Happy No Tobacco Day!!

Yesterday was No Tobacco Day. I missed it by a coupla hours, but I still wanted to encourage those of you who are fighting the urge to light up to kick the habit while you still can!

Trust me...it’s NOT easy, but it IS worth it! I should know.. it wasn’t easy for me, but it WAS worth it!

Good luck with that! Do let the rest of us know how you’re able to pull out of it. Everyone uses a different route, and it’d be nice to know which one you took.

Important diet tip

The most important asset you can make use of when trying to maintain a healthy weight is self-control. You can go through various rigorous diets, multiple eating plans, dieticians, health experts, yoga, therapy, liposuction, etc, but without self-discipline, it will all come to naught. 

I came to find this out when I began my diet-conscious outlook on life. I found it was much easier to just skip a meal, rather than to ensure that my meals were healthy, balanced and regular. 

In my next post, I'm going to be including a 8 meal a day diet plan that I made for myself a while back. I found it to be extremely helpful, and after just two short weeks, I found I had already lost 5 kgs! But more on that later!

If you want your diet to yield good results, remember that regularity and self-discipline is a must. Without this you will find itextremely difficult and possibly even impossible to attain your healthy-you goal. 

Stay focued and maintain your self-discipline!

Lord, I love my lassi!

I’ve been getting into this habit of drinking 400 ml of salted lassi every morning before I start my day. (Mother Dairy has these 6 rupee packs of 200ml each.) I know it ends up making me feel refreshed, but I wanted to get the ‘inside scoop’ on what it really does for a person. I ended up using Google to research it and here’s what I found.

Wikipedia says: “Traditional mild salted lassi - This form of lassi is more common in villages of Punjab. It is prepared by blending curd with water and adding salt, pepper and other spices as per the requirements. The drink thus produced is known as Salted lassi.”

Some health benefits of lassi:
o Summer coolant – helps to rehydrate and refresh the body. It is especially helpful during summers where the body needs coolants to guard against excessive heat.
o Gastroenteritis cure – Gastroenteritis is an inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract. Lassi helps to cure the acute diarrhea caused by this illness.
o Helps the digestive process.

 Well, that’s pretty much all I found on it. I was hoping to get at least 10 different lassi benefits off the net, but I guess this’ll do. 

All I can say is that it’s good! Try it, I’m sure you’ll like it!

Women use public bathrooms? Ew!

Are you one of those women who find using public toilets against the grain of your being? Do you walk into a public restroom and go ‘Ew!’? Is your first reaction to stop drinking liquids on a long trip so that your visits to the less-than-hygienic restroom stops along the way are infrequent? If you are, shake my hand on it. I’m another one of those germ-conscious, I-hate-using-public-restroom people. 

Unfortunately though, no matter what precautions we take, there will always be that inevitable ‘I gotta go now!’ situation where your mind simply does not yield to taking control over the matter. In those odd and sometimes freaky situations (local public restrooms and the like) there are ways in which you can keep yourself clean and still do your thing. 

Here are some methods I’ve found to be especially clean and helpful. I hope it’s a help to those of you out there who are conscious and find it awkward to deal with such situations. 

Take ‘The Stance’
The Stance is something every mother teaches to her daughter. If not, some kind friend while growing up will show you the way. It’s just one of those ‘must have’ skills. 

Using The Stance skill, is not difficult at all. Anyone with legs that can reach the floor can do it. You just do your thing without actually sitting on that seat. 

Always carry tissue paper 
In my experience in India, it’s a 50/50 chance as to whether or not you will actually find this ‘luxury’ in many public restrooms. 

Make it a point to ALWAYS carry some with you. If not for this, then it’ll come in handy in some other way – as a first-aid help, as a way to dry your hands, etc. Keep it handy.

Another way you can use your tissue stash, is by laying it out over the toilet seat so you can actually sit down on that seat without having to wonder if the woman before you had anything you may catch.

Wet/ Antibacterial wipes
I used to carry a box of wet wipes with me everywhere I went, although my handbag would often get heavy and I have to admit that I ended up chucking it out of my daily carry-on luggage. Instead I found a nice alternative to that: antibacterial wipes. 

Antibacterial wipes are perfect for wiping your hands after using a public restroom, especially if there is no running water or clean soaps available (which I have often found to be the case). 

See if you can get the individually wrapped antibacterial wipes, as it’s more practical and hygienic this way.

Hand disinfectant
Now I carry this along with me just incase I run out of wipes, but I should think that if you have the antibacterial wipes with you always, you wouldn’t need this as well. 

I picked up a Pure Hands Herbal Hand Sanitizer by Himalaya at a local Guardian pharmacy the other day and though I’ve yet to use it, just the thought of it being there 'just incase' is reassuring. 

So… there’s my little piece of advice to you fellow women when faced with such dire everyday situations. But it’s not unique for us women, you men can find some good tips in here too!

Can Green Tea Extracts Treat Leukemia?

According to those researching in this field, it IS possible. Mayo Clinic researchers have demonstrated that patients were able to tolerate a fairly high doses of the chemical epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) found in green tea. 

Apparently, many were even able to see some regression as far as their chronic lymphocytic leukemia went. Some of the recline went as far as a 50% reduction in the lymph node size!

Further testing is now on to add stability and exactness to the program.

Make-up for men - Gay? Or natural?

While searching for some tips on lip care, I came across a site called themenpen.com. My initial reaction was to laugh at the title and to write it off as not being for me, since well, I’m no he. I was about to exit the site when I read one of their taglines: “There’s nothing gay about covering up a zit when you go out!” I couldn’t have agreed more and hence my article here! 

Make-up has been largely thought of as for women. In modern times, the thought of using beauty-enhancement products on a man was seen as ‘gay’ or ‘faggish’. This largely helped to condition the international view of the fact that men should not (be allowed to) wear make-up as it is something only women do. However, I beg to disagree.

Cosmetics have been introduced for men as far as back as the early civilizations and perhaps even beyond that time. As a kid I can remember seeing Egyptian rulers in our textbooks and thinking that it was odd how they wore kajal. Reading further into that although, I found that eye makeup was probably the most characteristic of all the Egyptian cosmetic discoveries.

But why go that far away when Indian classical dancers and temple priests too, wear some type of cosmetic products to enhance their eyes, etc. 

The bottom line of it is that cosmetics for men are not unique, and are completely on par with the way things have been in the past, present, and will likely be in the future. 

So pop out those mindsets that wearing make-up is so gay, and pop into your closet a couple of simple beauty-enhancing products! A good everyday collection to have on hand is a cocoa butter chapstick (Body Shop makes a great one!), a man pen (a.k.a – concealer), and possibly a natural shade of eyeliner to add character and color to your eyes. You’ll probably only need eyeliner if you have naturally pale eyes, or faint and light eyelashes. 

I found a simple steps way for a man to wear make-up on wikihow.com. I’m adding the link here as it might be helpful for those of you using make-up for the first time. 

Here’s the link: http://www.wikihow.com/Apply-Makeup-as-a-Man 

Remember that using make-up for men doesn’t make you a drag queen or a fag. It’s normal, it’s natural, and many people the world over use it. Have fun experimenting with what works for you and making yourself look as hot as you can! Cheers..