Beauty, Makeup Tips Blog

Beauty Means Perfection

We live in a world that makes every effort for perfection. We use artificial light to tan our Skin, we reduce our diet to lose weight to look more like thin girls and done cosmetic surgery from Head to Toe to look better and more beautiful.

In today’s world one can modify everything to get perfection in their looks, difficult to find out the reality. It looks as we are so infatuated with what we want to be like that we even forget what actually we are. Whereas having a charming personality and having self-respect for your self is a real beauty. So, what price do we need to pay for our beauty???

Beauty means knowing your self, realizing what you are and do not get afraid to safeguard your own integrity. It means you support and stand besides those you loves you and need you. It is about accepting your mistakes and putting your efforts to rectify them. It is about going ahead with what you believe in. It means not being afraid of accepting their love for some one. It means having sympathy for others. It means having proud on your self and does not compromise with what you deserve. It means recognizing your aim of life and put your efforts to achieve your goals.

Apart from your looks, your qualities will always remain same. Why we do not realize our self, as what we are and what we deserve? Why we our self forget our worth? Why till today we all are following the same standard to analyze beauty? If we change our personality and give up everything which makes us different from others, we will also become a part of mob as others. We will lost our identity and become faceless. This will make us ugly.

Artificial things make life ugly and inexpressive as dead. Parameters of analyzing standards of beauty by getting fame in society are all unrealistic. False advertisements get appreciation everywhere for which we believe on artificial models representing beauty and far away from reality. All such artificial standards are misdirecting us from knowing the reality and truth. We are becoming a part of such a crowed which follows others need. Is this is the right way of living?

What persuade us in our assessment to change or improve our looks and dressing sense from time to time?News magazines and TV media promote different images on the request of fashion companies which simply influence everyone. Such fashion corporations use us as their walking ad signs for their companies products by giving us free promotional gifts or material. They are so smart to convince us that we start feeling that we are incomplete without buying branded products of their companies and become a part of their game.

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Add comment February 24th, 2008

Beauty

Beauty can be defined as characteristics those present in the person, object which provides an experience of pleasure, self-satisfaction to the eyes or mind of a person in relative to his personality, shape, sound and color. Beauty is a cultural creation. People give advice for applying the makeup or facial scrub that make that person look more beautiful. But it depends on your self image and body. Learning beauty means developing some routine work in our busy lives and our budgets .So it means creating a beautiful image of your self that defines you completely. The basics of beauty should be easy to maintain

The history of beauty can be found in the terms of Greek philosophers know as Pythagoras. It was a school that saw a connection between the beauty and mathematics .They noticed that objects according to them in the golden ratio were more attractive .The Greek Architecture was based on proportion and symmetry .In today’s modern world it means that the person with his facial features being proportioned and symmetric is more attractive . In the history the beauty was related with “good”.

The human beauty can be characterized on individual basis which often includes some physiological factors such as intelligence, charm, elegance, symmetry and complexion .The outer beauty can be measured by participating in some contest such as Miss Universe .The inner beauty means the aspects that are not physically observed .These include Kindness, confession, creativity .This is why the inner beauty is very difficult to measure

Beauty presents a standard comparison and can cause dissatisfaction when we are not able to achieve it and so “beautiful people” are those who follow the latest fashion trends Beauty is studied as a part:-

• Aesthetics
• Culture

Aesthetics means understanding physiological discipline and the nature. The composer named Robert Schumann distinguished between the two kinds of beauty the natural and poetic. The former one is found in the nature but the latter on is found in the person’s consciousness. Natural beauty implies the sensual delight and poetic beauty is there where there is no natural beauty. The beauty is the appearance which exists in different person’s those who are good.

Culture generally means some human activity that makes drastic changes in the personality of a person. So there is a need to give emphasis on the skill development like in Facials we should practice Aroma facials, Gold facials. There are special manicure techniques like hot oil manicure,

French manicure, wax manicure these are used to treat the foot problems. Nail arts it refers to nail cutting, filling and shaping .Hair cutting means to cutting of wet and dry hair.

