Fat Loss and Menopause....

 Today's Post:  Thursday, 9-29-2015

 1.  Women’s experience of menopause varies incredibly in almost every way.

Some women gain fat at menopause when they weren’t fat to begin with.  Some women do not.

Some women get severe hot flashes and become irritable; and both are much milder for some women.

Some women lose their libido because for them it was hormone driven and the hormones have left.

Other women who have a libido more anchored to nerve development from favorable experiences and Kegels done on purpose or as part of their response AND who no longer have pregnancy worries have their libido go up instead.

2.  But some things tend to always happen unless women know how to prevent them.

They gain fat and do so mostly around the belly where it is most noticeable and most tends to increase heart disease risk.

Research recently found that the protections women have more than men from heart disease vanish quickly at the beginning of menopause.

And, women who aren’t doing the things that keep their bones strong or worse ARE doing the things that weaken their bones, other recent research found drop bone strength and lose breakage protection faster than women who do the reverse.

3.  The good news is there IS a great deal you can do to prevent these issues AND many of them help each of these issues at the same time!

Best of all, most of these things also tend to cause fat loss or prevent fat gain!

Many of the things that help you lose belly fat also reduce inflammation that helps you overcome the increased risk of heart disease.

Reducing inflammation also protects you against bad health effects from any excess fat you now have even before you get rid of it.

In fact, other studies show that reducing inflammation makes it safe to do even the old fashioned HRT or hormone replacement using manmade hormones. Done well it cuts the risk of both heart disease and cancer that much.

AND, there is an FDA approved bioidentical estrogen.  I’ve not seen the data; but the indications I have seen suggest:

A low or moderate dose of this plus strong inflammation reduction is very likely to be safe.

A low or moderate dose of this plus strong inflammation reduction will very likely STOP hot flashes.  

Between the estrogen and the fact that hot flashes are a kind of inflammation, this looks very likely.

A low or moderate dose of this plus strong inflammation reduction plus stopping the other causes of osteoporosis and doing the things that actually stop or prevent osteoporosis looks extremely likely to prevent bone loss or weakening.

Here are three previous posts on these subjects:

How to lose belly fat....Thursday, 9-22-2016

Lower inflammation to lose fat and stay healthy....Thursday, 9-8-2016

Prevent bone loss during menopause....Tuesday, 6-28-2016

Many of the things you can do that are in one of these are in all of them!

So, besides the bioidentical estrogen, it really helps to do them all.

4. But before cover that, there is another problem that fattens women that tend to develop about the same time as menopause begins.

It’s thyroid issues.  Because a low thyroid or even a somewhat low thyroid reduces your metabolism and energy you burn less calories 24 hours a day and because you feel you have a bit less energy, you may be less active or exercise less.

And THAT means if you eat the food that you once were free of excess fat when eating, every week you’ll get a bit fatter.

There are three cures and two of them are most effective.

a) MSG is both proven to make the people who ingest it fatter even on the same number of calories than in people who have none.

And, regular ingestion of MSG causes lower thyroid levels!

There are a number of ways to avoid it.  Eat out less and never eat at fast food places because one study found MSG in almost everything on their menu.  Only eat at Chinese restaurants that state clearly their food is free of MSG. 

The hard one is that you must read labels on everything you buy and eat that has them. 

A small handful do list MSG.  But because it is not yet mandatory to list it the most common label listing is “spices”.   And almost every mustard and ketchup and salad dressing in supermarkets has “spices” on the label!

Organicville Yellow Mustard Whole Foods carries is one of the few normal yellow mustards that only lists things that belong in a yellow mustard and does NOT have “spices” as an ingredient.

Whole Foods 365 version of Ketchup also has no “spices” in it.  But to get the normal ketchup taste without the MSG it may take blending in a tiny bit of horseradish or simply using it as a mix with the Organicville Yellow Mustard.

Virtually all commercial salad dressings contain soy oil or canola oil which cause inflammation and most have “spices” too.

