Weight loss & Health 1of2. Plus Size Chic Fashion Tips and Tricks Episode 10 Fat and Fabulous

I just found this health related video on YouTube … and thought you might enjoy it!

youtube.com/watch?v=ulvkejqHcZs%3Ff%3Dvideos%26app%3Dyoutube_gdata

Link to my Fat & Fabulous Blog, so much more! www.fatandfabulousfashion.com Follow me on Twitter! @FatandFabulous1 My Vintage Fashion Blog! hautehippiebucketlife.blogspot.com Tumblr OOTD: fatandfabulousfashion.tumblr.com Fat & Fabulous, is within the Plus Size community, advocating awareness,tolerance, and acceptance. Plus Size Fashion & News Channel. Spreading the good word on why we should embrace ourselves, and how! This Episode: The 10th episode of a series I am doing on fashion forward tips and tricks for fashonista plus size women! This episode is Part 1 of 4, and includes weight loss tips, tricks, and tools to get true results, the healthy gimick free way! Enjoy, please leave comments and questions, and check back for many more episodes to come!

Tell us what you think about this video in the comments below, or in the Battling For Health Community Forum!
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Goodbye, Battling for Health Community (though I’ll still hang around)

If you wonder why you haven’t heard from me in a while, it’s because I have other fish to fry. Specifically, I have started a new job. And although, this is not strictly a “health” topic, lifestyle is closely linked to health. So bear with me and let me explain the pros and cons of this lifestyle change.

There are several reasons why I decided to give up freelancing and joined the ranks of the employed.

Security

Employment brings regular income for now, and some security (retirement plans, savings etc.) for old age.

Happiness

While freelancing gave me freedom and flexibility, I wasn’t truly happy. In fact, there were times when I was depressed and felt useless. This is not unusual as unemployment is one of the major barriers to happiness.

In the film “Social Network”, Napster founder Sean Parker was asked about his job and he declared he was a “self-employed entrepreneur.” “In other words, you are unemployed,” was the girl’s conclusion.

There were times when I felt “unemployed” during my freelancing days (and so did many people, including family members and friends) and this was probably the main cause of my unhappiness. Let us hope that my new job brings contentment.

Now comes the cons

Time constraints

There is now less time for free time and leisurely pursuits. This is one of the reasons why I am giving up regular posting for Battling for Health. It’s a choice between blog writing and jogging. I hope you understand why I chose the latter.

Stress

I would expect that there will be times when this job will generate high levels of stress. I just hope that I can practice what I’ve been preaching all these time in this blog about stress management.

I love this blog

I’ve been writing for this blog since May 2008. That is more than 2.5 years ago, the last year as the main/sole writer for this site. In this fast-paced digital era, when work and projects and working relationships change within seconds, 2.5 years is almost a lifetime. But I love this blog and I enjoyed and learned a lot from it. I hope you enjoyed and learned a lot from it, too. Thank you for all your support all these years!

My promise

• ·         I won’t be here often but I will be around, be it with an occasional blog post or a stimulating discussion in the Battling for Health forum.
• ·         I will continue to live a healthy life and hope you will do the same. I chose jogging over writing, remember? If I ever manage that marathon run, I’ll let you know.
• ·         I will continue to cheer on those battling the monster diseases.

Hang on there and live healthy, happy and well.
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Career and cancer: do they go together?

Cancer and cancer treatments come with severe symptoms that can interfere with a person’s private and professional life. Many years ago, cancer patients had to stop working during the time when they were battling the disease. Thus, a diagnosis of cancer could then mean the end to a career.  This, however, may have some long term effects on the patient’s well being as well as getting back into normal life after treatments.

Nowadays, about 60 to 80% of cancer patients continue to work or return to their jobs after treatment, according to studies compiled by Rutgers University researchers, as reported in this Boston Globe report.

Why would people want to work through cancer?

• For many people it is a financial necessity.
• It can improve quality of life. Work keeps the mind busy and off the pain and other symptoms.
• It helps some people to heal faster.

Why is working through cancer more feasible now than before?

According to CancerCare Executive Director Diane Blum

“Twenty years ago, being treated for cancer was a full-time job. Now symptoms are managed better, treatment is outpatient. People are often able to live their lives with some semblance of normality.”

However, there are other factors involved as well. For one thing, the attitudes in workplace have changed.

The stigma that comes with being ill, at least with cancer, has lessened over the years. Employers and colleagues are showing more understanding and consideration to cancer victims and survivors. With the aid of technology, flexible working hours and home office are now commonly practiced and widely accepted. The US Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act provides people with severe illness protection from unrightful dismissal due to health problems.

This doesn’t mean that the cancer-work combination is easy. It is very difficult and highly challenging. But this challenge might just be the motivation that a patient needs to get back to his or her feet. However, as long it is medically feasible and appropriate supervised, and as long as the patients get support from the people around her or him, it can work.

