Welcome...

to the October 2006 Edition of Health Womens' 'Inside Insight' Newsletter

Here's What you'll find in this edition....

====== In This Issue #3 ======

1.  Healing Thoughts, Healing Actions: Wellness is defined as... Plus, learn the 7 dimensions of your womens health and wellness!

Wellness Monitor - learning how to monitor your health is crucial to your well-being. Here's how!

2.  Living Fit: Massage Therapy - What statistics and the government are saying about this alternative health care approach...Plus,
Black Health - Womens, is it time to take the 'Big' out of Black?

Goal Setting Forms And Guidance Part Two: Establishing With Clarity What It Is You Want

3.  An Apple A Day - Eating The Raw Food Diet Way - Is this the ultimate in vegetarian and vegan food. Plus...
'Cooks Corner' - Some quick healthy recipes and healthy eating tips

4.  Beauty And Beyond - Our Cosmetics And What's Really In Them? Plus... Beauty Food Beauty Tip

5.  Looking Ahead A glimpse at just a few of the issues to be covered in the next edition of Inside Insight Newsletter

Health And Wellness Defined

your present life circumstance; your personal experiences; the daily challenges that confront you and the joys, happiness and personal achievements you experience will all contribute to a lesser or greater extent, toward your sense of wellness.

Wellness is subjective, since a definition of being well will differ from woman to woman. What one woman will consider optimum wellness, might be more general for another woman and will largely be based on her particular needs, circumstances and experiences. Regardless of your definition of wellness, should you feel that one or more dimensions of your life is out of balance, it is an indication that you need to give more priority to those areas.

Consider This Definition Of wellness In Comparison To Your Own

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Self-Monitoring Your Wellness

The term wellness monitor is associated with preventative steps for assessing, measuring and maintaining health and wellbeing. There are seven dimensions to your wellness: these are, physical, mental/emotional, spiritual, social, family, career and financial. Where are you in the balance of things?

Learn how to measure your quotient of health and well-being

Is Massage Therapy A Viable Alternative Health Solution?

An alternative care health solution that is growing in popularity, is massage therapy. It has gained increasing recognition as a viable and effective form of alternative therapy, so much so, that the federal government and medical community now consider it complementary health care medicine.

47 million Americans are claimed to be using massage therapy as an alternative care health approach, which is 2 million more than in the previous year.

It is further estimated that there will be a significant increase of between 20-35% in the number of massage therapists by the year 2012. This accelerated increase is being attributed to the recent changes in state laws that now recognise this alternative care health approach and its practitioners as bonafide health care contributors.

Read the full story here >>

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The Benefits Of Massage Therapy

Massage therapy is more widely known as an alternative health care practice and treatment for sports-related injuries. However, the other range of benefits include relaxation, lowering blood pressure and alleviation of chronic back pain.

Should you decide that massage therapy is for you, how do you go about choosing a good therapist? To find the answer to this and to other typical questions you might have, read the following

Tips On Choosing A Good Massage Therapist and what you should expect

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Black health womens - Is Your Staunch Self-esteem Body Image Harming You!

It seems ironic that in a mainstream society where being 'slim' or 'thin' is a highly valued health and beauty aspiration, in black health and beauty, womens aspiration is very different. In much the same way that many non-black women have succumbed to media pressure to conform to a stereotypical image of health and beauty, many Caribbean and African American women's internalisation of the 'big is beautiful' myth, emerged a long time ago out of 'family' and 'male-value-laden' belief systems.

Despite mainstream society's emphasis on the more slender body- image, cultural ideaology still exert a strong influence over many African American and Caribbean black women's perceptions of what constitute a desirable body-image. But are these ideals shoring up very serious implications for black health womens fitness and future well-being! Whether you're Black or White...

Read The Remainder Of This Informative Article >>

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Prioritising Your Personal Values In Goal-Setting

As promised, Part Two of your personal goal setting forms are now ready and waiting for you. By now you should have some idea about a health goal or even some other life changing goals you want to set. You'll find this months guidance at the following url. The link to Part two of your personal goal setting form is located near the bottom of that page. I cannot stress enough, the importance of reading the accompanying goals guidance. It will help you to understand the goals setting process more fully, while helping you to get the very best out of the process.

