Healthy B.P.M.

I was kind of blown away by the yoga testimonials I read the other day.I mean its as though yoga can solve ALL your problems. So I thought I’d tell you a story about a quiet old man called B.K.S Iyengar who has been practising yoga for seventy years now!He’s 86 now and pretty healthy at that.I’ll call him the ‘Guru’

As a boy Guru was perpetually sick. He had pneumonia,malaria,typhoid and even tuberculosis. Born in a poor family in Karnataka in India, Guru never had dreams of making it big. His brother in law introduced him to yoga to help him overcome his sickliness. Gradually the asanas(yogic postures) started working and BKS Iyengar ended up taking teaching yoga as a profession.

A must read for all you yoga fans out there is:”Light on yoga” by Guru.

It was Yehudi Mehunin, the famous violinist,who introduced Guru to the rest of the world and the rest is history.Iyengar yoga is taught all over the world and the idea behind these complicated postures is to get your body in tune with the environment around you. If you are AWARE of yor body,then you will understand your place in the universe.This takes fitness to another plane,don’t you think?

B.K.Iyengar, yoga, pneumonia, malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis, asanas, ”Light on Yoga”, fitness

fitness equipment

“As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself.� Adelle Davis

Adelle Davis was a household name in America. She was an outspoken critic of American food practices and fought against processed foods and food additives. She believed that nutrients were the saviours of life and has as many as six dietary supplements a day to make up for any lack of nutrients in her diet. Her ‘Let’s’ series including “Let’s have Healthy children�, “Let’s Get Well� and “Let’s eat right to keep fit� were bestsellers and she was considered to be an oracle as far as eating went.

But noone is infallible. Adelle’s theories came into the spotlight again but for the wrong reasons. An anxious mother mixed 3000mg of potassium with her breast milk to relieve her two-month old baby of colic. She was a fervent follower of Adelle’s finds and though the symptoms disappeared, the baby died. A lot of Adelle’s theories have been confirmed as nutritionally sound but I don’t think such an incident could happen today. Always consult a pediatrician first. Theories are always theories. You can’t lay your life or your child’s life on it.

This goes with all diet plans. Adelle was a visionary. She supported the Atkins Diet and Barry Sears, pioneer of the zone diet, speaks highly of her theories. She formulated diets for nearly 20,000 people and made disease-specific diets. Although she believed a quart of milk a day could save you from cancer, she succumbed to cancer after an eventful seventy years.

Adelle Davis, nutrition, dietary supplements, potassium, Adelle’s theories, Atkins Diet, Barry Sears, Zone diet, cancer

Now there are many people out there who look into the mirror and say “I WANT TO BE FAT.” Being skinny is painful for a teenager and even way into adulthood it makes it harder for thinner,frailer people to fit in a crowd. Its really the other side of obesity. The only thing is that in this case no matter how much you eat or exercise or sleep, you stay skinny.No curves for the girls.No muscles for the guys.

The way to get through this problem is not to overeat but to eat more, more frequently. Stay off unhealthy junk foods since these are high on trans fat and saturated fats. To put on muscle you have to eat smart and work out. Here are some foods you could have:

1.Have a lot of wholewheat bread with your favorite spread. You don’t have to worry too much of calories turning into flab if you are skinny but that doesn’t mean you should gobble up everything high on fat. Moderation helps in any case.

2.Drink lots of fluids. Indulge in milkshakes,yoghurt and smoothies.Don’t go on an empty stomach too long. Beverages provide additional calories.

3.Soups are a good way of adding to the calories. Have soups made of lentils,black beans and barley. Minestrone and chicken broth are high on fat and consuming these too often is not advisable.

4.Have a lot of fiber. Fruits and vegetables are good for easy bowel movements.Thin people can have the sugary canned fruit and should also munch on dried fruits like raisins and apricots since these are higher on calories. Salads are healthy foods and cn be taken with generous doses of dressing.

