The art of combining food and exercise to maximize its benefits is not easy, but its nevertheless important for every person who’s passionate about their physical development. The recommendations haven’t changed very much over the years, yet many people still don’t seem to be very up to date in the matter.

Whether you’re just trying to stay fit or you’re a professional athlete, what you eat and when you eat it will have an effect on your performance.

Before working out

You should eat before you work out for two reasons:

• Food, mainly food rich in carbs, will give you the energy needed to maximize your performance.
• The energy gained from the food will prevent your body from entering a catabolic state where it needs to break down your muscle tissue in order to get the energy needed. In other words, your workout is more likely to increase your muscle gains if you consume a pre-workout meal than if you abstain from doing so.

Personally, I avoid eating a major meal two hours or less before I work out. The reason for this is that during those two hours after eating your body will be focusing on digestion, which results in that it will have less energy for other activities. Howevery, a minor meal before your workout, such as a fruit, is likely to grant you more benefits than disadvantages.

If you chose to work out in the morning, avoid doing so before breakfast, since this will force your body into a catabolic state if you do so, resulting in a breakdown of tissue (both fat and muscle). Most of us don’t mind burning some fat, yet we’ll pay for doing so by losing the muscles we’ve worked for so hard. If we wish to effectively burn fat in the mornings without this loss of muscle, we can do so by consuming lean protein such as egg white, lean meat or quark before exercising.

During the workout

Whether you chose to consume some light snacks (bananas and energy bars seem to be fairly popular) while working out is up to you, but don’t eat anything too heavy. If possible, drink water. During a one-hour workout an average person  loses two liters of water that should be replaced during or after the workout.

After working out

The meal after working out is the most important. It may be difficult to eat right away (you might want to calm down, stretch, shower, etc.), but you should strive to eat as soon as possible – aim for within half an hour, and if that is not possible, at least within two hours. There are three main reasons for this:

1. To give your body the energy it needs to maintain a high metabolism without compromising other body functions.
2. To gain muscle mass.
3. To store energy as glycogen in your muscles to be used next time you work out.

If you do not eat within two hours, you’re unlikely to gain very much benefits from your workout at all.

The post-workout meal should, if possible, be a fairly big meal. If this is not possible, then you should try to eat several minor meals during the following hours. This meal (or these meals, if you wish) should give you at least 30 grams of protein, and fairly high amounts of carbs and/or fat.

Also, after a workout is the only time when it might actually be a benefit to carbs with a high glycemic index, as this will increase the glycogen stored in your muscles. High glycogen levels will give you more energy the next time you’re exercising, which in turn will make your workout more worthwhile.

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Ok, here we go:

1. Don’t smoke. Ever.
2. Avoid being exposed to passive smoking.
3. Don’t use chewing tobacco.
4. Eat fruits, especially fruits with strong colors.
5. Eat lots of berries.
6. Eat more vegetables.
7. Eat more nuts.
8. Eat beans.
9. Eat onions. If possible, uncooked.
10. Eat whole grains.
11. Add garlic to as many meals as you can.
12. Eat less sugar.
13. Eat less processed foods.
14. Go easy on the salt.
15. Increase your consumption of dietary fiber.
16. Drink more water.
17. Drink tea. Lots of tea. Especially green tea. Don’t use milk.
18. Drink coffee.
19. Drink wine (in moderation).
20. Limint your alcohol consumption.
21. Avoid over-exposure to sunlight.
22. Use sunscreen.
23. Avoid being exposed to chemicals in your work environment.
24. Check your home and work for sources of harmful radiation.
25. Don’t microwave your food.
26. Eat steamed vegetables rather than boiled.
27. Use lots of spices when cooking.
28. Pre-cook your meat before putting it on the grill.
29. Coat barbecue meat with sauce to avoid direct contact with flames.
30. Cut out hig-fat animal protein.
31. Eat four or more servings of fish a week.
32. Switch from fried potatoes to mashed or boiled.
33. Strive to be emotionally balanced.
34. Get a screening.
35. Exercise for at least 30 minutes every day.
36. Use condoms.
37. Avoid deodorants and sunscreen containing paraben.

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In this day and age people don’t always have the time the would like to have. When we work eight hours a day, have families to take care of and responsibilities that needs our undivided attention, it’s not always that very easy to find time to exercise.

It is with this in mind that it may be a wise choice to choose workouts that are as efficient as possible.

Ball sports

When playing ball sports we practically use most muscles i our body. This makes ball sports a more diverse way to exercise than running or walking. By playing sports we also tend to get caught up in the competition and thereby forget time and exhaustion for a moment.

