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Is Sweating good for you? – Part 1

sweating

Sweating at the gym or while exercising in the outdoors is fine. But, sweating in the office or during a date is not so cool. Having pit stains while at a special dinner or having sweating palms while shaking hands is very unpleasant.

Every human being sweats-just not for the same reasons though or in the same amounts.  Sweating, also known as perspiration is the production of fluids secreted by sweat glands in your skin. Perspiration is caused by multiple reasons like genetics, anxiety, high temperatures and also exertion from exercise.

Sweating is the body’s way of reducing its internal temperature to maintain a normal body temperature, responding to outside environment. To put it simply, it is an essential body process designed to help your body stay cool

One should go along with natures rule in summer or while doing a physical activity when it’s time to sweat. Ideally do not bear the heat by running the air conditioners thus compromising on the immune system and neglecting your health. But, some may wonder whether it is beneficial to encourage your body to sweat more for reasons beyond temperature control.

Every human being is born with anywhere between 2 to 4 million sweat glands. And the number of such glands you have will determine, in part, how much your sweat. While women generally have more sweat glands than men, men’s glands tend to be more active and produce more sweat.

An international newspaper had once published an article on Sweating and concluded that Sweating per se, provides no health benefits aside from preventing overheating. But, I believe that sweating does have health benefits. Here is a look at these benefits.

Sweat has many health and beauty related benefits, all for your good.

# Sweating can reduce your cholesterol and sodium levels thus improving cardiovascular health.

# Sweating helps the body regulate its temperature & cool down.

# Sweating helps the skin release toxins and heavy metals, such as mercury and lead.

# Sweat has some amount of antibiotics that destroys skin bacteria.

# Sweat unclogs skin pores thus improving your skin tone, clarity and texture. And also helps eliminate blackheads and acne.

# Exercise associated with sweat releases endorphins into the body, making you feel happier and less stressed.

Some international research has also indicated that people who exercise, and therefore sweat more have a lower risk of kidney stones.

Sweating is a natural and necessary mechanism occurring on its own with great health benefits. However, excessive sweating also called hyperhidrosis is not good. Just remember while normally sweat do not forget to stay hydrated to replenish what’s lost.

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A Perfect Supper

supper

Since time immemorial, we have been hearing this phrase “Breakfast like a King, Lunch like a Prince and Dinner like a Pauper”. Though this phrase is very true and most of us may or may not agree to it, the question is, how many of us actually follow it?

I have come across people who eat absolutely minimal or may even skip meals during the day and then wonder why they are not shedding any weight even though they are consuming less calories. The answer lies in their ‘very much elaborate dinners’!

In today’s fast paced and busy lives, it’s become very common that people tend to have very less or almost skip their breakfast as they need to rush to work. Lunch is had at the desk more often than not, either alone or with the colleagues, which may be less enjoyable. At times, due to time constraints, lunch gets compromised. All these factors lead to a limited food intake through the day. Result: Body deprived of energy through the day -> Feels excessively hungry in the latter half of the day -> over eating/ bingeing occurs during dinner. At times, we don’t just feel hungry but we might even ‘crave’ for some junk and thereby succumb to binging on junk food items which then results in fat storage.

For majority of us, dinner is the meal which we look forward to as most of the families consider dinner as an opportunity to catch up with the family members, interact with each other, laugh and have a good time, and dinner perfectly serves the purpose! While we relish various delicacies together and get busy talking to each other, there are high chances of us eating more than we actually want to.

Isn’t this scenario exactly opposite to the saying that we discussed at the top? Oh yes! It is! This is where the root cause of weight gain lies.

You’ll be surprised to know that just getting the dinner correct has helped people get their weight under control. It works like magic! It’s very simple and quite logical. Body has enough time to metabolize the food and shed off the extra calories consumed through the day as our activity levels are at peak during the daytime. As the day ends, our activity levels drop and so does the metabolic rate. Thus, the caloric consumption should ideally taper by the end of the day. However, if we load our body with a huge amount of calories at night, it has higher chances of pushing the calories into fat storage thereby leading to weight gain.

