Health OK Super Bowl Snacks....

Today's post: Friday, 1-30-2009

This is an updated edition of our post from this time last year,

Health OK Snacks for Super Bowl parties...

Why are health OK snacks so important?

It's not just at the time the Super Bowl happens each year about now that people eat snacks. Many people make snacks as much as a quarter or a fifth of all their weekly food. Some go to a full third of the calories they eat.

The other factor is that the health damaging snack foods are some of the very worst foods people eat while the health OK snack foods are actually good for you.

That means that hosting or taking snacks pot luck style to a Super Bowl party is a chance to try out health OK snacks yourself & introduce them to your friends & family.

Dips:

First, let's literally dispose of one category of what NOT to use. Last year, my wife & I were taking snacks to my parent's house. I knew that two things to use to dip snacks into that are actually good for you & taste great are guacamole & hummus. But my wife wanted to bring some traditional dips as well. I went to an upscale grocery store in our area & went to that section. Ouch !! Even there, there were no health OK choices at all. Every one of the commercially made up dips except the guacamole they stocked had partially hydrogenated oils (which contain transfats) or high fructose corn syrup with some having both.

(In case you don't yet know, partially hydrogenated oils-- which contain transfats -- & high fructose corn syrup are avoidable health poisons that are not yet outlawed & out of our foods.

Transfats are literally cardiovascular disease & heart attack starters. They have the same kind of effect as using lighter fluid to start up charcoal for a BBQ. The safe amount of those to eat is zero, absolutely none.

High fructose corn syrup is not quite that bad. It only tends to make you fat & trigger type 2 diabetes. It may be safe to eat on occasion. But eating it in the quantities people do who don't know to avoid it -- is NOT safe. So, to be sure my wife & I don't eat it in quantity, we do not eat it all. We also are doing our part to boycott an unsafe food additive by doing that.)

2008 update: At this writing, between 30 % and 55% of the products, including name brands, that contain high fructose corn syrup also contain mercury because a mercury compound is use to make the high fructose corn syrup used in those products. Also note, if high fructose corn syrup is listed first or second on the ingredients list, it’s more likely the product contains mercury.

So we currently recommend you completely avoid buying or ingesting high fructose corn syrup.

So, for dips at this writing, you have three health OK choices: buy guacamole; buy hummus: or make your own dips. Health OK components to consider running through a blender or adding to after you run the blender to make health OK dips are salsa, vegetarian beans, black-eyed peas, regular baked beans, hummus, nonfat yogurt, frozen chopped spinach, chopped onion, extra virgin olive oil, chili powder, & cilantro.

You can also make a somewhat healthier dip by substituting one of these for part of the sour cream in sour cream based dip recipes. A half hummus, half sour cream recipe would have half the saturated fat of a full sour cream recipe. But it would taste richer than a hummus only version.

2008 addition: Real sour cream is not exactly a health food due to its high saturated fat content. But compared with dips with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil it almost IS a health food in comparison. As an occasional dip treat, we found that real sour cream with a good bit of a good quality, multiple ingredient, curry powder makes a great dip.

We’ve taken to bringing 3 dips when asked to provide them: Hummus, guacamole, and this curried real sour cream. I particularly like having about 2 or 3 fresh veggies with each of the three dips. That way, I get a lot of the fresh veggies and two thirds of the dips are actually good for me to eat.

Crunchy foods:

People often use crackers for crunchy snack foods. This is an extremely bad idea. Commercial crackers today still tend to use partially hydrogenated oils (which contain transfats). Almost as bad, they usually are badly over-salted and are made only or mostly from refined grains. About the only food component they contain is calories. So eating them tends to make you fat.

If for variety or for guests who would feel deprived, you would like to serve some crackers, there are two kinds that are almost OK.

Crostini makes an absolutely delicious cracker that is not too salty & uses olive oil instead of transfats. They sell those at Whole Foods Market stores. They do use refined grains. But they taste good & avoid the other health damaging components.

Safeway & other major grocery chains carry RyKrisp or Rye Krisp crackers. At least one of their versions has no fat at all. These are almost a little too crunchy for my taste. But that's because they have whole grains, which are better for you. But be careful as one or more of the available versions have partially hydrogenated oils (which contain transfats). Just check the label to see which kind is OK & skip the other versions. The version that has NO fat at all is the health OK one.

Nuts:

Because some people are quite gravely & severely allergic to these, they are likely NOT a good idea for larger groups of people you don't know well. This kind of allergy to peanuts is so wide-spread now, we suggest you never serve peanuts or mixes containing them to people you don't know.

2008 update: Due to the salmonella outbreak from peanuts recently, they may not be safe this year even for people who otherwise might like them and who are not allergic.

Only serve nuts to family or friends you know can eat nuts OK.

However, for people who can eat nuts safely, raw walnuts, raw pecans, & dry roasted almonds are delightfully good crunchy snack foods. Even better, they have so many health benefits, that people who eat nuts regularly live several years longer than people who don't.

(I've found the best store for these to be Whole Foods Market stores. They carry these kinds of nuts in bulk & in packages -- both at reasonable prices.)

(Unfortunately, commercial nut mixes often do everything wrong.
We do NOT recommend those !!

They often include peanuts because they are cheaper. They increase the shelf life by roasting them in partially hydrogenated oils (which contain transfats) or in polyunsaturated oils like corn or soy oil that tend to break down at that temperature & contain excessive omega 6 oils. Then they usually make them even less health OK by over-salting them.)

Crunchy vegetables:

Broccoli Florets; Cauliflower, Celery, & Carrot sticks work really with dips.

Radishes are also a nice change of pace. They are too small to dip well. But they are both crunchy & spicy.

Protein foods:

B & M Baked Beans are decent simply heated up & served. If you want totally vegetarian, Bushes makes a decent, pre-cooked Vegetarian baked beans. Both come canned at major grocery stores.

If you can afford them, real crab meat, lobster meat, & shrimp are all health OK choices.

(Just don't mix these into dips as some people are allergic to them. Served alone though, people can see what they are & avoid them if they are allergic.)

Cheeses are less health OK because of their sky high amounts of saturated fat. But for special occasions only, they have no other health problems; they are easy to set out in bite sized pieces; they are available almost everywhere; & they come in many varieties with abundant flavor.

Other foods:

Another snack food that works really well is stuffed olives. They are a little too salty to eat at all often. But they are health OK otherwise. And many of the versions taste great. They come with (or you can make them up to contain) sun dried tomato, blue cheese, feta cheese, garlic, blanched almond, etc.)

Fresh strawberries that have been washed & green leaves & stems removed are an absolutely wonderful snack that is also really good for you to eat.

Drinks:

For non alcoholic drinks, Martinelli carbonated apple juice & carbonated apple cranberry juice are decent choices for special occasions. And, some people like, grape juice, orange juice, tomato juice, &/or V8 juice.

(Drinking all kinds of sodas & soft drinks is so harmful to the health of so many people, I personally feel that they should never be bought or consumed even on special occasions.

If you feel differently though, drink as little of them as you can stand.

Here's why:

They usually contain high fructose corn syrup* , sugar, or artificial sweeteners, a preservative that has been implicated as causing cancer, artificial flavors, water & nothing else besides the carbonation. Only the water is good for you. Sugar is OK only in strict moderation. And the other junk tends to reliably make people fat & cause health problems.

*2008 update: At this writing, between 30 % and 55% of the products, including name brands, that contain high fructose corn syrup also contain mercury because a mercury compound is use to make the high fructose corn syrup used in those products.

Of the alcoholic beverages, red wine & dark beer actually have extra health benefits. And, beer is a traditional drink for watching football. Even better, there are a huge number of really good dark beers now available.

Most alcoholic beverages, in fact, tend to boost HDL cholesterol.

But make sure to make the quantities small to moderate. Not only can people who drink too much cause problems at your party or get into an avoidable car accidents driving home, if they get into an accident where there is injury or significant property damage, as the host who served them too much alcohol, you can be sued in court.

I hope this post gives you some ideas as to what snacks to avoid year round & some that are either almost OK or are actually good for you to use instead.

Minutes a WEEK of exercise can help....

Today's post: Thursday, 1-29-2009

We’ve known for a long time that even a little exercise will help. Even as little as 500 calories a week gives you about 40 % of the healthy benefits of an ideal exercise program that burns 3500 calories a week. And five one mile walks of about 20 minutes each or a bit faster in less than 20 minutes each will burn 500 calories a week.

We’ve also known that more vigorous exercises such as progressive strength training or interval cardio are in many ways better for you than only doing the milder exercises like walking. In fact, a recent study found that the people who did both progressive strength training AND interval cardio got the best health results.

We’ve also known that for strength training just doing ONE set to the point where you reach “failure” where the last repetition you do of an exercise is just barely possible or you can only get half way will grow your muscles and strength more than several sets of easier repetitions.

John Benson even has developed a program where you do some key strength training sets as such single sets & do them with so little pause between them that it also almost works as a cardio session too. He’s gotten good results in workouts as short as 7 minutes a day. See www.7minutemuscle.com .

Each of these facts can help you do enough exercise to make a good deal of health improvement for you in not very much time each week. In 7 minutes or 15 or 30 minutes a day you can do a LOT of exercise & get similar health benefits.

But there is news.:

You can get worthwhile health benefits even if you can only do
-- ONE minute of exercise a day!

Virtually anyone who isn’t paralyzed or disabled can do one minute of exercise a day. THAT’s doable by just about everyone. That’s so short it fits into almost any schedule, particularly if you do it at home.

Some researchers had people do four 30 second sessions of really vigorous exercise two days a week. That’s actually only FOUR minutes a week of exercise.

In this case, they did an abbreviated interval cardio exercise by having the people do a 30 second session on an exercise bike while pedaling as fast as they could.

But one set a day in about a minute of as many fast pushups as you can do until you cannot do another will likely also work.

