Successful strategies to lose fat and keep it off....

Today's Post: Thursday, 5-6-2010

I found an article in my incoming health emails, I think in the Everyday Health service that Jillian Michaels is connected with.

It had 5 things that people did who succeeded in losing enough weight to make a difference and who kept it off for a year.

But I noticed that some of the points were partly incorrect and that even the correct ones could be upgraded to work better or be easier to do.

This post is the result.

I quote what I found for each one & then list my upgrade which I believe to be better for helping you lose fat.

“Studies show that people who lost at least 10% of their body weight and kept the weight off for more than 1 year share several characteristics:”

1. “Exercising for at least 1 hour each day”

OR for 2100 calories of exercise a week which with vigorous exercise can take less than an hour a day & often works better.

You CAN walk an hour each day and burn 300 calories.

OR you can do 15 minutes of strength training and 10 minutes of interval cardio in a bit less than half an hour and burn 200 calories directly and another 200 from the calories you burn after you are done from the directly increased metabolism and from the increase in calories used by the new muscle you will add.

Of course, if you have a whole hour and can to the 15 minutes of strength training and the 10 minutes of interval cardio and then do a half an hour walk for another 150 calories each day and burn a total of 550 calories that IS better. But if you only have half an hour, you can do the job well with interval cardio and strength training alone.

And, if you only have 10 to 15 minutes a day, doing strength training 3 days a week for 15 minutes and doing 10 minutes of interval cardio on the alternate days, you can get some results for fat loss and a LOT of boost for your health.

The hour a day idea makes fat loss look undoable for busy people. Brief sessions of interval cardio and strength training, particularly if done at home, WILL do the job. So such exercise IS doable for most people.

2. “Eating a low-fat, low-calorie diet”

OR, better, eliminate all junk carbs and oils + eat more nonstarchy vegetables + include other planned calorie cuts + do eat health OK oils and protein foods & some fresh fruit and for some people some 100% whole grains.

Our knowledge of fat loss is a good bit better and more comprehensive than it was when the “low-fat” craze was at its peak. But the most critical lever on fat loss IS some kind of sustainable and consistent calorie restriction.

However, foods such as partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats), oils high in omega 6 such as corn and soy and canola AND high fructose corn syrup, foods made from refined grains, more than a tiny bit of sugar and drinks such as regular AND diet soft drinks make you fat and sick or MORE hungry instead of less.

So, simply eliminating all of those foods and drinks will cut calories and do so without making you more hungry IF you have some health OK oils, protein, and nonstarchy vegetables instead.

In fact, people who have some health OK oils each day, such as nuts, avocados or guacamole, omega 3 supplements or wild caught fish, and extra virgin olive oil, have been shown to be MORE successful at fat loss instead of less. But this is true if and only if, they have eliminate ALL the bad things and control their overall caloric intake by eating mostly lean protein, spices, and nonstarchy vegetables the rest of the time.

3. “Eating breakfast each day”

BUT only eating health OK foods & be sure to include some health OK protein and fruit.

For women particularly or for people exposed to junky treats at work that lack of breakfast can make it harder to turn down, always eating breakfast is a HUGE help.

In addition, it seems that eating breakfast increases your metabolism all day so you can literally eat MORE in a day you eat breakfast and still lose weight and fat. People who always eat breakfast take in more calories a day and weigh LESS than people who do not do so because of this!

Plus, you can get away with eating some sugars and carbohydrates at breakfast when they would tend to fatten you later in the day.

That means if some days you want a whole grain food such as “Old Fashioned” oatmeal or shredded wheat, breakfast is the meal that is by far the best meal to use to eat such food.

In addition, one glass a day of some kind of fruit or vegetable juice has been shown to improve your health and even to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, having a serving of whole fruit once a day also boosts your health, particularly if you often eat berries as they are so nutritious.

Eating those foods at breakfast can enable you to have and enjoy them without preventing your fat loss.

Lastly, many of the traditional breakfast foods such as cooked eggs are very high in protein which cuts your hunger the most and longest of the different kinds of foods. So always eating some kind of health OK protein at breakfast helps you avoid morning cravings for junky treats.

4. “Weighing themselves regularly and often”

OR weighing and measuring very regularly and reliably + take extra actions on bad readings but do it less often such as every other week or once a month instead of daily.

The regularity and reliability of always measuring and weighing are important. So is making an extra effort if you don’t lose some weight or inches between times.

But I’ve found, personally that doing it more often can be de-motivating since you may not see a change day to day when you are losing a tenth of a pound a day that will total 3 pounds at the end of the month.

Similarly, if you do all the things in your list of strategies to use every day, you may still have days when a special event or something causes you to be upset by your weight going up for a few days. But, you’ll still lose just fine at the end of the month by doing the right things all the other days. By only measuring at the end of the month, you avoid worrying about the short term uptick. Even worse, some people see that uptick and quit thinking their program isn’t working or is undoable when that’s not the case.

My preference is to avoid that and save the time and grief of doing that every day.

In addition, I tend to make a consistent effort every day to be SURE I get good results at the end of the month.

But it is also true that if you don’t measure regularly at all even once a month, and if you don’t make some kind of extra effort if the results aren’t good, you’ll lose control of the process.

5. “Eating the same diet on weekends as they do on weekdays”

OR eating mostly the same but eating only health OK other things and do NOT pig out on quantity of the other foods.

Other than the special Sunday Brunch my wife likes to fix, I find it works well to have the same kind of breakfast on Saturday that I do on weekdays.

And, unless we go out to dinner or to a special event, I eat the same kind of lunch and dinner on Saturday and Sunday that I do during the week.

And, if we go out to dinner, I ask for two servings of vegetable instead of a vegetable and a starchy item like potatoes or rice; I order a small salad as an appetizer instead of eating the bread served when I’m most hungry; and if we order a dessert as we usually do not, we often will split one.

If we go to a special occasion, I make sure to eat the protein dish, some of the salad, any fresh fruit, and ALL the vegetables and pass on all or most of the bread, potatoes or rice, and some of the desserts.

And, I hardly ever pig out. Even better, though I do eat much more at Thanksgiving, by using my eating style I eat far fewer calories and carbs than most people do even then.

This strategy works for the end of the year holidays too. One year that I was doing well on my exercise program, I remember stuffing a bit at the holiday meals; but my weight stayed exactly the same. I’d just lost 30 pounds then and I gained NONE of it back. My weight and measurements were the same in December and January that they had been in November before the holidays.

So, if you eat a bit differently on occasion but you usually eat the same and you eat the right things when your meals are different, you will sustain your fat loss on weekends.

Conversely, the reverse is DEFINITELY the case. People who eat right on week days and eat large amounts of bad things on week-ends lose no weight or fat at all on such weeks.

AVOID short sleep AND “diet” foods to lose fat....

Today's Post: Friday, 4-16-2010

Part I: Avoid short sleep

Yesterday, I got an email from Dr. Allen S. Josephs Co-Founder & Director of Vitacost.com .

In it he notes that a recent meta-analysis of sleep duration & obesity analyzed 30 different studies involving about 635,000 men, women and children.
These Researchers defined short sleep duration as less than 10 hours a night for children and less than five hours a night for adults.

Their meta-analysis found a reliable link between such short sleep duration and increased average body mass index (BMI) AND the incidence of obesity in both children and adults.

And, earlier this week, this news item came out that had recent research showing that for most adults, even younger ones, that 4 hours sleep was clearly enough to trigger this effect.:

“People get hungrier when they're starved for sleep Reuters Mon, Apr 12, 2010

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who are trying to stay trim may want to make sure they get plenty of sleep.

In a study, researchers found that normal-weight young men ate a Big Mac's-worth of extra calories when they'd gotten four hours of sleep the night before compared to when they slept for eight hours.

Given the findings, and the fact that people have been sleeping less and getting fatter over the past few decades, "sleep restriction could be one of the environmental factors that contribute to the obesity epidemic," they write in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.”

In this same study, they found that the normal sleep pattern of these young men did NOT produce this effect. And, if I recall correctly that was about 6 & ½ to 7 & ½ hours a night.

I think there are separate four reasons for this finding or separate causes of the short sleeping that have implications for how to best use this info to lose fat.

1. Some people are so strapped for funds they work two or three jobs or have such a bad commute to work, they get such short sleep. This may not be easy to fix.

But, you can do some things in some cases to make it temporary.

Arrange to telecommute two or three days a week and/or commute after and before the rush hour to both cut your commute time and increase your time at home. For example, if you telecommute Monday and Friday and work from 10:30 am to 3 pm with a 15 minute at your desk lunch on Wednesday, you only need do the 5 am to 8 pm workday on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then allow yourself to eat a lot but of health OK NON-fattening foods on Tuesdays and Thursdays and do your calorie restriction on the other five days.

If you work two or three jobs, arrange to make it just two jobs and make one an hourly plus commission sales job. Then get good enough at that job to only do that one and make more than you make now with two jobs.

2. Some people get such short sleep because they watch a lot of late-night TV.

That’s deadly for fat loss. You burn fewer calories watching TV than you do sleeping. Then by staying up to do it, you eat MORE the next day! Yikes!

Keep cutting back on lower priority shows until you get your hours of TV a week below 20 or 15 or 10. Tape those shows that you really like enough to keep after you do this that show late at night and watch them earlier the next day or the next weekend. (In fact, you may be able to spend less time watching commercials you don’t like this way.) AND, avoid eating junk foods and drinking soft drinks while you watch TV. Instead get a treadmill or exercise bike to use at low moderate exertion while you watch TV.

Except for special occasions, get your news, weather, and sports from the faster and more flexible to schedule newspaper reading or online. Simply refuse to sit for hours late at night on the schedule of TV station to get news you could get earlier or later & at a better time of day and can access in less than half that much time.

3. You, like Dr Josephs admitted to in his email, are so motivated and interested in life that you have trouble getting enough sleep because you fill your days with so much.

That one is also tough to fix. But, here are two suggestions.

