Cinnamon is one of the most common spices used frequently for sprinkling on our apple pies, ice-creams or cappuccinos. This amazing spice originates from the Middle East and has been used in culinary for centuries. Those who want to shed some pounds are recommended to use various supplements and extracts from cinnamon. Weight loss is achieved by cholesterol lowering and regulatory properties of this natural remedy.

Cinnamon is rich in useful microelements like iron, manganese, calcium and others, along with antioxidants and polyphenols. Health benefits of cinnamon include its soothing and calming effects on our stomach and digestive system, that is why cinnamon is used to prevent ulcers, as well as intestinal infections. It was proven that cinnamon is one of the most effective herbal remedies for improving our memory and brain activity, boosting our cognitive function and so on. Cinnamon has very good anti-inflammatory powers, it can prevent urinary tract infections and yeast infections.

In addition, cinnamon has blood sugar lowering properties which make it a remedy for those who suffer from type 2 diabetes. However, facilitating weight loss is certainly one of the main health benefits of cinnamon. Specialists say that cinnamon products have a property to stop the process of fat accumulation in the body in a natural way, without any hormonal shifts or other unwanted side effects.

For preparing an effective homemade weight loss remedy, cinnamon can be used as powder, but it is especially recommended to combine cinnamon powder with such natural product as honey. It is very easy to prepare this cinnamon weight loss remedy: mix 1 teaspoon of honey with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon powder, boil in 200 ml of water. Use 100 ml in the morning and 100 ml before going to bed. In order to achieve great results, this effective natural weight loss aid should be used in conjunction with lots of physical exercise and outdoor activities.

The problem of ineffective weight management is very well familiar to many modern people, both men and women. This problem seems to have a very easy solution: one should choose a good diet plan and a plan of daily physical exercises, and the excessive weight will go away. But it is not that easy! Sometimes, only one thought that you should avoid eating some foods make us lose our battle with extra weight. And this is the time to ask for help of herbal medicine.

There are many herbal remedies and homemade remedies, designed to support our body while losing weight. They help to avoid physical stresses related to diet changes, and assist in easing the process of losing weight. Certainly, using only herbal remedies you will not be able to lose 5-8 pounds a week, but remember that using herbal remedies will help you facilitate and stimulate natural weight loss. Your body will start getting rid of toxins and improve metabolism. Sometimes, herbal remedies can be much more effective than synthesized weight loss pills and supplements, which can cause no long term effects.

We all know so well that irregularities and problems with metabolism is one of the main reasons of extra fat layers formation. That is why using herbal remedies should be directed on stimulating metabolism and detoxification. First of all, for this purpose it is possible to use fresh fruit and veggies. You can use such natural cleansers and metabolism stimulators as lemon, pumpkin, oranges (especially bitter oranges), grapefruit, cayenne and other types of hot peppers, and so on. Drinking a lot of water is another very effective natural way to speed up metabolism processes.

Finally, it is possible to use special herbs for weight loss, their blends, tinctures, teas and other remedies. The most common of those include Buckthorn bark (Frangula purshiana, Rhamnus purshianus) , cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum), senna, water pepper (Persicária hydropíper), heartsease (Viola tricolor), bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) and so on. You can created special blends using these herbs, or drink special herbal teas. Using these medicinal herbs will definitely facilitate and fasten weight loss. However, do not forget that in order to receive lasting and stable results, an effective diet plan and using herbal remedies should be combined with sufficient amount of physical exercise.

Summer is the time for light and healthy nutrition, especially the time for such refreshing and thirst quenching meals as salads. A healthy salad is good for everyone, but what is a good salad? Certainly, every world’s culture has own standards and tradition as to the most common healthy summer salad ingredients. Below, there is a list of the healthiest ones that can be used in summer for preparing healthy breakfasts and bites.

1. Greens. For me, it is hard to imagine a salad without greens, and lettuce will definitely be the first I would think about. But there are many more: parsley, rocket, thyme, basil, majoran, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, escarole, romaine and many more. Greens are low calorie, as well as a very beneficial and nutritious healthy salad ingredients. They are rich with fiber and can add volume to your salad, so use as many greens as you like!

2. Veggies. Anything that can be consume raw is good for a summer salad: slices tomatoes, cucumbers, paprika, carrots, radishes, peas and so on. No need to repeat that veggies are packed with natural vitamins and nutrients, all you need is just be sure that the veggies you use as your summer salad ingredients are 100% organic.

