Description:
Effective Ways to Maintain Health,Fitness and Weight through health supplements
Contents:
Herbal Supplements for Good Health and Fitness-VIII
Here I come with my next Superfood item
SEAWEED
STAR POWER:
The sea has a far richer diversity in plants than land. The many plants of the sea sustain the health of the sea and consequently, the health of land and all the life on it. Seaweed is a kind of algae and is a rich storehouse of nutrients and disease fighting elements. It has been used in South-East Asia for centuries. Spirulina was extensively researched as one of the foods for astronauts and that is how the benefits of the simple algae became known to in the west. In South-East Asia, many algae are eaten in the form of soups, curries etc. In Japan, they are popular as Nori. People who live in coastal areas have a very low incidence of thyroid disorders. This is because their food is rich in sea minerals.
PRACTICAL CONSUMPTION:
Spirulina is a popular form of algae, easily available as tablets and capsules. Many South-East Asian foods consist of seaweed wraps with rice.
PRECAUTIONS:
Some people may find the odour of seaweed too strong, so start with tablets and capsules and then go on to the fresh form. Most stores in Singapore and Hong Kong have seaweed-base foods and snacks. With tablets, stick to the prescribed dose.
Herbal Supplements for good health and fitness-VII
Hello friends, We can certainly get benefits by using Figs and Raisins STAR POWER: Figs are one of the most alkaline foods on earth. Our bodies have a certain a acid-alkali balance that is skewed towards the alkali and contributes to our state of health. When we eat indiscriminately, the breakdown of so much food makes the body environment so much acidic which makes it a fertile medium for becteria, viruses and Candida (a yeast like fungus) that multiply and cause disorders. Even cancers grow in acidic environment. Figs are both alkaline and rich in several minerals and micro-nutrients. They also contain non-fattening natural sugar helping in weight control. The special fibre in figs (pectin) improves bowel movements and works against cholesterol build up. Raisins are dried grapes used as natural sugar. They rise the hemoglobin level and should be eaten by growing children. PRACTICAL CONSUMPTION: Pre-soaked figs can eaten be first thing in the morning. Figs and raisins can be added to juices and salads along with hazel nuts, pine nuts and walnuts. PRECAUTIONS: To get the best nutritional benefit, do not combine figs with dairy products and heavy cereals.
Herbal Supplements for good health and fitness-VI
 The next food item helpful in maintaining good health and nutrition is HERBAL TEA
STAR POWER:
Herbal teas are actually called infusions and are most popular way of consuming aromatic herbs and flowers. Herb teas or infusions can have a mix of healing ingredients like Jasmine flower (eliminates water retention), chamomile flower (sleep inducer) or digestive infusions with various spices and herbs. The entire benefit of the herb or spice is passed on to the infusion. Benefit range from eliminating water retention, inducing sleep, removing gas, calming the stomach, controlling loose motions, providing antioxidants, to fight cancer and more.
Practical consumption:
For cough and cold, boil tulsi, ginger and two whole black peppercorns, sweeten with honey and drink. As a pick-me up, boil a few leaves of green tea with a pinch of ground cinnamon, ginger and cardamom till the color is golden.
Precautions:
Too much tea leads to intestinal dryness
Herbal Supplements for good health and fitness-V
 I am back with the next herbal supplement towards good health and fitness:
ALFA-ALFA HERBS AND SEEDS
STAR POWER:
This plant has roots that go underground upto 30 feet in search of nutrients, which means that alfa-alfa is very rich in special nutrients and minerals. In fact, the Arabs refer to it, as 'the father of herbs'. It is rich in vitamin A, C and K and minerals like selenium, copper and enzymes. It is best for anaemia, increasing lactation, bleeding and clotting disorders, menopausal and menstrual problems and liver related problems.
PRACTICAL CONSUMPTION:
Sprout one teaspoon of alfa-alfa seeds overnight in a moist cloth. Make tea out of the sprouts the next day or simply add to a salad.
PRECAUTIONS:
If anybody has autoimmune disorders, it should be taken under medical supervision.
Herbal supplements for good health and fitness-IV
 The next item in the superfoods family of healthy diet plan is 'Honey'
STARPOWER:
Honey is made by worker bees from the nectar of flowers. It contain small quantities of antigens that are contained in flowers and pollens, and pushes the body to create antibodies or protective cells to build immunity. Being a pre-digested sugar, it is easily absorbed by the weak and frail.