Simply refuse to sleep less than 5 hours a night, try for at least 6 or 6 & ½ hours most nights; and let yourself have more on weekends. And, try to get closer to the 6 or 6 & ½ hours most nights than 5 or 5 & ½.

Take multiple actions to ensure you get QUALITY sleep at virtually the same time each day so you aren’t getting 4 hours worth of sleep in your 5 to 6 & ½ hours in bed. Sleep on your side instead of on your back. Exercise vigorously for at least 10 minutes almost every day. (And, if you have sleep apnea, make sure to keep losing fat until you’ve lost all you need to lose and keep it off. In addition, get the Pillar procedure done if you can. It hardly requires any time off work and has turned off sleep apnea in even people who are still obese. ) Make sure your bedroom is dark, quiet, and warm and/or cool enough you can sleep well.

4. If you have trouble getting to sleep and are already doing this first set of things, try taking valerian &/or going to Dr Al Sears supplement website at http://www.primalforce.net and getting his “instant sleep” spray dispensed melatonin, NATIVE REST. That way you don’t make yourself groggy for an hour before bedtime or take it by mouth at bedtime and not have it work until an hour or two later.

And, stay completely away from prescription sleep drugs. Some are dangerous because they tend to cue mindless and not conscious sleepwalking and other actions. (People have died during these.) They are virtually all addictive. They tend to NOT produce very restful sleep. And, even worse, they make it really hard to get up the next day.

Valerian does none of those things and wears off overnight. And if you are a bit too groggy or laid back the next day from the spray melatonin with the recommended 3 or 4 puffs, do one or two brief puffs instead. If you do the regular exercise and go to bed at virtually the same time each night—and take the valerian if you are a bit too wound up—that will still help you sleep.

Part II. Avoid “diet” foods

Eating real, organic, produce and naturally raised or wild caught animal protein foods -- mostly nonstarchy vegetables and some beans and lentils -- is what you should be eating to lose fat.

“Diet” foods tend to be fattening refined grain foods, semifoods that are fake versions of snack foods and desserts with natural foods like butter and cream replaced by fewer calories of hydrogenated oils or sugar or high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners.

They then have few calories per serving the real food versions they replace. But their downside is obnoxious and tends to sabotage permanent fat loss.

They are still made with refined grains and since they have fewer calories people tend to eat them every day or eat more of them per day. A recent study even found that people tend to begin to not enjoy them very much and to return to the full calorie versions which can help prevent permanent fat loss.

These foods tend to still be high glycemic, to be made with refined grains, and to substitute for the real foods you should be mostly eating instead. That means they cause rebound, excess hunger too—just like the regular treats do!

Even worse, their artificial sweeteners tend to cause you to want more real sugar and are very, very likely directly bad for your health besides.

The solution is to have the real thing instead that has sugar and butter. But have tiny servings just a few times a week or normal servings just a few times a month AND eat them after a meal of real and low glycemic foods to lessen their sugar shock on your body. In some cases, such as chocolate, the unsweetened versions can still be a treat. Those you can have more often.

The other thing you can do is to make your produce and protein foods so tasty and savory from extra virgin olive oil and spices such as garlic and basil and more that you find them an enjoyable treat that you can have every day.

Progress report on my fat loss plan:

Today's Post: Sunday, 3-21-2010

As some of you may have seen, I've posted on fat loss topics, and, since early January, this year, I've been following a sustainable, multi-strategy effort to lost 14 pounds on the scale and to lose or at least begin to lose over 4 inches from my waist.

My January monthly check of my first efforts after just a couple of weeks, I'd not expected much. But I did lose some weight.

My February, check after 6 or 7 weeks on this new plan, lost some more for a total of 5 & half pounds.

I decided to check half way thru about 2 weeks ago and found no progress.

So, I came up with a new method to remove an additional 100 calorie a day.

That method plus the main methods I've done the whole time, finally got results. And,so this month I DID lose 2 pounds since the month before!

I believe that's significant and useful for two reasons.

1. Having a multipart program will ensure results if one part is temporarily side tracked.

2. One effective way to overcome problems is to add a new and effective method that you weren't using before -- even if the effect is small.

How does that follow from what I did this month?

This month I lost 2 pounds despite some adverse events that might have derailed a program with fewer parts.

On two days on a weekend this month, I ate a good bit more of things like home-made cookies that I hardly ever have any of and simply ate more than usual -- AND I drank about 3 more alcoholic drinks than usual. My Dad had recently died and that weekend was the two day memorial for him.

But the other days of the month, I did all the things in my program. And, even on those two days I did some things right from my program.

Also, about half way through the month, our commute changed in a way that removed a two daily walks on weekdays of about half a mile each. So now, I'm getting 500 or more calories a week LESS exercise.

But my new extra 100 calorie reduction plan is on track and will cover that.

I've also found a way to add two one mile walks a week back to cut the lost calories a week from 500 to 300.

Bottom line, these adverse events happened; but I lost 2 pounds on the scale anyway.

The other result was that I lost half an inch on my waist. I had to cancel doing jumping jacks two days a week and go from two to four days a week doing jump rope since the jumping jacks were causing my left knee to not feel right.

That's actually worked out well since I'm now making faster progress on the jump rope which I think will help my goal of losing over 4 inches on my waist.

This past week I had a truly horrible cold, so I had to do only half my set on my jump rope and cut back some on my other exercises. But by becoming more skilled at the jump rope, once I get over the cold, I'll be able to do more and resume making progress.

In short, adversity plus a multipart program plus small upgrades equals progress anyway!

Permanent Fat Loss equals multiple, ongoing strategies....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 2-2-2010

Jillian Michaels has a new fatloss and health book out (which has state of the art health information though I found her ideas on how to use it to lose fat a bit hard to follow.)

But, since her info was so good, I did sign up for her email or, for the health information company she works with, everydayhealth.com , to be more precise. Yesterday, 2-1, they had a very worthwhile article on what amount of fat or weight loss per month is best and what is too much.

The information it starts with is so valuable, I decided it was important to do a post on it immediately.

The article was titled, "How Safe Is Quick Weight Loss?” & it began with this:

"Researchers who analyzed data from 1,801 Minnesota dieters over a two-year period found that the more strategies dieters used, the more likely they were to be successful in losing weight."

This is truly critical to know if you want to lose weight for many reasons!

Anything that is safe that will reliably help you lose two to five pounds a year will work if you use enough of them.

No one of these strategies needs to be dramatically hard or impossible to keep doing. Even better, if you use 6 to 10 and one doesn’t work or you simply find it undoable, the other 5 to 9 will still get you great results!

Weeks before I read this yesterday, I had already adopted this strategy for my own lose 14 pounds in 2010 effort and for precisely these two reasons.

Some of the things on my strategy list will only lose two to five pounds – BUT I’m already doing 7 of them; and later this year when I have a bit more money to spend, I’ll be adding 3 more.

But notice that if I’m unable to add those 3 new ones, the 7 I’m already doing will lose me 14 to 35 pounds of fat! That will do it! At the very least, I’ll lose the 14 pounds on the scale that I have as a goal. And, if I manage to lose 35 pounds of fat and add 21 pounds of muscle as I hope to do, I’ll lose the 4 inches from my waist I really want to lose.

Also notice that if I was trying to lose 70 pounds of fat, just continuing to do what I’m already doing to not be 56 pounds fatter and these new strategies would for sure lose it all in 5 years; & I’d reliably be closer to that 70 fat loss each year.

The “ongoing” part is important too. That means that each part should be doable enough I can simply keep doing it. And that in turn helps guarantee that I’ll lose all 14 pounds AND keep it off.

So, for permanent and successful fatloss, find multiple strategies you can do; put most of them in place over the next 3 weeks; add a couple more when you can; & keep doing them all.

Here are some ideas.:

1. Increase daily exercise (aim for 150 minutes a week or more)

Do more kinds. For example, do all 3 of moderate activity, progressive interval cardio and progressive strength training. If you have a successful walking program or walk as part of your commute, for example, add two 20 minute sessions of strength training and two or three 10 minute sessions of progressive interval cardio. You’ll be more fit and healthier. AND, you’ll burn more calories; lose only fat in your weight loss; and you’ll build muscle mass that will increase the calories you burn each day even when you are resting.

Exercise more times a day. Vigorous exercise like strength training or progressive interval cardio cause you to burn extra calories for two to six hours afterwards in addition to what you burn in the exercise. I was exercising every morning last year. This year I’ve added a 5 to 10 minute second progressive interval cardio session just before dinner 4 days a week. So instead of getting this nice after burn 7 times a week, I’ll get it 11 times a week. And, these 5 to 15 minute sessions are far easier to jam into my busy schedule than fewer 20 to 30 minute sessions would be!

2. Cut out more or all sweets and snacks and all soft drinks & their fattening components such as HFCS, artificial sweeteners, and refined grains & cut real sugar in half once or twice.

These things boost insulin and fat storage and cause you to want to eat more instead of less when you ingest them.

If you refuse to put money into the pockets of the companies that make money from providing this stuff to make you fat and sick, you’ll have a lot less fat and weigh less too.

(I still use real sugar sometimes and no longer allow myself that other junk. But by cutting the times I eat real sugar in each two week period in half recently, I’ll lose at least two pounds from just the drop in calories this year; and my fat loss may be even more due to the drop in excess insulin release.)

The average American, including many teenagers and young adults, is between 25 and 65 pounds fatter than they should be from this single set of sources alone. So, if you still ingest this stuff, think about being 25 to 65 pounds less fat in a year or two from just doing this single strategy alone!

3. Eliminate any hydrogenated oils or oils high in omega 6 oils.

Hydrogenated oils directly cause heart disease. So why waste any of your calorie intake on this junk? Buy fresh stuff that doesn’t need a 10 year shelf life. Eat those foods half as often and use real butter or cream or do a version using extra virgin olive oil instead of using a brand that has any amount of hydrogenated vegetable oil.

If you refuse to put money into the pockets of the companies that make money from providing this stuff to make you fat and sick, you’ll have a lot less fat and weigh less too.

