Fitness

    You pick up the magazines each day, and you’re bombarded with health and fitness information.  Advertisements and articles that are designed to impart much needed information to the reader about the state of fitness and health in America today, and what we as responsible citizens should do.  I want you to stop, and think for just one moment.  How do you determine your current fitness and wellness levels?  Does your regular doctor as you each time you go if you believe yourself to be fit and well?  Probably not.  Nor does he give you any method for determining the status on your own.  Fitness centers abound in this country, and most are staffed with counselors who can test your fitness level.  What about your wellness level?  Are they one and the same?  They are not one and the same, yet they rely heavily on each other to keep you healthy.

    Being fit and being well are totally different conditions.  Your wellness rating is dependent upon your immune system, and what vitamins, supplements, and nutrition you provide for your immune system.  Fit people can sometimes be unwell.  And well people can sometimes be unfit.  However, when you do combine the two, and use sound principles based on clean living, exercise, and healthy eating, you attain a state of equilibrium where you are both fit and well.

    Most individuals do not take the time to completely understand the advantages of being both fit and well.  We read and absorb the information we’re given through the media and health organizations, without ever pondering if we’re receiving all the information we need, or simply the part that is profitable to be seen or heard.  Fitness gyms need your monthly fees in order to remain operational.  They have no real concern about the condition of your immune system.  Physical fitness is a condition of the body alone.   Hospitals and doctors need you as a patient in order to remain operational; they want you to know you need to be fit and well, but often leave out important pieces that affect your wellness and, therefore, your ability to be fit.

    What about eating habits?  What about vitamins?  What role does our daily intake play in our health, our wellness, and our fitness?  More than you have been lead to believe or understand.  The body’s ability to remain well under anything other than ideal conditions is a direct result of the nutrition received on a daily basis.  The mind’s ability to remain well is, again, a direct result of our nutrition intake.  For instance, the human brain doesn’t develop well without the necessary input of protein in our daily diet.  No protein, no intelligence.  No intelligence, then none of the other states is attainable.

    Our spiritual input is a determining factor when establishing our fitness level.  We all need the benefit of spiritual reflection, as a way of cleansing ourselves of the stress of our daily life.   Spirituality is a way of assuring ourselves of a renewing, and rebirth of ourselves as humans.  Fitness encompasses our body’s health, as a whole and in this respect it includes the mind. It is a condition of the whole body.  Fitness is a condition of wellness for our physical body.

Rex Shell

Beware of Diet Fads When Trying to Shed Pounds

It might be actresses such as Suzanne Sommers and Jane Fonda, or models such as Christie Brinkley or Kathy Ireland.  It seems that a number of celebrities today offer their own weight loss programs.  The programs are appealing because we see these various svelte celebrities and we want to have bodies just like them.  The celebrities are also highly likable, so we have a predisposition to be accepting of their products.

       However, did you ever stop to think whether these celebrities have any nutritional training?  Do they have medical training?  Is the information that they offer nutritionally sound?  Or is it just a good sales pitch?

      Nutrition experts Annette B. Natow and Jo-Ann Heslin, authors of the book Get Skinny the Smart Way, say that consumers should be leery of celebrity-inspired diet books.  They point out that such books are often based upon nutritional fiction and that, while the diets outlined in these books may result in short-term weight loss, they can be far from healthy in the long run.  Therefore, you might consider passing up the celebrity diet books and opting for those written by nutritional experts instead.

      But celebrities aren’t the only ones preaching fad diets.  For instance, there’s the so-called grapefruit diet which recommends consuming a grapefruit prior to each meal.  Another fad is the cabbage soup diet, which requires you to consume all the cabbage soup you can handle.  Other fads call for eating all the eggs you can…consuming only raw foods…or fasting every other day.  Such diets are not only based on nutritional misinformation—they can also be dangerous. 

       For instance, let’s take a closer look at the cabbage soup diet.  No major health organization has endorsed it.  Moreover, the American Heart Association disapproves of it, noting that it can actually harm you.  Promoters of this diet say that you can lose as much as 15 pounds a week by following it—what they don’t say is that most of that weight is water weight.   Once you begin eating normally again, you will see your weight rise once more.  Some of the side-effects of the cabbage soup diet include a feeling of weakness, stomach pains, and diarrhea. 

      Yet another questionable diet approach is what’s known as food combining.  Such a diet assumes that you are overweight because you are not eating the right combination of food.  The requirements of such a diet can seem quite arbitrary.  For instance, you might be told that you can eat a banana only in the morning.  This is rubbish, since your stomach can deal with a variety of different foods at one time.  The idea behind such a diet is to eat food with fewer calories, but there are other methods you can use to accomplish the same goals.

