Sugar and gluten free PUMPKIN Jelly. Little low callorie Vegan treat

This awesome light desert is perfect for any time of the day, completely sugar and gluten free, low in carbs, high in fiber and suitable for vegans. Plus, it’s super easy to make! No cooking required. 

pumpkin jellie


Yield: Serving 4-6 portions, prep time – 5 min, cooking time – 5 min, waiting time – 1 hour, total time – 1.30 min.


Macros:

Total calories per portion:  about 100 kcal

Protein – about 10g

Carbs – about 10g

Fat – about 3g


Ingredients

  • 450g Organic Fat reduced Tofu, drained
  • 495g (2 cups) 100% Pure Pumpkin Puree, canned (you can make it yourself if you prefer). You can also swop it for Apple, Pear or any other fruit puree
  • 1/4 cup Unsweetened Almond Milk
  • 2 Tbsp Toffee or Pumpkin pie Flavoured unsweetened syrup
  • 2 tsp Pure Maple Syrup
  • 1/2-1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 portion of gelatin
  • Fat-free yogurt or Cashew butter (optional)
  • 2 scoops of Bannofee pie whey protein (optional if you aim to increase your protein intake)

Directions:

  • Drain tofu
  • Put it between two paper towels to remove liquid completely
  • Prepare pumpkin (apples) if you don’t use canned puree (oven-baked would be a perfect option)
  • Mix gelatin with 3 Tbsp of warm water until dissolved. Do not boil.
  • Put tofu into a high-speed blender
  • Add gelatin and the rest of the ingredients to the blender and puree until completely smooth
  • Pour the liquid into serving bowls and put in the fridge
  • Serve with fat-free yogurt, cashew butter
  • Decorate with nuts and dried apricots (optional)

pumpkin-puree4

Enjoy!

 

Apple&Peppermint and Lemon Ice Popsicles!

Just because the weather outside says it’s still spring, it cannot stop us from embracing the summer! We prepared a special summer treat recipe just for you guys! Refreshing fruit pops boasting with vitamin C! Beachbody-Blog-LemonadePopRoundup_two


Yield: 8 portions, prep time – 30 min, cooking time –  about 10 min. Total time – about 4 hours.


Macroc:

Total calories per piece:  about 40 kcal

Protein – 0g

Carbs – 10g

Fat – 0g


Ingredients:

LEMON LAYER:
  • 2 tsp sweetener
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
  • 1/3 cup fresh orange juice
  • 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
APPLE & PEPPERMINT LAYER:
  • 3 tsp sweetener
  • 3 cups of water
  • 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh peppermint
  • 2 chopped apples
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

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Directions:

LEMON LAYER:

  • Mix 2 teaspoons sweetener with 1/2 cup water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to the boil
  • Cook about 30 seconds
  • Pour into a bowl
  • Stir in lemon juice, orange juice and extract
  • Cool for 15 minutes
  • Cover and chill at least 1 hour.

APPLE & PEPPERMINT LAYER:

  • Chop apples into small squires
  • Add 3 teaspoons sweetener and 2 cups of water and boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes
  • Stir in chopped leaves of peppermint
  • Cover and set aside for 30 minutes
  • Strain through a sieve into a bowl. Discard solids.
  • Stir in lime juice
  • Cover and chill 1 hour.

ICE POPSICLES

  • Pour about 2 1/2 tablespoons apple mixture into each of 8 ice pop molds
  • Freeze 1 1/2 hours or until almost set.
  • Arrange 1 wooden stick into mixture, being careful not to push through to bottom of mold. Return to freezer.
  • Freeze 1 hour or until frozen.
  • Remove molds from freezer.
  • Pour about 3 tablespoons lemon mixture over frozen apple mixture in each mold.
  • Freeze 2 hours or until completely frozen.

Enjoy!

Protein Yogurt Cheesecake!

I’m not a cheesecake lover but this one is simply amazing: low in calories, high in protein, very easy to make, end extremely delicious! When I cook it at home I can’t even notice how quick it’s gone. 

cheesecake with rasberry


Yield: 8-10 pieces, prep time – 20 min, cooking time –  about 60 min. Total time – about 2 hours.

