Exercise therapy

I read a couple of interesting studies about muscle this week and both could have a positive effect on you. The first one was on muscle as a therapeutic treatment option. It seems that muscle repairs itself faster with exercise. Even older muscle. Now going to the gym means that you can build more muscle and that you will heal …

Eat more pasta.

Every decade there is a new low carb diet. Atkins, Zone, Dukan, South Beach and now the Low Carb High Fat Diet (LCHF) Diet. They are all basically the same, cut the carbs and by magic you will lose fat. If you eat less. The only way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories. A new study from Italy …

Timing is everything

With exercise, as with most things, timing is everything. For instance, if you are using exercise to improve your memory, and there is plenty of research to support this, when you exercise matters. Learning something new and remembering it later, can be enhanced with good timing. Exercising immediately after, or not at all, gives you the same result. Not much …

Is calorie restriction really necessary for a longer life?

You may have heard that calorie restriction diets, eating 30-40% fewer calories forever, can extend your lifespan. You might have also heard the joke that it doesn’t actually extend your life. It just feels that way. Other problems with a calorie restriction lifestyle, besides being constantly hungry, include reduced libido, infertility, very low blood pressure, cold sensitivity, loss of bone …

Sedentary athlete?

It is officially summer and surprisingly many people maybe moving LESS in the summer.  You might be thinking, “don’t people get outside more when the days are longer and the weather is better?” Yes, they do. They may even be more ACTIVE. Walking, cycling for transportation, spending some time at the pool or the beach. But, that doesn’t mean they are …

Is a vegetarian an “all you can eat” diet?

Eating a plant based diet revs up our metabolism, an 11% increase over meat eaters. Vegetarians consistently eat less and eat more nutrients than meat eaters, but don’t take my word for it.      

What numbers matter

What numbers matter? We measure everything. Weight, waist circumference, body fat, calories consumed, distance run, elevation gained, pounds lost, revolutions per minute. Age. That last one is a funny one. When we are young we believe we have plenty of time to get fit, lose weight, run, ride, get to the gym, improve our health and then we don’t. When …

Overeating leads to more eating?

Have you ever had one of those days where you just can’t stop eating? You might not be really hungry, but you just never get full? You might be stressing your small intestine. A new study published in Nutrition and Diabetes may explain what happens. When you overeat the hormone that signals fullness stops being produced. Uroguanylin, the fullness hormone, …

For best results, sleep.

Many people worry that not sleeping before an event will have an effect on their performance. One night of tossing and turning is not going to affect your race, but a chronic lack of sleep does. Results from a sleep restriction study on cyclists found that reducing sleep to 4 hours a night for three days had a significant effect …