 Carbohydrates, fats, and protein are known as the energy-yielding nutrients. These are the dietary components your body can actually break down to create molecules of energy known as ATP (adenosine tri-phosphate). While many diet plans emphasize focusing on one macronutrient over the others, a healthy diet represents balanced intake from all three groups. Lets take a quick look at each macronutrient and how it impacts energy levels.
Carbs Carbohydrates are often seen as your body's preferred source of energy because they can most easily be broken down to create ATP. In fact, for several of your body's tissues, including your brain, carbohydrates are actually the main source of fuel. Simple carbohydrates, such as white bread, cookies, and anything made with refined flour, provide the body with a rapid rush of energy as they are quickly metabolized for fuel. Unfortunately, this energy rush is often followed by a fall in blood sugar, felt by the individual as an energy crash (and of course, hunger). On the other hand, a diet high in complex carbohydrates - whole grains, fruits, and vegetables - can offer unlimited health benefits. These carbohydrate sources contain dietary fiber, which provides a slower release of energy and contributes to feelings of fullness and satiety. Fats Just like carbohydrates, fat has received some negative publicity when it comes to a healthy diet. However, fat is actually the most energy-sustaining nutrient since it provides 9 kilocalories (kcals) per gram (protein and carbohydrates only provide 4 each). Fat is also digested more slowly and when consumed correctly, can help provide a steady, slow release of energy and contribute to feelings of fullness. Much like carbohydrates, when incorporating fat into your diet it is important to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy fat sources. While saturated and hydrogenated fats can negatively affect health, omega-3 fatty acids, which can be found in nuts, seeds, and cold-water fish, can contribute to neurological and cardiovascular health. Protein Unlike fats and carbohydrates, protein is often touted as the healthiest of the macronutrients. It is true that protein, in addition to providing a source for energy production, is also required for the makeup of skeletal muscle and enzymes. Consuming meals high in protein can support lean body mass as well as contribute to satiety and blood sugar control. Food sources high in protein include meats and poultry, legumes, nuts, and quinoa. While no one food choice is the best for supporting energy levels, a balanced combination of macronutrients which provide a high dose of micronutrients, including B vitamins and other supportive nutrients, will give your body the nourishment it needs. That's the science of sustained energy. Talk to your doctor to learn more.
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More than 90% of all office workers use a personal computer, but whether they use it correctly is debatable. By "correctly," we're not referring to whether they know how to download files, format documents, troubleshoot error messages, or prevent e-mail viruses from attacking. We're talking about having your computer monitor, keyboard, chair, and workspace organized in a way that promotes productive, pain-free work and discourages repetitive-stress and ergonomic-related injuries. Keyboard Height When you are in a seated position and sitting up straight, the position of the keyboard should be at the height of your elbows or below. Most people will sit with a keyboard height approximately level with their abdomen. This forces the shoulders to remain in an elevated or shrugged position, which activates a large muscle in your back - the trapezius muscle - and can result in a great deal of pain if that position is held too long. Raising the height of your chair is the easy fix for this problem. Other situations may require a more aggressive approach, such as installation of a swing arm that allows for adjustable positioning of the keyboard. Keep in mind that the computer mouse should be at the same appropriate height of the keyboard. Monitor Height The top of your monitor should be at the level of your eyebrows or top of your head. Some individuals have to place their monitor on a stack of large books to maintain the appropriate height. If you are having trouble seeing your monitor and maintaining a forward position of your head, it is likely that you will end up suffering the consequences of poor postural position. Chair Height and Sitting Position Attempt to maintain flat-footed placement on the floor to help with overall balance while sitting. Your objective is to maintain proper posture while sitting by allowing as much contact between your body and the chair. It is important to try to sit back in the chair as far as possible and to maintain contact with your shoulders against the back of the chair. The backs of your upper legs and your buttocks should completely contact the base of the chair. It may seem like an oversimplification, but learning to sit up straight, suck your stomach and keep your keyboard at the level of your elbows and below are easy ways to minimize your risk of chronic and repetitive-stress injuries at the workplace. That's good news to you and your employer. Talk to your doctor for more information. It will also help a great deal if you learn to sit while holding in your lower abdomen for extended periods of time. This helps support the soft tissue of the lower back, which is actually under more strain in a seated position than when you are standing. It has become clear that we need to prevent ourselves from getting cramps. One cause of cramps is the change in electrolytes, sodium, and potassium that gets sweated out. One way of dealing with it is to drink electrolyte drinks like Gatorade or Powerade. These drinks, while brightly packaged, are just sugar drinks with added salts and potassium. They are convenient but expensive and usually contain high fructose corn syrup.
