Exercising during pregnancy has a lot of benefits. It will help keep you in shape and make labor a lot easier for both you and your baby. It has also been shown that mothers that exercised during pregnancy had babies that were more lean, and had an overall higher intelligence.

Exercising while pregnant can be really easy to do. If you have a regular routine that you normally follow, you should be able to keep with that workout with some slight modifications. If you are not used to exercising, I am going to give you 3 safe exercises that you can easily do. It is advised that you see your doctor before starting any exercise routine while pregnant.

The first exercise is the abduction leg lift. It is a really simple exercise that will work the hips and help make them stronger and ready for labor. What you do is lay on the floor on your side. Bend your bottom leg slightly, and lift your top leg straight up. This is a great exercise that will work all kinds of lower muscles. It will also help to keep the hip pain away later in pregnancy.

Men: She’s not always ready to go. Ladies: Maybe he’s just feeling fat.

It’s no secret that many couples have mixed signals on exactly what their partner wants in the bedroom. To help sort out these “misunderstandings,” Ian Kerner, author of several books including “She Comes First,” and iVillage sex expert Tracey Cox addressed the most common mistakes both women and men make.

The sex mistakes women most often make:

1. Women don’t understand why men don’t like to cuddle.

Ian: After sex, men return to the pre-aroused state, women return to a semi-aroused state. For guys it’s a total system shutdown. We just want to crash, whereas women want to connect, cuddle, converse, even have more sex. Women shouldn’t assume that a guy is insensitive if he’s more inclined to snore than snuggle. He’s probably just shattered. Think of it as a compliment to the sex you just had.

Tracey: I disagree with this. I think men do like to cuddle! They’re just worried their partner might see it as weak and them as vulnerable. I think a lot of the time a man suggests sex, what they’re really after is the physical closeness a cuddle would provide

2. Women don’t understand the extent to which performance anxieties, self-esteem issues and body-image issues all affect male sex drive.

Ian: Absolutely. Guys have many of the same issues as women when it comes to sex: feeling out of shape, unattractive, not wanting to be seen naked during sex. I worked with one guy who always had to rush to put on his boxers after sex and could never cuddle naked. His wife didn’t know what was going on. Turned out he felt very “smallish” after sex.

Also, when guys are stressed out about work/financial issues, it often leads to a shutdown of desire. In both men and women, low self-esteem equals low desire.

Tracey: Men aren’t robots. They’re humans and worry about the same stuff females do. Also there’s pressure on men to provide good sex to women. They expect a lot from men in bed these days, and often expect men to be mind readers, rather than tell them what they want. I’m not surprised men get anxious and their libido dips.

3. Women think that men are always ready and willing to have sex any time, any place.

Ian: No way. As relationships progress over time, women can’t assume that guys are Pavlovian dogs that want to have sex every time you ring the bell. The mental turn-on becomes more crucial than the physical turn-on, and sexual desire begins in the brain, not the groin.

Tracey: They do! And they get all upset if he doesn’t get an instant erection just by looking at her! It’s true that young men probably are ready, willing and able at any point, but once a guy moves into his 20s, the pressure mounts in other areas of his life, like career, and he’s as capable of getting distracted by life’s problems as she is!

4. Women don’t understand how men can differentiate so easily between love and sex.

Ian: One of the reasons is that during sex, women produce lots of oxytocin, a hormone that stimulates a strong emotional connection. As a result, women are more emotionally integrated when it comes to sex. That’s why casual sex and hookups often backfire for lots of women. Guys produce little to no oxytocin, and can easily have sex without any sense of emotional connection. It’s sex with no emotional strings attached.

The sex mistakes men make most often

By Lucinda Reynolds
Struggling to lose that extra weight. This article will reveal to you some very useful tips for losing weight. These tips can be implemented right away to get you started on your weight loss journey.

Obesity has become an epidemic in the world today. Our poor diets and poor exercise habits are really taking their toll on our bodies and waistlines. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just by making a few changes in your life, you can lose weight and keep it off. Read on to discover a few very valuable weight loss tips. These tips may be the key to changing your life forever!

The very first weight loss tip that I am going to share with you is so simple that anyone can implement this one right away. Slow down. Instead of shoveling the food into your mouth and finishing your meal in just a few minutes, slow it down. Chew each bite thoroughly, savoring the taste of the food. Watch the clock and make it a point to have your meal last for at least 15 minutes. The longer it takes you to eat a meal, the more time your stomach will have to signal the brain that you are getting full. Try this at your next meal.

The next weight loss tip is to stop eating before you are full. I don’t mean to still feel hungry, just stop when you start to feel satisfied. We all have the tendency to want to clean our plates. No doubt, this comes from hearing our mothers tell us time and time again how horrible it was to waste food. But now I am telling you to not mind the voice of your mother or grandmother and don’t clean your plate. When you start getting that satisfied feeling, push away from your plate. Get up and walk away or take your plate into the kitchen. Do whatever it takes to keep you from being tempted to clean your plate.

By Becky Waldman R.N.
www.familyjoy.net
Top 10 Factors Which Can Affect Male Fertility - Demystifying Male Infertility

The heartache of infertility affects everyone. Both men and women suffer when the dream of trying to conceive a child, doesn’t seem to be coming true. While this occurs, many women will find themselves in many a specialist’s office, in efforts to determine exactly where the problem lies.

How about the guys? It has been shown that 40 to 50 % of couples experiencing infertility will have a male factor, that is a problem with the quality, quantity or movement (also known as motility) of the sperm. Low sperm counts, infection, erectile dysfunction, and other health problems should be evaluated by a physician early in the fertility work up to identify and correct simple problems or identify more serious problems. What is certain however is that male factor can significantly effect decisions couples make regarding their family planning.

If you and your partner have been trying to conceive for six months or more without success, both of you need to be fully evaluated to determine if and where problems exist. If you and your partner have suffered multiple miscarriages or previously failed In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) cycles, the problem can also be male related.

Failure of implantation (the normal growth of the placenta early in the pregnancy) can result form poor embryo quality, such as a genetic problem. When fertilization occurs when the egg from the female combines with the sperm of the male partner. The sizes are different and the sperm DNA need to swell and then shrink to match up with the DNA of the egg. When this process is successful an embryo can form. If there is a problem with the DNA of either the sperm or the egg, the DNA of the resulting embryo can fail, causing failure of implantation or early miscarriage. (1).

The following are a list of the �Top 10’ factors which can affect male fertility.

WAISTS SHRINK AS SCALE STAYS THE SAME
Study: Exercise helps, even without weight loss
Harvard Health Letter

Most of us think we need to lose some weight, so we resolve to eat better and get more exercise. Often, though, that resolve vanishes before the pounds do.

But a study by Canadian researchers offers a new perspective.

Their small study included 24 middle-aged men who weren't in the habit of exercising. Eight were lean, eight obese, and eight others obese with type 2 diabetes. For three months, they followed a rigorous exercise program (an hour of aerobic exercise, five times a week).

The twist was that they were told to eat enough to compensate for the extra calories they were burning so they would not lose weight.

The researchers made several measurements at the end of three months, but two stood out. In all three groups, the waist size of the men shrank by about an inch, and levels of interleukin-6 (an inflammatory chemical produced by fat and certain other tissues) declined.