Top Athletes Follow Simple Plans To Eat Right, Not Be Perfect

One of the most significant issues people have regarding nutrition and getting the vital nutrients they need to succeed in everyday life is being overwhelmed by the data. Studies are great, and they are essential for us to understand the latest science, but they are also a mess of information about confusing things – what on earth is sea moss anyway? – that can lead to people simply giving up and maintaining old (unhealthy) habits.

Getting vital nutrients and being healthy isn’t nearly as hard as some of these studies make it seem. One person looking to make a difference in overall nutrition by making things simpler is Dr. Mike Molloy. Dr. Molloy – a nutritional coach – has worked with athletes such as Crossfitter and UK’s fittest man Zack George, Crossfitter Sara Sigmundsdottir, and world judo champion An Changrim. These are the elite of the elite in terms of athletes. Dr. Molloy believes nutrition principles that allow athletes to perform at their peak while also enjoying a healthy and productive lifestyle can also be used by everyone to be healthier mentally and physically.

Here are his three core concepts to getting those vital nutrients into our body and still loving life.

It begins with the basics

The building blocks of nutrition are ones we can all follow. In many cases, changes begin with eating a high-quality, balanced diet filled with protein. This kind of dieting is one stage of gaining vital nutrition that all athletes swear by, and it’s more common practice in the world of professional sports than taking a lot of supplements.

The other key to nutrition is to stay hydrated. Most people don’t intake nearly enough water on a day-to-day basis. Something as simple as adding an extra 32 ounces of high-quality H2O per day could be the missing piece in reaching your personal nutritional and fitness goals. Finally, make sure you are getting enough good-quality sleep. LeBron James – for example – averages 12 hours of sleep per day. While this is not possible for everyone, it can be used as a sleep guide for overnight sleep and rest periods during the day.

“Sleep and hydration might seem tangential to nutrition, but they are incredibly important for driving good nutritional behaviors,” Dr. Molloy told Insider.com in a recent interview.

Eat for the right reason

The biggest difference between your nutritional needs and that of a professional athlete is an expectation of what the food you consume will allow you to do. An athlete is looking at food from the perspective of optimal performance and is trying to get enough good calories into the body to drive a workout or a competition. While there is some element of that with people just looking to eat better – especially when it comes to working out – the overall goal is often to lose weight and be leaner instead of shredding the body to absorb hits by an outside linebacker. They are different goals, but the same basic principles of knowing what you are eating and how it will get you to that goal apply.

Dr. Molloy again. “It’s not restriction-based; it’s goal-oriented. Not ‘How can I eat as little as possible?’ but ‘How can I eat the right amount to fuel my training so that I’m energized throughout the day, not feeling sluggish, and I’m not hungry?'”

Eat what you want in the right quantities

Circling back around to that sea moss, we get to the point where eating what you want – as opposed to eating what you are told – is vitally important. Nutrition and consuming vital nutrients shouldn’t feel like a chore because if it does, then there is no you will stick with it. Think of this as a long-term planning approach: Telling yourself you can never have pizza is very different from deciding not to have pizza for the two weeks leading up to that lake trip this summer. Know where you want to be at your peak in terms of fitness and nutrition and work back from there, ensuring what you enjoy and like worked into your plans.

“It’s not about never going out for dinner or never eating chocolate; we just build it into their routine,” Molloy said. “As serious as they are as athletes, it’s not about being perfect.”

12 Minutes Of Bike Exercise Proven To Benefit Your Health

We know that exercise is as important to our health as vital nutrients and following the vital guidance that doctors and other health professionals give out. The problem can be, especially for people with ultra-busy lives, that there just isn’t enough time in the day to commit to that cardio workout or gym session for it to feel like it is being productive.

Those folks should be happy to hear that a study of 411 middle-aged adults using data from the Framingham Heart Study has some interesting results. According to Harvard health:

“Researchers measured levels of 588 substances involved in metabolism (metabolites) in the volunteers’ blood before and immediately after 12 minutes of vigorous exercise on an exercise bike. The investigators detected changes in more than 80% of the metabolites, including favorable shifts in those linked to diabetes and heart disease. For example, exercise had beneficial effects on metabolites related to insulin resistance (a condition that is a precursor to diabetes), lipolysis (the breakdown of fats), inflammation, and blood vessel reactivity. These benefits appeared to be blunted among people with obesity.”

