Thursday, October 29, 2015

Safer ways to eat bacon....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 10-29-2015

Just recently the information that a high intake of processed meats including bacon can cause health problems showed up again in the news.

The initial one said that eating lots of processed meats as in every day boosted heart disease risk.

The current one said eating lots of processed meats as in every day boosted the risk of colon cancer.

But eating meat with its high protein is helpful with fat loss or keeping off excess fat because your body will let you get away with fewer calories when you get plenty of protein AND you get less hungry besides.

AND, it’s also easier to lose all fat when you are doing that and no muscle or less muscle if in addition to strength training to eat plenty of protein.

Meats like bacon and sausage and pepperoni taste good enough that eating plenty of protein is easier to sustain long term.

So, how can you eat bacon and get those benefits without the health harms?

A.  First of all the effect was small.  So just eating bacon or other processed meats once or twice in two months instead of daily works. 

(Getting protein from whey from grass fed cows – Jarrow sells it -- and cheese from cows fed only grass and from wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils and from whole eggs from hens fed only their natural diet on pasture and from beans and lentils and organic vegetables, you can eat a high protein diet the rest of the time with far less risk.)

But there are even more ways to make eating bacon safer.

B.  Here’s a list:

1. Apparently, the cancer causing effect is partly from nitrosamines being formed from nitrates and high heat. 

So you can remove this risk in large part by using bacon from Whole Foods that is free of all or most nitrates AND you can cook bacon on low moderate heat on the stove until it turns golden brown instead of on high heat and it turns almost black.

2.  Most bacon in stores today is from pigs fed corn and soy instead of their natural diet so the fat is high in omega 6 oils which are relatively fragile and produce cancer causing and extra oxidized breakdown products when heated on a high setting.

If you can manage to get bacon from pigs fed their natural diet, this goes away. 

But since that is currently quite hard to manage, you can still minimize this effect by cooking bacon on low moderate heat on the stove until it turns golden brown instead of on high heat and it turns almost black.

3.  Onions have anti-cancer effects.  So if you eat some sautéed onion slices with diced bacon or in a separate dish when you eat bacon that helps.

In fact, lightly toasted slivered almonds taste very like bacon.  So instead of eating four slices of bacon, you can get great bacon taste by cooking and dicing up two slices of bacon and an equal volume of slivered almonds and dice up some onion slices and heat the mixture until it smells good!

4.  If you also take steps to prevent heart disease such as never drinking soft drinks, staying away 100 % of the time from tobacco smoke, never eating high fructose corn sryup, never eating wheat, and never eating ANY hydrogenated oils, you can eat more bacon without causing heart disease.

It also helps to take curcumin and DHA and omega 3 for their heart protective effects and exercise regularly.

5.  If you do those things – particularly staying away 100 % of the time from tobacco smoke --and taking curcumin AND add drinking green tea and or taking green tea extract and other anticancer supplements, you can eat more bacon without causing cancer.


So between the strategies it IS possible to continue to eat bacon and avoid heart disease and avoid cancer anyway!

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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Better sleep ideas from the Doctor....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 10-27-2015

I already follow many of the most effective methods to sleep better and get enough sleep.

And, because of those I have little trouble getting to sleep and don’t wake up fully during the night or even early as some people my age do.

I do get vigorous exercise early every morning.  (That’s extremely effective.)

I got extra curtains to make our bedroom darker.

I get up with the alarm the exact same time every weekday and make a strong effort to get to bed by 7 hours before that.

I switched my time to get up on Saturday and Sunday from 3 hours later than weekdays to just one hour later.

And, I take a chewable melatonin at bedtime.

It has been too hot in our bedroom which the fall is helping and may be better next summer.

But I have had surprisingly bad daytime sleepiness after lunch and after dinner.

Then I read that 50% of the people with high blood pressure which I have for other reasons also have some form of sleep apnea or other hidden sleep issues.  Further having daytime sleepiness was diagnostic for this.

Then I found there was a take home sleep test for this that I didn’t have to stay overnight at a sleep clinic to use.

