Shed Some Pounds with These Effective Weight Loss Tips

Shed Some Pounds with These Effective Weight Loss Tips

Losing weight is a challenge to many. While it is very easy to pack on pounds, losing them is a whole lot of a different story. This is a common problem. In fact, out of 10 Americans, 2 are obese and 4 are overweight. It leads to a relatively unhealthy society. If you don’t want to be a part of that statistics, you better start practicing a healthy lifestyle and live it. For people who are struggling with weight loss, here are effective weight loss tips that we hope will help you in many ways:

Tip #1
Develop that extreme desire to lose weight.
Before going into any weight loss program or trying a diet plan, make sure that you have that extreme desire to make yourself healthy again. Without that desire, you may try one diet plan after the other and just fall back from where you started. You do not have enough dedication to get you through even a single diet plan, so do not start any until you develop that extreme desire to lose weight. Think of a motivation. Are you sick of how people look down on you because of your weight? Do you hate it when you can’t even climb several steps without panting? Do you want to get your life back? These things should move you to want to lose those pounds and welcome the new you.

Tip #2
Carefully choose which weight loss programs to use.
There are a lot of quick weight loss programs and diet courses that promise to help you shed those pounds in a matter of weeks. Be realistic. Do you really believe it is possible? You should think about these things before getting into any program. Also, analyze whether you can see yourself getting through that particular program. Do not underestimate yourself but also be realistic about what you can do. Pick a program that you think you can possibly do and will give you the result it promises, even when it takes you a long time. Upon trying a weight loss program, you will see results and benefits of jogging in a matter of weeks. Analyze from then if you can continue and be able to continue getting results. Don’t be fooled by quick weight loss promises and weight loss pills. You should know better.

Tip #3
Do not starve yourself.
It is common for people to avoid eating to keep packing on pounds. This is not a good way to lose weight. A good diet plan doesn’t starve you. It makes sure that you get the right amount of nutrients from the right food sources. It is possible to control the amount of food that you eat but not to the point that you are starving. When you starve, you get to crave for food more and you definitely eat more. There are also diet plans that offer you to only eat an energy bar or a protein shake or something. Don’t be fooled. Think that you need real food as real nutrient sources to be really healthy.

Tip #4
Junk your bad habits.
Do you sulk around thinking how ugly you look with your layers of flab? Don’t. Instead, do something to lose them. Thinking about them and not doing anything will just make you depressed. When you are depressed, you tend to take it on food. Food makes you feel better and it only makes your situation worse. So don’t get depressed about your weight. Do something about it.

Excessive drinking may also be the reason why it is difficult for you to get rid of that beer gut. Drinking beer will definitely make you fat because a single bottle contains huge amount of calories. While drinking, you may also eat calorie-loaded foods. With alcohol in your belly, your liver works non-stop in burning it instead of the calories. Thus, you tend to get bigger belly when you drink beer or alcohol.

Eating in between meals is another reason why you gain weight fast. Your meal should already include all the necessary nutrients needed by the body. It should be just the right amount of food that your body can digest and burn. More than that is stored as fats. Avoid eating and drinking junk foods too. Sodas contain excessive sugars that it takes the body more time to digest them. The same applies for chips, fries, doughnuts and cookies. These are high calorie food and will not give your body many nutrients, just fats.
Exercise! Don’t sit around or slump in your couch all day. Walk a couple of blocks to pick up your laundry instead or driving. This will help your body burn fats quickly.

Tip #5
Exert effort.
Once you have chosen the right weight loss plan that you think will be effective for you, don’t spare any effort in doing it. It is also advised that you integrate physical activities to your diet plan to make it work. Exercise is one of the safest and most effective weight loss tips anyone can follow. Get a gym membership if you find it necessary or pay a trainer or a fitness expert to guide you through. You can do easy routines at the beginning but once your body has adapted to exercise, you can already take on hard routines that will help you shed more calories.

Tip #6
Consistency is the key.
Once you start with your weight loss program; be consistent. Even when you have achieved the healthy weight that you are aiming for, continue practicing the healthy habits that you have learned. There’s no going back. You should start living that kind of lifestyle. It will not only help you maintain a healthy weight but a healthy body in general.

How To Treat Type 2 Diabetes In 3 Simple Steps?

Current medical practices rely on medication as the primary treatment for managing and controlling diabetes. But you have to ask, “Is this really the MOST effective way to treat type 2 diabetes or is there a better alternative?”

The fact is, most treatments for type 2 diabetes utilize drugs that either raise insulin or lower blood sugar…the result is that typical (conventional) medical treatment for diabetes contributes to the horrible side effects (gastric ulcers, gastric bleeding, bloating, heart complications, weight gain, liver damage, kidney failure) and the shortened lifespan that many diabetics experience.

Diabetes medications used to control blood sugar do NOT fix the diabetes itself, but rather just regulate blood sugar and mask the symptoms of diabetes. The longer you rely on diabetes medications, the stronger your body’s dependence is for them to control blood sugar and the more difficult it becomes for your body regulate sugar and improve insulin sensitivity.

ALL diabetes medications just substitute one complication for another. For example: you take the oral medication ‘glipizide’ to control your blood sugar, the trade off is a high probability of liver damage down the road.

Something to keep in mind… NO diabetes medication has EVER stopped, reversed, or cured ANYONE of type 2 diabetes.

What IS type 2 diabetes?

Type 2 diabetes is a special kind of disease. It is a “lifestyle disease”, which is brought on by the daily choices you make. It is a result of poor dietary habits (junk/processed foods and fast food) and factors like stress and limited activity.

The poor eating habits, stress, and sedentary lifestyle results in oxidative stress that leads to inflammation within the body. The build up of inflammation becomes chronic inflammation, that eventually leads to many disease states, type 2 diabetes being one of them.

