Post about "Nutrition"

5 Health and Fitness Mistakes Made During the Holidays

My recent relocation from the 24 degree weather of Boston, MA to the sunshine and beaches of Southern California got me to thinking about the differences and the similarities of the holiday season for people around the country.In Boston right now, we’re celebrating the Patriots win and getting ready for a cold Turkey Day.In Southern California, we may not have had as much luck considering the Chargers loss, but we’re also getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner followed by a stroll along the Pacific Ocean.Whatever your location, there are several truths to the holiday season.The truth of the matter is that most people tend to put on some extra pounds starting with Halloween and continuing through the New Year.And every year, many of us go through the same thought process.You may have found yourself saying:”This year is going to be different.”"I’m going to eat less. I won’t have 2 desserts.”"I’m going to start exercising before the holidays.”"I’m going to stick to my New Year’s resolution(s).”To help you out this holiday season, we’ve put together a list of the 5 biggest health and fitness mistakes people everywhere are making and what you can do to make sure you don’t fall into a weight gain trap.Here are the Top 5 Health and Fitness Mistakes You May Be Making…Health and Fitness Mistake #1Not Having or Not Changing Your Cardio Exercise ProgramMany people hit plateaus in the quest for better fitness. Sometimes it’s a weightlifting plateau and sometimes it is a cardiovascular fitness plateau.Remember, your heart is a muscle, too – the most important one.If you aren’t working it at all or if you keep doing the same cardio routine over and over again, then your heart is never challenged in a good way.To make sure that you are training your cardiovascular system correctly, you’ll want to cross train by employing several different cardiovascular activities.Here are a few to get you started during the holiday season:* Walking – Take a walk with family members before and/or after your holiday meals. It’s a great way to burn a few extra calories and will warm your body up a bit (especially those of you in Boston and the colder climates).* Cross Training – If you’re at the gym, test out a machine you don’t normally use.If you’ve been using the treadmill forever, the muscles you can see (your legs) and the muscles you can’t see (your heart) are probably getting comfortable.Switching exercise machines will keep those muscles guessing and can even make the time seem to go by faster.Health and Fitness Mistake #2Only Doing CardioCardiovascular activity will help your heart get stronger and help you to burn some fat and carbohydrate calories, but a faster and more efficient way to get to your health and weight loss goals is to couple your cardio with a weight lifting routine.Weight lifting will help to build some lean muscle throughout your body.Having a little more muscle on your frame will help you burn more calories throughout the day.Health and Fitness Mistake #3Eating the Wrong Foods…And Too Much of ThemIt’s hard enough to eat the right foods in the right amounts throughout the year.During the holidays, offices and kitchens are often bombarded with sweet and sugary treats. It can be almost impossible to resist.That’s why so many people put on anywhere from 5 – 20 extra pounds during the holiday season.If you’re concerned about gaining weight during the holidays, these 2 tricks will help.1) Increase or maintain your water and fruit intake -Once you are at a holiday dinner party it may be tougher to resist the food temptations.Before you leave the house be sure to drink a glass of water and/or have a piece of fruit. This will help quench at least part of your appetite and leave a little less room in your stomach for that extra cupcake.2) Bring healthy treats to the office -If there is only one choice, then that’s the one you’ll make.By having a selection, it will be easier to make some heart healthy, lower calorie choices.Having fruit salad rather than a bowl of chocolates is a great way to stick to a sound nutritional plan.Health and Fitness Mistake #4Concentrating on Muscles One at a TimeLong gone are the days of working the biceps only.Split routines (a staple of bodybuilding) are being replaced by various total-body workout strategies.Not only do you burn more calories, but you can get more done in less time.Health and Fitness Mistake #5Not Asking for Help When You Need ItWith so much information available in magazines and yes, on the internet, it can be difficult to know what information to trust.Too often we keep plugging away, too proud to ask for guidance or assistance.If you’ve been stuck in the holiday cycle of gaining weight and losing weight, only to gain more weight, then lose it again, and you’re ready for change, then don’t be afraid to ask for guidance from a certified health and fitness professional.The Manhattan Beach Personal Trainer Team has over 10 years of experience in creating effective fat loss and weight loss programs.We’ve successfully helped hundreds of clients through the holiday season and are ready to help you.Schedule your complimentary consultation here.I’m looking forward to speaking with you soon.

