The Success Secret - Six a Day

While everybody is drowned in the sea of World Cup 2010 mania, let me just plough my way in sharing with you the Big Secret for becoming a TBL Champion. Eat six times a day, (WHAT?? 6X!! Hamdi surely will laugh all the way to the kitchen now!!!!!), consuming a portion of protein and a portion of carbohydrates every two to three hours.

It's important to remember that by eating six times a day, it does not mean you're consuming twice as much food (faham tu Hamdi!) - it just means you're taking the three square meals you'd naturally consume and spreading them out throughout the day.

Of course, you may be accustomed to eating the typical three square meals a day. I used to feel that when I ate three meals a day, I'd feel bloated and miserable!

In truth, it's not the way we're wired, nor the way our prehistoric ancestors ate. They were frequent feeders, hunter gatherers who ate whatever they could whenever they could.

That should be your goal: to feed your body throughout the day, every two to three hours. (Nih, this is not a trick to lure you into losing the next phase of Juara TBL in the next six months - but this is the real SECRET to success!!) By eating frequently, you'll keep your food alarm quiet and your metabolism humming. It's easier for your digestive system to deal with a steady stream of nutrients than a sudden tidal wave ( as happens when you binge or stuff yourself with a feast). Listen to what a real CHAMPION has to say on this: "Since starting this program on Healthy Life Style, my knowledge of nutrition has changed completely. My grocery cart is now filled with good quality protein, complex carbs, fruits and veggies. I understand how important it is to feed your body six times a day with quality fuel and how it effects not only your body, but your mind as well."

Portion Control

We repeat: The way to become a JUARA is to eat six times a day. This means eating small, frequent portions of food.

Small portions mean an amount of food roughly equal to the size of your clinched fist or the palm of your hand. This method automatically customises the proper portion of food for you and your needs. Think about it: A 5'4", 135-pound woman has much smaller hands than that of a 6'1", 200-pound man.

Just as we urged you to forget about the scale and pay attention to the mirror when it comes to gauging the progress of your body transformation, so too, when it comes to food, we urge you to forget about calories and pay attention to portions.

Regards - Puda

The Wonder of Water

Like the planet you inhabit, your body consists mostly of water. Water makes up 70 percent of healthy muscle. It's the body's most essential nutrient. You can survive weeks without food; without water, you'll die in eight to ten days. It's the elixir of life.

Water delivers oxygen and nutrients to your cells and flushes away waste through urine and sweat. Without it, you can't digest and absorb food. It dissolves and activates the salts and minerals that generate electric current for your nerves and muscles. It cushions your organs, reduces friction in your joints, and regulates your body temperature.

Another benefit of water: It can help control your appetite. If the portions you're eating don't satisfy you, drink a cup of water before your first bite. Then drink another cup after your meal. You'll find this contributes to a sense of satiety, of being "full".

It takes about eight to 10 cups of water to replenish what you lose each day. This depends, on where you live, how hot it is, and how active you are. Your fluid needs might be double or triple that when you exercise strenuously for an hour or more in the heat.

The best source of water is water. Although you can meet your fluid needs with fruit juices and sports drinks, the advantage of water is that it contains no calories. Juices and sports drinks can be loaded with sugar, and surprisingly high in calories.

Many foods also provide water. Fruits and vegetables are 80 to 95 percent water. Meats are 50 percent water. Grains, such as oats and rice, as much as 35 percent water.

By far the worse source of water: soft drinks. Besides polluting your body with scads of empty calories, soft drinks will rot your teeth and leach minerals from your bones. Alarmingly, teenage girls who subsist on so-called "diet sodas" are showing signs of early osteoporosis.

If your water intake is low, you'll know it. All your body systems will be affected. You can feel sluggish and lose strength. Other symptoms of insufficient water intake can be: headaches, fatigue, poor concentration, constipation.

We can't overemphasise the importance of water. You need it constantly, drink it with meals, and between them. Drink it often and drink a lot. It's the official beverage of the TBL Championship.

Regards - Puda.

Your Friend, Fat

You're trying to lose fat, now we tell you to eat fat?

Yes. And here's why: Some fat is good for you. (By the way, I'm not talking about Unagiboy's fat here! Please note that I said some fat is good for you)

In fact, you need fat. For starters, your brain contains fat (yes, we're all fatheads). It's an integral part of your nervous system, your spinal cord and your cell membranes.

