Weight Loss Diet Program

Here’s a nice piece in the Fashion & Style section of Thursday’s (4/17/08) New York Times.  The article details the training regimen of  Sara Hall and the evolution of her preferred race from the 5K to the 1500 meter.  She hopes to compete in this summer’s Olympic games in China.

Money quote:  “The most common mistake” that recreational runners make, (her coach Terrence) Mahon said, “is running the same pace all the time.” Occasionally making yourself run fast, he said, “is the only way to make yourself a fast runner.”’

Interval training is crucial to improving your performance in most sports.  Read the whole article here.

This article from Gina Kolata of the New York Times discusses the measurement of heart rates while training and “maximum heart rate.”

I’ve always been a strong supporter of wearing a heart monitor, particularly when you first start working out and when you are doing interval training.  The monitor can provide a significant aid to your workout since it gives you an immediate and unbiased view of how hard you are working.  I’ve also always thought that the monitor is extremely useful in gauging recovery, which measures your overall  fitness.  For example, if your exercise regime brings your heart rate near your maximum and then you stop and rest, it’s important to see how long it takes your heart to return to more normal levels.  If, after a minute of rest, your heart rate is still severely elevated and has only dropped a few beats that is definitely not a good sign for your fitness level.  Use of a monitor is particularly necessary in interval training, which many experts feel is the most effective type of conditioning.  It allows you to precisely track the cycle of your heart rate and lets you know if you need to push harder or less hard during an interval.  The monitor is also extremely useful as it provides your resting heart rate, a measure of fitness worth knowing.

While I’m happy to see an article that discusses heart rate monitoring during exercise the article loses some of its focus by worrying too much about one’s absolute maximum heart rate—after all, it can vary significantly from person to person and may not be a great indicator of fitness, per se.  The article  also throws in an anecdote of a person with a maximum heart rate of 400 which no doubt just serves to confuse readers.

Some of the key points from Ms. Kolata’s article:

The maximum heart rate reached may vary by sport.  For example, swimming tends to produce a lower maximum heart rate than sprinting.

Nerves can affect heart rates.

The heart monitor allows you to keep track of exercise intensity to meet performance goals or improve.

Ms. Kolata’s article drew a wide range of animated comments from her readers:  Many of the comments that  readers posted on the NYT site were excellent.  Some excerpts:

Resting heart rates may be more important than maximum heart rates, with lower being better.  (Normally, “a trained athlete” has a resting heart rate of 40-60.)

“I’m a personal trainer and I’ve been using a heart rate monitor for at least twenty years. I won’t train a client without one. When I design a workout regime for a client, one of the most important ways for the client to comply is to understand what’s going on with their body. I want the client to push themselves within boundaries and the heart rate monitor allows this. I also teach people to see how long it takes the heart rate to return to lower levels. What I have found fascinating is that perceived exertion is not necessarily a good gage of true exertion.  Most people at the gym on the equipment are working at such low rates that they might as well be taking a walk in the park. They don’t know this since they have no idea what heart rate training really is.”

“Think of an HR monitor as a tachometer which allows you to understand your own “power” usage and help endurance by keeping a pace slightly below your anaerobic threshold.”

“The correct Maximum HR can best be obtained in a sports med lab or in a real world sprint/ride, but for the recreational rider/runner/exerciser, the 220 minus age formula is a good start.”

“Notably, endurance athletes alternate intense workouts with lighter “recovery” days; HR monitors are at least as useful for exercising control on those days, keeping HR below a certain point, as they are for making sure intensity level is high enough during intense workouts.”

“Likewise, they are useful for pacing “long slow distance” runs and monitoring recovery during interval workouts.”

“Also, note that max HR is personal, and yes, it’s generally not an indication of ultimate cardiovascular capacity, and further, it’s testable! It’s probably a good idea for anyone who pays attention to HR in the health club to learn what his or her max HR is. See any of the good HR training books for advice on how this is done.”

“By basing my speed off of heart rate, I noticed that I covered more ground on each long run over the same time period, and have gotten all-around faster.  I agree that heart rate may not be the most important for everyone, but it certainly has helped my aerobic fitness and keeps me from overtraining on days when I don’t need to push myself to exhaustion.”

“Recovery time is not something that the general public should ignore. I am neither a pro or competitive athlete. But I do cycle a lot. If you are older or you do a lot of intensity and/or volume, you should pay attention to recovery time.”

“By simply cycling your intensity up and down (interval training) so that your heart rate repeatedly approaches, crosses and then drops below your anaerobic threshold, you can achieve dramatic fat-burning results, both during exercise and while you’re going about your daily business.”

“Before beginning to use a heart rate device 10 years ago, my exercise sessions and recovery were inconsistent. Knowing the zones, the heart rate, and following a program that works for me, I feel better, sleep better and am more confident that my exercise plan works.”

It’s a typical of the power of the internet that many of the comments on the original article provided more depth of understanding and detail than the article itself.  Be sure to read them all here.

  This NYT article by the well known health and fitness writer, Tara Parker-Pope, dissects the standard push-up.  Here are some highlights from the article.  Read the article in full here:

1. The push-up is a good barometer of overall fitness engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs.
2.  The obesity epidemic has made push-ups more difficult to perform for the average American—pushing up all that extra weight is not easy.
3. The aerobics revolution has shifted emphasis away from maintaining upper body strength, which is not a good thing.
4. Lots of people can’t do push-ups, including for the reasons listed above.  Kids are failing push-up tests at an alarming frequency rate.
5. Being able to do push-ups is particularly important as we age as push-ups can provide the strength and muscle memory to reach out and break a fall, and it’s well known that falls can be debilitating for seniors.
6. People lose strength as they age but regular exercise enlarges muscle fibers and can mitigate the decline.
7.  A 40 year old man should be able to do 27 push-ups.  At age 60, the number is 17.