Another option is to make your own using common items from the grocery store, you can find two recipes below. Try experimenting with different ingredient ratios to fit your taste, and try drinking it during one of your workouts or practices. It is always good to do so during practice as opposed to before a game. Recovery from a two hour workout should include some food with protein within the first hour so try to bring something to eat after practice or games. The other cause of cramps is low calcium. calcium is a mineral that is used in every muscular contraction. As we use this mineral in an active workout, our calcium level decreases and antagonistic muscles, the ones used to relax a muscle, is unable to pull the muscle apart, which leads to the cramp. Increasing the level of calcium in your diet is important to reduce your risk of cramps. Look to add calcium to your diet with supplements, milk, calcium fortified juice, or other dietary means. If you have questions, please feel free to ask. Continue to workout hard and hopefully a little prep helps. Most children become dehydrated because of diarrhea or vomiting caused by a viral infection. The way to help a dehydrated child is to give plenty of fluids while the child is ill. This is called fluid replacement. The best fluid replacement for children younger than 2 years is Pedialyte, Rehydrate, Pedialyte freezer pops, or any similar product designed to replace fluids, sugar, and electrolytes (dissolved minerals such as sodium, potassium, and chloride). You can buy these products at most large grocery and drug stores. You can make your own oral rehydration fluid by following this recipe:
Give a few sips every few minutes. What are Electrolytes? | Surge your Workout with a Homemade Electrolyte Drink Nov 9th, 2009 by Enrico I’m sure you’ve heard of Electrolytes before. They are heavily advertised in popular sports drinks such as Gatorade or Powerade. Almost like a buzz-word, Electrolytes seem to be this magic energy that gives us that jolt of energy when we need it. Electrolytes aren’t magic. They are the essential components that fuel your cells. They are the motor oil that keeps our engines running strong. Electrolytes benefit us in powerful ways such as:
Here’s the kicker – Instead of just rambling off ingredients, I did some research and identified what exactly each ingredient does for you and what makes it important. Secret Homemade Electrolyte Recipe The foundation of your drink. Natures best hydrating liquid: The fountain of life itself. This is the main component of your drink: the electrolyte. Simple enough, this is what packs the punch. Baking soda alone will not react in the intended way until it is mixed with a solution, which in this case, is water. This one is a bit tricky because the salt must contain Potassium. This mineral is another electrolyte that will boost your energy even further. Potassium naturally occurs in Sea salts, so it is an obvious choice. However, many products at your local supermarket post on the label, “Sea Salt” when actually it is not. The ploy is that “it started as sea salt.” Fortunately, identifying Authentic Sea Salt is very simple. The perfect way to top off your drink. Not only will this improve the flavor of the drink, but it will also provide your body with sucrose. Sucrose is also known as a “simple carbohydrate” or “simple sugar” as it metabolizes into energy in as little as 30 minutes. Think of this as the spark that lights the combustion engine. If you think that your drink needs a little more personality, you can add flavoring. Don’t forget that this substitute sports drink is meant to reduce calories, so you get more bang for your calorie-spent buck. Some smart flavorings you could try are lemon juice, lime juice, or orange juice concentrate.