3. Fruit. You can add any favorite fruit you like to your summer salad, but such ones like apples, apricots, pomegranate, various berries and raisins are probably the best. Also, use orange or lemon juice as the healthiest summer salad dressings. Craisins, or dried out cranberries, is a new and very healthy trend in the world of salad fans.

4.Whole grains. Using oatmeal, popcorn, boiled brown rice, cracked wheat or barley is an excellent adding to your summer salad. They can provide you will proteins and fiber necessary for your daily activities and excellent health.

5. Beans. They are among the best choices as beans are packed with proteins, fiber, and in addition have excellent powers to fill us up. Use canned or boiled beans as one of the healthiest salad ingredients.

6. Seeds and nuts. Top your salad with a palmful of pumpkin seeds, flaxseeds, crashed walnuts or cashews. You’ll enjoy a special taste of the meal, as well as consume a little of vitamins B and E, useful natural minerals and fatty acids. Nuts and seeds are great and healthy summer salad ingredients, which can also make it crunchy and nourishing.

Finally, use a tablespoon of lemon juice and a high quality olive oil as the healthiest summer salad dressings.

Sometimes, we all experience increased cravings for foods. We make our path to the fridge every 30 minutes and fish  something out of there regardless of how many calories or how much fat that food has. I think this situation is familiar to many of us, and below you can check out 7 most effective ways to prevent overeating and suppress our endless food cravings.

1. Do not skip meals. Do not skip neither breakfast, nor lunch and dinner, and do not forget about having 1 small bite between the meals. Those will help you avoid eating before going to bed.

2. Avoid having high-calorie foods as a bite. Of you want something sweet, eat a palmful of dried fruit or a teaspoon of organic honey,  or a small piece of dark chocolate. If you want a sandwich with a piece of ham and cheese, eat a little bit of low-fat cheese with a slice of tomato and a piece of dark bread. If a cup of cappuccino can do as a bite for you, use low fat milk.

3. Use special aromatherapy vanilla candles. It is believed that vanilla smell can suppress hunger and prevent overeating.

4. When you are under attack of food cravings, drink a cup of herbal tea with a teaspoon of organic honey.

5. Cook your meals for yourself. Specialists say that cooking is linked to more balanced diet and nutrition habits.

6. Make a habit of not eating anything while you are watching TV. That kind of eating habits contribute the most to consuming unhealthy foods and developing extra weight.

7. Brush your teeth three times a day after every meal. Japanese experts say that those people who brush their teeth that way have much lower risks of developing weight management problems.

Finally, the last trick, which sometimes works for me and my friends, which we frequently use to prevent overeating. When you have already reached out to something delicious and about to grab it, just hold on for only 30 seconds. Stop, breathe and ask yourself a question, Do I Really Need This? Am I Really Hungry? Only 30 seconds can make you want eating a slice of apple or cucumber instead of a piece of cake or chocolate biscuit. Just give it a try

For many years, body mass index, or BMI, was supposed to be one of the key indexes not only in the context of weight management, but also from the point of preventing many common diseases, like stroke or diabetes. BMI is an important index stated in any type of electronic clinical records, and almost all doctors use for making a correct diagnosis as the index recommended by the World’s Health Organization.

However, for long time German specialists have been questioning the effectiveness of BMI and promote more careful approach to using BMI in every aspect of medicine. They say that this index does not indicate neither height, nor body specifics, nor individual correlation between fat and muscle mass. Look at it: an athlete who works days and nights in a gym can have the same body mass index as many fat people, who are laying down in a sofa with a pack of chips in their hands.

Recently, the specialists at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University, decided to carry out a research about the effectiveness of BMI for weight management and overall health of people. Harald Shnider, one of the team leaders, comments on the findings as the following: “The BMI plays no role whatsoever in predicting strokes, heart attacks or other death-risks of individuals.” Detailed information about the study can be found in a February issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Instead of using BMI, the experts suggest two new indexes: WHR or waist-hip ratio, WHtR or waist-height ratio. Though these ratios also do not indicate the percentage of body fat, it can work better than BMI. “Fat within the waist range can deliver harmful fatty acids and various chemical messengers into the body which can cause inflammations and lead to other problems,” says Shnider. Also, the specialist points on the presence of “good” and “bad” fat within the body. The “good” one, which lies on thighs and hips does not increase risks of hypertension or stroke. However, “bad” fat which lies around the waist, is one of the leading reasons of heart problems.

When it comes to healthy nutrition and diet, may of us have to face lots of prohibitions that live in our minds. Some of those are scary stories from our childhood, some entered our life from the pages of magazines. Many rules we used to follow are still true, but what about diet and nutrition myths?

