Green Cigarettes

Yes! Friendly-tips has taken a “U turn” today & we are taking about the benefits of smoking.

I started with the intention to write on Tips to Quit Smoking, but soon realized that it is easier said than done.  Especially people who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day will find it extremely hard to kick this habit.

A good friend once joking said : “ It is so easy to quit smoking, I have quit so many times.”

Here is a boon for such friends & for their friends ( passive smokers like me) – Green Cigarette. Commercially these products are known as Electronic cigarettes or alternative cigarettes. The benefits of this modern day wonder are:

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Famous chili

The famous chili is back in news. This time it’s not for bringing tears in your eyes or for burning your tongue, but for its health benefits.

We had long known chili to be Rich in Vitamin A & C ( Did you know that chilies have more vitamin C per gram than Orange ?). Another astonishing fact about chili is that it’s rich in beta carotene too. The best know benefit of chilies is its ability to reduce pain. Eating chilies will aid release of endorphins which in turn reduces pain.

The famous chili is back in news for another good reason- “ Eating chili will help in weight loss.”

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Best Training Strategies

If you ever been to a doctor, the first thing they do is convince you to do low to moderate intensity aerobic training. This is also referred to as cardio. They suggest you do about 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio for about 3-5 times in a week. They claim this helps maintain your heart rate at a moderate level.

Before you get involved in such a routine, consider some recent scientific research that gives concrete facts to prove such cardio workouts may not work that well after all.

Our bodies were designed to perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery. According to the research study, physical variety is a key variable in your training. If you examine most sports, you will find that most of them go with this burst of exertion, or stop-and-go movement, as it is also called.

Another factor to keep in mind when it comes to varying your physical workouts is the effects to your body internally. Scientists have known for years that any excessive steady state endurance exercise that is anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour, only trains the heart rate at a specific level. You don’t get the heart fully involved.

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Health benefits of flax seed & flax seed oil

Flax seed health benefits are established beyond any doubt. If you are looking for preventive medicine, flax seed benefits are second to none.

Here is a look at 5 benefits of flax seed:

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The Cooling foods article dealt with the need to eat different types of foods for different seasons & as promised, friendly-tips is back with two healthy summer recipes.

You can instantly download 100′s of summer recipes here

In this article we are going to see two delicious summer recipes, a simple cold soup & a fantastic drink; both of which can be made with simple ingredients available in the summer season.

Quick summer recipe No 1 : Indian Raw Mango Cooler ( Aam Ka Panna)

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Summer foods that cool our body

Summer of 2010 is just settling in. Yahooanswers are already getting clogged with questions on nose bleeding, sleeplessness & indigestion.  Such questions get many sympathetic responses but very few address the root cause of the problem i.e. body heat. We need to eat differently in summer as compared to winter. In fact one needs to eat cooling foods in summer

Tell tale signs that your body is heating up is when you notice any of these symptoms:

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Walking & Jogging are the most basic forms to lose weight & if consistently done will surely reap untold benefits.   Internet is littered with debate on benefits on Jogging vs walking. All this started after a study conducted in1994 suggested that one burns more calories by walking.  This is not entirely true; Jogging will undoubtedly burn more calories if done for same amount of time as walking. This does not mean that jogging is a better for weight loss. One area when walking wins hands down is, less chance of injury. If one is on the heavier side or older side walking is a much safer alternative. One should also realize that walking can be as beneficial as jogging if done for extended period of time. (Calories burnt in a 30 minute jog may be similar to calories burnt in a one hour walk)

Click here to read the latest research paper on jogging & walking…

Let’s look at some benefits of walking:

• Weight loss. (I say that walking & weight loss are directly proportional)
• Increased muscle mass
• Lower risk of cancer diabetes, cancer & stroke
• Improved cholesterol levels
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One of the causes of back pain is weak bones, which initially leads to osteopenia & later to osteoporosis.  Osteoporosis is usually detected very late. Some times a lower  back pain or a nagging  upper  back pain reveals that we have osteoporosis. According to international osteoporosis foundation, one in three women & one in every three men in India suffer from osteoporosis. It’s sad because most of these can be prevented by proper nutrition.

The old theory of drinking lots of milk & eating soya daily may not be enough! Americans are known to eat a lot of calcium rich diet, despite this osteoporosis & the resulting back pain is a major health problem there.

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Healthy Breakfast is the secret to burning double the fat in a regular day. Simple tweaks to the daily recipe can change regular breakfast recipes into healthy recipes. The secret here is to change the type of carbohydrates one consumes during the breakfast. Not all carbohydrates are bad. In fact unrefined carbohydrates are good for us. Unrefined cards like fruits, whole grains & certain lentils are rich in fiber & thus digest slowly. This will also make us eat right during the day as one is less likely to feel hungry.

I am a big fan of Indian breakfast. Most popular Indian breakfast items are a combination of cereals & pulses. This combination provides carbohydrates & protein; both of which are important at the start of the day. To top this, these breakfast items are fermented too. Fermentation coverts carbohydrates & sugar into beneficial acids, thereby increasing the nutritive value of these breakfast items.

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“Preventive maintenance is better than breakdown maintenance” – any good management school will teach you that. The statement is true for living healthy too. The good news here is that we can be our own maintenance engineer! Let’s look at some healthy living tip !

One just needs to monitor these 4 elements daily to be in the pink of health. I call it the “4 F’s”

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