Mommy Dearest

The role of being a mom is something that’s most concerning when it comes to health and fitness for women. Not only do women hold the fetus as it grows into a child, but also their bodies need to be prepared to give birth to this child. To help your body be in the best health, you need to recognize the choices you make will affect your body when it’s time to have a baby. Making good diet choices and staying active will help you keep your body strong. And these choices need to begin long before you are pregnant. The earlier you start taking care of your body, the better you will be in the long run.

Partner in Health

Next in the list of things for women to do is to be a supportive partner in their relationship. While this doesn’t seem to be a part of health and fitness for women, it most certainly is. By making good health choices and decisions, you will be influencing your partner and creating the foundation for a long and active life together. And this doesn’t even have to require nagging or pleading with your partner. By simply taking the time to exercise with each other and eating balanced meals, you will do more for your health and your relationships health than any nagging would.

Career Plans

And finally, the stress of being a career oriented woman is another issue in health and fitness for women. To help you maintain your health, you need to make healthy choices in your life. You need to eat balanced meals, exercise on a regular basis and simply take the time you need to take to relax and recuperate from your stress. Make sure that you are making your health a priority in your life, and you will find that your work issues all manage themselves.

When concerning health and fitness for women, you need to realize that you are in charge of your life. By taking active steps to manage your health, the rest of your life can fall into place more easily. A strong body can handle a multitude of problems – get yourself ready.

By:Lynn VanDyke 

To help ab toning exercises after c-section work, you will need to revamp your entire diet. If you’re still carry around extra baby weight, just as with any weight, you need to take in fewer calories than you are burning off, creating a calorie deficit. To do this, you should increase the fruits and vegetables, limit the processed foods, sugars, and fatty foods that you are eating, as well as try to eat less. This is actually much easier than it sounds too. Start by leaving one to two bites on your plate at every meal. Then, start replacing sugary foods with sweet fruits, regular soda with diet. The smaller changes will add up as you go along, but it’s up to you to find ways to cut back your calories. By eating only when you’re hungry as well as starting to eat smaller portions five to seven times a day, you will start to notice weight dropping away.

The next step to help ab toning exercises after c-section be effective is to include some sort of cardiovascular workout in your fitness program. By taking the baby out for brisk walks of at least forty-five minutes a day, you will help to burn off more calories and increase your metabolism – not to mention your energy levels. If you don’t have time for a long workout, try to fit in smaller ‘chunks’ of workouts to add up to the calorie burn that you want to achieve.

Finally, there are a number of ab toning exercises after c-section that you can use to help tone that section of your body. Here are a few that have worked for other moms like you:

Pelvic tilt – By lying on your back with your feet on the floor, lift your pelvis off the ground while you pull in your lower abdominal muscles. You can either repeat this exercise or you can see how long you can hold your muscles in and then lower slowly.

Side crunches – To help hold in the skin that may be hanging on your stomach, you will want to strengthen your oblique muscles as well. Lying on the ground with your feet on the floor, put your hands behind your head, left up as though you were going to crunch normally and then twist to the side, letting the opposite elbow touch the opposite knee. Slowly twist back to the middle and lower down. Repeat on the other side.

By taking the time to create a plan that can help your ab toning exercises after c-section work, you will not only get your figure back, but you will also get your body in shape to handle the rigors of childhood.

By:Lynn VanDyke 

When I talk about physical fitness, I’m not referring to thin people. Just because a person is thin doesn’t mean that they’re in shape. I’m talking about someone that exercises all areas of their mind and body on a regular basis, excels to push themselves constantly further beyond their limits, maintains their ideal body weight and maintains a strict diet regime. Does this sound tough to you? Well, that’s because it is tough. Nothing in your life will get handed to you on a silver platter and physical fitness is no different. You must really want it for yourself and then you must earn it and maintain it.

The first step to beginning a physical fitness program is to see your doctor. Get a complete physical and make absolutely certain that you are healthy enough to begin an exercise program. If you pass your physical then you need to see a nutritionist and begin a healthy diet. I’m not saying that you must change everything you do 100% overnight, but you need to begin walking toward that goal by learning the difference between good food and bad. After you’ve learned the difference between these, you can then begin running toward your long term physical fitness goals.

By:Joe Simmons 

Balance comes from many different areas. Your health is affected by many different things; Stress, your financial disposition, your job, your friends, the physical condition of your body, those whom you love, just to name a few. You must strive to right that which is wrong in your life so that you can take control of your health. Should any area of your life be out of balance, so too will be your quest to achieve your absolute best when striving to reach your fitness goals and objectives or optimal health.

