Category: Health x Body

Six months into the Trump administration, the president has outlined his spending priorities with a proposed budget for the nation’s next fiscal year.

While the budget still has a ways to go before it’s officially authorized by Congress, priorities outlined in the president’s proposal are filtering down to the state and local level—including community health centers.

Cutting the Cord on Teen Pregnancy Programs

Back in 2010, the Obama administration boldly funded 102 programs aimed at reducing teen pregnancy. These projects were funded with five-year grants. Over that span, according to the Office of Adolescent Health (OAH), “there were 102 grantees who reached about half a million youth, trained more than 6,800 professionals, and established partnerships with over 3,800 community-based organizations across the U.S.”
In 2015, impressed by these numbers, the OAH had even more ambitious goals for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, hoping to reach 1.2 million teens over the next five years.

Now it appears that the Trump administration is reducing the length of these programs to three—instead of five—years.
Reveal, a publication from the Center for Investigative Reporting, noted that 81 projects received five-year grants in 2015. In early July, Reveal obtained the annual grant award letters sent to these groups. While funding will remain intact for this coming fiscal year, the letters noted: “This award also shortens the project period to end June 30, 2018, at the end of this budget year.”
“In years past,” Reveal explained, “the award letters said the project period would end June 30, 2020.”

The Affected Organizations

Perhaps it’s not surprising that a handful of the organizations losing this funding are affiliated with Planned Parenthood, a group that receives a great deal of criticism for providing abortion services in a small number of their clinics. As Reveal noted, abortion counseling wasn’t part of any of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs.

Others set to lose funding include Native American tribal organizations, state-level departments of Health and Human Services (even in Republican states), prestigious research universities, and urban and rural health centers.
To complicate matters further, Reveal reports that a $2.9 million annual grant split among five organizations was cut immediately. This makes things even more challenging, as these groups helped other grant holders with necessary resources such as communications and training.
In other words, not only are these 81 organizations having their grant time reduced by 40 percent, but they’re immediately losing access to the organizations that helped to coordinate that work.
As Reveal reports, those five groups were told in their letters that their funding was “cut was due to changing program priorities and that the projects were no longer in the federal government’s best interest.”

New Priorities

The Trump administration isn’t completely moving away from talking to teens about the risks of pregnancy. They are, instead, proposing a huge increase in funding the questionable practice of abstinence-only education.

A line in President Trump’s proposed budget suggests ramping up spending to “Extend Abstinence Education and Personal Responsibility Education Program.” Over the next seven years, this budget proposes spending $277 million on this cause, more than $200 million of which is earmarked for fiscal years 2019 and 2020.
Many are attributing this shift in priorities to Valerie Huber, the Trump-appointed chief of staff to the assistant secretary for health. The Los Angeles Times describes Huber as having previously led Ascend, an organization that advocates for abstinence-only sex ed.

Fortunately, teen pregnancies have been on the decline for the past decade. Hopefully these proposed changes from the Trump administration don’t reverse that trend.

You know what’s cool? Your body.
Wait. That sounded all wrong. We don’t mean to comment on your body in particular, which is none of our business. We just mean to say that bodies are amazing, all human bodies. Well, the living ones. Living human bodies are some of the most mind-blowing things, but they aren’t things, they are people.
Let’s try this again.

People are amazing, and one amazing thing about people is the corporeal form—their living, breathing, moving, excreting, functioning, malfunctioning, growing, shrinking, aging bodies. These things do it all. They carry around our minds. They kiss. They fist fight in bad situations. Some of them revolt and hold us trapped in flesh prison until the final moment. Just weird stuff like that.
We’re not alone in our awe of the human body. A bunch of folks all over the internet use the hands and fingers of their bodies to type out the weird things about bodies that they have learned. We’ve compiled the comments of these people here, so that you can enjoy learning what others once enjoyed learning.
It’s all a body could ask for.

1. Human beings dominate other species primarily because we can run longer.

“We are the best distance runners in the animal kingdom,” one Reddit user wrote.

“There’s this thing called persistence hunting where people run after deer or other animals for miles until it gets too tired to keep going.”
That’s true. Persistence hunting is a thing. Sorry, other animals.

