I am getting ready to move out to Southern California in the new year, Orange County to be exact. It is really amazing planning for such a big change (I am currently in NYC). Besides planning for the million and one things you would normally think of I need to plan for one very important thing that not many people would think of, a new personal trainer. I have had a local personal trainer for the past 4 years and workout twice a week with him and twice a week on my own. Four years ago I had a huge beer belly and weighed in at 325 pounds. Today I am a lean 210 pounds and in the greatest shape of my life, so I want to make sure I have continuatiy with my personal training regiem for my move down South. I got hold of a local phone book and did a quick search for Orange County personal trainers, then I did the same on the web. I made up a short list of 5 local trainers and I will be going down next weekend to meet them. So the next chapter of my life will definately invovled Orange County fitness training because I want to stay slim and healthy!

You truly do learn something new everyday, regardless of how old you are. Today is the first time I heard of smoke vaporizers, at first I thought it was some sort of alien phaser weapon but I soon learned it is an interesting technology for smoking without actually smoking? Does that makes sense?

Smoking with a vaporizer rather than through the traditional method is supposed to be more beneficial because no smoke is being inhaled. Using cheap lightbulb vaporizers you can actually take in the pure fumes and studies have been done to show that when used to consume medical marijuana, a vaporizer shows even greater benefits.

The new year is quickly approaching and it will be time again for making those weight loss resolutions. Here is a quick peice of advice to make this years resolution become a weight loss reality. Start changing your habits now! Don’t wait till January the first to begin altering your lifestyle because it is bound to fail. Many folks pack on an extra 10 or 15 pounds during the holiday season and that will make it that much more difficult to lose the weight come the new year. Here are some simple tips that you can start with to make your new years resolution of weight loss come true:

1. Drink more water and fruit juices and less pop, beer and wine. Don’t cut out the beverages you love completely, simply start by cutting back on two sugar loaded drinks a day and replacing them with water or fruit juice.

2. Everyone loves to snack, so replace one of your fatty snacks with an extra piece of fresh fruit or low-fat yogurt. It is a small step but every little bit helps and what really makes the difference is getting used to picking up a healthy snack as opposed to chips or a chocolate bar.

3. Do a bit of excercise every day. If you have not done anything active in a long-time or even if you do get active once-in-a-while start off with 15 minutes of brisk walking or 15 minutes of stretching every single day.

Again, the trick is to change your lifestyle habits just a little bit so when you take the next step it will be that much easier and you will have a greater chance for success. When it comes time to choose a weight loss diet make sure to pick one that offers you lots of flexibility to you can stick with it.

Health in parts of rural China is deteriorating despite rising incomes, and commercialised care has ratcheted up costs for those who can least afford them, the head of the World Health Organisation said on Thursday. Hong Kong-born Margaret Chan said the cost of health care in China was outstripping income growth and that poor health was a major cause of poverty among China’s hundreds of millions of rural residents.

The costs of seeing a doctor or staying in hospital are out of reach for many in the world’s fourth-largest economy, and the lack of access combined with corruption has made the issue a source of social unrest. China has pledged to provide its population with basic medical care by 2020, but Chan said the government was receiving little return in the form of better health for its investment in the sector.

“When ability to pay determines access, many rural residents will not seek care until a disease has reached an advanced stage when treatment is more complex and costly, if not impossible,” she said. “In short, the health system in rural areas has been given multiple incentives to operate with great inefficiency.”

That could undermine China’s efforts to expand care through its Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme, a plan under which subscribers are funded at a level of 50 yuan per person — 20 yuan from the central government, 20 from the local government and a 10 yuan contribution from the individual.

Chinese Vice-Minister of Health Chen Xiaohong said nearly 85 percent of counties in China were participating in the plan but the funding level paled to that of wealthy coastal cities. China was also facing new pressures in the health sector, from an ageing population and environmental risk factors, as well as the challenge of drawing doctors to practise in its rural interior.  I hope the Chineese government gets its’ act together and starts taking care of some of it poorest citizens.

A modern day world record is set.  A small Russian city just got a really big addition: a 17-pound, one ounce baby whose mother had already delivered 11 other children.   Tatiana Khalina, 42, delivered the girl by caesarean section at a maternity clinic in Aleisk, a town of 30,000 people in the Altai region in southern Siberia, a nurse at the clinic said Thursday.

Nurse Svetlana Gildeyeva also said the Sept. 17 birth went smoothly, and mother and the child were fine. She said the baby, Nadezhda, was transferred from the small clinic to a maternity hospital in Barnaul, a larger city.  The girl was feeling well and developing normally, said Irina Kurdeka, a doctor at the hospital in Barnaul.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper quoted the local social services chief, Marina Alistratova, as saying the family had modest means. She said Khalina’s husband was on contract with a local military unit.   “We have presented them with a good washing machine, a food package and a card,” Alistratova told the newspaper. “We will keep supporting them in the future.”

An average weight for newborn babies is around 7 pounds, one ounce, according to international statistics.   Guinness World Records says the heaviest baby ever was born in the United States in 1879. It weighed 23 pounds, 12 ounces and died 11 hours after birth. Guinness says they heaviest surviving baby was born in 1955 in Italy, weighing in at 22 pounds, eight ounces.   The only thing I could think of was OUCH!

So here is the scoop. One of my best friends is pregnant and me being a guy I don’t have much first-hand experience so I need to find out some information in order to be as supportive as possible. I searched the web and came across a virtual all-in-one pregnancy site. It really does have everything you need to know, starting from the stages of conception all the way to birth.

My friend says twins run in her family and I was even able to find specialzed information topics like twins complications, best to be prepared for anything. I will let you know how everything ‘comes out’ in around 7 more months!

Biggest Loser’s Biggest Changes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some interesting new ways to kick that dirty habit:

Short bursts of activity: A new review in the journal Addiction says a quick dose of exercise — as little as 30 minutes of brisk walking or stretching, for instance –quells cravings.

Internet groups: Groups like Quitnet can offer round-the-clock encouragement from fellow quitters and counselors. This kind of support can double your success, studies say.

Innovative medication: Chantix, the newest stop-smoking drug, short-circuits nicotine’s ability to activate the pleasure centers in the brain, so lighting up is less enjoyable. According to the National Cancer Institute, more stop-smoking drugs (and possibly even a vaccine that makes nicotine unappealing) could hit the market within five years.

A new way to use the patch: A study in Nicotine and Tobacco Research suggests that smokers who start the patch two weeks before they quit may double their success rate. (Talk to your doctor, because this trick risks exposing your body to a dangerous amount of nicotine if you smoke a lot while wearing the patch.)

Smoking ‘will’ kill ya, so give these methods a try.