Fat keeps your skin and hair lustrous and radiant. It cushions your organs from shock, insulates you from the cold and stabilises your body temperature.

Fat serves as a storehouse for extra energy. It's also an important endocrine organ, just like your pancreas or pituitary gland. It plays a role in producing hormones, such as leptin, and helps regulate your appetite.

When consumed with dietary fat, your body can also increase the absorption of certain fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K).

Your mouth and belly (liat saja parut si Hamdi atu!!) love fat. Fat adds to the richness and taste of food and makes you feel full sooner and longer.

Not all fat is good for you, for example: saturated fats and trans fats. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature and are found mainly in animal-based foods. Trans fats, which are made by adding hydrogen to vegetable oils, are found in a variety of processed foods (e.g., margarine and some commercially processed foods can be high in trans fats).

Both saturated fats and trans fats raise cholesterol, which can clog arteries and trigger a heart attack. When it comes to disease (heart disease, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer's), a mounting pile of evidence points to a single culprit: inflammation. And a major potential contributor to inflammation can be excess body fat and excessive saturated fat consumption. If you're obese and sedentary, you have much higher levels of inflammatory proteins in your blood than if you're lean and active. Inflammatory proteins are mischief-makers, saboteurs of your health and longevity.

Unsaturated fats (including monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats) are beneficial. Such fats are liquid at room temperature and are found in olive oil, canola oil, sesame oil and safflower oil.

Also beneficial are unsaturated essential fatty acids. They're called "essential" because your body can't make them. You get them only through what you eat. Omega-3 fatty acids are especially virtuous. They've been shown to help control inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Plenteous sources are clams, mussels and cold-water oily fish such as wild salmon, mackerel, anchovies and sardines.

Make no mistake: Fat can make you fat. It contains more than twice the calories of protein or carbohydrates.

Most people accumulate excess body fat, however, not because they eat too much fat but because they eat too much, period. Excess protein and carbs will also wind up as fat.

As always, the energy equation rules: eat more calories than you burn and you'll gain weight; burn more calories than you eat and you'll lose weight. So simple, so immutable, so difficult to follow. Consume just 50 calories a day more than you burn - that's one Oreo cookie - and in a year you may be heavier by five pounds.

Insulin, the sugar trucker, is a major player. If you polish off a pile of flapjacks soaked in maple syrup, your insulin will soar and you won't be incinerating blubber. But if you jog along the beach in the morning before breakfast, when your insulin is low, your body will suck fuel from your fat reserves.

All of us have them, places where we deposit fat - bellies (this reminds me again of Hamdi's belly!), love handles, saddlebags. Your fat storage centres are filled with fat cells. When you eat too much, those cells begin to swell. If you keep overfeeding, your body will expand its storage capacity by making new fat cells and water gains.

If you go on a crash diet - shed 10 pounds in a month - most of that loss will come from shrinking your fat cells and water loss. But if you manage to maintain that loss, or if you lose fat slowly over six months to a year, your fat cells will decrease not only in size but also number.

Wow, I'm talking too much about fat already and we need to move on now. I will discuss next about our most essential nutrient, that is water. Let's leave it for the next posting. In the meantime, let's together do a HAMDI WAVE and keep ourselves healthy and fit...........

Salam hormat - Puda.

Carbs and Protein: So Happy Together

Previously, many of us were misled into believing that all carbs should be avoided.

We now know that your body works best with a balance of protein and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates not only provide instant energy. They also provide fiber, which helps hustle bad stuff out of your body. Your body makes better use of protein when it has a carbohydrate escort. Think of protein and carbs together as a nutritional dream team.

Protein is the purveyor of amino acids, the building blocks of cells, the bricks and mortar of muscle, the potion of repair and fertiliser of growth.

Because it takes longer to tap and harness its energy, eating protein does not lead to significant spikes in blood sugar levels. This reduces the likelihood of energy droops or brownouts and the wild mood swings that accompany them.

We'll talk about Fat next. Till then, salam hormat and keep healthy and fit always....................

Puda

The Low-Fat High-Carb Controversy

The body needs three types of macronutrients: protein, fat and carbohydrates. All three have their uses and all three are vital to health.

