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How To Keep Yourself Healthy In The Winter

Published on 12/05/2019
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Keeping yourself happy and healthy is important 12 months out of the year, but it becomes a bit more challenging to keep up with normal health routines around the holiday season, especially if you live somewhere that gets cold and gloomy throughout the few winter months. You can’t go out as often because of the weather, and it seems to constantly be dark outside. All of these difficulties add up quickly to create a hard time from November through February. We’re here to give you some tips on how to make these months a little less stressful on your everyday lifestyle.

How To Keep Yourself Healthy In The Winter

Eat Even More Fruits And Vegetables Than Normal

In the winter months it can be very easy to use the holidays as an excuse to forget about your healthy eating habits and eat all of the cookies and mashed potatoes that come your way, but we promise you will feel much better if you are more conscious about how many fruits and vegetables you eat throughout the day as well. Of course, eating sweets and unhealthy foods is perfectly okay, but don’t let that become the staple of your diet. Many people forget that their health is still on the line when it’s holiday time, but don’t let yourself become one of those people. Incorporating fruits and vegetables into food items at the dinner table, like eating a side of carrots or broccoli with your mashed potatoes, can be a good way to get the best of both worlds this season.

Take Vitamin D Supplements

Vitamin D is one of the vitamins that is less-frequently spoken about but needs to receive just as much attention as anything else. Vitamin D is produced naturally by your body when your skin interacts with the sun, which is why people who live in climates that get cold tend to become vitamin D deficient when it’s winter. When you interact with the sun, your body produces vitamin D which has many health benefits, including strong bones and a rockstar immune system. Vitamin D deficiencies can make you feel weak and fatigued, and that is the last thing you want during the winter when you already just want to stay inside and sit by the fire all day.

Don’t Become A Couch Potato

Despite the fact that the air is frigid and the ground is full of snow or ice, try to do one thing every day that will get you up onto your feet and moving around. Instead of spending your whole weekend in bed, try to go to sleep and wake up at the same time each day; this will help your body keep up with its routine of getting up and doing something as you would during the week. Whether it’s taking up winter sports, taking a brisk walk around the block, or just going to the grocery store and back, getting outside and doing something– and seeing the natural sunlight– will do wonders for both your physical and mental health.

The Top 7 Insider Tips For Menstrual Pain

Published on 10/27/2022
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Your period is approaching and you are getting more and more weak. Discomfort, circulatory problems, abdominal cramps and even chills – many women suffer from sometimes very severe menstrual cramps once a month. We present you our 7 insider tips against menstrual pain.

The Top 7 Insider Tips For Menstrual Pain

Sport, Exercise

Many women find the contraction of muscles to be uncomfortable or even painful. The muscle contraction reduces the blood supply to the uterus or abdomen, which causes additional pain. Studies have shown that exercise can help reduce both the intensity and duration of period pain. This applies both to light physical activity during menstruation and to regular training. Those who exercise more often can reduce their menstrual cramps. Even light physical activity during the period can help against pain. For example, try yoga, cycling, or a walk.

Change Your Diet

A study by BMC Women’s Health looked at how diet affects menstrual pain. Researchers found that eating lots of sweet and salty snacks, desserts, as well as coffee, salt, fruit juices and added fat increased your chances of moderate to severe menstrual cramps 3 to 4 times. In general, eat a healthy, balanced diet to prevent cramps. You should avoid alcohol and nicotine.

Saying No

Two weeks ago (when you were fit as a fiddle, just before you ovulated) you arranged the mega meeting with all your friends and now you are absolutely not in the mood for it? You have tickets for the super concert but the thought of it just stresses you out? Then just say no. Stress pushes menstrual problems so stay cool and say no! That’s a promise: the world keeps turning, even if you log out of everyday life during your period. By the way: In the weeks after the period, women are then three times as productive as before!

Magnesium

The muscle contractions to break down the mucous membrane consume a lot of magnesium, which we feel when our inner pig bitch always asks us the same question: “Where can I get something sweet asap?”. This is a misunderstanding: by craving something sweet, our body is simply telling us that it wants to replenish its magnesium stores. And he does this best with bananas, cashew nuts, sunflower seeds, linseed or raspberries.

Good News For Chocoholics

Chocolate is not bad per se – you should only avoid the sugar in chocolate. Cocoa itself, on the other hand, has many antioxidants and therefore has an anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic effect due to the magnesium it contains. A piece of dark chocolate is therefore highly recommended, but the cocoa content should be at least 70%.

Tea

Many herbs have antispasmodic and anti-inflammatory effects. Prepared as a tea, they can help against menstrual pain. These include, for example, teas with yarrow, cinquefoil, lady’s mantle, verbena, nettle and chaste tree (see above).

Movement and Correct Breathing

Yes, exercising during menstruation is not as impossible as it sometimes feels. Sometimes cramps and tension are caused by a lack of physical activity, which causes tension to build up. Incomplete breathing and lack of exercise prevent the body from “adjusting” itself. The resulting tension is absorbed by the ovaries, making them immobile and rigid. If the tension is too great, the body tries to compensate with unsuitable muscles and nerves. This leads to pain and cycle disorders.

Introduction

Nearly 7% of the world population is obese1 and about 66% of the adults in the United States are overweight or obese.2 Obesity is associated with a number of adverse medical conditions including increased risk of gallbladder disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease (CHD), osteoarthritis, cancer death and reduced life expectancy.3–8 Obesity is also associated with adverse social and psychological consequences, including bias, discrimination and decreased quality of life.9,10

More effective treatment strategies are urgently needed for obesity management. The total caloric intake or energy density of one’s diet appears to be associated with obesity11–14 and a diet that induces a negative energy balance continues to be an important part of obesity management. Strategies to achieve the difficult task of eating less than desired include reduction of the energy density of foods by increasing food volume by the addition of fluids,15,16 bulk17–19 or their combination;20 or by increasing satiety by various anorectic drugs or macronutrient combinations of high satiety value.

Satiety is positively associated with the protein, fiber and water content of foods and negatively with fat and palatability ratings.21,22 However, within food groups, there may be as much as a twofold difference in satiety values, suggesting that certain foods promote greater satiety independent of macronutrient content or energy density. An egg is an example of such a food that has a 50% greater satiety index compared to white bread or ready-to-eat breakfast cereal.21 Compared to an isocaloric bagel breakfast of equal weight, an egg breakfast had a greater satiating effect, which translated into a lower caloric intake at lunch.23 The resulting decrease in energy consumption lasted for at least 24 h after the egg breakfast.

This study was undertaken to exploit the short-term satiating benefits of an egg breakfast23 for weight loss in a longer-term trial. The objectives were to determine if the incorporation of an egg breakfast in the diet by overweight or obese subjects would (1) induce reduced energy intake and unintentional weight loss, even when not attempting weight reduction; or (2) enhance weight loss when following a reduced energy diet. We compared the effects of an egg vs isocaloric bagel breakfast of equal weight on weight loss, indices of body size and composition, dietary compliance, food cravings and health-specific quality of life.Materials and methods

The study was approved by the institutional review boards at Pennington Biomedical Research Center and at Saint Louis University. Written informed consent was obtained from the participants. We certify that all applicable institutional and governmental regulations regarding the ethical use of human volunteers were followed during this research.

Participants

Of the 160 participants enrolled, 8 did not complete the trial. The final study sample included 152 participants (131 women and 21 men; mean age 45.0±9.4 years; black participants 47.7% and white participants 52.3%). Demographic characteristics of the participants are provided inTable 1