Archive for June, 2010



You will probably need to try the Anne Collins Weight Loss Program to see if it works for you, but we can certainly tell you all the basics and let you decide if you should even get started. Here we explore who Anne Collins is, what her program is about, and whether it could help you.

Who is Anne?

The Anne Collins Weight Loss Program was designed by (who else) Anne Collins, a qualified nutritionist who has spent her professional life (24 years) helping individuals of all medical backgrounds successfully lose weight. She has worn many hats – she has worked as a nutritionist, diet consultant, and also as a personal weight loss adviser. Anne has also published her weight loss articles in newspapers and magazines. She writes a regular column. She also has a website – and almost 7.5 million internet users visited it last year.

What’s the program about?

The Anne Collins Weight Loss Program is actually a collection of nine manuals in ebook format – you can download them instantly upon purchase. Each book contains an eating plan (great recipes) and weight loss tips. As a bonus, each manual also contains weekly shopping lists – just bring it with you to the grocery. The nine manuals cover low carbohydrate diets, low glycemic index food plans, ten-minute healthy meals, lower cholesterol plans, and vegan diet guides, among many other topics.

Does it work?

Only you can say for sure, but the Anne Collins Weight Loss Program certainly seems to be wroth a look. The diets do not deprive weight watchers – in fact, it allows dieters to eat a wide range of foods and even recommends substitutes for those who are too picky. The ingredients are also quite simple, so you do not need to worry about additional expenses. The Anne Collins Weight Loss Program also recommends ‘better’ fast food choices (for days when you really have no time to cook).



It is a medical practice that emphasizes the need to achieve complete body balance and well being by balancing physical, environmental, emotional, nutritional, social, spiritual and lifestyle values. The holistic view of healing is widely accepted in the field of medicines, which made it to one of the most popular forms of medicinal practices all over the world. It is one of a kind medical practice that uses various healing methods such as Tai Chi, Yoga, Acupuncture, herbal and plant remedies and Reiki to attain complete mental and physical balance.

Today various medical conditions such as arthritis, cervical, migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome and even cancer can be cured with the help of holistic medicine practice. Building a career in the field of alternative medicine seems very promising because the demand for holistic medicine experts is growing day by day. The work of a holistic doctor represents the best of both i.e. the combination of alternative medicine along with the integration of conventional western medicinal practice.

A holistic medicine course prepares a student in a manner so that he will be able to offer solutions to the patients by following natural approach through harmonizing modalities. These alternative medicine programs prepare the students to hold on to various holistic principles and use the array of unconventional methods to encourage the importance of spiritual health. Besides, they usually follow healing methods that bring together the insight from the diverse health care culture and modalities.

Colleges today are conducting holistic medicine programs so that this magnificent healing technique can spread globally. A holistic medicine distance learning program provides deep knowledge by covering diverse disciplines of the medicinal technique. During this distance education course, students learn about various dimensions of alternative medicine that helps a person suffering from an illness to be cured not only for his disease, but for the complete self in order to attain advanced level of wellness.



Are you suffering from lower back pain from an injury, trama, stress, work, sleeping wrong, or for any other reason at all? A lot of people suffer from lower back pain and it is not a pleasant thing to feel the twitch of pain shoot through your back when you strain it just right. You do not need strong medications to relieve lower back pain They can help, but there is a better way.

There are many things that you can do to help relieve your lower back pain and the truth is that medication is not always the best solution. You can perform many of these things at home without worrying about who sees you or how funny you feel.

1. Resting your back – when you first begin to feel the pain start you should immediately rest your sore back This will help keep you from doing any further damage and will help your back heal from the pain you have already caused it.

2. Heat and Ice – using ice, then heat as a type of therapy is a great way to help your body heal and relieve your lower back pain at the same time. This is a common remedy that athletes use on sore and strained muscles. Also, try a hot bath as well.

3. Strengthen your Back with exercises – There are some very simple exercises that can really help if you do them regularly. They will help you become stronger so that your back with be less likely to become strained and cause you pain. Talk to your doctor and you can find many exercises to do to help your back become stronger and pain free.

Now if you continually have lower back pain even after trying to relieve it, then you need to see your doctor. This could be the sign of something more serious since back pain is also caused by kidney and lung problems.



Our diet plays a big part in the condition of our skin. If we do not eat properly we risk having dull, tired looking skin, and in some cases more serious problems can arise.

Food allergies can cause dramatic changes in the skin and the scary thing is, sometimes we do not even know that we have an allergy to a certain food before we try it, so an allergy could occur at any time.

How Food Allergies Affect the Skin

When we have food allergies the body is basically thinking that the food which we are allergic to is harming our body. So, the immune system kicks in and creates antibodies to fight off the food allergen. After the body has identified a food as a cause of allergies, it will from then on release chemicals to protect itself.

The chemicals are what trigger allergic reactions and as well as affecting the respiratory system, the cardiovascular system and the gastrointestinal tract, it also affects the skin. Usually food allergies are more common in children but they do affect adults too.

Some of the most common signs of food allergies include itching and the body could come out in a rash. Some common skin conditions which could appear due to food allergies include:

Hives

Hives is one of the most common allergic skin reactions, and it is also known as Urticaria. Usually hives form on any part of the body but they rarely affect the palms and the soles of the feet. The problem can either be mild or severe, depending upon the circumstances.

