Imperfections Beauty

A lot of attention is paid in society to those that want to lose weight. With a national obsession with thinness it can be frustrating to find yourself on the other side of the weight issue. The fact is that there are many individuals in the world that feel they are too skinny and that wish they could hold on to a few extra pounds. There are many reasons why some people have a hard time retaining weight. Some people just have the genetics that create a high running metabolism, others may have chronic health issues that contribute to their advanced thinness and some just don’t know the ways in which to eat and exercise that might give them the additional weight they crave.  has found some simple steps for those in need of weight gain to follow and reach their goals more quickly.

Healthy Weight Gain Step 1: KEEP A FOOD JOURNAL

Before you make any major life changes take a week or two to just observe your habits. Write down everything you eat in a day and keep track of the calories assigned to each food item. This can be a bit tedious but it is only for a week or two, so you can endure! Don’t judge yourself or try to doctor your entries by eating things you wouldn’t normally eat. It is imperative to any lasting success that you are honest with yourself from the start. Once you have determined what your average daily caloric intake is you can plan accordingly. For healthy weight gain it is recommended that you add 250 to 500 calories to your daily intake.

Healthy Weight Gain Step 2: SNACK, SNACK, SNACK!

Snacking on healthy but calorie rich items such as nuts, olives, and avocado can boost your calorie intake without making you feel like you have to stuff your face at every meal. Yogurt is also a good option. It is important to keep your food options on the healthier side because gorging on high calorie junk food might help you gain weight but it won’t be the kind of weight you are hoping for and it will seriously mess with your body’s ability to function.

Healthy Weight Gain Step 3: LITTLE ADDITIONS CAN EQUAL BIG RESULTS

Instead of trying to revamp your entire dietary life find ways to add calories to the foods you already enjoy. If you are a big salad eater then add some shredded cheese to your salad, or some protein. Add a banana to your breakfast or enjoy peanut butter on toast or crackers. There are a great many ways to add calories here and there throughout the day and in doing so you will be boosting your caloric intake without having to turn your life upside down.

Healthy Weight Gain Step 4: PAY ATTENTION TO BEVERAGE INTAKE

You will want to avoid drinking too much of anything prior to eating. The reason for this is that liquids create a false sense of fullness in the stomach. If you fill your stomach with water you will be eliminated space for your food. Since your goal is to increase your caloric intake you should avoid this occurrence.

Healthy Weight Gain Step 5: FIND AN APPETITE BOOSTER

An appetite booster is a supplement that will help you to feel hungry when you are more natural inclined to feel full. This does not mean you will become an insatiable eating machine but it will give you that extra edge when it comes to keeping up with the additional calories in your weight gaining diet plan.

Healthy Weight Gain Step 6: BUILD MUSCLE

Any healthy weight gain plan will include weight training. This does not imply that you need to become a gym rat or work toward bench pressing a car. But you should use simple weights and work out your muscle groups in order to build muscle. This will add to your weight on the scale and to the overall look of a healthier and fuller you. Avoid too much cardio as it will cause calorie deficits and weight loss. Low-intensity, 20 minute cardio, such as walks, are your best bet.

When we wake up and get ready, there is always that glance in the mirror to make sure you look great. Heading out the door for any reason means you will encounter other people and you always want to look nice. It is important that you do take some time to get ready every day and to make sure you are looking nice. What is your morning ritual? What are some of the things that you do to make sure you look great? Here are our favorite tips for looking great everyday:

1. Shower! You always look and feel better after a shower. When you shower you are able to wash all the dirt and other things off your body from the day before or night. It does help to rejuvenate you and it’s a must-do item on your getting ready checklist if you want your co-workers to enjoy sitting by you!
2. Lotion and deodorant. Depending upon where you live, lotion might be a necessity and your skin can dry out. No matter what you need to apply deodorant to help with that underarm sweating you can suffer from. Stress can creep up at any moment and will lead you to deal with excessive sweating and your deodorant can prevent you from smelling pretty bad! Keep some in your glove box just in case you forget to apply it at home, this way you can hurry and run out to your car and apply it.
3. Hair. Take some time to do your hair. You don’t want to run your hands through your hair and call it good. It is a smart idea to actually style your hair to really help you look presentable. This is important for many reasons as it gives you confidence and it helps to make you look attractive to others. In a work situation, un-kept hair can give off the appearance of a slob and could cause you to lose your job! Take the time to groom yourself and look your best.
4. Clothing. Put on appropriate clothing for whatever situation you are headed into. It is important that you look your best for work and that you wear the right clothes. The same goes for a wedding, funeral, church, the gym, etc. Know the appropriate clothing to wear and put it on. Try to avoid clothing that is tattered, worn-out, and doesn’t make you look great. Clothes speak volumes of the way you care about yourself and the right clothes also make you feel better!
5. Smile. Want to really look great? Take the time to smile! It will put you in a great mood and it does help you to look better and to feel confident.