According to Stacy Chandler, a social worker at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center:

“People who are living with cancer appreciate kind words and gestures from people, but they also appreciate opportunities to feel normal. Patients are trying to achieve a new normal. It’s a really hard thing to achieve.”

Photo credit: stock.xchng

Wellness programs at the workplace

More and more are spending people more time sitting behind the desk looking at the computer screen than doing physical exercise. This is one of the reasons why obesity and cardiovascular diseases are becoming an epidemic in the developed world.

“Obesity costs U.S. employers more than $13 billion annually and it also adversely affects the quality of life and health of their workers,” according to LuAnn Heinen, director of the National Business Group on Health’s (NBGH) Institute on the Costs and Health Effects of Obesity.

The American Heart Association through it’s Start! Program

“…supports employers’ efforts to get their employees physically active and adopt healthier habits.”

The program commissioned Harris Initiative to assess the impact of workplace wellness programs on the well-being of the employees.

An online survey was conducted between July 12 and July 24, 2007 involving about 3000 employees 18 years and older. The results show that employers fall into 2 categories:

• “Actively encouraging” or “highly encouraging” organizations are those that extremely or very well encouraged participation in wellness programs.
• “Not actively encouraging” or “not highly encouraging” organizations are those which somewhat or did not really encourage participation in wellness programs.

And here are the evaluation results of the employees:

My employer encourages “extremely well.”	6%
My employer encourages “very well.”	12%
My employer encourages “well.”	17%
My employer encourages “somewhat well.”	33%
My employer encourages “not well at all.”	32%

There are a lot of reasons why employers should actually encourage the wellness programs, namely:

• lower health care costs
• healthier and happier employees
• more productivity and fewer absences in the workplace

Wellness programs pay off for both the employee and the employer, according to this San Antonio Business Journal report.

“…just apply an average wage to the number of sick days and you can easily establish the potential dollar savings from keeping people healthy.”

In a Boston Globe article last year, the companies IBM, Wesley Willows Corp were cited for their health and wellness programs.

Now what let’s have a look at the ways that employers can encourage wellness in the workplace.

In another survey conducted by the NBGH in 2005, the following most common fitness initiatives that employers provide are:

• On-site fitness center
• On-site fitness programs
• Sponsored fitness programs
• Informational materials on local programs
• Web-based tools for tracking and information

Here are some additional suggestions from the AHA Start! Program:

• Healthy snacks in vending machines
• Healthy food at company gatherings 
• A “walking time” or “walking course”
• Access to health screenings such as blood pressure readings and cholesterol screenings
• Access to flu shots and other preventive health treatments
• Incentives such as reduced health care costs, money or trips
• Regular communications about all aspects of the wellness program

So, what do you think? Does your workplace/employer extremely encourage fitness and wellness? If yes, are you participating? If no, can’t you do something about it?

Photo credit: maffu at stock.xchng

Your job and your blood pressure

Increase in blood pressure has been associated with psychological and emotional stress. But how does stress in the job affect blood pressure? This has been the subject of numerous research studies over the years but the results are conflicting. In this post, I am reviewing 3 studies on 3 different types of workers in Japan.

 Managers

In Japan, the number of managerial employees suffering from cardiovascular disease is said to be higher than any other type of employee. A study of Japanese employed managers and retired managers showed that these people in the management suffer from masked hypertension. The disadvantage of masked hypertension as compared to sustained hypertension is that it often goes undiagnosed so that the people affected are not taking preventive measures or early treatment.

The author concludes that

“job stress seemed to be one of the main causes of masked hypertension…that more frequent measurements of  [blood pressure] at the work place are necessary to identify subjects with masked hypertension.”

Factory workers

This study looked at 352 male factory workers in Japan to evaluate the relationship between “job strain and subclinical indicators of arteriosclerosis.” Subclinical indicators are early indicators before the actual symptoms are actually observed in the clinical setting. The researchers measured these in cerebral artery, the aorta, and the carotid artery. The results show that job strain was associated with the indicators but the association was not significant.

Shift workers

This study which looked at Japanese male employees suggests that shift work may elevate both systolic and diastolic blood pressure – in other words increased risk for hypertension.

That’s what industrialization is all about – 24-hour, non-stop operations in factories and manufacturing plants. To keep companies running, employees have to work in shifts day and night. It is estimated that about a quarter of Japanese companies operate on shifts.

The researchers studied 3963 day workers and 2748 alternating shift workers working in a Japanese steel company. All the workers were male and had annual health check ups between 1991 and 2005.

Looking at the relative increases in blood pressure, the researchers reported that alternating shift workers have significantly higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure than their colleagues working during normal day hours.

The authors conclude that

“[the] study in male Japanese workers revealed that alternating shift work was a significant independent risk factor for an increase in blood pressure. Moreover, the effect of shift work on blood pressure was more pronounced than other well-established factors, such as age and body mass index.”

Photo credit: Workers by createsima at stock.xchng