Balsamic Vinegar or apple cider vinegar with a good quality extra virgin olive oil plus some spice YOU add one at a time by contrast can be exactly to your taste; does NOT boost inflammation; and has ZERO MSG.

b) If you go to a doctor who knows how to measure the exact levels of each of your forms of thyroid, you can see if any are at all low.

If so, the Armour thyroid in the correct amount will bring it back to what it should be.

(The synthetic drugs are less effective and have more undesirable side effects.)

Note that the very low level most doctors treat is even lower than the somewhat lower level that will make you fat.  So, if any of your measures are lower than high normal range, this may be causing fat gain or preventing fat loss.

Dr Mark Hyman’s work has details you can look up before you see your doctor.  I don’t list them here.  But I suggest you look up his recommendations online to take with you to see your doctor.

5.  Here’s a fast list of things that are on one or more of these approaches:

a)  Doing heavy strength training for your legs and hips twice a week is surprisingly possible for women.  Unlike their arms and shoulder which tend to be less strong than men, women are as capable in their hips and legs as men to build up to heavy weights.

The leg press on the machine with your feet in the high position on the pedal and the deadlift where you simply pick up a bar you bend your knees to grasp and then standing up and repeat—are both exercises women can do in many gyms. If you begin with what you can do at first and simply add 5 or 10 pounds a week until you can do double your bodyweight, that will work.

This helps you lose fat and keep it off because the muscle you ADD instead of losing burns three times as many calories 24 hours a day as fat!

It also has been proven to reverse mild osteoporosis by itself over 50 years ago!

b)  Completely remove all soft drinks both regular and diet and all hybrid wheat and high fructose corn syrup and any hydrogenated oil and all soy and corn oils.  Cut back to only eating real sugar in moderation a few times a month or less.

That lowers inflammation; and stops a major cause of osteoporosis; and protects your heart.  It reduces cravings for sugar foods. It will enable you to be healthier faster than you can lose fat.

But it also tends to cause fat loss with no added hunger and prevent further fat gain!

c)  Eat abundantly of organic vegetables and fruit.

d) Learn what sources of animal protein are low in omega 6 oils, the naturally fed ones; where to buy them; and only use those.

e) Use mostly extra virgin olive oil or eat avocados or if you aren’t allergic to tree nuts eat raw tree nuts in moderation.

Some butter from grass fed cows; coconut oil from sustainably harvested coconuts; and Brain Octane MCT oil is also OK in moderation.

This is a BIG subject; but between what we cover here and in the other 3 posts, you can stay leaner and feel better and stay healthier at menopause than other women do!

How to avoid colds and flu....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 9-27-2015

(This is an adapted re-run of the post I did last year, 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.

In 2014 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. (This includes types of flu NOT covered by this year's shot.)

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!
(The vitamin D3 also makes the flu shot more likely to work!)

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 lose belly fat....

Today's post:  Thursday, 9-22-2016

For appearance and health losing inches of fat off your waist is more important than losing pounds on the scale.

That’s because part of it is inside you and is called visceral fat.  Too much of it tends to squeeze your lungs and heart and stomach.  That reduces your ability to breathe well and tends to increase your blood pressure and can cause or worsen acid reflux.

Not only that but visceral fat when tends to release compounds that cause heart disease I’ve read.

For appearance, fat elsewhere tends to make you look bigger overall; but belly fat sticks out and is very visible so it makes you look fatter.

The good news is that there are many things that do help you remove excess belly fat.  And, not only does removing it have health and other benefits, most of these methods have health benefits in addition to removing belly fat!

1.  The most important method is in Mike Matthews advice on how to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

He says and has pictures to prove it that if you add muscle and lose fat enough to lower your bodyfat percentage enough, you CAN lose your belly fat.

Though this table says that higher percentages are OK than Mike’s actual pictures show is the case, I found it on Google and list it here mostly to show the significant range of percentages and to show that the percentages for women are higher than for men.