Between the parts, I decided to have my regular doctor refer me to their sleep specialist.

I went last week; and it may be one of the smartest things I’ve ever done.

There are two reasons I’m doing a post on what I’ve found.

She was wizard good at what she does and told me two things worth sharing with you:

1.  First, there are two things I can do immediately to improve things I’d not been doing even before I get further testing!

One will reduce my belly fat and you can do both of them too.

a)  Alcohol is a sleep disruptor after you fall asleep.  Its disruption is such that even though you are asleep and not getting anything else done, you aren’t getting the restorative benefit of this sleep time.

For reducing my belly fat I’ve tried to drink less with little success.  When I get home from work and evening errands I found drinking a half glass of red wine not enough to get the effect of stress relief I want that a full glass provides.  Then after dinner, I found the same problem drinking a half glass of wine instead of a whole one.

The strategy she gave me is effective at helping better sleep, and much easier to use to cut back!

My body will have processed the one first glass before dinner in time to give me less sleep disruption AND I don’t have to force myself to have a half glass when I really don’t want to.

But by simply have zero red wine after dinner when I already have the effect of the glass before, doing it that way is oddly much more doable.

So I’ve adopted it already.  By continuing it, after a few weeks or months I’ll likely lose 6 pounds of fat.

And, if her advice is accurate, which is likely, I’ll also have more energy, feel more rested, and have less daytime sleepiness.

b) To fight my afternoon sleepiness, I always had part of my daily tea at 3 PM and some coffee also.

She said that in much the same way drinking the extra alcohol later in the day was disrupting my sleep, this afternoon caffeine intake was too! 

So, I decided to stop the bit of afternoon coffee entirely and drink what was my 3PM tea first thing in the morning instead.

Now the green tea I drink about 11:30 am is my last caffeine intake of the day.  This way I’ll have nine hours to process less caffeine and that too will improve my sleep.

II. I actually thought it unlikely I had sleep apnea beyond that. 

But I realized I had two indicators I did have sleep apnea, the daytime sleepiness and the high blood pressure, and that if I did have it I was unaware as I was sleeping through it.

So between the fact I get could a first round test at home, it measures any periods of sudden drops in blood oxygen, and the fact that I had faith that if I had it the Pillar Procedure would turn it off, I thought it wise to get the test.

The sleep doctor did schedule me to get set up for this test and to bring back the device for the read out.

BUT, she also surprised me in two ways.

My nose looks relatively symmetrical from the front.  And my jaw is relatively large.

Unfortunately, both are wrong from a predisposition to sleep apnea perspective.

My left nostril is only half the size of my right one.  And, on the inside my jaw is relatively narrow; but my tongue is full sized!

Oops!  It seems I have TWO likely causes of sleep apnea built in that I didn’t know I have.

The second way she surprised me is that the Pillar procedure is NOT as effective as a new kind of mouth guard that you wear at night AND which requires no procedure at all to install.  It is apparently about twice that effective and almost as effective as the CPAP machine.

So I was VERY encouraged by my appointment.

For sure I was at least half way to more energy, less daytime sleepiness, and maybe lower blood pressure either from less apnea or from less belly fat the minute I was done!

The two fixes I can do myself right away were and are doable and I’ve already made them!

AND, I may be able to double that effect with a device I can live with if the testing does show I need it.  And, it looks like that extra boost is likely!

So the takeaway to remember from this post is two fold:

I. No caffeine after 12 noon or hardly ever and wine only BEFORE dinner but not after sound like small fixes and maybe not worth doing. That’s NOT so!

If you always do both, the improvement in your sleep and daytime energy will be quite large!

II. If you have either daytime sleepiness or high blood pressure, it’s MUCH more important to be evaluated by a sleep specialist as it’s likely you can improve or stop both by doing so!  

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Thursday, October 22, 2015

Lose fat easier NOT bone and muscle....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 10-22-2015

This will be a short post.

a) Too often people keep eating and drinking the things that fatten them and keep them fat; but eat way less for long enough they lose weight on the scale.

