Nut milk Vs cow milk vs soya milk
Cow milk This is milk that comes directly from the teat of a cow. Nutrition Stand Point
Cow milk is specifically made for cows, so it has the best formula in it to a growing calf to help it grow up healthy and strong. When milking a cow it simulates the teat in the same way that a calf would when it wants feeding. From there the milk is taken to a plant and cooked to a very high temperature in order to get rid of any bacteria that doesn’t agree with human consumption. Also all of the puss is removed, to a certain extent. This is something a lot of people don’t like about cow milk, the fact that it contains pus, which is fair enough, you wouldn’t pop a spot and eat the remanence of it would you? WOULD YOU? That said, a lot of cows are fed GM grain nowadays, which can affect the milk of the cow as it has been show to effect the cows. Check out my article on Genetically Modified food! In America, some of their cows are injected or fed with growth hormone, in order to try to get more milk from one cow! There are some pretty horrific side effects of this on the cow and on the milk. Now, I don’t know about you but I don’t think having hormones in my milk is healthy, messing with hormones is something nobody should do, some people do it, bodybuilders mainly, people that have hormone deficiencies and there are other good medical reasons for using it. Drinking It in your milk doesn’t seem like it would be safe for consumption, whether it has been rigorously tested or not. Hormones within foods or foods that can alter your hormones are a big no no, when you start to mess with your hormones is when you get a whole manner of problems, so it’s best to be safe and keep away from any milk that may have been in contact with growth hormone. This said not all cow milk has hormones in it. If you decide to get milk I would recommend getting organic milk as the cows haven’t been fed GM feed and are more likely producing healthier milk. Nut milk Nut milk is exactly what is says it is, it is milk that is made from nuts. There is only one nut that has natural milk that can be taken from it and that is coconut milk! Coconut wilk can be drank straight from the coconut once the coconut has been cracked open! Positives of coconut milk Coconuts are highly nutritious and rich in:
Unlike cow's milk, coconut milk is lactose free so can be used as a milk substitute by those with lactose intolerance. This is a natural source of milk that doesn’t cause any animals any sort of discomfort and after the milk is processed the milk can be used to make a lot of other things so that none of the coconut is wasted. Negatives of coconut milk Majority of coconut milk brands are packaged in cans. These cans are lined with the synthetic compound bisphenol A or BPA to prevent corrosion. BPA can seep into the packaged food. The more acidic or fatty the packaged food, the latter which is the case with coconut milk, the higher the levels of leached BPA. What is BPA? Found to mimic the function of hormones, BPA has been associated with the development and subsequent worsening of hormone-dependent cancers such as breast cancer and prostate cancer. High urinary BPA levels in American adults have been consistently linked to peripheral arterial disease too. Continued exposure may also lead to type 2 diabetes mellitus because of its capability to bring about insulin resistance. BPA is also associated with childhood obesity as well as early onset of menstruation in American girls. From coconuts as a whole you will get quite a lot of fat in your diet which may not be ideal for some people. Here is what a 100ml serving of coconut milk contains:
Almond milk positives The other main milk that is made from nuts is almond milk again this is exactly what it says on the tin! Almonds do not have a natural milk like substance within them, so in order to to make the milk like substance from the almonds they have to be refined down. While refining anything some of the nutrients within them are lost, this goes for the cow milk too. This is not a massive problem as it can be artificially added in later on. Like conventional dairy products, almond milk is highly nutritious, and a good source of several important fat-soluble vitamins like:
One of the main problems with this kind of milk is that a lot of people happen to be allergic to nut products and as there is no way that is can be said it hasn’t been in contact with other nuts a lot of people will be unable to get this possibly better alternative to cows milk. Soy milk Soy milk is also highly nutritious but the nutrients can leave the product through the process of refinement, which means that it may be added in artificially later on. Soy milk can be made from whole soybeans or full-fat soy flour. The dry beans are soaked in water overnight or for a minimum of 3 hours or more depending on the temperature of the water. The rehydrated beans then undergo wet grinding with enough added water to give the desired solids content to the final product. Positives of soy milk One cup of soy milk contains 3.6 grams of fat, 6.3 grams of protein, 104 calories and only 0.5 gram of saturated fat. In addition to being low in calories and total fat it is also a great source of protein, soy milk's high unsaturated-to-saturated fat ratio promotes healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Although, soy milk also contains 0.5 gram of heart-healthy fibre, a 1 cup serving provides a relatively high 7.6 percent of your adequate daily intake of sodium. Soya milk also contains small amounts of Calcium, Iron, Vitamin B-6 and Magnesium. Soy milk is naturally lower in sugar content than regular milk. Cow's milk has about 12 grams of sugar per cup as opposed to only 7 grams in soy milk. This is why a cup of whole soy milk has only 80 calories, which is the equivalent of skimmed milk. In addition, the monounsaturated fatty acid in soy milk can inhibit your intestinal absorption of fat, which is another great advantage for weight loss. Drinking soy milk also gives you an extra dose of fibre, keeping your feeling fuller for longer time. Soy milk is a rich source of phytoestrogen, a unique plant hormone that can inhibit the production of testosterone in men. Reduced testosterone levels can significantly cut the risk of prostate cancer. Studies have shown that men who eat a soy-rich diet are less likely to develop prostate hypertrophy or prostate cancer. Negatives of soy milk There is a lot of genetically modified soy products as that is one of the things that is on the GM list, for more information on genetically modified foods go to my blog on it, on my website – erbwellbeing.weebly.com. If the soya that is being used is GM soya, then it is safe to say that you will be eating GM milk too, which isn’t ideal. There are often sweeteners within soya milk to make it taste better, this is usually shown by the term “natural flavourings” sweeteners and other refined flavourings have been taken from other substances by a chemical process and are not the greatest for you. The positives can also be a negative: the amount of Phytoestrogens, this is a plant compound that can alter oestrogen in the body and studies have shown that to much of this can alter certain hormones, again like I said with the cow milk you don’t want to go around messing about with hormones, which isn’t a great idea. Overview We can see from the positives a negatives above, each milk isn’t without a negative standpoint, but overall from the research I have found, nut milk happens to be the best milk that there is for you whether that be coconut milk or almond milk. Coconut milk has a lot more fat in it so if you are particularly conscious of your fat intake, I would keep away from this. Although as it has been said before on one of my blogs “the benefits of coconut oil” fats aren’t as bad for you as you may have first thought. The main problems with almond milk is that some of the nutrients can be lost in the refining process, and that some people are allergic to nuts. Then again all of these milks have allergies in them, which effect a lot of people worldwide: lactose intolerance, soy allergies or nut allergies. If you’re unlucky enough to have all of these there is also goats milk that you can try, if that’s a no go try some breast milk. << That’s a joke but if you really want to it won’t cause any harm. Let me know your thoughts. Don’t hesitate to get in contact me, if you disagree with what I’ve written.
