this tip for reversing winter weight gain. Soak up some sun to curb cravings.  Without enough sunlight, your body’s production of the feel-good hormone serotonin dips dramatically. That may trigger cravings for chips, cookies, ice cream and other refined carbs, which have the power to raise serotonin levels, too, but for a price: calories. But sitting in the sun (or even a brightly lit room) for at least 10 – 15 minutes a day can do the same thing.

~Woman’s World

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And now this, from Santa Clara County in California, where an ordinance has passed banning toys in Happy Meals. That’s right, no toys in the kids’ meals – at McDonald’s or any other fast food restaurant in the county. Those in non-compliance face a $1,000 fine.

While the people at PETA have a slightly differing agenda – although I’m sure they’d relish if the golden arches collapsed – the bid to rid the world of the ever-wicked Ronald and his evil box of toys can be summed up quite easily: someone else wants to tell you what is acceptable to eat. They, being Corporate Accountability International or the board of supervisors of a county in California, believe that they know what’s better for your children than you do.

They believe that the nation’s obesity can be traced to a clown and his toys. So instead of choosing not to eat there, they’ve decided to take a more sweeping approach: they don’t want you eating there either. To achieve this end, laws such as this stand to soon total greater numbers than the amount of calories in a super-sized Big Mac meal.

Here’s the way the nanny-staters operate. Find a problem (obesity), identify the victims (kids – after all, everything they do is purportedly “for the children”), search and destroy the villain (a clown or a toy), control the issue (people).  While some may initially see this as a rainbows-and-flowers-and-picket-fences fix, it changes the role of the parent and the child,  slowly eroding parental control and replacing it with governmental control.

I’m insulted. I suspect you are, too.

Because most Americans are smarter than this. Our kids don’t eat Happy Meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And every now and then, there’s nothing wrong with a burger and fries, much less the token toy. Moreover, we realize that a ban on kids’ meal toys will lead to a ban on donut shops and candy makers and cereal producers and potato chips. (A salt ban is already on the table in New York.) Once a law passes, the nanny staters will tell you they need to pass more. “We thought this would be enough to stop childhood obesity,” they’ll say, “but it’s not.”

Idiots.

Even if my kids ate three Happy Meals a week, it’s no one else’s business, quite frankly. For anyone who’s offended by Ronald McDonald and his toys, here’s a quick suggestion: don’t eat at McDonald’s. And leave the rest of us alone to enjoy our Happy Meals before they become Nanny Meals.

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• Nanny state bans toys in Happy Meals (hotair.com)

I suppose it’s one thing to exercise for your health (I should probably walk more), but something quite different indeed to exercise for tone and a svelte, fat-free body – especially when you’re closer to 50 than 40-years-old. Especially when you’ve never really needed to worry about it before, but one day you look in the mirror and think: “EEK! What happened here?!?!”

As I looked for ways to fix the flaws, a nightmarish exercise regime filled my mind: Pain, a five-hour-a-day work-out plan, and muscles so sore I can’t get out of bed, all the while existing on a carrot stick and grain of rice. I wonder if maybe I’d luck out on Sundays, and get to add a grape to the menu. Nah. That would be too easy. My bet is I’d be given half a blueberry.

At which point, it sounded much easier, and at least on the surface more appealing, to just give it up, turn into the frumpy middle-aged woman and call it a day with a box of bonbons nearby.

Surely, I thought, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposal. So I turned off the movie reel in my mind and did some thinking (which tends to get me into trouble at times).

As a big believer in the power of positive thinking, et al, I reminded myself that we can’t necessarily get from A to T immediately. But by reaching for a better thought, we make baby steps to the end result. I know most of you know what I’m talking about. When we feel bad about ourselves, the last thing we want to do is commit to a change that seems overwhelming at best. What we need is a kick-start. Something to help us feel just a little bit better. That little bit then becomes another little bit, and before we know it, we’re feeling much better (and, with a little luck, much more svelte).

So I thought I’d take a look into some ways to improve our appearance quickly – or at least painlessly, without having to go under the knife. Truth is, I may talk about face-lifts and tummy tucks, but I’m a big chicken. Here are a few things I found that seemed worthy to share. Let’s start with this little trick for diminishing broken capillaries and spider veins from ehow.com:

Apply homemade remedies to the affected areas. For broken capillaries apply a homemade mask onto the face. Mix 1/4 cup of rose oil or crush chamomile tea in with the facial moisturizer of your choice. Allow the facial masks to set for the night.

Diminish both with apple cider vinegar (apply it to the skin twice daily) or combine rose, palmarosa or parsley oil into a mix with virgin coconut oil. Apply it to affected areas for three to four weeks twice daily.

Sounds easy enough, I suppose. This looks to work on rosacea, too – a fairly common problem for women in the 30-60-year-old age group.

Maybe you’re more worried about a sagging neck or chin. While this one is a little tougher, with researchers claiming products containing collagen don’t work (the molecules are too big to penetrate the skin), apparently products containing cynergy TK with functional keratin work quite well. But you are gonna have to pay for it.

If you’d rather not dish out the dough, Dermaxime has some exercises to try that target various areas on the face and neck. Of course, that takes us right back to exercise, which defeats our purpose.

Next up, and you know you’ve been waiting for this one, is a home remedy for cellulite: coffee grounds. Clearly a two-for-one deal, this one may just be worth a try (no guarantees).

This topical treatment, courtesy of homeremedyweb could prove to be a cellulite buster, too:

Mix 3 parts apple cider vinegar with one part of your favorite massage oil.