While the article focuses on the time honored push-up, it is really another wake up call regarding the importance of exercise in life and particularly as we age.  Let’s face, how many 60 year old men can hit the deck and crack out 17 push-ups?  Staying in shape confers huge health and lifestyle benefits as we age.  Push-ups are a good barometer of your overall fitness and should be part of any training program. 

An acid reflux diet typically restricts the intake of certain foods that are known to increase stomach acid. Some people even claim that there are foods that “cure” the syndrome.

You can currently find for sale acid reflux diet books, alongside other popular diets and cookbooks. One author states that apples “cured” his acid reflux. He is now selling a report in which he details “three natural remedies” for acid reflux.

These are supposed to be foods that cured his acid reflux. He does admit, however, that they may not work for everyone. In our opinion, it may be more effective in the long run to design your own acid reflux diet, using a food and symptoms diary to record what foods seem to trigger symptoms.

Natural remedies for acid reflux include changing the foods you commonly eat and even when you eat, how much you eat, and in what circumstances you eat. Such changes, believe it or not, may be effective for reducing symptoms of acid reflux.

Most doctors and other healthcare professionals recommend that in order to control symptoms, an acid reflux diet should exclude certain foods that are known to increase stomach acid. Tomatoes and citrus fruits, for example, are highly acidic. So is chocolate. And fried or fatty foods can also increase stomach acid and worsen symptoms.

You may think that an acid reflux diet must be bland, but while some spices trigger symptoms, some commonly used cooking herbs are considered natural remedies for acid reflux.

Changing from garlic and chili powder to ginger, fennel seed and turmeric may help. Ginger, fennel seed and turmeric were used in traditional medicine to treat indigestion and heartburn. Modern herbalists have combined some of these “herbs for heartburn” to create natural remedies for acid reflux.

In addition to following an acid reflux diet that limits highly acidic foods, experts say that eating less than three hours before bedtime increases the likelihood that you will have nighttime symptoms.

This is because lying down after eating allows gravity to work against you and makes it easier for stomach acid to creep up into the esophagus. Knowing this, some companies sell wedge-type pillows calling them natural remedies for acid reflux, but some doctors who specialize in treating the syndrome maintain that these pillows may actually worsen symptoms by “folding” the stomach.

These doctors recommend raising the head of the bed (with blocks, for example) 6 inches higher than the foot of the bed, so that gravity can still help keep acid in your stomach, without “folding” and creating extra pressure on the stomach.

If it isn’t what you eat or when you eat, it could be how much you eat. An effective acid reflux diet plan may include several small meals every few hours throughout the day, rather than one or two large meals. The more food that is in the stomach, the more likely that acid will reflux.

Another one of the often suggested natural remedies for acid reflux is simply losing some weight. Extra pounds put extra pressure on the stomach and more acid creeps up. At night, this can lead to sleep disturbances, coughing, snoring and even sleep apnea.

Following an acid reflux diet plan that is low in fatty and fried foods and calls for meals every couple of hours is not only one of the effective natural remedies for acid reflux, but it could help you lose weight since it primes the metabolism.

Doctors typically recommend antacids or proton pump inhibitors, at least for short-term use, to prevent or neutralize stomach acid. There are a number of herbal and botanical products that may do the some thing.

For example, mangosteen juice (a health drink), taken before meals, effectively dilutes stomach acid and may be considered one of the natural remedies for acid reflux. An acid reflux diet alone may not be enough. If not treated, acid reflux can lead to damage of the esophageal lining, which can lead to esophageal cancer.

Components of the mangosteen have been shown to reduce inflammation and actually prevent the formation of cancerous tumors in laboratory studies. Tell your doctor about which acid reflux diet and what natural remedies for acid reflux you are using and get regular check-ups, even if your symptoms seem to be under control.

by Mike Leuthen

Try and read this article on Vitamin D by the dean of health and fitness writers, Jane E. Brody from The New York Times.  She recaps the current thinking about the benefits and proper doses of Vitamin D.

Here are some of the key points from her article:

Many Doctors and researchers now believe that the current recommended daily allowances (RDA’s) of Vitamin D are too low. 

You can get your Vitamin D through sunlight, eating certain foods rich in D or through supplements.

Skin exposure to the sun’s UV rays (the same ones that cause sunburn) forms Vitamin D. 

Other sources of Vitamin D are fortified milk, juices and certain foods such as the oily fishes.  Some vitamins contain D, but not all.  Check your labels.

It takes a quart of fortified mild a day to reach the current RDA of 400 international units (IUs).

Researchers now believe that 700-800 IUs per day will significantly reduce risk of bone fractures

Animal studies show that Vitamin D reduces tumors.

Observational studies in people show that low levels of Vitamin D are linked to the increased occurrence of many types of cancer including breast, stomach, bladder, pancreas and uterus as well as Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and multiple myeloma.  A recent double blind study showed that those taking 1000 IUs of D had 80% less chance of cancer than those that did not.  Diabetes and MS have also been linked to low levels of D.

It is unclear what the maximum safe dose of Vitamin D is as reliable studies are rare.

Check your vitamin D intake today and read the Ms. Brody’s important article in full.