Easy Fitness Tips for People Who Are Very Busy

If you're crunched for time, here are some quick and easy fitness ideas that you can include in your daily routine. Being healthy isn't just about hitting the gym for hours everyday, or being able to fit in your jeans. Regular exercise has many more benefits - lower risk of ailments such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetics, colon cancer and depression, as well as increased bone strength, higher energy levels,physical attraction and an overall sense of well being. So now keep on reading the fitness tips.
Instead of spending one hour to the gym, do six 10-minute workout sessions throughout the day. Try some slow stretches, leg crunches or lunges when you get up in the morning, during short breaks at work or while you are watching your favourite show at T.V.
For more information on exercises don't forget to visit our Exercise Directory.
Fitness tip # 2 - Walk yourself Take a quick watch around the neighborhood before breakfast or after dinner. Even small increments of daily activity can burn body fat. Walking not only tones your hips, legs and lower back muscles, but also keeps you energized throughout the day.
Fitness tip # 3 - Do a jumping jack with skipping rope Borrow a skipping rope and start jumping. You will be loosing as much as 70 to 110 calories in only 10 minutes.
Fitness tip # 4 - Drink a lot of water Dehydration will hinder your aerobic performance, so no amount of working out is going to help if you are not drinking enough fluid. Water helps you burn calories and digest fat, and most importantly, it detoxifies you system.
Fitness tip # 5 - Fire the maid Studies suggest that women today are more overweight and less fit that women in the 50's. That's because we depend more on electronic appliances then doing work ourselves. Simple daily chores burn a large amount of calories. In fact, vacuuming for an hour burns 90 calories, gardening will kill 150 calories and cooking can actually burn up to 160 calories!
Fitness tip # 6 - Get outdoors In your leisure times, opt for activities that excite you. Go to the park, walk the dog, plan picnics or do something more adventurous like hiking, rock-climbing paddle boating or scuba diving.
Fitness tip # 7 - Work it off Do some exercises at work too. Next time you find yourself picking up the phone to call a colleague, walk down to her office instead. Or if you are in the mood for a cup of coffee, go out and get it yourself.
Fitness tip # 8 - Become the delivery person Forget internet shopping and ordering in. If you feel like grabbing a sandwich, walk to a nearest cafe instead of ordering on the phone. Similarly, if you need books or DVD's, walk down to the store and get whatever you need.
Fitness tip # 9 - Hide the remote Don't be a channel-flicking couch potato. Ask someone to hide the remote so that whenever you need to use it, you'll have to go dig it out. Better yet, if you are spending more then half an hour parked in front of T.V., use a treadmill or stationary bike while you are at it.
Fitness tip # 10 - Use the stairs If you are at work or at shopping mall, avoid taking the elevator. Opt for the stairs. Climbing up the stairs adds strength to your leg muscles and gives you a cardiovascular workout. Climbing down the stairs builds strength in the quadriceps and hamstrings. To burn over 200 calories at once, run up and down a flight of stairs as fast as you can. Two at a time if you are particularly brave. Do this everyday in five-minute sessions.
Fitness tip # 11 - Make it family time Try to get your spouse and your kids to work out with you. Play catch or frisbee with your kids, make fake microphones and dance to some music, or even run alongside your children as they learn to ride a bike. In fact, a recent study in Canada suggests that if you are active, your children are 6-times more likely to be active too.
Fitness tip # 12 - Learn the alphabet For flexible ankles, trace the alphabet with your toes. Do this with both feet, one after the other. This is something that can be done anywhere - while waiting for someone, working on your computer or lying down on the couch.
Fitness tip # 13 - Pick up the pace Whatever you're doing do it faster. So if you're washing clothes, folding clothes, vacuuming the house or washing the car, speed it up just a notch. Just don't try it when slicing vegetables!
Fitness tip # 14 - Meet up with friends while doing exercise Instead of catching up over a cup of coffee, do it while playing tennis, taking aerobics lessons or learning salsa. Meet a couple of friends a few times a week and combine socializing with exercise.
Fitness tip # 15 - Tone your legs If you spend a lot of time sitting and working, you can try some leg exercises. Stretch out your toes forward and out slowly, away from your body, till you begin to feel a slight tension. Hold your position like that for half a minute. You could also try tightening your buttocks, rolling your neck 20-times in each direction, extending your arms over your head as much as possible and stretching or flexing your feet and ankles.

read more...

Recognising Depression

As a major new study finds that anti-depressant drugs don't work for the majority of people who take them, this raises all sorts of concerns for the one in 10 people who suffer from serious depression. "What will help me if anti-depressants won't?" will be a big and justified question on their mind.