Now how do we tackle this? The very first solution is having a heavy breakfast. If you are running short of time, carry a mid-morning snack with you e.g. A fruit/Nuts/Dry fruits/Yogurt is a good for you. Second most important factor is to have a heavy evening snack by around 5-6 pm. Consuming an evening snack keeps us full, cuts down the junk cravings and thus automatically reduces our intake during dinner. It’s very important to choose the evening snacks wisely. It could be a bowl of sprouts/a whole wheat bread veggie sandwich/boiled corn with chopped veggies and herbs/boiled egg or paneer roll with whole wheat base/a bowl of roasted chanas or nuts. I am sure dishes like these would satiate your hunger and when you would go ahead for your dinner, you wouldn’t be very much hungry.

So your dinner could be – Start with a bowl of mix veggie soup/salad, then move on to a bowl of stir-fried veggies (that covers the carb/fiber component and certain vitamins-minerals) along with a bowl of roasted paneer cubes/sprouts/grilled chicken or fish/boiled eggs (that covers the protein and fat component). In this way, we can ensure a light yet balanced meal covering all the macronutrients along with micros (vitamins-minerals). Ofcourse you can make this meal delicious in your own ways by using various herbs and spices to delight your taste buds.

Remember to keep a gap of 2 to 3 hours between your bed time and this meal to avoid gastric discomfort.

Last but not the least, eat this meal absolutely mindfully, which means, eat slower, take smaller bites, savour every bite and thoroughly enjoy it with your family, making the experience absolutely joyful!

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Myth about Spot Reduction

Myth about Spot Reduction
One of the common questions as a fitness trainer I have encountered is if spot reduction- reducing fat from a particular area is possible or not?

If a gym client has a problem collecting more fat around the abdominal area or generally a woman collecting more fat around the lower body they always request the trainers to give them more exercises for the abs or the lower body. But, is spot reduction actually possible? or is it a myth?

As a teenager we collect less amount of fat despite eating all the junk food. One major reason for this is while in the youth, the amount of muscle mass that we carry is more as compared to an elderly person. Hence, the BMR of a youth is quite high when as a teenager and it remains high up to the age of 24 or 25 years of age. Post 25, the degeneration sets in and the muscle mass starts to decline. Muscle being a metabolically active tissue contributes towards increasing the BMR. With the muscle mass degenerating, the BMR also drops and the individual starts collecting fat all over the body. But, in every individual there is a spot where he/she collects more fat then the other parts of the body.

The collection of fat in particular spots is dictated by an individual’s genetics. When, I say pre-decided by genetics, it means that it runs in the family. It is now important to understand how this happens?

Here we need to understand the role of 2 important hormones in our body

1)      Insulin and 2) Glucagon.

Insulin acts like a transporter of micro and macro nutrients into the liver and muscle cells. Insulin also plays a role of maintaining the blood sugar levels after a high carbohydrate meal by lowering the blood sugar levels and avoids a person from going into Hyperglycemia (high blood sugar levels).

Glucagon on the other hand is a hormone that again maintains blood sugar levels by increasing the blood sugar level during long hours of starvation or when an individual lowers the carbohydrate intake in his meals. Here, glucagon plays the role of raising the blood sugar levels and avoids the state of hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar levels).

After having simple carbohydrates such as sugar, chocolates, white rice, white bread, some fruits with high glycemic index, potatoes and other starch, the conversion of these foods into sugar is very fast and it increases the blood sugar levels.

Please note the sugar that is stored within the muscle as muscle glycogen is preserved by the body for any high intense anaerobic activity that we perform in our day to day activity (like running fast or lifting some heavy object etc)

In order to loose fat, a person needs to cut down on simple carbohydrates and keep complex carbohydrate in a reduced quantity (as and when required) as well as start in taking good amount of fibres and protien.When carbohydrates are reduced,
the body is deprived of energy so it starts surviving on the blood sugar for energy. The blood sugar levels drop then to normal thereby leading to hypoglycemia. This activates the pancreas to release Glucagon.

