How safe is your food?

Cases of food-borne illnesses and food poisoning can happen anywhere-at home, in a restaurant or at the office during lunch hour.  Here’s how to prepare, store, and serve food to lessen the risks of making yourself and others sick.

1. Wash your hands thoroughly and often for about 20 seconds, especially when you’re handling raw meat (particularly chicken and other poultry), to avoid contaminating other foods, utensils, and other areas of the kitchen with salmonella and other bacteria.
2. Separate raw meat from other foods.  Cross-contamination can transfer harmful bacteria to food that’s otherwise safe to eat.  When shopping, separate raw foods from other items n your grocery cart or basket.  At home, bag the raw meats and place them at the bottom of the freezer or fridge to prevent their juices from dripping onto other items.  Use different chopping boards and knives for raw meat and for other foods.
3. Use a clean plate. Never place cooked food on the same plate where it came from when it was still raw.
4. Throw out old food.  Check expiration dates on food labels.  Regularly check your fridge for items you may have forgotten about or have begun to smell and grow fuzzy.  At the office, encourage everyone to check the stuff they leave in the fridge.  Otherwise, suggest that the office take charge of throwing out-long staying food items on a weekly basis.
5. Thaw properly.  Never thaw meats at room temperature, which lets bacteria grow.  Instead, take frozen items out of the freezer the night before and thaw inside the refrigerator.  Or thaw under running water (never dunk it in a pan of water and leave it to thaw at room temperature).  You can also thaw frozen items in the microwave.
6. Wash utensils and surfaces properly.  Experts recommend washing with hot soapy water to ensure that any bacteria to kitchen equipment and surfaces (including the faucets) die.
7. Keep cold food cold, hot food hot.  Pack lunch in insulated bags then chuck into the fridge as soon as you arrive at work never leave perishables at room temperature (even in an airconditioned environment) for over two hours.  Refrigerator temperature should be at 4 deg. C.  Heat pack lunch in the microwave.
8. Store leftovers properly.  If you’re taking home a doggy bag, make sure you’re heading straight home so you can place your leftovers in the refrigerator immediately.  Just had food delivered?  Store leftovers in shallow containers and cover.  Discard anything that’s been standing at room temperature for at least two hours.  Throw out leftover pizza and other take-out-food that have been in the fridge for three to five days.  While freezing delays spoilage, food will also eventually rot.  Get rid of pizza that’s been in the freezer for over a month (don’t bother tasting it!).  Same with luncheon meats.  Cooked meat and poultry stored in the freezer for about 2 to 6 months should be thrown out as well.
9. Check the resto out.  Inspect the kitchen if you can, when you eat out.  Also take a peek into their washrooms, examine the utensils, and food servers.  If you’re not quite happy with the cleanliness, eat somewhere else.
10. Demand proper cooking.  The food and piping hot when it arrives at your table.  Undercooked foods may not be safe to eat.  Send your meal back, if that’s the case.

The Last-Minute Bikini Emergency Pound-shedding Plan

Still trying to lose the extra five to fit into that bikini?  Be honest: You still haven’t dropped those last few pounds you swore you’d banish from your bod before summer started.  The likely reason? You can’t bear the thought of forsaking your favorite foods…and who can blame you?  Nut fear not- Cosmo’s here to save you from a guilt-induced tailspin with a weight-loss plan that doesn’t require robotlike discipline.  First, ditch the calorie-counting handbooks and pint-size-portion charts that are typical dieting de rigueur.  “When you deprive yourself, you’re likely to lose control over food, which leads to bingeing and weight gain,” says Elizabeth Somer, author of The Origin Diet (Henry Holt, 2001).  Instead, revamp your food’tude, and drop those pesky pounds with these easy-to-stick eating principles.  Then try some of our metabolism boosters to make those last five pounds melt off even faster.

Pound-Melting Principles:

Dieting Doctrine 1

Curb during the week then cave on weekends

Rigidly sticking to no-sweets, no-fat (not to mention no-fun) diet all day, every day is impossible and impractical, says Somer.  Instead, pick two days a week when you’re allowed normally no-no foods.  On weekends, you’re more likely to eat out, go to parties, or munch on fattening bar food.  (But don’t go overboard on a free-for-all bingefest0.  The reason this rule rocks, says Somer, is that you get a fix of “bad food,” so you won’t feel deprived and be tempted to pig out.  Plus you skip the guilt since you’ve already given yourself permission to dodge your diet-temporarily.

