Make sure your blood pressure is less than 140/90 mm Hg
If your systolic pressure is over 140, ask your doctor what you can do to lower it. If you have diabetes it is even more important to maintain your blood pressure at an acceptable level, which reduces long-term complications associated with this disease process. You should be receiving regular monitoring and advice from you GP/diabetic practitioner.

Aim for a healthy weight
Ideally try not to gain extra weight in the first place, if you have then try to lose the weight slowly, at about half to one pound a week until you reach a healthy target. This can be easier to achieve if you include exercise as well to burn off those unwanted calories and tone your body as you lose the weight.

If you are overweight or obese, carrying this extra weight increases your risk of high blood pressure because the heart has to work very hard to keep blood circulating efficiently.

Exercise – be active every day!
Even the simplest exercise will help; you can walk, dance, use the stairs, play sports, or do any activity you enjoy. For instance: get off the bus one or two stops early; park your car at the other end of the car park and walk; walk or cycle to the corner shop.

Being physically active is one of the most important steps you can take to prevent or control high blood pressure and will help you keep your weight down. It will also help to reduce your risk of heart disease and enhances overall wellbeing. All you need to do is 30 minutes of moderate level activity preferably every day of the week – you can even divide the 30 minutes into shorter 10 minute periods if you are not used to regular exercise.

Exercise does not have to be strenuous; you should start slowly and build up the amount of exercise that you do.

It is not advisable, however, to lift heavy weights or to take on certain strenuous activities if exercise has not been gradually and appropriately introduced. If you are worried that your health could be adversely affected by exercise, i.e. you have a heart complaint; make sure that you are reviewed by your GP.

Look at what you are eating. Does it contain a lot of sodium?
It is suggested that no more than 2.4 grams of sodium should be consumed per day. Read the labels and be aware of hidden sodium, which is known to increase blood pressure. Try not to add salt to your meals.

Eat more fruit and vegetables
Eating more fiber should help to stop you feeling hungry and less likely to pick at sweets, chocolate and crisps etc.

Stop/reduce smoking
smoking causes the blood to thicken
Not only does this make you more at risk of developing a dangerous blood clot but it makes the heart work harder in order to ‘push’ the blood around the system to provide oxygen and other important components.

Reduce your stress levels
Take time out for yourself each day to do something you like to do without feeling guilty. If there are any problems worrying you try talking them over with a friend, or someone you trust, this is often all that is needed to make you feel better. Also remember if you wear a smile, it will rub off on others. Try it and see!

Watch your alcohol intake
Keep the amount of units you consume to a minimum, as your body works hard to flush it out of your system and this will have an effect on your blood pressure (plus it will increase your weight).

It is recommended that men limit themselves to no more than one or two drinks per day and women should have no more than one drink per day.

Take medication correctly
If you have been prescribed medication from your GP to control your blood pressure, make sure that you take the medication correctly and visit your GP regularly for your blood pressure to be monitored effectively.

If you discover a lump in one breast, check the other breast. If both breasts feel the same, the lumpiness is probably normal. You should, however, mention it to your doctor at your next visit.

But if the lump is something new or unusual and does not go away after your next menstrual period, it is time to call your doctor. The same is true if you discover a discharge from the nipple or skin changes such as dimpling or puckering.

Don’t let fear delay you. It’s only natural to worry when you find a lump in your breast. But you should know that four out of five breast lumps are not cancerous. No matter what the cause of any lump you find in your breast, the sooner you start treatment, the sooner you’ll be better.

Clinical Evaluation

Taking a complete medical history is the first step in evaluation of all breast lumps. You should be able to tell your doctor what symptoms you’ve had and how long you’ve had them, as well as several other things including:

• Your age
• The first day of your last period
• The state of your general health
• If you’re pregnant
• What medications you currently take, including supplements and OTC medications
• How many children you’ve had
• Whether you have any relatives with benign breast changes or breast cancer
• Whether you’ve previously been diagnosed with benign breast changes

Next, the doctor will examine your breasts and you’ll be scheduled for a diagnostic mammogram to determine what types of changes have occurred in your breast. This may be either a lump that can be felt or an abnormality discovered on a screening mammogram. Diagnostic mammography may include additional views or use special techniques to magnify a suspicious area or to eliminate shadows produced by overlapping layers of normal breast tissue. The doctor will want to compare the diagnostic mammograms with any previous mammograms. If the lump appears to be a cyst, your doctor may ask you to have a sonogram (ultrasound study).

How to Perform a Breast Self Exam

1 out of 8 women are at risk of developing breast cancer over their lifetime. Monthly breast self exam is one part of total breast care that includes annual physician exams and mammograms after age 40.

