Fiber - Your New Best Friend

Fiber or roughage has many health benefits and ought to be an important part of your diet. Foods that are good sources of fiber are good for your digestive system and are great tools for losing weight or keeping your weight under control. High fiber foods have more bulk than low-fiber foods and can make you feel fuller longer because they stay in the stomach longer and therefore discourage overeating. Quite apart from that fiber is believed to help prevent a number of diseases including diabetes and certain cancers.

Dietary fiber can be found in plant foods like fresh fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils and whole wheat grains. They’re divided into two categories – soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber absorbs water in the intestines and creates a substance which attaches to cholesterol and carries it out of the body. Insoluble fiber doesn’t dissolve in water but adds bulk and softness to your stool and helps to prevent constipation.

Research into the health benefits of fiber date back to the 1970s when Dr. Denis Burkitt and his colleagues noticed that Africans, did not suffer from many of the diseases that were common in the Western cultures and they wanted to know why, so they set out to find out.  What they discovered was that the African diet was high in fiber and low in refined carbohydrates. Burkitt was also able to draw a link between the rise in these diseases in the West with the introduction of a new milling process that removed fiber from whole grain flour to produce white flour. These findings led to several studies to determine other health benefits of fiber.

Scientists found out that fiber can reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering LDL cholesterol or bad cholesterol. They found that foods containing soluble fiber, such as oats, and beans as well as fruits and vegetables impact cholesterol, and triglycerides, that cause heart disease. 

They discovered that fiber, especially when taken with sufficient fluids helps the digestive process and speeds up the passage of foods through the body. This prevents harmful substances found in some foods from affecting the colon and may protect against colon cancer. This is still in dispute and more research is being done to support this claim. A high fiber diet is also believed to help prevent breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and uterine cancer.

Fiber in the diet helps regulate blood sugar levels in persons with diabetes, and prevent diabetes developing in otherwise healthy persons. 

Most people haven’t heard of Diverticulitis, but it is a really painful disease involving the inflammation of the intestine. Eating dietary fiber, particularly insoluble fiber, is believed to lower the risk of Diverticular disease by about 40 percent.

Rapid digestion and the resulting release of glucose into the bloodstream, can cause the body to release a lot of insulin into the bloodstream, and this can cause gallstones and kidney stones as well as diabetes and high cholesterol. Fiber, especially soluble fiber helps prevent the formation of kidney stones because it binds oxalates in the digestive tract.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR; Kendal Burton is a Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor & Sports Nutrition Specialist. For more health and fitness tips “friend” us on Facebook, or join our free fitness community atwww.edgepersonalfitness.com. If you have any questions, or a topic you’d like us to address email us at mail@edgepersonalfitness.com

Do the Math, Lose the Weight

A workmate of mine recently announced she was on this “fantastic new diet” that promised rapid weight loss of about a pound a day, based on injections of a pregnancy hormone and the consumption about 500 calories a day and a ton of water. What she called “fantastic” I call “crazy!” 

 She was so excited about the results she’d had that it was really difficult for me to tell her the truth, which is that a near starvation diet like hers couldn’t possibly have a happy ending. Of course she’s going to lose weight. She’s hardly consuming any calories to begin with! But any benefits are not going to last. I hate to break it to you but the same is true about a lot of those diets out there. They just don’t work.

The truth is that there are no quick fixes, or magic bullets, when it comes to weight loss or management…just plain old fashioned science, hard work and common sense. The good news is that your success at losing weight can be based on your ability to grasp a very simple principle and it is this: Weight loss will occur when the calories expended, exceed the number of calories consumed. Simple math really.

Reducing the number of calories you consume is important but only through a well balanced diet of fats proteins and carbohydrates in the right proportions and based on the number of calories your body requires, to function optimally. The emphasis needs to be on consuming healthy foods rather than on consuming less food. 

A combination of a healthy diet, aerobic exercise and resistance training remains the best formula for “losing weight.” It may seem like the harder solution to the problem but it is definitely the safer, healthier and more fun way to achieve your goal. 

