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SLEEPMONSTERS !
Alcohol and exercise
Brain food for exercise
How to meet energy requirements
Metabolic syndrome - fact or fiction?
The Glycaemic Index
Carbohydrates Don’t Abandon the Science
Go for Fit!
Fluid thoughts...
Fuelling Training
Tackling Festive Over-indulgence
Diet and Diabetes
Optimising your Chances against the Big C
Beyond the label - Energy drinks
Hearty Thoughts
Dem Bones Dem Bones
A Thirst for Health and Energy
Obesity's rising, but the solution is simple!
Energy for Fitness, for Health
Understanding the role of diet and exercise in weight loss
What is a healthy diet?
Take a Fresh Look at Fat
Exercise, Nutrition and Immunity
Water In and Water Out - The Importance of Hydration and Exercise
SLEEPMONSTERS !
The website sleepmonsters.co.uk is unique as there is no other website or magazine covering adventure and endurance sports in depth. Sleepmonsters provides extensive race reports and training advice. The Sugar Bureau has worked in conjunction with the managing editor of Sleepmonsters to produce a nutrition section for the website. This is updated monthly. Learn more about the contribution of good nutrition to success in your sporting challenge. The site explains the how to make best use of carbohydrates, including sugar, to support training and competition. It focuses on fluid requirements and how to tell if you are getting these right. It also outlines the correct use of vitamin and mineral supplements and raises the lid on protein supplements.
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Alcohol and exercise
It is well known that carbohydrate is vital for sporting and exercise performance as it is the primary fuel for muscle contraction. Equally, keeping well hydrated or at least minimizing dehydration through sweat loss is vital both in training and competition. So where does alcohol fit in? It has a calorie value and it is a liquid so can it also help to keep you fuelled up and hydrated?
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Brain food for exercise
When we exercise, we almost always think about eating for energy and, more specifically, fuelling up the muscles for maximum performance. The amount, composition and timing of food intake can profoundly affect sports performance. Good nutritional practice will help exercisers train hard, recover quickly, and adapt more effectively, with less risk of illness and injury. Carbohydrates are undoubtedly good for endurance and are the preferred fuel for working muscles, but what is often forgotten is that carbohydrates are also essential to keep the brain working too. This is a major consideration to help improve performance and avoid injury. Help your clients to feed their brains and get the best from their exercise sessions by advising them to eat a carbohydrate-rich breakfast and regular meals and snacks throughout the day.
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How to meet energy requirements
Active people must be healthy to take part in exercise. An important part of being healthy is to eat a balanced diet, which includes a wide variety of foods and enough energy to cope with the individual’s exercise requirements. Too high an energy intake will result in weight gain and too little will hinder training. Those who undertake fairly light occasional exercise should aim for a well balanced diet. Those who train more seriously will need to pay more detailed attention to some aspects of the diet especially carbohydrate, protein, fat and fluid intakes.
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Metabolic syndrome - fact or fiction?
Do you have high blood pressure; abdominal obesity (a beer belly); abnormal cholesterol; insulin resistance or impaired glucose control? Even if you don’t, you may be at risk in the future, especially if you are inactive and eat too much. You may just have one of these serious conditions, or you may be unfortunate enough to have a couple. These conditions are associated with an increased risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Whilst such ‘risk factors’ may occur in isolation, they are often seen in combination – as a result the term ‘metabolic syndrome’ has been coined to describe a cluster of risk factors for chronic disease. Over the last few months there has been hot debate over the frightening sounding ‘metabolic syndrome’. Does it exist and is it helpful to label people with this ‘syndrome’?
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The Glycaemic Index
Many people enter the active market to lose weight and become healthier. Others state they want to get fit and firm up, tone their body and improve overall muscle tone (1). Whatever the reason, most clients starting out on the exercise trail (and of course those who become committed regular exercisers) usually want to know about their diet. They want to know what to eat, when to eat it and how much to eat. They are also exposed to an enormous amount of information in the media and on the internet, including of course the current ‘diet of the moment’. Since the decline of the high protein diet, the use of diets with a low glycaemic index (GI) has moved in. A low GI diet is not a low fat diet, a low carbohydrate diet or a high protein diet and it is not about cutting sugar. A low GI diet promotes eating lean meats, fish, poultry and eggs, low fat dairy foods, legumes and nuts, and the low GI varieties of bread, pasta, breakfast cereals, rice, noodles and fruit and vegetables. So, is the GI diet the next fad diet or the best science-based diet ever?
