Posts Tagged ‘Alcohol’

Ahh football! A noble sporting institution centred on several prominent British values: healthy competition, camaraderie and drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Young and old, rich and poor, and male and female alike, there’s nothing the British love more than watching 22 handsome young men kicking a ball around a field wearing shorts. Equally, who can resist the thrill of seeing their idol score the winning goal? Technically, all Brits (like Brazilians) are football fans; it’s actually a matter of national pride. However, there are always a few guys who have to take their fandom further, you know the type? They don’t just love watching football on the telly, they have a football bedspread, football posters, they eat, sleep and breathe footy. So, what’s a gift giver to do when that football fan’s birthday or Christmas rolls round? In this exciting article we’ll take a look at that majestic creature ‘the footy fan’ and see what Gifts for Him we can come up with which you may not have considered before. They will need to be affordable, creative and they’ll also need to put a smile on his face. The Football Fan There are many truths about the football fan, I would call him an elusive creature or enigmatic but neither are true. Typically, he sees everything in simple terms. You win or lose a football match, after all, (or draw, but that is rare and leads to penalty shoot outs…) Anyway, he’s uncomplicated, direct, friendly and chatty. Gifts for Him need to be bold, simple and make a statement. He loves pizza, beer (if he’s old enough to drink it) and he can tell you more about football than you would ever want or need to know. That means that there’s a lot of room for you to get something wrong, like buy him a porcelain figurine of a team member from that club he hates. There are two major things wrong with that, firstly, you bought a man a porcelain figurine and secondly, never mind. He will have enjoyed smashing it. Getting Gifts For him Research is key. You need to know who his favourite players are, what his favourite club is and what size shirt he is. Does he play football at the weekends? What shoe size is he if he does? Become interested in football, ask questions and make lists. Soon you’ll have the football fan’s details down on paper and that makes getting gifts for him that much easier. With his shirt size you could get him his favourite player’s shirt and with his shoe size you could get him some new top-of-the-range football boots for those weekend games. These are obvious gifts though? The only thing ever stopping you from getting these sorts of things is that you will neglect to look at tags; you needn’t ask him and make him suspicious. Just look inside a shoe or shirt when he’s not around. After research, the key to getting great Gifts for Him is getting things which will make him laugh. You don’t have to get him something tacky though, you can put a smile on his face and still give him something he will use, rather than leave on a shelf to gather dust. One good example of something he can use and laugh about is a pair of Football cufflinks, there are loads of designs out there from tasteful silver football and boot designs, to more quirky colourful ones. He can wear his football cufflinks with any traditional button down shirt making them great for nights out, formal meetings and weddings. So, whenever he’s all dressed up and ready to go out he’ll think of you and football; the two things he probably loves more than anything else in the world! Another present you might not have considered before could be some stocks and shares. What would he do with those you ask? Well, I don’t know but he’d certainly put the certificate on the wall or frame it if he owned a share in his favourite football team? He can’t manage them but he can own a small portion of Manchester United, Arsenal or any team that he supports and what’s better than saying your team, really and truly is your team? Men who love football really appreciate it when you take some time to learn more about their interests and get them something which is both useful and meaningful. A football mug is fine, but what about engraved footy champagne glasses instead? Thinking outside the box and making the gifts for him funny, luxurious or a romantic experience, depending on who the footy fan in your life is, can make his special day that little bit more special!

Although most people know that they can’t live without the liver, few are aware of the important role that this organ plays in weight loss. Your survival is dependent on the liver’s ability to detoxify various chemicals – the most familiar one being alcohol, but weight control is also dependent on a healthy liver. That’s because the liver either produces or activates ALL of the hormones in the body that are necessary for fat-burning. Without optimal liver function, natural weight loss becomes a very difficult goal to achieve.