Diabetes is the lifestyle disease of the 21^st century. It affects over 300 million plus people worldwide and that number continues to grow due to our poor lifestyle practices.

Since it is a “lifestyle disease” that was caused by the life you’ve lead and the choices you’ve made, it can be stopped and reversed by making new choices in your life. If you want to reverse diabetes starting NOW… you must make new and BETTER lifestyle choices NOW (not tomorrow or next week or new years).

3 Simple steps to treat type 2 diabetes

Step 1:Lose the extra fat. Your abdominal fat (or visceral adipose fat) is contributing to your diabetes. Abdominal fat is the most strongly correlated with diabetes and heart disease risk factors. Carrying extra weight has been shown to significantly increase insulin resistance and the development of high blood pressure.

If your waist circumference is >40 inches for men and >35 for women, you are putting your self at risk for further diabetic complications, or of developing diabetes if you don’t have it.

The starting point for weight loss begins with diet and exercise.

Step 2: Eat a proper diabetic diet. You want to make a majority of your meals high in vitamins and nutrients, while limiting toxins and processed chemicals. This can be done by including large portions of raw or steamed vegetables, high quality pastured or organic meats and seafood, and consume high amounts of omega-3 rich foods like wild sockeye salmon, sardines, or olive oil.

You want to limit fruit and dairy intake since they contain natural sugars, which will affect your blood sugar levels. Also, eliminate any processed, pre-packaged, boxed, or ready-made foods from your life, they are stuffed with unhealthy ingredients, chemicals, and have little to no nutritional value.

Part of proper diabetic diet should also include adequate amounts of water. It helps to regulate your blood sugars, helps with weight loss, digestion, carry oxygen to all your cells, flushes out waste products, and a few dozen other functions. You should be making it a point to drink more water. Aim for 2 gallons a day.

Step 3:Exercise. Recognized as one of the most effective treatments in preventing and treating type 2 diabetes.  Exercise helps to burn excess energy (stored fat) during the activity and increases your sluggish metabolism, helping you burn more energy long after you workout.

Exercise also helps to improve insulin resistance, insulin production, and glucose metabolism, thus helping to control your blood sugar and reduce your chance of diabetic complications.

Start by working out 20-30 minutes per day, using moderate to low intensity exercises – walking, light jogging, biking. As your body adapts to the physical stress of exercise, start adding other activities like strength training (exercising with weights or resistance) to help build muscle and endurance or yoga to build strength and flexibility. Also increase your workout times to 30-45 minutes.

The point here is you just want to pick something you enjoy that gets your body moving and start doing it.

Combining these 3 simple steps together, you are almost guaranteed to improve your diabetes and your overall health.  You will eventually be able to wean off using drugs to control your diabetes and avoid their nasty side effects (plus save a ton of money in doctor’s visits and prescriptions.)

Let me leave you with this:

Healthy food, exercise, and weight loss HAS been PROVEN to stop, treat, and reverse type 2 diabetes naturally without the use of drugs.

A Very Educated Weight Loss Story

The science of health has always been my passion but for many years I frankly didn’t have the time to do much more than read journal articles summarizing the latest finding and suggesting clinical applications and attending lectures by experts who summarized the latest research and suggesting guidelines for my practice. I just didn’t have time to critically assess the actual studies themselves. I was busy raising a family (3 children) managing a busy Family Medicine Practice and working extra shifts evenings and weekends at urgent visit clinics to provide for the family and the level of lifestyle I thought we should be living and made the mistake of relying on these expert sources.

I had been taught little about nutrition and it had not been emphasized in patient care, probably because the interventions we had, the American Diabetic Association (ADA) diet, the DASH (Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension) diet and other diets we had at the time, in the literature and in my experience were poorly tolerated by patients and produced at best temporary mild weight loss which in far less than 10% cases lasted for more than a year.

As 40 percent of Americans I have I inherited the metabolic syndrome, honestly, as both my parents were morbidly obese. People with this syndrome are much more likely to become obese and have high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. During my Internship I spent 2 months on the experimental cancer treatment ward. These patients are showered with candy and pastries by their families which with their lack of appetite would inevitably wind up on the nurses conference table where I wrote my notes and orders and ultimately consumed by myself.

For the next 30+ years I struggled with my weight, losing weight by starving myself and jogging mile after mile only to see the weight return every time I let up the least little bit. I was never able to do better than about 216 pounds with the most extreme diets which were mostly low fat and running 30-40 miles per week. From time to time due to increased stress at work or with family crises I would let my weight get out of control.

Then in 2008 in desperation I tried the Atkin’s diet. The weight melted off and I was able to get down to around 215 pounds without experiencing the hunger, irritability and fatigue I had experienced with so many other diets. I discussed this with my physician colleagues and got warning after warning about how dangerous a low carbohydrate diet was and given my love of carbohydrates was persuaded back to the low fat school.

In 2011 I happened to be browsing in a book store and came across “Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It” by Gary Taubes. I didn’t just take his word, I went and checked the actual studies and found to my mind that the experts that had interpreted the data and were writing the chapters in textbooks and deciding which studies to fund seemed to be turning a blind eye to the increasingly strong evidence that carbohydrate intolerance was the main driver of the obesity epidemic and many of the chronic disease of the developed world such as heart disease and cancer.

Now that I am financially independent and no longer need to hold a regular position, I feel that I am in a position to spend much of my time reviewing and summarizing the literature in this blog and hopefully giving presentations to both medical professionals and laymen on the benefits of a very low carbohydrate, moderate protein, high-fat diet and share how I have successfully implemented that in my life – getting my weight under 200 lbs and keeping it there for over a year while eating as much as I want with increased energy, no hunger, better sleep, complete resolution of my chronic gum disease, no new cavities (a chronic problem for me all my life). I literally feel 10 years younger and know that many of you can also.

