Arthritis

What is it?

Arthritis is a generic term for several diseases that can cause pain and inflammation in joints. Joints are the areas most affected, but also tendons, ligaments, and muscles can be injured. Sometimes the skin may also be affected.

You must first understand arthritis.  It can affect anyone of any age, gender, or race.  Even babies at a young age of six months can develop arthritis.  It is true that your risks will increase after the age of 40. There are different things that can increase your risk of arthritis as well.  For example, sports injuries can often occur and it is necessary to continue treating your injury throughout your life to prevent more serious conditions later on in life.

In most cases, the disease begins slowly and steadily. Generally ultimately leads to pain, especially in the joints of the hands, feet and elbows, which may affect other organs such as eyes, heart, salivary and lachrymal glands. There are several types of arthritis. The two most common types are rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA).

The Osteoarthritis

OA usually manifests itself after 50 years and affects mostly women. The increase in average life expectancy of its population does predict a higher incidence of this disease, which produces a degeneration of cartilages, which facilitates the movement of joints, with pain and inflammation in them. On many occasions and asymptomatically OA has a prevalence that increases with age, being the most affected the elderly and obese.

The Rheumatoid Arthritis

The RA is more common among women and the proportion is a man to three women with RA. An autoimmune disease (that is to say, caused by a change of defense systems, which react against the body itself) is characterized by inflammation of one or more joints. AR at its most severe decreases the average life expectancy of five to ten years, but also causes pain, inflammation, and may cause severe physical deformities and organ damage. The disability and symptoms can appear at any age but is most common between 40 and 50 years.

Treatment

After diagnosing the type of arthritis you have, the doctor will determine the best treatment, which may include medication for pain, inflammation and stiffness of joints and creams or ointments to relieve local pain.

We leave you some suggestions to combat pain.

Lose weight

Try to reduce your daily stress

Exercise regularly not only when you feel pain

Learn to relax. Yoga may help you

Aquatic exercises are excellent

Use ice to prevent the pain

Use the hot to reduce the pain

Do not use additive drugs

Increase vitamin C consumption

Practice the food selection

Reduce the consumption of vegetable oils

Insist on carrot juice

Thank you for reading

José Zózimo.

Weightmania Pro. Fitness, Exercise, Nutrition and Diet Software (Mac OS X Version)

Weightmania is a fitness journal that tracks exercise, meals, measurements, dieting progress and medical information. Track up to 24 measurements daily including blood sugar (diabetes), blood pressure, cholesterol, sleep and body fat. This includes body fat caliper measurements. It supports both cardio. and weight training, accommodates any workout or diet plan, and tracks up to two people (other versions track more). Visualize your progress, judge the effectiveness of diets and workouts, and reach goals sooner. Includes a simple journal for recording information and five major tools to view and analyze progress. We also added 10 fitness calculators, an 8000-food database, plus tools to create meal programs, workout programs and your own custom food database. On top of this, there are tools to track and manage recipes, grocery lists, favorite Web links, equipment and routes. Look up nutrients in almost any food and view percentages on a pie chart. Edit and store digital photos for any calendar day (makes it easy to visualize progress over time). Calculate calories burned for hundreds of activities, daily calories required, percent body fat, body mass index (BMI), basal Metabolic rate (BMR), target heart rate, distance-time-pace-speed and splits. A 42-key calculator performs numerous calculations and conversions (such as Metric to English). There is a full size color-coded calendar, report maker, statistics tool, nutrition tool and chart tool. Create line, bar, area, and moving average graphs. Compare data on multiple graphs simultaneously. Provides multiple ways to minimize data entry time, including copy and paste, drag and drop and input wizards. Enter meals and workouts in one mouse-click! Great for tracking any diet plan or exercise including running, cycling, weight lifting and walking. Designed for anyone interested in improving their health and well being. Take charge of fitness and get results! Shares data with our Palm version, Weightmania Mobile.

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New Year's Healthy Eating and Lifestyle

She was attractive, about 40, and around 50 pounds overweight. She told me, "I don't understand it, I don't really eat that much, how I can be so heavy?" We talked about what she eats, her exercise activities as well as her levels of stress. After the discussion she found that she wasn't exercising enough, she was eating about 600 or 700 extra calories a day more than she was burning and much of what she was eating was hard to burn food.

