Health and Fitness Center

Aloe The Miracle Plant Nutrition Fact
By Jennifer Baker

The aloe is a plant originally from Africa. It is a succulent that grows to a height of 12 to 16 inches spreading by offsets and root sprouts. The leaves are thick and fleshy, green to grey-green, with a serrated margin. The flowers are produced on a spike up to 90 cm tall.

Aloe also holds the prestigious title of being the 6th most-used plant - its properties are found in numerous medical and health products around the world.

A versatile plant, you can find aloe in beverages, cosmetics, and herbal products. One of the reasons that Aloe is so effective is its bioactive components called chromones. It is also one of the only plants in the world that naturally contains Vitamin B12.

Because of its amazing properties, aloe is very beneficial for cuts, wounds, and burns. It can also prevent scaring, fade marks, and help heal acne. Used topically and internally, aloe is a powerful healing ointment.

Aloe also nourishes your skin. In fact, aloe is the answer for almost all skin problems. Skin care specialists have long recognized, and used, aloe in skin care products - it is beneficial for all skin types, including sensitive skin. As a moisturizer, aloe has both conditioning and healing properties.

In addition:

1. Aloe reduces inflammation and pain, and accelerates healing

2. It has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties

3. Aloe vera gel acts as an anesthetic and often relieves joint and muscle pain.

And, if that wasn t enough… for an easier nights sleep try putting an aloe plant in your bedroom! It releases oxygen and absorbs carbon dioxide at night.

If you are interested in growing your own aloe plants, pfaf.org has the following recommendations:

“Aloe requires a well-drained soil and a very sunny position. Plants are tolerant of poor soils. If trying to grow this plant outdoors then it will need the sunniest and warmest area in the garden plus some protection from winter cold (a glass frame perhaps). This species is not very cold-hardy outdoors in Britain, it is best grown in a pot placed outdoors in the summer and put in a greenhouse for the winter. It grows very well in a sunny windowsill.”

There are plenty of uses for the Aloe Vera plant, and many of its uses may surprise you. The bottom line is aloe is one of the best natural cures available.

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Jennifer Baker is a “nutrition for life” enthusiast and enjoys sharing quality nutritional products and work at home business ideas with others. Visit her at UtMostSuccess4U.com for more information.

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Drug Addiction or Eating Disorder: Which Came First?
By Jonathan Huttner

When a person enters drug rehab or an addiction treatment facility and is diagnosed with a drug addiction and eating disorder, the question arises which addiction developed first and how do you treat two addictions?

First, let us define an eating disorder as the quality of one’s thinking as it relates to food and weight and not how much someone weighs. Then, we may take a look at various behaviors and address other criteria. In most cases, one’s thinking regarding food and weight became distorted way before they ever began using drugs or alcohol. It is not uncommon that after a period of time of trying to achieve certain self determined goals through binging, purging or restricting and not achieving those goals, that the person would turn to drugs as a means to accelerate the process or deal with the emotional whirlwind of depression, shame or self hatred. At this point we have an eating disorder and drug addiction going full throttle in an attempt to by the person to gain control. It rarely happens and is described as the “great illusion” by most treatment professionals.

How To Treat Drug Addiction And Eating Disorders

When entering a drug rehab or addiction treatment program with an accompanying eating disorder, the goal should always be patient safety. If the patient is not in a life threatening situation due to their disordered eating, then the individual usually enters detox for their drug addiction. After detox is completed, the person’s behavior as it relates to their eating disorder will be addressed. Whether it is binging, purging or restricting, the patient must be willing to address the behavior to achieve recovery. Realizing that abstaining from the eating disorder behavior will initiate cravings for drugs, the clinical staff at the addiction treatment facility must be acutely aware of the possibility of relapse. During this process, the addiction treatment facility must also address the issue of whether they are the appropriate setting for the patient and if not make a referral to another drug rehab or eating disorder facility.

You can find useful information regarding drug addiction, addiction treatment or eating disorders at www.recoveryconnection.org.

Jonathan Huttner is one of the the principals at Lakeview Health Systems, an addiction treatment,

alcohol and drug rehab facility.

