My Daily Wellness Tip

Weather & Your Health

Taken from www.weather.com

For as long as people have been aware of weather, they've pondered its impact on their health. The Greeks noted the effect of "hot and cold winds" on pain and illness 2,400 years ago. During the Civil War, physicians wrote about amputee soldiers sensing pain in their "phantom" limbs when the weather changed. And folk wisdom tells of people who "feel the weather in their bones."

In modern times, doctors continue to explore the connection between weather and pain, especially in relation to chronic conditions such as migraine headaches and arthritis.

While many people maintain that the weather affects how they feel, scientific studies linking weather to chronic pain don't always agree. Some doctors say it's a matter of perception; patients might feel worse on a rainy day, they say, just because it's gloomy. But others say the pain is very real. Not all people who suffer from chronic pain feel effects from the weather. Among those who do, reactions depend on the individual and can be hard to measure.

For those people who are sensitive to weather, changes in weather are generally more likely to affect them than specific weather conditions. Doctors who specialize in chronic pain sometimes suggest that patients keep a detailed journal of weather conditions to establish a possible relationship to their pain.

In particular, the following weather factors may contribute to aches and pains:

Click here for the full article.

Healthy Eggnog Recipe

Ingredients;

6 cups almond milk (either unsweetened plain or unsweetened vanilla)
1 cup eggwhites (or I like to use at least 1 whole egg in there)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons rum extract
stevia to taste
2 x pinch nutmeg, ground
2 x pinch cinnamon, ground

In a medium saucepan heat the almond milk, eggs and stevia.
You’ll need to remember to stir continuously. Heat & stir until the mixture thickens slightly – enough that it can coat the back of a spoon.
Stir in the vanilla essence, rum extract, one pinch of nutmeg & one pinch of cinnamon.
Remove from heat (or microwave).
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the eggnog has cooled (at least 3 hours).
Just prior to serving, ladle your yummy low fat eggnog into glasses, and garnish each with an extra little sprinkle of ground nutmeg & ground cinnamon.

Serves: 6.

The Renegade Health Top 10 Weight Loss Tips

Prescriptions now biggest cause of fatal drug overdoses

Taken from USA TODAY

Addiction to prescription painkillers — which kill thousands of Americans a year — has become a largely unrecognized epidemic, experts say. In fact, prescription drugs cause most of the more than 26,000 fatal overdoses each year, says Leonard Paulozzi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The number of overdose deaths from opioid painkillers — opium-like drugs that include morphine and codeine — more than tripled from 1999 to 2006, to 13,800 deaths that year, according to CDC statistics released Wednesday.

In the past, most overdoses were due to illegal narcotics, such as heroin, with most deaths in big cities. Prescription painkillers have now surpassed heroin and cocaine, however, as the leading cause of fatal overdoses, Paulozzi says. And the rate of fatal overdoses is now about as high in rural areas — 7.8 deaths per 100,000 people — as in cities, where the rate is 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people, according to a paper he published last year in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.

"The biggest and fastest-growing part of America's drug problem is prescription drug abuse," says Robert DuPont, a former White House drug czar and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "The statistics are unmistakable."

Click here for the full article.

Superfood - Pomegranates

Pomegranates are a popular food this time of year AND they are good for you! All while being very tasty.

They are rich in antioxidants that can keep bad LDL cholesterol from oxidizing (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, May 2000). In addition, pomegranate juice, like aspirin, can help keep blood platelets from clumping together to form unwanted clots.

Pomegranate compounds might prevent prostate cancer or slow its growth. In mice, treatment with pomegranate extract delayed the development of tumors and improved survival (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Sept. 26, 2005). Other research reports suggest that pomegranate juice might help reduce the risk of breast cancer.

Even arthritis may yield to the power of pomegranates. Scientists at Case Western Reserve University have reported that tissue cultures of human cartilage cells respond to pomegranate extract. Inflammation is reduced and the enzymes that break down cartilage become less active (Journal of Nutrition, Sept. 2005).