You see a huge part of the problem is people’s obsession with losing pounds, but real weight management isn’t about pounds on a scale. It’s a little more than that. The true measure of body weight is your Body Mass Index (BMI) or body composition  - the ratio of lean body mass to body fat. The less fat you have and the more lean muscle mass, the healthier you likely are. But lean muscle mass weighs more than fat, so that even though you’re “losing weight” in the form of fat it won’t register on the scale, so forget about the scale for a bit and focus more on your BMI measurements. The obsession with the scale and pounds is what leads to many people getting frustrated and giving up on their exercise programmes prematurely.

Another important point to note is that as you lose pounds through some of these conventional low calorie diets, a significant chunk of that “weight” will likely be from lean mass tissue which can over time result in the slowing down of the metabolism, the creation of hormonal imbalances, and the disturbance of the nervous system. Like I said ti can’t possibly have a happy ending. 

The problem with most of these low calorie diets is that they don’t take into consideration that the human body is not designed to function under the conditions they impose on it. 

The human body is a finely tuned machine that needs fuel and care in order to function efficiently. Even at rest, your body needs and consumes energy or calories in order to carry out basic functions like breathing keeping your heart functioning, That’s referred to as your Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR; and unless you’re in a vegetative state, there’s no way your body can survive on a mere 500 calories per day without placing severe strain on it. So you may lose weight initially but at what long term cost to your health?

The more lean body mass you have the higher your BMR and one way of increasing your lean body mass is through resistance training. If your weight loss is accompanied by loss of lean muscle tissue then your BMR is reduced which translates into the body consuming less calories at rest, and to you packing the pounds back on.

So again the combination of a healthy diet, aerobic exercise and resistance training remains the best formula for “losing weight.” It may seem like the harder solution to the problem but it is definitely the safer, healthier and more fun way to achieve your goal. 

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kendal Burton is a Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor and Sports Nutrition Specialist.

The Five Legged Table

A colleague of mine recently confessed her desire to get into better shape for the New Year, and while she demonstrated a genuine and frantic desire to lose weight and get fit, it became apparent quickly, that she was totally ignorant of how to go about achieving her goal. She knew she wanted to lose weight, and get fit and healthy, and was sure that neither Yoga nor weight training, were options, but beyond that, it was obvious she, like a lot of others, did not know much else about how to achieve her target. Her plan was subverted before she even started because she was uninformed and her attitude, coloured by tall stories about health and fitness, that have over time gained acceptance as fact. 

I want to dispel some of those myths or misconceptions for her, and you, who have probably made weight loss and fitness your New Years resolutions this year. First off, there is a difference between health and fitness. My colleague admitted that she wasn’t feeling healthy and wanted to get fit for the New Year, but what she didn’t realise is that by discounting Yoga and weight training, she was in effect dispensing with two very important constituents of her fitness goal. And I’m sure others have done the same, which probably accounts for a lot of the frustration that they feel, owing to their inability to make good on those get fit New Years resolutions. 

Health and fitness, though interrelated, are two very different things. Health at its simplest, can be defined as the absence of disease. Fitness, on the other hand refers to the body’s ability to function efficiently and handle the demands placed on it by daily living. They are interrelated, because fitness impacts the body’s ability to be disease free (healthy), so in order for my friend to be at her healthiest, she would have to achieve a degree of physical fitness and in order to be truly fit, there are five components or legs if you will, upon which her total fitness rests and which must form the foundation of any exercise programme. These are 1) cardio vascular/respiratory endurance; 2) muscular strength; 3) muscular endurance; 4) flexibility and 5) body composition.  

