Nutrition for Young Runners

Running is a popular sport with children and adolescents around the world.

Depending on the age and calibre of the young athlete, training may range from the weekly school Physical Education lesson to structured sessions at a local club or to participation in one of the special training plans on The World Keeps Running.

The goals of training may range from simply having fun, to improving fitness and physique, to developing running skills and preparing for an event.

For the youngest age groups, there should be no special need for any change to diet. The main aims are to minimise the risk of gastrointestinal upset and to avoid problems of dehydration on hot days. It may be best to avoid solid food for two to three hours before training and particularly an event as the combination of exercise and nerves can cause some gastric distress.

Children can often be out in the sun for many hours on sports days, and adults should be vigilant to ensure frequent application of sun cream and to be aware of any child who seems to be having problems. Ample fluid should be available, and children may need to be reminded to take small amounts of drinks at regular intervals.

The physiology of children and adolescents differs from that of adults in several ways. The mechanisms of thermoregulation are less efficient in children, and special attention must be paid to the environment, activity patterns, clothing and hydration to avoid problems of hyperthermia or hypothermia.

The growth spurts during childhood and adolescence require nutritional support in terms of adequate intake of energy, protein and minerals.

Active young people may find it difficult to meet their needs for energy and nutrients when the costs of training and growth are added. Young people may not have developed the nutritional knowledge and time management skills to fit in all the eating occasions required to achieve high energy, nutrient-rich eating.

The rate of obesity in children is still rising, but active youngsters do need a plentiful supply of energy from foods and energy-containing drinks.

Young athletes eating a wide range of foods should not need to use dietary supplements, and athletes and coaches should be aware that these do not provide a short cut to success.

Encourage children to become involved in menu planning for the family meals, and for special needs associated with their training and competition sessions. Encourage positive messages that good eating practices, involving good choices of foods and drinks, are part of the formula for sporting success, and a healthy life.

Children often need snacks to meet their energy needs over the day, and the special needs of recovery from sport. These snacks should involve nutrient-rich choices such as fruit, sandwiches, dried fruit and nuts, flavoured dairy products, and cereals and milk. Some planning is needed to have these choices on hand over the day, and before or after sport.

The Myth of Moderate Exercise

By Laura Blue

Obesity experts agree that daily exercise is essential for good health, but whether it can successfully lead to long-term weight loss is a question of much debate. What has become increasingly clear, however, is that the conventionally accepted advice — 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity most days of the week — is probably insufficient to spur any real change in a person’s body weight. A study published July 28 in the Archives of Internal Medicine adds to the burgeoning scientific consensus: when it comes to exercise for weight loss, more is better. It suggests that obese people would have to exercise at least an hour at a time to see any significant difference in their weight.

The study, led by John Jakicic at the Physical Activity and Weight Management Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh, followed nearly 200 overweight or obese women ages 21 to 45 through a two-year weight-loss program. The women were given free treadmills to use at home, regular group meetings and telephone pep talks to help keep them on track. Participants were also asked to restrict their food intake to between 1,200 and 1,500 calories per day, and were randomized to one of four physical activity intervention groups based on energy expenditure (either 1,000 calories or 2,000 calories burned per week) and exercise intensity (high vs. moderate). By the end of the 24-month intervention, the women who managed to lose at least 10% of their starting body weight (which was, on average, about 193 lbs.) — and keep it off — were exercising twice as long as health authorities typically recommend and expending more than twice as many calories through exercise as women who had no change in body weight. The biggest weight losers were active a full 68 minutes a day, five days a week (about 55 minutes a day more than they had been before the trial began), burning an extra 1,848 calories a week.

Jakicic and his colleagues originally designed their study to measure whether weight loss could really be achieved and maintained through moderate-intensity exercise, akin to "walking when you’re late for a meeting," he says, or whether it was preferable to engage in shorter bursts of more vigorous-intensity activity, "like, when you’re late for the bus, chasing it down." The problem was that not enough of the women stuck with their assigned exercise categories for the researchers to gather enough meaningful data. Within a few months, most of the participants had resorted to exercising as much as they chose to. That left researchers with a slightly different data set than they had planned for, but they were still able to associate women’s reported physical activity with their weight loss. Indeed, exercise was more strongly associated with weight loss than any other factor, including diet. Overall, the more the women exercised, the more weight they lost.

