I love cucumbers. I eat one practically every day because the help satisfy thirst, lower blood glucose levels and work as a natural diuretic. but, Cucumbers are not just for salads any more.
Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.
Feeling tired in the afternoon? Put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.
Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower? Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.
Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.
Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite. Works great on wrinkles too!!!
Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!
Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explores for quick meals to thwart off starvation.
Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don’t have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.
Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!
Stressed out and don’t have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber will react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown the reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.
Just finish a business lunch and realize you don’t have gum or mints? Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemicals will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.
Looking for a ‘green’ way to clean your taps, sinks or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back theshine, but is won’t leave streaks and won’t harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.
Using a pen and made a mistake? Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!
My R3 journey started around 2017. I wanted to lose weight feel and better about myself. You see, I wasn’t always overweight or obese, I was always fit in spite of my asthma. To keep my lungs healthy, I worked out several days a week lifting weights. I did aerobics two to three times a week. I swam. I biked with the bike club two “short” rides and one long ride every week. I also rode my bike to work 19 miles each way practically every day. I was active and had a great social life.
Then, I gained a little weight, not much at first. After a major asthma attack which landed me in the ICU for several weeks, I gained “prednisone weight” about 20 pounds. I still participated in the Dublin Marathon three weeks after getting out of hospital. I was so full of Prednisone weight, I walked the marathon. (It took five and a half hours.)
Shortoly afterward i participated in an asthma drug study. During that study, I gained 70 pounds.
I had become fat. Not only that friends treated me differently as though I lacked will power or I was lazy. I wasn’t, but…
Around this time my dad went into a nursing home. My mother did not drive, so I became her driver and patient advocate for dad while working 60-hour work weeks and volunteering for local charities. Although I was busy and on my feet all day and water running three days a week, I remained heavy.
At my heaviest, I was 250 pounds and often the heaviest person in the room. I hated it.
At this point, my dad passed, I was now my mothers caregiver. Because of my weight, my doctor suggested human growth hormone injections to see if I could lose weight. His program started out promising, and combined with early morning workouts with a personal trainer, I lost 13 pounds in the first two weeks, but nothing after that. After 3 months we gave up. It wasn’t working for me.
That brings me to that first R3 Challenge around 2017. I took the before picture and submitted it. I didn’t do all that well, but I did lose maybe 10 pounds When comparing the after picture with my before picture you could tell my clothing definitely ldid not look or fit the same. The same clothing is in both photos. If you look closely you’ll see my left arm is in the pants. Most of my work colleagues and friends thought I lost a lot of weight but I hadn’t. I’d lost inches. A Non-Scale Victory (NSV).
I semi-participated in other challenges after that, but never really finished them. My schedule was terrible, I was taking care of everyone and everything but myself. But I finally was j200 pounds thanks to swimming and rowing three times a week. It was progress.
In 2021 my mother passed away and I decided I needed to make life changes. I changed jobs. I put my house on the market. I took a trip to South Carolina to check out the housing market.
2022 arrived. For me, 2022 will forever be “Year of the Shoulder”. The year began with a good purchase offer on my home on January 6. That same day, while at work, I tripped over a case of wine, fell and broke my right shoulder (my dominant hand). My house was closing on January 25. I had 20 days to pack, find a new home and move—all with a freshly broken shoulder. I ended up purchasing a brand new house sight-unseen in Florida with a closing date of January 26 — a day after my New Jersey closing. I was lucky as I was also able to find a good mover to match my timeline. It was a very painful move but i made the 16-hour drive with my mother’s dog.
Once arriving in Florida, it was time to regroup. I found I moved to a new development in a town I had never heard of, but it was now home. Rain was coming down in buckets. I was wondering if I did the right thing. The pain prevented a lot of unpacking (It took nearly a year to find all of my silverware).
Being on Worker’s Comp, I needed to find an orthopedic doctor in Florida who would accept the Worker’s Comp insurance to care for the shoulder. I finally got an appointment for an orthopedist on April 28. I weighed in at his office at 213.
I wasn’t happy. I went on a girls’ trip vacation the following month at nearly 250 and wearing a sling. I was once again the fattest person in the room. I was sick and tired of being overweight, unhappy and in pain. I had to do something.
When I saw the Challenge beginning June 6 – the same day I started Physical therapy — I joined. I figured I couldn’t work and unpacking the garage was still a tedious, painful, one-armed process. I couldn’t even find my scale in the garage, I had to buy a new one! Nor did I have a mirror (It was somewhere in a box in the garage). What could I lose? Weight!
I started the challenge with no expectations at all. Some days were good, some weren’t. My physical therapy lasted the entire length of the challenge. I was in constant pain. When the challenge ended, I was down 25 pounds! I was surprised I lost the weight, since I wasn’t the best at sticking to the plan 100 percent.
The best part, I continued to lose weight (another 15 pounds) after the challenge just by following the Real Life part of R3.
In August, after an 18-month wait, I flew to Washington, DC and Arlington National Cemetery to bury my mother. The flight home was an adventure. After multiple delays and a layover, I arrived at my destination airport, and I woke up two days later in a hospital ICU. Apparently, stress and the pain medication caused a cascade effect resulting in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). I also had never been a diabetic prior to this event, I have no memory of being in an ambulance, in an ER or let alone in an MRI, but I was.
When I was released, to go home —my day trip to DC had turned into a week. I had gained 11 pounds (they said water weight from IVs). It took three weeks to lose the water weight. I followed R3’s Real Life phase. The good news was the endocrinologist approved the R3 plan and liked the idea of my eating five to six times a day to keep my metabolism balanced. By September, my blood numbers were back to normal and I was taken off nearly all of the medications that came home with me from the hospital.
