Hisham on Ultrahuman Blog

What is metabolic age? Understand and improve this key health metric

Wed, 28 May 2025 21:36:15 +0000

While your chronological age is simply the number of years you’ve been alive, your metabolic age offers deeper insight into how well your body is functioning behind the scenes.

Metabolic age reflects how efficiently your body burns energy at rest — essentially, the speed and health of your metabolism.

A higher metabolic age suggests your body is burning fewer calories than expected for your age group, which can be linked to lower muscle mass, a slower metabolism, and increased risk of chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes.

Running vs weight lifting – which one should you pick?

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:54:28 +0000

If you’re looking to supercharge your fitness journey, deciding between running vs. strength training and weights is a tough choice.

Conventional wisdom says that running is more beneficial for shredding fat – and running is really good for you. But evidence shows that strength training also comes with more benefits than simply bulking up – and could still shred fat and boost heart health.

Each form of exercise comes with benefits and has distinct advantages. But here’s how they compare.

Unified Mindfulness: In Conversation With Musician Julianna Ray

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 15:43:00 +0000

When musician Julianna Raye came to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music, she didn’t know her life would take the turn that it did. Even though opportunities presented themselves at her doorstep, she found herself struggling and unhappy on the inside. This feeling of unfulfillment is what led her down the path of becoming a wellness trainer.

She was drawn to mindfulness in the face of crippling anxiety. After attending over 100 silent retreats and clocking in over 10,000 hours in a formal meditation practice, Ray asserts that she managed to rewire her brain. A UCLA examination confirmed that Julianna’s MRI scans in fact revealed these changes in her brain.

Animal Flow: Getting Back To Your Roots

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 14:56:00 +0000

What is Animal Flow?

Animal Flow is a trademarked bodyweight program created by Mike Fitch that’s centred around ground-based work. It features animal-type movements that encourage core stability and strength, joint strength, and body awareness all without any fitness equipment.

The idea of animal flow is to unlock our fitness through primal patterns. The exercise challenges and exerts the body through multiple movements that the body typically may not be used to.

Thermic Effect Of Food

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 14:27:00 +0000

We all know what we should be eating—more fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, good fats and so on. We also know we should avoid junk food and keep a check on calories. However, what we eat and how it impacts our body goes way beyond these basic concepts. It isn’t just as simple as calories in, calories out as social media influencers might have you believe. In reality, if you ate 100 calories of pure sugar and 100 calories of lean protein, the two foods would have very different effects on your metabolism. Why is that, you may ask?

Hunger Games: The Truth About The Ghrelin Hormone

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 11:26:24 +0000

We have all felt that tingling sensation in our stomach launching us into a search mission. A primal switch in our body is turned on, leading us to the cookie jar. It is hard to ignore that call of intense yearning. The six-letter word that you enjoy and dread in equal measure is hunger. It goads you into responding swiftly. It makes you eat.

Have you ever wondered about the mechanism at work in our bodies that prompts this hunger?

Understanding Metabolism & Anabolic Steroid Abuse

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 11:25:00 +0000

One usually hears of testosterone in the context of men doing things that are conventionally deemed “manly”. What many do not know is that testosterone is a naturally occurring sex hormone in both men and women and has a wide range of functions.

What are anabolic steroids?

Testosterone is required to develop and maintain characteristics primarily present in male individuals. In women, testosterone is present in smaller amounts but helps with the growth, maintenance, and repair of their reproductive tissues, bone mass, and behaviours in conjunction with estrogen, the female sex hormone.

Conscious Breathing: Benefits & Techniques to Reduce Stress & Anxiety

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 16:54:00 +0000

When confronted with uncomfortable emotions of others like anger, nervousness or panic, the advice that is generously doled out most often is ‘Take a deep breath.’ But what is breathing really?

What is conscious breathing?

An individual who practices conscious breathing develops a soft awareness of their breath as it moves through their body. In order to engage more deeply with life, you can cultivate a sense of calm and presence through this practice

Body Recomposition: Why You Shouldn’t Overlook Micronutrients

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 09:48:00 +0000

‘Micronutrients’ are indispensable elements required by the body in small amounts.

They include vitamins and minerals. While vitamins take care of energy production, immune function, blood clotting, and other functions, minerals take care of the growth, bone health, fluid balance, and several other processes.

Highlights

Macronutrients consist of three categories - Proteins, Fats, and Carbohydrates,
Micronutrients are found within the macronutrients. Closely monitor calories. Consuming enough food to uphold maintenance levels is most often recommended to lose excess body fat,
There are 13 essential vitamins. They are vital for your body to work optimally, and without them, you may experience unfavourable side effects.

