Health Beauty & FitnessHealth, Beauty, Fitness Tips

We all know we need water to survive, but try convincing a seven-year-old of that fact. Lots of kids don’t like water and would rather have a sugary juice or soda pop. It’s the duty of the parent to ensure their child is getting enough water in their diet.

Drinking water is a very important key to overall health for kids. Water is an essential nutrient that composes 50 to 60 percent of your total body weight. Water is the key component which transports other nutrients throughout your body to help build and repair cells. Blood needs water to carry oxygen throughout the body, which is why one would die if they were deprived of water for several days.

Although it varies from person to person, it is recommended that kids drink six to eight glasses of pure water per day. Additional amounts should be considered during warm weather and when exercising or just playing in the yard.

While the best source is a glass of pure water, kids can also get water into their bodies though certain foods. Think of all the delicious fruits and vegetables that have large amounts of water: grapes, peaches, oranges, green pepper, tomatoes and celery.

It’s best to get kids in the habit of drinking water early. A child spoiled by flavorful drinks may start to refuse water altogether. Understand the dangers of those alternative drinks. Most soda pop is filled with sugar or the deadly sugar substitute aspartame. Very unhealthy, not to mention most of these drinks have caffeine which is a diuretic and actually takes water out of your body.

One can of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine and is loaded with preservatives and other artificial food colors and sulphites. Studies have linked soda to osteoporosis, obesity, tooth decay and heart disease.

Even juices are packed with sugar, and many have the same amount of sugar as sodas. It’s recommended to water down juices when given to children: no more than 50% juice and the rest water. Even in those cases, the amount of juice given to a child should be in small quantities.

For a child to drink a proper amount of water, the responsibility begins and ends with the parents. They have a great influence on their child’s drink intake. It’s best to lead by example. If a child sees his parents consistently drinking soda, they will also want soda.

Parents should do their best to provide pure drinking water for their kids and consume water filled fruits and vegetables. This will improve and maintain the health of the family.

If you are interested in learning more about kids health and nutrition then check out our special kids health and exercise section.

Source: Journal of the American Dietetic Association

The difference between wants and need while spending money in a recessive economy. This economic recession is a great reason to cut down on frivolous spending.

The best thing about jade massage stones is if you don’t need them, why waste money on them. I know the title is catchy but it still highlights the difference in between wanting something and needing it. Especially when your budget is super tight.

Avoid Impulse Buying

If you don’t need it to clothe, shelter or feed you is it absolutely necessary. Think about whether you can live underneath that television if your house was unavailable, could you eat it or can you wear it? Avoid impulse buying at all costs. Impulse buying happens when you have money and you just buy things because you want them and you have the money.

Research

Get help. Read up on ways to stretch your buck. Find cheaper alternatives to things that you need. Search the net for tips on how to save and spend money practically.

Clip coupons

You can save lots and lots of money using coupons. Those few cents off makes a major difference when accumulated together. Cents spend too, why not save them.

Write a list

It was well known that if you write a list and stick to it, you would save more money. People tend to overspend when they go into the store with no plan or ideas.

Go grocery shopping without the kids

Kids tend to ask for things that are unnecessary like candy bars, those colorful juices made to get their attention and all other things. We just want to give our kids what they ask for even if we can’t afford it. Do yourself a favor and avoid the grocery trap set especially for your children and leave them with family so you can shop in peace and economically.

Inquire about Budget Billing

Most budget billing programs will evaluate your usage and set a bill amount for 12 months. So if your electric usage equals $60 per month, they can set your to be $70 per month that is your monthly rate. Inquire with your utility companies about budget billing.

Enroll in Award Programs

Commerce bank used to have a program when every time you broke a dollar they would put the change into your savings account. For example, I bought some jade massage stones for $157.23 and used my check card to make the purchase. The bank would put the $.77 left over into my savings account

It is so easy to spend money but not so easy get money to replenish what was lost. If you do need to spend money, do it responsibly. While the economy is tiptoeing back to a sound level, it is important to be prepared for an emergency such as job loss, cut wages or unexpected expenses.

Use these tips to help you cut down on your out of control spending habits. Remember, we are in recessive economic times and the money you used to spend may not be available now.

Many people have an unscientific approach to dieting. They see the headline: “Lose one pound a week if you cut your food intake by 500 calories a day”. Without much thought, they sign up because 500 calories does not sound very many calories to lose and one pound lost every week is a good reward to aim for. So then they start asking the important questions like, “What is a calorie?” and “How do you measure the number of calories?” This can finish a few people’s interest before they start. Some will just assume they can guess and it will all turn out right if they eat less. It takes slightly more commitment to make it to the final stage which is menu planning. Why plan menus? Because one of the problems of many diets is they get boring unless you change things around on a regular basis. So actually sitting down to pick out a few recipes you like and put a week’s menu together is a good way of keeping up interest. All of which brings us to the Big Breakfast Diet.

