Now that the new year has started, I’m sure you have made a resolution to shed your pregnancy weight. Here are some tips to help you with your goals:

Choose the right Diet: Finding the diet that works for is a lot like dating, you may have to try out a few before you find one that works. Visit Consumer reports or WebMD.com or our online diet guide and do some research.

What are Your Goals: How much weight do you want to lose, do you have a specific date like a wedding or reunion you want to be in shape for? Short term goals may require you to push yourself, but make sure you leave yourself enough time to reach them.

Set Smaller Intermediate Goals: Don’t set out with the goal of losing 60 pounds in year. Instead try to lose 5 pounds each month. Lots of smaller goals will give you milestone success points to measure your progress.

Skip Late Night Snacks: eating a late night snack can wreak havoc on a diet. Your body uses less energy when it’s sleeping so eating within 2-3 hours of when you go to bed is something you should avoid at all costs.

Exercise Videos: Using exercise videos are a great way to exercise without getting bored. You can even watch a free exercise video every day from your computer.

Stay Hydrated: Staying properly hydrated is one of the key ways you can feel energetic during the day. Eight glasses of water is no longer a good rule, instead divide your weight in half for the number of ounces you should drink per day.

Sports Drinks: Sports drinks were made for athletes to replenish electrolytes lost through sweat . However they are loaded with carbohydrates and not good for helping you lose weight understanding sports and energy drinks

Read the Labels: Learn how to read a food label compare brands and select the ones with the lowest amount of sodium, sugar, carbohydrates and preservatives.

Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables: Did you know the food pyramid was revised recently. It recommends eating 9 fruits and vegetables each day.

Fresh or Frozen: Fresh fruits and vegetables are going to give you the most nutritional value. To keep them from going bad before you can eat them store them where you will see them and be reminded they are there. Frozen is the next best option, it will keep longer and lose a small amount of its nutritional value.

Eat Small more Frequent Meals: Did you know it takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain it’s full. Recent studies have shown that reducing your caloric intake can lead to a longer lifespan. By eating smaller more frequent meals you are less likely to overeat.

Portion Sizes: Learn to control and manage your portion sizes just because you can get the super big gulp for 25 cents more or super size your meal for an extra 50 cents doesn’t mean it’s good for you. In fact the only thing that you will be super sizing is your waistline.

Use a Smaller Plate: Use a luncheon sized plate instead of a dinner plate. Your plate will look smaller with less food and you will be inclined to eat less.

Never Eat out of the Bag: Never eat right out of the bag or jar. Put your food on a plate so you can properly gauge how much you are eating.

Eat Lots of Soup: Soups are very filling and satisfying, just be sure to check the label and make sure they aren’t loaded with sodium, sugar or other preservatives.

Don’t Skip Meals: While skipping a meal may sound like a good idea you’ll actually be hungrier in a few hours and much more likely to overeat. Instead keep healthy snacks like a bag of carrots or granola bar available.

Vitamins: Find a good Multivitamin and take it daily. Vitamins help the body work properly
and help you get the most value out of the foods you are eating.

Get Enough Sleep: Many studies have shown a direct correlation between getting enough sleep and losing weight try to get between 6 and 8 hours of sleep every night. In addition try to wake up and go to sleep at the same time every day, even the weekends. It helps your body maintain natural circadian rhymes.

SOURCE:FITNESS-WEB

This is an updated new alternative to the “beanbag”.

Jukka Setala from Finland designed the Fatboy in 1998 as the beanbag from the 21st century! A Fatboy deserves a place in every living and bedroom. It has a multitude of uses: a lounge-bag for a student’s room, a relaxing option for an office, a comforting pillow for children, or even a spare bed for unexpected guests. The large dimensions offer plenty of room to sink into it and drift away.

It is made from a practical and easy to clean nylon material with a special coating. All you need to do is give it a rub with a damp cloth to keep it looking new.

“Fatboy” offers many styles to suit your kids needs, these are the 3 I liked the best.

Pictured to the right is the Fatboy Original measures 55” x 70” $229 U.S.

All three models available at babygeared.com

Pictured Above is the Fatboy Island, measures 12” high x 70” diameter $229 U.S.

Pictured Above Fatboy Point, measures 14”high x 20” diameter, $89 U.S.

Cute ivillage ad. This happens to every pregnant women….They even have shirts now that say “ask, then touch”.

Doctors successfully separated 5-month-old conjoined twins from North Dakota during a six-hour procedure Wednesday at the Mayo Clinic.

Abygail and Madysen Fitterer, who were joined at the chest, “did exceptionally well,” said lead surgeon Dr. Christopher Moir.

“This is Day 99 of their hospital stay,” Moir said. “It is also Day 1 of their beautiful, separate lives.”

The girls’ parents, who live in Bismarck, N.D., were grateful to the team of about 40 involved in the surgery and Mayo staff. Suzy Fitterer said, “I don’t know how you thank people for giving not one, but two of your children a chance at normal life.”

The twins have been at Mayo since doctors implanted tissue expanders in October to slowly stretch the girls’ skin enough to close their incisions from the separation surgery.

Moir said the girls provided “some exciting moments” during the surgery. Those tense moments included placing the girls’ hearts into their respective chests, particularly because half of Madysen’s heart projected into Abygail’s chest.

Doctors said the most difficult part of the procedure was separating and reconstructing the girls’ chest walls and closing their chests over their hearts. Moir said the girls shared one liver that, fortunately, had two drainage systems.

Moir said he expects the girls to spend at least a few weeks in intensive care.

