How Sports Nutrition Can Affect Health

The sports nutrition that any athlete consumes is a very important aspect and a huge determinant of his health and in turn affects his performance. Everyone knows that in today’s competing world of sports, one must perform at his best to even qualify. And when it comes to winning, it’s not enough to give your best- you need to be better than the best.To play any sport, an athlete must maintain a healthy lifestyle. It’s not only required to practice and polish the skills of the sport, but is also equally important to nourish the body so that there will be enough energy and strength to play that sport. Let’s take a look at how the right sports nutrition can help in this regard.You, assuming that you are an athlete or thinking of becoming one, must, first and foremost, understand the principles of sports nutrition completely. What is the point of staying healthy when you do not even know what being healthy is all about?Firstly, it’s important to avoid engaging yourself in false beliefs and misconceptions. Myths are completely different from facts, and your sports nutrition health is indeed a fact so do not, under any circumstances, mix unreal and unproven principles with facts. Compromising with your health based on misinterpretation of the facts can seriously jeopardize your career as an athlete.It’s easy to talk about managing your health than actually doing it. So to start with, you must take note of nutrition requirements that are related to your training program. Failure to recognize these said requirements would cause stress not only to your body, but also mentally. When you don’t know what are up against, how can you build energy to tackle it?Taking experts’ advice on the sports nutrition is helpful too. You might be taking carbohydrates all right but not in the right amount or in the amount that is appropriate for you. So there will either be an excess or a lack, and neither is helpful for your health status.Let’s make one point clear though. There is a lot of difference between having well balanced sports nutrition and dieting to lose fat. Do not, under any circumstances, mistake them to be the same thing or else your health will be compromised.You may have an extremely busy schedule, being an athlete and all, but you must still consume appropriate amount of food. So you must manage your time well to have an adequate time for eating. Time management is definitely the key.For starters, you may not be financially stable right away, but that is how it always is when you are just beginning. However, this scarcity of finances might be a factor for you not to be able to attain adequate food supplies.For those who are already making it big, your sports nutrition health should always come first. This means you have to manage your money efficiently so that you can have the appropriate supply of food, and still have enough to spend for maintaining your lifestyle.A usually ignored, but quite important nutrition and health impairing factor is frequent traveling. Besides from the fact that traveling is expensive, it comes with a huge tendency that you will be taking your food on the road which leaves you with very few healthy choices.Or if you carry the food, it minimized the selection of your food items to those that are portable. That will leave out the food that is difficult for you to carry but is important for your sports nutrition health. The time for eating should also not be modified.Sports nutrition experts break the nutrition into the basic three types that the food basically is made up of. That is protein, carbohydrates and fats. A correct balance of these components in your body is very important. Anything in excess or in deficiencies could be a cause of a nutritional downfall.Proteins give energy to the body. Whereas fats are the things that you should be more concerned about since these are the ones that decide what kind of shape to give to your body. You must not lose more than one half pound of fat in a week because if this happens, your body will individually think that you are undergoing a fasting, trying to starve yourself. If this is the case, your metabolism slows down since there is a need to conserve calories that have been used and also since your muscles will be used as sources of energy.To say the least, you need to carefully follow the guidance about sports nutrition and ponder over the tips given in this article. Remember, it’s possible to be a successful athlete provided you maintain your health well!

Orthomolecular Medicine – A Leading Light For Mental Health and Nutrition, Mental Diseases