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The main component within fish oil that people are after is omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), precursors of certain eicosanoids that are known to reduce inflammation in the body, and have other health benefits. What are omega-3 fatty acids? These acids are unsaturated fatty acid of a kind occurring chiefly in fish oils, with double bonds between the carbon atoms that are third and second from the end of the hydrocarbon chain. If that means anything to you… The benefits of omega 3’s There are many benefits to omega 3’s here are a couple good ones:
What is Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)? EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) is a fatty acid found in the flesh of Coldwater fish, including mackerel, herring, tuna, halibut, salmon, cod liver, whale blubber, or seal blubber. What is Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)? Docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, is a polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acid found throughout the body. It is a major structural fat in the brain and retina accounting for up to 97% of the omega-3 fats in the brain and up to 93% of the omega-3 fats in the retina. It is also a key component of the heart. EPA and DHA are basically the chemical make-up of Omega 3 fatty acids. How are omega 3s made? Fish oil is typically taken from sardines, anchovies, herring, mackerel, salmon and tuna are used most for human consumption as well as other Pelagic species. Pelagic fish live near the surface of the water as opposed to the bottom of the ocean floor. They can generally be found anywhere from the surface to 1,000 meters (547 fathoms) deep. The main method of extraction of the omega 3 fatty acids are as follows:
Effects on the environment There are a couple different methods of refining the fish oils from the fish in order to make them into a supplement, both these methods have one thing in common, they both require a large amount of fish in order to create the supplement. Farming a large amount of fish is bad for the environment and it leads to fish farms. Fish farms have started to use GM fish and feed for their fish in order to make them bigger so they can get more oils out of them when they when they are processed into the causals. The problem with Genetic modification is that it can lead to a number of health problems! For more information on GM foods visit my blog “genetically modified foods”. When the fish have been separated from their oils they are usually from there condensed down into fish meal which is commonly used in animal feed on farm. Which is nice to see that the fish body isn’t being completely wasted! Although after the refining process of the fish it begs the question of what goodness does fish meal still have in it? All of the goodness are taken out of them in order to be put into supplementation right? I suppose they still have proteins in them and other things will be added in order for the animals to get the right amount of nutrients they need. Types of fish oils It is well known that when putting certain fish oils into Styrofoam cups that the bottom of the cup will melt away, it’s because it’s an acid and it melts things and has the potential to kill you!! No not really… There are two main types of fish oils once processed- ethyl ester and reesterfied triglyceride. A molecule of fat has something called a glycerol backbone with three fatty acids of the structure (this is why its caller tri) it looks a little like this- As it says above omega 3 is a fat that is found naturally in fish and other substances, the main two being the ones above EPA and DHA, these are key in an omega 3 product to make them a good product. It has been found that if you replace the backbone (glyceride head) with ethanol (alcohol) you can create a product with higher concentrations of EPA and DHA. Sounds good in theory, as these are the building blocks of a good supplement and if more is produced then you don’t have to take as much in one serving to receive all of the wonderful benefits of omega 3’s. When this is done this product is known as ethyl ester. Surely this product is superior then? Well not necessarily, as studies have been shown that the absorption rate of ethyl ester products isn’t as great as re esterified triglyceride fish oil, which in turn shows that it is potentially better to get the latter of the two fish oils. Re esterified triglycerides fish oil is the better choice, although the problem being that ethyl ester fish oils are the main ones on the market. A way to test for this is to put some into a Styrofoam cup and if the bottom melts out then you have yourself the wrong kind of supplementation. Recommendations when buying fish oils
There are some good supplements out there but maybe you should just be eating more fish! Or if you don’t like fish start eating other things with omega 3 content like:
Thanks for reading Cardio
What about it? Nowadays cardio gets a bad rap, because it “burns muscle” and everybody wants to be as muscular as possible. Why would you want to have a healthy heart and lungs? I don’t know but a little longevity would be nice don’t you think? Many, many studies on cardiovascular exercise have been done and a lot of them show the same thing, that up to 30 minutes of cardio vascular exercise a day is one of the healthiest things you can do for your body in order to keep it in a state of good health and that is can help to prevent ailments such as heart disease and atherosclerosis. So why do people not like it? Well a lot of people don’t know how many different versions of cardio there are. People associate cardio with running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike, because of this is it perceived as boring, and to be honest I don’t blame them! I couldn’t think of anything worse than running on a treadmill for 30 minutes or more. People think that it burns muscle tissue. Why does this happen? This usually happens if you don’t have a sufficient amount of energy in the body to feed the body for exercise, which causes the potential for proteins to be broken down and used as energy in the body. This can be the case if your diet isn’t up to scratch. If you have a state of positive nitrogen balance in the body then your body will less likely break down muscle tissue. To gain a positive nitrogen balance what you need to do is make sure that you get a small amount of protein in every meal. This will help you to keep muscle growth. If you eat good quality carbohydrates (rice, pasta etc) then you will always have glycogen stores in the muscles that will be used for energy and the body won’t have to break down muscle. How to fix boredom? There are many ways to do cardio that isn’t just running on a treadmill i.e. walking on a treadmill No but seriously here is a list of a few different cardio ideas:
High Intensity Interval Training is a state in which you work to your maximum workload for a short period of time and then have a short rest afterwards. Usually the timing is done 1:2 ratios so in time that’s 10 seconds of maximum effort and then 20 seconds rest. This is good for things such as sprinting. This can be done using kettlebells, body weight exercises and other weight. There are plenty of ways that this can be implemented into a normal workout routine, so if you happen to hate anything but weights then you can do it with weights. It focuses more on high reps low weight in order to get the cardiovascular effect, you will know when you are doing it correctly because you will be dripping with sweat and your lungs will feel like they are on fire! These types of workouts are done in short powerful bursts and are much more interesting than simply running because they aren’t the same mundane thing for hours at a time. The intensity of this training is as high as it is often. It’s thought that as little as 10 minutes of HIIT is enough for the entire day. There is no need to ever spend three hours on a treadmill looking at the wall ever again! Some parting words here: Most if not all bodybuilders and people that are muscular and look ripped do cardio training! some will do different training to others i.e. 260lb body builder doesn’t need to run they can just walk because of the weight they are carrying it puts a lot of strain of their cardiovascular system and in their case they are so big they have to watch how much they do or they will burn muscle due to the body adapting to exercise and the truth is that 260lbs is hard for the body to carry and isn’t good for it when you are trying to run for half an hour a day. Conclusion Cardio doesn’t reduce muscle size if your diet is on point. If it’s boring, more than likely you are doing it in a boring way, there is no need to sit on a stationary bike for hours on end in order to achieve your goal. You can enjoy doing cardio in a number of different ways, as mentioned above. 30 minutes of cardio a day next to good diet is the greatest thing you can to improve your health, the only reason for not doing it is laziness. Don’t be lazy, do cardio. Thanks for reading xx The picture above was taken from - http://www.bodybuilding.com/
