Basic Facts to understand health and stay Healthy

1. Basic Health Facts
Vikram Singh Sankhala

2. Food – What does your Body Need
• There are at least 114 vitamins and minerals that your body needs
to stay healthy, and one or two foods will not provide all those
nutrients.
• When you are eating, your portions should be as follows: ¼ for
protein, ¼ for your grain, and ½ for your fruits and vegetables

3. Do Calorie Requirements vary
• The more lean mass you have, the higher your metabolism rate,
and the faster you will burn calories.
• Michael Phelps, a swimmer, consumes about 10,000 to 12,000
calories per day, which is four to five times more than an average
man.
• Phelps is a very tall and active, and he works out at least five to
six hours per day.

4. What are Therapeutic Diets
• Modifications of normal diet used to improve specific health
conditions
• Normally prescribed by doctor and planned by dietician
• May change nutrients, caloric content

5. How much of your Body is Water
• The human body is at least 60-70% water, and you need to
maintain that level of water throughout the day to keep your body
productive and to prevent health problems.
• It has been discovered that you can survive without food for up to
one month, but you cannot survive without water after three
days.
• The main reason why you have to drink water throughout the day
is because you will lose a lot of water from your daily activities
through sweating, breathing, talking, and urinating, and other
activities.

6. How much water do you need to Drink Daily
• Take your total weight in pounds and divide it by two; that is how
much water you need to drink in ounces per day. For example, if
you weigh 200 pounds, then you would divide it by 2, and then you
would need to drink 100 ounces of water daily.
• If you want to know how many cups of water you should be
drinking, take the total number of ounces and divide it by eight,
because a cup is eight ounces.
• For example, if you take 100 and divide it by 8, then you would
get 12.5 cups of water.

7. A Thumb Rule for Water
• A good way to make sure you get enough water throughout the day
is to drink at least one cup of water every hour or two.
• Also, it is important to drink at least one cup of water when you
wake up because you are dehydrated from sleeping through the
night.

8. Why Exercise
• Strong heart
• Lower blood pressure
• Raise high-density lipoprotein levels (HDL), which is the good cholesterol
• Lower low-density lipoprotein level (LDL), which is the bad cholesterol
• Build muscle mass
• Improve blood flow
• Reduce the aging process (health and medical experts say that exercise
is “the closest thing for anti-aging process”)
• Weight loss

9. How much exercise
• According to fitness and health experts, you should get at least 30
minutes of moderate exercise daily.

10. Type of exercise: Endurance
• Involve using the majority of muscles in your body.
• Some example of endurance exercises are long distance running or
jogging, taking long hikes or very long walks lasting for many
hours.

11. Type of exercise: Strengthening
• Also called resistance training or Anaerobic Training
• Use of External Weights or Bodyweight.
• The stronger your muscles are, the higher your metabolic rate to
help you burn fat quicker

12. Type of exercise: Stretching and Bending
• Increases Flexibility

13. Type of exercise: Balancing
• Will increase Co-ordinated Function of Groups of Muscles

14. Recovery of your muscles
• Do not train the same muscles two days in a row because your
muscles need time to recover after a workout.
• For example, if you work on your upper body on Monday, work on
your Lower body on Tuesday to give your upper body muscles a
chance to recover.

15. Benefits of sleeping
• Eliminate toxins: Sleeping for the recommended amount of time will help your
internal organs to recover and recharge, and to clear out toxins such as alcohol
and drugs, and undigested waste from the cells and bloodstream.
• Break down nutrients: Sleeping is when the digestion process breaks down
nutrients and absorbs them into your blood stream
• Improve immune system: Sleep will help to build your immune system and keep
it strong to fight off stress and sicknesses, such as colds, flu, and other
infections and diseases such as high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke,
diabetes, and dementia. And that is why when you are sick, you are supposed to
get a lot of rest and sleep.
• Decrease physical pain: Two common physical pains associated with lack of
sleep are back and joint pain. Whenever you decide to take a pain medication
for any of these reasons, ask yourself whether you get enough sleep for not.
There are also many other pains that developed from lack of sleep.

16. How many hours a day should you sleep.
• Infants = 16 hours
• 1-5 =10 to 14 hours
• As children get older, their hours of sleep will decrease one to two
hours.
• Teenagers = 8-9 hours
• Adults = 7-8 hours

17. Sleep Helper
• Unwind the Stresses of the Day
• Do anything you like to take your Mind away from tensions and
worries into something you enjoy.

