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Archive for October, 2010

If you are overweight American and try to lose weight, I believe you know what is raw food diet and how it can help. Today, you are introduced to the other view point – how you can get rid of your extra weight once and for all in a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Traditional Chinese medicine has never endorsed raw food diet for weight loss because of its yin, cool and damp nature. Prolonged periods of intake of raw food can damage the function of the stomach in food digestion and spleen in qi and fluid distribution and transformation.

Most overweight Americans have eaten too much fried and greasy foods which are considered hot, damp and excessive yang in nature. They heat up the stomach and speed up digestion, thereby inducing hunger. If you are young and energetic, the excessive energy can be removed from your body through sweat and urinary excretion, but unfortunately many overweight people are lack of exercise, leading to fat accumulated in the body’s organs and tissues.

Traditional Chinese medicine views overweight as a problem of spleen deficiency, due to the stomach’s inability to digest foods properly and the accumulation of turbid cannot be secreted quickly, caused by an overheating stomach as a result of intake of hot, damp, and yang foods.

When food enters the stomach, it is divided into 2 parts. The food qi is absorbed by the spleen immediately, and the food material is digested and divided into fluid essences and turbid. Fluid essences are once again absorbed by the spleen and the turbid is secreted through the bladder and large intestine. Overintake of hot, excessive yang and damp foods for a prolonged period of time causes abnormal functioning of the spleen in qi and fluid distribution and transformation, resulting in extra energy and dampness building up in the body, leading to heat transforming the dampness into phlegm (fat).

Raw food diet is a yin pathogen and is cool in nature. As it enters the stomach, it reduces the heat in the stomach that slows down the digestive process and curves appetite, thus giving the spleen time to eliminate the extra energy and fluid slowly, resulting in restoring the spleen function in fluid and qi distribution. This process takes a while, but it works. If the accumulated dampness is gone, slowly all of the phlegm will be secreted through the bladder and large intestine, and you will finally achieve your weight loss once and for all and return to the range of normal weight according to the BMI index.

Remember as soon as your weight returns back to normal, it is the best time to reduce the intake of raw foods by replacing some of them with cooked foods to prevent opposite effects.

Physical therapy can be an extensive process that involves many years of work on behalf of the patient and a medical professional in order to put the body back in correct working order. Though it is difficult, especially for many injuries that occurred at joints, there are many tools that help to make the process much easier. The most common physical therapy products have become part of daily life for most people and not only help people heal, but also allow many people to return to the activities of their daily life as well. These coupled with an appropriate regime of exercise and doctor’s visits are necessary to make the healing process effective and timely.

The most common product is probably the cane. This simple device, used for centuries, is very common for both the young and old. Usually reserved for the elderly to help them with walking, these products are also used for people after they sustain injuries in their legs or backs. They help to remove weight off of the body and allow certain joints to help much faster. Additionally, they aid mobility so that patients can return to the their normal life as best as possible. These come in many different forms, from the sterile medical cane to stylized products to match with a person’s usual look.

Walkers are a more extensive and larger physical therapy product that allows the patient to take lower the weight on most of their body. These products are for more intense injuries or for elderly to ease the demands required on their body. These products can be easily broken down for transportation and are light and simple to use.

In addition to these walking aids, braces and other supports are common and are used by most people at some point in their lives. These products are used for minor supports on joints mostly, but can be used to stabilize bones as well. They can be used after surgery or as an alternative to surgery or a cast. They come in varying degrees of intensity in terms of the limitation of the body and level of support. Most people will find that simple braces made of neoprene for the legs, knees, and wrist are needed for most minor injuries. These products will allow a joint to heal and take the weight off of the joint to reduce pain. These adapt to almost any body shape and can be used in conjunction with many types of physical therapy.

It may not seem obvious, but the hip and knee share the femur bone. The knee does not work in isolation, and improving hip function may be the answer to a painful knee. In physical therapy we tend to think of tendonitis and degenerative joint disease in terms of a victim and culprits.

Many patients will arrive in my office complaining of a painful knee (victim), and it is my job to identify the underlying biomechanical dysfunction (culprits). For various reasons, hips tend to become restricted and weak. When your hip is no longer accepting the proper loading during activities such as descending stairs or transitioning from sit to stand, your knee may attempt to take on that extra load and become the victim. If the local bully came to your house every morning just to step on your big toe, this victim would inevitably become red, swollen, and irritated with an inflammatory process. You could go to your medical practitioner who might diagnose you with some sort of “toeitis.” Any number of treatments could be prescribed such as medication, injections, ultrasound, or cold laser, but unless we somehow stop the culprit from stepping on your toe, we are unlikely to make any long term progress on curing your “toeitis.”

