Posts Tagged ‘Exercise’

Some strategies to get you on your way to ideal weight…

Lifestyle plays an important role in maintaining an ideal weight. Instead of burning away inches with a single pill, concentrate on these few strategies to have an ideal weight.

Record everything that you are eating
Keeping a record of what you are eating helps in managing your weight. It actually tells you how much you are eating. It can tell you what unhealthy diet you are having in your day to day life. It can motivate you to achieve your goals. Few steps in this are:
- Decide how detailed you want your food journal to be.
- Record everything. Do not even miss the sauces, gravies and even a small thing that you eat.
- Service sizes should be specific while noting them in the food journal.
- Include the time interval and food groups.
- Maintain the food journal for two weeks to get a consistent record.
- Maintain a record of physical activity.
- Every food has a calorie and nutrition content. Keep a knowledge of that.

Be more active
- More calories should be burn than consuming.
- At least 60 minutes of workout daily is necessary to keep yourself active. Workout can be a walk or any other physical activity.
- Exercise will keep the weight off.
- Exercise will also take a large amount of weight off the abdomen.
- Besides walking, some other ways to be active are swimming, dancing or biking.

Goals set should be reasonable
The key to successful weight control is to set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and track-able. Setting an unrealistic goal will lead to your disappointment. The focus should be on making performance goals rather than outcome goals.

Triggers should be identified
There are always some factors that are responsible for making you overweight. These factors should be identified and accordingly changes should be made.
- You should be honest with what you are eating.
- Sometimes, eating is related to the mood of the person. Identify the cause of eating by:
1. You tend to eat more sweet when you are depressed over something.
2. Is there any kind of pressure which is making you eat more?
3. Is the environment trigger over eating?
Try to do:
- Are you really physically hungry?
- Say no to extra calories.
- Distract yourself from your desire to eat.
- Direct negative energy into a positive energy.

Watch out for foods that you eat
- Reduce the caloric consumption which means choosing the foods wisely.
- Reduce food high in sugar or fat.
- Say no to junk food.
- Favor fruits, vegetables and whole grain products.
- Select foods that are low in energy density.

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Common Cold – The common tips and tricks to prevent and treat common cold.

Common cold includes running nose, sore throat, coughing and sneezing. Many viruses causes common cold out of which rhino-virus is the most common type. The condition of the mucous that comes from the nose (commonly known as a runny nose) changes over a time period. In the initial days of the cold, the mucous is transparent, being just meant to wash germs from the nose. After a period of around two days, there is a fight back by the body’s immune system, which makes the mucous more white. As the helpful bacteria in the nose starts to come back, the mucous starts to get a tinge of green.

The symptoms of a common cold are running nose, sore throat, sneezing, watery eyes, headache and body aches, cough and stuffed nose.

For minor symptoms of common cold:
- Drink good amount of fluids and take a lot of rest.
- Take pain relievers and a decongestant but do not use if you have high blood pressure.
- For sore throat tea with honey relieves the dysphagia.
- Fresh air stimulates the circulation and provides oxygen to body.
- Lime Juice is the most effective remedy for common cold. Take a glass of lukewarm water and dilute the lime juice in it. You can add a tablespoon of honey to enhance its efficiency.
- Take steam for cleaning nasal and pre-nasal areas.
- Avoid the things that trigger cold.
- Try some breathing exercises for fresh air circulation.
- Wash hands very regularly.
- Do not touch your face, nose, ears, mouth as common cold spreads on touching.
- The disposable items should be used if someone in your family is infected.
- Maintain proper hygiene and healthy lifestyle.
- Emotional stress should be controlled.

Infection by cold viruses can be causes by either touching your skin or environmental surfaces that have cold germs on them and then touching your eyes or nose. It can also be caused by inhaling drops of mucus full of cold germs from the air.

See a doctor if temperature is higher than 100.4° F and the symptoms last more than 10 days and they are not relieved by over-the-counter medicines.

There is a common misconception that antibiotics can cure common cold. The fact is that antibiotics are used for treating a bacterial infection and not a viral infection. You should use antibiotics only when the doctor subscribes.

There is an important reason why colds are so common in children is because they are often in close contact with each other in daycare centers and schools.

Cold Prevention – Ways to make common cold less common

Typical cold is relatively mild misery maker that goes away without special treatment after about a week. The upper respiratory tract which includes mouth, nose, and trachea is attacked by viruses which causes cold. It is a viral infection, antibiotics will not make it feel better. The medicines available can only relieve symptoms, not cure it.

- Sleep
Getting a good night’s sleep keeps you healthy and may keep colds away. Research suggests that a person sleeping for less than seven hours were almost three times as likely to get infected as compared to a person who is getting eight or more hours of sleep.

- Exercise
A moderate regular exercise or physical activity strengthens the immunological defenses. A study suggests people who have exercised five days a week had 43% fewer respiratory symptoms as compared to people who exercise one day a week or less.

- Zinc
Studies suggest that there is no benefit from zinc lozenges or zinc nasal spray but results of using zinc gel are better but these gels have also been linked to the loss of the sense of smell.

- Empathy
Doctors have varying standards on the level of empathy to be exhibited towards patients so in a study at the University of Wisconsion, two clinics were trained to exhibit different levels of empathy. These patients were studied over a period of 14 days. Results indicated that empathy does make a difference in getting over with the cold.

- Echinacea
Studies suggest that a preparation based on aerial parts of Echinacea plant might be an effective early treatment of colds in adults but prevention and treatment trials of echinacea have not been too encouraging.
Tests of nasal fluids showed that an empathic encounter seem to boost the immune system.

- Vitamins
It is a common belief that Vitamin C, when ingested in high enough levels, will prevent common cold. Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling had written a classic work in 1970 called Vitamin C in common cold; this book further added to this belief. But, medical research has not supported this belief; this was not shown in studies where large doses of thousand to two thousand milligrams per day did not prove effective. Another area of prevention of the common cold is being somewhat substantiated by studies – this is doing hard exercising in cold weather.