Dr. Jatinder Kaur

Many people nowadays with a craze of health and fitness scroll their eyes on different ideas to eat healthy. Some take professional help, some opt for for Dr. Google, some believe on their own knowledge and idea and end up feeling that 'eating healthy is not easy' end up choosing any possible shortcut to be healthy and fit. Now we need to think is it really so hard to eat healthy? Well the answer is 'Yes'. We need to cross a lot of hurdles to practice a healthy eating habit. Do read this article to know the hard truths about eating healthy.

Reasons why healthy eating is tough to maintain: 

1. You need a good market: By 'market' I mean a place from where you can buy fresh, seasonal, affordable, whole foods. And, if you are in a small town or on a budget, then forgot about fancy foods like broccoli, red cabbage, lettuce, salmon, tuna, multigrain bread and so on etc. When you can't get all this latest stuffs it comes in your mind that you can't get health with local foods at all, as you are seeing guacamole recipe for your salad or multigrain sandwich. In this frustration you will chose to have pizza, or a street side roll, full cheese sandwich, which might be similar to all the fancy meals read or suggested to you to be healthy. And the results  are problems, such as overweight or underweight or other health disorders. It is just the first reason why eating healthy is hard and even if you cross this hurdle, there are others. 

2. You need time for shop: In this 21st century our lives are in superfast mode. Some of us work for 60 hours a week and come back home with all the tiredness, irritability and basically with the need to sleep and rest. At that moment healthy food shopping in budget is nowhere in life. As a lot of us stay alone or both the partners working along with a child for homework or different classes. A lot more examples are there. So time is a big hurdle too.

3. You need time and energy to cook: Now if you can are able to buy fresh foods in your budget, you need to have time to cook all this for you or for your family. That again needs time and energy from you. Now how you cross this hurdle?

4. You need cooking equipments and more than anything else you need cooking skill: It is tough to cut veggies on a plate with butter knife or eat a curry with no salt n spice or make idli without idli mold. And, in that situation you decide to leave healthy eating and opt for a pizza or dine out, all these hurdles after 50 to 60 hours of weekly work will get on your nerves. Let me tell you, your feeling is absolutely normal. 

Now what next? Here are some possible solutions:

1. Respect your struggle: Be realistic and learn from your failure. Almost each of us knows fruits and vegetables are good, sugary foods are bad, even you know about portion control. But whatever suggestions you have received is not at all easy to maintain, you need to admit that. You need to know, practice makes you perfect and you can fail in between.     Not to worry, start again. Find new strategies to work on eating     healthy challenge.

2. Make a kitchen toolkit collection: With smart choice of kitchen toolkit can make your work easy

• A good knife, chopping board, peeler, slicer, dicer and easy vegetable chopper (cost around Rs.350/- onwards)
• Silicon coated cooking utensils (kadai, pan etc., cost around Rs.1000/-  onwards)     
• A steamer pot (costs around Rs.500/- onwards)
• Basic OTG and utensils (costs around Rs.2500/- onwards)
• Roti maker (costs around Rs.1000/- onwards)
• Hand blender ( costs around Rs.1000/- onwards)

3. Make a schedule for shopping and cooking: Make a smart grocery shopping list (with minimum preservatives) with pre planned meal for a whole week. Choose locally grown foods if you are in a small town or     order online if your area is covered for delivery by grocery stores. You can consult a qualified dietician for a healthy menu and recipes also. Nowadays it is very easy as online clinics are there. In this way you can avoid scrambling your plan to eat healthy and save money by minimum food wastage.

4. Reduce your stress: Eating healthy will help in relaxing you and you can properly utilize your resources of money, time, energy and skill. If you are in stress you can't use any of it. So, go for walk; relax with music or book, go for vacation with your family and friends to manage your stress.

5. Simplify your cooking: You must not elaborate your meals all the time. Think smartly and make one pot meal with maximum nutrition.     

6. Ask for help or help each other: It's ok if you ask for help to eat healthy. So help your partner or mom in cooking or shopping or ask for help from a professional. As in India it's quite easy to get a cook at your place. You can hire a cook for yourself or to save money jointly with some friends.

7. Learn new strategies of healthy eating: Healthy cooking needs more effort than you think. So before you leave healthy eating, stop and re-examine. Search Dr. Google or learn from your mom or family or society for new recipes and customize recipes for healthy eating or for relaxation join cooking class.

8. Eat out once a week and eat smartly: Fond of eating out? No problem. Choose a day in a week and eat outside food in one meal. But choose less oily, less fried, less preservative, maximum nutrition options. Like you can opt for thin crust whole wheat pizza with or sub wrap or sandwich with all veggies, baked or grilled filling with no extra cheese, Idli with sambar, yellow dal with whole wheat tandoori roti (no butter), grilled or baked or steamed options according to your choice. Learn about your healthy meal.

