Eat Healthier by Controlling Your Portions Size
When you eat out you probably will be asked if you want to super-size your meal. You know it is not a good idea but for that extra dollar you probably will go for it and ending up eating much more of what you should. That is why is so important to control the size of the portions of what you eat. This is a guide to help you our in portion sizing and how to control the sizes of food portions.
The FDA recommends to carefully measure the food you eat and, when needed to buy proper measuring devices such as measuring cups, measuring spoons and a scale for weight in ounces. FDA recommends the following portions for healthy eating:
-2 to 3 ounces of red meat, poultry or fish
-1 ½ ounces of natural cheese or if processed 2 ounces
-1 cup cooked or 3/4 cup to 1 cup uncooked grains
-1/3 to ½ cup cooked pasta
-1 medium-sized of any variety of fruit and ½ cup diced fruit
1- cup of milk or yogurt (8 ounces)
These portion sizes may look not enough for you but keep in mind that these are portions for healthy eating not to have a complete full stomach. If you manage your portion sizes adequately you can learn to increase the nutritional value of your meal eating the right mix of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
There are some tips you can follow to help you get used to the right portions:
-Read and understand nutrition labels.
-When starting measure your portions so you can eyeball them
-When eating out, order from the kid´s menu. These menus are smaller
-Share food and meals with friends and coworkers. That way both of you eat less.-Serve yourself in a bowl, plate or glass.Do not drink or eat from food packages (for example do not drink from a 2 Lt coke, instead, serve yourself a small glass of it)
Source: Personal experience…
Foods with Health Benefits
We must eat to live, so it just makes sense to eat foods with health benefits that help stave off diseases and increase our life span. But which foods might that be? Glad you asked! Add some of these foods with health benefits to your daily diet and add more healthy days to your life.
Arthritis Busters
Pumpkin contains powerful antioxidants that helps prevent arthritis from developing in healthy joints. For those who already suffer with arthritis, pumpkin relieves the pain by reducing the inflammation. Eating one can of pure pumpkin purée each week can help you live a longer, pain-free life.
Red bell peppers contain carotenoids, a strong inflammation fighter. Plus they are rich in vitamin C which has been shown to help prevent arthritis. Eating a couple of red bell peppers each week helps reduce inflammation and boosts vitamin C intake.
Ginger is a spicy root that adds flavor to a variety of dishes and is a natural anti-inflammatory. A cup of fresh ginger tea or a little fresh ginger grated into recipes each day help relieve the pain of arthritis.
Lower Blood Sugar
Beans, beans, good for your heart…and they stabilize blood sugar. Pinto, navy and kidney beans are loaded with fiber, protein and carbohydrates and they help keep hunger in check so you will eat less. A cup a day of your favorite beans helps to lower and stabilize blood sugar.
Egg whites are a good place to start a meal because they are fat-free, cholesterol-free and low in calories (just 7 calories per egg white!). The whites are also rich in protein and will help keep blood sugar from spiking. Add 3-4 egg white based meals per week to your diet to keep blood sugar level on an even keel.
All types of nuts – peanuts, walnuts, almonds, pecans, pistachios and cashews – are chock-full of heart-healthy fats and proteins that work in conjunction to stabilize blood sugar. A small handful each day will help you live longer by keeping blood sugar in check and improving cholesterol levels.
Prevent Osteoporosis
Another reason to eat your broccoli – it helps build strong bones and prevent osteoporosis. Broccoli contains four bone-building nutrients; calcium, potassium, vitamins C and K. Add broccoli to your weekly meal plan about four times to reap the maximum health benefits.
Yogurt is a versatile and delicious way to sneak more bone-building calcium into …
Healthy Food for Road Trips
Going on a road trip can be a frightening thought for anyone who is trying to stick to a diet. Open road with only fast food stops for hours can keep anyone up at night. But a little bit of planning can allow you to eat healthfully on even a long car trip.
Snack Foods that Don't Need to be Kept Cool. If you don't have the ability to keep your snacks cool while traveling, there are many options for you to bring along with you in the car. Fruit such as Apples and Bananas are great at room temperature and can keep for a good couple of days. Trail mix is another great snack, and some brands such as the Planters Energy Mix Trail Mix come in individual packages with nuts and dark chocolate covered soy nuts. Granola bars and individually packaged applesauce are other good options. Just remember to pack a spoon in your snack bag.
Snack Foods for Your Cooler. If you want to have an even healthier array of food options, you can pack a small cooler with an ice pack and snacks such as string cheese, grapes, and individual low-fat yogurt containers. Individual sized 100% juice boxes are great for kids, as are individual servings of low-fat chocolate milk. A new product, Fruit-2-Go, combines fruit juice with tidbits of actual fruit such as mango and pineapple. All of these are worth packing a little cooler for your car.