Or doing half squats as fast you can for one minute each time or doing one set of as many crunches as you can in one minute would also likely work.

I knew with strength training you can do a lot in fifteen minutes which I do six times a week. (I do take more time at each session when I can; but many weekdays that 15 minutes of at home strength training is all I have time for.)

But I had no idea that ONE minute of the more vigorous strength training or cardio would also help a good bit even if that was all you had time for.

As I’ve posted on recently, one of the HUGE health benefits of exercise and the more vigorous exercise in particular is that it turns off insulin resistance and lowers or prevents too high levels of blood sugar.

On Tuesday, 1-27 this week, Reuters online health news had a story They titled,

“Want to get healthy? Exercise 7 minutes a week”

In a study done at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, researchers found that “just seven minutes of exercise each week helped a group of 16 men in their early twenties control their insulin.”

“The volunteers, who were relatively out of shape but otherwise healthy, rode an exercise bike four times daily in 30 second spurts two days a week.

After two weeks, the young men had a 23 percent improvement in how effectively their body used insulin to clear glucose, or blood sugar, from the blood stream….”

In real life this kind of interval cardio would work best as two 3 & half minute interval cardio workouts a week done a day apart. (30 seconds of fast riding, then 30 seconds of rest, then 30 seconds of fast riding, then 30 seconds of rest, then 30 seconds of fast riding, then 30 seconds of rest, then 30 seconds of fast riding adds up to 210 seconds or 3 ½ minutes.) Since they used the seven minutes a week number, perhaps that’s how they did it. Possibly they did this every Tuesday and Thursday or something of that kind.

But doing 60 seconds of exercise or close to it once a day seven days a week would be more doable and looks to me that it would work as well.

You do NOT have to have access to an exercise bike to do it!

Of course more exercise than that would do more. But even so, Wow! Even I had no idea that so little could do so much.

Even more importantly, if you can start doing even one minute a day until you get used to exercising every week makes it likely you will build up to enough more regular exercise to do get those even greater results. But if you wait until you have lots of time to exercise, you may never start at all.

So I find this new research really exciting new.

What if you do have time for more exercise already?

If so, you can lose excess fat or prevent middle age spread by doing strength training.

And, it works for women as well as men.

Here’s a recent article from Total Health Breakthroughs with just that info.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

I would have titled it:

Strength training can help you prevent middle age spread.

"Put Your Money Where the Muscle Is!

By Missy Hawthorne, RN, CSCS

"I'm gonna pump you up!" How can we forget this well known phrase from an unforgettable Saturday Night Live skit! We laugh at the memory of two over-inflated comedians flexing their biceps, when in fact pumping up is exactly what we should be doing!

By definition, strength training (or "pumping up") is the process of lifting progressively heavier resistance for the purpose of building strength, muscular endurance and size of skeletal muscle.1

In the past, strength training wasn't fully appreciated for its importance in true fitness and health. Today that has really changed -- almost everyone knows they should be doing some strength training to preserve physical capacity and metabolic health. Not to mention it's a great way to sculpt your appearance. With strength training, you can also be very specific for injury prevention. However, I still find that strength training is not fully appreciated for how well it can help us preserve our health and physical independence as we age.

Muscle preservation is the key. For every decade you grow older, you will lose about 6 1/2 pounds of muscle, and muscle is our metabolically active tissue responsible for more than 25 percent of our calorie use.2 Age-related muscle loss is a big reason people gain weight as they age, if they don't take measures to preserve their muscle.

Research indicates men and women both gain about 2-4 pounds of muscle and 40-60 percent more strength after only two months of regular strength training. Although your metabolism naturally decreases as you age, strength training can markedly delay this process.

Since there are as many ways to strength train as there are trainers, it can be confusing, especially for anyone who hasn't yet incorporated much strength training into their fitness routine. And sometimes even when we are more advanced in our fitness level, we can use a reminder of the fundamentals. I have a few pointers that have helped my clients.

Strength Training Guidelines2

Select at least one exercise for each major muscle group: Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Lower Back, Abdominals, Chest, Upper Back, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps and Neck.
Train large muscle groups before small. For example, the legs are larger than the muscles of the arms and neck.

Lift at a slow pace. As you begin a program, a reasonable recommendation is a 1- to 2-second lift followed by a 3- to 4-second lowering.

Complete 8 to 12 repetitions with 70-80 percent of maximum safe muscle development.
The key is progressive resistance. As a muscle group adapts to a given weight or a high number of reps (> 15) gradually increase the weight by five percent or less (2.5-5 lbs) and drop back to 8-10 reps.

Warm-up prior to strength training. Eight to 10 minutes of light aerobic activity like walking on the treadmill or a stationary bike are easy options.

Strength train every other day. Allow the muscles worked at least 24 hours to properly recover and synthesize protein to build muscle.

Preserving our muscle is the difference between being able or not being able to do very basic activities as you get older. And did I mention strength training can decrease blood pressure, increase bone density and even protect your memory and eyesight3 as you age? If I were a betting person, I'd put my money where the muscle is! Strength training is one of the best things you can do to protect your health as you age.

References

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/strength training.
2. Westcott, W. Personal Trainer Manual. Richard T. Cotton, Ed., pages 241-248.
3. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061031192307.htm.

[Ed. Note: Melissa Hawthorne, RN, BSN, CSCS is the owner of Priority Fitness Personal Training and Wellness. She is a Master Trainer for the Resist-a-ball Company, ISCA Personal Training, Kick-boxing, and Beamfit. Melissa serves as a fitness consultant for the LaValle Metabolic Institute….]

Soft drinks & Jam contain MERCURY ?!....

Today's post: Wednesday, 1-28-2009

As those of you know who have read this blog for awhile know, I currently very rarely post on Wednesdays.

But THIS is breaking news!

High Fructose Corn Syrup has been tested as containing MERCURY. Many people no longer eat swordfish because it contains so much mercury. And many people eat less tuna or eat it less often because it contains some mercury.

Mercury is a neurotoxin that reduces your IQ and can, if the concentration in your blood and brain gets too high, cause senility that’s hard to tell is NOT Alzheimer’s disease.

No one who knows this who is in their right mind would want to eat things often that contain mercury.

But the problem is you likely are now and already have been for years.

Most people today still drink regular soft drinks, mostly because it’s sold well and only recently have we found out it’s about as bad for you as smoking.

But, there’s more. High Fructose Corn Syrup, since it’s cheaper, sweeter, and easier to add to manufactured food and drinks, is still in as many as half the items in your local grocery store!

It’s in soft drinks, virtually all commercial baked goods and desserts, almost all jams, jellies, and syrups (except 100 % real maple syrup), and even things like ketchup, and even ice cream.

As you know, we have been recommending that you ingest no food or drink containing High Fructose Corn Syrup.

The evidence is mixed but the articles I’ve read suggest that it both makes sweet things more addictive since it is sweeter than sugar and causes extra metabolic problems that sugar does not.

But even more important, the stuff that contains High Fructose Corn Syrup is virtually all high glycemic foods or semifoods that you would be far healthier and less fat if you ate them rarely, once a week total at most, while the average American now gets several servings each and every day.

If you haven’t started reading labels yet to avoid foods that contain, High Fructose Corn Syrup; and no longer buy or ingest that stuff, check this out!

Every other serving on the average contains mercury!

This past Monday the online Health Day news ran this story:

“MONDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.


HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.


"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies, said in a prepared statement.”
This study was “…. based on products "bought off the shelf in the autumn of 2008” “

Here’s why half of the High Fructose Corn Syrup contained mercury and half did not.:

“The use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda in the production of HFCS is common.”

It seems that the other half tested was made without this contaminant.

To be sure, at some point, rather than stop using High Fructose Corn Syrup and having the manufacturers stop making it, the industry will either voluntarily stop making the mercury contaminated kind of High Fructose Corn Syrup or the FDA will demand it.

But why trust those people?

The mercury free High Fructose Corn Syrup is almost as bad for your health. And, when you want to occasionally indulge in a sweet treat made with real sugar, you can add the sugar yourself or buy things that only use real sugar. I think they will start becoming more available at the store.

So do your health and waistline a favor and have fewer future medical bills and disabilities, simply stop buying or ingesting anything that contains High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Health OK Desserts & Snacks....

Today's post: Tuesday, 1-27-2009

As those of you know who have read this blog for awhile, almost all desserts and snacks now sold in grocery stores are totally unsafe to eat more than once a year if that. It’s pretty simple. The “stuff’ such desserts and snacks are made out of will make you fat and sick if you eat it at all often.

So, since many people in the United States and in those other places where they have started eating like us, eat such desserts and snacks multiple times a week or even several times a day, after years of this, many of us are fat and sick from doing so.

But if you actually LIKE desserts and snacks, you have company. So do I. I even like several kinds a lot.

So if you want to indulge in desserts and snacks because you enjoy them; and you want to stay healthy and trim too, what can you do?

1. One way is to simply lower the frequency a LOT.

In French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano, now available in paperback on Amazon, she explains the reason why is in part that the French eat fewer desserts and virtually none of the bad for you snack foods that people in the United States do.

For some such foods the French also serve smaller portions and rarely get seconds as well.

Where an American might have 7 snack foods and 7 dessert foods in a week, in France, people tend to get no snack foods and perhaps 5 dessert foods a week.

If you go a step further and get no bad for you snack foods and only three or four of your most favorite desserts a month, you are much more likely to do so without harming your health.

2. Increase your body’s ability to process the desserts you do eat.

Several of the reviews of French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano pointed out that people in France walk everywhere in addition to eating fewer snack foods and dessert foods than we do.

For over 50 years research and the experience of health professionals has shown that walking, strength training, and interval cardio enable your body to digest and use fats and sugars more easily and more safely than the bodies of people who are sedentary are able to do.

(For example, see our post from yesterday on how exercise lowers high blood sugar and prevents insulin resistance.)

