George

IBS?

2012-01-22T14:49:00.001Z

Think you're bloated by IBS? It could just be Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth and it's easier to manage

Last updated at 10:03 PM on 21st January 2012

Patrick Strudwick was told he had IBS but turns out it was SIBO

For ten years I looked pregnant. Between 1997 and 2007 my bloated belly peered over my waistband as I tried to hold it in. I wasn’t overweight or malnourished. Instead, doctor after doctor gave me the same diagnosis: irritable bowel syndrome.

About one in ten people have – or think they have – this horrible condition. Its chief symptoms, apart from bloating, are constipation and diarrhoea, with pain, fatigue and sometimes depression joining in.

It is hardly taboo – several celebrities have revealed they suffer from IBS: actress Kirsten Dunst and model Tyra Banks to name a few. But are we being told the truth? Do we all really have IBS?

Four years ago, I began to suspect not. All my symptoms had intensified, in particular, the pain. I tried cutting out some of the known triggers: wheat, alcohol and cheese. I tried yoga and meditation – stress is thought to worsen the condition. But still I looked pregnant, and I grew suspicious something else was wrong. Desperate and fed up, I went to my GP and begged to be referred to a gastroenterologist.

He prodded at my protruding belly in search of cysts or tumours. He asked about my symptoms and how long I had suffered from them. He ran blood and urine tests to check for diabetes or signs of various cancers. Crucially, he took me seriously.

Having eliminated the most serious possible causes, he referred me for two tests at London’s St. Thomas’ Hospital: one for lactose intolerance and one for something called Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO).

The first test involved drinking a sugar solution and every 15 minutes for three hours breathing into a tube to measure the hydrogen levels in my breath. The second was the same except I drank a lactulose solution – a type of glucose also used as a laxative.

The first test – which was looking for a lactose (milk sugar) intolerance – came back negative, but the other, for SIBO, was positive. I had never heard of it. So back at home, I plundered Google in search of answers. The same symptoms kept coming up as for IBS: constipation, diarrhoea, bloating, pain and fatigue. Why had none of the doctors I had seen ever mentioned this condition?

‘Most GPs have never heard of it,’ explains Dr Ian Penman, a consultant gastroenterologist at Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital.

Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth makes men look as though they are pregnant - a problem Patrick suffered with for 10 years

So what is it? And how many other IBS sufferers could in fact have SIBO? ‘SIBO is a condition whereby the small intestine, which normally has very few bacteria in it, becomes colonised with too many bacteria. In healthy people, stomach acid and the waves of muscular contraction in the small intestine flush most bacteria into the bowel. But with SIBO that doesn’t happen.’

Why? Mostly, Dr Penman says, it is because of four different types of underlying conditions. The first is when stomach acid is not produced because of gastric surgery, such as a bypass, or old age.

Another vulnerable group is people who’ve had multiple operations on their intestines with parts cut out or joined together, such as those with Crohn’s disease. Thirdly there are people who have other gut disorders. And, finally, people who have had multiple courses of antibiotics.

A huge proportion of those who think they have IBS actually suffer from SIBO

‘People with recurrent chest or urinary infections may have had lots of antibiotics,’ says Dr Penman. ‘This can upset the delicate ecosystem in the bowel – the balance of different types of bacteria – which then allows certain bacteria groups to proliferate.’

In my early 20s I had a succession of antibiotics for tonsillitis – eventually they were removed – which may explain my diagnosis. But, says Dr Penman, there are also those who do not fall into any of these categories who think they have IBS but test positive for SIBO, with none of the underlying factors.

‘We get into the area of could SIBO be the cause of IBS?’ he says. ‘The answer is that it is unclear. It’s difficult to tease out – the causes of IBS are multi-factorial: stress, food intolerances, and in some cases, bacterial overgrowth.’

A 2005 study published in the journal of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics found a staggering link between the condition: 98 IBS sufferers were given the hydrogen breath test for SIBO and 64 tested positive. This suggests a huge proportion of those who think they have IBS actually suffer from SIBO.

However, Dr Penman points out: ‘A more recent study found that some people with IBS give false positive results for the SIBO breath test. The reason is that what they really have wrong with them is the time it takes for stuff to go from the stomach to the bowel is too fast. So when we give them lactulose for the breath test, it reaches the bowel too quickly, which causes them to excrete hydrogen in their breath, so we get a positive result. My estimate would be that in fact no more than 10 per cent of IBS sufferers actually have SIBO.’

Actress Kirsten Dunst and model Tyra Banks are both believed to suffer from IBS

But if ten percent of Britons have IBS and even five percent of those in fact have SIBO, that would mean 300,000 people with a chronic undiagnosed intestinal disorder.

There is no cure. Instead, the condition is managed. If it is not it can lead to vitamins such as B12 and folic acid not being absorbed by the body. This can cause infertility, depression, and chronic fatigue. What then is the treatment?

‘Firstly, we look for any underlying case – are they making no acid, do they have Crohn’s or have they had surgery?’ Says Dr Penman. ‘If we can treat those factors we will. But otherwise the treatment is cyclical courses of antibiotics to reduce the number of bacteria in the small intestine.

‘We rotate several different antibiotics one after the other to try and prevent resistance or side effects. Another strategy would be four weeks on antibiotics and then four weeks off.’

A change in diet is also essential. ‘I recommend small, frequent meals, making sure you get a good intake of vitamins, and a reduction in intake of carbohydrates.’

Dr Penman advises SIBO patients to take a multi-vitamin supplement and peppermint capsules to help with bloating. ‘I’m also a fan of pro-biotics,’ he says. ‘Not so much the yoghurt-y drinks from the supermarket but a dried formulation of acidophilus from a pharmacy.’

The treatment works. After a few courses of antibiotics my symptoms all but vanished. Concerned about taking them long-term, however, I started taking probiotics instead every day, and only taking antibiotics every year or so. The most potent, and therefore helpful, probiotics I could find are called VSL3, and are available over the internet from this country. I also take vitamins pills and peppermint capsules.

Sticking to the dietary guidelines are not easy when - as I do - you have a problematic cupcake obsession. But, annoyingly, limiting carbohydrates has proved to be the most effective way of managing the condition. Although I give in now and again, cutting out cake, I can report with some sadness, is the only way to avoid looking like I’m in my second trimester.

Diabetes!

2012-01-10T16:56:00.001Z

Lack of sleep to skipping breakfast: The less-known factors that can give you diabetes

By PAT HAGAN

Last updated at 9:49 PM on 9th January 2012

More than a million people are affected by type 2 diabetes and don’t even know it.

And the risks they face are high: left untreated, the condition can raise the risk of heart attacks, blindness and amputation.

Shocking new figures suggest 24,000 people die every year in England because of poorly managed diabetes.

if you regularly get less than five hours' sleep, your risk of getting diabetes is double that of someone who gets seven to eight hours

Yet if doctors catch the condition, it can be controlled with diet and medication.

Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes, accounting for 90 per cent of cases.

Diabetes occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin — the hormone that converts glucose into energy — or the body stops responding to insulin, triggering high levels of glucose in the blood.

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Two-day hangover becomes the norm as stressed workers are going on marathon drinking binges

This causes symptoms such as fatigue, thirst, frequent urination, recurrent thrush and wounds that are slow to heal.

Most people associate type 2 diabetes with being overweight, eating junk food or a couch-potato existence.

Diabetes occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or the body stops responding to insulin, triggering high levels of glucose in the blood

Yet research suggests that modest weight gain, or even relatively minor disruptions to normal dietary patterns, could be enough to cause it.

So how do you know if you are at risk? Here, we reveal the less well-known factors that can increase your chances of developing this serious condition.

HAVING AN APPLE SHAPED BODY

You don’t have to be obese to be at risk. Just carrying a few extra pounds around the waistline can be enough to cause the condition. Diabetes UK says a woman is at risk if her waist reaches 31.5in (80cm).

For a white or black man it’s 37in (94cm), and 35in (90cm) for South Asian men.

This means people who may appear relatively slim but have a ‘pot belly’ or apple shape could be more at risk than someone who looks larger but deposits fat around their upper body, buttocks or thighs.

This is because visceral fat, the type of fat that lies around the organs in the abdomen, is thought to pump out molecules that disrupt the normal balance of glucose and insulin, and also leads to damaging inflammation in blood vessels.

BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL

if you regularly get less than five hours’ sleep, your risk of getting diabetes is double that of someone who gets seven to eight hours.

Scientists at Boston University in the U.S. studied 1,500 volunteers aged over 50, recording their sleep patterns and testing their levels of glucose.

Five hours or less a night more than doubled the risks, while six hours was linked with a 60 per cent rise in risk.

It’s thought the danger arises because lack of rest upsets the body’s circadian rhythm, the internal clock that regulates natural sleep and wake cycles.

‘Being awake when we should be asleep increases the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which promotes the generation of glucose (to provide energy to the body to keep it going),’ says Julian Halcox, professor of cardiology at Cardiff University.

OVARIAN CYSTS

Up to 15 per cent of women in the UK suffer with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), a condition where tiny cysts grow on the ovaries, preventing them from working properly.

But many do not realise the condition can also lead to type 2 diabetes — at least ten per cent of sufferers develop it. This is because, like diabetes, PCOS is linked to an insulin imbalance.

As well as controlling blood sugar, insulin also stimulates the ovaries to make the hormone testosterone in women.

If there is too much insulin in the blood, the ovaries produce excess testosterone, resulting in symptoms such as excess hair growth, acne, weight gain and depression.

Once insulin levels begin to rise, damaging both the ovaries and the pancreas, a woman is well on her way to diabetes.

SNORING

Research showed the more severe the snoring problem, the greater the chance of high blood sugar levels. Men were more affected than women

Heavy snorers are up to 50 per cent more likely to develop diabetes.

Scientists at Yale University studied 1,200 patients with sleep apnoea, the snoring condition in which night-time breathing is interrupted by the airways temporarily closing.

Each patient underwent tests to measure blood sugar levels for signs of diabetes. The results showed the more severe the snoring problem, the greater the chance of high blood sugar levels. Men were more affected than women.

One of the main risk factors for sleep apnoea is being overweight, which is also a marker for type 2 diabetes.

But scientists think the closing of the airways may cause a rise in cortisol levels, driving glucose levels up.

PREGNANCY

Scientists are not sure if gestational diabetes causes changes in the body, or whether it just acts a marker for those already at risk

Around one in 20 pregnant women develops temporary gestational diabetes.

Here, the body produces extra sugar to help the foetus grow, upsetting the normal insulin-glucose balance, and usually results in a large baby.

Although the diabetes normally resolves itself after the birth, experts fear affected women are unaware they are at a much higher risk of developing it again when they are older: statistics from the U.S. show that such women are seven times more likely to develop the type 2 form later in life.

Scientists are not sure if gestational diabetes causes changes in the body, or whether it just acts a marker for those already at risk.

Dr David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, says: ‘We have no system in the NHS for following up women who’ve had gestational diabetes.

'They should have annual blood tests to check their glucose and insulin levels, and be given advice on diet and lifestyle,’ he says.

SKIPPING BREAKFAST

Recent Australian research found those who skip breakfast are likely to experience a sudden drop in blood sugar levels in the late morning, making them crave a sugary treat.

This leads to a sudden surge in blood sugar and, in time, the over-stimulation of insulin.

This increases the likelihood of the body’s cells becoming resistant to the effects of the hormone, allowing diabetes to set in, possibly at an early age. The excess insulin is also thought to boost the storage of visceral fat, the dangerous kind which gathers around the organs in the abdomen.

WORKING SHIFTS

Around 3.6 million Britons work shifts. Evidence is emerging that regularly changing shifts over long periods can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by up to 50 per cent.

A recent study at Harvard University found workers who mix day and night shifts are most at risk.

As with sleep loss, the reason is thought to be the effect that disrupted lifestyles have on circadian rhythms.

DRINKING FRUIT JUICE

A study of 70,000 women found those drinking about 180ml of fruit juice a day were 18 per cent more at risk of diabetes. In contrast, eating whole fruits instead reduced the risk.

Natural sugars in fruit are absorbed very quickly through the stomach, causing a surge in blood sugar levels.

But by eating the fruit itself, the absorption is slowed down by the fibres that take longer to digest.

Exercise (Source: Guardian)

2011-11-30T23:31:00.000Z

It's not obesity that's killing us – it's the lack of exercise | Sarah Warwick

Studies have shown that you can be fat and fit. So why are we obsessing about what we eat rather than how much we move?

Anti-obesity campaigns should focus on the benefits of exercise. Photograph: Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Getty Images/Blend Images

Almost a quarter of British women are obese, and nearly as many men, according to the European health interview survey published by the EU's statistical office Eurostat. Meanwhile, Jamie Oliver continues his campaign to improve school food, asking the prime minister to ensure that academies don't undermine it, and again focusing on "rocketing obesity rates in the UK".

But we're getting the focus wrong. Obesity isn't what's robbing us of good health and life. Using data from the Cooper Centre Longitudinal Study exercise scientist Steven Blair and his colleagues have established that you can be fat and fit. It is better to be overweight and active than normal weight and sedentary in terms of risk of mortality, the research has shown.

