How to Look Thinner Just By Wearing the Right Bra

There’s something rather odd about how a good bra can enhance your sense of wellbeing. With the right fit and style, a new bra can make you feel sexy and confident and – according to Arthur Perry, MD, YouBeauty Cosmetic Surgery Expert – like you’ve lost weight. Perry comments, ‘No question that the larger the breasts are—whether from your genes, pregnancy or obesity—the faster they will sag. The benefit of wearing a good bra is that the sagging and stretching of the tissues is lessened. When breasts are allowed to droop, you get a pulling on the skin. This stimulates the fibroblasts, which are pressure-sensitive cells that make collagen, to make more skin and contributes to drooping of the breast. The advantage of wearing a bra is that you get less stretch and less droopy breasts over time.’ But how exactly do you choose the right bra for you?

 

1. Spot the signs: You know your bra doesn’t fit if you’re spilling out over the top of the cup – causing the dreaded “double boob” – or if it wrinkles or gaps at the top because it’s too big. The bra should cup most of your breasts, keep them firmly in place, separate your breasts by about an inch and, if you wear underwire bras, the wire should rest against your rib cage and not pull away from your body.

 

2. Get support in the right places: You can make the mistake of thinking the bra support comes from the straps. However, “bra whisperer” Susan Nethero, owner of Intimacy intimate apparel stores, points out, ‘A good bra provides breast support from the band [across your ribs]—only 10% of the support should come from the bra straps.’ This means slipping the straps off shouldn’t cause a significant breast slump. Moreover, when trying on your bra, look from the side and check that the bra’s bottom band forms a straight line or the back is an inch lower than the front of your bra. Nethero explains, ‘When the bra angles up your back that will cause the cups to fall down.’

 

3. Don’t be concerned about cup sizes: Some women wear the wrong size bra for years until a specialist tells them they’re a 32 E rather than a 34 C! If you find out your number is bigger or smaller than you previously thought, don’t sweat it! As with clothing, the important thing is to focus on the best fit, rather than some ideal cup size number you have in your head.

 

4. Stand firm: ‘You want it firm around the body and on the first hook so you have two to three hooks to go as the bra stretches,’ says Nethero. ‘You want a bra that hugs and holds you because you wear them 14 to 16 hours a day.’

 

5. Choose variety: The statistic shows that almost 70% of us have four bras or fewer in the underwear draw, but how many should we have? Nethero asserts ‘Ideally, seven to ten, but that’s a large number. Women have too few bras that they actually wear—and a lot sitting in their drawers that are a waste of money because they are uncomfortable. If you have five working bras in your wardrobe that you actually wear, that’s good.’ In your (br)arsenal, Nethero recommends that you have two nude bras (one of which should be strapless), one black or dark t-shirt bra and two to three fashion bras. Of these, one should have a deep plunge for clothes like wrap dresses and v-necks, one should be a sexy date bra for when someone might see it, and one, if you need it, should be a push-up bra.

Categories: Bra, bras, breasts, Cup Size, nbsp, nethero, Variety, wear

Fun with Foreplay: Why Pleasing Your Partner is Essential

The female mantra of “we need more foreplay” has been a sexual health issue for years, so why, then, do men still think they can get away with a quick grope and a slip of the tongue before sex? True, there are some circumstances in which you can get away with even less than that – after all, we all like a quickie now and then. However, most of the time, women need more from their partners than a wham, bam, thank you mam. In order to ensure your relationship wellness is in good shape, you need to realise that sex is different for men and women. Your partner doesn’t need an hour, or even half an hour, of foreplay, but for her sexual being – and, consequently, yours – to be as good as it can, foreplay is essential.

 

The key thing to remember here is that making it worth her while is, ultimately, improving sex for you too. You may feel like you end up putting all the work in to getting her “ready” — boooring — but if you want to have more and better sex, you need to enjoy this process. The more you turn her on in preparation for sex, the more likely she will be to have an orgasm – and be extremely grateful and willing to repay the favour. Giving her a sexual experience she’ll never forget will leave her desperate for more, meaning you get more sex out of it – winner. To give her the moves that will drive her wild, there are a few things you need to learn about foreplay:

 

1. There’s no ultimate foreplay: Some men seem to think there’s such a thing as the “ultimate foreplay” but actually variation is better. While something may work wonders for her arousal, the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it mentality” doesn’t apply. Sure, bring back your classic moves now and then, but don’t just stick to the one tactic you know, otherwise things will get stale. Get to know some knew things your partner likes – and ask her if there’s anything she’d like you to try. She’ll be touched that you want to make her happy, and having her tell you what to do can be a real turn on for both of you.