Be careful though, if you want to keep fat off, Weight Watchers has found you have to do about five times the exercise most people think they need to do to compensate for one dessert.

And, since most people in the United States cannot exercise and walk for 2 or 3 hours every single day, that’s why I suggest going a bit easier on regular desserts even than the French do.

3. Have health OK snacks and desserts.

If you aren’t allergic, nuts are actually good for you. For example, walnuts, pecans, and dry roasted almonds – all unsalted-- taste great. People who can eat them and do so regularly live significantly longer and have less heart disease than people who don’t. Nuts rate zero on the glycemic index too.

And, people who are restricting their food intake otherwise to keep their weight and excess fat down but who snack on nuts or include them in their meals tend to be able to continue restricting their food intake and sustain it, while people who get virtually no health OK oils drop out and stop restricting their food intake otherwise.

Avocados and guacamole have similarly health OK oils to nuts and also can make a good snack. You can also have guacamole with raw vegetables instead of crackers or chips.

You can also do well with fresh fruit as a snack or dessert. Half an apple with a small bit of cheese or chilled strawberries with the leaves and stems removed with a glass of red wine can be very nice desserts that are far better for you than other desserts with refined grain and added sugar and less health OK fats.

Chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, not taken with milk, can actually be good for you.

A large cup of hot cocoa made with lots of unsweetened cocoa and no sugar can give you a chocolate fix and gets great health results.

The amount of dark chocolate with sugar that works the best for health is quite small. Hershey’s Special Dark small candy bar can be divided into sixths or quarters. Eating one at a time of those sixths or quarters once a day over a week actually gives you far more health benefits than eating the whole candy bar in one sitting.

Another food that can be enjoyable to eat with other health OK desserts is coconut.

Try a couple of tablespoons of shredded coconut, and some dry roasted almonds, and some raisins as a dessert for example.

Even better, just today, I got some substantial indication that coconut is actually good for you. And, that information came with a recipe for a dark chocolate plus coconut dessert that can be eaten as a “cookie” or small candy.

Here are those two articles from today’s Total Health Breakthroughs email.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com ."

"Healthy Nutrition:

Coconuts -- Health Food or Foe?

By Laura LaValle, RD, LD

Remember the old song "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts?" (It still lives on You Tube, if you don't remember.) Coconut and coconut oil are becoming such increasingly popular foods, I think this silly song from the 1940s may make a comeback.

There are many claimed health benefits of coconuts and the oil made from them, but traditional medical advice is to avoid coconut oil because it is so high in saturated fat.

This fat is a blend of medium chain and long chain fats, and is very tolerant to high heats, meaning it won't promote free radical activity in your body. So coconut oil is great for cooking, but is it bad for cholesterol?

Medium chain fats seem to lower cholesterol while long chain fats seem to raise it, so studies on coconut oil not surprisingly are a mixed bag; some have shown that it lowers cholesterol, some that it raises it and some that it has no effect.1

The confusion may have arisen because some of the older studies on coconut oil used hydrogenated coconut oil. (Hydrogenation destroys essential fatty acids in the oil and produces harmful trans fats in their place.)

In newer studies that have used virgin coconut oil, the results have been favorable, finding extremely beneficial effects on lipids like lowering total cholesterol, triglycerides, and oxidized LDL, while increasing beneficial HDL.2 Newer studies have also shown virgin coconut oil can lower other heart disease risk factors like lipoprotein (a) levels and plasminogen activating factor, a substance in the blood that promotes clotting.3 These benefits are being observed despite coconut oil's saturated fat content.

Another claimed benefit of coconut oil is that it may aid weight loss, and indeed several studies using a purified form of the medium chain fats from coconut oil, called MCT oil, have found that it helped subjects lose fat weight specifically, while improving blood sugar and cholesterol levels.4,5

In one of these studies, not only did the MCT group lose more body fat compared to a group who used olive oil in their diet, there was a lowering of cholesterol and blood pressure, and three subjects had complete reversal of metabolic syndrome, compared to two in the olive oil group.6

Another claim that is strongly supported by numerous studies is that coconuts are good for immunity. The primary fatty acid in coconuts, lauric acid, converts to a substance called monolaurin that has antifungal properties and is so effective against the yeast Candida that it is being evaluated as an alternative to the antifungal medication, fluconazole.7
In addition, monolaurin has been shown to have potent antiviral and antibacterial properties.8 Studies have shown that it is effective against viruses like the one that causes Epstein Barr and bacteria including H. pylori,9 the cause of ulcers and heart burn. Monolaurin is now available in supplement form. At LMI we use it with great results in our patients whose immune systems need a boost.

Overall, I believe the new evidence shows that coconuts and coconut oil can be eaten safely and in fact seem to have numerous health benefits. I know I have been making an effort to include more coconut products in my diet, plus I really enjoy them.

But as for that lovely bunch of coconuts, I buy the products that are already packaged and ready to go. Coconut oil is great for cooking and even for frying, but make sure to look for virgin oil, which is processed in such a way that the oil retains the healthy components.

Shredded coconut makes a great salad topping and can be used in trail mix blends; I just avoid the sweetened ones. And coconut milk can be used as a milk substitute in almost any application from baking to using it in your coffee for a different flavor twist.

References

1. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FDN/is_/ai_94159012?tag=artBody;col1 .
2. Nevin KG and Rajamohan T. Clin Biochem. 2004 Sep;37(9):830-5.
3. Muller H, et al. J Nutr. 2003 Nov;133(11):3422-7.
4. http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/5/547 .
5. St.-Onge MP, et al. Obes Res. 2003 Mar;11(3):395-402.
6. http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/5/547 .
7. Ogbolu Do, et al. J Med Food. 2007 Jun;10(2):384-87.
8. Arch Virol. 2001;146(4):777-90.
9. Preuss HG. et al. Mol Cell Biochem. 2005 Apr;272(1-2):29-34.

[Ed. Note: Laura B. LaValle, RD, LD is presently the director of dietetics nutrition at LaValle Metabolic Institute. Laura and her husband, Jim LaValle, R.Ph, CCN, ND have developed the powerful and life-changing Metabolic Code Diet - containing step-by-step, easy to follow recommendations for harnessing optimal metabolic energy and turning your body's chemical make up into a fat-burning furnace…..]"

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com ."

“Healthy Recipes:

No Bake Chocolate Coconut Cookies

By Laura LaValle, RD, LD

These simple but delicious cookies are reminiscent of the no-bake cookies you may have eaten as a child, but without the oatmeal. They're sure to satisfy your sweet tooth while providing some of the health benefits of both cocoa and coconuts, as long as you're sure to choose a low-sugar dark chocolate and unsweetened coconut.

Time to table: 30 minutes

Serves: 16

Healing Nutrient Spotlight: Source of iron and fiber

Ingredients*
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

* Choose organic ingredients for optimal nutrition.

Preparation
Place chocolate chips in top of double boiler or in a stainless steel or glass bowl that will fit on top of a saucepan of water. Heat the water to a slow simmer then place the chocolate chips in the container on top of the hot water. As the chips begin to melt, stir them rapidly to prevent the chocolate from burning. Lift the bowl off the pot of water and stir the coconut into the melted chocolate. Drop the mixture by tablespoonfuls onto an oiled cookie sheet and place into the refrigerator to set up. Makes 32 cookies, 2 per serving.

Nutrition
108 calories, 2 g protein, 8 g carbohydrates, 9 g fat, 7 g saturated fat, 5 g sugar, 2 g fiber, .18 mg iron, 3 mg sodium.”

X* X* X* X* X* X*

Try one of these with some walnuts or some fresh strawberries.

4. How to eat traditional desserts in a more health OK way.

a) Only eat your favorite part or the health OK part.

I love the old fashioned heavily glazed sugar or chocolate donuts. I know better than to eat the donut since it has refined grain, salt, and junky oil, possibly hydrogenated vegetable oil with transfats. But if such donuts are served at an event, sometimes I get half a donut and just eat the glazed part. That way, I get the taste treat I actually like. But I do NOT get the refined grain, salt, and junky oil, possibly hydrogenated vegetable oil with transfats in a whole donut. I simply don’t eat that part. I don’t really like it anyway.

Similarly, if I go to an event where store bought pies are served, the least health OK part of the pie is the crust. Same deal, it’s likely made with refined grain, salt, and junky oil, possibly hydrogenated vegetable oil with transfats. So I just eat the cherry or blueberry or pumpkin pie filling. And, if real ice cream with only natural quality ingredients is available, I have some ice cream with the pie filling.

Lastly, I don’t do this often. Five times a year total perhaps.

b) Make or get usually home-made desserts made with only natural ingredients of good quality or with health OK substitutes. And then don’t eat such desserts often.

If I wanted a pie where I could eat the crust, I’d have it made with whole wheat flour and virgin coconut oil with a bit of butter added just after the crust was baked. I would NOT use hydrogenated vegetable oil.

And, instead of just sugar in the filling, I’d try brown sugar or honey or real maple syrup where you get the flavor AND the sugar. Plus I’d try using ¾ sweetening as much as the recipe normally suggests or half as much while using half that much erythritol or other health safe & natural zero glycemic sweetener. (I would NOT use the erythritol or other health safe & natural zero glycemic sweetener ONLY with no real sugar because I think that might cause my body to crave the missing sugar based on the research I’ve read. And I would NOT use artificial sweeteners. The FDA so far says they are safe. The research I’ve seen says they will make you fat and sick if you eat them. And the analyses I’ve read suggest the FDA is similarly wrong that artificial sweeteners are otherwise safe to consume.)

Similarly, if I was making fudge, I’d use good quality chocolate; sweeten it similarly; and use real butter or half butter and half mild flavored extra virgin olive oil to see if the recipe turned out. I would NOT use hydrogenated vegetable oil.

So eat health OK desserts and snacks; get abundant exercise; eat the less OK desserts and snacks much less often; & make those the most health OK or least health damaging as possible.