Blair calls physical inactivity the biggest public health problem of the 21st century. Yet instead of paying attention to our sedentary lifestyles, we keep on focusing on fatness. As individuals, we just can't resist stepping on the scales and it's a staple of weight-loss programmes. Physical activity is almost always a secondary consideration, and then only because of its power to help us lose weight. This narrow focus is repeated in campaigns and the media, but the obsession with how much people weigh and how much they need to lose just isn't helping us lead longer and healthier lives, or reducing the burden on the health service.

Campaigns such as the government's Change4Life initiative combine diet advice and alcohol tracking with activity suggestions, but the message needs to be far more straightforward. Forget berating young and old for their eating habits and what the scales are saying, and give them the much more appealing solution that physical activity is the way to a longer, healthier life.

If you offered people a drug that would confer these benefits with no side-effects, you would be trampled in the rush. A pill that promised the same effect as just 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity each day would make headlines around the world. Yet because it's not a new miracle cure on the market, and it's not a mythical superfood, it's not news at all. But the evidence is there. Physical activity can reduce the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers and even delay cognitive decline. According to Karim Khan, editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, you probably need to be doing 60 minutes a day for optimum health (after which time there are diminishing returns health-wise). If we're going to pick a health issue to be fascinated by, isn't this the one?

It isn't about getting everyone running marathons, or setting aside the time and money they don't have to go to the gym every day. For many, these are the unattainable goals that lead to a sense of failure, and send us right back down the cul-de-sac of putting all the emphasis on losing a few pounds because a pleasing result on the scales gives us a moment's relief from our internal nagging, and that of society as a whole.

Instead, we need to put back the activity that modern life has removed into our daily routines. Making up our half an hour of not being sedentary does take an effort, but at least it can be achieved in manageable 10-minute blocks, can be made part of life without having to find fresh hours in the day – and above all has the merit of being in our control. A positive goal is always going to be far more attractive than nagging people about their eating habits, or pointing out the excess flesh.

The narrow focus on obesity for government, for campaigners and for individuals needs to change, and if we just can't quite get over our obsession, at least stepping on and off the scales still counts as activity if you do it enough.

Heart attack?

2011-10-15T00:16:00.001Z

Prevent a heart attack?

Microwaves

2011-10-13T00:33:00.000Z

After writing the article "Spicy Foods May Provide Protection against Food Poisoning", I received a lot of comments about microwave destroying food nutrients.

It is because I mentioned that garlic can be cooked with a microwave. It is the easiest way rather than using baking oven, bread toaster, or frying pan. Every few months, there's a new scare that spreads on the internet, and now, its microwaves. They say that foods cooked in a microwave are unhealthy and harmful for health. Who crazy people said so? These are simply myths circulated by people who don't understand what microwaves are and fear them irrationally.

Some scientists and doctors who say that microwave for cooking is harmful for human health should study more about our world today. I hope that those people who wrote me that microwave is harmful to health are not scientists who usually write incorrect or fake information in the magazines to mislead the public.

When we were using candlelight during the time of our ancestors, life was simple and the life span was about 48 years. When lightbulb was invented by Thomas Edison, many said that it is harmful to our eyes. When fluorescent lamp came out, a lot of people said that it is very harmful to our eyes and we can be blind soon. And now people said that microwave makes food poisonous and harmful to our health.

When I was 13 years old (about 57 years ago), I made a microwave using 2 pieces of 807 vacuum tubes called push-pull high frequency oscillator. It was about 150 watts microwave. A few turn of gauge 6 or 8 copper-wired oscillator coils, and between two copperplates at output, I placed sweet potato, eggplant, spinach and many other foods, and then I was able to cook a lot of things for several years.

Since then, up to this modern time, I cannot live without a microwave in our kitchen. In Japan, I have a hard time to find a house without a microwave. Therefore, I was eating poisonous foods for over 55 years using that dangerous machine, and yet, I did not suffer from incurable diseases, and remain healthy.

Don't you know that all cooking methods reduce nutrient levels in vegetables to some degree? It's because many vitamins are sensitive to heat exposure. Whether you use firewood, charcoal, electric stove or microwave, the contents of the original food will be changed.

Let's take the case of juice mixer or blender. Why don't you complain about the use of that sharp-bladed mixer or blender in your kitchen? Don't you know that anything when juiced or blended, some nutrition will be broken? When fruits or vegetables are blended and exposed to oxygen, a huge amount of vitamins or other nutritious parts will be lost. This is called oxidation. Why don't you throw your mixer?

Let's take bread toaster. It is also the same. It will change your bread to poison and it's dangerous to your health.

Let those people who love to live in a primitive life, throw that TV in your room, it is dangerous to your eyes. Let them throw your chemically painted house, it is dangerous to your health. Let them throw your own life, since it is dangerous to others.

Those people are with a tiny brain and their life span is maybe only 47 years (same as cave dwellers who live less than 47 years old). In our modern world, especially in Japan, there are only few who will say that microwave is harmful to our health. Did you know that an average life span of Japanese is now 89-92 years? :) I am now 70 years old and I am still kicking around. I have never suffered from incurable diseases at all.

Myths and Facts about Microwave Oven

Microwave causes cancer. The facts: There's no solid evidence of that, and the opposite may be true. When you microwave meats for a few minutes before grilling and frying, most of the cancer-causing chemicals from the meats are lost along with the juices.
Microwave destroys the nutrients in food. The facts: Yes, it is true. But don't you know that microwave retains more nutrients than other forms of cooking, if you don't use a lot of water and don't overcook the food.
Microwave oven produces radiation. The facts: Yes, it is true. But microwave ovens manufactured by renowned companies today do not radiate or leak any harmful wave outside to cause any danger to humans. Containers, packaging and wrapping materials for cooking, are where you should be careful. Because the container might melt to the food and the chemicals might contaminate the food.
So, is the Microwave Safe?

Everyone wants to be healthy, but some scientists said that microwave is dangerous to your health. Don't believe them. Their brains are so tiny. Microwave oven is the safest device of all. Just don't use too much water. Microwaving with too much water is more like boiling, which does deplete nutrients. So, once again, don't use a lot of water. Cabbage, broccoli, potato, fish, meat, carrot, eggplant, and many others, can be cooked without water. Think wisely.

Oh, if microwave is as dangerous as some people think, then the Japanese Ministry of Health, or even the American FDA as well as other health-oriented authorities prohibited its use long time ago.

It is easy to use a microwave rather than firewood or charcoal inside a modern kitchen room in your house. Why don't you use microwave? It will make you healthy. Don't be silly and be wise!!

Junji Takano is a Japanese health researcher involved in investigating the cause of many dreadful diseases. In 1968, he invented PYRO-ENERGEN, the first electrostatic therapy device for electromedicine that effectively eradicates viral diseases, cancer, and diseases of unknown cause.
Click here to find out more: http://www.pyroenergen.com/about.htm
Free health newsletter: http://www.pyroenergen.com/newsletter.htm

Increases testosterone...and get a heart attack?

2011-10-03T10:27:00.001Z

So, what is the best type of diet to follow if your only concern is to increase T levels and make more of it available to the body for the purpose of improving lean body mass and/or performance? It would seem that CHO intake must exceed PRO intake by at least 40% to keep the bioactive fraction of T high. Fat intake should be at least 30%, saturated fat needs to be higher than PUFA, and fiber intake needs to be low. A sample diet would have roughly the following calorie breakdown: 55% CHO, 15% PRO and 30% fat. On the other hand, what if you wanted to lower your T levels in order to minimize cardiovascular disease risk factors and/or hormone-dependent cancer risks? Then a diet with more protein, more fiber, a fat intake below 25%, and a P:S ratio of 1 or higher would be a more prudent choice. The breakdown of this sample diet would be about 50% CHO, 30% PRO and 20% fat. The problem with using percentages, however, is that people with high calorie needs will most likely take in far more protein then they need. Another strategy is to keep protein intake the same (ie 1 gram per pound of BW) and then play around with the fiber, SFA:PUFA ratio, CHO, and total fat contents of the diet. Antioxidants are important additions when trying the higher fat diets. Keep in mind there are many factors that affect T production and they interact in a complex and seemingly unpredictable fashion. We invite feedback and will respond to all questions, comments, etc. Several readers have mentioned the idea of cycling a diet that maximizes T and then switching back to a healthier type of diet. For those that do try this, please let us know your results. lorig8r@sprynet.com.

Source: http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/incledon/diet02.htm

'Exercise increases the risk of a heart attack"

2011-10-03T10:24:00.001Z

"I was in Ciechocinek, Poland in late 2005, visiting Dr Jan Kwasniewski, whose dietary ideas are exactly the same as mine. Amongst other things, we discussed exercise and I was introduced to a work that has probably never been seen by any Western doctor: a book published in East Germany in 1957, during the Cold War. One chapter demonstrated that the more work limbs and muscles do, the more cholesterol is found in the walls of the arteries that supply them.[17] Or, to put it another way, work may well increase atherosclerosis, the very process that is believed to contribute most to a heart attack. In which case, if you believe in the cholesterol hypothesis, exercising muscles such as the heart that are already hard at work even more, could be considered a form of suicide. "

This is the source...

Yoga for men

2011-09-24T02:28:00.001Z

Yoga for explosive strength

2011-09-24T02:21:00.002Z

Watch this....

This could be why you're fat - 1

2011-09-20T11:43:00.000Z

GRADUAL, CREEPING WEIGHT GAIN

COULD BE: Slow metabolism or extreme dieting.

After the age of 30, your metabolism (the rate at which we burn calories while we are at rest) slows down by as much as 5 per cent per decade.

You’ll burn 100 fewer calories per day at the age of 35 than you did at 25, and 200 fewer at 45. This could be enough to trigger an annual weight gain of 8-12lb.

Strict (or yo-yo) dieting makes this process worse (whatever your age), as the body slows the metabolism to avoid wasting any energy while it is dealing with what it considers to be a famine.

WHO'S AT RISK? Anyone over 30; dieters.

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: As well as being generally more active, incorporate weight-training into your exercise routine twice a week to build muscle mass, because this will boost your metabolic rate.

Muscle burns 25 to 33 per cent more calories than body fat does, and each pound of muscle boosts your metabolic rate when resting.

If you replace 10lb of fat with 10lb of muscle, your body will burn roughly 40 more calories a day at rest. This doesn’t sound like much, but it accumulates to become 280 extra calories burned a week, and 1,120 a month — that’s enough to lose weight without dieting.

So add a few press-ups, squats and lunges to your fitness programme, or try an exercise DVD that incorporates resistance bands or weights (whether that’s using bottles of water or dumbbells), or alternate your aerobics class with something such as Body Pump, which is weight-training to music

This could be why you're fat - 2

2011-09-20T11:42:00.000Z

WEIGHT GAIN SINCE VISITING YOUR GP

COULD BE: Medication-related side-effect.

Many drugs are linked to weight gain, including anti-depressants, prescriptions for migraine (Pizotifen, Valproate), diabetes (gliclazide, glimepiride, glipizide, Nateglinide, repaglinide, glitazones — e.g. pioglitazone), high blood pressure (beta-blockers) and the Pill.

WHO'S AT RISK? Anyone taking the medication listed above, though while some drugs push one person’s weight up, they might push another’s down.

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: ‘If you are convinced that your weight has increased only since you’ve been taking the medication, check the side-effect profile,’ says Dr Rob Hicks, a London GP.

‘If “possible weight gain” is listed, ask your GP if you can try a suitable alternative. But don’t stop taking them without seeking medical advice.’

This could be why you're fat - 3

2011-09-20T11:41:00.002Z

FIT BUT FAT

COULD BE: The wrong kind of exercise.

If you don’t change your gym routine, fitness levels can quickly plateau, and your body will adapt, meaning fat and calorie-burning efficiency dramatically drops.

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: The key is to vary your routine and also introduce more intense sessions within your exercise programme.

A rigorous exercise plan, which incorporates short bursts of high-intensity exercise (such as sprints), will switch on the body’s metabolism, for up to 24 hours later.

Dr Ulf Ekelund, who is a specialist on exercise and obesity with the Medical Research Council, says that by simply switching from walking to jogging, you can increase your calorie burn by 100 per cent and halve the amount of time you need to spend doing it.

This could be why you're fat - 4

2011-09-20T11:41:00.001Z

PEAR-SHAPED, WITH FAT LEGS AND THIGHS

COULD BE: Lipoedema.

This swelling in the legs and thighs is caused by abnormal accumulation of fat cells in the tissues under the skin, and a build-up of fluid in those fat cells.

Another tell-tale sign is that the legs often feel very tender (it is also called ‘painful fat syndrome’) and bruise easily. They may also have a cellulite appearance.

‘Many doctors confuse it with weight gain or it can be confused with lymphoedema, which is caused by a problem with the lymphatic drainage system,’ explains Constantinos Kyriakides, a vascular surgeon at Barts and London NHS trust.

‘Lipoedema tends to concentrate in the calves, knees, thighs and lower girth, whereas lymphoedema can affect other parts of the body.

‘Weight seems to have no bearing on the condition, so you can have a very slim upper body, but very heavy buttocks, thighs and lower legs.’

WHO'S AT RISK? It affects 5 to 10 per cent of the female population. No one knows what triggers it, but a family link has been found in roughly a fifth of cases.

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: There is no cure, but special bandaging (compression garments) can support the tissues and encourage the lymph system to drain excess water

This could be why you're fat - 5

2011-09-20T11:40:00.001Z

TIGHT WAISTBAND, BLOATED FEELING

COULD BE: Food intolerance.

Other tell-tale signs include flatulence, nausea, diarrhoea and discomfort after eating, possibly combined with fatigue and aching joints.

