Sunday, September 30, 2012

What is Lifestyle Lift Foundation?

The Lifestyle Lift Foundation was created to provide children with treatments for cosmetic conditions. It was founded by Dr. David Kent who pioneered the Lifestyle Lift treatment. It offers children the opportunity to look more like their peers and live a more normal life. While looking differently is something we encourage our children not to be held back by, there are some children that have conditions that are more serious than the typical differences.

Each year several children are born with disfiguring conditions that may make them appear quite different from their peers. Some of these conditions can actually make it difficult to perform typical activities as well. Still other instances result in health risks to the children that have these conditions. The Lifestyle Lift Foundation helps children to move beyond those conditions. The moving beyond that the Foundation facilitates is an actual change in the condition to create an appearance that resembles the child's peer and often an improvement in health.

Typically, the foundation uses one of four treatment approaches. These treatment approaches are often used in combination as well though. The first of these, in no particular order, is observation. There are several conditions that merit simple observation for some time before any action is taken. The next approach is the use of steroids. There are a number of conditions that can be effectively treated with steroids. In many cases treatments that begin with steroids will often be followed up by one of the other treatment approaches. Laser treatment is sometimes a follow up to steroid treatment at the Lifestyle Lift Foundation. Laser treatment is sometimes used to remove a lesion or other feature after steroids have been used to reduce the size of the feature. The final class of treatment that is common at the Lifestyle Lift Foundation is surgical treatment.

Each treatment that is performed by the Foundation is customized to the individual patient. The treatment plan is the result of professional assessment. The services that the Foundation supply are not limited to treatment though. They also provide educational services to the families. This is essential from the beginning of the process to ensure that the family is able to make a good choice regarding treatment. It also helps them to realize what may lie ahead.

The Lifestyle Lift Foundation is a non-profit organization. It is devoted to the health and treatment of children with cosmetic conditions. There are several photos that document the work that the Foundation has carried out to date. You can view those photos on their website, which is available for viewing online.

Their commitment to social welfare is one that many may benefit from. If you know a child with a cosmetic condition informing the family of the Foundation's existence may lead to a new life for that child. The changes that the Foundation facilitates are life changing. They help children to be more like they want to be.

Lifestyle Lift Versus Traditional Facelifts

Speaking of facelifts, should you opt for a traditional facelift or a procedure like The Lifestyle Lift?

The Lifestyle Lift


The Lifestyle Lift is a minimally-invasive procedure that can reduce the signs of aging around your face and neck. Specifically, The Lifestyle Lift can reduce or eliminate deep wrinkles and creases, loose skin, sagging or baggy eyes, the "turkey neck" phenomenon, hanging jowls, and more.
The Lifestyle Lift works best for younger people (in their 40s or 50s), but is also suitable for people in their 60's, 70's and 80's looking for facial anti-aging treatments. The Lifestyle Lift may help avoid the need for a traditional or 'full' facelift when older. However for patients with more jowling and loose neck skin The Lifestyle Lift only brings temporary results.

Quick Facts:
  • The Lifestyle Lift is minimally invasive
  • The Lifestyle Lift typically causes much less scarring
  • The Lifestyle Lift is performed under local anesthesia
  • The Lifestyle Lift allows for much faster recovery time
  • The Lifestyle Lift is relatively inexpensive
  •  The Lifestyle Lift is only performed by board-certified or board eligible doctors
Traditional Facelifts

Involving larger incisions, traditional facelifts are performed under general anesthesia. They require a very skilled surgeon for optimal results and the recovery times are much longer. Traditional facelifts remove excess fat, tighten underlying muscles, and re-drape the skin of the face and neck; they can be performed in isolation, or in conjunction with other procedures such as a forehead lift, eyelid surgery, or nose reshaping.
As a procedure, the traditional facelift is likely to offer a far greater change but with the attendant issues of longer recovery times, scarring, and, in the case of a procedure-gone-wrong, much higher expenses for corrective surgery and suchlike. Overall expenses are also higher. With The Lifestyle Lift, the signs of aging can perhaps be speedily addressed; and the advantages of quick recovery time, minimal invasion and scarring are hard to beat.

Want a healthy heart?? Raw Food Lifestyle Your Choice

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the food aspects of the raw food lifestyle that we forget the last part – the lifestyle! Exercise is part of a raw and living foods lifestyle too, especially exercises that come naturally to the body.

What do I mean? Think about raw foods for a minute. If your remote ancestor living in some peasant village (or castle if you like!) walked among the fields and got hungry, what would he eat? Depending on the season, he'd pick an apple from the tree, or perhaps pick some vegetables to eat. He'd recognize naturally raw, living foods as sources of food nourishment.

Natural Exercise that Fits a Raw Food Lifestyle

Just as those food choices came naturally to your remote ancestor, certain things we now call "exercise" came naturally to him too. Walking, perhaps as much as eight to ten miles a day, was a very natural exercise. I remember visiting a living history museum once and watching a tour guide demonstrate a big spinning wheel called a walking wheel. The lady of the house had to walk back and forth during the spinning process to feed materials into the wheel to spin them into thread, which she later made into clothing. The tour guide pointed to the worn groove in the floorboards from years of a housewife walking back and forth, and mentioned that she'd once spun all day and worn a pedometer just to see how much exercise she got. She said she walked 8 miles that day just treading a few feet back and forth while spinning!

Our ancestors got so much exercise just from doing their daily chores that we forget that our modern lifestyle isn't a natural lifestyle. From chopping wood for fires to carrying pails of water, spinning fabric or plowing fields, our ancestors worked major muscle groups, performed aerobic activities before the word aerobics was coined, and built strength. Many holistic health practitioners believe that these so called natural exercises are best for health. They're certainly the easiest to incorporate in your daily lifestyle.

Play Like a Child  

Another wonderful way to encourage more daily exercise in a raw, living foods lifestyle is to play like a child. Perhaps you, like me, grew up in a different world, a safer world, in which we roamed the suburban streets and got together with our buddies on the block for impromptu kickball or baseball games. Many spring afternoons were spent at the playground climbing the jungle gym or swinging from the bars. Swimming during the summer months at the town pool or where I grew up on Long Island at Jones Beach were just fun things you did, not exercise.

What did you love to do as a child? My favorite thing was bicycling. I rode my old blue bike to the library, to school, to my friend's houses and to the store. Today, I love to ride my mountain bike around the back country roads feeling the warm sun on my face and enjoying the same free feeling I did as a child. Not only am I building up my heart muscle through aerobic activity, I'm toning and conditioning my leg and buttock muscles. I'm also relieving stress by feeling joy!

Perhaps your fond memories are of roller skating, team sports, jump rope, or playing tag. Why not find a way to rekindle them and play like a child again?

Raw Foods and Healthy Living Go Hand in Hand

It's good to remind yourself from time to time that raw foods aren't always just about foods. It's a holistic, synergistic approach to health and wellness that includes good-for-you things like loving movement (exercise), detoxification, positive mental health, emotional well being, and spiritual growth. Make time for natural exercises. Play like a child. Make time for your physical well being and love your heart through healthy exercise choices. You don't need to struggle through something you don't enjoy. Just as you embraced raw, living foods with joy and delight, embrace natural exercises and find your own daily joy.