Add Eggs To Your Healthy Diet Checklist

If you’re always on the go, you know how challenging it can be to whip up meals that are not only quick and easy but healthy, as well. The secret weapon in the arsenal of any busy person is the egg — the tried and true ingredient that makes any meal a wholesome. The benefits of eggs are myriad, and this simple kitchen staple can help you reduce the risk of cancer, improve eyesight, and help you burn fat and lose weight.

The poor egg — it gets cracked, beaten, scrambled, and on top of that villainized as an unhealthy meal choice.  But the truth is that the belief that the cholesterol in eggs (found in the yolk) raises the cholesterol levels in your body and puts your ticker at risk is misguided. In fact, research supporting the health benefits of eggs is pouring in and a number of key studies — including one in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition —debunked the myth of unhealthy eggs, proving that healthy consumers of eggs did not suffer an increased risk of stroke or coronary issues. It’s easy to find fantastic ways to incorporate quick egg recipes into your repertoire, and with so many ways to cook an egg, you’ll never get bored with this health food staple.

Eggs can help reduce the risk of cancer

Whole eggs are one of the best sources of the choline nutrient (one large egg has about 30 percent of your recommended daily intake). A study published this year found that women who increase their intake of choline were 24 percent less likely to develop breast cancer.  Choline is found mostly in the yolk, so this gives you license to ditch the egg-white omelettes and indulge.

Eggs keep your eyesight stronger and longer

Egg yolks are also high in lutein and zeaxanthin, two important antioxidants that have been shown to ward off macular degeneration — which means your eyesight will stay strong even into your 70s and 80s.

An omelette a day can shrink your waist size

Louisiana State University recently conducted a study and found that obese women who ate a breakfast of two eggs at least five times a week lost 65 percent more weight and had more energy than women who breakfasted on bagels. The protein and fatty acids in eggs are more satisfying than carbs, which makes you feel fuller longer. Eggs also contain a certain amino acid sequence that makes egg protein very easy for your body to absorb, which means that a Grade A egg is an ideal muscle repair food after a spin class or yoga session, and you can easily eat one on the way to or fromthe gym.

All eggs contain the same basic nutrients, and large eggs only pack 70 calories each, so you really can’t go wrong. But depending on your eating habits, special eggs may be worth the extra money. Omega-3 eggs, for example, are produced by hens that are fed a diet containing flax seed.   When the hens digest the flax, some of the ALA (alpha linolenic acid) gets broken down into DHA and both fatty acids transfer to the yolk. Meanwhile, organic eggs have been laid by hens that are raised under organic guidelines and have access to the outdoors.

Whichever way you cook them, eggs are a quick and easy breakfast, lunch, or dinner solution that won’t break the bank, or your diet and exercise routine. Check out getcracking.ca for a plethora of quick and healthy recipes you can easily incorporate into your lifestyle. If you live life in the fast lane, consider eggs a healthy, versatile, and necessary part of your midweek meal plan.

This is a guest blog entry.

4 Reasons Why Cannabis Actually Helps You Lose Weight

You've never associated cannabis with fitness. It is thought of by most as the anti-fitness drug, because the 'munchies' and weight loss don't go well together. It is being studied more as medical marijuana laws are loosening up and it is becoming completely legal in some places.

You might be shocked to hear this if you've dabbled with cannabis in the past, but it's now thought it can help you lose weight. In fact, it can help you drop those extra pounds in a number of different ways, which we're going to touch on now.

The Ability to Suppress Your Appetite

There is no denying cannabis stimulates your appetite, but even though it is not fully understood it can also suppress it. They do know it's got something to do with the CB1 receptor, which is found in cells throughout the human body. At the moment people use coffee and diet pills to suppress their appetite, but we all know consuming stimulants comes with side-effects. Is it possible cannabis could be used in the future to help people who can't resist eating too much food?

Lowering Your Body's Insulin Resistance

Insulin has a bad reputation, which happened to coincide with the popularity of low-carb diets. It is actually essential in order to keep you healthy, and when your body's insulin resistance levels are lower it will aid in fat loss. They've conducted a study in the US with nearly 5,000 people who consumed cannabis, and they found their insulin levels when in a fasted state were 16 percent lower than those who didn't touch the drug. On average, they also had a tighter waist than non-consumers too.

Improving Your Mood and Relieving Pain

In order to exercise in the first place, you need to feel motivated and free of pain. More exercise means more weight loss, and cannabis is the perfect solution to both of those problems. THC is the active ingredient in cannabis capable of delivering the results, and your body even releases cannabinoids on its own when you work out. Where do you think the runner's high comes from? But THC only stays in your blood for a few hours after you have finished exercising, so supplementing with it will prolong the effects.