Cardio vascular/respiratory endurance is a central and important part of this “strange” five legged “table,” that trains the heart and lungs and makes them more efficient and healthier. Cardio is also great for burning fat, but isn’t going to magically solve all your health or fitness issues…certainly not in isolation or without an informed or calculated and deliberate approach. For example, your choice of activity and the intensity of the exercise will determine how many calories you burn and how quickly. Do it in combination with strength or resistance training, and you’ve got a major part of the metabolism, calorie burning prescription down. You may burn calories during cardio, but an increase in muscle strength and size translates to more fat free mass and a higher rate of metabolism, as the muscles continue to use calories well past the work out. Simply put muscle burns energy and the more muscles you have and the more you use them, the more calories they burn. And that doesn’t automatically translate into ladies bulking up which was a concern for my friend when I told her what I just told you…Growing muscle tissue doesn’t mean you’re going to start looking like a bodybuilder, but it will replace all the fat with muscle tissue and help you lose those important inches. A little known fact even by women is that women by their nature and hormonal make up will never grow beyond a certain level of muscularity. Because of the absence of enough testosterone in the female body women are genetically very limited in their ability to build huge bulky muscles, but that’s for another show.  

Apart from building muscle strength, you must devote attention to developing muscular endurance which is important to maintaining things like good posture, injury prevention and boosting your ability to perform physical tasks for longer periods. But all of this is pointless if your fitness scheme is without a flexibility element to it, which carries many benefits such as aiding posture; reducing muscle soreness; your ability to enjoy your workout and get back in the gym quicker; improving performance; improving muscle co-ordination; decreasing your injury risk and improving circulation and nutrient distribution throughout the body.  

What all this cardio and resistance training will do is help redefine your body composition, (the important fifth leg), by reducing your body fat and increasing your fat free mass (i.e. muscle, bone, and water) to a more healthy composition and a gorgeous lean body that will make you the envy of all your co-workers. But diet is an important piece of the puzzle that is often overlooked. There is absolutely no point pumping iron and running on the treadmill, or doing Yoga twice a day, six days a week if you’re going to stuff your body with junk and poison all day long. A balanced healthy diet is important. Your body is a machine that will work more efficiently if fueled by the right fodder and in the right amounts and at the right intervals. A diet that provides all of the essential nutrients, is high in healthy carbs, low in fat and a good measure of protein, is essential.  

So there you have it. The five must have components for achieving your fitness goals for the New Year. It’s not rocket science. You need ALL five legs for this table to stand. Improving muscular strength and endurance, cardio respiratory endurance, and flexibility all contribute to you having a healthy body composition (less fat, more muscle mass). This is critical because excessive body fat will negate all the other fitness components, impair performance, and put you at risk for heart disease and stroke. But if all of this seems intimidating to you, go out and get yourself a dietician or a personal trainer who can help clarify some of the information and help get you on the path to achieving your fitness goals in the New Year.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR; Kendal Burton is a Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor and Certified Sports Nutrition Specialist

Building Brains and Brawn

Next time you’re at the gym pumping iron, you might be interested to know you’re building as much brain as brawn.  

You read right. The physical benefits of exercise are well known, even by those who don’t engage in any, but a lesser known and equally important fact is that exercise works wonders for your brain too! Turns out a good workout doesn’t just help keep your body fit and healthy but does an amazing job of keeping your brain healthy as well.  

That the mind and body interrelate is long established, at least in some cultures. Western medicine is now accumulating more hard evidence to support what those cultures have known and which have probably been dismissed as absurdity.  

The link between mental stress and physical illness has been established, but science is slowly discovering evidence to suggest that the reverse is also true-that the body can affect the brain. For example, if you’ve ever completed an intense or grueling workout that you know should leave you slumped in a corner of the gym puking your guts out, but instead leaves you with this strange and inexplicable desire to inflict more punishment on your body because it just feels so damn good…chances are you’ve experienced what’s known as a natural or runners’ high…the result of endorphins being pumped into the brain as a result of exercise. You know you’ve hit it (or it you) when the pain suddenly vanishes and your exhaustion is replaced by an amazing sense of euphoria and a desire to go climb the nearest mountain or bungee dive off the edge of the nearest cliff, or this strange voice goes off in your head saying “let’s do it again.” That’s what some people refer to as a second wind.  

But beyond the feeling of well being and self confidence that exercise helps create, scientists have discovered a more extensive and substantive link between exercise and physical activity, and the healing of mental illness and the attainment of better mental health.  