Instead of focusing on your inflamed toe, we should take a critical look at what factors are creating a situation where there is increased stress on your toe. Patellofemoral pain syndrome is generally thought to be excessive stress of the knee cap on the groove of the femur. You can think of this as a train running on a track, with excessive wear on the outside rail of a turn. Most people complain of pain just under the kneecap, especially during activities such as descending stairs.

Studies have shown that hip position has a tremendous influence on how much pressure is on the knee cap during functional activities. Many times we see a weak hip allow the knee to dip toward the midline during a squat. While the patient will complain of kneecap pain, the real culprit is that the hip is not adequately positioning the knee for loading. The hip should be the knee’s best friend. It has the largest muscle mass of the body, and thus has the greatest responsibility to support the knee. The key to decreasing inflammation at the knee may be to take stress off of it by stretching and strengthening your hip. Your physical therapist can help you figure out if your hip motion is limited, and how to best strengthen and stretch the hip without irritating the knee. As your hip mobility and stability improve, your knee will thank you.

The most common allergy for cats is an allergy to fleas. It can be a difficult diagnosis for a pet owner as the constant grooming of cats removes evidence of fleas. For a feline allergic to the pest just a couple flea bites a week can cause a bad skin reaction that can lead to additional skin infections.

Some cats may have numerous fleas with little apparent scratching but that does not mean they can tolerate the fleas over a long term. Fleas are bloodsuckers and a high population on your cat can lead to anemia and other serious health problems.

For the unfortunate cat with an allergy to flea saliva, one or two fleas is too many to tolerate. The animal may scratch behind his ears until he has bald spots and the allergic dermatitis can affect his skin all over his body very quickly.

For a healthy flea, humidity is more important than temperature. In area of high humidity a flea can survive from three weeks to a year while temperatures in temperate climates do not cool sufficiently in winter months to kill fleas outdoors. Cats in humid areas of the country need monthly flea protection year round.

Symptoms of Fleas on Your Cat

* Chewing the base of the tail
* Chewing the back legs and perhaps front legs
* Lesions caused by licking and chewing the bumps left by flea bites
* Hot spots above the base of the tail or on the face

Diagnosis and Treatment

An examination for fleas is often the first step to take in diagnosing itchy or irritated skin on your cat. Fleas are the most common cause of itching rashes and perhaps on of the easiest to eliminate.

A diagnosis of flea allergy dermatitis may be accompanied by a secondary diagnosis of bacterial skin infection for which your vet may prescribe antibiotics. Fungal infections may also be present as a result of the scratching that leaves the feline skin open to further infection.

The primary treatment is to prevent any fleas from biting your cat. This involves using flea control on the animal but also aggressively eliminating fleas in the cat’s environment.

In extreme cases of flea allergy dermatitis in cats it may be necessary for the animal to take a course of steroids such as prednisone to break the cycle of itching and provide fast relief from the discomfort.

Preventive Measures

Using flea control medications on your cat monthly should be a standard part of the health care of your pet. In cold climates, flea prevention topical products should be started a month before flea season begins and continued for one month after cold weather resumes in the fall.

In coastal and humid areas, fleas are a problem twelve months of the year and flea control must be a monthly routine of flea prevention all year long. Grooming your cat with a fine toothed flea comb will remove dead fleas and flea dirt.

For the cats living area, bedding should be washed frequently in hot water and a safe flea killing spray used on carpets and furniture on occasion. Frequent vacuuming of carpets will remove flea eggs and larvae from the environment. Lawn sprays may also be indicated if your pets spend time out of doors during summer months.

Your veterinarian may recommend diagnostic tests to determine whether flea allergy dermatitis is the cause of your cat’s skin problems. Most vets, however, will advise you on eliminating the flea problem and reserve testing and skin scrapings for those pets that continue to have skin lesions in the absence of fleas.

Most topical flea treatments for cats are available at discount pet medication sites online without prescriptions. By ordering products from a reliable source cat owners can avoid receiving outdated meds or ineffective copies of popular flea treatments.

