Monday, July 30, 2007

Successful fat loss improves your stress response ….

Today's post: Monday, 7-30-2007

Successful fat loss improves your stress response. Even better, changing the way you eat can do both.

I found this in today’s Early to Rise for Monday, 7-30-2007.

(My comments follow the article. Read those for more tips on how to lose fat & improve your stress response.)

(This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/..)

“How to Control a Silent Killer

By Craig Ballantyne

If you're unhealthily overweight, you probably know it. You also know if you have unhealthy habits, like smoking or excessive drinking. And if you're not as fit as you should be, you probably recognize that too. But high blood pressure - the silent killer that can lead directly to heart attacks and death - goes unnoticed every day.

Australian researchers have found an easy way to control this silent killer.

The researchers had three groups of men complete a mental stress test before and after a 12-week diet program. One group of men changed nothing in their diets, another group ate a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in dairy products, and a third group ate a low-fat diet. By the end of 12 weeks, both groups that had changed their diets lost an average of nine pounds, while the control group remained at about the same weight.

The subjects who lost weight also reduced their resting systolic blood pressure (the higher number in the normal 120 over 80 blood pressure reading).

Furthermore, in the groups that had changed their diets, blood pressure returned to normal six minutes faster after the stress tests than in the control group.

The scientists concluded that weight loss helps men control their blood pressure better during times of stress, which is likely to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease in the long term. So if you have high blood pressure, add more fruits and vegetables to your diet and lose weight. And if you don't know what your blood pressure is, get it checked immediately.”

My comments:

1. This improved stress relief also tends to prevent higher future blood pressure readings. And, the added fiber, potassium & magnesium in the added fruits and vegetables also help lower high blood pressure & prevent higher future blood pressure readings.

Second, regular vigorous exercise where you rest a short while afterwards, also allows you to recover from stress more quickly. As you become fit, your recovery time gets faster. Even better, it takes more to create a higher pulse rate.

Both these effects also tend to lower high blood pressure & prevent higher future blood pressure readings.

And, since regular exercise, particularly this kind of vigorous cardio & this kind of strength training, also trim off excess bodyfat, by both eating more vegetables & eating less unhealthful fats AND doing this kind of exercise cuts you can cut more fat from your body which lowers blood pressure more & improves your stress response more.

So, for good stress response & getting rid of excess fat, eat right & exercise regularly.

You’ll also have lower & healthier blood pressure readings.

2. Recent stories report that having fat friends tends to make you fat & having trim friends tends to make you lean.

Even better, if you have a friend who successfully loses fat & stays your friend, you are much more likely to lose fat too.

So, make friends with lean people who eat right & exercise. Spend more time with them than with your fat friends if you can. And, once you succeed, simply let your fatter friends know you have done so.

This research suggests that you don’t need to try to sell them on getting leaner. All you have to do is keep improving yourself & let them know. Chances are they will follow you example.

3. Stay away from both regular & diet soft drinks.

Drinking more than one or two soft drinks a month, is a proven way to get fat.

If you drink regular soft drinks, you take in lots more calories & your body registers NONE of them, so you don’t eat less of everything else to compensate.

Oddly, regular drinking of diet soft drinks produces an almost identical effect research shows.

And, research released just as few days ago says the health effects of drinking diet soft drinks regularly is also as bad for your heart.

One theory explains this by saying that when your body gets the sweet taste but no sugar rush, you then overeat other things which do produce a sugar rush to compensate.

The second theory points out that the artificial sweeteners in diet soft drinks cause your metabolism to function in unhealthy ways.

And, the foods people often eat with both kinds of soft drinks tend to be high in refined grains, grain fed meat, & transfats.

So, if you want to stop being fat or avoid it and you want to stay healthy, it will also help enormously if you stop drinking soft drinks.

In fact, if you have been drinking soft drinks regularly, switching to water, tea, or even coffee, can literally help you lose enough fat to be 10 percent lighter. And, the incredible thing is, it won’t make you any hungrier.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Strength training also improves insulin response & levels ….

Today's post: Tuesday, 7-24-2007

Last Thursday, this was in the online news:

Key to a long life -- less insulin in the brain

Reuters 19 Jul 2007 18:00:33 GMT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) - Good, old-fashioned diet and exercise might keep you young by reducing the action of insulin in the brain, researchers reported on Thursday.

