It has been awhile since my last post

Boy did this year go fast. I had no idea that I had not published a blog post since October. I guess I got too busy with life to actually write about life....LOL.

Winter life has been interesting so far. We almost had a full blown chimney fire due to creosote build up in the top of the chimney. Thank goodness the fire was discovered during a heavy rain storm otherwise the roof would have caught fire. That same rain storm dumped enough water to cause huge muddy pools of standing water in the backyard which in turn made the area slippery to walk near. Several businesses and a heroin detox rehab treatment centers had to shut down until the water recedes which should be sometime this weekend.

Health watch has not been so much as internal but external with protecting ourselves from the elements and winter has only just begun.

Eating healthy during the holiday season

It is a fact that we are geared genetically to gain weight during the winter months. This is to help our bodies tolerate cold winters. Of course our genes don't know about central heating so it keeps telling us to eat for the winter. That is one of the main reasons that most feast days for humans have been historically in the winter months.

We must consciously make the decision to eat wisely during our feasting holidays. Eat small meals and don't pig out on odd burlesque pasties for sale or cakes that are very rich in creams and sugars. I am not saying you should avoid them entirely, no, just eat taster sizes. Don't eat a whole slice of cheese cake, cut it in half and share it.

Eat and savor each small bite and you'll find that the holiday season will be good to your body.

Choose your holiday gift wisely

When people ask you what you want for Christmas are you often at a loss what to say? You are trying to stay healthy so unhealthy gifts are not what you want. So what are your many kinds of gift options when it comes to your health?

Here is a list what you can tell them you want for Christmas

• a workout DVD
• gift card to a sporting goods store
• a basket of fresh fruit
• a comfortable pair of walking shoes

So this Christmas think healthy.

Hobbies can keep you healthy

When you think of hobbies keeping you healthy, I bet you are thinking about ones that are physically active. It is true that keeping fit will help you stay healthy but often mental health is not taken into consideration at all. Studies have shown us that happy people live longer than depressed people. Depression kills, depression is unhealthy.

In order to keep yourself happy and depression free take up a hobby that is mind challenging and fun. Try guitar lessons, photography, training a pet, knitting or learning something new that you wanted to do since you were little. Even meeting with old friends you have not talked to in years or putting a scrapbook together can bring interest back into your life. Don't let the economy get to you. You don't have to spend a dime to be happy. Happiness is a frame of mind. What ever you do to find that frame is all you need to stay there.

Eczema and other skin problems

Eczema can cause dry patches of skin that can drive you nuts. There are skin care products that can take care of the problem almost immediately. I should know, I had an unsightly dark raised patch on my face. I was scared to death that it might be cancer. At the time I was experiencing very dry skin behind my ears and had bought a skin product for eczema. Out of a whim I dabbed a bit of the lotion on the dark raised patch just before going to bed. By morning I noticed a marked change in the skin.

I continued to put lotion on the darkened skin long after my dry skin behind my ears cleared up. It took about 2 months of applying daily lotion to the area and the spot was almost gone. I figured that it could not be skin cancer because skin cancer does not go away without a doctors care. I don't know what it was but the lotion I bought apparently worked.

Do you remember jumping jacks?

When I was in high school there were exercises that most workout videos don't even cover anymore. One of them was jumping jacks. It makes you wonder if those old time exercises were doing us some harm. How many of you saw those old vibrating belt exercisers? I was 6 years old when I saw a neighbor using one. She also had one of those machines that you sat on and it had wooden rollers. Here is a picture of one:

I wonder what kind of exercise they were thinking about when that machine was developed?

I suppose it is along the same lines as supplements. Do you remember the oyster shell pills and the skin scrubs made from dead sea salt and apricot pits? All in the mane of health and beauty. When will we learn?

Walmart has a great workout equipment section

Where I live, there is a lack of sporting goods stores. Walmart is the closest thing to finding decent workout equipment. I was recently pleasantly surprised at how much their workout equipment section has in variety. My local Walmart has a large selection of yoga equipment and DVDs. I picked up a yoga mat for $8. I sure did wish I could find some walmart coupons for my next shopping trip there. I have my eye on some weights.

Tracking your health

If you are just getting started in keeping track of your health - that is wonderful. You will want to keep track of the following health signs and note the progress you are making on the road to better health:

• Your blood pressure. Take it only 3 times a week and don't obsess over it.
• Your weight or better yet your BMI (body mass index) It is better to find out your percentage of fat to lean body mass rather than just a straight weight from your bathroom scale.
• Your skin condition. Often your skin is a good indicator of overall health. Take notes of what parts of your body have red rashes, dry skin or overly irritated. 