Everyone who is unhealthy got there for a reason. You can break it down to two different reasons. The main reason is often a psychological one. Something happened to the person who has become unhealthy that triggered a part of their psyche that leads to them engaging in self-destructive behavior, which is turn results in them putting on significant weight and becoming unhealthy. Many of these people are able to snap out of it and will themselves into turning things around and starting on the path towards a healthy lifestyle. Others have to consult with professionals to help them overcome their issues to get them unhealthy in the first place. Overeating is an addiction and a choice at the same time. You chose to start eating massive quantities of food that you knew wasn’t good for you. Your brain becomes accustomed to how that bad food makes you feel and it demands that you consume more of it. When your brain tries to convince you of something, you could just as easily not listen to it. Some people are going to say that avoiding the demands of your brain is easier said than done. The thing about your brain is that it’s easily overcome by your will.

Once you have your diet figured out, you should work on putting together an exercise program. The surefire way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. If you smoke it can be hard to exercise especially if you are trying to stop smoking at the same time so some people have switched to E Cigarettes, they have many benefits and are very simple to use and aren’t bad for you like normal smoking, you just need an e cigarette and somee cigarette refills to get started. Several people have tried to break the code and come up with their own formula for weight loss that’s a spin on the same idea. We’re not interested in having to work hard to lose your weight. We want to be able to lose all of the weight we need to lose without having to break a sweat. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. We have to spend weeks on it and even then we might not even able to see the results we want. Some people have medical issues that make it hard for them to lose weight regardless of how hard they work out. In this case, these individuals will likely pursue weight loss surgery to get the results that they want. It’s important that you try as hard as you can to lose weight the natural way before you look into weight loss surgery. The complications behind weight loss operations are too significant to ignore. You have to proceed into the idea of surgery cautiously and treat it as a last resort.

The two things that you need to pursue when you’re trying to get healthy is persevering, exercising, and eating right. It’s one thing to eat right and exercise on a regular basis. It’s something else to stick with the program you set up and follow it through until you get the result that you want. Too many people drop out of the program they set up because it’s too hard or they don’t get the results they want fast enough. If you’re patient and tough enough, you will get the results that you desire.

If you suffer from sore joints, you can know just annoying they can be. Sore joints can make simple tasks that you used to enjoy into annoying and bothersome. It can even make it hard for you to connect with your children or with your old friends. It’s also one of the reasons that people gain weight, because they become unable to exercise. If you’re looking for ways to give you a little break from the pain, you can probably go into things like painkilling drugs. They do help, but they are only going to be the solution to the symptom, and not the problem. Your body is telling you that something is wrong, and with painkillers you are just ignoring that warning.

There are a couple of exercises you can do that won’t aggravate your sore joints. And when you’re doing these exercises, you’ll find that your joints become a lot less painful and sore. After you do these exercises for a while you can go back to exercising normally. If you can build some muscles around your joints, then they’ll be a lot more supported and protected from shock and daily wear and tear. Make sure you consult with a physician before you start your exercising, because you might be doing more damage if you have other problems with your joints.

There are a couple of things you can eat that will help you with your sore joints. Tart organic cherry juice will help because it is nutrient rich and high in potassium. It also helps to keep the body in a slightly alkaline state which can help ease the pain. Grapes are another great thing to get. They are high in potassium and have the amazing ability to turn your blood a lot more alkaline. This makes you feel a lot less stiff, meaning that you can do more exercises. Having either of these juices with fruit pectin can help you have a lot less pain. You can also make green drinks which are fruit smoothies with added fresh vegetables and super foods. Get barley green or wheatgrass for a lot more nutrients and the mangosteen fruit can be added for a delicious flavor as well as a lot of health benefits. They can all help you cleanse your body, which is one of the first steps to relieving your joint pain. Mangosteen fruit also offers more health benefits that you probably could use even if you aren’t experiencing joint pain. It can help you feel healthier and to look healthier too.

If you aren’t looking to buy all these crazy amounts of super foods such as mangosteen fruit then you can just try to reduce your intake of meats and dairy items, as they can add toxins into your body.

Woo-hoo!  You’re going on a date!  Now what do you wear?  Here are some questions and answers to help you get through it?

Where are you going?  Where you are going will really determine what type of clothing you should be wearing on your date.  From here you’ll know whether to dress more formally or for a more active date.

What season is it?  This will help you determine what clothing is appropriate to keep you cool or warm, depending.  You’ll also need to know whether the activities are inside or out.

How sensitive are you to heat?  If you are really sensitive to heat (or cold) you might want to dress in layers; this way you can peel off a layer if you’re too warm or add a layer if you are too cold.  Then you don’t have to worry about sweaty armpits or paying attention to conversations despite how freezing cold you are.