And, FOR SURE, stop eating the really bad for you desserts and snacks a lot – or at all if you can manage it.

That way you can enjoy desserts enough to add some sparkle to your life without harming your health and waist size.

Lose fat and think better too....

Today's post: Monday, 1-26-2009

In a recent article in the online Health Day news, they reported a study that found that people who had high blood sugar simply did NOT think as well as people with normal blood sugar levels. Their blood sugar was measured by their HBA1C tests, which tests their average blood sugar for the last 60 to 90 days by measuring sugar on their red blood cells that live that long.

They thought more slowly; didn’t remember as well; and were less able to multitask. Ouch !!

Besides that, the article noted that people with such higher blood sugar were 1.5 times as likely to develop some kind of senility. (We did some recent posts on that, why it’s so, & some of the recent research on it.)

But other than the drugs that lower high blood sugar, which are not very good so far with many undesirable side effects and expensive, other than lower dose Metformin in some people, how can you bring down your blood sugar if it’s high?

1. Start lowering it the minute it tests as high. (High enough to prompt action is a fasting blood sugar of 100 or more or an HBA1C reading of 5.9 or more, possibly even 5.8.) That’s because it takes very little more to begin to put you into type 2 diabetes and the related insulin resistance, which can be harder to reverse. But at lower levels of high blood sugar, it almost always is reversible.

2. Take as much action as you can to lower it and get your HBA1C retested after 3 or 4 months to see if it worked.

For best results, get an at home fasting blood sugar test device and supplies through your doctor or HMO. With that, you get instant feedback on what makes your blood sugar worse and what makes it better. Bread, soft drinks, and other high glycemic index foods plus NO exercise tend to make it worse while zero and low glycemic index foods and vigorous exercise from brisk walks to strength training to interval cardio make it better.

3. But the best news is that if you do the things that make your blood sugar go down to where it should be, you’ll also become less fat, healthier in several ways, & your sex life is likely to improve!

That’s because when your blood sugar is just right you tend to lose excess fat; & when your blood sugar is high, you definitely GAIN fat.

Since we just posted on just this set of things last Friday, to save you time if you didn’t see that post, here are some of the key things in it that can also help you lower your blood sugar if it’s high.: (I add some extra info after these 3 sections as well.)

2. One of the very best and most effective ways to lose fat, lose belly fat, and reduce all these risks is to do regular exercise that includes some progressive strength training and interval cardio every week.

Both the total amount of calories burned even in low key exercise and activities such walking and light housework and the amount of vigorous exercise you get that causes you to exert an extra effort or to stop afterwards to catch your breath make a difference. But if you can do the more vigorous exercises several times a week without overdoing it, you’ll burn the most calories and remove the most belly fat.

Both interval cardio and progressive strength training cause increased metabolism and calorie burning for up to SEVERAL HOURS after you stop doing them. Even better they tend to reverse insulin resistance and high blood sugar and prevent their return if you keep doing vigorous interval cardio and progressive strength training each week.

Even better, such exercises help to both relieve stress and to increase the amount of stress you can handle without feeling overstressed and in need of comfort food.

(These kinds of exercise done regularly every week do an extremely effective job in lowering high blood sugar and insulin resistance. Few drugs come close. One man with type 2 diabetes virtually wiped it out with just strength training alone. You may need more than that. But you WILL see positive results from this kind of regular exercise.)

3. To the extent you can manage it, eating or drinking zero or very low glycemic index foods and drinks over 95 % of the time while avoiding artificial sweeteners -- both will help you lose fat all over and will help you lose belly fat.

Health OK proteins and fats and oils essentially get a zero glycemic rating. (They work in enough other ways to remove belly fat and protect your health, we list them in our next way to lose belly fat by themselves. But they work and fit very well here also.) The more zero glycemic foods you eat, the lower your overall glycemic index of what you ingest will be.

The very low glycemic index foods include virtually all nonstarchy and/or green vegetables.

The very low glycemic index foods also include some fruit such as whole apples and cherries and blackberries. Most other whole fruit is relatively low in glycemic index; but enough higher to eat once or twice a day rather than more often.

The lowest glycemic index beans are lentils; but the other kinds of beans are low.

Barley is the only grain that has a truly low glycemic index. But eating only whole grain foods and about a third as many grain foods as most people do now or less -- & as whole grains only -- can also help.

The second way to eat a low glycemic diet is to stop eating or drinking virtually ALL high glycemic index foods. Or to eat them extremely rarely. Since the body acts as if you ate sugar if you eat things that are sweetened by non-nutritive sweeteners, they fit in this category also.

This means essentially NOT eating any refined grain foods whether it’s bread, cereal, baked goods, or snack foods. And it means virtually never drink any soft drinks. This means NOT eating or drinking anything sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and eating very few things sweetened by sugar.

(Since many people still have no clue how fattening and bad for your health these things are, that’s why we suggested taxing them in yesterday’s post.)

Bottom line, if you eat or drink them now, and stop doing it, it’s an excellent way to lose belly fat!

(Similarly, zero, low, and some moderately low glycemic foods tend to give you normal blood sugar levels while the high glycemic foods virtually always give you high blood sugar readings.)

4. Eat more health OK oils and protein foods and mostly stop eating bad ones.

a) Monosaturated oils tend to help you lose belly fat according to the Flat Belly Diet book, which is still relatively new. Monosaturated oils also increase your HDL or don’t lower it and they lower LDL. People who are working to lose weight or fat who have some of these monosaturated oils each day, oddly enough, lose more fat; and of even more importance, they are dramatically more likely to keep off the fat and weight they lose.

They are in extra virgin olive oil, avocados, and nuts. These foods are so nutritious and have so many other health benefits they’ve been called superfoods. Eat any of them you aren’t allergic to and you’ll have better health and less belly fat.

b) Omega 3 oils lower inflammation and triglycerides and help you think better, feel better, and handle stress without getting so angry or irritable you make your problems worse!

The safer and more effective omega 3 oils are in:
DHA from algae and well purified fish oils (both available as supplements);
wild caught fish, particularly salmon, mackerel (NOT king mackerel), and sardines;
walnuts;
and some green vegetables and greens, particularly one called purslane.

Conversely, AVOID getting as many omega 6 oils and saturated animal fats as you can.

c) Omega 6 oils come from grains and most oils other than olive oil. They tend to increase inflammation and may help cause cancer, particularly if heated. Unlike monosaturated oils and omega 3 oils, they do not help you lose belly fat or protect your health.

Eating some omega 6 oils is OK in whole grains. Omega 6 oils cause health problems, including obesity if you eat 20 times that much, as many people still do. Omega 6 oils are high in animals fed grains instead of their natural diets. This means most meat in stores is higher than it should be in omega 6 oils since the animals it’s from were fed almost only on grains.

So mostly avoid meat from grain fed animals; eat whole grains only moderately; eat no refined grain foods; and avoid soy, canola, safflower, and corn oils in your food.

(To recap, exercise and eat zero and low glycemic foods. You’ll be less fat; your blood sugar will be lower; & we now know, you’ll think better too!)

5 ways to lose your tummy fat....

Today's post: Friday, 1-23-2009

In today’s very sedentary world most people have more belly fat than they want to have.

They know they’d look better without it.

But it’s also bad for you if it gets really bad. Excess abdominal fat, the more technical name for it, tends to indicate a relatively high risk of:
heart disease and the other cardiovascular diseases such as erectile dysfunction and strokes and peripheral artery disease etc – including low HDL, high LDL & triglycerides, and high CRP;
sleep apnea,
high blood pressure
insulin resistance & type 2 diabetes;
many cancers;
and early death.

If you are a man and your waist is more than 40 inches or a woman with a waist of over 35, your fat tummy puts you into the high risk category for all of the above.

The much better news is that the five ways to lose tummy fat both help you lose it AND directly reduce all of the above risks!!

1. Any kind of effective stress relief helps.

Stress caused changes in your blood and biochemistry tend to cause fat to be deposited on your tummy. And, many people, especially women, tend to eat more of the things that fatten them and add fat to their tummies to relieve stress. Predictably, stressed people tend to gain belly fat.

Tai Chi, meditation, yoga, and the like all can help. So can improving your ability to stay out of stressful situations by taking more prudent risks, treating others well and with kindness, & improving your ability to proactively solve your problems as they come up. Getting better sleep as we posted about last Tuesday, 1-20 can also help. Stress relief often isn’t easy and rarely has been. But any significant improvement you can manage will help you lose belly fat.

2. One of the very best and most effective ways to lose fat, lose belly fat, and reduce all these risks is to do regular exercise that includes some progressive strength training and interval cardio every week.

Both the total amount of calories burned even in low key exercise and activities such walking and light housework and the amount of vigorous exercise you get that causes you to exert an extra effort or to stop afterwards to catch your breath make a difference. But if you can do the more vigorous exercises several times a week without overdoing it, you’ll burn the most calories and remove the most belly fat.

Both interval cardio and progressive strength training cause increased metabolism and calorie burning for up to SEVERAL HOURS after you stop doing them. Even better they tend to reverse insulin resistance and high blood sugar and prevent their return if you keep doing vigorous interval cardio and progressive strength training each week.

Even better, such exercises help to both relieve stress and to increase the amount of stress you can handle without feeling overstressed and in need of comfort food.

3. To the extent you can manage it, eating or drinking zero or very low glycemic index foods and drinks over 95 % of the time while avoiding artificial sweeteners -- both will help you lose fat all over and will help you lose belly fat.

Health OK proteins and fats and oils essentially get a zero glycemic rating. (They work in enough other ways to remove belly fat and protect your health, we list them in our next way to lose belly fat by themselves. But they work and fit very well here also.) The more zero glycemic foods you eat, the lower your overall glycemic index of what you ingest will be.

The very low glycemic index foods include virtually all nonstarchy and/or green vegetables.

