Fitness Mantra : A Health and Fitness Blog

“Got Milk?” I asked in one of my previous posts, where I described the numerous health benefits of drinking at least 24 ounces of milk everyday.

Woman Drinking A Glass Of Milk

As you already know after reading that post, milk is an excellent source of complete protein (containing all 9 essential amino acids which are required to meet our physiological needs), one of the primary sources of bone-building calcium for adults and also a treasure-trove of vitamins (especially D and K).

So if 24 ounces of milk are all you need in a a day, is there any specific reason to get 8 of those ounces just before going to bed at night? Read on:

Casein absorption: Almost 80% of the protein found in milk is in the phosphorus-containing form known as casein - a complete protein. Casein is hydrophobic (literally “scared of water”) and so it is not soluble in water but instead appears in milk as a suspension - and for this reason it is also called “Micellar Casein” (separated without the use of chemicals). The human body, however, processes casein a little uniquely. Unlike whey (another dairy protein) which the body can absorb very fast, Micellar Casein takes a while to be absorbed into the cells and so its processing is not a high priority task for the body. Milk consumed during the day will still slowly get you the protein, but when consumed at night it gives the body the best chance of maximum absorption. You can read a good description of Micellar Casein at N101.
Tryptophan: Remember those 9 essential amino acids I keep harping about? Well, turns out one of those is the sleep-inducing tryptophan. If you are wondering where you have heard that before, it is the same chemical found in turkey leading people to feel sleepy after a hearty Thanksgiving dinner. Of course scientists point out that tryptophan works best on an empty stomach and so it would be wise to give a gap of atleast 1-2 hours between dinner and your glass of milk!
Controlled snacking: With an 8 oz glass of milk reserved to be your final snack of the day, you are that much less likely to indulge in a heavier, diet-crashing, cake/cookie/pastry snack when hunger hits at bed-time. Your trusted elixir will keep you well satiated.
Get to 24 ounces: I don’t know about you but with a full-schedule day, I find getting 24 ounces of milk a pretty difficult goal to achieve. Even if you ensure 8oz in the morning and somehow manage another glass during the day, you are still likely to fall short of your target. Unless you make the bedtime glass of milk a regular habit.
Calcium: What better time to get some calcium into your system than when your body most needs it to build strong bones and damaged muscles caused by exercise? Remember you don’t build your body in the gym - you build it when you sleep/rest.

There you have it readers - 5 pertinent reasons to drink a nice, tall, warm glass of milk right before bedtime at night. Just make sure, though, that you are drinking either skim or 1-2% milk and not the whole-milk variety - leave whole milk for the babies!

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Fitness Mantra del.icio.us page Welcome to “FitnessMantra Weekend” a reincarnation of del.icio.us Friday, your once-a-week health news update. It was becoming increasing difficult to include late-breaking Friday news into the week’s news-post so I decided to make it a weekend edition. I will be posting the weekly news update over the weekend so I can include all of Friday’s news stories and also have a little time to elaborate on some of the bigger stories (instead of focusing on just one like I used to earlier).

As always you can also stay updated with the latest in fitness news by subscribing separately to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed.

neck tie - is your job making you fat? Is your job making you fat? asks an MSNBC article that explores the very real fact that the increased number of sedentary(”desk”) jobs is leading to an increasingly heavier workforce.

An ACE-commissioned study found that, not surprisingly, people whose work is largely conducted while sitting behind a desk, such as secretaries, lawyers and teachers, get little physical activity during the day.

In an interesting study, people from various professions were given pedometers to record their steps as they went about their daily chores and the results surprised no one:

Secretaries logged an average of 4,327 steps, less than half of the often-recommended goal of 10,000 steps a day for optimal health. Teachers got 4,726 steps, lawyers 5,062 and police officers 5,336. Mail carriers topped the list of most active workers, with a whopping 18,904 steps a day. Next came custodians with 12,991 steps, restaurant servers with 10,087 steps, factory workers with 9,892, construction workers with 9,646 and nurses with 8,648.

The best way to get more exercise during the day is to incorporate it into your routine - a workplace gym would be a great help, but going out to a nearby gym during your lunch hour is also possible. It would not only be a way to make fitness part of your day but would give yourself an hour to get out into the open and get back to work refreshed.

How do you make fitness part of your day?

