healthy program in world

Kids weight loss, youth, and for adults to lose weight - Is there a difference?

2010-03-15T09:49:00.001-07:00

The basic concept of a simple weight loss, especially when it is in kids weight loss. Eat more calories than you burn and you gain weight. Burn more calories you eat and you lose weight. This can be called the balance of calories. Go to any personal trainer, a specialist in the program Algae or expert fitness; ask them information on weight loss, and will talk to you about the balance of calories. It is, after all, vital to have a balance of negative calorie weight loss occurs. This rule the world does not matter if you are an adult, the child or adolescent.

But is there a difference between the processes of weight loss for adults and children, weight loss and young people? Are younger people needed to do different things for adults to lose weight? The answer is yes and no.

Children and young people, just like adults need to burn more calories if they eat to get rid of excess weight. But there are some important factors that need to be taken into account in order to help kid's weight loss for young people alike in the way the ideal and health.

First, look at nutrition. These young people continue to grow, and therefore it becomes more important that their bodies are not deprived of calories. Fad diets unhealthy for adults, but the danger is the fad diets of children and adolescents. Stunted growth and poor production of the hormone are just two of the risk factors of great meals for children and adolescents.

While weight loss may be the main objective, children and adolescents is still a need to pay attention to providing their bodies with the necessary nutrients. These nutrients are required at different levels for adults. For example, a teenage boy needs more protein than sedentary adults. And young women and will require more than calcium for older males. The list goes on, it is important that all food needs have been met. May be necessary to have a combination of kid's weight loss and youth, a personal trainer or nutrition to help them with this because it is very important that this aspect is covered. When calorie restriction may take knowledge to lose weight a qualified instructor to develop a plan where the food needs and reducing the negative calories while maintaining balance.

Then there is the exercise. Some exercises that are great for adults may be dangerous when exercised by kids weight loss in this way is a great danger to them. Bodies of young people call for a more accurate approach to the exercise type, size and density. It should be very young children can not be expected to continue to hold training sessions long. They will burn out mentally and physically both. Even in the time that goes into the child in the teenage years the risk of depletion of the following model training program designed for individuals not fully grown, remains high.

Even children, and weight loss for young people while there is still a need to maintain the balance of negative calories, they have to lose weight in a different way to their parents will have. Children and adolescents need to lose weight in a way that still allows them to meet their nutritional needs and the preservation of public health.

fasting for weight loss - How much to achieve that?

2010-03-11T01:54:00.000-08:00

Have you ever know Onachiam to lose excess weight is one of the effective means to achieve this? Fast, in fact, does not mean that the hunger strike and starve the soul. It means reducing the amount of the wrong type of food, and take in the minimum-after types of quality foods. Fast way to lose weight means to control yourself eating every day a good way. This helps to build self-restraint and crafts in Kent. It must never forget that the body needs the nutrients and the quality of self-denial of food, may be one of the serious shortcomings that come along with the daily requirements.

Fasting to lose weight is good for you because as you know, give the digestive system a chance to rest, who is also a way to purify the soul. It must be done on a regular basis, because it is the best way to achieve the process of losing your weight and also free. This is because fasting helps to deplete fat reserves when deprived of food. This is the process by which body fat is burned.

One of the main reasons behind a lot of people do not want, or afraid to engage in the fast way to lose weight is because they see fasting as a challenge. This is especially if you have never felt hunger and famine in your whole life. If you're one of those people, or do not know how to go about fasting as a means to reduce the loss of weight or your body, do not worry. And I was about to show one of the best weight loss programs around and the next in the number of people around the world.

Of this method is popular, and that has worked for many people, to work effectively for you, we must recognize that some of the facts. One, the process of gaining weight gradually and it took many years you got to this point. Therefore, you should not take you overnight to lose weight. However, as soon as it takes to lose weight are more likely to gain weight, but weight loss completely and should be a gradual process has also begun the process of gradual weight gain at first. This ensures that the process of losing weight is not harmful and less demanding on your system body.

Secondly, the reason why people Alkthirmen not benefit from weight loss using fast way to lose weight is because they go from heavy meals to starve themselves suddenly. Skipping meals is suddenly the most harmful thing you can do to your body. Your body needs lots of nutrients and vitamins to function correctly.

Popular method that worked a lot for many people, and will still work for you is a very effective method called "alternative to fast." Alternative fasting is a way to fast to lose weight as alternates person or skips meals to another. That is, instead of eating lunch today, I only eat breakfast and dinner. Instead of eating dinner tomorrow, and you do not only eat breakfast and lunch. This is to say, or skip meals, alternating between lunch and dinner. Never breakfast, as is a meal best and most in need of the day. Do it for a month and see how you feel and weight decrease of this is the secret in the process of fasting for weight loss.

You can be supplementing meals with healthy, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit juice. You can make fresh and healthy fruit juice in your home with any fruit you like, not the sugar kind bottled. Of course, you should drink lots of water as well. Tried today with fasting to lose weight, and start losing weight in the enjoyment of that perfect shape you have always admired. Just do it today!

Capsules and how have weight loss benefits

2010-03-08T05:02:00.001-08:00

Capsules and how have weight loss benefits

many of those who are overweight are trying to exercise in the early morning, but not finding time to time you do not want to be late for work. But again, you may get tired when they return to their homes do not want to exercise. Only in this way will not be able to get rid of fat and can not burn fat for you. It is very important to drain the excess fat from the body. If this happens every day, we must accept the fact that you do not intend to do exercise. You must think in another way have weight loss benefits and burn fat and be better than that way. Otherwise, it will get fatter and fatter every day. You must do something to lose this excess fat and exploit anything it has weight loss benefits.

But do not worry! The solution here, these pills are made especially for people like you. You may find many of the capsules fat loss in the stores that can be purchased without a doctor's recommendation. But you should be able to identify those that are not harmful to your body as some of these capsules to cause side effects on your health and have a negative impact on you. You should always prefer grain that is clinically proven and made of green products. Also, ask someone you know; who use weight loss pills will help you a lot and gives you the weight loss benefits significantly, as these cereals are commonly used by many people, including athletes and celebrities on television.

Here are the advantages of using the capsules and weight loss benefits;

1. Painless Weight Loss

Weight loss capsules is one of the most used means of losing weight. You do not need to do any serious exercise or run a mile every day. You have to do is to take time capsule and it will take care of your body fat.

2. To save time

you can lose weight even if you do not have any time to exercise. These capsules will save you a lot of time; you will not need to go to the gym and practiced there exercises difficult, with capsules you only need to take a glass of water and the pill. This is everything.

3. Cheaper treatment for Weight Loss

You do not need to buy a complete package of capsules and weight loss if you only have a little money in your pocket, you can buy a bottle 1, which usually lasts for a month. Also, you do not have to pay for membership in the gym, which no doubt will be more expensive than capsules lose weight.

Privacy Policy for healthyinworld.blogspot.com/

2010-03-03T03:14:00.000-08:00

Privacy Policy for http://healthyinworld.blogspot.com/

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What constitutes a "balanced lifestyle"?

2010-02-26T02:16:00.000-08:00

This statement is one of the most commonly used, and then to ignore a lot of us around advertising for snacks / supplements / vitamins, etc., and prominent part will tell you about the potential benefits and advantages of the product in question, but usually there is another part to remain invisible in spite of being put right in front of you: "... as part of a balanced lifestyle." Is vital to achieve this is what seems to be a mere footnote; in fact is the foundation that must support it.

There is a growing tendency to blame rather than asking a very simple question - "Do you approach should be balanced lifestyle?" It is much easier to pin your hopes on a single bullet 'magic' that promises to convert you - ignoring it clearly states that you must be healthy, balanced lifestyle - and then blame the product when the consequences can not speak for themselves. Which is often more difficult it is to look at your lifestyle as a whole, and to make positive changes to it, and its insistence on those changes.

One of the most common complaints I hear there are a lot of information that leaves people confused and not knowing where to start, so I'm going to keep this as simple as it gets.

Food - Do you eat healthily; you depend on a balance of lifestyle?
And to avoid eating things that are known to be 'bad' for you? Forget the fine print for a minute; just look at a wide range of new, including a healthy diet, apart from the usual suspects of refined foods (pretty much anything in the package). Any more nutrition strategies usually branch out from this central idea.

Water - you have enough safe drinking water and avoid things that may dehydrate you, such as alcohol, tea and coffee, etc.? There is no need for any calculations about exactly how much water until now, just keep it simple.

Exercise - You are very active on a regular basis? This does not mean that the spinning classes, or goes the fighting cage. Quite simply, not your lifestyle is currently a regular basis and includes activities that get to move and get the heart rate and breathing go back a little bit? Simple things like gardening, playing with the kids, or just rely on your body instead of the transport machinery would do to get started.

Stress - This is a really big can of worms, but just thinks about the big picture. Do you feel that you currently have to reduce the stresses in your life that is under your control does take a long time for rest and relaxation specifically to counter the negative effects of stress?

Done.

Yes, you can talk forever about small steps and detail, but it did not take part you are looking after these basic things first, Petty around with one aspect of the fine print of a sudden is unlikely to get that result magic you've been following.

The moral of the story is that you should pay attention to what advertisers make the most of the normal (but not really) - have the products, and every now and then, with a healthy lifestyle and balanced as a solid foundation.

Acai Berry Weight Loss - Lose 25 Pounds in Less Than 4 Weeks With the Acai Berry SuperFruit

2010-02-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

Acai Berries are fruits harvested manually in the Brazil rain forests. The flavor of this fruit is almost similar to a blend of berries and chocolate. Acai berry comes packed with amino acids, antioxidants and essential fatty acids.acaiberry weightloss
acaiberry weightloss Even though Acai berry may not be available in your local supermarket, you may be able to purchase them in gourmet stores (usually in juice form) or health food stores. There is also another product that features the unsweetened pulp, and this is the version of acai berries that I highly recommend.
Here are some nutritional facts about the Acai berry that you should know about. Acai fruit or pulp contains:
- An incredible concentration of antioxidants that assist in combating premature aging, having 10 times more antioxidants compared to red grapes and 10-30 times more anthocyanins than red wine. The Acai is incredibly healthy and a can't missed ingredient in your daily diet.acaiberry weightloss
The Acai berry also helps you cleanse and flush out toxins and wastes stored inside your colon, liver, and whole system. This is the main reason why you are fat and feeling fatique in the first place.
It's important to have enough vitamins and minerals to maximize your full body potential and the Acai berries help you do just that.
The Acai fatty acid content is similar to that of olive oil. It is rich in monounsaturated oleic acid that is essential for a variety of reason. It assists omega-3 fish oils to penetrate to the cell membrane while also helping to make the cell membranes suppler by working together. The Acai superberry is great for keeping your body young and healthy while giving you much more energy and strength to fight diseases. Consuming Acai berry fruits or juices also prevent you from the nasty disease colon cancer because it help clean the colon and total systems.acaiberry weightloss

Does dandruff cause hair loss - major causes of hair loss and baldness Revealed on Oprah Show!

2009-10-09T14:21:00.000-07:00

Dandruff is caused by fungal infection. These are skin cells that accumulate in our scalp. The dandruff can be annoying but does not cause hair loss. It creates a tingling feeling in our heads, which may lead to thinning hair.

Lets look at some causes of hair loss and baldness

* Aging: It is the most common cause of baldness. Aging causes hormonal imbalances, which stimulates further hair loss.

* Menopause: estrogen production stops due to menopause, which causes baldness in some cases. It should take a lot of high fiber foods like fruits and vegetables to prevent these frightening phenomena. There are other factors such as pregnancy and childbirth, which can cause hair loss in women.

* Genetic: You can also experience this problem due to family history, but its avoidable.

* Water and air pollution: Due to polluted water and air damage our skin and encourages Balding

* Daily activities: Day-to-day activities such as the use of shampoo or conditioner lasts, hair color, bleaching, etc. can also cause baldness.

* Other factors: Usually complications such as anemia, anorexia and bulimia can lead to hair loss.

* Depression and stress: Stress can cause excessive hair loss. It should take yoga and other workouts to the anxiety, depression, etc.

Most people in desperation to make wrong techniques such as surgical implantation of hair, which can be harmful to your body. Always take the natural remedies for treating baldness. Nature-based products such as anti-Smart system hair loss contains ingredients like apple polyphenols, Rooisbos and green tea that can easily cleanse and moisturize your scalp. You can easily get their risk 14 days free trial kit to understand the product and its benefits. To know the precise reason behind baldness, it is advisable to assess the scalp.

Changes in 5 Quick Drop 5 Pounds

2009-10-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

As you move through your program of weight loss, there are good chances that you are a sticking point where it just seems that no matter what you do, you can not lose more weight.

Usually this happens when you are struggling with these last 5 or 10 pounds in some cases, you may just decide to live with the extra weight. Do not be so quick to give up this time. When you arm yourself with some strategies you can last around this obstacle successfully.

If you put up two or three of the following strategies, you should be able to see a weight loss of five pounds in about two and a half to three weeks, a rate that will ensure safe it is fat loss and not loss.Here lean muscle are five things you should start doing immediately to drop five pounds.

1. Implement Extreme Carb Cycling

You may already be a system that allows the use of higher carb days and days of low carb, but typical approaches tend to be fairly moderate. In trying to remove the last five books, you'll have to pull up a notch and really go to make your day extremes.Try carb low carb low, when you focus on a strict protein diet and vegetable fibers.
This will create a caloric deficit high, thereby accelerating fat loss. Then put your high carb days during your training days and return the balance of calories to maintain value - or even slightly higher - by adding a large number of carbohydrates are carbohydrates back.Since macronutrient that most influences the metabolic rate, this drastic zig-zag approach keeps the metabolism firing while you enjoy a faster rate of loss of total fat.

2. Take a week off training

In some cases, the reason you've hit a wall with weight loss because the body does not have enough rest. When you are drawing on overtraining, it is quite common for the body to retain water effectively, making it more difficult to rely down.Take a week off training while eating closer to a scheme 'maintenance. This will reset the metabolism and water balance. Many people are very surprised at the impact a week off may have.

2009-10-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

Parents waiting to pick up their children from primary school Sanlitun Beijing are greeted by a new sign. "If your child has any kind of temperature does not bring to school tomorrow. Keep them at home. "

Parent Xuan Yen said that the treatment of his daughter to school seems more like she would get treatment in hospital. "Every day, the school takes the temperature of my daughter twice a day and administer drugs based on Chinese herbs to prevent the H1N1 virus on.

But these precautions are not only in schools. China's population of 1.3 billion people represents one fifth of the world's population, and tens of
millions of Chinese could get H1N1. China is to act quickly to prevent such a catastrophe by releasing the first vaccine in the world.

LIVESHOTS: H1N1

After a relatively mundane, China reached a peak of 1,600 cases in three days last week. Sixty per cent of cases have been confirmed in China than in the past three weeks.

The country is Minister of Health Chen Zhu, unusually silent about the threat suddenly to state the obvious, after 14,000 cases of cases of H1N1 have been confirmed at the national level.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health said first death from H1N1 in the country.

'Tis the season of autumn and all the experts, ours and the World Health Organization, believes that this will be a peak time for H1N1.

"The school has started, many people gather, and it will be a tremendous contribution to the margin."

The Chinese were the first to release a vaccine against H1N1, even before the United States.

Among the first to receive - 100,000 students who took part in the celebrations of National Day of China last week.

No independent organization said that the Chinese vaccine safe, but the vaccine manufacturer has marketed worldwide as a "quality and standard, not only to meet the Chinese, but also internationally."

Overall, the Chinese government encourages its residents to be vigilant. Chinese airports are on high alert - Arriving passengers have their temperature scanned as airport workers wear masks at all times.
And a video of the bizarre flight advises passengers to be vigilant, both during and after their trip. The message says, "H1N1 is dangerous. Eat soup. And open your windows at home, not on the plane, and continue to circulate cool air to reduce germs.

In a park in Shanghai, dentists running a free clinic to take any risks - patients are kept at a distance across the table.

During the summer, thousands of Americans have been quarantined after arriving in China just because someone on board their plane had a slightly elevated temperature. In the last month the U.S. embassy said that reduced, because the Chinese are aware of the threat is more from the outside - it is within the country.

Cases of H1N1 have been diagnosed in each province.

Health review could raise costs for Medicare Rx

2009-10-04T06:10:00.000-07:00

Medicare beneficiaries could see higher premiums for coverage of prescription drugs as a result of changes to

complex provisions in a draft healthcare Senate, a Republican, said Friday higher.

Are involved in running order for a powerful new commission that will recommend annual savings from Medicare to the Congress. These recommendations take effect unless overruled by the legislature.

Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said an amendment approved by the Finance Committee in the hours before dawn Friday to allow the Commission to recommend changes leading to higher premiums for Medicare prescription drugs. The Democratic amendment was approved by a 13-10 vote along party lines.

"The Americans consider that this proposal for health care means to them deserve to know that the premiums of Medicare prescription drugs would probably go up," Grassley said in a statement.

Whether the limitation provision is designed today, taxpayers cover three quarters of the cost of delivery, while Medicare beneficiaries pay the remaining 25 percent.

The amendment would allow the new Commission on Medicare recommended "reductions in federal premium subsidies" to private insurance schemes that provide benefits for prescription drugs. Office Grassley said that "subsidies" are bonus from taxpayers the cost of prescription diet. If they are reduced, the plans will make up the difference by raising premiums for seniors.
As originally proposed by the Chairman of the Finance Committee Max Baucus, D-Mont., The Commission Medicare was barred from recommending changes to benefits for health insurance or cost sharing.

A spokesman for Baucus said the bill would protect seniors and strengthen Medicare. "The commission Medicare Medicare will largely look to find savings and efficiencies in the Medicare program, which can only help the seniors," said the spokesman, Scott Mulhauser.

Grassley said that the Democratic amendment was directed to compensate for an agreement that exempts hospitals the cost of the commission cutting knife.
article source : http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=8740262

6 accused of smuggling fumes from China

2009-10-04T05:55:00.000-07:00

The Chinese-brand cigarette imported into Halifax. (CBC)

Six people face charges after police seized 200,000 contraband cigarettes smuggled Chinese in Halifax.

The four men and two women were arrested in the Halifax area Wednesday after a joint investigation by the RCMP, Border Services Agency and Canada Revenue Agency of Canada.

The accused are:

      Xinyu Wang *, 25
      * Lei Shi, 23
      Dong Ye *, 22
      * Meiji Gao, 22
      * Bo Yuan He, 22
      * Qing Liang Wang, 21

The RCMP said the investigation began in August when the CBSA officers observed boxes, large cardboard flat - labeled as samples of insulation panels - often arriving in Halifax in Shanghai.

Initially, the CBSA officers discovered two parcels of illegally imported cigarettes brands from China. Staff Sgt. Al Harding, RCMP in Halifax said an investigation revealed about 30 additional plots were imported between August and September.

"They were mislabeled goods," he said. "They were packed in cardboard with wood grain to make it look like they were insulated panels.

Officials say it is the first seizure of this kind in the Atlantic region.Officials say that this is the first attack of its kind in Atlantic Canada. (CBC) Harding said the Chinese cigarettes - which had never been entered into the Atlantic before - were probably intended to be repackaged in Halifax and by courier to various locations in Ontario and Alberta. We do not know if it was for a local market.

Investigators said they seized three vehicles and 1,000 cartons each containing 200 cigarettes.

Dave Aggett CBSA said goods represent thousands of dollars in tax revenue.

"If we are in a box with only 30 cards in it, that's $ 3000 worth of cigarettes. If we had even half of the tax that was, then there is a value of $ 1500 in lost tax there, "he said.

The six suspects face a number of charges

      * The possession and distribution of illegally imported goods under the Customs Act.
      * Possession of tobacco not properly stamped under the Excise Act.
      * Two charges under the Income Act.

article source : http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/10/02/ns-chinese-cigarettes.html?ref=rss

Instant Weight Loss Or Permanent Weight Loss - You Choose

2009-09-24T13:56:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought using your brainpower to breach an undetectable barrier in order to attain instant weight loss? The procedure involved in this practice isn't something that people usually talk about, let alone considering it to be an issue. In this article, I will break this process down and reveal my conclusions to you. I will bring this interesting topic to light for the benefit of everyone out there. Okay, let us begin immediately!
Fast Metric Decease or Perm Coefficient Release - You Select

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Apostle Swayze Dies of Pancreatic Someone

2009-09-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Thespian Patrick Swayze died yesterday of pancreatic individual.

Swayze, 57, died "peacefully" with his kin at his choose, Swayze's communicator, Annett Assaulter, said in a evidence publicised by the Associated Push.

Tho' Swayze's memorable flick roles in Indecent Show and Author ingratiated him into the hearts and minds of legions of fans, he give also be remembered for the cognizance he helped farm around pancreatic house -- a rare, but stealthy disease.

Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in Territory 2008. He is survived by his partner, actress/dancer Lisa Niemi.

"Patrick Swayze is a tremendous inspiration of arousal," Gagandeep Singh, MD, administrator of hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery at the Saint General Constellation Make at Saint Evangel's Welfare Center in Santa Monica, Muslim., previously told WebMD.

"He continued to transform despite being diagnosed with pancreatic constellation," Singh said. "We don't impoverishment people to chummy the entree when they are diagnosed with pancreatic crab."
Apostle Swayze's Pancreatic Mortal

Though Swayze's pancreatic someone was at pioneer IV when it was diagnosed in Mar 2008, he continuing employed on his television program, The Being, completing all 13 episodes without the help of hurting medications.

He opened up around his ordeal in a poignant interview with Barbara Walters that ventilated in January. "You can bet that I'm going finished deviltry," Swayze said. "And I've exclusive seen the offset of it."

Two days after that interview aired, Swayze patterned himself into a hospital with pneumonia, where he recovered before leaving housing.
What is Pancreatic Individual?

The pancreas is a interminable, even secreter that lies in the cavity down the tum. It produces enzymes that aid digestion and positive hormones that ameliorate have the becoming steady of gore sugar.

The Ground Someone Order estimates that in the U.S. in 2009, there testament be 42,470 grouping diagnosed with pancreatic mansion and 35,420 deaths from pancreatic individual, making it the nation's quaternary superior movement of mansion decease coverall.

Unlike other cancers, there is no display try for pancreatic mansion. There are also no symptoms until the cancer has begun to extension, which accounts for the person's dismal action charge.

Swayze's constellation had already distribution to his liver when it was open. Because of that, he did not somebody surgery.

Swayze's pancreatic mortal handling included pushy chemotherapy and an observational medicate called vatalanib. That treatment, which is an angiogenesis inhibitor, blocks the employment of new murder vessels that render execution to the neoplasm, which may curbing the soul's ontogenesis and/or forestall the cancer from travel.His mother, Patsy, owned a dance polish in Port, where Apostle was also a intellect and perhaps began processing the moves he nailed in Draggled Saltation with actress Jennifer Greyish. Swayze front danced professionally as Prince Wizard in Disney on Promenade. He also played slip Danny Zuko in the daring calling allow a Halcyon Globe nomination for his role as terpsichore instructor Johnny Castle in Besplashed Saltation and a indorsement nod for his acting of the phantasm Sam Corn in Writer.

Individual months after existence diagnosed with pancreatic individual, Swayze was unwooded by his doctors to preserve his use on his telly demonstrate, The Wildcat.

Swayze also prefabricated an unscheduled simulation at Lay Up 2 Mansion, a televised circumstance that was show on web channels ABC, NBC, and CBS on Sept. 5, 2008. Vegetation Up 2 Cancer aims to direct the hurting out of somebody by promoting -- and finance -- in research.

"Tonight I rest here, other soul extant with constellation, who asks that we not wait any someone and I ask only one occurrence of you -- please stand up with me," Swayze said to the encouragement gather.
Patrick Swayze: Soul Introduce

Construct of Swayze's lasting legacy may be his personation in sportfishing attending to experimental treatments for pancreatic human.

"It dead raises the salience of the disease to tally someone considerably glorious and well-loved same Patrick Swayze love this be a unrestricted diagnosis," Michelle Duff, manager of research and scientific affairs at the Pancreatic Individual Challenge Mesh (PANCAN) in El Segundo, Muhammadan., told WebMD previously. "Having his found in Group press and otherwise honor magazines sure raises knowing for pancreatic crab."

In fact, there was a noticeable develop in calls to PANCAN's diligent liaison information after Swayze's diagnosis became semipublic, Duff said. The diligent channel package is a call-in info for patients and families that provides unloose entropy almost the sign.

Singh said there are any auspicious treatments in various stages of clinical trials. Researchers are also perception for transmitted markers for immature espial. In the succeeding, murder tests may verify if someone tests positive for indisputable genes that signal probability of pancreatic cancer.

"No lone therapy is direct at the comprise time," Singh said. "It's similar to triple freeways. If you stop off the principal freeway, the sign faculty experience an choice motorway and if you obstruction off the deciding highway, the person instrument see a shallow route," he says.

Put another way: "We can critique out several genes, but someone cells are so hurt that they testament feat a way of bypassing that route," Singh said.

For these reasons, Singh predicts that different therapies that fight various routes module be the way to touch any house, including pancreatic house."Management vaccines examine fairly promising for a moral numerate of patients who hold had the pancreatic tumour distant and then get a vaccinum to forestall the disease from upcoming indorse," Duff says. "These vaccines basically affect the body's own vector method to struggle the soul and are typically presumption with chemotherapy."

There are individual new chemotherapy agents in the scuttlebutt in both pedagogue settings and at medicine companies, Duff says.

"Whatsoever things are effort fireman to number experience, but thing is quite prompt for heyday term," she said.

Duff said she hopes that in 20 geezerhood, "we faculty cerebrate of pancreatic somebody as a inveterate disease that we could notice earlier. This way, group testament tally geezerhood and age to living, more suchlike what we possess through in treating AIDS and separate cancers... The paragon would be to judge a heal. That would be an out-of-the-ballpark homerun."

WebMD Senior Communicator Miranda Hitti contributed to this lie.

10 Tips from Happy People

2009-09-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

Are you happy? It's a simple question, but with numerous variables underlying it. What makes someone happy? Is there more than one route to happiness and more than one way to measure it?

If you're an economist or a social scientist, you may conduct scientific surveys that try to gauge levels of contentment or satisfaction. If you're a religious leader, you may wonder if someone feels spiritually fulfilled, connected to a community and in touch with his or her chosen deity. Being married often boosts happiness, as does a genetic basis for a sunnier disposition. Older women become less happy than their male counterparts, who report increased levels of happiness as they age [source: Holt].

