Resources for your health II....

Today's post:  Thursday, 10-27-2016

(The new resources that have been added since Tuesday's 10-25 post begin just after the strength training section.  And they are labeled "New to this list, Thursday, 10-27."

1.  Today the majority of Americans still eat and drink things that make them fat and sick and don't do the protective exercises that are proven to help them stay well at all or do nearly enough.

This results in heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, vascular dementia and Alzeimer's disease.  It also causes obesity, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, shortened life, much shorter healthy lives worth living, and tends to cause cancer.  And, it both cuts the number of years people can work and their productivity while they still are working.

And, some people still smoke or use tobacco or nicotine products and ALL those problems get even worse!

The somewhat to completely ineffective drugs and medical procedures to make these avoidable problems somewhat better cost billions and billions more each year.

The economy has a lot of drag because of this and will tank if it keeps getting worse!

2.  Meanwhile the research has been done in abundance.  If people stop that lifestyle and instead eat mostly organic vegetables and some organic fruit and health OK protein foods and health OK fats and oils instead AND take targeted supplements when needed AND do several kinds of exercise each week including strength training and short cardio with rests for fitness and other exercises they can fit in and like, ALL that changes!

Adding strength training and short cardio with rests and customized intermittent fasting to that lifestyle can cause permanent fat loss or prevent getting fat in the first place.

This also sharply slows aging and maintains the ability to be independent and self managing for almost all their lives in the people who follow it.

People can and already have lived healthy lives worth living until well over 90 years old with none of these health problems.

They have been productive when they have kept working or productive at the volunteer work and hobbies they like all that time.

3.  What are the resources that can help you make these lifestyle upgrades successfully that have helped others and gotten excellent results?

Here's a short list:

The areas they are in include:

a)  Effective habit change for beneficial changes
b) Strength training produces many of the most valuable protective effects and self esteem boosts
c) Eating lots of organic vegetables which is possibly the most health protective thing known,
d) Intermittent fasting because when done successfully it's an effective way to lose fat that is OK for your health to do
e) The way less sugar and no wheat people because stopping those things enables fat loss and stops most of the very worst kinds of foods and drinks
f) And the paleo people who combine no, or way less, sugar and organic lots of organic vegetables and enough naturally fed animal protein to support effective strength training.
g) Doctors who realize that lifestyle upgrades that prevent disease and restore health are more effective and safer than drugs to solve these problems and are working to enable medicine to include this approach and do it well in addition to medicine as we have developed it for those situations where it is needed and effective.

The resources:

a)  Effective habit change for beneficial changes

* James Clear has a large set of well thought out articles detailing workable techniques to do that.
http://jamesclear.com/
I've found his work very helpful personally.

How to start improving your habits.  How to fix problems that block you when you try to change a habit.  How to keep improving.  How to ensure you keep the good habits you develop and regularly do enough of them to reliably get the good results you want.

His articles have all that and more!

b) Strength training produces many of the most valuable protective effects and self esteem boosts.

Surprisingly it is even MORE important for women; but so far, fewer women do it than men.

* http://www.theperfectworkout.com/ is the website of a company that provides two very time efficient and quiet private sessions a week, even one will help, for a slightly pricey fee per month.

They make it easy for women who have no experience to progress from there to some real health gains and protection from frailty in old age.  Many of the women also begin to look much better and gain considerable self confidence.  In fact, many older women who could no longer go places they enjoyed become able to do more than they could before!

Their method also tends to prevent and can help reverse osteoporosis.

They do well with professional men who are very short on time to exercise also.

* http://www.niashanks.com/   I like Nia Shanks direct approach that specializes in helping women.

"I help women achieve their goals with simple, empowering strength training programs."  "I've worked with clients for over a decade, and I know what works."
"Health and fitness information that makes you feel great about yourself."
"Shanks came up with her own powerlifting program to help women of all levels become their "strongest and most awesome" selves. She encourages readers to pay more attention to the numbers on the dumbbells than on the scale, to stop obsessing over having a "perfect" diet, and to find a way to get the best results with the least amount of effort."

https://www.muscleforlife.com/

* Mike Matthews specializes in helping people use power lifts with barbells to gain muscle while staying lean or becoming lean while increasing muscle at the same time.

