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Archives for May 2012

Why You Should Be Including Seaweed in Your Diet

May 29, 2012 By Erica

A rich source of all the trace minerals we need to sustain life, the valuing of seaweed nutrition is missing from our western culture. People from coastal Asian cultures know the importance of edible seaweed as a natural health supplement and staple of their diet, and as an island country with so much accessible coastline and a huge fishing industry, it makes little sense that we’ve largely ignored our abundant sea vegetables for so long (especially as we have harvested other supplements from the ocean such as fish oil or coral calcium).

Most seaweed is consumed in dried form, with salt or spices added to give it a little kick. Some people develop a strong taste for the nori variety, crunching on it often and enjoying these fantastic benefits:

  • Cancer-fighting phytochemicals and anti-oxidants that boost the immune system
  • More vitamins and minerals than any other plant species
  • Rich in vitamin A, which help complexion and eyesight
  • Rich in B vitamins that help to regulate one’s mood
  • A rich source of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein
  • Very low calorie yet filling
  • Healthy amounts of iodine, which can help to stunt tumor growth and ensure healthy functioning of the brain and thyroid gland
  • Lots of magnesium that keeps blood pressure down
  • A great source of fiber, thus it helps to control appetite as you feel full on few calories

However, before you go out and fill your buggy with dried sea vegetable squares, be aware that this wondrous natural food is fairly high in sodium, so portion sizes need to be moderate. It is also recommended that organic sea vegetables be purchased due to the possible presence of toxins like arsenic in some brands.

Seaweed has gotten so popular that it has ditched its original name, going be the less pejorative title of “sea vegetables” now. Asian stores and health food stores stock it in crunchy and squishy forms. If you buy a large quantity of the dried form to get a better price, you will not have to worry about moulding or deterioration—it stores for weeks with no hazards. The most popular varieties of seaweed are Wakame, Nori, Irish Moss, Kelp, Kombu, Dulse, Hijiki and Arame.

The dried varieties can be eaten with salt, wasabi powder, brushed with sesame oil or just about anything that you find enhances the flavour. You can also crumble a sheet of the dried sea vegetables into a recipe that can absorb it with no problem, such as fried rice or soup, especially miso soup. Another option is breaking the dried sheets into a form of chips to add to your sushi bowl or salad or purchasing it in flake form to shake over salads and other dishes.

The squishy, natural form of sea vegetables can be incorporated with other veggies in stir-fry recipes of all types. It will add a different texture and interesting taste to dishes that you have perhaps become bored with.

Of course, you can always shock your family by serving sea vegetables as a side dish in either form. Don’t tell the kids what it is. Let them decide if they want to wolf down a packet of dried squares rather than the fattening potato chips that they consume by the bag. Your little trick could launch them on a lifetime of consuming this super-food regularly.

Another obvious way to sneak seaweed into your children’s mouths is through the regular consumption of sushi. Even people who don’t like raw meat or seafood in general can usually find a type of sushi that they enjoy with the explosion of varieties of sushi now available. Each of those delicious concoctions comes wrapped in sea vegetables. Let your child enjoy that California Roll while you sit in delight, knowing that s/he is starting a lifelong habit of eating well.

Teeter Hang Ups EP-560 Inversion Table Assembly and Features

May 19, 2012 By Steven Kirchhof

Teeter Hang Ups claims that their new EP-560 inversion table can be assembled in 13 minutes, so I put it to the test. I have assembled other models in the past, but this was my first time with their newest series of tables. The 13 minutes is possible, but only after you’ve taken all the parts out of the box. Teeter does a nice job with protecting their tables during shipment, and there is a considerable amount of unpacking necessary (about 10 minutes).

In the video I assembled using the tools that come with the table. It would go faster using a socket wrench and electric screwdriver.

Watch the video to see if I can assemble the table within the 13 minutes Teeter claims.

What is the most difficult piece of exercise equipment you assembled? Comment below.

Click here for more information about Teeter Hang Ups inversion tables.

[TRANSCRIPT]
Speaker: Hi everyone. Here we are with another Teeter Hang Ups video.

This time, I’d like to walk you through our Assembled Inversion Table. This is the new Teeter Hang Ups EP-560 Inversion Table and we’ll do a full review on this table and probably compare it to the EP-550 side by side.

While I figure on assembling it, I can also point out some of the features of this table. If you want, what I have here, I don’t know how I could see that on video, but there really aren’t that many parts of the Inversion Table. This is not like an elliptical machine or an exercise bike. They are just as hundreds and hundreds it seems of different parts and little fasters that you have to put together.

