Do you enjoy Nikita television series starred Maggie Q? The show that is currently entering its second season is not just exposing action scenes, but also Maggie Q fabulous figure. With 5’6″ (1.68 m) height and average weight approximately around 103 – 116 lbs (47 – 53 Kg), most people say that Maggie Q is way too skinny, even for Asian models‘ standard. However that’s not a problem, since with that thin body, Maggie Q has a great fitness and stamina, that makes many women envy her.

If you’ve become Maggie Q fan since her Mandarin movie times, you won’t doubt her fitness, as she likes to do all the action scenes and stunts by herself. She’s currently 32-year-old right now and has admitted that she was not as physically capable when she was first recruited into the Hong Kong film industry by action star Jackie Chan. However, she still insists on doing all Nikita stunts by herself, and told New York Magazine that she considered it an insult to viewers to use a stunt double for the show’s intense action sequences.

Maggie Q in Nikita

Now, what are Maggie Q diet secrets that make her appearance flawless? Well, as I’ve previously written few times in this blog, there are two important factors to achieve healthy lifestyle: eat healthy food and do a routine exercise.

To maintain a huge amount of energy in her slender body, Maggie Q does all kind of workouts, including run, swim, bike, box (she loves boxing), and especially yoga. By doing her own action sequences for movies, she also doing extra workouts, as she usually trains various martial arts under a lot of stunt coordinators.

Besides exercise, the more important lifestyle that she applied is of course her vegan diet. She refused eating animal products since around 13 years ago. For your information, vegan is much more extreme than vegetarian. In addition to giving up meat, vegans also refused consuming any animal byproducts, such as dairy, cheese, and eggs.

A vegan diet is typically very low in fat, because it excludes all animal products, from cheeseburgers to eggs. A vegan diet can be healthy, so long as the dieter is careful to fulfill the body’s nutritional needs, like protein, iron, and vitamin B12. Vegans replace the protein from meats with high-protein, low-fat foods such as lentils, beans and soy.

Maggie Q’s vegan diet is not only for her health, but more for her love for animals. Maggie Q did an almost nudity campaign for PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) once, and she was named PETA Asia-Pacific’s “Person Of The Year” and “Best-Dressed Celebrities” (for never wears fur) in 2008. For her, the moral implication of not eating meat makes her feel healthier and fulfilled with energy.

“I feel better, I have more energy on and off the set, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I’m doing something to help stop animal suffering.” — Maggie Q

Don’t forget to check my previous post of other Female vegetarians. Meanwhile, check out some pictures of Maggie Q’s slender body:

There are always controversies surrounding coconut oil effects for health, whether it’s good or bad. WHO and American Food and Drug Administration, along with other American health organizations, do not recommend the consumption of high amount of coconut oil, because of the saturated fats contained in it. While many other countries, especially where coconut palms grow, disagree, and some even say that this is only a negative campaign by the U.S. so that the food industry abandons the usage of coconut oil and replace it with U.S. main crops, particularly soy and corn.

Saturated Fat

Now, saturated fat content is the main reason why coconut oil is considered not safe for health. It’s true that coconut oil is mostly saturated fats, and this fat raises blood cholesterol level. However, just like cholesterol, not all of saturated fats are the same. The saturated fatty acids—palmitic acid and myristic acid—that are abundant in butter, cream, and some meats have been linked to a higher risk of heart disease. While coconut oil mostly contains lauric acid, which seems to behave differently in the body, and some researches gave preliminary conclusions that they don’t raise heart disease risk.

There is also big misconception because of previous study that found trans fatty acids in coconut oil. It’s a toxic entities that block utilization of essential fatty acids and impede cell functionality. But this study that conducted years ago used hydrogenated coconut oil, and has no relevance to the non-hydrogenated coconut milk that people eat nowadays.

Coconut Oil Benefits

However, not dangerous doesn’t mean that coconut oil also has obvious benefits for decrease heart disease risk, help lose weight, or boost immune system, like many have claimed. It’s true that lauric acid itself is a component of human breast milk, and has been claimed to have antimicrobial properties. Lauric acid also increases high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or “good” cholesterol. But so far there’s no exact evidence that lauric acid and other substances in coconut oil can really help fight virus, or to be used in diet program to reduce weight, and investigations regarding this are still going on.