His method works and his thoughtful and researched analysis is appealing.  So are the results he helps people get!

He's quite knowledgable on strength training for women and has helped many get great results.

But his sweet spot is helping men of 20 to 50 to look great and more muscular while losing fat at the same time.

He has added his own line of multiple component supplements.  I prefer to take many of these as separate supplements instead.  But his research on the benefits of the components is well done.

The bad news is that he is sometimes less health oriented than I think is desirable. And some of his health information is dated and incorrect.  But he is a very bright man who reads research well. So I think that will change eventually.

Bottom line, if you are a man who wants to look muscular and have visible abs, or you are a woman who wants to look athletic and sexy instead of just thin and willowy, Mike's advice may well be just what you need.

New to this list, Thursday, 10-27:

c) Eating lots of organic vegetables which is possibly the most health protective thing known,

A UK study found that eating six or more servings of vegetables a day or more cut the risk of heart disease, strokes, and many cancers AND cut the death rate from them and any other cause compared to people who rarely ate vegetables.

This is challenging so increasing your intake to three or more and trying to add one or two a day from there will help.

Also, eating that many every single day for many years means that it is essential to make all or almost all of those be organic vegetables only.

* Whole Foods Markets is far from perfect.  But I've found that they do manage to stock organic produce of decent or good quality at a reasonable price.  So they are a useful service available in most of the United States.  

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/ and
    http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/list

*The work of research dentist Weston Price found that the common elements of the many peoples he found still eating as they had for thousands of years AND who also had surprisingly good health and teeth -- all had in common that they included lots of organic vegetables and fruit and some source of animal protein and fat from animals fed their natural diet.  These diets also did NOT have grains or refined sugars.  They were totally free of wheat flour.

We now know that the factor he found in the animal protein and fat from animals fed their natural diet these peoples eat that caused good teeth and strong bones is vitamin K2.  Because K2 causes calcium to go to bone building and prevents it from hardening arteries, it also helps prevent heart disease.

There is no good place I know of to access his information at this time.

But a resource that does exist that found very similar things also found that a diet that stopped all other foods and additives and included all the different kinds of vegetables from green to orange to sea vegetables and some organ meats, particularly liver, had very dramatic health effects.

*Woman doctor, Terry Wahls MD, developed this diet to provide all the known essential nutrients in their natural forms.

This is more powerful than it might sound because real foods have hundreds of synergistic and complementary micronutrients besides the better known ones.  Yes, carrots have beta carotene in abundance.  But they are also high in alpha carotene that may be much more health protective AND hundreds more carotenes that make those far more protective.

She had MS that had forced her to stop working and into bed rest.  She may well have been on the road to dying of MS.

Did eating the eight to 10 servings of vegetables a day and organ meats and stopping all the harmful foods and ingredients seem to work?

She gradually got close to 100 % recovery from MS!  She now is back working and taking hikes for exercise.

Other people who have followed her protocol exactly have had similar results.

And, people who weren't sick who have followed her protocol have effortlessly lost fat until they became lean AND have begun to 'youthen" - they look noticeably younger!

Her book, "Wahls Protocol, The : How I Beat Progressive MS Using Paleo Principles and Functional Medicine" by Terry Wahls (2014-04-03)1800
by Terry Wahls MD & Eve Adamson is available on Amazon

And, for help with using her information this book may be helpful and is also available on Amazon:

"The Wahls Protocol Cooking for Life: The Revolutionary Modern Paleo Plan to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions" Apr 4, 2017

My personal preference and that of many Paleo people and people into strength training is to include more animal protein from animals fed their natural diet than she does.

And, unless you have an autoimmune disease, you may have less motivation than it takes to follow her protocol; but the more of the organic vegetables she suggests that you eat each week the leaner and healthier you will be.

*Another resource is the book:

"Anticancer: A New Way of Life   Dec 31, 2009   by David Servan-Schreiber MD"

The author does a wonderful job showing that grains and oils from grains and animals fed grains instead of their natural diet, cause high inflammation which helps cause and speed cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

He makes it very clear and has helpful information on the anticancer effects of the many kinds of vegetables Dr Wahls recommends along with some tips in adding them to your meals.

