About Khasnur Malek

http://changeandsustaininitiative.com

Posts by Khasnur Malek:

Health is underated

Being healthy is underrated

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Health is wealth. With health, vitality is promoted. Health provides better concentration, improved mood and energy and many more positive outlook. Health is about feeling good. Internalization of health resonates into looking good and positivity. Being able to initiate and maintain health are key to prediction of better health status. It is almost a guarantee for a better future, gaining significant reduction in the risk of developing many chronic diseases and cancers. Wanting to be healthy is a personal choice which one has to actively pursuit.

Few simple tips to being healthy includes eating healthy (eat more vegetable based food and cut down on refined carbohydrate), getting regular exercises, reduces stressful level and drink plenty of plain water. Being healthy in this current living environment requires a lot of hard work. However, one should start with small changes and over time, surely it will results is a significant improvement.

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BROWN RICE WITH GRILLED CHICKEN & CAESAR SALAD

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Inspired by: Nurkhairunisa Jaafar

INGREDIENTS

Brown rice 

  1. Ecobrown

Grilled Chicken 

  1. Chicken fillet
  2. Garlic
  3. Himalayan salt
  4. Blackpepper
  5. Honey

Caesar salad

  1. Romaine lettuce
  2. Cherry tomatoes
  3. Croutons
  4. Kewpie Caesar dressing

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Brown rice is to be cooked as usual
  2. For the chicken grilled. Firstly, marinate the chicken overnight with garlic, himalayan salt, blackpepper and honey. Grill the chicken breast on a hot grill until cooked
  3. Prepare the romaine lettuce and cherry tomatoes onto a bowl. Add some Kewpie Caesar dressing onto the salads. drop on some crunchy croutons
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Happy 61st Merdeka Day

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The staffs at the Change and Sustain Initiative would like to wish all Malaysians a happy 61st Merdeka celebration. Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! The picture of this beautiful Medeka wish is courtesy of our talented cartoon designer, Noor Natasya Sarbini. Follow more of  her creative work at http://instagram.com/asarichxn

 

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What fuel your exercise? Fat of sugar?

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Fuel needed to produce energy to support your exercise training depend very much on the intensity of your training. At moderate intensity training, fatty acids are used by the body as the source of fuel for energy. As the intensity increases to high intensity training, the body will start to use up sugar for fuel. The graph below obtained using Polar Wearable Chest Strap measured heart rate during a training and found that almost 50% of the time, moderate intensity exercise was achieved, evident by FAT (fuel from fat) being used for almost 22 mins and 50% of the training is at high intensity , FAT (Fuel from sugar) being used for almost 22 mins.

How do you determine what intensity of training you are currently at? There is a formula to this and there are 2 important information that you need. First is your current age and second is your resting pulse rate. The latter can be measured by placing your fingers on you wrist near the base of your thumb first thing in the morning when you wake up for 10 seconds. Then multiple the pulse rate with 6. That will give you your resting pulse rate per minute. Measuring resting heart rate at times other than your first waking up time may not be accurate as you have already been physically active, resulting in a falsely higher resting pulse rate reading.

The formula is listed below:
220 – (Age) – (Resting pulse rate) = Maximum heart rate (MHR)
Minimum heart rate for moderate intensity = [40/100 X MHR ] + resting pulse rate
Maximum heart rate for moderate intensity = [60/100 X MHR ] + resting pulse rate
Minimum heart rate for high intensity training = [80/100 X MHR ] + resting pulse rate

Therefore, for someone [Mdm LA] who is 30 years old with a resting pulse rate of 68, the calculation will be as below:
Minimum heart rate for moderate intensity = [40/100 x 122] + 68 = 117
Maximum heart rate for moderate intensity = [60/100 x 122] + 68 = 141
Minimum heart rate for high intensity training = [80/100 x 122] +68 = 166
Therefore, for fuel burning, Madam LA needs to maintain her exercise intensity with heart rate between 117 to 141 beats per minute. Training intensity above the heart rate of 166 will results in glucose be used for fuel.

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Calculating basal metabolic rate

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ENERGY

Energy is not a nutrient but it is essential for our body. We get our energy mainly from our protein, fat and carbohydrate consumption. The energy requirement varies and it takes into account our gender, age and whether or not we are active or sedentary. The unit of energy can be measured using kilocalorie or kilojoule, whereby 1 kilocalorie =4.18 kilojoule.

BASAL METABOLIC RATE (BMR)

You see, our body needs energy to function at rest. At any given time, for example, while you are reading this and sitting down, your body is working to sustain life. So, without you knowing, your body is burning energy to perform many essential functions such as breathing, pumping of the heart, cellular metabolism, enzyme and hormone synthesis, digestion, brain activity and maintaining your body temperature.

