Excess weight is associated with many diseases such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and so on. Losing even just a few pounds can improve your health and reduce your risk of illness. Here’s what your day can look like if you’re implementing some small changes to eat right and exercise:

You wake up feeling well-rested. Before you get out of bed, you take a minute to read the index cards that outline your weight loss goal and why it’s so important to you. You’re really looking forward to buying a new swimsuit. You grab a mini Larabar for fuel then hit the gym (or the pavement) for a work-out. Drinking a full bottle of water helps get you through.

Time for breakfast. You know you’re rushed in the morning, so you’ve planned ahead and made cereal power-packs. When you unloaded your groceries from your last shopping trip, you made up small plastic bags filled with a cup of cereal, a tablespoon of ground flax seeds and a ¼ cup each of walnuts and raisins. Since you know exactly what’s in each one, you’re able to add it to your food diary easily. You dump one into a bowl, add some milk and you’ve got a super-healthy breakfast.

Off to work. Commuting’s no fun, but polishing off another bottle of water makes it go a little faster.

Lunchtime will be spent in the conference room for a department meeting. The boss has ordered pizza and soda for everyone. Tempting, but you know you’ll feel bad later if you eat a few slices now. Good thing you ran down to the cafeteria and hit the salad bar beforehand. After the meeting starts, however, the smell of the pizza is too much, so you take half of a slice. It’s okay, because the bulk of your meal is a healthy salad, balancing out this small portion of a treat. You realize as you jot your lunch down in your food diary that only the first few bites of the pizza are the best anyway.

A quick mid-afternoon break is spent e-mailing your weight loss buddy. You touch base with each other every other day to check in and see how each other is doing. It helps you feel more accountable and it’s nice to have the support of a friend who has similar goals. Before you sign off, you make plans to  walk together this weekend.

Dinner’s not for a few more hours, but you’re hungry now. Time for a snack: an apple and peanut butter you brought from home. The healthy fat in the peanut butter fills you up and holds you until later. Feeling thirsty, you drink some more water.

Knowing that you had to work a little late today, you made a double-batch of soup last night: low-salt vegetable broth with a bag of frozen chopped vegetables, peeled shrimp and some brown rice. Easy. Tonight, you’ll toss some cherry tomatoes in as you heat it up to give it a slightly different flavor so it doesn’t feel like leftovers.

As you relax after dinner, you read through your food diary to make sure you wrote everything down. It took a few days to get used to doing this, but it feels like your eating is better controlled when you do it.  There’s a lot on your mind, but you know you’re making the best effort you can to lose weight. Good for you.

Which techniques outlined in this day can you do?

Lisa Corrado of Lisa Corrado Nutrition is a stellar chef and nutritionist. She is on a mission to help busy people eat healthier. Lisa offers nutritional counseling and coaching to help you cook and plan better meals. Check out her blog, A Moment in a Busy Life, which takes you on a healthy journey through good food and great choices.

Thinking of becoming a vegetarian? Sure, it’s kinder to animals, and good for the environment, but you may be asking yourself “What good does a vegetarian diet do for me?” Well, here are seven good reasons to kick the meat habit.

1. You’ll be richer. By taking chicken, fish and red meat off your grocery list, and replacing them with fruits, veggies and beans, you’ll save on average of $4,000 a year.

2. You’ll be thinner. Because vegetarians take in less fat and more fiber, they are also, on average, much thinner than those who eat meat. And not just a little bit –vegetarians and vegans are, on average, 20 pounds lighter than those who eat meat. Not only will this make you look good, but you’ll cut your risk of obesity-related diseases including Type 2 Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Hypertension. Many health insurance companies also verify that a majority of the most expensive diseases to cover can be reduced when an individual has a lower Body Mass Index (BMI).

3. You’ll be cleaner. The EPA has estimated that nearly all pesticide residues in our diet come from dairy, meat and fish products. Fish, in particular, is notorious for containing heavy metals and carcinogens. Not only will you be helping your body cleanse these chemicals out of your system by not taking them in the first place, the phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables help to detoxify the body naturally. In fact, most detox diets often start by replacing all meat and dairy products in the diet with juices, fruits and vegetables.

4. You’ll be stronger — that is — your bones will be stronger. In order to digest animal protein, your body needs calcium, and if you don’t have enough in your system to do the job, it is taken from bone mass. Studies have shown that at age 65, the average bone loss for a vegetarian woman is 18 percent compared to a non-vegetarian at 36 percent.

