Live Healthy

Is yoga the only exercise you need

2012-02-11T13:26:00.000-06:00

I've done yoga, then stopped. I Stopped because it takes too long. If I replaced my regular strength training with yoga, and replaced my romps through the forrest on my mountain bike with yoga I would get weaker and less fit.

Why?

Yoga does not require as much work as the more taxing weight training I've built up to and there is no way yoga can match the cardiovascular load I get while mountain biking (or running, or swimming, or any aerobic exercise). In fact studies on energy expenditure during yoga show that at best it's less intensive compared to a walking pace (1), and equivalent to a 3.2 kph (1.98 MPH) walking speed (2).

The second study went so far as to say, "yoga..do not meet recommendations for level of physical activity for improving or maintaining health or cardiovascular fitness". They also offered a caveat, "..incorporating sun salutation postures exceeding a minimum of 10 minutes may contribute some portion of sufficiently intense physical activity.. in unfit or sedentary individuals".

So if you change how yoga is typically done, and modify a specific sequence of poses, namely the sun salutation, you may get some degree of benefit if you're out of shape. Why sun salutations? The sun salutation sequence involves moving from the floor to standing. There is actual physical work being done here lifting your body mass from lying on the floor to standing. However a good set of burpee's will expend far more energy and provide a much larger challenge.

Really.. a 2 mph walking pace? That's the intensity of yoga? So why does it feel harder?

It's true that some of the poses require a little effort from an isometric muscle contraction, but most of the discomfort and challenge felt is not from pushing the strength limits of your muscles, but rather the end range of motion of a completely stretched muscle belly. We shouldn't confuse the feeling of a stretch with the feeling of actual physical work performed.

It is "hard" to attempt yoga poses that one isn't flexible enough for, but the actual muscular work performed to achieve that pose is not very high.. in fact it's nearly nothing.

For those who feel yoga is a good workout it may be best to drop that association belief and qualify yoga for what it actually does.. increases flexibility.

Push ups will expend more calories and make you stronger than any yoga pose will.

A while back a friend of mine commented on how yoga has been the only thing that has made them more flexible, something regular stretching never did for them.

I asked them how much time they spent doing regular stretching and it turns out it was something they avoided. I then asked how much time they spent doing yoga; 3 90 minute sessions per week.

I suggested that it may be that 4.5 hours of stretching per week is going to be more effective at increasing flexibility compared to rarely stretching. 4.5 hours.. spent on stretching? From a coaching perspective that makes little sense as huge proportion of either possible rest time or training time would be disproportionately given over to stretching, which requires maybe 30 to 40 minutes per week in total, depending on the sport and what an individuals needs are. Adding another 4 hours of stretching is not a useful way to spend our exercise time.

So how does yoga compare to regular stretching? Can such a comparison even be made? I mean, aren't we really calling the same thing by different names when we call a hamstring stretch a hamstring stretch, and then call it padangusthasana (standing, bending forward from waist), or Dandasana (classic sit and reach)?

The body moves according to it's skeletal and muscle design, it doesn't matter what we name any given position, whether in Sanskrit, english, or any other language.. Call it what you want, when the thigh bone is flexed at the hip, a stretch is placed on the hamstrings (as well as the glute max and a mild stretch on the adductors).

Study: A randomized trial comparing yoga, stretching, and a self-care book for chronic low back pain (3).

Conclusion of the 12 week study involving 228 adults? Stretching and yoga produced the same results. One would think so, because you're comparing stretching to stretching. The self help book didn't fair as well.

An interesting note by the investigators, "Yoga was not superior to conventional stretching exercises at any time point". Good to know.

An athlete I train went to a yoga class for the first time and did nearly every pose better than most of the regulars. The athlete told me they were really good at yoga and felt great afterwards, and that they think the benefits are obvious so they should keep going. I asked them what made them so capable of doing the yoga poses. "I don't know, I guess I'm just naturally good at it." I asked, "could it be all the strengthening and stretching I've had you do over the last year?" They had the dead pause and replied, "I didn't think of that.. yeah I am definitely way more flexible and strong since you started training me.. my back doesn't hurt anymore and it doesn't hurt to run." Did these benefits occur only after this one yoga class you did, or do you think it was the last year of training?" "Obviously it was the last year of training, one class can't do all that." Exactly. This athlete doing a standard strength and conditioning program that included regular stretching had them flexible and stable enough to pull off nearly every yoga stretch on the first try. Why? Because that's what strength and conditioning does.

Yoga is not the only way to become flexible.

There is another reason may will do yoga: stress relief.

There are lot's of studies demonstrating that yoga can reduce the perception of stress. OK, how about all those studies that show that a good night sleep will also reduce stress? How about the studies showing that any regular exercise reduces stress?

A runner I know recently told me they didn't have enough time to get to yoga recently and we're feeling anxious about not getting their regular dose of stress relief. I said, "why don't you simply do a bit of yoga at home?" I followed that up by saying that running reduces stress as much or more than yoga does.

After they pondered that for a bit they replied, "I've been convincing myself the only way I could reduce stress was at a yoga class, but I don't need the class". Exactly. Yoga holds no patent on stress relief and certainly is not the most potent strategy to reduce stress.

Yoga does not stimulate an endorphin response more effectively than any other exercise, but it does produce an endorphin response.

One of my favorite studies on stress demonstrated that a mere 5 minutes of exercising in a green environment provided one of the best dose-reponses for exercise that reduced stress (5).

Any exercise can reduce stress, typically more intense exercise is better at releasing more of the hormones that make you feel good, and the more you do exercise the better your body gets at producing the hormones that make you feel good.

How about the mindfulness that yoga can promote? Yes, practicing compassionate and mindful thinking during yoga can help a person become more mindful. But do you need to do yoga to do this?

An 8 week study on mindful thinking demonstrated that study participants who were directed to focus on non-judgmental thinking produced physical changes in their brains (6). Grey matter density increased in areas of the hippocampus important for learning compassion, and introspection. Grey matter density decreased in the areas of the amygdala important for anxiety and stress. Participants reported reductions in feeling of stress.

Regular practice of mindful thinking about being non-judmental and compassionate changes your brain so you become more effective at being non-judgmental and compassionate. You could do this in a yoga class, or anywhere, anytime you like, and you don't have to be a monk or yoga master to do it (7).

Comparatively yoga is no better than stretching for increasing flexibility, is not a suitable replacement for aerobic exercise, isn't as challenging as strength training, and is not better at stress reduction than any other exercise, and finally yoga is not the best, or the only way to guide yourself to being more introspective or compassionate.

1) The metabolic cost of hatha yoga. [J Strength Cond Res. 2005] - PubMed - NCBI

2) Does practicing hatha yoga satisfy... [BMC Complement Altern Med. 2007] - PubMed - NCBI

3) A randomized trial comparing yoga, stretchin... [Arch Intern Med. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI

4) What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health? A Multi-Study Analysis - Environmental Science & Technology (ACS Publications)

5) What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health? A Multi-Study Analysis - Environmental Science & Technology (ACS Publications)

6) Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in eight weeks

7) Brief meditative exercise helps cognition

Eating less of anything causes weight loss

2012-02-04T10:43:00.000-06:00

Tired of diets that don't work? Try the newest diet proven by science! You'll loose pounds and inches, look and feel better in a matter of hours!

A group of highly specialized researchers seeking to unlock the secrets of fat loss have made an exciting discovery and for the first time they're ready share the secrets with the world.

And if you buy now, you'll lose double the weight for half the price!

A study published in the January 2012 issue of the American Journal of Nutrition (1) compared 4 weight loss diets for the affects on fat and muscle.

The diets:

25% and 15% protein
40% and 20% fat
Combined with 4 different carbohydrate amounts (35% to 65%)

The total calories of each diet were identical. Does it matter what you eat to lose fat? Or do you simply need to eat less?

At six months study subjects had lost an average of 4.2 kg (9.3 lbs.) of fat and 2.1 kg (4.6 lbs.) of lean muscle mass. Using DEXA, a special kind of X-Ray, researchers wanted to see if the diets had an influence on where fat mass was lost; subcutaneous (under the skin), or visceral fat (fat in and around internal organs).

There was no difference between diets for where fat loss occurred although woman in this study lost slightly more visceral fat than men.

At 2 years participants had regained 40% of their initial weight loss, which was equal amongst the four diets. The regain of weight was through the study subjects not staying within the total calories prescribed and gradually returning to overeating.

Conclusions?

No matter what you eat less of, if you have a caloric deficit you will lose weight. No matter what you eat more of, if you eat more calories than you burn off, you will gain fat. Fat loss and gain is solely determined by calories in - calories out. Doesn't matter if you're a meat eater, vegetarian, vegan, or breathairian; if you overeat you gain fat, if you have a caloric deficit, you'll lose fat.

In case you're really curious, "breatharians" believe that food and water are not needed to stay alive, and as the quaint same suggests, you can get everything you want at Alice's Restaurant so long as you order air, with a side order of light. Reports of breatharians dying from starvation are not exaggerated.

Humanity is capable of believing some questionable ideas, like breatharianism, and that something other than overeating causes body fat gain, or that a special combination of foods is required to lose weight.

However studies like this one have shown for decades that the singular cause of fat gain is eating too much, and the singular cause of fat loss is eating less.

Other studies (2,3,4) have shown that loss of lean muscle can be reduced or halted by including strength training and/ or cardio training while reducing calories to lose weight.

Another study demonstrated that long term success was better for fat loss when moderate reductions in calories were combined with regular exercise compared to a large decrease in calories without exercise (6).

What about hormonal changes and metabolism? Aren't these the real culprits behind overeating? Haven't you written about hormones and appetite before?

Yes, go here Live Healthy: Fat Loss Pill With Leptin- A New Reality?

And here Live Healthy: Anyone Can Lose Fat

Or use the "search this blog" bar at the top of this page type in "weight loss"

Hormones, implicated for sure, but the sole cause of weight gain, even without overeating? It can't be. Only overeating causes weight gain. We have to introduce the extra calories to the body to be stored as fat. No extra calories means nothing extra to store. The disconnect is that while it is definitely true that changes in hormones that regulate hunger cause us to feel hungry when we're not actually hungry, many have been lead to believe that the hormonal changes alone cause weight gain. Under these conditions of increased ghrelin and leptin most people don't contemplate what they are eating or why, they simply follow their hunger stimulus and.. eat more food, but rationalize that they are not overeating and that it must be their hormones or metabolism causing weight gain.

So whatever our motivation to eat more may be; habitual, hormonal changes, addiction, in the end these variables influence us to choose to eat more. So yes, simply eating less without addressing the underlying motivation or physiological variables that drive us to overeat is asking for the standard failure in weight loss.

The two most important steps in losing weight are the combination of eating less and exercising more, along with making the emotional and psychological changes necessary to change how we perceive reward from eating and exercise.

BTW.. my whimsical line at the begging of this article, "look and feel better in a matter of hours".. is true, I just didn't say how many hours.. Turns out to be, according to research, at least 90 minutes each week of moderate to vigorous exercise. Get started with working up to 10,000 to 12,000 steps per day (buy a pedometer or download a pedometer app to your smartphone).

Eat less, exercise more; get healthy and feel great. It's all about feeling good.

1) Effects of 4 weight-loss diets differing in fat, protein, and carbohydrate on fat mass, lean mass, visceral adipose tissue, and hepatic fat: results from the POUNDS LOST trial

2) Moderate exercise attenuates t... [J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2009] - PubMed - NCBI

3) A systematic review of the separate and combined ef... [Nutr Rev. 2010] - PubMed - NCBI

4) Changes in fat-free mass during significan... [Int J Obes (Lond). 2007] - PubMed - NCBI

6) Effect of dietary adherence with or ... [J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2009] - PubMed - NCBI

Save yourself, quit smoking

2012-01-18T10:20:00.000-06:00

It's national quit smoking week again.

I smoked most of the major brands, filtered and non-filtered. Tried menthol, didn't really like those but I'd smoke one if I was desperate enough. Did the roll your own thing. I could roll a smoke with one hand. I also had one of those mini automatic cigarette makers where you load a blank tube into one side and the soft, sweet smelling luxurious tobacco into the other. In a satisfying shick shick mechanical motion not unlike cocking a gun I would make myself my very own dart of death, and cheap too.

I had a pipe for a while. A pipe is the ultimate portrayal of the educated smoker who has advanced their carbon monoxide connoisseurship beyond that of the pedestrian inhaler.

Quitting smoking was one of the best things I've ever done, but it wasn't without challenge.

Rather than re-write my quit smoking experience, here are links to two posts where I relate what I went through..

Non-smoking week

No safe level of cigarette smoke

Fake data behind red wine benefit claims, experts allege | CTV News

2012-01-11T16:45:00.000-06:00

Fake data behind red wine benefit claims, experts allege | CTV News

The old red wine argument.. I've never found good quality research that demonstrated any truly significant advantage to consuming red wine for any health purpose that was more effective than the standard of eating healthy, exercising regularly, keeping weight down, and consistently getting good sleep.

You think you read about research that proves cardiovascular benefits of red wine consumption? Maybe not.. Dipak Das, a researcher known for his work demonstrating heart health benefits from red wine has been exposed as a faker, falsifying data more than 100 times.

I did a simple pubmed search using "das red wine" as the search criteria and found 39 studies where this Das was an author or was cited. Searching for abstracts that included this authors name alone results in 619 studies. Disheartening that many of these studies were spoiled by falsified data regarding red wine and resveratrol, an important antioxidant found in dark coloured grapes, cranberries, cranberry juice, purple grape juice, and red wine, with the highest concentrations in red grapes, cranberries, and the juice of these.

I won't throw the baby out with the bathwater, there is ongoing research done by other researchers finding possible benefits of resveratrol.

Much to the chagrin of many, I have steadfastly maintained that there isn't really any good health related reason to drink red wine. You want a glass of red wine? It won't hurt, but more than 1.5 or 2 glasses per day may be harmful (woman, men). For sure overconsumption of booze is undeniably harmful in many ways physically and psychologically.

What I really believe is that many will use the "it's healthy" excuse to justify daily wine drinking. Get over it, because it isn't.

We'll have to wait and see if someone does discover some truly significant health benefit from wine drinking. For now, wine can't compete with a healthy diet, exercise, keeping weight down, and getting a good nights sleep.

The experts say that if you don't drink now, don't start, as the possible health benefits are not great enough to justify starting to drink.

There is no harm in infrequent light drinking so don't worry about that.

Mindful eating strategies can help people who dine out | CTV News

2012-01-11T16:04:00.000-06:00

Mindful eating strategies can help people who dine out | CTV News

This CTV article is about a study that demonstrated that by navigating typical restaurant food choices it's possible to take actions that can result in not gaining weight, even losing weight, eating at restaurants.

I couldn't help but thinking that in order for such a study to occur, some interesting criteria is required; restaurant menus require careful navigation to avoid overeating, as the article points out a seemingly healthy taco salad contained 1,100 calories and 71 grams of fat.

What if most menu items in most restaurants were not laden with meals that have enormous caloric values? It would be hard to do this study, in fact there would be no point.

Allow me to digress with an apt analogy:

What if some astute researchers did a study on how to prevent getting wet walking through puddles.. the intervention group stepped lightly to prevent splashing, and wore big rubber boots. The control group stomped through the puddle wearing socks.

Wow.. the intervention group got less wet!

Someone comes along and says, "there are no puddles on the other side of the street. If you don't want to get wet, walk there". Kind of makes the puddle study somewhat useless, leaving the researchers all wet.

I think it's crazy that restaurant eating strategies are seen as the way to resolve overeating in restaurants. How about not having the majority of the menu items being high calorie? What, exactly, is the point of having almost all meal choices, save for a few, being so hyper-caloric? How about not going to restaurants that serve mostly high calorie meals?

Delusion of choice

I think we are given a false sense of choice when presented with most restaurant menus. How's that? Check it out.. the majority of the menu items will be high calorie, high sodium, and high fat. Your choice is between how you want your fat bomb delivered, bottom line; most of the choices are obesogenic. It's a lipstick on a pig thing. You can try as many different colours of lipstick as you want, but those are still pig lips you're kissing. Those menus are not increasing your choices, you're choices are restricted to choosing between fat bombs.

The other interesting criteria required for this study to have been conceptualized is that enough people in the population habitually overeat that it's perceived that the public may benefit from learning about how they overeat, and how to manage overeating.

So we have a large portion of the population seeking to overeat in restaurants, and a great many restaurants serving meals that are so huge that to eat just one constitutes overeating.

A proposed answer to this is not to reduce the size of restaurant portions, but rather develop food ordering strategies to try and compensate for the poor choices available in restaurants.

Personally I almost never go to restaurants that serve these 1000+ calorie meals. What for?

Instead I go to restaurants where the majority of menu choices are healthy and of reasonable caloric value. Of course the food has to taste good, that's part of why I eat out, when I eat out.

In Winnipeg my favorite restaurant is Fresh Cafe on Corydon Ave. Imagine a restaurant where every meal on the menu is healthy, and none will overfeed you. Now that my friends is real choice.

It's true we definitely need to exercise personal responsibility and choose to eat less, eat healthy, and learn to realize how much more gratifying it is to eat healthy while working on our contrived beliefs in crazy notions like; in order to taste good, food has to be bad for you, or that you have to stuff yourself in order to be satisfied. Those distorted beliefs cause us nothing but trouble.

If you've decided you're going to make a difference in your life, lose weight and get healthy, what is the point in going to restaurants where you need to pick apart every single meal in order to alter it to be a reasonably healthy meal? You are essentially remaking the meal yourself. Why not just go to restaurants that are catering to those who are looking for healthy great tasting foods? Why support those who primarily serve obesogenic meals?

Fresh Cafe Winnipeg

No, I don't know the owners of Fresh Cafe and I don't go there often enough to be recognized as a regular. It's simply a great restaurant. One that I have total confidence that I will be able to choose a healthy meal that meets my criteria, and I am a very tough critic of restaurants. If you read the CTV article and are interested in trying some of the eating strategies.. half those strategies are not needed if you go to restaurants that specialize in healthy eating.

Just teasing

2012-01-02T13:26:00.000-06:00

Back in high school I had quite the wit, as did a few of my best friends. At any given moment the gauntlet would be dropped, usually a not so subtle cut down delivered with confidence and a bit of premature gloating as though the most cleaver and indefensible witticism had been unleashed on our hapless peer who surly would concede defeat to satirical superiority.

Of course a retort salvo delivered with impunity was the only possible response, and expected response, despite the pretence of a no contest victory.

Each counter attack expanded the creative use of foul vulgarity, coaxing us to exercise our cerebral powers with more passion than any physics class could hope to muster. The escalating exchange of zingers would bind our friendships more as we opened ourselves to benign thrusts that would surly emotionally injure the unprotected. A deserved tip of the hat gesture or "touché" was the currency of trust and acknowledgement of "a good one" delivered into your court with such alacrity and venom that a return was not possible.. until the next serve.

These exchanges were like an episode of Seinfeld, in that they were essentially about nothing, but we sure laughed a lot. At the time I really enjoyed it.

Over time the one-upmanship banter lost its lustre and our conversations, as we navigated adolescent maturity, waded into the meaning of life, politics, as well as biceps, girls, and the myriad of subjects that randomly occupy the young soon to be adult mind.

This teasing in retrospect seems to be some kind of right of passage or perhaps pseudo intellectual conversation for those who are not yet comfortable enough or experienced enough to rely on meaningful exchanges to engage each-other.

An interesting conundrum with teasing is that while some research shows that the non-bullying type of teasing is seldom meant to be hurtful to the recipient, the recipient more often perceives the tease as hurtful. (1)

The explanation is that teaser knows what they are doing in advance, and the teased does not, making the delivered insult hard to see as benign most of the time. Additionally, the person being teased is likely to perceive the teaser as disingenuous.. their clumsy delivery of an insult thinly disguised with humour displays a lack of ability to be conscientious. The old "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything" applies here.

It seems that teasing, according to experts, has a better chance of working in a benign or even uplifting way if the tease is delivered with obvious openness instead of coy mischievousness, and between those who have accepted that teasing is ok between them. Otherwise most of the time teasing is an epic failure for both teaser and teasee. When this happens the teaser doesn't understand that being an a$$ isn't really a good idea, because they can't perceive how such behaviour is a$$-like.

Instead of diffusing the situation amicably the teaser will stubbornly raise the ante by delivering the quintessential socially inept accusatory question, "what, can't you take a joke?"

Take a joke. As though the purpose of peoples existence is to be the wanting and diminutive recipient of the teasers put-down. Or that the recipient is somehow implicitly expected to be indoctrinated into complying by gestating and delivering an equally dismissive comeback.

While truly benign teasing is fun, it's prone to failure if it's unexpectedly sprung on someone.. you need to be in tune with the person you're teasing to avoid either hurt feelings or being perceived as a jerk.

Aside from simply being annoying teasing can become bullying and harassment.

So why am I writing an article about this? In the context of living healthy, our emotional health is of course of paramount importance. Unless under the ideal scenarios I've described here, I've more often witnessed teasing be either hurtful or annoyingly inappropriate.

It seems that the chronic teaser lacks the ability to produce a genuine compliment or constructive criticism to others, always attempting to veil their social ineptness with humour, which makes it hard to take them seriously.

We all know how good it feels to receive a truly genuine compliment, and how it feels to be the butt end of joke, or to be annoyed by the eternal jester.

So if we all know this, wouldn't it be better to offer more genuine compliments to each-other?

I'm not talking about platitudes and phoney smiles.. no need to make up heartless anecdotes. It really does make us feel better whether we are the ones doing the delivery, or are the recipient.. compliments and being good natured makes us feel good, not in a way that clouds judgment or plops rose coloured glasses on us, but simply feeling good. What's wrong with that?

Research (2) shows that with practiced mindful thinking the part of our brain that allows us to be complimentary and compassionate grows larger while the part of our brain that processes being negative and judgmental shrinks. Amazing.. through being genuinely nice to others our brain remodels to become more efficient at producing positive thoughts and less at producing negative thoughts.

Have you ever felt burdened by negative thoughts that seem to never go away? Feel stressed about all the negative people out there? Some of that negativity may be self generated. We can't really control others, and the world will always have unfair, rude, ne'er-do-wells, but what if there was something we had real control over that really did reduce our stress and leave us feeling happier more often? There are a lot of things we can do to achieve this; one of them is being mindful of where our emotions come from, and how our actions may affect others.

Next time you're thinking of delivering a zinger, think about something genuinely good about that person and say that instead. You may be surprised how good you feel about being compassionate. And while you may get the odd person wondering what you really want, the person on the receiving end will also feel a bit of a warm fuzzy.

