How to make regular exercise a habit....

Today's post: Tuesday, 6-24-2008

Regular exercise that you keep doing has a huge & almost unbelievable set of benefits.

Here are a few highlights.

If you do it, you’ll be less fat. You’ll be a lot healthier & much more likely to stay healthy. And, we now know you’ll grow new brain cells and think & remember better. Your sex life will tend to be good & stay good. And, you’ll be more resilient in the face of stress.

But if you haven’t been exercising regularly, you might find it hard to get into & keep doing.

Here are some ideas that have worked well for me & other people.

Use the ones that sound like a fit for you & consider trying some of the rest.

1. Do all or part of your exercise in the first part of the morning. And, doing that exercise or that part of your exercise at home also helps.

That’s one of the most important strategies. With very rare exceptions the unexpected demands of your day tend to happen later in the day. And, when they do, instead of derailing your exercise that day, you’ve already done some exercise that day.

In fact, one study I read about found that about 70 % of people who exercised first thing in the morning stuck with it while only 35% of the people who exercised later in the day kept exercising.

In my case, I schedule a 15 minute strength training session at home in the early morning. Saturday, Monday, & Weds I do an upper body set; Sunday, Tuesday, & Thursday I do leg exercises; & on Friday I do a 5 minute abdominal routine. Using only a relatively light dumbbells for upper body exercises & my bodyweight for leg exercises & push ups, this is not enough to build my strength a lot. But I hardly ever miss doing any of these sessions.

In contrast to that, though I schedule to go the gym to do heavier upper body exercises Monday & Weds evenings, I tend to only make about half of the Mondays as I get home late Mondays & about 80 % of the Weds evenings. The list of things that prevents me from going 100 % of the time is long.

Since I do my at home exercises & do make a special effort to go when I can, I don’t lose ground very much when I miss my evenings at the Gym. I would if I didn’t exercise at home in the early mornings also.

3. It’s great if you can do more; but it’s not necessary to be super strict with yourself about exercising a lot every week. However, even 500 calories a week gives you 40% of the health benefits of exercising an hour a day seven days a week.

Since walking or running a mile or 15 minutes of strength training with no long waits between sets tends to burn 100 calories, 500 calories a week is quite doable. (My early morning strength training at home works out to about 700 calories a week. And I make the gym often enough to average another 400 calories or so a week.)

And, since the health consequences of not doing at least that much are so bad, I suggest you be very strict with yourself about always doing 500 calories a week or more every week.

Similarly, be flexible about your exercise routine if events force you to be any given day. But be very strict with yourself about hitting this minimum each week.

4. As long as you do at least two or three days of exercise during the week, you may be able to do a good bit of your weekly exercise on weekends if you have more time then. Weekends only is not enough but exercise on Saturday, Sunday, & any two other days can be.

5. Keeping a log book also helps you to stay on track. Not everyone will be willing to do a log book that they write a brief note of the date & that day’s exercise in.

But almost everyone who knows what exercise does FOR you & not exercising does TO you & who keeps a log book will keep exercising. If you are willing to use a log book at all, I recommend it very highly.

6. If you are at all social or if you want to have heavy enough weights to do strength training well or need access to cardio equipment for interval cardio, give serious consideration to joining a gym & going as regularly as you can.

It’s nice to see the other regulars each time. And that helps me to go as often as I can. We are good examples for each other & it’s nice to see other people I know are getting health benefits.

And, I like the extra strength & muscle I have because I work out there.

In addition, if you are new to strength training, many gyms will help you learn and set up a workout plan. Plus, in many exercises, the machines are safer to use, particularly for people new to strength training, than the free weights.

7. Finally, remember these two points:

a) You may not be able to do all the exercise you’d like or do all the exercise you schedule every single day you schedule it, but almost everyone can do 500 calories a week or more.

&

b) If you do regular exercise every week, it does incredibly good things FOR you. And, if you don’t, it does all the reverse of those things TO you.

Exercise you CAN do after injury...

Today's post: Monday, 6-9-2008

Quite often people get injured in just one hand or arm or leg while their other side is still healthy. And, by using dumbbells, they CAN exercise their good arm or leg etc.

They also may be able to do exercise for both arms when one leg is hurt or for both legs when one arm is hurt.

But the surprising & very little known fact is that the injured arm or leg safely benefits from the exercise also even though you don’t exercise it directly at all.

Of course, you do have to use care NOT to stress your injured side when it’s still hurt & vulnerable. But it IS usually doable.

It makes sense that you want to keep doing regular exercise if you possibly can after you are injured since the benefits of the exercise are so great. And, for some people it’s important to not get out of the habit of doing regular exercise.

But it’s been discovered that even though it’s NOT exercised directly, your injured arm or leg or shoulder also benefits. It does so for sure if you exercise that body part on the other side of your body.

I’ve known this & used this myself for quite a while & am even using it now as I recently hurt my left foot.

Here’s a short, well done article on just this subject that I got today in my email.:

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

"How to Exercise When Injured

By Craig Ballantyne

It happens. You strain your shoulder, sprain your wrist, or even break an arm. Most people think that working out with an injury like that will be a waste of time. But that's plain wrong. In fact, by exercising your strong arm, you can actually maintain - or possibly even improve - the strength in your injured arm.

European researchers put 10 women on a two-month strength-training program for one arm only. At the end of the two months, though the women had done no additional activity with the other arm, they had increased strength in both arms.

Scientists call this the "cross-over" effect. When your brain sends instructions to one arm, the "untrained" arm receives the same instructions. The end result is that you build strength in the untrained arm because of the connection between your brain and your muscles.

So if you injure your arm or shoulder, there's no reason to stop exercising the good arm (provided your doctor clears you for exercise). Just make sure you avoid exercises that would further damage the injured side. You can, for example, continue to press and curl dumbbells with your good arm to keep both arms strong.

[Ed. Note: "Don't exercise while injured" is one myth you shouldn't put stock in. Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne debunks 5 more health myths and shows you how to combat them with his Turbulence Training for Fat Loss system.]"

X* X* X* X* X* X*

There is also another reason for this effect that suggests also exercising the other unhurt parts of you may also be helpful.

When you exercise, your circulation improves all over your body. And, your body releases growth hormone.

That means that when you exercise your legs, your arms get some benefit and when you exercise your arms your legs get some benefits for the same reason.

So, when you are injured, the only part of your exercise that needs to be stopped for sure is for the injured part of your body until it is safe to begin exercising it again with less weight than it used to do safely.

You do have to be a bit conservative with starting up exercise with the injured part & then be careful to build back slowly enough.

But the good news is that by continuing to exercise the other side of your body & the rest of your body that is unhurt, you’ll recover faster & have more strength in the injured part than would have had otherwise.

How to exercise without injury...
(How to KEEP exercising without damaging yourself.)

Today's post: Friday, 5-29-2008

Today’s online health news had this story from Reuters.:

“Baby boomers' bodies hit by years of wear and tear

By Megan Rauscher

Fri May 30, 9:50 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Doctors who specialize in disorders of the skeletal system and associated muscles, joints and ligaments are being kept busy these days, as increasing numbers of baby boomer athletes and exercise enthusiasts hit middle age and beyond.

"We are seeing a number of overuse or 'wear and tear' injuries in the foot, ankle, knees, hip, shoulders and elbows, in baby boomers," Dr. Jeffrey A. Ross, a foot and ankle podiatrist from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, told Reuters Health. "Baby boomers suffer injuries over a period of time and a lot has to do with biomechanics, poor flexibility, wear and tear, and pounding on hard surfaces" that come with sports like running, tennis, step aerobics and basketball, Ross added.

As people age, Ross believes it's worth considering alternative activities that put less stress on joints. "It is really important that people continue to be physically active, but they need to think logically about how to remain active as they age," he said.

Ross spoke about overuse injuries in baby boomers at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine underway in Indianapolis. "We need to be rational and logical without hurting ourselves and developing overuse injuries that can really become debilitating as we get older," Ross told Reuters Health. ….”

X* X* X* X* X* X*

The authors knew how important regular exercise is for good health. And, some were baby boomer-aged exercisers themselves.

So they recommended changing & adapting your exercise program to avoid these kinds of injuries & allow you to continue exercising without either permanent damage or continuous minor injuries.

The examples they gave tend to be from running & competitive sports.

Both can be great for keeping off fat, raising HDL cholesterol, & aerobic fitness. But they tend to be the best fit for people under 30 or 40.

But anyone over 30 or 40 can run into injury problems with these kinds of exercises as they often have sudden high stress or pounding impact or overuse of joints.

