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!
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.
Many
people give up on an exercise regime because they started over-enthusiastically
and suffered an injury. Instead, start at a level that slightly challenges you
and work on up.
Move
smoothly with control rather than swinging or bouncing. Push your limits gently
and take time to perfect each move. Exercises are only effective if carried out
correctly.
You are
wasting your effort as well as risking injury if you do you numerous
repetitions wrongly or force your body passed its natural limits. Knees, ankles
and lower back are especially vulnerable.
You may
ache a little the day after your first few sessions, but you shouldn’t feel any
pain. If you’re exhausted or hobbling, you’ve been working too hard. Ease off
to avoid sabotaging your programme.
It’s the
age old question, but one we’re still confused about.
A lot of
people equate sweat to how hard they’re working. However it’s not an accurate
representation of the effort you’re putting into an exercise session.
Sweat is
the body’s super-effective cooling system, and we naturally perspire a litre of
water on a rest day. And, besides, some people’s genetics mean they sweat more
easily than others.
It just
means how hot your body is. So if you’re jumping on the spot in a hot room,
you’re going to start sweating. If you’re working harder in a cold room, you
might not sweat but you’ve still put in more effort.
Pain in
your muscles following a workout is known as DOMS – or delayed onset muscle
soreness. It is triggered by small-scale damage to your muscles from strenuous
or unaccustomed exercise.
Using this
as a barometer isn’t sustainable. As you workout more, you’ll stop getting that
soreness. Great news!
How you
feel during training is not always a reflection of how fit you are. If you know
just how to manage it and use a variety of mental tricks you don’t just get to
feel better than you would otherwise, you will be performing better, doing more
and working out harder.
Fitness
is, mostly, inside your head. It’s first of all a mental battle to win in order
to make yourself train, make yourself train at the level you need to, and then
to continue doing it time and time again. Here are a few tricks you can use to
make the whole process easier on yourself:
Don’t think about how hard it is
The more you think about yourself not being able to cope, the harder it will
feel. Keep telling yourself that what you are doing is no big deal and you’ll
find that you are capable of achieving much more.
Take yourself elsewhere for a few seconds
If where you are is less than comfortable, imagine where you would like to be
right now and take yourself there in your head. It will help you reset your
brain and take its attention away from thinking about the tough training
session.
Lie
Tell yourself that you will never do this again or will take a long break…after
this time. The lie works because it re-programmes your brain to stop
complaining and simply focus on the time training will end.
Work out with music
Evidence shows that listening to music during your workout, due to its calming
effect, can lead to reduced muscle tension and more efficient oxygenation. We
are not just able to do more and feel less exhausted, but the exercise itself
feels less taxing.
Here are 5
must-dos for staying motivated and on track when time isn’t on your side.
1. Work out why
Understanding what drives you to work out and what you want to achieve will
help keep you focused on your goal.
2. Map the way
Struggling to make regular runs or training session? Giving yourself a goal
will really help. Work out what you need to achieve and by when, and make a
training plan that helps you get there.
3. Have a laugh
If you’re somebody who lacks motivation, training with a group or a friend
means you’re more likely to look forward to sessions than dread them. When you
enjoy it, working out becomes more of a hobby, and sometimes the accountability
means you don’t allow yourself to miss the session.
4. Prep, prep, prep Plan your week in advance and review it each Sunday night. Always put in one more session than you need – if you plan four sessions and only do three, then you’re still winning. Get your kick ready and packed each evening instead of rushing around in the morning.
5. Be realistic Start small when it comes to goals and ensure they are actually achievable – you’re less likely to fail that way. Progress takes time and it’s unrealistic to expect huge changes immediately.
