Fitness and Health Tips

Fitness and health tips including information on men's and women's health and wellness including advanced nutritional products for the immune system, joint health, weight loss and general health. All five components of fitness and health: strength training, weight management, cardiovascular exercise, nutrition, and flexibility training are discussed in the Muscle Fitness section of the site.

Here are nine specific Fitness and Health Tips:

Don’t Smoke - One of the main reasons why people decide not to give up smoking, and sadly, the reason why some people take it up is the effect smoking supposedly has on weight gain or loss. It is true that smoking has been associated with an increase in metabolism it is a drug!! However it is a dangerous, addictive drug and surely the tiny effect it has on your metabolism is outweighed by the huge risk of dying from lung cancer.

Drink More Water - You can live three weeks without food, However you can only live for three days without fluid, just think 3 days and its all over, one could suggest that water is fairly important! Your body is anywhere between 60 and 70 percent fluid. The fluid in your body is responsible for helping to keep every system of your body in good working order, including all of your metabolic processes. De-hydrate and everything slows down. The fluid in your body will also ensure that you can move well and be active. If you start to dehydrate, your body’s ability to do basic activities will slow down and your ability to exercise effectively or even enjoy exercise will be reduced. You will feel tired, lethargic and will probably get a headache.

Eat A Variety Of Foods - For protection from the majority of illnesses such as heart disease and cancer you need a variety of foods that deliver that mix of nutrients and minerals. Aim to eat different colored fruits and vegetables. Try to eat a different food each month. Eat an apple a day as the apple pectin cleanses the body’s digestive system by removing toxins and therefore preventing degenerative health problems such as cancer.

Relax For 20 Minutes a Day - Relaxing for at least 20 minutes a day will go a long way to reduce blood pressure and your reactions to stress. Sit or lie somewhere comfortable, Breathe slowly in and out of the nostrils breathing deeply into your abdomen. Say HAM as you inhale and SA as you exhale. These suggestions are charged with positive energy and will help you control your emotions. Try once a day for fantastic results.

Floss Every Day - Flossing your teeth every day is the best way to prevent gum disease and protect your heart. Gum disease, which is left untreated, can lead to inflammatory reactions in the body that can trigger heart disease and stroke.

Drink More Tea - Try drinking more tea instead of coffee to help protect your body from damaging effects of free radicals. Tea is a rich source of antioxidants that play a big role in protecting against some cancers and cardiovascular disease.

Get Active - Aerobic activity not only burns calories but also increases your metabolism and can keep it elevated for several hours after a workout. You don’t need to spend hours each day on the treadmill or bike to reap the benefits. Exercising aerobically for as little as 20 minutes, three to five days a week will make a big difference. Extra movement throughout the day is also essential, take the stairs instead of the lift, lose the remote and move at every opportunity you can.

Get More Sleep - Lack of sleep changes your hormone levels and capacity to metabolize carbohydrates so less sleep = slower metabolism. Studies have revealed that deep sleep causes cell repair and cell growth, which will speed up the metabolism and burn calories. So aim to get at least eight hours sleep a night.

Eat More Protein - Protein stimulates the major brain chemical dopamine which keeps us alert, try chicken or tuna salads for lunch. Go for complex carbohydrates rather than white flour and sugar, as they will provide a sustained energy source as opposed to a quick hit. Another reason to leave simple carbohydrate out of the diet is that they have a negative effect on your skin and how it ages. The more sugar that is in the body the more you force a chemical reaction causing sugars to attach to proteins and this is very detrimental to your skin.

5 a day tips

1. A tasty vegetable soup is a real favourite - you can cook up a mix of fresh, frozen, tinned and even dried veg for a meal of a soup - an instant vitamin fix - that can contain three or more portions of your five a day. A handful of frozen peas or half a tin of sweetcorn are both one portion that add great taste and flavour to soups - whether home made or straight out of a can.
2. We try to eat meals together as a family, it means we get to spend more time together and the kids respond to seeing their mum tucking in and enjoying fruit and veg. My kids love to mimic me so I hope I can help teach them some really good habits that will help them for life!
3. Growing fruit and veg is a great way to excite children about food, strawberries and tomatoes are great for growing in small spaces - from hanging baskets to a small garden. We have a small tub outside that we fill with strawberry plants. My youngest Evie loves being able to pick and eat the fruit straight from the plant.
4. A glass of 100% fruit juice (150ml) or smoothie with breakfast is a great way to start the day with one portion of your 5 A DAY - add fruit to your breakfast and you can start the day with two portions!
5. Just cutting up fruit, makes a real difference to how much my children will eat and enjoy! You can also try adding fresh cut apple, raisins and grated carrot on a salad for a little sweetness and great flavour.