But by using this method, not only do they virtually always gain the weight back, the weight they lose includes bone and muscle, so they are then less healthy and a bigger percentage of them is fat after they gain the weight back!

Eating refined grain wheat and drinking any soft drinks provides little quality protein and tends to cause osteoporosis.

So by eating less but continuing to consume those food like products, losing bone and muscle is quite likely.

b) If instead of just eating way less, people completely stop wheat and ALL soft drinks and eat quality protein foods and organic vegetables instead AND do slow rep strength training.

Without extra hunger or anywhere near as much, this reduces calories but adds bone and muscle instead. 

For people who were getting 20 to 40 % of their calories from high fructose corn syrup and excess sugar and refined grain wheat and the high omega 6 or hydrogenated oils often in wheat foods, many people do lose 10 to 40% of their body weight as fat.

But by getting quality protein and solid nutrition from the organic vegetables and ADDING bone and muscle with the slow rep strength training, they do NOT lose bone and muscle.

They can sustain doing it because they aren’t hungry all the time like people who just try to eat way less and get tired of it.

To me the choice is clear.

Create easy fat loss and lose no bone and muscle and keep off the fat –
 or force yourself to be hungry only to gain the fat back after you lose bone and muscle.

That’s the choice.

What are you doing now?


Which of these choices would you like to make from now on?  

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Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Dramatically more heart protection than statins....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 10-20-2015

This may be the most important but least known set of information in disease prevention.

1.  Because statins do NOT address the most effective methods to prevent heart disease or deaths from heart disease, the protection they give is small from heart attacks – and close to zero from deaths from heart attacks.  Worse, they have several negative side effects including several that harm your heart. 

(We’ve been posting on this for some time and one of the two triggers for this post is even more information on heart harmful statin effects.)

2. Surprisingly, by addressing the causes of heart disease and the factors that have proven to reduce the death rate from heart disease, it is quite possible to come close to eliminating the risk from heart disease.

a) If someone who set several fires a day in their house went to the fire department to find out how to deal with the fire damage and prevent it, you’d wonder about their sanity.

Similarly THE most effective way to avoid heart disease and deaths from it is to STOP eating and drinking heart attack starters!

The key issue is that people simply don’t know that so many of the foods and drinks that taste good, are inexpensive, and have a long shelf life are actually heart attack starters as effective as applying a match to a pile of gasoline soaked wood chips.

Heart disease and the heart attacks and strokes it causes are caused by oxidized or sugared (glycated), small particle LDL.  This burrows into the artery walls and is very inflammatory which triggers the body to apply emergency patches that then grow and harden and gradually block circulation. 

Large particle HDL acts like the cleaning crew and removes cholesterol and ships it off for beneficial uses.

So to prevent heart disease, the goal is to have lots of HDL and hardly any small particle LDL.

Triglycerides are a direct marker for small particle LDL and HDL removes them, so the ratio of HDL to triglycerides is a very good marker for how much heart disease is being created at the time of the two measurements.

This means that any food or drink that causes very high triglycerides is heart attack starter.  And the best way to prevent heart disease and deaths from it is not to take a weak drug; but to simply drop your intake of those foods and drinks to zero or close to it.

Would you like a very fast way to prevent a heart attack?

One of the two I know of is to stop eating the worst of these heart attack starters. 

One of the worst is wheat foods.  Many Americans still have several servings a day of wheat foods little knowing how dangerous they are long term.

Many other grains are very nearly as bad.

So, what happens when you remove them from your diet?  Within a few weeks, your HDL goes up and your triglycerides drop – and the process of heart disease creation stops or slows down.

Dr William Davis said this in his Wheat Belly Total Health book:  “Over time this can result in spectacular rises in HDL; a change from 39 to 80 would not be at all uncommon. (Personally my HDL value rose from 27 to 97….)”

(Reading that quote was the second prompt for this post.)

Can you get better or faster protection than just stopping all wheat and cutting way back on or stopping all other grains? Yes!

You can stop all the other things that also boost triglycerides that much!

