A java jolt may boost, not wreck, your workout

Fitness experts and dietitians have long advised that exercisers drink up before and during physical activity - but avoid caffeine.

Turns out, though, there's no convincing evidence to support this recommendation, says Armstrong, who published an article on the subject in the July issue of Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, a journal of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

Armstrong and his colleagues reviewed more than a dozen studies and concluded that moderate caffeine consumption - up to about 500 milligrams a day - did not adversely impact exercise. A typical 8-ounce cup of coffee contains 150 milligrams of caffeine while a 12-ounce regular soda has 30 to 50 milligrams.

While caffeine is a mild diuretic - meaning it briefly increases urine production - moderate amounts are not enough to interfere with a workout, Armstrong says. "It doesn't mean that one is dehydrated," he explains. "Dehydration is about the balance of fluid intake and fluid loss."

Little is known about the exercise impact of consuming more than 500 milligrams of caffeine.

The new study is the latest good news about caffeine and exercise. A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a combo of the two helped fight skin cancer in mice.

Fatigue fighter?Previous studies also suggest that a java jolt may even boost performance during activities lasting longer than 30 minutes by enabling exercisers to work out longer. In fact, caffeine was once outlawed at the Olympics because of its performance-enhancing effects.

It's not exactly clear why caffeine helps, but Armstrong and others believe the same mental pick-me-up that helps you get your day started or make it through a boring afternoon at work also may help exercisers fight fatigue and thus go longer. Another theory is that caffeine helps the body turn fat into fuel for longer workouts.

Tara Gidus, a sports dietitian in Orlando, Fla., agrees that caffeine doesn't live up to its reputation as a workout wrecker, at least when it's consumed in moderation.

And she notes that exercisers tend to build up a tolerance to caffeine's effects. "An athlete who is used to consuming caffeine regularly may not experience the same diuretic effect as an athlete who doesn't consume caffeine often," she says.

Larry Kenney, a professor of physiology at Penn State University in University Park and a spokesperson for the ACSM, emphasizes that all exercisers - caffeine addicts or not - need to make sure they stay properly hydrated by replacing lost fluids, especially when it's sizzling outside. How much to drink varies from one person to another.

"Athletes should customize their fluid intake based on their individual sweating rate," Kenney says.

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To find out how much you need to drink, weigh yourself before and after exercise a few times, Kenney advises. This will tell you how much water you're losing so you can determine how much fluid you need to compensate for the loss.

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Sport Fit’s Four Maryland Total Fitness Clubs Top 16,000 Members

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Sport Fit’s Four Maryland Total Fitness Clubs Top 16,000 Members

There are only four Sport Fit Clubs in suburban Maryland yet, according to Club Industry's Fitness Magazine, Sport Fit ranks 73rd of over 29,000 fitness and health clubs in the country.

Bowie, MD () Sport Fit Bowie is the largest of the 4 clubs that include Sport Fit Laurel, Sport Fit Laurel Swim and Sport Fit Severna Park. Each club is distinctly different, however, the club’s formula for success is reflected in the astounding growth of these comprehensive health and fitness clubs. Even though the clubs are located in transient communities, the club’s retention rate is aligned with industry standards and their sales rates exceed expectations every year. In addition to the membership growth, the facility and program offerings have grown as well.

Sport Fit is always adding new classes and equipment to meet demand.

Sport Fit Bowie is the largest of the four and has over 4,000 sq. ft. of cardio equipment, 2,000 sq. ft. of circuit equipment and 7,000 sq. ft. of free weight equipment, 9 tennis courts, 3 racquetball courts, 3 swimming pools and a basketball court, cycle room, and aerobics room.

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Uh-Oh

Researchers have finally found evidence for what good Catholic boys have known all along - erotic images make you go blind. The effect is temporary and lasts just a moment, but the research has added to road-safety campaigners' calls to ban sexy billboard-advertising near busy roads, in the hope of preventing accidents.

The new study by US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as "emotion-induced blindness".

David Zald, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Marvin Chun and colleagues from Yale University in Connecticut, showed hundreds of images to volunteers and asked them to pick a specific image from the rapid sequence. Most of the images were landscape or architectural scenes, but the psychologists included a few emotionally charged images, portraying violent or sexually provocative scenes.

