Superfoods for good health and fitness-III

Fruit and Vegetable juices are essential consituent of a healthy diet plan. They are blessed with three factors leading to good health and fitness.

(a) They are rich in antioxidants.

(b) They are full of live enzymes.

(c) They contain heat-labile vitamins (that is, the vitamins that are usually
lost while cooking).

Antioxidants are exceptionally important because they destroy the free radicals that are continuously created in our body due to toxins from fertilizers, pollution and so on. Free radicals lead to inflammation in the heart, arthritis, mutations resulting in cancers and other terrible diseases. The role of antioxidants was first discovered by the naturopaths, but laboratory confirmations using advanced scientific tools are relatively recent.

Fruit and Vegetable juices are also rich in live enzymes. Enzymes are a component of food with the power to transform. They transform plant energy to an energy form that we can utilize. This power also resides in our livers, but we tend to overload the liver to such an extent that the body is unable to handle food. All problems of fatigue, dark circles under the eyes and lack of facial glow result from under-metabolic food.

When we cook vegetables, all enzymes are lost due to the heat. So, when we drink vegetable juices, we also get enzymes. Enzymes are present in raw salads, raw vegetables and fruit.
The third important aspect of fruit and vegetable juices is that they are a storehouse of vitamins like B complex and C that are otherwise destroyed in cooking. Many disorders due to indiscriminate eating are miraculously cured by naturopathy techniques and fruit & vegetable juice therapy.

PRACTICAL CONSUMPTION

Make different juices every day. Try a juice of carrot and fennel, add some ginger or garlic according to taste to add to the nutritional benefits.

PRECAUTIONS

If you are used to a very unhealthy diet or refined or processed foods, begin with small quantities because sudden detoxification may overwhelm the system. Pregnant women and people with compromised immunity should also avoid vegetable juices. In this way you will be able to transform nature's life forces to human vitality.

Superfoods for good Health and Fitness -II

I am here with my next post in which I will discuss about the medicinal value of flowers:

STARPOWER:
Rather like homeopathy, flower therapy does not attack a disease head on. Instead, it activates cellular intelligence to fight imbalances within its immediate environment. Flower therapy is used in food, aroma oils and skin applications. Jasmine flower have a relaxing effect on the nervous system. Jasmine tea is the flower in a tea form(called an influsion). Rose petals are a great luxative and used in many medicines. Rose is also drunk in a sherbat form as it cools and relaxes the body.

Practical consumption:

Substitute late night beverages with flower infusions. They are great for relaxation. And have rose sherbet in summer.

Precautions:

Some people may be allergic to some flower components, so be careful if you have a family history of asthma

Superfoods for good health and fitness-I

In my earlier post, I talked about value of Superfoods in our life. In will present some of the vital foods that have a great medicinal value and possess the capacity to affect our body positively in number of ways.

FLAXSEEDS:

STAR POWER: Flaxseeds have rather humble origins, so the way they are venerated today by people interested in their health could be the subject of the rags to riches story in some tabloid.
They are an ordinary dull brown color and so inexpensive that they are fed to livestock for their health. The star qualities of flexseeds came to light when it was discovered that they are an excellent vegetarian source of omega-3 fatty acids (normally found in oily fish). Omega-3 fatty acids are one of the key recommendations for a heart healthy diet.

Flexseeds also have a balancing and therapeutic effect on the ovaries. They can be used as a food component to treat polycystic ovaries and insulin disorders.

Practical Consumption:

Roast flaxseeds and add to salads. They make them yummy and crunchy. Or make a fine powder and add it to vegetable juices

Precautions:

Do not consume in excess. Normal consumption is up to two teaspoons a day.

Medicinal Value of Food

All foods offer us benefits other than simple energy, but some foods have great healing power than others. To put it simple, if we don’t eat, we can not live. But aside from serving that most basic need- that of keeping us alive and our taste buds happy-the best foods keep us healthy, happy and whole. These are super foods, a cross between food and medicine.