*Those include free fructose from high fructose corn syrup, agave nectar, fruit juices and fruit juice concentrates used as sweeteners.  They include eating more regular sugar than 2 to 5% of total calories. 

(This can cause a huge drop in triglycerides since many Americans eat 15% of their calories as free fructose and another 10% as regular sugar.  So dropping this to 0% and 5% is a big change!

Note that because this drops their caloric intake by 20% without reducing their protein intake or other real foods, this drop in sugars can cause and has caused a 20% drop in bodyweight from the extra fat that is no longer being fed.)

*Hydrogenated and inexpensive oils have a long shelf life.  So they are still in hundreds of foods.  But eating ANY amount of them daily causes the amount of them to build up in your body to quite high levels because it takes your body a few weeks to get rid of hydrogenated oils you eat in any one day.

Unfortunately, hydrogenated oils cause small particle LDL directly by actual test.  So in people who eat them, this shows up as high triglycerides and low HDL.

*Tobacco smoke causes the same build up of plaque as eating these foods with every single exposure to it.
So yet another way to stop causing yourself to get heart disease is to not smoke and make a very strong effort to avoid second hand smoke.

b) What is the second way to fast heart attack prevention besides stopping all these avoidable causes?

What if in just a few days, you could keep your body from being trigger happy about applying extra patches to the inflamed blood vessels caused by those other causes before or now?

What if you could force your triglycerides down and your HDL up another way in just a few days?

There are ways you can enhance the effect.  But boosting omega 3 oils by taking the omega 3 oil DHA, getting both DHA and EPA in omega 3 supplements and by eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils at least twice a week – if you begin all three -- have caused very large increases in HDL and drops in triglycerides within a few days.  This also reduces the excess inflammation that causes the trigger happy, excessive patching effect.

Similarly, taking curcumin with black pepper twice a day reduces the excess inflammation that causes the trigger happy, excessive patching effect.  AND, by reducing LDL cholesterol also, it apparently reduces small particle LDL too.

Conclusion:  By taking these two steps, stopping the causes of heart disease and enhancing the positive effects, you can slash your risk of heart disease to near zero.

Does failing to do these two steps and taking the weak statin drugs come close to matching that heart disease reduction?  No. And, it’s not even close.

3.  What about reducing the death rate from heart disease?

The statistics I saw said that while taking statins caused a 3% drop in nonfatal heart attack, it produced zero reduction in the death rate from heart disease.

Did you know there is something that cuts the risk of deaths from heart disease by 24 % and another 19% from related deaths from strokes and the risk of dying from any cause even more because it also reduces deaths from cancer?

There is!  And, just on the death rate from heart disease it beats statins 24 to zero!

Clearly it works in part because it makes it so much easier to stop the things that cause heart disease.  But it also contains hundreds of protective micronutrients that enhance the effect.

To be fair, it is a bit challenging to do.  But the more you do, the better your protection.

A UK study showed all these effects in people who ate 6 or more servings of vegetables a day!

(Given that much exposure, it’s clear to me this works far better, is more health protective, and results in far less cancer, if all of the vegetables are organic only.)

4.  Meanwhile, compared to these two strategies, statins have a tiny, marginal effect on cutting heart disease risk.

So they are not a good choice for those reasons.

But in addition, statin have several side effects that are heart harmful!

a) One of the best strategies for heart health protection is to do both slow rep strength training at least two days a week and brief duration but intense interval or variable cardio each week the other days so that you do vigorous exercise even if for 10 to 30 minutes most days of every week.

Why?  For three reasons, your heart becomes fit too; it drops your level of small particle LDL directly which boosts your HDL and reduces your triglycerides; and it also slows aging!

Would you take a drug that not only prevented exercise from having this effect, it also tended to permanently damage your muscles the better you did these exercises?

What if it also depleted your energy and made you feel much older and actually aged you faster too?

By depleting the ubiquinol form that your body’s power source, the mitochondria, use and possibly in other ways, statin drugs often have these exact effects!

And, to the extent this effect damages your heart muscle it tends to cause heart failure, a truly horrid and fatal disease.