Think this is too egalitarian or devoid of real practical usefulness? Guess again.. Being positive and mindful of our own and others feelings has a place, and does contribute to better relationships, better efficiency in the work place, and less stress. Additionally teasing is devastating to many people leading to eating disorders, self esteem challenges, depression, and suicide. Not so funny hey?

Try it! Give out genuine complements to someone today. It has to be genuine though, otherwise it's phoney and counter productive. You won't have to wait long.. Lot's of people do good things frequently.. when they do, that's your chance to pounce! Carefully though.. overdo this and you might merely become an ideologue..

Spread some happiness :-)

(1) PsycNET - Display Record

(2) http://www.umassmed.edu/uploadedFiles/cfm2/Psychiatry_Resarch_Mindfulness.pdf

Showing empathy to patients can improve care

Fitness Trends 2011 2012

2011-12-28T10:29:00.002-06:00

American College of Sports Medicine survey predicts fitness trends for 2012 (1)

1. Educated and experienced fitness professionals. Given the large number of organizations offering health and fitness certifications, it’s important that consumers choose professionals certified through programs that are accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), such as those offered by ACSM.

2. Strength training. Strength training remains a central emphasis for many health clubs. Incorporating strength training is an essential part of a complete physical activity program for all physical activity levels and genders.

3. Fitness programs for older adults. As the baby boom generation ages into retirement, some of these people have more discretionary money than their younger counterparts. Therefore, many health and fitness professionals are taking the time to create age-appropriate fitness programs to keep older adults healthy and active.

4. Exercise and weight loss. In addition to nutrition, exercise is a key component of a proper weight loss program. Health and fitness professionals who provide weight loss programs are increasingly incorporating regular exercise and caloric restriction for better weight control in their clients.

5. Children and obesity. With childhood obesity growing at an alarming rate, health and fitness professionals see the epidemic as an opportunity to create programs tailored to overweight and obese children. Solving the problem of childhood obesity will have an impact on the health care industry today and for years to come.

6. Personal training. More and more students are majoring in kinesiology, which indicates that students are preparing themselves for careers in allied health fields such as personal training. Education, training and proper credentialing for personal trainers have become increasingly important to the health and fitness facilities that employ them.

7. Core training. Distinct from strength training, core training specifically emphasizes conditioning of the middle-body muscles, including the pelvis, lower back, hips and abdomen – all of which provide needed support for the spine.

8. Group personal training. In challenging economic times, many personal trainers are offering group training options. Training two or three people at once makes economic sense for both the trainer and the clients.

9. Zumba and other dance workouts. A workout that requires energy and enthusiasm, Zumba combines Latin rhythms with interval-type exercise and resistance training.

10. Functional fitness. This is a trend toward using strength training to improve balance and ease of daily living. Functional fitness and special fitness programs for older adults are closely related.

Although producing educated and experienced fitness pro's is the top fitness industry trend it's still very much buyer beware. Take a look at this video posted on the American Counsel on Exercise website..

The ACE article say's, "If a trainer demonstrates a technically challenging exercise that you don’t feel comfortable attempting your next exercise, run (not walk) away from that trainer in order to avoid an unnecessary (and completely preventable) injury,"

The article was also careful to point out that "this is not an indictment against Crossfit". I agree. In general the Crossfit program places special emphasis on good technique, but as I have seen over and over, it does't matter what kind of certification a trainer has, I've seen all levels of trainers make these critical errors.

The number one red flag that signals you should run, not walk, away from a trainer? No assessments or measurements. If a trainer doesn't do a valid fitness test or movement assessment (used to find common posture and biomechanical problems) it means they have no evidence from which to build a personal recommendation for you from. You are likely to receive a cookie cutter program from trainers that don't do assessments.

In my opinion the number one fitness/ healthy living trend that needs to occur is changing how we think and feel about healthy choices. Why? How many times have you or someone you know looked forward to their "cheat day" more than they look forward to making healthy choices?

Thats the self sabotage we inflict on ourselves and is the number one reason for failure to lose weight and get fit. We simply don't value the healthy choices as much as we do the unhealthy choices.

If you're in love with unhealthy choices you'll always feel drawn to those choices and the healthy choices will forever be relegated to being perceived as restrictions that prevent access to the supposedly more rewarding unhealthy choices.

In general I don't like most group exercise classes, the bigger they are the worse they are because individual attention becomes non-existent. Also group fitness classes place pressure on everyone to perform whether your tired or not. Group classes can work, but look for smaller groups with no more than 6-10 people per instructor.

Here is my list of what you must do to get and stay healthy:

Overall it's the psychological work that precipitates everything else. Free your mind and the rest will follow. Get your head and your heart into loving healthy living instead of viewing it as restrictive.

The top four things that you have control over that make your body healthy are:

Exercise: Strength train 1 to 2X per week. Cardio 2 to 3X per week, some activity daily

Nutrition: Pass on processed foods, fill 1/2 plate with veggies, be mindful of what you eat.. "is eating this really going to help me; or hurt me?"

Quality sleep: Get to bed early and same time every night. Avoid late nights.

Stress management

The first three also pull double duty and serve to aid stress management. In addition though cognitively processing why we get angry, why we fret and worry, as well as what makes up happy and content is very important. Most of us simply habitually react to situations instead of being mindful of our thoughts and emotions. Being mindful helps us realize we can choose not get so uptight about things, and be less judgemental of others and ourselves, helping us reduce our stress and even avoid stress altogether.

If you can get the right amount of these four you'll discover how liberating and rewarding it feels to be stronger with more energy, have fewer colds, have less body fat, and not feel like weight gain, being tired, and being stressed are a ball and chain.

(1) http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/12/16/fitness.trends.pdf

Eat Less To Get a Six Pack

2011-12-24T11:58:00.000-06:00

The elusive six pack. There is an endless number of super six pack programs at your disposal. Entire books are created with the sole purpose of teaching you the super secrets, known only to the author until you buy the book.

What about incredibly challenging gut burning core workouts with everything from planks to throwing medicine balls at your mid section? These hardcore workouts are important for athletic performance, but are overkill if the main goal is solid posture, good strength, and a lean six pack. Besides, hard core training usually causes overtraining injuries when jumped into too quickly, typically with high hopes and promises of fast gains in exchange for a torturous workout. If you need this level of performance it's best to work up to it over a long period; athletic development takes months and years, not days and weeks.

Then there's the secret foods to eat that make abdominal fat disappear in which failing to eat these foods is proposed to be the true reason for failing to achieve a beach worthy state of being ripped. Nope, those are phoney claims.

There are only two primary variables that relate to revealing a six pack; how much food you eat, and increasing the size of the rectus abdominis muscles through resistance training.

Actually the second variable, training, isn't as critical as you might think to merely expose the outline of this muscle group. Certainly larger abdominal muscles stick out more and for sure make a difference in the wow factor, but anyone who is really lean will show abdominal muscles.

The main thing that stands between you and your hidden six pack is extra abdominal fat. To simplify the complex layers of tissue let's look at the three main layers; muscles on the bottom, subcutaneous adipose tissue (fat) is next, with the outer skin (epidermis) on the outside, forming a kind of fat sandwich if you will.

Those seeking the ultimate ripped showing, usually bodybuilders preparing for contest, will tell you about sodium, water, and carb intake manipulations to get that paper-thin skin over muscle look, but that group will also tell you that particular state is only sustainable for a short period.. don't worry about this approach as it's impractical for achieving or maintaining a healthy sustainable six pack.

Really the main variable is food intake. Can't get rid of that layer that's covering your six pack? Eat less.

There is no secret. Goofy fad diets need not be considered, simply employ a safe caloric deficit (around a 500 calorie deficit per day or most days) and every week you will lose fat. Of course keep up with healthy exercise and keep eating fresh whole foods and balanced nutrition, but eat less to lose fat.

There's no rush. Despite our ability to convince ourselves that we must lose fat or get ripped abs by a certain date, there really is no rhyme or logical reason to do so, and such goals are often set so unrealistically that most will give up when they fail to achieve unrealistic goals, or worse, turn to crazy supplements and even more crazy quick fix promises..

To maintain your ripped abs, continue with a healthy diet where you don't overeat. This is very difficult for most to achieve as most of us typically associate reward with overeating, and we typically make every excuse in the book to overeat whenever possible.

If you can get passed weekend binge eating and the huge environmental and social influences to overeat, you can successfully achieve and maintain the ripped abs look, and you don't need a weird diet to do so.

The real secret to the six pack? Not much of a secret, eat less to lose fat; maintain a healthy caloric balance to maintain it.

Final notes; your abs will look like your abs, not someone else's. There are of course genetic variances between us all that make our superficial surface appearance unique to each of us so don't get hung up on trying make your abs look exactly like someone else's. The width of the tendon material between those six pack blocks varies between people as does the exact shape of each segment of muscle; you can't change this.

Avoid getting too worked up about the exact way you look. It's too easy for us emotional humans to develop self esteem and self image issues by placing too much emphasis on such things. Having said that, here is a narcissistic self photo (age 45).. My ab routine? Only once per week, and limited sets. I go harder when I feel good and do less when I feel off. Simple floor crunches, standing cable crunches, axe choppers, and cable crunches are my staples. Bridges occasionally, but bridges only drive your abs to about 45% of peak contractile force which is fair for a base or a beginners program, but bridges, despite all the hype, are not appropriate for advanced core strength and power.

If I didn't love riding my mountain bike so much I would love to be a gym rat and get big, but the trails call me more than the gym does.. Find what makes you feel good, and stick with it. Oh.. and watch the calories!

Fat Filibuster

2011-12-19T11:55:00.000-06:00

Filibuster: a delay/ diversionary tactic.. keep talking but don't really say anything, and of course, avoid addressing the real issue.

For windbag politicians the filibuster seems to be part of their genetic code, but are we guilty of the same technique to avoid addressing our obesogenic culture?

Filibuster: Boy am I busy! Time is not my own, I simply don't have time to eat healthy.. between work, the kids, keeping up the house and everything else I do, I just don't have time to think about eating a stupid salad, I have to eat, and go. Besides, you have to live sometimes and I'm not going to live my life eating dried grass and nuts!

So.. eating a donut takes less time than eating a banana or an apple?

Eating a banana is such a huge cerebral challenge that it slows brain function? Is that why there is no time to think about healthy eating? Monkeys don't seem to have trouble deciding to eat banana's.. are we not as smart as monkeys?

Ordering an appetizer, main plate, and dessert takes less time than ordering less food?

Eating all that food in one sitting, typically over 1500 calories, takes less time than eating 400-700 calories?

Eating healthy is factually reduced to eating dried grass? That's not an extreme and phoney claim meant to portray healthy choices as unpalatable in order to justify eating fat-bombs?

Even when faced with obvious truth we'll spiral down into denial and spew out an essays worth of diatribe in order to justify our unhealthy habits that cause weight gain, leave us feeling tired and out of energy much of the time, and causes us to have more frequent colds, sick days, and ill-health in general.

Every defence from "right to choose", to "it's my genetics, hormones, big bones", is regurgitated over and over again each time espoused as novel and defensible reasoning. Really though it's all a diversion from having a real conversation about eating too much and how to overcome overeating.

I know this topic has a tendency to be viewed as an us and them confrontation, with the unhealthy on one side and the healthier on the other, both somehow perceived as having righteous indignation towards each other, but really that perception is simply another contrived diversion away from the real issue.

Most have a terribly difficult time talking straight about overeating and lack of exercise. Equally there are a great many people who exercise too much causing harm to themselves, who also follow weird fad diets with cult like tenacity, and they have just as much trouble talking about how they harm themselves with their actions.

The common thread here is that it's part of human behaviour to go into denial about bad decisions we make, and part of facilitating that denial is talking up a storm of diversionary irrelevant anecdotes.

When I used to eat 10 oz steaks (it's now closer to 3 oz), and sit on the couch bad-mouthing those crazy runners, I'd light up a smoke and berate the do-gooders who's healthy choices seemed to insult my personal autonomy and think defensively, "those people think they're better than me, who the hell are they to judge me?"

Into the filibuster I'd go.. but objectively what is the endpoint?

For me now the endpoint is this.. I haven't had a cold in years, I'm closing in on age 50 and I feel great, I'm strong, I'm not overweight and I rarely feel tired.

When I was a smoker I had smokers cough.. I couldn't enjoy the release of laughter without coughing.. is that fun? I hated feeling tied to the chain of addiction. Was that exercising my personal autonomy? I would feel lethargic and have indigestion after eating too much.. is that really enjoying a meal?

Am I wrong to believe that I'm better off now compared to what my health status would have been after overeating, inactivity, and smoking for the past 30 years? Is it worth working so hard to defend unhealthy choices?

Canadians: Out of Shape and in Denial

2011-11-29T10:40:00.001-06:00

A new report from the Heart And Stroke Foundation, aptly named Denial, say's that while most Canadians understand the risks of living an unhealthy lifestyle, many are in denial about how much they are doing make healthy living something they do every day.

31% of Canadians self-reported being physically inactive in leisure time, but in reality 48% of us are making a lasting impression in the couch.

39% report eating less than the recommended 5 or more servings of fruit and veggies daily, but the survey says 54% of us are shunning the good stuff.

18% of adults say they're obese, survey say's.. 24%.

The number one reason why people don't make healthy choices? No time.

Of course that's pure denial, and we hate hearing that.

But that's what denial is all about: avoiding the truth.

After I quit smoking, exercised more, and ate more healthy, life got better. I wasn't tired as often. I had more energy during the day.

Studies show that our cognition improves with regular exercise, better sleep, and better nutrition. I don't know if I'm any smarter, many might argue otherwise, but it seems like a worthy benefit of living healthy.

I have a love/ hate thing with Heart and Stoke. They do a lot to get the message out, but most of the time their message is doom and gloom mixed with academic boredom that would kill the even the most well-read bookworm.

Take their new adds for example.. Make Death Wait.

The short video's have a somber soundtrack and a super boring Mr. Death narrator telling us all how he loves us and that he's going to get us.. Yawn.

How about a video showing how enjoyable it is to live healthy? What? Put a positive spin on living healthy? Thats crazy!

I guess I'll have to do the heaving lifting..

Imagine not feeling tired every morning, or for that matter every morning, afternoon and evening.

Imagine feeling like you have the energy to take on the day and more. No, this isn't rose coloured fitness enthusiast glasses.. it's a physical reality.

Making healthy choices changes your body making every cell work better, brain cells, muscle cells, vital organs.. it all works better when we live healthy, and it's tangible. You can feel it.

The biggest challenge is re-setting our sense of reward. It's unlikely anyone is going to be successful switching to a healthy lifestyle if they hang on to old love affairs with overeating and inactivity.

Some things to think about..

Healthy eating is not restrictive, unhealthy eating is.

Exercise does not interfere with life's priorities, it enables them.

How many people, when diagnosed with heart disease, say, "yeah! Right on! I knew this would happen by eating all that crap and sitting on my butt all day! Woohoo! I win!"

That's the disconnect. Can't deny that eating crap food tastes good at the moment. But eating healthy food also tastes at the moment. One makes you feel great and live longer, the other makes you overweight, tired, and die earlier.

I don't know, sounds like feeling great most of the time might be worth it.

Studies show that healthy living can reduce the number of colds we get each year by 40%, reduce the duration of the colds we do get by 40%, and reduce the severity of cold symptoms also by 40%.

That's all about having less time feeling bad and more time feeling good. Is that worth something?

I think it is. I haven't had a cold in years. Colds are miserable. I don't miss them.

What are some things that you'd like to miss?

Feeling tired? Sleep apnea? Being sore, weak, and out of energy? Getting sick often? Having high blood pressure? The battle of the bulge?

The absence of these things leaves you feeling great; and whats wrong with that?

You can't be a two-timer. You'll need to cut ties with that old dysfunctional relationship with living unhealthy, and make a commitment to the new lover, healthy living.

Internet Nutrition

2011-11-17T17:10:00.001-06:00

eaTracker

Your tax dollars at work.. eaTracker was developed with money from the BC Ministry of Health and is brought to all us surfers by Dieticians of Canada. The new version is far easier to search and find foods to enter, previously a punishingly tedious process.

Also improved is the food database. The previous versions didn't have popular health foods like chia seeds and quinoa, this one has it all.

Here's a screen shot of the nutrient breakdown of one my favorite quick meals:

100 grams of quinoa
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 Cup vanilla yogurt
15 almonds (not roasted or salted)
1 Grapefruit

I usually put 1/2 a cup of blueberries in there too. If you're wondering, I eat the grapefruit separately, it's not added to the yogurt mix, but all the other ingredients are. The grapefruit is a great vitamin C source. Quinoa is high in iron, but it's non-heme iron (plant sourced iron) and non-heme iron is not absorbed very well. Vitamin C helps all iron absorption, be it heme iron (animal sourced) or non-heme.

The old saying "there's a method to my madness" almost applies here in that I've purposefully added a vitamin C source to this meal so my body can use the iron in the quinoa (noted for its high iron content). I say almost because there's nothing "mad" about purposeful healthy eating. It's all good; good tasting, good for you, as well as being smart and practical. Can't beat that combo!

The site will help you figure out how many calories you need in a day, meeting your daily nutrient requirements, and teaching you what you are really putting in mouth.

To get a quick and very detailed breakdown of any single food NutritionData is my favorite.

Screen shot from NutritionData:

If you're wonder what chia seeds are, yes, they are the same seeds used in the infamous Chiapet.

They're also one of the best sources of ALA Omega-3 fatty acids, have a complete protein profile, and are high in calcium.

A note on those Omega-3's from chia seeds.. plant sourced Omega-3's are high in ALA, but lack DHA and EPA, which are abundant in sources like salmon, or fish oil pills. We need more research but for now the push is on to get more of the population consuming DHA and EPA Omega-3's more so than ALA.

Interesting info on Omega-3 from Wikipedia

Building Muscle Does Not Cause More Fat Loss

2011-11-13T07:15:00.001-06:00

One of the biggest myths in the fitness business over the last 10 years or so is the promise that extra muscle gained from training with weights will result in extra calories burned while exercising, and also while at rest, which in turn will cause more fat loss, especially when sitting around doing nothing.. supposedly that extra muscle mass will burn through your fat stores causing fat loss.

Some of the claims say that a pound of muscle burns 50 calories a day so if you gain just 5 pounds of muscle you could be burning an extra 250 calories per 24 hours, which is just over half a pound of fat loss per week just by sitting around doing nothing. Those numbers are outrageous, and of course not true. Muscle can burn a lot of calories when exercising, but over a 24 hour period a pound of muscle will use approximately 6 to 8 calories.

It's true; more muscle equals more calories burned, which also means more calories are required to make those muscles work, and to prevent atrophy of that mass.

When calculating our daily caloric needs our body mass plus our daily physical activity are used to figure out how much we need to eat.

If we have two people of the same height and daily exercise levels, one weighing 150 lb. and the other weighing 170 lb., with the greater weight being muscle, the 170 lb. person will need more calories to sustain their current level of muscle.

While this is clearly understood for some odd reason the more muscle = more fat loss myth perpetuates.

The reason I suspect is because we are pretty gullible when it comes to any promise of fantastical weight loss or weight management.

So the more muscle you have the more you have eat to feed the machine. Calories in and calories out is what determines fat loss or gain. If a well muscled person overeats, they will gain fat, no more and no less fat than had they overate by the same amount but having less muscle mass.

Build muscle for fitness, physical performance, and health; watch what you eat to control body fat. Yes, calories burned during a weight training session contributes to the total calories you burn during the day and will help with caloric balance, but overeat on that day you weight train and your body will store the extra calories as fat just like it would on a day you didn't exercise.

Building more muscle is great for our health. Generally as we age we are less active and we lose lean muscle mass. There is a degree of loss of muscle mass that is age related that we can't really do anything about, but studies show that even seniors who take up a safe and progressive weight training program can increase lean muscle mass, so exercise really can offset to a very large degree, muscle loss due to aging.

Live Healthy: Seniors Can Gain Muscle Mass And Strength

Loss of muscle mass contributes to unstable joints, loss of balance, and of course loss of functional strength.

Stronger and larger muscles adds stability to our joints and makes daily movement and general physical tasks easier. If you're into sports you can increase your performance with stronger muscles, and quite often with larger muscles as well.

Building and maintaining muscle mass is good for us, but extra muscle does not magically result in extra fat loss. You can have lots of muscle and still be overweight. Easy to do, just eat more food than you need and the extra calories go to fat stores, no matter how much muscle you have. Ever heard of an overweight linebacker? Of course. In fact overweight football players are becoming a great concern. It's becoming more common for overweight football players to have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other health issues that come with being overweight. These athletes have huge muscles, yet many are overweight and clinically obese. Extra muscle does not make automatically make these athletes immune to gaining excess fat, and it won't work for anyone else either.

Heavy NFL players twice as likely to die before 50 - NFL - ESPN

Weight Loss Involves Will Power

2011-11-13T06:19:00.001-06:00

News stories in the last couple weeks have delivered a crushing blow to those struggling with weight loss;
you can't win, will power is useless because hormonal changes that come with overeating and weight gain perpetuate a state of hunger which actually gets worse when you lose weight.

Don't dispare the study was a goofy one. That might be a bit harsh.. better to say that this single study does not tell the whole story, but rather a story that is specific to the conditions of the study (1), which was going on a 500 calorie per day starvation diet.

After 10 weeks of starving on a diet that is totally unrealistic and would never be recommended by any health professional, weight loss occurred (of course, you're starving). What also occurred is the hormones that regulate hunger changed; hormones that stimulate hunger increased, and those that suppress appetite decreased.

The most interesting study finding was that one year after the initial weight loss the shift in hormonal balance remained out of balance, causing the study participants to feel hungry and also needing more calories to feel satisfied from eating.

The real conclusion hear is not that weight loss is impossible but rather that if you try drastic measures like crash dieting and extremely low calorie diets you will cause significant changes in hormone levels that govern appetite which will strongly influence regaining the weight you lost.

Permanent weight loss is possible, but only about 5 to 10% of people are successful. How is this done?

Change your love affair with overeating. It's important to learn the caloric value of foods so you can know how to meet your daily needs, and in light of these discoveries of hormonal imbalances driving appetite, it's important to be able to self talk and cognitively process your sense of hunger, "I get that I feel hungry, but do I feel hungry because of a true caloric need, or is this the hunger caused by hormonal imbalance?"

If you've had enough calories and still feel hungry the hunger will be from hormonal imbalance. Initially you will use your will power to resist eating when this happens. Over time you will adapt to eating less, but unless our ingrained sense of gratification from overeating is also addressed we'll forever be trapped in a dysfunctional love affair with food.

With the self talk try something like, "I'm going to feel so good about myself by eating healthy.. this is the right thing to do." Repetition is the key. Just like practicing musical scales on a instrument, learning to type, or learning anything for that matter, the brain needs to experience repetition so it can adapt.. lot's of repetition.

