THINKING HEALTHY

Do You Have Healthy Values? How Important Is Your Health To You?


As it goes in todays society everything is done at a rapid pace. Most Americans wants everything fast; everything has to be quick fast and in a hurry. Even our food there are not as many home cooked meals as there was when I was growing up in the early 1960's.



Have we decided that it is more important to make a living than it is to make a life. A lot of us work between 50-70 hours a week and never give it a second thought. We also do not give any thought as to what this is doing to our bodies.



Most of us do not eat a well balance meal, let a lone three. Just think about it how does a normal day for you goes. Do you start most days off eating a hearthy breakfast. Is lunch for you a quick burger from Micky D's or do you set down and eat a well balance lunch. Now what does dinner consist of who is in the mood to cook dinner after 10,12 or 14 hours days.



Are you trading your healthy values for monetary ones? What good is wealth without health? Really what good is having the money and not be healthy enough to enjoy it.



We have to draw the line some where, but where do we draw it?We all want the finer things in life for ourselves and our children, but do we know when enough is enough. Included in those finer things of life should be making sure that health is one of our main priorities.



It is said that "money can't buy you love" the fact is nor can it buy you health. One of the main things that should be taught to our children at an early age is that they should be concerned about their health while they are young. Not to wait until health issues start knocking at the door. The time to be concerned about your health is when you are young.



I started seeing a doctor annually at 40 years old; I am 53 now and my health is pretty sound. I can not say the same about some friends and associates who happen to be younger than I am. I have been blessed to not have had any type of sickness or illness. I have been cooking for over 30 years and have never been a fast food junkie.Where does it all fit in our daily lives? What is the answer at days end?Healthy values involves healthy eating and in the end results you will enjoy healthy living.
Check me out at Healthy Values

Is Nutrition Important For Overall Health?

Is Nutrition Important For Overall Health?

Nutrition is vital to human life and as a result we need to uncover as much information about it as possible. This article reveals incredible insight in regards to nutrition and its components.

By Eugene Williams

Our bodies need 45 nutrients and more, these substances are involved in the creation of every molecule in the body.  Macronutrients or protein, fats and carbohydrates are broken down through metabolism to give our bodies energy.

What Are Nutritional Supplements?

Nutritional supplements are vitamins, minerals and other food components that can possibly be used to treat illness and also support good health.  Plant compounds known as phytochemicals (found in soybeans and tomatoes) have some possible disease battling properties.  Supplementation is a primary way to overcome the over tilling problem and thereby helping to maintain sufficient nutrient levels.  Zinc supplementation has been researched and shown to reduce the duration of the common cold and decrease the incidence of acute diarrhea in children.

These days over tilling the soil where we grow our crops has made it difficult for us in America to obtain the adequate nutrients we once had in our fruits and vegetables. As a result, we actually need to consume more tomatoes, cucumbers and spinach to get the same amount in one of those twenty, thirty and forty years ago.

What Role Does Vitamins And Minerals Play Inside Of Us?

Vitamins and minerals play an essential role in our body’s basic growth, metabolism, and development.  Vitamins and minerals assist the body in carrying through with various tasks.  As you may know a vitamin is not a source of energy in and of itself, it can provide the mechanism the body needs to unlock energy stored in food.  Furthermore, there are some vitamins and minerals combos that work together such as the mineral zinc and vitamin A. Zinc enables the body to use vitamin A to promote good vision.  A lack of vitamin a may lead to night blindness, which consists of the eyes having difficulty adjusting to darkness.

Therefore zinc supplementation may prevent this condition by keeping Vitamin A functioning normally.  Supplementation can help to aid in the progress of your muscle and fitness development.

What Is Important About Good Nutrition?

Heart disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes have been shown to be influenced by eating habits.  As a result, dietary changes can help to possibly treat and prevent these conditions.  For example, decreasing simple sugars (glucose, sucrose, fructose and lactose) can prevent diabetes, and high fiber diets (especially soluble fiber) can help control diabetes.  Another example is decreasing fat and cholesterol intake and adding whole grains to the diet can prevent arteriosclerosis (plaque build up in the arteries), which can lead to heart disease or stroke.

Researchers have found that in a study of 20,000 men, one fishmeal per week was linked to a 52% reduction in the risk of sudden death from a heart attack.  Fisn is relatively high in omegga 3 fatty acids and can possibly protect the heart from arrhythmias.

