Pesticides you can’t wash off….

Today's Post: Friday, 7-31-2009

I’m a lot happier when I can give you good news and new ways to protect your health that work than I am posting bad news and warnings to stay away from things that will harm your health.

But in the last few days, I’ve seen two things that I think fully justify a warning post!

We’ve already posted that there is evidence that GMO foods can trigger allergies if nothing else and are better avoided. Not getting allergies can not only save money treating them, in some cases it can be lifesaving. So, only buying and eating organic foods that are NOT GMO foods is an important public health benefit. They should be banned or extremely highly regulated and fully disclosed if used for that reason alone.

And, we’ve posted that organic vegetables and fruit have been found to have more of the micronutrients that prevent cancer and have other health benefits of such value, it’s worth a small extra cost to buy them when you possibly can instead of buying those “conventionally” grown with pesticides and herbicides.

Since I learned this, I have always paid a bit extra to buy organic broccoli to use for the raw broccoli florets in my lunch I eat to help prevent prostate cancer and the dangerous form of it. Needless to say, if everyone did that, there would be less prostate cancer and likely less breast cancer and other cancers as well. That strikes me as an important public health benefit!

Lastly, we’ve posted that avoiding pesticides and herbicides in your food and those used around your house every time you possibly can is an important way to prevent cancer. (A recent online health article implicated them as a cause for childhood leukemia; and they also may help cause Parkinson’s disease.) Preventing many cancers and cases of Parkinson’s disease strikes me as an important public health benefit.

Now it seems that GMO foods not only contain pesticides IN them where they cannot be removed or washed off, they are even more dangerous than that. They also allow much more herbicides to be used.

So, it’s not only worth it to pay more for organic produce, it will protect your health to pay more for foods that are NOT GMO foods AND to demand that ALL GMO foods be so labeled.

One of the news stories I got this week was a special from Total Health Breakthroughs that came on Wednesday.

Here it is.:

"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 ."

"The Nightmare of GM Foods July 29, 2009

By Melanie Segala
Managing Editor, Total Health Breakthroughs


"You have to know where your food is coming from." These words of warning were spoken by biologist and plant expert, Arpad Puszati at a gathering of concerned citizens in St. Catherine’s, Ontario earlier this year.1

As far back as 1998, Dr. Puszati’s research at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland showed that genetically modified potatoes caused health problems in rats, including a weakened immune system and abnormal growth. For blowing the whistle on Big Agra, he was dismissed from his job.

Eleven years later, as companies like Monsanto successfully silenced their critics, genetically modified organisms have gained a stronghold in taking over the world’s food supply — in spite of the fact that a growing body of evidence shows the alarming health effects that are being seen in people and animals who are consuming GM foods. But unlike years ago, concerned physicians and scientists are now banding together and advising their patients and the general public to avoid GM foods altogether.

The latest professional group to voice their warnings is the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) who is advising physicians to educate their patients and the medical community about the health risks of GM foods — including “infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system.”2

Why are these medical professionals so sure that GM foods are to blame for the growing list of health problems? Because of the reason and method they were manufactured. GM corn and cotton for example, are produced with a built-in pesticide called Bt. When the insect bites the plant, the poison kills it. The problem is that the Bt toxin in GM plants is thousands of times more concentrated and toxic than the spray version — and it cannot be washed off — it’s part of the plant.

And as health professionals for the AAEM have pointed out, there are precious few human studies to document the safety of GM foods. The animal studies however, tell a frightening story.2 Here are just a few examples:

When GM soy was fed to female rats, most of their babies died within three weeks—compared to a 10% death rate among the control group fed natural soy. When male rats were fed GM soy, their testicles turned from a natural pink to dark blue.

In India when grazing animals fed on the remainder of harvested GM cotton plants, all of them died including thousands of sheep. Those that grazed on natural cotton plants remained healthy.

In the US, farmers have reported that thousands of pigs became sterile after eating GM corn.
In Germany, GM corn is thought to have caused the death of both cows and horses.

There is only one human study so far that demonstrates what GM foods might be doing to us — and it is chilling indeed. The modified gene that is inserted into GM soy transfers into the DNA of our intestinal bacteria and is still functional. This means our own gut flora could continue to produce the pesticide long after we have eaten the food — perhaps forever.2

Could GM foods be the cause of skyrocketing numbers of obesity, diabetes, autism, and even cancer? According to researchers, it may be, but we may never know for sure. The link to GM foods can’t be traced and the onset of the disease may take several years.

But that doesn’t mean we should take any chances, or wait for the results to come in. If Big Agra has its way, any damning evidence that links GM foods to chronic diseases will be stifled and the epidemic of immune and degenerative diseases will continue to rise.

What you can do is stay away from all processed food unless it clearly states on the package that it is organic or made from non-GMO ingredients. According to the Institute for Responsible Technology and the Center for Food Safety, you should also steer clear of soy or corn derivatives, cottonseed and canola oils, and GM sugar beets. These two organizations provide a downloadable Non-GMO Shopping Guide for consumers to refer to help with their food choices.

Let’s not be lab rats for the benefit of Big Agra. Together we can take a stand and just say no to the foods that are not fit for human or animal consumption.

References

1. Scientist Issues Genetic Food Warning, January 19, 2009, The St. Catherines Standard (Canada).

Doctors Warn: Avoid Genetically Modified Food, http://www.responsibletechnology.org/utility/showArticle/?objectID=2989. ; "

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This story has very important implications.

Even at Whole Foods, the jars containing what is labeled as mayonnaise contain mostly soy oil and canola oil instead of organic extra virgin olive oil. So do those in mainstream grocery stores. Unless these state the soy or canola oil is from non GMO foods, you may be better off NOT buying mayo or making your own. This is also true of most commercially made salad dressings.

But of even more importance, are these two ways GMO corn and GMO soy are used.

Since GMO foods are made to make mass growing of those foods cost less, virtually all the corn used to make high fructose corn syrup which is used because, so far, it costs less than sugar, is almost certainly all GMO corn. So not only is it a good idea to avoid foods and drinks that contain high fructose corn syrup because they make it too easy to over consume sugars and often contain mercury (30% as tested recently using name brands from store shelves), it now looks likely high fructose corn syrup probably contains low levels of this built-in pesticide.

Second, we’ve known for a few years now that the fat from meat animals fed grains is too high in saturated fat and omega 6 oils, it also tends to contain the bioconcentrated pesticides and herbicides from the feed the animals eat and is a far LARGER source of them in the human diet than produce that has been grown using pesticides and herbicides.

Now, in the same way, fat from grain fed animals that are fed GMO grain, & probably nearly 100 % of them are, contains this built in pesticide that cannot be removed.

THAT makes eating mostly wild caught fish, nuts, beef fed only grass and the leanest, lowest fat versions of grain fed meat and poultry and dairy really important.

That will not only help protect you from heart disease and cardiovascular disease, it now looks likely to be even more important as a cancer preventive measure.

And, if you are planning to be a parent, if you want to succeed at it all fertility wise and you want your children to be healthy it also looks to be extremely important to do that.

So, with THAT background knowledge, I was ASTOUNDED to find a story in the online health news this week that apparently got a wide audience that had this title.

“Organic food is no healthier, study finds”

Reuters online news released that story last Wednesday, 7-29 also.

“Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.”

The researchers claimed that the studies they looked at, while showing some added benefits for organic foods, “….but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance," as one researcher put it.

I suppose if they only looked at vitamins and minerals instead of micronutrients and found something like zero to 5% more in organic produce they might have been able to believe what they wrote if they saw that as not influencing disease very much.

But since organic foods both have less herbicide and pesticide residue and more cancer preventing micronutrients, they well reduce the incidence of cancer by well over 5%.

And, if the organic produce was also non GMO produce which is likely, the cancer prevention of the organic produce and the prevention of other diseases and health problems thus avoided may well save MORE money than the higher costs of the organic produce.

Since for me and my family, I’d prefer to avoid unnecessary cancer and other health problems, when I possibly can, I’ll buy organic produce. And, I’ll make an even stronger effort to avoid GMO foods.

Lastly, given the current high costs of medical care and the economic harm those unnecessarily high costs are causing, the study and the headline for it, are totally wrong!

Organic, non GMO foods ARE worth spending extra money on. And it IS of very HIGH public health relevance and importance.

Exercise better at lasting depression relief….

Today's Post: Thursday, 7-30-2009

1. We’ve already posted that brief lunchtime walks, even in gloomy and overcast or rainy weather, tend to prevent SAD or wintertime depression brought about by low exposure to sunlight.

And we’ve posted, if such walks are unsafe or you’ve no time for them, taking at least 2,000 iu of vitamin D3 a day, which is extremely desirable to protect your health for other reasons as well, has much the same effect.

2. We’ve also posted that getting enough omega 3 oils with purified fish oil supplements and DHA supplements, &/or eating wild caught fish and seafood, except for not eating those you are allergic to or that are too high in mercury, when combined with eating a lot less omega 6 oils by eliminating refined grain foods, and using extra virgin olive oil instead of high omega 6 oils like soy, corn, and canola has many benefits to your health from helping lower triglyceride levels and inflammation to protect your heart.

Doing this also stops depression for many people; and there is evidence it prevents it in many people as well. (The incidence of depression in places where people eat this way is quite low.)

