The Hidden Salt

Many of us are consuming way too much sodium. To make things worse, 'hidden' sodium can lurk in many seemingly healthy foods. To spot these high-sodium culprits, read food labels carefully: Look at both the amount of sodium per serving and the recommended daily sodium allowance percentage.

Here's a list of ten unexpected salt mines:

1. Breakfast cereals

 

Ready-to-eat cereals may seem like a healthy breakfast option but some brands can pack as much as 300mg of sodium per cup.

2. Instant puddings

 

High-sodium foods don't even have to taste salty! You'll be surprised how much sodium is in some sweet snacks and desserts. Instant puddings, for instance, have 400 mg sodium per 1/2-cup serving.

3. "Diet" ready meals

 

Don't be fooled by ready-to-eat or frozen meals that are marketed as "low-calorie" or "low-fat". Many of these make up for this through high amounts of sodium (and sometimes sugar) instead. Depending on your choice of ready meal, some can have as much salt as 8 bags of snack-size potato chips!

4. Canned tuna

 

Tuna is often touted as a healthy source of protein and omega-3 fatty acids. But if you are going for the canned variety, you're also taking in about 400 mg of sodium per 100-gram serving.

5. Canned vegetables

 

You can't go wrong with vegetables, right? Wrong. Canned veggies are typically laden with sauces and seasonings -- a cup can mean up to 730 mg of sodium. Look for "no salt added" option or stick to fresh vegetables instead.

6. Breads and rolls

 

A single slice of white bread can contain as much as 230 milligrams of salt. Although this may not sound like much, it can quickly add up if you eat several servings throughout the day.

7. Packaged poultry

 

Sodium levels in poultry can vary based on preparation methods. Packaged raw chicken often contains an added salt solution that dramatically increases the amount of sodium in the meat. A 100-gram serving can pack 440mg sodium.

8. Vegetable juice

 

Even something as healthy as tomato juice can be laden with sodium -- up to 878 mg per cup! You're better off preparing your own fresh vegetable juice -- one medium tomato has just 10 mg sodium.

9. Salad dressings

 

Go easy on salad dressings. It's not just fat that you need to worry about -- sodium is another issue. Just one tablespoon of prepared salad dressing can contain up to 250mg of sodium. Another seemingly innocent condiment to watch out for: Ketchup, which can pack more than 150 mg sodium per tablespoon.

 

10. Canned soup

 

One cup of commercial canned soup can contain a whooping 1000 mg of sodium! Prepare your own soups at home, where you have control over the amount of salt you add.
 

The best workouts for 15, 30 or 45 minutes

The 3-5 minute warm-up

Warm up by moving major joints around in different directions such as hip circles, arm swings, knee lifts, ballet leg swings, shoulder rotations, etc.

These movements are called dynamic stretches and will help lubricate the joints better than stationary or static stretching.

 

 

The 15-minute workout

After your dynamic warm-up, climb a deep flight of stairs. Skip every other step and make sure you are pushing off with your entire foot and activating the buttocks and hips as you push off. If your heart is pounding at the top, rest for 30 seconds until your breathing is back to normal or almost back to normal. Perform a set of push ups until near failure at the top of the steps (modified if necessary, for example, on the knees). Run back down the stairs. Immediately come back up.

 

When you have worked up to it, try sprinting up a segment of steps until your breathing is significantly labored. Pause, whether it’s quarter-way or halfway up the steps, if you’re out of breath. Rest. Repeat until you reach the top. Repeat push ups. Do this for 15 minutes and you’ll feel like you’ve been at the gym for an hour.

 

Alternatives: rope jumping to a count of 100, then perform a downward dog yoga stretch, then do bodyweight squats, followed by cat-cow yoga stretch. Repeat for several cycles.

 

 

 

The 30-minute workout

You can simply choose to do additional cycles of the 15-minute workout; you’ll certainly get in better shape once you’ve gotten used to the 15-minute short burst workout. Or you can perform the first 15 minutes doing short bursts of bodyweight strengthening exercises followed by 15 minutes of power yoga. For example, 15 minutes of push ups, dips, squats and lunges, then, 15 minutes of sun salutations or eccentric (lowering phase) push ups to a jump-to-standing position. After 25 minutes of this, you’ll feel spent. Take the last 5 minutes to do static stretching.

 

 

 

The 45-minute workout

If you have 45 minutes or longer to exercise, you’ll still want to interval train, i.e. get your heart rate up, way up, to about 160 to 180-plus beats per minute (bpm) and then let your heart rate gradually drop to, say, 100 bpm. Sprints are excellent for fat burning and increasing your lung capacity. Rather than jogging for 45 minutes — which might seem like a great fitness activity — vary your speeds from sprinting to slow jogs and you’ll maximize your workout. Every few minutes, drop to the ground and crank out a set of push ups.

 

 

 

Should I eat carbs in the evening?

No starches after 4pm? No way. Back-loading is the way forward to more muscle and less fat.