Goals Guidance Part Two

The goal-setting guidance is open to all readers, however, the goalsetting worksheets and goal setting forms are strictly for Members of this newsletter. You will be required to enter the pass-word that was sent to you in your welcome email when you signed up for the Newsletter. Drop me a line via the website contact form if you experience any difficulty.

If you're not already a member, don't miss out! Sign up is quick and painless.

Make Me A Member >>

Raw Food Diet - Could this be the ultimate low calorie, vegetarian and vegan cure-all diet?

The raw food diet, also referred to as the living food diet is perhaps the ultimate in vegetarian or vegan eating. Raw food, is claimed to give you more energy, better health, is low in calories, aid weight loss, reduce the effects of diabetes, as well as a host of other benefits.

The distinct difference between a raw or living food diet and a vegetarian one, is that while vegans and vegetarians will only consume a plant-based diet, living or raw food diet followers believe in eating only natural uncooked, unheated, unprocessed and organic plant based food.

Would you be surprised to know that you can recreate burgers, fries, pizza and even chocolate cake, using the ingredients of raw foods!

According to a recent research study by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, eating a low-fat vegan diet may be better at managing type 2 diabetes than traditional diets

Get The Full Raw Food Facts Here

Cooks' Corner

Healthy Eating Recipe

Healthy eating is as much about enjoying the foods you particularly like, as it is about eating the foods that are healthy for you.

Chicken is healthy and nutritious and is low in fat. Visit the link below for a quick and easy chicken breast recipe you can prepare and cook it in well under 20 minutes. It makes an ideal mid-week meal or even a convenient dinner party chicken recipe. Try serving it with mangetout or very lightly cooked french beans.

Get Your Quick Chicken Breast Recipe Here

You'll find a further collection of other healthy recipes along with nutritional information, all of which you can prepare and cook in under 30 minutes
More Healthy Quick Recipes Here

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Healthy Eating Tips:

1. You can replace saturated fat with more monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats by cooking with olive, canola and peanut oils instead. Using these oils, along with other plant oils, such as corn oil, nuts and seeds will provide your diet with more of the healthy fats. Any animal fat will contain saturated fat, so choose only lean meats, such as chicken breast or tenderloin of pork and lower-fat cheese, milk and yogurt.

2. When served fresh and raw, spinach is a tasty vegetable that is packed with folate, a B vitamin that helps keep body cells healthy, prevents anaemia and breaks down homocysteine, an amino acid that increases risk of heart disease.

Spinach also contains disease-fighting substances which protect your eyes from age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in the elderly.

Do avoid bagged spinach though. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a warning on using fresh bagged spinach. They advised consumers not to eat it while they probe a multistate outbreak of E. coli that reportedly killed one person and sickened 50 others. The outbreak has been seen in at least 20 states.

You pay attention to your diet and what's in the foods you eat. You even go to the trouble of finding the best health care practitioners or providers but how much attention do you pay to your cosmetics and what's in them?

The term 'cosmetics' doesn't just refer to the likes of lipstick, nail polish or eye make-up etc., If you wear perfumes, use cleansers, shampoos, lotions or creams, toothpaste or wear deodorants, you are a 'cosmetics' user.

These every-day-use products are an integral part of our personal care and self-grooming regime. Just as it's important to have a healthy awareness of what goes into our bodies, we also need to pay more attention to what we're putting on one of our most important organs - our skin!

One of our skin's main functions is to act as a protective barrier against the outside world, so is it time we started taking note of exactly what we're applying to it!

Get The Full Health Product Wellness Cosmetics Facts Here >>

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Natural Beauty Remedies

Olive Oil for Sheen

Try using olive oil for your hair. It will not only condition it, it will also get rid of the frizz. Simply put a small drop into your palm, rub and then apply it to dry hair.

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Natural Beauty Food

Did you know that nuts contain anti-inflammatory properties, which helps to keep your skin smooth and spot-free! Nuts are high in essential fatty acids which help to replenish collagen, naturally moisturise and promote skin firmness. Try hazel nuts and Brazil nuts, which are especially effective (eating them that is).

Here's some of what you can expect in the next issue of Inside Insight!