There are several solutions. One is to do less of these kinds of exercises. (The article focused on that strategy. Its authors suggested running 5 kilometer races instead of Marathons or running every other day instead of 7 days a week.)

Other people have focused on minimizing the stresses of these exercises with such strategies as learning to run more smoothly, running on a soft track instead of concrete, getting excellent quality & impact absorbing running shoes or doing all 3.

For me, these strategies were not enough. Once I started getting a regular problem with my right Achilles tendon every time I got into decent shape & running even half way decent times nowhere close to competitive with real athletes, I’d have to stop running as it would become strained.

It became clear that if I wanted to become fit & keep exercising I’d have to do something else. Running no longer worked.

So, I switched to a Nordic Track. That worked until I developed knee strains. Mercifully, by doing an interval style shorter workout every other day instead of 7 days a week & adding ChoPat kneecap braces, I was able to stay very fit doing three 25 minute interval training style sessions each week.

Elliptical trainers, tai chi, walking, routines from other martial arts from Tae Bo to Karate to Kung Fu to Tae Kwan Do, swimming, & -- if you are careful, stationary bike riding or walking on an incline with a treadmill, & using a mini trampoline can also work.

In my case, I’m considering trading some of my sessions on my Nordic Track, which are now 10 minutes of interval training instead of 25 -- for some sessions with the UrbanRebounder mini trampoline. (It seems if I don’t, my hip sockets will give me fits from overuse.)

The bad news is that I really liked running & using my Nordic Track enough to be very fit.

But instead of messing my body up or being unable to exercise, I’ve made lower impact & slightly less frequent exercises fill in.

I’m still decently fit by my standards & even very fit compared to people my age. And, my Achilles tendons, knees, & hips still operate pain free & are un-replaced.

So, if you start getting injuries over & over from your exercise routine, the data reported today & my personal experience suggests that if you make similar adjustments, you’ll feel better, get to stay fit & continue exercising, & your medical bills will be a LOT less.

Exercise & Your Heart....

Today's post: Tuesday, 5-13-2008

When I first read that regular aerobic exercise or cardio improved your health & protected you from stress, I was impressed and began running regularly.

Since I was under some time pressure I never ran long distances. Even when I ran more for a while I only ran for 4, 5, or 7 miles on my longer runs. And, during the week I only ran 2 or 3 miles. I only did the longer runs once each on Saturdays & Sundays.

Also, by the time I tried the longer runs, I had been doing the 2 & 3 mile runs for several months. So I was in decently good shape & my body was acclimated to running.

I was never tempted to run the bit over 26 miles for a Marathon or go on the even longer runs.

It now turns out my choices may have been fortunate. At that time, it was thought that more running than I was doing & longer distances than I was running were even more health protective than what I did.

We now know that as the distance you run or the time you do a cardio session get above 3 miles or half an hour at a time, you begin to stress your heart significantly. And, if you aren’t in shape; haven’t acclimated to that exercise for several weeks at shorter times & distances; & haven’t taken steps to reverse undesirable readings on heart biomarkers ahead of time, you can actually do yourself more harm than good. Some people have even died. In aerobics or cardio for most people LOTS MORE is NOT better & is often dangerous.

In some ways this is good news. It means that the shorter or less time consuming aerobic exercise that more people have time for is safer and even may be BETTER for your heart.

It also means that people are learning to build up gradually to more advanced exercise instead of trying to start off too hard.

And, it means that people, including me, are taking steps to protect their heart in other ways besides exercise. That improves the protection from exercise; makes exercise safer to do; & has direct and separate health benefits exercise alone doesn’t do.

A recent study found that both strength training & aerobics or cardio increased the muscle size & strength of the left ventricle of the heart of the people doing the exercise. However, only the aerobics or cardio benefited the right ventricle as well.

The left ventricle is the more important of the two in some ways. But the right ventricle is also important. And, it sounded like in my reading of the report that aerobics or cardio might best work to promote artery flexibility; normal blood pressure, & endothelial health.

Since both the strength to do things and the ability to do them without having stop right away to catch your breath for not doing all that much give you more control & capacity in your life, it’s been clear to me for some time that doing some of each kind of exercise – both strength training AND aerobics or cardio -- is a good idea.

Also, recently it has been found that progressive strength training to the point of being quite vigorous and doing aerobics or cardio with multiple sections of higher to high intensity do more to help you keep off excess fat or remove it than steady state aerobics or cardio does – even if the steady state aerobics or cardio lasts a long time.

And, one of the reasons that this is good news is that even sessions of this kind of “interval” aerobics or cardio that are as little as 10 minutes long are effective at fat loss if you do them right.

It seems doing progressive strength training to the point of being quite vigorous or doing aerobics or cardio with multiple sections of higher to high intensity cause your body to increase your metabolism for HOURS afterwards.

And, regular progressive strength training has the added benefit that it gradually increases your muscle mass. And THAT ensures you burn more calories even on days you aren’t exercising.

Lastly, if you do aerobics or cardio interval style where you push hard enough to get out of breath & then rest or slow down to a pace where you can catch your breath & repeat several times, it’s also been found that you will get into good shape far faster than doing steady state aerobics or cardio for the same amount of time. (Note: This is far safer & more effective if YOU decide when to speed up & when to slow down to catch your breath than if some pre-programmed exercise device decides for you. You have internal feedback on your body in real time. Programmed speed ups & slow downs do not.)

So, if you get your heart health biomarkers in shape; do some progressive strength training each week; & do some interval style aerobics or cardio each week; & you work up to higher intensity gradually in both kinds of exercise, that seems to be both safest & most effective to keep you fit, trim, & to protect your heart.

Dangerous Ways to try weight loss....

Today's post: Monday, 4-21-2008

Last week I saw an article in the Yahoo health news section that said it’s been discovered that unsafe ways to attempt weight loss or fat loss tended to be passed on to people by friends who were doing them. This was particularly true of younger women.

These methods include extremely severe caloric restriction; diet pills; & purging.

Do NOT copy friends or acquaintances who use these methods.

These mehtods tend to produce feeling like hell to the point of inability to function at school, home, & work; poor health; & even death if done too long or too much.

For many people, they are more damaging to self-esteem than the fat they hope to lose.

Worse, any weight lost with such methods tends to be as much lean tissue & muscle as it is fat. And, even worse than that, any fat lost is virtually always regained by the people using these methods who survive the experience.

Translation: As weight loss methods, extremely severe caloric restriction; diet pills; & purging and similar methods, will make you feel worse, make you sick, & may even kill you. And, if you survive using them, even if you do lose some weight, you will be just as fat or fatter soon after you stop using them.

Why not use the methods that keep off excess fat permanently &
IMPROVE your health?

If you have the health habits of the average person in the U.S., you can lose 5 to
15 % of your bodyweight as fat and get dramatically healthier by just a few simple upgrades.:

1. Stop taking in foods & drinks that make you fat but not always less hungry & which harm your health in even small doses.

Most people still drink soft drinks several times a week. Both the high fructose corn syrup in the regular kind & the diet soft drinks have been shown to make you fat and sick. They add calories but do NOT make you less hungry in the case of the regular soft drinks & actually make you MUCH hungrier in the case of the diet soft drinks. Both kinds tend to produce type II diabetes & other illnesses. Recently a study found health indicators got worse with even ONE diet soft drink a day. Since high fructose corn syrup increases triglyceride levels, consuming it regularly in soft drinks tends to produce heart disease & related diseases.

Partially or fully hydrogenated vegetable oils tend to be in many foods. The transfats & other unnatural fats they contain tend to make you fat; & they directly contribute to heart & related diseases. They also apparently help cause type II diabetes.

In addition, they often are found in foods made with refined grains or in packaged foods that also contain things like high fructose corn syrup.

Refined grains are totally common in most people’s diets. They have virtually no fiber & very little nutrition, so they tend to spike blood sugar & not keep you from getting hungry. Just like soft drinks that tends to make you fat & sick.

Unfortunately, a really large percentage of foods in most grocery stores have artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, refined grains, &/or partially saturated oils (transfats).

To avoid this list of fattening foods that make you sick & do not turn off your hunger very well, you have to do two things.

You have to read labels – every time. Foods you wouldn’t believe have these things do in fact have them.

And, you have to eat mostly real, un-packaged foods. Fresh vegetables, lean & properly raised or caught animal protein foods, health Ok fats such as nuts, avocadoes, & extra virgin olive oil -- & fresh fruit and whole grains in moderation do tend to make you less hungry. They provide real nutrition; & eating them tends to keep you healthy.

