Bodywork Fitness with Louie Fecou

Aug 17 2012 by Lorraine Howard, Irvine Herald

HELLO and welcome to another column of fitness facts and news for all you wonderful keep fit fans out there in readersville.

I hope you have all been enjoying staying fit and keeping healthy throughout the summer holidays. My feature on SBF Fitness was well received and thanks to everyone who has commented on the piece and I hope you managed to check out Scott’s bootcamp programme at Dundonald Castle. And if you are an instructor with an interesting story to tell please get in touch with me via the Irvine Herald and you may find yourself in the fitness spotlight too.

Speaking of working out in Irvine, in my never ending quest to bring you the best of fitness classes in Irvine, I Googled Irvine fitness classes and the search engine coughed up the class schedules of fitness gyms in Irvine, California. LA Fitness in California looks a real nice place to work out. It seems to have everything from a pool to a racquetball court.of course what I was interested in was the fitness classes. A quick scroll through he menu and I found what they had to offer.

The first class on the list was Aerobics – brilliant. No self respecting gym should be without some form of Aerobics session, in Irvine, Scotland you can attend the C40 class every Monday at Lanfine Community Centre at 8.15pm, let’s hope they will have Cardio40 in the USA soon. Next in California was the Aqua Fit class, if you pop over to Auchenharvie’s in Stevenston you can enjoy Aqua Aerobics on a Monday night at 8pm.

Boot camp also does well in Irvine, California and you all know that here we have boot camp too with SBF on Monday and Wednesday’s at Dundonald Castle. Step Aerobics still packs them in at LA Fitness and you can step here too every Monday and Friday morning at The Studio in Saltcoats at 10am. California also boasts their Zumba classes and we can match that here as well in Scotland with both myself and Fiona Burns Dickson still running our popular Zumba sessions. So there you go folks, you don’t have to be in California to get a Californian workout schedule, it’s all available right here in your own home town.

In other news....

The great fructose debate carries on. What do you mean you don't know what the great fructose debate is? Where have you been fitness fan?

Recent studies on fructose are starting to point out that fructose might not be the great sugar substitute that we thought it was. Let me rewind a little and clarify some of this for you? Right, put your sensible heads on and see if any of this sounds familiar.

Fructose is a simple sugar that the body can metabolise easily and does not cause a huge rise in your blood sugar. Because of this it was generally thought to be a good substitute for table sugar. Recent studies though have brought new light to the situation and fructose may have some hidden dangers that we haven’t thought about yet.

Now fructose is in lots of stuff, unless you are a label reader, you may not be aware of just how much fructose is in your foods and drinks including your fruit and veg. Now, relax, a little fructose is fine and nothing to worry about, it’s only when we consume too much that it can bring about problems in the way our body works.

And it’s only in recent years that fructose consumption has increased so dramatically as our ancestors would have had very little fructose in their diets. In today’s busy worlds, the magical sugar substitute makes up almost ten percent of our intake.

Now fructose is dealt with in a different way by our bodies than say, glucose. It’s the insulin that our bodies produce that regulates glucose but fructose is dealt with by the liver. If we take in more fructose than we need, the liver has trouble processing it and instead changes it into fats that are distributed into our blood streams. This is not good as it can lead to higher risk of heart disease, another interesting effect of too much fructose is the way our appetites are affected. With fructose we often find that our appetites are not satisfied by what we eat and this negation of appetite means we can end up gaining weight very quickly. There is also research that says too much can lead to Type 2 Diabetes. So, it really is all food for thought food for thought, no pun intended.

Where did all this fructose come from? In America it is incredibly cheap to farm fructose due to the large expanse of corn that is produced. Fructose corn syrup (hfcs) is used in many different foods and drinks. Remember, small amounts of fructose is found in fruit and veg but it is so minimal that our bodies cope with this. It is only when it is used in large amounts that our liver have problems dealing with it.

Fizzy drinks contain fructose and plenty of sugars. In a normal can of fizzy juice, there are nine tablespoons of sugar. That’s quite a lot by anyone’s standards, if you drink two cans a day the fructose and sugar intake can become an eventual problem for your body’s ability to cope with it. With this in mind you would expect fruit juice to be a healthier option but we find that they can be just as damaging as the carbonated drink due to the high amount of fructose. As it’s the liver that deals with the fructose, overloading its work schedule can lead to a fatty liver which can lead to cirrhosis.

So as far as fizzy drinks are concerned are we safer with diet versions? You would think so but unfortunately the replacements in these drinks have also been linked with insulin resistant qualities that can lead to damaged livers. We just can’t win can we?

Looks like we were right the first time with just drinking water. As ever with these kinds of debates there are always factors that are missed and arguments for and against, I feel we need to keep an eye on our fructose intake and play it safe. Look at the content of the products you are eating and drinking and be aware.

As far as exercise is concerned I would stick with water as we exercise, avoid fizzy drinks and high levels of fructose.

Any comments on this subject or your own experiences on the subject are welcome folks and I look forward to more fitness debate next week.