 

2. Kissing and foreplay: When it comes to turn-ons, I don’t think there’s a bigger one for women than kissing – especially if you do it nice and slow. Kiss every inch of your partner’s body and – by the time you’re done – she’ll be pretty excited for the main event. In fact, you may find she won’t be able to wait until the kissing stops! By taking the time and kissing every part of her, you’re telling your partner that you love every part of her, and don’t just like her for her lady parts. If you only focus on her breasts and vagina, your partner may feel desensitised in these areas after a while. You don’t have to kiss her all over every time you have sex – again, this can get stale if you do it every time – but by ravishing her every now and then, you can enjoy the process of figuring out her secret erogenous zones, and using that knowledge to your advantage in the future.

 

3. Avoid the moves that she hates: Every woman is different, but generally, women don’t like repetitious movements, being too aggressive or rough, anything lacking imagination; getting hurt or having her clitoris missed out. All men make these mistakes in the bedroom because men tend to do what they would like to have done to them. Sometimes, she may be up for something a little more rough, but if you want to have aggressive sex and nothing else, perhaps you should have sex with another man.

Categories: Foreplay, kissing, nbsp, partner, time, ultimate foreplay, Variety, Women

How to Lose Weight without Going on a Diet – Seriously!

Urgh, dieting – is there are more heinous word in the English language? Just the word itself makes you want to run away screaming and dive into a pile of chips, so how on earth do you actually do it? Now that I think about it, do you even need to diet? In fact, it is possible to lose weight or maintain your weight without actually following a diet plan or depriving yourself of anything you truly want to eat – score.

 

Before we get started, at no point am I going to tell you to take pills, cut out foods or actually get on a diet plan. We’re looking at practical advice that can help you to be the weight you want to be and take care of your wellbeing, without “going on a diet” or even exercising, so to speak. The dirty little secret of weight management is you don’t have to starve yourself or exercise hours a day to achieve it. There, I’ve said it. Here are the tried-and-tested tips which, if you actually follow them, do help you to lose or maintain your weight goals.

 

1. Keep your blood sugar level balanced – by snacking: Although your mum always said it would spoil your dinner, snacking is absolutely essential for weight loss and maintenance, as well as your overall wellness. Letting your blood sugar level to rise and dip is the underlying culprit in daytime grogginess, hunger pangs and cravings. To keep your blood sugar level at a low and stable level, you need to eat several small meals a day – say five to seven – instead of two or three large ones. You should aim to consume 300-500 calories in each meal, compared to the average meal of about 1200 calories.

 

2. Eat whatever you want: I bet you didn’t expect to read that! Depriving yourself of the things you want to eat means that you will really feel that lack, and your brain will begin craving that item even more. That food you won’t let yourself have becomes forbidden fruit (well, let’s be honest, forbidden cake) and soon that treat temptation will be too much to bear, and you’ll give in and overindulge. The key here is to limit the amount of the food, rather than eliminate it altogether. If chocolate is your secret love then have a couple of squares – that’s fine! Just don’t eat a family-sized bar in one sitting. A slice of pie? Sure. The whole thing? Perhaps not. As with all things in life and wellness, everything in moderation.

 

3. Eat slowly and chew your food: When you ingest food, it takes about 20 minutes for your body to realise and register that feeling of fullness. That means if you wolf down your dinner, you’ll be reaching for dessert before your stomach has even dealt with the pre-dinner nibbles. Slow down and give your body time to register the food is there by taking small bites and making the meal last at least 20 minutes, as it should.

 

4. Mix up your tastes and textures: Weight management is a psychological game; you trick your body into doing what you want it to do by making the brain think you’ve given it what you’ve conditioned yourself to believe you need. Human beings are creatures of habit, making patterns and associations until food becomes a routine you don’t even think about. Doing something outside that routine, however, registers in your brain in a different way, making it stand out. Therefore, by eating a variety of foods – especially tastes and textures you’ve never tried before – your brain will register you have eaten more foods and will reduce hunger and cravings.

