Give Your Trick-or-Treaters Something Healthy!

Not-So-Tricky Halloween Treats
Most tricks have been dropped from today’s Halloween celebrations and all we are left with are a lot of high-sugar, high-fat treats. If you do not want to send the little beggars off with a sugar buzz, consider these alternatives.

These are sure to please all your little ghosts and goblins:

• Individual packets of dried fruit, raisins, nuts, peanuts
• Peanut-butter crackers, cheese crackers, pretzels
• Fruit juice boxes
• Individual pudding packs
• Sugarless bubblegum
• Buttons, pins, spider rings, trinket jewelry, bracelets, friendship rings, hair barrettes, ponytail holders, shoelaces
• Home-baked goods, labeled with your name and address
• Money
• Tiny plastic animals, figurines, finger puppets, whistles
• Halloween stickers, coloring books, puzzle books, pencils, erasers, note pads
• Crayons
• Trading cards
• Restaurant coupons

Dealing with all the Loot
Wondering what to do once your children’s Halloween loot makes it home? In terms of dental health, nibbling on a piece of candy here and there will continually bathe the teeth in sugar and acid. This repeated exposure is likely to cause tooth decay. The best idea is to let your children eat as much candy as they want at one time and then make sure that their teeth are thoroughly brushed and flossed.

Be sure to set a limit on how long the candy stays around. For example, any leftovers get thrown away after 5 days. This not only will get them back on a healthy schedule but will remove the tempting goodies from you, too!

Question: How do I lose belly fat?

Answer: There is know way to target weight loss, I wish there was, genetically we are all predisposed to hold our body fat where our body decides to hold weight. The abdominal area is a common problem for both sexes. The best way to lose body fat is through cardiovascular exercise and a lot of it. The amount of time should be 20 – 60 minutes to bring fat into metabolism, more than 60 minutes you are running the risk of developing a overuse injury. Strength training is critical to weight loss, the more muscle we have the more metabolically efficient we are. Only when we reduce the amount of body fat will you see that six pack!

Extra advice: Fat storage around the abdominal region predisposes us to certain cardiovascular disease. So get moving!

How to Cut Back on Exercise
Ever been tempted to take a little hiatus from your exercise routine? Well, here’s an unsettling fact that may help you stick with it — even if you go with an abridged version.

Light exercisers who quit cold turkey for a bit — rather than just scaling back — have a much harder time dropping the weight they gain during the break.
Better Than Nothing
Lighten up on exercise and you may gain a bit. But do nothing, or close to it, and things get much worse. When exercisers in a recent study slacked off, they gained exponentially more weight the closer they got to zero exercise. And here’s the kicker: The research also suggested that a prolonged hiatus produces weight gain that can’t be reversed by simply going back to your old routine. You have to do more. Yikes. So even if it feels strange to do less — like walking 1 mile instead of 3 or 4 — remind yourself that it’s infinitely better than doing nothing. 

Exercise is good for you, but how much? Is more better? Some times more is just that, more. There does come a time when your body does say “enough”. We all have our own personnel threshold. Triathletes can train for multiple sports at extreme levels and do very well, others do a little extra training and it puts them over the top. If exercise is leaving you more exhausted then energized, you may be over training.

Know the signs:

• Decreased performance
• Loss of coordination
• Prolonged recovery
• Elevated morning heart rate
• Elevated resting blood pressure
• Headaches
• Loss of appetite
• Muscle soreness/tenderness
• Gastrointestinal disturbances
• Decreased ability to ward off infection
• Increased incidence of musculoskeletal injuries
• Disturbed sleep patterns

All signs of overtraining are not physical, too much exercise can leave you feeling irritable, depressed, emotionally sensitive with a reduced self-esteem..

Once you understand the symptoms the cause needs to be honestly addressed. Increased training prior to a event is understandable, but when it starts to interfere with you mental and physical health the cost/ benefit ratio need an evaluation. It is important to understand the body needs time to acclimate to the increased training demands. For some overtraining is more psychological than physical. Exercising beyond the point of exhaustion while injured is now recognized as a sign of exercise addiction.

The answer to maintaing our health is moderation. The body needs time to adjust, adapt and heal. Overtraining is taking one step forward a falling back three steps.

We all watched with awe Michael Phelps swim in the Summer Olympics. Many of us focused on how many world records Mr. Phelps would set, Dr Joyner a competitive athlete and researcher at the Mayo clinic noticed something else, hoe relaxed he was in the water. Relaxation is a state that is often underestimated; it can make the difference between doing your best and not doing so well. Coaches search for better ways to teach it, athletes, some the worlds beat, work on it constantly

In competitive events tension is present, but tension is slow and it is inefficient. Relaxation is hard to describe but we know when we achieve it. When we get there it is wonderful, that high we all crave, however we don’t get there by trying. That is the mystery of relaxation.

Relaxation goes against most athletes mind set. The thought process is always harder equals faster; a different way to think is relaxing doesn’t mean you have to go slower.

People like Michael Phelps have mastered this concept. They are able to get into a rhythm and stay there even under the stress of competing in the Olympics

Athletes know when they are relaxed; they feel good this feeling of being in the “zone” seems to happen at random. If we pay attention it just may increase the odds of it happening more often..

Recent research shows that treating gum disease or avoiding it altogether with proper oral hygiene may improve the health of the coronary arteries. The findings add to evidence that taking care of your teeth may be one way of preventing coronary artery disease.

In the development of coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis is the underlying cause. Atherosclerosis is caused by a buildup of plaques within the walls of the artery. These plaques eventually lead to a decrease in the size of the lumen of the artery blocking blood flow that can lead to chest pain or a heart attack.