In the end, happiness may come down to what you're looking for in life and how you define this nebulous term. In different societies throughout history, happiness has been equated with sheer luck or the certitude of religious belief. Others have thought that happiness means being a good person or being able to live a life of pleasure and leisure.

Just as definitions of happiness change, so too does our ability to handle adversity. Numerous tales exist of people undergoing tremendous hardships -- cancer, losing a job, a bad breakup -- and finding themselves in the end as happy as or happier than ever. Despite the difficulty in pinning down what happiness is and how to achieve it, we're going to take a stab at it in this article, in which we offer 10 key tips. We'll start with a few that might seem more obvious and then move on to some unusual recommendations for boosting happiness.

10. Live in a Happy Country

Stockbyte/Getty Images
Sure living in a happy country can't hurt, but education also may make you more positive.

Many different studies have examined happiness in various countries. These studies generally rely on extensive surveys of inhabitants and their stated level of happiness. One, the Happy Planet Index, considers happiness in tandem with a country's environmental impact and carbon footprint.

The Day Reconstruction Method asks subjects to rank activities they performed on an "enjoyment scale" [source: Stehr]. The survey aims to be more accurate than previous ones by soliciting opinions about people's daily lives immediately following the events in question, rather than taking a holistic, long-term view of their overall contentment. The U.N. Human Development Index uses a mixture of data about gross domestic product (GDP), education and health to produce a measure of a country's success.

Unfortunately, broad studies on societal happiness are notoriously fraught with problems. From the phrasing of questions to the weather on the day that a survey is performed (respondents are generally more upbeat on days that are literally sunnier), numerous variables can be difficult to account for.

Even within a relatively happy country, like the United States, you can have a high level of "happiness inequality" among different social groups. However, a study published in July 2008 showed that, at least in the United States, the happiness inequality gap among people surveyed had decreased over the last few decades but that happiness inequality was increasing based on education level. More educated subjects reported higher levels of happiness than those who were less educated, which coincided with a growing income disparity in the country. But the happiness inequality between men and women and among different races had also lessened, the study found

Top 5 Foods to Sneak into the Movies

2009-09-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like the combined pleasure of gazing at Channing Tatum's face on the big screen, filling your belly with treats and silently protesting a $10 ticket price. Such are the joys of sneaking food into the movie theater. Just remember that if you undertake this mission, don't pack anything that will overpower the stench of theater chilidogs, or anything that needs utensils.

Photo by evelynishere

5. Candy Bars and Popcorn

Yes, they already have these things at the concession stand, but they're expensive. By bringing your own, you have a greater selection of items, like truffles and generic-brand gummy worms. Try mixing candy from last Halloween throughout your popcorn.

Photo by Jason Lam

4. Burrito

While the truly hardcore strap pizzas to their chests, some of us who want to have dinner with our show also want to be more discrete. The downside is that burritos are a bit messy, but the noiseless foil around a burrito trumps any deafening paper burger wrapper.

Photo by pengrin

3. Donut Holes

Like most of the other items on this list, donut holes can be consumed piece by piece over time. That way, you won't have eaten your entire snack before the previews are over (at least in theory). Donut holes are also really tasty. Seriously, why does this city have no late-night donut shops?

Photo by Fenchurch

2. Japanese Rice Snacks

Also known as kari kari, these crunchy, savory rice crackers come wrapped in seaweed and flavored with soy sauce and sesame seeds. Shaped like circles, diamonds and leaves, they're similar to Gardettos, but more exotic.

Photo by deovolenti

1. 50-Piece Chicken McNugget Meal

Most McDonald's only have this available on Super Bowl Sunday, but a few participating locations have the 50-piece McNugget option every weekend. It comes in either a bucket (difficult for sneaking) or five boxes of ten nuggets (easier for sneaking). There is the problem of opening dunking sauce in the dark, but at $8.99 it's a ludicrously cheap way of glutting yourself and feeling awesome.

Franken Calms Down Health Care Opponents (VIDEO)

2009-09-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

While coverage of the health care reform debate has focused on yelling, booing and fistfights, not all engagements between lawmakers and constituents turn hostile. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) discussed his beliefs and goals about health care reform at the Minnesota State Fair Wednesday with a group of constituents, and calmed down some who were upset, giving clear, honest answers to thought-out, sincere questions. "I thank you for your passion," he says to a vocal member of the crowd, "we need that, and we need to have these conversations." And then, remarkably, she calms down, and everyone discusses the matter in a reasonable and cool-headed manner. "We all want reform, the question is how do we do it," Franken said. A mixed bag of opponents and supporters gathered around as the senator explained his perspective, how he will vote, and how he believes the legislation will benefit the people of Minnesota and the nation.

Watch:

U.S. Medicare may pay for HIV testing

2009-09-10T06:51:00.000-07:00

Americans enrolled in the Medicare health insurance program would be able to get screened for HIV under a draft government proposal to pay for the tests.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which oversees the program for the elderly and disabled, said on Wednesday there was enough evidence to show that such screening tests could help detect the infection sooner.

"CMS believes that there is now adequate evidence that voluntary HIV screening ... is reasonable and necessary for early detection of HIV and is appropriate for Medicare beneficiaries," the agency said.

An estimated 1.1 million Americans are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, that causes AIDS, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year an additional 56,000 are newly infected.

About 19 percent of U.S. residents with AIDS were 50 years old or older when they were diagnosed, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

"Knowing about their HIV status can help patients live longer, fuller lives as well as avoid unintentional transmission of the virus to others," Sebelius said.

The move could be a big boost to makers of such tests given Medicare's more than 45 million patients. While CMS said the tests should be available for those who are most at risk for the infection as well as pregnant women, the agency would not deny them to anyone who wanted to be checked.

Any Medicare patient who requests the test should be able to get it even if they are not considered at-risk "since this group is likely to include individuals not willing to disclose high-risk behaviors," CMS said.

Such risk factors include having unprotected sex with multiple partners or using injectable drugs, among other behaviors, the agency said, citing widely recognized guidelines.

Shares of HIV test maker OraSure Technologies Inc closed up nearly 6 percent on the Nasdaq after the proposal was released while Biorad Laboratories closed up nearly 4 percent on the New York Stock Exchange.

Other companies that make such screening products include Abbott Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson's Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics Inc.

HIV tests have been available in the United States since 1985, but it was not until earlier this year that CMS was allowed by law to consider covering more preventive medical services.

CMS will take public comment on the decision for 30 days before making its final ruling, which is expected by December 8. It posted the draft decision on its website at https://www.cms.hhs.gov/mcd/viewdraftdecisionmemo.asp?id=229

10 famous people with Cancer

2009-09-09T04:03:00.001-07:00

Most of us know someone who has or had cancer -- a relative, a friend, a neighbour. Some of us know people who have or had cancer and we don't even know it. And then there are people we don't know but who we know of, people whose stories we know even though we've never met them. This blog lists 10 famous people who've battled cancer and I'll admit that some of these I didn't know. Here they are:

Bob Marley: The iconic musician died as a result of melanoma
Kylie Minogue: This starlet was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago but it's in remission now.
Delta Goodrem: This Aussie popstar was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease when she was 18 and is since in remission

Ronald Regan: Was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1985 and skin cancer in 1987 - both were surgically removed
Walt Disney: Died of lung cancer in 1966
Steve Jobs: the co-founder of Apple was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is now in remission.
Nelson Mandela: The former South African leader was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001 and is in remission
Lance Armstrong: Was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996 and given a 2% chance at survival. This was before he won the Tour de France.
Isaac Asimov: The science fiction writer was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1972.
Sigmund Freud: was diagnosed with mouth cancer in the 1930s (too many cigars?) and subsequently underwent over 30 operations to remove the tumors in his jaw. His friend euthanized him at his request in 1939.

Obviously this isn't a comprehensive list of famous people who've had cancer. In fact, it doesn't really even scratch the surface. But it's a start. Which ones surprised you?

Want to lose weight like the biggest losers?

2009-09-09T03:53:00.000-07:00

For some people, the show the biggest loser is a life line. They’ll sit around and watch the biggest loser and wonder how those people can lose all that weight. Others make excuses like "Well, if I could sit around and not work and just work out all day, then I coiuld be like the biggest losers". The honest truth is that these people will make any excuse not to lose weight. The truth is anyone who has some will power can lose weight like the people on The Biggest Loser. So stop your whining, get up off your fat but and go to work. Eat smaller portions more often of wholesome food. That’s the real secret to losing weight.

100 Weight Loss Tips

2009-09-09T03:49:00.000-07:00

Just came across this fantastic article on yahoo where they asked a variety of diet related questions to some of the top dietitians in North America.

Below is what they told them in simple to follow tips, they’ve learned from successful experience with thousands of clients. Some tips are new. Some you’ve heard before, but they’re repeated because they work.

I Can Only Handle One Diet Change Right Now. What Should I Do?

1. Add just one fruit or veggie serving daily. Get comfortable with that, then add an extra serving until you reach 8 to 10 a day.

2. Eat at least two servings of a fruit or veggie at every meal.

3. Resolve never to supersize your food portions—unless you want to supersize your clothes.

4. Make eating purposeful, not mindless. Whenever you put food in your mouth, peel it, unwrap it, plate it, and sit. Engage all of the senses in the pleasure of nourishing your body.

5. Start eating a big breakfast. It helps you eat fewer total calories throughout the day.

6. Make sure your plate is half veggies and/or fruit at both lunch and dinner.

Are there Any Easy Tricks to Help Me Cut Calories?

7. Eating out? Halve it, and bag the rest. A typical restaurant entree has 1,000 to 2,000 calories, not even counting the bread, appetizer, beverage, and dessert.

8. When dining out, make it automatic: Order one dessert to share.

9. Use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate.

10. See what you eat. Plate your food instead of eating out of the jar or bag.

11. Eat the low-cal items on your plate first, then graduate. Start with salads, veggies, and broth soups, and eat meats and starches last. By the time you get to them, you’ll be full enough to be content with smaller portions of the high-calorie choices.

12. Instead of whole milk, switch to 1 percent. If you drink one 8-oz glass a day, you’ll lose 5 lb in a year.

13. Juice has as many calories, ounce for ounce, as soda. Set a limit of one 8-oz glass of fruit juice a day.

14. Get calories from foods you chew, not beverages. Have fresh fruit instead of fruit juice.

15. Keep a food journal. It really works wonders.

16. Follow the Chinese saying: “Eat until you are eight-tenths full.”

17. Use mustard instead of mayo.

18. Eat more soup. The noncreamy ones are filling but low-cal.

19. Cut back on or cut out caloric drinks such as soda, sweet tea, lemonade, etc. People have lost weight by making just this one change. If you have a 20-oz bottle of Coca-Cola every day, switch to Diet Coke. You should lose 25 lb in a year.

20. Take your lunch to work.

21. Sit when you eat.

22. Dilute juice with water.

23. Have mostly veggies for lunch.

24. Eat at home.

25. Limit alcohol to weekends.

How Can I Eat More Veggies?

26. Have a V8 or tomato juice instead of a Diet Coke at 3 pm.

27. Doctor your veggies to make them delicious: Dribble maple syrup over carrots, and sprinkle chopped nuts on green beans.

28. Mix three different cans of beans and some diet Italian dressing. Eat this three-bean salad all week.

29. Don’t forget that vegetable soup counts as a vegetable.

30. Rediscover the sweet potato.

31. Use prebagged baby spinach everywhere: as “lettuce” in sandwiches, heated in soups, wilted in hot pasta, and added to salads.

32. Spend the extra few dollars to buy vegetables that are already washed and cut up.

33. Really hate veggies? Relax. If you love fruits, eat plenty of them; they are just as healthy (especially colorful ones such as oranges, mangoes, and melons).

34. Keep seven bags of your favorite frozen vegetables on hand. Mix any combination, microwave, and top with your favorite low-fat dressing. Enjoy 3 to 4 cups a day. Makes a great quick dinner.

Can You Give Me a Mantra that will Help Me Stick to My Diet?

35. “The best portion of high-calorie foods is the smallest one. The best portion of vegetables is the largest one. Period.”

36. “I’ll ride the wave. My cravings will disappear after 10 minutes if I turn my attention elsewhere.”

37. “I want to be around to see my grandchildren, so I can forgo a cookie now.”

38. “I am a work in progress.”

39. “It’s more stressful to continue being fat than to stop overeating.”

I Eat Healthy, but I’m Overweight. What Mistakes Could I Be Making without Realizing It?

40. Skipping meals. Many healthy eaters “diet by day and binge by night.”

41. Don’t “graze” yourself fat. You can easily munch 600 calories of pretzels or cereal without realizing it.

42. Eating pasta like crazy. A serving of pasta is 1 cup, but some people routinely eat 4 cups.43. Eating supersize bagels of 400 to 500 calories for snacks.

44. Ignoring “Serving Size” on the Nutrition Facts panel.

45. Snacking on bowls of nuts. Nuts are healthy but dense with calories. Put those bowls away, and use nuts as a garnish instead of a snack.

46. Thinking all energy bars and fruit smoothies are low-cal.

What Can I Eat for a Healthy Low-Cal Dinner if I Don’t Want to Cook?

47. A smoothie made with fat-free milk, frozen fruit, and wheat germ.

48. The smallest fast-food burger (with mustard and ketchup, not mayo) and a no-cal beverage. Then at home, have an apple or baby carrots.

49. A peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat bread with a glass of 1 percent milk and an apple.

50. Precooked chicken strips and microwaved frozen broccoli topped with Parmesan cheese.

51. A healthy frozen entree with a salad and a glass of 1 percent milk.

52. Scramble eggs in a nonstick skillet. Pop some asparagus in the microwave, and add whole wheat toast. If your cholesterol levels are normal, you can have seven eggs a week!

53. A bag of frozen vegetables heated in the microwave, topped with 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese and 2 tablespoons of chopped nuts.

54. Prebagged salad topped with canned tuna, grape tomatoes, shredded reduced-fat cheese, and low-cal Italian dressing.

55. Keep lean sandwich fixings on hand: whole wheat bread, sliced turkey, reduced-fat cheese, tomatoes, mustard with horseradish.

56. Heat up a can of good soup.

57. Cereal, fruit, and fat-free milk makes a good meal anytime.

58. Try a veggie sandwich from Subway.

59. Precut fruit for a salad and add yogurt.

What’s Your Best Advice for Avoiding those Extra Holiday Pounds?

60. Don’t tell yourself, “It’s okay, it’s the holidays.” That opens the door to 6 weeks of splurging.

61. Remember, EAT before you meet. Have this small meal before you go to any parties: a hardboiled Egg, Apple, and a Thirst quencher (water, seltzer, diet soda, tea).

62. As obvious as it sounds, don’t stand near the food at parties. Make the effort, and you’ll find you eat less.

63. At a buffet? Eating a little of everything guarantees high calories. Decide on three or four things, only one of which is high in calories. Save that for last so there’s less chance of overeating.

64. For the duration of the holidays, wear your snuggest clothes that don’t allow much room for expansion. Wearing sweats is out until January.

65. Give it away! After company leaves, give away leftover food to neighbors, doormen, or delivery people, or take it to work the next day.

66. Walk around the mall three times before you start shopping.

67. Make exercise a nonnegotiable priority.

68. Dance to music with your family in your home. One dietitian reported that when she asks her patients to do this, initially they just smile, but once they’ve done it, they say it is one of the easiest ways to involve the whole family in exercise.

How Can I Control a Raging Sweet Tooth?

69. Once in a while, have a lean, mean salad for lunch or dinner, and save the meal’s calories for a full dessert.

70. Are you the kind of person who does better if you make up your mind to do without sweets and just not have them around? Or are you going to do better if you have a limited amount of sweets every day? One RD reported that most of her clients pick the latter and find they can avoid bingeing after a few days.

71. If your family thinks they need a very sweet treat every night, try to strike a balance between offering healthy choices but allowing them some “free will.” Compromise with low-fat ice cream and fruit, or sometimes just fruit with a dollop of whipped cream.

72. Try 2 weeks without sweets. It’s amazing how your cravings vanish.

73. Eat more fruit. A person who gets enough fruit in his diet doesn’t have a raging sweet tooth.

74. Eat your sweets, just eat them smart! Carve out about 150 calories per day for your favorite sweet. That amounts to about an ounce of chocolate, half a modest slice of cake, or 1/2 cup of regular ice cream.

75. Try these smart little sweets: sugar-free hot cocoa, frozen red grapes, fudgsicles, sugar-free gum, Nutri-Grain chocolate fudge twists, Tootsie Rolls, and hard candy.

How Can I Conquer My Downfall: Bingeing at Night?

76. Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The large majority of people who struggle with night eating are those who skip meals or don’t eat balanced meals during the day. This is a major setup for overeating at night.

77. Eat your evening meal in the kitchen or dining room, sitting down at the table.

78. Drink cold unsweetened raspberry tea. It tastes great and keeps your mouth busy.

79. Change your nighttime schedule. It will take effort, but it will pay off. You need something that will occupy your mind and hands.

80. If you’re eating at night due to emotions, you need to focus on getting in touch with what’s going on and taking care of yourself in a way that really works. Find a nonfood method of coping with your stress.

81. Put a sign on the kitchen and refrigerator doors: “Closed after Dinner.”

82. Brush your teeth right after dinner to remind you: No more food.

83. Eat without engaging in any other simultaneous activity. No reading, watching TV, or sitting at the computer.

84. Eating late at night won’t itself cause weight gain. It’s how many calories—not when you eat them—that counts.

How Can I Reap Added Health Benefits from My Dieting?

85. Fat-free isn’t always your best bet. Research has found that none of the lycopene or alpha- or beta-carotene that fight cancer and heart disease is absorbed from salads with fat-free dressing. Only slightly more is absorbed with reduced-fat dressing; the most is absorbed with full-fat dressing. But remember, use your dressing in moderate amounts.

86. Skipping breakfast will leave you tired and craving naughty foods by midmorning. To fill up healthfully and tastefully, try this sweet, fruity breakfast full of antioxidants. In a blender, process 1 c nonfat plain or vanilla yogurt, 1 1/3 c frozen strawberries (no added sugar), 1 peeled kiwi, and 1 peeled banana. Pulse until mixture is milkshake consistency. Makes one 2-cup serving; 348 calories and 1.5 fat grams.

87. If you’re famished by 4 p.m. and have no alternative but an office vending machine, reach for the nuts—. The same goes if your only choices are what’s available in the hotel minibar.

88. Next time you’re feeling wiped out in late afternoon, forgo that cup of coffee and reach for a cup of yogurt instead. The combination of protein, carbohydrate, and fat in an 8-ounce serving of low-fat yogurt will give you a sense of fullness and well-being that coffee can’t match, as well as some vital nutrients. If you haven’t eaten in 3 to 4 hours, your blood glucose levels are probably dropping, so eating a small amount of nutrient-rich food will give your brain and your body a boost.

89. Making just a few changes to your pantry shelves can get you a lot closer to your weight loss goals. Here’s what to do: If you use corn and peanut oil, replace it with olive oil. Same goes for breads—go for whole wheat. Trade in those fatty cold cuts like salami and bologna and replace them canned tuna, sliced turkey breast, and lean roast beef. Change from drinking whole milk to fat-free milk or low-fat soy milk. This is hard for a lot of people so try transitioning down to 2 percent and then 1 percent before you go fat-free.

90. Nothing’s less appetizing than a crisper drawer full of mushy vegetables. Frozen vegetables store much better, plus they may have greater nutritional value than fresh. Food suppliers typically freeze veggies just a few hours after harvest, locking in the nutrients. Fresh veggies, on the other hand, often spend days in the back of a truck before they reach your supermarket.

91. Worried about the trans-fat content in your peanut butter? Good news: In a test done on Skippy, JIF, Peter Pan, and a supermarket brand, the levels of trans fats per 2-tablespoon serving were far lower than 0.5 gram—low enough that under proposed laws, the brands can legally claim zero trans fats on the label. They also contained only 1 gram more sugar than natural brands—not a significant difference.

Eating Less Isn’t Enough—What Exercising Tips Will Help Me Shed Pounds?

92. Overeating is not the result of exercise. Vigorous exercise won’t stimulate you to overeat. It’s just the opposite. Exercise at any level helps curb your appetite immediately following the workout.

93. When you’re exercising, you shouldn’t wait for thirst to strike before you take a drink. By the time you feel thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. Try this: Drink at least 16 ounces of water, sports drinks, or juices two hours before you exercise. Then drink 8 ounces an hour before and another 4 to 8 ounces every 15 to 20 minutes during your workout. Finish with at least 16 ounces after you’re done exercising.

94. Tune in to an audio book while you walk. It’ll keep you going longer and looking forward to the next walk—and the next chapter! Check your local library for a great selection. Look for a whodunit; you might walk so far you’ll need to take a cab home!

95. Think yoga’s too serene to burn calories? Think again. You can burn 250 to 350 calories during an hour-long class (that’s as much as you’d burn from an hour of walking)! Plus, you’ll improve muscle strength, flexibility, and endurance.

96. Drinking too few can hamper your weight loss efforts. That’s because dehydration can slow your metabolism by 3 percent, or about 45 fewer calories burned a day, which in a year could mean weighing 5 pounds more. The key to water isn’t how much you drink, it’s how frequently you drink it. Small amounts sipped often work better than 8 ounces gulped down at once.

How Can I Manage My Emotional Eating and Get the Support I Need?

97. A registered dietitian (RD) can help you find healthy ways to manage your weight with food. To find one in your area who consults with private clients check out the ads at the top of the page, ask your friends or consult your yellow pages

98. The best place to drop pounds may be your own house of worship. Researchers set up healthy eating and exercise programs in 16 Baltimore churches. More than 500 women participated and after a year the most successful lost an average of 20 lb. Weight loss programs based on faith are so successful because there’s a built-in community component that people can feel comfortable with.

99. Here’s another reason to keep level-headed all the time: Pennsylvania State University research has found that women less able to cope with stress—shown by blood pressure and heart rate elevations—ate twice as many fatty snacks as stress-resistant women did, even after the stress stopped (in this case, 25 minutes of periodic jackhammer-level noise and an unsolvable maze).

100. Sitting at a computer may help you slim down. When researchers at Brown University School of Medicine put 92 people on online weight loss programs for a year, those who received weekly e-mail counseling shed 5 1/2 more pounds than those who got none. Counselors provided weekly feedback on diet and exercise logs, answered questions, and cheered them on. Most major online diet programs offer many of these features.

Woman's extreme Red Bull diet

2009-09-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

EXTREME: Auckland woman Brooke Robertson says she shrank from 105kg to 60kg drinking nothing but 10 to 14 cans of Red Bull a day.

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A 23-year-old Auckland mother who lost 45kg in eight months by drinking nothing but energy drink Red Bull says she has ongoing health problems because of the diet.

Brooke Robertson told the Herald on Sunday she shrank from 105kg to 60kg drinking nothing but 10 to 14 cans a day, often accompanying them with nothing more than a handful of dry Honey Puffs.

Ms Robertson said she put on weight while carrying son Keir, now four, but did not make a conscious decision to go on a Red Bull diet.

"I just started drinking it. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating – I was exhausted," she said.

"I just continued to drink it because it's an appetite suppressant and I noticed I was losing weight so stuck with it."

Ms Robertson said she managed to keep her addiction secret from family and friends, and did not recover from it until after a two-week stay in hospital following a minor heart attack.

"I managed to wean myself off it by being in hospital for that long but I had severe withdrawals – sweating, nausea, shaking. It was an addiction. The doctors stated that."

Ms Robertson now maintains her figure through exercise and a Weight Watchers diet, but said she still suffers the effects of the extreme diet.

She said she has a heart murmur, gets severe pain and cramping in her stomach and bowel, and suffers anxiety attacks.

A Red Bull spokesman said there was "scientific evidence that caffeine is not addictive".

The drink was available in 148 countries "because health authorities across the world have concluded that Red Bull is safe to consume", he said.

The drink is banned in Norway, Denmark and Uruguay because of health fears.

Benefits of Acai Berry Juice

2009-09-09T03:41:00.001-07:00

For over thirty years, physicians have been praising the benefits of antioxidant-rich super fruits, especially red grapes and blueberries because of the high levels of antioxidants found in them. Acai berries have over 30 times more antioxidants than blueberries or red grapes! One would have to agree that acai berries are the single-most antioxidant-rich food on earth.

Acai antioxidants are the best antioxidant you can find since the acai berry is the most potently nutritious fruit on earth. In fact, acai berries are often referred to as nature's super food because of the amazing number of antioxidants they contain.

The acai fruit is full of beneficial nutrients, the concentration of the nutrients is more than other foods that contain these same nutrients. For example, the acai berry is loaded with protein, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Of all these nutrients found in acai berries, it is the antioxidants that make them especially super claiming the title of being the number one super food in the world. Let's take a look at the acai anti-oxidants.

Antioxidants are what our bodies need to fight free radicals. Free radicals are the reason that contributes to the growth of many cancer cells. Therefore, we are encouraged to eat as many antioxidant-rich foods as possible as antioxidants are used to help maintain our good health.

As antioxidants fight disease, they are also very good for the immune system. Acai antioxidants are known to strengthen the immune system helping you to better avoid all kinds of diseases from the basic common cold to diseases that are much more harmful.

Acai is the single-most antioxidant potent food on earth. Other antioxidant-rich foods include tomato, carrot and blueberry juices at the top of the list. Acai antioxidants are so powerful that you can increase the antioxidants in your body and at the same time, boost other areas of your health.

Buy organic acai berry juice and enjoy its benefits. With all these claims how do you know your getting the best acai berry juice available? Many brands are diluted with other juices know as blends and mixes or they are added with water, sugar and other filler ingredients.

100% pure organic acai berry juice products is what you want you want to purchase. There is a global shortage of this berry and and it needs to be processed at the source. You should always make sure you are getting 100% pure acai berry products.

You can add acai to your own favorite juices and make your own mixes and blends. It blends well with yogurt and smoothies. It makes a refreshing drink with grape or blueberry juice. You can also make a famous Acai Bowl and add bananas to it.

The berry grows on the acai palm and looks much like small purple grapes or blueberries. The local natives of Brazil and surrounding region have enjoyed and benefited from acai as part of their diet for hundreds of years. Even the local population makes it into acai bowls, alcohol beverages and recipes.

What makes acai amazing is its health properties. Acai is loaded with essential fatty acids also known as omega oils and fiber. The oils is what makes it very perishable and the acai berries need to be processed soon after they are harvested. The acai berries are processed into puree juice.

What you want is 100% pure organic acai not something mixed with water. Why shopping for capsules and powders look for ones that are 100% pure and contains no fillers or binders.

