Stop depression 90 percent or more.....

Today's post:  Tuesday, 1-31-2017

The drugs now given for depression don't work or barely work; they are as addictive as hard drugs; and they have recently found to help cause Alzheimer's disease.  Most doctors still know little else to try.  Some even think these drugs work; but they don’t.

But depression is a hardware and software problem of the brain.  

1.  We now know:  how to use cognitive therapy to fix the software; 

2. We now know how to fix the hardware;

a) We know what drugs directly harm the hardware and reliably cause depression.  So knowing never to take them even once and to stop them as fast as is safe to do so helps.  Knowing what to replace the drugs with instead also helps.

b) We know things that repair or replace nerves and brain cells and their connections. Successful talk therapy changes the part of the brain used and has this effect!  And, when people do the things that grow new brain cells enough to show on a brain scan, most cases of depression and many cases of PTSD ALSO show dramatic improvement

3.  We know a few things that make people feel better right away.  The best two are low tech and people can simply do them.  One high tech treatment and one drug have been shown to work right away but may not be available for many years yet.

So, most people get harmed by treatment when at the same time, we do know safe and effective ways that cure depression for over 90% of the people who use all the parts." 

This post and very likely the post next Tuesday and even the one after that have the details.

In his book, "The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs," author Stephen Ilardi PhD found that over 75%^ of the people who were depressed who followed each of those 6 steps properly were able to stop their depression.

Because the parts here ensure you do his steps well and turn off the causes of the remaining 25%, doing each of them we believe can stop over 90 percent of depression and even approach 100%.

That said, here’s the first one:

1.  We now know:  how to use cognitive therapy to fix the software in your brain to lift depression.

Martin Seligman, PhD found that if you see bad things as permanent and out of your control and you see good things as rare and unlikely to last, you will reliably be depressed.  Worse the more often you think this, the worse your depression gets.

The first cure for this is to combine the skills of a defense lawyer with the logic of Star Trek’s Spock.

“This ruins everything and it will be permanent.”  “Really.  What about the things in your life that are still going well?  Is this actually happening or just something that might happen?  Have you actually checked?!  If it did happen what caused it this time?  Did that happen before?  Will it happen in the future?  What evidence do you have that shows this?  Have you checked?

If it is happening and is harmful, have you looked for ways to turn it off or minimize the damage?

It also helps if you catch yourself thinking these inaccurate thoughts and feeling bad to force yourself to stop doing it.  Mentally yelling STOP! – has helped people.  The other way to stop this is to go into aggressive trial lawyer mode and attack it!  “Wait a minute!  Is this something that already happened or is it something that might happen?  Have you checked if it actually is happening yet?  If it is happening, is this temporary and the cause has already stopped? 

Most people survive most problems even if they are nasty.  They usually minimize the damage and go on to make repairs or do something else that does work out.

Have you reminded yourself of this?  It makes dealing with the real problems far less scary.

Educated and logical people often have these skills or find them learnable.

This skill is literally forcing yourself to pay attention to what is actually happening and not happening. 

It makes your model of reality much more accurate.

[End of part I.  Part two resumes next Tuesday with the second, very different skill Dr Seligman found that stops depression.]

Beat Sugar Cravings.....

Today's post:  Thursday, 1-26-2017

In some ways there are two basics for permanent fat loss.

1.  Stop routinely ingesting the things that reliably fatten you.

Then you stop making the problem worse!

2.  Boost your metabolism so you burn more calories twenty-four hours a day.

Over time that will remove your excess fat.

People who succeed at anything we now know take consistent action and keep doing it;

-- and they use what Reverend Bob Schuler called “experimental persistence”: They not only keep at things until they get the results they want, they take action and test things; they scrap the things that fail but learn from what happens, they look for new things to try and try them, they put in the time as a priority increasing their abilities and trying again. 

A new book describing this is called “Grit.” 

Use that on these two actions and you can lose fat and keep it off!

The post this time is on the first thing:

1.  Stop routinely ingesting the things that reliably fatten you.

Then you stop making the problem worse!

The post next week will be on the second thing:

2.  Boost your metabolism so you burn more calories twenty-four hours a day.

Over time that will remove your excess fat.

a) To stop routinely ingesting the things that reliably fatten you, it helps to apply grit to doing so.

One fat loss expert who delivers results is Mike Matthews.

He wrote a piece on how to beat sugar cravings that highlights exactly how to do this.

