Almost everyone is carrying around a few extra pounds that they wish they could get rid of. Being overweight is extremely common, but it is not healthy. People are overweight for a number of different reasons. You might be eating too many processed foods and sugars or are not active enough to stimulate your metabolism. If you want to lose weight and drop the extra pounds fast, it is times that you learned a few of the most important secrets to losing weight that really work.

 

Here are some of the best secrets to losing weight:

 

Plan Ahead

 

One of the best things that you can do when you want to start losing weight is to plan ahead. This might sound straightforward, but eating the wrong types of foods or overeating is often something that happens when you are not prepared. This means that if you come up with a detailed meal plan for the week, you will be likely to stick to a diet that is filled with low calorie foods that are packed with nutrients and minerals that your body craves. Dinners should be something that you look forward to and you can make a meal plan that is filled with foods that you love, but also foods that are good for you. It takes just a little preparation to come up with a meal plan that will help you drop teh extra weight.

 

Portion Control

 

It is not always about the foods that you eat, but more about the size of your portions. This means that if you finally start being mindful of your portions, you should be able to lose some weight fast. Most people are eating portion sizes that are double or triple the size of a recommended portion. This means that you need to make sure that you are eating the right portion size to control your calorie intake. You need to know how much you are eating and this is only done if you get a grip on portion sizes.

 

Get Active

 

Not only do you need to be mindful of what and how much you are eating, but you also need to make an effort to get active. Even if you only have a few minutes each day, you need to spend this time in motion. Try doing activities that you enjoy and adding them to your schedule. This will make your workout much more fun.

 

If you find the right doctor, then you are in safe hands. If you consult the wrong one, then you are up for some very serious troubles. Medical misdiagnoses and mistreatments are not unheard of. There have been innumerable cases of medical negligence in the past. Whether intentional or a mistake, it is the patient who pays dearly.

 

Don’t make presumptions, don’t harbor doubts and certainly don’t settle for anything short of the best regardless of your medical needs. Here are five secrets of finding the right doctor that everyone should always adhere to.

 

1. The first step is to go for specialists. Many families have a physician who would always be called up in times of need. Most people have the tendency to discuss all health problems and medical conditions with their family physician without realizing that he or she is not the competent authority for every ailment. You can indulge in general consultations and even get advice pertaining to normal health issues that arise from time to time, but you cannot trust their advice on cases that requires specialized intervention. You need a dentist for your oral health, an ENT specialization for ears, nose and throat or a dermatologist for skin ailments. Don’t allow your general physician to recommend a cream for rashes without deciphering why you have the rashes in the first place.

 

2. Do not take referrals at their face value. Many people ask their physicians or doctors they know to recommend a specialist. In some cases, such referrals do work well. But in most cases, the referrals are motivated. There are quid pro quos in many scenarios where doctors recommend each other and get benefitted accordingly. There are networks or coteries that even facilitate exchange of commissions or a part of their fees when referrals lead to acquiring new patients. This may sound very dishonorable and unbecoming of a doctor but it is the reality.

 

3. Always speak with patients if you wish to truly know what to expect from a doctor. Patients who have been treated or who have gone on for second opinions will often give you the true lucid picture of what the reality is.

 

4. Speak with the hospital or clinic staff to gauge how great a doctor is. A doctor who has credible authority will be loved by their staff, simply because the work he or she can do and how the staff get trained and technically helped by the doctor.

 

5. Choose a doctor who is respected by other doctors. You would always find some doctors who are celebrated. They actually train the trainers or are doctors who doctors trust.

 

 

As you age, there are many different types of aches and pains that become more prominent. Knee pain is the most common and something that many people of all ages have to deal with on a daily basis. If you are dealing with this type of chronic pain, it is important to learn more about it and what it stems from. Being more informed about the realities of knee pain will help you to find a treatment option that works best for you.

 

Here is everything that you need to know about knee pain:

 

What is Knee Pain?

 

Knee pain is a very common type of pain that typically originates in the bone structure, ligaments and cartilage of the knee joint. This means that different people can experience pain in different areas of the knee and the pain can vary in severity. Some people have knee pain that feels like a minor pain sensation, while others can experience knee pain that is debilitating and makes it difficult to walk.

 

Symptoms of Knee Pain

 

The biggest symptom attached to knee pain is the feeling of pain within the knee, but there are other symptoms that accompany knee pain. Most people that experience knee pain also deal with limping due to the pain and sometimes knee locking. It is also possible for the movement of the knee to become restricted in some way. Redness and swelling of the knee are also signs that you have structural damage within knee that is causing the pain.