The cosmetic makers have always sold the creams, self-tanners, hair conditioners and potions that promise youth, beauty, attractiveness those persons who use them so that the feel self-esteem .
If we talk about digital transformation as from designer point of view who takes the model’s photo,And then giving her a longer, slimmer neck, fuller lips, bigger eyes and space between the eyebrows also increases person’s beauty.

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Add comment February 14th, 2008

Peace of Mind: The Temple Of Inner Beauty

A beautiful person is one who values himself physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Beauty is the overall impact of all these characteristics. Mind and body are interrelated; the state of one reflects on the state of other.

Yet one more aspect is the soul, the inner beauty. More than a part of mere body or mind it is a part of us; it is eternal. Beauty is not merely confined to external beauty it also comprises inner beauty. To become a complete person, you not just have to work on your external beauty; you have to build up your inner beauty as well.

When we observe around us, we come to know that each and every creation is full with the beauty of soul. Observe the colors of nature and see how the different greens merge together. View at the setting sun - how the several shades of yellow, orange and red mix together in harmony. In the same way a harmonious combination of mind, body and soul makes us more complete and at calm.

When we talk about soul or the spiritual aspect, we refer to the inner self and its findings. When you will discover it, you will notice that inner beauty is much more impressive than external beauty. You will observe that all these - make-up, grooming, jewelry, clothes, and etiquette, seems to be fake. In truth, there is no need for these things. Our inner beauty is, in deed the base of our personality and external beauty. The finding of the inner self is in itself a sort of empowerment. Inner beauty generates harmony which creates balance in the inner and the outer self. Ahead the cacophony of the mind, there is a silence which is the key to the self harmony and peace.

Ancient Indian sages admired yoga, pranayama and meditation to uncover this inner beauty, or ‘self-realization’. These are easily adapted to a modern lifestyle; therefore one should learn these under the guidance of a qualified teacher. You can initiate with simple breathing exercises and observe if it help to gain the peace of mind and bring about tranquility. Always keep in mind that silence and tranquility already exist inside you. You are just required to discover it. Relaxing your mind and body helps in the endeavor.

Breathing exercise is really effective. One needs not to take up a yogic posture. He/she may sit on a comfortable chair. Close your eyes and start breathing, unhurriedly and with ease. Let your mind to follow the breathing as you breathe in and breathe out. Continue this breathing exercise at least for two minutes, normally and easily, focusing your concentration on your breath. If you start feeling relax, continue this exercise for another few minutes. You will observe that your mind and body have relaxed - and you may even notice that your mind is much quiet then before. Focus your concentration on breathing, pushing off all other thoughts away for a few minutes.

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Add comment February 4th, 2008

Foods for Beauty

Carrot: Help to preserve the external coating of the skin to avoid early aging. It works similar to Retain A.

Cheese: Make a piece of cheese a part of diet. Cheese helps to stop bacteria from increasing in mouth and prevent cavity. Select among Swiss cheese and cheddar cheese

Apples & Celery: To get rid of blemish from the enamel of teeth eat crusty foods like celery and apples.

Water: Drink water as much as you can. It removes the toxin from body and refreshes skin and make in shine. Water hydrates our skin and body and keeps it lithe.

Cranberries: These berries maintain the urinary area coating healthy.

Fresh Apple drink: This drink has a numeral of curing property and it make the skin supple and lithe. Apple drink is intense with enzyme and these assist strip off dead skin cell. It breaks down overweight and help food digest correctly.

Garlic: help to combat wrinkle and restore tissues.

Potatoes potatoes are packed with vitamin A naturally and vitamin A is well-known for anti wrinkle agent. The outcome of consumption of this vegetable is good and smoother skin.

Tomatoes: Tomatoes are full of vitamin C, vitamin A and potassium.

Nonfat Yogurt: in nonfat yogurt calcium is high and helps to maintain smile white and teeth cavity free.

Wheat bacteria: To remove pimples efficiently take in 2 or 3 tablespoon of wheat germ in diet..

Vegetables: you must have 3 to 5 serving of vegetables every day. Take in 1 portion of uncooked and leafy greens.