Dieting Doctrine 2

Never eat a meal in less than 20 minutes

A hasty-eating habit can wreak havoc on your waistline.  It takes up to 20 minutes after you’ve begun munching for your brain to recognize that you’re full, says Susan Adams, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Assiciation.  So if you’re slamming back food at breakneck speed, it’s likely that you’re taking in more calories than you need to feel satisfied.  Her tips for putting the brakes on your pace:  Rest your fork on your plate or put your sandwich down between each bite, take smaller bites, and chew and swallow them completely before taking another, or use chopsticks-no matter what type of cuisine you’re chowing.

Dieting Doctrine3

When you eat something bad, eat something good with it

Chances are there are fantasy foods that you simply can’t resist (French fries, double-chocolate-chip cookies, and cheesecake come to mind) - so don’t!  But when you do indulge in forbidden fare, be sure to pair it with good-for-you food, says Somer.  The addition of a healthy morsel will help you fill up before you OD on the devilish eats.  Got a weakness for pizza with extra cheese?  Snag one slice, but add a salad.  You’ll be less likely to reach for round two.

Dieting Doctrine 4

Eat pasta only THREE times per week-max

This Italian carb is cheap, delish, and such a snap to make, it’s no wonder it’s a staple of so many people’s diets.  But noshing on noodles nonstop can add unwanted pounds.  The solution?  Set goal:  Only allow yourself to give in to your pasta pangs three times a week.  According to Mindy Hermann, a nutritional consultant in New York, if you cave more often than that, you’re likely to overload on nutritionally punch.  Make your platter of penne or your bowlful of bow-ties more flavorful and healthy by combining it with a variety of veggies and a tasty source of protein, like low-fat cheese, chicken, or beans.

Dieting Doctrine 5

Always leave a little food on your plate

It’s time to ditch your mom’s dinnertime “Clean your plate” dictate.  Even though the portion sizes we get in restaurants or serve ourselves are often twice as large as they should be, says Hermann, many of us have a hard time letting any food go to waste.  But by getting over the guilt and leaving a few bites behind at every meal, you’ll learn to become more conscious of your calorie intake.  And you may find that the amount you’d ever realized.

Diet Deception: The Zone Diet

The Premise: 

A high protein, low carbohydrate diet which limits your caloric intake and follows the ratio of 40/30/30 for carbohydrates, protein, and fat respectively. Created by Barry Sears, author of Enter the Zone, this diet makes ‘zonies’ experience rapid weight loss mostly attributed to three factors: 

1. Protein has a higher satiating effect than carbohydrates, so you feel less hungry in a high protein diet.
2. High protein suppresses the following day’s protein intake more than carbohydrates.
3. Digesting protein requires more energy than digesting carbs which increases your caloric expenditure.

High protein diets are simply those that require the person to have an intake of more than 30 percent in protein. The diet relies on the fact that insulin secretion is stimulated by carbohydrate consumption. Low carbs keep insulin in a range that allows the body to burn excess fat.

The Provisions:

Lean meats like chicken, turkey, lean steaks and just sidings of vegetables and fruits.

The Promise: 

Rapid weight loss, improved athletic performance (this is a new one!) and a lower risk of developing heart disease and cancer.

The Proof:

Randy, 30, a computer programmer said “I tried it and I lost 15 pounds, but had serious problems with my skin and bowel movement so I went off it. Regarding athletic performance, I swim a lot but I don’t think it really improved it.”

The Prognosis:

Rapid weight loss is inevitable in a low carbohydrate, high protein diet. While it contends that excessive complex carbohydrates causes obesity by increasing insulin output and fat storage, you’ll find that none of the references quoted in the book to back up these claims have ever been published.