The very low glycemic index foods also include some fruit such as whole apples and cherries and blackberries. Most other whole fruit is relatively low in glycemic index; but enough higher to eat once or twice a day rather than more often.

The lowest glycemic index beans are lentils; but the other kinds of beans are low.

Barley is the only grain that has a truly low glycemic index. But eating only whole grain foods and about a third as many grain foods as most people do now or less -- & as whole grains only -- can also help.

The second way to eat a low glycemic diet is to stop eating or drinking virtually ALL high glycemic index foods. Or to eat them extremely rarely. Since the body acts as if you ate sugar if you eat things that are sweetened by non-nutritive sweeteners, they fit in this category also.

This means essentially NOT eating any refined grain foods whether it’s bread, cereal, baked goods, or snack foods. And it means virtually never drink any soft drinks. This means NOT eating or drinking anything sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and eating very few things sweetened by sugar.

(Since many people still have no clue how fattening and bad for your health these things are, that’s why we suggested taxing them in yesterday’s post.)

Bottom line, if you eat or drink them now, and stop doing it, it’s an excellent way to lose belly fat!

4. Eat more health OK oils and protein foods and mostly stop eating bad ones.

a) Monosaturated oils tend to help you lose belly fat according to the Flat Belly Diet book, which is still relatively new. Monosaturated oils also increase your HDL or don’t lower it and they lower LDL. People who are working to lose weight or fat who have some of these monosaturated oils each day, oddly enough, lose more fat; and of even more importance, they are dramatically more likely to keep off the fat and weight they lose.

They are in extra virgin olive oil, avocados, and nuts. These foods are so nutritious and have so many other health benefits they’ve been called superfoods. Eat any of them you aren’t allergic to and you’ll have better health and less belly fat.

b) Omega 3 oils lower inflammation and triglycerides and help you think better, feel better, and handle stress without getting so angry or irritable you make your problems worse!

The safer and more effective omega 3 oils are in:
DHA from algae and well purified fish oils (both available as supplements);
wild caught fish, particularly salmon, mackerel (NOT king mackerel), and sardines;
walnuts;
and some green vegetables and greens, particularly one called purslane.

Conversely, AVOID getting as many omega 6 oils and saturated animal fats as you can.

c) Omega 6 oils come from grains and most oils other than olive oil. They tend to increase inflammation and may help cause cancer, particularly if heated. Unlike monosaturated oils and omega 3 oils, they do not help you lose belly fat or protect your health.

Eating some omega 6 oils is OK in whole grains. Omega 6 oils cause health problems, including obesity if you eat 20 times that much, as many people still do. Omega 6 oils are high in animals fed grains instead of their natural diets. This means most meat in stores is higher than it should be in omega 6 oils since the animals it’s from were fed almost only on grains.

So mostly avoid meat from grain fed animals; eat whole grains only moderately; eat no refined grain foods; and avoid soy, canola, safflower, and corn oils in your food.

d) Excessive amounts of saturated animal fats tend to raise your LDL cholesterol; add unnecessary calories to your diet; tend to contain any herbicides and pesticides the animal was exposed to in bioconcentrated form; and have been implicated in causing prostate cancer, hardening of the arteries, and Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of senility.

They are in full fat dairy products and meat from animals that are fed grain and penned up to purposely fatten or “finish” them.

So, for the most part, eat full fat daily products only occasionally and eat mostly nonfat and very lowfat dairy products; and make a strong effort to either eat more healthy kinds of protein than meat from grain fed animals – or only eat very lean versions of it that has had the fat trimmed or removed by draining it off the meat after it’s cooked and discarding it or both.

In addition, avoid ALL hydrogenated vegetable oils (transfats) of every kind. They are like excessive saturated fat on steroids. They are about three times more fattening and bad for your health. Such artificially saturated fats are essentially poisons and act almost like heart disease CAUSING drugs that have been purposely made to do that. (They got into the food supply because they increase shelf life and are cheap to make.)

Also eat a lot of foods high in soluble fiber such as apples, beans, and some oatmeal. And, consider taking sterol supplements or niacin if your LDL still tests as high.

5. The fifth way to lose belly fat ONLY works if you are doing a decent to excellent job on the first four methods plus being careful to not overeat.

But, if you DO those things, it has been shown to just about double the amount of total fat and belly fat you lose.

Our upcoming eBook on permanent fat loss has more on all these ways to lose belly fat including this fifth one.

We’ll announce this eBook here when it becomes available to you.

How other people's good health habits protect your health....

Today's post: Thursday, 1-22-2009

1. If your car is hit by a drunk driver who is a habitual heavy drinker, you may be injured even if you were driving safely and wearing your set belt.

2. If you are exposed to a lot of other people’s cigarette smoke, you get some of the same health harm and risks the smokers do.

3. If you have more money, you can more easily afford supplements and good for you food such as getting organic produce when the kind that has been exposed to pesticides costs less or buying some beef fed only grass or wild caught salmon when hamburger and hot dogs from grain fed animals is cheaper; you can more easily afford to go to a gym – and by getting better doctors sometimes.

Right now though, you now have less money, chances are, than you would if other people had good health habits because more than half your current real and out of pocket cost for health insurance and some of your direct health care costs are because our health care system is treating people with:

type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, heart failure, strokes, heart attacks, lung cancer, other cancers, and Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of senility -- all of which people with good health habits would NOT have gotten!

4. There is an even bigger risk for most people. If your friends and family and even their friends and acquaintances have bad health habits, you are less likely to follow good health habits and may even be less able to follow good health habits yourself. This is a well proven fact.

So, if there is a way that other people can be induced to practice better health habits, you may very well be in better health yourself!

How can we do that?

There are some ways other people are more likely to follow good health habits.

One is to pass laws increasing the number of communities and places in each community where smoking is not allowed. That’s worked and been shown recently to cut heart attacks within 3 years of when such laws are passed.

In addition, the good news is that the incoming Obama administration is likely to help make some of these things happen.

His first pick for Surgeon General, Dr Sanjay Gupta, has worked part time as a medical health expert on TV and has often suggested and advocated that people follow good health habits to protect their health.

Tom Daschle, Obama’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, will also serve as the director of a newly-formed White House Office of Health Reform. And, he has been quoted as saying he sees one critical part of these jobs to be to increase the number of Americans who practice good health habits.

One way is to literally sell the idea that practicing good health habits is not only the right thing to do but is also a sign that you are up to date and in the know --and in Tom Daschle’s words is “cool.”

That one is about to happen already.

But there is a more practical and particularly timely way to increase the number of Americans who follow good health habits.

Governments all over the country are short of money but are reluctant to increase taxes during a bad recession, which might very well make things worse, or to cut needed services and face severe criticism and backlash from people who are harmed or unhappy.

There IS a solution to BOTH these problems.

Tax bad health habits; and tax the worst health habits a LOT.

High taxes on things reduces their consumption. But with bad health habits, you get a double effect. The people most likely to practice bad health habits are mostly poor and uneducated. So the people who now have the worst health habits in part because they literally don’t know not to, reduce their consumption even more when such things are heavily taxed.

We already have cigarette taxes; and we already have taxes on alcoholic beverages.

But we do not yet tax soft drinks, commercial baked goods and desserts, packaged snack foods, or any and all foods that are sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup – or with non-nutritive sweeteners which seem to be about as bad for you.

Suppose we had an additional national tax of $1.00 a pack on cigarettes and an equivalent tax on other forms of tobacco. Suppose we had an added national tax of about a quarter per drink on all alcoholic drinks.

Fewer young people would start smoking. People who smoke would smoke a bit less. And more people would quit smoking.

It’s already been shown that a small increase in taxes on alcoholic drinks reduces the amount of drinking by heavy drinkers. Yet for people who drink moderately or lightly an added quarter a drink is not much.

Would this hurt the overall economy? Nope. Many people would spend the same or less on smoking and alcoholic drinks but do it less even if they spend the same. The people who quit smoking or drink less heavily would actually have MORE money to spend on things that will actually boost the economy, Governments would have more money without hurting the economy or cutting needed services.

But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Suppose ALL soft drinks, both regular and diet, had a new national tax of a dime an ounce. Suppose ALL commercial baked goods and desserts, packaged snack foods, or foods that are sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup had a new national tax of a quarter a serving.

Those taxes would raise a LOT of money for awhile when our economy needs it most. Later fewer people would consume those things and food companies would switch to producing better for you foods that aren’t taxed. But initially when our governments most need the money and many people eat or drink far too many of these things, it would really help.

Then let’s suppose most states also began to add their own new taxes on these things.

Fewer people would be fat, fat people would be less fat, and fewer people would get the diseases and incur the medical costs consuming these things causes.

Lastly, even if you know better than to consume these things or consume relatively little of them now, you will be in better health and find it easier to practice good health habits.

So, please suggest to your local and national representatives that they pass such laws that put into place such taxes or increase the ones we have.

Better sleep equals better health....

Today's post: Tuesday, 1-20-2009

Recently it was in the online health news that three times as many young people now take sleep drugs as they did just a few years ago. This is understandable given the TV ads for the drugs over that time period; but is extremely bad news for the young people who do it.

It’s also been in the online health news that getting enough sleep helps you avoid catching colds and that it may even help you lose fat and avoid type II diabetes.

The ideal amount of sleep seems to be about 7 hours a night while less than 6 or more than 8 tend to cause or indicate health problems.

While there are people who sleep more than 8 hours, most of us tend to sleep less than 7.

Surprisingly, people who get 6 to 7 hours of sleep a night tend to be healthier than people who sleep more than 8. So that’s partly OK. If you work at something that pays well, you tend to work more hours. And people with more money tend to have better health. Or, if you get up fifteen minutes earlier to help ensure you get regular exercise, that’s good for you enough to be worth it. Similarly if socializing keeps you up a bit, socializing is good enough for your health usually to be worth it. Lastly, if you haven’t enough energy to function on less than 9 hours of sleep, you may have undiagnosed health problems or are impacted by NOT getting any exercise or your life has too few interesting parts or challenges.