From the physical point of view, your spine plays a strong role in how you feel. Your spine is nothing more than a network of connective wires that transmit and receive information back about the body and what’s going on with it. In times of stress, your body’s muscles may tighten, pull, or put different stresses on the spine or collection of joints. Should this happen, the spine itself may become ‘unbalanced’ and the exchange of information will become thwarted. Thus, the body’s ability to communicate information back to the brain about its environment and what is going on is compromised. So, take care of your back through safe lifting techniques, strength training to promote adequate capability during home and/or work activities, and flexibility to allow those tired muscles a little relaxation.

From a cardiovascular point of view, your heart (also a muscle) needs the right amount of attention in order to become the General of your body. If that heart doesn’t beat, there won’t be much for you to do come tomorrow! Be vigilant in making sure that the one in charge of mobilizing the troops, sends the blood to wherever it needs through vigorous bouts of treadmill, bike, walking, running, rowing, or other forms of aerobic exercise. Begin with 2-3 times a week of 15-20 minutes and add another couple of minutes every week till you hit 30 – 40 minutes. You’ll heart will thank you and so will the people you love who will get to spend more years listening to all your exaggerated war stories!

Let’s talk more about ‘the heart’. From a spiritual point of view, most people think that TRUE health is being skinny, or muscular, or trim, or whichever word best constitutes the physical presence of one’s self to be ‘pleasing to look at’. This is NOT so. You may be VERY pleasing to look at, yet, be the worst picture of health when cut open and dissected! Your measurement of health is not achieved by how it is that you look on the outside, but by many different areas that represent true health; a mind at peace, a body of physical conditioning (whatever physical look pleases you), and a soul nurtured by the many fruits of life that come only through the love of family and friends.

Let me speak from my own heart to yours so that you’ll see that I am no different than you! (There’s nothing worse than someone who speaks and doesn’t’ show they know PERSONALLY about their subject matter! ) My life is a terribly unbalanced equation! I work long hours, commit a great deal of my time, efforts, and energies to the people that I work in the interest of and selfishly attended to the needs of the many, neglecting the needs of the one! Almost two years ago, I lost an important person in my life and it caused many other areas of my life to suffer. This loss came from an imbalanced equation. My work BECAME my everything and my ONLY thing when I lost this love. Hence, an area of my life that I valued became terribly out of balance and my balance in emotional health went down right along with it! As such, though I am in fine physical and financial condition, my life is not complete because of this void. All of the rewards of fitness or finance mean nothing if the calculations are not balanced throughout the broad spectrum of life’s equation.

So, what have we learned today? NEVER neglect the woman that you spend your days and nights with? Do everything and anything you can to let your partner know that you love her? Make sure that the mistakes of the past do not become the mistakes of the future? Well, yes. Of course! But for YOU, I’d say nurture EVERY area of your life and remember that TRUE health is achieved through the exercise and conditioning of every aspect of your life, not just the ass-pect on the treadmill!

By:Phil Sottile 

Having good skin versus bad skin really makes all the difference when it comes to feeling and looking beautiful and young, and that is why millions of women are flocking to estheticians and doctors around the world, in search of the right anti aging treatment for their skin.

And the “right” treatment could be dramatically different depending on a number of attributes, including race, gender, ethnic background, environmental exposure such as sun and diet, products used, and a number of other factors that we probably wouldn’t even think of.

This is why it is so important to not only find the right treatments to use daily on your face for the best possible results on your skin type, but it is also to find the right aesthetic treatment if you are planning on actually going and getting professionally administered anti aging treatments.

Word of mouth is definitely one of the best ways to figure out where to go, but what if you don’t really know anyone who can recommend a doctor or skin specialist who they were no less than thrilled about?

Well, you should first make sure that the places you are choosing to go offer free consultations. If you go about it this way, you would have no financial obligation to that facility should you decide that you don’t quite feel they are the right choice for you.

After the choice has been made as to who you will go to for your professional skin care treatment(s), that is when the fun begins, and the process by which a special treatment or combination of treatments is chosen for you particular situation. Most likely, you will be offered a few choices, and based on your age, and depth of wrinkles or fine lines, it will be a combination of a couple of things, only three of which we’ll discuss here today.

The most common and popular anti aging treatments available are variations of laser therapy, chemical peels, Botox injections, Microdermabrasion, and injectable dermal fillers such as Restylane. We’ll talk today a little more about Microdermabrasion, Botox, and Restylane.

Microdermabrasion is a process that does not involve any type of chemicals or invasive needles or surgery, and yet can have quite a dramatic effect on the appearance of the skin, no matter what your age is. However, it is usually not prescribed as a means to rid you of deep wrinkles.