Fruits: Have 2 to 3 servings daily. half cup of chop or sliced fruit in one serving.

Dairy: take at least 2 servings every day. One serving must contain 8 ounces of milk

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Add comment January 10th, 2008

Innocent Beauty

Beauty is mainly an excellence that is inbuilt within every mania, alive and lifeless. The eminence is here in a thing or person and gives strong and deep delight and an intellect of pleasure to the brains.

This intrinsic feeling arise also from the sensory manifestation like precise shape, vitality of color or an exacting sound. The emotion could also happen on account of an important design or outline or maybe even impressive a person say or a qualities itself.

Beauty is a feature of a person; entity, place or a definite idea to provide a skill that is perceptual and devoted to the derivative pleasure and assertion that outcome from the make contact. The theory of beauty change from individual to individual. What appeal to one, does not essentially appeal to a different. Whereas some think it skin cavernous, some consider that it is of the core.

Beauty deceit is in the watch of the beholder is an ordinary phrase that is greatly attributed to the idea and apparition of good looks. Beauty care involves the function of outwardly ornamental therapies and yield that attach to the bodily beauty of a somebody.

This continual need essentially arise from the need to stay alive a grade within a exacting society. Beauty care relate to the many of products, normal and artificial to attend to a numeral of beauty necessities.

Regularity may be vital in important beauty since it is obvious that the person or thing is well and without evident genetic defect, which are generally allied with cruelty. Even though style and style vary broadly, research indicates that there is a diversity of commonalities in popular insight of beauty.

There is high-quality confirmation that a liking for beauty and an innate coldness for that which is measured ugly emerge early on child progress. The values of beauty and cruelty are alike across dissimilar cultures.

An ordinary idea that is innate in humanity suggest that beauty exist in the physical look of things and inside people who are intrinsically good. An ideal example is to facilitate of the affirmed ’superior’ ones who are physically be supposed as extra beautiful as the others.

Mainly people reviewer people who are actually beautiful human beings to be excellent, both bodily and on a deeper stage. They are specially supposed to hold a array of positive character, yet if not on exhibit, and activist personality uniqueness.

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Add comment December 21st, 2007

Laser and Light Therapy

Laser- and light-based therapies attain the deeper layers of crust devoid of harming the skin’s facade. Laser cure is contemplation to harm the oil (sebaceous) glands, causing them to manufacture a reduced amount of oil. Propionibacterium acnes used by light therapy targets, the bacterium with the purpose of causes acne swelling. These therapies be able to also get better skin contact and lessen the outer shell of scars, so they can be first-class treatment choices for inhabitants with equally vigorous acne and acne scars.

Numerous types of laser and luminosity therapies illustrate undertake in acne care. These contain:

• Blue light therapy. Divulging the skin to a low- concentration blue light foundation is whispered to annihilate P. acnes. This trouble-free practice is frequently ended during a succession of sessions, every eternal regarding 15 minutes. P. acnes multiply swiftly, yet, so ongoing treatment is obligatory for finest argue Side things of blue light therapy cuddle stain changes, soreness in the treated areas and desiccation.
• Pulsed light and high temperature energy therapy. Collectively, pulsed light furthermore humid force is attention to obliterate P. acnes and shrivel glands, which decreases the oil creation. The foodstuff and Drug management permitted an acne therapy that combines pulses of green-yellow light and heat to delicacy kind to judicious acne, including rabble-rousing acne. Side possessions of this rehabilitation contain impermanent redness in the treated areas.
• Diode laser treatment. Diode lasers be able to demolish sebaceous glands in the dermis, the thick middle layer of skin, devoid of harming the external layer of skin. Laser treatment may be aching, but the tingle can be proscribed with analgesics useful to the skin before treatment. Elevation effects of diode laser treatment embrace momentary ruddiness and distension of the treated areas.

• Extra studies are desired prior to most doctors would counsel these therapies. Still mysterious is who would help the nearly all from laser and light therapies, the success of these treatment options and what the long-term risks or profit might be.

