You can beat the heat to some extent by including plenty of green, leafy vegetables, fruits, sprouts, juices and other healthy fluids. A tall glass of chilled lassi or buttermilk, fresh fruit juice or lemon juice from a hygienic source is ideal. Use more of the moisture-loaded varieties in vegetables and fruits.

Melons which have high moisture content can be very refreshing in the hot summer months and make a great summer diet. Make a juice with melons, a chickoo milkshake or a banana smoothie, and enjoy them. Eat cucumbers, bottle gourds, ridge gourds, ash gourds, spinach, mint, lettuce, cabbage, mushroom, tomatoes and other veggies regularly that have plenty of water in them.

Avoid foods that increase your thirst and weight. Excess body weight can be more uncomfortable in summer and can be eased to a great extent by following this summer diet. Some foods that might increase your discomfort during summer are high fat foods, fried foods, fatty meats, sugary eats or beverages, high-caffeine drinks and alcohol.

Get more fluids

Don’t ignore thirst signs. In your two-liter fluid requirement, make sure you include healthy beverages as a part of your summer diet. Try something different like green tea, herbal tea, herbal juice, or vegetable juice. Ask your grandma for recipes for traditional summer diet and drinks. They are not only refreshing but also nutritious. Make a smoothie with soy milk, honey and fresh fruit.

Fluid requirement

Approximately, 30 ml of liquid for every kg of body weight that you carry should be the norm everyday. Fluid requirement increases with increase in physical activity, and varies in disease conditions. Consult a qualified dietitian for details. If you take alcohol or caffeinated beverages, make sure you drink some water before or after the beverage.

Even if you work in an air conditioned office, you still need adequate hydration to prevent dry skin.

Safe summer diet

When you make raw foods a part of your summer diet, be sure that they are hygienically prepared and served. Bacterial activity is pretty high in summer and uncooked foods are good storehouses of bacteria. Bacteria can multiply in cooked foods too, placed between temperatures of four and 70 degrees.  If your immune system is not strong, such food can make you sick.

To prevent food-borne illnesses, wash hands before handling food, drink clean water, refrigerate foods properly, and eat freshly-cut or cooked foods as far as possible. If you have to consume leftovers, make sure you heat them well before eating.

Meal plan for summer

On rising: Two glasses of water, followed by a cup of tea
Breakfast: Cornflakes with unsweetened soymilk and fruit
Mid-morning: Fresh lime juice
Lunch: Sprouts and greens salad, brown rice with rasam, veg curry, curd
Evening: Mango juice
Dinner: Clear vegetable soup, whole wheat bread, lean sandwich, fruit and nut salad

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During the holidays, many youngsters tend to lose all sense of time and discipline, especially when it comes to meals. This also happens to those who are traveling. They have no idea when to eat what. Irregular meal times can lead to lowering of the metabolism and cause acidity. Also, when the meal is too late and the gap between meals is too long there is a tendency to overeat or you lose control and eat anything you see, especially fatty snacks or sweets, even though you have resolved to avoid these foods.

The ideal time to eat breakfast is between 8 and 9 am. If you wake up very early, you may want to eat breakfast by 7 or 7.30 am. If you have to leave for an early work shift or catch a school bus, you should eat breakfast by 7 am rather than skip it or eat it later at the office or school at 10.30 am, which is too late for breakfast. Knowing when to eat what is very essential.

You would have eaten dinner by 8 or 9 pm, so breakfast should not be more than 12 hours later. When you wake up in the morning, your metabolism comes up from resting or basal state to active state. When you eat, chew and digest food, the metabolism rises further. That’s why it’s important to eat breakfast at the right time and never skip it. Also, the body has been without food for 10-12 hours. This is like a fasting state, so you must eat breakfast and eat it at least by 9 am or 9.30.

Lunch should be after 4 to 5 hours with a fruit in between around 10.30 to 11 am. A good time for lunch is between 12.30 and 1.30 pm; 2 pm should be the latest as most people who go beyond this time tend to develop an acidity problem.

Tea time should be between 4 and 5 pm and even if one is not so hungry at this time, it’s necessary to have a cup of tea or coffee and a couple of crackers or a slice of toast. Those not used to tea or coffee could drink a glass of skimmed milk or buttermilk at this time. The reason: the gap between lunch and dinner could be 7-8 hours. Many who miss this break have no idea when to eat what and thus tend to lose all control by 6 or 7 pm and eat oily snacks, cookies or sweets by this time. Otherwise, they eat nothing from lunch to dinner and eat from dinner till they go to bed without any control on quantity or restriction on fatty food.