It’s a new age! More and more women are starting to try their hand at lifting weights, which I personally believe is brilliant! There are many benefits that you get from lifting weights that you don’t get from just doing cardio and vice versa. As a personal trainer myself, I know how difficult it is to get a lady that has never done weights or exercised much before to try and attempt light weights. Their main reasoning is “I don’t want to be butch”. This is a pretty fair concern, people go to the gym have their own goals and for some women who just want to attend the gym, maybe tone up here and there, doing weights can be quite intimidating. Especially walking into the weights room with big men and potentially big women lifting weights. First thing I will put across is that some men lift weights all the time and they aren’t huge! Not even all of them are muscular, but I do understand that you don’t particularly want to be very muscular either, which is fine. There are a lot of different variables that can change how a lady looks by doing weights. Performance enhancing drugs- most of the massive women that you see in bodybuilding shows are on performance enhancing drugs: steroids. Steroids are taken from the male hormone- testosterone, which can cause some other nasty side effects to women if it is taken, including: baldness, enlarged clitoris, facial hair and more. This is mainly taken by people who are competing in a bodybuilding show, so unless that is you aim you have no need of these. Hormones- females typically are full of oestrogen: the female sex hormone. This as a whole is a catabolic hormone, meaning- it prevents muscle growth and unfortunately isn’t ideal for people trying to shed a little bit of body fat too. There is a small percent of the population of women that actually have a high amount of testosterone- this is an anabolic hormone that encourages fat loss and muscle growth. If for any reason you are worried about having this, then go to the doctor and get your levels checked. It’s a fairly standard procedure: taking blood. Diet- Scientifically speaking, women are genetically built to bare children, resulting in a different genetic makeup. This is seen in the difference of body fat percentage and hormone production between genders, whereby women typically have a higher body fat percentage. The more muscle you have, the more calories you naturally burn- in order to grow a certain amount of muscle not only do you need to have a great diet: male or female, but you need to eat a lot in order to feed the muscles and make sure that they don’t diminish. This is a very hard thing to do, diet is the hardest part of getting in shape, but it is also the most important thing. The saying “you are what you eat” has never been truer. If you eat a lot of rubbish your workouts will suffer and you may not get the results that you want. Amount of training- there are a lot of women that are very toned out there, not necessarily big and muscular, this too takes A LOT of training and a perfect diet for that particular goal. So don’t worry if you don’t want that either you, don’t have to be like that. That sort of physic, not just for a female but for a male is impressive, it requires very low body fat percentage which is hard for women as we discussed above. This takes a massive amount of training and takes a long time to achieve. Especially because of the muscle maturity that a lot of these fitness models show, which means they either have great genetics or they have been at it for years working on themselves. The good stuff As you increase lean muscle mass, your body uses calories more efficiently. Daily muscle contractions from a simple blink to a heavy squat contribute to how many calories you burn in a given day. The more muscle contractions you experience during a day, the more calories you'll burn. If you have more lean muscle mass, you'll have more muscle contractions and thus burn more calories. Exercise in general is a great way to manage stress. Those who regularly strength train happen to manage stress better and get less stressed in usually stressful situations. So next time you need to blow off some steam, hit the weights. As you age, you are at risk of losing both bone and muscle mass. Postmenopausal women are at a greater risk for osteoporosis because the body no longer secretes estrogen. Resistance training is an excellent way to combat loss of bone mass, and it decreases the risk of osteoporosis. As noted above, resistance training causes an increase in energy expenditure hours after you train. A study published by the National Institute of Health suggests that the chronic increase in energy expenditure, even after a minimal resistance training session, may favourably affect energy balance and fat oxidation. So to all you ladies out there that are afraid to pick up the weights and have a go through fear of getting big. Don’t be! It could be the answer you’re looking for, in terms of burning a bit more of the excess fat off. You may also find it fun rather than those endless runs on the running machine to burn the equivalent of a mars bar. It’s a good way to mix things up a little bit. Although if you’re doing weights for the first time I would definitely suggest that you watch videos and get somebody to teach you as it is important to have correct form and be safe. Hopefully this helped a few of you ladies that are on the edge of whether to start doing weights or not. It will be really beneficial. One last thing if you’re intimidated by some of the men that are doing weights in the weight room. Two things: they are happy to see you there being the beautiful majestic creatures that you are. Secondly as a personal trainer myself, you see a lot of big muscly gentlemen with poor form and do things wrong all the time. So if you think they are judging you for being there, they probably aren’t, and on the off chance that they are they’re probably doing the exercises wrong anyway. Hope to see more of you ladies in the weights room achieving your goals! The Mediterranean Diet
What is it? This diet is primarily based on plant based foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and fish. This diet has been shown to reduce the risks of heart disease, so good stuff all round right? Well let’s look in to this a little further shall we. This diet is actually rather good, it has a lot of different foods that you can cook and they are all healthy, they make use of fats, proteins and carbohydrates in a good way. Positives of diet The nuts, fish and legumes allow you to get in proper amounts of proteins and fats and the vegetables allow you to get in carbohydrates as well as the whole grain bread, so you’re hitting all of the groups that you need to in order to have an acceptable diet. Due to the amount of different fruits and vegetables everybody will have a great amount of micro nutrients (vitamins and nutrients) in this diet, also because of the amount of colour in the foods there will be a lot more phytochemicals that will help get rid of the free radicals in the body. This will keep you very healthy and you may find that you have a lot of changes to your skin, nails and general wellbeing to the shear amount of nutrients that you wil be getting in this diet. Very easy to follow for people that don’t mind eating similar things each day, you can eat a bean salad, fish with beans and nuts etc. Negatives of diet The negatives include: Insufficient macronutrients – this diet has a lot of micronutrients in it which you will get from all of the healthy foods that it involves. Looking at the types of foods that you will be eating there aren’t many carbohydrates or fats in them, all of the values are rather low, due to the caloric value of the foods being so low. This is bad because it will leave you hungry, being hungry while dieting is hell! While you’re on this diet, I would recommend eating more nuts and other fats than fruits and bread, as eating the fruit and breads will cause an insulin response and make it harder for you to lose weight, depending