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Today’s Health Upgrade
How to fix your broken tastebuds
Do massage guns really work?
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The 3-hour carb rule
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Health
How To Fix Your Broken Tastebuds
Sleep plays a crucial role in many aspects of health, but did you know it can also affect how you perceive taste?
A new review discovered that inadequate sleep changes your taste buds and makes sugar taste even sweeter, which can increase your desire for certain foods you might be trying to limit or avoid.
Researchers wanted to understand how poor sleep might change how we perceive sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami and whether these changes influence eating behavior and food preferences.
Prior studies have already suggested many ways that sleep deprivation can disrupt your hunger and appetite. As we’ve shared, short sleepers tend to overeat because the hormones that control your appetite (leptin and ghrelin) are altered.
When you sleep less, you’ll also experience more intense food cravings and a desire to increase portion sizes while simultaneously increasing food reward, meaning that the calories you eat feel even more pleasurable, which can make you want even more food.
But this study was different and adds another piece to the puzzle that makes it clear why research shows a strong relationship between sleep deprivation, weight gain, and obesity.
Poor sleep was linked to greater appetite and caloric intake, partly due to changes in taste perception and preference. So, not only did sweet foods taste better, but the desire to eat more of them increased.
One study even found that getting 6 to 7 hours of sleep can help you eat nearly 300 fewer calories per day and decrease body fat in as little as two weeks.
The sweet spot for sleep appears to be 7 to 8 hours, but hunger and taste preferences shift most dramatically at anything less than 6 hours.
Together With Therabody
Do Massage Guns Really Work?
If you want to improve your workouts and transform your body, it’s easy to focus on lifting heavier or adding more reps and sets. But here’s a secret: if you can’t manage fatigue and soreness, your workouts might feel like they’re never improving.
New research suggests that if you want to increase strength, performance, and recovery faster, your best bet might be percussive massage — or using a massage gun to improve recovery.
The review examined 13 studies conducted over the last 15 years since the first “massage gun” came onto the market. While there are many different recovery methods — including foam rolling and massage — percussive therapy is different because of how it combines pressure and vibration and its ability to work deeper into your muscles than you can by hand.
The scientists found that just a few minutes of using a massage gun can improve flexibility, strength, and recovery while reducing muscle soreness or discomfort.
Days off are important, but recovery isn’t just about resting; it’s about helping your muscles repair. A few extra minutes of attention can help prevent fatigue or injuries and jumpstart progress.
Another study compared percussive therapy to massage and foam rolling, and the massage gun was more effective at helping reduce muscle damage after intense exercise and was just as effective at improving range of motion and fatigue.
The big difference? Just two minutes of using a massage gun delivered the same results as 15 minutes of manual massage.
There are many massage guns on the market, so we decided to test them all to see what works best and which products invest in research to deliver the desired results.
Our favorite massage gun is the Theragun PRO Plus. It provides five different research-backed therapies into one product so you can perform better, bounce back faster, and feel your best no matter what life throws your way.
The Theragun PRO Plus provides percussive massage therapy with heat for enhanced recovery, built-in LED light therapy to boost healing, and five attachments to help you reach anywhere on your body.
Because you’re a part of the village, all members of Arnold’s Pump Club receive 10 percent OFF their purchase. Use the code “Arnold10” at checkout and experience the difference when you take your recovery to the next level.
Nutrition
The 3-Hour Carb Rule
Do you need to eat carbs after a workout? If you exercise on back-to-back days, enjoying some carbs sooner rather than later could give you a competitive advantage.
New research suggests that waiting several hours to eat carbs after your workout could reduce performance on your next workout.
Participants performed a high-intensity workout (intervals) and ate carbs immediately after they finished or waited more than three hours for their post-workout carbs. Teaser: those forced to wait three hours to eat were not happy they did.
Eating post-workout carbs immediately after a workout resulted in a 30 percent increase in intervals on the next day’s workout compared to those who had to delay their post-workout meal. The carb-eats also had lower levels of fatigue and reported feeling less exhausted.
It’s important to note that all participants consumed the same amount of post-workout carbs and ate the same amount of carbs overall for the day. The only difference was the timing.
Remember, there’s no need to force-feed yourself instantly after a workout. The idea of needing food within 30 minutes of a workout is a myth. But that doesn’t mean timing doesn’t matter at all; just that there’s no urgency.
If you have scheduled off days or perform more low-intensity exercise, the timing of your post-workout carbs might not matter. But if you’re performing high-intensity exercise and training on back-to-back days, refueling with carbs shortly after you complete your workout could help maximize recovery and support peak performance.
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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell
