Alva Carpenter’s Blog

©Alva Carpenter
Good posture says so much about you as a person. You can tell so much about a person and how they are feeling. A tired person will slouch and slump. A depressed person will have their shoulders and head down. A confident person will walk tall with their head held high and their shoulders back. Good posture is all to do with confidence. How you stand counts.
Poor deportment or posture can cause back pain and neck problems.
A tense person will often have raised shoulders and tension can cause contraction of the muscles and back pain. If you’re feeling tense during the day take yourself for a walk, hold your head up high and your shoulders back, and practice good deportment.
Many of us spend most of the day sitting in front of a computer, or sitting in the car, or sitting in front of the television. People in Africa can walk for miles with water jugs on their heads. This is because they have good posture. Their muscles are all aligned in the right way and they can carry heavy loads without stress.
Improve your posture by walking correctly
The correct way to walk is to shorten your step and as you walk slightly pick your knees up. This may seem strange at first but this way of walking keeps your body aligned so that you are not leaning forward. Try it and you will notice a real difference. You will find that when your body is moving in the correct way, with your muscles all aligned, you enjoy walking much more and feel much more comfortable. There are huge benefits to walking well. Try and include a walk every morning and at lunchtimes. Walking is great for regulating your heartbeat and also gives you some personal space and that is something we need to reclaim in our busy day. If you walk well you exercise all your muscles in a balanced way. Good posture helps you to stay looking young and to age with elegance.

Raspberry Ice Cream
This ice cream recipe is so simple anyone can make it.
I am always looking for ice cream with no additives so why not make your own? With this recipe you do not need an ice cream maker and without any colouring it is a lovely bright pink which children love. And it is a great way to get all the family to eat berries.

Ingredients
450g frozen raspberries
2 egg whites
225g caster sugar
2 dessert spoons lemon juice
240ml whipped double cream
Method
Mix all the ingredients, apart from the cream, in a food mixer. The mixture will treble in volume and look quite pink. Make sure you use raspberries straight from the freezer. Stir in the whipped cream with a metal spoon and freeze overnight. Well done you have made ice cream!
Top tip: Serve the ice cream on its own or with plain white yoghurt.

Hi All.
I hope you are enjoying the summer and best wishes to all.
Let’s all get fit together!
I would like to invite you all to follow me on Twitter. Follow me everyday to create healthy habits!
Today’s tip: Let’s all cut down on caffeine and drink 8 glasses of water!
Start counting! Keep up this great habit and you will soon be feeling great and after just a few days your skin will be much clearer and more supple.
Follow me on Twitter @alvacarpenter to gradually build healthy habits that will stay with you for life.
All tips are gentle and achievable for all.
Get your friends to follow too! and together lets make the world a healthier place by making small gentle daily healthy changes.

Yours in health

Alva

Welcome!

I hope June finds all well and keeping healthy.

I would like all to invite you to visit the new Arden Healthcare website www.ardenhealth.com.

An exciting new online health resource

Keep safe and healthy

If you are interested in taking care of yourself with top quality natural products and natural skin care go to Arden Healthcares new website @ardenhealth.com It has everthing you need to take care of yourself naturally. I especially recommend the Permea Plus natural skincare products. Gentle natural ingredients that work with your body to produce long term real results.

Hair is powerful and can indicate status across the cultures. Whatever your hair looks like it says something about you, be it long dark tresses, Afro, or a big curly perm. Many women say a good or bad hair can affect their day.

We all want our hair to look great but keeping up with fashions often means completely changing the hair we were given with chemical products, hair driers, weaves and hot irons until the hair condition is so dry we need to spend another fortune to get it looking youthful and shiny.

Today we have the fashion for long, shiny, multi-toned straight hair which can mean using bleach, relaxers, hot irons and even long extensions taken from the hair of the poor. In England, footballers’ wives have long extended hair to show their status. All this can wreck the hair’s condition and growth and make it prone to fallout or break off. It seems that whatever hair we have we want to change it and women in particular are more psychologically bonded to their hair than men.

The hair colouring industry is huge and it used to be a sign of great beauty to have long, thick, dark hair. This was achieved with weekly washing and a weekly massage with oil. Hair fashions now dictate it must have multi-tones and super shine that can only be achieved by conditioners that coat the hair with silicone and polymers.

Over washing
Hair like everything in the body is a self correcting mechanism; the more you wash it the greasier it gets. It is better for you to wash your hair weekly but it will take a while to self-correct so you will find that when you change your shampooing routine, by day four it may look a little lank; but eventually it will-self correct and your hair will be in better condition and only need a weekly wash. Most people use too much shampoo when washing and strip the outer hair of healthy natural oils leaving it dry, while the hair underneath closer to the scalp is lovely and soft.