3. We’ve also posted that optimistic thinking tends to prevent or turn off depression that the reverse kind of thinking often causes depression or prolongs it. (See Martin Seligman, PhD’s book, Learned Optimism.)

Such thinking results in:

a) you trying to improve and change things while expecting you’ll find a way to be effective and noticing what’s going well in your life and expecting it to continue; and

b) you being very scientific and analytical when things go wrong and realizing that they have limited and specific causes that can often be overcome.

These natural, nondrug methods do work, work reliably, often work quickly, and have other health benefits besides. They also tend to keep working when you keep using them. So you can not only get rid of depression using them, you can often keep it from coming back or being as severe if it does.

Meanwhile antidepressant drugs often either tend not to be effective, tend to take up to several weeks to work when they do, have unpredictable side effects, and can produce nasty side effects or withdrawal effects if you stop taking them.

So, we’ve been also interested in and posting about how exercise tends to turn off depression as we did last Tuesday, day before yesterday, in our post just before this one.

Then, after I did that post, I found that Tuesday’s Total Health Breakthroughs email had a story showing that people who did get depression relief from drugs had a relapse rate considerably greater than those who got depression relief from exercise.

I’ll post that article here and then add some comments.

"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 ."

“Cutting Edge Fitness:

Exercise -- The New Happy Hour

By Missy Hawthorne, RN, CSCS

It’s five PM and your work day is finally coming to an end! The stress of the day is still with you as you get into your car and start home. The highway is at a standstill and so there is no break from the stress. As the road begins to open up, you realize, a drink is starting to sound pretty good.

How do you handle stress? Does the stress of your day make you want a beer, wine, or cocktail to relax? Or perhaps your doctor has prescribed an antidepressant? Or if you are a smoker, maybe you just can’t wait for that first cigarette when you leave work. I don’t have to tell you that smoking isn’t good for you and we need to keep our alcohol intake at moderate levels.

So what can you do to more effectively shake off the stress of the day? Exercise. Not only is exercise a good stress reliever, it has even been found to be effective against the depression that can come as a result.

Researchers have found that exercise can work at least as well against mild to moderate depression as any other treatment, including drug therapy. Previous studies have suggested that exercise programs can take weeks to improve depression, stress and/or anxiety, but a new study showed that even a single workout can provide immediate benefits in boosting the mood of the severely depressed.1

A study at Duke University was one of the first to test a four-month aerobic program in people with moderate to severe depression. Sedentary men and women over the age of 50 were asked to participate in aerobic activity for 30 minutes three times per week.

They were compared to two control groups that were similarly depressed. One group was treated with Zoloft and the other group with Zoloft and exercise combined. Patients in all three groups had equally significant reductions in symptoms of depression (60-65%).

Surprisingly, combining drug and exercise therapy had no added benefit, but it did improve the speed of response.

While drug therapy was effective eventually, exercise therapy really excelled in the long term. Six months after treatment, only 8% of the exercise group relapsed compared to 30% in the drug therapy group.2

Exercise seems to improve the body’s ability to handle stress more easily, enabling you to tolerate life’s challenging demands more easily. Animal studies show it does this by acting on the neurotransmitters of the brain that govern the stress response.

Neurotransmitters in the brain such as norepinephrine are altered by exercise and produce changes similar to those of antidepressants. In so doing, exercise enables us to better tolerate stressful situations and to be calmer. The studies found exercise also changes peoples’ perceptions of themselves, providing an elevated self-esteem, a sense of personal mastery, a positive self-regard and reduced negative thinking.

In addition to aerobic activity, several studies show that resistance training is just as effective against depression. So the evidence is clear, exercise is a good prescription for stress!

The next time you need to blow off the day, elevate your mood and de-stress. Instead of hitting happy hour, hit the gym!

References

1. Warner, J. Exercise May Lift The Cloud of Depression. www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise. 2006.
2. Marano, H.E. Move to Boost Mood. www.psychologytoday.com/articles.

[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. ….]”

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As we noted in our last post, vigorous exercise can work faster to turn down depression than less intense exercise.

Less time than half an hour at a time can be effective. Even one to fifteen minutes has worked for many people.

So, you may well get better results by getting some vigorous exercise each day even if it’s just for a few minutes than you would getting three 30 minute sessions of less intense exercise each week. Doing both kinds may work even better if you have time for it.

In conclusion, we think that anyone needing depression relief should use these other nondrug methods right away, even BEFORE seeing your doctor for depression. (One exception is that for some people who have not yet been exercising, they may have a separate medical condition that would require them to ramp up exercise intensity more gradually, get to a lower peak intensity, and work out for shorter periods plus get longer rests between sets. For such people getting a check up from doctor before doing more vigorous exercise may be a good idea.

Another exception is that someone taking an anticoagulant drug may need to be quite careful and work with their doctor before adding omega 3 oils or eating a lot of fish containing it. Doing both the omega 3’s and the drug without reducing the dose of the anticoagulant can be unsafe. By working with your doctor, you may be able to safely step down the anticoagulant while you gradually add the omega 3 oils.)

If your depression is severe or it’s not helped much at first with these other methods and is bad enough to be really hard to take or is preventing you from living your life at all well, it may make sense to see a doctor about adding an antidepressant drug for a two month test in addition to using these methods.

The good news is that this article suggests that by using these nondrug methods too, particularly including exercise, the drug will be somewhat more likely to work and will begin to help you sooner than would otherwise be the case.

But to keep the gains you make, you’ll do best to use these nondrug methods while you take the drug and continue them even if you later stop the drug.

Prevent cancer, feel better and more with vigorous exercise ….

Today's Post: Tuesday, 7-28-2009

1. We’ve already posted that quite vigorous exercise for even as little as 30 seconds a time done a few times each week lowers insulin resistance! This can prevent type 2 diabetes, reverse it if it’s mild, or make it better at least for those who have it.

2. Now, in today’s health news from AFP I read that a study also found that intense exercise that created a higher rate of oxygen consumption provided a much lower risk of death from cancer.

The study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Putting in some time doing such exercise also helped. “…the men who exercised for at least 30 minutes a day were half as likely to get cancer as those who did not.”

This effect was found “….even when other factors -- age, alcohol consumption, smoking, weight -- were taken into account.”

We’ve known other benefits of regular and vigorous exercise. But this large reduction in cancer deaths and cancers is something I’ve not seen reported before.

You can also take vitamin D3 and turmeric supplements each day, eat raw cruciferous vegetables every week, eat raw AND cooked vegetables with many kinds of carotenoids from tomatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and many kinds of greens, and take strong steps to avoid cigarette and other tobacco smoke, avoid unnecessary x-rays, and do what you can to avoid pesticides and herbicides since each of these steps reduces your chance of getting cancer.

Now we know if you add regular vigorous exercise you can almost double the effects of doing those things.

Doing all of these things plus exercising may prevent up to 95 % of all cancers. You may do even better than that.

3. I already knew that even a set or two of quite vigorous exercise for even as little as 30 seconds or 60 seconds immediately improved the mood of the person who did it.

One study at Duke found a very strong improvement in one group of depressed people who exercised vigorously for about 14 minutes.

This seems to happen for three reasons. You have to concentrate to exercise that vigorously which takes your mind off any bad mood or real problems that may have been bothering you. You get some self-esteem boost by literally feeling your body perform vigorously. And you get very quick increases in desirable neurotransmitters that tend to make you feel good or override pain or both.

You also get lasting mood improvement if you exercise regularly even if it’s somewhat less vigorous as that has been found to work as well or better than antidepressant drugs.

4. We know that the vigorous exercise you get in progressive strength training and interval cardio makes you stronger, improves your fitness, and increases your lung capacity best of all the kinds of exercise, particularly for those who do some of each every week.

In addition, that these kinds of vigorous exercise work best to lose fat in part because they cause you to burn more calories for up to several hours after you stop doing them. And, other studies found that people who lose fat and keep it off have more energy and feel better than they did before they lost the fat.

5. We also posted on a study that found that people who did regular vigorous exercise aged more slowly, lived up to 20 years longer, and were healthier in their older years than people who didn’t.

6. We’ve also posted that regular vigorous exercise reduces the amount of the small particle LDL that causes cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, strokes, erectile dysfunction, and circulation caused age related mental decline. And you can measure this with increases in HDL readings & reductions in triglyceride readings.

Exciting news on type 2 diabetes & obesity….

Today's Post: Monday, 7-27-2009

We’ve already posted that eating health harmful foods and not exercising produce very different effects than eating right and exercising and that this is particularly true for whether or not you get too fat or get type 2 diabetes. We’ve also posted that quite vigorous exercise for even as little as 30 seconds a time done a few times each week lowers insulin resistance!

But new research that was in today’s health news has some extremely promising information.

It seems that the health habits that cause being too fat as well as the fat cells themselves cause inflammation and harmful changes to your immune system.

And, if you normalize your immune system, particularly the mast cells that act up in allergies, and you lower inflammation, you can get extra leverage on losing the fat AND you may largely TURN OFF type 2 diabetes and do so even if you haven’t yet lost all the fat you should.

That is extremely important news. Many of the blood sugar lowering drugs for type 2 diabetes don’t work well and have unpleasant or dangerous side effects. They seem to work mostly on turning down the symptoms of type 2 rather than turning off the causes.

