Category: Health & Fitness

With nearly 45 million Americans going on a diet each year and most dieting targeted toward women, it can be hard to know what makes for good health.

No two bodies are the same and it’s rare that one diet can work for multiple people. While there are some basic facts related to calorie intake for women, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Understanding what number of calories each woman should eat is related to how active you are and what kinds of calories you consume. While calories are measured in a general way, blame has been put on fat instead of the true enemy: sugar. A low-calorie diet high in sugar is as bad as one with high calories and no sugar.

If you’re wondering what the ideal calorie intake for women is, you need to balance it with your activity. Here are a few ways to look at the problem.

For Active Women

Women who walk more than 3 miles a day or perform more than 30 minutes of exercise daily are considered “active.” Those women can easily consume 2,000 calories of fruits, vegetables, grains, and protein and maintain a healthy weight.

The average idea is to have about 18 calories per pound of body weight. For a 120-pound woman, this means 2,160 calories per day. Athletes can consume more calories than this.

If you have a diet full of healthy whole foods and organic produce, consuming this amount of calories will easily balance out the workouts you do on a daily basis.

For Moderately Active Women

If a woman walks about 1.5 to 3 miles per day and or does 15-20 minutes of exercise a day, 1,800 calories can provide a healthy balance.

When eating mostly whole foods, fibers, grains, and a diet low in sugar 1,800 calories can be hard to meet. Prepackaged, prepared, or fast food is where you can start racking up those bad calories that are hard for the body to process.

Calculate about 16 calories per pound of body weight to get a better idea.

For Less Active Women

Women who work at an office job or don’t exercise beyond daily activities are considered to be sedentary. In this case, 1,600 calories a day is an appropriate range.

Multiply body weight by 13 to get an accurate figure.

To lower your calorie intake, try adding more seafood for high-quality protein with low calories.

For Overweight Women

To help with weight loss, a balance of smart drugs, calorie reduction, and exercise are recommended. Avoid “diet” or “low fat” foods, as the natural fats have been replaced with hard to process chemicals that the liver turns into fat.

For this calculation, multiply your desirable body weight by 10. Getting down to the 1,400 calorie range isn’t too hard if you fill your diet with fruits and veggies.

A sugary apple will give you about 90 calories while a carrot has about 25. A really robust salad with oil and vinegar can easily fit under 500 calories.

Calorie Intake for Women Isn’t the End-All

As we’ve described, calorie intake isn’t everything. Activity and the kinds of calories you eat are what makes the biggest difference.

Switch from processed foods and make a rule of eating nothing with more than 5-8 ingredients listed on the package.

If you’re ready to make a big dietary change, contact us today for more tips on how to get started.

As a woman, you have special dietary requirements. Your daily meals should be rich in calcium, magnesium, zinc, and B-complex vitamins.

These nutrients can help balance your hormones, which in turn, will improve your mood and overall health.

Calcium, for instance, keeps your bones strong and lowers the risk of osteoporosis. This condition affects over 200 million women worldwide.

What if you don’t have the time to cook healthy meals and track your daily nutrient intake? In this case, women’s vitamins can help.

The key is to use them as part of a balanced diet. Let’s review the best vitamins for women.

Are Women’s Vitamins Really Necessary?

Nowadays, most foods are processed and lack nutritional value. In fact, over 70 percent of the foods available in U.S. stores are loaded with additives, preservatives, and other chemicals.

Even if you eat clean, you may still fail to get enough nutrients in your diet.

Fruits and vegetables, for example, lose valuable antioxidants during storage and transportation. Cooking reduces their nutritional value as well.

Considering these facts, it’s no wonder why most people are deficient in one or more nutrients. About 30 percent of the world’s population is anemic due to iron deficiency. More than 41 percent of Americans don’t get enough vitamin D in their diet.

Nutrient deficiencies can affect your chances to get pregnant. In the long run, they may lead to hormonal imbalances, depression, and osteoporosis. If your diet lacks vitamins A, C, and E, you may experience premature aging.

Women’s vitamins may help prevent these issues and boost your health. Let’s take a look at the most important ones:

Vitamin D

Your body produces this fat-soluble vitamin when it’s exposed to the sun. That’s why health experts recommend spending at least 10 minutes outdoors every day.

Vitamin D plays a key role in calcium absorption, cellular reproduction, and immune function. It also regulates phosphorus levels in the blood and helps your body build stronger bones.

Certain foods, such as tuna, salmon, and cod liver oil, contain this nutrient.

The problem is that most people don’t eat enough of these foods. Women’s vitamins can help prevent deficiencies and add nutrition to your diet.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C supports immune function and protects against infections. Plus, it increases collagen levels in your body, which helps maintain youthful skin.

