HealthyDude.net

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

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.

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.

After growing up with a sister who had acne I am very aware of the trauma this condition causes, especially to a teenager.

Going to school every day and being called nasty names would do damage to anyones self esteem.  Looking back I remember the main treatment was a topical preperation which you applied to the skin and it formed a white paste.   Not exactly without its hassles and it certainly wasn’t a cure. Of course this was about 15 years ago so I wonder if anythings improved in the way this condition should be treated. 

The latest treatments are divided into topical and oral medications and there is a choice between prescription meds and over the counter home solutions. 

Home treatment

No home treatments for acne ever work immediately. It can take a few weeks, if not months, for significant effects to be noticeable. If home treatments have not worked after two months, or you have severe acne, you should visit your doctor.   The following treatments and techniques have had proven success:

• Keep spot-prone areas clean, so wash the affected area twice a day with a quality cleanser.  The skin needs a certain amount of oil to maintain its natural condition, so avoid aggressive washing with strong soaps.

• There are a number of over-the-counter remedies available to treat mild acne. These usually contain antibacterial agents such as benzoyl peroxide.  As well as its antibacterial effects, benzoyl peroxide can dry out the skin and encourage it to shed the surface layer of dead skin. Together, these effects make it harder for pores to become blocked and for infection to develop. Benzoyl peroxide can cause redness and peeling, especially to start with. This tends to settle down if you reduce the number of times you use it. You can then build up your use gradually.
• Another well known brand called proactiv is recommended by some experts to help treat acne you can find information on how to buy proactive and where to buy Proactiv at www.proactiv-blog.com so worth a look.

Prescription Treatments

Topical treatments

There are a few decent topical medications that may be prescribed such as:

• Azelaic acid (Skinoren) is an alternative to benzoyl peroxide and may not make your skin as sore as benzoyl peroxide^.
• Topical retinoids (Adapalene) are medicines based on vitamin A, which are rubbed into the skin once or twice a day. They work by encouraging the outer layer of skin to flake off.
• A topical antibiotic lotion applied to the skin can be used to control the acnes bacteria (eg Dalacin T). Treatment needs to continue for up to a year for real progress.

Oral Treatments

Oral treatments are often used for really sever acne and include the following:

• Oral antibiotics can be prescribed for inflammatory acne. They should be taken daily for around three months, although it might take four to six months for the benefits to be seen.  
• Oral contraceptive pills for women who have acne can offer a solution. A combination of the usual pill hormone called ethinylestradiol with cyproterone acetate (eg Dianette) suppresses male hormone activity which can result in an improvement in acne.
• Isotretinoin is a medicine known as an oral retinoid, which also exists in a topical form. Isotretinoin works by drying up oily secretions. It tends to be prescribed to people with severe forms of acne that have proved resistant to other treatments. There a number of serious side-effects of this drug, such as liver disorders and depression. You should not take isotretinoin if you are pregnant, as it is very dangerous to an unborn baby. For safety reasons, isotretinoin is only prescribed under the supervision of dermatology specialists.

So if you suffer acne maybe the best solution is to start with a home based treatment and if not satisfied with the results work up to prescription medications.  Good luck

What wets your whistle? A cold beer? A slushy margarita? A glass of red wine? At a party, a happy hour or a night by the fireplace, a drink is such a natural accompaniment that sometimes we forget about the calories we’re consuming. Big mistake: Calories from alcohol add up quickly. Our bodies don’t register liquids in terms of fullness,” says Elizabeth Somer, R.D., a nutritionist and author of The Origin Diet (Henry Holt, 2001). “The reason you gain weight from alcohol is that you don’t compensate by eating less later. You still eat the same amount, regardless of whether you had the drink.”

Remember this too: Even though the screwdriver you order at brunch has vodka and orange juice, mixed drinks provide little to no nutritional value - only calories. “Alcohol is not an essential nutrient,” says Somer. “It has a diuretic effect on the body. Even if you mix it with orange or cranberry juice, you are more likely to flush the nutrients out of your system.”

- Amy Goldhammer, Cristina Markarian