Expect relapses and expect a long term process. Want to lose weight quick and keep it off forever? Most likely not going to work for you so don't bother trying. Want to earn a living by winning the lottery? Quick weight loss is just as unrealistic.

If look at how much we admire overeating, and how much long for it every day, it's easy to see why eating healthy can be so challenging.. almost nobody does it, and almost nobody supports it.

Despite these real challenges, successful weight loss is possible, it can be done, and it feels really good.

Healthy eating is far more satisfying than overeating, teach your brain to automate that association and you'll feel a natural desire to eat healthy, instead of overeating, and that is truly liberating.

1) Long-Term Persistence of Hormonal Adaptations to Weight Loss — NEJM

Vitamin Supplements Increase Risk of Prostate Cancer

2011-10-15T10:41:00.000-05:00

Click here for a Reuters article on the subject.

Might be a bit of an overreaction. Reading the article it doesn't appear as though a strong causal link between vitamin E pills and prostate cancer has been confirmed.

My take from this study is that, in combination with other studies showing little to no benefit from daily use of multivitamins that we should at least question whether or not there is any significant value to daily use vitamins an minerals in pill form, especially when compared to the benefits of eating healthy.

There is good data showing that Canadians should consider taking a vitamin D pill from October through May. A doctor may prescribe vitamin or mineral supplementation where needed, but overall, my favorite vitamin source is the produce section.

Eat Veggies, Change your Genes

2011-10-15T10:31:00.000-05:00

Lot's of news stories covering new research showing that those who have a genetic predisposition to heart disease can reduce their risk of heart disease to equal that of those who don't have the gene.

A gene called 9p21 can make those who carry it more susceptible to heart disease. Eating as little as two servings of fruit and veggies a day appears to be enough to reduce the ill-health effects of this gene to essentially nullify it's significance.

More research is needed to understand why this works, or why 9p21 can cause health problems, but the bottom line is, you guessed it; eat your fruit and veggies.

Do you have the gene? An article in WebMD quotes the study author saying 50% of the population carries one copy of the gene, while 20% carry two copies.

Raw fruits and veggies seemed to work better.

Healthy Thanksgiving

2011-10-09T08:01:00.000-05:00

Do you look forward to holiday dinners but at the same time have misgivings about the overeating aftermath?

One of the most common strategies to allow for overeating at holiday meals is skipping breakfast or lunch (or both) to allow for a major chow down later on.

Why do it though? You know you're going to feel crappy about it afterwards. It takes some doing, but the long term success strategy is to adapt to being satisfied with eating less, or to be more accurate, eating what we need.

at 2000-3000 calories for the average thanksgiving dinner, we're way over the mark. One plate of piled on turkey, potatoes, gravy, etc is around 1200 -1500 calories, about double what we need for a meal.

Enjoy the meal and the company of friends and family, that's what it's all about.

Include physical activity before and after the T-Day meal. A side effect of consuming a high fat high calorie meal is "endothelial dysfunction", your arteries stiffen up for about 4 hours or so. This is thought to be, along with a spike in fats in your blood, part of the cause of the heart attack on plate, where a person has a heart attack shortly after a large meal.

The artery stiffening happens with everyone, even thin, fit, healthy people. The post meal heart attack risk only occurs in persons in a high risk category, those with existing heart and or cardiovascular disease.

Still, why eat so much that is causes arteries to stiffen? Seems a little counter productive.

The best way to avoid this is not to eat the amount of food that causes this response, which is about 1000 calories of a high fat, high sodium meal.

If you do imbibe gargantuan proportions, exercise after the meal (like walking) has been shown to reduce the artery stiffening effect.

Including some kind of family physical activity with holiday meals is a great tradition that can help keep families healthy. After all the healthier we are the better chance we have of being around to enjoy more family dinners.

I used to pack down two or three plates of food at holiday meals. Can't do it anymore. I got tired of the bloated feeling and the regrets of eating too much.

I'm really looking forward to having thanksgiving dinner with the family; enjoying their company and catching up on things will be great, and so will the meal. Not overdoing it allows us to enjoy the meal and company without the overeating aftermath so the entire experience is a good one.

Enjoy a healthy Thanksgiving meal, and we can be thankful for our health.

Some healthy eating tips for Thanksgiving dinner:

Be happy with one plate of food, or two small plates, the second with more veggies rather than a replay of the first.

Having all the food out in the centre of the table stimulates us to keep eating. Keep the turkey and big bowl of potatoes on a table/ counter away from the place you eat.

Take the skin off the turkey you eat and limit the total amount of the poultry serving to about 1/4 of the plate or less.

Home made cranberry sauce can be about half the calories per cup than gravy, but sugar laden commercially prepared cranberry sauce can have 3-4 times the calories as gravy. The remedy? Use enough gravy and cranberry sauce to provide flavour, but avoid making lake out of it.

Make healthy veggie based dishes. Google pumpkin recipes and other healthy veg dishes, make these the centre piece. We need more veggies than we do meat or poultry so make a family tradition of a great tasting veggie plate to accompany the old stand by turkey.

ScienceDirect - The American Journal of Cardiology : Effect of a Single High-Fat Meal on Endothelial Function in Healthy Subjects

The Freshman 15

2011-10-01T10:57:00.000-05:00

Some new university students turn to food to cope with the stress of the new environment, and some of these students develop eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating.

All universities will have student counselling services that can either refer for proper treatment or have the staff to address help students struggling with eating disorders.

Not all overeating is considered disordered eating, but all chronic or periodic overeating leads to weight gain. Sometimes referred to as the "freshman 15", most students (up to 77%) will overeat in their freshman year and gain between 4 and 15 pounds of body fat, with a weight gain of near 4 pounds being more prevalent.

Strategies to ovoid the freshman weight gains are the usual.. eat less, stay active, and be mindful of what and when you eat.

I found an interesting study that included blood pressure measurements of first year division one football players in the US. 23.5% had high blood pressure, 54% were prehypertensive, and only 22.4% were considered having normal blood pressure. Although very muscular and strong, many football players are also clinically obese or overweight with serious health conditions like high blood pressure starting at a very young age.

In my personal observation, and I'm sure I'm not alone here, it's common practice for male athletes to boast about how much they can eat, often using how much one can eat as a display of manly superiority. I get the socialization of overeating and machismo.. used to do it myself. I grew tired of battling the annual fat gain, fat loss cycle though and stopped overeating.

I still get cajoled by my peers from time to time for eating healthy, but I'm closing in fast on age 50 and it's more obvious to me now that if I'm going to age well I've got to keep up with taking care of myself.

I didn't think this way when I was in my teens and early 20's, those were the years where nutrition and healthy living advice was overbearing pressure from tee totalling killjoys. In retrospect though it was never enjoyable to realize I had put on 10-15 pounds of fat from pigging out and that I had to stop it from becoming 20+ pounds.

The trouble with developing overeating habits is that the longer you do it the harder it is to stop, and with population statistics still trending towards increasing obesity amongst the young and previously young, it would appear that the idea of socially celebrating nearly everything we do with overeating is winning out over the message to eat and live healthy.

Staying at a healthy weight has eliminated that stress I used to feel when I overrate my way to weight gain one or two or three chocolate fudge brownies at a time, throwing in a few 2000 - 3000 calorie big plate restaurant meals for good measure. I have to admit, I feel far more rewarded now eating healthy. Instead of seeming all doom and gloom with the perceived message of needing to stop enjoying food to be healthy I want to pass this along..

It feels better to eat healthy. No weight gain, better energy, food tastes great. Never feels like you've got that dark cloud over you, "I'm going to regret I ate this later".

Performance and blood pressure character... [J Strength Cond Res. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI

The 'freshman 5': a meta-analysis of weight gain i... [J Am Coll Health. 2009 Sep-Oct] - PubMed result

Changes in weight and health behaviors from freshm... [J Nutr Educ Behav. 2008 Jan-Feb] - PubMed result

A prospective study of weight gain during the coll... [Prev Med. 2009] - PubMed result

Stress of freshman year can trigger eating disorders for some young people

Caffeine Rich Energy Drinks: Regulation?

2011-09-29T14:03:00.000-05:00

I read a few media stories today about how Health Canada is reviewing expert recommendations to possibly label so-called energy drinks like Red Bull and Rock Star as "stimulant drug containing". The recommendations go a lot further than a label though, suggesting that energy drinks become the purview of pharmacies only.

Might not be a bad business model for pharmacies, these drinks are very popular. Of course you would have to install beverage coolers in all pharmacies, maybe freezers too. Why freezers? Because coffee flavored ice-cream has about the same amount of caffeine as Red Bull (Red Bull 80mg, coffee flavored ice-cream 70mg).

What about extra large coffee's available at Starbucks, Tim Hortons, and 7-11 that have over 200mg of caffeine? Would all coffee shops require a "watchful pharmacist" to make sure caffeinated beverages are dispensed the way Health Canada says they should?

There is a growing social trend, especially amongst the younger crowds, to down energy drinks to get a buzz, overcome tiredness, increase athletic performance, and most contentiously, to enhance or negate the effects of alcohol.

Health minister Leona Aglukkaq hasn't said whether she will follow the advice of the panel. Making Red Bull only available at pharmacies is way over the top. Too nanny-state for me.

Personally I don't have any love for these energy drinks or any positive health or performance claims associated with them. I think it's a stretch to suggest these drinks provide energy or significant increases in cognition or sports performance. You'll get more results from a good night's sleep and regular exercise. Caffeine can't replace or reverse the effects of sleep deprivation, but can temporarily make you feel like it does.

Caffeine and booze: Caffeine does not make you drive better when drunk:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21134017

Energy drink did nothing for sprint performance in woman

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21461905

Second hand smoke causes hearing loss?

2011-08-07T07:51:00.001-05:00

Secondhand Smoke Associated with Hearing Loss in Teens – TIME Healthland

Adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 exposed to second hand smoke had greater high and low frequency hearing loss.

Click on the link above for the lowdown.

I am so glad I quit smoking 25 years ago. For those of you who still smoke; seriously, quitting is the best thing you can do for you and those around you.

When I was a smoker and people would try to get me to quit I used to feel pressured or nagged and would go light up a smoke in protest. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Smoking was the most illogical and stupid thing I've done. I tried and failed a few times before I quit for good so don't worry about not succeeding the first time, just keep at it.

There is nothing good about smoking, nothing neutral either. Smoking really is all bad all the time, even in tiny amounts. Getting rid of the smoking ball and chain is a great relief and makes you finally start feeling healthy.

If nobody smoked we'd all be better off.

Eat fat get less sad

2011-08-07T07:23:00.000-05:00

Fatty 'Comfort' Foods May Alter Brain's Response to Sadness - US News and World Report

Study subject fed fat directly to their stomachs via a tube experienced less sadness than those fed a saline solution.

So yeah, there's something to the comfort food theory. Use causation though, the researchers suggest that the more overeat fat to get the feel good response the more fat we have to consume to make the comfort feeling occur.

Same as usual; overeating not good!

Banana's disappearing?

2011-08-07T07:07:00.000-05:00

The Beginning of the End for Bananas? | The Scientist

A fungal pathogen is wiping out the worlds banana crops. Should we worry?

This has happened before. A different variety of banana was mostly wiped out by the same fungus years ago and we had the same dire warnings that the pleasure of eating tasty bananas would only be a memory.

Didn't happen.

The researchers are saying, "yeah, but this time it's for real". Might be, but for now we can still buy bananas, and before the banana dooms day prediction of no banana's by 2015, the problem may be averted by growing a new strain of bananas, eradicating the fungus, or the prediction simply not coming true.

Do you really need 8 cups of water every day?

2011-08-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

Advice to drink 8 cups of water a day 'nonsense': doc - CTV News

After reading the article from the link above, one might be confused as to how know if they're getting enough water intake.

Here are a few simple tips for hydration during exercise:

Weigh yourself before and after exercise. If you weigh more than when you started you drank more water than you needed.

If you weight more than half a kilogram less than when you started you didn't quite drink enough. If you weigh 1-2 kg less then you're definitely dehydrated and need to consume more fluids during exercise.

If your urine stream is always dark yellow then you're consistently not consuming enough fluids. If you have to pee several times per day and your urine stream is constantly fairly clear to lightly yellow, you're most likely reasonably well hydrated.

The problem with the 8 cups a day recommendation is that depending on physical activity, temperature and your physical stature, 8 cups may not be enough water. 8 Cups of water every day would rarely be too much water so don't worry about consuming too much if you do the 8.

Hyponatremia a serious condition that occurs when you drink way too much water, serious enough to potentially cause death, doesn't happen unless you pound back lot's of fluids; 2 or more litres over 20-30 minutes, or enough to cause a weigh gain of 2+ kg in body weight from fluids consumed. It's a good idea to be wary of not chugging back water excessively on hot days, rather, be thoughtful about getting enough, not too much, not too little.

Vitamin D + Calcium = Reduced Skin Cancer Risk

2011-07-03T06:17:00.001-05:00

A recent study (1) is getting a lot of attention. Any time significant risk of the big C is reduced, people want to know about it.

The headlines say that vitamin D and calcium supplements reduce risk of skin cancer in woman. Researchers were not able to discover why this occurs, only that this association was observed, but only under specific circumstances.

Woman who previously had nonmelanoma skin cancer expressed an approximate 57% percent decrease risk in developing melanoma when taking vitamin D and Calcium supplements. Woman with no previous skin cancer showed no reduced risk of melanoma when taking vitamin D and Calcium supplements.

It was not certain whether it was vitamin D alone, the vitamin D + calcium combination, or calcium alone that caused the reduced risk.

The researchers said results should be interpreted with caution and that further investigation is warranted.

Another study looking at woman in Northern Italy found a week inverse association with malignant melanoma and vitamin D intake from diet. (2)

For information on melanoma and nonmelanoma skin Cancer, go to Canadian Cancer Society

(1) Calcium Plus Vitamin D Supplementation and the Ris... [J Clin Oncol. 2011] - PubMed result

(2) Inverse association between dietary vitamin d and ... [Nutr Cancer. 2011] - PubMed result

Are You A Desaturator?

2011-07-01T07:14:00.002-05:00

A study I was involved in (1) has shown that Exercise Induced Arterial Hypoxemia (EIAH) occurs in a greater percentage of highly trained persons than previously believed (60% compared to 50%), and also seems to occur in those who are less fit, but to a lesser degree.

While it isn't exactly clear what causes EIAH, a mild to severe decrease in the oxygen content of blood when exercising at or near maximal intensity, discovering the cause of EIAH is important as not understanding this limitation reveals our incomplete understanding the physiology cardiorespiratory function.

Our study won't have any immediate impact on thinking about how we should exercise but it does add to the growing knowledge base needed to understand EIAH.

Study subjects were pushed to their limits either on a stationary bike, treadmill, or both. We looked at blood lactate levels, lung volume and air flow pre-post exercise, and arterial blood oxygen levels. We were able to demonstrate that air flow restriction did not influence EIAH.

Our study was the largest of it's kind to date with 82 subjects. Go to the link below to read about what we did.

(1) http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2011/Cambridge/MEDICAL/MEDICAL-16.pdf

Overcoming and Preventing Common Running Injuries

2011-07-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Justine Routhier of CJOB gave me call to talk about this article from fitsugar.com on avoiding common running injuries.

I like fitsugar but it can sometimes be a little light in terms of referencing where they get their info from, and a little short on content.

The fitsugar article does a decent job of describing common running injuries but left out the most recent most significant understanding of what drives most lower extremity injuries and mechanical dysfunctions in runners, that being hip muscle strength and firing pattern imbalances. Go here for an article I posted recently on this.

Two of the best exercises for improving running form, biomechanics, and reducing risk of injury are the side lying leg raise (hip abduction), and the glute bridge.

Your best step to preventing overuse injuries is taking the time required to build a healthy tolerance to running. It isn't true that constantly dealing with aches and pains is part of regular running, but listening in on most post run discussions in any given running group and sore shins, knees, hips, feet, and back will be all too common.

The time required to become a healthy injury free runner differs somewhat between people so make sure you take the time you need which is often longer than what others claim, and longer that what we think it should take.

Indeed it usually takes 6 to 8 months of carefully progressive exercise to overcome repetitive strain injury in runners.

The most common mistakes I see in rehab and prehab (exercises to prevent common injuries) is going too hard too soon.

I'll often have athletes calling me complaining of sore hip muscles from doing the "rehab" hip exercises. They always reveal that they decided to 50 to 100% more repetitions and exercises sessions than I recommended thinking that more is better.

In talking to physiotherapists, other coaches, massage therapists, and sport medicine docs about this, there seems to be pretty good agreement; those doing injury recovery and prevention programs either go well beyond the recommended volume and intensity of exercise, will not complete the full program, or will not do enough. D'oh! Very few follow the advice to the letter, and so very few have the benefit of experiencing injury free running.

It really is worth it to be patient and take the time to do it right. Add injury prevention exercises as part of your regular routine, don't run when tired or sore, and cut your run short when aches and pains increase.

Study Celebrates International Moron Day

2011-06-25T10:42:00.004-05:00

"Eat less, exercise more". Harumph. That doesn't work. I know it doesn't work because we've been carpet bombed by that advice for decades and we're still seeing obesity stats climb. There must be elusive factors that cause weight gain. I thought I addressed this in my previous post, but a study from Harvard published in the New England Journal of Medicine (1) shows that I'm wrong.

The study involving over 120,000 U.S. men and woman followed over 20 years has made statistical correlations with weight gain/ weigh loss and specific foods and activities.

Every four years data on the study subjects was collected. On average subjects gained 3.35 lbs over each four year study period.

Here are some of the findings

An hour of TV watching = .31 pound weight gain. Next time I watch TV I'm going to sit on a scale. Won't it be cool to watch my .31 pound weight gain live? I'll do this while watching The Biggest Loser.

The strongest weight gain was associated with eating potato chips; a 1.69 lb weight gain. OMG! Say it ain't so.

If you ate veggies you would lose 0.22 lbs. Exercise caused a 1.76 lb decrease in weight. Wow, that is totally new. Life changer.

The media response to the study (google it); "Eat less, exercise more" is overly simplistic advice, because this study shows very discrete correlations with specific foods associated with weight loss or gain.

Yesterday was Bike to Work Day here in Winnipeg. I like it when groups claim days to promote their cause. Seems to be a reasonably effective way to garner attention for your cause.

Appropriately this study was released on international moron day, which appears to have been extended due to popularity. The worlds most foremost morons get their day in the sun to demonstrate their proclivity for obtuse self contradiction.

Eating less and exercising more doesn't work, but avoiding eating bags of potato chips, sitting on your butt watching TV for hours, while also including regular exercise and consumption of veggies will cause weight loss, according to this study.

Stepping on the gas pedal with your foot does not make your car go, but depressing the gas pedal with your foot will. See how impressively sophisticated that differentiation is? It's like I just heard a crowd of people sigh in unison, "Huuuuu???.. AAAAhhhh!" Or maybe it was a, "waaa?.. D'oh!"

Only alumni from Alpha Moron Kappa have the capacity to educate the rest of us unwashed heathens.

I'm a little worked up over this. Maybe I should tone it down a little. After all how does being facetious help? Sometimes I feel like my head is going to implode when I hear this kind of drivel regarding healthy living. The targeted axiom here, "eat less, exercise more" is just that, an axiom. It's a broad generalization meant to capture the gist of how weight loss works. "Calories in, calories out" is another.

Nobody intended these one-liners to embody the entire complexity of how to exercise and what specific foods are more or less healthy, so attacking these helpful reminders for their lack of specificity makes no sense. Further, trying to establish that eating less and exercising more are not significant parts of successful weight loss is, well, moronic.

The term "don't drink and drive" isn't meant to teach someone how to steer and brake to avoid collisions, or any specifics of how to drive or how not to get drunk, it's a one-liner that conveys a succinct message that's easy to drive home. That's why we make axioms. Easy to get a simple and logical message across. It's not an owners manual.

Let's heed the Harvard researchers advice: "Eat less and exercise more" doesn't work, but "eating less and exercising more" does work.

(1) Changes in Diet and Lifestyle and Long-Term Weight Gain in Women and Men — NEJM

Anyone Can Lose Fat

2011-06-22T14:34:00.012-05:00

Is it difficult to walk passed that popular dessert mecca that serves decadent death by chocolate? Can we exercise enough inner determination to cull our passion for imbibing 12 ounces of succulent satisfaction at the local steak house?

How about grandma telling us, "There are starving people in China, eat! Eat!" Can't stifle grandma. Or maybe we can, maybe grandma needs a challenge; "Gramma, how does me overeating help starving people in China? And why do you have to make enough food for twenty people when we're only serving five? Do you think that might have something to do with our weight issues?" Grannies extra servings go straight to our hearts.

You're running your finger down the menu at the local 5 star sit down and 90% of the meal choices are over 1000 calories, and every one of those calories has a telepathic connection to your salivary glands that are starting to make you drool and quiver for the mouth orgy you're about to go down on.

Are you really going to trade that for a dry, limp stick of celery?

Allow me to introduce you to the excuse many us know as well as that old high school best friend who even though there may be a continent of real-estate between you, each time you get together it's like old times, like you've never been apart.

"Healthy food is like cardboard" That's the excuse. Feeling comfortable now? Your friend is back. It's ok not to choose healthy food. I understand you want to feel rewarded, and that's what you deserve. No.. no, settle down, I'm not going to feed you salad, I'm your friend.

I'm going to feed you your favorite meal and you're going sit back with your waist almost uncomfortably tight, which is easily resolved by a flick of the finger undoing the belt.. ahhh.. ease into the soft warm leather chair, talk about old times, laugh about the time you did that silly thing..

Nice hey? That's how comfortable we are with overeating.

Conversely we perceive healthy eating as a steel bench at a bus stop in the rain. And the bus is late. And you're wearing linen.

But what if that's all wrong? What if living healthy provides a feeling of energy and freedom previously unknown?

Well, it does. Don't let the nay-sayers divert you from your desire to lose weight and get healthy.

Obesity is not about genetics. That excuse is denial based "my overeating is not to blame" escapism that appeals to those who can't face the reality that they chronically overeat, or at least have yet to come to realize that they can succeed at permeant weight loss if only they permanently changed their lifestyle.

No person, no matter what their genetics, will become overweight if they do not overeat.

Every person, no matter their cultural or genetic make up, or physical activity, will gain fat if they eat too much.

Human genetics are not changing every year resulting in greater weight gain annually around the world.

What is happening is people are eating more and are less physically active. This results in more calories consumed than expended, which equals fat gain.

It really is this simple.

The complicated part is how we become entrained to overeat through socialization, habits, and the overall ubiquitous celebration of overeating.

