Getting Rid of freckles

01.32 in bodybuilders, bodybuilding, freckles, get, getting, how, involved, make, makes, Money, of, rid, sa, smarter, spotters, with, you

Can you get rid of freckles without surgery or cosmetic procedures? Short answer: yes.

Freckles… freckles… freckles. People who don’t have them want them, but for most of us who have them, we’d rather do without these ‘beauty spots’. Freckles are nothing more than concentrated deposits of melanin (the pigment in our skin). The bad news is that the cheaper and most natural freckle removal methods won’t take freckles away over night, but the good news is that there are things that we can do to fade them away, to the point where most of them disappear forever. Here are 2 solutions that you can look into to get rid of those ‘sun kisses’.

Lemon Juice

Lemon juice acts similarly to a bleach when it is contact with the skin because it is acidic. Because of the acidity, it works as a mild exfoliator, removing a small portion of the lop layer of skin onto which it is applied. People use lemon juice to lighten the colour tone of their skin and freckles, and sometimes on areas like the arms to correct tan lines. Because of lemon juice’s ability to lighten the skin, it is a great tool to help fade freckles. Some freckles will even fade to the point where they are no longer visible, although some will fade but still stay. Unfortunately, this takes time and will take more than just a few days to work effectively.

Directions and Use:

Dab undiluted lemon juice on the skin to lighten up tan lines or freckles before going to bed and let it dry out. Wash off in the morning after waking up and repeat every night. The skin should start to lighten and freckles can fade – sometimes to the point of disappearing – after a few weeks.

Exfoliation

Exfoliating the skin removes the outer layer of skin which is made up of dead skin cells. Frequent, thorough exfoliation helps the skin to rejuvenate itself, even to the point where the concentrated melanin deposits (freckles) are removed and new, spot-free skin replaces the area.

Directions and Use:

DO NOT exfoliate more than once in one session and DO NOT exfoliate two days in a row. You need to give your skin time rejuvenate and give the new skin (underneath layers) time to adapt to becoming the new outside layer of skin. DO NOT scrub until your skin starts to go red or pink and DO NOT scrub until it starts to feel painful. After a good exfoliation, your skin will look shiny and polished. DO NOT exfoliate more than twice a week. The reason why you should not exfoliate too much, too often or too hard is because the point of exfoliation is to remove the uppermost layer of skin which consists of dead skin cells and overdoing it will lead to the removal (and damage) of the healthy, living skin layers which you want to be as healthy and untouched as possible to look good and rejuvenate into better looking skin. DO NOT scrub until freckles disappear and DO NOT scrub until freckles appear lighter. Just do a light scrub twice a week with a few days of ‘rest’ in-between sessions and after a few weeks, the speeding up of skin renewal brought on by exfoliation will lead to the gradual removal of the concentrated melanin formations. You will not see any differences after the first few exfoliations but freckles can fade or disappear after a few weeks to months.

One of the most popular exfoliation methods is the use of exfoliation gloves that can be purchased at most supermarkets. These gloves don’t cost too much and can be re-used over and over again. You simply put the gloves on before going into the shower or bath and then lather them with soap and water (which creates a soapy lather similar to a scrunchie). Rub the skin all over your body with the lathered gloves in circular motions and rinse when done.

Another popular method of exfoliation is through the use of pastes that contain a grainy or sandy substance that can buffer the skin. You can purchase these pastes at stores or make them at home by using combinations like baking soda and water, salt (smooth salt only because the larger, coarse salt can hurt the skin) and olive oil or even mud made with clean, treated sand and water. Rub the exfoliating paste onto the skin in circular motions for a few seconds and then rinse off afterwards.

The lemon juice and exfoliation methods are effective, cheap and easy to do. However, they will take a long time before you start seeing a difference in freckle reduction. There are, however, other methods of freckle removal that are more instant, but are more expensive and require the consultation of a professional.

Dermatologists (the skin doctors) offer freckle removal services. If you are interested in this method of freckle removal, ask your doctor for more information and for a referral to a good dermatologist in your area. During a 30 minute to 1 hour session with the dermatologist, he or she will burn off the first (outermost) layers of skin on a freckle to instantly remove it. This does hurt, but the burning off motion takes about a second per freckle and a dermatologist could take off over 50 freckles in a single session. Your skin will need time(usually a few days to two weeks) to heal from this in the areas where the doctor has taken off the freckles and it will look like you have chicken pox with all the red marks (and in some cases, scabs) where the doctor has removed freckles.

Another method of freckle removal is more expensive and uses intensive light pulses which penetrate through to the deepest layers of skin to break up melanin formations. After this light stimulation, the freckles start to break up and disappear after a day or two. This does not damage then skin or make any marks, and actually also helps to keep the skin looking younger.

