The importance of carbohydrates
The types of carbohydrate Carbohydrates (carbs) can be separated into sugars and starches. Natural Sugars (monosaccharides) coming in forms of fruit and honey. Natural Starches (polysaccharides) coming in forms of rice, potatoes, oats and grains. There is also a third type of carb called a fibre (non-starch polysaccharide) and these can be found in leafy vegetables, nuts and seeds. Monosaccharides- this term means that there is a short chain of carbohydrates, mono means one and saccharides are the scientific name for sugar due to this short chain of carbs the body can easily break the chain down for them to be used as energy. These monosaccharides can be found in refined sugar like, chocolate and sweets this sugar is known as Galactose that does not exist freely in nature. Not to be confused with the same as fruit because fruit is natural and the sugars that reside inside them are known as fructose, they also have a large amount of fibre. Due to fruits large amount of fibre, some sugar content can in fact pass through the digestion tract without being absorbed and be expelled from the body. Polysaccharides- The name for these means that there is a long link of carbohydrate molecules. Poly means many and saccharide is the scientific name for sugar. These can be found in rice, potatoes, oats and grains, these carbohydrates also known as starchy carbohydrates also reside largely in, beans, peas and root vegetables (carrots, turnips, and parsnips), depending on the makeup of the carbohydrate will depend on how fast the body is able to break it down, as there are a lot of different make ups to carbohydrates they will each take different amounts of time to break down and be used as energy within the body. Non starch polysaccharides- this type of carbohydrate is also known as fibre. Fibre comes from the cellulose of plant foods and is abundant in leafy vegetables, root vegetables and seeds, starchy carbohydrates aren’t typically absorbed by the body as out digestive tract enzymes have difficulty breaking them down. Explained There are three different types of carbohydrate: sugar, starch and fibre. Sugar is quickly processed in the body and can be transformed into energy relatively quickly. Starch takes longer for our bodies to break down and gives us a slower release of energy than the sugars do. Fibre is found in sugars but mainly in starchy foods, this type of carbohydrate isn’t absorbed by the body and used and used as energy like the rest of the carbohydrates, however that does not mean that is isn’t necessary to have a large amount of fibre in your diet. It is proposed through research that males should be eating around 38g a day for men and 25g a day for women. Not only does this help you to have more regular bowel movements there is research showing that it can, reduces risks of colon cancer, reduces cholesterol, reduces blood pressure and risk of heart attacks. However, too much fibre can lead to mal absorption of essential minerals such as, iron and calcium, being deficient in these can lead to muscle cramps, weak bone density and anaemia. What happens to the carbohydrates after we have eaten them? All of these carbohydrates with the exception of fibre, will eventually be processed from their simplest form known as glycogen. Glycogen is what our body uses as energy. Glycogen is stored within our muscles in small amounts and in our liver in larger amounts. When we use up the glycogen stores within our muscles the body will look to use the glycogen stores that are within our liver for energy. Once this has happened our bodies will look to use other sources to provide us with energy, such as breaking down fat into glucose to use as energy, this is known as lipogenesis, or breaking down muscle as glucose to use as energy, this is done through the alanine- glucose cycle. Eating a high amount of refined carbs with a lack of fibre in them can lead to weight gain, as the carbs aren’t needed as energy the body will store them in your body and be transformed into fat, the idea of this is for it to be used by the body at a later date as energy, but due to lack of fibre the body will have more total carbs rather than if they were on a diet with a good amount of fibre. Why do we need carbohydrates in our diets? There are many different reasons that you should eat carbohydrates and have them in your diet. Nowadays people are scared to eat fruit because it has carbs in it and “carbs make you fat” so people try to keep away from them. Here are 4 very good reasons to incorporate carbohydrates in your diet:
Those are 4 reasons why you should be consuming carbohydrates as part of your diet. The reason people hate carbs and say they make you fat is because carbs are usually associated with cake and other goodies. These types of foods are refined and hold very low levels of dietary fibre. Recommended intake of carbohydrates When eating carbohydrate It is a good idea to stay away from those refined carbohydrates i.e. biscuits, cereals, breads, sweats and cakes These foods hold very little fibre and very little quality carbohydrates, and are filled with sugars such as sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup, for this reason it’s a good idea to stick to carbohydrates in the form of fruits, vegetables, oats and grains. It is typically thought that most people in a high carbohydrate diet are obese and with this statistic matching up with the statistic that a typical American diet situates 50-60% of their diets to carbohydrates. Along with obesity being an epidemic in America, things do not board well for the carbs. The problem is what we have mentioned before, carbohydrates are associated with cake and biscuits. As with anything eating to many carbs will lead to an overspill of glycogen stores and because of this the glycogen will be esterified into fat to be used as energy at a later date, leading to weight gain. However, eating to many carbs when you eat the right carbs is difficult, due to the high amount of fibre and the lower calories that fruits and vegetables hold, they also have much better vitamins and minerals. There is always a risk of obesity when living a setitary life style, and having poor diet habits, this doesn’t just come from the use of carbohydrates. Carbohydrate sources