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Carbohydrates Don’t Abandon the Science
Athletes, overweight individuals, trainers, sports dietitians/nutritionists, coaches - everyone wants a simple life - it is human nature. Everyone wants a simple answer, an easy statement which covers all eventualities. Rarely in life does such an answer exists and in the areas of sports nutrition and weight reduction we already know that each individual is different and needs to be offered advice that suits their lifestyle, training etc.
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Go for Fit!
In our heart of hearts we probably all know how good exercise is for our health and well being. So why is it that all too often our good intentions, especially New Year's resolutions, fall by the way-side? Ok, let’s face it if you’re reading this magazine there's a high probability that you’re already a convert! But with 50% of women and 35% of men reportedly doing zero exercise you’ve probably got some friends and family members that need a helping hand even if you don't!
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Fluid thoughts...
We are all now more aware that it's vital we drink plenty of fluids to stay fully hydrated. But how much do we need? In essence, we need to drink enough to replace what is lost - in urine, sweat and even our breath. Of course this varies from person to person - a lot depending on age, climate, and physical activity levels. But, the general recommendation is that we need to drink about 2-3 litres of fluids a day - about half of this normally comes from food and half from drinks.
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Fuelling Training
Life in the world of sport revolves around training and competition. To be able to sustain training, as well as strive for performance improvements - be it skill, power, strength, speed or endurance - you need to be able to recover between one training session and the next. If you want to be able to perform to the best of your ability then you need the best advice. In June 2003, the top sports nutrition scientists from across the world met to produce a new International Olympic Committee (IOC) Consensus Statement on Sports Nutrition. I have recently completed a book ‘Fuelling Fitness for Sports Performance’, based on the full IOC manuscripts, so thought it would be timely to highlight in this article some of the key sports nutrition issues that came out of the IOC Consensus Conference.
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Tackling Festive Over-indulgence
Despite all our good intentions we tend to over-indulge a bit at Christmas. So we now find ourselves feeling a bit out-of condition and looking round the corner for the next diet trend. Stop right there! Sure, there’s an abundance of fad diets offering that magical fast solution to weight loss, from detox diets, to diets emphasising single foods (e.g. cabbage soup), or nutrients (e.g. high protein), or disallowing certain combinations of foods (e.g. food combining), to diets with physiological links that supposedly dictate what you can and can’t eat (e.g. blood groups). But are the diets based on sound evidence or just wishful thinking?
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Diet and Diabetes
Following on with our in-depth look into serious health issues facing both ourselves and our clients, we will be turning our attention to diabetes for the Spring edition of Health & Vitality. Considering that the incidence of diabetes continues to rise, and the likelihood of development has a strong genetic link, any new information that comes to light has important implications for many of us. Recently, both the UK and the American Diabetes Association (ADA) have released revised nutrition guidelines to help improve the treatment and prevention of diabetes. This advice will be of great interest not only to the estimated 2.4 million people who have diabetes in the UK, but also to their families and relatives. So let’s take a look at the key dietary recommendations for people with diabetes.
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Optimising your Chances against the Big C
Sadly, the Big C - cancer - seems to be all around us, with many of us knowing someone who has been diagnosed with cancer. In the UK, there are more than 267,000 new cases each year - that's over 700 a day. With more than one in three of us being diagnosed with cancer during our lifetime, it's not surprising that it's often the disease we fear the most. So what can we do to optimise our chances? Well, without doubt, for our general health and well-being we should eat a healthy balanced diet and take part in regular physical activity.
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Beyond the label - Energy drinks
Bizarre as it may seem water is not formally a nutrient, yet without it we could only survive for a maximum of 2-7 days - of course a lot depends on temperature and exercise levels. In contrast, depending on our body fuel stores, we could actually survive without food for more than 60 days! In this article we're going to focus on how much we ought to be drinking for our health and unravel which ingredients have the scientific potential to truly give us energy.
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Hearty Thoughts
Introduction
Welcome to the ninth ‘Health & Vitality’ article, where we endeavour to bring you the latest scientific evidence in relation to nutrition, exercise and health. When it comes to health right at the top of our concern list should be our heart! But, despite the fact that coronary heart disease (CHD) is largely preventable, it remains the single most common cause of death in the UK. With one in six women and one in four men dying from CHD it’s fairly obvious that we’re not doing enough! Sure, genetics and a family history of heart disease puts us at a greater risk of developing CHD, but even if we think a family has ‘good hearts’ there’s no room for complacency, and if there is CHD in a family, then their lifestyle certainly needs a closer look. So take heart and read-on to find out how diet and activity levels can put us all on the right path to a healthy heart.