Here is my diet:

Certainly you need to see your doctor before going on a diet like the one I propose because you might need to have your medicines adjusted as you lose weight and your blood pressure comes down. Your provider may want to run blood tests to rule out thyroid disease, inherited Cholesterol abnormalities or other medical conditions.

The only nutrient that I think you need to watch closely in your diet is protein. If you eat too much protein your body will convert it to sugar which leads to insulin secretion negating many of the benefits of a low carbohydrate diet. In my opinion unless you are are a bodybuilder or world class endurance athlete 0.6 to 1.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight is a good level to maintain in your diet. I recommend 50 grams of protein per day for the average woman and 70 grams per day for men. An easy way of doing this is to use the “rule of sevens”. In general, one ounce of meat, fish or poultry contains 7 grams of protein. A cup of fermented dairy like yogurt or buttermilk, an ounce of cheese, 2 ounces of nuts, a cup of homemade broth or a large egg contain 7 grams of protein. You don’t need to get paranoid about counting protein and even if you eat twice what I am recommending you will still gain significant benefits over the standard American diet, the point I want to make is that eating a lot of low fat protein sources like chicken breasts, tuna fish, low-fat yogurt, lean ground beef, low fat cheese or protein powder shakes can negate a lot of the benefits of a low carbohydrate diet. Why…because you want to get at least 70-80% of your calories from healthy fats (to be discussed later). If you eat a lot of lean protein sources like I just discussed your going to wind up eating too much protein and not enough fat.

I recommend keeping your carbohydrate intake below 50 grams per day whether you are overweight or not. Even if you are not overweight and were blessed with a super metabolism and pancreas that lets you eat whatever you want and stay thin, I feel that there are three extremely good reasons to avoid carbohydrates, even if you are not overweight.

First is the increase in abdominal fat caused by a high carbohydrate diet (which can often be seen on dexascans even in individuals who are not particularly overweight to look at who are on high carbohydrate diets). Abdominal fat secretes numerous toxic inflammatory mediators that are associated with diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other degenerative diseases.

The second is the process where sugar molecules in the blood attach to proteins throughout the body, irreversibly destroying their ability to do their jobs which is called non-enzymatic glycation. This process is one of the major contributors to the common diseases of the developed world and is probably the root cause of many. Diabetics have high levels of sugar in the blood most of the time and the resulting glycation contributes significantly to many of their problems like blindness, kidney failure and loss of feeling in the feet. Since all carbohydrates are converted to sugar by the body the more carbs you eat, the more sugar will find it’s way into your blood and the more health destroying glycation will take place.

The third reason is that when you burn sugar for energy you produce a lot more cell damaging free radicals than when you burn fat or ketones, These also contribute to the diseases of the developed world and their antidote, antioxidants are relatively absent in starchy carbohydrate laden foods. I therefore recommend that your not eat any of the following foods - AT ALL!: cereal grains such as wheat (public enemy #1 – Read “Wheat Belly” by William Davis MD for the story), oats, corn, rice, millet etc., starchy vegetables such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, or tapioca, any fruit that tastes sweet like apples, oranges or sweet berries, (I don’t eat sweet fruits because I don’t like to count carbs and I feel the vitamins and minerals found in these foods can be better obtained from vegetables and fruits with less sugar). If you want to count your carbs you can probably fit small servings of these foods safely into your diet) or anything containing sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup (public enemy #2 - See “Fat Chance” by Robert Lustig, MD for the story), sugar, honey, fructose or agave.

Eat ALL YOU WANT of the following: meat, eggs, cheese, seafood, nuts (remember peanuts are not nuts but legumes which are addressed later), and all the non-starchy vegetables like, spinach, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, lettuce tomatoes, squash,cabbage and other greens you want. Legumes (beans, peas, peanuts etc.) have enzyme inhibitors that allow undigested carbs to reach the colon upsetting the normal gut flora which I suspect is very bad for health. We are just beginning to study the gut flora and really don’t understand much about this balance. Legumes also often contains high levels aflotoxins which are highly carcinogenic, a risk I don’t feel is worth taking since most legumes are also high in carbohydrate. If you do eat them you will need to count carbs to be sure they are not pushing you over the limit. And finally regarding fat, I believe it should comprise the vast majority of calories burned for energy since a high fat diet is the natural state for the human species.

Since our species began 120,000 years ago until the development of widespread grain cultivation 10,000 year ago we got most of our calories from fat. And as I said fat is much cleaner burning than carbohydrate, producing far fewer destructive free radicals, it does not lead to abdominal fat deposits, and fat cannot cause the destructive glycation of proteins that sugar from carbohydrate containing food does.

That having been said there are 3 kinds of fat that I think should be avoided as much as possible – vegetable oils containing omega-6 fatty acids. I have read several places that the average American gets 70% of his fat calories from soybean oil and this causes me to rank it as public enemy #3 (See “Toxic Oils” by David Gillespie for the details on this).

Other oils high in Omega 6 are safflower, rapeseed, wheat germ, corn, walnut, peanut and cottonseed oils. True, we require small amounts of omega-6 in our diets and cannot make it ourselves but we easily reach this minimum requirement by eating the healthy fat sources sources I recommend. Omega-6 fatty acids are the base material from which many of the chemicals that trigger the inflammatory responses in our body are made and eating a large proportion of omega-6′s in relation to the healthy and anti-inflammatory omega-3 oils can lead to inflammatory diseases like heart disease arthritis, asthma and many skin diseases like acne.