Below are a few studies done on nutrition

Iron supplementation in iron-depleted women improves aerobic training ability.

Low birth rates and early baby deliveries can be prevented in some cases by eating small amounts of fish that contain omegga 3 (wild salmon).

Lutein and zeanxanthin in the diet may reduce cataracts and protect against colon cancer.

Flavonoids (found in citrus fruits, apples, onions, carrots and broccoli) may protect against certain types of lung cancer.

A complete muscle and fitness training program along with a good nutritional supplements can help produce overall good health.

DISCLAIMER

The information provided herein should not be construed as a health-care diagnosis, treatment regimen or any other prescribed health-care advice or instruction.  The information is provided with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in the practice of medicine or any other health-care profession and does not enter into a health-care practioner/ patient relationship with its readers

Nutrition plays a vital role in our lives. For a more detailed look at how nutrition affects men go to http://www.born-again-health-and-fitness.com/muscle-and-fitness.html

Article republished from Copy & Paste Articles

Live A Longer And Healthier Life

Live a Longer and Healthier Life

by Herlan Westra

An unexpected research finding with great practical significance is that experimental animals live longer with much lower rates of disease when they consume less than the recommended daily allowance of calories. The finding is unexpected because we associate less-than-optimal nutrition with poor growth and health, and common sense tells us that we do better if we are well nourished. In fact, most of us may be overnourished, and too much of a good thing may be doing us harm.

An adequate diet is one that provides not only enough calories but also all of the nutrients necessary for efficient metabolism without any excesses that promote disease. What constitutes a good diet is a matter of controversy, and much of the controversy is based on emotion rather than reason.

An average person needs less than 2,000 calories daily, with 300 to 400 of the calories coming from fat. Present labeling laws are helpful in determining your caloric intake, but maintaining your weight or losing weight is much more complicated. The FDA supports two ways to diet: increase exercise and decrease the intake of food.

Dieting Can Make You Fat

That's it? The secret to a long and healthy life is diet and exercise? Not really! Metabolism slows down during a diet, and the body burns fewer calories, causing more fat to be stored as a protection against extended "famine." When the food supply is restored, the metabolism is slow to respond, and the body stores even more fat. In humans, this yo-yo phenomenon is harmful - starvation diets simply fool the body into starting a famine cycle. Once the diet is over, we are back to where we started, or worse.

Granted, exercise programs help keep the metabolism active, but most of us are about as committed to our exercise programs as we are to our diets. We fall off the exercise program at the same time we end the diet, increasing the yo-yo effect. Then how should we combine dieting and exercise into a healthy life?

First we need to modify our diets, lowering caloric content without greatly reducing the amount or the appeal of food we consume. The best way of lowering caloric content is by cutting the fat content in our diets. Fat has almost twice as many calories per gram as protein and carbohydrate.

Second we need to restrict caloric intake either by fasting or by eating a limited diet one day a week. Our body's metabolism will not react quick enough to begin a "famine" cycle during a one-day diet. Fasting should include plenty of liquids, with enough fruit juices to maintain a minimum caloric intake. When fasting, reduce the intake of supplemental vitamins and minerals, as some supplements may become toxic if not consumed with adequate amounts of food.

Vitamin Supplements

Our bodies don't benefit from the food we eat, but rather by what is digested, assimilated and eliminated. The food is taken in, broken into smaller and smaller parts until it can be absorbed and the by-products discarded. Enzymes digest all of our food and make it small enough to pass through the intestines into the blood. Enzymes are a part of every metabolic process in the body, from the working of our glands to the proper functioning of our immune system. Enzymes require vitamins and minerals to do their work.

Many manufactured vitamin and mineral supplements, because they are fractionated (broken down into basic elements), are treated as toxic waste in the body. Some minerals in an unnatural form can accumulate and cause harmful effects. Fortunately, many commercial vitamin and mineral supplements are so badly formulated that they pass right through our digestive systems without breaking down and being absorbed. Unfortunately, we haven't received the benefit that we paid for.

Many people are now using all-natural herbal forms of vitamin and mineral supplements. Because these are in a natural form, they are more easily absorbed than manufactured supplements. They are also much less concentrated than manufactured supplements, and so are often safer. However, it is always best to consult with your personal physician before taking any nutritional supplement.