They created mutant mice that over-ate, got fat and even had symptoms of diabetes, and yet lived 18 percent longer than normal lab mice. The secret: they lacked a certain key gene that affects insulin, the hormone that regulates glucose.

The genetic engineering mimicked the effects of eating less and exercising, the researchers report in the journal Science.

"This study provides a new explanation of why it's good to exercise and not eat too much," said Dr. Morris White, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Children's Hospital in Boston who led the study.

The findings also raise questions about how desirable it is to use insulin to treat type 2 diabetes, said the researchers.

Doctors know that people who exercise regularly live longer on average. Researchers have also learned that putting animals on a strict diet makes them live longer, although this has not yet been shown to work in people.

So White's team sought to see if the two effects were linked. They looked at insulin, because both fasting and exercise make cells more insulin-sensitive, meaning they respond more efficiently to the effects of insulin.

They looked at the entire insulin pathway -- a series of actions in the cell that control the body's use of insulin.

White's team engineered mice that had no working copies of one of the genes involved in this pathway, called insulin receptor substrate 2, or Irs2.

BEST USE OF INSULIN

Mice with no copies of Irs2 had defective brains and diabetes. But mice with one working copy lived 18 percent longer than normal mice.

"What's more, the animals lived longer even though they had characteristics that should shorten their lives such as being overweight….," White said in a statement.

They were also more active than normal mice, and after eating, their brains had higher levels of a compound called superoxide dismutase, an antioxidant that protects cells from damage.

"Diet, exercise and lower weight keep your peripheral tissues sensitive to insulin," White said. That means the body needs to make less insulin.

"Since insulin turns on Irs2 in the brain, that means lower Irs2 activity, which we've linked to longer life span in the mouse," he said.

One obvious question is whether drugs can mimic the effects of having less Irs2, perhaps by interfering with its action.

The researchers note that people who live to be 100 or more often have reduced insulin levels and their cells show better insulin sensitivity.’”

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My comment:

In the same way that strength training works best to increase growth hormone release, it seems to also boost your body’s ability to respond to insulin so your body makes less & your blood sugars stay in the normal range better.

(See yesterday’s post about strength training & its other effects in slowing or reversing aging.)

Also, eliminating junk food, soft drinks, & most sugar & almost all refined grains from your diet & adding plenty of vegetables & some whole fruit & eating good amounts of health OK protein foods & fats seems to have this effect.

Eating right sharply lowers the glycemic index & load of the food you eat & makes the blood sugar uptake from your food slow & gradual enough that your body needs to use less insulin.

This seems as effective for insulin control & preventing insulin resistance as eating less food overall. And, the really great news is that it’s doable without making you feel hungry all the time or slowing your metabolism. That makes it doable & sustainable.

It may not be easy at first to switch to eating better if you are mostly eating bad foods now. But eating right will get the job done without making you feel hungry all the time.

And, to get started, even eliminating a few of the worst foods & adding some of the good foods you actually like will help.

If you do both these two steps—strength training & eating right, you will be less fat. You’ll have much better health. And this research suggests you’ll live a LOT longer.

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Monday, July 23, 2007

Boost your growth hormone naturally & prevent aging ….

Today's post: Monday, 7-23-2007

Taking HGH or human growth hormone may work for some people to help stay young or to restore them to the capacities they had when they were younger.

But doing so is expensive & apparently tends to increase the rate of growth of any cancers a person might have & may have other side effects. Worse, the less expensive supplements sold as HGH may not be effective or have enough of it to work.

BUT, there IS a way to get strong growth hormone release that’s proven to grow new brain cells, restore youthful strength, & more. If done carefully it tends to have none of these side effects either. And, one of the growth hormones released is testosterone. So using it also helps restore youthful libido.

Here’s an article I got last week from my Early to Rise email.:

I’ve known the information for quite a bit. But he states it so well, it inspired this post.

Get an Anti-Aging Boost From Strength Training

By Craig Ballantyne

Every day, I receive spam e-mails from marketers trying to sell me "Human Growth Hormone" boosters to help prevent aging. HGH does have anti-aging properties, but you don't need to buy anything to increase your own levels of it. There's a natural way to do so.

It's called strength training.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina found that when they compared the amount of growth hormone released as a result of a 30-minute aerobic exercise session or strength training, significantly more was released with the strength-training workout. So if you are looking for a way to fight aging naturally (and increase fat burning while you're at it), don't neglect strength training as part of your exercise program.

