Surgical Weight Loss

We take a closer look at the reasons over-weight people and their families are considering surgery to combat the extra kilos and what are the necessary facts anyone opting for this method of weight loss needs to be aware of so as to be an informed and aware consumer of health care products and services, especially in the modern context. For those who have watched what they are eating and also tried out various exercise options besides fad diets, pills and gadgets promising weight loss but still find body beautiful eludes them, weight loss surgery may well be the answer to all their woes. But, how far is it safe? Is it a long-term option for weight loss and weight management both? What are the possible side-effects of going under the knife? Who can benefit from it? Are there any restrictions on your lifestyle after you go in for weight loss surgery? How much does it cost? What kind of procedures are followed for weight loss surgery and how can one decide whether one is ready for it or not? Which doctor is best for performing weight loss surgery? Does medical insurance cover weight loss surgery? What is the after-care requirement of weight loss surgery? All these questions need to be addressed first before one opts for weight loss surgery.

Lee Stafford Hair Growth Treatment

As you know I am always moaning about how my hair will never grow as it's over processed with all the bleach that I use on it so when I saw that Lee Stafford had brought out a new Hair Growth range I just had to give it a go! Hair Growth Treatment with Pro Growth complex for strength from within. Contains protein based complex to fertilize your follicles creating a healthy environment on the scalp to help hair grow faster and reach its maximum potential length. "If the earths not nourished you'll never grow beautiful flowers". The hair growth mask is perfect to use just after you have rinsed out the shampoo. Apply an egg sized amount of the pink treatment to roots and ends of your hair. Leave it for 5 - 10 minutes and rinse. I love the smell of this treatment its a fresh natural smell, I personally think it smells like lavender which is gorgeous! After using this for a few weeks now I can say that my hair feels and looks healthier especially on the ends of my hair. They are always screaming out for moisture and this is definitely doing that. However I cant say that I have noticed any growth in my hair but I guess I cant be rapunzel over night. And hair has to be healthy before it will grow so hopefully if I keep using this treatment my hair will become healthy and then decide to grow... roll on rapunzel! You can pick up Lee Stafford's Hair Growth treatment along with more of the hair growth range from your local boots. 

Incentivisation, Addiction, Prevention

Robert Verkerk, PhD, the executive and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health International pointed to World Health Organization (WHO) platform advocating nutritional solutions to the obesity - diabetes problem that few governments had adequately heeded. “To date most governments have paid little more than lip service to the idea,” he said. “The problem is incentive, both from the perspective of the consumer, as well as from the food industry and health profession. The typical consumer has in some ways become an addict, and to get them to transition between less healthy diets and lifestyles to more healthy ones, requires more than just pointing out the direction they should move in”. "The medical profession has no experience of real prevention. The model is still based on people only responding once they have entered a dysfunctional state. This is just too late to be either efficient or sustainable. The education given to doctors on nutrition and lifestyle mediated healthcare is negligible, and even that given to dietitians is greatly limited. "We need to see a revolution in healthcare education, where healthcare, in the true sense of the word (not to be confused with disease management), is something that is proactively handled in the home, at work, at schools, at universities and through all branches of the healthcare professions. This takes time, but it’s better to start, than never to begin”.

How to Lose Stomach Fat

Stomach fat, which is also known as love handle fat, can be a tricky thing to get rid of. If you are tired of having it, then you may want to find ways to lose that stomach fat once and for all. The thing you may have realized is that the stomach fat is usually the last thing that you will get rid of when toning up your body. This can cause some people to feel that it is nearly impossible to get rid of it. The good news is it is possible to lose stomach fat and lose it fast. Women and men alike no longer have to worry about that stubborn bit of fat that they cannot seem to work off. How to Lose Stomach Fat? There are a few diet techniques that will help you to lose stomach fat. The best thing to do is to cut down on your sugar intake. Sugary foods tend to go straight to the midsection and that does not promote fat loss in the area. Another thing that you can do is to eat smaller meals to help keep your metabolic rate higher. Try to eat foods that are high in fiber or whole grain and follow healthy lifestyle tips. These will also help you to have the energy that you need to stick to the diets and get rid of that stomach fat once and for all. How to Lose Stomach Fat Fast? The best way to make sure that you are losing the stomach fast as fast as you would like is by making sure that you are not over eating.

If you know how many calories you should take in during the day, and stick within that range, then you are in the right direction. The next thing that you should do is to work on different exercises that will target the stomach area. This will help you to make sure that you are getting rid of the fat fast. If you rely just on dieting, you will not see the results as quickly. You may not even see them at all. Do exercises (minimum 30 minutes per session) that will focus on that area. How to Lose Stomach Fat for Women? Women may ask, what exercises work the best for getting rid of stomach fat. The best thing that you can do is sit ups or crunches. These will help build the muscle in your abdominal area and will promote the burning of fat. You can also do things such as twists. This will help to keep those muscles moving and help to burn fat as well. As you can see, it does not have to be hard to get rid of that unwanted stomach fat. Women actually will have an easier time than men in most of the cases. Just stick with it, and you are sure to see the results that you are looking for in a few weeks or in a month. Your clothing will start to look and fit better. It will help keep you on the right track in the long run.

