Whatever your exercise goals, keeping your heart strong and healthy has to be top of the list. Here are some of the benefits that working out and eating well have on your heart health.
There are 2.3 million people in the UK living with heart disease. The good news is that many of the big risk factors – high blood pressure, raised LDL cholesterol and a waste height ratio above 0.5 – are under your control.
The dietary protocols are fairly predictable: more fibre-rich whole foods, less processed meat and refined carbs. Keep in mind that diet that are high in sugar can increase the synthesis of LDL cholesterol.
In terms of exercise, cardio is king. And ‘cardio’ it doesn’t just mean a narrow choice between running, jogging and plodding: fast-paced dumbbell circuits and bodyweight drills count too.
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight before, you’ll know that it isn’t easy. Especially keeping the weight off after the initial drop. A mixture of working out and eating a well-balanced diet will always be the best strategy. But if you only have time to focus on just one, which is more effective?
Weight loss happens when your body requires more energy and calories then you’re putting in, and so is forced to break down the molecules in your fat cells for fuel.
There are countless ‘fat-burning’ diets out there, from keto and paleo to intermittent fasting, but all rely on creating a calorie deficit.
Aim for a deficit of between 250kcal and 500kcal per day and see how your body responds. There are two simple ways to work towards a 250kcal deficit: first, consume less; second, move more.
However, an over-reliance on exercise can have its downsides. In one study, people who trained for an average of half an hour per day didn’t lose any more weight than those who averaged 15 minutes – the more committed exercises subconsciously rewarded themselves for their hard work by eating more food.
As well as tracking your calorie intake, it is advised that you boost your non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). This covers any movement that isn’t part of your structured training plan, such as walking to the shops, cleaning the house, or running around after the kids.
Where exercise does come into its own is weight maintenance. Research shows that people who form good fitness habits alongside switching up their diets are far more likely to stick to their plans. So, think less about burning fat and more about bulking up your willpower.
We all know that a balance of both exercise and good nutrition are paramount to our physical well-being. But what effect do they each have on our mental health?
It may surprise you that our minds are not separate from what we consider to be the physiological elements of our being. The way we use and maintain on muscles, organs and digestive systems informs our emotional state.
In one study, scientists asked test subjects to snack on either crisps and chocolate or fresh fruit. Within 10 days, members of the junk food group were exhibiting greater symptoms of low mood and anxiety than the fruit eaters. High-sugar, high-fat foods can cause a flash of hormones in the brain is pleasure centres, which is followed by a crash. Common deficiencies can also contribute to poor mental health, such as those in vitamins B12, C, D and omega-3.
Your workouts, meanwhile, will give you both a short-term high and a long-term lift. As well as releasing endorphins, exercise also triggers the release of numerous brain-cell mediators, including serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline, which light up the pleasure and reward centres of the brain.
Research shows that those who trained for just 2 and a half hours each week had a 31% lower risk of depression than those who didn’t. Exercise has been shown to be as effective as medication in reducing symptoms of moderate depression.
For many struggling with their mental well-being, getting outside and moving for half an hour each day will be easier than a total dietary overall.
Whatever your ambitions for the year ahead, working out and eating well will always be sound strategies. But which is more effective? Here is a look at the benefits of each on your immune system.
Your immune system can be compromised by a range of factors, from age and obesity to smoking. But it can also be strengthened.
The effect of exercise on immunity is dependent on dosage. There is a theory that intense training – for a marathon, say, or CrossFit – temporarily suppresses the immune system, leading to an ‘open-window’ of heightened infection risk in the hours afterwards. However, recent research suggests that this only applies to pro athletes with six-hours-a-day schedules.
Research shows that a bout of moderate-effort exercise can help the immune system to sweep up pathogens. If your training is more professional, further studies show that increasing your intake of carbs and polyphenol-rich berries and veg can help to offset any damage.
Following a Mediterranean diet – rich in healthy fats and plant-based foods – will boost the microbiome diversity in your gut, while prebiotic foods promote the growth of healthy bacteria.
For many, Christmas is a difficult time of year to keep to a balanced and healthy lifestyle. Lack of time for exercise, meal prep and eating healthily can give way to exhaustion, unhealthy food and lifestyle choices.
If you’ve been treating yourself more and exercising less, this can often result in feelings of guilt, especially those of you who have recently started on your journey to better health.
Don’t despair! The key is to accept this and move on…
Try my Home Workouts: Total Core exercise guide to get you back on track. This simple guide provides easy-to-follow exercises which target all muscles of the core and help you to build strength and tone. Visit my shop page for further details.
In addition to this guide, it’s essential you introduce yourself back into your previous routine slowly. Don’t take away all treats, as you’ll feel deprived. Eat well balanced meals that include all three macronutrients – protein, complex carbohydrates and good fats.
Start to move more. This doesn’t mean you have to get straight back into training for your 10k run or head off to the next sweat-inducing spin class. Do the things that you enjoy, like taking a walk in your local park or dancing around the living room with your family.
The key is to be kind to yourself and move forward. And here’s to a happy and healthy 2021!
The chemical messengers in your blood will help you smash your weight loss goals.