on how much you’re eating. Some fish have good amounts of fat in them i.e. salmon and mackerel, but are relatively low in calories so you may need to eat more of this in order to get in a good amount of micronutrients. Low calorie – this diet is very low in its caloric intake due to the foods that are being eaten, this is fairly typical for a diet. People want to lose weight, so they eat less because more calories out than calories coming in will lead to weight loss, it’s a basic rule when It’s comes to dieting. The problem with this rule is it often leaves people hungry, when people are hungry they tend to cheat on their diet and it’s never with another healthy meal, it’s always cake… ALWAYS! To get in the right amount of calories you may have to have a lot more food on your plate in order to fill yourself up. The problem being when people see a heaped amount of food they think they shouldn’t be eating that amount of food and feel guilty. When you’re on a low calorie diet you should eat until you feel full. Too much of a good thing- this diet has very little processed food in it which is a positive, but what does processed food have? It has sugar, when people find out that they can substitute fruit for processed food they will eat more fruit. Fruit is good, but too much of it is not because although it is packed with fibre and nutrients it is also packed with sugar. Although it is natural sugar too much of it is bad, if people decide to have 10 portions of fruit a day they will still receive an insulin response due to the amount of sugar in their system. Insulin response causes you to store fat and burn off the sugar in the blood stream rather than the stored fat cells, so although this diet is good the amount of fruit that is eaten should be monitored due to the insulin response, eating too much fruit can be counterproductive to what you’re trying to achieve. It’s very much a case of everything in moderation. Time- the amount of different recipes that come with this diet is really good, but in a world of a busy person, they may not have time to do extravagant dishes. The dishes really do not need to be extravagant. I personally can eat the same thing every day and be fine and not get bored. Unfortunately not everybody is like that and they need something new. When they get bored with the diet and don’t have enough time to cook something different, then they will be more likely to cheat on their diet, I’ll say it again, being bored is the worst thing that can happen in a diet. It makes you think of all of the things that you are missing out on and then people start to cheat on their diets Overview This is a great diet and it can be very beneficial to people if it is done correctly with a large amount of variation to stop yourself from being bored within the diet. Nutritionally it is a pretty sound diet, it has a good amount of nutrients a minerals, little processed foods, little sugars, and depending on creativity and time there are a lot of dishes that can be made. Some recommendations that I would make is to make sure you only eat about two pieces of fruit a day, to make sure that you don’t have too much sugar a day and have the reverse effect, I’m not saying don’t eat fruit completely because it’s very good for you and has a lot of benefits that other foods do not, but too much of a good thing will be bad doesn’t matter what it is. Make sure you’re still eating a lot of vegetables because they are very important, invest in a cook book so that you can cook a lot of other things and you don’t get too bored with what you’re eating, make sure you’re eating fish with high fat content in them because eating fat is essential to help the vitamins and minerals be absorbed into the body rather than just peeing out all of the nutrients, try to keep away from the breads as much as you can because bread is a carbohydrate and with cause the same response as fruit. Although, with fruit you get a lot more vitamins and minerals. Without a scheduled diet plan to stick to, this plan may be very difficult as it will take time to put together dishes that have an adequate amount of calories. If for whatever reason you don’t get an adequate amount of calories then you will feel hungry and will be more likely to pick up some cake while you’re out and about. The Volumetric Diet
What is it? This diet takes advantage of eating a lot of low calorie foods. You can eat anything, but you need to pay attention to "energy density," which is the number of calories in a certain amount of food. Foods with high energy density have lots of calories for not much food, but items with low energy density provide fewer calories with more volume. This diet is usually cut into different categories: Category 1 includes “free” or “anytime” fruits, no starchy vegetables (such as broccoli, tomatoes, mushrooms), and broth-based soups. Category 2 includes reasonable portions of whole grains (such as brown rice and whole wheat pasta), lean proteins, legumes, and low-fat dairy. Category 3 includes small portions of foods such as breads, desserts, fat-free baked snacks, cheeses, and higher-fat meats. Category 4 includes sparing portions of fried foods, candy, cookies, nuts, and fats. The volumetric diet usually goes by the rule of eating three meals, two snacks, and a dessert each day. The main thing the the volumetric diet will encourage is eating lots of fruit and vegetables because they fill you up, they are nutrient dense but they do not possess many calories. The good Usually the foods that are very nutrient dense are the foods that are not very calorie dense. This allows for you to get in a great amount of vitamins and minerals. Furthermore, when eating low calorie foods you can eat as much as you like because when you’re stomach fills up you will have eaten little calories but you will have eaten a lot of food. This is good in conjunction to most diets as with most diet’s tend to eat a meal and not be full after, which causes people to go away and eat cake. This is a good and a bad point, if you keep on top of what you’re eating then there is no reason that you would fail in this diet. This diet says that you can eat anything as long as you stay within the guidelines, for instance if you eat about 8lbs of salad you’re going to be full no doubt about it, you would do this be full and because the salad and vegetables are low in calories, whereas the same amount of calories could be eaten in half a McDonalds burger, eating half a McDonalds burger isn’t going to fill you up in the slightest, yet is equal to the same as 8lbs of veg. The main point make sure you keep on top of foods and go for foods that are low calorie that you can eat a lot of. The bad Although getting in a lot of micronutrients is very important and if this diet is done well there will be no problems with it. Each meal has a certain amount of calories that you can eat and if you botch up a meal for whatever reason you could easily go over the amount. It is a good idea when going to this diet to plan it out specifically because if you don’t opt for lower calorie meals then you will find you have gone over your daily amount and that you won’t be able to eat anymore even though you are very hungry. If that is the case, it will just fail right there and then. It could be boring. To some people trying this diet they may be used to eating sugar and sweeteners and all manner of things, meaning that they always feel the need to eat a lot of sweet things. This diet has fruit in it which is good it has natural sugars in it, but if somebody were to have fruit more than anything else it would be counterproductive as too much sugar makes you fat. Obviously the amount of sugar is quite low compared to something processed but the same problems could still still arise. Eating low calories could mean keeping this diet mainly vegetarian, the problem with this is that you won’t get the right amounts of protein that you need in order to grow and recover. You will find that it has some protein in it but there will little sources of “complete proteins”, which are very important because our bodies cannot produce them themselves. We need different proteins for muscle growth skin repair and lots of other things. If you were attempting this diet while exercising I would say that you wouldn’t get enough protein to recover your muscles after a workout Exercising is kept to a minimum, if you are a very active person this diet will be very hard to keep to as you will not be able to eat enough to replace the calories that you burn in a 45 minute intense workout session. However, if you were to just do half an hour walks