My personal preference and that of many Paleo people and people into strength training is to include more animal protein from animals fed their natural diet than he does.

He does show why proteins and oils from animals fed their natural diet are far safer for you health than proteins and fats from animals fed grains!

*Another resource is Joel Fuhrman

https://www.drfuhrman.com/

His book, Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, Revised Edition Jan 5, 2011  by Joel Fuhrman MD is available on Amazon.

His focus using his ANDI score is on the organic vegetables and fruits and legumes that have the most nutrition per calorie.

He suggests getting your monosaturated fats from raw tree nuts or avocados instead of extra virgin olive oil for example.

He eliminates grains because they are so low on his ANDI score.  Sugars score zero and are NOT on his list!

His diet also is hard for most people to follow.  But those who do, find they gradually drop their body fat and become lean with low normal BMI readings.

"Beyond vegetarian and vegan there is the nutritarian. What is it and why would anyone do it? Dr. Fuhrman coined the term "Nutritarian" to describe a diet that is nutrient-dense and plant-rich, and includes anti-cancer superfoods, which also facilitate weight loss. These foods supply both the right amount of macronutrients (protein, fat and carbohydrates) and the vital micronutrients (vitamins, phytochemicals and minerals) that unleash the body's incredible power to heal itself and slow the aging process, giving the body renewed vitality."

Quite true!  The research supports this strongly!

My personal preference and that of many Paleo people and people into strength training is to include more animal protein from animals fed their natural diet than he does.

Dr Furhman says his diet without animal protein provides 60 or 70 grams of protein.  But this falls short of the 75% of the lean bodyweight in pounds that Matt Hedman, founder of The Perfect Workout discovered was the minimum needed for adding muscle and strength gains in his clients.

It falls even farther short of the gram per pound of bodyweight that bodybuilders and power lifters find to be optimum.

In my case, the 132 pounds of lean bodyweight I have now mean that my minimum intake should be 99 grams of protein a day.  The optimum would be 162 grams of protein a day with 146 grams a day likely the minimum needed to boost my muscle and bone enough to add 14 pounds of lean body weight to replace what I lost since I was younger.

Dr Furhman also overstates the dangers of animal protein foods from naturally fed sources when eaten by people otherwise following a low inflammation version of his diet and taking protective supplements in my opinion.

And, since his diet is vegan, the safest and most health producing way to use it is to take supplements for the many key nutrients it leaves out.  Methyl B12 is essential and l-carnitine and Omega 3 oils and DHA and zinc and magnesium and vitamin K2 also are.

Dr Wahls avoids the lack of trace minerals by including seaweed for it.  With Dr Furhman's diet adding seaweed or the supplement spirulina and being sure to include raw tree nuts if you aren't allergic will help solve that problem.

But it's clear that the more of the high nutrition, low calorie, organic vegetables he recommends that you eat, the healthier you will be.

d) Intermittent fasting because when done successfully it's an effective way to lose fat that is OK for your health to do.

I may add some of the other people in this field to the list that will be on our websites.

But for now, the two who I think have it right and have gotten extraordinarily good results are:

Dave Asprey of Bulletproof.com and Dr Jason Fung, author of the new book:

"The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting," by Dr Jason Fung" co-authored with Jimmy Moore.

I've read an interview he did with the core of his work; and he knows the approach of Dave Asprey and has used it successfully.

They have found that unlike every day cutbacks below the level needed by your metabolism that your body's failsafe famine response reads as a famine, intermittent fasting can even boost your metabolism a bit.

And, because your brain can run on fats as well as sugars, you can use fasting with the kind of MCT oils that Dave Asprey finds do this best.

He finds this helps you sustain energy and a good mood when you have removed all the foods with carbohydrates except the lowest glycemic nonstarchy vegetables while doing partial fasting.

Further, Dr Fung finds that if you do it correctly, your brain begins to run well on your stored fat as you remove it for use!

Lastly, periodic fasting sharply lowers small particle LDL, chronic inflammation, triglycerides, and excess blood sugar!

Resources for your health....