Gently knead this solution onto affected skin areas twice daily.

This massage treatment will help to reduce the appearance of cellulite.

Let’s move on to a little make-up trick. While you may be tempted to cake on the foundation to cover up flaws or even out skin tone, keep in mind that less is more – at least in this situation. Heavy foundations tend to make the skin look older (in total contradiction to what we’re looking for). So go for sheer to medium-weight coverage.

In my humble opinion, if you’re looking for an immediate feeling of I-love-me, get a haircut that flatters your face – and don’t forget the color or highlights.

Who knows… It could be catalyst that sends you in search of the nearest treadmill.

-Liz

Here’s a quick and easy way to catch your second wind in two minutes. Simply rub each fingertip for about 15 seconds. That stimulates acupressure points that boost flow, which jumpstarts your energy level by sending extra oxygen to your brain.

~Woman’s World

chewing gum can slow down aging.

Nothing ages your heart, brain, kidneys and skin faster that the stress hormone cortisol, says Ronald Klatz, M.D., of the American Academy of anti-Aging Medicine.  To the rescue: a piece of gum!

Proof that it works:

In an Australian study, two sets of people were asked to complete the same stressful tasks. The only difference: Half were told to chew sugarless gum, too. Result: Cortisol levels in the gum chewers 16 % lower than in the non-gum chewers! That’s because chewing gum boosts blood flow to the brain, easing the stress response.

this tip for reversing winter weight gain. Trade in those sweats for your jeans. Many of us pull out our warmest sweats when the temps drop, but research shows loose -fitting clothes can contribute to weight gain because they don’t give you any warning that you’ve overindulged. Keep the extra weight off by wearing a pair of jeans that fits your waist.

~Woman’s World

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how peppermint can make you feel less tired.  The scent of mint increases activity in the area of the brain responsible for alertness and arousal, says Brian Raudenbush, Ph.D. In fact, research shows it can even reduce driver fatigue and car accidents.  A study at the University of Cincinnati found that volunteers who did a task requiring mental acuity finished faster in a peppermint-scented room, and other studies have found peppermint can make atheletes perform better and work harder without even noticing! So grab a candy cane and enjoy!

Enter the first sentence of said article: “Loneliness is like a disease — and what’s worse, it’s contagious.”

Not only is it contagious, these researchers declare, it can be passed on indirectly – as in to a friend of a friend of a friend. Or maybe even to a friend’s uncle’s parrot, for that matter.

The icing on the cake? The study was federally funded. As in your tax dollars went to pay for it.

Many would argue if you hang around a negative person, you can begin to feel negative yourself – or at least uncomfortable with all that negativity. You know, a “birds of a feather” mentality” (which by the way, these researchers insist plays no part in the disease that is loneliness). But if you are lonely, how many people are you hanging out with in the first place? And before you decide to chime in with the ol’ adage of how you can be surrounded by people, and still feel lonely, save it for the Washington Post reporter, who also had this to say about the study:

“The seemingly paradoxical finding is far more than a psychological curiosity. Loneliness has been linked to a variety of medical problems, including depression, sleep problems and generally poorer physical health. Identifying some of the causes could help reduce the emotion and improve health, experts said.”

Well, DUH!! How are those finding a paradox? Anyone? A decade-long study just showed what anyone with an ounce of common sense could deduce on their own.

Of course, the research is not without nay-sayers, who conducted their own research, which could probably rank even more insane than the research in question (and yes, that research was federally funded as well):

“It is unclear whether their statistical model will ‘find’ social contagion in every outcome they examine because of the limitations,” Jason M. Fletcher of Yale University wrote in an e-mail. He and a colleague conducted a similar analysis using data from a large federal survey to show that acne, headaches and even height could appear to be spread through social networks if not analyzed properly.”

This is the point at which I tell you I am almost speechless. Except to say you may want to pick your friends via a more thorough vetting process. Ask those pointed questions:

• Are you, or have you ever been lonely?
• When was the last time you’re face broke out with zits?
• Does your head currently hurt? Has it hurt in the last week? In the last month?
• How tall are you and those with whom you hang out? Do you wish you were taller? Shorter?

Clearly, we have a pandemic on our hands, here. But it’s not loneliness. It’s the inability of people to draw common sense conclusions without spending our tax dollars to fund years and years of research. Loneliness might well be the least of our worries.

-Liz

how to beat stress by faking it. A simple way to reduce stress and anxiety it to pretend you’re calm. When study subjects spoke in a relaxed tone, their blood pressure and stress levels dropped in minutes.  “Your speech has a profound effect on your own mood,” confirms John Garrison, Ph.D., director of the Lahey Clinic’s Stress Management Program in Burlington, Massachusetts.

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how to fight fat with a whole egg.  Say goodbye to that old diet standby, the egg white, and welcome back the yolk.  Turns out egg yolks are loaded with lecithin, a fatlike substance produced in the liver that helps block fat storage, and the B vitamon chlorine, which raises your metabolism.  No wonder that, in one study, folks who enjoyed two whole eggs for breakfast lost twice as much weight and had an 83% greater decrease in waist size compared to those eating a bagel with the same amount of calories! Bonus: Egg yolks are packed with so many essential vitamins and nutrients that enjoying two a day is better than taking a multivitamin, experts say.

Concerned about cholesterol? Multiple studies show that regularly eating two eggs a day does not affect a person’s cholesterol.

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