If your body is intolerant to certain foods, it finds them difficult to digest and they will stay in the digestive tract partially digested, bubbling and fizzing with bacteria.

Wheat and milk are common triggers. According to GP Dr Rob Hicks, intolerance to the lactose in milk and dairy products is ‘hugely under-diagnosed’.

He adds: ‘I believe that many people who have been told they probably have IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) may, in fact, be lactose-intolerant.’

WHO'S AT RISK? We all produce less of the enzyme lactase (which should break down the lactose in dairy products in the gut) from the age of two. In some people, the levels drop faster than others.

Lactose intolerance is more common in older adults.

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: Keep a food diary of everything you eat and drink, including any medication, and, in a separate column, jot down details of symptoms.

According to Lindsay McManus, spokesperson for Allergy UK, food intolerance symptoms may be delayed (unlike allergy symptoms, which can be immediate). But after a few weeks, you may begin to see a pattern emerging.

If you identify possible triggers (wheat, milk and eggs are the most common intolerances) experiment by excluding one (only one at a time) from your diet for a few days.

‘If you have an intolerance, you should feel better within one to two weeks,’ says Ms McManus.

‘You can double check by putting the food group back to “challenge” your intolerance. Any reaction will normally be swifter and more extreme than before.’

If symptoms are severe, take your food diary to your GP and ask to be referred to a dietitian, who may supervise an exclusion diet and advise on a replacement to ensure nutritional balance.

This could be why you're fat - 6

2011-09-20T11:39:00.000Z

WEIGHT GAIN IN YOUR 40s AND 50s

COULD BE: Middle-aged hormone changes.

Around 90 per cent of menopausal women find they gain up to a stone in weight very gradually during their peri-menopausal years (which can start in the late 30s).

The excess weight will normally target the middle of the body. Men may be similarly affected, according to U.S. gynaecologist and pharmacist, Dr C. W. Randolph. He says this is the result of an imbalance of the sex hormones: oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone.

Both men and women experience a sharp drop in progesterone, men also see a drop in testosterone.

In both cases, this allows the hormone oestrogen to become dominant. Dr Randolph says too much oestrogen increases body fat, makes the body better at storing fat, and inhibits its ability to use fat stores effectively for energy.

‘The result is extra weight that won’t go away, even with more exercise or less eating,’ he says.

WHO'S AT RISK? The over-40s.

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: A healthy diet and active lifestyle . . . and a degree of acceptance.

For women particularly, oestrogen from the fat cells can lessen other symptoms associated with the menopause, such as anxiety and hot flushes, and offers at least some protection against osteoporosis.

This could be why you're fat - 7

2011-09-20T11:38:00.001Z

STUBBORN FAT AROUND THE MIDDLE

COULD BE: Polycystic ovary syndrome.

This is a hormone-related condition that affects 5 to 10 per cent of women of childbearing age.

It can appear at any time after puberty and usually eases off by the menopause.

The fat generally appears around the middle — on the tummy, chest and back.

Other tell-tale signs include irregular or absent periods, acne, excess hair on the face and thighs. Most of the symptoms are triggered by too much testosterone and other male hormones.

Sufferers very often also have a condition called insulin resistance, which makes them gain weight very easily — only to find losing it very difficult, too. If you are insulin-resistant, the cells react sluggishly to the hormone insulin — which mops up excess blood sugar.

The blood sugar is instead sent to your liver and converted into body fat, which is then deposited usually around the middle of the body (so it is close to the major organs to be instantly accessed if needed)

WHO'S AT RISK? Women of childbearing age. While no one knows what causes it, there is thought to be a genetic link.

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: If your weight gain comes with irregular or absent periods, acne, excess hair on the face and thinning hair, ask your GP for a blood test; you may also be offered an ultrasound scan of your ovaries.

There is no cure for the condition, but medical treatments (such as the Pill and the diabetes drug, metformin) can ease symptoms.

Switching to a low GI diet can help to control excess insulin (and therefore reduce weight gain and many other symptoms).

This could be why you're fat - 8

2011-09-20T11:37:00.000Z

CREEPING WEIGHT GAIN & PUFFY FACE

COULD BE: An under-active thyroid gland.

The thyroid gland (situated in the neck) is responsible for controlling metabolism through the release of certain hormones (thyroxine and triiodothyronine) — these influence heart rate and body temperature and help convert food into energy.

Symptoms include brittle hair and nails, little energy, dry skin and a tendency to feel cold. If your thyroid is not functioning properly, your body can produce too much of a gel-like substance, called mucopolysaccharides, which will make you puffy (most noticeable around the face).

WHO'S AT RISK? Women are ten times more likely to develop this than men; most often it strikes after pregnancy or the menopause. Poor nutrition can affect your thyroid gland, says the support group Thyroid UK.

More commonly, it’s linked to the immune system attacking the thyroid gland. It tends to run in families, says Dr Mark Vanderpump, an endocrinologist at the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, in London.

‘You may be born with a susceptibility and then meet something in the environment such as a virus, stress or pregnancy which triggers it,’ he explains.

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: Ask your GP for a blood test. If you are found to have a sluggish thyroid (hypothyroidism) you may be prescribed levothyroxine (a synthetic version of the hormone thyroxine).

This could be why you're fat - 9

2011-09-20T11:36:00.002Z

FEELING PUFFY, GENERAL BLOATEDNESS

COULD BE: Water retention (or possible liver or kidney failure).

Intermittent swelling or water retention is normal (‘it’s not a problem if it comes and goes,’ says Dr Hicks) in both sexes.

However, persistent swelling could be a sign of something that is more worrying.

Other common symptoms include swollen ankles and lower legs and areas of tightness.

‘You can pinch areas of fat,’ explains Dr Hicks. ‘But waterlogged areas will be much firmer, and not so easy to pinch.

‘If the kidneys or liver are failing, they will be unable to flush salts out of the body. Fluid is then drawn into the tissues in an attempt to dilute it.’

Who’s at risk? People with poorly or uncontrolled hypertension (high blood pressure) diabetes (which can cause kidney failure), or excess alcohol consumption/hepatitis (which can trigger liver failure).

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: With intermittent water retention, increased activity might help, as can cutting down on salt and drinking lots of water.

However, persistent water retention should be checked by your GP.

This could be why you're fat - 10

2011-09-20T11:36:00.001Z

PERSISTENT WEIGHT GAIN

COULD BE: Genetic.

Numerous studies have sought to identify specific genes linked to weight gain — most recently Scottish researchers have found a gene which encourages fat storage.

‘We’ve known for a long time that there’s a strong genetic component to being overweight, and studies have shown genes can control appetite,’ says Dr Nik Morton, of Edinburgh University, whose team led the research.

‘Our study suggests genes in fat tissue determine the breakdown or putting down of fat, regardless of diet.’

Last year, U.S. scientists reported that they’d found a gene — Arrdc3 — that causes weight gain in men as they age.

WHO'S AT RISK? An estimated one in six people has a vulnerable genetic make-up and as a result weighs an average of 3kg (7lb) more than those who don’t, with around 15 per cent more body fat.

WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION: You just have to work a bit harder than everyone else. There is clearly a component to obesity that is genetic,’ says Mark McCarthy, professor of genetics at Oxford University.

‘But many people with this variant are not overweight. Being overweight is probably a combination of genes and other factors, and people still have control over these other factors and can still lose weight.’

This could be why you're fat - 11

2011-09-20T11:35:00.001Z

Studies show that men and women are prone to ‘weight contagion’, whereby our attitude to food, weight and dieting is influenced by the people around us.

One large, long-term U.S. study found that if a man has a male friend who becomes fat, his risk of becoming overweight is doubled.

Interestingly, however, having an overweight wife does not appear to have as strong an effect.

Weight-loss solution: Join a running group or gym with an active social life and include slim, fit people in your social circle. They will motivate you and stop you from thinking your extra weight is OK.

Is it my fault I am fat?

2011-09-19T12:44:00.001Z

Of course it isn’t our fault we’re fat. It is the fault of the food, isn’t it, and all those genetic factors we have absolutely no control over?

At least that’s the view of certain scientists. And it is nothing short of heart-warming to hear that these scientists have discovered the reason we love to binge on fatty foods. Hurray – another excuse explaining away obese Britain’s daily fix of cake and cheese on toast.

What would be much more useful would be finding out not why we scoff fatty foods, but how to stop scoffing them so frequently. Unfortunately it looks like such a remedy is, as yet, unforthcoming.

DNA makes Europeans eat more fat than Asians
Anyway, the new bit of science comes from the labs of Aberdeen University, where a switch has been discovered in the brain that reveals Europeans are far more likely to binge on fatty foods than Asians.

This “DNA switch” (that’s about as technical as we’re going to get here, folks) turns a gene called the galanin gene on and off. And this galanin gene resides in the brain’s hypothalamus, and regulates appetite and thirst.

The finding shows that this switch is usually weaker in Europeans than in Asians, and so Europeans (those of European descent) find it more difficult to resist fatty foods.

“The switch controls the area of the brain which allows us to select which foods we would like to eat, and if it is turned on too strongly we are more likely to crave fatty foods,” explains Dr Alasdair MacKenzie, who led the study, which was published in the Neuropsychopharmacology journal.

“These results give us a glimpse into early European life. A preference for food with a higher fat content would have been important for survival.”

Fat saved us in the Ice Age
This is because it was so cold for our ancestors during the Ice Age that they needed all the food they could get to survive, and fatty foods can be laid down (in bums and tums) for when food gets scarce.

It is interesting that our genetic make up has adapted so little in 20,000 years, and the researchers hope this might give some insight into potential cures for obesity.

Is this just another excuse?
As for me, I just think it’s another fabulous wheeze for blaming being overweight on someone or something else. There are so many excuses flying around for why, as a nation, we are so fat. It’s as if "make them stuff their faces" were the one manifesto promise governments had kept in the past two decades.

Biological and psychological reasons for weight problems
There is very clear evidence that certain illnesses, such as endocrine disorders, make one put on weight. Lots of prescribed medications will have the same effect.

Then there is the psychological drama of eating, which lays down the patterns for serious disorders and confusing emotional eating patterns from a young age in many people.

We are too greedy
But come on, in addition to the above, why can nobody just admit that they like butter and they like ice cream? Why are we too scared to say that we are fat because we drank beer and ate sausages last night, and couldn’t be bothered to go to the gym this morning?

Are Asians really likely to say no to less healthy foods because of a DNA switch, or are their societies not yet as bloated on fast food? The last time I looked, curries and Indian sweets are not easy on the fat content.

I commend all the research being done into finding solutions for the obesity epidemic, but it doesn’t help to put the problem down to genetics and absolve us all of eating too much.

Stand still, be fit

2011-09-10T17:16:00.002Z

So you want to read the truth when trying to lose weight?

2011-08-30T19:24:00.000Z

There is no supplement or “natural health product” that has been demonstrated to have any sustained, meaningful effects on weight.

Judging by the traffic patterns to this blog, it’s clear many visitors are searching for the science behind different supplements. Here’s a roundup of some of the weight loss products and strategies that have been reviewed over the past two years:

Mulberry Zuccarin – despite the claims, mulberry has no evidence supporting its use as a weight loss product.

Detox Kits – the idea of “detoxification” as a process you need to undertake is a marketing myth, without any basis in reality.

Adrenal fatigue – an alternative medicine marketing term, adrenal fatigue doesn’t exist.

Chili Burn – Two ineffective ingredients (green tea and chili peppers) combined into one product.

pH Balancing - If you can read this, your body’s pH is just fine. No supplements or testing needed.

Apple Cider 600 – This product has its roots in seventies folklore. Efficacy claims are implausible and unproven.

Science-Based Pharmacy could be dedicated solely to weight loss products and would never run out of products to review. But here’s the good news: If you want to lose weight, there are science-based interventions you can make, and there are bloggers out there that lay out the reality of dealing with obesity. Follow these blogs, like I do, for credible information:

Dr. Arya Sharma’s blog – Dr. Sharma is Professor of Medicine & Chair for Cardiovascular Obesity Research and Management at the University of Alberta. He is also the Scientific Director of the Canadian Obesity Network. Dr. Sharma blogs about a wide variety of obesity-related topics. I especially appreciate his explanations of the mechanisms and root causes of obesity, as well as his critical appraisals of the latest research findings.

Weighty Matters – Dr. Yoni Freedhoff is a family physician and founder of founder of Ottawa’s Bariatric Medical Institute. Dr. Freedhoff doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to sorting out the science from the fiction of obesity management. I particularly enjoy his perspective on policies related to nutrition, as well his skeptical appraisal of the different food industry players.

Obesity Panacea – Obesity researchers Travis Saunders and Peter Janiszewski blog about popular weight loss products, and also cover obesity, nutrition and physical activity.

Other obesity and nutrition blogs I recommend include author Marion Nestle’s Food Politics, and of course, Science-Based Medicine which does cover the occasional obesity and nutrition-related topic.

Pull-up

2011-06-12T15:40:00.001Z

15 Minutes a day

2011-04-11T11:19:00.001Z

Finding a spare quarter of an hour during the day can seem a tall order for some of us and to others it’s really not that important. One thing’s for sure, setting aside fifteen minutes a day to keep fit is essential for a long and healthy life! So let’s find a way to chip away five minutes here and five minutes there and stop making excuses!

