HEALTH -3

I.Hypoglycemia - Go Nuts For Nuts

For good health, low blood sugar levels must be controlled before hypoglycemia takes hold. Nuts are perfect for this control.

Once your body falls onto the rollercoaster of high and low blood sugar levels, hypoglycemia is not far off. Once you have developed hypoglycemia the odds do not favour you from being taken down with one of the major illnesses. The trick is to contain it by naturally balancing blood sugar levels, based on
understanding how your body works.

Nuts, researchers have found, seem to build a healthy "skin" around cells, which allows blood sugar to enter easily. The minerals, vitamins and antioxidants help regulate blood sugar levels, while the fiber and magnesium help insulin levels.

Nuts also keep the appetite under control being made up of mono-unsaturated fats,the good essential fats. This is a special advantage for hypoglycemics who often have wild uncontrolled cravings for low fibre foods like cakes or sweets.

It is the daily replacing of refined foods with nuts that helps balance the sugar levels. A lack of balance is what enables today's modern killers, like heart disease and diabetes, to develop.

Researchers studied 84,000 women for 16 years who ate ¼ cup of any type of nuts or the equivalent of a tablespoon of peanut butter. These women had between 20-30% less chance of developing diabetes, than those who seldom ate nuts.

All nuts,from almonds to pistachios to walnuts, act in the same way on the body's blood sugar levels because they have almost identical nutritional make-up.

The chief drawback of all types of nuts is that they will quite simply put weight on faster than almost anything else that is good for you.

Each ounce of nuts contains 165 calories and a tablespoon of peanut butter contains 95 calories. This is very important because no one ever brought hypoglycemia under control while putting on weight. Besides, excess weight increases your chances of diabetes, which is already super high if you are
hypoglycemic.

To avoid putting on weight when you eat nuts you should substitute them for your refined carbohydrates. For example, switch 1/3 cup of low fiber cereal for one tablespoon of walnuts. Or swap ¼ cup of croutons on salad for a
tablespoon of chopped mixed nuts.

The good news is that with careful diet planning hypoglycemia need not develop into a debilitating disease - and learning to understand the relationship between low blood sugar levels and diet is both inexpensive and straight forward.

II.Drop the Weight Before “the Ball” Drops

There’s no reason to wait for the New Year before you begin a healthier way of life. If you’re like the countless others who have stalled their diet plans to coincide with the beginning of a New Year’s resolution, why not start your focus on losing inches around that waistline right now?

CNN recently reported that the holiday season could have quite a detrimental effect on the health of your heart. Whether you’re knocking back too many glasses of that holiday “cheer,” or merely snacking on too many of those decorated cookies, overindulging in the calories of the season could be the thing to push you over a healthy plateau and towards the hard-to-climb canyon of obesity.

A 2004 study by researches at the University of California, San Diego and Tufts University found that heart-related deaths increase by nearly five percent during the holidays, according to CNN, and this year’s added stress stemming from the recession and the nation’s economic woes may turn out a more devastating result than in years past.

The surprising thing about losing weight is that most people don’t realize how much better they’ll feel about themselves, and how that translates to better handling the personal stresses of day-to-day life. That’s right—those who think that a new diet will only further complicate their lives couldn’t be further from the truth.

So, why not start concentrating on losing weight and losing fat today? You can start small by first focusing to lose 10 pounds, before eventually bumping that plan up to lose 30 pounds or more when you’re confident enough to do so.

But beware those fad diets lurking in the corner, just waiting to take advantage of your New Year’s weight loss plans. Those companies have their own goals of cashing in on your diet plans. And by cashing in, I mean a lot—CNN reported that an estimated 80 million Americans go on diets every year, spending more than $30 billion annually on programs and products.

When it comes time to counting down the last seconds of this year, are you going to be thinking about what you’ve accomplished, or dwelling on the stresses of next year? One thing’s for sure—begin thinking about a weight loss plan that’ll work for you. By this time next year, you could be staring in the mirror at a healthier YOU!