How to avoid colds and flu....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 9-29-2015

*This is an important topic at this time of year because school aged kids go back to school where they are quite often exposed to cold and flu viruses that they then give their teachers and bring home.

*Secondly, it’s at this time of year that in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in Canada, the Northern US, and Europe, begin to have too little sunlight to enable people to have enough vitamin D3. 

(Because, vitamin D3 powers the immune system to recognize and kill cold and flu viruses, having low levels can cause you to get colds and flu your immune system would have killed with more robust vitamin D3 levels.)

*Third, in the Northern Hemisphere, air temperatures begin to fall to levels where cold and flu viruses tend to survive better in the air and on surfaces than they do at warmer temperatures.

*And, fourth, it is at this time of year, literally this week, that this year’s flu shots become available.

1.  Cold and flu viruses can’t make you sick without getting inside you.

So, wash your hands before eating and on first arriving home for the day; more than the rest of the year, when you can, avoid being in public places where you are close to large groups of people where you might get sneezed on or coughed on; and touch your eyes and nose ONLY with a tissue or paper towel between your finger and your mucous membranes.

Those things do help.  I’ve read that the handwashing alone can cut the number of colds and flu episodes you get in half.

2.  But since some of this advice limits your freedom of action or is impossible to follow, the best way is to set up your immune system to kill off any cold or flu viruses that attack you before they make you sick.

The two most important things are to take enough vitamin D3 and get your flu shot each year.

a) Recently, an article was published that the real optimum intake of vitamin D3 is 7,000 iu a day or a bit more, which is comparable to what you’d get working outside all day from sun exposure in the summertime. 

From this level, 7,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 from supplements to two or three times that much is clearly safe because people do routinely get that much D3 from summer sun exposure if they are outside with no bad effects whatever.

(Vitamin D2, a synthetic partial copy, is neither as effective nor as safe to take in these higher amounts.  D3 however IS safe at these levels.)

Why does this intake of vitamin D3 protect you from colds and flu?

When you get enough vitamin D3, your virus killing T cells become much better at identifying cold and flu viruses accurately and immediately.  Your body makes more T cells; AND they become much more effective at killing viruses.

Compared with no intake of vitamin D3 at all, it’s as if your body had 100 times more trained  scouts watching out for cold or flu viruses. AND your blood stream had a 100 times more Navy Seals with rapid fire big magazine weapons optimized to kill viruses.

As a result, it’s quite common for people who take 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 or more to not get colds or episodes of the flu at all in many if not most cases.

The reverse is also true.  In one flu epidemic of a virulent flu, the people who died were those severely deficient in vitamin D3.

The really good news is that 5,000 iu capsules of vitamin D3 from Jarrow and 10,000 iu capsules of vitamin D3 from Solgar are quite moderately priced as supplements go.  Many health food stores carry the Jarrow D3; and if they don’t carry the Solgar D3, they can get it for you with two or three weeks advanced notice. 

(For something like $20 a month, I take one of each.)

b)  Flu shots do work by training your T cells to ID flu viruses so quickly, your body’s immune system routinely kills them before they can make you sick.

There is some variation in how well flu shots work as you may already know.

Last year for example, the main flu that showed up wasn’t a strain covered by the flu shot or covered at all well from what I’ve read.

And, in some people over 65 a flu shot that prevents 80% of flu cases in younger people may only prevent 40%.

But they are well worth getting each year for three reasons.

*If you get them every year for 10 years, you WILL have fewer cases of the flu and suffer less and have your activities restricted less during that 10 years than people who don’t.

*For the same reason, if you get flu shots every year for 10 years less people will get the flu from exposure to you!  That’s why teachers and medical people are asked to get the flu shots.

*Immunity wears off  a bit over time. BUT, if you get flu shots every year after a few years you are immune or partially immune to more varieties of the flu and less likely to get the flu than people who don’t from varieties of the flu not well covered in the current shot.

Lastly, did you know that there is a way to make getting the flu shot much more likely to work?

Actually there are two ways! 

Get the flu shot now, early in the season, if you possibly can.  The shot can only protect you if you get it something like a couple of weeks before the flu shows up.  Why wait until after you already caught the flu?  Get your flu shot in the next few days!

And, here is the really good news!  Remember when we said that getting enough vitamin D3 made your T cells much better at identifying and killing flu viruses?  That effect works with flu shots too!

That means that taking 7,000 to 15,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 can enable a flu shot to prevent you from getting the flu even if it would not have without the D3!

So, in summary, taking enough vitamin D3 can keep you from getting the flu.

Getting your flu shot each year can keep you from getting the flu.

Doing both is even more likely to keep you from getting the flu than either part by itself!

How about getting colds?

Washing your hands and similar efforts also work to prevent colds.  (In fact, having warmer water for washing your hands may be even more effective at killing cold viruses than flu viruses.)

Even better, taking enough vitamin D3 is effective in preventing colds too!

And, if you don’t get slammed and your immune system weakened by getting the flu, that also will help you prevent colds.  So, indirectly, getting your flu shot each year will prevent some colds!

***What can you do if you get a cold or get the flu anyway to minimize the hassle and damage and enable you to recover sooner?

We cover that next week.  Drinking quite a bit more water works relatively well.  But you may not do it if you don’t know why! 

Next week we cover that, a surprising strategy few people know to minimize the impact on you and recover faster, and a way to stop colds in 24 hours that was recently discovered! Another different method works to get over both colds and cases of the flu faster.  