More than half of the study participants managed to lose at least 10% of their body weight within the first six months. At the half-year mark, however, most of those women relapsed and started gaining the weight back — a discouragingly common phenomenon. "The major outcome of this paper is the maintenance issue," Jakicic says. Once a patient hits her target weight, he says, it’s imperative that she stick with her exercise and diet regimen to maintain her new weight.

Still, the underlying question remains: are diet and exercise a reliable cure for obesity? Modern-day obesity researchers are skeptical — achieving thinness, they say, is not simply a matter of willpower. Research suggests that weight may largely be regulated by biology, which helps determine the body’s "set point," a weight range of about 10 lbs. to 20 lbs. that the body tries hard to defend. The further you push you weight beyond your set point — either up or down the scale — some researchers say, the more your body struggles to return to it. That might help to explain why none of the women in Jakicic’s study managed to lose much more than 10% of their body weight. After two years on a calorie-restricted diet, keeping up more than an hour of physical activity five days a week on average, most were still clinically overweight (though much less so than before). But what Jakicic and other obesity researchers stress is that a 10% reduction in body weight represents a tremendous boon for overall well-being, lowering blood pressure, improving heart health and reducing the risk of Type 2 diabetes. For the obese, the end goal should not be thinness, but health and self-acceptance, which are more realistic and beneficial objectives. "The women’s health was absolutely improved," Jakicic says.

Jakicic, in fact, seems heartened by his findings. "I think the beauty of this study is that we now have a target" — a better idea of how much exercise is needed for weight maintenance. There is, of course, some variation in how people respond. Some of the study participants fared well with less exercise than the additional 275 minutes per week (about 55 minutes per day, five days a week) that the study’s author now recommends for weight maintenance. Others needed more. But the keys to success, according to Jakicic, were embracing the weight-loss program fully, and finding a way around the daily obstacles to exercising — that’s something he says many of his participants were able to achieve, regardless of their socioeconomic group. So, if you’re aiming to lose weight and keep it off, his message is clear: don’t slack off.

 

1 in 7 Low-Income Preschoolers Is Obese

CDC stats do show the epidemic might be slowing down among poor families

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

One in seven preschoolers from low-income families in the United States are considered obese, a new government report shows.

However, the same report finds that the news is not all bad: The childhood obesity epidemic does seem to be leveling off among children in this group.

Among 2- to 4-year-olds from low-income families, the prevalence of obesity increased from 12.4 percent in 1998 to 14.5 percent in 2003. However, it went up only to 14.6 percent in 2008, according to the July 24 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Among lower-income, preschool-aged children, we are actually seeing a stabilization of obesity rates," said report co-author Laurence M. Grummer-Strawn, chief of CDC's Maternal Child Nutrition Branch in the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity.

"For a number of years, we were seeing continuous rises in this obesity epidemic and it looks like over the last five years we have actually seen that rate stabilize," he said. "Of course, we are not where we want to be. We want to see much more improvement, but it's at least good news that things are not continuing to get worse."

Why obesity in this age group is stabilizing is not completely clear, Grummer-Strawn said. "There has been more emphasis on pediatric obesity among low-income populations," he said. "There have been initiatives to promote breast-feeding, initiatives to use low-fat or skim milk, initiatives to reduce television watching and shaping behaviors toward better nutrition and physical activity," he noted.

But there remains a large racial and ethnic disparity in the obesity epidemic among preschoolers, Grummer-Strawn added.

Even though the prevalence of obesity has stayed steady in many parts of the country, it is still increasing among American Indian and Alaska Native children. Among these children, the prevalence of obesity has gone up about a half-percentage point each year from 2003 to 2008, according to the report.

As a matter of fact, American Indian or Alaska Native children had the highest obesity rates in 2008, at 21.2 percent, followed by Hispanic children at 18.5 percent.

The lowest obesity rates were among white children, at 12.6 percent, Asian or Pacific Islander children, at 12.3 percent, and black children, at 11.8 percent, the report found.

Only in Colorado and Hawaii were the obesity rates 10 percent or less among poor preschoolers, and only among Indian Tribal Organizations were the obesity rates over 20 percent.

"We need to be thinking about how to change our communities to be much healthier for our children," Grummer-Strawn said.