The best strength-training exercises to use are multiple-muscle and total-body exercises, such as step-ups, lunges, and squats. You can do these with your bodyweight only, or while holding dumbbells in both hands.”

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

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It also works to do several exercises each of which works a different muscle. Exercises like push ups, parallel bar dips, & squats are important to include as they work your larger muscles. But dumbbell curls, rows, & presses and leg exercises like calf raises that work smaller muscles also help.

One way to do many different exercises in each workout is to do a single set of each exercise.

Doing one set of each exercise is the simplest & easiest to keep doing. Even better, research shows one set is effective if you use enough weight to be challenging to do by the end of each set. Unless you are very experienced or working with a good personal trainer who is working with you to achieve a specific goal, you’ll likely get the best results with doing just one set.

(Sometimes when you begin to get strong enough, you may find it wise to do an easy warm up set of 7 with a weight you can do easily; then do one of 10 with a weight you can lift with perfect form until about 10 repetitions: & then do a set with a weight you can do about 6 times before it gets challenging using good & controlled but not quite perfect form.

I recommend only doing that for one or two exercises where you are focusing on making progress. And, just do the middle set of up to 10 for everything else.)

The critical thing is to do 6 to 10 repetitions in each exercise; & to add a small amount of weight when you can do 10 easily. That way you keep making progress & maximize the release of growth hormone.

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Friday, July 20, 2007

Protect Your Brain with curry, turmeric, or Curcumin….

Today's post: Friday, 7-20-2007

It’s been known for quite a while that people who live in India & eat foods spiced with curry rarely to never get Alzheimer’s disease.

Further, many health writers have suggested that it’s the yellow turmeric spice in curry powder that creates this effect. Others have said that it’s the Curcumin in turmeric that does this.

Two studies seem to not only confirm this but show that one of the key ways turmeric does this is by helping make sure your body cleans out the amyloid in your brain before it forms into the destructive plaques that kill your brain neurons.

The more recently released study suggests that a drug using the most effective Curcumin component may even eventually be effective in partially or completely reversing Alzheimers, particularly if it’s used at an early stage.

The good news is that many people like eating curried foods. And, turmeric & Curcumin supplements are available now in health food & supplement stores.

We’ll end this post with some other ways to keep your brain young. They also work.

But here are the two study reports first.:

I found this in the online health news on Yahoo on Monday this week, 7-16-2007.

(From their main page, click on news & then scroll down to the health section to see health news on Yahoo.)This study shows why taking turmeric or curcumin really might help prevent Alzheimer's disease & why it works, at least in part.

(Since these supplements also are antioxidants; act to ensure good blood flow; & have anti-inflammatory effects, they probably also help prevent the damage in the first place. So there may be more to it than just the effect found in this study.)

(Posted Monday, 7-16-2007)

"NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If laboratory findings hold true in people, treatment with one of the active chemicals in turmeric, the main spice found (in) curry, may boost the immune system of patients with Alzheimer's disease and, thereby, increase the clearance of amyloid plaques in the brain, the primary abnormality seen in patients with the disease, researchers in the United States report.

In their study, Dr. Milan Fiala, from the Greater Los Angeles Veteran's Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues first show that immune cells called macrophages taken from patients with Alzheimer's disease cannot efficiently eliminate amyloid and that this may be related to the abnormal regulation of certain genes.

Treating these cells with an active substance found in turmeric, called bisdemethoxycurcumin, increases the production of some of the genes and enhances macrophage function, according to the team's report, published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The authors note that other Alzheimer's disease treatment strategies have attempted to increase the clearance of amyloid by stimulating the activity of certain cells located in the brain.

By contrast, the current approach boosts amyloid clearance by enhancing the activity of macrophage cells derived from bone marrow.Further studies are needed to determine if increasing blood levels of macrophages using an oral curcumin agent clear the amyloid plaques, and produce therapeutic effects, in patients with Alzheimer's disease, they add.

SOURCE: Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, July 16, 2007."

The study I saw reported earlier was very similar:

“From the Health Science Institute newsletter on 10-18-2006

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could set loose inside your body a microscopic cleaning crew that would hunt down and remove harmful microorganisms and waste products?