Among our organs, our liver produces the highest BMR (27%), followed by our brain (19%), skeletal muscles (18%), kidneys (10%), heart (7%) and others at 19%. The total energy required to run these functions is called the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and it takes up 45-70% of your body energy expenditure already.

The body metabolic rate will go on regardless whether you are active or sedentary, whether you are sitting down, sleeping or working. That is the reason why we need energy and eating the right food so as to provide our body the ability to function efficiently on a daily basis.

Basal metabolic rate however can be influenced by several factors. The BMR may be increased if we are at our growing spurt, recovering from or fighting an illness, eating and exercising. Hence it is very important that we eat enough calories to maintain healthy weight and balance energy levels.

CALCULATING YOUR ENERGY NEEDS PER DAY

We need information regarding our BMR and our Physical Activity Level (PAL) to calculate our energy needs in a day. There are many equations available to calculate your BMR and your energy requirement. Here, I will use the Schofield equation as it is simple to understand. There are 3-steps involved:

Step 1: Calculating your Basal Metabolic Rate using Schofield equation.

The information needed are gender, age and your weight in kilogram. Then you can use the formula in table 1 to determine your BMR. For example, say if you are a female aged 30 years old and weigh 70kg, your BMR will be 8.126 x (70) + 845.6 = 1,414.42 Kcal/day

Table 1: Schofield Equation

Age (Years)                 Basal metabolic rate / 24 hours
Male                                                          Female
10 – 17                         17.686 x (weight in kg) + 658.2           13.384 x (weight in kg) + 692.6
18 – 29                        15.057 x (weight in kg) + 692.2            14.818 x (weight in kg) + 486.6
30 – 59                        11.472 x (weight in kg) + 873.1             8.126   x (weight in kg ) + 845.6
≥ 60                             11.711 x (weight in kg) + 587.7              9.082   x (weight in kg) + 658.5

 

Step 2: Determining your Physical Activity Level (PAL) Factor

Then we determine our physical activity level from table 2, which will tell us the physical activity factor. For example, if you are a female and does light activity, your PAL factor would be 1.5

Table 2: The activity levels to be used along with the BMR derived from the Schofield equation

Physical Activity Levels (PAL)         Descriptions                                          Physical Activity Level (PAL) Factor
Male                                    Female
Sedentary                                             Little to no exercise.                                            1.3                                            1.3                                                                              Inactive in both work and leisure.

Lightly active                                      Intensive exercise for at least 20                        1.6                                            1.5                                                                            minutes once or twice per week or                                                                                                                                                      daily routine includes some walking.                                                                                                                                                  Example: student.  Generally you do                                                                                                                                                  not exercise regularly, but you maintain                                                                                                                                            a busy life style that requires you to walk                                                                                                                                            frequently for long periods.

Moderately active                             Intensive exercise for at least 20 to 45               1.7                                            1.6                                                                            minutes 3 to 4 times per week or a job                                                                                                                                                with a lot of walking, or a moderate intensity job.

Very active                                          Intensive exercise for 60 minutes or                 2.1                                           1.9                                                                            greater 5 to 7 days per week.  Labor-intensive                                                                                                                                  occupations also qualify for this level.                                                                                                                                                 Labor-intensive occupations include                                                                                                                                                   construction work (brick laying, carpentry, general labor, etc.).                                                                                                   Also farming, landscape worker or similar occupations.

Extremely active                                Exceedingly active and/or very demanding      2.4                                         2.2                                                                             activities:  Examples include:  athlete with                                                                                                                                        an almost unstoppable training schedule                                                                                                                                          with multiple training sessions throughout                                                                                                                                        the day or a very demanding job, such as                                                                                                                                            shoveling coal or working long hours on an                                                                                                                                      assembly line. Generally, this level of activity                                                                                                                                    is very difficult to achieve.

Step 3: Calculate you daily calories per day

Now, to get our calorie needs in a day, you only now need to multiply your BMR and your PAL factors.

Equation: Calories need in a day = BMR x PAL factor

= 1,414.42 x 1.5

= 2,121.62 Kcal/day

In summary:

For a female, aged 30 weighing at 70kg

BMR = 8.126 x (weight in kg (70) ) + 845.6 =1,414.42
If she is lightly active, her PAL factor is 1.5

Calories/day = BMR x PAL = 1,414.42 x 1.5
= 2,121.63 Kcal/day

I list here the links to the calculators and perhaps you may want to try out all of them and compare the results for your personal usage:

Harris-Benedict Equation. http://www.globalrph.com/harris-benedict-equation.htm
Revised Harris-Benedict Equation. http://www.globalrph.com/revised-harris-benedict-equation.htm
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). http://www.globalrph.com/resting_metabolic_rate.htm
Schofield Equation (BMR). http://www.globalrph.com/schofield_equation_bmr.htm
Institute of Medical Equation. http://www.globalrph.com/estimated_energy_requirement.htm