Research finally shows why diet soft drinks fatten....

Today's Post:  Friday, 5-31-2013

It is well established that people who drink diet soft drinks have more belly fat and are more likely to have type 2 diabetes than people who drink regular soft drinks.

Regular soft drinks are very effective fatteners and produce enough blood sugar surge to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

So if you just look at those statistics, no one in their right mind who wants to lose fat or avoid diabetes would ever drink any diet soft drinks.

But there are two problems. 

1.   Because diet soft drinks have no sugar some less knowledgeable experts still recommend them to people trying to lose fat and to people who already have type 2 diabetes.

And, some people successful at fat loss do drink diet soft drinks.  (Most of them are relentless in how well they do everything else and have cut back to more like one or two a day instead of the 5 or 6 most people who drink diet soft drinks consumes however.)

2.  The bad looking results no one questions MIGHT be caused by fatter people choosing to drink diet soft drinks.  And, they might be caused with the fast food and junk food soft drink drinkers are more likely to eat.

Worse, both these things are true at least in part. 

But if the diet soft drinks DO cause these things directly, no one who knows this would expect them to be helpful for fat loss or good health.

A previous study found that rats fed artificial sweeteners ate more calories than the control group fed food sweetened sugar. (If I remember correctly the rats fed artificial sweeteners were also heavier and fatter.)

But that's not quite enough.  Both being mammals sometimes rats and people do have similar reactions to many things.  BUT sometimes they differ.  Like the bad statistics that diet soft drinkers are fatter etc, this might not be true of people -- just true in rats!

Since the soft drink makers would lose over half their profits if people stopped drinking diet soft drinks and have not been trustworthy on use of high fructose corn syrup in regular soft drinks, I've been of the opinion that the dreadful results HAVE been caused mostly by the diet soft drink consumption itself.

I also have believed ever since I saw it that the rat study IS likely true for people.

But my recommendation to stop diet soft drinks AND regular soft drinks if you want to lose fat or not gain it would be stronger if there was more direct evidence that diet soft drinks fatten.

BINGO!

That study just showed up in my inbox this morning in the Medical News Today newsletter!

Artificial Sweeteners Affect Metabolism And Insulin Levels

http://mnt.to/a/4dNc

The artificial sweetener sucralose (Splenda) is capable of changing the

body's insulin response, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine

reported in the journal Diabetes Care.

Simply put, diet soft drinks and artificial sweeteners cause an extra big insulin surge according to this study.

Remember that the average drinker of diet soft drinks consumes more than 5 a day.

That means that in people who drink diet soft drinks this is a BIG effect!

This one IS the smoking gun!

Your body acclimates to repeated insulin surges and stops lowering blood sugar, insulin resistance, when that happens. Then blood sugar levels get higher and many people get type 2 diabetes.

This study shows drinking diet soft drinks provides the repeated insulin surges.  Oops!

But high insulin levels have a second effect.  They cause your body to store calories as fat and prevent you from using the calories you have in fat storage even when you actually need them!

BINGO again!  Drinking diet soft drinks is a direct cause of adding extra fat and having trouble removing it.  Yikes!

This is extremely important news.

Tell everyone you know.

So the word from here is that if you drink diet soft drinks after learning this, you care more about the soft drink companies profits than you do about how fat you are or whether you have type 2 diabetes or not.

Is that what you want?

Breakthrough in stopping osteoporosis....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 5-30-2013

(This post is below our brief announcement:

If you'd like to support our efforts to help real people lose fat and stop the obesity crisis and the cost of the related diseases, check out this link:

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It will only be up until tomorrow Friday, 5-31-2013.)

Breakthrough in stopping osteoporosis....

An email I get, The Health Watch e-letter a publication of The Institute for Natural Healing recently had information on this breakthrough.

Replenish Melatonin to Protect Your Bones is what their title should have said.

This is HUGE news!

Adding this information to what is already known to do and not do for preventing or reversing osteoporosis just about is a complete cure. 

The drugs are really dreadful with horrible and even damaging side effects and not really sound in the benefits they deliver either. 

