What is High Fructose Corn Syrup?

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a manmade sweetener that’s found in a wide range of processed foods, from ketchup and cereals to crackers and salad dressings. It also sweetens just about all of the (regular) soda Americans drink. HFCS used in foods is between 50 to 55 percent fructose—so chemically, it’s virtually identical to table sugar (sucrose), which is 50 percent fructose. Metabolic studies suggest our bodies break down and use HFCS and sucrose the same way.

Yet, after HFCS began to be widely introduced into the food supply 30-odd years ago, obesity rates skyrocketed. And because the sweetener is so ubiquitous, many blame HFCS for playing a major role in our national obesity epidemic. As a result, some shoppers equate HFCS with “toxic waste” when they see it on a food label. But when it comes right down to it, a sugar is a sugar is a sugar. A can of soda contains around nine teaspoons of sugar in the form of HFCS—but, from a biochemical standpoint, drinking that soda is no worse for you than sipping home-brewed iced tea that you’ve doctored with nine teaspoons of table sugar or an equivalent amount of honey.

Even Barry Popkin, Ph.D., a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who previously suggested, in an influential 2004 paper, a possible HFCS-obesity link, stresses that the real obesity problem doesn’t lie just with HFCS. Rather, it’s the fact that sugars from all sources have become so prevalent in our food supply, especially in our beverages. He scoffs at the “natural” sweeteners sometimes added to upscale processed foods like organic crackers and salad dressings. “They all have the same caloric effects as sugar,” he explains. “I don’t care whether something contains concentrated fruit juice, brown sugar, honey or HFCS. The only better sweetener option is ‘none of the above.’”

At EatingWell, it’s our philosophy to keep any sweeteners we use in our recipes to a minimum—and likewise, to limit processed foods with added sugars of any type, including HFCS. We recommend you do the same.

Did you know?
The corn syrup found on supermarket shelves is only a distant cousin to the high-fructose corn syrup used commercially. Both start by processing corn starch with enzymes and/or acids, but the HFCS process is much more complex and results in a different chemical structure. By Joyce Hendley, September/October 2007

This Is The Beginning of a New Day

This is the beginning of a new day,
God has given me this day to use as I will.
I can waste it or use it for good,
but what I do today is important
because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever,
leaving in its place something that I have traded for it.
I want it to be gain and not loss; good and not evil;
success and not failure; in order that I shall not
regret the price I have paid for it.

'Unknown'

Golf Fitness.....Prepare Your Body, Stay Injury Free, Play Better Golf!

Is your golf game struggling? Is it the clubs? Or is it limitations in your body which restrict movement and cause less efficient swings?

As a Certified Golf Fitness Instructor by the Titleist Performance Institute, I can help you.

Factors like strength, flexibility, balance, endurance, stability, power and posture all influence the body's mechanics. Utilizing a 12 exercise movement screen, we measure your ability to generate and transfer power throughout your body. We will isolate any physical limitations, correlate these findings to your swing technique and prescribe a custom-conditioning program.

Through the movement screen we will be able to isolate weak links throughout your body. These weak links could potentially cause faulty swing mechanics which lead to your slice or any other consistent problem area in your game. As a Certified Golf Fitness Instructor, I will be able to form a relationship with your golf pro in order to work together as a team to improve your golf game as fast and efficient as possible.

Contact me at rob.licata@yahoo.com for more information or visit www.thebodyologist.com

Home Gym Essentials

If you struggle getting to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, here is a list of equipment that is perfect for your house. With these tools, full body workouts could be completely with many varieties and modifications. There is no reason not to get a quick 30 minute workout done when you could bring the gym to you!

1. TRX Suspension System

2. Iron GymPull up Bar

3. Adjustable Dumbbells(for most women weights of 5, 10, 12,15,20, 25 lbs should be sufficient)

4. Jump Rope

If you would like more information on any of these pieces of equipment please email me at rob@thebodyologist.com

What is Metabolism????

Everyone always talks about raising their metabolism. What exactly is your metabolism?By definition Metabolism is all the chemical reactions that take place in your body which include all reactions of your brain, liver, digestive tract, muscles, heart, lungs, and every other tissue and organ.

