Entries Tagged as 'Health'

Weight Loss Pills and Supplements – Do You Need Them?

There are several questions: do you need them? Do they work? Are they safe for you? Etc. etc. Weight loss pills, weight loss supplements, weight loss lotions, weight loss foods, weight loss drinks, body wraps, belts and even rings and earrings!

According to this Reuters article, between $33 billion and $55 billion is spent annually on weight loss products and services, including medical procedures and pharmaceuticals, with weight loss centers garnering between six percent and 12 percent of total annual expenditure in the United States alone.

The fact is that only an actual change in lifestyle will give you results if you are trying for weight loss. There is no substitute for healthy eating and exercise in your daily life; that is a fact. However the weight loss industry flourishes on promoting the idea of quick fat loss, of weight loss without effort; of easy methods of losing the inches. These short cut methods are never permanent, no matter what the infomercials tell you. They may give you some results to begin with, before the body builds up resistance to it, and then you are back to square one. How stuff works explains it if you want to have a look.

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Belated Gift for Mother’s Day

I’ve gone and forgotten Mother’s Day completely, and now remembering it a month later there is no hope for redemption! My mother has a birthday coming up soon, luckily, so I am going to get her something nice, a sort of combined Mother’s day and birthday gift.

Now we all know grandparents who whip out a wallet or even a photo album at the least provocation and proceed to show even strangers their beloved offspring’s even more beloved offspring, so it goes without saying that anything that features grandkids photos is bound to be a big hit. So this picture tote here, would be an excellent idea in my view. Available in black, khaki or red, it made from cotton canvas with leather trim and has three built-in, round photo frames. Then you can get a few pics developed; the kind she will enjoy, (get a whole bunch done, so that she can change them as and when she wants) and you have a really memorable gift!

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Saving Money on Medication

I have done a post before about how to save money on medication, but I think that topic could do with further discussion because sometimes we get prescribed drugs that we don’t even need in the first place.

Do you really need an expensive antibiotic?

It would seem that doctors are prescribing a lot more medications than they used to: in 2007 pharmacists filled 3.8 billion prescriptions, up from 3.3 billion in 2002 and according to at least one doctor it’s because “It’s easier and quicker than explaining to a patient why they don’t need an antibiotic,” How scary is that! So next you’re sick, be sure to ask your physician what he is prescribing and why you need it at all.

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Save Money This Summer

Summer is a season that many enjoy and many loathe, whichever category you fall into, you can make use of some of these tips to make summer more economical for you:

Energy Savings

Whenever possible, turn off the Air con at home and in the car. Air cons are extremely power hungry. And when you do use the AC, make sure your filter is not clogged because that increases consumption of electricity. Don’t use your dryer, line dry your clothes. It won’t take long in the summer sun. Grow trees. Not only are they wonderful for the environment, they are beautiful and they offer cooling shade as well.

The US Department of Energy has a long list of do’s and don’ts with regard to energy saving which you can see here.

Save money while travelling

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Pamper Yourself… At a Discount

Really it seems as though long relaxed sessions at the salon getting myself a bit of pampering is relegated to the past. Going for periodic hair sessions or getting that French manicure seems rather out of reach these days. I have been doing a bit of thinking to come up with some ideas to pamper myself without burning a hole in my pocket recently.

Now at the end of a hard day I would like something like this heat massager for a bit of indulging of myself. This one promises to get rid of the tension, aches and pains as well as the fatigue and loosen the knots for you. The massager fits into the chair and the mechanism travels up and down the back in three programs.  This massager is available on eBay for $65.95.

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Tea: A Gift of Warmth

I have recently been reading up a lot of about tea, its health benefits, and it healing nature and getting to like the drink a lot too. Incidentally my significant other loves tea and I think a tea assortment would make a lovely, unusual and classy gift not only for him but for anyone really who enjoys tea and views tea drinking as part of social intercourse rather than the mere consumption of a beverage.  And to be sure tea is not an easy subject to navigate: there is green tea, white tea, black tea, herbal tea, oolong tea, the list is seemingly endless.

At this online tea store I found some lovely tea gift sets, including samplers of different kinds of tea: green, white, black etc., and tea hampers that include a unique tea pot that strains tea for you.

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How to Cope with the Recession

The recession, the global meltdown, the slowdown, and a myriad other terms are being bandied about these days to describe the fact that basically everyone is feeling the pinch in their pocket these days. We are no longer anticipating a recession; it is upon us and no mistake! We all have less money than before to spend, we are doing without some things that we may have taken for granted earlier, we are all taking a sharp look at our expenditure to see what we can cut down on and what we can do without. I thought of some of the ways that one can cope with recession and here are my thoughts:

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Save Money on Medication

Supposedly all men are created equal but that is not true for drugs and medications. Different brands of the same drug will offer you the same formulation at different prices and under separate brand names. It all tends to depend upon your doctor and how he prescribes your medication. It is a bit of a secret of the medical profession that generic (read cheaper) drugs will do the job as well as their more expensive branded counterparts.

In fact generic medications are required by the FDA to have the same formulations, strength and efficacy as branded drugs. The reason that generic drugs are so much cheaper is because the manufactures of the generic varieties did not have to undertake the expense of research and development and as such can afford to sell the drugs cheaper. Or generic medication is that which has been imported from a country which has lower manufacturing costs. I found some useful FAQs about generic drugs if you want to take a look.

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Ideas for a Mother-to-be

My very good friend is pregnant and she is terrified of several things: the unknown (this is her first time), or not knowing what to do, birthing pains, of losing her lissome shape, and several other things. So I decided to lend her a helping hand with things (some of them anyway, there is no painless way to have a baby, so she will just have to bear with that).

First I registered her with ivillage’s weekly pregnancy guide. This will give her a weekly update of what is happening with her and her baby, via email. So now she knows that her baby is the size of a cherry at week 8 of her pregnancy; not so terrifying after all!

Next I nudged her in the direction of this really cool site for Stylish Maternity Wear. At first I was a little puzzled at the name; what does an erotic dance form have to do with pregnancy and maternity! Then I thought about it a bit: after all a pregnant belly does ‘dance’ a bit J. She could choose from maternity clothes by several designers, diaper bags etc. And some of the stuff was on sale so I was definitely interested! Since one of her chief worries was getting big and losing her shape, I was able to allay her misgivings with some really smart maternity clothes I found on the site.

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Discount Lingerie

This blog I read regularly, decided to go pink for October because this is breast cancer awareness month. The official pink for October website is urging people to go pink for this month to get people talking about breast cancer, and raise money for research. But to be clear, raising money isn’t the primary purpose of this web event. The hope is that you turn your site pink (in whatever way works for your site), educate yourself about the multiple issues related to Breast Cancer, then take that knowledge and tell someone else what you’ve learned. This is an admirable cause so I am supporting it in my own small way!

So I thought to myself what post about discounts and good deals can I possibly do that is related to this issue? Well the closest I could come up with is lingerie, after all it is that which supports and enhances our er… womanly assets.

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