It also raises larger questions about the nearly 32 million prescriptions for anti-depressants that were written last year: why have so many drugs been prescribed when perhaps they've done little good and many people suffer side-effects from them?

Probably the main reason for this is that depression has become a catch-all diagnosis that some respected researchers say covers many other emotional and psychological conditions like anxiety, stress, and the unhappiness from distressing life events like divorce and bereavement.

Busy and over-stretched doctors simply don't have the time to make a thorough diagnosis - despite their best intentions - and giving a prescription has frequently seemed the best solution.

That aside, the most important thing I'd like to say to you if you are presently on anti-depressant medication is that you should not stop taking your medication without the guidance of your doctor!

Despite the findings of this report, anyone on medication needs to come off of it in a supervised manner.

The second important point I'd like to make is that anti-depressants like Prozac, Seroxat, Efexor and others, might work very well for you as an individual and you should not worry when hearing about this research that you're doing the wrong thing taking them if they have benefited you!

The Good That Can Come From This Report

Now, let's consider the fact that there's a real positive to come out of this report - that we can now re-focus our minds on how best to help those who suffer with depression and who are not helped by anti-depressants.

With depression being the number one illness across the whole world, there are a huge number of people out there who need to get the right help for them.

If you've suffered from depression you'll know how it seeps into every aspect of your life. The signs and symptoms include: 

• First and foremost a pervading feeling that you're "blue", down, feel despair, are sad, not yourself, low in spirits - essentially depressed.

• Irritable and short-tempered for apparently no reason. 

• Have a lack enthusiasm for the things you once enjoyed. 

• Find it very hard to sleep or are sleeping too much. 

• Can't get motivated for things like work and day-to-day chores.

• Everything feels like it's an effort and some people describe that they are "walking through sludge".

• Loss of interest in sex. 

• Loss of appetite or wanting to eat more. 

• Feeling hopeless and also helpless. 

• You might also stop looking after yourself properly. 

• Unexpected feelings of anger.

• You may feel guilty and/or ashamed that you have no "obvious reason" to feel depressed.

• Easily stressed out - you may find things that used to be easy now seem difficult. 

• You might have suicidal thoughts. 

• You might find yourself turning to alcohol and drugs to "make you feel better" but this is not the solution. 

• And you may notice your own unique symptoms.

If you've felt any of these symptoms for longer than two weeks then that should be a wake-up call to try and determine whether or not you have depression. Now that this report has made it quite clear that people need to look at what care is available to them besides anti-depressants, rest assured there is lots you can do.

What You Should Do Now

•  Let your nearest and dearest know that you have concerns about your well-being. Don't keep these blue feelings secret. Keeping them to yourself can worsen them.

•  Go to your doctor and book a double appointment so that you have plenty of time to go through your symptoms.

•  It's terribly important while you're getting help to decrease any demands on your time that you can. The fewer demands that you have in your life, the quicker you can recover. This is about setting limits and learning to assert yourself because many people who get depression struggle with setting boundaries and saying No to other people's demands for their time.

•  Make sure you eat well and don't rely on pre-packaged ready meals that may have too much salt, sugar and other additives that are not good for your mood.

•  Try to establish a good sleep routine. 

•  Allow yourself one small nap or rest during the day but avoid staying in bed. 

•  Take gentle exercise every day to boost your endorphins - those feel-good brain chemicals. 

•  Try keeping a journal so that you can keep tabs on how your mood goes up and down.

•  Get to know what things actually set you off as people are more likely to suffer more depressive episodes if they do not sort out the root cause. 

•  Begin to learn to talk about your feelings to other people so that you feel you have better communication and stronger relationships - definitely a protective factor that helps protect you from future depression.

•  Question whether you're a bit of a perfectionist and need to accept yourself more. Realise the fact that no one is perfect. The seemingly "strongest" and most compassionate people I've ever met have often been depressives! But they must learn to say No to helping others when they need to be gentler and help themselves.

•  If you and your doctor think it's appropriate then get counselling. There are different types of counselling but cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has been successful for many people with depression. It teaches them how to rethink about their world and challenge any negative beliefs that feed their depression. If you end up going for a "talking cure" with some form of counselling you'll find one interesting point many counsellors talk about is "surrendering to your depression and acknowledging it". In a sense they urge you to "embrace it" so that you can then actually face it head-on. The basis for this is that if you don't wholeheartedly face it and embrace it than you may stay in denial about what's causing it.