• Chemical peels and microdermabrasion might be cooperative in controlling acne. These cosmetic measures — which encompass customarily been old to decrease the facade of fine lines, sun smash up and small facial scars — are nearly all successful when used in mishmash with other acne treatments.

• Chemical peels. Chemicals, such at the same time as glycolic acid or salicylic acid, functional to your skin assist take absent of lifeless skin cells, clear pores, eliminate whiteheads and blackheads, and be capable to construct new skin extension. These chemical peels are repeatedly used with acne creams or gels for improved dissemination of the medication. Depending on force of the chemical, side effects of element peels assortment from crusting to scarring, impermanent pinkness, blisters, scaling., contagion and anomalous skin complexion.
• Microdermabrasion. These crystals lightly scrape or “buff” the skin’s surface. Then, a vacuum tube removes the crystals and pelt cells. The process exfoliates and unclogs pores. Comparable to chemical peels, microdermabrasion is often used through further acne treatments to boost their efficiency.

• Retinoids and oral antibiotics. Recommendation goods derived from vitamin A (retinoids) can be shared with verbal antibiotics designed for better treatment of acne.. Oral antibiotics kill P. acnes microbes and diminish tenderness.
• Benzoyl lighten and topical antibiotics. Benzoyl peroxide is mainly successful if it’s mutual with antibiotics useful to your skin (topical antibiotics). Benzoyl peroxide canisters dry awake the oil, kill bacteria plus encourage sloughing of dead skin cells. Topical antibiotics preserve kill bacteria on the skin’s surface and fight inflammation.

P. acnes be able to turn into resistant to a scrupulous antibiotic, specially if that antibiotic is tainted or worn-out.

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Add comment December 11th, 2007

Man-Made Beauty

Do you know to injection and surgeries, lotion and potion do not really stop the reason of age? Pretty, skin care yield, ingestible, level surgeries must be frequent over and more than again. pelt care and inject resources are absorbed into the deceased and then clean during not only the liver nevertheless the kidneys as fit.

The continual downward slip of wilting facial blow may mean to facilitate a surgical face raise is in your hope. This method will engage cutting strong tissue and re cutting over again in less than 10 years to preserve the stare.

Do this mean to the face will evermore be battered if one opt for look younger for the relax of their living? And surgeons, behind all, hack and stitch..

fool around by your God known good look has reach epidemic scope and for celebrity, maybe surgical procedure and injection seem like the rational solution to remain looking well in obverse of the camera but intense procedures are not desirable to maintain a young at heart look face.

Concealed facial muscle droop from abandonment and magnitude; this compose your face look deformed, flat old. In reality, as facial muscle lose their resolve, the sliding sagging affect your skin as fold, crease, pouch and wrinkle form.

What ability to keep your facade, include upper eyes, jowl, pouch and extra, in top-notch shape is a system of facial implement using opposition and reduction.

These movements need the use of your finger and thumbs in fair cotton ornament that hold and fasten the very tiny facial muscle.

The execute of anchor these physique that connect to prepare on one end allow a reduction to be ended. This act plumps the physique that sustain your skin so it hangings more physically over your skin tone

You merely need to do exercise only some minutes every day to get results and in now days, you will note that your look refresh, invigorated, tighter and younger.

Envision the self-assurance you will sense when people take in your new look, the face you thinking was gone evermore and the approval of expressive you did it physically.

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Add comment December 1st, 2007

Skin Care is Not Just for Women

Skin heed is thumbs down as far as the foundation of instant men have forever be prevailing. Males include in use taking place an natural role to be irregular, hard, and fit… male. Women lying on the extra hand over have at all times had a makeup to exist the ones who appear dazzling and good-looking

Designed for generation, these impulses have be work intense on our feelings as the likely and the “precise” method to survive life. Such seeing that a man difficult to get clear of pimple years back would have be seen like odd since it would exist the female thing to carry out. But a woman did not undertake to build her face as fresh and blemish free like probable, she have be see as the outsider.

Conversely, present times at this time and effects are change. previous rules with role are individual distorted. Men along with women be transmittable up by parity.