      Some companies even claim that you can shed pounds while you dream.  They say that, if you use their product right before bedtime, you will lose weight.  In actuality, no company can make such a claim with any degree of credibility.  It is impossible to burn a large number of calories while snoozing.  In other cases, you may be tempted to try to lose weight by consuming special milkshakes or candy bars.  In essence, these products are just milk and candy with certain vitamins and minerals added.  However, one rarely feels satisfied after consuming these products.  As a result, you may find yourself actually consuming additional calories during the rest of the day.  While you might be able to theoretically lose weight in the short-term, you’ll find it difficult to maintain the weight loss over the long haul.

        The fact of the matter is that there is a great deal of money that can be made through the sale and marketing of diet products.  As long as America has a large contingent of overweight people, companies will try to make a profit off of overeating.  It is up to you to be savvy enough to recognize a diet fad when you see it and opt for a different approach to losing weight.  You’ll find that there are really no short-cuts to weight loss.  Any successful diet program takes time, patience, and determination, along with a willingness to change your eating patterns.        

Rex Shell

The Low-Cal Approach to Weight Loss

    Counting calories may seem old-fashioned today, given the proliferation of low-carb and high protein diets. However, a number of dieticians maintain that the low calorie approach is actually the best approach to weight loss. While it may seem trite, lowering the number of calories we consume can have a marked effect on our waistlines.
    The majority of diets offer dieters 1,000 to 1,500 calories each day. Still, it would be wrong to assume that everyone who needs to lose weight should be on a 1,000 calorie diet. In fact, the amount of calories you need is a function of your current weight, your metabolism, and the amount of exercise you do. Diets recommended by doctors, as well as many of the meal programs found in diet books, are based upon a low-calorie model.
    When dieting, you should assume that you will lose only about a pound a week. However, during the initial stages of your diet, you may find that you are actually losing more weight than that because you are losing water. While you can use a standardized diet, it is perhaps best to work with a dietician in order to fine-tune the diet to meet your individual needs.
    Still, even if you are curbing your calorie count, you’ll need to make sure that what you eat is nutritious. By paying close attention to nutrition labels, you can determine the vitamin and mineral count of much of what you consume. There are certain general requirements for a healthy diet. For instance, you’ll need to make sure that you are getting enough protein. For the typical woman, this would amount to 50 grams per day; for the typical man, 63 grams per day. Protein is vitally important for strengthening your muscles and teeth and maintaining good skin tone. Protein sources can include lean meat, fish, chicken, eggs, beans, and nuts. Experts recommend that you have at least two servings of protein a day.
    While low carb diets may be all the rage, a number of dieticians say you need as many as 100 grams of carbohydrates a day. This means consuming as many as eleven servings of pasta, cereal, and bread in order to maintain a healthy energy level. You should also eat at least 20 grams of fiber each day to aid your digestion. Less than a third of your calories should come from fat in order to enable you to keep the pounds off. Only about one-tenth of your calories should be derived from saturated fat. Also, keep your cholesterol count under control in order to keep heart disease at bay.
    An important aspect of good nutrition that many individuals forget is water. This might be surprising, however, given the fact that most of our body is made up of H20. Medical experts by and large agree that you should drink at least eight glasses of water everyday. Exercise, however, could make you yearn for additional water. Water is often considered the secret weapon of weight loss, enabling people to shed pounds more easily.
    Although it may be tempting, you should not skip meals. This only serves to decrease your metabolism, causing you to burn fat more slowly. Even a small meal is better than no meal at all. Weight loss experts, however, differ about the number of meals you should eat each day. Some recommend the standard three meals with a couple of snacks, while others recommend five or six small meals each day. You should probably check with your physician to see which approach is appropriate for you.
Losing weight can be a difficult challenge, no matter what your age. There are so many temptations around, so many opportunities to boost your calorie count. Also, you might try to follow one diet, only to find that it is difficult to sustain. As a result, the low-calorie diet may be the best method around for consistent weight loss.    
    While you might not be able to lose weight quickly, you can shed pounds eventually. By being patient and committed to your weight loss program, you can ultimately lose the weight you need to.