To be sure, much of this new research has been done in mice.

But, to me it looks quite likely to apply to people too.

A. The most exciting study was done on using either of two allergy drugs to treat the mast cell dysfunction that overfed and fattened mice who developed type 2 diabetes also got.

When the researchers fed the mice normally and stopped overfeeding them, the mice got somewhat better on being overfat and having type 2 diabetes.

When the researchers gave the mice either an allergy drug called Zaditor (ketotifen) or cromolyn sodium, an asthma drug, that reversed the mast cell abnormalities apparently caused by being or becoming overfat. The mice lost more fat and got even better on having type 2 diabetes than just feeding them better achieved. That was true for either drug.

And, if the mice were fed better AND got one of the drugs, they lost 100 % of the extra fat and the type 2 diabetes.

If that applies to people, it is HUGELY important.

1. Some low level or early stage type 2 diabetics can partially reverse the type 2 diabetes by simply stopping the health harmful foods and beginning to eat right instead. But often they only get a partial improvement.

Adding one of these drugs or a supplement with similar effects might well convert this to complete reversal of the type 2 diabetes.

Since the drugs are already FDA approved as allergy drugs, it may not be necessary to wait for research to try them since some doctors may well be willing to write what are called second use prescriptions.

Even better, an article recently came out that the reason that the supplement quercetin tended to turn off or turn down allergic reactions was because it had exactly this normalizing effect on the body’s mast cells. So, by taking 250 mg a day to 250 mg 3 times a day, you might well get similar effects.

Quercetin is also in foods. Quercetin is in apples, onions, and black tea. And every one of those are things that you can eat or drink that help you lose fat and eat right.

2. Many people eat better enough to lose about 5% of their bodyweight of their excess fat.

But, despite the massive health benefits of doing so, they don’t lose all their excess fat or look that different. So, in part because of that, many people then give up the effort and gain back the fat they lost.

But if by also taking one of the two drugs or the supplement quercetin, they lost close to all their excess fat with much the same effort, they might be so pleased they would maintain their eating right and keep the fat off.

And, by losing fat more quickly, more people would continue until they got results.

That’s also a huge potential benefit.

B. Other studies found that over eating (or drinking) health harmful foods and drinks also messed up the number of T-cells your body produces and sharply increased inflammation.

That in turn tended to bring on type 2 diabetes or make it worse. (Increased inflammation also magnifies pain and increases heart disease and heart attack risks!)

But that is also of interest.

1. If you stop eating meat from grain fed animals or farmed fish and eat other protein foods instead such as nonfat or very lowfat dairy foods, nuts, beans, or eggs &/or eat meat only from animals fed only grass or wild caught fish & or only eat small servings of the very leanest meat from grain fed animals, the amount of excess saturated fat and omega 6 oils you ingest will drop. If you also stop using other vegetable oils such as corn oil, canola oil, and soy oil and only use extra virgin olive oil, the amount of excess omega 6 oils will drop again. If you stop eating all refined grain foods; and only eat whole grain foods in moderation, that will cut your intake of excess omega 6 oils further.

If you eat wild caught fish and seafood high in omega 3 oils &/or take omega 3 supplements, that will also help restore a more desirable balance of omega 3 to omega 6 oils.

Each of these steps has been shown to reduce inflammation. By doing them all, you can reduce inflammation a lot.

2. Even better, regular exercise that isn’t overdone to the point of injury, reduces inflammation.

3. Lastly, in addition to normalizing your mast cells, the food component and supplement quercetin lowers inflammation.

So does turmeric.

So, if you take all these steps to lower inflammation, your fat loss will be better and your leverage on stopping type 2 diabetes will be better.

C. In addition, there are a number of foods and supplements and actions we now know tend to normalize your immune system. They not only make it stronger, they also tend to stop it from OVER-reacting with things like allergies, inflammation, autoimmune disease, and sepsis.

The number one most important item on that list is to be sure to get at least 2,000 iu a day of vitamin D3. Since many of us work indoors and don’t get outside that much on week-ends either, that means taking at least that much D3 from supplements.

D3 is so effective in this regard many now think that taking 5,000 iu a day of D3 may tend to prevent getting swine flu and other new flu variants AND to ensure surviving it if you do.

Taking probiotics also tends to strengthen your immune system and make getting flu and colds less likely.

Mushrooms, not just taking the exotic mushroom supplements but even eating button mushrooms a few times a week on your salad, boosts your immune system.

Taking at least 1,000 mg a day of vitamin C or more and up to 45 mg a day of zinc strengthens your immune system. Eating organic vegetables and whole organic fruits each day that are high in natural vitamin C also helps.

Lastly, regular socializing with people, NOT treating the people around you harshly when it’s not called for, and making special effort to notice what people do right and be kind to them, has massive benefits for your immune system.

Two more ways to protect your brain....

Today's Post: Friday, 7-24-2009

We’ve already posted that taking turmeric supplements (&/or eating curried foods often) that contain curcumin & related compounds tends to prevent the amyloid build up that causes Alzheimer’s disease and tests suggest may even act to remove it. (Doing this also tends to prevent many cancers including a common kind of breast cancer.)

We’ve posted that the actions, foods, and supplements that protect your heart and keep your blood sugar and insulin levels low enough to be in the desirable range also protects your brain both from age related mental decline and from Alzheimer’s disease. (Such things as NOT eating foods containing hydrogenated oils, eating lots of nonstarchy vegetables, NOT drinking soft drinks, NOT eating foods made from refined grains, and getting regular, vigorous exercise, eating foods that contain sugar only occasionally, plus taking certain supplements -- can do this well.)

We’ve posted that people who eat blueberries several times every week not only stay sharp mentally better than those who don’t, if you haven’t been eating blueberries and have lost a step mentally and begin to eat blueberries several times every week, you’ll often regain much of your mental abilities that you lost.

Today’s Early to Rise had yet another way to protect your brain. Since this method has many other health benefits as well, I wanted to be sure to post about it today. In fact, you may well already be doing this for one of its other health benefits. (I was doing just that.)

Even better, the information in this posts reveals, though it doesn’t say so directly, a SECOND way to protect your brain.

I’ll include the article; and then comment on it and add the second new way to protect your brain right after it.

"This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com."

"Protect Your Brain With One Powerful Nutrient

By Dr. James LaValle

You might think that a head injury has little in common with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other neurodegenerative diseases. And, yes, they are unrelated on the surface. But when it comes to protecting your brain from all of these traumas, you can rely on one natural nutrient: magnesium.

Studies have confirmed that better magnesium levels help protect brain tissue from the damage that can be caused by any head trauma.

Magnesium acts as a natural calcium channel blocker, which makes it a principal nutrient for helping to control blood pressure. In the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) study, researchers found that people who took in enough magnesium while on a calorie-controlled diet were able to lower their blood pressure. And this same calcium channel blocking effect plays a role in protecting the brain.

The brain operates on a balance between "excitatory" and "inhibitory" activity. A neurotransmitter called glutamate is the primary trigger for the excitatory activity. When brain cells are activated by glutamate, calcium ions rush in. This is fine as long as the excitation is kept under reasonable control. But too much calcium entering the cells can be deadly to brain tissue. That's where the calcium channel blocking effect of magnesium comes in.

Magnesium is also known to help control glutamate levels, possibly because it blocks the primary excitatory receptor (NMDA). And it helps glucose metabolism in the brain. Together, these functions of magnesium prevent brain cell death.

As I mentioned above, magnesium doesn't just protect your brain from physical injury caused by an accident. Over-excitation of the brain as a result of excessive glutamate activity is a major cause of neurodegenerative disease. Stress hormones promote excitatory activity, as do dietary sources of glutamate. Of course, we need to control the amount of stress we have in our lives and watch what we eat. But getting enough magnesium is also critical for prevention.

The recommended daily allowance for magnesium is 400 mg/day. However, I think 500 to 800 mg is necessary for most people. Beans, nuts, and seeds are good dietary sources of magnesium - but to get optimal levels, it's helpful to take supplements too. At the LaValle Institute, we like magnesium taurate and magnesium glycinate in particular, because taurine and glycine are amino acids that also help calm the brain.

[Ed. Note: It truly is possible to improve your health just by making wise choices when it comes to diet and lifestyle. James B. LaValle, RPh, ND, CCN - founder of the LaValle Metabolic Institute and a nationally recognized expert on natural therapies....]"

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So if you eat greens, beans, & nuts, if you aren’t allergic to them, that are high in magnesium; take a multivitamin plus minerals that has 50 mg or so of magnesium; and also take an additional 400 to 600 mg a day of magnesium, you will protect your brain; process sugars better; & tend to have lower blood pressure or not get high blood pressure.

You also get a side benefit from the magnesium and from the fiber in these foods. You’ll be almost immune from getting constipated.

Important note: Taking in this much magnesium AND taking a lot of Milk of Magnesia that’s also high in magnesium can overdo your blood levels of magnesium enough to cause health problems or even be dangerous. So be sure to avoid doing that.

The second way to protect your brain that this reveals is to do your very best NOT to ingest MSG.

MSG has been shown separately to cause the people who do ingest it regularly to be fatter than they otherwise would have been even if they eat the same amount of food!