Due to chronic abuse of the liver through things like heavy alcohol use, using medications and drugs, and bad eating habits, especially an overconsumption of fats and heavy animal-based proteins, the liver can become overloaded and irritation can result. This results in an inflammatory response in the abominal cavity, which results in an accumulation of fluid (called ascites). As the retained fluids collect in the stomach area, the stomach will often begin to protrude outward, producing the appearance that is sometimes called a “beer belly”. In women, the problem can get bad enough that the protruding belly makes them look pregnant when they are not. For people with this water weight deposition, weight loss can be frustrating because exercise will not “burn it off” – because it’s not fat. Since natural weight loss approaches fail to get results in these situations, some people resort to diet drugs, which may work at first, but ultimately harm the liver even more and create even more abdominal water retention.

Ironically, with water weight gain associated with liver dysfunction, some diet plans and weight loss products can actually make the situation worse and lead to even more fluid retention. The Atkin’s diet, because it is so high in protein and fat, tends to be hard on the liver and will often lead to even more retaining of fluid. Certain products sold to help with weight loss may have ingredients that further stress and irritate the liver and result in even more water retention in the long-run.

In addition to the water retention issue, good liver function is necessary for the proper production and/or activation of the hormones that stimulate fat burning. For instance, the liver is needed to convert the inactive form of thyroid hormone (T4) to the active form (T3). When the liver is overworked and cannot do the hormone conversions efficiently, the body cannot burn fat efficiently, no matter how much exercise you may do or what other natural weight loss steps you take.

In addition to activating fat-burning hormones as with thyroid hormone, the liver produces insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which is another fat-burning hormone. IGF controls blood sugar during the relatively long-period that you go without eating during sleep. When you are asleep at night, your blood sugar levels fall and the liver generates IGF to cause the fat tissues to burn fat to boost blood sugar. Again, if liver function is not as good as it should be, this hormone is not produced efficiently and you don’t burn as much fat. The other thing that occurs is that your blood sugar will go lower than it should and you wake up in the morning feeling very fatigued and irritable.

At this point you may be wondering what steps you need to take to help improve liver function to help alleviate abdominal water retention and to help better activate your fat burning hormones to stimulate natural weight loss? To begin with, it is important to reduce the detoxification load on the liver. Drastically reducing alcohol consumption and avoiding all but those medications that are absolutely necessary is an important step. If possible, I recommend avoiding alcohol and non-essential medications entirely for at least a few weeks to give the liver an opportunity to recover.

The next step is to clean up you diet to make things as easy as possible on the liver. Probably the simplest and most effective approach is to eat pretty much a vegetarian diet for 14 to 21 days, sticking to mostly fresh vegetables and fresh fruit and using beans, seeds, nuts, and nut and seed butters as your main protein sources. If you can’t do that, it is advisable to at least cut out fried and greasy foods and high-fat meats for a while. The better your diet, the faster you’ll lose the retained water in the abdomen and the faster you’ll make real progress on losing weight.

There are various “liver de-tox” products on the market that contain some combination of herbs and/or nutrients that are reputed to be beneficial for the liver. These can be useful in more extreme cases or for those who simply aren’t willing to take the dietary and other lifestyle measures just described. In my opinion, changing the diet and implementing the other natural weight loss lifestyle factors is a much more effective way to go, but using a liver detoxification product is probably better than doing nothing. Because some of these products contain herbs that can interact with certain prescription medications, it is strongly recommended that you consult with a physician or a pharmacist before using any of these products if you are on prescription drugs.

In addition to weight loss, as liver function improves, your skin usually becomes clearer and your mood and energy level will typically improve, especially in the morning. People with chronic headaches often notice that the headaches become less frequent and may go away altogether. In addition, pains in the right shoulder and shoulder blade area can be referred from the liver and some people experience relief of these pains as the health of the liver improves.

It should be noted that as the liver recovers and the body stops retaining water in the abdomen, you will typically lose weight very rapidly (it could be 5 pounds or more per day!) and you will need to urinate frequently (that’s how the body gets rid of the excess water). Once the extra water is gone, the weight loss will slow down. If you continue on a natural weight loss program, a reasonable expectation after you have lost the water weight is about 1 to 2 pounds per week.