Acceptable Body Fat Percentage

Description      Female      male

Athletes             14-20%              6-13%

Fitness                 21-24%        14-17%

Acceptable      25-30%            18-25%

Obese                  31%+           26%+

Body Fat - Does Yours Measure Up? - Bodybuilding.com

www.bodybuilding.com/fun/measure_up_body_fat.htm

Mike has found studies showing that women who have much under 18 or 19 percent fat can have menstrual or fertility or health problems.  And men much under 8% tend to have health problems.

But the people who don’t show excess belly fat are just above that!  About 20 to 23 % fat for women and 9 to 12% fat for men.

So getting rid of all your excess belly fat can be a challenge because it’s a high bar to get over.

The good news is that it is doable.  The bad news is that what this lists as acceptable shows fat bellies in the pictures of people at that percentage of body fat.

My waist is 4 to 8 inches too big as a man and I’m at about 18 to 20% fat.

This shows that to lose my belly fat without gaining more muscle, I have to lose about half my remaining excess fat.  That way instead of instead of 18 to 20 % fat I’ll be 9 to 10% fat.

As some of you know who have been following my posts, I’m currently trying partial intermittent fasting using Bulletproof Brain Octane to avoid excess hunger and mental energy drop off. 

(I also limit my calorie cut back to be just above my metabolism level for the week and eat a high protein, high organic vegetable diet or food plan the rest of the time.)

Those days once I’ve had my high protein breakfast to maintain or add to my muscle mass, I only eat lightly and eat only vegetables.  I’ve also reduced my intake of sugar and organic dried fruit every week.

I’m at about 162 now and to get to 10% body fat from 19% by only losing fat, I need to lose about 16 pounds to 146.

Or I can lose about one pound but gain 15 pounds of muscle.  That’s my preference but at my age and not yet being able to lift heavier weights in the gym, my current focus is on fat loss.

2.  There are some other things that either help remove belly fat or turn off things that add it:

a)  It’s harmful for the people who eat the food but until recently factory farms routinely “finished” meat animals by feeding them extra grain and penning them up.  This reliably made them fatter.

What this means in people who work at their desks for long hours and then watch TV for long hours is that they are inadvertently penning themselves up.

That keeps them fatter and tends to be effective at adding belly fat.

There are two cures for this. 

Watch far less TV, less than 10 to 15 hours a week, and what you still watch exercise on an at home exerciser while doing so.  Note that this does NOT need to be strenuous only that you stay in motion and avoid sitting totally still.

When it becomes available get a low key exerciser you can use at your desk and keep it in motion as many minutes in your work day as you can fit in.

Working while standing or walking is somewhat available in some workplaces but is not as good or usable by most people as a way to exercise while sitting at a normal sized desk.

The devices sold for that are not very good yet.  But given the importance we now know they have, I believe that is temporary.

I have more space at my desk than most and have managed to get a recumbent bike set up. 

Currently after reading that excess sitting reduces the lipase you need to use and get rid of excess fat, I’ve been making a real effort to triple the amount of time I spend pedaling this bike.

In fact, I am doing it now!

b)  Excess stress that you don’t quite relieve adds belly fat and also makes it hard to get rid of.

Getting better at running your life without excess stress does work.  But it often is not enough.

Exercise does help you relax anyway, particularly walking or exercising moderately at your desk.

Yoga and Tai Chi do work to relieve stress for some people. 

But the device that was in Medical News Today a day or two may be both more effective and much more time efficient to use.  The researchers found that people who don’t relax enough after being stressed stay too amped up AND the hemispheres of their brain get out of balance.  But by using this device and real time feedback from it, people were able to lower stress and balance their hemispheres too.

The people they tested it on had high blood pressure and by using this device they cur that y 16 over 13 to readings that were completely out of the high blood pressure range.

