A balanced diet is very important for everyone. It is only if one’s diet is balanced is the body offered protection from diseases, help with weight control and provides adequate sleep without any sleeping pills. In fact, with a balanced diet, you will find a marked improvement in the overall quality of your life too.

A balanced diet provides protection from the diseases of aging like diabetes and heart disease. This is because it helps boost your energy levels, while ensuring your body functions normally.

For a balanced diet, you should include grains, milk and other dairy products, fruit, beans, oils, vegetables and proteins in your meals. You should eat 6-11 portions of grains, 2-4 servings of fruits, 3-5 servings of vegetables and 2-3 portions of dairy products along with minimal consumption of fats and oils.

Use oils conservatively

The fats you should include in your diet are healthy fats like extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil. Avoid using olive oil for cooking as its low smoke point proves to be toxic; instead, use as a salad dressing. However use oils conservatively and not liberally.

Adequate consumption of fruits and vegetables provides protection from diseases like cancer, eye problems, digestive tract problems and macular degeneration. It is better to eat more of steamed and raw vegetables than boiled and stir fried as they are higher in fiber.

Chicken, turkey, fish and eggs are the best sources of proteins. Avoid eating too much of red meat as it is higher in saturated fat, which may raise bad cholesterol levels and risk of heart diseases.

Water is very important in a well balanced diet as it keeps your body hydrated, and helps flush out toxins from the body.

Factors determining a balanced diet

There is no fixed amount of food to be consumed from each food group. It basically depends on various factors like body size, your age and how physically active you are. Just ensure you eat something from all food groups, while staying within your daily caloric limits.

Following a balanced diet is an integral part of losing weight for the obese. Though you may lose weight through fad diets, you tend to gain all the lost weight when you revert to your old eating habits.

Stop sleeping pills

On the contrary, if you lean to eat a balanced diet, you find it easy to maintain your weight over a long term. Consequently, the underweight also gain weight with a balanced diet, and are able to maintain their weight over time.

It is important to eat a balanced diet to get proper sleep, without being dependant on sleeping pills. By eating too much of some foods like those with high sugar levels, you may find it difficult to sleep and eating too much of oily and heavy food makes it difficult to wake up in the morning.

It is not necessary that you skip snacks altogether to pursue a balanced diet. It’s okay to have an occasional snack, as long as it does not come in the way of your meals. Follow a balanced diet to enjoy life better with good health and general well-being.

Your hair is your crowning glory and the first thing that people notice when they meet you. This is why it is important to use and know the proper hair care methods to maintain healthy hair. Here are some tips that help you take care of your crowing glory.

1. For healthy and shiny hair, you have to eat nutritious food. So include lots of protein rich food like fish, dairy products, lean meat and eggs to your diet. It is because of this same reason, a deficiency of proteins, that many vegetarians experience thinning of hair.
2. Eat foods rich in vitamins A, B and C for better health of your hair roots and scalp. These vitamins are found in yellow, orange and red vegetables, seeds, cod liver oil, nuts and fruits like oranges, pineapples, apples and tomatoes.
3. Wash your hair using a shampoo fit for your hair type. While shampooing, massage your scalp to improve the shampoo’s moisturizing activity on the roots. After shampooing, it is important that you rinse your hair thoroughly.
4. While applying conditioner, apply it to hair ends and comb it through. It’s always better to ask your stylist for the best shampoo and conditioner for your hair type.
5. Always use high quality hair dryers and flat irons so that they don’t damage your hair. Moreover, you have to use this equipment only after reading and understanding its manual, lest you end up with burnt or frizzed out hair. It’s also better to use the equipment following an expert’s advice.
6. Give your hair a treat at least twice a month. Use treatments like protein enriched processes for strengthening hair and moisture based treatment to control your hair.
7. Whenever you wash your hair, make sure you don’t rub hair vigorously.
8. Don’t use elastic bands that is too tight for your hair.
9. After shampooing, make sure you dry your hair before combing.
10. It’s better to use a brush with soft bristles as it does not damage your hair.
11. Avoid using plastic bristle brushes. A better option is a round or flat brush of natural boar bristles for dry hair. In case of damp hair, soft, rubber toothed and wide paneled brushes are a better option.
12. Always brush before shampooing as it removes product buildup and scalp flakes. It also stimulates the scalp and promotes blood flow to the hair follicles.
13. If you are coloring your hair at home, mist its ends with water before coloring. It is your hair ends that are more porous, and which absorb more pigment.
14. To maintain healthy hair and ends, you have to trim your hair at least half an inch every four to eight weeks.
15. When coloring your hair, use color protective products. They have more nourishing ingredients, are less abusive and help minimize dryness while keeping color true.
16. Make it a point to deep condition your hair every fortnight. Deep conditioning penetrates the hair shaft to strengthen your hair. Adding heat using a blow dryer helps intensify deep conditioning as the heat opens the cuticle to let the ingredients penetrate to your hair.

