Summer snacks

Summer is just right down the alley and everyone will be looking for food that does not add up too much. Summer diets start just about know and everyone is looking forward to looking his/her best when at the beach. Anyone involved in bodybuilding or fitness is in this situation. The problems also appear because there are a lot of outdoor barbecues and parties that do not serve that good of meals for one's body! If you want to approach the situation with health in mind maybe you would want to try out changing some snacks.

Why not start out with a fish burger instead of the regular burger served at barbecues? By doing this you immediately bring down saturated fat. Few people think about making a fish burger but bodybuilders will tell you that it is quite a treat and offers a different taste and is also nutritionally high. You can also try out barbecue beans, a Banana Colada Smoothie or some Peanut Butter Popcorn with a twist.

What to do when hangover is unavoidable?

Ok so hangovers are avoidable because you can always not drink but if you have to you need to minimize the damage. The previous post told you about the negatives of consuming alchool when mixed with bodybuilding. We need to be honest! Most of the visitors that will get to this site will be young and I am young and this means we all enjoy a drink or two once in a while. We do go to parties thinking about getting as much alcohool in as possible although we never admit this. With this in mind let us try and think about what to do when such a thing is sure to happen.

First of all think about dehidration. At least 2 litres of water need to wait for you by your bed for when you get back home. This simple task of leaving water there and driking it when you get home will aid your muscle a great deal by hydrating them and will prevent hangover. If you end up with a girl in the room (or man depending on your sex) be sure to make her go away as fast as possible because you will never get your buddies off your shoulders after this incident. This does not mean being rude, just speed up the process. Also, when getting himbe sure to drink a protein shake before going to bed. You can even mix it with the water that was waiting for you (that is if you can still stand). The last thing that needs to be done is having a big healthy breakfast rich in calcium, protein, iron and phosphorus.

The are just hints to do when you get to drink alcohool but the best thing would be to avoid it as much as possible, especially if you want to practice bodybuilding at a professional level!

Alcohol and Bodybuilding

If you are young there is a big chance at some points in time (for some more than others) a party will pop up. What are parties all about? Alcohool! That sweet liquid that gives you imense powers and helps everybody loosen up together with making couple hooking up a lot easier. The only question that comes up in this blog entry here is: does alcohool and bodybuilding mix? If you want an answer to this question you can only find one: NO! I am a drinker, I love getting heavily under the influence at parties but then again I am not into professional bodybuilding. A bodybuilder works hard to gain muscle and alochool does not mix well with this.

There are three main reasons why alcohol is not good for a bodybuilder. First of all it is made out of empty calories. It has no nutrients, just 7 calories per gram. If you per chance drink one shot of vodka you will take in around 100 calories. With teens like me one shot of vodka is usually just a beginning. Just try to think about how many calories you put in your body when you get that lovely dizzy feeling most people look for. It also slows down our metabolism so this also has to be considered.

The second thing that needs to be mentioned is that muscle growth is affected by drinking alcohool. The biggest effect is that protein synthesis is lowered by around 20% and the morning hangover also lowers training intensity. There are many negative body mass growth influences but these are the two that are the most important and easy to understand.

The last thing that should be mentioned is that alcohool will decrease testosterone and increase estrogen. This is also bad! Alcohool and bodybuilding do not mix!

The European Parliament Helps Out

I am sure all of you saw a lot of commercials for "incredible" products that are labeled with something like "Eat and loose weight". These statements are put there to mislead instead of help out. We all know how important it is to eat properly and most of us should know (if you don't already) that there is not one single product out there that will make you lose help without exercise. It's very simple: you eat you put on weight! If you eat healthy and exercise you can lose weight. The good news is that the European Parliament is set to talk about and discuss the situation. It is said that soon there will be a change in reglementations that will not allow companies to write fictious statements on their products. I'm sure all people that now how to live healthy will salute this!

Some thoughts about smoking

Did you know that smoking first appeared around 300 years ago but only became popular after World War II? Also, did you know that every year 1 million people die because of smoking? The last 50 years showed us that cigarette smoke contains numerous substances that hurt the human body but we still keep smoking! The all talked about nicotine is a very destructive substance. Just 5 mg can kill a dog by paralizing his nerves and around 50-60 mg can do the same to any human being. Besides this substance you must know that others are even more destructive. By burning, the cigarette releases much more dangerous vapors in the air and indirectly in our lungs. There are many far worse substances in a cigarette we must deal with!

Obese Men are most likely to die after car crash

I just found out about an interesting study. It was conducted in Milwakee, USA and it showed that if the person that was involved in a car crash is obese there are more chances that he/she will not make it. A well known fact has been proven some time ago: obesity decreses the body's ability to recover after any kind of injury. Here is what the specialists said:

"Obesity imparts anatomical and physiological changes that may either protect or interfere with the body's response to injury. However, it would be a very costly process to have a car modelled on the person's shape to make it as safe as possible - that's really a bespoke car and would take a lot of money and effort to produce. It would be preferable to try to stop people having car accidents in the first place. People who are obese probably have an adverse risk profile and as such are less able to withstand adverse effects on the body and serious injury."

Weight Lifting helps women to counter Middle Age Spread

A recent study has been conducted at The University of Pennsylvania's Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. It concluded that women that lift weights two times per week have a lower chance to get the Middle Age Spread that most women are afraid of. Kathryn H. Schmitz, one of the people responsabile with the study declared:

"This study shows that strength training can prevent increases in body fat percentage and attenuate increases in the fat depot most closely associated with heart disease. While an annual weight gain of one to two pounds doesn't sound like much, over 10 to 20 years the gain is significant."

Optimists get fewer Heart Attacks

A recent Dutch research study has proven the fact that Optimists have a lot fewer chances of suffering from strokes or heart attacks than Pessimists. The reason thought is that Optimists tend to exercise more and have a bigger power of adaption to the stress of day to day life together with a straight forward going attitude. Researchers declared:

"It's likely that optimism affects cardiovascular health in a number of ways, both directly and indirectly. One possibility is that optimists are better at coping with adversity, and may, for example take better care of themselves when they do fall ill. This study suggests that being positive and optimistic as we get older may have some effect on our wellbeing and reduce the risk of heart and circulatory disease. Previous research on lack of social support, depression, and having lack of control in life showed that people may be more at risk of developing coronary heart disease. This new study adds weight to the argument that if we feel optimistic and supported it may have a positive effect on our health and hearts."