Health Tips

Steps to Prevent the Swine Flu

Autumn has arrived. Leaves are changing color. The weather is turning cooler. Football games flash on TV, families gather for holiday festivities, and crock-pots simmer with mom’s homemade soup.

But, that’s not all. It’s also that time of year when coughs, colds, and flu symptoms reign supreme. And this year, a new flu bug is in town. The H1N1 virus has been topping news headlines across the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 300,000 cases of the H1N1 virus, better known as “swine flu,” have already been reported this fall. During the winter months, the number of swine flu cases is expected to increase dramatically.

So, how do you protect yourself against the famed swine flu, or any other flu virus for that matter?

* Lather Up! – Your first defense against flu germs is simple. Wash your hands. Every time that you cook, blow your nose, use the bathroom, handle garbage, or touch public surfaces, wash your hands for 20 seconds with soap and warm water.

* Catch Some ZZZzzzs – Get a minimum of 7-9 hours of sleep each night. When you are sleep deprived, your immune system is less able to fight off infection.

* Use Caution – Protect your belongings from germs that can be transmitted to your body. Hang your purse in the restroom stall instead of putting it on the floor. Wipe-down your credit cards and cell phone with disinfectant wipes.

* Pay Attention – Know what to look for when determining if you have a seasonal cold or something more serious. Swine flu symptoms include fever, extreme fatigue, sore throat, coughing, and possibly nausea. If you experience any of these symptoms, visit your doctor for a proper diagnosis.

* Keep Moving – Exercise is an important part of your overall health. Build up your stamina and your immune system by staying active. Jazzercise Founder and CEO Judi Sheppard Missett recommends a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise on most days of the week.

* Spring Clean (a little early) – Germs that settle in your clothing or household surfaces can easily be transmitted to your body. Disinfect household surfaces with an antibacterial product that has part bleach. Turn your pockets inside out before washing your clothes, so that germs can’t hide in the tight nooks and crannies.

* Talk to Your Doctor – Ask your doctor about the H1N1 vaccine, which has just become available. Also, talk to your doctor about antiviral medications, such as Tamiflu, which can effectively prevent the flu if taken within the first 48 hours of symptoms.

Metabolism 101

Women all over the world get weak in the knees when someone mentions the “m” word. Metabolism is a universal hot topic, as countless diets and fitness regimens promise to stoke the metabolic fires and bring lifelong change. So, what exactly is your metabolism, and can you really increase it?

Simply put, your metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories. Your personal metabolism is largely determined by genetics, and it inevitably slows down with age. Yet, there are steps you can take to rev up your metabolism and increase your body’s calorie-burning furnace.

* Lift Weights – Muscle loss is one of the reasons metabolism slows with age. Muscle burns calories at a greater rate than fat. From age 20-70, we lose about 30 percent of our total muscle cells. Resistance training can counteract that loss. In fact, one Netherlands study determined that resting metabolism increased a whopping nine percent over a time period of 18 weeks when participants built more muscle mass.

* Eat Breakfast – Perhaps breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. That’s because breakfast jump-starts your metabolism before you begin your daily activities. Your body will burn more calories from dawn to dusk if you stoke the metabolic fires first thing in the morning.

* Start Grazing – The culinary routine of three square meals per day is not only passé, but also counterproductive for your metabolism. Researchers at Georgia State University show that three-meal-a-day female athletes have lower resting metabolic rates and higher body fat percentages than their counterparts who graze throughout the day. Eating small meals several times per day stabilizes your blood sugar and revs up your metabolism. If you go too long between meals, your body enters starvation mode, and it stores up excess fuel as fat.

* Get Active – A regular exercise program is vital, but that doesn’t give you license to be a couch potato for the rest of the day. Consider that an average woman burns 2,000 calories per day. Perhaps 400 of those calories are burned in a given workout. That means the remaining 80 percent of calories are burned in daily activities. So, trade an hour of TV time for a more active hobby, and you’ll burn more calories in a given day. Jazzercise Founder and CEO Judi Sheppard Missett recommends making small changes in your lifestyle, such as taking the stairs more often or selecting a parking space farther away from your destination.

* Increase Protein – Resting metabolism increases after a protein-rich meal because the digestion process for protein uses more calories. As an added bonus, protein makes your body feel more satiated, so you’ll be less tempted to snack. So, add more protein into your daily diet to increase your metabolic rate. But, don’t go overboard and cut out health carbohydrates altogether, as your body needs the nutrients found in healthy carbs.

