HAPPY International Women´s Day 2016

How to burn one snickers

You must run 3.66 km to burn off a snickers bar. Nice, but at what speed, what body weight and level off fitness? Burning one snickers for an 80 kg competitive athlete is completely different than for an overweight sedentary worker...

Athlete´s body consists mostly of muscle mass, which works and needs energy. Therefore his body burns more energy even when he is resting. Physics of Newton and thermodynamics: more work done - more energy burnt. Moreover, he probably trains every day and his body is in the state of calorie deficit - therefore the snickers burns like when you pour oil on a hot grill. Sugar from snickers is used by the body to refill the deficit in order to be prepared for the next workout, which is a biological mechanism of adaptation.

ATHLETE

John Cena upper body workout routine https://t.co/WpxWeDvR4R #fitfam #bodybuilding #gym pic.twitter.com/mjcoSgmSEZ

— Bodybuilding (@Bodybui08025144) January 18, 2016

                      VS 

SEDENTARY MAN

Homer Simpson will appear live on upcoming 'Simpsons' episode: https://t.co/hFfymZVyll pic.twitter.com/FYJtuIjYtq

— Mashable (@mashable) February 18, 2016

On the other hand, let’s assume that the sedentary worker is fat and does not carry much muscle mass that would need energy. He has enough fuel, even more than he needs. Moreover, his metabolism is slowed down by unstable eating patterns. Therefore the snickers just add to the excess of energy and he would really have to start moving to burn it.

I had friends, professional sportsmen, who were thin as a rake - endurance runners and cross-country skiers, who could eat anything and yet were constantly hungry.

Try this to find out how it feels to have the metabolism of an athlete...

In the morning on an empty stomach warm up and do some interval work, ex: run 6 x 400 m at almost full speed with 90 second rests or do 6 – 8 500 m sprints on a rowing machine. After that, you will realize how fast a snickers can be burnt. You won´t even realize that you ate it...but try to eat it after three course dinner...

They key to effective fat burning is the ability to get your body into a state similar to the athlete – increase muscle mass by regular exercise and create calorie deficit so that the body will burn faster. What I recommend is combination of strength training and conditioning, which means barbells and bootcamp style moves. Going heavy on the barbells increases active muscle mass and conditioning creates the calorie deficit. Keep in mind that the workout must be intensive and even painful in order to deliver results. 

People who already know the gym should try a set of 10 barbell squats followed by 25 burpess or box jumps. Take 1 minute rest and repeat 6 - 8 times. Beginners should learn the moves first, but doing 10 burpees and running up the stairs afterwards works well for everyone. Aim for 6 - 8 sets with one minute breaks. 

I made a graphics on how many burpees it requires to burn off certain foods. I took the average speed of doing burpees (15 per minute) of a person who weights approximately 80 kg. One snickers contains approximately the same amount of energy as Horalka, popular Slovak wafer. Nevertheless, the chart is just for orientation. If anyone does not know how to do a burpee, it is the first exercise in this challenge. 

ISTANBUL – ACTUALLY ASIA

Imagine a 90 minute journey from the airport to the city centre. No one knows the wherebouts of your stop and you are lucky if they speak your language. Minarets are sticking out from behind the business buildings and the man standing next to you looks like a terrorist form Al Jazeera news. It is best to read a book and hope that your friend will be waiting at the final stop.

This is also a face of Istanbul on my first time in Asia in the city of two continents where 15 million businessmen or street vendors with fake hoodies, kebab sellers, young people from abroad gathering life experience and many other people live their stories. Streets are surprisingly clean thanks to the work of the rubbish collectors who pull the rickshaws with rubbish. Fish market offers fresh see food and no one is offended if you stop by just to take a picture of a salmon for your blog. Drunk people are spotted rarely but from time to time there is a fight in the street or a protest gathering. You can dine for the same price as in Bratislava. I have a photo of a covered woman in front of Hard Rock Cafe, but overall there is less Islam rule than I expected.

What is Islam

Istanbul, or originally Constantinople, was part of the Roman and Byzantine Empire. Ottoman Turks captured the city in 1453 and changed Hagia Sophia orthodox church into a mosque. Now it is a museum, where you can see the interior: cats walking around as if they were the sacred animals, and mosaics that depict Christian saints. They are from the Byzantine era. Islam is reminiscent only by the inscriptions below the ceiling, as it is forbidden to depict the Prophet and other figures.

