Healthy B.P.M.

Have you wondered about how you perceived yourself when you were very young?You might remember a confident person curious about life and living. It’s the experiences that gradually seep into you and change the way you think. Then as you grow older, you try to get out of the mess that your thoughts have helped create. Dealing with your body image is just that. It’s revisiting your childhood and looking at the child you once were. Did you perceive yourself as fat, as skinny? Were you just a label?

No.

You had potential. A world to explore. Dreams.

Then as you grew older, the people who started crowding your universe started talking about the way you look and you started noticing. Maybe I am fat. Maybe I’m too skinny. And then it started to hurt. And then it took just a glimpse of yourself in the mirror to feel upset. I’m not good enough. You look at all those perfect bodies on magazine covers and splashed all over tinsel town. You watch the adoration they get and you feel glamor is beyond you, so is recognition and even love.

The story Body image boost key to treating eating disorders explores how self-perception is the key to battling eating disorders. Using a combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy and “experiential” therapy, doctors at the Menninger clinic have devised a 12 -week Eating disorders Program to help people with all kinds of disorders from anorexia to binge eating.

The program is interactive and takes people with disorders on a journey toward change in attitude. Because at the end of the day, you have to be positive about your self-image and combine a diet-exercise regimen with your change of heart. As they say, a healthy mind makes a healthy body.

eating disorders week, eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, night eating, Menninger Clinic, fat, skinny, obesity, weight loss, body image

This being National Eating Disorders Week, you would be interested in the human face of eating disorders. Why do people destroy their lives on purpose? Why does the ideal of a perfect body tear your mind to pieces? Why does food sometimes turn into your biggest enemy?These are questions that doctors and patients and their families are all trying to figure out.

I came across a devastating video on fitsugar.com. Featuring a movie called Thin, this site sure grabs yor attention. Lauren Greenfield is a photographer who wants to capture anorexic patients not as a fraction of the dying population but she also tries to trace a reason behind the dying urge to be thin. 10% of anorexics die and to die of starvation when you don’t have to is the predicament of so many young girls who chase perceptions of perfection that are ridiculously unachievable.

Strangely enough, binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder and affects 4 million people in the U.S alone, 40% of the victims being men. When you start chomping away at potato chips or ice cream and finish foods in a matter of minutes you have a problem. The main reason for this kind of eating is stress. You take refuge in food;it helps you stop thinking. Read Ron Saxon’s story.

national eating disorders awareness week, eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, Lauren Greenfield, documentary, Thin

Menopause is a difficult time in a woman’s life. While the lucky few breeze through this period without much difficulty, many women experience all kinds of physical and mental changes. Weight gain, especially around the abdomen, is part of the woman’s aging process. More than hormonal changes, lifestyle norms are clearly responsible with weight gain. As you grow older you are more likely to have a sedentary lifestyle. Your kids have grown up and you don’t really want to try as much as you used to.

Check out The 35 symptoms of menopause in the Fefyfomona blog. Weight gain figures among a list of many others. If you do have the tendency during the peri-menopausal stage, you can start exercising on a daily basis. Aerobic exercise and strength training can help you to lose weight and also improve your mental state. Eating a diet high in fiber and calcium and cutting down on fat also helps.Don’t go on a crash diet but watch your food intake and keep a food diary.A good support system as in supportive family or friends makes this transition easier.

Read Menopause and weight gain

menopause, weight gain, hormone therapy, crash diet, depression, lifestyle, fiber

Do your eating habits determine your job status? I came across this wonderful blog called Every Woman Has an Eating Disorder and the post “There’s no free lunch” caught my attention. Eating seems to tell people a lot about what you’re made of. Do you like to eat with your friends or at your desk? Do you usually eat alone? Do you eat too much or too little? Eating a pepporini pizza means you are lazy and your employee is watching you. If your bones stick out, you seem to be a better hire!

Read this article:When the food critics are deskside for more where that came from.

It’s like big brother is watching your every nibble and though I do think that understanding eating habits is a good thing, hiring someone because he/she is thin doesn’t make much sense. Everyone should get through an interview based on performance and you could get fired not because of your calorie count but because you fail to deliver.