Research has shown that overeating, a lack of sleep, and eating high concentrations of fat, sugar, and salt trigger hormonal responses that cause us to feel more hungry than usual and to require more food to feel satiated. This adds significant challenge to changing eating habits as one will feel hungry but wont actually be physically hungry, as in requiring more energy from food. The person will only perceive hunger prompted by altered hunger stimulating hormone levels.

Part of the answer is to learn how hunger works. Part of the answer is self discipline.

The answer is not about finding a drug or a new diet. The desire to "discover" the solution to fat loss is quite possibly a desperately naive avoidance of personal responsibility, or at worst a Machiavellian scheme to empty wallets.

Why do most weight loss attempts fail in the long term? Is it because most people are genetically non-responsive to healthy living (diet and exercise)? No. It's because those who fail do not change their physical habits or emotional connection to food. It's because those who fail ultimately return to their previous overeating habits.

Losing weight is possible. You don't have to go ballistic to do it either.

Eat less. Exercise more. Change your emotional connection to food so you're in love with healthy food instead of crap food. Maybe show a little love for yourself, for your health. Expect to make plenty of mistakes. Don't put a time limit on it, just keep at it.

It's not your genetics that keep you overweight, it's your overeating.

Recreational Trails Path To Health

2011-06-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

Jogging, walking, cycling, and my favorite, mountainbiking.

It's great to get out of the city and hit wilderness trails for recreation and fitness. These trails are for the most part built by volunteers and clubs.

IMBA, Internation Mountain Bicycling Association, is arguably the leader in North America for building sustainable multiuse trails.

Today I'm attending a trail building class put on by IMBA and hosted by the Crow Wing Trail Association.

More info on Crow Wing Trail can be found here http://www.mrta.mb.ca/Trails/CrowWing/home.htm

For IMBA go to imba.com

I enjoy using trails but often I'll find sections of trails washed out, rutted out, or just plain unsafe trail conditions.

I want to do something to help keep up the trails I use, but I want to make sure it's done in a sustainable, safe way.

I'm also interested in helping to make multi use trails that reduce conflict between trails users.

This all ties into my desire to live a healthy lifestyle. Given the choice I would rather run or ride for fun and fitness in a wilderness trail.

If you're a regular trail user and are interested in helping with local trail upkeep, IMBA will put you in contact with local trail crews.

If you're into using trails, but not into working on them, be mindful of how a trail is used. Riding in the mud can be fun, but can rapidly erode the trail bed. Over years this part of trail becomes unusable.. for anyone.

I think IMBA does a great job of setting reasonable standards for building trails. I strongly recommend that before anyone builds or maintains a trail, get info from IMBA.

The trail building course covers how to build the correct gradient and trail bed to shed water (reducing water erosion), making the trail "flow" (fun to walk, run, ride without abrupt unsafe transitions.

I'll post photos of the course later today.

Rongjia Tao "Professor Magneto" Reduces Blood Thickness With Magnatism

2011-06-11T10:53:00.000-05:00

Remember that scene in X-Men where Magneto uses his powers to suck out all the iron from the blood of his prison guard allowing Magneto to make a tiny mass of iron used to break out of jail?

Not a sci-fan? Or maybe you are and you're remembering how cool that scene was.

Professor and chair of physics at Temple University, Rongjia Tao, has figured out how to use the power of magnetic fields, like the Marvel Comics Magneto character. Well, not exactly like Magneto. Instead of using mutant abilities Tao uses science and engineering to create magnetic fields that are used to decrease the viscosity of oil in engines and pipelines.

Tao, using this technology, has been able to reduce a persons blood viscosity by 20-30 percent by subjecting subjects to a magnetic field having the same intensity as an MRI, for about one minute.

More research is needed to make everything work right, but the hope is this technology can be used for heart disease therapy.

The magnetic field polarizes red blood cells causing them to organize into short chains that flow down the centre of blood vessels, reducing the friction against the walls.

Tao is the "good" Magneto, of course.

Using Magnets to Help Prevent Heart Attacks - ScienceNewsline

Smoking keeps you thin? A tired old lie

2011-06-11T10:12:00.000-05:00

I read with interest as well as much distain, an article (1) on how people might be able to quit smoking without gaining weight.

The old urban myth is that smoking keeps you thin, and if you quit smoking you're sure to gain weight.

The article, published on Science Daily.com sites a new study (2) that reveals a new understanding of how nicotine behaves as an appetite suppressant. Nothing against Science Daily, it's one of the most used bookmarks I have.. love the site. Usually I defend how research drags us through the minutia of how things are presumed to work because without knowledge of facts we're doomed believe things like 'the sun orbits the earth', or 'smoking keeps you thin'.

Today though I can't help but feel akin to my friends who contend that academics don't live in the real world.

So science proves that nicotine suppresses appetite. Must be true then; smoking keeps you thin. Regular readers will know that I'm all about the "evidence". Don't make things up based on myth, traditionalism, and prejudging.. show me the evidence.

Ok. So if smoking keeps you thin how do we explain overweight smokers?

And if quitting smoking causes weight gain; how do we explain those who do not gain weight despite quitting smoking?

The answer? The seemingly elusive matrix of variables that causes clandestine weight gain.. whaa? I gained weight? How did that happen?

Ahh, I know how I gained fat, I don't smoke! Eureka! World wide obesity epidemic solved!

Yes there it is folks, science shows us the way. The percentage of the population that smokes has decreased since the 60's. The WHO (not the band) says that smoking among Americans has shrunk by nearly half from the 60's to the 90's, with 23% of the population smoking in 1997 (3).

Health Canada says that the percentage of the population that smokes has fallen from around 40% in 1985 to around 21% in 2003, with 30% of those aged 20-24 as the largest smoking group.

At the same time obesity has been increasing. According to the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey 23.% of Canadians aged 18 or older were obese (4).

Well sign me up as a Nobel Peace Prize nominee (I wouldn't presume to win, but surly I should be nominated for solving the obesity "mystery").

Fewer people are smoking and more people are overweight; and the trends match each other inversely.

I'm content.

Or am I?

Damn my curiosity. If I weren't so curious maybe I wouldn't have tried smoking and eventually tried to quit. Wait.. something just clicked in my brain. I think my neuron just fired..

I didn't lose weight when I started smoking, nor did I gain weight when I quit smoking. Time for more research.

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2008 tells us combining smoking and obesity kills us better than either of those alone (5).

Must be junk science. Since smoking keeps you thin, how did these researchers find overweight people who smoke?

Maybe the world repository of facts; Google, can help. "Overweight smoker" gave me this little You Tube gem of an overweight child in Indonesia with a two pack a day smoking habit.

Must be a hoax. Remember; smoking keeps you thin.

My tongue is getting sore and I think my cheek is developing a permanent bulge. Overeating causes weight gain, not the absence of smoking. There are many overweight people who smoke. There are many who are not overweight who do not and have never smoked.

The way to not gain weight when quitting smoking is to not eat too much.

The health benefits of quitting smoking are huge and it feels great to rid of the ball and chain. It takes some mindfulness and contemplation of healthy food choices, but for sure the fear of weight gain ought not to keep smokers from quitting.

Don't let a beliefe in an urban myth keep you from becoming a healthier non-smoker; ditch the darts and eat healthy, you'll love yourself for it.

(1) Discovery may pave way to quitting smoking without gaining weight

(2) Nicotine Decreases Food Intake Through Activation of POMC Neurons

(3) WHO Western Pacific Region - Fact sheets - Smoking Statistics

(4) Adult obesity in Canada: Measured height and weight

(5) The combined relations of adiposity and smoking on mortality

Losing more than 15 percent of body weight significantly boosts vitamin D levels in overweight women

2011-06-04T10:56:00.000-05:00

Losing more than 15 percent of body weight significantly boosts vitamin D levels in overweight women

Race Your Race, Not Your Warm Up

2011-06-04T10:53:00.000-05:00

A new study (1) getting lot's of media exposure has demonstrated that traditional long warm up periods (45 to 90 minutes with several hard sprints) used by sprinters and short duration event athletes are too fatiguing and rob athletes of their best performance.

Instead a shorter gradual 15 minute warm up with one sprint at the end increased performance by about 6%.

Don't soff at 6%, that can provide a personal best or podium finish. Also, think of saving all that wasted time! 15 minutes of warm up compared to 90 minutes makes it much easier to manage pre-competition preparation.

(1) Less is More: Standard Warm-up Causes Fatigue and Less Warm-up Permits Greater Cycling Power Output

Strengthen Hips To Reduce Knee Pain

2011-06-04T10:46:00.000-05:00

There are a few basic hip exercise that I prescribe to nearly everyone I train whether they are high performance athletes or first timers. One of the first steps I take when starting with someone is an assessment of core, hip, and ankle stability and strength, and most people score low on most tests. Indeed when I first learned of these tests over 15 years ago, I scored low on them myself.

Poor hip strength is linked to knee pain (2), and a variety of hip strengthening and movement corrective exercises will reduce or eliminate common knee pain and greatly improve athletic performance in foot speed, moving sideways, and producing power.

The trouble is some of these exercises are perceived as being tedious and unusual compared to standard strength training exercises, while the final stage of advanced exercises are hard to do both strength-wise and in terms of maintaining focus on retaining good form. I've seen these factors result in many either dismissing the corrective exercises as too weird, taking too long to get results, or conversely many will do the rehab exercises at far too high of an intensity to be useful; overworking the person instead of gradually progressing them forward.

Within a couple months of hip and core strengthening mechanics can be corrected (3, 4) and knee pain can be greatly reduced, especially in woman, whose greater thigh bone angle and generally wider hips make them more susceptible to knee pain.

An Indiana University press release on June 3 (1), 2011 explains how stronger hips from a 2X per week (30 to 35 minutes) hip strengthening program improved running mechanics and lessened knee pain. Click on the link below for more details.

Recently a 50 year old male athlete I've been working with won his age group in a short distance duathlon, the second duathlon he has ever entered. Paul Seier ran recreationally a few years ago but back, hip, and knee pain made the experience a literal pain in the butt.

Paul is also a competitive mountain biker, winning gold in the Manitoba Provincial Championships (2010) for his category (sport 40+ mens).

Part of what makes Paul's story compelling is that he's a regular guy with a family, runs a business with his wife, and has only so much time to exercise. Also important to know about Paul, he previously suffered from chronic low back pain, reoccurring spasms in hip muscles, and knee pain. All of these have been resolved through massage therapy (thanks Bryan!) and a long term progressive exercise program that incorporated the exercises referenced in the research article links below.

By following what research recommends to both reverse and prevent typical overuse injuries and pain due to poor mechanics and muscle weakness, Paul was able to enter duathlon races without any pain or suffering. Paul reports that he can't believe how good he feels when he runs now; no pain, lot's of power, and no soreness afterwards.

It's true, your running can be pain free. Do what Paul did, start with the basics, very gradually increase running (Paul started with only a few minutes of running once per week, and now runs on average 1 or 2 times per week, and rides his bike 1 or 2 times per week, and does basic hip strengthening exercises once per week).

A little goes a long way so long as you do it right and overcome two of the most difficult obstacles for increasing performance: the urge to exercise too hard too often, and the urge to follow traditional no-science based injury prone high-voulme, high-intensity exercise programs with no base conditioning.

Paul Seier- right, Cris LaBossiere- left

(1) ACSM: Stronger Hips Improved Running Mechanics, Lessened Knee Pain - ScienceNewsline

(2) Eccentric Hip Muscle Function in Females With and Without Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome

(3) A Proximal Strengthening Program Improves Pain, Function, and Biomechanics in Women With Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome

(4) The effect of real-time gait retraining on hip kinematics, pain and function in subjects with patellofemoral pain syndrome -- Noehren et al. -- British Journal of Sports Medicine

Too Tired To Be Healthy

2011-05-28T10:19:00.000-05:00

While a complete understanding of how sleep affects our health is lacking, we know enough to dismiss the myth that sleep is an inconvenience that interferes with life productivity.

How many times have you heard the axiom, "I'll sleep when I'm dead"? Usually this boisterously pronounced phrase is used to convey that we're so important, and so bent on being productive 24/7 that we treat sleep like cheap date by only giving it the minimal attention needed to fulfill a rudimentary need.

Research tells us that if we don't enough sleep we'll die earlier, be sick more often, reduce cognitive function, reduce coordination, reduce athletic performance, and gain fat.

Sleeping in isn't the greatest thing either. Getting too much sleep on a regular basis causes many of the problems getting too little sleep is known for.

A study from Finland (1) concluded that all-cause mortality (dyeing from any cause) increased for men and woman who slept less than 5 hours or greater than 10 hours, and that risk of cardiovascular disease was greater for men, but not for woman.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US estimates that 50-70 million US adults have chronic sleep and wakefulness disorders, and that sleep difficulties are associated with chronic diseases, limitations of daily functioning, and mortality. The report (2) cited 38% of those reporting less than 7 hours sleep (37% of adults) fell asleep unintentionally at least once in the past 30 days.

So around a third of people don't get enough sleep and one third of those fall asleep unintentionally at least once per month. Doesn't sound like too many people are nodding off uncontrollably, but I suppose if you fall asleep at the wheel or during operating on a brain it might not be a good thing.

Recently the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a German study (3) that found one night of sleep depravation reduces energy expenditure in men by up to 20%. It wasn't that the study subjects moved around less, rather metabolism was slowed as an acute response to sleep depravation.

An earlier modest study (4) found that men who experienced one night of sleep deprivation consumed an extra 550 calories the next day, presumably due to alterations in hormones regulate hunger and satiety.

There's a certain amount of alarmism that accompanies reports of dying or developing disease from sleeping too much or too little, but in contrast I believe that most of us are too dismissive when it comes to making healthy sleep a priority.

It isn't all about death and dying though, cognitive function and daily productivity is reduced from not getting enough shut-eye. The odd all-nighter might be needed to get the job done but overall regular healthy sleep will make our awake hours far more productive so we're more likely to get more done in less time, making the last minute all-nighter crunch unnecessary. When tired it takes longer resolve cognitive challenges and the error rate increases. Working too late will decrease total productivity due to poor decisions and creating more work to correct errors.

If you're falling behind on a project you're more likely to become more productive by getting consistent quality sleep rather than extending work hours so long that sleep is sacrificed.

Take home? Work longer if you need to, but not at the expense of quality sleep, or exercise for that matter. A good nights sleep and 45 minutes of exercise is like pressing the turbo-boost on your brain.

A Korean survey (5) on sleep deprivation effects on cognitive function of residents and interns concluded that 41% of those studied were sleep deprived, sleeping around 5 hours each night. These medical professionals were more stressed and experienced attention deficits as well as difficulty in learning.

So really the best way to get more done in a day is to get a good nights sleep as often as possible, making an effort to maintain our sleep cycle on weekends as well.

To get a good nights sleep:

Go to bed and wake at the same time every night as much as possible
Avoid eating a heavy meal 2-4 hours prior to going to bed
Make the room you sleep in dark, cool, and quite
Avoid using an alarm to wake you, and never use the snooze button
Use your bedroom for sleeping, not working or TV watching
Exercise regularly

(1) Self-reported sleep duration, all-cause mortality,... [Sleep Med. 2011] - PubMed result

(2) Unhealthy sleep-related behaviors--12 States, 2009. [MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2011] - PubMed result

(3) Acute sleep deprivation reduces energy expenditure... [Am J Clin Nutr. 2011] - PubMed result

(4) Acute partial sleep deprivation increases food intake in healthy men

(5) A survey of sleep deprivation patterns and their e... [Sleep Med. 2011] - PubMed result

Supporting literature

Sleep and Obesity in Children and Adolescents. [Pediatr Clin North Am. 2011] - PubMed result

Sleep's effects on cognition and learning in adole... [Prog Brain Res. 2011] - PubMed result

Neuropsychological Effects of Sleep Loss: Implicat... [J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2011] - PubMed result

Coffee and Cancer

2011-05-22T06:38:00.008-05:00

Two studies investigating the connection between coffee consumption and cancer have received a lot of press coverage. One on prostate cancer in men (1), the other on breast cancer in woman (2).

In both studies high coffee consumption, 5, 6 or more cups of coffee was associated with a significant decrease in prostate and breast cancers.

These aren't the only studies to show the chemo protective effects of coffee, there is a fairly large body of evidence supporting this. So yes coffee drinkers, there appears to be strong evidence supporting anti-cancer benefits from coffee consumption.

The study on prostate cancer also tested decaffeinated coffee and the same anti-cancer effect was found. Researchers believe that compounds in coffee, perhaps the antioxidants, are responsible for the possible cancer prevention effect.

Diet and exercise also have strong anti-cancer effects as well so let's not forget about that. Diet and exercise overall have a more rewarding and profound positive effect on all aspects of health and fitness than coffee consumption does so if you're a regular coffee drinker but are lacking in the diet and exercise realm, start exercising. Coffee does not make you more fit, stronger, more flexible, or increase bone density, but exercise can do all those things.

When we hear about coffee having positive effects we celebrate the news, but many of us lament hearing about the greater positive effects of healthy living. We like habits that have a negative association, and tend to resist habits that are truly good for us. I think the reason is healthy living ironically get's a bad rap: it's hard, it's boring, it's time consuming. Really healthy living is invigorating, stress relieving, and very rewarding. How many healthy fit people have you heard say they hate being healthy and fit?

Researchers aren't yet prepared to recommend starting coffee consumption to prevent prostate or breast cancer, conversely though, the pro's give the nod to starting exercise and making healthy food choices to reduce risk of cancer, and risk of other diseases such as type two diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Recently I wrote about research that demonstrated coffee and fat consumption increases blood sugar response to sugar intake, with an endpoint recommendation for those with type two diabetes to abstain or at least reduce coffee consumption (3).

Anecdotally I can say that of those who I have known to either cut down or cut out coffee consumption completely, all of them have said they feel better. They talk about being free from the daily cycle of feeling agitated and brain dead until they get their java fix. Now they are naturally alert and are able to cope with daily stress better than they did when dependant on coffee.

I think the take home message here is that coffee does have some legitimate positive health effects, some legitimate negative health effects, and that comparatively, healthy diet and exercise have a far greater net positive effect on our health and well being.

(1) Coffee Consumption and Prostate Cancer Risk and Pr... [J Natl Cancer Inst. 2011] - PubMed result

(2) Coffee consumption modifies risk of estrogen-recep... [Breast Cancer Res. 2011] - PubMed result

(3) Live Healthy: High Fat Intake Increases Blood Sugar; Adding Coffee Doubles Blood Sugar Rise

Muscle Pain and Fatigue from Exercise Makes you Clumsy

2011-05-21T10:12:00.001-05:00

This may be another one of those "Duh!" scenarios where research proves the obvious like, "study shows placing hand on hot stove causes burns".

Nevertheless, much of the time we don't make the practical application connection to things that we usually ignore, and for exercise management, fatigue is often viewed as something to conquer by pushing through it rather than resolving through rest, or perhaps a piece of tape.

DOMS; delayed onset muscle soreness.. your muscles feel stiff and sore in the days following exercise. A study in the journal Medicine & Science In Sports & Exercise (1) showed that 48 hours after training muscles with DOMS had a strength reduction of about 21%. While this has training implications (rest until you retune to full strength before considering training again), there was another interesting finding.

The study concluded, "Reflex activity in leg muscles elicited by rapid destabilizing perturbations is reduced after exercise-induced muscle soreness."

Translation, you will have less functional stability. Your ability to respond to high stability demands like playing sports will be reduced, which would increase your risk of injury.

While recovery days can include light or moderate exercise, it's not a good idea to train hard with weights, then play hard in sports the next day.

In another study, this time from the journal Gate and Posture (2), researchers found placing a piece of tape on the ankle of fatigued study subjects allowed them to maintain ankle control. When no tape was applied, fatigued subjects demonstrated "degraded postural performance", they lost balance more easily.

How does this work? Researchers suggest that local muscle fatigue impairs the ability to send relevant postural position information to the brain, and that the skin, if stimulated, can take up the communication corridor slack.

Does this mean we should keep training and simply tape up our skin to maintain coordinated movement? I wouldn't go that far. There is still muscle recovery that requires more time to recover from, and there might be a problem with masking reduced coordination as it may prompt people to train weak and unrecovered muscles, but this information can help therapists and coaches understand and design appropriate recovery protocols.

(1) Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness Alters the Response to Postura... : Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise

(2) Degraded postural performance after muscle fatigue can be compensated by skin stimulation

Right? Or Righteous? Defending what we eat

2011-05-14T10:55:00.003-05:00

Something funny happens quite often when I talk about healthy eating and healthy living in general. This "something" happens not only with myself, but almost every time I hear a conversation that raises the subject of healthy eating.

It goes something like this;

"I think I'd like to start eating healthier.. might be good for me"

.. is followed by;

"I'll tell you what healthy is! A big juicy steak!"

Sometimes the person will try to tempt and tease.. "mmmmm.. don't you wan't a big chocolate donut? How about a bacon double cheeseburger... mmmm.. you know you waaant it!"

The following are also fairly predictable;

"You're going to die anyway, might as well enjoy yourself and eat what you want."

"I ain't eating no cardboard/ rabbit food/ hippie food/ nuts and berries!"

Can we have a conversation about this without going there? What is so wrong about eating right?

There's the rub. Many cannot get passed their perception that eating healthy is about being controlled, being restricted, being told what to do, and making eating into a boring, tasteless, and unrewarding experience.

The conversation is hijacked and turned into a personal defence of ones basic right to be autonomous in their decisions rather than talking about the factual virtues of healthy eating, and more importantly how much quality of life increases with healthy eating, and quality of life decreases with avoiding healthy eating.

The end game is not so pleasant. Over my lifetime I've witnessed so many people, including some friends and family, develop type two diabetes, increase blood pressure, increase cholesterol, have heart attacks and strokes.. all due to unhealthy lifestyle habits.

Ostensibly many will say that these illnesses can occur even with living healthy so what's the point of living healthy? Of course it is true that no matter how healthy we live, through no fault of our own we can become ill. Really though, it's understood that at least one third of all cancers are preventible through healthy living.

I've written about research that demonstrated exercising 4 - 5 times per week results in 40% fewer colds, and the duration and intensity of cold symptoms are reduced as well.

All the evidence clearly shows healthy living is factually better for us in all possible ways objectively, and subjectively I have yet to meet someone who has adapted to healthy living express regret for doing so. If anything they may regret holding on to their previous beliefs and habits so tenaciously.

Why is the most common response to raising the topic of healthy living spiteful or some kind of derogatory joke?

Seems to me that we simply get wrapped up in established habits, engrained sense of reward, and keeping up social norms. It's normal to overeat. It feels good to eat things that we know are bad for us. Doing so fulfils some kind of rebellious self control reward; or worse, we simply perceive the reward and don't stop to think about what we're doing to ourselves.

