Once again, Darren Rowse of Problogger has initiated a Group Writing Project and the topic this time is “Top 5” (I love how specific he is!). Well, actually, he is vague on purpose, so as to get people from all niches of the blogosphere to participate irrespective of what the are writing about.

My humble little contribution is nothing more than a simple call to arms of our basic human faculties to help us achieve our fitness goals. At first all this seemed pretty obvious to me, but consciously heeding the advice of the senses helps me keep on track and helps me maintain an appropriate level of personal fitness.

Sight:

Yes, that box of snacks claims to be the best thing for you to munch on since sliced bread and comes decked with promises “Only 3g Net Carbs! Zero grams trans fats!”. But you know better: Use the faculty of sight to quickly flip the box and glance at the Nutrition Label. The 10 seconds you spend seeing this can save you hours of agonizing over whether the food is actually good for you. What do you look for? Good quantities of fiber and protein. Lower numbers for fat and sugar. And if it has some vitamins and minerals to boot then more power to ya! Remember it’s all about Calorific Payload (or making those calories count).

Sound:

So what is the sound you should most be concerned with when you think it’s time to get some nutrition? Surely the grinding of the snack cart or the tinkle of the ice-cream truck should play second fiddle to that most important sound of all: your stomach grumbling! Understanding if you are truly hungry (and sometimes listening or looking for signs of it) is a sure-fire way to keep your weight in check and also recognize false-triggers that make us want to eat: it could be stress, boredom or for all you know, It Might Be Thirst!

Smell:

Beware the perils of letting your nose be the decider of what your mouth should be eating! Roasted meat on a grill, melting butter in a pot, it’s no wonder that scientists have recognized pheromones and other powerful smells can make human beings behave in a variety of unplanned ways. Parties, group outings for lunch/dinner or buffets are easy places for losing control and succumbing to the call of the olfactory senses; but careful advance planning can thwart even the most sudden attacks on our diet defenses. Plan to drink at least 2 full glasses of water during the eating session, plan to see all your food before you even begin eating, plan to share your dessert with a close friend or partner. With these and other similar tactics, you might just be able to thumb your nose at … er… your nose!

Taste:

Ah!, you might think - surely the easiest of the lot because it deals directly with the root cause of all the problem: our tongue and the tastes it craves! Well, think again, because sometimes the reason we crave certain foods could be less our fault than we might think (see Why You Crave Sugar, for example) and dealing with these basic instincts can be harder than we think (and probably not in our best interests).

The solution? Well think back to the old adage; The best way to deal with temptation is to succumb to it! No, I don’t mean having Denny’s Grand Slams for breakfast and ice-cream sundaes for dinner everyday. I mean make days (and times) for the foods you enjoy even if they are not the most healthful. Love pot pies? Maybe it could be your special Sunday treat. Love the IHOP pancakes, syrups, eggs and sausage links (with the hash browns on the side)? Why not make it a family breakfast outing once a week? Keeping such “cheat days” will not only ensure you eat the stuff you love now and then, but it will also go a along way in ensuring you stay on track the remaining days knowing your cheat day is just round the corner!

Touch:

This faculty is the easiest to employ and gives immediate feedback for your processing pleasure! Whether you feel your muscles as you flex them before the mirror, do a quick pinch test around your middle to “guesstimate” out your body-fat-percentage or feel for tightness around the middle when you use signal clothes, no human sense hits harder or conveys the truth as painfully as touch. No loose clothes masking the body, no flattering designs to make us look lean - none of that: touch tells you the bare truth and constant vigilance over things like waist size or body fat percentage can help us stay true to our stated mission of making fitness a way of life.

Bonus! The Sixth Sense:

What is the sixth sense? Some people call it Extra Sensory Perception or ESP, the ability to know things beyond what the five senses can divine for us, but I believe it is nothing more than the common sense that age and experience brings us. As you begin to understand the various aspects of health, fitness and nutrition you learn from this site and from other sources, you mind begins to detect a pattern and soon it becomes second nature to make the right choice when you are presented with multiple options.

Which breakfast cereals are good for you? Which breads? Are all fats the same? Are some nuts better than others? These are some questions you might be easily able to answer when you are shopping for them in the grocery store. But consider others too: How much of peanut bitter should I eat? How many almonds in one serving? What kind of juices should I drink? These are everyday questions you might subconsciously be asking yourself numerous times a day without even realizing it.

