Health

[JessiCapri]

[Vaughan]

Change Your Life For The Better

Here is a few simple changes that will make you feel better and probably save you some money.

1. Eat At Home More Often
Benefits: You’ll eat healthier and spend less

Cook your own meals. Instead of vegging out on the couch eating a burger from a take-out joint, get a pound of ground beef and make burgers tonight, spaghetti and meatballs tomorrow, and sloppy joes the day after that.
The combined cost of making all 3 meals will be about as much as one takeaway order.
You’ll also know what’s in the food you’ve made.
Grabbing a quick bite to eat or picking up some fast food on the way home is the more convenient way to prepare dinner, but it’s not the healthiest nor cost-efficient.

Check out this topic for some great recipes.
EASY RECIPES TO TICKLE YOUR TASTEBUDS. (Right click on the link and choose “Open link in new tab” option from drop down menu)

Easy Recipes to tickle your Tastebuds

See more

2. Walk To The Grocery Store
Benefits: Cardiovascular exercise

Going for a walk every day is an excellent way to improve your cardiovascular health, but few people find the time to fit one in. Squeeze that little extra bit of cardio into your day by substituting your drive to the grocery store for a walk instead.
Most people live within a mile of the nearest grocery store, and you’ll only be able to buy what you could carry home. You won’t just be exercising, you’ll be saving money while you do it.

3. Start The Day With Lemon Water
Benefits: Hydration, better digestion

Don’t be one of the suckers who spend needlessly on detox waters that cost an average of £2-£5 per bottle.
Hydrate your body while detoxing it by guzzling down a large thirst-quenching glass of homemade lemon water.

Slice a whole lemon and soak a few pieces in lukewarm water for about half an hour.
Drinking lemon-infused water has numerous benefits for one’s health. Not only does it help with digestion and hydration, but it also contains 100% less artificial sugar than a can of Coke

4. Choose Brown Bread Instead Of White
Benefits: More fiber

Making the switch from white bread to brown bread is a simple lifestyle hack one can easily integrate into everyday life. All you have to do is reach for the loaf of whole wheat bread at the grocery store instead of the usual white bread.
Not only does brown bread have more fiber and nutrition, but it also has more flavor than white bread. If you’re not thrilled about making the change, ease yourself into the switch by using brown bread for French toast, toast, then work your way towards eating it plain.

5. Take Cold Showers
Benefits: Improves circulation and alertness

Few things are more wonderful than a long, steaming hot shower on a cold day—the type of shower you never want to leave. Besides giving you warmth from top to bottom, inside and out, these ‘steamers’ don’t provide any benefit. The high temperatures are actually more detrimental than they are beneficial.

Cold showers, however, are a fantastic way to bring your alert level up in a hurry and speed up your metabolism. If you’ve just had a killer workout, a cold shower will also help you recover quickly.

[Vaughan]

6. Add Spinach To Your Smoothies
Benefits: High in fiber and zinc

Here we have two lifestyle hacks in one. Add a healthy smoothie to your daily diet.
Smoothies are quick to make and can be made with all manner of fruits and vegetables.
One of the best ingredients you can include is spinach.
It doesn’t make smoothies look all that appealing, but Popeye wouldn’t have eaten all that spinach if it wasn’t good for him. Throw a small bunch of spinach into the blender along with the fruit you’ve added for your liquid breakfast. By doing so, you’ll inject it with fiber, zinc, calcium, vitamins A and C, and B vitamins.

7. Take The Stairs
Benefits: Cardiovascular and mobility

The thought of walking up even one flight of stairs is enough to make some people look for apartments with multiple elevators in case one of them happens to break. However, that dreaded walk up the stairwell might be the first step toward a drastic lifestyle change.
Instead of fearing stairs, embrace them. Instead of complaining about not having the time to go to the gym, forget the elevator and take the stairs. And not just at home. Wherever you are, look for the emergency stairs (every building has them) and use them to fit in a quick 5-minute workout instead of standing idly by waiting for an elevator to arrive at your destination.

