Putting Your Weight on Project Status

It will be from your commitment to set a personal standard for yourself – one that says you will not quit and you will not push aside your goals for a trimmer, healthier body – that your success will follow. You must be willing to reach for what you want and reach right now. To e in Project Status means that you do not neglect to take care of yourself first, and now is the time to start doing that.

Take this essential first steps that will help you reach the peak of your effectiveness, and lay the groundwork for constructive, lasting change.

Step 1:
Determine your get-real weight.
Step 2:
Check and record your current weight and waist measurement before you start.
Step 3:
Clear your environment of low-response cost, low-yield foods (they are foods that you just gulp and gain – easily digested, overly convenient, and requiring little or no preparation on your part.

Low-Response Cost, Low-Yield Foods:
1. Invite and promote fast, uncontrollable eating.
2. Need little or no preparation time.
3. Require little chewing or effort to eat. The food slides down your throat, and you barely have to chew it.
4. Melt in your mouth.
5. Can be too easily eaten straight from a package or container.
6. Are highly processed.
7. Are light on nutrition.

Examples of Low-Response Cost, Low-Yield Foods:
1. Cookies, candy, and any high- calorie, sweetened snack foods.
2. Salty foods such as potato chips, pretzels, taco chips, nuts, and other packaged munchies.
3. Sweet rolls, pastries, and doughnuts.
4. Cakes, snack cakes, pies, and other baked sweets.
5. Presweetened, sugary breakfast cereals.
6. White bread, white rolls, white buns – anything that is not whole grain.
7. Crackers that are not whole grain.
8. Cold cuts.
9. Ice cream and high-sugar frozen desserts.
10. Quick-fix prepared foods such as pizza, fried entrées and dinners, and microwaveable sandwiches.
11. Syrups, jams, and jellies.
12. High-fat spreads, peanut utter, and dips.
13. Sugared soft drinks and beverages, including flavored coffees.
14. Alcoholic beverages.
15. Any packaged food in which sugar is listed as one of the first three ingredients.
16. Any food that can be classified as “junk food.”
17. Any food that you habitually binge on.

Step 4:
Stock your kitchen with “high-response cost, high-yield foods” (are foods thus hunger suppressors, meaning they can control and curb your hunger.

High-Response Cost, High-Yield Foods.
1. Take time and effort to fix.
2. Require a great deal of chewing and ingestion energy.
3. Cannot be eaten quickly.
4. Suppress your hunger and curb your cravings.
5. Are not “convenience foods” in any sense of the word.
6. Supply a healthy balance of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrients.

Examples of High-Response Cost, High-Yield Foods.
1. Poultry, such as chicken and turkey breasts (prepared without skin).
2. Fresh, frozen, or canned seafood (nothing that is breaded, however).
3. Lean cuts of meat.
4. Fresh eggs.
5. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Frozen fine too, since they’ve been chilled immediately after harvesting and may contain more nutrients than fresh produce that has been sitting on the shelf or in your refrigerator. Canned fruits and vegetables are acceptable, but may contain high levels of sodium.
6. Whole grains and cereals such as brown rice, bulgur, oatmeal, rice, barley, an millet.
7. High-fiber cereals. Although a packaged product, these cereals are specially formulated with added fiber-a hunger-suppressing ingredient in high-response cost grains and cereals.
8. Reduced fat or fat-free dairy products such as skim milk, low-fat milk, sugar-free yogurt, and low-fat cheeses.
9. Healthy fats such as olive oil, canola oil, and nuts and seeds. These fats appear to delay hunger and help you feel more satisfied after eating a meal that contains them.

Step 5:
Prioritize exercise into your life.

Step 6:
Create accountability.

No-Wait Weight Loss

Today you begin. Do not wait for the right time, the next opportunity, or a better day - begin now. Put pen to paper and follow my lead.

Action is essential to weight loss, transformation, and feeling better about myself. So, I commit to these actions:

1. I will exercise vigorously or according to my needs for at least 30 minutes.
2. I will write down everything I eat.
3. I will be physically active for 45 minutes everyday, whether it means that I must workout morning and evening, bring sneakers to work and walk at lunch, or whatever it takes.
4. I will eat more slowly.
5. I will drink more water.