But if you rarely get more than 6 hours of sleep and often get less, you’ll likely be healthier if you get a bit more sleep.

Some people have that happen because they watch late night TV. If that’s you, today there is a solution thanks to technology. You can get videos of SOME of the late night shows you like and watch them on a weekend afternoon. THAT will help you lose weight in three ways. Your body will process food better if you aren’t too short on sleep. You’ll see less ads for fattening junk foods. And, the fewer total hours you watch TV, the less fat you are according to actual studies in part because watching TV also burns so few calories, you may be burning more while you are asleep!!

Or you can log on an hour earlier to Yahoo & look at the online news there and or check your local weather at weather.com and get more information in 15 minutes than watching an hour of TV news & weather. Even better, you can skip the details of stuff that doesn’t interest you and find out MORE about that news that DOES interest you.

There ARE other things you can do are to go to sleep quickly when you get in bed and sleep well once you get there besides taking the sleep drugs.

If you have trouble going to sleep quickly or getting good sleep once there, taking sleep meds is less effective than these alternatives for most people. It costs more. And it’s also quite dangerous: from eating while asleep which will make you gain more fat for sure to walking outside while asleep & only in your underwear on a below zero night and freezing to death – which just was in the news as happening, these are NOT the safest drugs at the pharmacy!

Here are some better ways to fall asleep quickly & to sleep well.

Number one is to get regular exercise on most days of the week. Studies show people who exercise regularly get much better sleep and tend to fall asleep more quickly than people who don’t.

Other things that can help include:

NOT having a TV in your bedroom, a practice which can also much improve your sex life studies found. TV’s do NOT belong in bedrooms!

Stopping your coffee consumption at 3 a day most days. (If you drink more than 3, you need more the next day to compensate for the sleep the cups over 3 cost you the night before. So it’s a waste of money and good coffee usually to drink more than 3 cups a day. ) Once you have 3 cups of coffee, try tea or unsweetened cocoa in a hot chocolate drink. That has some caffeine but less than coffee if you need more than 3 cups of coffee.


Usually stop your coffee consumption by 3PM if you have any trouble falling asleep.

Writing down the things you are worried about and what you will do about it when you aren’t trying to go to sleep and tired will make solving your problems or dealing with them more likely. And, reminding yourself of when you’ll do that and refusing any more mental time on them when you are in bed will help give you more energy to solve your problems when you get up.

Taking a small amount of melatonin from a tenth of a gram to perhaps half a gram at bedtime helps some people go to sleep. More tends to make them groggy when it’s time to get up.

If you are under enough stress but can afford to do it, taking valerian at bedtime can help. It smells so bad, you almost have to have its container in a larger one with an airtight lid to stand to have it around. But it has been used effectively to reduce stress enough to let people sleep even in war zones and in similar situations. It does NOT cause sleepwalking; and valerian is cheaper than the sleep drugs besides being safer to take.

(Note that doing Tai Chi daily both gets you a surprising amount of exercise and relieves stress well enough that it reverses stress caused high blood pressure. So for some people, it can be a great sleep aid.)

You may not have complete control over the temperature of your bedroom or how noisy it is. But if you do, make it slightly cool so you can use a blanket and make it quiet. (In many homes with peaked roofs in the summer, you can make a dramatic difference in how cool your bedroom is at night and save a LOT of money on airconditioning if you install enough intake vents and convection powered turbines in your roof -- which avoids having trapped solar heated air roast you all night, for example.)

If your bedroom isn’t really dark because of light coming in the windows, add blackout curtains to put up at night. You’ll not only sleep better due to your own body producing more melatonin, this has been found to help prevent breast cancer in women and may help prevent prostate cancer in men!

At least on weekdays, try to get up at the exact same time each morning or very close to it and go to bed pretty close to the same time each night. This is a huge help in falling asleep quickly and reliably and getting good quality sleep.

This list is not complete as there are other things that likely work. But if you do all the things on this list that fit your situation you’ll likely sleep well and fall asleep quickly.

Two ways to stay mentally sharp....

Today's post: Monday, 1-19-2009

1. One way is getting regular exercise, ideally by doing some strength training, some interval cardio, and some lower key activities such as Tai Chi, gardening, walking – or even doing housework – every week.

We’ve already posted that exercise helps you to stay mentally sharp in several ways.

Regular exercise helps you to keep your blood sugar from getting too high; it directly and indirectly ensures your brain has good blood circulation; it helps you lower or overcome the effects of stress; it literally grows new brain cells; and it helps normalize your neurotransmitters enough to help keep you un-depressed and proactive.

All of this combined ensures that you retain something researchers now call “brain plasticity.”

Essentially that means that not only do you learn and think better, your brain also can be dramatically “trained” or “re-trained” even when your brain needs to rewire itself or use different parts of itself to do so.

2. Researchers are now beginning to find that certain kinds of brain exercise also can use this brain plasticity to cause you to upgrade or acquire new skills – or to regain skills grown rusty from disuse.

Even better, these brain exercises either can cause permanent improvement or long term improvement. It’s more like learning a language or relearning it than regular physical exercise. It may take a lot of work to get results. But once you do the work successfully, you apparently keep the skill as long as you continue to make some use of it.

Posit Science, see www.positscience.com , was founded by one of the most important and innovative researchers in this new field.

They seem now to have two programs.

One uses a video game to ensure you process information well, accurately, and quickly visually -- whether it’s straight ahead or off to either side or up or down. This can make you a safer driver as a younger person. And, it can enable you to continue to drive as an older person where you otherwise might not have been able to do so.

Their second program apparently has been used to restore brains of older and elderly people to mental ability levels now usually seen in people in their 30’s, 40’s, or early 50’s. That literally means you can make your brain younger in its abilities, sometimes more than 20 years younger.

Since a similar kind of exercise, learning a second or new language, sharply reduces your risk of Alzheimer’s disease, there is even reason to believe getting this training is an additional way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

But there’s more.

People who lose arms or legs or hands can still feel as if the part of them they lost is still there. (It’s called the phantom limb phenomenon.) Worse, sometimes they can have really bad and continuous pain in their phantom limb.

People also get strokes that leave them unable to speak or paralyzed on one side.

Researchers have now found that because of this brain plasticity, there are exercises people can do that will turn off the feeling from a phantom limb, including the pain in it if they have any.

And, in many cases, people who have been paralyzed or unable to talk after a stroke have been able to come close to completely overcoming paralysis or to regain speech.

There is even some chance this science will be able to turn off some addictions.

We’ll post again on brain plasticity soon.

But until then, be sure to follow our guidelines we’ve posted over the last week on how to keep your brain sharp; and be sure to do regular exercise if you don’t do anything else. Also note that doing those things will help ensure you will do well with the brain exercises if you do them.

Or, you can learn something totally new to you. Examples would be learn Tai Chi, learn to play a musical instrument, or learn a new language.

Cheap way to improve your heart health....

Today's post: Friday, 1-16-2009

A large study in the January issue of the American Heart Journal of over 125,000 people admitted with heart attacks found that 72.1 percent of these heart attack patients had LDL readings of 130 & less; and half of the patients with a history of heart disease had LDL levels lower than 100.

And, 54.6 percent of the heart attack patients had HDL readings BELOW 40.

Lastly, only 2, TWO, percent had both LDL of 100 or less and HDL of 40 or more.

So, having your HDL higher than 40 is more protective than having your LDL reading at 100 or less.

And, what is by far MOST protective is
to have BOTH HDL of over 40 and LDL of 100 or so—or less.

We’ve posted often on how eating right and taking sterol supplements is an effective way to lower LDL cholesterol and less expensive and dramatically safer than taking statin drugs. Regular, “Old Fashioned” oatmeal and beans are quite inexpensive; and Natrol’s “Cholesterol Balance” supplement with beta sitosterol is only about $6 a bottle.

However, we now know that the most critical and predictive measure is the ratio of HDL and triglycerides. If your HDL is high and your triglycerides are low, that means that you have very little of the small particle LDL that tends to cause heart disease. Unfortunately if the reverse is true and your HDL is under 40, quite low; and your triglycerides are over 150, let alone far over 150, your heart disease and heart attack risk is high or extremely high.

So, to protect your heart, it would be nice if there were ways to get this double protection.

There ARE three such ways.

1. Get abundant regular exercise each week including some strength training and some interval cardio -- and additional walking if you possibly can. This has been shown to BOTH increase HDL and lower LDL.

2. Eat NO transfats or any kind of hydrogenated oils; ingest no high fructose corn syrup; completely avoid refined grain foods at least 98 % of the time; and go really easy on sugar and eat it rarely – NOT tons of it several times a day. Eat vegetables, other than potatoes; and eat whole fresh fruit in moderation; and no or relatively little whole grain foods for the few carbs you eat. Not eating transfats improves BOTH your HDL and triglycerides; while NOT eating junky, high glycemic carbs lowers triglycerides.

3. This one is the method promised by the title of this post.: Unless you have known liver damage or drink excessively, take a 300 mg tablet of niacin after breakfast each day and another after lunch.

(If your breakfast or lunch is a bit small or you drank a bit more than usual the night before, you may experience a slight flush for about half an hour. But this is harmless and goes away. And, if you drink moderately and eat a reasonable sized meal first and only take ONE 300 mg tablet of niacin, you’ll rarely get it.)
It’s been known for several years that taking niacin is the only thing that not only reduces heart attack risk and also significantly lowers your risk of dying of any cause.

Here’s why that works. I’ve known that taking niacin is one of the few things you can take that will actually increase your HDL; and it’s one of the very few things that you can take that BOTH increases HDL AND lowers LDL. Yesterday I discovered the third reason, taking niacin also lower your triglyceride level.

In fact, it begins to look as if taking niacin may directly lower your level of the small particle LDL that tends to cause heart disease.