8 minutes to tone your body

To tone your lower body (buttocks, hamstrings and calf muscles), perform sets of lunges holding a weight in each hand (begin with 500 grams). Tighten your buttocks, pull your stomach in, keep your back straight and let your arms hang down by your sides. Move your right leg forward and then lower your body by bending at the knees creating a 90° angle (so your rear left leg is balanced on its toes). Raise your body up keeping your back really straight and bring your feet together back to your starting position. Perform sets of 10 lunges alternating with your left leg.

To strengthen your chest and upper body, remain standing with your arms stretched out on each side. Begin by moving your arms in small circles 20 times first in one direction, then 20 times in the other direction. Next move your arms up and down using little movements and then rotate your arms 20 times (with your palms facing downwards, then upwards).

As the days go by, you can of course increase the speed, frequency and number of repetitions.

2 minutes to clear the lungs

Because our breathing is instinctive, we don’t do it correctly. Yet our body’s mechanism for taking in vital oxygen says a lot about our state of mind. For instance, anxious or hyperactive people tend to take jerky breaths, while “lethargic” people breathe out for longer than they breathe in. In any case, breathing has to be learnt and breathing well comes with a bit of training. In the long term, you will be surprised to see its positive effect on stress levels, digestion and sleep...

Lie down on a hard, flat surface and place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach. Breathe in through your nose for 5 seconds, feeling your stomach expand with air. Hold your breath for 5 seconds and then breathe out very gently through your mouth for 10 seconds to expel all the air from your stomach. Repeat this exercise 5 times.

And 5 minutes to stretch

During all this physical effort, you’ve been oxygenating your muscles. So now you should give them a good stretch to get rid of the toxins and relax them. If you have woken up with pain in your muscles or joints or if you’ve been sitting down all day, stretching will loosen you up and ease the pain.

Standing up with your arms stretched above your head and feet slightly apart, stretch your spine as much as you can as if you are trying to touch the ceiling. Stay in this position for ten seconds or so, inhaling and exhaling deeply. Relax and breathe out.

Next, grasp your right ankle with your right hand and bring your heel up to your bottom. Hold this position for ten seconds or so. Stretch your left thigh in the same way.

Sit down on the ground, with your legs stretched out and your feet together. Breathing out, slide down slowly and try to grasp your feet. As soon as you feel your muscles “pulling” (don’t force it), stay in that position for about ten seconds then relax. Finally, lie down on your back and bring your knees up onto your chest to completely relax your lower back.

Save money

2011-04-05T17:05:00.001Z

A non-profit group called The Environmental Working Group releases an annual report of the fruits and vegetables that are most likely to contain pesticides. They dubbed this group the “dirty dozen” and collect their information from more than 87,000 government tests. The most recent report shows that peaches top the list for most pesticides. Others include: apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, nectarines, strawberries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots, and pears. So be sure to buy these produce items organically.

On the other hand, the 15 fruits and vegetables that are least likely to contain pesticide residue include: onion, avocado, sweet corn, pineapple, mango, asparagus, sweet peas, kiwi, eggplant, papaya, watermelon, broccoli, tomato, sweet potato, and cabbage.

You can save money by purchasing these items at a regular grocery store, if need be. You don’t need to buy the organic versions.

Posture

2011-04-03T22:16:00.001Z

1. Elongate your torso

'Become mindful of your body's alignment,' says ballet-tone teacher Alexandra Wood. 'Stand tall, shoulders back, with your chest open. Focus on lengthening your torso by pulling up from your pubic bone through your abs, towards the crown of your head and right up to the ceiling. Imagine you're creating more space between each bone in your spine.'

2. Tighten your tummy

We've all wobbled, one-legged, in a yoga class, but you'll never see a ballerina hopping around the stage trying to get her balance. Firm up your core and you'll stand firm, too. Once your muscles are warm, stand straight and hold on to something sturdy. Slowly lift your outside leg in front of you, then swing it back so it's just behind you with your toes pointed. Keep your upper body still and your shoulders back.

3. Lengthen your legs

Remember first position in your ballet classes? Stand upright with your heels together and your feet angled at 45°. Slide your left leg out in front, then out to the side before sliding it back to the centre, then repeat on your right side. Remember to engage your abs throughout - all your weight will be on one leg, so your core muscles will help you balance.

4. Stretch your spine

'You're likely to crunch up your lower back muscles if you sit at a desk all day,' says Melissa, 'but this move will really stretch out them out.' Sit on the floor with your feet flexed against a wall and bend your upper body over them. Now ask someone to gently press down on your upper back - you'll get a good pull in your lower back, too. Follow this by kneeling down, leaning over your thighs and reaching forward with your arms for a lovely full back stretch.'

5. Straighten up that slouch

On the train, at the dinner table or at a desk - we're all guilty of slouching. Fight the slump with this Royal Ballet approved move. 'Hold a resistance band or a broom handle above your head, lean your arms right back and stretch them out wide', says Melissa Hamilton, soloist with the Royal Ballet. 'It's a super simple stretch and a great way to mobilise your joints and banish round shoulders.'

Green remedies

2011-04-01T09:58:00.001Z

Did you know that one of the simplest, least expensive and non toxic alternatives to deodorants and antiperspirants is simply plain soap?

I haven’t used deodorants or anti perspirants for over three decades. Most people don’t realize this, but the underarm stains on your shirts are actually created by the chemicals from these products – not by your sweat. Avoiding antiperspirants and deodorants is just one way to reduce your toxic burden.

Although I’ve not yet read DeJong’s book, I like to promote sensible, non-toxic solutions to the chemical-laden products and remedies most people use on a daily basis.

The Green-Washing of Organic Personal Care Items

Sales of ‘green’ or organic personal care products reached $350 million in 2007 – an increase of 24 percent from 2005. But as the demand for natural and organic products has risen, so has the practice of “green washing.”

As the list above shows, there are a number of greenwashing tactics to look out for, if you’re still purchasing these products instead of making your own.

Chemicals You Definitely Want to Avoid

Did you know that if you use conventional cosmetics on a daily basis, you can absorb almost 5 pounds of chemicals into your body each year! Many of which have been linked to deadly side effects like cancer.

Below I’ll offer a few simple, non-toxic alternatives to help you avoid some of these hazardous chemicals, which can be found in many personal care products:

Paraben, a chemical found in underarm deodorants and other cosmetics that has been shown to mimic the action of the female hormone estrogen, which can drive the growth of human breast tumors.

Phthalates, plasticizing ingredients (present in nearly three-quarters of 72 products tested by the Environmental Working Group), which have been linked to birth defects in the reproductive system of boys and lower sperm-motility in adult men, among other problems.

Musks, used as fragrances, can accumulate in your body, and have been linked to skin irritation, hormone disruption, and cancer in laboratory studies.

Artificial fragrances, which are among the top five known allergens, and can cause asthma and trigger asthma attacks.

Methylisothiazolinone (MIT), a chemical used in shampoo to prevent bacteria from developing, which may have detrimental effects on your nervous system.

Toluene, made from petroleum or coal tar, and found in most synthetic fragrances. Chronic exposure linked to anemia, lowered blood cell count, liver or kidney damage, and may affect a developing fetus.

Mineral Oil, Paraffin, and Petrolatum, these products coat your skin like plastic, clogging pores and creating a build-up of toxins. They also slow cellular development, which can cause you to show earlier signs of aging, and are a suspected cause of cancer and disruption to hormonal activity.

I highly recommend using the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database where you can look up a wide variety of products and brands to find out what they’re really made of, and whether or not they’re safe.

Being choosy and only using products made of real, recognizable, natural and organic ingredients bearing the USDA Certified Organic seal, is your best bet when purchasing products that go into your body, or onto your skin.

Easy-Breezy Home-Made Beauty Products

Like DeJong, I believe the absolute easiest way to ensure that you’re not being exposed to potentially hazardous agents is to simply make your own personal care products, using simple all-natural ingredients that many of you may already have in your home.

Here are a few of my recommendations:

All-natural moisturizers -- Pure emu oil is a great alternative to facial- and body moisturizers and lotions, as is pure coconut oil. It’s a fantastic moisturizer and a potent source of the beneficial fat lauric acid.

All-natural acne fighter -- Rubbing just a drop of oregano oil on a breakout can speed up the healing and prevent unsightly scarring without resorting to harsh commercial acne medication (remember to wash your hands thoroughly afterwards).

All-natural deodorant – I advise stopping ALL antiperspirants. Common soap and water works fine. If you still need further help then try a pinch of baking soda mixed into water as an effective all-day deodorant.

All-natural shampoo and soaps – You can find clean, non-chemical soaps at many health food stores.

Finding recipes for your own homemade beauty products is a breeze when you have access to the internet. Just Google “homemade cosmetics” for more than 400,000 pages of recipes and instructions.

Home remedies - 1

2011-04-01T09:56:00.004Z

Olives may be of some help here, but ginger is far better. It's traditionally used to treat nausea, but also seems to work quite well against motion sickness. To make a tea, simply slice off a small amount of fresh ginger and steep it in hot water for 30 seconds up to several minutes. Ginger is very potent, so taste it at regular intervals of about 30 seconds—it can get very strong fast!

Alternatively, for a quicker but less elegant solution, just take a half teaspoon of the fresh ginger and finely dice it with a knife and swallow it whole. It has worked every time I have had the need for it. It probably is the most consistently effective herbal food that I have seen work nearly every time.

In addition to ginger, the University of Maryland Medical Center also suggests using peppermint and black horehound, which is actually a traditional remedy for motion sickness.

These herbs can be taken as:

Dried extracts in the form of capsules, powders, or teas
Liquid extracts or tinctures

To make a tea using dried herb, put about one teaspoon of the herb into a tea strainer and place it in a cup of hot water. Avoid adding sugar. If you absolutely need some sweetness, try a couple of drops of liquid stevia instead.

Another excellent method that you can do whenever and wherever motion sickness strikes, is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It balances your subtle energy system and calms your motion sensors, and this will calm your symptoms of motion sickness and allow you to finally enjoy the pleasures of travel.

Home remedies - 2

2011-04-01T09:56:00.003Z

The devil is in the details when it comes to the recommendation to use yoghurt to combat bad breath, because most of the yoghurt you find today is loaded with sugar and made from pasteurized milk. You do NOT want to use these commercially available yoghurts as they are more likely to do more harm than good.

Only use traditionally fermented yoghurt, such as kefir made from raw milk with no added sugar. Another alternative is to consume traditionally fermented foods (such as natto or tempeh), or take a high quality probiotic like Complete Probiotics.

How is it that these types of foods and bacteria can help against bad breath?

Because halitosis, or bad breath, is typically caused by systemic diseases, gastrointestinal and/or upper respiratory tract disorders, and microbial metabolism from your tongue, saliva or dental plaque—all of which are indicators of systemic unbalance, which can be remedied with probiotics in the form of an oral supplement or fermented foods.

In addition to reseeding the beneficial bacteria in your gut, I highly recommend limiting the primary fertilizer for the bacteria that cause bad breath, namely SUGAR and grains that rapidly break down to sugar. That automatically means cutting down on processed foods (which are high in both grains and sugars/high fructose corn syrup), as they cause bad odor-causing bacteria to grow out of control.

Beware that mouthwashes are only effective against bad breath caused by intraoral factors. Gargling and swishing can't help you much if your problem stems from an imbalance of bacteria in your intestinal tract, for example.

Home remedies - 3

2011-04-01T09:56:00.001Z

Definitely do NOT use sugar for hiccups. There are many better options that do not involve spiking your insulin.

One interesting method that seems to work is to have someone hold down the tragus of your ear to close off your ear canal while you drink a FULL glass of water. This has been the single most effective remedy I have ever used for hiccups. It is the rare occasion where it doesn't work.

Home remedies - 4

2011-04-01T09:55:00.003Z

A really simple, inexpensive way to relieve the hallmark itch of eczema is to put a saltwater compress over the itchy area. You'll want to use a high quality natural salt, such as Himalayan salt. Simply make a solution with warm water, soak a compress, and apply the compress over the affected area. You'll be amazed to find that the itching will virtually disappear!

You also want to make sure your skin is optimally hydrated. Skin creams are rarely the answer here, but rather you'll want to hydrate your skin from the inside out by consuming high quality, animal-based omega-3 fats in your diet, such as krill oil. I also find it helpful to include a bit of gamma linoleic acid, typically in the form of primrose oil, as this works remarkably well for eczema. Products like "krill for women" are good for both sexes for this condition as they have both fatty acids.

(Plant-based omega-3s like flax and hemp seed, although decent omega-3 sources in general, will not provide the clinical benefit you need to reduce inflammation and swelling in your skin.)

Additionally, food allergies play an enormous role in eczema. In my experience, the most common offending agent is wheat, or more specifically, gluten. Avoiding wheat and other gluten-containing grains is therefore a wise first step.

Avoiding grains will also reduce the amount of sugar in your system, which will normalize your insulin levels and reduce any and all inflammatory conditions you may have, including inflammation in your skin. Other common allergens include milk and eggs. I recommend you do an elimination trial with these foods as well. You should see some improvement in about a week, sometimes less, after eliminating them from your diet if either of them is causing you trouble.

Last but not least, vitamin D in the form of sun exposure can be your best friend when dealing with eczema and other skin conditions, such as psoriasis.

