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Many gastric bypass patients report melon to be one of the easiest of fruits to enjoy after surgery. Melons are generally low in natural sugar, ripe on flavor and easily digestible. They are rich in Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Potassium, Vitamin B6, folate and dietary fiber.

How to Select and Store

The key to purchasing a quality melon is to find one that is ripe. If you tap the melon with the palm of your hand and hear a hollow sound, the melon has passed is ripe. Choose a melon that seems heavy for its size, and one that does not have bruises or overly soft spots.

Melons & Food Borne Illness

Because of heightened sensitivity to foods and food borne illness gastric bypass patients must exercise extreme food safety precautions. Follow these simple guidelines to help keep your fruit fresh as well as safe.

When you buy cut melons, be sure they have been buried in ice or displayed in a refrigerated case, not just displayed on top of ice. Uncut melon does not need to be refrigerated.

Before cutting, the outer surface of the melon should be washed with drinking water to remove surface dirt.

Hands and all equipment and utensils (cutting boards, knives, etc.) need to be washed thoroughly with hot soapy water, and rinsed.

Cut melons must be refrigerated at 41º F or below.

Cut melons may be served without refrigeration for a maximum of 4 hours (such as at a brunch, picnic, or buffet). At the end of that time, any leftover melon must be thrown away.

A Few Quick Serving Ideas:

Add some sparkling water to fresh squeezed cantaloupe juice for a delightfully refreshing drink in the warm months of the year.

In a blender or food processor, purée cantaloupe and peeled soft peaches to make delicious cold soup. Add lemon juice and sweetener (sparingly) to taste.

Top cantaloupe slices with yogurt, and chopped mint.

Slice melons in half horizontally, scoop out seeds and use each half as a basket in which to serve fruit salad.

Kaye Bailey is a weight loss surgery success story having maintained her health and goal weight for 5+ years. An award winning journalist, she is the author and webmaster of http://www.livingafterwls.com and http://www.livingafterwls.blogspot.com

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Every bodybuilder and weight trainer will have his or her favorite exercises for each body part. That’s how it should be - as you progress through the various stages of learning you’ll understand what works best for you. It is useful, however, to take stock of your progress every so often and carry out an analysis of where you are and what changes, if any, are needed to move onwards and upwards.

Part of this analysis should include an assessment of the core exercises that make up your bodybuilding training program. In this article we’ll look at the chest exercises that have proven their worth to serious bodybuilders for many years. Where appropriate a series of exercises suitable for achieving pre-exhaustion will be presented. All exercises should be performed to failure with one set of six to eight reps.

1. Dumbbell flyes - this exercise provides a useful means of isolating the pectorals and preserving the triceps for the subsequent exercise. The exercise should be performed as follows:

- Hold dumbbells directly overhead.

- Lower them to sides with elbows slightly bent, pulled back and to the side. Lower no further than level with the torso.

- Use the pectorals to pull the weights back up to the starting position.

2. Incline bench press - you can move straight on to this exercise if you have reached an appropriate level of experience. If you perform this exercise as the second part of a pre-exhaust routine you may have to use lighter weights than normally.

- Take a shoulder width grip.

- Lower the bar to the chest with the elbows pointed to the side.

- Return to the starting position.

Richard Mitchell is the creator of the bodybuildingadvisor.com website that provides guidance and information to athletes at all levels of bodybuilding experience. Go to Bodybuilding Advice to learn more about the issues covered in this article.

You can only build muscle tissue if you can generate progressively stronger muscular contractions, so this calls for an emphasis on finding ways to increase exercise intensity. This should not be confused with exercise duration as maximum training intensity will actually shorten the time needed to achieve maximal muscular growth.

In an earlier article I outlined the ways in which you can intensify your training. Here we’ll focus on the role that training to failure has to play in intensifying the training effect.

Anything less than maximum effort will reduce the effectiveness of your muscle building workout. The only way to force an optimal reaction in any muscle is to train it to failure - in other words, no matter how much effort you put in you are simply incapable of completing one more rep of a given exercise.

Too many people seem to finish a set when they reach a certain number of reps, but the body will only show significant change if you ask it to do something extra. Only by passing through the break-over point of momentary muscle failure will you stimulate the muscle to grow.

Anyone starting out on their bodybuilding career should not attempt this method of training as it could lead to serious injury. Spend several months perfecting exercise form and conditioning the body to lift heavier weights before gradually introducing training to failure.

Richard Mitchell is the creator of the bodybuildingadvisor.com website that provides guidance and information to athletes at all levels of bodybuilding experience. Go to Bodybuilding Advice to learn more about the issues covered in this article.

Taurine is the second most abundant amino acid in the muscle after glutamine. It performs several useful functions and can act in a way similar to creatine in that it expands cells by helping the muscle to hold more water, thus increasing cell volume. The added benefit for bodybuilders is that these expanded muscle cells boost hydration and stimulate greater protein synthesis giving an enhanced muscle fullness.

The best time for bodybuilders to take taurine is thirty minutes before training and again immediately afterwards as this will heighten the effect of training. With any amino acid supplement overdosing can lead to weakness and nausea so care should be taken in applying small doses and increasing them gradually until an optimum level is reached. Bear in mind that many protein powders and other supplements are fortified with amino acids so check the labels carefully. The manufacturer’s instructions should be followed in all instances.

