Hands
Dry, rough cuticles; chapped, flaky fingertips; chipped, brittle nails: these are all signs of hands in need of a little TLC! The most common hand and nail wreckers are harsh detergents and water, both of which stress nail fibers and dry your skin. Make sure you always wear gloves when washing dishes, and use lots of hand lotion throughout the day. If you find yourself washing your hands frequently, you may consider purchasing an antibacterial hand lotion, which can help reduce your trips to the sink.

For a manicure that can’t be beat, follow these easy steps.
Soak your hands in warm water with lemon juice or olive oil and apply our Natural Cuticle Softener (below) to loosen dirt and soften your cuticles. Massage your fingertips. Dry your hands, and then clean with a brush.

Apply a base coat to your nails holding the brush parallel to the tip of your nail and sweep topcoat under nail to prevent polish chipping.

Apply nail polish. If you’re in a hurry, use a light or sheer shade that is less likely to reveal mistakes. Use thin layers of color; lots of thin layers are less likely to chip or flake than thick layers. Apply a top coat.

If you’re struggling to achieve the perfect French Manicure, color in the nail tip with white nail pencil. This is much easier than polish and lasts just as long! Remember to apply a top coat.

Finish by fixing runny spots or smudges on your cuticles by dipping a cotton swab in polish remover and dabbing on problem area.

Moisturize your hands with lotion when nail polish is completely dry.

To extend the life of your manicure, apply a coat of clear polish every other day.

Feet
Why spend the summer hiding your feet in clumsy clogs or sweaty sneakers? Pedicures are just as easy as manicures, and the results will have you wearing strappy sandals from spring to fall!

Follow these steps to get great looking, healthy feet.
Remove calluses and rough spots with a loofah or pumice stone and apply an exfoliating scrub. Treat cracked heals by applying mashed ripe banana to the affected area. Leave on for 10 minutes, then wash and rinse the area.

Apply our Natural Cuticle Softener (below) to cuticles and gently push them back with your fingertips. Soak your feet in warm water for 10 minutes.

Massage your feet with moisturizing lotion. When lotion has been completely absorbed, clean the surface of your toenails with an astringent (witch hazel works well) applied to a cotton swab.

Apply a base coat followed by nail polish. If you are short on time, use a sheer or light colored polish to minimize mistakes. Tip: separate toes with cotton balls or mini-sponges before applying base coat to keep polish smudge-free.

Natural Cuticle Softener
Mix 1 egg yolk, 2 tbsp. pineapple juice, 1 tsp. almond oil, and 1 tbsp. aloe vera juice into a pasty consistency. Apply to cuticles of clean hands or feet, leave on for 5 minutes and rinse with warm water. Push cuticles back and apply moisturizer.

 Most of us view calories with dread and seem to forget that we can’t live without them. Different bodies need different amounts of them to function efficiently. Determining that number is fairly simple, and doing it may help you stay within the amount that’s right for you.

The three areas that figure into your calorie needs are:
your basal metabolic rate,
your activity level, and
digestion and absorption.

Follow the four simple steps below to calculate how many of those life-giving calories you can enjoy each day.

Your basal metabolic rate (BMR):
This is the energy it takes to keep your involuntary body processes going. About 60 percent of the calories you consume are used for such things as breathing, maintaining body temperature, manufacturing hormones and keeping your heart beating. It takes roughly 10 calories per pound of body weight to meet those needs. A 120-pound woman, for example, will need 10 x 120, or 1,200, calories each day just to function.

Keep in mind that many factors can affect your BMR. For every decade beyond the growth years (about age 20), for instance, your caloric needs drop about two percent. A 30-year-old may need 1,200 minus (2 percent x 1,200) = 1,176. Your body build, which is largely inherited, is another factor — tall, thin types burn more calories because they have a larger surface area , and more calories are burned to maintain normal body temperature. Men, on average, have more muscle than women, so they too need more calories.

* Exercise. Depending on the length and intensity of your exercise, you can boost your BMR for several hours afterward.
* Diet. Severe dieting can reduce your BMR as your body attempts to conserve calories. This is a survival tactic and not a good idea for a healthy lifestyle.
* Increase muscle mass. Muscle burns more calories than fat. The greater your ratio of lean to fat, the more calories you will burn.