Ideally, you'll want to get your vitamin D from appropriate sunshine exposure because UVB radiation on your skin will not only metabolize vitamin D, but will also help restore optimal skin function. High amounts of UVB exposure directly on affected skin – but not so much to cause sunburn! – will greatly improve the quality of your skin.

If you can't get sufficient amounts of sun during the winter months, a high quality safe tanning bed can suffice. A safe tanning bed will provide the optimized forms of UVA and UVB wavelengths, without dangerous EMF exposure.

Home remedies - 5

2011-04-01T09:55:00.001Z

Interestingly, about five years ago I posted a video with the dubious recommendation to use Vicks VapoRub to treat toenail fungus. The response from my readers was amazing—hundreds of people wrote me to confirm it really does work!

My experience tells me that when such a large number of people anecdotally confirm something, it probably has some merit. So, although I can't explain why it works, it certainly seems harmless enough to give it a try. If you've ever had a toenail fungus, you know it can be a vexing problem that can last for years with no obvious solution, so this simple remedy could be a welcome boon for many.

One way to reduce your risk of fungal infections is to cut down on sugar, which feeds the fungi. Spending time in the ocean on a regular basis can also help.

I have also struggled with this problem and never found a prescription or natural approach to work until I started spending my winters in the sub–tropical environments. About 1 ½ years ago I had a recurrence after wearing neoprene "Five Finger" type shoes for six months with no socks.

However when I spent the winter in the subtropics wearing no shoes and having my toenails receive hours of direct sun exposure every day the problem disappeared. The UV rays were more than enough to solve the problem. No Vapo Rub required. This does take 4-6 months though of nearly daily sun exposure to work, in combination with wearing sandals most of the time so there is no moist environment for the fungus to grow.

Home remedies - 6

2011-04-01T09:54:00.000Z

If you're prone to headaches, I strongly advise you to evaluate your lifestyle to determine the root cause. There are many types of headaches, each with its own set of triggers.

For general headaches that do not appear to be due to tension or poor posture, I've found that avoiding wheat, grains, sugar, artificial sweeteners and preservatives, and all fluids but water seems to be particularly effective. Those suffering from recurrent migraines would also do well to heed this advice. Just remember to stay the course, as dietary changes do take some time to work.

Migraines are also another common type of headache and it has been my experience that artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame, trigger them in many people. So avoid all diet products.

Two methods that offer more immediate relief include intravenous magnesium and the Emotional Freedom Technique. EFT in particular is usually very effective for relieving pain of all kinds, oftentimes removing your pain in as little as a few minutes.

Home remedies - 7

2011-04-01T09:53:00.000Z

here's a mountain of evidence showing that vitamin D plays a key role in your immune system, so maintaining optimal vitamin D levels is your number one defense against infections of all kinds, including upper respiratory infections.

The wintertime deficiency of vitamin D (which your body produces in response to sunlight) has been implicated in the seasonal increase in colds and flu, and a number of studies have suggested an association between low blood levels of vitamin D and a higher risk of respiratory infections. For detailed guidelines on optimizing your vitamin D levels, please see my article Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency.

Another really simple and inexpensive treatment that is surprisingly effective against upper respiratory infections is hydrogen peroxide.

Many patients at my Natural Health Center have had remarkable results in treating colds and flu within 12 to 14 hours when administering a few drops of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into each ear. (A bottle of hydrogen peroxide in 3 percent solution is available at any drug store for a couple of dollars or less.) You will hear some bubbling, which is completely normal, and possibly feel a slight stinging sensation. Wait until the bubbling and slight stinging subside (usually 5 to 10 minutes), then drain onto a tissue and repeat with the other ear.

To treat a sore throat, few remedies are as tried-and-true as honey. Just make sure you use raw honey, as the vast majority of honey for sale in the United States is highly processed or refined, which, like most other refined foods, can promote disease and damage your health rather than help.

A simple recipe using all natural ingredients, such as raw honey, spices and herbs, can be found at the bottom of this previous article.

Are you too old to eat sausages?

2011-03-30T09:19:00.001Z

Decade by decade, how to eat the right food for the changing needs of your body

Be age-appropriate: Eat cheese in your twenties and avoid sausages if you are over 60

TWENTIES

You are at the peak of physical health, but may be taking your body for granted — drinking too much, skipping meals, losing sleep from partying and grabbing convenience foods.

EAT MORE . . . CHEESE

The intensive bone growth that happens in your teens continues into your 20s, making this your final opportunity to lay down new bone before the inevitable thinning process starts in your 30s.

So aim to get 700mg of bone-building calcium a day — equivalent to a pint of milk or 100g of Cheddar cheese, says nutritionist Dr Sarah Schenker.

But don’t ruin it with too many fizzy drinks, she warns — the phosphoric acid they contain impedes calcium absorption.

AVOID . . . COCKTAIL HOUR

Avoid alchorexia: Don't eat less to allow for extra calories in alcohol

Dietician Sian Porter, spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association, warns against ‘alchorexia’ — common among women in their 20s, where they restrict their daily food intake to allow for the extra calories in alcohol.

‘Alcohol provides empty calories, so you can end up with a very poor nutritional intake which will swiftly show up in the poor condition of your hair, nails and skin.’

Binge drinking can cause internal weight gain that you can’t see, says Dr Schenker. ‘Alcohol leads to the laying down of dangerous visceral fat around the internal organs, linked to heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers, in later life.’

FAD DIETS

Don’t be seduced by celebrity crash diets, which statistics show often ultimately result in weight-gain. Establishing good habits now sets you up for the coming decades.

Have a healthy breakfast such as porridge, scrambled eggs on toast or fruit. ‘Missing breakfast is a sure trigger for unhealthy eating patterns — it will leave you hungry mid-morning when healthy food choices are limited,’ says Dr Schenker.

THIRTIES

You’re juggling work, a partner, possibly young children and despite all your best intentions you probably grab meals on the go, or pick off your children’s plates, rarely sitting down to properly stock up on nutrients your body needs. You’re also likely to be sleep deprived.

EAT MORE . . . DRIED APRICOTS

If you’re tired, don’t seek a false energy hike from coffee, tea or cola which will only ever give a really short-term lift.

Dr Schenker recommends a diet packed with low-GI slow-release carbohydrates (with a little protein in every meal). ‘Try dried apricots — they release their energy very slowly — an apple, or a slice of nutrient-rich pumpernickel bread.’

MARMITE

All women who are planning to have children should be taking a 400mcg (0.4mg) supplement of folic acid each day. This nutrient is vital to prevent miscarriage and spina bifida) in an unborn baby.

‘Folate is also essential for blood health, and some studies have linked a poor folate intake to increased risk of breast, pancreatic and colon cancers,’ says Dr Schenker.

Boost your intake of folate-rich foods such as fruit and vegetables, wholegrains, lentils, pulses, and Marmite.

AVOID . . . GRAZING

Snack on apricots: Dried fruit releases energy very slowly

With a hectic lifestyle you run the risk of grazing on high fat, high salt, high sugar snacks to get you through the day — meaning you’ll put on weight and lack the nutrients you need to protect yourself from viruses and worse.

Snacking should be restricted to a handful of mixed nuts, an oatcake with a scrape of peanut butter, or carrot sticks dipped in hummus.

Sian Porter emphasises the importance of setting an example: ‘Children pick up healthy eating cues very early.’

FORTIES

Metabolic rate — for both men and women — is up to 10 per cent lower now than it was in your 30s, meaning you could put on weight, and be at increased risk of weight-related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

Women will be experiencing at least some of the hormonal upheaval of the peri-menopausal years, such as mood swings, hot flushes, and anxiety.

EAT MORE . . . STEAK

For women, if the menstrual cycle becomes erratic you could very easily become anaemic. ‘The signs of iron deficiency — lethargy, listlessness, inability to concentrate — are so frequently ignored,’ says Dr Schenker, ‘but you can very easily boost your natural iron levels through diet.’

She recommends lean red meat three to four times a week, along with plenty of eggs, beans, pulses and whole grains. Take some vitamin C (orange juice, kiwi fruit, tomato) at the same time to increase your absorption of iron.

SOYA

Foods rich in plant oestrogens such as soya, lentils, chickpeas and linseeds can help balance hormone levels. In Asia, where the average woman has a high daily intake of isoflavones in the form of tofu, miso and soy sauce or lentils, hot flushes are reported by only 14 per cent — compared with 80-85 per cent in the West. Choose tofu, soya and linseed bread and soya milk.

RAINBOW FOODS

Tuck in: Boost your natural iron levels with a juicy steak

As age starts to take a toll on your skin, get plenty of brightly coloured fruit and veg which contain skin-nourishing betacarotene, plus vitamin E (in avocados and wholegrains), and essential fatty acids in olive oil, nuts and seeds.

AVOID . . . THE BISCUIT TIN

With a slower metabolism, you will need to cut back by around 200 calories a day (or burn 200 more off through exercise). Small sacrifices (one KitKat, that extra glass of wine, the bread roll and butter with the starter . . .) will keep your body’s equilibrium.

FIFTIES

Men and women are at higher risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, and cancer.

EAT MORE . . . OATS

By adding soluble fibre to your diet in oats and pulses, and considering switching to specific brands of cholesterol-lowering milk, margarine and yogurt (such as Flora Active or Benecol), you can help lower your cholesterol levels.

AVOID . . . SALT

One of the main risk factors for heart disease is high blood pressure, caused by inactivity, too much alcohol, and salt. Cut down on salt and salty foods, and eat more potassium-rich foods such as bananas, fruit juice and dried fruit. ‘Potassium helps counteract the damaging effects of excess sodium (salt),’ says Dr Schenker.

SIXTIES AND OVER

Your metabolic rate will be 20-40 per cent lower than it was in your 20s, so weight gain can be an issue, and the risk of cancers significantly increases.

EAT MORE . . . PROBIOTICS

As you get older you increase the chance that you might end up in hospital, and if you do, according to Dr Schenker, your best line of defence is a daily probiotic. ‘Many experts believe probiotics provide a better line of defence for hospital patients than hand gels and washing,’ she says.

Studies have shown patients who take a daily probiotic drink in hospital reduce the risk of catching Clostridium difficile (C.diff).

DRINK MORE . . . TEA

We gradually lose the thirst sensation as we get older (the mechanisms of thirst lose their effectiveness with age) and we can easily become dehydrated, leading to tiredness, headaches, lack of concentration, kidney problems and cystitis. Water is always best — aim for eight glasses a day — but contrary to popular belief, coffee and tea count, too.

AVOID . . . SAUSAGES

Eighty per cent of bowel cancers arise in the over-60s, so cut back on processed meat (sausages, salami, ham, bacon, paté) which have been linked with the disease.

Scientists say a diet rich in folate — green and leafy vegetables — can lower the risk and will also keep your weight down, further decreasing your risk of cancer

Fitness myths

2011-03-28T12:57:00.000Z

Weight training is no good if you want to lose weight’

When we want to lose weight, we tend to combine calorie-cutting with sweaty aerobic exercise. This is all well and good, but there’s a third prong of the fork that many would-be slimmers miss out on: strength training. In a recent study, women burned over 350 calories more over a 24-hour period on days when they strength trained compared to days when they did not.

While lifting weights per se isn’t all that calorie-consuming, it creates a higher ‘afterburn’ (a period when metabolic rate remains elevated post-workout) than aerobic exercise. It’s also been found that a higher muscle mass is related to a higher metabolic rate during activity and at rest. And if that weren’t enough, a study showed that strength training while dieting helps the body hold on to lean tissue and shed body fat.

'You should keep your aerobic exercise intensity low to burn more fat’

Let’s dispel this myth once and for all ... Here are the facts: exercise at a low intensity uses fat as the predominant fuel, while exercising at a high intensity uses mainly carbohydrate. (There’s a continuum between the two, so as exercise gets progressively harder, the amount of carbs used increases and the amount of fat used decreases.) But the trouble is, low intensity exercise doesn’t burn many calories, while tougher workouts burn shedloads. Think of it as two pieces of pie. In the low-intensity pie, a whopping big slice of the calories comes from fat stores. In the high-intensity pie, only a sliver of the calories come from fat stores, but — and this is the crucial bit — the pie is much bigger. So overall, the amount of fat — and calories — burned is higher the harder you work.

'The step machine or step classes give you a big behind’

Unless you’ve set the resistance on the stepper so high that you can barely move the pedals up and down, the action of stepping will be an aerobic, low-resistance activity. This means that it won’t present sufficient stimulus to muscle tissue to cause it to grow (so lifting low weights lots of times is best for tone, too) and won’t have any affect on the size of your backside. Stepping is actually a great cardio workout that will boost aerobic fitness and improve muscular endurance in the legs and glutes. But keep your posture in check: stepping with your belly hanging out and back arched will give the appearance of a big behind! Keep navel gently drawn to spine and tailbone tucked slightly under.

‘As long as you walk 10,000 steps a day, you don’t need to do any other exercise’
Hmmm, this is a tricky one! It depends on your goals. The 10,000 steps a day guideline is aimed at prevention of disease rather than at improved fitness. Of course, if you start off sedentary, then achieving that target on a daily basis will certainly improve your fitness — but it still only counts as low-intensity aerobic exercise. For all-round fitness, you should ideally complement this with shorter but higher-intensity aerobic exercise (such as going for a run, taking a spinning class or doing circuit training), strength training (using weights or your own body weight for resistance) and flexibility work, in order to maintain or improve your suppleness. Each type of exercise has its own specific benefits, which is why it’s never ideal to stick to the same intensity or same method of activity every time.