Ayurveda, one of the world’s oldest and still more practical health treatises, had always connected food with medicine. But over the years, we lost that connection and forgot about the healing power of the food.

However, we have regained that knowledge to an extent now, but we tend to focus only on the energy component of the food-its caloric count. That’s not the only attribute of food however. Food gives us the vitality to function; builds our bodies; protects us from the environment by creating a layer of fat; affects our moods; fights diseases at a cellular and metabolic level; improves body rejuvenation and so delays ageing; and cures diseases.

All foods have a medicinal value, but certain plants that may not ordinarily be part of our daily diets have an immense capacity to affect us positively in various ways. I will discuss about some superfoods in my future posts.

Treating Your Acne Problem Yourself

Acne is a diseased condition of the skin that involves the hair and oil glands. It is characterized by pimples, black or white heads, reddishness and cysts. Face acne can damage your appearance to a great extent and body acne can irritate you by making you very uncomfortable affecting your health.

Actually the care for acne should start off much before the acne actually appears. This is more about being proactive than reactive. Acne skin care is about being aware of preventive measures. The crux is, following daily skin care routines with dedication and discipline.

If you have acne, never try to touch them or squeeze them; it can lead to long lasting scars. The treatment of acne requires gentle cleansing and cleaning of the affected area. First of all, make a start with the most basic thing - cleanliness. So morning showers are the most basic way of keeping the skin clean. If you are living in a hot and humid place, a night shower becomes a must. A shower is advisable after every activity that causes high levels of sweat to develop. It is a very efficient acne skin care technique.

Nonetheless, acne skin care is not about just showers. Acne skin care is also about wearing clean clothes and sleeping on clean pillows. Wearing too tight clothes can cause sweat to accumulate fast, so wearing of soft and comfortable cotton clothes are recommended. You should also use a mild, soap-free and water-soluble, cleanser for keeping your face, neck and arms clean. Cleansing is the most central part of any acne skin care routine. The easiest way of removing dirt, grease and pollutants from your skin is use of cleaners. They reduce the probability of acne occurrence. It is also recommended to remove your make up using a make up remover before you go to bed.

There are number of skin care creams and lotions available in the market, but most of them are actually cleansers. However, if the above mentioned measures do not give you the desired results, it is better to contact a dermatologist.

An ideal way to lose weight

Many of you will identify with this. You are about 5-7 kg overweight and want to get your weight down to the recommended level. So you sign on at the gym and are regular during the first few weeks. But when you weight yourself day after day, the needle refuses to budge. You get disheartened and stop. ‘The gym doesn’t work for me,’ you recon, and hang up your gym shoes.

Giving up on the gym a few weeks into the effort is the worst thing you can do because if you are regular, it is entirely possible that you may not be losing weight, but you are losing fat.

How is that?

What happens is that when you are slightly overweight and your workout is a combination of cardio vascular exercise like walking/ running and weight training, you lose fat. But your muscle mass has increased at the same time, your weight remains static.

One pound of muscle looks denser than one pound of fat. Fat is a flab, it is loose, all over the place. Muscles are denser, more compact. So, you weight won’t change, at least in the beginning. Because the fat loss is compensated by muscle gain, there will be signs to indicate that you are on the right track. After some time you will notice that your clothes are getting looser, your stomach and arms feel taut, and your strength is up.

But this does not mean that you start doing weights with a vengeance to build muscle in the hope that it will make you look super toned and sculpted. Yes, you can weight train, you will build muscle. But you can only lose the excess fat in your body through cardio-vascular exercise. You can not achieve fat lose without cardio. Ideally, you should do a combination of cardio and weights. Cardio to lose fat and weights to tone your body.

The good news is that unlike fat, muscle burn a lot of calories. So the more muscle mass you have, the easier it is to burn fat and your efforts at gym will sooner or later translate into weight loss too.

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.