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.

Living a Healthy and Fit life

It is quite hard to live a healthy and fit life, but it is not impossible at all. You can manage to live a lifetime healthy life through discipline and commitment. All you need is to change your habits and finally get rid of those habits that affect your health. I am providing some tips that I feel are important in the road towards lifetime health and fitness. You will find that your journey towards a healthy and fit life require nothing else than determination and will power.

Honest and serious commitment

If you really want to change your life and get rid of habits that you have for so long been doing, you need to be really honest and commit on it to ensure that you will see the plan through. There are a lot of people who start eating healthy and living healthy who will fall back to their old ways after some time. Don’t be like those people. Starting and stopping will only serve to puncture your spirits and make you believe that you can never follow a health and fitness plan. Start when you feel that you really want it bad enough and you can really do it. Will power can be really amazing. It can make miracles.

Effective Support System

Changing old habits is hard but when done with people who live and support you, the task can be easier and more manageable. This is the main reason that diets and programs for quitting smoking and weight control have effective support system programs. People, who share your experiences, will help encourage you to continue with the goals that you have set.

Avoiding Temptations

Without the will power to avoid temptations, your plan to change will constantly be derailed. It is very important to remain in control of yourself and stick to your goal. But this however is not something that is easy to do. There will be lots of instances when you will be truly tested and most people will fail the test. They will go back to their old habits once, and then twice and then thrice until they completely forgo with their plans for a life of health and fitness. To avoid this, you should stay clear of the temptations.

Enforcing Reminders

Those people who are regularly reminded of how they should proceed have better chances of making it through the program than those who are just doing it alone. This works in the same way as the support system but even better because in this instance, you have somebody who really point out to you what you should be doing. Sometimes, we go back to our old ways not because we want to but because it is something that your bodies are already so used to. So if you want to really change your ways and live a life of health and fitness, have somebody you trust and respect with you all the time.

Trinity of Health

There are a few factors on which the foundations of good health are built and if even one element is missing, true health becomes elusive. For instance, we know a well balanced diet is a pre requisite for good health. Yet, people who are particular about exercise and food suffer from heart problems. Why does this happen?

The answer lies in the fact that the body must be seen as a complete unit. When the heart has problems, it isn’t that the heart is ill. The whole person is ill. The illness is just manifestation in the heart.

Good health rests on three factors:
- Correct nutrition
- Exercise
- Emotional well being
When one element is missing, good health will elude us. So, we find the people who meditate may suffer from health problems because they eat immoderately or don’t exercise.

Correct nutrition is about eating in moderation. You can break the rules, but only occasionally. You must learn to recognize the compatibility of various foods with your body, and eat a variety of foods in terms of types and colors.

Exercise is also about individual body requirements. It is important to find your own balance in exercise. Then there is spiritual balance or emotional well being. Some people confuse spirituality with religion and so miss an important aspect of their lives. Stress management is the new mantra of well-being. Some people find it in yoga or meditation, others in music, chanting or welfare activities.

Food and Personality- Relationship

Eating healthy foods is good for your personality. Your personality affects your relationship with food, your eating behavior and your dieting behavior. This is probably something we may all have experienced at a subconscious level. The persons with good personality like to eat healthy foods. We should learn how to eat healthy and nutritional food.

In my personal experience, it is interesting to note the patterns that emerge with regard to eating behavior. People with type ‘A’ personalities tend to be ambitious, hardworking and less tolerant of their own or other’s mistakes. They plan a healthy diet that work as metabolism booster. They are acutely conscious of body image and will not allow their weight to spiral out of control. However, such people tend to be very fond of food, and will also overeat on occasion. This type of personality has a fondness for spicy and crispy food, perhaps non-vegetarian dishes. They may dislike sweet or mushy foods. Such people are also active and may enjoy exercise.

The slight problem is they are given to flashes of anger and may indulge in binge eating. Such people can follow a simple plan with a drive that is unique to them. They are also at the highest risks of following fad diets.

Then there is the creative personality. Such people crave variety. They crave new menu plans-even if the suggested plan is very difficult, they do it, but only once. Such people tend to enjoy travelling and trying healthy food dishes. They love small portions, and are fond of sweets. They also try numerous diet plans and consultants as they are always looking for change. The good news is that if they follow the plans that increase metabolism, their bodies respond quickly.

The third type of people I see are very calm and patient. Such people lose weight slowly, but do not get worried or angry. They are not big eaters but are fond of rich foods and feel deprived if they do not get to eat their favorite foods every now and then.

They are most vulnerable to temptation and the sight of good food spells doom for their diets. They tend to be emotional and also tend to eat when they are upset. Such people also tend to think that being healthy is more important than being a particular size.