Keep a small notebook or for those of you who love gadgets, there are apps for this kind of tracking from Apple and for the Android. I have one of those small hp netbooks which is ideal for keeping track of my progress.

Play your way to a better body

With all the video game consoles that offer games that get you up off of your chair, why are you still sitting down? There are plenty of new wii games to choose something that will keep you up and moving. If you don't like the wii then how about the Kinect for XBox? There is no reason not to get active in your own home anymore.

Get up off of that chair and get moving. What? Why are you still reading this? Go.............go now...........move.

A healthy birthday

Birthday parties are fun and often fattening. Here are some tips to have a healthier birthday celebration.

• Eat small portions. You don't have to do without gourmet birthday cakes, just have a "taster" instead of filling up your plate with it. 
• If you are the host then put out more fruit and serve fruit juices. 
• Enjoy more active party games like swimming or playing a team sport. Forget those lame thinking games like trivial pursuit.
• Finally, don't stress out. Parties are often a source of stress for many people - don't sweat it, enjoy it.

Depressed about your health?

Have you ever gotten chewed out by your doctor? The threat of "if you don't lose some weight and exercise more, I'll be putting you on high blood pressure meds." I have gotten that lecture. Right after I left the doctor's office I fell into a depressed state of mind. I was sort of going through the motions of the rest of the day but in a daze. I didn't know what hit me. I had always had low blood pressure and suddenly it was high.

When your car breaks down you can call someone to get it fixed. It was at that time I wished that there was a service I could call for my body. I knew that the only breakdown service I could call on was ME. I was the one who had to change it. I didn't want high blood pressure and definitely didn't want to go on meds.

I took that depressed state of mind and turned it around - I had to, it was my health that depended on it.

Nike makes sports goof

If you exercise, you know the value of a good pair of workout shoes. Nike is the brand that first comes to mind for specialized footwear. So would it surprise you that Nike made a goof designing shoes several years ago? The goof they made was getting involved in designing a boot for a sport they had no track record for. They tried to design English  equestrian boots and made some hideous boots. The biggest mistake was the location of the zipper. In regular English riding boots the zipper is located at the back of the boot. That is to keep the zipper out of sight while the rider is in the saddle and importantly so it does not rub the rider. Nike made the zipper run over the top of the foot and wrap up the outside of the boot. The location would make the zipper rub against the stirrup which would cause a blister on the top of the foot and it just looked bad.

I think that Nike gave up on the boot, at least I have not heard anything more about it in some time now.

A career in sports

Have you ever considered a career in the sports field (excuse the pun)? I think that most of us has had that dream when we were in high school or even college. You don't have to be an athlete to earn money in a sports career. Just look at doctors, physical therapists, dieticians, health spa owners and those in supporting industries.

Most major cities have a huge demand for support personnel in the sports industry. Just look up sports careers on sites devoted to jobs such as Los Angeles, New York city, Portland, Denver and charlotte jobs.

You can also develop your own sport product and have that career in sports.

Causes of hair loss

There are many reasons for hair loss. Genetic factors such as male pattern baldness to nutritional deficiencies can all play apart of hair loss.

When I was in my teens, there was a short period of time that I woke up each morning with huge clumps of hair, my hair, on my pillow. It started suddenly and just as suddenly stopped. It could have been caused by stress or hormones or even being sick. Thank goodness my mother did not panic and start buying all kinds of hair loss products. No doubt if she did and I used one and my body stopped shedding hair on its own, the product would get the credit instead of just my body going back to being right on its own again.

Before you start investing in hair loss products, find out if your body is out of whack in some way. Eliminate the natural causes of hair loss before you start using any kind of product.

There's caffeine in that diet pill

If you look at any over the counter diet pill, they contain caffeine. This leads to a racing heart as well as mild hyperactivity and bladder problems. In fact a review about OxyElite Pro mentions all of the cons about the product including the claims of metabolism enhancing. I guess that people still are unaware that metabolism is based on ratio of lean muscle mass compared to fat.

I have found a great way to track my health progress

After my last laptop gave out, I seem to go through one laptop every 5 years, I decided to ignore those best netbooks ads and go with something completely different. I like my small iPod but I wanted something bigger but not as big as an iPad. I looked into tablet PC's and found many of them are under $150. I am currently looking into getting one that costs only $138 and has wifi and a camera so I can also take pics of my progress of muscle building. Another big plus is that it will fit nicely on my treadmill so I can watch videos of exercise workouts or maybe a movie.

Taking up yoga

It is now official, hubby has to take up yoga. It is doctors orders!!!