The Fitterers were Mayo’s fifth separation of conjoined twins, including two last year. According to Mayo, conjoined twins may develop in as many as one in 50,000 pregnancies, but they account for only one in about 250,000 live births.

I hope these two beautiful girls are able to have full, exciting lives. The sacrifice they made now will pay off later.

SOURCE:CTV PHOTO CREDIT:AP Photo/Mayo Clinic

Cold season is upon us and health officials are now saying that good ole’ soap and water is just as good as those fancy hand sanitizers.

I think they are just trying to get the hand washing message out there now that there are fears of a superbug. Plus most viruses can be prevented by better hand washing practices.

Washing hands with plain soap and water is as effective as using the expanding range of sanitizers or antibacterial soaps if done correctly and often, according to a new U.S. report.

Dr Anthony Komaroff, editor of the Harvard Health Letter, said studies have shown that washing hands with soap and water for just 15 seconds removes 90 percent of bacteria — but many people do not wash their hands often enough or dry them thoroughly.

In a telephone survey of Americans, over 90 percent of those questioned said they would wash their hands after using a public bathroom, according to a report in the January issue of the Harvard Health Letter.

But when researchers observed people in various public bathrooms they found that only 75 percent of men and 90 percent of women washed their hands before leaving the bathroom.

Komaroff said the latest alcohol-based gels sold as hand sanitizers can be a useful alternative to soap and water but people often underestimate how much they need to do the job.

“You have to use several squirts out of a hand sanitizer and really make sure it covers all surfaces of your hands. Most people are pretty good about the palm but they’re not as good about the back of the fingers and back of the hand,” Komaroff told Reuters.

The convenience of not needing running water and a towel makes the sanitizing gels a preferred method to quickly clean hands which has helped fuel sales.

“You don’t have to be near running water and for a lot of people that’s a lot of the day. They’re in a situation where they are in contact with lots of people but they are not near soap and water and it’s the only realistic way of cleansing the hands,” said Komaroff.

Related Articles:

Look But Don’t Touch

New Vaccine For Babies

SOURCE:REUTERS

This is a cute and unique growth chart. It would work with most decor and can be fun for your kids. Haba, the creator, is one of my favourite toy manufacturers. They make a ton of great toys for kids and some very interesting furniture for their rooms as well.

As the little ones grow the sailor hoists the flags! With two flags for measuring and for photographs. Made of birch plywood and beechwood, flags and sailor of cotton/polyester. H 119 x W 42 cm. Metric only!

Not only would it work well for a older/young sibling, this chart would be perfect for twins. Their progress could be tracked side by side.

I found it at HABA.DE

You would think that a “safety” product that is being sold for infants would be safe.

Consumer reports is issuing a Safety Alert to parents to check their carseats.

Cars and car seats can’t be sold unless they can withstand a 30-mph frontal crash. But most cars are also tested in a 35-mph frontal crash and in a 38-mph side crash. Car seats aren’t.

When we crash-tested infant car seats at the higher speeds vehicles routinely withstand, most failed disastrously. The car seats twisted violently or flew off their bases, in one case hurling a test dummy 30 feet across the lab.
Here are the details:

• Of 12 infant seats we tested, only 2 performed well: the Baby Trend Flex-Loc and the Graco SnugRide with EPS.

• Nine infant seats provided poor protection in some or all of our tests, even though they meet the federal safety standard. One seat, the Evenflo Discovery, didn’t even meet that standard. We urge federal officials to order a recall of that seat.

• Infant car seats sold in Europe undergo more rigorous testing than do models sold in the U.S. Indeed, when we crash-tested an infant seat we bought in England, it was the best in our tests. An infant seat sold in the U.S. by the same manufacturer failed. (See European models.)

• Our findings offer added evidence of problems with LATCH, the federally mandated attachment system for child car seats. Most car seats performed worse with LATCH than with vehicle safety belts. And LATCH attachments aren’t always easy to use.

One federal agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, regulates both vehicles and child car seats. Why aren’t car seats tested as rigorously as cars?

NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson says the U.S. car-seat standard is rigorous and that side-crash tests are problematic. For side crashes, “our engineers do not have a performance test they’re comfortable with,” he says.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, strongly believes that NHTSA should strengthen safety testing for car seats so that it is comparable with the tests conducted on new cars. That means including a side-crash test. If the New Car Assessment Program is any indication, crash performance improves when results are publicized.

The agency also needs to revisit the LATCH standard. Automakers should make anchors and tethers easy to access. And LATCH anchors should be required in center-rear seats.

For now, here’s how to keep your baby as safe as possible while traveling:

• If you’re shopping for an infant car seat, buy one of the two we recommend. (See the Ratings.)
• If you already own a Chicco KeyFit, Compass I410, Evenflo Embrace, or Peg Perego Primo Viaggio SIP, use it with vehicle safety belts, which passed our tests, not with LATCH, which didn’t. If you can’t get a tight fit with the safety belt, buy one of the two seats we recommend.
• If you own a different infant seat, consider replacing it with the Baby Trend Flex-Loc or the Graco SnugRide with EPS.
• Secure your child in the center-rear seat if the car seat can be tightly fastened there. Go to www.nhtsa.gov to find a free car-seat inspection station near you.
• Send in the registration card that comes with new car seats, so that the manufacturer can contact you if the seat is recalled.
• Remember that any child car seat is better than no seat at all

Related Articles:

Parents Not Hooking Up Carseats Properly
Not Safe For Baby To Sleep In Car Seat

You Tube “Rear Facing Car Seats Are Better”

Car Seat Safety

SOURCE:CONSUMERREPORTS