Wednesday, February 18, 2009

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HIP BATH

· This is again one such treatment where your effort is very less and find a great change in your body. Hip Bath as the name suggests is the mode where you immerse your hips and abdominal region. This of course cannot be done in swimming pool since we have to concentrate only in the hip region.

· There are special tubs available for this purpose. You can purchase these in a naturopathy center. In fact, normal bath tub is also enough to take a hip bath. But will we fit into it is a big question!!!

· Have a look at the tub used for Hip Bath.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/rashnair4/SJ8hE6KwjyI/AAAAAAAAAFs/NZweOSmEwY8/thumb10_thumb%5B2%5D.jpg

· As you can see, it is just like a huge chair where you need to sit. You must not place your hands inside the tub. You can keep it on your tummy to feel what’s going on inside or leave it hanging outside. Same goes with legs too.

· If needed, you can place your legs in the small stool placed outside instead of having legs in the air. But this isn’t necessary.

· Fill the tub with four to six gallons of water according to the size of it. The temperature of water can be cold, neutral or hot water. Sometimes, alternate hip baths can be given to achieve maximum benefits.

· Please be noted that don’t have this right after having heavy meals. And women avoid this during pregnancy and menstruation.

Cold Hip Bath:

· If a person is feeling cold, we can immerse the foot in hot water to balance the temperature.

· This is very beneficial for people who are diabetics. This is very true as my dad himself has experienced this. This could be result of activation of pancreas during the hip bath.

· This hip bath also helps in obesity and also is of great help in digest and thus relieves the worry of constipation.

Neutral Hip Bath:

· Fill the tub with normal room temperature water.

· This activity is very much beneficial for women as it clears out inflammation in uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries.

· This has a soothing effect to the body, which relieves the person from stress and thus in-turn help in reducing over-eating due to stress.

Hot Hip Bath

· Drink a glass of water before sitting in the tub. As you do for steam bath, place a wet cloth in the head to avoid de-hydration in the head.

· This is again a great treatment for women who are suffering from menstrual problems.

· Just came across this blog which contains many more information on this topic.

Spinal Bath

· This is very much similar to Hip bath. Here you have to make sure that your entire spinal cord is immersed in water.

· The water level can be just one or two inches, enough to immerse your spinal cord.

· It highly enhances the central nervous system and yes, relieves you from stress.

· It can be used with Cold, Neutral and hot water.

· If someone who gets irritated often, they can try this out. This also helps in helping out depressed person and also one who forgets things easily. As you can see this is because of the effect on the central nervous system.

· There is an added benefit if the water is allowed to flow through the spinal cord itself. Most of the naturopathic centers have this. Do try it out. It is a great stress-buster.

· Same like other treatments don’t forget to drink a glass of water and also place wet cloth in head.

· Please note that none of this treatment has something like side effects.

ENEMA

· It is the process of cleansing colon. Enema equipment is needed for this. If is safe and effective and cleans the bowels well.

· There are unlimited benefits of this treatment. It is advised that if a person is fasting on a day (just even a fruit diet), having enema helps in removing the toxins out of the body. It is up to the reader to make more research on this.

Next Post: Eating it properly..

As always comments are always welcome. This post is cross posted in my Infy Blog (http://blogs.ad.infosys.com/users/divya_selvan/) and Personal Blog as well (http://divyakelvizhi.blogspot.com/).

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Thanks for the immense response. I am highly motivated.

Water not only acts great when consumed but also while used externally to the body.. Let us look at some of the exercises / treatments that can be done with water.

Swimming

· File:Girl with styrofoam swimming board.jpgThere cannot be anyone who doesn’t know about swimming and this is considered to be the most common mode of exercise in water.

· Swimming is the movement by humans or animals through water, usually without artificial assistance.

· It is one of the many exercises which will help you to shed away the weight as you enjoy doing it. It is very hard to find a person who doesn’t like enjoying in Water.

· Swimming can be more fun if couple of friends join together and swim together.

Benefits

· It is very evident that an individual’s weight in water is considered to be much lesser than the actual weight in land. This would mean that a person will feel light in water and would be easy to carry out exercises that are tough to do in land

· Swimming tones up your entire body. Each and every muscle in your body needs to do some action when you swim.

· When you swim breastroke or backstroke, you're burning about the same number of calories as a fast walk or a slow jog.

Cautions / Risks:

· Unlike other aerobic exercises like Walking, Jogging etc, swimming requires some skill.

· One has to very cautious if he/ she are just a learner and practicing swimming in a deep pool. It is always better to have a trainer beside you.

· Swimming in cold water for a long time can reduce your body metabolic rate.

