Are You Intense About Losing Fat?

Are you logging in mile after mile on the treadmill or stationary bike and not getting the fat loss you desire? Maybe you lost some weight initially but now you have reached a plateau and losing weight has become rather difficult.

Maybe it's not you. Maybe it's your workout?

The definition of "insanity" is:

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I love to ride my bike and go inline skating. I did my first "century" (100 miles) on my bike back in the 90's. I would often ride my bike 17 miles to work and then home again. On the weekends, I would skate on my favorite bike path for 20 miles just for fun. One day, a coworker asked me, "If you workout and ride your bike so much, how come you have not lost any weight?" He was right. As a man, I was 6'2" at 235 lbs. and had stayed there for quite a while without losing much weight. I went to my doctor for advice. You can read what happened by clicking on my story (Is Your Scale Broken?). That did not help either. I was on my own. Eventually, I had to learn two things.

1. How to eat. I was sabotaging all of my weight loss efforts by eating the wrong kinds of foods and eating them in the wrong way. Many of my meals were served out of a box or a bag and were delivered through my car window. A few hours after that, I was hungry for another bag of junk food. I loved bagels and cream cheese, burritos and french fries, italian sausages and onion rings. Of course, I always washed it down with a large "DIET COKE" and finished it off with some low fat yogurt ice cream. Who was I kidding? It was not until I learned how to replace all that with fresh vegetables, fruit and lean protein that I began to see results. Eating more fiber and consuming the right kinds of fats did wonders. Going on a traditional, calorie starving "diet" was not an option for me. I had never met anyone who had gone on a diet and was successful at losing weight and keeping it off. Diets are programmed to fail.
2. How to exercise for fat loss. Obviously, the long steady cardio workouts on my bike and skates helped me lose a measly 5 pounds and then it seemed to stop. I knew better. I was a competitive swimmer in college. I was 90 pounds lighter (145 lbs @ 6'2") and ate over 12,000 calories a day. At that time, my ribs were sticking out and I had almost no body fat. I could not eat enough food to keep my weight up. My workouts were so hard that I was starting to lose muscle. So, what was the difference? It was the INTENSITY!! We did a lot of interval training. The theory behind interval training is this: By mixing bursts of high intensity work with low intensity periods of recovery, you're overloading both the aerobic and anaerobic systems at the same time, getting the benefits of both aspects of training simultaneously. You can realistically get a complete workout in thirty minutes with interval training. These intense, but short, sessions will cut fat off your body faster than a hot knife through butter. Weight resistance training gives you an added dimension to your fat-burning capabilities. Research has shown that regular resistance training can increase your Basal Metabolic Rate by up to 15%. So for someone burning 2000 calories per day, that's a potential 300 extra calories burned every single day. Combining interval training with resistance training would be the ultimate fat burning event.

Let me illustrate what I mean by "intensity." Watch the following video as six different people do several different weight-bearing exercises. They illustrate the intensity of interval training for four minutes. ONLY FOUR MINUTES! How many of us could carve out four minutes out of our day? Watch the guy lifting the sand bag. He lost 50 pounds doing this.





Did you hear what he said?!? For every effort you burn in high intensity exercise, you burn 9 times more fat than the aerobic calorie burn! Does that mean that I could burn just as much fat in 4 minutes as 30 minutes on the tread mill or exercise bike? Let's do the math for a minute. That would also mean that 15 minutes of this kind of training would save me 2 hours of time on the bike or treadmill. If you are like me and don't have much time to work out, this information is really good news.

If you did not catch what they were doing, it was 20 seconds of intense exercise followed by ten seconds of rest. They did this four times for a total of four minutes. This is called the Tabata Protocol. It was discovered and developed in Japan for the Japanese speed skating team. They would warm up for five minutes, followed by the 4 minutes of interval training and followed by 5 minutes of warm down. This is a total of 14 minutes.

As always, check with your doctor before you start to do any kind of physical exercise like this. Get a physical exam before trying this workout if you re over 40 or have two or more of the following risk factors: a family history of heart disease, you re a smoker, you re sedentary, you re overweight, or you have high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

If you are a beginner or have not worked out in a long time, it would be suggested that you start with 10 seconds of intense exercise followed by 30 seconds of rest. As you get better, you can gradually go to the regular Tabata Protocol of 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off.

It does not matter what exercises you are doing as long as you are moving, it get's your heart going and is a weight bearing exercise. Here are a few examples of a few more routines that will blast the fat off your body.

Kettle Bells - I bought a 35 lb. kettle bell a few weeks ago. I'm just getting started. What a fun workout! Here is a video of various exercises that could be done with this device. The lady on the left used to weigh 195 pounds. Forty four percent of that was body fat. In four months of using kettle bells, she lost 45 pounds and went to 17% body fat.




For a variation of the old push up, why not try this other version instead? It is called the Hindu push up. You don't need any special equipment. Just your own body weight.This uses more muscle and will give you more of a workout and will increase your flexibility.



If you have a Swiss Ball, here are several exercises you can do with this device:



Finally, here is an article you should read about . . .

The interval training mistake virtually everyone makes when they're trying to burn fat..

Some of the summary points of this article

Two groups of women burned 300 calories per workout session. The ones who did interval training increased fitness levels by 13 %. The women who did steady boring cardio increased fitness levels by 0%

Changes in body fat were also greater in subjects using interval training.

According to the research team, "... even if caloric expenditure during exercise is equal, higher intensity exercise may further aid weight loss due to an acute increase in energy expenditure up to 24 hours following exercise."

These findings have been confirmed by researchers from the University of Alabama, who showed that 24-hour energy expenditure was

160 calories greater in subjects performing high-intensity interval training

rather than continuous exercise. In other words, the interval training group of women continued to burn 160 more calories in the 24 hour period following their initial workout. Amazing!

Are you ready to lose some fat?

Here are some other great blog posts on this subject

New York Times: A Healthy Mix of Rest and Motion

Australia News: Eight seconds key to weight loss

Interval Training (HIIT) | Get Leaner with Less Cardio?

Drop Excess Pounds Like A MOFO With Bodyweight Exercises!

Remember talking about EPOC training?