Significance of Public Health for the Health Sector of Pakistan

Pakistan, as we all know is a developing country and we are currently going through lots of challenges and issues. These issues vary from terrorism, energy crisis and poverty to poorly developed education and health systems.Health, which is the basic human right, has unfortunately not been our priority. This statement is supported by the fact that according to the World Health Organization 2013 statistics, the health system of our country is currently ranked as 122 out of 190 countries. This is a very alarming figure especially considering the fact that one of our neighboring countries Iran is ranked as 93 in the same list. This particular figure definitely draws our attention towards issues in the health sector which we are currently facing.Firstly, we need to understand what is meant by health system. The health system does not only include hospitals and clinicians. It rather involves anything and everything which directly or indirectly affects the health of populations. The health system is composed of hospitals, environment, urban planning, food, nutrition and numerous other sectors which are directly or indirectly involved in determining the health of populations. What this means is the fact that by merely building new hospitals and producing more clinicians, we cannot make our health systems better. There has to be a multi-sectoral approach which needs to involve all the components of the health system.The next and the most important factor to consider is that we need to reshape our current health system model. If we want to improve the health status of our population, we have to base our health system on the preventive approach rather than the curative approach, that is, we need to promote public health. The time has now come where we must come out of the downstream (clinician) approach and move towards upstream (public health) approach. This is the only way by which we can survive and can make the health status of our population better. We should reconsider and amend our current health policy and we will have to develop it on the model of public health. This is the need of the time and if we want to survive and compete with the world, we must follow the public health model instead of the clinician’s model.At present, there are only a handful of institutes all across the country which offer professional studies in the field of preventive medicine. In order to produce skilled public health specialists, we need to have many academic institutes whose focus is solely on preventive medicine. The government should also support such institutes and provide appropriate funding to them, so that they can eventually become stable and sustainable. Thus the only way to make our health sector prosper is by working on public health. If this is not done on a priority basis and we are not able to shift our focus from clinicians model to public health model, it is feared that we will lag far behind as far as the health sector is concerned.

What is Charcot’s Foot that Occurs in Diabetes?

Charcot’s foot is one of the many problems which might occur in those with diabetes mellitus. The higher blood sugar levels that stem from all forms of diabetes have an affect on numerous body systems including the eyesight, renal system as well as nerves. In long standing cases, particularly if there has been an unsatisfactory control of the blood sugar levels, you can find problems with the nerves supplying the feet. This will make the feet in danger of issues as if something fails, you don’t know it has gone wrong as you can not really feel it due to the harm to the nerves. This might be something as simple as standing on a rusty nail and that getting contaminated and you are not aware that you’ve stood on the nail. Should it be a blister or ingrown toenail which gets infected and you do not know that it is present on the foot unless you have a look. This is why foot care can be so necessary for those with diabetes and why it will be provided a great deal of emphasis. A Charcot foot is the destruction occurring to the bones and joints if you have an injury and you do not know that the injury has happened.

A way of looking at it could be to consider this way: pretend that you sprain your ankle horribly and you also are not aware that you have simply because you do not experience the pain from it. You then carry on and walk around on it. Picture all of the additional harm which you do by walking about on it. The earliest you may possibly discover that there may be something wrong happens when you take a seat and look at the feet and you observe that one is a great deal more swollen compared to the other foot. This is exactly what occurs in individuals with diabetes who develop a Charcot’s foot. There may be some destruction, such as a sprained ankle or maybe a progressive failure of the arch of the foot and as no pain is sensed they carry on and walk around on it. It should be apparent simply how much more injury that gets done to the original injury prior to the problem is finally observed because of the swelling. At times there is not much swelling, but the Charcot’s foot is picked up from the difference in temperature between the two feet as a result of inflammation related process in the damaged foot that generates more warmth.

The development of a Charcot foot really needs to be dealt with as a bit of an urgent situation since the further it advances the much more serious it’s going to be and the more challenging it can be to handle. The individual definitely needs to quit all weightbearing without delay or at least obtain a walking support so that the damage is protected. For the not too major instances and those conditions which were serious and have improved a really supportive orthotic in the footwear is required to support the feet and the injuries. Sometimes surgical procedures are required to straighten the subluxed and dislocated bones. By far the most critical situations can end up with the foot and/or leg required to be amputated as the trauma has been doing an excessive amount of impairment.