administrator | Slice of Health

Author Archives: administrator

The Top Inflammatory Foods + How To Detox From Them

There are a multitude of diets to choose from, or exercise programs that run the body ragged. The simple truth is that our bodies weren’t meant to eat Lean Cuisine meals or to be engaged in hours and hours of intensive exercise. If a person examines the evolution of our body from the caveman days, they would see that the body thrives off of whole foods, clean meats and exercise that involves lots of walking.

Fast forward a few thousand years, and as a society, we are stuffing our bodies full of inflammatory food-like products that make a person sick, fat and depressed. The key to fat loss, optimal health and joy is so simple, it’s easy to overlook.

Eat whole foods that are plucked from the earth. Foods that do not come in a package, can, bag or jar, and automatically the inflammation will dissipate in your body, freeing up space for your liver to begin processing fat. The best part, you can eat all you want, as long as it’s clean whole foods.

No longer is a deprivation mentality of dieting or extreme exercising required. By pivoting our thinking, we can create a healthy relationship with food. One that creates a foundation of values based on fueling the body, and giving it health through whole foods, rather than limiting the amount of calories a person eats.

To help you with this clean eating journey, I have compiled a list of the top 6 inflammatory foods along with substitutes that allow you to eat many of the foods you enjoy, but with ingredients that give you health, rather than take it away.

1. Processed Sugar

Swap out processed sugars for raw honey, organic maple syrup, liquid stevia or fruit.

2. Sodium

Swap out table salt for sea salt or pink Himalayan salt. By eliminating processed and packaged foods, you will significantly eliminate the amount of daily sodium intake.

3. Wheat Flour

Swap out wheat for almond flour or coconut flour. While these two flours do come in a bag (unless you make them on your own with a food processor), they are minimally processed are a great substitute for baking many foods that typically contain wheat.

4. Certain Oils

Swap out highly processed oils such as vegetable oil, canola oil, safflower oil, partially hydrogenated oil (just to mention a few) for high-quality omega-6 and omega-3 oils. The best source for oils are from extra-virgin coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil, hemp seeds, chia seeds, avocados or avocado oils.

5. Cow Dairy

Swap out cow dairy for that of sheep or goat. Around the age of 1.5-2 years, our bodies significantly decrease in the amount of digestive enzymes created that specifically help to digest dairy. The molecular make-up of the sheep and goat dairy is more easily digested in the human body. Another reason cow dairy does not work as well is because the feed is typically made up from genetically modified corn and soy which creates inflammation in the cows. This is then passed on to us when we eat cow dairy. Last, casein is used in much dairy and many people are highly sensitive to it. When shopping for sheep and goat dairy, read the ingredients so that you can chose a dairy product free of casein.

6. Alcohol

Swap out alcohol for water, bubbly water, Kombucha drinks (without added sugar), tea or cold pressed juices. Alcohol tops the list of most inflammatory and toxic foods, and with a pause from the holidays, it seems like a reasonable time to take a break in order to regain and experience the most optimal and vibrant health.

Article Courtesy: http://www.mindbodygreen.com/

Health Problems Associated with Long Nails

Long nails have always been associated with femininity and beauty, but they can be an open invitation to diseases and other health problems if not maintained properly.

A recent study conducted by the Infectious Disease Society of America revealed that nails that are longer than three millimetres beyond the tip of the finger carry harmful bacteria and yeast under them. The study also suggested that most people do not wash their hands well enough to get rid of all the germs under their nails. According to Dr. Carol A. Kauffman, co-author of the study, people should spend at least 15 seconds washing their hands and clean underneath their nails to get rid of the unseen germs.

Your hands come in contact with hundreds of objects every day, and you use them for activities like cooking and eating. Long nails have the potential to cause a number of health problems since they are a perfect place for germs and dirt to stay. Health experts agree that nails should be trimmed short and kept clean.

Many women prefer to keep their nails long either by growing them naturally or by wearing artificial enhancements. It is important to be informed about the potential risks that are associated with long nails and take adequate precautions to ensure that you are taking good care of your nails.

Here are some of the reasons why long nails are bad for health:

• You could injure yourself when your nails get caught in zippers, windows, or other such objects.

• You could strain your fingers when you type with longer fingernails. Typing texts in your phone also takes longer.

• Artificial nails are prone to infection if worn too long.

• Using your hands to eat food when you have long nails can allow bacteria and other infectious agents to enter your system.

