Category: Health x Body

It seems like every day there is another fad diet: paleo, gluten-free, vegan, keto, high carb-low fat, high protein, high fat-low carb, Atkins, South Beach, and many more.
They all claim to help you lose weight, and many do; but once you return to your normal eating habits you tend to gain the weight back. So which diet will help you lose weight and keep it off for the long haul?

Types Of Diets

Paleo (Paleolithic) Diet The paleo diet centers around the idea of eating like a caveman (hunter-gather). Foods consumed in the paleo diet include fresh meats, fresh seafood, fresh fruits, nuts, and fresh vegetables. It encourages grass-fed livestock and organic foods because those foods weren’t treated with pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics back then. It cuts out all processed foods, dairy, and legumes (e.g., beans, peanuts, and lentils).
Gluten-Free A gluten-free diet is used primarily by people who have celiac disease and those with an allergy or sensitivity to the gluten protein. Foods that need to be avoided are those that contain wheat, barley, and rye.
Vegan Diet A vegan diet avoids all meat and animal products (e.g., honey, eggs, and milk).
Ketogenic Diet A ketogenic (or keto) diet is an approach to eating that forces the body to use ketones as a main source of fuel instead of glucose. This diet is very high in fat (~70-75 percent), very low in carbohydrates (~5-10 percent), and moderate in protein (~15-20 percent). The minimal carbohydrate intake causes the body to make ketones from fat. This diet needs to stay moderate in protein intake so that the body does not make glucose from the excess protein intake.
High Carb-Low Fat Diet A high carbohydrate-low fat (HCLF) diet is often followed by vegans or vegetarians. It promotes eating mostly carbohydrates (primarily fruits and vegetables) with minimal fat intake.
High Protein Diet There are no exact guidelines for a high protein diet. What one person considers to be a high protein diet, another may view as a low protein diet, depending on height and weight. These diets are found predominantly among people who are into bodybuilding and other high-intensity sports.
Atkins Diet Dr. Robert Atkins created this diet, which is very much like the ketogenic diet, but with different phases. It starts off at a very low net carbohydrate count (total carbohydrates minus carbohydrates from fiber and sugar alcohols) and gradually increases the amount of net carbohydrates you can consume while you make your way through the phases. One of the goals of the Atkins diet is to increase the amount of net carbs the person can consume while still losing weight. It emphasizes using fat as a source of fuel instead of carbs in the same way that the ketogenic diet does.
South Beach Diet The South Beach diet is also broken down into phases. Phase 1, which lasts for 14 days, centers on stabilizing blood sugar and reducing food cravings. It restricts certain foods and focuses on nutrient-dense foods. In phase 2 you will start to re-introduce foods. This phase still results in weight loss, but more gradual than in phase 1. Phase 3 is the maintenance phase, in which individuals return to eating all foods–but in moderation, with an aim of keeping the weight off for good.
All of the above-mentioned diets can result in long-lasting weight loss. One of the main things to keep in mind is eating at a calorie deficit, that is, taking in fewer calories than your body needs to maintain its current weight.
If you follow any of the above diets at a calorie deficit you will more than likely experience weight loss. Sustained weight loss probably will not occur if you only follow one of these diets part of the time.
This is what happens with yo-yo dieters. They see a rapid weight loss while on a diet and then gain the weight back–and sometimes more–when they fall off the diet. Finding a diet that fits your lifestyle is the key to long-lasting weight loss.
References: Atkins.com; Southbeachdiet.com

Belly bloat. Most women have experienced it at one time or another, even if they don’t need to lose weight. I know I have. It is so frustrating to feel big around the middle or know that your pants are tight because you are bloated. If you are tired of belly bloat, try some of these suggestions to banish the bloat and maybe lose a few pounds at the same time.
Banishing belly bloating is a multi-faceted issue. There is no one magic remedy to feeling and looking bloated.
As an aside, there is a difference between feeling bloated and carrying excess weight around your middle. If you need to lose weight, you cannot simply follow these tips and wake up one morning with a perfectly flat tummy. That type of transformation takes all over weight loss and dedicated exercise. I know, that’s probably not what you wanted to hear.
In any case, you can banish belly bloating by focusing on four areas:

Foods You Eat

The foods you eat have a tremendous impact on bloating. Think about it. When you eat a restaurant meal or large quantities of processed foods don’t you often feel bloated afterward?
You might think it is because you ate too much, and that is definitely a contributing factor. However, these types of foods are also typically high in sodium. Many restaurant meals have over 2,000 mg of sodium. Even a healthier option like Panera’s low-fat vegetarian black bean soup has 1,120 mg of sodium. Sodium causes bloating because of water retention. To combat this, reduce how much you eat out, check the nutrition labels on processed foods you consume, and keep track of how much salt you add to home-cooked meals.
Other foods affecting bloating include those with wheat or gluten, extremely spicy foods, and foods that contribute to constipation, such as low fiber or sugar-filled foods. Choose foods your body can easily digest, such as high-fiber fruits and vegetables and foods with a high water content.

Medical Conditions

To further eliminate belly bloating, talk to your doctor about medical conditions or medications you take that can cause bloating. Your doctor may test you for lactose intolerance, gluten sensitivity, celiac disease, or other conditions. If you test positive for one of these and begin avoiding foods containing lactose or gluten, you will find your belly shrinks and your bloating is relieved.
Other medical conditions sometimes causing belly bloating include irritable bowel syndrome, gastroesophageal reflux disease, some tumors, and in rare cases, ovarian cancer.

Drinks You Consume

I used to love sodas of all kinds until I realized they were not good for my health. The sugar content in regular sodas and the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas were equally bad for me. You may be surprised that both regular and diet carbonated beverages contribute to belly bloating. The little bubbles that make the drinks fizzy put air in your belly when you drink the liquid. Excess air can lead to a bloated feeling. The fix for this one is easy: quit drinking carbonated beverages.
Good choices for relieving belly bloating include water with lemon juice, green tea, plain water, and green smoothies.

Degree Of Activity

Sitting around on the couch all day is not good for your digestion. When you eat, your body immediately begins breaking down the food into the nutrients it needs. When you sit down right after you eat, you are not giving your body any help in moving the food through your system. Relieve belly bloating by moving around after you eat, staying upright at least 60 minutes after you consume any food, and getting some form of dedicated exercise every day.