How to avoid harm from fried foods....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 9-24-2015

This post has new information on a way fried foods can harm your heart and health.

And, it has a very promising high tech way to avoid this and a simple, low tech way to do so.

How can fried foods harm your heart and health?

1.  The three ways I already knew about are these:

a) Many fried foods are harmful foods that are fried. 

Peeled, GMO white potatoes are already fattening due to their high glycemic response and chemical residues. 

Processed meat like sausage and bacon that are fried often comes from animals fed GMO grains and are always high in fat.  And, since the high omega 6 oils in these fats from the grain and the herbicides and pesticides bioconcentrated in the fat and the high salt and preservative content of these processed meats are harmful, eating a lot of them each week has been tested to increase heart disease.

b) Many fried foods are fried in corn and canola oil and the omega 6 oils don’t hold up well to heat and cause the oil to become oxidized.  There is even some evidence that some trans fats are formed; and those produce heart disease.

c)  Many fried foods are cooked at relatively high temperatures for a long time.  This makes oxidation and trans fats much more likely and can even produce carcinogenic compounds.

2.  But what if you use extra virgin olive oil and cook cheese or meat from animals fed only grass and their natural foods or eggs from chickens fed outside on pasture, again eating their natural foods—and you use low moderate heat and remove the food before it over-cooks?

The interesting email I got yesterday said:  you may still cause oxidation and trans fat formation because standard electric stove top burners and natural gas flame burners are very approximate in their levels of heat AND some parts of the frying pan tend to be hotter than others.

Then, if the heat is greater than the smoke point of oil, you STILL get harmful excess oxidation and trans fat formation.  According to the article, you get a LOT of both!

There are two ways to avoid this, a low tech one and a high tech one.

The high tech one, by the way sounds extremely, promising!

a) The low tech one is to basically not use frying.  Boil the food and then drain the water; and use a pan to heat up the sauce such that it’s heated through and ready to eat but not enough to cook with.

So I’ll be having poached eggs with a curry/parmesan sauce next time instead of having it as a curry/parmesan scrambled eggs.

I’ll avoid this potential health risk and the cleanup will be MUCH easier.  And all the flavor will still be there.

b)  The high tech method is by using something called an “induction cooktop.”

Because you can set the temperature exactly and this temperature is uniform in each spot on the surface, you can simply set the number below the smoke point of the oil you are using.

And, much to my considerable surprise, this uses less than 90% of the energy that a standard electric burner or natural gas flame burner uses.

(And, because you can then avoid using natural gas, in a kitchen set up to use only an induction cooktop, you can avoid the safety risk of using natural gas entirely for cooking.)

Also, because this is a summary of a longer, more detailed and well done email I read that came from "The Sherpa" a health information email, I decided to include that information also:

First, here is the link to buy the product they recommend:

http://www.nuwavepic.com/?ref_version=PROMOTION

So, if after reading my post and their email, you might consider getting one, there is the link!

From: The Sherpa

Sent: Tue, Sep 22, 2015 5:10 am

Subject: Beware of the smoking point when you cook...

I have a rather unusual email for you today…

You see, there are 2 parts to excellent health.  One is shopping for the right foods-which you've already done.

This second part is absolutely crucial... healthy cooking.

You see, buying the right food is great, but it's really easy to ruin it during the cooking stage (hint: I'm NOT talking about oils, butters, or Teflon pans here).

The answer is below and the mystery centers around a critical factor called the Smoke Point...

If you strive to eat healthy, then you need to understand a few of the commonly missed factors of cooking healthy...

I hope you enjoy this article.

Does HOW you cook affect the nutritional content of WHAT you cook?

Of course it does...

Everyone knows deep-frying food adds tons of fat (from the oil). And high temperature grilling chars the outside of meat (creating cancer-causing carcinogens).

But did you know the type of stove you cook on affects the quality of your food as well?

For example, imagine you have two plump chicken breasts.

You cook them both EXACTLY the same way (fried in a pan with oil). At the same temperature. Flipped at regular intervals. And for an equal amount of time.

The only difference is the stovetops that were used during the cooking process.

Research from Northland Laboratories in Northbrook, Illinois learned that simply using a different stovetop resulted in...

10 times more trans-fat!

145% more saturated fat!

And 195% more cholesterol!

And that's not even the worst news...

The meal with more "bad" fat would also be loaded with free-radicals that are linked to:

Heart disease

DNA damage

Cancer

Accelerated Aging

And all inflammatory diseases (like arthritis, vasculitis, adult respiratory diseases syndrome gastric ulcers, hypertension and preeclampsia, neurological disorders (Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, muscular dystrophy), and much, much more).

How can a simple cooktop change the nutritional content of food so much?

Two words...

Smoke Point...

You see, certain stovetops do not always heat evenly. As a result, one part of the pan will become much hotter than the rest.

This isn't a big deal UNLESS it becomes hot enough to destabilize the oil or butter you are using to cook your food.  The temperature at which this happens is called the "smoke point".

Much like how the "boiling point" is the temperature water turns into steam, the "smoke point" is where liquid oil turns into gas.

When this happens, the fat in the oil begins to break down and turn into a vapor. During this transformation, harmful free radicals form and enter your food.

That's not good.

But how does this result in more trans-fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol?

Well, unfortunately, what are commonly called the "good" fats (like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat) don't stand up to heat as well as the "bad" fats (like saturated and trans-fat).

So those "good" fats break down first leaving more "bad" fats in your food.