After Mike’s piece, I also list several ways to do this that either make it easier or even more effective.

This can help you start out faster and get more results over time.

Here’s Mike:

https://legionathletics.com/sugar-withdrawal/

".... in the case of sugar, studies show that they [sugars] fail this litmus test of addictive substances.

"People don’t build up a “sugar tolerance.”

They don’t have to keep eating more and more to achieve the same pleasurable effects.

They don’t physically and psychologically suffer if you stop eating it.

Scientifically speaking, depriving yourself of sugar is no different than depriving yourself of any of life’s little pleasures.

It can be disappointing and less immediately gratifying, but let’s not mistake that for the type of physical or mental distress that drug addicts experience.

This, then, brings us to the heart of the matter: personal responsibility.

Some people like to play the victim. They’d rather blame someone or something for their problems and shortcomings, rather than own up to the consequences of their choices and actions.

They’re not just weak-minded and weak-willed, they’re “addicted.” It’s not their fault.

This is a pathetic way to live.

No matter what you’re facing in life, once you surrender your sense of personal accountability, all is lost. It’s your only lifeline, the only leverage you really have to lift yourself out of the muck.

So, does a low-sugar diet result in less food-induced pleasure than a sugar-rich one?

Sure.

And can that make it harder to follow?

Sure.

If you haven’t been able to do it, don’t go looking for a scapegoat, chemical or otherwise.

Just look in the mirror, and ask yourself if you really want to be the type of person that can’t even control what they eat. That can be conquered by a clutch of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms.

And if you’re thinking that I just “don’t get it,” you’re wrong.

I like sugar as much as the next person, but I value my health, productivity, and happiness more, and so I limit my sugar intake.

What a concept.

You can do it, too.

It might require throwing away all those tasty treats in the pantry, learning to drink water and like foods that aren’t sickeningly sweet, and even falling off the wagon a few times, but so long as you refuse to go looking for excuses to fail, you’ll make it.

The Bottom Line on Sugar Withdrawal

Too many people eat far too much sugar, and find it far too hard to stop.

This has given rise to the idea that sugar is addictive, like drugs, and that the reason it’s so hard to quit is it can produce legitimate withdrawal symptoms.

Stories like these are music to millions of people’s ears, because it absolves them of their dietary sins. They can breathe a resigned sigh of relief, because it’s just faulty brain chemistry that’s to blame, not their flabby willpower.

It’s also a lie. 

Research shows that while eating sugar is pleasurable, it doesn’t impact our physiology nearly as significantly as addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin.

The bottom line is comparing sugar to hard drugs is like comparing creatine to steroids. They’re in the same universe, but are galaxies apart.

So, if you’re currently struggling to reduce your sugar intake, don’t buy into the siren song of sugar addiction and victimhood.

You’re choosing to eat it because it makes you feel good, and you can just as easily choose not to eat it, and look elsewhere for a pick-me-up.”

b)  Did you know there are several ways to make this work better and a LOT easier to do?

If Mike’s approach sounds a bit more than you can do because you DO experience strong cravings and you have no clue how to turn them off,

      you CAN do it anyway with a bit of knowhow and leverage!

*Soft drinks both regular and diet do NOT turn off hunger when you drink them. But regular soft drinks ADD calories. 

Both cause a spike in blood sugar which then falls.  Then your body puts out insulin which drives calories into your fat and locks it there AND you then get rebound hunger for sugary foods!

This fattens reliably AND causes cravings for sugary foods that you would NOT have had if you had drunk chilled water or coffee with coconut oil or whole milk from cows fed only grass.

Let me repeat that:  You drink something that makes you fat without turning off your hunger, THEN, you get a craving for sweets you would NOT have had if you didn’t drink the soft drink to begin with!

This effect may be greater for the artificial sweeteners in the diet soft drinks or they may cause worse cravings.  By actual test, they are MORE fattening than regular soft drinks, so they likely do both.

Let me repeat that:  You drink something that you think might have no fattening effects, THEN you get a stronger craving for sweets you would NOT have had if you didn’t drink the diet soft drink to begin with.

Worse, each diet soft drink is slightly MORE fattening than a regular soft drink.  But because people think the opposite is the case, the people who drink diet soft drinks drink more of them.

Then, with each diet soft drink being MORE fattening than a regular soft drink AND drinking more of them, people who drink diet soft drinks reliably get fatter from doing so!

These things are true for foods sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup or the same artificial sweeteners too.