At the end of every week, I will look at the food that I am eating and have (honestly) written down to (fearlessly) assess whether I am taking care of body or punishing it.

I will then make decisions about my next meal, and the ones after that, to ensure that they really do healthfully and efficiently fuel my body.

The party (literally) is over. And that’s the good news because your life’s greatest celebration is in taking actions everyday that make you feel (and look) better!

Want to Live Longer - from HEALTHbeat

The longest documented human life span is 122 years. Though a life span that long is rare, improvements in medicine, science and technology during the last century have helped more people live longer, healthier lives. So if you want to live longer, maybe you can do the following:

EXERCISE FOR 30 MINUTES SIX TIMES A WEEK.
This can gain 2.4 years of life, even you do not adequately control your blood pressure. But of course, you should always keep your blood pressure to a normal level.

QUIT SMOKING.
Men who smoke a pack a day lose an average of 13 years of life, while women lose 14 years.

EAT FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.
Fruits and veggies can lengthen your life by 2 - 4 years.

REMEMBER THE FIBER.
For every 10 grams of fiber you consume per day, your risk of heart attack goes down by 14% and risk of death from heart disease drops by 27%. Fiber-rich food also reduce colon cancer.

EAT NUTS.
Eating one-quarter cup of nuts five times a week can add 2.5 years to your life.

ONLY THE "GOOD" FATS PLEASE.
Get 20% of total daily calories from healthful fats (in coconut oil, nuts, fish). Limit saturated fat (butter, red meat, whole milk) to 10% or less. "Good" fats lenthen life by 3 - 5 years.

LOSE WEIGHT.
Excess weight increases the risk of cancer, diabetes, and hypertension. Maintaining your ideal weight for height and age can lengthen your life by 11 years. This is the difference in life span between obese and normal-weight adults.

And if you're sure you've already done too much damage to yourself to hope for a long life, think again. Reasearchers say "I'ts never too late to adopt a healthy lifestyle."

Body Mass Index (BMI)

Body mass index (BMI) or Quetelet Index is a statistical measure of the weight of a person scaled according to height. It was invented between 1830 and 1850 by the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet during the course of developing "social physics".

Calculation
Body mass index is defined as the individual's body weight divided by the square of their height. The formulas universally used in medicine produce a unit of measure of kg/m2.

BMI can also be determined using a BMI chart, which displays BMI as a function of weight (horizontal axis) and height (vertical axis) using contour lines for different values of BMI or colors for different BMI categories.

Usage
As a measure, BMI became popular during the early 1980s as obesity started to become a discernible issue in prosperous Western society. BMI provided a simple numeric measure of a person's "fatness" or "thinness", allowing health professionals to discuss over- and under-weight problems more objectively with their patients. However, BMI has become controversial because many people, including physicians, have come to rely on its apparent numerical authority for medical diagnosis, but that was never the BMI's purpose. It is meant to be used as a simple means of classifying sedentary (physically inactive) individuals with an average body composition.[1] For these individuals, the current value settings are as follows: a BMI of 18.5 to 25 may indicate optimal weight; a BMI lower than 18.5 suggests the person is underweight while a number above 25 may indicate the person is overweight; a BMI below 17.5 may indicate the person has anorexia or a related disorder; a number above 30 suggests the person is obese (over 40, morbidly obese).

For a given height the BMI is proportional to weight; for example, if body weight increases by 50%, BMI increases by 50%. For a given body shape and given density, the BMI is proportional to height--if all body dimensions increase by 50%, the BMI increases by 50%. This tendency for taller people to have higher BMIs is partially offset by the fact that many taller people are not just "scaled up" short people, but rather tend to have narrower frames in proportion to their height. [2]