We often hear a lot about macronutrients when we talk about building muscle or losing fat.

What is Peripheral vision and six ways to improve it

Sun, 14 Aug 2022 09:13:00 +0000

There are typically two main types of vision in our daily lives to see the world around us. These are, the central vision, which enables us to see what is directly in front of us, or our main line of sight, in precise detail, and the peripheral vision, which is what we can see from the corners of our eyes without having to turn our head or neck.

Highlights

Humans have a limited peripheral view compared to animals, especially in distinguishing colour and shape,
Peripheral vision is poor, even in young people with normal vision, it’s just how our biological set-up is,
In sports, peripheral awareness is vital and is a crucial visual skill for athletes, which is why it is important for them to improve it.

Rewiring your Brain through Neuroplasticity

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 10:34:00 +0000

Neuroplasticity is a term that refers to the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. Neuro relates to neurons, the nerve cells that are the building blocks of the brain and nervous system, and plasticity refers to the brain’s malleability.

Each neuron in your brain has one long cable that snakes away from the central part of the cell. This cable, several times thinner than a human hair, is called an axon, and it is where electrical impulses from the neuron travel away to be received by other neurons.

Complex Carbs Benefits And Are They Healthy?

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 08:51:00 +0000

Introduction to carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are a major macronutrient and one of your body’s primary sources of energy. Most information labels and discourages eating carbs with the notion of “Carbs are bad”, but the key is finding the right carbs, not avoiding them altogether.

You may have heard that eating complex carbs is better than simple carbs. But nutrition labels don’t always tell you if the carbohydrate content is simple or complex. Understanding how these foods are classified and how they work in your body can help you make the right decision for your body.

Recovery: The Secret To Better Gains

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 11:27:00 +0000

You may feel less sore with each workout, but it doesn’t mean you’re not hitting your workouts hard enough or that you’re missing out on workout gains from those exercises.

We’re always told to get regular exercise. But if you’re training for a competition or just feeling extra motivated to work out every day, more isn’t always better.

Delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS)

Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) is muscle pain that begins after you’ve exercised, normally starting a day or two after a workout. You won’t feel DOMS when you are exercising.

Metabolic conditioning: How it can help with your fitness goals

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 10:06:00 +0000

According to Britannica , metabolism is the sum of the chemical reactions that take place within each cell of a living organism and that provide energy for vital processes for synthesizing new organic material. In simple terms, it’s how we break down food for energy.

Metabolic conditioning or MetCon as fitness enthusiasts call it is a type of exercise that focuses on patterns of work and rest periods to produce a desired response from the body. It has formed its unique category in terms of where it fits in the exercise world. It’s different from distance running or long steady-state cardio sessions and contains more challenging, dynamic sessions of training.

Nocturnal Hypoglycemia: Symptoms and prevention

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 05:45:00 +0000

Here’s a scenario we would like you to assume. Your alarm didn’t go off and you woke up late. You skipped your breakfast and rushed to your workplace. As soon as you entered the office you got stuck in a long meeting that went past the lunch hour. It is now 4 p.m. and suddenly you start feeling a little bit dizzy. You haven’t eaten anything since your dinner last night and your body is starving. What you are experiencing is hypoglycemia. Luckily for you, a colleague offers you a protein bar and upon eating it you may have felt much better.

Eating Like Your Ancestors: Does it Make or Break Your Metabolism?

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 11:25:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered what the most dominantly produced crop in the world is? It’s wheat, and the reason behind its superiority is more complex than you think.

Wheat comes from a tribe of grasses called Triticeae, which also includes barley, rye, and some important wild grasses, among others. The seeds of these grasses were attractive as a flavour to primitive humans. The early diversification of the group took place at a location known as the ‘Fertile Crescent’.

How to go beyond a Plateau

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 11:02:00 +0000

When you are working out every week for a considerable period, you tend to experience hitting a wall at some point. Your routine which helped you get to where you want to be and your nutrition among other factors doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t give you the results that you were previously getting, that’s when you know that you have hit a plateau .

The stalled results may have been caused by a variety of factors, it generally means that your body has found a way to adapt to the physical stimulus you were giving it. To experience continuous progress, it is essential to expand the physical and mental limits that you have set for yourself.

Calories: The Burning Question

Mon, 31 May 2021 06:07:00 +0000

Everyone understands that calories are talked about whenever the conversation is about food or exercise. But what are calories?

According to Britannica , the calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat required at a pressure of 1 standard atmosphere to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water to 1° Celsius. When people are talking about calories while referring to food, they are usually talking about the amount of ‘kilocalories’ any food item has, which is listed on nutrition labels. The unit of measurement used is 1 large kilocalorie, the equivalent of 1,000 small calories.