And, it is cheap -- at Whole Foods, their brand of real niacin only costs about $6 for 100, or a fifty day supply or 12 cents a day, which works out to less than $4 a month.

(They also sell something that is labeled as “No Flush” niacin. It isn’t. It’s actually inositol hexaniacinate plus 50 mg of chromium. Since it may have similar effects to taking niacin and does indeed tend to not cause flushing even on an empty stomach I personally take two of those a day in addition to my two real niacin doses.

But it costs more; and if you only want take the one that for sure does the job—or just one of the two, stick with the two tablets of real niacin. Their “No Flush” niacin is more like $9 a bottle.

Taking both plus exercising and eating right helps give me HDL well over 60 and triglycerides of well under 100—over 90 and under 50 when I last got them tested.)

3 more ways to prevent Alzheimer's disease....

Today's post: Thursday, 1-15-2009

On Monday, we posted about 8 ways to prevent Alzheimer's disease in a post we titled, “3 new ways to prevent Alzheimer’s disease” which we also included.

This post revisits one of the 8 in that post which many people don’t know yet and tells of the book where it is best covered.

And, it has two more ways that are relatively easy to do & one of which you may already do & one of which some of you already do.

1. All of us have been stressed enough to be flustered, distracted, and occasionally forget to do things or where we put things when we are temporarily stressed. Then a doctor saw research that explained how and why being too stressed all the time tended to make this kind of impairment more permanent by damaging the part of your brain that manages your memories.

The book is Brain Longevity by Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D.

In addition to the information about stress and his meditations to relieve it, he also lists a large group of supplements he found research showing they are protective for your brain.

2. Since he published that book, he has begun selling many of those supplements and has a related email to which I subscribe. Yesterday, he sent such an email quoting two research reports: one showing that people who took DHA & ate fish 3 times a week were 50% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease & another showing that people with Alzheimer’s disease test low for having DHA and other omega 3 oils at adequate levels in their blood.

He was knowledgeable and careful enough to say that starting to take DHA and eating the right kind of fish 3 times a week has not yet been tested ahead of time as preventing Alzheimer’s disease. But it’s clear that he believes as I do that when it’s so tested it will get similar results.

For one thing, taking DHA and eating the right kind of fish 3 times a week has been shown to lower triglycerides and HS CRP inflammation which HAVE been shown to help prevent cardiovascular disease and the reduced blood flow to the brain it causes. Since that IS known to produce both age related mental decline AND Alzheimer’s disease, it seems extremely likely that starting to take DHA and eating the right kind of fish 3 times a week WILL help you prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

3. Yesterday and today it was in the online health news that a study found that drinking 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day tends to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. The author of this study noted that studies have also shown that coffee helps protects the nervous system likely because of the antioxidants it contains, which can also protect against dementia. She also noted that other studies found that coffee helps protect against diabetes, which we posted about causing Alzheimer’s disease in two ways on Monday.

There are 3 other ways this effect might occur that also may prove to be involved.

a. People who are more interested in life are more likely to use coffee to allow them to do more of the things they find of interest or want to do. Such people are also more likely to socialize or learn interesting things both of which tend to protect against Alzheimer’s and other illnesses.

b. Coffee works by removing a substance that tends to make you sleepy. Perhaps doing this in some way also helps remove the compounds that cause Alzheimer’s disease.

c) People who drink coffee tend to be more alert and have faster reaction times. This may mean that their nerve to nerve transmissions are stronger and that these connections or thought tracks are therefore stronger and harder to disrupt by the build up of the compounds that cause Alzheimer’s disease. This may be similar to increasing the voltage in an electrical system doing better at overcoming resistance.

Since drinking 3 cups of coffee apparently works, costs less, and is less likely to cause sleeplessness or a feeling of anxiety, my suggestion is to stop at 3 most days and drink tea or green tea if you need more lift instead of coffee.

(Dr Dean Edell once pointed out that there is research showing that if you drink more than 3 cups of coffee, the additional cups you drink cause you to lose sleep at night which causes you to need more the next day. This suggests to me that you get the best results with the least cost and fewest side effects drinking just 3 cups of coffee a day.)

Save money on food & get healthier!

Today's post: Tuesday, 1-13-2009

Last Friday, 1-9-2009, Reuters online health news had this story.:

“Will Americans put on “recession pounds"?”

It seems that some health promotion experts think that now some people are short on money or trying extra hard to economize that people will cut back on: “fresh fish, fruit, vegetables and whole grains, in favor of cheaper options high in sugar and saturated fats.“

If these experts are correct, or for those people who do as these experts fear, this is dreadful news indeed as eating less of these foods and eating more sugar, refined grains, and junk oils will not only make the people who do this fatter, it will make them much more likely to get expensive to treat diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, type 2 diabetes, kidney failure, high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes.

So, this would be dreadful news indeed!

But what this story missed is a surprising amount of Americans can SAVE MORE money on food while losing fat weight and improving their health by doing the REVERSE of this dreadful idea!

There are three ways this is possible.

1. Stop buying ALL junk food and drinks.

Loosely speaking as little as half the edible or drinkable items in the average shopping cart today are real food by both item count and dollar cost.

If NONE of those edible or drinkable items that are not food or are extremely poor, bad for you foods and drinks, were not there at all, adding enough real foods to make up for that loss would only add back a tenth or a fifth of the money saved.

In fact, just yesterday, I read an ad for a local medical hypnotist who helps local people learn to eat right and actually do it. The woman in the ad who had lost something like 50 pounds relatively painlessly following his advice, simply stopped buying edible or drinkable items that are not food or are extremely poor, bad for you foods and drinks at the grocery store. And, since she has several kids at home, she reports saving “hundreds of dollars a month”!!

What to leave out to do likewise. (And, this list is incomplete.)

ALL soft drinks -- both regular and diet. All refined grain cereals. All commercial baked goods. All refined grain breads. All packaged snack foods. All jams, jellies, and syrups. All oils except extra virgin olive oil. All shortening. All margarine. All ice cream with any ingredients other than sugar, cream, and real flavorings or fruit. All candy & related items except dark chocolate with no transfats added.

If you are one of the families who have been spending in the neighborhood of $150 a week on this stuff, if you simply stop doing it, you can then much more easily afford some frozen or fresh vegetables, some fresh fruit, and some nonfat & lowfat dairy foods, whole grain foods, and even some wild caught fresh fish. You can even afford shelled pecans, walnuts, and almonds if you buy them in bulk or at Whole Foods Market stores. These, plus fresh fruit or veggies you actually like make great snacks. And, to go with veggies, guacamole also works & in reasonable moderation is actually good for you. (Extra virgin olive oil costs a bit more than the junk oils; but is much better for you. And, you’ll save enough to afford it and still be way ahead on your total bill.)

2. Buy healthier AND cheaper protein foods, particularly beans and lentils.

Most Americans have more meat than is good for them; & most of the meat they buy is fatty, grain fed, and is high in saturated fat and omega 6 oils.

Eggs, nonfat and lowfat dairy foods, old fashioned oatmeal, beans, and lentils, are dramatically cheaper sources of protein. And, they cost enough less even than the cheap, poor quality grain fed meats that you can then buy some beef fed only grass and wild caught fresh salmon occasionally and still be money ahead.

In addition, beans, lentils, and oatmeal are high in soluble fiber. So by substituting those for bacon and hamburger, you get read of saturated fat coming into your body and get rid of what’s already there. So, you may also be able to save money by no longer needing to take statin drugs to do that for you.

3. Buy canned, wild caught fish, less expensive protein food that’s actually good for you.

Canned fish is often as good for you as fresh fish. And, it is both dramatically cheaper and much more convenient to fix.

I’m too allergic to non-fresh fish to eat canned Sardines. And, they are a bit too stinky for my taste. But a serving of them has as much high quality protein as ham or steak. It costs a fifth as much, literally. And, instead of being high in saturated fat and omega 6 oils, sardines are high in the omega 3 oils that help you think well, avoid depression, and protect your heart.

It’s only safe to eat canned tuna about once a week since it does have some mercury in it. But many people like the taste. And, is has all the benefits of sardines except for the mercury and having a bit less omega 3 oils.

Canned Alaskan salmon is wild-caught. It does cost more than sardines; but per ounce is comparable or cheaper than tuna though sold in larger cans. It definitely costs less than fresh wild caught salmon. And, since it is precooked and not fresh it’s easy to serve, stores OK, and tastes a LOT better than sardines.

In summary, you can eat in a way that improves your health and costs LESS money!

3 new ways to prevent Alzheimer’s disease

Today's post: Monday, 1-12-2009

We’ve already posted that the following tend to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.:

Learn more than one language.

Always keep learning more interesting and useful things.

Do some kind of mental game or puzzle you like several times a week.

Socialize with people often.

Eat curried foods or add curry to foods you like &/or take curcumin or turmeric supplements.

Avoid excessive stress &/or learn some kind of physical stress relief that you use often each week.

Make sure your blood sugar stays at desirable levels.

Get both strength training and interval cardio or at least some brisk walking several days each week which we now know prevents Alzheimer’s disease 3 ways because it maintains brain circulation, grows new brain cells, and we now know it may also directly prevent the build up of the compounds that cause Alzheimer’s disease.

The 3 new ways to prevent Alzheimer’s disease are related to these effects of exercise.

1. Do NOT smoke or allow yourself to be exposed to second hand smoke.

It was in the news that smoking (& heavy exposure to second hand smoke is pretty much equal to involuntary smoking) nearly DOUBLES your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

(This is clearly related to the harm breathing tobacco smoke does to your circulation. But there may be more to it than that as well.)

2. Keep your HDL cholesterol high (well above 50 if you can); your triglycerides normal or low (below 100); & your LDL cholesterol under 125.

And, of these, keeping your LDL cholesterol under 125 may be extra important.