If you are not sure and it is not listed 100% pure call the company. They should be able to guarantee to potency of the Acai juice. If the price is too cheap, be suspicious. PUre acai juice is expensive.

One hundred percent pure organic acai juice products should be labeled as such. Some even will be labeled as organic. You can often find a certificate of organic certification on a company's website.

Twin Health Marathon Juicer

2009-09-09T03:36:00.000-07:00

There are many juicers available on the market today and it can be very hard to distinguish between them and make a decision on which of the juicers will perform the best for you. There are so many variables that need to be taken into account when looking for a juicer, whether it’s for home use or commercial use. Your needs will determine what your juice regularly and this will affect the juicer that you buy. However, one of the biggest and most important factors is the quality and expected lifespan of the juicer since the better the quality of the juicer that you buy and use, the better the quality of juice that you will get from it.

The quality of a juicer will affect every aspect of the juicing process and the juice that is produced. The Twin health marathon juicer is among the highest quality juicers produced and the price that is it available for is far below the cost of juicers that are of comparable quality. The high quality of these juicers will ensure that you can look forward to using one of these juicers for a long time without having to worry about a diminishment of juice quality or any increase in the amount of maintenance required for keeping it running properly.

The use of juicers has become far more widespread as people become more health conscious. This has lead to a wave of demand for good quality juicers and from this the Twin health marathon juicer has emerged as a very popular choice due to its all-round quality and wide range of abilities. The materials used in the construction of this juicer are of good quality to ensure that the product you receive can meet and possibly exceed your expectations. The physical design of the juicer is a result of a lot of research and very hard work to ensure that you receive a product that provides you with the greatest quantity of functional abilities in addition to being attractive enough to fit comfortably into any kitchen setting.

The juicer uses a twin gear system to crush produce to produce juice that is rich, flavorful and very nutritious. The twin gear means that the juice is squeezed from the produce as opposed to being chopped up. The revolutions of the gears are slow when compared with centrifugal juicers or blenders so no heat is built up in the juicer which can decrease the taste and nutritional value of the juice as well as preventing a build up of foam in juice. The slow revolutions of the gears also ensure that the level of noise that emanates from the juicer is absolutely minimal. The pulp that emanates from the juicer is also as dry as possible due to the great pressure that was exerted on it during the juicing process

The design of the juicer also incorporates a very wide range of safety features so that you can have piece of mind while juicing the fruits and vegetables that appeal to your taste. These include small extrusions that prevent the solid, stainless steel gears from ever coming into contact. The design also incorporates a range of screens that ensure a range of functionality that is almost unmatched by any other juicer. The range of screens means that you can juice anything from wheatgrass to soft fruits with equal efficiency

FAT LOSS 4 IDIOTS - Honest Review If You Really Want To Lose FAT!

2009-09-09T03:25:00.000-07:00

With a claim of 9 pounds of weight loss every 11 days, many are quick to label Fat Loss 4 Idiots as a scam. However, it continues to be the best selling weight loss guide on the internet. Fat Loss 4 Idiots focuses on smart eating habits for rapid weight loss. Unlike The Truth About Six Pack Abs, which has emphasis on stomach fat, Fat Loss 4 Idiots is highly recommended for those who want to trim their overall body weight While the name will catch some people off guard, Fat Loss 4 Idiots is truly idiot proof. The program lays out a simple plan to help people to lose weight quickly without using a lot of technical jargon. Fat Loss 4 Idiots is the perfect weight loss plan for people who are on the go. There is no need to spend time reading lengthy ebooks or watching countless DVD's. Instead, the program is perfectly customizab;e and workable into your life! This program is great for people who want rapid weight loss and do not have time to learn new weight loss methods or spend extra time exercising. If this is your goal, then Fat Loss 4 Idiots is highly recommended. For a whole lot more information

Get Fat Loss 4 Idiots Here

Prostate cancer cells may contain virus

2009-09-09T03:21:00.000-07:00

U.S. researchers found the XMRV retrovirus more than four times more in prostate cancers than in benign prostate tissue.

Researchers at the University of Utah and Columbia University found XMRV present in 27 percent of malignant cells and 6 percent of benign cells when more than 200 human prostate cancers and more than 100 non-cancerous prostate tissues were examined.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, confirmed XMRV is a gammaretrovirus -- a simple retrovirus first isolated from prostate cancers in 2006 by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the Cleveland Clinic.

Gammaretroviruses are known to cause cancer in animals, but have not been shown to do so in humans, the researchers said.

study leader Dr. Ila R. Singh of the University of Utah said in a statement.

Virus might be one cause of prostate cancer: study

2009-09-09T03:20:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A virus known to cause leukemia and tumors in animals can be found in some prostate tumors and might be one cause of prostate cancer, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

They found xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus or XMRV in 27 percent of the human prostate tumors they looked at, especially aggressive tumors.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may offer ways to better identify dangerous prostate tumors and to make drugs or vaccines to treat or even prevent prostate cancer.

"Our analysis of 233 cases of prostate cancers and 101 benign controls showed an association of XMRV infection with prostate cancer, especially with more aggressive tumors," Dr. Ila Singh of the University of Utah and Columbia University in New York and colleagues wrote.

Viruses have recently been found to cause some cancers -- notably the human papillomavirus or HPV that causes cervical cancer and some cases of penile, anal and head and neck cancers.

Merck and Co. and GlaxoSmithKline now make vaccines to prevent HPV infections.

The market for a vaccine to prevent prostate cancer or for better drugs to treat it could be enormous. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide after lung cancer, killing 254,000 men a year globally.

"The lifetime risk for developing prostate cancer is one in 6 in the United States, and globally, 3 percent of men die of prostate cancer," Singh's team wrote.

The researchers were scanning for genetic material from any viruses in prostate tumors.

"We found that XMRV was present in 27 percent of prostate cancers we examined and that it was associated with more aggressive tumors," Singh said in a statement.

"We still don't know that this virus causes cancer in people, but that is an important question we're going to investigate."

XMRV is a retrovirus, a kind of virus that inserts its genetic map into the cells it infects.

This act alone can kill a cell or turn it cancerous by affecting its genes. Singh said she was looking to see if this might be going on with XMRV.

"Is the virus associated with cancers in tissues other than the prostate or in gynecologic malignancies? How is XMRV transmitted? These are all intriguing questions that deserve further exploration," the researchers wrote in their report.

The report is available online at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0906922106.

Just last month, U.S. researches estimated that 1 million U.S. men had been diagnosed and treated for tumors that would never have harmed them.

"Many cases of prostate cancer are unlikely to manifest themselves during the patient's lifetime. There is a clear need for better markers to detect cancers that pose a significant health threat and to specifically target these for therapy," Singh's team wrote.

Stop Hair Loss By Hair Loss Vitamins

2009-09-09T03:13:00.000-07:00

Hair Loss Vitamin , Healthy hair requires plenty of nutrient-rich blood to the scalp, so that hair follicles can produce enough strong hair sprouts. Everyone loses hair, up to about a hundred strands a day, but hair loss can be increased if your hair becomes dry or brittle or stops growing back. Dandruff can also be a problem if you have excessive flaking of the scalp.

Some vitamins and supplements may help your hair be stronger and healthier by nourishing your scalp and hair roots. The primary supplements you should think about including are those with essential fatty acids (EFAs). For instance, Flaxseed oil can help if your hair tends to be dry or lifeless, and can cut down on dandruff us well.

Evening Primrose Oil will help moisturise your hair and scalp. Zinc can also promote healthy hair and slow hair loss. Zinc should always be taken with Copper to balance body systems, and Copper itself can help maintain the melanin or pigment in hair, potentially slowing greying of your hair.

Biotin and the Vitamin B complex can help strengthen your hair, condition your scalp and prevent excessive hair loss. If you have been losing hair because of a biotin deficiency, then taking some biotin may actually help reverse some hair loss.

Selenium is thought to foster healthy hair growth, and PABA (para-aminobenzoic acid) may protect hair follicles and prevent some hair loss.

A really good multivitamin may include all the above vitamins and minerals, so check the side of the bottle if you are currently taking supplements, or about to purchase a multivitamin at a supermarket of health-food store.

Eating sensibly can also help, as can a regular scalp massage once a week. Scalp massage, especially if you use a little warmed Evening Primrose Oil will stimulate blood flow and help relieve stress which can itself contribute to hair loss.

A Scam Or Can Phentermine Help You Lose Weight?

2009-09-09T03:10:00.001-07:00

Overview, Phentermine resin received FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval in 1959 as a prescription appetite suppressant for the short term treatment of obesity. Phentermine Hydrochloride became widely available in United States in the 1970’s. It is approved as an appetite suppressant to help diminish weight in obese patients when used short-term and combined with exercise, diet, and behavioral modification. It is typically approved for individuals who are at increased medical risk because of their weight and works by helping to release certain chemicals in the brain that control appetite.

The Easy and Effortless Way to Lose Weight- Diet Pills

2009-09-09T03:06:00.000-07:00

Nowadays everyone is getting concerned about their health. And there are many people suffering from obesity and overweight. Losing weight is a tough job so take proper nutrition and workout daily, in addition to this start taking diet pills that will enhance the time at which you loose weight. Usually you should prefer natural pills but many pills are synthetic hence consuming them in a limited quantity can give effective results.

India patent rejections welcomed by HIV/AIDS groups

2009-09-09T03:02:00.001-07:00

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's rejection of patent applications on two life-saving HIV/AIDS drugs last week has been welcomed by health officials, who say it will ensure wider access to the medicines.

India has the world's third highest caseload, with 2.5 million infections, behind Nigeria and South Africa.

India's Patent Office rejected applications for leading antiretroviral drug tenofovir, manufactured by U.S. biotechnology group Gilead, and darunavir, which is made by Ireland's Tibotec Pharmaceuticals, officials said.

"This is a welcome decision and we have always been supporting AIDS drugs should not be patented, because if they are patented it will reduce their access to common people," said B.B. Rewari, a senior official at India's National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), the main government agency battling the deadly disease.

A patented tenofovir drug would have cost 3,000 rupees ($62) each, but a generic would be cost around 570 rupees, he said.

"It is a welcome decision for Indian patients and for other developing countries who are battling the disease," said Rewari, who heads the country's anti-HIV/AIDS national program.

A spokeswoman for Tibotec Pharmaceuticals said the company was reviewing the decision and was not making any comment immediately.

AIDS workers say both companies could challenge the decision by filing a second patent application. The decision could also affect some Indian companies who have a fixed price for HIV/AIDS drugs, targeted toward rich clients.

"At the end of the day, the decision is good for the people who need these generic drugs for a lower price," Christy Abraham, the ASIA coordinator for Action Aid said.

(Editing by John Mair and Alex Richardson)

India patent rejections welcomed by HIV/AIDS groups

2009-09-09T03:02:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's rejection of patent applications on two life-saving HIV/AIDS drugs last week has been welcomed by health officials, who say it will ensure wider access to the medicines.

India has the world's third highest caseload, with 2.5 million infections, behind Nigeria and South Africa.

A patented tenofovir drug would have cost 3,000 rupees ($62) each, but a generic would be cost around 570 rupees, he said.

"It is a welcome decision for Indian patients and for other developing countries who are battling the disease," said Rewari, who heads the country's anti-HIV/AIDS national program.

A spokeswoman for Tibotec Pharmaceuticals said the company was reviewing the decision and was not making any comment immediately.

"At the end of the day, the decision is good for the people who need these generic drugs for a lower price," Christy Abraham, the ASIA coordinator for Action Aid said.

(Editing by John Mair and Alex Richardson)

No talking in lifts, Taiwan advises

2009-09-09T02:59:00.000-07:00

Taiwanese health authorities are urging people to avoid talking in lifts as part of efforts to tackle swine flu.

"Please observe lift etiquette," the Center for Disease Control said in a statement posted on its website late Tuesday.

"Avoid talking while using lifts, and when sneezing cover your mouth and nose with a handkerchief or your sleeve."

Meanwhile, a Taiwanese biotech company has said it will start clinical trials of a swine flu vaccine in two weeks.

Adimmune Corp, Taiwan's only human vaccine manufacturer, expects to be able to provide its vaccine to the general public by the middle of November if the human tests proceed without glitches, the Taipei-based China Times said.

Adimmune said last month it had started mass production of its swine flu vaccine, triggering criticism for going ahead without awaiting the results of the clinical trials.

However, medical professionals have defended the decision, citing the urgent need for a vaccine.

Health workers under pressure to get flu shots

2009-09-09T02:51:00.000-07:00

ALBANY, N.Y. – Tens of thousands of health care workers who typically avoid flu shots are under more pressure than ever to get vaccinated as hospitals and clinics prepare for a spike in swine flu cases this fall and winter.

Roughly half of health workers skip the immunizations, raising two concerns: If doctors and nurses get sick, who will treat what could be millions of Americans reeling from seasonal or swine flu? And could infected health workers make things worse by spreading flu to patients?

New York, the first state to be hard-hit by swine flu, is requiring all health workers to get immunized against both types of flu. Other states are weighing whether to follow suit.

But shots for all health workers may not be an easy sell.

Fewer than half of them got flu vaccinations last year, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of about 1,000 workers. That includes physicians in clinics, lab technicians, respiratory therapists and home health aides. Rates are highest among doctors and nurses in hospitals — 70 to 80 percent, but the overall rate shows many still shun the shots.

Why? The reasons vary from safety concerns to skepticism over vaccine effectiveness.

Sandra Morales, a labor and delivery nurse in New York City, had her last flu shot 16 years ago. She says she got the flu anyway.

She objects to New York's new law, saying it infringes on free-choice rights. "It's crossing the line, and I'm opposed to that."

Hospital workers "are at risk for being exposed to many, many diseases," she said. "Imagine if we had to take a vaccine for everything that comes in the door."

Morales worries she might lose her job if she refuses — it will be up to individual clinics and health centers to decide how to enforce the law. She has until Nov. 30 to get her shots. Both the seasonal flu vaccine (available this month) and swine flu vaccine (expected in October) are required for workers in hospitals, treatment centers and in home care.

That may mean three separate shots, if the swine flu vaccine requires two doses to be effective. Testing in the U.S. is still under way to determine the dose.

The uncertainty about the new swine flu vaccine has added to the challenge.

"If health care workers have concerns about the safety and efficacy of a vaccine that has been around for decades, I'm sure they're going to have those same concerns about a vaccine that we've never used before," said Dr. Gregory Poland, a Mayo Clinic vaccine specialist.

He says health workers are ethically obligated to get vaccinated for both kinds of flu. He supports requiring them. New York, which had the first big surge of swine flu cases in the spring, is the only state doing that, although some states are considering the issue.

The theory that health care workers could spread the infection is supported by only isolated evidence, but the fear persists.

Some large hospitals have adopted rules requiring employees to get flu shots. Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago and Charleston Area Medical Center in West Virginia recently joined a handful of hospitals that have made seasonal flu shots mandatory for all workers. Some also plan to include swine flu. Several infectious disease groups support required flu vaccination for health workers.

Federal health officials say health care workers are among the priority groups for flu shots, but the government is not ordering anyone to get shots.

In New York, Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines notes that health employees are already required to get other vaccinations, including rubella and measles shots.

Under the new flu shot law, workers can opt out only for certain health reasons, including an allergy to flu shots.

Bill Van Slyke of the Healthcare Association of New York state, which represents hospitals, said hospitals have concerns about what action they can legally take if staffers refuse vaccinations.

"We don't expect that to happen to any significant degree — we think most recognize the value of doing this, but there are one or two challenging scenarios out there," he said.

Dr. Brian Currie, an infectious disease specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, supports the law but said including swine flu vaccinations could be a headache.

"It means twice as much time, tracking people to make sure they get a timely second vaccination" if required. "It's a lot more work," Currie said. "We'll do our best."

Though infectious disease specialists say they have seen no serious complications during the swine flu vaccine testing that began last month, some critics say it is being fast-tracked without adequate safety tests. Some also fear a repeat of a rare paralysis called Guillain-Barre syndrome that occurred during a 1976 swine flu vaccination effort, though there is no evidence the vaccine caused that condition.

Dr. William Schaffner has had two swine flu shots during testing at Vanderbilt University, with no ill effects. The current flu virus is molecularly different from the one circulating in 1976, so Schaffner, who has consulted for the swine flu vaccine makers, said similar problems are unlikely.

Deborah Burger, a president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, said safety concerns persist. That union, with 86,000 members in 50 states, is weighing whether to support required flu shots for nurses.

She said the union believes patients should be protected but also wants to protect nurses from any potential vaccine-related problems, saying, "It's a difficult tightrope to walk right now."

More than 550 U.S. deaths have been attributed to the new H1N1 swine flu. So far it does not appear to be more deadly than regular seasonal flu. Projections for the upcoming season vary. A worst-case scenario from a scientific panel advising the White House said up to half the population might get sick and up to 90,000 might die.

An estimated 36,000 Americans die from regular influenza each year.

At Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, the first U.S. hospital to require flu vaccination for staffers, employees who object must wear a face mask during flu season or possibly be fired. Only a handful of objectors have been fired, all in the first season, 2005-06, said hospital spokeswoman Alisha Mark.

Dr. Joyce Lammert, Virginia Mason's chief of medicine, said if testing shows the new vaccine is safe and effective, and if supplies are adequate, the hospital will make that mandatory, too.

"We feel that getting immunized is so important," Lammert said. "In some ways, I'm glad H1N1 is out there. It raises awareness of the seriousness of the disease."

___

Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner reported from Chicago.

___

On the Net:

CDC flu advice: http://www.cdc.gov/H1N1flu/qa.htm

Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care

2009-09-09T02:44:00.000-07:00

Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans "talk with one another, and not over one another" as our health-care debate moves forward.

I couldn't agree more. Let's engage the other side's arguments, and let's allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats' health-care proposals should become governing law.

Some 45 years ago Ronald Reagan said that "no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds." Each of us knows that we have an obligation to care for the old, the young and the sick. We stand strongest when we stand with the weakest among us.

We also know that our current health-care system too often burdens individuals and businesses—particularly small businesses—with crippling expenses. And we know that allowing government health-care spending to continue at current rates will only add to our ever-expanding deficit.

How can we ensure that those who need medical care receive it while also reducing health-care costs? The answers offered by Democrats in Washington all rest on one principle: that increased government involvement can solve the problem. I fundamentally disagree.

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Associated Press

Common sense tells us that the government's attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats' proposals "will provide more stability and security to every American."

With all due respect, Americans are used to this kind of sweeping promise from Washington. And we know from long experience that it's a promise Washington can't keep.

Let's talk about specifics. In his Times op-ed, the president argues that the Democrats' proposals "will finally bring skyrocketing health-care costs under control" by "cutting . . . waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies . . . ."

First, ask yourself whether the government that brought us such "waste and inefficiency" and "unwarranted subsidies" in the first place can be believed when it says that this time it will get things right. The nonpartistan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doesn't think so: Its director, Douglas Elmendorf, told the Senate Budget Committee in July that "in the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount."

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He's asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of "normal political channels," should guide decisions regarding that "huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . ."

Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through "normal political channels," they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats' proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we've come to expect from this administration.

Speaking of government overreaching, how will the Democrats' proposals affect the deficit? The CBO estimates that the current House proposal not only won't reduce the deficit but will actually increase it by $239 billion over 10 years. Only in Washington could a plan that adds hundreds of billions to the deficit be hailed as a cost-cutting measure.

The economic effects won't be limited to abstract deficit numbers; they'll reach the wallets of everyday Americans. Should the Democrats' proposals expand health-care coverage while failing to curb health-care inflation rates, smaller paychecks will result. A new study for Watson Wyatt Worldwide by Steven Nyce and Syl Schieber concludes that if the government expands health-care coverage while health-care inflation continues to rise "the higher costs would drive disposable wages downward across most of the earnings spectrum, although the declines would be steepest for lower-earning workers." Lower wages are the last thing Americans need in these difficult economic times.

Finally, President Obama argues in his op-ed that Democrats' proposals "will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable." Of course consumer protection sounds like a good idea. And it's true that insurance companies can be unaccountable and unresponsive institutions—much like the federal government. That similarity makes this shift in focus seem like nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention away from the details of the Democrats' proposals—proposals that will increase our deficit, decrease our paychecks, and increase the power of unaccountable government technocrats.

Instead of poll-driven "solutions," let's talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let's give Americans control over their own health care.

Democrats have never seriously considered such ideas, instead rushing through their own controversial proposals. After all, they don't need Republicans to sign on: Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency. But if passed, the Democrats' proposals will significantly alter a large sector of our economy. They will not improve our health care. They will not save us money. And, despite what the president says, they will not "provide more stability and security to every American."

We often hear such overblown promises from Washington. With first principles in mind and with the facts in hand, tell them that this time we're not buying it.

Ms. Palin, Sen. John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential election, was governor of Alaska from December 2006 to July 2009.

Preparing for a Stressful Flu Season

2009-09-08T05:39:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago, a mother I know called to ask about swine flu after her daughter complained of breathing trouble and other worrisome symptoms. Fortunately, my friend quickly reached her pediatrician, who reassured her about the child’s condition.

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Times Topics: Swine Flu (AH1N1 Virus)

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COVERING UP Medical masks at a swine flu conference in Washington last month.

But the conversation made me realize just how stressful this flu season is going to be for parents. Every sniffle and every cough is going to be scrutinized, awakening fears of the ominously named swine flu virus. How do you know when to relax? How do you know when to call the doctor?

Here are some answers to questions that will arise during what experts predict will be a very busy flu season:

How worried should we be?

When this new strain of H1N1 influenza emerged last spring, experts feared that it might follow the pattern of the 1918 flu, the world’s deadliest epidemic. That strain also showed up as a relatively mild spring virus but re-emerged in a more virulent form in the fall.

The new strain of H1N1 is not following that pattern. While it has accounted for about 90 percent of the flu virus circulating in the Southern Hemisphere, the strain is behaving a lot like seasonal flu, said Dr. Neil O. Fishman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania.

“There is a sigh of relief that the virus hasn’t mutated,” Dr. Fishman told me. “Fortunately, the swine flu that we’re seeing still is a moderate disease that is behaving very much like ordinary seasonal influenza.”

That said, Dr. Fishman noted that the virus was unpredictable and could still mutate. So people need to be vigilant about washing their hands, and if they develop symptoms they need to stay home.

And “ordinary” flu is not to be taken lightly. Each year in the United States, about 200,000 people are hospitalized with severe flu symptoms, and 36,000 die.

Are children at higher risk for swine flu?

A main difference between swine flu and seasonal flu is that people over 60 appear to have some immunity to swine flu, while younger people seem not to. And because children and young adults are more likely to gather in groups — at school and colleges — they are more vulnerable to catching all types of flu. So while the disease does not appear to be more severe than seasonal flu, a disproportionate number of young people will probably get it.

As with seasonal flu, some people will get very sick and some of them will die. Federal health officials report that at least 36 children in the United States have died of swine flu; most had nervous system disorders like cerebral palsy or developmental delays. Some, however, had been healthy; they died of bacterial infections that set in after the flu. Doctors speculate that children with nerve and muscle disorders can’t cough hard enough to clear the airways, putting them at higher risk for complications.

Each year seasonal flu kills 50 to 100 children, and it’s too soon to know whether swine flu will turn out to be more deadly. Up to 40 percent of children contract regular seasonal flu, said Dr. Nathan Litman, director of pediatric infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in New York City, who added, “We almost expect that as soon as school is open we’ll start seeing increased numbers.”

When will the swine flu vaccine be available? Will there be enough to go around?

The federal government has ordered 195 million doses of vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends it for health care workers, children and young adults ages 6 months to 24 years, pregnant women and people caring for an infant younger than 6 months.

While there will be enough vaccine to cover the recommended groups, the timing will vary. The vaccine is undergoing clinical trials, and the first 40 million doses or so should be available by Oct. 15. Thirty million more will be delivered by the end of October, and new batches each week after that.

The vaccine may require a second dose three weeks after the first, and it may take another two weeks for the body to build up full immunity, the C.D.C. says. That means those who receive flu shots in mid-October won’t be fully protected until late November.

How do I get a swine flu shot?

The government will distribute the vaccine through state health departments, which will send it to local health departments and doctors’ offices. Check with your family doctor to find out when it will be available.

What about the severe complications that followed the last swine flu shots, given in 1976?

In 1976, a swine flu vaccine was associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome (pronounced ghee-YAN bah-RAY), in which the body damages its own nerve cells, causing weakness and sometimes paralysis. The reasons are unclear; some studies found no link. Another study suggested that one person in every one million vaccinated for seasonal flu might be at risk for Guillain-Barré.

In 1976, however, techniques for rapidly making vaccine were much less sophisticated than they are now. And Dr. Fishman noted that existing flu vaccines contain components of the H1N1 virus, so “I do not consider this a new vaccine — the vaccine is being made the same way that every influenza vaccine is made.”

What are the symptoms of swine flu? When does it become an emergency?

In children, the warning signs include fast or troubled breathing, bluish or gray skin, and persistent or severe vomiting. If a child isn’t drinking enough fluids, is unusually hard to wake up, is not interacting or is so irritable that he or she doesn’t want to be held, you should call your doctor.

Adults with severe symptoms may also complain about pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen, sudden dizziness and confusion.

Children with underlying neurological problems should be quickly seen by a doctor if they run a fever. In otherwise healthy children, the main warning sign is that the child seems to feel better, then appears to relapse with a high fever. This signals a bacterial infection that must be treated with antibiotics. Even though such infections are seldom severe, the child should be seen by a pediatrician as quickly as possible.

Should I bother getting a seasonal flu shot?

Yes. Seasonal flu is as much of a concern as it has always been. Given that swine flu shots won’t be available until late in the season, a regular shot will protect you and your family from the body aches, cough and misery of seasonal flu, and allow you to cross one worry from your list.

Join the discussion at nytimes.com/well.

Will safety net hospitals survive health reform?

2009-09-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

Janie Johnson has no health insurance, so when she cut her toe while giving herself a pedicure, she limped to the emergency room at one of Chicago's safety net hospitals and waited her turn.

"I'm 44, but I probably look about 55 right now," Johnson joked in Stroger Hospital's emergency department where more than 100 patients sat waiting. Urgent cases, from chest pains to gunshot wounds, are rushed to doctors first. Johnson was glad to have somewhere to go for health care.

"I don't know what I would do" without the hospital, she said. "My health would probably get worse."

To all the knotty issues involved in health care overhaul, add one more: The proposals in Congress may threaten the funding and future of the nation's already-struggling safety net hospitals.