Seriously.. How many readers out there have had personal experience with their own health or the health of family and friends, co-workers, or someone you know? And how many times has that health problem been related to unhealthy living?

I read an interesting article on a study recently. Go here if you're interested.

The study asked young adults about their health and how risky behaviours effect their health.
The short story is many young adults, even if they currently had health problems, did not believe their lifestyle habits would negatively effect their health.

In this study the risk of stroke was being assessed. Living healthy can reduce risk of stroke by 80%.

I guess because stroke and other illnesses seem to be abstract in nature if you currently are not experiencing them, that many cannot connect to the risk. Stroke and illness is something that happens to other people, "not me".

Aside from all that abstract serious risk stuff, healthy living habits have immediate positive outcomes.

Right away you feel better, have more energy, sleep better, think better, and feel more positive more of the time.

Let's move away from the seemingly preprogrammed rejection of healthy living and start reaping the benefits. An orange is more rewarding than an donut. No really, it is : -)

Binge Drinking

2011-05-07T11:16:00.004-05:00

I had a conversation with a university student about binge drinking last week. The student mentioned he would rather not drink as much as he did, and predicted once out of university he might cut alcohol all together.

Given his preference not to drink I was curious as to why he drank anyway. His answer was he felt peer pressure to drink, and that in order to be with his friends having a good time, drinking was necessary.

He said he felt this was his own perception as none of his friends try to provoke him into drinking, or admonish him for not drinking, nonetheless, there seemed to be an assumed behaviour; if you want to hang out with friends, drinking is an important part of making that happen.

Moreover was the purpose of drinking. The student explained to me that the reason for drinking was strictly for the purpose of getting drunk, and not for casual use. I can identify as for a time when I was between the age of 17 and 22ish, that's what I used to do.

I never actually liked drinking; didn't like the flavour and didn't really like the buzz. Wasn't for me. Except brown cows, I liked those because they tasted like chocolate milk. Now I just do the chocolate milk.

There is some academic disagreement as to how binge drinking is defined, but in general 4-5 drinks over an hour or two is where "binging" starts. Some skilled drinkers will scoff at that boasting they can do that in minutes or even seconds. To qualify as a binge drinker you'd have to engage in binge drinking chronically once or twice per week.

A recent study (1) found that 63% of female and 83% of male college students were binge drinkers. This particular study was looking at the co-occurance of disordered eating along with binge drinking and found that 48% of the students also reported binge eating habits.

A story in the Washington Post (2) tells of a multi-universtiy initiative in the US to curb binge drinking has had some success, reducing from 59% in 1997 to 43% (2009) of students reporting they had binge drank in the previous two weeks.

Will certain sights and sounds stimulate you crave alcohol? A study done in 2010 at the University of Central Missouri (3) did a small study (15 binge drinking college students and 8 nonbingers), used a head mounted virtual reality device to expose students to either a "nutral-cue" environment of underwater scenes, or "alcohol-cue rooms" with a bar, party, kitchen, or argument scene.

The binge drinkers reported significantly higher cravings for and thoughts of alcohol than the nonbinge drinkers. A question often raised, but still not completely answered, is where does the desire to binge drink start? Do movies that depict wild college parties create the expectation that binge drinking is simply part of the expected college experience? Or has this always been the way it is and the movies simply play off this established social norm?

Both schools and booze have been around for a long time, so who knows. It appears though that regardless of why a person becomes a binge drinker, they may be more susceptible to social cues that stimulate the desire to drink indicating that perhaps once you start binge drinking there's a greater likelihood of feeling compelled to keep doing it.

We've all heard about the negative effects of alcohol, liver, mouth, and stomach cancer as well as the challenges of alcoholism and drunk driving. Hard to so say no when drinking is so socially established. Focusing on the negative outcomes of over-doing booze has some effect, but we all know that being told not to do something often provokes a person to do it anyway.

Maybe a better step would be to place more of a focus on the positive outcomes of not binge drinking; better sleep, better grades, not being hung over, saving money etc..

Overal binge drinking is a serious problem on campuses all over the world and it might benefit us to take a sober step back and reconsider how binge drinking causes harm, both short and long term, and not binging is ultimately more rewarding.

Always a good reference for learning about alcohol: Mothers Against Drunk Driving

FYI: British girls worst binge drinkers in the western world The Telegraph

(1) Binge drinking and disordered eating in college st... [J Am Acad Nurse Pract. 2011] - PubMed result

(2) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/campus-overload/post/universities-fight-public-health-problem-binge-drinking/2011/05/03/AFT5e5hF_blog.html

(3) Virtual reality cues for binge drinking in college... [Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2010] - PubMed result

Canadian Health Care: Next Fiscal Bubble?

2011-04-29T09:11:00.005-05:00

It was a warm summer afternoon when I was T-boned by a pick up truck while riding my bike. My life flashed before my eye’s which strangely caused me to think humorously, “hey, your life really does flash before your eye’s when you think you’re going to die”.

Luckily my assessment of my death was inaccurate. As I lie on the pavement in the middle of the road gathering my whits I see that my forearm is broken in half and bent at 90 degrees, but still intact. I wasn’t worried though.

“They’ll fix me”, I thought. I didn’t contemplate, “how will I pay for this”, after all, health care is free.

Total health care costs for Canada in 2010 were projected at $191.6 billion. Alberta and Manitoba are projected to spend more per person than any other province, $6,266 and $6249 respectively. (1)

A report from the Fraser Institute (2) projects 8 out of 10 provinces will have 50% of their total revenues swallowed by health care costs by 2028. Quebec is already there as of 2009/10 with 52.5% of total available provincial revenues from all sources going towards health care.

A Diabetes association of Canada report (3) suggests diabetes will cost the health care system $16.9 billion per year by 2020. Alberta Health Services released a report in January 2010 (4) that cited “obesity translates into an economic burden of $1.27 billion (2005$) within the province of Alberta”.

The Diabetes Association report also says those at risk for type two diabetes can reduce their risk of developing the disease by between 58 and 71% depending on their age, by simply exercising and losing 5 to 7% of their body weight.

National estimates (5) show that obesity costs us 4.3 billion a year (2005$).

A large portion of our health care costs are caused by our own unhealthy habits. This is something we can control. Everyone getting healthier would not save the system, but could be part of the solution.

Alberta eliminated health care insurance premiums in 2009, leaving Ontario, Quebec, and BC as the only provinces that charge for health care premiums that are scaled to ones income, with all such fee’s being forgiven in the case of financial hardship.

The Canada Health Act (6) says fee’s collected by the provinces can be deducted from the fed’s health transfers to provinces; meaning provinces that charge health insurance premiums might have equal amounts deducted from health transfers.

Quebec is scheduled to receive about $6.4 billion in federal health transfers in 2011-12, no mention of penalties for collecting user fees. Manitoba, with its much smaller population will receive about $1 billion in health transfers for 2011-12. (7)

Our system, heralded by many as a model of applied morality and scorned by many as a bureaucracy heavy welfare state that monopolizes services that could be better supplied by the private sector, is seen by both sides as one of the most critical government services that has yet to achieve a standard of delivery that appeases all.

Before publicly funded health care the cost of medical care was too much for many so they didn't seek care, or if they did many would go bankrupt or be burdened with heavy debt paying off medical bills. Various attempts at private and public health insurance plans were practiced but none could deliver full benefits as the plans were poorly executed or were simply fiscally impossible to maintain.

In 1952, just before the polio vaccine was available, many families in New Brunswick who had payed into the Maritime Blue Cross medical service plan had their contracts cancelled when an outbreak of poliomyelitis would prove to be too costly for the plan to cover. (8)

When Canadians went to enlist themselves for military service at the beginning of WW1 it was found that many had active tuberculosis and infectious diseases that made them unfit for duty. Many people could not afford regular medical care and so illnesses would go unmanaged and unreported. (8)

In the 60’s the pro Medicare pundits argued the morality of a just society includes caring for all whether impoverished or wealthy. Cue sound of happy music.

Those opposed argued that freeloaders overusing the system and layers of bureaucracy would combine to inflate costs of delivery and result in raised taxes and divert funds allocated to other programs to shore up health care. Cue sound of evil empire music.

I think both these suppositions are true and that we pretend we can resolve the dilemma either by charging that governments commit demagoguery by leveraging humanitarian needs to justify costs, or by demonizing private enterprise by assuming business is evil.

Volleying tired talking points back and fourth hasn’t resolved anything. Is this all our nations best elected intellect can muster?

Health care isn't getting any cheaper, but is becoming more effective in terms of being able to diagnose and treat illness and injury. Research, high tech hospitals, and better educated medical professionals make this possible.

The humanitarian need for caring for the sick and injured compels us to pour recourses into public health care but there is only so much pouring our economy can handle. Continuing to do things the same way won't solve the problem. The challenge of cutting costs while simultaneously raising standards is tough and so far we keep raising taxes and throwing money at the problem without planning for the future.

If the forecasters are right, if obesity, our aging population, and our mismanagement of public and privately funded medical care have a predictably serious financial crunch arriving within the next 20 years, then we better do something about it.

When we’re struck with an illness or injury, we need care, sometimes very expensive care, and we need it promptly. I don’t think anyone should be denied access to health care, even if they have no money or have brought harm to themselves. Maybe if we can get passed the rhetoric we can find a way to sustain health care through a mix of private and public modes, better management, and taking personal responsibility towards getting healthier.

All we have to do now is elect people that can pull it off. Good luck.

(1) http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/products/NHEX_Trends_Report_2010_final_ENG_web.pdf

(2) http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/canadas-medicare-bubble.pdf

(3) http://www.diabetes.ca/documents/get-involved/FINAL_Economic_Report.pdf

(4) http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/poph/hi-poph-surv-phids-cost-of-obesity-2010.pdf

(5) Obesity in Canada: snapshot - Public Health Agency of Canada

(6) http://lois-laws.justice.gc.ca/PDF/C-6.pdf

(7) Federal Support to Provinces and Territories

(8) Civilization.ca - History of Canadian Medicare - 1930-1939 - Conclusion

Complex Emotional States and Perceptions Drive Healthy-Unhealthy Choices

2011-04-23T10:21:00.000-05:00

If you're sad you're more likely to choose unhealthy foods compared to when feeling happy (1) ; that is unless of course you're feeling happy about the present or past. If you're feeling happy about the present or past you're more likely to make the unhealthy choice, compared to having positive hopeful feelings about your future, in which case you're more likely to make a healthy choice. (2)

If only it were that simple. If food is advertised as being organic or some other health inspiring description we're more likely to believe the positive suggestion and perceive we can and should, eat more of the food, regardless of whether it is factually healthy or not. (3) In fact you may actually perceive being more hungry later after having consumed food you were told was healthy, but if you freely choose to eat healthy you will feel satisfied and not feel more hungry later. (4)

Clenching your fists, grit your teeth, and flex your muscles! A new study suggests doing so may stimulate a more potent burst of will power allowing one to overcome a food temptation or cope with an unpleasant situation. (5)

Umm.. can't I just eat and not worry about all this academic mumbo-jumbo? Of course! Err.. if you're emotionally calibrated and aware of how your emotions drive food decisions, otherwise you may blindly eat, and eat, and eat..

Obviously if we eat too much we'll gain fat. Clearly if we keep this up we put ourselves at significant risk of becoming unhealthy. Common sense right?

So.. why is our population becoming more overweight every year? Where is the application of this common sense?

Researchers are showing that despite the obvious negative effects of overeating most people feel compelled to overeat most of the time. We have to move beyond talking about the latest diet and exercise scheme and become more aware of our habits, our social norms (overeating is celebrated), environmental cues, and how our emotions and sense of reward, risk, and harm affect our healthy, or unhealthy decisions.

Let's stop being eating automatons and start feeling good about mindful, healthy choices.

(1) Food-mood Connection: The Sad Are Twice As Likely To Eat Comfort Food

(2) https://www.jcr-admin.org/pressreleases/041711162837_Winterichrelease.pdf

(3) Health halo effect: Don't judge a food by its organic label

(4) JSTOR: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37, No. 3 (October 2010), pp. 357-367

(5) JSTOR: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37, No. 6 (April 2011), pp. 1046-1064

The Dark Side of Emotional Intelligence

2011-04-23T09:36:00.001-05:00

Emotional Intelligence, which arguably can be interpreted in a few different ways, has generally been accepted as referring to the ability to be self aware of our own thoughts and feelings, as well as being astute and sensitive enough to correctly interpret the emotional state of others.

A benefit of having a higher emotional intelligence is the ability to be more empathetic towards others when they're feeling down (or up), and having a greater ability to understand ones own feelings and make better decisions with this insight.

A new study carried out at the University of Toronto and published in the journal Psychological Science (1), suggests emotional skills can be used for good or evil.

(Cue Darth Vaders breathing sounds)

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"In one study, the researchers had participants fill out a survey on how strong their “moral identity” is—whether it’s central to their sense of self that they treat other people with kindness and compassion. Then they had people take part in a game that tests how their behavior benefits the group. (Each person chose how many points to take from a pool; the more points you take, the better your chance of winning a lottery, but if everyone takes the maximum points, there will be no lottery.) People who have a high moral identity were kinder to others in the group—even more so if they were good at emotional regulation.

In another study, they did much the same, but for the dark side; they asked people how Machiavellian they are—for example, if they agree that “anyone who completely trusts anyone else is asking for trouble.” Then the participants answered questions about a number of behaviors, for example if they’d ever publicly embarrassed someone at work. People who were Machiavellian were more likely to have treated their coworkers badly—particularly if they were good at emotional regulation.

“Emotional intelligence is not character,” Côté says. “It’s like any set of skills that we have—verbal, mathematical, analytical—these are skills that can be used to promote moral goals or selfish goals.” Some employers are training people in emotional intelligence with the hope that it will make employees beneficial to the group. But, these results suggest, better emotional intelligence can also help people treat each other badly if they are inclined to do so. The results also suggest that training employees on emotional intelligence or EI may be a good thing as long as it is combined with enforcing guidelines for ethical conduct in the workplace."

That bully who knows how to push your buttons? You might begrudge their seemingly ignorant behaviour, but chances are they're actually pretty bright but choose to use their insight to make you feel like crap and therefore carry out their evil sith-like schemes.

So work on being more in tune with human emotions, but beware the power of the dark side. Use your new power for good : )

Yes, I am a sci-fi nerd. No apologies.

(1) Press release: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Two Sides of Emotional Intelligence - Association for Psychological Science (Authors, Stephane Cote, Katy DeCelles, Julie McCarthy, Ivona Hideg- University of Toronto, and Gerben van Kleef- University of Amsterdam).

How To Create And Maintain Motivation

2011-04-18T11:01:00.010-05:00

Nothing motivates like success.

A sense of reward allows us to perceive whether or not we have succeeded.

Great. So how do you feel rewarded and achieve success? Seems like the old chicken and egg conundrum.

Set a long term goal that is interesting to you and is difficult to achieve, but not too difficult.

Allow yourself to feel reward from making small steps towards the big goal. Once you get a taste of success it tends to snowball and motivates you continue succeeding.

Make the primary goal and the steps along the way something you can measure. "I want to feel better", is legitimate, but is too subjective to quantify and compare progress.

Make sure you celebrate your success in a healthy way. A common error is using junk food or overeating as a treat or reward for achieving our fitness or health goals. Doing this continues hold healthy choices as not rewarding, and unhealthy choices as the real reason you are exercising. It doesn't take long to start making shortcuts to the unhealthy reward and sabotage progress.

Expect to have set backs and work on perceiving setbacks as part of the process. Look at setbacks as incentive re-establish your reward connection with your healthy goals. It can take more than 20 weeks to start feeling like your new habits are natural instead of forced.

Learn how to make new reward associations with the new habits, and disassociate reward with the old habits

Bring in the calvary. It's true the main source of motivation has to be self inspired, but it helps to have the support of others. Let your friends and family know what you are doing, and tell them about your successes and when you trip up. They'll be there to celebrate with you and help you through the sticking points. No back up available? You can definitely succeed on your own. Become your own best advocate and keep setting the bar higher until you reach your goal, then maintain your success.

If you're waiting for someone else to motivate you, there isn't a very good chance you're going to feel motivated any time soon.

Damn! Now what?

We'll each have something fitness or health related that motivates us, but might have some trouble making the transition from contemplating doing something that will reward us, to actually doing it.

To overcome this create a moderate goal that isn't unrealistic; losing 20 pounds in a week, entering and IronMan next month, or too easy, "I vow to get off the couch today"!

Here's an example:

Goal: Lose 20 pounds and reduce blood pressure.

Set realistic time frame: the most successful long term weight loss results occur when weight loss is between 1 and 4 pounds per month. Losing 20 pounds over 20 to 40 weeks is realistic.

Losing 1 to 2 pounds every month or so will keep you motivated because this success is very achievable.

It's true that safe weight loss can easily be 4 lbs per month, but it's also true that maintaining that rate of loss has a much higher chance of failure, and after not achieving the short term goal 3 or 4 times often results in feelings of defeat, and many give up.

If reducing blood pressure through weight loss is your goal, talk to your doctor about it. You can work with your doctor to set up future check ups to monitor blood pressure and weight changes, and your doctor can help ensure you're doing it safely. Adding the doc also adds a person that you'll feel accountable to, which can help maintain motivation.

The goals that are the most motivating are individualized and originate within you. Is there something about your health or fitness that you find yourself wanting for? Whatever that is, that's a good place to start. Goals like losing weight to look better at the beach can be used as short term motivation to get you started, but unless you attach a long term feeling of continued reward to that you'll most likely pack on the pounds again in the winter.

Getting fit fast doesn't work, even for pro athletes. Recent research shows that 51% of hamstring injuries experienced by NFL players occur during a 7 week preseason training period. For triathletes, 68% of preseason injuries are from training too much.

This is where realistic goal setting becomes very important. Hammering hard without preparation will leave you feeling sore and burnt out, and no, these are not signs you're doing it right. Too hard too soon does provide short term results, but over the long term injury is the most likely outcome.

Taking it easy to start an and making steady gains over six months will make you more fit than starting off with a boot-camp style of training that pushes you too hard too soon.

"But summer is only a couple months away, I don't have time."

Probably the most common concern I hear regarding amping up exercise in anticipation of summer.

The challenge is we'll often put ourselves in this position annually, and kick ourselves each spring for not keeping it up over the winter.

Better to think of making a long term sustainable fitness level that is built over time rather than trying to squeeze it all into a few weeks or months. Start now and build gradually and you'll still be more fit for July and August. Continue with those gains by giving yourself ongoing challenges to improve and by next summer you'll be far more fit and feeling much better.

Neuroplasticity

Think of neuroplasticity as a fancy scientific term for, "it's all in your head". Our brain holds our sense of reward, risk, and harm, and yes, we use our brains to generate our own motivation or allow ourselves to feel a lack of motivation. Research has shown that we can change our habits from good to bad or bad to good and that whichever we do, that's what we get good at doing and that's where we tend to stay... if we do nothing about it.

I used to crave cigarettes. Now the thought of a cigarette disgusts me, and this feeling is elevated when I see a cigarette, or worse, smell one. So what happened? I used to be addicted. The scent of cigarette smoke used to make me want to light up.

Neuroplasticity happend.

Instead of my brain making automated reward associations with smoking, my brain now associates smoking with risk and harm.

The same thing can happen with exercise and nutrition habits, but we have to give it time, and need to practice being self aware; that is, being able to comprehend and interpret how we feel and how we are responding to those thoughts. Some refer to this process as an expression of "emotional intelligence"

When I was quitting smoking I would often think, "Just one. One will be OK, I've done really well so far one won't hurt.. this will be the last one."

That's the automated behaviour developed over time to support smoking. What did I do?

I recognized that I should expect to have these thoughts, and these thoughts are driven by established habit, but that these thoughts are not really justification to light up. I had to tell myself there is no reward with smoking and that ultimately I will feel better if I don't give in.

Ultimately this is how we maintain our motivation to change; we have to change not just our actions, but our thoughts and feelings that are attached to those actions.

If we continue to see exercise as arduous and an ends to a means but not necessarily enjoyable or rewarding, it won't be long before we are replacing exercise with other actions that we feel are more rewarding.

How about good old "will power"? Think of will power as a sort of temporary booster switch you can flick on to a get short term burst of motivation. It works, but it runs out of power quickly. If we try to rely on will power alone we'll literally burn out mentally. Ongoing motivation comes from an internal drive and natural reward association with our goals. We have to practice our new habits and teach our brains to automate reward associations with the new habits. Imagine not having to work at feeling motivated to exercise or eat healthy.. That's what happens when living healthy becomes a habit.

The best thing? Everyone can succeed.

Beetroot Juice Studied Again: 15% Increase In Anaerobic Endurance

2011-04-16T11:04:00.001-05:00

Another study looking at beetroot juice (1) has been published in the American Journal of Applied Physiology.

6 Days of 500 ml/ day of beetroot juice increased time to exhaustion during severe-intensity running by 15% in study subjects.

The results are attributed to the high nitrate levels in beetroot juice, which act on reducing the oxygen cost of running.

Blood pressure was also reduced: Systolic BP decreased from 129 to 124 mmHg after the 6 days of beetroot juice.

A different study published in Medicine and Science In Sports and Exercise (2) looked at the effect of 500 ml of beetroot juice consumed 2.5 hours before cycling time trials.

I was more interested in this study because it tested beetroot juice in a more real world competitive challenge. When an earlier study (2009 (3)) came out suggesting increased anaerobic performance from 1 week of beetroot juice consumption I of course couldn't wait to try it.

Once I trained my pallet to like the taste it was pretty good.. a little tart at first. A friend of mine who tried it said they thought it tasted great right away. My results? I couldn't tell. Nothing showed up in my training measurements, but I didn't do lab testing, or controlled time trials. I keep meticulous records of my lactate, heart rate, and power output though, and over the 4 or 5 times I tried a one week trial of 500 ml/ day of pure beetroot juice no notable increase in performance occurred beyond what I usually see. Subjectively I can say that I could not detect any extra feeling of short term power endurance.

The cycling time trial performance study (2) showed a 2.8 to 2.7% increase in performance for 4 and 16.2 km time trials, pretty big change for doing nothing other than drinking 500 ml of beetroot juice 2.5 hours prior to competition. This study did not do the longer one week of daily beetroot juice consumption trial like the other two studies I cite here so who knows, maybe there would have been a larger increase in performance with the one week trial.

(1) Dietary nitrate supplementation reduces the O2 cost of walking and running: a placebo-controlled study

(2)Acute Dietary Nitrate Supplementation Improves Cyc... [Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011] - PubMed result

(3) Dietary nitrate supplementation reduces the O2 cos... [J Appl Physiol. 2009] - PubMed result

51% Of Hamstring Strains Occur In Preseason Training

2011-04-16T10:50:00.000-05:00

Hamstring injuries are particularly debilitating and can easily take an athlete out for a whole season.