The Ultimate Secrets to a Flat Stomach and Six Pack Abs

Lose Weight And Get Healthy Without Exercise??

Is this possible?

I guess that losing fat would be part of the picture of health. But can you truly be healthy and lose weight without exercise? I was reading a health blog recently that said exercise was not necessary for weight loss. Kim Klaver says, "Yes, I used to think exercise should be on the list to lose weight also. Only then I learned it may not be necessary for weight loss. Healthy, yes, to move around for circulation and energy...but for weight loss?"
What do the rest of you think?

There was a six month study that was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism that examined the effects of diet alone (25 percent fewer calories consumed) versus diet plus exercise (12.5 percent fewer calories consumed and 12.5 percent more calories burned) in overweight but otherwise healthy adults. Researchers hypothesized that the diet plus exercise group would lose more body fat, but results showed equal amounts of weight and fat lost in both groups.

Most diets are based on calorie restriction or deprivation. The theory is that eating fewer calories than one uses, will equal weight loss. When you do this without any exercise, you could lose more than fat. You might be losing bone and muscle as well.

It is kind of funny that they only reported the results of fat loss over a six month period. 95% of all people who take a diet pill or go on a calorie restricted diet will gain all of their weight back in a year or two. Where are these same people today? I wonder if any of them experienced some of the other results of a calorie restricted diet? These would be things like:

* Weight gain.

* Depression.* Food cravings.* Feeling tired and listless.* Constant hunger.* Reduced interest in sex.* Chronic fatigue.* Hypothyroidism.* Hormone imbalance.* Scaly skin or eczema.* Premature wrinkling of the skin.* Dandruff or dull, lifeless hair.* Mood swings.

* Chronic yeast infections.* Poor immune system- frequent colds or respiratory illnesses.* Digestive problems.

That certainly is not a way to get your health back.

On the other hand, another study reported in the Journal of The American Medical Association showed that women who exercised around three hours per week (without dieting) lost 6.9% of their body fat around their middle.

Here are a few other articles that talk about weight loss and the effects of exercise vs. diet.

Older People Who Diet Without Exercising Lose Valuable Muscle Mass

Weighing Benefits Of Exercise, Diets: Both Work For Weight Loss, But Dieters Also Lose Muscle

Exercise and weight-loss

It is a fact. You can lose weight with diet alone. People do it all the time. It might surprise you to learn what that weight consists of. It is not just fat. Bone and muscle can be a part of this equation as well. Here is an article that talks about that:

Weight Loss Through Calorie Restriction, But Not Exercise, May Lead To Bone Loss

What if you are you are spending 5 or more hours a week on the treadmill or exercise bike, you are restricting calories through diet and you find yourself getting poor results. You might even be GAINING weight! That's what happened to me. Read my story by going to my post on "Is Your Scale Broken?"

The definition of "insanity" is:

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

If you have been yo-yo dieting and can't seem to keep the weight off, you need to do something else.

If you have taken diet pills, weakened your immune system, spent hours on the toilet and gained all your weight back, you need to do get a new plan.

If you have spent hour after hour sweating on a treadmill or bike and have little or nothing to show for it (weightloss), why would you want to continue doing something that is evidently not working?

Here are a few suggestions for effective weight loss:

1. Change the way you eat. Learning how to eat is preferable to learning how to diet. Forget counting calories and carbohydrates. Go low-glycemic.

• The High-Glycemic Trap. Eating high-glycemic foods can sabotage even the best of diet plans because the resulting spike and subsequent drop in blood sugar leads to a more rapid return to feelings of hunger.
• Solution: For optimal nutrition, our bodies need a balanced variety of nutrients, including the right types of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.

Carbohydrates such as white bread, white flour, pasta, white rice, and potatoes release their sugars rapidly (high-glycemic foods) and increase the blood sugars faster than if you were slapping table sugar on your tongue. Foods such as green beans, rye bread, whole apples, and cauliflower release their sugars slowly (low-glycemic foods). This rapid rise in blood sugar after a high glycemic meal stimulates the release of insulin from the pancreas, which is needed to control the blood sugar level. The blood sugar drops and our body’s crave more calories and more high-glycemic foods.We simply keep repeating this pattern over and over—day after day. Medical studies are now showing us that this type of diet causes us to become less and less sensitive to our own insulin (insulin resistance). It is a lot like crying "wolf" all of the time—we are simply stimulating the release of insulin time after time.

An estimated 24% of the adults in the U.S. have insulin resistance, also known as Syndrome X or more recently the Metabolic Syndrome.
When Is A Calorie No Longer A Calorie?
When insulin resistance is involved, a calorie is not merely a calorie any more. You can exercise and starve yourself all you want. The fact is, your fat cells start acting like a sponge and soak up all the glucose and efficiently change it into fat no matter how many calories you try to burn. The concept of "a calorie in and a calorie out" that has been the mainstay of weight loss therapy throughout the past century needs to change. When you begin to recognize the effect that insulin resistance throws into this equation, a calorie is no longer just a calorie.
Insulin resistance leads to Metabolic Syndrome (Syndrome X) and can finally lead to full blown diabetes. Unless you can find a way to "reverse the tracks" on insulin resistance and get back to normal, you simply will not be able to lose weight even with the most aggressive diets. In this state, the body is resistant to almost any weight loss program being advocated today. Only a program designed to reverse insulin resistance will successfully "flip the switch back again."


2. Change your exercise routine - If you are losing weight with your current exercise routine and are satisfied with your progress, stop here. Don't read any further.

How many miles have you logged on the treadmill, eliptical or stationary bike, only to discover that your weight loss efforts are just not paying off like you want them too. Listen, too much aerobics burns muscle! Take a look at the vast majority of women who take aerobics classes after work: do they ever transform their physiques? Rarely.

Interval Training - Interval training has been shown to be the most effective cardiovascular training method for improving cardiovascular endurance, sport-specific performance, boosting metabolic rate, and burning fat! You might already be doing this but are you doing it in a way that will bring optimal results?? Click here to read an article called,

The interval training mistake virtually everyone makes when they're trying to burn fat..

