Don’t waste time-
off feeling off.
Q Why do I get ill every time I go on holiday?GC
Q When I hike, I just grab
a stick. Works as well as
trekking poles, right? YR
We admire an old school hiker
who finds new uses for fallen
wood. If you’re not stumbling or
feeling joint pain, you’re
probably in the “heck, can’t hurt”
camp. But think again: using a
single stick or two uneven sticks
can put your gait out of
balance and set you up for injury,
warns orthopaedic surgeon
Matthew Panzarella. Lightweight,
adjustable poles help your
posture and take strain off your
knees and ankles, especially if
your pack is heavy. “Sticks are
heavier and less secure than
trekking poles, which have
contoured grips and straps,”
Panzarella says. You can shorten
them for uphill and lengthen them
for downhill. The tips grab the
ground better than your branch.
Q I’m in decent shape but
can’t seem to shift my
paunch. What am I doing
so wrong? SGFirst, let’s broadly rule out food
allergies. Though the gluten-free
industry is keen to link all bloating
to grains, only 2 per cent of adults
have an intolerance. It’s probably
nothing to do with how hard you
work out, either. Rather, it’s the
greater part of your 9-5 that’s
likely the culprit. “Anterior pelvic
tilt” pushes your hips forward,
glutes back and belly out, the
most common cause being a
sedentary lifestyle. Thankfully,
you can iron out your office-chair
belly without straying far from the
sofa. Kneel down and put one leg
behind you against the wall or
couch. Step your other leg in front.
Lift your torso and lean into your
front knee. Hold for a minute, then
swap sides. As your hips become
mobile, that belly should flatten –
just in time for the banana chair.Q My skin tingles when I
take my pre-workout sup.
Should I be worried? TGA supplementary twitch is nothing
to be shaken by. Pre-workout
powders are mostly made up of
an optimised dose of caffeine,
taurine, creatine and beta-
alanine. It’s the latter amino acid
that causes the tingling. Beta-
alanine is used to counteract
lactic build-up, letting you push
harder. A benign side effect of this
is that it also stimulates nerve
receptors, hence the pins and
needles. Should you notice your
tingles come with red flushes or
itchiness, however, you could be
reacting to high levels of vit B3.
And with some studies showing
this added extra could have an
inhibitory effect on fat
mobilisation – somewhat
defeating the supp’s point –
you’re best off swigging a B3-free
blend. There are plenty out there,
so check the label.Q Can you really break a
fever with a cold washer
on your forehead? RWIt’s not a cure but it’s good for
relief and can help lower your
body temperature a bit, says
family doctor James Dewar. But it
won’t cool your blood or treat the
cause of your fever. It’s like putting
ice cubes in a boiling pot. “It will
bring temporary relief, but as soon
as the ice melts, the boiling starts
again,” says Dewar.THE IDEA OF spending a week washing down
Codrals with your poolside Corona is enough to make
you call the whole thing off. Yet the phenomenon of
which you speak is fairly common. It even has a name:
“leisure sickness”. As for its cause, Dutch psychologist
Ad Vingerhoets has two theories. One is
“competition for symptom perception”:
basically, you’re too busy to notice your
pounding head until you power down your
laptop. “It’s also possible that your body is
continuing to produce excess adrenaline,
says Vingerhoets. Your body has no use for
the energy, causing a hormone imbalance
that weakens the immune system.
Whichever the case may be, there are
ways to reduce your risk of sun, sea and
sniffles. Vingerhoets advises fitting in a
pre-holiday workout to ‘use up’ that extra
adrenaline. Also, try tapering your workload
over a period of three days, rather than
slamming on the brakes at the 11th hour.
Maintaining a similar schedule to the one
you have during the week – eating regularly,
waking early – could also help. Only the sun
should be making you sweat on holiday.