Natural anti aging will happen if you give your body everything it needs to rejuvenate itself from the inside naturally. When you do this properly natural anti aging follows, and over time, you will slow down the rate at which your body ages.If you do it the right way you will begin to look and feel younger naturally without any need to resort to surgical facelifts, botox injections, injectable fillers or hormone injections.The truth is, natural anti aging involves nothing more than a good understanding of what causes your body to age, what your body needs the most and what you should avoid.The recent upsurge in the sale of products such as nutrition, physical fitness, skin care, vitamins, supplements and herbs is a good indication that people want to look younger and live longer.Although there has been extensive medical research into reversing the aging process and the rejuvenation of skin cells using stem cells, for most people feeling and looking younger can be simplified by avoiding proven age accelerators.It is widely accepted that your expected lifespan can be increased by following a natural anti aging plan which includes a good and healthy diet, keeping fit with regular exercise and avoiding age accelerating hazards such as sugar consumption, refined carbohydrates, smoking, sun damage, inflammation caused by toxins or excessive exercise, and muscle atrophy from inactivity.Natural Anti Aging – The Worst Age AcceleratorMost of us know you should cut down on sugar if you want to lose weight but did you know that sugar accelerates the rate at which your body ages?According to Dr Nicholas Perricone; “Sugar is exceptionally damaging to your skin because it attaches to the proteins of collagen, causing collagen to “cross-link.” When collagen cross-links, it becomes stiff and inflexible, leading to the wrinkling and stiffness of old skin.”The cross-linking of collagen not only makes your skin inflexible but it also leads to discoloration and pigmentation faults such as age-spots.Dr Nicholas Perricone also says: “Eating sugary and starchy foods shows up on the skin as a loss of radiance, dark circles under the eyes, the loss of tone, puffiness, an increase in fine lines and wrinkles, the loss of facial contours and increased pore size. These foods can also exacerbate acne, which is a systemic, inflammatory disease. I am not exaggerating when I say that sugar can rob you of your youth, health, and beauty.”Natural Anti Aging – Cut Out SugarSugars cause Endogenous Glycations to occur in the bloodstream, fructose and galactose are the worst culprits because they have approximately ten times the glycation activity of glucose.Glycation is the first step in a complex series of very slow reactions in the body which eventually lead to advanced glycation end products (ironically known as AGEs).Some AGEs are more reactive than the sugars they were originally derived from and are implicated in many age-related chronic diseases such as: cardiovascular diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and peripheral neuropathy.Glycation also causes your skin to age noticeably by damaging collagen in two ways. Firstly Glycation reduces your collagen’s ability to rebuild your skin’s structure and secondly it increases the natural rate at which your collagen breaks down.So, from a natural anti aging point of view, sugar delivers a hefty two-pronged attack on your skin and this increases as you grow older and your collagen levels become naturally weaker.If this isn’t bad enough, Glycation also increases the adverse effects already caused by smoking, alcohol and sun damage.So next time you feel tempted by that sugary doughnut or an extra spoonful of sugar in your tea, think on. Sugar consumption seriously increases your risk of having wrinkled, crepey skin that is susceptible to sagging and age spots.Avoiding sugar seems to be straightforward but sugar is found everywhere in this modern world.Convenience foods, processed foods, soda drinks, confectionary, cakes, biscuits, anything that has been caramelized.If you are serious about natural anti aging then you must cut sugar out of your diet completely.Sugar has no place in your natural anti aging plan if you want to slow down your aging process and reap the rewards in the future by having a radiant, clear complexion and the vitality to enjoy your extended life.For most people longevity is not worth having if you do not have the energy and health to enjoy it, feeling younger and looking younger go together when it comes to natural anti aging.
