We don’t pay much attention to the water we drink. It’s not a concern to most people, which is strange when you consider that the body consists of roughly 69% water.
Fun fact: tap water has lots of chemicals like fluoride, antibiotics and other waste products. 1
In his book The Water Puzzle and the Hexagonal Key, Jhon says that from a biological and medical point of view, de-mineralized water is simply not healthy to drink.
In fact, Japanese water experts consider de-mineralized water as “dead” water, while mineral-rich water is referred to as “living” water.
De-mineralized water is not found in nature. Nor does is it promote growth or health of living organisms.
Among the daily bottled waters we are drinking, there’s a couple of common types which are the following
I don’t know many people that get riled up when a 10k run on the treadmill is on the menu.
And fair enough, it’s not exactly spectacular. Most people like stimulus, challenge and variety. Treadmill work doesn’t offer any of those, and therefore there’s a big chance you’ll find yourself thinking about other things to do, like binging on pizza and Netflix.
– Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that – , I actually happen to like both.
But for training purposes you might take a bit of a different approach.
Here’s the facts:
- Slow jogging is NOT effective for either weight loss or increasing aerobic capacity
- Slow and steady treadmill work is hard on the joints and connective tissue
- Slow jogging has a poor ROI (return on investment) in terms of calories and hormone response in the body
- Slow jogging is catabolic, and can cause you to lose muscle tissue (OH NO!!!)
The solution:
With the right approach, training on the Treadmill can be effective. You’ll get the most bang-for-your-buck when you try to focus on forms of training that have the ability to increase your Vo2 max* and create EPOC*.
Most of the time, these effects will be obtained from doing high intensity forms of cardio. In some cases this can even help you build muscle because of the necessary explosive demand on the type II muscle fibers and the increase of anabolic hormones such as testosterone, epinephrine and growth hormone rise.
Before getting into the real stuff , get a sense of what it’s like to perform on HIT and see what happens to your Heart-rate during and after.
This is what you do:
Get on the treadmill and do a 3-5 min warm-up. Soon as you’re starting to lightly sweat, you’re ready to begin.
Your goal is to run 1 kilometer as fast as possible. There’s two approaches to this.
- choose a steady phase and stick to it. (for example, 11.5km/h will make you do a 5 min KM)
- choose a medium phase with 30 second higher speed intervals
After you’ve finished. Note your time and Heart-rate. Take a moment to rest and repeat, trying to beat your previous score.
After you’ve tried this a couple of times you’ll get familiar with pushing the intensity and you’ll learn how to deal with the feeling that comes with a higher heart rate.
Give this a try and I’ll guarantee you won’t have much time to be bored. Post the results below this post so I get an idea of how slow I am compared to you all 😉
My first attempt: 5 min 8 seconds , Heart Rate 110 (you can probably draw your conclusions on how hard I “pushed” it on this one)
Happy running! More workouts will follow soon.
Mark Chen
MarkChenMovement.com
PS. If you’re interested in investing in your own treadmill, check out this research into the top models currently available: https://www.reviews.com/treadmills
*Google is your friend, my friend… I’ll do write ups about them later, promise.
Vitamin B1 (theamine): What, Why and how much?
Vitamin B1 is essential for converting fuel into energy (ATP). Is used as a cofactor for pyruvate to be converted to acetyl coa.
Also, it is important for:
– Function of cardiac muscle
-Function of the nervous system
-Supporting the immune system
– Enhancing learning abilities
– Handling stress
RDA for B1 is 1.1 mg per day for women and men.
Good sources of Vitamin B1:
Wholemeal products such as oatmeal, whole wheat pasta
Meats
Legumes such as peas and kidney beans
Milk and other dairy products
Soy milk
Source: Healthbeckon.com
A deficiency of B1 can cause muscle weakness, apathy, irritability and confusion. These deficits only really happen for people in countries where little meat, dairy and whole grain products are consumed.
Alcohol and B1
Alcohol causes a drastic increase in the need for vitamin B1. For frequent alcohol is often paired with less consumption of nutritious food. This can lead to the well known Wernicke-Korsakoffsyndroom, characterized by confusion, memory loss, and uncontrolled movements.