Although, it’s almost certain that coconut oil is healthier than trans fat, which has led some food manufacturers to begin using it as a replacement. Trans fatty acid itself can be found in any kind of hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil, which is present in most processed food nowadays, including margarine, potato chips, baked goods, etc.

While for external use, due to the vitamin E content, coconut oil is useful for skin moisturizer and helping with dry skin (lauric acid is also a common component used in soap and cosmetics). Coconut oil also helps strengthen hair, as it reduces protein loss when used in hair.

So, it’s safe to say that coconut oil isn’t give bad effect for health, especially if it’s used in its virgin, unprocessed form. Although the controversies of coconut oil will still continue for the following years, with the question is now has shifted from “good or bad foe health?” to “useful or not for health?”. It won’t be settled until WHO and American health organization, including FDA, give their recommendation, even though if there is an economy factor behind this.

Vacation, especially by traveling outside the city, is not just a fun activity to do, but also healthy. Many doctors recommend someone to traveling once or twice a year, as it can greatly reduce the risk of having a heart attack, compared to others who ignoring vacation. Besides that, a vacation is obviously can reduce stress level, which resulting in higher productivity when someone is back to work after holiday.

Now, it’s very sucks when someone who want to having a vacation suddenly get sick before or during traveling, right? That’s why we need to learn about some travel tips that will be useful to keep our body fit during the whole vacation. Here they are:

Keep your hands clean – Washing hands, especially before eat, is the simplest health-maintenance activity that often ignored by most people. They probably can be confidence about the cleanness of their home or working environment. But during traveling when you go to so many places, meet so many people, and touch so many thing, washing hands is a must. It’s also probably a good idea to bring a hand sanitizer/antiseptic, especially if you’re not sure about the water quality at your destination.

Drinks a lot of water – Although fun and relaxing, sometimes traveling can be a heavy activity, that require you to replace the water that your body loss. Also, people usually don’t want to drink a lot of water on cold temperature, like in mountain or inside airplane. This is wrong, as higher altitude increases the risk of dehydration.

Watch your food and drink- It would be better if you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables before and during your vacation, as these type of foods contain a lot of vitamins and antioxidant that very useful for body’s health. You should avoid caffeine and alcohol, as it can increase the effects of jet lag.

Keep your regular schedule – During travel, people tend to change their habits, especially for eating and sleeping time. You should stick to your daily eating or sleeping time, especially for the first few days after you’ve arrived at your destination, which will help your body to adapt to the new environment faster.

Bring medications – Headache, dizziness, cold, ulcer, and constipation are some common disease that you can get during traveling. Bring your favorite brands of medications for those diseases. Also, bring your travel insurance if you have any.

Socialize – This is a very good way to reduce stress, especially when you’re traveling alone. Socialize with your travel guide, cab driver, hotel staffs, local citizens, unknown hot woman, etc.

Workout – Do a small exercise anytime you’ve got the chance. Inside airplane, at your hotel when you’re waking up, at nearest park, swimming at beach or hotel’s pool, etc.

That’s it about some health tips for traveling. Preparation is necessary if you don’t want a bad health condition to ruin the whole vacation experiences.

Besides Chinese food recipes, the best choice of Asian vegetarian recipes is obviously Indian cuisine. India is a country that rich with vegetables, spices, herbs, and fruits. Moreover, with Hinduism and Buddhism background culture, many societies in India practice vegetarianism in daily life.

These are couple examples of Indian vegetarian recipes, which using mushrooms as the basic ingredients:

Mushroom Baghaar

Ingredients:

225 grams Button mushrooms
1 Onion
2 flakes Garlic
1 teaspoon Dried thyme
1 teaspoon Dried sage
1/2 teaspoon Cardamoms, ground
1/2 Lemon
100 grams Oil
1 teaspoon Salt

Directions:

1. Trim away the hard parts of the mushrooms, slice and keep aside.
2. Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the chopped onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes.
4. Stir in the thyme, sage and ground cardamoms.
5. Add the mushrooms to the frying pan, stirring constantly to ensure that they mix well.
6. Sprinkle in the salt, then squeeze in the juice of 1/2 lemon.
7. Cook further for a few minutes and serve.

