This month’s Men’s Fitness highlights ways to get stronger without adding bulk.
Fitness Tips | Articles: No-Bulk Strength Training
Incredible relative strength isn’t just impressive in the gym-it has a tremendous carryover into the activities of daily living and sports. Whether on the street or an athletic field, you always have to maneuver your own body weight. And if you train your muscles to produce the maximum amount of force they can at that body weight, you’ll be able to run faster, jump higher, and make razor-sharp changes of direction a bigger guy with poor relative strength would be unable to duplicate (and he’d exhaust himself just trying).
Exercising to a beat helps weight loss
What we know: A 2003 study looked at the effects of music’s tempo on a group of healthy volunteers who rode a stationary bike for 60 minutes. Those who listened to music with a faster tempo pedaled faster than those who rode to music with a slower tempo.
Hope they didn’t pay too much for that study. I’m still looking for funding for mine - Exercising While Eating Beets Helps Weight Loss.
The Courier-Mail reports:
MANY people would refuse a chance to extend their life if it meant being lonely, contributing to overpopulation or missing out on the afterlife, a study has found.
Seems like a pretty strong negative reaction. But it is also a bit bizarre. First of all, aren’t loneliness and overpopulation a bit contradictory? And the question asks about life extension, not immortality, so the afterlife should still be an option for later.
But reading on we find they buried the lede:
Most wanted to live to between 120 and 150.
Now how did they manage to create a headline suggesting people don’t want to live longer out of that?
A recent news article highlighted three keys to a longer life - eating (much) less, getting high (altitude-wise) and being happy. In some ways, the last one seems obvious. Only happy people would even want to live longer, and the unhappy ones frequently bump themselves off. But here’s the author’s take:
Chico Enterprise Record - Optimism is one of the keys to a long life
People who restrict their caloric intake may be able to lengthen their lives. Swanson said a study funded by the National Institutes of Health was conducted using overweight people as subjects. People who were in the group that reduced their caloric intake by 25 percent for six months not only lost weight, but reduced their core temperature and their nighttime and resting metabolic levels — changes that are linked to longevity.He said there is a Caloric Restriction Society for people who are trying to live longer by eating fewer calories.
Okinawans, who have about 70 percent of the caloric intake of other Japanese people, have 40 times more centenarians than that country as a whole, Swanson said.
Another way to increase your lifespan is to live in the mountains. Swanson said people in Colorado’s seven counties with the highest elevations have the longest lifespans — 81.3 years — of anybody in the country.
Caloric restriction and a low-oxygen environment are both examples of how an organism’s reaction to stress can boost its survival strategies. But humans have additional mechanisms for extending their lives, Swanson said. Our minds can influence our bodies.
Another study found that one of the best ways to avoid dying from a heart attack — along with having the right family history and lowering your blood pressure and cholesterol — is optimism. Swanson said people who can “get up and get going” whenever they have setbacks are more likely to stay healthy.
Wake Forest study: Treating knee osteoarthritis with intense weight loss and exercise
In 2004, researchers at Wake Forest University determined that modest weight loss through diet and exercise improves physical function and decreases pain in older, overweight adults suffering from knee osteoarthritis (OA).
Really? Having less weight on the knee makes it feel better?
Gain Weight, Lose Smarts? - Forbes.com
According to a new French study, heftier people score lower on cognitive tests, even when factors such as education level are taken into account.The effect appears to be quite small, however.
So the good news is you’re only a little bit dumber when you gain weight. In our case, every little bit counts, so we’ll keep working on the weight loss!
You know you ought to… this will make you want to.
Nutrition Articles: Go Fish (Men’s Health)
POACHED SALMON WITH LEMON MINT TZATZIKI SAUCE
2 cups dry white wine
2 cups water
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
2 lemons, unpeeled, sliced
1 (2 lb) salmon fillet with skin
1 scallion, top only, thinly sliced
1 cup Lemon Mint Tzatziki Sauce (recipe below)
HealthNewsDigest.com reviews “The Wine Lover’s Healthy Weight Loss Plan”
The Wine Lover’s Healthy Weight Loss Plan will teach you:·Why you don’t need to pay a lot for a good bottle of wine
·How wine’s complexity can open up a new world for the health-conscious
·How to read nutrition labels
·How to shop for wine and healthy foods
·Add balance and flavor to your meals
·How to pair wine with an easy recipes, as well as cook with it
Most people eat about half the recommended fiber each day. To lose weight and lower cholesterol, you should probably eat twice the recommended amount.
Getting Enough Fiber Is Important For Weight Loss | Best Syndication
Fiber is an important part of a healthy diet, but did you know it can help you in your weight loss efforts? Filling up on fiber can help you to feel full for longer, therefore causing you to eat less overall which will result in healthy weight loss.In addition to helping you lose weight, fiber also has many positive health effects. Fiber has been linked to managing diabetes, cutting cholesterol, and limiting heart damage. One Swiss study found that eating a high-fiber meal reduced hunger more than a meal which was low in fiber.
Call us crazy, but we’ve always felt the optimal pesticide consumption to be zero. That said, if you’ve got to choose your battles here is a place to start.
Disease Proof: Reduce Your Pesticide Exposure By 90%
If you avoid the top 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables or only eat them when purchased organic, you can reduce your pesticide exposure by almost 90 percent. The four worst fruits are: peaches, nectarines, strawberries, and apples. The four worst vegetables are: peppers, spinach, celery and potatoes.
On the other hand, the list could also be handy for those who think pesticides add a nice zesty flavor.