Doing all three definitely helps keep your circulation what it should be which we know is protective for your brain in several ways.

3. Keep your inflammation as measured by HSCRP low.

(HS CRP stands for High Sensitivity C Reactive Protein.)

We have reason to believe that 2. & 3. are true since it was in the news recently that taking statin drugs may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Statin drugs usually help lower LDL and HS CRP. And, optimizing each of these 4 measures, HDL, triglycerides, & LDL clearly helps you to keep your circulation what it should be which we know is protective for your brain in several ways.

As readers of our blog know, we have seen evidence that is both MORE effective and far safer to get these measures where they should be WITHOUT taking statin drugs.

Statin drugs can turn off your memory and cause pain, tendon damage, muscle damage, and other kinds of heart damage. Worse, if these side effects occur, they are sometimes permanent even if you stop taking the statins.

Meanwhile, if you do all of these, regular exercise; taking niacin and sterol supplements, taking other supplements such as grape seed extract, choline, and chromium polynicotinate it will lower LDL & triglycerides & HS CRP and increase HDL for you.

You can also avoid or lower high LDL by avoiding or rarely eating fatty meats from grain fed animals -- and eating beans and lentils, nuts, beef fed only grass, wild caught fish and seafood, and nonfat and very lowfat dairy – plus eating foods high in soluble fiber such as nonstarchy vegetables, apples, beans and lentils, and regular oatmeal instead of the instant kind.

In addition, taking omega 3 supplements both lowers your triglyceride level AND your HS CRP.

And, taking omega 3 supplements and eating wild caught fish; eating onions often; eating garlic or taking deodorized garlic, NOT eating refined grain food; & going very easy on sugar AND getting regular exercise tend to lower your triglyceride level.

Lastly, taking good care of your teeth and gums by brushing right and flossing each day and seeing your dentist every 6 months; taking such antioxidants as natural vitamin E; getting regular exercise; and taking omega 3 supplements and eating wild caught fish tend to lower your HS CRP.

This set of things will prevent Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease BETTER than taking statin drugs. And they will also help prevent type 2 diabetes and keep you healthy in ways that taking statins do NOT do.

In short, it’s good to know that the good effects of taking statin drugs help prevent Alzheimer’s disease in part because a health protecting lifestyle with these components will do that better and more safely than taking statin drugs.

Exercise news.... (Shoulder-pain free Bench Presses.)

Today's post: Friday, 1-9-2009

One of the best of all kinds of exercise for health, as we’ve posted before, is strength training.

Strength training is also one of the best exercises to improve your sex life whether you are a man or a woman. We’ve also posted on that before.

And, one of the best and most satisfying and best strength training and fat loss exercises due to the large muscles it exercises grows and burns calories with is the Bench Press.

If you can do Bench Presses safely and without injury, it’s a truly great exercise.

UN-fortunately, as you get older it can be extremely hard to use enough weight in the Bench Press for good and satisfying results and without injury and pain -- because many of us as we get older develop shoulder problems and injuries if we use any but the tiniest weights while doing the Bench Press.

Today’s Total Health Breakthroughs feature article
--- by fitness and exercise expert Jon Benson, has a solution!

Since I get pain in my right shoulder if I use a decent amount of weight in the Bench Press myself, I was delighted to read his solution.

And, as I often do, after I post his article for you, I’ll add my comments including some of my previous solutions that might work for you and some ideas on using his solution.

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

"Friday, January 09, 2009

Three Tips for a Sexier Chest

By Jon Benson

What guy doesn't want a better chest? Greater tone, a bit more size, perhaps more fullness... it is every man's dream.

And ladies, you too can really benefit from stronger chest muscles. Training the upper chest can have a slight breast augmentation effect... and at a cost that no surgeon can touch.

The chest is one of the attributes of a “man's man”, at least according to a survey published in Men's Health on what women find sexy about men. And women can also increase their attractiveness to men simply by looking more fit.

But that's not all. A survey conducted in preparation for National Orgasm Day (who knew?) revealed that eight out of ten women increased their orgasm frequency and intensity through just three days a week of strength training.

Maybe that infamous line from Arnold Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron isn't such a put-on after all. While "the pump" you get from weight training may not be "as good as [having an orgasm]”, as Arnold proclaimed, the benefits can definitely help both men and women enjoy their lives to a fuller extent in every area. That includes the bedroom. And, as fate would have it, weight training for most people centers around the chest.

But there is a challenge for beginners. Most weight trainees do not know how to work their chest for maximum progress. Since I am all about getting the best results in the least amount of time, I'd like to share three quick tips that anyone can apply to achieve a better chest with less time in the gym.

1. Think "Contraction" and "Explosion"

A major problem with chest training is that most people cannot feel the muscles as well as they should. A lot of guys just "bench" and call it a day. Bad idea. Most men are not structurally suited for bench presses. The ones that are, gain size and fullness easily from bench pressing. The rest of us, myself included, need to be a bit more clever in our approach.

My suggestion is to either opt for dumbbells with your palms facing in toward your head or use a Smith Machine for all chest work. Palms-in dumbbell presses are not commonly seen, but you should try it if you want to protect your shoulders.

The rotator cuff is always susceptible to injury during pressing movements. However, turning your palms in (obviously not possible with barbell movements) takes most of the strain off the rotator cuff region. This tip was given to me by an orthopedic surgeon many years ago, and I credit it to saving my once-ailing left shoulder.

Now that your shoulders are better protected, you should lower the weight slowly (about 3-4 seconds down) and then explode up. Force a hard contraction at the top of the movement. Squeeze the chest muscles, then lower the weight slowly again. You will find you will not be able to press as much, but who cares? Are you after a better chest or a bigger ego?

2. The 4/8 Bulgarian Method

For intermediate and advanced trainees, try alternating sets of four reps with sets of eight reps. Warm up by gradually increasing the weight. Then do four hard reps in the same style as described above.

Do not go past failure. Lower the weight by 30%, rest only 45 seconds, and try for eight reps. Rest for 1-2 minutes, then repeat. Only two cycles of these Bulgarian-style supersets are needed.

3. Decline Cable Crossovers

The "Iron Guru" Vince Gironda claimed this was the best movement for the lower pectoral line. I tend to agree. Take a decline bench and situate it between two opposing cable machines. Most gyms have cable machines set up for just this kind of movement. Put the bench at a slight decline... nothing too steep.

Then, using relatively light weight, perform a crossover movement. Your elbows are slightly bent as you pull the cables to the lower part of your chest, slightly crossing them at that point. Lower slowly, and be sure to think "contraction" the entire way through.

Apply these three tips and your chest will become a thing of beauty.

[Ed. Note: Jon Benson is a lifecoach and nutrition counselor who specializes in helping individuals discover a life-altering mind/body connection. His work in the field of fitness and mental empowerment has helped thousands rediscover their youthful body and positive outlook...."

X* X* X* X* X*

(I put his key solution and reasons for it in bold. That was NOT in the article originally; but I wanted to highlight it for you.)

1. See www.fitover40.com and www.7minutemuscle.com for more of Jon’s work.

These two sites of his have many other ideas for exercise programs you can do quickly and customize to your situation. Fit over 40 has dozens of successful exercise programs you can adapt as fits you best; and 7MinuteMuscle is Jon’s newer work to help you get good results when you have very little time..

Here are my other comments.:

2. The Bench Press using dumbbells in the position he recommends and a system that gets good results using lighter dumbbells sounds marvelously effective and far safer and less painful for your shoulders.

And, I plan to try it soon myself.

But, you do need a gym or a Bench Press bench and a larger set of dumbbells to use it.

And, there are some tricks to doing it safely.

Once you get strong in your dumbbell Bench Press you can get enough weight between the 2 dumbbells together that you can hurt your back carrying them from the rack to the bench or from the bench to the dumbbell rack. (I did that once when I was doing incline dumbbell bench presses.)

Or, once you get even stronger, you can begin to have trouble sitting down with them and getting in position without hurting your abdomen or in setting them down after your set without injuring your shoulders from that.

One solution is to carry the dumbbells back and forth one at a time.

Another is to use a method such as Jon describes that builds and exercises your muscle with a bit lighter dumbbells.

A third is to just use ONE dumbbell & do a set using your left hand and then do one using your right hand. That way you sit back and then sit up with half the weight; and you only carry half the weight; plus you have both hands to use to lift off the dumbbell when you are done.

A fourth is to get a gym or exercise buddy or a personal trainer to help you carry a dumbbell while you carry one and to “spot” you to help you get into and out of position and offload the dumbbells safely.

Lastly, here are my previous solutions to the problem Jon’s special hand position dumbbell Bench Press solves.

1. In my at home exercises each Saturday, Monday, & Wednesday I simply do fast pushups until I cannot do another. I started at 25 and am currently up to the 52 to 57 range and once got to 64. I get shoulder strains a bit at times but NOTHING as bad as even low weight Bench Presses gives me. Very much as the Bench Press using dumbbells in the position he recommends do, push ups work the Bench Press muscles without straining your shoulders as much as regular barbell Bench Presses do.

2. When I go to the gym I do 2 hand triceps press downs on the pulley machine using a system for getting a strong workout with a lighter weight similar to the one Jon uses for dumbbell Bench Presses.

This works my triceps nearly as well as the Bench Press and works my pectoral muscles in my chest about half as well as pushups or the Bench Press does because the pectorals help hold your shoulders down as well as helping to push them forward.

3. What I plan next is to do the pushups at home; &, at the gym, try the Bench Press using dumbbells in the position Jon recommends – then after some unrelated exercises do the triceps press downs.

So, whether you do the other exercises in Jon’s article or pushups or the Bench Press using dumbbells in the position Jon recommends or the triceps press downs or some combination, it’s now possible to get your Bench Press muscles a great work out and mostly avoid shoulder pain and injuries.

I thank Jon for this article and look forward to trying his Bench Press using dumbbells in the position Jon recommends soon.