Increasing The Metabolism of Fat Cells

Tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) is another compound found in cannabis thought to help you lose fat quicker. It increases the metabolism of your fat cells, or at least we think it does. Up until now we've only seen results when testing on animals, plus there are only a few strains of the drug with enough THCV to see any measurable amounts of success in aiding fat loss. It is one of those benefits you would only really see if they did one day decide to prescribe cannabis specifically for people looking to lose weight.

For Informational Purposes only

The purpose of this article wasn't to glamorize cannabis. There are still tests being carried out on the drug every day, and there are negative side-effects to go along with the positive ones. You should also know there are hundreds of other things capable of helping you lose weight. It is still interesting to know the drug that supposedly made you lazy and hungry could one day be used to shed those extra pounds. It can also be used to help people gain weight, so it is one drug we know will help many people with a weight problem.

This is a guest blog post.

What is a dental bridge, and when would I need one?

A sudden slip on some ice and a head first dive later, and all of a sudden, half your front teeth end up on the sidewalk in a bloody mess. Despite the best efforts of your dentist, not all of them could be saved. With these significant gaping holes now in your smile, your head is racing: will my mouth look like this for the rest of my life?

Thankfully, there are many providers of dental bridges in Chandler Arizona that can help restore your smile to its former glory.

Even if this isn't your present situation, this article will help you understand what a dental bridge is, and when you will need one.

What is a dental bridge?

A dental bridge is fabricated tooth or series of teeth that are built to replace natural teeth that have fallen out for whatever reason.

The artificial teeth are created from porcelain with a titanium/alloy core, and are bookended on each side by dental crowns that are slipped over the natural teeth adjacent to the artificial teeth that are about to be inserted.

When would I need to get a dental bridge?

As you age, the probability of losing your teeth to disease or the ravages of aging increase with every passing year.

Additionally, there are a number of accidental incidents (a fall, getting hit in the face by a puck during a hockey game, etc) that could occur along the road of life that can leave you suddenly without some of your teeth.

While you could certainly embrace life without the teeth that were formerly in your mouth, most would love to do something about it if they have the option to do so.

Getting a dental bridge is that option, as it replaces this unsightly gap in your mouth with artificial teeth that look exactly like the natural ones you still have.

With this treatment, the difficulties incurred with a gap-toothed smile can be avoided, and you will be able to chew food as effectively as you did before.

What are the advantages of getting a dental bridge?

As alluded to in the previous paragraph, there are a number of advantages to getting a dental bridge over not getting one.

The obvious one is that it helps restore your smile to the way it was before. As ugly as it is to say, people judge on appearance far more than we would like to admit, so taking the step to restore your teeth to the way they were will go a long way to ensure that you get treated fairly.

Getting a dental bridge will also enable you to chew properly and speak in the manner that you grew accustomed to before you lost your teeth.

Depending on how many teeth lost in the incident that is prompting you to consider a dental bridge, it may have changed the composure of your face. When you get a dental bridge, it can help restore its former shape.

Finally, a dental bridge will help prevent your remaining teeth from moving out of their proper alignment.

Allowed to do so, that can further impact the appearance of your smile, making a dental bridge even more important to those that care a great deal about their looks.

Bridging the gap in your smile

Admit it: you love the way your smile looked, and you want it back. A dental bridge will help you restore that toothy grin just the way you remembered it, and even though many of those teeth will be artificial, no one will be the wiser.

This is a guest blog entry.

7 Facts to Know About Water and Weight Loss

Losing weight can be a difficult process. And whether you get supplements from http://www.phentermine.net or go to another resource to get the help that you need, you will find that there are a lot of things that you need to look at to make sure that you can drop your pounds easily. In this article, we’re going to look at issues related to water so that you can see how it can help you to lose weight.

1. Drinking water helps with calorie burning. There is a lot to be said about water, but how many calories that it burns is definitely a plus when all is said and done. It helps to burn calories because it takes more calories to drink it than it even has.

2. Lots of foods have water. Worried about your water intake? If you have plenty of fruits and veggies in your diet, you don’t necessarily have to worry too much. There are plenty of foods that have water in them and as long as you eat and drink as much as you should be for your weight and activity level, you’ll be good to go.

