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Introduction About Reda Nation Reasons To Hire Us Health and Fitness Q & A Sign Up For Reda Nation Contact Us |
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| Q: | Can I get the same results doing a shorter, more intense workout as with a longer, slower one? |
| A: | Yes. "A shorter, higher-intensity workout actually burns a few more calories," says Peter Grandjean, Ph.D., a professor of exercise physiology at Auburn University. Plus, high-energy workouts have a greater aftereffect, so you continue to burn calories even when the workout's over. |
| Q: | I feel constantly tired. Could this be a symptom of something more serious? |
| A: | First, evaluate your habits. Are you working too much, not getting enough sleep, not eating well or not exercising enough? Sara Lyn Mark, M.D., senior medical advisor in the Office on Women's Health of the Department of Health and Human Services points out, "stress and depression can also make you very tired." Getting at least eight hours of quality sleep a night, eating healthfully, and trying to exercise for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week most likely will help people who suffer from chronic fatigue. If you take the measures mentioned above and still feel exhausted, talk to your physician. More serious cases of feeling tired could be an indication of chronic fatigue syndrome. The symptoms of CFS are similar to those of many ailments, and researchers don't know exactly what causes it-theories range from a virus to a malfunctioning immune system. As a result, no one is certain how many people have it. If you do have CFS, symptoms such as headache, tender lymph glands, sore throat, fatigue and weakness, muscle and joint pain, "unrefreshing" sleep and the inability to concentrate may come and go or remain constant for six months, in which cases you should see a physician. |
| Q: | I've heard your metabolism naturally slows down as you get older and there is nothing you can do about it. Is this true? |
| A: | While your body's metabolic rate does get slower with age, the process is not completely inevitable. "You can stop the decline by up to 80 percent with strength training and aerobic activity," says Miriam Nelson, Ph.D., director of the Center for Physical Fitness at Tufts University in Boston. It is lean tissue mass that dictates how fast or slow your metabolism is: The more of it you have, the more calories you burn. |
| Q: | How long do I have to hold a stretch? I've heard everything from five seconds to one minute. |
| A: | A basic static stretch - holding the pose for an extended period - should last about 30 seconds. Anything less than 20 seconds won't make a significant difference in lengthening muscle fibers and tissue; hold too long and you risk injury. While some recent studies suggest stretching doesn't necessarily improve performance or decrease one's risk of injury, the American College of Sports Medicine still advises stretching your major muscle groups two or three days a week. |
| Q: | Is it better to work out in the morning or the evening? |
| A: | Many experts recommend working out in the morning to avoid the distractions (and excuses) that may come up later in the day. To snap out of sleep mode, warm up by walking or doing some light cardio for about 10 minutes, and then spend another 5 to 10 minutes stretching, focusing on the same muscles you'll use during the workout. The bottom line, however, is that you'll get the biggest benefit from a workout when you have the most energy, says David Upton, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist in Fort Worth. "If you're sluggish in the morning and don't work out as hard as you do at other times, you might burn fewer calories," he explains. |
| Q: | Will drinking lots of water improve my skin? |
| A: | All that water you're slugging down is great for your overall health, but unfortunately, you can't hydrate skin from the inside out, says Jessica Wu, M.D., a clinical instructor of dermatology at the University of Southern California. What you can do: "Keep dry skin under control by applying lotion right after you take a shower," she says. This traps the water left on your skin and slows evaporation, so dryness doesn't progress to itching, redness, cracking or peeling. |
| Q: | I've fallen off the exercise wagon in the past couple of months. How much strength have I lost, and how quickly can I get it back? |
| A: | Once you resume your routine, you should see results in three to four weeks. Research shows that it takes twice as long to lose strength as to gain it, says Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts. One study found that with two months of weight training, participants had gained 47 percent more strength; after two months of inactivity, they'd lost only 23 percent. Get motivated by setting a new fitness goal, and start at about half the difficulty level of where you left off (say, doing biceps curls with a 5-pound weight rather than a 10-pound one). |
| Fit4AGoodLife
Health & Fitness How to get six-pack abs |
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A recent study lead by Peter Francis, PhD, director of the Biomechanics Lab at San Diego State University, looked at a variety of common abdominal exercises in order to determine what really works. E. Quinn says that the study looked at 13 abdominal exercises, ranging from the traditional crunch to more complicated activities, using at-home and gym equipment.