Where Does Depression Come From?

Although every person's set of symptoms and experience of depression is unique there are a few major causes, these are: 

Reactive depression - where you're "reacting" to some sort of life events like divorce or bereavement.

Chronic depression - a long-term depression that may have resulted from something like a difficult or traumatic childhood or event, or work from a disturbance in your brain chemistry.

Bipolar disorder - manic depression where people experience extreme highs followed by extreme lows.

Postnatal depression (illness) - after the birth of a baby, women may suffer this either in a very minor form right through to a much more serious condition.

SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder that affects people in the autumn and winter months and is tied into lack of sunlight

read more...

How to Handle Brain Tumor

Tumor in brain is a complicated problem, so itshandling requires manager team consisting of several expert-usually led by a neurosurgeon, and will involve a neurologist, radiologist, anesthesiologist-neurological, oncology and radiotherapy. Although no exact cause of the underlying disease of the brain tumor, but suspected there are several risk factors, including:

1. Brain tumors are more developed in men.

2. There is a history of cancer in the family.

3. The existence of exposure to radiation, chemicals such as formaldehyde, vinyl chloride and acrylonitrile.

4. Possible influence of cell phone usage.

Until now, the certainty of diagnosis of cancer may take several years, fortunately this time the disease can be overcome with more sophisticated techniques and powerful than ever before.

Dr Keith Goh, Consultant at the International Neuro Neurosurgery Associates, Novena Medical Centre, Singapore explained, the main step and the most important for the treatment of brain tumor is neurosurgery. Surgery’s goal is to remove the tumor cells as much as possible and ensure the healthy surrounding brain tissue remains intact. There are a lot of technologies offered by the surgeons, which makes the surgery more safely, accurately and with fewer complications than ever before. For example, now the International Neuro Associates, Novena Medical Centre, Singapore, using the operating system of computerized image-guidance (computerised image-guidance operating systems / IGS), which is how it works similar to the GPS system. This tool allows to point right at the spot location of the tumor, and make a small hole for the key hole for the surgeries. Sometimes, neuro-endoscopy may be an option with direct vision into the brain and remove the tumor.

read more...

Four Men Fitness Goals for 2011

It's often said that men are goal-centred. We like to have something to work towards, a marker that we can say we have met.

That's why saying, "I'm going to start running" or "I'm going to tone up" rarely works for us. There's nothing concrete to aim for. If we want to be fitter, slimmer or healthier in 2011, we have to set targets.

With that in mind, here are some realistic fitness goals for men for the coming year, with expert advice on how to achieve them. It's not good enough, of course, to reach a goal and then stop. Once you've achieved one target, set another for a few months down the line, even if it's just to repeat the feat (be it a 10k race or a charity bike ride).

And remember, if you want to invent your own fitness goals, many of the same principles apply. But make 2011 the year you really do get fitter, rather than just another year of talking about it.

I want to run 10k by July

A 10k run is perfect. It will test you, you'll need to train for it, but it's eminently do-able in six months or so, even if you've never run for exercise before (oh, and as with all these goals, have a word with the GP before you start, just to be on the safe side).

"10k is a perfect goal," says personal trainer Graeme Hilditch, author of The Marathon and Half Marathon: A Training Guide. "It's far enough for you to have to put the training in, but not so far that your whole life is dominated by pounding the pavements."

The other good thing is that there are lots of 10k runs in the summer, so sign up for one as soon as you can to give an extra incentive to your training. Also, get decent shoes from a good running shop that can measure your 'running gait'.

As far as training goes, start slowly - just a 10-minute jog three times a week if that's all you can manage - and build gradually. "It's so important to take your time and increase your running mileage slowly," says Hilditch. "Increasing your mileage too quickly more often than not results in injury."

Sometimes less is more. If you don't feel you can add extra time or distance to your run for a week or two, don't see it as a failure. Your body is simply adjusting to a brand new exercise routine.

Take it steadily and keep going, and it won't be long before your fitness improves, your muscles adjust to the new regime and 10k no longer seems such a daunting distance.

I want to cycle 30 miles for charity in September

As Graeme Hilditch says, "if the thought of running makes you cringe or you don't think your knees are up to it, then a cycling challenge is a perfect alternative."

In many ways, cycling is ideal. Most of us cycled as kids, and most of us remember it as a lot of fun. While running can seem like a slog when you haven't done it before, getting on a bike is an easier sell.

So - first off - always wear a helmet and make sure your bike is in good condition.