Caloric needs for physical activity.
About 30 percent of your calories fuel any physical activity you do, from scratching your nose to running a marathon. Of course, the marathon will take significantly more than an additional 30 percent. To figure how many calories you need for your level of activity, multiply the calories needed for BMR by the percentage that matches your activity level:

20 percent, sedentary (mainly sitting all day)
30 percent, light activity (such as walking to and from the bus stop, cooking dinner, etc.)
40 percent, moderate activity (very little sitting, heavy housework and gardening)
50 percent, very active (construction work, and active and prolonged physical sports)

Calories needed for digestion:
About 10 percent of your caloric intake goes for fueling digestion and absorbing nutrients. To determine your caloric needs for this, add the calories for BMR and the calories for physical activity, and then multiply the total by 10 percent.

Total daily caloric needs:
Now add up the calories for each purpose to determine your total energy needs. ____calories for BMR + ____calories for activity + ____calories for digestion = ____calories for all your energy needs
Take me, for example.

BMR calories = 115 pounds x 10 calories per pound = 1,150 Activity calories = (computer, housework, 45 minutes of exercise) 35 percent x 1,150 = 402
Digestion calories = 10 percent x (1,150 + 402) = 155
Total calories = 1,150 + 402 + 155 = 1,707
To be honest, I’ll have to factor in my age of 43 and decrease that need by 4 percent. So my total estimated daily caloric need is 1,707 minus (4 percent x 1,667) = 1639 calories.

To lose or gain weight:
One pound equals 3,500 calories. To lose weight, you need to eat 3,500 calories less for each pound you want to lose or increase physical activity while maintaining your current level of eating (or a little of both). To gain a pound, do the same in reverse.

Remember that the number you have calculated was determined in the abstract. The best way to figure the number of calories you need is to tune in to your body. Listen for signs of hunger or fullness, not only in what your stomach says, but also in how you feel and how much energy you have. The more you listen, the better you’ll hear. Combine what your body is telling you, what the books and math are telling you, and come to your own conclusions about how much you need to eat. Then enjoy those life-giving calories for all their worth.

Which Plastics Are Safe for Lunchbox Use

Which Plastics Are Safe for Lunchbox Use?
With all the recent press about plastics leaching harmful chemicals into food, we want to be sure we’re using the safest materials in our children’s lunchboxes.

Get the scoop on which plastics are safe to use right here:

Simple Solution:
Chemicals that leach from plastic containers into food include suspected carcinogens or endocrine disrupters, which have been linked to reproductive system harm. Plastic used for containers can be identified by their recycling codes, as listed in this article.

Most wraps on pre-packaged foods lack identifying symbols. Here is a great list from The Green Guide Institute from which you can tell at a glance the plastics that are safe for food storage and those that aren’t:

As a precaution, you can unwrap these foods and store them in nontoxic glass, ceramic or steel bowls, or Ziploc bags (made of LDPE). Heat promotes leaching:

To be safest, never microwave or heat foods in plastics.

1. Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE or PET): No known hazards.

2. High Density Polyethylene (HDPE): No known hazards.

3. Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC or vinyl): Plasticizers are added to many PVC products to make them flexible. These include phthalates — suspected endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), DEHA, another possible EDC, was found to leach from PVC cling wraps into cheese. Grocery stores commonly use PVC to wrap deli meats and cheeses. Reyonds cling wrap is PVC. Some waters and vegetable oils are bottled in PVC. Ad PVC’s manufacture and incineration produces highly toxic dioxins, as does the PVDC used in Saran Wrap, according to Consumers Union.

4. Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE): No known hazards.

5. Polypropylene (PP): No known hazards.

6. Polystyrene (PS or Styrofoam): Made from styrene, a suspected carcinogen, PS also contains p-nonylphenol; both chemicals are suspected EDCs. Do not consumer fatty foods or alcoholic beverages from Styrofoam containers; styrene can leach into these substances. Some opaque plastic cutlery is PS, as well.