The author vehemently advises against a vegetarian diet, completely ignoring that fact that vegetarians are far less likely to develop heart disease and cancer and are leaner than meat-eaters. Clinical studies alone in the last half century clearly show how a high protein, high fat diet can lead to higher risks for heart disease, stroke, adult onset diabetes, several types of cancer and stroke.

With regards to the 40/30/30 ratio, studies show that the average diet in most Western countries, is already an approximation of this ratio. The U.S. in particular has 60 percent of its population falling under the obese category, not to mention a steady increase over the last couple of years of incidence of heart disease and cancer. These fatal numbers are but a reflection of the same diet ratio the book encourages everyone to follow.

Like most low carb diets, the weight loss is mainly attributed to dehydration. By limiting carbohydrates (where 3 grams of water are stored in every gram of carbohydrate), zonies think that they’re actually losing a pound of fat a day. It’s also below the healthy recommended caloric intake for adults (2,200 to 2,500 calories a day) at only 1,700 calories. This causes unhealthy depletion of body mass with minimal fat loss. The weight loss is quickly regained once the body can no longer sustain the diet.

As for improvement in athletic performance, athletes would be well advised to stay away from the Zone. The recommendations for both carbohydrates and caloric intakes are insufficient to meet the energy requirements of everyday training.

The Pros’ Position:

“There are a lot of false statements made in the book. The fact that carbohydrates cause heart disease and cancer has no basis at all. Furthermore, there are so many health problems proven to be directly linked to the consumption of high levels of protein- heart conditions, stroke, cancer and even calcium loss and osteoporosis. The short term benefit of rapid weight loss isn’t worth the inevitable long term health risks.” says Ana Cruz, an L.A. nutritionist and dietician who once worked for the Duke University Medical Center.

Dr. Sanirose Orbeta, a nutrinionist adds, “Like the other new diets in the market, the nutrient ratio in The Zone diet doesn’t follow the healthy eating index, which should have 55 to 60 percent carbohydrates, 15 to 20 percent protein and 20 to 25 percent fat.”

Diet Deception: The Cabbage Soup Diet

The Premise: 

The more soup you eat, the more weight you lose. Cabbage is the one super vegetable with little calories and high fat burning capabilities.

The Provisions: 

The basic ingredients of the soup include three large onions, green bell pepper, a head of celery, dark green cabbage, chopped tomatoes, onion soup mix and three cubes of vegetable stock.

The Promise: 

Weight loss of 10 to 15 pounds in seven days by following the seven-day cabbage soup diet.

The Proof: 

Rachel, 28, marketing assistant said “I tried it and lost 4 pounds. It’s really hard to just eat the darned soup day in and day out over and over! Plus, I actually gained it all back in less than a week so I don’t think this diet works unless you intend to stay on cabbage soup forever which is a fate worse than death, if you ask me”.

The Prognosis: 

First of all, there’s no such thing as “the one food” that will melt all your fat away. Whether its cabbage or grapefruit, eating only one type of food is just nutritionally unsound. Furthermore, it’s only a matter of time before your body starts craving for other types of food which will probably not be the healthiest of choices. In fact, according to an article in the Journal of Nutrition (2001), the only thing you lose in this diet is water, which you will quickly gain back by downing even just a few glasses of water.

The Pros’ Position:

“Anything that shuts out other food groups is already a warning signal for you not to try it. There are no miracle foods out there that you can gorge solely on and expect miracle results. Water is the easiest thing to lose when you want the scales to reflect a lower number pronto. But being water deficient can cause dry skin and make you look old quickly, especially if you keep dehydrating yourself often enough,” says Ana Cruz, an L.A. nutritionist and dietician who once worked for the Duke University Medical Center.

Dr. Sanirose Orbeta, a nutrinionist adds, “People who take this soup will automatically lose weight because it’s very low in total calories. One cup of pure vegetable soup doesn’t even amount to 50 calories, the equivalent of one medium-sized banana or one medium-sized apple. It’s not sustainable for the needs of the body. It’s nutritionally unsound and unsafe.

Diet Deception: The After Six Diet

The Premise: 

Not eating after 6 p.m. so that by the time you sleep, most of the body’s intake would have already been converted to energy and used up, efficiently eliminating the chances of stocking up excess calories that might turn into fat.