It's an irony hospital leaders are expressing quietly as Congress reconvenes this week to take up health care again. Hospital leaders support expanding insurance coverage to more Americans, but they worry financing the expansion will cause some teetering urban hospitals to deteriorate and close.

They point to Massachusetts, the laboratory for health care overhaul, where one safety net hospital, Boston Medical Center, is suing the state claiming it's covering too much of the cost for expanding coverage. Another safety net standby, Cambridge Health Alliance, has closed health centers and cut services; its Somerville Hospital no longer keeps patients overnight.

"It looks like a national plan will be modeled on Massachusetts and it's a disaster for poor people," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, Harvard Medical School professor and a doctor at Cambridge Hospital.

"The insurance offered doesn't cover everyone," she said. "It's filled with gaps like copayments and deductibles. Patients can't afford it, so they turn to the public sector and the public sector isn't there anymore."

What worries Woolhandler and others are proposals to finance national reform that would reduce payments gradually to hospitals handling more than their share of uninsured patients. One proposal would reduce these funds — called DSH payments for "disproportionate share hospital" — by $20 billion, in three large annual chunks starting in 2017.

About 2,700 U.S. hospitals receive DSH payments. That's about half the nation's hospitals, according to the American Hospital Association.

A small segment of those hospitals provides most of the nation's charity care to the poor. These institutions, largely supported by reimbursements from Medicaid and other government insurance programs, receive 12 percent of their revenues from DSH payments.

Lawmakers reason that when more Americans have insurance, there will be less need for the payments. Instead, hospitals would get paid by their newly covered patients' insurance plans. A trigger in the House health care legislation would start the cuts only after the nation achieved a significant increase in insurance coverage.

But critics say illegal immigrants, the mentally ill and drug addicts will keep arriving at safety net hospitals without insurance. Illegal immigrants will be ineligible for the expanded coverage proposed by Congress. The mentally ill and addicted will be unlikely to sign up.

"If they start cutting, I'm scared," said Dr. Simon Piller, who cares for patients at a county clinic that's part of the same health system as Stroger Hospital. He describes patients who've lost jobs, are living with friends and ran out of medications for chronic conditions months, or years, ago.

Safety net hospitals will continue to have unusual expenses, such as translation services and security, to deal with. And some newly insured patients won't be able to afford the out-of-pocket copays and deductibles.

"Copays for us are no-pays," said Dr. Steven Safyer, president and CEO of Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "Health care reform to me is an issue of humanity. How you can have 47 million uninsured in this country is shocking. But you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater."

DSH cuts are part of a deal the White House reached with the American Hospital Association and two other hospital groups. When the hospitals agreed to cuts totaling $155 billion over 10 years, a group of public hospitals wasn't at the table.

"We were never part of the negotiations and did not sign onto the agreement," said Larry Gage, president of the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems. The group contends DSH payments also help maintain trauma centers, burn units and other community assets that could be threatened.

Nancy-Ann DeParle, who directs the White House health reform office, said there's adequate protection for safety net hospitals in the House bill. The payments would be reduced — gradually and starting only after the rate of uninsured Americans declines — in a way that differs greatly from what happened in Massachusetts, DeParle said.

President Barack Obama supports phasing in DSH reductions over 10 years.

"As people get insurance, there will be less of a need for hospitals to get additional funds," DeParle said. She acknowledged it may be "scary" for hospital administrators to shift from getting these additional payments to a reality where more of their patients have insurance cards.

But hospitals can and must adapt, DeParle said. "We will always need safety net hospitals."

It's unclear how much would be cut. The House legislation calls for cuts of $20 billion, representing 8 percent of what the Congressional Budget Office projects in federal outlays to DSH over 10 years. The White House supports larger cuts.

Many urban hospitals already operate on small margins or at a loss. Chicago's Mount Sinai Hospital had only 1.42 days of cash on hand in August. Its bad debt, the bills left unpaid by patients, was $62.3 million last year. It received $10 million in DSH money last year.

Stroger is a public hospital, subject to cuts from Cook County government. The county's health system is considering laying off nearly 500 workers. Chicago's Stroger Hospital received $42 million last year in DSH.

"This is definitely going to be a change. It's not health care as usual," said Stephen Zuckerman, a health economist in the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center in Washington.

Safety net hospitals may need help raising money to spruce up and modernize to become more competitive with private hospitals, Zuckerman said. But they won't disappear.

"The capacity they provide to the system is going to be needed," Zuckerman said. "I don't think the rest of the system is ready to absorb the patient population the public hospitals now serve."

Lawmakers have wanted to cut DSH payments for years, said Wendy Parmet, health law professor at Boston's Northeastern University School of Law. With rising Medicare and Medicaid costs driving up national debt, the payments will continue to be a juicy target, she said.

"Hospitals are going to cry that it hurts," Parmet said. "But it's going to happen, whether or not there's health insurance reform."

Better care, pay less: Some communities find a way

2009-09-08T05:32:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON – If you pay the mechanic $1,000 to fix your transmission and it breaks again next week, the garage should find and fix the problem for free. So if you get an infection following open-heart surgery because the doctor forgot an antibiotic, why are you charged extra to clear up the wound?

At Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, pay a flat fee for bypass surgery and you'll get essentially a 90-day warranty on your heart fix. Complications? The hospital has to eat the cost. It gambled that following a checklist of best practices would help patients recover faster and cost less — and so far, it's winning the bet.

It's a radically different approach to a health care system that even many doctors agree rewards volume of care over quality. Yet around the country are hospitals and health systems like Geisinger that President Barack Obama calls "islands of excellence," places quietly trying innovative changes to improve patient care at below-average prices.

Places like:

_La Crosse, Wis., where astoundingly, nearly 95 percent of senior citizens have living wills to guide end-of-life care, meaning more hospice care and less hospitalization while dying. That has Medicare paying about $18,000 for the last two years of a beneficiary's life here, compared to nearly $64,000 for end-of-life care in Miami, the nation's priciest health market, according to the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care.

_Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where two competing hospitals worked together to create a community clinic that lowered side effects and hospitalizations of patients who use a risky blood thinner.

Next they want to tackle reducing unnecessary CT scans. Some 52,000 CTs were performed in one year for a population of 300,000, 5,000 alone for headaches when just 1 percent find a brain problem. That doesn't mean all the rest weren't necessary, but limiting them is important since CTs emit much more radiation than a regular X-ray, says Dr. James Levett of Physicians Clinic of Iowa, who heads the community's medical collaboration.

_Everett, Wash., where monthly reports compare how doctors prescribe generic drugs or pricier brand-names, and patients get a checkup call when they leave the hospital to make sure they're following up with their regular doctor.

They're different approaches. But they aim to cut overuse of health care — like avoidable hospitalizations, or repeating tests because one doctor didn't send another a copy, or unnecessary visits to specialists.

"Does the public buy the idea that more care is not better? The answer is no. Yet you're doing it," Dr. Donald Berwick of the nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement told a recent meeting of La Crosse and nine other communities that spend about $1,500 less per Medicare patient than the national average but rank well for quality.

It's sobering: The respected Dartmouth Atlas shows that in parts of the country, Medicare pays double or triple the price to treat the similarly ill — yet people in more expensive areas don't get better quality care. By some measures, they fare worse. The differences can't be explained by big cities' higher living costs. Volume of care is the chief driver, says Dr. Elliott Fisher of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy. He says 30 percent to 40 percent of hospitalizations alone are avoidable.

Some health systems limit overuse by putting doctors on salary instead of the usual fee-for-service. Fisher says physician teams help, too. Instead of waiting a week for a specialist to run a heart test, the family doctor asks a collaborating cardiologist which test to order and consults with the result.

Then there's Geisinger's approach, called ProvenCare. Surgeons at the Danville, Pa., hospital turned national guidelines for heart bypass into a specific checklist of 40 best practices — like ensuring that antibiotics, blood thinners and other medications are given correctly before and after surgery, and that proper pre-surgery tests are in. Miss a step and the operation's canceled.

At the program's start, 60 percent of patients got every check. Today, all do.

Then came the price test: Patients insured through Geisinger's insurance unit are charged a set price for the surgery and all pre- and postoperative care, that 90-day warranty.

"We were pretty nervous that this could be upsetting an apple cart," says associate chief medical officer Dr. Alfred Casale.

But ProvenCare patients are recovering faster, rehospitalizations for complications have fallen 40 percent — and the hospital and its health plan have saved thousands of dollars, he says. So Geisinger expanded ProvenCare to half a dozen other areas, from joint replacement to obesity surgery, and is negotiating with other insurers to join.

The lesson: "There were things that would get dropped, and we didn't know that until we started auditing it," says nurse Linda McGrail, joint replacement coordinator.

Pro-reform doctor wants critics to forgo Medicare

2009-09-08T05:27:00.000-07:00

JACKSON, Miss | Oppose a government health care plan? A Jackson, Miss., doctor wants you to put your convictions on the line by burning your mother's Medicare card.

It's the reverse of the challenge many citizens have been issuing to their own members of Congress to forgo the health care plans they get by dint of working for the government and buy into the "public option" plan instead.

"I want to have a demonstration - Boston Tea Party-like - and burn those cards," said Dr. Aaron Shirley, who has done extensive work in trying to extend health care to the uninsured.

His challenge is just one of the ones that's been made to lawmakers as they fanned out across the country this summer to make the case for or against a government overhaul of health care. Skeptical voters repeatedly demanded that their members of Congress live by the principles they espouse.

For Democrats who support President Obama's plan to have the government sponsor a "public option" health insurance plan, voters demanded that the lawmakers themselves buy into that government plan.

That challenge by-and-large has been deflected by lawmakers, who say they choose from among a number of plans and say the key is to give options to everyone.

"This is about choice, you understand? It's not about mandating a choice for anybody," Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi Democrat, told a woman who challenged him last week to buy into the public option plan at a town-hall meeting in Jackson.

"I choose your plan," the woman said, to which Mr. Thompson replied, "Well, that's fine - run for Congress."

The summer has seen an erosion of approval numbers for Mr. Obama and Congress as citizens have turned out to protest on both sides of the health care debate.

Dr. Shirley says he's serious about the challenge - he's even designed an invite brochure - adding that he'll invite talk-show host Rush Limbaugh as guest speaker, though he hasn't set a date.

"If you do not have a card, bring Mama's or Grandmama's," he says in his invitation. "We will demonstrate our opposition to government sponsored health care by burning the card."

Jim Martin, president of 60 Plus, a conservative-leaning advocacy group for seniors, called it a "cruel joke" to play.

"Very cynical on his part. We're a nation of laws. The Medicare law has been on the books for 44 years, and seniors have paid in, including yours truly," he said.

His group argues that the overhaul plans Democrats are talking about would result in cuts to Medicare.

Pointing to Dr. Shirley's invitation to Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Martin said that given what they see as the effects of the bill, it would have made more sense to invite Jack Kevorkian, a one-time pathologist who was convicted of second-degree murder for helping people commit suicide.

Dr. Shirley, who calls the opponents of Mr. Obama's plan "the distractors," said he doubts they'll ever come around.

"I don't think there's anything you could say that would make a difference to them because they're lying hypocrites," he said.

Republicans have pressed the issue of having members of Congress enrolled in any new "public option" plan. At one point, they forced a committee vote on an amendment that would have done just that. The House Ways and Means Committee defeated the amendment 21-18, though three Democrats voted with the committee's Republicans in favor of forcing the change.

Even Mr. Obama hasn't been immune to challenges to personally live up to his pledges. At a White House town-hall meeting on health care, broadcast by ABC earlier this summer, Dr. Orrin Devinsky asked Mr. Obama if a national health plan is imposed, would he forgo extra care for his wife or children beyond what was included in that plan.

The president said that "families all across America are going through decisions like that all the time. And you're absolutely right that, if it's my family member, it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care."

He then blamed the current health care system for pushing for too much care that, in some cases, he said is not making people healthier.

Obama Readies (Another) Speech As Health-Care Picks Up Steam

2009-09-08T05:17:00.000-07:00

This is what Barack Obama does. Back him into a corner, get the press all wee-weed up, send his polls ratings plummeting and the aging basketball player responds again and again with the same move: He delivers a major speech. And why not? It keeps working. It's the thing that first introduced him to the nation, at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. It is what extricated him from the Jeremiah Wright mess during the campaign. It has become the central method of his foreign policy push, in Prague, Cairo, Moscow and Accra.

It's also been the method of choice in his push for health care reform. In just the last two months, he has held six health-care town halls and a prime time news conference. But public support for his plans has been declining through the summer. So the answer, he believes, is one more speech, Wednesday night in front of a joint session of Congress. (See 10 players in health-care reform.)

Upon returning from a late August vacation on Martha's Vineyard, several of Obama's senior aides advised that he delay a new push for health care reform until the third week in September, after the anniversaries of Sept. 11 and the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. But according to a senior aide, Obama overruled them. "The president has a big megaphone, and he intends to use that megaphone," said senior adviser David Axelrod told ABC News of the decision to go ahead on Sept. 9, 16 years, to the month, after Bill Clinton tried to do the same thing. (White House officials downplay any Clinton comparison, and point out that they are far closer now to the goal line than Clinton was - or, for that matter, than any Democratic President has ever been. The bill has already passed three committees in the House and one in the Senate.)

So Obama will take his case for healthcare reform directly to the American people - again - and compete head-to-head with the 8 p.m. season premiere of America's Next Top Model. The speech is less a recalibration of his health care effort than a restatement of purpose. Aides caution that he will neither demand a so-called public health insurance option nor abandon his desire to see one achieved. He will not give up his quest for a bipartisan compromise in the Senate, nor will he vow to abandon the possible use of parliamentary procedures that would allow Democrats to pass major portions of reform with just 51 Senate votes.

He will make clear, as he has before, that the time for action is now. On Monday, at a fiery Labor Day rally in Cincinnati, Obama offered a sneak peak. "Debate is good, because we have to get this right," he told the crowd. "But in every debate there comes a time to decide, a time to act. And Ohio, that time is now."

Meanwhile, in the Senate, where a compromise has not yet been reached, there are some signs that agreement time might be upon us. On Sunday, in an interview with CNN, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, a longtime opponent of a public health insurance option, said he could support a public plan as a "fail-safe" or "backstop" that would be created only if insurance companies did not reform their business practices over the coming years. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, a key swing vote from Maine, has also spoken favorably about a triggered fail-safe. (See TIME's health and medicine covers.)

Montana's Max Baucus, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, also began circulating a new compromise proposal on Sunday that would include a tax on high-cost, so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans to help subsidize low-income insurance coverage. Officials who have seen the Baucus plan are refreshingly optimistic, noting that the Chairman has moved on some provisions that could make his proposal reconcilable with whatever passes the more liberal House. One key issue is how it deals with government aid to people who do not get health insurance through their employers; those not covered by an expanded Medicaid system would be required, for the first time, to purchase health coverage on their own. The subsidies in Baucus' current proposal are significantly more generous than those proposed under earlier versions of the bill that were circulating in July.

In other areas, however, Baucus appears to be holding out desperate hope for additional GOP support. For instance, the Baucus bill does not - at this point, at least - contain Snowe's proposal for a public plan as a backstop; instead, it would create member-run co-ops as an alternative to private health insurance. His bill also would not mandate that employers provide health coverage to their workers, but would require them to reimburse the federal government for the cost of the subsidies it provides their employees to purchase health coverage on their own. One source said that Baucus intends to lay down an ultimatum on Tuesday to the Republicans with whom he has been negotiating for months: Put down a counteroffer, or he will move on without them.

Despite the recent drop in poll support for reform, Democratic strategists still see several viable routes to getting a health-care bill through the Senate - regardless of its content. These include, in declining order of preference for the White House: forging bipartisan consensus to garner more than sixty votes; holding all 59 Democratic Senators and recruiting Snowe; forging a majority of 60 Democratic votes with a replacement for Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy; and trying to use parliamentary maneuvers to pass major parts of the legislation with just 51 votes.

"We all know the choices," says Andy Stern, the president of the SEIU, a major service employees union. "You may need to have them all in motion to get any of them to work."

This is why the House Democrats who have been calling on Obama to lay out a clear, fixed legislative plan on Wednesday night are likely to be disappointed. Obama's mission, when he takes the podium in the House, flanked by his Vice President and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will be less about forcing the hand of Congress than re-energizing public support for reform, something that is essential for members of congress to feel they have the cover to vote yes.

It's the kind of message Obama has delivered many times before - as a state legislator from Chicago, as an embattled presidential candidate and as a victorious newly elected president. The question this time is: will sweeping oratory still carry the day, or is it

50 Weight Loss Tips

2009-09-08T04:44:00.000-07:00

I lost 30 pounds in three months. If you wanted to know how I did it, and how I intend on maintaining my current weight, then these 50 weight loss tips are for you. I’m not an expert, but I do speak from experience. If it helps you attain your own weight loss goals, then I’m happy to have helped (if only to serve as a reinforcement of knowledge you already possess). Most of this, I learned on my own or through close friends and family members. Feel free to add your own tips to this list, too!

If you want even more help, I now have an PDF eBook series available (with an affiliate program): get my diet weight loss ebook before you scoot away!

Dietary control and exercise. It’s true what they say – all you need to do is watch what you eat, and expend more energy than you consume. It’s really that simple. You can quit reading this list now, you now know everything you need to know and didn’t need to fork over $500 for the privilege of me telling you the secret of losing weight. You don’t need to read a 4,000 page book, you don’t have to buy a tape series, you don’t need to stay up late at night to watch infomercials to understand this basic premise. It’s 100% true.
Change your lifestyle. If you’re calling this a “diet,” then you’re going to gain all the weight back (and more) within a few months of losing it. Diets do not work. Diets are temporary. When you change your dietary lifestyle, however, you’re changing your habits – and you’re putting yourself on track for long-term / continued success and weight maintenance. Don’t ever tell anybody you’re on a diet – ever. I’m speaking from experience, here – a reformed low-carber. Worked out well for a while, but ultimately failed because my entire lifestyle didn’t change (permanently).
Join an online support group. In my case, I created my own – FatBlasters. It’s essential that you not feel alone, and reaching out to friends (new or old) is typically a smart move. I just heard about PeetTrainer, but didn’t know about it when I began down the road to weight loss. You have to know that others are out there for moral support – they know things that you couldn’t possibly know, and they’ve probably been “in your shoes” at some point in the past (or present). Share stories, laughter, tears, successes, and failures – share them. There are thousands of communities out there, so keep looking until you find the one that fits you.
Take before and after photos. I know it sucks to see yourself as a chunky monkey (sorry, that’s what I called myself – if only to get myself motivated to meet my weight loss goal). However, there’s no easier way to illustrate your progress. The “after” photos are far more fun to capture and share, admittedly. Find yourself on Flickr! It’s good to see yourself how others see you. Do you like how you look? In many ways, Flickr helped me lose weight.
Hire a substitute teacher. Don’t reach for the brands you know and love immediately – or without thinking first. Eggs are “good” for you, but consider using egg substitutes instead (in fact, many restaurants will let you order lower calorie foods). There are countless “lower” alternatives for you to try. If something different doesn’t taste good, by all means – find a better substitute, or eat less of the original. In some cases, the substitute may be worse for you than the regular version of the product. The good news is, healthier choices are silently replacing their “normal” counterparts – and they taste just as nice.
Start reading labels. I know it sucks, but you have to do it – and there’s no way to avoid this tip. If you don’t know what you’re putting in your mouth, you’re flying blind. Don’t assume, either – triple-check the ingredients list and serving sizes. You must rely on yourself for this; nobody else is going to be able to lose the weight or do the math for you. It’s not that complicated a task, but it will require effort. If nothing else, just pay attention to the calorie count.
What’s so funny about bovines? If you like cheese, you must buy the Laughing Cow brand, and keep several of the suckers in stock at all times. The individually-wrapped wedges make for excellent snacks, and are wonderful when melted over just about anything edible. I’d be careful about straight-up American cheese, though – it’s oil, but not necessarily as good for you as (say) a slice of cheddar would be. I have yet to find something as calorie-light and filling as Laughing Cow (I don’t know how they do it).
Tell your family. You’re not going to lose the weight alone, even if you ARE alone in losing the weight. If you’ve got a family at home, talk to them about it – initially, not incessantly. Let them know what you’re going to do, and that you want (and need) their support. If you don’t let them know, you’re running the risk of them inadvertently sabotaging your efforts. You want them to help you get to your goal(s). You want them to share in your happiness when you’ve made it past a certain mark. Who knows? Maybe some of your new habits will rub off on them and they’ll become healthier people, too?
Go public. I didn’t want to admit that I had screwed up, but admitting the problem in public was the first step on the path to eventual success. I was now accountable for my actions, and all my friends knew what I was doing. There was no turning back, otherwise I’d be risk damaging my integrity. I didn’t want to disappoint the people who read me on a regular (or semi-regular) basis. Plus, it’s an easy way to find out which of your friends have gone through the process before – and glean tips from their own experiences. Then, other friends might become inspired to do the same thing you’re doing once they see that you’ve taken the first step.
Identify your exercise. No exercise was created equal. You might like running, so run. You might like jogging, so jog. You might like stationary bikes, so bike stationarily. Find the one that works best for you – that isn’t too much of a chore for you to do regularly throughout the week. Don’t pick a routine that you don’t like – or you won’t want to do it, and you certainly won’t stick with it for long. I also wouldn’t recommend buying into that whole “no pain, no gain” mantra. I’ve lost weight without hurting myself, and you probably can, too.
Become a Gazelle. You’ve probably seen Tony Little on TV, selling his Gazelle glider – a low impact exercise machine. I can tell you: it works. It’s easy on my legs, and really gives me a workout when I apply myself on it. Some people say it’s awkward to use, but I love mine – and would consider recommending no other home exercise equipment at this point. Then again, I’m a wimpy geek who only wants to burn calories.
Zone out. There’s a reason why people exercise to their favorite music – listening to external stimulus takes your mind off of the physical activity. That’s the secret to making “exercise time” fly. If you’re concentrating on what your body is doing, the session is going to drag on for what will seem like days. Buy a portable music player, or situate yourself in front of a television.