Oils high in omega 6 oils such as soy and corn and safflower oil, and to a lesser degree canola oil, tend to increase your level of inflammation, which can increase minor aches and pains and, much worse, contribute to heart disease.

Why waste your calorie intake on foods that will harm your health?

Instead, eat wild caught fish that’s low in mercury and other pollutants and high in omega 3 oils and take purified fish oil supplements; and eat many kinds of foods high in monosaturated oils such as nuts, avocados, and extra virgin olive oil.

That way you enjoy eating more and avoid depriving yourself of any fats or oils AND your inflammation and LDL cholesterol and triglycerides will go down while your HDL level will go up. Your chances of cardiovascular disease and heart attacks and strokes and ED will all drop dramatically.

And, best of all, people who eat these health supporting fats and oils are much healthier AND much more likely to keep eating right and losing weight than people who simply eliminate all fats and oils.

4. Gradually add two or three MORE servings a day of nonstarchy vegetables or low salt vegetable juice. Always buy organic if you can; and drink mostly low or no sodium vegetable juice if possible.

It’s simple. Doing more of this helps keep you from being hungry and provides marvelous nutrition. It’s so nice to be able to eat MORE and have LESS fat. And, best of all, it makes eating a more moderate amount of the health OK oils and total calories almost effortless because you simply are enough less hungry eating less of the other foods is virtually automatic.

5. If your amount of alcoholic drinks is on the high end of moderate, as mine has been, cut back 10 to 25%.

I found a website that calculated that my 12 or so drinks a week of mostly red wine supports 18 pound of my fat. So, I’ve successfully cut back 20 % to 9 & a half or about 80 % as much.

By the end of the year, I should have about 3.6 pounds less fat from this single strategy.

That may not sound like much; and it isn’t! BUT, the approximately 3 and a half pounds is a full 25% of my goal for weight loss on the scale and 10 % of my hoped for fat loss of 35 pounds.

And, this is just one of the 7 things I’m already doing and one of the 10 I’ll be doing soon.

So, this multiple strategies system with these several things I can do, am doing, and can easily continue to do will reliably remove excess fat and pounds from my body and keep them off.

By using multiple strategies yourself, you can do this too!


Final note: There are supplements of several kinds that DO reliably help fat loss. And people who have ongoing coaching and support are at least twice as likely to succeed.

So, I’m preparing an eBook that goes into much more detail on adding these kinds of strategies and how to make each of them more doable AND a complete section on all these supplements.

(In my case, one supplement that takes a few seconds to take each morning and provides other health benefits is likely to add 5 pounds to my fat loss. Another I plan to add later has a track record of adding enough extra muscle for people who do vigorous exercise that I may add 5 or more pounds of muscle and perhaps lose 7 pounds more fat by adding it.)

And, I also plan a membership site that will, I hope and plan, virtually insure the people who belong to it will lose all the fat they want to lose or should lose and keep it all off.

When these are ready, I’ll announce them here. In the meantime, I’ll continue with these posts with fat loss information that some of you will use to begin to succeed in permanent fat loss.

8 Ways to eat a low carb, VEGETARIAN diet....

Today's Post: Friday, 1-29-2010

Low carb diets test as successful at causing weight loss and of mostly excess fat. They also recently tested as more successful than other diets that lost the same pounds in lowering high blood pressure.

Vegetarian eating styles tend to result in better health.

But how do you combine both?

1. Focus on slashing sugars, refined grains, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners to close to ZERO. Those are the carbs that fatten and harm your health worst. They also cause rebound hunger. Minimize whole grains also.

2. Focus second most on gradually ADDING several servings a day of many kinds of organic, nonstarchy vegetables. They have the most health value and are the most filling compared with the carbs and calories they contain.

For good health and fat loss, those two steps alone are 80% of the best strategy.

3. Eliminate almost all kinds of fats and oils except those from extra virgin olive oil, avocados, and nuts. Eat those in moderation but every day. (For the one exception, omega 3 oils, see # 4 next.)

The Mediterranean diet with these foods has great health results. These foods taste good; and it’s much easier to stay on a diet that has them. Most other fats and oils make you fat and sick.

4. Eat some health OK animal protein foods! Almost all health producing diets have very little meat from gain fed animals and LOTS of vegetables. But some kinds of health OK animal proteins improve things. So being a vegan vegetarian is NOT necessary for health reasons. Protein is the best food for turning off hunger.

Wild caught fatty fish & purified fish oil supplements produce good health with their omega 3 oils. Whole eggs have few calories, superb protein, and B vitamins. Nonfat and very lowfat milk in moderation works. Whey protein supplements are good. Some grass fed beef is OK.

5. Eat some low and moderate carb plant protein most days. Mushrooms and lentils work best. Beans and lentils cooked at home with no or little salt work best for health; and some canned with no added oils and low amounts of salt are OK.

6. Eat some whole organic, fresh fruit. Eat mostly the low glycemic ones like apples, berries, and cherries.

7. Drink 100% organic cranberry juice, low sodium V8, and low sodium tomato juice or combined vegetable juices. These have the most nutrition and the least sugars. Only drink one a day of cranberry juice; but two servings a day of vegetable juice are OK.

8. Use abundant spices other than salt in traditional recipes or invent your own. Crushed garlic, onions, curry, chili, basil, rosemary, sage & other spices, particularly when used with extra virgin olive oil, add tons of flavor AND nutrition with close to zero carbs.

Inexpensive way to feel better AND lose more fat....

Today's Post: Thursday, 1-7-2010

Background:

Many years ago I started taking a supplement called Chromium Polynicotinate. (I take 200 mcg of Chromium Polynicotinate from Solgar each day.)

1. Dr Julian Whitaker found that Chromium helped his patients lower their total cholesterol.

And, either because of the chromium and/or the niacin bound to it, I believe that some of the credit for the HDL readings of over 90 I’ve been getting are due to my taking Chromium Polynicotinate.

2. Chromium is in whole grains. One of the reasons eating refined grains tends to produce type 2 diabetes is that chromium is apparently essential for your body to process sugars and other high glycemic foods like grains. Unfortunately refined grains no longer have any chromium.

So, by already taking Chromium Polynicotinate,
instead of getting type 2 diabetes when my blood sugar was too high -- at 115 it was still below that level instead;
AND just cutting out about half my sugar intake and adding 200 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid and continuing to exercise was enough to lower it back down to 87.

Had I not been taking 200 mcg a day of Chromium Polynicotinate, I might well not have been so fortunate.

3. One study found some health problems with the other common chromium supplement, chromium picolinate. (Since it caused damage to DNA, it may well speed aging or cause some cancers or hurt your future children if you have any.) So, since that might cause a problem and Chromium Polynicotinate has extra heart protection benefits, I take and recommend Chromium Polynicotinate instead.


>>> HERE’S the new information today’s post is about.:

Taking 400 to 600 micrograms a day of Chromium Polynicotinate was found to increase blood levels of dopamine.

1. Dopamine is the feel good blood messenger. Having higher levels makes you enjoy and notice the good things in your life more. Having low levels makes you feel mildly depressed or more depressed in some cases. Among other things, if you have enough dopamine, you enjoy your sex life more.

So that means taking Chromium Polynicotinate at 400 to 600 micrograms a day makes you feel better.

(This also will help with increasing your heart protection and improving your HDL and LDL test results and will likely also help you keep your blood sugar levels OK and help you properly process the sugars you do still eat.)

2. But here’s the fat loss effect. One of the drugs that has worked to cause fat loss works by including an anti-addiction drug that prevents you from enjoying eating sugar.

So when sugar is less rewarding and addictive, you eat less of it and fewer packaged snacks and dessert treats & tend to lose excess fat.

But that’s not the only way to get there. It seems that people who are too fat and who are addicted to sugar and foods like packaged snacks and dessert treats need the extra reward those foods provide -- because they are LOW in dopamine!

That means that instead of feeling rewarded enough by eating savory foods or fresh fruit, since they are low in dopamine, they need the extra reward feeling they get by eating junky but feel good and sugary foods.

But that plus the news that taking 400 to 600 mcg a day of fewer packaged snacks and dessert treats increases dopamine means that instead of having to pay up to take an anti-addiction drug that may decrease your enjoyment in life by blunting your reward system, you can take a bit of extra Chromium Polynicotinate and feel better and more easily eat less fattening foods too!

So for less than $15 a month you can feel better and more easily lose or keep off excess fat too by taking 400 to 600 mcg a day of Chromium Polynicotinate.

When you add up the benefits, Chromium Polynicotinate is well worth adding to your supplements if you don’t already take it.

Lose belly fat & harmful & hidden visceral fat....

Today's Post: Thursday, 12-17-2009

Too much abdominal or belly fat causes many hassles; and the hidden & harmful visceral fat related to it both is an indicator of the harmful actions and health problems that created it and itself is a direct cause of health problems.

Too much abdominal or belly fat can cause you to outgrow clothes you like or once looked good in. It can literally restrict your breathing enough to cause difficulties breathing and even tends to cause asthma. It can make it hard to keep your pants up without wearing suspenders or braces. And, it doesn’t look that great.

The visceral fat that is internal and hidden and related to belly fat is actually dangerous past a minimal point. Both the things that cause it and the effects of the chemical messengers it sends to your body are associated with high blood pressure; high blood sugar -- or type 2 diabetes if your blood sugar gets too high; chronic inflammation; and cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks. It’s even associated with increased risk of many cancers.

Surprisingly, a recent study even found excess visceral fat in people who didn’t look “fat” and were actually at what is considered normal weight.

Worse, if you have too much belly fat and visceral fat, if you don’t actively take steps to remove or decrease it, you’ll gradually get even more of it! Yechh!

The good news is that you can stop getting more and begin to get rid of it with things that are doable for most people.

Even better, you can get rid of it and keep it off even more easily than the fat just underneath the skin that is in other locations on your body.