Eat Healthy – Nutritional Labels – How to Read, Analyze and Understand – Part 1
The first step in ensuring that your family and you maintain a healthy way of eating is to be able to read, analyze and most importantly, to understand the nutritional labels on the food products you purchase. Reading and analyzing nutritional labels might be a hassle and an embarrassment (for some) when you have to do it in a supermarket at the beginning but, once you’re use to it…believe me it’s not as bad as it sounds!!I will be referring to the sample nutritional label of Macaroni & Cheese (courtesy of US FDA) throughout this article thus it might be easier if you could print out the word document prior reading further.1) SERVING SIZE AND SERVING PER PACKAGEThis is the top most section of a nutritional label, and is the first thing you’ll have to look at to understand the label. It’s important to know the difference between Serving Size and Serving Per Package.Serving Size is a standard measurement. It is always presented in familiar units such as in cups, pieces, bottles and etc followed by the relevant metric values such as grams, milligrams, litres and etc.On the other hand, Serving Per Package refers to the specific’s food content in terms of the Serving Size…is it 2 times the Serving Size or 4 times the Serving Size? Well, let’s look at the nutritional label above. This is a sample label of a Macaroni & Cheese Frozen Food package. Now…it says that the Serving Size is 1 cup (228g). And the Serving Per Package is 2 times the Serving Size. So…what does this mean? It tells us that the whole Macaroni & Cheese package is 2 times the Serving Size i.e the package if actually 2 cups or 456g (228g x 2) in weight.The nutritional information and the amount of calories presented in Sections 2,3 and 4 of the nutrition label (refer to the above label) are based on the Serving Size of 1 cup or 228g of Macaroni & Cheese. Therefore, if you were to consume the entire pack of this Macaroni & Cheese….you’ll be consuming twice the calories and nutrients displayed in the label.Serving Size is essential when you compare different foods. For example…let’s say there was another frozen food package Chicken Pie, and you’re in the midst of deciding which would be a healthier choice for dinner…you’ll have to use the Serving Size as your comparison basis. Compare the calories and nutrients of 1 cup of Macaroni & Cheese with the calories and nutrients in 1 cup of Chicken Pie!! If the Chicken Pie contains more nutrients and less calories per cup than the Macaroni & Cheese…then it’s obvious that you should purchase the Chicken Pie.2) CALORIES AND CALORIES FROM FATSection 2 of the nutritional label displays the Calories Information of ONE Serving Size of the food. This tells you how much of energy will you obtain from the consumption of one serving of the food.Calories from fat tells the portion of calories which is contributed by fat. For example, from ONE cup (228g) of Macaroni & Cheese…you’ll obtain 250 calories. And of that, 110 calories are contributed by fat. Can you imagine that? Almost half the calories are from fat…and that’s only if you consume 1 cup of Macaroni & Cheese. If you ate the whole package i.e 2 cups of Macaroni & Cheese…you’ll be putting 220 calories from fat into your system!!3 & 4) AMOUNT OF NUTRIENTSSection 3 and 4 of the nutritional label displays the nutrient information. Section 3(yellow coloured) shows the types of nutrient which should be consumed in moderate, while the nutrients listed in Section 4 displays the nutrients that should be consumed in abundance.Generally, we take in the nutrients in Section 3 beyond what our body needs and consume very little nutrients in Section 4. This may cause heart diseases, malnutritions and etc.We’ll talk about the recommended intake of each nutrient and its effect on the body in another article. For now…let’s just try to learn the nutritional label first…According to the above label…1 cup (228g) of Macaroni & Cheese contains 12g of total fat, 3g of trans fat, 30mg of cholesterol and 470mg of sodium. If you ate the entire pack, you would have taken twice these amounts…i.e 24g of total fat, 6g of trans fat, 60mg of cholesterol and 940mg of sodium.As you can see, the values of the nutrients displayed in Section 4 are not in metric values but are in percentage of the daily value. Therefore to analyse the metrical value of these nutrients, you will need to first familiarize yourself with the meaning and impact of daily values.5) FOOTNOTEThe asterisk (*) beside the Daily Value in the nutritional label brings us to the footnote. Well, the footnote basically exist to inform you that the Daily Values (in percentages) beside the nutrients displayed in Section 3 and 4, are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. This statement (highlighted in yellow) appears in all food products and is the same for any kind of food. According to research, most of us are only required to consume 2,000 calories a day!!However, you’ll not find the amounts circled in red in all nutritional labels…they are commonly omitted from small nutritional labels. These are the Daily Values (DV) for each nutrient listed and are based on the public health experts’ advice. Daily Values are the recommended levels of nutrients intakes on a daily basis. We’ll discuss more on the recommended level of nutrients in the next article.For example, it says that the DV of sodium for a 2,000 calorie diet is 2,400mg. This basically means that you are only recommended to consume 2,400mg of sodium in a day. And this is equivalent to one teaspoon of salt!! I’m sure that’s a shock!!The DVs of those who