FEATURED ARTICLES
- Details
- Written by Lisa Jillanza
Childhood obesity is constantly on the rise, so as parents we need to be sure that we are always monitoring our children's fat intake. In order to help your child, maintain a healthy lifestyle, be sure to establish good eating habits like the following:
Childhood obesity
- Children with a family history of cholesterol and heart disease should drink 2 percent milk.
- After their 2nd birthday, all kids should drink 1 percent milk.
- Serve your child lean meats and fish.
- Limit your child's cheese intake.
- Limit fruit juice intake to 4 to 6 ounces per day.
- Offer low-fat snacks like yogurt, pretzels or fresh fruit.
- Prepare foods using low-fat methods like broiling, steaming or roasting.
- Details
- Written by Lisa Jillanza
Easter may be just around the corner, but that Easter candy always sticks around for a few weeks and sometimes months. While it's ok to satisfy your sweet tooth use this calorie calculator to monitor your intake!
Easter candy calories
From marshmallow peeps to chocolate, find out the calories of the content of your Easter basket,
4 Peeps Marshmallow Bunnies: 130 calories
1 Peeps Hollow Milk Chocolate Egg: 420 calories
5 Mars Mini Chocolate Eggs: 179 calories
1 Cadbury Solid Milk Chocolate Easter Bunny: 890 calories
1 Cadbury Crème Egg: 150 calories
12 Cadbury Chocolate Eggs: 190 calories
1 Reese's Peanut Butter Egg: 180 calories
1 Reese's Reester Bunny: 798 calories
1 Brachs Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Egg: 43 calories
5 Brachs Malted Easter Eggs: 180 calories
35 Jelly Belly Assorted Jelly Beans: 140 calories
1 Cadbury Caramel Egg: 190 calories
5 Peeps Marshmallow Chicks: 136 calories
1 Large Solid Chocolate Bunny (7 oz.): 1050 calories
8 Robin Eggs: 180 calories
1 Milky Way Bunny: 160 calories
12 Cadbury Mini Eggs: 190 calories
- Details
- Written by Lisa Jillanza
For more than 120 years, experts have been researching the benefits of massage therapy, and besides the obvious stress-free feeling that people have following a massage, there are plenty of other benefits to this ancient healing procedure.
Benefits of massage therapy
One major benefit of massage therapy that researchers have found is that people who get massages on a regular basis have noticed a decrease in their blood pressure.
Massages also help to alleviate the pain of those who suffer from migraine headaches.
Massage can also: reduce your heart rate, increase blood circulation and lymph flow, relax your muscles, improve your range of motion, and increase endorphins.
Research has also shown that while massage therapy does not increase your muscle strength, it can stimulate your weak and inactive muscles and can thereby aid muscles that you may not have worked out in quite some time.
Some other physical benefits of massage therapy include relieving muscle tension and stiffness, alleviating discomfort during pregnancy, reducing
muscle spasms, promoting deeper and easier breathing, enhancing the health and nourishment of your skin, and improving your posture.
Massage therapy, while a physical act, is not all about physical benefits. There are plenty of mental benefits that having a massage can give you. Some of these mental benefits include promoting mental alertness, relieving mental stress, reducing levels of anxiety, improving motor skills, creating body awareness, and fostering a feeling of well-being.
While this article only touches on a few benefits of massage therapy, both physical and mental, there are plenty more out there that researchers are learning about each day.
So, whatever your reason may be, pamper yourself today and reap all the benefits of a great massage.
- Details
- Written by Lisa Jillanza
Spring is finally here! After a long and cold winter, everyone is in their glory with the sunshine and warm weather.
However, coming hand-in-hand with the blooming season is some people's dreaded seasonal nightmare: hay fever.
One of the best plans of action for fighting spring allergies is to avoid the things that make your sneezing, itching and watering eyes worse. Warren V. Filley, M.D., a spokesperson for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, recently told www.health.com which plants you should avoid.
Spring Hay Fever
- Ragweed : It is common along riverbanks and in rural areas. Dr. Filley says that almost 75 percent of people with allergies are sensitive to ragweed.
- Mountain cedar :This tree is commonly found in mountainous regions and, according to Dr. Filley, causes some of the “most severe allergy symptoms I have ever seen.”
- Maple : These trees are found along streams and in woods all through the eastern United States and Canada. The maple produces potent allergens.
- Elm : Common in the wetlands, these trees will most likely aggravate your allergies.
- Mulberry : This pretty tree can be very deceiving. Found in woods and river valleys, it is often associated with contributing to hay fever.
- Pecan : Although it makes many good desserts, the pollen from pecan : found in woods and orchards : is second only to ragweed as the most severe source of allergens.
- Oak : It may have less potent pollen, but it produces very large quantities of it, Dr. Filley says. Avoid the woods just for this one.
- Pigweed/Tumbleweed : This common weed is found in lawns and along roadsides, but be aware.
- Details
- Written by Lisa Jillanza
Sure, you would be hard-pressed to find a woman or a man who says that they actually enjoy the thoughts of spring cleaning. But, if you just take into consideration how many calories are burned while you are doing your spring cleaning, then you may be a little more excited when spring rolls around this year.
Spring cleaning exercises
The actual number of calories burned will depend on your weight, gender and age, but their calculators that you can find online (FitDay or NutriStrategy) that will help you to calculate your actual calories burned.
So, dust off your mops, break out the cleaner and begin to sweat off the weight!
Editor's Note: The calories burned estimates listed here are based on one hour of cleaning for a 155-pound woman.
Gardening: 226 calories
Window washing: 226 calories
Scrubbing floors (on hands and knees): 291 calories
Laundry, ironing: 84 calories
Sewing repairs: 36 calories
Dusting: 97 calories
Scrubbing toilets, tub: 246 calories
Vacuuming: 317 calories
Cleaning gutters: 258 calories
Moving furniture, household items: 387 calories
Painting, papering, plastering: 317 calories
Sweeping: 194 calories
Mopping: 153 calories
