The Acne Diet – Reduce Breakouts, Get a Better Looking Skin

Sick of pimples, comedones, reddishness and cysts spoiling the beauty of your face? No idea how to prevent or get rid of them? If so, let us tell you that you are not alone. There are millions out there determined to get rid of the acne problem trying every single method ranging from natural cosmetics to surgical treatments. Sometimes these turn out to be even more problematic than the acne itself and the person is left with no alternative but to deal with ugly acne-prone skin that often brings embarrassment making your face appear dull and dark. The Acne Diet plan is a reliable, fool-proof and healthy way to get in control of the acne and achieve healthier, clearer skin.
Acne vulgaris is a common skin condition that affects about 80% of people at some time during their lives. It is characterized by pimples, blackheads, whiteheads and papules growing over the person’s face, neck, chest and/or back. Early and effective acne treatment can keep it under control and prevent severe acne, however permanent scars, pigmentation, low self-esteem, anxiety, and even depression are common side effects.
The Acne Diet is designed to prevent and help cure the acne breakouts. Even if you don’t have an acne problem, it’s an effective step towards better looking, flawless skin with improved immunity as an added benefit. The acne disease is closely related with the oil secretion in the sebaceous glands in the pores (hair follicles) of the skin and dead skin cells. A well-balanced Acne Diet ensures controlled oil production and restricted pores enlargement to eradicate acne issues. Implementing the diet alongside your dermatologist prescribed acne treatment will definitely boost the healing effect.
Acne Diet Foods to Eat

• Seafood – oysters, salmon, tuna, sardines, mackerel, cod, halibut, shrimp
• Lean meats and poultry – chicken breast
• Whole grain products – oatmeal, bread, pasta
• Vegetables – spinach, broccoli, cucumber, kale, peas, carrots, mushrooms, artichokes
• Fruits and fresh fruit juices – apricots, mangoes, avocados, bananas
• Beans and legumes
• Nuts and seeds – flax / linseed seeds, walnuts, almonds
• Low-fat dairy
• Eggs
• Honey
• Oils – olive oil, flax / linseed seed oil, macadamia oil
• Brewer’s yeast – Marmite, Vegemite
• Water, green tea, herbal tea

Acne Diet Foods to Avoid

• Oily foods
• Spicy foods
• Processed meats – salami, lunch meat, ham, sausage
• Red meats – pork, lamb, beef
• Refined grains – white flour, white bread, pastries, biscuits
• Sugar
• High-fat dairy – milk, cheese
• Oils with omega-6 fatty acids – corn oil, grape seed oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil
• Vegetable shortening

The Acne Diet is not like a full-fledged plan to follow. Instead it is intended to provide guidance in terms of acceptable and unacceptable food without any strict portions or proportions rules, calorie counting or exact schedule of meals.
As mentioned above, acne is related with dead skin cells. A way to avoid their accumulation is to maintain the hydration of your skin. Nutritionists suggest at least 6-8 glasses of water daily to keep the skin-pores clean and prevent breakouts. You may be surprised to understand that avoiding fats actually promotes acne. To stay healthy, our skin requires fatty acids; therefore feeding on insufficient fat can stimulate hyper oil production, leading to acne. The Acne Diet menu should include healthy mono-unsaturated fatty acids found in avocados, nuts, fish and almonds. Zinc and Selenium as a part of the diet are also necessary for a healthy and acne free skin. 30-50 mg of Zinc and 50-65 mg of Selenium daily are highly recommended. Selenium aids improving pimple redness and discoloration of the skin. Prebiotic foods included on the diet list help in complete absorption of nutrients in the body, therefore preventing oil secretion and internal disorder due to indigestion.
Pros:

• Healthy and nutrient rich foods
• The food items are fairly cheap
• No extra medication or pills included (unless prescribed by a doctor)

Cons:

• Some people may find it hard to avoid certain foods that are off the allowed list
• Not backed up with enough scientific research
• May lead to micronutrient deficiencies

Many nutritionists as well as skin specialists believe that the skin reflects the overall health of the human body. Healthy skin reflects properly functioning organs, and hence a healthy diet is imperative for healthy skin. Eat right, detox, omit  and good luck on your journey to acne free-skin with the Acne Diet!