The way this study achieved its results is interesting. The “12 minutes of vigorous exercise” on the bike were achieved by ramping up the intensity of the workout in one-minute increments. To this end, the first minute was nothing more than a warm-up pace, but by the final minute the participants worked at max effort to pedal as quickly as possible against the resistance they were being given.

With all that in mind, this doesn’t seem like an immediate cure-all for everyone, especially those looking to get back into exercise for the first time in a while. For those people, this type of workout – one that seems to be proven to help with vital health  – is certainly something that could be aimed for somewhere down the line and built up to without over-stressing the body from its current point.

There is also a certain section of people that could immediately benefit from this type of short-form, short-burst exercise. Those are the people – and we are looking at you young professionals – who are still in good enough shape to blast out 12 minutes on an exercise bike each day, but haven’t been doing so on account of them thinking that less than a quarter of an hour of exercise doesn’t produce the type of health benefits they are looking for.

This isn’t an exercise regimen that will bulk up the body like a regular gym membership and ingesting the correct amounts of vital nutrients. Perhaps that is why this news will go unnoticed in some sectors. Instead, this is exercise news for the long term and it requires people thinking about their health before it starts to decline in order for the biggest and best benefits to be felt. Getting those metabolites working at their peak today – especially if you are still young and not exercising regularly – will do wonders for the health of your heart and your liver as you get older .

Another interesting aspect of this study requires more research but is worth considering if you don’t think that vigorous exercise is in your wheelhouse just yet. “We don’t know yet if moderate-intensity exercise would have a similar effect on metabolites. But study participants started off with very light exercise, and each minute the intensity increased,” says Dr. Gregory Lewis, the study’s senior author and a cardiologist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

If it turns out that metabolites do start working at lower intensity levels then that will open up this type of quick – and effective – exercise to a massive range of people who would certainly benefit in the long run. Adding this burst of exercise on off-days to your current training program feels like something that we should all do if we want to lead longer and healthier lives.

Article By Vital Guidance

Finding Your Niche To Make Exercise Fun & Healthy For You

For many people the problem with getting vital exercise into their day is that they simply don’t enjoy the process. The results – better overall physical and mental health – are known to these people, but the suffering and strain that they have to go through during exercise to get those benefits simply aren’t worth it to them. They would rather pass on exercise – be it at home, outside, or at the gym – because the stress and pain of exercise doesn’t justify the outcome.

These people are doing it all wrong.

People tend to get intimidated by what other people consider a good workout to be. There is a prevailing theory that exercise needs to be sweaty, hot, and involve plenty of soreness the next day for it to have been effective. While this might be true for high level athletes who are looking to push-to-fail with their exercises during a preseason to get their fitness to where it needs to be, for most of us a good workout can come without pressing forward to the maximum limits of what our body can handle on a daily basis.

Exercise is mostly productive when you are doing something you enjoy. You should never wake up dreading the workout that is coming later in the day because it will be either too difficult, an activity that you don’t enjoy or – even worse – both of those things. If you aren’t a gym person then don’t trudge to the gym three days a week and squat your way into sadness. Instead, look for a vital mentor to help you find a class or sport that you can have fun with while burning off those calories.

One aspect of this to really think about if you are stuck in an exercise rut is what kind of person you are. A social person is going to hate long runs on their own or hitting the gym at 5am before work when no one else is there. This is exactly the type of person that requires group events or team sports to find their exercise niche. This will automatically make exercise feel less stressful, less of a chore, and generally less awful, and the feeling of dread when working out will be replaced by one of anticipation for the next time to play your way to fitness. The opposite of this is true too, so if you find yourself hating team sports then try hitting the gym, running or something like swimming to keep your fitness up.

The next factor to consider is the intensity and frequency of exercise within your workout program. Stop blasting leg day at the gym three times a week and instead have those monster sessions sprinkled in rarely amongst easier days. Working out to fail every single day – even if it is with different body parts targeted – is just going to make you fall out of love with the whole process as the whole point of those workouts is for them to be hard.

