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Food For Thought

Hello There,

Talking about moving… How often do you use the stairs instead of the lift to go up or down one floor? That is where it starts or the bike instead of the car to go and get the newspaper around the corner? Do you smoke?

Physical exercise is a tricky thing. It is not something that can be done as a one time remedy. It is an ongoing process..

What I did some 6 months ago was start slow but regularly. Not overstretching my muscles like in: I do it hard now and then sit in the sofa with sour muscles for the rest of the week… No! Wrong, building up is the key. Start with achievable goals. So I made myself a small game plan in the gym here at the hotel. Walk, run, walk for 20 minutes; first 5 walk, run 10 and walk again 5. Then afterwards some machines, arms, legs and belly to start with. Again here start with weights that you can handle well without too much effort. The aim is that you increase after time. For example after the first week I would be walking 3 minutes, run 15 and then walk again 2 minutes. The week after I would walk one minute, run 18 and walk again 1 minute. And this on different speeds of running; to start I was on 9 km per hour. The week after, if you feel confident you can run at 10, and so on. BUT, never go back down and note; every person is different and has a different condition. If there is a person in the gym available to set together with you a small program up, please use this facility. The best part: stretching afterwards, when you know the torture is finished and then, a good, long sauna or a little swim. It is then that you realize your body and your mind have done something and the happiness hormone is produced. You will feel happy after a good exercise in contrast with the pain you had during.

Figure this, that exercising is, as mentioned before, a thing of regularity. In order to do exercises the body needs energy and building blocks. This energy comes in the fast form, from sugars and in the slow form, from fats and in the worst form from your own muscle tissue. When you exercise and you start sweating very fast or get a ticklish, prickly feeling on the skin, this means that you are burning sugars very fast. This will result then in hunger attacks and even aggressiveness as our brain should not be deprived from sugar. Note also that the body is capable of reducing its own muscle tissue to use it for energy. This you want to avoid at all costs.

Coming to the point that you will burn your own fat reserves, demands discipline in regards of the eating habits. For instance when you eat a candy bar before exercising, this sugar readily available in the blood will be burned first and the fat reserves will not even come into view. So less sugar intake or carbohydrate intake and exercise in order to loose fat go hand in hand. In order to use fat as pure energy the body needs a substance called L-Carnitin

Fat burning happens when the fat available in the blood is transported into the cells. In the cells the fats will go to the mitochondria where they are burned. L-Carnitin is the fat transporting vehicle. This substance is ready available in our muscles and comes through the absorption from muscle tissue (meat) and or milk products. L Carnitin is also available in tablet form from most pharmacies. It is however not a substitute for a healthier way of life, food intake and physical activities….So here we see that eating meat or milk products is necessary to sustain certain intakes of certain products including L-carnitin and protein.

When exercising, we need to build up more muscles and for this the body needs protein. Again this is protein from meat, milk products, pulses, fish and chicken. So we have to eat protein when doing physical activities our body needs this. Quick math on protein to end this letter: if you weigh about 150 pounds, 75 grams of protein a day is more then sufficient. (Take your body weight in pounds and divide it by two in grams). Protein provides structure to all of the organs, nerves, hormones, muscles, antibodies, and enzymes. If vitamins and minerals are analogous to workers who help to construct and maintain a building, protein represents some of the concrete and steel that provide a building with its foundation and structure. Plant foods like vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, and even fruit come with some amino acids (building blocks of proteins). But there is no single plant food that comes with all eight essential amino acids (which the body needs and cannot make by itself). You can get all eight essential amino acids from a plant-based diet, but only if you eat a wide variety of plant foods. All animal foods like eggs, fish, chicken, red meat, and dairy come with all eight essential amino acids. In other words, one serving of just one animal food will provide you with all eight essential amino acids.

Regards,

Wouter