· Since the ratio of women swimmers is lesser than Men, there are very less Swimming Pool dedicated only for women. And because of this many women feel shy to join a swimming class. And there is a lack of women trainers which also acts as a barrier for many women.

· Research published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine shows that in the absence of a controlled diet, swimming has little or no effect on weight loss

· It is also said that swimming in cold water may increase appetite levels to force the body to retain body fat for insulation and buoyancy. Remember your latest Camp Fire. When the temperature is cool outside you burn some woods and enjoy the warmth. Similarly when the body is cold, it needs food to burn so that it can get some temperature.

· Also the Chlorine and other chemicals added to the swimming pool can create itching in the skin. So always take shower in cold water before entering into the swimming pool.

· Women are not advised to take Swimming during their Pregnancy / Menstruation time.

References:

http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/swimming.htm

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/47888

http://www.tinajuanfitness.info/articles/art041800.html

Steam Bath

· This is the next common form of Treatment which most people are aware of.

· Steam bath is a kind of treatment specifically used in Naturopathy.

· This treatment usually takes place in a sealed room with wooden benches, similar to a sauna, which is kept at an even temperature and filled with mist.

· Sometimes Steam Bath is called as Sauna Bath also. But I suppose both are different. As far as I know Steam Bath means it is like a closed room where only one person can sit and Sauna Bath is the one where there is a room filled with mist.

· In any GYM you join, there will be additional facility of Steam Bath. The availability of Steam Bath is considerably high in the City.

Benefits:

· The benefit of Steam bath is numerous.

· The concept of Steam Bath is not new. I am sure most of us exposed to Steam whenever we caught cold (called Aavi pidikarathu (catching Steam) in Tamil). It is very obvious that the steam knocks out the cold and clears the chest congestion. It helps in expanding the lungs.

· The sweating due to Steam clears the pores in the skin and removes toxins from the body.

· It also relaxes the stiff muscles and relives a person from tension.

· A Steam bath makes you feel fresh since the pores in your skin is opened up and all the

· For Women, this treatment is highly beneficial since there are many parlors, Spas , Fitness centers having dedicated Steam Bath for Women they can undertake this treatment without inhibition.

Cautions

· It is very important that you take steam bath lesser than 20 minutes. Over exposure of steam can result in dehydration of the body

· As I already mentioned in previous article when the body is dehydrated, it immediately takes the water from Brain. So it is essential to take shower before taking Steam and drink a glass of water before entering into the Steam Room.

· Wearing a tight dress will prevent the body from Sweating. So it is always good to wear a minimal dress. So that the skin is exposed to Steam and gets benefitted.

· People suffering from high blood pressure / heart diseases are advised not to take this treatment since it increases the blood pressure level as well as heart beat rate.

· Women are not advised to take Swimming during their Pregnancy / Menstruation time.

· Do not go for Steam Bath after having a large meal.

· Usually people tend to become tired after Steam bath. So don’t plan to do any hard work after Steam bath.

WET PACK TO ABDOMEN

· Take a piece of cloth, cotton preferably and soak it in water.

· Lie down in bed in a comfortable position. Place the cloth on the abdomen directly. It must be something like a Belt applied on your stomach.

· Make sure that the cloth is big enough to cover your entire abdomen. Even a simple cotton towel will do.

· Keep the cloth for 20 minutes.

· You can read books or listen to music while you do this.

· This Wet pack increases the blood circulation and helps in weight reduction.

· If you ask how many kg’s will be reduced by doing this, I don’t have an answer. Because this is just a simple step that will aid in reducing weight. Our body, just like our mind is very complex. Simple steps like this can align the body towards the right direction. However try this out and you can feel the difference.

Treatment with ICE

· I am not sure if this is scientifically true. But I have experienced this.

· Suppose you are in high stress or blood pressure, take few cubes of ICE from fridge and rub over your head and hair. Just like how you apply hair oil. Rub the ice cubes until it gets melted.

· You will feel much relaxed than before.

· We took measurements of blood pressure (for my mom) before and after this and found that the pressure reduced considerably. However people suffering from Sinus, Cold, Fever and other illness can refrain from doing this treatment.

This Article is not over. Since it is already big enough, I will continue the remaining in the next post. As always comments are always welcome. This post is cross posted in my Infy Blog http://divyakelvizhi.blogspot.com/). and Personal Blog as well (

Monday, February 09, 2009

Reduce Weight Smartly - 1 - Importance of Water

Hi Friends,

Starting from today I am going to write a series of articles of weight reduction (from what I have read, learnt and experienced). I have posted it in my Infy blog and will update it in my personal blog too. Please provide your valuable comments. In case you have any material related to weight reduction please share it with me.