With the help of these tips, taking care of your hair proves to be a cinch.  

There are no secrets about eating healthy; you just have to know how to blend variety and balance in your eating habits. So here are some healthy eating tips you can follow, without any compromise on your taste-buds’ preferences.

1. As fish is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, minerals and vitamins, include at least two fish meals in a week. It offers various health benefits like lowered blood pressure and cholesterol levels, improved brain functioning and helps prevent cardiac problems.
2. Include varied red meat meals a few times a week for your body’s supply of iron, proteins and zinc. These minerals help keep your brain healthy and active. Vegetarians should consume more of legumes and nuts in their diet for their share of proteins.
3. Fruits and vegetable are essential in your daily diet for its vitamins, mineral and fiber content. Fiber helps prevent constipation, lowers cholesterol and glucose levels and helps reduce the risk of cardiac problems.
4. An important healthy eating tip is avoiding eating in heavy volumes. Eat food as small meals than in bulk as it promotes the body metabolism. This in turn lowers the risk of fat accumulation in the body and helps you grow slim, trim and healthy.
5. Drinking a minimal of five to six liters of water is essential for a clean and healthy body system. This does not include caffeinated drinks or fruit drinks; just pure water as it is essential in absorbing vitamins and minerals found in the blood stream. Water also helps in detoxification of the body by carrying body waste out of the body. Water is also responsible for glowing and healthy skin.
6. Eat healthily to maintain a healthy body weight. The right weight for you depends on various factors like your height, sex, age, heredity and lifestyle. Being obese increases the risk of high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, some forms of cancer and other diseases.
7. On the contrary, being too thin can also increase risk of osteoporosis, lead to menstrual irregularities and other health problems. Besides following a stable and regular diet, regular exercise is also required to maintain a healthy weight.
8. Skipping meals is not healthy as it only leads to overeating. Though snacking in between meals is permissible, don’t snack as much as an entire meal.
9. Learn to balance your food choices as no food is perfect. If some food is high in fat, sugar or salt, include some other foods in your diet with low levels of fat, sugar and salt. Any food group that is missed one day should be compensated on the next day.
10. To practice healthy eating tips, you have to first know what is wrong with your food habits. So write down everything you eat for a few days, and compare them with the tips mentioned here and make the necessary changes to your diet.

It will not be able to practice healthy eating overnight. Changes to your food habits have to be made gradually. However with these healthy eating tips, pretty soon you will start feeling healthy.

Pregnancy is a very important phase in a woman’s life. This is when she carries her child in her womb. As the baby depends on the mom for its food, it is important for a pregnant woman to follow a healthy and nutritious diet for their baby’s optimum health.

If you have always followed a poor diet, it is important you start eating nutritious and well balanced meals. Increase your intake of some vitamins and minerals and your calorie intake while reducing your consumption of junk food. It only adds empty calories to your diet.

Basically, your appetite will decide how much food you should eat. You may not have an appetite and feel nauseated in the first few weeks while the middle part of the pregnancy, your appetite may return to normal or increase slightly. While your appetite may increase towards the end of the pregnancy, if you suffer from heartburn or have a full feeling after eating, you may have small and frequent meals.

What to eat

During pregnancy, you needn’t change your appetite. Just eat the food your doctor suggests you eat so that you gain weight at the appropriate rate. Your doctor will advise you to eat a balanced meal consisting of food from different food groups.