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) The number of calories the body uses just to exist, sleeping and breathing. (Estimated to be around 800 calories)

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) Assuming that you don’t sleep and breathe all day long, we could add an additional 100-200 calories for additional movements such as reading a book, fidget around, or thinking.

So this brings use to about 1000 calories a day without exercise.

Now lets add in:

Daily Activities, (100-200 calories) going to the store, cleaning the house, walking around the office

· Digestion (100 calories) As your liver, pancreas, stomach and intestines produce digestive enzymes, calories are being burned. Think about how you may feel hot or even sweat after eating a large meal. So if you think dieting will work, the less you eat, the less your digestive system will work, and the lower your metabolism will get.

· Exercise (approximately 300-500/ hour if done at the proper intensity)

· Post Exercise: Glycogen needs to be restored in the muscle, triglycerides needs to be replenished in fat cells. The harder and more prolonged the exercise, the greater demand for replenishment. If you work hard enough, your body could continue to burn calories for up too 36 hours post workout. (50-100, depending on exercise duration and intensity)

So this brings us to about 1500-1800 calories per day.

So as you could see your metabolism is made up of all these little processes. If you feel that your metabolism is slowing, analyze the list above and see what might be missing. Chances are if your relatively healthy, your BMR is the same as it always was. If you feel your lacking in a category(EXERCISE!), that could be the reason why your not losing the fat that you want to lose.

Implementing an exercise program can increase all of these metabolic processes!

Bailey, Covert. (1994) "Smart Exercise"

Runners Knee

By Jonathan Cluett, M.D., About.com Guide

Chondromalacia patella is a common cause of kneecap pain or anterior knee pain. Often called "Runner's Knee," this condition often affects young, otherwise healthy athletes.

Chondromalacia is due to an irritation of the undersurface of the kneecap. The undersurface of the kneecap, or patella, is covered with a layer of smooth cartilage. This cartilage normally glides effortlessly across the knee during bending of the joint. However, in some individuals, the kneecap tends to rub against one side of the knee joint, and the cartilage surface become irritated, and knee pain is the result.

What happens to the cartilage with chondromalacia?
Chondromalacia is due to changes of the deepest layers of cartilage, causing blistering of the surface cartilage. The pattern of cartilage damage seen with chondromalacia is distinct from the degeneration seen in arthritis, and the damage from chondromalacia is thought to be capable of repair, unlike that seen with arthritis.

Who gets chondromalacia?
Chondromalacia is interesting in that it often strikes young, otherwise healthy, athletic individuals. Women are more commonly affected with chondromalacia. Exactly why this is the case is unknown, but it is thought to have to do with anatomical differences between men and women, in which women experience increased lateral forces on the patella.

What is the treatment for chondromalacia?
The treatment of chondromalacia remains controversial, but most individuals can undergo effective treatment by resting the knee and adhering to a proper physical therapy program. Allowing the inflammation of chondromalacia to settle is the first step of treatment. Avoiding painful activities that irritate the knee for several weeks, followed by a gradual return to activity is important. In this time, cross-training activities, such as swimming, can allow an athlete to maintain their fitness while resting the knee. The next step in treatment is a physical therapy program that should emphasize strengthening and flexibility of the quadriceps and hamstring muscle groups. Use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication is also helpful to minimize the pain associated with chondromalacia. Treatment with surgery is declining in popularity for two reasons: good outcomes without surgery, and the small number of patients who actually benefit from surgical treatment.

Does this sound like your situation?

You're a self-proclaimed athlete--certainly in shape, but not quite a professional runner/cyclist/etc. You decide to train for the local 10-mile race, or perhaps even a marathon, maybe you're a cyclist who is riding more than usual. Your knee starts to give you trouble, so you see your doctor and are diagnosed with chondromalacia.

You're given the treatment for chondromalacia: rest, medications, exercises. You participate, to some degree, with these treatments, but the knee pain persists.

Why is chondromalacia a persistent problem?