Overview The three different types of carbohydrate are sugars (monosaccharides), starches (polysaccharides) and fibre (non-starchy polysaccharides). A lot of the time people get most of their diets from carbohydrates but because they are from refined sources leading to a lack of fibre and essential vitamins and minerals that you receive from fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Currently it is estimated that on a high carb diet most Americans get about 10-15g of fibre a day, this should be way higher at 38g for men and 25g for women. Carbohydrates are your bodies favoured fuel source as the body finds them easier to break down for energy than it does fat or proteins. Once converted to glycogen and glucose it is the soul nutrient used to fuel the central nervous system, allowing the CNS to work much more efficiently. Glucose is the primary source of energy and it depleted though long term exercise. Only after your glycogen stores in the muscles and in the liver are depleted the body will look to pull fat out of the cells to be broken into glucose and used as energy. Carbohydrates are great for keeping energy levels high but, like all macronutrients the consumption of too many carbohydrates can lead to them being stored as fat and weight gain. Carbohydrates being the initial port of call for energy as far as your body is concerned, keeping your glycogen stores high is ideal for keeping energy levels and performance high. Low glycogen stores that come either through starvation, diet or malnutrition is bad for the body as it can lead to hypoglycaemia and being hypoglycaemic for prolonged periods of time can lead to, hunger, dizziness, nausea, loss of performance, foggy brain and sometimes even brain damage. When taking part in a high fat diet it can lead to a condition called metabolic acidosis, where the acidity in your blood raises, this can lead to a few different problems within the body and high blood acidity has been linked with cancer. Not only does this help you to have more regular bowel movements there is research showing that it can, reduces risks of colon cancer, reduces cholesterol, and reduces blood pressure and risk of heart attacks. Further recommendations A lot of research recently has suggested that a high fat diet it the way to go and high fat diets are taking the world by storm as the best thing since sliced bread. I would recommend doing your own research on the matter and coming to your own conclusion and not to be blindly lead. Plenty of people believe that carbs are the answer as plenty of people believe that high fat is the answer, whichever you choose you will have people that agree or disagree, but don’t be blindly lead by others. I hope that you enjoyed the read xx
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Foam Rolling
What is it? Foam rolling is a process of recovery, stretching and self-myofascial release. It is done with an object called a foam roller which is a cylinder shape of foam. What is myofascia? Myofacia- ‘Myo’ means muscle and ‘fascia’ means band. Facia is a connective tissue that is like a second skin underneath your regular skin or really like a thin layer of muscle as the tissues have the ability to contract, it surround, connects and protects all of the tissues of the body (tendons, ligaments, muscles, bones and organs). It is made up of elastin and collagen fibres, which makes this substance very strong yet flexible at the same time. When the myofacia is in a healthy state is relaxed and easy to manipulate beneath the skin. This allows it to provide cushioning and a type of support that allows us to move around without restrictions or pain. Facia is also very dynamic in nature, meaning that it can respond to forces in order to help protect the body from injury. Any type of trauma whether physical or emotional can leave scar like substances within the facia, this may cause the facia to lose its sponginess and become taut, which can mean that internal structures become pulled out of alignment, creating abnormal pressure within the body that has the potential to crush nerves, blood and lymph vessels and create pain on sensitive structures. What is self-myofascial release? This is basically like having a sports massage and is said to offer the same benefits of having a massage. Except a sports massage can be quite relaxing and make you feel good. In my experience with foam rolling it has been 100% pain! The idea behind this is to have the same effect but without hiring professional help. Although this is more cost effective, in my personal opinion there is no substitute for a well-qualified professional. During foam rolling, the foam rollee is supposed to use their own body weight in order to exert pressure on the specific areas of soft tissue that need attention. This is supposed to place both direct and sweeping pressure on the tissues, generating friction between the tissues and the foam roller in turn causing a stretch of said tissues. Self-Myofascial Release (SMR) had been around for quite a while, but there has been an influx of research in recent years as it has been found more popular among athletes and non-athletes. Specifically foam rolling, this is a fairly new concept that has really gotten quite a lot of research done on it in last few years. Numerous studies are undertaken with them each year to determine their worth in the fitness world. Foam rolling is referred to as Self Myofascial Release (SMR) and there are plenty of studies that suggest there are a large degree of benefits that come from this type of SMR. Now I, would like to say that different scientific papers are tested differently with different study groups, so for every paper that says proves it there will also be a paper disproving that it works. This blog is not a review on papers that has disproved that foam rolling doesn’t work. This is a review on the evidence that foam rolling has a positive effect on the body and athletic performance. I urge you to go out and do your own research on the matter and come to your own conclusion, but for now here is literature that proves that foam rolling should be implemented into a training programme. Foam rolling is thought to help increase circulation and in turn aid recovery during Dealyed- onset muscle soreness (DOMS) in a study done by Byrne C et al, 2004 “After intense exercise, this discomfort and pain commonly are associated with disruption of the intracellular muscle structure, sarcolemma, and extracellular matrix, which leads to prolonged impairment of muscle function and delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS).” This is relatively old research as it is now 12 years old and as a rule usually research that is more than 10 years old is taken with a pinch of salt, due to advances in testing protocols, in the last ten years. Although, more recent study done by Crane JD et al 2012 showing that ‘foam rolling decreases muscle soreness, cellular stress and inflammation, which are three main components of DOMS.’ This being much more recent research is more reliable in terms of testing procedures, this coupled with earlier evidence suggests that SMR through foam rolling does in fact aid in reducing DOMS. Although a more recent study from Castilglione 2010 has stated that “SMR before a workout will enhance performance because of myofascial release, leading to increased mobility and neuromuscular efficiency”. When you recruit more neuromuscular fibres in the body you can become more explosive and reaction timing can improve due to the increased amount of motor unit recruited allowing for a faster stronger muscular contraction. This derives from the trigger point method and It’s said that it has the same effect as Neuromuscular Techniques (NMT’s) used by therapists. NMT’s are said to do exactly what it says above and increase the mobility and neuromuscular efficiency. NMT’s are usually applied to areas I tough tissue found in the body commonly known as “knots” these nots have pressure applied to them in such a way that they melt away and allow better neuromuscular reaction. With better neuromuscular recruitment it is thought that the practice of SMR via foam rolling can improve your physical performance in the way of maximum speed, maximum strength and power output. However there isn’t enough evidence on this matter to support these claims. The foam roller can be used various different ways. The two main ways that they are used as discussed are:
Overview In theory warming up with SMR via foam rolling will cause improved physical performance, due to the effects it has on the neuromuscular efficiency. However as stated above the findings of the improvement in vertical jump performance, sprints and strength output are varied ones. So it can be considered that some of SMR via foam rolling can be purely psychological. The good news is that it can help greatly with DOM’s, according to the research and if the foam rolling is being done correctly. There are usually two types of foam rollers, smooth and bobbly. I would recommend getting the bobbly one as it will have allow you to use it in a more efficient way and has more potential to be used as trigger point exercises rather than a smooth one that will just allow for myofascial release. Thanks for reading. Referencing Castiglione, A, ed. Self-Myofascial Release Therapy and Athletes. AIoSMR Therapy, 2010. Crane JD, Ogborn DI, Cupido C, et al. Massage therapy attenuates inflammatory signaling after exercise-induced muscle damage. Sci Transl Med. 2012;4(119):119ra13. Byrne C, Twist C, Eston R. Neuromuscular function after exercise-induced muscle damage: theoretical and applied implications. Sports Med. 2004;34(1):49–69. De-load weeks within training cycles What is a de-load week? Why do it? This is a 7 day planned period of recovery time, which you take out of training, in order for your central nervous system(CNS), and musculoskeletal structures to have a rest from an intensive training programme. How do I do this? During a de-load week you need to decrease your intensity by about 40-60%. Your options of doing this include:
Overtraining A lot of people don’t believe in over training. Lots of people believe that it is a myth, I respectfully disagree. Here are a few factors that can lead to over training:
Sleep Not having adequate sleep (8hours) can severely reduce your bodies ability to recover and grow, sleep is essential for your bodies physical and psychological performance. This is important as you find that during over training you either: over train the body and become injured or fatigued, or you over train the mind, which leads to mental fatigue and boredom. Boredom for some people is the main reason for disengagement in any activities. Sleep is essential to growth and repair of the body, without sleep you will be fatigued and unable to work as hard through certain workouts, or sporting activities. Diet If you have a poor diet you will over train. Your nutrition is incredibly important, which is where “you are what you eat” comes from. If you aren’t eating enough to sustain cell growth and recovery, you will find yourself fatigued and feeling irritable. You may even come to some reversibility in your athletic performance. Diet is incredibly important. To illustrate why diet is very important, here are some examples of athletes and their diets:
Recovery If you are training the same muscle group day after day after day it isn’t good for that muscle as it doesn’t have enough time to recover. It is thought that you should wait 48-72 hours after working a particular body part again through weight training before it has properly recovered. Over working muscles can lead to injury and cause reversibility, which means you may in fact get weaker through that movement. Stress Stress can cause a number of problems in the body. It can impair your motor coordination meaning that you won’t be able to work as hard in the gym due to not being able to recruit as many motor units. It has been found stress lowers your recovery rate and that it can also increase your risk of injury! Signs of overtraining There are a lot of signs, which mean you could be over training:
A deload week really helps to stop a lot of this happening. A deload week can include something completely different, for example, instead of doing weights on a deload week you could do light cardio and stretching. Yoga is brilliant for reducing stress and you may find through stretching and light cardio you feel a lot healthier. Not a lot of people believe in over training and believe that fighting through is the answer. Only you know your body and you should do as it says because you only have one. Being adept to your bodies needs is very important in overall health. One of the things that can come from overtraining and over activity in general is adrenal fatigue and other stress inducing problems like high blood pressure. Do yourself a favour have some time off and come back better than ever. Remember it isn’t an excuse to do absolutely nothing and sit around all day. It should be active rest such as stretching, walking, or a reduced load on your current training in general, just make sure that the load is significantly reduced in order to recover and grow. Protein – How Much Is Enough?
