It is amazing how little you need to change your life!

If you increase your oxygen uptake with 20% you body becomes 15 years younger.

When I first read that I pictured myself for hour and hours in the running track. But if you give it all you’ve got you increase your oxygen uptake very fast.
Just 15 min a week has a significant effect on your lungs, heart and blood circulation.

It doesn’t matter what kind of exercise you do just as long as you work on 90% of your maximum heart rate (MHR). Which is calculated like this:
220 – your age * 0,9

The easiest way is to simply buy a heart monitor and use it that as you exercise. But another way is to listen to your breath. Above 80% of your MHR you are in general too out of breath to talk.

So run, bike, swim, or choose an exercise you love, as fast and hard as you can for just 15 minutes a week.

Do not attempt this if you are not in good health.

The time for a 100 crunches a day is finally over!

A Spanish research team has found that certain types of food actually removes belly fat.

It removes not only the visual fat that we see on our stomachs but also the dangerous fat around our intestines.

Surprisingly, the food is: Fat

Monounsaturated fats

Who would have thought that fat would hold the key to a flat stomach? From now on don’t worry about low fat anymore go for right fat instead.

Food that are high in monounsaturated fats are called MUFA-foods.

The is great news since MUFA- foods are great snacks. Always keep a bag of raw nuts in your purse, your car and your office drawer. Munch on marinated olives in front of the TV. Eat avocados and guacamole as often as you can.

Here are ideas for 7 days of flat tummy snacks. Eat them during the day or in the evening, maybe in front of the TV.
Snacking is healthy! Just watch what you snack on.

7 days of Healthy Flat Belly Snacks:

• Monday: ½ cup of peanuts and 1 apple
• Tuesday: Rye bread and mashed avocado (mash the avocado with a fork and spread on your sandwich)
• Wednesday: Herring on whole wheat toast topped with halved cherry tomatoes
• Thursday: 1/2 cup of pistachio nuts and 1 banana
• Friday: Marinated olives, your favorite raw nuts and some cucumber pickles.
• Saturday: Baby carrots with guacamole dip. 
• Sunday: Flat stomach smoothie: ½ cup of natural yogurt, 200 grams frozen berries, ½ banana, 1 tablespoon rolled oats, 4 cup of your favorite juice, a pinch of natural vanilla.

If you are very serious about getting a flat tummy fast you might want to look at your whole diet. I suggest that you follow these flat tummy diet guidelines:

1. Eat plenty of mono unsaturated fats
   • Olives and olive oil
   • Avocado and avocado oil
   • Oats
   • Raw nuts
   • Lin seeds and linseed oil
   • Sesame seeds and sesame seed oil
   • Herring
2. Choose whole grain products. The dietary fibers will ensure a good digestion and remove bloating
3. Eat as much fresh fruits and vegetables as you can. They will give you plenty of nutrients without a lot of calories
4. Add some meat and fish to provide you with proteins to give you a full feeling.
5. Avoid sugar, white flour, white rice and alcohol.

All skin types need to be nourished. But some acne or oily skin treatments are stripping the skin from its natural oil and dehydrating it. The skin then reacts with producing more oil to protect itself creating a vicious circle of hash treatment and more oily skin.

The best well spread myth about acne is:
“Washing your face more often will help clear up acne.”
Truth is: Facial blemishes are not caused by dirt. Instead frequent washing may actually irritate pores and cause them to become clogged. But all skin needs to be cleaned and the best is to wash your skin with a gentle cleanser and nourish it with moisturizer twice a day.

The skin needs to be cleansed and nourished. Keep on reading to find out how you can treat your oily skin naturally.

Homemade recipe for oily skin

This is so easy.
Step 1: For your oily skin:

1. Separate an egg.
2. Whip the egg white with a beater until it is a soft white foam.
3. Apply to face and throat and let dry.
4. Rinse with lukewarm water.

Step 2: To stop bacteria:

1. Use Honey as a mask. Warm it gently to make it easier to spread.
2. Apply to face and throat and let set about 15 minutes.
3. Rinse with very warm water.

After wards, apply a high quality natural moisturizer. Remember to check the ingredients in your skin care!

Personally I find it too time consuming to make my own moisturizer if I really want one that does a fantastic job, long term.

How to use the treatment
Week 1 : use the mask daily
Week 2 :use the mask every 2nd day
Week 3 : use the mask every 3rd day
Week 4 : use the mask every 4th day
Continue to use the mask once a week.

You can find more great recipes for natural skin care here.

Today there is an alert about toxic substances in sunscreen in the local newspaper.

18 sunscreen products were tested and Every Single One of them contained one or more substances that are harmful to the environment. 5 of the products, several with focus on children, contained substances that are illegal as UV-filters.

Does it matter if we use creams that are harmful to the environment?

The toxins are rinsed off us and are accumulated in lakes, drinking water, and later in fish and animals that we eat.
As if that is not enough, consider this:

Do you want to cover your skin with toxic substances?

There is a lot of talk about how important vitamin D is. So we know that we need to be in the sun and we also know that most sunscreens are bad for us, and certified organic sunscreens are really hard to find. But what most people don’t know is that there are many natural healthy foods which protect us against sunburn.

• The well known carotenoid beta-carotene protects you skin from sunburn by giving it a darker tint.
• Studies have shown that vitamin E gives us the possibility to stay longer in the sun without sunburn.
• The two yellow carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin work like a wrinkle cream and makes your skin more elastic and less dry. On top of this it makes you less likely to burn.
• The red cartenoid lycopene also protects your skin against sunburn. A test group was given 40 grams of tomato paste with olive oil for a period of 10 weeks. When their skin was tested on UV radiation it showed that the group taking lycopene become 40% less sunburns than the group taking only olive oil,
• Omega-3 has a double effect on your skin. It raises you skin’s natural UV protection and protects you skin against inflammation if you do get too much sun. In other words omega-3 is sunscreen and after sun in one.

So there are many healthy foods that boost your natural sun protection.

Here is the complete list that gives you all the great substances to boost your skins natural sunscreen:

1. Carrots
2. Fresh vegetables
3. Whole grains
4. Raw nuts
5. Green leafy vegetables
6. Tomatoes (both fresh and cooked)
7. Oily cold-water fish

With these foods you can enjoy the sun and make sure you get enough vitamin D without worrying about sunburn.

Image by danorbit.

I used to wake up every morning with a stiff neck.

For years I slept with a pillow from Tempur and yes that certainly helped but it still wouldn’t make the stiffness go away. I was even considering buying a new bed.

Then something happened. I read a book about zone therapy. In zone therapy they use zones on your hands and feet to massage or remove blockage in different parts of the body. It was a very interesting book and it had a small section with daily exercises.

I tried all the exercises and found one that works wonders for me. It is almost ridiculously easy and takes about 2 minutes.

I do it before I get out of bed in the morning. It’s actually a great way to wake up.

The best of it all is that the stiffness in my neck disappeared within days.

Here is the exercise I do lying in bed:

• Begin with your right foot. Put your right foot comfortably up in the air supporting it with your left knee.

1. Bend your toes down and up a couple of times.
2. Then try to sspread out your toes sideways away from each other.

• Do the 2 exercises a couple of times depending on how it feels.
• Finish with rotating your foot from the ankle clockwise and then in the other direction. (This part is actually for you back but it’s very comfortable)
• Repeat the exercises with your left foot.

In zone therapy the base of the toes, where they bend, represents your neck. The first time I tried this my toes cramped and I was not able to spread them at all. But it quickly improved and with the improvement my stiffness disappeared.

No more stiff neck for me!

 image courtesy of Menage a Moi