HealthyDude.net

Yesterday I was enjoying a couple of beers with a friend at my local beer garden.    He had his car with him and planned to drive home.  We were ensure if he could legally drive after two pints (large beers), so we ended up walking back to my house and leaving the car near the bar. 

We then got on the subject on how much you can drink legally and still drive.  Of course it is true that you shouldn’t drink any alcohol and drive but I will would like to knoe..

In the UK, if your caught drink driving by the police it usually results in year(s) driving ban if you get caught, plus fines etc.  If you cause an accident, well then your in real trouble so if your driving while under the influence your playing a dangerous game.   

In the real world though,  its not uncommon for people to have a quick drink, and then drive so here’s the info I found out on this controversial subject.  A very rough approximation of what a “typical” man and woman can drink, while staying under the limit is as follows:

 Men: 4 units before over the limit

Women: 3 units before being over the limit 

However there are loads of different factors that really make it impossible to know how much alcohol is in your blood at any one time.  A persons weight, size and metabolism are a big factor.  Also how quickly the drinks are consumed as well as alcohol strengh of the beverage play an important role.

So really, its impossible to say if you are over the legal driving limit at any one time. 

The simple answer must be to not drink and drive to stay legal and safe, or if you must do it,  do it slowly and very sparingly.

The Number of approximate units of alcohol in the following popular drinks:

• A pint of Lager/Cider - 2.3 units
• A pint of Strong Lager/Cider - 3 units
• A pint of strong lager - 3 units
• 175ml Wine - 2 Units
• 250ml Wine - 3 Units
• Pub measure of Spirits - 1 Unit
• Typical alcopop bottle - 1.5 Unit

In this extrovert world, if a person is quite, a loner or very shy they can be labelled weird, odd, or much worse.

I say its a good thing some people are shy, introverted and enjoy their own company. 

The world needs outgoing people that make themselves heard and like to speak out.  

The world also needs deep thinkers, observers and quieter people that should be embraced also.  Shyness isn’t a mental disorder, its a character trait of a certain personality type which is very valuable to all of us. 

Some of the most succesful people are shy, they know it, they understand it, and they learn to work with it. 

If your a quiet shy person, embrace it as its a part of what makes you, YOU.  Live with it, understand it, fight it if you wish but make the best of what god has given you.

There are different genres of drugs in the market for males and females. For example, nioxin is prescribed for treating male pattern hair loss while estradiol is meant to be used by females suffering from an imbalance or difference in their level of sex hormones. Some advice can be labeled as unisex such as the prescribed use of frequency contact lenses, management of weight loss by health diet tips and use of holmes hepa air purifier that extracts major air pollutants thereby preventing countless infections of respiratory system.

Having done plenty of travelling in my life I know its not as easy keeping up a healthy lifestyle while on the move.

Eating in restarants and the temptation of fast food are probably the biggest issues faced.  Also depending on the type of travel, regular excercise can also become more difficult to make time for.

So after doing a little research browsing on the internet i found www.ogym.net which gives useful and hard to find advice on Travel Fitness and health while travelling.

This site goes into everything from Yoga and tips on eating healthily while travelling.  So maybe worth a read if you go away regularly, or plan to in the near future.

Some nutrition experts recommend a regular intake of health supplements like molybdenum. Being careful about eating the right food is even more important while traveling because, traveling does not leave you with many options of menus and physical exercises. Some minerals although needed by the body in traces are found to be lacking in general diet. One of such minerals is sulfur that helps combat joint pain and arthritis and bursitis.The concept of life fitness does not seem to be complete without having a well-planned travel fitness program in place. Rather a complete travel plan must take the matters of nutrition, workouts, firstaid and general safety into account

Today I noticed in the news an 18 month old girl desperate for a new heart due to being born with narrow heart valves.

Zoe Charmers is in hospital in the UK, and unfortunately at the time of writing no transpants are available.  She is currently at the top of the heart transplant list across Europe, but still no luck.

At the moment her heart has been substituted by a machine which does a similar job however this is a temporary measure and time is running out.  Her mother Julie has said: “She is desperate. She keeps getting infection after infection”.

So lets all cross our fingers and hope a transplant becomes available that will work out and give her the best chance.