7. Other Resins, including Polycarbonate (PC): Most clear plastic baby bottles and 5-gallon water bottles are made of PC. Bisphenol-A EDC in PC, has been found in water and heated infant formulas bottles in PC, as well as food cans lined with a plastic film.

Everyone knows that exercise gets our blood pumping, burns fat and calories, and reduces the chances of developing heart disease and obesity, among other maladies. But now a growing body of evidence suggests that even as few as 10 minutes of activity a day can bolster your mental health and leave you thinking more clearly and feeling happier and less stressed. People who exercise report feeling better in general — even after just one workout. Here, five ways that exercise revs up your state of mind.

1. Exercise boosts brain power.
“We know that regular physical activity improves reaction time, concentration, creativity and mental vigor, Most likely, that’s because it improves the body’s ability to pump blood, which boosts the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream and speeds up blood flow to the brain. Experts believe that all of these changes encourage quicker physical and mental reactions.

2. Exercise helps fight aging.
In a recent study, researchers found that doing something as simple as walking on a regular basis helps prevent mental slowdown in women over 65, and the longer and more often they walk, the greater the mental edge. Best of all: Most people reap these stay-sharp benefits after just nine weeks of thrice-weekly workouts. The sessions don’t have to be high intensity, It’s enough to just move around and get your heart rate up.

3. Exercise stops stress in its tracks.
Exercise can reduce anxiety and may even help you deal with anger. The reason is simple: It’s tough to focus on unpaid bills and looming work deadlines when you’re running your heart out on the treadmill. Aside from helping you forget about that mile-long to-do list, regular aerobic exercise also boosts your cardiovascular fitness, which may actually make you less likely to overreact to problems and able to recover more quickly from major life stressors. Rhythmic, repetitive aerobic activities, such as walking, cycling, swimming and jogging, are best for busting stress, as are more obviously meditative pursuits, such as yoga.

4. Exercise gives you a natural high.
Whether you prefer your workouts short and intense or long and leisurely, exercise can boost levels of feel-good chemicals in the brain, such as adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine and endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. (How else could a marathoner run 26.2 miles and have fun doing it?) A study conducted in England found that 83% of people with mental health problems relied on exercise to improve their mood and reduce anxiety. For people with mild or moderate depression, we now know that exercising over a period of at least 16 weeks can have the same mood-boosting effects as prescription antidepressants such as Zoloft and Prozac.

Researchers found that 60% of people suffering from depression for four months who worked out for 30 minutes three times a week were able to overcome the blues without using any medication. One possible reason for the activity-induced boost: Exercisers seem to spend less time in the REM phase of sleep, a period during which the body stops producing serotonin, the depression-fighting brain chemical. But whatever the physiological reason, exercise is definitely a powerful drug. “This doesn’t mean people should just stop taking their medication, especially if they have severe depression. But many psychologists are now writing a prescription for three weekly dates at the gym, along with the latest blues-busting medication.

5. Exercise boosts self-esteem.
It stands to reason that getting stronger, leaner and more adept at an activity can have a positive impact on self-esteem. Indeed, one recent study found that teenagers who are active in sports have a greater sense of well-being than their sedentary peers. There’s a fine line, though, between committing to regular workouts and obsessing about getting to the gym. “The stress should be on achieving a healthy body image” and improving your fitness level, not on looking like some scrawny model on the cover of a fashion magazine.

Tofu, oats, broccoli, juice cited as alternatives

Children who drink more milk do not necessarily develop healthier bones, researchers said in a report that stresses exercise and modest consumption of calcium-rich foods such as tofu.

The U.S. government has gradually increased recommendations for daily calcium intake, largely from dairy products, to between 800 and 1,300 milligrams to promote healthy bones and prevent osteoporosis.

But the report, published in the journal Pediatrics, said boosting consumption of milk or other dairy products was not necessarily the best way to provide the minimal calcium intake of at least 400 milligrams per day.

Other ways to obtain the absorbable calcium found in one cup of cow’s milk include a cup of fortified orange juice, a cup of cooked kale or turnip greens, two packages of instant oats, two-thirds cup of tofu, or 1 2/3 cups of broccoli, the report said.

In a review of 37 studies examining the impact of calcium consumption on bone strength in children older than 7, researchers at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington found 27 did not support drinking more milk to boost calcium.