When this becomes available, it likely will help cut belly fat too!  Here’s the article itself:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/312914.php

Innovative sound therapy treats hypertension and migraine   by Tim Newman    Saturday 17 September 2016

Reducing migraines too was a desirable effect!

Another way I’ve found effective is to have a support network of good hearted and competent friends, relatives, or co-workers.  This both helps you overcome the problems that stress you and enables you to relax more when not actively working on them.

This has been tested to be true for most people.  And, when I’ve had it, my high blood pressure readings become normal.

Conclusion:

1.  Doing the basics of fat loss and adding strength training and properly done intermittent fasting can lower your percentage bodyfat enough to remove your excess belly fat.

2.  Moving enough more and sitting totally still less can help remove belly fat and turn off a known cause.

3.  Reducing excessive stress, getting good support from other people, and using a practice or device that enables you to relax between stresses turns off another known cause of belly fat. 

Ginger protects your heart....

Today's post:  Tuesday, 9-20-2016

1.  High chronic inflammation causes osteoarthritis and magnifies any aches and pains you have.

That means that if you work out and get any extra strains, even if minor, of your joints or tendons or muscles -- with high chronic inflammation, your workout will demotivate you a bit.

People once took OTC pain relievers for this aspirin and acetaminophen and NSAID’s.

But the NSAID’s tend to increase heart attack risk we now know. 

Aspirin causes internal bleeding and fatal cases on occasion and boosts the risk of Reyes syndrome which can cause paralytic symptoms. 

And acetaminophen in too large of a dose or doses plus taking it much of it with even regular moderate alcohol consumption can cause and has caused liver failure and death.

So if you work out and also want to avoid getting crippled up with osteoarthritis, it would be really great if there was a way to cut high chronic inflammation AND a safe way to turn temporary inflammatory over-reactions.

Clearly the OTC drugs are not that way!

I read that the herb, ginger, lowered inflammation and was safe to eat or take as a supplement.

So,  every morning before my exercises for that day, I’d put about two tablespoons of organic ground ginger spice and mix it into a small glass of chilled water and drink it down once I stirred it in.

My Dad at my age had osteoarthritis.  After drinking this ginger tonic for a few years I do not.

And, though I’ll still get strains etc from my workout, my ginger tonic keeps them minor enough to not be distracting let alone painful.

2.  Then I found the book Anticancer which explains that high chronic inflammation causes or worsens cancers.

The cure the doctor who wrote it found was to reverse the cause of the high chronic inflammation most Americans have. 

He found that eating grains, eating grain oils like corn and soy, or eating the fat from animals fed grain instead of their natural diet causes people to have 20 or 30 TIMES too much pro-inflammatory omega 6 oils.  Then if people also fail to get a safe source of anti-inflammatory omega 3 oils also, their chronic inflammation goes very high.

His concern was that this boosted the Dickens out of cancer.  But we also now know it also causes heart disease, osteoarthritis, and Alzheimer’s disease!

He also found that turmeric or the curcumin contained in it lowered chronic inflammation.

So to prevent or help prevent ALL those diseases, eating more organic vegetables and eating no or WAY less grains and oils from them and no fats from factory farmed, grain fed animals, was VERY protective.

Eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils and lots of organic vegetables, particularly those that also prevent cancer instead also is protective.

4.  But botanically, ginger is a close relative of turmeric and also lowers high chronic inflammation.

When I read that turmeric and curcumin were protective I added them in addition to my ginger tonic.

A bit after I’d been both things for a few months, I got my lipid panel and my LDL tested.  My LDL dropped from 105 to75!

I wondered if the ginger & turmeric and curcumin might have done this due to the timing.

But I’d never read of this elsewhere.  But THEN I did!  Dr Dean Ornish in his book Spectrum said that the LDL lowering from turmeric and curcumin was well known!

5.  So I now knew that my ginger tonic was heart protective in two ways.  It safely cut my LDL and HSCRP measure of chronic inflammation by about as much as statin drugs but with none of the side effects of statins!