18. Health Checks - Resting Heart Beat
• Take your resting heart rate once a week.
• Use your index and middle fingers
• Do not use your thumb because it has a different pulse • Find the
pulse on your neck or arm wrist
• Time your pulse for 10 seconds
• Multiple it by 6 to get your total heart rate

19. Workout heart rate
• Take your resting heart rate after your workout.
• Wait for about three minutes after exercising and then take your
heart rate.
• If your heart rate is getting closer to your resting heart rate, then
your health is improving.
• If your heart rate is taking too long to come back to your resting
heart rate, it is a sign that your body is not coping well with
stress, and your health is not improving.

20. Weight and Blood Pressure
• Keep a notebook containing your weekly record of Trends in
Weight and Blood Pressure.
• Make sure you get your Blood Sugar and Blood Cholesterol tested
once every Six Months.
• Do a Full Body Check up once a Year.

21. Play a Sport – Body and Mind Conditioner
• Performance
• Fitness
• Wellness
• Lifestyle

22. About Muscles

23. Can Muscles mass increase or Decrease
• Atrophy – muscles can decrease in size as a result of injury, illness
or lack of exercise.
• Hypertrophy – muscles can increase in size with an increase in
physical activity. Increase in muscle size by addition of
myofilaments (actin and myosin).

24. There are two different types of muscle
fibres:
• Slow Twitch Muscle Fibres
• Contract slowly but can contract repeatedly for prolonged periods of time.
Therefore endurance fibres.
• Fast Twitch Muscle Fibres
• Contract rapidly but easily exhausted Suited for speed and strength

25. What does the amount of ST and FT Fibres in
your Body Depend on:
• Your genetic inheritance of fibres determines your speed or
endurance potential. Training will increase the efficiency of what
you predominantly have – not increase the amounts of certain
fibre type.

26. What are Muscles made of
• Muscles are composed of bundles of fibres •
• Each fibre is composed of a covering or membrane called
sarcolemma and a gelatin-like substance called sarcoplasm
• Sarcoplasm contains hundreds of contractile myofibrils,
mitochondria and the sarcoplasmic reticulum
• Each myofibril contains many protein threads called myofilaments
(thick and thin filaments)

27. What is the effect of
Exercise on the Brain

28. Effect on Brain: Neuroplasticity
• Refers to the ability of the brain to shape itself according to
experience
• Refers to physical change on a neuronal level

29. What physical changes occur when we learn?
• Neurons connect with other neurons
• A Synapse or a Synaptic Junction is what connects neurons and
contains neurotransmiters
• Synapses strength changes with learning
• More synapses form between neurons

30. What happens when we exercise
• Heart rate increases
• Hormones respond
• •Pituitary gland releases human growth hormone to increase
production of bone, muscle, or connective tissue cells.

31. What is the Pituitary Gland
• Located in brain, limbic system
• Secretes Hormones
• Influences:
• Thyroid: neck
• Adrenal: kidneys

32. What does the Thyroid Gland do when we
Exercise
Releases hormones
• Increase heart rate and blood pressure
• Regulate body temperature
• Elevate “alertness” in brain to increase concentration and reaction time

33. What do Adrenal glands release
• cortisol: causes blood pressure to rise, triggers increase in
glucose, acts as anti-inflammatory agent (repairs tissues) Curbs
non-critical functions (e.g., thirst, urine, hunger). Effects immune
system.
• aldosterone: bodily response to anticipate dehydration through
impact on kidney function.
• adrenaline (fight or flight) mechanism. A stimulant, increases
strength and frequency of heart contractions. Speeds breakdown
of stored carbs into glucose for muscle energy.

34. Physical effects of exercise
• Increased blood flow to the brain
• Blood volume increases
• Blood flow is more “predictable”
• Small vessels grow – increase in number
• Brings O2, glucose, nutrients to brain cells, vital for cell health
• Cell growth: supports new connections, particularly in
hippocampus- memory
• Blood washes away “metabolic wastes” such as “amyloid beta
protein” (implicated in development of Alzheimers)

35. In short
• Exercise has short term effects of mood, concentration, memory
and stress that last for several hours after exercise
• Moderate exercise for a six month time frame is beneficial to
begin to see long term benefits

36. The Future of Health
• Implants to monitor real time Body and Mind Indicators.
• Critical and Precautionary Risk Thresholds for Indicators to trigger
Real Time consultation and correction from a specialist