‘Lifting low weights lots of times is best for tone’

We often talk about wanting to ‘tone up’ rather than build muscle, but what we really mean is that we want to ‘firm up’. To do this, we need to make the long protein tendrils within the muscle fibres thicker, so that there is less space between the muscle fibres and the overall feel of the muscle is denser. And contrary to popular belief, lifting a low weight countless times is not the way to do it. To make a muscle change, we need to create ‘overload’, by challenging it with something heavier than it is normally accustomed to. Lifting a weight that you can only manage to lift 6 to 12 times before fatiguing is the way to go to tame slack muscles.

‘Sit-ups are the best exercise to flatten the stomach’

Sit-ups, crunches and curls — any movement in which you curl your torso forward — work the ‘six-pack’ or rectus abdominis (RA) muscle in the front of the torso. Unfortunately, though, working this muscle doesn’t flatten the stomach. Deep below the six-pack lies a thick, corset-like strap of muscle that goes all the way around the waist, from back to front. This transversus abdominis (TA) muscle is the one that is responsible for flattening the tummy — and yet few of us ever pay it any attention! To activate your TA, put your thumbs on the sides of your waist, level with your navel, and extend your fingers over your pubic bone. Now draw the part of the tummy below the navel backwards (away from the fingers) without lifting the ribs or holding your breath. Practise this regularly throughout the day and once you can ‘engage your core’ (as we say in the trade!), check out The flatter tummy workout — part 1 and The flatter tummy workout — part 2 for some other good moves to try.

‘The more water you drink when you’re exercising, the better’

While it’s true that our need for fluid increases markedly during exercise, it isn’t necessary to glug down gallons of water to stay hydrated. In fact, the ‘glug’ approach is counterproductive as the body can only deal with so much fluid at once, and if you pour in too much, you’ll simply pee it right out again! Indeed, in some situations (such as prolonged endurance events) you could even put yourself at risk of hyponatremia — a potentially fatal condition. The best approach is to maintain good hydration 24/7, not just 10 minutes before your workout. If you ensure that you drink water and other fluids throughout the day, then you won’t be starting out dehydrated and will get by perfectly well taking a few sips during exercise.

And your stomach won’t be sloshing uncomfortably! International sports authorities have now stopped recommending a certain amount of fluid to drink during exercise, due to the increased number of cases of hyponatremia in recent years. They now suggest you drink according to your thirst, or that you weigh yourself before and after a timed workout and replace the amount of weight loss in grams with the same amount of fluid in millilitres (for example, if you run for an hour and lose half a kilogram in body weight, you should aim to drink 500ml of water during future one-hour runs.)

‘Running is bad for your knees’

Running has long had a bad press for wrecking knees, but provided you train sensibly, wear the right kind of running shoes and do sensible things like warming up, heeding niggling pains and running on a variety of surfaces, it’s actually quite good for them. A study published in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism showed that, far from increasing the risk of joint problems, running could protect against osteoarthritis by keeping joints and connective tissue strong, mobile and topped up with nutrients. Another study, published in the Journal of Rheumatology, found no difference in the amount or rate of degeneration in the knee and hip joints of runners and non-runners, although both groups experienced some degeneration with age.

‘The more exercise you do, the better’

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as too much exercise. It’s during rest, not exercise, that the body does all the necessary repairs and ‘housekeeping’ to make itself fitter and stronger — so if you take that rest away, you are never going to reach your full potential. You need at least 48 hours between strength training workouts to allow muscles to recover, and while you can do aerobic training and flexibility work daily, it’s wise to go by the ‘hard, easy’ rule — where you follow tough training sessions with a gentler workout the next day. Overtraining will also put you at risk of injury and can compromise your immune system — which may end up costing you weeks away from the gym while you recover.

‘You shouldn’t exercise too late in the evening or it’ll keep you awake’

We’ve long been told that only gentle activity, like yoga or Pilates, is suitable for the latter part of the evening. If we do any other sort of exercise in the evening, we’re told that we’ll be lying in bed, wide awake, for hours. Not so, according to sleep expert Professor Youngstedt from the University of California. He found that exercise was as effective as sleeping pills in helping insomniacs get to the land of Nod. ‘People should experiment for themselves to see whether exercise promotes better sleep,’ advises Professor Youngstedt. He also found that outdoor exercise was more effective in aiding sleep problems than indoor workouts.

Natraceuticals

2011-03-27T14:50:00.001Z

From cholesterol-lowering cheese to beetroot shots that claim to prevent blood clots and vitamin-enhanced water, supermarket shelves heave with nutraceuticals - so-called smart foods with ingredients added to provide medicinal effects.

But are they really as healthy as they claim to be?

Catherine Collins, principal dietician at St George's Hospital, London, analysed the nutritional content of some of the bestsellers, and the results were shocking.

MINICOL MATURE CHEESE

The claim: 'Proven to reduce cholesterol.'
Recommended dose: 68g (£2.13 for 195g).
Values per 100g: 400 cals, protein 22.5g, carbohydrates 1g, fat 34g (of which saturates 5g, monounsaturates 10.5g, polyunsaturates 18.5g).

Catherine says: The dairy fat has been removed and wheatgerm oil substituted in the cheese-making process, reducing the amount of saturated fat normally present in large amounts in hard cheeses. Wheatgerm oil naturally contains plant sterols, natural cholesterol-lowering agents.

Although this makes the cheese richer in healthier mono and polyunsaturated fats, which will also help manage cholesterol, the amount of cholesterol-lowering plant sterols from wheatgerm oil present in a usu

The 68g of cheese a day required for their cholesterol reducing claim would provide you with 320 calories and 23g of fat, virtually the equivalent to the fat in a Big Mac.

HOVIS HEARTY OATS LOAF

The claim: 'Helps maintain normal cholesterol.'
Recommended dose: None given (£1.4 for 800g).
Per slice: 109 cals, protein 5.4g, carbohydrate 16.4, fat 0.4g, jumbo oats 20 per cent, beta-glucan 1.1g, salt 0.5g.

Catherine says: You would need to eat six slices of this bread daily to consume enough beta-glucan - a dietary fibre found naturally in oats - to lower blood cholesterol.

Considering each slice contains 109 calories, you would be consuming 654 cals, which is around a third of the average woman's daily calorie requirement.

Six slices would also provide 3g of salt, half of the daily recommended healthy limit - that's as much as four bags of Walker's salt-and-vinegar crisps. High salt levels in the diet can lead to raised blood pressure, increased risk of heart attack and stroke, bone-thinning and even stomach cancers.

VITAMIN WATER

The claim: 'Vitamin enhanced beverage - vitamins + water = all you need.' Recommended dose: 500ml (£1.42 for 500ml bottle).
Per bottle: Spring water containing 50 cals, Vitamin C, niacin (B3), Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, pantothenic acid, sugar 13g.

Catherine says: This provides half the RDA of several water-soluble vitamins, but these ones are rarely deficient in the UK diet so they are a pointless addition.

There is no actual juice in this product but there is 13g of sugar which is about half of a can of Coca-Cola.

Instead, drink water and take a one-a-day multivitamin and mineral formula which provides a wider nutrient supplementation and is less likely to cause tooth decay.

BENECOL LIGHT YOGURT DRINK

The claim: 'One bottle a day is enough to lower your cholesterol.'
Recommended dose: 67.5g (£3.47 for 6 x 67.5g bottles).
Per bottle: 40 cals, fat 2g, carbs 7.3g, protein 2.8g, plant stanol ester 2g.

Catherine says: This product has been proven to work, reducing total cholesterol by up to 15 per cent and LDL (bad) cholesterol by ten per cent in just one shot per day.

However, considering this is labelled as a 'Light' product, one would expect it to have fewer calories than the normal version.

In fact, the fat content is the same, at 1.4g per bottle, and the sugar content in the 'normal' version is 3.1g, yet in the Light bottle it is 4.7g.

The 'normal' calorie count is 38 and the Light version is 40.

This may seem a small difference, but if you are counting the calories, are on a low sugar diet or have diabetes, then you have a product that is more sugary than the normal version.

MULLER VITALITY PREBIOTIC - PROBIOTIC LOW-FAT YOGURT DRINK

The claim: 'Helps maintain the natural balance of a healthy digestive system.' Recommended dose: 100g (£1 for 6 x 100g bottles).
Per bottle: 71 cals, protein 2.6g, carbohydrate 11.1, calcium 90mg, fat 1.4g (sats 0.9g), prebiotic fibre 2.5g.

Catherine says: This contains probiotic bacteria, which aid bowel flora - microorganisms - that keep the gut healthy. It also contributes to protein and calcium intake in modest amounts.

However, lack of clinical evidence means a nutritional claim for improved bowel health for these products is not possible, hence the vague 'healthy digestive system' claim.

Whether improved bowel health occurs is not proven but the bottle contains less than half the protein and half the calcium of a 125g pot of its sister product, Vitality Yoghurt, so it's better to buy the yogurt version.

BEET IT STAMINA SHOT

The claim: 'Tests have shown that the nitrate present in beetroot juice can prevent blood clots, protect blood vessels, and lower your blood pressure.'
Recommended dose: One bottle daily one to three hours before exercise (£1.85 for 70ml).
Per shot: 71 cals, protein 2.5g, carbohydrates 17g, fat 0g, dietary nitrate 0.3g.

Catherine says: Studies have shown that eating large amounts of beetroot can lower blood pressure. One theory is that the naturally occurring nitrates found in these are responsible.

Nitrate is generally harmless, but a small amount is converted by our saliva into compounds called nitrites which, in the presence of dietary protein, can be converted in the stomach into nitrosamines, chemical compounds that can be carcinogenic. Nitrates are also used in medicine - they dilate blood vessels which can help heart disease patients.

I find it a concern that this small 70ml bottle gives 30 times more nitrate than the maximum prescribed medical nitrate dose to control angina.

Flab Busting foods

2011-03-27T10:16:00.001Z

My Top 55 Lean-Body Foods to Build Lean Muscle and Lose Body Fat

by Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
Author of best-selling program: The Truth about Six Pack Abs

In most of my Lean-Body Secrets Newsletters, I like to provide a healthy snack or meal recipe that not only is delicious and healthy, but also helps to get you closer to that hard-body appearance that everyone is looking for, while also more importantly, improving your health for life. In this article, I'd like to give you healthy food ideas in a different way. This time, I figured I'd just give you some ideas of what I stock my fridge and cabinets with.

Remember, if you don't have junk around the house, you're less likely to eat junk! If all you have is healthy nutritious foods around the house, you're forced to make smart choices. Basically, it all starts with making smart choices and avoiding temptations when you make your grocery store trip. Now these are just some of my personal preferences, but perhaps they will give you some good ideas that you'll enjoy.

Some of these will be obvious healthy choices, such as fruits and veggies... however, others on this page I think will surprise you!

Alright, so let's start with the fridge. Each week, I try to make sure I'm loaded up with lots of varieties of fresh vegetables. During the growing season, I only get local produce, but obviously in winter, I have to resort to the produce at the grocery store. Most of the time, I make sure I have plenty of vegetables like onions, zucchini, spinach, fresh mushrooms, red peppers, broccoli, etc. to use in my morning eggs. I also like to chop up some lean chicken or turkey sausage (make sure to look for nitrate & nitrite free) or grass-fed bison sausage into the eggs, along with some swiss, jack, or goat cheeses (preferably raw grass-fed cheeses when I can find them).

By the way I'm talking about whole eggs, NOT egg whites. Always remember that the yolk is the most nutritious and nutrient dense part of the egg, so only eating egg whites is like throwing away the best part... and no, it's NOT bad for you because of the cholesterol... whole eggs actually raise your GOOD cholesterol. Try to get free range organic eggs for the best quality. Here's an entire article I did on the topic of whole eggs vs egg whites.

Coconut milk is another staple in my fridge. I like to use it to mix in with smoothies, oatmeal, or yogurt for a rich, creamy taste. Not only does coconut milk add a rich, creamy taste to lots of dishes, but it's also full of healthy saturated fats. Yes, you heard me right... I said healthy saturated fats! ...Healthy saturated fats such as medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), specifically an MCT called lauric acid, which is vitally important for your immune system.

If the idea of healthy saturated fats is foreign to you, check out my article about why saturated fat is not as bad as you think.