In recent years, as people have grown fatter, the food industry has responded by offering all manner of "fat-free" food. These products are indeed low fat. But they are also high in carbohydrates and high in calories. Many assumed that fat-free meant "all you can eat." They have paid for that mistake with swelling waistlines and rising rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

The increase in diabetes is especially troubling. More people are developing the disease in middle age. More children are developing the disease younger.

Carbohydrates come in two forms: simple and complex. When carbohydrates are broken down, they yield the sugar glucose. Glucose does many wonderful things, but mainly it's your body's gasoline, its chief energy source. It also maintains tissue protein, metabolises fat and powers the central nervous system.

Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, provides a signal to assist in the uptake of glucose into cells. You could call it the sugar trucker. If you don't make enough insulin, or if your cells become insulin-resistant, glucose builds up in your blood. Eventually, this excess sugar can lead to diabetes, and unchecked diabetes can lead to nerve damage, blindness and amputated toes and fingers.

All carbs are not created equal. Some carbs, such as whole-grain bread and cereal, are called "complex" carbs. Because their molecular structure is more complicated, it takes your body longer to break them down and extract the glucose. This keeps your blood sugar level even.

On the other hand, a candy bar is full of refined sugar - a simple carb. Because that sugar is so easily accessible, it provides a quick burst of energy, a sugar spike. Your body, which endeavours to keep things on an even keel, responds by dispatching an insulin posse to corral the sugar and haul it away. This can lead to a sugar bust that plunges your energy to a level below what it was before you ate that breakfast bagel or drank that mid-afternoon smoothie.

Cycling between high and lows, sugar spikes and sugar busts, can become addictive. High-carb diets can stimulate the appetite and may not satisfy. It's why people who consume a lot of simple carbs are always hungry, always eating. And the consequences of that are on display when we cannot even see the weighing scale as our tummies are getting in the way! (Excuse me for using Jester's expression!). Once we started making the correct carb choices, for example, choosing complex carbs such as whole-wheat bread, sweet potatoes and brown rice instead of simple carbs like white bread, potatoes, white rice and anything with refined sugar, we were well on our way to creating the bodies which everybody aspire to have as JUARA of TBL!!!!

Sampai jumpa lagi di keluaran akan datang dan kita akan membicarakan mengenai Carbs and Protein: So Happy Together.

Salam hormat - Puda

The Lies of Dieting

A common misconception many people have , is that the way to lose fat is to stop eating.

We know that the more active you are physically the more food you need - high quality, nutritious food.

Look at our bodies. We grew that muscle not by starving it but by feeding it, copiously, regularly.

When you stop eating, your body fights back. It assumes a food shortage or famine has hit. It reacts by going into conservation mode. It lowers the thermostat on your metabolic furnace. It begins scavenging fuel not only from the fat cells but from anything else that's available, including your muscles. You begin cannibalising the very thing you wish to perfect. Meanwhile, every cell in your body clamors: Feed me! When you are crash dieting, it does not make you a happier person, but instead more miserable and unhealthy.

Crash diets don't work because half the pounds you lose came from muscle. "Over the years, I tried every fad diet," recalls a typical person who's on a fad diet. "I lost weight, but as soon as I went off the diet, I gained back the weight plus a few pounds more." The reason: With less muscle, your body is a less efficient fat-burning machine. This is the root cause of yo-yo dieting.

Salam hormat - Puda

Eat Like a Champion

Jika ingin menjadi seorang Juara TBL, setentunya gaya hidup kita juga perlu mirip kepada gaya hidup seorang JUARA. Dan salah satu aspek gaya kehidupan seorang JUARA adalah dengan mengawasi diet makanannya. Apa yang dimaksudkan dengan "makan seperti seorang Juara" itu? Ikuti rencana berikutnya........

In life, there are two things you can control.

• How much you use and move your body
• What and how much you put in your mouth

Which brings us to food.

If exercise is the spark, food is the fuel. It's not only the source of your body's energy but the raw material from which your organs, bones and muscles are made. Quite literally, you are what you eat.

Among other things, your body is a chemical processing plant. And everything you eat - from murtabak to a kari kambing - is broken down into chemical substances. Some of those chemicals can improve your health, some can destroy it.

Your body is your most precious possession. It's the physical manifestation of who you are. So why would you not nourish your body with the best food? The closer you get to eating something in the form it came to the planet the better. The more it is processed, the more it is robbed of its nutritional value!

Salam hormat - Puda

(Next issue......The Lies of Dieting)