A recent study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine (1) looked at hamstring injuries in NFL players over a 10 year period.

51.3% of the hamstring injuries occurred during the 7 weeks of training preceding the season start.

Pre-season training is notorious for hammering athletes hard during training camps and during athlete assessments. This strategy is opposite to the proven long term progression where intensity and total work loads are increased incrementally as an athlete demonstrated adaptation.

I believe we're still trapped into believing the go hard or go home hyperbole. It's true that athlete's can't achieve maximum performance without maximally intensive training, but it's also true that the real potential of athletes is brought out over very long periods of conservative increases in training loads.

We've all heard athletes boasting about how stiff and sore they are after hard workouts, and indeed some athletes feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment if they barf at a workout; proving that they truly worked as hard as possible.

Not really.. barfing is a result of abdominal distress in this case. Vomiting is not measure of muscle performance, efficiency of movement, or good tactical skill.

Want to prevent hamstring injuries? Assess the function of all the muscles from the hips down, fix any problems found, then gradually increase training loads over long periods. According to this study, avoiding entering pre-season training camps unprepared would be a good idea.

On the coaching side, if we know athlete's are at a high risk of injury during pre-season training, careful thought as to how to proceed with pre-season training loads might help reduce injuries.

(1) Hamstring Muscle Strains in Professional Football Players

iPhone App for Checking Sodium Levels in What You Eat

2011-04-10T00:45:00.004-05:00

The iPhone has some interesting techno do-dads that lets it measure everything from seismic activity, sound levels, g-force, your heart rate, and your position on the planet. Actually there are few smart phones that will do all these things.

So what kind of super scanner thingy has been channeled by this latest app to reveal how much sodium is in the food you eat? Meh.. It's just a database. Oh, it does use the accelerometer to emulate a salt shaker so you discover how much shaking it takes to jack up your sodium intake (40mg of sodium per shake).

While that's a whole bunch of fun and somewhat of a wrist workout, the real power of the app is in the list of over 2000 foods from "Canada's most popular takeout chains", according to the sodium101.ca website, launch site of the app. Besides, we get most of our sodium intake from what's already in processed foods and restaurant foods, not the salt shaker (77% from commercially prepared foods (2)).

The icon on the iPhone app is a red circle with the words sick of it! in the centre. Hmm.. I guess you can see some of the other nerdy apps I have on my phone too..

I found a popular national steak house restaurant listed and chose the following:

Prime rib 10oz
Caesar salad
Garlic cheese bread

The total sodium? 5362 mg. The amount is displayed in a thermometer like scale, complete with a glowing red boarder signalling you that you have achieved sodium purgatory.

The thermometer graphic has a couple lines depicting 1500 mg, the amount of sodium the average adult needs in a day, and 2300 mg, the upper tolerable limit. No, you don't barf if you go above 2300 mg, that's not what tolerable means here. More negative health effects are more likely when we consume more than 2300 mg of sodium per day. The average Canadian consumes about 3400 mg of sodium per day (1).

When you choose a really high sodium food (over 1000 mg) you get an ascending whistle noise plus a pop up window asking; "Do you really want to eat this?"

The sodium101.ca website says "the rate of stroke and heart disease could drop by 30% in Canada" if "most of us consumed no more than 1500 mg of sodium per day."

Recent research published in the Journal of Nutrition (3) shows that high sodium intake alters carotid artery structure.. makes arteries more stiff.

In 2009 Dr. David Kessler published the book The End Of Overeating, in which he describes his research that shows a combination of fat, salt, and sugar causes a "hyper-palatable" response where food tastes super rewarding, so much so it's beyond the brains normal capacity to properly process this heightened reward and so we have a big time desire to keep eating the high fat, high salt, high sugar food. Check out this article in the New York Times.

Personally I really enjoy eating out, but after seeing how much sodium and total calories there are in so many restaurant meals I've almost completely stopped going to restaurants with the exception of a few health food places. Some restaurants are responding to the growing, but small, consumer demand for healthier meals. For me this change can't come fast enough.

(1, 2) Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada

(3) Sodium Intake Is Associated with Carotid Artery Structure Alterations and Plasma Matrix Metalloproteinase-9 Upregulation in Hypertensive Adults

High Fat Intake Increases Blood Sugar; Adding Coffee Doubles Blood Sugar Rise

2011-04-09T23:09:00.002-05:00

Researchers at the University of Guelph (Marie-Soleil Beaudoin, Lindsey Robinson, Terry Graham) have found that fatty foods in combination with coffee causes a huge increase in blood sugar levels. (1)

This was the first study (published in the Journal of Nutrition) of it's kind, until now we didn't know about the combined effects of fat and coffee on blood sugar. Hey what you don't know can't hurt you right?

To test things out study subjects consumed fat, then coffee, then sugar. Researchers then looked at blood sugar levels.

Compared to the baseline response from an oral glucose tolerance test, a test used to measure the bodies response to a fixed amount of sugar intake, consuming fat before consuming sugar made blood sugar increase 32% more than consuming sugar alone.

When fat then coffee were consumed before sugar, blood sugar increased 64% more compared to sugar alone.

So.. is it a good idea to put loads of cream and sugar in a coffee? How about a nice sausage breakfast with coffee? Study authors say those at risk of type two diabetes or those with diabetes might want to change their coffee consumption habits.

"No problem, I'll simply wait a few hours between eating my fatty sausage and sipping my daily cup of coffee, can't go without my coffee.." Yes, I actually had quite a few people say just this when I told them about the study.

In the study though, the fat and coffee were ingested hours apart (6 and 5 respectively), and an hour after the coffee they were fed the sugar.

Though more research is needed to fully explain the result, the study also looked at hormonal responses at the same time and it appears fat and coffee some how blunt the bodies ability to tell itself to remove sugar from the blood; the pancreas may not be getting the message to release insulin.

Any consumption of high fat or coffee (the study used two cups of coffee) can have severe and long lasting affects, according to quotes from the researchers in this Science Daily article. So, no, waiting a few hours between chewing the fat and downing the java won't help. Does this mean we should consider not eating high fat meals? Reducing coffee consumption? Thats crazy!

Or maybe it's crazy not to consider it..

(1) An Oral Lipid Challenge and Acute Intake of Caffeinated Coffee Additively Decrease Glucose Tolerance in Healthy Men

Too Much High Impact Causes Stress Fractures In Girls

2011-04-09T10:59:00.000-05:00

I'll give the quick summary to this story as I've covered the increase seen in repetitive strain injuries in other posts.

A study done (1) at the Children's Hospital Boston showed that girls aged 9 to 15 who accumulated 8 hours or more per week of high impact sports and sports training, like, running, jumping, basketball, volleyball etc, had a twice the risk of stress fracture compared to those doing 4 hours or less of high impact activity.

This may seem like another no-brainer, however if were that obvious there would not be the increase in repetitive strain injuries, like stress fracture, that are being seen in North America's youth who participate in sport.

The researchers point out concern for young athletes who are being given exercise loads that are beyond the bodies ability to adapt. It isn't that high impact is bad on it's own, it's that too much of it is bad.

Young athletes are often pushed into competing in and training for multiple sports simultaneously. The researchers say that it isn't unusual to see children training and competing for 20 hours per week.

(1) Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med -- Abstract: Prospective Study of Physical Activity and Risk of Developing a Stress Fracture Among Preadolescent and Adolescent Girls, April 4, 2011, Field et al. 0 (2011): archpediatrics.2011.34v1

Repetitive, high-impact sports linked to stress fractures in girls

Watching Your Brain Helps Control Thoughts

2011-04-09T10:48:00.001-05:00

All those mirrors in gyms; proof that regular gym goers are narcissistic?

Or could there be a more practical reason?

Using a mirror to watch yourself during strength training helps with visual feedback so you can correct your form in real time, improving and maintaining good technique.

Now researchers at the University of British Columbia (1) have used functional MRI to do much the same thing in getting people to observe their own brain patterns while learning to be more introspective.

Why do we need this? Don't we know when we're being introspective?

The results of the research are hoped to be put into practical use by helping people who may struggle with depression, anxiety, or trauma who may have negative thoughts they are not completely cognizant of.

It's true; we can have automated emotional and thought responses to things and just accept these feelings and thoughts as normal and respond to them as such.

For instance, the notion, "today is a really crappy day, just like every day", may be taken literally, but in reality to overcome the negativity associated with this negative thinking a person who improves their introspective skills would be able realize, "that's just a thought, and isn't necessarily true."

In the study, subjects were able to see a computer screen image that showed brain activity in the part of the brain used for self reflective thoughts, the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex. The real time feedback allowed them to see whether their thoughts were the correct thoughts to achieve the goal of being self reflective, or if their thoughts were non-related to the task.

The tasks were completed in a similar fashion to interval training commonly used in physical exercise. For this brain exercise the intervals were 30 seconds of raised or lowered mental introspection spread over four six minute sessions.

(1) ScienceDirect - NeuroImage : Improved modulation of rostrolateral prefrontal cortex using real-time fMRI training and meta-cognitive awareness

People control thoughts better when they see their brain activity | PsyPost

Maple Syrup- Confirmed Super Food?

2011-04-02T11:00:00.002-05:00

Last year researchers from the University of Rhode Island published a study (1) showing 23 phenolic compounds discovered in Canadian maple syrup.

News headlines touted pure maple syrup as the new super food to placed amongst other start foods such as blueberries and flax.

The same group of researchers, funded by AAFC (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), have now found a total of 34 phenolic compounds believed to be of benefit to health. Some of these compounds are the first to be discovered in nature.

One of the new compounds was named, "Quebecol", in honour of Canada's most prolific maple syrup producers. Quebecol is thought to be formed during the process of boiling down tree sap to a concentrated syrup.

Although this study shows abundant antioxidants in maple syrup, many foods contain these compounds. It should also be noted that there are no studies showing direct health benefits from consuming maple syrup so while this is interesting news, there is no evidence that supports a positive health outcome from consuming maple syrup.

1 tablespoon of pure maple syrup contains 52 calories, about 10 calories less than a tablespoon of table sugar. Maple syrup tastes more sweet than refined sugar so you get more sweet for less calories.

A tablespoon of maple syrup is about 20 grams and 52 calories.

28 grams of blueberries is 16 calories.

Half a cup of blueberries is 42 calories.

Here is a good counter point to the Maple Syrup study:

Canadian scientist slams maple syrup study touting health benefits

(1) Maple syrup phytochemicals include lignans, coumar... [J Agric Food Chem. 2010] - PubMed result

Allergic To Your Cat? There's a Vaccine For That

2011-04-02T10:35:00.000-05:00

Researchers at Canada's McMaster University have been developing a vaccine to treat people who are allergic to cats.

The vaccine is entering the final stages of clinical trials, and so far has been proven effective.

When cats lick their fur, their saliva left on the fur (mmm.. cat saliva..) contains a protein that some people are allergic to. The protein is also secreted from sebaceous glands in the cats skin, which is sloughed off as dander. Researchers used this protein and it's structures to synthesize the new vaccine.

No news on whether such a vaccine might be covered by health insurance or our medical system..

Cat allergy vaccine safe and effective, study suggests

Seniors Can Gain Muscle Mass And Strength

2011-04-02T10:15:00.000-05:00

A new study from the University of Michigan has shown that seniors can build about 2.5 pounds of lean muscle mass over about 19 weeks of progressive strength training; strength increased by 25-30% over the same period.

Dr. Mark Peterson, one of the study authors, identifies strength as one of the most important factors in maintaining function. Typically people become more sedentary as they age leading to loss of lean muscle mass and strength, and consequently less functional movement capacity.

Instead of loss of function though, seniors can actually gain function, and gain lean muscle simply by strength training.

The study authors are careful to explain that starting slow and easy with basic movements at home is important and that transitioning to gym with exercise equipment and adding more complex moves and heavier loads as one progresses is the key to muscle strength and size development.

University of Michigan press release:

Older and stronger: Progressive resistance training can build muscle, increase strength as we age | University of Michigan Health System

Resistance Exercise for the Aging Adult: Clinical Implications and Prescription Guidelines (PDF). The American Journal of Medicine (2011) 124, 194-198. Co-author: Paul M. Gordon, Ph.D., MPH., director of PAEIR. Funding source:None.

Multivitamins No Benefit

2011-03-25T12:28:00.002-05:00

Many people to choose to down a multivitamin daily because getting those extra vitamins and minerals is believed to offer some kind of health benefit. However, to date there are no studies that show that long term use of multivitamins reduces risk of cancer, heart disease or any illness.

The promise of hope is a powerful motivator.

Even if there is strong evidence that multivitamins do nothing, many will be quick to dismiss the hard evidence and supplant it with traditional urban myth beliefs. Kind of like believing in fairies.

Interestingly there is a lot of hard evidence that shows eating healthy food and exercising regularly does decrease risk of heart disease, cancers, and even the common cold.

So, pop a pill that does nothing at all, except increase the amounts of vitamins and minerals in your urine, or eat healthy and exercise?

If the outcome that motivates you is reduced risk of illness over a lifetime, then eating healthy and exercising regularly will provide you with that, but a multivitamin will not provide any additional benefits.

A recent study once again shows multivitamins do nothing. 182,009 study subjects were followed for 11 years. 28, 851 study subjects died during the 11 year follow up period. There was no association with protection against cancer or cardiovascular diseases from use of multivitamins. (1)

There are definite exceptions for vitamin and mineral supplementation though.

We know that those living in northern latitudes, like us Canadians, will have reduced vitamin D levels as we progress into the winter season. I take 4000 IU/ day of vitamin D between October and May every year. I discussed my vitamin D intake with my physician.

Cancer Canada, Osteoporosis Canada, and Health Canada each have recommendations for vitamin D intake (click on links to find out).

As we age (generally above age 50-60) our GI may become less capable of absorbing some nutrients, like vitamin B12 and iron. You'll have to talk to your physician about this.

Woman who may become pregnant are encouraged to take a folate and iron supplement; definitely talk to a physician about this. Health Canada recommendations for prenatal nutrition.

Although athletes are a big target demographic to sell vitamin and mineral supplements to, eating healthy will provide all the nutritive needs of all athletes, generally a multivitamin will not help an athletes performance in any significant way (2, 3). There may be an exception with ultra endurance athletes, those running huge volumes day after day in extreme competition (4)

Some endurance athletes who train too much can reduce iron and iron stores; this occurs more with female athletes than male athletes, but both genders are affected, and those who run are affected more than those who don't run. Running can cause destruction of red blood cells by literally pounding the crap out of blood cells in the capillaries in the soles of your feet. Poor diet is also a contributor to what is referred to as "runners anemia" (microangiopathic hemolytic anemia).

This means some endurance athletes may need iron supplementation, but don't self prescribe, you need a doctor to do the appropriate blood work and dietary analyses in order to determine if you have anemia, what the cause is, and what course of treatment is best. Typical symptoms of runners anemia are fatigue and reduced performance that does not resolve with normal recovery periods.

It may be that many runners simply need to eat better and introduce more recovery into their exercise routines to prevent runners anemia.

(1) Multivitamin Use and the Risk of Mortality and Cancer Incidence

Multivitamins and athletes:

(2) The effect of 7 to 8 months of vitamin/mineral sup... [Int J Sport Nutr. 1992] - PubMed result

(3) Vitamin and mineral supplementation: effect on the... [Am J Clin Nutr. 1988] - PubMed result

(4) Multivitamin-mineral supplementation prevents lipi... [J Am Coll Nutr. 2007] - PubMed result

Going Green; Don't be Naive

2011-03-23T19:15:00.003-05:00

It's fair to shop for organic or natural if that's what you want.

A couple things to consider, if something is actually organic or natural, whatever those terms are supposed to mean, is it actually better? Maybe, but a lot of the time there is no additional nutritional benefit to organic foods. There are some exceptions. Strawberries and blueberries when grown organically have been shown to contain more antioxidants and slightly more vitamins. The organic strawberries also had longer shelf life than conventionally grown. There are fewer pesticides on organic fruits and veggies so if that's a concern for you organic makes sense.

The largest benefits come from choosing whole foods over processed foods, not from choosing organic over conventionally grown. You're better off buying dry beans and cooking them yourself rather than buying canned bean soup, as most canned soups are super high in sodium and may have added sugars and fats for flavouring.

Making your own dinner from scratch tastes better and is more nutritious than buying a processed frozen dinner.

That's food, what about products like diapers, shampoo's and cleaning products? Can you trust the label that says "organic" and or "natural"?

CBC's Marketplace busts a few companies who's "natural" and "organic" labels don't represent what you might think they do.

Check out the link

CBC - Videos - /

PS

What do I buy personally? I always buy the big container of organic spinach. Why? It's cheaper than the other spinach. It pays to buy in volume.

When organic broccoli is the same or cheaper price than regular I buy organic, otherwise I buy regular. Organic broccoli is on sale often.

I'll only buy organic strawberries.

I buy local unprocessed honey directly from the bee keeper/ honey guy (Winnipeg MB) (John Russell Honey)

When I don't make my own bread I buy organic because it has no artificial sweeteners or flavours. I don't like the idea of fake stuff in my food. If you can't make your product without fake stuff, then your product doesn't measure up on it's own- that's my opinion.

I look for food products with no or minimal processing, no trans fats, low sodium, and no artificial flavours or colours. Most of what I eat is whole foods.

Spring and Summer Are On The Way; Hello Exercise Injuries

2011-03-18T18:20:00.001-05:00

Ahh spring.. Birds singing, fresh air that doesn't freeze your face off, the sweet sound of snapping tendons, and cry's of agony from athletes sustaining muscle injuries.

While most Canadians, in fact most people around the entire globe, don't exercise much, there is still a small steady growth in people who do exercise who are starting to get more interested in taking their fitness to a higher level.

Whether a high school or university athlete or a 30 to 60 something recreational athlete, more of the active crowd are taking part in more demanding exercises. Which is great. It feels really rewarding to experience the fitness gains from high performance training.

For the general exerciser, spring and summer see more physical activity than winter.

In Canada leisure-time physical activity is 86% more likely in the summer than in the winter. (1)

My most difficult challenge as a coach is not getting sports enthusiasts and athletes to put time into training, the challenge is getting them to recognize when to go easier and placing importance on mastering the basics, avoiding overreaching, and injury prevention.

Here are some interesting stats:

High school students who play sports all year long have a 42% increase risk of overuse injury, and potentially had the greatest reduction in injury risk by taking one season completely off from sports each year. (2)

1st year college/ university swimmers were more likely to become injured than later year college/ university swimmers. The reason is thought to be too rapid of a transition to more demanding training and competition. (3)

Pro rugby players have significantly more injuries when they did more strength training or more field training. (4)

Overuse (training too much) accounted for 68% of preseason and 78% of competition season injuries in triathletes (5), and a training volume of around 8-10 hours per week seemed to be associated with fewer injuries compared to greater or fewer training hours for triathletes (6).

This spring, whatever activity you're into, put a lot of that enthusiasm into easy and progressive basic training. It's a slow start, but if we can learn to associate the reward of greater future performance, we can really connect with the value of a progressive long term plan. Go easy now so can you can go harder later, when it means more.

Muscle strength imbalances are very common, and cause plenty of performance and movement impairments. These strength imbalances are insidious; we don't really feel them, and most people don't really know what they are and are aloof to these gremlins doing dirty deeds affecting hip mechanics, core stability, and muscle coordination.

The first step is getting assessed. Look for a coach or trainer who knows how to do a movement screen or basic technique analyses. They'll run you through a series of movement challenges to look for knees going the wrong way, lumbar and pelvis instability, and poor movement patterns due to either strength imbalances, old bad habits, old injuries, or insufficient range of motion (inflexibility).

Your exercise plan will then be built on the results of these tests with the goal of progressing you from the prehab/ rehab stage, to full on performance training. Be ready to devote up to 8 months or more to this process before really hitting training hard on all cylinders.

Yes, 8 months or more. I know.. I just lost 95% of people who may have been buying into this.

"I don't have 8 months. The season starts in 8 weeks". The only real response I can provide that has any resonance or reason are the research results I've linked here. They all demonstrate that training too much too soon results in injury, and that more focus should be placed on building gradually as performance allows.

We've developed a consumer mentality towards increasing performance. We think we can demand someone sell us a program that supplants the longer path to performance with a short cut. We're so accustom to this we now think the short cuts are the real deal and the idea of long term gains is an uninformed concept. The thing is we can't apply our consumer demands to our DNA or our cells biological processes that dictate adaptation to exercise.

We can use our consumer power to get a lower price for buying more volume, or even go high end and demand a product be custom made to our ideal demands. But that only works for things that can be easily formed the way we want. Human biology on other hand is what it is. You can't lay down $100.00 and expect muscle cells to absorb the money and subsequently get bigger or stronger.

You could argue that for dopers this is sort of how it works; they buy illegal drugs that do manipulate the natural response to exercise. But for the rest of us it's up to us learn the natural capacity of our bodies to respond to exercise then model our exercise based on that understanding. We have to be humble enough to accept that this is the way it is, and also disciplined and excited enough to reap the benefits of the long term approach.

There is a limited sweet spot for training intensity and progress that our cells can respond to. Go beyond that, and we're simply exceeding our cells ability to adapt and no matter how loud a trainer yells at your muscles, or how much you paid for the latest training gimmick, it won't do a damn thing.

Let's step back from that and tune into how fit we really are or aren't, learn about our specific strengths and weaknesses, and follow a long term injury and overuse resistant program.

I've seen it over and over: six to eight months of correcting muscle imbalances and getting back to basics catapults a persons following seasons to a higher level of performance. Nothing motivates like success and once we get passed this current trend of over-doing it and experience the success that comes with healthy long term exercise plans, more of us will be motivated to take it easy more often.

Taking it easy when it counts is what allows us to maximize performance when it counts.

1. Seasonal variation in leisure-time physical activi... [Can J Public Health. 2007 May-Jun] - PubMed result

2. Overuse injuries in high school athletes. [Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2010] - PubMed result

3. Injury patterns in Division I collegiate swimming. [Am J Sports Med. 2009] - PubMed result

4. Relationship between training load and injury in p... [J Sci Med Sport. 2011] - PubMed result

5. Factors associated with triathlon-related overuse ... [J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2003] - PubMed result

6. Training patterns and sports injuries in triathlet... [J Sci Med Sport. 2004] - PubMed result

How's Your Sleep?

2011-03-14T14:23:00.004-05:00

CJOB's Question of the day today;

Are you having trouble adjusting to the time change?

Go to the poll to vote and see the poll results.

Sleep depravation is a big problem; we know that being sleep deprived can make you a risk on the road as judgment and reaction time are impaired.