The Promise: Weight Loss

The Proof: 

Kathy, 26, a former national athlete said “As an athlete, I’ve never had to diet extensively. But when I got married and gave birth, it was much harder. I did the After-six diet for two months and was amazed to find that I fit in my old clothes again. You just have to have the discipline to do it.”

The Prognosis: 

The After-six diet is more of a health tip than a diet. Its two main goals are to create an eating cut-off so you take in fewer calories for the lesser amount of activities ahead of you which is sleeping; and to promote the habit of eating breakfast. We continuously burn calories every second of our lives. Logically, you burn more calories running than sleeping, although you still burn calories even when you snooze. Also, the digestive ability of the body is more efficient when you’re awake. Before your food turns into energy, the body has to transform it to useable forms of energy. By eating way before bedtime, you ensure that the food has been digested and can efficiently be used by the body during slumber.

The theory is almost sound until you figure out what exactly your bedtime is. It takes approximately four hours before the body reacts to the lack of nutrients and you start feeling hunger pangs. After two hours of digesting, your body is efficiently burning calories and by the end of the fourth hour, your stomach produces enzymes for digestion for the food, which it is supposedly scheduled to admit. But what if you sleep at midnight? Two hours would have gone by then and the enzymes in your stomach would have reacted to your stomach lining resulting to ulcers and acid build-up.

The Pros’ Position:

“If you’re not an early sleeper, don’t do it. You can develop ulcers and hyperacidity by not eating way past four hours consistently. The concept of an eating cut-off time can work only if you take into consideration your normal sleeping patterns. If you sleep at midnight, make your cut-off 8p.m. or even 9p.m. instead of 6p.m. remember, hunger is just the body’s way of conveying that it needs nourishment. Deprivation is not the key to good health. Just make sure you eat two to three hours before you sleep. That should be sufficient. Never sleep straight away after eating”, says Ana Cruz, an L.A. nutritionist and dietician who once worked for the Duke University Medical Center.

On the other hand, some nutritionists believe that this is another fad formula which they discourage because of its erroneous and unscientific reasoning. This is because the body’s basal metabolism works 24 hours and does its different functions regardless of the time you feed it. 

The bottom line is: The key to healthy and scientific weight loss and weight maintenance program has no easy formula. Healthy lifestyle changes, good food choices, sustained and regular physical activity, attitudinal and behavioral modification will give us a healthier body.

Diet Deception: Diet Deception: The Blood Type Diet

The Premise:

Peter J. D’ Adamo, author of Eat Right for Your Type, says that in order to optimize the use of your food intake and channel it into the proper caloric expenditures needed to keep the body healthy, you must take into consideration your blood type. The basic premise is that Type Os are the dominant, hunter/caveman types and thus, are mainly carnivores; Type As are docile vegetarians and Type Bs are dairy-eating omnivores. According to D’ Adamo, this fact is supported by the action of lectins, sugar-wielding proteins found on the surface of certain foods that cause various molecules and cells to stick together.

The Provisions:

Type Os should stick mainly to protein-rich foods: meat, fish, tofu, eggs etc; Type As to vegetables and food of plant origins: vegetable oils, peanut butter, wheat-based products like pasta and breads, and should stay away from milk as this blood type cannot process milk. Type Bs can eat all the dairy products they want: butter, creams, etc. and since most of these products come from animal sources, meat and poultry is allowed in minimal amounts.

The Promise:

Reduces the risks of heart disease and steers you away from multi-organ dysfunction. Plus, it can ensure the proper processing of your daily intake and channel it into healthier, more effective means of expenditure.

The Prognosis:

The book contains a lot of scientifically dissatisfying, one-size-fits-all statements such as “Type Os don’t tolerate whole wheat products at all,” which leads one to believe that Type Os can generally die from taking wheat products. How much wheat can Type Os tolerate before it leads to massive heart failure or smoke?