After reading all possible solutions I am sure you will start eating healthy, learn and help others to eat healthy.

On the occasion of world sexual health day.
This day is being celebrated every year since 2010 by world association for sexual health. 
This year the theme is sexual health: eilminate the myths.
 As talking about sex life is considered a taboo, a lot of myths and misconceptions related to sexuality are rampant in all age groups and all the populations, rich or poor, educated or uneducated. Most of the them are wrong beliefs and are potenetially harmful to one's sexual and marital health.

Also, many industries are making huge amounts of money by feeding in such wrong beliefs to the society, such as spurious medicines, oils, illegal drugs, and such related services who offer miracle cures and charge huge amounts of money for conditions which are not even a disease. E. G dhat syndrome. They are doing so by instilling fear and ill-based beleifs in people's mind.

For those who are interested in educating themselves and live a better healthy life, here are some discussions

Some common myths dispelled

1. Menstrual blood is impure and women become impure during menstruation.
Correction: menstruation is normal physiological process in the womans body, there is nothing abnormal or sinister about it.

2. If a couple is not able to have a baby, it is the woman who is" baanz" and responsible for not getting pregnant.
Correction: in case of infertile couple the infertility factor may be due to either the male or the female or somtimes with both the partners.

3: some women are unable to bear a male child! sometimes such woman is abandoned or divoreced.
Correction: according to todays knowledge, the sex/gender of the unborn child depends entirely on the male sperm which has fertilised the ovum. If sperm carried the female chromosome the child will be a female and vice versa. So a woman has little of no role in determining the sex of the unborn child.

4. Sex is only for procreation (for having babies) and not for recreation (for mutual enjoyement).
Correction: in case of human being unlike animals, sex is basically meant for mutual pleasure and not just for having babies. Or else human beings will have to give birth to millions and trilions of babies every time they had sex, cause the semen contains millions of live sperms.

5. Sex and sexual pleasure is the forte of the men and women are only supposed to comply to men's wishes.
Correction: in human beings, both men and women are endowed with enough intelligence as well as body capacities. A women also has the capacity of wanting, and enjoying sex just as her male partner and for a happy couple life, both partners should make each other happy in bed too.

6. The sex life ends with women's menopause and the men crossing 40 to 50 years of age.
Correction: most men if are in good health after 40s, are able to remain sexually active well in their 70s or even 90s. Most women after late 30s or after menopause, in fact feel more interested in sex because they no longer fear getting pregnant.

7. A man can get erection whenever he wants.
Correction: just as a woman may have ups and downs of sexual desire, similarly men also go variation in their libido or erection depending upon physical condition, stress etc.

8. Masturbation and night fall leads to sexual dysfunction and loss of sexual power.
Correction: mastrubation and night fall are normal physiological processes of the body. They are as natural as feeling hungry and passing stools every day. They do not cause any loss of sexual power unless they have formed addictions. 

9. To satisfy women men should have long and thick penis.
Correction: satisfaction depends upon the intimacy and communication between two partners and the mutual ability to pleasuer each other. It is the not the cup that matters, it is the coffee inside the cup which is important.

10. A woman is virgin only if her hymen is not broken or only if she bleeds during first coitus.
Correction: there are no sureshot methods to gauge the intactness of virginity in males as well as in females. In a woman, the hymen may be absent altogether or may have broken duing running or cycling etc.

11. Sex and talking about sexual health is obscene and absurd.
Correction: making it a taboo will in fact spread lot of false information. If treated in a scientific way, talking about sex can be as normal as talking about normal life events.

12. Homosexuality is choice / homosexuality is a disease
Correction: people do not choose to be homosexuals, they usually exhibit or express what they are really born with! one does need to rememebr there can be compelling factors such as blackmail, emotional/physical, or lack of availability of opposite sex partner. 

13: sex education spoils the youth and encourages them to experiemnt.
Correction: any education imparts knowledge and helps you to make informed decisions, so is true with sex education. It makes one a responsible human being.

 Sexual health is the right of every person.

The main symptom of genital herpes include occurrence of blisters around or near the rectum. These blisters do break eventually, but they leave behind sores that are very tender and that take about 2 to 4 weeks to heal when the eruption of blisters occurs for the first time. The subsequent outbreaks are shorter and less severe than the first outburst. The disease can spread easily through sexual intercourse and it is better to consult a doctor, even if no clear symptoms are visible. Genital herpes cause tingling sensation and a lot of uneasiness in the genital area.