Adding this with its good-drug like effects to effective strength training, walking, eating calcium, taking magnesium and enough D3, and taking boron and K2 and NOT drinking soft drinks containing citric and phosphoric acid and even using bioidentical hormone replacement  for some women means that menopausal women and older men no longer need fear or continue to have osteoporosis.

They had this:

“The good news….your body already produces a hormone which can prevent and heal bone damage. If you have enough of it.

Studies testing the hormone on both animals and humans show positive results…

University of Buffalo researchers found that the hormone increased amounts of several proteins responsible for bone formation in mice.

Another study out of Spain tested the hormone on rabbits. It completely repaired bone defects in just four weeks. Even better, the newly formed bone had increased density.

Women who took a supplement of the hormone also had increased bone formation. Even better… they had a decrease in bone resorption—a process where bone is broken down. Too much resorption causes osteoporosis.

And although you’ve heard of this hormone, you never would have thought it has anything to do with bone health.  So what is it?

…. melatonin.

Melatonin is the hormone normally responsible for controlling your sleep and wake pattern. Your pineal gland naturally produces it. But with age, levels decrease. So sometimes you need a supplement to get your levels back to normal. That much you probably already knew. But not this new twist…

Normal melatonin levels are vital in protecting your bones. When your body has enough melatonin it signals cells to produce and mineralize bone matrix proteins. And bone matrix proteins lead to bone formation and increased density. 

Your bones are the support system of your body. But they’re not hard, lifeless structures. They are living, growing tissues. And as you get older, bone density decreases. That puts you at an increased risk for fractures or developing osteoporosis.

The best way to keep your melatonin levels steady is by getting enough sleep. But that isn’t always that easy… 

So, to naturally boost your melatonin levels, eliminate all artificial light from the bedroom when it’s time for bed. Melatonin production is increased by the dark. Even the light from an alarm clock can halt melatonin production. It helps to go to sleep and wake up at the same time too.”

The thing that really got my attention was that study on rabbits that completely repaired bone defects in four weeks with melatonin supplementation.

Super slow strength training of legs and back and chest muscles was developed about 60 years ago to see if it would begin to reverse early osteoporosis.  It did even in people well over 70!  But even though it did work the restoration was partial and took place over a year or two.

This study suggests that supplementing with melatonin AND this kind of strength training would be dramatically effective.

.

(It was discovered that any bone under a muscle which was used with strong weight bearing exercise would get stronger, bigger, and healthier.  The arm bones of baseball pitchers on the side they pitch with are bigger and heavier than the arm they didn’t exercise. Remains of gladiators show the bones in their sword arms were much heavier and stronger than their other arms.)

The best news is that you only need a 1 mg dose of melatonin at bedtime to do the job. 

You can get the sublingual form that goes to work right away in an over 6 month’s supply for less than $20. 

I just did that as I was taking melatonin to ensure good sleep and its brain benefits.

Separate research shows that melatonin also has anticancer effects.

The other factors are important too.

The acids in soft drinks leach calcium from your teeth and drive up your dental bills including needing to get false teeth according to a recent study.  But this effect also is thought to leach calcium from your bones.  So, if you’d like to prevent or reverse osteoporosis, stopping any use of such soft drinks is important to do.  (You also become less fat without getting hungrier if you do that!)

Oddly taking lots of calcium is neither needed nor even desirable.  Taking some but only after a larger meal and eating many kinds of foods containing calcium is both safer and as or more effective.

And, to get the bone building effect of the calcium, it has tested as critical to get extra magnesium 400 to 800 mg a day; 3,000 to 5,000 iu a day of vitamin D3; and getting 300 to 5,000 mcg a day of vitamin K2.

These nutrients apparently act as effective catalysts to move the calcium into your bones.

Getting lots of calcium without these nutrients tests as ineffective at building bones.

K2 also helps prevent calcium from depositing in your blood vessel walls which also give it a heart disease protecting effect.