So, we’ve already posted about that suggesting you stay away from MSG.

But NOT ingesting MSG may well protect your brain also. The MSG stands for Mono Sodium Glutamate.

Here’s a quote from the article. ” Over-excitation of the brain as a result of excessive glutamate activity is a major cause of neurodegenerative disease. Stress hormones promote excitatory activity, as do dietary sources of glutamate.”

Taking in enough magnesium helps to protect you from this effect. And the second way to protect yourself from this effect is to NOT ingest MSG.

Prevent cataracts, slow aging & more....

Today's Post: Thursday, 7-23-2009

If you were born in 1959 or before or if you expect to live to be over 65, there are a number of eye diseases that can blind you or make your vision so poor, you can’t see much.

Recently it was reported that people who took multivitamins had telomeres 5% longer than people who didn’t. That means they aged more slowly and often looked and were 5% younger than the number of years old they actually were and very likely will live 5% longer or more.

The researchers think that this is because of the antioxidant vitamins and other nutrients such health oriented people often take as supplements or eat in vegetables and fruit they also tend to eat more of.

In addition to vitamin C and the natural form of vitamin E, the antioxidants, supplements, and foods that seem to most benefit your eyes keeping their circulation good and in other ways include blueberries, bilberries (a related berry to blueberries), bilberry extract, vitamin A, and the natural carotenes in foods that are orange or dark green such as Lutein & Zeaxanthin that are in such foods as sweet potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli, and most greens from kale to collard greens to romaine lettuce. (Those foods also have a lot of fiber and tend to be very low in calories. And most have vitamin C.) Bilberry extract, grape seed extract, Pycnogenol, alpha lipoic acid, and other antioxidants are also good for your eyes.

People who eat these foods and take these supplements tend to not only live longer and age more slowly, they are less likely to develop most of the eye degenerative disease or to develop them if they do at much older ages. This includes both kinds of macular degeneration. Also, people who eat a lot of these vegetables AND exercise regularly AND avoid excess sugar and refined grains tend not to develop type 2 diabetes. Since type 2 diabetes can destroy your eye & optic nerve blood supply, it can blind you. So that too is significant.

But as they seem to be caused by accumulated damage from sunlight, it’s been uncertain that cataracts were affected by these other protective measures.

It is known that wearing a broad brimmed hat in sunny weather &/or wearing dark glasses in bright sunny weather help prevent cataracts.

We also know that taking steroids, beta blockers, and being around second hand smoke or smoking all help produce cataracts.

But all that said, it would be nice if there was a supplement that directly prevented cataracts or might possibly make them better once they develop.

The good news is that one may have been found recently.

We already know that the supplement carnosine tends to block a process called glycation which is a kind of oxidation that excess sugar or blood sugar tends to speed up. That means talking carnosine slows aging and is particularly protective for people with blood sugar that’s too high.

We also know that for people who do strength training, interval cardio, or other vigorous exercise, taking carnosine helps your body to repair your muscles and build them larger.

So, we already know carnosine was a good supplement to consider taking.

The NewsMax health email I got last Saturday, 7-18 listed a recent study that showed that in tissue samples carnosine not only prevented cataracts, it tended to reverse them!

Given carnosine’s known effects we just listed, it sounds like to me that this means taking carnosine and keeping your blood sugar in the desirable range by eating right and exercising may well go a long way towards preventing cataracts. And, it might even improve mild cataracts you already have.

Cloudy vision is obnoxious. Very cloudy vision to the place you have to pay for an operation to replace the natural lens in your eye with an artificial one to see well, is even more so.

So, cataracts are well worth preventing using the methods we’ve described. And taking carnosine supplements may really help do that.

The many ways exercise helps fat loss….

Today's Post: Tuesday, 7-21-2009

Eating right in many ways is considerably more important to fat loss than exercise is.

If you eat badly and exercise, you’ll be healthier but still fat.

If you eat enough less and don’t exercise, you’ll be a bit healthier -- but not a lot -- and you may lose muscle and bone mass as well as fat, but you will become less fat.

However, you can’t lose very much fat and you are at a very high risk of gaining back the fat you lost.

To put it simply, without eating right, achieving fat loss is like trying to drive a car with no fuel. (Today, that fuel may be electricity, diesel, natural gas, or hydrogen instead of gasoline.)
You won’t go anywhere at all.

But losing fat without exercise is much like trying to drive with the brakes on. You won’t go very fast; you’re likely to need repairs; and it will be very hard to do. Worse, the second you stop pushing down the accelerator, your progress will stop.

Conversely if you eat right AND exercise right, you’ll lose more fat; you’ll lose it faster; you are much more likely to lose all your excess fat; and you are much more likely to keep off the fat you lose. Even better, you’ll be MUCH healthier; and your muscle and bone mass will stay the same or go UP. So, all of the weight you lose will be fat. You may even lose more fat pounds than pounds on the scale.

Here are some of the many reasons this is so.

If you eat (and drink) wrong, you’ll ingest a lot of high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, sugar, and refined grain foods and too much of health damaging fats. As a result, you’ll be hungrier for more calories and take in more calories than your body needs. Even worse, your insulin levels will go up and make sure the extra calories are stored as fat.

If you stop ingesting that stuff and eat health OK and lean protein foods and nonstarchy vegetables and savory spices and some health OK oils with some whole fresh fruit and a bit less whole grains or none as 95 to 98 % of what you eat, you will only be hungry for what your body needs after you get used to eating that way. Your insulin will have far fewer sugar surges get high enough you need your insulin to turn it down; and it will work much better when it does. That means on those days you do eat a bit too much, far less of the excess will be stored as fat since your insulin levels are less. (High insulin levels cause fat storage.)

Vigorous exercise makes keeping your insulin levels down easier and your insulin effective. By exercising, you can eat more calories and still lose fat without having to eat so much less. Even better, if you include vigorous exercise, even a little bit most days, from exercises like strength training, interval cardio, or jumping rope, your insulin will work even better and both your insulin and blood sugar levels will be lower still. That stops fat storage from happening.

Studies also have found that this kind of vigorous exercise burns calories for up to several hours after you stop doing it, not just while you are exercising. Even better, such exercise tends to burn your belly fat first! That effect helps you to look better and protects your health better than just losing fat in other places.

In addition, since you don’t have to starve to lose fat, and you only have to eat right or cut just a bit to lose fat instead of having to eat a lot less, it’s much easier to do. But of even greater importance, this effect prevents your body from going into famine response mode.

Famine response mode causes your metabolism to slow down and quadruples how hungry are.

That stops fat loss in its tracks. That keeps you from losing more fat even if you want to and need to. But even worse, for most people it causes them to regain all the fat they lost.

So, yes, it IS true you have to eat right to lose fat at all.

But if you also want to stay healthy, never have fatloss be too hard to do, lose all the fat you need to lose, and keep it all off, it will pay you well to exercise regularly and to do at least 60 seconds a day of vigorous exercise every day.

Eating nuts HELPS fat loss….

Today's Post: Monday, 7-20-2009

People trying to lose fat and fat weight have often focused on eating less fat and foods high in it.

Since fat has a lot of calories, more than twice as much as carbohydrates or proteins, that seems to make sense.

So, since nuts are a high fat food, it also would seem to make sense to NOT eat them when you are trying to lose pounds and pounds of excess fat.

Interestingly, we now know that is far from true!

Avoiding ALL kinds of fats and the fat in nuts ignores a few things.:

1. Fast acting or high glycemic carbohydrates create rebound hunger, so they often cause you to take in MORE calories than if you had eaten fats instead. Even worse, they often cause excess triglyceride, blood sugar and insulin levels. When that happens, your body ADDS to your fat stores & you gain fat weight.

If you had eaten fat in the first place instead, this would not have happened or happened nearly as much.

2. Some kinds of fat and oils are as bad or worse for you than fast carbs.

Excess amounts of saturated fat from high consumption of fatty meat from grain fed animals and from high consumption of dairy fat tend to increase your LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. That tends to cause heart disease AND it also tends to cause your body to add to your fat stores & you gain fat weight.

Meat from grain fed animals and oils such as corn oil are high in omega 6 oils that tend to trigger inflammation and lower HDL cholesterol. So, eating a lot less of those protects your health even if it doesn’t help you lose fat from taking in less calories, though it may do that too.

Even worse, it’s still true that a huge percentage of packaged foods at grocery stores still contain hydrogenated vegetable oils that contain trans fats. These oils are like heart attack starters on steroids. They increase the most dangerous kind of LDL and lower HDL and raise triglycerides. So they directly cause heart disease AND also tend to cause your body to add to your fat stores & you gain fat weight.

So, there ARE some kinds of fat that if you avoid them or eat a LOT less, you’ll both be healthier and be less fat.

3. There are some kinds of fats that actually are good for your health. And research has found that people who keep including them in moderate amounts as they lose fat lose a bit more fat than people who exclude all fat; they keep off the fat they lose MUCH better; and they are also much healthier than people who stop eating all fats.

These are the omega 3 oils from fish and from meat from animals fed only grass -- & the monosaturated oils found in extra virgin olive oil, avocados -- & NUTS.

