Health and Fitness Journal

I attend a school full time. It is called Collins graphic design school. As a full time student it is hard to eat right asnd stay healthy. My diet mostly consists of fast food, instant ramen and the occasional donut. Along with a very large dose of Starbucks coffee.

What should I do?

First of all, eating right is not impossible while you’re in school. Many fast food restaurants nowadays have salad bars. Eat sushi, eat salads, eat less meat, less friend foods and more whole grain foods.

And when in doubt, go to Subway. With dozens of sandwiches under 400 calories, you can’t go wrong at Subway.

Have you ever noticed how many fruit juice bars seem to be popping up around the malls these days? Hundreds of them I think. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for fresh fruit juice. There is nothing healthier and certainly nothing tastier, but the problem I have with these juice bars is the damn cost. I recently bought one down near the local park and was shocked when the cashier asked me for $8! I couldn’t believe it. So, that lead me to the conclusion that I must buy my own home juicer. The problem is that there are so many on the market, which one do I choose?

That’s when I came across a website offering best juicer reviews. It lists loads of different makes and models and helps you choose the right one for your needs. My juicer’s primary purpose will be for making breakfast juices for the kids. I’ll need a pretty sturdy one as I plan to mix up fruits like apples, mangos, bananas and more. I heard that if you put some ice in with it, you get a nice cool freshing taste. Now, I just have to make that decision on which one to buy!

Last weekend I had some friends come over for dinner who are all very health conscious eaters. At first I was a little confused as to what I should cook, until I checked out this chefs site. Wow - what an amazing collection of recipes to choose from. I didn’t know whether I was going to be able to pick anything with so many delicious food ideas on offer. In the end I decided to go with seafood and salad as my main course meals. Being summer here I thought these would be nice and light and of course very healthy.

I made a beautiful salad with egg, bacon, avocado, pine nuts, mango and the usual lettuce, tomato and cucumber. I topped it off with a nice light olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sweet mustard dressing. For the seafood I made prawn skewers marinated in chili sauce, garlic and continental parsley. They were quite a hit with the guests. These days I really think you can still eat great food without all the calories. Most of the diets that people go on tend to offer really crappy food and it’s no wonder why people end up failing. They inevitably go back to eating their usual unhealthy food. All it takes is a bit of recipe research on the net and ta da you have found some great healthy recipe ideas.

When it comes to personal health and fitness one should always be open to trying out new things but should also be careful, especially within alternative medicine, of products or practices that are no more than quakery.  Stuff like homeopathy and aromatherapy are two examples of such alternative medicine still pending scientific proof on their behalf.  Although the soothing qualities of aromatherapy are rarely contested (its their curative qualites under suspicion) and if fact I am a fan of using scent as a part of ‘interior design’ in helping establish the mood of a certain room, and though oils are the materials in aromatherapy, sometimes I like to use flowers instead.  And it just so happens that where I live Clare Florist are the No.1 online florist for flower delivery throughout the UK with the perfect flowers to send, whatever the occasion.  Or non-occasion as it is often my case which is great because they due provide a convenient alternative to the local florist.  In any case I am getting off topic.  While stuff like aromatherapy probably doesn’t hold the key to medicine’s future, there are other better supported cases for alternative remedies.

We’ve been hearing about the health benefits of chocolate for some time now; articles usually found in the ‘weird news’ section of the newspaper or variety magazine.  But in those cases the advocates seem to be professional researchers (not even the most audacious con artists would dare try to spin chocolate as a health benefit!).  In most cases though, the news item is still not taken seriously so the reports often fail to mention details like a recommended daily intake or type of chocolate.  Preferably no milk in the chocolate is recommended and its gotta be as pure as possible; 75% or greater, and about 239 calories a day.  The taste of chocolate in such an unadulterated state may not be so delecatble at first but one can easly work her/his way up to 90% chocolate starting with the lower ones first.

Now I just need to get some chocolate scented oils for my next decoration project (this is a health blog, I know!) or perhaps even a cacao plant, although that may be hard to care for in this cool Glasgow weather, plus it’s more like a tree.  

After a lovely late-night dinner at Carny’s, I had just ordered an after-dinner coffee and éclair when my date Cathy reached into her Louis Vuitton handbag and produced a mysterious-looking bottle of black goo. Before I could say anything to stop her, she had popped out the miniature ancient cork and had taken a quick swig of the vile concoction.

“Cathy! What on Earth…” I stammered. My heart was doing quadruple backflips in my chest. My tongue had dried up and was pasted to the inside of my cheek. I gripped the faux aluminum hand rests of my deck chair and ground my bare feet into the wooden slats of Carny’s soft wood patio.

Had she tried to kill herself? How much time did I have left before the poison ground her system to a crushing halt? My nervous system ran amok with questions.

“Charles, calm down,” Cathy waved me off. “You really don’t know what this is, do you?” She flashed the tiny bottle beneath my nose. Her eyes were wide and inflated with a mixture of cat-like mischief and flirtatious desire. She ran a long-nailed hand through her shoulder-length blond hair and shook it.

To say I was boggled would be a gross understatement.

“Cathy, what is that liquid? Please tell me it’s not poison – or heroin,” I blurted.

“Charles, you really are a museum piece, aren’t you?” she laughed gaily. “You’re always so concerned with your health, I’m surprised you don’t know – it’s balsamic vinegar. Part of the new vinegar craze. All the girls at uni drink it. It’s slimming and packs a kick.”

Vinegar! I knew from my research that pirates had used it for much the same purpose during the early 1800’s. But in 2007? It knocked me for a loop.

When I asked Cathy to try some of it myself she passed the bottle across the table and I took my first sip. It hit me like a cat bite on the thigh. My head snapped back and my feet shot out straight in front of me. My left hand pounded the table. My tongue lapped at my nose. I said: “Arrrrrrr!”

