…Bitch Life…

Curious about how much you move your body over the course of a day? A pedometer might be right for you. A pedometer is a small, watch-size device that counts each step you take. You’ll find pedometers at most sporting goods stores. They cost as little as $10.00.

Attach a pedometer to your clothing near your waist first thing in the morning and wear it all day. For the first few days, record your steps and log this number on your calendar. If you walk fewer than 8,000 to 10,000 steps per day, you need to increase your daily activity. If you walk fewer than 8,000 steps per day, you’re considered sedentary, which means you’re not getting enough exercise. If you walk between 8,000 and 10,000 steps each day, you’re considered active.

A good way to increase your total daily steps is to walk 100 extra steps every day. Set a higher goal each month until you are walking 9,000 to 10,000 steps per day. Then try to build up to more than 10,000 steps each day. Depending on the length of your stride, these additional steps will add up to approximately 2 miles. This can help you lose weight and feel better. So keep walking!

If you’re apple-shaped — meaning that you primarily store fat around your middle — you’ll need to take some special precautions with your weight. People who have a larger waist are more likely to develop heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

Elevated health risks seem to come along with a waist measurement of greater than 35 inches in women and greater than 40 inches in men. Abdominal fat is worse than fat on your buttocks or thighs because that extra fat surrounds important organs such as the liver and pancreas. When you have fat in this area of the body, your body can’t use the insulin produced by your pancreas very well. This is called insulin resistance, and it causes high blood glucose levels. High blood glucose puts your organs at higher risk. If you lose weight, the amount of fat stored around your waist and important organs will decrease, and they will all work better.

Recipe: Roasted Cherry Tomato and Feta Crisps

Looking for an elegant way to entertain that’s also South Beach Diet™-friendly? Try this recipe, guaranteed to get rave reviews!

Topping
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled
3 large black olives, or 10 small black olives, pitted and chopped
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh rosemary leaves to garnish

Pita Crisps
1 1/2 whole-wheat pita rounds
1 medium garlic clove, smashed
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350° F, In medium bowl, toss tomatoes with oil, salt and pepper. Roast 10 to 15 minutes, until softened, shaking pan occasionally. Keep oven at 350° F. In small cup, stir smashed garlic into oil. No need to chop the garlic to flavor the pita; just smash the clove with the flat edge of your chef’s knife and toss the whole thing in the olive oil. Cut 1 pita into 8 even double-layer triangles. Separate each triangle into 2 wedges. Repeat with half of another pita, for a total of 24 wedges. Place pitas, split-side up in a single layer on a baking sheet. Brush with garlic oil; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake 7 minutes, until crisp and golden. Cool. Top crisps with tomatoes, feta and olives. Garnish with a rosemary leaf. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutritional Information:
22 calories
1.3 total fat (0.4 g sat)
180 mg cholesterol
2 g carbohydrate
0.7 g protein
0.3 g fiber
49.5 mg sodium

This recipe is from the April Issue of The South Beach Diet™ Newsletter

Smoked Salmon Frittata

Tired of the basic egg? Want to liven up your morning meal? Try this delicious dish that is full of fun vegetables and yummy smoked salmon!

Serves 2

Ingredients
8 stalks fresh asparagus
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1?2 Bermuda onion
1?4 cup dry-packed sun-dried tomatoes
2 ounces smoked salmon
1?2 cup liquid egg substitute
1?4 cup water
3 tablespoons nonfat dry milk
1?4 teaspoon chopped fresh marjoram
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
fat-free sour cream (optional)
chives (optional)

Instructions
To soften the sun dried tomatoes, place them in a bowl and cover them with hot water. Let them stand for 30 minutes.

Boil 1" of water in a large skillet. Add the asparagus and cook, uncovered, until tender-crisp. Coat an ovenproof 8" skillet with cooking spray and place over medium-low heat until hot. Add the olive oil and sauté the onion until soft. Add the asparagus and sun-dried tomatoes. Add the smoked salmon and remove from the heat.

Preheat the broiler. Combine the egg substitute, water, dry milk, marjoram, and pepper. Pour over the salmon mixture. Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 7 minutes or until the bottom is set and the top is slightly wet. Place the skillet under the broiler 4"-6" from the heat source until the top of the frittata is puffed and set, 2-3 minutes. Top with fat-free sour cream, marjoram, and chives, if desired. Slice into wedges and serve immediately.

Try substituting 1 cup of broccoli florets for the asparagus and 2 ounces of ham for the salmon.

Nutritional Information: 241 calories
11 total fat (2 g sat)
5 mg cholesterol
18 g carbohydrate
19 g protein
4 g fiber
730 mg sodium

When it comes time to exercise, do you always have an excuse not to? You’re not alone! The experts at the American Council on Exercise wanted to know why two out of three Americans aren’t active on a regular basis, and why one in four get practically no exercise at all! So they asked 1,500 people about their workout excuses. Do any of these sound familiar?

• I don’t have the time
• I am too out of shape
• I don’t know what to do — and am afraid to ask
• The gym is too crowded
• It’s too hot/cold/wet
• It’s not convenient
• I don’t have the right equipment
• I don’t like jogging, biking, walking, aerobics, weight lifting, etc.

Honestly, there’s just no good excuse not to make movement a part of your life! So if you’ve been skipping your workouts, make a list today of all the excuses you use, and then come up with another list of solutions to them!

