The matter is that coconut or more exactly its derivatives, such as oil, water and milk have great nourishing and moisturizing properties for skin and hair, due to which coconut is so widely used in various beauty remedies set for face, hair and body care.

• Apply the mixture of coconut oil, olive oil and lemon juice to wet hair, and cover it with towel for a half an hour, then rinse your hair with warm water and wash with your mild shampoo.
• Mix 50g of solid coconut oil, 2 spoonsful of macadamia oil with several drops of lemon, lime and orange essential oils and add 60g of brown sugar. Massage the derived mixture into damp skin paying special attention to knees and elbows. And then wash off with warm water.

But don’t get carried away, as skincare containing high amount of coconut oil tends to clog pores that can lead to breakouts. Though, as usual everything is good in moderation.

Besides coconut is a key component of a great number of efficient diet plans due to its high saturated fat content. Moreover coconut oil as well as coconut milk contains the highest saturated fat level.

Saturated fat is the most stable of all the natural fats and is therefore best for cooking with, as it doesn’t oxidise when heated,

says nutritionist Zoe Harcombe.

Although coconut is rich in saturated fats, the latest scientific researches have shown that coconut oil is helpful in reducing abdominal obesity. And Miranda Kerr is the best confirmation to it, claiming that it is coconut oil that helps her to get rid of her baby weight. According to Miranda, just 4 tablespoons of coconut oil per day were enough to get her pre-pregnancy body back.

Many people believe that simple eating less of their favorite  foods is the best way to lose weight, studies have shown that this doesn’t work.   Metabolism  might go down a little when you try to cut calories.   Exercising regularly and having a healthy diet of colorful fruits and vegetables, lean meat and healthy carbohydrates every day  is a proven way to improve your overall diet and loose weight.

Do you want to speed up you metabolism? Have this recommendations in mind next time you eat:

- Never skip Meals. Don’t just eliminate a missed meal, try to replace it as soon as possible. This not only slows down your metabolism but it will make you so hungry that your body will start to crave sweets and carbohydrates making your metabolism even slower.

- Avoid simple carbohydrates like sugar, fruit juice, soft drinks or any high sugar food. This will release a hormone called insulin. High levels of insulin will cause a reaction that tells your body to store the calories you eat instead of burning them.

- Green vegetables such as spinach, collard greens, arugula, lettuce or okra are carbohydrates as well, but they only have few calories and so much fiber that the effect in your metabolism is very little. Generally you can eat all you want providing all the vitamins and and fiber your body needs.

- Eat protein every day to maintain muscle tissue, hair and vital organs working properly. Protein comes mostly from animals, fish, meat, chicken eggs, etc. There are other sources of protein such as soy, legumes and nuts. Be careful on the amount of fat contained in any source. Pork, nuts, or egg yolks are loaded with fat.

- Eating smaller portions five or six times a day will tell your body that it is always going to get food when is needed and it will start burning calories as energy instead of keeping them as fat.

Remember that the amount of exercise you do have a great impact on you metabolism. Cardiovascular exercise four to six times a week for 20 to 40 minutes at a time will boost your metabolism and help you to get rid of those extra pounds.

It’s about pizza, the weakness of many people including me. I love pizza- always have. I make sure I eat it in moderation, but it’s still one of my favorite foods.

Good news for pizza lovers:

According to Men’s Health magazine, research concludes that pizza can be good for you. It’s important to point out, however, that we’re talking about real pizza- not the kind you get from Pizza Hut, Dominoes or the frozen food section of your supermarket. By real, I mean pizza made with real crust, real tomato sauce and pure olive oil.

According to Men’s Health, scientists writing in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that eating pizza can reduce your risk of a heart attack. In a 4-year study of nearly 1,000 Italians, those who ate pizza at least once a week were 30 percent less likely to experience a heart attack than the folks who didn’t partake of the pie.

This is contributed to pizza’s cardio protective ingredients, including olive oil and tomato sauce. And here’s a way to make the pizza even healthier: top it with vegetables, part-skim cheese and use whole wheat crust. You’ll then have a meal that is actually good for you.

Can you get this kind of a pizza in a pizzeria? You might be able to find some that offer whole wheat crust, but I doubt you’ll find any that offer part-skim cheese. What you can do is buy the ingredients at your local grocery store and make the pizza yourself. Speaking from experience, this can be a fun thing!

Enjoy the experience of making your own pizza and savoring a nutritious meal. After all, feeding your body with nutritious meals is the number one thing you can do for better health.

It has recently turned out that calorie counting can appear absolutely useless, if you don’t take into account your personality type. That’s why if you are eager to lose weight, first of all check out the type of personality you are, and only after select your ‘dieting direction’.