Here’s How:

1. Stand in front of a mirror. Look for any changes such as puckering, changes in size or shape, dimpling, or changes in your skin texture.
2. Look for changes to the shape or texture of your nipples. Gently squeeze each nipple and look for discharge.
3. Repeat these steps with your hands on your hips, over your head, and at your side.
4. Raise your right arm and examine your every part of your left breast. Move in increasingly smaller circles, from the outside in, using the pads of your index and middle fingers.
5. Gently press and feel for lumps or thickenings.
6. Using body cream, if necessary, continue to circle and gently massage the area outside your breast and under your arm.
7. Repeat with your left arm and right breast.
8. Lay down. Put a pillow under your right shoulder, and your right hand behind your head. Again gently massage and feel your breast for lumps or other changes.
9. Repeat with towel under left shoulder with left hand behind head.

Tips:

1. Menstruating women should do breast self-exam a few days after their periods end. Women who use oral contraceptives should do breast self exam on the first day of a new pill pack.
2. Post-menopausal non-menstruating women should pick a day and do breast self exam on the same day each month. Notify your physician immediately if you notice any changes or lumps.
3. Breast self exam should be a routine part of every woman’s life. Talk to your daughters about the importance of breast self exam so it will become a routine part of their lives.

1.   Take one day at a time.

2.   Frequent blood glucose testing is the best way to keep tight control.

3.   To warm feet, rub with lotion and cover with warm socks.

4.   Protect insulin and test strips from extreme heat and cold.

5.   Check your feet before going to bed.

6.   Blood glucose test guidelines:

• Type 1: 3-4 times a day
• Type 2: 1-2 times a day

7.   Take a walk in the mall.

8.   Check blood glucose before each meal for a day.

9.   Are you testing as often as your should?

10. Have you had your eyes examined recently?

11. Treat yourself to something special today.

12. Eat a variety of foods at every meal.

13. Know the effect of sweets on your blood glucose.

14. Still checking your feet before bedtime?

15. Inspect shoes for foreign objects and feet for pressure points.

16. Know you target HbA1c.

17. Stop Smoking It’s okay to ask for help.

18. Check your glucose patterns for a day.

19. Keep an extra battery for your blood glucose monitor on hand.

20. Find a new diabetic recipe or two to try.

21. When you buy shoes, buy them in the afternoon.

22. Know how to manage your blood glucose levels on sick days.

23. From time to time, check your feet during the day, especially between toes.

24. Is diabetes overwhelming you? Talk to a diabetes team.

25. Never skip a meal.

26. Record your blood glucose levels every time you test.

27. Try chicken soup or broth when you’re sick.

28. Cover open sores with antiseptic and gauze.

29. If blood glucose is too high or low, call your diabetes team or doctor.

30. How many times did you test your blood glucose today?

31. Have you had an HbA1c test recently?

32. Before you start an exercise program consult your doctor!

33. Keep your insulin and medication with you when you travel.

34. Time to get more test strips and lancets?

35. See your diabetes doctor or educator if you have any questions at all.

36. Keep your meter from extreme heat and cold.

37. Learn something new about diabetes today.

38. File toe nails, do not cut them.

39. Use a fresh lancet every time you test.

40. Record times when you have problems with blood glucose levels.

41. Tell your dentist you have diabetes and ask for dental care advice.

42. Call your doctor right away if your foot shows signs of infection.

43. See a diabetes eye doctor.

44. Take a thirty- minute walk at your own pace.

45. Avoid shoes that irritate your feet.

46. Visit a local farmer’s market. It’s good exercise.

47. How many times did you test your blood glucose today?

48. Check your blood glucose pattern over the next four days.

49. See a foot doctor for corns and calluses.

50. Have your blood glucose records ready to show your doctor at all times.

51. Every so often, pick a day to test your blood glucose level four times.

52. Do not go barefoot.

53. Drink eight glasses of water, especially on hot days.

54. Ask your doctor to teach you how to adjust your insulin.

55. Check your blood glucose before drinking alcohol and make sure you’ve eaten.

56. When sick, try popsicles or ginger ale.

57. Have you had your kidney function tested recently?

58. Clean wounds or sores twice a day with warm water and mild soap.

59. Check your test strips supplies regularly.

60. Call a doctor if a cut or sore is draining. Change bandage often.

61. Take a bike ride or a half-hour walk.

62. Keep extra regular insulin on hand when sick.

63. You should see your diabetes doctor four times a year.

64. Attend a diabetes management course.

65. Hug yourself!

66. Frequent blood testing is the best way to keep tight control.

67. Keep an eye on your diabetes medicine – do you need to get more?

68. Less activity may mean more insulin or pills.

69. Have you had your cholesterol checked lately?

70. Keep your blood monitor in your purse or backpack.

71. Wear comfortable shoes and take a hike.

72. Treat yourself to a massage or a warm bath.

73. Keep test strips dry.

74. Check your blood pressure.

75. Get flu shot if you can, every winter.

76. Avoid heating pads or hot compresses on feet.

77. Always take your diabetes medicine when sick.