6.  Imagine my delight and surprise then to find out that my ginger tonic has EVEN MORE heart protective qualities than those qualities have been making it!

Dr Al Sears sent an email last week that had some of those added heart protections!

“Many doctors tell their patients to take an aspirin a day to prevent heart disease. It's become such an accepted practice that I see patients in my clinic who started taking it on their own just because they figured it was a "good idea."

I tell them to stop.

Don't get me wrong - aspirin is one of the safest over-the-counter drugs out there.

But it's still a drug. So that means there are still some risks involved with its use. The main risk is excessive bleeding. Other risks include kidney and liver failure, ulcers, tinnitus and hemorrhagic stroke if you use it too much.

During my travels around the world, I've found natural remedies that work as well, or even better, for heart health. Some are exotic. Others you probably already have in your kitchen… like ginger.

Most people think of ginger as a remedy for an upset stomach. But it does so much more.

Taking a little bit of ginger every day can give your heart a real boost. That's because it contains 12 antioxidant compounds more powerful than vitamin E.1 Antioxidants combat free radicals in your body. And flavonoids, a type of antioxidant found in ginger, are especially good for your heart.

One study looked at the dietary flavonoid intake of 1,400 men. Researchers found that the men who got the least amount of flavonoids had the worst carotid artery diameter and the highest risk of heart disease.2

Ginger is good for your heart in other ways, too. Research shows it reduces oxidation, which can inflame the lining of your arteries.

In one study, researchers divided 40 participants into two groups. Half were healthy. The other half had a history of coronary artery disease. One group received 5 grams of ginger powder each day, and the other received a placebo.

After four weeks, oxidation had decreased by 18% in the healthy group and 23% in those with a history of heart disease.3

Like aspirin, ginger works as a blood thinner. And that means it prevents clots from forming that could lead to heart attack or stroke.”

Conclusion:

It turns out that my daily ginger tonic has been one of the most effective things I’ve done to protect my heart!

It also protects against clots from a substance made by bacteria that eat the choline your brain needs called TMAO.  It protects against the clots that can be caused by AFIB.  And it protects against the clots caused by being too sedentary.

Wow!

So, in addition to its other heart protections, ginger acts to prevent the clots that can trigger heart attacks and strokes!

It may do so well enough to make it safe to avoid the very dangerous blood thinning drugs and still be protected!

 >>> There is one problem though that you should be aware of, if you are taking a blood thinning drug, adding that much ginger could cause the drug to work too well causing heavy internal bleeding, a life threatening event!

It’s likely possible to switch from the drug or the drug only to ginger or ginger and a LOT lower dose of the drug.  But to do so, it might take two days in the hospital being very carefully monitored to do it safely.

So, unless you and your doctor -- or a doctor willing to do so -- do that, if you take blood thinning drugs, don’t take that much ginger!

The upside in this is that if your doctor suggests blood thinning drugs but you haven’t started taking the drugs, you have an alternative to try first that may be more protective!  

My Monthly Fatloss Report....

Today's post:  Monday, 9-19-2016

A.  Here's the key news.  Better!

1.  I LOST about one pound from 164 to 163.

My chest and waist were about the same as last month -- though I might have gained about a quarter inch on my waist.

I lost half an inch off my hips.

I gained 3 pounds on my week where I eat more to try to add a pound of muscle.

I was still under stress this past month but less than the month before.  Two of the worst ones have let up.  I made progress on fighting the cause of one; I made progress on turning off another; and I let go my upset at a harsh loss -- and have successfully started recovery mode.

So to net out a pound of fat loss for the whole month is very nice indeed. 

The new intermittent fasting plan worked!

Last month I wrote this:

“Clearly I need to add more muscle and change what I eat to supply less calories those two weeks in order to make progress.”