Well there you have it, who said you couldn’t have the body you want!? 

STAY STRONG!

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Does Alcohol affect Muscle Growth

09.36 in affect, alcohol, annoying, at, does, friends, get, growth, gym, in, involved, making, Money, most, muscle, people, sa, spotters, the, with

Alcohol negatively affects muscle growth. Here are a few reasons why:

• Dehydration

Alcohol is a mild poison and a toxin which is why consuming it makes people intoxicated. It is also a diuretic, meaning that it causes the body to lose water. The main reason why people often experience a headache the next morning after is because of dehydration i.e. not enough water and electrolytes for optimal brain and organ function. Dehydration also affects the muscles. When in a hangover state, the body will draw water out of the muscles to put in the vital organs like the heart, liver and kidneys to survive. The body also needs the little water it has to clean out the toxins from the body as quick as it can to get back to normal. This dehydration puts your muscles in a catabolic state (breaking down of muscle) instead of the anabolic state (building of muscle) that we all desire.

• Metabolising Alcohol Instead of Protein Syntheses

Starting from as soon as the second or third drink, your body soon gets to work to metabolise and process the alcohol so that it can exit the body before it causes further damage. When the kidneys and liver are burdened with the task of processing the alcohol, they cannot convert protein into muscle. Therefore, when alcohol reaches certain levels, protein synthesis stops. This means that the body will shut down the process of turning protein into muscle from the time of drinking until the next day when its functions start returning to normal. That is a lot of muscle growth time that is missed out on.

• Lack of Energy, Hangovers, Messed Up Diet

When drinking to the point of a hangover the next day, the effect on the body is similar to a short-term cold or flu. If you have been building for long enough, you know how detrimental getting sick can be to muscle gains, both size- and strength-wise. The effects of drinking too much alcohol can do the same thing; although to a less extend depending on the amount of alcohol consumed. Additionally, the lost workouts or decreased physical performance the day after alcohol consumption causes a temporary but unnecessary decrease in muscle stimulus.

What about Alcohol in Very Small Quantities?

What about one beer? Some studies show that the occasional beer or glass of wine can actually be beneficial to health. For example, wine has shown to improve heart function and contain antioxidants, and beer has, among other health benefits, been shown to keep skin looking younger due to it containing silicon. It is generally believed that 500ml or less of beers and ciders, one glass or less of wine and a single shot of spirits or hard liquors won’t negatively harm muscle growth. Some sportsmen and bodybuilders also believe that whiskey has the least damaging effect on physical health compared to other alcoholic substances.

The Final Verdict

Rather stay away from drinking too much alcohol to the point of getting drunk (or even tipsy). This does hamper muscle growth, but is also dangerous and expensive. Too many valuable friendships have been ruined, lives lost, cars wrecked and lives permanently changed because of a ‘harmless night out’. We also don’t recommend drinking a beer or whiskey daily because alcohol can be addictive. The best thing to do is created a life that does not have alcohol as an aspect of your weekly routine. The healthiest thing to do is create a life where you can break away, have fun, relax and socialise without alcohol. It is ok have a single beer or glass of wine on occasion, perhaps once a month or less. STAY STRONG!

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Get Involved With SA Spotters

15.04 in get, involved, Money, sa, spotters, with

SA Spotters is dedicated to growing the bodybuilding industry so that there are more opportunities for everybody with the same passion as us. The bigger the industry gets the more people it will be able to support financially. We are very happy with the online support we have gained. We are gaining a bigger following and support base every week. Surprisingly, our online visitors have grown from South Africa to around the world, including the USA, UK and Europe.
Its about time that we start sharing our growing popularity with others.
We are now allowing like-minded people who have something interesting to share with the bodybuilding world to share on our platform. If you have something that you would like to share with the bodybuilding community like a new training program, concerns about a product, a new business you would like to start in our industry or anything that you think our readers might be interested in, feel free to send us an email at safricanspotters@gmail.com

Why would anyone want to share on SA Spotters?

• Free Exposure

Writing something for SA Spotters to share with our readers will expose what you have to say to our readers. People that might not know of related brands or products can find out right here.

Why would SA Spotters post things by other people?

Why would we share your stuff with our readers? Its quite simple... because we love good advice and tips that our readers are looking for. By publishing reader-created content, we are growing the amount of content on our website that readers will be interested in reading. 

What kind of stuff would SA Spotters accept to be published on the site?

• Content That is Relevant to Bodybuilding

Content about why fishing is relaxing, for example, wont be accepted because it is not relevant to our readers. We are a bodybuilding site and tend to keep it that way. If our readers wont be interested in reading something, we wont post it on our site.