In the weight-loss conversation, almost everyone obsesses over diet and exercise. However, the latest science shows that not only are your hormones a defining factor in how you age, they also play a crucial role in the way you put on (or lose) fat.
Calories, of course, remain king. But armed with this crash course on hormones, you can expect to burn off a princely sum in your pursuit of a lean physique.
Leptin and Ghrelin Blame these two if your gut grumbles an hour after you’ve eaten. Leptin, released by your fact tissues, alters your appetite in the long term by telling your brain when you have stored enough fat. Ghrelin, produced in the gut, signals to your brain that you’re hungry. If either is out of sorts, cravings will strike.
Hack Eating 30g of protein at each meal reduces ghrelin – it‘s why you feel so full after a steak.
Irisin The latest weight-loss hero on the block, this ‘exercise hormone‘ was only discovered in the past decade. Scientists believe that Irisin has the superpower of converting white fat, linked with an unhealthy metabolism, to brown fat, which is linked with effective calorie burn.
Hack To make the most of this hormone, mix up your workouts. If you’re not throwing some high-intensity work into your routine, it’s time you started. It doesn’t even have to be a set plan: just spend 30 seconds with a skipping rope (or performing jumping jacks) between weight sets. Alternatively, introduce a few sprints to your usual run, or between lifting sets.HackHack To make the most of this hormone, mix up your workouts. If you’re not throwing some high-intensity work into your routine, it’s time you started. It doesn’t even have to be a set plan: just spend 30 seconds with a skipping rope (or performing jumping jacks) between weight sets. Alternatively, introduce a few sprints to your usual run, or between lifting sets.
Insulin This hormone keeps your blood sugar in check and helps your body to store fat and build muscle. Weight gain can lead to insulin resistance, which means your cells don’t respond well to it. As a result, your pancreas compensates by producing more. Over time, the combination of high insulin levels and insulin resistance can make it harder to lose weight.
Hack Instead of ‘low-carb‘, go for ‘slow carb‘. Your digestive system requires more time to process nutrient-dense carbohydrates. These foods slow down digestion and help you stabilise blood sugar and insulin levels. It’s the right season for it right now: parsnips, swede and celeriac are all at their peak.
Cortisol Exposure to high amounts of stress produces the hormone cortisol, which can cause muscle breakdown and a redistribution of fat to your gut. High levels at night are one of the biggest causes of weight gain, especially belly fat.
Hack Install a phone bowl in your bedroom – and keep it far away from your bed. That means no mindless scrolling in bed, and therefore no more sleep lost to the smartphone abyss. Another perk: a solid night of sleep is a natural stress-reliever.
HGH and IGF-1 Your pituitary gland produces HGH, which stimulates the production and secretion of IGF-1 by the liver. Both are growth hormones that break down fat and use the energy to strengthen your muscles.
Hack Set a snack curfew. Don’t eat anything for two hours before you go to bed. Food will reduce the natural surge in growth hormones during the early hours of the night (and no, staying up later will not reduce this effect). As an incentive, know that losing 5kg can raise your IGF-1 level.
It’s the workhorse vitamin, reinforcing your bones, bolstering your immune system and easing harmful inflammation.
The latest evidence suggests that vitamin D may reduced respiratory infections, autoimmune diseases and even your risk of dying from cancer.
The NHS suggests that between March and September, you’re probably getting plenty from the sun – but after that, you’re at risk of deficiency.
If this is severe, you could develop symptoms such as muscle weakness, fragile bones and bone pain.
Aim to take 1000 IU (international units) each day. While 600 IU is enough to avoid deficiency, a little more may help you build up your blood level of vitamin D, so you can unlock its full disease-preventing potential.
Enzymes in your skin can convert UV rays into vitamin D, but the amount generated depends on your skin colour, where you live and the time of year. So, seek it out in food. Canned salmon (716 IU in a serving) and cooked trout (648 IU) will push you towards the goal. A portobello mushroom contains 316 IU, a glass of milk has 100 and an egg has about 40.
Prioritise these foods rich in vitamin D, as they also carry other disease-preventing benefits. However, taking a supplement will ensure you hit your IU target.
The best way to build immunity defense is with a healthy and nutritious diet. 50% of the food we consume in the Western World is processed, meaning somewhere down the line in its production, it has been chemically or mechanically altered.
Consuming these foods regularly is a dietary regime that can lead to a whole host of health complications, not least making us more vulnerable to experiencing regular colds and flu.
Many people are turning their focus towards more plant-based and whole-food diets that are far kinder to our bodies.
If you are a Vegetarian or Vegan, note that many meat substitutes are in fact also processed food, so try and get your protein from more natural sources such as lentils, beans and oats.
Try and also consume ingredients such as garlic, ginger and turmeric, all of which possess properties that can help the body’s immune system feel boosted and stronger, keeping you from getting ill.
There are three types of Diabetes: Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease where the pancreas produces very little insulin or no insulin at all. Type 2 diabetes is, largely a lifestyle disease, found mainly in adults as they get older. Gestation diabetes is developed by pregnant women and it usually goes away after birth.