Apparently the demand for oxygen that physical exertion causes results in that oxygenated blood speeding not just to the working muscles but to the brain as well, to an area in the temporal lobe called the hippocampus, which is associated with memory skills, and processing speech and vision. It is a sea horse shaped area, which is the site of an amazing chemical chain reaction in which mimics the effect of drugs like Prozac and Ritalin and helps you feel energized and helps you focus. But more than that it helps increase the size and improve aptitude!  

Turns out parents who keep their kids away from sports and play because they think it interferes with their academic performance are dead wrong. 

The fact is that kids who engage in physical activity aren’t just doing their bodies good, but are outperforming inactive kids on tests, because they enjoy better focus, memory and problem solving ability. But more than that, the data is suggesting that maintaining that physical activity throughout life can actually stave off a number of neurological illnesses, including Alzheimer’s disease. Studies are showing that exercise can significantly increase the relative hippocampus volume in patients with schizophrenia and that physical fitness helps improve spatial memory, increases the size of the brain structure. 

The scientists are suggesting that exercise may help increase hippocampal neurogenesis and reverse some of the changes in the hippocampus and the cognitive decline that aging causes. You know that old saying use it or lose it? Turns out it actually has a scientific basis and it’s not just true about your muscles. In exercise science there’s a concept called reversibility which suggests that physiological effects of weight training diminish if you stop working out for an extended period of time, resulting in the body’s return to its pre-training shape. Weight training results in muscle hypertrophy or the increase of the size of muscle cells. If you don’t use your muscles, the result is muscular atrophy or a wasting away of muscle from neglect. The same is true of the hippocampus, which is now associated with some severe mental illnesses. In the case of schizophrenia and some severe depressions, the hippocampus appears to shrink. Recent evidence suggests that this shriveling can be reversed and perhaps prevented in people with depression and bipolar disorder through exercise treatment.  

Exercise and physical activity, actually helps in the creation of brain cells and allows the brain to regenerate itself and helps keep the brain healthy and functional well into your latter years, so that you’ll not only look good but you’ll be nimble, quick-witted and smarter, not just for exercising but because of it.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR; Kendal Burton is a Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor and Certified Sports Nutrition Specialist

Your Friends & Your Fitness

You know the old saying birds of a feather flock together? Well apparently they get fat together too. You know the biblical story of Jonah? In case you don’t, it’s very simple really. God calls Jonah to go to Ninevah but he’d rather see them burn in hell before he helps save them, so, Jonah runs away to Tarshish by ship,  God causes a huge storm to arise, the crew realizes it’s his fault, and so toss him overboard. He gets swallowed by a big fish which spits him out three days later and he delivers God’s message to Nineveh and they repent. 

And I know at this point you’re probably wondering what that has to do with fitness and the answer is “plenty”. I use the story to make the simple point that sometimes there will be issues; grief, strain, unrest, hardships (storms) in your life brought about by negative people and influences in your life and the only way to get rid of the issue or problem is to get rid of the source or the negative influence. It’s true about every aspect of your life, including your health and fitness and your ability to achieve your goals. 

A recent study confirmed what most of us probably already knew or suspected…that our friends and family heavily influence our drinking and eating habits. Another study shows that your social networks also influence weight and obesity by influencing our eating patterns and the content of our diets.  The study claims that people are more likely to be overweight and unhealthy if their friends or social networks are. It concludes that “friends influence each other’s diet and exercise patterns”. You know the old saying birds of a feather flock together? Well apparently they get fat together too. 

How many times have we seen contestants on the Biggest Loser™ reality show absolutely freak out at the prospect of returning home prematurely or before they’ve made any significant headway in their weight loss journey? They know all too well that obesity is contagious and that the unhealthy habits and lifestyles of their friends and family affected their own and are likely to undo any progress they would have made. 

