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Some of the biggest excuses I hear about healthy eating, be it for health reasons, or to lose weight or gain muscle are – “healthy food doesn’t taste good,” (which is a serious problem because if your food doesn’t taste good, it’s very unlikely you’ll stick to the plan) “it takes too long to prepare healthy food”, and, “it’s too complicated.” These excuses are usually the result of thinking you need to slave over a hot stove preparing 6 course meals all day long. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Excuse #1 Healthy food is bland food

First off, the reality is that healthy foods aren’t the one to blame; it’s the cook who’s at fault. Healthy foods don’t have to be boring, or taste bad. Foods like rice cakes taste like cardboard because that’s what rice cakes taste like, not because all healthy foods do

The belief that healthy food doesn’t taste good will slow down your progress. Healthy food is like high performance race fuel for your body, while junk food laden with salt, sugar, fats, preservatives and the like are nothing more than camouflaged candy. You can say healthy food helps you perform like an Indy car, or a jet fighter, and junk food gives you the performance of a garbage truck! If you insist on eating junk and avoiding healthy food because “it taste’s bad,” don’t expect to win any races or competitions anytime soon.

Another point to keep in mind is the following, expensive restaurants don’t serve Big Macs – notice I didn’t say burgers. They have burgers alright; one’s made with top quality beef, nutritious bread and piles of veggies.

A tasty menu will actually make you look forward to your meals, and that’s critical.

You might be able to eat a bad meal every now or then and brush it off, but do you think you could do that every day? How about 4, 5, 6 even 7 times a day? Probably not unless you were in a POW camp and didn’t have a choice.

Simply put, tastier food makes it easier to stick to your nutritional plan. Stick to your nutritional plan long enough and it’ll become a lifestyle. By making it a lifestyle you’ll reap the benefits from eating healthy only gained from “sticking to the plan” for the long haul. Sticking to a healthy lifestyle for the long haul means your results will stick with YOU for the long haul – and I’d bet it’s safe to say that’s what you want.

Kirsten Hawkins, nutrition and health expert writes: “One of the biggest reasons that people slip off their diets and eating plans is BOREDOM. It’s very easy to look at the foods allowed on your diet and see it as restrictive and boring. Chicken four nights a week. Fish three times a week. Green leafy vegetables till they’re coming out of your ears. Who wouldn’t get bored? The answer is – anyone with a good set of cookbooks and a healthy imagination. Perk up your cabinet with spices and fill your refrigerator with fresh fruits and vegetables, then look for novel ways to combine them.”

Excuse #2 I don’t have the time to prepare healthy food

You may be saying to yourself “that’s great but I don’t have the time to cook.” The truth is neither do I, at least not 5 or 6 times a day. However, I do have time to cook once a day and will usually prepare multiple meals at a time.

Once you realize that most healthy foods don’t take much longer than unhealthy foods you’ll find you’ll have time for it too.

Most times it’s just as fast and even quicker. Usually you can take the same recipes and replace the ingredients with healthier choices. For example, swap medium ground beef for extra lean, butter with olive oil, brown rice for white, and presto, you have a healthy meal. It also helps to experiment with different types of foods and try things you are unfamiliar with.

Excuse #3 Too complicated

It’s also not that complicated. You don’t need to spend hours seasoning and boiling down dishes. The great thing is that healthy meals tend to be simple dishes that use easy to learn cooking methods.

Toni Tanner Scott, Personal Chef and Cooking Coach, writes, “To support your healthy eating plan, stock your pantry wisely, focusing on the kinds of cuisine you and your family prefer. Start with the basics: good olive oil, reduced fat/sodium broth, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, dry beans and lentils. Then if you particularly enjoy Tex-Mex, add good chili powder, cumin, and oregano and tomato paste. If Asian fare is always favorite, keep low sodium soy sauce, ginger and sesame oil on hand, along with longer grain rice… you’ll always be able to whip up a fabulous meal with some fresh lean meat and vegetables.”

All of this healthy good eating will cause you to feel and look better, which will make you want to stick to the plan even more. Also, consistently eating healthy and balanced meals that meet your caloric requirement will provide you the fuel you need to push yourself to higher levels and maximize the returns from each workout. You will also recuperate better and quicker from your workouts which means you’ll be in the gym sooner and reaching your goals faster.

If you’re serious about your health, your looks, your mental wellbeing, making the most out of the time you spend in the gym and actualizing your true potential, fueling your body is a top priority.

And it all starts with a tasty menu based on a rock solid nutrition plan and a proven system that will get you there.

Eating Time!

Learn the basics of cooking.

You really don’t need more than the basics, and they are very quick and easy to pick up.

Use the best ingredients you can get

Use fresh ingredients when you cook it’ll make your foods taste much better. Even the best chef in the world would be hard pressed to make a tasty meal with old, wilted and stale ingredients.