Some of the summary points of this article

Two groups of women burned 300 calories per workout session. The ones who did interval training increased fitness levels by 13 %. The women who did steady boring cardio increased fitness levels by 0%

Changes in body fat were also greater in subjects using interval training.

According to the research team, "... even if caloric expenditure during exercise is equal, higher intensity exercise may further aid weight loss due to an acute increase in energy expenditure up to 24 hours following exercise."

These findings have been confirmed by researchers from the University of Alabama, who showed that 24-hour energy expenditure was 160 calories greater in subjects performing high-intensity interval training rather than continuous exercise. In other words, the interval training group of women continued to burn 160 more calories in the 24 hour period following their initial workout. Amazing!

Which is better for fat loss? Long or short intervals? Shorter is better. Two groups worked out at different intervals. The first one worked out for 6 seconds @100% effort, followed by 9 second rest periods. The second group worked out for 24 seconds @100% effort, followed with 36-second rest periods.
3 x more fat calories were burned during short intervals.

If you are out riding your bike or on the stationary bike, here is a good workout for you. Warm up by easy riding for 10 minutes before you start:INTERVAL TRAINING PROGRAM

Cardio equipment: stationary or spinning bike

Purpose: burning fat

Interval training protocol: 10 sec @ 100% : 30 sec @ 60% x 18 = 12 minutes

Ensure that you use a flywheel resistance that prevents you from bouncing up and down on the seat. Thus, you should feel a good amount of resistance during the 10-second work period. You can lower the resistance if you like during the 30-second recovery. This only takes 12 minutes!

2. Resistance Training -

Aerobic exercise may burn a few hundred extra calories for dinner, but for every additional pound of muscle you gain, your body burns around 50 extra calories every day of the week. 7 days x 50 calories= 350 calories. Most of that happens while you sleep!

Research has shown that regular resistance training can increase your Basal Metabolic Rate by up to 15%. So for someone burning 2000 calories per day, that's a potential 300 extra calories, more than a Mars bar, burned every single day.

Resistance exercise can reduce bone deterioration and build bone mass, preventing osteoporosis.

Working your muscles can also inhibit the affects of sarcopenia, the age related loss of muscle mass, strength and function. After the age of thirty there is a loss of 3-5% of muscle mass per decade, making day to day tasks gradually harder to perform and slowing down metabolism - increasing the risk of weight gain.

Weight training has been proven to have a positive affect on insulin resistance, resting metabolism, blood pressure, body fat and gastrointestinal transit time, factors that are linked to illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Always make your workout about quality over quantity to get effective weight loss results. Resistance training, when done correctly, allows you to lose inches fast, see results almost immediately and boost your metabolism to burn more fat and calories every day.

Is Your Scale Broken?

I was thin most of my life and then it hit me. I started gaining weight around my middle, my thighs, chest and neck. Even my face became fat! I went to my doctor and asked him what I could do. He said, "Exercise more and eat less." Well, duh! I was expecting something a little more profound than that. I followed his advice and came back in a month. When I got on the scale, I weighed MORE! How could this be, doc? He said that when I increased my exercise, it must have made me hungrier and I must have eaten more. I don't think so. When I was younger, all I had to do was think about losing weight and it would come right off (fast). Why was it so tough now? It's a simple formula, isn't it? Burn more calories than you take in. I had done that all my life and it always worked before. What had changed?

I did not know it but I had put my body on a high-glycemic roller coaster ride. For many years, it was not a problem. My body seemed to handled it just fine with no telling symptoms. Then, all of the sudden, I started putting on 10-15 pounds a year. I was always tired in the afternoon and I found that my memory was not as good as it had been before. The results of the roller coaster had finally caught up with me.


Here's how the glycemic roller coaster works. In a healthy person, blood sugars work best in a narrow range. The glucose levels should be maintained in the body between 70 to 150 mg/dl. In 1981, Dr. David Jenkins discovered that some foods will spike your blood sugar higher than others. In the chart below, you can see what happens when you spike your blood sugar. When it gets too high, your body protects itself by releasing a fat-storage hormone called insulin. A few hours after a high-glycemic meal, your blood sugars go below the normal range. This is dangerous, so your body protects itself again by producing cortisol and adrenaline in an attempt to bring your blood sugars back up to a normal level. This is usually when you crave another high-glycemic meal. The roller coaster starts all over again.














Over the years, this kind of insulin abuse leads to insulin resistance. Your body compensates by making more and more insulin. In turn, your muscles begin to reject the glucose sent their way. Normally, 85 to 90% of all the glucose produced after eating a meal goes to the muscle cells to be either utilized for energy or stored as glycogen for immediate energy reserve in the muscle. This means that only 10-15% of the glucose ends up in our fat cells. If the insulin and glucagon levels are normal, there is a nice balance of fat being produced and broken down, and no weight gain occurs.

It Starts In The Muscle
When insulin resistance develops, muscle cells start rejecting a majority of the glucose following a meal and it is redirected to our fat cells. It is like a train switching tracks and going in a different direction. This is when the unexplained fat starts to develop around your middle at an alarming rate.

When Is A Calorie No Longer A Calorie?
When insulin resistance is involved, a calorie is not merely a calorie any more. You can exercise and starve yourself all you want. The fact is, your fat cells start acting like a sponge and soak up all the glucose and efficiently change it into fat no matter how many calories you try to burn. The concept of "a calorie in and a calorie out" that has been the mainstay of weight loss therapy throughout the past century needs to change. When you begin to recognize the effect that insulin resistance throws into this equation, a calorie is no longer just a calorie.
Insulin resistance leads to Metabolic Syndrome (Syndrome X) and can finally lead to full blown diabetes. Unless you can find a way to "reverse the tracks" on insulin resistance and get back to normal, you simply will not be able to lose weight even with the most aggressive diets. In this state, the body is resistant to almost any weight loss program being advocated today. Only a program designed to reverse insulin resistance will successfully "flip the switch back again."

Here is a video of Dr. Ray Strand explaining how this all happens.



Why Care About Blood Sugar?
If you're not diabetic, you probably haven't given much thought to your blood sugar, but are some compelling reasons why you should care:

• You should care if you find yourself getting sluggish or tired every afternoon.


