Tag: Fitness

On the weekend my daughter and I saw a great food documentary called Fed Up.

I tend to get a bit nervous about food documentaries as they tend to either tell you some stuff is bad, “oh and this otther stuff is really good” or they just scare you into not wanting to eat anything that you did not grow in your backyard.

Fed Up was kind of a different food documentary.

The beginning of the movie was all about the problems with sugar. Following some kids that were overweight and not sure how to stop it.

Fed Up tries hard to break the refrain that we hear always, “Eat well and exercise”. The kids that they show are exercising a lot, but it does not seems to help.

What Do We Learn in Fed Up?

The problem with the Great American Diet is the amount of sugar in it. The idea shown by this movie is sound and scientifically accurate, so it should be a bigger new story than it is.

The important fact early in the movie Fed Up is that refined sugar overloads the pancreas and in turn the pancreas dumps a lot of insulin into the body that helps turn the sugar into fat.

There is a lot of sugar in our diet and the amount of sugar in soda is terrible

This is not new news for any diabetic but for some reason we non-diabetics always think that this does not apply to us. But in fact it does.

So after showing us that sugar is the culprit we learn that most people are just pushing the idea of exercise as fixing the obesity epidemic when in fact the people that are eating the terrible food just have no idea that their issue is food itself and not the amount of exercise.

You can’t outrun your fork

Another problem brought up in the Fed Up Documentary is the demonization of natural fats (We won’t talk trans fats) when in fact the real diet changes in the 70s and 80s to diets that were low fat and higher carb really did not seem to help many people.

Here is the Fed Up Trailer

this stretches into the school system and the kinds of foods that are being fed to children. According to Fed Up 80% of schools are being supplied with food by fast food companies and of course the kids won’t complain as a slice of pizza and chips seems to them to be a lot better tasting than brocolli and salad (I disagree, but that is beside the point).

The amount of money that is sloshing around school systems and the government by the very people making people sick is stunning. When the McGovern Report on food was issued, or attempted to be issued the fast food and sugar based companies protested.

Also whenever there is pressure on the food industury to cur out sugar we see a pushback and claims that they are doing their part, when in fact this is not true at all.

So What Are We Supposed To Do To Stop Obesity?

The message that Fed Up gives us is that there are a lot of refined carbohydrates in our diets and not enough real food.

Even when we think we are eating well with a cereal bar or natural style crackers and breads what we are really doing is pumping carbohydrates into our body that will turn to fat.

What we should be eating instead are more whole foods. Fruits, vegetables, steak, meat. And no soda, crackers, fast food, or items with a lot ingredients in them.

This is not news to me and should not be to you as well.

If you ever try to count calories and look at an apple, celery, or other fruits and vegetables you find they are loaded with nutrients and short on calories.

The other real message of the movie is that we must stop looking at what is marketed to us as a good food in commercials and other ads and instead educate ourselves and eat food that we know the real value of for our nutrition and health.

My daughter and I loved Fed Up and though it brought up a lot of great stories of real people and not only brought out issues with food but also offered solutions that anyone can and should follow.

If you have NetFlix you can see Fed Up on there. Otherwise you can buy the DVD on the Fed Up site

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You already know that exercise boosts your metabolism, of course. And we can not recommend highly enough that you do some type of aerobic activity every day, even if it’s just walking up a few flights of stairs a few times a day at work, or taking a brisk walk on your lunch hour.

If you do aerobic exercise, your metabolism remains higher for up to eight hours after you finish exercising!

And if you exercise enough to put on more muscle, so much the better. Building up muscle can boost your metabolism by ten percent or more, which will generally mean you can eat a few hundred more calories a day.

But when you’re dieting you need all of the help that you can get, so here are some ways to boost that metabolism and burn those calories off faster.

5 Diet Changes To Boost Your Metabolism

1.) Magnesium: Magnesium is necessary to keep your metabolism functioning properly. Magnesium plays an important role in over 300 enzymatic reactions within the body including the metabolism of food and synthesis of fatty acids and proteins.

Magnesium is involved in neuromuscular transmission and activity and muscle relaxation. Magnesium deficiency, especially prevalent in older populations, is linked to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, coronary heart disease and osteoporosis.

If you are not getting enough magnesium in your diet, your metabolism may slow down. (When you buy vitamin supplements, never take more than the recommended dose, however!)

2.) Vitamin B is another vitamin that is essential for boosting your metabolism. B-12 in particular is known to give an energy boost and increase your metabolic rate.

In addition to their role in metabolism and in maintaining healthy skin and hair, B vitamins have been linked to a lower incidence of stroke — a condition where a blood clot blocks blood flow to the brain, or a blood vessel bursts in the brain.

3.) Spicy foods. Studies show that eating foods containing ingredients like black pepper, ginger, and chili peppers can boost your metabolism by as much as 8 percent for several hours after you eat them!

4.) Green Tea not only boosts your metabolism, studies show that Green Tea has health benefits including acting as an anti-oxidant and protecting against heart disease.

5.) Water. Dehydration causes your metabolism to slow down. Even mild dehydration can cause your metabolism to slow down as much as three percent, in much the same way that cutting back on calories does.

When your body is deprived of water it slows down all of its metabolic functions. Drinking water not only fills you up, it keeps your metabolism functioning efficiently.

These metabolism boosting foods are a great addition to your regular diet anyway and the fact that they will help you increase your metabolism is an added advantage to start using them.

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Acupuncture for back pain is an ancient Chinese healing system that is highly effective in the treatment of many illnesses like nausea, migraines, aches and pains and infertility. It works by inserting needles into certain calculated points in the body.

Acupuncture has been proven to be especially beneficial in the treatment of back pain, a common complaint these days.

Acupuncture for back pain requires inserting very fine needles of depth varying from 1/4th to an inch into certain points on the body that are said to be the balancing points of life force known in Traditional Chinese Medicine as chi. This type of treatment depends on the individual needs of the patient.

Common Causes of Back Pain

Back pain may be due to several reasons like spraining of the ligaments in the back or a muscle rupture. It may also occur due to a herniated disc. Sciatica, which is pain due to the inflammation of the sciatic nerve can also lead to severe back pain and is quite common among people who are elderly and middle aged.

Another reason for chronic back ache may be an underlying deficiency in the body. Incorrect posture, long hours spent in front of the computer and poor dietary habits are some of the causes of back pain.

Traditional Chinese Acupuncture For Back Pain

Moxibustion – In this method, a Chinese herb called mugwort is applied to acupuncture points using heat and is used to treat particular patients of arthritis and back pain. The moxa is rolled into thin sticks, burned and then held above the body parts.

Electro Acupuncture – This makes use of a weak electric current passed through the acupuncture needle. This aids in relieving inflammation, subsiding swellings and is especially effective in acupuncture for back pain.

Tui Na – The traditional Chinese system of Tui Na uses massages deployed along with acupuncture for improved results in a range of muscle or joint pain.

Cupping – In this method, suction jars or glass cups are kept on the body for about ten minutes. This helps in the stimulation of the blood vessels thereby improving blood supply and aiding in treatment of back pain and other ailments like nausea and influenza and common cold.

Will Acupuncture For Back Pain Work?

A strong point in support of acupuncture for back pain is the fact that it has hardly any side effects when performed by a qualified practitioner.

There may be some discoloring at the site of acupuncture for back pain but it is fleeting and not dangerous at all.

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