As people become more aware of the links between diet and health, more and more people are wanting to change their diet so they can lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, lose weight, and increase their general health.  But which foods are the healthiest?  Which foods should you be adding to the grocery cart as you try to improve your diet?

1.    Salmon. To gain the most benefits, fresh wild salmon is preferred, though canned wild salmon and fresh farm-raised salmon are also good choices.  Salmon is packed with Omega 3 fatty acids, which can improve brain function as well as lower cholesterol levels.  The American Heart Association recommends two servings of fish a week – it’s easy to make canned wild salmon cakes one day, and grilled or pan-seared wild salmon another day later in the week.  Your brain and heart will thank you for it!

2.    Olive Oil. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is the least processed of the varieties of olive oil, and has the most documented benefits, though all olive oils contain healthy fats.  The anti-oxidants in olive oil are good for the health of your heart and improve cholesterol levels. Use olive oil in your salad dressings, drizzle over vegetables before roasting, dunk a crusty piece of bread in it, and cook with it in place of vegetable or corn oils.    Fat carries flavor, so toss your pasta with a bit of olive oil after cooking, rather than butter or margarine, and enjoy a wonderful taste – plus, new research is showing you could be lowering your risk for cancer and diabetes.

3.    Soy. Soy beans are filled with protein – the only vegetable source of all the necessary amino acids, and studies have shown that soy protein is good for your heart.  Naturally filled with calcium, omega 3 fatty acids, B-vitamins, iron, and fiber, soy protein packs a nutritional wallop. Soy protein is available in a myriad of forms – soymilk and tofu are the most well known, but steamed edamame (soybean pods) are a delicious snack, and you can find many other products enriched with soy protein.  Soy protein can mimic estrogen, which can lower your risk of breast cancer, but if you are participating in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, talk with your doctor before adding a lot of soy protein to your diet.  Some health experts have questioned if Genetically Modified (GMO) soybeans are as healthy as non-GMO soy, so consider purchasing soy products that specify they are non-GMO.

4.    Leafy Greens. Dark leafy greens such as spinach, kale, beet greens, chard, and bok choy are filled with vitamins and minerals.  If you are worried about getting enough calcium for the health of your bones, dark leafy greens are a great source for calcium.  Eat them raw in salads, sautéed with olive oil and garlic, or cooked in a soup or stir-fry - these delicious greens are great sources of vitamins A and C, iron, and fiber.

5.    Berries. Whether you’re talking about blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, or acai berries, they are all rich in vitamins, good for cardiovascular health, and can help with weight loss. In addition to their anti-oxidant properties, blueberries contain a compound called anthocyanin, shown to slow aging processes in the brain.  Whether you serve them raw or cooked, berries contain significant amounts of vitamin C, folic acid, fiber, and are low in calories and high in flavor!

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention our Bio-Identical Hormone Therapy blog as the original source).

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Many middle-aged women struggle with keeping a physical exercise routine due to many reasons, including hormone imbalance. Bioidentical hormone replacement will help you find relief from the most uncomfortable symptoms, but everyone knows that the best way to lose weight is through exercise. However, some women who have exercised begin to experience fatigue and injury more and more often, which makes them think about quitting altogether. In addition to this, the aesthetic benefits of exercise become more difficult to attain as women get older, barely keeping their bodies in shape but not really improving as quickly as they would wish. This reduces motivation.

In spite of exercise becoming more difficult and its apparent benefits less evident, it is important for middle-aged women to continue to remain physically active. Most of the benefits that come from exercise are not visible: bowels work properly, the heart and circulatory system are kept in good shape, diabetes, blood pressure abnormalities, and even cancer can be prevented – not to mention that feeling of accomplishment we all get at the end of a workout.

There are several strategies that can be used to remain active and, at the same time, beat the stress injury and fatigue that come along after years of exercising. Here are some tips to restore your motivation and continue to pursue an active life:

1-Try variety.
If you have been doing aerobics for years, then it’s not surprising that fatigue has set in. There comes a day when you’ve tried every kind of aerobics with every kind of music, with or without the kickboxing, indoors and outdoors. You should try picking up bicycling, power walking, hiking. Some women come to realize they enjoy learning a new sport such as tennis, basketball, kickball, or soccer. Depending on your level of fitness and your specific likings, you can surely find two or three physical activities you enjoy and can alternate them during the week to prevent boredom or fatigue.

2-Seek a partner or group.
Having another person or a group one is committed to exercise with is of great help. Usually the partner or group will experience some of the same injuries or fatigue symptoms that one experiences, and they can be a support group. It is also easier to come up with ideas and motivate each other on how to vary routines to accommodate any injuries or discomforts.

3-Watch your diet.
As active women age, they sometimes don’t watch the fact that their eating habits and activity levels remain pretty much the same, while their bodies require a change to adjust to the aging process. Middle-aged women require supplements to remain adequately prepared for physical activity.  You should make sure you eat at least three times a day, avoid processed foods, eat protein in every meal, eat carbohydrates in good balance with non-starchy vegetables, and drink enough water to keep your system hydrated. You should also avoid alcohol, caffeine, processed sugars, and engineered fats and fat blockers you see in the market. Young bodies can take a lot of abuse. Middle-aged bodies need to be nourished with more care to perform well.

The most important decision to make is to remain active. Injuries, fatigue, and the lack of motivation that comes from not being able to see physical improvements as quickly as in our younger times is what makes us want to quit.  This should be put outside our minds and in perspective. The above tips will help put you back in charge of your body.