Read this link for more details:
http://www.snac.ucla.edu/pages/Resources/Handouts/HOWtGain.pdf

Being skinny could be about your genetic make up or maybe all you need is a few hours in the gym.Maybe you are sick;consult a doctor if you are worried. Maybe eating better will help you. But there’s no need to feel upset. At least you can have the extra calories and look at the scales without worrying!

fat, obesity, junk food, trans fat, saturated fat, calories

If you can’t go to the gym and you don’t have a home gym either, you could opt for simple exercises like walking,climbing the stairs,walking to the grocer’s and I have another stimulating one for you.

Yoga is an ancient form of exercise that leads to physical,mental and spiritual well being. If you find a reliable yoga instructor, you could begin on the slow and gradual road to self-discovery.

Yoga is not a quick-fix treatment for all your problems. The weight doesn’t go off just like that and sometimes gymming seems to be the faster way to toning your abs. But yoga is about the long term and helps you out with all kinds of health problems from diabetes, hypertension, obesity to cancer and multiple sclerosis.

Read these testimonials:
http://www.bikramyogadecatur.com/testimonials.shtml

Three kinds of yoga that deal with weight loss in particular are:

Bikram Yoga:This yoga is popular among athletes and focuses on cardiovascular,aerobic and calorie - burning work outs. These exercises take some time to master but once done this fast exercise-relaxation work out leaves you feeling young and fresh,improves your muscular endurance and boosts your overall strength.

Ashtanga Yoga: This yoga is a little more complicated and once you learn you will be combining breathing with unbelievable body positions. It detoxes your system,improves blood circulation and boosts stamina.Yoga reminds you that your body is capable of anything at any age. It reinvents you and takes yor body and spirit to a new happier level.

Power Yoga: This yoga has made its presence felt in gyms all over America. An American kind of yoga, calisthenic movements are combined with breathing to give a flow to your work outs.With its roots in Vinyasa Yoga,power yoga really depends on the instructor since each gym or class has its own kinds of exercise postures.

gym, home gym, yoga, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancer, multiple sclerosis, bikram yoga, ashtanga yoga, power yoga, vinyasa yoga

A lot of people out there do dieting seriously. They count their calories, portion their food, look at labels while shopping, stay away from junk food restaurants, join weight loss groups and finally when they are through with being the guinea pig in the dieter’s laboratory, they resort to eating as a solution to all their problems all over again.

I read this story “How I Learned how not to choose a diet” and got to thinking about how many people are put off by dieting and calorie-counting. If you go back in history,obesity was not such a major issue. People only ate what they needed and sedentary lifestyles were unheard of. Its not natural for people to diet and live on banana and milk diets,cabbage soup diets and boiled egg diets.

Just ask yourself these questions:

-Do you really need to eat all that you are eating?Or are you just eating like its a habit?

-Are you a couch potato? Do you sit and sit and sit and eat at the same time?

-Do you feel healthy?Or is waking up in the morning a pain?

-Do you feel good about yourself or does it depress you that you eat too much?

-Do you think diets can work for you…if they don’t then just follow your daily meal systems in smaller portions. Cut down on all the junk and soda pop in between. See if there is a difference.

If you feel that something is wrong with your weight, then you are the only one who can change it. Exercise, eat healthy and be proud of your efforts. Bariatric surgery is an option but its the last one. For those of you on the borderline, there is still some hope in trying.

dieting, calories, labels, junk food, weight loss groups, couch potato, soda pop, bariatric surgery

With two-thirds of the population in the U.S being obese, technology has tapped into a new kind of dieting regime. Dieting with the help of your cellular phone has many takers. Nowadays you can check your pulse and blood sugar with yoyur phone, so why not dieting habits?

All you have to do is photograph your meal, explain your medical history and describe the content of your food. You will get a detailed account of calorie count nd even a dietitian’s advice on what to do to eat healthy.