Matar Mushroom

Ingredients:

1½ cups Green peas
200 grams Mushrooms
4 Green cardamom
1″ stick Cinnamon
2 Onions
1 tablespoon Ginger paste
1 tablespoon Garlic paste
½ cup Tomato puree
1 tablespoon Red chili powder
1 tablespoon Coriander powder
1 tablespoon Turmeric powder
1 tablespoon Garam masala powder
½ cup Cashew-nut paste
2 tablespoons Oil
Salt As required

Directions:

1. Clean, wash & cut the mushrooms into medium pieces and peel & chop the onions finely.
2. Sauté green cardamoms, cinnamon stick & chopped onions in oil until golden brown in colour.
3. Then add the ginger garlic paste and cook for ½ a minute.
4. Add tomato puree, red chili powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, garam masala powder, salt & cook till
the oil leaves the masala.
5. Lastly add the cashewnut paste dissolved in 1 cup of water and stir well.
6. Add 1 cup of water, bring it to a boil, then add the green peas & mushrooms.
7. Cook on a high flame for seven to eight minutes or till the green peas are fully cooked.
8. Once done, serve hot with rice or roti.

Go and try those Indian vegetarian recipes, which not only healthy, but taste good too!

Human’s body naturally comes with hair in numerous area, but not all of them are wanted, both by men and women. For aesthetic reason, men usually don’t like hair in back area, while women prefer to have smooth armpits and legs. Besides for beauty, there are other causes why people want to shave their hair, they are for medical, sexual, work requirement, religious, and cultural reasons.

The most common method of hair removal is by shaving or trimming, using razor or other bladed implements. The next most popular methods that usually chose by women is waxing and sugaring. However, those ways have their drawback, that is they must be done regularly. For those who seek permanent hair removal, laser hair removal is a wise option.

Using laser hair removal technology, light is directed at the hair and is absorbed by dark pigment, resulting in the destruction of the hair follicle. The hair removal becomes permanent after one or more sessions. Note that permanent here refers to “permanent hair reduction” not “permanent hair removal”, meaning that patient will have a stable reduction of hair growth over the long-term process.

Asian girl with smooth underarms.
You won't be needing Photoshop if you've done laser hair removal

Laser hair removal has some temporary side effects, which include pain, itching, redness, and swelling around the treatment area which only last for couple of days or so. Serious but rare side effects are blistering, scarring and skin texture changes, while the more common one is change in skin pigment. Considered as one of the safest methods, patients are usually worry more about laser hair removal cost than its side effects.

Laser hair removal prices are vary between $200 to $500 per session. The problem is, someone will need minimum of 5-7 sessions to eliminate 60-80% of hair, depends on type of hair, skin color, and which area of the body that want to be remove from hair. There are also a possible additional cost for medication and touch-up sessions.

However, since laser hair removal is effective, less painful, reliable, and delivers fast result, those pricing are considered acceptable by people who wants to undergo this procedure.

To have such a proportional figure and ideal weight seem like a dream for most people in the world. The fact is, a lot of people, including in the United States, are struggling with obesity and still have not found any efficient method to lose weight fast.

There are three effective elements, which are actually simple but must be strictly done, to lose your weight fast and get a proportional figure:

Do Exercise Regularly

Yes, doing regular exercise is the most important thing that you have to do in order to support your health, and to get the body shape that you’ve been dream about.

The logic is, if you want to lose your weight, what you need to do is burn more fat and calories from your body than you consumed, and exercise is one of the most effective methods for that.

Eat Right

What I meant with eat right is by just consume the amount of foods that your body need in order to stay healthy, and don’t eat something just because it has a good taste. I don’t say that it is not allowed to eat something delicious from time to time, however you need to avoid food that have a harmful effects for health. Moreover, there are actually plenty of healthy foods who also taste nice, if you know where to look!

Consume the Right Supplement

Supplement becomes really important nowadays, concerning the lifestyle of modern people that don’t always have time to do regular exercise, and to cook healthy food everyday. Supplement can be use to support your lifestyle, and even boost your fat and calories burning program, just like what PhenObestin 37.5 mg offers for fast weight loss.