Assembly with Teeter Hang Ups Inversion Table is really quite simple. I did take it out of the box, because I didn’t think that anybody wanted to sit and watch me take one out of the box. It’s been a while since I assembled an inversion table. I’ve never assembled this model before, but it is very similar to the EP-550.

So I’m working. You know, everything here already came assembled. This A-frame came assembled, most of the back came assembled, and we are just putting on assembled smaller parts. It comes with some of these little tools and wrenches, etc to do it. Probably it would be faster if you had a socket set, ratchet screwdriver, that’s it.

So here the bars are tightened to the sides of the table and these are used to aid when you’re trying to come back from inversion, if necessary. Normally you just have to, you know, you have your hands over your head, to shift your center of gravity. Normally, you just have to take your hands and put them back by your sides, you know, go up to an upright setting.

And what I’m going to do is, I’m going to get these on fairly tight, but I don’t want to spend a whole lot [00:02:00] of time on video boring you guys watching me tighten up bolts.

The instructions that come with the Teeter are quite clear. There’s also a DVD that comes that helps. If you enroll in our coaching program, which is free if you purchase a Teeter Hang Ups Inversion Table from BetterHealthInnovations.com. If you participate in our coaching program, we actually send out the assembly instructions a couple of days before you’re going to receive your table. In that way, you read it out if you like. You can understand better what sort of tools you’re going to need, what we can help you with an area that you’re going to need, that sort of thing. So those were the stretcher [indiscernible] [00:02:58] handles.

Moving on to the next step, we’re now going to assemble the main shaft and the main shaft is basically what holds on to your ankles or on to your feet. So it’s rather important. So the foot rests on the Teeter Hang Ups table, still similar to what they have on the EP-550, again this is an EP-560.

What’s good about this is that it’s a different thickness on each side. So as you flip it, you’re can adjust it for basically how big your feet are. Then I think just about all the screws and fasteners and here when we put it together, it’s [00:04:00] airproofed that you can’t put things in backwards for the most part that I know of. You can’t put in things in backwards, you can’t [indiscernible] [00:04:08] faster in one place that sort of thing.

Say for example, this foot, I don’t think I could put this on upside down if I try and this is just a Phillips screw through a Phillips screwdriver that comes with it for nothing.

So let’s see. This is where you’re going to be resting your feet now. Likely to assemble the part that you’re going to have the back of your feet on. I’m sorry, these two will be the – the cups will go behind your ankles. You see that on video. And actually probably the biggest improvement for this EP-560 is that it comes with these so-called Ergo-Embrace. It’s called an Ergo-Embrace feet.

What the Ergo-Embrace does for you is it clamps around your ankles as opposed to grabbing the tops of your feet. So that’s little bit more comfortable. It’s a lot like wearing a gravity boots as opposed to stay in foot clamps. This goes in with the bolt [00:06:00].

And normally I’d probably be sitting on the floor doing this as opposed to trying to balance through things in my hand. This time I’ll keep my finger right there. I’ll try it out again. It is important that this particular one goes in fairly tight. I’m going to take that all the way down and just the same on time holder.

Okay, that’s where the back of your ankles are going to go. Your feet are resting on here. Legs up where you like, that’s where the front of your feet are going up. Well guys, it’s been a while since I’ve done a lot of these.

Now Teeter Hang Ups essentially claims you could assemble all these in 13 minutes. Let’s see how close I come to that [indiscernible] [00:07:49] [00:08:00]. In the front of the spring load it has a pin, so I’m just attaching the back of the spring here. They give you a nice cable tie in this model, which I don’t think I’ve seen on the previous ones. They give you a nice cable ties so you can just pull it up and through. Normally you just cut that off but I think you just leave that out there. And there’s your [indiscernible] [00:08:44] unit. I’ll lean it up against the frames. The next step is. Make sure we haven’t missed anything. Then this one thing, oh the plug to go down at the bottom here. Actually this plug will normally go on the back you normally leave it off because I’m not going to take the time to cut that off right now, I’ll do that later.

Okay, assembling the back cushion. The lower part of the back cushion. So already some will add on here. Actually go to the last steps here. You need to put on this piece here. They are pretty lightweight material and it’s intentionally so. The old inversion table, this is little bit lighter than an EP-550, I thinks it’s got 10 pounds lighter. And this is just simply three fasteners that are going to [00:10:00] go through. The front of the fastener has a little hex or Allen wrench kind of thing, which is included.

And again, I think usually one would be assembling this while sitting on the floor, at least have a chair available, I think it will be most awkward hanging it right here balancing this stuff. I think that’s it with the fasteners we got. And again, probably you just take your little Phillips – I’m sorry not Phillips, your Allen wrench and your regular wrench to tighten up these fasteners here, but for the sake of time, I we’re not going to do that for this demo. We need to assemble the roller hinges onto the bed. This is pretty simple. Roller hinges [indiscernible] [00:11:38] were inside.