2. Brains do a whole lot for their size.

The average human brain weighs [three pounds],” wrote u/loveatthelisp. “Your personality traits, memories, emotional responses, nerve impulses, basic homeostatic mechanisms, and everything that tells your body how to work and react to stimuli is contained in three pounds. It’s absolutely amazing that such a small organ can control everything that you are.”

3. If you hate cilantro, blame your genes.

“There is a significant portion of the population for whom, due to a genetic anomaly, cilantro tastes like soap,” reports another Reddit user.

This explains why some couples are always arguing over their tacos.

4. You “see” with your brain way more than you do with your eyes.

“All of that color you see? You’re not actually seeing the vast majority of it with your eyes,” wrote u/M0dusPwnens. “The central area of your vision (a surprisingly small area) sees color. Past that, you’re relying almost entirely on brightness and your brain guessing colors (based on what it’s seen before) and filling them in.”

5. This one is actually wrong, but it brings up an interesting point.

“In a human body, there are 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells,” shared u/cant_help_myself.

That’s an old myth. It comes from a microbiologist named Thomas Luckey, who made the estimate in 1972. By 2016, a team of researchers from Canada and Israel stepped in to update the record.
An adult man in his twenties who is 5 feet 5 inches and 154 pounds would contain about 39 trillion bacterial cells and 30 trillion human cells, according to research from Ron Milo, Ron Sender, and Shai Fuchs. That’s closer to a one-to-one ratio.

6. Someone on the internet just discovered Demodex, the eyelash mite.

“There are little bugs that live in your eyelashes,” wrote yet another Redditor.
Unfortunately, this one is actually true. Demodex folliculorum is a microscopic parasite that lives in the eyelashes and eats skin cells and sebum (more commonly known as face grease).

Demodex infestation is pretty common, with a prevalence rate among adults that varies between 23 percent and, yes, 100 percent. These critters usually don’t cause any symptoms, although in some cases they irritate the eyelids or stir up a little rosacea dermatitis.

7. Apparently we’re a lot more dextrous than we think. That’s comforting.

“Your hands are capable of incredibly fine motor control, so much so that your limitation is actually your eyesight,” wrote u/AskMrScience. “Put a specimen under a good microscope and people can do very fine micromanipulations without much difficulty.”

We admit that we didn’t fact check this one. Come on. This person’s name is AskMrScience, and we will therefore trust this person on an issue of science.

8. Here’s a fun example of crowdsourcing the truth about an important nutrient.

“There is enough iron in your body to make a nail,” wrote u/Mattymc27. Huh, that’s interesting. But is it true? Sort of, wrote u/vanity_manatee, along with a few other things.
“…That’s a rather mundane metric,” the Redditor wrote. “I mean, c’mon, have you been to a store hardware section? There are rivet-like nails for concrete, and there are super tiny tacking nails.”

U/vanity_manatee went on to observe, correctly, that men carry around 4 grams of iron in their bodies, whereas women have about 3.5 grams.
“So that about gets you a [6 inch] wire roofing nail,” u/vanity_manatee wrote.

9. Everyone is half bananas. We could have told you that.

“Human DNA sequences are around 50 [percent] identical to banana sequences,” wrote u/I_Am_A_Jedi.

This fact is all over the place. An article in the Mirror makes the same claim; so does a piece in the Telegraph. However, the best source we found, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), actually suggests that the 50 percent estimate is a little low.
“We share approximately 60 percent of our DNA with a banana plant,” according to the NHGRI website.

What would your parents say if you came home with a big, beautiful tattoo on your face?
That bad, huh?
Okay, now what do you think they’d say if you’d had type 1 diabetes since you were 6 years old, they’d spent their whole lives worrying about your blood sugar levels, and that dragon on your face would change colors the instant you needed an insulin shot, before any symptoms could develop?

We don’t know your parents, but we imagine they’d say, “That’s great, but why did you get a dragon on your face when, like, a discrete butterfly on your wrist would have worked just as well, healthwise?”
The correct answer, of course, is “Because I’m baaaad.”