5. You’ll live longer. A study from Loma Linda University showed that vegetarians live about seven years longer than their meat-eating neighbors. And vegans, who eat no animal products at all, live an average of 15 years longer. The China Health Project, which did one of the largest population studies on diet and health to date, found that people who ate the least amount of animal products have the lowest risks of heart attacks, cancers and other degenerative diseases.

6. You’ll slash your risk of ‘the big c’. The National Cancer Institute says that women are four times more likely to get breast cancer if they eat red meat every day. Studies have also shown that a vegetarian diet also helps prevent skin, colon and prostate cancers.

7. You’ll have a happy heart. The American Heart Association recommends a well-planned vegetarian diet to reduce your risk of heart disease. Studies have shown that vegetarians who follow a well-balanced, low-fat and high fiber diet have a lower incidence of coronary artery disease and hypertension, two of the most common forms of heart disease.



Sally is a 29-year-old writer with a passion for health and wellness, green living, fashion and cooking.  In her free time she enjoys playing with her two English bulldogs.

Is Zumba an exercise program or a dance routine? The only answer that addresses both is a resounding ‘yes.’ Zumba is one of the fastest growing, dance aerobics exercises program in the country.

Combining large and small muscle movements and constant activity, these wildfire routines set to Latin and Caribbean tempos make getting healthy and stronger almost an afterthought. Matched only by its fun, its versatility just makes it even better.

Whether in a gym, a living room or a dorm room, Zumba can be performed almost anywhere!

Origins

The dance craze or the exercise boom started when its inventor was running late. No, he didn’t boogie his way to the aerobics class he taught, but he didn’t have time to pick up his standard music. He arrived at the gym with only the music he already had with him—salsa and merengue music. He improvised the routines that day, adjusting the rhythm slightly, and lo and behold, his class loved it. Zumba was born.

Within just a few years, Zumba fitness has grown from a local hit to an international favorite, and the decline of its popularity is nowhere to be seen.

Exercise

Zumba utilizes virtually every muscle group in the body. Wide, controlled arm sweeps exercise arms, shoulders, back and neck muscles. Abdominal muscles get a work-out in virtually every movement in Zumba which features rolling and swirling torso movement. Hips, thighs, calves and even feet are the workhorses that drive Zumba, most often using the merengue style of stiff leg movements.

The cardiovascular system is strengthened by this low-impact exercise style and its constant motion. Earning only momentary respite between dance tunes, the heart is required to pump harder, but the motions of head, arms and body can be modified to tailor fitness and health levels.

Dance

Salsa, reggae, and Haitian music anchor the tempos most often used with Zumba, but the movements can easily be adapted to hip hop or even some disco beats if desired.

Use the Zumba program DVDs to learn the basics and let yourself go and immerse yourself in the Latin undertones and the mesmerizing beats. Escalate your workout as you become more familiar with the routines and your fitness level rises until one day you realize you don’t think of it as exercise anymore.

It’s a chance to dance, to release every bit of stress and to permit yourself absence of worry. Life will resume shortly. For now, feel that beat seep into your bones and muscles and just dance.

General

Zumba exercises the entire body. It both wears you out from the exercise and invigorates you from your naturally produced endorphins and adrenaline.

While Zumba may not be for everyone, natural athletic ability isn’t required. You don’t even have to be a good dancer. You just have to like music, stick with it, and be willing to dance the moves and sometimes even improvise. That’s it.

Zumba Fitness program is recognized by the Aerobics Fitness Association of America, IDEA Health and Fitness Association, and the American Council on Exercise.

Summary

You can Zumba when you’re alone or when you’re with a crowd. Give yourself just a bit of room to move, start the music and let the party begin!

Do you Zumba?

About the Author
JC Ryan is a freelance writer for MyCollegesandCareers.com. My Colleges and Careers helps people determine if an online education is right for them and helps them understand which online courses and online schools they can choose from to reach their goals.

Anyone who has ever felt ‘down in the dumps’ or who has entered a ‘blue mood’ in their lives usually claims to be depressed. However, this is not really the case. Depression is not a passing phase that works itself out within a few hours. True clinical depression is a psycho-chemical reaction within your body and mind. What we think leads to how we feel. In turn, how we feel changes how we think. Depression strikes young people frequently for many reasons.

Stress is a slow killer. Prolonged stress can lead to hypertension, blood pressure, blood clots and so on, even causing strokes. Stress is caused due to several reasons. Life is filled with stress factors; the amount of stress that a person experiences depends on how that person reacts to the stress factor.  Since the level of reaction differs, the same stress factor affects different people differently. In simple terms, stress is defined as any physical or emotional demand that a person feels unable to handle.

