Ashwagandha

Posted on June 30, 2023July 7, 2023 by amwaltamath

Ashwagandha

What is it and why you should take it

Keep you on track

Ensure total body fitness

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Fitness Guide To

Alcohol

How to drink and still take care of yourself

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They myths of fat loss. Learn how we actually burn fat.

Lose Weight

Without counting calories

Can you lose weight without calorie tracking?

What is Ashwagandha?

Have you heard about Ashwagandha?

The health claims for ashwagandha range from increase in male testosterone to sleep improvements and less stress but are these claims true or false.

Ashwagandha (Withania Somnifera) is an herb of the Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine as a Rasayana. It’s used for various kinds of disease processes and especially as a nervine tonic. Ashwagandha may promote a youthful state of physical and mental health and may also increase longevity.

Another potential benefit to Ashwagandha is its hormonal balance properties to improve the function of the reproductive system promoting healthier sexual and reproductive balance.

Ashwagandha is also a powerful antioxidant and adaptogen, and it enhances the body’s resilience to stress. Since it’s a powerful antioxidant, Ashwagandha improves the body’s defense against disease and will protect against cellular damage caused by free radicals.

What are the benefits?

Power Antioxidant

Decreased risk of cognitive diseases and promote healthy wellbeing

Improved Physical Health

May promote a youthful state of physical and mental health

Mental Health

Studies have shown an increase in memory retention

Adaptogen

Reduces stress related hormones

Reduce Stress

Ashwagandha is also a powerful antioxidant and adaptogen, and it enhances the body’s resilience to stress.

Improves Hormonal Balance

Hormonal balance properties to improve the function of the reproductive system promoting healthier sexual and reproductive balance.

The Studies

In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study the stress reduced and pharmacological activity of Ashwagandha extract was investigated in stressed, healthy adults. Their findings showed significant reduction in stress hormones and improved testosterone.

Citations

Lopresti AL, Smith SJ, Malvi H, Kodgule R. An investigation into the stress-relieving and pharmacological actions of an ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) extract: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Medicine (Baltimore). 2019 Sep;98(37):e17186. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000017186. PMID: 31517876; PMCID: PMC6750292.
Gopukumar K, Thanawala S, Somepalli V, Rao TSS, Thamatam VB, Chauhan S. Efficacy and Safety of Ashwagandha Root Extract on Cognitive Functions in Healthy, Stressed Adults: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021 Nov 30;2021:8254344. doi: 10.1155/2021/8254344. PMID: 34858513; PMCID: PMC8632422.
Akhgarjand C, Asoudeh F, Bagheri A, Kalantar Z, Vahabi Z, Shab-Bidar S, Rezvani H, Djafarian K. Does Ashwagandha supplementation have a beneficial effect on the management of anxiety and stress? A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Phytother Res. 2022 Nov;36(11):4115-4124. doi: 10.1002/ptr.7598. Epub 2022 Aug 25. PMID: 36017529.
Singh N, Bhalla M, de Jager P, Gilca M. An overview on ashwagandha: a Rasayana (rejuvenator) of Ayurveda. Afr J Tradit Complement Altern Med. 2011;8(5 Suppl):208-13. doi: 10.4314/ajtcam.v8i5S.9. Epub 2011 Jul 3. PMID: 22754076; PMCID: PMC3252722.
Salve J, Pate S, Debnath K, Langade D. Adaptogenic and Anxiolytic Effects of Ashwagandha Root Extract in Healthy Adults: A Double-blind, Randomized, Placebo-controlled Clinical Study. Cureus. 2019 Dec 25;11(12):e6466. doi: 10.7759/cureus.6466. PMID: 32021735; PMCID: PMC6979308.

Health and Fitness Guide to Alcohol

Posted on June 21, 2023June 21, 2023 by amwaltamath

Health and Fitness guide to Alcohol

Do you exercise often, eat healthily, and occasionally drink alcohol?