It feels like the more exercise programs have evolved – pushed by advertising and social media showing athletes drenched in sweat – the more anything other than pushing to the limit in a workout feels like less than the optimal thing to do. This simply isn’t true. Crossfit classes are a great example of why this isn’t the best way as people burn out of the style of workout – unless they really, really love it – so fast. Don’t feel like every workout you do to get vital exercise has to be your new ceiling for pain and you will find you have a much better time when it comes to staying fit and healthy with a reduced load in your sessions.

Article by Vital Guidance

Wearing A Mask Can Affect Your Workout So Chose Wisely

It appears that for large parts of the country – and large parts of the world – face masks and covering are here to stay for at least the foreseeable future. Masks are worn to help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus by keeping germs from spreading from person to person. This is especially important when people are exercising – and even more so if you are in a gym or another enclosed space – but it is also important to know just how wearing a mask will affect your exercise routine.

When looking for guidance on masks and exercise it is important to know that much of the research is in its formative stages. We have never been put into this position as a community before, so knowing what to do – such as what type of mask to wear, how often it should be changed, and so on – are still questions without definitive answers at this point.

According to a New York Times article by Janet Brody – among a host of other vital research pieces – there is growing evidence that wearing a mask does affect your breathing to some degree. This shouldn’t really be news to anyone who has worn a mask as it is pretty obvious that it is more difficult to breathe as effectively with a mask on.

This has implications for mask wearing when trying to get in your daily exercise. The British Journal of Sports medicine published a piece this month noting that wearing a mask to exercise “comes with issues of potential breathing restriction and discomfort”. This means that according to the same piece, exercise must be planned and thought out in advance to make sure that you are personally “balancing benefits versus possible adverse events.”

These ideas and concepts will obviously vary from person to person and situation to situation. Someone living in a remote and rural area will likely be able to go on a jog through their region with a mask in their pocket and never have to bring it out because of how few people are around. Someone trying to go to the gym in a densely populated neighborhood, however, will need to be masked up the entire time they are at the facility and their need for exercise vs. mask discomfort would be something that would be a real push/pull factor towards working out at all.

One item to note from early research is that masks appear to alter the heart rate of a person exercising. The president and chief science office of the American Council on Exercise, Cedric X. Bryant, notes that wearing a mask seems to increase the heart rate of the wearer by eight to 10 beats per minute. This is with exercise done at the same level of intensity to doing so without a mask. This rate may even increase as intensity increases and the result could be a lightheaded feeling and a quicker level of fatigue then when a mask is not present.

One way to counter this could be to make sure that you have the right mask to work out in. Any type of paper mask should immediately be discarded as these become wet quickly and will have limited to no effectiveness shortly into your workout program. Cloth masks are better, but try to avoid the thicker versions of these masks with more than two layers of fabric as they will cause you to overheat quickly. Neck gaiters are worse at controlling the spread (but better than nothing) and these will be lighter around the face than cloth.

It is also worth watching the development of new mask technologies. The likes of Nike, Adidas, and Under Armor are all putting funding into mask research to come up with masks for athletes and workouts. Choosing the right mask is important to keep everyone safe, but it doesn’t have to be at the expense of your own health.

 

Article by Vital Guidance

Quit Smoking, Exercise To Boost Your Health

Coronavirus is causing problems around the globe that’s impacting people’s health in a way unlike anything we have ever seen. There are certain sections of society – namely older people – who are more vulnerable to infection, but another way of being more vulnerable than the general population – according to new research – is by being a smoker.

Though more research needs to be done on the subject, early reports show that both traditional smokers and those who vape are more open to the chance of catching the virus than those who don’t. This is thought to be because smokers have elevated levels of ACE-2, a vital enzyme that helps the virus enter their lungs and replicate more freely.