The photographs may not give a really adequate picture of the size of your portions. But the photos may just give you a food revelation…did I eat all that? Check out Myfoodphone. Since nearly everyone sports a cellular phone and obesity is turning into an epidemic, this is one warning call we need to listen to!

cellular phone, myfoodphone, obesity

Studies show that 80% of women college students are trying to lose weight. Why do they do it? Some women really want to lose weight since they are obese and most others face a lot of peer pressure and pressure from themselves.

Five methods teenage girls use to fit into their jeans are:

1.Diet pills:Hoodia has become a phenomenon of sorts with effects of dramatic weight loss and even improved sex life.
2.Laxatives:The idea is to eat as much as you want it and flush it out.But you don’t really do anything except abuse your delicate fluid balance.
3.Smoking:This is believed to cut down on your appetite.
4.Skipping breakfast:Staying hungry only makes you hungrier. You just end up consuming more calories later in the day.
5.Cutting down on sugar and having more sugar subs instead.

Check this link:
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2006/03/31/hscout531861.html

These methods don’t really work out in the long run. If you follow a diet plan and do regular exercises and then pop the diet pill….okay maybe you’ll pull down. But resorting to eating disorders and trying to turn into a supermodel on a no-calorie=no-energy plan is just going to tire your body out. Smoking just might take you to cancer hell. Most of the college -going women surveyed didn’t do enough on the exercise front and preferred to compromise on nutrition.

What do you do to lose weight?

diet pills, hoodia, laxatives, smoking, eating disorders, cutting down on sugar

When you go to the supermarket, the first thing you do if you love junk food is load your trolley with the tastiest food on the shelves. But when you start reading food labels, it gets harder to buy everything you like.

Losing weight is like losing your credit card and having to pay straight from the wallet. It hurts. One way dieters can start that difficult journey is by learning how to read food labels. How many calories do you get from one box of cookies?What is the fat content? Is it too heavy on cholestorol and sodium? How many servings can you make(that makes you realize not to have it all in one go)? If you are a diabetic, checking on sugar content is important.

Read this link for food label literacy guidelines:

http://nutrition.about.com/library/bl_nutrition_label_1.htm

The problem is that none of these facts are foolproof. While some healthy foods are high on fiber content, they may have too much cholesterol content. Trans fat may be avoided but that doesn’t make the healthy food product all that healthy. The Guiding Stars system found by Hannaford tries to question the authenticity of healthy food labels by reinvestigating the food content of healthy foods.According to this system, products with healthy food labels have unnaturally high content of sodium and sugar.The food label may be your guide but there is more to it than meets the eye.

Read this story:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CE2DD113FF935A35752C1A9609C8B63&sec=health&pagewanted=2

junk food, cholestorol, sodium, diabetic, Guiding Stars

Seth Roberts, PhD professor at Berkeley, created the shangri la diet after a lot of trial and error. He formulated the set point theory according to which at any point of time the human body wants to reach a certain weight. Depending on this, the metabolic rate goes up and down. Now the tastier the food you eat, the higher the set point becomes. So if you know you are going to have donuts, you actually get hungrier. If you know you are going to have one spoon of olive oil, however, your set point goes down and you lose your appetite. Something like how a diet pill works.

What are the two steps to lose weight?

1.Drink small amount of tasteless oil (such as canola oil or very light olive oil)
2.Drink a small amount of sugar diluted in water (such as fructose or sucrose)

Drink these tasteless boring calories between meals and by meals I mean one meal and two fruits in between(1200 calories). If you follow this regime all your life, bariatric surgery is out of the question. Will anyone dare try this out?

Seth Roberts, shangri la diet, metabolic rate, diet pill, canola oil, olive oil

One more reason for all you moms out there to stay thin….obesity is a health risk for your unborn kids. If you are overweight before pregnancy you should gain only 15 to 25 lb when you are pregnant.

