How to Drop One Pound A Week

Health professionals advise obese and overweight individuals to get started on dieting to shed excess pounds and decrease their risks of developing chronic diseases like heart attack and diabetes.

But the big problem is finding the will to stay away from the foods that we're so used to eating. What if there's a way to shed pounds slow and steady without fighting the urge to eat your favorite foods.

If you're a big potato chip junkie, learn to control your consumption by not holding on to the big bag while you munch. Get a small bowl and fill it with enough chips. The reason behind this is that as long as your hand can feel that there's something to grab and stuff to your mouth, it'll keep feeding your mouth with chips.

If you have a sweet tooth, why not choose something natural. Dried fruits can make for a great alternative for the sweet stuff. You can replace your sugary drinks with home-made fruit juices to keep things natural and chemical-free.

Keep in mind that you want to be able to stick to your diet. Cutting your guilty pleasures out completely only increases your chances of failing.

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap

Control Overeating By Curbing Your Hunger

When I'm hard pressed with time, I tend to skip meals and compensate for the missed meal on the next one. And because this tends to happen a lot, I get told that I overeat.

I hate to say this but because I did overeat, I gained weight. This is why I'm trying to learn to curb my hunger so that I can stop overeating. I've found several ways to naturally curb my hunger without the use of diet pills, here are some of them:

• Take in lots of water. Water has been known for its filling properties.
• Take time to chew. The longer you chew, the more time you give your stomach to realize that you're filling it with food.
• Break your food consumption down into smaller chunks and eat in two to three hours intervals.
• Choose high fiber foods as they are more filling. It also takes a longer time for the feeling of fullness to go away.

It'll take a little getting used to, but I'm going to stick with this to finally control my eating habits and eventually lose weight.

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap

Sing to Health

So I've been backtracking American Idol season nine episodes lately and found this one auditionee who had asthma. And I got thinking, how could someone who has respiratory problem get into singing?

Apparently, singing does us a world of good, both physically and mentally.

Singing can act as a great stress reliever. It can help take our mind off of whatever it is that's troubling us. Also, it can also serve as a creative channel to express our emotions.

As for the physical benefits of singing. It can act as an aerobic exercise that works out our lungs, our abdominal muscles, and pumps up your blood circulation. A pretty great lung workout for someone with asthma, don't you think?

The constant breathing that comes with singing makes your lungs and abs contract more and it also gets more oxygen into your blood and into your system. The more oxygen you have in your blood, the better equipped your body becomes to protecting itself from diseases.

Now that I've learned about this, I don't think I'm going to pass up on the opportunity to sing whenever I can. And that would be in the shower while I get ready for work.

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap

Working Around Your Lactose Intolerance

As much as I love dairy products, there's only a certain level that I can take because I have, to an extent, lactose intolerance. I'm just lucky that I can take more than enough to give me my fix of dairy everyday.

For those like me who can tolerate lactose to a certain degree, learning to moderate one's dairy consumption can help create a compromise between your love of lactose-based products and your inability to digest them fully.

First up, determine just how much dairy you can take. This way, the next time cheese is on the menu, you'll know just how much your body can take and stop when you reach that point.

I've learned that I can take more milk or cheese when it's mixed with something else. I drink milk with a little chocolate and take my cheese mixed into my salad.

I've also learned not to take my dairy without anything prior to it. I found that my stomach revolts to the lactose faster when I eat cheese on an empty stomach.

Again, it would be best to consult your doctor to understand more about your lactose intolerance and ask for workarounds to your condition.

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap

Healthy Breakfast Choices For An Energy Boost

As a person who sleeps late, I find myself almost always feeling tired and fatigued every morning. This feeling usually extends until after lunch where work starts picking up.

My roommate tells me it's because I don't eat breakfast, not the right kind anyway. She tells me that there are lots of breakfast foods that will help me feel energized early in the morning.

Take eggs, for example, she says. It's filled with protein, which stimulates the production of a brain chemical that makes us alert and increases the heart rate. It also takes a while for protein to be fully digested, so you're sure to have a steady supply of energy for a few hours.

Multi-grain cereals are also a great energy starter. They are high in iron, a mineral that helps distribute oxygen to your muscles. The more oxygenated the muscles, the more energetic you are.

Lastly, a glass of OJ should be part of your breakfast if you want to be up and energized early. Thanks to carnitine found in citrus fruits, fat gets distributed to cells to be used as energy. Vitamin C also reduces the effects of stress, making you less prone to fatigue.

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap

Reasons to Eat Breakfast

My mom always said that I should start my day with breakfast. When I was a kid, I'd go along and eat what she had prepared. But as I grew older, I felt like it wasn't a big deal and thought that breakfast was a waste of time.