Snack Choices at Gas Stations. Stopping at a gas station for a healthy snack can be a difficult task, but knowing what to look for in advance can help you find a healthful option easily. The easiest healthy food to locate is the granola bar. Many gas stations now carry Fiber One bars, and there are also protein bars such as Power Bars and Balance Bars which are low in sugar. V8 Juice, V8 Splash, and Tomato juice are good juice options as they give you a full serving or two of vegetables. And low-fat milk or a Slim Fast shake can usually be found in the refrigerator section as well. By the cashier, you often find a fruit stand, and a small package of peanuts will stick to your ribs while filling you with healthy fats.
Fast Food Choices. Subway has great sandwiches and you can add lettuce, tomato, shredded carrots, cucumbers and peppers on top …
Stamina 55-2065 Elliptical Stepper Review
The Stamina 55-2065 is a combination elliptical and stepping machine. It offers you the choice of 12 pre-programmed workouts. You can find this model for an average price of $650. Keep reading to learn about some of the features that it offers.
Modes
The Stamina 55-2065 offers two modes. You can use the machine as an elliptical or as a stepper. It's also very easy to switch between modes using the two knobs fitted on the pedals.
Handlebars
The Stamina 55-2065 elliptical/stepper is equipped with two sets of handlebars. There are dual-action handlebars so that you can tone your upper body too. Alternatively, you can use the stationary handlebars while exercising. Each set of handlebars is padded with foam for maximum comfort.
Display
The Stamina 55-2065 incorporates an electronic control panel. It displays various information about your workout including calories burned, time, speed, distance, and MPH. The elliptical/stepper offers you the choice between 12 pre-programmed workouts. You can also create and save up to four additional workouts.
Intensity
The Stamina 55-2065 stepper utilizes a heavy-weighted flywheel-resistance system. You can easily change your intensity level using the plus and minus keys on the control panel. You can also use the machine in reverse for even more variety.
Design
The Stamina 55-2065 elliptical has an integrated bottle holder so you have convenient access to water while working out. The machine is also fitted with floor protectors to keep it in place while you're using it.
The Stamina 55-2065 is a versatile machine as you can use it as an elliptical or stepping machine. There are 12 pre-programmed workouts for you to choose from and you can create and save four more. There is a set of dual-action handlebars and also a set of stationary handlebars. The stepper features a flywheel-resistance system and you can easily change your intensity level using the plus or minus keys on the control panel.…
How Freedomland Became A ‘Health Care’ Center
My parents were in their early 40s in 1969, the year we moved to the massive Co-op City housing development in the Bronx. My brother and I were preteens.
When it was completed a few years later, Co-op City had more than 15, 000 apartments, most of them in high-rises scattered across 300 formerly swampy acres that had once been the Freedomland amusement park. Within a few years, the community’s schools and shopping centers appeared. Most of Co-op City’s occupants were working-class laborers and civil servants, drawn mostly from elsewhere in the borough. Direct and indirect subsidies made their new apartments affordable.
My brother and I both left for college within a decade. Our parents stayed until 1990, when they retired, departed for the suburbs of central New jersey and rebuilt their lives around the activities of the local senior citizens’ center. But many of their peers stayed in Co-op City, and quite a few of the kids my brother and I grew up with ended up staying with their parents, or inheriting apartments when their parents died.
For thousands of people like my parents, Co-op City became a “naturally occurring retirement community, ” also known as a NORC. The survivors of their generation who have stayed put, now advanced far into old age, have had the benefit of family, friends, familiar neighborhood institutions and a host of social services to sustain them. The phenomenon of this open-air retirement home that came into being quite by accident has been apparent for more than a decade. The New york Times wrote about it as far back as 2002. (1)
In New york, Medicaid pays for a lot of the services these people need. To the extent that Medicaid is a low-income health care program, this is not necessarily surprising. Yet what makes New York’s situation different is that Medicaid often covers even those services that don’t have much to do with health care as most people understand it. In literature about the “Health Homes” initiative, introduced in 2012, the state’s Medicaid administrators described the function of a “care manager, ” an individual who coordinates those seeing to an individual’s medical, behavioral health and social service needs. The theory is that by making sure people can live independently in their own homes, Medicaid saves money on hospital costs, ambulance rides, repetitive doctor visits and, most of all, nursing home care.