They ALSO cause this rebound hunger driven cravings.

STOP DOING IT! 

If you do NOT ingest these things, you can control the cravings easily because you stop getting them!

* Other near addictive effects:

Our bodies like and get used to regular patterns.  They particularly get used to sugar surges and rebound sugar intake.  So, this can add to cravings for a few days after quitting these foods and drinks. 

But if you toss out the ones you have, don’t bring any more home, and stop getting them away from home, within those few days you no longer have cravings to fight!

That’s the point when using Mike Matthews’ advice kicks in.  Since these things fatten you, find other ways to make yourself feel better that don’t do this!

* No added reason to stop.  BUT there IS one!  In fact they are life threatening and there are a LOT of them.

If you aren’t fat or aren’t fat yet, you may believe that soft drinks and diet soft drinks are harmless and that they are normal and associated with good times.

So false it approaches comedy this is! Before 95 years ago no one had ever heard of soft drinks. 

It wasn’t normal for people to drink them because there were none.

Then the companies that made them found that they were inexpensive to make and sold some for enough money to make money doing it.

Then to help people who then had trouble getting enough to eat, the feedstocks for soft drinks were subsidized and TV marketing began to become effective.

And it was like a snowball rolling down hill.  The more money the soft drink makers made with this cheap but salable product by pretending it was a traditional thing to do to add to good times, the more they advertised and the more people believed this fiction.

They now know how fattening and harmful soft drinks are but THEY are addicted to the easy, large profits.

We now are beginning to know that soft drinks are as harmful to your health and in as many ways as smoking cigarettes.

Heavy use for decades has been shown to cause fatal fatty liver, fatal heart attacks, fatal strokes, crippling osteoarthritis and Alzheimer’s disease IN ADDITION to how incredibly fattening they are!

This was true for sugar sweetened soft drinks before.  We now know that with the free fructose in the high fructose corn syrup used in regular soft drinks this is about five to ten times worse.

The MS and cancers and harmful gut bacteria that artificial sweeteners cause are horrible for those who get them.  But that sounds safe since this can happen to only one in 10,000 people in s a given year in some cases.

But this leaves out the multiplier factor!  In 25 years that’s one in 4,000 people.  So if 50 million people drink soft drinks, that’s over 10,000 people.

Worse, the real risk is likely closer to one in 1,000. 

Why use a product that makes you even more fat and can cause you these harms too!

* The focus trick works! It’s proven to work and research shows it actually changes the part of the brain you use to decide!

This makes Mike Matthews’ method quite doable!

If you consider buying a soft drink or sugary treat or are offered one, you can focus on one of two things:

You can remember that you liked the taste of that thing in the past and would find it to taste good now.

OR:

You can remember it causes the cravings you hate and adds more of the fat you are trying to lose.

OR, you can remember drinking these can cause YOU to have a heart attack like your Dad did.

It’s quite simple really, at first, you can choose which of these to focus on.

If you choose the first focus, you’ll have trouble overcoming the craving IF you manage it.

Miraculously though, if you choose the second focus, you will have no craving at all or one you can easily dismiss.

Researchers studied people who did each one and found that the brains of people who focused on the taste fired up the eating enjoyment circuits while those who focused on unwanted and harmful consequences fired up their brains that think and enable self control.

*The way to completely beat a craving that you find you simply don’t succeed at overcoming otherwise.

Almond butter is a health supporting food.

It tastes slightly sweet despite having a zero glycemic index.  And between the fiber and good taste and the health OK monosaturated oil and the protein, it’s very filling.

So, I decided to allow myself a spoonful of it as a snack.

But I found it boosted my appetite and that once I had one, I’d find myself eating several spoonfuls.

Then I promptly gained 6 pounds!  And, it was clear that if I kept the almond butter in our home, I’d keep the 6 pounds!

So I hit on the solution.  I no longer bring almond butter home.  And on the rare occasions my wife gets some, I do NOT allow myself to have any.

This is an effective way for me to beat this craving that was not possible to control otherwise.

c) To make this step most effective, also use it on the other fatteners besides sugars, artificial sugars, and the soft drinks that contain them!

We now know that all hybrid wheat causes the same fattening and harmful effects as sugar and even as high fructose corn syrup.

Worse, this is even more the case for hybrid wheat refined into flour. 

This is a very similar story to soft drinks.  When the providers found that the horribly harmful hydrogenated oils could make their bread and baked goods keep forever on the shelf and both those oils and the wheat got subsidized, they found they had salable bread and baked goods that were cheap to make.