Your body needs this vitamin to build new tissues, heal itself, and fight disease. Even the slightest deficiency can wreak havoc on your health.

Consume plenty of citrus fruits, leafy greens, and berries to get your daily dose of vitamin C. Take dietary supplements containing this nutrient, especially when it’s cold outside.

Omega-3s

Omega-3s are not a vitamin, but they do play a vital role in women’s health. These essential fats fight inflammation, promote brain function, and reduce the risk of heart disease.

Unless you eat fish, nuts, seeds, and avocado on a daily basis, take Omega-3s in supplement form.

Select a premium brand to make sure it has optimum doses of EPA and DHA. Check out this website for quality Omega-3 supplements.

The Smart Way to Boost Your Health

These are just a few of the many vitamins every woman should take. Remember that prevention is better than treatment. Beware that not even the best supplements can compensate for bad eating.

Dietary supplements are not a cure-all, but they can keep diseases at bay and boost your health.

Do you take any vitamins? What would you recommend to other women? Leave a comment below!

Women between the ages 35 and 44 are 67% more likely to experience stress more than men. Working women are suffering considerably higher levels of work-related stress, anxiety, and depression than their male coworkers. The pressure to be do-it-all women is making women sick.

Women are overloaded with expectations like being the caretaker for the children, taking care of their aging parents, along with working a full-time job. Add media manipulation to the mix, it really is no surprise why stress is on the rise.

Stress releases copious amounts of cortisol, which is the body’s stress hormone. If not tended to, it could lead to anxiety, digestive issues, decreased productivity or worse; heart attacks.

The problem is, with all this stress on the rise, how do we deal with it? How do we let go of the stress without turning our lives inside out?

Read on to find out how.

Stress and the Working Woman

There are countless studies currently trying to understand the causes of stress and the working women. They have narrowed it down to a few common culprits, the main reason being that they’re just too overscheduled! Common stresses of the working woman are;

• Being a mother
• Being a boss
• Being an employee
• Being a caretaker of the family
• Trying to have a social life
• Societal pressures from media about image and beauty
• Pressure to be strong, the suck-it-in and suck-it-up mentality

These are just a few of the many stresses that working woman has on their plate. The sad thing is that it isn’t going anywhere. It is time to take a time out and learn how to cope with it.

Become more Mindful

By focusing on the present moment, we can overcome the anxieties of the future and the past. Practicing conscious mindfulness can help protect you from excessive stress responses. By constantly going back to mindfulness, we can control our reactions, which for someone with induced stress; can feel a lot like anger.

Take some time away from your common triggers and stressors, and find a quiet place to sit, solo. Focus on your breathing, if anything comes up- just kindly let it go and go back to focusing on your breath.

Focus on Gratitude

Studies show that people who focus on gratitude have 23% less stress than people who do not. It doesn’t only help you feel good to count the blessings in your life, it is actually good for your health!

Gratitude can help you sleep better, improves your immune system, lower inflammation and lower blood pressure. Making a list of 10 things you are grateful for every day will help you feel a beautiful sense of gratitude.

Slow Down

If you are feeling overly busy, perhaps you committed to too many things. Take a look at all your non-essential activities in your life, if you are still doing something that doesn’t give you enjoyment, stop it. Your body and mind can only take so much stimulation, good or bad, eventually, it could make you feel sick.

This is also related to perfectionism. If you are constantly working on a project, trying to get it absolutely perfect, stop. Know and understand that you are doing the best of your abilities and just relax.

Break a Sweat

We all know that exercise is good for the body, what you may not know is that it is also amazing for your mental well being. Physical activity lowers excess cortisol levels in the body, thus reducing associated stress symptoms. A perfect balance for the working woman

There are numerous other benefits of keeping active. It can slim your waistline, build bone density, and improve your posture as well. Mentally, exercise helps reduce depression and anxiety, promotes inspiration, improves memory and much more.

The most important muscle in your body is your heart, which is also very vulnerable to stress. By working your cardiovascular system you are strengthening your heart and preventing the big bad cortisol bully to affect it.

Nourish Your Body

It may seem like a comforting idea temporarily but in long-term, junk food can create more stress in your body. Empty calories such as sugary treats and high fat, hydrogenated oils can create a toxin-like effect in the body, leading to other health issues.

Instead, focus on providing your body with micronutrients from vegetables, which will help the cells in your body feel a sense of “euphoria” and happiness. Start to appreciate how good your body feels after a green smoothie and make that your go-to comfort food choice.

If you think back to the caveman days when the cavewoman got stressed, she didn’t go make herself a giant pizza, eat ice cream and pig out on chocolate cake. She ate foods that came from the planet to keep her body (and mind) strong.

Your digestive system is already compromised by stress — do not make it worse!