Stay away from wilted fruits and veggies, and make sure the colors are bright and/or clear.

While fresh organic whole foods are my first choice, using pre cut or pre mixed fruits and veggies, like a salad mix, is ok when you’re short on time.

As a rule of thumb, don’t use anything that has a strong odor or has a cloudy color.

Fresh fish doesn’t have a strong “fishy smell”. If it does, it’s more than likely going, if not already, bad. Same goes for other meats, stay away from strong odors.

Leftovers with a purpose

Cooking in bulk, i.e. making leftovers on purpose is a great way to keep the fridge or freezer stocked with ready to eat foods and meals.

We all want to look good, feel good and feel energized. We search the stores looking for the miracle vitamin or supplement to give us good health and well-being. That being said, nutritional supplements, wellness products and vitamins is a multi-billion dollar business.

We read the claims written on the bottles and take them to be the truth. We want the claims of “revitalization”, “promotes good health”, “builds strong bones” etc., to be true, even though most of the time there is no scientific data supporting the claims.

When shopping for your next wellness product, such as vitamins, or nutritional supplements, consider the following guidelines:

1: What kind of information is available on the ingredient specifications, safety and quality testing?

2: Are the health and nutritional claims on the label (if any) based on anecdotal information or a scientific data?

3: Are the products backed by published clinical research studies? If so, is the data easily accessible for review? Is the research study published and if so is the study peered reviewed?

4: Does the company invest in and operate their own research and development center and a food and nutritional supplement manufacturing plant? Shaklee does!

5: Are there clinical studies on bioavailability (which means – does the nutrients in the product get absorbed into the bloodstream and how much of it is absorbed)? Is there published clinical research to prove the bioavailability of the product?

For instance a simple test of Vitamin E 200IU was tested for delivery into the bloodstream. The results were as follows:

Brand 1 .015 absorbed

Brand 2 15.0 absorbed

Brand 3 10.0 absorbed

Brand 4 67.0 absorbed

Brand 5 200 absorbed Shaklee Brand

Not so sure about your brand, then try this-Send a letter to the company producing your current vitamin or supplement as follows: “Please send me whatever scientific research data on your product. I would like to receive independent scientific studies or articles that have been published in peer reviewed journals, supporting your claims on the product. It is important to me to know that I am using a product that is safe and effective. Thank you very much.” The response, if any, should be on that particular product(s) you are inquiring about, not just research on the nutrient in general.

Above are just a few tips to consider when selecting your vitamin or nutritional supplement. A vitamin is not just a vitamin, cheapest is just that, and quality determines results.

It is estimated that the average woman will live 30% of her life in the post-menopausal stages. This is a very large portion of a person’s life, especially to live with the symptoms many women experience after, during and prior to menopause due to the natural decrease of female hormones (estrogens) and subsequent increase of male hormones (androgens).

This hormonal imbalance, while more severe in some, tends to cause a lot of unpleasant and sometimes downright unbearable side effects such as moodiness, hot flashes, sleeplessness, anxiety, lack of focus and memory loss, unusual hair growth, and several other unsavory conditions.

Natural hormone replacement is an excellent choice for many women experiencing hormonal imbalance. What is natural hormone replacement? Natural hormone replacement, or bio identical hormone therapy, is usually a mixture of plant-derived substances which have natural hormone balancing and estrogenic (estrogen mimicking, therefore “biologically identical” to estrogen) properties.

Is Natural Hormone Replacement Effective?

Absolutely!

Many women have had excellent results with natural hormone therapy – as long as they’ve chosen a quality product with the right blend and purest grade of ingredients. There are a lot of watered down, ineffective products out there in this field as their popularity increases, so buyer beware.

One of the best and most beneficial ingredients is pure soy, a specific compound that is actually harvested from the soy bean, that when refined correctly and in pure form, has overall therapeutic and hormone equalizing effects in the female body. Black cohosh is another hormonally therapeutic botanical (herb) which has been used for centuries by herbalists, naturopaths and holistic doctors as a natural hormone replacement remedy for women in menopause or with hormonally related conditions.

Medically administered HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) has been treated with growing wariness and skepticism due to findings in 2003 that it can have serious health-damaging and even life-threatening side effects including increased risk of stroke and heart attack amongst others, leading women to seek out healthy alternatives to traditional hormone replacement therapy.

With natural hormone replacement products (the GOOD ones), traditional HRT may soon be extinct, yielding a higher quality of life and health for women experiencing hormonal imbalances.

Believe it or not, your skin is the biggest organ of the human body. The principle purpose of your skin is to protect your body from foreign agents. The skin is the first line of defense against disease and infection. It is also the skin that gives us protection against the sun.