3. You need to drink more than 8 glasses of water a day. Eight glasses is a minimum, and it’s not meant to be a number that everyone adheres by. Make sure that you take other things into account, including your activity level and your overall health before you make a decision as to how much you should be drinking.

4. Drinking more water can help you to reduce your appetite. Sometimes, that feeling that we mistake for hunger is actually thirst. So, by filling your stomach up with some water at first, you can make sure that you get everything that you need and reduce the amount of hunger that you feel before you start eating.

5. Some people need more water to stay hydrated than others do. If you’re a larger person or you’re trying to deal with other issues at hand, you want to make sure that you pay attention to your body. As long as you get hydrated enough to take care of things, you can make sure that you are in good shape when it comes time to get through your day.

6. Water helps to reduce weight gain. Water is what most of our bodies are made of, and if you’re concerned about dropping weight at all, you want to make sure that you look into what is out there. Water drinking helps our bodies to reduce how much weight that we are trying to deal with in the first place.

7. If you don’t like water, consider mixing it up somewhat. Add something like a calorie-free flavor or something else to make sure that you get the most out of what you’re doing. Then you can be certain that you’ve got everything that you need and will be able to get down more water than you could have otherwise.

This is a guest blog entry.

Quit Smoking with E-Cigarettes

Although smokers don’t like to think about it, there is no denying the fact that smoking kills.  From heart disease to cancer, inhaling smoke from traditional tobacco products is a deadly habit, not only for smokers themselves but also for the people around them who are exposed to second-hand smoke.

Quitting is hard, mostly but not only due to nicotine addition, but switching to E-cigarettes may help even heavy smokers to reduce or quit smoking traditional tobacco products.

Nicotine – E-cigarettes allow smokers to avoid the negative withdrawal effects of going “cold turkey” with liquid formulas that contain nicotine. E-cigarettes allow users to gradually wean themselves from nicotine over time.  However, users immediately benefit from not inhaling tobacco smoke.  There are different concentrations of nicotine available to refill or replace capsules, so smokers can reduce their nicotine consumption and eventually switch to non-nicotine formulations.

One of the major advantages of opting for e-cigarettes over other quit-smoking aids like nicotine patches or gum is that many smokers smoke for reasons that are not directly related to nicotine addiction.  Even when they are receiving nicotine from these aids, they still feel the desire to smoke because of its social aspects, because it has become a ritual associated with other pleasurable things, or because they simply enjoy the sensation of smoking.  Patches and gums are not able to address these issues, but e-cigarettes can, in the following ways:

Social smoking – there is an undeniably social aspect to smoking that is difficult to give up.  Indeed, many people who are trying to quit feel that it is more difficult to do so because their colleagues or friends smoke.  As smoking is not allowed in most places, the act of smoking involves leaving a restaurant or office to go outside – people trying to quit feel excluded from social activities if they do not go, but feel pressure to smoke if they do go.  E-cigarettes can be very helpful in this situation, because it gives the smoker who is trying to quit a way to maintain the social aspects without risking that they will have a cigarette.

Habit - many smokers can do with or without the nicotine, but find it much harder to give up the ritual of having a cigarette with their morning coffee, or after a meal.  Some smokers feel that a regular smoke break helps them to be more productive.  E-cigarettes allow smokers to tackle the process of quitting in stages – with or without nicotine, they allow people to break their dependence on tobacco without also requiring them to take on the equally difficult challenge of changing habits at the same time. 

Feel and function – for many smokers, the act of smoking itself is one of the pleasures they enjoy about smoking.  E-cigarettes very often resemble real cigarettes in terms of how they feel in the hand, and some even have an LED tip that glows as you inhale the vapor.  The vapor that is inhaled contains no tobacco or carbon monoxide, but it can be felt as it is inhaled, and gives a satisfying smoke-like appearance and feel as it is exhaled.

In these different ways, e-cigarettes may help smokers to wean themselves from a dependence on traditional tobacco products and immediately reap the benefits of a smoke-free life.

Remember This Before Getting Laser Hair Removal Done

People from all around the world now use laser hair removal in order to get rid of the hair they do not want. Most people simply do not want to be faced with constant tweezing, shaving and waxing. Everything becomes tiring in that case so alternatives are always considered. When using laser hair removal, there are various advantages that appear. However, this does not mean that you can simply go to the first clinic, even the awarded best in Kelowna, without knowing as much as possible about the procedure.

You Have To Be A Candidate

Technology has advanced a lot and the number of people that can use laser hair removal is definitely a lot higher than it used to be a few years ago. For instance, just those that had dark hair and lighter skin were able to use the procedure with huge success. Now, this is no longer the case since we are faced with advanced lasers that are capable of working for most people in the world. However, there are cases in which you will not be a great candidate. It is vital that you talk to the doctor before you get your hopes up.