To make matters even worse, most people have no clue whatsoever what temperature they are actually cooking at. That's because stovetops do NOT show temperatures. They just have settings between 1-10 (1 being low, and 10 being high).

This is why I cook with an induction cooktop.

Unlike gas or electric cooktops, induction cooktops do not actually heat up. Instead, they create a magnetic field that creates small electric currents in the pan, evenly heating every square inch of the metal.

This prevents "hotspots"...

And since you set the induction by precise temperatures...NOT low, medium, or high settings...you never have to guess if you are heating oil or butter past its "smoke point" (and risk the damaging effects of free radicals seeping into your food).

So what induction cooktop do we recommend?

I personally use the NuWave Cooktop and so do many of my friends...

I find it more versatile because you can boil, simmer, deep-fry, stir-fry, sauté, steam and sear, slow cook, barbecue, melt and grill on it.

Also, the research shows that it's safer because there are no hot coils or open flames, virtually eliminating the risk of fire (in fact, it's cool to the touch even while boiling water!

Use this link here to see an online demonstration...

Scroll to minute 1:30 of the video on this page and you'll see how it is almost impossible to get burned using the NuWave Cooktop).

Another benefit is that the NuWave is cheaper because it uses up to 90% less energy than a traditional gas or electric stove.

Plus, it heats up faster, has a wider temperature range than other induction cooktops. And - my favorite feature - is that it is programmable.

You'll see all of this (and more) in action on the video on the following page.

This means you can cook an entire meal with just the press of a button (no more babysitting your food while it cooks).

I have one in my kitchen and we love it.

I feel that everyone who strives to eat healthy should at least look into them as well.

That's why I've asked NuWave to put together a special deal for Natural Health Sherpa.

For a limited time, you can grab two NuWave Cooktops and a bundle of high quality cookware for less than dinner for two at a fancy restaurant.

This special offer is only good for a few days...

And since you are covered by a 90-day money-back guarantee, you risk nothing by giving this a whirl.

If you want to make sure every meal you cook is as healthy as it can possibly be, I recommend you look into the NuWave Precision Induction Cooktop.

Remember, keep an open mind to new ideas, but ALWAYS do your own homework... and combine that with common sense to figure out what's best for YOU.

Naturally yours,

The Sherpa

PS - I love NuWave's handy Smoke Point chart they provide with every induction cooktop. Here is part of their quick reference guide so I prevent hitting the smoke point when I am preparing my favorite dish...

Type   

Smoke Point

(In Degrees Fahrenheit)

Butter  350°

Canola  oil (refined retail variety)       470°

Extra-light  olive oil    468°

Canola  oil (expeller pressed)  464°

olive oil           460°

Palm  oil          455°

Coconut  oil (refined retail variety)    450°

Corn  oil (refined retail variety)          450°

Peanut  oil (refined retail variety)       450°

Safflower  oil (refined retail variety)  450°

Soybean Oil (refined retail variety)    450°

Sunflower Oil (refined retail variety) 450°

Hazelnut oil     430°

Virgin olive oil            420°

Walnut oil (refined retail variety)       400°

Extra virgin olive oil   375°

Coconut oil (unrefined)          350°

Hemp oil         330°

Peanut oil (unrefined) 320°

Walnut oil (unrefined)            320°

Flax seed oil    225°

Safflower oil (unrefined)        225°

Sunflower Oil (unrefined)      225°  

Extra leverage ways to lose fat, part 2....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 9-22-2015

(Part 1 was on Thursday, 9-17-2015 and listed the basics and an introduction into why having a strong orientation to doing things that protect your health makes doing the basics dramatically easier.  It also has several ways you can eat more and still lose fat and keep it off.)

We are developing a list of as many as a dozen more ways to get extra leverage AND more detailed tips and methods to do each one.

1.  Two more that belong in the category of ways you can eat more and still lose fat and keep it off are

wearing cold packs to burn extra calories,

and doable ways to exercise at your desk

ways to feel good emotionally about your fat loss and efforts to achieve it, and abundant expert sources describing why the fattening foods are also so harmful.

a)  Wearable cold packs:

A man into exercise noticed that there was evidence that at least for people who had ancestors who survived the ice age and famines in cold climates would increase a special kind of “brown” fat when chilled enough and that this fat would generate heat and increase metabolism like a kind of internal heater. 

And, he read that in arctic climates people had to eat extra calories to keep from running out as their bodies burned calories this way to keep them from hypothermia and freezing to death.

So he rigged up a vest that could hold several cold packs that were in a freezer before that could be used on the area of your neck and upper back that contain the most fat that can be triggered into becoming brown fat and a waist pack to help burn more calories and potentially remove belly fat.

*They tested and found that wearing both of these together in normal temperatures of about 70 degrees or a bit less would burn an extra 150 calories an hour.

(I had read that some people had lost fat effectively by sitting for an hour a day in a bathtub filled with cold water and ice cubes.  I tried that and simply couldn’t do it or even taking a cold shower every time instead of a normal one with hot water.)

*The cold pack people meanwhile found that by wearing gloves and a warm hat of some kind that wearing the cold packs was much more doable.

A friend who tried a version of these found that he could easily do it if he read or watched TV while he did it. 

And a woman who was successful losing fat with them did about 2 hours of housework each evening and simply wore them while she did it.

The makers did find that you have to wear enough of a layer of light clothing under the cold packs thick enough to avoid frost bite. 

And they found out that women needed to not cover their breasts with the cold packs to avoid removing too much fat there.  Covering their neck and shoulders and belly was enough; and they could avoid their breasts and still do that.