Point being: Health-sensing tattoos aren’t just a sci-fi trope.

They are going to happen. In a way, they’re happening right now, although we’re still in the early stages. And for the coolest new development in tattooing, we have to go to a place that, at first glance, seems a little nerdy: MIT Media Lab.

For the past 40 years, students from every discipline have come together in the MIT Media Lab to think up strange new technologies. These are some of the nation’s best designers, engineers, nanotechnologists, and computer scientists.
Not exactly “bad boy” material. Except that they are. These innovators are to technology what Sailor Jerry was to the art of tattooing. They’re pushing everything forward, and we just have to hold on for the ride.
MIT researchers Katie Vega, Xin Liu, Viirj Kan, and Nick Barry got together with Harvard Medical School’s Ali Yetisen and Nan Jiang to create a project called DermalAbyss. The “dermal” is for skin and the “abyss” just sounds cool, but neither is as amazing as what the project is actually doing.

They’re trying to create a tattoo ink that contains “biosensors whose colors change in response to variations in the interstitial fluid.” That is, tats that measure and reflect changes in pH, glucose, and sodium.

That’s a very big deal if you have diabetes.

“With DermalAbyss, we imagine the future where the painful procedure [of testing glucose levels with a needle] is replaced with a tattoo, of which the color from pink to purple [is] based on the glucose levels,” the researchers wrote on their MIT Media Lab site. “Thus, the user could monitor the color changes and the need of insulin.”
But you don’t have to have diabetes to reap the rewards of a DermalAbyss tattoo. At least, we don’t think so.

“It could be used for applications in continuous…monitoring such as medical diagnostics, quantified self, and data encoding in the body,” the site reads.
Medical diagnostics: Check. As for “quantified self” and “data encoding in the body,” that sounds like some post-human, singularity-type stuff that always goes right over our heads. We’re more the stick-and-poke tattoo types, anyway.
For now, DermalAbyss is just a “proof of concept.” They’ve tried it on pig skin, but that’s about it. We’ll have to wait for the next step, but in 10 years when folks are walking around with chameleon-like, color-changing tattoos, just remember: You heard it here first.

I was a freshman in college when I began taking birth control pills. At the start, the prescription was just for treating acne, but when I lost my virginity not too long afterward, it took on a new purpose.
This was a year of intense experiences—my first serious relationship, many all-nighters spent writing papers and studying for tests, extracurricular activities, all of the partying, losing my religion (not the song), my first time living away from home for an extended period of time, etc.

So when I sensed an uptick in my obsessive thinking, I couldn’t say for sure whether the new little bundle of hormones I was swallowing daily at noon had anything to do with it.
For many women, however, the connection between hormonal contraception and side effects is clear. When the changes are only taking place in your mind, pinpointing their cause can be a slippery affair, and depending on how subtle these changes are, they can be easier to shrug off. It’s much more difficult to ignore migraines, periods that last for weeks, and life-threatening blood clots.

Undoubtedly, birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives—such as injections, skin patches, transdermal gels, vaginal rings, intrauterine systems, and implantable rods—have provided women with something invaluable: safe, effective means for managing their reproductive health. But for many women, these forms of contraception have come at a price.

The Side Effects We Experience Vs. the Side Effects Our Doctors Warn Us About

If you’re a woman who uses hormonal contraception—or even if you aren’t—you’re probably familiar with the disconnect between what doctors tell women about the potential for side effects and what you’ve heard from other women or experienced yourself.

It’s likely for this reason that a Danish study published last year citing a correlation between hormonal contraceptives and depression has received so much attention. It’s a comfort to many women to learn that scientific findings are beginning to corroborate their sense that introducing artificial hormones into their bodies changes them in some troubling ways.
Unwavering faith in the absolute harmlessness of hormonal birth control options is probably not helped by their shady past, either. As Broadly reported last year in “The Racist and Sexist History of Keeping Birth Control Side Effects Secret,” the pill’s trial run involved covert or coerced testing on poor, uneducated Puerto Rican women; on female medical students who were threatened with expulsion if they didn’t comply with the study; and on women locked up in mental institutions.
(Apparently, the same folks who’d tested a pill containing 10 times the amount of hormones needed to prevent pregnancy on the Puerto Rican women had originally looked into hormonal birth control for men, but the symptoms—like shrinking testicles—were considered to be too much of an impingement on their quality of life.)
Of course, any responsible discussion of hormonal birth control must also discuss the profound ways it has helped people. According to health services researcher Aaron E. Carroll, over the past decade, the American public has seen record lows in teenage pregnancies and abortion, a shift Carroll says most researchers attribute largely to the increased availability of contraception.