BMI Prime
BMI Prime, a simple modification of the BMI system, is the ratio of actual BMI to upper limit BMI (currently defined at BMI 25). As defined, BMI Prime is also the ratio of body weight to upper body weight limit, calculated at BMI 25. Since it is the ratio of two separate BMI values, BMI Prime is a pure, dimensionless number, without associated units. Individuals with BMI Prime < 0.74 are underweight; those between 0.74 and 0.99 have optimal weight; and those at 1.00 or greater are overweight. BMI Prime is useful clinically because individuals can quantify, at a glance, what percentage they deviate from their upper weight limits. For instance, a person with BMI 34 has a BMI Prime of 34/25 = 1.36, and is 36% over his or her upper mass limit.[3]


Accuracy
The BMI is meant to broadly categorize populations for purely statistical purposes. As noted, its accuracy in relation to actual levels of body fat is easily distorted by such factors as fitness level, muscle mass, bone structure, gender, and ethnicity. People who are mesomorphic tend to have higher BMI numbers than people who are endomorphic, because they have greater bone mass and greater muscle mass than do endomorphic individuals.

Similarly, ectomorphic individuals could conceivably receive a reading below the normal range, when in fact their body type makes it healthy for them to be thin. In fact, ectomorphs could obtain healthy readings even when their body fat percentage is higher than is healthy, as their low lean mass will lower the BMI.

People with short stature tend to have lower BMI. Therefore they should use a lower cut-off value for obesity diagnosis.[4] The same applies to older people, whose reduced muscle mass can hide additional body fat without increasing BMI.

Categories
A frequent use of the BMI is to assess how much an individual's body weight departs from what is normal or desirable for a person of his or her height. The weight excess or deficiency may, in part, be accounted for by body fat (adipose tissue) although other factors such as muscularity also affect BMI significantly (see discussion below and overweight). Human bodies rank along the index from around 15 (near starvation) to over 40 (morbidly obese). This statistical spread is usually described in broad categories: underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese and morbidly obese. The particular BMI values used to demarcate these categories varies based on the authority, the CDC[5] and the WHO[6] regard a BMI of less than 18.5 as underweight and may indicate malnutrition, an eating disorder, or other health problems, while a BMI greater than 25 is considered overweight and above 30 is considered obese. These ranges of BMI values are valid only as statistical categories when applied to adults, and do not predict health.

Category
BMI range - kg/m2
BMI Prime
Starvation:
less than 15
less than 0.60

Underweight:
from 15 to 18.5
from 0.6 to 0.74

Normal:
from 18.5 to 25
from 0.74 to 1.0

Overweight:
from 25 to 30
from 1.0 to 1.2

Obese:
from 30 to 40
from 1.2 to 1.6

Morbidly Obese:
greater than 40
greater than 1.6

The U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of 1994 indicates that 59% of American men and 49% of women have BMIs over 25. Extreme obesity — a BMI of 40 or more — was found in 2% of the men and 4% of the women. There are differing opinions on the threshold for being underweight in females, doctors quote anything from 18.5 to 20 as being the lowest weight, the most frequently stated being 19. A BMI nearing 15 is usually used as an indicator for starvation and the health risks involved, with a BMI < 17.5 being an informal criterion for the diagnosis of anorexia nervosa.


BMI-for-age
BMI is used differently for children. It is calculated the same way as for adults, but then compared to typical values for other children of the same age. Instead of set thresholds for underweight and overweight, then, the BMI percentile allows comparison with children of the same sex and age.[7] A BMI that is less than the 5th percentile is considered underweight and above the 95th percentile is considered overweight. Children with a BMI between the 85th and 95th percentile are considered to be at risk of becoming overweight.
Recent studies in England have indicated that females between the ages 12 and 16 have a higher BMI than males by 1.0 kg/m² on average.[8]

International variations
These recommended distinctions along the linear scale may vary from time to time and country to country, making global, longitudinal surveys problematic. In 1998, the U.S. National Institutes of Health brought U.S. definitions into line with World Health Organization guidelines, lowering the normal/overweight cut-off from BMI 27.8 to BMI 25. This had the effect of redefining approximately 30 million Americans, previously "technically healthy" to "technically overweight". It also recommends lowering the normal/overweight threshold for South East Asian body types to around BMI 23, and expects further revisions to emerge from clinical studies of different body types.

