Health and fitness article: Is my body the same as the next man?

Health and fitness article part 1: Is my body the same as the next man?

Or are there minor and major differences in our genetics, and the way our body deals with the environment, exercise, nutrition, etc.?

The answer from a zoologist’s standpoint? We are all humans (Homo Sapiens) and share virtually the same gene pool. So, we should respond and behave basically the same when it comes to our physiology.

However, this is where the huge debate begins!

Medical research and health and fitness articles over the years have become fixated on assessing populations of us and recording various physiological parameters such as blood nutrient or enzyme levels, hormones etc.

From the results of these studies they assign a middle ground or average level of a certain blood nutrient, hormone, etc. and claim that this middle ground or average level is a normal amount for a healthy human.

That’s the same as taking 20 different cars with 20 different engines (some of them race car engines and some diesels) and seeing if they run on different octanes or mixtures of fuels and then assigning an average for what cars should run on! (Forget the fact that the highly tuned race engine might run on regular fuel, but blow up in 5 miles or that the diesel engine really needs diesel fuel!).

The point?

That it is fine to use this research as a baseline for a starting point to do further individual research. The problem is that this individual research never gets done because it is too expensive for us as to go in and have a research facility test us to determine our optimal levels according to our genetics etc. After all if you are are striving for PEAK HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE you don't want to have minimal levels of nutrients, vitamins, etc.,that will keep you out of a disease state, you want to keep yourself at optimal levels.

So health, fitness, and medical experts keep regurgitating that our lab results fall in the normal categories for our blood chemistries and that we seem to be healthy because they don’t see any presence of disease, but they have missed the point:

Many of us are not content with normal! We want PEAK HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE!

And a growing number of PEAK HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE experts are realizing that by comparing how we respond to different situations (such as exercise or nutrition), we seem to have significantly different individual results.

Two examples:

Most of us remember our early school years (well maybe!), and that in a short time 1 or 2 classmates rose to the top as the fastest sprinter, or the best artist, or best reader.

Do you think that at 5 or 6 years old your classmates had trained to be that much better than anyone else?

No, it was genetics.

And when the fastest runner then joined a sports team to compete and received further training they were still the fastest while us slower kids muddled along trying to train harder and longer!

Now, did we get faster through training? Almost always! Did we ever catch the fastest kid? Almost never!

The other example is metabolism:

If you go to your physician about your slow metabolism and difficulty in losing fat, they will usually do a few tests, draw some blood and pronounce you in the normal range.

Then it’s the old speech about eating less and exercising more! Basic health and fitness article stuff! Great advice but it sometimes falls way short.

One of the authors is a former competitive weightlifter who has never had a problem gaining weight! (He’s 6’2 and ranges from 220lbs. to 245lbs.)

His girlfriend is a former jock (5’4 and 110lbs.) with an unbelievably high metabolism. While he is watching what he eats his girlfriend is stealing most of his steak (when he gets one), eating second helpings, etc, etc. And he also trains everyday where she might train twice per week.

Guess who maintains 8-12% bodyfat? If you said the girlfriend you win the prize!

Now our author has already done his research and knows his body pretty well so he has taken steps to compensate for his slow metabolism.

The point is: Those of us striving for PEAK HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE would like to know that when we go to the medical expert and undergo tests, we don't want to know if we fall in the normal range but how much different are we so that we can compensate. And in a perfect world, we would actually monitor our nutrient, vitamin, etc. levels so that we could determine the optimal level that we as individuals require.

In other words, most of our metabolism is within normal range but if we are 20% slower than normal that is pretty significant. We need to work 20% harder on our exercise program, or eat 20% less food!

It’s pretty simple really!

Health and Fitness Article Part 2: Water/fluid hydration levels

You always hear the standard that we need 8 glasses of water per day for our body to function properly. We've never seen any variation in any health and fitness article. And we still believe that is true as a start point to be safe!

But there is some debate as to where the 8 glasses came from and how much variation is there from one man (or woman) to the next ie. can the 8 glasses come from drinking 8 soft drinks per day or 8 beers?

Even though our bodies are approximately 70% water our metabolism is different enough that there may be significant differences in our daily requirement.

Our recommendation is to drink 8 glasses of water per day,(not 8 soft drinks or 8 beers!), for at least 2 weeks and see if you notice a difference. Then up your intake to 10-12 glasses per day for a couple of weeks. Do you notice any difference?

The conclusion for this health and fitness article? We believe that your body will tell you (or maybe it’s just a feeling or knowing that comes to you) when you are at your optimum level of hydration.

And remember if you are extra active or in a very hot climate, or ill you might need even more fluid!

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