According to the latest scientific research, personality type plays a great role in weight loss. The matter is that you can simply turn out to be genetically incapable to stick to a certain diet plan. Thus at first you are to sort out all your weaknesses according to which you can easily select effective diet.

Dr. Amen, the creator of the newest way to lose weight, insists that there are 5 personality types that should be regarded while choosing diet plan. According to Dr. Amen, people are divided into compulsive overeaters, impulsive overeaters, compulsive-impulsive overeaters, sad or emotional overeaters and anxious overeaters. He claims that every group of overeaters should avoid certain food intake and fall on the other to lose weight easily.

However, Amen’s personality type diet has drawn a wide response, and mostly skeptical one.

For instance dietician, Evelyn Toner, said:

I agree that a lot of problems with weight are down to personality. …it is about changing behaviour and habits rather than specific foods… a binge eater will overeat no matter what food it is.

Well, what do you think? Do you believe a personality type can really influence the way we lose weight?

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Successful weight loss is inseparably linked with healthy and what is more important moderate eating plan. But we know how it can be difficult to make yourself eat less, even if it is the guarantee of your successful weight loss. Fortunately we find the way out, just follow our tricks on how to eat less and get ready to take leave of your hateful extra weight and get desirable silhouette with no efforts.

Tip #1

One of the most important things you should learn in order to eat less and lose weight is that the more complicated meal you will opt for, the more extra pounds you will lose. Numerous studies have shown that while cooking complicated meals you can trick your brain with a great variety of aromas and the images of ingredients.

Tip #2

The recent scientific study also revealed that vanilla aroma can appear to be helpful in depressing appetite. That’s why we strongly recommend you to light vanilla-scented candle while eating to moderate your food intake. Even the perfume containing the notes of vanilla can help its wearer to get rid of extra weight.

Tip #3

Reduce your salt intake by substituting it with healthier spices such as garlic or lemon juice. It will help you to burn calories and as a result lose extra weight without noticing it.

Tip #4

Well, and the last what I keep saying every time when it concerns losing weight is to drink plenty of pure water. The matter is that water can help to depress appetite, besides it is required to provide your body with proper digestion.

In order to build a Great Body Shape, you have to consider that water is your body’s main component, generally 60% to 70% depending on your body size, and requires anywhere from one to seven liters a day to avoid dehydration.   You will get at least 20% of it from food, while the rest comes from beverages including coffee, sodas and juices.   Water regulates body temperature, provides transportation for nutrients to reach your organs and helps your body to eliminate toxins and all the waste produced when food is processed.

How much water a day?  Well, It’s been known for a while the 8×8 rule – eight 8 ounce glasses of water, that will be almost 2 liter a day .  Now if you replace high sugar/calorie beverages with water, you will reduce you calorie intake that leads to weight loss, and that is the easiest way to a great body.

2. Never skip meals.

This will slow your metabolism down.  Your body is an extremely intelligent mechanism designed to survive and adapt to the most extreme circumstances, so when you skip meals  your body will start saving calories trying to conserve energy for the future  and that is exactly what you want to avoid.    Many Dietitians recommend 5 or 6 meals a day, smaller amounts of course, to keep you satisfied and avoid hunger which makes you go to the freezer and eat the first thing you find.   If you miss a meal, try to get is as fast as you can.

3. Cut carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are the main source of energy your body needs for proper organ function, specially the nervous system, muscle tissue and brain.  But eating more carbohydrates than you need will feed your body fat.    There are two types of carbohydrates:  Simple are converted in sugar quickly (table sugars, honey, sweets) and complex are converted much slowly (potatoes, yams, rice, wheat).   A diet rich in simple carbohydrates can contribute to weight gain.

4. Exercise

This is a no-brainer, every time you exercise you burn calories.  The more intense you exercise the more calories you burn.  But don’t get scared, you don’t have to engage in extreme workouts to get rid of those fat calories.   Beginners can take the stairs instead the elevator, park on the far side of the parking lot, go for a walk on your lunch break, turn the TV off and take your kids to the park.  Now, if you want to burn calories faster, joining a gym to get the great body shape you have always wanted is not bad idea.

