Rate your belly
Time for a gut check. We mean your actual gut. Is it big and jiggly, like a bowlful of jelly, or hard and round, as if you’ve swallowed a pumpkin whole?
The first type contains subcutaneous fat, which lies just under the skin, in front of abdominal muscles (think Sumo wrestler).
The second contains visceral fat behind the abdominals and puts your health in danger, warns a story in the October issue of Best Life.
Visceral fat leads to metabolic syndrome, increasing by 500 percent the chance of diabetes, by 300 percent your risk of heart attack and by 200 percent the chance of death by heart attack.
Could this be you? To find out, measure your waist. If it’s more than 36 inches, ask your doctor to do a “metabolic profile.” If the results pinpoint a problem (two or more of the following: high triglycerides, high blood sugar, low HDL cholesterol or high blood pressure), here are some steps you can take to burn off much of that visceral fat:
– Sleep longer.
– Consume just one alcoholic drink daily rather than bingeing occasionally on more than four at a time spaced as much as a week apart. The latter results in more visceral fat, according to a University of Buffalo study.
– Choose a low-carb diet. Men studied by the University of Connecticut who did so lost three times more abdominal fat than those on low-fat diets.
– Walk briskly or jog to burn more fat.
– Combine cardio and strength training at least three times a week.
Ice for that burn
Burns happen, especially when rushing to cook a meal. For help in treating them, heed the advice of Alan Dimick, former director of the Burn Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in the October issue of Cooking Light.
Simple burns–Apply a plastic bag half-filled with ice to the burn for 15 minutes. Remove it for five minutes, then reapply–15 minutes on, 5 minutes off for as long as two hours. Take two aspirin for the pain.
Burns that blister–Wash the area with soap and water, apply an antibiotic ointment cream (Neosporin, for example), then cover the area with a bandage.
Burns with swelling, oozing and redness and increased pain. This is a sign of infection. See a doctor immediately.
Helping a drug abuser
When you recognize that a friend or co-worker has a drug problem, you may want to step in and offer help but don’t really know how. Assistance is available through the Web site drugfree.org, run by the non-profit Partnership for a Drug-Free America. The site is aimed at reducing illicit drug use and helping people to live healthy, drug-free lives.
Under the “teen” category, click on “Helping a Friend With a Drug Problem.” The site discusses the power of friendship and offers a realistic guideline for how to start a conversation and give positive messages to your friend about dealing with the problem. The site also has information for parents and an intervention and treatment section.
Running the globe
If running is your passion, you can do so enjoyably and safely anywhere in the world with the help of the Web site runtheplanet.com.
The site offers 4,395 descriptions of where to run and walk when you travel to any of 3,273 cities around the world. The information has been provided by locals and gives turn-by-turn route descriptions. You also can submit favorite routes of your own.