1. A recent study reported in the Parade Magazine of Sunday, 12-6-2009 showed that 80 minutes a week of either strength training or aerobic exercise were able take some of it off with the exercise alone. (The control group that did no exercise kept adding more of it instead!)

Other studies have found that it may actually work slightly better to do 13 to 15 minutes of such exercise 6 or 7 days a week instead of the two 40 minute sessions each week that the researchers used in this study.

That means if you do 13 to 15 minutes of strength training or interval cardio on 6 or 7 mornings a week just before breakfast, it will work well.

Going to a gym for 40 minutes can be good too & a great idea if you can do it in addition. But if you haven’t the time or the money to fit it in or can’t go every week, you very likely can do the 15 minutes each morning at home.

2. The Parade article also mentioned eating more fiber as also helping to avoid adding more belly and visceral fat.

But this misses some more effective ways to go.

Eating more nonstarchy vegetables and some fresh fruit and beans or lentils works a good bit better than eating more high fiber bread.

And, virtually stopping eating any foods made from refined grains and cutting WAY back on your sugar intake is essential. Eliminating all soft drinks is so effective it’s virtually essential also.

Yes, those changes in eating do dramatically increase your fiber intake.

But they also cut calories from your diet without making you hungrier.

And, of key importance, they are much lower glycemic and cause dramatically less too rapid increases in your blood sugar. That plus the vigorous exercise turning off or turning down insulin resistance will result in much lower average blood levels of insulin.

That’s a huge asset, because when your insulin levels are too high, your body ADDS belly and visceral fat.

3. A third way to lower belly fat and visceral fat is to eat mostly omega 9 or monosaturated fat instead of saturated fat or omega 6 oils. This too reduces insulin levels.

(Omega 9 or monosaturated fats are in extra virgin olive oil, nuts, and avocados.)

This means eating less grain foods, to some degree even eating less whole grain foods, and NEVER eating refined grain foods; and not using or eating high omega 6 oils such as corn oil, soy oil, safflower oil, or canola oil.

Since meat from grain fed animals is unnaturally high in saturated fat, total fat, AND omega 6 oils from the grains they are fed, it means NOT eating such meat; eating far less of it; &/or only eating such meat in its leanest and most fat trimmed forms.

Meat from animals fed ONLY grass or their natural diet; wild caught fish, nuts, nonfat and very lowfat dairy foods, and beans & lentils along with some eggs or whey or egg based protein supplements work far better to give you protein without adding to your belly fat than meat from grain fed animals.

It’s also worth noting that adding such exercises and making these changes to eating better have been shown to directly help you lose all your fat; lower high blood pressure; and lower your measures of blood sugar if they are too high.

Then after you’ve done them long enough to have less belly and visceral fat, all these health improvements get even better.

If you still have too much belly fat after making these changes to lose that fat, you may well have to lower your caloric intake a bit more in a way that avoids triggering your body’s famine response, find a way to do more physical activity and exercise; &/or take certain supplements.

We are working on an eBook and on other ways to help people do just that. But it is a bit more complex and takes longer to describe.

However, the 3 steps above may be all you need to do the job in your particular case.

And, even if they are not, they will dramatically protect your health virtually from when you start doing them; & they are the indispensible foundation for doing more as well.

More on the best kinds of food for fat loss....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 12-8-2009

I post so often on why it is so important to NOT eat:

refined grains; and trans fats and the hydrogenated vegetable oils they are made from; and most of the vegetable oils themselves such as soy & corn & canola oils due to their high omega 6 content; & to eat very little sugar & no high fructose corn syrup - & no artificial sweeteners;
& to NOT drink soft drinks,

-- that I think it’s important to do posts on what foods you can eat or eat MORE of.:

About a month ago I did a post, The three best kinds of food for fat loss.... on Friday, 11-6-2009. And, that included some foods I’ll list below.


But today’s post is about some additions that did NOT make that list -- and some new information on two of the foods already known to be health supporting. They also can help with fat loss!

1. Using olive oil and extra virgin olive oil lowers inflammation and helps give you a more favorable omega 3 to omega 6 oil balance, and helps prevent cancer and heart disease when compared with omega 6 oils like corn, & soy, and canola. Olive oil lowers LDL cholesterol while increasing your HDL or leaves your HDL level high while omega 6 oils lower HDL. That also helps prevent heart disease & stroke. Using olive oil instead of butter lowers your LDL levels and saturated fat intake. And, using olive oil instead of trans fats, when it works in cooking helps prevent heart disease. (Trans fats are heart attack starters while olive oil is protective.)

And, the omega 9, or monosaturated, oils from olive oil, nuts, and avocados tend to lower your insulin levels which helps you remove belly fat.

But there’s more! I just found out that compared to butter, olive oil makes you less hungry while butter tends to make you eat more.

The first of several foods I’ll cover that were listed this morning on one of AOL’s features is this new information on olive oil.

Olive oil can actually help with fat loss.

The feature said that a recent study at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, found that butter & some other kinds of fats (trans fats I suspect) tell your brain that to ignore appetite-lowering signals from the leptin and insulin that regulate your weight.

(That may help cause insulin resistance, high blood sugar, and type 2 diabetes. It definitely will help make you fatter and cause you to lose less fat when you try.)

However, olive oil did the exact opposite, allowing your leptin and insulin to lower your appetite.

And, a different study from the UC, Irvine found that olive oil also causes production of a messenger in your small intestine that turns down hunger.

I highlight this one as it gives you a great reason to protect your health by virtually always using only olive oil – namely that you will be far less fat in addition to being healthier!

2. Protein foods help you lose fat since they turn off your hunger so much better than carbs or even most fats & they are one of the 3 kinds of foods we list to eat for fat loss.

Some protein foods such as eggs, beef fed only grass, and wild caught salmon & other seafoods except those with too much mercury do have some fat; but beans and lentils also have fiber and are far cheaper; & nonfat and very low fat dairy products are also cheaper.

But the AOL feature this morning listed a plant based group of foods that you can use which are super low calorie, zero saturated fat, & high in protein, mushrooms.

Button mushrooms have many of the health benefits of portabella and maitake mushrooms but cost less; and portabella mushrooms are large enough to be easier to cook in some ways while maitake mushrooms are credited with many health benefits in addition to their protein content.

3. Many fat loss experts recommend no grains at all; & I suspect that avoiding large amounts of even whole grains and only eating whole grains and virtually never eating foods made with refined grains is essential.

That said, whole grains are high in fiber, provide plant protein, and are inexpensive.

I had read that barley is lower glycemic than other grains & I’ve found I enjoy eating it. Wild rice has similar benefits. And I read of some experiments found that people who ate barley as their main grain tended to be leaner than people who ate other kinds of grain.

The AOL story this morning had two others.

a) They note that "old fashioned," NOT instant, oatmeal has soluble fiber which helps you feel full. (Soluble fiber also helps lower LDL cholesterol.) I eat this kind of oatmeal now once a day & will continue to eat it; but I plan to go to eating it only every other day soon as part of my increased fat loss efforts. However, if someone is eating corn flakes now & switches to this kind of oatmeal, they very well might lose some fat.

b) I’ve always liked rye bread for its taste and now eat one piece of whole grain, sprouted rye bread in a half sandwich at my weekday lunches.

It seems I made a good fat loss choice too.

The AOL article reported that some Swedish researchers found that eating rye bread increases you feeling of being full enough to tend to cause you to eat fewer calories up to 8 hours after you eat it when compared to eating whole wheat bread.

This study, published in "Nutrition Journal," also stated that people who ate rye bread also had a lower insulin response.

Not bad!! If you eat fewer calories and have lower insulin levels, you WILL be less fat and have less belly fat.

4. This part of the AOL story is like the olive oil part. It seems that another good for you food that tastes good also helps you feel full better than an alternative food that hasn’t as strong a health supporting track record.

It seems that researchers at Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen found dark chocolate turns down your hunger more than milk chocolate.

Even with that, you still have to be a bit careful not to overdo even dark chocolate as it is made with sugar.

But still, it’s nice to know that the dark chocolate that lowers blood pressure and increases your chances, according to another study I read of, of surviving any heart attack you might have, also turns down your hunger better than milk chocolate.

5. Next, in today’s online health news elsewhere was a story that an artificial sugar called oligofructose, may help people lose fat & will lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels in people who need it.

OFS has about 30% to 50% of the sweetness of table sugar the story reported.

Given the dreadful health track record of other artificial sweeteners and such artificial food components initially thought to be good for you! such as, hydrogenated oils and margarine, I strongly suspect that no one should ingest this OFS who values their health.

BUT, agave nectar also has about 30 to 50% of the sweetness and glycemic response as sugar and might well have similar effects.

(I’ve not yet experimented for taste with a mixture of one fourth maple syrup or brown sugar, one fourth agave nectar, and one half erythritol, a natural virtually no calorie sweetener. But this combination would have less than half the calories and glycemic response of 100 % sugar and might well also work.

My guess is that it would also be as sweet as 100 % sugar but without causing your body to crave more sugar as 100 % artificial sweetener would do & 100% erythritol might do.)

6. People who drink at least one glass of real fruit or vegetable juice each day are less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease. Commercial vegetable juices such as tomato juice and V8 juice are low in sugar and lower in glycemic index compared with fruit juices but are salted. And, real orange juice and real grape juice have some real health benefits but are nearly as sweet and may have the same fat loss problems as regular soft drinks.

But, I just found out that real, 100 %, cranberry juice has about a sixth as much sugar as grape juice. It also has outstanding health benefits including helping to prevent bladder and kidney infections. (Whole Foods Markets sell it.)

It does cost a lot more per ounce than grape or orange juice or tomato juice or V8; but drinking it instead of a more sugary juice half the time or most of the time will help you lose fat.


Here are 3 food groups that ranked zero or close to it on glycemic index and glycemic load.:

(This part is from my Friday, 11-6-2009 post. Foods with a glycemic index that low are the BEST foods for fat loss.)