This is how many calories ball sports burn in average:

• Squash: 600 kcal/hour
• Soccer: 560 kcal/hour
• Basketball and tennis: 400 kcal/hour

Walking, running and cycling

If you want to lose weight, run. If you want to lose fat, walk fast. By running we get more exercise and gain more endurance, but may lose muscle mass (and thereby weight) in the process. If you want to lose a lot of weight without losing muscle, then concider interval running.

This is how many calories walking, running and cycling burn in average:

• Cycling: 400 kcal/hour
• Power-walking: 500 kcal/hour
• Running (10 km/hour): 750 kcal/hour

The gym

You can find a vast amount of different ways to work out at a gym. The different ways doesn’t differ that very much when it comes to burning fat, so the important thing is to find something you really enjoy, to ensure that you stick with it.

This is how much aerobics, body pump, spinning and step up burns in average:

• Aerobics: 300 kcal/hour
• Body Pump: 400/hour
• Spinning: 350 kcal/hour
• Step up: 425 kcal/hour

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1.

“The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more

efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your

talent to produce outstanding results.”

Anthony Robbins

By exercising and resting adequately we will gain energy that can be used in other areas of our life. Therefore and improvement in your level of health and fitness may result in an improvement in your career or social life.

2.

“The hardest thing about exercise is to start doing it. Once you are

doing exercise regularly, the hardest thing is to stop it.”

Erin Gray

It seems to be a common belief among people who do not exercise enough that working out is something you always have to force yourself to do. It couldn’t be further from the truth. An effort is needed to create the habit of exercising, which might take a month or two, but when that is done you won’t see it as something you have to force yourself to do.

3.

“Fitness needs to be perceived as fun and games or we subconsciously avoid it.”

Alan Thicke

If you do not enjoy exercise, you haven’t found the exercise that is right for you. Try working out i different ways: Play basketball, ride your bike or do some yardwork.

4.

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

Woody Allen

If you do not feel like exercising but you still feel that you should do so, then put your running shoes on and go outdoors before deciding.

5.

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”
World Health Organization, 1948

If you believe that being healthy is about eating salad and taking constant power-walks, then you’re wrong. Very wrong. Health is affected by so much more that just a good diet and exercise. In order to reach a state of true health and well-being, we must avoid stress, have a good social life and spend our time doing things we really enjoy.

Share your own health quotes or tips below.

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1. 5 Health Quotes and What We Can Learn From Them, Pt. I

1.

“Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.”

Hippocrates

Today, we often cure sickness and disease with pills and treatments. It has to change. By maintaining a good and healthy diet and combine it with exercise, we can effectively prevent sickness.

2.

“Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for illness.”

Earl of Derby

“I don’t have time to exercise” is a common excuse. What many people don’t realise is that by exercising we get more energy, can work more effectively and avoid illness. By spending some time exercising, we’ll end up saving time.

3.

“Exercise is good for your mind, body, and soul.”

Susie Michelle Cortright

By exercising we don’t only become strong, fit and resistant to illness, but also more relaxed and happy. To invest in your health is therefore not only a way to become more good-looking or less ill, but also a way to increase your overall enjoyment of life.

4.

“Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it.”

Unknown

Health is one of the things that is often not appreciated until we lose it. Therefore, make sure to not only be healthy but also to enjoy your health while you can.

5.

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”

Jim Rohn

You only have one body. If you destroy it through smoking, drinking in abundance or eating the wrong food all the time, you’ll lose your health. And, as said above, it is often when we lose our health that we learn to value it.

If you have any other great quotes on health or fitness, feel free to share them below!

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1. 5 Health Quotes and What We Can Learn From Them, Pt. II

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.  ~ Irish Proverb

Tight schedules. Stress. Artificial light. It’s harder than ever to get a good night’s sleep.

Truth is, however, that a lot of sleep won’t necessarily equal to a long life – the risk of death actually increases with both too little and too much sleep.

One study found that the average person’s risk of death increased if they slept more than eight hours a night or less than seven. The optimal amount of sleep one should get should therefore be around 7 hours and 30 minutes – that is, if you get quality sleep. There are a number of factors that can reduce the quality of your sleep:

• Artificial light
• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Lack of exercise
• Stress

These factors are often interwoven, and it might be hard to give advice on how to prevent single factors from disturbing that precious beauty sleep of yours.

The major sleeping problem today is lack of sleep rather than getting too much sleep. What then are the downsides of sleeping too much? The main disadvantage is actually a reduction in the quality of your sleep, resulting in lower energy levels. Since sleeping too much also reduces the time you are awake, you’re more likely to get stressed, which in turn may lead to heart problems.

Also watch

Human Longevity Secrets: Sleep — powered by eHow.com

Read more

• Experts claim sleep to be the best indicator of longevity – Pravda

• Sleep Duration and Longevity – About.com: Longevity

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If your into the whole antioxidant movement you’ve heard it all before – food rich in colour often contains a lot of antioxidants, that will keep our bodies from aging and protect us from a wide range of diseases.