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Never count on live programming. It’s important to stimulate your mind while your body is exerting itself in other ways. However, never rely on “what’s on TV or the radio” at the time. Instead of zoning out, you’ll find yourself flipping between channels – and that’s going to make the time drag as much as it would if you weren’t keeping your mind busy in the first place. “Live” is a very bad idea. Go with pre-recorded programming or go without.
Video games helped me lose weight. I can keep my balance on the Gazelle (which some might find difficult to do). As such, I plugged an Xbox 360 into the TV and started to play it while I was working out. Immediately, I found that I was sweating more than I was when I was only watching TV passively! The reason boils down to a single word: adrenalin. Now, the only way I’m able to work up a sweat is when I play a fast-paced game on the game console. Yes, even game genre is important; avoid any diversions that require long pauses between tasks. Racing games (like Burnout) have worked very well for me. The more mindless the game, the better your burn, the faster the exercise session will go.
Set realistic goals. You can lose 50 pounds in a week if you work out 12 hours a day and eat nothing but celery – but not if you’re human. Slow and steady wins the race. Don’t bite off more than you can chew – literally. Make small goals on your way to the bigger goal(s). In the end, you’ll have achieved more (and more frequently, might I add).
Avoid trans fats and high fructose corn syrup. I offer this suggestion for a few reasons. First, they’re not good for you anyway. Second, you’ll eliminate a lot of the “bad foods” outright – no questions asked. You’ll have to become more selective in what you eat by avoiding these two nasty ingredients – which are in more foods than you probably care to know.
Don’t always listen to your mate. I’ve already suggested that you tell your family – but sometimes members of your family will try to dissuade you from trying to lose weight. It’s simple: they might not want you to succeed where they may have already failed, whether consciously or inadvertently. Your loss is not always their gain. Watch out for statements like: “You’ve lost enough weight.” or “I like you just the way you are.” Fact of the matter is, if YOU don’t like the way that YOU are – then YOU are going to have to do something about it, no matter what anybody says. They still love you, though (in theory).
Don’t compare yourself to others. Every body is different. It stands to reason that everybody will lose weight differently. Even if you do the exact same things that I do, you won’t lose weight at the same rate. The key is in finding your triggers. Keep your goal in sight, and do whatever you have to do to meet that goal. When you start looking at someone else’s habits, you’re only going to become discouraged and quit without even realizing that it’s physically impossible to be anybody but yourself.
Women aren’t men. It’s been proven that men can lose weight more rapidly than women can, which is likely due to our physiological makeup (women are supposed to have more fat than men, because they’re the birthing gender). This isn’t a sexist statement to make – it’s pretty much the truth. As such, females should expect to set separate goals than males – especially if you’re working on losing weight together, side by side.
Take a magic pill. Nonsense! There is no such thing as a magic pill. Don’t fall victim to the hype of the latest fat-burning drug commercial. If you listen or read closely, you’ll see that every single one of these things is effective when combined with proper diet and exercise (which they even state in their advertisements). The side-effects for these drugs are usually worse than your additional weight, anyway.
Vitamins are good for you. If you’re going to take any pills, let them be natural supplements (like Essential Fatty Acids or multivitamins). Be careful about overdoing it, though – especially with herbal remedies. Too much of anything is a bad thing. You can consult a nutritionist, but always buy on your own – and keep these supplements to a minimum. Remember, too, that specific vitamins are no good without specific minerals.
Deck your desktop. In the beginning, some of my friends sent me complicated spreadsheets to help chart progress. Uh, no – not for me; I’m the kind of guy who likes taking the easy route. As such, I scoured the Web for the best desktop tool and remembered CalorieKing. You won’t find anything easier to use. Trust me, this is the one; I can keep track of everything I eat and expend (without hassle). While the statistic-addicts will love CalorieKing for its thoroughness, the utility was truly designed with non-geeks in mind. The CalorieKing Web site and service are fine on their own, but the downloadable client is what you really want to get. Pay the registration fee, man – how much is your health worth to you?
Identify your ideal weight. If you’re 5′5″ with a certain build, there’s an ideal weight that matches your body type. Find it – and make that your goal. And if you don’t know what that might be, try searching the Web for a calculator (though results and calculations will vary by a small margin). Now you have a weight goal to shoot for.
Consider the source. I’m going to make a gross generalization here, but… why would I trust an overweight doctor or nutritionist to give me proper advice on weight loss? “Do as I say and not as I do” is not a maxim I’m willing to accept from anybody who would be qualified to tell me how to do something. Talk to people who are doing it, or who have done it and been successful. You don’t have to mirror their regimen, but at least you’re getting help from someone who’s really been there. Or, as they said in the Christmas episode of “Two and a Half Men,” people who live in fat asses shouldn’t throw waffles.
Ignore Ronald McDonald. You don’t have to eliminate fast food completely, but you should avoid it at all costs. Most of it is nasty, bad stuff anyway – if you’d even go as far as to call it food. If you’re looking for convenience, find a more convenient meal source. Besides, most of what they serve would be considered “food product,” not food. There’s a gigantic difference as far as your body is concerned. Your bloodstream does not have taste buds, need I remind you?
Scale up. If your measurement tool sucks, upgrade it. If it’s analog, dump it. I’ve talked to many geeks about their choice in scales, and most of them (myself included) recommend something in the Tanita family. They’re high-quality, rugged, accurate devices. Make sure you set your scale on a hard surface, too (as carpet foundations do not make for accurate weight measurements).
Watch your weight. Some people say that you shouldn’t weigh yourself more than once a week. I’ve been much happier charting my progress every day. No matter what, you need to weigh in at the same time, every time. For me, that’s 10am every morning (or somewhere thereabout). If you decide to weigh yourself every single day, understand that your weight will fluctuate by one or two pounds – and that you should only keep a serious eye on the lengthier trends.
One pound a week. If you’re not losing at least one pound a week on your chosen weight loss regimen, you’re (a) stalled, or (b) finished. You might need to push yourself even harder, or (in some cases) let up a little bit while your body plays catch-up. If you lose more than one pound a week, then you’re doing better than average. Expecting to lose five pounds a week just isn’t realistic, though.
Maintain your priorities. Sure, your sandwich would taste amazing with an extra tablespoon of mayonnaise… but do you really need it? Rather, is it more important for you to reach your weight loss goal quicker – or have this sandwich taste marginally better? What’ll happen the next time you’re faced with this decision – will you cave again? It’s a slippery slope; don’t lose sight of what’s most important to you.
All weight is not equal. Muscle weighs more than fat, but the last thing you want to lose is muscle! For this reason alone, it’s important to have a regular exercise routine somewhere in your schedule. Without exercise, your body is going to burn through muscle first – and you’ll wind up more imbalanced than you were to begin with. You want your body to burn fat, not muscle. You want to lose weight, but you want to lose “fat” weight – not muscle mass.
Counteract the “Rainy Day” principle. If you decrease your calorie count without necessarily increasing your physical activity level, your body is going to crash. It’s going to say to itself: “Holy sh*t! I better store these calories as fat, because I’m not getting enough of them – and I don’t want to die.” When you exercise, you set your body’s process to “burn” instead of “save.”
Don’t overdo it. If you change something in your lifestyle, you’re probably going to see results – but there’s a law of diminishing returns at play. You can exercise for an extra hour a day for a week and still lose the same amount as you had when you were only exercising half as much. Give your body time to adjust – don’t push yourself too hard or you’re just going to spend your energy on something that’s not necessarily going to give you immediate and direct benefit. This, of course, only applies to those of you wanting to lose fat – not for those who are training for a triathlon.
Patterns are good. Once you’ve found your workout groove, do your best to stick with it. Exercise no less than three times a week for 40 – 60 minutes each time, but don’t feel the “need” to do it more than five times over a seven day period. Your body will likely appreciate a burn-off in the morning more, but if you need to relieve stress in the evening – don’t be afraid to adjust your workout schedule accordingly. Schedule making and keeping are important for other areas of your life as well.
Sleep it off. To be an efficient fat-burning machine, your body requires at least eight hours of sleep a night. If you think that you’re doing yourself a favor by sleeping less, you’re mistaken. Give your body time to rest itself, both mentally and physically. Sleep is very, very important (if only for mental alertness for the following day). If you feel tired, that’s likely your body’s way of saying: “Shut your eyes, stupid!”
Remember that the fork is not a shovel. I eat fast (I swear I can’t help it). Even if I’m not hungry, I want to shovel everything into my mouth in less than a minute. But my brain doesn’t know that my stomach is full until twenty minutes after it actually is. As such, I could stuff myself silly before realizing I didn’t need to consume as much as I did. Try eating half of what’s on your plate, wait ten minutes, then continue to eat if you’re still hungry. You never want to feel full – ever. That’s when you know you’ve eaten too much. If you want a real hunger-stopper, try an Omega 3 and Omega 6 supplement (EFAs) twenty minutes before a meal.
Become your own snack fairy. It’s okay to snack between meals, really. Small meals throughout the day are enough to keep you satisfied, as (much like the sensation of being full) you never want to feel hungry. Let your body know it’s going to get a regular regimen of calories. Plus, if you starve yourself for the regular meals, you’re probably going to eat more before your brain tells your mouth to stop. Think about it: breakfast, lunch, and dinner are social constructs at their very core.
Love the oil companies. Just like your car needs high-quality oil, so too does your body. Not all oils were created equal, though it’s hotly contested which ones are better for you than others. Personally, I love a good olive oil – it’s 100% natural and is rich with Omega 9 fatty acids. Enova is another one that we’ve found to work quite well in our lifestyle at home. Choose your oil wisely, though – your weight loss goal should be more than simply cosmetic. It’s a good rule of thumb when it comes to food: the more natural something is, the better it is for you.
Fat is where it’s at. If you think you can lose weight and keep it off by avoiding all fats, you’re sadly mistaken. In fact, if you think that low fat eating is the only way to go, you might as well just quit now. Your body (and your brain) needs fat to survive! This is why the scientists call “them” essential fatty acids – Omegas 3, 6, and 9. These fats have been stripped from many supermarket shelf items, and it’s your responsibility to put fat back into your dietary plan. Don’t avoid eating fat, embrace it – equally.
Bring balance to the force. If you eat the same foods over and over again, you’re going to get bored – unless they’re foods you really, really like. Feel free to change it up – keep your tongue happy. Balance carbs with proteins with fats, though. If you have more of one nutrient for one meal, try more of another nutrient for the next. And for heaven’s sake, don’t just shop in the “diet” section of the store. You can still (likely) eat the same things you’ve always eaten, just not so much of them at any one time.
Know your daily calorie limit. When I was in the process of losing weight, it was suggested that I stay under 1700 calories a day. Knowing that number was half the battle. I could eat anything I wanted throughout the day, so long as I would stay at or beneath that number. While I couldn’t track 100% of the items I ate, I was able to make intake estimates – and adjust my schedule and ration my remaining calories accordingly. In this sense, you’re given extreme freedom – so long as you stay at or beneath that suggested calorie level for your plan. If you don’t know how much you’re supposed to take in, how are you supposed to know how much you’re supposed to take in?! Sounds redundant, but it’s a situation that many “dieters” are in (which is why they fail)!
Fiber good. When you start to lose fat, you’re probably going to get constipated. Yeah, it happens more frequently than we care to admit (or share). You should have a good amount of fiber every day, anyway. Fiber is very important to your health (and your weight loss goals). Try the Metamucil snack wafers for a quick fiber infusion. Then, magnesium citrate for those… “stuck” moments, in which you’ll find yourself from time to time. Stick a bottle or two of that in your fridge for safe keeping, and don’t plan on going anywhere for 24 hours after taking a dose (trust me, trust me, trust me).
Walk the walk. You burn calories when you walk, did you know that? Certainly, you don’t expend as much energy as you do when you run, but you burn it nonetheless. Consider picking up a good pedometer, if only to gauge how many steps you take in the average day. According to others, the Omron HJ112 Premium Pedometer is the one to beat. If nothing else, knowing how many steps you take on the average day will give you a better idea as to your regular activity level – around the home and/or the office. Plus, you can count those steps as calorie deficits in certain programs (like CalorieKing).
Train wrecks will happen. One of these nights, you’re going to go out with friends and eat your weight in steak (likely blowing any kind of progress you had made for that day). Instead of repeating the overindulgence, just put yourself back on track the next day. You’re allowed to “mess up” every now and again, so long as you don’t make a habit out of consuming an excessive amount of food. Right the dining injustice immediately. You’ll be okay. You’ll be fine. Just don’t do it again. And again. And again. And again.
Satisfy cravings with extreme prejudice. If you’re hungry for something, eat it. Don’t deny yourself the simple pleasures. If it’s possible, eat only half of what you want. Is your craving satisfied, or are you addicted to the flavor? Losing weight shouldn’t be torture for anybody. You have to ask yourself: Is it more important for me to eat this entire case of fudgesicles, or to look good for my brother’s wedding? Only you have the answer to that question, and if you ignore logic, you’re going to hurt yourself in the long-run. Just take a nibble or two – I won’t tell a soul.
Water you waiting for? If you’re not drinking enough water, your body will let you know. Thirst is an amazing sensation – quench it. If you’re not hydrated, your body won’t be working at peak levels. Most of your body happens to be water, by the way. If you’re worried about “water weight,” remember that you’re likely to retain more water when you’re not giving your body enough of it in the first place. Besides, that’s what those workout sessions are supposed to help with every other morning. I’m not going to dictate how many glasses you should drink, though – as that’s going to vary from person to person.
Join the soda club. Like most people, I love carbonated beverages. However, unlike most people, I love unflavored carbonated beverages – and if your tongue is attune to sugary-sweet drinks, you’re also the kind of person who believes that club soda tastes salty (even when it contains no sodium). Make the move to an unflavored drink sooner rather than later. If you need help along the way, lemons and limes can be your best friends. If you’re going to drink something more than water, at least make sure it’s not going to hinder your progress. If you’re a sugary-soda drinker, dropping it from your daily routine altogether will help you drop ~5 or more pounds in a single week (WITHOUT doing anything else).
Sugar is evil that tastes good. You probably don’t want to hear this, but sugar is a bad thing. The more refined it comes, the more your body is going to react negatively to it. Sugar, sugar, sugar is in everything, everything, everything. If it’s sweet, it’s got sugar in it. There are all sorts of sugars out there, and all of them are ultimately metabolized by the body. It’s a good bet that the sugars in an apple are better for you than the sugars in a candy bar, though. If you’re addicted to sugar, this is going to be a horrible hurdle to overcome.
Sugar substitutes are just as evil as sugar itself. Do you really think your body knows how to handle something that was man-made? Seriously. These chemically-adjusted products do not occur in the wild; there are no Splenda trees in warmer climates, nor are there NutraSweet plants in the Arctic. In some instances, taking in sugar substitutes may actually increase your levels of hunger! Let’s not forget about all the health issues that might arise from these unnatural substances. If you’re given a choice, it’s almost better to go with something your body knows how to deal with (real, unprocessed sugar). No, it’s much safer (and healthier) to stay away from blue, pink, and yellow packets entirely. Do a Web search for “Artificial Sweeteners May Damage Diet Efforts.” Then sit there and tell me they’re okay? No way.
White bread can’t jump. Did you know that white bread isn’t good for you? Oh, it’s true – just ask any diabetic. Research has shown that people who eat more refined products (like white bread) are more likely to have belly fat. Why? It’s simple: your body isn’t getting what it needs. The food industry isn’t the health industry, okay? You can’t trust that they’ve got your best interests at heart (despite all their marketing efforts). If you want the flavor of white bread, please eat the whole grain white bread instead? Sara lee makes a wonderful loaf, as I can personally attest (even though I like rye more than white or wheat). Repeat after me: whole grain white bread, whole grain white bread.
Hasta la pasta, baby. Much like its cousin, white bread, refined pasta can damage your health and pinch your weight loss plans. I’m not saying you should quit pasta altogether, but I will suggest that you change your pasta pusher to Barilla. They have a new wheat pasta that’s a dead ringer for the ol’ crappy white stuff you used to eat. “Barilla PLUS” is absolutely fantastic, as well as a good source of fiber and protein. You’re usually going to be better off with a “wheat” option, although traditional wheat pasta has a texture that you might not like (even though I find it perfectly acceptable to my palate).

Now, once you’ve achieved your weight loss goals, what are you going to do to keep the fat at bay? The worst thing you can do is something I’ve done countless times over: get lazy. I’ve conveniently forgotten about all of the aforementioned rules a few times, and it’s put me back in the same situation I don’t want to be in – ever again. While I don’t have to be as careful as I was during the weight loss period, I’m still measuring myself and recording my daily activities. This may turn into a weekly weigh-in soon enough, as it’s easier to correct yourself at 5lbs than it is at 50lbs. Good luck!

weight loss - free information on losing weight

2009-09-08T04:41:00.000-07:00

When you think of weight loss and losing weight, the first things that probably come to your mind are either those "lose weight fast !!" articles that are in every magazine and newspaper in the world that never work and are written by some personal training idiot that has no idea what they're talking about... or maybe you're thinking of all of those weight loss pills that claim to be safe and allow you to "eat whatever you want and still lose weight because the pill will do all of the work for you" or whatever stupid line they are using to get you to buy their useless unsafe weight loss product. Or, maybe you're thinking of rice cakes and never eating and being hungry all day long.

Well, if you are thinking any of those things, forget it! Forget all of it!

What I am about to give you is totally FREE, detailed, easy to understand information on weight loss and losing weight and how to lose weight and fat without using any type of pill or supplement, without using some "fitness magazine" diet, and by eating not 1, not 2, not 3, but 5 meals a day! Sound impossible? Sound too good to be true? Sound like I'm going to make you buy my "book" or order my "product" first before I tell you? Well I'm not! I don't have a book and I don't a have product. I am not trying to sell you a damn thing! What I am trying to do, no... what I am GOING to do, is tell you exactly how you can lose weight. Enjoy...

Weight loss is simple, burn more calories then you consume. If you can fully understand that then you are on your way to losing weight. There are 6 simple steps. Here they are:

1) Count how many calories you eat in a normal day. That's right, wake up, and eat like you would normally eat and count the calories in everything you eat and everything you drink and keep track of it on a piece of paper or on the computer some where. You might be thinking to yourself, "yeah right, I'm not gonna sit around counting calories all day." Well, if you're thinking that, then you're obviously not dedicated enough to losing weight. If this is the case, then feel free to go waste your money on the newest useless weight loss pill. But, if you are dedicated enough to take 10 minutes out of your day and count the calories, then keep on reading.

2) At the end of that day, add up the number of calories you ate/drank. Be as exact as possible. Once you add it all up, you now have the total number of calories you consume daily. Also, weigh yourself.

3) Starting the day after you counted calories, eat 500 calories LESS then you normally do. So, lets pretend that the day you counted calories you counted 2000. For the rest of the week, you would eat 1500 calories a day. Understand? All you have to do is subtract 500 from the total number of calories you consume in a normal day, and eat this new number of calories every day for the next 7 days.

4) Instead of eating 3 big meals a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner), or eating all day all the time, spread those calories out over 5 smaller meals. Eat one meal every 2 and a half to 3 hours. Doing this will speed up your metabolism.

5) Cardio. Cardio is an important part of weight loss. If you're serious about losing weight, but don't want to do the cardio workouts, then you are requiring your diet to do all of the work. Jog, walk, swim, jump rope, ride a bike, take an aerobics class, whatever... cardio + proper diet = better than just doing one of the two. All it takes is 30 minutes a day, 3 - 5 days a week. I say 3-5 days a week because I don't know if you have 5 pounds to lose, or if you have 50 pounds to lose. So, depending on how much your looking to lose, figure it out. 3 times a week is good starting point though. (For information on the most effective time of the day to do your cardio workout, read doing cardio for maximum weight loss)

6) At the end of that week, weigh yourself. You'll notice a difference just after one week! Now, don't expect to see a 20 pound difference. Losing anymore then 1 or 2 pounds a week is unhealthly. So look for a 1 or 2 pound weight loss at the end of the week. Don't sound like much? You can lose 5-8 pounds a month! That's around 75lbs a year! So if you have A LOT of weight to lose, you can lose it. If have just a few pounds to lose, you can lose it.

Important weight loss tips for losing weight effectively! (extremely important!)

- THE BAD FAT MUST GO! Stay away from "bad" fat! Get rid of all the chips and candy. No more fast food, nothing fried. No more cookies, no more cake, no more of these saturated fats. There is no question about it and there is no way around it, get rid of these types of foods. Don't get me wrong, you should NOT be eating 0 grams of fat every day, but the only places you should be getting your daily fat intake from are lean meats (not the fried fast food kind), chicken (again, not fried!), etc. as well as the foods that contain the "healthy" types of fat, which can be found in just about every type of fish (tuna fish, salmon, fish oil supplements, etc.), nuts, olive oil and flaxseed oil.

- LOWER THE BAD CARBS! Most people think that it is fat that makes people fat and that just by eating less fat, they are on their way to weight loss! WRONG! Certain carbs can be just as bad as fat when it comes to losing weight. Limit foods high in bad carbs. These carbs will eventually turn into fat. Foods like sugar, white bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, etc. are high in simple (bad) carbs. Sure, your body needs carbs, which is why foods like these are ok to eat, but don't go overboard. Stick to high protein/good carb/low fat foods like tuna fish (and other seafood), chicken breast, turkey, whole grains, fruits and vegetables etc. (For more information, go here: Diet Plans And Diets)

- WATER! Drink water! Get rid of the soda, get rid of the beer, and get rid of the sports drinks. Drink around a half gallon a day, more if you can. Spread it out throughout the day, just like your 5 meals. Yes that's a lot of water, but it's that water that will give you energy and speed your weight loss.

- STRENGTH TRAINING! YES! Weightlifting isn't just great for muscles, it's great for losing weight. Muscles burn calories.

- Weigh yourself at the end of every week. If you ever have more then 2 weeks go by without losing 1 pound, it's time to change something. Eat 250 less calories then you've been eating. And keep everything else the same. Each time you see weight loss stop for more then 2 weeks, decrease calorie intake by 250 until you get down to where you want to be. Remember, NEVER starve yourself!

- Sleep! YES! Sleep! The easiest, yet most over looked step. Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. Trust me, you're gonna need it! =]

- Food cravings! Can't stop giving in to your food cravings?
Read this: food cravings

- Still don't understand weight loss yet? Read this: How to lose weight: My day in a weight loss chat room

There you have it. You now know everything you need to know about losing weight. You didn't have to buy any weight loss pills or books on losing weight, instead, you should use the money you just saved and go buy some good food or a gym membership.

Now, I never once said this would be easy. If it was easy, you would have done it already. Losing weight isn't something you can just do "on the side." You also can NOT lose weight fast. You are going to have to dedicate your mind and body and your time to doing it! So, you now have the information you need, all you have to do now is use it.

***NEW*** After years of people requesting it, I have finally sat down and put together a complete guide to weight loss. All of the specifics... all of the details... everything you will EVER need to know. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, you can learn all about it right here: The Intense Workout's Weight Loss Program.

- Want to measure your body fat? Use body fat calipers which you can buy right here: Body Fat Calipers

"Smart Swap!": Afternoon Snack

2009-09-08T04:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday "Smart Swap!": Afternoon Snack

Saturday September 5, 2009

If you're anything like me, the office vending machine starts calling your name around 4 p.m. every day. It starts out as a small whisper and if you ignore it, the machine all but bellows at you to come insert your money in exchange for something a.) salty b.) chocolately or c.) nougat-filled.

On those days when I don't give in to all three, I usually select salty and that snack fix would come in the guise of potato chips or corn chips. But somehow, those chips never seem to stick with me and by 5-ish, I'm pining away for something else. Then, I learned this smart swap:

Swap a small bag of corn chips for an apple with low-fat string cheese to save 320 calories.

Not only am I shaving over 300 calories from my afternoon munch-fest, I am combining a one-two punch of carbohydrate in the form of an apple and protein in low-fat string cheese that gives my afternoon snack the staying power I need to tide me over 'til dinner.

Watch What You Eat In Your Diet To Lower Cholesterol

2009-09-08T04:19:00.000-07:00

The right diet to lower cholesterol levels can work wonders for you. It helps to reduce the levels of the bad cholesterol. This helps protect from heart troubles and also incidents of blocked arteries. It is essential to opt for a healthy diet as we age.

A low cholesterol diet consists of foods which are high on unsaturated fats. Such foods help to reduce bad cholesterol (LDL) and increase the levels of good cholesterol (HDL). Foods which are high in saturated fats trigger the making of LDL in the body.

Certain food groups work naturally to lower the LDL and promote the HDL levels. A low cholesterol diet is rich in such foods and avoids foods high in unsaturated fat. The production of LDL by the liver is exponentially related to the consumption of saturated fats.

The low cholesterol diet mainly consists of food items like oatmeal, rice bran, soy and soy products, nuts, sterol fortified foods, fiber rich food, whole grains, legumes, fish full of omega 3 fatty acid, garlic, vitamin E and C rich fruits and vegetables.

Are you wondering why this list looks familiar? Well these are all food items rich in protein and fiber. When we consume a lot of soluble fiber, the liver produces more HDL and less and less of LDL. This keeps away heart complications and keeps the blood flowing freely.

This does not mean that you have to cut out fatty food from your diet. Foods like olive oil, avocado, fishes, nuts etc are very high in fat, but are still important items in a low cholesterol diet. These foods contain loads of unsaturated fat. These fats are great for the body and fabulous for the heart. They promote the making of HDL in the body and decrease that of LDL.

Start your day with a fiber rich breakfast (oatmeal, rice bran) and consume a minimum of five portions of fruits and vegetables through out the day. Juices don't serve the purpose as they are fruit without the fiber. Garlic is a wonderful aid in lowering the production of cholesterol in the body. Raw or cooked it is very beneficial to lower cholesterol.

Processed and packaged foods are a store house of high cholesterol. They are high on salts or sugar and unsaturated fats. Their consumption leads to increased production of LDL by the liver. Other food items which are high on cholesterol are meat, egg yolk, full fat dairy produce, fried food items, and food cooked in saturated fats.

A balanced low cholesterol diet can help you to lower your cholesterol levels and better still prevent them from rising too.

List of Carbohydrate Foods

2009-09-08T03:55:00.000-07:00

Carbohydrate-rich foods are the most common and the best source of energy. These are usually foods that contain starch, which are converted into simple sugars that are utilized by the cells of the body. Lack of carbohydrates in the diet can cause lack of energy, inability to focus, and lack of physical and mental alertness. However, for people who have problems with sugar metabolism, particularly those with diabetes, too much carbohydrates and sugars in the diet can pose some critical health issues. Here are some of the most common carbohydrate and sugar-rich foods.

* Potatoes

You can have them baked, mashed or as a salad. Potatoes are great for lunch especially if you need a lot of energy for your activities during the afternoon. You may take them with some meat, fish and vegetables in order to have all the necessary nutrients for metabolism and immunity.

* Rice

In East Asian countries, the major source of carbohydrates in the diet are rice and other grain products. Like potatoes, rice is usually eaten with fish, meat or vegetables. For Asians, rice may be eaten during breakfast, lunch or dinner.

* Breads and pastas

For those in Europe and other Western countries, breads and pastas are their primary source of carbohydrates. Different pasta recipes were created so that there is variation and incorporation of vegetables, meat and fish in the diet.

Breads are also common sources of carbohydrates. These may be eaten at almost anytime of the day and may be paired with any drink from coffee to juices.

* Sweets and other sugars

For people who need immediate sources of energy, they may take sweets such as chocolates or candies in order to supply their requirements. Those who expect to engage in sports and other athletic activities should have some sweets that they can take before or after their training.

* Fruit juices

Most people who would like to go on a diet are encouraged to drink a lot of fruit juices in order to help them lose weight. Known to few, fruit juices also contain sugars that increases a person's calorie intake. Thus, it is important that fruit juices are also computed when a person is trying to lose some weight.

Carbohydrates and sugars are necessary for the body in order to function completely. Depletion of blood sugar, which comes from carbohydrates, will have several health issues. However, only sufficient carbohydrates should be consumed to prevent obesity, excess weight and other medical conditions.

The Benefits of Healthy Breakfast Foods for Our Body

2009-09-08T03:50:00.000-07:00

We know how important breakfast is for a good start to the day but healthy breakfast foods are a great way to get started each day on the right food so you don't have to keep eating sugar and fat to keep yourself feeling awake.

After an 8 hour sleep you have likely gone without eating for 8 - 14 hours. This means that your body and brain are running on empty in the morning.

People also should know the importance of breakfast and how it helps in losing weight in a healthier way.

About Healthy Breakfast Foods

Healthy breakfast foods are generally low in calories, low in fat and are filling because of high fiber and/or protein. . When it comes to eating smarter to lose weight you do not always have to go to extremes in changing your diet. If you are thinking about devising a healthy weight loss plan of action, think breakfast!

Eating breakfast everyday is a big part of losing weight. Many people skip breakfast, thinking it will lose weight. This can result in eating more. People who choose to skip breakfast may already be overweight and are trying to cut down on calories by skipping a meal. It may also be because overweight individuals in this group underestimated the amount of food they ate and reported smaller portion sizes than they actually consumed. Actually, eating a bigger meal in the morning and a smaller meal at night optimizes your daily energy levels. When it comes to eating the most important meal of the day, healthy breakfast foods are key to ensuring the best start of a morning.

What Kind Of Healthy Breakfast Foods

Certain cereals and other healthy breakfast foods are a great way to get started each day on the right food. A fruit juice like orange or grape provide a healthy option as well as does a glass of milk or you can choose oatmeal with blueberries and soy milk, a piece of whole grain toast with peanut butter and banana on top, a hardboiled egg on an English muffin, or a fruit smoothie with flaxseed added. When it comes to eating one apple, you will consume about 80 calories with a large amount of fiber and protein or you can pick a cereal with healthy nuts like almonds or walnuts, so you'll get additional protein and good fats your body needs.

Being healthy should start from an early age. Eating habits develop over time and it is important that kids learn the health benefits of eating the right kinds of food and healthy breakfast foods provide you energy throughout the day. They fill you up and provide the necessary nutrients your body needs to feel good. One thing you should know that the key to healthy eating is to find a balance among many different kinds of food.
ARTICLE SOURCE:http://www.articlecity.com/articles/food_and_drink/article_2296.shtml

8 Ways to Survive (and Maybe Even Enjoy) a Family Holiday with a Child with Autism

2009-09-08T03:48:00.001-07:00

Work has become tedious. The walls of your home seem to be closing in. You NEED a vacation. But the thought of traveling with your children, especially your child with autism, is less than enticing.

Families need vacations: time to escape the regular chores, schedules and routines of home and family. Holidays mean a chance to break away from routine, a change of pace, new setting, different food, people and activities; not exactly autism friendly! Traveling with children is always more challenging, but planning a vacation with a child with autism can seem downright daunting.

There are ways to alleviate some of the stress and create an enjoyable getaway for every member of the family. Some simple guidelines and smart planning will make a big difference!