The reason I’m encouraged this month is that:

a) I’m continuing to add more reps on my key exercises; I DO show muscle growth in my biceps for which I have the heaviest weight; and my muscles are beginning to be hard and will look decent once I remove the remaining excess fat.

This clearly means that once I start going to the gym three or four weeks a month, my other muscles besides my biceps will grow a bit too; and once those include my biggest and heaviest muscles and they grow, I’ll burn more fat 24 hours a day, seven days a week!

b)  The best news is that my plan to cut my calories on my two cut down weeks using intermittent fasting plus a bit of the specialty MCT oil, Brain Octane, worked so well those two weeks helped me lose four pounds!  The energy boost was not enough to notice more energy. 

But the calorie reduction on my partial fasting days caused zero drop in my energy level which it might well have done without the Brain Octane.  And, I was NOT that much hungrier either!

c) Lastly, just last week, I added two things.  One may help me lose about half a pound more a month.  And one may help me lose about half a pound more a month AND a quarter or half an inch a month from my waist.

*My four week plan has been to have a moderate loss week followed by a moderate gain week, then a big calorie cut back week, then and ending with my big gain week. 

I’ve now subtracted some dried fruit and dark molasses from each of the three weeks except the big gain week.  That’s enough fructose and sugar to cut a half a pound at least once and keep it off.  It might wind up cutting more than a half pound permanently.  But once or twice is likely. AND because I’m so close to my goal weight, that will help me get back to it at least.

**I have been using a recumbent bicycle at my desk; but only for about 30 minutes a day. Just last week, I read that the more unbroken sitting time you do, the more fat and belly fat you will tend to gain.

One of the articles on exercise in Medscape’s Tues, 9-13 email had this:

""Medically, sitting too long shuts off the enzyme lipoprotein lipase.

In people who are sedentary, the enzyme doesn't break down fat to create energy, like it should."

"sitting too long shuts off the enzyme lipoprotein lipase."

As I remember, it also said this was most the case for abdominal fat!

(This is supported by the fact that the man who got me the recumbent bike had been running it for several hours a day while losing several inches off his waist!)

THAT got my attention!  This might mean that going from 30 to 40 or 50 minutes a day to 60 to 90 minutes a day running the recumbent bike not only would burn something like 1,000 more calories a week, it would restart some lipase too.  THAT might mean losing a half pound more of fat each of my two cut down weeks each month.  AND it might cut a quarter or half inch off my waist each month.

So, last week from when I read that to Friday afternoon, I averaged more than a half an hour more each day running my recumbent bike than I had been!

I’ll be doing an hour or more running the recumbent bike at my desk today and each day this week!

Conclusion: 

This suggests that between the intermittent fasting beginning to work; the slight extra calorie cut back of sugary foods; and the boost in running my recumbent bike, I may be able to lose a pound a month for a bit or a half pound a month each month for a while of consecutive months of fat loss.

I’ve not been able to do that since I lost my initial fat.  So, if it happens this time, it will be really good news!

The other thing is that I am now doing the things that will enable me to go to the gym three of four times a week soon

And, I will jump the weight I’m using on my curl by 5 more pounds this week!

The other topics such as getting an accurate digital scale and blood pressure issues, I’ll revisit later.  

Ways to make eating right easier....

Today's post:  Thursday, 9-15-2016

Whether you are working to eat right for good health or for losing fat you keep off, upgrading what you eat and drink can be challenging at first.

This has three parts:

1.  What to do when you have a craving or urge for harmful or fattening foods or drinks or for eating too much right away.

Surprisingly, there are ways you can usually overcome this.  This post has several.

2.  The second part is to do things that make you less hungry and get far fewer such cravings or urges.

This one works well; and this post lists several.

3.  The third one is ways to make it easy and doable to eat right that you can set up or use ahead of time.

This one also works well; and this post lists several.

1.  What to do when you have a craving or urge for harmful or fattening foods or drinks or for eating too much right away.