every day that would still be difficult to replace those calories with the low calorie food that you will be eating. This isn’t the best thing because doing up to 30 minutes of cardio a day has shown to give an all manner of health benefits, not being able to do this due to the shear amount of food you need to eat can be difficult and not to mention costly Overview May be worth a go, if you’re looking to lose weight it can be done with this diet, but it isn’t necessarily the healthiest way to do so. Due to the lack of proteins within the meal. The same with all low calorie diets they will be testing and they will be hard to upkeep because when your body is hungry it asks you to eat. This certainly isn’t the worst diet, this certainly isn’t the best diet either. People may find it difficult to try because cooking all of the meals from scratch is very time consuming. That sort of time people don’t have in the modern day, but again this is a problem for all diets which is why we usually go out and buy a burger and chips! As with all diets it is down to preference of the individual and if this particular diet works well for one person because they enjoy this style of eating then they should stick to it. As the main reason we eat foods and try new things is that we have so much choice that we tend to get bored of eating the same thing every single day. Hope you enjoyed this review and let me know whether you agree or disagree. Thanks for reading The Paleo Diet What is the paleo diet? This diet is a diet based around only eating what people had available within the Palaeolithic era. It goes on the science that back in this period they didn’t have processed grains (oats, rice and wheat) and dairy products (cheese, milk and butter) things that weren’t available before the obesity epidemic was ever born. This diet involves eating: meats, nuts, eggs, veg and fruit. These substances are otherwise known as whole foods. These whole foods have everything needed to help you lose weight. This diet is similar to the HFLC diet because you are eating sources of carbohydrate only coming from natural substances meaning the carbohydrates are very low. Eating red meat and oily fish have a large amount of protein and fat in them, as do eggs and nuts. Why is the diet done this way? These whole foods have been found to fill people up for longer than processed foods due to the body getting a good amount of nutrient dense calories. There has been research shown that this diet leave you full longer than other diets such as the Mediterranean Diet. The paleo diet isn’t really like all the other low calorie diets due to the nutritional value of the diet itself you can eat less and get more from it. Arguments on why the paleo diet isn’t possible This is of course taken from the western Palaeolithic era, as the east and the north would surely have eaten a lot differently, in terms of meats, vegetables, nuts, seeds a fruit! They may have been exposed to much more starchy foods meaning that they would have had a lot more carbohydrates in their diet. The point still stands though that all around the world in this era they would not have eaten anything that isn’t grown out of the floor or off a tree or anything they couldn’t hunt and kill themselves. Some problems that some people may have with the paleo diet is that it’s a bit different to what it was in the Palaeolithic era, meaning that due to pesticides and chemicals our animals are different as are our fruits and vegetables, which is fair enough, they will not be exactly the same. However, the same concept is there and paleo dieting has been shown to be very effective in weight loss. To those people who say it isn’t possible because of the differences to foods today and back then… get a life. This is still the best option of a bad situation. People that start this particular diet tend to eat a lot more meat than anything else, although meet is good for you filling up on mainly this will not allow you to obtain all of the proper nutrients that your body needs in order to function at maximum capacity. If you are an avid gym goer and you want to take part in this you need to remember that your plate should be filled with all forms of food heres and example on a plates. As you can see there is a large amount of vegetables because they are incredibly important in every diet that you have, a small portion of nuts and fruit because they are also very important to this diet and then just under half the plate should be filled with meat.
Another argument is that due to the 10,000 years of agriculture our bodies have adapted to the new types of foods that we have been pumping into them. That nowadays eating paleo leaves us without necessary gut bacteria that we need in order to keep a healthy colon, we also need it in order to digest food properly, so we can take advantage of the nutrients that are being eaten. The biggest problem with the paleo diet is that it cuts out a lot of dairy and other things like legumes and beans. Beans and dairy are not bad for you even though they didn’t have them back in the day. There are a lot of benefits to the nutrients that dairy and legumes give you, some of which are hard to find in other places. The paleo diet likes to exclude these things that aren’t bad for you at all, but people following this diet are rarely hungry throughout the diet compared to normal low calorie diets. It’s as easy as meat and veg and because it is basically meat and veg there is less concern for people that have various allergies and intolerances except nut allergies. A problem is that it is so simple that some people that like to eat a lot of different types of foods could get bored with it and reach for some cake. Even though they could have a little bit of rice or pasta. Always for the cake because if you’re going to cheat, you’re going to do it to the best of your ability. My opinion I personally think this is the easiest and best of all of the low calorie diets. From this diet, you receive all of the nutrients needed for healthy growth. It’s incredibly easy to follow and eating this way helps to maintain that full stomach feeling. Many other diets have the potential to make you feel hungry a lot of the time, which means you decide to eat other things. People do a weird thing where when they have eaten something bad, they don’t just say: “okay, I slipped up next, the meal will be amazing”, they decide that the day is ruined and there is no salvaging it and eat shit the entire day on wards. The nutrient dense foods are very positive towards vitality and the lack of processed sugars doesn’t hurt either. There are a lot of discussions to say why this diet isn’t really a legitimate diet i.e. due to there being chemicals in foods nowadays but all you can do is work towards it as best you can. Okay, there are chemicals on foods nowadays but it’s either nutrient dense chemicals or sugar chemicals. There are chemicals in everything, it’s just the age we live in! If you have the money to eat fully organic or the time to grow your own stuff, I really recommend that you do that, but in this day and age it isn’t really an option due to the workload that a lot of people have to endure in their day to day lives. High Fat Low Carb Diet
What is it? A HCLF diet is exactly what it says on the tin. You eat high fat products with low carbs and sugar. Some common high fat products are:
Low carbs are:
How could a diet like this possibly work Good question! Firstly, let’s start by saying: fat doesn’t make you fat. It really doesn’t fat is a fuel source just as a carbohydrate is. We’ve been led astray for too long. Fat doesn’t make you fat, carbohydrates make you fat. How? Carbohydrate cause and insulin response What’s insulin? Insulin is a hormone that our body produces in order to lower our blood sugar levels, as too much sugar in the blood is poisonous. The natural process of the body is to store fat and release that fat inbetwen meals when we need energy for our daily routein. When we have an insulin spike, what it does is pushes the carbohydrates into the muscles and uses that as energy instead. During this period, when the fat is usually processed into energy it stays in the cells and we end up storing it as fat. On a continued cycle of eating a high amount of carbohydrates the body is continuously storing fat. The fat cells in the body eventually become greedy and stop letting out fat for energy. When you have no energy release to the body, the body sends a signal to you to eat more in order for it to get energy. It’s a vicious cycle. You are getting fat because you’re eating so many carbs and invoking a insulin response which stores fat, the fat isn’t released when you need energy throughout the day, causing you to eat more. Carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram you eat. Fats have 9 calories per gram you eat. Logically you should get more energy from fats due to the amount of calories it holds, and as fat is our bodies preferred source of fuel it will be used more efficiently. Watching a programme the other day called ‘How To Lose Weight Well’ had this and many other diets on it. Looking at various social media sites with their hashtag ‘#howtoloseweightwell’ there were a lot of people saying various things about the diets. This diet in particular was used on one of the women on the show who was overweight (by her own definition). She found that a lot of the things were very rich and that she didn’t have much energy to do her daily tasks. Her diet lasted two weeks! This came under a lot of criticism due to her having no energy so It couldn’t possibly be healthy, but not only did she lose the most out of her and her friend she was dieting with, I’d be willing to bet that a majority if not all of that weight loss was body fat! The reason this lovely lady felt a lack of energy is because she went into the diet cold turkey- Meaning that her body is used to carbohydrates being used as energy, snacking throughout the day when she feels hungry, on carbohydrates like crisps, crackers and bread rolls. Like I mentioned above, when the body is used to the insulin response, your body’s cells have become greedy from all of the the fat that it has been allowed to store and won’t let go. This process can take up to 6 weeks to change. By change I mean for your body to start synthesising the fat in the cells rather than your body telling you it is hungry and you eating more. Once it starts to synthesise the fat properly your energy levels will continue to be normal. Side effects of HFLC diet In the first few weeks you may find: - Increase irritability - Increased hunger - Decreased energy - Dehydration Dehydration is a big part of this nutrition plan. Carbohydrates help your body draw water into the body, which can mean that a lot of weight that you hold is water weight too. When you start to eat fats the body doesn’t hold as much water which means that you will have to drink more water than you usually would, as your body will just filter it through and won’t hold it in the cells like it usually would while eating lots of carbohydrates. Is it sustainable? In the age we live in it is much easier to eat carbohydrates than it is fats. It’s easier to makes a sandwich then it is a feta cheese and walnut salad. Not as expensive to buy. It can easily be done the same as anything if you are able to prepare everything you need too. The hardest bit will be the initial 6 weeks when you aren’t eating carbohydrates and your body adapts, you will more than likely be moody and lack energy. If you aren’t a person who likes nuts, red meats and such then this diet certainly isn’t for you. The lady on the show ‘How To Lose Weight Well’ wasn’t eating her food and giving it to her dog because it was “too rich.” Some people may find that it isn’t to their liking, but during this time it is important to be eating all of your meals as you will feel as though you are lacking in energy anyway. Summary This has been my short review on High Fat Low Carb dieting, hopefully it was of some use to some people. I’d be very interested to hear other people’s opinions on the matter. If you have any useful information feel free to share it as I would love to learn more about it. I would be very interested to see what people disagree with me have to say about the matter and scientific reasoning behind it. For some further reading on the subject go too- http://authoritynutrition.com/23-studies-on-low-carb-and-low-fat-diets/ This website has some great studies that support the HFLC diet and they are all interesting reads, if you wish to know a little bit more. As with every study done there are all things that can be picked out and said to be wrong with the parameters of it. Thanks for reading xxx The Cookie Diet This diet is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a diet that’s soul source of sustenance is cookies Honestly I can hardly believe that this is a real diet. I see the appeal, cookies taste nice, they are considered a treat and it’s nice to treat yourself all day isn’t it? It’s cost effective, very cheap for a weeks’ worth of meals for a very little amount. Taken from the website- http://www.originalcookiediet.co.uk/ Dr. Sanford Siegal is a practicing physician, author, and weight-loss expert who conceived the idea of a diet based on a hunger-controlling cookie in the early 1970s while writing a book about natural food substances that are particularly effective at satisfying hunger. Dr Siegal researched the link between the hypothalamus and appetite regulation; an immensely complex process. It was already known at the time that not all foods are equally satisfying of hunger and that some foods actually stimulate hunger. Dr. Siegal decided to engineer a food to control his patients’ hunger and enable them to stick to the low calorie diet that he favours. He recognised that hunger is one of the main reasons why most low calorie diets fail. After a number of years of research and experimentation, he developed a formula for a particular mixture of amino acids that resulted from combining certain food substances. This blend of amino acid food proteins was to provide strong hunger suppression per calorie ingested. He baked his formula into a cookie as a palatable, durable vehicle and tried it with a few patients. Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET® was an immediate success. Soon, his South Florida medical practice had expanded to include 14 clinics and he was supplying his cookies and other foods to hundreds of other doctors throughout North America. Dr. Siegal’s medical practice, Siegal Medical Group, has treated more than 500,000 overweight patients. Each cookie contains around approximately 60 calories where one eats nine per day (one or two) at 2 hour intervals. They then eat a healthy evening meal of around 500-700 calories which, in total, adds up to a total daily calorie intake of around 1,000 to 1,200, an effective amount for sensible manageable weight loss. It has supposedly helped a lot of people due to a fomula baked into a cookie. The results do happen that’s for sure on ‘How To Lose Weight Well’ a gentleman eats cookies for 6 weeks and loses a lot of weight. There is no denying that it works. However, I disagree with this method of weight loss, I think it is terrible and I think it is very unhealthy I found it difficult to find any dietary labels that showed what the cookies have in them, admittedly I didn’t try too hard to find them but, surely that information should be highlighted on the website? I checked the website and I had no luck. What’s so bad about it? It’s claimed that a lot of other low calorie diets are failures in comparison to this magical formula or protein. The lack of micro nutrients that you will get from these cookies (vitamins and minerals) These are just a few things that are really poor with this diet. Let me explain why… A low calorie diet is what you need in order to lose weight if you aren’t doing exercise. It goes by the rule if you eat less calories then you are burning off then you will lose weight. Sounds pretty logical, you can do this with anything, literally anything. That’s why there are soup diets and apple diets (diets were you just eat soup or your just eat apples) what’s different about this? They say that there is a formula to it, people who want to lose weight are usually open to a lot of different things except hard work. This plays on the fact that everybody that wants to lose weight also wants to eat cake, fair enough I like cake too. It’s great advertising because it’s done through sweets and people love sweet things so if they can lose weight on sweet things like cookies and are given the choice between that and a salad they will chose the cookies. Dr. Siegal must have been a doctor of psychology because everything that he has done is psychological. Telling people that he is a doctor makes people automatically believe that it is the better option and telling people that it is a revolutionary formula is enough to get somebody to get it. Telling somebody they can eat cookies and lose weight is genius! Just eating cookies, you get calories from it and whatever other macronutrients are in it (proteins, carbohydrate and fats) but what micronutrients do you get? (Vitamins