Guys can easily dress in a pair of nice shoes or tennis shoes with a nice pair of jeans or shorts and a well kept t shirt and button up for a more active or laid pack date.  A nice pair of shoes, slacks, and a button up dress shirt would be appropriate for a nicer date.

Girls can easily dress in a thousand things!  Just make sure that whatever you wear it is appropriate for the activity.  You don’t want to wear a skirt, no matter how comfortable you are in them, out to play Frisbee.  Wearing a lace camisole underneath lower cut shirts can help prevent any potentially embarrassing situations from arising as well.  Wearing skirts, dresses, or shorts that hit a little longer will be beneficial for avoiding embarrassing situations as well.  Usually mid-thigh to right below the knee are safest.

Be sure not to dress in a style that doesn’t suit you.  Be yourself so that you can feel as comfortable as possible – keeping in mind that most people are somewhat uncomfortable in formalwear (not many people waltz around in it everyday).

Avoiding accessories that often get caught on things is a great idea as well.  You don’t want to get your watch caught in your date’s bracelet or anything strange like that after all.

Finally just wear clothes that fit your body type.  Don’t try to be something physically that you are not.  Wherever you’re at embrace it and find clothes that make you look good, not that you wish you looked good in.

Dressing for a date is really a fun activity and though it can be a bit stressful should really be embraced and enjoyed as a process of life.  Have fun with it.

High blood pressure causes the bloodstream to push the blood thought the arteries at a higher pressure.  The higher pressure works the heart and arteries harder to keep up with demand.  The scary part is there aren’t any symptoms; if anything is seriously wrong a person won’t find out until it is too late.  To slow down blood flow and return it back to normal, here are some ways to reduce this.

There are many treatment options a person can try.  The first thing to do is to make some lifestyle changes.  Doing this will lower the risk of heart disease as well as lower blood pressure.  Smokers must stop smoking and taking tobacco.  Diet and exercise must be added to your daily routine.  The diet must include fruits and vegetables that are low in fat; cut back on caffeine, sodium and alcohol.  Exercises must be at least an hour of moderate to intense routines per week.   This will help a person to lose weight, which is another lifestyle choice a person will have to adjust to.  It seems overwhelming so the best thing to do is to do one at a time and then add more when a person is ready to take on more.

Stress has a lot to do with high blood pressure so relaxation techniques are a great solution to control stress.  Other ways to control stress is to listen to music and focus on something peaceful and calm.  Talk out any stress to make it go away.  All of this will improve their physical and emotional health.

Another thing a person can do is to take antihypertensive medicine.  Examples are water pills, beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, angiotensin II receptor blockers, calcium channel blockers, alpha blockers, nervous system inhibitors and vasodilators.  The medicine will reduce blood pressure with few side effects.  If a person is experiencing any side effects talk to the doctor.  Depending on the situation a person will have to take more than one type of medication.  Keep taking the medication until the doctor says it’s alright to stop.  Unfortunately if the blood pressure can be maintained with medicine only there is no other way.  A person will have to take medicine for the rest of their life.  A person can also try dialysis treatment options to help with high blood pressure.  Healthy lifestyle changes must be made along with high blood pressure.

These solutions are more long-term than short-term.  After all, the goal is to bring the blood pressure back to normal.  ‘Normal’ is below 140/90.  Reaching the exact number is borderline high blood pressure.  Diabetic or chronic kidney disease patients must get below 130/80.  Like the other number, reaching the diabetic/kidney disease number means borderline.

When you’re doing any sort of physical activity, the chances that you’re going to hurt yourself are high. You could try as much as you can to be as careful as possible, but at some point, you will get injured. It has nothing to do with how you do the activity and everything to do with the laws of probability. You can’t expect to do something a hundred times and have it go right on every occasion. Now, you can easily reduce your risk of injury by using the right technique for the activity in which you decided to participate. It’s natural to not know how to do something right the first time around. That’s what practice is for. You have to put in the time performing certain parts of your activity the right way to develop the muscle memory for the proper technique. Eventually, you won’t even have to think about what you’re doing. It will become second nature to you. The saying “Practice makes perfect” might sound great, but it doesn’t mean anything. You could practice doing something the wrong way every hour for the rest of your life. You would still be doing things the wrong way. An effective practice regimen comes when you have studied the activity for many years and have it perfected. Until then, you need to go back to the drawing board until you get it right.

Every physical activity has a certain amount of technique associated with it. You could run the way that feels most natural, but it won’t be the right way. Your running technique could cause you injury and make it more difficult to run for long periods of time. An experienced track or physical education coach could monitor how you run and tell you what you could do it better.  Football is a sport with a lot of intricacies. The casual observer could look at it and think it’s nothing more than a bunch of muscle bound guys running around and slamming each other into the ground. While there’s definitely a lot of that going on, there’s so much more to the game. Each position has a significant amount of technique involved with it. Quarterbacks have to know more about plays and what the other players are doing than even the coach. Running backs have to see the spots between the defenders and be able to time how long it will take for someone to close the space between them and make the tackle. The same goes for pretty much any other position on the field. If none of these players knew how to fill their role the right way, the risk of injury for them would be so much higher.