From just this one side effect, I think statin drugs should have a black box warning and hardly ever be used.

Maybe they can be used safely in this regard if people taking statins also take 300 mg a day of ubiquinol to overcome this effect.

But why not use the more effective methods for heart protection and just take the ubiquinol for its positive effects such as slowing aging which is heart protective?  Why take or pay for the statin drugs at all?

b) Type 2 diabetes causes glycated sugars in the blood that have sugar spikes that damage the inside of your blood vessels, the endothelium.  This causes gout and heart disease.

Depending on the study, statin drugs causes type 2 diabetes from 9 to 45% of the time.

Again, why use statin drugs at all, when other methods work far better to decrease heart attack risk and the risk of death from heart disease when they have this side effect?

c)  And, I just found out there are MORE heart harming effects from taking statin drugs in addition to the first two!

This article by Jenny Thompson of HIS is the second spark for this post:

It seems there is a third way that taking statins literally is more heart harmful than beneficial.  This one is new to me and even those of you who knew these first two things likely haven’t seen it yet either.

Here is her article:

“Dear Reader, 

You're not as old as you feel -- you're as old as your arteries say you are. 
Because arteries that are damaged, blocked and hardened with a buildup of plaque can cause all the diseases that go hand-in-hand with old age. 
I'm talking about high blood pressure, angina, arm and leg pain, kidney failure, and even deadly strokes and heart attacks. 

But what if you could actually reverse years of hardening in your arteries and stop these killer diseases in their tracks -- all without ever touching a prescription drug? 

Dutch researchers have proven it's possible. And it's all thanks to a powerful vitamin that most of us -- and even our doctors -- never think about. 
It's often called the "forgotten vitamin."

But if you want to do all you can to live a long healthy life, tie a string around your finger that will remind you to take K2. Especially if you want to keep your arteries elastic, smooth and protected from the ravages of plaque buildup. 

Now, K2 is no stranger to scientists. Numerous studies have shown that it can protect your bones and your brain. 

But what those Dutch researchers found should have knocked the socks off cardiologists around the world. 

They gave 250 post-menopausal women either a daily vitamin K2 supplement or a placebo for three years. And they found that K2 may be like a fountain of youth for your arteries. 

If K2 just kept your arteries from getting harder, that would be impressive enough. But the women who took it actually had more flexible and supple arteries by the end of the study. 
In other words, K2 didn't just stop deadly arterial disease in its tracks -- it actually put it in reverse gear. 

Hardening of the arteries isn't something that happens overnight. By the time we're in our 50s, it can have set the stage for serious heart issues in our senior years. 

And, believe it or not, the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs that the mainstream is handing out like candy -- supposedly to protect our hearts -- are making the problem worse. 

That's because one of the nastier side effects of statins such as Lipitor and Crestor is to starve your body of adequate supplies of vitamin K2. And when that happens, you've got the perfect storm that can fast-track the hardening of your arteries. 

That makes taking statins to save your heart about as logical as putting a plastic bag over your head to help you breathe.”      

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Monday, October 19, 2015

My monthly fatloss report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 10-19-2015

[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 gained back the 1.2 pounds I lost the month before!

My waist didn’t go down for the measurement that was slightly tensed. 

But the more relaxed one went down a half inch.  My posture exercise during my half mile weekday walks may have tightened up the muscles; but the fat is likely the same. 

My chest was the same; and my hips went up about half an inch.  (That might be muscle as I’ve added an exercise twice a week, holding a 50 pound dumbbell while I do 7 super slow full squats  -- about 10 seconds down and 10 seconds up.  Those are called goblet squats.)

This time I gained back more than the 1.2 pounds the first week. And, I gradually lost down to the 1.2 pound gain by the end of the month.

The bad news is that there is basically no progress.  (Since two months ago, I weigh exactly the same.) 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 did get slightly stronger since last month and I kept my other gains and did so despite some real stress and slightly 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!

I’m doing more reps with the now heavier weight on dumbbell triceps extensions; and in one exercise, the one arm dumbbell curl, I may be able to add 5 pounds soon from 35 to 40 pounds.

