Flabby to Floppy to Firm

Have you tried to do rigid exercise and lose lots of weight? There’s always the question in our mind about the excess skin.

You may do this way. Start lifting weights. The added muscle will give your skin a firmer appearance. And it will cut a problem in half, says David Herschthal, M.D., a professor of dermatology at the University of Miami school of medicine. The other half is more challenging. As you lose weight, use water-based, oil-free moisturizers, such as Neutrogena or Cetaphil, to keep the skin supple. If you lose a huge amount of weight rapidly, you’ll need plastic surgery. A dermatologist can firm up facial skin with laser toning or photo rejuvenation. Body contouring can handle the rest. It'll cost, but you’ve got a new body. Splurge. T.D. New Iberia, LA

Photo courtesy: imageshack

Choose good food for the brain

Good morning everybody. I have some health tips for you brain. I’m sure that everybody will needed it. Not only children.

The quality and kind of food you eat directly affects your brain. That’s why there are “smarter” foods than others. If you nourish your brain, it will grow healthier and smarter.

One tip is that you eat omega-3-rich fish, whose oil works wonders on brain cells. Some mothers of children with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and ADHA (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) give their kids a diet of fish and vegetables, plus supplementation of fish oil capsules.

One mother of an eight-year-old reported a 50-percent improvement on her son’s condition after one month on this special regimen. Individuals on a fish diet are able to think faster and have better memories. And that’s because fish is considered brain food.

Fat is good. Butter, good fat and carbo are excellent brain boosters. Legumes (beans, pulses) and nuts provide the fats necessary for good brain function. Caution: Try to eat salt-free nuts in their natural state. The high sodium content of commercially prepared nuts will not be good for you. - : Jean Carper “Your Miracle Brain”

Back Pain?

Is there an exercise I can do anywhere, anytime, to relieve lower-back pain? This is usually the question ask of many person who experience this back pain.

For a sudden onset of back pain, your best bet is ice and lower-impact exercise, such as walking. But chronic back pain must be dealth with at its source: connective-tissue failure that leads to atrophy of your back’s rotator muscles. These fibers, the multifidus and rotator muscles, are the deepest muscles supporting out lumbar spine joints. Gradually, the muscles around the spine lose their strength because they’re inhibited by pain, says Neil Chasan, a physical therapist in Bellevue, Washington. Engage these muscles with exercise that make you rotate your torso in a limited range of motion. Chasan suggests the following.

Grab a 5- or 10- pound weight plate (or, say, a dictionary) and hold it to your chest, arms crossed. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, bend slightly at the knees, and lean forward about as much as you would in a golf stance (1). Without arching your back, turn rapidly from side to side, no more than 30 degrees each way (2), (3). You should be able to keep this up pain-free for 3 to 5 minutes. This is an exercise you can do every day.

Reference: Men’s Health . . . For more inquiries you can visit menshealth.com

Squash for better health, eyesight (2 of 2)

The food values of kalabasa—its fruits, flowers and tops—are widely used as vegetables. Its young shoots are an excellent source of calcium, phosphorus, iron and Vitamin B. The flowers contain Vitamin A and calcium. The fruit is rich in iron, phosphorus, calcium and Vitamin A.

There is this yellow pan de sal—a roll made from dough that is “35-percent squash puree” instead of 100 percent wheat flour.

The vegetable-enriched bread has its taste, shape and texture of the original. The only obvious difference is the color: it comes out of the oven yellowish rather than brown. It was as though the bread had been dipped in margarine
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Fortified with Vitamin A

The yellow pan de sal comes fortified with Vitamin A, owing to the puree. A 52-gram serving could already provide 24 percent of the Recommended Daily Allowance of Vitamin A and 10 percent of the daily energy requirement of a child aged 7 to 9.

The squash-enriched pan de sal can be mass-produced free from pathogenic microorganisms such as E.Coli and salmonella. Under ambient temperature conditions, it can have a shelf life of up to three days.

Squash for better health, eyesight (1 of 2)

Good morning friends. Here’s a good information for those whose eyes were having a little problem. For every parents, they should see to it that the eyesight of their children will be a perfect one.

THE lowly kalabasa (squash) may have (undeservedly) gained a reputation among elementary pupils as a “zero” because of its shape, thus a pupil who gets a failing grade gets a “kalabasa award” of sorts.

The squash turns out to actually belong to the A-list of superfoods—containing pro-vitamin A that can help those fond of consuming it gain better eyesight, healthier hair, smoother and clearer skin, as well as for better overall growth.

Priority food

This squash is among the dietary food which musts youths should take.

The snack foods with its main ingredient squash is needed most by pre-schoolers, schoolchildren and adolescents. Samples of such snacks are the “squash halaya,” “squash kutsinta” and “squash maja”.

The squash contains minerals like calcium, phosphorous and iron. Calcium and phosphorous help keep bones and teeth strong. Iron is needed in building healthy red blood cells.

Best exercises for strong bones (5 of 5)

Swimming

Many studies found that swimmers had lower bone densities than athletes in weight-bearing sports and lower or similar bone densities as non-athletes. The results apply to males and females—prepuberty age, adolescents and adults. Swimming is not reputed to increase bone mineral density.

But most studies used dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), a two-dimensional measure highly influenced by body size.

Male water polo players and weightlifters assessed using quantitative computed tomography (QCT) had similar bone densities.

Rat studies found that swimming improved bone elasticity and structural strength—properties that could only be seen with quantitative ultrasound (QUS).Perhaps when more human studies use QUS, swimming will shake off its bad reputation. In the meantime, swimmers should cross-train with weights or impact exercise.