EXCEPT for the people who are allergic to nuts, nuts can be a help for fat loss; and they ARE good for you to eat

Omega 3 oils, DHA in particular, are good for your brain and nerves. And omega 3 oils prevent excess inflammation and lower triglycerides. So they protect your heart and tend to prevent your body from adding to its fat stores.

Monosaturated oils lower LDL cholesterol and either leave HDL cholesterol high or increase it. So they are quite heart protective. Prevention Magazine even quotes studies showing people who lose fat who eat mostly monosaturated oils tend to lose more belly fat than people who don’t.

Nuts have mostly or almost only monosaturated oils and are high in magnesium and many other important nutrients. Plus because they contain protein and fiber as well and taste good, they are unusually good at turning off hunger.

Eating nuts also increases your HDL levels; and because nuts have sterols, they are quite good at lowering LDL levels.

Nuts are so heart protective and good for your health, people who eat them regularly live for up to 6 years longer than similar people who don’t.

In fact, one study found that volunteers who ate 500 calories a day of nuts every day gained ZERO weight. It seems that the nuts turned off their hunger so well they ate 500 calories a day LESS of other foods.

So, if you like nuts and aren’t allergic to them, eating nuts will actually help you lose fat and do even better at helping you lose belly fat. And, your health will improve.

However, nuts that have been coated with omega 6 oils or hydrogenated vegetable fats &/or are salted not only aren’t at all good for you because those additives may cause you to gain fat and weight & WILL harm your health.

So, it’s ONLY dry roasted or raw nuts that are good for you and work well.

I eat raw pecans, raw walnuts, and occasionally eat dry roasted almonds.

I was reminded of this and decided to post on it today by today’s Early to Rise health article on just this subject.

Here’s that article.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com ."

"Yes, You Can Eat This Much-Loved Snack and Keep the Weight Off

By Craig Ballantyne

My clients often question me when I tell them they can eat more almonds and cashews. "Don't you know that nuts are full of fat?" they ask.

Well, I tell them, you can have your nuts and eat them too... even if you are trying to lose weight. In fact, nuts could be an important part of your fat-fighting strategy.

Researchers from Harvard completed an eight-year study on 51,188 women aged 20-45. After adjusting for lifestyle and dietary factors, they found that the women who rarely ate nuts were heavier than those who ate nuts twice per week. Their conclusion: Though it may be counterintuitive, incorporating nuts into a diet may help with weight control.

[Ed. Note: Eating the right foods is just one aspect of slimming down and firming up. To burn fat and build muscle, check out fitness expert Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training program....]"

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My last comment.:

If in eating nuts, you use them to substitute for bad carbs or fats, you get the most help to protect your health and lose fat.

For example,

If you already eat wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils and eat avocados and guacamole and add extra virgin olive oil too, it might be overkill to eat nuts too -- or even slow your fat loss.

But if you eat microwave popcorn covered with hydrogenated oils and salt, or you eat hamburgers from grain fed animals with hamburger buns made of refined grains, or you eat pastries made with sugar, refined grains and hydrogenated oils; and for THOSE foods you eat nuts instead, you’ll add massively to your fat loss and health protection.

Curry, Turmeric, & Curcumin….

Today's Post: Friday, 7-17-2009

People in India who eat a lot of curry and curried foods tend to not get Alzheimer’s disease or cancer.

From that information, the turmeric spice that is in almost all curries and colors them yellow looks to be protective against Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.

And, curcumin is thought to be the major component of turmeric that has these effects.

There are two pieces of good news.

1. You can buy turmeric or curcumin supplements at most health food and supplement stores

2. The follow up studies are quite clear. Not only does turmeric prevent Alzheimer’s disease and many kinds of cancer, it apparently does so in multiple ways in each case.

It may also slow aging, help prevent cardiovascular disease, and prevent MS.

Turmeric definitely helps with some kinds of stomach upset.

It also works as an anti-inflammatory agent. And turmeric is an antioxidant.

So, curry as a food component is a superfood. (It adds a LOT of flavor with no added salt needed also.)

And, turmeric or curcumin as a supplement is a super supplement.

1. I began taking turmeric because the evidence I saw for preventing Alzheimer’s disease looked convincing to me and because Alzheimer’s disease is a condition I want to completely avoid if I can.

The follow up research more recently is extremely good and promising.

In Alzheimer’s disease prevention, the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of turmeric tend to prevent nerve damage in the first place. Turmeric, along with exercise, seems to cause the growth of new nerve and brain cells. And, either directly or by empowering your immune system or both, turmeric both prevents amyloid build up in the brain, & it will remove amyloid build up that has already occurred .

In addition, turmeric’s effects in preventing oxidation of your blood lipids and preventing high levels of inflammation tend to prevent cardiovascular disease and keep your circulation good. And since damaged circulation tends to cause both Alzheimer’s disease and age related mental decline, turmeric also is of some help in preventing Alzheimer’s disease in that way.

Turmeric may not be able to reverse severe Alzheimer’s disease that has already destroyed a lot of brain cells or prevent senility caused by other factors such as lead or mercury poisoning.

But if you want to avoid Alzheimer’s disease completely or prevent early stage Alzheimer’s disease from progressing, it may be quite effective.

It also looks like many of these same effects do help turmeric to prevent or slow the progression of MS.

2. The follow up research more recently is extremely good and promising that turmeric prevents many kinds of cancers well and all kinds to some extent.

It was in the online health news recently that turmeric definitely helps prevent a common kind of breast cancer.

Because of turmeric’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects it tends to prevent the damage to the DNA in your cells that causes cancer.

And, whether by those two effects alone or with others, turmeric has been found to lower the level of the mutagens, or DNA damaging chemicals, in your body.

So, less cancers ever start in the first place.

In some studies, curcumin has been found to hinder the growth of abnormal cells.

It apparently interferes with their growth directly and may have similar effects on HIV viruses and other viruses as well as cancer cells.

And, with cancer cells and as part of its inflammation fighting ability, turmeric also tends to suppress the development of new blood vessels to feed cancer cells or to cause or complicate inflammation. (Turmeric may even do this only for abnormal conditions, unlike the drugs that inhibit blood vessel formation that also inhibit it for muscles that get extra use or for your heart developing extra circulation if its initial supply blood vessels become partially or completely blocked.)

So, cancer cells that form are less likely to keep growing.

In conclusion, I’m so glad I’ve been taking turmeric supplements for quite a while now & started to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

It looks like it HAS added to the list of things I do to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

And, it looks like it has also been helping to prevent heart disease, MS, and most cancers too even though I was unaware of it before.

Lastly, although turmeric is NOT my favorite flavor in curry mixes, I’ve managed to eat curried foods more often and add curry spices to my food more often.

And, although there are some supplements I’ve temporarily discontinued and some I may wait a bit to refill to save money at times, turmeric is now on my list of supplements I will not willingly run out of or discontinue.

Foods to support fatloss….

Today's Post: Thursday, 7-16-2009

Many of our posts have been on what foods and drinks to stop ingesting or avoid to stay healthy and/or to lose excess fat or prevent gaining it & saying why.

Today’s Early to Rise reminded me that it might make sense to stress what foods support fatloss and support good health also.

I’ve a lot of additions to add. But first here’s the ETR article.

"This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com."

"5 Essential Fat-Burning Foods for Women

By Shane "The People's Chemist" Ellison

My wife recently competed in the Arnold Amateur Figure Competition - the largest competition of its kind in the world. This is like a beauty contest in a bikini. Women are judged on their muscular physique and posing.

A 30-year-old mom of two, she swept the competition! (And the women she was competing against were 21- to 25-year-old non-moms.)

What is her secret to staying lean and muscular? For one thing, she sticks to five essential foods:

1. Organic eggs
2. All-natural grass-fed beef
3. Wild salmon
4. Avocados
5. Whey isolate

These five fat-burners are staples in her diet. Why are they so critical to keeping the fat off? You see, unlike men, women are very sensitive to the fat-storing hormone insulin. (It's because they have lower testosterone levels.) These five foods help keep insulin - and blood sugar - low, therefore helping to keep fat off.

These foods are also rich in healthy fats, which help us stay fuller longer, thereby warding off binge eating and snacks.

[Ed. Note: Shane Ellison's entire career has been dedicated to the study of molecules - how they give life and how they take from it. He was a two-time recipient of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Grant for his research in biochemistry and physiology. He is a bestselling author, holds a master's degree in organic chemistry, and has first-hand experience in drug design. ....]"

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A. These 5 foods have no carbs, fast or otherwise. And, they also have abundant nutrition in addition to their health OK fats and oils. Plus most of them also have health OK proteins.

Protein and fiber tend to be best at turning off hunger. And, research shows people trying to lose fat or keep it off both are healthier and more successful if they include foods with these health OK fats and oils.

In addition, each of these things are also true for men who are losing fat or working to keep it off as well as for women.

Here’s my comments on the 5 foods in his list.

1. Eggs from pasture raised and fed chickens are MUCH more nutritious and taste better than eggs from caged chickens that are grass fed. BUT, they are not now readily available most places.

The good news is that eggs have such high quality protein and so many valuable nutrients, if you can only get eggs from more common sources, they are still health supporting and have the fat fighting qualities.

2. Beef from animals fed only grass are MUCH better for you than beef from grain fed ones.
This is so much the case, I think it makes sense to eat other protein foods for most of your food and, when you do eat beef, only eat beef from animals fed only grass.