The closer these emotionally charged images occurred prior to the target image, the more frequently people failed to spot the target image, the researchers found.

"We observed that people failed to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after neutral images," Zald says.

Primitive brain

"We think there is essentially a bottleneck for information processing and if a certain type of stimulus captures attention, it can jam up the bottleneck so subsequent information can't get through," Zald explains. "It appears to happen involuntarily. The stimulus captures attention and once allocated to that particular stimulus, no other stimuli can get through" for several tenths of a second.

He believes that a primitive part of the brain, known as the amygdala, may play a part. That region is involved in evaluating sensory input according to its emotional relevance and has an autonomic role, influencing heart rate and sweating.

"It is possible that emotionally-charged stimuli produce preferential rapid routing of the impulse that bypasses the slower cortical route via the amygdala," Zald told New Scientist. "Patients with amygdala lesions pick out the target image without reacting to violent images, although they show normal blindness reactions when sexual images are introduced, which suggests another mechanism may also be involved."

Harm avoiders

The researchers think emotion-induced blindness could lead to drivers simply not seeing another car or pedestrian if they have just witnessed an emotionally charged scene, such as an accident or sexually explicit billboard.

The effect could exacerbate the more obvious problem of drivers simply being distracted by large, arresting images. "It's the responsibility of drivers to ensure that when they are behind the wheel they keep their eyes on the job in hand," says a spokeswoman from Brake, a UK road safety organisation.

And some people are more vulnerable than others. The study assessed participants using a personality questionnaire, rating them according to their level of "harm avoidance". Those scoring highly were more fearful, careful and cautious; those scoring low were more carefree and more comfortable in difficult or dangerous situations.

The researchers found that those with low harm avoidance scores were better able to stay focused on a target image than those with high harm avoidance scores.

"People who are more harm avoidant may not be detecting negative stimuli more than other people, but they have a greater difficulty suppressing that information," Zald suggests.

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Decoding Food Labels

Look at the ingredients on the back of your ice cream. What do you expect to see? Milk, sugar, perhaps vanilla? What you might find, though, is glycerol monostearate, an emulsifier that can help to keep the milk fat in suspension and limits the growth of ice crystals on the ice cream.

Labels can be deceiving and many times we don't even know what we are eating! The ingredients with the strange names usually fall under certain categories and serve certain functions in our food. For instance:

Acidity regulators: These are used to adjust the acidity or basicity of foods and include buffers, acids, alkalis and neutralizing agents.

Tired of fussing about what's healthy and good for your diet? Take it easy and try DeliciouslyYours meal delivery plan -- we now even offer a "Weekends Off" plan! Plus, get a FREE membership! Click for more info.

Anti-caking agents: These make the product more free-flowing.

Emulsifiers: These are very common and allow for easier mixing of oils and water. One example of a food emulsifier is egg yolk.

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Flavor enhancers: These help bring out the natural flavor in the food. The most known is the controversial monosodium glutamate (MSG) sodium salt of the amino acid glutamic acid and a form of glutamate.

Modified starch: A type of thickening agent.

Stabilizers: These are added to food to help stop them from separating.

Sweeteners: Natural and non-sugar sweeteners. "There are many, many ways to say 'sugar,' and consumers are not often aware that a product contains a lot of sugar, because it doesn't say sugar," says nutritionist Susan Burke.

"All nutritive sweeteners have a similar amount of calories, ranging from 16 calories per teaspoon for white sugar (sucrose) to 20 calories for honey. Read the label; you'll be surprised to see all the sugars in a box of breakfast cereal. They all have similar nutrition. Even if you think it's healthier, it's still just sugar as far as your body is concerned. If you eat too much, it's stored as fat."

These sugars often appear on food ingredient lists: glucose, fructose, lactose, maltose, sucrose (white sugar), corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup, brown sugar, honey, malt syrup, fruit-juice concentrate and cane sugar.