Here are the top health stories for this week:

Mind over fatter: think thin: Scientists have revealed what millions of people have always wanted to hear: You can think yourself thin. If you imagine you are losing weight you will although you have to do a bit of exercise.
Why exercise gets harder with age: There is a reason why people feel they have to exercise harder as they age to get the same results, scientists say.
Americans have adopted heart-healthier diets: Over the past 20 years, the diets of American adults have become more consistent with most dietary recommendations for heart disease prevention — but the trend may not be continuing, research suggests.
FitList - Sweatin’ It Out With Your Sweetheart: Want to spend some quality time with your sweetie this Valentine’s season?
Dads may push daughters towards bulimia: Fathers are important influences on their daughters’ perceptions of their weight and shape during childhood, and can increase their risk of developing an eating disorder in adolescence, research shows.
World’s Fattest Countries: No matter how you tip the scales, Americans are getter wider every year. What’s worse is that many nations are following suit.
FDA Approves Non-Prescription Diet Pill: Dieters got a new tool Wednesday to help them take off the extra pounds _ the first government-approved nonprescription diet pill.
Kidney failure cases rise with more diabetes cases: The soaring rate of Type 2 diabetes among Canadians is fuelling a dramatic upsurge in cases of end-stage renal failure - a disease that can only be cured with a kidney transplant, says a report released Wednesday.
Fighting Fat With an Earlier Bedtime: Parents struggling to help Junior lose a few pounds may want to send him to bed early.
Cancer ‘to become bigger burden’: Rising rates of cancer diagnosis will put an increasing strain on health care systems across Europe, experts warn.
Vitamin D may cut risk of colorectal cancer: Taking 1,000 to 2,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D each day may safely reduce the risk of colorectal cancer, according to pooled data from published studies.
Philadelphia approves ban on trans fats: Enjoy that Philly cheesesteak but hold the trans fat on the fries, please.
Adolescents at risk from poor diet, inactivity: Most adolescents do not get enough exercise each day or maintain a healthy diet, according to researchers who analyzed the diet and exercise behaviors of 878, adolescents, 11 to 15 years old, and found that nearly 80 percent had multiple physical activity
Is work making you fat?: Like many desk jockeys, Kelly Gilstrap stares at a computer for a living. He’s a program manager for Sprint, and while his brain works hard on the job, his body’s essentially in idle mode.
Pick It Up, Sister: My sister’s wedding is six months away. Like most brides, she wants to be in top shape when she says “I do.”
Michigan to join trans fat debate: Michigan state Rep. Lee Gonzales wants to help people like Boisvert, who want restaurant fare to be healthy but don’t always act like it when ordering a meal. He is sponsoring legislation that would require restaurants to tell customers which menu items
Connecticut AG launches probe into calorie-burning drink: Richard Blumenthal says ‘calorie-burning’ claims appear to rely on questionable and ‘unpublished’ studies.
Stealth Calories: Pick up a processed food item these days — from bread and cereal to salad dressings, soft drinks and soups — and you’re likely to find a common ingredient: high-fructose corn syrup.
No more Mars bar ads for children: The company that makes chocolate bars such as Mars and Snickers, is to stop targeting its advertising at under-12s.
Arkansas to flunk obesity report cards: Arkansas the first state to send home obesity report cards to warn parents of overweight kids’ health risks may ditch the plan or weaken it with the help of the new governor.
Less TV doesn’t mean more exercise: Getting children to switch off the television does not guarantee they will exercise more, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Women’s Heart Disease Deaths Drops, Obesity Could Reverse Trend: The number of American women who died from heart disease dropped in 2004, continuing a trend seen since 2000, government researchers said Friday. At the same time, rising obesity rates and other worrisome health trends threaten to undo recent progress aga
Critics chew out writers of new food guide: Canada has a new food guide for the first time in nearly 15 years, and for the first time it includes an explicit call to include healthy fats in the diet.
‘Food fear’ children need support: Most young people with an eating disorder say there is no-one they can turn to about their problem.
Obesity poses larger diabetes risk than inactivity: Although obesity and lack of physical activity both raise the risk of type 2 diabetes in women, obesity appears to be the more important factor, researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care.
Turning off the TV won’t make kids more active: Cutting down on how much television adolescents watch doesn’t necessarily translate into more physical activity, Harvard researchers report in today’s issue of Pediatrics.
Exercise and Lower Breast Cancer Risk: More Than Weight Control?: In this study the greatest protection from exercise was seen in tumors that were estrogen-sensitive but not sensitive to the hormone progesterone. This relationship was unaffected by weight.
More Kids Having Weight-Loss Surgery: As the popularity of stomach surgery has skyrocketed among obese adults, a growing number of doctors are asking, “Why not children, too?”