I’m not as sure of the effects of taking 3 mg a day of boron as well; but taking that much some sources say also helps build bones.  And it improves your alertness and has an anti cancer effect.

Two new ways to stop Alzheimer’s and brain shrinkage....

Today's Post:  Wednesday, 5-22-2013

(This post is below our brief announcement:

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Two new ways to stop Alzheimer’s and brain shrinkage....

FIVE Things now known to help avoid brain shrinkage include:

The two newly discovered to work methods:

1.  A new study shows that taking B6 B12 & Folic acid also helps prevent brain shrinkage by lowering homocysteine AND does so the most on the parts of the brain in which damage and shrinkage causes mental decline and dementia!

2.  Avoiding tobacco smoke prevents brain shrinkage this study proves! 

That’s because tobacco smoke if NOT avoided increases homocysteine which may not be a direct cause of heart disease but an indicator only; but homocysteine this new study shows IS a cause of brain shrinkage!

The 3 we already knew worked:

1.  Getting regular exercise even regular walking but even better effective strength training AND burst style interval or variable cardio every week boosts BDNF, the growth factor that adds or regrows nerves and brain cells.

2.  Intermittent fasting has been shown to also boost BDNF!  (I just learned this one a few days ago myself!)

3.  Taking DHA supplements and eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils also helps prevent brain shrinkage.

The article appeared as a feature on Yahoo today.  (I’ve added some paragraphing to make it easier to read.)

Here’s my summary of the most important points:

In people with more than moderate levels of homocysteine, daily taking 800 mg of folic acid; and up to a total of 100 mg of vitamin B6 as more B6 than 100 mg a day causes nerve damage in another way—I take 85 mg; and one or two sublingual vitamin B12 tablets of 1,000 mcg of vitamin B12, slashes the risk of brain shrinkage in the most important areas to prevent mental decline and dementia and memory and cognitive problems.

Note that they found that doing so cut the brain shrinkage in HALF in people with memory problems!

And:  “. Vitamin B supplements slowed the shrinkage in these areas by nearly 9-fold over the two-year study period.”  The areas spoken of here are the ones critical to keep for good memory function!

Second key note:

a) Many middle aged and older people now take proton pump inhibitors or Metformin for blood sugar problems.  Each of these depletes vitamin B12 despite the desirable main effects they have.  That plus this research suggests it is critical for people taking either drug to take the 1,000 mcg of vitamin B12 in the sublingual form.  This study suggests depleting B12 could cause brain shrinkage. 

And if the depletion is in the digestive tract, absorbing the B12 directly into the blood stream from their mouth will simply bypass the problem.

b) And many elderly people both get too little B12 in their food and no longer digest it well.

So they too should take 1,000 mcg of vitamin B12 in the sublingual form.  That way not digesting B12 well in the digestive tract, by absorbing the B12 directly into the blood stream from their mouth will simply bypass the problem.

“Vitamin B may protect against Alzheimer’s, say researchers 

Science Recorder | James Fluere | Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The 2010 clinical trial examined the effect of high doses of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 on brain shrinkage in 168 participants with memory problems

Researchers at the University of Oxford have discovered the vitamin B may protect against Alzheimer’s.

They found that B vitamins could halve brain shrinkage in older people with memory problems.

The new discovery takes a second look at data from a 2010 clinical trial, linking vitamin B to slower rates of shrinkage in areas of the brain impacted in Alzheimer’s disease in individuals with high levels of homocysteine.

The 2010 clinical trial examined the effect of high doses of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 on brain shrinkage in 168 participants with memory problems.

The study revealed that rates of total brain shrinkage were slower in those taking vitamin B, although this was most noticeable in individuals with high levels of the amino acid homocysteine in their blood.

Earlier research has linked high levels of homocysteine to cognitive impairment and a higher risk of Alzheimer’s. These levels climb with age, and the consumption of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 can help lower these levels in the blood.

The researchers decided to take a second look at scans from the study participants. Instead of focusing on total brain shrinkage, they now examined shrinkage in different areas of the brain.