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention our Bio-Identical Hormone Therapy blog as the original source).

Try driving your convertible to work on a winter day without getting funny looks from the other drivers. The vision of a middle-aged woman indulging in such eccentricities brings more than a chuckle or estranged glance, it can actually disturb a traffic agent enough to pull you over – believe me, it happened to me. I’ve even been seriously scolded by my physician for going to those extremes to escape the smothering despair that comes with hot flashes at 8:00 a.m. He strongly believes I put myself at risk of an aneurysm due to temperature shock.

Many unashamed women have been known to pull such shenanigans to both vent their frustration and get some fresh air to alleviate their symptoms. I once heard of a lady who would invariably get hot flashes at dinner time, and got so tired of it that she would keep a cold pack in the freezer ready to place on her seat when it was time to sit down. This obviously got the attention of her husband and kids, who just could not believe that she could sit on an ice-cold cushion through dinner. She would have continued the practice, but her butt skin started suffering the consequences and she had to stop after a couple of weeks.  She even thought about inventing and bringing to market a version of her ice-cushion that would insulate a bit more to protect the skin. She found out just how crazy she was; a marketing study found most women wouldn’t go for freezing their butt as a remedy to hot flashes.

But it’s not just unannounced hot flashes; we have to endure all manner of strange symptoms when we get to that dreaded time in life with a name just as dreadful: menopause. It is not really so, but we all believe it symbolizes the end of womanhood and that admitting to its arrival is tantamount to joining the ranks of knitting grandmothers. Therefore, we try to look composed and unaffected in those first months of discomfort and then, having accepted reality, develop all manner of quirks to placate the awful manifestations.

Fortunately, relief did come for me at last. No, it’s not that I finally made it through menopause and the discomforts stopped. Rather I found out about bioidentical hormone replacement, which is a therapy designed to balance hormonal problems by using hormones formulated to be equal to those made by your body. I was already comfortable in my role as a crazy middle-aged woman by the time I visited a specialist to look at the possibility of being treated. However, after consultation and some tests, the doctor determined it would be very simple to treat me. He explained the much lower risks involved in the use of bioidentical hormones vs. the use of synthetic hormones. I decided to go ahead with the treatment, and have never driven with the top down in winter ever since.

If you suffer premenopausal or similar symptoms, you should find yourself a specialist immediately and stop the unnecessary discomfort. Here are three good reasons to do it:

Reason 1:  No woman should have to suffer through the embarrassment of having to wipe sweat off her forehead at a perfectly air-conditioned French restaurant.

Reason 2: The Witches of Eastwick might have been an interesting movie, but we want to remain lovely women, no matter how appealing the role of sexy witch might have seemed to you in the movie.

Reason 3: If science has brought us women bioidentical hormones, reducing the risk of after-effects to negligible in most cases, why would we continue being eccentric and not rejoin the feminine human race?

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention our Bio-Identical Hormone Therapy blog as the original source).

Natural and healthy anti-aging advice, without the need of cosmetic surgery.

The first and one of the big keys is to stop smoking; the damage might not be completely reversible, but it will surely keep it from getting worse. Try to accompany this step with multi-vitamins and nutrtients in your meals; the change will be soon noticeable in your skin.

Step two is protecting your skin from the sun. It’s highly reccommended that you use sunblock and a hydrating moisturizer so you prevent the process in which wrinkles turn the skin rough and leathery, causing also the appearance of premature age spots. If you’re going for a sunscreen, you’d better aim for one with a high FPS, if possible above 25; and avoid exposing yourself from midday to 3pm because it’s the time the UVA and UVB rays are strongest and cause more serious skin damage.

My third tip is eating an antioxidant-rich diet, so that the radicals that endanger skin’s structure work. You can find these antioxidant vitamins, minerals, and carotenoids in fresh vegetables, fruit, and whole grains. Vitamines C and E help skin look younger, too.

Don’t forget to add omega3 and omega9-containing products, or additive Omega3 pills;  these are the keys to a healthy and anti-aging diet. Vitamin additives always come in handy if your diet doesn’t reach your vitamin standards.

Green tea is sometimes ignored, but it has recently been researched that a considerable daily amount of the aforementioned, can prevent the organism from all kinds of cancer and grow your heart’s resistance stronger.

When done propperly, moisture and exfoliation work to hydrate and protect the skin from free radical damage. I recommend you follow a skin care routine, consisting of exfoliation and application of hydrating moisture afterwards.

Exercising is a key part of anti-aging; it provides you with greater amounts of energy, reduces your anxiety, makes you stronger, helps lower high blood pressure, and helps you lose weight, shaping your body.

Bio identical hormone replacement can be considered as well, since it is a very natural way of acquiring  the hormones you can’t produce by yourself, thus, helping you. This therapy is considered highly better than that consisting of synthetic hormones, since bio identical ones are natural and easier for the body to metabolize. Make sure you talk to your doctor about these treatments; he will surely say it’s a great way to go.

Trying to manage the amount of stress you go through each day is another way to fight aging. While you stress, your body produces certain hormones that accelerate the aging process, which is quite the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. So, trying to stay as stress free as possible is another way to delay aging.

Staying hydrated is one of the most important tips, not just for anti-aging purposes. The goal you have to reach is drinking two litres of water as a minimum to keep your system flowing and eliminate all body toxins.

I hope these tips are useful, and if you start following them, you’re seriously going to notice the improvement in your health.

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention our Bio-Identical Hormone Therapy blog as the original source).