Exercise is important for our health and is generally broken into two categories. Endurance and strength training are vital for proper muscle fitness. A friend who happens to be a patient of mine posted a link to a website called hundredpushups.com
This friend who happens to be over 60 is on the program to do 100 consecutive pushups, all from a challenge from his older sister. I have looked over the website and its simplicity to increase strength using the basic pushup. We have all done pushups or been exposed to it. As a coach, I will often tell my athletes to do pushups. With the goal of doing 100 consecutively in a 6 week program, the accomplishment is attainable by everyone. Pushups work not only the chest and arms, but your abs and torso. It can easily be done anywhere, does not need special equipment, no need to go to the gym and their program of working out 3 times per week takes about 10 minutes per day. You will be doing close to 100 pushups in the beginning to 150+ in the later weeks. Can't do a good form regular pushup, do one that is modified (against the wall, stairs) and work your progression up. Endurance training works the same with goal to finish a race or 50 mile bike ride. Don't cheat, be honest with yourself and you will be rewarded. I have started the challenge myself and invite all of you to do the same. Since we spend a great portion of our life sleeping, I am often asked how to choose a mattress. There are many new options for mattresses, Air, memory foam, combo foam are some of these choices. While they are very viable, they can be very expensive and may not provide the best fit for you. I generally recommend the tried and true spring mattress. When thinking of mattresses, we need to have support and it needs to adapt to the contours of our body. As a general rule, the more springs in your mattress, the better. The reason is the springs provides the adaptability to our different shapes. Stiffness to a mattress is generally controlled by the gauge or thickness of the springs. Like wires, the smaller the gauge, the thicker the steel used in the coil. Since most companies use the same size gauge on their mattresses to allow it to adapt, I don't usually concern myself too much with that. My bottom line rule is, get as many coils as you can afford. In other words, if I had a choice of 700 coils in a queen size mattress or 800, I would buy the 800. There is even one company (Duxiana) that puts up to 3000 coils into their mattress. While this would definitely offer better contouring to the body, the cost is very high. The springs need to intertwined by hand as I understand it. My other recommendation is to go with the top of the line model with in a company, for instance Sealy Posturepedic. Within the Posturepedic line, there are many bells and whistles, the extras that can add highly to the cost. Having fancy pillow tops does little for the overall mattress but are expensive add ons.
To complicate your sleeping choices, mattress companies will often put different names on a mattress depending on which store they are selling to. Macys, Sleep Train may have the same mattress, only named differently which makes comparing them difficult. So there it is, I do not recommend any particular brand as all companies usually have different levels of mattresses and it is almost impossible to judge a mattress after lying on it in a showroom for 5 minutes. Use the springs numbers to help you compare. Pareben Free Skin Products: Recent studying and continuing ed. classes has led me to explore the effects of things we put into our bodies through our skin. Parebens in many forms are widely used as a preservative in lotions, sunscreens and soaps. They are estrogenic or hormone disrupting and have been linked to cause cancer. Begin reading the labels on most of the products we put on our skin and you will find parabens and other chemicals. Even many of our very expensive skin care products will have these chemicals in there.
The majority of sunscreens have these and other micronized chemicals that are readily absorbed into our blood stream via the skin. Look for sunblocks that contain titanium or zinc oxide. These are larger molecules that are unable to cross through the skin into our blood stream. When applied, these will leave a light white film on your skin. That is what is blocking the UV rays. Many of the pain relieving gels out on the market also have parabens in them. Our office no longer stocks pain relieving gels that have unwanted chemicals in them. We have found pain relieving gels, lotions and sun blocks that are paraben free. For more information, do internets search on parabens. "People who receive regular chiropractic adjustments have immune system competency that is 200% greater than those who don't." One of the most important studies showing the positive effect chiropractic care can have on the immune system and general health was performed by Ronald Pero, Ph.D., Chief of Cancer Prevention Research at New York's Preventive Medicine Institute and Professor of Medicine at New York University. In his initial three year study of 107 individuals who had been under chiropractic care for 5 years or more, the chiropractic patients had a 200% greater immune competence than people who had not received chiropractic care.