Excess weight during pregnancy can trigger off gestational diabetes and this creates an excess of insulin which could reprogramme the way the unborn kid will shape out. Obesity in a child also depends on the genetic make up of his mom and dad.

Read these links:
http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=2718

http://www.hon.ch/News/HSN/529471.html

Studies now show that there are various factors influencing a child’s weight. Race, ethnicity, smoking during pregnancy and mom’s weight all influence the child. Being overweight during pregnancy amounts to ‘child abuse’ since you are putting the child’s health at risk even during its unborn stage.

Losing weight during pregnancy is always an unsafe option. So its better you knock off the pounds before you plan your family. Start eating healthy food, cut down on the junk and exercise on a regular basis. Talk to your dietitian and make sure the flabs come off before you enter the pregnancy phase.

Fat babies are adorable but usually their chances of becoming obese later on in life only increase and with it come umpteen problems like diabetes, hypertension and even cancer. Breastfeeding seems to help but is not a deterrant.So think about how far the consequences of your eating habits can go!

gestational diabetes, ’child abuse’, losing weight during pregnancy, diabetes, hypertension, cancer

Did you know that there is a link between your sleep habits and what you eat? The diet of sleep is a relatively new area where a lot of research is being conducted. Nowadays people are so work-stressed that they don’t mind going sleep deprived. There are many good reasons to get at least seven hours of shuteye every night.

When you lose out on sleep, the amount of leptin(an appetite suppresor in your body) goes down and the amount of ghrelin(an appetite inducer) goes up. Losing out on sleep gives you more time to think of eating while sleeping gives your body more time to metabolize all that food you’ve eaten. Its no surprise then that studies have revealed that sleep deprivation is another cause for obesity.

Read these links for more details:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/16/health/main656062.shtml

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2006/11/06/hsleep06.xml

Another side to this story is some foods help you get that sleep elixir and some don’t.Milk, starchy foods,honey and some herbal teas are believed to help insomniacs.Tea, coffee, alcohol, soda pop and chocolate don’t. Even what you eat dictates how well you sleep. Its a vicious cycle. You have to sleep to stay trim and you have to eat healthy to get that sleep.

leptin, ghrelin, metabolize, obesity

Today the buzz is diabetes day. With over 200 million people suffering from this silent killer, diabetes has become a global epidemic of sorts. If left unchecked diabetes is fatal. Diabetes affects people all around the world and it is not just a disease of the rich; the poor get it too and die untreated.

Read this link on how diabetes can really threatened the human race:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/diabetes-threatens-aborigine-extinction/2006/11/14/1163266531107.html

Diabetic diet tips:

1.The most important thing is to understand what kind of diabetes you suffer from(type 1 and type 2). Visit your doctor and discuss your eating habits and your likes and dislikes. Maybe you will be referred to a dietitian. If you read all the literature on diabetes and diet you will find solutions that suit you. Just make sure you get professional help first and don’t forget to take your medication on time.

2.Though diabetic patients were told to live on high protein and fat combinations and to stay off carbohydrates, too much fat equals too many calories and could lead to cardiovascular complications. Make sure that you are not overweight. A diabetic diet is a healthy diet with the right amount of carb-protein- fat portions.

3.Fiber is good and gives the right supply of vitamins. But be careful of having too many fruits since they could push up your blood sugar levels. Stay away from canned fruits and vegetables too.

4. Eat on time. Its all about timing for a diabetic. Overeating is out of the question. Also snacking at night is not such a good idea unless you adjust your medication accordingly.

5. Cut down on high salt intake since chances of blood pressure going up are higher in case of a diabetic.

6. While shopping, read the labels. Be aware of the carb ,fat and salt content in your canned foods.

7. Opt for foods sweetened by artificial sweeteners but remember that these sugar subs have no calorie value and cannot provide any nutritional value.

