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Archive for the ‘Healthy Body’ Category

The secrets to healthy looking skin may surprise you. They aren’t much different from those things that keep the inside of your body in good health.

We tend to forget that the skin is an organ of the body. It is a complex organ, because of its natural rejuvenating powers and because of all of the functions it performs.

It is the organ that protects the inside of the body from the elements and holds everything together. It is responsible for producing the body’s vitamin D. It has pigment producing cells that cause a tan. It has stem cells that produce new cells on a daily basis. It contains elastic collagen fibers and various proteins, as well as a compound called hyaluronic acid.

If the skin’s hyaluronic acid content becomes too low, you will start to see sagging and dark circles under your eyes. The level present in the skin’s layers naturally becomes lower as we age, which is why older people are more likely to have dark circles and most experience some degree of sagging.

One of the age old secrets to healthy looking skin was the use of masks made from a kind of seaweed called wakame. Modern day research has shown that wakame does in fact have healing powers. It originated in the Sea of Japan, but has spread around the world. It was introduced into the culinary world of the US as a nutraceutical.

Nutraceuticals are foods and nutrients with medicinal value. They have never been a part of the mainstream medical community in the US, but they are beneficial just the same.

Compounds present in wakame have been shown to inhibit enzymatic activity that reduces the skin’s hyaluronic acid levels.

So, this is one of the ancient secrets to healthy looking skin that has been proven correct by modern scientists.

Grape seed oil, Babassu palm wax, jojoba and many other botanical ingredients have also been proven effective. People used to like to keep them secret so they would look better than their contemporaries. Celebrities used to be secretive about the ingredients they used to reduce bags, puffiness and dark circles under the eyes.

But, we have more of a sharing attitude today. Just because lots of people use these secrets to healthy looking skin doesn’t mean we’ll run out of them. There’s plenty to go around.

Removing toxins from the body is an inexpensive healthy way to keep your body fit and functioning properly. The importance of keeping your body free from radicals and toxins can not be understated.

As we age, we realize how we can become more susceptible to diseases. After years of abusing our bodies, suddenly we must come to face with the fact that a lot of our health issues, we have brought on ourselves. Now it is time to remove toxins from the body that we have allowed our bodies to be exposed to. No it is not to late. Paying attention to what we eat and what toxins we expose our selves to is essential. Here are six tips to a healthy future:

Eat more fiber rich foods or, second best, take fiber supplements. This helps clean the walls of the lining of the colon and prevents buildup of toxins Eat plenty of vegetables, organic if possible without pesticides-preferably uncooked to get the most from the nutrients and fiber they provide. If you just can’t do vegetables-make fresh vegetable juice Eat real food,not processed. Eliminate sugar and junk food. Shop the outside aisles of the grocery store Start everyday with a glass of water. The more water you drink, the more toxins are flushed out of your colon. Drink water throughout the day. If you don’t drink enough, your body can’t clean itself out properly Get a colonoscopy. This is usually advised when a person turns 50-55 years of age. The rumors about how bad the experience is are unfounded and the payoff is that, if nothing is found wrong, you don’t have to do another one for 10 years Do a regular cleanse at least once a year to insure that your colon is cleaned out and doing its job. The health benefits are many. They include reducing bloating, helping allergies, skin problems, losing weight and most importantly a clean colon will help you stay healthy

When you are physically active, your body will become more fit and will look fantastic. Exercise is extremely important to keep your body healthy. It becomes even more important as we get older. Physical activity promotes health and helps reduce your risk of disease. It lowers your risk of heart disease and obesity; helps your bones stay healthy and strengthens muscles and joints. Exercise is also important for your mental health by improving memory and concentration.

Physical activity reduces the risk of diabetes and colon cancer, and helps to lower high blood pressure. It helps to improve mood swings and instills confidence. And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Already, you can see how important it is to keep your body moving.

More and more people are becoming more active. This lifestyle choice is keeping mortality rates at a lower level. Estimates show that 40% of women in the United States are now engaged in some type of regular exercise. If you’re one of them, keep up the good work! If not…get moving!

How much exercise is needed?

You don’t have to be an all-star athlete to get healthy benefits from exercise. It takes a smaller amount of activity that you’d think to keep your body healthy. So, if you’re not exercising because you don’t have enough time for long workouts, find another excuse! You only need to exercise for 30 minutes three times a week. And, it doesn’t have to be all at one time. You can break it down to 10 minute workouts several times a day.