Start small

Children with autism do best with learning in small steps. If your child has never had time away from home it is wise to take a “mini vacation” for a few hours, build up to a whole day and soon after that a night away. The more familiar a child is with a new activity the less anxiety they will experience. A few hours spent in an activity close to home that is similar to what you plan to do on vacation, will be worth the time and energy. You may choose to visit a local museum, a nearby beach, a mall or spend some time on a boat. The closer the “mini holiday” matches the real thing, the better. The more practice a child has with an activity (given the proper strategies) the more they will be able to regulate emotions and enjoy the experience.

Take time to preview

Our anxiety levels typically increase when we have no clue what to expect about an upcoming event. Many people have a difficult time with the “unknown.” This is particularly true of kids with autism! As adults, we may choose to browse a travel guide, read rating scales and look at photo galleries of places where we plan to visit in order to preview where we are going and what we can expect. Our children who live with autism will benefit from these activities as well. Browse the Internet, peruse travel brochures and maybe even visit a bookstore and/or library to allow your child to read about a specific place that you plan to visit. There is an abundance of books about traveling on an airplane, visiting grandparents, ocean life or life in big cities. Whatever you decide to do with your family, reading about it is an awesome way to acquaint your children with the idea.

Don’t leave home without the visuals

Visual supports are an absolute necessity when traveling with children that have autism…even if you are away from home for a day! Pictures, calendars, maps, brochures and photos provide individuals with autism a priceless gift of predictability and order. Holidays can be filled with distractions, changes of plans, new events and unknown people. The potential for meltdowns is high when family members are tired, routines are off, and emotions and expectations are on overload and. Visual supports can act as an anxiety reducer and a welcome relief.

Individuals with autism gain a sense of calm from predictability and familiarity. When planning a trip, highlight the route on a map and if you know where you plan to stop, mark those spots on the map. Maps are often appealing to children with autism and they provide a visual tool that the child can hold and manipulate as they travel. For children that can read you may consider providing a list of some of the towns or cities through which you will travel. Children can check them off as they go or just use them as a reference when they want to know, where they are. Maps and trip itineraries are useful tools to reduce anxiety because they provide a tangible reference point and predictability. Route changes can also be made quickly on the map or just written on a piece of paper.

Not knowing how days will be filled and what will happen next is unnerving for individuals who live with autism (and for many non autistic people)! Many of us rely on electronic gadgets or day planners to keep us feeling directed, calm and in control. When planning your family trip, bring along a calendar or a day planner of some sort. Attach a strip of Velcro on each day of the trip and bring along pictures of activities or places that are associated with each day. Photographs, brochure cut outs, or homemade pictures will work. If the child is able to read, then writing on the calendar gives our children the opportunity to see what is coming and to organize the time in their minds. The Velcro offers us the flexibility of changing plans if necessary. It also demonstrates to our kids that events are not always fixed; plans change. The key is to teach the child to refer to the calendar when they are feeling uneasy. Reward them when they do so. The alternative is to listen to a constant barrage of questions.

Plan time fairly

Choose a few favorite activities rather than trying to cram everything into the day. A trip to Disneyland can be a sensory nightmare for a child with autism. Limiting the amount of activity done in a day will go a long way to making the trip more pleasant for the whole family. Do you really have to visit all of the theme parks? Is it necessary to shop in every mall? Must you participate in all of the resort activities? Your child with autism may not be capable of managing the sensory, emotional and social stimulation that more typical children are able to cope with.

Holidays by nature, tend to be very social, unpredictable and novel. Children with autism need “downtime” from the hustle uncertainty of holidays. This may mean allowing him to participate in a favorite activity for a portion of time; whatever activity he truly enjoys doing that helps him to unwind. It may mean that the child spins, jumps, twirls a sensory toy or just sits in a chair. Watching the history channel while the family is down at the beach may be just what the teen with autism needs. The activity is child driven and NOT the parent driven. Using a timer or visual clock helps to set parameters around the activity. Using cell phones or Walkie Talkies allow parents and kids to communicate when they are not in direct contact.

Plan for unstructured time

Children with autism may not be able to generate ideas to amuse themselves and parents shouldn’t have to be entertainment directors. Some simple tools will make unstructured times like travel time and waiting for flights much more bearable. Start with a written or picture menu of all of the available items to play with. Be sure to show only the choices that ARE available! Fidget toys, digital toys, magnetic travel games, ipods, handheld games, a whiteboard with markers and magnetic puzzles are invaluable when down time is non negotiable. “Wait cards” and “Unavailable cards” are invaluable when we need to let a child know that an activity or item is either delayed or not available. These cards must be part of the child’s daily life before the vacation so that they are tolerable for the child during the holiday. Pack a bag that contains all of the activities and be sure to have it handy when the waiting begins. Using a timer or a schedule helps the child know how long the activity will last.

Practice Social skills and expectations

As adults we may find ourselves assuming that a child knows how to act in various situations. Children with autism may have no idea what is expected in a certain setting and there is a good chance that they may not be concerned about what is expected! Different settings have unspoken conventions that maintain a sense of order. When visiting museums, churches, art galleries, public parks, zoos and amusement parks, think about the hidden rules that typical people just instinctively “know.” Avoid embarrassment and frustration by reviewing the “social rules” ahead of time; keep them short and sweet. Ask the child to repeat them back to you and be clear about a reward or reinforcement for abiding by the conventions.

A social script can be quickly written on paper or a whiteboard before the child is expected to participate in an unfamiliar social situation.

For example, the rules of hanging out on the beach could be written as a social script and reviewed each time a child goes to the beach:

People like to play on the beach and some people like to lie down on the beach.

We are careful not to kick sand on people when we walk in the sand.

We can lay our towels next to each other in the family.

We can lay our towels 1 or 2 big steps away from someone that we do not know.

When we lift our towels we are careful not to shake sand on other people.

The beach is fun.

Choose to have fun

The most important item to make sure you bring along on a vacation is the expectation to enjoy it. Our thoughts control much of what we experience so it is worthwhile to affirm in your own mind that this time away will be fun. Remind yourself to really watch your children as they experience new things; smile, breathe deeply and laugh often. When plans don’t quite work remind yourself that “it is what it is” and your reaction to a situation is really what determines the outcome. Choose to be cheerful and positive and your mood will likely rub off on the rest of your family.

Plopping your children in a car, driving for six hours and telling them to stop whining will not likely result in a great vacation! Planning ahead will play a huge role in creating a holiday that is fun filled. There are little things that we take for granted about traveling that we must be aware of so that we can create a great vacation. You need it. Your family needs it. Go ahead and have fun!

Top 10 attractions and activities in Bangkok

2009-09-08T03:43:00.000-07:00

Visiting Bangkok soon? There’s plenty more to this city than traffic congestion and massage parlours. In fact this happening Asian city is one of the region’s most visited and offers up a host of great value and culturally rich experiences. Here are 10 of my favourite recommendations for spending a few days in the Thailand capital.

1. Jim Thompson’s House
This stunning teak house, now a museum, was built by silk industry legend Jim Thompson. A colourful American character, he made his home in Thailand after developing a love for the country and its people when he was stationed here during WWII. Before his mysterious disappearance in the late 1960s, he had completed this magical home and successfully revived Thailand’s silk industry. Visitors can tour the house that was once the talk of the town, see some of his personal belongings and read allegations about what happened on his fateful vacation to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia.

2. Patpong
While this red light district attracts plenty of sex tourists who come for just one thing, it has a wide appeal to many types of tourist. Aside from the rows of go-go bars offering a menu of delights, there are lots of regular cafés that make for great people-watching. Shoppers will want to hit the night market which sells everything from cheap CDs and watches to fake designer handbags. You may be accosted by bar touts while you are browsing, but most of them are not too persistent and there is a friendly, harmless atmosphere. If you don’t want to spend your night watching naked ladies dancing, there are many nightclubs and live music venues that do not provide any ‘extra’ services.

3. Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew
While the Grand Palace is little used by royalty today, its adjacent neighbour, Wat Phra Kaew, is probably the most visited temple in the country and certainly a must-visit on any break to Bangkok. Housing the Emerald Buddha statue and some intricate murals, the temple is the site of many significant Buddhist religious ceremonies. Visitors must cover their legs and arms before they will be allowed entry, so make sure you dress appropriately.

4. Wat Arun
This temple was most significant during the height of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, but it experienced a fall in visitors after the capital was moved down the Chao Phraya River to Bangkok’s current location. Having experienced a revival, the temple is once again one of the most visited in the country, and sits nestled between six Chinese-style pavilions on the riverbank. Its most unusual feature is its Khmer-style tower which has depictions of Chinese soldiers and animals as well as a statue of the Indian god Indra. The tiny pieces of cut glass and seashells used to adorn the tower glisten in the sun. The temple was briefly home to the Emerald Buddha statue before it was moved to Wat Phra Kaew.

5. Shopping
Bangkok’s latest glitzy addition to its super-malls is Siam Paragon, a designer lover’s paradise, with every outlet from Gucci to Louis Vuitton represented. But if your budget doesn’t allow for such luxury, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives. Siam Paragon’s neighbour, Siam Discover Centre has a popular bookshop and some home decorating outlets, while nearby Siam Square has a number of specialist boutiques mainly selling clothing and music. Within walking distance is MBK, a vast mall with hundreds of shops and bargains. The cheapest deals however can be found at Pratuman Market, where the biggest problem you will have afterwards will not be your bank balance, it will be getting all your purchases home.

6. Khao San Road
This backpacker’s mecca has been popular with travellers for decades and provides a lively, if noisy, atmosphere for those passing through the capital. Lined with cheap guesthouses, restaurants and bars, visitors can shop here by day and party here by night. It is also a good place to shop for hippy-style clothes, jewellery and CDs, while dozens of travel agents offer inexpensive tickets to onward destinations. If you want to meet other fellow travellers, this is the place.

7. Chatuchak Market
This vast weekend market is a day out in itself. Get here early and make your way through the little alleys, picking up bargains along the way. By afternoon, the markets gets very crowded and expect to be pushed, shoved and tugged at as you hot-foot it around. But if the heat and crowds get too much, rest up at one of the inexpensive food stalls before a second round. With everything from puppies to books and plants to clothing, whatever you are looking for, you are guaranteed to find it here. Be careful you don’t loose your friends as you shop; it’s easy to get lost here!

8. Muay Thai Boxing
This martial art is passionately followed by Thais who like nothing more than to watch two opponents battle it out with lethal swings and crushing kicks. While at first this may not seem like the ideal way to spend you evening, the electric crowds and charged atmosphere is contagious, making for a great night out. Tickets are sold in three tiers, depending how close you want to be, and fights are held almost nightly. Lumphini and Ratchadamnoen stadiums are the most popular venues and tickets can be bought on the door.

9. Lumpini Park
Bangkok is a busy city and if you find yourself in need of tranquility, you won’t have far to go. Lumpini Park lies at the heart of the city, and is an oasis of calm. Visitors can paddle their way around the lake and its canals on a rented peddle-boat, or alternatively lounge in the shade of palm trees. There are also a few architectural attractions within the park including a Chinese-style clock tower, Thai Lanna and Chinese pavilions, a variety of sculptures, a children’s play park and a rest area.

10. Dreamworld
If you think Bangkok sightseeing is all about ancient temples and palaces, you are wrong! This exciting adventure theme park is a break from tradition and is the ideal daytrip for those with children. Alongside heart-stopping roller coasters, there are relaxing theme gardens, replicas of famous landmarks, live shows and performances and even a cable car. Easily accessible by public transport or by car, the park is conveniently situated within proximity of the city centre.

Kids Birthday Cakes

2009-09-08T03:40:00.001-07:00

The most special thing for a Child’s birthday party is the birthday cake. The kids love the moment of cutting the birthday cake and blowing out the candles. There can be so many gifts for the child, but the center of attraction is the birthday cake. Therefore, it is worth putting a lot of time and money in planning the birthday cake.

More than the taste, we need to concentrate in shape, color, and size of the birthday cake. It is always better if we could design the birthday cake in cartoon characters that are familiar to the children. If the birthday cake is made in the birthday child's favorite color or character, they will obliviously love it.

The birthday cake idea

If the birthday cake has a theme or idea the attraction for it, is immense. Here are few suggestions. There are Pirates and Princesses, a classic birthday cake themes for boys and girls. They can be Cinderella Castle Cake, ice Cream Castle Cake, Pirate Cake, Pirate Ship Cake, Princess Cake, Splendid Castle Cake, and Treasure Chest Cake

Sports- this birthday cake idea is for kids who love sports. They are Bowling Ball Cake, Bowling Lane Cake, Football Cake, and Skateboard Cake. Wings and Wheels-this birthday cake idea will really move your child. They are Train Cake, Dump Truck Cake, Fire Engine Cake, Outback Jeep Cake, Racetrack Cake, School Bus Cake, and Space Cake

Birthday cake designs

The birthday cake design can be anything. If the birthday cake design is different, meaningful, the kids, children and adults will appreciate it. Listed below are a few design ideas for your next birthday cake.

They are Apron Cake, Artist's Palette Cake, Boom Box Cake, Checkers Cake, Chinese Checkers Cake, Groovy T-shirt Cake, Pizza Cake, Private Eye Cake, Remote Control Cake, Smiley Face Cake, and Teeny Tiny Cake Tub Cake Upside-Down Cake, Volcano Cake Birth day cake decorating ideas

Once the birthday cake is made or purchased, it should be decorated well. The decoration is generally done to the top and sides of the cake. It is always better to decorate the birthday cake using the favorite color of the birthday boy or girl. The table in which the birthday cake is placed also should be decorated suitably.

Birthday cake recipe

An excellent birthday cake recipe is a 4-layer chocolate cake with whipped cream filling between the layers. The ingredients are -1 package Devils Food cake mix, 4 small cans or cups, Ready-to-Serve Chocolate Pudding, 1 egg, 1/2 - 1 cup Chocolate Chips WHIPPED CREAM FILLING INGREDIENTS 2 cups, Whipping Cream, 1/2 cup Powdered Confectioner's Sugar, 1 - 2 Teaspoons Vanilla

We can frost the entire cake with Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting, and sprinkle the sides with chocolate sprinkles. The recipe Chocolate Whipped Cream consists of Frosting-1 1/2 cups, Heavy Whipping Cream1 1/2 cups, Powdered Sugar- 1/3-cup, Baking Cocoa-1/2 teaspoon, and Vanilla.

Children's birthday cakes

Children's birthday cakes must have a good design, shape, and size. If the cake has any theme or idea, the children will love it. If the design resembles a familiar character to the children like Paddington Bear or Snoopy, it will be an added attraction. The suggested children birthday cake models are Pureed Strawberries and Fresh Cream, Vanilla Sponge in Nemo, Teddy Bear, Power Puff Girls, Tweety, Winnie the Pooh, Invincibles, Bob the Builder, Simpson's, Thomas The Train, Barbie, or whatever the child is into during that time.

How To Stock Your Home Bar For Your Next Party

2009-09-08T03:38:00.001-07:00

"There can't be good living where there is not good drinking." -- Benjamin Franklin

Owning a home bar can be a very fun investment. For many people drinking is definitely on of the high points of their day. Having a safe, readily accessible supply of alcohol can increase anyone's enjoyment of their daily lives.

Home bars are the ultimate example of dedication and convenience. One can easily drink to excess while saving money and not having to find a way home. Men can avoid angering their wives, because a night at the bar would merely entail them staying home.

"Do not allow children to mix drinks. It is unseemly and they use too much vermouth." -- Steve Allen

Once the decision to purchase a home bar has been made, the shopping can begin. The purpose of the bar is the determining factor for which style to buy.

For small soirees and outdoor get-togethers, small portable bars are ideal. There are many styles of these types of bars. Some styles include wheeled carts, while others prefer lighter structures that can be more easily moved.

Those who like to entertain outdoors can also appreciate bars made especially for that purpose. Traditional Tiki bars and rustic looking wooden bars are common themes at poolside parties.

Traditional large bars are a common favorite amongst those with large enough houses to have room to spare. These generally take up a lot of wall space and are made to feel just like a public facility. They are usually composed of a wall unit for storing alcohol and glasses, a space for the bartender, and an actual bar for patron to sit.

"Beer brewers shall sell no beer to the citizens, unless it be three weeks old; to the foreigner they may knowingly sell younger beer." -- German Beer Law, 1466

When most people think of bars they tend to think primarily about liquor, but beer is such a fundamental aspect of the history of drinking that it is hard to discount the significance of being able to serve beer properly at home.

Many of the larger home bars come with easy to use draft levers. Drinking from a keg that is properly maintained can save an avid drinker a considerable amount of money. By the ounce, it is almost always a better investment to buy in bulk.

A properly stored beer keg can last from three to four months. Someone who has at least one beer a day, the cost of a keg easily makes up for itself when compared to the cost of a 12-, or even, 24-pack.

Small refrigerators are placed under the bar to allow the beer to maintain the proper temperature for maintaining its flavor. These are connected by a series of tubes to the draft valve, provided easy access to good beer all of the time.

"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." -- Dean Martin

After choosing the proper home bar, stocking it becomes the most important aspect of proper hosting. Some people start by purchasing a couple bottles of classic liquors, but ultimately, a much wider selection is going to be necessary for a well-rounded collection of alcohol.

When it comes to the basics, there are a few items that no bar should be without. Vodka, tequila, rum, gin, whiskey, bourbon, and scotch make up the foundation for any true attempt at a bar. Other common liquors include various flavors of Schnapps. The most common of these are peach, melon, apple, and butterscotch.

Kailua, Jagermeister, and brandies are also very popular bar staples. There are hundreds of varieties of alcohol to choose from and personal preference plays a large role in determining the amount and kind of alcohol to provide.

In addition to regular liquors, wine and beer are also common drinking requirements for any bar. Providing a solid selection of these is fairly easy. Most wines come in different colors. One red, one white, and one blush wine can provide enough selection for most guests.

Beer can be a bit more complicated than wine, but only because there are more options available to the average drinker. There are the basic regular beers that can be found at any gas station across the country.

It is always advisable to stock up on regular beer, more than any other type of alcoholic drink. Light beer is great if you are going to have a group that includes a fair amount of women, because it has fewer calories then regular beer.

Strong, stout beers are considered essential to some, but they are very much an acquired taste. Wheat beers and ales provide a well-rounded flavor that lacks the intensity of most stout beers. Many of these also include fruit flavors for an added incentive.

In addition to the basic alcohols, having mixers to add flavor or dull the burn of some drinks is essential for any drinking experience. Soda, margarita and sweet and sour mix, and assorted juices can provide endless ideas for beverage making.

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink, because when they wake up, that's best they feel all day." -- Frank Sinatra

Having a place to relax after a hard day can be one of the most significant improvements to the quality of your life and your overall health. Escaping the stress of daily life is essential to a happy existence. Home bars are a terrific way of ensuring that your home is not only a fun place for you, but also for your friends and family.

Maintaining a well-stocked bar and having people to share it with can be one of the most rewarding investments you can make for your home.

Turbulence Training - a Fat Loss Program

2009-09-08T03:35:00.001-07:00

Turbulence training has been considered as the most effective fat loss training system in the world today and it works faster and more effectively than any other Fat loss program. Turbulence Training is the ultimate workout system developed by Men's Fitness Training Adviser, Craig Ballantyne. This program helps you to lose fat, gain muscles and still maintain a lean body with a minimum workout of less than an hour 3 to 4 times a week. Turbulence Training is a proven way to melt fat faster, while protecting your skillfully developed muscles.

Turbulence training promotes a significant reduction in body fat and an increase in energy levels over a period 4 weeks in association with a proper diet plan. It is a program which demands a lot of energy which may allow you to have more strength than you had before the fat loss program. Turbulence training focuses on the burning of carbohydrates to fat, inorder to burn more calories after the workout is over. Turbulence Training focuses on resistance training and interval training. Both of these use carbohydrate as the main source of energy. So it's obvious the workout is designed to burn carbohydrates during the training session. Turbulence training program’s post-exercise burning of carbohydrates attribute to the principle of anaerobic exercise. Therefore, when you exercise with intervals and heavy resistance training, your body uses more calories in the hours after exercise than it would if you did traditional cardio and lifted lighter weights. The heavy resistance helps in promoting protein yield and an enhanced body composition.

Turbulence Training also helps women maintain an attractive feminine physique. It helps you to lose fat, gain muscle, sustain weight loss and say good-bye to your love handles forever. Recent studies have revealed that, all fitness models, body builders and athletes and even common people should include high intensity resistance and interval training for fat loss and muscle development. Exercise intensity is the determining factor for post-exercise energy expenditure and fat loss success. But interval training is more effective for burning body fat and maintaining muscle mass than regular cardio.

Turbulence Training is a structured routine that allows you to get the most results in the least amount of time indifferent of your goals. This fat loss program induces a metabolic disturbance in the body which occurs from muscle damage invoked by intense interval and resistance training creating a potent stimulus for fat loss and muscle growth. Thus burning more calories and fat, developing a better metabolic body condition and gaining enough muscles compared to any other.

The Skinny Guy's Guide To Gaining Weight

2009-09-08T03:33:00.000-07:00

How would you like to learn how to gain weight fast? If the title of this article caught your attention, there is a good chance you are sick and tired of not seeing the weight on the scale budge. Most likely you just got home from the Mandarin buffet and still can't budge the scale. You could live on McDonald's and Pizza Delight and your Ferrari style metabolism would simply burn it off. In a world that is obsessed with losing weight – you are interested in gaining weight!

Are You Sick and Tired Of People Telling You How To Gain Weight?

It probably sounds like this:

“All you have to do is eat, eat, and eat some more to gain weight...”

“Weight gain is just a matter of eating...”

“You just gotta overload your metabolism to gain weight fast...”

“You can't build a house without the bricks and mortar for gaining weight...”

Don't throw me to the wolves quite yet. There is certainly truth to these statements and some of these analogies can prove quite powerful. I think I'm even guilty of preaching a few! But the problem with this advice is that it's usually followed up with the same old regurgitated blah, blah, blah advice that only tells you what to do and does not reveal real-world, practical how-to action-steps.

If you are someone who has struggled their entire life, trying to pack on extra muscle mass and still consider yourself underweight, then you are not alone. I was once skinny and underweight myself...

People, predispositioned to skinniness, are commonly referred to as “hard gainers.” This is the cool way to label your scrawny frame despite the fact that your body turns into a Number 2 pencil when you wear yellow!

It's Not Totally Your Fault You’re Skinny

In the skinny guy’s defense, the reality is that you have been cursed with traits like Lamborghini-type metabolism, giraffe like limbs, and the strength of a senior citizen. You have to fight with every bone in your body to do something about your small frame and to keep up to your male buddies who seem to grow muscle just by sneezing – those muscle freaks piss me off just as much you!

Even though you might think your genetic deficiencies have sentenced you to a life of frailty and surprised looks when you tell others you lift weights, I am living proof that hard gainers with very ‘muscle-unfriendly genes’ can fight back against their genetics and gain muscle weight. I defeated my skinny genetics just after college and I am about to show you four tips that helped me climb from a 149 pound weakling to a rock hard 190 pounds in six months.

Trust me, no body has worse genetics for building muscle and gaining weight than an ex-long distance runner who abused his body with 60-80 miles of running a week (for over 10 years).

Skinny Guys Must Play By A Different Set Of Rules

If you are underweight, than your first step to gaining weight is to understand that you must play by a different set up rules. I have said this before and will say it again,

“Taking advice from someone who can gain muscle weight easilyis like taking money advice from someone who inherited a fortune or is making money illegally.”

You must think outside the box and give up the excuse of being a “hard gainer.” It is time to stop listening to all the naysayers who have told you that is impossible to gain weight because of your genetics. Regardless of what you have been led to believe, you do have the potential to build an impressive physique that turns heads and even intimidates!

If you have read this far, I am guessing you are ready to longer resemble a microphone stand! You are prepared to overload your metabolism for muscle growth, to ensure you are never referred to as 'underweight' or 'skinny' ever again. Start following these simple steps and don't be surprised if you gain an extra ten pounds of muscle weight in the next four weeks.

Simple How To Gain Weight Action Steps To Start Growing Like A Skyscraper!

1. Double It Up

One of the most practical steps you can take is to double whatever you are currently eating in the kitchen right now. If you are eating one chicken breast per meal, then cook up two. If you are only eating two slices of bread, then make it four. If you are eating one handful of nuts, then make it two. If you are using only two scoops of protein powder, then make it four.

Most likely you are only a few dozen meals short of filling out your underdeveloped body parts and attracting the attention of that sexy girl at your gym. I assume you are already in the kitchen and have the food out. So would you agree, you really have no good excuse not to shovel down a greater percentage of calories by doubling it up?

2. Live Your Life Around Food

Sure, you know that you must eat every 2-3 hours, but how well do you execute? Set your clock on a countdown timer to go off every 2 and ½ hours so that you reinforce the habit of eating literally not a second late for each meal! Don't turn off the damn beeper until you start chowing down.

Ensure you are eating your first meal within 15-30 minutes of waking up - absolutely no later. This first meal of the day should always consist of REAL food to flood your body with quality nutrients. I question anybody’s commitment to gaining weight if they are too lazy to wake up 15 minutes earlier to eat a real meal.

Lastly, don’t be surprised if you are not gaining weight if you do not find yourself spending more time preparing food, more time eating food and more time cleaning your kitchen. You should notice you are spending more time in the grocery store and you should also notice a larger grocery bill each week!

3. Use BIG Eating Equipment

If you want to bulk, then you have to eat like Hulk. Do you think Hulk eats out of a small plate, or a small bowel, or a small cup? If you are aiming to get big and huge, you are going to require large amounts of food, most likely close to double of what you are currently eating.

So get BIG eating equipment! Get a BIG cup, get a BIG bowel, and get a BIG plate. Surround yourself with BIG. Most of the time hard gainers are nothing more than “under eaters.” If you struggle to complete a meal, then a bigger serving on a bigger plate will look small!

4. Never Train Hungry

How many times have you woken up, whipped up a protein shake and than headed off to the gym? Or maybe you had a long afternoon and missed a few meals and then attempted a weight training workout after work?

I thought this was common sense to avoid, until a few of my skinny clients confessed that they were showing up for their workouts having only eaten a piece of fruit and some crackers within the entire day!

After dropping the 45-pound plate on my foot out of shock, they reassured me: they were not hungry. I sometimes screamed back, “Yeah, that’s because your metabolism is in starvation mode and shut right down, you skinny pencil neck!”

