Importance Of Heart - 2

In my earlier blog, I have discussed the basic details about Heart.

Valves of the Heart Control the Blood Flow:

• Just like our kitchen sink controls the flow of water in to the sink, the valves of the heart control the flow of the blood. 
• What is amazing about these valves is that they close just in time as the pressure of the blood builds in the heart. Just imagine the billions of times these valves close and open in our life time!!

Did You Know?

It was only in 1700’s that the heart was discovered as an organ that pumps blood throughout the body.

In a Heartbeat:

• A heartbeat may seem like a simple repeated event, but it is a complex series of very precise and coordinated events that takes place inside and around your heart.
• Nerves connected to the heart regulate the speed with which the muscle contracts.
• A average heart muscle contracts and relaxes about 70 to 80 times a minute.
• The heart conducts electricity that helps to control heartbeats. Both contraction and relaxation are the electrical events that we can see on ECG.
• When you run, the heart pumps more quickly. When you sleep, the heart pumps more slowly. 

Did You Know?

In my next blog, I will discuss regarding the amazing nutrients that our heart requires.

Importance of Heart - 1

Our heart works tirelessly to provide the power needed for life. Learn how to take care of it!

Why do we need the Heart?

• The cells of the body take up oxygen and release carbon dioxide just like our car uses the fuel to get the energy to drive and then it puts out exhaust through the exhaust pipe.
• The heart is the organ that supplies blood and oxygen to all parts of our body.

Arteries and Veins carry the blood:

• The oxygenated blood circulates all around the body through arteries.
• After the tissues use the oxygen, the blood coming from the cells is carried in the veins back to the heart.
• The arteries and veins are next to each other in arms, legs and core of the body.

The Heart helps our blood carry oxygen:

(From The Above Picture)

Step 1: Heart pumps blood to all the cells and tissues of the body. The arrow is red indicating that this blood is oxygen rich.

Step 2: Release of oxygen poor blood from tissues and cells of the body, that has used the oxygen to provide the energy to the cells. This blood shown in blue arrow returns to the heart.

Step 3: Heart pumps this oxygen poor blood to lungs where it picks up oxygen carried in the air we breathe.

Step 4: The oxygen rich blood is returned to the heart and pumped out to the body.

The two sides of the Heart: ( Right & Left)

Since the left side has to do so much more work, the left side valve is thicker than right.

Did You Know:

The bottom of our heart is tipped to the left, so we feel more of our heartbeat on left side.

        Will be continued.....

How Muscles Work & Grow Part 2

This blog explains why we don't need to be an athlete to appreciate the importance of muscles in our everyday life.

How to Maintain Your Muscles:

• Muscles are constantly remodeling: some cells grow and others shrink.
• If you don’t use your muscles, they shrink.
• You must exercise and nourish your muscles to prevent shrinkage.

Strength Conditioning:

A strength workout will make our muscles strong and we look and feel better too.

Regular strength workout sessions will offer us other benefits like

• Healthy Bones
• Great Posture
• Increased Metabolism
• Improved Balance

Muscle Strength Decreases with Age

Muscle Strength:

• Is relatively stable through age 50.
• Decreases 50% per decade between ages 50 to 70.
• Decreases 30% between the ages 70 to 80.

With aging, the ability to engage in physical activity declines, due to loss of muscle strength.

Decreased physical activity contributes to muscle loss and alters body composition in number of ways.If we don’t move, muscle mass is decreased while fat mass is increased. People with sedentary jobs and senior citizens with decreased physical activity loose muscle tone. So make sure to maintain healthy active lifestyle.

Keep your Muscles Hydrated:

• A 1.5% decrease in water results in a decrease of muscle strength.
• Staying hydrated can help you maintain your strength and help you build muscles over time.
• The more fluid inside the muscle cell, the larger the muscle cell will be.

Nutrition for Healthy Muscles:

• High quality protein.
• The right building blocks from amino acids in protein
• Vitamins & Minerals
• Healthy Carbohydrates for quick energy

How Muscles Work & Grow Part 1

What do Muscles Do?

• Without Muscles we will not be able to do anything.

• Muscles let you move your arms and legs and life weights.

• Muscles move blood throughout the body.

• Muscles help your intestine digest food.

Working Of Muscles:

• Muscles are made of special cells that look like long thin tubes, with two sets of sliding fibers.

