Aquaholics Anonymous: Surfing
You’re never too old to learn how to surf. Whether you are fit to brave the waves or are trying out the stand up paddle, you will need to build up your core strength first so that you have the agility and strength needed to surf.
Surfing uses an extraordinary amount of energy and you can burn 500 calories per hour. It requires strong shoulders and arms for paddling out to the waves and core strength for riding the waves to shore. Sometimes you spend more time paddling. For the core strength and endurance required braving the waves, try these exercises.
Our exercise gear du jour: the Swiss ball. Using Swiss balls improves balance and leads to agility.
1. Swiss Ball Balance.
Try balancing on the ball with one knee, the other leg bent. Work up to balancing on both knees.
2. Swiss Ball Lunge.
Stand up with the Swiss ball behind you. Place one foot on the ball behind you. Lunge down, Bend the other knee until your thigh is parallel to the floor. Push yourself back up through your heels. Repeat with the other leg.
3. Swiss Ball Squat Rotation.
Stand up with the Swiss ball between a wall and your back. Lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the ground. Push yourself back up.
4. Swiss Ball Push Up:
Get yourself ready to do pushups with both shins on the ball.
With your spine and head aligned, inhaling on the way down, bend arms and lower your chest to the ground.
Exhale as you push your arms back to start.
(Great for upper body strength needed to paddle out!)
5. Russian Twist on a Swiss Ball
Sit on the ball, feet spaced wide apart.
Use your core strength to raise your torso.
Look straight ahead, extend both arms in front of you.
Twist your torso to the left, return to center, then twist to the right.
(Gives your abs a killer workout.)
6. Swiss Ball Stand.
If you’re super-agile, give this a go. With your feet spaced far enough apart to balance, try to stand on top of the ball and keep your balance for as long as you can.
Try these exercises three times a week and alternate days with 20 minutes of jogging and 20 minutes of swimming for aerobic conditioning.
Good luck!
Filed under: HEALTH & WELLNESS, NUTRITION | Tags: diet, fast foods, mall foods, Men's Health, The 20 Worst Mall Foods in America, unhealthy
Eating Out Requires You Play Detective Before Ordering.
Yes, we all have ventured into P.F. Chang’s after a day of shopping at the Mall or stopped to get a quick bite at Starbucks en route from doing damage at our favorite boutiques. But what you might not have been thinking about while texting in between bites of a muffin or twirling noodles is that what you ordered was jam packed full of sugars, empty carbohydrates and laden with a day’s worth of calories in just one sitting.
A recent list, The Worst Mall Foods in America, has been published, courtesy of Men’s Health Magazine,which pinpoints popular items sold by well known vendors and the nutritional data is shocking. At the bottom of the list is a Cranberry Flax muffin from Starbucks, weighing in at a whopping 410 calories. The top two are P.F. Chang’s Tam Noodles serving a hefty 1,678 calories and number one is Quizno’s Large Tuna Melt Club with a staggering 1,820 calories.
#20 on the list: Starbucks Cranberry Flax Muffin
410 calories
17 g fat (1 g saturated)
57 g carbs
32 g sugars
SUGAR EQUIVALENT: 3 Scoops of Breyers All Natural Butter Pecan Ice Cream
#2 on the list: P.F. Chang’s Tam’s Noodles
1,678 calories
93 g fat (17 g saturated)
144 g carbs
FAT EQUIVALENT: 10 packs of M&M’s!
#1 on the list: Quizno’s Large Tuna Melt Club (with cheese and dressing)
1,820 calories
147 g fat (27 g saturated, 1.5 g trans)
2,020 mg sodium
85 g carbs
CALORIC EQUIVALENT: 12 Taco Bell Fresco Style Beef Tacos!
It’s incumbent upon ourselves to do the legwork and investigate just what is in the food. If the nutritional data is not posted, ask, because you will be provided with an answer. If the food purveyor cannot give you the calorie count, then either opt out or take into consideration that you may be consuming a day’s plus worth of calories just on that one plate. Better yet, be more selective and eat at places serving healthy, simple, organic food.