Each of the 13 exercises was ranked for muscle stimulation (measured with EMG) in the rectus abdominus (the long, flat muscle extending the length of the front of the abdomen) and the internal and external obliques (the long, flat muscles extending along the sides of the abdomen at an angle).
The top three abdominal exercises were:
- Bicycle maneuver
Lie flat on the floor with your lower back pressed to the ground. Put your hands beside your head. Bring your knees up to about a 45-degree angle and slowly go through a bicycle pedal motion. Touch your left elbow to your right knee, then your right elbow to your left knee. Breath evenly throughout the exercise. - Captain's chair
This was one of the few on the "most effective" list that involves gym equipment. Start with legs dangling and slowly lift your knees in toward your chest. The motion should be controlled and deliberate as you bring your knees up and return them back to the starting position. - Crunch on an exercise ball
Sit on the exercise ball with your feet flat on the floor. Let the ball roll back slowly and lie back until your thighs and torso are parallel with the floor. Contract your abdominals raising your torso to no more than 45 degrees. To work the oblique muscles, make the exercise less stable by moving your feet closer.
Bottom line is; if your order is a six-pack, Fit4AGoodLife & RedaNation will deliver.
Fit4AGoodLife
Health & Fitness
Fat in Tights, Hips & Cellulite:
Many women tell me that every stray calorie seems to migrate to their hips and thighs. This is not a figment of their imaginations says Jorge Cruise.
Before menopause, many women's bodies store excess fat predominantly in this area, creating what's come to be known as the "pear-shaped" body. Thousands of years, fat storage in these areas greatly helped cave-dwelling women survive during times of drought and famine. And women who could easily store fat in their hips and thighs tended to be able to give birth and feed a baby during a drought-during pregnancy and breastfeeding, the body needs as many as 1,000 extra calories a day-thus passing on their thigh-fat-storing genetics to future generations. This is one reason why thigh fat is so difficult to get rid of. Genes left over from your cave-dwelling ancestors cause hormones and enzymes in your body to direct every extra calorie into waiting fat cells in your hips and thighs. For example, your levels of the female sex hormone estrogen may be a tad higher than other women whose bodies don't store excess fat in these areas (or as much of it). But there are ways to coax these fat cells in your thighs to release their contents, and to coax your muscle cells into burning it up! So don't despair.
What Causes Cellulite?
Besides excess fat in their thighs, many women complain to me about a certain type of fat known as cellulite. They tell me that no matter how much weight they lose, they can't seem to smooth out the tiny lumps of fat on their thighs. Indeed, some of the most slender women have cellulite.
Cellulite is created when fat manages to push its way through tiny holes in your connective tissue, the thick web of interwoven fibers just underneath your skin. Strong and healthy connective tissue forms a tighter web of interwoven fibers, preventing fat from pressing its way through. Weak, unhealthy connective tissue, on the other hand, more easily stretches apart, allowing tiny fat pockets to poke through. Many factors can weaken your connective tissue, setting the stage for cellulite. They include: High hormone levels
Women with higher-than-normal levels of the female hormone estrogen tend to suffer more often from cellulite. Other than directing extra calories to fat cells in your thighs, estrogen also weakens connective tissue. When estrogen softens connective tissue around the womb, it makes childbirth possible. Unfortunately, estrogen softens all of the connective tissue in your body, not just that around your womb. Poor blood circulation
Usually, high estrogen levels alone won't trigger cellulite to form. Many experts believe that you must also have poor blood circulation to your connective tissue, which tends to cause swelling. The swelling stretches the connective tissue apart, allowing the fat to bulge through.