Categories: Blood Sugar, diet, Eat Slowly, Food, level, Lose weight, nbsp, sugar level, Variety, weight, Weight Management

Efficient Exercise: How to Prevent an Overuse Injury

Whether you’re thinking you really should exercise more, or you want to give your current training routing a boost, you need to consider how the added activity might affect your wellness. Doing too much too soon can put you at risk of an overuse injury, which could ultimately prevent you from doing the activities you love, and benefit your health. Typically, overuse injuries are causes by training errors (such as going too fast, exercising for too long or simply doing too much of one type of activity) and technique errors (like using the wrong form and overloading certain muscles. If you do injure yourself when exercising, you should consult your GP as soon as possible. However, the good news is that most overuse injuries are avoidable, so you never need let it get to that point.

 

1. Be in the know: It’s all-too easy to start a new sport or activity and do yourself a mischief because you’re not using the right technique. You may not notice immediate pain, but the exercising using the wrong form can take its toll on your wellbeing over time, until one day something snaps. Whether you’re about to pick up a new activity or you’ve been at this for years, it might be a good idea to have a few lessons and ensure your technique is where it should be – Who knows? It might even improve your performance!

 

2. Dress for the occasion: While all the high-tech gear on the market probably isn’t necessary for you to perform well, one thing every athlete needs is the right pair of shoes. If you’re walking or running, you should aim to replace your shoes every 300 miles or so. For those of you who prefer other forms of exercise, and workout regularly, you should replace your shoes at least twice a year.

 

3. Pace yourself: You know you’ve become a weekend warrior when you begin compressing a week’s worth of physical activity into just two days. However, this approach is the quickest path to an overuse injury, and you need to pace yourself more efficiently. If you’re doing a moderate level of activity, aim for 150 minutes spread throughout the week. If your fitness programme is a little more vigourous, you shouldn’t do anymore than 75 minutes weekly. Also, don’t forget to take the time to warm up beforehand, and cool down after physical activity.

 

4. Build up your activity level slowly: You know the feeling; you finally get round to that jog or fitness class, you see your wellness perk up a bit, and suddenly you want more. However, going to “all” from “nothing” puts a huge strain on your body that it’s just not prepared for – you need to change the intensity or duration of a physical activity gradually. If you want to increase the amount of weight you use during your strength training session, say, you shouldn’t add on anymore than 10% each week until you reach your new goal. This gives your body plenty of time to adjust and adapt.

 

5. Mix it up: You may love your routine, but focusing on one type of exercise can lead to overuse of certain body parts, while building variety into your exercise programme can help to prevent injuries. Don’t just go walking; incorporate a mixture of low-impact activities like biking, swimming and water jogging. In moderation, this allows your body to use different muscle groups and prevent overuse injuries – especially if you’re doing some type of strength training at least twice a week.

Categories: activity, exercise, injuries, nbsp, overuse, overuse injuries, overuse injury, physical activity, Strength Training, techniques, Variety

Doggy Diet: How to Ensure Proper Nutrition for Your Pet

There’s no denying the importance of nutrition to family wellness, but what about the wellbeing of your furry little friend? It’s just as vital for your dog to eat well if he’s going to live long and avoid wellness problems, and so you need to ensure you’re making the right food buying decisions. The next time you’re in the pet food aisle, ask yourself the following questions:

 

1. What does the label say? Although commercial brands of pet food are more expensive, this generally means they meet strict government ingredient standards and are more digestible for your dog. Make sure the label states that it meets these standards, and as well as a clearly listed expiration date.

 

2. What are the ingredients? The breed and age of your pup will affect the quantities it needs of certain ingredients, but this should include a proper balance of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals. When it comes to proteins, you need food that is high in meat content and low in grain content. The fats should come from chicken or beef rather than general “animal fat” as this means the meat is healthy and easily digestible. Processed grains are really harmful to man’s best friend, so instead go for whole grains, such as oatmeal, brown rice, and barley.