This suggests that type 2 diabetes can be both prevented and reversed. So what are the steps that can make sure we never suffer from it, or if we do, we manage to get out of its grip? In truth they are basic, but that’s what also makes them difficult, and they are just three:
Exercise
Diet
Nutrition
While this is the usual formula of “exercise more and eat less” the reality is a lot more involved and a number of very recent studies have given us a lot of what we need to successfully unpack it. Diabetes type 2 can be controlled with drugs but these sometimes have unpleasant side-effects and the quality of life of the sufferer drops, anyway so it is worth exploring the alternatives.
Exercise for diabetics
A 15-year long study that looked at two control groups, one using diet and exercise and the other medication found that the diet and exercise group fared by far the best, reducing the incidence of diabetes by almost a third, as opposed to just 18% in the group using medication.
Beginners could start with brisk walks and vigorous swimming and then, as their physical conditioning improves, move on to slightly more demanding aerobic activity.
Resistance exercise should be undertaken at least twice weekly on non-consecutive days involving either moderate or vigorous workouts.
The study however found that combined aerobic and resistance training three times a week in individuals with type 2 diabetes may be of greater benefit to blood glucose control than either aerobic or resistance exercise alone.
Diet for Diabetics
Diet can no more be divorced from effective diabetes type 2 prevention than it can from any other aspect of fitness and exercise. But that doesn’t mean restrictions. As a matter of fact restrictions, quite naturally, lead to over-indulging in other foods and also breaking the restrictions from time to time which means that overall health and weight goals are compromised.
Studies have shown that high-fat diets affect insulin production in the body and increase the likelihood of type 2 diabetes. So a reduction in fat intake is the first step. In addition to this, the latest studies have indicated that when diabetics eat vegetables and protein first and carbohydrates afterwards in their meal, glucose levels in the blood drop.
While more work needs to be done in this area, the suggestion is that the way foods are combined and the order in which they are consumed affects the chemical processes of the body in ways that can help those with diabetes type 2.
When it comes to protein a recent study found that people who ate diets high in red meat, especially processed red meat, had a higher risk of type 2 diabetes than those who rarely ate red or processed meat, so protein quality does matter.
As a matter of fact in what is definitely good news for those who suffer from diabetes and exercise, researchers discovered that whey protein, which is used by athletes and weightlifters to improve fitness, stimulates the production of a gut hormone, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which boosts insulin.
From a dietary point of view then diabetes sufferers should:
Reduce fat in their diets
Generally have diets that in the long term are low in fat and carbs
Eat vegetables and protein first in their meals and carbohydrates last
Make sure there is high quality protein in their diet and use whey as a means of boosting their protein intake
For diabetes type 2, in particular, there is the suggestion that a diet that is high in protein can reverse the disease and when combined with exercise it can potentially cure it.
Nutrition for Diabetics
One of the problems with diabetes of all types is the fact that it damages nerve endings leading to reduced feedback, slowed responses and an impaired control over our body. The medical term for this is peripheral neuropathy and it can seriously affect the quality of life of diabetes sufferers.
There is good news here too with studies showing that nerve damage can be reversed provided nutrition is improved to include: Alpha lipoic acid (which protects nerve cells from further damage and assists in the repair of damaged nerve cells), L-arginine, (to improve blood flow), Omega-3s and omega-6s (which also aid in nerve repair) and B vitamins (there is some evidence that taking a balanced B complex, helps with peripheral neuropathy).
Having some extra virgin olive oil in the diet can help reverse a lot of the nerve damage and may also help combat type 2 diabetes directly.
Summing up
Type 2 diabetes does not have to be a permanent condition but we do need to take active control of our lifestyle by making the right choices in terms of staying fit, losing some weight and eating foods that help our body stay healthier. The quality of protein we consume is also important particularly when it comes to preventing type 2 diabetes or reducing its impact, when it is already present.
The body is a complex chemical factory. When things go awry we can still work to improve its chances of rebalancing and recovering through our own actions.
We all know that regular exercise will provide you with a host of health benefits, but in the current confusion and anxiety surrounding the Coronavirus, how and where can you best fit your exercise regime in?
The term ‘Social Distancing’ shouldn’t be translated to ‘stay at home sat watching TV all day’, rather make sure you maintain responsible levels of space (a metre or two) away from any other individual to reduce the chances of viral transmission.
In fact, sitting inside for a week without access to fresh air and Vitamin D can significantly affect your mood and make you more likely to experience feelings of anxiety and depression, both of which can have a huge knock-on effect on your physical health and your immunity levels.
Going out for a run or practising some simple bodyweight exercises during this time is a great way to maintain your level of fitness if you don’t have access to a gym or specialist equipment, and will also help alleviate feelings of anxiety that can come from being inside too much.
This is also particularly relevant if you are working from home in an environment where you may be sat about all day. Don’t fall into the trap of making this a regular habit of yours and make sure that you get up and go for regular walks and have breaks for fresh air.
Finally, listen to your body. You know you better than anyone else, so if you feel unwell or that you’re working out too much and don’t have the energy to maintain it, take a rest. Your physical ‘gains’ won’t suffer as a result of it and your body and your mind will appreciate it much more in the long term.