However, it is also the skin that first betrays the effects of aging. Skin ailments such as psoriasis or dermatitis can be irritating and make our lives miserable. While we never needed things like wrinkle creams or moisturizers when we were younger and our skin more resilient, the fact is that some degree of skin care is inevitable as we age.

But skin care treatment is also necessary because of factors unrelated to our aging skin. Dry skin is caused by a number of conditions and therefore its treatment options will depend on the actual cause. Here are some causes of dry skin:

Medication Side Effects

As a society, we have increasingly become dependent on medication for things like high blood pressure, tension headaches, and even depression. Skin care treatment for dryness may very well be necessary due to some side effect of your medication for a completely unrelated condition. For this reason, you always want to monitor any potential skin irritation immediately after starting any new medication. If you already have dry skin and can’t remember whether or not it was a problem before starting your medication, you may need to consult with your physician and discuss an alternative medication in order to rule out side effects as the cause of your dry skin.

Poor Nutrition

Skin care problems are often the result of poor nutrition. Our bodies require a delicate balance of nutrients in order to keep everything functioning properly, especially the skin. Vegetarians and vegans often run into dry skin issues as a result of not consuming enough animal fats in their diet. A vitamin B12 deficiency will cause your oil glands (sebaceous glands) to function improperly, generally leading to acne.

Basically, any attempt to address a skin care issue (be it oily, dry, or even itchy skin) should begin with a close look at diet. Dermatologists can best assess potential diet-related skin care problems and recommend corrective measures to naturally restore skin vitality. However, here are some foods to avoid where possible in order to keep your skin as healthy as possible:

o fried foods (chicken, French fries)

o processed sugars

o caffeine, coffee, tea, soft drinks

o high fat dairy products like milk or cheese (consuming low fat varieties of milk and cheese may not be great, but they are better for your skin!)

Now the best thing that you can ingest for improved skin care is water. That’s right, water. Water naturally removes toxins from your body–so the more you drink of it, the purer your body will be. Drinking lots of water is especially good for people with acne problems and it will also help reduce the onset of wrinkles.

Skin Care Problems Due to Sebaceous Gland Problems

If you have ever been to a dermatologist because of acne problems then you are probably very familiar with sebaceous glands. Because the skin needs to be lubricated, it is covered with oil secreting glands known as sebaceous glands. If these glands become clogged with dirt, then bacteria begin growing inside and a pimple is the result. However, sebaceous glands can either become clogged and dry skin is caused or they can produce too much and cause oily skin. More often than not, problems with the sebaceous glands are due to poor diet and can usually be corrected rather easily.

Skin Care Problems Due to Diabetes

Believe it or not, even diabetes can cause you serious skin care problems. A person with diabetes has trouble regulating the blood sugar levels. When there is an excess of blood sugar in the body, the excess must be absorbed. To do this, the body uses a lot more water than normal and that can lead to dry skin.

Skin Care Treatment for Dryness

While diet must always be part of any skin care treatment regimen, it is just a simple fact that our bodies will need more help as we age. For this reason, a moisturizer of some sort will ultimately be needed. To this end, it is HIGHLY recommended that you use a natural skin moisturizer.

Moisturizers using natural ingredients are far less likely to cause the irritating side effects mentioned earlier. Synthetic ingredients are often less expensive to use in moisturizers but they are not the best skin care option because the body is less receptive to them. Natural ingredients, on average, cause fewer side effects and are therefore better where skin moisturizers are concerned.

Skin Care for Wrinkles

Wrinkles are probably the biggest cause of all skin care treatments in the United States. As a person ages, the skin naturally becomes less elastic. As a result, fine lines begin to form on the face which ultimately become the wrinkles we hate so much. There are two main skin care strategies when it comes to wrinkles: affect the muscles that reveal the wrinkles or fill in the skin so the wrinkles are less noticeable. The first strategy involves Botox and the second Collagen injections.

Botox Skin Care

A person is actually having a strain of Botulism injected in their face when they opt for Botox skin care treatment. Botox actually interrupts the transmission of nerve impulses to the muscles that reveal our wrinkles. It may sound radical, but these injections do actually reduce the appearance of wrinkles on the face for a significant period of time. Now these injections can be costly and they must be repeated–but they are generally affective.

Collagen Injection Skin Care

Many people have a serious misperception about collagen injections. The perception is that collagen is a form of fat that is injected into your face to fill in the lines caused by wrinkles. Actually, collagen is an effective form of skin care treatment for wrinkles not because it is fat–but because it is protein. In fact, collagen is a special protein that helps cells and blood vessels connect to one another. When this happens, the wrinkles fade because the collagen helps the skin to “rebuild” in areas where wrinkles form and actually fill in the lines. Again, collagen treatments tend to work but they also are expensive and need to be repeated.

