Cucumber is a great folk medicine used to reduce heat. It can be eaten raw, pickled or used in cuisines. Cucumber is popular among women because it is normally used to help treat tired eyes.

Cucumber is a fruit from the same family as pumpkin, zucchini and other squashes. Cucumber has a dark green rind and white succulent flesh. There are 2 types of cucumbers the pickling varieties and the slicing varieties. Cucumber is a very edible fruit which comes from the cucumber plant cucumis sativus. Cucumber is being used for different purpose as it can be eaten raw or cooked. With so many health benefits Cucumber becomes one of the most important parts of food diet as well as skin diet.

It is believed that cucumber helps in dropping swelling around the eyes or the big dark circles under your eyes. Cucumbers are the most wonderful and natural eye pads you can find. The puffiness and the tiredness in your eyes may just leave you, if you use Cucumber. If you want a contented skin, then cucumber is the answer. As cucumber and the skin share the same level of hydrogen, it becomes easier for cucumber to mask all the troubled areas. Cucumber helps in soothing and softening your skin which can get you relaxed in no time.

Cucumber has become part of daily beauty product like face packs, facials, juice and many other things which can affect your skin. Due to Cucumber’s cooling effect it can be termed as a magic wand for all your skin problems. The cleaning and cleansing property of the Cucumber helps your skin tremendously making it soft and supple. The regular intake of cucumber juice has a lot of health benefits.

Health Benefits of a Cucumber:

• Cucumber is best natural diuretic known.
• Cucumber helps in kidney and urinary bladder disease.
• Liver disease can be prevented by cucumber.
• Cucumber prevent Pancreatic disease
• The potassium in cucumber makes it highly useful for conditions of high and low blood pressure.
• Cucumber has the enzyme that helps to digest protein.
• The high silicon and sulphur in cucumber is said to promote the growth of hair, especially when the juice of the cucumber is added to the juice of carrot, lettuce and spinach.
• A mixture of cucumber juice with carrot juice is said to be beneficial for rheumatic conditions.
• Cucumber juice is also valuable for helping diseases of the teeth, gums.
• The high mineral content of Cucumber also helps to prevent splitting of nails of the fingers and toes.
• Cucumber, radish and bitter gourd are valuable in diabetes.

Apples are a complete fruit unlike many other fruit and they come in so many variations that you can never be tired of them.

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away”…but how? Apples have properties that no other fruits have and its benefits have been verified overtime. You will be able to get the benefits of these properties individually with other fruits, but an apple combines all and makes it simpler. It has been shown over and over that if it’s not easy, effortless and quick, people won’t take care of their health.

1-Apple contains Vitamin C which helps greatly your immune system.

2- Apples can prevent both coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease because apples are rich in flavonoid. Flavonoids are also recognized for their antioxidant effects.

3- A regular size apple has between 70-100 calories. Eating an apple when craving for candy or chocolate can make the desire vanish since apple itself contains sugar, but gives you only ¼ of the calories.

4- We all know that cancer comes in several forms and in different places. Apples target multiple cancers such as colon cancer, prostate cancer and breast cancer.

5-Apples contain phenols, which have a double result on cholesterol. It reduces bad cholesterol and increases good cholesterol.

7- This is something many people don’t know, and when you consider that your brain makes the person you are, it gives a whole new perspective. Apple has substances called phytonutrients, and these phytonutrients prevents neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinsonism.

8- People who eat 5 apples or more per week has lower respiratory problems, including asthma.

9-They taste delicious! And not only that, they also come in lots of flavors and colors. Their taste can differ greatly, but still give you all the apple benefits. Diversity is an important element to maintaining your health.

On average, Pakistanis munch away around 20 pounds of apples a year, which comes to around 1 apple a week. Regrettably, while an apple a week is better than nothing, it is nowhere close to being able to extract all the advantages apples have to present. Eating apples is part of balanced and healthy diet than will add to your long life, so why limit yourself to only 1 per week, right?