I understand that training in the morning is the only time for some, however, I recommend to aim for a minimum of at least three solid meals in your system prior to training. Or eat the biggest meal of your day immediately after your AM workout. Would you take your car out on a long trip with a half empty fuel tank? Not unless you wanted the car to die and you push it the rest of the way. So why would you take your body through a grueling training session on an empty stomach?

5. Eat Nutrient Dense Foods

Focus on caloric-rich foods that are loaded with nutrients. Avoid foods with empty calories, which means there is little or no nutrient value in the calories you are eating. Why would you consume a 500-calorie plus meal that is loaded with fat and sugar which does nothing but make you feel sluggish and soft? Instead, eat a high caloric meal loaded with slow releasing carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and fiber. Here are some of the best choices:

Carbohydrates – Oatmeal, rice, breads, yams beans, potatoes, fruits and veggies.

Proteins – Steak, chicken, lean beef, cottage cheese, whole milk, eggs and salmon.

Fats – Olive oil, flax oil, avocados, nuts and peanut butter.

Extras (high calorie cheat food) – Ice cream, raisins, dried fruit and trail mix.

6. Drink A Carb And Protein Drink While You Workout

How hard is to sip on a calorie-rich drink during your weight training sessions? Simply mix up a 2:1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein with one liter of water and you instantly have a few extra hundred calories per day. Now have an extra workout drink before your workout and extra workout drink after your workout and that's easily an extra one pound per week. Only use this technique if you are weight training at a very high intensity.

7. Live the motto, “Never Stop Eating”

Did I hear you say, “But I'll throw up if I eat all day?” Maybe... Is it necessary? Of course not. But this is a part of pushing your body’s threshold. Don't worry, you will get used to it and your body will require more food as you gain more muscle on your body and your metabolism increases. Just think that if you are not eating, then you are not growing, and if you are not growing then you are staying the same. Is that what you want?

Conclusion

There you have it and as I promised, learning how to gain weight fast is quite simple. Executing is a whole different story. It will really come down to how truly committed you are to defeating your skinny genetics and gaining the muscular body you deserve!

Here is my promise to you. You have the ability to gain at least another ten pounds of solid weight in the next four weeks by simply applying the advice above. If you are truly committed to your goals of gaining muscle weight and no longer being known as underweight, then I believe you will rise to the challenge and take action! Are you with me?

A Guide To Balding Men's Hairstyles

2009-09-08T03:29:00.001-07:00

It's unbelievable how difficult it is to find any decent information on the internet about balding men's hairstyles.

You'll know this yourself if you've ever tried to do a search on Google for 'balding men's hairstyles', 'hairstyles for balding men', 'balding hairstyles' or any other amount of variations on the theme.

This is surprising considering how many balding men there are who deserve a decent hairstyle as much as any one else.

So faced with this injustice I've put together my own guide to balding men's hairstyles.

It's a fact that 95% of all balding or bald men suffer from male pattern baldness. Male pattern baldness usually starts with a receding hairline at the front and is frequently accompanied with thinning at the top.

Over time, this thinning turns into a full fledged bald spot, and the bald spot grows to cover the head, apart from the sides and around the back.

Regardless of this, as long as there is a single hair left on my head I'll still demand a stylish coiffure. So, what balding hairstyle options are available?

The worst balding men's hairstyle is the comb over. This is the classic look beloved of men of a certain age whereby the hair is grown longer on one side of the head and 'combed over' the bald area to the other side.

This strategy only spells disaster even in the slightest of breezes and is to be avoided at all costs.

But assuming you already know this, what are the other do's and don'ts to balding men's hairstyles?

The first common mistake is combing the hair straight back. This may cover bald spots, but it only exposes the forehead and draws attention to the receding hairline.

The second is growing your hair longer at the back to make up for what's lacking on top. This unbalances the head and draws even more attention to the scalp and the baldness.

Younger men with thinning hair might be tempted to use gel but this isn't recommended. Gel clumps your hair together and reveals the scalp.

Likewise, growing your hair long in an attempt to cover up actually causes hair to separate and show more scalp.

So, what are the do's?

Get more natural looking fluff to your hair by using mousses and conditioners.

Grow your remaining hair by a few inches, get it layered and brush it forward to break up the receding hairline.

If your hairline isn't receding too badly, but the top of your head is thinning, you can get away with keeping the front long and combing your hair straight back to cover the bald spot.

Eventually however, your bald spot will expand.

The ultimate balding men's hairstyle when faced with a shiny bald dome, is to go the whole hog and shave it off or at least a very close trim.

You'll probably be amazed at people's reactions and the compliments you'll get the shaved look is a totally acceptable balding hairstyle these days.

Start with electric clippers like you find in the barbers. After you've clipped the heavy stuff, lather up with shaving gel. This gives you a closer, smoother shave than shaving cream.

Then using a razor, start at the top and shave down with the grain taking care at the back - it's recommended to watch what you're doing with a small mirror.

Shaving your head only takes a few minutes and you don't need to do it every day (two to three times a week is fine).

Taking care of your new shaved head is much like taking care of your face. Wash regularly with moisturizing soap, rather than a harsh deodorant soap that can dry out the skin on your head.

Also use a good quality moisturizer after every wash, cheaper moisturizers will just clog up your pores.

For the summer, find a moisturizer with a sun protection factor of at least 15 to avoid sunburn on your head. And you'll need a warm hat in winter to maintain your body heat.

If shaving doesn't tickle your fancy then

HOW TO MAKE THINNING HAIR LOOK THICKER

2009-09-08T03:26:00.000-07:00

Even if you do not have thinning hair, I bet you dream of having lush, thick and healthy locks to set off your complete look. For most people with thinning hair, though, all of their styling endeavors are met with frustration and a style that falls well short of the image that they had envisioned.

Thinning hair shouldn't sentence you to a life of dull and unstylish tresses. In fact, there are several things that you can do to make your thinning hair look stunning. The best part is that these options for styling thinning hair won't cost a great deal of your time or money either.

The first thing that you need to do to make your thinning hair look thicker is to find the right stylist. Try to find a stylist who has other clients with thinning hair and is fluent in all of the right styles and techniques to both protect thinning hair and make it look thicker than it really is. One way to do this by asking for referrals from family or friends who also have thinning hair, yet always seem to look like they have just left the salon.

Once you have found the right stylist, the two of you can begin to examine your options for making your thinning hair appear thick again. There are lots of different ways to thicken up your locks, so it is very important for you and your stylist to talk about each thinning hair option together so that you can pick the right techniques that are perfect for you and your thinning hair.

Here are just a few of the ways that you can make your thinning hair appear lush and thick:

Cut and Texture: One of the best ways to conceal your thinning hair is to get a cut that adds lots of texture and movement to your style while at the same time making your hair appear thicker. Long hair tends to draw the eye to the reality of thinning hair and so shorter hairstyles are often your better option. Choose styles with a lot of layers and textures that will create movement and interest to your thinning hair style. Adding texture with soft curls can also be a great way to make your thinning hair look its best.

Color: Not only does color add more body and thickness to your thinning hair, it can also be used to draw the eye away from particularly thin spots. With combinations of low-lights, high-lights and color accents, your stylist can do great wonders for your thinning hair with a color brush. Products: There are a wide variety of products on the market that can be used to conceal thinning hair. For example, thickening shampoos and conditioners can do a lot for thinning hair. Also be aware of what types of styling products you use on your thinning hair; use lighter products such as mousses and pomades instead heavy products like gel and spritzs. As you can see, none of these remedies for thinning hair are particularly complicated or expensive. By simply learning how to best style your thinning hair and learning to use the right products, you can do a great deal to make your hair look both chic and thick.

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The Best Tips That Will Help You Understand the Need for Weight Loss

2009-09-08T03:21:00.000-07:00

It is easier to gain weight than to lose it. All you need do is eat more and do little of everything else that works in making you add weight. In a few days, you could get to look like an inflated ball. The reverse is to regulate what you feed on, and engage in lots of exercise. A couple of weeks down the line, and people might have trouble recognizing you.

If discrimination does not work to make a fat person do something about their condition, the person often becomes a sociopath. It is either that or the person grows into a recluse of a human being- unable to face or accept society as is. You must be careful which side you fall in. That's why losing weight should be of very utmost importance to you, if you are overweight.

A few formerly obese people claim to have been able to lose weight thanks to acupuncture. While there is reason to believe that this may be true, the fact that the secrets of the process are not readily accessible to the general public has resulted in not-so-friendly debates that continually challenge the procedure.

Some people subscribe to hypnotism to shed weight. Whereas it sometimes works, this is a dangerous procedure because it exposes you to being controlled by another person. People cannot be trusted that much: the therapist can help you lose you weight, yet infect you with another nasty habit you could have lived well without.

There are so many success stories with weight gaining and losing that it is a wonder anyone is still obese. Open any arbitrary magazine today, and you will likely find some other celeb who is declaring that a certain drug or process saved their life. It is time you wrote your own weight loss story too, don't you think?

Kids who are unable to lose weight are mostly like that because they did not get sufficient help or support from their family. A few though, are those who refused to pay attention when such help was provided. More often than not, they grow up as people who are not welcome or likeable by the society, and often they are bitter within themselves.

High blood pressure is something that most overweight people have to deal with. This is coupled with being prone to heart conditions and even diabetes. To get rid of the problems, they must find a way to lose the heaviness in their bodies. The consequence of failure is an unhealthy life, or an untimely death.

Some methods used in weight loss are crash dieting, drug supplements, surgery and exercise. By far the most effective is the surgery, because it is most times irreversible. But following closely behind it, and with a lot more integrity, is exercise, which requires and instills discipline in you that will guide you through life.

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Benefits of Fruits into a Daily Diet

2009-09-08T03:19:00.000-07:00

At present possess a healthy and balanced diet is the primary goal of all people, but often this objective is frustrated by a variety of reasons, among which a very common is the lack of fruit consumption, when in fact this is a of the main sources of balance in the diet of every person, which is why in this article show the importance and benefits they bring fruit into a daily diet.

Since ancient times the basic concept of the importance of fruit is reflected in the ancient Egyptian and Babylonian scrolls, which said that these were the food of the gods and thus were to be regarded as the most important gift offered by the themselves. This concept is because in reality they are valued the qualities that these have to provide the human body the nutrients needed to keep the body in optimum operation that allows the normal course of daily life

At present, thanks to scientific advancement fruits to be found many and important benefits to human health, some of them as:

â€¢ Getting vitamins: as we all know vitamins are a very important part of the human diet, so the fruit are presented to us as the main source for purchasing them, for the sole and exclusive purpose that our health is maintained in a perfect state, an vivid example of this are some vitamins such as B and C, which because of a water-soluble, are not maintained by great time in our body, it is worth noting that vitamin C is vital for bone health recuperatorios and processes, not to mention helping to prevent the emergence of illnesses like the flu among others, why the consumption of some fruits such as citrus fruit contribute to this kind of vitamins are obtained easily and every day.

â€¢ Collection of minerals: minerals provide the body is one of the main tasks of the fruit, since these usually have minerals such as iron and phosphorus, which are vital to human trials, a very good example of the above is the iron, which is essential for the body to develop a substance called hemoglobin serving as oxigenante for cells, not to mention that in turn gives color to red blood cells.

A very important point to play with the benefits of fruit, is that these help to control some internal processes such as organic digestion and nutrition, because these not only have vitamins and minerals, but also other elements such as fiber, which is Responsible for the role before this; saponosides, carotenoids, phenols and isocyanates among other elements in addition to maintaining a strong person that consumes, it also contributes directly to strengthening the body's defenses, thus helping avoid the appearance of various diseases such as and some influenza infections.

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Weight Loss Resources For Us, Overweight

2009-09-08T03:07:00.000-07:00

If you are undecided about where or how to get a good liposuction surgeon, you can patronize several sources such as the internet or get a referral. Your personal doctor can give you a referral to an excellent liposuction surgeon. You can also get a tangible idea about how to get a good plastic surgeon from your general practitioner.

Liposuction has done a lot of favors for sexually repressed people. There has been an indication that people who formerly avoided sex because of the poor impression they had about their bodies now enjoy sex because of the increase in their self esteem thanks to liposuction. You can improve your relationship with your partner, sexually speaking, by having a liposuction done on the less flattering areas of your body.

The cost of liposuction includes both consultation before the surgery as well as the surgery itself. Consultation fees for liposuction may be a couple of hundred dollars plus a couple of more hundred dollars after taking certain pre operative measures. If you decide to employ the services of a reputable liposuction professional you should be sure that you can handle the cost.

Liposuction is a form of surgery that is not limited to the theatre. It can be done in a doctor’s office or an out patient centre if it is not a complicated one. This type of liposuction is generally not expensive.

The incisions made in the course of liposuction cause scaring. The effect depends on the degree of fat removed from the body. The number of incisions of the body determines the severity of the surgery. Scarring is not permanent. It fades after some weeks or months.

Liposuction is a type of cosmetic surgery that can be carried out on the back. The back accumulates so much fat that the body gets disfigured. Fat can be stored in different parts of the back. It could be the region below the breast.

Liposuction involves the breaking up and drainage of fat cells from the body and it is not possible to do so without the body fluid. Sometimes this fluid is excessively drained leading to dehydration. It could also lead to death in severe cases.

The cost for a liposuction procedure will be hinged on how much liposuction you want performed on your body. The cost of liposuction may also be dictated by the doctor who performs it or the location of the practice.

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How Many Calories are Burned by Walking

2009-09-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

for the overall health. But many of us still do not believe that walking can indeed burn calories.

May be walking may not produce faster and noticeable results as far as weight loss is concerned, but it is surely effective in the long run. In order to understand the role of walking in burning calories, we have to know about how many calories are burned by walking, and the actual effect of calories burned by walking.

Burning Calories

A calorie is the unit of energy, and the food we eat releases energy as it undergoes metabolism in the body. This energy is either used to fuel the day-to-day activities of the body or is stored as body fats. Working out can burn these calories, which in turn may lead to weight loss. But if you eat more calories than what your body needs, then weight loss is difficult. In order to achieve weight loss, you have to take in less calories, forcing the body to spend the stored calories. Hence, calorie intake and calorie consumption is very important. You can either burn more calories through intense exercises or eat less calories. It is advisable to balance and combine both methods to reach the end goal of weight loss. It is at this context that people start thinking of the right exercise. Even though there are many types of exercise programs which can assure you of faster results, walking is still one of the most preferred ones.

How Many Calories are Burned by Walking?

Walking is one of the best form of exercise and is associated with many health benefits. Apart from improving the fitness level, walking exercise is good for the bones, brain and heart, and it can prevent diabetes and some types of cancer. But walking can also result in burning of calories depending upon the body weight of the person and the speed of walking. So you must have a basic idea about how many calories are burned by walking, so that you can make sufficient amendments in your weight loss program. The following are some guidelines which can help you calculate the calories burned by walking.

The most important factor regarding walking is the distance you cover by walking, which is usually measured in miles. Even though there are many factors like the body weight which can affect the calories burned by walking, it is considered that a person expends around 80 to 100 calories per mile by walking. A person with a 150 pound of body weight may burn approximately 100 calories per mile, whereas it will be around 133 calories for a 200-pound man and 166 calories for a 250-pound man. The more the body weight, the more calories you burn by walking, when compared to a person with lesser body weight.
The other factors that can affect the amount of calories burned by walking are the speed of walking and the terrain that is selected for walking. While brisk walking can burn more calories per mile as compared to slow walking, rough terrain also helps in burning more calories. Brisk walking can burn around 230 - 345 calories per mile, but this figure may vary with the body weight and other factors.

What Should be the Average Walking Speed?

For a beginner, it is always advisable to start with slow pace and increase the walking speed gradually. The speed of walking depends upon the length and movements of the legs, but three to four miles per hour is considered a good average walking speed. However, it is very important to be regular in order to stay in shape and achieve your goal of weight loss. As far as walking is concerned, at least 30 minutes should be dedicated for this purpose. You can even increase the timing once you become more comfortable. You can even use a treadmill for walking, and in order to get the effect of a hilly terrain, you can make use of the incline feature of that machine.

Walking is considered to be a good cardio workout which can help you in burning calories, lose weight, stay in shape, and prevent some diseases to some extent. Never expect miracles as walking may not produce immediate results and you will always be wondering as to how many calories are burned up. Be consistent in your efforts and you can burn calories and lose weight by walking, and thus helps maintain overall good health.

How can you control your weight without hunger?

2009-09-07T05:48:00.000-07:00

When you choose foods that take you longer to eat and are low in calorie density , it will help you consume less calories and you will feel full। The good news is that " you don't have to give up foods that taste great " Feeling full after a meal results in a complex signal to stop ...

When you choose foods that take you longer to eat and are low in calorie density , it will help you consume less calories and you will feel full.

The good news is that " you don't have to give up foods that taste great "

Feeling full after a meal results in a complex signal to stop eating, called " satiety " (fullness). The satiety-attained power of a food refers to the ability of that food to reduce feelings of hunger.

The satiating power of a variety of common foods fed in 240-calorie portions was measured in human volunteers. This study showed that foods with higher water content , more fiber and fewer calories per ounce were generally associated with feeling more satisfied .

Let me give you an example. A medium sized baked potato reduces hunger more than an ounce of potato chips even though they both contain the same amount of calories.

Choosing foods that fill you up on fewer calories allow you to control your weight without "dieting" or "chronic hunger". In general, foods that take longer to eat (and slow caloric intake) tend to provide more fullness.

Here is another example. If you would eat about 4 oranges (aprox.240 calories) or 2 pounds of cherry tomatoes, which would take you longer to eat than a small bag of M&Ms or 1.5 ounces of peanuts (in addition to their lower calorie density)?

No doubt, the oranges and tomatoes, but they would supply you with a lot more fiber , which is likely to enhance satiety as well. Natural whole foods like potatoes, oatmeal, whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, fruits, vegetables, and beans have a high satiating power . Prepared and refined foods like crackers, bagels, cookies and candy have less .

Why?

Whole foods have a much higher fiber content and they digest more slowly and less completely. The result is, more calories and fiber is reaching the latter part of your small intestine. Research suggests that this results in a powerful fullness signal, which keeps you from getting hungry.

Do I have to give up all tasty foods to lose weight?

No ! Reducing calorie concentration while maintaining palatability (this means the "taste of the food) is not impossible. Not all high calorie dense foods are palatable and not all low calorie dense foods are unpalatable.

For example, fresh ripe strawberries can be very palatable at only 137 calories per pound, whereas vegetable shortening at 4040 calories per pound is quite unpalatable.

Your best bet for foods that are low in calories and high in palatability are low-fat versions of: soups, stews, chili, pasta dishes, rice dishes, stir fry's, baked potatoes, fruits, steamed vegetables and salads with low-fat dressing .

The creative use of spices and condiments can all be used to make a lower calorie dense diet more palatable without increasing its calorie density.

Does tasty food cause you to overeat?

No! Research in both animals and people clearly show that they don't eat more calories simply because their food tastes better. It appears that the calorie density of the diet is far more important in affecting fullness and food intake than the palatability of the diet.

Your Golden Rule

When you try to lose weight, reduce the calorie density of the diet while maintaining a reasonable degree of palatability may prove to be the best strategy for you to lose body fat and keeping it off, especially when you combine this with regular exercise .

The easiest way for you to do this is to greatly increase your intake of fruits, vegetables whole grains and beans.

Try to omit or limit foods that have a high calorie density such as cookies, candy, doughnuts, baked goods, crackers, potato chips, whole diary products, and fatty meats.

Is there anything, which can help me in achieving my goal to lose weight?

Yes! It is called Dietrine Carb Blocker . Dietrine is " magnetically " attracted to lipids and has the ability, acting like a " sponge ", to significantly prevent fat in the digestive tract from being absorbed. Dietrine Carb Blocker contains no ephedra, no ma huang, no ephedrine and no stimulants!

Article Tags: Weight Without, Calorie Density, Calorie Dense

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Learn the Different Ways of Cooking Bratwursts

2009-09-07T05:46:00.001-07:00

Bratwursts are basically German-style sausages that use either pork, veal, or beef as a major ingredient. To give these special sausages a uniquely palatable taste, people usually add nutmeg, ginger, and pepper to spice up their flavors. More often than not, these sausages are also served with sauerkraut, which is basically a special cabbage dish, sandwiched together in a regular bread roll. Aside from this, there are still many other ways of cooking bratwursts. Three of the most common ways of doing this is either by adding beer, by grilling it, or by cooking it in water.

Cooking Bratwursts in Beer

From the many different ways of cooking bratwursts, one of the simplest and most interesting ways of doing so is by using beer. More importantly, a tablespoon of butter, ¼-sliced sweet onion, and four bratwursts are needed to cook this tasty dish. In a regular-sized pot, pour in at least two bottles of beers, before adding butter and allowing it to melt into a syrupy form. Wait until the liquid turns very hot before adding the sliced onions and German sausages inside the pot. Allow the syrup to dry until it sticks completely to the sausages. Using regular hotdog buns, place the bratwursts inside the buns and then top them each with sauerkraut for a truly tasty and satisfying meal.

How to Grill Bratwursts

Aside from cooking the bratwursts in beer, people can also make something special out of this dish by grilling them. After the beer has turned into a syrupy substance, remove the sausages from the pot and then place them on top of a charcoal grill. Allow them to stay for at least four to five minutes for each side until they are completely cooked. Make special sandwiches once again, this time using baguettes or hotdog buns, before adding cooked onions and mustard for richer taste and flavor.

In the meantime, a skillet can also be used in this simple process if ever there is no grill available at home. Place the bratwursts in a skillet together with the syrupy beer mix, then wait for a few minutes until the liquid part of the dish completely evaporates and turn into a flavor-rich coating for the sausages. Once again, use hotdog buns or other forms of bread wherein the sausages can fit perfectly well. Add mustard, onions, as well as other extra flavorings for a tastier and more delightful outcome.

Cooking Bratwursts in Water

For individuals who do not want their bratwursts in beer, they can use water instead to cook their sausages. Using a frying pan, fill at least half of it with water before putting in the sausages. To make the cooking process as smooth as possible, be sure not to soak the entire sausages under the water. Furthermore, use a fork to make some holes on the bratwursts, which will allow them to cook properly from the inside out. Put the stove switch into medium heat, and then cover the pan until the liquid inside completely dries out. After a few more minutes, remove the cover and wait for the sausages to cook completely before adding in the onions, mustard, as well as other flavorings.

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Understanding the Various Ways of Cooking Lamb Chops

2009-09-07T05:43:00.000-07:00

One of the special and expensive meats that are used in preparing and cooking numerous dishes, lamb chop is very sumptuous and delicious, which makes it more enticing to many people. Most kinds of lamb chop like lamb loin chop and lamb rib chop are costly. However, to those who have interest in cooking lamb chops, they can always look for affordable cuts such as lamb blade chop and lamb shoulder chop. Other cuts of the meat that also produce tasty flavor are lamb leg chop, as well as lamb sirloin chop.

Tips on Choosing Fresh Lamb Chops

Before learning the different ways of cooking lamb chops, it is best to follow some tips in choosing fresh meats from lamb. First, to know if the meat is fresh, shoppers should look at the color of the meat. Pink meat of lamb chops indicates that it is fresh. Additionally, it is important to look at the texture. Lamb chops should have firm texture and the fat of the meat should be thin. To avoid overcooking lamb chops, they must buy thin meat. Above all, in every dish that uses the meat, it is best to allot at most three lamb chops per person.

Learning the Different Methods in Cooking Lamb Chops

When it comes to cooking lamb chop, it is important that everyone know the various ways of preparing such kind of meat. Grilling is one of the healthy ways to cook the meat. However, two popular and easy ways of cooking lamb chops are by broiling and pan-frying.

Instructions for Broiling and Pan-Frying Several Lamb Chops

Before trying this special recipe, it is necessary to prepare the important ingredients, namely lamb chops, cooking oil, lemon juice, and salt. Marinate the meat in a mixture of lemon juice, onion, and salt for at least an hour. Let the meat dry up and broil the meat for several minutes until it is medium cooked. Put the lamb chop four inches above the grill for at most 19 minutes. To cook both sides of the meat, rotate lamb chop regularly.

Another special way of cooking lamb chops is by pan-frying. For those who want to try this method, they need to sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of the meat to improve the flavor of lamb chops. Heat pan in a high heat and pour a tablespoon of water in the pan. Let the water evaporates before putting the meat in the pan. Cook each side of lamb chop for four minutes. To enhance the taste of the meat, everyone can serve the dish with mint jelly or even mint sauce.

By following these simple steps, everyone can already cook and serve delicious meals to their families and guests. To bring up the natural flavor of the meat, it is essential to add dried or fresh herbs like rosemary, oregano, and thyme in the dishes that they prepare. Above all, it is important to prevent lamb chops from being overcooked since it may affect the taste and flavor of some dishes.

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Diabetes Treatment And Info: All You Need To Know

2009-09-07T05:32:00.001-07:00

Diabetes is a critical health care problem for many people throughout the world. It decreases quality of life and, in many cases, it can also shorten one's life.The good news is that when you recognize the seriousness of being a diabetic and take constructive steps toward controlling it all of these things above decrease in importance.

Diabetes is a disorder of metabolism. The way our bodies use digested food for growth and energy. Diabetes is associated with long-term complications that affect almost every part of the body. Diabetes is widely recognized as one of the leading causes of death and disability in the United States.

Conventional Medical Treatment

Insulin was the first, and remains the primary means of treatment for Type 1 diabetes and is administered by subcutaneous injection. This method is necessary since insulin is destroyed by gastric stomach secretions when it is taken by mouth. Insulin injections must be balanced with meals and daily activities, and glucose levels must be closely monitored through frequent blood sugar testing. Many diabetics need inject insulin only once a day; others require two or more injections. The usual time for a dose of insulin is before breakfast. The dosage is initially established according to the severity of the condition, but it often has to be reassessed as one or another of the variables in the person's condition changes.

Medicines for Type2 Diabetes

Metformin this is often the first medicine that is advised for type 2 diabetes. It mainly works by reducing the amount of glucose that your liver releases into the bloodstream.

Sulphonylureas for example, glibelclamide, gliclazide, glimerpirizide, glipizide, gliquidone, increase the amount of insulin produced by your pancreas. They also make your body's cells more sensitive to insulin so that more glucose is taken up from the blood.

Type 1 (Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus)

Type 1 diabetes is treated with intensive insulin therapy. This type of treatment is designed to achieve near-normal blood sugars safely - while keeping the episodes of low blood sugars ("insulin reactions") to a minimum. Insulin therapy includes:

* Multiple Daily Injections of Insulin (Flexibility is important!). * Use of Insulin Pens or Pumps. * Use of new type of insulin: Lispro or Humlog (extremely fast-acting) - replaces regular insulin.

