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If you want to help your teenage kids to lose weight, here are some tips that may prove helpful:

1. Make losing weight a family affair. Rather than just concentrating on your teen, try to adopt healthy habits as a family. Eating healthier foods at home and getting more exercise is good for the whole family. Try to encourage family members to eat more fruits, veggies and whole grains.

Prepare menus that contain healthy food groups to ensure that your family is getting all the nutrients that they need. Practice leaving junk food when you do your shopping at the grocery store. Healthy foods may sometimes cost you more, but it’ is worth investing in as it concerns the health of your whole family.

2. Allow occasional treats as a break from the usual. That late-night pizza with friends or nachos at the mall doesn’t need to be totally excluded from your teen’s healthy-eating plan. Suggest a healthier alternative instead such as breadstick and marinara sauce instead of garlic bread dripping in butter and cheese.

You can also opt for ordering a shared snack instead of a full-size order to lessen the portions. You can let your teen know that he or she can also have control over his or her eating choices and an occasional indulgence is acceptable. A trend towards developing healthier habits is what really matters rather than banishing your kid’s favorite food totally.

3. Plan fun and highly active family outings, such as regular walks at the park or weekend visits to a local recreation center. Such activities can greatly help keep your kids stay active. And not only that, such activities can also be a great way for the whole family to bond and enjoy each one’s company.

4. Be positive. With your kids being overweight, their feelings should also be put into consideration. How they feel about themselves can affect their motivation to lose weight. As a parent, you can actually influence how your kids will feel about themselves.

You must help them realize that being overweight doesn’t inevitably lead to a lifetime of having low self-esteem. Your acceptance of their condition is critical. Try to listen to your teen’s concerns. Provide positive comment on his or her efforts, skills and accomplishments. You must always make it clear that your love and concern is unconditional and that it is not dependent on weight loss.

This will make them feel more secure as well as confident in trying to lose weight. You can help your teen learn healthy ways of being more open in expressing his or her feelings.

5. Eat breakfast. This is usually a thing that is taken lightly in many families. But breakfast can really help your teen to keep off those extra pounds. It may take some constant urging for your teen to get up early for breakfast, but always bear in mind that it is important.

A well-balanced nutritious breakfast at the start of the day will jump-start your teen’s metabolism. This meal will be able to give him or her energy to face the day ahead. Even better, feeling full each morning before going out of the house may keep your teen from eating too much during the rest of the day.

These are just a few of the many things that you can do to help your teen from getting rid of excess pounds. It may take a bit of work on your part. But the rewards are worth it when you know that your kids are learning to live a healthier lifestyle and growing up healthy.

>>> Learn The Real REASON Why People Are Fat.

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The key to weight loss management is not only losing the weight, but also staying healthy. Weight loss motivation can help you to reach your goal. Let’s discuss some methods that will help keep your weight loss motivation going.

There are some relatively easy steps that will help you to succeed. One of the most prominent steps that are mostly ignored is the concept of visualization. If you visualize that you are a certain weight or how you desire to look and believe that you can, your weight loss motivation will become stronger.

You can imagine yourself in a particular dress or bathing suite and enjoy the emotions that come with those thoughts and this will inspire you to your success. Keep a visible picture of yourself showing what your currently weigh. Cut a picture out of a magazine of what you would like to look like. Put both of them together for contrast.

Trying on clothes that could not fit is another great weight loss motivation. Weighing yourself once a week is also another good weight loss motivation. It allows you to see if you are making progress. If you see any type of weight loss progress, it gives you the enthusiasm to continue, so reward yourself with something nice when that happens.

Maintaining Your Weight Loss Program

If you have exceeded your goal, then find a new weight loss motivation to maintain your weight. Enjoy your current success, but renew your goals because the hardest part of losing weight is keeping it off. Find a reason to keep you going.

Being healthy and looking good is enough reason for weight loss motivation. Never lose your momentum because if you do, you may never get it back or then you have to start all over again. Your health should be your primary focus in your weight loss program. This is what should really inspire you. When you set out with your weight loss goals, do have your health as the prime focus. You will be disappointed and ready to quit if you don’t have a very important reason for losing weight. When obstacles come your way, you will still continue your road to health. It is when you have that mindset that you will experience success.

