Lose Weight - Eat Less Salt

You have probably heard that many types of foods can cause you to gain weight, ranging from greasy foods to ice cream. But you might be wondering how sodium, or what we often refer to as "salt," can cause you to gain weight. The idea just may sound absurd to you. Here, we will take a closer look at why too much sodium can cause weight gain and what you can do in order to prevent it from happening to you.

Salt does not cause your body to gain or lose fat. In fact, salt has no calories. High consumption of salt only results in temporary weight gain as it causes your body to retain water. Conversely, low consumption of salt can result in temporary weight loss as it causes your body to expel water.

It is interesting to note that many crash diets which boast quick weight loss rely on foods with little or no salt content. The weight loss is mostly water, and as soon as you eat foods containing salt again you regain the weight.

With age, our bodies become more sensitive to the blood-pressure-increasing effect of sodium, and daily requirements drop to 1,300 milligrams for adults aged 50 to 70 and 1,200 milligrams for people over 70. (Children aged 1 to 3 need 1,000 milligrams a day; 4- to 8 year-olds require 1,200 milligrams.)

For most adults, the daily upper sodium limit is 2,300 milligrams, the amount in one teaspoon of table salt. If you’re over 50 or have high blood pressure, you should consume less.

Since 77 per cent of the sodium we consume comes from packaged foods and restaurant meals – not the salt shaker – reading nutrition labels is key to reducing your intake.

Reasons to Smile - Health Benefits of Smiling

Smiling more often has many positive benefits. People who smile on a regular basis can experience an increase in their health and state of mind. Health benefits and psychological benefits are great reasons to smile. Unfortunately, many people don’t smile enough. It is a good idea to smile more often in order to increase attractiveness.

So, one of the benefits of smiling is its ability to change your focus of attention and reduces anxieties and stress. It's one of the easiest ways to de-stress and reduce your risk of hypertension. If you interrupt your though patterns often enough by smiling even when you don't feel like it, the brain creates a new neural pathway or pattern of thoughts and you will soon develop a habit of smiling.

Next time you are feeling down, try putting on a smile. There's a good chance you mood will change for the better. Smiling can trick the body into helping you change your mood.

Smiling helps the immune system to work better. When you smile, immune function improves possibly because you are more relaxed. Prevent the flu and colds by smiling.

Smiling more often can help make you look more attractive and confident. In general, people like to be near people who are happy. Smiling while in the presence of others shows that you are a happy person. As a result, this can be contagious and others may follow suit. As a natural attractant, people are generally drawn to smiling. We are programmed to notice beauty and attractiveness due to survival reasons. Therefore, smiling more often can help you get the attention you want from others.

If you feel that you lack in smiling, seek out ways to smile more often. If you see others that aren’t smiling much, try to get them to smile more often. Smiling is a fast way to feeling happy. Feeling happy and making others feel happy is a positive thing to do. Therefore, incorporating smiling in your life will warrant many positive benefits. Even though it seems hard to do, it is actually pretty easy. All it takes is moving some muscles and you are happy in practically an instant.

Cut Sugar and Carbs to Live Longer

The results of a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds that a diet high in sugar and fast-releasing carbohydrates increases the risk of death from inflammatory disease by three-fold. Many of the top killer diseases are inflammatory in nature, including coronary artery disease and many forms of cancer.

The study found that higher than normal levels of sugar in the blood were bound to white blood cells which prevented them from identifying and attacking pathogens. Fortunately there are several steps you can follow to dramatically lower your risk of developing an inflammatory illness and reverse your systemic sugar burden.

Professor Cynthia Kenyon, a US genetisist, has discovered that the carbohydrates we eat like bananas, potatoes, bread, pasta, and cakes directly affect two key genes that govern youthfulness and longevity.

But what Professor Kenyon found out was why ­drastically reducing calories has such a remarkable effect.

She discovered that it changed the way two crucial genes behaved. It turned down the gene that controls insulin, which in turn switched on another gene, which acted like an elixir of life.

Many dietary proteins and fats raise blood insulin levels without raising glucose. Remember, both chronically high levels of both glucose and insulin are bad. Furthermore, NOT all grains cause a rapid rise in glucose. In fact, some proteins can raise insulin as much as carbohydrates. For example, beef can trigger an insulin surge that is on par with brown rice and fish can raise insulin levels about the same amount as grain bread