Macroc:

Total calories per piece:  about 200 kcal

Protein – about 15g

Carbs – about 10-12g

Fat – about 7-10 g


Ingredients

Crust:

  • 1.5 cups crushed crackers
  • 2 Tbsp. melted coconut oil
  • 2 Tbsp. almond milk
  • 1 Tbsp. sugar free syrup (optional)

Cheesecake Filling:

  • 8 oz light cream cheese (I use 3% Philadelphia)
  • 12 oz fat free greek yogurt
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 egg whites (2 Tbsp. liquid egg whites)
  • 2 scoops vanilla whey protein
  • 1-3 tsp. sweetener of your choice (I use stevia + 1tsp. sugar free lemon cheesecake syrup)

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 250 F
  • Mix Filling ingredients! Let the mixture sit out in room temperature
  • Put the filling mixture aside and start working on the Crust
  • Mix crushed crackers with coconut oil, almond milk and syrup
  • Put parchment paper into a form and plop the crust onto the parchment paper.
  • Pour the cheesecake filling onto the crust
  • Bake the cheesecake for 30 minutes at 120C.
  • Then bake for 45 minutes at 105C!
  • Let it cool COMPLETELY for a few hours/overnight in the fridge to set!
  • Decorate with berries, fruits or compote
  • Enjoy!

 

Pumpkin sugar, gluten, dairy free protein Pancakes

I’m a bit pancakes fan. These recipe is, probably, one of my favourites,  as the pancakes are delicious, quick to make (about 15 minutes), and also gluten, dairy and sugar free. 

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Yield: 6 pancakes, prep time – 5 min, cooking time – 10 min, total time – 15 min.


Ingredients
  • ½ cup pumpkin puree
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 Tbsp. coconut oil (melted)
  • ¼ cup unsweetened almond/soy milk
  • ½ tsp. cider vinegar or lemon juice
  • 1 cup almond/oat/buckwheat flour
  • ¼ cup ground flax seed
  • 1 scoop whey/soy protein powder
  • ¼ tsp. baking soda
  • ¼ tsp. sea salt
  • a pinch of cinnamon
  • pure maple syrup
  • toasted walnuts/almonds/peanuts, optional

Directions

  1. Heat griddle to 300 degrees F (or heat a skillet over medium heat)
  2. Combine the pumpkin, eggs, coconut oil, almond milk and vinegar (or lemon juice) in a large bowl. Mix well.
  3. Add flour, protein, flax seeds, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt and stir until well combined. Batter will be slightly thick.
  4. Lightly oil griddle or skillet surface with coconut oil. Pour batter onto griddle using an ⅛ cup measure or a heaping tablespoon. Pancakes are ready to flip when bubbles pop on the surface of pancake. (about 3 minutes).
  5. Continue cooking other side until golden brown.
  6. Enjoy with pure maple syrup (homey) and some toasted walnuts on top. pumpkin5

Enjoy!

SOURCE: http://lettucebehealthy.net/2013/10/25/pumpkin-protein-pancakes/

Peanut butter-banana healthy muffins. Recipe from bikini-fitness champion

Since Fit&Treat production kitchen in London was closed November 2016 I received hundreds of emails from our customers and followers asking me to share recipes we used to cook their loved healthy meals. So I decided It would be at least selfish to keep a secret. From this moment i’m going to publish bit by bit all Fit&Treat’s healthy recipes created in Fit&Treat’s kitchen and gathered from best industry experts for years of my bikini-fitness expurience.

Starting the series with healthy muffins.

Personally, I’m not a big fun of muffins but my Fit&Treat’s customers and followers, my family and friends simply love them.


Peanut Butter & Banana Muffins – happy school days flesh back. 

peanut butter muffin.jpg

These muffins taste exactly the same way as traditional school days snack but far lighter in terms of nutrition. I swaped all heavy and sugary ingredients on healthy substitutes and here we go! Try to make this fantastic snack to spoil your loved ones. Peanut butter-banana healthy muffins could be a great idea as a pre-workout snack or breakfast. Let me know if you liked it.

with love

Tatiana Dmitrieva


Macros: 

Calories: 135

Protein: 4 grams

Carbs: 23 grams

Fat: 4 grams


Ingredients:

1 cup white whole-wheat flour + 1 cup oat or whole grain flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt (optional)

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 3/4 cup mashed bananas (about 4 large bananas)

2-3 Tbsp. of stevia or any other sweetener (i never use refined sugar in my recipes)

2-3 Tbsp. of honey or agave nectar (optional for those who have a bigger sweet tooth)

1 Tbsp. coconut melted oil

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup creamy peanut/almond butter

1/2 cup unsweetened almond/soya milk


Yield: 15 MUFFINS; prep time: 15 min; cook time: 20-25 min; total time: 37 min


DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Line a muffin pan with paper liners and set aside.