The PCRM identifies itself as a “research advocacy” group which opposes unethical human experiments and promotes alternatives to animal experiments.

“Currently, available evidence does not support nutrition guidelines focused specifically on increasing milk or other dairy product intake for promoting child and adolescent bone mineralization,” lead researcher Amy Lanou wrote.

Several studies, which examined such factors as bone density and rate of fractures, concluded that exercise may be more important than increased calcium consumption in developing strong bones.

Data was scarce on the effect of calcium intake for children younger than 7 years.

Dairy products provide 18 percent of the total energy and 25 percent of the total fat intake in the diets of American children, who are developing increasing rates of obesity.

In an accompanying commentary, Frank Greer, a pediatrician at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said the ideal way to achieve the goal of healthy bones is to make sure children exercise and consume up to 1,300 milligrams a day of calcium.

The easiest way to get that calcium is from low-fat dairy products, which also contain valuable nutrients such as vitamin D, which is generally not available from other dietary sources, he wrote.

Dioxin in paper and chemicals in plastics can migrate into food. For example, everyone knows the taste of plastic found in plastic- bottled water that has been left in the sun. One should go to extremes to eliminate the circumstances that can cause such migrations of chemicals into food because some plastics can disrupt hormones. The following guidelines should help give you ideas of how to avoid food contamination from packaging.

Simple Solution:

12 Ways to Avoid Packaging Toxins

1. Plastic tends to migrate into fatty foods, especially hot fatty foods. Don’t leave cheese wrapped in its plastic wrapper sitting in the sun! Cool leftovers before placing in plastic storage containers.

2. Plastic wrap should never come into direct contact with fatty food in the microwave. It is also important not to use leftover margarine or yogurt tubs in the microwave. Use ceramic or glass cookware instead.

3. Microwavable packages should be avoided. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) migrates from the packaging into the food, as do the adhesive components (and their degraded products) of the package.

4. A 1988 FDA study of microwavable packaging components, called heat susceptors, showed that low levels of the carcinogen benzene could migrate into food when heated.

5. Skip the boil-in-a-plastic bag foods, as well as sous vide foods–foods that are vacuum packed.

6. When you can, replace plastic cups and other eating utensils that come into contact with hot fatty foods with glass or metal. For example, instead of buying a plastic thermos, consider a metal one.

7. As much as possible, avoid food, water, and other beverages sold in plastic containers and bottles. For example, try to buy water from distributors who can deliver large glass jugs in convenient dispensers.

8. Package components can migrate into wet food, especially if the food contains alcohol, acid, or fat.

9. Use substitutes for bleached paper products that can come in contact with food, such as gold coffee filters and glass bottles.

10. Avoid packaging with antioxidant preservatives such as BHT, an additive with a questionable safety record.

11. Avoid buying imported food in cans sealed by soldering the soldering may contain lead. Lead-soldered cans are bumpy feeling under the seam, as opposed to seamless or welded cans.

12. Many cans have plastic coatings that line the inside of the can out of concern that the metal might contaminate the food. Eighty-five percent of the cans sold in the United States have such linings, and the plastic coating leaches substances into the food, which can disrupt the hormonal system, according too Our Stolen Future. When you buy the cans there is no way to tell which cans are lined with plastic and which aren’t.

It sounds too good to be true. Nothing so fabulous should be quite so easy to attain. There must be a catch.

Researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego have found two drugs that greatly increased the athletic endurance of laboratory mice, converting lazy mice and their more athletic brethren into marathon runners. One drug, fed to relatively sedentary mice, increased their endurance on a treadmill by 44 percent after just four weeks of treatment. The other drug had no effect on sedentary mice but raised endurance by 77 percent in mice that exercised regularly.

As described by Nicholas Wade in The Times on Friday, the pills trick the muscles into thinking they have been working out furiously, thereby generating more high-endurance fibers. If the pills work the same way in humans — a very big “if” — this could be great news for those who want to exercise without actually exercising. And for athletes looking for yet another chemical boost.

Of course, there could be downsides. Harmful side effects might turn up unexpectedly. (Muscle-bound brains? A life of sloth waiting for the next miracle pill to turn ne’er-do-wells into overachievers?)

Any Olympian caught using the drugs would most likely be expelled from the Games or lose ill-gotten medals. The researchers have already devised a test to detect use of the muscle-enhancing drugs and have made it available to doping officials who police the Olympics.

If the drugs work, and the tests do too, at least cheating-prone athletes will be able to stay in shape while watching the Games from their couches.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Annie Lennox says complacency threatens to slow the fight against AIDS.

The singer-songwriter is participating in the international AIDS conference in Mexico City this week as an ambassador for Oxfam.

On Saturday, she urged artists, musicians, filmmakers and women to keep the issue at the forefront. She says, “This dialogue must not go off the table.”

Lennox has launched a campaign called “Sing”, which includes a song she recorded with 23 female singers to raise money for AIDS. She also is campaigning on behalf of South African women and children infected with HIV.

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First, there was krumping, the spasmic, freestyle hip-hop dance out of South Central L.A. You probably weren’t much good at it. It went global anyway. You might have it confused with crunk. That’s hip-hop, too. Southern, thumping, also fast. Usher had a hit with it a few years back.

O.K. Now it’s time to krank. This is not hip-hop. But it’s going to be huge. To experience Kranking®, you’ll need a Krankcycle®, and, for the moment, one of the few places you can find one in New York is at the Reebok Sports Club/NY, on Columbus Avenue. Avery Washington offers introductory classes. Picture ten Krankcycles in a mirrored room—they’re stationary arm bikes, basically, with just a seat, a suspended front wheel, and hand-pedals where handlebars normally go. On a recent morning, half a dozen women were Kranking, hands whirling in front of them, while a mixtape of Danzel, Janet Jackson, and Miguel Migs pounded from Washington’s pink-shelled iPod. Washington, an extensively muscled man wearing a red bandanna, and a certified Kranking instructor, was chanting, “Left, synch it, a little faster, come on, this is where you get the cardio, nice and smooth, right on, nice transition, left and right, both arms working together.”

Why will Kranking be huge? Because, for a start, Johnny G invented it. The last fitness program he invented was Spinning® (stationary bicycling in a group, basically). Spinning went beyond platinum, worldwide, and Johnny G, né Goldberg, rode the craze, which is still going, for all it was worth. He registered every Spinning-related trademark you can think of, did a licensing deal with Schwinn, and then sold it all, along with the instructor-certification program (a hundred and fifty thousand instructors in eighty countries), in 2005. Kranking is his comeback.

“It will be a slowish rollout,” Johnny G said, on the phone from California. “We’ll be in forty countries by March. I’d love to have ninety thousand units out there in the next three, four years. Then we’d be helping a lot of people.”

Helping people is Johnny G’s not-so-secret mission. As he writes in “Kranking® Trainer Philosophy,” a brief essay for the Krankcycle Web site, “It is my wish that all teachers and students realize their importance as human beings and strive for health, peace, wisdom, and success.” Johnny G is fifty-one, a former endurance cyclist, and speaks with a South African accent. There was traffic roaring in the background. He was sitting, he said, on a dune overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway.

The inspiration for the Krankcycle hit him in 2002, at a fund-raiser for challenged athletes. “There were a couple of legless people and, at the foot of the stage, a fourteen-year-old kid with a homemade hand cycle,” he said. “He was tenacious. So I had a go, and was absolutely exhausted in ten minutes.” The next frontier in the fitness business, Johnny G realized, was the upper body. He spent several years, and more than half a million dollars, developing and refining the Krankcycle.

Who came up with the name?

“I did,” he said proudly. “Came up with the spelling myself. The universe blessed me.” He gave a big, unironic laugh.

Back to Kranking class. (Come on, synch it.) Although Avery Washington makes it look easy, Kranking is not yet pulling in the crowds at Reebok Sports Club/NY. It could be the superficial resemblance to some onerous early-industrial assembly-line task—the sort of hard, silly-looking repetition that used to destroy a worker’s body in six months. It looks, let’s admit it, masochistic. Washington tried to mix it up for his group—“stand up, come round front, add some resistance, bounce into it a little”—but he admitted that he might need to mix it up more. “I think I’ll add jump ropes next week,” he said.