At 6 or 7 pm, after your tea and cracker, you should also have a fruit, and if still hungry, a glass of skimmed milk or buttermilk too. This is usually the time when many people get home from work and start indulging in all the wrong food. Dinner is best between 7.30 and 8.30 pm and the latest should be by 9.30 pm. It’s ideal to finish dinner at least two hours before you go to bed. At night, your metabolism is slow and if you eat very late, most of the food will be stored as fat.

Thus having a good understanding about when to eat what makes a person more sensible and far more healthy!

And with the New Year come resolutions, but not all of them guarantee good health for 2010 and the years after. Here are some suggested  health-related resolutions that people should focus on. As we all know, small things add up to big difference-makers over time. Also, this advice will benefit anyone following it from the immune system to emotional well-being.

GET ENOUGH SLEEP

It is one of the most neglected aspects of our health. Few people get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep, and we know that lack of sleep has been linked to a deficient immune system, increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity and even certain types of cancers. We see a higher incidence of cancer in nurses and people who work graveyard shifts, as they do not get the recommended amount of sleep over extended periods.

The best way to keep this resolution is to maintain a sleep schedule. Go to bed and get up at the same time every day. It will keep your body on track and also help you fall asleep more easily at night. You have to be strict and very rigid about it. In my case, it’s at the expense of a social life, but I make sure I get those eight to nine hours a night.

QUIT SMOKING, ONCE AND FOR ALL

This is clearly the most important thing one can follow for good health. If you smoke, stop in 2010. You can take the help of ‘quit smoking’ help forums. The most important thing — make a plan and set the date about two weeks ahead of time. Have things in place so that, when those obstacles come up, you know how to deal with them. Get a support group. You can even ask your doctor to help you. Remember, it is the most important thing you can do for your health.

DON’T SET UNREALISTIC DIET GOALS

Obesity and weight are huge issues. But shedding excess calories is actually quite easy. All you need to do is to maintain a healthy diet. So, don’t drink anything with high calories. The more you cut down calories from your beverages, the better. Studies have shown that a person will be able to reduce 35 pounds in one year just by cutting out coffee.

NOTHING BEATS AN EXERCISE

Along with a healthy diet, exercise is a must. Weight-lifting is awesome. It’s great, especially for women. While that’s great for bones and metabolism, it does nothing for your heart. So, don’t forget the cardiovascular exercises for your heart. Do them at least twice a week. Also, try aerobics.

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They’re mainly available in two categories — sweet and bitter, with the former being the type most commonly consumed. Generally, an orange should have smoothly textured skin and be firm and heavy for its size. These will have higher juice content than those that are either spongy or lighter in weight.

BENEFITS:

• Oranges are an excellent source of vitamin C. One orange supplies 116.2 per cent of the required daily amount of vitamin C. Good intake of vitamin C is associated with a reduced risk of colon cancer, as it helps to get rid of free radicals that damage our DNA.

• Vitamin C, which is also vital for the proper function of a healthy immune system, is good for preventing colds and recurrent ear infections.
  

• Anti-oxidants in oranges help protect skin from free radical damage known to cause signs of aging. An orange a day can help you look young even at 50! Oranges, being rich in vitamin B6, helps support the production of hemoglobin and also helps keep blood pressure under check due to the presence of magnesium.

• According to a study by US and Canadian researchers, a class of compounds found in citrus fruit peels called Polymethoxylated Flavones (PMFs) has the potential to lower cholesterol more effectively than some prescription drugs and that too without side effects.

• Fiber in oranges helps by keeping blood sugar levels under control thereby making oranges a healthy snack for people with diabetes. The natural fruit sugar in oranges, fructose, can help keep blood sugar levels from rising too high after eating.

• Consuming foods rich in betacryptoxanthin, an orange-red carotenoid found in highest amounts in oranges, corn and pumpkin may significantly lower one’s risk of developing lung cancer.

• Oranges, like most citrus fruits, produce more juice when warmer — extract juice when they are at room temperature. Rolling the orange under the palm of your hand on a flat surface will also help to extract more juice. Vitamin C gets destroyed fast when exposed to air, so eat an orange quickly once cut up.