So far it’s been too hot in our hot box apartment to test these well myself.  But some people who managed to wear them every day did lose significant amounts of fat.

The way that my schedule works, I’m not sure I’ll be able to wear these enough hours a week to help as much as I’d like.  And in some people their appetite goes up enough to prevent much fat loss.

But since some people did lose fat and what I eat tends to be about the same each week, I do plan to give these a full test.  My hope is that I’ll get good results and enough of an effect that it looks like I can recommend them to people they might help.

*One man tested them and measured all kinds of things.  He didn’t lose much fat; but his very slightly elevated blood sugar readings dropped like a rock.  And some of his other heart health indicators improved a bit.  So for people with high blood sugar and who cannot or won’t exercise much, cold packs might be a useful way to go.

At this point, I’m not sure how well these will work for me or other people.  BUT they may work for some people AND because they can be worn while people work at their computers or do housework or watch sports on TV, they can be used in a way that demands very little time each week.  That may be a huge advantage!

b)  Another way to get this benefit is to exercise while at your desk at work.  This does exist now but is NOT ready for wide use at this time.

There is a very expensive work station made where you walk as you work.  But between the expense and the extra office space needed and the fact that it’s demanding enough that many tasks can’t be done on while using it, it’s not practical for most people to use.

Standing desks are not good for decades of use, the dentists who once stood all day at work now sit in special chairs to avoid the varicose veins from standing at work all  day.  And standing desks are a bit too demanding for many tasks.  They are cheaper though and some startups with really young people in their twenties do use them.  They don’t burn as many calories and don’t work well for older people or decades of use.

I have been able to get a sit down recumbent bike in front of my computer and am writing this as I run the pedals as if I was riding a recumbent bike outside.  But it prevents my easy access to my work area; it’s too big to retrofit into most offices; and the cost per unit means most people are unlikely to ever get one!

However, in addition to burning enough extra calories you can eat more and still get and stay slim, we now know that sitting as much at their computers as knowledge workers do now, is harmful to your health – and is even somewhat harmful though less for people who exercise when they aren’t working.

So since there IS a way to make an at your desk exerciser that can be retrofitted to most desks for lower cost, we hope to get that made and available at some point.

2.  Use books for what you need most:

a) People who eat a lot of bread and other grain products often wind up fat.  There is evidence people did not evolve to eat grains; grains spike your blood sugar and insulin and cause fat to be added; and are calorie dense.  In addition, almost all the foods that have other fattening and harmful food ingredients added to them other than soft drinks are made of grain. 

People who give that up eating any of today’s hybrid GMO wheat and eating almost all other grains at all often lose dozens of pounds they keep off by simply doing so 100% of the time.

If you need to know the detailed history of why and see testimonials of people who lost that much fat or got that much healthier by doing this you can access the books and other resources by William Davis MD.

b)  People who find they emotionally rebel and have tried eating less unsuccessfully or have emotional issues around eating can access the Gabriel Method by buying his book by that title which has how he overcame this and ways to do as he did.  He too has dozens of testimonials that people have used his methods successfully.

He himself lost well over 200 pounds.  He says he realized for some reason his body wanted to be fat and was fighting his efforts to lose fat.  Then he describes how he talked his body into wanting to be trim.  Even better this is MUCH MORE than a touchy, feely book.  He discovered and includes the science behind it.

4.  All people who succeed at fat loss wind up with a custom version that works well for them personally.

To lose the fat at all, you need to find a way that fits you well enough you can use it until the fat comes off. 

AND, even more important, to keep up the upgraded lifestyle and keep off the fat you lost, you need to find a way that you can simply eat that way all the time and enjoy your life.

I forget just now where I found this but it expresses it very well.

“Here’s the blatant truth about diet and exercise:

Not everyone is the same!!

Not everyone should do one workout program and not everyone should follow one diet the rest of their lives. In fact… 

The people I see get the best results are the people who try a lot of different stuff until they eventually come to a place where they have learned their own system of diet and exercise. 

One that is unique to them and their individual goals!

However…

This takes time; it takes a little effort… and more than anything it takes an understanding that programs that may resonate with you, may not resonate with others.”

5.  No surprise.  You cannot lose fat if you have no clue what you eat and drink.

a) This was from HealthDay News:

“Food Diary a Great Tool for Losing Weight, Expert Says  

MONDAY, Jan. 3 (HealthDay News) -- The pen may be mightier than the scale when it comes to losing weight, experts have found.

Keeping a daily journal of snacks and meals is one of the best methods used by successful dieters, according to Dr. Christopher J. Mosunic, a weight management and diabetes specialist at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Conn.

"Keeping a food diary is like exercise; it will always help you lose [weight] if you do it consistently," he said in a hospital news release.

"I can split my patients into two groups. The food diary keepers and the nonkeepers. The people who keep diaries are usually very successful and I work with them for about 12 weeks. The people who don't are people I sometime see for years," Mosunic noted.

Dieters who keep journals are more successful because they're willing to acknowledge every bit of food they eat, which clearly shows them how many calories they are consuming per day, he explained.

Journaling also helps weight and nutrition experts track a person's eating and behavior patterns.

"One of the key behaviors we can identify and address is how binge eating happens," Mosunic said. "You can see by looking at something as simple as what people ate for breakfast, why their blood glucose goes low and they end up binge-eating in the afternoon."

It's important to keep your food journal simple, record even the smallest amounts of food, and it is best to share your journal with an expert on weight loss and nutrition, according to Mosunic.