Fluid retention
Many people think that fluid retention takes place only in the abdomen. That's not true. It actually occurs all over your body, including your thighs. If you've ever pulled on a favorite pair of pants and found them tight in the thighs on one day and lose on the next, you've experienced the ebb and flow of fluid retention. Any type of swelling in your thighs-particularly on a chronic basis-will stretch out and weaken connective tissue.
A frenzied lifestyle
Emotional stress has also been shown to weaken connective tissue.
Fit4AGoodLife & RedaNation will help you get rid of cellulite by creating a personal training program for you. Together we will make it happen. Give us a call and let's get it done.
Fit4AGoodLife
Health & Fitness
Training For Fat Loss
Fat loss is kind of a tricky subject as far as working out is concerned. A trainer can have everything about a workout program dialed in with the client following it religiously, yet, if that same client is not also following a sound diet and taking in fewer calories than they expend, the fat will not come off. In a diet and exercise program, we have found that diet is usually the limiting factor. Most clients just fail to understand how important diet really is to fat loss.
Workout progression for someone looking to lose fat would be similar to those clients wanting to add lean muscle tissue. By adding lean muscle mass, you will increase your metabolism and make it easier to burn fat. Lean muscle tissue will also give you that lean, muscular look that people desire but most do not know how to get. The reason that you see so many people at the gym who look thin with clothes on but have unsightly flab upon closer inspection is because they spend countless hours doing cardio and lifting light weight for a very high number of reps. Thus they fail to add lean muscle mass.
Weight loss is not the goal of an exercise and diet program, fat loss is. Failure to offset the diet and cardio portions of your program with muscle maintenance/gains through weightlifting will result in a less than desirable physique and endless frustration.
I would also like to dispel a couple of strength training myths concerning fat loss that persist. The first is the myth of low reps for size, high reps for cuts. This is absolutely not true. As I stated earlier, low reps actually produce strength with little weight gain, mid range reps are best for muscle growth, and high reps in the 15-20 range are good for strengthening tendons and ligaments. Very high reps are good for increasing the aerobic strength of the local muscle groups being exercised and are beneficial for specific sports training, but usually has no place in an average fitness program. Your diet is what gets you cut up and defined.
The next myth is tied to the previous one and is perhaps the most persistent one of all. How many of you have heard that to see your abs you have to do countless sit ups? Or how about you ladies and those machines that hit your "trouble spots" of the inner thigh and side of your glutes? The myth of spot reducing is an absolute fallacy. Your body is genetically predetermined where it will lose fat first and in what order it will go away. Again, diet is the major factor here.
Doing all the sit-ups in the world will not get your six-pack to show any faster.
So what does all this mean? Fat loss is not simply achieved only through aerobics, or only through weightlifting, or only through diet. It takes an integrated approach to help you realize your fat loss potential. If your are not losing weight and you know that your training program is dialed in, then, barring a medical condition, you are simply eating too many calories.
There is no impossible scenario. Every overweight man, woman and child CAN and WILL lose weight with Fit4AGoodLife & RedaNation and with a properly designed exercise program you will succeed and achieve your ultimate goal. Let's get it done Give us a call today.
Fit4AGoodLife
Health & Fitness
Fats, Proteins, and Carbs
The F Word
In biochemistry, fat is a generic term for a class of lipids. Fats are produced by organic processes in animals and plants. All fats are insoluble in water and have a density significantly below that of water (i.e. they float on water.) Fats that are liquid at room temperature are often referred to as oil.
Most fats are composed primarily of triglycerides; some monoglycerides and diglycerides are mixed in, produced by incomplete esterification. These are extracted and used as an ingredient.
Products with a lot of saturated fats tend to be solid at room temperature, while products containing unsaturated fats, which include monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats, tend to be liquid at room temperature.