Today's post:  Tuesday, 10-25-2016

1.  Today the majority of Americans still eat and drink things that make them fat and sick and don't do the protective exercises that are proven to help them stay well at all or do nearly enough.

This results in heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease.  It also causes obesity, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, shortened life, much shorter healthy lives worth living, and tends to cause cancer.  And, it both cuts the number of years people can work and their productivity while they still are working.

And, some people still smoke or use tobacco or nicotine products and ALL those problems get even worse!

The somewhat to completely ineffective drugs and medical procedures to make these avoidable problems somewhat better cost billions and billions more each year.

The economy has a lot of drag because of this and will tank if it keeps getting worse!

2.  Meanwhile the research has been done in abundance.  If people stop that lifestyle and instead eat mostly organic vegetables and some organic fruit and health OK protein foods and health OK fats and oils instead AND take targeted supplements when needed AND do several kinds of exercise each week including strength training and short cardio with rests for fitness and other exercises they can fit in and like, ALL that changes!

Adding strength training and short cardio with rests and customized intermittent fasting to that lifestyle can cause permanent fat loss or prevent getting fat in the first place.

This also sharply slows aging and maintains the ability to be independent and self managing for almost all their lives in the people who follow it.

People can and already have lived healthy lives worth living until well over 90 years old with none of these health problems.

They have been productive when they have kept working or productive at the volunteer work and hobbies they like all that time.

3.  What are the resources that can help you make these lifestyle upgrades successfully that have helped others and gotten excellent results?

Here's a short list:

The areas they are in include:

a)  Effective habit change for beneficial changes
b) Strength training produces many of the most valuable protective effects and self esteem boosts
c) Eating lots of organic vegetables which is possibly the most health protective thing known,
d) Intermittent fasting because when done successfully it's an effective way to lose fat that is OK for your health to do
e) The way less sugar and no wheat people because stopping those things enables fat loss and stops most of the very worst kinds of foods and drinks and health problems
f) And the paleo people who combine no, or way less, sugar and organic lots of organic vegetables and enough naturally fed animal protein to support effective strength training.
g) Doctors who realize that lifestyle upgrades that prevent disease and restore health are more effective and safer than drugs to solve these problems and are working to enable medicine to include this approach and do it well in addition to medicine as we have developed it for those situations where it is needed and effective.

The resources:

a)  Effective habit change for beneficial changes

James Clear has a large set of well thought out articles detailing workable techniques to do that.
http://jamesclear.com/
I've found his work very helpful personally.

How to start improving your habits.  How to fix problems that block you when you try to change a habit.  How to keep improving.  How to ensure you keep the good habits you develop and regularly do enough of them to reliably get the good results you want.

His articles have all that and more!

b) Strength training produces many of the most valuable protective effects and self esteem boosts.

Surprisingly it is even MORE important for women; but so far, fewer women do it than men.

http://www.theperfectworkout.com/ is the website of a company that provides two very time efficient and quiet private sessions a week, even one will help, for a slightly pricey fee per month.

They make it easy for women who have no experience to progress from there to some real health gains and protection from frailty in old age.  Many of the women also begin to look much better and gain considerable self confidence.  In fact, many older women who could no longer go places they enjoyed become able to do more than they could before!

Their method also tends to prevent and can help reverse osteoporosis.

They do well with professional men who are very short on time to exercise also.

http://www.niashanks.com/   I like Nia Shanks direct approach that specializes in helping women.

"I help women achieve their goals with simple, empowering strength training programs."  "I've worked with clients for over a decade, and I know what works."
"Health and fitness information that makes you feel great about yourself."
"Shanks came up with her own powerlifting program to help women of all levels become their "strongest and most awesome" selves. She encourages readers to pay more attention to the numbers on the dumbbells than on the scale, to stop obsessing over having a "perfect" diet, and to find a way to get the best results with the least amount of effort."

https://www.muscleforlife.com/

Mike Matthews specializes in helping people use power lifts with barbells to gain muscle while staying lean or becoming lean while increasing muscle at the same time.

His method works and his thoughtful and researched analysis is appealing.  So are the results he helps people get!

He's quite knowledgable on strength training for women and has helped many get great results.

But his sweet spot is helping men of 20 to 50 to look great and more muscular while losing fat at the same time.

