Health Tips For Busy People: Healthy Diet & Exercise In the Office

Many women’s lifestyle magazines frustrate us by providing exercise regimens for work and then adding: “You can do this exercise in your office!” What about those of us who work in a cube or other small space (with no floor space for Pilates-style stretches) that’s not very private (do you really want your boss to wander by right when you’re doing jumping jacks?). Even if you are cube-confined, you can maintain your health in a cube.

Make A "Health" Drawer

Your filing spaces are your friends. Most cubes have lots of little drawers. Make one of them a “health” drawer. Add a ziplock bag or two with healthy non-perishable snacks in it (maybe dried veggies), a few bags of herbal, non-caffeinated tea (switch over from coffee midday to help you sleep better at night), and a travel-size hand-sanitizing gel for use regularly when there’s a cold going around the office (did you know most colds are transmitted through shared objects like doorknobs?). A decorative canvas bag can store an extra pair of athletic shoes in case you can take a 10 minute walk or stretch break over lunch.

Get Blood Back To Your Brain:

Pop goes the weasel. When you sit in a cube in front of a computer or on the phone for hours at a time, gravity pulls your blood towards your feet. It pools in your feet, ankles, and fanny; if you’re ever noticed your feet looking puffy towards the end of the day, the puffiness may be a side-effect of having blood spending so much time down there! Our arm and leg muscles function as “pumps” to get blood back to the heart.

While you could just do jumping jacks to get the blood flowing back upwards, there are less noticeable ways to get blood moving: If you’ve got a shelf in your high in your cube, keep daily useables (paperclips, stapler) there; getting up regularly will remind you to stretch. While standing lift your legs up at the knee, one at a time, to help get blood flowing. One enterprising woman kept a postcard pinned up towards the very top of her cube wall - and kept an ever-growing collection of postcards that she exchanged every day in the afternoon. The new postcard each day perked her up, and it gave her a reminder to get up and stretch several times a day.

Muscular injury is common in the desk-job world. The Center for Disease Control reports that 92,576 injuries resulted from repetitive motion, including typing or key entry. Make sure to take breaks from the keyboard at least once an hour. Use a wrist support at your computer when you are typing or browsing, Your forearm, wrist, and hand should be on a level, not making a V. The Harvard RSI action group suggests some exercises to help prevent repetitive stress injuries (http://www.rsi.deas.harvard.edu/). If you spend a lot of time on the phone and can’t use a speaker phone, don’t hold the phone by crunching your shoulder against your ear. Instead, invest in or ask for a headset or shoulder support for your receiver.

Drink Plenty Of Water:

Drinking water is very important. It can help you recover from a cold more quickly (though it doesn’t “cure” it), replenish lost fluids after exercise, and assist in weight loss (many people think they are hungry when they are actually thirsty, so make sure to take a drink before diving for the candy machine). Keep a four-cup bottle or thermos near the computer and replenish daily. Don’t overdo though - excess water can dilute important minerals and vitamins in your blood stream.

Make Sure To Take Your Vitamins & Other Pills:

Pill reminders. Do you need regularly forget to take vitamins because you’re busy? Find an attractive, desk-top container to put the bottle in - a decorative flower pot is one option. Something attractive and eye catching will remind you it’s there. This can also work for daily medications, but keep in mind that some medications can be toxic to others or have street-value (many prescribed pain killers), so these are medications that should stay with you, rather than your desk. original writer: Ian Mason

-healthy-styles-

What Vitamins Should I Take?

Why Do We need Vitamins?

Everyone needs the opportunity to lead a healthy life. To have a balanced life we must have at least 45 minutes of brisk exercise daily, lots of fresh air and proper foods. In todays industrialised world of commerce it has become nearly impossible for the average person to get a proper balanced meal into their daily intake.

It means that with the long working hours, extra commuting and the family pressure of both parents in most cases preparing food is the last thing on their minds, especially a good healthy meal. A proper balanced healthy meal does not always mean hard work but it certainly requires a little planning.