Rex Shell

Exercise and Play

Quite often, when our children return from afternoon play, they look exhausted, and ready for a nap. That is the most accurate description, and quite the truth. Play is hard work. It is exhausting to the mind and body of the young person, and plays an extremely important role in helping them to become productive, healthy citizens.
The role of exercise and play in a young child’s life provides them with many benefits. Exercise of the body is an important part of keeping the young body fit as it grows into an adult body. When we reach adulthood, if we have had the benefit of exercise and play, we tend to continue that habit into our adult years.
What else is to be gained from the opportunities that play affords? We often participate in organized sports, coordinated play times, and are a member of a large group during all of these activities. Play on this level teaches us how to interact with our peers, develop camaraderie and perform as a team with other players. These skills are absolute necessities in today’s business world. But what else is happening here, during this time of play and exercise?
What we learn in body language, coping skills, and the interaction of the mind and body during our interaction with others, is invaluable. When we learn these skills well, we not only learn how to interact with others, we learn how to interact with our self. Interact with our self? That seems like a pointless exercise, but it is an all important part of maintaining our health and wellness. There are times that our bodies try to tell us things about our physical or mental condition, and we simply refuse to listen. If we have learned how to listen to others around us when they attempt to point out a need or desire, we have a useful tool in listening to ourselves. This often can mean the difference between optimal health, and creating an unhealthy situation.
What else do we learn? We learn what our physical and mental limitations are. During play, you see children and young adolescents push themselves to the very limit. But as children, we are better able to distinguish between a real limit versus what society deems our limits. As a child, or young adult, the pressures of the world do not weigh on us as they do when we are adults. We are better keepers of the temple at ten, than we are at twenty. We are still very in tune to what our body tells us, because it is our true master as a child. As an adult, we have let outside influences master our body and mind, and dominate our time.
As you can see, the benefits to be gained during our exercise and play time as children, is a benefit to us for the remainder of our lives. Too often, we adults forget the importance of exercise and play and the principles that are to be learned from time spent in these activities. We want to rush our children into their daily responsibilities, forgetting that their chief responsibility during the younger years is the play and interaction of young minds.

Rex Shell

Metabolism: Can We Control It?

The body’s metabolism is a unique process for each individual person.  No two people metabolize food at the same rate therefore no two people have the metabolism.  We all use our calories at different rates, with different results.  Our metabolism, like our fingerprints is unique to each of us.  But the need to understand and accommodate this metabolism is an issue that we all face.

The dictionary defines metabolism as the sum of all biochemical processes involved in life, or the sustaining of life.  In application concerning our health, metabolism is related to the intake and use of food.  In reference to the case in point it is our ability to utilize our food to the fullest extent.

Right now, the greatest results in raising our metabolism come from exercise and building our muscle mass, while reducing our body fat.  Adding more muscle to the body, in turn causes us to burn more calories, and this helps to elevate our metabolic rate.

            Our metabolism functions also depend on how well we have taken care of our nutritional needs. Some people have really high rates of metabolism.  In other words, when they consume food, their bodies burn it up almost as fast as then consume it.  Then there are those of use who use our food intake so slowly, as to not even notice that we’re burning calories.  These people who burn quickly are often slim and trim, the people who burn more slowly are the people with a tendency toward obesity.

  For years, people have sought ways to raise the metabolic rate.  If you can raise someone’s metabolic rate, you are then better able to control the burn of calories, especially for overweight or obese people.  This would make the goal of better or improved health a much easier reality for those people.  Efforts to date have produced very little results.  There are foods that we can consume that naturally raise our metabolic rate, but not to a great extent.  What we need is a way to directly alter the rate.  We need to be able to raise our metabolism to a point where we can actually see a benefit.

            This is where the effort to stay physically fit and active provides tremendous payoff. Over the course of your life, if you stay active, exercise, and maintain optimal health for your muscles, you will see a tremendous difference in the rate that your body metabolizes food.  As people age, their metabolism quite naturally slows down.  The greatest way to prevent this from happening is through exercise and staying fit.

            The best way to date to control our metabolic process is through proper nutrition, daily exercise, eating the foods known to have an effect on our metabolic rate, and plenty of rest.  The metabolic process can be indirectly controlled by the methods we just discussed.  Direct control is not available, to date.

            I believe through careful analysis, exercise, and attention to each person’s unique needs, we could bring about a more natural balance of the metabolic burn vs. the calorie intake. To a level where optimal health and weight control are in equilibrium.

Rex Shell



What Are Your Nutritional Needs?

Nutrition as it applies to our daily lives means that we take in what we need to maintain our body’s healthy state.  Nutrition has become an important word thanks to the involvement of the USDA in our daily food requirements, and the FDA’s involvement in determining what is and is not dangerous for us to consume.