Another argument is that “if a Type A drinks milk, her system will immediate start the agglutination process in order to reject it.” But the author offers no proof to support this statement. No statements are even offered explaining why Type As who drink milk (sometimes massive quantities of it) aren’t rushing to their graves as a result of strokes when their blood agglutinates in their entire system

Agglutination is when the red blood cells (RBC) stick together to form clumps; a process that happens when the surface of red blood cells become coated with fat or other substances that make them adhere to each other’s surfaces. When agglutination occurs, the RBC can block the blood flow in the smaller capillaries and obstruct the flow of oxygen to vital organs such as the brain, the heart and the kidneys. Oxygen deprivation leads to infraction of the tissue or cell death. Again, the whole concept of the Blood Type diet is to eat only foods compatible to your blood type to prevent agglutination. Eating incompatibility can lead to fatal consequences and eventually death.

Most people aren’t even aware of their blood types so one can safely assume that on a daily basis and based on the premise of this diet; a person eats the wrong type of food regularly. According to the author, it’s only a matter of time before it takes its toll on the person’s health causing severe damages to his vital organs.

Search if you will, but you’ll find no pathologist to support the contention that tissue infraction from lectin-induced red cell agglutination causes disease and death in humas.

The Pros’ Position:

“Being that there are no concrete medical studies to back up the author’s assertions. I don’t think this diet holds much water. If milk’s really bad for you, why does entire government launch elaborate campaigns to promote it? Why there has been no documentation on people being hospitalized by the dozen because their blood cells stuck together?” says Ana Cruz, an L.A. nutritionist and dietician who once worked for the Duke University Medical Center. 

Diet Deception: The Fit For Life Diet

The Premise:

That weight gain is simply the result of eating inapproprite foods at inappropriate times of the body’s natural cycle. Fit for Life authors Harvey and Mari-lyn Diamond say that the body has three natural cycles: appropriation, or eating and digesting which happens from noon to 8 p.m. , assimilation or absorption and use (8 p.m. to 4 a.m.) , and elimination of body waste, which happens from 4 a.m. to noon. They further contend that since the body is made up of 70 percent water, so should your diet; hence the ratio of 70 percent fruits and vegetables to 30 percent concentrated foods (or everthing else).

The Provisions:

Just fruit juice or fruits before noon, salad and fruit for lunch,starch and either vegetable or protein for dinner, and a fruit snack at least three hours after dinner. Every two or three days, lunch should only consist of fruit, so you have two meals consisting of just fruit. You’re also allowed nuts, and nut butters, pasta, bread, and grains during lunch and dinner, but all dairy products (except butter) are strictly off limits. Consumption of meat is also discouraged.

The Promise:

Lose as much as 50 pounds in a month by eating proper food combinations at the appropriate times.

The Proof?

Christine, 23, a student says “I lost eight pounds from this diet after only three weeks, but it left me feeling weak and almost always hungry. I decided to get off it after four weeks at which I returned to eating as much of a balanced diet as I could. I try to stay away from fat as much as possible. It took me only two weeks to gain the weight back plus two more pounds. I never want to diet again.”

The Prognosis:

The weight loss Christine experienced from this diet was expected due to its low caloric intake and high  the bulk content. This diet restricts the intake of meat and carbs to a total of one to two servings per day and replaces the rest of the days’ intake with fruits and vegetables. Although it does encourage you to increase your veggie intake, this diet puts a slightly higher premium on the nutritional value of our leafy friends by claiming that all the nutrients the body needs can be found solely in foliage.

Some foibles: The authors state that “fruit should never be taken with or immediately following anything,” (an important Fit for Life rule) , and that fruit taken after a meal rots and cannot be assimilated- ir ferments and its accumulation causes obesity. But fruits in themselves contain a chemical called pectin which is fermented. Following the authors’ contention that fermentation leads to obesity, eating fruit would then lead to obesity and not cure it. Another claim that raised more than a few eyebrows in the health industry is that dairy products are indigestible and acid and mucus-forming. The authors further argue that cow’s milk is for cows and not suitable for huma ns and that the only acceptable form of dairy is butter. Unless they’re actually taking about the butter made from human milk, their arguments simply don’t make sense.

The Pros’ Position:

According to Ana Cruz,an L.A. nutritionist and dietician who once worked for the Duke University Medical Center, “The diet is highly deficient in protein, calcium, zinc, vitamins B and D and iron, and can lead to iron deficiency anemia and osteoporosis. A diet that restricts milk and protein can seriously affect the development of young children and strict adherence to the diet during pregnancy can do serious harm to a developing fetus.”