There need to be better parks and playgrounds "so that children can get outside and play," he said. "We also need to improve access to healthier foods."

More information

For more on obesity, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

SOURCES: Laurence M. Grummer-Strawn, Ph.D., Chief, Maternal Child Nutrition Branch Division, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; July 24, 2009, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

Obesity in Adolescents

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You see it everyday, news and information that bring to the front our problem with our weight.  It is a national problem.  It’s not just your older sedentary population; it’s not just your overworked middle-age population; and it’s not just your nerdy teenage population.  It is a national epidemic.

 

The first question I always have, is how did we get here?  How did we go from one of the most physically fit nations, to just wallowing in our weight?

 

Over the last thirty years, food nutritionists and the food industry as a whole have embraced the idea of lowering our fat intake.  This was a direct result of the information published by the government that encouraged less egg consumption because of the cholesterol found in eggs.  After that particular piece of information, doctors began to discover that when we consume fat, we have higher incidences of cholesterol problems.  The logical conclusion: fat must be bad for you.  And so, an entire generation as grown up with fat-free foods.  A whole generation grew up believing that fat was what made us fat, clogged our arteries, and generally caused ill-health.

 

So what did we do? We turned to carbs to make up for the loss in taste of food that had the fat removed; for you see, fat is what gives many of our foods their delicious taste.  When you remove the fat, the taste must be artificially injected into the food.  The end result is a food that is higher in carbohydrate content, but lower in fat.  Hence, all the wonderful labels displaying  the claim of “fat free” but neglect to mention the higher level of carbohydrates.  Lowered fat should have created a population of slim, trim, healthy people. Right?

 

We could not have been further from the truth.  As it turns out, fat is a necessary part of our metabolic processes.  We need the fat in order to properly utilize many of the vitamins and nutrients we consume.  When did we make this discovery?  Probably some thirty years too late for some people.

 

 Now, we have an entire generation of young people, who have because of their high carbohydrate food choices, become a nation of obese adults.  Never before has a nation recorded the kind of obesity problems this nation is facing now.  Never before have we ever had so much, to have so little.  These young people are experiencing low self-esteem, weight related health problems, and whole host of emotional problems, thanks to obesity issue.  How can we try to help them correct this problem?

 

According to the guides published by the USDA, calorie needs vary from one age group to another, one gender to another.  So how do you determine what your individual needs are?  You can setup a journal for recording your daily caloric intake for about a month.  Make a note of your weight each day.  If you don’t gain any weight during the course of that month, you’re eating your recommended calorie level in order to maintain your weight.  Now, take that calorie information, use the food pyramid and comprise a combination of foods that will help you achieve this recommended daily intake, and still be enough to be filling and please the palette. You now have an individualized healthy eating plan.  This is the safe sure way to reach weight loss goals.  It didn’t become a problem overnight, and it won’t go away overnight.

 

The Truth About Six Pack Abs – Flawless Facts in Losing Weight

 

A lot of books talking about “abs” are not clear and concise. They are gray areas that need further explanation. They actually contain the same information as is compared to other books. You don’t get to hear much about them because they pieces of junks. The Truth about Six Packs Abs is a lot different from most books. It details a full, comprehensive program in getting the abs that you want. Mike Geary, the author, has an ingenious mind. I am all for his idea of a system assuring of a six pack abs in only a matter of weeks.

Based on my own experience, the first time I had a strong desire to get a six pack abs was when my then girlfriend noticed the beauty of another man’s abs. The idea got me jealous, and even envious of that man. This made me start my quest towards achieving the same abs as that of the other man by working my way through the internet in search of Ab training practices. As has been mentioned, I got acquainted with some crappy and ineffective programs. Fortunately, after six months, my friend suggested a book entitled “The Truth about Six Pack Abs”. After getting the book, I progressed towards achieving the perfectly-chiseled abs.

Would you like to know the reality about “The Truth about Six Pack Abs”?

Actually, it really works! The testimonials of previous users would attest to its effectiveness. In my opinion, the success stories were told not only because of the uniqueness and the effectiveness of the method, but also because of the author’s ingenuity. Mike Geary outlined 20 simple and easy-to-follow activities along with pictures that can help any person understand the steps.