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Il Nordic Walking secondo Paolo Coelho

Il grande autore brasiliano Paolo Coelho le cui opere sono state pubblicate in più di 150 paesi e tradotte in 59 lingue (ha venduto più di 56 milioni di libri) parla di Nordic Walking nel suo libro "Sono come il fiume che scorre"

"Nell'autunno del 2003, mentre passeggiavo a tarda sera nel centro di Stoccolma, vidi una signora che cam­minava usando i bastoncini da sci. La mia prima reazio­ne fu quella di attribuire una simile scelta al fatto che avesse subito un infortunio o qualche lesione, tuttavia notai che procedeva speditamente, con movimenti ritmi­ci, come se si trovasse su una pista innevata, tutt'intorno, invece, c'era soltanto l'asfalto delle strade. L'ovvia conclusione fu: "Quella donna è pazza: come può finge­re di sciare nel centro di una citt� ?"

Di ritorno all'albergo, ne parlai con il mio editore. Mi disse che il matto ero io: quel tipo di pratica sportiva si chiama nordic walking, "camminata nordica". Secondo lui, oltre alle gambe, si allenano le braccia, le spalle, i mu­scoli della schiena, rendendo quell'esercizio molto com­pleto. "Quando cammino è il mio passatempo preferito, in­sieme al tiro con arco, mi prefiggo di riflettere, pensa­re, ammirare le meraviglie intorno, chiacchierare con mia moglie."

Anche se esulava dal mio concetto di passeggia­ta, reputai davvero interessante il commento del mio in­terlocutore, tuttavia lo dimenticai presto.

Fu una scoperta fantastica! Marciammo lungo i pendii di una montagna con la sensazione che il movimento interessasse l'intero corpo, che l'equilibrio risultasse più solido, che la stanchezza fosse minore. Percorremmo il doppio della distanza che abitualmente coprivamo in un'ora. Mi ricordai di quando avevo tentato di esplorare un ruscello in secca, ma avevo rinunciato per le difficolt� insormontabili rappresentate dalle pietre del greto.

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Resources for Healthcare Providers

UNICEF, WHO and WABA along with the scientific community strongly recommend initiating breastfeeding within half an hour of birth.

Evidence shows that early initiation can prevent 22% of all deaths among babies below one month in developing countries.

Every newborn, when placed on the mother's abdomen, soon after birth, has the ability to find its mother's breast all on its own and to decide when to take the first breastfeed. This is called the 'Breast Crawl'.

This method is evidence based and has been field tested by us. A documentary on the 'Breast Crawl' has been prepared for training, advocacy and for wider dissemination. The video has created a very high level of sensitivity among all the levels of functionaries and was officially endorsed by senior policy makers as the right approach for initiating breastfeeding. This dossier provides the background and a scientific overview to the documentary.

Initiation of breastfeeding by the Breast Crawl is a critical component of the IYCF (Infant and Young Child Feeding) initiative for the state of Maharashtra, India. IYCF deals with nutrition of children from birth to 3 years of age, and also takes into consideration the nutrition of pregnant and lactating mothers. Two critical components of IYCF are breastfeeding and complementary feeding. Improved IYCF practices promote optimal growth and development, prevent malnutrition and improve child survival. With 40% of the children in the state undernourished, this initiative becomes extremely critical.

UNICEF has facilitated partnerships with all stakeholders including the State Government, State Nutrition Mission, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Public Health Department, BPNI (Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India), NGOs, Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and several academic institutions, for this major initiative. These partnerships are aimed at creating a revolution in the state promoting IYCF practices.

We are sure that this documentary and dossier will greatly help similar initiatives worldwide. It is our strong desire that this information helps every mother and baby to experience the miracle of Breast Crawl. If we all could achieve early initiation of breastfeeding, we will be able to prevent 22% of all deaths among babies below 1 month.

This can be achieved by training all health care providers to initiate breastfeeding, by Breast Crawl, to give infants the best start in life.

visit breastcrawl.org for video and complete dossier.

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M.A.T. and Training - A Perfect Fit!

When someone hires a trainer, they assume the trainer will position them (correctly) in the appropriate exercises, to get the maximum benefit with the least amount of risk.

The fact is, merely positioning someone is an incomplete way of assuring maximum benefit and minimum risk...

The reason why: muscle inhibition.