Top nutritionist Dr. Sanirose Orbeta says, “In practice, we try to avoid nutrient specificity, like emphasizing one group of food over the other. Precisely it’s the complimentary, supplementary action one food gives another food that creates the balance of nutrients. That’s the reason why a variety in food choices is important. For example, the amino acids lacking in rice or pasta together with the protein from animal meat or plant source will combine to make the food healthy and high in biologic value and nutrient density.”

Image Sources:

fruits : http://www.flickr.com/photos/feastguru_kirti/2295831315/
fruit juices: http://www.flickr.com/photos/comunicati/6071069098/
vegetables: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suckamc/2488644619/

Diet Deception: The Atkin’s Diet

The Premise:

A high protein, high fat and low carbohydrate (little or no food containing carbs) diet will produce dramatic weight loss. One of the most popular diets out there from the controversial bestseller by Dr. Richard Atkins.

The Provisions:

A sample of the Atkins Diet menu includes: Breakfast: four slices of bacon, two scrambled eggs and decaf coffee. Lunch: Bacon cheeseburger without bun, salad without dressing and water. Dinner: Shrimp cocktail, mustard, mayo, clear beef broth, T-bone steak, salad, sugar-free jello and whipped cream.

The Promise: 

If you want weight loss, this is it! This diet guarantees rapid weight loss you’ve never seen before.

The Proof:

Jake, 30, a marketing manager said, “I went on the Atkins diet for three weeks and lost 10 pounds before I was hospitalized. My cholesterol levels were off the charts, my blood pressure was dangerously high, and I experienced fainting spells. I lost weight because of my hospitalization more than the diet. I don’t think I’ll do this diet again.”

The Prognosis:

No doubt you’ll loss weight- high protein, low carb weight-loss diets are designed to induce ketosis, an abnormal state also found in uncontrolled diabetes and starvation. Ketosis has also been known to cause some degree of anorexia or even euphoria. Dr. Atkins considers ketosis as a necessary state to induce weight loss, completely ignoring all other health concerns related to it. Some of the conditions you can expect if you follow this regimen long-term are: colorectal cancer due to lack of fiber from carbs (proven by the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research, Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer); heart disease due to the decreased efficiency of the arteries by saturated fats in red meat (according to the American Heart Association and Red Cross); kidney dysfunction from very large amounts of protein (from a study conducted by the American Academy of Family Physicians); diabetes complications- diabetes itself affects the heart and the kidneys and going on a diet known to affect these organs will only result in further complications; and osteoporosis- high protein diets induce urinary calcium loss resulting to increased risk in fractures.

The Pros’ Position:

“Even Dr. Atkins himself wasn’t able to defend his own diet in a convention where his own peers, several nutritionists and dieticians were present, “says Dr. Sanirose Orbeta, a nutritionist. She adds, “This is one of the most popular recycled food plans to date. As a health care practitioner, our major concern is your long-term safety. Consider anything that cuts out a major food group like carbohydrates as a warning signal for a diet which is both unhealthy and dangerous. I’ve had to treat several patients who actually felt the adverse effects of this diet and totally revamp their eating choices. Effects can be long-standing and lethal. Thankfully I haven’t [had any patients] experiencing anything near fatal but why let it come to that? If you’re on it, consider getting off it before serious damage sets in.”


Image: 
bacon: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sxld/3439651256/
bacon cheeseburger: http://www.flickr.com/photos/waferboard/4449825083/

The Ways To Improve Our Health

Picking a healthy lifestyle can benefit us in numerous ways. It offers an enhanced energy and helps to makes our body to always feel in tune. It is imperative to discover ways on how we can improve our health.

Picking a healthy lifestyle can do well to a person in numerous ways. It will make a person’s body to feel more in sync and provides an enhanced energy.  So it is always imperative that we classify ways on how we can improve our health.