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Ever wondered if there is an easy way to lose weight? The answer is simple, you can lose up to 15 pounds by reducing the consumption of liquid calories, just replace them with water. A large proportion of our obesity problem these days is due to the high consumption of liquid calories. When you go to the grocery store, the first thing you see is shelves full of sodas, and the last thing you see is energy drinks and sweet beverages in counters and near cash registers. These areas of impact or impulse are strategically placed to draw attention and generate sales in stores. Thirty-three percent of the sugar that enters our body comes from soft drinks, sodas and energy drinks with high doses of caffeine, sugar and preservatives, but most importantly in these drinks is the lack of the nutrients. If your goal is to lose weight, one of your first steps is to minimize the intake of liquid calories. Regular sodas can contain up to 140 calories or more in a single serving. Do the math, if you replace one soda a day with a glass of water, it will be more than 50,000 calories per year, representing about 15 pounds. One of the most common errors when trying to lose weight is to not include the liquid calories that accompany your meals. All the effort placed in a healthy meal or skipping sweets, drops significantly if your dinner is accompanied with a glass of wine, fruit punch or soft drinks of any kind. Studies have shown that sugar-sweetened beverages significantly increased chance of obesity in children. While it is true that these liquids contain calories, these latter do not control your appetite, instead once the cell volume and blood level rises, a signal is sent to the brain indicating that you are not longer thirsty. On the other hand, hunger is controlled by nerves in the stomach wall, which send signals to the brain when the stomach stretches. Considering that liquid calories do not contribute in appetite, reducing them is easier than you think. Reduce liquid calories and lose weight, do it constantly, enjoy your new lifestyle and welcome your new figure.

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Eye health tips for over-60s

Because our eyesight changes as we get older, almost all of us will need to wear glasses or contact lenses by the time we’re 65.

If you have regular eye tests, wear the right lenses and look after your eyes, there’s a better chance your sight will remain clear.

Have regular eye tests

An eye test is not just good for checking whether your glasses are up to date. It’s also a vital check on the health of your eyes. An eye test can pick up eye diseases, such as glaucoma and cataracts, as well as general health problems, including diabetes and high blood pressure.

The good news is that if you’re 60 or over, you can have a free NHS eye test every two years. You can have a free test every year if you’re 70 or over.

However, a 2011 survey from Age UK showed that nearly 2 million people over 60 did not take advantage of free eye tests in the previous two years.

Helena Herklots, services director at Age UK, said: “It’s worrying that such a high number of older people have not had a sight test recently. Going for regular sight tests and wearing the right glasses will not only improve balance, co-ordination and mobility but will help to maintain general eye health.”

If you can’t leave your home because of illness or disability, you can have an NHS eye test at home. Contact your usual optician to find out if they can visit you at home. Otherwise, your local primary care trust (PCT) will have a list of opticians in your area that do home visits.

Find the address and phone number of your local PCT.

Find out more about eye test.

Wear the right lenses

An eye test will establish whether you need a different prescription for your glasses or contact lenses.

It’s important to wear the correct prescription lenses. This will improve your quality of life and reduce the risk of accidents such as falls.

According to Age UK’s research, poor vision was a factor in 270,000 falls in people over the age of 60 in the previous two years.

You may be entitled to help with the cost of NHS glasses or contact lenses, so ask your optician about this.

Find a local optician.

How to keep your eyes healthy

As well as having regular eye tests and wearing the correct glasses, you can do several things to keep your eyes as healthy as possible:

• Eat well. Eating a healthy, balanced diet is important for your eyes. Eating plenty of vegetables and fruit will benefit your overall health and may help protect against some conditions such as cataracts and age-related macular degeneration (AMD, see below). Read tips on how to have a healthy, balanced diet.
• Wear sunglasses. Strong sunlight can damage your eyes and may increase your risk of cataracts. Wear sunglasses or contact lenses with a built-in UV filter to protect your eyes from harmful rays. Read more about protecting your eyes from the sun.
• Quit smoking. Smoking can increase your chances of developing conditions such as cataracts and AMD.
• Stay a healthy weight. Being overweight increases your risk of diabetes, which can lead to sight loss.
• Use good lighting. To see well, your eyes need three times as much light when you’re 60 as they did when you were 20. Increase the daylight in your home by keeping windows clean and curtains pulled back. Make sure you have good electric lighting too, especially at the top and bottom of stairs so you can see the steps clearly. For reading or close work, use a direct light from a flexible table lamp, positioned so the light is not reflected by the page and causing glare.
• Exercise. Good circulation and oxygen intake are important for our eye health. Both of these are stimulated by regular exercise. Read more about how much exercise you should do.
• Sleep well. As you sleep, your eyes are continuously lubricated and irritants, such as dust or smoke, that may have accumulated during the day are cleared out.

Eye problems as you get older

As you get older, you become more likely to get certain eye problems:

• Difficulty reading. Eye muscles start to weaken from the age of 45. It’s a natural ageing process of the eye that happens to us all. By the time you’re 60, you’ll probably need separate reading glasses or an addition to your prescription lenses (bifocals or varifocals).
• Floaters. These tiny specks or spots that float across your vision are normally harmless. If they persist, see an optician as they may be a sign of an underlying health condition.
• Cataracts. Easily detected in an eye test, this gradual clouding of the eye’s lens is extremely common in over-60s. A simple operation can restore sight.
• Glaucoma. This is related to an increase in pressure in the eye that leads to damage of the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain. Left untreated, glaucoma leads to tunnel vision and, ultimately, blindness. However, if it’s detected early enough, these complications can usually be avoided with eye drops.
• Macular degeneration. This is a disease of the retina caused by ageing. The retina is the nerve tissue lining the back of your eye. There are two types of macular degeneration. The first type, called dry macular degeneration, gets worse very slowly. The other type gets worse very quickly. This needs to be seen as an emergency in a hospital eye unit for prompt treatment.