Whether from dehydration, stress, trauma, overuse, vitamin/mineral deficiencies or chemical sensitivities, inhibited muscles will not work at their full capacity, if at all.

The body is excellent at compensating for muscular imbalances, weakness, and inhibition.

Even during basic movements, if the muscles are pulling differently than designed, this uneven stress can and will lead to a muscle inhibition domino effect, more serious compensatory patterns, uneven joint wear, unhealthy stress on the neuromuscular system, and sub-optimal or totally ineffective performance.

The goal should be to first restore optimal function to the neuromuscular system, next restore muscular balance, and then to strengthen the body as a whole.

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All About Abs

If you're heavy around the middle, working your abdominal muscles -- or abs -- will whittle you down, right?

Wrong. What you've got there is fat. Even with strong abdominal muscles underneath, you can't achieve a flat front unless you lose the fat.

To do that, you need to burn more calories than you eat. Abdominal muscles are not large muscles, so working them isn't going to burn many calories. Walking and jogging are better calorie-burning activities.

The muscles in your abdomen, pelvis, lower back and hips are part of what is known as the core -- the area of the body where your center of gravity is located. Developing a strong solid core gives you increased balance, stability and controlled movement that will help you improve performance. You use core muscles when you reach up to get a glass off the top shelf, bend down to tie your shoes, or swing a golf club. Strong core muscles also improve posture and protect you against back injuries.

What are the best abdominal exercises? For the beginner, nothing seems to beat the simple crunch.

The simple crunch

- Lie with your back on a padded floor.

- Prop your feet against the wall or on a chair at a 90-degree angle to help you keep a neutral spine position in which your back is not too arched or too flat. As your abs get stronger, try putting your feet flat on the floor with your knees bent.

- Cross your arms over your chest or hold them straight up.

- Cough to engage your ab muscles.

- Using these muscles, lift your upper body off the floor, raising yourself about 6 to 12 inches. Exhale as you go up. This will help maintain a space between your chin and chest.

- Hold this position briefly.

- Slowly lower yourself while inhaling. But don't relax all the way down -- keep your shoulders slightly off the floor.

- Repeat until your ab muscles are fatigued. Stop immediately if you experience pain in your lower back.

- Do this every other day, as you would any strengthening exercise.

As your abs strengthen, add more challenging exercises. You can increase resistance by holding a dumbbell across your chest. And, while most ab machines don't offer benefits over the crunch, using a fitness ball can increase the challenge by putting you on an unstable surface.

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Duquesa Marketing Launches New Branding Program for Clinical Weight Loss Chain Totally Fit 4 Life™ - Growth Explodes Using New Billboard, Advertorial and Media Programs

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Duquesa Marketing Launches New Branding Program for Clinical Weight Loss Chain Totally Fit 4 Life™ - Growth Explodes Using New Billboard, Advertorial and Media Programs

Geoff Ficke, President of Duquesa Marketing announced that his international marketing and product development agency has completed the customized branding campaign for Totally Fit 4 Life™.

Florence, KY (PRWEB) Geoff Ficke, President of Duquesa Marketing announced that his international marketing and product development agency has completed the customized branding campaign for Totally Fit 4 Life™.

Hickory, NC based Totally Fit 4 Life™ is a chain of medically based weight loss clinics. Totally Fit 4 Life™ is unique in that their customized, personalized programs are designed to not only lose weight, but moderate behavior that often results in rapidly regaining pounds.

"Totally Fit 4 Life™ offers a really unique wellness service, and the chain has enjoyed excellent growth", said Geoff Ficke. "When we were engaged by management, all growth was accomplished by word of mouth, a great barometer, but slow way to propel growth. We have created a comprehensive branding strategy that has exploded growth of in-store sales and plans for new store openings".

"After perfecting a new logo, icons, color and branding statements we have created a complete platform of media elements to promote the clinics", said Nancy Ficke, General Manager of Duquesa Marketing. "Billboards, print advertising and advertorials, radio, television, in-clinic streaming media and direct mail have all been tied together and have given our client an exciting result".

Duquesa Marketing offers clients a complete menu of creative services in all areas of retail and consumer product development. The Company offers expertise in sales, marketing strategies, design and funding.

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