Metro sexuality be a high-quality craze in today’s the public. Male who be in feel with their softer face are further beautiful than the men who lip service disclose their thoughts.

A quantity of men express is section at the thought of by hair harden, spiffy dress, and face cream, whereas the ones by them are regularly the guys being paid the girls.

now, women be engrossed to winning, childish men, and initial imitation are really significant. Women stare for to neat guy to actually catch their watch

By look appropriate a big entity for guys, it is simple to notice why pimple is no longer accepted. At a initial peek, a women force note whether a guy take worry of his face before not, also this be able to indicate the distinction between receiving the girl, or available home only.

Men include now curved to new answer and result for skin concern. Patent pore is a invention specially planned to get clear of every the blemishes and irregular spots to are refusal longer measured nice-looking to the women.

A apparent face is resembling the icing going on the block what time it come to way. lacking it, it is now not cover! Apparent pore uses S.D Alcohol along with Salicylic Acid to obtain the germs and dust out of your pore.

A apparent face is vital to the fresh male. Natural pore can facilitate one man realize the trendy, and genteel look he is motivated for. Now is no cause to let pimple acquire more your being, which is clear pore is optional as the most excellent way out to your difficult blemishes.

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Add comment November 21st, 2007

Take Care of Your Internal Beauty

Permit us converse about beauty starting a special point of view!

We include our own criterion for judge the beauty of a lady. We appear the beauty of a woman from a positive angle and after that pass the notes then she is beautiful or else not. It is not pale. allow me tell all woman that she is sole and good-looking.

The company of beauty is booming all over. Women are expenses to a large extent of their time and wealth on buying beauty harvest. Still in the 3 world countries, women income below the scarcity line, purchase cheap and inferior beauty products, which provide more injury to their pelt than good.

It is the primary exact of every woman to seem beautiful. Each woman wants to take note the lovable words “you are gorgeous”. Excluding the beauty of a woman is distant from her look or body.

Physical good looks is only one feature as a beautiful attractive personality is a total blend of several fine self such as good behavior, protocol, behavior, beam, intellect, sense of funniness, community and family ethics etc., all build a woman look good-looking and attractive.

Did not you identify that there is an obvious difference among warily hand woven costly Persian flooring and a despicable machine made mat. equally of these can’t be equate.

A gorgeous woman is like a stylish hand intertwined Persian carpet. All and every silken, multicolored strand of her quality, nicely woven into her character, gives a woman an endless beauty and magnetism.

Look is very significant indeed but the character of a person is greatly more significant. Also attractive care of your bodily beauty, why not imagine of humanizing your internal beauty.

The attractiveness which everybody admire is becoming a singular product these days. As on your method to a beauty parlor stays on thoughts ways of humanizing your internal beauty.

Take concern of physically and take concern of your internal beauty. No hesitation you are a good-looking someone.

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Add comment November 11th, 2007

10 Ways to Stay Young

You can slow down the Aging Clock, say scientists.

The Old Saying That “you’re only as old as you feel” turns out to have some scientific merit. As researchers at centres such as Tufts’ Jean Mayer USD Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) probe the secrets of how we age, they continue to find ways in which our biologicalage influences our health and quality of life more than our chronologicalage. The good news is that, while you can’t turn back the calendar, you cando something to affect your biological age - the toll the years take on your body and your health.

To put it another way, your lifespan - how many years you live – is important, but perhaps not as much so as your healthspan: that period of your life when you’re functional and able to perform everyday life tasks for yourself. Isn’t that what most of us want more of in our lives - not merely years but good, independent, enjoyable years? One of the programs for slowing the aging process and adding strength and vitality to your life was laid out 15 years ago in the then-revolutionary book Biomarkers: The 10 Determinants of Aging You Can Control,by two Tufts professors, William J. Evans, PhD, and Irwin H. Rosenberg, MD, with Jacqueline Thompson. How well does that 15-year-old programme for controlling much of your own aging process stand the test of time? While research has of course added to our knowledge about all 10 of the “biomarkers” described in the book, the basic lessons still hold true today. As the authors note, “Our research and that of others, shows that people can reverse - or at the very least retard - many of the physiological declines associated with aging without turning their lives inside out and upside down.”