He has added his own line of multiple component supplements.  I prefer to take many of these as separate supplements instead.  But his research on the benefits of the components is well done.

The bad news is that he is sometimes less health oriented than I think is desirable. And some of his health information is dated and incorrect.  But he is a very bright man who reads research well. So I think that will change eventually.

Bottom line, if you are a man who wants to look muscular and have visible abs, or you are a woman who wants to look athletic and sexy instead of just thin and willowy, Mike's advice may well be just what you need.

To be continued to add the remaining sections in our next few posts.

Two new ways to force fatloss....

Today's post:  Thursday, 10-20-2016

There are two new ways to force fatloss.

One is free or even saves you money and is available now.

The other is a new drug that may become available that likely works.

1.  The first one is a new book by a researcher who details what he found to make intermittent fasting work including some contra-intuitive good news that it can be done without muscle loss or triggering your famine response.

I’ve not gotten the book yet or read it.  But I have already begun to increase my use of fasting more than I was doing.  (Its official publication date was day before yesterday!)

Here’s the info I got:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/10/16/complete-guide-fasting.aspx?utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20161016Z1&et_cid=DM124916&et_rid=1713011967

"The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting,"  by Dr Jason Fung" co-authored with Jimmy Moore, details how to implement fasting and overcome some of the most common challenges that might arise, including persistent fears and myths associated with extended water fasting.”

And, it’s available now on Amazon  So you can buy it and use it right away:

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Fasting-Intermittent-Alternate-Day/dp/1628600012/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476994085&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Complete+Guide+to+Fasting%3A+Heal+Your+Body+Through+Intermittent%2C+Alternate-Day%2C+and+Extended+Fasting%2C%22++by+Dr+Jason+Fung

Note that it works for type 2 diabetics taking Metformin too.  But managing the process safely in that case is critical because not doing so can kill you.  His book has details on this.

2.  New drug approach may stop fatty liver and type 2 diabetes and reduce obesity too!

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/313409.php

"....the drug enters the liver with a trick:

It uses the pancreatic hormone glucagon as vehicle to shuttle thyroid hormone T3 to the liver while keeping it away from other organs, thereby improving cholesterol and lipid metabolism while avoiding typical side effects of thyroid hormone.

The constant rise in obesity and diabetes represents a major burden of our society.

Fatty liver and atherosclerosis are frequent consequences of these metabolic diseases, but an efficient and safe medicine, which would reverse obesity, insulin resistance, fatty liver and atherosclerosis remains a major scientific challenge of global priority.

An international team led by metabolism experts Matthias Tschöp (Helmholtz Zentrum München / Technische Universität Müchen), Richard diMarchi (Indiana University) and Timo Müller (Helmholtz Zentrum München) report in the current issue of the journal Cell

   that liver-specific delivery of the thyroid hormone T3 using glucagon corrects obesity, glucose intolerance, fatty liver disease and atherosclerosis without causing adverse effects in other tissues.

"While the ability of T3 to lower cholesterol is known for centuries, deleterious effects, in particular on the skeleton and the cardiovascular system, do so far limit its medicinal utility", says Brian Finan, the first author of the manuscript."

This is not yet approved as a drug for sale.  But if it can boost metabolism safely as this suggests, it sounds dramatically safer than obesity surgery!

With very high health care costs of fatty liver and obesity driving it, this looks likely to be put on the fast track for potential approval.

3.  For now, intermittent fasting looks as effective, is far less expensive, and safe if done correctly.

It also makes sense to do the eating and exercise upgrades that can help with fat loss and protect your health using either method!

In many cases, this will improve the fat loss results.  In almost every case it will improve the disease protection you get.

And, it will also make it far easier to keep off the fat you lose!

New way to stop osteoarthritis....

Today's post:  Tuesday, 10-18-2016

Osteoarthritis can reduce your quality of life due to the pain and also reduce your ability to stay mobile and do the things that often make life worth living that require mobility.

Worse, the OTC drugs most people take for it have harmful side effects and don’t do much to actually turn it off or do much to reduce the pain.