and minerals) I’m guessing it isn’t the same amount that you would get from eating fruits, vegetables, pulses, meat, fish etc. if in fact I guarantee it! If you don’t get the right amount of micro nutrients you can suffer from deficiencies, which can lead to health problems. Eating just cookies certainly doesn’t do a lot for your health even if it does help you to lose weight. It’s easy, which is a major selling point, it doesn’t take time to cook and you can just pull it out the pack and eat it. That over a long period promotes laziness, which isn’t a good thing. I understand people have busy lives and can’t always make it to the kitchen or have a meal and that maybe it is a better substitution then going to the curry house down the road. Is it though? The curry house will have whole food ingredients in it that will make it much more nutritious than a cookie. Admittedly, it does have less calories than a curry and that is what it is selling you on. It being a low calorie diet. Like I said, I understand not everybody has time to cook things and if you’re running late it’s easy to grab a cookie in the morning then cook eggs or porridge, but that will continue because of the easiness of it. You will continue to wake up late and you will continue to eat cookies, anytime you can’t be bothered you will grab a cookie and that isn’t a healthy life style. A lot of the time you ask somebody why they want to lose weight you get two answers “ I want to look good naked” fair enough everybody does, and “ I want to be healthy” unfortunately we associate being thin with being healthy which isn’t true at all, but that’s a different topic all together. The sustainability is horrendous! This is a short term diet in order to lose weight and as that it works, but what happens when you finish? You are going to put the weight back on again and you will be just as unhealthy as you were before you went on this ridiculous diet. Unless you think that you can eat cookies the rest of your life? I personally couldn’t imagine anything more boring. Especially when you have things like steak and various meats that are actually really good for you and vegetables that taste great, that are brilliant and are dense in vitamins and help overall health. In all honesty, I didn’t research this product too much, but I didn’t need to. A lot of things are wrong with it and there are a lot of reasons why you should not be eating this way at any point. However, it has had quite a lot of success. Mainly psychological are the benefits, people think that it keeps them full because they say it keeps them full and they think it’s healthy because it says it’s healthy. It’s not and it doesn’t. if you are eating as low calories as 1400 a day then you will be hungry no doubt about it, no questions the only way you won’t be is If you are eating less than that already, but let’s be honest if you were eating let than that you wouldn’t be wanting to diet due to already being thin. It’s not healthy because it isn’t balanced and it has little amounts of micro nutrients and other benefits you get from proper foods. Helpful tips to stop you from being to hungry while dieting
You will be expending more calories than you usually do when you start taking up these types of things which will mean that you may start to lose weight. That way you don’t have to give up cakes. If you are looking for quicker results though a good thing is to take up a proper diet too. Thanks for reading This is a victim from the cookie diet, at a first glance it looks like it'd be fun to be like this guy.
Think again! I once saw him punch an old lady in the face for the last cookie at a supermarket. I once saw him punch a 3 year old toddler for the last cookie in the store. Do yourself a favour an eat a healthy diet instead! Have Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED’s) ruined Sports?
Allow me to first mention: I am not pro drugs sport, I am not against drugs in sport; I as a person am very pro to people doing what they want with it. If you want to do drugs good for you, if you don’t, good for you also. These are the opinions and arguments of one person. Let’s do a break down starting with, bodybuilding. Body building Bodybuilding- this sport was made on the use of anabolic steroids! Everybody that is in the pro circuit of bodybuilding takes some sort of performance enhancing drugs- it’s a fact, the only bodybuilders who don’t are the “natural” bodybuilders. A lot of “natural bodybuilders” come under scrutiny from many people due to their impressive physical stature! I suppose this answers the question ‘have PED’s ruined sport’ for this particular sport! Doesn’t it? It’s a yes and a no. It made the sport what it is today, but on the non-performance enhancement competition, the competitors often face scrutiny, that they cannot be that impressive without certain help from outside sources. Bodybuilders do everything right when it comes to being big. Those guys and girls, whether they take performance enhancement drugs or not, are unbelievably disciplined in what they do: their workouts, their conditioning and their diet- it not a feat that can be obtained by just the use of steroids. A lot of people think that you can just take steroids and be huge and that’s it, which is not the case. Made in Chelsea star, Spencer Matthews, came out in the news and said that he has a drug problem with anabolic steroids. Looking at a picture of Spencer Matthews, you will see that he is in good shape, no doubt about it, but he isn’t huge and he isn’t as physically brilliant as natural bodybuilders. After viewing a few Made in Chelsea episodes, it’s mainly down to the fact he isn’t committed to the cause of getting big for stage, as his lifestyle (purely judging on the show) is a party one. Bodybuilder’s diets and lifestyles are incredibly organised and they are committed to winning shows. Hopefully this adds a little perspective to that matter. What I am getting at with bodybuilding is that the sport is mainly drug based. Would the sport be as big without it? In my opinion- no, not at all and for that reason in this case, I would say that performance enhancing drugs did not ruin sport… in bodybuilding’s case anyway. That said there are a number of health concerns that go along with taking PHD’s and this is widely known in the body building world and steroids have a lot to answer for when it comes to heart problems as well as HGH (human growth hormone) because they can cause horrible side effects later in life. Despite this lots of people still take them and believe that there is a way to safely take steroids, but the sport continues to grow so the sport isn’t ruined. The number of people addicted to steroids and deaths from steroids have gone up over the years, which is obviously a horrific thing, but my argument is if people were taught how to use them maybe there wouldn’t be such a problem and if these people using them were getting them from proper sources it would make it safer, as they would know exactly where the product has come. Lance Armstrong This gentleman is very well known for winning the Tour de France 7 times- 7! Also well known for his charitable work in cancer as he himself was diagnosed with it, but came back to win a Tour de France, which on Performance Enhancing drugs or not is amazing in my book. Lance Armstrong on drugs or not won 7 Tour de France competitions, which is no easy feat as anybody that has watched the Tour de France will tell you. Was it wrong for the competition? Of course it was. It was identified that he had a banned substance but was what he achieved any less impressive? In my opinion no. 7 Tour de France competitions is an insane achievement, even if you’re taking fairy dust. Cyclists in the competition have admitted since that they were also on the same substance. Does that make it okay? Of course not, it’s a banned substance! But it’s the same as mentioned above, you can take these substances but without training and diet they still won’t work as well. Mr Armstrong, I imagine, was on a gruelling training regime and perfect diet plan to be able to obtain his 7 Tour de France titles Did his cheating make the sport any worse? I’d have to say no. I imagine for the athletes the rigorous drug tests are horrendous because of it, but as an American winner Lance Armstrong will have made the sport massive in America. Americans are very patriotic and they would be happy to celebrate what he had done (before he was found out) but what else could he have done for the sport? Well, people who went on PED’s probably should have won so he stripped them of their winnings, which