Archive for category Health Info
Making Correct Choices as an Athlete
Posted by admin in Health Info on February 16, 2011
How many times have we been to a sporting event and we see the athletes look sluggish or an athlete collapses because of exhaustion? There are things athletes should be doing to keep their bodies from getting injured and so they can perform at peak levels. Any athlete should be consuming a lot of carbohydrates to give them energy during their performances. They also consume good amounts of protein to help them build strong, lean muscles. But most importantly, athletes should be drinking plenty of water.
Before an event an athlete will want to eat a mean that is high in carbohydrates but low in fat. Carbohydrates are fuel for your body. You will want to eat enough carbohydrates to keep you going. Studies have shown that an athlete should get about 60% of their energy from carbohydrates. Fresh fruit, cereal, bread, vegetables, and pastas are good sources of carbohydrates. Don’t eat or drink anything that is sugary. It won’t raise your energy levels. They are hard to digest and will drain you of energy in the long run. You will want to eat your meals a few hours before the event so your food has time to digest and be converted into energy.
After an event, you will want to eat a meal that is balanced with carbohydrates, fats, and protein. Athletes especially need protein after an event to help their muscles to grow and get stronger. A great way to get the added protein is to drink a whey protein isolate supplement. Whey protein builds lean muscle. Whey protein isolate is easy to digest compared to soy based supplements because it is diary based. An isolate also contains 90% pure protein and less fat and carbohydrates than concentrates. You can also find protein in lean meats, fish, eggs, bean, and nuts. Read the rest of this entry »
Nuritional Myths and Facts
Posted by admin in Health Info on February 15, 2011
Nutritional Myths and Facts
You can get all the nutrition from your supermarket (or from the infamous four food groups). If you believe this, you are a candidate to buy a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge.
First, let’s destroy that myth of the “four food groups”. If that were indeed true, a meal at Burger King would be “nutritious”. No serious observer believes this – but it has all 4 food groups. Would you believe that this absurd FFF (four food fictions) is STILL being taught in medical schools and nutritionist courses in all too many colleges? (Nutritionists are those wonderful people who give you those “delicious” meals in schools, prisons, and hospitals. Need I say more about this?)
Next, why can’t we just eat healthy foods from our supermarket? Need a few reasons?
- Fruits and veggies are picked green and artificially ripened with chemicals. These same fruits and veggies are sprayed with insecticides that are also deadly to us humans. We do accumulate these, albeit slowly, and it takes additional nutrition to help our bodies get rid of these chemicals.
- Many growing areas in the US are overworked and many more are more than a bit deficient in minerals needed for nutrition, and taste. You can easily prove this – just try growing your own tomatoes, or even getting them fresh from some of the local fruit stands. Bite into it – If the juice and seeds don’t squirt 3-4 feet, it’s not really picked ripe. AND THE TASTE! Not at all the same as those blobs of red plastic you get from the supermarket. In Florida, zinc has to be added to fertilizers to grow oranges. Milk from Florida cows contain no zinc.
- Food animals are fed hormones to increase their weight. These hormones are illegal for athletes to use, but legal for farmers. If that’s not bad enough, consider this – about half of all antibiotics in the US are used in food animals. I lived in Puerto Rico some years back, and when I found out about the very high level of penicillin in the milk. my kids stopped getting milk. Most of the cows there are tuberculin. Nice hey? Read the rest of this entry »