Health Kick: energy systems
Finding the right sport for you can be a tumultuous process, especially as a young adult. Many an athlete first joined their sport as a child, simply because the current of their life happened to push in that direction.
Hangover helpers
In an article published in Better Nutrition, Kimberly Retzlaff wrote about curing hangovers the natural way. Her advice is to take preventative steps before, during and after.
A day at the gym: Some pressing complaints
Gyms tend to be a gathering place for all kinds of highly-annoying people.
Health Kick: don’t let your workout burnout
Burnout is completely preventable in most cases. One just needs to know the signs, and react accordingly. Sometimes the best move is to just leave sport before the symptoms get worse.
Health Kick: supplements
Though I’m not about to completely call for the boycotting of all supplements, it’s worth saying that with the right nutritional intake, supplements are, for the most part, unnecessary.
Increasing food allergies: the danger of self-diagnosis
Self-diagnosing is quite cumbersome, and can easily have false results. It is impossible to tell whether it is allergies, food intolerances or chemical sensitivity. Failing to identify a serious allergy could have bad results. Alternatively, you could omit food out of your diet with great inconvenience needlessly. A doctor would perform a basic blood or skin prick test, with generally reliable results.
Health Kick: (don’t) hit the wall
Hitting the wall basically means your glycogen stores have been depleted, and your body becomes forced to rely solely on fat reserves.
There ain’t no cure for seasonal allergies
Spring is in the air, and, as allergy sufferers know so well, so is pollen.
Health Kick: Nutrition
People are hesitant to make large changes in the way they eat, because they see a massive change in front of them that will take a long time to understand and implement. It takes more work than they are really willing to give. It can be especially difficult when you’re dealing with a plethora of other concerns, such as school, work, relationships, etc. There are, however, many small changes you can make that take very little time to implement, and take very little work on your part.
What’s the big whoop: Pertusis goes viral in the Fraser Valley
By now, most people reading this know there’s been an outbreak of whooping cough in the Fraser Valley. For those of you that haven’t heard – hey, there’s been an outbreak of whooping cough in the Fraser Valley!
Health Kick: the importance of sleep
A common misconception is that working out is what grows muscle. At first glance, it certainly appears so: during and after your workout, your body’s muscle groups are tight, which causes them to look larger than they normally are. What workouts actually do is cause light damage to muscle tissue.
Ecological Eating part two: from happy cows to bird-repellant soaked Grapples
The second part of a two part series on organic food options, focusing on available choices grown in the Fraser Valley
Fitocracy uses social networking to encourage active lifestyle
A new social networking site has been rapidly gaining members and public attention as of late. Though still in beta, the site has been online since 2010, and it has been slowly accumulating its members through an invite-only system. The premise of the website is to turn fitness into a game, thereby motivating members to exercise more in order to get a higher score. The name of the game? Fitocracy.
Ecological Eating: Behind the hype of certified organic
Though British Columbia accounts for just 13 per cent of Canada’s population, it also accounts for 26 per cent of organic food purchases made in Canada. However, there are some important things to understand about organic food that aren’t yet widely known facts.
Health kick: stay hydrated, folks
Whenever people look for new ways to improve their fitness or health, there are two broad categories to which they immediately spring: diet and regular exercise. However one of the most important categories is often overlooked, and it is also one of the easiest to maintain: hydration.
Health Kick: Giving it 110%
Have you ever heard someone say “you should be doing this run at 60 per cent effort” or “do these sets at 80 per cent,” without having any idea what they’re on about? Sixty per cent of what?
Typically when you hear those sorts of comments from a coach or a health instructor, they’re referring to percentages of your maximum possible effort, or more directly, your maximum possible heart rate. Trouble is, most people don’t actually know what their max heart rate is, so they end up working at a different effort level than what’s required for the workout. Making these unguided decisions can actually be extremely detrimental if you’re training for a specific goal, such as losing weight or becoming competent at the 100m dash. Training at different intensity levels trains your body to do different things.
Pumped Up Health Kick: Pressing on with your plan
Hopefully by this point you haven’t packed it in yet. And if you haven’t dropped out, then you’re probably thinking about it. “What have I gotten myself into? Maybe I’m just going to hurt myself. Am I ready for this kind of commitment?” Fretting about it will get you nowhere. Well, it will get you back on the couch in a hurry. But that wasn’t the goal you originally set out to do (right? If so, you have some weird and inefficient goals). Luckily there are some motivational strategies that can stave off these negative thoughts, some of them being as simple as changing your social circle. And now is the time to start implementing these special tactics: before you can stop yourself from achieving your own goals.
Getting started: equipment and your first week
With your goals and potential exercises in mind, the next step is to actually go do them. This is where most people get hung up. They’ll start to run a few times a week, develop a sore hip after two days, and then never run again. My goal is to not let that happen to you, assumedly avid reader. Let’s talk about what can be done.
How to follow through: New Years fitness resolutions
New Years has come and gone, and with its passing comes another installment of resolutions that are needlessly doomed to failure. Goals involving health and fitness often gets buried behind a number of seemingly more important tasks, like studying for a final, or watching Grey’s Anatomy. But don’t despair! You’ve come to the right place for the tools you need to start your health and fitness goals, whatever they may be. And, most importantly, what you need to know to see them through.
Tryptophan: the skinny on turkey
Tryptophan is an amino acid. It’s one of 20 standard amino acids, and is essential to the human diet. It’s perhaps best known outside of the science world for being the stuff that’s in turkey that makes us sleepy
Easing into the workout routine
Maybe students are like weekend warriors, except with semesters instead of weeks – we do all of our working out during the time off between terms. If so, the time to get back into shape is soon approaching
Vitamin D: we live in a dark world
Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin, and that in itself poses a problem. As students holed away during the final weeks of our semester, and as Canadians, we don’t see much sunshine, some questioning if it even exists. So how do we get our daily intake?
Soy bad for you?
One aspect of the health concerns regarding soy products is the fact that Canada does not legally require companies to label their food products if they contain genetically modified soy. Many studies have been shown to demonstrate the dangers of genetically modified soy; increased risk of cancer, rats with damaged immune systems, and reduced cognitive function are principal among the negative results.
Vitamin C: more than just oranges
Vitamin C is also known as L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate. Our bodies don’t produce it and aren’t that good at storing it, so it’s one of those things that we need to ensure is present in our diet. Why, you ask?