The following are the ten actions that we can execute to ensure that we get a best possible nutrition:

1. Always look at what you eat. Our meals must include healthy balanced food on a daily basis. Identifying our nutritional requirements and not indulging ourselves too much or even too little can show the way to a more well-balanced healthy lifestyle. There are a number of resources to seek advice from in order to find out our body's needs and requirements.

2. Hit the Sack.  When we are deprived of sleep, our body starts to blackout. We need to make sure that we always feel rested from obtaining a sufficient amount of rest or sleep. This will permit our body to do its role at a consistent and best possible speed every day.

 

3. Vitamins and supplements are big help. We need to pay attention to where our diet feels deficient. Once we have determined this, then we can start to balance it by taking vitamins and supplements.

4. Do Exercises. We should work out no less than four or five times a week. Doing exercises or working out helps our body to build more muscles, lose some weight and can help us to avoid getting illnesses and diseases.

 

5. Be at war with addictions. Stay away from under or over eating. This can effortlessly interrupt our nutritional balance and can cause severe problems.

6. Keep on learning. There is numerous different description of health improvement.  Health Improvement not just means diet, but there are some approaches that can be an element of your daily life. We need to keep studying and researching to decide on what are and are not efficient to help us in maintaining and improving our health.

7. Continue to be motivated. It is effortless to start working on our health improvement and it is as well easy to stop once we don’t see any abrupt results. A key feature on improving our health is by remaining steady and motivated in all our activities. It is very vital to make health care as our priority every single day.

8. Get your accurate body measurements. Knowing our body mass index taken, as well as discovering where we need to center our efforts with the aim of improving our health can assist us in staying motivated in improving our health.

9. Building networks or connections. A network consist of not only of those that can supply us information, but also aid and assist us in structuring and maintaining health.

10. Seek Advice. There are a range of health care nutritionists and providers that can help us. If we are hesitant about the essential steps to take, be connected with the right person to find out what we need to do.

We can help ourselves to live a more rewarded life by constantly working towards our health improvement.  By identifying what we need to do and by following the above steps, we can be certain that we will achieve a superior energy and nutrition.

Images:

Sleeping: http://www.flickr.com/photos/betsssssy/521060626/
Measuring Tape: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/4508825094/
Advice: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chicagogeek/4573105688/

A Diet for Stunning Skin

The best get that perfect skin routine? It is not the up-to-the-minute treatment in a spa. It's our manner of eating. Yes of course, we are familiar to that for years. Experts believed that greasy oily foods and also chocolates don't cause a pimple breakout and that, in general, what we eat has no effect in our skin. But the latest research proves a different one. So go after these four rules on how we can feed our skin.

Stay away from white stuff 
It turned out that our favorite french fries is a cause for breakouts. However it's not the oil that's the reason, it is the potatoes. In a latest study, researchers observed the 1,200 inhabitants of an island next to Papua New Guinea and 115 hunter-gatherers in the country of Paraguay and could not find even single breakout. Do you want to know their secret?  According to Loren Cordain Ph.D., a professor of health and exercise science at the Colorado State University, their secret is a diet that consists of almost exclusive protein, veggies and fruits. Not present from their meals are carbohydrates- such as pasta, bread, white bread, potatoes, rice, and sweets- that are the foundation of our present diet. These carbohydrates send our insulin levels to soar, and researchers thinks that this sets off a chain reaction that leads to pimple breakouts.

Food switching: As a substitute of refined white carbohydrates, go for reasonable amounts of complex carbohydrates like brown rice, whole-grain bread, and whole-wheat pasta (they are being digested more gradually).  And to keep line away later, binge on brightly colored fruits and vegetables. They’re rich in antioxidants, which ward off the dangerous free radicals that lead to wrinkles, furrows, and other signs of aging.


Take pleasure in Seafoods 

Fish is a good source of omega-3 and omega-6 or being referred as essential fatty acids (EFAs), which lessen the inflammation in the body. Inflammation triggers our cells to block our skin's pore, causing acne breakout. This is according to Nicholas Perricone, the author of The Perricone Prescription. The varieties of fish that contain the most EFAs are mackerel, salmon, and tuna (mostly the albacore and variety of blue fin). EFAs can also be found in flaxseed, almonds, and hazelnut.