So, if you want to avoid cravings and serious health problems and making yourself fat, simply refuse to eat ANY food that contains hybrid wheat or hydrogenated oils.

Are asking yourself what CAN I eat if I have no bread or baked goods?

We just did that post day before yesterday:

Paleo AND Healthy Priority List...Tuesday, 1-24-2017

There are many versions of food “pyramids.”  This one is the LARGE list of foods compatible with good health and staying lean!

Paleo AND Healthy Priority List.....

Today's post:  Tuesday, 1-24-2017

There are many versions of food “pyramids.” 

A.  Health OK very low carb protein foods.

Ben Ong sent one in his email recently that was oriented to eating in a way that was ketogenic which would help people lose excess fat and remove most issues with high blood sugar not caused by type 1 diabetes.

This approach is mostly sound though it can include proteins and fats from animals not fed their natural diet and leaves out some foods known to have extremely high health benefits.

Here is my completely reworked foods list that aims to range from low carb and ketogenic to reduced carb and very low glycemic AND to include those foods known to have extremely high health benefits. 

It’s for you if you want to:

get maximum health benefits from what you eat;

allow for a good bit of variety;

just about completely eliminate harmful foods and drinks, and

provide enough protein you can maintain strong bones and muscles if you also do effective strength training.

1.  Put wild caught fish

from unpolluted waters which is low on mercury and high in omega 3's

                                                                                                                first.

[Later it may be possible to eat health OK algae of the kind that these fish eat!

That will need some time to bring the cost low enough while maintaining the quality.]

2.  Put whey from grass fed cows this second group; included collagen proteins from grass fed cows; include eggs from pasture fed chickens; and cheese from grass fed cows in this second group. [For super ketogenic periods though leave out the whey.]

3.  Put lamb or beef from 100 % grass fed lambs & cows in the next group. 

(Lamb liver from 100% grass fed lambs may be available from New Zealand but I don't yet know a source for it.  When I do, it belongs in this group.)

4.  So far chicken and chicken liver from truly 100% pasture fed chickens that ingest no arsenic or any kind of grain is not available -- nor is completely naturally fed ham.  When they are, they belong in this group.

B.  Health OK oils help to power ketogenic power to your brain when carbs are low or very low.

1.  Bulletproof Brain Octane with the 2 OK tasting MCT oil fractions that do this job well may be the best one for this.

2.  For food oils and fats, extra virgin olive oil has the best health profile.

3.  Organic, sustainably raised coconut oil helps both ketosis AND is health OK -- plus it tastes good.

4.  Butter from cows that eat only grass is OK in moderation and Kerrygold supplies it!  [For super ketogenic periods or fasting, Bulletproof Gee may be better.  But Kerrygold salted butter tastes better & the salt is useful in fasting.]

C.  Other low carb foods that have very high health value:

1.  For those not allergic and who are burning enough calories too, adding raw tree nuts and avocados in moderation is OK when not fasting or being super low carb.  

2.  For health, even a low carb diet short of fasting or temporary super low carb eating must contain nonstarchy --- low carb organic vegetables are essential.  And cruciferous greens and other cruciferous vegetables are best.

3.  For health, even a low carb diet short of fasting or temporarily low carb eating must contain a low carb high nutrition organic fruit at least once a day.  

While fasting or  temporary super low carb eating, taking fruit extracts such as bilberry, elderberry, cherry, and cranberry are a desirable substitute and are a low carb way to add to the effect of the one whole organic fruit a day.

4.  [Doing the right kind of vigorous exercise most days of every week both almost triples the health effects of the foods in C. above D next AND makes eating them act as if they were lower in carbs!]

D.  Health OK foods that are low carb to help with variety, adding muscle when extra carbs help, adding good taste -- AND are health OK but only in controlled moderation:

1.  High nutrition, organic vegetables that have some extra carbs and are high in hundreds of carotenes; very occasional use of sugar in a natural form such as dark molasses, real maple syrup, or unprocessed local honey -- and organic raisins and prunes.

2. Red wine, two glasses or less, before dinner only on most days has more health benefits and fewer health harms than other forms of alcohol.  Alcohol is carcinogenic; but red wine also contains an antidote to this which minimizes it or removes it.

E.  Other foods and semifoods and all soft drinks and artificial sweeteners do NOT make the cut and are best NEVER eaten or consumed at all!  