I recommend avoiding foods like mayonnaise margarine, peanut butter, and the millions of commercial pastries and sauces that are full of omega 6 oils. The other 2 forms of fat I recommend avoiding are trans fat and partially hydrogenated oils. Everyone is pretty much in agreement on that. There is no evidence from controlled trials that a low fat diet prevents heart disease though hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in an attempt by the vested interests to prove just that (see ”The Great Cholesterol Myth” by Board Certified Cardiologist, Stephen Sinatra, MD for the details). The trials of low fat diets have shown no benefit or a negative benefit. Studies have shown that humans store fat in a consistent pattern: Monounsaturated 50%, Saturated 31% and polyunsaturated 16%. Since I can find no controlled experiments to suggest a better intake ratio and studies of hunter gather diets suggest a similar ratio of fat intake, this is the ratio I recommend. by the way a 50:50 mixture of butter and olive oil approximates this ratio. I recommend using exclusively lard, palm or coconut oil for frying and sauteing You should buy the fattiest meat you can find. My favorites are pork ribs, 20% fat hamburger, rib eyes, prime rib and T-bones. Nitrite free sausage and bacon are good choices. If you can’t find the sausage, buy ground pork, shake in your favorite spices and saute it with onion and green bell pepper. Boiling meat on the bone in stews and soups is incredibly healthy because you get the glycans from the cartiladge which is great for joint health. Fried eggs are a great source of fat. I add sour cream or cream cheese to most casseroles and mix a little minced garlic, horse radish and paprika in them and use them as a creamy sauce on meats. Avocados are high in omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants vitamins and minerals and I eat one on most days.

Here are some tips on eating out

Most fast food restaurants are glad to sell you their hamburgers or breakfast sandwiches in a plastic box without the bun. They will give you a plastic knife and fork. At McDonald’s you can order breakfast items like scrambled eggs, sausage patty, steak meat,or a slice of cheese individually and it is much cheaper than buying the corresponding sandwich or big breakfast. Likewise most restaurants will be glad to substitute a vegetable for the starch and hold the bread. Many now even have a low carb menu. I know many of you will recoil in horror at the suggestion of eating meat and vegetables from large industrialized farms, with thoughts of hormone, chemical, and pesticide laden meats and vegetables dancing in your head. My own opinion is that though organic produce and free range fed meat are probably preferable, the few controlled studies that have been done on the subject have not demonstrated any clear benefit. I feel that it is most important to eat a low carbohydrate, moderate protein high fat diet which has good controlled evidence to support it. If you are able to do this using organic produce and grass fed beef, that’s fine and may give you some small benefit but I think I can do more good convincing people to eat more healthy fat than to go organic.

I have been on this diet for a year and a half. My weight hadn’t been less than 220 lbs for more than 40 years before I started the diet despite extended periods of running 30-40 miles/week, playing tennis and starving myself on a high carbohydrate/high protein/low fat diet. I suffered severe bouts of reactive hypoglycemia (the sudden onset of feeling weak and shaky with rubbery knees and difficulty concentrating). I had severe acid reflux and terrible chronic gingivitis (gum disease). I caught every cold that came along. If I let up on the exercise and diet routine at all my weight would balloon up. As a doctor I attended lectures and conferences where they would talk about the latest advances in weight loss and would glow with pride over studies showing a 5-10% weight loss which would inevitably vanish in 95% of patients within a year. I had little to no success with these diets either personally or with my patients. To make a long story short I finally discovered the diet I have described above through the works of Dr. Yudkin, Dr.Atkins, Dr. Phinney and Gary Taubes and others.

My weight dropped to 200 lbs for the first time since high school and has remained stable within 1-2 pounds of that mark since. I enjoy seemingly boundless energy and am able to play 5 sets of singles tennis on a hot day with no ill effects. I have not experienced a single episode of low blood sugar or acid reflux since starting this diet. My gum disease cleared up and I have not had a cold or sniffle on the diet. I am currently retired from active medical practice and I hope to help people improve their health by getting the message out that a simple dietary change can restore health and cure or prevent most of the chronic diseases of the industrialized grain fed society than I could do in a traditional medical practice.

 

Symptoms of Bad Breath - Cure for Bad Breath

High protein diets can cause bad breath. It occurs because ketones build up in the blood. Ketones are chemicals produced by the body when it uses fat instead of carbohydrates as fuel. Ketones produce an odor. This odor is on your breath and it is also in your urine and perspiration. Drinking plenty of water helps ketones to leave the body through urine while diluting their concentration in the mouth.

Ketones are also associated with diabetes. It is best to consult a healthcare professional because you may have undiagnosed diabetes or a problem in controlling your diabetes. The ketones can build up in the blood of a diabetic which can quickly become a life threatening situation.

Why go on a high protein diet? Body builders use high protein diets to increase muscle mass quickly. Dieters go on high protein diets to lose weight. Some of these diets may be fad diets and the person did not realize the consequences of the diet.

If you are on a high protein diet, it is possible to add some carbohydrates. There are vegetarian forms of high protein foods which have healthy proportions of carbohydrates. An example is beans. They have a lot of protein and just enough carbohydrates to prevent the incomplete burning of stored fats.

It is best to seek the advice of a healthcare professional before starting a weight loss program.

Breath Health: Symptoms of Bad Breath (Halitosis)

Bad breath affects the way you interact with others. In a social situation, at a party or on date, someone may offer you a breath mint or gum before they talk to you. The person you are interacting with may take several steps back from you. If you go for a job interview, the interviewer will sit as far away from you as possible. The interview will be short.

You may not always know if you have bad breath. The cells in your nose that detect odors become accustomed to the smells. Some medical treatments such as chemotherapy also dull the sense of smell. Ask a friend or your spouse.

How can you tell if you have halitosis?

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  Check your teeth and gums. If your teeth are coated with plaque or you have swollen gums, you are practicing breath health.


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  Floss your teeth and smell the floss. If it smells bad, you have bad breath.


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  Look for dried food trapped between your teeth. Large particles can be seen by the naked eye. Or, you may feel them if you run your tongue across your teeth, back and front. If you feel you need a toothpick, you have trapped food and need to brush and floss.


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  Infections in the mouth are a symptom of bad breath. Check your gums to see if they are red or swollen. Another sign of infection is if your gums bleed after brushing and flossing.