Are we in The Dark Ages? When it comes to mental health diagnoses in the 21st century, it often seems that way. Yes, drugs can help extreme symptoms, but with a 10% ‘success’ rate, modern drugs seldom help anyone truly recover. Parents and other family members of those with serious mental diseases are often at their wits’ end.Too many people are suffering-not getting well on present day “medication only” policies of mental wards of our leading hospitals. Seldom do patients’ physical health get investigated for deficiencies of healthy nutrients such as B12, other B vitamins, Vitamin D or Omega 3 fatty acids, bowel problems, food allergies or mineral deficiencies, such as zinc.Thousands of accounts of deficiencies affecting mental health can be found in respected journals and daily newspapers: Vitamin D preventing depression, Omega 3 fatty acids helping to prevent suicides and post-partum depression, food allergies affecting mental health and children – triggering ADHD, hypoglycemia causing anxiety, bipolar or other symptoms of mental disorders.What Early Research Supports Healthy Nutrients for Mental Health?In the early ’50′s Abram Hoffer, MD, with a PhD in biochemistry conducted double-blind studies for the treatment of schizophrenia. Hoffer headed up a research team of 30 in four mental hospitals and three psychiatric wards in Saskatchewan, Canada. Eight double blind studies came out of this extensive research that showed that certain B vitamins, especially niacin, B3 could help schizophrenia. Forty years of research can be found on orthomed.org about orthomolecular medicine to treat mental disorders and physical illnesses.Schizophrenia symptoms including paranoia and other serious symptoms were reversed in 80% of cases within two years if the patient was started on the treatment of B3 (niacin). Along the way, other protocols natural to the body were researched by medical scientists and added for even more benefit. These treatments are inexpensive and effective and can be added to medication with better outcomes.Dosages of dietary supplements depend upon each individual’s tolerance and needs and can often change over time. (Niacin can cause a flush in the body, but is not dangerous. There are non-flush formulas.) Symptoms of bipolar, depression and anxiety can also be lessened.Is Orthomolecular Medicine Used for Mental Health Disorders?Orthomolecular medicine, a term coined by Linus Pauling, double Nobel Laureate involves treatment by optimizing health and treating disease by providing correct amounts of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, essential fatty acids and other substances which are natural and essential to the human body.Your body is powered by your dietary intake – nutrients. There is no steel plate cutting off your brain from your body. The brain is 60% fat and it needs quality fats, vitamins and minerals to thrive. Those eating deep fried foods such as French fries need information on eating healthy. Rancid fats get lodged in our bodies in places where healthy fats should be to power the body – especially the brain.Why Don’t You Know About Mental Health and Nutrition?Vitamins, minerals or other natural substances can’t be patented. No vitamin sales people knock on physicians’ doors with free samples. Also, nutrition is low on the list of subjects in medical schools. However, orthomolecular psychiatrists or other health professionals check for many nutrient deficiencies as possible causes for mental disturbances. Abundant Information is available about nutrition health benefits.What Physical Problems can Affect Mental Illnesses?
High or low blood sugar levels cause mental symptoms to peak.
B12 deficiency causes confusion, fatigue, weakness and severe mental symptoms.
Anemia (low iron levels) is sometimes confused with dementia.
Low thyroid has been shown to be common for those with schizophrenia.
Low levels of Vitamin D stores directly relate to depression.
Those with mental illness often have food allergies or digestive problems.Some fear that vitamins in high dosages are “not safe”. View testimony before the Government of Canada, House of Commons Standing Committee on Health, regarding nutritional supplement product safety (Ottawa, May 12, 2005). Ignorance abounds on the subject of vitamins.Our society needs to restore the lost minds of people who suffer episodes of mental health problems. The lucky ones who recover using orthomolecular treatments can become productive members of society. They can enjoy life and contribute.Let’s end the dark age of treatment of those with mental diseases. Contact The International Schizophrenia Foundation and the Journal of OrthomolecularMedicine and help those desperate for recovery to step into the light.

Diabetes Lifestyle – Changing Your Lifestyle Now That You’re Diabetic

What does a lifestyle change mean to a diabetic? Well, usually the first response is, “You want me to do what!” Which is closely followed by, “What’s that?” Next usually comes, “Well, if I can’t have everything I like to eat anymore, have to start exercising everyday and begin taking medication all the time, what’s the point of living?”Well, guess what! It’s a sure bet that if you don’t start making all those changes in your life NOW, you won’t be living a quality life for much longer plus you’ll be taking a chance on letting a whole lot of other really bad things go wrong with your body!Ask any diabetes specialist whether people can begin to control their diabetes through diet and exercise and the answer will be a resounding YES! It has been proven in studies all over the world time and time again.The key to making this change is having the patient make a conscious committed decision to change all their old habits. They must then begin implementing the new changes in small steps into their daily lives until they have replaced the bad habits with the new habits, which in turn equals a new lifestyle.A new lifestyle just means changing habits-natural eating habits, a habit of getting up and moving for at least 30 minutes each day, stopping a smoking habit, reducing an alcohol consumption habit. All of this has to be done not for just a few months but for a lifetime in order to get this silent killer under control.Another added benefit of changing your lifestyle is lowering your blood pressure and the risk of a stroke or heart attack, less sleep apnea and more vim and vigor for a better life overall. This change must become a way of life for you, for your whole life, not just for a few months or a year.Your life literally depends on it.Sure, there will be slip-ups now and then but you just have to shake it off and get started again. Don’t beat yourself up over it. It will be easier to begin again the next time because you’ve been there before and know what went wrong and how you can regain control. Just think about feeling and looking better and avoiding all the possible diabetic complications in store for you if you don’t change.But the best outcome of your new lifestyle will be the plus of being with your loved ones as a healthy person years longer.If you need more help making those changes in your life a reality, check out the help available on these pages.Ruth Walby