A healthy guide to Alcohol

Health & Alcohol

New research found that out of 38,000 healthy patients between the ages of 20-86 who were active, physically fit men and women were more than twice as likely to become moderate or heavy drinkers compared to out-of-shape/ non-active people. The study shows a relationship between physically fit adults and alcohol, and the link might be due to the reward mechanism in our brain. As men and women perform intense and tough workouts, they often will consume alcohol as a reward for their hard work. Alcohol is a depressant, and alcohol has a brief numbing affect that might appear to be stimulating to fit people due to soreness. More research is required for the link between the two, however, there’s a clear relationship between physical activity and alcohol.

When it comes to alcohol, the research has been slightly conflicting. Some data shows support for alcohol improving cardiovascular function whereas other data shows an increased risk of all cause mortality. A recent evaluation of alcohol consumption shows less than 2 drinks per day for men and 1 for women did not impact health. However, the latest dietary guidelines recommend zero alcohol consumption as alcohol doesn’t provide any health benefits.

If you don’t drink alcohol, then it’s not recommended to start drinking, but again, life is short. In short, consumption is key like anything. Moderate drinking (1-2 drinks per day) will not impact your health. However, overconsumption of alcohol for longer durations can impact your liver, heart, increase risk of cancer, and mental health.

A lot of publications show a correlation between alcohol consumption and poor diet. What we need to see more studies on is healthy, active adults with great diets who consume alcohol, and then investigate the impact of health risks. It’s factual that many moderate to high alcohol consumers aren’t health focused or focus on a healthy lifestyle that would decrease your risk for health complications. However, the data is clear for high consumers, impacted health and sleep complications will occur. As a result of lack of REM sleep, (Rapid Eye Movement. Also known as deep sleep) you’re at an increased risk for brain health including mental stability, (Depression and anxiety) and cognitive diseases. In addition to the physical health risks, a major impact of alcohol is poor judgment resulting in violence, automobile accidents, suicide, and murder. About 10,000 people die annually due to traffic accidents where alcohol was involved. For women, increased risk of breast cancer is associated with alcohol consumption. Researchers found that having 2-5 drinks a day compared with no drinks increased the risk of developing breast cancer by 41%. However, genetics, lifestyle and diet were not identified in the study of over 320,000 women. However, women can significantly reduce our risk by increasing folate into their diet as we’ll explain later.

A healthy guide to
Alcohol

As much as we try to reduce alcohol consumption, many of us choose not to eliminate alcohol because we enjoy the taste, the relaxing effect, or we simply require it during social events. Regardless of our reason, it’s important to make sure you take care of your health to repair the damage.

Taking Care of your body

According to science, here’s the top 5 most important vitamins, minerals, and supplements to consider.

Top 5

Important Supplements

GABA

Gamma- Aminobutryic Acid is naturally occurring in the brain, and it’s a neurotransmitter that reduces stress and improves sleep. In addition, GABA also regulates the nervous system. Alcohol can pass the blood-brain barrier, and it’s an antagonist of GABA receptors. Alcohol is a nervous system depressant, and GABA can’t bond to the same receptors as alcohol takes its place. However, once alcohol leaves the body, GABA is still suppressed, which can cause anxiety, depression, and may lead to addiction. It’s not recommended to take GABA before or while drinking. The recommendation for a GABA supplementation is the following morning with plenty of water. GABA supplements are still being studied, and while results are mixed, side effects are low. GABA proteins can be found in many veggies, so it’s better to eat a healthy meal full of fruits and vegetables than a greasy, fatty meal even though one sounds better than the other.

L-Theanine

Like GABA, L-Theanine also passes the blood-brain barrier and contributes to relaxation. This amino acid has been shown to relieve stress disorders, improve mood, sleep, and some studies show an increase in cognitive function. Like GABA, L-theanine plays an important role in the nervous system, but its greatest benefit is repairing damaged liver caused by inflammation from alcohol. A recent study has shown that L-theanine was able to significantly reduce inflammation from alcohol in the liver. Acute alcoholic liver injury (AALI) is damaged to the liver caused by high alcohol consumption. Other benefits include anti-cancer properties due to its ability to regulate metabolic pathways and is a powerful antioxidant.

