Fitness Dirt & Pretty Things

This fantastic article describes the development of massage as a formal practice in modern medicine. Massage was usually titled "alternative" medicine, though it is now reknowned as a formal remedy to help in the therapy and treatment of patients. Having a vary deep sporting background myself, I found it funny that massage was only utilised in the change rooms of sporting teams. Very recently I had surgery on my knee and was happy to see that one of the weapons of choice of my own physiotherapist was massage. From the article here are some benefits of massage:

Massage prepares muscles and tissues for impending exercise or exertion
Massage promotes endorphin release in the brain, helping to dull pain
Massage promotes healing in injured or stressed muscles and tissues

Pretty compelling testament to massage and how it can benefit your well-being.

Calories are energy stores, why deplete them? Many people assume that a restricted calorie diet means that you will burn fat. It's a definite no-no to assume when it comes to dieting. In fact, when you are exercising you need to have calories to fuel your workouts. Restricitve calorie diets when exercising are not necessary.

Many people start a diet and reduce their calorie intake thinking that will be enough for them to lose the weight they desire. What they forget is that the body has an evolutionary response to this reduced calorie intake - the body assumes you are experiencing a famine and starts to pile on the fat in order to make you survive the famine. This is exactly why when you start reducing your food intake you suddenly find the weight stops shifting and you in fact get heavier.

In order to keep the weight shifting you have to engage in exercise.Before you fall off your chair with visions of half killing yourself down the gym, don't panic. You do not have to join a gym and turn into a fitness freak - all you need to do is engage in some mild exercise in order to keep the pounds shifting off you. You can, if you want join a gym, but it's not necessary.

Start to think about what sort of exercise you can easily fit in to your life. For example, what about walking to the corner shop instead of driving? You could take the stairs instead of the elevators, or park further away from work and walk the rest of the way.

Not only will this exercise help you to keep getting rid of weight, but it will also help you to get fitter and feel better about yourself, which is a wonderful side effect. There are many other simple forms of exercise you could take.

Many gyms and community centers provide lunchtime or after work classes in Yoga, Aerobics and other forms of exercise. Joining those will help you socialize with people with similar goals to yourself and help you continue to get rid of weight.

Taking up walking at the weekends is another excellent form of exercise. Just taking a long walk a week exploring can be extremely enjoyable and help you to get fitter and lose weight. You could even join one of the many groups that ramble across the countryside and enjoy a social event at the same time! And then you won't even realize you are gaining some great health benefits at the same time.

I wonder what interesting ways of integrating exercise into your life you can find? Ways that you can enjoy and have fun with, without impacting the rest of your life. Aren't you curious to find out how you can shift that extra weight whilst having that much fun?
About the Author

Patricia has been interested in dieting and weight loss since the early 70's and knows how to seperate hype from fact. For more Weight Loss & Dieting Information please visit: http://www.The-WeightLoss-Guide.com

Patricia's article is a fantatsic overview of keeping your exercise simple and enjoyable. Apart from this her opening paragraph also gives a very valuable overview of what happens if you start restricting calories. Therefore, balance is essential and calories are needed to fuel exercise, just as long as they come from wholesome food sources.

Like them or hate them, you need carbs to fuel your performance throughout the day. Feeling gluggy in the morning? You probably have not had a breakfast that contains carbs. Carbs can be the complex variety or those that contain simple sugars. Knowing how to balance your carb intake can help with your workouts and give you energy throughout your day.

The obsession with health rages on in our country and around the world. People are consumed by counting their calories and by getting in an extra few minutes at the gym. We want the bodies that Hollywood tells us are not only possible but easy to have. Much of our pursuit of health is actually a pursuit of physical perfection and a level of beauty that we will probably never attain. We hear a lot lately about the carb and about how we should cut the carb out of our diet as much as possible.

The thing about the carb - or carbohydrate - is that there is a good side and a bad side to it. Let's start with the good side of the carb. Anyone who has ever chased a toddler around for an afternoon knows that life takes energy to make it through each day. Especially as we get older, we need more energy to make it through the days. The carb is a great source of energy that can help us stay awake and maintain high energy levels throughout our days. All of these fad diets that teach us to cut out all of the carbs from our diets are seriously mistaken and they don't take into account the fact that we need energy to live! So don't be sucked into a fad diet that requires you to go no-carb. It just isn't healthy.

On the other hand (there is always another hand in health), don't allow yourself to go carb crazy either. You cannot live long or live well by consuming any kind of food you want whenever you want it. Anyone who is halfway interested in doing something good for their health should carefully watch the amount of carbs they consume. A short appointment with your physician or with a dietician can be a great way to get on the right path to health.

The carb is great because it gives us energy, but it can be bad when it is overconsumned because it turns into sugar and hence into fat if the energy is not burned off. So the key with the carb is balance. Don't eat so few that you don't have the strength or energy to make it through your day, but don't eat so many that you have excess sugar that turns to fat.

Take your health seriously and make an appointment to talk with an expert before your health gets any further out of hand. Take control of your health by learning the truth about the carb.

About the Author

Hallidae Thomason is a dietician that loves to reveal the truth about the carb and the need for balance. See www.carbhelp.info for more about important health facts.

Hallidae's article rings very true. Never underestimate the power of carbs to fuel your work and play. Also, we must remember that too much carbs can be just as harmful as too little. Balance is always the key with a good diet.