The same is true of MSG and the fast food and some Chinese restaurant food on which MSG is always or often used!

This is also true of hybrid wheat, all oils made from grains, and any fish or animals fed grains at all!

F.  [The one exception is meats and other protein foods of this kind which had almost ALL their fat removed. If a very thorough 3 part fat removal process is used, these can be OK in moderation because they are then less harmful to your health and are at least low carb.

Doing this in extra moderation can help you get affordable animal protein foods.

It is low carb and ketogenic and minimizes but does not eliminate the harms from grain fed animal fats.  Most of the harms are in the fat, so removing it very thoroughly works partially to protect you.

The DASH diet gets good results with this approach.  

But if you can afford it, the naturally fed animal protein and fats are safer and give you better nutrition.]

My Monthly Fatloss Report.....

Today's post:  Monday, 1-23-2017

(Tips on fasting from my personal experience with it.)

A.  Here's the key news:

Last time, I’d just lost more pounds the first 5 days of my 12 day fast than the 5 day fast before it! I lost 8.3 pounds instead of 4.9 on my first 5 day fast.

I hoped to lose a bit more the following 7 days of my 12 day fast and then keep off some of what I lost so the fat loss could be cumulative by fasting every other month until I lost more fat total.

It got complicated to tell! 

After the full 12 days, while fasting for the week longer, instead of losing about 3.6 pounds more of fat for a total of 11.9 on the scale,

I gained back 1.9 pounds to 6.4 pounds total on the scale.  AND, I gained that back WHILE FASTING for a week!

Then, when I ate normally, I again gained back more than 6.4 pounds I lost.

To be sure that gain back period had two stuff myself Christmas Dinners and leftovers for a few days after.

I also got swollen ankles so some of that weight gain was added water weight.

THEN I tried a 4 part protocol I found online that looked to help reduce the cause of my swollen ankles.  WOW!  It not only worked to remove the new swelling, it removed most of the original swelling too!

That caused a weight loss on the scale large enough to bring me back down to only a 1.5 pound weight gain from the level just after my first 5 days of my 12 day fast last month.

So, I weighed 164.4 two months ago before my two fasts.  Now, after the two of them AND losing this water weight, last Saturday, I weighed 157.4.  That’s a two month total loss of 7 pounds!

What about fat loss?

I gained 1.5 inches on my chest since last month.  Could be part of that is muscle.

I also gained an inch on my waist – the half inch I lost while fasting AND an added half inch!

My hips remained exactly the same.

B.  What I learned and my resulting strategies and tests to do now:

1.  The excessive intake of carbs & calories and maybe some of the ankle swelling was due to trying a pay ahead and pick up Christmas dinner.

THAT we will NOT do ever again! 

We were forced to buy a package with more than two dinners of the turkey AND which we had to cook after paying for a precooked option.  I think they used tons of MSG on the turkey too!

They included mashed potatoes and rolls when we wanted NONE.  They also included a bit extra.

 We wanted extra stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce.  So we got enough for one person instead of extra for two people.  Worse, I think they again used MSG on the gravy & stuffing – and might have used some high fructose corn syrup in the cranberry sauce.

NEVER again!

Next time, we or a cook we hire, will make what we actually want from only health OK recipes for each part.

Even going to a good quality restaurant where we can order only almost OK food choices as we did for New Year’s Eve, would be better.

(I’ve found one off decent quality meals out of this kind once in a while adds zero pounds on the scale!)

2.  I was going to be fasting this week; but am just getting over a surprisingly bad case of the flu when I do as many things as I do that prevent this and get over them faster.

So, my next fast is going to be for 5 days and start a week from today after I’m well.

Also, during it and the two weeks after it I’ll be taking the metabolism booster I just posted on and ramping up my exercise to normal.

I’m hopeful that will finally show net fat loss.

Conclusion:

Eventually, we’ll have a good test without mistaken holiday dinner choices or unexpected bad cases of the flu.

Once we do have a good test and good results from the addition of this metabolism booster, if we do, then, I can create a net fat loss plan that will work by continuing to remove fat.

Possible concussion good news….

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 1-17-2017

Concussions are damage to the brain caused by blows or impact.  They can be mild or severe and cause temporary or permanent damage.

They can be caused by any accident that causes blows to the head and are common in competitive contact sports like football.

