Whether it’s a new year or you’re looking to get back to an exercise program, beginning can be a challenging prospect. Your mind may remember the movements of your past fitness regimens, but your body’s muscles and joints may have lost the strength and flexibility that it takes to complete those workouts. If you experience deep muscle soreness or an injury, you may abandon your efforts after just a few days. That’s why it’s so important to ease back into exercise so you can avoid these pitfalls and stick with it for the long haul. Here’s a workout that will help you get back on the right track.

But first, some good news: If you are new to exercise or you’ve been on an extended break, you will experience pretty significant gains—and at a rapid pace—at the start of your new program. The key to your success is proper progression and intensity.

As registered dietitians, one of our most important goals is to help people to get more nutrients from food to help them achieve optimal health. We encourage our clients to stay away from processed snacks, sugary sweets, hydrogenated fats and other foods that do more harm than good. Yet even when they do their best to follow these guidelines, many people still purchase snack foods they perceive to be healthy (but really aren’t). You can avoid this common pitfall by making these four popular snacks at home, which are not only more nutritious, but also a lot more economical.

For years we were told that eating fat would make us fat and increase our risk for heart disease. But now we’re told that the old recommendations were incorrect and we should be eating fat with every meal. So, who’s right? Well, it’s not a cut-and-dry answer. Let’s separate the fat facts from fiction to figure out how much each of us really should be eating.