One of my favorite treats during the lunch time hustle and bustle of the city is a smoothie or a juice. Over the past few weeks while waiting in line at my favorite juice bar, I kept on noticing some advertisements about something called Acai (pronounced A-Sigh-EE in Brazilian). Not paying much attention I let it go (thinking it was some new nutrition health suppliment fad). When I came home the other night I asked Liz (whom traveled and lived in Brazil a long while ago) what Acai is? She told me they were berries that had a grape like quality.

With my most recent trip to the juice bar while meeting up with my best mate for some lunch, I was again confronted by the so called "Amazonian power" of Acai, so I decided to pick up some information about it. Supposedly, the Amazonian tribes have been utilizing Acai for a very long while and findings from many scientific studies suggest it contains some of the following properties to maximize health and athletic performance:

• Oleic (Omega 9) - helps lower LDL (bad cholesterol)
  
• Linoleic (Omega 6) - also lowers LDL while boosting HDL (good cholesterol)
• Phytosterols - reduces blood plasma cholesterol.
• Unsaturated Fatty Acids - that contain dense energy to power your day.
• Anthocyanin - an essential protein contained in fruit.
• Fibre - Acai is very rich in fibre.

The company who sells Acai here in Australia is Amazon Power. Liz has asked me to buy it on my next trip to my favorite juice bar.

Recently I stumbled across a study published back in 1997 in Medicine and Science in Sports Exercise (29:669-676; 1997) that related back to growth hormone release from intense training. In my own experience I found that along with a proper diet, high intensity exercise allowed me to grow muscle well over a 6 year period. "The authors of the study suggest that with exercise experience - at the same level of intensity - GH secretion is either reduced or degraded more rapidly. Other studies show that it takes at least 10 minutes of high intensity exercise - enough to cause a pronounced muscle-burning sensation -to elicit a significant GH response" (Jordan E. , 1999).

With that said, remember the adage of keeping it "short but sweet". If you are looking at maximizing muscular gains, along with all other factors (e.g. diet) keep the intensity high on the gym floor, and you will get great gains in muscle size and density.

With hot chocolate or in your cereal, milk should be a staple of anyone's diet. When it comes women and aging populations calcium is an especially important part of your metabolic processes. "Calcium is one of the the main minerals in bone development and muscle contractions" (Richmond, W. 2001). This means that consumption of calcium can help stave off the effects of amenorrhea, osteopenia and osteoporosis are all common in both intensely trained athletes and aging populations. So what is the RDI (Recommended Daily Calcium Intake)? For both men and women the recommended intake is 800 mg, this will differ for women who are pregnant (1100 mg) to growing boys of 12-15 years (1200). All in all Calcium is a very important part of anyone's diet.

Do you like the great outdoors with the sun in your face? Everyone does, especially with the cold, gloomy and windy days we are experiencing in Sydney over the past week. Vitamin D is essential for mineral balance and bone density in the body. Exposure to 30 minutes of sunlight enables the skin to synthesize vitamin D. So, with that said enjoy a glass of milk regularly and get a good 30 minutes of sunlight everyday to help strengthen your bones.

Well it was not really a run, but a high altitude walk to the Great Steps in the Blue Mountains in Western Sydney. Liz and I have been working hard to get our fitness back up to speed, with my recovery from ACL surgery, and Liz having our little girl over six months ago.

In this video you can physically see how challenging these steps are! I worked up to a heart rate of around 140 beats per minute. Each step we took was equivalent to a lunge at close to 90 degrees going up and down. The walk took half an hour both ways, and I was drenched in sweat by the end of it.

This goes to show that you can really get into tip-top shape on a low budget and check out some awesome scenery while doing so!

I'm thinking that as I stumble across things that I read I will provide our readers some quick hints on how to maximize their nutrition, fitness and overall health. So here is today's handy hint:

A recent study suggested that most of the nutrients found in fruits, vegetables and other foods are not skin deep...Kansas State University pointed to the fact that most of the vitamin and mineral content in fruits and vegetables are found in the skin of the produce. So, don't skin your fruits or vegetables like carrots, pears, potatoes and apples. If you are going to wash your produce, do so only lightly and do not soak them as you may risk losing all the powerful vitamin and mineral benefits found in the skin of these fantastic foods.

Enjoy your foods with the skin and benefit from the powerful vitamins and minerals contained in them.

Recently, a study into nutrition labels in the United States seems to show that food labeling in restaurants are not looked upon favorably. The research conducted by the university of Vermont suggested:

"It appears that a large portion of the population isn't interested in having
[nutritional information],"

Other information from the study suggested:

"Fifty-two percent of college students and 33 percent of community participants
indicated that they do not read nutritional facts."

Why are nutrition labels important? When dieting, nutrition labels provide an understanding of a partcicular foods calorie density. Apart from this, nutrition labels are a fantastic measure of the amount of protein, fat and carbohydrate content provided in foods. With the Western world population facing an obesity epidemic (the study points to 64 percent of US adults overweight, with 30 percent obese), less people are reading nutrition food labels.

I'm quite disturbed at the statistics from the study above. I feel as a fitness instructor or personal trainer, more emphasis needs to be made in regards to educating clients on the need for detailed analysis of food labels especially with a 30 year analysis showing that food being consumed outside the home has arisen from 18 percent to 32 percent. McDonald's in Australia have added nutrition food labels to all their popular lines of food as a result of public backlash into the rise of obesity in young children in Australia.

If I can recall, some studies previously uncovered that Australia ranked second in the world for obesity. Nothing beats a healthy home cooked meal. But there also must be some stringent policies whereby restaurants also provide nutrition food ratings for their meals, especially for diet conscious people.