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, at a gym in the two exercises where I can do more weight easily than I have at home, the dumbbell row with one hand braced on the bench and the shoulder shrug, I’ll be able to use more weight.

*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, my efforts to restart doing jump rope are improving slightly.  (Even tiny amounts build fitness extremely well.)

I was able to reduce the length of the jump rope in a way that makes it more normal to hold instead of having to hold bunched up sections to make it short enough.

And, even though I’m not quite fit enough or skilled enough to do consistent sections of 10 or more, I am getting sections of 5 to 9 without having to throw my right shoulder into a injury to do it!

I also got coaching as to holding my elbows in a bit once I have the rope moving which has helped.

Despite the low rep start, it now looks like persistence will get the job done!   Hopefully by a month or two from now, I’ll be able to report even more progress.

(Jumping as if I am doing the jump rope while just holding the rope was irritating my Achilles tendons.  And I’m beginning to total enough real jumps that don’t do that to get a fitness effect. 

So instead of starting with 28 of these “as if” jumps and ending with 28 and doing more each time, I now do just 21 easy ones to warm up and only do the real jump rope after that for each session.)

My best set without a glitch now is just 9; but yesterday the total was 47 over my several attempts.

My goal is to do 70 and rest and 70 and rest and 70 more.  The elapsed time is just 90 seconds of jumping because I jump fast enough that 70 only takes 30 seconds. I know because I did 70 of the as if jumps without the rope in 30 seconds with my temporary jump rope coach.

When I can do that, I’ll be quite fit for sprint type of exercises and this may cause some fat loss from calories burned for a few hours afterwards according to what I’ve read.)

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.

I thought that initially; but the drug may have some negative heart risk effects as measured by actual tests I took.  So I may add a relaxation session and cut the dose in half instead.

If the extra turmeric with black pepper I added measures as reversing the heart risk effects, I’ll keep the diuretic the same and expect my blood pressure to go down a bit from the relaxation session I’m about to add.

5.  I got the Thync device; but discovered I have to also get a smart phone to use it.  I’ve delayed getting one; but will do so if only to use the Thync device on it.

It looks likely that the 10 minute session of the calm setting that I can do other chores while I wear it will de-stress me enough that I’ll sleep better and likely will have slightly lower blood pressure AND that may cut my cortisol enough to cause a bit of belly fat loss too.

In addition, I may be able to make just a bit more strength progress by using it on its energy boosting setting before my one heaviest strength training session each week.

6.  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.    

7.  Because I have cut back on salt and no longer use the iodized and processed salt at all, my only iodine supplement has been the 150 mcg in my multi.  I read it may boost my thyroid enough to give me a bit more energy and maybe burn more fat, to get closer to 500 mcg a day of iodine.  I found a kelp supplement that has 400 mcg.  So by adding that I’ll get 550 mcg a day.  So I’ll try it.

Since I’m only 6.2 pounds fatter than my weight on the scale goal, if this removes 2 to 6 pounds that could help!


And, there are times during the day having even 5% more energy would help!

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Thursday, October 15, 2015

Ready for help with fat loss or good health?.....

Today's Post: Thursday, 10-15-2015

A.  The very best news is that the lifestyle upgrades needed to lose fat permanently and keep good health and prevent most of the most common chronic and fatal diseases and slow aging – are mostly exactly the same!

For example we now know that both regular and diet soft drinks are extremely fattening AND more recently research on many different diseases has shown that drinking either regular or diet soft drinks may be worse for your health than smoking or very close to it!

So switching entirely to chilled, pure water or coffee or tea or green tea and never drinking soft drinks again is one of the most effective ways to increase your health protection

AND if you have been drinking several soft drinks a day for years and stop entirely, after you adjust to it you will be LESS hungry and emotionally more stable -- and dozens of pounds less fat in many cases after several months.

There are also differences. 

For good health it’s essential to always wear your seat belt and brush and floss your teeth well each day.   This slows aging and helps prevent heart disease and injuries that can bankrupt you or make you disabled or mentally defective or kill you.  Those actions don’t cause fat loss despite being that important to do.