Refer to the manual or some of our coaching materials of what you want to do with the [indiscernible] [00:11:45] in the middle. What I see in the middle is just three holes here. They are [indiscernible] [00:11:55] [00:12:00] chair. Well this usually is going to sit right into that A-frame there and this is really not a heavy piece and I know if you’re suffering from back pain and that’s why you got the thing, probably you don’t want to be lifting a lot of stuff around. It’s really not – this is probably, I don’t know, 15 pounds or so. I might be grossly over or underestimating that. This we’re just going to drop right in. There’s a little safety retention feature here you have to pull back. And as you can see, we’re all but done at this point.

We are back to make sure I didn’t miss anything critical. They are looking good, the main shaft. And one difference with the 560 over the 550, this is no longer chrome. In fact, I kind of like the chrome one. If you have to sit here literally like the gray, you know, the gray and the black are a little bit better. The advantage in the chrome is that chrome is never really going to wear.

Anyhow we have a tether strap on the back and I absolutely love the way that Teeter has done this over the years. They haven’t changed it. You know, it’s a control, your handle version, a very simple tether strap as opposed to a mechanism that might be on the sides of our similar competitors. But there you have it. I think that I might have made it, the 13-minute mark. I wasn’t really keeping track as I went. I think it’s pretty close we got this thing assembled and grant that I didn’t have everything off out of the box [00:14:00] for us. I would say it probably took a good 15 minutes to get everything out of the box.

So you have a Teeter EP-560 Inversion Table and the next video, if you want to subscribe through our channel so you won’t miss it, the next video will be a comparison of this table, the [indiscernible] [00:14:10] one, this table versus the Teeter EP-550. Then again, visit us at BetterHealthInnovations.com/Teeter to see the complete wide range of Teeter Inversion tables and if you have any questions at all, you can email us or even if you want you can give me a phone call personally.

Have a great day everybody.

Seven Reasons Running’s Great for Your Health

May 17, 2012 By Angela

Running is one of the best aerobic activities you can do, and its mental and physical health benefits are well-documented. The CDC recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week to get the optimum benefit— going for a run, especially on a bright sunny day, will benefit your body in a variety of ways.

Improved Cardiovascular Health

Running is aerobic by nature, and any aerobic workout will benefit your heart. Running causes your heart to pump harder, which strengthens it over time, improving its stroke volume and function, as well as lowering your resting pulse rate.

Weight Loss and Management

Running on a regular basis can help you lose weight and keep it off. Thirty minutes on the track has the potential to burn 400 calories or more; the more you run, the more calories you will burn and the more weight you will lose.

Strengthened Muscles

When you work your muscles, their mass and strength increases. Stronger muscles help you do everyday activities, and prevent age-related loss of muscle mass. Bigger muscles also mean a higher BMR (basal metabolic rate), so you burn more calories, even when you’re resting.

Strong Bones

After the age of thirty, bone density tends to decline (in both men and women). Any exercise considered “weight-bearing”— such as running— will help in the reversal and prevention of bone loss, and it can possibly prevent osteoporosis, according to Harvard’s School of Public Health.

Less Stress

Going for a fun run on a regular basis helps keep stress, depression and other mood-related disorders at bay, and it can reduce anxiety by up to 20%.

Prevention of Disease and Increased Longevity

Regular running can reduce your risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and heart disease. It helps to raise your body’s level of “good” cholesterol, it lowers your blood pressure, and boosts your immune system. Running can also increase your overall life expectancy; according to the CDC, people who work out about 7 hours weekly have a 40% lower chance of dying early.

More Vitamin D

If you run outside in the sunshine, your body’s production of vitamin D will increase, meaning healthier bones and teeth, as well as increased immunity to illness.

Running will make you feel great by boosting your self-confidence and self-esteem. There are many reasons why people start running; to lose weight, to train for a 5k run, or just to be healthier. No matter why you start, you’ll soon realize the physical, mental and emotional benefits, and you won’t want to stop.

Guest article written by Crispin Jones for The Poppy Run, organiser of 5k fun runs to raise money for The Poppy Appeal. Get more health and fitness advice here.

Eczema in adults – What it is and treatment options

May 16, 2012 By Angela

For those who are unaware as to what eczema feels or looks like, it is an inflammatory condition of the skin, where it becomes itchy and dry. Ultimately it can become very painful, especially for those who relieve the itch through scratching. It is common for redness and swelling to show up on affected areas, and for blisters to form and then erupt, covering the area in a thin film of discharge. It tends to affect areas where there are folds in the skin, such as elbow creases and the backs of the knees, but is in no way limited to these places.