• You should care if you reach for cookies, candy or cola when you need a shot of energy.


• You should care if you find yourself hungry late at night and raiding the refrigerator.


• You should care if your attempts at weight loss have yielded little or no success.


• You should care if you've noticed your memory or vision slipping in recent years.

These are all warning signs of blood sugar imbalance. Blood sugar is to your body what gasoline is to your car – fuel. Every cell in your body depends on it for the energy to stay alive and function. Whether you're a diabetic or not, your goal is to keep your blood sugar tank full, but not too full. Without balanced blood sugar, in addition to the health problems above, you may be increasing the risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.


How Does The Glycemic Index Work?


The glycemic index (GI) ranks foods by how they affect your blood sugar levels.

• Low-GI foods (less than 55) produce a gradual rise in blood sugar that's easy on the body.


• Foods between 55 and 70 are intermediate-GI foods


• Foods with high-GI numbers (more than 70) make blood sugar and insulin levels spike fast, which is a health threat.

Examples of high glycemic foods: White bread, white rice, white potatoes, soda pop, some fruit juices and most sugars.

Examples of low glycemic foods: Walnuts, peanuts, most fresh fruits and vegetables, chicken, turkey, tea (unsweetened), sugars like xylitol and stevia.


Research suggests keeping blood sugar from spiking pays off – low-GI foods stave off heart disease, prevent type 2 diabetes, help you evade serious side effects if you have diabetes, curb your appetite so you lose weight, and help boost energy.

The Science Behind The Glycemic Index
A study published in the November 2003 Journal of Pediatrics
showed that children who ate low-GI, high-fiber breakfasts were less hungry and ate less for lunch than kids eating a breakfast of refined sugary cereals. This is the first study to observe such an effect in a group of normal and overweight children and adds to the growing body of evidence that low-GI foods may have an important role in weight control and obesity management.

A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that people who eat refined grains stripped of fiber are more likely to gain weight and be overweight compared to people eating high-fiber whole grains.

GlycemicIndex and Serum High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Concentration Among US Adults
Dietary glycemic index, an indicator of the ability of the carbohydrate to raise blood glucose levels, and glycemic load, the product of glycemic index and carbohydrate intake, have been positively related to risk of coronary heart disease
Arch Intern Med.+2001;161:572-576.

State of the Art Reviews: Glycemic Index, Obesity, and Chronic Disease.
Diets based on carbohydrate foods that are more slowly digested and absorbed (ie, low glycemic index diets) have been independently linked to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some types of cancer. Although ongoing research is needed, the current findings, together with the fact that there are no demonstrated negative effects of a low glycemic index diet, suggest that the glycemic index should be an important consideration in the dietary management and prevention of obesity and chronic disease.
American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, Vol. 2, No. 2, 142-150 (2008)

Glycemic index, glycemic load, and chronic disease risk --a meta-analysis of observational studies
Low-GI and/or low-GL diets are independently associated with a reduced risk of certain chronic diseases. In diabetes and heart disease, the protection is comparable with that seen for whole grain and high fiber intakes. The findings support the hypothesis that *higherpostprandial glycemia is a universal mechanism for disease progression.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol.87, No. 3, 627-637, March 2008

Association between Carbohydrate Intake and Serum Lipids
Results of this study suggest that there is a complex and predominantly unfavorable effect of increased intake of highly processed carbohydrate on lipid profile, which may have implications for metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and coronary heart disease. Further studies in the form of randomized controlled trials are required to investigate these associations and determine the implications for lipid management.
Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 25, No. 2, 155-163 (2006)

Potato and french fry consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes in women
Nurses health study findings suggest a modest positive association between the consumption of potatoes and the risk of type 2 diabetes in women. This association was more pronounced when potatoes were substituted or whole grains .
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 83, No. 2, 284-290, February 2006

FastFood, Central Nervous System Insulin Resistance, and Obesity
Dramatic increases in fast food consumption over the past 30 years have occurred in parallel with the twin epidemics of obesity and insulin resistance. Some of the properties of fast food, including its high glycemic index and its fatty acid composition, induce hyperinsulinemia and the development of insulin resistance, both peripherally (increasing energy deposition into fat), and centrally. Of course, fast food is merely the most extreme example of what has become the typical Western diet, so this phenomenon has implications for all patients with weight gain. Hyperinsulinemia is the primary initiator of CNS insulin resistance, which may in part be responsible for leptin resistance. This promotes reduced energy. Therefore, it is our contention that fast food, based on all its inherent properties discussed, must not be viewed as a marker, but rather as a primary etiologic agent in the genesis of the current obesity epidemic.
(+Arteriosclerosis,Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.+ 2005;25:2451.)© 2005 American Heart Association, Inc.

Would You Give Your Dog A Diet Pill?

Is your pooch getting pudgy? Pfizer just released the first FDA-approved prescription diet drug for dogs. You heard me right! Can you believe that? It's called "Slentrol."

ADVERSE REACTIONS:
The adverse reactions associated with treatment with SLENTROL include vomiting, loose stools/diarrhea, lethargy, and anorexia. These adverse reactions were mainly observed during the first month of treatment or during the week after a dose increase. Vomiting was usually mild in severity, of short duration, and resolved with continued SLENTROL treatment. The SLENTROL-treated dogs generally had an increased frequency and duration of vomiting and diarrhea compared to the control dogs. The control dogs received corn oil.

In addition to the adverse reactions listed above, there were other abnormal findings. Many control and SLENTROL-treated dogs had dental disease, abnormal skin and ear findings, and lameness/arthritis.

So, if you can put up with your dog puking and defecating all over the house, all you have to do is deal with a lethargic dog who might be anorexic, have dental disease, skin disease and arthritis/lameness. Not only will your pooch be slender but "sicker than a dog" should be.