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  Other problems in the mouth which are symptoms include loose teeth, dentures not fitting properly, an abscess on a gum, and sores on your tongue.


• 
  
  Dry mouth is another symptom. Dry mouth creates the inability to speak for a prolonged period of time. You need to have a drink of water before continuing.


• 
  
  Medical conditions such as diabetes, liver disease, or kidney failure can cause bad breath. Some of the medications used to treat these diseases also cause the problem.

Practicing breath health by having a good dental hygiene regimen can relieve the symptoms of bad breath. This includes brushing and flossing after eating. You should have regular checkups with your dentist. Discuss medical problems with your doctor.

Finding the Right Cure for Bad Breath

Bad breath can be treated effectively if the cause is known. It is a condition that affects most of us at some time. But there are people who have chronic bad breath and may need to seek medical advice from their dentist or doctor before they can cure their problem.

Bad breath can be caused by smoking, ill-fitting dentures, food, dry mouth, and bad oral hygiene. If you are experiencing bad breath due to one of these problems, you can take simple steps to alleviate it.

Smoking

Chronic bad breath is cause by smoking because of its smell and it also can lead to gum disease which causes bad breath. To prevent the risk of gum disease and chronic bad breath caused by smoking, it is recommended that you quit.

Ill-fitting Dentures

A regular breath health routine should be established for cleaning your dentures. Food particles can get caught between the teeth. If your dentures are not cleaned regularly, bacteria will grow in your mouth.

Food

Eating foods such as onion and garlic can cause short-term bad breath. You can mask the odor by eating a sprig of parsley, cloves, or peppermint. The odor originates in your intestinal tract and will leave your body naturally in about 24 hours.

Dry Mouth

When your mouth is dry, bacteria will grow. Drinking eight glasses of water daily and eating fresh fruits and vegetables will keep the mouth moist. Saliva is needed to cleanse the mouth of bacteria. A regular breath health routine when you have dry mouth and will also help to alleviate the problem.

Oral Hygiene

Good breath health can not be over stressed. It is the number one way to make sure you do not have bad breath caused only anaerobic bacteria. Brushing, flossing, cleaning your tongue, and rinsing your mouth on a regular basis will eliminate the oral bacteria.

If you have tried one or more of these simple remedies and you still have bad breath, you should seek professional advice to find the true cause of your problem.

0% Body Fat - Not Just Your Average Air Hostess

Airline hostess Ayme Oliveira is more than your typical airline hostess. Not content with just shuffling up and down the narrow isles of an airplane dispensing plastic food, lukewarm beverages, booze and children’s toys, she’s made herself an alter ego.

In her spare time, she doubles as a competitive body builder. And she claims that her other life mostly goes undetected until she has to lift luggage into overhead lockers, at which point her rather well toned biceps become noticeable.

She says she got involved in weight lifting because she enjoys the challenge. And for Ayme it’s not just the challenge of competition she faces, it’s also the challenge of trying to find the time to put in the training and take part in competitions. With a child – she’s a single mum - and a job that involves jetting all over the world for several days at a time, that’s a tall order at times.

She also has to keep herself at peak fitness all the time so that she can compete whenever she gets the opportunity. Long-term planning is somewhat difficult when you don’t know when you’re going to be in the country and available to compete! For example, when she decided to participate in her biggest competition to date, she had just one week to get herself ready. That’s when the decision, and the effort, to stay in shape year round really pays off!

To remain in peak shape, Ayme tries to fit in 5 small meals each day, especially whilst on the job. She also manages to find the time to fit in some gym time – up to two and a half hours each day of weightlifting, resistance training, and cardio. She says she definitely prefers the weightlifting training to cardio work.

Body Building – An Unlikely Hobby For An Airline Hostess

So how did Ayme get started in such an unlikely side hobby for someone with a job that is usually associated with glamorous and svelte? According to Ayme, she’s always had a keen interest in health and fitness. Although never a big fan of sports like running, she did discover early on that she has a natural ability to build muscle. That led her into the world of competitive bodybuilding and it’s taken off from there.

When it comes to eating, Ayme makes sure she eats a lot of protein. Her day starts with her favourite breakfast of almond milk overnight oats. Don’t know what overnight oats are? It’s simply a delicious concoction of rolled oats, AKA oatmeal, soaked overnight in a liquid that can be normal milk, almond milk, soymilk or any of the other milk substitutes. You can even use water. For additional protein, flavour and/or some crunch, you can simply add your favorite protein powder, chia seeds, fruit, nuts, seeds, berries, honey, vanilla, cinnamon, chocolate, peanut butter or anything that takes your fancy. The result – a deliciously creamy, wholesome, high fibre and, depending on what else you’ve added, high protein start to your day.

For Ayme, after the breakfast of overnight oats comes her 2 and a half hours of training followed by a protein shake to help rebuild and repair her muscle tissue. Then it’s usually off to work, where she’ll try and eat several more small meals throughout the day. For lunch, it’s usually a tuna or protein salad and sweet potato and as in-between pick me up snacks she’ll have homemade protein balls. Dinner is usually salmon with salad and no carbohydrates. Just before a competition she’ll cut back on the fats and carbohydrates, step up water intake to 5 litres a day and remove sodium, lactose and fructose.

Aside from the obvious health benefits to be had from a good diet and regular exercise, Ayme says her blood pressure these days is great, she’s rarely sick and she has greatly improved levels of energy. The exercise also helps to de-stress mind and body, clear the mind and is just a great, albeit very much underrated, anti-depressant.

Interestingly, she doesn’t believe in scale watching either. In fact, her advice to those who like to use scales to monitor their weight is - don’t. Muscle weighs more than fat and if your overall aim in working out is to lose weight, then you may find yourself constantly discouraged by what the scales tell you you weigh. Rather concentrate more on losing those fat deposits because that will make you look thinner, even if you don’t actually weigh much less.