2. Do get regular exercise every week.

Skinny people who don’t exercise are fat inside & tend to get sick. And, people who are still a bit too fat but who exercise regularly tend to stay well even if they have only been exercising for a few weeks. Even better, they are more muscular underneath the fat & much LESS fat inside. With regular exercise, you tend to lose more pounds of fat than pounds of weight on the scale.

Regular exercise also IMPROVES self-esteem in the people who do it. And, studies have found that regular exercise reliably improves the sex lives of people who do it for BOTH men & women.

Even better, the kind of exercise that peels off fat best tends to also work best for improving self esteem & sex.

Progressive strength training & “interval” cardio build muscle & increase metabolism even for hours after you exercise. And, the more muscle you have the more calories you burn, so you can avoid starving & burn more calories & still take off fat with these 2 kinds of exercises. (“Interval” cardio is where you warm up a bit & then work really hard for a bit & then go back to moderate or easy for a bit -- & you repeat these “intervals” a few times each session. This can be effective in even 10 minute total sessions for both fitness & fat loss.)

For progressive strength training, you aim for 6 to 12 repetitions for each exercise. And, you try to do as close to 12 as you can each time. Then when you can do 12 each time, you increase the weight & start the process over. Even two sessions of half an hour each every week can work wonders. It is important to take a day off between strength training sessions. Those days off work well for doing cardio instead of weights.

Or, if it works better for you, you can work out long enough to do both strength training & cardio the same days, three days a week, & simply take the other four days off.

Six days of exercise alternating strength training with interval cardio tends to get the best results for fat loss.

But even two days a week with a bit of strength training & a bit of interval cardio each time will lose some fat & make you MUCH healthier than no exercise at all.

These few life style upgrades will lose a LOT of fat weight for the average person. They do work. They are sustainable. And, they tend to make you much healthier.

EXERCISE slows aging....

Today's post: Thursday, 3-27-2008

We’ve already done posts on how exercise has been found to trigger the growth of new brain cells & how it protects you from things like heart disease than can slash your energy level or even kill you.

We even have posted that exercise probably helps keep your body well repaired which would tend to slow aging or its effects -- because when you exercise, particularly in & after strength training, your body releases testosterone & growth hormone. (And, yes studies DO show regular exercise improve the sex lives of both men & women.)

We’ve even posted that it was recently found that exercise helps lower your homocysteine levels & that keeping your homocysteine low enough to be in the desirable range slows aging.

But, as powerful as all those effects are, the information I got recently is astounding.

A new study has found that exercise directly slows aging at the cellular level -- which likely means in every part of your body.

Last Sunday, 3-23-2008, the San Francisco Chronicle in its STYLE section had an article with the title: “Exercise as a Fountain of Youth.”

The main cause of aging seems to be that the telomeres at the ends of each strand of your DNA gradually get shorter which gradually results in less accurate copies as your body replaces each cell.

So, if you can reduce or prevent this, you also tend to slow or reverse aging.

It’s already known that excessive stress tends to shorten telomeres and that taking 1,000 mg a day or more of vitamin C tends to prevent your telomeres from shortening.

This recent article reports research that regular exercise tends to prevent your telomeres from shortening & that you can slow aging by up to 9 years or more by exercising.

Here is a brief quote.: “A recent study down in Britain followed sets of twins and looked at their activity level. Their findings confirmed that the twin who exercised more had longer telomeres than the one who didn’t – and was as much as nine years “younger.” ….”

Apparently the average person of a given age has certain telomere lengths & by that measure the twins who exercised more had longer telomeres & were therefore less aged.

Or in even plainer language the twins who exercised least or not at all aged faster.

I’ve said for some time that if people really knew what good things regular exercise did FOR them & what bad things not exercising did TO them, very few people would get no exercise -- & almost everyone would exercise.

Now you can add how fast you age to the list of effects of how much or how little you exercise has on you.

The causes of obesity ARE obvious....

Today's post: Tuesday, 3-25-2008

Recently I saw a headline suggesting that the causes of the recent upsurge in obesity rates are not obvious.

Since they ARE obvious, I immediately read the article & decided to do today’s post.

The article actually was about the fact that, for policy makers, how to reverse the trend was not obvious or an easy question to answer. THAT there is actually some truth to.

But the causes themselves ARE obvious.

1. Until 60 or seventy years ago, very few people owned cars or relied on them for transport. So they walked or walked to & from public transit. Now increasingly in many countries people drive or ride in cars.

Then only some of the richer people failed to get the minimum amount of exercise to support good health. Everyone else tended to do so just from the walking they did. And, that alone made them lighter & less fat than people today.

2. Until 60 or seventy years ago people read or talked or played physical games or did something active while listening to the radio.

Now most people tend to use most of that same recreational time to watch TV, an activity almost always done sitting down. Sitting a lot tends to make you fat. And, watching TV induces you to sit so still it actually burns significantly less calories than lying in bed asleep !!

The evidence is in & has been for some time. The more hours a week a person watches TV, the fatter they tend to be. So when the average went from zero to twenty hours a week, the effects have been large & larger, fatter people.

3. Until 60 or seventy years ago people ate beef & poultry or consumed dairy products from animals that were all or at least largely pasture fed.

Now these animals are not only fed but over fed grain. So, the food people eat is higher in fat & saturated fat than it was then. Even worse in some ways for health is that the fat is higher in omega 6 oils & has virtually no omega 3 oils. These changes also have made these foods cheaper, so people tend to eat more. Both of these changes increase caloric intake & make people today fatter.

4. Until 20 to 40 years ago or less, sweet foods had real sugar. And, there were freshness problems with food that had been on the shelf too long.

Until very recently, this was changed to sweetening many if not most grocery store & commercially provided foods with high fructose corn syrup & substituting trans fats, or transfats, (partially hydrogenated vegetable oils) for more natural fats like butter.

We now know that this tends to increase people’s appetites & give them type II diabetes & heart disease.

These developments also have tended to increase the intake by most people of refined grain foods due to their greater shelf life & improved profitability to the food companies.

These developments have made people a good bit fatter & sicker than people in the past.

Unfortunately, these food additives are not only still legal, they are still in a large percentage of grocery store food & commercially provided foods. So, you have to be quite careful, always read labels, & even deny yourself foods you may have previously liked to avoid them.

And, since many people do NOT yet know these things or give up & take what’s most convenient, at least half the people still consume them & a lot of them.

This definitely makes them fatter.

Lastly, in the last 30 years & particularly in the last 15 years, the world wide deployment of computers & internet access has made most jobs increasingly sedentary.

Then, when that accelerator was added to the previous list of things that had already happened, the percentages of people who are overweight or downright fat (obese) shot way up.

To me the cures are also pretty clear.

Every community & school should teach people these facts & how to overcome them to keep from being unnecessarily fat & to help keep themselves in good health.

Since modern work & transport is here to stay as is at least some television use, this is particularly critical in helping most people to get regular exercise.

Workplaces that now make these junk foods routinely available in the work place need to reverse course & work to eliminate them from their work places. (This is a very large, common, & so far overlooked cause of the increase in obesity.)

Grain fed animals should be gradually phased out in favor of fewer more naturally raised ones & the cheaper grain fed ones should be taxed to pay for the added medical costs they create. (The good news is that use of grains for biofuel is already having this effect to some degree.)

Lastly, as soon as food additives including high fructose corn syrup & partially or completely hydrogenated vegetable oils appear & become known for fattening or health damaging effects, they should be made illegal. In the early stages, it might work to simply tax them to the point where they cost double or triple what the more health supporting alternatives cost. Then, the same profit motive that installed them in our food would automatically remove them.

This would be a great post to comment on as most of you reading this have experienced these things first hand.

New way to prevent & overcome colds...

Today's post: Thursday, 2-14-2008

A news article today that I found online on in the Health section of Yahoo News reveals that taking probiotics may sharply reduce the number of colds you get & make the ones you do get about 40 % less severe. Not bad !!

And, after it, I’ll list another supplement that recently has been discovered to have a similar effect.

1. Here’s the article.:

"Friendly" bugs cut respiratory illness in runners Wed Feb 13, 7:12 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - A type of probiotic -- the term for bacteria supplements deemed to be good for health -- boosted the immune system of long-distance runners, according to an Australian study published on Thursday.

Twenty elite male athletes, competing in events ranging from 800m to the marathon, were enrolled in an experiment that coincided with intensive winter training.

The volunteers were given the probiotic Lactobacillus fermentum, in the form of freeze-dried powder in gelatin capsules, or a dummy lookalike capsule called a placebo that contained harmless starch. Neither they nor the researchers knew what the individual capsules contained.

Each runner took the probiotics daily for a four-week stretch, followed by a four-week "washout period" in which they took nothing. They then followed this with the placebo for four weeks, followed by another "washout."