During a break, an older woman, slightly wild-eyed, came over. “I’m knocking all the time,” she said. She was talking about having trouble getting the Krankcycle to turn smoothly. “It’s driving me nuts. I love it, but I’m so upset about the knocking.”

Washington said, “You need to be in synch or you get that knocking.” This could be another possible disincentive. Johnny G himself mentioned “dealing with the clunk of the krank arm.”

You will be good at Kranking. It won’t be like krumping. You will realize your importance as a human being, and Kranking will be key. Krankcycles, by the way, won’t be sold through infomercials. They will be available to chiropractors and physiotherapists, but primarily they will be integrated into your workout through the certified gym-instructor network that has helped make Spinning what it is.

That means Avery Washington. He mainly teaches Spinning and body sculpt, which is also known as definition. “Every place calls everything different,” he said evenly.

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Shelf Storage
Store foods in the coolest cabinets or pantry and away on appliances that submit heat. Many staples and canned foods suffer a rather for a while shelf life, but buy merely how you project to use over the period recommended for every product. Put dates on the food offerings too are not date coded and use the oldest first. Geographic state leads storage time. Warm and humid climates shorten the shelf-life of foods. Buy packaged food in fresh-looking packages. Dusty cans or torn labels may imply old stock. Also stopping for attractiveness dates. Carefully probe dented cans for leakage and rust before buying. Do not arrangement exceptionally dented and bulging cans.

Refrigerator Storage
Store food in the property refrigerator based on what i read in 34 to 40°F (1 to 3°C). Foods spoil fast above 40°F (3°C). The temperature in frostless and self-defrosting refrigerators is pretty uniform for the duration of the cabinet, plus the storage district in the door. In refrigerators the current have got to be defrosted manually, the coldest region outside the freezing unit is the chill tray clearly short of it. The neighborhood at the lower end of the cabinet is the warmest. The door and hydrator storage region are for the most part the majority of levels bigger as opposed to the rest of the refrigerator. When air circulates in the refrigerator, the cooler air moves down and forces the warmer air pretty near the ground to rise. The air motion dries out any uncovered or unwrapped food. In several refrigerators, in on the control set for routine operation, the temperature in the entire storage district is underneath 40°F (3°C). You can investigate the temperature in a refrigerator by placing a refrigerator thermometer at numerous environment in the cabinet. If the temperature is above 40°F (3°C), regulate the control to dwindle the temperatures. Frequent opening of the refrigerator door, remarkably on warm humid days, or an accumulation of thick frost on the freezing unit, shoots up the temperature of the refrigerator. Use food stored in the refrigerator quickly. Don’t depend on maximum storage time. Clean the refrigerator slowly to cut downhill on food odors. Remove spoiled foods right out to hold off decay based on data from soaring to a great deal more foods.

Freezer Storage
The perfect temperature for frozen food storage is at 0°F (-17°C). The temperature will not get in touch with even greater as opposed to 5°F (-15°C). Check the temperature in on a thermometer, or use the present norm of thumb: If the freezer will not stay ice cream brick-solid, the temperature is above the recommended level. The freezing compartments of a couple of property refrigerators are not calculated to find a temperature of 0°F, the temperature needed for prolonged storage of frozen foods. Hold frozen foods in these types of compartments easily a few days. In refrigerator freezers at which temperature can be maintained at 0°F (-17°C) in the freezer cabinet, food may be kept for the same storage periods as in a freezer. Date food offerings amid an “expiration date” according to maximum storage period recommended if properties are not date coded. Longer storage is not dangerous, but flavors and textures deteriorate. Package frozen foods in moisture-vapor-proof (MVP) offerings or freezer containers. Holes in freezer products instigate freezer burn. When shopping, select up frozen foods only before being offered to the checkouts. Purchase alone the foods so are frozen solid. Place them in the housing freezer as quickly as possible. Cook or thaw according to label instructions. Place foods to be frozen in the coldest portion of the freezer. Freeze no larger amount of as opposed to 3 pounds per cubic lower end of freezer space throughout 24 hours. Keep the freezer complete for most ideal results. Also continue a written supply of freezer contents.