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Wednesday, 10 March 2010

  • Fecal Bacteria with Your Salad Anyone?

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    I just saw a Yahoo article written by environmental journalist Lori Bongiorno on the cleanliness—or lack thereof—of bagged lettuce.  

    The article says that Consumer Reports recently tested 208 containers of salad greens, finding “common indicators of poor sanitation and fecal contamination” in a large amount of them.  Um…ew.

    Fortunately, there were no discoveries of toxic bacteria like E.coli O157:H7, listeria, or salmonella, which could cause disease.

    Still, food safety expert Marion Nestle reminds us that “it’s never a good idea to have fecal bacteria in your food or water”—hmm, you don’t say—“because it means that untreated waste has gotten into them somehow.”  Again, ew.

    And in case you're wondering, according to the Consumer Reports tests it didn’t make a difference if greens were organic.

    Anyway, here’s what Marion says you can do about it:

    More Here...

  • This Guy Needs Diet and Exercise Tips!


    Due to my recent weight gain (around 5 pounds since September of last year), I've made myself a goal: to lose those 5 pounds in my Spring Break (10 days).

    Now I'm not particularly overweight for my body, but it's just really nice to have a 6-pack back cause you know, summer's right around the corner and beach visits are...quite common. Oh, and the fact that my butt seems to be relatively "rounder" than usual would contribute to this goal.

    Haha, but all kidding aside...

    Please help me out on some manageable, easy dieting or exercise tips to lose weight!


    What do you think about this? Is losing the weight safely possible?

  • Advice: I Need SPF Help!


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    This comes from our Advice column!

    From LadyinRed@Datingish:

    "Is body lotion with SPF 30 as preventative as actual SPF 30 sunblock? Or should you have a separate body lotion and separate sunblock?  It just seems like a lot of work to apply both multiple times every single day."

    What do you know about SPF? Give some advice!: "Is body lotion with SPF 30 as preventative as actual SPF 30 sunblock?"

  • The Benefits of Wheatgrass



    I tried my first shot of wheatgrass today and it surprisingly tasted a lot better than I had expected. It actually tasted like raw green beans, but it had a not so good aftertaste. It had a very watery consistency and was a little foamy from being juiced. My fiance and I both ordered a 1 oz. shot from a natural market, which put us back $4.50 for both. It's hard to imagine paying that much for such a small amount of liquid, but wheatgrass has an amazing list of benefits and it really makes it worth the money. More Here...

  • Pass On Your Positive Self Esteem!



    So I have been sick lately. Not only did I get a UTI but I also got another cold. So instead of working out I am giving my body the rest it needs and not going to the gym until Monday. Usually at this point I would have given up on my "diet" and ate all the McDonalds, Cheese doodles, ice cream I wanted. Not gonna lie... I did have some comfort foods, but I moderated them because I learned something.

    I want to be a positive. healthy role model for my daughter.

    The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. If you hate your body and complain about it, constantly doing a fad diet, your daughter will most likely be the same way. I remember my mom starving herself to a point where she couldn't fit in a size zero wedding dress. She wanted to look good and she would do anything to get there. When I was slightly overweight in high school she never told me to eat healthy and exercise when I declared I wanted to lose weight. So I did what she did... counted all my calories and obsessed over every single pound. My mother didn't even raise an eyebrow as I told her that I had ONLY eaten 500 calories that day. Her mother and my whole family in Germany is obsessed over physical beauty and weight. My cousin also had an eating disorder..going a weeks with literally eating only an apple a day and running to a point of literal exhaustion. Even my father told me that it was okay to purge after a binge, which he would do quite often.
    More Here...

Tuesday, 09 March 2010

  • Response: Suicide Over Acne


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    When I read Lovelyish's post about the young man from Hong Kong that killed himself because he was overwhelmed with depression caused by acne, I felt immediately compassionate. While I never had to deal with serious acne before, I know many people who have - and I have seen the pain they feel.