Actually, that crew already exists, working hard every hour to keep you healthy. It's a force made up of cells called macrophages that have the capacity to attach to connective tissue or travel throughout the blood stream where they overwhelm microorganisms that can do you harm. And while macrophages are very effective at what they do, sometimes they need a little help.

Researchers at UCLA have produced evidence that a common spice might be just the help that microphages need to protect the brain from Alzheimer's disease.

…. there's growing evidence that curcumin may … be an effective amyloid plaque inhibitor.

Curcumin is a yellow pigment in the root of turmeric. Curry gets its distinctive color and flavor from curcumin. But in addition to its culinary appeal, curcumin is a natural antioxidant and inflammatory that has been used by Indian Ayurvedic healers for thousands of years to treat indigestion, arthritis, and urinary tract disorders.

In …. a UCLA study in which aging mice with advanced amyloid accumulation in the brain were injected with curcumin. Results showed that curcumin was able to cross the blood-brain barrier and bind to beta amyloid, which helped block amyloid plaque aggregation.

In the September 2006 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, another UCLA team reported on a study that tested the effects of curcumin on AD.

STUDY ABSTRACT
Researchers took macrophage samples from six AD patients and three healthy control subjects

When macrophage samples were tested for their ability to bind with amyloid, uptake efficiency was found to be significantly lower in the AD samples, compared to the control samples

Macrophage samples were then exposed to curcumin for 24 hours

Amyloid uptake efficiency was significantly increased in half of the AD macrophage samples treated with curcumin

Curcumin was more effective in macrophage samples taken from patients with early-stage AD

Curcumin had no effect on macrophage samples from healthy subjects

…., the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Research Center has begun a clinical trial with human subjects to study the effect of curcumin supplements in AD patients.

Alzheimer's rates in India (where curcumin is widely consumed in curry dishes) are among the lowest in the world. But for most of us here in the west it's not really practical to sharply increase our dietary intake of curry.

Curcumin supplements can be found in health food stores and through many Internet sources.

But curcumin users should be aware of these precautions:

Indigestion is one of the conditions curcumin is used to address, but large doses may cause ulcers in some patients.

Curcumin has been shown to lower cholesterol by prompting the liver to discharge bile, but this can be a problem for anyone with an obstruction of the biliary tract

Curcumin thins the blood, so it should not be taken with anti-coagulants or anti-inflammatory drugs. “

Of course if you have too much oxidized LDL or cholesterol plaques in your blood vessels, the circulation to the neurons in your brain may be harmed. So for most people these last two effects are not only desirable; but also show how turmeric or Curcumin helps prevent Alzheimer’s & age related mental decline in the first place.

In fact, all the practices that protect your heart &/or keep your blood vessels healthy & responsive & keep your blood pressure in the normal range also prevent strokes that can gravely harm your brain & ensure your brain gets enough oxygen and energy & has enough blood flow to clear CO2 & other waste products.

Exercise helps do all these things. Even better, recent studies show exercise causes your body to grow new brain neurons – even in elderly people.

Mental exercise from regular socializing, learning new things, & doing mental activities like cross word puzzles or solving chess problems or playing strategic games like bridge, or simply following subjects you are interested in also grow new neurons & maintain old ones & their interconnections.

At the University of California at Berkeley it was discovered that “enriched environments” in younger mammals & people caused the growth or new neurons & helped form new interconnections. More recently, they found that this process continues to work in even elderly people.

Recently, in our area a 100 year old woman died. And, she was apparently mentally sharp & lived independently virtually the whole 100 years.

Other than taking Curcumin supplements, she did all of the above. She regularly kept up a ONE ACRE garden by herself for exercise; she was an avid fan of the local football teams, the San Francisco 49ers; & the Stanford football team; she played competitive bridge regularly; she was active in her extended family; & an officer in a local social group. She even found time to enjoy & play music.

Her personal focus was to stay optimistic & happy -- & to keep busy. So by keeping very busy with the things she really liked to do, she did.

Your list of activities you like & the kind of exercises you do, will likely be far different.

But, you’ll be happier & live far longer & stay mentally sharp if you follow her example.

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Monday, July 16, 2007

Tea & green tea also improve circulation & blood flow….

Today's post: Monday, 7-16-2007

This was in the daily email from Early to Rise last week.