For decades, we’ve been told to pile our carb consumption in at the front end of the day. Eating a big, carb-laden breakfast, so that we can more easily burn off everything else you eat for the rest of the day.

The latest scientific research tells a different story. Its main premise is to skip breakfast, avoid carbs for most of the day, then shovel them down our throat like crazy for dinner after training. The pay-off: an insulin spike that feeds our muscle cells and starves your fat ones.

The cortisol connection

To understand how this works, you need to know what’s happening in your body while you sleep. Your levels of the stress hormone cortisol elevate throughout the night, which isn’t as evil as you’ve been led to believe. Carbs are converted into glucose (sugar), which raises your insulin. When cortisol acts without elevated insulin (ie. before you eat carbohydrates) it triggers the breakdown of harmful triglycerides into free fatty acids for metabolisation. In other words, cortisol accelerates the fat-burning process in the morning – but only if you don’t extinguish it with carbs.

Burn fat, don't store

Your body also releases the ‘hunger hormone’ ghrelin in the evening. As well as stimulating your appetite, ghrelin triggers the release of growth hormone. When this happens, your body releases more fat – fat it can use for energy. This also decreases the destruction of protein for fuel, so it can be used for muscle growth instead.

The problem? Insulin from carbs creates new fat cells and lowers your levels of ghrelin and therefore growth hormone, levels of which peak about two hours after you wake up. What that means: eating carbs in the morning hampers fat-burning for the rest of the day.

The solution: skip breakfast, consume protein and fat for the majority of the day, train in the evening, then pound high-GI carbs at night. Low-GI carbs are shown to hinder the body’s night time growth hormone release. I call this system “carb back-loading”. It manipulates insulin sensitivity – which is high in the morning and low in the evening, especially after exercise – to control which cells grow and which don’t. Skip the carbohydrates during the day and you can reduce the insulin spikes that make fat cells grow; load up at night after training and they’ll swell your muscles instead. It’s that simple.

Things To Do with Coffee Grounds

Coffee grounds make the drink that wakes you up in the morning, but they have plenty of other practical uses for your home and body alike.


Did You Know?

Ground coffee loses its flavour immediately unless it is specially packaged or brewed.


Don’t Raise Any Dust    

Before you clean the ashes out of your fireplace, sprinkle them with wet coffee grounds. They’ll be easier to remove, and the ash and dust won’t pollute the atmosphere of the room.






Deodorize a Freezer    

Get rid of the smell of spoiled food after a freezer failure. Fill a couple of bowls with used or fresh coffee grounds and place them in the freezer overnight. For a flavoured-coffee scent, add a couple of drops of vanilla to the grounds.






Fertilize Plants    

Don’t throw out those old coffee grounds. They’re chock-full o’ nutrients that your acidic-loving plants crave. Save them to fertilize rosebushes, azaleas, rhododendrons, evergreens, and camellias. It’s better to use grounds from a drip coffeemaker than the boiled grounds from a percolator. The drip grounds are richer in nitrogen.






Keep Cats Out Of The Garden    

Kitty won’t think of your garden as a latrine anymore if you spread a pungent mixture of orange peels and used coffee grounds around your plants. The mix acts as great fertilizer too.






Reduce Cellulite    

The secret ingredient in high-priced cellulite cream is coffee. So save money and make your own. Mix 1/4 cup warm, used coffee grounds with 1 tablespoon of oil (olive, almond, walnut or massage oil will due). Stand on newspaper in the bathtub and apply the mixture over your cellulite zones. Then wrap yourself in plastic wrap and leave on for up to five minutes. Unwind the plastic wrap, then brush off the loose grounds. Remove the newspaper and take a warm shower using a exfoliating brush. Repeat twice a week.


 

How to correct these common errors in your workout

Deadlift

Error - Rounding of the lower back
Fix it - Instead of looking at the ground, keep your head up and your bum down


 

Military Press

Error - Leaning back and using the lower back muscles
Fix it - Soften your knees and tuck under the bar as it travels upwards


 

Squat

Error - Pushing knees forward at start of the descent and limiting squat depth
Fix it - Start the squat by pushing your hips back to a target – such as a box or chair – to gently touch as a point of consistency. This ensures proper depth and emphasis on the entire posterior chain


 

Curls

Error - Letting the shoulders do all of the work
Fix it - Straighten your  arms and purposely contract the bicep with each repetition


 

Hanging Leg Raises

Error - Simply bending your knees and lifting your legs up.
Fix it - Instead, imagine scooping your hips up and forward


 

Bench Press

Error - Uneven ascent of the bar causing the bar to potentially tip to one side
Fix it - Make sure your grip width is even and squeeze the bar to ensure your hands stay in the proper place. Retract your shoulder blades and push the bar from the centre of your chest to a point directly in a straight line instead of going back towards the head.