• Parental Stress

The task of raising children from infancy to adulthood can cause a great deal of stress, anxiety and worry in parents. Not every person is suited for this task; however, people don’t quiz themselves on parenting ability before becoming parents. As a result, when the children arrive, they find themselves at odds and experience a great deal of stress over what can be termed regular ups and downs while raising a child. Trivial daily hassles build up and add to the pressure until the parent is ready to burst with anger and frustration. For any kind of parent, it’s tough to remain cool, calm and full of energy can be difficult. Being responsible for and continuously loving underperforming children, child aggressiveness, unruly kids and step kids, hyperactive kids, difficult and challenging kids, and sick kids can stress parents to the breaking point.

Handling Parental Stress Naturally

Parenting can be a true pleasure if you handle it naturally. To avoid the stresses inherent in parenting, you need to accept the fact that stress can`t be avoided. If stress becomes too much, ask for and seek support from your family and from professionals, if need be. Plan your day in advance so that you have the bandwidth to deal with emergencies. Talk to your children and tell them how you feel without laying the blame on them. When children fail, don’t judge them; rather, teach them to accept failure as a part of life and encourage them to strive harder. Listen to your children; children want to be heard. When they’re not heard, they try to get your attention using means that’ll stress you out further. So listen to your children and pay heed to the things they say and the things that they are unable to say. Spend quality time with your children and you’ll find that in the giving and receiving, your parental stress will reduce on its own.

• Relationship And Marital Stress

Adults suffer severe stress due to deteriorating relationships and bad marriages. When a relationship goes bad, usually people blame their spouse or partner for the mess. Divorces are hitting an all time high; there are endless cases of alimony suits, physical abuse in marriage, stressed single parents, kids rebelling when parents split and so on. Handling a relationship requires much patience and tolerance. However, instead of handling a relationship’s stresses, people choose escape routes such as adultery and substance abuse. This gives rise to further issues within a marriage. Marital stress manifests itself as chronic disorders such as insomnia, hypertension and depression.

Handling Relationship Stress Naturally

Make quality time for your partner or spouse. Remember that when you enter a committed relationship, you promise to give of yourself fully.  This means you cannot be selfish and take care of only your needs. Your marriage cannot work on its own; it needs you to make it work. Always remember how things were at the beginning. Weren’t they perfect? Then what went wrong? An unaffectionate spouse does not turn into a vile, aggressive one overnight without some cause, either external or internal. Attend couples counseling to find out the root of the problem between you and your partner. Forgive your mistakes and those of your partner. Remember that when two people are involved, there is bound to be a certain amount of misunderstanding. Make allowances for this, and instead of reacting aggressively, stay calm and wait for your partner to catch up. It’s a good idea for couples to attend meditation classes and yoga classes together. Not only will they bond better, but they will understand how to deal with common areas of friction better. It’s easy to give in to stress, suffer and make your partner suffer needlessly. However, if you took charge and decided to make matters smoother, your stress will reduce and your health will improve reasonably.

• Career And Family Stresses

Everyone wants a challenging career. In the beginning, a challenging career seems to be a reward in itself; working with like-minded people and enjoying success at work gives a high that can be somewhat addictive. However, when a person starts a family, or has a family that needs more of him or her, balancing family needs with professional demands becomes a tricky and frustrating challenge. This conflict can give rise to guilt, feelings of inadequacy, anger, secretive behavior and depression.

Handling Career And Family Stresses Naturally

The trick to balancing career and family priorities is to evaluate one’s choices and make time for both work and play. Remember that the people in your life have a right to your time. however, also remember that they don’t have the right to judge you or make you feel guilty over your obsession with work. If you feel aggressive towards your family for being harsh in this area, consult a professional counselor immediately. Even when you use all your resources to find solutions, you might still feel inadequate. Get your family together in a room and talk it out with them. Make sure that an objective third party arbitrator is present so that things don’t get out of hand. The idea is for you to achieve a happy balance and to find the motivation to do so.  If things are bad, take a break from your family and from work to mull things over in private. You need to take these steps before drastic situations occur. More suicides occur when people find themselves unable to deal with work and family stresses put together.  Unable to satisfy either front and growing desperately unhappy within, many sad people have killed themselves instead of seeking external help. Don’t let this happen to you.

John Smith manages an online nursing uniforms store offering a wide range of scrub tops, pants and lab coats.