1. Nonstarchy vegetables. These include such foods as:

Cooked cabbage, raw cauliflower, green beans, spinach, & mushrooms -- & raw broccoli florets, radishes, asparagus, and other salad greens such as kale and romaine lettuce, etc.

2. Raw or dry roasted nuts. Pecans, walnuts, and almonds were listed in the zero, zero group.

(Oil roasted and/or salted nuts are NOT good. Usually the oils are omega 6 oils or partially hydrogenated omega 6 oils with horrible health results. And, more than just a tiny bit of salt will boost your blood pressure too high or higher.)

3. Eggs, meats, seafood, and fish also are in the zero, zero group.

Only eat the safest, least polluted, and most health supporting kinds. These are wild caught or naturally raised.


4. Eating some fresh fruit and very low fat dairy foods and home-juiced vegetables is OK as they have low moderate to moderate ratings on the glycemic index.

The goal is to eat an overall diet that is 20% or less on the glycemic index.

The result is hunger-free and effective fat loss.

Getting regular walking and a few sessions each of strength training and vigorous if brief interval cardio each week makes all this work even better to create hunger-free and effective fat loss.

8 good health and fatloss guidelines....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 11-17-2009

Here are 8 Weight Watchers Good Health Guidelines AND my upgrades.

In each case I list the Weight Watchers guideline I read once exactly as I found it then.

Then, I post my comments and information I think is a substantial addition or upgrade for each guideline.

1. “Eat at least five servings of vegetables and fruits each day.”

Better. Schedule 5 servings of nonstarchy vegetables & two of fruit for each day.

For fatloss, being sure to eat the 5 servings of nonstarchy vegetables each day is critical.:

They have marvelous nutrition, particularly if you get organic vegetables, have a lot of water and fiber so you don’t get hungry, and very tiny amounts of calories.

This is so much the case, Weight Watchers itself rates them as having zero points contribution to your net food intake.

Adding such vegetables until they are 60 or 70 % of your food intake by volume is far easier than eating less food and far better for you. And, you have far fewer problems with hunger than eating less of everything; but at the same time, doing that can mean eating as little as half the calories you otherwise would have.

2. “Choose whole-grain foods, such as brown rice and oats, whenever possible.”

Better: Make it a personal mission to eat virtually no refined grains or foods made from them. Then limit your whole grain foods to the highest fiber or most health supporting ones & limit those to just once or at most very few times a day, such as two or three small servings on just some days.

Barley, wild rice, whole grain breads made from sprouted grains, “old fashioned” oatmeal are OK in moderation.

(For many people even brown rice is too high on the glycemic index to eat. A mix of half wild rice and half brown rice or half pecan meal and half brown rice may be OK if you really want to include brown rice.)

Also note that Bob’s Red Mill has a whole buckwheat product that is tested as having no gluten. Rice flour has no gluten but is virtually fiber free and is basically a refined grain.
As far as I know lentil flour has a relatively low glycemic index and does have fiber. Lentils aren’t a grain; but half lentil flour and half rice flour might be low glycemic enough to be an OK choice to make baked goods with no gluten.

3. “Include two servings of milk products – low fat (1%) or fat-free – each day.”

Not bad just as stated.

Three or four servings is OK if it fits your over-all plan. And, whey protein, nonfat yogurt and occasionally 2 % fat yogurt are other good choices besides 1% and skim milk. (Though it’s somewhat less critical in such lowfat dairy products, organic milk from naturally fed cows is likely far better for you than from cows treated with hormones and antibiotics and fed grain.)

4. “Have some healthy oil (olive oil, canola, sunflower, safflower or flaxseed) each day.”

Better: Use virtually only extra virgin olive oil. Some avocado oil, or sesame oil, or walnut or almond oil occasionally is likely OK. Some sources say that coconut oil is a health supporting oil also.

Interestingly, people who eat some health OK oils each day are as lean or leaner than people who try to eat a very low fat diet; but they are far healthier and their food often tastes better.

Canola and safflower oil are NOT health OK choices in my opinion. Many sunflower oils are not good either. Flaxseed oil is not that great to begin with. Now there is evidence most of it comes from genetically modified sources that may cause allergies and other health problems. Soy oil, corn oil, and safflower oil also are in this group.

All these oils are far too high in omega 6 oils which most people already get too much of and which produce inflammation if eaten in excess.

One category of food to never eat is:
anything containing any amount of trans fat, or transfat, other than zero;

AND never eat any food with partially or wholly hydrogenated vegetable oil even if it reads zero trans fats -- since such readings may conceal foods with 0.499 grams of trans fat and multiple servings can contain a lot.

This stuff is literally heart attack starter and increases the amount of the small particle LDL in your blood that is one of the main causes of heart disease.

5. “Ensure that you are getting enough protein by choosing at least a serving or two of meat, poultry, fish, eggs, or dried beans each day. Many dairy products are also good sources of protein.”

Better: Cooked beans and lentils, raw and dry roasted nuts, and wild caught fish not high in mercury are the best choices if you aren’t allergic. Low fat and very low fat dairy are decent choices.

Eggs are good choices if you don’t overdo the amount or cook them with bad oils or fats. (Eggs from chickens that are organically raised and pasture fed are ideal.)

Beef from animals fed only grass or similar bison can be OK, as is even grass fed lamb on occasion. Meat and poultry and fish from animals and fish fed only their natural diet are much leaner, have dramatically less omega 6 oils, and have less than a tenth or maybe even a hundredth of the pollutants that are in the fat of grain fed animals.

6. “Limit added sugar and alcohol.”

This really should be two points.

6a) Eliminate most sugar intake –
and on those occasions you do eat sugar, choose only foods you really, really like and eat them only a handful of times a week or a month.

The average person in the United States eats 22 teaspoons a day of sugar or its equivalent. The average person who is too fat may well eat, or drink, a total of 44 teaspoons a day. The amount that is safe, OK for your health, and dramatically less fattening is closer to 1 to 4 teaspoons a day with 1 or 2 being better. That means eating a food with sugar once or twice a week at most.

Artificial sweeteners have been found to also cause rebound hunger and to help make or keep people fat. And, in the opinion of myself -- and many other health writers -- they are far less safe than many believe to consume.

In addition, the most ingested form of sugar now is high fructose corn syrup and about 30 % of all high fructose corn syrup was found recently to be contaminated with mercury. That is almost certainly still true. So one way to improve your health and eat far less sugar is to never willingly ingest high fructose corn syrup.

Since every daily soft drink you drink tends to add 15 pounds of fat to your body according to a study I read, one great way to get rid of a huge amount of high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners AND be less fat with no increase in hunger at all is to simply never drink any soft drink with either kind of ingredient.

One way to use sugar when you do use it that may work for you is to usually use a flavored sugar where the sugar is only part of the enjoyment so you need less to have the food taste good. Real maple syrup, dark molasses, honey, and brown sugar all work for this.

Another solution is to use one part one of these flavored sugars and two parts agave nectar as it’s sweet but has a much lower glycemic index than regular sugar.

A third solution is to use a noncaloric NATURAL sweetener. Xylitol and erythritol are two that are sweet but have no added flavor you may dislike. But it may be much better for you to have half a flavored sugar or agave nectar and half a noncaloric NATURAL sweetener than having a noncaloric NATURAL sweetener only. Otherwise you may get the same extra rebound hunger people who use artificial sweeteners get. (For the record, some people like the strong taste of the noncaloric NATURAL sweetener, stevia. I don’t recommend it at all since to me it tastes like badly made artificial marshmallow flavoring; & it’s so strong a taste it overpowers the food and can’t be masked.)

6b) On most days drink zero, one or two drinks a day and less than 14 a week if you are a man. And, if you are a woman drink zero or one drink a day and less than 7 a week.

At that level of moderation, and at that level only, alcoholic drinks tend to be safe, increase your HDL cholesterol, reduce stress safely, and can be fun to drink and drink while you socialize.

But every drink you drink is like drinking a soft drink fat loss wise, it does not reduce your hunger or may even increase it slightly; and it does have calories and Weight Watchers assigns it points. The less you drink, the less resulting fat you’ll wear.

And, above that moderate amount, drinking tends to cause health problems of many kinds, has excessive costs to buy, and causes accidents many of which are fatal or incur dreadful legal liabilities.

7. “Drink at least 6 8-ounce glasses of water a day.”

Recent health writers have debunked this one. And some drinking water sources aren’t that pollutant free.

But, every time you drink unpolluted water -- or green tea or coffee with no added sugar or nondairy creamer and use only lowfat dairy if you use it -- instead of drinking soft drinks, you will improve your health and you will be far less fat!

8. “Take a multiple vitamin-mineral supplement each day.”

This IS a good idea.

Start there at least. This helps avoid the worst deficiencies and will enhance your health dramatically at very low cost. And, if you do any calorie reduced dieting, you may not get enough of some nutrients if you don’t take vitamin-mineral supplements.

Then find out what vitamins and minerals are not at desirable levels in your vitamin-mineral supplement and take some of those in addition. For example most vitamin-mineral supplements have the old RDA of vitamin D of 400 iu. We now know the really desirable level of vitamin D3 intake is 2,000 iu a day or more. Similarly, vitamin-mineral supplements tend to have suboptimal levels of magnesium, chromium, and zinc. Extra niacin can lower your LDL cholesterol and triglycerides and boost your HDL which protects your heart.

If you can afford it, then find those supplements that protect your health in addition to those supplements. For example, turmeric or the curcumin taken from turmeric lowers inflammation and many researchers have evidence it also helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease. And, omega 3 supplements lower heart damaging triglycerides and inflammation.

Just as people who take vitamin-mineral supplements are healthier than people who take nothing, multiple supplement takers who add these other supplements are healthier than people who just take vitamin-mineral supplements.

How to lose fat when others are not into it in your home....

Today's Post: Thursday, 11-12-2009

Earlier this week a man who realized he needed to lose at least 10 pounds of fat wrote in to Dear Abby saying that he was having great trouble in doing so because his wife refused to stop buying cookies, ice cream, and other dessert treats and he found he was unable to not eat them when they were still in the house.

