So What's Going On With Your Health?

The Fitness Cycle of Activity, Fatigue, and Recovery

Karl Jones — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:00:39 +0000

Have you ever wondered why the exercises you do to improve your level of fitness and build energy often leave you feeling fatigued and sometimes sore? You might say that a total picture of energy actually involves a cycle of activity, fatigue, and recovery. Each of these is an important consideration when planning your fitness program.

Activity

Sudden strenuous activity or muscle exertion relies on muscle stores of carbohydrates for immediate energy. One by-product of burning this sort of fuel for energy is lactic acid, which can cause fatigue and a burning sensation in the muscles. Your body requires oxygen to remove lactic acid, so if you continue to exercise beyond your body’s ability to provide adequate oxygen, the lactic acid can build up and cause moderate to severe muscle pain. And since your cardiovascular system cannot meet the excess demand, you are apt to feel short of breath and rapidly fatigued.

Fatigue

Fatigue, or lack of energy, can be affected by many factors, including the length and intensity of activity. Illness, stress, anxiety, depression, improper nutrition, lack of sleep, boredom, and even long periods of inactivity can contribute to fatigue. When you start a new activity, you may become fatigued more easily until your body adapts to the new energy needs. Similarly, if you exercise during hot weather, you are apt to become fatigued more quickly, since much of your body’s energy is being used to cool itself down (through sweating). When you reach the point of fatigue, don’t push yourself further. It’s your body’s warning that it’s time to take a break and recover.

Recovery

When you become physically fatigued, your body needs time to recover. That doesn’t mean lying down and putting your feet up, but merely decreasing the intensity of your activity to allow your body to rest and recuperate. For instance, if you feel fatigued during an aerobics class, stop and walk around the room until your breathing returns to normal and your heart rate begins to subside. If you follow a vigorous, long-term aerobics program, alternate the days that you do aerobics with other types of activities, such as strengthening and flexibility exercises. For example, you might do aerobics on Monday, calisthenics on Tuesday, aerobics on Wednesday, and so forth. Building adequate recovery time into your fitness plan can actually result in quicker gains and less risk of injury.

Your Energy Cycle

Understanding the cycle of activity, fatigue, and recovery is an important aspect of your total fitness plan. It takes your body anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to recover from an “all-out” workout, and it is during this recovery period that the physiological changes that improve your level of fitness occur. Working out too hard, too soon can actually harm your progress. Don’t shortchange your fitness goals by pushing too hard. Remember, recovery from fatigue is as important to fitness as activity or exercise itself.

Health Advice for Travelers: Eat and Drink… Safely

Karl Jones — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:00:17 +0000

Wherever you are in the world, be careful what you eat and drink. Food and water may be contaminated in a variety of ways – and that includes the water in swimming pools, lakes, rivers, and the sea, so try not to swallow water when you are bathing.

Travelers’ diarrhea is very common, especially in hot countries. Travelers’ diarrhea, as well as diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and hepatitis A, can be caught from contaminated food and water.

BUT THEY CAN ALSO LARGELY BE AVOIDED BY TAKING SIMPLE PRECAUTIONS:

Always wash your hands after going to the lavatory, before handling food, and before eating.
If you have any doubts about the water available for drinking, washing food, or cleaning teeth; boil it, sterilize it with disinfectant tablets, or use bottled water – preferably carbonated with gas – in sealed containers.
Avoid ice unless you are sure it is made from treated and chlorinated water. This includes ice used to keep food cool as well as ice in drinks.
It is usually safe to drink hot tea or coffee, wine, beer, carbonated water and soft drinks, and packaged or bottled fruit juices.
Eat freshly cooked food which is thoroughly cooked and still piping hot.
Avoid food which has been kept warm.
Avoid uncooked food, unless you can peel or shell it yourself.
Avoid food likely to have been exposed to flies.
Avoid ice cream from unreliable sources, such as kiosks or itinerant traders.
Avoid – or boil – unpasteurized milk.
Fish and shellfish can be suspect in some countries.
Uncooked shellfish, such as oysters, are a particular hazard.

Sports Drinks

Karl Jones — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:00:23 +0000

A bewildering variety of specialized drinks is now available to the serious athlete. Most of these drinks are designed to replace the exercise-induced loss of fluids, electrolytes, carbohydrates or all three. Other drinks are specially designed for carbohydrate-loading before an event.

What Do Sports Drinks Do?

The most important function of any sports drink is to replace the fluids lost during exercise, a function that plain water serves just as well. Although many sports drinks feature added electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium and chloride, most athletes don’t need such additives. However, athletes engaging in extreme endurance events of four hours or more may need sodium replacement. In addition, some researchers believe that a small amount of sodium in the drink helps to speed the fluid into the body from the stomach.