Seventy-seven of the study participants had homocysteine levels higher than 11.06µmol/L. Compared to participants with lower levels, these participants had a quicker rate of shrinkage in the areas of the brain known to be impacted in Alzheimer’s disease. Vitamin B supplements slowed the shrinkage in these areas by nearly 9-fold over the two-year study period. Vitamin B supplements, on the other hand, had no impact on participants with lower levels of homocysteine.”

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 5-20-2013

(This post is below our brief announcement:

If you'd like to support our efforts to help real people lose fat and stop the obesity crisis and the cost of the related diseases, check out this link:

If you'd make an effort to lose fat if you knew you would lose it and keep it off, check out this link:

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It will only be up until Friday, 5-31-2013.)

My monthly fatloss progress report....

This is one of my most promising reports for two reasons.

1.  Not only did I lose 4 pounds on the scale since the previous month, I also lost a half inch from my waist. 

I’m now a pound below my goal weight on the scale; but even with that new half inch loss on my waist, I still have 4 inches to go to reach my first goal for fat loss on my waist!

But SOME progress is better than hardly any!

I’ve been doing more effective strength training exercise for my chest and upper back recently.  And, I gained another half inch on my chest measurement.

My several strategies I keep using and the new ones I added DID help.

But the one I think did the most for my waist was that I caught a chest cold and have had to cough up the extra mucus even though I’ve gotten over the chest cold etc.

Since I had to cut back on my strength training and total exercise for about the last third of the month, the large amount of extra calories burned by the coughing and having a bit lower appetite more than overcame that.

And, since I’ve focused a bit more on chest exercises and cut back less on my superslow pushups, that apparently helped too.

2.  But the really big news is the decent chance that I’ll lose 7 more pounds of fat by two months from now and a good bit of my remaining excess fat and belly fat by six to eight  months from now!

One of my techniques that has already helped has been my one partial fast each Tuesday where I skip the other foods I have for lunch and just eat vegetables.

Yes at times I’ve felt hungry on Tuesday afternoons.  But at other times I haven’t at all!  So by simply doing it and keeping normally busy, I’ve found it doable and repeatable.

Not only that, but I’ve been getting a bit more done on Tuesdays by the few minutes of time I’ve saved by not eating the other parts I of my lunch I have the other weekdays!

Now I’ve just found out that if I simply extend this to doing the same thing at dinner and eating only a bit of vegetables and skipping the rest AND the wine I’ve been drinking on Tuesdays AND also doing the same on Fridays, I can lose something like 3 or 4 pounds of fat a month of my remaining excess fat.

(You can have up to 500 or 600 calories of food without spoiling the effect.  The main author likes a 300 calorie breakfast and a 300 calorie dinner.  I’ll go with keeping my 700 calorie breakfast and eat 30 or 40 calories of vegetables at lunchtime and dinner time.  I think my exercise will give me the good results with that slightly higher calorie amount.)

It will be a challenge at first.  But I just found out others have been pleasantly surprised to find they have been able to do this two days a week more easily than they expected.  And they all find it doable enough they plan to continue doing it all the time because of the dramatically good results it delivers.

Best of all, most of that fat I’ll lose will be my excess belly fat!

True, the process may gradually remove less fat a month as the months go by.

So after 7 months I may lose more like 14 pounds of fat than the 24 needed.

And, I’ll actually be well below my goal weight and still lack the 25 more pounds of muscle I’d like.

But while I’m working on adding that muscle, I can get rid of the fat FIRST and right away!

Methods to lose fat and keep it off to work have to do so without slowing metabolism; avoid any loss of muscle or bone; avoid any big jump in hunger; and be something you do NOT have to do every single day!

I already know and use 5 truly effective ways to do that to some extent. That’s how I’ve gotten back to my goal weight and have no worries this time about gaining it back.

But they each lack the immediate effectiveness that will help people lose fat and pounds right away that new people need to be encouraged enough to continue everything else.

Just last Friday night at my local bookstore I looked over and bought a book on partial fasting for two days a week.

It's: The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting by Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer (Feb 26, 2013).

This method does ALL of what I have lacked up until now.