Carroll points out in The New York Times that the Danish study linking hormonal birth control and depression, though expansive, has its holes. But even with the holes, it’s a move in the right direction—toward demanding more complete information about something that affects a great number of women.
As National Women’s Health Network executive director Cindy Pearson tells Broadly, “This information shouldn’t be hidden from women for the fear that they will make a wrong decision down the line. Trust women to make good decisions when they have good information.”
For the sake of good information, here are the stories I got after reaching asking women I knew about their own experiences with side effects from hormonal contraceptives.

“I was going sh*t crazy.”

“I was on hormonal birth control since I was about 16/17?? I got off of it when I was 29. That’s almost ten years. Before I moved to Spain I was always on a low contraceptive. I was sh*t about taking them so some days I would miss and double up or even triple up…shame on me. Then I moved to Spain about six years ago. You can get birth control over the counter, no prescription and no consultation with a doctor.

“I started taking this, it was ok, but had some side effects. I can’t remember the name but no sex drive, dry down there, patchy dry skin. I switched birth control a few years later, still horrible at taking it but realized how it was [affecting me]. I normally don’t notice these things with my body but I was literally going…sh*t crazy, so depressed and same symptoms as before.
“I finally made the switch to a non hormonal copper IUD. It was realllly painful but worth it. My periods are heavier and I have cramps (before because of the hormones my periods were light and never cramps). I feel a lot better mentally, not dry… More of a sex drive, no weight gain. I don’t like the idea of having something inside of me but I’ll take it over hormones.” —Julie

“I have to suffer for the rest of my life because I did this.”

“The Essure permanent birth control I do not recommend. I have to suffer for the rest of my life because I did this. The only way I can fix this is paying $7500 for the [inserts] to be removed… I have a swollen cervix, the [nickel] that the [inserts] are made from I’m allergic to.
“I turn 30 in September and I’m having [symptoms] of menopause because of the birth control… My insurance will only cover a hysterectomy.” —Christina

“I was completely panicked.”

“I’ve been on and off pills since I was 15, but about 3 years ago I went on them again after a few years off. I’ve had migraines since i was 12, so I didn’t think much of it when I started having relatively frequent headaches. I also developed vulvodynia, which is basically painful sex. I had no idea that birth control pills could cause this, so I was completely panicked over it.

“My doctor never mentioned it either, so I was prescribed multiple creams, antidepressants, and even physical therapy, all for my broken vagina. When I finally went off the pills, mostly because I just felt moody all the time, my symptoms immediately went away. No more migraines, and sex was no longer painful.
“I also got the implant for a month but had migraines literally every day and was so insanely moody and honestly mean to everyone that I had it taken out. I didn’t even recognize myself. So, now I am hormone free and much happier.” —Rachel

“You cry from all the guilt.”

“In order of peskiest side effect:
1. Zits
2. Bloating
3. Short temper
“Even on a low dosage of the pill I spot like the whole week about the 2nd or 3rd week in but my periods have been way light (about 2 days). I kind of hate it all. Also, I have more zits on low dose than I did on regular. But I don’t feel so insane. It’s sort of like knowing that your filter is down but you get angry and impatient regardless. And then you cry from all the guilt the next day!” —Amy

“I started having three-week-long periods.”

“6 weeks after having [my second child] I started birth control again and from the first pack, I was having two-week-long periods. Then I started having three-week-long periods. Obviously this was super annoying and inconvenient, affecting my sex life, etc. My doctor is about 45 minutes away and the thought of schlepping two kids two and under all the way out there and dealing with them during the appt was just overwhelming.