Mark Chen
Markchenmovement.com
Vitamin C: What, why and how much?
In a nutshell:
– Anti-oxidant
– Helps with absorption of iron
– cofactor in collagen formation
Antioxidants:
These protect cells and DNA against the vices of oxygen. Some oxygen-using processes such as the burning of fats and carbohydrates, by-products (free radicals) are released.
These materials can affect DNA, proteins, cholesterol and cell membranes. These substances are also found in polluted air, certain foods,drinks, cigarette smoke and sunlight (a surplus amount).
Antioxidants help to neutralize these free radicals. There are many different types but vitamin C and E are the best known.
There is a lot of evidence that consuming enough antioxidants help in fighting heart disease, stroke and many other chronic diseases.
Vitamin C also helps form collagen. This is a protein structure that forms the basis for our connective tissue, such as bones, teeth, blood vessels, skin, cartilage, tendons. This collagen also functions as a sort of “glue” if you have a wound.
RDA (Recommended Daily Amount) of vitamin C is 75 mg, although sometimes 1000mg doses are used.
Good sources of Vitamin C:
– citrus fruit
– tropical fruit
– Summer Fruit
– cabbages such as cauliflower and broccoli
– green vegetables like spinach and lettuce
– tomatoes
Important Fact:
Vitamin C is sensitive to exposure to oxygen, heat and sunlight. If orange juice is pressed, there will be oxygen present. If then the juice is stored in a transparent bottle, it may well be that the bottle in the supermarket contains a hugely reduced amount of vitamin C compared to the orange where it comes from!
As a rule of thumb, try to get the vitamins from the full food rather than a processed product!
Mark Chen
Markchenmovement.com
After being on Ketosis with some of my clients for about 8 weeks, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good grip on what it is, what it does and how to decide it’s something for you.
This is what I’ve learned:
- You’ll lose weight fast. I’ve dropped down from 83kg to 76kg in 6.5 weeks with a 3.5% drop in fat mass
- Clients who were strict dropped around 5-8 Kg in 8 weeks, the ones that were not strict dropped significantly less
- Cheat meals or “refeed” meals didn’t seem to affect weight loss
- Energy levels were great and steady
- No noticeable drop in performance during workouts
So what is the Ketosis diet ?
Easily put, Ketosis is a state in which the body prefers to use fat as an energy source. This state can be achieved by depleting the bodies’ storage of carbohydrates. Once you get into this state, your body will be running with fat as fuel. It takes around 3 days of strict dieting to get into this fat-burning mode but once you do, there’s lots of benefits. A lot of people, myself included, describe a feeling of being “on”. Having a clear and clean mindset, good energy and lots of motivation. No dips in energy that we know and hate from our carb-splurges.
Marnie Sablan has a great explanatory video on her Youtube Channel which you can see here:
By the way, I’m not familiar with the product promoted in the end nor do I have any type of affiliate connection with them. I just think it’s very well explained.
What to do if you’re interested in starting a Ketosis diet?
There’s some excellent sources that can help you on your way (Pm me for more info and I’ll gladly set you up), but it’s important that you start to practice some mindfulness to your eating. Try and analyse your diet and see how much or your daily intake comes from carbs. It will typically take you a week or so get a hang of it. From then, it’s a matter of doing the right kind of shopping.
Shop for meat, fish, eggs, nuts and greens. But be careful, there’s even some vegetables that are on the no-no list!
It’s important to be strict, because even a small amount of carbs can “kick” you out of Ketosis and that will hurt your progress.
Be strict and you’ll be amazed at how great it is!
Mark Chen
The Tubs scream for your attention with the promises of buffed up bodybuilders like Arnold, Ronnie Coleman and Jay Cutler.
“This is my protein. It’s what gotten me this HUGE and will do the same for you.”
Usually this is because of some “patented-filtration-technique” or in this case a “Supreme multi-faceted protein complex” that makes the powder super absorb-able and pretty much turns it into instant muscle.
