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Some Yoga DVDs to Help You Through Your Pregnancy

Yoga For Your Pregnancy

A 45 minute DVD broken up into two segments, Yoga For Your Pregnancy, is designed to limber up women who are expecting a child and revitalize their energy level. Yoga Journal’s DVD is great for beginners, featuring alternate poses for women who can’t stretch, and doesn’t expect you to be a Yoga guru.

The first section, entitled “Energizing and Stretching,” is 30 minutes long and is designed to create strength and stamina. The goal is, of course, to prepare you for the intense efforts required during labor. It is also, however, meant to help you cope with your constantly changing body.

Section Two, “Relaxing and Rejuvenating,” is focused on meditation and concentration. It is designed to help you relax and learn how to breathe in preparation for labor. This section also contains a Lamaze interview.

While this DVD is likely to disappoint regular Yoga practitioners, it is great for women who are looking for physical relief during their pregnancy and labor. With clear explanation and a relaxing teacher, Yoga For Your Pregnancy is a wonderful way to reduce the pain and stiff muscles you experience as a pregnant woman. However far along you are, you are certain to find some poses and techniques that relieve some of your problems.

Prenatal Yoga

A fantastic Yoga DVD designed for women experiencing pregnancy. This video is broken up into three 45 minute sessions, each corresponding to a trimester of your pregnancy.

Each session is hosted by a different women and is set to some nice, flowing music to really get you in the Yoga mood.

The poses are specially modified for your changing body, so you’ll be able to follow the DVD through without worrying about hurting yourself or your baby.

If you’re an experienced Yoga master, this DVD might not be your cup of tea. For those pregnant woman who are looking for a way to keep fit and relieve some of those new aches and pains, give this DVD a try.

Ian Byrd runs yogaondvd.com, a resouce for helping you find the perfect Yoga DVD for you. Read more reviews of Yoga DVDs for Pregnancy.

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Vitamins How To Keep Your Body Healthy By Using Vitamins Safely

Vitamins are an important part of a health diet. Unlike carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, vitamins do not directly provide building blocks or energy for your body; vitamins function as assistants to your body in creating and breakdown down building blocks and storing and releasing energy.

Vitamins come in two basic types: water-soluble and fat-soluble (see the table on the website below)

Quick-Guide to Vitamins by Shoppe.MD Online Pharmacy

If your diet generally follows the USDA Food Guide Pyramid, you will get the recommended daily allowances of vitamins (the amount people generally need). But there are many reasons why these guidelines might not get us the vitamins we need.

* Day-to-day living: In the rush of daily life, it may be hard to eat a consistently balanced diet. Sometimes we skip meals or buy them from sources (like fast-food restaurants) where we do not have easy access to information about nutritional value.

* Pregnancy: If you are pregnant (or breastfeeding), you may need to significantly change your vitamin intake. Folic acid is crucial to the brain and nervous system development of, but at the same time an excess of other vitamins (including vitamin A) can cause serious fetal injury.

* Seniority: Seniors often have difficulties eating or digesting certain foods, including those that can provide vitamins

* Diets: Being on low-calorie diets or diets that restrict certain types of food can significantly impact getting enough of all kinds of vitamins.

So for many of us, vitamin supplements will be helpful in getting and staying healthy. But like anything else we do for our health, it’s as important to know the risks as the benefits.

* The “Too Much of a Good Thing” Trap: Vitamins in the proper doses are good for you. But many vitamins are toxic in large quantities, so taking more than enough may be a bad idea. Excess vitamin A can lead to nausea, vomiting, and peeling skin, and over the long-term can lead to significant damage to bones, brain and nerves. It can also be very dangerous for a developing fetus. Vitamin E can cause a rise in LDL (”bad”) cholesterol, and like all fat-soluble vitamins, is stored in the liver, so if you take a little bit extra every day, the impact can show up over time. Even vitamin D, the bone-building vitamin, can actually encourage bone loss if taken in excess.

* Vitamins are not food: Vitamins are sometimes called “micronutrients.” Small doses can keep us healthy. However, they are not a substitute for the food that your body needs to make energy and rebuild damaged tissue. Diets that severely restrict or eliminate proteins, fats, or carbohydrates can impair functioning, and vitamins cannot make up for that.

* Fetuses and children are not grown-ups: Children have special vitamins for a reason - their bodies need different things than adults do. Treat children’s supplements like any other medication; they may taste like candy, but letting your child take more than the recommended dose can have significant consequences. To keep a fetus growing steadily and correctly, a vitamin discussion should be part of your regular prenatal care.

