New Year, New You

Every New Year people all over the world make New Year’s Resolutions and by the end of January, many of these have already been broken. According to the Wall Street Journal, the most popular resolutions are to lose weight, be healthier and exercise more. If your resolution was to exercise more and you are struggling to stick to it, read on for some interesting news about how exercise affects our fat cells.

Earlier this month, researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School examined the effect of exercise on a cellular level. The researchers discovered a new hormone produced in response to exercise which turns white fat into brown fat, also known as the “good fat”. Brown fat cells burn calories by using energy, while white fat cells are inactive storage areas for fat.

This hormone is called PGC1-alpha and is produced in muscles during and after exercise and decreases a person’s susceptibility to obesity, diabetes and other related health problems.

This is just one of the numerous benefits to exercising, however there are some important things to consider before starting a new exercise program.

The key to a successful and injury-free exercise program is to match your current fitness level and gradually increase the program length and difficulty.

By following the fitness tips below you can greatly reduce your risk for injury.

• Consult with a health care professional such as your physiotherapist before embarking on an exercise program.
• Start slowly if you've been sedentary or if you are trying something new.
• Be realistic when setting your goals.
• Choose an exercise activity that you enjoy. The one you like doing is the one you'll stick with.
• Exercise does not have to be done at the gym. It can be a "lifestyle" activity such as a brisk walk or hike, gardening, or using the stairs.
• If you are overweight, consider beginning with low-impact activities such as swimming, cycling, or walking. These activities put less strain on joints.
• If you are in an exercise program and not losing weight, don’t get discouraged. There are other health-related benefits associated with physical activity even when weight loss does not occur.

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2012!

The Benefits of Chocolate Milk

After a workout there is a critical window, usually between 45 minutes to an hour, for refueling muscles.  During this time, it is important to replenish spent glycogen stores and maintain blood sugar levels.

 New research suggests that chocolate milk provides the optimal level of carbohydrates to protein ratio to refuel tired muscles and replace fluids lost as sweat during the workout. 

"Serious and amateur athletes alike enjoyed physical recovery benefits when they drank low-fat chocolate milk after a vigorous workout," said Dr. John Ivy, lead researcher on the studies and chair of The University of Texas at Austin College of Education’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Education.

Dr Ivy and his team compared the recovery benefits of drinking low-fat chocolate milk after exercise to the effects of a carbohydrate beverage with the same ingredients and calories as typical sports drinks as well as to a calorie-free beverage. They asked 10 trained cyclists to ride a bike for 90 minutes at moderate intensity, then for 10 minutes of high intensity intervals.

The scientists found the athletes had significantly more power and rode faster (reduced their ride time by an average of six minutes) when they consumed low-fat chocolate milk rather than a carbohydrate sports drink or calorie-free beverage.

Compared to the other recovery drinks, chocolate milk drinkers had twice the improvement in maximal oxygen uptake after four and a half weeks of cycling, which included intense exercise five days a week, with each exercise session followed by one of the three recovery beverages. Maximal oxygen uptake is one indicator of an athlete's aerobic endurance and ability to perform sustained exercise. The study included 32 healthy, amateur male and female cyclists.

Dr Ivy's research also revealed that low-fat chocolate milk drinkers built more muscle and lost more fat during training, compared to study participants who consumed a carbohydrate drink. This study also included 32 healthy, amateur male and female cyclists who rode for one hour, five days a week, and drank one of the three recovery beverages immediately following and one hour after the bout of exercise.

"We don’t yet understand exactly what mechanism is causing low-fat chocolate milk to give athletes these advantages — that will take more research," said Ivy, "but there's something in the naturally-occurring protein and carbohydrate mix that offers significant benefits."

Ivy notes that a 30-minute recovery window after exercise, for people of all fitness levels, is as important as the nutrition supplement that's consumed.

So after your next workout, try some chocolate milk! It tastes better and may have some surprising results.

Is sitting lethal?

For most of us, the average day consists of 8-10 hours of sitting at a desk followed by extended periods  in traffic and then ends off with a few more hours sitting in front of the TV. Its no secret that sitting for long periods can lead to back pain, stiff and painful joints and weight gain. Is sitting really that bad for us?