Natural Anti-Wrinkle Creams

A cheaper, but slower, alternative to expensive skin care treatments for wrinkles is a simple cream. Anti-wrinkle creams work to rebuild the skin texture and helps with the elasticity over time. However, unlike Collagen or Botox injections, anti-wrinkle cream skin care treatment is only applied to the skin surface. This is why it takes so much longer. Still, an anti-wrinkle cream is a cost-effective and non-invasive treatment for wrinkles that does work if given enough time. Again, in order to reduce possible side effects, stick with creams that use natural ingredients as they will react better with your skin.

For an all natural skin care product, try SkinSoSilky today to help manage any of your anti aging, acne, or dry skin care needs.

Our body needs proper and adequate amounts of macro nutrients as well as micro nutrients. Macro nutrients are ones that we need in large quantities like carbohydrates, proteins and fats. We get that through the food we eat. On the other hand, often micro nutrients like vitamins and minerals have to taken as supplements. These are essential for the general wellbeing of our metabolism. You can get these multi vitamins and amino acids at any healthy products center. They are critical for the functioning of our body. Your health will be seriously jeopardized if you miss out on micronutrients in your daily dietary intake.

However, there is one concern with these so called healthy products. Some of them are synthetic. It is argued that they tend to do our body more harm than good. This article will help you determine which one is right for you.

Vitamins From Natural Sources

The micro nutrients that are essential for our body’s functioning are generally found only in trace amounts in our regular diet. However, they are found to be in abundance in some other natural foods, for instance in seasonal fruits and vegetables. If you regularly eat fresh foods and vegetables you will not face any vitamin deficiency. A healthy products center that sells you natural supplements derives them from plants. However, over the recent years the nutritional values and quality of fruits has drastically reduced. This is due to the ever increasing use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Therefore, it is recommended that you ensure the use of supplementary healthy products along with proper intake of natural fruits in your diet plan.

Natural Nutritional Supplements Vs. Synthetic Supplements

Every healthy products centre will tell you that their products are the best and the safest. However, some of them might sell you the synthetic supplements that are artificially prepared in laboratories. The thing with synthetic products is that most of them are not absorbed by the body. They are either removed by the excretory system or they accumulate in your body. These accumulations can cause cancer in a long run.

The Winner Is…

It is only logical that you should prefer a healthy products center that provides natural supplements. It is also notable that since the natural vitamins are present abundantly in natural products, they are easy to obtain. This makes them less costly than the synthetic ones. Also, they are completely free of side effects such as stomach complications and high blood pressure.

However, you shouldn’t take the naturals ones in excess. Many vitamins become toxic when taken in surplus. Another important thing is that you should not take any of these supplements without consulting a licensed physician. Even though these multivitamins are freely available in the market without a prescription, it is in your best interest that you use them only after getting an expert’s opinion.

Mother Nature has gifted us lots of herbs with mystical properties to take care of our health and beauty. We are born with a soft, gentle and smooth skin but not many of us can maintain the same texture and tone. This is because most of us deal with our skin carelessly when young, which results in various skin problems affecting beauty.

Understanding the skin structure and function will enable us to make an active use of our skin in relating more positively to the environment.

Skin consists of three layers – the epidermis, the dermis, and the subcutaneous tissue. The surface epidermis is a relatively thin layer; beneath the epidermis is the thicker and much stronger dermis. The subcutaneous tissue or the fat-containing layer lies below the dermis.

The Epidermis – It is a fairly thin layer. Its thickness varies around the body, depending on the special needs of that area. For instance the epidermis over the eyelids is particularly thin, while that over the palm and sole is very thick.

The Dermis – The dermis is a much thicker layer than the epidermis. It is made up of a connective tissue framework in which are embedded blood vessels, lymph vessels, nerves, several types of glands, hair and a whole variety of cells. The connective tissue of the dermis is made of up predominantly of a protein called collagen. Elastin is the other type of protein fibers in the dermis. The dermis also contains a complex system of blood and lymph vessels and a highly complicated nervous system.

The subcutaneous – Below the dermis is the fat storage area of the skin. The amount of the fat stored varies in different parts of the body.

Natural Remedies for Skin Care

- Aloe Vera – It has a rich water holding capacity and works as a good moisturizing cream gel.

- Vegetable oils – They are very nutritive, apart from being useful in burns, scalds and as natural hair oil.

- Camphor – It is an effective antiseptic and an excellent liniment for skin problems like pimples. It gives very good results when used in combination with other herbs.

- Holy Basil – It is a wonderful medicinal herb that is widely used in a number of skin problems.

Disclaimer: This article is not meant to provide health advice and is for general information only. Always seek the insights of a qualified health professional before embarking on any health program.

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