Probiotics

Alcohol will destroy the healthy bacteria in your digestive system, which can disrupt hormones and cause you to be hungrier. Due to the uptake of the hunger hormone, ghrelin, we select food options that are less nutritious. A probiotic will help restore the microbiota and improve the gut-liver-brain axis. Since alcohol passes the brain barrier, alcohol provokes oxidative stress and contributes to neuroinflammation. However, probiotics play an important role in reducing the negative effects associated with higher alcohol consumption.

Take away

Citations

If you choose to drink, try to reduce alcohol consumption. However, if you drink in higher volume, then plan accordingly. Try to drink plenty of water before consuming and be sure to know the effects alcohol plays on your body. It’s also important that if you choose to consume alcohol regularly, then you’ll want to eat a healthier diet. Although, moderation is key in to staying healthy and fit!

Hepsomali P, Groeger JA, Nishihira J, Scholey A. Effects of Oral Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) Administration on Stress and Sleep in Humans: A Systematic Review. Front Neurosci. 2020 Sep 17;14:923. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00923. PMID: 33041752; PMCID: PMC7527439.
Yamatsu A, Yamashita Y, Pandharipande T, Maru I, Kim M. Effect of oral γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) administration on sleep and its absorption in humans. Food Sci Biotechnol. 2016 Apr 30;25(2):547-551. doi: 10.1007/s10068-016-0076-9. PMID: 30263304; PMCID: PMC6049207.
Sadzuka Y, Inoue C, Hirooka S, Sugiyama T, Umegaki K, Sonobe T. Effects of theanine on alcohol metabolism and hepatic toxicity. Biol Pharm Bull. 2005 Sep;28(9):1702-6. doi: 10.1248/bpb.28.1702. PMID: 16141543.
Lingli Sun, Shuai Wen, Qiuhua Li, Xingfei Lai, Ruohong Chen, Zhenbiao Zhang, Dongli Li, Shili Sun,
L-theanine relieves acute alcoholic liver injury by regulating the TNF-α/NF-κB signaling pathway in C57BL/6J mice,
Journal of Functional Foods,Volume 86,2021,104699,ISSN 1756-4646,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2021.104699.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756464621003480)
Boonstra E, de Kleijn R, Colzato LS, Alkemade A, Forstmann BU, Nieuwenhuis S. Neurotransmitters as food supplements: the effects of GABA on brain and behavior. Front Psychol. 2015 Oct 6;6:1520. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01520. PMID: 26500584; PMCID: PMC4594160.
El-Sayed MS, Ali N, El-Sayed Ali Z. Interaction between alcohol and exercise: physiological and haematological implications. Sports Med. 2005;35(3):257-69. doi: 10.2165/00007256-200535030-00005. PMID: 15730339.
Baba Y, Inagaki S, Nakagawa S, Kaneko T, Kobayashi M, Takihara T. Effects of l-Theanine on Cognitive Function in Middle-Aged and Older Subjects: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Study. J Med Food. 2021 Apr;24(4):333-341. doi: 10.1089/jmf.2020.4803. Epub 2021 Mar 22. PMID: 33751906; PMCID: PMC8080935.

Lose weight without counting calories

Posted on June 12, 2023June 12, 2023 by amwaltamath

Science Based Fitness

News and Articles

Lose weight withtout counting calories

Overview & goals

Have you struggled to lose weight and keep it off? If so, then you’re not alone. If fact, millions of people in the United States have fallen victim to weight gain after following a caloric restricted diet.

The problem with caloric restriction is how our bodies adjust to caloric restriction. We consume much less calories and change our diets to healthier foods, but once we get off our diet, then all the weight comes back or more. Without getting into “is a calorie a calorie,” meaning, is a calorie from broccoli the same a calorie from chocolate? In short, the answer is yes and no. In terms of calories, then yes, but its metabolic impact is different. In other words, how our bodies utilize energy and stores energy is very different depending on the rate of breakdown and utilization.

