IN ANSWER TO THOSE MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS…

Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by Homes Etc in Articles, Health, beauty and Fitness

Mark Daley, health and fitness manager from The West Hants Club in Bournemouth offers some expert knowledge: Processed foods are as good as fresh?
Product marketing, specifically food advertisements, can have a huge influence on people’s choices when attempting to undertake a healthy eating plan. It is a constant frustration to health and fitness professionals when clients explain that they have chosen a certain brand of breakfast cereal based on its promoted ‘high fibre,’ ‘high iron’ and ‘high RDA of vitamin B3’ content. What is missed is that the small print also states a very high sugar, salt and additive content, or that a certain Olympic champion athlete subscribes to a breakfast of a sugary, salty flaked cereal in order to give him the energy to get through his gruelling workouts every day, so if it’s good enough for him…

The truth is that the more processed the food, the less nutritious it is. Anyone wishing to change their diet in order to encourage health and fitness should simply add fresh vegetables, fruit, lean (preferably organic) meat, poultry, oily fish, whole grains, low fat dairy etc, keeping it simple works.

Break the fast
The body needs continual fuel. It is surprising the amount of people that skip breakfast, sometimes on purpose, with the view that fewer calories consumed will amount to a slimmer waistline. Actually, if you consider that potentially the last meal could be eaten 12 hours prior to breakfast time, your body is in dire need of nourishment, and if it isn’t given is likely to slow down its metabolic rate to survive an energy deficiency, famine. This will eventually amount to more stored body fat and less toned muscle, precisely what we don’t want.

Porridge with chopped fresh fruit or berries is a great way to ‘break the fast’ and you can add some grated ginger root and/or honey to taste if you wish. Porridge is a superb complex carbohydrate that will maintain energy for several hours and not give you the dreaded sugar spike that will cause you to feel tired and/or hungry half way through the morning.

Keeping an even keel
Some consider resistance training to be detrimental to a weight loss programme. They view lifting weights as a way of building their bodies as opposed to making them more streamline. Inevitably they will take on a programme that is only aerobic along with a low calorie diet in order to shed the pounds. This may work, especially for those that are on the heavier side (men over 17 stone, women over 15 stone) because, in effect, they are working with a fair amount of resistance anyway when performing their aerobic exercise.

For the average person looking to lose a few pounds resistance training is a must. By lifting weights as part of a comprehensive fitness programme you maintain muscle mass which in turn maintains a healthy metabolic rate. People need to take heed that it is not only muscle that becomes stronger using weights, but bones become denser and maintain their density throughout middle and old age, safeguarding us from health conditions such as osteoporosis.