Easy Diet Tips

I have always been battling with my weight and I have tried every diet that I have read about in magazines. No carbs, maple syrup, soup only... yeah I lost weight quickly but it all comes back on as quickly as I lost it! I'm now just choosing to eat what I want but watching my portion sizes and snacks. I am a big snack lover! I cannot say no to a pack of crisps lol So here are some tips that I have learnt along the way which I have found to be really good when dieting. You must have breakfast whether its just a piece of fruit. Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day so if you want a fry up have it for breakfast and be really good throughout the day. If you're hungry drink some water. Water fills you up and its good for you bonus! Alex Curran (wag) swears by taking a Sea Kelp supplement to stop her cravings during the day.

You take 1 tablet before a meal and its meant to help you feel full quickly too. I take them and I think they work well. Nip+Fab do amazing creams for different target areas. I love the Tummy Fix and the Cellulite Fix creams. They help to tone the skin which is a lot easier than an hour down the gym. Green Tea. I have always loved Green Tea and its great cleanser for your body. One cup in the morning will help to boost your metabolism and act as an antioxidant. Sniff Vanilla. Smelling Vanilla is proven to suppress your appetite so keep a tissue with vanilla drops in your handbag at all times. Eat Apples. They will fill you up and they practically have no calories as your body works hard to digest the apple skin making it a free snack. Scrub Scrub Scrub! When you use a body scrub you are helping the blood circulation in your body so the more you scrub the healthier your skin looks and fatty tissues becomes less visible.

Ekineda - Icy Rose (Icey Rose)

Isn't it always superbly refreshing to discover a brand no one seems to know much about? Doesn't it renew all the interest and passion you might have lost into something if ever? When I came across that brand name of polish called Ekineda, my first reflex was to google it to find out if any of my fellow nail blogger had mentioned this brand before. So far, I found nothing. Unless my google search is doomed, I can conclude it's mainly unknown. "Great!" did I think. I love to explore new horizons. I love to be the first to leave my step into the fresh snow. Nothing excite me more than a new land to conquer and this is precisely what Ekineda looked like to me: a virgin land. So far, all I know is that it is a big 3 free English brand. I should maybe have written them to know more, ask them when the brand was founded, who they were. I bought their polish instead and tested them which is possibly even better than a thousand words. It's possible then that I have about a 20 of those to show you. I told you there was space to explore. Their color collection is small (30 colors) and I admit, pretty conservative (lots of pink) but the formula is smooth and great and there are some awesome finds here, like the drop dead gorgeous "Emerald Sky". That being said, I won't be starting with this one and will do with a very special color. Maybe not so special to many (what can be so noticeable in a pink among thousand ones?) but "Icy Rose" is very special to me. Back in my early teenage, the French brand Bourjois had a polish in their permanent collection called "Violetta". Violetta was a chrome pink lilac. I have emptied three 15ml bottles of this one until they revamped it along with their bottle design. "Violetta" then became a banal coral based pink shimmer and a very disappointing misnommer. They ended up eventually discontinuing it.

I think I have searched for a dupe of the original "Violetta" starting from that time. I have bought numerous pink colors in the brands we all know without ever coming close (with the exception of CHI "Lost my Bi-CHI-Ni" which was in the good vibe). Believe me or not, a pink-lilac chrome that is not a dusty pink is not very easy to find. At least not one like I have in head. "Icy Rose" is not exactly like Violetta but come so close in the base color that I can consider myself happy to have found a replacement. As a matter of fact, Icy Rose is a pinch darker and it's perfect to me. So, "Icy Rose" (on the website it is called "Icey Rose" but my bottle state "Icy Rose") is a pink that you'd think frost but as I can't see brush strokes on my nails (photo enhance them - they're not visible in real life), it comes as a chrome. A bright and strong pink leaning toward purple. Ekineda describes it as a dusky lilac-pink. I'll describe it as a varicose pinky purple. It's darker in the bottle than on nails due to the light reflective quality of the polish. As I didn't know the brand, I didn't know what to expect but the formula is superb, opaque in 2 coats and fast drying. The polish is neither too thin, neither too thick. The only bad thing is that it tends to bubble if I apply it too fast by a too hot weather. Also the polish will cheap easily without a top coat. Both issue can be solved in applying carefully when the weather is not too hot and applying a top coat. I adore it on my nails, as you might have guessed. I can't believe I have emptied half a bottle of my "Icy Rose" already and it's barely been more or less a month since I discovered the brand. It's saying how I love it. And it's not every time that I'm wearing the same polish 4 times in a row. I will be featuring more color to present you the brand because I bought a lot of colors. Not everything is worthy for sure but isn't it like in every brand we know?