Ask any woman the worst part about birth control and you’ll get a litany of answers: weight gain, mood swings, acne, and just plain forgetting it. Although birth control pills are 99% effective this number drops pretty quickly when you take into account those times that you forget or are behind a few hours. Not to mention the amount of time it actually takes to conceive once you stop using a hormonal birth control.
So if you don’t want to take the Pill what else are your options? The NuvaRing? The shot? The laundry list of hormone infused options makes you dizzy, and quite frankly we’d rather not read the entire list. Of course there are condoms and even the pullout method, but these are wildly ineffective.
This leads me to introduce you to your new best friend, someone that you will cherish even more than your boyfriend.
Ladies, meet the IUD (Intrauterine Device).
For those who are unaware, IUD’s are a small, roughly one inch plastic device that’s shaped like a ‘T’. It’s inserted into the uterus by a trained gynecologist, nurse practitioner, or midwife. Once in place it stops the sperm from implanting into the egg. Some people feel vaguely uncomfortable with something residing inside of them for up to 10 years, but it’s perfectly safe. Really it’s no different than ingesting a chemical everyday.
Forty years ago the IUD was wildly popular with 10% of the female population using them, but now it’s dropped to only 2%. Why? With the increase in a variety of ‘Pills,’ education about the IUD has become scarce. But I’m here to tell you why the IUD is better than your current birth control, why it will change your life, and why it may, in fact, be better than your boyfriend.
1. You Don’t Have To Worry About Polluting Your Body
ParaGuard is a current IUD that is hormone free, meaning that you don’t have to worry about any of those pesky side effects. Although Mirena and Skyla are hormonal IUD’s the hormone level they actually release is only 1/10 of what you’d normally receive from the Pill. Another perk is the hormone is already located in the uterus, so those chemicals aren’t infiltrating your bloodstream. So, you can receive the benefits of hormones, like reduced periods, but you don’t have to worry about the pesky burdens, like weight gain. Because NO ONE enjoys puffing up like a blimp in the name of staying parent free.
2. Delete Your Alarm Clock
Now you don’t have to feel guilty if you’re having a crazy day and you forget to take your pill, your IUD has got you locked. If you oversleep or are too hungover to process what time it is, you’re safe too.
3. It’s Consistent…Unlike Your Boyfriend
I’m sure there’s been a couple of times where your man has been out with the guys and has gotten a bit too carried away forgetting your late night plans. Well you don’t have to worry about that letdown with your IUD. An IUD’s failure rate is tiny, while a boyfriend has a much larger margin for error.
4. You Don’t Have That Weird Waiting Game Before You Can Get Pregnant
Once your IUD is out you can get pregnant literally that same day.
5. It’s The Type Of Pain That Makes You Feel Good
I’m not going to lie, getting an IUD hurts. There’s a reason they recommend it to women who have already given birth. Some describe the insertion pain as the contractions you feel during labor. Okay, this sounds incredibly scary if you haven’t had the lucky chance to have a baby yet, but lets look at the bigger picture. Five minutes of discomfort for up to 10 years of reliable birth control? Yeah, I’ll take that. And most women say the worst part lasts less than two seconds. We’ve handled worse ladies.
6. You Don’t Have To Spazz Out When You’re Late
One of the perks with Mirena and Skyla is that your periods are lessened and sometimes go away completely. So next time you go for a few months without your period you don’t have to fret that you forgot a pill.
7. It Actually REDUCES Your Risk Of Blood Clots
There have been multiple studies that describe IUDs as foolproof against blood clots. “Researchers said they were associated with a reduced risk and may have a protective effect against blood clots.” Need I say more?
8. It’ll Help Keep Your Friends Around
We all know when we’re about to start PMSing. We magically end up on the couch one night with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s binge watching Gilmore Girls wondering why none of your friends will call back. Well, your hormonal IUD not only eliminates any mood swings but it’ll magically free up your friend’s social calendar.
9. It’s Customizeable
With three types of IUD’s on the market, you’re bound to find the right one for you. The nonhormonal IUD provides up to 10 years of protection before it needs to be removed. Mirena provides five, and Skyla provides three. And if there’s ever a point when you’re not into your new friend, which I promise you won’t happen, you can have it removed in a snap.
10. Your Sex Life Will Be Way Better
I mean how awkward is it when you’re having to grab a condom or if you’re mentally running through your head if you took the pill. And what happens if your NuvaRing slips out? So many awkward moments waiting to happen, and with the IUD it eliminates them completely.
Now I’m sure you understand why some women are in serious relationships with their IUD and not their significant other. They’re slowly starting to make their comeback so don’t hesitate to do a little research of your own to see if this family planning method is right for you.