78. Stick to scheduled meal times as closely as possible.

79. Keep a list of questions you want to ask your doctor.

80. Test often when you eat a heavy meal.

81. See a foot doctor for nail and foot care.

82. Wash your feet and use lotion to keep the skin soft.

83. Try a new low fat recipe once a week.

84. Find a new diabetic dessert recipe and try it.

85. Take a day off to relax from time to time.

86. Try a diet soda with lime.

87. If you are eating more than usual, test more often.

88. If you feel “different”, test your blood glucose right away.

89. Make sure a family member knows how to help you in an emergency.

90. Make a Diet Plan and do your best to stick to it.

Ask Doctor: Need Help

Pick up any magazine and you surely would come across a ‘revolutionary’ diet plan, which claims of rapid, dramatic weight loss and the resulting pencil-thin figure leads us to think that this latest diet is the miracle we are looking for! So, what’s so special about the regimes used by the stars, and more importantly, how effective are they?

The Atkins Diet : This is based on restricting carbohydrate intake to as little as 15 grams per day and indulging in high-protein and high-fat foods. Three important studies in 2003 showed that the first stage of the diet is consistent with most weight-loss plans, but in the long term the diet and weight loss are both difficult to maintain. The jury is still out on the long-term safety of the regime and nutritionists are concerned about the increased risk of nutrient deficiencies, constipation, and ketosis (the breakdown of body tissues to produce energy) as well as kidney and heart health in Atkins devotees.

The ‘Bit of your body you hate’ Diet : If you are unhappy with your hips, thighs, buttocks, a diet is out there promising to make them smaller, firmer, and more toned. You can even follow a diet claiming to give you the same effect as a face-lift in a weekend! Most of these diets give you a rigid set of rules to follow, with a whole list of foods you must eat at certain times of the day in certain combinations to release the ‘special’ powers of the nutrients. These diets often advocate foods that have a high protein and vitamin content, providing a tentative link to improving your skin’s elasticity or rebuilding new skin cells. Protein and vitamins are used to make new skin cells, but that’s where the magic ends – no food can target a specific area of your body to work on. If you lose weight you may find your least favourite ‘wobbly’ bit becomes smaller, but the only way it will ever get firmer and more toned is through plain hard exercise.

Although most of these targeted diets aren’t likely to do any harm, they’re more of a marketing ploy to sell magazines and newspapers than a breakthrough in nutritional science. The basic principles of the diets are the same: reduce calorie intake and increase calorie expenditure through exercise to lose weight, but that doesn’t make a very sexy headline!

The Blood Group Diet : The blood group diet suggests that eating certain foods according to your blood type rids your body of toxins and fat. The diet varies for each blood group, so, for example, a person with an O blood type can eat organic seafood, red meat, soy milk, and most fruits and vegetables. However, there is little if any scientific research to validate this.

Any weight loss on this diet is likely to be attributable to a simple reduction in calories rather than any supposed physiological response to food related to blood type. Apart from leaving you hungry most of the time, the blood group diet is pretty expensive and can lack fibre, essential fatty acids, and calcium unless you also eat fortified soy products.

The Cabbage Soup Diet : Most of us spent our childhood loathing it, but now it’s touted as one of the hottest ingredients in the world of wonder diets! The humble cabbage, made into soup and eaten everyday in addition to fruit, vegetables, and occasionally meat, ensures rapid weight loss due to a very low calorie intake, rather than any magical properties of the cabbage. This diet is dangerous to maintain over a long period. The removal of a limb is preferable to this regime for some rapid weight loss!

The Coconut Diet: Coconut oil contains92 per cent saturated fatty acids, but a high proportion of these are medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs). MCTs are easily absorbed as immediate energy and so are commonly used in infant feeds and for feeding people following surgery or who are critically ill and can’t eat a normal diet. Because the MCTs in coconut oil provide such an instant energy, the theory is that they are less likely to be stored as fat, so they help you lose weight more easily. As well as coconut oil added to pretty much every food on the diet, the diet promotes the consumption of butter, cream, and full-fat milk as well as lots of meat and a daily dose of cod liver oil.

If you follow the diet to the letter you eat around 2,500 calories a day. Bearing in mind that most women need to eat about 1,500 calories a day to lose 1kg per week it’s difficult to see how the coconut diet can work. Any weight loss is probably due to the diet being so filling that followers are unlikely to eat everything prescribed in a day. The high intake of animal fats as well as coconut oil, means that this diet could raise cholesterol levels; an important risk factor for heart disease. The coconut diet really does have all the hallmarks of a fad diet because it mainly concentrates on a single food. No food works in isolation, and the key to a healthy diet is variety-whether or not you’re trying to lose weight.