Not getting enough sleep is also connected to weight gain; not getting enough sleep increases hormones that make you feel hungry, and decrease hormones that make you feel full, influencing you to eat more.

Lack of sleep makes you less productive at work, and decreases the positive effects of exercise.

So when it comes to our annual "spring ahead" time change where we set our clocks one hour forwards, do we suffer all the ill effects of sleep depravation from missing one hour of sleep?

Only if you are already sleep deprived. If you usually get all the restorative sleep you need (between 7.5 and 9.5 hours) then missing one hour will not cause any significant change in cognition or reaction time.

If you're like many people in the modern world though, and you regularly get only 5 to 6.5 hours of sleep, then for you knocking off another hour of sleep will take its toll.

An interesting factoid: when we take away schedules and clocks and observe natural sleep times, almost everyone will sleep for 9 to 10 hours.

"I'll sleep when I'm dead". This axiom is used to defend reducing sleep time in an effort to increase the time we have to do whatever we do when awake. We tend to dismiss the importance of sleep, feeling that sleep is an inefficient use of time. Some will even feel guilty for getting "too much" sleep as from their perspective they've wasted time that could have been spent working.

It turns out our work time is more productive when we get the right amount of sleep as we make fewer errors and have greater problem solving capacity and creative prowess.

If we are sleep deprived or have one night of terrible sleep we can't simply catch up by sleeping in the next day. It could take a week or more of healthy sleep to get us close to returning hormones to normal levels and reset our sleep clock.

Caffeine doesn't wake you up, the drug caffeine does not compensate for the health risks associated with lack of sleep, such as obesity, heart disease, and type two diabetes.

Caffeine withdrawal occurs every night a regular caffeine consumer sleeps. By the time morning comes around one will feel they really need that morning cup. Indeed, following through on the urge does make a person feel better, but this is only because of a dependance on caffeine. Cut the regular coffee intake for a couple weeks and a person will no longer experience the strong feeling of needing the java jive because there is no caffeine withdrawal that instigates the urge for more of the drug.

The old fashioned, but evidence based advice still stands:

Go to bed at about the same time every night
Get around 8ish hours of sleep
Wake without an alarm

What? Wake without an alarm? Are you nuts? I may be, but not in regards to this topic. If we get enough healthy sleep and go to bed at the right time, we'll wake up without an alarm feeling rested. We just have to go to bed early enough so the timing works out that we awake when needed.

Of course if we're not living in a cave we will need that alarm from time to time, but as much as possible if we wake without an alarm, we will have far more energy than any energy drink could ever provide us.

Interesting info from Stats Canada on sleep

New Consumer Urine Test Could Show Overeating

2011-03-05T11:09:00.000-06:00

Tanita working on hand-held gauge that shows who pigged out | The Japan Times Online

It's not out yet, but Japanese company Tanita Corp, makers of body fat scales, is working on a device that checks urine levels of sugars and other properties to check if you've consumed too much food.

Of course you could just look at what you ate..

US and Canada Obesity Rates Similar, Nobody Wins

2011-03-05T11:05:00.000-06:00

Key findings from a recent study released by the CDC shows that 24.3 of Canadians are obese, and in neighbours to the south 32.6% of the population is obese.

Same deal; we eat too much and don't exercise enough.

Products - Data Briefs - Number 56 - March 2011

Alcohol: Good For The Heart?

2011-02-26T11:12:00.001-06:00

A new review of past research on alcohol consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease concludes that light to moderate daily alcohol consumption might reduce risk of heart disease by %14 to %25. The analyses was led by Paul Ronksley at the University of Calgary.

Association of alcohol consumption with selected cardiovascular disease outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis -- Ronksley et al. 342 -- bmj.com

Of course, this news get's big headlines all around the world.

Let's look at some other recent research on alcohol that did not get big headlines..

Light to moderate drinking increases risk of esophageal cancer

Alcohol drinking and esophageal squamous cell carc... [Int J Cancer. 2010] - PubMed result

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2010) — Alcohol can do much more harm to the body than just damaging the liver. Drinking also can weaken the immune system, slow healing, impair bone formation, increase the risk of HIV transmission and hinder recovery from burns, trauma, bleeding and surgery.

Sleep quality negatively affected by alcohol intoxication; contrary to popular belief, booze does not help you sleep better.

Sleep Following Alcohol Intoxication in Healthy, Y... [Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2011] - PubMed result

If you have high blood pressure, binge drinking can increase risk of cardiovascular disease by 12X.

Alcohol Consumption, Blood Pressure, and the Risk ... [Curr Hypertens Rep. 2011] - PubMed result

Some peoples brains are more permeable to alcohol, increasing risk of alcoholism.

Alcohol Effects on Cerebral Blood Flow in Subjects... [Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2011] - PubMed result

Healthy living is best for reducing risk of breast cancer. Healthy living includes avoiding alcohol. Healthy living index: "defined as the joined effect of moderate and/or vigorous-intensity physical activity, low consumption of fat, processed foods, refined cereals, complex sugars, and the avoidance of tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption"

Healthy lifestyle on the risk of breast cancer. [Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2011] - PubMed result

Alcohol consumption increases risk of brain tumours

Alcohol consumption and risk of glioblastoma; evid... [Int J Cancer. 2011] - PubMed result

Alcohol abuse shortens telomere length

Shortened telomeres in individuals with abuse in a... [Int J Cancer. 2011] - PubMed result

We see lot's of press for possible positive effects of boozing because drinking is a coveted social pastime.

The facts are, compared to healthy living: good sleep, regular exercise, and good nutrition, daily consumption of alcohol has no benefit, but is fraught with health risks.

Just one high fat meal starts clogging arteries

2011-02-19T22:21:00.003-06:00

I've written before about research showing that just one high fat meal can cause arteries to stiffen for a few hours after slugging down the lard. The medical folks call this artery stiffening "endothelial dysfunction".

The first thing most people think of is, "so what. I only eat high fat meals occasionally". Usually the infamous, "it's just one time" excuse is rolled out.

You've heard me address this jewel before.. yeah, it was just one time last week. And the week before. Oh, right.. that wedding last month.. nice buffet! Christmas.. huge spread this year. Office party, Superbowl party, birthday party.. you get the picture.

Then there's the "treat" thing. Yeah I know.. I like to treat myself a little now then.. I know I should cut back, but it's.. it's just a treat and I deserve a treat!

No doubt the food tastes good. But is fat gain a treat? Are high triglycerides, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure a treat? "Cris, you're a patronizing jerk!" Yeah, I hear that sometimes, or sometimes that sentiment is so strong I don't need to hear it, I can taste it. Most of the time though it's just laughed off because there isn't a strong connection with the real and immediate health risks associated with overeating.. overeating has a well established reward profile.

When I was a smoker I had the same defence when someone would say I should quit smoking.

I don't see smoking as a "treat" anymore, and the very thought of assigning cancer sticks the "treat" moniker is simply insane.

The latest research shows that one high fat meal increases inflammatory responses that lead to clogging arteries; in this case the study fed a serving consisting of two breakfast sandwiches, hash browns, and an orange juice from a fast food restaurant to willing study subjects.

The most interesting part of what was discovered was that if your waist girth was greater than 32 inches and you already had high triglycerides, you had a greater inflammatory response.

What's worrisome is that the inflammatory response that's causes here is a specific kind of lipoprotein increases and this is directly related to making fats stick to arterial walls, or "clogging arteries".

It's a self feeding mechanism.. overeating causes fat gain and rise in blood triglycerides. Having increased abdominal fat and high triglycerides increases the artery clogging effect of overeating, and every time a high fat meal is consumed, this process occurs.

Endothelial inflammation correlates with subject triglycerides and waist size following a high fat meal — AJP - Heart

Is there anything that can be done about this?

Practice disassociating reward with high fat meals.

Eating healthy is the real treat. Eat healthy, tasty meals and eat less.

We'll feel great, have more energy, and won't feel trapped by thinking we need high fat unhealthy foods to feel rewarded. Oh yeah.. and we won't have high tryglicerides, clogged arteries, or be overweight.. that's worth more than a high fat meal.. isn't it?

Obesity rates and life expectancy increase

2011-02-19T21:26:00.007-06:00

Life expectancy has been increasing since about the 1400's when the average life expectancy was around 40 years. Historically sanitation and medicine are two of the largest improvements that have increased human life span.

With medical advancements in treating cancer and other serious diseases, people are beating the odds or living longer with disease due to improvements in early detection and treatment regimens.

We've been hearing for the last two decades that we're becoming too overweight and out of shape, which will reduce our quality of life and ultimately shorten our lives.

It's true that being overweight and physically unfit increases your risk of developing illnesses that can reduce your life span, and it's true that every year more of the population is overweight and out of shape.

Despite this, life expectancy for the population as a whole continues to increase due to mostly to medical advancements, up to 2008.

For the first time since 1993, life expectancy in the US dropped by a couple months in the US, according to this press release from the CDC (average life expectancy was 77.8 in 2008 in the US):

CDC Media Relations - Press Release: December 9, 2010

In canada it looks like this:

So what does all this mean? Not much to any individual. Just a bunch of numbers. That's the problem with population averages; the average does not explain each individuals circumstances. Those who smoke and drink daily and are overweight are less likely to see the endpoint of these life expectancy predictions or averages.

In reading reports on life expectancy I found that statisticians and medical researchers reported they don't always have precise explanations for fluctuations in trends. Some of the year to year changes are due to how data is collected and processed. In general researchers are still predicting a drop in life expectancy if we continue to become more overweight and out of shape, but increases in medical care may offset this.

Being overweight as a population may compensate for the impact smoking had on our population; fewer people smoke now compared to the 40's through 60's so death rates due to smoking related illness is down, but more people are overweight so death rates due to complications from obesity are on the rise.

Let's make this practical.

Out of all I read on the subject here are the things that take years off your life:

Smoking
Excessive alcohol
Poor diet
Being overweight or obese
Physical inactivity
Parents or grandparents died young from cancer or heart disease
High stress
Being bitter and angry most of the time
Limited access to health care/ not getting regular medical check ups after age 40

Here are the things that add years to your life:

Maintaining healthy body weight
Daily exercise
Good nutrition. Specifically, eating less
Good sleep
Low stress
Having a positive outlook
Close friends and family
Access to healthcare over entire life

For smokers, the most significant improvement to health and life expectancy comes from quitting smoking.

An important detail; the last 20 years of your life are much higher quality, retaining a higher level of physical mobility, cognition, and fewer health complications, when you do the things in the second list.

That sounds pretty good! Live healthy, and love it :-)

iPhone app part of international study

2011-02-12T11:07:00.001-06:00

Innovative iPhone app developed to carry out psychological and social research

How good are we at recognizing real words from none real werds?

There's an app for that. The app is free.

Check out the link above for the full story

Short breaks while studying improves focus

2011-02-12T11:05:00.002-06:00

It's thought that our vigilance towards studying decreases over time so we lose focus and don't want to pay attention anymore.

But why is it then that we can instantly focus on something else other than what we're studying? Like say, a TV show, or conversation with someone?

Attention span may not be an issue.

That was an idea that professor Alejandro Llears decided to put to the test of science.

Turns out taking short breaks while studying prevents our brain from ignoring a constant, and therefore "ignorable" variable in our environment.. that book in front of us.

Brief diversions vastly improve focus, researchers find

Exercise Makes You Smarter

2011-02-05T11:05:00.005-06:00

Back in 1999 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute published some interesting data:

Running boosts the growth of new nerve cells.

“These observations support the idea that exercise enhances the formation and survival of new nerve cells as well as the connections between nerve cells, which in turn improves long-term memory.”
Terrence J. Sejnowski

Since then other research has shown that aerobic exercise stimulates neurogenesis in the hippocampus.

In short, exercise grows brain cells.

A german study in 2008 raised the point that in casual observation "not all athletes are necessarily smarter than more sedentary fellows".

OK, so maybe we need more research to learn where the causal link is; in what way does exercise affect the brain, and do these changes necessarily result in becoming more smart.

Here's a few studies that begin to reveal how exercise specifically makes your brain cells grow.

Warning; You may want to run before reading these.. might need the extra brain cells..

Exercise modulates insulin-like growth factor 1-de... [Mol Cell Neurosci. 2010] - PubMed result

Voluntary exercise induces anxiety-like behavior i... [Hippocampus. 2010] - PubMed result

VEGF is necessary for exercise-induced adult hippo... [Eur J Neurosci. 2003] - PubMed result

Prolonged voluntary wheel-running stimulates neura... [Hippocampus. 2009] - PubMed result

So aside from wordy studies done on mice, is there any indication that exercise will help humans learn?

In 2008 John Ratey MD published his book SPARK, in which he takes readers on a fascinating journey that explains how exercise makes us smarter, and there are plenty of practical examples.

Here's a short CBC News documentary, "Brain Gains" (about 15 min) on how teacher Allison Cameron at Saskatoon School City Park Colligate put her students on treadmills for the first half of math class, and got better learning results from her students:

http://www.johnratey.com/articles/Brain_Gain_-_CBC_.wmv

Also in the book Ratey talks about what now is a famous reference for this topic; how schools in Naperville changed their curriculum so that students could exercise before exams and just prior to classes where their academic performance was lower.

The results? Better learning and better test scores.

Here's another great reference, Active Living Research published in 2007;

"Students whose time in PE or school-based physical activity was increased maintained or improved their grades and scores on standardized achievement tests, even though they received less classroom instructional time than students in control groups."

Getting a good nights sleep also increases cognition.

Want a good score on an exam? Workout before class, make it continuous moderate to vigorous aerobic activity at least 20 minutes in duration (but don't go until you're totally wiped out, that defeats the purpose!)

Workout within two hours prior to an exam.

Go to sleep and wake at the same time every day, and don't mess with the sleep cycle by staying out late on weekends just prior to exams.

Happy studies!

Exercise Builds Bone Density In Older Men

2011-01-29T11:01:00.003-06:00

A study comparing the effects of vitamin D and calcium fortified milk with or without exercise, and exercise alone, showed that exercise provided a bone mineral density increase, but the fortified milk alone did not increase bone mineral density.

The study was done on men aged 50-79

Osteoporosis Canada recommends that adults over age 50 should have 1200mg/ day calcium, and 800 to 2000 IU/ day of vitamin D.

Meeting the daily vitamin and mineral requirement is essential, but exercise, specifically weight bearing exercise like jogging or weight training, is also critical.

It's important to note that the study protocol used a progressive resistance training model, meaning that the subjects gradually increased the loads they lifted as they became stronger. Staying with light weights doesn't cut it. Impact exercise like jogging and jumping are also potent bone builders, but like all exercise, more intensive activities should be added only as overall strength and physical ability increases.

Obesity: Socially Acceptable to Discriminate

2011-01-26T21:25:00.001-06:00

Use of the N word or saying that women are only good for bed and kitchen, and a person reveals their ignorance, overt prejudice, and will be rightfully chastised for such gross discrimination.

Call someone fat and lazy though, and for many this will be viewed as just calling it like it is, instead of what it really is, a judgmental, derogatory, discriminatory insult.

I think we need to deal as a society with obesity on several levels, one is preventing weight gain and losing weight, and the other, which I don't talk about much but perhaps should, is about how being overweight opens a person up to being discriminated against.

From overweight kids being bullied to obese coworkers being denied promotions or being the target of office gossip, I think we generally know this is wrong, but it isn't seen as being as wrong as racial slurs.

Discrimination against overweight people is as prevalent as racial discrimination

No more fat jokes - thestar.com

Bias, discrimination, and obesity. [Obes Res. 2001] - PubMed result

Obesity: attitudes of undergraduate student nurses... [J Clin Nurs. 2009] - PubMed result

Being overweight can prevent people from access to healthcare either from the individual dreading being weighed by the physician and any accompanying comments, or because some physicians are less inclined to do complete physical exams on obese patients.

Stigma and Discrimination in Weight Management and Obesity

Most of the population is overweight. Although overeating is being "normalized" by this trend there is still the irony of social stigmas being attached to being overweight.

When thinking about our health and fitness where being overweight is concerned, let's also be mindful of not being judgmental or discriminatory, as that has never helped anyone.

Jack LaLanne Dies at Age 96

2011-01-24T14:27:00.001-06:00

"Anything in life is possible, if YOU make it happen!" - Jack LaLanne

That quote was posted in memorandum on Jack LaLannes blog today.

He died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

LaLanne opened his own health club in Oakland, CA in 1936, and had a successful fitness show that ran in the 1950's.

Check out this guy's list of achievements.. Fantastic!

Jack LaLanne was relentless in his positive attitude and message of how living healthy makes you feel good and live longer, and showed us all how it's done.

LaLanne will be missed, but he created a legacy message.

For me, Jacks message is summarized best in his one liner "LaLannisms"

I've copied these from his website

Anything in life is possible if you make it happen.
Anything in life is possible and you can make it happen.
Your waistline is your lifeline.
Exercise is King, nutrition is Queen, put them together and you’ve got a kingdom.
Don’t exceed the feed limit.
The food you eat today is walking and talking tomorrow.
Ten seconds on the lips and a lifetime on the hips.
Better to wear out than rust out
Do – don’t stew.
People don’t die of old age, they die of inactivity.
First we inspire them, then we perspire them.
You eat everyday, you sleep everyday, and your body was made to exercise everyday.
Work at living and you don’t have to die tomorrow.
I can’t die, it would ruin my image.
If man makes it, don’t eat it.
If it tastes good, spit it out.
What’s it doing for me?
Your health account is like your bank account: The more you put in, the more you can take out.
If one apple is good, you wouldn’t eat 100.
It’s not what you do some of the time that counts, it’s what you do all of the time that counts.
Make haste slowly.
Eat right and you can’t go wrong.

New Guidelines for Exercise

2011-01-24T14:04:00.001-06:00

Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines Adults 18 - 64 years

Guidelines for youth, adults, and seniors

I blogged last week about these new guidelines being released.

Here they are, and the presentation is a little better than I anticipated. I would still like to see more emphasis on how good being fit makes you feel today, instead of always focusing on future health benefits.

Yes, yes.. of course I completely support the promotion of exercise as a disease preventer. Over a lifetime that is perhaps the greatest benefit.

But as factual as that may be, not many people in their teens through their 40's are making a big connection with how todays actions will affect their life 50 or 60 years from now.

I think benefits like feeling good right now, better cognition, feeling strong, flexible, alert, and energized (no I'm not plugging the latest super supplement, just exercise) are more immediately tangible.

Students can achieve higher test scores if they exercise before an exam. That's an immediate benefit to exercise.

Stressed? Who isn't?

Regular exercisers are less stressed. A small amount of physical activity can immediately reduce stress levels, take the edge off, and invigorate you. And at the same time you get a bunch of health benefits.

Knowing that future risk of illness is reduced has some appeal to it, but typically most people don't immediately associate value and benefit with exercise, so talking about a future benefit, which is abstract, does't have much punch to it.

Unless a person perceives benefit from exercise, they are unlikely to want to do it.

Just a thought..

Let's say there's a person handing out $100.00 bills for free, no strings. It's a street corner lottery. You have an option for prizes though:

$100.00 cash or, the feeling and the benefits of having done six months of regular exercise.

How many people will take the cash?

There's a good reason the cash is chosen. We immediately understand the value and utility of money, nobody needs to explain the immediate or future benefits.. we get it.

Before I get emails saying that someone who has no food will have more immediate need for the $100.00, I'll agree that is undeniable. However notwithstanding the obvious exceptions, most will still see no value in the free exercise benefits prize.

And that's my point. The fitness gains one can make in six months is worth more than $100.00, but most will not perceive it that way. Just the opposite is true, most will think that exercise is kooky, arduous, and interferes with more important things that have to get done.

If we had the ability to instantaneously make you as strong, flexible, alert and energized, compared to how week, out of energy, and stressed many people are, it would feel like you just popped a magic drug. It would be a feeling that would be hard to give up, and that most would want back if taken away just as quickly.

The new guidelines for exercise let us know that Canadians are so out of shape that we'll benefit from very little exercise. It doesn't take much to get going, and for the most part, adding more exercise and more vigorous exercise as you adapt, means more benefits.

Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in eight weeks

2011-01-22T10:55:00.001-06:00

ScienceDaily (2011-01-21) -- Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. A new study is the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.

More breaks from sitting are good for waistlines and hearts

2011-01-22T10:53:00.001-06:00

ScienceDaily (2011-01-13) -- It is becoming well accepted that, as well as too little exercise, too much sitting is bad for people's health. Now a new study has found that it is not just the length of time people spend sitting that can make a difference, but also the number of breaks that they take. Plenty of breaks, even if they are as little as one minute, seem to be good for people's hearts and their waistlines.

Ride The Bus, Catch a Cold

2011-01-22T10:50:00.001-06:00

A new study from the University of Nottingham shows that if you've used pubic transport recently, there is a 6X increase in developing an acute respiratory infection.

Study subjects who had recently developed acute respiratory infection symptoms were asked to fill out questionnaires detailing bus or tram use in the 5 days preceding the onset of their symptoms.

Those who used public transport within 5 days prior to becoming symptomatic were 6 times more likely to develop acute respiratory infections.

What to do?

Not a lot. Wash your hands after getting off the bus, try not to touch too many surfaces, and don't lick the hand rails.

Eat Healthy At Home

2011-01-14T23:45:00.004-06:00

Justine Routhier of the Weekend Wakeup Show on CJOB gave me a call about this article she read in the Huffington Post "How Eating at Home Can Save Your Life".

Link on link below for audio of the CJOB interview with Justine

The main points I liked from the article were:

Throw out junk food
Learn how to cook and shop
Plant a garden
Invest in food

Whenever we see lists like this it doesn't mean we have to embark on all of the initiatives immediately to benefit. Choosing just one of these will lead to positive health changes that make you feel good.

While the family meal may seem like something from the 1950's, or indeed earlier as the article points out, there are many positive health benefits to making our own meals at home.

Make preparing meals a reward process that provides nutritious food that makes us healthy and feel good. Sounds like mere words, a bunch of self appeasing rhetoric, but it's true.

We're so detached from eating for our health the mere mention of it puts many on the defensive as it's seen as a suggestion that trespasses on ones personal choices and rewards.

But those heavy calorie foods are killing us.. literally. And we smile, and we make jokes, and we laugh it off. Every year though it catches up with more and more Canadians becoming overweight, inactive, and presenting with the health problems that accompany being overweight.

But why dwell on that..

It really is satisfying and rewarding to sit down with the family and enjoy a healthy meal.

Take turns making meals, explore the uncountable number of healthy recipes from around the world that can be found on the net.

One of my fave's is Worlds Healthiest Foods

If you haven't done it for a while, make a point of having some regular healthy family meals.

Canadians to be told to exercise less

2011-01-14T21:55:00.007-06:00

Chris Reid, host of Cityscape on UMFM wanted to talk to me about the latest buzz in health and fitness. This week one of the top stories was about Canadians being told to exercise less.