Recently, a team of researchers based at the Virginia Commonwealth University found that women who ate bigger breakfasts as part of a low-carb diet lost more weight than those who ate a low-carb diet spread out over the day. Both groups ate between 1,200 and 1,300 calories a day but the “big breakfast” is at least half the daily intake. You do not have to eat all this in one sitting. You can spread it out between the time you wake and 9 a.m. The intention is to help you feel full. In turn, this will give you the strength to resist the temptation to snack before you get to lunch. The ideal strategy sees you come down to three meals a day at regular times with no other food added in. When starting off, you may find it useful to keep some fruit around and, if you do feel a little hungry, eat an apple. Remember to cut out sweetened juices and sodas, and drink plenty of water.

As breakfast, look for a good mixture of low carb and protein. Fruit, cereal with milk, two slices of wholegrain bread, and your choice of eggs, some cheese, or slices of ham or turkey, i.e. a continental style of breakfast. Lunch and dinner should be more exclusively low carb, aiming for about 350 calories per meal. They can be based around a few ounces of chicken, turkey, pork or fish with plenty of green vegetables and a side salad, i.e. some protein and low GI, low starch vegetables and greens. The results showed both groups of dieters losing about the same percentage of body weight during the first four months but, after that, the big breakfasters went on to lose significantly more weight. By the end of the eighth week, the big breakfast group had lost up to four times the weight of the low-carb group. If motivation does prove a problem, you can add phentermine into the weight loss strategy to cover the afternoon when the craving for a snack may catch you unawares. It is easy to buy phentermine online and it offers complete appetite suppression, seeing you through into the evening without giving in to snacking. With this drug’s help, you can maintain the diet and lose a significant number of pounds.

Your risk of developing exercise induced heartburn increases if you exercise too soon after a meal, particularly a large meal. If possible, wait several hours after a meal before heading to the gym to give your food a chance to move out of the stomach into the small intestines. Try to avoid overindulging at mealtime if you know you’ll be exercising later that day.

Try it yourself; have someone sit on your stomach after a meal and watch the acid rise back up the digestive tract. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling. Imagine how uncomfortable it will be for a pregnant woman.

There may be ways to stop heartburn naturally, depending on how severe your case becomes. For example, eating smaller meals more frequently instead of a few large meals throughout the day may prevent heartburn from occurring. Similarly, if you’re significantly overweight you have a higher chance of recurring heartburn; eat sensibly and exercise, and you may be able to prevent heartburn altogether. Subsequently, you probably want to avoid spicy and fried foods because these are common triggers of most cases of heartburn.

Avoid foods that are fatty, spicy or greasy. If you have to eat them, eat in moderation. Citrus fruits and juices, tomatoes, chocolate and onions are foods that may trigger heartburn as well.

Alcohol relaxes the lower esophageal sphincter, allowing the reflux of stomach contents into the esophagus. It also increases the production of stomach acid. If you want to consume alcohol, follow these tips: Dilute alcoholic beverages with water or club soda, drink moderate amounts of alcoholic beverages — the suggested amounts are 1-2 mixed drinks, 12-16 ounces of wine, or 2-3 beers, drink white wine instead of red, choose non-alcoholic beer or wine whenever you can.

Change your sleep position. Raising your head or shoulders slightly (about four to six inches) can keep stomach acid where it belongs. Try putting blocks under the legs at the head of your bed or adding a small pillow. Some studies also have suggested that sleeping on your left side can speed up digestion.

Gain the proper amount of weight as discussed by your doctor. Heartburn is more prevalent in obese people. While most pregnant women can healthily gain about 30 pounds during pregnancy, this weight should be added gradually, over the course of several months.

When you have had a meal, resist the temptation to either lay down or sit back with your feet in a raised position. This is a common catalyst for pregnancy heartburn. When you lay back you’re inviting food to travel back up your digestive tract.

Gallstones are solid deposits of cholesterol or calcium salts that form in your gallbladder or nearby bile ducts. They often cause no symptoms and require no treatment. Sometimes, however, gallstones cause chronic indigestion, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting.

Raise the head of your bed so that your head and chest are higher than your feet. You can do this by placing 6-inch blocks under the bedposts at the head of the bed. Don’t use piles of pillows to achieve the same goal. You will only put your head at an angle that can increase pressure on your stomach and make your heartburn worse.