3. Whisk together hard ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

4. Mash bananas until smooth. I use mixed but fork is also an option. Add stevia, honey (optional), coconut oil, egg, vanilla and beat everything together. Add in the peanut/almond butter. Add the flour mixture and milk. Mix until smooth.

4. Fill muffin liners half full. Bake about 20 min. until toothpick inserted into muffin centre comes out clean. Cool. I like to serve the muffins with peanut butter and berries. You can store them in room temperature for up to 3 days.

You can also freeze and use when needed just reheat in the microwave for about 30 seconds.

Bon appetit 

 

What the Rest day does to your body. Shocking inside

How many days a week do you actually work out? How many days should be devoted to rest? Do we really need a rest day? Some people believe that the more you exercise, the quicker and better the results. What’s the ideal ratio of rest to workout days in order to maximise the outcome of your exercise? 

Workout days are simple to follow: you just follow your routine. Then, on your “rest days”, you feel like a lost duckling. It is always so tempting to fill them with “other physical activities” up to the top. Do you run on the treadmill? Or maybe do lighter weights? A bike ride on a unicycle up a mountain sounds nice. How about this: try actually letting your body rest.

runner+tying+shoes_crop+for+header+page.jpg

“Rest” Is Often Misunderstood

There’s a reason rest days are intentionally woven into workout programs. In fact, rest is necessary for progress. When you exercise—particularly when you do really intense stuff like training for a marathon or lifting heavy weights—you’re damaging your muscle fibers. And it’s really the rest and recovery that let you repair muscles, and get fitter.

The American Council on Exercise (ACE) defines a rest day as a non-training day, where you’re not challenging your body at all.  Some people interpret it as a license for a cheat day or just do nothing—the latter of which I actually encourage if you already work out too much. I used to work with people who took rest days to mean activity that was the exact opposite of resting. They might go for a “quick run” that ended up being eight miles; or do high-intensity interval training right after squats and deadlifts. That’s on top of training five to six days a week, sometimes twice a day. Those are pretty stressful rest days. Of course, these are extreme cases, but the urge to be extreme in fitness is more common than you think.


Refusing to Properly Rest Hurts You in the Long Run

You’ve heard the saying: “No pain, no gain,” or “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” If you work out intensely every day, you run your body ragged. Ideally, your fitness cycle should be: Work out, recover, profit, repeat. The recovery part is necessary for you to keep up this cycle over and over again and be able to see those results in the long run.

But remember, you’re (probably) not only exercising. You’ve got a life, a job, a family, Game of Thrones spoilers, and so many other stressors. These will all impact your ability to recover from your workouts.

And let’s not gloss over the fact that fitness is 50 percent physical and 50 percent mental. I know I spend a lot of time thinking about how to crush my workouts, what to do to get the most out of them, the “right amount” of reps and sets, what glorious thing I’m going to eat afterward, or whether the stripes on these socks match the color of my shorts. All of these stressors will have rippling effects on not only your workout performance but on other areas of your life, too. A little extra strenuous activity here and there isn’t a big deal.

But by the time you really do need that rest, it may be too late: you’ve burnt out. As a result, your motivation and energy levels will get hit hard; you’ll get lackluster or no results; you’ll make yourself more prone to injuries; or worse, you’ll start to see exercise as a chore.


Some fitness practitioners believe (and I share their opinion) that over-training causes massive water retention. At first glance it may resemble gaining fat. However, just a few days of complete rest could solve the problem, and is sufficient time to shed up to 2-3 kg of retained fluids in men and up to 5 kg in women. 


Rest Doesn’t Have to Mean Doing Absolutely Nothing

At the same time, plenty of people have told me that deliberate rest would be too disruptive to their “hot” workout streak. That is, they’re stuck on this idea that if they take some time to rest, it’ll mess up their momentum and be much harder to get crackin’ to work out again.

If that’s you, you don’t have to stop entirely. Instead of being completely still, you can do what’s called “active recovery”, where you’re still moving, just letting your body recover. Many coaches advocate engaging in some sort of movement, but advise that it should be easy on the body.

