Month: August 2019

If you struggle with your weight, then you probably spend a lot of time scouring the internet for dietary information.

If that’s the case, you know how much contradictory and confusing information there is out there.

Some studies say eggs are bad for you.  Others say no, that’s not right, eggs are good for you.  Some say don’t eat bread.  Others say bread is fine.  It’s hard to know what to think or believe.

If you’re frustrated by the often contradictory “rules” of what foods are good or bad, you’re going to enjoy this article.  Below, we’ll outline a few foods you’ve probably heard you should avoid, but which are better for you than you might think.

First things first though.  Here’s a rule you can trust:  Eat real food.  If it comes out of a box or a can, it’s not going to be as healthy as food from the produce section or your backyard garden.  That should be your first choice.  The more processing a food item goes through before it makes its way to your home kitchen, the worse it’s bound to be for you.

Having said that, let’s talk about foods you’ll enjoy eating that aren’t as bad for you as you may have been told.

• Cheese – While it’s true that cheese is often packed with fat and possibly sodium, it’s also filled with vitamins and minerals your body needs. It shouldn’t dominate your diet because that may cause constipation, but don’t be shy about including it on a regular basis!
• Eggs – Eggs are a great source of protein, and like cheese, are loaded with nutrients your body needs. Previous scientific studies gave eggs a bad rap because of the cholesterol they contain. More recent studies have concluded that their contribution isn’t as damaging as originally thought.  Eat up and enjoy!
• Coffee – You’ve probably heard that coffee is bad for you. Granted, if you drink a gallon of the stuff a day, it can have some detrimental side effects and deplete your body of nutrients. However, studies have consistently shown that coffee is a heart healthy drink that may also reduce your risk of various cancers and liver disease. Enjoy America’s favorite drink in moderation and you’ll be just fine.

Obviously, you can’t build a diet around just those three, but don’t be shy about including them in your diet!

It’s getting hot outside. As temperatures rise, an increasing percentage of people are going to overdo it. It happens every year.  If you’re one of the unfortunate people who succumbs to the effects of the heat, can you tell the difference between heat exhaustion and heat stroke?

Here are some guidelines to help you tell the two apart.

Heat exhaustion is the first step. Symptoms can be similar to, but less severe than, heat stroke. If you don’t listen to your body’s warnings to cool down and hydrate, and you keep exerting yourself, your heat exhaustion symptoms will worsen.  At this point, you’ll start getting light headed, dizzy, and you may develop a sharp headache, in addition to feeling your muscles cramp.

Heat Stroke isn’t something that will just happen all at once to you.  There’s a build-up to that condition. Your body will warn you first.  The first things you’ll experience on the way to a heat stroke are sweating, thirst, headache, fatigue, and mild heat cramps, which are caused by a combination of exposure to the sun and physical exertion. Heat stroke can damage your organs.

You’ll know a heat cramp when you feel it because you’ll start sweating even more than usual, you’ll get extraordinarily thirsty, and you’ll start cramping in either your arms, legs or stomach.  If you feel these symptoms, stop what you’re doing, find some shade and hydrate! Drink a glass of water followed by some Gatorade or something similar so you can put some electrolytes back into your system too.

At this point, you may need to lie down somewhere cool, drink plenty of fluids and maybe even take a long, cool shower to start your body on the road to recovery.

If you’re stubborn and you still don’t stop, your body temperature will spike, reaching 104 degrees or higher, you’ll stop sweating, you’ll get nauseated, and start breathing rapidly.  Your heart will start beating rapidly too, and you’ll become visibly confused and disoriented. This is heat stroke.

When you reach this stage, forget home remedies.  Someone needs to call the hospital for you to get you proper treatment.  Please do not let yourself get to this point!  Stay safe out there.

The Mediterranean diet. The Paleo diet. Adkins. Keto. There are dozens of diets out there, all claiming to be the magic bullet that will deliver huge, impressive weight loss results if you just stick with it.

 

Some of these diets have been around for decades, and you know something?  We still have an obesity epidemic in this country.  The fad diets aren’t delivering as promised.  In fact, there’s no evidence that they’re delivering at all.  So, what’s the story?  Are they all just scams?

The answer is more complex and interesting than you might think, and the simple answer is no.  They’re not scams.  They all can work, but there are a couple of catches that few people bother to talk about.

Many of the fad diets work by starving your body in various ways.  Unfortunately, that makes it super difficult to stick with any of them in the longer term,. In fact, after you’ve put your body in starvation mode for a few weeks, when you drop out of the diet you’re pursuing, you tend to overcompensate. The net result is that you gain more weight back than you lost while you were on the fad diet. Rinse and repeat 3-6 times over the course of the year and you begin to see the problem.

At the root though, weight loss is very simple.  If you’re burning more calories than you’re consuming, you lose weight. You don’t want to burn many more calories than you’re consuming, or your body will think it’s in starvation mode and respond accordingly by storing and saving fat. So you’ve got to keep the two in balance with a slight nudge toward calories burned, so that you gradually shed those pounds.

Thus, the secret to weight loss is that there is no secret.  Those extra pounds didn’t appear overnight, and they won’t go away overnight either.  Eat a well-balanced healthy diet and stay active. Make it a new lifestyle and make it a habit.  Be mindful of your caloric intake but don’t obsess, and don’t be in a hurry.  The weight will come off.  You’ve got this!

At one point or another, everyone has had a pulled muscle. It happens any time you stretch a muscle in your body too far, or stretch it to the point that the muscle tissue begins to tear. You can get a pulled muscle anywhere. They occur most often in your back, shoulders, hamstrings, neck, or shoulders.

You’ll know it when you get one, because the pain will be sudden and extreme, and will probably limit movement within the affected muscle group.  Those, however, aren’t the only symptoms.  Others include things like bruising or discoloration, swelling, muscle spasms, stiffness, or a sudden weakness in the affected muscle group.

The most common causes of these types of injuries include:

• Overexertion
• Fatigue
• Poor physical condition mixed with a sudden burst of physical activity
• Poor flexibility
• Failing to warm up properly before starting a physical activity

You can also suffer a muscle strain if you slip or lose your footing, lift something while you’re in an awkward position, throw something, or do anything involving running and jumping.  Pulled muscles tend to be more common in colder weather because the muscles in your body are stiffer and it takes more time to warm up properly.

In the vast majority of cases, you can treat a pulled muscle on your own with a combination of ice, compression, elevation and simple rest.  There are times, however, when you’ll absolutely want to seek the help of a medical professional.

Those conditions include:

• If the muscle pain is accompanied by any amount of blood coming from the injury.
• It’s severe enough that you can’t walk or have difficulty even moving the affected part of your body.
• The injured area goes completely numb.
• Or if the pain doesn’t subside after a week.

Don’t take any chances.  If you have any doubts, questions or concerns at all, it always pays to seek the help and advice of a professional.