You also don’t need to go to a gym or have fancy equipment for exercise to be effective. Go for a walk or ride your bicycle. Play tag with the kids. Just start moving. I don’t believe a “formal” exercise program is necessary as long as you’re active. Gardening, walking, climbing stairs, swimming and jogging can all improve your health. For beginners, 5 to 10 minutes of exercise a few times a week is a good place to start.

There are three types of exercise.

A complete fitness program includes three different types of exercise according to the American Council of Exercise.

1. Aerobic exercise uses large muscle groups in a continuous, rhythmic fashion for sustained periods of time. The exercise has to be for a long enough period to get the heart and lungs pumping blood and oxygen throughout the body. Dancing, swimming and running are all aerobic activities.

2. Muscular strength and endurance conditioning includes the use of weights or weight lifting. All major muscle groups (arms, chest, back, stomach, hips and legs) are used. These types of weight-bearing exercises are especially important for strengthening bones and preventing the development of osteoporosis. Walking is considered a weight-bearing exercise as well as an aerobic exercise, so you get “two for one” just by taking a walk!

3. Flexibility means stretching that involves all major muscle groups. You should stretch your muscles before and after each aerobic activity to warm up (and cool down) your muscles. This helps prevent painful cramping.

If you haven’t been physically active for a while, start out slow and work your way up to more vigorous exercises. You can prevent injuries by taking this precaution. But, DO start moving! The sooner you start, the sooner you will see results.

There are minerals all around us. In rocks, in the ground and in our food. There are good minerals and there are bad minerals. Like anything else, to much of a good thing can do more harm than good. There are minerals that our bodies just do not need.

In today’s world we seem to be getting more of the minerals that we our bodies do not need and a whole lot less of the minerals that we do need.

It has been a well known fact that if you lack certain minerals, a specific disease will most likely be the outcome. If your body does not get enough iron, you will end up with anemia. If your body does not get enough iodine, you could end up with goiter. Not eating right or not eating the right stuff can lead to your body not getting enough minerals to actually keep you healthy.

When your body gets a virus or should we just say gets sick, the blood in circulating around in that vast network of arteries and veins goes through a big change. The amount of such minerals like magnesium, copper and zinc dramatically changes. This may be why you feel weak when you get sick. Minerals play an important role in keeping your immune system up to par. Changes in the amount of these in the body are a definite link to how strong your immune system is.

With ever increasing things like heart disease, diabetes, cancer and others, a look at how much mineral content you take in and of what minerals are consumed could play a huge part in preventing these diseases.

Nutrition is always something to be looked at when someone gets a disease. Did they have the right amount of the right stuff in their diet to help prevent this. A weak immune system can lead to a host of problems throughout a persons life. Most doctors are more concerned with the vitamins someone is getting. Minerals and vitamins go hand in hand together to make your immune system work well. The human body is set up to use both minerals and vitamins. They are an essential part of the bodies ability to heal after and/or during an illness.

Be sure to get enough of the right vitamins and enough of the right minerals in your diet to have a strong immune system. They work together to keep your body together.

Hi everyone

We all feel good when we have been out and eaten a good meal, the feel good factor really kicks in, our mood is enhanced making us less stressed helping to keep our body’s immune system ready for anything thrown at it. Keeping our inner body – our organs healthy, and along with a healthy mind gives us all a greater wellness and sense of being, and leads to good health.

Eating good food for good health is essential for a healthy liver, and a varied nutritional diet is the true way to give all our body the vitamins and minerals that we need to keep us in tip top condition.

Often overlooked is the need to drink plenty of fluids, not only through the summer time but all year round. We not only need to drink plenty of fluid to stop us becoming dehydrated – which itself causes many problems, but to help the liver flush toxins out of our system.

As we know the liver is the largest gland in the body and it performs more than 500 functions, we all really do need to look to our diet to enable it to look after our body for us. The liver is a complex organ and works like a stream lined machine when it is healthy, comparable to a ‘computer’ in it’s many tasks, from storing carbohydrates and vitamins to excreting waste products from our bloodstream.

The production of bile is one of the main tasks; this aids digestion of food and is what makes faeces brown. It metabolises carbohydrates and proteins, and stores and metabolises fats – producing cholesterol. The livers production of blood clotting chemicals and heparin – an anticoagulant is another major function along with regulating the amount of sugar in the bloodstream.

It synthesises Vitamin A and stores it together with vitamins B12, D and K. The liver also removes poisons, drugs and worn-out red blood cells from the bloodstream; these are also extremely important tasks. Unfortunately being such a complex organ makes the liver susceptible to a vast number of disorders.