I will post it in my blog so that others will also be benefitted. Your support is very important for me J

Facts about water:

1) Consume at least 4 – 6 liters of water each day.

a. Let us calculate the amount of water exerted from body. Then you will know the amount of water to drink each day.

i. Every one of us urinate 5 – 10 times each day. The amount is approximately 150 ml in the morning and 100 ml other time. This means almost 1.5 liter of water is excreted from the body each day.

ii. The amount of water that is used for digestion is approximately 1 liter.

iii. The amount of water used by kidney is approximately 1 liter

iv. Other miscellaneous expenses like – Sweating , Crying etc. – 0.5 liter

b. So just for expenses of body itself each person needs to drink 4 liters. And this is only minimum amount of water to be consumed daily. That is every normal person needs to drink 4 liters. If a person is obese he needs to drink extra water. This will help in cleaning the system more efficiently.

c. Of course if you are drinking 4 – 6 liters of water, your frequency of visiting washroom is going to increase. This has two positive side effects –

i. You move out of system for few minutes. It is mandated.

ii. You have to walk few meters to go to washroom. So few calories will also be burnt (Tip from Murali)

2) When you are in diet, drink lots of water

a. When you go on crash diet like fasting few days only with fruits, mostly it is only the water content of your body is reduced.

b. Water weight is more volatile than Fat weight. So it can be reduced / gained easily.

c. That is why you immediately gain your weight after you finish your diet. (Example : GM diet) because the water

3) Maintain ideal weight of water

Every normal person needs to balance a proportion of weight for

a. Muscle

b. Fat

c. Water

d. Bone etc

A person can be overweight or obese. If a person is termed to have obesity it means he is having Fat weight more than ideal weight. But it is not necessary that the water weight of the person is also above ideal. Most of the cases, the water weight of the body might be lesser than the ideal weight. So it is not enough just to reduce weight. We need to reduce the weight of fat (it must not be reduced less than ideal weight) and still have water weight in the same ideal weight range.

4) If a person is not consuming enough water, the water is consumed from brain cells. This leads to de-hydration in the brain and that is why you get headache.

a. For example, you walk in sun. The water in the body is sweated out and this result in lesser amount of water in the body and that is why you can sense headache after walking few minutes in Hot Sun.

5) Drink water at right time

a. As many of us follow, it is not advisable to drink water while having food. Probably the only time most of drink water is after having lunch. We can see the long queue in the water counter.

b. Naturopathy doctors suggest that it is not advisable to drink water half an hour before meals and half an hour after meals. Suppose you are having lunch at 12.30 then don’t have water from 12 to 1 o clock. But make sure you drink water before and after this time period.

c. We need to avoid drinking water half an hour before meals because water is alkaline in nature and to neutralize, some acids will be secreted in the stomach. These are digestive acids. If we drink and these acids are secreted then the amount of acidic juices will be reduced. So there is will be scarcity of juices for digesting our meals.

d. We need to avoid drinking water within half an hour after having meals because water drunk after meals will dilute the digestive juices (acids) and so they won’t have full power to digest our food.

e. Avoid drinking water just before sleeping. This will sometimes result in making the stomach upset.

6) Drink 6 – 8 glasses of water in the morning

a. Because water is alkaline in nature it is very good cleanser. If possible drink lime + honey juice in the morning. Or Arugambul juice. If you can’t go for these, drink one liter of water in the morning. You will really see the changes.

Habits we can inculcate in our everyday life:

1) Purchase two water bottles. 1 liter or two liter. Have one water bottle beside your bed and one beside your workstation.

2) Fill the water bottle full and keep it beside your bed. As soon as you get up drink as much water as you can. Initial days you will feel sense of vomiting and you can’t drink more than one glass. Don’t force. Drink as much as you can. Sip little by little every few minutes. Target to finish one liter before starting to office.

3) As soon as coming to office while your system is booting up (assuming you shut down your system everyday J ) fill your office water bottle.

4) Set reminders in mobile / outlook / thru friends for every half an hour to remind you to drink water. If you are a person who uses mobile often, then have a note in the screen of your mobile or in desktop of your machine.

5) Try to drink 3 liters of water in office. It means you must empty your water bottle thrice.

6) Whenever you are bored have a sip of water. Keep the bottle right next to you. Else you will forget.

7) Maintain a log in your diary (or any separate weight reduction note) the amount of water you consume daily. This will sensitize the amount of water you drink every day.

P.S: I am a person who forgets everything frequently. For many days even if the water bottle is next to me I will not drink water. Or consume not more than 1 liter. But now after setting reminders in my mobile, I find it much easier. I have set it for every one hour except during lunch time. And I follow all these habits.

Next Article – Exercises with Water

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