Protein the building blocks of life! In their most natural component they come in the form of Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA’s). They allow for cell repair and muscular growth, which is why a lot of people are obsessed with the amount of protein that they eat. You rarely hear a new person in the gym say ‘what are your micronutrients like?’ or ‘what is your carbohydrates and fat intake?’ it’s all protein protein protein! Lots of people believe that the more protein the better, but that’s not necessarily true and too much protein can actually be very hard on your kidneys and your liver due to the elimination of urea How much is enough? Optimal protein levels Why do we like high protein levels? Because we are told that the more protein that you eat the better your muscle repair of the muscles will be the more tone we will get and the better we will look, but simply eating lb after lb of protein isn’t the answer. Research has found that eating an excessive amount of protein is catabolized into energy or is recycled as components of other molecules in the body such as fat and the fat will end up being stored as deposits around the body causing you to gain weight! A study showed that the optimal amount for a sedentary adolescent man and women aged 14- 18 was 0.9g of protein per kg of body weight a day. For an adolescent man weighing 65kg that equates to 58.5g protein a day. For a sedentary man or woman fully grown aged 18 or above should be consuming 0.8g of protein per kg of bodyweight. For a man weighing in at 75kg that equates to 60g of protein per day. These figures also hold true for somebody that is overweight. Protein works by causing an elevated nitrogen balance in the body creating the perfect atmosphere for protein synthesis, it’s quite complicated, but in layman's terms positive nitrogen balance =good for building muscle. Negative nitrogen balance = bad for building muscle. Interestingly enough too much of a good thing is bad, it has been found that when over the recommended amount of protein is eaten and other energy requirements are not met, the body will catabolise the proteins for energy. Meaning that if you overeat on your protein but pay no mind to carbohydrates and fats your protein will be converted to energy rather than being pushed to the muscles to rebuild them. What about athletes If you consider yourself and athlete than here are the optimal protein levels for you. It is thought that people who train more need more protein due to having more muscle breakdown, and that is correct, it is thought that an athlete that need to have 1.2 – 1.8g of protein per kg of body mass daily. Depending on your type of training will depend what value you choose to add into your diet, just remember that eating too much protein with be synthesised in the body as other energy if the rest of your diet isn’t up to scratch. Nitrogen balance Mentioned above with the nitrogen balance and with a positive nitrogen balance you grow muscle and with a negative one you are more likely to burn one. This is just a short list of things that can affect the nitrogen balance in the body and in turn effect protein synthesis:
Overview Protein isn’t the be all end all of macronutrients, in order to grow muscle your whole diet needs to be on point making sure that your fats and your carbohydrates are always a greater amount than your protein, because if they aren’t then your protein will be synthesised into energy anyway and stored as fat in the body. If you are sedately and you’re eating more protein there really is no point because it will do nothing for you and too much protein can cause havoc on your kidneys and your liver. Athletes need more protein because they train to a high degree but athletes generally need more calories so the need a greater amount of fats and carbohydrates too. If they just increased their protein and nothing else they would still have the problem of protein being catabolized down into other energy sources. Meaning that if you are going to take a lot of protein you had better be training enough in order for the protein to be used in the building of lean muscle rather that esterifying into Free fatty acids and becoming adipose tissue on your body. 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 Waist trainers In a world where every woman wants curves they have taken to using devices to make their waists thin and their hips big… I give you the waist trainer The waist trainer, where to start. It’s a pile of shit! No doubt that the waist trainer works, no doubt about that, it definitely works. I see many a lady walking around with a lovely thin waist and it’s hard to deny that it does make you look athletically pleasing. This said do you know what the sexiest thing in the world is? Having a positive body image. Love yourself in your own skin and other people will too. It’s not a joke it works both ways. If a guy is confident then women are automatically more draw to him, I’ve seen it happen a million times and everybody knows it. Not to be confused with being cocky or arrogant because there is a very fine line. Anyway moving on, waist trainers- what has made me review these very worthwhile investments for making a tiny waist? The promises they make are true but they aren’t healthy, at all! Let’s do a breakdown of what waist trainer promises and how it works: this is taken directly from a waist trainer website! WHY USE A WAIST TRAINER? Trying to lose weight? – Obviously that’s why we are here. - Many people exercise a lot but see very little positive change to their bodies. Why? No amount of exercise will help you lose weight or tone up unless your diet is controlled too. – Okay yeah this is good, good information waist trainer, it is 80% diet depends on your weight. So this is a true say ladies. - Most people are busy with long work hours, children or other commitments, resulting in a lack of time to exercise throughout the week, so have used a waist trainer as an alternative. – okay so they’re suggesting that using a waist trainer is a good alternative for real exercise. So just put it on and sit down and that will burn some brilliant calories. No I’m calling bull shit on