Have you ever wondered why some people who consume the same amount of food as others gain more weight?

James Levin, an inactivity researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota was puzzled by this same question. In 2005 he conducted a study which aimed to answer this. Participants in the study consumed the identical amount of calories and were not allowed to exercise at all. Some of the subjects packed on the kilos but other subjects gained little or no weight at all.

In addition to monitoring their diet and weight, subjects were also given motion-tracking underwear to wear. The subjects who gained the least weight were, not surprisingly, the subjects who moved the most. You may be wondering how they did so because they were banned from exercise. They simply performed more movements during the day e.g. walking around the office, taking the stairs, performing housework or gardening. On average, participants who gained more weight sat for two hours more per day than those who didn’t put on weight.

The conventional wisdom is that if you watch your diet and exercise at least a few times a week, you’ll effectively offset your sedentary time i.e. the time spent being inactive.  

However, Marc Hamilton, an inactivity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center says that “Exercise is not a perfect antidote to sitting.” He believes that this idea is as illogical as believing that a person can counter smoking a pack of cigarettes everyday by jogging. 

When we are inactive, the electrical activity of our muscles drops, our calorie-burn rate drops, insulin effectiveness decreases and the enzymes responsible for breaking down fat decrease. These negative effects can be seen after only 24 hours of inactivity.

In a study by the American Cancer Society, men who spent six hours or more per day of their leisure time sitting had an overall death rate that was nearly 20 percent higher than those who sat for three hours or less (during their leisure time). The death rate for women who sat for more than six hours a day was about 40 percent higher. 

The good news is that it is relatively easy to overcome the effects of inactivity. The answer lies in a simple concept with a complicated name: Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). It refers to the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports-like exercise. NEAT is a method of reaping major benefits from thousands of minor movements performed throughout the day. 

In Dr Levine’s study using the motion-detecting underwear, obese subjects averaged only 1500 movements per day and 600 minutes of sitting. In comparison, farm workers averaged 5000 daily movements and only 300 minutes of sitting.

Even trivial physical activities increase a person’s metabolic rate substantially and it is the cumulative impact of many small activites that contribute to a person’s daily NEAT.

Tips to increase your daily NEAT:
* Use the stairs instead of the lift
* Don’t go for the closest parking, rather choose one further away and walk more
* Instead of sending an email to a colleague who works near to you, get up and walk
* Do your own housework
* Go for a short walk during your lunch break

Get moving to stay healthy!

The Power of Posture

Physiotherapists often stress the importance of improving one’s posture. Maintaining good posture is important to prevent neck and back pain, improve respiratory and digestive function and prevent injuries. New research suggests that your posture may affect the way you see yourself and also the way others see you.

In the animal kingdom, size matters.Big is dominant and postures that make the animal appear larger cause others to treat that animal as if he were more powerful. This is true for many species, including humans.

Two researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois, Li Huang and Adam Galinsky have conducted three 

separate experiments to test this theory. Their results, published in Psychological Science, reveal that posture has a strong effect in making a person think and act in a more powerful way.

In one of these experiments, participants were randomly appointed as managers or sub-ordinates while adopting expansive (i.e. open) or constricted (i.e. closed) body postures. They were instructed to sit in this position for an extended period of time. 

Participants were then asked to perform a word-completion task. They were instructed to complete a number of fragments, e.g. “l_ad”, with the first word that came to mind. Seven of the fragments could be interpreted as words related to power (“power”, “direct”, “lead”, “authority”, “control”, “command” and “rich”). For each of these that was filled out as a power word (“lead”, say, instead of “load”) the participant was secretly given a score of one point.

Although previous studies suggested a mere title is enough to produce a detectable increase in an individual’s sense of power, Dr Huang and Dr Galinsky found no difference in the word-completion scores of those told they would be managers and those told they would be subordinates.

The posture experiment, however, did make a difference. Those who had sat in an expansive pose, regardless of whether they thought of themselves as managers or subordinates, scored an average of 3.44. Those who sat in constricted postures scored an average of 2.78.

Proof that by simply changing your posture you can improve your self-esteem and feel more powerful.