What make this diet pills, which are made in the United States, so popular is because it doesn’t require prescription and has no side effect for your body except burn fat and calories of it. Even the pills can boost your metabolism that gives you up to 1650 calories burned every day.

So these are some of the most effective elements and supplement for your fat burning program. Good Luck!

American Diabetes Month is This November!

Guest post by Murray Newlands

American Diabetes Month started the day after Halloween and lasts till the last day of November. The primary purpose is to promote diabetes awareness and encourage diabetes prevention. In 2010, slightly under 2 million more Americans were diagnosed with diabetes.

There are two types of diabetes that people can get: Type 1 (formerly called juvenile diabetes) through an autoimmune attack, and type 2, through lifestyle choices combined with a genetic predisposition to diabetes.

While type 1 is slightly worse in that all people with type 1 diabetes need to take insulin shots from the outset (mostly people with late stage type 2 diabetes need to inject themselves with insulin), it’s also possible to cure it through a pancreas transplant, though this doesn’t work for all people and there’s often complications. In all forms of diabetes, however, people can lose limbs because of poor blood circulation, get nerve damage, lose eyesight, and even die.

Dancing to fight diabetes

Luckily there’s something you can do about it. To support American Diabetes Month, Diabetes Resource Page has launched as a portal for everything diabetes. That means you can share stories, learn about prevention and treatment, and even get discounts for big-name brands like Remedy Life, Life Script, and P&G.

If you’re the marketing type or just own a website and have a kind heart, we would like your help in promoting DiabetesResourcePage.com and American Diabetes Month. This is a fantastic opportunity to do good and help save lives.

Disclaimer: My company Influence People does blogger relations outreach for DiabetesResourcePage.com

Have you read my previous post about Quick Guides to Quit Smoking? The tips provided there look simple, but I know that it’s not that easy to applied. Health experts usually suggest that the best way to quit smoking is by stop it at once, rather than reduce the habit step-by-step. However, what makes that difficult is because the body won’t be just carving for tobacco, but also for nicotine.

According to the American Heart Association, nicotine addiction has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break. That’s why someone who has difficulty in smoking cessation program probably should do it step-by-step, by stopping the tobacco addiction first, and then moving on to the nicotine addiction later. To do this, someone can try to quit smoking using nicotine gum.

Nicotine gum is a type of chewing gum that delivers nicotine to the body, and used as an aid in nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). Need to note that although nicotine gum is an effective way to stopping tobacco addiction, the nicotine itself is still a dangerous substance, mainly because it constricts arteries, making it harder for the heart to pump blood through the body. That’s why it’s strongly suggested that someone not consuming nicotine gum for longer than 12 weeks.

Nicotine gum should not be used less than 15 minutes after eating or drinking, as this will reduce absorption. These are the tips on how to use nicotine gum effectively:

• Bite slowly and deliberately until a strong taste or tingling sensation is felt.
• Park the gum between cheek and gums.
• When the intensity of the sensations decreases, begin to chew again.
• Repeat the cycle for about 30 minutes until the gum is depleted of nicotine.

Now, what are the bad effects of nicotine gum? Well, besides that nicotine itself is a big risk factor for health, gum and other NRT products are very well known for their expensive cost. Average cost of NRT lasting seven days is up to $30 over the counter. This is why many people quit NRT and go back to smoking, as the cost of cigarettes are vary, depend on the brand and how much the individual smokes.

For you who’s willing to quit smoking and try nicotine gum, I suggest you to choose rebranded product, such as rebranded Nicorette gum, Nicotrol. Nicorette chewing gum was developed by Ove Fernö at the pharmaceutical company Leo in Helsingborg, Sweden. While Nicotrol gum is basically the same gum, manufactured in the same country, but shipped with a different name at a lower selling price, which is up to 30% cheaper!

Last words, whatever your smoking cessation method is, I hope you success!

Disclaimer: This is a paid article sponsored by PayPerPost.com

Nowadays, there are so many brain teaser, riddle, and puzzle games that we can easily get, whether its for browser, computer, cell phone, and video game’s console. Working and solving such games is obviously fun (or frustrating?), but does it also really useful for our brain fitness?