1.  It’s been found that high chronic inflammation not only makes osteoarthritis worse but also is one of its causes.

The low inflammation eating style we recommend and learned from the book Anticancer can prevent this or begin to improve it.

The very good news is that osteoarthritis has a second cause that you can also turn off!

Yesterday Medical News Today had it:

It seems that high LDL, likely the small particle kind that causes heart disease and strokes and other cardiovascular diseases, harms the mitochondria in cartilage thus causing osteoarthritis.

So, if you effectively lower that by reducing high LDL, you turn off this cause.

And, since the supplement ubiquinol helps keep mitochondria healthy, taking it also might make that work even better.

The bad news is that doctors tend to prescribe statins to lower high LDL instead of the more effective and far safer life style upgrades.

And, statins cause mitochondrial dysfunction by removing your body’s supply of ubiquinol.

That means that statins are totally contraindicated for this use.

So, to remove this cause of osteoarthritis, you have to use the lifestyle changes that lower LDL.

Stop eating and drinking the things that cause high LDL and instead eat the things that reduce it instead! 

Stop hydrogenated oils and hybrid wheat and high fructose corn syrup and way too much real sugar!

Completely avoid tobacco smoke because it causes far more heart disease and heart attacks than it causes cancers!  And, it boosts LDL as part of that.  (That’s a huge effect considering that tobacco and its smoke cause about HALF of all cancers!)

Eat a good bit of organic vegetables each day.  Six or a bit fewer servings a day of organic vegetables is the most effective way to prevent heart attacks known.

All of these lower LDL cholesterol!

The best news is that the eating style suggested in the book Anticancer also makes exactly those changes!

In addition, the curcumin and turmeric it recommends to lower inflammation also reduce arthritis pain with added health benefits instead of side effects.

Even better, eating turmeric spiced foods and taking curcumin lowers LDL cholesterol.

Its cousin spice, ginger, also lowers inflammation and HDL cholesterol.

It’s beginning to look like you can come close to preventing osteoarthritis totally with these methods.

And, by using them all well, you can definitely make it better if you already have osteoarthritis.

Here’s the Medical News Today story and a few quotes:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/313521.php

“High cholesterol triggers mitochondrial oxidative stress leading to osteoarthritis

New research suggests that mitochondria targeting antioxidants could be a viable treatment strategy for osteoarthritis before cartilage reaches a stage of complete degradation.

High cholesterol might harm more than our cardiovascular systems. New research using animal models, published online in The FASEB Journal, suggests that high cholesterol levels trigger mitochondrial oxidative stress on cartilage cells, causing them to die, and ultimately leading to the development of osteoarthritis.

This research tested the potential therapeutic role of mitochondria targeting antioxidants in high-cholesterol-induced osteoarthritis and provided proof-of-concept for the use of mitochondrial targeting antioxidants to treat osteoarthritis.”

http://mnt.to/l/4GBq
New research suggests that mitochondria targeting antioxidants could be a viable treatment strategy for osteoarthritis before cartilage reaches a stage of complete degradation.

My Monthly Fatloss Report....

Today's post:  Monday, 10-17-2016

A.  Here's the key news.  Less good

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

My  waist and hips were about the same as last month.

I did gain a half inch on my chest AND made progress on my exercises for it.  So the gain may have been muscle or mostly muscle.

2.  I was still under stress this past month --

but  it seems that my leverage to create consistent net losses in fat may be to jump my partial fasting on Monday and Friday from twice in four weeks to four times, every week, for now

The new intermittent fasting plan worked on the weeks I made full use of it!  For now, I'll try that twice every week upgrade  rather than doing the full fasting week three times a month

What I will add is to do the full version twice a month instead of once as well.

Clearly I need to add more muscle and change what I eat to supply less calories during the month in order to make progress.

I am making progress a bit on adding muscle.  And still plan to add using heavier weights 3 or 4 times a month.

3.  The weeks I use more partial fasting I lose on the scale.  So, upgrading the number of days a week I do that every week and doing the full version twice a month instead of one looks likely to help.

4.  At the same time, I want to add as much muscle as the pounds of fat I remove.  

So I want to eat enough, particularly of protein,  to ensure that at the same time I use more days where I leave some of my protein intake out.

So for now, I'll not do the full version 3 times a week and just jump it from one to two.