His spine is bothering him and after a full MRI, a trip to several doctors the diagnosis is surgery unless he can strengthen his core and completely muscle up. The doctor and the specialist both said yoga was the first step and to work up to pilates.

I mentioned this to a co-worker who was document scanning at the time and she said she had a yoga DVD we could borrow. Since there are various different styles of yoga being taught on DVD it is best to see which one would be a good starting point.

Acne is now affecting more adults than ever

When I was a teen, acne was the dreaded illness to be treated at all costs. That was long before teen pregnancy and drug abuse became much more of a problem. Nowadays acne has creeped from the teen years to affecting adults too. Men and women well into their 40's are now battling acne as if they were teens again.

One thing I had always thought was a major contributor to acne was air pollution. This is from my own experience when I was a teen growing up in a large urban city. When ever our family went on vacation to a rural or wilderness area, my acne would clear up entirely only to return when I was in a heavily air polluted area.

To find out more about acne treatments just click here.

Using your iPod to get healthy

Technology is on the go now and since you can take it with you, not only can you exercise to your favorite tunes but you can also have you own personal trainer with you in the form of an ebook or podcast. There are Lecteurs MP3 format for you to get motivated. The Apple Apps store even has free apps for dieting and tracking your progress.

So if you need a little help in your quest to get back on track with your health, look no further than your pocket gadget.

The male sex drive

While most men are outwardly sexually demanding and boast to their male friends their sexual adventures, it is not hard to imagine that it is embarrassing to men to not have engaged in sex in over several months or more. The openly advertising of ED medications and therapies has not helped the situation either. In reality, what is happening is that men are looking for the best testosterone boosters in the forms of pills but they don't need them if they quit drinking alcohol, stopped smoking and ate a well balanced diet.

Alcohol is one of the best ways to decrease a sex drive. This goes for women as well as men. Alcohol is a depressant and as such it lowers blood pressure, sperm count, sexual desire and libido. It is unfortunate that alcohol is associated with sex but in fact it is the worse thing for it. 

The little pill that makes it all better

We are a society of the "quick fix." We want everything to be easy. Don't like the way you look? Have a little nip and tuck. Do you weigh too much? Take a pill and eat all you want. Yes, we want it all and want it NOW. Sorry folks, but it doesn't happen that way. It took months or even years for your body to gain weight so even the best weight loss pills in the world are not going to work in a few weeks. If they do then you will probably end up with other health problems like weakened bones or blood pressure problems.

Life is not a quick fix, it takes time to undo what damage we have done to ourselves. Take it easy and do it right. Learn eat right, learn to enjoy life without smoking and alcohol. You will feel better.

One diet pill that really works

A family member was having a very hard time losing weight. He weighed 325 pounds and for 2 years was trying desperately to get down to 240 pounds but couldn't get past 270 pounds. He was exercising 3 times a week at a gym and was on a 2000 calories a day diet. Finally he convinced his doctor he needed something else to help him so he put him on these diet pills that were not meant to be actually diet pills, but what us lay people call, "uppers." He was on them for one month and lost 30 pounds. The doctor took him off of the pills for a month then put him back on them for 2 more months. He got down to 220 pounds and stayed there for several months. I have been waiting for an update to find out if he is back on the pills or not, or if he is finally managing to maintain his weight without pills.

Building muscle mass

The best way to increase your metabolism is to increase your muscle mass in comparison to your fat percent of your body weight. Muscle cells use more calories than fat cells do just to maintain themselves. So what is the best muscle building supplement in terms of food? Think protein.

Great foods for muscle cells are lean meats, cottage cheese, yogurt and eggs. All are loaded with high protein, which is the building block that muscle tissue needs to grow and multiply.

I wonder if anyone ever reads my blog

I have been writing this little blog for a few years now and I rarely get a comment on it or much traffic at all. I wonder if it is because there are thousands of other blogs that cover the same subject? Just yesterday I was thrilled to get an email notifying me of a comment that I needed to modify on this blog. That was until I read the comment and it was a spam comment just to get a link to the best radar detector on the market......yeah, right. That got deleted.Well who knows, maybe one day I'll get more visitors, but until then it is just you and me, so don't get sick or it will be just me around here for awhile.

Modern technology and your health

If it was not for modern technology many of us would have died prematurely. While some people try to blame computer monitors and cell phones for common health problems like eye strain and hearing problems, it is apparent that the great majority of technology has made strides in helping us more aware of our health. That simple little gadget, the pedometer, has made us more aware of daily activites and how much walking we do.