It’s nice to have a proven and unique method of having firmer abs enumerated in a book, but it’s always better to provide illustrations so that the readers can actually see them. This is precisely what the author did for his readers. I am confident in saying that all of his customers are satisfied with their six pack abs that they have right now because of the wonders of his book.

It has become apparent that obesity is becoming one of the main problems of the world nowadays. Obesity can also lead to other complications such as heart problems, diabetes, and many more. More and more people are getting conscious about their health. One way of doing this is finding the best way to lose weight. They oftentimes resort to reading books so as to find these ways of fat elimination. There are actually a number of books available in the market for this function. The truth about six pack abs is by far the best book there is. It is becoming a bestselling book in the market today.

The abovementioned book includes information on nutrition and training. The weight reduction tips in this book are proven to be most effective. However, its focus is not on exercises such as crunches and sit-ups, or exercise equipments such as the treadmill or the stationary bike. It has the detailed information on how to lessen the body fats. It also includes information on sculpting the abs to be at their best. The youth of today are just as concerned with how they look these days. Whether you are a male or a female, you have that desire to have a contour and sexy body.

There are a number of topics discussed in the said book. You will get to read statements such as “interval training burns more calories”, “stop emotional eating”, “stay positive”, “treat food as neither your enemy nor your friend”, among others. These discuss the ways on how to be healthy and fit. Said information in this book is helpful if you really want to have that fit, perfectly-shaped body.

The truth about six pack abs enumerates alternative ways of eliminating fat. Eat a balanced diet with the inculcation of the right kinds of food. Food is there to keep you strong and healthy, not a friend or an enemy. The right food makes you more fit; you will find yourself physically healthier than those who prefer the fast food. Before any intake of food, you have to ask yourself first if you really need the food, or if you want the food, etc. Also, fruits and vegetables are the healthy foods that you should eat.

Besides food, exercises or physical activities are also necessary to make you fit. Workouts develop your abs and burns body fats. However, most people simply do not have the time for physical activities.

In addition, don’t rely on food to eliminate the stress and tension that you feel inside. Stress eliminating tips include reading books, listening to music, watching movies, confiding to a friend, walking, and many others. Optimism or thinking positively can help as well. Avoid thinking that it is hard to actually exercise.
All these things are discussed in detail in the truth about six pack abs. Purchase the book now, religiously do what it is asking you to do, and you will be surprise with the effects that it might bring to you. Through this book, you will definitely lose weight in no time.

For the people who have not yet tried it, this is the best time to get that book and work your way to the abs that you have been dreaming of. You can get one of those crappy books that are not even effective, or you can get The Truth about Six Pack Abs and lose the weight. Only you can make it happen. Make a choice now!

Click Here to see the FULL The Truth About Abs review

Six Pack Abs – How to Get It

 

If you will be asking a woman if what is the best part of a man’s body is, definitely, the answer is the rock hard abs of a man is the sexiest and best part of a man’s body. Those abs muscles are the ones that making a good definition of a man’s body.

It’s not a surprise why many men are always on the gym to work out and most of their routine is to make their abs firmer and in shape. Most of the routine to enhance their abs are sit-ups, crunches, leg raises, body twisting and many more. Some of them spend a lot of time doing these routines but unfortunately few are successful to have the perfect abs they want.

Maybe now you are wondering the reason behind not having six pack abs amidst of all the effort of doing ab exercises. There are some erroneous beliefs or wrong notions that some individuals believe in.

Misleading notion #1. You have to do lots of abs-specific exercises in order for you to get six pack abs. The mentioned above exercises which are leg raises, crunches, sit-ups, and many others are the exercises that can help you get six pack abs.

But you have to know that even if you do thousands of crunches or any of these exercises will not help you get rock hard abs that you desire especially if you have fat layers or belly fats that can cover it up.

In order for you to develop six pack abs, you have to eliminate belly fats first and foremost. You have to focus on removing your belly fat before starting to work out on your muscles. If not, you will just end up having bigger waistline and thicker love handles since the muscles developed will just add up to the layers of your fat.

What you need to do? You have to burn your fat by taking good care of your diet. You need to make sure to be the healthiest person possible by providing your body with all the macro-nutrients it needed.

Misleading notion #2. In order to immediately develop six pack abs, you have to make use of gadgets, electronic gizmos, machines, supplements and slimming pills.

