How walking can change your body shape

Dubbed the most influential woman in fitness by Cosmopolitan, Joanna Hall is clearly on a mission. "Walking is the main form of exercise for 8.5 million people in Britain," she says, "but 8.5 million people are not doing it properly, so they aren't seeing the benefits."

With this in mind, Hall runs ''Walk off Weight'' weekends at Champneys in Forest Mere, Hampshire. When I book, I assume that I am in for a jolly – a few
strolls then some serious pampering. But the sessions turn out to be hard work, hilarious at times and potentially life-changing.

Techniques include "stimulating your slow twitch'' (not as rude as it sounds, or looks) – where you locate your lower abdominal muscle with your hand so that you can tense it correctly as you walk, thereby toning up your midriff with every step. This, and other postural tips (see box, right), could apparently help you lose up to 10lb and 10 inches in just 28 days.

Taut and springy in spray-on satin jeans, Hall is living proof that this ''walk well'' method works.

Over four one-hour sessions we learn correct foot placement, hip and neck alignment and arm movements. But first, she hands out pedometers. We will use these to log our activity, then go forth into the real world with them, vowing to "move around more" every single day.

Source - Telegraph

The tea spray that can prevent skin cancer

A spray made from green tea could protect your skin against cancer. Experiments have shown the spray reduced the damaging effects of the sun's ultraviolet light.

Scientists who tested the solution at University Hospitals Case Medical Centre in Cleveland, Ohio, said the tea spray boosts the skin's in-built immune system and helps it fight off the sun's harmful effects.

Powerful disease-fighting chemicals, called polyphenols, are thought to explain tea's beneficial effects on the skin.

The number of Britons diagnosed with malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, has topped 10,000 a year, according to recent figures from Cancer Research UK.

Although sunscreens can protect the skin, scientists now believe that tea could help prevent the cellular damage that leads to cancer.

Source - Daily Mail

Should middle-aged women be taking natural HRT?

Oprah Winfrey's a fan - and many doctors say it's safer and more effective. But as millions of women switch to new 'bio-identical' hormone therapy, critics say it's all just flim flam.

When Ivana Daniell was in her mid-40s, she began to notice her body changing. 'I was becoming bloated and puffy and my energy was non-existent,' she says. Disheartening for any woman, but for Ivana it was serious; she runs a Pilates and body conditioning studio for athletes and for people needing rehabilitation after injury - and looking well and fit is essential to her livelihood.

The most likely explanation seemed to be that I was moving into the menopause,' she says. But this presented her with another problem.

'HRT was just not an option. After what had happened to me when I went on the Pill - nausea, headaches and a vanishing sex drive - there was no way I was going to start taking extra oestrogen in this form.'

That was ten years ago and now Ivana is a remarkably sleek and fit 55-year-old. And it's all thanks, she says, to a new form of HRT.

Not only is this new HRT said to be more effective in treating menopausal symptoms, but it's also said to be safer. It contains the same hormones found in regular hormone therapy, but they come in a subtly different form known as 'bio-identical' - which means they have been chemically manufactured to be the same as the ones your body was making until it reached the menopause.

Conventional HRT, on the other hand, uses hormones that are slightly different from the ones found in the body and are designed to achieve the same effect as the body's hormones. It sounds like a subtle difference, but, in fact, this is supposedly what makes bio-identicals safer and more effective.

Ten years ago, bio-identical hormones were offered only by a few specialised clinics around the world, as everyone believed conventional HRT to be safe and effective.

Source - Daily Mail