Slentrol works by preventing your dog’s digestive tract from being able to absorb fat. It also makes them feel full. It works just like Glaxo-Smith-Klein's drug for humans that is called "Alli." By the way, if you or your dog take these pills, you will also block several fat-soluble nutrients that are vital to a healthy diet. Here are a few of them:

Coenzyme Q10
This nutrient is the major energy source for almost every cell in your body as well as your pet’s and the key to healthy function of all major organs, especially the heart, brain and liver. It is what gives muscles their energy and strength, including your heart. Depriving your muscles of CoQ10 can bring about a condition called rhabdomyolysis. This breakdown of muscle causes pain and inflammation.

Vitamin A
Prevents many skin disorders. Enhances the immune system - protects against colds, flu, and infection to kidney, bladder, and lungs. Maintains and repairs the mucous membranes (all tissue that interacts with air, such as lungs, throat and eyes).

Vitamin D
Supports bone and tooth formation, muscle function and thyroid gland function. Important in the prevention and treatment of breast and colon cancer, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. Needed for strong bones.

Vitamin K
Important for blood coagulation and increased calcium absorption.

Vitamin E
A major antioxidant that is important in the prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Promotes healthy skin and coat (hair). Improves blood circulation and blood pressure. Aids in healing and the formation of red blood cells.

The American medical system and the big pharmaceutical companies are notorious for giving you a pill to treat the symptoms (obesity) instead of focusing on the cause. Why is your dog fat in the first place? Is it because of a lack of drugs? How about taking a look at diet and exercise?

What Are You Feeding Your Dog?
Look at the ingredients on most commercial dog foods and you will find things like corn, rice, wheat, soy, beans—even peanut shells. Giving them food that contains a lot of grains will have the same effect that it has on humans: it produces an insulin spike, raises their blood sugar, and packs on the pounds.

Low Fat Dog Food?
Dogs have survived for thousands of years on a diet of mostly protein and fat. Fat doesn't make you fat. People lose weight on the Atkins diet every day and it includes plenty of healthy fats. The next time you go to a restaurant, take a pad of real butter (without the roll), put it in your mouthand swallow it. You will soon notice that your hunger is greatly diminished. Fat sends a message to your brain that you are full. When you feed your dog low-fat dog food, you could actually be making him/her fatter! Well-intentioned pet owners feeding Fido and Spot so-called “reduced calorie” specialty foods are actually giving them the exact opposite of what they need to stay fit and trim.

Here are some tips on feeding your dog:

If you feed your dog a commercial food, consider looking for one that has more protein (fish, lamb, chicken, beef) and less fillers.
Look for a food that contains less of the bad fats (corn oil) and more good fats (fish oil, omega 3's, flax seed oil, poultry oil). It’s the key to reducing heart disease, high blood pressure, ramping up HDL cholesterol levels (the “good” kind), and keeping their joints, eyesight, and immune systems strong and healthy. I’ll add a tablespoon of cod liver oil into my dog's bowl to make sure she’s getting plenty of omega-3.

• Feed your dog real meat like chicken, beef, lamb, fish and turkey.

• Cook your dog a few eggs every morning.

• Eliminate or restrict rice, corn, bread or potatoes from your dog's diet.

Exercise

I know that most dog owners are not home enough to be able to exercise their dogs as much as they should. But there are steps you can take to get them enough exercise. One is to hire a dog walker or have neighbors let their kids take your pet out to play under their supervision. You can also bring your dog with you on the go when you do errands. Even the extra walking is good for them. Extra walking would not hurt a pet owner either.

Why Is Junk Food So Addictive?

Have you ever noticed that after eating a meal at a fast food restaurant, you feel hungry a few hours later? Why is that? Are you just plain hungry or is there something in the food that is causing this hunger? If you haven't had the chance to watch the movie, "Super Size Me", click here and watch it now for free!
"Super Size Me" is one man's journey into the world of weight gain, health problems and fast food. It's an examination of the American way of life and how we are eating ourselves to death. Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock unravels the American obesity epidemic by interviewing experts nationwide and by subjecting himself to a 'McDonald's only' diet for thirty days straight. His Sundance award-winning feature is as entertaining as it horrifying as it dives into corporate responsibility, nutritional education, school lunch programs and how we as a nation are eating ourselves to death.


Before you start to roll your eyes at this video, I understand that no one would eat all of their meals from McDonald's for a month. It's a little extreme. I know that. But, I was fascinated by the chemical effect this diet had on his brain. When he got depressed, he ate another junk food meal and felt better immediately. Wow.

McDonald's calls the people who eat there once a week, "Heavy Users." 72% of the people who eat at McDonald's are heavy users. "Super Heavy Users" eat there 3-5 times a week. 22% of the people who eat there are super heavy users!

I recently heard a registered dietitian say that people do not get addicted to food, they just get hungry. She said that we can have an "extreme hunger and the physiological drive to eat" but there is no such thing as a food addiction. Really? Do you believe that?

In 2002, McDonald's took out a full page add in the newspaper in France in which a nutritionist stated that there is no reason that anyone should visit a McDonald's more than once a week. McDonald's corporate headquarter went crazy and responded that this was only one opinion. They continued that the majority of nutritional professionals agree that McDonald's food can be a part of a healthy diet. The people who made the movie, "Super Size Me" contacted 100 nutritionists to see if this was true. Two out of 100 nutritionists said that it was ok to eat fast food two times a week or more. Twenty eight said it was ok to eat there once a week to once or twice a month. Forty five said you should never eat it and 95 of them agreed that it was a major contributor to the obesity epidemic that was sweeping America.

America is now the second fattest nation in the world. Australia has the dubious honor of being number one! The latest figures show 4 million Australians — or 26% of the adult population — are now obese compared to an estimated 25% of Americans. A further 5 million Australians are considered overweight. Are we both nations of weak-willed ninny's or is fast food physiologically addictive? I believe there is a chemical reason behind this addiction as well as a behavioral one. Let's take a look at the brain chemicals that are at work in the addiction process. Here are a few videos that talk about the chemical effects behind food addictions. The first one talks mainly about the addictive power of fast food.

FAST FOOD ADDICTION

This second video talks about the chemistry behind our addictions to food

 THE SCIENCE OF ADDICTIVE FOOD

This third video features Dr. Vincent Bellonzi as he talks about how junk food and fast food has an adverse effect on your health.

THE TRUTH ABOUT JUNK FOOD AND FAST FOOD, CLINICAL NUTRITION

Here are a few articles to read concerning the chemically addictive qualities of junk food.
Is Junk Food Addictive?

Burgers on the Brain: Can You Really Get Addicted to Fast Food? What constitutes an Addiction?

Fast Food As Addictive As Heroin, Study Confirms

What Happens to Your Body When… You Carb Binge?

For more information on fast food, obesity and addictions, click on the links below

When Does A Happy Meal Become Sad

Food Addictions

Why Diets Fail

When Does A "Happy Meal" Become Sad?

This is not a funny picture. It is the kind of picture that McDonald's executives would rather you not see. I do not see two cute little chubby boys here. I see two young addicts who are headed for life of sickness and pain unless their parents decide to make some healthy life changes. We would not knowingly expose our child to a deadly virus or bacteria. Yet, many parents allow unhealthy eating habits for their children, putting them at risk for disease. This is the disease that we don't see, disease that lurks under the surface, within the cells, within the arterial walls, and within the bones of our children. This is not as obvious to us, nor will it become obvious until many years down the line, perhaps, long after we're gone.

Since the 1970s, the percentage of overweight kids and adolescents in the United States has more than doubled. Today, 10% of 2- to 5-year-olds and more than 15% of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight. If you combine the percent of kids who are overweight with the percent of kids who are at risk of becoming overweight, about one out of three children are affected.

Nutritional Report Card

Many of today's children are overfed and undernourished. As nutrients fall short and as empty calorie processed foods fill our children up, we see that health risks in their future will be inevitable. They predict that 1 in 3 children born in the United States today will develop Type 2 diabetes in their lifetime. If that child is Black or Hispanic, that risk goes to 1 in 2. This generation of children may have a shorter lifespan than their own parents. It is no secret that we are facing rising trends in the number of children who are overweight as seem by the graph below from the National Health Examination Surveys.

Here are some statistics to think about:

• American children are getting 40% of their calories from extra fat and added sugars.
• Only 1% of children between 2 and 19 years of age met all the Food Pyramid recommendations. Sixteen percent of children met none of the recommendations.
• Nearly 1 in 7 10-year-olds get 50-70% of calories from snacks.
• 1/3 of all calories are now eaten outside the home.
• A survey of nearly 300 students in 3rd, 5th and 8th grades found that students consumed fewer fruits and vegetables, less milk and more soft drinks as they moved from childhood to adolescence.
• Soft drink consumption increased 21% among 2- to 5-year olds over the last 20 years and 37% among 6- to 9-year-olds. Milk consumption has dropped in all age groups.
• Average soda consumption in 13 to 18-year-old males is 3 cans or more a day; 10% drink more than 7 cans a day. Soft drinks are given to infants as young as 7 months of age.
• Nearly 2/3 of children failed to get the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) for vitamin E and zinc. Half did not meet the RDA for calcium and close to 1/3 fell short of the FDA for iron and vitamin B6.
• Nearly 25% of all vegetables consumed by children and teens were in the form of french fries. French fries are the most popular "vegetable" for children under age 5.
• 51% of children and teens eat less than one serving of fruit and day and 29% eat less than one serving a day of vegetables that are not fried.
• The average child between 2 and 5 years of age watches nearly 28 hours of TV a week.

Overweight children are at risk of developing medical problems that affect a child's present and future health and have direct impact on quality of life including:

• high blood pressure, high cholesterol and abnormal blood lipid levels, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes
• bone and joint problems
• shortness of breath that makes exercise, sports, or any physical activity more difficult and may aggravate the symptoms or increase the chances of developing asthma
• restless or disordered sleep patterns
• tendency to mature earlier (overweight kids may be taller and more sexually mature than their peers, raising expectations that they should act as old as they look, not as old as they are; overweight girls may have irregular menstrual cycles and have fertility problems in adulthood)
• liver and gall bladder disease
• depression

Risk factors present in childhood (including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes) can lead to serious adult medical conditions like premature death, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease, stroke, gall bladder disease, respiratory dysfunction, gout, arthritis, macular degeneration, and certain kinds of cancers. Preventing or treating obesity in children may reduce the risk of developing these conditions as they get older.

Steps to take:

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

• Let your child know he or she is loved and appreciated whatever his or her weight. An overweight child probably knows better than anyone else that he or she has a weight problem. Overweight children need support, acceptance, and encouragement from their parents.
• Focus on your child's health and positive qualities, not your child's weight.
• Try not to make your child feel different if he or she is overweight but focus on gradually changing your family's physical activity and eating habits.
• Be a good role model for your child. If your child sees you enjoying healthy foods and physical activity, he or she is more likely to do the same now and for the rest of his or her life.
• Realize that an appropriate goal for many overweight children is to maintain their current weight while growing normally in height.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY SUGGESTIONS

• Be physically active. It is recommended that Americans accumulate at least 30 minutes (adults) or 60 minutes (children) of moderate physical activity most days of the week. Even greater amounts of physical activity may be necessary for the prevention of weight gain, for weight loss, or for sustaining weight loss.
• Don’t make exercise a punishment. Forcing your child to go out and play may increase resentment and resistance.
• Plan family activities that provide everyone with exercise and enjoyment.
• Provide a safe environment for your children and their friends to play actively; encourage swimming, biking, skating, ball sports, and other fun activities.
• Reduce the amount of time you and your family spend in sedentary activities, such as watching TV or playing video games. Limit TV time to less than 2 hours a day.

HEALTHY EATING SUGGESTIONS

• Be a role model to your children. Don't expect them to make any changes unless you are willing to make some changes in your own life. Kids will pay more attention to what you do than what you say. Spend less time watching TV and playing with the computer and spend more time outside and being active. Eat more fruits and vegetables and less junk food.

• Guide your family's choices rather than dictate foods.
• Eat meals together as a family as often as possible.
• Don't place your child on a restrictive diet.
• Avoid the use of food as a reward.
• Avoid withholding food as punishment.
• Replace soda pop with real fruit juices (no added sugars), lowfat milk and lots and lots of filtered water. Add a slice of lemon or a strawberry to the water. It will make it more fun!
  
• Take a high quality multivitamin every day. Vitamin water is NOT a good choice since the vitamins in it are suspect and it contains way to much sugar.
  
• Aim to eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
• Discourage eating meals or snacks while watching TV.
• Eating a healthy breakfast is a good way to start the day and may be important in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.
• In breads and cereals, look for whole grain and whole wheat listed as the first ingredient.
• Find cereals with whole grains and at least 4-5 grams of fiber per serving. Some brands include: Cheerios, Shredded Wheat, Wheaties, Toasty-O's, Grape Nuts, Raisin Bran, wheatena, oatmeal and oat bran. Mix healthier cereals with your child's less healthy cereals to get some benefits of added fiber.
• Eat brown rice instead of white.
• Find whole wheat pasta, amaranth pasta or quinoa pasta (the last two are available at health food stores).
• Add fiber to meals by adding kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, lima beans. Add them to salads; soups; main dishes like burritos or tacos or chili; mash and mix in with meatloaf and burgers.
• Add wheat bran or Fiproflax (available at most health food stores) to casseroles, meat loaf, baked goods, pancakes, and cereal.
• Add All-Bran cereal to muffin recipes.
• Drink plenty of fluids when you are eating fiber. This will help offset the gas, cramping and bloating that may occur.
• Raw fruits and vegetables with the peels on have more fiber than cooked or canned.
• Dried fruits are good fiber sources, especially figs, apricots and dates.
• Discover other whole grains and find ways to cook them. Whole grains are getting easier to find these days. Look for them at your health foods stores. May stores have bins of raw grains where you can buy a small quantity. Some grains to try: amaranth, barley, buckwheat, kamut, millet, oats and quinoa.
• Don't offer dessert as a reward. Withholding dessert sends the message that dessert is the best food, which may only increase your child's desire for sweets. You might select one or two nights a week as dessert nights, and skip dessert the rest of the week. Or redefine dessert as fruit, yogurt or other healthy choices.

For more tips and ideas, check out the following web sites:


Kids Eat Great by Dr. Christine Wood (pediatrician)



Dr. Green on Obesity in Children


Dr. Greene on Children's Nutrition


American Heart Association - Children and Exercise

Here are some books that might help:

How to Get Kids to Eat Great & Love It!



Ending the Food Fight: Guide Your Child to a Healthy Weight in a Fast Food/ Fake Food World



The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals



Healthy for Life: Developing Healthy Lifestyles that Have the Side-Effect of Permanent Weight Loss

Sugar Substitutes & Your Health

Years ago, people didn't eat much sugar - as little as 10-15 pounds per year. And their health was much better for it. As time passed and sugar production became easier, people gave into their sweet cravings and began to overindulge. Today, the average consumption of sugar is a whopping 160 pounds! It's suicide in slow motion. Sugar addicts eliminate 11-20 years from their lifespan.

In her book,"Lick The Sugar Habit," author Nancy Appleton Phd., delineates how this sugar overconsumption wreaks havoc with our immune and endocrine systems, leading to chronic conditions including arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, asthma, and hypoglycemia, along with the usual suspects such as cavities and periodontal disease. Click Here to read my review of her book and the 73 consequences of eating too much sugar.



If you are trying to lose weight or you would just like to avoid some of these diseases, avoid sugar or try to limit it to small amounts. There are also some healthier sugar substitutes out on the market that you might want to be aware of. I am not talking about Nutrasweet or Splenda. I make a few comments on these two products at the end of this post. These have their own particular problems. I'm talking about sugar substitutes that have few or no calories and will have little or no effect on your blood sugar levels. This is good news for diabetics. Some of these have been around for hundreds of years



Agave Nectar

Derived from the prickly blue agave cactus (the same plant that gives us tequila), agave nectar is gaining popularity. Despite its sweet taste, it has just 11 calories and four grams of carbohydrate (which is mainly inulin) per teaspoon. It is also a low-glycemic food - ranking just 19 on the glycemic index.

Because this golden syrup is composed primarily of fructose (92 percent), it is nearly 25 percent sweeter than table sugar (sucrose). That means you can use a lot less to achieve the same level of sweetness.

So go ahead and sweeten up with this safe, delicious, all-natural product. It can be used anywhere you would use sugar. If you use agave nectar for baking, the following adjustments are recommended:

For every cup of sugar, use 3/4 cup of agave nectar.
Reduce the liquids in the recipe by one-third.
Reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees.

Agave Nectar - gives you the sweetness without the sugar. Not recommended for people with diabetes but it will reduce the sugar impact levels on the blood by 50% over regular sugar. So, it is good in that way and will not cause most people to gain as much weight as regular sugars.

Stevia - the Natural Sweetener

Stevia is a green, leafy herb that grows in Central and South America. It was first discovered by modern explorers in the late 1800s in Paraguay, but it had been used by the natives for centuries before then. The official name of the plant is Stevia rebaudiana.

It's non-glycemic, contains no calories, and -- after hundreds of years of use -- has no known side effects. It might seem expensive by volume, but it's hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, so a little goes a long way. You can find stevia in any health food store.

Click Here for more links on Stevia


Sugar Alcohols

A sugar alcohol is a type of sugar that your body does not digest like "regular sugars" in the stomach. Instead, sugar alcohols get worked on in the intestines, and aren't digested into your blood stream. Sugar alcohols are commonly used in sugar free products and diet products because they are very slow to be absorbed and do not cause the "sugar rush / blood sugar spike" that normal carbohydrates cause. Many (if not most) people do not absorb sugar alcohols at all before they pass through the system. So in essence they can give great sugar flavors without having the fat-gaining effects of regular sugars. They act like fiber, but they taste like sugar. Some common types of sugar alcohols include maltitol, sorbitol and isomalt.

Xylitol - Artificial Sweetener
Xylitol is a natural sugar alcohol substitute. It was first derived from Birch trees in Finland in the 19th century and was first popularized in Europe as a safe sweetener for diabetics that would not impact insulin levels.