There are plenty of smokers who want to quit. They know their health is at risk by smoking in general, and with Covid-19 being a disease that attacks the lungs it only makes sense that it would be a torrid problem for smokers. Quitting isn’t easy – if it was more people would be able to – but here are three ways to protect your overall health by getting smoking out of your life:

1 – Share a quit date
Getting that information out there will keep you accountable. Tell your friends the day you want to quit by and then build up the resources and the support network you will need to get to that point. Getting some sort of nicotine replacement is going to be important, as is filling your days with things to keep you distracted from the cravings. This is a mental game as much as anything and having friends in the right places at the right time is vital to helping you meet your quitting goal.

2 – Boost your overall health
Quitting smoking and keeping your lifestyle the same is admirable, but potentially kind of pointless. This is a huge change – a change that will open up your world and your health – so use this time to change more about yourself than no longer needing a smoke break. Maybe get back into the exercise game; yoga is an ideal option as it will help you focus on your spiritual health and your breathing techniques.  Running is also another great exercise that you can do alone or with others.  Plus, you can run at any time or place.   Whatever self-care you are interested in you should give it a try.

3 – Know the cravings will pass
This is the hardest part of quitting smoking. The cravings are real and they are intense. They will hit you and they will hit you hard. If you expect the hard cravings and know they will come before long the cravings will pass and the process will get much better. However, don’t fight the cravings, just ride them out and have a strategy for what you are going to do when they get bad. Replacement products are out there and they will be needed for you to kick smoking and vitally improve your health.

Article by Vital Guidance

Seven Vital Foods To Help Fight The Coronavirus

We have already mentioned on this site how one of the best ways to prepare yourself for a COVID-19 infection is to have an immune system ready and raring to fight the virus. In that article, we offered guidance about the basic vitamins and minerals that would provide vital nutrients for fighting Coronavirus as well as any pathogen you might encounter. This time around, we are going to get a little more specific and look at foods that you should be eating to maintain that nutrient balance during the pandemic.

Here are seven foods you may want to have in your house at this time:

1.  Mushrooms:  We know that Vitamin D is a huge immune system booster. While it is most often sourced through sun exposure, there are also some foods that are a reliable source of the vitamin. Mushrooms are one such food and they are so versatile that they can be incorporated into almost any dish.

2.  Yogurt:  It’s known for being a source of probiotics – think good bacteria – and it will provide a great boost to your immune system. When deciding which to buy, go as basic as possible by getting a good, plain, probiotic filled yogurt and throwing some fruit into it.

3.  Strawberries:  Vitamin C protects against cell damage and about half a cup of the delicious berries will give you half of your recommended daily need. You can do plenty with strawberries – there is nothing wrong with eating them plain or with cream – but add them to a spinach salad for something a little different.

4.  Broccoli:  This could really be titled the ‘Green Leafy Catchall.”. This is another Vitamin C source and with the amount you have to eat (only half a cup) to get half of your recommended daily amount, there is really no reason to be slacking. Broccoli should be one of your go-to vegetables to add in any stir fry.

5.  Red Bell Pepper:  The red peppers contain double the amount of Vitamin C of the famed citrus fruits. Throw in their high levels of beta carotene and you have a very powerful little vegetable. They are another versatile workhorse veggie, too, as eating them raw on sandwiches or cooked on a pizza are just two ways to enjoy them and get their vital nutrients.

6.  Sunflower seeds:  They may seem simple, but sunflower seeds are a great snack for the immune system. Vitamin B-6 is one that is important, as is the Vitamin E, magnesium, and phosphorous that these power pellets provide. Just salt them and eat them (or throw them onto that broccoli based stir fry).

7.  Papaya:  So, you want your recommended Vitamin C in one dose? A single papaya has 224% of your daily need.  In addition, Papayas have an enzyme called papain that helps with inflammation.  They also have potassium and B vitamins and they are delicious.

There are many other foods that will give your immune system a boost or keep it operating at peak levels.  Partner them with some exercise and appropriate rest for your best chance of fighting off any infection.

Article by Vital Guidance

Vitamins help prepare for the unknown affects of viruses

One of the biggest hurdles that we will all struggle with at one time or another in the face of the COVID-19 situation is the unknown. The truth is that no one – scientists, government officials, the neighbor with the cat that knows everything (nothing) really has no idea about the scope of this worldwide virus. That is why what we need to do is focus on the things we do know and the things that we can do something about.