Often temporary urges strike when you see harmful foods or drinks displayed when you are going to a movie or to a restaurant.   A health writer I get emails from, Ben Ong, gave a very good one recently:

Focus on the people you are with and conversing with them.  If you are going to a movie, focus on your thoughts about it and watching.

He also makes a good point, that unlike cravings, urges are often very temporary.  So making this change in focus for just a couple of minutes is often successful.  Then too, good conversation and interesting movies can really engage you and keep you occupied!

Also, research shows that if you learn what the harms of the unhealthy food components are and focus on NOT wanting those results you can simply not ingest those things.  I find it also helps to feel  good that you know to protect yourself!

But if you focus on how good it tastes, you'll likely have some.  (Researchers actually proved that to do this you literally use different parts of your brain to do these things.)

And, I've found that self-talks like these are helpful, "I used to eat that or drink that; but mercifully I know better now!"  "I used to really like that.  But now I know what eating it does to people, I know to never eat it!"

2.  The second part is to do things that make you less hungry and get far fewer such cravings or urges.

a)   One is to have some fruit or dinner recipes using healthy foods and spices that taste good so you DO have some foods you like to eat every week – and on most days! 

b)    Eating several kinds of organic vegetables also fills you up enough to be less hungry.  

c) So does eating health OK protein foods as the man Dave Ben Ong is coaching does. 

Savory grass fed lamb slow cooked after using a needle style tenderizer using spices you like works well!

Even just cooked and still warm plain boiled eggs from hens fed on pasture works when you are hungry.

And there are dozens more using wild caught salmon and sustainable seafood and pasture raised chicken and beef from cattle fed only grass.

d)  Bulletproof founder Dave Asprey has also gotten good results by having people take just a bit of his MCT oil, Brain Octane, that tastes bland and gives your brain power on its ketogenic system.  (Your brain can run on glucose; but it can run on MCT oils too.  The MCT oil fraction in Brain Octane is quite effective for this.)  The bit of fat reduces hunger; and the brain power allows your brain to work well and not order up more carbohydrates for fuel.  

3.  The third one is ways to make it easy and doable to eat right that you can set up or use ahead of time.

The other meaning of the question "How can we make healthy eating easier?" has to do with convenience, time efficiency, and  finding doable ways to fit healthy foods into your life.

a)   Use frozen and bottled foods so all you have to do is serve them.  If it's a choice between bad eating or using canned foods, I think canned foods solve this also.

(I put my frozen organic wild blueberries in a glass container as soon as they thaw in the refrigerator.  A company called Eden makes an organic sauerkraut in vinegar which I find by eating a few servings a week each week, I can store on the shelf without putting it in the refrigerator. 

 And, Whole Foods carries wild caught Alaskan salmon in cans.  I eat two cans a week. And, my wife eats Beach Cliff water packed  sardines a few times a month.)

b)   The other technique that I and fat loss specialist Isabel De Los Rios use is to always have the same weekday menu for each meal.  

Once you set that up, it makes it simple to eat meals. You just set up and eat what you have for that day and meal on your weekly menu.  And, it saves time shopping also since you always buy the same things and just buy what you need to get through the upcoming week.

She and I also do some prep work on weekends.  So all you have to do is serve the food -- or warm up the food and serve it -- during the week.

I buy broccoli and cut off the florets and put them in a glass container.  They then take up a lot less space and I can just take out a serving each day during the week.

As I remember it, she cooks the week's dinners ahead to be warmed up on each weekday while she sets up the salads and spices for the chicken on those weekdays and assembles the vegetable casseroles and salads which are more varied.

That way her meals are tasty and varied; but the base menu and protein dish is the same each weekday.  And it’s set up ahead of time.  So making dinner is fast and quite doable!

Conclusion:

If you know how to stop urges and cravings for harmful and fattening things; you know how to make them happen far less; and you know how to and use the methods to make good for you foods taste good and fast to fix, you CAN do it yourself!