“Finally [my husband] pretty much forced me to go in case something was horribly wrong. I switched birth control because my doctor thought I just needed different hormone levels and he couldn’t find anything wrong internally (after an ultrasound). Anyway, this is my second month on the new pills and I’m still having two-week-long periods and don’t know when I’m going to find the time to go back.
“Luckily, my doctor is super chill and he told me to text him if the problem continued but it’s just super annoying to be dealing with this plus still adjusting to two kids and dealing with normal life stresses. Not to mention the fact that the BC I’m on now is the same I had been on for over 5 years before having [my first child], and I literally never had any issues, so I’m worried this is just my life now.” —Brittney

“I was having dreams of committing suicide.”

“My gynecologist recommended I get the Mirena IUD because I’d had debilitating cramps for years. The first day of each period, I would sweat profusely, tremble, become dizzy, and sometimes pass out. Twice I fainted on public transportation on the way to my office. The cramps were so insufferable that I sometimes had to take the day or morning off work because I couldn’t do anything except lie in bed with a heating pad.

“My gynecologist thought the IUD would be a great option because, over time, it eliminates most period symptoms entirely. Although I had terrible cramps the first six weeks after I had the IUD implanted, a month of oral birth control on top of the IUD solved that problem, and thereafter my periods pretty quickly lessened in length and pain.
“Six months after I had the IUD put in, I had almost no period at all, and I hadn’t experienced cramps or dizziness for the past four months. I noticed that I had started to feel anxious on a fairly regular basis, but I called my gynecologist and she said it was unlikely the IUD caused the anxiety because it was localized to my uterine lining (versus other birth control that diffused throughout the bloodstream).

“The anxiety continued, however, and after eight months with the IUD, it was so bad that I made an appointment with my gynecologist. I did not want my terrible periods to return, and additionally, I had noticed a significant increase in my sexual drive since implanting the IUD, which I didn’t want to lose. When my gynecologist again said it was unlikely the IUD was what was causing the uptick in anxiety, I didn’t press the issue further; I began searching for a therapist instead.
“I’d had the IUD for almost a year when one night I experienced a sudden, jabbing pain on one side of my lower abdomen. I thought it might be my appendix bursting. The next day I saw my gynecologist, who ran an intravaginal scan thinking I may have had a cyst burst. In fact, the pain had come from my body trying to expel the IUD. It was now no longer properly in place and had to be removed immediately.

“Two weeks after remov[al of] the IUD, my anxiety almost completely disappeared. So marked were the changes that my boyfriend commented that it was as if I was a different person. I asked my gynecologist if the IUD could have been causing the heightened anxiety. She told me again it was unlikely, but each woman reacts differently to each form and formula of birth control, so it was possible.
“I don’t blame her for my experience. She gave me her professional opinion based on what should have occurred, to the best of her knowledge. It’s also widely stated in the materials about birth control and IUDs in particular that every woman is different and there’s no way to know for sure what each woman’s experience will be.
“After three months of no birth control, I decided to try the NuvaRing. I hadn’t been having painful periods, but I was nervous they’d soon return. I tried to give the NuvaRing three months so that my body could get used to it, but after two months, I was having dreams of committing suicide, so I removed it. Given the urgency of the situation, I was glad that I could remove it myself and not have to make an appointment.

“I had the option to try hormonal birth control, which I had used in high school and college without issues, but I was so nervous about the potential side effects that I chose not to. Perhaps my body has changed significantly since that time. I’d rather use nothing than risk another period of extreme anxiety or suicidal thoughts.
“I am a firm believer in the positive benefits of birth control for pregnancy prevention and period regulation. Some of my friends have also used it to clear their skin. In fact, I know many more women who have had no issues whatsoever with birth control than I know women who have had problems from using it.
“The challenging thing is that it’s impossible to know ahead of taking birth control what your experience is going to be like. I wouldn’t go back on it, but I also wouldn’t discourage other women from trying it. What I would advise is that anyone who experiences upsetting or alarming emotions stop using the birth control at the first signs of a problem. I wouldn’t wait around to see if your emotions even out. There’s no sense in putting yourself through distress that could be avoided.” —Elizabeth
Some quotes have been edited.
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Breast cancer is one of the worst diseases women can face. More than 250,000 women are diagnosed each year, and more than 40,000 women will die from it. This makes it vital for women to understand the warning signs of breast cancer so they can begin treatment as soon as possible.