Before we lose you with the boring science stuff, let’s investigate different weight loss strategies that we could use to lose weight. We have other articles relating to why diets fail, but in short, we know caloric restrictions changes your baseline for how many calories your body utilizes a day. Our bodies will lose weight to accommodate the lower caloric intake until we reach an equilibrium. Once the weight loss to caloric requirements ration is balance, then we experience a plateau.

We could change the foods we eat, but this is more of a lifestyle approach than a temporary diet. If our diet consists of mostly fast foods, then we can switch to whole food sources, which consist of healthy lean meats, fruits, and vegetables primarily with occasional bad meals.

However, over the last decade, more and more studies about intermittent fasting are being published as a method of weight loss and balanced diets.

Why is this significant?

People don’t have to track calories or restrict foods. For the first time, a strategy consists of a way for people to enjoy foods without focusing too much on diet. You might’ve heard about short-term fasting, intermittent fasting, or alternate day fasting, but we’re going to dive into why so many people are having success on this diet.

Time Restrictive Eating

When it comes to fasting, we’ve been taught that it’s not healthy to not eat for a while, but what if short-term fasting prevented against cardiovascular disease and even some cancers? What’s the difference between fasting diets? Intermittent fasting is only eating within a window or timeframe. For example, 11am – 7pm is the time of consumption. Short-term fasting is not eating for 24 hours once a week or everyone other week, or there’s alternate day fasting where you eat less than 500 calories every other day or a few days a week. At Science Based Fitness, we refer to these diets as metabolic flexibility diets since these diets allow for more variance in the foods people consume.

The science

More benefits than just weight loss

When it comes to different variations of fasting, health benefits include more than just weight loss. From the studies we’ve reviewed, benefits include enhance cognition, reduced inflammation, decrease resting heart rate, increase insulin sensitivity, enhanced autophagy, fatty acid mobilization.

Science Based Fitness recommendation: Many of us practice intermittent fasting and short-term fasting for many benefits. We recommend that you consult with your primary care physician and give it a try.

F;, E. S. M. (n.d.). The effects of modified alternate-day fasting diet on weight loss and CAD risk factors in overweight and obese women. Journal of diabetes and metabolic disorders. Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23497604/.

Anton SD;Moehl K;Donahoo WT;Marosi K;Lee SA;Mainous AG;Leeuwenburgh C;Mattson MP; (n.d.). Flipping the metabolic switch: Understanding and applying the health benefits of fasting. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.). Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29086496/.

Want to learn More

Science Based Fitness

Exercise

Posted on June 1, 2023June 10, 2023 by amwaltamath

Science Based Fitness

News and Articles

Decrease risk from all causes of death?

Overview & goals

What if you can decrease your all cause of mortality by 5 times? What is this drug that better than any other drug available?

No other drug available on the market can equal the benefit of this drug in a 60% reduction of cardiovascular disease. However, what if this isn’t’ a drug at all?

What about regulating hormones, increase bone density, and increased immune cell mobilization? Also, changes in the way your body looks, reduced inflammation, and other immune function? In combination with immunotherapy, this would also be recommended to aid in fighting cancer and disease.

This drug would be prescribed to every person in the world!

No, we’re not talking about a magic drug. The key component here is exercise. Studies published over the past decade have shown that increase exercise can drastically lower all-cause mortality. There’s not a drug on the planet that can lower the risk of all cause mortality like exercise can.

But how much exercise?

cardio and vascular health

You might have belonged to a gym or currently do, and you’re at the gym for over an hour a few days a week. Surprisingly, less might be more! Would you benefit more from an hour of physical exercise a few days a week, or less than hour every day? More frequent but less time has been shown to be much more beneficial.