I’ve got sweatshirts and hoodies in every room of my house…just in case I get cold. And I always get cold. Doesn’t everyone get cold on a humid, August night? Apparently not. When I took a poll, I was the minority. Like, the only one. Which kind of made me think.
Of course falling asleep at 8:32 on the couch every night, having to snake the bathtub every month from my hair falling out, or creating the tripod pose after a mile of my 5-mile run kind of made me think something was amok as well. A trip to Doctor Tom offered some insight. He thought I had asthma and sent me home with an inhaler.
When the inhaler failed to warm me up on a hot summer’s night I returned to Doc Tom, who proceeded to take some blood tests. He reported that my cholesterol was borderline (thanks Dad), my thyroid was perfect (thanks mom) oh, and what were we going to do about my severe anemia?
Wait … anemia? What anemia? I haven’t had any major surgeries. I’m not a vegetarian. I can practically devour an entire cow in one sitting. I drool at turkeys on the side of the road. I eat my spinach (sometimes—if it was hiding. And chopped up to resemble chives.) Okay, so I know that every month I go through super plus tampons like they’re not even there, and I have not one set of sheets that doesn’t remind me of that. But healthy me…anemic? Well, guess what? It seems as though I’m not the only one.
More than 3 million people in the United States have anemia, and women and people with chronic diseases are at the greatest risk for anemia.
What is anemia? It occurs when you have less than the normal number of red blood cells in your blood or when the red blood cells in your blood don’t have enough hemoglobin. Hemoglobin’s job is to carry oxygen from your lungs to all parts of your body. If you have anemia, your blood doesn’t carry enough oxygen to all the parts of your body and your body can’t work as well.
How can you tell (earlier than I did) that you may be anemic? Here are some common symptoms:

• Fatigue
• Breathlessness
• Fogginess
• Brittle nails
• Hair loss
• Pale skin

If you recognized any or some of the above, you may be anemic. The good news is all it takes is a simple blood test by your doctor to find out.
What do you do if your iron is low? There are a bunch of ways to increase your iron stores. First, you need to figure out why you’re anemic.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Do you have heavy periods, often bleeding through tampons every hour?
• Do you exercise every day for more than an hour at time?
• Do you avoid red meat and/or are you a vegetarian?
• Are you on a low-calorie diet?
• Do you drink more than two glasses a day of wine or coffee?
• Do you have thyroid issues or a chronic disease like Crohn’s?
• Do other people in your family have anemia?

Regardless of your reason for being anemic, if you have low iron stores, it’s important to eat foods that contain iron and will help you to increase your stores.
Be mindful that heme iron (animal based) is more readily absorbed than non-heme iron (plant based). Eating heme iron will increase your stores faster. You can increase both heme and non-heme iron absorption by pairing it with vitamin C. For example, tomato bolognese sauce is a perfect combination of vitamin C from the tomatoes and heme iron from the beef.
If your reason for being anemic is that you bleed a lot during your period, talk to your doctor about ways to curb your bleeding. The pill, IUD, and minor surgical procedures have helped women to slow their periods and increase their stores. Unfortunately, I tried the pill and it left me with such horrible migraines that I swore to never put another hormone in my body again. Which leads me to supplementation.
If you’re iron is low, you need to get it back. Talk to your doctor about the best iron supplement for you. Many people find that iron pills can be hard on their stomachs and cause constipation. After much experimentation, I’ve found that one stopper full of liquid pediatric iron put into prune juice keeps my belly happy and my body healthy. Check with your doctor and see what your best option(s) are and don’t wait to feel better!