Although some women may assume that the first warning sign is a lump in the breast, there are actually several warning signs that may appear before a lump does. Here are four warning signs that women should be aware of that could be signs of breast cancer.
The first sign you may notice is dry or scaly skin. If you’re checking your breasts and you notice a patch of skin that seems dry or rough, that may be a sign of cancer.

This occurs because some types of breast cancer cause blockages in the pores of the skin. This will create a rough patch that feels and looks similar to the skin of an orange. If you happen to notice something like this on your breast, you should talk to your doctor and have it looked at.
Another common symptom of breast cancer is swelling of the breast. That’s because there may be a lump under the skin that isn’t apparent to the touch but is still there.

This swelling would typically be seen in one breast and wouldn’t have another readily apparent explanation. If you notice swelling that changes the size or shape of your breast—in some cases by as much as 6 percent—you should see your doctor.
A change in the nipple is another potential sign of breast cancer. In general, your nipples should remain largely unchanged (except for major events such as childbirth). Cancer could be something that alters your nipple’s shape.

One thing you may notice is called “nipple inversion,” in which the nipple turns inward. This happens because there’s a growth inside the breast that causes the nipple to change its shape. This is a major red flag.
Another problem with the nipple that you may want to look out for is a discharge. Nipple discharge is most often not cancer, but it’s something to keep an eye on if you happen to notice it.
The big warning sign with this discharge is if it’s bloody, happens only on one side, or happens when you touch or squeeze the breast. If those are characteristics of your discharge, you should talk to your doctor about your risk for cancer.

If you are a woman over 50, you are at an increased risk for breast cancer. This is especially true if you have a family history of this disease. It’s important to perform regular checks to search for lumps or any of the above signs of breast cancer.
Considering that this type of cancer affects one in eight women, it’s important to be diligent about recognizing the signs of cancer and working quickly to begin treatment. A lump is certainly a warning sign, but it’s not the only one. If you notice any of the above symptoms, talk to your doctor right away.

Many people pay little attention to the little white moons on their fingernails. That’s unfortunate, because these white moons, called lunulae, actually contain some insight into your overall health. If you notice some strange things going on with your fingernails, here’s what those things could mean.

1. Overly large lunulae could be a sign of cardiovascular trouble.

These little white moons should take up just less than a third of your fingernails. If you notice they are taking up more space than that, it could be a sign of cardiovascular trouble or an issue with low blood pressure.

If you’re an athlete or someone who is very physically active, it’s not uncommon to have lunulae that are larger than normal. If you’re not someone in particularly good shape, there could be a problem with your blood pressure. This could also be a sign that you are overly stressed out.

2. Smaller-than-normal lunulae could be a sign of a vitamin deficiency.

If your lunulae are too small, that’s also a sign that something is off in your body. If you can barely see the lunula near your cuticle, you could be lacking B12 and iron. This can also be a sign that you have a weak immune system or a problem with your leukocyte production.

Another health problem is indicated when the lunula separates from the rest of the nail plate with transverse lines. This could be a problem with your blood sugar levels and may be an early warning sign of diabetes. Talk to your doctor to have your blood sugar checked right away.

3. Gray lunulae could be a sign of several problems.

Your lunulae should always be a distinct white. If they suddenly appear gray, this could actually be a warning sign of several different issues.

The most serious issue that could cause gray lunulae are problems with nutrient absorption. This could be caused by a problem in the digestive system. Sometimes, however, it’s just a sign of extreme fatigue. If you notice gray lunulae after putting in long hours at work, try to find some time to relax.

4. Purple lunulae could be a sign of circulation problems.

If your lunulae are purple or blue, that’s a sign that your body is having trouble getting blood to the extremities. This is turning your lunulae purple because they lack oxygen.