    But after the compassion faded, I really started to think about how acne effects the people it covers. I've had to deal with pimples, zits and blackheads nearly my entire life, and so I can (to an extent) understand the frustration. But is acne really worth killing yourself over?

    I started to wonder what the dermatology practices are like over in Hong Kong, and whether or not they have the same resources that we do in America. I started to wonder what kinds of medicines, creams and lotions are offered overseas, and I wonder if this man honestly felt that suicide was the only way out of an acne-ridden life. More Here...

  • Health at Work: Getting Paid to Smoke?


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    Last Friday at work - and I never thought about it until that night - I realized smokers are allowed to take smoke breaks when they need them.

    I realize cigarettes are addicting; but it's an addiction they chose. I'm sure they were told how cigarettes are addictive before they started; they new what a nasty habit it was, yet they chose to start smoking. The fact that they get to take smoke breaks whenever they need to really irritates me. Is someone with a drug addiction allowed to go take a break so they can catch their dealer or shoot up? Would a bulimic (yes, bulimia and eating disorders are addictions) be allowed to take a paid break to binge then purge? Are alcoholics given breaks to get wasted when they're going through withdrawal? No.

    Smokers aren't forced to clock out or anything, they just walk out, take their 10.. 15..maybe even 20 minutes to smoke... all the while, they're getting paid to do there job which they clearly aren't doing! Am I the only one who finds something wrong with this?

    I'm a hardworking employee and - call me crazy - I expect the people who work around me to do the same. It's like when people take there phones to the bathroom and make calls, text, or Facebook their friends. It's not right- you aren't being paid to socialize, you're being paid to do your job. But I'm getting off subject.

    Should smokers be able to take smoke breaks at work (especially without clocking out)? What are your thoughts about this?

  • Advice: Should Girls Skip School While on Their Period?

    This comes from the Advice column!

    Thanks for the question, JulyDoll@xanga!

    "What do you think of girls skipping school because they're on their period? One of our [male] teacher gave our mixed-sex class a lecture about missing too much school due to illness, and in future he wants a doctors' note for repeat absences, and he had a list of the worst offenders [all girls- I suspect he didn't guess it was for periods].

    Talking about it afterwards, I was horrified when 5 of my good friends admitted to taking "monthly sick leave" from school... that it was so commonplace! Four days in a row off, once a month, EVERY month! We're 17, and my argument was "How does your Mother/Sister cope with going to work everyday?" along with "How do the female teachers cope? They can't miss an entire week like that?" ...Now we girls are going to get a lecture from a female teacher about it next week...

    What do you think? One of the friends has prescription painkillers, so she must have it bad, but she doesn't take them.... Do you think it's ridiculous too, or should girls be entitled to "monthly sick leave"?

    What are your thoughts on this? Share them!: "What do you think of girls skipping school because they're on their period?"

  • Workout Secrets From LG Part III: Beautiful Biceps

    I've done two parts to this series already: Part I was Sexy Shoulders, and Part II was Lovely Legs. Here's Part III of the series, Beautiful Biceps.

    For maximum benefit, since the biceps are usually stronger muscles than your shoulders or triceps, and since the resistance band isn't pulled as tight as it is in the leg workout, you should step up the resistance bands a level - if you normally use a light band for everything else, use a medium band for these exercises, etc. With that said, this is just four exercises (and trust me, that's all you need), and takes just minutes out of your day. Here they are:

    Exercise #1: Standard Curls

    All the exercises we do today you will be standing on the resistance band the same way we stood on it for narrow squats in the Leg sequence. With this stance, grip the resistance band handles and point your palms forward (away from your body), like so:



    Now just curl them straight forward/upward, like so:   More Here...

  • When Was the Last Time YOU Ate Breakfast?


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    We always hear that breakfast is the most important meal of the day: it helps boost your metabolism, sets up a healthy diet and gives you ton of energy! But lets get real, Healthkickers --


    When was the last time YOU ate breakfast? What did you have?