The same …
Body Shaping Laser Treatment
Laser body chiseling is another term used to depict fat expulsion and skin fixing accomplished with the new laser liposuction system. Laser liposuction can accomplish extremely energizing laser body chiseling comes about. The expression “body molding” has been used in Plastic Surgery to allude to systems intended to enhance the general appearance of the body shape. Customarily body molding has been utilized to depict bosom expansion, tummy tuck, thigh and butt cheek lift and arm lift and other surgical techniques. The issue with customary body shaping plastic surgery for some individuals is the scarring connected with surgery as in the tummy tuck.
With the approach and promotion of liposuction, the term body shaping treatment or liposculpture was utilized to portray the utilization of liposuction to enhance body shape with the utilization of liposuction rather than surgical techniques which required skin evacuation. A number of the outcomes accomplished with conventional liposuction don’t experience the utilization of the expression “chiseling” as customary liposuction frequently leaves free skin and skin abnormalities. The outcomes accomplished with laser liposuction unit are really refined and deserving of the utilization of the term laser body chiseling. The new laser liposuction and body chiseling innovation liquefies fat and fixes skin with a great deal less injury than conventional liposuction. Body chiseling with conventional liposuction regularly left free skin furthermore frequently made from deformations or dejections in the skin where fat had been evacuated underneath the skin.
The new Body Shaping Laser Treatment and fat expulsion method utilize a modest laser fiber, much littler than a liposuction cannula, to dissolve fat and fix skin in the meantime. The outcome is a great deal more refined skin appearance; the skin is more tightly and smoothes without imprints and shape deformations. This sort of result was inconceivable utilizing customary liposuction and additionally abdominoplasty surgery. The term laser body chiseling positively is proper. Laser body chiseling with this new innovation is conceivable on the neck, midsection, guts, thighs, hips, hindquarters, arms, and other body territories where abundance fat and additionally free skin is alarming you.
Applications and advantages this energizing new laser liposuction and skin fixing innovation, are just starting to be acknowledged, and the future guarantees progressive new disclosures.…
How Lyme Disease Affected My Family
She has Lyme Disease. That's what he said. I'm trying to shake the sleep out of my head and understand what he is saying. She has Lyme Disease. He said it again. I started to cry.
Our daughter started complaining about leg pain and fatigue months ago. The symptoms were so vague and we are dealing with a teenager here after all. We thought she just didn't want to go to school. How could we have known something serious was building in her body? My daughter loves to invent mysterious illness that she's sure she must have. Sometimes a bruise is skin cancer while a bump has got to be a tumor. Most of this is in fun. It has turned into a game really. When she has a bump or bruise we make up things that it could be. Nothing serious has ever been wrong with her, so up until now this was funny. When she came to us complaining of leg and ankle pain we assumed she was blowing it out of proportion as usual. Classic boy calling wolf scenario, right? Wrong.
Then one morning she came to me with tears in her eyes. The pain in her legs and ankles was severe. This is when i got nervous. I immediately called her doctor. I explained the seemingly vague symptoms then she ordered blood work. She didn't tell me what she was tested for nor did I ask. Three days later I was sitting in bed with tears rolling down my cheeks as my husband was telling me that our daughter has an incurable disease. I really couldn't believe she had Lyme Disease. My daughter is not an outdoors person. She doesn't take hikes or play sports.
My first thoughts were that she would have a chronic illness causing fatigue and joint pain for the rest of her life. I was heartbroken. Then I felt guilty for not knowing that something serious was wrong with her. She had contracted this months before and I hadn't known it. But, how could I have known?
Without delay she began taking a 21-day regimen of antibiotics to arrest the disease. The pain continued. She was diligent about taking her pills believing she would finally get some relief from the pain. She finished the pills. The pain continued. I called her doctor to express my concern so she ordered more blood work. …
All About Peripheral Artery Disease
Do you feel frequent cramping in your legs, buttocks, or feet? Do you have pains or aches in your legs or feet, or have a lower temperature or swelling of your legs and arms? These are just a few of the symptoms of peripheral artery disease (PAD). PAD (also known as peripheral vascular disease, PVD) is a serious disease which millions Americans have. While with some people it can have no effect at all (except the above symptoms), in others, it can be crippling or even deadly. People with PAD have a much, much higher chance of having a heart attack, stroke, or even a limb amputation. And whenever somebody has any one of these things, there is always a chance of death.
Even if you have this disease and it never kills you, it can be a great inconvenience. Cuts don’t heal right, body parts constantly fall asleep (and it takes a lot longer for them to return to normal if you have PAD), and sometimes it can just make you feel sick. The problem with PAD is the symptoms are so small and insignificant that many people don’t look into it further. After all, how can your legs irregularly falling asleep be the sign of a possibly deadly ailment?