 

3. Is there enough variety? Your pet needs variety to ensure his diet is balanced and that he is happy and satisfied. This means rotating three or four foods containing different meats, and giving your dog an occasional treat of a small amount of fresh meat, vegetables, rice, plain yogurt, and plain pasta.

 

4. Is it going according to schedule? Dogs thrive on routine, so you need to know the proper amount of food to be given and the time and frequency of meals. Set specific feeding times and locations.

 

5. Is the diet age-appropriate? As puppies are still growing, they need to be fed more often. Give four meals a day to puppies aged eight to 12 weeks, three meals up to the age of six months, and reduce it down to two meals for dogs aged six to 12 months. Most adult dogs can be fed once daily, but this might need to be two small meals per day if your dog is a larger sized breed.

Categories: diet, Dogs, Food, ingredients, meals, nbsp, nutrition, pet food, Variety

How to Get Your Little Fusspot to Eat Different Foods

Fussy children can really affect family wellness at meal times – who has time to sit down and have a nice chat when they’re trying to force-feed broccoli to a six-year-old? Plus, not eating healthy foods is bad for the child’s well-being, so here are seven top tips for getting your fussy kid to eat more, and love it.

 

1. Slow and steady

Even if you’re excited about getting your little fusspot eating more, you need to subtly and slowly introduce different foods. Doing it one food at a time will help you to observe your child’s responses, as well as an allergies to individual foods.

 

2.  Change it up

If there’s a particular food your child dislikes, try to change what form you give it in. Maybe the fusser won’t touch a bacon sandwich, but will love little bits of bacon chopped up and mixed in with chicken and tomato pasta.

 

3. Keeping Mum

If you don’t like something then I guarantee your fussy kid won’t go near it. Try to hide your dislike for foods and encourage your child to eat anything that others in the family eat, albeit in a smaller portion.

 

4. Let’s Get Creative

Your child will be far more interested in eating something if he or she has a variety in the choice of food as well as a little spark of innovation. Get creative with the shapes of food or go a little crazy with some food dye to make dinner fun.

 

5. Hide and Seek

Fruits and vegetables are the main source of repulsion amongst fussy eaters, so you may need to sneak them in under the radar. Chop up vegetables too fine to get noticed or mash up fruit and add it to milk and deserts. After a while, you can have your “A-Ha!” moment when your child complains about fruit and veg – they’ve been eating them all along.

 

6. Try alternative sources

If milk is a no-go zone for your child, go for other sources of calcium like cheese, yoghurt, sardines or sesame. The important thing is the goodness in the foods, rather than the food itself, so sometimes it’s worth switching lanes, and saving yourself the agro.

Categories: Child, Food, foods, Fussy Eaters, fussy kid, nbsp, Tricks, Variety

Goals, Activities and Basics: How to Win with Your Workout

Working at Glass Mill Leisure Centre has taught fitness instructor Craig a thing or two about health and wellness, so he shared his top tips for maintaining your wellbeing and making your fitness regime as effective as possible.

 

Firstly, make sure that you have the right goal in mind. Your main motivation may be as simple as ‘I want to lose weight’ but in reality this is not specific enough to get you to your goal. You need to have a precise end in sight, such as losing 10lbs in 10 weeks. Moreover, you should have at least three goals that you can break down using short-term, medium, long-term SMART criteria; are they

 

Specific?

Measurable?

Agreeable with instructor?

Realistic?

Timely?

 

Write down these goals, including how long you will take to achieve them, how you will measure them etc. Then, record your progress so you can see how far away you are from reaching your goals, as well as seeing how far you’ve come.

 

Next, you should include the right mix of exercises in your workout plan. Strength training should be one of your primary concerns as exercises such as squats and dead lifts can help you to develop coordination, agility and balance. Plus, strength training can ultimately increase your overall health and fitness, as it builds your muscle density. However, this doesn’t mean that you should only concentrate on this type of activity, as variety is a key component in fitness success. The “muscle confusion” that a variety of activities brings will help to avoid injuries, progress plateaus and workout boredom.