Actually, you must not believe in that. All of these are claiming to help you get your desired six pack abs because they want to earn from their products. Do not rely too much with the machines since these won’t really be the answer to get six pack abs. You need the right key in order for you to effectively develop six pack abs.

Proper diet, cardio workouts and great training associated with weights are the keys in having six pack abs.

Misleading notion #3. Since you do work outs regularly, you can eat any food you want.

You have to remove the fats in your belly in turn for you to show off your abs, that’s the truth. Mild-deficit caloric restriction diet is what you need to have for you to permanently lose the fat in your belly area.

It is not true that you can eat whatever you want, since you need to burn more calories than what you intake. All your work outs will not be worth it if you do not take good care of what you eat and drink. Since if not, all your unwanted fats will just stay in your body and will not get six pack abs. So, see to it that your body will have the proper nutrients needed.

There are things that you have to bear in mind – to get rock hard abs, you have to have mild calorie deficit diet, cardio workouts and training with weights. With all of these, you will be able to burn fats and develop six pack abs.

If you really desire to have six pack abs; you have to get rid of your bulky midsections in your body to make yourself attractive and sexy.
One more thing, you have to really get rid your fats since this can bring health risks such as accumulation of cholesterol, hypertension, and obesity. With all of these health risks, there are lots of fat loss strategies and products that are out in the market.

For you to lose the fats in your midsections, you have to trim other parts of your body as well, that is what you need to know. If you have fats, of course, you won’t just simply find it on your midsections, you can also find fats in you chin, neck, arms, thighs and chest.

For you to get your desired six pack abs, you must not only remove the fats in your belly but also with the other parts of your body. This is a problem to other people. They thought that in order for them to get six pack abs, they only have to target their tummy area. Of course, you have to come up with stringent diets for you to get your desired abs.

To eliminate fat loss, you have to control your food intake, this is a fact that you must take into account. You have to lose your overall weight if you really desire to eliminate belly fat. Before targeting your abs, you must get rid of the fats of your arms, legs and face. This comes for men. For women, they have to target the fats in their hips, buttocks and thigh before going with their tummies.

The best way for you to lose weight and get your desired abs, you must have physically and healthy active lifestyle. With this, you can effectively get rid of your fats and soon develop six pack abs.

The best program which is designed to help you lose weight, get flat stomach and obtain rock hard abs is The Truth about Abs. It is made by Mike Geary to teach you on how to effectively get your desired six pack abs.

Click Here to see the FULL The Truth About Abs review

Women+Belly Fat = Not good

 

Belly Fat Doesn’t Bode Well for Women

Having a big waist may raise women’s death rates, even in women who aren’t overweight.

That news comes from a study of 44,600 female nurses enrolled in a long-term health study.

The bottom line: Waists mattered more than weight.

Being in the normal weight range was less important than having a waist less than 34.6 inches and a waist-to-hip ratio of less than 0.88 .To calculate your waist-to-hip ratio, divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement.

"Although maintaining a healthy weight should continue to be a cornerstone in the prevention of chronic diseases and premature death, it is equally important to maintain a healthy waist size and prevent abdominal obesity," the researchers write in the April 1 edition of Circulation.

Belly Fat Study

When the nurses were 40 to 65 years old, they measured their waists and hips for the study. At the time, none had had heart disease or cancer.

Every two years, they updated their health and lifestyle records for the study, including their physical activity, smoking, alcohol use, and menopausal status.

The nurses were followed for 16 years. During that time, a total of 3,507 of the nurses died, including 751 who died of heart disease and 1,748 who died of cancer.

Regardless of other factors, including BMI ( body mass index, which relates height to weight), women with larger waists and greater waist-to-hip ratios had higher death rates from all causes, including heart disease and cancer, which are the top two killers of U.S. women.

For example, among women of normal weight, those with a waist larger than 34.6 inches were three times as likely to die of heart disease, compared to women with smaller waists.

Large hips weren’t a problem, if the waist wasn’t also large. In fact, having large hips and a small waist was associated with lower risk of death from heart disease.

 

Waist Check

Simply measuring the waist will do. The waist-to-hip ratio wasn’t a better predictor of death rates and is more cumbersome, note the researchers, who included Cuilin Zhang, MD, PhD, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Zhang’s team used the definitions for abdominal obesity recommended by the American Heart Association and U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those cutoffs are waist circumference of 34.6 inches for women and 40 inches for men.