We're not really going to be told to exercise less; CSEP (Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology), will, according to news releases this past week, be presenting their new recommendations for the minimum amount of exercise Canadians need to get a health benefit. Which isn't much.

Children 5 to 17 years old will be pared back from the current 90 minutes per day to 60 minutes of daily physical activity.

Adults 18 to 64 can feel good about only needing 150 minutes over an entire week compared to the current 60 minutes daily of light activity, or 30 minutes daily of moderate intensity activity.

The over age 64 changes are about the same for the 18 to 64 crowd.

The past Handbook for Canada's Physical Activity Guide suggests we don't need much activity to start realizing health benefits, and that starting with a mere 10 minutes walking is all it takes. Which is right of course.

These official guidelines are already quite conservative, and achievable.

The problem is very few people like exercise or see any point to it, so it doesn't really matter how much we minimize the time recommendations for exercise, few will buy into a product that has a poor reputation.

The genius is supposed to be that we align Canadian recommendations with that of the World Health Organizations physical activity recommendations. This should work really well because countries like the US, Australia, and UK, have adopted these lower guidelines, and we can see how well it's working as those countries clearly have the healthiest and fittest populations.

Oh wait, I lost my mind for a moment. Actually those countries each are experiencing the same obesity and reduced physical activity trends we are, if not worse.

So maybe the genius is about putting into reach physical activity recommendations that can be achieved. We've set the bar too high. People are so far away from being physically active for 60 minutes a day that doing so seems like you might as be asked to swim the Channel.

We're better off lowering the bar to only 150 minutes over seven days.

Let me clear something up here. These minutes of "activity" that are being referred to here.. we're not talking about slugging out a high intensity workout in the gym or running 10k up hill with a packsack full of bricks. We're talking about walking. Just walking.

On one hand that shows how dismal we're doing.. Canadians are so physically inactive that from the time we wake to the time we go to bed, most of us don't move our bodies for more than 60 minutes total.

Yikes.

The good news is that being so out of shape it doesn't take much physical activity to produce measurable health benefits.

The recommendations also include flexibility exercises and strengthening exercises. Click on the link to the guide for more info.

I don't think this new deal will work. There should be emphasis on how good it feels to gain the benefits of strength, flexibility, and endurance. Up front and centre we should talk about building excitement towards the rewards of getting more fit and little by little by gradually adding more exercise.

How about something simple like;

"Start easy, add more, feel great".

One phrase imparts the idea of not needing much to get going, but implies there's more to be done, and that it's rewarding to do so.

Already CSEP is fielding questions about the bar being lowered (read this CTV Calgary article in which Silken Laumann, former Olympic rower doesn't show much love for the new standards), which is certainly how this will be perceived by many.

I usually like what CSEP does. I'm not in favour of this latest move though. It's a retreat.

"No safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke" US Surgeon General report

2011-01-04T12:48:00.000-06:00

I used to smoke.

I used to scoff at non-smokers.

"What.. are you too weak to handle it?" If one of those do-gooder non-smokers told me about the risks of smoking I would reply, "hasn't done anything to me yet!" Or the infamous, "So and so smoked until they were 90 years old.. didn't bother them."

Of course these reactionary words from me were simply an expression of denial and my inability to come to grips with the reality of my own ignorance and addiction.

I remember feeling cool and tough looking when I smoked. Or perhaps even sophisticated if I took a drag in just the right way;

The "French inhale"- letting smoke come out of your mouth and be drawn up your nose in two silky streams..

The long hold- holding the smoke in your lungs, then speaking without releasing smoke until you finished your sentence, which concluded with a sigh where you let the smoke out. If you were really good at this you could hold enough smoke in your lungs to allow smoke to percolate out of your mouth on the start of your next sentence. Apparently this advanced smoking technique shows how in control you are.

And who could forget blowing circles? While I never quite mastered this pinnacle of smoking prowess, I was able to blow off a few good "o's" now and then. Impressive.

What a wicked irony wherein the smoker is actually displaying the various ways they can introduce toxic chemicals into their bodies under the guise of modelling self control, intellectual superiority, entertaining party tricks, or perhaps even freedom to choose.

After a while those superficial ego based attachments to smoking wained and I had simply become a habitual smoker. It was part of life (sic). Cigarettes were on the grocery list; milk, eggs, bread, veggies, oh yes, and the other necessity; a pack of smokes.

I would receive as gifts fancy ashtrays or high end lighters with the mechanical action of a finely engineered Porsche manual transmission. My favorite lighter was one from Japan; it looked like a cigarette and held the same dimensions; taking off the filter revealed the flint action. Unwittingly these were all ways of celebrating a deadly habit.

Quitting

Despite the front, inside I always knew that smoking was not a smart decision. Eventually this other me, the non-smoking me, made an increasing presence in my conscious thought. You know the heart beat sound at the beginning of "Dark Side of The Moon", by Pink Floyd? That's how my desire to quit started. Faint, but grew steadily, and finally a huge relief to defeat the beast.

Before success though, I failed many times. I tried cutting down, switching to "light" cigarettes (what a joke those are), and went cold turkey. Then there was the throat infection. It was pretty bad. A doctor told me if I didn't quit right then, the throat infection could take a turn for the worse and become very, very serious.

Go here for the conclusion on how I finally quit smoking.

It's been known for decades that smoking, if you do it long enough, will eventually cause serious health problems. This might give the impression that one has some time to consider their smoking habit.

It's now understood that there is no safe level of cigarette smoke exposure either first or second hand. The chemical constituents of cigarette smoke instantaneously cause cellular damage.

Quitting smoking has immediate benefits.

I can confess that quitting feels really good. Instantly sleep quality improves, cognition improves, energy levels increase, and best of all you don't have that beast of burden dragging you down. Maybe that isn't the real "best of all"; that might best be reserved for the fact that quitting smoking saves your life both physically and emotionally.

If you're a smoker; quit. You'll like it :-)

New Years Stuff

2010-12-31T18:27:00.005-06:00

Are you ready to make a new you this year?

Becoming more fit and healthy is one of the most personally rewarding things we can do for ourselves.

You feel great, your brain works better, you're less likely to get sick, cancer risk reduces significantly, and you live longer. Study   Study  Study  Study

But new years resolutions are often more contrived and misguided with strict regimes rather than well thought out and sincere; after all, what is suddenly so important about getting fit next week that wasn't important last week?

It's easy to convince ourselves that the new year resolution is uniquely important, but that is a simple misdirection that most often doesn't work. Of course if a person happens to make some healthy commitments to themselves at this time of year and follows through for the rest of their lives I think that's great, but the stats say that nearly everyone who get's excited about personal change this time of year will fail in their pursuit before six months passes, often before even a few weeks pass, because of unrealistic goals and expectations.

With Canadians becoming less physically active and more overweight every year from 1981 to 2009, the annual rush for healthy resolutions is clearly not panning out, despite the best of intentions.

Is that a bit of a downer?

Boot camps, crash diets, fad diets, and really hard workouts are the soup de jour, but soon these contrived fancies go sour and back come the old habits.

That's the reality.

So how do we overcome that?

Although only a very small percentage of the population is successful in making the transition to living a healthier lifestyle, the answer is simple.. do what those who succeed are doing.

Research has shown the following are the key ingredients to making it work, and I can personally attest to these values as I have made the transition myself, and over a couple decades of coaching I've seen these traits turn couch potato's into the lean and fit..

Eat a healthy breakfast every day, and don't skip meals. Skipping meals makes you more hungry and you are more likely to overeat later. Also, food is not your enemy, it's not something you want to avoid. Learn to feel rewarded by healthy eating.

Learn how many calories you need to consume and stick to it. Eat less on days you move your body less, eat more when you move more. Go here to learn about how much food you need in a day.

Start with a conservative exercise program; you don't need to get fit fast, you just need to get fit.  With regular exercise you're going to get fit anyway so you may as well do it right and get better long term results. Gradually build an exercise routine that you like. Make sure there is a mix of cardiovascular and strength training exercises. We need both. If you're not sure what to do consult a professional.. it's easy to do exercises wrong and limit your results, or worse, get hurt.

Weigh yourself every week, whether or not you're trying to gain or lose weight.  Where did those extra pounds come from? Gradual weight gain can go unnoticed for a long time. If you're losing weight keep it safe and avoid losing more than 2 pounds per week as that is a sign of losing muscle and becoming dehydrated. If you notice a weight trend going the wrong way the sooner you catch it the sooner you can correct it. You keep track of your bank account to keep it balanced, same thing goes for your body.. keep track of your weight, and waist girth. If your waist girth is more than 36 in for men and 32 in for woman, the research shows you are in a higher risk category for cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes.

Be honest with yourself; take an inventory of your current value and reward system and ask yourself if it's compatible with healthy living objectives. If it isn't, then practice unlearning feeling rewarded by unhealthy choices, and learning to feel good about healthy choices. We're often trapped by the idea that overeating is fantastic reward, and that exercise is a stupid chore that we labour at. But really, it's being out of energy, weak, inflexible, and overweight that traps us. It really does feel great to be fit and healthy, make it a goal.

How much exercise? That really does depend on the individual. Generally, unless you're already a fit athlete, doing light to moderate activity that doesn't make you feel sore or exhausted is the way to go when starting out. Even one time per week will benefit. Research shows those who exercise around 4-5 days per week have about 40% fewer colds than those who don't exercise.

Keep these basics in mind:

Cardio

One time per week for 30 to 60 minutes will provide a small benefit. Four times per week will provide much more benefit when you can handle it. Walking is a good place to start but walking won't make you fit. Go too hard too soon and you're likely to burn out. Intensity should be high enough to increase breathing rate, but not so high that you're out of breath. Interval training is very effective, but build some base fitness before you add hard or moderate intervals. Each person has their own limits, but it will typically take a couple months of gradually increased intensity during steady state cardio before you're really ready for intervals. You can start with intervals earlier if you have no health risks for high intensity exercise, but more often than not front end loading high intensity into exercise programs causes short term bliss, but also short lived results as people tend to burn out.

Learn to use heart rate monitoring.

Weight training

Again, one time per week will benefit. Two times is better than one, and three can be better than two, but adding a fourth session doesn't seem to provide more benefit than three well done sessions. Three days off between weight training sessions has been shown to be optimal.

Set's and rep's.. One set will provide great benefit when you're starting out. Once technique is good and you're accustom to regular weight training, research shows doing two set's is about 40% better than doing one set. Doing three set's might net you another 5-10% gains greater than with two set's.. but you can get very, very strong with two set's done at a high intensity, once you're ready for the intensity. The common mistake is going too hard too soon. Starting out with light weights you can easily lift 20 to 30 times without feeling exhausted or sore is best (you should feel like you can keep lifting when you stop). As tolerance to weight training increases, push yourself harder.. use a weight heavy enough that you can't lift it more than 20 to 30 times. There are many variations of set's and rep's that work, but typically lighter weight with more reps is a better place to start.

Flexibility

Stretching is very important. Tight muscles cause many biomechanical problems that can lead to poor technique, limit gains, and lead to repetitive strain injury. Stretching after every workout when you're still warm is best. Hold each stretch until you feel 2 - 5 releases (tightness feels like it reduces slightly). Stretching works best if you can have a silent mind, breath slow, and relax.

Self massage/ professional massage

Go here to learn about trigger point massage therapy and you can learn work out those tight spots yourself.

Using The Internet To Improve Nutrition

2010-11-28T08:12:00.002-06:00

EATracker

Click on that link above to take you the Dietitians of Canada website diet analyzing tool.

The EATracker is a web based food analyzer that allows you find out if eating too much or too little of anything.. calories, vitamins, minerals. check it out, it's a great tool, and it's free!

Other favorite sites of mine

Worlds Healthiest Foods

Nutritiondata.com

Can Sport Science Fitness Testing Help You?

2010-11-28T08:05:00.005-06:00

Chris Reid, who has hosted the Weekend Wakeup Show on CJOB am radio for the past one and a half years was subjected to some sport science fitness testing: blood lactate testing while exercising on a stationary bike.

I amended the test by deleting the maximal exertion portion of the test. How do you test someones fitness if they don't go as hard as they can?

Fitness testing has come a long way. We now test according to what information we need, instead of using generalized tests or formulas. If we're looking for suitable intensity levels for base conditioning we no longer have to push a person to their limit then extrapolate their appropriate levels of intensity for quality exercise.

By sampling Chris's blood lactate we we're able to monitor how his muscle metabolism was responding to exercise, then accurately determine what heart rate he should exercise at. For more details on lactate testing go here.

So how fit is Chris? He's more fit than the average sedentary Canadian (insert sound of crickets). OK so that's not exactly fit. Those cyclists we see riding their bikes in Winnipeg snow storms? Not that fit. Chris achieved the correct level of intensity for an easy steady pace that would make his muscles, heart, and lungs function better (that's what fitness is), but without the intensity feeling like you're going cough up a lung, and won't leave you feeling sore the next day.

The heart rate Chris should exercise at is 120 -125 beats per minute, where Chris's legs produce enough power to run a 100W light bulb. By comparison the average avid bicycle commuter will reach this level of exertion at about 160W, the average weekend warrior skier, runner, cyclist, will reach this level around 170-200W, amateur athletes 200-220W, and pro athletes about 280W (these numbers are greatly influenced by the size of the person; smaller more svelte people put out lower numbers, and larger more muscular people put out higher numbers).

Incase you were wondering, the worlds top cyclists when going all out for an hour will hold around 500 watts. Try 500W on a stationary bike at your local gym to get sense of how much power a pro can hold for an hour. Top sprinters will peak out at 1700-2200 Watts for about 5 seconds.

Keep in mind Chris's levels aren't peak levels, 100W is the intensity Chris would exercise at for 30 to 60 minutes and have it feel easy. Once he adapts to the easy exercise Chris will start doing more intensive interval training, but starting off with an intensity that won't feel too terribly demanding. Once Chris get's through the base conditioning phase, his body will be more tolerant to hard exercise. Exercise too hard too soon and adaptation is not very effective, and risk of excess soreness and injury is greater. When Chris is ready, which won't be long from now, he'll go hard and turn his body into lean, mean fighting machine!

Light At Night May Be Linked To Depression

2010-11-21T08:11:00.000-06:00

A new study on hamsters shows that a small amount of light while sleeping increased depressive symptoms. The light, equivalent to a what might be emitted by a small TV, affected the hippocampus region of the brain, which were thought to be the cause of the observed increased depressive symptoms.

Light entering closed eyelids at night alters melatonin production, which is an important hormone that regulates our sleep cycle, and now believed to effect the hippocampus as well.

Other sleep studies have shown that light exposure at night, such as from a night light, outside street lamps, or other sources, can negatively effect the quality of our sleep.

It's best to use black out curtains and ensure your room is dark enough that you can't clearly see your own hand held at arms length in front of your face. If you can see your hand, you room is too light for quality sleep.

Light at night causes changes in brain linked to depression

Compassionate Coaching Better Than Negative Coaching

2010-11-21T08:02:00.000-06:00

One of these phrases will activate regions of brain associated with positive imagery and being open to possibilities. The other will shut down brain circuits that allow you to perceive a positive future.

"You're doing that all wrong. Don't do it wrong, do it right. Do it like this."

"If you do it this way it will make you stronger."

A news release from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio highlights a study where compassionate coaching and a typical traditional method of coaching where compared.

The researchers used functional MRI to see which parts of the brain would be "lit up" when study subjects were exposed to different coaching methods.

The results showed how coaching that focused on future benefits affected the brain differently than coaching that focussed mainly mistakes.

Read here for more details.

From sports coaching to managing and training employees, "compassionate coaching" has a much higher potential of netting a better result. Researchers maintained that "everyone has to look at their weaknesses and take them on", but that focusing on doing that which creates a positive outcome is more important overall.

Some Creams To Treat Eczema May Make It Worse

2010-11-14T08:11:00.004-06:00

Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS). I'm familiar with avoiding this additive found in many soaps and skin products as it irritates my girlfriends skin. Because of this we only buy soaps/ shampoo's without this compound.

A study has shown that if creams used to treat the skin condition eczema contain SLS, it could make the eczema worse.

There is a thin layer of lipids on our skin that protects it, retains moisture, and helps to reduce the absorption of chemicals into the skin.

SLS reduces the thickness of this protective layer. People with eczema already have compromised skin, and SLS could irritate their skin further.

Effect of Aqueous Cream BP on human stratum corneum in vivo - Tsang - 2010 - British Journal of Dermatology - Wiley Online Library

How Chocolate May Reduce Blood Pressure

2010-11-14T08:01:00.002-06:00

I love chocolate. Of course if I show it a little too much love the extra calories will cause weight gain, and with significant weight gain comes all the health problems that extra body fat brings, including high blood pressure.

Studies have shown though, that in small amounts, dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa) appears to have positive health effects.

A new chocolate study from Sweden (where else) has discovered a specific mechanism of dark chocolate that over the long term may result in reducing blood pressure.

The study looked at the effects of 75 grams of dark chocolate (72% cocoa) on ACE activity.

ACE inhibitor drugs are a common treatment for high blood pressure. The dark chocolate caused an 18% reduction in ACE activity, comparable to the effect of ACE inhibitor drugs.

Reduced ACE activity over time will reduce blood pressure. The duration of this study was not long enough to observe reduced blood pressure, that will need another study.

Effects of Cocoa Extract and Dark Chocolate on Angiotensin-C... : Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology

Why chocolate protects against heart disease

An Electric Jolt To The Brain Improves Math Abilities/ Fit Kids Are Smarter

2010-11-07T08:25:00.000-06:00

Read this interesting story on how researchers found that applying a small electric current to the brain had lasting effects on increasing math skills. NewsDaily: Electric brain stimulation can improve maths: study

Although I find that fascinating, I'm more interested in how exercise and being fit increases learning ability and cognition. Students' physical fitness associated with academic achievement; organized physical activity

Students in 5th through 7th grades were followed, measuring academic performance as the students progressed through the grades. Fit students scored higher than less fit students.

Students who were less fit in grade 5 but then more fit by grade 7 improved academically. Those who were more fit in grade five but lost fitness by grade 7 showed a decrease in academic scores. Students who maintained their fitness also maintained their higher academic prowess.

Stay fit and we can be as smart as a 5th grader.

More Exercise/ Fitness = Fewer Colds

2010-11-07T08:07:00.000-06:00

You can cut the number of colds you get per year, as well as reduce the severity of symptoms and duration of a cold by nearly 50%.

A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine has shown that being fit and exercising 5 days per week can significantly reduce the duration of colds and the severity of cold symptoms by between 32 and 43%, compared to those who exercise one or fewer days per week.

Caution is headed though, as previous studies have shown an increase risk of colds if one exercises too hard too often, referred to as overtraining, as well as increasing risk of repetitive strain injury and injuries in general.

Damed if you do, damed if you don't?

Hardly :-)

Exercise frequently and within your means.. don't overdo it and you'll be healthier and more fit.

Healthy Halloween: An Oxymoron?

2010-10-31T08:10:00.000-05:00

Don't eat too much junk on Halloween.

"You're a buzzkill Cris!"

"It's only once per year, lighten up!"

"Everything in moderation"

The average Halloween haul can easily be well over 1000 calories. One serving of Hershey's Kisses (9 pieces) is 200 calories. Is that bad?

Not really. Trick-or-treaters are likely to burn off several hundred calories walking door to door to gather loot, add a few more calories burned if the haul gets heavy.

So if we did a straight calories in - calories out comparison using a moderate consumption of candies versus the calories blown off collecting those candies, you may even things out.

Does that really happen? Or are kids, and adults for that matter eating more calories in candies than they burned off getting the candies?

Yes. It doesn't end on Halloween day though.. we usually sneak a few candies prior to Halloween, you know.. to warm up a little. The days following the big haul we gradually chip away at the pile of sugar, fat, and sodium (and artificial colours/ flavours) that make up the tasty treats.

For the naysayers out there who like to make extreme interpretations of what I say, I am not suggesting that we all lock ourselves in a room with treadmill on Halloween and completely abstain from eating any candies at all. I'm saying let's be a little more cerebral and less blinded by tradition. Enjoy halloween, but maybe put less into thinking that all the reward is in the over-consumption of crap.

Think about this.. is there any day of the year that places as much commercial and personal emphasis on promoting, anticipating, and feeling rewarded from eating healthy or simply living healthy?

Nope. Not one day.. ever.

All we have are holidays and festive times that celebrate overeating, and always overeating things are not that healthy to begin with, even in moderate amounts.

So where's the "everything in moderation" there? The "buzzkill" is obesity, type two diabetes, coronary artery disease and cancer.

No, you don't drop dead of cancer from eating some candy on halloween. I didn't say that.

Over the years we're alive though, the repeated celebration of overeating and emphasis on feeling rewarded via pigging out adds up. That's why more of our population is overweight every year, and those who are overweight are more overweight.

What can be done?

Collect less loot on Halloween. Celebrate getting together with friends and family, doing the costume thing, and trick or treating.

If your loot pile is really big, throw out half or more. That's right.. throw it in the garbage. It isn't wasteful to throw out the junk food, it's WAIST-FULL to eat it.

Associate non-rewarding ill-health effects with over-doing it, but don't totally freakout about it, it won't harm us to eat some candy treats.

Selection: Lot's of words in the ingredients label? Give stronger consideration to tossing it.

See if you can have some fun guessing the calorie content of the candies. Go online to the candy makers website and see what the number really is. Use the actual calorie count to help establish how quickly the calories add up and where to draw the line.

Avoid dipping into the bag while out trick or treating. Save all the junk to the end, dump it all on a table to take a look at what you have, and pick out a few of your favorites and enjoy those. Save a few for the next few days, but don't try to lengthen out the rations.. why prolong over consuming junk food? Give yourself 3 days or so of picking at leftovers, then trash the rest.

Thinking of what to hand out at the door? Why not hand out toys? A study that looked at kids sense of reward from receiving a toy or candy on Halloween showed that when given a choice kids were just as likely to choose toys as candies. Cut down the junk, add some toys.

Choose healthier snacks like low fat granola bars and pure chocolates.

Overeating doesn't have to be the main focus of reward on Halloween. Enjoy the festivities, eat a little less..

Gut Bacteria Help Cancer Fighting Properties Of Broccoli

2010-10-24T08:10:00.001-05:00

A new study shows that gut bacteria in the lower intestine can help release sulforaphane, the active ingredient in broccoli that has a protective effect effect against prostate cancer.

Just 3 to 5 servings per week of broccoli have measurable anti cancer affects.

Eat your broccoli :-)

Glucoraphanin hydrolysis by microbiota in the rat cecum results in sulforaphane absorption - Food & Function (RSC Publishing)