In Singapore, the BMI cut-off figures were revised in 2005 with an emphasis on health risks instead of weight. Adults whose BMI is between 18.5 and 22.9 have a low risk of developing heart disease and other health problems such as diabetes. Those with a BMI between 23 and 27.4 are at moderate risk while those with a BMI of 27.5 and above are at high risk of heart disease and other health problems.[1]

Applications

Statistical device
The Body Mass Index is generally used as a means of correlation between groups related by general mass and can serve as a vague means of estimating adiposity. The duality of the Body Mass Index is that, whilst easy-to-use as a general calculation, it is limited in how accurate and pertinent the data obtained from it can be. Generally, the Index is suitable for recognising trends within sedentary or overweight individuals because there is a smaller margin for errors.[9]

This general correlation is particularly useful for consensus data regarding obesity or various other conditions because it can be used to build a semi-accurate representation from which a solution can be stipulated, or the RDA for a group can be calculated. Similarly, this is becoming more and more pertinent to the growth of children, due to the majority of their exercise habits.[10]

The growth of children is usually documented against a BMI-measured growth chart. Obesity trends can be calculated from the difference between the child's BMI and the BMI on the chart. However, this method again falls prey to the obstacle of body composition: many children who are generally born, or grow as an endomorph, would be classed as obese despite body composition. Clinical professionals should take into account the child's body composition and defer to an appropriate technique such as densiometry.

Clinical practice
BMI has been used by the WHO as the standard for recording obesity statistics since the early 1980s. In the United States, BMI is also used as a measure of underweight, owing to advocacy on behalf of those suffering with eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.[citation needed]

BMI can be calculated quickly and without expensive equipment. However, BMI categories do not take into account many factors such as frame size and muscularity.[11] The categories also fail to account for varying proportions of fat, bone, cartilage, water weight, and more. BMI is a statistical categorisation and therefore is not appropriate for diagnosing individuals.

Despite this, BMI categories are regularly regarded as a satisfactory tool for measuring whether sedentary individuals are "underweight," "overweight" or "obese" with various qualifications, such as: Individuals who are not sedentary being exempt - athletes, children, the elderly, the infirm, and individuals who are naturally endomorphic or ectomorphic (i.e., people who don't have a medium frame).

One basic problem, especially in athletes, is that muscle is denser than fat. Some professional athletes are "overweight" or "obese" according to their BMI - unless the number at which they are considered "overweight" or "obese" is adjusted upward in some modified version of the calculation. In children and the elderly, differences in bone density and, thus, in the proportion of bone to total weight can mean the number at which these people are considered underweight should be adjusted downward.

Methods for actually measuring body fat percentage are preferable to BMI for measuring body fat. Body fat has been statistically linked to some health problems and trends, but again, this is often a spurious relationship and there are no simple proofs of health based on such measurement.

Limitations and shortcomings
The medical establishment has generally acknowledged some shortcomings of BMI.[12] Because the BMI is dependent only upon net weight and height, it makes simplistic assumptions about distribution of muscle and bone mass, and thus may overestimate adiposity on those with more lean body mass (e.g. athletes) while underestimating adiposity on those with less lean body mass (e.g. the elderly).

In fact, some argue that the error in the BMI is significant and so pervasive that it is not generally useful in evaluation of health.[13] Due to these limitations, body composition for athletes is often better calculated using measures of body fat, as determined by such techniques as skinfold measurements or underwater weighing.