Here are some ideas on what that might look like:

  • Do some mobility work: Mobility refers to how well your joints and body move. If you sit at a desk all day, you can probably work on your mobility to improve your posture and range of motion (like in your upper back and hips). Besides, better mobility can translate to better performance in the gym, too. Your rest days are the perfect opportunity to fit in light mobility and flexibility work. Yoga or foam rolling can be part of this regimen.
  • Practice technique: Whether you’re learning a new weightlifting move or trying to improve your running stride, use your rest day to practice. If you’re practicing a weightlifting move, I recommend using a broomstick in place of a barbell. A lot of repetitions even with just the barbell could tire you out.
  • Do cardio (only if you want): You’re probably told to just do cardio on the exercise machines on your rest days. You can, but don’t feel like you need to, especially if you’re already pretty active. Do it only because you want to and it’s actually a way for you to feel relaxed.
  • Take your activity outside: Hike, jog, bike, play catch, swim, prance, or do anything you enjoy. When you spend all your time working out indoors, it’s nice to be able to mix it up with doing something outside. Recreational sports are great, but sports like soccer, football, basketball, Ultimate frisbee, and so on can also be really intense. If you’re playing at a competitive level on a regular basis and feel beat, talk to a coach who specializes in your sport about designing a proper in-season training protocol.

When you feel really run-down and lack the energy and motivation to work out, it’s a dead giveaway that something needs to go. Obviously, you can’t just easily toss aside many of your life’s obligations, but you can always cut down on your activity. Instead, you can spend a day preparing your meals on your rest day. Heck, if you want to, you can sit on your ass to play video games or read a book at the park. You should take at least one day of rest like that.

Doing too much exercise is counterproductive. Being fit and healthy requires the interplay between rest and exercise, which in turn bring you results and all those other health benefits. So, take care of your body. That’s why you’re working out in the first place.


What protein is the best for your health

There is a wide range of protein powders currently. The protein content, quality and value of ingredients used can vary enormously, as can the digestibility and absorption qualities of the supplement. Different types of protein also serve different needs. The array of products found on shop shelves can be bewildering, so here is a quick review with some guidance on what you should be taking.

Read also How much protein should be eatenHow to keep fit over 30Diets and exit strategies Why diets don’t work and what you can do about it

1.) Whey Protein Concentrate (WPC)

WPC is the most common source of protein you can find in shops. The protein content of such products usually varies between 70-80%. Some experts believe that WPC is a good option for non-professional fitness practitioners, and for those who are simply looking to increase their protein intake. As a qualified nutritionist and an expert in fitness and bodybuilding I would consider WPC as a suitable option even for advanced users. It can be mixed with carbohydrates in a post-workout shake to boost recovery, and 80% protein content is usually sufficient for most needs.

Recommendation: take it after weight training or mix it in your morning oats after fasted cardio for quick recovery and a metabolic boost. Ask your nutritional adviser to calculate the optimal intake for your needs.


2.) Whey Protein Isolates (WPI)

At between 90-100%, WPI protein content is higher than WPC. This means that the product itself is cleaner, and is of a higher quality. WPI has great absorption and digestibility due to its chemical form; it enters the bloodstream almost immediately following consumption, which is why it’s perfect for a post-workout shake. You can also use WPI if you are on a ketogenic diet (i.e. a no carbs diet), as it’s an absolutely pure source of protein that won’t impact the production of keton bodies (the primary source of energy when you’re on a zero carbs diet).

Recommendation: Do not follow a ketogenic diet on your own without qualified and experienced nutritionist supervision. It could cause hypoglycemia and other health problems.


3.) Hydrolysate Protein (HP)

Experts consider HP as the highest quality protein because of its chemical properties and absorption qualities. However, pure HP is not often found on shop shelves, but is usually found mixed in with other kinds of protein such as WPC and WPI. Manufacturers mix sources for two principal reasons:

  • To decrease the production price without any significant compromise in terms of quality;
  • To provide your body with proteins with various speeds of digestibility, in order for the body to retain its protein supply for a longer duration.

4.) Casein Protein

Casein is a slow-digesting protein. There is a completely different mode of thinking behind casein supplements than with other types of rapid-absorption protein powders. Depending on one’s metabolism, the body needs up to 5-7 hours to fully digest casein; this is why it is perfect as either a meal replacement or a bedtime snack.

Recommendation: Do not take casein after fitness activities as it will only enter the blood stream a few hours later, leaving your body starved of vital nutrients. You can take casein as a bedtime snack by mixing it with a small amount of water. Due to casein chemical properties such a mix will create a mousse-like texture, and could be taken as a desert.