Eating enough protein foods and doing two days a week of slow rep strength training in a short program slows aging, prevents mental decline, and can help keep you out of a nursing home or walker or wheel chair.  You need to do enough to prevent osteoporosis and keep strong enough to walk up stairs and lift bags of groceries.  But once you’ve done that much, you’ve done enough for good health.

But to gain the five to forty-five more pounds of muscle that can help force fat loss, you need to use heavier weights and work harder and eat even more protein and take key supplements.

B.  Most people are already doing or have done some things successfully that cause good health or fat loss.

But unless they are informed and doing almost everything right, they aren’t getting the results they could be getting.

C.  The key point then is this.

Whether you make lifestyle upgrades for good health or for permanent fatloss, you need to make an extra effort.

It’s very nice that you can start successfully by making a tiny but consistent extra effort that you can do easily and then expand on that start.

Do you want to protect your health or want to lose fat permanently enough to make that effort?

Are you ready now to start having those results?

Are you ready now to make those tiny initial starts for the most effective things you are not yet doing?

If so, to ensure your success, are you ready for help to get started and to get the results you want?

If so, email me, David Eller, at davideller7@yahoo.com .

Just use the email you’d like me to use to reply and give me your name.

Soon we will have a resource including access to personal coaching to help you get started and specific sets of tips on various topics and then a self-coaching program.

We’re creating two of them for you – one for permanent fat loss --

and one for preventing disease and staying healthy and slowing aging and living longer with the goal of adding decades more healthy and mobile years to your life.

In your email let me know which one you are interested in.  If you are interested in both, say so.

We’ll email you when the initial version is ready.  

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Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Hearing loss and Stroke damage help.....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 10-13-2015

A.  Significant positive news about Ginkgo Biloba:

1.  Several weeks ago I read that if people who are already taking ginkgo biloba and have been for several weeks or much longer have a stroke, the damage seems less and people tend to recover more functionality.

So if people eat one or more pieces of organic fresh fruit a day which slashes their risk of both obstructive and ischemic stokes and hemorrhagic or bleeding strokes and take gingko, they get significant protection from stroke damage.

2.  This adds to gingko’s reputation as a brain protector.  But, WHY does this effect happen?

I just found out.  And the positive implications are astounding!

In an email from Ben Ong, he reports a study that found that when people took ginkgo it reversed the nerve damage from noise induced hearing loss and tinnitus.

Let me repeat that.  Ginkgo caused nerves and nerve circuits that seemingly had been permanently damaged to be restored.

THAT would certainly help explain why people taking ginkgo had less permanent damage if they had a stroke!

3.  But here’s the further implications of this!

Some cases of depression are caused by minimal brain damage as are most cases of PTSD.

So are many cases of mental decline or dementia.

We already know that exercise releases the nerve and brain cell growth hormone BDNF. 

We know that when people with PTSD exercise long enough to have this cause brain repair that can be seen on MRI, the PTSD symptoms stop or become much less of a hindrance to living a normal life.

We know that people who exercise regularly, even walking, release enough BDNF to prevent their interconnecting white matter in their brains from disappearing. This prevents mental decline that the same people would otherwise get!

In addition, it’s been found that exercise AND taking the omega 3 oil DHA releases more BDNF than exercise alone.

Now it seems that also taking ginkgo biloba can add to this curative effect!  It then not only has promise of preventing damage but restoring previously damaged nerves to health!

And, if the combination does reverse nerve damage hearing loss and stroke damage and reverses PTSD and some kinds of mental decline, it may also help reverse other kinds of nerve damage in concussions or nerve damage from radiation for prostate cancer too!

This is significant positive news!  Adding ginkgo to exercise and DHA has NOT been fully tested for these other conditions.  But it surely looks very likely to add a significant boost!

B. Significant positive news about  l-carnitine:

The second study of interest is one involving L-carnitine. Here, researchers showed that L-carnitine was able to prevent regulated cell death in damaged nerves.