1. Eating before going to bed is a crime. Well, our working day sometimes ends up very late, and according to this rule, those people who come home at 9 p.m. should stay hungry till the morning, shouldn’t they? An American nutritionist Ashima K Kant from Queens College of the City University of New York is certain that the time when you have your last meal is not important at all. His study showed that those who eat cakes and fried chicken before going to bed really gain pounds, but those who consume fruit and veggies do not gain a grain!

2. Eating pasta does not bring anything good and only causes weight gain. This statement was “valid” for long time, despite the words of many world’s beauties about their passion for Italian pasta. Now, many people know that eating pasta made from Durum wheat (a special sort of wheat, also called “hard”) is quite safe in the context of weight management. Besides, this type of pasta is rich in vitamins E and B, fiber and other useful elements.

3. Drinking red wine every day is a way to becoming alcohol dependent. Do you remember that in old times kings and royal people used to drink high quality wine with every course? Wine has lots of excellent therapeutic properties: it is rich in antioxidants and helps to slow down aging, it has strong antibacterial powers and can protect us from many problems with digestion. The American Dietetic Association included red wine into the list of 5 most healthy foods in 2010. Drink 100-150 g of high quality red wine a day.

4. Various types of nuts have lots of fat and should be avoided. This myth has a certain logic and eating lots of nuts on a daily basis can cause problems. However, nuts, especially almonds, are among the best natural sources of magnesium, potassium, vitamin E and mono-saturated fat, which are vital for our body.

5. Eating chocolate every day causes nothing else but only weight gain. This statement is not true if we are talking about dark chocolate with not less than 65% of cocoa. A high quality dark chocolate with high content of cocoa can improve the function of our cardio-vascular system, prevent the risks of mood disorders and relieve the effects of depressions, slow down aging processes and – oh, my God – improve our dental health due to a high content of antiseptic substances. Great news for all desperate chocolate eaters like me! The recommended daily dose of dark chocolate is 35-50 g.

It is said that in the nearest future, the generation is going to suffer from the problems of extra weight and obesity more and more. In Britain, the specialists of the University of Oxford published their new findings. Years of observation of modern people’s eating habits and the tendencies of adult obesity made the specialists believe that by the year 2020 overweight and obesity will become a problem of much more amount of British people.

The studies leaded by Professor Klim McPherson, the chairperson of the National Heart Forum, were focused mostly on adult obesity. The experts came to the conclusion that in a decade, 41% of men between 20 and 65 will be obese, and the percentage of overweight people will reach up to 81%. For women, those numbers are 32% for obesity and 68% for being overweight. In other words, eight of ten men and almost seven of ten women will be overweight by 2020.

Professor McPherson comments on the finding as the following: “These trends demonstrate that the cautiously optimistic picture we presented in November 2009 for a levelling off of future obesity rates among children is not mirrored in adults.” In addition, the experts underline that there is one more serious reason to worry, because if this tendency really takes place and people go on growing fatter and fatter, the incidence of the diseases linked to having extra weight, like diabetes, heart disease and others, will increase dramatically.

The importance of a proper function of digestive system for effective weight management and good overall health is indisputable. However, very frequently our life-style, bad habits, food preferences and unhealthy nutrition harm our digestive system to a great extent. This can be very dangerous and can jeopardize our chances to achieve a healthy weight. That is why prior to starting any weight management program, it is essential to get rid of bad habits and eliminate all the factors that affect our digestion. Below, you can see a list of the most powerful enemies of your digestive system.

1. Tobacco smoking. This is the main negative factor since smoking affects not only oral mucus membrane, but also irritates those membranes in your stomach causing gastritis and other digestive system disorders. Also, smoking is linked to increased risks of having colon and stomach cancer.

2. Great amounts of coffee. As a matter of fact, consuming small doses of coffee is considered to be useful for digestion as coffee stimulates gastric juice production. However, drinking more than 3 cups of strong coffee a day can cause bacterial imbalances in the stomach and lead to various diseases of the digestive system.

3. Carbonated drinks. It is strongly recommended to avoid consuming carbonated drinks for the people who have sensitive stomach and to those who already suffer from various ailments connected with poor function of digestive system.

4. Alcohol abuse. Those people who drink too much of alcoholic beverages usually have problems with liver, pancreas and digestive system. Alcohol affects bacterial balance in our bowels and causes colon cancer, it is high in calories and slows down metabolism, that is why it is impossible to use alcoholic drinks in the framework of any weight management program.

