Fitness/Nutrition Terms Flashcards
Cholesterol
Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that’s found in all cells of the body.
Your body needs some cholesterol to make hormones, vitamin D, and substances that help you digest foods. Your body makes all the cholesterol it needs. However, cholesterol also is found in some of the foods you eat. Cholesterol travels through your bloodstream in small packages called lipoproteins (lip-o-PRO-teens). These packages are made of fat (lipid) on the inside and proteins on the outside.
LDL (bad) cholesterol
is the bad one. LDL collects in the walls of blood vessels,
causing the blockages of atherosclerosis. Higher LDL levels put you at greater risk for a heart attack from a sudden blood clot in an artery narrowed by atherosclerosis.
High Density Lipoprotein, HDL
(good) cholesterol-HDL cholesterol is the
well-behaved “good cholesterol.” This friendly scavenger cruises the bloodstream. As it does, it removes harmful bad cholesterol from where it doesn’t belong. High HDL levels reduce the risk for heart disease – but low levels increase the risk.
Triglycerides
are a type of fat (lipid) found in your blood. When you eat, your body
converts any calories it doesn’t need to use right away into triglycerides. The triglycerides are stored in your fat cells.
Anaerobic exercise
is short-lasting, high-intensity activity, where your body’s demand
for oxygen exceeds the oxygen supply available. Anaerobic exercise relies on energy sources that are stored in the muscles
Aerobic exercise
provides cardiovascular conditioning. The term aerobic actually
means “with oxygen,” which means that breathing controls the amount of oxygen that can make it to the muscles to help them burn fuel and move.
Isokinetic exercise
Exercise performed using a specialized apparatus that provides
variable resistance to a movement, so that no matter how much effort is exerted, the movement takes place at a constant speed.
Isometric exercise
or isometrics are a type of strength training in which the joint angle and muscle length do not change during contraction
Isotonic exercise
when a contracting muscle shortens against a constant load, as
when lifting a weight. Isotonic exercise is one method of muscular exercise.
Muscle atrophy
is the wasting or loss of muscle tissue
Muscle hypertrophy
involves an increase in size of skeletal muscle through a growth in size of its component cells.
Body dysmorphic disorder
disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can’t stop thinking about a flaw in your appearance — a flaw that is either minor or
imagined. But to you, your appearance seems so shameful that you don’t want to be
seen by anyone.
Anorexia nervosa
self-starvation originating from a fear of becoming overweight.
Bulimia nervosa
bingeing on food and then purging it as a way to control body weight.
Excessive eating disorder
Binge-eating disorder is a serious eating disorder in which
you frequently consume unusually large amounts of food and feel unable to stop eating.
Amenorrhea
(uh-men-o-REE-uh) is the absence of menstruation — one or more missed menstrual periods. Women who have missed at least three menstrual periods in
a row have amenorrhea
Body composition
includes, bone, organs, muscle, and other tissue.
Body mass index
(BMI) is a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. A high BMI can be an indicator of high body fatness.
Bioelectrical impedance
Bioelectrical impedance measures the resistance of body
tissues to the flow of a small, harmless electrical signal. Current flows more easily
through the parts of the body that are composed mostly of water (blood, urine and
muscle) than it does through bone, fat or air. Bioelectrical impedance measures the
strength and speed of the electrical signal sent through the body (impedance measure).
It then uses this measurement and information such as height, weight and gender to
predict how much body fat a person has.
Skinfold caliper testing
skinfold estimation methods are based on a skinfold test, also
known as a pinch test, whereby a pinch of skin is precisely measured by calipers at
several standardized points on the body to determine the subcutaneous fat layer
thickness.
Hydrostatic weighing
Underwater weighing: A method for determining the lean body mass. This method weighs a person underwater and then calculates the lean body mass
(muscle) and body fat. This method is one of the more accurate ones. However, it is
generally done in special research facilities, and the equipment is costly.