But when I saw a doctor to consult about how to prevent myself from unhealthy habits, I brought up the topic of breakfast. He told me that eating breakfast can help keep me healthy. Here are some of the reasons my doctor stated:

1. Breakfast helps keep your weight in check. It curbs your cravings, prevents overeating, and help you build better eating habits.
2. Breakfast gives you startup energy boost for the day. The food you eat from breakfast will provide you with enough energy to do your thing until lunchtime.
3. Breakfast improves one's intellectual performance. Like batteries to a dying flashlight, the nutrients you get from a hearty and healthy breakfasts boost your brain, thus, improving cognitive functions.

So the next time you feel like skipping breakfast, ask yourself if you're willing to miss out on all the benefits the first meal of the day has to offer.

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap

Dealing With Hair Breakage

If there's one thing a woman considers most as her crowning glory, that would be her hair. But how can you expect a woman to be proud of her hair if it's prone to split ends and breakage?

What causes hair to break apart so easily? Experts point their fingers at wear and tear. Well, if you're always treating your hair with different kinds of chemicals (coloring, straightening, curling agents), I won't be surprised if your hair gets stripped off of its protective layers.

How can you avoid subjecting your hair to such a harsh beating then? You can start by choosing hair products that are gentler than the ones you're currently using.

If you're using ammonia or peroxide-based hair dyes, go with semi permanent ones instead. You can also recover your hair's lost protective barrier by using damage repair shampoos and conditioners.

Keratin, wheat, or soy protein-based hair products can help strengthen your hair and protect it from breaking so easily. Deep conditioning products that are made with natural oils can have just the same effect.

Your hair is just as much a part of you as any other body part, so take care of it. You don't want to go bald from constant hair breakage now, do you?

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap

When Too Much Exercise Is Too Much

You know people take words too seriously that they over exaggerate it? Well, some people take incorporating exercise into their daily lifestyle to a whole new level.

Instead of the ideal one hour's worth of moderate exercise, some exercise nuts overwork their bodies by putting in at least two hours of exercise per session while working multiple exercise sessions a day.

If you think that by exercising more you'll reap the benefits of being physically active faster, then you're dead wrong. The more you overwork your body, the more chances of you injuring yourself from muscle overuse.

You'll start off with minor muscle strains and sprains. But over time, you'll experience more severe problems like bursitis and tendonitis to name a few.

Over-exercising will end up costing you more in medical bills as opposed to what you intended to save when you started working out.

To prevent overuse injuries while exercising, consult a fitness expert first. They'll be able to tell you what to do and how long you should do a routine without compromising your health.

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap

Arm Swinging is Good For Your Health

Health experts have been keen to remind people that exercise is a vital part of staying fit and healthy. The problem with hearing the term exercise is that people often associate it to difficult routines or exercise sets.

But what if I tell you that you can exercise by swinging your arms?

Arm swinging is a Tai Chi warm-up move that helps get you pumped up for the day. How do you do the arm swing? Here's a quick guide:

Swing your arms backwards as far as gravity allows, then swing your arms forward. Do this for a couple of minutes before intensifying the workout.

Increase the intensity by lowering your center of gravity a little and lifting your heels while you swing your arms forwards and back.

You can up your arm-swinging level some more by jumping as you sway your arms. Jump higher as you progress.

The exercise is good for 15 minutes. It should be done twice daily to enjoy the full benefits of arm swinging. Also, don't forget that to end the exercise, you must gradually slow the pace down to a full stop.

So what are you waiting for? Start arm-swinging today.

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap

Natural Diarrhea Recovery Boosters

I hate it when I have diarrhea. I hate taking frequent trips to the toilet and the fact that I need about a day or two to fully recover from it. It's an experience I don't care to have, but somehow can't seem to avoid.

You can say this is what led me to my search for remedies that will help speed up my recovery from diarrhea. I found out that these foods can help us get better from diarrhea in lesser time:

• The BRAT diet - Banana, rice, applesauce, and toast have been known to work miracles for diarrhea when eaten together. This is most likely because of the fiber these foods contain.
• Ginger - Ginger is known for it's soothing properties. It works just as perfectly to relax irritated bowels that are the primary culprit for diarrhea.
• Oatmeal - Known to be an excellent source of fiber, oatmeal is also high in antioxidants and nutrients that will protect you from the damages diarrhea deals to your body.
• Water - Drinking lots of water will protect you from getting dehydrated from defecating too much. It also helps flush out what's irritating your bowels faster.
  

Written By: Abbey Grace Yap