While diet fads have come and gone in the interventing decade and a half, and researchers have filled in many of the gaps in our know ledge of how the body ages, the bottom line of Biomarkersremains as true now as then: Exercise is the key to a healthy and rewarding old age. Even for the frail elderly - and this is still a bold concept - a regular exercise programme can have a strong positive health impact. A combination of regular aerobics, flexibility and strength training is the best strategy for retarding - even reversing ­ the effects of aging on the 10 biomarkers the authors identify. Since the publication of Biomarkers,subsequent research has continued to support this basic premise. Consider, for example, the research-based recommendations of the latest federal dietary guidelines, released last year. In addition to prescriptions for a healthy diet, the guidelines include goals for exercise, calling for a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise daily - and 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous exercise to keep from gaining weight. To lose weight, the guidelines suggest up to 90 minutes a day of physical activity, which could include walking, bicycling, hiking, even gardening. But 15 years ago, the idea that exercise could benefit even the frail elderly was still revolutionary. That’s only one of the many commonly held myths about aging that researchers at the HNRCA and other centres have dispelled. Aging does not have to be synonymous with illness or disability. The onset of most chronic degenerative conditions we associate with old age is governed by your genetic heritage - which you’re stuck with - and your lifestyle, which you can do something about. By making positive changes in your own biomarkers through a combination of exercise and eating right, you can:

• Prolong vitality by slowing or even reversing the biological deterioration processes that people typically start to suffer after about age 45, such as declining strength, glucose intolerance and metabolism slowdown.
• Postpone disability by reducing your risk of such chronic conditions as heart disease, type II diabetes, arteriovascular disease, hypertension and osteoporosis.
• Prevent “sarcopenia” a common old-age malady that results in weakening of the body’s muscles, particularly in the legs, with a loss of muscle mass and replacement by fat. The ultimate price of this condition is loss of balance, reduced mobility and the frailty so often seen in the elderly.

“Biointervention” - making lifestyle changes that positively affect your biomarkers - won’t make you live forever, but it can postpone - sometimes by decades - your entry into what scientists call the “Disability Zone.” Instead of dropping sharply into disability with age, like rolling down a steep hill, an active lifestyle can help you slow and “flatten” that descent into decline.

A crucial first step toward making the lifestyle changes essential to extending your health span is under-standing these 10 biomarkers - each sensitive to your exercise and activity level - that determine your biological age:

1. Your Muscle Mass

The average middle-aged person’s problem is not excess weight as much as it is excess body fat coupled with too little muscle. Simply losing weight is the wrong goal; the key is changing your ratio of body fat (biologically inactive energy storage) to muscle (biologically active tissue). People with a greater ratio of muscle to fat enjoy a higher metabolism and don’t have to worry as much about gaining weight or about how much they eat - that active tissue burns more calories.

Most people’s muscle mass declines with age and the rate of loss accelerate after age 45. The amount of muscle you have - and that you retain - is determined in part simply by how much you use your muscles. If you use your muscles frequently, you can maintain their strength. But if you push your muscles to the limits of their capacity by exercise, you can actually increase their strength - no matter your age.

2. Your Strength

As you age, you lose whole “motor units” - sets of muscles and nerves that work together to make your body go. For example, between ages 30 and 70, it’s been estimated, people typically experience a 20% decrease in the number of motor units in the thigh.

Aging also brings a decline in “fast-twitch” muscle fibres - the kind you use to lift heavy objects or to do high­-intensity, sprint-type activities. This slows you down and partially accounts for age-related loss of strength.

But a decline in muscle strength and size is not inevitable. Landmark research at Tufts in the 1980s debunked the conventional wisdom that age somehow decreases the ability of muscles to benefit and get bigger fromstrength training, such as weight lifting. So don’t think that you’re “too old” forstrength training. The fact is that you can regain muscle mass and strength, no matter what your age, 18 or 80, or what shape you’re in now.

3. Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

This simply means the rate of your body chemistry - your metabolism - when you’re at rest (”basal,” as in “baseline”). Like other essential measures, your BMR declines with age and you burn fewer calories when your body isn’t in motion. From about age 20 on, every decade that you age reduces the amount of calories you need to maintain a constant body weight by roughly 100 calories. So a typical 70-year-old needs 500 fewer daily calories than a 20-year-old.

But if you keep eating the way you did when you were 20 - or even 40 - you’ll put on weight unless you start burning more calories. It can be a vicious cycle: too many calories, too little exertion, reduced musculature and a declining metabolic rate, all adding up to- more-fat. That’s why you need to exercise to increase your muscle and turn back the clock on your BMR.

4. Your Body Fat Percentage

Even if your body weight hasn’t gone up that much as you’ve gotten older, you’ve probably gained fat. As your musculature shrinks, fat tissue accumulates. Since muscle tissue weighs more than body fat, that number on your bathroom scale can be deceiving. Instead of focusing on losing weight, concentrate on gaining muscle and shedding fat.

While it’s not the same as your body fat percentage, your Body Mass Index (BMI) can still be a useful tool in measuring your risk fordeveloping the chronic diseases associated with aging. You can calculate your BMI with this formula:

BMI = Weight (in kgs) / (Height (in metres) X Height (in metres))

While BMI is often used as a shorthand measure of overweight or obesity, it’s important to recognize that your “ideal BMI” - the figure associated with the lowest risk of chronic disease or mortality - changes with age (see box alongside): For the elderly, a slightly higher BMI seems to be protective; think of elderly people you know who seem to be “wasting away” and are vulnerable to disease. Professional athletes can also get away with a higher BMI, because their body-fat levels are so low. The rest of us, though, need to watch it.

You should also watch your waistline, as studies have shown that the distribution of body fat may be an even better predictor of the risk of chronic disease and mortality. It’s healthier to be shaped like a pear ­with more body fat stored below the hips ­ than like an apple, with fat stored above the hips. Developing a pot belly, in short, increases your risk. Recently, researchers using data from the worldwide Inter-heart study found that waist-to-hip ratio was three times more effective than BMI in predicting cardiovascular risk. To figure your own ratio” simply divide your waist measurement by your hip I measurement; so, for example, a 36-inch waist and 40-inch hips would be a ratio of 0.9. Anything over 0.85 forwomen and 0.9 formen indicates greater risk forheart disease, according to these findings.

If you combinea high BMI with a high waist-to-hip ratio, your risk is magnified. This chart fromthe NHLB shows how risk forcardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes I and hypertension increases as BMI and waist circumference grow.

So what can you do if you don’t like what this biomarker is telling you? The best way to attack excess body fat is a combination of exercise and moderate caloric restriction. By adding exercise to a “weight-loss” diet, you’ll maintain muscle mass while you lose fat tissue, raise your metabolic rate and, of course, burn more calories.

5. Your Aerobic Capacity

How much oxygen can your body process within a given time? That’s your aerobic capacity, forwhich you need healthy lungs, a strong heart and an effective vascular network. Here’s another biomarker that naturally declines with age in most people: In both men and women, aerobic capacity at age 65 is typically 30-40% less than in young adults. But older people who exercise regularly lose less of their aerobic capacity. Researchers have found, however, that while  both young and older people benefit from regular aerobic exercise - the kind that makes you  huff and puff - the positive changes in older, people come almost entirely in the muscles’ ability to utilizeoxygen (”oxidative capacity”), rather than in the heart of cardiovascular system. That’s another reason why you need strengthening exercises as well as aerobic activity: When you build muscle, you create more muscle cells to consume oxygen. The more demand foroxygen from your muscles, the greater your utilization of oxygen and your aerobic capacity.

