Men's Fitness South Africa September - October 2022

Biogen Vegetable Energy Gel with Beetroot and Pumpkin ■ Biogen’s first vegetable energy gel with RedNite, a registered trademark ingredient with clinical trials to prove ergogenic benefits in trained athletes with a lower serving. RedNite is the world’s first proven beetroot powder standardised for nitrates. Beetroot has tested as a viable source of dietary nitrates compared to other vegetables and this more natural solution is designed to support replenishment of glycogen and reduce electrolyte related cramps in a healthier er way! Available soon from Dis-Chem and Cycle Lab stores nationwide. R17.95, biogen.co.za Boody Men’s briefs ■ The focus is on bamboo, a miracle fibre. Naturally eco-friendly, wonderful to wear, resilient, superbly soft and healthy for even the most sensitive skin. With no seams and a wide waistband these briefs give…

To live longer, spend less time alone Good news: To live longer, you just need to spend more time with other people. What’s the catch? To do it, you’ll have to buck the trend. A new study shows that not only are we becoming more socially isolated, but that this also raises our risk of dying early by 32% which is as much as obesity, substance abuse, or a lack of health care. (The authors’ past research indicated that living alone can be just as deadly as smoking 15 cigs a day, or being an alcoholic.) The study goes on to predict that by 2030, there will be a health-impairing loneliness epidemic among people under 65 (read: You). “All developed countries show in creased trends for living alone. The highest…

■ Rice, the staple of peasants since 2500 B.C (and bodybuilders since Arnold and his pals started popping their pecs on Muscle Beach) still feeds billions around the globe. Now it can do that with even fewer calories. Preparing rice in a specific way using coconut oil and refrigeration (see below for instructions), cuts the number of calories your body absorbs from it by about 50%, according to research presented to the American Chemical Society. Here’s how it works: The 205 calories in a cup of cooked white rice come mostly from starches. These are simple sugars that are digested quickly causing a rapid rise in blood sugar. If not exercised off, these sugars can lead to weight gain. With this new technique, the rice is transformed into a starch…

■ There’s nothing wrong with working out to look great. The true benefits of exercise are the ways it can make your health do a complete 180. Here are four ways working out can improve your life, and one important way it can’t. Four Things Exercise Can Do… It can help you stay lean better than dieting. ■ As we age, our diets often get better, and yet our waistlines still expand; all because we’re exercising less, a study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found. So to keep extra kilograms away, it’s more important to maintain high levels of physical activity than to adjust your diet, they suggest. Both are important (duh), but exercise is the key. It can fight the heart-damaging effects of fat-ass food. ■…

Curried rats helping cure PTSD? ■ Could an ingredient in curry erase scary memories? Scientists at the City University of New York (USA) gave rats electric jolts, and played a sound at the same time, so they’d link the two. After a while, they played the sound without the shocks, and the rats still froze, frightened, in their little rat tracks. The team then switched up the rats’ food, feeding one group curcumin, a compound in the Indian spice turmeric, an ingredient in curry. When the sound was later played again, the rats eating regular food still froze with fear, but those eating curcumin didn’t; a sign that their memory of the earlier experiment had vanished. Speculation is that curcumin may stop the brain from storing fear-related memories and could…

■ Scientists have found proof that the very act of remembering some things is what causes us to forget others, Nature Neuroscience reports. Subjects in a study conducted by the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK, were shown various images and asked to recall them several times. Using an MRI to monitor brain activity each time, researchers found that as certain images were repeatedly remembered; the details of ‘competing’ images were pushed aside and lost. The fact that the brain actively shapes our memory by forgetting isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Motivated forgetting”, A.K.A the suppression of conscious or unconscious memories, can help a traumatised person get past disturbing recollections and may, as researchers believe, alleviate depression and PTSD. On the other hand, the mind’s detail-ditching syndrome is…