Health Literacy

Archive for February, 2010

A classic from the pages of Vogue:

I picked up a bit of fashion history recently.  It’s the book Vogue Women by Georgina Howell.  Contained within this treasure are photos from the pages of decades of Vogue Magazine.

From  Twiggy to Marilyn Monroe and Princess Grace to the supermodels of the 90’s…  It’s a walk through fashion history as documented by the magazine that’s been there for it all.

Below is a picture of Audrey Hepburn snapped by photographer Cecil Beaton in 1964 for Vogue as it appears within this book.  Isn’t she lovely?

For more information about this book, including purchase options, here’s a link: *Vogue Women.
© 2010 DailyDivaDish. All rights reserved. ❤
*Contains affiliate link.

Source: Editor

Don’t try this at home:

By Piper Larson

Something funny happened to me last week.  It’s funny now, last week – not so much.

It all started because I’m heading to the beach this spring and thought I’d try to loose a few pounds first.

The Diet:

I had heard so many success stories from following low carb/high-protein diets and was intrigued.  But because I don’t eat red meat, I knew it would be difficult.  So I opted to do just one week on a protein diet.  All I consumed were low-fat/high-protein foods with a few veggies.  (In other words, tiny egg white & veggie omelets.)

I know – STUPID and unhealthy.  But I figured if I only did it for a week, it wouldn’t matter and plus I’d shed a few pounds quickly, which would be motivating to me.  It turned out to be such a bad week!  My body did NOT like the changes in diet, and let me know this at virtually every turn.

Day-by-Day Breakdown of my Protein Diet:

Day 1 – Hungry, grumpy, headache, miserable.

Day 2 – Getting the hang of this, maybe I could do this for 2 weeks if the weight starts flying off.

Day 3 – Feeling nauseous.  Mood deteriorates throughout afternoon.  Spent the evening crying about pretty much everything.  (And I am not normally a person who cries easily.)

Day 4 – Spent morning crying about the same things from the night before.  Late in the evening had an incident with my Wii Fit.  The program I was on at the time annoyed me and instead of just changing programs, I had this unexpected bit of anger.  I swear, I could literally feel my blood pressure rising.  Wanted to go all “rockstar” on the Wii Fit board and smash it against the floor.  Decided instead to walk away and call it a day.

Day 5 – While trying to work on the computer I found myself unable to spell simple words.  I spent at least 2 minutes trying to spell “monitoring.”  Kept trying to write “moniting.”  Couldn’t understand why spell check kept kicking it back.   I won’t even tell you all the other words I couldn’t spell.  They were even more lame.

Deciding not to be deterred by my diminished cognitive abilities I forged on.  Bad move.  Later that day, I somehow destroyed the formatting on DailyDivaDish which required outside technical assistance to fix.  (You may have noticed a few days without posts…it was because I literally broke the blog.)

And, don’t ask how, but somehow messed up an important Google Document that’s shared across our team at DailyDivaDish.  Thought I’d lost all our information, but was finally able to resolve the issue on my own.

Day 7 – Ate carbs.  Back to being me.  Thought it best to no longer be left to my own devices and ordered Nutrisystem instead.

Day 8 – Googled “protein diet” + “side effects.”  According to the info I found, these were pretty much all common side effects of my diet.

Looking back it was actually pretty funny.  Stupid, but funny.  Have you ever done something silly to lose weight?  Please tell me I’m not alone on this one. 

© 2010 DailyDivaDish. All rights reserved. ❤

Source: Editor

Don’t try this at home:

By Piper Larson

Something funny happened to me last week.  It’s funny now, last week – not so much.

It all started because I’m heading to the beach this spring and thought I’d try to loose a few pounds first.

The Diet:

I had heard so many success stories from following low carb/high-protein diets and was intrigued.  But because I don’t eat red meat, I knew it would be difficult.  So I opted to do just one week on a protein diet.  All I consumed were low-fat/high-protein foods with a few veggies.  (In other words, tiny egg white & veggie omelets.)

I know – STUPID and unhealthy.  But I figured if I only did it for a week, it wouldn’t matter and plus I’d shed a few pounds quickly, which would be motivating to me.  It turned out to be such a bad week!  My body did NOT like the changes in diet, and let me know this at virtually every turn.

Day-by-Day Breakdown of my Protein Diet:

Day 1 – Hungry, grumpy, headache, miserable.

Day 2 – Getting the hang of this, maybe I could do this for 2 weeks if the weight starts flying off.

Day 3 – Feeling nauseous.  Mood deteriorates throughout afternoon.  Spent the evening crying about pretty much everything.  (And I am not normally a person who cries easily.)

Day 4 – Spent morning crying about the same things from the night before.  Late in the evening had an incident with my Wii Fit.  The program I was on at the time annoyed me and instead of just changing programs, I had this unexpected bit of anger.  I swear, I could literally feel my blood pressure rising.  Wanted to go all “rockstar” on the Wii Fit board and smash it against the floor.  Decided instead to walk away and call it a day.

Day 5 – While trying to work on the computer I found myself unable to spell simple words.  I spent at least 2 minutes trying to spell “monitoring.”  Kept trying to writing “moniting.”  Couldn’t understand why spell check kept kicking it back.   I won’t even tell you all the other words I couldn’t spell.  They were even more lame.

Deciding not to be deterred by my diminished cognitive abilities I forged on.  Bad move.  Later that day, I somehow destroyed the formatting on DailyDivaDish which required outside technical assistance to fix.  (You may have noticed a few days without posts…it was because I literally broke the blog.)

And, don’t ask how, but somehow messed up an important Google Document that’s shared across our team at DailyDivaDish.  Thought I’d lost all our information, but was finally able to resolve the issue on my own.

Day 7 – Ate carbs.  Back to being me.  Thought it best to no longer be left to my own devices and ordered Nutrisystem instead.

Day 8 – Googled “protein diet” + “side effects.”  According to the info I found, these were pretty much all common side effects of my diet.

Looking back it was actually pretty funny.  Stupid, but funny.  Have you ever done something silly to lose weight?  Please tell me I’m not alone on this one. 

Source: Editor

It is well established that men benefit from taking aspirin daily as it cuts their heart attack risk.

However, now we know from reports that it is very useful for women as well:

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends taking an aspirin a day:

• To prevent a stroke for the first time
• To prevent a first heart attack if a woman is over age 65
• To prevent heart attack in women of all ages who have had a previous heart attack
• Women of all ages can benefit and reduce their heart disease risk by taking a daily aspirin

Apart from this, aspirin has also been seen to help breast cancer patients. According to researchers, those women who have survived breast cancer were less likely to have their cancer return with the help of aspirin. In a study conducted on 4000 nurses, it was found that those that took aspirin lowered their risk of dying from breast cancer and also lowered their risk of the cancer spreading by as much as 50%.

Women, who have blood clotting issues, however are not advised to take an aspirin every day. In any case regular aspirin use should be cleared with your doctor first.

Source: pnreddy1