The proper supplements, combined with proper diet and exercise, can help you live a longer and healthier life.

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Herlan Westra is the editor of Rhode Island Foghorn Online Magazine, which provides information and entertainment for a rapidly-growing audience nationwide. Herlan welcomes suggestions for future articles. 

Get Back To Basics

Get Back to Basics

by Dr. Robert Osgoodby

WARNING!! Always seek the advice of a Medical Doctor before starting, or making changes in your diet or exercise program.

If you want to build a strong healthy body, proper nutrition is a keystone for your success. What constitutes proper nutrition? Great question! Unfortunately for John Q. Public, the greatest challenge is not a lack of information, but too much information. If you study the "experts" you will find endless contradictions and false conclusions that create uncertainty, and leave most people confused and clueless. We are in an information frenzy that makes it hard to know which way to turn.

On any given day you can walk into a bookstore and find several books on the best-seller list, prescribing totally different solutions for proper nutrition. One expert tells you to cut out carbs, another tells you to eat more carbs, the next tells you to eat more protein, while another tells you to eat less protein.

With this nightmare of mixed messages, no wonder why millions of people are left in the dark on which plan to follow. This month's newsletter is dedicated to share some basic fundamental truths for optimal nutrition for decreasing body fat percentage, increasing energy and building muscle. Let's get started.

   1. Don't Starve Yourself - This is one of the most common misconceptions and mistakes most people trying to lose weight make. If your trying to shed fat, drastically decreasing your caloric intake in an effort to lose weight or get "cut" is almost as destructive to achieving your goals as eating large amounts of ice cream and fried foods for every meal! Studies show this type of dieting actually decreases your basal metabolic rate, which is the last thing you want to do if you are looking to lose weight and decrease your body fat percentage. On this type of diet, most of the weight you lose is not fat - it's lean body mass. You are actually keeping your fat and burning your muscle!

   2. Eat At Least Four Meals A Day - By eating four to six small healthy meals a day, properly spaced, you will burn fat at a faster rate. The traditional "three square meals" is antiquated advice that will slow down your metabolism and increase body fat storage. Studies have shown, eating four to six small meals a day promotes optimum food absorption, stable blood-sugar levels, and increases your metabolic rate. A meal can be as simple as a serving of fruit or vegetables, a small baked potato, a cup of yogurt, or a meal replacement shake.

   3. Monitor Your Portion Sizes - Instead of worrying about what ratio of protein, carbohydrates and fat you should be eating, concentrate on portion control. Most people's focus has been distorted by the huge emphasis placed on cutting fat intake. Fat is a necessary component in a healthy diet. The fact is, most people just eat too much. A good rule of thumb is that a portion should be no larger than your clenched fist.

   4. Design An Eating Schedule - Most people eat when it's convenient, not on a schedule. This type of behavior slows your metabolism and sabotages your body transformation efforts. To get optimum results, you should eat four to six small meals a day, spread three to four hours apart. Your initial reaction to this principle may be there is no way this can be incorporated into your busy schedule. With a little bit of pre-planning and commitment, it can be done. You can cook up to one week's worth of food on the weekend and refrigerate and freeze it. Broil your chicken breasts, put them in a food storage bag and throw them in the refrigerator. Make a huge salad! Take your Tupperware out of storage and pack several small meals to take to work with you. Another thing you can do is make sure your cupboards and refrigerator are overflowing with quality sources of protein, carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables. This will also help you stick to the plan and not cheat during the week.

   5. Drink 8 To 10 Glasses Of Water A Day - Believe it or not, water actually helps you control your appetite. If you find that a portion of food has not satisfied your hunger, drinking a large glass of water will help alleviate those nagging hunger pangs. The vast majority of your body is comprised of water. Water is an essential transport vehicle for an array of nutrients, vitamins and minerals. It also helps eliminate waste products in your body including uric acid, ammonia, and toxins. Another misconception is that if you are retaining water, you should decrease your water consumption. This is just not true. One of the best ways to get rid of water, is to drink more water. Just like starving yourself decreases your basal metabolic rate, water retention is another example of your body's survival mechanism.