The study doesn’t prove that abdominal fat is lethal. Observational studies like this one don’t prove cause and effect.

Can I lose belly fat or have a flat belly by starving and not exercising?

 

No, you cannot get a flat stomach by starving yourself. Semi-fasting long term can mess up your metabolism and cause all sorts of health issues. The longer you go, the more problems, sometimes not reversible, will occur. Your belly is likely to balloon out in the final stages of starvation and the internal organs start to shut down.

A well balance diet and sensible exercise will do it. However, you must remember, you did not gain that weight in a day, or a week or even a month. It can take as long to lose it as it did to gain it. Think long-term health, not short term looks.

Instead of starving yourself start eating healthier. Eat smaller meals, eat more meals a day, eat more vegetables and fruit, drink more water, less sugars and empty calories (less soft drinks, cakes, cookies). Switch to whole-wheat versions of your bread and pasta, brown rice instead of white rice.

Losing or maintaining an ideal weight is not a difficult task if you follow a healthy lifestyle including low GI eating, regular aerobic exercise and suitable supplements. Whatever you do, do not starve yourself. Talk to a doctor or a family member. You need to lose body fat if your BMI is over 25. Excess body fat, or obesity, will affect not only your appearance but also your health and can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and more.

Nutrition is important. In the pursuit of a flatter stomach, many people diet or starve themselves. Little do they know that by starving themselves, they are slowing down their metabolism and forcing their body to go into starvation mode as a defence mechanism.

Guide To Body Fat (Adipose Tissue)

 

Body Fat Explained

What Is The Purpose Of Storing Body Fat?

Storage of fat on the body is a critical defence mechanism. Remember, the human body has not changed essentially since the Stone Age. At that time starvation and famine were ever-present dangers to survival, while over-consumption and obesity were unheard of. To enable Stone Age humans to survive periods of food scarcity, the human body was designed to store energy which could then be drawn upon in times of famine. Thus for example, people could overeat during the hunting season, or when food was plentiful, and the surplus would be stored as fat tissue (adipose tissue). And when food was short, the body would burn the deposite fat as energy. Of course Stone Age life and body chemistry was/is much more complicated than this simple explanation suggests, but it suffices to explain why we have a built-in fat storage facility.

How Are Carbs, Protein And Fat Absorbed And Stored?

The human body needs energy to power muscles and to fuel the millions of chemical and biological reactions which take place throughout our system every day. This energy comes from the food we consume in our diet. Food consists mainly of water and three types of nutrient – protein, dietary fats and carbohydrate – which are found in varying proportions in most foods. These nutrients are broken down, digested and absorbed by the body in the gastrointestinal tract, running from the mouth to the anus. Each of these macronutrients is processed and absorbed by the digestive system in different ways.

How Are Surplus Carbs Used And Stored?

Carbohydrate is the major source of energy for the body. This is because, of all nutrients, it converts most readily to glucose which is the body’s preferred fuel. When we eat carbohydrate, it is converted to glucose in the digestive tract and distributed via the liver to cells throughout the body for use as energy. Once our immediate energy needs are satisfied, the remaining carb glucose is handled in one of two ways. Either it is converted to liquid glycogen (a temporary source of readily available energy) and stored in the liver or muscles. Or, it is converted into fatty acids by the liver and stored in adipose cells (fat-cells) around the body.

How Is Surplus Protein Used And Stored?

Protein is broken down into amino acids in the stomach and small intestine, then distributed via the liver to cells throughout the body for a variety of uses included cell formation and repair. Some surplus protein amino acids are kept circulating in the bloodstream, the remainder is either converted into a type of simple sugar and used as energy, or (like carbohydrate) is converted to fatty acid and stored in adipose cells.

How Is Surplus Dietary Fat Used And Stored?

Dietary fat is broken down into fatty acids and glycerol by the stomach and small intestine. It is then distributed (in the form of triglycerides) via the lymphatic system and bloodstream to the cells for a variety of specialized uses or, in the absence of sufficient carbs, for energy. However, since dietary fat cannot be converted into protein and only about 5 percent (the glycerol part) is convertible into glucose, and because dietary fat is not the body’s preferred choice of fuel, a significant amount ends up being stored as body fat in the adipose tissue.