5. Too spicy foods. Most of spices are irritants and can cause stomach burning and even ulcers. However, such spices as anise and dill are quite useful for our digestion: they stimulate and improve our digestion function.

6. Medications. Most of the medications are irritants and are harmful to our digestion. That is why it is vital to consult a medical specialist before using any medications, even the ones that you have already used earlier.

7. Sedentary lifestyle. An excellent digestion function needs motion, and sedentary lifestyle causes stagnation of bowel activities, as well as strictly linked to constipation and flatulence. Therefore, to help your digestion, be active and keep your muscles in tone.

Not everyone understands that it is better to begin a new weight loss program with consulting a nutritionist or a weight management specialist. Usually, we tend to decide ourselves, what foods are healthy and what foods cause weight gain. However, very few people achieve success from the very first attempt, and sooner or later many of us decide to visit a nutritionist for some professional advice on weight management. Starting your weight management program without consulting a specialist is one of the most common weight loss mistakes. What are other weight loss mistakes?

1. You have no list of the foods and meals to avoid in the framework of your diet plan. We can frequently hear people saying “I can not eat that, I am on diet”. However, it turns out more important to know well what you HAVE TO eat in terms of your diet plan. If you think only about restrictions, you tend to be left hungry and with no necessary nutrients and vitamins, that can be more harmful than having some extra kilos.

2. You have no any thoroughly planned nutrition strategy. Ok, you know so well, what you can and what you can not eat. You know what you can eat for breakfast, for lunch and dinner. But did you give it a thought, what will you eat at work, in the office or somewhere else? If you do not have a well-planned strategy, your desires will win and you’ll be back to your usual nutrition routine.

3. Eating too much of low calorie foods. You made up your mind to eat only fruit and veggies, but since they are low calorie and easily digested, very soon you will start eating pounds of vegetable or fruit salads. Your stomach will grow and your digestion system will ask for more and more of the salads. Remember that if 100 g of vegetable salad has 50 calories, then 7 pounds of the salad has about 1500 calories.

4. Your diet is imbalanced. There’s nothing much to add here. Your daily diet should include certain amounts of carbs, proteins, fats and microelements, otherwise, if your diet plan exceeds the period of 3-4 weeks, your body can be harmed by the absence of one or another necessary nutrient.

5. Abrupt changes in your nutrition plan. How many times after a heavy partying and eating lots of unhealthy foods and snacks have you made a hysteric decision to follow a strict diet? What would be the reaction of your body and digestion, one day overfilled and the next day left emptied out? Avoid such sudden changes and give your body some time to get used to a new nutrition strategy and plan.

6. Irregular nutrition. Many nutritionists confirm that hunger is not a good helper for weight loss and irregular nutrition can be very harmful. Remaining hungry for a half-day can give some temporary positive results, but then your body will get adopted to the situation and your metabolism will slow down a lot. That is why the best way to lose weight is eating small portions of low calorie foods every 3-4 hours

This week, one of the world’s leading hair loss and hair transplant specialists Dr. Larry Shapiro reported that after studying a problem of hair thinning and loss for many years, he found one more common cause of this curse of many modern men and women. According to Shapiro, hair loss is caused by regular using products and pills for weight gain or loss, which contain a chemical compound known as whey protein isolate.

Hair loss is among the most topical problems of modern heath care, and a great number of men and women have to struggle against hair thinning and loss. The experts name the following factors among the leading reasons of hair loss: genetic predisposition, poor nutrition, incorrect hair care, negative effects of stresses and nervous tension, hormonal shifts and increased levels of male hormones, and so on.  For 20 years of studying the problem, Dr. Shapiro interviewed about 11,000 of his patients and noticed that those individuals who take medications for more effective weight management experience more intense hair loss and thinning.

“Men and women who take growth hormones and testosterone for weight training and weight reduction programs frequently come into my office complaining of hair loss.  I have to explain to them that the growth hormones they’re taking to strengthen their bodies are actually causing their hair to fall out,” Dr. Shapiro says. The expert is convinced that not only nutrition supplements, but also anabolic steroids and other work out products promote hair thinning and loss as they increase the level of male hormones.

At the same time, Shapiro underlines that only the supplements and products with high content of whey protein isolates are bad for our hair. Inspired by his new findings, Dr. Larry Shapiro created a new unique formula for hair growth and reconstruction. This formula was named Help Hair and it includes such valuable nutrients and elements as niacin, vitamins of B group, amino acids, extracts of Chinese herbs and other natural ingredients.  In the nearest future, Shapiro plans to publish scientific evidence of the effectiveness of his formula.