But rest assured, with experience and your own knowledge of the effect of foods, exercise and other habits on your body, your own Sixth Sense will be answering these questions correctly and pretty soon, making the right judgment call will become second-nature to you.

Consciously using our human senses is just another technique that can help us achieve our health and fitness goals.

Technorati Tags: health, nutrition, fitness, human senses

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Welcome to “FitnessMantra Weekend”, your once-a-week health news update. As always you can also stay updated with the latest in fitness news by subscribing separately to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed.

This week the best story has to be from the MSNBC article Take a good look before you gobble. The crux of the article is pretty straightforward: “If we could really see all that we’re putting in our mouths, we’d probably eat a lot less.”

The article works off the old axiom that it takes our stomachs at least 20 minutes to send the “Full” signal to our brains by which time it’s likely we have already chowed down more food than we really need.

The article goes on to describe this startling experiment:

In a study published this month in the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills, my colleague Dr. Collin Payne and I promised a free chicken wing buffet to 52 graduate students (17 men and 35 women) while they watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar in Urbana, Ill. As part of the study, the waitresses were instructed to clear the dishes at only half of the tables.

If people had their tables continually cleared, they continually ate. Clean plate, clean table, get more, eat more. Their stomachs didn’t keep track of how much they’d eaten, so the students kept on eating until they thought they were full. Each of these people ate an average of seven chicken wings apiece.

The students who did not have their table bused were less of a threat to the chicken population. After the game was over, they had eaten an average of two fewer chicken wings per person — that’s 28 percent less than those whose tables had been bused.

- Take a good look before you gobble

So, the best advice for people who are trying heard to control portions? Put everything you are going to eat in a given session onto your plate an then begin eating - studies mentioned in the article show you are likely to eat 14% less per sitting and believe me - that can make a big difference in your weight over long periods of time!
Here are the week’s top health and fitness stories:

1. Why eating soup could be the key to losing weight: Eating soup with a meal could be the answer to the obesity crisis, according to scientists in the US.
2. Nutrition, On the Cheap: Eating healthfully is easy to do when you have the money to dine on wild Alaskan salmon, arugula and fresh raspberries. But is it is possible to eat well on a tight budget?
3. Take a good look before you gobble: If we could really see all that we’re putting in our mouths, we’d probably eat a lot less.
4. Study links calorie restriction to longer life: Scientists have known for seven decades that mice, dogs, fruit flies and other animals given diets bordering on starvation tended to live up to 40 percent longer than their better-fed cousins.
5. Take the ‘Magic Road’ to a healthy Latino diet: A new food pyramid, designed to encourage Latinos to eat healthier, touts the staples of traditional Latin-American cooking as the path to better nutrition.
6. Environment, routine behind rise in obesity: study: The speed at which Canadians are becoming obese and overweight suggests that everyday environments and routine modern behaviours may be to blame
7. Kids chowing down on faux junk food in W.Va.: Dominated by doughnuts, pizza and foods-on-a-stick, the average school menu in West Virginia can read like the offerings at a glutton’s dream buffet.
8. Yoga helps breast cancer survivors: In breast cancer survivors, the Iyengar method of yoga not only promotes psychological well-being, but seems to offer immune system benefits as well, according to research reported Monday.
9. How pistachios help the heart: A handful or two of pistachio nuts a day could keep heart disease at bay, research suggests.
10. KFC, Taco Bell finish switch to trans-fat-free oil: KFC’s fried chicken buckets soon will be stamped with a health message along with the famous likeness of its founder, Colonel Harland Sanders. The banner proclaims that its chicken has zero grams of trans fat per serving.
11. Fatsecret: For Fat People Who Want To Be Less So: There’s a new Australia-based social network called FatSecret - it’s designed to help overweight people leverage a network of friends and online resources to lose weight.
12. Kids ‘eat more after watching ads’: Obese and overweight children who watch food adverts on TV more than double their food intake afterwards, new research suggests.

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Have a great weekend!

Technorati Tags: health, fitness, health news, fitness news, health links, fitness links, del.icio.us

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