CrossFit fixes that which Medicine baby sits

                  

Most of you that follow Bulletproofbodies are already regular exercisers so we are preaching to the converted. 

Our global community are already finding new and innovative ways to exercise and move.

However, what if our opportunity to exercise was confined to the small and impracticable area of the home only such as those on lock-down.

For some people in the UK, outside the home is the ONLY place you can really exercise. As long as social distancing is being adhered to, obviously. 

So, what would the consequences be if we couldn't exercise?

• Increases in domestic violence 
• Increases in loneliness (as more people live on their own)
• Increased mental heath issues
• Increased sedentary behaviour
• Increased levels of obesity
• Increased consumption of junk food
• Increased consumption of alcohol
• Increased amounts of screen time

Ironically, all the things that would put us in the Chronic Disease bucket and increase our risk of being vulnerable to Corona Virus.

Whilst we recognise the Medical guidance of short-term solutions such as, social distancing, they should not come with the long-term health consequences. You are just creating a problem to solve a problem.

Daily exercise is a life-line for most people and a worthy, positive health behaviour that needs to be nurtured. At a time when we need to boost our immune system the most, we should not restrict the evidence-based drug of exercise being prescribed to the masses.

One of our thought leaders has spoken with regards to Corona Virus and poor health choices. 

The founder of CrossFit, Greg Glassman gives us a lesson about:

“The 5 Buckets of Death.” 

One big bucket and 4 little buckets

This sounds a bit morbid but the majority of those being affected by the virus

are those with underlying health issues.

While the entire globe is almost on lock down, in the UK they are now threatening to take away our opportunity to exercise outside.

The unintended consequences of stopping the world from exercising will have a more dramatic long-term effect on the world's heath than the Corona Virus.

Lack of physical activity is the 4th leading cause of preventable disease that affect the world.

The ironic thing is that if the world was more physically active it would directly effect the other top 5 causes of pre-mature death.

                                             “The 5 Buckets of Death.” 

Bucket 1 - Chronic Disease - Through Sedentary lifestyle 
Coronary Artery Disease, Stroke, Obesity, Diabetes, Hypertension
(86% of the US spending on Healthcare)

Bucket 2 - Microbic - Corona Virus, Fungi, Bacteria

Bucket 3 - Genetic - The wrong Parents

Bucket 4 - Kinetic - Car Accident, Gun shot wound, Stabbing

Bucket 5 - Toxic - Poisoning

What has happened in this current environment is that Corona virus has jumped from the Microbic bucket into the Chronic Disease bucket and started a fire.

Corona virus is mostly effecting those already with co-morbities and the elderly. 

These are those people already in the Chronic disease bucket.

So these tragic deaths are more related to chronic disease than they are to the Corona Virus.

Just listen for the term "underlying causes" when you next hear the news about someone's unfortunate demise.

The "wilful divide" involves, "getting off the couch and off the carbs."

This is NOT "lifestyle illness" but TWO wilful choices.

The TWO pathological behaviours of poor food choices and lack of exercise

This is behavioually driven, so it needs to be behaviourally addressed, or it will be Medically babysat.

Exercise is a positive health behaviour that needs to be nurtured long-term.

Stopping people from exercising outside actively encourages poor health behaviours.

Exercise fixes that which medicine baby sits. 

The evidence for exercise is so strong that it should be the drug of choice for the world with less side effects than any pharmaceuticals. 

Sedentary behaviour will eventually kill more people globally, thus putting more strain on the NHS long-term than tragic short-lived pandemics like Corona virus.

Unfortunately, this reactionary approach is just adding fuel to the fire, with no thought for the unintended consequences that may have greater implications on global health long-term.

Staying physically active and making conscious decisions about what food you eat are more likely to save your life long-term, so that if you became infected with Corona Virus you have a better chance of fighting off the symptoms and making a full recovery.

We need to use this opportunity to reflect on our current global health behaviour, as chronic preventable disease has been steadily killing more people globally than the Corona virus, it is just most of us have not been paying attention.