Eating healthy won’t keep the Coronavirus at bay.  What it will do, however, is have your immune system as ready and healthy as possible to fight off the invasive threat.  This is a story as old as time itself and it is a well-known way to stay healthy through troubling times.  Here are a few nutrients to focus on in the weeks ahead:

Vitamin D
Sun exposure is important as there are immune cells that use vitamin D to destroy viral pathogens that cause infections.  Getting just a few minutes outdoors will help with this sun retention – though more is obviously better as it will also help your mental health to get out and relax.   Also, a number of food brands can be found with added vitamin D to help with this vital nutrient.

Vitamin C/E
These vitamins protect your cells from oxidative stress as they shore up your structures and reduce possible inflammations. Vitamin C is especially important as it will help the body get back to normal more quickly by reacting and causing an immune response that will clean up any junk in the system as quickly as possible. Citrus fruits are the go-to options here.

Vitamin A
Another structure vitamin, Vitamin A forms a barrier in the respiratory tract and gut as your initial line of defense against a virus. This vitamin is also important for making the antibodies that will fight the virus and it can be found in oily fish, cheese, and egg yolks.

B vitamins
All useful, but B6, B9, and B12 are the best of the bunch. They attack a pathogen by causing infected cells to implode and stop their spread around the body. Cereals and leafy greens are good sources of B vitamins, with B12 being found in eggs, meat, and dairy products.

Getting as much healthy food into the system – with vitamins and minerals in the right doses – will give your body a greater chance of fighting off not only COVID-19, but also the seasonal flu and other viral infections. This will put you in the best position to make it through any outbreak on the mild end of the scale.  Stay safe.

Article by Vital Guidance

Gateway Drugs Lead To More Dangerous Opioid Abuse

Gateway drugs come in all shapes, sizes and names. They are hard to combat because the drugs most commonly used as a gateway to addiction change with availability and trends in culture. One of the most popular – and therefore most dangerous – gateway drugs in our current world is the opioid Codeine.

Codeine is a mild opioid that is used to treat mild to moderately severe pain. While it is used for mild pain in its original form, this is a drug that has been seen to be easy to become addicted to and that is a drug that leads to abusing other – more dangerous – opiates.

Codeine comes in tablet form, but the most common gateway use of the drug is via prescription grade cough syrup and cough suppressants. It works as a gateway drug because people see Codeine as less dangerous than something like morphine because how dangerous can cough syrup really be? The answer is very dangerous.  Large doses of Codeine has the same effect on the body as low doses of morphine in the system. This is typical gateway drug patterning.

Problems develop because Codeine tolerance is fast in its development. This means that users quickly need more of the drug – or a different drug of a higher strength – to get their fix. This is true both of abusers who use the drug recreationally, and for those who are using Codeine in a legitimate way to treat their pain, be that pain occasional, chronic, or emotional.

While people think of Codeine as a mild drug compared to scary names like heroin and Oxy, high enough doses of Codeine can lead to a coma and death. This is especially true when Codeine is taken recreationally on the street as it is often mixed with other drugs to create an artificially high.

Codeine is a dangerous drug. Users will eventually not get their high from Codeine and move on to other opiates. You may also see users mixing Codeine abuse with alcohol abuse to get the fix that they need before moving on to yet more dangerous substances. If you have a friend or family member who you are worried is developing a Codeine addiction then know you need to act and help them before that addiction transitions from Codeine down a path that is even more difficult to recover from.

Article by Vital Guidance

Opioid Abuse Leads To Harmful Consequences

Taking prescription opioids to manage pain is part of everyday life for millions of people.  As a mentor presenting vital guidance to your friends and loved ones it is important that you know how to spot problems and behaviors that are associated with opioid abuse, opioid dependency, and an opioid overdose.

The first sign of dependency is a fairly obvious one. Prescription medication comes with detailed information on when and how much medication should be taken. If you notice someone taking their meds more than instructed – or at a higher dose than instructed – then there is already a problem. This is because they need to increase their exposure to the drug in order to find relief that was manageable before, but might be quickly spinning out of control.