 

Risk Factors

 

It is important to note that there are some risk factors associated with knee pain that will increase your chances of dealing with this type of chronic pain. The biggest risk factors are excess weight and overuse. This means that knee pain can affect both those people that are overweight and those that are active daily. Having too much weight on teh knee can cause you to wear on the ligaments and muscles leading to knee pain, but using your knee joint too often can also lead to knee pain. People that run often are those that are most likely to experience knee pain. This is something that you need to be mindful of when you develop your workout regimen.

 

Treatment

 

Treating knee pain can be a bit tricky depending on the type of knee pain that you are dealing with. Rest, heat and ice are often the most recommended treatments.

Genetic diseases, incurable diseases caused at a cellular level which no one has any control on and accidents are not what we should be worried about the most. We should be most concerned about lifestyle diseases. We do not have a say in our genetic composition, frailties in our immune system unless we inflict the damage, accidents resulting from the faults of others and conditions that are interrelated but cannot be helped. What we can do is take steps so we don’t suffer from lifestyle diseases, which are essentially caused by us and our choices.

 

What are Lifestyle Diseases

 

The most common lifestyle diseases are chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic liver disease including cirrhosis, arthritis, asthma, heart disease, chronic renal failure, metabolic diseases, depression, atherosclerosis, obesity, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s among a few others.

 

All these diseases are caused primarily by lifestyle choices. Diet, physical fitness or overall health, vital signs, substance abuse, living conditions and environment are the main causes or facilitators of lifestyle diseases. In a way, we can control whether or not we would suffer from these lifestyle diseases.

 

Unlike fatal or terminal conditions which would cause death, sooner or later, lifestyle diseases worsen over time. They become severe and can seriously impair your normal life. They are expensive to manage. There are no cures. The conditions are painful and can indirectly cause several other health ailments. For these reasons, lifestyle diseases are our worst enemies.

Causes of Lifestyle Diseases

 

Smoking or chewing tobacco, drinking alcohol, consumption of drugs or any kind of substance abuse, lack of exercise, eating more than necessary, indulging in unhealthy foods and working in unhealthy conditions are some of the causes of lifestyle diseases.

How to Prevent Lifestyle Diseases

 

Around a hundred and fifty years or so, the leading causes of death in the world were communicable diseases. Tuberculosis, influenza or pneumonia and diarrhea were major the top three conditions leading to death. Today, heart failures and strokes, cancer and degenerative diseases are the leading causes of death in the world.

 

An active lifestyle sans tobacco and alcohol, drugs and fatty foods is quintessential to preventing lifestyle diseases. Diets rich in fatty meats and processed food should be avoided. Instead, low sugar starchy foods with healthy lean meats, fiber, minerals and vitamins should be adopted. Nutritious foods like milk and egg have been replaced with processed dairy products and heavily synthesized products with egg as an ingredient. It is necessary to go back to whole foods such as wholegrain bread, brown rice, cooking unprocessed chicken and juicing fresh fruits.

 

Incurable, terminal or fatal diseases are the most dreaded of all health ailments. They are painful, they don’t just take a toll on the ailing person but the entire family, the treatments are expensive and coping or coming to terms never gets easy. As unpleasant but real these ailments may be, they are still rare. Cancer is not as common as you would imagine. Besides, it has more to do with genes than anything else. The healthiest of people in the world who have never indulged in any vice as such can develop cancer. It is not statistically or realistically accurate to say that everyone is at risk of cancer or sexually transmitted diseases.

 

There are certain health risks that we really face. Those are what we should worry about. Most of these diseases are associated with old age. Here are the top global diseases as recorded over the years, which have been known to be the cause of death for the ailing.

 

Ischemic heart disease or coronary artery disease is the most common cause of death in the world, followed by stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, lower respiratory infections, trachea bronchus and lung cancer, HIV or AIDs, diarrheal diseases, diabetes, accidents/road injury and hypertensive heart disease.

 

All these diseases are the direct fallout of ageing and lifestyle choices. Coronary artery disease is a condition where the walls of the arteries get thick due to deposit of plaque resulting from cholesterol. This prevents the blood flow to the heart and eventually one suffers cardiac arrest or heart failure. Stroke is a cerebral attack where the brain doesn’t get sufficient blood flow or has a clot and then it results in brain death. Respiratory diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and lung cancer can result from various lifestyle choices, most importantly smoking. Accidents causing fatal or disabling injuries are very common. Lifestyle diseases like diabetes and diarrheal diseases, which are chronic and can be incurable, are becoming more common over the last two decades.

 

As you observe the causes of these diseases, you would see the correlation of modern day choices and the causal effect of these conditions. Most of these diseases are caused due to the choices we make and the lifestyles we lead. That makes them the diseases that we should really worry about. There are certain health conditions that we cannot do anything about. We cannot preempt genetic cancer or type 1 diabetes. But we can avoid or prevent the diseases that our actions cause or facilitate.