Hair in the Gulf needs special care as it can be fried by the sun and affected by minerals and chlorine in the desalinated water. Traditional wisdom of the people who have lived in desert climates for generations recommend covering the hair from the sun and using hair oils to protect it. In a study, science proved that this traditional wisdom of hair care was correct and a three step solution was developed.

Arden Healthcare, who specialise in natural products, have produced a must-have shampoo for use in desalinated water to remove all build-up of damaging mineral deposits from the hair and scalp. This shampoo is so gentle and good you will only need to wash your hair once a week leaving your hair moisturised. The next step is to use an extra moisturising conditioner, and Permea Plus treatment oil containing six natural oils to feed the scalp and strengthen the hair. ©Alva Carpenter

How to travel without the trauma
©Alva Carpenter

Travel can be unpredictable. In Europe we have the unpredictability of the volcanic ash, which has left many people stranded for days.. So if you are travelling it is always advisable to be calm, organised and plan for every eventuality

Healthy Travel Tips
• Make you travel plans carefully, and double check arrangements and baggage restrictions to avoid any airport stress.
• Keep an up to date travel list of all that you need to do before you travel and everything you need to pack.
• Whilst it is ever temping to pack for every eventuality, wherever possible, try to pack light.
• Check you have all the documents up together 2 weeks before travel

• Taking care of your back is important when lifting and travelling

• The week before you travel get plenty of exercise, eat healthy fresh food and drink loads of water.
• Always wear comfortable clothing to travel in but that doesn’t mean looking scruffy; it is important to always look your best.

• Hand luggage should contain spare clothes and medical supplies in case of sickness, spillage, delay or lost luggage

• If you experience motion sickness, travel with a ginger biscuits and a supply of peppermints. Or ask your pharmacist for travel sickness pills.

Exercise On Board
Walk the aisles to prevent blood circulation problems and swelling in the legs which can be dangerous. Take off your shoes and rotate your ankles and wriggle your toes.

Be self-sufficient in caring for your family
Take your own baby supplies, milk powder and baby food and snacks.
Keep hydrated – Drink water .In many countries you will need to buy your water after you have gone through security.

Travel Fairies
When my children were small I used to ask them to leave their hand luggage bags out the night before the flight and a travel fairy would come and fill them full of little toys, books and new activities to keep them amused during the flight.

The final golden rule is to be deeply calm as you travel. Although there can be all kinds of anxieties, the children will look to your face for calm and confidence that all will be well. Stay calm – smile at your children.
Wishing you a happy holiday!

What every mother should tell her daughter

©Alva Carpenter

We live in a society full of contradictions. The cosmetics industry wants us to be dissatisfied with our appearance to drive us to buy its products: the fashion industry wants us to slim: whilst the fast food industry wants us to eat fast food at any time of the day or night.

The diet, cosmetics and fashion industry is constantly finding new ways to pressure us to feel dissatisfied with the way we look. Why? It is simply so that they can create a market for their new products.

Never imagine that the airbrushed-perfection pictures in magazines and advertisements are real and attainable. No one looks this perfect in real life. It is important to be aware of what is going on so that you do not get sucked in.

The cosmetics industry would like us to be constantly buying the latest miracle creams to cure ageing and to try and look perfect. It is dangerous and expensive to get reeled in to needing all these expensive creams serums make and potions. There is so much of this pressure in the media and most of the products are ridiculously over-priced. I am a strong believer in putting only natural products on the skin as these will have good results in the long term. When you work with nature you have to be a little patient but the results are lasting and beautiful. There is no need for these products to be expensive.

The new fashion for size zero is another example. We read about it in the press but I have never been into a shop and seen a dress labelled size zero.  I can only imagine that it would fit a very small child.

It is hard on the young who have so much pressure. They can get so stressed out about appearance. I often receive letters from young beautiful girls who worry that they are not tall enough or slim enough even though they are good weight for their height. Every culture is different and in some it is natural to be tall, whilst in others the majority might be quite short. But it would be a very boring old world if we all looked the same. The fact is that the young have no need to worry as they are naturally beautiful simply because they are young, which is tremendously beautiful in itself. The current fashion of being slim to the point of being bony is a form of abuse. True beauty lies in good health and in your own uniqueness and not in looking as though you cannot afford to eat.