Conversion Of Body Fat To Energy

If energy is required suddenly, the body first uses up its glycogen reserves. After this, it converts the body fat in the adipose cells into energy by a catabolic process called lipolysis. During lipolysis, triglycerides within the adipose cells are acted upon by a complex enzyme called hormone sensitive lipase (HSL). This converts the triglyceride into fatty acids and glycerol. The fatty acids are then transported via the bloodstream to tissues for use as energy, or (along with the glycerol) taken to the liver for further processing.

Adipose Tissue

Adipose cells which make up adipose tissue are specialized cells which contain and can synthesize globules of fat. This fat either comes from the dietary fat we eat or is made by the body from surplus carbohydrate or protein in our diet. Adipose tissue is mainly located just under the skin, although adipose deposits are also found between the muscles, in the abdomen, and around the heart and other organs. The location of fat deposits is largely determined by genetic inheritance. Thus it is not possible to affect where we store fat. Nor is it possible to influence from which area the body burns fat for energy purposes.

Why Do We Get Fat?

Most of us develop body fat because we eat more calories than we burn in exercise. Given a culture which emphasises "value for money food portions" and "super-sizing", along with an steady increase in serving size, an upsurge of new tasty high-calorie foods and energy drinks, such over-consumption is perhaps only to be expected. Lack of exercise is also a major contributory factor. However, overeating and lack of fitness is not the whole story.

Why Are So Many People Obese?

The prevalence and incidence of obesity (the disease of excess body fat) has risen considerably over the past 25 years, both in the developed and undeveloped world. Why is this? We don’t know for sure. Despite extensive research into the causes and predictors of obesity, they remain unquantified. In other words, although we know that (eg) excessive calorie intake, lack of exercise, metabolic disorders and genetic inheritance all impact on the incidence and symptoms of obesity, experts still don’t know the relative contribution of these causal factors. The only thing that most experts agree on, is that the recent upsurge in obesity cannot be attributed in any major way to the influence of genes, since genetic changes typically take millennia to appear, not two decades. Even so, the connections between type 2 diabetes, raised blood fats, obesity and insulin insensitivity – a cluster of symptoms which form the condition known as insulin resistance syndrome – is evidence of a progressive deterioration in the body’s metabolic efficiency, which may be a growing underlying factor in the development of excess body fat among many people.

Detox Diet

 

A detox diet is a type of diet in which the eating habits of an individual are changed in order to detoxify the body. This is done by getting rid excess of bacteria and germs. Proponents of this diet claim that it can improve your health, immune system, and it is also believed to play an important role in weight loss.

There are a variety of different methods which are used to detoxify the body. Some people fast for certain periods of time. This may include juice fasting or water fasting. Others choose to increase their consumption of fish, especially salmon. Some people choose to restrict the amount of calories they take in on a daily basis.

When using a detox diet, it is recommended that vegetables and fruts constitute the majority of food eaten by the patient on a daily basis. Processed foods are usually rejected, and only natural foods are eaten. Reducing the amount of alcohol consumed or not drinking it at all is highly encouraged. It is also encouraged that the person using this diet drinks large amounts of water, as this will help keep their appetite under control.

Many people who choose to use a detox diet see it as being a way of life, and incorporate the practices of this diet in their everyday eating habits. This diet has gathered a large following, as many people are tired of fast foods and foods which are processed. Many feel that processed foods play an important role in the obesity and heart disease seen in society.

At the same time, there are some criticisms to the detox diet. Critics have stated that the liver, lungs, and other parts of the body are designed to remove toxins from the body, and because of this following a detox diet is unnecessary. In fact, it has been suggested that fruits may have more natural toxins than fish or meat, and this could add toxins to the body instead of reducing them. Some also mention that some forms of fish are rich in mercury, and this could be dangerous to people on a detox diet.

Some feel that using a detox diet for weight loss could be dangerous because it could lead to a decline in nutrients within the body, and this is especially true for those who choose to use water fasting to detoxify their bodies. Though testimonials have been made promoting the benefits of a detox diet, these people may have started the diet after completing an undesirable diet rich in sugar. These testimonials may only show that the detox diet is better than average diets, and may have its own health side effects.

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