There are two ways to track that.  People who do so are dramatically more successful than those who do not.

b) This is great for the initial stages and for working with a coach like this.

c) But for long term, forever, use, the extra time it adds to your week can keep you from continuing it.

The work around that I and health coach Isabel de Los Rios use is to eat a variety of health OK and not fattening meals each week and rotate in such a way that 95% of the time you eat the same amount of the same foods each week. You eat the same foods each weekday which greatly simplifies your shopping.  You just set up to eat a different kind of meal each weekday.

In my case, I eat a different breakfast each day and each evening; but the same ones each day.  Every Tuesday evening I eat wild caught salmon and every Tuesday morning I eat organic wild blueberries for example.

This certainly works for me!  I recently weighed myself once a week for 4 weeks.  My eating pattern is so regular and I’m so regular at my exercises that I also do the same ones on the same day each week that my weight was 167.0 pounds each week exactly each Saturday morning after breakfast that I measured it for four weeks in a row!

(I do need to remove 6 pounds by adding at least 10 pounds of muscle and removing 16 pounds of fat to reach my personal goal.  That’s why my keen interest in adding more extra leverage fat loss and muscle gaining methods is as keen as it is.)

And, my other goal is to create a resource where the people who use the things I find successfully can help you to learn to do what they did for each method you need to add to your own custom program!

My monthly fatloss report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 9-21-2015

[This month’s report is a mixed review with some positive and some negative events to report. I both gained some leverage and lost some. That status seems like AND IS where I’ve been stuck for some time!

My hope of course, is that I’ll gradually make progress by relentlessly continuing the things that have lost and kept off the fat I no longer have;

Having the things I’ve added get traction and gradually help lose some more fat;--

AND find things with more leverage that work well when I try them -- and then keep doing them also!]

Here’s the key news. 

1.  Last month, I lost 1.2 pounds, about a pound net.

My waist didn’t go down.  My chest was the same; and my hips went up an inch.

Also, the 1.2 pounds left the first week. And, my weight was exactly the same each week after that!

The bad news is that there is basically no progress.  The good news is that what I’m doing is consistent enough that I’m not losing ground either.

That leaves the promise that if I can upgrade my efforts effectively, I’ll be able to keep the progress I get.

2.  The foods and supplements that I had hoped would help with increasing my muscle and strength may be working.  I didn’t get measurably stronger since last month BUT I kept my gains and did so despite some real stress and way too hot workout conditions. 

3.  I also continued the two things that may have been as important, or more so, than the foods and supplements. 

The Perfect Workout information was that optimum progress came with slow repetitions of 10 seconds up and 10 seconds down.  I had been doing much faster although slow reps; but when I re-read that 10 seconds each way is best, in one of my two weekly strength training sessions I have been doing just that.  It does seem to be working.

And, I read a study that people doing strength training who were given a placebo they thought was anabolic steroids increased the weight they used right away to levels the people not given anything were doing!

So, I thought, what if I just boosted the weight in a comparable way?  I did so.  And it seems to be working!

There is also better news.  I’ve discovered that when I can get to a gym with heavy barbells and resume doing the deadlifts I did when I was last lean at my goal weight and increase the weight to what I did then or close to it, there is strong evidence I’ll gain enough muscle in my lower back, buttocks, and legs to remove at least half and maybe a good bit more of my excess fat!

*And, there may be a gym I can get to often enough to do this before the end of the year.

(My recovery from my Achilles tendon injury on my left leg is 100%; and the repair of the stress fracture in my lower left leg seems to be standing up still to the very slow building back program I’ve been on.  And, I’m getting close to a level where I may be able to speed my progress a bit.)

So I wrote last time; but the progress has stalled due to how weak the muscle got.  And, it’s not responding as well as I’d hoped – at least not yet.

* Since last time, I’m trying to restart doing jump rope.  Even tiny amounts build fitness extremely well.

One piece of good news is that it looks possible.  Hopefully by a month or two from now, I’ll be able to report some progress.

The better bit of good news is that while I’m re-acquiring the skill by simply being patient AND doing the exact same kind of jumps while moving my arms as if they held the rope, I can get the fitness effect as soon as I build back carefully enough to avoid any new injuries.

That way if I do one and two and one jump rope reps as I did recently, I can follow that with the set of 42 or 56 I wanted to do by just setting the rope down and doing them and doing them without it.

4.  My blood pressure medication is working decently now.  I’ve not been able to improve the readings with any significant fat loss yet.  But when the hot weather leaves I may be able to double the diuretic dose safely which was giving me good results before.

5.  My hopes for the cooling packs to lose fat are much lower than they were when I first wrote of them.

I was able to get the directions.  So when the current spell of horribly hot weather leaves I may be able to make some progress with them.

The reason for the lowered expectation is threefold. 

They only burn 300 calories an hour, not 500. 

And where I’d hoped to wear them 10 hours a week, 10 hours a month may be more doable. 

(Between the two things, 20,000 calories a month is a great deal less than 3,000!)

Lastly, if I do more, I recently read that just like eating less, there may be a rebound effect from losing fat from cold exposure.

Soon with the directions and better weather, I’ll be able to see how effective it is in practice and will report on that here.  

Extra leverage ways to lose fat....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 9-17-2015

I.  Introduction:

People who lose fat they keep off manage to upgrade from a lifestyle that made them fat or is keeping them fat to one that keeps them free of excess fat.

a) Because that is then their normal life style that they do by habit and even still enjoy eating and enjoy life, most of the fat they lost will stay off.

c) In fact, for some people, all of it does and they no longer have to spend any extra effort on it.

d) But it does often take effective extra effort to stop doing the things that made them fat or were keeping them fat to begin with.