So with this huge pressure on individuals it is easier to slip into a pattern that allows for fast foods, foods of convenience and restaurant foods to slip onto the table at meal times more often than not. Vitamins supplements are needed to replace what is missing in our daily intakes of foods at every meal.

It is certainly not a substitute for the fresh fruits and vegetable we need but rather a backup or insurance policy you take out for optimum health that you want the maximum nutrition intake in every meal in spite of the food industry slipping up. Multiminerals and antioxidants help to bridge this gap. You do not have to take huge amounts of vitamins as our bodies need very very small amounts to help the invisible miracles to take place in our cells that keep us alive healthy.

Natural vs Synthetic Vitamins!

There are alot of vitamins and minerals on the market today and the number is growing daily. Herbal supplements that are in their natural form may not necessarily be clean as they may have insect parts or faeces in them. It is important that you select your vitamin source not on the mere fact that its natural or herbal but the manufacturing process meets the high standard that you are looking for in a multivitamin formula. Synthetic vitamins are artificially made to copy what the body needs and depending upon the quality of ingredients used, may not be easily bioavailable and complete for absorption into our bodies at the cellular level.

It is extremely important that you pick a vitamin formulation that is complete, balanced, bioavailable, potent and safe for you. The "Comparative Guide To Nutritional Supplements" by Dr Lyle MacWilliam, Bsc, Msc, FP is a brilliant study done on the comparison of different brands. You may access this study from here. Do not fall for sales lines that a certain product is herbal and natural or its organic but rather look for the five points listed above in your supplement. Finding a supplement that is the best for your body is prudent today. Your health deserves the best so don't buy from the lowest bidder or the best talker but look for the independent research behind the product to safe guard your health.

What Vitamins Should I Take?

Lets look at our health as a house that needs a good foundation, solid walls and a roof to protect you for the years ahead. Your body is the same and needs the same degree of care and effort that you put into your home if it is to give you years of service without falling apart. Everyone of us should be on a good multivitamin and an antioxidant formulation. The vitamin-mineral formulation should help our bodies to rebuild old cells easily while the antioxidant component will help to fight free radical damage. Adults, teenagers and children need a different formulation during the course of their lives. Make sure you check the formulation incase there are toxic levels of certain ingredients present. If you have a high occurrence of that mineral in your body it could lead to problems. If you are taking medications you should always consult your doctor before hand to play it safe.

Trust Your Vitamins. Can You?

We are asked to trust the experts when we consult with them. The problem in most cases is that the expert follows the instructions of the manufacturer of the supplement and rarely looks to see if there is a better product on the market. This could be for a number of reasons, some of them being price, higher profit margin or control on the supply of the product to the patient. Check to see if the health care practitioner has a broad outlook to optimum health and is not biased or prejudiced towards alternative treatments in their outlook. A Holistic approach is important. You certainly can trust your vitamins if you have done your homework.

How Do You Buy Vitamins Online?

There are a number of vitamin companies that sell online today. Some of them will offer you big discounts if you register as a semi or regular user of their products. All you need to do is find a company that you feel safe with and provides after sales service. This will usually mean a distributor will assist you with purchasing the product best for your needs. A distributor acts as the middle man helping you get the product from the company. Quite often they will help you to buy online for the wholesale price. This could be a big saving in the long run and you will also get a personalised service . Not all websites offer this service.

Buy Vitamins Online - What You need to know?

The following check list is important if you want good customer service from any company online.

• Check to see if you can talk to the person whose website you will be buying from.
• Is there a phone number to call if need be?
• Can you reach them by email?
• Can they brief you more on what each product does and whats best for you?
• What is the refund policy of the company?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Claude_Fullinfaw

Why Choosing Healthy Food at the Grocery Store Can Be Tricky

I was at the grocery store (super-market) yesterday and had to shake my head at all of the clever deceptive food labeling that's everywhere. In every aisle, I saw tons of products claiming all sorts of things that are supposedly "healthy", but are not in reality. This is food marketing deception at its worst.