Richard Mitchell is the creator of the bodybuildingadvisor.com website that provides guidance and information to athletes at all levels of bodybuilding experience. Go to Bodybuilding Advice to learn more about the issues covered in this article.

In a book I read by William L. Fischer called Hidden Secrets of Super Perfect Health at Any Age, Book II, 1986, I learn how to do herbal footbaths.

In chapter 10, The F-M Circulizer System, Fischer discusses the use of an herbal footbath. After reading this chapter, I realized how herbs in a footbath could improve your skin and help you eliminate acne.

This book was written in 1986 and Fischer claims herbal footbaths have been in use overseas since 1946!

Now, you can do either a footbath or a hand bath. Once you prepare a container with hot water you can put your feet or hands into it and get the same results.

If you already have foot spa, thank your mother, sister, or whoever bought it because you’re in for a treat. If you don’t, with $20 or $30 you can get one just like I did.

When you use a heated footbath, veins in your feet start to expand. Over a period of 15-20 minute, the warm water affects your entire vascular (blood) system and you get improved blood circulation.

By adding an herbal infusion into the hot water in the footbath, minerals and other phytochemicals from the herbs enter the soles of your feet and into your blood stream.

This means that you can introduce herbal phytochemicals into your blood stream using the footbath. During your footbath, these herbal chemicals quickly circulated throughout your body and get to work neutralizing acid, killing bacteria, and improving your skin circulation.

Here is an herbal combination you can use. This herbal combination was taken and modified slightly from a book written by Daniel B. Mowrey, Ph.D., called The Scientific Validation of Herbal Medicine, 1986. Mowrey says,

“This (herbal) blend attacks external skin disorders from within, purifying the blood, carrying away waste, reinforcing the blood’s ability to ward off infectious agents.”

The herbal combination to use is,

* Dandelion root – purifies blood and improves liver function

* Yellow dock root – purifies blood, helps liver, is anti-bacterial

* Saraparilla root – has antibiotic action, promotes waste elimination through urine and sweating

* Echinacea – increases immunity and promotes skin healing

* Licorice – protects the liver so that it can detoxify the blood better

* Kelp – provide minerals and vitamins and binds heavy metal that are bad for health

* Chaparral – is anti-microbial making effective against acne.

* Fresh Garlic – cut up a few cubes of garlic and place them into the hot water. Garlic is has antibacterial properties.

Buy one ounce of each herb and mix them.

Here’s how to do the herbal hand or footbath,

* Place 2-3 tablespoons of herbal mix into 1 ½ cups of water

* Boil the water with herbs – use only a glass, porcelain, or stainless steel container

* After water starts to boil, pull the container off the stove

* Let tea sit for 15-30 minutes. The longer the tea sits the stronger the tea and its effects

* Prepare your foot spa with water

* Strain the tea to remove leaves and roots

* Poor tea and cut garlic into the foot spa

* Place your feet or hands in the hot water for 15 – 30 minutes.

Use the this footbath daily for 14-21 days in the morning for getting rid of acne.

I have been using a foot spa for many different conditions for my family and myself. I really like using the footbath. It is a convenient way to by pass your digestive system and get more nutrients into your body.

Rudy Silva has a degree in Physics and is a Natural Nutritionist. He is the author of Constipation, Acne, Hemorrhoid, and Fatty Acid ebooks. He writes a newsletter call “natural-remedies-thatwork.com.” More acne hints and information on his acne e-book can be found at: http://www.acne-remedies.for–you.info

Other articles in this series looked at a number of exercises, mainly from the perspective of developing a comprehensive muscle building program. Sometimes we take things for granted, especially when it comes to performing the basic exercises that constitute the core of most bodybuilders’ training regimes.

It is useful, therefore, to describe in detail the processes involved in actually doing these exercises. This will help beginners to start out using the correct techniques before moving on to potentially more dangerous heavy weights. If it also helps more experienced lifters to redress some of the little faults that have almost imperceptibly crept in over the years, all the better.

In this article we’ll take a close look at dumbbell lunges.

MUSCLES TARGETED: quadriceps, gluteals, hamstrings

STARTING POSITION

Stand with feet flat and placed less than shoulder width with toes pointed slightly outward.

Hold a dumbbell in each hand with the hands facing inwards.

EXERCISE TECHNIQUE

Step forward, keeping the back straight.

Bend the knee of the lead leg until it reaches a 90 degree angle. The knee of your back leg should be roughly two or three inches off the ground at this point.

Push forcefully with your lead leg and return to the starting position.

Repeat the exercise with your other leg and continue to alternate until you reach the intended number of repetitions.

You should note that varying the length of the step will change the emphasis of this exercise. A longer step will place greater emphasis on the hamstring and gluteal muscles. A shorter step will place greater emphasis on the quadriceps muscles.

OTHER EXERCISES WORTH CONSIDERING

A similar effect can be achieved by performing Barbell Lunges.

Richard Mitchell is the creator of the bodybuildingadvisor.com website that provides guidance and information to athletes at all levels of bodybuilding experience. Go to Bodybuilding Exercises to learn more about the issues covered in this article.