5.) Soy/Pea/Rise/Hump Protein

All plant-based proteins can be taken to increase protein dietary content. They are suitable for vegans, and can potentially be a great way of fortifying their constitution with essential amino acids. However, keep in mind that all vegetable proteins have an incomplete profile of amino acids. According to Gastellu and his colleagues at the International Sport and Science Association, plant-based proteins should ideally be mixed with other sources such as WPC, WPI or HP (which are also suitable for vegans in the majority of cases) in order to provide the body with all the necessary building-blocks for its recovery and maintenance.


Tatiana Dmitrieva,

(OpenMindPortal, OMCommunications, Fit&Treat founder, ISSA Qualified nutritionist, double European vice bikini-fitness champion)

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Reference list

Sex vs Exercise

Somewhere near the top of every single one of the the roughly forty-kajillion internet listicles dedicated to the “surprising,” “hidden,” and “unexpected”health benefits of sex is the not-all-that-surprising-sounding factoid that bumping fuzzies basically doubles as exercise. In reality, however, there has been very little research done to support this claim.

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The few studies that have investigated the physicality of sex have typically looked at things like heart rate and blood pressure – important but arguably basic physiological measurements. They’ve also been conducted primarily in laboratory settings – which, sure, probably falls into some specific category of kink, but for most people is probably a less-than-ideal environment for sexy time. It’s not difficult to imagine, for example, how the wires from an echocardiogram, or the bulk of an oxygen-monitoring facemask, might interfere with one’s (doubtless considerable) sexual talents, thereby confounding any attempt at accurate physiological measurement.
 The point being that these methodological limitations highlight a gap in the existing body of scientific knowledge raises an important question about how physically strenuous sex really is. How much energy does a young, healthy couple actually expend getting physical between the sheets? Are we talking a pastrami sandwich’s worth of calories, or a handful of kale’s? And to what extent does sex really count as exercise?
…Researchers led by Université du Québec à Montréal kinanthropologist Antony Karelis… The goal: measure the free-living energy expenditure (in calories) during sexual activity, in the absence of drugs, alcohol, or ED medications. (Study participants were also asked to forego any and all paraphilic sexual activities – i.e. nothing deemed too freaky by… well… society, we guess.) The final figures are as follows:

Mean energy expenditure during sexual activity (men)

101 kCal (the same as 101 dietary Calories), or 4.2 kCal/min

Mean energy expenditure during sexual activity (women)

69.1 kCal, or 3.1 kCal/min

So the overall average comes out to roughly 85 kCal (3.6 kCal/min) – about the same number of dietary calories in your standard chicken egg…

 

Source

http://io9.gizmodo.com/seriously-though-does-sex-count-as-exercise-1452095982

 

How to lose weight without counting calories

Interesting idea of how to lose weight relatively effortlessly without counting calories… Read more and share

Mind over matter: psychology over calorie-counting

Interesting idea of how to lose weight relatively effortlessly without counting calories (warning: you still have to watch what you eat) by letting your own body dictate how much you eat. Seems pretty sensible and worth a try.


by Michael Graziano  (is a neuroscientist, novelist and composer. He is Professor of Neuroscience at Princeton University in New Jersey. His latest book is Consciousness and the Social Brain (2013). Edited by Ed Lake  | 18 January, 2016 | Aeon


The hunger mood

Hunger isn’t in your stomach or your blood-sugar levels. It’s in your mind – and that’s where we need to shape up…

…If weight were a matter of calories in and calories out, we’d all be the weight we choose. Everyone’s gotten the memo. We all know the ‘eat less’ principle. (Read Why diets don’t work and what you can do about it and Diets and exit strategies.) Losing weight should be as easy as choosing a shirt colour. And yet, somehow it isn’t, and the United States grows heavier. It’s time to consider the problem through an alternative lens.

Read also How to keep fit over 30.

Whatever else it is, hunger is a motivated state of mind. Psychologists have been studying such states for at least a century. We all feel hungry before dinner and full after a banquet, but those moments are the tip of the iceberg. Hunger is a process that’s always present, always running in the background, only occasionally rising into consciousness. It’s more like a mood. When it slowly rises or eases back down, even when it’s beneath consciousness, it alters our decisions. It warps our priorities and our emotional investment in long-term goals. It even changes our sensory perceptions – often quite profoundly.

burger-sandwich-header

You sit down to dinner and say:

That tiny, little hamburger? Why do they have to make them so small? I’ll have to eat three just to break even.

