BY DEAN ANDERSON for SPARKPEOPLE
Everyone knows that athletes must plan and time their meals and snacks very carefully to reach their performance goals. But what about the rest of us? You try to squeeze in 30-60 minutes of exercise most days of the week. Do you have to be careful about what you eat before and after your workouts, too?
If you’re eating a healthy diet and getting enough calories to support your activity level, you can probably rely on your own appetite, energy levels, and experience to tell you whether you need to eat anything before or after exercise and what it should be. The basic rule here is: Find out what works best for you, and do that.
There are some advantages to knowing how your body works and what it needs to perform at its best. The bottom line for healthy weight loss and fitness sounds simple: You have to eat fewer calories than you use up — but not fewer than your body needs to function at its best.
The size, timing, and content of your pre- and …
Continue reading THINNER YOU: What to eat after your workout »
On Christmas Eve this past year, my doctor told me I had aggressive but contained prostate cancer. Not the Christmas gift I was hoping for. Shortly after my youngest daughter got married, I had my Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) levels tested. I had never really paid much attention to the results before because my doctor hadn’t seemed concerned. Well, now they were high and I was going to be forced to pay attention to them.
1. Preserved and smoked meats. Slap your hand away when it reaches to make a ham sandwich as an evening snack. Ham, bacon, sausages, and smoked meats contain high levels of the amino acid tyramine, which triggers the brain to release norepinephrine, a brain stimulant that makes us feel alert and wired.
And, it’s not even helpful. It’s sort of like driver’s education — sure, you can avoid being in a car accident by staying away from cars. But isn’t it better to learn the skills needed to navigate safely?
While it is a fact that diet and exercise play crucial roles in controlling cholesterol, eating too many fatty foods – especially those high in saturated fat and trans fat – is the primary cause of high cholesterol. Thin, active people may not be aware of how much bad fat they consume.
Usually not. If you’re eating a healthy 
For practical and emotional reasons, then, giving up driving is a transition that everyone involved wishes to put off as long as possible. It’s no wonder that many adult children and spouses say that taking away the car keys was among the hardest things they ever had to do.