6. Your Body’s Blood. Sugar Tolerance

“Glucose tolerance” means your body’s ability to control blood sugar (glucose). Aging takes a toll on your ability to use this sugar from your bloodstream, though you probably don’t realize it - like hypertension, impaired glucose tolerance displays no symptoms. By age 70, some 30% of women and 20% of men have an abnormal glucose-tolerance curve, increasing their risk of developing type-2 diabetes. This creeping blood-sugar intolerance can be among the most devastating changes associated with aging. While aging is one factor in the changing of your glucose metabolism for the worse, so are three factors you can control:

• increased body fat
• inactivity
• a diet high in fat

Combining a proper diet, low in fat and high in raw vegetables and whole grains, with regular workouts can often transform what was previously an insufficient amount of insulin - which stimulates muscle cells to utilize glucose from the blood - into an adequate amount. Strength-training exercises are especially critical to reinvigorating your body’s glucose tolerance and lowering your diabetes risk; besides helping to lower body fat, strength-building exercise has been shown to increase your muscles’ insulin sensitivity.

7. Your Cholesterol/HDL Ratio

You probably already know that not all cholesterol in the blood is bad for you; that’s why you’ll often see HDL-cholesterol labeled “good” and LDL-cholesterol parenthetically explained as “bad”. So it stands to reason that a low totalcholesterol level offers no guaranteed protection against heart disease. Your goal, rather, should be to raise HDL-cholesterol while lowering LDL­ cholesterol levels in your blood.

An easy way to compute how you’re doing is to figure your total cholesterol/HDL ratio: Simply divide your total cholesterol number by your HDL count. For middle-aged and older men and women, the total cholesterol HDL ratio goal should be 4.5 or lower. As you age, your HDL level tends to remain constant, while the harmful components of blood cholesterol increase ­boosting your total cholesterol and thus your total cholesterol HDL ratio. You can work to lower the harmful LDL by changing your diet, especially by reducing the amount of saturated fat you consume. But dietary changes can significantly improve only one side of the equation; to boost your HDL levels, you need to also exercise and lower your body fat. Aerobic exercise in particular seems to be effective in raising HDL-cholesterol levels.

8. Your Blood Pressure

The importance of controlling your blood pressure should come as no surprise. What may surprise you is that an increase in blood pressure with age is not inevitable: Many populations around the world show no increase in blood pressure with age.

You can help defend against hypertension by reducing the salt in your diet. But regular, vigorous exercise can also help prevent and even treat high blood pressure.

9. Your Bone Density

With age, the mineral content of your bones declines, leaving you with a weaker, less dense, more brittle skeleton. On average, a person loses approximately I % of bone mass per year. When this loss reaches the point where your fracture risk is substantially higher, it’s called “osteoporosis,” a condition that can affect men as well as women. But osteoporosis isn’t an inevitable consequence of aging.

The effectiveness of calcium supplements against osteoporosis - the subject of a great deal of publicity in recent years - remains a matter of scientific inquiry. But there’s another way to fight osteoporosis that’s received less attention, even though it may be more effective, whatever your calcium intake: Exercise.

Early evidence of the importance of physical activity to bone strength came from studies of the effects of a lackof activity: Subjects who spent two weeks in complete bed rest showed as much bone calcium loss as ordinarily seen from a full year of aging - a 50-foldincrease in the normal rate of bone mineral loss. That accelerated loss stopped when bed-­rest patients were made to stand for some time every day, even if they didn’t walk, apparently simply from the effect of the stress of gravity on their bones.

Stress repeatedly placed on a bone causes it to grow stronger. A number of studies have shown that a prolonged span of weight-bearing exercise - such as walking or running - can reduce the rate of bone loss. Research at Tufts has further shown that exercise may help foster the body’s calcium absorption. The evidence strongly suggests, in short, that a brisk daily walk can be a crucial factor in preventing the development of osteoporosis.

10. Your Body’s Ability to Regulate Internal Temperature

Your body comes with a built-in thermostat, which works to cool you off by sweating when you’re hot or by shivering when you’re cold. But this important thermo-regulatory ability diminishes with age, due to a complex set of body changes:

• Older people have a reduced sensation of thirst, so they often fail to replenish fluids lost by sweating.
• Older people require a warmer internal temperature before they start sweating.
• Reduced kidney function contributes to dehydration and thermoregulatory problems.
• Lower fitness and aerobic capacity mean that older people have a lower rate of sweating.

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Add comment July 31st, 2007