Good luck Zoe

When I was a teenager I went through a period of using steroids.

I was tall and skinny at the time and was never really content with my unathletic frame and awkward physique.  Being impetuous as most teenagers are, I was in a serious hurry to do everything I could to become a player.  In my case bulking up and get some muscles to make myself look and feel better was the motivation.  Being labelled as a hard gainer with an ectomorphic type physique ( long and skinny) gaining body mass was not really part of my genetic make up at the time.

So why was I bothered about getting bigger anyway, well I suppose I lacked confidence in myself, and also I was bullied for a while and was called names like lanky and lofty.  This no doubt gave me a complex which I even still drag around with me today, aged 30.

Like many others in my situation I went though every method I could to find information on bodybuilding and gaining weight.  Mostly from books, websites and magazines. I spent a year from aged 15 to 16 years trying every muscle building routing. I got stronger and maybe about half a stone heavier. On a 6ft 5? long body, the difference wasn’t really very noticeable and I wasn’t getting the returns for my hard work I desired and maybe deserved.

Eventually I struck lucky, at least I thought, discovering a guy who wrote literature about gaining weight with steroids in magazines and underground steroid publications. With excitement I realised the potential for me to get more muscled with this new information and began to fantasise on getting a bodybuilders physique and risk using steroids.  I imagined getting all the girls and being the guy everyone instantly respected.  Of course, it never works out like this but it felt good at the time.

Reading between the lines of his articles I though I would ask the self proclaimed expert if he new a reliable steroid supplier.  After a short chat with him a who’s who of steroids was made available to me and an order from was quickly posted.  To my suprise he not only gave advice, he supplied the gear as well, illegaly I might add.

So I got what I wanted, ordered the strongest testosterone oral variety I could get, which was called napoleon 50. This was described in the manual as being able to put muscles on a tomato which sounded like just the job. I also ordered another important drug which stops your female hormones rising to match the increased amount of testosterone in my system.  Side effects of increased oestrogen could be anything from testicular shrinkage to bitch tits (not a good thing).  So I sent off my postal orders, a week later my parcel arrived.

Within minutes I was taking my first pill then straight down the gym to pump iron for a couple of hours. Taking three pills a day religiously, for the first 14 days not a lot happened, I began to get frustrated and suspected I might have received fake “gear”.  The third week began to produce some big changes, I could lift heavier weights and added about 7 pounds (muscle and water retention) in weight.  The cycle of drugs I was using lasted for six weeks, by the end I was about 10 pounds heavier, and for me very strong.

I was over the moon, happy and felt good. I thought I looked a lot better and has some great future plans.  I had to stop and take a break for a month however as advised. This is routine and gives your system a rest between drug cycles.

A week passed into the steroid free period, my strength began to drop off until it was back to where I started taking steroids and so did my weight. This was disappointing to say the least. I was advised it could have been because I wasn’t eating enough or didn’t cycle the drug properly. I think it was probably because I took the strongest available steroids first time, and once they were out of my system my body restored itself back to the way it was.

I spent another year trying different types of steroids on and off, but never really got very far.  Eventually I was sent poor quality fake steroids by my venerable dealer and no longer continued buying them. 

The bodybuilding lifestyle is hardcore and unrewarding unless you have favourable genetics.  I was a long limbed teenager with a fast metabolism.  I may have needed to eat 10.000 calories a day to gain weight.  Drinking upwards of 6 pints of milk and 5 cans of tuna a day isn’t much fun never mind the drug ingestion.

I have to consider the future health implications for myself now as well as joint problems for lifting heavy weights for my age and frame. I might be fine though, time will tell.  I suppose the morale of the story is learning to accept yourselves as you are.  Bodybuilding is sometimes evidence of a lack of self confidence, making the body bigger to support inner feelings of fear and weakness.  An individual should have a hard long look at themselves before going down the path I did. 

Steroids have been reported to affect the human body adversely. Generally people get used to them while following their fitness models. But when it is the matter of one’s health be it a choice of wearing contact lenses (acuvue advance), going for an exercise plan in a hope to get into the desired shape using an elliptical machine or attempting a fast weight loss by a weight loss pill, professional consultation is a must to ensure personal safety. Otherwise self treating even very minor conditions such as dry eye might result into some serious consequence.