that! - The waist trainer works by diminishing your appetite to eat smaller portions throughout the day to allow your body to metabolise the food better and turn more of it into energy rather than stored fat. Okay this is good and bad. Good that they’re talking sense in terms of metabolism with smaller meals throughout the day. That’s a pretty scientific approach right there so well done to them. How does it diminish your appetite? Is it psychological? Could be, they say it’s true so people put it on and think wow it really works, especially when they see the models they hire to show off their product. A theory is that it distorts your organs. But I’ll get into that a little more a bit later. - Instead of eating 2-3 large meals per day, you will feel fuller and be more inclined to eat smaller portions throughout the day. Okay this is basically the same point as above. They use basic principles of healthy nutrition plans and add in that it’s all the waist trainer. - Wake up looking great but bloated and chubby at the end of the day? This is diet guys this is all diet. Lots of contributions throughout the day can lead to this. When you get up in the morning you are dehydrated, so you’re holding less water weight making you look thinner than normal. Eating high sodium foods and carbohydrates aids in retaining water and giving you that ‘chubby’ look. - Persistently wearing your waist trainer for a few weeks and cutting down food portions will result in a flatter, more toned and tighter looking stomach region even when your waist trainer is off. Persistently, so day in day out? That doesn’t sound healthy something squeezing your waist that whole time. - Poor posture and suffer from back pain caused by sitting or standing all day?- Usually down to a muscular imbalance guys. Try working on your glutes and or your transverse abdominus. Having those muscles underactive are the two main causes of poor back health. - Our waist trainers can improve your posture (forces your back to an upright position) - yeah it does, but your spine is supposed to have curvature in order for shock absorption, muscle connection and protection of organs. - Our waist trainers can immediately relieve back pain and tension that you probably did not realize was caused from poor posture for those who stand or sit for long periods at a time e.g. retail, hospo, and office- bold claim that it immediately relives all back pain. But then doing this is pretty much the same as buying yourself a back support or like I said above working out the under active muscles will be very beneficial in stopping that back pain. PLEASE REMEMBER For long term permanent results your waist trainer should be used in conjunction with healthy diet and moderate, regular exercise. This is at the end of their page. They basically tell you to do what you should be doing without the waist trainer. But isn’t that the reason you are here? You aren’t quite sure what is wrong with your diet or your exercise as to why you aren’t losing the amount of weight or looking how you want too? In the end, to say you need to exercise and have a good diet is kind of a massive middle finger. I’m not here just to trash this product because that wouldn’t be fair, it does have some good parts to it. This includes basic rules about meals- five meals a day does in fact cause a better reaction from the blood sugar levels and help boost metabolism. Their science is pretty spot on there, but you don’t need a waist trainer in order to do that, you can do that yourself. It doesn’t specify meals and I suppose it’s obvious that they should be healthy. This basic principle and telling people to exercise is the healthiest advice about this product. You pay for that advice more than you do the product because that is what is going to get you healthy and help you lose weight. Honestly though, that is about it. Maybe it has worked for people and to those people well done! Seriously well done. But at what cost has it come? A waist trainer isn’t a new invention, it’s been done before, been around for quite a while. It’s a corset! When you wear this 500-year-old device, you squish your lungs and ribs, which makes it hard to breathe. A good example of this is in the film ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’ Kira Knightly collapsed over the cliff and feel into the water because her corset was too tight. If you keep wearing it for an extended period of time? It isn’t pretty: think crushed organs, compressed lungs, and fractured ribs. This image was taken from-
https://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/q-and-a-do-tight-corsets-cause-medical-problems/ Does that sound safe to anybody reading? At all? I don’t think it does, maybe it’s worth it to some people. And if it is worth it to you then I’m sorry but that’s sad. It really is, it’s okay because it’s not your fault, it’s because that’s how the world wants you do look. So it’s not sad on your part it’s sad on what the world says you have to be to be attractive. The models. Okay ladies those models were paid to advertise this product. They were models before they advertised the waist trainer and they will be models afterwards. They got paid to do it. All those celebs said they used waist trainers. Again, they got paid to do that stuff, there is no way they would just sit there in their rooms and take pictures for Instagram if they weren’t getting paid. Not to mention a lot of them get paid to post on Instagram anyway. They could be wearing a bin bag and they would get paid. Its good advertising but it’s not fair, a lot of the celebs are already in great shape and look good etc. As a body conscious person obviously you will look at it and think oh my god it works, so well done to waist training for their advertisement there it’s worked wonders. The posture support- okay maybe it does help but what kind of solution is that? This will make your muscles even weaker if you aren’t exercising them properly. You have a sheath under the skin that holds all your organs in place and helps you to maintain posture, even while sitting at a desk or doing whatever, your posture muscles are working. With the waist trainer on them, there is no