In an analysis of 40 studies involving 250,000 people, heart patients with normal BMIs were at higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease than people whose BMIs put them in the "overweight" range (BMI 25-29.9).[14] Patients who were underweight or severely overweight had an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease. The implications of this finding can be confounded by the fact that many chronic diseases, such as diabetes, can cause weight loss before the eventual death. In light of this, higher death rates among thinner people would be the expected result.[citation needed]

References:

1. ^ WHO Technical Report Series, #854, Physical Status: The Use and Interpretation of Anthropometry, Pg. 9 (2.1 MB PDF, here)
2. ^ Calculation of power law relationship between weight and height
3. ^ Gadzik J: "How Much Should I Weigh?" - Quetelet's Equation, Upper Weight Limits and BMI Prime Connecticut Medicine Feb 2006; 70: 81 - 88.
4. ^ Short stature is related to high body fat composition despite body mass index in a Mexican population, Lopez-Alvarenga JC, Montesinos-Cabrera RA, Velazquez-Alva C, Gonzalez-Barranco J., Arch Med Res. 2003 Mar-Apr;34(2):137-40
5. ^ About BMI for Adults
6. ^ BMI Classification
7. ^ BMI - Body Mass Index: BMI for Children and Teens
8. ^ Health Survey for England: The Health of Children and Young People
9. ^ Jeukendrup, A & Gleeson, M. (2005) Sports Nutrition Human Kinetics
10. ^ Barasi, M. E (2004) Human Nutrition - a health perspective
11. ^ Jeukendrup, A & Gleeson, M. (2005) Sports Nutrition Human Kinetics
12. ^ Aim for a Healthy Weight: Assess your Risk. National Institutes of Health (2007-07-08).
13. ^ Is obesity such a big, fat threat?. Cox News Service (2004-08-30). Retrieved on 2007-07-08.
14. ^ Association of bodyweight with total mortality and with cardiovascular events in coronary artery disease: a systematic review of cohort studies.. Lancet (2006-08-19;368(9536):666-78). Retrieved on 2007-07-08.

Waist-hip ratio or Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR)

Waist-hip ratio or Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is the ratio of the circumference of the waist to that of the hips. It measures the proportion by which fat is distributed around the torso. The concept and significance of WHR was first theorized by evolutionary psychologist Dr. Devendra Singh at the University of Texas at Austin in 1993. [1][2]

Health

Men generally have much less pronounced hips, relative to waist size.
A WHR of 0.7 for women and 0.9 for men have been shown to correlate strongly with general health and fertility. Women within the 0.7 range have optimal levels of estrogen and are less susceptible to major diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disorders and ovarian cancers.[3] Men with WHRs around 0.9, similarly, have been shown to be more healthy and fertile with less prostate cancer and testicular cancer.[4]

WHR is a better measure of assessing a person’s risk of heart attack than body mass index (BMI)[5]. If obesity is redefined using WHR instead of BMI, the proportion of people categorized as at risk of heart attack worldwide increases threefold.[6]

Other studies have not found a correlation between WHR and increased cardiovascular risk or body fat distribution.[7][8][9]

Attractiveness
Scientists have discovered that the waist-hip ratio (WHR) is a significant factor in judging female attractiveness. Women with a 0.7 WHR (waist circumference that is 70% of the hip circumference) are usually rated as more attractive by men from European cultures. Such diverse beauty icons as Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Kelly Brook, Alessandra Ambrosio and even the Venus de Milo all have ratios around 0.7, even though they have different weights. In other cultures, preferences vary,[10] ranging from 0.6 in China,[11] to 0.8 or 0.9 in parts of South America and Africa,[12][13][14] and divergent preferences based on ethnicity, rather than nationality, have also been noted.[15][16]

References:

1. ^ "Adaptive significance of female physical attractiveness: Role of waist-to-hip ratio." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65
2. ^ Buss, David [1994] (2003). The Evolution of Desire (hardcover), second (in English), New York: Basic Books, 56.
3. ^ "The Rules of Attraction in the Game of Love", The Rules of Attraction in the Game of Love
4. ^ "Men's preferences for women's profile waist-to-hip ratio in two societies.". Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
5. ^ American Journal of Clinical Nutrition August 12,2006
6. ^ Obesity and the risk of myocardial infarction in 27,000 participants from 52 countries: a case-control study. The Lancet, Nov. 5th 2005
7. ^ A comparative evaluation of waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio and body mass index as indicators of cardiovascular risk factors. The Canadian Heart Health Surveys.
8. ^ Waist measure and waist-to-hip ratio and identification of clinical conditions of cardiovascular risk: multicentric study in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients
9. ^ Superiority of skinfold measurements and waist over waist-to-hip ratio for determination of body fat distribution in a population-based cohort of Caucasian Dutch adults.
10. ^ Fisher, M.L.; Voracek M. (June 2006). "The shape of beauty: determinants of female physical attractiveness.". J Cosmet Dermatol 5 (2): 190-4. PMID 17173598. Retrieved on 2007-08-04.
11. ^ Dixson, B.J.; Dixson A.F., Li B., Anderson M.J. (January 2007). "Studies of human physique and sexual attractiveness: sexual preferences of men and women in China.". Am J Hum Biol 19 (1): 88-95. PMID 17160976. Retrieved on 2007-08-04.
12. ^ Marlowe, F.; Wetsman, A. (2001). "Preferred waist-to-hip ratio and ecology". Personality and Individual Differences 30 (3): 481-489. Retrieved on 2007-08-04.
13. ^ Marlowe, F.W.; Apicella, C.L. and Reed, D. (2005). "Men’s Preferences for Women’s Profile Waist-Hip-Ratio in Two Societies". Evolution and Human Behavior 26: 458-468. Retrieved on 2007-08-04.
14. ^ Dixson, B.J.; Dixson A.F., Morgan B., Anderson M.J. (June 2007). "Human physique and sexual attractiveness: sexual preferences of men and women in Bakossiland, Cameroon". Arch Sex Behav 36 (3): 369-75. PMID 17136587. Retrieved on 2007-08-04.
15. ^ Freedman, R.E.; Carter M.M., Sbrocco T., Gray JJ. (Aug. 2007). "Do men hold African-American and Caucasian women to different standards of beauty?". Eat Behav 8 (3): 319-33. PMID 17606230. Retrieved on 2007-08-04.
16. ^ Freedman, R.E.; Carter M.M., Sbrocco T., Gray J.J. (July 2004). "Ethnic differences in preferences for female weight and waist-to-hip ratio: a comparison of African-American and White American college and community samples". Eat Behav. 5 (3): 191-8. PMID 15135331. Retrieved on 2007-08-04.

Encouraging Nutrition of Adolescence

· Promote healthy eating habits in adolescents would include attention on peer acceptance and peer promotion of healthy dietary practices.

· Involvement of adolescents in promoting healthy eating may prove to be more successful due to the influence of peers on eating habits.

· Involvement of teens in advocating good health practices, an increase in the availability of healthy foods could be beneficial.

Good and Healthy Foods

About Carbs
Since carbs are all the talk now, let's start here. Nutritionists fear that thousands of dieters are counting carbs but failing to distinguish between "good" carbs and "bad" carbs.

Think about it like this: A light beer (three net carbs, 95 calories) and a bag of low-carb chips (four net carbs, 90 calories) add up to fewer carbs than half a cup of black beans (12.9 net carbs, 114 calories), an apple (17.3 net carbs, 81 calories) or a sweet potato (19.2 net carbs, 95 calories).

Counting carbs is not the solution, emphasizes Udo Erasmus, PhD, developer of the "right fat carb-conscious diet" . A better approach is to be carb-conscious rather than low-carb. Your goal should be to eliminate the bad carbs from your diet, and to include more good carbs.

Eat more good carbs. Healthy carbohydrates are found in whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables. Because they contain fiber, good carbs break down slowly in your body, thus avoiding fattening sugar spikes and the cravings that follow.

Unfortunately, because they are high in carbohydrates, whole grains and beans often are banned in the early stages of the fad low-carb diet plans. Even fruits and vegetables can be limited. The foods people choose instead are not invariably healthy -- a bacon cheeseburger is still a bacon cheeseburger, packed with calories and saturated fat, even if you eat it without the bun.

Eat fewer bad carbs.
When you consume bad carbs, such as a cookie, a soda, a bag of chips or a piece of white bread, they are quickly broken down into glucose (blood sugar), which floods into the bloodstream. In response, your body produces insulin to allow glucose to enter cells for energy. If there is more glucose than the body requires to meet energy needs, the excess is stored as fat.