Need a reason to turn in early tonight? Here’s one — getting enough sleep not only keeps you looking and feeling your best, it can also help keep your weight in check. That’s what researchers from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk discovered when they looked at the sleeping habits and BMI (body mass index) of 1,000 study participants. They found that the less sleep the participants got, the higher their BMI!

While researchers are still trying to understand the connection, they speculate that when you’re sleep deprived, your hormones send out a signal to eat more to help cope with the stress! So how much more sleep do you need? Not much, the experts say. An extra 20 minutes a night was all it took to make a difference. Now that’s what I call beauty sleep!

Hey guys… i saw an addy that will kinda warm your heart….

http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/special.cfm?p=jp2.htm

Heres my candle….

http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/view.cfm?id=650218&p=3708&l=ENG&s=f&cid=650218

Somebody forwarded to me this email… this might work so i posted this to help those who reads my blogs…

"Keep a syringe or needle in your home to do this… It’s amazing and an unconventional way of recovering from stroke, read it through it can help somebody 1 day.

This is amazing, if its works. Please keep this very handy… Excellent tips. Do take a minute to read this. You’ll never know. One’s life may depend on you.

My father was paralyzed and later died from the result of a stroke. I wish I knew about this first aid before.

When stroke strikes, the capillaries in the brain will gradually burst.

When a stroke occurs, stay calm. No matter where the victim is, do not move him/her. Because, if moved, the capillaries will burst. Help the victim to sit up where he is to prevent him from falling over again, and then the bloodletting can begin. If you have in your home an injection syringe that would be the best, otherwise, a sewing needle or a straight pin will do.

Place the needle/pin over fire to sterilize it, and then use it to prick the tip of all 10 fingers. There are no specific acupuncture points, just prick about a mm from the fingernail. Prick till blood comes out.

If blood does not start to drip, then squeeze with your fingers. When all 10 digits is bleeding, wait a few minutes then the victim will regain consciousness.

If the victim’s mouth is crooked, then pull on his ears until they are red.

Then prick each ear lobe twice until two drops of blood comes from each ear lobe. After a few minutes the victim should regain consciousness.

Wait till the victim regain his normal state without any abnormal symptoms then take him to the hospital, otherwise, if he was taken in the ambulance in a hurry to the hospital, the bumpy trip will cause all the capillaries in his brain to burst. If he could save his life, barely managing to walk, then it is by the grace of his ancestors.

I learned about letting blood to save life from Chinese traditional doctor Ha Bu-Ting who lives in Sun-Juke. Furthermore, I had practical experience with it. Therefore I can say this method is 100% effective.

In 1979, I was teaching in Fung-Gaap College in Tai-Chung. One afternoon I was teaching class when another teacher came running to my classroom and said in panting, "Mr. Liu, come quick, our supervisor has had a stroke!" I immediately went to the 3rd floor. When I saw our supervisor, Mr.Chen Fu-Tien, his color was off, his speech was slurred, his mouth was crooked-all the symptoms of a stroke. I immediately asked one of the practicum students to go to the pharmacy outside the school to buy a syringe, which I used to prick Mr. Chen’s 10 fingers tips. When all 10 fingers were bleeding (each with a pea-sized drop of blood), after a few minutes, Mr. Chen’s face regained its color and his eyes’ spirit returned, too. But his mouth was still crooked. So I pulled on his ears to fill them with blood. When his ears became red, I pricked his right earlobe twice to let out 2 drops of blood. When both earlobes had two drops of blood each, a miracle happened. Within 3-5 minutes the shape of his mouth returned to normal and his speech became clear. We let him rest for a while and have a cup of hot tea, then we helped him go down the stairs, drove him to Wei-Wah Hospital. He rested one night and was released the next day to return to school to teach. Everything worked normally. There were no ill after-effects. On the other hand, the usual stroke victim usually suffers irreparable bursting of the brain capillaries on the way to the hospital.

As a result, these victims never recover.

Therefore stroke is the second cause of death. The lucky ones will stay alive but can remain paralyzed for life.

It is such a horrible thing to happen in one’s life. If we can all remember this bloodletting method and start the life-saving process immediately, in a short time, the victim will be revived and regain 100% normality. We hope you can tell others about this first aid method. By doing so, stroke may be removed from the list of major causes of death.

Forward this after reading. It will be a good deed indeed. The greatest risk is not taking one… Make a difference!!!

Sick of padding along on a treadmill? You’re not alone! Boredom often jeopardizes our get-fit plans! So shake things up with advice from other Fit Forever! members and make your walking workout less of a bore:

• Change locations. Instead of walking on a treadmill, try a trail or track near your home. If it’s too cold, why not walk a few laps around the mall or shopping center?
• Turn on the tube. Those 30 minutes pass a lot faster if you’ve got something else to watch besides the timer on the treadmill. Tune in to your favorite program while you walk, and you’ll be done before you know it.
• Mix it up. Start with five minutes of stretching, then walk up and down stairs for five more, jump on the treadmill for 10, jump rope for another five, walk for 10, then cool down with five more minutes of stretching. The change will do you good!
• Sweat to some tunes. Think about what type of music makes your heart race, then pop it in and get walking! You’ll get so into the tunes that your workout will fly by!