Good luck.

News of an Australian science breakthrough was released today which uses an eye test to help identify increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. The technique involves taking a photo of the arteries and veins at the back of the eye .  Small changes in these blood vessels can give health officials an insight into what is happening in other parts of the body.

Studies suggested that increase in weight and body mass result in changes in the eyes blood vessels.

The real advantage in using this technique to spot potential future health problems easily before other issues occur.  Changes in smaller blood vessels due to increased weight gain happen before other cardiovascular risk factors develop.

Part of future heart disease screening may include a visit to the opticians to spot blood vessel enlargment and potential problems.

Last weekend I could not ignore more terrorists in action at Glasgow airport and London in the Uk.  This is always disturbing enough however I was amazed that the individuals involved work in the National Health Service (NHS) here in the UK.  These people were not porters or maintenance workers, no they were trained doctors.

I found it incredible that the job of doctor, the person we have to trust with our well being if not lives can be found to be plotting to terrorise the general public.  It also makes you think that terrorism can be found in the most unpredicted places and we can never really let our guard down.

The only slight peace of mind I got from the incidents was how low tech the efforts were.  Maybe our intelligence workers are making it difficult for Alcaeda to really put together anything that causes the kind of threat seen in previous atrocities
- I hope so anyway! 

Doctors hold a different level of prestige among different communities. We need them to help us get rid of a whole range of maladies ranging from eczema that is just a superficial cracking of skin to breast reduction surgery that involves major risks. These well-qualified professionals are there when there is a need of consultation regarding the use of meridia or even a trivial matter of rooting out that whitehead on the cheek. They also come into play to get the females affected by hair loss in women to take them out of the agony by seemliest hair transplant solution.

A new hangover free beer is becoming very popular in the UK.  Cusquena which has 5% percent alcohol rating is made from a centruy old recipe which has very few chemicals.  The Lager is forecasted to be in the top 10 imported uk beers within the next few years.

I havn’t tried it myself but I do like the occasional cold beer.  In my opinion the purer the better so I plan to give it a try this next week.

Pumpkin extract could replace insulin jabs for Diabetics.
New medical interest has risen in a compound found in pumpkins which acts to regenerate damaged pancreatic cells amongst rats with diabetes.

This naturally boosted the rats insulin levels, and led to less insulin injections.

The head health person of the chinese university reported: “Pumpkin extract is potentially a very good product for pre-diabetic people, as well as those who already have diabetes.” The rats tested were type1, but type 2 could also be influenced by pumpkin extract also.

Let’s talk about one very important area when it comes to gaining weight, and that is goal setting. If you’ve ever met anyone who was trying to lose weight, you know that the ones who are most successful are the ones who have a set goal in mind. The others typically give up as soon as their motivation runs out, which could be a day or a week or even a couple of months.

The same thing is true when you’re trying to gain weight. What you want to be doing is to start thinking about your long-term goal. Be specific about what you want to achieve for yourself at the end of this journey. Don’t be saying “I want to gain weight until I’m happy with what I see in the mirror” or “I need to put on enough weight to help me bulk up”. None of those statements are going to help you because they are subjective, meaning they are open to interpretation and are changed by perception. You need something concrete; you need a number. And you need to write down that number so you won’t be able to lie to yourself about your goal and so you can remind yourself of what you’re working towards.

Besides setting a long-term goal, you should also set several smaller goals for yourself as well. Motivation experts have found that long-term goals alone just aren’t effective, because the pay off for the the work you are doing now seems so distant. Smaller goals give you quicker senses of accomplishment and keep pushing you forward towards your long-term ambition. Your short-term goals should be just as specific, but you may want to start with a goal such as “I want to gain X amount of pounds this week”, then “I want to gain X amount of pounds this month”, and so on and so forth. Make sure you’re being realistic when you set these goals. Too high or too low expectations won’t help you make progress.

Also, remember that each time you meet a goal, you should have a set reward for yourself in mind. Don’t make that reward food related. When you view food as a reward or as a punishment, you are developing an unhealthy attitude towards consumption that will end with an eating disorder. Better rewards would be going to the movie you’ve been wanting to see, taking off from work to lounge around the house, going to the spa for pampering, buying a new outfit, etc.