Find a weight loss partner to work out with you so that you can be accountable. This will also be an inspiration for you to continue with your weight loss program. You will have someone in your corner. Set realistic goals that you both can experience together. Going through a program on your own can become lonely.

If you have someone to share your misgivings, triumphs, insecurity and ups and downs, it will help your ego and keep you motivated.

I found an interesting site “Top Secret Fat Loss Secret” that talks about the real REASON why people are fat, I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading it. Check it out now!

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While the number of elderly Americans newly diagnosed with heart failure has declined, the number of those living with the condition has increased, new research finds.

The Duke University study analyzed data on 622,789 Medicare patients, aged 65 and older, diagnosed with heart failure between 1994 and 2003. It found that the annual occurrence of heart failure decreased from 32 per 1,000 person-years (years of observation time during which each person is at risk to develop the disease) in 1994, to 29 per 1,000 person-years in 2003.

When the researchers looked at specific age groups, they found a sharper decline among people aged 80 to 84 (from 57.5 to 48.4 per 1,000 person-years), and a slight increase among those aged 65 to 69 (from 17.5 to 19.3 per 1,000 person years).

Between 1994 and 2003, the number of people living with heart failure increased, from about 140,000 to 200,000. More men than women live with the condition.

“The proportion of [Medicare] beneficiaries with a heart failure diagnosis increased from 90 per 1,000 in 1994 to 120 per 1,000 in 2000, and remained at about 120 per 1,000 through 2003,” the authors wrote.

The findings are published in the Feb. 25 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Although the incidence of heart failure has declined somewhat during the past decade, modest survival gains have resulted in an increase in the number of patients living with heart failure,” the researchers concluded. “Identifying optimal strategies for the treatment and management of heart failure will become increasingly important as the size of the Medicare population grows.”

Almost 5 million people in the United States have heart failure, which kills more than 300,000 patients a year. Since it’s primarily a disease of older people, it places a significant and increasing burden on Medicare, said the study authors, who noted that the number of people age 65 and older hospitalized for heart failure increased by more than 30 percent from 1984 to 2002.

More information:
The American Heart Association has more about heart failure.
– Robert Preidt.

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There are serious health effects associated with high body fat: heart attack, stroke, reduced mobility and low energy. High body fat percentage is an important health issue that must be addressed, but there are ways to reduce fat without spending a fortune on special diets or costly programs. All an individual needs is the desire to truly make a change and some creativity.  Losing weight the healthy way takes time and commitment. Remember, slow and steady wins the race.

One of the first things you should do is to figure out your body fat percentage. You can find this out through a number of methods, but an exact number representing your body fat percentage is usually quite hard to discern, and your doctor can provide numbers that are more accurate in a few minutes. It involves an equation and finding out your average density.

Taking a body fat measurement will likely not make you feel very good about yourself, but it may motivate you to start looking in to ways to reduce your body fat. Using the body fat measurement as a guide, you can start up a plan to reduce your body fat and make a difference in your life. Depending on how high your body fat measurement is, you may have to make some serious lifestyle changes to accomplish your goals.

Replace Food with Better Food

One of the first things you should do is to replace rice, pasta and breads with vegetables. This isn’t like the Atkins diet, in which you drop the carbohydrates in your diet. This technique replaces a type of carbohydrate with another type of carbohydrate, providing your diet with a better way to burn them altogether. Fruits and veggies are better fat burners than rice, pasta and breads, so they will help you reduce your body fat.

Drink Water

Next, drink plenty of water each day. Consuming a lot of water actually makes it harder for the fat to stick to your body, allowing you to lose body fat and keep it off. Water also flushes your body out and removes harmful toxins, creating a better body system with which to fight off body fat. Water also raises your energy level, if you drink enough of it, and can improve your concentration.

Resistance Training

If you add some light resistance training to your workout and you do it before you do any cardio, you’ll find that you will have an easier time with your goal to lose body fat. This occurs because your body does not actually burn fat for the first portion of your exercise, so it is better to allow your body to warm up to lose body fat. Elevate your heart rate by doing some light training, then go forward with the whole routine.

Any individual who truly wants to better their health can do so without going broke. Regular exercise, plenty of water and a proper diet are the keys to getting healthy and losing body fat. It is not necessary to spend huge amounts of money on expensive diet plans or special programs to lose body fat percentage. What is necessary is a commitment to living better and a sincere desire to achieve health and well-being.