Put Yourself First

You do not have the ability to truly help another person if you do not help yourself first. If someone has requested you to do them a favor, and it will negatively affect you in some way, learn to say no.

People pleasing will only add to stress and hurt your body in the long run. Learning to say no will give you your power back and help you to focus on the most important thing in your life- YOU.

Where this shows up for people the most is in romantic relationships. If your partner wants to go shopping for the big engagement ring AKA the anillos de compromiso, and you are not ready yet, this will cause your stress levels to skyrocket.

Learning to voice your feelings and opinions in any relationship, whether it be romantic, friendship or family will help lower stress and also boost confidence. Take your power back into your own hands, and start living your life for yourself.

Summary

If you would like to learn more information about coping with stress, or perhaps you want to learn more tricks to being a savvy mother, feel free to contact us.

According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, about one in every twelve adults has an alcohol dependency issue. But not all of those people pursue alcohol recovery.

Many people don’t even recognize they have a problem. Alcohol dependency doesn’t show up overnight. It develops based on your genetics, environment, and opportunity for addiction and many sufferers have a hard time seeing their own symptoms.

When a drink after work with your coworkers turns into five or six, you may have a problem but you still may not notice. If that becomes a pattern of behavior, then a real problem with alcohol exists.

But when you decide to seek treatment, you may be concerned about the cost. There are so many different phases of treatment, the costs could really add up. Keep reading to find out what kind of finances you need in order to get help today.

Intervention

Alcohol recovery starts with intervention. While some people with alcoholism admit they have the disease, many people live in denial.

They may convince themselves that the disease isn’t serious, or that they can handle it themselves with willpower. These are the people who will need an intervention before they will agree to treatment.

It’s possible to host an informal intervention by gathering friends and family members for support. But many families choose to get help from a licensed therapist to ensure the process is healthy and productive.

If you’re paying to have an intervention, you can expect to shell out between $2,500 and $10,000.

Medical Detox

Once someone has agreed to alcohol recovery, the next step on their journey is detox. If they have an alcohol dependency, then withdrawals can be severe and even life-threatening in some cases.

Medical detox programs offer a safe space for you to go through your detox and have staff that can support you, both physically and mentally. They are a great place to begin sober living.

Families that will pay for medical detox out of pocket can expect to pay about $500-$650 per day for as long as they’re in the facility’s care.

Some patients like to travel for their detox. It can help to get away from the place you were to help get rid of the patterns of behavior you’re trying to correct. Many people have found success at Tucson addiction treatment centers.

Partial Alcohol Recovery Hospitalization Program

Many people going through alcohol recovery choose to live at home during their treatment while spending their days at a treatment center. This gives them the opportunity to have access to in-depth, comprehensive therapies that can give control back to them.

But since they’re living at home, they will have a more difficult recovery than people who choose inpatient rehab. They will have access to temptation and will need very strong willpower to stay on the right path.

Since partial hospitalization programs don’t require housing, the cost of care is not as high as residential treatment centers. Families can expect to pay about $350-$450 a day if they’re paying out of pocket.

When you’re comparing the cost of inpatient care to outpatient, it’s important that you remember outpatient programs generally last several weeks, if not a few months. While people who choose inpatient stays may make progress slightly more quickly, leading to fewer days in treatment and less money.

Outpatient Care

If you need to keep up with your everyday duties, but still want to seek treatment, you can use outpatient care for your alcohol recovery. It’s designed to make treatment accessible to people who need to work while they’re getting better.

If you chose a program like this, you would get therapy for several hours every week, but it isn’t usually an all-day program. You also probably will have to monitor yourself as you recover because you won’t have as much interaction with medical personnel.

Outpatient care is a great way to save on the fees of room and board. These programs are often seen as a bargain since families are only expected to pay around $250-$350 per day.

For patients that are in outpatient care, relapse may be more likely. It should be used as a last step if nothing else is available or you can’t miss work.

The best way to use outpatient treatment is after being released from an inpatient facility. That way you have the stability of medical staff while you’re going through your withdraws and are the most vulnerable to relapse.

Sober Living

For patients who are released from inpatient care, but don’t feel that they are ready to go home, sober living houses are a great option. They give you some of the support of inpatient treatment, while also slowly reassociating you with a daily routine.

Sober living facilities are full of people who are recovering from a variety of different drugs. For that reason, the rules are generally very strict, ensuring that the space remains clean and sober. It can be a great help on your journey to sobriety.

The average sober living home costs between $1,500 and $2,500 per month, but these costs can vary. Try not to miss any payments, as you could get expelled from the home.

Aftercare

Once a formal program is completed, people who have gone through alcohol recovery often need continued support. Your facility may recommend you to a mental health provider for further treatment.

The costs of aftercare vary widely based on what services you need. Be sure to shop around if you find a rate that’s too high. Aftercare is important, as you have already done so much work towards your recovery.