What say you? Have you ever faced pressure from your colleagues to lose weight? Has excess weight ever affected you in your professional life?

eating disorders, workplace, food critics, interview, professional, big brother

Many times you get upset about the way you look when you hear a comment from a friend or a neighbour or someone you don’t particularly like. “You’ve put on some weight.” they might say or sometimes”You’re as thin as a rake!”. Then you consider what they said and decide to lose weight or if you are skinny put on more pounds.

That never helps. The will to change the way you look should come from a positive change within yourself. I always believe that the change starts within you. If you are merely reacting to what others say without really meaning it, then you are not going to follow up with your exercise program. There will always be some kind of nagging doubt in the back of your head.”It will never work. I can never change.”

When you feel heavy and your thighs rub against each other and life becomes uncomfortable, you know inside that it’s time to lose weight. You are your biggest motivator. You should read the literature, you should join the weight loss groups, you should move ahead positively.If you recognize your potential, there’s no stopping you.

Read this:Overcoming weight-loss setbacks

diet, exercise, fitness, motivation

There are a lot of fitness myths out there. Here are some you might want to straighten out:

Sit-ups can make you lose belly fat:Not entirely true. Just doing sit-ups helps in toning but doesn’t completely end the belly trouble.

Lifting weights can help skinny women gain weight:False. A friend of mine has tried lifting weights in her attempt to gain weight and she is terribly disappointed. Toning alone isn’t enough. Unless accompanied by steroids(I have my doubts about taking steroids unless you really have no alternative and your doctor approves), you can’t expect lifting weights to make much of a difference.

Running helps you to lose weight:Not necessarily.A complete work out makes you fit. Running is invigorating and part of the process.

Pain is a good indicator:No pain, no gain and working out to the point of exhaustion is just being foolish. Know your limits and take it a step at a time. Get a good fitness trainer to guide you. Too much soreness is an indicator of inflammation, not progress.

Check out some more fitness myths here.

And read this: Top 10 fitness myths

fitness, fitness myths, sit-ups, crunches, abs, weight lifting, steroids, running

Hair loss is depressing(there are many handsome bald people out there…don’t get me wrong…I’m not anti- bald just anti-hair loss!) and though it’s not life-threatening, losing your hair is losing something you love. There are many reasons for hair loss and sometimes altering your lifestyle can bring back your crowning glory. Identify your contributing factor.

-Medication including chemotherapy, anti -depressants, birth control pills, and excessive vitamin A can cause hair loss.

-Women can suffer hair loss due to childbirth and menopause. Other medical conditions like hyperthyroidism and polycystic ovaries also create problems. Read Tips to Prevent or Reduce Hair Loss in Women.

-Vitamin deficiencies can occur when you put yourself on a crash diet or if you have any other eating-related disorders like anorexia. After all hair is made of protein and if you don’t eat, your hair will wither away. This article is an excellent resource: How to slow or reverse hair loss with a healthy diet and nutritional supplements

-Fast food diets that are high in fat and animal protein and high-salt diet create acidic blood and so the average American is the most prone to baldness. Globalization and the spread of unhealthy diet is helping the whole world to go bald too.

-If baldness runs in the family, then you have a genetic backlash as well. A change of lifestyle can slow down the process.

-Sometimes herbal shampoos help. Stay away from hair dye and coloring. Make sure you don’t have any fungal scalp infection.

-Nutritional supplements including an increase in zinc intake can improve things.

Where I come from. women have lustrous black hair. What’s their secret? Lots and lots of coconut oil with the daily head massage. Read Reduce Hair Loss With A Thorough Head Massage

hair loss, anorexia, crash diet, coconut oil, head massage, vitamin deficiency, fast food, chemotherapy, birth control pills, baldness, alopecia, weight loss

How stressed out are you? I found a very good stress indicator on this page: Interactive Tool: What Is Your Stress Level?

What happens when you get stressed out?Too much of stress hormone is released and that affects your immunity. The more stressed out you are the more difficult it is to battle infection. Being stressed out doesn’t help you solve a problem. It usually aggravates the problem.

Stress and Disease: New Perspectives is a great article if you want a medical perspective on how bad too much stress can be.

Identifying the source of your problems can be a first step toward solving your problems. Is it marital stress or is it work pressure? Do you by any chance have multiples? Has there been a death in the family or have you lost someone you love deeply? A health professional could help you if you feel the world is coming to an end and you have too much to handle. Yoga and meditation could scale down the intensity of your stress levels.

stress, marital stress, depression, immune system, yoga, meditation

Many people I know equate meditation with a yogi(man with no desires) sitting on a hill top. That is not necessarily the case.Meditation is a big leap toward sanity. If you look at your mind now, it’s like a baby running toward everything in it’s grasp. You have no control over your thoughts. You can retain your composure and be dignifies in your exterior. But in your head, you are on the verge of exploding with a stream of thoughts that keep popping up.