Other signs of dependency are what you would expect from a category of drugs – including the lines of morphine, oxycodone, and fentanyl – that have the ability to take over a person’s life. Increased tolerance begets persistent use of the drug despite obviously harmful consequences. A person will lose interest in their normal activities, obligations, and routines as they fall victim to the drug, becoming ever more dependent and moving one step closer to a life threatening – and often life taking – overdose.

The signs of an overdose are terrifying, but if you know anyone who is on opioids – be it for a legitimate reason or not – then it is important to recognize them instantly. The difference between an overdose and a very strong high are not always that obvious, making it even harder to tell if a person is in serious danger.

Overdose symptoms include:

  • Labored, slow, or even zero breathing
  • Limp body
  • Pin-point pupils
  • Pale, cold or blue skin
  • Choking and/or gurgling sounds
  • Unresponsive to anything you do

Overdoses are killers, and you must react in a rapid and calm way to find help quickly. As dependency often falls along multiple lines, be aware the chances of overdose has vastly increased when opioids are mixed with sedatives and/or alcohol.

Prevention is always going to be the first choice when dealing with opioid abuse, doing whatever it takes to help someone get away from the drugs that are hurting them. Sometimes – even with the best will in the world – this isn’t possible and in those situations knowing if it is an opioid overdose or a strong high can be the difference between life and death.

“It is important that we change the viewpoint that our nation and the medical community currently has about opioid addiction,” says Dr. Andre Waisman, founder of The ANR Clinic which educates and treats opioid addictions around the world.  “Rather than treating it as a chronic relapsing illness, doctors should approach it from the angle of a disease for treatment of the root cause rather than only it’s symptoms. By doing so we can move forward towards an age where treatment is no longer the same unsuccessful methods from 30 years ago but rather a more beneficial and humane treatment for patients of opioid addiction.”

For more information or for treatment of opioid addictions, call The ANR Clinic in Tampa, FL at (813) 750-7470.

Article by Vital Guidance

ANR Clinic Treats Opioid Addictions At A Different Level

For decades the narrative on opioids has been that it is a mental health problem that people fall victim to who are weak minded. Maybe at first this made sense. Maybe back in the early stages of the opioid epidemic it was easy to turn the other cheek when seeing people fall victim to addiction and just say “That would never happen to me”.

Those days are gone.

We are living in a country in the middle of a crisis because of how opioid issues have been treated from the beginning. This is not a disease that only affects junkies, it is something that anyone in any walk of life can fall victim to.  All it takes it one accident that requires painkillers for the cycle to start. A car collision, an injury on the job site, simply stepping wrong while walking and hurting an ankle, these can all be the first step towards an addiction that will change everything about you as a person.

Rehab centers are not the only answer, and may not even be the best answer. Sure, the vital guidance they give is helpful to some, but the number of people seeking treatment four or five times over tells you everything you need to know about their effectiveness to the masses. One reason they don’t work is because the treatment – be it mental health work or replacing one opioid with another to wean someone off of a drug – is summarily ineffective and inefficient.

This is not a mental health problem at its core. If it was then the government wouldn’t have to spend almost $2 billion a year to combat what has become a national epidemic.  Synthetic opioids have become an even bigger problem. In 2017, almost 60% of opioid deaths were chalked up to synthetic products. Many times these are coming from illicit manufacturers with no skin in the game other than to get their product out and make money for what has become a lucrative criminal enterprise product.

According to Dr. Andre Waismann of the ANR Clinic, the problem instead should be focused on the physical. Opioid use has been proven to alter brain structures. The receptors in the brain are altered and the dependency takes hold. From there, it doesn’t matter what guidance are given by mental health professionals, the damage has been done and the need for further drug use is now built in.  To cure this epidemic it is the physical side we need to concentrate on, he says.

In 1998, after successfully treating thousands of patients, including a 6-year old child that became opioid-dependent after a brain tumor operation, Dr. Waismann shared his findings around the efficacy and safety of his method at the International Congress of Anesthesia at Frankfurt.  In 2019, he established the first US ANR Clinic in Tampa, FL as the international headquarters for education, treatment, and further academic efforts for opioid addiction.

For more information or for treatment, call the ANR Clinic in Tampa, FL at (813) 750-7470.

Article by Vital Guidance