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It may not be the season for oranges, but this fruit is known to have several benefits and is among the most popular fruits around the world. Oranges can be had not only as a snack but also as a major recipe ingredient in various dishes. Nowadays, orange juice is an integral part of a healthy breakfast — thus promoting a healthy start to the day.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Most people who plan to lose weight and start a weight-loss regime (including diet), wonder whether they need to cut out all added sugar from their food intake in order to lose weight.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

“I only need to do strength training since I want to build muscle.”
“To get rid of this belly and get a defined mid-section you need to focus on doing an hour of ab crunches every day.”

The above and many more such declarations are routinely heard in any gym or a fitness studio amongst a group of fitness enthusiasts. However well-intentioned these statements may be, they are based on an individual’s perception of what he or she thinks will work for them. And of course, very often even those needs and goals are based more on preferences than actual needs.

Your fitness needs are not only about your current favorite activities, but also about functional strength and comprehensive exercise programs that can help you deal with lifestyle-related illnesses and many other health concerns.

By mixing it up and introducing variety into your fitness program you not only cross-train your body and keep the mind engaged but also maximize the effort and time you put into your workouts. The idea is to keep your workouts interesting, challenging, comprehensive and result-oriented while you engage in your favorite sport or activity. Follow these tips to assure a complete workout for yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

This revelation of the effects of smoking, especially on your eyes is astonishing. An approximate amount of 4000 chemicals present in the cigarette smoke gets into the bloodstream of smokers and may cause damage to the eye. It can even cause the thinning of the membrane covering the eye, (conjunctiva) resulting in bloodspot and irritate the eyes.

Age-related macular degeneration and other diseases have also been linked to effects of smoking. The causes of macular degeneration are not completely understood, but smoking is believed to be the main preventable risk factor. Smoking directly is linked to the rising of intraocular pressure that can lead to glaucoma and accompanying optic nerve damage. Although the effects of smoking stretches to several eye diseases, including nuclear cataract and thyroid eye disease, the most common cause of smoking related blindness is age related macular degeneration, which results in severe irreversible loss of central vision.

How does smoking damage the eyes? Read the rest of this entry »

Body odor is one of the most disgusting problem for you and also for the person standing next to you. As we have seen in several deodorant ads, a stinking person will not have much to do on a crowded area, and most important of all, he will be driving people away from him “literally”.

Body odor is a smell that is unpleasant and specific to the individual, and can even be used to identify people. All active people will face embarrassing situations at least at one point in their lifetime due to their body odor.  And so, it is most important to learn how to prevent body odor, thus remaining fresh all day long. Everyone knows that the obvious solution to this problem is to use a deodorant. But nowadays, studies are proving that even deodorants are harmful to your body and their use must be as minimal as possible.

Keeping this in mind, I have listed a few tips on how to prevent body odor. These are very handy and can be done with the kitchen ingredients, so, you don’t need to bother about side-effects or similar problems… Read the rest of this entry »