Whether you choose Advantage or Front Line Plus to keep your feline flea free or ask your vet for a prescription for the wider protection of Revolution for Cats, shopping for discount pet medications online will keep your cat free of flea allergy dermatitis at the lowest cost.

Living a healthy lifestyle sounds simple, but in reality for most people, this really isn’t the case. But what defines a ‘healthy person’?

A healthy person can usually be defined as someone who doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol, eats a healthy diet and exercises on a regular basis. For the majority of people, living this way is far from simple however. With fast foods, take aways, cafes and together with how fast daily life is for people in this new millennium, most people will usually opt for a fast food meal rather than taking the time to eat something healthy.

If you are one of those people who are living as the majority of people do today, but want to make changes in your diet and learn how to improve your general health and fitness, I hope the tips on this article will put you on the right path.

The secret to living a healthy lifestyle is to make small and regular changes to your current daily life. Small changes with what you eat. Small increases in your daily exercise and so on. You can always do more if you want, but if this isn’t normal practice for you, these massive changes may seem totally alien to you and your mind may reject your ‘new’ daily actions as, well, just too much work to do you any good! Sound familiar?

These are just a few steps to a healthier, new you

‘Emotion comes from motion’ was something that one of my own mentors drilled into me a long time ago. To feel different, to want to make fundamental changes in your life you have to move! Take a walk, go for a swim or hit the gym. Plain and simple, if you just sit around doing nothing, then the odds are that your mind is doing the same.

Taking exercise (something which you may not have done before) is a huge step to changing the way you think about what you want to achieve, in anything – the way you look, the way people perceive you or even how you feel about yourself.

But this is the conundrum that most people suffer. We know that exercise is good for us, but we rarely do it because of some self implanted alarm system that goes off if we even think about doing something which we aren’t really used to doing. Exercising is probably the biggest alarm trigger we encounter because most people perceive exercise as being something that has to be sheer hard work.

But the truth is that even by taking just a short walk, the healthier you will become and the better you will feel. It doesn’t even have to be walking, it could be household chores or even gardening – movement is movement. And the more you move, the more calories you burn and the more you increase your heart rate.

Every little move you make, be it gardening or walking to the end of the road and back counts as exercise and will burn calories to start losing weight and feeling better. The next thing or rather, simultaneously is to take a good look at your diet and nutrition plan. This is as crucial as taking a little bit of exercise to get you started in your program.

So it’s time to change your sofa diet of chips, snacks and chocolate for healthier options like eating more fruit, vegetables, swapping to low fat substitutes for your current favorites and even having olive oil on your salads instead of full fat dressings. By making fundamental, small changes in how you live your daily life and eating habits, you will start to feel and look a whole lot better. Good luck.

Are you starting a diet? Losing weight can be tough, but you can make fat loss easier by stocking up on tasty low calorie foods, so that you’re never hungry, and stick to your eating plan.

Here are some tips which will help you to make the most of foods which are low in calorie, so that weight loss becomes easier.

1. Spice up Your Life With Herbs and Spices

Before you begin your diet, check your spices shelf. You’ll be eating low fat foods, and will use very little fat in your cooking. You can improve the taste of foods by using taste enhancers.

Must-have spices include: mustard powder, mustard seeds, nutmeg, cinnamon and cayenne pepper.

Tip: grow your own herbs. Nothing tastes better than ripped basil leaves sprinkled over a tomato salad.

2. Cottage Cheese: Great Protein for Minimal Calories

Because it’s packed with protein and calcium, cottage cheese is good for you, and it’s low calorie too. Use it in cooking, and in salads, as well as on its own.

3. Beans, from Runner Beans to Chick Peas: More Great Protein

Beans are packed with protein, so they’re very satisfying. Stock up on dried beans, as well as on green beans.

4. Green Vegetables: Almost Calorie Free

Most vegetables (aside from potatoes) contain few calories. This means that you can pile your dinner plate with vegetables. Take a salad to work for lunch. A hearty salad, with a slice of turkey or roast beef and a bread roll makes a great working lunch.

5. Oatmeal: Healthy, Low Calorie and Good for You

Oatmeal is good for your heart, and makes the perfect breakfast. In summer, have oats in the form of muesli. In the cooler months, cook up a pot of oatmeal to make a great breakfast for the entire family.

You’ll be amazed at how energetic and vital you feel once you start eating the low calorie way. As your weight disappears, you’ll enjoy life more. Get started eating healthily today.