• A little protein motor moves muscle fibers together to contract muscles and apart to relax them.

• During exercise, when we stretch fibers apart, we stimulate muscle cells to grow.
• When muscles grow they recruit small cells called satellite cells.

• These satellite cells add proteins, so the muscle fiber gets larger. This is how muscles grow larger.

• Eating any food, particularly food higher in protein after workout helps muscle to recover faster.

Did you know?

Types of Muscles:

Three types of muscles are key to help blood move throughout your body, to move your limbs and exercise and to help digest food.

1.      Cardiac muscle cells help move blood.

2.      Skeletal muscle cells help you exercise.

3.      Smooth muscle cells help digest food.

Maintaining all types of Muscles is important for our health.

In our next session, we will discuss in detail regarding:

•        Types of muscles
•               How to maintain Muscles?
•               Strength conditioning
•        How Muscle strength decreases with age?
•       How healthy and active muscles can be maintains?

Nutrition for Healthy, Active Life - 2

How much exercise do we need:

Benefits of Aerobic Exercises:

Aerobic exercise increases the flow of oxygen to Heart & Brain.This is the key to maintain low stress levels. Benefits of Aerobic Exercises are :

• Conditions our heart
• Control weight
• Stress Relief

Examples of Aerobic Exercises are :

How many calories do we burn?

The number of calories we burn is calculated by our weight and time spent in our activity.

Good nutrition for a healthy, active life:

• Make sure to keep a balanced nutrition diet to maintain a healthy active life. 
• This means eating the recommended levels of Vitamins, Minerals, Fats, Carbohydrates and Proteins.

Nutrition for Healthy, Active Life -1

What is Healthy Active Life?

• A healthy life includes all types of physical activity including Sports, Working out at Gym and Everyday Activities.
• As you see, a healthy life will not only have Physical benefits but emotional benefits as well.
• The importance of healthy, active life is to make it part of our daily life.

Everyday Activities:

• In today’s busy life, mostly we may find difficult to get time to exercise or make a trip to the Gym. 
• Lots of the activities like, Taking the stairs, Walking the dog , Housework etc ,that are the part of living burn calories and support a healthy, active life.

Benefits of Exercise:

• Weight Control
• Muscle Growth
• Fat Reduction
• Stronger Bones
• Stress Relief

Did You Know:

Exercise is a proven way to maintain your healthy body weight after weight loss- with just 30 minutes per day!

In my next blog, I will discuss regarding the below topics.

• How much exercise do we need?
• Benefits of Aerobic Exercises.
• How many calories do we burn?
• Good nutrition for healthy, active life.

To be continued......

What is your shape?

·         Do you know how much fat you're carrying, compared to how much muscle?

·         Do you know where you tend to gain weight–upper body, lower body or around the middle?

Until you know the answers to these questions, you are not ready to make your personal plan for losing weight and keeping it off. Understanding your body is the first step to reaching your best personal shape.

Body shape counts

Weight loss has been overemphasized and body shape underemphasized. Body shape counts. Shapes are personal and go beyond the usual apple and pear.

·         Women can have three typical body shapes–upper body fat, lower body fat and both upper and lower body fat.

·          Men usually only get upper body fat.

·         The upper body stores fat in times of stress and some people can lose and gain weight rapidly in the upper body.

·          The lower body fat in women responds to female hormones such as estrogen and progesterone and stores fat for breastfeeding a new born baby.

·          Women who have both upper and lower body fat will lose their upper body fat first.

·         Women with more upper body fat tend to have more muscle than women with lower body fat and will need more protein in their diet to help control their hunger.

·         Losing weight is harder if you have lower body fat rather than upper body fat, but the medical benefits of losing your upper body fat are greater.

·         Losing weight around your neck, face, chest and waist usually goes along with losing fat on the inside as well. So as you look better, you are also improving your health tremendously.

Finally, there are two more body shapes to consider: 

• The shape you can change and the shape you can't change. 
• It is important to know the difference and work on the shape you can change, while adjusting your wardrobe and attitudes to the shape you cannot change.
•  Due to low metabolism, many women with lower body fat can't lose weight just by cutting calories. 
• These lower body-fat cells are resistant to both exercise and diet. 
• Only a personalized program can help make sure you get enough protein to control cravings and build or maintain lean muscle.