need for them to work as much so they will degrade and be worse. Ladies, if you’re thinking about buying I honestly wouldn’t recommend it. It isn’t safe, it distorts your organs, can cause bruising and organ rupture, broken ribs etc that’s not healthy in the slightest. You need your organs to be heathy and live in general, why would you hurt them? It’s the same principle as cutting off your ear to improve your hearing: someone can convince you it works but not only is this untrue, it also causes more harm than good. Thanks for reading xx What are GMO foods? GMO actually stands for: Genetically Modified Organism. GMO’s are the result of a laboratory process where genes from the DNA are taken from one organism (plant or animal) and added into genes from a different organism and these genes can come from bacteria, viruses, insects, plants, animals or humans. Due to the transfer of genes GOM’s are also known as transgenic organisms. As this is similar to selective breeding, which we know has been in existence for thousands of years, biotechnology can now be more efficient as they are able to directly modify the gnome of different crops the difference here being that these organisms are ‘transgenetic’. I dont know about you people out there but I’ve never tried to initiate coitous with a potato in order for the potato to be more nutrient dense. This isn’t as stupid as it sounds, apparently GMO foods have some human genes in them. Again, I don’t know about all you fine people out there, but I don’t think adding things to my food is particularly safe, especially since it is defined as ‘added genes from a different organism’ whether that be from bacteria, virus, insect, plants, humans or animals. Positives and negatives of GMO foods Let’s just discuss one of the negatives here shall we. The ones done with pesticides associated with genetically modified foods found in maternal fetal and non-pregnant women blood, along with the presence of BT toxin. Breaking this down, what do we know? We know that pesticides are poisoness, that’s a fact. Pesticides no matter what form they come in, are poisoness. To be found in the blood of somebody is pretty horrifying. BT toxin, what is that? BT toxins stands for, Bacillus Thuringiensis and it is a bacteria that produces proteins which are toxic to insects. It’s in the same family of bacteria as B. anthracis, which causes anthrax, and B. cereus, which causes food poisoning. So the toxicity of this substance should come as no surprise. BT’s aggressive mechanism harms the digestive system by effectively attacking normal gut cells thereby burning holes in the intestines. This can cause problems such as leaky gut syndrome. For more on leaky gut syndrome click this link – http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/leaky-gut-syndrome/Pages/Introduction.aspx . This has been found in pregnant women, now in my opinion that is disgusting! As if finding it in somebody to begin with isn’t bad enough, it being in the blood stream of women could mean the potential of it being passed on to the baby. Now the research that it is from is the first of its kind and to my knowledge the only one so far. Depending on what testing was used will depend on the particular women and this will impact on the results, as it is good to note with any scientific experiment. The true results come when experiments have been done multiple times and there is a correlation in the literature. Although as you can see above there are other studies that have been done that can link GMOs to different health problems such as Gluten disorders Overview of positives and negatives Just looking at the list you can see all of the negatives and to me personally they outweigh the positives, as far as health concerns go. I may be biased, because I came into this hoping to say that GM products are shit! I like the idea of fresh healthy products and in a perfect world I would grow all my own stuff. Although, understanding that this isn’t a perfect world I know that the positives are a very big positive! In terms of cultivation of crops and the farming industry as a whole. As this is supposed to be a health blog, I will have to say that GMO’s are typically bad in my opinion and according to different research out there. UK and GMO foods In the UK, GM foods aren’t really a thing. The only way that GM foods are thought to enter Britain is as animal feed. We can see from the negatives box that it has a negative effect on pigs. If the feed has a negative effect on pigs and we eat pork from those pigs will that transfer over? Well, as when we digest things they get broken down into their chemical forms and end up sustaining who we are and what we do, it’s safe to assume that there will be an effect from the pork that we eat, but I’ll let you decide. GM foods that are bought into the EU such as animal feed, food or biofuels have to be labelled but an animal that has eaten GM feed doesn’t have to be marked when dairy and meat is produced from that animal, even though it has found that there are effects on animals from eating these GM foods. This is approved by regulations that the EU uphold and the EU have some pretty strict regulations; GB are even stricter when it comes to meats, after the foot and mouth fiasco. The EU entered into GM crop cultivation in 2010 and in order to get the go ahead earlier countries where given an ‘opt out’ clause. The EU has also decided to allow GM feed to include trace levels of crops which have no safety approval in Europe. Now, they don’t deem it safe but they are still using it. Probably because of all the positives that are listed. The thing is, when it comes to the ability to feed more people for less money and less time taken to do so, it’s deemed okay. That’s always going to be why it’s okay and it doesn’t matter that it has toxins in it etc. Taking a look at the positives briefly they are incredibly good positives. When it comes to feeding a lot of people in situations of drought or extremely cold weather it’s brilliant and the science behind it is genius! But in terms of the studies done on the effects of health, is it worth it to you personally? ‘In April 2013, Tesco, the Co-Op and Marks and Spencer announced they will no longer require poultry to be fed on GM-free feed, following similar decisions by Morrisons (March 2012) and Asda (September 2010). Sainsbury is keeping some product lines fed on non-GM soya, but is dropping others. There is a danger that suppliers will no longer segregate GM and non-GM soya in shipments to Britain if the major retailers do not demand it and easily available sources of non-GM meat and dairy products will be lost. Although GM feed will not be used for products that are classified as organic!’ (1) This isn’t brilliant in my opinion, as I have discussed already, they don’t have to mark any products that use GM grain and the health effects that they have on animals that can be passed over aren’t brilliant. In Britain, there have been field trials of GM potatoes (one in Norfolk and one near Leeds) and GM wheat (at the Rothamsted research centre in Hertfordshire). In 2014, a trial of GM Camila sativa ("false flax") is planned at Rothamsted. This crop has a genetically altered oil content (high in omega-3). Defra lists applications and consents for field trials, and if they’re trialling it how can they be sure that pollen from these trials aren’t getting out to our other sources of food and changing them? Also why are they trialling them if not to bring them into the country long term? After all of this, it is safe to assume that GB isn’t completely GM free and possibly in the future due to the testing of certain GM foods it could potentially be coming into the county full time! Which I personally am against. I don’t think it’s very safe to even test them here and that potentially there is a battle of ethics here due to the poisons that are used and that have been found in the human blood streams from the intake of GM foods . GM foods in USA America’s food regulations are a little different to the EU mainly because of the amount of people that live there, they try to do everything on a grand scale because it’s more cost effective. This is fair enough as it is working towards supply and demand and in America there is a lot of demand. In the USA, there is no requirement that says you have to indicate the presence of GMO ingredients on food labels or in restaurants, nor are companies required to report which genetically modified seeds they use. This means it could pretty much be everywhere and nobody would know. GMO’s were first approved to be grown in America in 1996. An article in time magazine says that 90% of all soybean cotton and corn acreage in America is used to grow GM crops. Like I said before, it’s to supply and demand so it’s not deemed that big of a deal when it comes to those circumstances but when you look into all of the underlining health factors that it can potentially cause, what the seed can do to animals and the fact that GM foods are less resistant to disease and pests then, again, for me it’s not worth it. Where genetic modification has been used on a large scale in the U.S are on food crops such as: sugar beets, alfalfa, canola, papaya and squash. I found it very difficult to find the regulation of these products and all I found was that it’s approved by the major governing bodies over in America, which is why it is so widely used. The question is, what is so different about testing of products that they don’t want to use it in Europe and the UK but in America it’s used as much as possible? Conclusion As you can see from the difference in USA and the UK/EU, GM foods are used a lot more in the USA and like I said I believe this is due to supply and demand problem. More than anything else the population of America being around 318.9 million and the population of the UK being about 64.1million, however, Europe as a whole has a population of 742.5 million people, far greater than the USA but does not fuel supply and demand via the use of gm products. As stated earlier, countries in Europe can use the ‘opt out’ clause, as such some countries in Europe could still be producing GM foods. However, this is no-where near the same scale as the USA. Judging on the research, I think we should just have natural foods- vegetables and in an ideal world we should raise our own crops and livestock because real food, without any preservatives or genetic modifications are the best for you, because it is nature’s bounty- as much as a hippy as that makes me sound. Hopefully this give a little insight into what GMO foods are and where they can be found. If anybody has any further information, I would be very happy to hear about it as I find this very interesting. I don’t mind being told I’m wrong as long as there is evidence to support it! Here is a list of regions that have been free of GMO foods since 2010- http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/fileadmin/files/gmo-free-regions/full_list/List_GMO-free_regions_Europe_update_September_2010.pdf Here are a list of journals for your consideration. They’re all done by scientific testing and they are definitely worth the time to read in my opinion: (1)https://www.uclm.es/Actividades/repositorio/pdf/doc_3721_4666.pdf (2)http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0069805 (3)http://rt.com/usa/gmo-gluten-sensitivity-trigger-343/ (4)http://responsibletechnology.org/media/images/content/Press_Release_Gluten_11_25.pdf (5)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637 (6)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170 (7)http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/Roundup-and-birth-defects/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5.pdf (8)http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx1001749 (9)http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416 (10)http://omicsonline.org/open-access/detection-of-glyphosate-residues-in-animals-and-humans-2161-0525.1000210.pdf (11) http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/81/8106.pdf (12)http://static.aboca.com/www.aboca.com/files/attach/news/risk_assessment_of_genetically_modified_crops_for_nutrition.pdf (13)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19146501 Bibliography (1) http://www.genewatch.org/sub-568547 Coconut oil: what it’s good for and how you can use it!