The bug did not change athletic performance but did reduce respiratory illness, according to the researchers, led by David Pyne of the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

Seven of the runners reported having respiratory problems, such as a sore throat, a cough, runny nose, chest congestion and sneezing on days when they took the placebo.

These problems were recorded on a total of 72 days and rated on average 1.7 on a scale of severity, where three was the highest mark.

But when they took the probiotics, only three of the runners reported respiratory problems. The symptoms occurred on only 30 days and rated 1.0 for severity.

In addition, blood samples showed that levels of interferon gamma -- an immune-system molecule that is a key player in fighting viral infection -- doubled during the "probiotic" period.

Lactobacillus fermentum is a lactic acid bacterium that is well established as a treatment for (diarrhea) and other gut infections.

Probiotics are increasingly showing up in food products, led by Lactobacilli -- the germ that provides the sour taste in yoghurt and other fermented dairy foods.”

********

(I added the bold emphasis of the good results myself.)

JarroDophilus from the Jarrow company, is the one I take. It has Lactobacillus acidophilus & two other of the lactobacillus family & two other probiotics. One a day is effective; & it’s not expensive to take that much.

(Probiotics are safe for almost everyone. However, there is a serious inflammatory condition called pancreatitis in which probiotics are harmful.)

2. It’s been known for some time that a daily multiple vitamin & mineral that includes vitamin C, zinc, & magnesium helps keep your immune system strong.

It’s main benefit is not so much that your immune system will be unusually powerful but that taking the daily multiple vitamin & mineral will prevent your immune system from being weak. That helps prevent pneumonia & other secondary infections when you do get a cold.

However, one of the vitamins that is in a daily multiple vitamin & mineral has been recently discovered to be at only about a fifth or a seventh the desirable dose.

It seems that our bodies need to use about 2,000 to 3,000 iu of vitamin D a day. And, with mostly inside jobs, particularly during the winter, few people get enough sun exposure to produce that much.

And, when people take 2,000 to 3,000 iu a day of vitamin D, it strongly boosts the immune system.

This not only helps prevent colds & help speed recovery from them, it appears to help prevent all cancers as well.

Even better, vitamin D is cheap. 100 caps of 1,000 iu of vitamin D3 (the biologically active version) cost only $5 or $6.

So, the JarroDophilus may help prevent or speed recovery from colds & flu based on the news story.

But vitamin D is proven to from what I’ve read.

(By the way, the reason I think the probiotics may be as strong as vitamin D or stronger is that I take both & my wife only takes the vitamin D.

She got a moderate case of the current really bad cold while I got an extremely mild one day bout.)

I hope these two supplements work as well for you as they seem to have been doing for me in escaping being sick this cold & flu season.

PS: If you do get a cold or flu, in addition to taking these two supplements, get as much extra rest as you possibly can AND, drink a LOT of extra water.

Doctors say to drink extra water. But very few explain how much it actually does for you. It helps keep you from fainting or getting pneumonia & other secondary infections.

But of greater short term value to you, it changes your feeling when you are sick from feeling debilitated, weak, nonfunctional & HORRIBLE to just feeling a bit sick.

How to exercise when you feel lazy...

Today's post: Tuesday, 2-12-2008

In today’s world of sedentary jobs & recreations & virtually no walking to go places, people who exercise regularly gain enormous benefits. It helps enormously to compensate for the physical activity our bodies evolved to do & that we no longer get.

And, people who never exercise get all kinds of horrible effects -- from being more likely to become senile to poor or nonexistent sex lives to heart disease to type II diabetes that, as regular exercisers, they could have escaped all or most of.

In short, if you know what good things exercise does FOR you & what horrible things lack of exercise does TO you, it becomes easier to exercise even if you feel lazy. You know how very important it is.

And, if you don’t exercise when you feel lazy, it can become a habit. So, ways to get into exercise most of the days when you do feel lazy are often very important.

That’s my own best strategy to get myself to exercise whether or not I feel lazy that day.

I KNOW how very important it is.

And, I thought I’d include the article below & some of my other ideas that can help because this is such an important issue.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

“How to Get Motivated to Work Out

By Craig Ballantyne

Sometimes you just don't feel like doing your workout. It even happens to me, and I'm a pro! But I know that I feel like a million bucks after my workout. And I know I can't let myself get "soft" and start skipping sessions.
I have to lead by example. But what about you?

If you are set on achieving your fitness goals, you've got to grit your teeth and do the job. So here are some suggestions to inspire you.

1. Reward yourself when you finish a workout. Treat yourself to a magazine, a TV show, some extra time with your family, some new songs for your iPod, or even a little extra time for yourself.

2. Punish yourself when you miss one. Skip the workout, put $20 into a jar to spend on home repairs. (Make sure your spouse controls the jar.)

3. Review your goals every day and every night. Keeping your goals fresh in your mind will help you stay on track.

4. Realize that the hardest part of the workout is often getting your butt to the gym. Once you get five minutes into it, you will be over the hump. So tell yourself, "I'll just go in and do one set of the first two exercises. Then I can leave." Next thing you know, you'll have done the entire workout.

5. Visualize yourself performing a great workout and finishing strong. Get yourself mentally prepared, and you will have better workouts every time.

6. Crank the tunes. Seriously. Nothing motivates like music.

Now get out there and kick the fat to the curb!

[Ed. Note: Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne is the creator of the Turbulence Training for Fat Loss system.”

X * X* X* X

Some of my added comments.

Here are some other ideas I’ve found to help.

1. I know on the nights that I go to the gym to work out with the heavier weights they have there, that when I go in feeling frazzled, wrung out, & tired, that I’ll feel OK within the first two sets. I literally go in feeling like a wreck & feel good in just a minute or two.

I’ve found that knowing that helps me make the effort to show up there quite a bit on days when I feel less than my best.

2. I keep track of when I go in a written log. If I do miss a session for any reason, I make a much stronger effort to go to the next session than I otherwise might.

If I make 90 % of the sessions, I know I’ll benefit. And, if I make less than half I’ll get a lot less out of it. So, I’m not upset if I miss one. But I make it a personal priority to not miss two in a row even if I feel lazy just before that second one.

3. The other thing I do is to also exercise virtually every day at home for a few minutes as part of my first thing in the morning routine. (I do upper body three days, every other day; leg exercise 3 of the days I’m off from doing upper body exercise; & one easy extra abdominal workout the 7th day.

This means that when I do have to miss going to the gym, when I go back, I can usually pick up about where I left off.

And, since it’s a part of my everyday early morning routine before other events can get in the way, I hardly ever miss.

I don’t even think about whether or not I feel lazy, I just do it.

I hope you find some of these ideas helpful & that they work for you also.

WHY walking helps lose fat...

Today's post: Friday, 1-25-2008

New discovery can give you extra leverage in losing fat & keeping it off.

Walking is well known to be one of the better kinds of activity to add to your exercise program to lose fat.

And, even though running produces enough injuries in most of the people over 30 who do it often to be a bad idea, it works really well to lose fat in younger people if it’s carefully done.

Conversely, swimming seems to get you in shape without removing very much fat if any.

Here’s a very powerful reason why -- that is recent & very useful news.:

(I got behind in reading some of my health info email. The following information was in the 12-20-2007 Health Alerts email that I got from Newsmax.com.):

“People may be overweight simply because they sit too much, according to scientists at the University of Missouri.

They found that exercise alone isn’t enough to take off extra pounds — they discovered that the enzymes in our body responsible for burning fat simply shut down when we sit down.”

This quite literally means that you tend to add fat when you sit down & lose it when you stand.

This has a number of very useful implications you can use to lose fat faster & make sure it stays off.

1. If you have time to walk several times a week in addition to the strength training & fitness exercises you do & you’d like to be slimmer, by all means ADD the walking.

2. If you can do it safely & time-efficiently enough, adding even a small amount of walking to your commutes or to your shopping, will pay surprising fat loss dividends to you.

3. It helps explain why the pedometer based tracking of how many steps you take each day & gradually increasing them has been effective in helping people lose fat.

4. It means that indoor exercisers like the UrbanRebounder, treadmills, elliptical trainers, steppers, & the Nordic Track cross country style ski exerciser also work well to help lose fat.

5. It also means that doing household chores like washing dishes, sweeping, & vacuuming do double duty in helping keep fat off.

6. It helps further explain why watching too much TV reliably makes the people who do it fat.

(It’s also an added reason why one of the best ways to lose fat & find time to exercise is to turn off the TV & go the gym two or three days a week – or more. But even two times a week regularly will help, particularly if you do strength training.)

The other way to use this info without giving up TV watching is to watch it while you walk on a treadmill.