Diabetes Medications

Sulfonylureas: Glyburide (Micronase, Diabeta) and Glipizide (Glucotrol). Traditional medicines - cheap, easy to take, work well with many people. Stimulates insulin secretion from the pancreas. Problems: Doesn't always achieve normal blood sugars and may cause low blood sugars. Metformin (Glucophage): Used in Europe for many years. Decreases sugar production by the liver, which contributes to elevated blood sugar levels. Works well with insulin. Problems: Causes gastro-intestinal upset in some, and cannot be used if you have serious heart or kidney problems.

People with diabetes will experience many long-term and serious complications. These complications will affect virtually every part of the body from the feet and legs to the internal organs.

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or use insulin properly therefore it is up to you and your doctor to learn how to manipulate the functions of your body properly to offset or minimize the complications of uncontrolled diabetes. With proper control you can still live a healthy and long life but it helps to be a fanatic about controlling your diabetes.

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Need extra surface space?

2009-09-07T05:24:00.001-07:00

At certain times of the year, caterers and restaurateurs are under increased pressure. This is extremely common around Christmas time in the UK, as families, friends and companies arrange their seasonal meal. The majority of venues begin to take bookings in advance, some even as early as August, in order to ensure they are completely prepared for the increase in demand. Even with the very best prior planning, the festive season can put a strain on both kitchen and waiting staff. Sometimes it can be hard to accommodate large parties who attend meals, and this is one instance in which a folding table proves its worth.

Folding tables are extremely useful items to purchase, for home, cafes, pub, restaurant and hotel businesses. Of course the list does not stop there, numerous other places can benefit from these versatile surfaces. One of the most positive attributes of these items is that they can be folded for ease of storage when not in use, as the majority of businesses do not have room for spare non -collapsible tables. As well as providing extra dining space in times of needs, stainless steel folding tables can be used to ease pressure on surfaces in the kitchen area. These portable tables can be cleaned hygienically, and are sturdy enough to withstand the weight of some larger items of catering equipment (check individual specifications) as well as vigorous food preparation. Whether you need additional space to set up a buffet, more worktop area or extra dining tables, foldable models are a practical solution. Schools, care homes and town or village halls have a need for large numbers of folding tables, as one large room often serves multiple purposes so ordinary tables are not an option. It goes without saying that caterers can benefit from spare tables at any time of year. Those who cater for corporate events or weddings often need to vary the amount of seating at meals, and also often need surface space for buffet food or canapés. Being able to accommodate the differing needs of customers is something that most businesses need to be prepared for. Satisfied customers are vital to the future success of those in the food industry, and word of mouth ‘advertising' can generate a lot of custom. Having the catering equipment necessary for your business is absolutely essential.

Catering equipment suppliers can often provide these convenient tables, both as a one off item or as a bulk order. Often the best deals can be found if ordering in bulk, so even if there is no requirement for more than a couple of folding tables, it may be worthwhile checking to see if any other vital kitchen equipment needs replacing or upgrading. Online suppliers are often able to cater for a whole spectrum of catering needs, from staff clothing, kitchen utensils and machines through to pest control devices. Delivery is usually fast and efficient, often within 48 hours - those who supply the catering trade are aware of the importance of timely delivery.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com

6 things you need to know about Aetna health insurance

2009-09-07T05:18:00.001-07:00

You need to know a lot and understand when taking decisions for Aetna health insurance policy. The matter of how much health insurance costs is a drop in a very big bucket. Here's all you need to know about health insurance.

1. Group benefits
Aetna Group health insurance benefits are always better and cost cheaper than individual plans. Insurance companies are under lot of pressure today to offer group plans in order to grab employee's interest. You are better off all the way around when buying group health policy.

2. Premium and deductible details
In auto insurance policy higher deductible means lower premium, but in case of Aetna health insurance you would be responsible for higher deductible during health crisis. A wise consumer will always know his out-of-pocket expense in regards to his premiums. Many people still do not know that their premium doesn't cover doctor visit co-pays, deductibles or other prescription co-pays.

3. Insurance company
You need to look for a reputable organization when shopping for a health insurance policy. Before buying, please make sure that you have someone insuring you and would be there with you when something unfortunate happen. Talking to your friends and relative could leak out better suggestions about insurance company.

4. Insurance needs
You need to consider the following;
What's most significant to you as a consumer?
Are you self-employed?
Are you buying a policy for yourself or for your entire family?
Is a prescription plan a priority?
What are your health insurance needs?

If you're a 25-year-old male who's single with no real health concerns, you might think you're going to live forever. A woman might be seeking a health plan,which covers maternity costs.

5. Your lifestyle
Many companies are encouraging patient liability by rewarding employees who obey healthy lifestyle. Consider what you need from your company's benefits package, be very proactive and ask your agent about any lifestyle-related discounts, which would allow you to spend your benefit dollars most cautiously.

6. Your policy's network
Prices differ greatly if you visit a physician who's in your network as opposed to one who's not in your network. Researching a policy, which meets your needs and permits you to visit the physician you're most comfortable with is one of the most excellent ways to keep your costs a little lower.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com

Lucidity and the Five Types of Dreams

2009-09-07T05:14:00.001-07:00

In addition to lucid dreams, there are five main types of dreams - normal dreams, daydreams, false awakenings, nightmares and psychic dreams. Consider the features of each of these hypnotic states and how each can take you into the phenomenal world that is lucid dreaming.

1. Normal Dreams

While the term "normal dreams" may seem like a contradiction, it simply refers to your usual types of dreams when you don't know that you are dreaming. A typical dream is when you could be having coffee with the President and not think anything is out of place; you accept your dream as reality.

Every single night individuals have a normal dream. These dreams come from your REM sleep and are necessary to your survival. Without these dreams you could die. When you get the eight-hour standard of sleep you will dream for about 100 minutes, with longer and more vivid dreams happening just a few minutes before you wake up.

Interpreting Dreams

The subconscious mind sends up important messages through our normal jeans. These dreams come from your thoughts and experiences during the day and occasionally memories from a long time ago. During these dreams, you mind can release repressed fears, anxieties and desires through a coded language known as conceptual imagery that comes from the subconscious brain.

Spontaneous Lucidity

These normal dreams are also the main gateway to lucid dreams. When you have a normal dream, it is easy to become spontaneously lucid. All you need is for you to consciously realize that you are dreaming. This turns on your conscious brain and the sensory system so that your dream looks, feels, sounds, smells and even tastes like it's happening in reality.

Even the most bizarre experiences can feel very real, such as shape shifting or at least to the point of what your body expects the sensation to feel like. When you forget that you are dreaming your lucid dream will return to a normal dream and you will lose all conscious control and awareness of the dream again.

2. Daydreams

Scientific studies have found that for an amazing 70-120 minutes per day people will daydream. At this time, you are semi-awake, but not asleep. However, you also aren't completely in tune with reality at this time either. Often this form of lucidity starts with a compelling thought, memory or fantasy regarding the future and your imagination soon gets away from you. As the daydream continues, you become more immersed in your private fantasyland.

Daydreaming is actually an important part of dream research. As with other forms of dreams, you enter a hypnotic trance and your subconscious thoughts are allowed to rise to the surface. During daydreams, the right or creative side of your brain become dominant and you lose your awareness of reality. Often your deeper worries or concerns will come to the surface at this time, usually by acting themselves out through the daydream. This can increase your negativity, so when you start fantasizing about bad situation you should try to change it into a positive outcome.

Rehearsing the Future

A lot successful people will use their daydreams as a way to visualize their success in the future. For athletes they will often imagine winning their next big game. Business leaders use daydreams to mentally rehearse for an important speech. These individuals see a positive outcome and can help make their daydream a reality. You can even consider an event in the past and reenact it to provide a different outcome. This kind of daydreaming is very healthy for individuals since you are temporarily able to get away from the difficulties of reality and release your frustrations without having to do anything physical.

Setting a Lucid Dream Intention

You can also use daydreams in order to start your next lucid dream. To do this make a mental list of three things that you want to accomplish in your conscious dream and visualize how to get there. Say you want to learn the piano, fly to the moon and meet aliens. First, picture the concert hall (where you are most likely to find a piano), then imagine what it is like to fly up and go through the roof into the night sky. Picture yourself landing on the moon and finding a group of aliens that are super-intelligent and sitting in a crater. You will have an interesting conversation with the aliens, gaining a lot of insights that come directly from your unconscious mind.

When you become lucid next time, you will instinctively remember your daydream and start to perform it in the vivid detail of the reality of a lucid dream. When you don't do this preparation, you are likely to just move around and examine the dreamscape. While this is fun, it is better to have some goals in mind to get the most out of your lucid dreams.

3. False Awakenings

Have you even seen the movie Groundhog Day? This is a bit like a false awakening. You wake up normally and go about your daily routine and get half way to work before you realize that you are still dreaming. This is a very weird place to be. False awakenings are a vivid form of dreams. They often start in your bedroom with you waking up and somehow your brain follows every detail of the room as it should be in reality. Unless you are like a lucid dreamer and question your reality upon waking, you often won't realize the difference.

How to Shake a False Awakening

In order to come out of a false awakening you typically need something obvious and shocking. Maybe you see yourself 20 years older in the bathroom mirror. Alternatively, maybe you realize there are no other cars on the road with you. Sometimes even when you do a reality check it won't be enough to bring you out of your false awakening. It can take a lot to get your conscious brain to wake up. Sometimes you need to have a specific event happen in order to trigger your conscious brain and to come out of a false awakening.

Multiple False Awakenings

Some individuals report several false awakenings in quick succession. These individuals are stuck in what seems like a never-ending cycle and are tired of getting ready for work several times in a day. If you have this happen to you often, it is a good idea to start the habit of doing reality checks when you wake up and give yourself a chance. After recognizing a false awakening two things can happen: you can get shocked into waking up or you can have a lucid dream.

The most important thing to remember is that false awakenings aren't harmful even though they may be frustrating. They can be very vivid, but they are often not nightmarish in content. At most, false awakenings provide you with a fascinating subject to talk about the next day.

4. Nightmares

Within the western world and culture, nightmares are considered normal dreams that have a scary twist. Often you don't know you are dreaming during a nightmare so the subconscious takes everything as if it is really happening. Sometimes nightmares can be vivid enough that the sensory system becomes triggered and you can actually feel pain. This can be a very unnerving experience.

A dream analysis suggests that when you are chased by a monster or other dark character in a nightmare this is a representation of your evolutionary fear of being hunted. Children are much more vulnerable to nightmares than adults are and therefore report this type of dream most often. Studies have proven that most nightmares are the result of sickness, stress, trauma and drugs or alcohol.

How to Stop Nightmares

The best way to deal with nightmares and these recurring types of dreams is with lucidity. Question your reality and you will be better able to recognize a nightmare when it happens, especially if you plant a monster as your dream symbol. When you think of this symbol during your waking life then do a quick reality check. Then when the same symbol appears in your dream, your reality test will change to lucidity. Then you simply need to find the courage to confront the monster in your lucid dream state and take care of it once and for all.

5. Psychic Dreams

Psychic dreams can come in the form of daydreams, normal dreams, lucid dreams and even nightmares if they are something that is predicting a disaster. Many dreams foretell the future in some way. Often the rational exception is that our subconscious mind is bringing together small pieces of information and making an intuitive decision regarding the future. However, we could also be tuning into a receptive state and receive message coming from somewhere else.

Some individuals believe that psychic dreams or any form of dream requires our spirit to leave our body and we go on to explore alternate versions of reality. These individuals believe your psychic dreams are a result of viewing the future in one of these different realities.

Finding Experiential Evidence

While a lot of people report having psychic dreams, it is difficult to define the difference between coincidental events and genuine prophetic dreams. Since psychic dreams are very random in nature, it is difficult to gain clear results in a laboratory experiment. However, you can still gather your own experiential evidence. Next time you are in a lucid state, ask your dream to show the future. If nothing, happen then try again. You may be surprised by what happens. When you wake up be sure to record the details and see if your lucid dream comes true.

Lucid Dreams

Lucid dreams are the best type and are likely the reason you are reading this article. Many lucid dreams spontaneously take shape from normal dreams. All you need to do is teach yourself to question the reality around you and you will experience lucid dreams more often.

You can also enter a lucid dream state by walking your brain from a conscious state directly into a dream state. Tibetan Buddhists have used this technique for nearly 1,000 years and is now known as Wake Induced Lucid Dreams. This technique requires a two-step process of meditation and inducing sleep paralysis. Soon you can enter your own lucid dream world.

What Defines a Lucid Dream?

A lucid dream is essentially any dream in which you know that you are dreaming and/or can control and direct your awareness. This is the simply definition and the complete truth. You don't need to have 100% control with lucid dreams. Often times you can only control your movements or simply follow the action that is taking place around you. You can also be in a lucid state and completely aware of your dream, but unable to take any control; just a silent observer in the beautiful dream world. It is easy to see why many individuals use lucid dreams as a way to fulfill desires that they can't achieve in reality. However, once you look past this novelty feature you will see that lucid dreams provide you with a brilliant insight into the subconscious mind.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com

10 Things I Hate About Health-Care Reform

2009-09-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

As a cardiologist and the administrator of a large practice that includes general internists and specialists, I spend much of my time trying to figure out how to provide care for a growing number of uninsured or underinsured patients. I also have to battle billion-dollar private insurance companies that don't adequately cover patients with preexisting illnesses and often deny coverage for necessary treatments.

On a basic level, I'm with the president: Our health-care system needs to be changed so that all of my patients, and all citizens, have access to the care they need. But I don't agree with how he wants to fix things. Most of my colleagues and I strongly oppose the health-care reform bills that Congress will take up again this week. The proposals leave enormous gaps unfilled.

Before President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, I hope he will consider these 10 major reasons why I -- and doctors like me -- worry that the legislation on the table will leave us worse off.

1. Private insurance companies escape real regulation.

This is what makes my colleagues and me so cynical about the reform proposals. Every physician has insurance company horror stories: patients who went untreated because their carriers wouldn't pay, endless hours on the phone to get administrators' approval for necessary tests and mountains of paperwork to collect reimbursements. It will be hard for doctors to buy into health-care reform if insurance companies get a free pass.

2. We urgently need tort reform, but it's nowhere to be seen.

Malpractice costs rise each year, as do the number of frivolous lawsuits. Our practice has seen a 10 percent increase in malpractice expenses this year. Sure, doctors make mistakes, and patients deserve fair compensation for their injuries and lost wages, but in this area of the law, physicians and hospitals are too often at the mercy of capricious juries.

When the president brought up the "fear of lawsuits" in his address to the American Medical Association in June, he got a huge response from the crowd. That's because practically every doctor has a story about a jury that awarded huge damages to a plaintiff despite the absence of wrongdoing by the physician. The best from our practice group is the physician who was sued -- even though he was out of town during the patient's entire hospitalization. Without fixing these spiraling insurance costs and the legal environment that allows large payments in unjust suits, physicians will continue to practice expensive "defensive" medicine or simply leave states that do not enact tort reform.

3. "Prevention" won't magically make costs go down.

Obama has called for disease prevention on a national scale, but that won't be a cure-all. Louise Russell,, a researcher at Rutgers University, analyzed hundreds of studies on prevention and medical costs and found that, in general, prevention adds to costs instead of reducing them. That's because it often means medication for hypertension and elevated cholesterol, and screening and early treatment for cancer. Unless Congress outlaws McDonald's, cigarettes, alcohol and idleness and cleans up the environment, no amount of "prevention" will put a dent in the cost of keeping Americans healthy.

4. Reform efforts don't address our critical shortage of health-care workers.

Many people believe that the fix for our physician deficit is simple: expand class sizes at existing medical schools and create new ones. Sorry, it's not that easy. There is a cap on the number of federally funded training positions for newly minted M.D.s. It hasn't changed since 1996. If the number of graduates of U.S. medical schools increases but the number of post-graduate training positions remains the same, we won't have fixed the problem -- we'll have created a different one. Training programs will simply take more U.S. graduates and fewer foreign ones, and the total number of physicians trained each year will remain the same -- too low. And foreign medical school graduates tend to practice in rural and underserved urban areas, the very places that need the most help.

5. We need more primary-care physicians -- but we also need specialists.

Everyone is worried about the dwindling ranks of primary-care physicians. But we need more specialists, too. There are impending shortages in fields such as oncology, cardiology, general surgery and gastroenterology. An article in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation noted that by 2020 there won't be enough cardiothoracic surgeons to treat the growing number of American seniors. Surgery, the journal of the Society of University Surgeons, reported an expected shortage of 1,300 general surgeons in the United States by 2010. Few Americans will tolerate not having access to a specialist in an emergency or having care rationed because of a limited number of skilled physicians.

6. We have to streamline drug development and shake up the Food and Drug Administration.

Creating and producing new drug therapies in the United States is a nightmare. Regulatory hurdles, disorganization and a lack of leadership at the FDA, as well as burdensome conflict-of-interest policies, have made the drug-approval process grindingly slow. At the same time, development costs are close to $1 billion per drug. Federal regulations are so convoluted that most clinical trials are now performed outside the country -- taking billions of dollars out of the U.S. economy and making it harder for American patients to be first in line for new treatments.

7. We can't fund health-care reform by cutting payments to doctors.

This isn't about one doctor looking out for his bottom line. It's about physicians being able to provide the accessibility and quality of care that their patients want. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed increasing payments to primary-care physicians by approximately 6 percent while lowering payments for many specialists, including cardiologists and oncologists, by as much as 20 to 40 percent. These drastic recommendations were based on a questionable American Medical Association physician survey showing that expenses for cardiology and oncology practices dropped precipitously over the past five years -- a finding that defies logic. If these cuts are approved, the American College of Cardiology estimates that 40 percent of the cardiology practices in Florida will go bankrupt. We need to pay for performance, not automatically reduce fees for procedures that patients have come to expect.

8. We can't forget about research.

Every modern treatment for human disease is related in some way to research at U.S. academic medical centers -- much of it supported by the National Institutes of Health. These include new treatments for cancer, devices to prevent sudden cardiac death and medications that save the lives of patients having heart attacks.

However, decreased federal funding for research over the past six years has threatened to decimate a generation of young scientists and the cures they could discover. While the stimulus package provided $10 billion for NIH-supported research, the allocation was for only two years. The health-care reform legislation provides no information about the level of research funding after 2011.

9. Cutting reimbursements could shut some hospitals down.

Proponents of the current reform legislation know that no one wants their local hospital to close. So the White House's initial call to pay for health-care reform through cuts of more than $200 billion in hospital reimbursements over the next decade was scary. Obama sought to reassure people in June, explaining that "if more Americans are insured, we can cut payments that help hospitals treat patients without health insurance." But there is no data to support this promise. It is unlikely that the homeless, the mentally ill, the substance abusers or the illegal immigrants who now receive their care in "safety net" hospitals will carry any form of health insurance. Grady Memorial Hospital, one of the premier public hospitals in the United States, which has cared for the underserved residents of Atlanta for more than a century, would probably have closed its doors had it not been for a $200 million gift from a local benefactor.

10. We need to improve the quality of care.

Obama has said that "if doctors have incentives to provide the best care instead of more care, we can help Americans avoid the unnecessary hospital stays, treatments and tests that drive up costs." This is an overly simplistic view of what is needed. Poor care clearly costs more money. However, as the Institute of Medicine has pointed out, poor quality of care can be divided into three types: underuse of care, misuse of care and overuse of care. While eliminating misuse and overuse will decrease the cost of care, correcting problems from underuse will actually increase costs.

I have a close view of the limitations of our current health-care system. Not just with my patients, who are often unable to afford the care they need, but also in the plight of a young colleague. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer and sought treatment at a nationally renowned Boston cancer center. Most people with lung cancer undergo expensive chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but even those aggressive measures have a limited effect on long-term survival. His physicians discovered that he had a type of cancer that might respond to a new drug in clinical testing, provided free by the pharmaceutical company sponsoring the research. Although the cost of his care is far less than that of traditional chemotherapy, his insurance company refused to pay for it because it is "experimental."

But he has been lucky. His friends and colleagues have helped support his treatment, and wherever possible his doctors have provided free care. His cancer has responded dramatically to the drug, he has suffered no side effects, and he is back at work full-time.

However, I don't want my patients to rely on luck. I want them to have insurance that will pay for their care, and I want to be able to offer new medications and the most sophisticated treatment. I want to be able to give preventive care as well as to monitor patients effectively if they develop diseases. I want to be able care for my patients in their homes, and I want to offer palliative care if it becomes necessary. I want them to be able to afford all this. In short, I want to see major reforms in health care -- I just don't want what is on the table.

CDC chief says swine vaccine for my kids, too

2009-09-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON – The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says his kids are going to get the swine flu vaccine when it's available.

Dr. Thomas Frieden says health officials have "very high confidence" in the safety of the vaccine. He says it's a vaccine that's being made in the same way that the flu vaccine is made each year — except that it's a new strain.

Vaccine development is continuing and the vaccine is likely to be available by October.

Frieden also says that with schools and colleges back in session, officials are seeing a fair amount of the flu already — and he says it's unusual that it has continued to occur over the summer.

The CDC chief spoke in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Analysis: Time to pull the plug on health care?

2009-09-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON – The patient isn't dead yet.

A few more months of wrangling and indecision, and health care legislation to remedy America's coverage and costs problem could be drawing its last gasps.

As Congress returns to work this week, President Barack Obama and lawmakers have three broad options — competing treatment plans for a patient whose vital signs are growing weak. It's not clear which one, if any, will work.

Democrats — and liberals in particular — want heroic measures and large scale intervention. They think the legislation needs big new ideas such as a public insurance plan that would have government offering coverage to middle-class workers and their families.

Republicans want a conservative treatment to relieve the worst symptoms of America's health care malaise. They're proposing help for small business owners and the self-employed, and some GOP lawmakers probably could go along with expanding current programs that cover the poorest of the poor. But no new government plan and no guarantees that everyone would be covered.

A third group, including moderates from both parties, supports a holistic approach that would put the country firmly on track to coverage for all. They believe government should help some middle-class people through subsidies for private coverage, but that a federal insurance plan isn't needed. Some are willing to include malpractice changes that appeal to conservatives.

Obama will say which way he wants to go when he addresses a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night.

Above all, the president wants to avoid failure. But an argument on the merits may fail to persuade lawmakers polarized by the town hall brawls of August.

If nothing gets done, "it's a disaster politically" for the Democrats, said Gerald Shea, the AFL-CIO's top health care policy expert. "Unfortunately, I think that's what's behind a lot of the Republican opposition."

The action will speed up once Congress is back.

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus, is ready to march ahead. For months, Baucus, D-Mont., has tried to reach a compromise within a small but influential group of senators from both parties. He faces a Sept. 15 deadline, and has signaled he could move even sooner than that — with or without a deal.

His committee would be the last one to consider health care legislation before the full House and Senate take over. Deliberations in the Finance Committee are seen as a critical test because it reflects the composition of the Senate as a whole.

In the House, Democratic leaders have indicated they will not schedule a vote until the end of September. Many House members don't want to stick their necks out if it looks like the Senate is hopelessly deadlocked. Still, once House Democrats decide to go forward, they should be able to pass their bill.

There won't be any guarantees in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass legislation of any consequence. It doesn't look like Democrats have them right now.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will try to meld the Finance Committee's bill with legislation written by liberals on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee before he takes something to the full Senate. Debate could last for weeks, with hundreds of amendments.

Reid's most important decision will be whether to use a maneuver that allows the Senate to pass the financing elements of the bill with just 51 votes. Even so, he'd probably still need 60 votes to pass companion legislation with other essential elements — such as how people would buy their health insurance.

Finally, House and Senate negotiators would have to settle differences between the two chambers. It could be Christmas before that happens.

Republicans say it's all too much, too fast, that Congress should scrap what's been done so far and start over, without deadlines.

"There don't seem to be any checks and balances on a runaway government in Washington, D.C.," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. An immigration overhaul fell under its own weight during the last administration, and "health reform seems to be doing the same."

For all the disagreements, the core elements of the congressional bills are similar.

They would set up a new purchasing pool to make it easier for individuals and small businesses to buy insurance, and offer government subsidies to make premiums more affordable. People would be required to get health coverage, through an employer, a government program, or on their own. Businesses that don't offer coverage would have to contribute in some way.

The changes are complicated, and it would take the better part of a decade to phase them all in. The cost is about $1 trillion over 10 years.

As the scope of the legislation has gotten clearer, more voters seem to be having second thoughts. Polls show that support for action this year plunged over the summer, from 61 percent in June to 53 percent in August, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.

Obama is hoping he can turn that around. If he doesn't, lawmakers worried about getting re-elected next year will have another option to consider:

Should they pull the plug?

Five Ways to Preserve the Summer Harvest

2009-09-04T04:04:00.002-07:00

It’s easy enough to eat local in spring and summer. Your garden is booming, CSA’s are in full effect, and farmers markets abound! So how can you make that bounty last into the winter, when fresh produce is a little more scarce? Here are some DIY solutions!

» See also: Summer’s Last Fling: Three Tips to Host a Local Food Potluck
» Get Eat. Drink. Better. by RSS or sign up by email.

Over at Crafting a Green World, I found some resources to help you get canning!
If you’ve got bunches of extra fruit (even tomatoes!) try this fun tutorial from The Tangled Nest on dehydrating fruit…in your car!. (via CRAFT:)
Turn that abundance into convenience! Patrick Donnelly talks about making your own fast food.
Garden Guides has a great list of guidelines for freezing your veggies.
Get pickling! Just a warning: I did some pickling of my own and am finding that I now look at every food item and wonder if it can also be pickled.

What I love most about things like pickling and canning is that feeling that I’m taking part in food traditions that have been around for almost as long as people have been preparing food. It makes you feel really connected to the food and to history. So what do you guys do to make that great spring and summer produce last a little longer?

2009-09-04T04:04:00.001-07:00

» See also: Summer’s Last Fling: Three Tips to Host a Local Food Potluck
» Get Eat. Drink. Better. by RSS or sign up by email.

Over at Crafting a Green World, I found some resources to help you get canning!
If you’ve got bunches of extra fruit (even tomatoes!) try this fun tutorial from The Tangled Nest on dehydrating fruit…in your car!. (via CRAFT:)
Turn that abundance into convenience! Patrick Donnelly talks about making your own fast food.
Garden Guides has a great list of guidelines for freezing your veggies.
Get pickling! Just a warning: I did some pickling of my own and am finding that I now look at every food item and wonder if it can also be pickled.

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