There are five stages of PAD, and even at stage two one could feel frequently sick and pained. Stage one is mild pain when walking, stage two is severe pain when walking (sometimes even short distances), stage three is pain while resting, stage four is loss of sensation in some body parts, and stage five is the loss of tissue. If one knows the stages and symptoms of PAD, it is easy to go to a doctor and have it treated.
Most people with PAD are smokers or people who are around smokers a lot. Smoking is the #1 modifiable cause of PAD, and simply quitting can help you heal. The chemicals in cigarettes affect blood vessel lining, and the widespread damage of the lining can lead to PAD. Diabetics also have a higher change of this disease, and diabetic smokers have a one in three chance of contracting the disease and needing an amputation. Other people who are more prone to this disease are males, African Americans, seniors, and the obese. While even having all four of these characteristics (the most notable, controllable one is obesity) is not …
Product Review: Proform 520 Elliptical Trainer
The Proform 520 is an elliptical trainer. It allows you to exercise without causing too much pressure on your joints. You can find the Proform 520 for a price between $500 and $800. Let's take a look at some of the features offered by this elliptical trainer.
The Proform 520 elliptical trainer offers nine different workout programs. Three of the programs are designed for weight loss and two of the programs are designed for toning your body. The other four programs offered by the Proform 520 are all designed by certified personal trainers.
Most elliptical trainers have an elliptical mechanism that measures approximately eight inches. The elliptical mechanism on the Proform 520 only measures 3.75 inches. This is perfect if you don't have a lot of room available to accommodate a standard design. This also allows you to exercise using a more natural and comfortable stride.
The Proform 520 elliptical trainer also allows you to modify your stride length. This allows you to target different muscle groups which can help you burn more calories. The elliptical trainer also features a digital resistance system so that you can easily change the intensity of your workout session.
The display on the Proform 520 is backlit so that you can easily read it under various lighting conditions. The displays measures distance, time, and speed. The Proform 520 can also measure the number of carbohydrates and calories that you burn during your workout session.
The Proform 520 elliptical trainer is also equipped with a heart rate monitor. This allows you to make sure that your heart rate stays in the target zone while you're exercising. The sensors for the heart rate monitor are integrated into the handlebars.
One of the disadvantages of owning this elliptical trainer is that it's different to put together. You will likely need the help of a friend to lift up some of the pieces for assembly. Also, the Proform 520 isn't the highest quality elliptical trainer on the market. Some of the holes for the screws are misaligned, so you will likely have trouble getting the screws to fit inside.
If you need a basic elliptical trainer, then the Proform 520 will suit you just fine. The unit offers nine different workout programs, with four of them being designed by a certified personal trainer. The Proform 520 also allows you to modify your stride length so that you can …
Schwinn 420 Elliptical Trainer Review
The Schwinn 420 is an elliptical trainer. You can find this model for an average price of $600. Keep reading to learn about some of the features that it offers.
Stride
The Schwinn 420 elliptical trainer has a fixed stride length of 18 inches. There is also an articulating foot plate. This model can accommodate users with a maximum weight of 300 pounds.
Handlebars
The Schwinn 420 provides a total body workout. It is fitted with both fixed and movable handlebars. You can use the moving handlebars for an upper-body workout in addition to using the pedal for a lower-body workout.
Programs
Since the Schwinn 420 is not a high-end model, it doesn't offer as many workout programs as other models. There are a total of 12 workouts for you to choose from. They include eight profile workouts and one manual program.
Display
The Schwinn 420 elliptical trainer is equipped with an LCD display. It shows information about your session such as interval time, time, RPM, pulse, speed, and distance. The display also shows you the resistance level you're using as well as the number of calories you have burned.
Heart
Another useful feature provided by the Schwinn 420 is the heart rate monitor. You can use it to ensure that your heart rate remains in your ideal zone while you're working out. The heart rate grips are located in both handlebars.
Resistance
The Schwinn 420 elliptical trainer has a magnetic ECD resistance system. It's designed for maximum smoothness and quiet. There are a total of 16 resistance levels for you to choose from. You can change the intensity of your workout quickly and easily.
Design
The Schwinn 420 is fitted with oversized stabilizers and levelers. The unit also has wheels for easier transport. The trainer has a width of 26 inches, length of 62 inches, and height of 71 inches.
The Schwinn 420 elliptical trainer provides you with 12 different workout programs. There are also 16 resistance levels to choose from. The unit is also fitted with both fixed and movable handlebars so you can get an upper-body workout as well.…