I can't tell you how common this story is in an orthopedic surgeon's office. One of the most common problems we see is chondromalacia, and patients often take a long time to recover. Here is why the recovery from chondromalacia can be so difficult:

• You are doing activities your body is not ready for.
  Running 10 miles or a marathon is not a normal activity. You are asking your body to take on a terrific burden by participating in these activities. Often patients complain that "this doesn't seem to happen to others." Absolutely wrong! Nagging injuries in part-time athletes, even in professional athletes, are probably the most common reason for a visit to a sports medicine specialist. On top of asking your body to do some un-natural activities (running 20 miles is NOT natural), many patients spend the rest of their day at a desk. Then they set aside an hour or two to cram all their physical activity into the late afternoon.
  Don't get me wrong...distance running and other activities that cause chondromalacia are great for the body. The benefits to the heart, lungs, etc. far outweigh the knee pain of chondromalacia. But be understanding of the limits of your body. It is not abnormal for your body to develop symptoms of chondromalacia if you are a distance runner!
  
• You don't really participate in the treatment.
  This is certainly not true for everyone, but it is true for the majority of patients. If you want to rid yourself of chondromalacia, you MUST rest. Any activity that causes chondromalacia knee pain, be it a run, walking up steps, or anything else, is causing further irritation to the cartilage under the kneecap. You need to give your body a chance to heal. Many patients are given a knee strengthening program or sent to a physical therapist. The reason for this is not so much to make you stronger (the average patient with chondromalacia is quite strong), but to better balance the muscles around the knee. Without specific exercises to balance these muscles, and a proper stretching routine, the problem of chondromalacia will likely not be solved. Doing the exercises every day is an important part of treatment.
  
• You haven't set aside enough time to recover.
  Many patients have a race in two months, have the onset of chondromalacia, and expect a few days of backing off their training schedule should cure the problem. Sorry. You need several weeks, at a minimum, to allow the irritated cartilage to settle down. You'll then need several more weeks to slowly build up your activities in order to resume your training schedule.

Steady State Cardio or Intervals for Fat Loss???

Steady State Cardio or Intervals?

Many people stay away from interval training simply because it is HARD! Running at a slow pace for 30-40 minutes eventually becomes easy and you feel no need to increase the intensity because you still did a good amount of “cardio”.

The myth of the “fat burning zone” states that working at a lower intensity for a prolonged period of time will burn a higher percentage of calories from fat. This is true but your body adapts to these workouts quickly and you may burn more “fat calories” but in the end you burn LESS TOTAL calories. Another problem with steady state cardio is that as your body becomes more efficient, it begins to store more fat. Less calories are needed as your body adapts therefore fat is not being burned during exercise. You must vary intensities.

Interval workouts have the potential to burn the most amount of calories if they are done at a high enough intensity. A steady state cardio workout and a high intensity interval workout both done for 30 minutes may burn the same amount of calories during that 30 minutes. The benefit of intervals is that they raise your EPOC(excess post exercise oxygen consumption). EPOC is defined as the “recovery of metabolic rate back to pre exercise levels.” We all know that a higher metabolism = more calories burned. This can take several minutes for light exercise or several hours for higher intensity workouts. Essentially you will be burning more calories after your workout! This is why whether your doing cardio or lifting weights, you must get out of your comfort zone.When you are uncomfortable you’re working at a higher intensity that will allow for a raised metabolism post workout for a longer period of time. Also, because of this afterburn effect, your sprint workouts can generally be much shorter than your steady state cardio workouts. So if your strapped for time, which most of us are, then intervals are your answer!

How long should your intervals be?

Generally the shorter the sprint time, the longer the rest. For example, if you are running a 15 second sprint, your rest should be anywhere from 60 seconds to 120 seconds.(1:4-1:8 work:rest) This is assuming that your 15 second sprint is extremely difficult(70 to 90 %). The longer your sprint intervals are, the shorter your rest should be.

15 second sprint (1:4-1:8)

30 second sprint (1:1 - 1:3)

45-60 second sprint(1:1-1:2)

Sprint intervals may not be a good starting point for an individual who is untrained and is beginning a workout program. In this case, some steady state cardio would probably be best to build a aerobic base along with some resistance training.

If you like to go for long slow runs, you don’t have to stop, just don’t replace a weight training workout or a sprint workout with a slow run. If you have the extra time, then go for it!

Steady state cardio is the least effective workout prescription compared to resistance training and interval training. So next time you go to the gym, walk past the elliptical, pick up some heavy weights and do some sprints!

“Interval training is like putting your savings in a high interest savings account. Low intensity aerobics is like hiding your money under your mattress. Both will work but the return you get is radically different” -Rachel Cosgrove