Health Care Basics

The primary purpose of food is to fuel your body. It is a basic human need. The quality, amount and timing of what we eat affect all body processes. There are other factors that affect muscular development. Exercise plays a big role in how our muscles develop. Exercise stimulates muscle growth. What and when we eat directly affects the quality of muscles we develop. Fitness experts agree. What you ingest before, during and after exercise influence muscle growth.

One or two hours before a workout, snack on high carbohydrate food. This will give you the physical and mental energy needed for exercise. It also delays fatigue. Studies show that people who ate high carbohydrate snacks before an activity have longer staying power. Adding a small amount of protein also helps. Choose fruits or whole grains. Half a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread will do. Just skip the dressing. Avoid having a big meal before a workout. The body will focus on the digestion process. This is the reason why you get sleepy after a big meal.

Some people may opt to eat a banana or an energy bar during workouts. That’s fine. Just don’t eat too much. Energy drinks are popular gym beverages. Exercise does not require electrolyte replacement. Plain water will do. But the carbohydrates in energy drinks help replenish glycogen stores. You don’t have to finish the whole bottle, though. Food during workout is optional. Water, on the other hand, is not. You lose up to two liters of water for a one hour workout. This has to be replaced during or after the workout.

Within 30 minutes of working out, eat carbohydrates and protein. Your glycogen stores at this time are sorely depleted. Carbohydrates will replenish it and make your next workout more effective. It will also maintain metabolic activity. High sugar foods can actually benefit you. Studies show that low fat chocolate milk post workout can improve one’s performance on the next workout. 30% of your meal should come from protein. This will facilitate muscle repair and development. It will also hasten post workout recovery.

According to studies, muscles peak at age 25 and declines in your late 30’s. Therefore, the more muscles you develop, the better your chances of staying fit for life. Research shows that weight training for 8 weeks can replace 5 years’ worth of lost muscles. Exercise and the right foods can tip the odds in your favor.

Sleep deprivation inflicts a heavy toll on your body, your mental acuity, and health in general. Just how much effect not getting enough sleep can have may well surprise you.

Recent medical studies indicate that people who suffer from a chronic lack of sleep are much more susceptible to suffer from a large number of other health issues including diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. The corollary is: does restful, uninterrupted sleep help prevent these and other illnesses? And the answer is yes, it does.

It is during the sleep period that the body does a lot of repair work on the cellular level, much like road crews working on the busy interstate highways at night. When we are asleep, our hormones and our immune systems both act in different ways than when we are awake to perform the required cellular repairs to be able to function well during the day time. In other words, if your immune system doesn’t get the necessary time to repair itself, it isn’t going to do a very good job of fighting off diseases.

What follows are five health issues that current research has shown to be made worse by a lack of sleep. These same studies also show that all of these issues may be improved when you are able to consistently sleep for at least seven hours a night.

• Common – Colds and Flu Both ailments are around all the time and an immune system weakened by a lack of sleep is less able to these very common infectious diseases
• Heart Disease – One of the findings of recent research is that the cardiovascular system becomes inflamed when sleep deprived. This is the same reaction that occurs in cases of hypertension. If sleep deprivation continues over time, this inflammatory response has been linked to stroke and heart attacks.
  

• Diabetes – When you become sleep deprived, the body develops conditions resembling insulin resistance of diabetes. This is so pronounced that one study of persons in their late twenties who slept less than 7 hours a night exhibited the insulin sensitivity of persons more than sixty years old.
  

• Mental Functions – Many different sleep studies have shown that those who drive when sleep deprived are as functionally impaired as those who drive drunk.
• Obesity – Some research in the last ten years indicate a linkage between sleep deprivation and obesity in both adults and children as well. So far, the exact reasons why are not known but it may be an imbalance of hormones may be the reason.

Of course the good news is that you can easily take steps to repair any damage that may be been caused by sleep deprivation just by scheduling yourself for at least seven and preferably 8 hours of rest each night.

If you have not permanently damaged your health from a lack of sleep, almost all of these conditions will repair themselves quickly and the others will continue to improve with time.