For more info on fat loss, go to Fat Loss Secret.

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Some people think the only effective way to deal with stress and a build up of tension is to turn to a prescription medication. While medications can be effective for those who are dealing with stress, there are other options out there. Some of the best require no medical intervention at all.

Dealing With Stress Head On

Stress is something that impacts every single man, woman and child on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s a perfectly normal and even healthy reaction. If it becomes chronic, however, stress can cause mental and physical health problems. Dealing with stress by reducing or removing its causes and handling its impacts can be very important for just about everyone. Some of the best ways of dealing with stress include:

• Getting some “me” time. Taking time out for oneself is a great way to go about dealing with stress. Doing something that is fun, relaxing and deeply enjoyable brings life back into focus. It doesn’t really matter what the activity is, as long as it works on a personal level, it can help reduce tension.

• Meditation. Many people find they are better able to deal with stress when they unplug their minds and refocus on what really needs to be done. Meditation, breathing exercises and even visualization are all excellent self-help techniques for dealing with stress.

• Exercise. This is one of the top self-help methods for dealing with stress. It relieves tension in the body, focuses the mind and can even improve health along the way.

Dealing With Stress And Getting Some Help

While self-help techniques can go a long way, sometimes people require a little assistance. Whether it comes from friends, family, co-workers or medical professionals, enlisting support is often very wise if stress has gotten to be too much. Here’s how they can help:

• At work. If projects are piled up, ask for help, delegate or politely decline any new ones until existing works have been cleared. Speak to your supervisors, if necessary, or get co-workers to pitch in.

• At home. The stress of keeping up with work, family and home can get to anyone. Get family more involved in helping out.

• Professional intervention. Sometimes it simply is smart to enlist professional help in dealing with stress. Therapists can prescribe medications, if they are called for, and can help people work through their issues and develop strategies for tackling them.

Dealing with stress is a fact of life. If it gets to be too much, however, looking for ways to combat its effects is always called for. From self-help techniques to enlisting support, there are ways to lessen its impacts and even remove some of it from daily life.

For more info on how to deal with stress and anxiety, go to: Ease Stress Now.

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How Body pH Can Affect Your Energy Levels
By Andy Long

WHAT MOST PEOPLE DON’T REALIZE; WE ARE BIO ELECTRICAL ENGINES

In order to accomplish all the many millions of complex functions that occur over the course of the day, your body has to be able to communicate with itself… all the way down to the cellular level. And do you know how it does this? Through pulses of electricity. That’s right, electricity.

Your body operates on an electro magnetic current. Believe it or not, all of the organs in your body emit these fields of electrical current. In fact, nerve signals are nothing more than electrical charges.

What creates this electrical power in your body is a very fine balance that exists in your bio chemistry. And of all the systems in your body that depend on this delicate, bio chemical balance, one of the most important is your blood stream. This is where pH comes into play. But what is pH?

WHAT PH IS AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO ALL YOUR BODY FUNCTIONS

PH is a scale that measures how acidic or alkaline a substance is. The scale ranges from 1 to 14 with 1 being very acid, 7 neutral and 14 very alkaline.

So what does pH have to do with you and your blood? Well, the pH of your blood is extremely important. The ideal pH level for your blood is right around 7.35 and your body goes to enormous lengths to maintain this level.

Why? Because if your blood pH were to vary 1 or 2 points in either direction, it would change the electrical chemistry in your body, there would be no electrical power and in short order you would drop dead. As you can see, maintaining the right pH level in your blood is pretty important!!

With this in mind a good way to avoid upsetting this delicate bio chemical balance would be to take a look at those things that can compromise the maintenance of the ideal pH level in your body. And what is the main culprit in this case? The answer is the creation of acid in your body.

Before we look at what causes acid, here’s a graphic example to give you an idea of what can happen in the blood when your pH drops to less than ideal. Red blood cells are how oxygen is transported to all the cells in your body.

As red blood cells move into the tiny, little, capillaries, the space they have to move through gets pretty small. In fact, the diameter of the capillaries gets so small that the red blood cells sometimes have to pass through these capillaries one red blood cell at a time!