(If you watch TV 20 hours a week & walk at a 100 calorie per 20 minute pace, easy walking pace at a slight incline, you’ll burn 6,000 extra calories. And, according to this new info, you’ll be spending 20 hours a week standing up with your fat burning enzymes turned on where you are likely spending those same 20 hours a week now sitting with your fat storage enzymes turned on.)

7. It makes the idea of programming-in standing briefly at your desk a few times each morning & a few times each afternoon sound more likely to help you lose fat than you might expect.

If you’d like to lose some fat that stays off, take a moment & think of a couple things you can do to use this new discovery. Then once you get used to doing them, just keep doing them.

USATODAY.com - Fat and fit beats thin and soft

Friday, December 07, 2007
USATODAY.com - Fat and fit beats thin and soft
Wow. It turns out the post I just did is TWICE as important if you are a bit or a LOT too fat.

If you are read this:

USATODAY.com - Fat and fit beats thin and soft: "LONDON (AP) — Obese people who exercise have half the death rate of those who are trim but don't exercise, a leading expert said Tuesday."

That means it's twice as important for you to exercise if you are more fat than you should be. Why? As you get older as a fat person your risks will rise faster than people who aren't; but you get the SAME protection from exercise that they do. AND, you largely prevent that gradual additional risk besides!

The good news is that fat people who exercise are healthier even while they are still fat than skinny people who don't exercise.

For safety, begin very slowly & take rest breaks periodically even while you are exercising & when you feel your heart rate become more normal & you can again breathe without huffing & puffing start gently again before you go a bit faster.

Don't worry about doing super well at first. Just keep doing it. Within a couple of weeks you'll need fewer rest stops & you will recover faster during each rest stop.

The other good news is that you will gain some muscle & lose some fat even if it's not visible. And, if you also gradually do more & add strength training & eating right, you CAN lose a lot more fat & keep it off. The keys are keep exercising regularly

What if you are trim looking but don't exercise, are you off the hook?

Nope! Separate research has shown that people like you actually have slightly atrophied muscles & have hidden fat internally. That's why getting even some exercise will cut your risk of dying in half.

Today's post is short but the information can make a huge difference in how long you live & how health you are & your quality of life.

1. If you get no exercise now, if you begin exercising for even a few days a week for 15 minutes at a time even just walking, you can cut your chance of dying in the next few years IN HALF!

2. If you then go to:
a brief but good cardio exercise for three or four nonconsecutive days a week
& add a half an hour of strength training for three days a week or even two for 45 minutes with a day in between each session
AND you have parts of your cardio where you go a good bit faster & then back to a more relaxed pace & repeat that several times
AND in your strength training, you carefully add weight as soon as you can do 12 repititions easily & make an effort to improve over time,
that will put you in the top 20 % of people exercise wise.

That will cut your risk of dying in the next few years in IN HALF again to FOURTH of what you would have risked if you didn't exercise.

But the most important thing is the first easy step that anyone can do.

If you don't exercise now do yourself a favor & start now!
Get in some walking or go to a gym even twice a week for twenty minutes for strength training & get in two easy walks a week.

Your risk of dying will drop in HALF. Nice.

Stand up occasionally at work to lose fat….

Today's post: Monday, 11-26-2007

Most of us today do a lot of work sitting down. We talk on the phone at our desks. We do work or gather information on our computer at our desk. We sit at meetings.

Even if we get decent exercise most days otherwise, most of us are fatter than we’d like to be because of this.

One of the health related emails I get recently had information that simply standing up occasionally at your desk each morning & each afternoon everyday you are at work or using your computer at home, can actually add to the amount of exercise & activity you get each week.

Even if this is as little as 10 calories total each day, over a year that could easily make you a pound less fat at the end of that year.

The concept that particularly appealed to me is that by standing when you are waiting to leave a voicemail or for software to load or when talking to someone you want to speak with energetically, you will still be effective.

You will also be getting more exercise with positive health benefits BUT DO IT WITHOUT any ADDED TIME TAKEN from your busy schedule.

It may take some getting used to. But I did it enough this morning to make a difference. My plan is to just keep doing it as I remember until I get in the habit of it.

I think of this as the exercise program that literally needs no added time from my schedule to do.

Of course, I still plan to do my scheduled exercises too. But when I thought about it I really liked the idea I can improve my circulation & health plus lose a bit of excess fat with no extra time needed at all.



Personal note:

I’ve done at least one post each week since I began this blog. Next week I’ll not be able to do that.

But check on Friday, 12-14 because by then I will have another post or two for you.

Low testosterone is bad for you & how to boost it ….

Today's post: Friday, 10-26-2007

A recent headline in Yahoo News said that: “Older men with low levels of the hormone testosterone may die sooner than other men their age with normal testosterone levels, a study suggests.” And, “Older men with low levels of the hormone testosterone may die sooner than other men their age with normal testosterone levels, a study suggests.”

The article went on to discuss whether or not a drug that boosted testosterone would improve things or not.

The very clear answer is already known. It’s both YES -- AND, it’s NO sometimes.

The good news is that you can improve things in each category of that answer without waiting for a drug to be developed or given the FDA OK to be used.

1. First, the YES answer:

Al Sears, MD often writes on this subject & is one of the most knowledgeable doctors on this subject.

He finds that low testosterone harms both health & quality of life and does so for BOTH men AND women.

(Healthy younger women DO have testosterone. They just have less of it than men. And, when it gets too low women of all ages have many of the same problems that men with low testosterone experience.)

He has found that simply boosting too low testosterone levels directly DOES improve health & quality of life. And, he said in a recent email that he’s found that it works even better for women than men.

He has separately said that strength training AND the kind of cardio he recommends, repeated intervals of high intensity cardio followed by a sort rest & recovery period for several of these intervals over a relatively short time, perhaps 10 to 15 minutes, reliably boost testosterone levels.

(This is one of the reasons regular exercise improves mood & sex lives for BOTH men & women, by the way.)

And, he has said that taking the supplement tribulus &/or taking the lesser known supplement, Tongkat Ali, which comes from a tree native to Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, boosts testosterone.


Lastly, he has found that eating lots of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, & cabbage tends to lower excessive estrogen levels & seems to boost the effective blood level of testosterone & boosts its effects.

He’s found that both for both men & women low testosterone produces feelings of being tired, low in stamina, depressed, & apathetic, and dramatically lowers libido. And, it tends to produce people with overfat, flabby bodies. He also said that he finds that low testosterone levels also increase risk for heart disease, osteoporosis, and depression. This is in addition to the tendency towards getting too fat & obese that he mentions. This certainly explains or helps explain the recent research finding of an increased death rate in people with low testosterone.

So, clearly, YES, directly boosting testosterone improves mood, improves energy enough it makes it more likely you’ll feel like exercising, helps you lose excess fat, & can often restores your youthful libido & zest for life.

And, in addition to the direct health improving effects of boosting low testosterone, each of THOSE effects tends to also improve your health.

So, again, YES, simply boosting low testosterone is health protective. Interestingly, though Dr Sears finds doing so with his methods works well for men, he finds it often works spectacularly well with women.

And, again the good news is that you can do it NOW, starting today. You do NOT need to wait for new drugs to be developed & approved.

2. But the other part of the answer is NO, sometimes boosting low testosterone by itself may often NOT be enough to improve the lowered death rate.

This is when the low testosterone is caused by something and that cause is NOT reversed.

Significant illness, unrelieved chronic stress, depression from other causes than low testosterone, and NEVER getting regular exercise also cause testosterone levels to fall to low levels & they tend to cause, or be closely linked to, increased death rates & poor health.

But if you successfully treat any significant illnesses & depression; get adequate stress relief, & start regular exercise and continue it, these causes can usually also be reversed. This will tend to increase your testosterone level. And, it will also directly help avoid the higher death rate leaving these causes untreated can produce.

3. These things are interactive as well. If you boost testosterone with supplements, you may well find your energy improves enough to do regular exercise. And, the higher level of testosterone & exercise each tend to eliminate depression. Exercise also tends to relieve stress somewhat & increase the amount of hassles you can deal with without becoming stressed.

Similarly, if you improve your mood and energy level & testosterone level by getting regular stress relief, your ability to survive & recover from significant illness goes way up.

Lastly, Dr Sears has found that boosting too low testosterone levels helps people get better muscle tone & lose fat even without exercise or improve results from exercise. He finds this effect to be quite strong for women.

By the way, boosting low testosterone, particularly if you include regular strength training & vigorous cardio exercise, also will tend to dramatically improve your sex life.

What kind of exercise fights type II diabetes best? ….

