Posts Tagged ‘ healthiness ’

With gorgeous actress Kate Beckinsale claiming that she has “fat ass” days – when she feels so insecure that she won’t leave her house – is there any hope for us lesser mortals? If, like Kate, you have your own hang-ups about your bum, read our seven celebrity tips to help you tone up and get the perfect behind

1. USE A POWER PLATE LIKE MADONNA

Madonna is continually re-inventing her image, but one thing that has stayed constant over the years is her toned figure. She’s a fan of horse-riding, which is great for toning your bum and burning calories. Her energetic dance routines also help to keep her in shape, along with her regular Pilates and Ashtanga yoga sessions. According to reports, Madonna has now become a fan of the new celeb fitness must have – a power plate – joining the likes of Sadie Frost and Jemima French. The plate is a cross between scales and a gym bike. It helps to tone muscles and reduce cellulite, with users standing on a vibrating platform to wobble the pounds and inches away. The only downside is that it costs a whopping £2,600. But, if Madonna’s leotard-clad figure in her video Hung Up is anything to go by, then it appears to have had the desired effect.

2. HIT THE DANCE FLOOR LIKE BEYONCE

Hitting the dance floor for an hour can burn up to 500 calories, so it’s no wonder that Beyoncé has a rather pert behind. Her bum began to rival J Lo’s after her bum-shaking dance routine for the Crazy in Love video two years ago. And judging by pictures of her recent performance at the World Music Awards, her dance moves are certainly helping her behind defy gravity.

3. TAKE UP HORSE-RIDING LIKE JORDAN

The great thing about horse-riding is that you don’t feel like you’re doing exercise – that is until you get off and can hardly walk! Jordan is one celeb whose figure has reaped the rewards of plenty of horse-riding – and don’t we know it. She’s not shy when it comes to flashing her pert bum in revealing outfits. Horse-riding is great for toning the bum and you can burn between 300-400 calories an hour – even more if you help mucking out the stables.

4. CUT OUT ALCOHOL LIKE J-LO

Jennifer Lopez is naturally curvy so she has to work hard at keeping weight off her bottom and thighs. She regularly exercises, doing kick-boxing, jogging and other high-impact aerobics, which reduce fat and give her lower half a slimmer, sleeker look. She’s also teetotal, which helps to reduce the signs of cellulite. Alcohol is full of toxins that contribute to cellulite. So if you want a cellulite-free bum, you could start by cutting out your favorite tipple.

5. GO FOR A SPIN LIKE RACHEL HUNTER

If you make your living out of modeling lingerie like Rachel Hunter, you really need to keep your bum in shape. The model mum keeps her behind in tip-top condition with a combination of spinning and Pilates. She says: “When I have something like a photo call for Ultimo to do, I really do have to watch what I eat. I make sure I exercise regularly; I’ll usually do spinning about
three or four times a week and I do Pilates.”
Spinning, the gym-based cycling, is a great way to tone the legs and bottom. Spinners cycle for 30 minutes to an hour on a special program to build up stamina and tone up bottom and leg muscles. And an hour on the bike can burn off a whopping 300 calories.

6. DO A RUNNER LIKE NELL McANDREW

It doesn’t cost a thing and if you end up with a curvy figure like model Nell McAndrew then running is definitely worth a try. Nell is a keen runner, having taken part in a couple of marathons. She doesn’t believe in dieting and thinks that healthy eating, the odd naughty treat and plenty of exercise is all that’s needed to keep you in shape. But beware – don’t overdo the running. We might think that Nell’s got a perfect behind but she thinks otherwise. When I asked her what her least favorite body part was, she responded by saying: “My bum – I want a bigger one! It’s gone a bit flat since I’ve done two marathons.”

7. THE ANTI-AGEING DIET

Eating a diet rich in fruit and veg – especially aubergines, spinach, cabbages, celery, onions, leeks, cherries, grapes, melon, prunes and apples – not only helps you lose weight but also fights wrinkles. These anti-ageing properties are put down to the mix of vitamins, minerals and super-nutrient antioxidants, which protect against sun and pollution damage – great news for a slimmer, more youthful you!

- GO FOR THE BURN

Just 500mg of vitamin C daily will boost your fat burn by up to 30 per cent. A red pepper has 210mg; 200g/7oz of frozen berries, 110mg; a large orange, 100mg; a glass of grapefruit juice, 50mg; and a serving of broccoli, 50mg.

- DID YOU KNOW?

Laughing for just 15 minutes burns a whole 50 calories.

- WALK YOUR FEET OFF!

I’ve worked out how far I’d have to walk to burn off a 200g tube of Pringles Light, with 976 calories – it’s 11 miles (17.6 kilometers). So don’t give in to temptation!