Conclusion:

Using more days a month of partial intermittent fasting looks likely to increase my fat loss that I net out each month.  

Doable Ways to start fat loss….

Today’s Post:  Thursday, 10-13-2016

The only way you can cause the lifestyle upgrades that result in permanent fat loss is to do them each week.

But if you aren’t yet and want to, did you know there is considerable research now and has been for many years that shows that it CAN be done and what actually works in practice?

Make the tiniest start successfully -- because that research shows that your ability to focus on the part of you that makes you successful in that area so well, you begin to see yourself mostly as someone who can effectively take actions to get the thing you want!

When you start something even just a bit successfully, it’s as if once you do so you ask yourself why you did and answer “Because it begins to get me what I want AND since I did do it, I must be the kind of person who can take actions to improve me and my health.”

Social science research has shown that over and over for more than 50 years now!

But here’s where it gets very interesting indeed!

In one study where the people in it began regular exercise this effect caused them to make other changes too and do so almost effortlessly!

They ate better and even cut back on smoking if they smoked!  (That’s quite significant, because this was before the 1964 Surgeon General’s report on smoking; and far more people around them were smoking than do so now.)

So this post is about several tips to make that doable and have it work reliably for you.

A.  First of all it’s often easier to add more good things than remove bad ones particularly as a first step.

1.  Since exercise often makes people feel better and is proven effective to make this self-image upgrade, it can be a good place to begin.

Over the last 8 weeks, we’ve posted often on exercises that work and ways that may make them most doable for you.  Those include exercise you can do at home. And, they include a way to have a skilled professional get you up to speed quickly.

Decide on one and set a time to do it each week.  Then do an easy version of it the first time and even a small amount of exercise.  Once you do it you can gradually make it more challenging until you can do more than you can now.  But you want the first few times to be easy enough you can be sure you can do the exercise or exercises and do better the next time you do them.

For exercise, unless you work with a professional at a later time of day, the best time to exercise, particularly at home, is to do your sessions early enough in the morning to be BEFORE the varying demands of the day can sometimes prevent it.

For eating, the most beneficial thing to eat more of is some kind of nonstarchy, organic vegetable.

So, an easy way to begin is to pick one meal during the week when you can eat ONE serving each week of a particular vegetable.  It can be a vegetable that you already eat sometimes or one you will try out.

The method is to pick a time during the week and first day you’ll do it.  Make sure to do so that first week.  And, to make it easy, even a small serving will work!

Second, once you begin, how do you ensure you keep going?  James Clear, the habit change expert, just sent an email that includes one.

You set up a routine that you always follow where the first step is easy!

He’s a writer himself so he uses famous writers as examples.  Many of them get their writing materials or computer set up and sit down to write at the exact same time each day.

For exercise, you do the same thing! 

On the day of the week you exercise or do that kind, at that time, you get out your exercise log or smart phone or PC where you keep your record; you change into the clothes you will wear. And then you go to the gym or do your first exercise.

In my case, I take some creatine in water and some other supplements to help get better results that actually have been shown to work -- as separate supplements.

Then I shave to give my body time to begin processing the supplements; write down my exercises in my log book and start the first one.

I do this at about the same time each day seven days a week now.  But Monday, Weds, and Friday they only take 9 minutes or less.  And when I started, I just did two sessions a week of strength training.

2.  For eating better, the routine that works is to gradually build up a schedule for each week day of which vegetables to eat and then follow it.

This makes shopping and food selection easy and ensures I get the vegetables each week. I eat a serving of broccoli florets each day.  But some days of the week I also have sauerkraut and others I have no sugar, high flavor past sauce with olive oil, and most lunches I have a small serving of baby food winter squash and one of carrots from Earth’s Best.  I also have some mashed avocado as an end of the day snack each day.

The vegetables you choose may be radically different and likely will be!  But the principle is the same.  Find a routine that gets you vegetables each week that you enjoy eating or at least are OK with and then just keep doing it.

I found out in her emails that Isabel de Los Rios does the same thing with each weekday dinner.

She may vary the cooking style and spices a bit; but every week on the days she has set up as a chicken dinner day, she can buy the chicken the weekend before and do some of the prep work.