You can also get buffalo meat and lamb from animals fed only grass.

These meats are somewhat available online; and I’ve found them at Whole Foods Markets.

Meat animals fed grain by contrast have too much omega 6 oils, too much total fat, too much saturated fat, and tend to have bioconcentrated pesticides and herbicides. They also more often contain antibiotics and can carry mad cow disease. Since mad cow disease comes into cows from being fed ground up parts of sick cows, beef from animals fed only grass avoids that problem.

3. Wild caught salmon in addition to having health OK protein and tasting good has omega 3 oils in very large amounts. Alaskan salmon is all wild caught. And since you can get canned Alaskan salmon, you can afford a bit more.

(Farmed salmon is even worse than grain feed meat. It has more pollutants of every kind plus artificial food colorings to make it look like the real thing. It is NOT a health OK substitute.)

The good news is that other wild caught fish such as sardines, cod, and herring are just as good for you if not more so than salmon.

Plus, foods like shrimp, scallops, prawns and foods like clams and oysters that are sustainably harvested from unpolluted waters are also good choices. (Some people are allergic to shrimp, scallops, prawns. But if you aren’t, they are great high protein, low calorie foods that also have omega 3 oils. So are clams and oysters.)

4. Avocados are a number one superfood. They have abundant fiber and health OK oils & taste good. They also have more natural vitamin E than most E supplements plus carotenes and vitamin C and other vitamins and minerals. Even better, the guacamole made from avocados is just as good for you.

5. Whey protein supplements are a great way to get very concentrated protein of quality nearly as good as egg protein. Jarrow sells a version with no stevia or other sweeteners.

Egg white protein supplements are equally good for similar reasons.

6. This article doesn’t list raw and dry roasted nuts with no salt added. But they are also extremely nutritious and health supportive if you aren’t allergic to them. They have health OK oils and tend to increase your HDL level while lowering your LDL level. Lastly, by having essentially a zero glycemic index and having protein, oils, AND fiber they turn off hunger extremely well. Almonds, walnuts, and pecans are particularly good choices -- though walnuts and pecans cost less now.

B. The other health OK oil is extra virgin olive oil.

People who use it or use it 95 % of the time, tend to have higher HDL and much lower LDL and far less omega 6 oils than people using butter or other oils.

C. The third major category of fat loss supporting foods – NOT listed in the ETR article – is all nonstarchy vegetables and spices based on real plants.

These foods have abundant nutrition, water, and fiber – even some protein. They have so few calories or carbs and they release them so slowly they approach having a net of zero calories or carbs in their effects on your body.

In addition, you can often get these foods that have been organically grown. The organically grown ones have nearly twice the nutrients and more than twice the ability to support your health as those grown with pesticides etc.

However, the vegetables that are “conventionally” grown cost less; are more available; don’t have that much pesticide residue usually; & they support fat loss just as well.

Raw broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, cabbage, water cress, and kale all are nonstarchy vegetables that strongly prevent cancer.

Cooked by steaming or in water you also drink, they are less cancer preventive but still have many nutrients. In fact, by cooking them and serving them with extra virgin olive oil, you get MORE of the carotenoids in them. And when cooked that way they also support fat loss. Cooked Brussels sprouts also work.

Tomatoes also are good for you both raw and when cooked into tomato sauce with extra virgin olive oil.

Asparagus, green beans, romaine lettuce, chard, mustard greens, and other darker greens also work.

Vegetable juices also work for fat loss -- although the unsalted ones are best for your health.

So do garlic, onions, basil, sage, thyme, and all the other flavored plants and the spices based on them.

With these vegetables, you can literally eat all you want and still not be fat.

With the first two groups, you do need to avoid huge amounts. But with these vegetables and the salads and savory cooked dishes made from them you can eat a lot more without slowing your fat loss or gaining any fat.

D. All beans are high in fiber and protein while being quite inexpensive.

It is best to eat them with some of the health OK proteins and oils since they do have some faster carbs and a low moderate glycemic index instead of an extremely low one as the other foods here do.

But there is one superfood star in this group, lentils. Lentils have more protein and a lower glycemic index than other beans.

If you add some regular exercise to eating these four kinds of foods, you can get away with some regular consumption of fresh fruit; and you may be able to occasionally have some whole grain foods and even some rare sweet treats. The secret to eating those is to ONLY have them AFTER you have one of the health OK protein foods or health OK oils and to eat small amounts.

The proven benefits of fat loss….

Today's Post: Tuesday, 7-14-2009

Real fat loss is excess fat someone used to have that they’ve managed to remove permanently.

(Any fat people get rid of that they then regain is just temporary fat removal not real fat loss.)

The good news is that the food and exercise lifestyle changes that help you remove excess fat and do so in ways that improve or protect your health work best to remove fat and to have any pounds you lose be only fat. And, once you get accustomed to doing them, it is often quite doable to simply continue. That results in real and permanent fat loss.

I was just reminded today that there is a National Registry for people who have lost 30 pounds or more and kept it off for more than 5 years. (The average person they have on their list has lost 66 pounds and kept it off for more than 5 years.)

(See: http://www.nwcr.ws/ .)

Then I found this in the abstract of a research paper by someone who had studied this group.:

“Nearly all registry members indicated that weight loss led to improvements in their level of energy, physical mobility, general mood, self-confidence, and physical health.”

More abundant energy. Move more easily and in more ways. Simply feel better all the time. Have more self-confidence. Become and stay healthier.

The pictures of some of these people also show that they look better!!

That’s an impressive list!

Some of these effects come directly from having less fat weight to carry around.

Some come from the things people did and continue to do that cause their fat to leave and not come back.

Some come from the resulting health improvements.

Some come from becoming more normal in appearance and therefore from more often more noticed as a person, NOT as a fat person --and from being better treated.

And yet others come from the experience of trying to do something and then succeeding at it.

The first two benefits, more energy and more mobility, come in part from what might be called the Hot Rod effect. Full sized cars used to weigh well over 4,000 pounds and often had 100 horse power engines. Then some young people got the idea to take smaller cars that weighed more like 2600 pounds and then installed much larger engines that they made more powerful and super charged to get over 300 horsepower. Then instead of each horsepower moving 40 pounds, in the resulting “Hot Rod”, each horsepower moved only a bit less than 9 pounds. That car would then accelerate more than twice as fast and was much more nimble.

Fat loss and the resulting increase in mobility are much the same. Your body has less weight to move. And, because to lose the fat weight you likely did enough exercise, quite possibly including strength training and interval cardio, your control of your muscles is better; your muscles are stronger; & your heart is stronger as well. Small wonder you have more energy and move better. You’ve literally made the same kinds of changes in yourself that the Hot Rodders made to their cars. So your power to weight ratio is MUCH better.

Part of the feeling better and more confident is because of this effect. You feel more capable because you actually are more capable at that point.

In addition, the foods that make you fat tend to have a boom and bust effect. Your energy and mood are OK for just a bit and then quickly get much worse. But by stopping or mostly stopping those foods and eating foods that provide a more steady flow of energy, you simply don’t run out of gas emotionally or in your energy level as much or as often. You feel better and have more energy in part by no longer having your mood and energy levels crash every day – & often more than once.

In addition, the health benefits of losing even the first 5 or 10 % of your bodyweight as fat, let alone losing all the excess combined with the health benefits of the regular exercise you likely began to do, are so many and so large it’s almost unbelievable.

Your protective HDL goes up while your LDL, triglycerides, and inflammation level all go down.

If you had insulin resistance, high blood sugar, or type 2 diabetes, it either went away completely or it got very much better.

If your blood pressure was too high, it’s either now much better and down to a level that likely is safe without needing to take drugs or it’s simply gone.

If you had acid reflux, it’s either much better or completely gone.

If you had painful ankle, knee or hip joints, they will hurt less or not at all.

You’ll get far less asthma and breathe better.

You’ll also live longer and in good enough health to enjoy the extra years.

Among other things, your sex life will improve and you’ll enjoy it for years longer.

Small wonder you’ll feel better and be more confident after experiencing these things!

Since so many people today are from definitely to massively too fat and the benefits of losing it are so large, that’s one of the reasons we cover losing fat and the lifestyle changes that can enable you to lose fat and keep it off in so many of our posts.

Two ways to power your fat loss....

Today's Post: Monday, 7-13-2009

It’s MUCH easier to eat MORE to cause fat loss than it is to eat less!

&

Eating less of the bad stuff is much easier if you know more completely why and how it’s so harmful to you.

Here are two articles on doing exactly that with my comments & ideas on how to use the information.

1. It’s MUCH easier to eat MORE to cause fat loss than it is to eat less!

Trying to lose fat by eating less of what you already eat can work if you don’t overdo it and it that’s only ONE of about 10 things you do. But if you overdo it to the place you get extremely hungry or trigger your body’s famine response, it causes fatloss failure.

Why not try something that decreases the calories you eat without making you less hungry and where you actually get to eat MORE food?

That method actually does exist and actually will improve & protect your health too!!

Here’s today’s article from Early to Rise that reminded me of it.:

“This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com .”

ETR Monday, 7-13-2009

“The Best Diet for Weight Loss

By Craig Ballantyne

Most diet "plans" are really complicated... or downright confusing. But the truth is, eating for fat loss is simple. Just avoid junk food and eat more whole, natural foods.