8. Include Protein At Each Meal
Benefits: Helps stabilize blood sugar

Those attempting to live healthy lifestyles must remember that physical fitness alone won’t prevent someone from injury or sickness later in life.
Eating right is equally as important. You can exercise all you want, but if your desire for a healthy lifestyle isn’t reflected in your eating habits, it might catch up on you one day.
Carbs are fantastic, but protein is what you need to help stabilize your blood pressure. Do your part to help prevent future you from developing late-onset diabetes and eat more chicken, fish, and lean meat like deer or, for the folks down under, kangaroo. Eggs, dairy, and nuts are excellent sources of protein for vegetarians.

9. Eat Or Drink Something Fermented
Benefits: Easily digestible

Hearing the word “fermented” is enough to make some people’s stomach churn. But not all fermented food is as gag reflex-inducing as a century-old fermented duck egg. In fact, some fermented foods are downright delectable, like pickles for instance.

Fermented foods are an excellent source of lactic acid bacteria that help restore order to our digestive systems.
Pickle lovers out there, be warned. Not all pickles meet the criteria.
Only Lacto-fermented cucumbers should be eaten for health purposes. The others should just be enjoyed as the pickles they are.

For a great recipe for EASY FERMENTED CUCUMBERS (HOMEMADE PICKLES) check out Page 4 on this topic

Easy Recipes to tickle your Tastebuds

10. Sleep Seven Hours
Benefits: Improves mood, reduces stress

The effects of not getting enough sleep aren’t always felt right away, but they do eventually catch up with everybody. Sure, sleeping just four or five hours every night will give you a few more hours of ‘awake time’ to try to be productive, but the reality is that people are grumpier and generally get less done without sleep.

Believe it or not, an extra hour or two of sleep will help you accomplish more during the day. The National Sleep Foundation claims seven to nine hours of nightly slumber is the ideal amount of sleep your body needs to function at its highest potential.

[JessiCapri]

This comes under the same category of those tags on your hair dryer that say “Don’t Use In The Shower”, but ‘Tis the season and I have met enough people who truly do need those tags.

Here’s on way to ensure you have a happy and healthy XXXmas.

“Don’t masturbate with Christmas ornaments doctor warns amid spike in seasonal injuries”

Trying to make Christmas come early with ornaments is apparently hazardous to one’s health.

“It is not advisable to masturbate with Christmas ornaments,” Dr. Sarah Welsh, a gynecologist told NeedToKnow.Online. She was listing the dildos and don’ts of the scandalous Yuletide tradition, which sees people hospitalized after getting frisky with everything from glass baubles to candy canes.

“Christmas ornaments can have sharp aspects or pieces that can break during masturbation which can cause soreness, the risk of trauma and are just generally unsuitable for your vagina,” warns Welsh, who co-founded the condom brand Hanx. In other words, leave your elf on the shelf come Christmastime.

Even Christmas confections pose a threat “due to the hygiene issues, concern about pieces breaking off, or the sugar content of items such as candy canes,” the gyno warns holiday pleasure hunters. “Anything with sugar in it, such as Christmas confectionery, should also stay well away from the vagina as this disrupts the delicate ecosystem of the vaginal microbiome and can predispose you to vaginal thrush infections.”

Save the fun for your favorite AChat Elf instead.

[Vaughan]

5 simple food swaps to keep healthy

The Mediterranean diet is widely considered one of the healthiest ways to eat in the world.

The Mediterranean diet is often ranked the best diet in the world and is widely considered one of the healthiest ways to eat thanks to its links with heart health and a lower risk of various diseases including Parkinson’s and diabetes.

The Mediterranean diet consists of vegetables, legumes, seafood, olive oil, and wine in moderation, and encourages minimal consumption of processed and fried foods, red meat, refined grains, added sugars, and saturated fats.

The core focus of this diet is fresh, seasonal produce, plant-based eating, and healthy unsaturated fats especially from olive oil.
Research suggests this way of eating may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and the onset of various cancers, improved blood glucose control, and a slower decline in cognitive function.

1. Replace some meat and dairy with beans and nuts
Swap animal-based proteins, such as red meat and dairy products, for plant-based alternatives, such as beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds.

This will help to boost the fiber content in your diet, which is important for digestion and our overall gut health too.

2. Replace butter with olive oil
Instead of cooking with butter, which is high in saturated fat, use olive oil — particularly extra virgin — which contains healthier unsaturated fats.