- WHAT’S HOT

SKINNY LATTES – one “grand” cup gives you 33 per cent of your daily calcium requirement.
PITTA OR GRANARY BREAD – they have a low GI, keeping blood sugar down and stopping hunger pangs.
GOOD OLD WATER – tap or bottled. It is sugar and calorie-free. Aim to drink a litre a day and an extra litre for every hour that you exercise.

- WHAT’S NOT

VENTI HOT CHOCOLATE - with whipped cream.  That’s 719 calories and 27g of fat per cup.
WHITE SLICED BREAD – It has a high GI and sends blood sugars soaring. You will be hungry again in half an hour too.
FRUIT-FLAVOURED WATER – they can have as much sugar as cola; that’s 13 teaspoons per 500ml bottle.

Words by Nicki waterman. For more information on losing weight and getting active, check out: www.nickiwaterman.com

Many people assume that swimming is a just a fun activity and are unaware of the potential health benefits of swimming.

Learning how to swim and going for regular swimming work outs can reduce your risk of developing health problems that arise from being overweight – things like diabetes, hypertension and stroke among others – because swimming is a very effective fat loss program, which can in the long run lead to healthy weight loss. The way it works is that swimming tends to aid in the conversion of fat to muscle because while swimming, your whole body finds itself having to exercise to overcoming the resistance posed by the water you happen to be swimming in. Now overcoming this resistance results in the build up of muscles which in the short term might manifest as a weight gain rather than a weight loss. Well developed muscles, however, turn out to be your best weight loss allies in the long run because the kind of tissue that makes up muscle actually burns fat even when you are not doing much. Exercise which build up muscles – and swimming is a very good example of it – is therefore best seen as a weight loss investment because the muscles so built can then help the person who has developed them to lose weight almost on ‘autopilot’.

People who suffer from diseases that are characterized by inflammation like arthritis and who are overweight at the same time are yet another group that can benefit from swimming. This is because swimming offers them the opportunity to lose weight without causing too much pain in their joints, which they would have to do on most exercises on dry land.

The kind of breathing required while swimming, too, can really strengthen one’s heart as well as the lungs – keeping one from the health troubles they would have had from these vital organs.

Learning to swim and then going swimming regularly can also lead to better mental health because swimming, like any form of exercise leads to the release of ‘feel good’ chemical in the brain – resulting in good mental health. Furthermore, as a good weight loss exercise, swimming can help a person who is overweight to attain a better body shape, in turn leading to a better body image and higher self esteem, which is the foundation of good mental health and happiness. The very activity of flapping of arms and legs in water involved in swimming together with the continued soothing feel of water against the skin is itself also very therapeutic.

Of course swimming is an activity that is usually carried out in groups and in this way, it gives the person undertaking it to really go out and meet other people – fellow swimmers, swimming instructors and lifeguards at the swimming site for instance – meaning that they have an opportunity to get outside themselves. This can be a great boost to mental and emotional health, seeing that most mental and emotional health problems have loneliness and self-confinement as their root cause.

Most of the weight loss pills that people take – and which some swear helped them to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight – work by boosting your body’s metabolism. In a similar manner, even most of the natural aids to weight loss – things like green tea, work by stimulating your bodies metabolism.

Metabolism, as it turns out, is the rate at which the body burns up the food you consume into energy to fuel its various functions. Some people are naturally endowed with high rates of metabolism – and these are the people who will eat amazing amounts of food on a daily basis, without ever losing weight. Others are endowed with sluggish rates of metabolism such that even when they eat measured amounts of food, they still end up putting on weight.

You need not resort to pills – most of which leave a trail of obnoxious sidle effects in their wake – to speed up your metabolism. There are some things that can help you in speeding up your metabolism naturally.

Changing your eating habits is one such thing that can help in speeding up your metabolism naturally. This means eating smaller meals regularly through out the day – rather than eating the three huge meals that we have been socialized to do. Eating smaller regular meals gives your body a steady supply of calories- and once the body (which is intelligent in itself) comes to realize that there is a plenty supply of the calories, it reacts by increasing the rate of metabolism to burn them up before the next input. Moreover, this habit of eating smaller quantities of food throughout the day keeps the body’s digestion mechanism perpetually working – and this too boosts your metabolism – metabolism being the rate at which the body converts the food put into it into energy for its various functions, and digestion being one of the most energy-intensive bodily functions.

Good stress management is yet another step you can take towards speeding up your metabolism naturally. Bodily stress, as it turns out, is one of factors that have shown a consistently high correlation with metabolism shut down. This has to do with the body’s biochemistry and body-mind link. The exact mechanism which this comes to be can be understood by the fact that the natural role of stress was to initiate a fight or flee response in a danger through the release of stress hormones like adrenaline (at a time when man faced lots of predators in the wild). In these kinds of situations where one needs to fight or flee, the body tends to shut down all the other non-essential functions (all of which consume calories) and keep the essential functions to the bare minimum, with the aim of focusing the body’s energies to fighting – or fleeing – from the imminent threat. Unfortunately, in today’s world, there are people who due to the stress of modern living (most of which does not result from real threats), are perpetually in this fight or flee mode, and these are the people in whom metabolism is likely to shut down. Obviously, the best solution to their problem is to address the stressors in their lives, rather than popping a metabolism boosting pill which does not address the root cause underlying their metabolism shut-down.