It’s a doable way to force fast fat loss that does NOT have ANY of the boomerang problems of every day cut backs that cause failure!

Best of all, it gives me the missing piece I myself have needed to lose my last 24 pounds of excess fat and lose inches from my waist!

It will be a challenge.  But it’s only extending a practice a bit that I’ve already found I’m able to do.  And, the book shows that other people have done it successfully!

The other documented benefits are unbelievably positive too!

It will lower my slightly high blood pressure perhaps by as much as 10% within two months.

My relaxed blood pressure has been 149 over 83 lately.

This two day a week intermittent fasting may drop that to less than 134 over 75 within two months.

Other people have gotten dramatic improvements in their measures of heart health and even close to full reversal of type 2 diabetes!  That includes the author of this book!

It looks likely to cut cancer risks.

And, like regular and vigorous exercise, this kind of partial fasting releases BDNF which grows or regrows new nerves and brain cells.

This fights possible mental decline AND people report having depression disappear and their moods improve which may be because of this BDNF release!

In fact, this may be a way in TWO days a week of just partial fasting to get the life extension of eating less all 7 days a week!!

If you want fat loss or better health too, this might be something you should check out!

Read the book and see what you think.

3 ways to overcome emotional eating....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 5-11-2013

(This post is below our brief announcement:

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3 ways to overcome emotional eating

Loneliness causes a kind of bad mood and stress that very often leads to emotional eating.

This was confirmed in a recent study.

Another recent study found that people who felt positive emotions often had much better social networks and health and much lower stress.

So you can avoid feeling lonely and that kind of stress to avoid that kind of stress driven eating.

But how do you do that!?

Yes.  The vigorous exercise most days of every week that produce good health and help power fat loss or not gaining extra fat DO help with that.

Taking the omega 3 supplement DHA and eating low mercury wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils also helps.

This post is about 3 strategies you can add to increase your social support and feel dramatically less lonely.

1.  Other people are in your world now.  The first step is to be aware of who they are. 

You see some people at your work.  You often see some of the same people when you shop or go to the bank. 

Even though the relationship is one way you also have many people on the radio or TV that you get to know.  The same is true of authors of nonfiction or fiction of books you read often.

And, you get to know family members and neighbors.

Remember that you DO encounter those people now! 

If doing so makes you feel good  -- and the ones you see in person begin to realize you recognize them, like them, and are you are happy to see them, you will feel far less lonely and dramatically less stressed.

And, once you master how to do that, arranging to see them more often can help.  So can simply remembering how well it went when you saw them last if you begin to feel lonely.

2.  The next step I learned from a self help author, David Schwartz.  And his strategy has been confirmed by the studies of successful marriages.

Know of reasons to like people, what you like about specific people, and what the legitimate strengths and good points are of people who know and why you like that about them.

David Schwartz suggest that before you see someone remember these real reasons you like them or when you do see them notice these things when they show up!

This even works with people who have things about them you don’t like.

Simply remember what their strengths are and the reasons why you like them for those reasons anyway.  That will help make them much more of a positive for you to interact with.

And, when you do see them that will help the interaction go well enough, it will help you feel less lonely.

Here is a personal example.  There is a manager at my local Whole Foods.  If you want her to make an exception in what she sees as official policy don’t even bother to ask her.  She will ONLY do it by the book!  That used to upset me.  Now I just ask someone else!

But as a person she is nice and friendly and recognizes me.  Even better, if I ask her help at something she sees as OK, she is extremely competent and knows the store and it gets done!

She does it or gets someone best able to help me to do it.  So, because I remember those things about her, I’m always friendly when I see her.

3.  The last part is using the study that found that experiencing positive emotions was so helpful.

How do you use THAT to be less lonely?

The strategy is a doable add-on to the last one.

To a degree you can practice feeling the way you want by focusing on the real reasons for it. This is the previous strategy.

But you can also simply turn it on like throwing a switch to a degree.  Simply practice feeling pleased and warm towards a person, let yourself feel it and hold it for a bit.