8. Drink lots of water and stay off sugar-filled drinks. Also be careful about drinking alcohol since alcohol is high n calories and empty on energy value.

9. Substituting honey for sugar doesn’t help either since honey is high on carbohydrates and that is what the diabetic finds hard to assimilate.If you want to have sweets once in a while, cut down on the carb foods.

10.Its okay to become a vegan even if you are a diabetic as it actually reduces your risk of getting cardiovascular problems.

Read this link for more details:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/diabetes/DA99999

world diabetes day, diabetes

What are artificial sweeteners?

Artificial sweeteners ,as the name suggests, are used in place of sugar. The health concerns that these raise have to do with their debatable carcinogenic and thereby cancerous aspect. Artificial sweeteners are very popular in the food industry today since they are much cheaper than regular sugar and corn syrup, which were used as traditional sweeteners. Diabetics also benefit from using products with sugar substitutes since they can indulge their sweet tooth and not have to burn the excess calories either. Sugar subs are safe on the teeth and those with no calories are not metabolised by the body. These only provide taste value and are empty on food value. Entirely substituting sugar with sugar subs is not a good idea since you don’t get food energy, only taste.

Some kinds of sweeteners:

Aspartame:This sweetener is used in over 1500 products in the U.S alone. Extensive research has been conducted on the breakdown products of aspartame. When these products enter your bloodstream, they could create adverse reactions. Some reported effects are headaches, allergic reactions, seizures, sleeplessness and even brain tumors(though there is no scientific proof for this sort of cancer). People with PKU, a rare genetic disorder, should stay off aspartame. Aspartame is 180 times sweeter than regular sugar and so can be used minimally. It also has minimal calorie content. Don’t worry too much about the side-effects. The WHO has declared it safe. Just be aware.

Saccharin: This sugar sub is 300 times sweeter than sugar and has no-calorie value. The problem with saccharin is its health value. Studies on rats have revealed that intake of saccharin aggravates chances of bladder cancer. This study doesn’t seem to apply to humans as the dosages of saccharins given to rats was really high and didn’t agree with the rodent’s urinary system. Right now, saccharin is on the safe list.

Sucralose:This sweetener is artificially produced from sugar and has no calories. Its safe on PKU patients and has no eported side effects at all. Also known as ‘Splenda’, this sugar sub seems to be the best bet!

artificial sweeteners, aspartame, PKU, WHO, saccharin, bladder cancer, sucaralose

Have the sweet tooth? You just might be obese.

Its funny how all living beings have an affinity toward the sweet taste. Studies say it has something to do with the larger number of sweet taste receptors on the tongue. Animals love sweets and even new born babies prefer the sweet taste.

If that love for sweets has stayed with you, you are more likely to be obese. Genetics aside, most people who live on donuts, pastries,cakes and junk food are fighting the flab. Sugar makes you fat and there other reasons to stay away from too much sweet- cancer.

Studies have shown that unreasonable sugar intake could lead to cancer of the kidneys, esophagus and even pancreas. The unnecessarily large consumption of sugar leads to metabolism syndrome and this leads to pancreatic cancer.

The sweet tooth is not all that sweet anymore!

obese, cancer

The secret to staying trim this Thanksgiving is to eat all the turkey, cranberry sauce,stuffing, gravy and mashed potatoes……but not all you want.

Portion them and eat a little bit of each dish. And by portions I mean small portions of turkey and larger portions of veggies. The low-density diet works well. That way you get to eat a lot of water-rich foods like veggies and fruits and still keep the weight off.

Don’t starve yourself to gear up for the big meal. Have some fruits and vegetables before the big meal so that you are not starved and ready to overeat. Use smaller plates. Nowadays the size of dinner plates has increased and so has the size of the serving. With a smaller plate you have smaller portions and you can eat with an impression of fullness.

If you do want extra servings, have the water-rich foods first. Think about all the time and effort you took to lose all that weight. You don’t want one meal to ruin that!

low density diet