Weight Loss Diet Solutions

You know how awful it feels to have the flu. The shivers, the aches, the runny nose… You can minimize the symptoms and drown yourself in drugs, but you can’t really cure the flu.

With all its potency and technology, modern medicine and holistic medicine alike have yet to find a cure for the disease. All they can do is boost your immunity, diminish your symptoms and let your body take care of it.

The flu is caused by a virus named influenza. Viruses are very illusive creatures – they infect your cells and live inside them. They cannot truly be killed because they are not even alive – they can only exist as long as there are cells providing them with means for reproduction.

This “immortality” is so true that even your body isn’t able to kill the flu.

The Fight In Your Body

Instead, your white cells kill any infected cells, thus stopping the virus from reproducing. In the meanwhile, other type of cells produce antibodies that link to the virus and stop it from infecting other cells by blocking essential proteins on its surface. Current drugs do the same as these antibodies.

This defense mechanism is why young people often have worse symptoms. Their immune system is far more active and thus their white cell armies flood the respiratory tract, killing all cells in their path. This can lead to death by pneumonia and drowning, the main cause of death by flu.

How to Fight the Flu

But you don’t need to worry. If you provide your immune system with the nutrients it needs by eating healthily (orange juice, anyone?) and you rest your body you will soon have recovered. Your body has an incredible capacity for healing; you just need to give it a chance.

So don’t panic when you hear that “you can’t cure the flu”. It may be true, but you can help your body destroying it and you can take measures to minimize symptoms.

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Sometimes you may feel that you’re not making any progress at all with your fitness program, like a gerbil spinning on its wheel, going nowhere.

But there are ways to track your loss and fitness targets that will provide the incentive you need to keep on keeping on until you reach your goals.

Watch How You Track

During your fitness quest, you’ll want to weigh yourself once a month rather than daily or weekly. This strategy gives your body a chance to react to the weeks of effort you’ve given.

It also keeps you from becoming discouraged if your happen to see a minuscule loss on the scale.

Another way to track your loss progress is to take your measurements.

Sometimes the scale doesn’t reflect the inches you’re losing and taking measurements will reassure you that you’re making some progress.

When you measure yourself, do so without clothing or clothing that fits tight to your skin (such as yoga pants).

There are numerous measurement charts online that provide instructions on how to accurately take your measurements and that will track your progress in inches to your desired goal. You should measure yourself once a week or once a month.

What are Your Real Goals?

You can also track your fitness progress by measuring your body fat percentage. This method can provide help you realize how much fat you need to lose to reach the desired fitness goal.

Body fat should measure from 25 to 31% for women and 18 to 25% for men.

There are a number of ways to measure body fat, including hydrostatic weighing, calipers, DEXA and bioelectrical impedance scales.

But a simpler way to measure body fat is to access an online calculator that uses skin fold or tape measurements. If you belong to a health or fitness club, be sure to ask if they offer any of these methods to measure body fat percentages.

Motivation in Your Own Ways

A great motivational tool to be your skinniest best is to actually see yourself thinner via a digitally enhanced photo (before and after).

This method will cost you, but if you have trouble picturing yourself thin, it could be a powerful incentive to keep up with your diet and exercise program.

Simply taking before and after pics is a great way to track as well

There are several online sites where you can obtain a digitally-adjusted photo of yourself. You simply send them a full body photo, they slim you down digitally and send the enhanced photo back to you by email.

Print them out and post them on your refrigerator door and mirrors to give you a mental reality of what you can be at the end of your quest a new and thinner you.

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Having a healthy self esteem is essential if we are to achieve what we want out of life, but knowing how to get or raise self esteem can be difficult, especially if ours is very low.

When our self esteem falls below a healthy level, we can feel worthless and will doubt that we could ever achieve anything so we are afraid to even try.

No matter how low your self esteem is, it is possible to build and develop it. Here are six ways of raising your self esteem.

6 Steps To Raise Self Esteem

Take baby steps. Plan a small challenge each day to build your confidence. If you are shy, resolve to smile at a stranger or start a conversation. Start to learn a new skill or enrol in night school. Make your challenges a little more difficult each day.

Stop negative self talk. It is so easy to fall into the trap of saying negative statements such as ‘I’m no good at that’ or ‘I’ll never get the hang of this’, or laugh off a compliment.

Every time you do this it sends signals to your self conscious, and the negative talk then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Make a point of listening to your own conversation and stop yourself when you are about to say something negative.

Practice self care. Have your hair fixed regularly, treat yourself to a facial or a massage, or make time to enjoy a soak in the bath or a novel. Buy yourself flowers.

Tiny Buddha has a great article on Self Care

This will give your subconscious the message that you are worth taking care of and will help to build self esteem.

If you are not happy with your or lifestyle, aim to make healthy changes- eat a balanced diet, start an exercise plan and find ways to stop unhealthy habits such as smoking. You will feel much better about yourself and your self esteem will rise as a result.

Learn to deal with criticism. Many people choose to put others down in order to feel better about themselves. If somebody criticises you, ask yourself whether the criticism is justified.

Lifehack has a great article on dealing with criticism

If it is not, try not to dwell on it. If you need to respond, simply state something like “That’s your opinion”. If you feel that the criticism is justified, then take on board what the other person is saying; good criticism is never an attack on you personally but a guide to how you could have done something better.

Resolve to learn the lesson for next time; if the criticism has upset you, try talking to the person who dealt it and explain how it has made you feel.

Make a list of all your accomplishments, skills and things you do well. Write down everything you can think of, no matter how minor. Write all you have achieved so far in your life; it will boost your self esteem to see it in writing.

Practice positive affirmations. Look in the mirror each day and say ‘I like myself!’ This may make you laugh at first, but your subconscious will take the message on board.

Make up your own affirmations and write them down on a card so you can carry them with you and read them regularly.

 

These can be anything from ‘I can do this’ to ‘I can handle whatever life throws at me’.

Think up affirmations that apply to your life; the more personal these are to you the more likely they are to work.

Remember that it is perfectly possible to raise self esteem, so use these tips and start raising yours straightaway.

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