 

Chin Up

Error - Stopping the exercise at the level of the eyes instead of the chin, which marks a full range of motion
Fix it - Generate speed out of the bottom of the chin up by aiming to pull your chest through the bar and hold on top for one second. Perform this exercise explosively on the way up and control the descent

 

HIIT

 

What is HIIT?

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a form of exercise in which you alternate between very intense anaerobic periods and slower recovery periods for a shorter, more efficient workout. The high intensity intervals should be performed at near maximum effort and the recovery intervals should be done at about 50%.

What are the benefits of HIIT?

- It gets you fitter in less time

- It makes you smarter

- It supercharges your metabolism

Who should do HIIT?

Men who are in good health and exercise on a regular basis. Beginners, or those who have taken a break from the gym for a while, shouldn’t attempt any HIIT sessions before they have a good base level of fitness.

How much HIIT should I do a week?

One of the most common mistakes is presuming more is better. Given the intense nature of interval training, you should do no more than three sessions of HIIT a week.



These HIIT routines to raise your heart rate and lower your body fat

1. HIIT the treadmill

• i. Warm up for three minutes at 75% of your 5k pace (10kph should be fine).
• ii. At minute three increase the gradient to 10%.
• iii. Continue running for 30 seconds then straddle the treadmill (jump off the belt).
• iv. Rest for 30 seconds while you increase the speed by 5kph
• v. Jump back on for another 30-second sprint
• vi. Repeat this process until you can no longer complete the 30-second set.
• vii. Allow three minutes' recovery and repeat for desired number of sets (beginners: one, advanced: three).

2. HIIT the bike

• i. Cycle at a low resistance for a three-minute warm up at 70-80rpm.
• ii. At minute three, increase rpm to above 90.
• iii. Every 30 seconds increase the resistance by one level and maintain an rpm above 90.
• iv. Continue until you can no longer hold the rpm above 90.
• v. Allow three minutes recovery and repeat for desired number of sets (beginners: one, advanced: three).

3. HIIT the rowing machine

• i. Row at a comfortable pace for a three-minute warm up.
• ii. Set the screen to display calories.
• iii. At the end of the third minute explode into maximum effort with the aim of burning as many calories as possible in 60 seconds.
• iv. Ease off for 60 seconds. Then complete another 60-second set.
• v. Continue for desired number of sets (beginners: three, advanced: 10).

The essential supplements for healthy bones, brains and everything inbetween

 

 

Digestion

What to take: Probiotic.

What it does: Restores good bacteria in your body that can be killed off when taking antibiotics. It can also help prevent antibiotic-associated diarrhoea.

What it can interact with: Probiotics have caused serious infections in the severely immune compromised, such as cancer patients.

Taking probiotics with other medicines that suppress the immune system may increase the risk of infection.

 

Bones

What to take: Vitamin D.

What it does: Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, which is needed for strong bones. Muscles also need vitamin D to move, nerves need it to carry messages between the brain and other body parts and the immune system needs it to fend off viruses. Vitamin D is made by the body following sun exposure but a supplement may be needed if levels are low.

What it can interact with: It's possible for vitamin D to interact with other medicines that also increase calcium levels, like some diuretics, and this may cause its levels to get too high.

It's one of the vitamins that can have adverse effects if taken in overdose. And vitamin D toxicity can cause a build-up of calcium in the blood, which can lead to vomiting, frequent urination, weight loss, poor appetite, constipation, heart rhythm abnormalities and kidney stones.

 

Memory

What to take: Resveratrol.

What it does: Resveratrol is an anti-ageing compound found in the skin of red grapes. It may be beneficial for memory and cognitive function.

What it can interact with: Because not enough is known about possible drug interactions, pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as people with hormone-sensitive conditions, steer clear of it. Like many other supplements, it may also slow blood clotting and should be avoided in the weeks before and after any surgery.

 

Joints

What to take: Glucosamine.

What it does: Relieves the symptoms of osteoarthritis. It can also prevent cartilage breakdown and even repair it. Glucosamine can be combined with fish oil, krill or ginger, which have anti-inflammatory properties that can also help sore joints.

What it can interact with: Potassium glucosamine (an additive found in many glucosamine supplements) can leave you with too much potassium in your body. Known as hyperkalemia, this is particularly dangerous if you are taking blood pressure medication or have impaired kidney function. You might not feel anything with mild hyperkalemia, but if potassium levels rise too much, too quickly, it can lead to a slow heartbeat and weak pulse. It can also increase the risk of bleeding if taken with the anticoagulant drug warfarin.

 

Mood

What to take: St John's wort.

What it does: It can help with the treatment of mild depression. It has greater potential and St John's wort is as effective as most, if not all, antidepressants.

What it can interact with: St John's wort can make other medicines less effective, including birth control pills, digoxin (used for heart conditions), chemotherapy, medicines for preventing blood clots and organ transplant rejection, and those for epilepsy and HIV. St John's wort can also interact with some antidepressants to increase the risk of side effects including serotonin toxicity. Because it reduces the effectiveness of anticoagulant drugs such as warfarin, you should not take St John's wort before surgery.