A French woman once told me that if you think you look good so will everyone else – and I do believe this is true. There is nothing more attractive than being happy in your own skin and that gives you confidence. Restricting your diet in order to lose weight may affect your good health and fertility in the long term. It just takes a little organisation to follow a healthy diet, and with a healthy diet you will have healthy skin, shiny hair and loads of energy.  If you would like a copy of my healthy eating plan email to guideot@naturalhealthlines.com.

If you are born to have curves, enjoy them rather than spend time wishing you looked like someone else; enjoy who you are and accept what nature has given you. I always promote healthy eating and exercise for health. Whatever your shape you want to take care of your body – it is your very best friend. We all want to look our own personal best and take care of ourselves. We are all special in our own unique way and we do not want to be slaves to the fashion industry and all look the same. Mothers should tell their daughters that they are unique and special so that they grow up with self-confidence and do not feel the need to copy someone else’s idea of beauty. True style is in choosing your own unique style and then getting on and enjoying life and not worrying about your appearance

The only opinion that really matters is yours, and your attitude is the one thing you have absolute control over. There is nothing more attractive than someone who has a positive outlook. So relax and enjoy yourself as your own unique self and you will look happy and healthy which is the most attractive look of all.

©Alva Carpenter

If you are like most people, the month of January will have found you concerned about your tight fitting clothes and regretting all the excess food you ate during the holidays. It takes time to get into new good healthy eating habits after a period of overindulging.

You may have got into the habit of eating readymade meals and fast food takeaways

·         Excess fat

·         Excess sugar

·         Excess salt

All these diet baddies are hard to fight because they are all habit forming and stimulate us to eat more and more. This is a fact well known by the food industry manufacturers. These foods melt in our mouths and stimulate our taste buds making the food comforting and good to taste. Sugar is even added to meat products such as hamburgers and readymade meat dishes such as lasagne to make it taste good.

All this to stimulate us to want to eat more and buy more and more. We should be eating for nutrition and energy but we are being programmed to eat food that stimulates us to want to eat more

Often in fast food or readymade meals we have a combination of sugar, fat and salt together. This combination is stimulating the brain to want more.  Processed food is made sweet and soft to the taste almost like pureed baby food so that in essence the food manufacturers encouraging our palate to desire eating adult baby food for comfort 

We are eating for the satisfying reward that this combination of fat, sugar and salt brings. We are not eating for eating for nutrition but for comfort. This is what was quickly realised by the American fast food giants and we have steadily been indoctrinated to believe these foods are cool, healthy and value for money. But we need to fight this steady indoctrination of ourselves and our children. If we constantly eat soft processed food full of excess fat, sugar and salt, we will lose our taste for real healthy food such as vegetables.

Highly processed, readymade meals loaded with fat, sugar and salt are addictive and not healthy food for the body; although the food industry manufacturers are very clever at making them appear healthy and good value for money so beware.

Remember food boundaries 

Food is not an activity to be enjoyed all the time.  We need to remember boundaries. Food is eaten only 3 times per day; one main meal and 2 lighter meals with one small snack in-between.

The problem is that fast food is now available around the clock on every street corner.  The fast food industry has made it socially acceptable to eat at  any time of day or night and the young have grown up in this culture; and this is scary and why so many of the young are overweight.

In the past cigarettes were portrayed as a friend in times of stress, when in effect they were a deadly addictive enemy.

If you look at the old movies you will see that long ago smoking cigarettes was seen as cool and sexy and glamorous until much later it was realised that it was causing cancer and emphysema. Tobacco is addictive and made the tobacco industry huge profits.  Once a person is hooked on cigarettes it is an expensive and dangerous habit for life.

You can look at a packets of chips or hamburger or huge plate of cake and say, “This is my friend this will make me feel better”, and there will be very little that I can do to stop you eating this because your brain has been indoctrinated to believe that eating this food will be rewarding and it is hard to stop.

So you must learn to set boundaries and plan to eat for health and nutrition and not get into the trap of eating  attractive, addictive junk loaded with fat sugar and salt.

If you would like to change your habits to healthy eating email me at guideot@naturalhealthlines.com for a copy of my healthy eating plan. Eat for a healthy body enjoy the occasional treat and take daily exercise for a long and healthy life.

You can now read my Arden Healthlines newsletter online at http://www.alvamail.info. Do please log on – and recommend your friends. Alva Carpenter’s Healthlines are also published weekly in the following newspapers: Arab News (Saudi Arabia), Gulf Times (Qatar) and Times of Oman. Soon to be appearing in Friday Magazine published by Gulf News (UAE).