Eczema can affect you in early stages of life as well as in adulthood. If you encounter eczema as a child – particularly atopic eczema, which has no well understood cause – then it becomes less active during adolescence in up to 70% of cases and sometimes disappears completely. However, this does mean that eczema does carry on in many cases into adulthood.

Contact eczema is more commonly developed in adulthood due to, as the name suggests, things that we come into contact with. For adults prone to eczema outbreaks potential irritants are everywhere. Harsh soaps should be avoided and some sufferers also find that it’s worth staying away from moisturizers and skincare products that contain parabens- look out for ‘paraben’ free on the label.

The main course of action for long term use in adults is a good emollient. Used as and when needed, either as part of bathing or just general use, the emollient retains moisture in the skin and acts as a preventative against contact eczema. A good tip is to apply the cream just after a bath or shower, when the skin is already moist.

Should someone experience an acute flare-up of their skin, then corticosteroids or steroid creams are sometimes used. These preparations come in different strengths and types dependent on the severity of the flare-up and also on the affected area. Hydro-cortisone creams quite common and you’ll need to visit a GP for the right prescription if the condition gets severe enough to warrant this kind of treatment.

These creams generally need to be applied to the affected areas several times a day in order but there is a catch. Sadly, overuse of hydrocortisone could actually be a hindrance to long-term treatment of eczema, as they tend to thin the skin making further flare-ups more likely. There are alternatives to such creams and ointments, one of which is antihistamines – usually these are prescribed in tablet form. However, these have not been proven to be as effective as steroid creams and are instead used to reduce irritation as opposed to aiding fast recovery from a flare-up.

As there is no cure for eczema in adults, but correct and careful treatment is a must and most sufferers are able to find a combination that cuts down irritation and inconvenience to a minimum. Just don’t scratch- it won’t stop the itching and can lead to infection.

Ben has suffered from eczema since he was eight years old, and has tried and tested many different treatments in his time. He writes for Escentual.com, a company carrying high quality skincare products from brands like 3Lab and Vichy.

Is The Teeter DEX II The Best Kept Secret For Back Pain Relief?

May 12, 2012 By Steven Kirchhof

Before the back pain you lived a full life: playing with the kids, bicycling, going on walks, working in the garden. Now the pain is to the point where you can not sit, stand, or lay down for more than 30 minutes before it is to much for you. You just want your life back.

This is the story of thousands of people whose daily life has become stressed with back pain to the point where they simply cannot function anymore. There are many medical treatments for back pain that you may be considering or have been through already such as spinal shots, surgery, and more. Another is decompression and realignment of the spine which many have achieved through inversion therapy, hanging upside down. A recent double-blind study found that 70% of surgery candidates were able to avoid surgery through inversion, but many people simply cannot hang upside down because of weak knee and ankle joints. For people who cannot hang on an inversion table because of this, we have found a solution that is just as effective.

This was the story with a customer who purchased an Teeter EP-550 inversion table from us. I worked with him for about two months before he decided that the table was not for him. He felt great when using the table for just a few minutes a day, but could not handle the pain caused in his ankles and to a lesser extent in his knees. He really wanted the inversion solution to work and we tried different angles of inversion and tried upgrading the standard foot clamps with gravity boots. Still, the comfort level was not enough, and we took the table back after two months (note that Better Health Innovations has a 90 day no-risk return policy unlike the typical 30 days others have). Since inversion was working for the back pain, I recommended that he try a Teeter DEX II for 90 days. Unlike an inversion table the DEX II does not stress the ankles or knees at all, and as of the date of the writing of this post he has been using the machine at least twice a day to relieve his back pain.

How to use a teeter hang ups DEXSo, why am I calling this “the best kept secret”? Well, the DEX II is not marketed as hard as inversion tables. Looking at an inversion table in use, it’s pretty obvious that by hanging upside down your back will be pulled an decompressed downward. There are infomercials and all sorts of information available on the web about inversion tables. With the DEX, it is not as obvious, but like with an inversion table the weight of upper part of your body is pulling downward on your back. The obvious difference is that the weight is not pulling at your knees and ankles.

It is actually fairly difficult to demonstrate how in pictures how a DEX II is used. The image here is of the Teeter DEX (commercial model), but the function is identical to the DEX II. We should have a video up at some point to demonstrate. It is actually easier to mount and use a Teeter DEX II than an inversion table. You simply walk up to it and lean forward, grasp the lower handles and hang with a 90 degree bend in the waist.

Simply put, the Teeter DEX II, while not as well know, is an effective method to address back pain.

For more information about Teeter Hang Ups: CLICK HERE

For more information about the Teeter DEX II: CLICK HERE

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