Meal times are one of the cornerstones of your daily routine. They can be the most joyous part of your day or the most dreaded part of your day.

When you have small children it is very important that you be consistent and that they sit down to eat at roughly the same times every day. It’s also important that those times are spaced far enough apart so that your kids have an appetite for what’s put in front of them, but not so far apart that the run-up to every meal is marked by the kind of bad behaviour and irritability that’s triggered by hunger and low blood sugar levels.

Meals though, are not just about getting the right amount and type of food into your kids at the right time. They’re also occasions when your family can be together sharing news, talking over what everyone’s been up to during the day, sharing successes and disappointments as well as just enjoying each other’s company.

My family also uses meal times to share how we helped someone or made someone smile that day.

In many families, meal times are not so enjoyable. Instead, they’re running battles to get kids to eat, behave, or just sit down at the table. How do you turn this scenario around so that mealtimes become one of your favourite times of the day with your family?

The first step is to establish some ground rules. Here are seven rules that can help family dinners turn into precious family time:

1. Children should wash their hands before they eat.
2. Children need to sit at the table and not run off.
3. TV stays off during meals.
4. Children need to finish chewing before speaking.
5. No one answers the telephone during meals.
6. Children need to eat nicely – no playing with their food.
7. Children need to TRY something – if they don’t like it that’s fine, but they must TRY it. If they truly try something and really don’t like it then they are free to eat the side dishes.

These rules are pretty simple which make it easy for you to reinforce. If your child breaks one of the rules, use this phrase:

“Ella, (of course use your own child’s name here), you need to ________________ (finish chewing your food before you speak. We don’t talk with food in our mouths.)”

The key words here are, “You need to” and “We”. These words teach your rules and values clearly and concisely but they also join you as a family instead of placing blame or belittling. When your child hears, “We” they hear, “Oh, yeah, that’s what my family does” instead of, “I’m bad again”.

If your child continues to misbehave or break a rule after this reminder then you can use my 4 Step Discipline Technique.

A couple of other things to make sure meal time is relaxing:

• Ease up. Gradually give your baby (child) the opportunity to experience independence because it’s what they crave. As soon as your baby can sit upright, without additional support, bring the high chair to the table. Let her feed herself as much as possible – with finger foods to start off with.When she’s big enough, give her a booster seat. Try not to make a 2 1/2 or 3 year old be stuck in a high chair drinking from a bottle or sippy cup – they are beyond this. It’s okay though to have a 2 – 2 1/2 year old wear a bib until they can show you they don’t need it, but try to allow them to practice being independent.
• Use a speaking object, if necessary. Sometimes families, larger ones especially, struggle because everyone wants to speak at the same time. Decide as a family on what object could be used to show whose turn it is to talk. It could be the salt shaker or something more special like a shell someone found on a family holiday. Pass this object around to ensure that only the person with it in front of them is speaking.

Use these tips and tricks consistently and I guarantee that meal times will become one of your most favourite times of the day!

Then there’s the time that I sent out pre-printed holiday cards and a casual friend asked if I knew that there was a typo on the card. I didn’t understand his need to point this out – if I knew about the error, then surely I was already feeling badly about it. If I didn’t know, then his alerting me to the typo wasn’t going to change the fact that the cards already went out and there was nothing I could do about it.

If They Aren’t Close, Mind Your Own Business

I believe that the only people with whom you are entitled to proactively bring up mistakes or flaws are your immediate family members, your best friends, and your direct reports. Everyone can improve, this is true, but these are the individuals who will most appreciate and value your desire to help them in that capacity. These are the individuals who can have a sense of humor about minor criticisms and take them in the spirit in which they are offered.

At Work, Do You Say it with Tact or Not at All?

In work situations, you risk alienating colleagues and/or managers when you point out their mistakes or flaws. For example, suppose your office-mate stutters a lot in group meetings. Should you bring it up to him? In my opinion, the answer is no. He probably can’t control his stuttering, and as tactful as you think you’re being, you’ll probably still hurt his feelings. If his manager wants to address it, that’s her prerogative.

Don’t Be Mr. or Mrs. Fix It

It’s not your responsibility to ensure perfect conduct the part of your colleagues, so even if you have an obsessive attention to detail or feel morally outraged about an issue, let it go. Unless your action can keep a grievous mistake from occurring in the first place, it’s not worth the potential damage to your reputation.

I sense that some of you might find fault with this point of view. So let’s open the forum – what do you think?