• Submissions that are at least 600 Words long

This is not set in stone, but submitting something to us about a new product you have tried which only has 5 sentences is not going to give our audience much detail about what you are trying to say. Try to go into as much detail as you can about the message you want to bring across. If we feel like your submission to SA Spotters doesnt contain enough information or doesnt satisfy the appetite of a reader who might be looking for information on that specific topic, we will reject it. Imagine looking for information on how to squat properly, clicking on it and only finding 2 sentences.

• Your content Must be Read-Worthy

We are not an advertising platform, but we do want the bodybuilding industry to expand. Do not write a post listing your products and their prices only, because that wont have informative value for our readers. Write about something that people want to read about. 

• You cannot use Fowl Language or Hate Speech

Do not swear in your posts and do not discriminate against anybody or any groups. Your article cannot show, in any way; any prejudice, hate, judgment or slander to any specific group of people (i.e. race, sexual orientation, religion, certain sports, physically inactive people, social class, etc.)

•  Your Content Must be Unique

We dont accept anything that is already on the internet somewhere else. Your content needs to unique, written by you and there must not be any other copies of your content online. If you have a blog of your own that you want to promote, you will need to write a post specifically for us, that wont be on your blog as well. If the same post is on your blog AND our website, Google will list one of us under copy-cat status.

• You cant use Media that is Copyrighted

Dont include pictures or videos that are copyright protected. You are welcome to include pictures that you have taken, pictures of yourself or company and self-made videos, but stealing other peoples pictures without their permission is not allowed.

Im interested! What do I do? 

Write up something interesting and email it to us at safricanspotters@gmail.com in a Word attachment or in the body of the email. You can include links, mentions and anything else you would like us to put in the post. We will review your content and if we feel that it will be beneficial to our readers and that it does not offend anybody or break any rules, we will publish it online and send you the link to share with your friends and followers.

Stay Strong!

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The Health Benefits of Sweating

23.54 in about, benefits, bodybuilding, facts, garry, get, health, involved, Money, of, program, sa, spotters, squats, sweating, the, with, workout

You sweat while you work out, while in the sauna and throughout the day because of heat. Sweat is the body’s way of cooling the body down because of the cooling effect when water evaporates from the skin. In the cave man era, humans were able to run for long periods of time - longer than most animals – because their ability to sweat. Sweating prevented them from overheating, which would lead to collapsing, feinting and even death.

Sweat is smelly and unattractive, but is essential for life. Here are a few benefits of sweating:

• Sweating Prevents death. 

This is because of its ability to cool the body down. If humans could not sweat, then more than 70% of the human population would die within one week. Scary statistics…

• Sweating helps to detox the body. 

Sweating allows the body to release some of the toxins that it needs to expel through the skin. This detox method can release up to 30% of the toxins and impurities that the kidneys and liver would otherwise have to deal with. This eases the burden on the kidneys and liver, allowing them to perform more of their other bodily functions like energy, nutrient and hormone control, metabolism and release.

• Sweating is good for the skin. 

Sweating opens up the skin so that it can receive some of the nutrients and minerals from within. This includes lipids and oils that moisturizes dry skin and also allows the skin to release excess oils that might cause pimples and blackheads. People who sweat more often have better looking skin than those who sweat less.

• Sweating can be used as an indicator to the level of effort used during exercise. 

Although people sweat differently (i.e. some people sweat less after high intensities of exercise while others sweat a lot even when they are not exercising.), without sweat people could push past what is safe because we could be overheating without realizing it. The dangerous effects of overheating progress until death.

• Sweating decreases water retention. 

Sweating gives the body an opportunity to get rid of some of the excess water under the skin. This excess water looks like cellulite, can make people look bloated and hides muscle definition. Sweating also gets rid of sodium, which is an important mineral but can cause health problems. People who follow a typical westernized diet consume too much sodium (the amount of sodium needed is 2400 mg. The average American consumes 7800 mg a day).


People who don’t engage in exercise and therefore don’t sweat often enough tend to have higher levels of toxins in their bodies. They are also more prone to duller looking skin which is more likely to breakouts with pimples or blackheads or whiteheads, rashes, redness, inflammation and flaking.
As healthy as sweating is, sweating too much can cause the body to lose precious nutrients like water and electrolytes that the body cannot survive without. Make sure to replenish water whenever you sweat to stay hydrated and eat a good diet that is rich in minerals and electrolytes. Mineral and electrolyte dense foods are foods like fresh, raw produce (like vegetables, leafy greens, fruit, seeds, nuts) red and white meat, fish and seafood.
It is commonly believed that those who sweat more are healthier than those sweat less. The fitter you become, the more you will sweat as one of the ways that your body becomes more adept at cooling itself down.

Sweating might not be the best thing for your image and it might make you feel uncomfortable, but at least you know that it is a healthy thing to do. Keep hydrated and make sure your diet / supplementation includes the minerals and electrolytes that are lost from sweating. STAY STRONG!

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