So, the next time you sit your skinny, fat, or medium-sized behind down to nosh at a popular eatery, check please!
Sources:
David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding, Men’s Health
Intense Workouts Make Your Body More Vulnerable to the Flu
Scientists performed a controlled clinical trial on mice to determine if does of Quercetin would lessen the likelihood of contracting the flu.
What is Quercetin?
Sounds unfamiliar? You’ve been eating it your whole life. It is part of a class of compounds, called flavonoids, with strong anti-oxidant properties. Quercetin is present in fruits and vegetables, notably red grapes, red apples, blueberries, red onions, broccoli. It also is found in red wine and tea. Quercetin has been previously researched regarding its’ anti-viral properties in cell culture experiments but only recently have scientists researched whether it may less the likelihood of contracting the flu.
What is so special about Quercetin?
Scientists have revealed that the properties of Quercetin come into play when the body is under significant stress. People such as athletes who are rigorously training, soldiers and those under extreme psychological stress may benefit.
Why Are Athletes More Prone to Catching the Flu?
When the body is subjected to high oxidative stress and pushed to the point of fatigue and muscle damage, the body’s stress hormones become high and there is a greater susceptibility to respiratory infections. Another recent clinical study was done on 20 cyclists given 1,000mg of Quercetin daily for five consecutive weeks, during which time they rode a bicycle for three hours a days for three days until they reached a physiological point of exhaustion. A second group of cyclists received a placebo. The result showed that only 5 percent of cyclists who took 1,000 milligrams of Quercetin reported upper respiratory illness during a two-week period following extreme exercise, whereas 45 percent of the cyclists who took a placebo reported illness following extreme exercise. Although no significant differences in measures of immune system function in the two groups were found, the researchers did learn that athletes taking the Quercetin supplement maintained better mental alertness and reaction time over the placebo group.
Filed under: NEWS
An Iraqi man who hurled his two shoes, one after the other, aimed at President Bush’s head, was tackled to the floor by Secret Service Agents. Criticisms have been hailed at the Agents saying they were too slow to react to the incident. Watch the slow motion video of the shoe throw toss ATTACKE AUF BUSH.
Source: Spiegel TV
Filed under: FUNNY
Sleepwalking, or somnambulism, has been associated with high levels of stress, anxiety, alcohol, seizures, consumption of multiple medications, including sedatives. The latest version of sleep walking to add to the list of sleepwalking activities is sleep emailing. According to researchers from the University of Toledo in the latest edition of the medical journal, Sleep Medicine, a 44-year-old woman, had gone to bed at around 10pm, after taking the sleep medicine Zolpidem, sold in the U.S. as Ambien, but awakened two hours later, walked to the next room, connected to the Internet, logged into her email, wrote fragmented sentences and sent emails. She has no recollection of the event.
Here are other sleep maladies:
sleep goosing (At the University of Minnesota, researchers observed a man who almost every night, suddenly grab his wife’s buttocks during sleep for no apparent reason.)
sleep sex, sexsomnia
sleeptalking, parasomnia
sleep dropping (stepping outside a window while asleep and continuing to sleep!)
sleep art
sleepeating
IMMUNE FUNCTION DECLINES AS WE AGE. HOW DOES L-CARNITINE HELP?
Scientists did a recent study on rats to learn what effect L-Carnitine has on the immune function as it ages. The immune system’s gradual deterioration over time results in the decreased ability to fight infection.
How does L-Carnitine play a part in our immune function?
L-Carnitine serves as a vital factor in the mitochondrial transport of fatty acids, a process essential for fatty acid oxidation and energy release. L-Carnitine is categorized as a conditionally essential nutrient factor and its concentrations are reported to be decreased with aging. The presence of L-Carnitine plays an important role in the mitochondrial transport of fatty acids, a process for fatty acid oxidation and energy release. L-Carnitine is considered a conditionally essential nutrient factor in the oxidation and energy release process. Scientists have determined that the concentrations of L-Carnitine decline with age. Their conclusion in this study was that supplementing L-Carnitine had a positive effect in improving immune responses in aged animals.