Coconut oil is a super food if you will. Coconuts when synthesized into its purest form is coconut oil. When it becomes coconut oil it has a nutritional value of almost 100% fat a majority of which is saturated. Saturated fat But isn’t saturated fat bad for me? NOPE!! That is one of the biggest myths of the 20th century. It was taken from a certain piece of research that was done by a man named Ancel Keys. The experiment that he did compared heart disease and fat consumption. This left a positive correlation that people who ate more fat did in fact have more heart disease. Although what MR Ancel Keys did was he took out all data suggesting otherwise. What do I mean by this? Well he didn’t include data from places like Norway, a place where they typically eat a lot of fat. Norway showed that their fat consumption was large but their death by heart disease wasn’t very high at all. If you think about Inuit tribes they eat: fish, whale blubber, seal blubber, berries and their life expectancy is larger than a lot of countries in the western world. Mr Keys didn’t include places that don’t eat much fat but have a high death rate of people from heart disease like Chile. In fact, people who are in the top end of the spectrum that are said to consume a lot of fat and are suffering from heart disease places like: the UK, America and Australia typically have a low fat diet. In every supermarket, everywhere, everyone, Is buying low fat products. so why are we all still fat? This, my lovely lovely people, is due to processed grains and fats. What do I mean by processed grains? Well, processed grains are things such as: bread, couscous, pasta etc. Processed fats things like olive oil margarines or any margarines for that matter. Margarine is made from unsaturated fats (polyunsaturated and mono unsaturated fats) when they’re taken from their main components like olives or sunflower seeds. They’re oil. And at room temperature they’re oil still. This is due to the makeup of those particular fats. So how do they make it into that buttery like substance? Good question. What they do is they add things call Trans fats which are chemically made substances that changes the fats in the oils in order to turn them into a solid. So in short, the processed fats are Trans fats and they’re in margarine and various other things. Saturated fats are actually good because they’re naturally occurring animal fats and in coconuts. These fats always work perfectly well with protein and actually help one another in digestion. Think of an egg: when you crack an egg you think protein (the white bit) and fats (the yoke). Fats and proteins- the perfect amount of each in an egg to create life. Surely there is something to that. I’ll let you decide Coconut oil. 3 ways to use coconut oil- 1) Use as a Pre workout Coconut oil is 100% fat, it can be eaten as it is, so a heaped teaspoon before the gym or it can be added to coffee. It passes through the stomach, is quickly digested and goes to the liver. The liver holds Glycogen. Let’s just say for now that glycogen = energy. It’s not incredibly scientific as there is a process it goes through but for the purpose of a shortened explanation glycogen = energy. Glycogen released when we exercise to give the body energy to carry out the task before it. Some glycogen is stored in our muscles but not much so when our muscles run dry we get more energy from the breakdown of glycogen in the liver. What the coconut oil does is goes through digestion straight into the liver. Now, coconut oil is a medium branched triglyceride (fancy name for fats) when this is synthesised in the liver it turns into ketones. What are Ketones? Ketones are the acids remaining when the body burns its own fat. When the body has insufficient insulin, it cannot get glucose from the blood into the body's cells to use as energy and will instead begin to burn fat. This along with the glycogen you already have will give you an energy boost. Which is exactly what we want from a pre workout. More energy. It’s a good thing because it won’t increase your heart rate from caffeine which is usually found in pre workouts alone, with a lot of other chemicals to help you focus. This is a good natural way to do it. The serving a heaped tea spoon is usually enough but each person will need a different amount. Also its texture isn’t brilliant so you may need some water nearby to watch it down with. 2) Use to help you cut! If you’re in a cutting phase during exercise and you’re hoping to lose some body fat, coconut oil can be very useful. Despite what you may think, fat doesn’t make you fat and cholesterol doesn’t give you cholesterol. What makes you fat is the spike in insulin that you get from carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are broken down into their simplest form of sugar (glucose) too much glucose in the blood stream is toxic to the body so what happens is the body releases a chemical called insulin in order to get rid of excess sugars. While it is doing this it is burning all of the sugar off and all of the fat that is usually used as energy has nowhere to go. So it gets stored in the cells = adipose tissue. So fat doesn’t make you fat, sugar makes you fat. Another reason coconut oil won’t make you fat and will in fact help you lose fat is because it doesn’t go through the same process as normal fats. It passes through the digestion and goes straight to the liver and is used as ketones. Like we visited earlier, Ketones are acids remaining when the body burns its own fat. When the body has insufficient insulin, it cannot get glucose from the blood into the body's cells to use as energy and will instead begin to burn fat. When you have more ketones going through your blood it will lower the insulin production and will help you to start burning more fat- In a state of ketosis. Ketosis is a state at which the body has an extremely high fat-burning rate. Even the brain runs on fat, via ketone bodies. These are energy molecules in the blood (like blood sugar) which become fuel for our brains after being converted from fat by the liver.To encourage ketone production, the amount of insulin in your bloodstream must be low. The lower your insulin, the higher your ketone production. Again ways that you can use this is to cook with it, put it in a coffee, or simply eat a spoonful now and then. It typically works better as part of a high fat low carbohydrate diet. 3) Use as moisturiser Coconut oil is 100% fat, it is mostly saturated fat but also has omega 3 in it. This is brilliant for dry skin so put it on your lips or put it onto you dry hands, and it’ll help it out. If you like the smell of coconuts get the extra virgin stuff but if not the normal organic stuff is the same it just doesn’t have that coco nutty smell. With dry hands I recommend that you put it into a glove and strap the glove on and wear it overnight for a few nights in order to properly nourish them and get them soft again. The problem with a lot of hand creams is that they’re made from chemicals. Chemicals are the ones that did this to your hand in the first place I’m willing to bet. Put a couple table spoons in a cotton glove overnight and it’ll help. You’ll be just like the character Curley from Mice of Men. Hopefully you have read that book or the reference is wasted on you. You can also make a paste from it. Add something else in like aloe vera also very good for the skin!! |
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