Sleep Your Way to Lose Fat? Maybe/maybe not….

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today's post: Tuesday, 11-28-2006

Sleep Your Way to Lose Fat? Maybe…maybe not….

1. Possibly yes.

Studies seem to show that people who sleep 7 to 7 1/2 hours a day seem to be less fat & lose fat more easily than people who sleep less than that. And, this seems to be particularly true for women.

And, there are theories that suggest this is due to biochemical changes brought about directly by the amount of sleep, or lack of it.

And, other studies seem to show that those who get 7 to 7 1/2 hours a day of sleep enjoy better health than those who get less sleep or more sleep than 7 to 7 & 1/2 hours a day.

So, if you get much less than 6 1/2 hours of sleep or less or you get 8 hours or more, you may well improve your health by changing to 7 to 7 1/2 hours a day of sleep.

And, if you’ve been sleeping less, you may well find it easier to stay trim by changing to 7 to 7 1/2 hours a day of sleep.

2. Possibly yes; but for other reasons that may NOT require more sleep.

The key to this one, if you do get less sleep than 7 to 7 & 1/2 hours a day is why you do & what you do with the time instead.

Many people in the United States sleep less because they watch TV instead of going to bed.

Believe it or not, watching TV uses less calories than sleeping for many people. And for the others, it burns little more.

So, if you get 6 to 6 1/2 hours of sleep because you watch TV at night, you may well be able to exercise during the time you have been watching TV; lose a lot of fat; & sleep the same hours you do now.

Next, if you get 6 1/2 hours of sleep of sleep or less due to stress waking you up at night, it may well be that the unrelieved stress is the cause of hard to lose fat –NOT the lack of sleep.

And, studies show that people who are too stressed often tend to eat more sugary & fatty foods & fewer low calorie, health enhancing foods like whole fruit or vegetables.

So, in this case also, solving the problems that stress you, or finding a safe way to physically relieve your stress reaction until then or for things you cannot change, will help you lose fat & keep it off but may not require more sleep.

Yet another cause of lack of sleep is having a long commute. In addition to the stress this causes, it presses you for time to eat as well. For many people in the United States, they solve this problem by eating at Fast Food places.

At this time, that industry is improving. But due to the low fiber food with lots of transfats & the soft drinks that are sweetened with high fructose corn sryup & the lack of good tasting vegetable dishes, most people who eat at Fast Food places now often tend to be too fat or much too fat.

A long commute also tends to make it much harder to make time for exercise. Not exercising is a sure prescription for being too fat. Jean Mayer, PhD, found that our bodies make us hungry for exactly the right amount of food to stay healthy between about one & six to eight hours of exercise a day.

But, amazingly, he also found those who exercise much less than an hour, & especially less than half an hour, were hungry for MORE calories than their bodies were burning. So, he was able to show, conclusively in my opinion, that not exercising makes you fat.

So, if a long commute has you sleeping less, & as a result, eating lots of fast food & not exercising, you may very well be able to sleep the same hours & stay trim if you get a short commute or work at home & use the time you were commuting to eat better & exercise regularly.

So, if you want to be trim & have a long commute, it may well pay you to move closer to work; get a job closer to where you live; or work from home most days.

3. My guess is that both these things are true.

So, get as close to 7 hours a day of sleep as you can. Make the hours you sleep as regular as you can. Get as good quality of sleep when you are asleep as you can by making where you sleep quiet, dark, & cool but not cold.

And, watch less TV; maybe commute less; exercise regularly – or a bit more than you have been; & eat right, & you WILL be less fat.

****************

For most of our posts on exercise & an exercise resource,
see our post on Thursday, 11-16-2006.

Holiday Tips You Can Use:

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today's post: Monday, 11-20-2006

Holiday Tips You Can Use:

Avoid Gaining Weight during the Holidays

& Easily Lose the Weight you do Gain

(Regular exercise & the other tips here work to help you keep off excess fat or lose it all year long as well.)

I. Keep up, resume, or start regular exercise.:

One of the most effective ways-- & one which is most forgiving of letting go & enjoying yourself—is to burn off the extra calories in the Gym.

Strength training is particularly good long term in keeping the weight off since the muscle you gain burns more calories than the fat it replaces.

So, if you possibly can, do your regular workouts & other exercise as much as your schedule allows over the holidays. And, keep it up all year as well.

II. Other Holiday Tips:

Here’s a list of things that help.

Just pick & use the ones that sound helpful & doable for you.

(If you tend to just let go & enjoy the holidays, part I. will still work.

But at least scan through part II. If you only find one idea you can use & DO it, it may well help you ward off 10 pounds!)

a) Keep up any healthful eating you do when you aren’t at holiday events.

And, if you have a range between healthful & bit less healthful, focus on staying at the healthful end of the range when you aren’t at Holiday events.

A friend of mine used this strategy all year. He went to a lot of business & networking lunches & dinners. So, on the days he was attending such an event, he simply ate a lighter & more healthful breakfast & lunch or dinner that day.

b) Take healthful treats & eat healthful treats or foods FIRST whether you brought them or found them at the event.

The November, 2004 edition of Prevention magazine even suggests eating your healthy snack at home before you go for some events. They called this the: “Don’t arrive hungry” approach.

Since healthful treats have protein, healthful fats or oils, &/or fiber, they definitely work to reduce hunger. And eating ones you like helps reduce the mentally & emotionally driven munchies also.

Here are some healthful treats to take or eat at events.:

1. Fresh fruits like strawberries, kiwifruit, blueberries, grapes, raspberries, cantaloupe chunks, etc. (Many stores sell such platters already set up. Upscale stores also often have a good salad bar for setting up something smaller on your own & an excellent produce section otherwise.)

2. Shrimp with cocktail sauce.

3. Nuts.

Avoid or a bit easy on the more commercial salted nuts as some of them are roasted with partially hydrogenated oils.

However, the latest information is that fresh & dry roasted nuts are much more healthful than was previously imagined. They have healthful oils & very little saturated fat. In fact, they have sterols that reduce LDL, the potentially harmful cholesterol!

(Whole Foods, if you have one locally to you, sells good quality nuts that you can eat & feel good about. Their dry roasted almonds, tamari almonds, & walnuts are all healthful--& cost less per pond than nuts bought in packages.)

4. Guacamole. Much like nuts, which have similar fats, etc, avocados are now also known to be superfoods & healthful! (Our local Whole Foods has both mild & spicy versions of guacamole in stock—pre-made. The one nearest you may also)

5. Veggies like broccoli florets, cauliflower, zucchini slices, carrot sticks, celery, & radishes all fit here. Eat veggies that you like from the veggie platter. (Many stores sell such pre-made platters during the holidays.)

An article on AOL suggested today that bringing hummus to use as a dip for the veggies is a much more healthful alternative than most other dips. And, many people including me, really like hummus.

Overall, by eating the healthful foods first, it then is MUCH easier to take smaller servings or fewer servings of cheeses & desserts, etc!

This is one I not only use myself, and actually like, I recommend it.
It both works & helps me feel rewarded, satisfied & part of the celebration.

c) Avoid store bought treats--stick to home made. And, avoid regular & nondiet sodas.

Stick to healthier alternatives like juice or Martinelli's carbonated apple juice &/or applle-cranberry juice.

At this writing, virtually all store bought cookies, cakes, & pies contain hydrogenated oils (transfats); & many contain high fructose corn syrup.
Except for the diet versions, almost all commercial sodas have high fructose corn syrup.

These ingredients are beginning to be universally recommended against. Research suggests they help cause heart disease & adult onset diabetes.

And, they may make it much more likely people will become fat & have trouble losing it.

This makes foods containing them an excellent choice to delete or eat MUCH less of!

Home-made cookies, frostings, etc are usually made with sugar & butter. And, they & pies can both be made this way. The worst case is that they’ll have margarine, which I suspect is lower in transfats than what the commercial bakers use. And, they hardly ever have high fructose corn syrup.

Go a bit easy; but these are less much less damaging to your health & waistline than almost all the store bought alternatives.

Martinelli’s carbonated apple juices, most juices, unsweetened carbonated waters, & Champagne all have no high fructose corn syrup.

(Most grocery stores carry Martinelli’s carbonated apple juices all year; & many people stock up over the holidays.

I haven’t see the labels, but I think the two Trader Joe’s holiday drinks featured in our local “Fearless Flyer” are OK also.: Sparkling Cranberry Juice & Spicy Cider.)

d) Focus on the people.

It’s simple math. If you spend 90 % of your time catching up with people you know & meeting some of the people you don’t, you’ll eat less than if you spend 90% of your time eating.

Plus, much of the good times of holiday events is found in enjoying the people.

So, spend most of your time doing that & wishing people Happy Holidays.

e) Treat yourself to stress relievers that aren’t food!

When you aren’t at the events, do something that relieves stress that works for you.

This can be no cost, like going to the library & reading or checking out a good book or taking a walk to meditating or doing Tai Chi.

Also, recent research shows that if you get less than 7 hours of sleep a night, this tends to result in weight gain.

So, if you have been a bit short on sleep & can get a bit extra on the days you aren’t going to events, this is a free stress reliever that’s been shown to work.

And, getting a massage can work wonders!

(Massages are available at Whole Foods in Palo Alto. A Whole Foods near you may also have them.)

The holidays can be stressful; & numerous studies confirm that lowering stress makes it MUCH easier to avoid bad foods & unnecessary weight gain.

f.) Avoid, side-step, & escape the worst stresses.

If you identify things that are stressing you in general -- or things that stress you about the holidays, you can then solve some of the easy ones, delay working on or worrying about some until after the holidays, & find some you can escape or side-step during the holidays.

This can increase your actual control & your feeling of control—both of which can even keep down your stress reactions & effective stress level. (Your body will feel the difference; & you’ll gain less weight.)

Do your best with the parts of the holidays that are important to people you care about; & include some things you enjoy.

Do what you can to minimize the rest & focus on the successes you did have & the positive parts of the holidays.

g) Stay positive!

Martin Seligman, PhD started the field of studying the part of optimism & positive thinking that actually helps people do well & enjoy live with his book, Learned Optimism.

Optimistic people, he found, think good things are permanent & bad things are temporary.

(That’s often because they focus on making good things happen & keep working creatively & persistently until they do.

And, it’s because they know most bad things can be fixed; & they will often make things go right themselves even when they didn’t cause the problem.)

Similarly, they realize that things that are going wrong (or have gone wrong in the past) can go right & will go right when the specific things that caused them to go wrong are removed or fixed, have stopped happening, or are overcome with focused & effective remedies.

One way to help remember to stay positive during the holidays is to remember & focus on the fact that the holidays themselves celebrate positive events.

One of my wiser friends once said that:

Christmas & the other holidays near the winter solstice are our way of celebrating the fact that even when things look dreary, good things always return –
& we can count it.

The top ten benefits of exercise….

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today's post: Thursday, 11-16-2006

The top ten benefits of exercise….

Most people still get little or no exercise.

Why? My guess is that ninety percent of them simply have no idea what will happen to them because they don’t. And, they have no clue how their lives would improve if they did.

In some ways this is actually understandable. No one is immune from failing to act when they don’t know what’s at stake if they don’t.

Here’s an example that happened to me.

My dentist told me to get diagnostic xrays to catch hidden cavities early. But he didn’t lay out for me what might well happen to me if I didn’t. So I passed on the xrays.

I wound up having to have a tooth pulled & got the pleasure of suddenly having to pay for a root canal on another tooth.

If my dentist had asked if I wanted to lose any of my teeth or quoted the going rate for a root canal & asked me if I wanted to have to pay that by surprise, I’d have definitely said no.

Had he then said that if I passed on the diagnostic xrays, I was possibly saying yes to losing a tooth & getting to pay for a root canal by surprise, I’m virtually certain I would have OK’d the xrays.

So, for those of you who don’t yet know, here are the top 10 reasons to exercise reguarly.

1. You think better.

2. You are much less likely to develop memory & thinking problems.

3. You are more resilient because it takes more to make you feel stressed & you overcome it & recover faster.

3. You are much less likely to develop heart disease or have a heart attack.

4. Surprisingly, you are less likely to develop cancer.

5. Your chances of avoiding type II diabetes or reversing it go up dramatically.

6. Because you’ll be stronger & more physically fit aerobically, you’ll have more stamina & energy reserves if or when you need them in physically challenging emergencies. And even doing more normal things like grocery shopping will be far easier.

7. Particularly if you also work at improving your exercise program & your progress in it & eat right, you’ll be firmer or more muscular & you’ll be a lot less fat.

(Depending on how fat you are now & what you eat, you may well weigh a LOT less.)

So you’ll move better. You’ll look better. And, you’ll tend to be more attractive sexually.

8. You’ll live longer & be in good health a bigger percentage of your life. So your years in good health will be much longer.

9. You’ll be more proactive & effective -- because exercising regularly teaches those skills & changes your self image in that direction as a result.

10. Your sex life will be better. And, as you get older, it will be MUCH better. This is true for both men and women.

For more information on exercise, see our other exercise related posts:

Thursday, 10-12-2006 The 3 best benefits of exercise & how to get them….
Monday, 10-16-2006 Feel like skipping exercise? Try this….
Wednesday, 10-18-2006 Escape these 10 diseases with regular exercise….
Thursday, 10-19-2006 How much exercise do you need?
Monday, 10-23-2006 Avoid these false fat loss myths & add exercise….
Wednesday, 10-25-2006 3 ideas on how to fit exercise into a busy life….
Monday, 10-30-2006 Exercise boosts your sex life. Here’s how….
Thursday, 11-9-2006 Boosting your HDL’s (& protecting your heart)….
Tuesday, 11-14-2006 Do vigorous exercise safely ….

***********

Some of you may be new to exercise or you may need some ideas to help you make more & better progress with your exercise goals.

Or, if you need inspiration or some ideas on an exercise plan that fits you, here’s a resource that many have found to work well:

Exercise expert Jon Benson has co-authored an ebook that has some guidelines on how to get good results from exercise.

But, here’s the exciting thing about his book:

He also has 52 people of both sexes & many ages who got well -- & discarded excess fat – by exercising -- tell their stories of how they got into exercise & what exactly they do in their exercise programs. It also has their very good results. Some got incredibly good results.

There are enough role models & ideas you are virtually certain to find one or several that are enough similar to you that you can do it too & see exactly how people who are like you & started where you are or maybe even at a worse level were able to do it.

Studies show that people learn best by emulating real role models in this way & that they are much more likely to master & use what they learn emulating real role models.

Does that sound like it’s worth checking out?

If so, here’s more information on Jon’s book. See:

http://www.fitover40.com/aff/iehealth

Do vigorous exercise safely ….

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today's post: Tuesday, 11-14-2006

Do vigorous exercise safely ….

Vigorous or more challenging exercise can & usually does benefit you more than mild or not very challenging exercise.

But it’s important to do more intense exercise in ways that are likely to do you more good than harm. And, this is more true for the more intense exercises than for mild ones.

There are some risks to avoid. Here are some of the effective ways to do that.

1. Build up to intense or very vigorous exercise gradually & exercise regularly.

You are much more likely to avoid injury or overtaxing your immune system if you do that.

(As people get older, those who only get exercise by doing sports activities on some weekends tend to get injured a lot. Building up gradually & exercising regularly sharply cuts your chance of injury.

If you build up to a very vigorous level gradually, you can exercise at a level that you & your body now experience as an 85 percent effort but would have been a 98 percent effort initially. And, at an 85 percent level of effort, your immune system gets a boost while at 98 percent & higher you can actually lower your immunity.)

You are much more likely to avoid triggering a heart attack if you do that. AND if you take action in other ways to dramatically reduce your heart attack risk as you build up the intensity of your exercise, by the time you’ve worked up the intensity, you will have enough protection to make it much safer.

2. Particularly if you are male or are over 40, be sure to take other actions to lower your risk of heart disease.

(If you’ve already been diagnosed with heart disease or are over forty & over fat, you need to be considerably more careful with exercise & taking action to protect your heart before you crank up the intensity of your exercise too much.

It’s a bit of a catch 22. Vigorous exercise boosts HDL’s & reduces your chance of a heart attack. But very vigorous exercise in people on the verge of a heart attack & who haven’t built up to it gradually can & has triggered heart attacks—some of them fatal.)

Find out what your blood levels of HDL & LDL cholesterol are & your homocysteine & fasting glucose & HBA1C levels are. Then take every action that will put you into the desirable range that doesn’t involve drugs.

Then get retested until you get there. And then get checked every 6 months to a year to be sure you stay in the desirable range.


And, if your check shows you are in the danger range for LDL cholesterol or fasting glucose & HBA1C you may need drugs also.

But if you do enough of the nondrug things to be effective, that need for durgs may be temporary. Lastly, if you are on drugs AND do the effective nondrug things like eating right & regular exercise etc, your health protection is MUCH better than with the drugs alone.

(Several of our posts have been on raising HDL cholesterol & lowering too high homocysteine levels because doing those two things is the most protective thing you can do for your heart & health. And many of those same actions also help keep your blood sugar levels under control.

And, a personal note: When I was younger & could still run for exercise without getting overuse injuries, I saw that some runners died of heart attacks. The reason I’ve taken action to reduce my risk & continue to learn how to do so better is precisely because I want to have the considerable benefits of vigorous exercise without it triggering a heart attack.)

3. Train at a high moderate level of intensity most of the time rather than at an extremely high level of intensity.

And, do your highest intensity exercise in shorter bursts with rest or more moderate intensity levels in between.

This is not only far safer, I’ve seen several reports that this method increases your fitness level MUCH faster than working out at a steady intensity level.

4. Eat plenty of vegetables & whole fruits that are high in antioxidants & take antioxidant vitamins & supplements.

Dr Kenneth Cooper of Aerobics fame & his Cooper Clinics in Dallas came up with this one.

They reported that exercise increases oxidation & that many of the exercisers who did the most or the most vigorous exercises began to have negative health effects. But making sure the people in their programs took in lots of antioxidants effectively prevented this.

This also helps prevent your most vigorous exercise from lowering your immune system. So you get fewer colds.

In our SuperFoods series in April of this year we covered many of the vegetables that are high in mixed carotenoids & the fruits that are high in vitamin C & other antioxidants. (Blue berries, broccoli, sweet potatoes, cooked tomatoes, & avocados are good examples from this list. And, there are many more.)

Each day, taking vitamin C; 200 iu of natural vitamin E, making sure you get at least 10,000 iu of vitamin A (not beta carotene), 200 mcg of selenium; & 200 mg of alpha lipoic acid also helps.

There are many other reasons to take B vitamins & CoQ10 each day. And, CoQ10 in particular is also an antioxidant. Both have heart protective benefits as well.

(5,000 or 10,000 iu of beta carotene is probably OK if your multivitamin has that. But the best health effects come from eating a variety of foods that contain mixed carotenoids, NOT from taking more beta carotene than that in supplement form.)

5. Aim for exercise that stimulates your body & produces good health & avoid exercise that produces injury.

Michael Masterson, writing in the online newsletter Early to Rise, points out that he insists that any personal trainer he keeps push him hard enough he gets good results but to also be extremely careful to avoid doing so in a way that produces injury.

In doing vigorous exercise yourself, that’s also superb advice to run your own exercise program by.

***********

Some of you may be new to exercise or you may need some ideas to help you make more & better progress with your exercise goals.

Or, if you need inspiration or some ideas on an exercise plan that fits you, here’s a resource that many have found to work well:

Exercise expert Jon Benson has co-authored an ebook that has some guidelines on how to get good results from exercise.

But, here’s the exciting thing about his book:

He also has tons of people of both sexes & many ages who got well -- & discarded excess fat – by exercising -- tell their stories of how they got into exercise & what exactly they do in their exercise programs. It also has their very good results. Some got incredibly good results.

There are enough role models & ideas you are virtually certain to find one or several that are enough similar to you that you can do it too & see exactly how people who are like you & started where you are or maybe even at a worse level were able to do it.

Does that sound like it’s worth checking out?

If so, here’s more information on Jon’s book. See: http://www.fitover40.com/aff/iehealth

Boosting your HDL’s (& protecting your heart)….

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today's post: Thursday, 11-9-2006

Boosting your HDL’s (& protecting your heart)….

Here’s our overview of our posts on boosting HDL’s.

For those of you who are as yet unfamiliar with HDL cholesterol & why it’s protective & relatively high levels are desirable, here’s some background.

Unless too much of your HDL cholesterol has been oxidized, HDL cholesterol, particularly one fraction of it, acts like janitors or garbage men in your blood vessels & apparently removes excess cellular debris, LDL cholesterol, & possibly even plaque, from your arteries & keeps them clean & free flowing.

People with unusually high HDL levels tend to be long lived. People with low levels tend to develop cardiovascular disease & heart attacks.

And, researchers are now reporting that making sure your HDL cholesterol is high may be considerably MORE important for protecting your health than making sure your LDL cholesterol & total cholesterol is low. (It’s still important to keep your small particle LDL; total LDL; & oxidized LDL low.)

Two things seem to be operating here: 1. Your blood vessels can stay healthy with a lot of garbage in them if you have enough of the HDL garbage men to remove it promptly.

And, 2. Many of the things that keep your HDL’s high keep you healthy in other ways also. So, your HDL level is also a reading of whether or not you are doing enough of those things.

Exercise is the number one most important thing you can do to boost your HDL levels because it doesn’t just boost the total HDL level but boosts the most protective fraction of your HDL that keeps your arteries clean.

And, exercise also has a multitude of other health benefits in addition. Many of those, like preventing or reducing insulin resistance, are also protective of your heart.

Our previous posts, which list many of the things that have worked for other people to boost their HDL levels, appeared on: Friday, 8-11-2006; Thursday, 9-28-2006; Tuesday, 10-3-2006; Thursday, 10-5-2006; & Wednesday, 11-1-2006. And, you can access them from my blog now if you like.

Today, I’m going to go over some added information & ideas on boosting your HDL’s with exercise.

1. Peter Wood, PhD studied the effect of running, at Stanford University on the HDL levels of runners & found that those who ran 12 to 15 miles a week or more got more of an increase of their HDL levels & had higher levels.

So, at least at a high moderate level of exertion, more exercise & exercise above 1000 to 1500 calories a week or more tended to be more effective at boosting HDL cholesterol than less exercise than that was.

2. Consistent with that, separate studies have found that while 500 calories a week of exercise gives you 40 percent of the health benefits of an ideal amount of exercise compared with doing none at all, the ideal amount of exercise for good health is between 2100 & 4200 calories a week with about 3500 being the ideal or sweet spot with slightly more being more effective than slightly less.

3. I haven’t seen a study on it but I suspect very strongly that exercise at greater intensity boosts your protective HDL’s far more then low intensity exercise.

Studies have been done that show that people who exercise at high moderate intensity have the best health. People who exercise at moderate intensity have slightly less good health. People who exercise at low intensity even less. And, people who do no exercise at all have by far the worst health.

Additionally, I’ve heard reports that relatively short sessions of moderately high or slightly higher intensity exercise strip off excess fat better than low intensity exercise of much longer duration.

That kind of exercise has been shown to get you in good shape & aerobically fit better than less intense exercise does.

Dr Al Sears also suggests that such exercise better develops the reserve capacity of your heart & lungs.

In that I think he is correct.

(The studies I’ve seen show that his other theory that longer duration cardio or aerobic exercise is harmful is incorrect. It IS less effective & boosts your health less however. He’s quite correct about that.)

In our next post I’ll cover how to do more intense exercise in ways that are likely to do you more good than harm.
There are some risks to avoid. But there are effective ways to do that.

***********

Some of you may be new to exercise or you may need some ideas to help you make more & better progress with your exercise goals.

Or, if you need inspiration or some ideas on an exercise plan that fits you, here’s a resource that many have found to work well:

Exercise expert Jon Benson has co-authored an ebook that has some guidelines on how to get good results from exercise.

But, here’s the exciting thing about his book:

He also has tons of people of both sexes & many ages who got well -- & discarded excess fat – by exercising -- tell their stories of how they got into exercise & what exactly they do in their exercise programs. It also has their very good results. Some got incredibly good results.

There are enough role models & ideas you are virtually certain to find one or several that are enough similar to you that you can do it too & see exactly how people who are like you & started where you are or maybe even at a worse level were able to do it.

Does that sound like it’s worth checking out?

If so, here’s more information on Jon’s book. See: http://www.fitover40.com/aff/iehealth

Red Wine, Berries, & Good Health….

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today's post: Tuesday, 11-7-2006

Red Wine, Berries, & Good Health….

(We’ll post a bit of an overview of our posts on boosting HDL’s next time.)

There’s some new information I decided to comment on today.

Many of you read the recent news that suggests that taking resveratrol may protect those of use who are a bit fatter than we’d like to be from negative health problems due to being fat.

My guess is that it’s likely to work in people too. And, resveratrol is in red wine which does seem to have health benefits.

But here are some other facts & ideas to consider also:

1. Exercise is also protective.

It wasn’t in this report or study. But regular exercise not only has a very similar effect, regularly doing enough of the right exercises may remove most or all of the fat in the first place.

The good news is that if you are fatter than you should be, regular exercise can protect you also. In fact, the studies I saw reported found that fat exercisers were usually in BETTER health than sedentary skinny people.

2. Eating right is also protective.

The study was done on mice. And, the mice that were fed a diet comparable to a human who eats a wide variety of vegetables & avoids excess saturated fat & totally avoids virtually all transfats & high fructose corn syrup & refined grains & other junk foods, enjoyed good health even without the extra resveratrol.

Based on the health data of people who eat a Mediterranean diet or one very similar that fits this profile AND adds some red wine, which does add some resveratrol but may have other health benefits, you can achieve this effect with diet also.

3. There are some related foods & supplements that may have even greater effects on you health & longevity than resveratrol.

Blueberries have been shown to be enormously protective of sound mental functioning & to help you avoid strokes & high blood pressure if you eat them regularly.

Bilberry extract has been shown to help prevent macular degeneration of your eyes, to help you see better at night, & to help your eyes recover quickly when they are exposed to glare at night.

If you like to read & plan to keep doing it or you drive at night, this supplement may be more important to you than resveratrol.

And, since bilberries are a kind of blueberry & have resveratrol related compounds, bilberry extract may have some of the same effects as blueberries & resveratrol in addition to its benefits for your eyes.

And, a variety of related fruit has other health advantages. Raspberries, dark cherries, strawberries, plums, & concord grape juice all have substantial health benefits.

And, pomegranate juice is also in this family of foods & supplements.

So, even though I think resveratrol works as the study suggests it might, there are other ways to get that protection.

And, the more you use, whether you add resveratrol or not, the healthier you’ll be.


We’ll post a bit of an overview of our posts on boosting HDL’s next time

More ideas & NEWS on boosting your HDL’s….

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

Today's post: Wednesday, 11-1-2006

More ideas & NEWS on boosting your HDL’s….

For those of you who didn’t see our earlier post or don’t know that a fraction of your HDL cholesterol will clean your arteries & protect you from heart attacks, strokes, & other cardiovascular diseases, research seems to show that it does just that.

And, evidence is even coming in that having a high HDL cholesterol level of over 60, or even better, over 80, is MORE protective than having a low level of the bad LDL cholesterol or low total cholesterol.

This is also measured by dividing your total cholesterol by your HDL. If the result is 3.0 or less, your chance of heart disease is relatively low. If the result is 6.0 or higher, your risk of heart disease is also quite high.

So, if your total cholesterol is 240 but your HDL is 80 or more, you have lower risk of heart disease. But if at 240 total cholesterol, your HDL is 40 or less, you may be at serious risk of heart disease or already have it whether it shows yet or not.

So, what if your HDL level is low?

Mercifully, there are several things you can do that tend to increase it.

Exercise is known to increase not just your HDL readings in general; but to increase the exact protective fraction of your HDL that you most want to increase.

(See our recent series of posts on exercise which ran starting Tuesday, 10-12-2006 & ended Monday, this week on 10-30-2006. They have many other benefits of exercise from helping you think better to being sexier. And several of them have tips on getting yourself to actually exercise & making it more doable to do.)

In addition to that & the other ways to boost your HDL levels, here are some more:

1. As you likely know if you have read this blog often, I think nondrug methods of improving health are often preferable to using drugs for several reasons.

However, there are good drugs. And, if they are used properly for the right reasons they are often extremely effective.

Just today, I got a report on what may be the best new drug to prevent or treat heart & cardiovascular disease:

New drug raises HDL & reduces small particle LDL

A new medication, torcetrapib, in 90 mg doses raised HDL by over 50 percent.

So someone with an HDL of 38 might wind up with an HDL of 60.

Even better, it sharply lowered the amount of the more dangerous small particle LDL & lowered the total LDL somewhat.

It’s new & may not yet be generally available nor are all the side effects in large groups of people known yet.

(The test patients were reported as having little trouble with the 90 mg dose that was most effective in boosting HDL.)

But if you can’t exercise more or are reluctant to take the supplements that raise HDL &have low HDL levels, it sounds like a drug well worth asking your doctor about.

And, there is another exciting implication of this new drug’s positive test. Exercise & some of the supplements that raise your HDL may use the same biochemical pathway this drug uses. And, so they may well both raise your protective HDL fraction & reduce the dangerous small particle LDL as this drug does.