Eight Tips for Healthy Meetings

Do you stagger out of meetings moaning how you hate, hate, hate meetings? Do you yearn for anything — earthquake, hurricane, building collapse — to get out of the meeting you’re in? Do meetings have to be so awful?

The bad meetings always stand out in my memory, but actually, I’ve attended many good meetings, as well. They had a few things in common.

1. Agendas. A good meeting has an agenda. It might be a very informal agenda, such as “Today we are all going to share for two minutes each on everything we’ve done this past week.” Or it might be an elaborate, three-level-outline agenda. But a meeting without an agenda is not a meeting, it’s an encounter group.

2. Openness. Unless the meeting needs to be closed (personnel issues, for example), the meeting is not only open to those who are required to be there, but to people who have an interest in the topic and want to sit in. That also means that meetings are held at times that facilitate this openness (for a major violator of this principle, see ALA Council, which does the bulk of its work a day after the conference has ended). This openness not only contributes to cross-pollination; it also makes meetings more broadly accountable.

3. The meeting is the meeting. That sounds either Zen-like or Seuss-like (or a little of each), but let me clarify. I have worked in a number of settings where the announced meeting was really just a showcase, and key decisions took place before or after the meeting among the informal leaders in the organization. A variation on this is the person who hangs around after the meeting and has a special one-on-one meeting with a key decision-maker which alters decisions made at the meeting or makes new decisions on topics that weren’t addressed. Obviously, the cure for this is fairly complex — these problems are symptomatic of a toxic organizational culture — but if you can affect real change at that level, then meetings have a chance of becoming meetings again, and not charades resented for the time they suck from activities that people have some control over.

4. Time management. The push is to get the meeting done so people can leave the meeting and Do Something. Meetings not only have start times, but end times. Meetings do not wander on and on; agenda items have time limits. It is true that good meetings contribute to outcomes, but meetings rarely are the bulk of the outcome, and a meeting should leave people jazzed about the issue at hand, not exhausted and burned-out. (Oh, and don’t you love the admin-type whose power trip includes breathlessly showing up late for every single meeting — often with a dramatic explanation of the Very Important Thing that made her late? Yeah, me neither: if you can, start the meeting on time and don’t let this person get it off course when she arrives. Otherwise, practice your patient half-smile.)

5. Democratic but not anarchic. On the one hand, the meeting is not a lecture; you do not sit there, wishing you were dead, while for an hour someone on high reads notes that should have been sent out by email, or asks “questions” that have predetermined “answers.” People have discussions, and discussions resolve problems or lead to problem resolution strategies. the convener makes a special effort to acknowledge all meeting participants and draw the best out of them. On the other hand, the meeting is not dominated by trolls who filibuster on every topic (often with extreme negativism and pronounced opinions) and drown out meeker voices as they hammer home Their Way of Doing Things. To keep a meeting democratic without becoming anarchic requires some adroit, situation-specific meeting management — some of it thought through in advance, with a strategic awareness of the participants’ behavior styles — but it’s key.

6. Not every issue needs a meeting. (Tangentially, see also my observation earlier that for every action there is an equal and opposite committee.) Sometimes a problem can be at least partially resolved by two folks standing around a cubicle tossing a nerf ball; sometimes it’s too early to meet because you don’t know what the issue is. Sometimes the issue needs slow, protracted online conversation (easier among people who work this way naturally) rather than the artifice of ten people, a room, and an agenda.

7. Not every issue can be resolved in a meeting. I’ve seen meetings where the participants were determined to come to a conclusion right then and there. But a meeting is not always the right venue. Sometimes you need more information. Sometimes it’s too early to make a decision. (Yes, this does have to be balanced with not having a separate meeting-outside-of-the-meeting structure.) Sometimes you need to send out the email that you think you need to read aloud at the meeting because no one’s reading it, and if people aren’t reading it, find out why. Sometimes the issue requires an innovator, or serial conversations — someone interviewing people sequentially. Sometimes the issue is too volatile to discuss in the meeting format; you don’t want people being agreeniks because they feel put on the spot.