And then remember that, on the flat, unless you're cycling very quickly, it won't be as labour intensive as running, so you may have to do more of it.

"Try and stick to a regular training schedule of two to three rides a week in the early stages as you build your fitness levels, eventually upping it to four or even five rides," says Hilditch. Try to make sure you've almost covered the distance at least once or twice before the event.

"Feel free to alternate between the road bike and the gym bike - variety is the spice of life after all! Try and include plenty of hills on your rides too - they are great to build leg strength and will do wonders for your fitness levels."

I want to swim a mile by March

Swimming is excellent exercise, and swimming a mile is a challenging but achievable goal for the first quarter of 2011.

One factor to note is that, unlike running or cycling, you can't set off from your front door. Going swimming takes a bit more planning, and you might not be able to do it as regularly. But if you can swim two or three times a week, you can certainly reach your goal by the summer.

One problem with swimming lengths is that it can become a bit boring. "For the best results and to keep training interesting, you don't want every session to be the same so try to do something a little different every time you swim," says Hilditch.

"For example, make one swim an 'endurance' swim and aim to swim non-stop for a certain number of lengths or specific time. For another session, you can do intervals, so aim to swim two lengths quickly, then rest for two minutes and do another two lengths."

Do this 10 times, he adds, and your swimming fitness will grow beyond recognition. For the third session, you could combine the two sessions together and aim to swim for 20 minutes non-stop, but swimming a fast length every now and again.

I want to lose weight for the beach!

You may well want to look good on the beach, but just saying it won't be enough. According to Michael Betts, Education Director of fitness fx Limited, to achieve any fitness goal you have to work "SMART".

And by SMART he means that your goals have to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.

"It's no good saying you want to lose weight," he says. "You want to know exactly how much weight you want to lose."

 And not only that, you have to set a time to lose the weight by and make sure it's realistic.

After that, says Betts, break your specific main goal (to lose two stone by the time you fly off in August, say) into a series of smaller goals, for each week and each work out. "Setting goals in this way not only keeps you focused on your final goal, it gives you the feeling of success, one of the greatest motivators of all."

A weekly goal might be to go to the gym four times. A daily goal might be to work out for an hour. And an immediate goal might be to spend 15 minutes on the treadmill without a break. As you complete each goal, you get a sense of progress. As you get fitter, you can make immediate goals more challenging, or add 10 minutes to a workout.

That way, you motivate yourself to keep going. And if you keep going from now until August, you're pretty much guaranteed to look good on the beach.

read more...

Healthy Diets For Pregnant Women

Despite from happiness, having positive tested for pregnancy, a woman must be observant to watch food intakes. Dietary choices during pregnancy affect the health of the fetus until the birth and it grows to be an adult.

However, the diet before pregnancy is equally important. One or two months before planning apregnancy, it is advisable to intake balanced meals for more consistent ovulation. Vegetables, beans and side dishes which are high protein and also contain of isoflavones and choline like soy and egg to help regulate the reproductive of hormones.

Here are some healthy guidelines for pregnant women or women who is planning a pregnancy, as quoted from ModernMom:

Nutrition

Folic acid is important for pregnant women. Folic acid helps to prevent neural tube defects, which can cause slow information transmission from the brain. Folic acid works before pregnancy and during the first trimester. You can get folic acid by eating fortified cereals, lentils, asparagus, spinach, black beans, peanuts, orange juice, broccoli, lettuce and whole wheat bread and pasta. Folic acid is also obtained from a multivitamin with 400 mcg folic acid or more. Other nutrients that help are vitamin C, vitamin E and zinc.

Foods To Avoid

When you know you are pregnant, immediately stop your habit of drinking alcohol, smoking and using drugs. Because some substances are left several times in the body, so you should stop it from you plan a pregnancy. If bad habits keep to be done until you pregnant, the fetus will have risk of fall or born prematurely. Too much caffeine is also bad for the fetus, because caffeine absorbs the iron that is needed baby and mother.

Choose Fish as The Main Menu

You can increase the intake of fish, especially salmon and tuna. But you must avoid every fish that contain of lots of mercury such as shark, swordfish and king mackerel because it will precipitate in the mother’s body and fetus.

Avoid Junk Food

Remove your junk foods from the dining table. Potato chips, cookies, soda and fast food contain no nutrients for mother and baby. Make sure that the body mass index is between 20 and 30.

The normal pregnancy’s weight gain is between 8 to 15 kg. Excess weight during pregnancy is vulnerable to get diabetes, high blood pressure and reduce the chance of a normal birth.

read more...