I read recently that the Stanford University Football team has an eye exam device that can tell them if a player who might have a concussion does have one for which he should be taken out – or if he does not and can continue playing.

Apparently this device is accurate enough to help them maximize both the playing time AND the health of their players.

Medical News Today just had a story of research showing that for people with concussions that blood levels of tau protein indicated the severity of the concussion.

“Biomarker in blood may help predict recovery time for sports concussions
http://mnt.to/l/4HfR

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health found that the blood protein tau could be an important new clinical biomarker to better identify athletes who need more recovery time before...”

From studies on Alzheimer’s disease, we know that tau causes or indicates damage to the brain.

But we also know that taking 10,000 iu a day or more of vitamin D3 and taking curcumin both tend to remove tau or prevent its formation.

We also know that taking the sterol stigmasterol helps remove beta amyloid which tends to form from tau and helps it cause damage among other things.

And, both tau & beta amyloid tend to cause nerve damage or death.

In addition, MSG and a pro-inflammatory lifestyle tend to cause both tau & beta amyloid to form which vitamin D3 & curcumin help to remove.

It’s not been tested; but doing the things that remove tau and beta amyloid AND prevent their formation as a practice, IN ADVANCE of blows to the head, may well significantly reduce concussions at all and significantly reduce their severity if they happen.

And, it looks quite likely that doing the things that remove tau and beta amyloid AND prevent their formation after blows to the head that do result in a concussion would reduce its severity and enable faster recovery.

For combat soldiers and competitive football players this could be an important discovery!

Secondly, these preventive practices also help prevent Alzheimer’s and all kinds of heart disease – strokes, heart attacks, and erectile dysfunction and many cancers.

So having competitive athletes and combat soldiers use them is clearly indicated as it is for everyone who wants to avoid these diseases.

The potential that this research suggests also exists that blows to the head are less likely to cause a concussion or a less severe one and speed recovery from concussions is potentially quite valuable to know.

Besides taking vitamin D3 and curcumin and NOT ingesting MSG or related compounds there are many ways to reduce chronic and excess inflammation.

[The sterol supplement Cholesterol Balance by Natrol contains both beta sitosterol and stigmasterol.

I began taking 3 a day of it to lower LDL cholesterol – which it did.  But finding it helps prevent Alzheimer’s and now looks to prevent or speed healing of concussions from the stigmasterol in it has been a very positive surprise.

The two best sources for what foods CAUSE high chronic inflammation and which ones reduce or eliminate it are:

The book Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber, MD and the books by William Davis, MD who shows that never eating wheat, cutting back quite a bit on other grains and taking or eating the omega 3 DHA both stop boosting HSCRP inflammation AND reduce it if it is high to begin with.

This also boosts your HDL and lowers your triglycerides which Harvard researchers found slash your level of small particle LDL and all kinds of heart disease!

In addition to taking curcumin, using ginger as a spice or taking it as a supplement also sharply lowers inflammation.

[Botanically, turmeric from which curcumin is extracted and ginger are cousins and have similar anti-inflammatory effects.]

I also discovered that taking both curcumin and ginger daily not only was effective with these food changes in lowering my HSCRP, that my LDL cholesterol went down by 30 points.

So following these practices is well worth doing for these other reasons!

Now it looks like they also help prevent concussions or make them less severe AND speed up healing concussions too!

New way people can power start fat loss….

Today's Post:  Thursday, 1-12-2017

As you may already know, there are a number of actions that can help or force fat loss:

*You can stop eating foods and food components that fatten AND increase cravings for similar foods.

*You can stop drinking drinks that not only fatten and increase rebound hunger and cravings for more but never made you less hungry when you drank them! (Most people know that regular soft drinks do this. But fewer know that diet soft drinks and real fruit juices also do this.)

*You can begin to eat at least one more real and organic vegetable a day as a doable way to build up to eating more than that which is a proven way to lose fat you then keep off and protect your health better than drugs too!

*Whether you do a regular walk at a scheduled time even once a week even for a few feet at first or just a 7 minute walk near work or home -- that’s a proven way to not only start fat loss and better health AND once you do it, you will find it dramatically easier to do the other things.

*Not only is this true for strength training also; and even one or two scheduled days a week for even ONE exercise is a very doable way to start. Strength training is also a great way to go because you can literally start with tiny weights you could have lifted at age 3.  And, since you are new to it, you can also lift more weight or for a few more times EVERY time you go for many months.

Research shows that this is very motivating and boosts your self esteem by quite a bit!