Then she can reliably cook and serve good tasting health OK food for dinner every night.

Again, this routine makes continuing to follow health upgrades in your eating every week AND to keep doing them.

B.  The other thing you can do is to use strategic methods.

There are a number of these that work well!

Here are some you can use.  Just pick the ones that fit you best. Then, do one or two to get started.

1.  Review what you already are doing right!  Review a few of the things you are good at even if they aren’t directly relevant.

One successful fat loss counseling program discovered that having people do this at the beginning and to see the assets and strengths they are already using or can use, just about doubled their results over people who did not.

2.  Review the reasons why that are important to you. 

Any health motivations are very useful because sometimes it can be easier to do the right thing for health reasons than for fat loss.

So writing down what things you want to escape ever getting or turn off if you already have them can really help.

Doing it just to feel better can be a great motivator!

Vigorous exercise most days of every week and taking 7,000 to 10,000 iu of vitamin D3, and taking DHA supplements twice a day has been shown to build new brain cells and turn off some kinds of depression. So you feel better.  But it also helps prevent heart attacks and Alzheimer’s disease!

Eating the anti-inflammatory foods and taking curcumin as described in the book Anticancer can reduce and prevent joint pain.  So you feel better and can do more.  But this reduction in inflammation also prevents many cancers and heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease besides preventing or turning down osteoarthritis!

Looking better is a powerful motivation too!

When you feel better you look better. 

When you can move more easily and can do more things people notice and the confidence that gives you makes you look better.

When you eat enough dark green and yellow and orange vegetables research found people subconsciously think of you as looking healthy. 

They don’t even know where it comes from or why; but they do conclude you look healthy!

The reds and oranges in the carotenes actually give your skin a ruddy, glowing look is why!

And, they and the many other micronutrients in the vegetables, like folate and others, also boost your health and longevity.

3.  Review the challenges you have:

What things would help if you could do them better?

Sometimes regular exercise can do that for you after you do it long enough to get those results.

Sometimes getting a short term tutor to get you up to speed can work wonders.

4.  What things do you want to get rid of and do NOT want? 

Where fattening and harmful foods and drinks and food components are concerned, are there some you already know you’d like to be free of and stop paying for?

If so, it can be quite freeing to just toss them all out and not buy any more!

5.  What solutions have you seen that are so promising that you are inspired?

Which things have done exactly what you want successfully for other people?

What things have you seen that might make you able to do key things or get good results or remove obstacles?

When you see things like that which make you feel hopeful and confident to at least try to do those things, it can really encourage you.

And by then following up and doing these things, often you CAN do more!

6.  To succeed you must do more things that bring you the results you want and you must also stop things that are blocking you or even making things worse.

It's easiest and most doable to add more good things than stop bad things often. 

What good things would be easiest to add more of for you?

But it can also be quite freeing to escape from bad things you are very motivated to get rid of. 

Which bad things would give that feeling to you?

This one is a good one to start with and to revisit from time to time.

7.  For things that you are already doing that are working, setting up and following startup rituals and scheduling set times you do for what management author Jim Collins calls your 20 mile march.

That's something that you are already doing that produces good results you want to always do the minimum even if it's very hard; but when the right amount is easy or fast, it's important to rest and recharge or think up new things to do. 

Doing more of the routine thing past a certain point can lead to burnout which is NOT a good idea.  To get good results, you must do these activities with very great consistency.

But also look for or think up solutions to doing better or removing obstacles.  If you are looking for these things, the most unlikely things sometimes will bring them to you. 

As the saying has it, “Chance favors the prepared mind!”

Once you find or think up a better way or new solution, before you over-commit to it, find a fast and inexpensive way to test it.

Some of these won't pass your tests. 

Ah! But those that do pass can triple your results when you weave them into your 20 mile march routine!

Jim Collins calls these mini-tests shooting bullets.  Some will be right on target and worth keeping but many will not.

Conclusion:

There are many ways others have found work to make lifestyle upgrades and make the lifestyle upgrades that force fat loss and ensure the fat loss is permanent.

As you may have noticed, many of them do NOT require eating less or being hungrier!

May you find some in this post that work for you!