Atherosclerosis does not develop overnight; it takes years of poor lifestyle behaviors that lead to accumulation of cells, fats, and cholesterol on the once smooth inner lining of the arteries. The process starts when the lining of the artery becomes injured often from toxins such as cigarette smoke or inflammation .The injured lining then expresses molecules that attract white blood cells (our first line of defense) and low density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol. The damaged lining now becomes permeable to the white blood cells and LDL cholesterol, which then enter to the inner surface of the artery only to start decreasing the size of the arterial lumen.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine confirms that aggressively treating gum disease, a chronic bacterial infection, may not only save your teeth but improve the health of the coronary arteries.

This study involved 120 adults with severe gum disease; the participants were assigned to undergo a routine dental cleaning or a aggressive periodontal treatment therapy. Participants in the latter group received local anesthesia so a deep periodontal cleaning and extraction of diseased teeth could be performed. Antibiotics were injected into the infected gums. Two months later the participants who received the more aggressive therapy had better endothelial function than those who received the less aggressive treatment These findings are clear evidence that practicing good oral hygiene is just one of many preventive ways to take care of your heart.

Eating the right combination and amount of food before and immediately after a workout is critical in order to aid in recovery, reduce post exercise fatigue, and get you ready for your next workout.

Balancing carbohydrate and protein is important. A high carbohydrate meal with a small amount of protein is best to consume any where from one hour to four hours prior to exercise. Carbohydrates are your first source of energy; this is the fuel source that will sustain your workout. Protein is also important for muscle building and repair. People tend to misunderstand this concept, carbohydrates will give you the energy to perform your workout whether it is a run or weight lifting and protein will repair and rebuild muscle. Eat to much and it gets stored as fat.

Timing is everything, eat at least four hours prior to a workout and then again one hour after you workout. Carefully assess your food choices, although sport bars are convenient they can be “glorified candy bars”. If you must, choose a bar that has about 200 calories, 5 grams of protein, and 25 grams of carbohydrate. A better choice would be a piece of fruit such as a banana and skim milk.

Try not to undo all your hard work, just because you just did this great lung searing workout it does not give you a license to over eat. A workout lasting about an hour, be glad you did it, bypass the smoothie and have a bottle of mineral water and your next scheduled meal. If your workout is more than one hour have that banana waiting in your locker or car. A little timing and planning will help you on your way to achieving your goal.

The following are 10 helpful training guidelines for mature exercisers,

1. Make it a priority to use correct lifting techniques.
2. Educate yourself on the concept of progressive overload.
3. Always perform exercises in a pain free range of motion with controlled joint movements.
4. Practice proper breathing techniques, holding breath can increase intrathoracic pressure placing unnecessary stress on the heart. Always remember to exhale on the more challenging part of the exercise.
5. Begin exercise programs with minimal weight to allow joints and supporting connective tissue to adapt.
6. Avoid excessive weight loads as they may aggravate pre-existing conditions.
7. Take care when performing muscle lengthening exercises which have been shown to increase muscle soreness.
8. Start with lighter loads when returning from a rest.
9. Work on balance using stability balls, medicine balls and other props.
10. Plan workout time efficiently. Sessions lasting over sixty minutes may be to fatiguing.

Eating for Life

Leading health experts agree that going vegetarian is the single-best thing we can do for ourselves and our families. Healthy vegetarian diets support a lifetime of good health and provide protection against numerous diseases, including our country’s three biggest killers: heart disease, cancer, and strokes. The American Dietetic Association states that vegetarians have “lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; … lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer” and that vegetarians are less likely than meat-eaters to be obese.¹ Well-planned vegetarian diets provide us with all the nutrients that we need, minus all the saturated fat, cholesterol, and contaminants found in animal flesh, eggs, and dairy products.

Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent less likely to develop heart disease, and they have 40 percent of the cancer rate of meat-eaters.^3,4 Plus, meat-eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than vegans are.⁵

The consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy products has also been strongly linked to osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, asthma, and male impotence. Scientists have also found that vegetarians have stronger immune systems than their meat-eating friends; this means that they are less susceptible to everyday illnesses like the flu.⁷ Vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six to 10 years longer than meat-eaters.⁸

A plant-based diet is the best diet for kids, too: Studies have shown that vegetarian kids grow taller and have higher IQs than their classmates, and they are at a reduced risk for heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases in the long run.^10,11 Studies have shown that even older people who switch to a vegetarian or vegan diet can prevent and even reverse many chronic ailments.

Read our top nutrition tips for maximizing the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. It’s never too late to turn over a new leaf—you can take control of your health today by going vegetarian. Request a free vegetarian starter kit today!

John Hopkins scientists who have spent decades researching the effects of caffeine report that many of the energy drinks now on the market should carry labels that note caffeine doses and warn of potential health risk for consumers. The caffeine content varies over a ten fold range; some of the products actually contain the equivalent of 14 cans of coca-cola. What’s concerning is these products are often unlabeled and do not include warnings of health risks associated with caffeine intoxication.  Advertising is targeted at the teen and young adult market as performance enhancing and appear to glorify drug use.

Caffeine intoxication is marked by nervousness, anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, gastrointestinal upset, tremors, tachycardia, restlessness and pacing and in rare cases death. A regular 12 oz cola drink contains about 35 milligrams of caffeine, six ounces of brewed coffee has 80 to 150 milligrams of caffeine. Energy drinks are marketed as a “dietary supplement” the limitation the Food and Drug Administration requires does not apply (71 milligrams/12oz). The caffeine content of energy drinks range from 50 to more than 500 milligrams. Manufactures of energy drinks also advertise their products as energy enhancing and stimulating – a marketing strategy that predisposes young people to abusing stronger stimulants such as the prescription drugs amphetamine and Ritalin.