Recently, a topic that has hit the headlines many times is the rise in cases of cirrhosis of the liver, generally through alcohol abuse with today’s current trends of fashionable binge drinking. Cirrhosis – where scar tissue replaces dead or injured liver cells – actually has many causes not just alcohol that most people are aware of; gallstones or other blockages that block the bile duct, hepatitis and immune system disorders also cause it. Cirrhosis of the liver can also occur for no apparent or known reason – is chronic inflammation and can progress ultimately to organ failure.

Obviously cancer of the liver is extremely serious because of the organs many important functions. Inflammation of the liver is called hepatitis. Hepatitis A – ‘infectious hepatitis’ is caused by a virus and is transmitted by food and drink. Hepatitis A is rarely serious. Hepatitis B – ‘serum hepatitis’ is far more serious, also a viral infection and is spread through use of infected blood and blood products, sexual intercourse, syringes and needles.

I believe it is good for us all to take some time and think about our ‘organs’, how they work continuously and what they do, showing how intrinsically important they are to our good health.

Highlighting the knock on effect of continually abusing the liver whether through bad diet, alcohol or drugs, should I believe be made more aware to everyone, just as smoking has been with publicity and the effect it has on health and the lungs. So help your liver by eating good food, it does not have to be expensive, fresh food that is seasonal has the best vitamin and mineral content. Use your local market or farm shop.

Fresh quick frozen food is another great way of getting excellent properties from all types of foods including fish.

Include fresh greens – all green vegetables are excellent, broccoli contains vitamins B and C and folic acid for detoxification. Cabbage and broccoli, along with garlic and onions contain a high content of natural sulphur needed for detoxification. Garlic and onions also contain selenium and glutathione that act as anti-oxidants.

All fruits are great for us including strawberries, raspberries, melons, oranges, blackcurrants, red grapes, guava etc – all with excellent vitamin and anti-oxidant properties.

Tomatoes – are high in lycopene an excellent source of anti-oxidant. You can easily get your daily vitamin C from peppers instead of eating oranges each day.

Lean meat, eggs and fish are important too, and a good source of fibre from cereals, bread etc.

So remember our motto ‘good food is good health’ and make it a way of life as we are what we eat after all, and by consuming a wide variety of foods regularly enables us to attain the vast range of minerals and vitamins we need to keep all of our body in good condition.

Sandra & Ted

Do we really appreciate how fortunate we are? Living on our remarkable planet, we have seafood, one of the finest foods you can think of, available in abundance.

Seafood affords us the opportunity to have superb meals and at the same time provide us with numerous health benefits.

Low in saturated fat and easy to digest, crammed full of Omega 3, protein, vitamins and minerals, eating seafood has many advantages.

For one, lower cholesterol and a healthier heart. This in turn lowers the risk of heart attacks and other
diseases of the heart. Eating a seafood diet can also lower blood pressure and lessen your risk of suffering a stroke.

Fish is not only excellent brain food; there is also an indication that seafood has the potential to avert
and probably lessen certain mood disorders.

Seafood contains very little fat. The fat it does contain is Omega 3, which is the “healthy” oil our bodies need. Salmon, sardines and tuna are very high in Omega 3 and we should all eat a portion of fish at least twice a week.

The way seafood is cooked will ultimately determine the calorie intake of your meal. If you cook it in a way that does not add extra fat, you can lower your calorie intake considerably. Poaching or steaming instead of deep-frying can go far in helping you to lose or maintain weight. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy fried fish in a batter occasionally, but it is better to limit your intake.

When we eat foods that contain protein, our bodies release amino acids. These amino acids produce new proteins to help our bodies grow and maintain optimum health. Our bodies cannot produce all of the amino acids we need. Fortunately all nine of the essential amino acids are found in seafood. Protein in seafood is easier to digest and absorb than those in poultry or red meat. This truly makes seafood a first-rate choice to supply in the daily protein needs of young and old.

We know that to keep our bodies in the best possible shape, we need our daily dose of vitamins and minerals. Seafood is a most enjoyable way to get both. Chockfull of B complex vitamins such as B6, B12 and niacin, seafood is an exceptional source of these vitamins. With the calcium, selenium, phosphorus, iron, copper and potassium found in seafood, it is also a great source of minerals.

There isn’t much sodium in fresh seafood, which makes it a good choice for those who need to curb
their sodium intake. Care should be taken though when eating processed seafood, as it contains added salt.

You just cannot get around it. Seafood is good for your body and your brain. On top of that, you can
prepare the most mouthwatering dishes with seafood. You can go on a seafood diet and lose weight while at the same time giving your body superb nutrition. Considering this, eating seafood could never look or feel like a diet.