That’s the hunger mood making food look smaller. If you’re full, the exact same hamburger looks enormous. It isn’t just the food itself. Your own body image is warped.

When the hunger mood rises, you feel a little thinner, the diet feels like it’s working and you can afford a self-indulgence. When satiety kicks in, you feel like a whale.

Even memory can be warped. Suppose you keep a log of everything you eat. Is that log trustworthy? Not only have you drastically misjudged the size of your meals, but you’ve almost certainly forgotten items.

Depending on your hunger state, you might snarf up three pieces of bread and after the meal sincerely remember only one.

One recent study found that most of the calories people eat come through snacks between meals. But when you ask people, they deny it. They’re surprised to find out just how much they snack…

cravingsheader header.jpg

…Let’s say you decide to cut back on calories. You eat less for a day. The result? It’s like picking up a stick and poking a tiger. Your hunger mood rises and for the next five days you’re eating bigger meals and more snacks, perhaps only vaguely realising it…

… I’m not denying the physics here. If you take in fewer calories, you’ll lose weight. But if you explicitly try to reduce calories, you’re likely to do the exact opposite. Almost everyone who tries to diet goes through that battle of the bulge. Diets cause the psychological struggle that causes weight gain.

Read  also Why diets don’t work and what you can do about it.

… Let’s say you try another standard piece of advice: exercise. If you burn calories at the gym you’ll definitely lose weight, right? Isn’t that just physics? Except that, after you work out, for the rest of the day you’re so spent that you might actually burn fewer calories on a gym day than on a regular one. Not only that, but after a workout you’ve assuaged your guilt. Your emotional investment in the cause relaxes. You treat yourself to a chocolate chip muffin. You might try to be good and decline the muffin, but the exercise revs up that subtle hunger mood lurking under the surface and then you don’t even know any more how much you’re overeating. Meals grow bigger while seeming to grow smaller. Extra snacks sneak in.

Read Diets and exit strategies … 

…But the most insidious attack on the hunger mechanism might be the chronic diet. The calorie-counting trap. The more you try to micromanage your automatic hunger control mechanism, the more you mess with its dynamics. Skip breakfast, cut calories at lunch, eat a small dinner…

be constantly mindful of the calorie count, and you poke the hunger tiger

All you do is put yourself in the vicious cycle of trying to exert willpower and failing. That’s when you enter the downward spiral…


The gist

CALIFORNIA WALNUT COMMISSION MEDITERRANEAN DIET
Healthy eating as a life-style choice 

Don’t put a plastic bag over your head. Likewise, don’t eat the super-high death-carb, low-fat diet. Don’t micromanage your brainstem by counting every calorie. You might be surprised at how well your health self-regulates.

Michael Graziano is a neuroscientist, novelist and composer. He is Professor of Neuroscience at Princeton University in New Jersey. His latest book is Consciousness and the Social Brain (2013).

https://pragmasynesi.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/mind-over-matter-psychology-over-calorie-counting/

Read also 

Diets and exit strategies  

How to keep fit over 30

Why diets don’t work and what you can do about it

How much protein should be eaten

How Neuroscientists Explain the Mind-Clearing Magic of Running

It is something of a cliché among runners, how the activity never fails to clear your head. Does some creative block have you feeling stuck? Go for a run. Are you deliberating between one of two potentially life-altering decisions? Go for a run. Are you feeling mildly mad, sad, or even just vaguely meh? Go for a run, go for a run, go for a run.


The author Joyce Carol Oates once wrote in a column for the New York Times that

in running the mind flees with the body … in rhythm with our feet and the swinging of our arms.

 Filmmaker Casey Neistat told Runner’s World last fall that running is sometimes the only thing that gives him clarity of mind.

 “Every major decision I’ve made in the last eight years has been prefaced by a run,”

he told the magazine. But I maybe like the way a runner named Monte Davis phrased it best, as quoted in the 1976 book The Joy of Running:

“It’s hard to run and feel sorry for yourself at the same time. Also, there are those hours of clear-headedness that follow a long run.”