is never nice as everybody trained as hard as they could for the competition. From a moral stand point, it is definitely wrong. Those athletes where robbed of what should have been theirs because they did not have access to a drug programme. In my opinion that’s what it is. There is so much money to be made from doing well in sports, if somebody came up to you and said take this, it will make you the best in the world at what you do and you will be a millionaire- there is a chance people will find out you have taken a substance though and they may not like it, for a lot of athletes the pros definitely outweigh the cons. Athletes have the mind set of anything to win! Not all of them, but a lot of them. Some of the have different mind sets like “I’ll prove you can do it without drugs,” and that determination is admirable and brilliant. Athletes manage to get through on their determination which again, is why we applaud them. That said has anybody won 7 Tour de France competitions since? A lot of people believe that Tour de France puts such a strain on athletes body that It cannot be done without drugs, that PED’s are the only way to do it, this is a way that drugs have ruined the sport! It takes away from peoples genuine achievements, that they had worked so hard to achieve! A few people have cheated so it is believed, and there is no way you can’t be on PED’s. People also believe that the reason not everybody is caught is that PED’s are being made faster than ways to test them are being made, which is a valid point, you can see that by the shear amount of different types of drugs. To summarise Did it ruin the sport- the morals are wrong, people come under scrutiny as to whether they can achieve those feats of brilliance naturally and there are a lot of adverse health effects that prolonged use of drugs can do to the body, but lance Armstrong’s wins led to a large amount of people following the sport, he developed his on charity for people with cancer, made the sport more rigorously tested for the future, so there are definitely pros and cons to it, I’ll let you decide yourself but for me as long as a sport continues to grow it’s getting better! So for that reason alone I don’t think it ruined the sport and actually made it better. Cyclists This is a sub category as I have spoken about one person in the sport but that is mainly because he is probably the biggest person that was in the sport and one of the biggest people in sport ever due to his accomplishments, he is not the only person who has used PED’s. It has been reported that cyclists are frequently caught out by doping to improve performance. One set of Olympic cyclists (I won’t name the country) won the competition, they were later found dead, in an autopsy it was found that their blood had the consistency of ketchup. What had happened was they had taken a hormone in drug form that is usually found in pregnant women in order to improve their aerobic abilities. What this did was made their blood so thick that it couldn’t move through the body properly and eventually caused them to all have heart attacks and die. Now again this is morally wrong and at the time I don’t imagine it did a lot for the sport of cycling so in this instance I would have to say that drugs have definitely ruined the sport. Gymnastics There have been a lot of cases in gymnastics not necessarily of drugs but of the effects of pregnancy in gymnastics. Obviously in this case I am referring to the lady gymnasts. There are particular physical benefits from pregnancy that can be used to a gymnasts advantage. When pregnant, in the first three months of pregnancy a woman’s body produces a natural surplus of red blood cells, obviously this is a type of legal blood doping and can have very positive anaerobic effects as the more blood cells you have, the more oxygen can be carried. This is normally down to the body producing a better environment for fetal growth. Other things that it can do is regulate the hormones such as progesterone, oestrogen and testosterone, which can increase muscular strength. Another hormone that is released is elastin, this hormone allows for more flexibility at the hips for when the baby eventually comes out and this improve elasticity of all soft tissues (muscles and ligaments), all of which is of large benefit to gymnasts as they have to have strength and power while being supple. This is considered natural benefits from natural causes, as there are no bans on getting pregnant, which I agree with- you can get pregnant if you want, the problems come from a moral stand point here and they can be quite controversial. Women are getting pregnant in order to improve their performance and win gold medals, then when competition is over they’re going and having those pregnancies aborted. I’ll let you decide what you think about that, as there are a lot of different views on abortion to begin with, I am very pro to people doing what they want with their bodies but something about this doesn’t quite sit right with me. Of course the argument can be made that people take drugs and that is also morally wrong but then I guess my argument would be nobody died in order to obtain those victories. Getting pregnant for the purpose of abortion to me seems a little disgusting. Although none of these allegations have been proved, the idea of it isn’t a brilliant one in my eyes, but then like I said earlier athletes are willing to do anything to win and that is part of anything. To summarise This is technically legal and there is no way to stop it, although in my opinion morally wrong to do so, does it make the sport worse? It allows females to be better at their sport and grow the female sport industry as a whole, so for the sport it can be considered that it is beneficial, although the controversy that it causes around the subject could in fact cause the sport to diminish depending on how strongly opinionated people are on the subject. Conclusion There are a lot of other drugs that are used in sports and a lot of different drug scandals out there. The question – do PED’s ruin sports? In terms of performance no, not one bit! They make it a million times better, they allow athletes in their short careers to earn a lot of money by being the best they can possibly be. Sport is all about spectators and in this instance when people achieve records, such as winning Tour de France 7 times, people believe it is brilliant, and they’re right. The problems that come are the moral dilemmas and the health risks associated with taking drugs in sports. There are a lot of people that have contracted disease from blood doping and health issues from taking PED’s. Nowadays everybody knows the risks and what the risks might be and they take it anyway because it is worth it to them. It is an extremely personal choice to athletes and, they make that choice, full well knowing that it can hurt their career if found out and it can destroy their body because the rewards that they’re given are worth it! So in this instance, is it the drugs that are ruining the sport or is it the amount of rewards given? Are the rewards so much that people don’t mind being called a cheat, or a fake? Performance enhancing drugs cause sports to grow until people are found out, people have idols with in sport and it isn’t necessarily that they themselves compete in sport but they admire what people achieve within it and see how hard they have worked, this gives rise to fandom and then people end up trying the sport that the person the admire do = growing the sport! When that person gets found out that they have taken PED’s the people that supported them feel betrayed, a lot of the time. All of the pros and cons are relayed here on this website next to all the different drugs that are also banned from competition http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002037 you will find that a lot of them have horrible side effects and that can in fact lead to death, which is why some of these substances are banned substances. If one good thing is to come out of people being on a “drug programme” it is that they are constantly monitored through what they take and have the best care possible. If steroids were less of a black market thing, people would get proper steroids and know what they are and they would know how much to use in order to get desired effects and potentially not have as many young deaths from the substance. Regardless of whether you think it is wrong or right to do drugs in sport, there is no denying the amount of effort athletes put into being the best at what they do! |
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