And as for her future weight lifting competitions …. She clearly has the weight lifting side of things under control, as evidenced by her recent 5th placing in her category but says she really needs to work on her stage presence and on-stage confidence. Those are the things she feels are letting her down. But at the same time, she’s certainly not letting herself get too complacent about the weight lifting. Like she says, there is always plenty of room to improve her performance there too.

For the moment though she wants to share the successes she’s had so far with her body building regime. She firmly believes that the health benefits, both physically and mentally, far outweigh the types of negative comments that images of body builders, particularly females ones, often attract on social media. Although she certainly hasn’t reached the stage that some of her fellow female body builders have, where they’re sometimes erroneously described as having 0% body fat, she’ll still attract her fair share of detractors and negative comments from those who simply don’t like this type of look.

Some comments on Social Media platforms

• Wow – reckon she’d be a bit like a rock to cuddle. Mind you, I’d say the same thing about a guy with that much muscle too.


• I’m sorry but this is not my idea of how a woman should look at all.


• I hope she doesn’t go too much further with this and end up looking like one of those women who look more like men. That’s not a good look at all for a women when it gets to that stage.


• Not to my taste either but I’m a bit old fashioned like that. Toned can look great but not when it’s taken to excess.


• Hey, whatever rocks your boat. I wouldn’t do it but she’s clearly right into this so all power to her. I certainly admire her dedication.


• I don’t think this looks ugly at all. She’s well toned without being over the top. Some of the ones that are touted as being almost 0% body fat though are a bit over the top. Mind you, Google starving people and you’ll really get to see 0% body fat.


• Women should have a minimum of 15% body fat to ensure normal health. Any less than that and they risk health issues like osteoporosis and mental problems amongst others. It’s all about striking the right balance between too much and too little body fat.


• I’ve trained with body builders and the super fit ones are pretty lean and ripped. With some, you can even see all their veins. I reckon those who don’t like this look probably don’t really understand weight lifting or aren’t used to looking at weight lifters. Whilst some weight lifters get right down into single digit figures for body fat %, she’s nowhere near that. Those who claim people in this sport can be 0% have no real idea about human metabolism. Starving people in Africa are 0% and most of them die because of it. Whilst she looks OK, some of these women who get involved in bodybuilding don’t look healthy at all. People get so obsessed with losing body fat that they forget we need a certain amount of fat to function properly. I saw a TV program just recently that went into detail about how having the right amount of body fat is actually beneficial to internal organs such as the heart because it protects them.


• It’s certainly an extreme sport. You have to admire her dedication. Even if you don’t agree with the look or the body type.


• When people go to extremes in this sport and get to the point where they have very little body fat, they also have no energy or water reserves. If they’re in a combat situation, people need body fat and the energy reserves it supplies to endure sustained combat operations.


• Women who go to extremes as weight lifters look more like men than women. Women need some fat reserves if they want to have a healthy baby. However, if they’re not having a baby or enduring combat duty then personally I think they’re allowed to look however they want to look.


• Wow, that looks just like me once you peel away the layers of fat.


• Kudos to this lady for sharing her positive experiences with bodybuilding. Far too many women get into this sport though and take it to extremes. It doesn’t help when other body builders encourage them, which supports their belief that dropping down into single digit body fat % is normal and desirable. Bodybuilding is a great way to get healthy for both men and women but it’s the stories about the ones who do go to extremes and are viewed as freaks that puts others off having a go.


• People can’t survive without a certain amount of body fat. Fat is required by body cells for energy and if your fat stores get too low your body starts to break down muscle tissue to use for energy instead. Eventually your organs also shut down. People who take bodybuilding to extremes might think they’re healthy but the reality is that they’re living dangerously close to the edge.

Original Story published at Mirror.

Scurvy is Back!

Scurvy – Encountering An Old Health Problem In A Modern World

Where it was once a common plight for sailors on long ocean journeys, scurvy hasn’t been a mainstream health problem for many decades, if not a century or more. For that reason it’s dropped off the medical radar somewhat and is no longer included in general health surveys. However, it recently reappeared in a group of patients with diabetes at a hospital in western Sydney in Australia.

Scurvy is caused by a severe and long lasting lack of vitamin C in the diet. Vitamin C is a vitally important nutrient that is required by the body for a number of functions, including tissue repair. Scurvy can also be fatal if not diagnosed and treated. The fact that nearly 2 million sailors died of the condition between 1500 and 1800, before it was discovered that sucking on a lime daily prevented it, is proof of scurvy’s deadliness.

One of the primary sources of dietary vitamin C is fruit, particularly citrus fruit. However, fruit also contains fructose, a natural sugar that is converted to glucose by the body. Because of this, many diabetes patients cut back their fruit intake in an effort to keep their blood glucose levels under control. Unfortunately as it turns out this has brought on other serious health consequences. Such as scurvy

And it’s thought that the problem may not just be restricted to diabetic sufferers either. Australia, like so many other developed countries, suffers from its fair share of modern dietary issues. Until now though scurvy was not considered one of them but that belief may have to be rethought in the light of these findings.

Discovering Modern Scurvy

The recent re-occurrence of this disorder first came to the attention of Professor Jenny Gunton, who heads up the Westmead Institute for Medical Research Diabetes Centre in Sydney. She noticed that one particular patient had an ulcer that was not healing, despite regular topical treatments. So she started wondering and, following up on a hunch, quizzed the patient about her diet.

It turns out that the patient was inadvertently over cooking her vegetables whilst at the same time not eating very much fruit due to her diabetes. So the Professor ordered a blood test for vitamin C and zinc, two essential nutrients required for efficient wound healing. Sure enough, the patient returned a vitamin C score of just 10. Given that forty plus is normal, this patient had only one quarter of the quantity of vitamin C required for normal healthy function.