People cannot read minds – at least not the ones I know!  But social research shows they are totally accurate about two things.

a)  Is the person they see at a low energy, a higher energy productive alertness, or are they wildly energetic or stressed greatly?  Low energy, in between, or excessive energy or a very high energy state?

People read that extremely accurately if they pay attention at all.

b)  The other one is positive and negative feelings. 

People read that extremely accurately if they pay attention at all.

So when you meet someone & you see their energy level, match yours to it -- or a bit higher if theirs is too low or a bit lower if theirs is too high or too high for you.

That helps.

But the huge one is by focusing on real reasons you like and /or respect them and allowing yourself to feel warmly towards them, THEY relax and are much more comfortable with you being there.

They will be easier to communicate with and your interaction with them will help you feel far more connected and less stressed and lonely.

It does take practice! 

And, to be fair it IS easier with some people and easier with a particular person some times more than others.

But if you are lonely or feeling out of touch practicing these techniques with all these people every time you get a chance WILL make a huge difference to you.

 Even making opportunities to see people and practicing these techniques when you get good at doing them can help.

I took David Schwartz’s advice on this and practiced myself.

Doing so has dramatically improved my quality of life

and saved me from disasters not knowing how to do this would have slammed me instead –

and helped me deal well with almost everyone even people others find difficult to work with.

So I strongly recommend it to you.

New Way to Perform Well Under Pressure....

Today's Post:  Friday, 5-10-2013

(This post is below our brief announcement:

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New way to perform well under pressure !

Whether you are stressed by something outside of a job, task, or performance -- or are stressed by the job, task, or performance itself,

      people tend to do less well when stressed.

Saying an affirmation such as "I'll do this well" is often ineffective.  It's often a case of telling yourself you believe something that you know you have no evidence is true.

Oddly, research found that asking yourself "Will I do this well?"  improves performance more.  Why?  Because if you want to do that task well, it leads to the question, "What can I actually do that could lead to me doing this well?"

Noah St John teaches to start there with "How will I do this well?"  or "Why will I do this well?" first.  He calls this style "Afformations." 

Personally, I've not found his other ideas or advice that good.  But his Afformations questions do work!

  >>>>  But what if there was an even simpler technique that could enable you to do 100% as well on a task under pressure or while stressed as you would if there was no pressure or threat and you weren't overstressed?

Yesterday I was delighted to find there is such a technique.  And, in their test, using it completely turned off the performance drop from stress!

Medical News Today had the story.   Research from Carnegie Mellon University, published in PLOS ONE.  It was done in their Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

They tested two groups on a set of timed problems to solve that required some creative solutions.

One group was stressed and one was not.  They stressed group literally did half as well. 

Then before the next round the people in the stressed group took a list of common values and listed them in the order of how important they ranked them.  Next they had to write two reasons their number one priority ranked that high for them.

Then the two groups each took another, similar test.

The stressed group did better.  How much better?  They did just as well as the non-stressed group!

That means ALL of the stress drop off in performance was turned off by this technique!

What caused this effect?

Two things did it. 

1. Even stressed people can do the exercise but it does require some thought.  This starts up their real problem solving skills and acts as a right now reminder that they do have those skills.  It's like a warm up and a reminder they do have those skills at the same time.

2.  People who focus on what values they have and why feel deserving, worthy, and virtuous. 

Everyone has a highest and best self that's worthy and capable.

So this exercise focuses their mind in a way showing their highest and best self that's worthy and capable is real.

Then, when they do the test, instead of feeling threatened, they tend to feel empowered and that they have the resources to do well.

You can do this exercise exactly as they did.

Or, you can do a slightly more focused version if you have time.

Think of a value you have that doing well on this task will help you have or will help support that value.

If you have a related goal, doing well on this task will help you achieve, remember it.

Then remember a real skill or two you know you have that will help you do well on the task or have a good chance to do so.

The wonderful news is that this exercise not only helps you perform well under pressure, but my guess is that it turns off or down your physical stress levels too!  