Breathing Awareness and Breathing

TECHNIQUE. EASY SELF TEST.
Inhale
In a sitting/standing position, try this:

1. As you inhale feel expansion at the belly button that goes away from the spine.
2. When you feel you can’t expand anymore, start expanding your rib cage.
3. When your rib cage is expanded to its full, raise your clavicles and keep on inhaling.

Exhale
Invert the process, same order:

1. Push your belly button as close to your spine as you can while you exhale all the air.
2. Now empty your ribcage and clavicles.

Did you get what “real” breathing is? Have you ever breathed like this in your life?
QI GONG BASICS
There’s a whole world beyond a single breath, but we’ll just visit a little room in a small block this time.

1. Stand relaxed in front of a mirror with your legs bent at the knees, feel relaxed and ready.
2. Put the palms of your hands at the navel facing the sky, fingers pointing the fingers of the other hand, a little space between fingers, don’t focus on how much!
3. Breathe in and feel the breath is the very beginning of the movement, not your mind, your breath.
4. Imagine you pull air from your stomach up towards your spine while keep on inhaling, slowly raise your hands towards the spine up to your chest.
5. When you reach the nipples level slowly turn your hands, palms facing the ground and begin exhaling pretending that is your breath to move your hands downwards, in a single, fully controlled movement, while you do this imagine air going back from the chest down into the stomach.

Do this three times and concentrate on being fluid and moving your breath into your stomach, then to your lungs, expanding both ribcage and clavicles. Fully empty your lungs and stomach when you reach your navel again. Both inhaling and exhaling movements should last at least 5 seconds.
Try these breathing practices whenever you feel anxious or deprived of energy. Also use them before workout, and see the effect!
BREATHING APPLIED
Whether you run, cycle or lift weights, your breathing pattern should fit the activity you’re practicing. Everyone has his own way of breathing during sports, but I feel I can give you a road sign to follow if you’re a total beginner or if you feel your actual habit may have space for improvement.
Aerobics:
Aerobic activities require consistent breathing rate and gapless breathing flow, I mean you have to constantly pump in and out a huge amount of air to sprinkle the working tissues with fresh oxygen and provide a good “waste recycling” process. To do that, try this: breathe in for a 2 tempo and breathe out for a 4 tempo; the tempo is a step if you’re running, a thrust on the pedal if you’re cycling and so on. You can change this ratio as in car tuning, your fuel/air ratio may vary if you need more energy in a specific period, to do this, simply add 1 to the breathing in tempo, if this is not enough, subtract 1 to the breathing out tempo.
Rest
When you STOP running, cycling, lifting, punching etc. you MUST keep on breathing AND moving! If you don’t do it, your body can’t get rid of its energy production byproducts like lactic acid, and you’re tired after every training session.
Try this: when you stop, instead of laying on the floor like you have been shot by a sniper, hold on and continue with the breathing pattern while you get into a light run in place or walk around for 3/5 minutes or until you get back your natural breath.
Do this EVERY time, and you’ll feel ready for the next run in no time!
LIFTING
When you lift weights your breath does much more than giving your muscles the energy to contract, it “locks” your soft tissues and gives you stability.
Whenever you’re lifting follow this simple rule:
Breathe in when you go to the sticking point (the hard part of the movement), breathe out from that point to the end of contraction.
An example is on a barbell curl, you start taking the barbell off the rack (you already breathed in) and push it to your chin (while you breathe out), then during the movement which brings you back to the rack you breathe in, “pumping” yourself you prepare to support the concentric movement with a consistent breathing out. When you breathe in, you charge a spring by slowly pumping air into your lower abdomen and chest. If you’re ¾ of the total capacity you’re ok, you won’t go over that while lifting. Then you release the spring and push that iron as strong as you can and SLOWLY breathe out, in a controlled action, you PSSSSSSST air out of your nose or mouth while you keep your abdomen contracted. This is your safety belt, if you keep your abdomen contracted during the concentric portion of a movement, you won’t get injured that easily, it also gives you extra stability during the movement, and this is very important when you’re trying to isolate a muscle. If you don’t isolate muscles mentally and physically, you’re like a bricklayer- you use your whole body to lift a weight, for sure this is functional, but have you ever seen a bricklayer on a magazine cover?
So try this pattern, you breathe in during the eccentric portion and breathe out in a controlled way during the concentric portion of a movement. You can even use a short “lock” on your breathing to pass over the sticking point, but I don’t suggest this to beginners as it is easier to get into a hernia or similar if you can’t “feel” your limit.
Now the final task is to bring this kind of breathing through the WHOLE DAY, whatever you do, working, training, talking, whatever.
To recap what “Breathing Awareness and Breathing Practices” can do for us we can say that proper breathing is a way to:

• Give your muscles plenty of oxygen to burn
• Secure position and avoid injury
• Isolate the muscle and maximize results
• Keep your mind clean and focused
• Boost metabolism
• Improve the functioning of the internal organs- liver, kidneys, heart, spleen and lungs
• Obtain more energy to meet the increasing demands of everyday life
• Link us to Dharma
• Calm our entire being
• Fill us up with Ki to be used later or throughout the day

Your breath is links bind mind, body and spirit into one. And when you are One, there’s nothing you can’t do, you’re as good as the best. As strong as the mightiest, too!

How to Get Bigger Arms

t arm muscle of all, so if you want to get bigger, more muscular arms that stretch your shirtsleeves and make your figure look thicker, focus on this triple muscle from all angles, to allow a harmonic yet completedevelopment.
Triceps engage every time you do a pushing movement, like in bench press, pushups, dips and isometric plank.
As for the biceps we’ll get straight into some third level exercise, and skip the good ol’ French press, dips, cable extensions, kickbacks and other movements which are effective, but also very accessible, easy to master and engage the triceps from one angle only.
We’re going to blast our triceps with three simple but tricky exercises, get ready!
TRICEPS
Functional Warm-up
(2 sets – 10/12 reps)
Go down in a pushup position; keep your hands under your shoulders with elbows pointing back.
Push with the triceps and don’t allow your elbows to move.
Do this movement in a slow motion, fully contracting your triceps at the top of the movement, pretending to squeeze your lower chest with the elbows.
Superset with dips holding your elbows close to your chest.
Regular/reverse Cable Bar Pull downs
(4 sets – 12-10-8-10 reps)
Adjust the weight on a cable with a bar attached, keep your elbows tight and closed to your side begin the movement of pushing the bar down.
At the end of the movement squeeze your triceps and pretend to tear the bar apart on the sides, like you wished to lengthen it.
Do the first set, then reverse your grip and repeat the same. Alternate regular and reverse grip through the four sets.
Explode down, slow up, in a 2-0-X-1 tempo, where 2 is the negative portion in seconds, 0 is the rest at the bottom, X is an explosive concentric movement and 1 is the second to squeeze at the top.
Decline dumbbell press
(4 sets – 8 reps)
Take two dumbbells and lay on a decline bench, 45/60 degrees.
Hold the dumbbells in your hands with the elbows closed to your side and pointing up.
Raise the weight squeezing on top and lower it down to the side of your ear.
Be sure to allow a full negative (eccentric) movement and a strong squeeze on top.
Repeat.
Smith Ladder
(3 sets to fail)
Set the bar of a smith machine to a low pin so that you end up almost parallel to the ground. Point your heels to the ground, hands shoulder width, let your hands touch your chest. This is your starting position.
Raise until your arms are fully extended then slowly get back to the starting position.
When you’re done with the first set, elevate the bar of one pin and repeat after a 30 seconds stop.
You won’t be able to rise up again when you give up!
Here we are Dr. Banner, are you ready to rip your sleeves? Done the exact way described, these exercises will add new muscle strength and significant mass to even the most developed arms.
Now Go Get Your Bigger Arms!