Professor Gunton then arranged to test other patients who attended her clinic with wounds that were slow to heal. Two thirds of those tested, or about a dozen people, subsequently returned the same very low vitamin C levels as the original patient. They were all prescribed a daily vitamin C tablet and, not surprisingly, their sores rapidly started healing.

Upon further investigation, most of those tested were found to be consuming enough vegetables in their diet to supply them with adequate amounts of vitamin C. However, they were overcooking them, which was destroying the vitamin C content. So Professor Gunton arranged for them to visit a dietitian in order to learn about effective ways to incorporate enough vitamin C and other important nutrients into their diet without affecting their blood glucose levels. She also wanted them to learn how to prepare food correctly in order to preserve as much of their nutrient value as possible.

One of the take home lessons to be learned from all this, according to Professor Gunton, is that even when someone is eating a seemingly normal, healthy diet, or appears outwardly healthy, they can still have serious nutritional deficiencies. Depending upon how the food is prepared, what else is eaten and so on. As this group of patients showed, something as simple as over cooking vegetables whilst not consuming enough fresh fruit was enough to drop their vitamin C levels to detrimental levels.

Scurvy – The Ins And Outs Of This Olde Tyme Disease

As previously mentioned, scurvy develops when the body doesn’t have enough vitamin C. Vitamin C is required for a whole host of functions.

• It’s used to create collagen. Collagen is a primary strengthening component in our skin, our bones and our blood vessels. Collagen is also used to help with wound healing.


• It is a powerful antioxidant. This is the role most of us typically associate with vitamin C. Antioxidants help to destroy and remove dangerous free radicals. Free radicals are molecular compounds that are created as a by-product of cellular oxygen metabolism. Amongst other things, free radicals do a lot of damage to cell membranes and are implicated in a whole range of serious health conditions, including cancer.


• It is required for efficient absorption of iron. Without vitamin C, our uptake of iron, especially non-haem iron, is nowhere near as efficient. Non-haem iron by the way is the type of iron we get from plant sources like lentils and beans.


• It is needed by our immune system, especially the lymphocytes. Lymphocytes control the type of response our immune system gives to any infection, disease or foreign substance that enters our body.


• It is also used in the production of various other chemicals in our body, like neurotransmitters or brain chemicals.

Vitamin C is also an essential nutrient, meaning the body can’t manufacture it so it has to come from our diet. Foods rich in vitamin C include

• Citrus fruit (oranges, mandarins, grapefruit, lemons, limes etc) and other fruits like mangos, tomatoes, strawberries, black currants and kiwi fruit.


• Green vegetables – broccoli, spinach, capsicum (particularly the yellow one) and cabbage.


• Liver and kidney

Symptoms Of Scurvy

Assuming a normally adequate intake, our body can store a limited amount of vitamin C for short periods. Therefore, we can survive without adequate daily vitamin C intake for a brief time. However, it’s when that couple of days becomes a couple of weeks then a couple of months that problems arise.

If a diet is completely lacking in vitamin C for any appreciable length of time, then how long the vitamin C reserve lasts will determine how long it takes scurvy symptoms to start to appear. On average though symptoms will begin to show up around a month after vitamin C intake completely ceases.

Unfortunately, a lot of the early signs of a possible vitamin C deficiency can also be attributed to other health issues. They include a general feeling of unwellness, inappetence, nausea, fatigue, fever, sore muscles and joints, diarrhea and tiny visible spots of bleeding around hair follicles. As you can see, with the possible exception of the bleeding, these could indicate any one of a number of illnesses.

If not detected and left untreated, these mild symptoms develop into some of the more known signs of full-blown scurvy. For example:

• Loose teeth as well as purple coloured gums that are spongy and swollen


• Proptosis (where the eyes bulge)


• Constant and severe bruising in the skin, caused by bleeding


• Brownish skin that is very dry and scaly to the touch


• Curly, dry hair that has a tendency to break off near the skin


• Wounds that are very slow to heal and old scars that reopen


• Swelling over bones in the limbs caused by bleeding into muscles and joints


• In babies and children lack of vitamin C causes the soft growth plates at the ends of the bones to harden prematurely, stalling bone growth and stunting overall development.

Ultimately, scurvy can also lead to an increased risk of heart attack and/or anaemia, or even death.

Some groups of people are more at risk of developing scurvy than others but ultimately; scurvy is a disease that comes about as a result of certain lifestyle choices. Those who have an unhealthy diet are prime candidates; especially those who have made other choices in life that affect their ability to make informed decisions about their diet. Alcoholics and drug addicts are a typical example of this as many of these people neglect their diets completely. Mentally ill people and the elderly are another high-risk group prone to suffering dietary neglect, generally through circumstances beyond their control.

People who crash diet, go on extreme diets that exclude complete food groups, are on allergy diets, have eating disorders ie anorexia nervosa or bulimia or are simply fussy eaters who don’t like eating foods high in vitamin C are other at-risk groups for developing scurvy. Note however that these types of diets are only problematic with respect to vitamin C if they specifically exclude foods high in vitamin C and don’t allow for alternative supplementation ie vitamin C tablets.

Smokers are also a group at risk of developing a vitamin C deficiency because smokers have higher vitamin C requirements than normal due to the damage smoking does to their body. Damage that requires a lot of vitamin C to fix.

Scurvy - Diagnosis And Treatment

A diagnosis for scurvy may involve a blood test for vitamin C and iron as well as a physical exam, information about the patient’s medical history and diet and x-rays of knee, rib and wrist joints.

Treatment options for scurvy are generally fairly simple. Just increasing daily vitamin C will, in most cases, completely cure the patient. In more severe cases higher than normal volumes of vitamin C intake may be prescribed to help speed up recovery. Gums and bleeding problems should start to dissipate within a day or two of beginning vitamin C therapy. Joints and muscles may take longer to recover but in most cases patients can expect to be on the road to full recovery within a very short space of time after beginning treatment.