If you need proof, take a look at this...

European researchers studied 89,431 men and women from five countries in Western Europe for 6.5 years. They found that the more fruits and vegetables someone ate, the greater their chances were of losing weight. It's as easy as that.

So if you want to lose fat, make sure you increase your intake of fruits and vegetables…..”

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Nonstarchy vegetables have such low calorie counts and such high fiber, they wind up providing ZERO effective calories.

They work about five times better than most whole fruit to create fat loss.

If you eat none now, try adding one serving a day at least 5 days a week for a week.

Then add another & repeat each week until you eat 4 or 5 servings each day.

It works. And, even better, a glass of vegetable juice a day has been proven to work as well for fat loss as a whole, raw vegetable serving. So, two servings of raw vegetables; two servings of cooked vegetables; & one glass of vegetable juice works well. Just add one each day a week at a time.

You DO wind up eating a bit less of the other foods you eat. BUT you need not make ANY extra effort to do this. You simply wind up too satisfied and full to need or want second helpings.

Fresh fruit like a whole apple that is very low glycemic works almost as well.

So do berries of all kinds. But many other fruits have enough fruit sugar per gram of fiber to make you better off eating one a day but not more. And fruit juice is better skipped or drink only one a day drunk after a food that’s high in health OK protein &/or fat &/or fiber.

The good news is that both these vegetables and whole pieces of fruit, particularly if they are organically grown, have incredibly health protective nutrients.

So by eating MORE of them, you not only get almost effortless fatloss without extra hunger, you get healthier in other ways too.

2. Eating less of the bad stuff is much easier if you know more completely why and how it’s so harmful to you.

Here’s last Saturday’s article from Early to Rise that reminded me of this.:

“This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com .”


ETR Sat, 7-11-2009

“How to Monitor One of the Most Important Factors in Your Health

By Kelley Herring

Because blood sugar is one of the most important factors in your overall health, you might think getting tests is a good way to keep it in check. You’d be right on that count. But you might be surprised to know that the best test may not be one you’re familiar with.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions from ETR readers about blood sugar. What most of them are concerned about is this: Which test is better - fasting blood sugar, oral glucose tolerance, or random blood sugar?

The answer is “none of the above.” It’s the glycated hemoglobin or A1C test.

The A1C is far superior to the other tests. Not only can it be used to diagnose diabetes, it also gauges how well a diabetic is managing his or her condition.

And that’s not all. The A1C tells you what percentage of your hemoglobin (a protein found in red blood cells) is sugar coated (glycated). And “sugar coated” is a really bad thing when it comes to your cells. In fact, these glycated compounds are associated with an increased risk for heart attack, stroke, Alzheimer’s, cataracts, and many other chronic ailments.

Ask your doctor for an A1C test. Ideally, you’ll want an A1C of less than 5 percent, which corresponds to an average glucose level of 90 mg/dL.

[Ed Note: If you steer clear of sugar, you're doing yourself a big favor. But if you've swapped the "white devil" for artificial sweeteners, there's something you should know. Studies show that people with diabetes who consume sucralose have significant increases in A1C…..]”

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Actually, HBA1C levels of 5.0 to 5.6 are excellent to good. 5.7 is on the low end of undesirable but a bit of a warning shot. 5.8 or 5.9 is a flashing yellow light and should be brought down ASAP. 6.0 to 6.3 is dangerous and some doctors will diagnose you as having type 2 diabetes. All of them will diagnose type 2 diabetes if you get from 6.4 to 6.9. And most will prescribe drugs at that range sometimes & always will if you get 7.0 or higher.

As bad as the drugs are except for low dose metformin, they are correct in doing so. HBA1C of much higher than 7.0 begins to harm your blood vessels and capillaries all over your body and begins to destroy you by doing so. Blindness, painful nerves or numbness, Alzheimer’s disease, other forms of senility, kidney failure, foot amputation, and heart attacks all get caused or triggered by such damage!

Glycation is also one of the two main causes of aging.

So, in addition to everything else it does to you, a high HBA1c reading means a high rate of aging!

So, now you know why NOT to let yourself in for high HBA1c readings, it’s worth noting that regular soft drinks, diet soft drinks, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and refined grains &/or foods made of them all tend to spike blood sugar and drinking and eating more than a very small amount each week tends to cause increases in your HBA1C readings.

So, if you drink soft drinks or at a lot of packaged snacks or white bread or commercially prepared baked goods, or eat most packaged cereals -- each week, let alone all of the above !!, you will not only be much fatter than you should be, you’ll be gradually killing yourself off too.

Worse, these foods either give you calories without turning down your hunger, or they make you hungrier for more sugar as artificial sweeteners such as sucralose and diet soft drinks do, they often make you a bit less hungry and then suddenly very hungry again when your blood sugar that was slammed up to high then goes down too low.

That means all these things make you fat by adding calories without making you less hungry or even making you MORE hungry. AND they harm your health if you ingest a lot by as about as much as smoking does!

In conclusion, if you eat a lot more vegetables and some more fresh fruit, it becomes much more doable to eat less of the bad stuff and you’ll gradually lose a lot of your excess fat.

Other tips for eating less of the bad stuff and getting away with it if you do include any at all is simply cutting the amount per week in half and then repeating the process a few times. I’ve found that one effective for the things on that list I personally like.

The other is to only let yourself have such things ONLY AFTER you’ve eaten some health OK protein or fat and some nonstarchy vegetables. Even combining the foods as in eating pecans and raisins works better than just eating the high glycemic food by itself.

The net effect on boosting your blood sugar goes way down if you do that.

And, no surprise, regular vigorous exercise tends to lower HBA1C. So, if you do that kind of exercise every week, you’ll be less fat and be more able to get away with some of the bad foods instead of none.

***

In summary, eating nonstarchy vegetables will make you less fat. And eating none or very little of the foods that spike your blood sugar not only will make you less fat, it will protect your health and reduce your rate of aging.

Why not do both?

How heart protection has evolved….

Today's Post: Friday, 7-10-2009

1. It started by looking at total cholesterol.

People who had levels a lot higher than 250 seemed to get a lot more heart attacks. And, people who had levels less than 170 seemed to get less.

But close to half the heart attacks happened to people between 200 & 250. So just getting below 250 wasn’t extremely protective.

2. Then researchers found that HDL cholesterol, even though it added to the total was actually protective! It seems that it was the LDL cholesterol that was harmful.

Now, not a lot of focus is on total cholesterol if you can test HDL and LDL. And, it seems that with the protective HDL over 50 or 60 is good and over 90 is better. With LDL over 160 tends to be associated with more heart attacks than close to 100 or a bit less.

3. Then researchers found that larger, fluffier LDL tended to roll along your blood vessels like a tumbleweed or beach ball and caused few problems. However, the tiny LDL particles were literally so small they fit into the molecular cracks on your blood vessel walls and act much like pouring fine sand into an engine and cause the build up of the sludge that causes heart disease and heart attacks.

4. It was then discovered that the ratio of HDL to triglycerides which are each only moderately expensive to test, was virtually a match for measuring the small particle LDL which was very expensive.

People with triglyceride levels above 150 and HDL below 40 had a lot of small particle LDL while people with triglyceride levels below 100 and HDL over 60 had very little.

This is quite important to know.

We know that regular, vigorous exercise from brisk walking, to running, to interval cardio, and to strength training decrease small particle LDL directly which increases HDL & lowers triglycerides.

On the bad side, we now know that all hydrogenated vegetable oils whether partially or completely and the trans fats this generates directly INCREASE small particle LDL!

This means this junk is literally heart attack starter. Never ingest it if you can possibly avoid it. The safe amount to consume is basically zero!

Warning: Today about half of the products on your grocery store shelves that contain fat, still contain this stuff.

So, if the label has anything other than 0 trans fats leave it on the shelf and don’t eat it if someone else buys it. Unfortunately, 0.49 grams per serving can still be listed as 0. So, if you eat five of the servings as many do, you will really get 2.45 grams of trans fat.
So, you also have to avoid any food whatever that lists partially hydrogenated oil as an ingredient.

(Note that interesterified fat, is actually 100% hydrogenated oil. It has all the effects of the partial kind and causes type 2 diabetes in addition. Some companies may try to use it to avoid bans on partially hydrogenated oil.)

Niacin increases HDL and lowers LDL. It seems it also lowers triglycerides as well.

That means that niacin directly lowers small particle LDL. That goes a long way towards explaining why niacin has been found to lower death rates better than statin drugs.

5. But we also know that tiny cracks in your artery walls and other damage to your artery walls tend to promote heart disease since they both sludge up and your body may even send cholesterol to those locations to seal them up according to the theory I’ve read.

This means that things that keep your arteries from developing these cracks such as high intakes of vitamin C and the amino acid lysine, and possibly the amino acid proline really do prevent heart disease as Linus Pauling and Dr Mathias Rath have said they do. (Apparently the blood marker Lp(a) measures this damage. When it’s high so are heart attacks. When it’s low there are few heart attacks and your blood vessels, if examined, tend to be clear of plaque.)

This also means that oxidized LDL which can damage your artery walls is much worse than LDL which is not oxidized. So, antioxidant supplements & foods containing them also help prevent heart disease.