There’s no magic bullet when it comes to increasing metabolism. Start making small lifestyle changes and see if the “m” word becomes your newest friend.

Strength Training Lessens Arthritis Pain

You may think that weight-training exercises will worsen your symptoms. Perhaps you even avoid exercise due to fear that you’ll be laid-up for days. If that’s the case, then it’s time to re-think your aversion to exercise. In fact, a little bit of load-bearing exercise is just what the doctor ordered.

Dozens of research studies conducted within the past year show the benefits of exercise for people who suffer from arthritis. Some of the positive effects are:

* Decreased Pain – Whether you suffer from osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis, increasing your muscle strength with weight-bearing exercise allows your muscles to act as shock absorbers, thus lessening pain in your joints. Tufts University researchers documented a 43 percent decrease in pain among arthritis patients who participate regularly in strength training.

* Better Bones – Tufts University researchers also report that strength-training exercises can help build bone mass in arthritis patients. Post-menopausal women are particularly vulnerable to bone loss, typically losing up to two percent of bone mass every year. But, regular strength training counteracts that process. After just six months of exercise, researchers report a measurable difference.

* No More Moody Blues – Strength-training not only builds a healthy physique, but also helps to fight depression. A recent study conducted at Harvard University indicates that strength training produces some of the same results as taking an antidepressant.

* Sweeter Dreams – If arthritis pain is keeping you up at night, then it’s definitely time to give weight-training exercises a try. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill learned that poor quality of sleep is rampant among those with arthritis. However, a systematic strength-training regimen can help you fall asleep more quickly, sleep more deeply, and awaken less often.

* Slimmer Physique – Strength training is an important element in trimming your waistline because it increases your resting metabolic rate. A regular weight-training regimen, about 2-3 times per week, will stoke your metabolism by as much as 15 percent.

Ready to get started? Jazzercise Founder and CEO Judi Sheppard Missett suggests keeping these things in mind when you’re about to begin pumping iron:

* Start Slow – Your body needs time to adjust to your new fitness regimen. Start slow and gradually increase the resistance and number of repetitions.

* Get Help – Work with a fitness professional for your first few sessions to ensure that you are using safe form.

* Listen Up – Always listen to your body. Strength training should require effort, but it should not cause pain.

Don't sweat it!!!

Whew! Working up a good sweat can be exhilarating. When you finish your exercise hour drenched in sweat, you feel like you’ve accomplished something. But, what does medical research have to say about sweat? What exactly is sweat? And how do you know if you’re sweating enough? Or too much?

Since every person’s body composition is different, your experience with sweat may be entirely different than the person on the treadmill next to you. Still, there are a few general principles that can provide answers to commonly asked sweaty questions.

1. What is sweat? Simply put, sweat is your body’s way of cooling itself. When your hard working muscles create excess heat, then your body produces perspiration – fluid largely composed of water – that is excreted through sweat glands in the skin. When the sweat evaporates from your skin, it actually removes heat, consequently cooling down your body.

2. Is all sweat the same? Our skin has two types of sweat glands. Eccrine glands, located all over the body, produce the clear, salty sweat that we are most familiar with. Meanwhile, apocrine glands are found on specific areas of the body, such as your scalp, underarms, and groin. These glands release a fatty sweat, which contains bacteria that is responsible for the foul odor we typically associate with sweat.

3. How much sweat is enough? It’s hard to say, since each individual’s body composition is unique. Sweat accumulates when your muscles are working hard. For that reason, breaking a sweat is a good sign. In fact, Jazzercise Founder and CEO Judi Sheppard Missett states that sweating is a positive indicator that your body’s cooling system is in working order.

4. What does sweat do? In addition to cooling down your body, sweat also serves as a natural detox. While 99 percent of the fluid excreted by eccrine glands is water, the other one percent is actually comprised of waste materials being released from the body.

5. Is it possible to sweat too much? Never use sweat as a means of weight loss. Wearing heavy clothing or specially designed bodysuits during exercise to increase sweat may shed initial pounds, but you’re only losing water weight. And your body needs those fluids! Whenever you are exercising, wear loose-fitting, comfortable clothing and drink plenty of liquids to balance the loss of fluids that occurs when you sweat.

For more health tips visit the official Jazzercise site at http://www.jazzercise.com

If you have any questions please consult your physician.