Honey is not fattening despite its being sweet because of its invert sugar (a mixture of equal parts of glucose and fructose resulting from the hydrolysis of sucrose), which is why weight loss practitioners advice you to have it with lemon and hot water. Though, if you have honey with milk and almonds it will be fattening. Honey is also a very good anti-bacterial agent helping in maintaining good health and fitness. It kills even the most potent bacteria by sucking out their water. It is also an excellent moisture retainer and often used for skin treatment. It is rich in enzymes that comes from the worker bees. Plus,it is a source of pre-digested sugar.
PRACTICAL CONSUMPTION:
Add honey to herbal tea to sweeten it since it doesn't lead to weight gain. Or add it to a glass of warm water and lemon to help in weight loss. Otherwise, you can eat it on toast or add it to oat porridge with a dash of cinnamon to make a nutritious breakfast dish for thin or normal weight
children.If you mix a teaspoon of honey with two teaspoon of powdered black pepper, a fewdrops og ginger juice and tulsi, you will get one of the most effective cough medication ever.
PRECAUTIONS:
Do not give natural honey to toddlers under two years old as their immune system may not respond to it well.
Superfoods for good health and fitness-III
 Fruit and Vegetable juices are essential consituent of a healthy diet plan. They are blessed with three factors leading to good health and fitness.
(a) They are rich in antioxidants.
(b) They are full of live enzymes.
(c) They contain heat-labile vitamins (that is, the vitamins that are usually
lost while cooking).
Antioxidants are exceptionally important because they destroy the free radicals that are continuously created in our body due to toxins from fertilizers, pollution and so on. Free radicals lead to inflammation in the heart, arthritis, mutations resulting in cancers and other terrible diseases. The role of antioxidants was first discovered by the naturopaths, but laboratory confirmations using advanced scientific tools are relatively recent.
Fruit and Vegetable juices are also rich in live enzymes. Enzymes are a component of food with the power to transform. They transform plant energy to an energy form that we can utilize. This power also resides in our livers, but we tend to overload the liver to such an extent that the body is unable to handle food. All problems of fatigue, dark circles under the eyes and lack of facial glow result from under-metabolic food.
When we cook vegetables, all enzymes are lost due to the heat. So, when we drink vegetable juices, we also get enzymes. Enzymes are present in raw salads, raw vegetables and fruit.
The third important aspect of fruit and vegetable juices is that they are a storehouse of vitamins like B complex and C that are otherwise destroyed in cooking. Many disorders due to indiscriminate eating are miraculously cured by naturopathy techniques and fruit & vegetable juice therapy.
PRACTICAL CONSUMPTION
Make different juices every day. Try a juice of carrot and fennel, add some ginger or garlic according to taste to add to the nutritional benefits.
PRECAUTIONS
If you are used to a very unhealthy diet or refined or processed foods, begin with small quantities because sudden detoxification may overwhelm the system. Pregnant women and people with compromised immunity should also avoid vegetable juices. In this way you will be able to transform nature's life forces to human vitality.
Superfoods for good Health and Fitness -II
 I am here with my next post in which I will discuss about the medicinal value of flowers:
STARPOWER:
Rather like homeopathy, flower therapy does not attack a disease head on. Instead, it activates cellular intelligence to fight imbalances within its immediate environment. Flower therapy is used in food, aroma oils and skin applications. Jasmine flower have a relaxing effect on the nervous system. Jasmine tea is the flower in a tea form(called an influsion). Rose petals are a great luxative and used in many medicines. Rose is also drunk in a sherbat form as it cools and relaxes the body.
Practical consumption:
Substitute late night beverages with flower infusions. They are great for relaxation. And have rose sherbet in summer.
Precautions:
Some people may be allergic to some flower components, so be careful if you have a family history of asthma
Superfoods for good health and fitness-I
In my earlier post, I talked about value of Superfoods in our life. In will present some of the vital foods that have a great medicinal value and possess the capacity to affect our body positively in number of ways.
FLAXSEEDS:
STAR POWER: Flaxseeds have rather humble origins, so the way they are venerated today by people interested in their health could be the subject of the rags to riches story in some tabloid.
They are an ordinary dull brown color and so inexpensive that they are fed to livestock for their health. The star qualities of flexseeds came to light when it was discovered that they are an excellent vegetarian source of omega-3 fatty acids (normally found in oily fish). Omega-3 fatty acids are one of the key recommendations for a heart healthy diet.