Patients suffering from scurvy may also have other issues that also require treatment, as a vitamin C deficiency is not likely to have occurred on its own. There will invariably have been a contributing cause, such as health conditions causing dietary issues, an eating disorder or alcohol or drug use. Long term recovery and prevention of a relapse ultimately depends on the successful treatment of these contributing causes.

When dealing with scurvy it’s important to bear in mind that excessive intake of vitamin C is also detrimental and should never be done unless under medical supervision. Excessive vitamin C use can also affect some other types of medications, notably some blood-thinning drugs. People who have kidney stones or kidney disease should also be careful taking too much vitamin C.

Harshi Suraweera – A Study In Weight Loss Motivation

What motivates someone to shed 42 kilos?

For Sri Lankan born, Melbourne based nurse Harshi Suraweera that motivation came in the shape of negative comments from complete strangers about her size after a friend posted a group photo on Facebook.  As people, unfortunately, feel they have a right to do in this day and age of social media.  In Harshi’s case however, she used the unkind criticism to motivate herself into doing something about her weight.  Fast forward 10 months and she’d lost an incredible 42 kilos.  So much weight in fact that she says her own mother didn’t recognize her at first!

Harshi started her weight loss journey by hitting the gym for several hours of cardio every day.  She found that going there later in the day, when not so many people were around, worked best for her.

This allowed her to concentrate on her cardio workout without having to worry about anyone else.

It didn’t take long for the visible changes to start happening.  This convinced her she was on the right track and also encouraged her to keep going with it.

Another thing Harshi looked at long and hard was her diet.  Even though she is a nurse, Harshi admits that her diet was, to put it bluntly, pretty ordinary.

Being Sri Lankan, she ate a lot of curries complete with lashings of rice, as well as the ubiquitous downfall of western society – junk food.  Notably pizza washed down with Coke.

She admits she could easily consume, and often did, at least one liter of Coke and up to 2 pizzas daily.

Now that’s a LOT of sugar – 108 grams of the stuff, give or take.  Or 26 of those little packets of sugar, one of which is the equivalent of a standard teaspoon of sugar.  Wow!!  Imagine putting 26 teaspoons of sugar into a liter of water and drinking it on a daily basis.  Now consider this - the recommended daily intake of sugar for men is 9 teaspoons or 37 ½ grams and for women 6 teaspoons, or 25 grams.  That’s sugar all up, from all dietary sources, not just in the form of sugar granules.

Harshi, with her daily liter of Coke, was consuming more than 4 times the maximum amount of sugar for a woman.  On top of whatever sugar she was getting in other foods and drinks.  The rice to go with the curries for example is a carbohydrate and another source of sugar, albeit a complex sugar.  But ultimately they all wind up as glucose and excess glucose is not a good thing.

Sweet Poison

So what does excess sugar do to you?  For a start, simple sugars are quickly converted into glucose in the small intestine and absorbed straight into the blood stream through the intestinal walls.  This causes an immediate rise in blood sugar levels, triggering the release of insulin.  Insulin’s job is to regulate blood sugar, which it does by telling cells to switch to using glucose from the blood for energy instead of fatty acids.  Excess glucose over and above what cells require for immediate energy is stored as glycogen in muscle and liver tissue.  Once glycogen stores are full, the excess glucose is turned into fat and stored in adipose tissues.  When blood sugar levels return to normal, insulin levels drop away.

The problem with consistent excess sugar intake is that it keeps blood glucose levels high.  This in turn means insulin levels also remain high for long periods and eventually the body loses its sensitivity to insulin, becoming insulin resistant.  This is a precursor to diabetes.  And all that excess sugar the body can’t burn off is turned into fat.

Anyone For Another Piece of Fat?

The other food Harshi admits to eating an excess of was pizza.  Whilst homemade pizzas are usually great – you can control the amount and type of cheese you use and you can load them up with toppings of healthy veggies and lean meat to make quite a
decent meal, the same generally can’t be said of the commercially produced variety.

Think of all that oozing, gooey cheesy fatness covered in processed, fat laden meats!  As with sugar, the body can only use so much fat before the excess gets stored as, well, fat.  Coke and pizza – a great recipe for fatness in other words.

So when Harshi decided a change in eating habits was in order to go with her cardio regime, the coke and pizza were replaced with salads and proteins and it didn’t take long for the effects to show.  Ten months and 42 kilos later, her weight had dropped from 107 kilos to a much healthier 65 kilos.

Today her advice to others trying to lose weight is that diet is one of the most important components of any weight loss regime and to ditch processed foods and sugar altogether.  And it’s a pretty simple concept really – excess calorie intake over and above energy requirements equals fat gain.

Once she’d lost the initial 42 kilos Harshi swapped her cardio exercise regime for one that incorporates a lot more weight lifting and resistance training in order to keep her body toned.  This not only allows her to keep the weight off but has given her the sculpted look she sports today.  She’s also much stronger physically – she can dead lift 130 kilos and squat 120 kilos.

Fittingly, considering that her weight loss and fitness experience began with social media, Harshi has turned back to social media to document her journey.  She has kept her followers updated about her progress by using Instagram where she’s posted photos of herself before and after.

It’s netted her over 70,000 followers to date and unfortunately yet more negativity.  Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, as the saying goes.

Claims of fake photos is one of the comments her detractors often come up with, saying the before and after photos don’t look like the same person.  However, Harshi says that the change in her diet not only helped her shed the fat, it also changed her skin tone and quality.

Like she points out, you can see the same marks on her skin in both the before and the after shots.  But that would be letting the facts get in the way of a good story.  And after all, if her own mum didn’t recognize the new her then there’s a good chance strangers would easily mistake them for two different people.

Source: The Daily Mail