As I write this here in Florida in September, it’s over ninety degrees outside, with humidity levels to match. We’ll be seeing mostly more of the same for another month or two. While those of you living in more northerly climes are probably starting to enjoy the first cool breezes of autumn, summer will return with both its benefits and dangers next year, so this is a great time to make sure you know how to exercise safely in the heat.

Do’s:

The first rule of exercising in hot weather is to drink plenty of fluids. The common wisdom is that if you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. While that philosophy has received some criticism from some experts lately, no one can dispute the fact that one needs to drink non-caffeinated beverages (caffeine dehydrates) regularly throughout the exercise workout. If your workout takes you into the water, you still need to follow the same rules. Frequently, being surrounded by water causes people to think they’re more well-hydrated than they actually are.

Wear light colored, loose fitting clothing that breathes. Be aware that cotton will not dry as quickly as today’s high tech synthetic fabrics that are made to wick away sweat. If you do wear cotton, don’t jump from a hot, sweaty outside environment into an ice cold air conditioned environment. Cool down slowly……

More on Exercising in the Heat

Boneless skinless chicken breasts. Turkeyburgers. Lean ground beef. Many people consider these healthy foods - and if they’re orgainically raised, they probably are. However, if you’re eating any food coming from animals that have been raised on factory farms, also known as animal factories, you might be real surprised at the food these animals are fed.

“Factory farms? Animal factories? My supermarket doesn’t sell any of that stuff!” Wanna bet? Almost all the beef, turkey, chicken and ham sold in supermarkets comes from these types of operations. while there still are Farmer Browns raising their animals one by one using traditional methods, it’s not likely you’ll find their products on your supermarket shelves.

These factory farms can be massive in size. As you might imagine, the animals they harbor can create immense quantities of waste, which are stored in what the farms refer to as “lagoons”. Hmmm. I think we used to call those cesspools. Anyway, these lagoons are vulnerable to leaking or actual breakage of the walls. You can imagine the health threat this poses to surrounding communities if the leakage makes it into local waterways. Not to mention the smell, even if nothing breaks.

Well, ok, these places are not very healthy for the people who live around them, but what’s that got to do whether or not the food they produce is healthy? The same production line mindset that leads the operators of these farms to cram all the animals into pens or cages and create massive poop lagoons also allows them to feed the animals:

• Same species meat (think Mad Cow)
• Diseased animals
• Feathers
• Hair
• Skin
• Hooves
• Blood
• Manure
• Plastics (What the? Oh wait - it’s for “roughage”. Of course!)
• Drugs and Chemicals
• Excessive amounts of grains

That last one may surprise you. What’s unhealthy about feeding grains to farm animals? In moderation, nothing. However, the animals digestive systems cannot handle the large amounts of grains (mostly corn and soybeans) they’re fed, which creates health problems, which causes the animals to need more drugs - and feeding these drugs to animals in large quantities causes the drugs to be less effective in humans.

If you eat animal foods, try to buy organic or from a local family farmer whenever possible. To read more about the reality of feed at animal factories, check out UCS.

You’d expect that by the time people reach the “golden years” they would understand the importance of eating nutritionally balanced meals. Unfortunately, being older frequently doesn’t equate to being wiser when it comes to diet. The truth is that seniors often do not get the vitamins and minerals their bodies need to fight the onset of the degenerative issues that can accompany aging.

As we age, our bodies naturally become less efficient at using the nutrients we do ingest. Making things worse is the fact that seniors tend to take more medications than other age groups. Many of these medications negatively affect the body’s usage of nutrients.

Many seniors live alone and don’t feel like preparing nutritionally balanced meals for themselves. Add to that the fact that many of these same seniors don’t exercise on a regular basis and it’s no wonder they frequently show symptoms of various vitamin deficiencies.

Sufficient intake of Vitamin D is extremely important to seniors. It plays a large role in the body’s ability to absorb calcium, which is required to keep bones healthy. Lacking calcium, bones become brittle and lose mass, which leads to osteoporosis. Many seniors do not consume enough dairy products or receive enough …..

The full article about seniors and vitamins

With all the press coverage of studies showing the benefits of a glass of wine or beer lately, one can be excused for wondering, “Could it be that drinking alcohol is actually a healthy habit?”

Before we get to the possible health benefits of alcohol, let’s begin by saying something no one can dispute - drinking too much is a bad thing. That’s because alcohol is basically a poison, and if you ingest too much, either at one time or over the years, it will damage most of the organs in your body. So what’s “too much?”. Well, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it’s more than an average of one drink a day for women, and more than an average of two drinks a day for men. A “drink” is defined as 5 ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor.

Here’s a list of just some of the physical problems that excessive drinking can cause:

Heart Disease

Cancer

Stroke

Alcoholic cirrhosis

Brain Damage

High Blood Pressure

Osteoporosis

Now for the good news. Moderate drinking (less than the one drink/two drink levels stated previously) can be beneficial to one’s health. While heavy drinking increases the risk for a number of types of heart disease, moderate drinking appears to lessen the possibility of coronary heart disease and heart attack, raise levels of good cholesterol, and reduce the risk of a number of types of dementia, including Alhzeimer’s.

More about how healthy alcohol is

If you’re looking for a little variety in your exercise routine, and wouldn’t mind also getting a very effective aerobic and anaerobic conditioning workout, try Tabata intervals. Taba who?

The concept of Tabata intervals originated from a study performed by Dr. Izumi Tabata at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo. The protocol consists of 20 seconds of maximum intensity exercise followed by ten seconds of rest. This cycle is repeated for four minutes, or a total of eight intense intervals.

“You’ve got to be kidding”, you may well be thinking “Four minutes? What kind of workout can I get in four minutes?” Well, as it turns out, an extremely effective one. Everyone who’s given the Tabata protocol a try is amazed at just how intense four minutes of exercise can be. However, since very few people want to work extremely hard just for the fun of it, you’re probably interested in what kind of results you can expect. Well, the subjects in the original study were already very fit individuals at the beginning, and they still increased their anaerobic capacity 28%, and their VO2max by 14% in just six weeks. This is an excellent improvement for such highly trained athletes.

The key to getting excellent results is to make sure that the work cycles are very hard. The study referred to the workouts as “exhaustive intermittent training”. As a matter of fact, the study participants exercised at around 170% of VO2max.

Read more about the four minute workout

A meta-analysis published in the Oct. 2006 issue of the Journal of Nutrition found that the risk of coronary heart disease declined with increased consumption of fruit and vegetables.

A meta-analysis is an analysis of multiple studies performed previously. This particular meta-analysis evaluated nine previous studies which included over 90,000 men and 129,000 women.

The review found a reduced risk of coronary heart disease associated with fruit and vegetable intake. The decrease was found to be 4 percent for each additional fruit and vegetable portion consumed per day. When fruit alone was studied, the reduction in risk increased to 7 percent.

While it’s possible that the subjects eating larger quantities of fruit and vegetables had an overall healthier lifestyle, which could be responsible for part or all of the observed effects, the authors still concluded that “this analysis presents evidence of a beneficial association between fruit and vegetable consumption and CHD risk, supporting the recommendation to eat a sufficient amount of fruit and vegetables to lower CHD risk.”

You can read the meta-analysis abstract here.