Predominantly saturated fats (solid at room temperature) include all animal fats (e.g. milk fat, lard, tallow), as well as palm oil, coconut oil, cocoa fat and hydrogenated vegetable oil (Shortening). All other vegetable fats, such as those coming from olive, penuts, maize (corn oil), cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, and soybean, are predominantly unsaturated and remain liquid at room temperature. However, both vegetable and animal fats contain saturated and unsaturated fats. Some oils (such as olive oil) contain in majority monounsaturated fats, while others present quite a high percentage of polyunsaturated fats (sunflower, rape).
In the ancient Minoan culture, and in many of the other early Mediterranean cultures, olive oil was a very important commodity and at times used as a measure of wealth..
Different varieties of fat has seen, and indeed still see, much use as lubricants, although recently various synthetic substances and petroleum derivatives has taken over in most industrial applications. In cooking products with a high fat content are often used as enhancers of taste, for example butter, milk, cheese, and other dairy products. Another use of fat in cooking is as heat conductor in frying.
Fat is one of the three main classes of food and, at approximately 38 KJ (9 Calories) per Gram, as compared to sugar with 17 KJ (4 Calories) per gram or ethanoal with 29 KJ (7 Calories) per gram, the most concentrated form of metabolic energy available to humans. Vitamns A, D, E and K are fat-soluble meaning they can only be digested, absorbed, and transported in conjunction with fats. Fats are sources of essential Fatty Acids, an important dietary requirement.
They also serve as energy stores for the body. In food, there are two types of fats: saturated and unsaturated. Fats are broken down in the body to release glycerol and free fatty acids. The glycerol can be converted to glucose by the liver and thus used as a source of energy. The fatty acids are a good source of energy for many tissues, especially heart and skeletal muscle.
All varieties of fat have an extraordinary energy content. In animals, fat acts as an energy reserve, and is stored in fatty tissue, normally located subcutaneously or surrounding organs. Fatty tissue consist of fat cells, designed to store energy in the form of fat. Energy is stored as fatty tissue when the nutrition/energy content of the blood remains higher than is consumed by muscular and other activity. When the energy content in the blood lessens, the fatty tissue reacts by releasing a corresponding amount of energy from the fat cell. This activity is controlled by insulin and other hormones in the body.
Proteins
A protein is a complex, high molecular weight organic compound that consists of amino acids joined by peptide bonds. Protein is essential to the structure and function of all living cells and viruses. Many proteins are enzymes or subunits of enzymes. Other proteins play structural or mechanical roles, such as those that form the struts and joints of the "cytoskeleton". Proteins are also nutrient sources for organisms that do not produce their own energy from sunlight.
Proteins differ from carbohydrates chiefly in that they contain much nitrogen and a little bit of sulfur, besides carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Proteins are a primary constituent of living things and one of the chief classes of molecules studied inbiochemistry and were discovered by Jons Jacob Berzelius in 1838.
Proteins are amino acid chains that fold into unique 3-dimensional structures. The shape into a which a protein naturally folds is known as its native state, which is determined by its sequence of amino acids. Biochemists refer to four distinct aspects of a protein's structure:
- Primary structure: the amino acid sequence
- Secondary structure: highly patterned sub-structures alpha helix and beta sheet or segments of chain that assume no stable shape. Secondary structures are locally defined, meaning that there can be many different secondary motifs present in one single protein molecule
- Tertiary structure: the overall shape of a single protein molecule; the spatial relationship of the secondary structural motifs to one another
- Quaternary structure: the shape or structure that results from the union of more than one protein molecule, usually called subunit proteins, subunits in this context, which function as part of the larger assembly or protein complex.
The primary structure is held together by covalent peptide bonds, which are made during the process of translation. The tertiary structure is held together by hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic interactions, ionic interactions, and/or disulfide bonds.