He was also concerned that his “preteen” kids might get into trouble with being fed this kind of food by getting too fat later in life.

He was considering splitting up even though the rest of his marriage was going well.

Dear Abby suggested he not consider ending an otherwise good marriage. (She did not in the newspaper version explain why that was sound advice or stress it much although in her private or complete response she may have done so.)

She mostly agreed that he and his wife should stop stocking up on such things and being sure they were stocking up on health supporting and not fattening foods for the good of their kids & that he should insist on this as their parent.

I think that is sound goal but might well be very unhelpful advice either for persuading his wife or his own fat loss success.

In this case with her answer in her printed column and her authority in giving advice, that might help persuade his wife.

But there ARE several things I think would have been better advice.

So, I decided to do this post.

1. First, given that they have kids he cares about and the rest of the marriage is OK, it would be really tragic mistake to end his marriage or even threaten to in a way that made that more likely.

It’s so hard on kids when their parents divorce that given a choice between them being fat or going through that, being fat is better.

Plus, divorce is so hard on the people that undergo it that unhappily married people average healthier and happier than divorced people.

BUT, there is something that can be done. The marriage and family counselors that Abby herself often recommends can fail to save a really troubled marriage. But when two people find that they can’t seem to be heard by their spouse and can’t manage to create a win, win resolution, a good marriage or family counselor CAN insure that each person really gets the reasons and concerns of the other person and can almost always help the family create a win, win resolution.

This would be a huge asset for this man to do. He would hear that his wife feels safe eating those foods and doesn’t want to be pushed into not being able to do as she likes in her own home. And she would really hear instead of dismissing it that to protect his health and the health of their kids some kind of compromise position needs to be reached.

She might even find that her assumption that eating those foods is really safe is more flawed than she initially believed. (Abby’s answer, as she gave it, might help do that part.)

2. In war and in sport, where failure is NOT an OK option, giving in to obstacles however challenging is not acceptable. In the military, it’s well to understand the reasons if you fail; but the right answer to being held accountable to overcoming them is, “No Excuses.”

So the first thing for him to do immediately is to find at least four or five things he CAN do to succeed in losing that fat even if his wife brings home MORE of that junk.

Management consultant Peter Drucker found that focusing on DOING the things you CAN already do is a key to being effective in business. It works in fat loss and other parts of your life too.

Further, if he can’t afford the family counselor or she won’t go with him, he can teach those things to his kids and simply tell them to go very easy on those foods and why.

That way he can succeed and help his kids even if his wife stays exactly the same.

So, here are some ideas.

a) Losing 10 pounds of fat CAN be done with exercise alone.

(Above 20 or 30 pounds unless you make your job or business work overlap with getting a lot of exercise, few people have enough hours in the week to lose that much with exercise alone.)

But since you CAN do it with 10 pounds, that’s something he can do right away. Does he do one or two sets or five or six of progressive strength training in a few minutes at home at least 3 days a week? Does he do at least two to four sessions of vigorous interval cardio of even 8 minutes a time each week at home? Does he go to the gym to strength train for at least half an hour twice a week?

If not, doing those things, even just the two things at home, might well lose him 10 pounds of fat although since he’ll also gain muscle the scale may only say he lost four or five.

Similarly if he can take a brisk hour walk at lunch time at his work three or four days every week or walk from where he gets off the train to work instead of taking a bus in his commute on most days, he might get in enough extra walking to lose 10 pounds. (One woman who did this wound up with two twenty minute walks each day and gradually lost 30 pounds.)

He can do such things even if nothing changes in his kitchen at home. And, he can teach his kids to do similar things.

b) If he’s like most of us, he could eat his breakfast at his desk or workplace and he likely already has taken a lunch to work many times.

So, even if nothing in his kitchen changes, he CAN make sure that his breakfast and lunch and possibly a late afternoon snack are health OK protein foods and raw nuts and organic vegetables and some organic fresh fruit.

And, if he eats enough at those meals AND eats a lot of those kinds of foods for dinner at home FIRST, he will find that he’ll lose the 10 pounds and find it much more doable to eat less of the ice cream and cookies.

c) In a recent post we described a recent study that found that people who fail at fat loss look at a sweet food and ONLY think of how good it will taste. But people who lose fat and keep it off look at a sweet food and think first of the negative consequences of eating it BEFORE they decide to eat any and how much if they do.

If he wants to lose fat and not have it return, he would do well to learn that skill and mind-set.

One way I’ve found to do that is to read the labels if the food was bought at the store. If it has high fructose corn syrup, about a third of which is likely still contaminated by mercury, or any partially hydrogenated oils or any listed transfats above zero since that stuff is like heart attack starter, I find it easy to take a pass even if I realize I’d like the food tastewise.

Or if he has his wife at least bring home higher quality treats that only have butterfat and sugar, he probably can get himself to have a serving half as large as he would have had before and a piece of whole fruit with some fiber too it instead of just eating a lot of it.

Lastly, he can see to it that their kitchen also has fresh fruit and savory foods that he actually likes but have no sugars or bad fats that he can eat when he gets hungry and wants a food that tastes good.

3. And, he can see if he or his wife’s doctor can succeed in talking his wife into getting her fasting blood sugar and HBA1C levels and her total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, and triglycerides tested, the doctors call that the “lipid” panel, tested every 6 months or at least once now.

That’s so useful as a disease prevention tool, many insurance plans will allow you to get those tests at no charge.

Since eating ice cream and commercially baked treats like pastries and cookies and cakes tend to send ALL those measures in the wrong direction, his wife might already find she has ample reason for bringing very little of that stuff home herself.

So, he CAN lose the fat without waiting on his wife to help him.

And there are two ways that very well might work to get her a bit more on his side and protect her and their kids too.

Divorce is NOT necessary to solve his problem.

Three little known ways to speed fat loss....

Today's Post: Monday, 11-9-2009

As those of you who read our posts regularly know, and those who read our posts last week know, we believe that 90 % of your ability to lose fat and keep it off is determined by:

1. NOT eating the fattening foods or drinking the fattening drinks;

2. eating health supporting foods that turn off your hunger better and that humans evolved to eat;

&

3. Getting vigorous exercise, ideally both some interval cardio & some strength training each week plus getting in some more moderate exercise such as walking or dancing each week.

However, most people who are working to lose fat or keep it off would like some extra leverage. And more and more of these extra ways to speed fat loss are being discovered.

Here are three I’ve learned of in just the last few weeks.

1. Taking a good vitamin and mineral supplement daily may help some people do better at fat loss.

Some people really do have extra trouble losing fat well due to low thyroid. And, some people with low thyroid have that problem due to iodine deficiency.

Added salt, other than a bit occasionally and a bit in some recipes is undesirable in a culture where too much is added to so many kinds of foods. And, sea salt which contains salts of other minerals besides sodium is better for you than using iodized salt.

But virtually all good vitamin and mineral supplements contain the RDA of iodine, 150 mcg per day. (You can read the label to see if a given supplement had iodine.)

(A recent study also found that taking the RDA can improve mental performance in people who have not been getting enough iodine.)

So, taking a good vitamin and mineral supplement daily not only supports your health in so many other ways, for some people, it may double their success at fat loss.

2. Oddly enough, coconut and coconut oil has been found to both: increase HDL, the beneficial cholesterol, and help with fat loss – plus help people lose belly fat.

Recently, Doctor Al Sears (see: www.alsearsmd.com ) in his emails did an excellent write up on this.

It seems that studies have found that, just like extra virgin olive oil, substituting coconut oil for oils like, corn, safflower, and canola oil that are high in omega 6 oils, using coconut oil lowers insulin which helps reduce fat storage and belly fat AND it increases your HDL cholesterol.

You can substitute extra virgin olive oil for butter, for margarine, and for oils that are high in omega 6 & increase your HDL, lower your belly fat, and improve your over-all health and decrease your risk of heart disease.

But it would be nice to have another health OK choice.

Apparently coconut and coconut oil do so but with an extra kick.

They may also do better at actually increasing your fat loss. Dr Sears says the research he found suggests that’s so.

They can be used when you want to have higher cooking temperatures than extra virgin olive oil can handle.

They can be used in cooking, such as making a more health OK kind of pie crust or a more health OK kind of dark chocolate fudge where you need saturated fat that you cannot use extra virgin olive oil for and get good results.

Lastly, since most people find that coconut and coconut oil tastes really good, you can substitute them for sugar in some treat foods and enjoy them as much as you would have the versions with sugar that are far more fattening.

Even better, and of particular interest with colds, regular flu, and swine flu about, coconut and coconut oil contain lauric acid which has considerable anti-viral effects.

3. There was a study done that found that pregnant women who took probiotics containing the most common probiotic bacteria gained less excess weight than matched women who did not. And they also gained quite a bit less belly fat.

Even better, and of particular interest with colds, regular flu, and swine flu about, other studies have found people who take probiotics each day have more resistance to these things, get less of them, and get lighter cases if they do than people who don’t take probiotics.

None of these 3 are strong enough to cause fat loss if you do none of the three basics. But if you do them, these three things may well increase your fat loss and help you lose more belly fat.

Best of all, two of the three things, also have documented antiviral effects. So, two of them can also boost your protection from swine flu.

The three best kinds of food for fat loss....

Today's Post: Friday, 11-6-2009

Earlier today, I read the new version of Total Health Breakthroughs.

(After it stopped its initial format that I found usually informative, for a while they stopped running the same kind of health information they were. They have begun to show signs of building back to what they were; & today’s article was quite useful.)

In this issue, their new editor tells the story of how when he was a younger man who exercised regularly, he still was at least 20 pounds overfat.

He also found he seemed to be hungry at all hours of the day; & his mood and energy bounced around quite a bit.

At that time, he was eating a lot of refined grains and other fattening foods such as pizza, breakfast cereal (mostly the kind made from refined grains from the sound of it), bagels, sandwiches, chips, & soft drinks.