Stay safe, but more importantly, stay active.

What is the single best Medicine we can take for our health?

                   

If you are a regular reader of this Blog then I am preaching to the converted.

However, I would like you to give this short but important video to your friends and family who you know are not getting enough physical activity in their lives.

For investment of just 22-30 minutes per day (which adds up to just over 150 hours per week) you can keep away from the World's number one preventable killer, lack of Cardio-Respiratory Fitness. 

Which is statistically the strongest predictor of premature death.

In addition, if you are more physically active, then your likelihood of having of of the other top 5 diseases also decreases, so it is win/win.

Now this physical activity does not even have to be done in one go!

Three lots of 10 mins, morning, lunch and evening.

We call this "snacking on exercise."

Even if you get your 30 mins of activity, it is still unwise to be in the same position for too long.

Sitting disease includes watching a screen for 5 or more hours daily.

Who doesn't use a computer for work these days?

Why not try a standing desk and alternate positions every 30 mins?

Your challenge is:

Can you limit your sleeping and sitting to just 23.5 hours day?

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo

Exercise is not a weight tool!

                      

How hard is it for you to keep a straight face when one of your friends or family members starts to tell you how much they enjoy exercise?

They go on to describe, in detail, their weekly routine of strength training and aerobics. At about the time they reach the point of telling you about their Thursday kickboxing class, you're ready to scream.

You'd never be able to find the time to spend 90 minutes at the gym every day. Needless to say, even if you could carve out a chunk of time, you can't imagine going on the same tirade about how much you loved your daily sweat sessions. Wouldn't it be great if you could tell this person that all of their time spent in the gym is a total waste?

You might just get your opportunity to do so. The majority of gym-goers pay for their membership simply because they want to lose weight or stay slimmed down. But as it turns out, exercise isn't really the key to weight loss and maintaining an ideal body type.

The best way to ensure that you look good in our jeans, and this includes your aerobically attuned friend, you need to eat right. While exercise is beneficial to your overall health, bouts of 30-40 minutes four times a week is all you need to reap the cardiovascular and brain-healthy benefits. However, if looking good is a priority, above all else, proper diet and nutrition are required for anyone to stay at a healthy bodyweight for their height.

In fact, exercise might even backfire if your goal is weight loss. Studies show that most women who began a moderate or rigorous exercise regimen, during which they exercise 60-90 minutes most days of the week, end up eating more than they had before they started. Rewarding yourself with a muffin or extra helping of pasta after a hard workout serves to negate the energy expenditure.

A single muffin might not seem so horrible. But you might not think so if you realize how much physical activity it would take to use the calories that a post-workout snack contains. A single muffin can contain as many as 360 calories. This means that you would need to mow the lawn for 66 minutes, jog for 33 minutes, lift weights for 115 minutes or fold laundry for 230 minutes before that muffin is all used up.

Also, exercise sends your appetite into overdrive. The human species was not designed for strenuous physical activity. We were meant to be moderately active throughout our waking hours. So when we run five miles in the morning, our body compensates this energy loss with an extra bagel.

And if you think you have the ability to use will power and discipline to help you sidestep the pitfalls of increased appetite and using food as a reward, think again. We can only fight our biological make-up for so long. Ask any yo-yo dieter and binge eater. The act of fighting against your natural tendencies will only make the problem worse. You'll end up gaining more weight than what you had initially set out to lose.

The next time you find yourself stuck in a conversation with a fitness guru you might want to stop and remember this article. If there happens to be a blueberry muffin nearby, offer one to your pro-exercise friend. Hopefully they'll be thrilled by the news of how much more time they'll need to spend in their favorite place on Earth.

Brent McNutt enjoys talking about urbane uniforms [http://www.uniformhaven.com] and landau scrub pants [http://www.uniformhaven.com/lasclamesc.html] and networking with healthcare professionals online.

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Is Exercise Running Your Life?