The process by which the higher structures form is called protein folding and is a consequence of the primary structure. Although any unique polypeptide may have more than one stable folded conformation, each conformation has its own biological activity and only one conformation is considered to be the active, or native conformation.
The two ends of the amino acid chain are referred to as the carboxy terminus (C-terminus) and the amino terminus(N-terminus) based on the nature of the free group on each extremity.
Proteins are involved in practically every function performed by a cell, including regulation of cellular functions such as signal transduction and metabolism. For example, protein catabolism requires only a few enzymes termed proteases.
Various molecules and ions are able to bind to specific sites on proteins. These sites are called binding sites. They exhibit chemical specificity. The particle that binds is called a ligand. The strength of ligand-protein binding is a property of the binding site known as affinity.
Since proteins are involved in practically every function performed by a cell, the mechanisms for controlling these functions therefore depend on controlling protein activity. Regulation can involve a protein's shape or concentration. Some forms of regulation include:
- Allosteric modulation: When the binding of a ligand at one site on a protein affects the binding of ligand at another site.
- Covalent modulation: When the covalent modification of a protein affects the binding of a ligand or some other aspect of a the protein's function.
Proteins can be picky about the environment in which they are found. They may only exist in their active, or native state, in a small range of pH values and under solution conditions with a minimum quantity of electrolytes, as many proteins will not remain in solution in distilled water. A protein that loses its native state is said to be denatured. Denatured proteins generally have no secondary structure other than random coil. A protein in its native state is often described as folded.
One of the more striking discoveries of the 20th century was that the native and denatured states in many proteins were interconvertible, that by careful control of solution conditions (by for example, dialyzing away a denaturing chemical), a denatured protein could be converted to native form. The issue of how proteins arrive at their native state is an important area of biochemical study, called the study of protein folding. Through genetic engineering, researchers can alter the sequence and hence the structure, "targeting" susceptibility to regulation and other properties of a protein. The genetic sequences of different proteins may be spliced together to create "chimeric" proteins that possess properties of both. This form of tinkering represents one of the chief tools of cell and molecular biologists to change and to probe the workings of cells. Another area of protein research attempts to engineer proteins with entirely new properties or functions, a field known protein engineering.
In carnivores protein is one of the largest component of the diet. The metabolism of proteins by the body releases ammonia, an extremely toxic substance. It is then converted in the liver into urea, a much less toxic chemical, which is excreted in urine. Some animals convert it into uric acid instead.
In terms of human nutritional needs, proteins come in two forms: complete proteins contain all eight of the amino acids that humans cannot produce themselves, while incomplete proteins lack or contain only a very small proportion of one or more. Humans' bodies can make use of all the amino acids they extract from food for synthesizing new proteins, but the inessential ones themselves need not be supplied by the diet, because our cells can make them ourselves. When protein is listed on a nutrition label it only refers to the amount of complete proteins in the food, though the food may be very strong in a subset of the essential amino acids. Animal derived foods contain all of those amino acids, while plants are typically stronger in some acids than others. Complete proteins can be made in an all vegan diet by eating a sufficient variety of foods and by getting enough calories. It was once thought that in order to get the complete proteins vegans needed to do protein combining by getting all amino acids in the same meal (the most common example is eating beans with rice) but nutritionists now know that the benefits of protein combining can be achieved over the longer period of the day. Ovo-lacto vegetarians usually do not have this problem, since egg's white and cow's milk contain all essential amino acids. Peanuts, soy milk, nuts, seeds, green peas, Legumes, the alga spirulina and some grains are some of the richest sources of plant protein.
All eight essential amino acids must be part of one diet in order to survive and are needed in a fixed ratio. A shortage on any one of these amino acids will constrain the body's ability to make the proteins it needs to function.