As you’re aging, you’ll find that you’ll having a harder time to concentrate and remembering small details. This can be proven by how some people easily forget what they had for dinner yesterday night, or what’s in newspaper’s headline this morning. Just like how you lose muscle mass with age, your brain function begins to decrease when you reach maturity. This is unavoidable, even if you lead a normal, healthy lifestyle.

How do you train your muscles and physical fitness? By exercising, go to the gym, and do your sport hobbies, right? Similar to body’s muscles, brain also needs training. Mind and mental exercise can be done by solving problems, in the form of riddles or puzzles, that will help stimulating and improve blood flow to the brain, which will give similar effects with workout for muscles.

The term brain fitness itself reflects a hypothesis that cognitive (mental process) abilities can be maintained or improved by exercising the brain, in analogy to the way physical fitness is improved by exercising the body. This is probably not scientific proven, as the concept brain fitness itself rarely used in scientific literature. Although the concept of whether brain works like body’s muscles is debatable (as there is strong evidence that aspects of brain structure remain plastic throughout life), no one can argue that brain training is necessary.

You will find that brain teasers are a good brain fitness workouts method that can help your mind process information more quickly, and more efficiently, as well as the ability to perform multiple tasks at the same time. Playing chess, crosswords, and sudoku, solving hard riddle and puzzle, doing memory test, are some form of brain training that can help to concentrate more and increase your brain reflection speed.

Take a moment from your free time each day to complete your training. The best time to do this is in the morning, when your brain is at its peak level of activity.

So, have you heard the sad news about Steve Jobs? The Apple’s founder and former CEO died yesterday after years of struggling with pancreatic cancer. Steve Jobs (1955-2011) was a great man, he made the world more fun and brighter with his MacBook, iPop, iPad, and iPhone. However, we won’t talk about him this time, instead, let’s get to know better about the disease that killed him and its risk factors.

You’d probably remember that the same disease also killed Ghost’s actor Patrick Swayze in Sepetember 2009. Pancreatic cancer is one of the faster spreading cancers; only about 4% of patients can expect to survive five years after their diagnosis. It’s also the fourth most common cause of cancer death across the globe. It’s sometimes called a “silent killer” because early pancreatic cancer often does not cause symptoms, and often not diagnosed until it is advanced.

Pancreatic cancer should be treatable, only if it’s detected on earlier stage. The problem is, early pancreatic cancer often does not cause symptoms, and the later symptoms are usually nonspecific and varied. Therefore, pancreatic cancer is often not diagnosed until it is advanced.

Well, if you can’t detect the symptoms, it’s always better to avoid it, right? These are the most common risk factors for pancreatic cancer:

• 5–10% of pancreatic cancer patients have a family history of pancreatic cancer. The number are much larger when there are two or more members of the family had pancreatic cancer history.
• Above 50 years old of age. Cases before age 40 are uncommon.
• Heavy Smoker. Cigarette smoking has a risk ratio of 1.74 (smokers would be 1.74 times as likely as non-smokers to develop pancreatic) cancer. with regard to pancreatic cancer; a decade of nonsmoking after heavy smoking is associated with a risk ratio of 1.2.
• Diets low in vegetables and fruits, high in red meat, high in sugar-sweetened drinks (soft drinks) – risk ratio 1.87.
• Obesity, lack of physical exercise, and other unhealthy lifestyle.
• Diabetes mellitus. Besides as risk factor for pancreatic cancer, diabetes can also be an early sign of the disease.
• Gingivitis or periodontal disease.
• Jewish Ashkenazi (Central and Eastern European) descent.
• Exposed to BRCA gene (human gene that belong to a class of genes known as tumor suppressors) mutations.

Good job Steve Jobs (1955-2011)!

That’s all about pancreatic cancer’s risk factors. Now it’s a little bit off topic, but if you’re a school or university student, you’d probably still having trouble in finding a good essay topics. As I previously experienced myself, essay and paper are considered by many as the most difficult assignment in school. This article probably giving you some ideas about essay topics, like writing about Apple, Steve Jobs, disease’s risk factors, disease that killed famous person, etc.

If you need more ideas, whatever your subject or majoring, whether it’s technical, health, or else, you can always search example essays on the web.  It’s a common thing for students to searching the internet with an aim to find a reliable website offering good library of customized academic essay and research papers. You should do that too!