And, it does take effective extra effort to learn the new lifestyle that keeps them trim and healthy.

e) For some people, it takes more effort to find the keys to lose fat well enough to make it easy to keep doing. 

For some it takes more effort to lose all the fat they want to lose. 

And, it’s somewhat common to have to make some extra effort besides the new life style to be sure the fat stays off.

The basics are clear:

Stop eating and drinking things that are harmful and fattening too. Stop buying any at all; and give or throw away any you have now.

Switch to real foods and drinks that support health well and are not fattening at all or are not in moderate amounts.  Find many of these that you like or are at least OK with that you routinely eat and drink.  Set up your shopping to buy enough to make it easy to eat them each week.

Do effective and vigorous exercise most days of every week if only for a few minutes.  And doing two sessions a week of effective strength training and three or more sessions of cardio that has short but intense effort with rests or a slower pace between the intense efforts.  That’s essential.  Almost everyone can do this.

Do some other activities that are much more moderate most days of every week.  That IS helpful and good for your health.  If you can do more of it than less that helps; but most people today haven’t time for much of it.

Know what you want from losing fat and do other things besides fat loss to get those things!

II.  But most people, likely including you, need extra leverage strategies too:

Here’s our initial list:

(Our plan is to keep adding more and develop ways to make each of these more doable and effective.)

1.  Have a Health orientation:  Most fattening and very fattening foods and drinks are also harmful or extremely harmful to your health.

So the more you know about this subject and the more of the diseases they cause you want to be sure to escape, 

the easier it gets to upgrade to the lifestyle that both keeps you healthy and helps you remove or avoid adding excess fat.

People who do this well can and do live as many as 50 years more healthy life.  They don't just live for 20 or 30 years longer, they have as many as 50 more years worth living!

This can really help with fat loss.  For example, you see a treat you used to eat and know still tastes good.  If fat loss later was your only reason not to, you might eat the treat anyway. 

But if a favorite older relative had Alzheimer’s disease or died young of a heart attack and you now know that food is an effective cause of both, it is MUCH easier to take a pass!

2.  Ways to eat more and be less fat:

The more you can eat and lose fat and keep it off the easier it gets! 

Eating way less is both unpleasant and tends to turn on your failsafe famine response. In practice it almost always fails to produce permanent fat loss.

So ways to eat MORE and still be less fat are very, very valuable indeed!

a) Eat lots of low glycemic, organic vegetable and some pieces of fresh fruit.  

These foods are filling and give you energy slowly over a long period of time.

They also are very nutritious and low in calories.  Eating them often makes fat loss dramatically easier.

There are many ethnic and newly created recipes for casseroles and salads with organic vegetables and using only extra virgin olive oil for them has added protective benefits.

There are often organic, raw vegetables you either like or are OK eating often.

The better you get at both the easier fat loss and keeping it off becomes.

Also, using a Vitamix can enable you to do this easily with produce that is too tough and nasty to eat and even make a mix that tastes good.  It even can make it time efficient to drink the resulting drink in two or three minutes instead of taking 15 minutes of chewing! (Other blenders tend to make a gritty and unpleasant mess and juicers: remove the fiber that makes the drink filling and most health enhancing.  Well used, a Vitamix liquefies the drink and is smooth and far easier to drink.  If you make the investment and get good at using it, it makes fat loss dramatically easier.

Eating 6 servings of organic vegetables and one or two pieces of organic fruit a day or more can be challenging; but it has stunning and massively powerful health benefits.  

Even better, many kinds of vegetables and fruits have much better than medicine health benefits.

Some supplements are nearly that good; but foods have hundreds of supplement like compounds some of which work together to keep you healthy.

b)  If you aren't allergic, eat a serving or two a day of raw tree nuts.  These are so filling and low glycemic and good for you, just like eating vegetables, they make you feel full so well in practice you'll eat less fattening foods and even less calories overall!

c)  Eat a somewhat to definitely high protein intake from health OK sources.  You can add muscle or keep what you have much better.  Protein keeps you from being hungry better than other foods.  

And, when and if you do eat fewer calories, because you have abundant protein, you have more energy and a better mood and trigger your failsafe famine response far less.

d) Do large muscle and effective strength training with weights that are somewhat heavy for you and gradually increase them.  Adding muscle that takes up less space and burns more calories than fat both makes you look thinner and better. And doing this also helps you keep your muscles and keep fat off when you do eat fewer calories.  Becoming stronger also does wonders for your self esteem.  In fact, you get that benefit even before all your fat comes off!

In addition, the exercise AND the several hours of increased calorie burn while your body repairs your muscles from strength training, also help you remove excess fat.  

If you eat badly, you can add more calories than this effect and some people do.  But if you eat well, this enables you to eat more and still get and stay free of excess fat.

e)  Higher intensity, short duration cardio with rests is more time efficient than long hard cardio; it burns more fat and even uses as many calories as longer cardio because of the several hours of increased calorie burn while your body repairs your muscles from doing it.  AND, because you stop briefly or slow down to give your heart a break often it's safer and easier on your heart too!

If you also start easy and build up gradually it can even be quite safe.  That’s particularly true if you eat right and take key supplements to keep your small particle LDL and fasting blood sugar in the low to very low but desirable range.

d)  If you do cut back on calories more, do it one or two days a week and not every week.  And eat protein foods and extra vegetables on those days and cut back other foods.