Causes of genital herpes

1. The genital herpes infection is mainly caused by 2 different types of HSVs or herpes simplex virus.
2. The first type of herpes simplex virus most commonly infect the lips and they cause cold sores, which are recognized as fever blisters.
3. The first type of HSV type 1 virus can also produce sores in the genital area. The usual cause of genital herpes is the HSV type 2 and that can infect the mouth.
4. Genital herpes can be simply transmitted from one individual to another during sex. The symptoms of herpes can be produced on and off in some people as it remains in the nerve cells of the body.

Symptoms of genital herpes

1. Burning or itchy feeling in the genital area that lasts for more than 2-3 weeks.
2. Pain is experienced in the genital area, legs and buttocks.
3. Fluid is discharged from the Vagina, and pressure is experienced in the abdomen.
4. The sores appear after few days on regions where the virus has entered like penis, vagina or the mouth.
5. The other general symptoms that can occur under this condition are headache, fever, muscle aches and difficulty in urination.
6. The glands around the groin area also get swollen at times.

Homeopathic medicines are safe
It is a contagious disease and use of homeopathic remedies is very effective in treating herpes. Remarkable results can be gained by taking homeopathic medicines, and these are extremely safe. There are no side effects caused by taking homeopathic medications, and are of great use in eradicating the condition from the root. The intensity of the genital herpes condition takes a long time to wither and use of homeopathic medicine though provides slow results is very effective and harmless. The best homeopathic medication that can be taken to treat genital herpes is Natrum Mur for both men and women.

Urine is known as the liquid waste that is discharged by the body on a regular basis, many times during the day and even during the night. Most of us do not give too much importance to this aspect of our being. Yet, this is an important indication of many things regarding your health. One of the vitals that are usually checked when we are having any symptoms of ailments and serious conditions, includes the urine.

The colour, odour and even consistency of the urine can point at the state of your health. There are many chemicals and toxins that are there in your urine which may be checked in order to decipher the level of the waste going out and the chemicals in the same. This is an indication on the type and severity of the disease that a patient may be suffering from. Here are the things that the colour and odour of the urine can tell you.

1. Pale hued: If your urine is pale hued, then it means that your health is in normal condition. This colour may also tend towards golden. This colour of the urine is down to the pigment called urochrome, which exists in the liquid waste.
2. No colour: If your urine is colourless, then it means that you have been drinking plenty of water or even ingesting a substance known as a diuretic that is known for flushing out the bodily fluids at a faster rate. This lack of colour usually means that your fluids and waste are both getting flushed out routinely and that everything is fine with your body and your health in general.
3. Brown: If your urine colour is dark and appears brown, then you may want to see the doctor immediately. This may also come with episodes of burning and pain during urination, which can point to a range of problems. Very dark coloured urine with a moderate odour may point towards an infection in the urinary tract or even the onset of a kidney dysfunction. Brown-hued urine may point at conditions that have to do with the kidneys as well as the liver, which will need to be checked immediately to make the correct diagnosis on a timely basis and begin treatment for the ailment in question. You may need more fluids in order to get the colour back to normal, as it may also be a sign of dehydration.
4. Orange: Orange urine may point at a high dosage of vitamin B12, and may show that you are dehydrated, while pink or red urine must be reported to the doctor on an emergency basis, as it may point at a urinary tract infection (UTI) or prostate problems.

How do you suppose to sit?

• Keep your feet on the floor or on a footrest, if they don't reach the floor.

• Don't cross your legs. Your ankles should be in front of your knees.

• Keep a small gap between the back of your knees and the front of your seat.

• Your knees should be at or below the level of your hips.

• Adjust the backrest of your chair to support your low- and mid-back or use a back support.

• Relax your shoulders and keep your forearms parallel to the ground.

• Avoid sitting in the same position for long periods of time.

How you should stand properly?

• Bear your weight primarily on the balls of your feet.

• Keep your knees slightly bent.

• Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart.

• Let your arms hang naturally down the sides of the body.

• Stand straight and tall with your shoulders pulled backward.

• Tuck your stomach in.

• Keep your head level-your earlobes should be in line with your shoulders. Do not push your head forward, backward, or to the side.

• Shift your weight from your toes to your heels, or one foot to the other, if you have to stand for a long time.

   

What is the proper lying position?

1. Find the mattress that is right for you. While a firm mattress is generally recommended, some people find that softer mattresses reduce their back pain. Your comfort is important.

2. Sleep with a pillow. Special pillows are available to help with postural problems resulting from a poor sleeping position.

3. Avoid sleeping on your stomach.

4. Sleeping on your side or back is more often helpful for back pain. If you sleep on your side, place a pillow between your legs. If you sleep on your back, keep a pillow under your knees.