Work Only With Qualified Technicians

Laser treatment has to be seen as being a serious procedure. This is the case even if you perform the procedure for a cosmetic reason. You will need to go through many appointments for all the hair to be removed and you have to be 100% sure that the technician that will work on you will have the necessary skill to get the job done right. Proper training and certification are always needed.

Waxing Before The Initial Visit

This is something that you should not do. In fact, any follicle removal method should be avoided. This does include epilating, tweezing and waxing. You can shave but only in some specific situations. There are clinics that will tell you that shaving should be avoided. In most cases it is really important that you talk with the technician so you see exactly what the best option is for you.

Avoid Tanning

Skin colour is going to have a huge impact on the efficiency of the laser hair removal session. Because of this, you have to always avoid tanning, especially before your very first appointment. When there are colour contrasts, lasers work better and tanning will reduce that contrast. In addition, skin sensitivity will be reduced as you avoid sun rays.

Never Expect Instant Results

Every interested party should know that laser hair removal will be a pretty long process. You will not be able to get instant removal after your very first treatment session. Gradual hair removal will happen after every single appointment. The number of appointments that will be necessary varies from 6 to 10 in most cases. Due to safety reasons, your appointments will have to be spread over around 8 weeks. You cannot be exposed to too much laser since that would damage your skin. Always respect doctor indications.

This is a guest blog post.

Considerations For Opening Your Own Practice

Owning one's own practice is the goal of most medical practitioners. They want that sign with their name out front, and the ability to oversee the every detail of their operation, holding it to their own high standards.

It sounds appealing, and it can certainly be very rewarding. But things can go wrong if you don't manage the practice correctly.

If you are getting started on the process of running your own practice, keep these major areas in mind to avoid problems down the road.

Data Handling

The way you handle patient information and the reports, notes, and results you gather about them is critical to your success--and to your ability to stay on the good side of the law.

HIPAA is very specific about how you can and cannot use this information, who can have it, and how it must be handled. The great thing about starting out new is that you will be able to implement HIPAA-compliant systems from square one, as opposed to having to back up and change existing records.

Start with your systems. Go with a system that will meet meaningful use guidelines and use a quality computer system that can handle it and expand later. Get a large server, use top-quality virus protection, get an impermeable firewall, and establish strong passwords.

That last step involves your employees. Hire people who understand medical records, preferably experienced people with a sharp eye for computer technology. They will be able to set things up on a course for effective records management that will take care of your patients and you.

Marketing

You're a physician, not an advertising genius. At least not officially. But you will have to work like one if your practice is going to be successful.

The first thing you need to understand is that a medical practice doesn't advertise or market itself in quite the same way as any other business. Most consumers will not make a "cold call" to a doctor unless they're just new in town and don't know anybody else.

The most common thing to draw a patient to a doctor is a referral. If you're a general practitioner, your referrals will come by way of your other patients. If you're a specialist, that will still be true but you may also receive referrals from other physicians.

For you as a marketing doctor, this means you have to do everything you can to make the experience positive for your patients. Touch up your bedside manner. Make sure the office is clean, comfortable, and spacious. Make sure billing is accurate, fair, and timely. And as far as referrals from your colleagues, stay engaged with the medical community. Get to know other practitioners outside the hospital, since many of them might not interact with you there for many years.

In short, then, work the traditional advertising channels, but simultaneously work to engage with your colleagues and existing patients.

Local Regulations

Let's back up a little bit to the actual establishment of your place of practice. If you're just starting out and want to get patients into the exam rooms as soon as possible, you'll probably want to seek an existing medical building so that you can get up and running quickly.

If that's not the case for you, you may be building or renovating for your practice. Make sure you spend some time with local code enforcement officials to make sure your plan is acceptable. There will be issues about everything from sign types to placement of walls that will have to be addressed, and particularly if you're doing renovation yourself, you may get things built that inspectors will later force you to change.

Your time in medical school, residency, and internship has made you ready for the daily work of caring for patients. But when you introduce all the considerations of running the actual practice, you may feel hopelessly unqualified. Don't let the process overwhelm you. Take a practitioner's approach.

Diagnose each problem, plan a course of action, and track its progress. And just as with patient care, the most important thing is to keep sight of the things that you are less experienced with and making sure that you get expert help when needed.

This is a blog post by Nancy Evans.