Today's post: Tuesday, 10-9-2007

Is aerobic or cardio best to control blood sugar levels or is strength training best?

The HSI e-newsletter for Monday, 10-8 had a neat story that had part of the answer. And it was good news. (Their sneak attack title was “Donut Therapy.”)

Researchers at the University of Calgary in Canada studied 251 type II diabetics who were between 39 to 70. The researchers split them up & then studied four groups:

The Aerobic Group worked out for 45 minutes 3 days a week on exercise bikes &/or treadmills.

The Strength Training or “Resistance Training” Group worked out for 45 minutes 3 days a week with weights.

The Combined Group apparently did both. (The article didn’t say whether that was some of each for 45 minutes 3 days a week or an hour & half with 45 minutes of each 3 days a week or if it was something like Mon Weds Fri for 45 minutes of strength training & Tues Thurs Sat for Aerobic for a total of 6 days a week. I suspect it was the last one where they exercised 45 minutes for 6 days a week.)

The Control group did no exercise at all.

The researchers did a before and after test of the HBA1C levels which is the most accurate way to check average blood sugar levels on each of the four groups.

After six months, the Aerobic Group had improved their blood sugar readings; the Resistance Training Group improved quite a bit more; & the unfortunate Control Group did NOT change or improve.

The Combined Group got by far the best results. In fact, some people in that group did well enough to get back into the normal range.

It would have been nice had the article given more specifics.

But the clear conclusion is there. The best kind of exercise to control & bring down high blood sugar readings, if you only do one, is strength training.

And, doing some of each -- plus exercising five to seven days a week for at least some time each of those days is apparently the best.

Even twenty minutes of aerobic exercise on alternate days for 3 days a week plus doing twenty minutes a day of strength training on the two days in between will help.

Plus that kind of regular exercise reliably makes you less fat; improves or prevents depression; & improves your sex life for both men & women. It even grows new brain cells for you & increases the level of the protective HDL that helps you avoid heart attack, stroke, & other problems.

Truly, if people really knew what regular exercise did FOR them & NOT doing regular exercise did TO them, almost everyone would exercise.

What about you?

If you aren’t exercising now, even a 10 minute walk three days a week or working out with weights for 20 minutes two days a week on days with at least a day off in between is a start you can build on.

And, if you are doing regular exercise now, this is yet another reason to be glad of it & to keep doing it !!

More of the incredible benefits of exercise….

Today's post: Tuesday, 8-7-2007

On Sunday, 8-5-2007 Parade magazine had an article I thought so important, I decided to give you a report on it.

Our regular readers already know that exercise helps you lose or keep off excess fat, release growth hormone to slow aging, keep or even restore most of your youthful strength, prevent or improve insulin resistance & type II diabetes, protect your heart, & even grow new brain cells to counteract aging or stress.

The Parade article highlighted a set of reasons why exercise also helps keep you feeling good or can help you feel better.

*Exercise helps reduce stress & anxiety.

Michael O’Shea, who wrote the article points out that vigorous exercise is often a “mini-vacation” from stress. “(It’s hard to obsess about your to-do list when you’re concentrating on your next push-up.)” -- as he puts it. I can testify this is true from my own experience.

He also says the American Council on Exercise reports that exercise tends to clear stress hormone & chemicals from your blood.

To that I’ll add that by dropping your resting heart & breath rate as you get in shape, it helps increase the amount of stress needed to make you feel physically stressed. Since you speed up breathing & heart rate during exercise & tense & use your muscle, when you stop & your body recovers, you get physically relaxed which also lowers stress. And, when you do get stressed enough to raise your heart rate both you & your heart can handle it because of the exercise & training you’ve done.

*Exercise improves mood.

Regular exercise even lifts mild depression & can take effect in as little as 3 weeks or even less after beginning it. Even the anti-depressant drugs that work can take longer than that.

This thought to be because exercise increases endorphins & reduces cortisol & other stress hormones.

He adds that even a short walk can help immediately at times. And, since social interaction helps depression too, he suggests exercising with a friend or taking an exercise class.

(I’ve found going to a gym & being friendly with the other regulars works very well for this too.)

*Improved self-image.

This, I think is one way exercise relieves stress. You experience in your exercises that you can overcome difficulty successfully and persist in your efforts-- & while exercising, you are focusing on what you can do or are gradually doing better instead of more negative thoughts about yourself.

Many people find that the confidence they get from exercise helps them do better in all the rest of their lives also.

*Much better sleep.

When you exercise during the day, your muscles relax more I think. And, your body is programmed by evolution to put you in rest & repair mode to compensate for your exercise that you did.

It also helps often that exercise reduces stress & stress hormones that can keep you awake.

So, if you aren’t doing regular exercise now. Please consider beginning to. (Even a few sort walks or set of a few pushups or squats at home during the week will help get you started.)

You’ll feel better –or at least stop feeling quite so horrible if things are bad now.

You’ll recover far faster from setbacks. Your whole life will improve.

And, that’s in addition to all the health benefits.

Exercise is a LOT better than this suggests….

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective. We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.

Today's post: Tuesday, 6-26-2007

Exercise is a LOT better than this suggests….

I saw a comic a few days ago that really got my attention. It suggested that even though exercise helped you live longer, you had to spend as much time working out as the extra time you lived. (One hour of working out produced living an hour longer.)

I wouldn’t want to be the health insurance company for the people who thought that was about right or thought it was funny – or for that cartoonist for that matter.

This comic makes three hidden assumptions. That exercise is always a pain to do. That it doesn’t really influence longevity that much. And, that there’s nothing else to think about when it comes to exercise.

Each of these assumptions is wrong. And, the last one is spectacularly wrong.

1. People who believe exercise is always a pain to do are wrong.

There are actually studies that show that people who really know how much good exercise does for them & how much horrible problems not exercising would cause them -- not only find it less of a pain to exercise, they actually get more benefits from it than people do who don’t know the benefits of exercise.

(My guess is that’s because they do it with more enthusiasm & effort & either do more of it or did more of it before the experiment the study was based on began.)

Sure, there are times that exercise seems more like an extra chore or feels harder to do than you’d like.

But there are quite a number of other effects or experiences of exercising that are actually quite enjoyable. For example, exercises often wakes you up or boosts your energy better than strong coffee.

In the morning some days, you can get out of bed feeling like you need someone with a crane to help you because you are that sleepy & groggy. I’ve often found that on such days my early morning short workout totally zaps that feeling; & I feel wide awake for several hours afterwards. Once the effect of the exercise wears off, then I need my caffeine fix.

Similarly, I’ve worked out in the evening on days I feel like phoning a crew with a stretcher to pick me up after work & take me home to bed. But once I get in the gym & do even ONE brisk set, I feel normal & awake with no extra effort. And, that extra alertness lasts until after I have dinner & a glass of wine later in the evening.

Similarly, a really vigorous exercise where you breathe hard can clear your mind & feel good once you recover.

And, when you are done with a vigorous exercise session, you often feel a kind of afterglow from the extra blood & warmth in your muscles.

In addition, when you find yourself getting stronger or setting new records it’s very gratifying & a considerable ego boost.

And, you also feel better as you see positive changes in your body when you look into a mirror.

Lastly, this comic implies that only working out increases longevity & that other exercises or activities you enjoy don’t count.

Some people like to cook. Some people like to garden. Some people like to dance. Some people like to ride horses. Some people like to swim or surf. Some people like to hike in beautiful places. All these things are also exercise & increase your health & longevity much more than sitting on the couch watching TV.

(You do have to be careful doing some of these like horseback riding or surfing to get more longevity out of doing them. But some people really enjoy them; & they ARE exercise activities also.)

2. Exercise tends to increase longevity more than the time it takes to do it – by itself. But it also increases longevity even more by eating right; not smoking; & otherwise taking care of your health AND exercising regularly.

Then consider this. Exercise helps to prevent heart disease, cancer, & type II diabetes. And, some of these things can kill you off rather quickly and at an age 20 or 30 or even 40 years sooner than you would otherwise live.

The average person who exercises several hours a week may only live 15 years longer. But you might be one of the people who would live more than 20 years longer or much more instead.

Why take that chance?

3. But the most important wrong assumption is the last one.

It’s simple. People who exercise live better—a LOT better. And, the older they get the more that’s so.


They have far fewer diseases like heart disease, cancer, & type II diabetes. And, if they do get them, they are decades older when they do.

They look better. They enjoy sex more & more often.

They resist stress better. They get less depressed.

They stay mentally sharp as they get older. They think better & remember better.

And when they do get older they are still mobile & capable & able to live independently.

If they make money by the time they are older or retire, they can travel to interesting places instead of just going to the doctor’s office or the hospital or a nursing home.

