501 Ways to Good Health
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501 Easy Health Tips is written by Kellie Collins, a nutritionist who assures her public she isn't a health freak. She likes a glass of wine and a bar of chocolate so she's OK by me. However, she believes that what she eats has got to be the best for her daily health and her diet section features basic and nutritious foods readily available and easy to mix and match for a varied intake.
The book falls into five main chapters, food and drink, nutrition and health, weight loss, fitness and wellbeing. She covers everything from body odour to keeping a diary and from mobile phones to bananas. Dipping in and out of this attractive book I learned that you can minimise BO by avoiding garlic, onions, spices and surprisingly, asparagus; that drinking sage tea helps reduce sweating and is especially good for any woman experiencing menopause and sweating and hot flushes. |
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TOP TIPS FOR LIFE: The range of quick fire information in Kellie's book is fantastic. Dieters are told, if you're tempted to eat between meals go and clean your teeth when you feel the need and if it's a really bad urge, rinse with a mouthwash as well. Food tastes pretty awful after that. |
She gives practical advice such as keeping a diary, indeed one for each of the family, noting doctors and dentist appointments, hospital visits and general illnesses in detail. What a useful book to pass on to children when they grow up so they can look back to their own childhood health history, knowledge which could be useful in their adult lives. |
When it comes to mobile phones Kellie says that although we don't know what dangers they hold, they do cause stress both to the user and the observer so turn it off in the evening and weekends and let people leave messages. And what about bananas? The ultimate snack food, boosting energy instantly and raising potassium levels, essential for regulating nerves, heartbeat and blood pressure. Bet you didn't know they are also a useful hangover cure!
Kellie, from Cullyhanna, now lives and works in Dublin. She's one of a team of three nutritionists providing information to the Tesco Diet Internet site.
"I loved home economics at Our Lady's Grammar School in Newry and studied human nutrition at the University of Ulster Coleraine and I am now working with Tesco and to be asked to write this book has been wonderful." The book's going well she says, and her mum Dolores is her best publicist. "She goes round the shops placing them at the front of the shelf and has arranged to have copies in our local shops!" And buyers won't be disappointed.
The range of quick fire information is wide ranging. Dieters are told, if you're tempted to eat between meals go and clean your teeth when you feel the need and if it's a really bad urge, rinse with a mouthwash as well. Food tastes pretty awful after that.
I've never thought much about my balance. Have you? According to this book if you exercise a few minutes a day this will keep the right messages going to the brain and so help prevent falls, Especially important for elderly people and quite easy. This is what to do. Stand up straight, hold onto the back of a chair and then raise one leg slight off the floor and try to balance for 10 seconds. Repeat five times for each leg. As your balance improves try to do this exercise without holding onto the chair. Kellie also gives simple exercises for those of us hunched over computers and consuls.
For dry hands and weak flaky nails, soak your hands in a bowl of warm olive oil once a week -recycle the oil from week to week. And I fancy a seaweed bath for a bit of detoxing, rehydrating and moisturising, also good for acne, eczema, back pain and arthritis; so I'm off to the beach with my bucket and spade.
There's just one thing. Tip number 200 talks about two basic body shapes, apple (people who tend to carry a lot of weight around their middles which increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes) and pear shaped people (those who carry weight on their hips who have fewer health complaints). My question is what if you are a bit of a fruit salad and suffer from both?
When you have so many tips it takes time to digest them all so I'm just dipping in and out of the colourful pages to give you an idea of what's on offer, Little bite sized bits of advice, information and ideas from using good food well to looking at life in the round all add up to 501 Easy Health Tips.
501 Easy Health Tips. £6.99. More at www.newhollandpublishers.com
Reprinted from the Irish News, 8 February 2007