• You have to constantly worry about maintaining your nails.

• You can avoid accidentally hurting yourself with your nails or scratching your skin.

• It is difficult for you to get a grip on anything. You end up dropping a lot things in an effort to not break your nails

Click here to read more

Article courtesy: http://healthmeup.com/

Do your resolutions really work?

Today, RJ Jane’s special guest was Vasundra Aggarwal, a Bangalore based Nutrition & lifestyle consultant who’s been an expert in the field for the last 6 years. In keeping with the New Year spirit, the discussion was largely about how do you stick to your resolutions for a healthy & happy 2015.

First off, Jane asked Vasundra to give us 5 basic tips that, if followed, will lead to a much healthier 2015. Vasundra gave some basic tips such as

Do not leave too long a gap between meals. Eat frequent meals in small portions around 8 times a day.
Drink a lot of water. Not just when you’re thirsty.
Tea or coffee shouldn’t be the first thing you have in the morning. You can first drink some warm water with lemon and honey, and then coffee or tea and breakfast.
30-40 mins of physical activity daily, even if one is not overweight.
Limit processed and packaged carbohydrates rather than fats. Include healthy oils like sesame, mustard, bran & olive oil. Include nuts in diet, and avoid packaged & processed food.

Jane and Vasundra were joined by another special guest, Ammachi. When asked what she thinks will lead to a happier and healthier 2015, Ammachi points out that lifestyles keep on changing with the times, and suggests that the secret to health and happiness is to eat at least one meal a day at home with your family. Also resolve to always find something to laugh about at all times, as after all, laughter is the best medicine. People have so many stressors and pressure, they forget to laugh and truly enjoy life. Materialistic values are not as important. Live naturally and healthy. Stick to family recipes rather than fast food.

Vasundra agrees completely. She adds that family recipes are usually healthier, even if they can be rich. She says to limit fried food but not to avoid ghee. In limited amounts ghee has a lot of anti-carcinogenic properties that are beneficial, so we can allow ourselves that small indulgence!

Jane notes that there has been a bug going around and a lot of people are down with the flu. Ammachi gives some Home remedies for the flu such as to Stay hydrated through the day, Gargle with salt & turmeric. drink warm water with lemon, honey and dry ginger, avoid street food and carry your own water bottle as a preventive measure.

Vasundra suggests that to kick start a great lifestyle, start your day with a cup of green tea with lemon, cardamom and nutmeg. it provides antioxidants that will keep you fresh and healthy through the day.

So there we have it. Some simple, and easy to keep, resolutions for 2015! We wish you a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Fitness Trends to Watch Out For In 2015

If you’re planning your new year’s resolutions, why not try something new? To help those who want to focus on healthy living and fitness, here are 12 fitness trends to watch out for in 2015.

Boutique fitness

Boutique fitness offers a more personal approach to fitness as well as a more luxurious ambience. Highly-specific studios are being introduced for workouts like underwater cycling, aerial yoga, indoor rowing, etc.

Boot camps

Fitness boot camps provide an opportunity to improve strength and endurance, and more and more men and women are opting for this military style training that encompasses cardio, strength, endurance and flexibility training. Boot camps are perfect for those who favour intense and complex workouts.

Telemetry

Telemetry is a tech trend that is really catching up with fitness buffs. Telemetry involves pulse monitors, wristbands that chart your daily activity and movements and other wearable devices. Competition-based workouts are also gaining popularity, specifically in group fitness classes like cycling or running, where performance metrics are put up on a board in the room.

Organised dance parties

Organised workout parties blend fitness and yoga with dance music and DJs. Dance party workouts are a more fun and pleasant approach to fitness. The workout may feel like a party, but it will also bring your heart rate up, work out your core, and make your muscles burn in the best possible way.

Group personal training

Group personal training is a great way to stay economical and make workouts more fun. A growing number of personal trainers are providing more group training opportunities. Training three to four people at a time is cost-effective for the trainer and the clients.

Click here to read more

Article Courtesy: http://healthmeup.com/

Signs You’re Not Getting High-Quality Sleep

Between work, family and play, it can be difficult to get a good night’s sleep. While it’s easy to tell you’re tired after a night of tossing and turning, there are a few more subtle signs that indicate you’re not getting the beauty rest you need and deserve.