Source: doi:10.1016/j.cca.2007.11.013
Can Glacier Water Increase Longevity? Look to the Hunza in the Himalayas.
It is widely known that the Hunza, natives of northwest Pakistan, live to 120 to 140 years of age. What is their secret to their longevity? It is not a secret, but rather a lifestyle, based on whole nutrition, grown and collected in a location rich with minerals. They have very few ailments common to their centenarian counterparts living in places where a daily diet is rife with fatty and processed foods.
What is the Hunza diet?
Glacier Water
The first key to their health is the quality of water they drink. The water comes from a glacier and is referred to as ‘Glacier Milk’, aptly named for its cloudy color. The water comes from melted glacier water that is saturated with fine particles of beneficial minerals.
Water Clusters
This glacier water has very small water cluster molecules. All water consumed in the body travels to every cell within 30 minutes. The smaller the cluster of water molecules, the easier they can penetrate the cells. Water clusters serve an important function which is to cleanse the body of toxins which are essentially ‘acidic waste’. When the body accumulates too much acidic waste from polluted air, poor water, pharmaceuticals, stress and poor nutrition, combined with the normal toxins created by the metabolic processes of the human body, it becomes difficult to maintain the proper pH balance for health. The goal is for the body to be less acidic and more alkaline. Alkalinity creates a negative electrical charge which energizes your body and neutralizes the free radicals.
What are free radicals?
Glacier water contains beneficial negative ions which act as antioxidants. These negative ions play an important role by combating the harmful molecules produced by cells called free radicals. Free radicals often are created in mitochondria within cells which undergo an oxidation process, burning oxygen to create energy for your body. With this process, as many as 10,000 free radicals are created in a cell every day. To combat the proliferation of free-radicals, it is key to consume natural antioxidants, found in vitamins, fruits and vegetables. Free radicals, generated at the molecular level, cause damage to proteins, lipids and nucleic acids. At the cellular level, the mitochondria are both a source as well as a target for free radicals. When the free radicals multiply it results in decreased energy production for the cell. Mitochondria play a role in cell death. The more free radicals your body accumulates, the faster you will age, no matter how many jars of La Mer you use. Youth is preserved from the inside, not the outside.
What happens when our bodies become too acidic?
Healthy tissues are alkaline. Cancer tissues are acidic. Our body is naturally alkaline in it’s physicality but the functionality is acidic. To restore the alkalinity in your body your nutrition should generally be composed of 80% coming from alkaline sources (think leafy and green) and only 20% should be from acidic sources (protein, dairy, nuts).
What to do if you consume more protein?
Supplement your nutrition with supplements such as L-Carnitine, an amino-acid, rubidium, cesium and potassium.
What happens to our bodies when we are deficient in minerals?
Not getting enough minerals leads to, you guessed it, premature aging and poor health. To cure a mineral deficiency, eat organic, vitamin and mineral-rich foods and beverages.
Mini-mize Me
There is no reason for the body to consume huge portions of food. Another look at the Hunza and you will find them eating small portions of highly nutritious food which appeases the appetite and fulfills energy requirements.
Barely Baked Bread
The Hunza grind the grain for their yeast-free flat bread before each meal and cook it briefly, allowing the grain to retain the most nutrients.
Apricots
The stature of a Hunza family is gauged by the quantity of apricot trees on its land.
The Adage is True. You Are What You Eat.
If we filter out the bad food and bring in good nutrition, drink plenty of mineral rich water such as glacier water, we will be energized and have a more positive well-being and extraordinary vitality.
Filed under: NUTRITION
L-Carnitine, sometimes called Vitamin BT or Levocarnitine, is not as commonly known as other amino acids but that may soon change. Recent studies have pointed to L-Carnitine supplementation playing an essential role in the body of infertile men and the increase of sperm concentration, sperm count, percentage of sperm motility and percentage of sperm with rapid progression. L-Carnitine supplementation is a valid consideration for men interested in supporting their reproductive system.
Eurosport offers a line of Active Beverages containing 1000mg of L-Carnitine per bottle, more than any other drink maker in the US.