 

When planning your workouts, make sure you also make room for your essential wellbeing practises; warm-ups, cool-downs and recovery time. In every workout, you should do a five- to 15-minute warm-up to increase your body temperature and heart rate, and end with a cool-down to stretch your body, increase your flexibility and decrease your muscle soreness. Moreover, you need to allow your body sufficient time to recover between intense workouts or you could end up doing more harm than good. This means getting plenty of sleep to relieve your stress levels, as stress depletes your energy, strength and desire to workout. You should also take a week or two off between intense workouts and instead turning to less strenuous activities such as walking or dancing.

Categories: SMART Goals, Strength Training, Variety

How to Save Britain’s Withering Wildlife with Your Garden

So much of Britain’s wildlife is in decline, and combating this requires action on many fronts. Conservation charities, such as the RSPB, are fighting for environmental wellness on multiple platforms, but what can you do? Your garden has an important role to play in the wellbeing of all kinds of threatened wildlife, from hedgehogs to house sparrows to toads. That is not to say that you have to let your garden become a jungle of weeds. With care and thought, you can help wildlife without compromising everything else you want your garden to be.

 

Desert the plant desert – I guarantee that you have a “plant desert” in your garden somewhere. Do you have patio or decking? A bare fence or wall? A shed or garage roof? Go a little greener in any of those spaces and you will help wildlife to thrive.

 

Wet and wild – Getting as much water as possible into your garden will do wonders for the wildlife. Invest in a birdbath or even a pond and you will give a home or place to drink and bathe to many creatures.

 

Pick perfect plants – Plants vary in their value to wildlife, although almost all plants will at least do some good. However, the best plants to grow are the ones that just can’t stop giving, be it in pollen, nectar, seeds, berries, or tasty foliage.

 

Mix it up – Offer different rooms for different guests (which a practice is known as spatial diversity). With different trees, shrubs and flower-rich borders, you can have damp, shady retreats and sun-baked hotspots both in the same garden. Allow some of your lawn to grow longer than the rest. It may sound a little aesthetically unappealing, but you can make it look amazing if you creatively dissect and outline it with mown pathways.

 

Keep it natural – Using anything on your garden that removes links in the food chain, such as insecticides and herbicides, will have a damaging knock-on effect all along it.

 

Give good grub – Decaying plants, be they wood, bark, leaves or flowers, form the basis of garden fertility and of much of the web of life. You can provide warm, damp, food-filled hideaways for a whole host of creatures with compost heaps, log piles, leaf litter and bark mulches.

Categories: garden, Variety, wildlife

Start Small and Have Fun: How to Build a Fitness Lifestyle

You want to get fitter and make your wellbeing a priority, but who has the time between home, work, social events, and other commitments? Even when there is a spare hour that could be used to better your wellness, fatigue takes over fitness and convenient food takes over healthy food, but are you, maybe, making a few excuses?

If you start small, plan your fitness development, and make it fun, you can make the lifestyle changes you want. Let’s start with how you, well, start. Life-revamping big changes may seem appealing, but these aren’t sustainable and you’ll burn out quickly. You can’t go from a non-existent fitness regime to working out more hours than Jessica Ennis. Making small changes can snowball into bigger things – all you need is patience.

Next week, go for a 10 minute walk or a 5 minute run, do 10 squats followed by 10 push-ups, drink a litre of water instead of fizzy drinks, and eat one salad. That’s it – that’s all you’re allowed to do. Starting off with a big workout will leave you feeling sore, resistant to trying again, needing to rest for too long or even risking injury. Likewise, eating incredibly healthy for five days will build up your sugar cravings, and make you think you’re allowed to be naughty because you’ve done so well all week. Start small, and allow the snowball to grow.

Once you’ve got started, plan a fitness regime that’s going to work for you. If you hate running, don’t start marathon training! If weight lifting is boring, then don’t lift weights! If you move in a way that you enjoy, or find a fun activity, you’ll see the benefits much quicker. Exercise will become something you want to do instead of something you force yourself to do because it’s good for you. Maybe it’s a dance class, yoga, hiking, canoeing, martial arts, cycling, football, or tennis. Maybe you’d like to go for a jog now and again, but would prefer to mix it up with other activities so you don’t get bored. Whatever it is, find something that you enjoy, and you’re halfway there.

Start Small and Have Fun: How to Build a Fitness Lifestyle

Categories: Fun, Start Small, Variety