Usually, Botox or injectable fillers are recommended for deep wrinkles. Microdermabrasion can range from aggressive to less aggressive in its treatment of fine lines, but it is primarily used to help with other signs of aging or skin damage such as scarring, spotting, discoloration and uneven skin tone. In other words, it sloughs away the “dullness” that often comes with aging skin.

In the process, which involves blasting tiny particles of aluminum dioxide, and then sucking them up through a vacuum. If the procedure is done in the right localized area and aggressively enough, many times patients will see a reduction in their fine lines, as well as a renewed, fresher look to their skin and a great improvement in the evenness and tone of their skin.

I’ve had Microdermabrasion before, and was pleased with the results, but as far as erasing fine lines, it didn’t do the trick, although I will say it even out my skin tone, and also helped with the appearance of the fine lines.

Chemical peels are another offering that you might have heard about. They usually custom mix a solution of glycolic acid, or perhaps some other sort of acid commonly used in skin care.

This acid solution is applied to the skin and allowed to set for a specified time frame, and when it is taken off, the skin usually responds by shedding layers, or peeling, revealing younger, more vibrant and even skin underneath.

You see, when we age, our skin sheds less and less, and our cells do not turn over as quickly, which results in a dull appearance as well as wrinkles and fine lines. Chemical peels can do wonders for your skin in terms of renewing a youthful appearance, and can be combined with Microdermabrasion for even more of a dramatic impact.

The final professional anti aging treatment we will talk about is that all too commonly joked about product called Botox. Botox is a form of botulism, a feared word because of it’s toxic status and the bad rep for being a food toxin that causes unpleasant side effects if ingested orally. But not if it’s injected in the right amounts, into the very muscles that cause you to look “wrinkled” when you make a facial expression.

Because Botox actually relaxes, or freezes the muscles where it is locally injected, it is not only a current wrinkle inhibitor, but it is also considered preventive, because it will actually prevent wrinkles from happening by preventing the positions of the skin that cause wrinkles to occur.

I had a conversation with a skin care professional (esthetician) today and discussed my personal concerns about the Botox treatments, and what I perceived as a loss of ability to express my self through facial expression.

She said this is a common misconception, and that this is why good doctors will only use Botox in selective areas, just locally enough so that they don’t relax large sections of muscle and a patient can still express themselves through facial expressions, without further wrinkling their skin.

Botox is still one of the most popular anti aging skin treatments provided in professional facilities around the world today, and shows no signs of fading. It actually might be the way to go for people who want to prevent further wrinkles, who are not yet ideal candidates for dermal fillers because their wrinkles have not yet progressed far enough to be “filled”.

by:Danna Schneider 

No matter what I have done to curb what I call the Midnight Munchies, I always lose the battle and pack on the pounds without losing the weight I wanted.

The other day it occurred to me that since I was already eating past 7 PM consistently, why not eat my dinner at 8 PM instead. That way I wouldn’t eat dinner and eat junk late in the evening.

That solved a small part of the problem, but why was my desire to eat more food consistent at night? It didn’t make sense to me. During the day I usually had to force myself to eat. I wasn’t hungry, didn’t want it, and forgot to eat. But then I was tired.

So why wasn’t I hungry during the day? The answer was, because I was so busy during the day, I was distracted! I had so much going on that I didn’t want to eat. So I started to exercise at night to keep myself busy and avoid the television, which always gave me the munchies.

However, the draw back to exercising later at night was that I couldn’t fall asleep. With so much adrenaline and endorphins running through my body, I was wide awake. What was the solution?

If I ate at night, I packed the pounds on. If I exercised at night, I couldn’t sleep, would be exhausted the next day, which would trigger my junk food junkie munchies in a huge way and I would eat more.

Here are the steps I have taken to shed those unwanted extra pounds (it works for those who have families as well. Simply eat a little bit of food with your family and the rest of the lighter portion of the meal when you get the munchies at night!)

For me I have found that meat, however much I don’t like it, curbs my appetite. But I don’t want a big lump of meat sitting in my tummy all night long. So I have switched around my meals and helped to curb my appetite all day long. *

1. Breakfast: Chicken breast, a piece of high fiber and protein bread with ½ pat of butter melted on it and a glass of orange juice. (Lots of pulp is the best. That helps fill you as well as gives you extra fiber.)
2. Snack: Three bean salad, artichoke hearts, fresh veggies or something along those lines.
3. Lunch: Some type of high fiber pasta with tomatoes, basil, artichoke hearts or some type of protein and yogurt. Sometimes I have homemade chili or soup. That is really satisfying.
4. Snack: Same as the mid morning snack or go out for a really good fat-free frozen yogurt. Honey Farms makes the best.
5. Dinner with the family or just you. Don’t eat a lot, but eat the heavier portion of the meal during dinner time. Meat, potatoes, whatever is on the menu. Leave a salad or the lighter portion of the meal for later.
6. 8 PM, munchies cravings hit big time for me, so it’s time to pull out the food put aside from earlier on and eat it now.
7. If you find you still have the munchies at around 9 or 10 PM, pop popcorn in olive oil and use fat free spray butter, heated in the microwave, on the popcorn (see recipe below).