Because of this, and because it’s important for the red blood cells to be able to flow easily and quickly through your body, they have a mechanism that allows them to remain separate from each other. This mechanism comes in the form of the outside of healthy red blood cells having a negative charge. This causes them to stay apart from each other, sort of like when you try to push the negative ends of two magnets together. They resist each other and stay apart.

Unfortunately, acid interferes with this very important mechanism in a pretty frightening way. Acid actually strips away the negative charge from red blood cells. The result is that your red blood cells then tend to clump together and not flow as easily. This makes it much more difficult for them to flow easily through the bloodstream.

But it also makes it harder for them to move freely through those small capillaries. This means less oxygen gets to your cells. Acid also weakens the red blood cells and they begin to die. And guess what they release into your system when they die? More acid.

I could describe a whole list of processes that occur when your system becomes and remains acid but I think you get the idea. The point is that aside from the acid that is secreted into your stomach to aid digestion, acid in your body is bad. Really bad.

In regard to producing energy in the body, here’s an easy question for you. What do you think happens to a person’s energy level if over time their system becomes more and more acid, their biochemical balance is disrupted and their red blood cells can’t deliver oxygen and nutrients as efficiently to all their cells? The answer is simple. Their energy level drops. Dramatically.

Are you beginning to get the picture here as to the importance of pH in your body? Good. Now let’s take a quick look at what causes acidity in your body and then look at steps you can take to get your body pH back to an ideal level.

WHAT CAUSES ACID IN THE BODY

The primary cause of an acidic condition in your body is from what you put in your mouth. In other words, what you eat and what you drink. And it isn’t how “acid” something may seem when you eat or drink it. It has to do with what is left over when you digest it.

Specifically, does eating or drinking something leave behind an acid or alkaline “ash”. For example, I don’t know about you but I love seafood. Scallops are one of my favorites. However, when your body digests scallops, it leaves an extremely acid ash. In fact, scallops are one of the most acid foods you can eat.

Unfortunately, a lot of the things most people put in their mouths create an acid ash. These include alcohol, coffee and a lot of flesh protein in your diet. Interestingly enough, stress also tends to create an acid condition in the body.

STEPS YOU CAN IMMEDIATELY TAKE TO IMPROVE YOUR PH

Fortunately, it is pretty easy to immediately change your pH for the better and make it more alkaline. The first step is to understand which of the foods you are eating and the drinks you are drinking are acid and which are alkaline. Then it’s simply a matter of eliminating some of the more acid foods you are eating and adding in more alkaline foods.

However, before you start, it’s important to get a baseline of what the pH is in your body so that you can see how you are improving or if you need to continue to eliminate more acid foods and add in more alkaline ones.

You can do this by testing the pH of your saliva on a regular basis. This is really simple to do. More details on how to do this are provided on some web pages I have created for you to help you out. A link to these pages is provided below.

In addition to decreasing the amount of acid foods you eat and increasing the amount of alkaline foods you eat, one of the best ways to immediately begin changing your pH is to drink “green drinks”. You can make these by simply adding a powder that is made up of a whole host of vegetables that are highly alkaline to a glass of water. Information on suggested green drink powders to use is included on pages that I have a link to below.

RESOURCES WHERE YOU CAN LEARN MORE

Clicking on the following link will take you to some pages I created that have more information on alkaline and acid foods, how to test your own pH and what to look for in green drinks.

http://www.ajpip.com/resources/site_map.htm

Start taking the steps described above and you may very well find your energy levels increasing over time. Mine certainly have.

- Andy Long

After years of extreme fatigue, severe digestion problems and frequent sickness, Andy Long now enjoys energy levels that allow him to windsurf in 30 mph winds for 3-4 hours at a time.

He now shares with others what he did to completely regain his health through his health related web sites and newsletter.

To see a list of the topics covered in Andy’s newsletter, click on the following link: http://www.ajpip.com/rbopi/ancrb.htm

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Healthy Nutrition:
A Healthier Diet…Minus the Wheat and Dairy
By Laura LaValle, RD, LD.

The diet guidelines we use at LaValle Metabolic Institute exclude any food that contains cow’s milk or wheat. This surprises many people because they’ve been trained by good advertising and marketing to think that cow’s milk dairy products and whole-wheat products are the only way to get calcium and fiber. While these staple foods can be nutritious, they can tear down your health if you have developed a sensitivity to them.