                   

It's not talked about often but some women are seriously addicted to exercise, or compulsive exercise addiction. It's when you take working out to a whole new level and your workouts run your day.

Now as a woman who used to workout multiple times a day for several hours this is my problem, but I have a great support group that helps keep me on track. So why do some women become addicted to their exercise routines?

For some it's a desire to have control over their weight and shape, for some it's as if the world will fall apart if they don't workout and for others, they are looking to get a workout "high". 

But it really doesn't matter the reason, being addicted to exercise is not a good thing. It can be bad psychologically and physiologically. For example, when I was in college and dealing with anorexia and exercise addition I ended up breaking my wrist while riding my bike. 

I was biking because I was trying to heal shin splints at the same time. Well, with my wrist in a cast, I had no choice to start running again even though I knew my shins were in bad shape. To make a long story short, they turned in to stress fractures and I had my leg in an air cast while my wrist was in a cast. Do you think it stopped me? Nope, I just started on the elliptical for less stress on my leg. Sad, I know.

So what helped me? 

When I got tired of my workouts and my diet running my life. Enough was enough and I knew that since I was hiding stuff from my friends and family that I had a problem.

What constitutes exercise going overboard?

Exercise addicts allow their workout plans to run their lives. Over family, friends, work, etc... workouts come first. There is no exception: More really is better. If there is more free time then that means more time to train. Nothing holds them back. It doesn't matter if they are tired, sick, injured... they will find a way to workout.

So, how am I today? I admit that I get very anxious if I miss a workout. But I don't have the need to workout every single day. I do have a strict workout routine that I follow and if I get thrown off than I find a way to get that workout in! But overall, I never workout more than 4-5 days a week and I never workout for longer than an hour.

Taylor Ryan is the "women's trainer" with her weight training for women site, The Art Of Weight Lifting to give fat burning workouts, muscle toning programs and more to help you hit your fitness and weight loss goals. Get all the help you need, including nutrition to make a healthy lifestyle and not just another failed attempt to get in shape.

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Fighting Drug Addiction with Crossfit

                  

A recent study concluded that regular exercise reduces the motivation for taking drugs. This should actually come as no surprise - exercise has already been proven to reduce anxiety and depression, two of the major reasons why a person might start taking drugs (or alcohol) in the first place, and continue using them until they need a drug addiction treatment center to quit. However, it might be a different story with prescription drug addiction.

The test began by keeping one group of rats in cages with wheels and the other in cages without wheels for six weeks. The group with wheels got up to the point of running 10 kilometers a day and the others got no exercise at all.

After six weeks, cocaine dispensers were put in the cages. The rats had to press levers to get the cocaine, and the number of presses needed was continually increased. The exercised rats stopped trying when they had to press 70 times to get a hit, while the unexercised rats kept going until the lever needed to be pressed 250 times. Also, the rats who had exercised the most quit trying sooner.

Why is prescription drug addiction different? First of all, the rats were not made to take the drug.

Many people who end up with a prescription drug addiction problem aren't fully aware that they had a choice of whether to take the drug or not. They had an illness, injury, operation or emotional trauma, or they have a problem with chronic back pain or something similar, or were just feeling generally unhappy. They went to their doctor, were prescribed their 'medicine, and dutifully followed their doctor's orders.

In the case of a short-term problem - like taking painkillers after an operation - there's a good chance they might not continue pressing the lever after the prescribed length of treatment, let's say a week or two. However, if they were already depressed, anxious or had other things going on that predisposed them to addiction, 'feeling no pain' for a couple of weeks might motivate them to take the drug longer and eventually wind up with a prescription drug addiction.

If they're suffering from chronic pain, anxiety or depression - longer term problems - there's a good chance the doctor will prescribe a longer course of the drug. That will almost invariably lead to a physical dependency and they'll have trouble quitting. Also, if they experienced any relief from their symptoms with the drugs, they're likely to confuse the side effects of withdrawal with a return of their original symptoms and figure they still need their medicine. In many cases, the longer course of treatment is more likely to result in prescription drug addiction than the shorter course.