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Dem Bones Dem Bones
Welcome to the eighth ‘Health & Vitality’ article, where will be focusing on the latest scientific evidence in relation to bone health. Prior to coming to work at The Sugar Bureau I spent six years in academic research at MRC Human Nutrition Research in Cambridge investigating the influence of lifestyle on bone health - so bones are something I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about! There’s certainly no shortage of information regarding exercise, nutrition and health, but how often does it focus on the health of our skeleton? Well, considering how devastating osteoporosis can be - probably not enough! So let’s take a look at the key role physical activity has to play in building and maintaining a strong healthy skeleton and - let’s not forget its important companion diet - unveil what we need to eat to keep our bones healthy.
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A Thirst for Health and Energy
Welcome to the seventh ‘Health & Vitality’ article, where The Sugar Bureau and Professional Fitness come together to bring you the latest scientific thinking surrounding nutrition and health issues. Bizarre as it may seem water is not formally a nutrient, yet without it we could only survive for a maximum of 2-7 days - of course a lot depends on temperature and exercise levels. In contrast, depending on our body fuel stores, we could actually survive without food for more than 60 days! So in this article we're going to focus on how much we ought to be drinking for our health and unravel which ingredients have the scientific potential to truly give us energy.
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Obesity's rising, but the solution is simple!
Despite all the warnings that obesity is a serious health problem, obesity rates continue to rise. And it's not just in America. Currently, in the UK over half of the adult population are either overweight or obese. Being overweight is not just a cosmetic issue it can seriously damage your health. Excess weight not only increases the risk of heart disease, type II diabetes and certain cancers, but it will also knock years off your life not to mention the effect it will have on the quality of your life while your living. However, surveys reveal that obesity is still ranked lower than many other health concerns.
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Energy for Fitness, for Health
It seems we get told two key things with regards to our health - eat a healthy balanced diet and take part in regular exercise. These two things are however not separate - you can’t keep up a regular exercise programme without fuelling it with the right diet. And, if we wanted to take it a stage further and rank one above the other - well, it seems that there is an increasing amount of scientific evidence pointing towards exercise as being the most important component to enhance our life quality and expectancy.
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Understanding the role of diet and exercise in weight loss
The Sugar Bureau commissioned a survey with the Gallup Organisation to investigate whether we have become a nation of serial dieters. The results revealed that a shocking one in four UK adults were currently on a diet, with one in ten dieters saying that they were ‘constantly’ on a diet. Yet, we are getting fatter as a nation. With statistics like this, undoubtedly fitness professionals will have several clients seeking advice on losing weight. Although there is no short supply of information on dieting, much of it is contradictory leading to confusion.
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What is a healthy diet?
Like all nutritionists we are frequently asked - ‘What is a healthy balanced diet?’ In simple terms it is everything in moderation from a variety of foods. Firstly why moderation? Well, anything consumed to excess could unbalance the diet and in the case of some nutrients - fat and alcohol in particular - it could also lead to health problems. As for variety, this will not only make your diet more interesting and enjoyable, but will also help ensure that the requirements for all the micronutrients - vitamins and minerals - are met.
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Take a Fresh Look at Fat
Dietary fat really takes a beating in the media - but are all the attacks justified? We’ve asked an Accredited Sports Dietitian to take a closer look at the role of fat and tackle some of the myths along the way. We are all aware that carbohydrates - both sugary and starchy sources - are important to fuel an active lifestyle. We also know that too much fat may not be such a good thing. However, this does not mean no fat! So read-on to unravel the mystery surrounding dietary fats...
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Exercise, Nutrition and Immunity
In this article we will be investigating the importance of nutrition in relation to the immune system and highlighting appropriate nutrient choices for those individuals with high levels of activity. You may be surprised to learn that carbohydrates - both sugary and starchy sources - play such a vital role. We hope this article provides you with a useful insight on how to fuel-up for the good of your immune system!
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Water In and Water Out - The Importance of Hydration and Exercise
Let's talk about sweat. We all do it - but understanding why we sweat helps us realise how important it is that we stay properly hydrated. During exercise our muscles use ATP energy. ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is a high-energy molecule consisting of three phosphates attached by energy bonds to adenosine. Therefore, each time a phosphate is broken off energy is released. However, the muscles only use about 25% of the energy, with the other 75% being released as heat - which is why exercise makes you hot! Consequently, we need to get rid of this excess heat otherwise our body will overheat.
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