New way to protect your heart....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 5-7-2013

(This post is below our brief announcement:

If you’d like to support our efforts to help real people lose fat and stop the obesity crisis and the cost of the related diseases, check out this link:

If you’d make an effort to lose fat if you knew you would lose it and keep it off, check out this link:

The Indiegogo.com crowd funding for our fat loss support site is here: 

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/building-the-worlds-most-effective-fat-loss-support-site-using-proven-methods/x/2390951      It will only be up until Friday, 5-31-2013.)

New way to protect your heart....

High blood pressure, damage to your heart from heart attacks you survived, and lack of the ubiquinol form of CoQ10 caused by aging or taking statin drugs, each tend to cause congestive heart failure.

Congestive heart failure is truly dreadful stuff because as your heart gets weaker, you gradually become unable to move about and begin to drown in the fluid in your lungs.  It’s progressive and currently fatal.  And it’s hideously expensive to treat!

Preventing heart failure is worth some strong extra effort!

(I’ve seen this first hand.  My Dad basically died of it.)

1.  You can of course use lifestyle upgrades to a health supporting diet and add safe exercise every week to lower your blood pressure and protect you from its bad effects. 

A recent study found that for lower levels of high blood pressure this was more protective than taking drugs and that adding the drugs added no further protection.  (See the DASH II diet and the Mediterranean diet for what TO eat.)

2.  You can prevent heart attacks by adding low levels of niacin and taking sterol supplements besides those life style upgrades instead of taking statin drugs. 

The diet upgrades include completely stopping any hydrogenated oils and cutting back dramatically on foods made with sugar, refined grains or oils high in omega 6 and completely stopping foods made with high fructose corn syrup and stopping all soft drinks.  Research shows stopping these heart attack starters is one of the most heart protective things you can do. 

Completely avoiding tobacco smoke also belongs on this list.  Tobacco smoke causes blood vessel damage and heart disease in ALL smokers – no exceptions. And, tobacco smoke also triggers heart attacks in people who would have escaped them otherwise!

3.  You can also take the ubiquinol form of CoQ10 as a supplement to help make sure your heart has enough.

4.  This new study shows that there is yet another way to prevent heart failure!

You can make your heart dramatically less easy to harm and help it recover more easily.

In  The Better Brain Book: The Best Tool for Improving Memory and Sharpness and Preventing Aging of the Brain by David Perlmutter and Carol Colman (Aug 2, 2005),

he describes how the extremely powerful antioxidant glutathione is a key to keeping good health and protecting your brain.

He relates how he has saved very sick patients who had very low levels of glutathione by administering glutathione directly.

And he cites the studies showing that taking NAC, n-acetyl-cysteine, supplements causes strong glutathione release in the body such that people taking NAC give their brains very strong protection and slash the risk of mental decline.

This new study shows that eating grapes boosts glutathione in your heart.  And, having high levels of this very powerful antioxidant, they found, prevents heart failure.

Grape seed extract has been separately shown to help reduce endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular disease and somewhat decrease the related high blood pressure.

But if boosting glutathione is the way these effects are produced, that's extremely useful news!

That's because the supplement NAC boosts glutathione quite strongly.

In addition, if someone has recently had a heart attack, their blood levels of glutathione can be measured.  And if their their blood levels of glutathione are low, it can be administered directly as a treatment.  This research suggests that doing so will reduce the lasting damage from the heart attack!

This may also be a reason that eating organic wild blueberries and taking bilberry extract are health and heart protective.

And, it may be another reason red wine in moderation is heart protective.

Using all these methods, you can make getting heart failure very unlikely in your case!

Adding this new method that helps prevent your heart from being damaged can be a huge help!

Two related Fat loss tips that worked....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 5-2-2013

(Short post:  Important new announcement and update follows it! )

I recently read the new book, Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha: A Real World Guide to an Unreal Life: Build More Muscle. Burn More Fat. Have More Sex by John Romaniello & Adam Bornstein recently.

Clearly it’s designed for young men or men who want their youth back.  And, it’s clear in reading it, it IS mostly for young men who want those results.