Resistance Training

Metabolic problems can occur due to lack of physical activity, but it may require as much physical activity as you once thought. Daily exercise around 30 minutes is the best for overall health. Too much exercise can lead to a different metabolic affect, which increase hunger hormones. One issue with increased hunger hormones is people will often eat in a caloric surplus, so weight loss limited even with the increased metabolic rate.

nutrition

Diet and health

When it comes to weight loss and anabolic metabolism, too much physical stress may result in lower energy levels due to process of rebuilding muscle tissue, hypertrophy. People may experience increased energy levels by a daily dosage of 30 minutes of moderate to higher exercise. Diet is the fuel for your exercise goal.

Keep you on track

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Motivation and training guides

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Become the best version of yourself

How do we burn fat

Posted on June 1, 2023June 10, 2023 by amwaltamath

Science Based Fitness

News and Articles

How do we lose fat?

Nothing Feels As Good As Being Fit Feels

Have you tried different diets, experienced success, but gained the weight back in surplus? We’ve all experienced “yo-yo” dieting where we’ve experienced weight loss, weight gain, and the cycle continues. To find the best diet, we really need to look at what our goal really is.

Do we want to simply lose fat? Maybe we want to increase muscle and burn fat, or maybe we just want to increase muscle and size. Increasing physical activity and diet structure really depends on the vision you have for yourself. Here’s an example, if your goal is to lose weight, then you’ll want to change your dietary habits and physical activity to aid in your goal. A plan for that goal would be smaller portion size, plenty of vegetables and lean proteins, and higher intensity exercise like walking/ running, or light weight and high repetitions workouts.

If you’ve worked with dietary professional, then you might be familiar with the terminology of Macros. In short, macros are fats, protein, and carbohydrates. Dietary professional might structure percentages of macros from calories. For example, calories from fat might be around 20%, and calories from protein might be around 60%.

Macros doesn’t work for everyone because it’s difficult to translate into food. What foods can I eat that fits my macros? Often, it’s difficult to track, so I tell our clients to just eat and track, and we’ll set the results as your baseline.

To meet our fitness goals, we really need to understand how our bodies utilize energy. It might surprise you that most of the energy burned is by simply living. Our bodies take a lot of energy to maintain life, and we refer to this as our Basil Metabolic Rate. (BMR) Our basil metabolic rate is different for everyone, and variables include height, weight, muscle mass, and other factors. A person with larger muscle mass will naturally utilize greater energy to live than a smaller person with less muscle mass.

So, what’s the best diet for me? It’s important to learn your body and understand how your body stores fat, burns fat, builds muscle, etc… Knowing we all have different BMR’s, what foods work best with our body? Your fitness goal depends on the ability for intuitiveness with us.

fat burning Techniques

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Science Based Fitness

Body & Mind Balance

Healthy Daily Life

Meditation Practice

Monthly Yoga Challenges

What is Science Based Fitness?

Ashwagandha

Keep you on track

Ensure total body fitness

Evaluate your progress

Alcohol

How do we

lose fat

Lose Weight

Without counting calories

What is Ashwagandha?

What are the benefits?

Power Antioxidant

Improved Physical Health

Mental Health

Adaptogen

Reduce Stress

Improves Hormonal Balance

The Studies

Citations

A healthy guide to Alcohol

Health & Alcohol

A healthy guide to Alcohol

Taking Care of your body

According to science, here’s the top 5 most important vitamins, minerals, and supplements to consider.

Top 5

Important Supplements

Folate

GABA

L-Theanine

Probiotics

Multivitamin

Take away

Citations

Science Based Fitness

Lose weight withtout counting calories

Overview & goals

Why is this significant?

Time Restrictive Eating

The science

Want to learn More

Science Based Fitness

Science Based Fitness

Decrease risk from all causes of death?

Overview & goals

cardio and vascular health

Resistance Training

nutrition

Diet and health

Keep you on track

Ensure your work out

Evaluate your progress

Science Based Fitness

How do we lose fat?

fat burning Techniques

personalizedtraining

A healthy guide to
Alcohol

personalized
training