Dietary Guidelines for Americans, www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines

U.S.D.A. ” Food Guide Pyramid,” www.usda.gov/cnpp/pyramid2.htm

“Getting enough vitamins. Do you need to supplement a healthy diet?”
Mayo Clinic Womens Healthsource. Volume 3, Issue March 7, p 4-5, 2003

Kmietowicz , Z. “Food watchdog warns against high doses of vitamins and minerals,”
British Medical Journal Volume 326, Issue1001, 2003

Oakley, GP and Mandel JS, “Folic acid fortification remains an urgent health priority,”
British Medical Journal, Volume 329, Issue 7479, p1375-1376, 2004

Copyright (C) Shoppe.MD and Ian Mason, 2004-2005

Ian Mason, owner of Shoppe.MD, your source for Online Prescription Medications, drug information and support forums.

Ian is a fat-to-fit student of health, weight loss, exercise, and several martial arts; maintaining several websites in an effort to help provide up-to-date and helpful information for other who share his interests in health of body and mind.

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How to Get Rid of Stretch Marks - Do Creams Really Help

What Are Stretch Marks? How does a Cream Help?

Most girls and women have stretch marks in common areas on their thighs, butt, breasts and pelvic juncture where their thighs meet there waist from rapid weight gain or loss, sudden growth height wise, and pregnancy. Stretch marks are caused
when the tissue underneath the skin is suddenly pulled by rapid growth or stretching of the surrounding skin (common in adolescent girls and boys due to the rapid and sudden growth spurts that happen around that time), and are often difficult to get rid of.

Although stretch marks may fade over time, they usually do not completely go away without the help of an effective stretch mark cream treatment or expensive dermatologist-administered treatments such as agressive laser therapy of agressive microdermabrasion treatment.

Although the skin is usually fairly elastic, when it’s overstretched such as during times of rapid growth as in pregnancy, rapid weight gain and loss, or growth spurts, the normal production of collagen (the most important protein that actually makes up the connective tissue in your skin) is disrupted. As a result, white scars called stretch marks may form, which stand out from the normal pigmentation of the skin
due to their bright white or pinkish/purplish color.

How to Effectively Get Rid of Stretch Marks

Getting rid of stretch marks involves a little patience and determination in administering an effective stretch mark
cream only the affected areas, as well as perhaps using a little extra pressure when massaging the cream into the affected area, for added absorption as well as adding more pliability the area and circulation, which helps to regulate the pigmentation back to its normal state. You should see a substantial improvement in the marks and coloration within a few weeks of this technique and administration of the product.

Some of the best natural stretch mark products on the market today have a superior ability to dramatically increase the skins elasticity, and prevent and treat stretch marks by preventing their root causes - lack of elasticity and sudden stretching or trauma. If you aren’t so sure, I encourage you to do a little investigation on how to get rid of stretch marks and you’ll probably see before and after pictures of people who have used good creams and had some pretty amazing results in doing so.

Some of the suggestions commonly given to improve the appearance of stretch marks are typically to visit a
dermatologist for fairly expensive and lengthy therapies which help to lessen the appearance of the stretch marks, and
help them to “blend in” with the rest of the skin rather than remain hyper-pigmented or not pigmented at all.

There is also a fairly good suggestion of using self tanners as a cover up for problem areas, but while this does improve their
appearance for many people, it still does not actually get rid of the stretch mark itself, rather it covers them up
temporarily, so it’s really kind of like treating the symptom instead of the disease itself - if you know what I mean.

Stretch Mark Cream - How it Helps Get Rid of Stretch Marks and Why

There may be several ingredients in creams which, together, smooth out the skin, and “blends” the pigmentation back together, helping the redness or white appearance, while helping to bring the skin back together (almost as if it’s “filling in the gaps”) that were caused when the trauma of rapid growth, weight gain or weight loss occurred.

A good cream will help to fade and diminish existing stretch marks, and will also be an EXCELLENT preventive tool if you
are planning a pregnancy and are worried about getting stretch marks. Prevention is key, because if you catch them
before they are fully formed, due to dramatically increased skin elasticity, they will never become a problem!

Some of the Ingredients in Strech Mark Creams May Be, But are Not Limited to:

10% Squalene Oil

Vitamin E

Vitamin A Palmitate

Vitamin D3

DL-Penthenol

Aloe Vera Extract

Grapefruit Seed Extract

Visit Stretch Mark Cream : How to Get Rid of Stretch Marks for more information on a complete stretch mark cream solution containing all of the natural ingredients mentioned in this article. Danna Schneider is the founder of CosmeticsGalore : Skin Care Product Reviews.

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