Food switching: Eat smoked salmon for your breakfast, eat tuna sandwiches for your lunch, and consume salmon burger in replacement to hamburgers. If eating fish is not your thing, then eat a handful of almonds as an afternoon snack.


Evict blush triggers  
While a slight color in your cheeks is pleasing, full-on reddishness is not just the look you are after. And some beverages and foods, such as cured meats, spices, MSG, and alcohol (chiefly red wine) , can be a reason for our blood vessels to widen, bringing on redness on our face, says John Wolf, M.D. , chairman of the department of dermatology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Food switching: If you have a tendency to redden easily, keep your mind on to which foods carry it on, since people have dissimilar triggers. If eating spicy foods get you redden easily, then order Thai foods without the curry and eliminate wasabi when you go and crave for a sushi. If you redden after a few drinks, hold back or at least passes on drinking red wine.


Spoil yourself with Olive Oil
If we stay away from fat or grease for the sake of keeping our waistline trimmed, our skin could be sacrificed. According to says Joy Bauer, the author of The 90/10 Weight Loss Plan, a lot of young men and women have dry, flaky skin, and it is because they do not eat enough fat. If we are getting less than 20 grams of fat a day (approximately 2 tablespoons of oil) , our skin might not be able to lubricate itself and our body may not absorb enough supply vitamin A, which our skin needs to avoid premature aging.

Food switching: shower your salad with some olive oil and toss in some nuts and avocados. I swear this won’t have any unfavorable effect on the size of your jeans.




Images:

Bread: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41061319@N00/3195546454/
Salmon: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreagp/1122613434/
Olive oil: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10413717@N08/3868212179/

Caffeine: The Right Way

The word “coffee” comes from the ancient Arabic word qahweh which means “gives strength”. The computer data-base at the Colgan Institute contains over 600 citations on caffeine, stretching back two centuries. So the effects of caffeine, the main stimulant in coffee, have been known for thousand of years.

Properly used, caffeine is a bonanza. Dr Melvin Williams and his colleagues at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia have produced excellent reviews, showing that caffeine stimulates the our  central nervous system, increases the release of adrenalin, increases the use of body fat as fuel, and spares glycogen.

There are also two detrimental effects of caffeine that commonly being cited: it is a diuretic which will make us lose water in our body, and is a thermogenic which means that it raises our metabolic rate and our body’s temperature.  The athletes are frequently being warned that taking caffeine can make them dehydrated. But nearly all the studies showing these effects were done with inactive folk.

Recent research using athletes as subjects, found no diuresis or thermo genesis. Dr Baraket Falk and his colleagues at McMaster University, Ontario, gave endurance runners caffeine at 7.5mg/kg bodyweight (560 mg for a 75kg man). The dose had no effect on water loss, and did not raise temperature any higher without it, in men running a treadmill to exhaustion at 70-75% of VO2max. That's about as fast as you can go in long endurance exercise. So forget those two old bogeys of sedentary caffeine use. Caffeine on the run is a different animal.

The most common beneficial finding on caffeine use is an increase in burning of body fat as fuel. Compared with controls, up to 100% more body fat is used by subjects given with caffeine. If your body is using more fat for energy, then it is sparing your muscle glycogen, and therefore will extend your time to exhaustion in long endurance events. One proviso: if you load carbohydrates, so that your muscles are filled with glycogen above its normal levels, then your body is more primed to use glycogen, and caffeine fails to increase the burning of fat. Your body always takes the easiest of its many alternative routes. Supercharge one fuel source and it will use that first.

We also have to take the caffeine at the right time. Although many exercise studies have given caffeine one hour before exercise, studies that centers on measurement of our body’s free fatty acid metabolism, show that our body's fat-burn reaction to caffeine will only begin 3 hours after ingestion. 

As a final tip. If you drink coffee to get your caffeine, which is a better way to do it than taking pills, keep away from the inexpensive coffees prepared from the beans of Coffea Robusta. They make a sour brew, brown that is hell on the gut. Go and get Coffea Arabica, like Guatemalan Antigua, Kenyan AA or 100% Columbian.  

Image 1: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1982
Image 2: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=413
Image 3: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1499