This week, read about burger love, cost benefits of cycling, recovery baths for athletes, belly fat, gluten and athletic performance, figuring out headaches, strength training for a faster 5k, the best guacamole, and an easy recipe for making your own energy bars.
The caloric math of huge burgers. Prince Edward Island holds an annual month-long “Burger Love” event (this April, 145,527 burgers were eating eaten across the island). These burgers pack a caloric punch – some up to 2,000 calories. This eating phenomenon got PEI resident and health/performance physiologist Jamie Burr curious about how much exercise you’d need to do to burn off one of these 1500-2000 calories burgers. For a 30-y-old, 170 lb, 5’11 male, it would take . . .
- 7 hrs continuous walking
- 280 min easy jogging
- 3 hrs leisurely cycling
- 2.6 hrs swimming
(Human Performance & Health Research Laboratory Exercise Physiology at UPEI)
Portion size is a big issue with these burgers (as with many restaurant meals). Seems like a good way to taste these burgers would be to share with others: spit into 4, the calorie count would certainly be more reasonable!
6 times more expensive to travel by car than by bicycle. A cost-benefit analysis of Copenhagen cycling found it is 6 times more expensive for society – and for you individually – if you travel by car instead of cycling. It is the first time a price has been put on car use as compared to cycling. The analysis looked at road wear, pollution, health, congestion, noise, travel route, climate change. (Ecological Economics, May 2015).
A recovery ice bath isn’t (always) such a good idea. Ice baths have been a popular recovery tool for athletes after workouts, and a increasing number of studies are examining the practice. Many studies are questioning the use of icing for injured muscles, with some research showing it might delay healing, hinder recovery, and interfere with performance gains. (David Despain, Outside)
Target belly fat with exercise. Not all body fat is the same – location matters. Belly fat is physiologically different from the fat beneath your skin (subcutaneous fat). Fat around the waist is mostly “visceral” fat, which is metabolically active and can promote inflammation throughout the body, increasing disease risk. Visceral fat appears to be a key player in insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, and possibly brain tissue damage that could lead to cognitive decline. In terms of cancer risk, the AICR reports that for women, a waist measurement of 31.5 inches or more indicates higher cancer risk, and for men, a waist measurement of 37 inches or more indicates high risk. It seems exercise is more potent that diet at reducing belly fat, according to several studies. (New York Times)
Canada Food Guide criticized for endorsing fruit juice as a fruit serving by Canadian Obesity Summit presenters. Here’s why most people should limit fruit juice.
Gluten-free diet won’t help athletic performance. Some athletes eliminate gluten from their diet thinking it might help their athletic performance. A new study in competitive cyclists used a controlled randomized double-blind, cross-over design to examine the influence of gluten. The protocol was something like this: athletes ate Diet A for 7 days, followed by a 10-day washout, then Diet B for 7 days, and were blinded to the gluten status of the study diet to reduce potential placebo effects (Diet A contained gluten, while Diet B contained no gluten). Investigators found that a gluten-containing diet did not influence performance (15 km TT), GI symptoms, well-being, and other inflammatory markers or indicators of intestinal injury in non-celiac endurance athletes. (Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2015 May)
You can read more about the evidence for athletes avoiding gluten and grains here.
For headaches, a lifestyle change may be better than a doctor visit. Despite an increasing number of headache sufferers looking for headache causes through advanced diagnostics, more tests aren’t usually better, are expensive, and could be harmful. Experts say lifestyle changes are likely better at solving the problem. Lifestyle changes include identifying triggers and avoiding them, improving sleep, reducing stress, improving diet, and exercising). (NPR Health, reporting on J Gen Intern Med. 2015 May;30(5):548-55.)
Is it better for runners to be flexible or stiff? It depends which muscles or tendons you’re talking about. Although some research shows that fast runners have less flexible calf muscles, a new study looking at tendon stiffness shows conflicting results. (Alex Hutchinson, Runner’s World).
Strength training leads to a faster 5km run time. A recent study reinforces the benefits of concurrent strength training for improved running performance, and questions the practice of stopping strength training to improve race times. After 6 weeks of strength training and endurance training, athletes in the strength training group improved 5k run time (on average by 3.6% – that’s =43 seconds on a 20-min 5k!) but when they stopped their strength training for 6 weeks (but kept running), they lost their new-found speed. Exercise physiologist Yann Le Meur illustrates the study in the infograph below (Yann LE MEUR summary of Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2015 May 6.)
Most elite endurance athletes periodize their strength training and follow an easier plan or don’t strength train at all during race season. The study was in recreational athletes who may not have been doing interval training, so it’s tricky to draw conclusions for elite athletes. If you’re an endurance athlete who doesn’t strength train, it would be a good idea to start (for many reasons beyond race performance). If you’re someone who completely drops strength training during the competitive season, it might be worth staying in touch with some of those strength moves.
Even a 2-minute walk can counter some harms of sitting. The evidence that sitting for extended periods is harmful for health is mounting, showing sitting increases risk of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, kidney problems and premature death. A new study found that every hour that overweight adults spent sitting (watching TV) increased diabetes risk 3.4 %. A growing body of research is investigating the best way to break up sitting bouts. New research shows that replacing just 2 minutes of sitting each hour with easy walking lowered risk of early death by a third. (Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times)
Sedentary behavior is an emerging field of research. Our bodies were made to move! Even if you’re an athlete, if you have a desk job, schedule movement breaks. Make Time for Break Time shows you how different amounts of activity influence indicators of cancer, and likely other chronic disease risk.
What really works against bug bites. Consumer Reports investigates new, safer options to keep mosquitoes and ticks at bay. Products with milder, plantlike chemicals (Picaridin and oil of lemon eucalyptus) were the most effective, outperforming products with harmful DEET. (Consumer Reports)
AVOCADOS
The science behind the best (and healthiest) guacamole (Washington Post, ACS Reactions)
Make your own energy bar!
If you are looking for a nutritious “whole food” way to fuel your workouts, these little bites are for you! They are simple to make, delicious, and a terrific alternative to commercial energy bars. Their bite-size portion is often “just right,” so you can doll out energy as you need fuel during long hikes, runs, cross-county skis, or bike rides. The oats and raisins are a good source of carbohydrates, the peanuts provide healthy fats, rounded off with a double-chocolate hit of cocoa and chocolate chips.
View Last Week in Food, Health, and Fitness (May 2-8, 2015)
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