Lemon Detox Diet

The purpose of detox diets is to get rid of toxins from our bodies. The body has a natural detox mechanism but it cannot keep up with the large number of toxins that are constantly fed into it, hence the need for detox diets. Read more about the detox diet plan, and detox diets for weight loss. A body detox diet that gained popularity after being used by music celebrity Beyonce, is the lemon detox diet. It is a purely liquid diet and you will need to compensate for lacking roughage by using a laxative every night to enable bowel movement. Remember to take a salt solution every morning.

The science behind this diet is that early in the morning some form of osmosis takes place when the salt solution draws liquid into the intestines and flushes out toxins. Solids are absent therefore allowing the digestive system to relax. The enzymes found in the lemon juice break down harmful substances that are present in the colon. The ingredients for the lemon detox diet are water, 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of organic maple syrup and 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper. The above proportions will only yield one serving so you will need to prepare enough to give eight servings in a day.

Liver Detox Diet

The liver detox diet is targeted towards cleansing the liver. The detox diet menu comprises of water, fruits and vegetables. This is a 7 day detox diet where on the first, second and third days, you drink up to 12 glasses of water per day while totally avoiding dairy products. On the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh days, squeeze some fresh organic juice from fruits and vegetables. Upon completion of this diet, gradually resume a healthy lifestyle which beats detox diets. One of the best detox diets is the raw food detox diet which is also dependent on enzymes’ action in the body. Enzymes found in raw food cleanse the digestive system. The most sustainable way of going into a raw food detox diet is by starting with small quantities of uncooked food and increasing gradually. As its name suggests, the popular three day detox diet takes three days to complete. Breakfast comprises of a cup of warm water with lemon juice instead of tea or coffee. In any particular day, ensure that you eat a cup of whole grains, a serving of fruits and raw vegetables. During any of the three days, take two doses of liver or kidney tonic. As with all detox diets, take lots of water and fresh fruit and vegetable juices.

Weight Loss Pills

What do you need to know about the weight loss pills? The pharmaceutical companies who manufacture weight loss pills are enjoying a boom time at the moment feeding off the desperation of a populus that is increasing in weight year after year. Sales of prescribed weight loss pills and over the counter variants are going through the roof since the health scares surrounding types of this product caused it to be removed from circulation during the late 1990s. Links to heart valve disease were something of a death nail to the weight loss pill market. Nowadays, the weight loss pill is experiencing a renaissance. According to the pharmaceutical companies these weight loss pills are made completely of natural ingredients and are no longer of risk but yet they are still dogged by health issues. Weight loss pills can be either prescribed or bought over the counter and the difference between the two are briefly highlighted here. Prescription. Weight loss pills that are prescribed are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration agency. These pills have been monitored and scrutinized by the administration prior to use by the general public and as such are deemed the safer option. The most popular of these is Xenical which works by reducing the amount of fat consumed by the body by 30 %. Unfortunately, Xenical is still dogged by side effects that include passing gas, abdominal cramping, increased number of bowel movements, leakage of oily stool and a loss of total control over bowel movements. Over the counter weight loss pills. The temptation to use over-the-counter weight-loss pills is often irresistible and the fact that many are not regulated warrants the question, are these products safe?

There are many pharmaceutical companies cashing in on the revived weight loss pill market and this is mirrored by the myriad of products available. Here is a shortlist of products, their claims and what you need to know: Hoodia. Possibly one of the better known products, claims to decrease appetite substantially. Verdict: no conclusive evidence to support any of their claims. Alli. Reduces fat absorption by the intestines. A lesser strength variant of Xenical. Verdict: as one of the few FDA approved over the counter weight loss pills it has the benefit of backing to substantiate its weight loss claims. Guar gum. Stops absorption of fat and suppresses appetite. Verdict: unlikely to cause weight loss, can cause gastrointestinal problems. Green tea extract. Much revered in certain circles as it is claimed to increase metabolism. Verdict: limited supportive evidence. There are literally hundreds more all with relatively the same verdict. There is one resounding factor that all of these weight loss pills have in common. They all state that they are more effective when used in conjunction with a diet and a exercise routine. If you decide to use a weight loss pill and follow its instruction to use a diet and an exercise program isn’t that hiding whether or not the tablet is effective or not? Personally, I would forget the weight loss pill and look for an effective weight loss plan that will: not tell me to go on a low calorie diet yet still provide me with fast but sustained weight loss, not put my health at risk, not cost a fortune, and not be difficult to keep up. Never take diet drugs if pregnancy is suspected or if you are allergic to sulfites and tartrazine. Individuals under 18 or over 60 should consult their doctor prior to taking weight loss pills.