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Which Drug Addiction Treatment is the Best?
By Jeff Lakie

The answer is simple: there is no such thing as the best drug addiction treatment. Depending on the kind of the addiction, your age and social situation different treatments may be chosen for your benefit.

Here are a few most common drug addiction treatments (from www.nida.nih.gov website):

(1) Relapse Prevention - this treatment helps you control your behavior, learn to identify dangerous situations and avoid them. It concentrates on augmenting your learning processes and developing your own defense skills.

(2) Matrix model - strict and personal, with therapist acting as your friend and as your coach at the same time. This drug addiction treatment seems to be intensive and deep. It works as much on your consciousness as on forcing into you a kind of drill which prevents you from using drugs.

(3) Supportive-Expressive Psychotherapy - it works mostly through interpersonal links, creating your sphere of comfort and teaches you to trust in other people support. Good and comfortable, used mostly for cocaine and heroin addicts.

(4) Individualized drug counseling is a drug addiction treatment that concentrates not only on a drug addiction, but works also on other related subject - employment status, family problems etc. It s a short-term therapy, but when it helps, it helps in a big way.

(5) Motivational Enhancement Therapy - this one concentrates on the addicts will - its aim is to incite the will to fight the addiction. It changes people, but in a good way. It makes them stronger and more focused.

(6) Behavioral Therapy for Adolescents - the treatment is based on assumption that by showing desired behavior and rewarding any steps addicts take toward achieving it, this drug addiction treatment will change patients behavior to drug-free one.

(7) Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) for Adolescents takes a different approach and tries to help addicts by their families. It offers interesting and fruitful approach as many addictions have their roots in dysfunctional families, but it doesn t need only the addict s cooperation, but also the help from the family, which may be sometimes difficult.

Jeff Lakie is the founder of Rehab Resources a website providing information on drug and alcohol rehabilitaiton treatments.

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How To Make Sure You Will Give Up On Your Weight Loss Resolution In 4 Weeks
By Susanne Myers

Every year millions of us make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight. Every year millions of us give up before the end of January. Let’s take a look at some of the things we do to set ourselves up for failure year after year.

Super Restrictive Diets

We all like instant gratification. We want to loose 30 pounds in 3 days. That’s what drives us to super restrictive diets that promise immediate results. We go on the soup diet, the rice diet, or the egg diet. We are bound to give up - who can eat that stuff for 30 days straight?

The Juice Diet

With this particular diet, you don’t have anything other than water and this disgustingly sweet juice for 48 hours. Sure you’ll lose a few pounds of water when you first try it, but it’s obviously not a long-term diet plan.

Diet Pills

Diet Pills are supposed to work by suppressing your appetite and boosting your metabolism by using caffeine and similar stimulants. They don’t work well long term for two reasons. You don’t feel very well if you’re jacked up on caffeine that much. I tend to get grumpy, impatient and jittery. Secondly, their effects tend to wear off over time. Your body just gets used to all the extra stimulants and you lose the intended benefits and are simply stuck with a caffeine addition.

Low Carb Diet

Any diet that cuts out most of a major food group will be hard to stick with. Low carb diets were all the craze a few years ago, but are slowly starting to fade out. The reason is simple. In the long run, we don’t want to give up bread, pasta and rice.

You already know that these quick fix diets don’t work. You’ve probably made the New Year’s resolution to lose weight a few times and given up sooner or later. Make this year different. How? By using a more common sense approach to dieting. Eat healthy, make small changes to consume fewer calories and get more active. Slow and steady changes in what you eat and what you do will get you there. You will still be sticking to your resolution in February, March, and all the way into December.

Susanne Myers is the co-creator of Healthy Menu Mailer. Busy Moms love the easy-to-prepare healthy dinner recipes, grocery lists and encouragement to stay healthy every day of the week. Get 7 free easy-to-prepare recipes that everyone in your family will enjoy by visiting http://www.healthymenumailer.com/sample.html.

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Weight Loss Tip: Burn Fat With Oxygen
By Donovan Baldwin

Sure, you know how to breathe…or do you? And do you know what breathing can do for you…beyond keeping you alive, that is? Did you know that breathing properly can help you burn fat even better than some exercises? In fact, studies by a California university have shown that simply deep breathing can help burn up to 140% more calories than riding an exercycle.