If a golfer or football player's performance decreases, getting back to the basic fundamentals can help them regain their edge. The advice in this month's newsletter is simplistic and fundamental, but sometimes you have to go back to the basics to get back on track.

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Dr. Osgoodby was a finalist in the "EAS Body for Life" Contest. Stop by his web page at http://bestbodyever.com to see his before and after pictures and subscribe to his monthly newsletter.

Living A Healthy Life

Living a Healthy Life

by Sara Schell

In the fast paced world that we live in it can be easy to neglect our health and wellness. We’re so busy racing through our day to day lives – family, friends, work, social engagements – that we don’t take the time to look after ourselves. It’s really no wonder that so many of us are tired and run down. What are some simple things that we can do to improve our quality of life?

Drink Drink Drink…

You’ve heard it a million times and you’ll probably hear it a million more – drink more water!

Think about it: The human body is 72% water. A 5% drop in fluids creates a 25-30% loss in energy. A 15% drop in fluids causes death! At this point in time 66% of us aren’t drinking enough water, so over half the population isn’t running on all six cylinders to begin with – before things like bad air, bad food and stress take their toll.

It’s not really a difficult thing to remedy. Just drink one glass of water every half hour or so – or 10-12 glasses of water per day – and you’ll notice a huge jump in your energy levels.

Living Food – Loving Life!

A little known fact is that heating food above 116°F destroys much of the nutrient content. Considering that we already aren’t eating enough veggies, that’s a fairly substantial problem. Nutritionists recommend five serves of fresh vegetables per day. How many of us are actually taking that advice?

A great way to get the nutrients found in fresh veggies without spending all day at stove or eating raw celery sticks is to juice your veggies. Make sure that you own a good juicer (some juicers expose vegetables to heat created by friction during juicing, which breaks down important enzymes), grab some fresh vegetables and drink your way to good health. It takes a fraction of the time (there’s no cooking involved, for one thing) and it’s convenient. You can take your juice to work and even give some to the littlies for school lunches!

Wheatgrass in particular is an excellent source of nutrition. It’s high in chlorophyll (sometimes described as ‘plant blood’ because it closely resembles human red blood cell molecules) and has over 100 elements that the body needs. Fresh grains are another excellent source for vitamins and minerals.

Energy In – Energy Out

Exercise is another dirty word for most of us. The thing is, exercise doesn’t have to be horribly time consuming or mind-numbingly boring. There are plenty of options.

Years ago gyms usually offered weight rooms, aerobics classes and maybe a tydro-circuit. Now you can add water aerobics, yoga, pilates, dance-ercise, step classes and a whole range of new workout options.

If you don’t really have the time or money for the gym, or prefer to spend your mornings/nights at home, then try an exercise bike or walker. I’d be lost without my exercise bike – I set it up in front of the television and peddle away merrily during my favourite shows.

If, like me, you suffer from illness or injury or your level of fitness is quite low, you might like to consider some invaluable advice that I got from my doctor:

Once you’re physically unfit, and particularly if you’re also unwell, it can be a mammoth battle to just do the most minimal amount of exercise in a day. The danger is that inactivity leads to further loss of energy, which becomes a self-perpetuating cycle until you can barely get off the couch.

An excellent way to get back into a physical routine is to start slowly. Ridiculously slowly, it may seem. For the first couple of weeks, walk/ride for 5 minutes per day – exactly 5 minutes, no more, even if you think you could continue. When the 2 weeks are up, increase to 7 minutes, then 10 minutes, 12 minutes… continue to gradually increase your activity until you’re at a level that you’re comfortable with.

It may sound a little silly, but it works. In effect, you trick your body into producing more energy. You’re building your exercise time up so slowly that your body doesn’t really realise what’s happening. Follow this method and, before you know it, you’ll be comfortably exercising within your limits every day.

So, folks, that’s the basics. If you can rearrange your life a little to allow for better eating habits and a little exercise, and if you remember to just drink a glass of water every half hour or so, you’ll be well on the way to living a healthy life. On a final note, don’t forget to take some quiet time for yourself. Meditating is an excellent way to minimise stress. You don’t have to sit around for hours, just give yourself 5 minutes of quiet time every day – even in the shower, if that’s the only place where you can get time out – and have a little catch up with yourself.

And, last but by no means least, laugh! In fact, laugh like a loon – the louder the better! You’ll be amazed at how much such a simple thing can lift your spirits!