As many people have, he began to study what foods people ate before 10,000 years ago. (Clearly, that’s what hundreds of thousands of years of evolution set up our bodies to use well.)

Then he did three things.

He continued to exercise.

He stopped eating the refined grain foods listed above & stopped drinking soft drinks.

Instead, he ate lots of salads made with greens, a variety of colorful vegetables, vegetable juice he made at home with a juicer, and for protein he ate whole eggs, grass fed beef, pasture fed poultry, and wild caught salmon – plus he ate some cheese and dairy foods. He also snacked on nuts and whole fresh fruit.

The result was interesting. His mood and energy improved and were more stable. He lost the 20 pounds -- virtually all of it fat since the fat in his face and in his belly were visibly reduced to a more normal and desirable look. That fat was gone.

But the really interesting part is that he completely stopped being hungry all the time.

It seems that he found either before or after he did this that almost all the foods he was eating when he lost the fat have close to zero glycemic index and glycemic load.

That means that his blood sugar was at desirable levels and not kicked into high levels several times a day by eating the refined grains and sugars he had been ingesting.

The rebound hunger he was getting from the fast-acting, high glycemic foods he was eating went away and was replaced by the more effective and long lasting turning down of his hunger from the protein, health OK fats, and fiber he then began to eat.

He points out that this way of eating eliminated the high glycemic (60 & up on the glycemic index) foods that he had been eating and replaced them with foods that were mostly low glycemic (20 or below on the glycemic index.)

He then provides a link to some foods that have been rated by glycemic index and glycemic load.

It was no surprise when the three food groups he had mostly been eating rated as zero on both glycemic index and glycemic load.

(Since glycemic load is the best indicator of what a food will do to your blood sugar as it takes the amount of carbohydrates into account and the glycemic index, that’s a valuable addition.)

Here are those 3 food groups that ranked zero on glycemic index and glycemic load.:

1. Nonstarchy vegetables. These include such foods as:

Cooked cabbage, raw cauliflower, green beans, spinach, & mushrooms -- & though not listed, raw broccoli florets, radishes, asparagus, and other salad greens such as kale and romaine lettuce, etc.

The salads and cooked vegetables he ate contained these foods or others like them.

2. Raw or dry roasted nuts. Pecans, walnuts, and almonds were listed in the zero, zero group.

He snacked on nuts in part.

3. Eggs, meats, seafood, and fish also were listed in the zero, zero group.

He not only ate these foods, he ate the safest, least polluted, and most health supporting kinds.

He did also eat some fresh fruit and dairy foods and juiced vegetables which have low moderate to moderate ratings on the glycemic index. But with the majority of his foods from the zero, zero, list, the overall glycemic load of his food and drink was clearly at an average glycemic index of less than 20.

The result was hunger-free and effective fat loss. (He was gradually getting fatter and almost always hungry before.)

He did continue to exercise. But the kinds of foods and drinks he stopped and those he switched to clearly did a great job.

More on setting up your home for effective fat loss....

Today's Post: Thursday, 11-5-2009

From my recent post on Monday this week (11-2-2009):

“I read a recent news story reporting that people who had exercise equipment in their homes and virtually no fattening, packaged foods or soft drinks often were quite successful at fat loss.

And, the people who had no exercise equipment in their homes and lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks were usually not successful if they tried to lose excess fat.

That seemed so basic and obviously true, I didn’t bother at that time to note which news service or who did the research.”

In that post I expand on those two themes and give tips and examples on how to bring in less fattening foods and more exercise equipment that when used will help you lose fat.

Then on Tuesday, 11-3, Health Day ran a story on that study or one very like it.

Their initial line in this version of the story was :

“If you want to lose weight, exercise and diet are crucial. But a new study says other factors appear to play a role, too -- including the number of TVs in your house and the presence of exercise equipment.”

The study compared the homes of people who lost least 10 percent of their bodyweight -- and kept off the weight for five or more years to people who were overweight or obese and were still fat.

As we discussed on Monday, the people who lost that much weight and kept it off were about three to four times more likely to exercise than those who were obese or overweight. (That means some of the people who were still fat were exercising at least some.) I’ve read separately that the people who have lost that much fat weight almost all exercise. Plus they average about 2900 calories a week of exercise.

(Even some exercise helps; & as we’ve posted before some kinds of exercise such as vigorous interval cardio and progressive strength training work best.) But up to about 3500 calories a week, more exercise IS better than less.

Here’s our today’s topic that was NOT in the earlier news story or my post on Monday.

Those who lost weight had fewer televisions in their home in addition to having far fewer or no fattening foods on hand and more exercise equipment in their homes.

Here’s why fewer televisions help plus some ideas.:

It’s really quite simple really. One of the most effective fat loss methods known is to watch less TV.

It seems that watching TV burns fewer calories than sleeping! Worse, a large percentage of the advertisers for broadcast TV are the makers and providers of the foods it’s worst to eat or drink. Even worse than that, the people who eat those foods or drink those drinks watch TV at the same time & fail to notice the large amounts of that stuff they are ingesting. Further the ads and even some of the shows make that lifestyle seem typical and normal.

Unfortunately, over the last 35 years, it HAS become typical.

That’s why something like half our young adults were recently found to be too fat to be in the United States armed forces.

It never was normal in any desirable or long term sense of that word. And, it’s absolute death to being able to lose excess fat weight.

So, if you do several things to enable yourself to watch far less TV, your chances of losing excess fat go up every time you take a step in that direction.

1. Having fewer TVs is a great idea for many people.

Older children and teens who have TVs in their own rooms reliably do less well in school. They also are reliably much fatter than similar kids who do not. Not only do they do less studying and homework, they read less even on subjects they are interested in and they are far less likely to do any exercise or play any kind of sports. And, they see far more of the ads for fattening foods and drinks and consume far more of them.

So, if you no longer want that stuff in your home to tempt YOU, pulling your kids room TVs will help. They’ll be less likely to bring it home themselves and be more OK with you not buying if for them.

2. The same thing is true of having a TV in your own bedroom. You’ll watch fewer hours of TV each week and see less of those ads. Even better, you’ll sleep a bit more which also helps fat loss and helps prevent depression and high blood pressure. Better yet, surveys found that your sex life will improve!

3. Be much more selective in what you watch.

You get far more news and news far more relevant to your own interests by reading newspapers or going to Yahoo.com . In reading print, your intake speed is at least double, and after factoring in ads, it’s likely at least triple what it is watching TV news. Then since, you no longer have to sit through stories of no interest to you, the speed difference is closer to five or ten to one faster than watching TV news.

Only watch TV news for news where the visual scenes are important to you. Or occasionally you may get important local news faster by watching the TV news.

But do that kind of viewing mostly on rare special occasions and you’ll be far better informed and a good bit less fat.

Discontinue watching TV as a baby sitter for yourself. By all means keep watching the 10 or 20 percent of the things that you really like the best. But simply read or exercise or talk to real people or even do housework instead of watching TV for that time. Your life will be more varied and interesting & you’ll be far less fat.

4. Consider making the main or only use of your TV to watch movie DVD’s on weekend nights when you aren’t doing something else.

Neflix.com makes watching movies you really like this way an inexpensive and super easy thing to do.

If you are short on money, subscribing to NetFlix and discontinuing your cable TV will save you a good bit of money. You can always get the TV cable back for some kinds of breaking news and sports when you have more money.

5. Try picking two nights a week when you would otherwise just sit home and watch so – so TV and taking a class on Tai Chi or going to the gym. That gives you a double, you not only watch less TV, you get more quality exercise at the same time.

6. Another thing you can do is to watch the TV you do still watch while exercising on a stationary bicycle.

Remember, every TV you can sell, donate, or give to the electronics recyclers will make you less fat AND cut your utility bill.

And, every hour a week you stop watching the TV’s you still have will help you be less fat – either helping you lose excess fat or not gain any or both.

Set up your home for effective fat loss because it works...

Today's Post: Monday, 11-2-2009

I read a recent news story reporting that people who had exercise equipment in their homes and virtually no fattening, packaged foods or soft drinks often were quite successful at fat loss.

And, the people who had no exercise equipment in their homes and lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks were usually not successful if they tried to lose excess fat.

That seemed so basic and obviously true, I didn’t bother at that time to note which news service or who did the research.

But, I wish I had now -- because I suddenly realized how important this finding is.

It gives people who really want to lose excess fat a really powerful way to load the dice in their favor and sharply increase their chances of success!

And, since people have to drink and eat something, the third piece of information or strategy that follows from this is that if you don’t have lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks, you are much more likely to have whole fruit and vegetables and other low glycemic good for you foods such taste enhancers like spices and garlic and onions.

1. So if you have lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks in your home and want to win at fat loss, a great first step is to get a large garbage can (or a set of grocery bags to use to give away the stuff if you are too thrifty to be comfortable just tossing it) and get it out of your house.

Boxes of commercially baked cookies, boxes or bags of snack foods, all soft drinks, all white bread and bread not totally whole grain, cake mixes, any sugared breakfast cereal, and most candies should all go out.

Then get apples or cherries or berries and shelled, raw or dry roasted nuts, and snack vegetables like baby carrots or radishes or broccoli florets or cauliflower florets and low salt vegetable juices and green tea or black tea and unsweetened cocoa and coffee or soda water to have to drink & for snacks.

And, buy more vegetables for cooked vegetable dishes and salads and some extra virgin olive oil and real garlic or garlic powder from the spice section and onions and some kind of vinegar you like for these dishes.

2. If you have rugs, get a large towel you can use to lie on for crunches and pushups and other exercises you do at home and on the floor or buy mats like they use in gyms. If you are willing to do skipping rope as an exercise (it’s very effective in causing fat loss), get a good jump rope for about $25. If you are willing to try a mini-trampoline (also very effective at causing fat loss) check out www.urbanrebounder.com . Their mini-trampoline costs about $150. If you are willing to do dumbbell work as strength training, get a set of fixed weight or a few adjustable dumbbells and plates. (I’ve found that a great way to do this cheap is to just get one dumbbell at each weight—instead of two. Then I do an exercise for each arm one at a time which allows me to do exercises virtually nonstop since each arm rests while the other is being exercised.) If you can afford to get more equipment like a gym-quality treadmill or elliptical trainer or recumbent exercise bike you can use while watching the TV news or sports or a Nordic Track or a Bowflex or Total Gym strength training station that can also work. Then use the equipment several times each week.