Obviously, oxygen is important for life, and I think we can all agree that it would seem reasonable to assume that it has a great deal of importance for health, fitness, and weight loss. Not as obvious is that several factors have made our attention to oxygen even more important in the last few years. Studies show that the level of oxygen in the air we breathe is diminishing due to pollution and climate shifts.

Not only is the level of available oxygen diminishing, but due to the stresses of modern life and lack of physical activity, modern Americans breathe shallowly and process oxygen less efficiently. Most of us have never been shown how to breathe properly, and we are poorly able to take in and process the oxygen that can contribute to a successful weight loss program.

Oxygen, when used effectively, can increase metabolism, flush fat-trapping toxins from the body, and increase energy, decrease fatigue, and encourage a healthy lifestyle which can lead to a multi-level attack on fat in the body.

Oxygen is required by our intestines to help effectively process and absorb nutrients. In fact, this area requires more oxygen than most other tissue. When the oxygen supply is diminished, as is the case with most shallow-breathing Americans, this ability to absorb and process nutrients can drop almost 75%, according to research by the University of Edinburgh.

As expected, increasing oxygen availability increases the intestines ability to to process nutrients. Surprisingly, this change can begin to occur within a matter of minutes.

To dispose of fat already stored within the body, this fat must be combined with oxygen to help burn it. Research has shown that a large percentage of Americans use less than 25% of their lungs capacity. Merely increasing oxygen intake through proper breathing can increase the body s ability to burn fat by 100% or more.

The process by which the body loses weight and creates energy depends on a substance called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). By oxygenating body cells through effective breathing produces an environment which encourages production of this substance.

Cortisol and insulin are also produced within the body. In a normal situation these chemicals have beneficial purposes, however, modern stress can cause over-production of these chemicals over extended periods of time. This leads to many destructive effects, one of which is the storage of fat. Proper breathing keeps the bloodstream oxygenated, reduces stress, and decreases cortisol production.

Another major function of the body is the removal of toxins. Modern day invaders such as food preservatives can cause the glands that regulate weight to become less effective. Even worse, one defense technique of the body is to form more fat in an effort to store those toxins. Well over half of these toxins can be converted into gases which can be expelled from the body. Studies by one California Clinic indicated proper breathing technique could increase the removal of these toxins by more than ten percent.

SO HOW DO YOU BREATHE FOR WEIGHT LOSS AND HEALTH?

First of all, regular (daily or almost daily), sustained activity, such as walking can, over time, guide your body to a deep breathing pattern which will eventually become almost second nature. By the way, strolling through the mall, stopping to look in windows or chat with acquaintances, has a place in a well-rounded life, but sustained activity means exactly that…sustained over periods of at least 20 minutes.

Yoga or Tai Chi are great ways to learn proper breathing techniques. In fact, the effects of these disciplines hinge to a great degree on the breathing techniques they teach.

The simplest thing to do is simply start breathing properly. As an exercise, take a few minutes, standing or laying down. Feel your abdominal muscles stretch as you slowly and deeply “belly breathe” to bring large quantities of oxygen into your body. Hold that breath for a moment, tighten your abdominal muscles, and exhale through your mouth as if blowing up a balloon or through a straw.

The goal should be about 15 minutes of this a day, either in one period, or over several smaller periods throughout the day. Once comfortable with the technique (which may take a few days) you can do this laying in bed (great relaxer at bedtime or energizer upon awakening), while driving, sitting at a desk, or standing at a cash register. They can be done almost anywhere, anytime.

The author is retired from the Army after 21 years of service, has worked as an accountant, optical lab manager, restaurant manager, and instructor. He has been a member of Mensa for several years, and has written and published poetry, essays, and articles on various subjects for the last 40 years. He developed an interest in health and fitness in the 70s after reading numerous books, including Dr. Kenneth Cooper s “Aerobics”. This has led him to continue his personal research into health and fitness for over 30 years, and to pursue course work on health and fitness. He now has an online health supplement store, and also has a website with articles on health, fitness, and weight loss, and a blog dedicated to the subjects of health and weight loss.

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