Health-Food Heresy: When Eating Healthy Becomes Your God

Lindsey Carlson

Growing up in my family “eating healthy” meant there’d be a tiny dry chicken breast and a plop of plain rice on the dinner plate that night. I groaned every time my parents announced a new health kick. Instead of Pop-Tarts, there’d be plain Cheerios and I could bet within the week they’d try pushing “fruit” as a dessert. My brother and I prayed for the day they’d fall off the dieting bandwagon and we could go cheerfully back to consuming a diet rich in processed sugar and high fructose corn syrup. 

I’ve never been the kind of girl who craves raw veggies and experiments with hummus, sprouts, or quinoa. I’m the kind of girl who breaks a sweat saying no to carbs and avoids cupcakes by closing my eyes and counting to ten. Eating healthy is a challenge for me and most of the time it takes a conscious effort to run the race at all, let alone with endurance.

Is it true that prolonged sex (like for an hour) has health benefits or is that a myth?

It sounds like you might be reading Maxim, not New Man for sexual theories. It's true; any aerobic activity done for an extensive period of time can have health benefits. But this could be a really hard sell for your wife.

The way it would sound to her is, "Hey honey, let me use your body for an hour because I am too lazy to go to the gym." Sex isn't about calorie burning or building great abs. If that's what you want, eat less and exercise regularly.

If your wife wants sex for an hour, fine. But most women—after a day at the office, time taking care of the children, homework, cooking and cleaning—are not really that interested in marathon sex so that you can get your heart rate up. To them, it might seem a little selfish.

Now if you take your wife to some secluded, tropical island with no children, cell phones, laptop or any responsibilities, and it's about making her happy, you might have a better chance at your one-hour goal.

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Doug Weiss, Ph.D., is founder of Heart to Heart Counseling Center and author of The 7 Love Agreements, which explains the power of unity in marriage and outlines seven "love agreements" that will revitalize relationships (available at strangdirect.com). Contact him at drdougweiss.com, or 5080 Mark Dabling Blvd., Colorado Springs, CO 80918, or info@drdougweiss.com.


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Massage Helps Heal Muscles and Relieve Pain

How Massage Helps Heal Muscles and Relieve Pain
Massage may work as well as drugs like aspirin or Advil in easing pain from intense exercise.
By MAIA SZALAVITZ | @maiasz | February 2, 2012 |
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The word massage alone elicits deep relaxation and stress relief, and now a new study sheds light on how deep touch works to ease pain and promote healing in sore muscles.

Researchers at McMaster University in Canada found that massage affects the activity of certain genes, directly reducing inflammation in muscles — the same result you’d get by taking aspirin or ibuprofen — and boosting their ability to recover from exercise.

The study involved 11 young men who were willing to engage in what the researchers described as “exhaustive aerobic exercise” — the equivalent of an intense spinning class. The men rode stationary bikes to the point of exhaustion.

After the workout, each man received a 10-minute Swedish-style massage on only one leg; the other leg served as the control. They also had biopsies taken from their leg muscles before and after exercise, immediately after massage and then again two and a half hours later.

MORE: Aching Back? Try Massage for Chronic Pain

Researchers found that massage set off a series of molecular events in muscles that helped reverse discomfort related to exercise. Massage dampened the activity of proteins known as inflammatory cytokines, which cause inflammation and pain. It also increased levels of proteins that signal the muscles to produce more mitochondria, the cell structures that produce energy and help muscles recover from activity.

Tiffany Field, a leading researcher on the effects of massage and director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami Medical School, says she found the results “very believable.” She was not associated with the new research. (Field notes that her group is planning to study the effect of massage on some of the same inflammatory cytokines in HIV-positive pregnant women.)

Massage basically has the same pain-relieving effect as drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil) and naproxen (Aleve), says Field. Known as NSAIDS, for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, these medications work by reducing levels of substances called prostaglandins that increase levels of inflammatory cytokines. “By reducing the inflammation — or the pro-inflammatory cytokines, to be specific — you would reduce pain,” says Field.

Mainstream medicine has often dismissed massage as a bona fide therapy, but “these findings will have an impact on traditional medicine, as every ‘beneath-the-skin’ finding helps,” says Field.

The study was published in Science Translational Medicine.

MORE: The Lab Rat Gets Petted: How Massage Works

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer for TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

Read other related stories about this:
Study Works Out Kinks in Understanding of Massage The Los Angeles Times
Massage May Help Sore Muscles Recover WebMD
Massage After Exercise Tamps Down Inflammation That Causes Aches Bloomberg
Related Topics: massage, Medicine, Pain


Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/02/how-massage-helps-heal-muscles-and-relieve-pain/#ixzz1lLmzuVZK