People who do this lose MORE fat than people who try to do this every day of the week.

It tends to avoid the failsafe famine response too.

e) Be sure to include health OK fats and oils.  You may eat less  of them on days you want to cut back extra.  But people who include nuts and extra virgin olive oil and coconut and wild caught fish and are losing fat feel MUCH better and have better health and their food tastes better than people who eat a nonfat eating style.

AND, the studies done on it show they lose more fat and are MUCH more likely to keep off that fat they lose.

f) We are developing a list of as many as a dozen more ways to get extra leverage AND more detailed tips and methods to do each one.

Some already on that development list include wearing cold packs to burn extra calories, doable ways to exercise at your desk, ways to feel good emotionally about your fat loss and efforts to achieve it, and abundant expert sources describing why the fattening foods are also so harmful.  

Enough vitamin D3 CAN help stop depression....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 9-10-2015

 A few months ago I read that SSRI drugs that have a ragged track record at stopping depression tended to boost serotonin in the blood where it does more harm than good AND did NOT boost serotonin in the brain where it might help stop depression.

Then I found out there IS something that DOES what is desirable because it boosts serotonin in the brain and doesn’t boost it in the blood. 

It’s an adequate intake of vitamin D3 which is now thought to be 7,000 iu a day or a bit more.

(To stop depression, it’s often also necessary to do other things to repair minimal brain damage which causes some kinds of depression and to train the depressed person in optimistic but prudent thinking skills.)

But winter-time depression, aka, SAD, seasonal affective disorder, happens when people are deprived of sunshine.  Vitamin D3 does seem to help stop this as does early morning full spectrum light therapy.

Today I got an email from Dr Al Sears about this use of vitamin D3 which has some very useful information relating to this.

I decided to do today’s post on it and simply include it here:

“I've been banging the table about the healing power of vitamin D3 for years.

This fat-soluble vitamin is one of the core "primal" nutrients that kept our ancestors strong, potent, and disease free.

In previous letters, I've shown you dozens of studies that back up this vitamin's power to fight cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, dementia and Alzheimer's disease.1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

But vitamin D3 has a mental and emotional impact as well.

It's an effect I've seen in my patients, and it helps me get them off antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft, etc.

New studies support me on this.

Boost Your "Feel Good" Brain Chemical Up To 30 TIMES Higher

Vitamin D3 can even fight off depression by helping the human brain make serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood. In fact, vitamin D3 can boost serotonin by anywhere from double to 30 times.10

Doctors in Norway also discovered that taking vitamin D3, especially in large amounts, improved the symptoms of depression.11

That's good news, because depression can age you faster than normal.

Not many doctors know about the connection between depression and aging. But there's a direct link. Telomere length was found to be significantly shorter in people with mood disorders, causing a staggering 10 years of accelerated aging.12

Telomeres are the protective end caps of your chromosomes. Shortened telomeres equal premature aging and early death.

While you may already take a vitamin D3 supplement, you may not be getting all of its benefits.

You see, most folks who take a vitamin D3 supplement think they're getting enough. But many times, they're not. I've seen serious deficiencies in the blood tests of patients who've been taking 2,000 to 3,000 IUs per day.

This isn't an isolated problem. A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found only 10% of the U.S. population had therapeutic levels of vitamin D3 in their systems.

What's causing this epidemic?

Well, unlike our ancient ancestors, most people now work indoors and avoid the sun entirely. And our processed foods and factory-farmed meats are missing the critical nutrients contained in the food our ancestors ate.

Chances are, you're not getting enough vitamin D3. And that puts you at serious risk of age-related disease. But it's never too late to do something about it.

3 Simple Steps for Getting More Vitamin D3

In my patients, what I consider a "therapeutic level" of vitamin D3 in your blood is between 40 and 60 ng/ml. To reach that level, I recommend a daily intake of 8,000 IUs of vitamin D3 per day.

Here are the best ways to do it…

Step 1: Don't be afraid of the sun. As long as you avoid sunburn, getting some midday sun unprotected for about 10 to 15 minutes a day is good for you. It will give you between 3,000 and 5,000 IUs of vitamin D3.

But here's what you need to remember. It's not enough to just take a walk. You need to expose the skin that's usually covered up. If you always wear a shirt when you're out in the sun, try taking your shirt off. Even if you just sit in your backyard for a few minutes. Getting sun when you're all covered up will not have the same effect.

Step 2: Eat foods rich in vitamin D3. Make sure you add food sources of vitamin D3 to your daily diet. A serving of cooked wild salmon and mackerel provide roughly 350 IU vitamin D3 each. Sardines and tuna in oil provide about 225 IUs of vitamin D3 each. And one tablespoon of cod liver oil contains nearly 1,400 IUs of vitamin D3.

Step 3: Take a supplement. Your food probably won't give you all the vitamin D3 you need. I recommend taking a supplement of vitamin D3 called cholecalciferol. It's the same vitamin D3 that your body produces. Just be sure to avoid the synthetic form of vitamin D2 in most multivitamins. It's less potent and less absorbable.

Here are a few more tips I always tell my patients.

Make sure you take a magnesium supplement of between 600 and 1,000 mg of per day with your vitamin D3. Magnesium levels can drop when boosting your vitamin D3 intake. And magnesium is essential for over 300 different chemical reactions in your body, including those that produce energy and protect your heart and blood vessels.

Also, you want your vitamin D3 supplement to include vitamin K2, which helps activate and improve absorption of vitamin D3.