A good run can sometimes make you feel like a brand-new person. And, in a way, that feeling may be literally true. About three decades of research in neuroscience have identified a robust link between aerobic exercise and subsequent cognitive clarity, and to many in this field the most exciting recent finding in this area is that of neurogenesis. Not so many years ago, the brightest minds in neuroscience thought that our brains got a set amount of neurons, and that by adulthood, no new neurons would be birthed. But this turned out not to be true. Studies in animal models have shown that new neurons are produced in the brain throughout the lifespan, and, so far, only one activity is known to trigger the birth of those new neurons: vigorous aerobic exercise, said Karen Postal, president of the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s the only trigger that we know about.”

The other fascinating thing here is where these new cells pop up: in the hippocampus, a region of the brain associated with learning and memory. So this could help explain, at least partially, why so many studies have identified a link between aerobic exercise and improvement in memory.

If you are exercising so that you sweat — about 30 to 40 minutes — new brain cells are being born,

added Postal, who herself is a runner. “And it just happens to be in that memory area.”
Other post-run changes have been recorded in the brain’s frontal lobe, with increased activity seen in this region after people adopt a long-term habit of physical activity. This area of the brain — sometimes called the frontal executive network system — is located, obviously enough, at the very front: It’s right behind your forehead. After about 30 to 40 minutes of a vigorous aerobic workout – enough to make you sweat – studies have recorded increased blood flow to this region, which, incidentally, is associated with many of the attributes we associate with “clear thinking”: planning ahead, focus and concentration, goal-setting, time management.

But it’s this area that’s also been linked to emotion regulation, which may help explain the results of one recent study conducted by Harvard psychology professor Emily E. Bernstein. Like Postal, Bernstein is also a runner, and was curious about a pattern she saw in her own mind after a run.

I notice in myself that I just feel better when I’m active.

She started to become really interested in the intervention studies that have popped up in recent years that suggest if you can get people who are having trouble with mood or anxiety to exercise, it helps. “But why?” she wanted to know. “What is exercise actually doing?”

To find out, she did a version of a classic experiment among researchers who study emotion: She and her colleague — Richard J. McNally, also of Harvard — played a reliable tearjerker of a clip: the final scene of the 1979 film The Champ.

Before watching the film clip, some of the 80 participants were made to jog for 30 minutes; others just stretched for the same amount of time. Afterward, all of them filled out surveys to indicate how bummed out the film had made them. Bernstein kept them busy for about 15 minutes after that, and surveyed them again about how they were feeling. Those who’d done the 30-minute run were more likely to have recovered from the emotional gut-punch than those who’d just stretched — and, her results showed, the people who’d initially felt worse seemed to especially benefit from the run. Bernstein is currently doing a few follow-up research projects to determine exactly why this works the way it does.

running feet mezunoBut there’s another big mental benefit to gain from running, one that scientists haven’t quiet yet managed to pin down to poke at and study: the wonderful way your mind drifts here and there as the miles go by. Mindfulness, or being here now, is a wonderful thing, and there is a seemingly ever-growing stack of scientific evidence showing the good it can bring to your life. And yet mindlessness — daydreaming, or getting lost in your own weird thoughts — is important, too. Consider, for example, this argument, taken from a 2013 article by a trio of psychologists in the journal Frontiers in Psychology:

“We mind wander, by choice or by accident, because it produces tangible reward when measured against goals and aspirations that are personally meaningful. Having to reread a line of text three times because our attention has drifted away matters very little if that attention shift has allowed us to access a key insight, a precious memory or make sense of a troubling event. Pausing to reflect in the middle of telling a story is inconsequential if that pause allows us to retrieve a distant memory that makes the story more evocative and compelling. Losing a couple of minutes because we drove past our off ramp is a minor inconvenience if the attention lapse allowed us to finally understand why the boss was so upset by something we said in last week’s meeting. Arriving home from the store without the eggs that necessitated the trip is a mere annoyance when weighed against coming to a decision to ask for a raise, leave a job, or go back to school.

Just because the benefits of losing yourself in your own thoughts are not easily measured doesn’t mean they’re not of value, and there are few ways I know of that induce this state of mind more reliably than a long run. A handful of recent studies have tried to answer what every runner, whether pro or hobbyist, has no doubt been asked by friends and family: What on earth do you think about while you’re out there for so many miles? This, as the writer Haruki Murakami noted in his What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, is almost beside the point. Sometimes he thinks while on the run; sometimes, he doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter.

 I just run. I run in void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void.

April 21, 2016 12:51 p.m.

By Melissa Dahl

https://madridjournal.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/how-neuroscientists-explain-the-mind-clearing-magic-of-running/