If eating the rest of your dinner later at night bothers you, and then eat your meal as you regularly would but try popping approximately three cups of popcorn (not microwave) in 1 tsp olive oil.

Then take the fat free I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray (only the Spray bottle is fat free. Don’t ask me why.) and put about 1 – 2 tsp into a bowl and pop it into the microwave. Put a little bit of salt into the butter after it’s heated and then put it onto the popcorn. This will stop your craving and not put many calories into your stomach.

This regular regime, will help aid you in your quest for a healthier life and a lighter you. Losing weight is hard, that is a fact, but you can lose it eating and leading a more active lifestyle.

*Always check with your doctor of course before you change your eating and exercise routines.

By:Jaci Rae 

The look of the legs is dictated by the shape and size of the bum.

An ample bottom can accentuate thin thighs whereas a trim bottom and full upper legs may lead to the thunder thighs effect.

Neither of these two opposites are the desire of the vast majority of women.

The ultimate goal is to have legs that appear long in relation to the body and curvy and that means having to work at it.

Its quite difficult to radically change your leg shape but you must start with these exercises!

Starting with legs that are too thin the first thing is to bulk up them up without over emphasizing the bum.

Any leg exercise will affect the look of the bottom with a knock on effect.

A firm small derriere on top of long slender legs looks good.

Watch your diet and do plenty of leg only regular exercises such as cycling, lying on your back, feet raised and rotating, lifting small weights attached to your ankles with legs extending or even just running up and down stairs.

These and similar exercises can be undertaken either at home or without major expense and while the derriere is gaining some benefit the major toning and muscle building is happening to the thighs.

If you feel that you have been dealt with legs that are too short then the smaller you can tone your bottom the longer your legs can look.

Thunder thighs are a more difficult problem as exercising can increase the bulk effect unless a strict diet regime is adhered to and that means will power.

Clearly fat tissue must be got rid of and thigh muscles must be toned and at the same time the bum needs a lot of work.

Running and other exercise routines that work on the areas below the hips are essential to balance the derriere and upper legs so that both appear attractive.

If you are lucky everything below the waist will look nice and in proportion but as we women grow older our bums tend to enlarge and our thighs look heavier, making our legs look shorter and heavier so that we do not look our best in jeans.

Recognizing the onset of age related figure problems is nearly half the problem, having the strength of will to do something about it is the next and hardest step but who, amongst us, does not want to stay as attractive as possible for as long as possible.

Put in the hard work and discipline and the man in your life will be happy, he won’t stray while you are looking good!

And as for those too skinny legs a little toning here, a little muscle building there, and as you get a little older your lower body is likely to become curvier and will fill out those tight jeans really nicely.

For a women to feel entirely good about herself is a rarity, we all have hang ups about our looks however much we are told how beautiful or attractive we are but at the end of the day we must make the best of what we are born with and be thankful that one mans meat is another mans poison.

By:Jacqueline Lloyd 

Things to keep in mind

Those seeking a Scottsdale, AZ personal weight trainer should be aware of certain criterion a personal trainer should have. Some of them are common sense but some are not as well known by the public-at large. Here are some of the standards a Scottsdale, AZ personal weight trainer or otherwise should meet:

A personal trainer should have earned at least a bachelor’s degree in science, sport management or something in the vein of these college concentrations. Personal trainers are not just people who are muscle bound and fit— they should have studied the body and understand that each individual’s body has unique inner workings, therefore requiring different exercise levels and types.
Certification is a must. A Scottsdale, AZ personal weight personal trainer can have legitimate certification from at least nine organizations, but there could be others. It is best that a person takes the time to research the organization a personal trainer claims to be certified by in order to ensure she/he is dealing with a qualified trainer.

Be wary of

A person searching for a Scottsdale, AZ personal weight trainer and other otherwise should be wary of personal trainers who offer impossibly fast results or an unrealistic physical outcome. To lose fifty pounds is neither feasible nor is it healthy. Also, people should be wary of personal trainers who offer supplements and “energy boosters”. For the most part, several of these concoctions do not have much research that recommends them as healthy. Unfortunately, steroids are often offered up by fraudulent personal trainers as safe and quick fixes to weight issues but they are not; steroids are very dangerous and in some cases deadly.