To this very day, smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. We can argue all day about a lot of things related to health and wellness—everything from Atkins to Zumba—but this one fact is about as far from controversial as it gets: Smoking cigarettes is basically the worst thing you can possibly do for your health.
Here’s the thing, though. We don’t really like hearing that we shouldn’t do something, or that something is bad for us. Instead of taking the often difficult path of eliminating that habit or substance entirely, a lot of us look for a “better” alternative. Enter e-cigarettes and the popular vaping trend.
Electronic cigarettes have exploded in popularity over the past few years. The percentage of individuals claiming to have ever used one increased nearly tenfold from 2010 to 2013 (1.8 percent up to 13 percent), while current users went from 0.3 percent to 6.8 percent in that same time frame. Young adults (ages 18-24) are most likely to use e-cigarettes, and although the majority of current users also continue to smoke traditional cigarettes, a solid 32.5 percent do not.
All of those statistics to say: A lot of people are vaping, but there is something very, very important to understand about this troublesome trend.
E-cigarettes may appear “cleaner,” but tests have shown that their vapor contains known carcinogens and toxins (think formaldehyde and diacetyl, among others), and we have no idea what kind of effect they are going to have long-term. My guess? Not great.
Harvard researchers seem to agree with that hunch, with a 2015 press release linking the diacetyl found in many e-cigarettes to an irreversible respiratory disease. (Honestly, though, are you actually surprised that a hobby that involves inhaling artificially flavored smoke is not totally awesome for your lungs?)
The respiratory disease in question is called bronchiolitis obliterans, or “popcorn lung.” It got its colloquial name after workers at a microwave popcorn manufacturing plant developed the disease from exposure to diacetyl-containing artificial butter flavorings. Five of those eight plant employees who originally got bronchiolitis obliterans have since died of respiratory-related diseases.
If you think of a lung like a tree, where the branches get smaller as they get closer to the center (trunk), “popcorn lung” affects the very smallest of the lung’s “branches,” thus compromising air movement. Severe cases require lung transplantation, but even milder forms of it can cause coughing and shortness of breath and compromise activities of daily living.
The Harvard study was met with fierce opposition by proponents of e-cigarettes, however, who pointed out that the amount of risky diacetyl in e-cigarettes is hundreds of times lower than what’s in actual cigarettes. They expressed concern that such sensationalized headlines lashing out at e-cigarettes would only lead to individuals deciding they might as well go back to smoking traditional cigarettes. Let’s be very clear about this: The only time someone “might as well” go back to lighting up in any context is the literal apocalypse.
Here’s the thing, though. Diacetyl and popcorn lung are not likely the end of vapers’ concerns. E-cigarettes are currently unregulated, which is a huge problem. Regulating organizations are not perfect, but when there is absolutely no oversight of a product, manufacturers can do whatever they want. They can literally put anything inside those e-cigarettes, and not only would we not know about it, but it would be perfectly legal.
In the end, inhaling any amount of addictive and toxic chemicals is not going to be advisable. You don’t have to be a cardiothoracic surgeon to draw that conclusion. Our lungs have to filter out so much junk on a daily basis (I’m looking at you, pollution), so why not give them a little bit of a break when we can?
You’ll save money. You’ll breathe better. And you won’t be cursing yourself 15 years from now if the research goes the way of traditional cigarettes and shows some very, very unsettling health concerns.
Is a little bit of flavored smoke really worth that risk?

After hearing about a popular new protein supplement that helps you lose weight, 27-year-old Australian man Matthew Whitby went online and purchased it. Not long after he began taking the supplement, doctors told the young father he only had two weeks to live. His liver was failing, and he needed an emergency transplant if he wanted to survive. Whitby was so close to death that he accepted a donated liver that was infected with Hepatitis B.
The American College of Gastroenterology has reported that green tea extract can be toxic to some susceptible individuals and doctors say that it was most likely this ingredient that caused Whitby’s liver to fail. Professor Gary Jeffrey, a liver specialist, says that doctors have been seeing more and more cases of [linkbuilder id=”6436″ text=”liver damage”] they believe to be caused by these herbal remedies.
“People who have normal liver function can develop liver problems with herbal extract toxicity,” Jeffrey said. “There have been a number of countries around the world that have removed slimming agents from the market because of the increased rate of liver damage.”

In Australia, there are no warnings listed on products that contain green tea extract, but Whitby is now speaking out about the potential dangers of these supplements. “I didn’t think something you could buy online or just over the counter did the damage that it did to me.”
The Therapeutic Goods Administration released a statement about the case which is currently under review, saying “the results of which will be made public if there is sufficient evidence of a safety issue to warrant further action.”
According to experts, it is still safe to drink green tea in moderation, as problems are more likely to arise when using the concentrated form.