Carbohydrate-Loading

Most sports drinks contain some form of carbohydrate, in the form of sugar or larger molecules called glucose polymers. Carbohydrate drinks that contain between four and ten percent of such carbohydrates can be used in place of plain water during an event and can help postpone the exhaustion that occurs when blood sugar is depleted. Carbohydrate-loading drinks are most valuable when drunk about thirty minutes before fatigue would normally set in. They are meant to be drunk well before the event begins, not during it. However, it is not necessary to drink specially designed — and expensive — sports drinks to keep fluid and blood sugar levels high. Most fruit juices, when diluted with an equal amount of plain water, fall within the four to ten percent carbohydrate range.

More Sports Drink Tips

If you have access to a trained sports physician, follow his or her advice when choosing sports drinks. During an event, avoid drinks containing fructose or those with more than ten percent carbohydrate. They cause the drink to remain in the stomach too long. Have your drink chilled if possible. Chilling doesn’t cause stomach cramps, and it aids in the cooling effect of the drink. Follow these guidelines to get the most benefit from sports drinks.

Ethnic Eating Guide

Karl Jones — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:00:40 +0000

Does the spate of news about the high fat content of Chinese, Mexican, and Italian food have you resigned to a lifetime of low-fat yogurt and bland skinless broiled chicken? Well, read on. There’s hope for ethnic food lovers.

Real Ethnic Food — A Dieter’s Dream

Most ethnic foods are not high-fat in the lands where they come from. Chinese, Mexican, and Italian foods have been adapted to the American love of meat and fat. For instance, Italians dine mainly on fruits, vegetables, fish, and grains — using meat as a garnish, if at all. The Chinese eat meat only on special occasions — well-seasoned rice and vegetable dishes form the bulk of the Chinese diet, which gets only 15 percent of its calories from fat. Mexicans eat far less cheese than is served in restaurants in the United States.

A Matter Of Choice

When dining out, choose Chinese food that’s been steamed rather than fried. Ask for cheese on the side when ordering Italian, so you can sprinkle it on sparingly. The same goes for those rich cream sauces. Eating Mexican? Ask for plain black or pinto beans and soft tortillas instead of fat-filled refried beans and fried taco shells. In all cuisines, choose dishes low in meat and those that are steamed, broiled, or boiled, instead of fried and heavily-sauced foods.

Balance Out Rich Entrees

OK, you’re thinking, that pretty well eliminates my favorite entrees. If there’s a high-fat item on the menu you simply can’t resist, ask for a half order—or split an order with your dining partner. Make up the difference with steamed rice, pasta, bread, tortillas, or plain beans. When you do this, you’ll be doing exactly what the natives do — filling up on complex carbohydrates livened up with just a little rich food.

You can see that with a little knowledge and discrimination, you can tease your palate with nutritious foods from practically everywhere.

Buon gusto!

Overweight, or Overfat?

Karl Jones — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:00:59 +0000

Where health is concerned, too much body fat can be dangerous. It’s important to realize that people can have too much body fat even though they’re not overweight. If too much of a person’s weight is fat and not muscle, the person is considered to be overfat.

Just how much of a person’s weight should be fat varies between males and females. For men, the ideal percentage of body fat is 12 to 17 percent. Women naturally have more body fat than men, so their ideal percentage is 18 to 25 percent. Having too much body fat can affect a person’s health by contributing to high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, or cancer.

The best way to determine whether a person is overfat is to measure the body fat by one of two methods:

weighing the body underwater;
using small, hand-held devices called skinfold calipers to measure the fat at specific sites on the body.

Underwater weighing is the most accurate way to measure body fat, but it requires special equipment and is used mostly by research scientists at universities.

Measuring body fat with skinfold calipers is easier and more accessible to the average person. Many health clubs, universities, and hospital health programs offer skinfold testing.

The validity of the techniques that use bioelectrical impedance or infrared instruments has not been established yet.

More research is needed on these methods. If you’d like to learn more about how body fat affects you personally, talk to your healthcare provider. Find out if your local hospital, university, or health club offers skinfold tests, and be sure it’s done by a qualified professional.

Fat Facts

Karl Jones — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:00:58 +0000

Which fats are OK to eat and which are not? Are all fats the same? It’s easy to get confused by all the advertising about saturated and unsaturated fats.

Three Kinds of Fat

For nutritional purposes, fats are divided into three categories: saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. These categories are based on the amount of hydrogen atoms in the fat molecule.

Saturated fat molecules have no room for any more hydrogen atoms. All animal fats, such as those in meat, poultry, dairy products, and eggs, are saturated. Some are also high in cholesterol. Palm and coconut oils, though they don’t contain cholesterol, are also saturated and may cause the body to produce higher levels of heart-damaging cholesterol.