By:Mark Norton 

What’s on their walls?

To be sure Scottsdale personal trainers are providing you with safe and current fitness information, you will need to check their current fitness certifications. If they have listed their current certificates, be sure to check with the authorizing boards to see if they are still current in those certifications. If not, you may want to ask the personal trainer if they are planning on recertifying.

If they are not, be sure to ask them why not – though you may want to avoid them altogether. If they are currently studying for recertification, you may want to come back to them once they’ve passed their tests.

What’s coming out of their mouths?

In any relationship, you need to be able to communicate with each other in order to make sure everyone’s happy and content. When it comes to Scottsdale personal trainers, this is crucial. If you can not be or do not feel comfortable with your personal trainer, you may not tell them the truth, which can lead to poor training results or even injuries. This is why an initial consultation is so important.

In the initial evaluation, you want to see if they are likeable to you. If you find that you can talk easily to them, you may have found your match.

What are other people saying?

The references of Scottsdale personal trainers can help you the most when you are trying to make a final choice. Try to talk to other clients of the personal trainer to see what kinds of results they had as well as whether they have any complaints that they can share. Of course, if you were referred to your personal trainer by a friend or a family member, you can generally trust in their opinions.

In choosing Scottsdale personal trainers, you need to be sure that you are making the best choice for your health. By looking at their certification, their personality, and their references, you can be sure that you’re working with someone that will help you.

By:Mark Norton 

So what can you do if you’re one of those people with chronic pain that doesn’t respond to the usual treatment? There are many options available from acupuncture to yoga, but we’ll focus this article on an approach called Neural Therapy. Although relatively unfamiliar to American practitioners, neural therapy is widely used in Europe for treatment of chronic pain.

Neural Therapy involves injecting local anesthetics into autonomic ganglia (nerve cell bodies), peripheral nerves, scars, glands, acupuncture points, and other tissues and anatomical sites. The history of neural therapy can be traced back to the late 19th century when local anesthetics were discovered. The Russian physiologist, Ivan Petrov, laid the foundation for the entire field in 1883 with his hypothesis that the nervous system exercises an influence over all organic functions. By the turn of the century, cocaine was being used as an anesthetic for abdominal surgery and as an epidural block. In 1904, novocaine was discovered by Alfred Einhorn. It resolved the potential for addiction found in cocaine. Novocaine is still widely used in medicine today.

A major development occurred in 1940, when Ferdinand Huneke was working with a patient that had a painful condition known as frozen right shoulder. Huneke was injecting novocaine into the right shoulder joint and finding little benefit. Instead, the patient experienced a burning, itching sensation on a seemingly unrelated scar on her lower left leg. On a hunch, Huneke injected the scar tissue with novocaine. What followed has been called the ‘Huneke phenomenon’ or ‘lightning reaction’. The patient’s frozen right shoulder regained full range of motion without pain in mere seconds. The scar on left shin had become an interference (inferred) field, in neural therapy terminology.

By continuing to work with local anesthetics and interference fields, Huneke and his associates created a system called neural therapy. It is used extensively for pain control in Europe, Latin America, and Russia. It is reported that up to 35% of all German physicians use neural therapy in their treatments.

Several possibilities have been given to explain why a scar on your left leg can cause pain in your right shoulder and how an injection of local anesthetic fixes the problem. One theory is called the ‘Nervous System Theory.’ It states that scars have different electric potentials across the cell membrane. The electrical imbalance causes the normal ion flow in the cells to stop. The cells accumulate toxins and abnormal minerals inside the cell causing the cell to be unable to heal itself. Local anesthetic may help restore the proper ion flow, thereby allowing the cell to rid itself of toxic material, repair itself, and return to its normal function.

Another theory proposes that scar tissue acts as battery of about 1.5 volts. This electrical interference disrupts the autonomic nervous system, which lacks the protective myelin sheath coating found on most nerve cells. The continued disturbance leads to more severe problems in the body.

Another explanation is the ‘Fascial Continuity Theory.’ It demonstrates that all bodily tissue is interconnected by tissue called fascia. Any scar tissue would then impair the natural movement of the fascia and result in pain.

It is quite difficult to find someone trained in neural therapy. Part of the reason is that it requires meticulous injection technique and detailed history taking. Both of these practices are very time-consuming and not in line with the fast pace demands of conventional medicine.

By:Jerry Ryan