Everyone knows the keys to losing weight: Eat less and exercise more but knowing is not enough. Sounds simple enough, but in the context of real life and its demands, it can be anything but simple to weight loss. To lose weight in a healthy way, we must control calorific intake and increase the amount of calories burned with some form of exercise so the weight loss is permanent. Regardless of the eating plan component of your weight-loss program, the following tips will help you accomplish your goals of healthy weight-loss and weight maintenance instead of starving yourself thin:

• Drink plenty of water or other calorie-free beverages for weight loss.
• Think about what you can add to your diet, not what you should take away as in weight loss it is not healthy to starve.
• Consider whether you’re really hungry before eating.
• Be choosy about night time snacks. Don’t eat right before going to bed as it is unhealthy.
• Eat less but more often so weight loss is easy.
• Brush your teeth early so you stay away from food.
• Eat vegetables before the main course so you eat less
• Shop with calories in mind so you are aware of what you eat.
• Reduce the amount of breads, chips, crackers, and salty snacks you eat for weight loss.
• Never crash diet to lose weight as it will only make you unhealthy
• Best weight loss plan: substitute food items instead of eliminating them
• Gradual changes in lifestyle are best for losing weight

You may think just shedding extra pounds would be satisfying. Of course it would be nice to fit into smaller clothes and be able to jog without running out of breath. But if you want to lose weight for the incorrect reasons, like many others before you, there’s a good chance that either your diet will fall short or that you will put weight back on after your diet is over.

Winter cold is an annual ritual most of us go through so regularly that winter cold is becoming a bad habit. Winter cold is a nightmare; winter cold is dreaded by everyone. Winter cold is an inconvenience we all want to avoid. However we forget to take precaution for this winter cold every winter. There are some easy winter cold remedies right in front of you. Don’t be lazy and take caution otherwise get ready for the winter cold to attack.

Every day every winter would be ideal but right before winter cold symptoms are showing start drinking warm honey water. Add lemon in the warm honey water and that is magical. Winter cold is best fought with good dose of Vitamin C. Make sure to consciously take lots of Vitamin C during winter cold. Vitamin C strengthens your metabolism against winter cold; hence Vitamin C is your perfect weapon to fight this regular battle against winter cold.

It is time to pull up our socks before winter cold takes us down and leaves us sour.

Most diets manage to trap us only because of their good advertising tactics. If you are following a diet that most people around you are doesn’t mean the diet is good. It only means the diet has good advertising tools.

A typical scenario; you start a diet, you lose weight and then keep following the diet but you stop losing weight. You lose faith in the diet so you go off the diet. As soon as you go off the diet you gain weight even more easily than before the diet. This is because most diets slow down your metabolism in the long run.

Our weight is not about what diet we follow but is directly related to the difference between energy intake and energy used, which is directly related to metabolism. Losing weight is not about following one diet after another diet. Losing weight comes from increasing your metabolism. In your diet just make sure you eat only how much you can burn.

The ideal situation is incorporate exercise in your life. No one can dispute exercise helps lose weight. Losing weight can be made more effective with a careful eye on your diet. No hassle of elaborate starving diets just a little caution is good enough for weight watching.

There are a lot of good for nothing diets out there so be careful of who you believe; it is what you eat that makes who you are after all!

Science has always favored breakfast; there have been studies about people who eat breakfast perform better than those who skip breakfast. Therefore it is a bad idea to skip breakfast. Eating a good breakfast sets the tone for the rest of the day.

If you don’t skip breakfast you are likely to become less tired in more time. Breakfast is fuel for body and mind to help kick start. Breakfast has satiety value which helps avoid unhealthy snack choices too. Common mistake people on diet make is that they skip breakfast.

If skipping breakfast is a habit or you don’t like breakfast then you can spilt it into two smaller meals.

Don’t give yourself the option to skip breakfast; it is the gold meal of the day that will help with weight problems and fatigue too.

Well people if you are diet conscious person and were taking controlled diet before Ramadan, then you need not to worry about your weight in Ramadan too. We are here to give you the weight maintaining tips, through our ‘Ramadan Diet Schedule’.

We all know that in this Holy month of Ramadan, in one place we can gain maximum religious benefits but in another place we can gain much weight as well. So reduce your chances of weight gain by avoiding the extra oily & fatty eatables. No doubt, the yummy & appetizing food items would be their on your dining table to make you feel impatient & to grab you interest; but the thing is, you need to have strong control on your self. Try to take the slow-releasing & high-protein energy foods preferably; to keep you full for quite ling time.

Now we are going to tell you the Ramadan Diet Schedule, which will definitely help you out.

At Sehri: 1 Chapatti with any recipe of vegetable, chicken or pulses (1 plate), + 1 small bowl yogurt but with less quantity of sugar in it; with 1 cup tea/milk/lassi/fresh juice.     OR
2-3 Bran Slices, 2 egg whites or an omelet including less oil and much fresh seasonal  vegetables/butter, + 1 small bowl yogurt but with less quantity of sugar in it; with 1 cup tea/milk/lassi/fresh juice.