Flexseeds also have a balancing and therapeutic effect on the ovaries. They can be used as a food component to treat polycystic ovaries and insulin disorders.
Practical Consumption:
Roast flaxseeds and add to salads. They make them yummy and crunchy. Or make a fine powder and add it to vegetable juices
Precautions:
Do not consume in excess. Normal consumption is up to two teaspoons a day.
Medicinal Value of Food
All foods offer us benefits other than simple energy, but some foods have great healing power than others. To put it simple, if we don’t eat, we can not live. But aside from serving that most basic need- that of keeping us alive and our taste buds happy-the best foods keep us healthy, happy and whole. These are super foods, a cross between food and medicine.
Ayurveda, one of the world’s oldest and still more practical health treatises, had always connected food with medicine. But over the years, we lost that connection and forgot about the healing power of the food.
However, we have regained that knowledge to an extent now, but we tend to focus only on the energy component of the food-its caloric count. That’s not the only attribute of food however. Food gives us the vitality to function; builds our bodies; protects us from the environment by creating a layer of fat; affects our moods; fights diseases at a cellular and metabolic level; improves body rejuvenation and so delays ageing; and cures diseases.
All foods have a medicinal value, but certain plants that may not ordinarily be part of our daily diets have an immense capacity to affect us positively in various ways. I will discuss about some superfoods in my future posts.
Treating Your Acne Problem Yourself
Acne is a diseased condition of the skin that involves the hair and oil glands. It is characterized by pimples, black or white heads, reddishness and cysts. Face acne can damage your appearance to a great extent and body acne can irritate you by making you very uncomfortable affecting your health. Actually the care for acne should start off much before the acne actually appears. This is more about being proactive than reactive. Acne skin care is about being aware of preventive measures. The crux is, following daily skin care routines with dedication and discipline.
If you have acne, never try to touch them or squeeze them; it can lead to long lasting scars. The treatment of acne requires gentle cleansing and cleaning of the affected area. First of all, make a start with the most basic thing - cleanliness. So morning showers are the most basic way of keeping the skin clean. If you are living in a hot and humid place, a night shower becomes a must. A shower is advisable after every activity that causes high levels of sweat to develop. It is a very efficient acne skin care technique.
Nonetheless, acne skin care is not about just showers. Acne skin care is also about wearing clean clothes and sleeping on clean pillows. Wearing too tight clothes can cause sweat to accumulate fast, so wearing of soft and comfortable cotton clothes are recommended. You should also use a mild, soap-free and water-soluble, cleanser for keeping your face, neck and arms clean. Cleansing is the most central part of any acne skin care routine. The easiest way of removing dirt, grease and pollutants from your skin is use of cleaners. They reduce the probability of acne occurrence. It is also recommended to remove your make up using a make up remover before you go to bed.
There are number of skin care creams and lotions available in the market, but most of them are actually cleansers. However, if the above mentioned measures do not give you the desired results, it is better to contact a dermatologist.
An ideal way to lose weight
Many of you will identify with this. You are about 5-7 kg overweight and want to get your weight down to the recommended level. So you sign on at the gym and are regular during the first few weeks. But when you weight yourself day after day, the needle refuses to budge. You get disheartened and stop. ‘The gym doesn’t work for me,’ you recon, and hang up your gym shoes.
Giving up on the gym a few weeks into the effort is the worst thing you can do because if you are regular, it is entirely possible that you may not be losing weight, but you are losing fat.
How is that?
What happens is that when you are slightly overweight and your workout is a combination of cardio vascular exercise like walking/ running and weight training, you lose fat. But your muscle mass has increased at the same time, your weight remains static.
One pound of muscle looks denser than one pound of fat. Fat is a flab, it is loose, all over the place. Muscles are denser, more compact. So, you weight won’t change, at least in the beginning. Because the fat loss is compensated by muscle gain, there will be signs to indicate that you are on the right track. After some time you will notice that your clothes are getting looser, your stomach and arms feel taut, and your strength is up.
But this does not mean that you start doing weights with a vengeance to build muscle in the hope that it will make you look super toned and sculpted. Yes, you can weight train, you will build muscle. But you can only lose the excess fat in your body through cardio-vascular exercise. You can not achieve fat lose without cardio. Ideally, you should do a combination of cardio and weights. Cardio to lose fat and weights to tone your body.
The good news is that unlike fat, muscle burn a lot of calories. So the more muscle mass you have, the easier it is to burn fat and your efforts at gym will sooner or later translate into weight loss too.
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