As a result, they not only live longer they live enjoyable lives MUCH, MUCH longer. Say they live 15 years longer. They likely will live enjoyable lives 30 or 40 years longer.

Why go without exercise?

It’s well worth it even on the days it feels like too much work. And, once you learn how to do it well or by doing activities you enjoy, it’s enjoyable enough to exercise even that feeling is rare.

Lose fat & type II diabetes with 3 kinds of exercise

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective. We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.

Today's post: Tuesday, 6-19-2007

Lose fat & type II diabetes with 3 kinds of exercise….

1. Do the kind of exercise that boosts your metabolism, burns fat, & slashes insulin resistance & keeps doing it up to 39 hours AFTER you do it.

2. Do a little bit of exercise several times a day. That not only makes it easier to fit in exercise into your day, it too helps keep up your metabolism for more hours each day than just doing your exercise in one session. Even a few extra sessions of 5 to 10 minutes each week will help.

3. Do moderate & lower intensity exercise for bigger chunks of time if you possibly can.

1. Do the kind of exercise that boosts your metabolism, burns fat, & slashes insulin resistance & keeps doing it up to 39 hours AFTER you do it.

Here’s an excerpt from an email from Jon Benson, author of Fit Over 40.

The summary is that research shows that the right kind of strength training increases your metabolism & calories burned for up to 39 hours after you stop exercising.

(Disclosure: I am currently an affiliate for the Fit Over 40 book as I think it helps people who read it. But I would have included this info even if I wasn’t.)

"Burn Bodyfat While You Snore?"
Date: 6/12/2007 7:11:19 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: newsletter@fitover40.com

This is a longer article than usual. Read it if you want to find out how you literally can
burn bodyfat while you snore... ...even if you do not snore at night!

Your Freee Weekly Newsletter from Jon Benson and Fit Over 40

Sent by permission only For more info-- http://www.fitover40.com/aff/iehealth
----------------------------------------------

“A recent study presents us with some great news when it comes to burning bodyfat.

Ready for the conclusion?

> Weight training is far superior for burning body fat and elevating metabolic rate post-exercise than any other exercise.

If ever you wanted to start training with weights, or if you have been doing endless cardio with no results, this article is for you.

Note: I cover exactly how to make weight training simple and time-efficient in
Fit Over 40.

Read more here -- http://www.fitover40.com/aff/iehealth
------------------------------------------------
The Study
------------------------------------------------

A body mass study conducted by The Human Performance Laboratory at The University of Wisconsin demonstrated that weight training of a specific variety and rep scheme elevated metabolic rates (measured though VO2 max)
for thirty-nine hours.

That means you would be burning more bodyfat even when you are asleep at night. Pretty cool,isn't it?

In comparison, the average forty-minute cardio session elevates the metabolism for only a few hours post-exercise.

That is thirty-nine full hours of being able to consume more food without gaining bodyfat, all things being equal.

For the record, no other form of exercise comes close to doing that in as short a period of time as targeted weight and/or resistance training.

This degree of post-exercise calorie burn is close to the levels seen in marathoners.

This is nothing new to avid weight-trainers, but it may be news to a lot of you. This is
especially enlightening if you have a fear becoming muscle-bound if you venture into
the weight-room area of your gym.

------------------------------------------------
The Specifics
------------------------------------------------

The study focused on repetitions and exercises. Certain protocols delivered the greatest results when it came to post-exercise calorie burn.

True elevation of metabolic rate did not occur if weights were too heavy, involving exercises that were done for less than six repetitions.

Even more illuminating is the fact that metabolic elevation was not significant if the weights were too light. This was defined as any exercise that took over twelve repetitions to complete.

The thirty-nine hour elevation in metabolic response was caused by a workout which
stimulated the larger muscles. This involved compound weight-training movements such as squats, rows, bench presses, and curls.

The ideal way to do this is not with machines, Pilates, or baby dumbbells, but with free weights. Exercises should be targeted in the eight to twelve repetition range for maximum fat-burning metabolic effect…..”


“The nutrient calculation for post-workout recovery was determined to be significant, especially in comparison with more moderate forms of exercise.

This means more food is required to repair the body, and the metabolism once again is elevated.

The body mass study did not address the metabolic spike with proper post-workout nutrition, however frequent feedings that are sufficient in protein and moderate in carbs have clearly demonstrated a significant metabolic increase.

------------------------------------------------
The Application
------------------------------------------------

Heavy weights for lower repetitions is not an ideal strategy for post-exercise caloric burn. This would factor into the reasons why powerlifters develop strength but very little definition.

The "lighter weights, higher repetition" strategy, and its failure to produce results, is probably more important to most of us who want to use weights to
sculpt our physique.

Lighter weights for higher reps is not an effective strategy for fatburning. Yet this is the protocol that many trainers use for individuals wanting to quote-unquote "tone" their muscles.

This is also the preferred strategy for many female weight trainees who have been told that heavier weights would build too much muscle.

The post-exercise caloric burn is what really pays the dividends when it comes to fatburning.

Exercise by itself burns only a marginal amount of calories during the session itself. When used in conjunction with a smart mealplan, this can be a
very powerful fatburning tool.

However, bear in mind that even an intense workout, one that may burn five hundred calories or more, can be offset by a single modest-calorie meal.

------------------------------------------------
The Conclusion
------------------------------------------------

The bottom line is weight training rules when it comes to sculpting the body and earning the greatest post-exercise dividends.

Like a good investment, a brief but targeted weight training routine conducted just two or three times per week can produce rewards that are both short-term and exponentially powerful.

When combined with a fat-burning nutrition plan and stress-reducing exercise (such as yoga, walking, or Pilates), the rewards are greater still.

Sincerely,

Jon Benson
Creator, Fit Over 40

P.S.

Here is the challenge you probably face:

how to actually "do" weight training.

I understand. That is why I developed the 15-Minute Ultimate Workout Plan.

You get this plan for freee when you get The Fit Over 40 Success For Life Kit.

I include it in audio and printed format.

15 minutes...that is all you need to get all of the metabolic fatburning benefits!

http://www.fitover40.com/aff/iehealth “

The other point that Jon makes elsewhere is that the 6 to 12 repetitions need to be progressive.

If you get to the point where you can easily do several more than 12 & just do 12, you won’t get the effect -- or get it nearly as much. Increase the weight to the very next level next time you do the workout. And, if that’s still too easy, increase it until you can only do 5 or 6. Then focus on doing at least 6 in good form. Once you do that, add repetitions one at a time as you are able until you can again do 12.

Yes you do get to the point where you have to work at it. And the last one or two reps can be hard or you may find you can’t quite do the last one. The great news is that those are the reps that make you stronger & trigger this fat burning effect.

The other important point is that this effect also includes a dramatic improvement in insulin resistance. And, for those hours, you will be far more able to keep your blood sugar low enough for good health.

How effective this is varies some from person to person with how hard they workout & their individual heredity. But some people have literally turned off type II diabetes by simply eliminating high glycemic & junk foods & doing this kind of strength training.

The rest of the people may have to continue on drugs. But they will be far healthier & their blood sugar readings will be much more desirable or even totally normal -- when, with the drugs alone, they were not.

Another point: You can do well for your health & strength doing two nonconsecutive days of strength training where you do both leg exercise & upper body exercise in the same session.

But if fat loss or controlling high blood sugar levels are important to you, here’s a way to get this effect all week long.:

Do upper body strength training on three days & then on the days off from that, every other day, do three days of leg strength training. On Monday, Weds, & Friday for upper body & Tues, Thurs, & Saturday for legs for example.

These may be the same three hours total you would spend doing both upper body & leg exercises together for one hour 3 days a week. But by doing about half an hour six days a week, the sessions are shorter AND you get more fat burning & metabolic effect.

Similarly & with similar results:

2. Do a little bit of exercise several times a day. That not only makes it easier to fit in exercise into your day, it too helps keep up your metabolism for more hours each day than just doing your exercise in one session. Even a few extra sessions of 5 to 10 minutes each week will help.

Separate research has shown that a few minutes of exercise several times a day is more effective for boosting your metabolism than the same total all done at the same time.

And, in fact I know one woman with type II diabetes that got excellent blood sugar control doing exactly that.

She does just five minutes of freehand squats & pushups & situps before leaving the house in the morning & a mid-morning exercise walk of about 10 or fifteen minutes. And, she does a longer walk at lunchtime some days. And she only gets to the gym for strength training two evenings a week for half an hour each time.

And, the combination has given her such good blood sugar control her doctor is impressed.

Your schedule may be different. But the other thing that makes this such a great way to go is that you can fit it into almost any schedule since each bit of exercise can be as short as you need for it to be.