More than that, their plan is so complex and the recommended foods so expensive to buy, that it is for such men with more time than most and more far more money too!

So, why did I read it?!

The author’s DO get results in helping their in person clients lose belly fat.  Their clients DO get smaller waists with far less visible fat by using their advice.

So, their advice works!  That means that some parts of their advice will also work for older men and women of any age!

And, as I’ve learned in my own case, to lose BELLY fat and inches off your waist, you have to lose extra fat beyond what it takes to lose the easier to lose fat from changing totally away from eating really bad foods, drinking soft drinks, and getting NO exercise at all.  

And, besides losing even more fat, you have to make that extra fat loss and belly fat loss  happen in part by gaining more muscle.

Their basic formula is classic. 

Eat far more protein; eat nonstarchy vegetables; and limit starchy foods to small servings only on occasion. 

AND, do LOTS of challenging strength training for almost every part of your body really fast without let up but only 3 days a week with rest days in between. 

(They don’t SAY to stop all soft drinks and packaged snacks, dinners, and desserts and sugary treats and baked goods and hydrogenated and junk omega 6 oils.  But they sure don’t include them or their calories in their list of what to eat and drink either!)

Then they add three interesting and different ways to remove calories:

1.  Get a half hour more sleep than most people do or than you were before unless you already got that much sleep. 

Your body regulates and optimizes your appetite hormones and growth hormones and testosterone release far better when not short on sleep!

When you have that little bit longer fast period every day, your body burns fat better and adds it less readily.

2.  Have one day a week or once every two weeks where you fast on a non-workout day. And, keep your total calories each day you do eat low enough to only feed the body you want to have with none left over for extra fat.

3.  Create a plan that maximizes how long you fast daily from when you have dinner and your last food of the day to when you eat breakfast. Same reason:  When you have that little bit longer fast period every day, your body burns fat better and adds it less readily.

The result of all of the above -- OR a similar plan that adds muscle effectively in simpler, less time-consuming and expensive ways -- is that you lose belly fat and add muscle.  Then you are a LOT less fat and your health protection goes up a lot too because belly fat inside your belly, visceral fat, is so harmful to your health.  And you have far less of belly and visceral fat!

I already use some partial fasts each week, notably Tuesdays during the work day and a to a lesser degree on Thursdays and every other Wednesday.

And, I already to effective strength training that’s getting results one day a week for upper body and one for legs.

So, since their style is different, I just began using it on my easier second upper body exercise day.  So far that’s working out decently.

But the BIG thing I did was to preemptively eat the part of my late evening snacks that I found helped me LOSE weight* right after dinner INSTEAD OF late at night to increase my fasting duration each day.    (*one spoonful of guacamole, one spoonful of nonfat cottage cheese, and a small serving of raw broccoli florets which have health OK fats, health OK protein, and health promoting nonstarchy vegetable and more fiber.  This tends to prevent night time hunger and snacking or eating MORE late night food which is why it helped me lose fat and weight.)

The second BIG thing I did was to be SURE to do chores early enough in the evening that I could consistently go to bed a half an hour earlier.

This DID prevent late evening hunger because the two worked together.  By the time I would have been hungry before, NOW I was already asleep!

The results astonished me!

In two weeks, I lost 7 pounds!

And, for the most part, I can keep doing this most days of every week.

Plus, my muscle gain still has more coming as I keep doing the effective strength training!

The Indiegogo.com crowd funding for our fat loss support site described below, went live last Friday, 4-19 and is live now at: 

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/building-the-worlds-most-effective-fat-loss-support-site-using-proven-methods/x/2390951

If you want permanent fat loss and are willing to make an effort to learn and begin the methods that are proven to work,

please join our beta and charter members and we’ll send you the overview of our 10 main methods soon.  You’ll also get a chance to help us start with a fat loss support site that includes what you think would help you most!

Important NEW announcement:

We plan a major upgrade our crowd funding site on Monday,5-6.

That will be visible by Tuesday morning, 5-7 and may be by late in the day on Monday, 5-6.