Just last week I had a coworker who recently embarked on an exercise regimen to lose weight, confess her own trepidation about going to visit her family in the UK for the exact same reasons - fear of being lured back in to the excessive drinking and binge eating that are such a common part of life for her friends and family. 

Let’s face it. Exercise and weight loss are hard enough without the constant enticement to stray that is bound to come when surrounded by compulsive overeaters. And this helps highlight a very important point that most people forget, that exercise is as much mental as it is physical. It takes a tremendous amount of willpower, discipline to start and perhaps more importantly, maintain any gains you achieve, and that requires some exercise itself. The good news is that that self discipline will spill over into other areas of our life not even related to exercise. It will improve your brain function, concentration and focus, goal setting and achievement ability. But no point subjecting yourself to unnecessary inducements to stray. Here’s another lesson straight from the bible that will help keep you in good stead. Matthew 5:30 says “if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” That’s good advice right there. You have to eliminate the things, and people in your life that act as hurdles or hindrances to the achievement of your goals or that will cause you to go astray in any sphere of your life or development as a person. The trick is to surround yourself with positive people who can help build you up. 

When it comes to fitness, the power of the group is as powerful, as in any other area of life. Studies have shown a connection between social support and fitness success. A study that asked women to exercise on their own, compared their results with a group working out with friends and the results were astounding. Most of the people working out on their own dropped out of the study, while the others who worked out with partners, were able to complete it.Working out with people with similar goals helps build your own enthusiasm, and motivates you to push yourself harder, especially if the other person is able to lift more or run faster, or do more repetitions than you can…then you can work off of them, and set targets to match or surpass their performance. 

You know you want to get into shape and lose some pounds this New Year but you’re not sure you can do it. You need to prepare yourself mentally for it first of all because it’s going to take hard work, discipline and commitment, but once you’ve decided, get help, partner with someone who shares the same goals as you do, to take the journey with you, and to help you keep each other accountable and motivated, and stick with that person. Stop hanging out with people who are going to suck you back into the same unhealthy practices and behaviors which got you to this point to begin with. Together with your new body you may want to consider getting a new set of friends and tossing the old ones over board. 

About the author: Kendal Burton is a Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor and Sports Nutrition Specialist.

The Coconut - Nature's Sports Drink

I read an article in the New York Post last month headlined “They’re Loco For Coco” and detailing this new celebrity obsession with coconut water, with names like Rihanna, Dianna Agron, Jessica Alba and Stacy Keibler reportedly singing its praises.

They’re all discovering what a lot of us in the Caribbean (except Rihanna apparently) have known practically all our lives – the stuff’s good for you! Quite apart from being a refreshing drink to help beat the hot Caribbean sun and the accompanying thirst, the juice does much more than just replenish hydration levels.

According to the article "… A-Rod, Madonna and Gisele, Manhattanites are increasingly reaching for the drink, made of water from a coconut, with variations in processing and additives ranging from vitamins to high-fructose corn syrup.”

“Once found mostly in natural-food stores such as Whole Foods, the coconut water drink is now so commonplace, just about any corner bodega stocks it. With sales hitting the $200 million mark, the US coconut-water market is skyrocketing; one popular brand, Zico, has increased its sales by 150 percent each year since 2006.”

Too bad they’re still finding ways to process and throw in additives to what is already the most healthy plant based food. 

The Cocos Nucifera as it is scientifically known, is a nutritional powerhouse chock full of electrolytes and cytokinins which is a great anti-carcinogenic anti-ageing agent by the way. Cytokinins according to researchers helps to reduce normal cell degeneration and thus prevents age related degenerative diseases.

Coconut water is packed with vitamins, such as riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, pyridoxine, and folates, minerals, like zinc, selenium, iodine, sulfur, manganese, potassium and magnesium.  It’s low calorie, low sugar, low fat, and all of these properties help in regulating blood pressure, and aiding overall circulation. It also prevents plaque from forming and blood clotting. So drinking coconut water could save your life by preventing heart attack but more than that, its been found to be so close to human plasma, that it has helped save many lives after being used successfully as an IV in medical procedures in remote parts of the world.