Plus, vitamin K2 has been shown to help prevent cancer, promote brain health, regulate blood clotting, and prevent plaque buildup in your arteries. By combining both vitamins together you get a powerful, disease-fighting one-two punch.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

Al Sears, MD, CNS”

Note that taking enough vitamin D3 as Dr Sears describes here and the magnesium and vitamin K2 he suggests plus doing some kind of weight bearing exercise and NOT drinking cola drinks can prevent or even reverse osteoporosis. 

(For reversal and complete prevention, slow rep strength training works and may be needed.  But daily walks can also be preventive if you do the other things—including taking enough vitamin D3.)

Turmeric prevents cancer and MUCH more....

Today's Post:  Wednesday, 9-9-2015

1.  Long ago I read that the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in India was quite low to near zero in people who had been eating the traditional foods.  Because those foods traditionally have been spiced with curry the key ingredient of which is turmeric, people then checked in several ways to see if turmeric did tend to create this protection.

The data said yes it did.  In fact, research since found turmeric does this in more than one way!

High chronic inflammation is one of the causes of Alzheimer’s disease.  Eating or taking turmeric daily or close to it tends to stop high chronic inflammation as well or better than OTC drugs AND has none of the horrid side effects those are now known to have.

Misfolded tau protein tends to cause neural damage and beta amyloid build up which in turn causes Alzheimer’s disease. 

I saw a study that found that turmeric did a very protective double. Taking turmeric or eating it tested as reducing tau protein AND particularly if taken with vitamin D3, turmeric tended to cause macrophages to clean out beta amyloid deposits before they built up too much to remove or they harmed brain cells!

2.  Vascular dementia and heart disease are caused by small particle LDL.  So one of the things that prevents both is to lower high levels of LDL.  Statins do that but with unacceptably bad side effects that few doctors are knowledgeable about.  NOT eating sugars and grains and trans fats and getting enough regular exercise cuts small particle LDL much better than statins without the harmful side effects.

To be sure my LDL was low enough I’ve had mine measured regularly.  It was running about 106 which is decent.  Then I began to take turmeric daily as a curcumin supplement and eat curried foods with extra turmeric two or three times a week.  Suddenly my LDL measured as 76! 

Could it be the turmeric was doing that too!?  Yes!  I found out in a book by Dr Dean Ornish that this is a known effect!

3.  Does turmeric prevent cancer too?  Indeed it does!  And there are two ways to MULTIPLY the effect of taking or eating turmeric!

A major factor in causing cancer or speeding its growth is high chronic inflammation.

A doctor found by accident that he had brain cancer and researched what he might do to survive longer – and for people who were or are cancer free to stay that way.

The book he wrote on his findings is:  “Anticancer: A New Way of Life   Dec 31, 2009  by David Servan-Schreiber, MD” and is currently available on Amazon.

His main finding is that high chronic inflammation makes getting cancer much more likely and speeds its growth if you get cancer.

He found out that one of the best ways to prevent high chronic inflammation or to turn it off is by taking turmeric.  (I found out later that turmeric also has specific genetic regulators that down-regulate cancer formation too!)

To say I was pleased I’d already been taking turmeric for years to prevent Alzheimer’s disease when I read that it putting it mildly!!

Dr Servan-Schreiber also found out two other things that can massively increase the effect of taking turmeric.

a)  The beneficial effects of turmeric and the curcumins in it is as much as 200 TIMES greater due to greater bioavailability if you take it or eat it with black pepper. 

Since turmeric and the curcumins in it are oil soluble, it also helps to eat it with extra virgin olive oil or take it with omega 3 supplements.

As valuable as turmeric turns out to be, I immediately began taking it with a spoonful of black pepper.  And when I used it in curried foods I added extra virgin olive oil and black pepper.

Even if the effect is 10 times more bioavailability rather than 200, this is clearly well worth doing!

b)  It seems the grain oils and grains and fats from animals fed grains are extremely high in omega 6 oils.  Omega 6 oils are proinflammatory.  And, a small intake is actually needed to enable the inflammation you sometimes need for infections or injuries.

But what Dr Servan-Schreiber was profoundly harmful and to this day is NOT well known—unfortunately.

Besides almost always being based on GMO grains soy oil, corn oil, safflower oil, and canola oil are very high in omega 6 oils.  Wheat is very high in omega 6 oils. And the soy and corn fed to animals including cattle and poultry and farmed fish makes their fats and oils high in omega 6 oils too.

Since people who know no better eat mostly these same foods, people have TEN to TWENTY too much omega 6 oils in their bodies.  Add to that that so far most people eat little fish high in omega 3 oils and not enough people yet take omega 3 supplements or the most anti-inflammatory one, DHA, and this means most people are eating a PRO-cancer diet!

This means by totally stopping these high omega 6 oil foods and eating mostly vegetables with anti cancer properties and eating wild caught fish and protein foods from other animals eating ONLY their natural foods such as 100% grass fed New Zealand lamb or 100% grass fed beef, is as powerful or more in preventing cancer as taking turmeric.

Of course you can do both!

4.  What cancers seem to be best prevented by taking and eating turmeric?

I just found out today which triggered this post:

In an email from Mike Geary I found this quote: 

“Cases of the four most common cancers found in America are very low in India where turmeric is a food staple.

These cancers include colon, breast, prostate and lung, occurring ten times less frequently in India than in the U.S.

Prostate cancer, which is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the United States, is hardly ever found in Indian men.”