Sources: National Osteoporosis Foundation, American College of Sports Medicine, American Council on Exercise, Harvard School of Public Health

Note: The Scientific Sports & Fitness Council will hold a Functional Training seminar March 24. Topics will include core functional anatomy and core exercises. Call 6348545 local 101. - dailiyinquirer

Best exercises for strong bones (4 of 5)

Cycling

Off-road bikers have above average bone density while street cyclists have slightly below average bone density, according to a study published in the journal Bone. The jarring, bouncing and vibration on rough roads is a stimulation that builds bone.

If street cycling or spinning is your only exercise, add weight training or impact exercise to your regimen. A 2003 study found that male cyclists (aged 40-60) who had been cycling 12.2 hours a week for 20 years had bones that were 10 percent less dense than active non-cycling men their age. Of the 27 cyclists, 17 had moderate bone loss or osteopenia while four had severe bone loss or osteoporosis.

Profuse sweating from intense cycling may contribute to bone loss. Evidence suggests an hour of intense endurance training can result in a loss of 200 mg of calcium. A 1996 study attributed bone thinning among college basketball players to prolific sweating. - dailyinquirer

Best exercises for strong bones (3 of 5)

Rowing

In an Oregon University study, postmenopausal women who rowed competitively for one year experienced a 6-percent greater increase in spine density than women who did not row but who were physically active.

Aerobic dance

Women who did a 45-minute step aerobics class three times a week for six months experienced a 3-percent increase in bone density in their spines, legs and heels.

Researchers at Texas A&M University say step aerobics adds the extra challenge of changes in direction and speed that stimulate the bones even better than skipping rope and jogging that only offer impact.

A British study found that high-impact aerobics (aerobics with hops, skips, and jumps) improved the hipbone density of postmenopausal women and men over 50.

Walking

A Johns Hopkins Hospital study found that light-intensity walking does not strengthen bones. Brisk walking delivers a higher impact than slow walking.

Brisk walking (as if you are late for an appointment) for 30 minutes four days a week can help reduce bone loss before and after menopause. A study found that women who regularly walked 7.5 miles a week lost bone at a slower rate (four to seven years longer) than women who did not walk.

For people at risk of falling, lifting weights is a better and safer alternative than walking.

ref: dailyinquirer

Best exercises for strong bones (2 of 2)

Tai Chi

This gentle exercise improves balance and leg strength. Studies found that people who did tai chi reduced their rate of falling by 50 percent. When they do fall, their rate of fractures is much less. Do tai chi once or twice a week for at least 15 minutes.

Jumping

Skipping rope, jumping jacks and vertical jumps are effective bone-builders. Skip rope for at least 15 minutes 3-5 times a week. You only need two minutes a day for jumping jacks and vertical jumps. Do several 15-30 second jumps and rest in between.

Racquet sports

A Finnish study found that squash players and weight lifters had the highest bone mineral densities. Squash, tennis and badminton are stop-and-go sports with rapid multidirectional changes—all beneficial to bone strengthening.

Gardening

Growing flowers can help build bone but only if you actually shovel, rake and weed. Telling your gardener what to do doesn’t count. A University of Arkansas study found that women older than 50 who went to the gym or who gardened had lower rates of osteoporosis.

ref: dailyinquirer

Best exercises for strong bones (1 of 2)

Good morning to everybody. I got good informations to you all. Those who don’t have strong bones, you may read this and try to do some exercise.

Exercise plays an important role in building bone in childhood and adolescence, maintaining bone before 50, and slowing down bone loss after 50. But exercises are not equal.

The best exercises are those with impact (running, sprinting, jumping) or resistance (squats, pushups, rock climbing).

Current research indicates that non-weight bearing exercise like cycling and swimming and light impact exercise like slow walking are not enough.

Yoga and Pilates
There are not many yoga or Pilates bone density studies. However, knowing that resistance exercise is effective, we can logically assume that some aspects of yoga and Pilates are beneficial.

Standing yoga poses, like the warrior and transitional lunges, can build leg and hip bones. One-legged poses, like tree, improve balance. Poses like reverse plank and upward and downward dog should strengthen wrist and forearm bones.

All yoga and Pilates exercises that require lifting of the legs or upper torso in the supine or prone (face up and face down) positions may build bone density in the lumbar spine.

Pilates machines that use the resistance of springs are similar to gym machines using cables.

Ref: dailyinquirer

Saving mothers and babies

WE have just six years to go before the formal reckoning of our country’s commitment to end poverty by 2015. If you will remember, all UN member-states pledged in 2000 to meet the Millennium Development Goals: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.

UN agencies in the Philippines, assessing developments in the country’s march toward meeting these eight goals, have said that while we are on our way to meeting most of the MDGs, we are lagging in the achievement of universal primary education, with about 30 percent of school-age children unable to finish their elementary education; in the struggle to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS; and in the improvement of maternal and child mortality.

Why are we failing to save the lives of our mothers and babies? A major reason is the lack of commitment to maternal health, which also affects the health of fetuses and newborns. Mothers whose health have been compromised, either by malnutrition, disease or any of the “toos”—too young or too old, too many children, pregnancies too close together—run the risk of dying during pregnancy or at childbirth, delivering underweight babies and risking their survival at birth or infancy.

The health of mothers and babies is a major part of reproductive health, a term that is accepted the world over as covering the full range of concerns around sex, pregnancy, safe delivery and diseases of the reproductive system. It’s unfortunate that the present leadership has chosen to view “reproductive health” as a code word for abortion only, even if the prevention of abortion, the provision of safe abortion services and the timely and correct response to abortion complications are a legitimate part of reproductive health.

But we are now realizing that unless we embrace reproductive health and rights as a legitimate public health goal, we won’t be able to save the lives of enough mothers and children, much less achieve the MDGs by 2015.

ref: dailyinquirer