Thrifty Alcohol Recovery

There is no one size fits all solution to alcoholism. In order to make the best decision for yourself and your family, you need to consider what support you think you need to be successful.

Be sure that you’re honest with yourself. Shorting yourself on treatment to save money could make you a victim of relapse.

For more ways to save money and improve your health, check out some more of our articles.

One minute you’re laughing with a friend, the next you’re squinting in pain. Popping a pill can seem like the easiest headache relief, but it’s not the only way.

Pills are limited in capacity, especially in the case of migraines. If you’re one of the 37 million people that suffer from them, you’re probably wishing for a better way.

Migraine pills can get expensive. Here at Thrifty Momma, we’re always looking for more frugal alternatives. Check out these six different ways to relieve pain naturally, without hurting your wallet.

1. Meditation

When do we ever truly relax? I’m talking no TV, no music, just sitting in peace. Even sleeping can be a challenge for some of us.

That’s why it is so important to find a moment in the day to sit in silence. Some studies have shown meditation can be even more effective than traditional pain relievers.

If you get a headache at work, take a quick break. Go sit in your car, go sit in the breakroom, just sit somewhere quiet. Clear your mind of stress and work and focus on what makes you happy.

Binaural sounds can help tune out your surroundings if you can’t find a quiet place. The melodic hum sends signals to the brain and puts you in an almost trance-like state.

Just remember to set a timer if you have somewhere to be; sometimes meditation can lead to naps.

Learn more about this online if you’re really trying to find that inner peace.

2. Drink Ginger

Ginger is a natural headache relief ingredient, containing powerful anti-inflammatory properties. Ginger relaxes the blood vessels that create tension, lowering the intensity and frequency of headaches.

Migraine sufferers can drink ginger teas to prevent episodes. Simply purchase any loose teas with dried ginger or create your own at home. You can grate ginger root and steep it with lemon and honey for instant relief.

Gingerale doesn’t have enough actual ginger in it to provide any headache relief, by the way. Not to mention, the sugar content may even make a migraine worse. Steer clear of it.

3. Stretching

Your fitness and lifestyle play a big role in how often you get headaches. Stress from sitting in one position for an extended time is a common cause. Loosen your neck muscles by doing some stretching.

Just do a few simple motions: look up, then down, left, and right. Then, tilt your head left and right, and rotate for two full circles, clockwise and counter-clockwise.

This method works best when you sense the early signs of a headache. Always be conscious of your health and fitness. Work toward improving it little by little. Regular exercise can just mean standing up and stretching every half hour.

You can build a routine around stretching and provide plenty of preventative headache relief so you don’t have to worry about carrying pills around.

4. Massages

After stretching, you can move right into your own self-massage of the neck, back of your head, and your temples. These areas are most prone to tension and cause headaches.

A professional massage also helps keeps everything loose and prevents knots from building up. Schedule one if your budget allows.

If your hands aren’t strong enough or tire quickly, you can find some great hand-held self-massage tools that won’t break the bank.

You can even download some phone apps that turn your smartphone into a mini-massage device. You might get some weird looks, but, hey, if it works, go for it!

5. Hot Water and Ice

Ice helps dull the pain of a migraine and reduce the inflammation. You can apply an ice pack on the back of the neck or head. If you’re going to use it on the forehead or top of the head, don’t leave it on too long.

Hot water also helps ease the pain away. If you dip your feet into a foot massager or a tub full of hot water, it can improve blood flow and put your body in a relaxed state.

Those who spend a lot of time on their feet (nurses, teachers, retail assistants) find that the lower body is directly connected to the head.

Soaking your feet in hot water and icing the neck work out any blockages and inflammation. You’ll not only get headache relief, but also full body pain relief.

6. Aromatherapy

Last, but not least is the power of smell. Our nose connects to our pleasure centers and can alter mood and blood pressure. That’s why savory, sweet, and floral smells connect so deeply with memories, mood, behavior, and even motor skills.

You can tap into this power of relaxation and pain relief by using oils like lavender as medicine. Simply put a few drops in a towel or tissue and inhale for a few minutes.

You can also fill your home with natural oils by using a cheap diffuser. These inexpensive devices are like mini humidifiers that spray a mist of infused water, like a Glade plug-in, only without the chemicals.

Headache Relief and Your Health

Prevention is the key to combating headaches. With these tips and a good plan, you can make consistent strides toward living a healthier, pain-free life. It isn’t easy, but you can always come here for stress-reducing information.

Always remember to practice self-care and don’t spend every hour of the day thinking about money. It’s a process. We’re all in it together here!

If you’re looking for more ways to save on medicine, healthy products, and more, always check in our hot deals section for new offers.

A frugal life is a happy life, that’s what Thrifty Momma always says!