Then find your favorites or those your are at least OK with in the health OK foods and drinks and ingest those instead of bringing home the stuff that made you fat in the first place.

And, keep using your exercise equipment several days each week.

I believe about half of all Americans now obese (really fat) or very over-weight just did these two things without any other effort to restrict the amount of food, most of them would lose most of their fat. A woman who is 120 pounds overweight might easily lose 80 pounds of that in about a year and a half for example.

And, the converse is also true. I’m about 15 pounds overweight and 30 pounds overfat. If I stopped eating vegetables and doing regular exercise and had sugary cereal for breakfast instead of oatmeal and fatty meats and white bread and cookies and my favorite commercial desserts each day and drank several soft drinks each day, in a few months I could easily be 60 pounds heavier and fatter. Yikes!

But that stuff never comes in our front door.

And, I do have a towel and dumbbells and a NordicTrack that I use every week and exercise virtually every day even if it’s just 5 minutes of crunches. (Most weekdays my total exercise session is just 15 minutes or so first thing in the morning just before breakfast.)

So I don’t carry that extra 60 pounds of fat around that I’d otherwise have.

I also haven’t had a heart attack triggered and partially caused by that lifestyle. (To be fair, I do take some supplements that, according to my blood tests, are effective at giving me extra heart protection.)

If you have kids, this may be more challenging as they may be used to the bad stuff and all their friends may still eat it. But consider this. One mother who insisted on doing this found her family grocery store bills dropped a few hundred dollars a month!

2 successful drugs suggest new methods for fatloss....

Today's Post: Thursday, 10-29-2009

Recently there were two news stories about drugs that tested as increasing the fat & weight lost by people who were both eating a reduced calorie diet and exercising.

1. Last Friday, 10-23, 2009, HealthDay News had a story with this headline.:

“The diabetes drug liraglutide helps obese people without diabetes lose weight, researchers have found.”

The study included 564 diabetes-free obese patients aged 18 to 65 & the ones that got injected doses of 3 milligrams, the highest dose tested did the best. The second group got a placebo once a day; & the third group got 120 milligrams of the drug orlistat three times a day.

In all three groups the people increased their levels of physical activity and ate a calorie-restricted diet, about 500 calories less each day than they were expected to use.

Weight loss among patients taking liraglutide doses of 3 milligrams was 7.2 kilograms (15.8 pounds), compared with 4.1 kilograms (9 pounds) taking orlistat and 2.8 kilograms (6 pounds)with placebo.

Also, weight loss of more than 5 percent occurred in 76 percent of patients taking 3 milligrams of liraglutide, 44 percent of patients taking orlistat, and 30 percent of patients in the placebo group.

The patients taking liraglutide had lower blood pressure after the weight loss. Not surprisingly, since liraglutide is a diabetes drug designed to lower blood sugar readings, those taking the liraglutide who initially had borderline high blood sugar measures, got improved measures and lower blood sugar. (The story did not have the actual decreases in fasting glucose & HBA1C.)

Nausea and vomiting was more common among patients taking liraglutide than among those in the placebo group, the study authors noted.

The study was released online Oct. 22 in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of The Lancet.

As I recall, one of the other stories on this study said that the nausea and vomiting side effect tended to go away over time in those who had it though it didn’t say how long that took or how many of those people dropped out of the study. Neither story said what percentage of the people getting the high dose liraglutide that was most effective had this side effect.

In those who had this side effect, it certainly would tend to reduce their appetite.

But in one of the stories was the information that liraglutide’s main mode of action is by delaying stomach emptying thus blunting any glycemic response & too rapid rise in blood sugar as a result.

This would result in lower insulin levels. And lower insulin levels lead directly to less fat storage.

But there’s good news in this. You can achieve each of these 3 effects without the drug injections.

Modest amounts of vinegar slow stomach emptying.

And using extra virgin olive oil, &/or nuts or avocadoes as your fat or oil source (instead of high omega 6 oils such as corn or soy or safflower and eating very little fat from animals purposely over- fattened with grain and that excessively fatty source of excess saturated fat by eating beans or fish or very lowfat dairy or eggs or very fat trimmed meat and poultry instead) has been found to have multiple health benefits. One of those is that your insulin levels will go down and you’ll tend to lose fat from your waist.

Third, nonstarchy vegetables have very few calories per pound. But more than that, they have fiber that fills you up AND slows your glycemic response to other foods.

So, eating a salad at lunch and at dinner each day with a modest amount of a vinegar you like and extra virgin olive oil as the dressing and NOT eating refined grains or artificial sweeteners or sugar at those meals, may well have a very similar effect to the injected drug.

Also, I’ve been reading fatloss books by doctors who have been successful at helping patients lose weight and excess fat.

One insists that, at lunch and dinner, this kind of salad be the first course & a large serving of a variety of nonstarchy vegetables be the second course to help slow glycemic response and fill up his patients before they have any main dish or other foods.

A second doctor, also directs his patients to eat a lot of vegetables at each meal AND to take a special fiber supplement before each meal that he has found slows glycemic response.

The third doctor has found a protein and fiber supplement that can be made into a shake and has his patients start by having that at breakfast and lunch and then just a breakfast. Between the strong appetite turning off effects of the strong amount of high quality protein and the appetite turning off effects of the fiber supplement, he reports that his patients tell him they are delighted to find they can stay on his program without any excess hunger to overcome.

Lastly, having some of your exercise each day be quite vigorous even if only for 30 seconds or so has been found to lower blood sugar levels and insulin levels.

These things have been independently shown to increase fat loss. They replicate the effects of this drug. And, you needn’t spend the money on the drug, put up with shots, or worry about the side effects to use them. Further, each of them has other health benefits.


2. The second story appeared a day later on Saturday, 10-24, 2009.

Reuters had this headline.:

Orexigen obesity drug shows added benefits: studies

Nearly half of patients who completed 1 yr pus 4 weeks of treatment with the drug, Contrave, from Orexigen Therapeutics Inc's experimental obesity treatment, lost at least 10 percent of their weight. And, they also had improved cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

61.8 percent and 75.8 percent of the people in the two groups that took the drug and completed the study lost at least 5 percent of their weight.

And 23 percent lost 15 percent of their weight in one of the groups studied.

All of these results were dramatically better than those in the placebo group, roughly three times as many lost this much weight who were taking the drug compared to the placebo group.

People with indicators of being at high risk of heart disease improved these measures even more than the average for the group.

That also included all the patients who began the studies, including those who discontinued the medicine at any time.

The study also found that people lost inches on their waist and inflammation improved as well as cholesterol measures and blood sugar levels.

Here’s the good part both as a reason for some people to try the drug and a key to how to get these effects without the drug.

Contrave combines the antidepressant Wellbutrin, known generically as bupropion, with a sustained- release version of naltrexone, an opioid blocker used to treat alcoholism and other addictions.

Wellbutrin is also known as Zyban and used by itself to help people quit smoking.

(I would guess that using this combination drug, Contrave, would improve the results for people quitting smoking as well. And, I presume that will be tested next.)


In addition, 48.2 percent of Contrave patients lost at least 10 percent body weight studies.

One of the results was striking & potentially of great value. In those people in the group taking the Contrave who had too high levels of the blood sugar indicator, HBA1C, that measures the 60 to 90 day average blood sugar level, there was a reduction of 1.1.

That’s extremely significant since you can go from a clearly diabetic level of 7.0 to a non-diabetic level of 5.9 with a 1.1 reduction. Similarly, you can go from a dangerous level of 8.0 for which doctors tend to prescribe multiple drugs that themselves have side effects, to a 6.9 level where they will often feel OK with you only using lifestyle measures or doing that plus low doses of the relatively safer and cheaper drug metformin.

So the combination drug, Contrave, sounds like a very useful drug for many people.

Is there a way to get these effects without that drug?

Yes there is.

A researcher in Kansas has developed a protocol that turns off depression better than drugs – about three times better according the studies. (About 75% get better on his protocol vs. about 25% with the drugs.) Even better, one of his methods is regular exercise. So using his protocol also means an extra way of ensuring that people exercise which is known to help people lose fat weight and keep it off.

My guess is that people using his methods can get the antidepressant effect of the Wellbutrin part of Contrave without needing the drug.

I did a post on the 6 methods he uses and added two methods that also work that he doesn’t yet include. See 8 ways to end depression -- proven to work better than drugs....Friday, 8-21-2009.

One of these, talk or cognitive therapy using the work of Martin Seligman, has been shown to be effective both at reducing depression and improving your chances of success at virtually everything you do.

People who get it are able to become much more self-disciplined, effective, and proactive.

We did a post on the finding that people who succeed at fat loss look first to the consequences of eating fattening foods before deciding if they will have any and how much while those who fail only look at how much they might enjoy the foods.

Clearly the sustained- release version of naltrexone, an opioid blocker used to treat alcoholism and other addictions in Contrave works in part by making this far easier to do by turning down the addictive reaction to sweet and starchy foods.

But talk or cognitive therapy using the work of Martin Seligman may even work better at doing precisely the same thing.

So, my conclusion is that you may be better off getting the effects of the drug liraglutide using other methods to achieve its effects.

You very likely can get the stronger effects of the drug Contrave using other methods. In addition, those methods are like learning to ride a bicycle or swimming, you can maintain them without outside help once you know them well enough.

However, these studies also suggest that we now have two drugs, particularly, the Contrave, that can really help people lose fat weight who have failed to do it well on their own.

So regardless of how you use this information, you now have some new tools that work to lose fat and keep it off that we weren’t sure worked that well until now.