But what if you feel rotten and have very low energy and in order to have food taste good you need to eat or drink the fattening stuff?

Recent research reported on Medical News Today shows that people with a lot of fat to lose have low dopamine which makes foods less rewarding to eat.  So such people tend to eat the addictive fatten foods or drink the fattening drinks to force some reward out of it.

And, companion research also reported recently on Medical News Today shows that people with a lot of fat to lose have low dopamine which makes people feel low in energy and reduces the feeling of reward other people feel from exercise.  They even move less while sitting.

Of course, if you could somehow boost the dickens out of your dopamine levels if only for the first few weeks while you get started AND you also had a better mood, more mental focus and more energy, would that help?!

Oh my yes!

We’ve posted over the last few weeks on some ways to do this.

But there are two new ways to do this which are faster and you may find are more forceful.

a) One increases energy and concentration and confidence so well people quitting cigarettes while using it found it quite doable! It does this by strongly boosting your dopamine release.

b) The other one boosts physical and mental energy so strongly, people who use it are in a better mood and can do things they previously found mentally challenging quite successfully.

Even better, as supplements go each one is moderately priced.

a)  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/314978.php

“Unmotivated to exercise? Dopamine could be to blame

People with reduced dopamine are less likely to exercise or to start doing so.”

THAT is what we want to turn off completely while you begin!

ALSO, people with enough dopamine enjoy food enough more they need sugars and msg less to enjoy food and less food to feel enjoyment so they may ALSO take in fewer harmful calories and total calories!

Another recent Medical News item reported research that it is precisely because people with a lot of fat too lose are low in dopamine that they crave the very foods and drinks that fatten them and too much of them!

Here again, to help you slam this to a stop and free you from this effect, we want to ensure you have enough dopamine to turn this off while you first do it and get used the upgrade!

Research was done showing that a wild green oat extract restored normal dopamine function in those taking it within the first few days.

Not only that it boosted mental energy and ability to concentrate enough that it was successful in helping smokers stop smoking and the nicotine was no longer doing that for them!

In addition nicotine acts as an MAO inhibitor which reduces depression.  By doing this with the wild green oat extract instead, stopping the nicotine is much easier because you still have the effect from the much safer replacement.

Over time, the boost in dopamine from wild green oats does fade somewhat.

But that’s OK because by the time it does, people losing fat have begun to eat right and exercise by habit and have found things they do well or find quite rewarding.

And, it’s also OK for overcoming nicotine addiction because you are no longer addicted to nicotine by the time this happens.

The supplement, Avena Sativa or Wild Green Oats, is inexpensive and you can buy or order it at your local health food store:

Solaray makes it in a 350 mg size with 100 capsules. Have your health food store order it and its number is 1418.

Based on what I have read, the effective dose is to take 3 a day.  So this works out to a month’s supply.

b)  The other block is to physically have low energy in your brain which runs in part on acetyl choline.  And this tends to get lower as you get older.  Worse, many drugs that turn it off are better not taken.  (We just posted on that.) 

Doctor Dharma Singh Khosla is an expert on supplements that protect or restore brain function and in his recent email said this:

“The naturally occurring compound, Huperzine A, is known for its ability to detoxify pollutants directly from the brain.

That’s something we all could use a lot of.

Huperzine A is also instrumental in keeping your acetylcholine levels at optimal levels.

And, as you may recall, low acetylcholine equals memory loss.

Supplementing with Huperzine A increases acetylcholine in the brain.”

Unfortunately his supplement with Huperzine A also contains vinpocetine which causes problems for some people who take it.

In my opinion the best way to take it is by itself.  You can get it from your local health food store.

Have them order the Source Naturals one with this info:

Source Naturals, Huperzine A, 100 mcg, 120 Tablets   

Product Code: SNS-02410

UPC Code: 021078024101

Reviews also said that this helped mood and short term memory and long term memory access AND it did so both in young students studying for tests and in older people with impaired  circulation to the brain! 

Two things to remember:

Beginning these helpful actions even one day each week at a level you will find easy for just a few weeks has been shown to be extremely effective.

Just decide which one to do first and put it on your calendar. Then do it as reliably as you do going to work or coming home from work.

Research has shown this is extremely powerful.

So is completely stopping the things that make you fat and sick.

Have any doubts you can do this?

Don’t feel you have enough energy or will power to even do these things?

Try taking both of these supplements for the first two months and you may well find you do have!