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Written by Sara Schell. spellcast_advertising@yahoo.com.au

For more information on healthy living or to view Vitality4Life’s excellent range of healthy lifestyle accessories visit http://www.vitality4lifeshop.com.au/index.php.

Are You Really Healthy?

What is Good Health
by Thomas Eldridge
There are many ideas, and opinions, on what constitutes good health, or what a meaningfully healthy lifestyle feels like or looks like. It could be said that health should be a natural condition, or at least a consistent state of well being. But what is this natural condition? There are some people who accept pain and discomfort in the body as a necessary part of living. This pain is considered to be a motivator, something for the body to fight against. They accept this condition because they observe that there are so many people with health complaints and so few people free of problems. It is even taken for granted today that dying of a degenerative disease is acceptable if the person had led a 'good life'.

My parents both died of cancerous type diseases. I seem to be the only one who is not saying, but they 'lived a full life'. Keep in mind that I am the one nobody can understand. I am not quite the black sheep. I am the different one who stopped eating sugar thirty years ago. No one could understand why I would go to so much trouble to read food product labels trying to find something that did not contain sugar. Today it is many times worse because of all the sugar substitutes in our food products. If I were reading labels today I would choose sugar before the sugar substitutes if I had no other choice. My choice today is to not buy any processed food products. I believe that my continuing good health depends on me making my own food from simple organic ingredients. I seldom read food labels these days because I buy very little with a label on it.

Is good health some sort of perfection? In homeopathy good health is said to manifest when a person's "vital force" is being expressed by perfect functioning of all parts of the body and by a sense of general well being. This holistic approach to health states that nature, of which we are an important part, has a constant tendency toward what is best for it. This vital force of nature reaches its masterpiece in the human body and the human consciousness. Harvey Diamond in his part of the book Fit for Life II: Living Health states that humans are "constructed for health and happiness." Life on earth lived in its ultimate achievement is a constant and unshakeable zest for well being and enthusiasm, says Diamond. I have a lot of respect for the diet that the Diamonds recommended. It still is an excellent diet for cleansing out toxins. I am not a great fan of being all that you can be, going for it all or pursuing excellence as a lifestyle. To me this is a short road to burn out and premature grey hair. I was unconsciously going for it all in my younger years. I worked very hard. I cannot say that I experienced good health or happiness back then.

If we wanted this 'ultimate achievement' of good health our goal would be to reach old age and maturity without aches and pains, to be well-balanced and spared emotional traumas and stress-related illnesses. To have zest for life we would wish to be like the beaming, healthy-looking 90-year-olds featured in vegetarian magazine articles. Working out at the fitness club at 91 years of age could demonstrate the principle that the best condition for the body is resilience and flexibility. To take up piano lessons at 83 years might demonstrate an absence of constricting contractions in body and mind. The problem is that we tend to extrapolate these stories into believing that this example of 'good health' is the best way to go. Pushing yourself into the gym when you are exhausted and should be resting is not good health.

It seems apparent to me that for millions of years people lived in some sort of harmony with the natural forces of nature. Good health was some sort of consistent state of being. Otherwise, how would we be here? If we were always in poor health for millions of years I cannot see how we would have survived. A long time ago the dinosaurs disappeared suddenly. Today species of plants and animals are becoming extinct at an accelerating rate. Throughout history at least some of us must have maintained an instinctive natural knowledge about how to live healthily enough to allow our species to continue. How we are doing today is a mute question. Are we going to continue to survive or is our current acceptance of sub-marginal health a sign of something?

Perhaps it is time to take a look at what this instinctive natural knowledge of good health might look like in our modern culture. I feel that it is not that much different than it has been for millions of years. This 'knowledge' probably includes simple things like sunshine, pure water, sleeping when the sun sets, relying on wholesome foods from nature, having daily alone time in the outdoors and living physically active lives in communities of loving supportive people.

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Thomas Eldridge is the founder and director of The Center for Highly Sensitive People. The motto of the Center is 'Sensitivities are a Blessing, Not a Weakness'. You can find more information at http://www.thomaseldridge.com. If you enjoyed this article you can go to http://www.thomaseldridge.com/email.htm and subscribe to a weekly email newsletter of similar articles. You can contact the author directly at thomas@thomaseldridge.com.