The city is big but you can walk around the main sight in a day. From Hagia Sophia we crossed the Sultanahmet Square and arrived to the Blue Mosque, Before entering, you have to put off your shoes in order not to profane the place. The same applies to the Suleyman mosque, named after Suleyman the Great, who expanded the Ottoman Empire to the present day Hungary. He is even mentioned in some folk stories from that period that we used to learn at school. In Turkey, he is a respected person, like Ataturk.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was actually a dictator who established democracy in the 1920’s, after the world war. He turned Turkey into a secular state and since that time men can have only one wife and the women do not have to walk the streets in full cover. Actually, people dress quite normally and mosques that are in central Europe considered typical for orient are almost lost in the modern architecture, even if they count about 1,400 in Istanbul. You can spot the minarets everywhere.

An Imam was giving a lecture in the Suleyman mosque. The woman who works there told me that he is talking about the limited power of the mankind. Using the example of Titanic, he told that we can never claim that something is unsinkable or eternal and the people listened to him as if he was Dicaprio.

Blue Mosque

I took an English translation of Quran, freely available in the Mosque. It is the 'Final culmination of and fulfilment of the same basic truths that the God revealed through all His prophets to every nation.' (Quran 3:84) I knew that all three religions have common basic foundations and the Quran was in content identical with the early verses of the Bible, including serpent and the sin. It is also written in a manner that enables various interpretations and you can pick a particular verse and ponder over it for hours. It tries to encourage people to disseminate and analyse deeply what they read, which, as a former teacher, I like. People often act in emotion and it results in no good. Recently some radicals tried to beat up some Chinese at the Sultanahmet Square but instead they beat up a Korean girl.

Armoured vehicle in the city centre

Recently, die Zeit wrote that the attack at the Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul merged the two faces of Turkey – that of tourism and terrorism - into one. Turkish people are in nature hospitable and friendly. It is not only my personal experience from Istanbul and international events but also the words of my cousin, who lives there for two years and when in London, I lived for about three months in a hostel owned by Turks. However, they do not give away their willingness, usually frowning, and this might be the clash with the European culture of good first impression.

Police blocking the protest gathering over the government of #Erdogan in #Istanbul, #Turkey Locals are used to it. pic.twitter.com/x1SgBXDh7q

— Erik Redli (@ErikRedli) February 20, 2016

We were passing the Taksimim Square on Saturday evening, when several armoured vehicles and police commando arrived. Later we could see them blocking the access to the nearby street, fending of the gathering that voiced their dissatisfaction with the government. People are used to such gatherings and do not mind walking into the middle of the crowd to withdraw money from ATM.

People in Turkey divide the terrorists into two main groups: Kurdish, who fight for freedom in the south of the country and do not hesitate to attack even mosques, and the ISIS affiliates who strictly abide the religion of Islam. Government is trying to suppress the efforts of the Kurds, resulting in the unrest in the south, which helps the other group.

Turkish drink tea from glass glasses and if you add milk, your give away that you are a tourist (as if you ordered a cappuccino in Italy in the afternoon). I hoped that the original Turkish tea will be really unique but when I saw advertisement of a tea brand known in central Europe, I lost all hopes and decided to buy my take-home-box according to the colour and state-of-art design.

Kebab tastes similarly than in Slovakia and the prices are approximately the same as here. You can get a good meal for 15 – 20 Turkish liras, which is up to 20 EUR. Tea costs about 3 – 4 liras. You can enjoy it in a terraced cafe under the Suleyman mosque and during lunch even listen to the prayer echoed from the minarets down there in the city.

After that you can enter some of the Bazaars – big markets, where you can get clothes, porcelain and food for cheap. Some of the Turish sweets are too sugary and stick to your teeth but I recommend chocolate, Simik – sesame bakery product –a and ayran, which is similar to Slovak diary drinks made by the shepherds.  

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In Florence you do not have to look for Renaissance – it is on every single corner.

Even after over 500 years were are still discovering things that originate in Florence: gelato ice cream or Florentine steak –T-bone steak typical for Florence, leather products – they are everywhere and art. Slovak version here.