“Don't Miss Out on the Full Benefits of Tea

By Jon Herring

Dr. Sears and I have written numerous times in ETR about the outstanding health benefits of green and black tea. These teas have been shown to boost brain health, increase metabolism, protect the prostate, and reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease.

But the extent to which tea helps can depend on how you drink it. If you add milk, you could be negating many of its health benefits.

In a study published in the European Heart Journal, subjects were given either a pint of black tea or the same amount of hot water. Of those who were given tea, half drank it straight, while the other half had it with milk. The researchers discovered that blood flow to the forearms increased noticeably in those who drank the tea straight, but those who had either hot water or tea with milk saw no such benefit.

It is known that the flavonoids in tea (catechins) help to relax the blood vessels. And it appears that these catechins, including the highly beneficial antioxidant EGCG, are bound and rendered ineffective by casein, a protein found in milk.

So if you want the full range of health benefits that tea has to offer, drink it straight or with a squeeze of lemon…”


This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

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Apparently not only does tea & green tea have the other health benefits you’ve likely read about already, it can help people with impaired circulation or high blood pressure by improving the functioning of their blood vessels & their blood flow.

So, it may help improve or prevent things like erectile dysfunction, peripheral artery disease, & circulation related mental decline -- & many others.

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Monday, July 09, 2007

Protect your heart better than aspirin in 2 ways….

Today's post: Monday, 7-9-2007

1. Taking aspirin to protect your heart has three big disadvantages. First, it tends to erode your stomach lining. And, that causes bad breath & has helped cause ulcers or serious bleeding in some people. (It makes heartburn or acid reflux worse.)

Second, you most need protection when you are under stress while the protective effect of aspirin tends to stop when you are under stress.

(And, if you take ibuprofen as Advil or Motrin or Aleve for example, it also stops the protection from the aspirin.)

Supplements like bilberry extract & grape seed extract are heart protective also. So is eating berries several times a week, particularly blueberries & blackberries.

These foods & supplements DO continue their protection while you are under stress -- or if you take ibuprofen for muscle soreness or other reasons. They do NOT cause stomach lining problems or bad breath. They have several other health benefits. And, berries taste wonderful.

Note: Stopping regular aspirin abruptly apparently can cause a rebound effect of increased blood clotting. So if you have been taking it regularly, be sure to add the supplements for a week or so first before discontinuing it. And, even then, it might be wise to take it every other day for a week or so to allow your body to adjust gradually.

Drinking extra water can also help. And, if you haven’t been taking it already, also adding 200 mg a day of natural vitamin E, alpha tocopherol, a week or so before stopping the aspirin also would help since it also reduces excess blood clotting.

Also, save some of the aspirin so that you always have it with you if you can. If you do have a heart attack, studies show that taking aspirin immediately & chewing it before swallowing to get it to work faster sharply increases your survival odds.

I’ve known this information & done posts on it before. But here is an article by Dr Al Sears with a third & quite serious drawback to taking daily aspirin to protect your heart.

This information is new to me.

He also includes another way to prevent both heart attack AND stroke that you can substitute for aspirin that works even better than aspirin does. (Separate information shows that his method also slows aging & protects you from mental decline.)

“Aspirin Can Boost Your Risk of Stroke

By Al Sears, MD

Yesterday, my neighbor asked me if it was a good idea to take aspirin to avoid heart attacks and stroke. I responded with a question of my own: "Would you take a painkiller if you weren’t in pain?"

TV commercials make it sound logical… but taking aspirin regularly just causes a new set of problems. What I call "the law of unintended consequences."

A new study published in Lancet Neurology found that older people who are taking aspirin "preventively" may be seven times more likely to have a stroke.

The same researchers estimated that if the misuse of drugs like aspirin continues to increase, it may soon overtake high blood pressure as the leading cause of stroke in those over 75.

Instead of taking aspirin, take steps to lower your homocysteine levels. Your cells dump this "toxic waste" product into your bloodstream as they burn energy.

Too much homocysteine is a serious health risk. In fact, homocysteine levels are a better predictor of heart disease - and stroke, by the way - than anything else, including cholesterol.

You can lower your homocysteine levels simply by supplementing with B vitamin. No harsh drugs are necessary. Here’s what I recommend:

Vitamin B6 - 75 mg daily
Vitamin B12 - 400 mcg daily
Folic Acid - 800 mcg daily “

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

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My note:

Some people may need more B12 or more folic acid or to add N-acetyl Cysteine, NAC, or TMG to this to get their homocysteine levels to below 9.0 or lower. Dr Sears likes to see his patients get below 8.0 he has said separately.