If you find that many or all of the following signs are true for you, consider taking steps to improve the quality of your sleep:

1. You can’t stop hitting the snooze alarm.

Hitting the snooze alarm often is usually a sign that you either haven’t had sufficient sleep or that the quality of your sleep is poor.

2. You sleep late on weekends.

If you find that you’re constantly sleeping later on weekends, this may be due to the sleep debt you built up during the week.

Unfortunately, this catch-up sleep can’t make up for your lack of sleep. Even worse, it may throw your circadian clock off, making it more difficult to fall asleep on Sunday night.

3. You’re irritable and moody.

It’s unfortunate that so many of us fail to realize how insufficient sleep affects our moods. Sleep is very important in our processing of emotions.

4. You get frequent coughs and colds.

Many studies have demonstrated the importance of sleep in relation to our immune system. In fact, in my book I examine sleep and its relationship to the immune system.

5. You can’t shed those pounds.

Insufficient sleep is a major cause of obesity. When the body does not get enough sleep, it tends to overproduce an appetite-stimulating hormone called ghrelin, and underproduce an appetite-suppressing hormone called leptin.

Click here to read more

Article Courtesy: http://www.mindbodygreen.com/

What you need to know about the Ebola virus

The Ebola virus was first reported from the African country, Sudan. This virus infection has become one of the most dreaded diseases in the world of late. The destructive potential of this virus is high with almost 80% of the victims reported dead. The virus has the potential to infect millions of people across the world if proper screening measures are not adopted by the countries of the globe.

Know About Ebola

Ebola virus diseases were earlier known as Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever and are caused by the virus belonging to Filoviridae family. This is a disease known to spread from animals to humans. The RNA virus infects the wild animals such as gorillas, monkeys, chimpanzees and fruit bats and can also spread to humans. According to World Health Organization, this disease is transmitted through direct contact with the body fluids such as blood, secretions and organs of an infected animal or person. Migratory populations are most likely to get the infection and they may transmit the Ebola virus.

Early Symptoms

The early symptoms may appear one week after the virus infects your body. The symptoms include headache, fever, rashes, nausea, stomach pain, vomiting, body ache, cough, etc. It is difficult to identify the disease in the early stages as the early symptoms are similar to the symptoms of other diseases. The diagnosis is usually made on the basis of tests for antibodies against viral DNA and Ebola.

Later Symptoms

Within a few days of the patient expressing the early symptoms, the later symptoms appear. Later symptoms include: impaired liver and kidney functions, redness of the eye due to internal and external bleeding, bloody vomit and bloody diarrhea, etc. The patient may experience cardiovascular collapse and finally death.

Who Is At Risk?

The persons with high risk of Ebola infection are family members of the infected persons and the health workers who is in close contact with infected individuals and mourners of the deceased person who have direct contact with the body. People who are handling the meat of the infected animals are also at the risk of exposure to the virus.

The Countries Affected By the Virus

The present Ebola virus outbreak is the largest outbreak reported and is mainly limited to West Africa. The African countries like Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Libya has reported more than 1600 cases of Ebola till August 2014. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises to avoid all “nonessential” travel to these West African countries.

Click here to read more

Article courtesy: ttp://www.myhealthtips.in/

Tips To Boost Your Brain Power

Whether you want to study better for a test or just stop forgetting your keys everywhere, follow these simple tips to boost your brainpower. Over time, most people start to become a little scatterbrained, but these tips will help you improve your brain function and prevent cognitive decline, keeping your mind sharp for years to come.

Draw pictures

Most of us tend to think of drawing as an activity only for children, but it is actually pretty useful for adults too. Drawing stimulates the right hemisphere of your brain and boosts your creativity.

Take fish oil

Fish oil contains several ingredients that literally build the membranes of your brain. Consuming it regularly helps improve your focus, strengthen the emotional centre of your brain and increase your overall brain function.

Eat nuts

Studies have proven that eating nuts improves brain function considerably, to the extent that students who eat them right before their exam do much better than those who don’t.

Meditate

Meditation activates your prefrontal cortex, enabling you to think and perform better. It also improves your IQ and lowers your stress levels.

