Fitness And Healthy Blog

“It's diet soda so it has to be good for you right?” Wrong.

To the surprise of many Americans, many of the diet sodas being touted as a healthy alternative to the more popular and unhealthy, high-fructose sodas such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola are in fact just as harmful to your body and your health.

Many of us are familiar with the infamous chicken bone test — the test in which a chicken bone was placed into a cup of Mountain Dew and disintegrated overnight into oblivion. Such decay was due in part to the phosphoric acid contained in soda which leaches calcium from your bones after every drink. Since that study, medical researchers have continuously broadcasted the harmful effects of daily soda consumption.

Think twice about heading to the “all you can eat” buffet this Father's Day as you maybe putting your waistline at risk!

Follow these 5 simple tips to eating healthy while enjoying Dad's day out.

1. Never go to a restaurant starving! You are setting yourself up for failure right from the start. Have a quick snack before you go if at all possible. A piece of fruit, some mixed nuts or a protein shake will help satisfy you without filling you up so you can enjoy your meal. If you are really stuck, just grab a bottle of water on the way and drink it before you arrive. This alone will help you avoid ordering the entire menu. If your family is taking you to your favorite spot that you are familiar with and you are really hungry and in a rush, avoid looking at the menu all together and tell the waiter what you want as soon as they come to your table. This way you wont cave in to all the gut busting choices on the menu while you try to ignore your growling stomach.

When doctors don't know the cause of a patient's problem, they often give it a fancy name so you will believe they are giving you a useful diagnosis. A perfect example of this is “idiopathic inflammatory myopathy”, which means you have chronic muscle soreness and your doctor doesn't know why. Researchers recently reviewed the effects of exercise on people with chronic muscle soreness and found that exercise is beneficial (Current Opinion in Rheumatology, 04/07/09):

• The muscles of many of subjects with this condition did not get a sufficient oxygen supply
• Exercise increases endurance-type fibers after a 12-week exercise program
• Creatine supplements plus an exercise program are more beneficial than exercise alone
• Intensive resistance training improves muscle strength and endurance
• Exercise reduces muscle soreness and possibly even muscle inflammation

I am now convinced that a leading cause of muscle soreness and slow-healing injuries is lack of vitamin D. All my life, I have suffered a series of baffling injures that usually occur in the winter and heal in the summer. For the entire winter of 2007-8, I was unable to exercise because of a non-healing hamstring injury and diffuse muscle soreness. Eventually I found that my vitamin D 3 level was 22 nmol/L (normal is greater than 75). I took the prescribed treatment of 50,000 IU of vitamin D twice a week and my muscles became so sore that I couldn't even walk. In the summer, the hamstring injury healed and the soreness disappeared. This winter I went to Florida and was able to train on my bicycle better than ever. In March I went back to wintery Maryland and the non-healing hamstring injury and soreness reappeared. This time I improved within 24 hours of taking 2000 IU of vitamin D twice a day. From my experience, I conclude that:

• my muscle soreness and non-healing injuries are caused by or worsened by low levels of vitamin D
• very high doses (50,000 IU) may increase muscle soreness
• lower doses of vitamin D (2000 to 4000/day) or daily sunlight exposure cured my muscle soreness and helped to heal my injuries

Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council quotes 14 studies that show that athletic performance improves in the summer months when sunshine is abundant, or with ultraviolet light exposure in winter. http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/2007-mar.shtml