When the problem becomes prescription drug addiction, rather than dependency, is hard to say: addiction involves a complex set of factors.

However, for all intents and purposes, the result is the same - they can't get off the prescription drugs without the help of a drug addiction treatment center. How much treatment they'll need depends on whether the problem is prescription drug addiction or if it is just physical dependency.

How could this have been avoided? In the case of short-term severe pain, the answer it to quit the drug as soon as possible. With longer-term conditions, there are drug-free alternatives. Chronic physical pain can sometimes be addressed with chiropractic, physical therapy or acupuncture, or with vitamins and minerals that are natural painkillers or help relieve inflammation.

Emotional problems can also often be handled with the right alternative treatments and, yes, by getting on the wheel. Far less than 10 kilometers a day can get results.

Many doctors are aware of the potential for prescription drug addiction, and they realize that some drugs only relieve symptoms - they don't get at the cause of the problem. Consequently, more doctors are prescribing non-drug alternatives. If your doctor isn't one of them, consider educating him. Or, switch to a doctor whose advice won't result in you checking into a drug addiction treatment center in the future to handle a problem that's worse than you had in the first place - prescription drug addiction.

Gloria MacTaggart is a freelance writer that contributes articles on health.

info@drugrehabreferral.com

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CrossFit as Therapy for Addiction

                      

This week, Bulletproofbodies with be looking at Exercise & Addiction.

We assume that exercise can be a positive addiction, as you replace one habit with another. However, Exercise-addiction will be covered later this week.

Habitual tobacco use, irregular and insufficient exercise, regular intake of alcoholic beverages above a minimal amount, being overweight for one's height, and sleeping less than 7 hours per day are linked to poor health.

This observation was promulgated by public health researchers in the early 1980's who studied thousands of individuals living in the Western United States over several years. These particular habits were singled out because of data that had already linked regular cigarette smoking, sedentary life style habits, non-engagement in regular exercise, habitual intake of alcohol more than 2 drinks per day, and obese body habitus with premature aging, illness, and premature death. Inadequate sleep was added because of its association with body stresses and persistence of internal elevations in cortisol and adrenalin production.

Consequently, being intentional and deliberate with wise choices regarding these Five Health Habits was recommended. Let's take a look.

Tobacco Use. 

Cigarette smoking, cigar smoking, and pipe smoking are pleasurable and often socially engaging for individuals. Tobacco leaves are cultivated, harvested, and then carefully processed in commercial factories with pleasure as the goal. Yet, all tobacco releases toxic chemicals when burned. Inhalation of these toxic chemicals directly irritates respiratory tissues and perpetrates inflammatory tissue responses and consequent damage. A direct result is progressive bronchial and lung scarring as well as various cancers throughout our bodies. These include kidney cancer, bladder cancer, and gastrointestinal cancers as well as mouth, tongue, throat and respiratory cancers. With no uncertainty, habitual tobacco use perpetrates disease and perpetuates multiple chronic illnesses that directly lead to death.

Alcohol Ingestion. 

Ethyl alcohol is the result of bacterial fermentation of fruit sugars. Wine has ancient origins and the deliberate fermentation of grapes was an organized process in ancient cultures, serving a positive purpose of begetting a liquid beverage which did not support microbe life. In ancient times, wine was a healthy alternative to river and lake water, well water, and even rain water. Excess ingestion however, did produce intoxication with delirium and did perpetrate chronic illnesses though specifics were not realized in those centuries. We now know that ethyl alcohol oxidizes various organ cells, producing inflammation and eventual cell death. The liver and nervous system are particularly negatively affected. In the present era, alcoholic beverage production is commercially productive and its purchase and ingestion is fettered only by age requirements. Alcholic beverages are produced from various fruits and grains now with many different flavors and appeals. Ethyl alcohol internal organ injuries though are epidemic and include direct injury to the liver (alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis), to esophageal and stomach cells (inflammation, ulcers, and cancer), and to the central and peripheral nervous system (delirium, hallucinations, cell death, memory loss, dependence, chronic anxiety, major depression, numbness, impaired balance sensations, pain). Alcohol can induce progressive heart disease known as an alcoholic cardiomyopathy, which results in heart failure. Regular alcohol ingestion is clearly harmful, hazardous, and lethal.