Xylitol is a naturally occurring sweetener found in the fibers of many fruits and vegetables, including various berries, corn husks, oats, and mushrooms. It can be extracted from corn fiber, birch, raspberries, plums, and corn. Xylitol is roughly as sweet as sucrose but contains 40% less calories.
birch bark. It has an antibacterial character to it. They are using it in nasal sprays. If you spray a salty xylitol solution up into the nose, it will kill bacteria in the nose. Trident has been using it in their gum because it has been found to fight cavities as well as inhibit ear infections. Xylitol has a 5-carbon molecular structure that does not interact with oral bacteria. Since it doesn’t ferment, it never triggers acid production. That means it helps reduce tooth decay, inhibits plaque buildup, retards the loss of tooth enamel, and lowers infections in the mouth and throat.

Xytitol has a cooling effect on the tongue and has been used for over 25 years in various food items. It is not a ZERO calorie food. It scores only seven on the glycemic index, so it has a minimal effect on blood sugar and insulin levels (and can actually help prevent tooth decay).

And because it inhibits plaque buildup, xylitol also helps prevent heart disease. Here’s why: Plaque build-up creates a breeding ground for bacteria. The resulting inflammation leads to a breakdown of gum tissue. This breakdown allows bacteria to pass into your bloodstream. The release of oral bacteria into your bloodstream stimulates an immune response. This inflammatory response causes arterial blockages and blood clots, which can lead to a heart attack.

What’s more, xylitol is low-glycemic. It doesn’t need insulin to metabolize, and won’t cause fat gain like regular sugar. It’s perfect for diabetics, and is sometimes referred to as "diet sugar."
Xylitol is affordable and easy to find. Check your local health food store or find it on the Internet. Along with stevia, xylitol is one of the safest and best-tasting sugar substitutes.

While it is safe, one of the downsides of xylitol is that it is a sugar alchohol and that can cause loose stools and minor gastrointestinal upset. So if you are already having problems in that area, xylitol would not be good to take.

Luo Han Guo

Luo han guo is a member of the gourd family. It’s low glycemic, heat stable, has a mere four calories per teaspoon, and can be used in baking just like sugar. But the benefits don’t end there. New research suggests luo han guo may actually help reduce inflammation and enhance immunity, especially in people who have diabetes.

You’re likely to hear much more sweet talk about this up-and-coming ingredient. Look for Jarrow Formulas’ Lo Han Sweet at your local health food store.

Erythritol
Erythritol occurs naturally in some fruits and fermented foods. As a sweetener, it is made from corn via a natural fermentation process. And the properties of this great-tasting, natural sweetener are remarkable:

Erythritol is 80 percent as sweet as sugar. However, unlike sugar, which is high in calories, erythritol is almost calorie free.

It scores just over zero on the glycemic index. That means it is totally safe for diabetics and won’t affect your insulin levels.

It is granulated, just like sugar, so it can be easily substituted for sugar in recipes.
It is easy to digest - which means no gastrointestinal disturbance.

Quite simply, this is one of the best natural sweeteners to come along in quite some time, and you’ll likely be seeing it in more and more products.
One of the products that I have seen on the market is a product called Zsweet. Click here to go to their web page.

Sucralose/Splenda

Splenda is actually "sucralose", and is made by in essence altering real sugar. Invented in a pesticide lab, this chemical is 600 times sweeter than sugar. To make sucralose, chlorine is used. Chlorine has a split personality. It can be harmless or it can be life threatening. In combo with sodium, chlorine forms a harmless ionic bond to yield table salt. When used with carbon, the chlorine atom in sucralose forms a covalent bond. The end result is deadly organochlorine, known simply as RNFOC (a Really Nasty Form of Chlorine). Unlike ionic bonds, covalently bound chlorines are a big no-no for the human body. They yield insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides - not something you want in your sports drink or your child's lunchbox. Chlorinated molecules, which are used as the basis for pesticides such as DDT, tend to accumulate in body tissues. Johnson & Johnson maintains that sucralose passes through the digestive system without any absorption or metabolization, but the FDA’s own research has shown that 11 to 27 percent of sucralose is absorbed in humans, while the rest is excreted unchanged in the feces. Tests performed by the Japanese Food Sanitation Council have found that as much as 40 percent of ingested sucralose is absorbed.

Additionally, as the FDA again acknowledges, sucralose may contain up to 2 percent of various impurities, such as heavy metals, arsenic, triphenilphosphine oxide, methanol, chlorinated disaccharides and chlorinated monosaccharides. Even if these "impurities" are within existing manufacturing guidelines, they are still all potentially dangerous to human health.

There have been no independent human tests regarding the long-term safety of this product. That's reason enough to be wary. But there was a study of its effect on rats that was published in the FDA's Federal Register. It showed that rats that were given sucralose experienced shrunken thalamus glands, enlarged livers and kidneys, reduced growth rate, reduced red blood cell count, aborted pregnancies, and diarrhea.

If you ingest Splenda in any amount, I urge you to read firsthand accounts of its harmful effects. There are more than 30 posted on Dr. Mercola's website.

Health and Aspartame Sweetener
Aspartame is the primary component in Nutrasweet, Equal, Spoonful and Equal-Measure. It is a neuroexitotoxin. Phenylalanine is a hidden danger to anyone consuming aspartame. Most consumers don't know that too much Phenylalanine is a neurotoxin and excites the neurons in the brain to the point of cellular death. Phenylalanine is 50% of aspartame, and to the degree humans consume diet products, Phenylalanine levels are reaching a dangerous peak. ADD/ADHD, emotional and behavioral disorders can all be triggered by too much Phenylalanine in the daily diet. This sugar substitute is common in many foods, but many doctors feel it causes serious mental slowdowns when taken over several years. Dr. Atkins in particular advised those on his low carb diet to stay away from aspartame and use other sweeteners instead.

Some people react to aspartame immediately, while others can take 10 to 20 years for the aspartame reaction to become noticeable. Problems attributed to aspartame include:

* anxiety and panic attacks
* problems concentrating and focusing
* loss of memory
* depression or irritability
* dizziness
* headache or migraine pain

The byproducts of sodas containing aspartame are all known poisons (that would slowly kill you): methanol, phenylalanine, and aspartic acid.