Be aware though: Pomegranate juice appears to interfere with certain medications much as grapefruit juice does (Drug Metabolism and Disposition, May 2005).

Also there is enough sugar in them so eat them along with other foods to slow down the absorption of the sugar into your bloodstream.

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Cancer Fighting Foods

Eat more of these and you're on your way to preventing cancer and other diseases!

Avocados

Broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower

Carrots

Chili peppers and jalapenos

Figs

Flax

Garlic

Grapefruits

Grapes, red

Kale

Mushrooms

Oranges and lemons

Papayas

Rosemary

Sweet potatoes

Tomatoes

Tumeric

Our Story

Doctors' Deal With Coke Creates Uproar

By LINDSEY TANNER,AP

CHICAGO (Nov. 5) -- Advice about soft drinks and health from one of the nation's largest doctors groups will soon be brought to you by Coke.

The American Academy of Family Physicians has prompted outcry and lost members over its new six-figure alliance with the Coca-Cola Co. The deal will fund educational materials about soft drinks for the academy's consumer health and wellness Web site, www.FamilyDoctor.org.

 

Click here for the full article.

Coconut Baked Chicken

 

• 1 free-range organic chicken, cut up
• virgin coconut oil, melted
• 1 egg
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup coconut flour
• ½ cup finely grated unsweetened dried coconut

Preheat oven to 350.

Wash, drain and pat dry the chicken pieces. Coat each piece with melted virgin oil. Beat egg in a large mixing bowl and add salt and pepper to taste. Add chicken to egg mixture and stir to coat.

Mix flour with finely coconut and coat each piece of chicken with mixture. Lightly oil glass casserole pan with coconut oil and place pieces of chicken in the pan. Bake on upper rack of oven for about 45 minutes in preheated oven.

*Chicken should be close to room temperature. Coconut oil stays liquid above 77 degrees. If your chicken is cold, the oil will solidify and break away from the chicken if not handled carefully.

Kipping Pull up Not Effective For Building Muscle

I like the kipping pull up but it's not a muscle building movement.

A kipping pull up should be used as a way to build power or explosive endurance It involves a lot of  momentum and elastic energy. The same way you would use an Olympic lift or a box jump.

Like all trends, the problem I see is that people seem to think there's only one way of going about it and that's not the case.

The right thing to do if your goal is to put on muscle is to use the kipping pull up in the strength phase of your training. Kipping pull ups will not build muscle like slow pull ups will, in fact if you do kipping pull ups for more than a 4 week phase you will decrease the amount of regular conventional pull up you can do and your likely to develop a sticking point half way because that part of the movement has been replaced with momentum during the kip.

Kipping is great to use as a way to build power in the lats, chest, forearms and will help you perform double the amount of reps than using a conventional pull up. It helped me get 52 reps in a row!

But if your looking to gain larger lats, there's nothing that beats the good old school slow tempo pull up.

To D or not to D: It's not a question

The science is clear: Vitamin D is an inexpensive pill with powerful benefits

By Julie Mason, The Ottawa Citizen

Like many Canadians, I begin each morning by taking pills. The biggest is a multivitamin the size of my thumb. A Clydesdale would have trouble choking it down. The smallest pill, no bigger than a Tic-Tac, may be the most powerful. The tiny vitamin D tablet seems to be a secret weapon against everything from cancer to swine flu.

Click here for the full article.

www.giveyourheadashake.ca

Here is another good website where you can find quick and easy ways to reduce sodium in your diet.

Farm Boy Rocks!

Farm Boy is a great grocery store and I would go as far to say that it rocks.
Anyone health conscious falls in love with this store.

Here's why I like Farm Boy so much.

• They are all about the quality of their food
• They have a huge produce section
• I can barely find potato chips in their store
• They promote healthy eating by putting me in their flyer!

Download this weeks flyer here for a tip on what to eat pre workout.

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