Molecules of monounsaturated fats, such as olive, peanut, and canola oils, have room for one more hydrogen atom. Polyunsaturated fats, such as corn oil, have room for many more hydrogen atoms on a molecule.

Hydrogenation

Saturated fats are solid at room temperature. When hydrogen atoms are added to mono- or poly-unsaturated fats, they become more solid. So, if your favorite margarine lists partially hydrogenated vegetable oil as a primary ingredient, it means that hydrogen atoms have been added to the fat molecules. Hydrogenated oils are no longer polyunsaturated because they have been chemically altered to make them solid at room temperature. That’s why it’s better to choose soft margarines that come in tubs rather than hard sticks.

Less Is Still Better

The evidence is not in on whether monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats actually reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. But, most researchers advise limiting all fats to less than 30 percent of your total calories and avoiding saturated fats as much as possible.

Read the food label to find out the fat and cholesterol content of the foods you buy. Avoid foods that contain palm or coconut oil regardless of their claims to be “cholesterol-free.” Pass up recipes that feature large quantities of olive oil and claim to be good for your heart. If you have heart disease, discuss your diet with your healthcare provider. Restricting fat calories to 20 percent or less of total calories has been shown to reverse blockage of the coronary arteries in many people.

Can You Really Eat More… and Weigh Less?

Karl Jones — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:00:11 +0000

It sounds too good to be true: Eat as much as you like and still lose weight. Recent research suggests that not only can you lose weight, but if you have coronary artery disease, you can partially clear your clogged arteries without surgery or drugs. But, there’s a catch: no more than 20 percent of your calories can come from fat. And, the bulk of the remaining 80 percent of calories must come from fruits, vegetables, lean protein, and complex carbohydrates, such as grains and whole grain breads and pastas.

When More Is Less

Does this mean you can eat as many calories as you want and still lose weight? No. But, because low-fat foods also tend to be low in calories, you can eat a lot more food without piling up the calories. Providing they eat wholesome nutritious foods, most people get enough to satisfy their appetites without going over the caloric limit.

A Habit That Gets Easier

Of course, restricting the fat in your diet to 20 percent is a tall order. The average diet provides around 40 percent of its calories in fat. But research has also shown that people who restrict their fat intake gradually lose their taste for fat. Unlike most diets, fat restriction gets easier as time goes by. Here are some tips to start you off on the right track:

Learn to prepare foods that are naturally low in fat. For all practical purposes, this means a diet that emphasizes fruit, vegetables, and grains and is low in dairy products. There are now many good cookbooks on the market that can show you how to do this without sacrificing flavor and satisfaction.
Avoid prepared “fat-free” and reduced-fat snacks such as cakes, cookies, and frozen desserts. Most of them contain so much sugar that, even without fat, they’re high in calories. And, “fakefat” foods may stimulate your craving for more fat. Get the bulk of your calories from nutritious, filling whole grain breads, cereals, and pastas.
Respond to your hunger pangs. Because carbohydrates pass more quickly through your body than fats, you may get hungry more often. You might need to eat as many as six small meals a day instead of three big ones.
Try not to be too rigid. Allow yourself a favorite treat from time to time, even if it’s not low-fat. To avoid bingeing, buy such treats in single-size portions or include only small amounts of such foods in your eating plan.

Be Flexible

Don’t be too worried if you slip once in a while on your 20-percent fat calorie regimen. Any reduction in fat is good for your waistline and your heart. Or, make the reduction gradually, giving yourself time to adjust. As time goes by, you’ll outgrow your taste for fatty foods.

The Truth About Nutrition Fads And Foibles

Karl Jones — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:00:34 +0000

Every day, new products and diets appear, most of them promising either increased energy, relief from a newly invented “illness”, or quick weight loss. Authors of nutrition books are celebrated on TV talk shows, while products and “systems” are offered at inflated prices.

Some recent food fads and foibles include megadoses of vitamins, the theory that sugar causes hyperactivity, food allergy theories, and special “magic” substances that promote energy and weight loss.

Exaggerating a Valid Claim

Sometimes, a valid nutritional idea becomes a fad and is overdone. When oat bran was found to play a role in limiting cholesterol, manufacturers rushed in with extravagant claims for their oat bran products, many of which contained levels of fat and sugar inconsistent with total nutritional value.

How to Decide

To separate the valuable from the fraudulent or just plain worthless, ask a few questions:

Is this product or treatment being promoted by someone who has something to gain from it, such as the sales of books, special foods, or supplements that can’t be supplied by anyone else?

Are nutritional claims backed up by research in reputable medical journals, or are they supported by a trained nutritionist or a registered dietitian?

Does the treatment or “special diet” require eating a large amount of certain nutrients or restricting the diet to only certain foods?

Too Good To Be True?

