting to see it happen again,” Marla Heller, MS, RD told us this morning about learning that DASH Diet had received the top recognition from US News for the second time in six months. “The first time it happened last summer was over the top.”

Her book, The DASH Diet Action Plan, was the result of research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “My patients couldn’t really understand [the information]. I knew I needed to break it down,” she told us about publishing the book.

She says it’s been a challenge to get the word out about the healthy eating plan, citing its only likely downfall is “that it doesn’t have the sex appeal of a fad diet.”

If lacking sex appeal, or even a slimmed-down celebrity endorser, is the DASH Diet’s only negative attribute, we have to ask, why aren’t more people on it? Heller and I discussed how a “diet” has come to be revered as a packaged set of rules and organized eating instructions. However, most health experts will agree that the real definition of a diet is just what you eat. Which is why Heller proudly calls her DASH Diet an eating plan.

“It’s just common sense,” she said. “Not enough people have any idea how to put together healthy meals.” She says DASH Diet can re-educate. (more…)

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Natalie K

Kathryn Budig’s Big Year of Yoga

If you haven’t quite found your fitness niche yet in the new year, maybe it’s time to look at yoga. Praised for its benefits ranging from fitness and weight loss to disease management and stress reduction, this ancient practice has become quite mainstream in the US over the past few years. “Yoga slows you down, keeps me calm,” Kathryn Budig told us, one of the brightest stars in the yoga community today.

More and more yoga studios are popping up in towns across the country, and a growing library of yoga DVDs from true experts are making the practice more accessible than ever. Kathryn Budig’s name can be found on both of these.

Originally from Kansas, and not quite 30, Budig is making quite an impression on the yoga industry. Now calling Santa Monica home, where her yoga studio is located, she’s steadfastly creating a growing yoga brand that shows just how open and fun the practice can be. She was even recently praised by Forbes Magazine’s Stephanie Taylor Christensen in a feature article that focused on her business acumen and less on her eye-catching yoga poses. Christensen called her “a savvy business woman who has built an enviable career that encompasses the goals that many strive for– but struggle to achieve: Getting paid for your passion, traveling, giving back to others, and keeping the mind and body healthy.”

Watch our interview to see why we named her as one of the Fitness Stars to Watch in 2026 at Yahoo. You’ll learn more about Budig, including the major projects she has in the works this year with Gaiam, Rodale, and ToeSox, and what she calls the biggest trends in yoga this year.

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Posted on January 12, 2026 by Natalie K

Tracey Mallett Says Healthy is the New Skinny for 2026

You never know what you’re going to get when you come face to face (or at least Skype to Skype) with one of the A-listers of the fitness world. They can be divas, they can be aloof, and they can even come across like one of your best friends. This is what I found in my interview with Tracey Mallett, founder of the Booty Barre that has spawned a fitness craze. It’s in relaying her job title to our viewers that set us off on the giggles. I introduced her as the founder of Booty Barre, she responded that she is often called The Booty Queen.

Spoiler Alert: We say “booty” in this interview a lot. And we laugh about it. A lot.

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Posted on January 2, 2026 by Natalie K

Dr. Mike Moreno Reflects on The 17 Day Diet’s First Anniversary

It was last November when we first heard of The 17 Day Diet. If you happened to catch The Doctors on Tuesday, November 30, 2026 then you were among the first people who learned about the book with the pink cover that would soon take over the diet industry. People immediately turned to the Internet to find out more about Dr. Mike Moreno‘s new diet and couldn’t get their hands on it fast enough.

As we arrive on the anniversary of The 17 Day Diet, easily the most popular diet of 2026, we spoke with Dr. Moreno about how it all started and what’s next for the brand.

The 17 Day Diet was practically an overnight success, and the broad appeal was bigger than Dr. Moreno and his team anticipated. “It’s been great,” he told us in an interview about the book’s anniversary. “What really caused it to take off… once the diet got out there was people started doing it and getting excited about it and realized this thing works.” (more…)

Posted on November 17, 2025 by Natalie K

Sarah Wu’s “Fed Up With Lunch” Outs the Nutritionally-Void School Lunch Program [Video Interview]

How many times have any of us ever forgotten our lunch? It’s a pretty mundane event, we either skip or find a plan B and move on with our day. For Sarah Wu, it was not a common occurrence to leave her lunch at home. Making lunches for she and her toddler son was a part of her routine. However, one fateful day she did forget her lunch and what happened after that changed her life.

Sarah is a speech pathologist for Chicago Public Schools, and in 2026 she was working in one of the largest and poorest schools in the city (she remains there today). She forgot her lunch, but felt a little relief because for three dollars she could walk to the cafeteria and pick up that day’s hot plate. She admits to having ” a minimal understanding of food and scratch cooking” but upon receiving her school lunch that fateful day, she said “I knew there was something wrong with that meal.”