As the idea that you can take responsibility for your own health gets widespread acceptance, more and more people are coming out in the open looking for information on how to keep themselves healthy for long. And while the methods employed in healthy living vary depending on the school of thought one subscribes to, the need to ensure that you are eating healthy is one thing that pervades almost all schools of thought on the subject of healthy living.

Generally, food that is considered healthy is food which is as close to what nature intended for humanity as possible. Naturally, this excludes highly processed foods – given that in nature, some of the food processing that we have mechanized nowadays is something that was meant to be done in the body. In any case, some of the elements that are removed in mechanized food processing – things like fiber, serve a useful role in the body. Foods that are too fatty are another group that is generally excluded from what is considered healthy eating, simply because strictly speaking, there is nothing in nature which is as oily as French fries for instance. Food that is too salty, too, is considered unhealthy, given that our current sodium (salt) consumption far exceeds what nature intended for us.

Even for the foods that pass the healthiness test, however, there is still a condition that the food has to be prepared in a healthy way, or risk sliding into the category of unhealthy eating too. Using too much fat in cooking food that is otherwise healthy will turn the food into an unhealthy dish, as is using too much salt in cooking the food that was otherwise healthy.

Since the things which are likely to turn otherwise healthy food into unhealthy food are the very things which add flavor to food, the key to preparing and cooking healthy foods in a way that they can still be delicious is prudent substitution. For instance, one can consider substituting excessive salt with some natural spices, so that the food is still delicious without being too salty. Of course even with the use of these spice substitute for excessive salt, it still takes the tongue some time to get used to eating food that is less salty than it was used to, but the use of such spice (salt substitutes) in preparing and cooking healthy foods can go a long way in helping in the process of getting used to lower salt levels.

Changing food preparation methods is yet another method you can use in preparing and cooking healthy foods in a way that does not turn them unhealthy. Cooking methods like frying – while leading to highly delicious results – are prone to turn otherwise healthy foods into unhealthy dishes as they introduce too much fat in the cooking. One can opt for food preparation methods like boiling, steaming and stewing, which help in preserving the healthiness of the food. With the use of good recipes, it is actually possible to get highly delicious results from these same food preparation methods – like boiling, stewing and steaming – results that are actually more delicious than anything you could get through frying.

Being extremely underweight can be just as distressing as being overweight.

When you are extremely underweight, for one, people tend to take you ‘lightly’, quite literally. A huge body is seen as a sign of ‘strong presence,’ and huge bodied people are seen as dominant, which can be an attractive feature is some situations. A person who is extremely underweight will often find himself or herself having to assert themselves in situations where a bigger person would have gotten along quite effortless –all on the account of their small body forms.

Unknown to many people, the healthiness of body weight is measured using a relative unit referred to as body mass index (BMI) – rather than in absolute terms – and being too underweight for your height can be seen as just an unhealthy as being overweight. It is not unknown for people seeking to serve their nations in the armed forces to be denied the opportunity on the account of their being underweight, as the military is known to impose strict body weight thresholds in their recruitments, meaning that a severely underweight person has just as small a chance of joining the army or the air-force as a severely overweight person.

Furthermore, being severely underweight can make you just as conspicuous as being severely underweight, and as we all know, being conspicuous for the wrong reasons always feels uncomfortable. Being severely underweight is also subconsciously seen as a sign of poor health, and if you are in the dating game, it would be not be particularly surprising for you as a very thin person to be rejected by a partner on account of your thinness.

From those situations, one can see the kind of motivation one might have in looking for help in gaining a healthy weight. The tricky thing with this situation is that there is very little help for the person seeking to gain a healthy weight, as the relevant professionals who would help someone with this have their eyes trained on helping people lose unhealthy weight – which is a more common problem in today’s developed world.

Nonetheless, a frank chat with your doctor would be the first step in looking for help with gaining a healthy weight. As it were, looking to gain weight, just like looking for weight loss, has very serious medical implications and it is advisable to seek the input of a qualified health professional before making a step in that direction. Such a chat with a doctor is also likely to establish whether your desire to gain weight is medically justified – seeing that many people who are seeking to lose weight or to gain weight turn out to be people who have ‘body image’ rather than ‘body weight’ issues.

Having gotten your doctor’s blessings for your weight gain endeavors, you need to ensure that you follow the right method to gain weight, or risk gaining unhealthy weight which will come to haunt you in the future. Like weight loss, genuine weight gain efforts will revolve around the use of diet and exercise – and if it is healthy weight you are looking to gain, you need to give the project adequate time since gaining healthy weight, like healthy weight loss, takes some time to bear results.