This too is significant positive news!

If someone has a concussion or a stroke or is exposed to loud noises, it will be easier to restore them to health if fewer of their nerves are killed to begin with!

This likely means that combat soldiers and people who play contact sports like football, boxing, and rugby and people who are exposed to loud noise in their work would do well to do all four:

Regular exercise most days of every week;

Take 280 mg a day of DHA;

Take 500 mg a day of l-carnitine

& Take 60 or 120 mg a day of ginkgo biloba

This is also likely true of someone with significantly high blood pressure that raises the risk of a stroke.

(Note that people who are taking drugs that thin the blood like Coumadin who take such a drug AND ginkgo can have the effect dangerously boosted. 

The ginkgo alone seems safe.  But the blood thinning drugs can be too effective even without ginkgo.  And they can be life threateningly dangerous when combined with ginkgo!

So, do NOT combine them.)  

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Monday, October 12, 2015

New information to prevent osteoporosis.....

Today's Post: Monday, 10-12-2015

Recently I’ve been reading Wheat Belly Total Health by William Davis, MD.

A.  I already knew and have posted on these two things:

1.  Regular drinking of cola soft drinks either regular or diet causes osteoporosis over time because the phosphoric acid in colas leaches calcium from your bones and directly weakens them if it goes on long enough.

2.  Many people drink diet soft drinks to avoid obesity and worsening type 2 diabetes which regular soft drinks are known to help cause.  And, because they think this works, they tend to drink 20 % more diet soft drinks than people who drink regular soft drinks.

Unfortunately, actual research shows diet soft drinks cause obesity and type 2 diabetes MORE than regular soft drinks which also do this.  Diet soft drinks are not a cure for these two problems; they are WORSE at causing them than regular soft drinks!

So it’s quite clear that if you want to avoid being fat or lose fat permanently or avoid high blood sugar problems and the harms it causes, NEVER drink ANY soft drinks!

B.  So what’s the new information on preventing osteoporosis?

All soft drinks are carbonated.  It seems that this means they all contain carbonic acid.

Guess what?  I found out from Dr Davis that carbonic acid ALSO leaches calcium from your bones.

This means that drinking ANY soft drinks, both regular and diet, causes osteoporosis over time because the carbonic acid in that creates the carbonation leaches calcium from your bones and directly weakens them if it goes on long enough.

C.  The better news is that regular slow rep strength training with relatively heavy weights, particularly the leg press, deadlift, and squat, directly strengthen bones.

In fact, slow rep strength training using the leg press to test if it helped increase bone strength was how slow rep strength training began. 

It tested to work then!  And, it still does!

Lots of walking can help prevent loss of bone strength but does not build it as well as slow rep strength training does.

You can also take 600 mg of magnesium a day and eat organic leafy greens and raw tree nuts that are high in magnesium.   Taking magnesium and eating these foods often helps keep your bones strong or make them stronger.

(Oddly, taking extra calcium beyond getting it in your diet, does not test to do this.)

Also taking 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3; taking boron supplements; and vitamin K2 supplements helps prevent or reverse osteoporosis.

The vitamin D3 helps your body use calcium to build bones. 

People who have a high boron intake have significantly stronger bones. 

And, vitamin K2 not only helps your body use calcium to build your bones, it helps your body NOT cause heart disease by taking it OUT of your blood vessel walls if it is there in excess!

D.  Note that men who drink soft drinks and don’t do these bone building practices can and do get osteoporosis and hip fractures as they get older.

Women who do these bone building practices and never drink soft drinks may well escape the osteoporosis menopause helps to cause.

It may also be that using bioidentical hormone replacement can help with this.  That’s less well tested from what I’ve seen.  But I suspect it will work if done well.

But women past menopause who do NOT do these bone building practices and DO drink soft drinks every day are in danger of dying of the effects of osteoporosis.

They not only die at younger ages but have significant pain and severe mobility problems for years before it kills them or they die of something else.  They also have higher medical bills.

Looks like that may be completely avoidable.

And the most important way to do that is to NOT drink any soft drinks!  

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