Antioxidant capacity is often measured in ORAC – Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. Most vegetables and fruits have orac values between 100 and 1,000 μ mol TE/100g. Different sources tell us different values for the same foods, which makes it hard to say exactly what orac value different foods has. However, these are the foods that always score high. Orac values are taken from oracvalues.com.

Green tea (ORAC: 1,253 μ mol TE/100g)

Green tea may not  have a very high orac value, but it’s concidered a very good source of antioxidants since it’s so easy to consume large quantities of it. If you drink three cups a day you can get over 8,000 orac units. Compare that with the 1,200 orac units that is said to be the average amount of antioxidants consumed per person and day in the United States.

If you find it green tea too bitter, add some honey – it’s antibacterial and won’t make you fat unless it’s overconsumed.

Blueberries (ORAC: 6,552 μ mol TE/100g)

The fact that blueberries have a strong blue color gives hints about its properties. Berries often have high orac values, often over 2,000, but blueberries are extraordinary.

Combine with some unsweetened yoghurt or quark and you have a perfect snack or dessert.

Cocoa (ORAC: 80,933 μ mol TE/100g)

Cocoa contains a kind of antioxidants called anthocyanins, that are also found in red wine, blueberries and coffe. These anthocyanins can make wonders for your health. Yet, let’s face it – overconsumption of chocolate will eventually make you fat, so don’t eat too much.

Six grammes of dark chocolate a day is said to be optimal.

Acai berries (ORAC: 102,700 μ mol TE/100g)

Acai is a berry that has gained a lot of medial attention lately due to its high content of anthocyanins. The berry is grown mainly in South America and may be hard to find on the market in other parts of the world. If you do find some, concider yourself lucky.

Cloves (ORAC 314,446 μ mol TE/100g)

Ground cloves has an orac value of over 314,000. This is extreme. Compare that with blueberries – said to be an extremely good source for antioxidants – that have a (very high) orac value of 6,000. Of course, you’re less likely to consume 100 grammes of cloves than 100 grammes of blueberries or cocoa, yet due to its extremely high orac value, you can still gain great health benefits from cloves even if you only consume small amounts.

Try using some cloves the next time you brew coffee or tea.

Read more

Healthy Diet Improves Immune System – Diet Blog

Antioxidants: Fighting the Good Fight – Mark’s Daily Apple

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Few ever lived to a great age, and fewer still ever became distinguished;
who were not in the habit of early using.
- John Todd

Some people claim to be morning people and others claim to be evening people. They make it sound as if it were all about genes, but hey – it’s not. Thruth is that we can teach ourselves – that is, our minds and our bodies – to wake up very early every morning without feeling tired at all. It’s just a matter of habit.

If you’re into the whole online personal development movement, you’ve probably come across the concept of early rising before. However, most of the people writing blog posts about it seems to focus on the productivity, stress-recuding and time-saving benefits of it. As the health blog this is, I thoguht we should try seeing it from a different perspective: how it directly or indirectly affects our physical health.

1. Get more rest in less time

It’s said that the hours before midnight gives five quarters of sleep per hour – that is, your body will benefit more from the sleep you gain those hours than the hours later in the night. If this is the case, sleeping between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. should have the same effect as sleeping between midnight and 7:30 a.m., even though you actually sleep half an hour less if you go to sleep at 10 p.m.

This means two things: either you can reduce your amount of sleep but still become as rested as earlier (hey – now you finally got time to exercise), or you can sleep as much as earlier but become more rested and have more energy throughout the day.

2. Eat breakfast

It’s said that the breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that 50 % of Americans do not eat proper breakfast. This is bad thing.

If you wake up early you will have more time to prepare and eat a good and healthy meal.

3. Exercise

Mornings are great for breakfast, both because you don’t have to do a lot of other things, and because it’s a very good time of the day to burn fat. When exercising before breakfast your body don’t have any food to take energy from, so it have to use fat as its source of energy.

Beware, though, because your body can also use muscle tissue as a source of energy. To prevent this, eat some protein before hitting the running track. Good sources of protein without much carbs of fat are egg whites, lean meat such as turkey or chicken and protein shakes.

It might take a few days or weeks to teach your body to use fat as its only source of energy, so take it easy in the beginning. If you find it hard to run, take a walk instead.

How to start doing it

The probably best way to start waking up early is using Steve Pavlina’s method. He promotes that we should go to bed when we feel tired (since we do not need the same amount of sleep every night), and go up at the same time every morning (weekends included). If we get too little sleep one night, we will be more tired the next evening and then we can go to sleep earlier that day instead to compensate it.

If you do this for a few weeks you will soon wake up this time by yourself, without the need for an alarm clock.

Recommended articles and sites

10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It – Zen Habits

How to Become an Early Riser – Steve Pavlina

How to wake up early

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