I’m not sure about the other supplements that do. But of those that raise your HDL, I suspect niacin, inositol hexaniacinate, & the other B complex vitamins are quite possibly in this group.

People taking them tend to have their LDL cholesterol levels lowered & be less likely to develop heart disease as well as having their HDL levels increased.

2. In the same Medscape enewsletter that had the news about the new drug, there was an article that said your HDL is MUCH more protective if it carries lots of antioxidants.

So, whatever your HDL levels are, the more vegetables & fruits you eat that are high in antioxidants & the more natural vitamin C & vitamin E (tho only up to 200 iu daily to be safe) & other antioxidant supplements you take, the more protective your HDL level that you already have will be.

3. Recently I got an article in my email, also the Medscape eletter, with some interesting info on HDL:

"Patients with insulin resistance, especially those with the metabolic syndrome or type 2 diabetes mellitus, often present with an atherogenic lipid profile that is not dominated by hypercholesterolaemia, but rather by low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) chol-esterol, elevated triglycerides and a lipoprotein sub-profile characterised by small, dense LDL.[5]

HDL cholesterol exerts a range of anti-atherosclerotic effects in the arterial wall,[6] and large observational studies conducted over several decades have established a low level of HDL cholesterol beyond doubt as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease....

"This suggests several things to me if your HDL levels are low or proving hard to increase..

a. If you haven't yet had them checked, it might be worth checking your triglycerides, fasting glucose, & HBA1C.

If these faactors are too high, it can damage your health. They can be lowered without drugs. (Eating very little or no sugar or foods with refined grains & doing regular exercise, particularly strength training, help a lot. And, alpha lipoic acid & chromium polynicotinate & some other supplements also help.)

So making sure your triglycerides, fasting glucose, & HBA1C are low enough might boost your HDL; & would definitely be heart protective.

(I'm not sure about the danger level for triglycerides; but I think desirable is less than 100. Fasting glucose should definitely be lower than 100; & the HBA1C, a 60 to 90 moving average of your glucose based on red blood cells, should definitely be 5.9 or lower.)

b. This info also suggests that doing strength training with weights would boost your HDL due to the effect of such exercises on reducing insulin resistance. Plus, I think such exercise is most likely to boost HDL in other ways.

4. A friend who has been having trouble boosting his low HDL also said he recently had read that eating an unusually lowfat diet tended to produce low HDL levels also.

This is definitely the case. And, I’ve not covered it in these posts on boosting your HDL levels as yet.

Increasing your intake of “healthy” fats & oils can solve that problem for you & has many other benefits.

If you aren't allergic, eating nuts has all sorts of health benefits.

And eating a lot of vegetables & lean protein helps lower LDL's but can also lower HDL's if the fat content is too low.

Adding nuts adds all their numerous health benefits & tends to raise HDL or prevent it from falling. And, the sterols in nuts LOWER LDL's.

Also, you may have seen the headlines that eating vegetables helps prevent mental aging.

Upon closer reading, it seems that the people who ate lots of vegetables tended to eat salads & salad greens, which the researchers believe they ate with salad dressing. They theorize that helps deliver the antioxidants in the vegetables. In fact, salad greens were shown most effective in the study.

Extra virgin olive oil works best to deliver the antioxidants in vegetables & adds antioxidants of its own when used in cooking vegetables & in salad dressings. Extra virgin olive oil also is far safer to eat than the polyunsaturated oils like soy, corn, & safflower. Like them, extra virgin olive oil lowers LDL's when eaten instead of butter. Unlike them it boosts HDL's instead of lowering them.

(Oils like soy, corn, & safflower used to be popular with doctors as they lower LDL’s when used instead of butter. But they also LOWER your protective HDLs.)


Lastly, eating foods high in Omega 3’s like wild caught salmon, sardines, & oysters I found out recently, has many health benefits as does taking purified fish oil directly or in capsules as purified fish oil is high in omega 3 fatty acids also.

Most people in the United States eat too many of the less desirable oils like soy, corn, & safflower & get too much of the omega 6 fatty acids they contain & also get much too little omega 3 fatty acids.

So eating more foods with omega 3 fatty acids is an excellent way to boost your HDL levels & enjoy extra health benefits besides.

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We’ll post a bit of an overview of our posts on boosting HDL’s next time.