It turns out that, unfortunately for me, I’m one of only about 0.05% of the world’s population who suffer from an extreme form of allergic reaction to balsamic vinegar. After Cathy and Rizot, the main waiter at Carny’s had pumped my stomach, apparently with the help of some locals, I was carried back to my boat. What a night indeed!

I feel so bloated I can’t even get up. My doctor told me I should cut down on fatty foods and get myself a StairMaster. But I feel so bloated that I don’t have the energy to get up, get out of the house and go looking for a StairMaster. And anyway, my New Year’s resolution was to cut down on buying useless junk, like Stairmasters.

“It’s a good thing you still make housecalls, Dr. Beckles,” I told my G.P. “I’m so bloated these days I can…”

“I know, I know,” Dr. Beckles cut me off, “you’re so bloated you can hardly find the energy to get up off the couch.” He coughed without covering his mouth. “Well, it’s a good thing you could a least find the energy to dial my phone number and call my office,” he said, wrinkling his busy black eyebrows up in a classic “Don’t give me any of your guff” physician’s scowl.

“Oh, Dr. Beckles!” I poked him in the collarbone. “But what can I do to…stop this bloating thing I got? I ain’t getting any younger, you know.”

It was at that point he loosened his collar and leaned over after wiping the back of his sweating neck with a hanky. “You need a strict non-fatty foods regimen, complete with treadmill exercise and a lightweight aerobic component.” His breath was heavy with barbeque sauce, most likely from Aruba Joe’s, the nearby gourmet sausage café. Suddenly I was hungry.

“Couldn’t you just…go in there with one of them little probes and suck it out?” I wanted to know. “Couldn’t you just cut it off a bit here,” I gripped a bit of the bloated area in question so he could get an eyeful, “and kind of nip it in the bud, so to speak?” But Dr. Beckles wasn’t having it; he was a professional – he’d seen my likes before:

“If I was say, Dr. Lapus, down at the clinic, I might well advise you to take such a foolish path. But it would be unconscionable for me to do so. It would also probably be illegal. The thing for you to do is to practice aerobic twisting exercising movements. These will get your heart rate and blood pressure up. If you visualize yourself sort of picking apples and reeeaching over to pick them off the coffee table here, you’ll be taking the first step at least towards reducing your bloating.”

After he had gone I still felt bloated. And I was hungry. For a barbequed sausage. At least I would have to get up and go out of the house to get it. Maybe I was only taking baby steps, but wasn’t it a sign of some small progress?

Last night was so embarrassing! I put out candles, tuned the radio to some slow jams, and just as my date, Debbie, arrived, the sauce was ready.

Everything looked about to go according to plan. But when Debbie looked up from her plate she wasn’t smiling.

I should have known! How could someone like me impress someone who has studied fine cooking at a place like the kitchen academy in Hollywood? After she’d left I took a hard look at what had gone wrong; she hadn’t even touched the brisket; the pile of mayo was intact as well; and I saw the cookies and root beer were barely sampled.

My conclusion: I needed to stop thinking about what foods I thought were delicious, and zero in on cooking healthy! Sure I knew that that brisket was a yummy possibility, but Debbie was thinking differently, she had other goals, and I wanted to understand them.

This morning so far I’ve found a number of possible new dishes on the net to try if Debbie comes back. One of them is a goulash from Cairo.

Colds usually aren’t serious, but often times leaves those who contract it feeling miserable. Occassionally, what might be considered a simple common cold can develop into something much more serious, especially in those with weakened immune systems or those who are very young or elderly. Therefore, it is in the best interest of all to find ways to combat the spread of the common cold. Read more

There are two kinds of diabetes, Type I Diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes. Type I diabetes is typically diagnosed in children and young adults, and was previously known as juvenile diabetes. In type I diabetes, the body does not produce insulin, a hormone which is needed to convert sugars, starches, and other foods into energy needed for everyday life. Type II diabetes is more often diagnosed in adults, and occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, and can be prevented in many cases. Type I diabetes cannot be prevented, but type II diabetes can be prevented by maintaining healthy eating habits, exercise, and keeping a healthy weight.

When it comes down to eating to prevent diabetes, the best suggestion is to eat healthier all around. You should make sure that you eat more fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains, and cut down on high fat meals. In fact, trade in the high fat meals for vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Choose foods with less fat, calories and salt, and limit the amount of fried food you eat. Staying properly hydrated is also very important, so make sure that you drink enough water each day. Carbonated and caffeinated beverages don’t count towards your daily water needs. Eating smaller portions is also an important thing to practice. Portion sizes are very much out of control in the United States, and things like beef, chicken, and fish should be limited, with portions smaller than the palm of your hand. That means getting the 4 to 6oz steak instead of the 12oz.

Staying active along with healthy eating will also help to prevent the onset of type II diabetes. If you’re not much into going to the gym, there are simple things that you can do every day that will help keep you active and fit:

•  Take a walk. Walk with a friend, you family, or take the dog.
•  Skip the elevator and take the stairs.
•  Dance! It’s fun, and keeps you fit.
•  Clean the house from top to bottom - you’ll work up a nice sweat.
•  Play with your children, grandchildren, or friends.

A few small lifestyle changes can make a world of a difference, and help to prevent you from developing type II diabetes.

Alzheimer’s is a debilitating disease that significantly affects the daily lives of those who suffer from it. Not only that, but it can cause rifts and problems in families. As you can imagine, scientists are eager to get to the root of the Alzheimer’s disease problem, and figure out once and for all what causes it, and what we can do to prevent it. Interestingly, it seems that diet and eating habits play a role in staving off the disease. Read more