You should talk to your doctor right away about this, especially if you experience dizziness or feel lightheaded. There could be something wrong with your circulatory system or your heart that needs to be corrected immediately.

5. Black lunulae are a sign that you need to see a doctor as soon as possible.

Your lunulae should never appear black. If they do, it’s a sign that there’s something seriously wrong in your body. Go to your doctor or head to the emergency room to have some testing done.

Black lunulae can be a sign that a person has experienced heavy metal poisoning. The most common types include poisoning by lead, mercury, arsenic, or cadmium. If left untreated, this poisoning could prove fatal.

Pippa Middleton has one of the most famous figures in the world. This petite brunette leads a healthy, active lifestyle that focuses on eating the right kinds of foods in order to maintain her weight.
But with so many fad diets, juice cleanses, and other options for healthy eating, many people have wondered just what does Pippa eat to stay so slim and fit? The answer might surprise you.

Kate Middleton, Pippa’s older sister, is someone who swears by the Dukan diet. This high protein, low carbohydrate diet seeks to identify essential foods that ensure a person gets all the nutrients their body needs throughout the day. While this works for her sister, Pippa takes a different approach to staying healthy.
Because Pippa leads such an active lifestyle, she actually eats more calories than people might expect. Her diet changes depending on any activities she may have coming up. If she’s preparing for something more strenuous, she makes sure to get the nutrients her body needs to store the energy she’ll need to compete.

In general, Pippa believes that everything should be done in moderation. She tries to eat a healthy, balanced diet that focuses on portion control. She also tries to get regular exercise to keep her body healthy.
She does not, however, deprive herself of what she calls “the naughty stuff.” In a recent interview with Hello! magazine, Pippa revealed that she’ll eat some chocolate on occasion, enjoy a glass of wine from time to time, or even eat some potato chips. The trick is to limit those “naughty” items instead of overindulging.

Along with her balanced diet, Pippa tries to get regular exercise. While she’s a very busy woman, she strives to get between three and five exercise sessions each week. That could mean a thirty-minute run, a game of tennis, or a swim. She says this exercise “boosts my mood and energy, and helps me sleep and digest better…so I make it a priority, whatever the weather or my work schedule.”
If she has a big activity coming up, such as the Birkebeiner Ski Race, a 33-mile cross-country ski race in Norway that she recently completed, she’ll adjust accordingly. The week before a race, she’ll generally cut out any sweets or alcohol and eat three balanced meals a day. She focuses on eating whole grain, high-energy carbohydrates to ensure that her body is ready for the latest endurance test.

As for what she eats specifically, Pippa says it includes “lots of brown rice, lentils, quinoa and sweet potato, and for breakfast, porridge and rye toast.” Those are excellent sources of healthy energy for anyone, but especially someone looking to push their body.
If you’d like a body like Pippa’s, try to follow her similar routine. Make sure you’re getting enough exercise (150 minutes of moderate exercise, 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, or a combination of the two per week), focus on eating three healthy meals a day with nutrient-rich foods and try to keep the unhealthy habits to a minimum. If you can follow this simple plan, you should begin to see results almost immediately.

