The low-fat home
Is your house making you fat? A feature in the May issue of Redbook says it might be by interfering with your ability to eat healthily. Here are some of the 18 “fix-it” solutions the article suggests:
– Hide away these appliances–the deep fryer, the bread machine and the ice cream maker. Replace them with a blender, a slow-cooker and a steamer.
– Rid your kitchen of clutter and appliance chaos. That way, you’re more likely to cook healthier foods at home than to order in unhealthy meals.
– Get a pretty bowl, fill it with fruit and make it a colorful centerpiece so this healthy food choice is within easy reach.
– Keep a small cutting board on the counter, the easier to find when you need to slice vegetables for snacks.
– Rearrange your living room so the television isn’t the focal point.
– Donate your fat clothes so it’s not so comfortable to abandon your diet and exercise.
– Set your table for portion control, using tall, skinny glasses for juice and salad plates in place of main-course plates so you aren’t tempted to eat too large a portion.
Switch off stress
Toning down the stress in your life doesn’t have to be difficult. Simply follow the advice of several medical experts in the May issue of Glamour:
– Turn off the cell phone. This will keep work problems and family issues under control, according to a study conducted by Noelle Chesley, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Use e-mail to communicate instead, which seems to trigger less of a stress response.
– Fight calmly. Hostile fights between couples trigger a 150 percent jump in stress-related chemicals, say researchers from Ohio State University.
– Complete those small, unfinished tasks. Not finishing lots of small jobs such as returning phone calls, paying bills and the like can kick up the stress hormones, says Michael Roizen, a medical expert at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.
– Play slow-paced music. It will lower your blood pressure and heart rate, according to a study at the University of Pavia in Italy.
– Suck on a peppermint. Research from Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia found that strong-flavored gum or mints can quell road rage.
Fertility takes a hit
Couples looking to get pregnant through in-vitro fertilization may have problems if marijuana has been part of their past. A study from the University of California at San Diego found that women who had smoked pot more than 90 times in their life had 27 percent fewer eggs retrieved and one fewer embryo available to transfer to the uterus.
Those who smoked just 10 times in their lives gave birth to babies that were 17 percent smaller, reports a story in the May issue of Elle.
Men’s pot smoking also has an effect.
When the men used pot, their spouses also had one fewer embryo for transfer. Pot use among couples without fertility issues may be similarly affected, says James Grifo, director of the division of reproductive endocrinology at New York University Medical Center.
Workouts heal
Do you want to heal more quickly from an injury, a cold or surgery? Then exercise more and quit arguing, say researchers at Ohio State University in the May issue of More magazine.
Among people over age 50, those who worked out regularly healed from a cut as much as 10 days earlier than those who didn’t exercise.
As for couples who fought a lot, it took an average of two days extra for a blister to heal.