Drink more of milk and dairy products as they are high in calcium and vitamin B12. Cereals, pulses, dals and whole grains are great sources of protein while vegetables provide minerals, fiber and vitamins.

Eat more of fresh fruits and avoid processed fruits. Meat, fish and poultry provide animal proteins. Eat more of unsaturated fats, and avoid saturated fats like ghee, vanaspati and dalda. Drink lots of water and fresh fruit juices, and if you go out, carry your own water as many diseases start from contaminated water.

Food to be avoided

There are some foods to be avoided during pregnancy. They include raw seafood, cheeses that have a white and moldy rind like Camembert cheese, unpastuerized milk and raw or undercooked meat, eggs and poultry.

Avoid liver and liver products that have large amounts of retinol form of Vitamin A, which is bad for the baby. If you, your spouse or your other children have allergies like eczema or asthma, avoid peanuts to reduce the possibility of your baby developing a serious peanut allergy.

Alcohol and cigarettes are a no-no. Even your caffeine consumption should be reduced as caffeine increases the risk of a miscarriage and low birth weight.

Take a vitamin supplement including folic acid, iron and calcium everyday for the healthy growth of your baby. You may require additional supplements if you are a strict vegetarian or suffer from diabetes, gestational diabetes or anemia.

No dieting

Don’t diet during pregnancy as it is dangerous to the baby. Weight gain is a positive sign of pregnancy. You gain the least weight in the first trimester, and the most, in the third trimester when the baby grows the most. Instead of eating three large meals, it is better to eat five or six small meals.

It’s okay to have an occasional treat when pregnant. Just ensure that processed and canned foods, junk food and sugar packed desserts don’t constitute a major part of your diet.

The common cold is one of the most common ailments one may suffer from. It is said that without doing anything to the cold, it lasts seven days, and by doing everything to it, it lasts a week. However these household cures will help make you feel comfortable, and help your body heal itself quite quickly.

1. Drink as much fluids as possible as it thins the mucus for easy expulsion. So drink a minimum of eight ounces of fluids every two hours.
2. Take some rest not only to help your body recuperate, but also to prevent spreading your cold to your coworkers. It’s also better to not exercise if you have a cold, especially on the days you feel the worst.
3. If you have thick mucus, you will find lots of relief through the steam of a vaporizer as it thins the mucus.
4. Stop smoking if you have a cold as it irritates the bronchial tubes, which may lead to pneumonia and other complications. Moreover, smoking depresses the immune system which reduces your body resistance.
5. Similarly, though hot alcoholic drinks may sound good when you have a cold, don’t drink anything as it only leads to mucous membrane congestion and dehydrates the body.
6. Instead, drink some chicken soup. Its fumes release the mucus in your nose and help your body fight against its viral invaders. Moreover, chicken soup contains cysteines which help in thinning mucus and its other nutrients are easily absorbed by the body.
7. Even a cup of hot tea and honey gives the same effects as chicken soup. Its better to drink the tea with spices and herbs with aromatic oils and antiviral properties like elder, ginger, garlic or lemon balm.
8. Salt is a good antiseptic and astringent. So make your own saline drops of a quarter teaspoon salt in eight ounces of water. Fill a dropper with the saline drops and spray three or four drops into each nostril five to six times daily. Even a saltwater gargle of the same ratio helps provide relief to a painful throat.
9. Try eating hot and spicy foods like peppers as they have capsaicin in it, which helps in clearing up mucus and in easing stuffy noses.
10. Though vitamin C doesn’t help in preventing a cold, it helps you when you have a cold as it boost the immune system and reduces the symptoms of cold.
11. Herbs like Echinacea and goldenseal are natural antibiotics, which help you fight your common cold by providing relief from lung and nasal congestion.
12. Onion and garlic helps in providing relief from congestion and minor infections. It reduces the mucous amount in the nasal cavities. It is also said that placing several onion halves around the house helps prevent you and your family from suffering from cold.

Try these household remedies for some relief from the common cold. It’s a much better alternative than taking prescription medicine every time you get a cold.