Florence is the capital of Tuscany, region known for its wine, food and with influential role in Italian history, a place where Machiavelli wrote his timeless political ideas, Dante laid down the basics of the modern languages and the Italian Renaissance was born with the antic athlete David.

1, Guide to modern politics

Niccolo Machiavelli is called the father of modern political science. In his works, the most popular being The Prince, he addressed all the issues that were going on in the world during his times. He preferred decision based on intellect to emotions and fear to love. Actually, it is a survival guide followed by many rulers from the period of the rule of terror after the French Revolution, Napoleon, Nazi Germany and even modern dictators and some president can be found in his quotes. Just a few:

• It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
• Politics have no relation to morals.
• The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
• It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
• Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.
• A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

2, Re-birth of European culture.

Many historians associate Florence with the re-birth of the European culture. Renaissance – Rinascimento literally means „reborn“ and refers to the revival of the ancient Greek and Roman art. Europe was waking up from the Dark Age, when all cultural conventions were dictated by the Catholic Church, including how artist should depict people. Saints had to be fully covered in clothes and the size of the figures was based on the importance: a king or bishop was always bigger than a peasant even if he was standing closer to the observer.

Giotto started to experiment with form and replaced the rigid faces of their saints by smile and emotion. Masaccio painted the Holy Trinity, which introduced the linear perspective that takes into consideration the spatial relations. The picture in the church Santa Maria Novella (picture) was so alive that people wanted to „step into“ and bumped their head. Painting and architecture paved the way to more relaxed culture, where people could afford to expose their bodies and enjoy art forms such as opera. Before, everything had to be church related or prescribed by the king.

3, The ideal of beauty defined

When you look at the statue of David by Michelangelo, you see an ideal that has not changed till now. Artists sought the ideal proportions, going back to the ancient Greek arts – statues of sportsmen and gods – and studied human anatomy. Michelangelo and Leonardo would go to city hospitals, cut up the death corpses and move their bones and muscles to see how they work. It helped them understood human anatomy. The Venus by Sandro Botticelli, or Primavera, are close to the ideal of female body, because no one likes anorectic models. He added more emotional expression to the rationality of his predecessors, who focused on the purpose. David had to be on his feet all day, taking care of his sheep, therefore he could not have big biceps and thighs like modern body-builders. It would cost him lot of energy. If you look at professional soldiers or sportsmen, most of them have bodies like him. Classical ideas are still influential and you can never make a mistake by going back to classics.

4, Stories that we copy

Dante is considered to be the father of modern Italian language, as he was the first one who started to write in the Tuscan dialect, not Latin. He was a political activist and soldier and this influenced his work, as well as the platonic love of Beatrice. Maybe he just started the whole series of cliché characters, but the truth is that many the action of many heroes is fueled by emotion, including Romeo, the Great Gatsby, Darth Vader and even Batman had his Rachel.
In The Divine Comedy, Dante finds himself in a dark forest in the middle of his life, with the right way lost. His search for the right direction had impact on Petrarch, Boccaccio and other writers that influenced even the modern novel. Dante used to read Vergil and later almost all writers were well read in Dante, Petrarch, Shakespeare (why Romeo and Juliet take place in Italy, as well as the Merchant of Venice) or Geoffrey Chaucer, who spent some time in Florence and got some ideas for his Canterbury Tales.

5, Money used for art and start-ups

In the early 15th century, Florence was controlled by the House of Medici. They started the first bank in Europe, lending money to foreign „investor“, as we would call them today. Many of them used the money to buy a ship, hire a crew and try to find commodities in the „new world“. Medici also introduced taxes and built up significant wealth and power. –Italian city states could exist independently of the. Medici used the money to build churches and palaces, which provided jobs for the architects, and also supported education. Many of the works by Michelangelo, Leonardo and others were funded by this family. They were a kind of start-up angel, who invests in art.

5 January 2016 - watch the borders

http://domov.sme.sk/c/20070092/ficovi-odporuje-aj-kalinak-viacere-ich-vyjadrenia-k-utecencom-nesuhlasili-s-realitou.html...
Posted by Erik209blog on Tuesday, 5 January 2016

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