MNrural Health School

Archive for the ‘Nutrition’ Category

One of the underappreciated aspects of basketball is the management of one’s weight. Even for a person that is simply looking for a hobby that will help them to get into the shape that they have always wanted will benefit from the strenuous action of basketball. Weight management in basketball is very important due to the amount of running that is required for the game. It would benefit the team if you were built like a college linebacker if you didn’t have to change ends of the court every play, why? The bigger players in basketball have a natural advantage for getting rebounds and for creating their own shots. It is easier to back down an opponent when you have twenty more pounds of muscle on your frame. Yet, the bigger players usually fall behind in the transition game. Their frame requires them to exert more energy when they are playing, and that leads them to fatigue faster than a small opponent. The balance of enough bulk to control the rebound and create your own shot needs to be balanced with the sleekness of running up and down the court for a full game.

The best way to create the right frame for a basketball player is to focus on creating a solid foundation of lean muscle mass. Lean muscle is the most efficient frame that you can have in order to have the strength to compete with other players, but the leanness to make it up and down the court. Lean muscle is created through good solid endurance resistance training and stretching. The resistance training will tear the muscles allowing them to be repaired and to grow, while the stretching will help to elongate the muscles in order to remain lean and tough. This lack of bulk will help with the basic mechanics of the game of basketball, and will help to keep the weight of the athletes down. Lean muscle requires large amounts of calories to create and to maintain.  Read more...

If you are a sports person, among the many things that you require, one important thing is the sports nutrition. Sports nutrition includes several healthy and nutritious foods so that you can stay active and perform better.

Carbohydrates is the main source of energy for the body. It is stored as glycogen in the body and can create an impact on the stamina and endurance of your body. When you suffer from fatigue, the stored carbohydrate in the body would help you to regain energy.

Apart from Carbohydrates, protein is also an important source of sports nutrition. Protein is build up from 20 blocks of amino acids. Among these 20, 12 amino acids are produced by the body itself while the remaining 8 has to be produced with the help of proper intake of sports nutrition. If any of the 20 amino acids misses out in the body, the body will suffer from the deficiency of protein. Therefore intake of proper sports nutrition is a must. Protein helps in the proper build up and the repair of the muscle tissues. Proteins are a must for any active athlete and you should not be an exception in that.

Vitamins and minerals are also an important source of sports nutrition. However, iron and calcium among all of them deserves the most attention. Iron is required to carry the oxygen in the blood. On the other hand, calcium helps to make the bones stronger. There are several foods which are rich in calcium and iron and you can eat those to maintain a perfect balance in your body.  Read more...

The United States has seen a large jump in the number of obese people over the last forty years. According to the Body Mass Index (BMI), a metric for gauging body fat, 63% of Americans are overweight. 31% of Americans are obese, and 3.8 million Americans weigh over 300 pounds. The cost for maintaining the healthcare for a large number of overweight Americans is astronomic. This is due to many diseases being connected to obesity including: diabetes, cancer, depression, heart disease, and osteoporosis.

Yet, even more disturbing is the rate at which childhood obesity is rising. This dangerous trend is speeding the spread of many diseases in a lower age bracket. The number of heart attacks for people under 30 has risen significantly over the past five years. Many children now have cholesterol counts that were only seen in much older patients. This trend of childhood obesity, although starting in America, is spreading around the world. The amount of obese children could lead to a global pandemic of type 2 diabetes.

A new study has also found that the amount of fat cells in an adult body is equal to the amount of fat cells in the body when a person is eighteen years of age. This explains the problems that people, who were obese as children, have managing their weight later in life. It also shows the importance of helping children to control their weight and establish healthy lifestyles.

There are ways that parents, who have obese children, can help them. Here are some suggestions.  Read more...

The term “metabolism” has recently become a part of our every day vocabulary. There are very few people on the planet that are completely satisfied with there weight and wouldn’t want to lose some. For years, diet was considered to be the best way of weight loss (if not the only one). However, current research has shown that eating less and reducing calories can cause the opposite effect. Faster metabolism enables one’s body to burn more calories, and therefore to lose more weight. Although not easy, it IS possible to improve one’s metabolism. There are some factors we can control and change, and some factors we can’t (like age, gender and heredity).

As every nutritionist would recommend, the first step in speeding up the metabolism is eating small frequent meals. Extending the time between meals causes “starvation mode” which makes body conserve more energy. It is advised to have four to six small meals per day including healthy snacks. Another important advice is drinking more water, since 90% of the chemical reactions in human body occur in water. According to cold water has a big advantage over warm water; when one drinks ice cold water, the body burns calories warming it up to its temperature. There are lots of pills and supplements that claim to burn fat and speed up the metabolism. Most of these claims are unproven. There are chemicals, such as nicotine and caffeine, that do have a small effect, but aren’t recommended as a treatment for obesity, as it is accompanied by an increase in the heart rate and other side-effects.  Read more...

Multivitamins: Why You Need Them

Most people know that vitamins are important. They provide the essential nutrients and minerals necessary for good health. Unfortunately many don’t understand which vitamins are most important to promote optimal health and protect against deficiencies. Severe deficiencies of vitamins or minerals are typically fairly rare in young, healthy people. Slight deficiencies are far more common such as Vitamin B12 deficiency in people over 60. Other common deficiencies include magnesium, vitamin B6, vitamin C, Vitamin E, zinc, calcium, chromium, folic acid, and zinc in people of all ages. Most people don’t realize how common these deficiencies are. A good multivitamin is an excellent safeguard against deficiencies like these that could lead to serious health problems.

When considering the benefits of multivitamins, it is important to look at the long run. A small deficiency over time can eventually lead to problems such as osteoporosis in the case of vitamin D or calcium deficiency. If vitamin B6 and folic acid are deficient, the risk of heart disease is increased. Pregnant women should also be very concerned with their intake of folic acid, because deficiencies are clinically shown to lead to birth defects.

Vitamin deficiencies are a concern, but it is also important to be proactive about your health. Multivitamins will not only protect you from deficiencies, but they will also promote health in many important areas. For instance, multivitamins may eliminate symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), cut down on antisocial behavior in children, boost mental function, and prevent the onset of the common cold. The B vitamins are even shown to enhance men’s fertility. Multivitamins also assist digestive function, provide added energy, help with weight management, increase immune resistance and shift hormonal balances to help slow down the process of aging.  Read more...