October came and I was down a total of 53 pounds. I decided not to do the Fall R3 challenge. I had a surgical date for a total reverse shoulder replacement on November 16—I didn’t want hospital food ruining my challenge!
Knowing I would be incapacitated for six weeks, I cooked R3-friendly meals—enough for 42 days and froze them tor my recovery meals. By the time of my surgery, I had lost an additional 14 pounds. This time, at the orthopedic office, I weighed in at 146 pounds! I was fully dressed and still in my shoes!
Of course, after surgery, I swelled up and gained 30 pounds! I left the hospital weighing 176 pounds, It took a month to shed those 30 pounds of water weight. Again, I did it by following my R3 Real Life phase.
On December 31, I was 145 pounds.
I’m happy about the weight loss, especially since I wasn’t allowed any workouts other than walking my chihuahua. I admit I feel better about myself now that i’m closer to my ideal weight. My shoulder still needs to finish healing, before I can go back to swimming, water running and rowing, to stay fit, but I’ll get there with R3. I want to lose the last 15-20 pounds for my ideal weight.
R3 is really a lifestyle for me and I know I’ll never go back to being that overweight again.
In 1991, I was introdced to a company where I could work part-time selling products that I loved and seeing others feel the same about the products. Yes, it was a party plan, but those social times were fun!
I did well enought to get promoted, but there came a day that selling to meet quotas became a pressure for me. You see, at the beginning of every month I started over with a zero income base — additional pressure. Plus, most of my earned income was not coming from the sales I made. Most of the income came from being a subject matter expert in the field and doing seminars or consultations on how people could improve their lives using these or similar products. That was more fun and being that I was a full time freelance graphic designer first and foremost, the work at home behind those successful years was too much pressure for me.
So, in 2002 I walked away.
After a two-year hiatus. A friend called and told me she found a line of safer for you, less expensive, better-performing products that Ishe thought would help with some of my medical issues. Doubtfully, I tried them, loved them, and became excited when I discovered I could make money! That fit my lifestyle!
This online wellness company shared its revenue with shoppers who referred other shoppers to the shop club instead of using paid advertising. Word of mouth testimonials and simple referrals are the reasons the company could use natural, better working ingredients and sell their products at money-saving prices. No paid advertising saves billions!
For almost 20 years, I have received a check every single month from my referrals. Why does it work? People love the products and 96% of the customers I’ve referred order again the next month.
Would you really enjoy a check you could depend on every month that did not require selling products?
It’s an income stream that doesn’t interfere with your main business/priorities — it fits in nicely with my ilfestyle I know this residual income could take me through my retirement…I thought my story was worth sharing and, if you’re interested in learning more, feel free to contact me.
Market Insider has reported that JP Morgan believes that gas prices will surpass $6 as the summer driving seasons kicks off. Soon it will be even more expensive to get to work or go on summer vacation and, with the prices of food and other essentials going higher as well, the family budget is going to get stretched thinner. Tell me again why every person on the planet right now couldn’t use a Plan B Repeat Income? We have an answer to help you develop your Plan B.
Really? Study says booze, coffee, being overweight could be key to long life People who drink moderate amounts of alcohol or coffee and are overweight in their 70s live longer lives, according to researchers at UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders. A new study claims that people who drink alcohol and coffee live longer than people who don’t. The researchers started a study in 2003 to look at what makes people live past 90. They say participants in their study who drank moderate amounts of alcohol or coffee lived longer than those who abstained from either drink. But anyone who plans to spend their nights drinking nothing but tequila should use caution, It’s not about getting drunk every night — researchers say moderate drinking—one or two glasses of wine, maybe a little bit more, and a little bit of coffee, should do the trick In addition, people who were overweight in their 70s lived longer than people who were normal or underweight in their 70s. Researchers at the “90+ Study” say that they are always looking for new participants who are 90 years old or older. To learn more about the study, click here for the institute’s website.
Getting a knee or hip replacement is a big decision. You should always try conservative treatments first. If, however, they don’t work and your knee or hip pain is significantly impacting your life, you may be ready for joint replacement surgery.
My orthopedist put together this simple quiz to help you determine whether it’s time to consider joint replacement surgery:
Does the pain limit your normal activity? Is it difficult to get up after sitting? Do you have pain even when you’re at rest? Does the pain affect your sleep? Do you have chronic swelling/inflammation or stiffness? Have you received little to no relief from conservative treatments, such as RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation), physical therapy, braces, footwear modification, over-the-counter medications like aspirin and ibuprofen, and cortisone/lubrication injections? If you’ve answered yes to most of the quiz questions, you may be a candidate for joint replacement surgery and should speak with an orthopedic specialist.
I know I answered yes to most of the questions and having both hips replaced made a marked improvement in my quality of life and it is great to be able to stand and walk pain free!
Sugar-rich diets generate excessive reward signals in your brain that can override normal self-control mechanisms and lead to addiction and overeating. Research found a single week of bingeing on fast foods impaired appetite control, making the volunteers more likely to desire more junk food, even if they’d just eaten.
Diligent nursery workers did not realize they were using a toxic disinfectant (most are!). Sol U Guard is the world’s first all natural, totally safe, highly effective household disinfectant. And the FDA agrees it will take care of the uglies at home that you are concerned about when used as directed.
Truth: national cleaners are harmful over time to your health.
“The scientists analysed blood samples from 22 anonymous donors, all healthy adults and found plastic particles in 17. Half the samples contained PET plastic, which is commonly used in drinks bottles, while a third contained polystyrene, used for packaging food and other products. A quarter of the blood samples contained polyethylene, from which plastic carrier bags are made.” He said previous work had shown that microplastics were 10 times higher in the faeces of babies compared with adults and that babies fed with plastic bottles are swallowing millions of microplastic particles a day.”
Hayseeds Creative 