Glucagon starts to maintain the blood sugar levels by raising it. Since the sugar inflex is reduced from outside, the glucagon has no option but to use liver glycogen to raise the blood sugar levels. Once, the liver storage of glycogen is over, it moves to the muscle glycogen. Muscle glycogen is not released by the body as it is reserved for a high intense activity. Now glucagon has no other option but to move towards the fat cell to get energy for survival. Here, one more enzyme known as the HSL (Hormone sensitive lipase) which is on the fat cell allows the triglycerides to exit from the fat cell in the form of free fatty acid into the blood stream and it is used up by the tissues as a source of energy.

This is already programmed by our genetics and cannot be changed through any exercise or spot reduction techniques.

Performing abdominal exercises will definitely strengthen the abdominal muscles which will help an individual to increase his or her functionality in day to day activities as well as it will also help in lifting a decent poundage in functional movements like squats, Lunges, Bendover rows, Overhead presses and Regular deadlifts. But, abdominal exercises DO NOT give you a spot reduction. Hence, the intention of abdominal workout is increasing strength of the abdomen and not spot reduction.

Fat loss is all throughout the body because it catogorized as BODY FAT and not fat of the abdomen, arms, back, chest or legs.

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Stay Fit Stay Healthy

Stay Fit Stay Healthy
All of us are keen on being fit. Most often we keep complaining about being overweight and therefore I need to do something about it. The most common thing said is, “I am going to go for a jog every morning, so I will lose weight”.

Other common assumptions that people have is that if they walk to office or home they do not have to do any other workout, yoga is the best way of keeping fit,  I have brought dumbbells at home so I am doing workouts at home and so on…

Is this correct?  As I mentioned in my previous blog (http://goqii.com/blog/benefits-of-physical-activities-part-2/) every person must invest minimum 3 days a week in physical activities as per American College of Sports &Medicine (ACSM) guidelines.

To improve Health we must focus on basic health related components of the fitness.

Focus on basic components of Fitness

  • Cardiovascular Endurance or cardiovascular fitness

It is the major component of fitness. The word Cardio means heart. It is also known as cardio respiratory fitness and aerobic fitness. It refers to the capacity of heart, lungs and the vascular system to supply oxygenated blood to the working muscles tissue and the muscle capacity to use that oxygen which helps in producing the movements. If we involve ourselves in cardiovascular fitness regularly, the heart becomes stronger and efficient to supply oxygenated blood to the body. Cardiovascular exercise should be done for prolong period of time. These include jogging, running, cycling, swimming, skipping, aerobics and lots of exercise.

 

  • Muscular Strength

Muscular strength refers to the ability or a capacity of lifting a weight. This activity is fall under anaerobic zone because in this workout oxygen is not used .To improve muscular strength we need to do weight training.

 

  • Muscular Endurance

Muscular endurance refers to the performance of the repetitive contraction for extended or prolonged period of time. The exercise may be for the single muscle or the group of muscles. Activity which is more than fifteen seconds but less than two minutes includes in the muscular endurance training. Weight training helps to improve muscular endurance.

 

 

  • Flexibility

Flexibility refers to a range of joint motions. Stretching can help improve flexibility. Dynamic stretches are done before we start our exercises. Static stretches are done after the workout during the cool down phase. During, static stretching we need to hold each stretch minimum fifteen seconds to get maximum benefits.

 

  • Body Composition

Body composition refers to the ratio between fat mass and fats free mass in the body More the muscle and less body fat is consider a great body composition. More fats and fewer muscles indicate poor body composition. Greater body composition can be achieved with following the above basic components of fitness such as muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance and flexibility with the support of balance nutrition.

In as short if you are only jogging or brisk walking does not help. You have to look at the entire exercise components to achieve the necessary fitness and health goals. You can do alternates days of weight training and cardiovascular exercise. Following the above routine is one of the best examples of targeting all the components of the fitness.

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