3. Do moderate & lower intensity exercise for bigger chunks of time if you possibly can.

Humans have been on earth for hundreds of thousands of years & our preceding ancestors for several million years more before that.

And, until about 80 to 120 years ago, almost everyone who wasn’t sick in bed got in several walks each week of two to seven miles each.

So, it should hardly be surprising that people who get at least one or two such walks (or do such relatively easy to moderate exercise) every week tend to have better health & be less fat than those who never do. And, they have higher metabolism & blood sugar control.

This can be extremely challenging to do in addition to doing strength training & all the rest of your schedule. But if you can add it, it will help.

New study shows age reversal in just six months….

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective. We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.

Today's post: Thursday, 5-31-2007

New study shows age reversal in just six months….

The results of this study suggest that good strength training can prevent or reverse aging to a large degree in the exercised muscles.

Other studies that have found that people can get stronger & add muscle at any age and that strength training tends to release growth hormone & testosterone suggest this might be the case. But, it doesn't prove it's so like this study apparently has.

Here’s an email from Jon Benson about it.: (I like most of what he says, so I am an affiliate of his & have put in that link in the quoted email.)

“Has science proven you can "age backwards"?”

Of all the studies I have read this one seals the deal. The study headline read...

>>> Resistance Training Reverses The Aging
>>> In Human Muscle Tissue

Not "slows" or "repairs"...Reverses.

I know...it shocked me too. I have been a champion of the anti.aging lifestyle I teach in Fit Over 40. It certainly "looks" like the 52 people in my book are aging backwards.

See for yourself --http://www.fitover40.com/aff/iehealth

I never thought their muscles were literally turning back the genetic clock. But this new research proves this is exactly what is going on when you exercise with resistance.

Resistance exercise can be weight training or just using your bodyweight. This is exercise that is heavy enough to cause some strain but not so heavy that it is painful or dangerous.

Some of the biology aspects of the study are frankly over my head. But I will try to give you the highlights.

If you want to read the study yourself you can find it on http://www.plosone.org/ .

The...Findings

The mitochondria is the energy factory of the human cell. As we age our muscles begin to show what researchers call "mitochondrial dysfunction". This is what causes all the bad stuff associated with "sarcopenia."

Sarcopenia is just the wasting away of muscle due to age and under-use. As we age most of us will experience a gradual loss of muscle.

The problem? Muscle is active tissue. It is responsible for most of the calories we use during the day.

The less muscle you have, the more bodyfat you will gain if you eat the same amount of food.

Muscle loss is also related to the onset of many bone diseases. The muscle that holds our spine in alignment can deteriorate as we age and cause major back problems. The same is true for the muscle and tendons around the knee and hip joints.

Can you see why muscle loss is a major deal?

Is it any wonder researchers wanted to see if there was something we could do about it?

Resistance training obviously builds muscle. And it does so at any age. Just look at anyone in my book and you will be convinced of that.

But that is not the real find in this study. We have numerous studies that show you can gain lean muscle at any age.

>>> This study revealed something extraordinary:
>>> after just six months of resistance training
>>> test subjects showed a "reversal of most of
>>> the genes affected by age" in muscle tissue.

With age and no resistance training, researchers found 596 genes expressing themselves with "aging", or decreased mitochondrial function.

But when subjects engaged in resistance training, in this case simple weight training, look what happened ---- Their strength increased by over 20%;-- And their genes literally "reverted back" to the same markers as "younger" genes after only six months of exercise.

This is staggering. It is one thing to maintain muscle as we age. To gain muscle is even better.

But to know that we are literally reverting our genes to a "younger version" within the muscle?
And after only six months?

That is downright amazing.

That's not all...When the older folks in the study began, they were almost 60% weaker than the younger members of the study. In just six months, they were only 38% weaker.

I can tell you from personal experience that in a few more months they would be even stronger. In some cases their strength would surpass the younger test subjects.

I am much stronger now than when I was 23, or 33. I am now 43.

I plan to be stronger at 53.

Strength is not a luxury as we age. It is absolutely necessary for longevity and health. And this all takes place at the genetic level. Just imagine.

----------------------------------------What You Need To Do----------------------------------

Everyone reading this letter needs to start today with resistance training. It is now a PROVEN way to make the aging process turn around at the genetic level within the cell.

And now you know why the role models in my book "Fit Over 40" look as if they are 15-20 years younger than they really are --http://www.fitover40.com/aff/iehealth

Genetically, they 'are' younger than their calendar age. Isn't that incredible?

Are you ready to join them? Pick up my book today and you'll find your own roadmap to begin.

In a freee bonus, Craig Ballantyne gives you an 8-week in-home bodyweight resistance program that is perfect for beginner and intermediate trainees.

If you already have my book, you will find this in the Member's Downloads.

I also include dozens of ideal gym-based workouts for intermediate and advanced trainees.Combined with the nutrition principles I cover, you can be on your way to "literally" turning back the genetic clock.

You'll look better and feel better than you ever have to boot.

Sincerely,

Jon BensonCreator, Fit Over 40”

*****

I like Jon Benson. I've talked to him & even wrote an article draft for him on the top health enhancing foods. (He then added his comments & some select upgrades.)

I agree with about 90 to 95% of what he says. And, the part I agree with I agree very strongly.

He believes in doing things to "cleanse" or detoxify your body as a good idea in starting a health or fat loss program.

I think it is likely a waste of time for most people & can be bad for some people.

And, he is a good bit less concerned with high LDL readings or with overdoing the eating of red meat than most of my other sources. (He likely IS correct that high HDL & exercise; getting enough vitamin C; & avoiding starches & sugars are more important for most people. And, that they are definitely important for everybody.)

But his Fit Over 40 eBook has every kind of health style from over 50 people who succeeded with exercise -- including vegan vegetarians & what they eat, why, & what their exercise program is & their story about overcoming adversity & still getting good results.

People who need a set of exercises to try or a role model they see as like them to get started exercising can use this book as a great resource.

People who have hit a plateau or have adversity to overcome in their exercise program can find ideas.

And, people from either group can find some real motivation & inspiration from the really great success stories & pictures.So, I have signed up to sell his book as an affiliate.

To get a copy go to: http://www.fitover40.com/aff/iehealth

Lose extra fat by adding fish oil to your exercise?

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.

Today's post: Thursday, 5-24-2007

Lose extra fat by adding fish oil to your exercise?….

I looked briefly at a summary of a study that found that exercise plus taking a fish oil supplement helped people to lose fat.

Since I already knew & have reported here that regular exercise, particularly strength training, helps people lost unwanted & excess body fat, I didn’t read further.

And, you may have already read here that taking fish oils improves your health in many ways. I’ve already been eating fish & taking purified fish oil & DHA supplements for quite some time.

But, I found out on the radio news on KCBS early this morning that I missed something.

It seems that the people who did the aerobic exercise AND took the fish oil supplement in the study, which was mostly DHA, lost about 3.5 pounds of fat that the people who only exercised or who exercised while taking a non-omega 3 oil did NOT lose.

The supplement used had 260 mg DHA and 60 mg EPA.

It’s already known that eating fish & taking omega 3 supplements lowers high triglyceride levels. And, the people taking the omega 3 supplement in this study lowered their triglyceride levels. In this case, it was by 14 per cent from their pre-study levels.

But they also increased their heart-protective HDL levels by 10 per cent over their pre-study levels.

And, they lost that extra 3.5 pounds per person.

Of course, the study was only for a short time period. So we don’t yet know if people who kept up exercise and omega 3 lost another extra amount of fat in the next time period etc, or whether it was just a one-time extra fat loss.

But, it’s clear that it helped at first.

So, if you are exercising to lose fat or to prevent becoming fat, your program may well work better for you if you also take omega 3 supplements.

Considering that the supplements already have other health benefits that make them well worth taking, that looks very positive indeed.

One of the best known omega 3 supplements from purified fish oil is the “Omega 3” supplement from Nordic Natural. Two of their capsules a day give you a bit less DHA than was in the supplement in this study & a good bit more EPA. And, by taking 100 mg of DHA or more in a separate supplement, you can easily get a bit more DHA than was taken in this study.

So, to the advice to people aiming to lose fat to:

Get more moderate & regular exercise AND at least two days a week of vigorous & progressive strength training each week;

Stop consuming refined grain foods, soft drinks & foods;

And to eat MORE vegetables, whole fresh fruit, & health enhancing protein foods & to also eat some nuts, avocados, & use some extra virgin olive oil;

We now need to add to make sure to consume omega 3 oils, including at least 260 mg of DHA each day.