Being Obese. 

Obesity has a clear definition. Overweight status is defined as Body Mass Index of 25-30 kg of body weight per square meter of body height. Obesity is defined as BMI greater than 30 kg body weight/square meter of height. Optimal body weight is now stated to reside at Body Mass Index of 19-24 kg/square meter of height. BMI calculators exist in doctors' offices, dietitians' offices, clinics, hospitals, schools, pharmacies, and on various web sites. Obesity elevates blood pressure, makes tissues resistant to insulin and thus causes diabetes mellitus, contributes to progressive atherosclerosis, and overloads one's heart and lungs. Obesity aggravates other serious health conditions, too, such as emphysema, coronary heart disease, arthritic conditions, co-existing diabetes and hypertension. Deliberate weight reduction of more than 10 percent can result in measurable health benefits. With no uncertainty, obesity induces new illness and compounds existing illnesses.

Inadequate Exercise.

 A habit of regular exercise will counter a propensity to obesity. Regular exercise burns calories, stimulates healthy circulation, strengthens one's heart, stimulates deep breathing, and generally offsets stress. Exercise cleanses tissues of metabolic waste accumulations by promoting blushing circulation through the organs, particularly to muscles, skin, and nervous system. Exercise that is graded, balanced, regular, and without injury is nothing but health promoting and wellness supporting. Walking 20 minutes per day 5 days a week can be adequate.

Inadequate Sleep.

 All creatures have circadian rhythms: awake periods and sleep periods. Sleep rests organs and tissues and reduces stress. Sleep must be sufficient in time so that organ rest and restoration can occur. Essential aspects of regular sleep-wake cycles include lower cortisol secretion, lower adrenalin production, lower blood pressures, reduced insulin production, and general cell rest. Antioxidant cleansing of organ cells and our blood vessel walls occurs during sleep periods. Sleep rejuvenates tissues and restores healthy chemical balances. Short sleep results in adrenalin and cortisol surges that stimulate blood pressure elevations. Oxidation stresses surge also and tissue fatigue results. Regular short sleep periods yields accelerated aging, elevates blood pressure, and strains nervous functions. These consequences compound existing diseases and impair mental alertness and social behaviors. Circadian rhythms key off of light-dark cycles and are innate to our inner biological functions. Overriding one's natural innate circadian rhythm has been proven to promote health deterioration. With certainty, inadequate sleep can aggravate existing illnesses and weaken resistances to infectious diseases and cancers.

Thus, it is logical and rational that these Five Health Variables be groups as Essential Health Intentions and Health Habits. The intent is to drive wise choices.

Indeed, the national Centers for Disease Control has strongly recommended intentional cultivation and right-maintenance of these Five Health Habits:

Adequate Exercise 5 days a week;

Abstaining from Direct Tobacco Use and Avoiding Secondary Tobacco Smoke;

Abstaining from Alcoholic Beverages or drinking only small amounts infrequently;

Maintaining one's Body Mass Index between 19-24 kg/square meter, and

Sleeping 7 or more hours per day.

These are personal choices. Awareness is essential. Willful planning and commitment with personal diligence is essential. I encourage all to make these Personal Habits.

Rex Mahnensmith, MD is a physician who serves as a General Internist in the practice of Primary Care for all individuals who elect health care. He is especially interested in preventative medicine, health maintenance, wellness, and healthy choices for living. He serves individuals with chronic illnesses as well as those with no illness. He aims to help individuals to know and to make healthy choices in all circumstances.

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