need more calories a day…such as construction workers, tractor drivers and etc..will however be higher.6) DAILY VALUES AND %DAILY VALUEHow does daily values and %daily values relate to each other? Well…based on the above nutritional label, the recommended daily value of nutrients are equivalent to 100% daily value. Let’s take the Daily Value of total fat for instance. It says that the DV of total fat is 65g, making 65g the 100% of total fat that you can consume a day.Now…look at the DV (%) displayed beside each of the nutrients in Section 3 & 4…and search for the total fat nutrient. What do you see? One cup of Macaroni & Cheese contains 12g of total fat…which if described in a percentage…would be 18% (12g/65g x 100%). That’s how you obtain the DV(%) of 18% for total fat.Let’s try another nutrient…cholesterol. The recommended DV for cholesterol is 300mg. Now look at how much of cholesterol will you consume if you ate one cup of Macaroni & Cheese…30mg…thus when this is described in percentage…it would be 10% (30mg/300mg x 100%). Voila!!Now…how do you analyse the daily value and daily value(%) when deciding your purchase?Simple…since you are informed that the recommended amount of total fat to be consumed in a day is limited to 65g…try not to exceed this amount!! If you consumed one cup of Macaroni & Cheese…you would have taken 18% of the daily total fat, leaving you with only 82% to consume. That’s about 53g of fat which you would easily exceed through consuming other fried foods, rice, pasta and desserts!!It’s even worse when you eat the whole package of Macaroni & Cheese…you’ll be consuming twice the total fat…i.e 36% of your daily total fat limit, which only leaves a room of 64%.These information allows you to plan your meals in a healthier way. If you decide to enjoy something fatty for lunch, you can decide to eat low fat food during your dinner to stay within the total fat daily value. You don’t need to let go off your favorite foods to be healthy!!We’ll exercise reading and understanding nutritional labels in the next article. Together with that I’ll discuss about the importance of knowing the ingredients of the food products. Please feel free to comment on my articles at my blog.
How To Make Successful Applications To Fashion Design Schools
There are many ways to get into a career in fashion. Gianfranco Ferrer, who recently left us and was best known as the creative director of Christian Dior from 1989 on, studied architecture instead of art. He then turned to fashion design, launching his own label in 1978.For most of us mortals, however, going to design school will be a necessary and pleasurable way of stepping into a career in fashion. There are more openings than ever before in this exciting field. Fashion awareness has grown enormously in recent years and people are becoming more brand-conscious. Many fashion design schools offer degrees in fashion design, marketing, and merchandising, to give you the necessary leverage launch the career of your choice. For a strong foundation in both traditional and high-tech approaches, you could opt for any number of excellent schools. Fashion design school is like a little bit of history repeating. You will find that there is nothing new under the sun – the most abstruse-seeming designs are almost always borrowed from somewhere or other. The knack is to come up with a new fashion or accessory design based on a development of something with a historical perspective.Fashion is an expression of the times, so it is important to keep up with the latest trends in politics and art. Design school courses will help you to explore these tendencies.Design would be nothing these days without a deep understanding of technological devices and tools – CAD is something you will need to learn in depth.Fashion design schools also teach the necessary technical and business skills involved, from sketching and pattern-making, sowing, design theory to the practicalities of accounting, retail, store merchandising, marketing and management.:Getting a job in the fashion industry is no easy business, but do not be discouraged – prospective employers are looking for commitment, enthusiasm and a solid foundation in terms of training. Only the determined will make it in such a highly competitive field. To optimize your chances of getting on, follow our tips below: Connections are everything. Employers like recommendations and it is up to 60% likely that you will be offered a job because a friend or acquaintance has passed on your résumé. Bosses from way back, former colleagues, neighbors, your hairdresser or bank manager – Networking is where it’s at. So send out those mails, letting everyone know you are looking for a post. If you do not currently have a job, you should be investing at least a full 40 hour working week in job hunting, half of which you will be devoting to networking. Follow up leads, make notes, call back, insist. There is no mystery – perseverance will get you what you want.There are a number of things you should watch out for when choosing a school: Look at their statistics – how many of the ex-students went on to successfully embark on a fashion career? The hub of the fashion design world is in New York City and Los Angeles, so people tend to gravitate there – about two thirds of those working in the industry are established in these cities. A quarter are self-employed, while 35% are working under a corporate umbrella. Another quarter are clothing wholesalers, while a mere 15% are clothing manufacturers. Competition in all fields is fierce, so you will do well to enter the fashion school which will give you the best chances possible.