Food allergies and other intolerances are quite common. Symptoms can include anything — gas and bloating or other digestive discomfort; runny or stuffy nose; joint aches; rash; headache; noticeable fatigue or tiredness; and even mood changes.

The good news is that years of experience have shown us that eliminating these two common food allergens can make quite a difference in a person’s health.

If you’re having any of the above symptoms it’s a good idea to do some exploration in this area. Lab tests are available for food allergies or sensitivities, but they sometimes only find the most severe of reactions. But there is another way to find out if you’re having food reactions — and it’s free.

It’s called an elimination diet. This simple method can help identify whether certain foods like wheat or cow’s milk dairy may be causing you a variety of health problems.

How do you do it? Simply eliminate these foods from your diet for a minimum of 4 weeks. Then reintroduce the foods, watching for any signs or symptoms of intolerance. Because traces of wheat and dairy products can often be found in a lot of other foods, it is helpful to eliminate most processed foods during an elimination diet. Foods like fresh fish, poultry, meats, beans, fruits and vegetables should be the mainstays of your diet.

When you reintroduce wheat and dairy, start with one or the other. In other words, don’t eat a food that contains both wheat and dairy or you won’t know which one you reacted to. Eat a normal sized portion of the food and then watch over the next 24 to 48 hours for any signs of intolerance. If you did have a reaction, wait a few days until the symptoms subside and then try the other foods.

While an elimination diet cannot tell you the exact medical classification of your intolerance, it can tell whether you are having symptoms from certain foods. And while some symptoms, like runny nose, may not seem that serious — any reaction to food is a sign that it is disrupting your body. So avoid foods that you reacted to until you can take measures to correct the underlying problems.

Your intestinal health is the main factor contributing to food intolerances and immune system reactions. Different medications, excessive consumption of sugar and refined carbohydrates, and chronic stress are just a few of the things that can influence your intestinal function and make you more prone to develop intolerances to foods.

Taking probiotics to help re-establish the friendly bacterial flora that keep intestinal tissues healthy is one of the most important measures you can take. While yogurt does contain some probiotics, it will only exacerbate your problems if you are reactive to the milk proteins. Some probiotics are grown on lactose, so make sure to choose a dairy-free probiotic supplement.

The following broccoli soup recipe is great to try during your elimination diet. It’s a good source of calcium, and is wheat and cow’s milk free.

[Note: Laura B. LaValle, RD, LD is presently the director of dietetics nutrition at LaValle Metabolic Institute (formerly part of Living Longer Institute). She offers personal nutritional counseling at LMI for clients who need help with their diet in relation to illness or disease. Laura also provides educational services in the areas of health promotion, wellness, and disease prevention. To learn more click here.]

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Older Women More Likely to Suffer Depression
Study found their male peers were better off in this regard

(HealthDay News) — Older women are more likely than older men to become and remain depressed, Yale researchers report.

The study began in 1998 with 754 people aged 70 and older. The participants were assessed at the start of the study, and again at five 18-month intervals after that.

During the study, 269 (35.7 percent) of the participants suffered depression at some point. Of those, 48 (17.8 percent) were depressed at two consecutive follow-up points, 30 (11.2 percent) at three consecutive points, 17 (6.3 percent) at four consecutive points, and 12 (4.5 percent) at all five follow-up points.

More women than men were depressed at each 18-month follow-up, and women were more likely than men to be depressed at subsequent time points, according to the study, which appears in the February issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

“Adjusting for other demographic characteristics, women had a higher likelihood of transitioning from non-depressed to depressed and a lower likelihood of transitioning from depressed to non-depressed or death,” the study authors wrote.

The findings were consistent throughout the length of the study and provide strong evidence that depression is more common in older women than in older men, the researchers said. This is surprising, they added, because women are more likely than men to receive treatment for depression.

“Whether women are treated less aggressively than men for late-life depression or are less likely to respond to conventional treatment is not known, but should be the focus of future research,” the authors wrote. “In addition, nearly 40 percent of the depressed participants in this study were depressed during at least two consecutive time points, highlighting the need to initiate and potentially maintain antidepressant treatment after resolution of the initial depressive episode.”

More information

Mental Health America has more about depression.
– Robert Preidt

SOURCE: JAMA/Archives journals, news release, Feb. 5, 2008
This is a story from HealthDay, a service of ScoutNews, LLC.
Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved.

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