There’s no easy way to boost your energy and well-being or to lose weight. Food fads that seem too good to be true probably are. A basic rule of good nutrition is to eat a variety of healthy foods from all the food groups, avoiding high-fat and sugary foods. Before swallowing the claims — or the products — of talk show guests, ask yourself the questions above. Nutrition fads may have some elements of truth, but can rarely support a safe, effective, and complete weight-loss or nutrition program.

Cooking With Less Salt

Karl Jones — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:00:32 +0000

To people who grew up on cooking that was high in salt, a low-salt diet may taste bland and uninteresting. Changing habits takes time, but as you begin to cook without salt you may come to realize two important things: Who needs salt when you have delicious and healthful alternatives? And, foods actually have flavors of their own, a fact often obscured by the “sameness” of salt.

Salt Can Hide Flavors

It’s true! Natural flavorings, such as herbs, spices, and lemon and lime juice, can add interest to food without salt, and most foods have unique, subtle, and interesting flavors. Salt is a heavy-handed flavoring, and once we lose our taste for it, we may come to naturally prefer the individual flavors that emerge. Many people say that they find highly-salted foods, such as some canned soups, unpleasant and virtually inedible once they have omitted salt from their diets.

Another important health consideration is that extra salt in the diet is not recommended for people with high blood pressure.

Now You’re Cooking!

A simple way to stop cooking with salt is to stop buying salt. Take the salt shaker off the table and omit salt from recipes and food preparation. Next, cut down on processed foods and add more fresh foods to your diet. Approximately 90 percent of all processed foods contain sodium, so look for whole potatoes instead of frozen hash browns, and fresh vegetables instead of canned. Use simple techniques like saving chicken broth from a chicken you cook at home rather than buying a canned, powdered, or bouillon cube broth. You gain in flavor and health and may even save a dollar or two, since processed foods are inevitably more expensive than the basic foods from which they are made.

COOKING TIP

If you accidentally over-salt a soup, stew, or other water-based dish, try this: Drop a thinly sliced raw potato into the food a few minutes before it’s done cooking to absorb some of the excess salt. Finish cooking, stirring frequently, remove from heat and let stand covered a few minutes more. Remove and discard these potato slices and mix in about a half cup of hot water before serving your dish.

Fit At Any Age

Karl Jones — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:00:29 +0000

Not only is it never too late to get fit, but it’s even more important to make fitness a priority as you mature. Many of the common complaints associated with the aging process — joint stiffness, weight gain, fatigue, and loss of bone mass, among others — can be prevented by adopting a regular plan of physical fitness. Keeping your muscles conditioned and your heart strong and efficient can offset these minor complaints and may help reduce your risk of more serious conditions, such as hypertension, heart disease, and circulatory problems.

Fit Muscles

Muscles support your skeleton and help you move. But as you age, muscles and bones tend to lose mass and weaken, which can lead to poor posture and a limited range of motion. To prevent this from happening, it’s helpful to do muscular conditioning and flexibility exercises.

Muscles and bones grow stronger by working against progressively increased resistance. The more demand you put on a muscle over a period of time, the larger and stronger it will grow to meet that demand. Exercises such as weight lifting, leglifts, and standard push-ups are all muscle-strengthening exercises. Like an unused rubber band, unused muscles can become stiff and tight. By gently stretching your muscles throughout the day, you can remain limber and improve your ability to move through a wide range of motions.

Fit Heart

As we age, the heart muscle becomes more fatty and less muscular. The insides of the blood vessels narrow, and elastic-like fibers inside the arteries begin to stiffen. To keep your heart in condition, heart-strengthening aerobic exercise is of primary importance. But, many mature adults think aerobic exercise involves wearing unflattering leotards or running a four-minute mile. Fortunately, you don’t have to do either to condition your heart and lungs. Walking is one of the best cardiovascular conditioners and can be done by almost anyone, regardless of age or physical condition. The key to successful walking is to walk briskly enough to keep your heart beating in its target heart range (THR) for 20 to 30 minutes.

What Part Does Your Target Heart Range Play?

Your target heart range (THR) is the safest and most beneficial range of heartbeats per minute during exercise. While many factors, such as your overall health and medical history, can affect your THR, a basic guideline is to subtract your age from 220 and multiply the answer by .6 and again by .85. The two numbers will give you the low and high ends of your target heart range of heartbeats per minute.

Remember to start slowly and gradually build up your pace until you can exercise comfortably within your THR for at least 20 minutes, at least three times a week.

Talk Test

Whether or not you check your THR during each workout, adjust your pace so that it’s brisk but you’re not out of breath. Use the talk test–always be able to carry on a conversation with only slight difficulty during cardiovascular conditioning.

NOTE: Mature adults on medications should check with their healthcare professionals to see if their medication might affect their exercising heart rate.