Different foods contain different ratios of the essential amino acids. By mixing foods that are rich in some amino acids with foods that are rich in others, one can acquire all the needed amino acids in sufficient quantities. Omnivores typically eat a sufficient variety of foods that this is not an issue, however, vegetarians and especially vegans should be careful to eat appropriate combinations of foods (e.g. nuts and green vegetables) so as to get all the essential amino acids in sufficient quantities that the body may produce all the proteins that it needs. Protein deficiency can lead to symptoms such as fatigue, insulin resistance, hair loss, loss of hair pigment (hair that should be black becomes reddish), loss of muscle mass (proteins repair muscle tissue), low body temperature, and hormonal irregularities. Severe protein deficiency is fatal.
Excess protein can cause problems as well, such as causing the immune system to overreact, liver dysfunction from increased toxic residues, possibly bone loss due to increased acidity in the blood, and foundering (foot problems) in horses. Proteins can often figure in allergies and allergic reactions to certain foods. This is because the structure of each form of protein is slightly different, and some may trigger a response from the immune system while others are perfectly safe. Many people are allergic to casein, the protein in milk; gluten, the protein in wheat and other grains; the particular proteins found in peanuts; or those in shellfish or other seafoods. It is extremely unusual for the same person to adversely react to more than two different types of proteins.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates (literally hydrates of carbon) are chemical compounds which act as the primary biological means of storing or consuming energy; other forms being via fat and protein. Relatively complex carboyhydrates are known as polysaccharides.
Pure carbohydrates contain carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms; in a 1:2:1 molar ratio, giving the general formula CxH2xOx. However, many important carbohydrates deviate from this, such as deoxyribose. Sometimes compounds containing other elements are also counted as carbohydrates, such as chitin, which contains nitrogen.
The simplest carbohydrates are monosaccharides, which are small straight-chain aldehydes and ketones with many hydroxyl groups added, usually one on each carbon except the functional group. Other carbohydrates are composed of monosaccharide units, and break down under hydrolysis. These may be classified as disaccharides, oligosaccharides, or polysaccharides, depending on whether they have two, several, or many monosaccharide units. Monosaccharides may be divided into aldoses, which have an aldehyde group on the first carbon atom, and ketoses, which typically have a ketone group on the second. They may also be divided into trioses, tetroses, pentoses, hexoses, and so forth, depending on how many carbon atoms they contain. For instance, glucose is an aldohexose, fructose a ketohexose, and ribose an aldopentose.
Further, each carbon atom that supports a hydroxyl group (except for the first and last) is optically active, allowing a number of different carbohydrates with the same basic structure. For instance, galactose is an aldohexose, but has different properties from glucose because the atoms are arranged differently.
The straight-chain structure described here is only one of the forms a monosaccharide may take. The aldehyde or ketone group may react with a hydroxyl group on a different carbon atom to form a hemiacetal or hemiketal, in which case there is an oxygen bridge between the two carbon atoms, forming a heterocyclic ring. Rings with five and six atoms are called furanose and pyranose forms, and exist in equilibrium with the straight-chain form.
It should be noted that the ring form has one more optically active carbon than the straight-chain form, and so has both an alpha and a beta form, which interconvert in equilibrium. However, the carbohydrate may further react with an alcohol to form an acetal or ketal, in which case the two forms become distinct. This is the basic type of link between the monosaccharide units of larger carbohydrates.
Disaccharides have molecules which are two monosaccharide units bound together. The binding between the two sugars results in the loss of a hydrogen atom (H) from one molecule and a hydroxyl group (OH) from the other. The most common disaccharides are sucrose (cane or beet sugar - made from one glucose and one fructose), lactose (milk sugar - made from one glucose and one galactose) and maltose (made of two glucoses). The formula of these disaccharides is C12H22O11.
Strictly speaking, carbohydrates are not necessary for human nutrition because proteins can be converted to carbohydrates - the traditional diet of some peoples consists of nearly zero percent carbohydrate, and they are perfectly healthy. However, they require (relatively) less water to digest than proteins or fats, and are an important source of energy. Glycogen is stored for use when glucose is not being absorbed by the digestive tract.