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Sugar by itself does not contain fat in its chemical composition. And when it is consumed along with coffee or tea, and milk and curd, it does not register as fat in the body and thus is irrelevant to the ‘lose weight, quit sugar’ stuff . It comes in as carbohydrate food, which is immediately used as energy. Similarly, if you have a couple of teaspoons of jam, jelly or honey, the sugar is used up as energy. However, if you eat candies, with sugar content equivalent to about 3-4 teaspoons of sugar or take 300 ml of a soft drink (roughly 7 tsp of sugar) the excess sugar is converted to fat.

In short, as long as you are not diabetic you may safely consume 3-4 teaspoons of sugar every day, distributed through the entire day, and still lose weight. Moreover, giving up sugar completely and substituting it with a sweetener is not recommended, as they can have harmful side effects even though they say that such artificial sweeteners help to lose weight. What you could do, though, is give up sweet treats like cakes, ice cream, candies, pastries and other sweets instead.

Recommendation: All those above 35 years of age must have a blood test done regularly, at least once a year, to check blood and lipid levels (sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride, etc). This must be done at least 12 hours after your last meal. Ideally, a blood sample should be provided early in the morning on an empty stomach. This is very much important if  you are obese and have to lose weight in order to stay healthy even after 40 years of age.

If your fasting blood sugar is just above 120, you could have borderline diabetes. Then you have to eliminate refined sugar from the diet. Otherwise at any age you don’t have to eliminate sugar in coffee, tea, milk, etc. to lose weight.

Thus, giving up sugar does not actually help you to lose weight. In order to lose weight effectively, you should engage in physical exercises.

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There are several common beliefs associated with the right diet plan for a diabetic person. Trouble is, not all are true. There are some who believe that all vegetables and fruits are ideal to keep blood sugar levels under control which even help in weight loss, while others maintain that maida (all purpose flour) and rava, being derivatives of wheat, are safe food items. Some even avoid rice, but eat rice flakes instead.
Eating right is essential for any person with diabetes melitus, because certain choices of food can significantly reduce sugar levels.

Any food item high on fibre content is the best choice. For example, wholewheat, broken wheat and atta are better choices than maida, rava, sevia, noodles, pasta, etc. Since the skin of wholewheat is difficult to digest, the body has to work harder to digest it, bringing the blood sugar levels down. Similarly, wholewheat or atta chappati, wholewheat bread and wheat puttu are better than rice, idli, rice puttu and rice flakes (aval), which are made of fibee-less polished rice. Ragi puttu, ragi dosa, ragi porridge, oats porridge and cornflakes are better food options for a diabetic than rice items.

As for a vegetarian diet – vegetables and fruits, diabetics should pick those that are high on fiber and low on starch. For instance, all greens, cabbage, cauliflower, okra, beans, brinjal, bitter gourd, ridge gourd, kovaika and peas are ideal. Potato and tapioca are best avoided. Among fruits, mosambi, orange, apple, pear and pomegranate are safe choices. Bananas, though, are high in their sugar content and should be avoided. Even the small  banana is high in sugar content.

Milk products including curd can also be part of the diet as long as the milk is skimmed before use. When eating non-vegetarian foods like fish and chicken, try and avoid the gravy as that can contain a lot of fat that is harmful for diabetics.

Diet control can go a long way in helping manage diabetes. Control over the disease, however, involves a combination of medication, exercise and diet management. Remember, if the blood-sugar level is not maintained, over time the condition can be debilitating, causing problems like heart and kidney disease and gangrene of the feet, among others.

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It has been scientifically proven that sugar substitutes have many harmful side-effects. Some of the compounds used to produce these sweeteners are also used to prepare various medical drugs. So it is like popping those medicines daily in large amounts. Imagine the impact on your body if you do this continuously for months or years. Also, many of the compounds in sweeteners have been found to stimulate the formation of cancerous tumors in certain organs. Some chemicals used in these substitutes have been proven to cause damage to the kidneys.

Using sugar substitutes is not the solution to obesity. The best way by which one can  lose weight is by finding a way to get rid of excess fat in the body. Brisk walking and regular outdoor activity will help you lose weight and stay fit. Practicing a safe and healthy diet goes a long way towards shedding those extra kilos. It’s also important to cut out deep fried snacks, fatty food like oil, butter, ghee, cream and chocolates, cakes, cookies, ice creams and desserts, nuts and red meat. Junk food like pizzas, burgers, French fries and fried chicken should be avoided too.