Bad carbs are absorbed so rapidly that insulin turns on the fat production and turns off the fat burning. The rapid spike in blood sugar leads to a brief surge in energy, but when this sugar rush ends, you're left feeling tired, irritable, depressed and fidgety. This is when children lose their focus at school, or truck drivers doze and veer off the road. Even worse, the drop in energy leaves you craving something sweet to get your sugar back up -- which starts the whole vicious cycle over again.

Almonds, the ideal snackAlong with walnuts, these nuts help reduce total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides, leading to a reduced risk of heart disease. Almonds give you energy during the day and help you sleep soundly at night. When you can't keep your eyes open at the office, grab a handful of salted almonds. Their winning combination of vitamins, minerals, protein and healthy fats imparts immediate energy. At night, the calcium and magnesium in almonds act as a natural sedative, and since they contain salicylic acid (which is essentially natural aspirin), versatile almonds also can help control headache pain.

Beets (or borscht)
Our livers are under siege. Every day, they are bombarded with toxins, from car exhaust fumes to secondhand smoke. To improve liver function, try beets. The deep purple color of these root vegetables comes from a flavonoid called betanin, the active ingredient of which is betaine. This chemical is similar in structure to the nutrient choline, which studies have linked with the production of healthy liver and blood cells.

For best results, use fresh beets and cook them with their greens intact. If you boil beets, do not throw out the water. Most of the nutrients are found in the juice, so drink it right away or save it and add to soup. Soups are perhaps the ideal way to serve beets. In Europe, beet soup is known as borscht, and it often is served with high butter-fat sour creams -- an excellent combination, since fat helps extract the valuable pigment from beets and accelerates its absorption into the blood.

Guacamole
Your skin can benefit from a regular serving of guacamole, too. Natural oils in avocados perk up a poor complexion, make brittle nails strong again and improve dry skin. People with severe hair loss to eat three avocados daily, because they contain special oils that aid in the regeneration of hair follicles, stimulating the growth of new hair.

Tomatoes
Tomatoes center-stage phytonutrient, lycopene, tomatoes are packed with traditional nutrients that have shown in many studies to be helpful for many health conditions. Tomatoes are an excellent source of vitamin C, vitamin A, chromium, biotin, molybdenum and copper. Tomatoes are very good source for vitamin K, potassium, vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), manganese, vitamin B1 (thiamin) vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B3 (niacin) and folate. Tomatoes are a good source of magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin E, iron and tryptophan.

The carotenoid phytonutrient lycopene found in tomatoes has been extensively studied for its antioxidant and cancer-preventing properties. Lycopene from tomatoes has been repeatedly studied in humans and found to be protective against a growing list of cancers. These cancers now include prostate cancer, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, and lung cancer. For those at risk of atherosclerosis, tomatoes are a very good source of potassium, niacin, vitamin B6, and folate. Tomatoes are an excellent source of biotin, important for the metabolism of both sugar and fat.

Cherry tomatoes contain more fiber than regular tomatoes, and improve digestion and bowel function. Sun-ripened cherry tomatoes also are an excellent source of vitamin C and bioflavonoids. Never refrigerate tomatoes, as it inhibits ripening and damages their skin. Organically grown tomatoes are even better.

Vinegar
Vinegar just may be the perfect food. A natural antibiotic, it stimulates the immune system and inhibits the growth of microbes. Vinegar also is an excellent source of acetic acid, which stimulates digestion. To help prevent food poisoning, consume it with every restaurant meal, especially when you travel abroad. Add a splash to salads or soups, or pour it over meat or fish dishes.

For arthritis, mix together one tablespoon each of honey and vinegar in a shot glass and drink it down twice a day. Among the best varieties of vinegar are those made from grapes or apple cider. Dark balsamic vinegar is exceptionally rich in health-enhancing chemicals, such as bioflavonoids. Food always has been medicine. While we may have temporarily lost sight of this fact, the cures for many common ailments are as close as your local supermarket.
FruitsOf course fruits, vegetables and whole grains, especially brown rice, are good sources of fiber, which helps maintain healthy bowel function.