One of the things I noticed that really disturbed me was that I saw multiple examples of healthy foods in their natural state, while also noticing counterfeit overly processed versions of these original foods claiming that they were healthier than the natural version.

However, in reality, all of these fake versions were actually MUCH worse for you than the original... and they still have the balls to claim that their overly processed "junkified" versions are better.

The sad thing is that millions of people fall for this deceptive food marketing every day. Here are a couple examples I noticed:

Example #1: Product claiming to be "Better than peanut butter"

This product is ridiculous! I can't believe anyone would ever believe that this processed junk is better for them than natural minimally processed peanut butter.

First of all, if you buy a good natural organic peanut butter, it is usually very simply only two ingredients... peanuts and salt. And they do not add much salt so it is not a high sodium product.

However, this counterfeit peanut butter which claimed it was "better than peanut butter" (trying to seem healthier than natural peanut butter based on its label claims) had a list of processed junk in it you wouldn't believe. First of all, they strip all of the natural healthy fats out of the peanuts so that it is a "low fat" product. Alright, now you have just taken away one of the healthiest parts of the peanut butter... the appetite satisfying healthy fats that you need to control cravings and manage more stable blood sugar levels in your body.

To make things worse, the healthy fats were replaced with 2 different types of sugar-based syrups as well as additional dehydrated cane juice (aka SUGAR), in addition to added refined starches (in case you didn't get enough blood-sugar spiking refined carbs yet).

This product has taken something as simple and natural as peanut butter, and turned it into what should really be called some sort of processed junk candy. Yet, they claim that it is healthier for you than peanut butter. And somehow they get away with deceiving the masses like this on their label. Do not be their fool!

Example #2: Product claiming to be "better than eggs".

I won't get as detailed on this one because I recently went into good detail on this entire topic in another ezine issue.

Basically, this product is just egg whites with a bunch of added chemical colorings, flavorings, and other nonsense, including artificially added vitamins.

Again, this product has essentially ruined a good thing by removing the healthiest part... the YOLKS! And yes, the yolks ARE the healthiest part of the egg. Anybody that tells you different does not understand much about real nutrition. The important thing to look for in quality whole eggs are cage-free and organic.

Most people don't realize that almost all of the quality nutrition of an egg is found in the yolks. The majority of the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and trace nutrients are found in the yolks, not the whites. Even the protein in the whites isn't as high quality in terms of bioavailability without the amino acid profile of the yolk that complements the amino acid profile of the whites.

And no, the cholesterol in eggs is not bad for you... it actually raises your good cholesterol more than bad cholesterol improving your overall profile. And the fats in whole eggs are balanced and healthy for you as well.

Bottom line... whole eggs are healthier than egg whites. It's not even a close comparison. The label claims are just another example of food marketing deception.

Example #3: A product claiming to be "better than butter".

This was essentially crappy margarine which is loaded with highly processed and deadly trans fats, yet it had the nerve to claim it was "better than butter".

Don't fall for it!

Even low quality butter is better for you than any margarine on the market. One problem with butter are the pesticides and hormones frequently found within from improperly raised cows.

For this reason, it's always a good choice to go with organic butter, and if you can find grass-fed butter, then I would even say it can be healthy for you. Grass-fed butter is higher in the natural form of beneficial conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). In fact, adding a little butter to your steamed vegetables helps your body to absorb more of the vitamins and minerals in the veggies.

Also, due to the content of stable saturated fats in butter, this makes butter one of the best oils to cook with. Oils that are high in polyunsaturated fats such as soy, corn, safflower (and even flax) are the worst to cook with due to the highly unstable nature of their chemistry. I have a fully comprehensive article on which oils are healthiest for cooking and which are not based on their chemistry.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Geary