But is it really? In what way are these claims true and should you invest money to get yourself some of the good stuff yourself?
SPOILER ALERT!
All these guys -yeah that’s a massive generalization but it’s probably true- worthy of promoting muscle building products are on (most times) excessive amounts of steroids. That’s most likely what helped them get to an almost superhuman size. No trying to discredit them here, there is still enormous amounts of hard work needed even with steroids. I’m just saying that most non-steroid using humans won’t be able to get to no matter how much tubs of protein you consume.
So lesson #1 : Don’t trust the labels.
Here’s some facts when it comes to Protein and how much you need:
The ISSN has investigated the amount of protein needed for individuals with variable training intensities.
As you can see in the figure below, for general fitness the required protein is around a gram for each KG of body weight.
I’m around 75KG, so that means that with around 75 grams of protein, I should be getting enough.
What does this look like in day-to-day food intake?
100 gram of chicken contains around 30 grams of protein
1 egg contains around 7.5 gram
A glass of milk contains around 5 grams
So as you can see, with 100 grams of chicken spread through the day, I’d already get enough protein.
This means that the answer to the Question “Do I need Protein Powder” is a pretty clear “NO”, if you’re willing to undertake even the most minor effort into organizing your daily meal plan.
Does this mean you shouldn’t use it?
Not necessarily.
There’s good reasons to use protein powder as an addition to your diet and I’ll give you a couple of reasons of why I use it.
- 1: It’s comfortable. Instead of going home and cooking up a piece of chicken I’ve got my perfect amount of protein needed down in around 20 seconds.
- 2: It’s tasty! Depending on the brand of course, there are some pretty awesome flavors that turn a protein shake into a real treat!
- 3: It’s a good snack. Especially when you’re trying to cut out some carbs or have a tendency to eat a more sugar-filled treat during your snacky moments
Bottom line: In contrast to popular belief, eating more protein does not lead to more muscle mass. The amount of protein needed for an individual can be easily calculated and usually the requirements can be easily met by diet design.
By doing this, a protein supplement is probably not necessary to meet your daily requirements. But this fact doesn’t mean it’s not worth buying. There’s plenty of reasons why it’s a good supplement to your daily food intake.
Hope this helps!
Happy shaking and catch you next time
The Next Step
If you’re trying to lose weight, you’re well on your way and just calculated your RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate).*
Great work! This will give you a good indication of the amount of energy your body needs on a daily basis.
The next step is to take a look at your Physical Activity Level. This gives us a good idea on what kind of energy you spend on movement.
Because as you may recall from the previous article, the RMR only tells us the amount of energy we spend when we rest.
We use the PAL-value to calculate the combined amount of the RMR and the activity per day.
This value tells you what value to multiply the RMR with to calculate the total energy expenditure over a day.
PAL = Physical Activity Level. (It runs from 1.1 to 5.0)
Which description fits you the most?
Sit (almost) all day: 1.1-1.2
Seated work, no sports activities: 1.4-1.5
Seated work with interruptions, lack of exercise in free time: 1.6-1.7
reasonably active during work, recreational exercise: 1.8-1.9
Much physical activity during work and leisure: 2.0-2.4
Extreme physical stress: 5.0
To calculate the total energy requirement: Multiply RMR with PAL
* Thermal effect nutrition does not take part in this calculation.
This calculation gives a good estimate but still needs to be adapted to the individual. Remember that underestimating this need leads to weight loss and low performance in sport. Overestimating the value lead to weight increase.
Calculate, Weigh yourself after 2 weeks, and adjust. That’s the magic formula.
Example:
I weigh 75 kg and my RMR is 2035.
My work is Physical and I work out every day. My PAL value is 2.0-2.4
To calculate my energy expenditure, I multiple my RMR with my PAL level ( 2035 x 2.0) = 4070 Kcal on workout days.
Not too difficult right?
Let me know if there are any questions and share your value with me here below!
- If you didn’t calculate your RMR yet, you can do so here. Takes you 10 seconds!
Oh and if you need any more help, book a one-on-one session with me right here
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