Its low sodium and chloride content, and amino acids make it a more ideal drink for athletes, than most sports drinks for purposes of hydration. It reportedly contributes to overall exercise performance because of its high phosphorous, sodium and magnesium content all of which can be depleted during intense physical activity but which promote proper muscle function and bone health. 

Coconut water contains 10 to 15 times the potassium content of most sports drinks and next to pure water is the best post workout fluid to consume, especially if your workouts are intense or last more than 6o minutes, in which case plain water is not enough to replenish the vital electrolytes like sodium and potassium that would have been lost.

Its naturally occurring enzymes make coconut water good for the digestive and metabolic systems. Apart from helping to regulate blood glucose and insulin levels, it is widely used to treat diarrhoea and constipation.

More research is being done to ascertain this, but coconut water is also believed to help in promoting healthy skin and good eye health as well as stave off osteoporosis. As more research is done, more benefits are bound to be discovered, but for now crack open a nut and enjoy it’s refreshing, regenerating goodness. Not only does it taste good, but its good for you!.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR; Kendal Burton is a Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor & Sports Nutrition Specialist. For more health and fitness tips “friend” us on Facebook, or join our free fitness community atwww.edgepersonalfitness.com. If you have any questions, or a topic you’d like us to address email us at mail@edgepersonalfitness.com

Going 'Ape' Over Bananas!

Growing up in the Caribbean where bananas for a long time, were the mainstay of several island economies, there was no short supply of the plant or the fruit. Unfortunately with that abundance may have come a bit of disregard of the fruit for both its economic and other value. 

For many of us it may just be a really tasty fruit, but there’s a lot more to this fruit that for a long time has been known in the Caribbean as Green Gold (referring to the un-ripened fruit for export). While the term was coined to describe the economic value of the fruit, the “gold” part of the phrase still applies when used to describe its health benefits.

Many people don’t know this but bananas, because of their combination of three naturally occurring sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose are a fast source of energy. In fact two bananas can fuel an entire 90-minute workout. A medium banana (102g) contains about 96.9kcal. Quite apart from that bananas help guard against a number of illnesses and conditions, from PMS and depression to ulcers.

Forget about that old adage about an apple a day keeping the doctor away….Get you a couple of bananas and you’re all set!  A banana has five times the vitamin A, and iron in an apple, four times the protein in an apple, triple the phosphorus, and twice the carbohydrates.

Bananas contain Tryptophan, an amino acid needed for normal growth in infants and for nitrogen balance in adults. It is an essential amino acid, which means your body cannot produce it -- you must get it from your diet and one of the best ways to do that is from eating bananas. The human body converts Tryptophan into Serotonin, which is generally associated with mood improvements. Researchers believe that an imbalance in serotonin levels may influence mood in a way that could actually lead to depression. The Vitamin B6 content in bananas also helps stabilise blood glucose levels which also affects moods. So not only do they taste good but make you feel good too. 

They’re a great source of iron, and play a role in haemoglobin production which is valuable to persons with anaemia. Its low salt, high potassium content also help regulate blood pressure. Potassium is also good for boosting brain power, so not only are you smart for eating bananas, but you’re likely to get smarter as a result of eating bananas! 

High fibre content also make bananas great for regulating bowel movements. They’ve even developed a reputation as the best cure for a hangover, when blended with honey. They are really good at calming to stomach, so in addition to being a good hangover drink they make good natural antacid “medication” and help suppress morning sickness. Because of their ability to coat the lining of the stomach and reduce acidity, they also help prevent the development of ulcers.

Even the banana peel, when rubbed on the skin, has been proven to relieve mosquito bites! I haven’t tried this one yet, but I’ve been told the peel can also be used to polish your shoes!!!

Kendal Burton is a Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Instructor, Sports Nutrition Specialist and owner of Edge Personal Fitness. For more health and fitness tips “friend” us on Facebook, or join our free fitness community atwww.edgepersonalfitness.com. If you have any questions, or a topic you’d like us to address email us atmail@edgepersonalfitness.com