You will know if you have hives if they are extremely itchy, if you have red, circular lesions which change throughout time. They can basically be any size, though they do tend to only be a few millimeters in length.

Usually to control hives, antihistamines are taken but failing that, oral steroids can also be used. Again, it depends upon the severity of the break out and they should calm down naturally after the cause of the allergy has gone.

Eczema

Eczema is an extremely annoying condition and it constantly itches and makes the skin red, dry and flaky. It can be caused by a number of things and food allergies are one of them. There are various different types of Eczema and the type that is caused by allergies is allergic contact dermatitis. The reaction usually occurs a couple of hours after contact with whatever it were that the person is allergic to. If you do not come into contact with the substance again, the reaction usually tends to calm down after a few days.

Both conditions can be really irritating and can leave the skin looking really dull and unhealthy. Also, another symptom of a food allergy could be sneezing and a runny nose. If you have a runny nose you are constantly blowing it and if your nose is also itchy you will be rubbing it to make the itching stop. This will also damage the sensitive skin around the nose and it could potentially become extremely sore and flaky. The only thing that will really cure this is by keeping the area moisturized as much as possible.

Overall, nothing can cure food allergies but it is important to stay away from some foods if you know you are allergic to them. Food allergies usually occur with foods such as nuts, milk, eggs and fish. It is possible to be allergic to any foods however so just be careful and know that as well as affecting the rest of your body, allergies also affect the skin.



Homemade beauty treatments can be just as effective as their commercial counterparts, but much, much easier on your wallet. The mark up on most skin and hair care items is simply ridiculous: they can cost as much as 600% over what their actual ingredient costs are. By making your own treatments, you can save hundreds every year from what you would pay for these items in stores. The most expensive things in many commercial skin products is the packaging and advertising budget; not the quality of ingredients.

Homemade beauty treatments allow you to make customized skin care products like anti aging masks, bath and body products such as bath salts, lotion bars and body butters right at home. As well as saving you a lot of money, you have the reassurance that your products are made from all natural ingredients, not a bunch of cheap chemical fillers like most commercial beauty items are. As well, you know that your ingredients are fresh and natural and haven’t been sitting on the shelves of some warehouse for months at a time, unlike what is sold in the stores.

Homemade beauty treatments allow you to customize your skin and hair care regimens. If there is a particular scent that you would like in a scrub or lotion, but simply cannot find it anywhere, consider making your own. Blends of essential oils can give you one-of-a-kind fragrances that cannot be found anywhere in the stores, as well as provide the therapeutic properties associated with the different oils. If you would like a thicker consistency in your lotions or creams, that is easily achievable as well, just by adjusting the ratio of water to oil in your lotion/cream recipe.

A simple homemade beauty treatment that you can try right now for mere pennies is a body scrub made out of brown sugar and olive oil. Simply mix them together and apply to your dry winter skin while in the bath or shower. If you don’t care for the scent of olive oil, you can easily substitute another oil like sunflower or grapeseed oil. For an additional moisturizing effect, use jojoba oil in place of the olive oil. If you like, add a few drops of your favorite essential oil like grapefruit or lavender for an extra special scrub. It’s just that simple to make many of your favorite beauty products right in your own home!



Until recently, the terms fat camp or fat farm were used to describe the summer destinations that children and teenagers went to lose weight. Typically, those experiences were intense and they did more harm than good for a number of the children. In most cases, the weight loss was temporary and the psychological strain was too high of a price to pay. Today, fitness programs for kids are different because they focus on a balanced approach to weight loss that teach children life-long healthy living strategies instead of quick fixes. As a parent who is looking around for a weight loss program for your child or teen, here are a few things that you will want to take into account to assist you as you decide what option is the best for your situation.

The first thing to do is investigate a program to ensure that its approach to weight loss and healthy for both the body and mind. Although this should be needless to say, you must make sure you’re not enrolling your child in a program that continues to promote an out-dated approach toward weight loss. Kids should have access to plenty of healthy choices at meals so that they won’t feel like they are starving. The staff should be able to show you samples of daily menus that include lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins.

The next aspect to look at is to make sure that they offer a wide variety of activities that provide both exercise and fun. There needs to be much more enjoyable and interesting options available than weight rooms, treadmills, crunches, or your youngster is not going to be successful. If kids are able to have fun during their program, then chances are they will get more exercise, and therefore they will be more likely to achieve their goals. Carefully planned programs are designed to teach kids that exercise does not have to be boring and shows them that there are a multitude of new of ways to have fun while getting exercise at the same time.

It’s important to remember that as you evaluate weight loss programs, make sure that the one you choose sets realistic goals for the children. Children’s bodies and metabolism are different from adults and cannot be expected to lose weight in the same way. Some kids just simply adopt new and healthy habits while they grow into their ideal weight gradually rather than dropping excess weight like adults do. The goal should be for kids to become healthier and more fit, so steer clear of programs that pledge to present you with a skinny child at the end of the summer.

Finally, look for programs that use a holistic approach that helps both the mind as well as the body. This method addresses issues beyond diet and exercise. Many overweight children suffer from emotional issues like anxiety, depression and poor self-image. These emotional hurdles must be overcome to ensure a better chance of long term success. With that said, it’s crucial to look for programs that provide qualified counselors that offer children the support they need to tackle these difficult issues in a safe environment while they learn how to be a whole, healthy and happy individual.