Don’t let the chance of injury prevent you from working out. Some people psych themselves out because they’re too worried about getting injured. Injury plays a part in every facet of life. Most of us have gotten injured walking down the street or doing some other normal activity. You can’t let this rare possibility ruin your physical activity routine. If you worry about working out because you have bunions you many want to look at a bunion study to see if you can find any relief. If you perform the techniques associated with your activity the right way, you will reduce your chance of injury by a tremendous amount. Many injuries are caused when someone decides to do something they aren’t supposed to be doing during their workout.

It’s summer time, and you know what that means! The sun is going to be out longer and more powerful than ever before. Before you decide to pack a picnic lunch and head to the beach, there are a few things you might want to consider for your own safety’s sake. Your skin is especially susceptible to the sun’s rays because during the summer, most of it is exposed. Everyone has heard about how harmful the sun can be, but not everyone really knows what to do about it. It is unreasonable to ask people to stay inside all day to protect your skin! So what can you do? Here are a few tips on how to keep your skin safe this summer while still having fun in the sun!

The first rule is sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen! There are dozens of studies that prove that sunscreen can help keep your skin safe from developing harmful diseases and cancers due to exposure to the sun. There is no reason to leave the house without applying sunscreen first. Even on overcast days, the sun’s rays are out and powerful as ever. When you risk your skin’s health by going out in the sun without wearing any sort of protection, then you are risking skin cancer for a small convenience of not applying the lotion or spray. Does that sound like a fair trade to you? Of course it doesn’t, so wear your sunscreen!

Along the same lines, applying moisturizer to your skin daily is a great way to keep your skin looking and feeling healthy. Even when you wear sunscreen, the sun is likely to dry out the natural moisture from your skin. For this reason, it might be necessary to apply a little more lotion than normal during the summer months. In addition to lotion, you might want to consider wearing after-shave balm. After-shave balm is a great product that captures moisture into your skin after it has been shaven and is likely to dry out anyway. When freshly shaven skin is exposed to heat and dryness, it increases the risk of razor burn and other unpleasant things. Adding a little more lotion to your daily routine and using after shave balm will give your skin the extra boost that it needs during the summer.

If a tan is what you are looking for, then you should know that the sun isn’t the only way for you to get it! Sun tanning can be very harmful to the skin. Luckily, there are a number of at home skin tanners that will give your skin the same golden glow without you having to wait hours in the sun and damaging your skin for good.

 

With the economy down, people are going to the spa less and less and are looking for home recipes that do the same thing. Facials and face scrubs are the biggest thing that people are wanting to do at home. Pedicures and manicures require a certain skill to do, but following a recipe for a face mask is something that anyone can do. Here is a step-by-step process for an at-home spaexperience.

1. Cleanse. What you need to do before anything else is wash you face with a basic, gentle cleanser. If you wash your face in the morning or at night, then you can just use that. You do not want something that is going to dry your skin out because that will make the rest of the experience counter-active.
2. Exfoliate. Exfoliating is something that everyone should do on a regular basis, it includes scrubbing off the dead skin and allowing your skin to be renewed. Many spas use expensive methods of doing this, but there are much simpler ways to accomplish the same goal. You can use white or brown sugar as a scrub or baking soda if you want a finer grain. Take the sugar or baking soda after wetting your face and, using small circles, rub it onto your face and then rinse. Do not use salt (some websites recommend it) because it dries your skin out and makes it much less responsive to your mask. You can add little touches to your scrub to make it unique and increase the feeling of being a part of the spa. Some of those touches are coconut oil, essential oil, and other similar scents and flavors.
3. Mask. This is the most subjective part of any “spa” routine. Each person has unique skin, tastes, and needs. Some people have certain allergies and cannot use specific ingredients. Make sure that if you are using an ingredient that you have not come in contact with before, that you first spread a small amount on a patch on your arm the day before so you can see if you are allergic or not. There are many, many websites that you can use to find recipes, all you need to type into a search engine is “homemade facials”.
4. Moisturize. After rinsing your facial off, you need to moisturize your skin. Use a light moisturizer so that your skin is not weighed down and that way you do not counteract the facial that you just did.

 

There are a few additional steps that you can take depending on your routine. If you are doing this during the day, then it would be good to apply some sunscreen on top of the moisturizer. Sunscreen is KEY. It will keep your skin healthier than the most expensive wash and lotion. An important thing to remember is that your skin will be a little extra sensitive and therefore you should not apply make up on your skin because it will not respond well.