Sugar is necessary for the body and 4-5 teaspoons a day in milk, coffee, tea or curd and even jam on toast is permissible during a strict weight loss program. It is not obligatory to consume a diet drink when you go out; a fresh lime soda with two teaspoons of sugar is a good substitute for a regular fizzy drink. If you have been diagnosed with diabetes at a young age you should train yourself to drink beverages without sugar substitutes and use them occasionally as they have been proven to cause serious damage to the body over a period of time.

These tips have been given by a renowned medical practitioner and is totally agreed upon by several people. If you have liked the article or have anything to say against it, please do comment.

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Here are some dos and don’ts which needs to be followed during diarrhoea:

Milk should be avoided as far as possible for at least 48 hours. If only milk needs to be fed to the child, make sure to dilute it with boiled water. Light tea may also be good. Best is to consume milk only in the form of curd or buttermilk for two days. For breakfast, toasted bread or idli dipped in curd can be given. Salt and sugar may be added to the curd.

The reason for avoiding milk is that it is an ideal medium for bacteria and other organisms to grow and the infection inside the body will increase instead of being controlled and destroyed. On the other hand, curd has bacteria which can fight the organisms causing the infection. Non-veg food should be avoided completely for atleast 48-72 hours. Non-veg food again is the ideal medium for organisms to grow.

Also other food stuffs like arrowroot, apple , tender coconut water, etc., cannot kill the viruses or bacteria. So they cannot be used as treatment. However, arrowroot porridge, arrowroot biscuits, apple and tender coconut water are soothing to the stomach and help in reducing the frequency of passing faeces. They also help to compensate the calories, minerals and vitamins, which are lost during diarrhoea.

Apart from breads, rice and curds, arrow root biscuits, rusks, apple, black tea with little lime juice and sugar, rice kanji with salt and curds and arrow root porridge and light coconut water are ideal to be consumed in the first 2-3 days. B complex and C vitamin supplement is very important during diarrhoea.

The biggest danger faced in a diarrhoea is dehydration and blood sugar levels dropping. During acute diarrhoea, the danger of dehydration is very high. So it is essential to start the treatment immediately to replace fluids and electrolytes. Small portions of Electrol (which is available in the pharmacy) can be poured into separate glasses and should be given to the child at frequent intervals. This will help in the treating dehydration.

One must be very careful while looking after and feeding patience of diarrhoea and ensure they eat their food properly. It can prove to be fatally dangerous as they may lose a lot of vitamins and minerals and become weak during this period. They may become too weak to the extent of requiring hospitalisation. The week body is also prone to picking many infections and catch cough , cold, and fever.

I hope this article has given you enough information on how to deal with diarrhoea. Comments and feedback are welcome

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Before embarking on an exercise or diet routine, it is essential to figure out what you want for your body. Are you looking at losing weight or building muscle mass? Because each of these requires a different strategy.

HOW TO BUILD MUSCLE

If you are already at an ideal weight and want to build muscle, focus on strength training exercise, weights, stretches and some yoga as well at least three to four times in a week.

To build muscle mass quickly, the workout should be supplemented with a good diet. The diet must include at least three meals with a perfectly balanced mix of carbohydrates and proteins. You may consume extra protein in the form of skimmed milk or egg white. Also remember that daal should be an integral part of lunch and dinner.

To ensure that you don’t gain weight and keep the fat per cent in your body at a minimum, you need to do 25-30 minutes of a cardio exercise like walking or jogging every day and some weight training at least three to four times in a week.

HOW TO LOSE FAT (WEIGHT)

If your target is to lose a few kilograms to reach that ideal weight, your focus has to be on cardiovascular exercise like a walk or jog in a park, treadmill (without incline) or on a cross trainer for about 30-45 minutes through the week. You could also do yoga or weight training or stretches to tone your body, but these should not substitute a cardio workout.

Regular workouts alone are not enough to stay fit. You need to have control over your stomach as well. You have to completely avoid all food containing excess oil like deepfried snacks, chaat, buttery popcorn or corn, nuts and oilseeds like almonds, flaxseed, walnuts, butter, ghee, cream, all sweets, desserts, cakes, cookies, chocolates, ice creams, etc.

If you don’t eat three well-balanced meals a day, you will not only lose fat but also muscle tissue, especially if the protein intake is not adequate. This will make you look aged and your skin will begin to sag and wrinkle. Never substitute a meal with just fruits, salads or boiled vegetables.

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