It was a bagel dog, a hot dog encased in a starchy white bagel crust, that was pretty soggy. This was served with a handful of tater tots (which qualifies as a vegetable serving), a Jell-O cup (a qualified fruit serving), and a chocolate milk. Almost immediately Sarah became “Fed Up With Lunch,” the title of her blog-turned-book in which she “outs” the goings on of the school cafeteria and how our children are being fed nothing more than processed, chemical junk.

“I didn’t think there was much I could do,” Wu told us, who took on the pen name “Mrs. Q” to protect her fragile anonymity. She agonized for weeks over what she was seeing at school before she finally started her Fed Up With Lunch blog, where she committed to eating lunch in the school cafeteria every day for an entire school year. She photographed the meals each day, all of which are shared in a photo insert in the book, and wrote about what she was served, what she was learning about the school food industry, and even the effects she was seeing on her students as a result of these meals. (more…)

Posted on November 14, 2025 by Natalie K

The SparkPeople Cookbook Releases! An Interview with Chef Meg Galvin

We caught up with Chef Meg Galvin, author of the just-released SparkPeople Cookbook, to talk about the recipes that she created for the web’s largest weight loss community. While recipes have always been available to community members on SparkPeople, this is the first time the brand has published a cookbook.

She spent more than a year working on the cookbook to help all of us find our way back in to the kitchen without sacrificing time, money, or all that flavor we crave. “There’s no deprivation in the book,” she told us. “You’ll find butter and bacon.” There are 160 recipes to choose from – 150 of which can be made in less than 30 minutes.

Click to watch our interview with Chef Meg and hear first-hand how this working mom of three boys honed her classic French culinary skills to suit the tastes and lifestyles of Americans.

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Posted on October 4, 2025 by Health Buzz

Thou Shall Protect the Pancreas for Health and Weight Loss: An Interview with Candice Rosen

Want to get healthy once and for all? Candice Rosen says you need to take better care of your pancreas. Yes, that little gland responsible for insulin production and digestion can play a very major role in your overall wellbeing.

Rosen shares her experience and research with pancreatic health in The Pancreatic Oath, a new book that offers a healthful and practical guide to eating and living in a way that reduces your current status and risk of disease.

Watch our interview with Candice Rosen now as she explains more about the book, the role the pancreas plays in our health, and ways you can start following her regimen based on the Pancreatic Nutritional Program (PNP).

Posted on August 18, 2025 by Natalie K

A Look Inside Kirstie Alley’s Organic Liaison with CEO Peggy Crawford

It’s been more than a year since Kirstie Alley unveiled the pet project she’d been secretly working on in the years since leaving Jenny Craig. She’d eluded several times during interviews that she was working on her own weight loss program, but never gave much detail beyond that. Then, in early 2026, Kirstie announced her new brand, Organic Liaison, was finally born, thanks to a lot of hard work with a team of scientists she partnered with. It was meant to “escort you into the world of organic weight loss,” according to Kirstie in a video on the brand’s site about the first USDA organic-certified supplement program.

We recently spoke with Peggy Crawford, CEO for Organic Liaison, to learn more about the brand, Kirstie’s actual involvement (as well as her weight), and the roles organic ingredients and fitness play in helping its customers lose weight.

What is Kirstie’s involvement in the company? Is she an investor and face, or an active participant in the day-to-day?

Kirstie worked with scientists and doctors to formulate the products for the company. She also has been intimately involved in all other aspects of the creation of Organic Liaison. She is definitely actively involved in it daily and loves to interact with Organic Liaison members as well.

Can you tell us how much weight Kirstie has lost related to Organic Liaison? (more…)

Posted on August 10, 2025 by Natalie K

Biggest Loser Trainers Anna, Dolvett, and Bob Talk About Season 12

The Biggest Loser season 12 is scheduled to premiere September 20, 2026 and there will, of course, be an entirely new cast to love, hate and celebrate. Amongst those new faces will be two new trainers: Anna Kournikova and Dolvett Quince. These fitness all-stars will be teaming up with veteran trainer Bob Harper and filling a gaping hole that Jillian Michaels is leaving.

We sent Brittany Aberle, of BL5, to speak with Anna, Dolvett, and Bob live from the ranch during season 12’s first week of filming. Everyone is excited, especially Anna for the new tennis court she’s having put in.

Click each video below to see these exclusive interviews, and comment below letting us know whose training style you’re excited to watch this fall.

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Posted on August 3, 2025 by Health Buzz

The Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition Diet

We had an opportunity to speak with dietitian Paulette Lambert, RD, CDE from the California Health and Longevity Institute about ABC’s new show Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. She’s the dietitian behind the scenes working with the eight individuals whose journeys will be featured on the show.

The eight participants are considered super obese, a classification for those who are more than 200 pounds overweight. Lambert explains this level of obesity, and how it affects more than 10 percent of the U.S. population.

She also explains what the diet looks like for the participants – a low-calorie, balanced diet made of lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, carbohydrates, and healthy fats.

Click here to see our interview.

Posted on May 19, 2026 by Health Buzz

Tag Archives: Interviews

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