Lastly, blood sugar that is too high and possibly insulin levels that are too high directly damage your blood vessels. That’s why type 2 diabetes causes extra heart attacks, blindness, kidney damage, and foot amputations.

Since inflammation can either damage your blood vessels or cause your body to try to patch them, it’s also important we now know to keep inflammation low.

Gum disease causes inflammation and it looks like the bacteria it feeds may do so also. We definitely have found that it tends to cause heart disease. Brushing your teeth at the gumline twice and then flossing at least once every single day & seeing your dentist every 6 months for a teeth cleaning may seem a strange way to protect your heart. But it does.

6. We used to think that a large intake of butter, cream, full fat cheese, full fat milk and fatty meat tended to cause heart disease due to it increasing LDL cholesterol. This looks accurate though as you’ve seen, you need to do more to get full protection.

But we used to think sugar wasn’t that bad. Oops!!

Ingesting sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and refined grains often or a LOT and not eating many vegetables or exercising not only makes people fat, it increases triglycerides, inflammation, high blood sugar, and often type 2 diabetes. That means it is about as bad for your heart as trans fats or cigarettes!

7. Cigarettes and second hand smoke, not only have been proven to cause plaque build up in your arteries, lowering your HDL and making what’s left ineffective at keeping your blood vessels clear, we now know that cigarette smoke triggers heart attacks.

Yep. That means smoking causes the build up of heart disease and then triggers heart attacks too.

Smoking actually kills far more people this way than the cancers it causes.

Gradually most doctors are learning this. But very few smokers know it.

The bad news is that we now know that you need to do a lot of work to prevent heart disease.

The good news is that if you do it, besides NOT getting heart attacks, strokes, and ED, you’ll be far less fat, live longer for other reasons too, and you’ll escape type 2 diabetes, and are much more likely to avoid senility including Alzheimer’s disease.

How to overcome barriers to exercise….

Today's Post: Thursday, 7-9-2009

Safely done regular exercise does more good to help cause and keep good health than almost any medicine except those that save your life or turn down unbearable pain.

Some kinds of exercises do more for you than others and some are safer. But overall, doing regular exercise has so many and such powerful benefits, it’s almost like it was made magically good by Harry Potter.

If you do regular exercise, you’ll live longer, you’ll age more slowly and get fewer disabilities, you’ll enjoy sex more and for many years longer, you’ll be able to handle more stress more easily, you’ll think better and stay mentally sharp for years longer. You’ll be much less fat – particularly in the tummy area. If you do manage to lose fat, it will very likely stay off if you continue to do regular exercise plus you’ll tend to lose all fat instead of losing some muscle. You’ll be less likely to get migraines, most cancers, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, strokes, heart attacks, and high blood pressure. For those reasons, at any given age, your medical bills will average less over time than people who don’t exercise – often you medical bills will be less than half as much as would have been the case without exercise.

And, you’ll look better too!

Despite most people having heard that exercise is good for your health, I’m convinced that very few yet know the incredible magnitude and number of these benefits.

Going without regular exercise is about as harmful as doing without food, water, air, or sleep.

The trouble is that unlike those other things, your body doesn’t give you immediate feedback that there’s a problem when you don’t exercise.

It’s quite literally true that if people really knew what NOT exercising did TO them and what regular exercise does FOR them, very few would still not exercise.

However, it can be really hard to fit in exercise if you have to drive most places you go and already sleep less than 7 or 8 hours most days from lack of time.

And, for some people there are other barriers to exercise.

So anytime I see a decently well done article on how to overcome those barriers, I realize how valuable it is.

So, here’s one now! It was in Early to Rise yesterday, Weds, 7-8-2009.

(I’ll add my comments and some other ideas after it.)


"This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com."

"The REAL Reason You Avoid Exercise - and How to Defeat It

By Craig Ballantyne

The two main reasons people give for avoiding exercise are lack of time and lack of motivation. But those are really just politically correct answers. The truth is, most people just don't like to do it.

If you "hate" exercise, here are three ways to stay motivated and stick to your plan:

1. Work out with a partner or in a group. Bootcamp exercise classes are becoming more popular every year - mostly because they are a million times more fun than jogging on a treadmill by yourself. If you get a good high-energy trainer, and a few friends to join you, you'll have a grand old time while you burn belly fat.

2. Play the right music. Whether your bootcamp trainer brings it or you create a kick-butt mix on your iPod, working out to peppy music will make the time fly by.

3. Turn your exercise program into a golf game. In other words, keep challenging yourself to do better. That's what golfers do. They get hooked on the game because they always want to beat their last score. And by giving yourself a "score" to beat every time you work out, the competitive streak deep within you will come to the surface and you'll work harder and more consistently.

It's all about making it fun. That's why workouts like my Bodyweight 500 have become so popular that more than 5,100 readers of Men's Health magazine used it to burn up to 41 pounds of belly fat in just 8 weeks.

You, too, could see results like that.

[Ed. Note: Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training for Fat Loss program is the ultimate in fat burning. Not only are the exercises high-energy and high-intensity - which means they blast fat away - they are also quick and fun to do. Better yet, you can build a lean, toned body with just three 45-minute workouts a week.....]"

Craig's website is at: http://www.turbulencetraining.com/?hop=early2rise .

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A. My comments on this article.:

1. I can vouch for the first solution personally. When I was younger and knew a lot less, I could never make any progress with strength training because I had no role models that I actually could meet who knew more. And, I kept getting frustrated and would stop doing strength training from time to time.

Then a friend of mine asked me to join him and his gym buddies two nights a week.

I found it was so much fun to go and work out with my friend and work out buddies, I went every week for so long I began making a lot of progress. Their example and encouragement & their much greater experience and knowledge of strength training helped a lot too.

Since then I’ve seen many women who to group fitness classes or group sessions with a knowledgeable trainer have very much the same experience.

If you have to miss, the people you work out with notice and often are glad to see you when you make it back.

It really does help!

The other way to exercise with other people that many like is to play some kind of sport regularly. If you do it less than several times a week each and every week, it helps to do some kind of strength training or interval cardio too to be sure to get decent exercise every week. But doing a competitive sport often will work you out harder than working out on your own and you get great results studies show. If you like some kind of sport, have time to play it, and can avoid injury, it can be a really fun way to work out!

2. Music is a mixed review.

If it’s someone else’s idea of good music or it’s turned up so loud it’s uncomfortable, it can be a bit of a problem. (If it’s way too loud you can often get it turned down. And if you focus on doing your exercises and doing them well, you can ignore it otherwise.)

BUT, if it’s music you like or choose yourself or both & that has an inspirational feel or a compelling rhythm and a lot of energy, it can be HUGELY helpful.

That’s particularly true for dancing and for many kinds of cardio exercise.

Doing one of the more energetic dances from square dancing to much more energetic kinds is great exercise. If you enjoy dancing, that works great. NFL hall of fame great, Jerry Rice, continued to work out and keep in shape several hours a week even after he retired. Then he got into a dancing competition, Dancing with the Stars, on TV & promptly lost something like 20 to 25 pounds!!

Aerobics classes have used that kind of music for years. And, many of the people who have gotten the best results from using the Urban Rebounder, mini-trampoline, jumping rope, or Tae Bo have listened to music they liked with a lot of energy and rhythm every time they did an exercise session.

3. This one is also great for people who play games or sports and who play anything from video games to rugby. It’s fun to set new personal records or make progress.

It also helps people keep exercising to write down how well they do each time studies found. This can be quite time efficient by using a form you just plug a number or two in for each exercise as you do them.

That often comes naturally to people like engineers accountants, technical people, and scientists who develop related skills.

This approach to challenge yourself to moderate but achievable goals and progress also comes naturally to people with high motivation to achieve such as athletes, sales people, entrepreneurs and executives.

B. Fitting in exercise when you are often short of time also helps.

1. It helps to know that some exercise done regularly is so much better for you than none, that even if you can’t fit in much exercise timewise, it’s really worth doing.

a) That can be surprisingly little! If you do a couple or three really vigorous exercises for less than a minute each on as few as 3 days a week, a study found it dramatically improves your body’s ability to process sugar and will lower your level of blood sugar if yours is too high.

Director Clint Eastwood is well known for bringing in films on time or early and used this method. When he had a couple of minutes free or needed a break about that long, he’d knock out a fast set of pushups or situps a few times a week.

b) It’s also worth knowing that 500 calories a week of exercise gives you a full
40 % of the benefits of the ideal level of 3500 calories week even if the exercise is walking or light gardening.

The 45 minutes of exercise, just 3 times a week that Craig Ballantyne recommends burns at least 300 calories each time and 900 a week. And that’s just while you do the exercises. Since he uses vigorous exercise such as strength training or interval cardio, you burn extra calories for many hours after each session.

2. It also helps if you can exercise first thing in the morning before the sudden surprises or urgent problems of the day can override your workouts.

3. And, I’ve found one of the most time efficient ways to do that is to do fast exercise sessions of about 15 minutes each day at home each morning.

That requires no extra time to go to a gym either.

If you can get to the gym too that’s great! But by getting your most reliable exercise at home each morning, if you have to miss going to the gym later in the day, you’ll get in enough exercise to keep you healthy and you’ll mostly be able to pick up where you left off when you make it back to the gym I found.