Too much saturated fat is linked to heart disease, whereas the consumption of unsaturated fats may actually help reduce the risk of serious diseases such as heart disease or diabetes.

3. Replace white carbs with wholegrain versions
Swap white varieties of bread, pasta, and rice, for wholegrain versions.

This will help to increase fiber consumption, as well as keep energy and blood sugar levels sustained throughout the day. This helps prevent the roller-coaster of sharp increases and rapid decreases in blood sugar levels, which may leave you feeling low in energy, lacking in concentration, or craving more energy-dense foods.

4. Replace sugary snacks with nuts or fruit
Instead of reaching for sugary, processed snacks like cookies, have a handful of nuts or a piece of fruit.

Nuts are a great source of plant-based protein as well as healthy fats, and fruit is a great source of fiber, so you’re not reaching for more snacks in-between meals.

5. Replace some meat with vegetables
Bulk, meals containing meat, out with vegetables and plant-based proteins such as beans, thus reducing the amount of meat you’re eating. Try adding lentils to a Bolognese sauce, for example.

Not only will this make your meals go further and be cheaper to make, you will get an increase in essential nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals, fiber, and antioxidants too, which are essential for the optimal functioning of the body.

[JessiCapri]

[JessiCapri]

[JessiCapri]

[Vaughan]

[Vaughan]

Step-by-step guide to performing Pelvic Floor / Kegel exercises

Doing Kegels right means find your pelvic floor muscles and working them.

Kegel exercises won’t help you look better, but they do something just as important — strengthen the muscles that support the bladder.
They also improve sexual intercourse.
Strong pelvic floor muscles can go a long way toward warding off incontinence and improving the sensations in sex.

These exercises were developed in the late 1940s by Dr. Arnold H. Kegel, an American gynecologist, as a nonsurgical way to prevent women from leaking urine.
They also work for men plagued by incontinence.

Although Kegel exercises themselves are simple, finding the right muscles to exercises isn’t.
One-third or more of women and men who do Kegels are actually working their abdominal, buttock, or inner thigh muscles. They don’t reap the benefits of the exercises.

Locate your pelvic muscles
Several techniques can be used to find the right set of muscles to exercise.

Women:
Pretend you are trying to avoid passing gas.
Pretend to tighten your vagina around a tampon.

Men:
Pretend you are trying to avoid passing gas.
While urinating, try to stop your urine stream.

If you’ve identified the right muscles, you’ll feel the contraction more in the back of the pelvic area than the front.

Practice contractions
1. Choose your position. Start by lying on your back until you get the feel of contracting the pelvic floor muscles.
When you have the hang of it, practice while sitting and standing.
2. Contract and relax
3. Contract your pelvic floor muscles for 3 to 5 seconds.
4. Relax for 3 to 5 seconds.
5. Repeat the contract/relax cycle 10 times.
6. Keep other muscles relaxed. Don’t contract your abdominal, leg, or buttock muscles, or lift your pelvis. Place a hand gently on your belly to detect unwanted abdominal action.

7. Extend the time. Gradually increase the length of contractions and relaxations.
8. Work your way up to 10-second contractions and relaxations

9. Aim high. Try to do at least 30 to 40 Kegel exercises every day. Spreading them throughout the day is better than doing them all at once. Since these are stealth exercises that no one notices but you, try to sneak in a few when waiting at a stoplight, riding an elevator, or standing in a grocery line.

10. Diversify. Practice short, 2 to 3 second contractions and releases (sometimes called “quick flicks”) as well as longer ones.

Kegel exercises in an emergency
If you leak urine when you cough, sneeze, laugh, bend over, or lift something heavy (stress incontinence), doing one or more Kegels before a “trigger” may be enough to prevent any leakage.
If you have the urge to urinate and doubt you are going to make it to the toilet, doing Kegels may get you safely to a restroom.

[JessiCapri]

Along with my daily Kegel exercises I do 45 minutes to an hour of Yoga. Included in this is what is called the Happy Baby pose. If I am short on time and need to cut the schedule down this is the one pose I never leave out. Here is why:

I find it also helps my knees which have been a pain since I ripped my meniscus some years past.