Back to the fridge, some other staples:

Walnuts, pecans, almonds - delicious and great sources of healthy fats. Try to get raw nuts if possible as the roasting process can oxidize some of the polyunsaturated fats in some types of nuts making those damaged fats slightly more inflammatory. Overall, nuts are still healthy even if they are roasted, but raw nuts are optimal.
Cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, and yogurt (grass-fed and organic if possible) - I like to mix cottage or ricotta cheese and yogurt together with chopped nuts and berries for a great mid-morning or mid-afternoon meal.
Chia seeds and/or hemp seeds - I add these highly nutritious seeds to yogurt, smoothies, or salads for a great nutty taste and loads of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins and minerals. Don't use pre-ground versions of these seeds as the omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable and prone to oxidation, creating high levels of free radicals if you use pre-ground seeds. No grinding is necessary to properly digest these seeds.
Whole eggs - one of natures richest sources of nutrients (and remember, they increase your GOOD cholesterol so stop fearing them).
Salsa - I try to get creative and try some of the exotic varieties of salsas.
Avocados - love them...plus a great source of healthy fats, fiber, and other nutrients. Try adding them to wraps, salads, or sandwiches.
Butter - don't believe the naysayers; butter adds great flavor to anything and CAN be part of a healthy diet... just keep the quantity small because it is calorie dense... and NEVER use margarine, unless you want to assure yourself a heart attack. Most important -- choose organic butter only, since pesticides and other harmful chemicals accumulate in the fat of the milk which is used for butter, so choosing organic helps avoid this problem. Also, choose grass-fed (pastured) butter if you can find it as it will contain higher levels of healthful omega-3 fats and the fat-burning conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).
Nut butters - Plain old peanut butter has gotten a little old for me, so I get creative and mix together almond butter with pecan butter, or even cashew butter with macadamia butter...delicious and unbeatable nutrition! Using a variety of nut butters gives you a broader range of vitamins and minerals and other micronutrients, and gives you variety instead of boring old peanut butter all the time.
Leaf lettuce and spinach along with shredded carrots - for salads with dinner.
Home-made salad dressing - using balsamic vinegar, spices, extra virgin olive oil, and Udo's Choice oil blend. This is much better than store bought salad dressing which mostly use highly refined canola or soybean oil (canola and soybean oil are both very inflammatory in the body). Here's an article showing why to NEVER use store-bought salad dressings.
Sprouted grain bread for occasional use -- My personal belief from years of nutrition research is that we're not really meant to consume the massive quantities of grains (not even whole grains) that we do in this day and age... a small amount may be okay, but our digestive systems are still primarily adapted to a hunter/gatherer type of diet with only a very small amount of grains, therefore I try to only have breads and other grain-based foods on cheat days.
Rice bran - If we're going to have some grain-based food, we might as well have the most nutrient dense part, and rice bran is one of those parts, since it includes the germ of brown rice too. Rice bran is loaded with vitamins and minerals but without the large amount of starch calories that rice has... and it actually adds a nice little nutty, crunchy taste to yogurt or smoothies, or can be added when baking to add nutrients and fiber to the recipe.

Some of the staples in the freezer:

Frozen berries - during the local growing season, I only get fresh berries, but during the other 10 months of the year, I always keep a supply of frozen blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cherries, etc. to add to high fiber cereal, oatmeal, cottage cheese, yogurt, or smoothies. I also get frozen goji berries sometimes for a little "exotic" variety.
Frozen fish - I like to try a couple different kinds of fish each week. There are so many varieties out there, you never have to get bored. Just make sure to ALWAYS choose wild fish instead of farmed versions, as the omega-3 to omega-6 balance is MUCH healthier in wild fish. Also, as this article shows, there are some possible other health issues with farmed fish.
Frozen chicken breasts - very convenient for a quick addition to wraps or chicken sandwiches for quick meals.
Grass-fed steaks, burgers, and ground beef: Grass-fed meats have been shown to have as high as, or even higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids than salmon (without the mercury). Also, grass-fed meats have much higher levels of fat-burning and muscle-building conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) compared to typical grain-fed beef that you'll find at your grocery store. I recently found an excellent on-line store where I buy all of my grass-fed meats now (they even deliver right to your door in a sealed cooler) - www.healthygrassfed.2ya.com
Frozen buffalo, ostrich, venison, and other "exotic" lean meats - Yeah, I know...I'm weird, but I can tell you that these are some of the healthiest meats around, and if you're serious about a lean healthy body, these types of meats are much better for you than the mass produced, hormone-pumped beef, chicken, and pork that's sold at most grocery stores.
Frozen veggies - again, when the growing season is over and I can no longer get local fresh produce, frozen veggies are the best option, since they often have higher nutrient contents compared to the fresh produce that has been shipped thousands of miles, sitting around for weeks before making it to your dinner table.

Alright, now the staples in my cabinets:

Various antioxidant-rich teas - green, oolong, white, rooibos (red tea) are some of the healthiest. One of my newest favorite teas is yerba mate, which is a south american tea that is loaded with antioxidants and other nutrients. I've found some delicious yerba mate mixes such as chocolate yerba mate, mint mate, raspberry mate, etc.
Oat bran and steel cut oats - higher fiber than those little packs of instant oats, which are typically loaded with sugar. If I'm trying to reduce body fat and get extra lean, I make most of my breakfasts based on eggs and veggies and bison sausage, but if I'm on a muscle building phase, I increase carbohydrate intake and use more oat bran and oatmeal.
The only healthy oils I have in my cabinets are virgin coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil. Macadamia oil may also be a reasonable choice as long as it's not "refined". But other than that, all "vegetable oils" (which is usually soy and corn oil) are total junk and very inflammatory. Never use soy or corn oils! Also, always avoid canola oil, as there is nothing healthy about canola oil, despite the deceptive marketing claims by the canola oil industry.
Cans of coconut milk (loaded with healthy saturated MCT fats) - to be transferred to a container in the fridge after opening.
Brown rice and other higher fiber rice - NEVER white rice
Tomato sauces - delicious, and as I'm sure you've heard a million times, they are a great source of lycopene. Just watch out for the brands that are loaded with nasty high fructose corn syrup. You also want to make sure that the tomato sauce is made with olive oil instead of unhealthy soybean oil or canola oils. Also get tomato sauces in glass jars instead of cans, as canned tomatoes are notoriously high in the dangerous chemical, bisphenol-A (BPA) due to the acidic leaching of BPA from the can lining.
Stevia - a natural non-caloric sweetener, which is an excellent alternative to the nasty chemical-laden artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharine, and sucralose.
Raw honey - better than processed honey... higher quantities of beneficial nutrients and enzymes. Honey has even been proven in studies to improve glucose metabolism (your efficiency in processing carbohydrates). I use a small teaspoon every morning in my teas. Yes, I know that even honey is pure sugar, but at least it has some nutritional benefits... and let's be real, a teaspoon of healthier raw honey is only 5 grams of carbs... certainly nothing to worry about, and a better choice than refined sugar.
Organic REAL maple syrup - none of that high fructose corn syrup Aunt Jemima crap...only real maple syrup can be considered real food. The only time I really use this (because of the high sugar load) is added to my post-workout smoothies to sweeten things up and also elicit an insulin surge to push nutrients into your muscles to aid muscle recovery.
Organic unsweetened cocoa powder - I like to mix this into my smoothies for an extra jolt of antioxidants or make my own low-sugar hot cocoa by mixing cocoa powder into hot milk with stevia and a couple melted dark chocolate chunks (delicious!).
Cans of black or kidney beans - I like to add a couple scoops to my Mexican dishes for the fiber and high nutrition content. Also, beans are surprisingly one of the best sources of youth enhancing antioxidants! Did you know that black beans and kidney beans have more antioxidants than blueberries...it's true!
Dark chocolate (as dark as possible - ideally more than 70-75% cocoa content) - This is one of my treats that satisfies my sweet tooth, plus provides loads of antioxidants at the same time. It's still calorie dense, so I keep it to just 1-2 small squares after a meal... but that is enough to do the trick, so I don't feel like I need to go out and get cake and ice cream to satisfy my dessert urges.

Lastly, another thing that's hard to go wrong with is a good variety of fresh fruits and berries. The staples such as bananas, apples, oranges, pears, peaches are good, but I like to also be a little more adventurous and include things like yellow (aka - mexican or champagne) mangoes, pomegranates, kumquats, papaya, star fruit, pineapples, and others. Also, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, black raspberries (the highest fiber berry) and cherries are some of the most nutrient and antioxidant-dense fruits you can eat.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this special look into my favorite lean body meals and how I stock my cabinets and fridge. Your tastes are probably quite different than mine, but hopefully this gave you some good ideas you can use next time you're at the grocery store looking to stock up a healthy and delicious pile of groceries

Spot reduction

2011-03-08T20:53:00.000Z

So you have heard many trainers or keen gym goers tell say how spot reduction is a myth and you can't target fat loss in specific areas of the body to burn fat from. Well they are half right in the way that you can not do specific exercise to achieve spot reduction but there is a way. It is achieved through manipulation of hormones. The way that it works is that if certain hormones are either too low or too high then it makes your body hold on to fat in certain areas of the body which then become problem areas for the individual and they work themselves into the ground to remove it through spot reduction and over all fat loss.

So to see how spot reduction can actually work for you look down the list below and pin point your 'problem area'. Then find the hormone imbalance that correlates to that and then read further down the article to understand how to correct this hormone imbalance.

Hormone	Area Of Excessive Body Fat Storage
Cortisol (High)	Umbilical. Excessive stomach fat
Estrogen (High)	Quadriceps, hamstrings, bum. Excessive fat gain in thighs and bum.
Insulin (High)	Suprailiac, subscapular. Excessive fat gain on 'love handles' and upper back
Testosterone (Low)	Pectoral, triceps. Excessive fat stored on the chest and backs of arms
Thyroid (Low)	Mid-axillary. Fat stored about 8 inches below the arm pit
Growth Hormone (Low)	Knee, calf. This reflects sleep patterns and overall fat loss

So the way to use this article to help you turbo charge your fat loss is to figure out where your storing most of your body fat. Move across to the hormone that is causing the problem and read on to find out how to get it back in check!

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Cortisol.

If high cortisol is the problem then:

*Reduce stress! Just try to spend time relaxing and not stressing about life. Get on top of things that you worry about, be around people who make you feel good, de-clutter your house, bring a pet home, get regular massages etc.

*Following the Elimination Diet . Foods that the Elimination Diet cut out are difficult for the body to digest and work with so they cause a release of cortisol.

*Cortisol is released in large amounts during exercise. That doesn't mean don't exercise but it does mean try to avoid cardio as this releases lots of cortisol. Try to do short sharp bursts of resistance exericse to keep cortisol levels down and raise your metabolism in the long run.

*Take an omega 3 supplement. Omega 3 fatty acids will help to lower cortisol levels. Everyone should supplement with omega 3. Get a high quality source as with fish oil you get what you pay for.

*Take Rhodiola Rosea. It is a Cortisol Modulator, meaning that if your cortisol is too low it will help you raise it and if too high, it will help you lower it.

*Ensure your sleep patterns are in order. You should be asleep by 10.30 and wake by around 6.30. Plus make sure your room is pitch black with few electrical items around. The few hours before you go to sleep try to dim down light, not exercise, not watch tv, not go on the computer. Winding down and avoiding unnatural light before you sleep will help you sleep and keep cortisol levels lower.

*Stop drinking alcohol. Alcohol will do all sorts of bad things to your body but with what were talking about here it will raise your cortisol levels.

*Follow these points and you will not only lower your cortisol levels and achieve spot reduction on the stomach fat but also get huge benefits in your health and fitness as a whole.

Spot reduction on the stomach area is the most common requirement for most people so if you have any friends or family that are going about stomach fat spot reduction the wrong way (sit ups!) then direct them to this page and let them get the same fat loss results your going to get.

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Estrogen.

Hight amounts of estrogen in the body can be lowered by:

*Eat lots of cruciferous vegetables. These are ones like broccoli, cabbage, sprouts etc.

*Not use or store water in plastic bottles. If you have to use plastic bottles try not to leave them in direct sunlight. The quality of a bottle can be seen by looking at the bottom of it. You will see a triangle of three arrows with a number in it. The lower the number the worse quality the plastic. Most bottles are 1 but if you look hard you can find some around 3. Try to drink mineral water from glass bottles.

*The supplement DIM can help to lower estrogen levels. DIM is a strong anti-estrogen that specifically targets the bad estrogens caused by phyto-estrogens in our environment.

*Also brocholi extract and green tea are used to combat estrogen "16" (the bad estrogen)

*Yohimbine can also help to lower estrogen levels. It is extracted from the bark of yohimbe trees. Yohimbine cream is definitely a better choice because oral delivery of yohimbine could result in systematically high blood levels that could have dangerous side effects on the heart and the CNS (central nervous system).

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Testosterone.

If you have low testosterone levels and want to boost them:

*Get a good amount of sleep. Just like the cortisol lowering tactic you need to be asleep by 10.30 and up at 6.30. A pitch black room with few electrical items near you also will help you get a good nights sleep.

*Eating foods like steak and nuts will really help to boost your testosterone.

*Weight train using big weightlifting exercises. Exercies like squat, deadlift, lunges, bench press, bent over row will boost testosterone far more than isolating smaller muscles like biceps and triceps. Also lift heavy weights that only allow you to perform 5-10 reps, rest 1 -2 minutes and complete 3 – 5 sets.

*Ensure you are resting just as hard as you train. For this you need to get your 8 hours sleep, not over train, feed your body with good nutrition.

*Stop drinking alcohol. Alcohol of any type will lower your testosterone levels significantly.

*Zinc is low in most active people so supplementing with zinc will help to boost the testosterone levels.

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Insulin.

*Following these few points will help to lower and keep your insulin levels in check:

*Taking a good quality fish oil supplement is not only the most important supplement that you could take but it will help to keep your insulin levels down.

*Consuming fats and protein in every meal so that they are eaten with your carbohydrates will slow down the release of the carbohydrates into the blood which will help to keep your insulin levels steady.

*Eating fewer carbohydrates is the main thing that will help with insulin levels. Also make sure the carbohydrates you are eating are whole nutritious, slower release carbohydrates like brown rice, sweet potato, pulses and try to avoid grains on the whole especially wheat.

The best time to eat carbohydrates is after you train.

The more insulin you produce the faster you age!

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Growth Hormone.