One of the most common questions people ask me when they discover I lost 158 pounds is whether I had weight loss surgery.
The answer to that question is “No, I did not.”
Personally, I did not have surgery for several reasons.
1) I am afraid of surgery in general.
2) Weight loss surgery was not as common when I was obese.
3) I could not afford it.
4) I had a feeling I could do lose weight myself.
Although I lost weight without surgery, there are over 175,000 people who underwent weight loss surgery in 2013, according to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMB). Of those people, over half of them will regain at least 5 percent of their lost weight after 2 years.
You may be one of the many people who hope that having weight loss surgery will fix everything. You may hope you will easily lose weight after surgery, you won’t have to think about food as much, and everything that frustrates you about your life will be fixed after surgery.
Some of those things do happen – sometimes.
·      The reality is that losing weight through a surgical procedure does not always fix your weight problem. Most people will lose weight initially after the surgery but the weight loss can stall or stop completely if dietary changes are not maintained. And as the ASMB indicated, about half the patients regain some weight.  There may be a need for further surgery to adjust the mechanism helping you control your food intake.
·      Weight loss surgery cannot fix your emotional dependence on food or take away food cravings. Surgery makes it harder for you to eat large quantities of food without feeling ill, but the emotions and cravings are still present.
·      Friends and family members may miss the “old you.” Instead of being supportive, you may have some people in your life who wish you can eat like you used to and participate fully in celebrations that revolve around food.
·      You may find yourself sad or depressed when faced with the types of foods you can eat. It is a hard transition for many people to go from eating whatever they want to being required to follow a very strict diet post surgery.
I have known a lot of people who underwent weight loss surgery and were frustrated with their life post-surgery. In many of those cases, the person did not prepare emotionally for the changes that were about to take place.
Most reputable weight loss surgery centers require some type of pre-surgical counseling to ensure that patients have a complete understanding of what the surgery entails and what their food habits must be after surgery. However, even with counseling, some people are ill-prepared for the reality of eating small amounts of food and the difficulty associated with eating some of their favorite high fat foods.
In a lot of ways, the process to lose weight after surgery is similar to losing weight without surgery. Both require diligence to food choices, exercise when permitted by a doctor, reducing portion sizes, and addressing the emotional component of weight issues.
Although weight loss surgery will not automatically fix your life, you can make weight loss surgery work for you by researching your options thoroughly, getting counseling for emotional eating issues, and following your doctor’s dietary guidelines carefully. Remember that weight loss surgery is simply a tool you can use to get to a healthy weight. It is your responsibility to stay there.

Being in the fitness and wellness industry I try to take care of myself. Like most of you though, there are times when I give out to the point that my tank runs empty and I am in desperate need of refilling. This happened recently and I thought wouldn’t a reflexology massage be amazing right now! So, off I went to my local Massage Envy spa and what an amazing therapeutic experience I had. I was relaxed from head to toe as if I actually had a full body massage.
After my amazing reflexology experience I decided to look a bit of deeper into this method of massage to find out where it originated from and how it came to be.  Let’s start with what it really is, reflexology is a type of therapeutic massage.
Reflexology deals with the principle that there are reflexes in the feet, hands, and ears relative to each and every organ and all parts of the body.  Stimulating these reflexes properly can help many health problems in a natural way.  For instance my reflexologist performed a general reflexology massage, where she focused on the feet, hands, and ears.
Here are a few examples of reflexology points that are found on the feet:

• The tips of the toes are related to the head.
• The reflexology points on the ball of the foot are connected to the chest and the heart.
• You will find the reflexology points of the intestines and lower back on, the heel of the foot.
• The reflexology points of the pancreas, liver, and kidney are found on the arch of the foot.

Reflexology massage therapists focus point’s areas on the feet, hands, and ears that correspond to specific organs, bones, and muscles of the body. Did you know the outer part of your ear cartilage is in direct reference to the spinal column?  Next time your back is feeling a little sore, trying massaging your outer ear to release those tight back muscles.
Doctors have agreed that over 75% of our health problems can be linked to our nervous stress. Reflexology improves nerve and blood supply to the feet and organs throughout the body. It’s a great way to help relieve foot pain, ankle pain, plantar fasciitis and common forms of arthritis, as well as decrease stress and anxiety in the entire body.
I found that the idea of reflexology is not new, in fact, it was practiced as early as 2330 B.C. by the Egyptian culture.  Reflexology symbols are also thought to be recorded on the feet of statues of Buddha in India and later China. Who had any idea this amazing therapeutic form of massage has been around for so long?
Chinese doctors believe that our bodies are composed of the opposing forces of Yin and Yang that need to work in harmony for us to achieve health and vitality.  Chinese practitioners believe that when these energy channels become blocked a person can feel sick or fatigued.  Reflexology aims to dissolve and or release any blockages causing ill-health by encouraging the free flow of vital energy through the body.
If you enjoy regular massages then you will for sure enjoy the therapeutic benefits of foot Reflexology massage.  As with any therapeutic service the benefits are greater when experienced on a consistent basis. The more you go, the healthier you feel.
Trust me, your body will thank you.