At Iftari: Fruit chart/chana chart/dahi bhalley (1 bowl), 2 Pakoras/ 1 samosa/1 chiken roll, any seasonal fruit juice/Milk soda/ any refreshing drink but with less quantity of sugar in it. In fact, break your fast with a date and a drink for quick sugar fix.

Take water 2-3 glass at least in short intervals.

At Dinner: 1 chapatti with any recipe+ Diet drink.          OR
Chinese/boiled rice+ raita or any salad (without cream).   OR
Bar B.Q or your own choice+ Diet drink.

30 minutes must walk and a cup of green tea, after dinner and before going to bed will definitely make you feel comfortable to take the next sahri.

Fasting is considered as a refinement process for your body, mind and soul; so get complete pleasure from this blessed month of Ramadan by all means.

Part 1, Calorie Counter

Healthy figure is not that hard to attain, you just need little effort and a lot concentration. There are many ways to do active & healthy activities in our every day routine; you can get more with modest attention to get a perfect healthy build.

In today’s hectic era, a busy person can avail many opportunities to remain in shape, through his/her active life style. At First, you are supposed to undergo or rethink about your daily work routine. When you wake-up in the morning till you turn back towards your bed; undergo the tasks you do or the duties you perform, particularly towards maintaining a healthy & balanced life style. You might have heard that little changes make big differences. In this scenario, we will tell you some fruitful tips to get a desired healthy physique. First of all, in this part, we will discuss the eating habits.

The most important thing is to consider your “Diet plan”. Your first step initiate from your dining table; as the little care on your kitchen table will give you reward in other areas of life as well. What you eat and at what time, as if you are continuously trying to lose your weight or struggling to live vigorous but don’t have control on yummy yummy eatables, then it becomes hard to catch a healthy figure. Eating a fresh fruit, instead of a piece of cake or even a candy or a chocolate bar, these little changes make big differences.

How many times in a day you “tried” not to eat much calorie food items? What do you want, more taste or more health? Well you can enjoy both at a time by considering the fact that excess of every thing is bad. Do eat what you want to but with little care, try to calculate the calorie count or nutritional values of the eatable you are consuming. Instead of eating a full fledged piece of cake or a full scope of ice-cream, eat just a little chunk; to remove your appetite without taking a huge amount of additional fats. Avoid the food stuff having a smaller amount of nutritional values, like excess of bakery products will lead your body to obtain extra fats. Avoid much corn products or corn syrup, which is a calorie rich & nutritionally drain sweetener; these types of eatables are considered worst than the white sugar. Besides them, almost every person is familiar that avoiding oily products and extra dairy fats is a common constraint. Adding vegetables, chiefly green ones will help you to reduce desire for more calories.

Do not forget that consuming fewer calories and avoiding those with less or no nutritional values, will lead you towards healthy figure.

Life is a blessing, only if health stays associated with it. Exercise is pivotal for health. But then there are other factors important for health as well. Lean, mean, fat-burning machine; happy, content, blissful; cheerful, optimistic, relaxed; then be just that! Acquire health.

For a lifestyle based on health, here are some easy first steps for a beginner:

• Avoid fried foods, burgers and other fatty meats. They spell everything but health.
• Dairy products should be eaten in low fat versions; fat adversely affects health.
• Nuts and sandwich meats, mayonnaise, margarine, butter and sauces should be eaten in limited amounts for good health.
• Smoking is harmful to your health; reducing use of smoking and other products that kill is a very good idea. Give up just one cigarette, the next one.
• Easier said than done is reducing stress. Stress busters come in many forms to ruin our health.
• Recommended by experts is to think positive thoughts. Count to ten, relax and think about your health before losing your temper or getting aggravated.
• Avoid difficult people for better health when possible since they will certainly show you red spots sooner or later.
• Spend 30 minutes a day doing something you like, acquire health and relax. Walk in a park; read a good book; visit a friend; play with your dog; watch a funny movie.
• Get a massage. Soak in a hot tub. A facial or a haircut to indulge yourself. Listen to soothing music and relax.
  Meditate. Shut out the world and relax.
• At least try avoiding smoke-filled rooms, high traffic areas, breathing in highway fumes doesn’t let you relax.

There’s a definitive connection between living well and living healthy and having a cheerful outlook on life. You can’t be unhappy when you’re smiling, relaxed and thinking happy thoughts.