Should you have a career in health care

Yes there is a growing demand for people to enter the health care field but should you be one of them? Before you decide on a glowing career as a doctor, nurse or even a CNA, think about these valid points:

• Can you handle death? You will experience death up close and personal as you will watch people die on a daily of weekly basis.
• Can you handle puke and poop? I am not talking about baby or small children make a mess but full grown adults.
• Can you handle working with people that have deadly diseases? Remember, you not only have to keep yourself safe but you could endanger your family if you bring home a germ or 2.

Now that you have had a chance to think that over, you might want to look into a health care career that is more distant from patients. Maybe a job as a medical technician. There are even healthcare it jobs if you are into computers more than people.

Yes you can work in the medical field but first think about what your duties would be before you take that leap.

Diet pills to stay away from

When a diet pill claims to help you lose weight in under 5 days - watch out. I have seen many a questionable diet pill that have online ads that claim "Diet pills that work fast." Those pills often do work very fast but they either give you instant diarrhea or a caffeine high.There are only 2 ways that those types of pills work. They either remove excess water from your body and  help your body to move the food faster through your system or they will amp your body up so that you will be more active and burn off those extra calories. The problems with both of these methods is that your health will suffer as a result.

Breast feeding woes

I often wonder how many new mothers actually have enough milk minutes after giving birth to actually breast feed their baby. I know that my milk did not come in until 3 days after my daughter was born. I was panic stricken at the time. I thought my daughter would starve without my milk but I found out from my doctor later that a new born baby can live 3 days before needing its first true feeding.

Needless to say, as I was waiting those entire 3 days, I did feed my daughter with formula until my milk came in. After my breasts became so large and full of milk I did not have to worry about how to increase breast milk production, I had more than enough for her. What I did have to worry about was when my milk "let down" at the sound of a baby cry. Having a wet top out in public was no fun at all.

Acne, the sign of a changing human

Acne is not restricted to adolescents going through their teen years. Nope, acne shows up during times of  major hormonal changes. There is "baby acne" when a baby is just adjusting to its new world and growth hormones are just kicking in. Of course puberty is the next stage of life when acne shows its ugly blackhead. Then as if we have not had enough of acne already, adult acne shows up in our 20's and 30's. That late stage acne could be due to other hormonal influences induced by stress or premature aging.

A warning for pregnant women

Besides all of the health warnings that pregnant women have to face, there is also something that only other formerly pregnant women will tell you........to remove that wedding ring. You see, that fashionable Wedding Jewelry on your fingers can also be a health hazard.

As your pregnancy progresses, you gain weight all over your body, not just in the areas around the growing baby. Your hands and feet are subject to swelling. Rings if not removed during the first months of pregnancy will become harder and harder to remove. During the last month of the pregnancy the ring may cause discomfort and block blood circulation to the finger it is on. It is not uncommon for wedding rings to be cut off of pregnant women during the last trimester of their pregnancy.

So if you love your ring and don't want it cut from your finger then remove it while you still can.

Creating a place to workout

How many times you have said to yourself that you lacked the time and or space to have a decent workout? You know that you can change that.........that is if you really want to. You can always make time for a quick 20 minute workout and space can be something as simple as moving the coffee table out of the way in the living room.

To make more space for a daily workout all you need is your TV and some floor space. For example, I have a non-flat TV (the old fashion kind) and once we get a new samsung lcd TV, the old TV will be moved to a back room and hooked up to our Sony Play Station and then we will use it to exercise to "Dance Dance Revolution" and play several workout DVD's. The small back room is currently used as storage and rarely used so changing it to a workout room will make a good addition to the home.

So you see, a workout room does not have to be filled with equipment. Just keep it simple and give yourself lots of floor space to move about.

Money is the root of stress

Forget about money being the "root of all evil," instead think of it as the root of all stress. More couples fight over money than sex. As you can guess it is the lack of money that is the cause of the fights. I have never heard of people fighting over having too much money but then again I am not living in that social circle.

Stress is the result of worrying about the lack of money. It forces people to act out wrongly towards others in the form of verbal and physical fights, as well act irrationally such as using payday loans or robbing a bank. So what is the cure? Simple, talk.....talk to each other about the money in the family. Talk about it as if it was a tool or a appliance, don't get emotional about it. Money should not invoke feelings either good or bad. It is a thing not an emotion. Once you have removed the emotion from your "talk" you should come up with some good sound ways to tackle the problem at hand, all without stress.

Old time exercise machines

Do you remember those old time belt exercise machines? I remember seeing my first one back in 1965 when I was a toddler. Seeing a neighbor doing her daily "exercising" that way was what I thought that exercise was all about.

Would it surprise you that those gawd awful machines are making a comeback? It makes as much sense as buying address labels when all you do is send text messages or email. Don't be a dummy and fall for one of those machines. Get out and do some actual exercises.