Click here to read more

Article courtesy: http://healthmeup.com/

How to stay away from the Christmas binging and the inevitable pot belly :-)

Guests on the show today were – Chef Kaushik – known as the Mad Chef and Agnel, a popular fitness trainer in the city. Chef Kaushik says tongue in cheek; don’t look down at your belly! Agnel says – eat more protein than carbs, and some fat is good too. The traditional Christmas turkey is basted with the turkey dripping says the Chef, but Agnel says that he does not encourage consumption of animal fat as it is harder to break down. Saying that, it’s Christmas, a little indulgence does no harm! Food needs to be healthy and tasty says Agnel, it needs to be balanced. Chef K says this is possible and that more and more people want to lead a healthy lifestyle. Jane asks, how can one deal with this continuous flurry of festival days and the good food associated. Agnel and Chef K agreed saying you are allowed to cheat just for those days, but between the celebrations one must work out in a disciplined manner. Quick tip from Chef Kaushik – Coffee, Rose and Peppermint are a wild combination he says! A Christmas favourite for Chef K is egg-nog and a traditional lunch that he had with friends in the US has stuck in his mind forever. For Agnel, his grandmother’s chicken, vegetable and homemade casatta are his favourite. If your will power is good, you can have those cheat meals more often if you can keep the portions small. But if you are the kind that pigs out when you see good food, then it’s better that you have a few cheat days across the season. Love rice and crave for it often, Chef K gives us a cheat version. He says to steam cauliflower and grate it and treat it the same way you would with rice. Cauliflower has negative calories so it’s a more than good alternate to rice. If you’re going out for Christmas dinner tonight, eat a lot of meat, vegetables, cut down on the rice, potato and other carbs. Then you can actually feel less guilty when you get to the dessert and can taste a little of all of them. Merry Christmas and tell us what you did to celebrate!

Yoga for Beginners

New to yoga? Notable yoga experts offer some tips.

1. Don’t Worry About Being Perfect

“Along with your yoga mat and your towel, bring a sense of humor to class. Students who get hung up on doing everything ‘perfectly’ are less likely to come back.” — Seane Corn, creator of the “Vinyasa Flow Yoga” DVD series and national yoga ambassador for YouthAIDS

2. Don’t Force It

“Don’t force your way into yoga. Adapt your movements to accommodate your level of strength and stamina, so that you avoid injury and feel comfortable in every pose.” — Baron Baptiste, founder of Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga

3. Connect to the Pose

“Watch out for what I call ‘self mutilation’ — spending your time talking to yourself about what you can’t do. This will make your practice dismal. The more you stay connected to feeling the pose — to breathing into the pose — the better your experience will be.” — Ana Forrest, founder of Forrest Yoga

Click here to read more

Article courtesy: http://www.wholeliving.com/

Foods that boost your metabolism

The metabolic rate of your body determines your overall health. Having proper metabolism will help to reduce your weight and to remain in a better health condition. When your metabolism is faster your body digests the food easily and uses the energy in the food. This prevents the deposition of the fat in the body. The rate of metabolism is of utmost importance for those who want to lose weight. A slow metabolism adversely affects your efforts to lose weight. If you can boost your metabolism, then you will be using energy and burning up the fat even when you are sleeping. This will help in achieving faster weight reduction. Though exercises are the most important method to increase the metabolism, the food we eat can also affect the metabolic rate. There are certain food items which will increase the rate of metabolism and provide you with lean and better looking body. Here is the list of some of such metabolism boosting food items.

1. Fruits
We all know that fruits are rich in vitamins and minerals and are important for maintaining a healthy body. There are many fruits which are easily available in the market that helps to boost your metabolism. Strawberries, oranges, peaches, watermelon, guava and grape fruit are excellent metabolism boosters. Include more of these fruits in your diet than the metabolism reducing food items if you want to reduce your weight.
• Select fruits which have lower carbohydrate content and less sugar content to get better results.
• Fruits like strawberry and watermelon have more water and fiber content which makes you feel full without increasing your body weight.
• Always opt for organic fruits

2. Green Tea
Apart from having the property of boosting the metabolic rate, green tea has other health benefits also. It contains a compound called EGCG which helps to increase the metabolism.
• You can use hot green tea or you can pour cool green tea over the ice and use it as iced tea.
• Make sure that you consume at least 2-3 cups of green tea every day to boost your metabolism to a healthy level.

3. Cantaloupe
This is a type of melon which tastes great and is low in calories. This is an excellent food option to reduce weight by increasing the metabolism. Most of diet programs include this fruit in the diet plan.
• Cantaloupe contains fewer calories than the energy required to eat it.
• You will be reducing the calories when you are eating a cantaloupe.

Click here to read more

Article courtesy: http://www.myhealthtips.in/

« Older Entries Recent Entries »