Is that bad? Well thinking in an unfocused way can stress you out and stress is responsible for a long list of ailments and simultaneously reduces the quality of life.If you can bring yourself to sit down, relax and focus either on a beloved thing(image,concept.mantra) or on the little space between your forehead…if you can do that everyday you will see that your mind slows down, decision making becomes easier, you become more responsive to other people’s needs and your own and somehow you can steer clear of conflict.

Check out this wonderful article: What is meditation?

meditation, well being

I liked novelist India Knight’s story in the Guardian. Her book the Idiot proof diet celebrates her transformation from size 22 to size 14. She revels in her new identity and did not expect a feminist brigade to march down her door and protest over her perception of fat and thereby ugly.

That raises an interesting debate. If fat is beautiful, then is dieting ugly, a vampish anorexic urge to be perfect for the male gaze? Are women dieting for men or for themselves? Is it wrong to want to look slimmer and does slimming down make you feel sexier? Is being obese necessarily being healthy?

I come from a place where fat is considered beautiful. So anyone who is remotely thin has bleak chances of being courted…fat may be beautiful in some parts of the world.Perceptions are different and size zero may not be the ultimate ideal.But I don’t think being feminist means supporting unhealthy lifestyles.

Read It’s not unfeminist to go on a diet.

Would love to know what you think.

anorexia, diet, India Knight, fat, feminist

A couple of interesting questions I came across in The Diet Detective: Exercise daily, eat right to get healthy results:

-Diet or exercise?:Has to be both.You can’t really choose.

-Six meals a day?:That’s tricky. Those six meals have to be mini meals and sensible food. If you can’t go to the trouble of preparing three healthy meals a day, six would be far too ambitious.

-Weekend exercise or daily walk?:Definitely the daily walk.Even a day without walking can cause havoc with your metabolism.

You’ll love this:12 Diet Questions Answered

diet, exercise, fitness, walking, healthy food

What are the words every dieting freak has on his/her lips?

Lose weight fast

Lose 13 Pounds in 2 weeks

No more cravings

Say Hello to Easy, Weight Loss!

Your perfect diet…

I lost x amount of weight

You can drop X dress sizes

Weight loss doesn’t get easier

Fad diet

Blood type diet

South Beach diet

Hoodia

See DietRiot.com

Any more you’d like to share?

hoodia, fad diet, weight loss, south beach diet, blood type diet

These links will make you laugh!

How To Weigh Yourself Correctly

Diet Humor & Diet Jokes

Can’t eat…

For more from where that came from check here.

I came across a a term called ‘Flow’ and it caught my interest. Everyone wants to be happy. There are different kinds of happiness. One kind of happiness comes from pleasure.You buy all the things you want, have all the wine you want, go out and party, vacation on the beach….but after that your happiness ends. Then you have happiness that you strive for when you keep doing what you love day in and out. That kind of happiness happens when you are doing your dream job or have a dream role.

‘Flow’,a term proposed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,is a high state of mental involvement in what you are doing. Flow is a measure of your happiness, since the more involved, focused and successful you are in a particular field the happier you are.

So if you are a writer and love it, time takes on a different dimension for you and work is no longer drudgery. If you are a singer, music will give you the high that means happiness.If you are a concept freak you will love this:FLOW: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE

Check out Deepfun.com for an interesting take on how to incorporate fun into your life.

Think about it. Are you happy? I’ll give you a simple exercise. What makes you happy and what doesn’t? Write it down and you will see how clear things become.

happiness, flow

Ivy’s post in her blog the Between the Sheets “One more reason for the sweat” offers valuable insight on how important exercise is for a satisfying sex life. There’s a strong link between sexual dysfunction and heart disease. Most men with erectile dysfunction(ED) have more chances of having hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Doctors believe that this could be one good reason for men to give up on being couch potatoes. Check out this great post on BottomlineFitness :”As if exercising wasn’t already important...” The connection between ED and heart disease is so strong that exercise could change your life in so many ways from making you healthier to more satisfied.

sex, exercise, erectile dysfunction, couch potato