More B6, however is not desirable since more than 100 mg a day seems to cause nerve problems.

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Monday, July 02, 2007

Some reasons why people get & stay fat….

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. We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.

Today's post: Monday, 7-2-2007

Some reasons why people get & stay fat….

This is from Dr Singh Khalsa’s TheHealingMinute@DrDharma.com eHealth email newsetter from last Thursday, 6-28-2007.:

"How To Drop 7 Pounds Fast

Dear Friend:

Did you know that when you lose weight your brain works better?

Well, it stands to reason. When you trim down everything works
better. And I do mean everything.

Here's an interesting little story.

A few days ago, I was watching that funny commercial on TV where the
fat guy from the Austin Powers movie tells mini-me to:

"Jump in my belly."
Coincidentally, for a few weeks now I've been thinking about trying
to help you drop 5 to 7 pounds fast.

One big way is to start by reducing the portion size of your meals.

Here's a little history:

Big meal portions are something that started some 15 to 20 years ago.

Do you remember that it was back then when many people asked for a
"doggie bag" to take the left over food home from a restaurant?

That's when "oversized" portions started to be placed in front of us.

Today, like the fat guy, that "doggie bag" is put in our bellies.

We have been "trained" to eat more.

More than what we actually really need to eat!

And many people do it everywhere: at a friend's, at restaurants, at
home.

Everywhere!

In America, food companies produce more than 5,000 calories of food
per person a day.

That's a lot of calories.

More than twice of what we really need, and unfortunately we're
eating them!

These same companies spend approximately $36 billion per year in food
marketing.

Of these, $10 billion alone are directed towards children.

That's a sad fact but apparently it works.

Obesity is the greatest anti-anti-aging factor today.

It's killing us by causing heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's,
arthritis and so on.

Another sickening fact is that Americans are addicted to cheap food.

In fact, we spend only a little more than 9% of our income on food, a
smaller share than any other nation.

No wonder we spend a larger share in health care...an incredible 16%.

All these "cheap unhealthy foods" such as soda, candy, and other
forms of processed foods are making us fat and sick!”

David Ludwig, MD, PhD, author of the book, “The Food Fight,” who researched obesity & who uses his findings in helping parents help their fat kids lose fat & get their lives back, found that eating these "cheap unhealthy foods" tends to trigger eating much larger portions of everything else of those foods that are eaten later that day.

Apparently, at some deep level your body notes that it is still missing the fiber & real nutrients it needs that these foods contain very little of & causes you to eat more to try to live on what you are taking in.

Even worse, the kids he treats have been watching many hours of TV each week. This keeps them fat three ways.

1. TV ads for these "cheap unhealthy foods" appear regularly, particularly for programs kids are most likely to watch.

2. TV time replaces the time kids would be socializing or playing with other kids or exercising with hours of time with only marginally more calories burned than are consumed than the kids would burn if they were sound asleep.

3. When these kids watch TV, they tend to eat huge quantities of these "cheap unhealthy foods" as snacks almost robotically as they watch.

These things sharply increases the calories they take in; & TV watching then prevents them from exercising -- even moderately while playing & in other activities.

Dr Ludwig has found that when the kids he works with replace these junk foods with real & nutritious foods & learn to simply stop eating "cheap unhealthy foods"; watch
TV less & more selectively; & exercise more, they promptly lose fat. As they lose fat, their self-image improves & they feel better. And, once that process goes far enough, the kids tend to take ownership of the process & continue it voluntarily.

The other thing he has these kids do that adults can emulate to some degree, is that he focuses entirely on 3 things. Stop ingesting "cheap unhealthy foods" totally. Eat whole, low glycemic load foods like health OK protein foods, health OK fats, & vegetables & some fruit. Get regular exercise almost every day.

And, don’t try to eat less than they are hungry for.

The kids in his program lose fat anyway; because they do eat less by following the three things to do. And, they are still growing.

As adults, particularly if we are under stress, we need to be careful to not overdo how much we eat & how much alcohol we drink to lose fat that well.

But his methods make that doable without being hungry for most people.

And, that makes losing fat & keeping it off possible, realistic, & doable.

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