Pour one sachet of Balance Mineral Drink into a glass containing 150ml of water or milk and then stir well. The drink has a natural strawberry flavour so is both refreshing and tasty!
Did you know?
Peanut butter is a great food to fuel up on before a 5K or 10K because of its low GI, high carbohydrate and high protein content.
What to eat before a 5K or 10KExercise burns calories
Exercise of any variety burns calories, be it a low impact sport such as walking or something more intense like weightlifting. Aerobic exercises such as cycling and swimming are thought burn the most calories, though the exact amount will depend of factors like age, weight, gender and body type. Calorific expenditure can remain elevated for 30 minutes or more after a session of vigorous exercise meaning that the benefits of a workout go beyond the time spent on a treadmill or running laps in your local park!
Surprisingly, we don’t always burn the most calories by doing an intense workout though, and instead we actually burn more calories by walking a long distance than by sprinting a short one. The more exercise you do, however, the more your fitness will improve. This means that over time your workouts will likely get longer and more intense thus burning more calories. Therefore, in the long run exercise allows you to gain more control over your body weight.
Being unfit means your ability to exercise is limited and as a result so is your ability to burn calories. Improving your fitness though, will increase the amount of calories you are able to burn.
Exercising makes it easier to maintain weight loss
For those embarking on a health kick, diet often takes priority. Although we are always advising people to eat a healthy, varied diet here at A.Vogel, cutting your calorie intake to lose weight is not always the best approach. In fact, exercise can make it much easier to maintain weight loss in the long term.
Eating fewer calories tricks the body into thinking it is starving and as a result, metabolism (the conversion of food into energy) slows down.1 Changing your diet may initially bring advantages to your waist line but a sluggish metabolism means that those changes cannot be maintained.
A study into the effects of exercise and diet on obese patients found that exercise offered more benefits.2 When compared to a placebo group who only reduced their calorie intake, participants who did regular exercise achieved greater fat loss, a lower resting heart rate and improved heart rate recovery after exercise. The researchers pointed out that although dieting and cutting calories can cause weight loss, loss of protein and water gain often accompany this. Also, when the body loses lean tissue through dieting it is less able to burn calories and eventually it will gain weight.
From this we can see that exercise is a better way to manage weight than dieting. That being said, when it comes to managing weight successfully, exercise must be combined with a healthy diet for long term success.
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Exercise increases fat metabolism
Fat is held in the form of triglycerides in the fat cells. To obtain energy the triglycerides need to be broken down into fatty acids by lipase, another fat cell. The fitter you are the more able you are to utilise this fat as an energy source.
Fat and carbohydrates cannot be broken down quickly enough to provide energy during a high intensity workout and as a result, carbohydrates are metabolised to provide energy quickly. This increases the levels of lactic acid which, in turn, blocks the action of adrenalin. Adrenalin is needed to allow the fatty acids to be used as energy. When your fitness improves, however, the body is able to perform exercise at a higher intensity with less of an increase in lactic acid. This means you become more able to utilise fat as an energy source.
Exercising before eating may reduce appetite and increase fat metabolism since the metabolic rate remains high immediately after exercise. If weight loss is the goal it may therefore be best to eat immediately after exercise.
Exercise improves fitness
For people with a low fitness level, a high heart rate doesn’t necessarily indicate an extremely high calorific expenditure. In contrast, for those with a high fitness level, a high heart rate indicates a much higher calorific expenditure.
A regular exercise regime will improve fitness though, so provides extra benefits to those who persevere. You’ll be able to do more exercise for a longer period of time, for example, meaning the amount of calories you burn will increase.