            But what is our responsibility in the nutrition game?  Do we understand what our nutritional requirements are, how to fulfill those requirements, and how to look for real nutritional value in our foods?  I’m not sure that nutrition has been successfully addressed in its own right.  We hear nutrition in relation to our vitamin intake, our fortified cereals and milk, and in the context that we need “nutritional value” from our food choices.  But what really is nutrition when applied to our daily bodily functions?

Today, we must determine how much nourishment we need, how much physical exercise we need, and how best to accomplish those ends.  Calorie needs, nutritional needs, physical needs, and education about those needs now is information we should all understand, at least as it applies to our individual self.  If you will visit your local doctor, library, or fitness center, there is massive amounts of information available to help educate and to help you make good health choices, no matter what the age group.

            Nutrition refers to the nurturing of our body, in our ability to keep it healthy and functioning as it is supposed to do.  Our ability to provide the body with all the necessary food, vitamins, and minerals so that we continue to thrive in our daily life processes.

            How do we determine that we are providing the essential nutritional needs?  That knowledge comes by educating ourselves about what our individual needs are, the needs of our family, and then taking that knowledge and applying it to the foods we buy, that we prepare, and that our families consume.

            Quite often, our vitamin and mineral needs outweigh our caloric needs.  In those instances, we turn to manufactured vitamins and minerals to fill the gap.  This is a part of our nutritional needs, also. 

Nutrition is one of the most complex areas to gain useful knowledge about, because there are so many components, and because each person has their own individual needs.  Women needs differ from those of men, and older women’s needs differ from those of a young girl.  As we age, our needs constantly change; therefore continual education about nutrition is a fact of life.

            The nutritional needs of a cardiac patient are different than those of a healthy, middle-aged hiker.  Can you see the complexity of the situation now?  What we really need is to develop a scale that determines the nutritional needs of our bodies on a cellular level, so that as we age, as our physical condition changes, or our health changes, we can recalculate our needs, based on cellular changes and content in our body.  Individuality is the key to understanding each person’s nutritional needs, and then working to educate ourselves is the key to fulfilling those nutritional needs.  Good nutrition should be the ultimate goal of every person alive.

Rex Shell

Metabolism: What Is It?

            The dictionary defines metabolism as the sum of all biochemical processes involved in life, or the sustaining of life.  In application concerning our health, metabolism is related to the intake and use of food.  In reference to the case in point it is our ability to utilize our food to the fullest extent.

            Some people have really high rates of metabolism.  In other words, when they consume food, their bodies burn it up almost as fast as then consume it.  Then there are those of use who use our food intake so slowly, as to not even notice that we’re burning calories.  These people who burn quickly are often slim and trim, the people who burn more slowly are the people with a tendency toward obesity.

The body’s metabolism is a unique process for each individual person.  No two people metabolize food at the same rate therefore no two people have the metabolism.  We all use our calories at different rates, with different results.  Our metabolism, like our fingerprints is unique to each of us.  But the need to understand and accommodate this metabolism is an issue that we all face.

            All of this metabolic process is related to our calorie intake, our vitamin and nutrition needs, our thyroid and endocrine production, and how well all of these processes come together.  For years, people have sought ways to raise the metabolic rate.  If you can raise someone’s metabolic rate, you are then better able to control the burn of calories, especially for overweight or obese people.  This would make the goal of better or improved health a much easier reality for those people.  Efforts to date have produced very little results.  There are foods that we can consume that naturally raise our metabolic rate, but not to a great extent.  What we need is a way to directly alter the rate.  We need to be able to raise our metabolism to a point where we can actually see a benefit. 

            What determines our metabolic rate, as far as our genetics?  Generally, we tend to inherit the same tendencies for metabolic rates, body frames, and other related body functions from our parents.  Thus, the origin of “well, she comes from big people; naturally she’s going to be big”. 

Right now, the greatest results in raising our metabolism come from exercise and building our muscle mass, while reducing our body fat.  Adding more muscle to the body, in turn causes us to burn more calories, and this helps to elevate our metabolic rate.

            Our metabolism functions also depend on how well we have taken care of our nutritional needs.  The process of burning calories and creating energy is a delicate one, and one which must be carefully tended, or it can become imbalanced.  It is often through these natural imbalances that we tend to “inherit’ our metabolic rate. 

            I believe through careful analysis, and attention to each person’s unique needs, we could bring about a more natural balance of the metabolic burn vs. the calorie intake. To a level where optimal health and weight control are in equilibrium.

Rex Shell