[JessiCapri]

Ovulation moment caught on camera

A human egg has been filmed in close-up emerging from the ovary for the first time, captured by chance during a routine operation.

Fertile women release one or more eggs every month, but until now, only animal ovulation has been recorded in detail.

Gynaecologist Dr Jacques Donnez spotted it in progress during a hysterectomy.

The pictures, published in New Scientist magazine, were described as “fascinating” by a UK fertility specialist.
MRC Human Reproduction Unit, Edinburgh

Human eggs are produced by follicles, fluid-filled sacs on the side of the ovary, which, around the time of ovulation, produce a reddish protrusion seen in the pictures.

The egg comes from the end of this, surrounded by a jelly-like substance containing cells.

The egg itself is only the size of a full-stop, and the whole ovary, which contains many immature eggs, just a couple of inches long.

They belonged to a 45-year-old Belgian woman, and Dr Donnez, from the Catholic University of Louvain, told New Scientist that the pictures would help scientists understand the mechanisms involved.

He said that some theories had suggested an “explosive” release for the egg, but the ovulation he witnessed took 15 minutes to complete.
Professor Alan McNeilly, from the Medical Research Council’s Human Reproduction Unit in Edinburgh, said that this fitted with his own research into the ovulation process.

He said: “It really is a fascinating insight into ovulation, and to see it in real life is an incredibly rare occurrence.
“It really is a pivotal moment in the whole process, the beginnings of life in a way.”

[JessiCapri]

BAY LEAVES ~ Home Remedies

The aromatic olive-green herb is credited with giving dishes a subtle intensity and depth that makes a meal memorable. Not only do bay leaves taste good, but they are also good for you.

A bay leaf has properties that are detoxifying and that can slow aging. The herb fights bacterial infections and improves everything from respiratory issues to heart health. It is a powerful herb from which everyone can benefit.

Anxiety and fatigue

The combination of chemicals in bay leaf produce a calming, psychedelic effect when burned. All you need to do is light a couple dried bay leaves in the same way one would incense. As you breath in the vapors, you will fall into a relaxed, yet alert, state of mind. The best part of burning bay leaf is that it doesn’t make you sleepy, but instead wakes you up and banishes fatigue.

Respiratory system

Bay leaf is a stimulant for respiratory passages and can help dislodge phlegm and mucus in the lungs. The best way to heal your respiratory system with bay leaf is to inhale steam treated with bay leaf in the form of fresh or dried leaves, or oil. You can also massage bay leaf oil onto your chest to treat allergies and asthma.

Dandruff

To treat dandruff, mix it with warmed jojoba oil. Massage the warm home treatment into your scalp, wrap your head in a towel, and rest for 15 to 60 minutes. You can also add a few drops of bay leaf oil to your daily shampoo in order to fight dandruff.

Digestion

Cultures from the Mediterranean to East Asia that use alternative medicine believe in the heating and healing powers of bay leaf. Bay leaf boosts the “digestive fire.” Include bay leaf in your cooking or rub bay leaf oil on your stomach after eating to promote the secretion of digestive juices, enzymes and bile.

Heart health

An organic compound found in bay leaf called caffeic acid is known to strengthen capillary walls in the heart. It also helps eliminate bad cholesterol from the cardiovascular system. Include the herb in your cooking.

Joint inflammation

A 2003 study published in Phytotherapy Research found the anti-inflammatory and pain relieving properties of bay leaf essential oil have comparable effects as anti-inflammatory drugs like morphine on inflammation throughout the body. To relieve pain, rub bay leaf essential oil on sore joints and use bay leaf as part of your regular diet.

Urinary infections

Drinking powdered bay leaf mixed with milk is an ages old treatment for urinary infections. (Crush 4-5 bay leaves into a powder and mix with a quart of milk in a glass jar. Refrigerate.)

Diabetes

An article jointly published by the NWFP Agricultural University in Peshawar, Pakistan, and the USDA Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center found bay leaf to be an effective treatment for people with type 2 diabetes. The study showed that consuming just 3 grams of bay leaf per day can decrease glucose levels.

Using these remedies, especially with the more serious health concerns, should be done in addition to what your medical doctor directs. Do NOT use these INSTEAD of propper medical care.

[Author]

Posts