MightyBands, home gym system

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Wing Chun Makes You Fat?

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day talking about the exercise benefits of kickboxing. This person was referring to cardio kick boxing and then she made mention, that the good thing about this is that she'll be able to kick some real butt too. That's where, of course, I interjected and mentioned that just because you can hit a bag doesn't mean you can fight.

on goes the conversation into economy of motion, structure and eventually, not having to be super fit like those capoeira guys to kick some butt..

so it got me thinking - does wing chun make you fat?? I mean, the lack of cardiovascular exercise, the class structure where many Sifu's are no longer hands on, the emphasis on chi-sao, etc.

Funnily enough, this thread pops up on the forums..

So what do you think? Do you think wing chun makes people fat?

Until then.

Here's the forum thread posted by Robert Chu:

WCK - watch your lifestyle and diet!

Oftimes, WCK is too economical in movement. What I mean by that, is for your health, you need to supplement it with proper diet and nutrition, and supplementary exercises. Modern man does not walk enough and problems modern WCK has is health.

Here is something related to diet from Jamie Oliver:

http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp_37...ty_and_Disease

The founders ate what they ate, but probably had shorter lives due to war, famine, disease, but they had to do things on the Red Boats by hand and walked more than us. I will say that what is done today as "Chinese Food" is overindulgent in fat, oils, sugar. MSG, salt/sodium, and simple carbs.

Too many carbs like rice, noodles/pasta, pho, buns/bao, bread, breadsticks, cake, cookies, chips, soft drinks and juices load up the body with too much sugar that can be detrimental to your health. This easily leads to overweight, obesity and eventually, diabetes.

What Hawkins Cheung always said to me was, "If you survive, your art survives..." It has strong wisdom behind it.

Many WCK teachers see the pounds coming on as they age and have to consistently do something to change their eating habits, build lean muscle, and rest properly. By eating poorly, it leads to many modern diseases like hypertension, high cholesterol, metabolic syndrome, obesity, coronary artery disease, hypothyroidism, diabetes, and cancer. Diabetes (usually type II in overweight or obese individuals) can lead to blindness, neuropathy, impotence, etc. It is important to maintain a healthy BMI.

For example, WSL passed on due to a brain aneurysm (stroke) - it usually means that his diet was not that good, and he smoked and drank alcohol.

Yip Man died at 79 due to throat cancer, which is diet related and due to toxins in the food. Cantonese often like to eat preserved foods like salted fish, preserved eggs, stinky tofu, etc. which are full of cancer causing chemicals.

Bruce Lee's favorite dish of Oyster Beef on rice is full of sodium, carbs and preservatives. Drinking raw beef juice is also not a good idea... some of his diet ideas were very poor.

Late nights talking, extensive Mah Jong, many Dim Sum sessions with students is detrimental to health, as are bobas, sugar cane juices, and shave ices Chinese like. And eating late at night after class is very unhealthy and leaves for bad digestion problems, like diverticulitis, bowel cancer, ulcerative colitis. Gambling, along with smoking and drinking, it is a very dirty habit that some Cantonese enjoy and detrimental to health.

Juicing is also unhealthy as it releases tons of sugar in your system at once. I shudder to think of the many cokes and snapples I drank after long workouts in my youth. Plain old water or unsweetened ice tea would have been better.

It is good to be conscious about health.
__________________
Robert Chu, PhD, L.Ac., QME
chusauli@gmail.com

http://www.chusaulei.com
http://acuchu.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree some of Robert Chu's post, but not all. Modern nutrition science DOES show that preservatives, MSG, salt, and other man-made taste enhancing substances are harmful to us and reduce life expectancy. However research also shows that a higher carb intake soon after a workout is beneficial, since the body is depleted of carbs - which are stored as glycogen in muscle cells and burned off as energy during exercise.

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