Detox Diets:

Detox diets usually consist of fruit, vegetables, seeds, and herb-or fruit-infused water with limited wheat-free grains and oils. The range of detox plans are often sold on the pretence of their ‘cleansing health benefits’, but in truth the resultant and often dramatic weight loss is down to simple calorie restriction and is usually short-lived. Health professionals have genuine concerns about people frequently coming on and off detox plans, or following them for any length of time. Detox diets are nutritionally incomplete and rapid weight loss can exacerbate the yo-yo diet effect (rapid weight loss, with equally rapid weight gain).

Detoxing for a day or two is unlikely to do you any harm, but it should never be a permanent solution to weight control.

Low Glycemic Diets:

The glyceic index(GI) and glycemic load(GL) are tools to measure the rate at which carbohydrates are absorbed as glucose into the bloodstream. The evidence suggests that controlling fluctuating blood sugars by including more low or ‘slow’ GI foods like pulses, new potatoes, and oats at mealtimes reduces food cravings and the high-calorie grazing that can lead to weight gain. Clinical data supports the use of low GI foods as part of a healthy diet and active lifestyle and show that as well as helping weight control in short-term studies, the risks of heart disease, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome (combined obesity, raised cholesterol, blood pressure and impaired glucose tolerance) may also be reduced.

Low glycemic diets are likely to be around for a long time …so watch this space.

Meal Replacement Diets:

Meal replacements are portion-controlled products fortified with vitamins and minerals. You replace one or two meals with these liquid shakes or bars, allowing one ordinary low-calorie meal a day. this approach provides an energy intake in the region of 1,200-1,600 calories per day.

Meal replacements are as effective as traditional dietary treatments in the short term, with long-term weight maintenance. None of the research published to date suggests any adverse effects of using meal replacement diets.

At present it isn’t possible to predict who does best with this kind of approach. However, it seems a good option if you have tried to lose weight using more traditional dietary methods, or have difficulty finding time to prepare meals or understanding and controlling portion sizes.

Well, now you realize that the truth behind the headline was a big lie! So, what is the secret? The key is simplicity!! Following basic rules like eating low fat meals, making good food decisions in places like movie theaters, convenience stores, and even at friends’ homes to keep the fat out, learning to prepare easy and healthful low-fat meals at home, gently incorporating exercise into your lives…..learning to do these anywhere you are.

Remember, you reach your goal… not because of luck but because you simply made a decision to change- and then you stay committed to change. It’s that commitment to continue to change that makes the whole journey worthwhile.

Beauty care starts with our diet. Diet does not mean just losing weight. Diet means the food you put in your daily eating habits.

1. A rule of thumb for eating habits are…don’t eat more calories than you consume. Don’t go one single day without doing something extra and physical for at least 30 minutes per day. This can be three ten minute walks. Or 30 minutes of vigorous aerobics, or 12 minutes of weight lifting and 18 minutes of walking.

2. Water, you need water. Try to add at least 4 more glasses of water to your daily diet. The rule of thumb for water is 8 glasses per day; and one extra for every ten pounds overweight you are.

3. Fats, you need to know about fats. There are different kinds of fats. Some fats are better for you than others. A rule of thumb on fats is, stay away from hydrogenated fats. These are fats that solidify. They are in store bought cakes, cookies, crackers, chips and even in bran muffins. Read the labels.

Choose fats that are polyunsaturated or fats such as olive oil. And, eat some fish to get some omega-3 fats. Carbohydrates – Are your immediate fuel source. An average is about 55 percent of your diet in carbohydrates. So, a rule of thumb is, figure your protein grams, get around 25% fat per day, and the rest would be in carbohydrates.
The heavier you are, the more protein you need the less carbohydrates you will need.

Fats – try not to exceed more than 25 percent fat in your daily diet. 30 is fine, too. That does not mean you can’t have a junk food fast food hamburger… it just means that if you do eat that 55 percent fat burger that you are going to have to cut down on other fat filled foods for the rest of the day to balance it out.

4. Fiber – work up to getting 25 grams of Fiber per day

5. Protein – averages about 20 percent. Divide weight by 2.2 and multiply that by .8 to get the kilograms. For men it is averages as one gram per each kilogram of weight. So, a man would divide their weight in pounds 2.2 then multiply that by .10

6. Make exchanges gradually. Suppose you drink whole milk…work down to 2 percent. Maybe replacing two of your cups per day until you can completely change over. If you are on two percent milk, work down to 1 percent.

7. Add bran to your cereals for extra fiber. Do add it in your baking. You need to balance your diet with vegetables and fruits, too. Try adding different colors to your plate. Maybe an orange yam, and some green beans, to add color. The more variety of food colors, bring more variety of vitamins. Eat more raw foods.

Remember, exchange things, add things, and do it gradually and remember, live all things in life in moderation and soon you will be bouncy and vibrant and well on your way to living BEAUTIFULLY!