Most important what she found out is that you don't have to gain a lot of weight to become a lot heavier. If at 20 years old you gain two and a half pounds a year over 20 years means you will be 50 pounds heavier at age 40. Like most things, weight gain doesn't happen all at once, but a little at a time.
Most of us gain around two or three pounds over the holidays. Here are a few ideas that may help you thwart the holiday weight gain blues. Not only can these ideas help you now, if you continue to use these ideas and make them habits, you can continue to move toward your ideal body image.
1. Use Negative Visualization
You can use negative visualization to imagine how you'll look and feel if you gain two or three pounds this holiday season and every holiday season for the next 20 years. Go in front of the mirror and imagine what you'll look like with 40 extra pounds. Imagine how you'll feel, carrying around that extra weight, feel the extra strain on your knees, the extra work your heart will have to do, how much warmer you'll feel with your extra insulation. Now, ask yourself, "Is this how I want to feel?
If the answer is no, read on.
2. Just Say No
The easiest way to not eat so many candies, cakes and other goodies is to just say no when you go through the grocery isle. I know that if I have chocolate in my house it gets eaten. Maybe it's the same for you, except for you its donuts. By not having these types of temptations around it makes it a lot easier to eat sensibly. That leads us to the third idea.
3. Keep Healthy Snacks to Munch On
Keep carrots, apples, cherry tomatoes, oranges, and anything else that you like that's healthy around the house to munch on. Serve bowls of low or no butter popcorn rather than chips. Serve baked and whole grain chips from the health food store rather than the usual deep fried, artery clogging, thigh busting chips.
Eating candies, cakes and other goodies happens for two reasons. The first is that they are there. We will eat what is available. The second is that they are what we eat habitually. They make us feel good. To make new habits you need to have something to replace the old ones. In this case that means keeping healthy snacks to substitute for the not so healthy ones.
4. Eat at Home (as much as possible)
One of the easiest ways to not watch what you eat is to eat out. When we are busy rushing around it's easy to decide to stop for a quick burger and fries when we get hungry. If you find yourself at one of these high calorie eateries you can choose to eat a meal with fewer calories. These include things like a salad or a chicken sandwich without any cheese or dressing. Better yet when you can eat before you go out or plan a stop at home. Not only will it de-stress you it will allow you to be more choosy about what you eat.
5. Eat Slowly and Chew Your Food
Probably your mother told you "chew your food!" Well mother was right. Chewing your food completely and eating slowly makes you feel full and help you achieve your ideal body image. It takes between fifteen and twenty minutes for your stomach to tell your mind that it is full. By chewing and eating slowly you allow your gut time to give your mind the information it needs to register that it is full.
6. Exercise
If you don't have one already, start an exercise program. Your exercise program should include both cardiovascular exercises and strength building exercises. One of my favorites is Tai Chi, which gives you both while being easy on your joints. If you are San Diego contact me for our New Year's Tai Chi class schedule.
One of the easiest cardiovascular exercises is walking. You can walk almost anywhere. It is easy on the joints and doesn't need any extra equipment. Here are some suggestions to put more walking into your daily routine.
Park your car as far from the entrance of your destination as possible.

Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
If there is a store in your neighborhood, walk to it when you just need a few things.

When you have a few spare moments, like at lunch, take a walk.
7. Drink Water
The best refreshment you can drink is water. Eight glasses a day and more if you live in a hot climate. Water clears your skin, helps make your muscles suppler and helps you feel full and eat less. Avoid sodas, beer, wine and other beverages that are high in sugar, they just have empty calories, and lots of them. Also avoid diet drinks.
8. Use Positive Visualization (Keep Your Eyes on the Prize)
In order to achieve anything you have to maintain your focus on what you want to achieve. A great way to do this is by visualizing what you want. By actually "seeing" yourself as you would prefer to be you begin pulling yourself in the direction of your ideal body image. Keep your eyes on the prize!
9. Decide
If you are overweight you have to decide on a plan that will take you in the direction of your ideal body image. Your plan needs to include both healthy eating habits as well as an exercise program that you'll stick with. If you're in San Diego and you have had problems in the past either establishing or keeping a program that moves you in the direction of your goals you can contact me. (See http://www.IdealBody4u.com) Together through the use of hypnosis, NLP, visualization techniques and proper breathing we can develop a plan that will help you move in the direction of your goals.
10. Take Action
Of all the ideas you've read so far, this is the most important. This is the secret. Here it is - you need to take action. After you decide that you want to take control over your eating and exercise habits you need to take action. After you decide what you want to look like you need to take action. After you decide that you want to live and maintain a healthy life you need to take action. All of life's changes begin as a decision and then you need to take action to begin this new lifestyle. So what are you waiting for? Start today!

Bio
Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy, a combination of hypnosis, NLP, breathing techniques from the martial arts visualization used for goal setting. His practice is located in San Diego, California. For more information about Wil and his practice please go to http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net.

Do we really need proteins?

The answer is simple and fast - yes.

In general, we can say that proteins are complex chemical compounds that are an essential part of all living cells. They are composed of nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and smaller units called amino acids.

These amino acids with its multiple associations give rise to millions of proteins. When certain protein foods like as meat, fish, eggs, and milk are ingested the existing enzymes in the stomach and intestines break down proteins into amino acids. These are absorbed into the blood and transported to all tissues.

For this reason, our body needs amino acids to achieve strongly synthesize their proteins, which can be of two distinct types, the essential amino acids, and non-essential amino acids.

The amino acids that our body cannot produce and must be ingested through food, it gives the name of essential amino acids. The amino acids that the body can produce from other substances are call of non-essential amino acids.

Essential amino acids in proteins are present in foods of animal and vegetal origin, with the difference in the proportion that we meet these amino acids. In the case of proteins of animal nature, the proportions of amino acids are close to the ideal to human, calling themselves of "completes”. In some cases, the proportion of amino acids in proteins of plant origin is not ideal however; combining several types of vegetable protein, we may achieve the same nutritional result than with complete proteins.

Essentially, protein builds muscles, which is why you will see bodybuilders especially concerned with protein. When you lift weights to work out, you body makes tiny tears in the muscles. Proteins are then, used to repair these healthy tears in the body, building the muscle slightly bigger with every workout. Even if you do not work out, your body’s muscle deteriorates, as you body needs the energy. Muscle provides energy, just like fat. Having protein in the body helps you to rebuild any muscle lost. Of course, all nutrients are crucial for our bodies to be as healthy as possible, but without protein in our diets every single day, our bodies will not be as strong as they should be.

We need to eat foods rich in protein every day because, unlike some other nutrients, it cannot be stored in the body. That means that if you eat more protein than necessary, your body will simply cause it to pass through your system. Therefore, you really cannot eat too much protein! However, because protein cannot be stored in the body, problems may arise surrounding this nutrient as well. If you do not get enough protein on any given day, your body has no back-up plan for producing protein on its own or using reserved protein from previous days. Therefore, protein is very important to consider when you are planning your meals.

As we said before protein, can be found in a number of food sources, so if you are interested in eating a healthier diet, you should consider learning more about protein.

Thank you for reading

José Zózimo