The Chiropractic Journal, August 1989 While a personal choice, I have decided to not have flu shots with the belief that keeping the immune system strong with rest, exercise, proper nutrition and regular Chiropractic adjustments is a better choice than putting chemicals into my system. Stroke Rehabilitation and The Positive Effects of Chiropractic on the Response to the Central Nervous System and Motor Training Tasks
By Mark Studin DC, FASBE (C), DAAPM, DAAMLP Whithall, McCombe Waller, Silver, and Macko (2000) reported, "Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States and the leading cause of adult disability. Annually, approximately 750,000 Americans suffer a stroke. Although incidence rates have remained constant over the last three decades, mortality has declined, leaving an increasing number of patients requiring rehabilitation. Approximately two thirds of stroke survivors have residual neurological deficits that persistently impair function. Specifically, dysfunction from upper extremity (UE) hemiparesis [weakness on one side of the body] impairs performance of many daily activities such as dressing, bathing, self-care, and writing, thus reducing functional independence. In fact, only 5% of adults regain full arm function after stroke, and 20% regain no functional use. Hence, alternative strategies are needed to reduce the long-term disability and functional impairment from UE hemiparesis [weakness on one side of the body]" (p. 2390). According to Kleim and Jones (2008), neuroscientists (specialists who study how the brain and nervous systems work) are often asked about specific therapies that should be included in clinical treatment programs. They go on to report that the data points to brain cells possessing the ability to alter their structure and function in response to a variety of internal and external pressures and is called "neural plasticity." They go on to say that, "Neural plasticity is believed to be the basis for both learning in the intact brain and relearning in the damaged brain that occurs through physical rehabilitation. Neuroscience research has made significant advances in understanding experience-dependent neural plasticity, and these findings are beginning to be integrated with research on the degenerative and regenerative effects of brain damage" (Kleim & Jones, 2008, p. S225). When you any type of brain damage, the goal is to limit additional damage and help restore as much function as possible. Whithall et al. (2000) reported that, " Traditionally, methods of stroke rehabilitation have been focused on the first 3 months after stroke and consist largely of passive (nonspecific) movement approaches or compensatory training of the nonparetic [non affected] arm. This time window is consistent with natural history studies of stroke recovery that show a plateau after 3 months. Recently, both the paradigms for rehabilitation interventions and the time frame for possible UE motor recovery have been challenged. Experiments demonstrate that functional gains and possible neural plasticity can occur, via active practice, long after spontaneous recovery would be expected to end. For example, monkey models of chronic stroke demonstrate functional recovery as well as cortical reorganization after being forced to use their paretic limb. On the basis of this 'forced-use' paradigm, Taub, Wolf, and colleagues constrained the nonparetic [non affected] arm of patients with chronic stroke and forced the use of the paretic arm in task-specific activities in an intensive 2-week protocol" (p. 2390). The goal of rehabilitation is to create new pathways for the brain to express itself in the form of movement and function to enable the stroke victim to regain as much function as possible. This allows the individual to live as normal a life as he/she can without care and support from aides, devices and specialists, rendering a level of physical and resultant emotional independence. Taylor and Murphy reported in 2010 that when motor activity is followed by a chiropractic spinal manipulation/adjustment, it altered the way in which the central nervous system responded to motor training tasks. In both the patient with and without recurring neck pain, it positively affected the process of use-dependant neural plastic changes. The research went on to report that spinal manipulation/adjusting alone leads to improved function. However, spinal manipulation/adjusting in combination with motor training tasks "...not only results in altered sensorimotor integration but also alters the way the CNS responds to a functional task..." (Taylor & Murphy, 2010, p. 268). Taylor goes on to report, "The results of this study suggests that this is possible, as an improved ability to filter somatosensory information in sensorimotor integration circuits was observed after the same 20-minute motor training task, when this was preceded with spinal manipulation of the subjects' dysfunctional cervical joints. This finding was similar to what has been previously observed after spinal manipulation alone and indicates that spinal manipulation improves gating or filtering of sensory information, an ability the CNS retains even after the motor training intervention" (Taylor & Murphy, 2010, p. 269). While no one suggests that manipulation/adjusting should replace motor training or skill acquisition, the results indicate that manipulation should significantly improve the outcomes of rehabilitation with stroke victims. References: 1. Whithall, J., McCombe Waller, S., Silver, K. H. C., & Macko, R. F. (2000). Repetitive bilateral arm training with rhythmic auditory cueing improves motor function in chronic hemiparetic stroke. Stroke, 31 (10), 2390-2395. 2. Kleim, J. A., & Jones, T. A. (2008) Principles of experience-dependant neural plasticity: Implications for rehabilitation after brain damage, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 51(Suppl. Neuroplasticity),S225-S239. 3. Haavik Taylor, H., & Murphy, B. (2010). The effects of spinal manipulation on central integration of dual somatosensory input observed after motor training: A crossover study. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 33(4), 261-272. |
AuthorKimball A. Wong, D.C. is a health educator and will share topics regarding health issues that may effect the lives of our community. Archives
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