8. Food, fun, and familiarity. I tend to like work for work’s sake, so it took me a while to learn that offering a nibbly or two can greatly improve someone’s opinion of a meeting, as can a little fun (sharing something humorous) and recognizing human, non-work-related events, such as birthdays, new babies, household moves, and other events that make us who we are.

But the yummiest nibbly in the world can’t compare to a meeting that engages the right people for the right reasons, starts and ends on time, and leaves you better-equipped to handle the issue the meeting addressed.

10 Tips To Healthy Eating

10 Tips To
Healthy Eating

Experts agree the key to healthy eating is the time-tested advice of balance, variety and moderation. In short, that means eating a wide variety of foods without getting too many calories or too much of any one nutrient. These 10 tips can help you follow that advice while still enjoying the foods you eat.

1. Eat a variety of nutrient-rich foods. You need more than 40 different nutrients for good health, and no single food supplies them all. Your daily food selection should include bread and other whole-grain products; fruits; vegetables; dairy products; and meat, poultry, fish and other protein foods. How much you should eat depends on your calorie needs. Use the Food Guide Pyramid and the Nutrition Facts panel on food labels as handy references.

2. Enjoy plenty of whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Surveys show most Americans don't eat enough of these foods. Do you eat 6-11 servings from the bread, rice, cereal and pasta group, 3 of which should be whole grains? Do you eat 2-4 servings of fruit and 3-5 servings of vegetables? If you don't enjoy some of these at first, give them another chance. Look through cookbooks for tasty ways to prepare unfamiliar foods.

3. Maintain a healthy weight. The weight that's right for you depends on many factors including your sex, height, age and heredity. Excess body fat increases your chances for high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, some types of cancer and other illnesses. But being too thin can increase your risk for osteoporosis, menstrual irregularities and other health problems. If you're constantly losing and regaining weight, a registered dietitian can help you develop sensible eating habits for successful weight management. Regular exercise is also important to maintaining a healthy weight.

4. Eat moderate portions. If you keep portion sizes reasonable, it's easier to eat the foods you want and stay healthy. Did you know the recommended serving of cooked meat is 3 ounces, similar in size to a deck of playing cards? A medium piece of fruit is 1 serving and a cup of pasta equals 2 servings. A pint of ice cream contains 4 servings. Refer to the Food GuidePyramid for information on recommended serving sizes.

5. Eat regular meals. Skipping meals can lead to out-of-control hunger, often resulting in overeating. When you're very hungry, it's also tempting to forget about good nutrition. Snacking between meals can help curb hunger, but don't eat so much that your snack becomes an entire meal.

6. Reduce, don't eliminate certain foods. Most people eat for pleasure as well as nutrition. If your favorite foods are high in fat, salt or sugar, the key is moderating how much of these foods you eat and how often you eat them.

   Identify major sources of these ingredients in your diet and make changes, if necessary. Adults who eat high-fat meats or whole-milk dairy products at every meal are probably eating too much fat. Use the Nutrition Facts panel on the food label to help balance your choices.

   Choosing skim or low-fat dairy products and lean cuts of meat such as flank steak and beef round can reduce fat intake significantly.

   If you love fried chicken, however, you don't have to give it up. Just eat it less often. When dining out, share it with a friend, ask for a take-home bag or a smaller portion.

7. Balance your food choices over time. Not every food has to be "perfect." When eating a food high in fat, salt or sugar, select other foods that are low in these ingredients. If you miss out on any food group one day, make up for it the next. Your food choices over several days should fit together into a healthy pattern.

8. Know your diet pitfalls. To improve your eating habits, you first have to know what's wrong with them. Write down everything you eat for three days. Then check your list according to the rest of these tips. Do you add a lot of butter, creamy sauces or salad dressings? Rather than eliminating these foods, just cut back your portions. Are you getting enough fruits and vegetables? If not, you may be missing out on vital nutrients.

9. Make changes gradually. Just as there are no "superfoods" or easy answers to a healthy diet, don't expect to totally revamp your eating habits overnight. Changing too much, too fast can get in the way of success. Begin to remedy excesses or deficiencies with modest changes that can add up to positive, lifelong eating habits. For instance, if you don't like the taste of skim milk, try low-fat. Eventually you may find you like skim, too.

10. Remember, foods are not good or bad. Select foods based on your total eating patterns, not whether any individual food is "good" or "bad." Don't feel guilty if you love foods such as apple pie, potato chips, candy bars or ice cream. Eat them in moderation, and choose other foods to provide the balance and variety that are vital to good health.