To raise your growth hormone try the following.

*Eat more protein in your diet. All foods raise growth hormone temporarily but especially protein raises it to a higher degree.

*Exercise more. Exercising releases more growth hormone than eating does and it raises it for longer as well. This effect will be far greater when your exercise program contains a high amount of resistance exercises in it.

*Getting the correct amount of sleep every night will allow your body to release more growth hormone to help it grow.

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Thyroid.

Thyroid problems can store body fat 8 inches below the arm pit. To combat this:

*Avoid soy products completely as they cause you to become hypothyroid.

*Some supplements that you can take to help this imbalance are gugulsterones (a compound of herb Guggul), bladerwrack, a natural source of iodine, zinc and selenium, all responsible for thyroid hormone production. Finally, Ashwaganda and Coleus root (a member of the mint family) both used frequently to stimulate the thyroid gland.

*Iodine is vital for thyroid function and there is a quick and easy way to test if your deficient. Put some iodine on some cotton wool and then draw a 2 inch circle on a soft part of your skin like the inside of the arm or leg. If the iodine disappears in under 2 or 3 hours then you are probably deficient. If the iodine stays on the skin for longer than that then you are probably ok for iodine. If you are deficient in it you can supplement on kelp.

Source: http://www.build-muscle-burn-fat.com/spotreduction.html

Bodyshape tips

2011-02-22T21:01:00.000Z

Follow these Top 12 Movement Lifestyle Nutritional Tips and watch your body shape change and your health soar. Remember that 80% of body shape transformation is down to what you eat

1. Avoid the 4 White Devils – Pasteurised dairy / White Flour / White Sugar / White/Table Salt
2. Eat Organic – increased mineral and vitamin density, significant reduction in exogenous chemical intake – Look for Soil Association certified
3. Eat raw vegetables once a day – sprouted/live salads are ideal here
4. Slow cooking – be very wary of denaturing fats and amino acids in your good quality produce. Overheating good produce is wasting it. Using a slow cooker or long slow roasting is best.
5. Protein – consume protein with every meal. Amino acids are the building blocks of life and are found more densely in animal products.
6. Avoid Soy – Contains thyroid inhibitors plus phytic acid which are mineral blockers and can cause gas. Upwards of 50% of the world’s soy crops are GM and with 3rd generation rats becoming sterile in a study of GM soy, I’d stay away!
7. Soaking grains – It is important to soak all grains, pulses, nuts and seeds prior to eating them to release the phytic acid that blocks the mineral uptake when eating these foods unsoaked. Commercially produced equivalents are acid washed to do this, be careful.
8. Alcohol – always make sure that you consume alcohol with fat and protein and never on an empty stomach.
9. Water – drink 3% of your body weight in KGs each day, for example if you weigh 100kg you need 3litres each day. Any teas or coffee consumed needs to be balanced with additional cups of water. I.e. 1 cup of coffee = 3litres of water plus 1 cup.
10. Salt – Add a pinch of good quality sea salt to each litre of water you drink, it increases mineral absorption and delivers better hydration.
11. Never use a microwave – foods that have been cooked in a microwave have particles that resemble plastic under a microscope after they have been cooked in one.
12. Eat every 3-4 hours to help balance blood sugar levels and avoid over eating and sugar craving particularly in the afternoons.

Source: http://movementlifestyleblog.com/?p=267#more-267

Deconstructing web pages

2011-02-21T21:33:00.001Z

Deconstructing Web Pages

This exercise takes you step by step through the process of deconstructing a Web page in order to determine its credibility as a source of information.

Imagine that you're a secondary student using the Internet to research a science project on the artificial sweetener, Aspartame. If the first response to your Web search is the page shown here, you might want to run to your kitchen and toss out that can of diet Coke.

This article is identified as a presentation made by a woman named Nancy Markle at the "World Environmental Conference and the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation F.D.A Issuing for Collusion with Monsanto on Aspartame." Ms. Markle quotes a number of experts who have discovered that:

* Aspartame is responsible for systemic lupus and methanol toxicity.

* Side effects include blindness, spasms, shooting pains, seizures, headaches, depression, anxiety, memory loss, birth defects.

* Many have died from Aspartame poisoning.

* A conspiracy between drug and chemical companies prevents this from being known.

* Government leaders and medical associations are oblivious to this danger.

Though these statements are passionate, further Web research is needed before accepting them as fact. Let's apply the Five W's of Cyberspace.

Who is Nancy Markle and WHO sponsored or attended the "World Environmental Conference on Aspartame?" Is information about the author and conference clearly stated or easy to access?

No contact or background information about the author or the conference she attended appears on this Web page. However, a Meta-Web information search can be used to dig a little deeper.

Using the search engine Google, a search for the name "Nancy Markle" brings up over 900 Web pages that refer to her.

From these results it becomes apparent that Nancy Markle is at the heart of an online Aspartame debate. The Web sites that turn up under a search for "Nancy Markle" either cite this article as proof that Aspartame is a health risk, or disagree with and refute Ms. Markle's claims.

The most surprising result of the search is that there is no Nancy Markle. It turns out that the original source of this "presentation" was actually a message posted to Usenet newsgroups by a woman named Betty Martini.

Betty Martini, who is not a medical professional, believes that there is a conspiracy between the industry creating Aspartame, and the American Food and Drug Administration. She has founded an organization called "Mission Possible International," whose Web site houses an archive of anti-Aspartame literature.

Information on the "World Environmental Conference on Aspartame" is also sketchy. If you search the Keynote Address archives of the American Environmental Protection Agency site — the organization that was supposed to have presented the keynote address at this conference — there is no reference to a conference by that name.

What are you getting? Is the information biased? Does the site use loaded language or make broad, unsubstantiated claims? Can the information be verified through other sources?

Let's check the statements made by Ms. Martini for bias.

...people were jumping up during the lecture saying “I’ve got this [aspartame disease], is it reversible?

...there are a lot of people out there who must be warned, *please* let them know this information.

Betty Martini uses emotional language to persuade her audience and to create a sense of urgency about spreading this message to a largely unsuspecting public. She makes strong assertions, but does so using vague language and anonymous sources. She implies that:

Aspartame causes multiple sclerosis

…During a visit to a hospice, a nurse said that six of her friends, who were heavy Diet Coke addicts, had all been diagnosed with MS. This is beyond coincidence.

and that Aspartame causes diabetics to go into comas.

...People were telling us…that they had relatives that switched from saccharin to an aspartame product and how that relative had eventually gone into a coma.

It's important to note the information gaps in statements like these. This article contains an abundance of unsubstantiated, anecdotal information, but very little factual evidence to substantiate claims. Ms. Martini blames Aspartame for almost every illness known to mankind, including brain tumors, blindness and Alzheimer's disease. Yet she offers no links to medical studies that might support her claims.

A critical reader might wonder why, if Aspartame is responsible for so many serious health problems, the Canadian and American medical associations have not raised the alarm. Because she specifically mentions connections between Aspartame and multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, it might be a good idea to see what these organizations have to say about this controversy.
The Canadian Diabetes Association says that "All sweeteners available in Canada go through rigorous testing. Once they have been approved it means that they are suitable for use by all Canadians, including those with diabetes."

The Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada posts an alert on its site regarding this article, and asks visitors to note that:

* There has been no published, peer-reviewed research on Aspartame and multiple sclerosis which would support these claims, and

* There is no evidence of an MS "epidemic," as claimed in the document.

Like the Canadian Diabetes Association, the Multiple Sclerosis Society also offers some pointers for judging if an Internet document or published article is credible. (The American Multiple Sclerosis Foundation goes one step further, and has posted a step-by-step rebuttal of Ms. Martini's allegations, written by their senior medical advisor.)

The Alzheimer Society of Canada makes no reference to Aspartame as a possible cause of Alzheimer's disease. When an email was sent to the Alzheimer site asking if they knew of any links between Aspartame and Alzheimer's a reply arrived the next day, saying that there were no known links between them.

When was this article posted? Is it current? Has it been updated?

Although the "What's" are certainly enough to make you question the information on this Web page, let's follow through on the other W's, to see what we come up with.

Questions surrounding the currency of this information also bring up some interesting points. The original Web page where this information was found was at , which dated the article December 12, 1998.

The Web page that attributes this document to Betty Martini, states that this document is "...a copy of an email Mrs. Martini had sent to a group of doctors following the 1995 World Environmental Conference," and that the original email had since been modified, and combined with other information.

This is confirmed by David Emery, from the Urban Legends and Folklore site, who includes a link to Betty Martini’s original posting, on December 3, 1995.

This original email also solves part of the mystery surrounding the nature of the conference she attended. From this email, it appears that Ms. Markle was a presenter at a "World Environmental Conference," not a "World Environmental Conference on Aspartame and Multiple Sclerosis."

Where is this Web page located? What's the nature of the site? Is it a personal home page? Is it part of a medical site? The article talks about the link between Aspartame and Multiple Sclerosis, so is it part of the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation's Web site?

Where is this Web page located? The original page where we found this information about Aspartame was at www.rense.com/health/sweetners.htm. By paring this URL down to it's domain name, www.rense.com/, we are able to learn more about the nature of the Web site hosting this information.

We discover that "rense.com" is the supporting Web page for the Jeff Rense radio show. Both the radio show and the Web site are dedicated to issues that don't make the mainstream news.

"From UFOs, ETs, abductions, alien implants, crop formations and the paranormal, to... the poisons in packaged food.... no interview program has a more consistently amazing content," says the Web site's introduction.

Interesting listening and reading to be sure, but not necessarily factual information.

Why would I use this site as a credible source of information? Can I verify the information I've found?

The question that remains to be asked, is WHY would we think this site is a credible source of information? In researching this topic, we've learned a number of things:

* First, there are individuals and organizations that believe Aspartame poses a health risk.

* Second, this belief is not shared by the medical profession at large and claims about the risks associated with Aspartame have not been clinically proven.

It's safe to assume that the individuals who believe that Aspartame is dangerous are sincere. It would also be accurate to use this Web site as an example of one side of the Aspartame debate. However, with no verifiable facts available to support the statements made by Ms. Martini, and a fair bit of confusion regarding the authorship and credibility of this article, it would be smart to pass on this Web page as an authoritative source of information.

Why get up early?

2011-02-19T00:36:00.000Z

Greet the day. I love being able to get up, and greet a wonderful new day. I suggest creating a morning ritual that includes saying thanks for your blessings. I’m inspired by the Dalai Lama, who said, ” Everyday, think as you wake up, ‘today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.’ “
Amazing start. I used to start my day by jumping out of bed, late as usual, and rushing to get myself and the kids ready, and rushing to drop them to school and come in to work late. I would walk into work, looking rumpled and barely awake, grumpy and behind everyone else. Not a great start to your day. Now, I have a renewing morning ritual, I’ve gotten so much done before 8 a.m., my kids are early and so am I, and by the time everyone else gets in to work, I’ve already gotten a head start. There is no better way to start off your day than to wake early, in my experience.
Quietude. No kids yelling, no babies crying, no soccer balls, no cars, no television noise. The early morning hours are so peaceful, so quiet. It’s my favorite time of day. I truly enjoy that time of peace, that time to myself, when I can think, when I can read, when I can breathe.
Sunrise. People who wake late miss one of the greatest feats of nature, repeated in full stereovision each and every day — the rise of the sun. I love how the day slowly gets brighter, when the midnight blue turns to lighter blue, when the brilliant colors start to seep into the sky, when nature is painted in incredible colors. I like doing my early morning run during this time, and I look up at the sky as I run and say to the world, “What a glorious day!” Really. I really do that. Corny, I know.
Breakfast. Rise early and you actually have time for breakfast. I’m told it’s one of the most important meals of the day. Without breakfast, your body is running on fumes until you are so hungry at lunchtime that you eat whatever unhealthy thing you can find. The fattier and sugarier, the betterier. But eat breakfast, and you are sated until later. Plus, eating breakfast while reading my book and drinking my coffee in the quiet of the morning is eminently more enjoyable than scarfing something down on the way to work, or at your desk.
Exercise. There are other times to exercise besides the early morning, of course, but I’ve found that while exercising right after work is also very enjoyable, it’s also liable to be canceled because of other things that come up. Morning exercise is virtually never canceled.
Productivity. Mornings, for me at least, are the most productive time of day. I like to do some writing in the morning, when there are no distractions, before I check my email or blog stats. I get so much more done by starting on my work in the morning. Then, when evening rolls around, I have no work that I need to do, and I can spend it with family.
Goal time. Got goals? Well, you should. And there’s no better time to review them and plan for them and do your goal tasks than first thing. You should have one goal that you want to accomplish this week. And every morning, you should decide what one thing you can do today to move yourself further towards that goal. And then, if possible, do that first thing in the morning.
Commute. No one likes rush-hour traffic, except for Big Oil. Commute early, and the traffic is much lighter, and you get to work faster, and thus save yourself more time. Or better yet, commute by bike. (Or even better yet, work from home.)
Appointments. It’s much easier to make those early appointments on time if you get up early. Showing up late for those appointments is a bad signal to the person you’re meeting. Showing up early will impress them. Plus, you get time to prepare.

How to Become an Early Riser

Don’t make drastic changes. Start slowly, by waking just 15-30 minutes earlier than usual. Get used to this for a few days. Then cut back another 15 minutes. Do this gradually until you get to your goal time.
Allow yourself to sleep earlier. You might be used to staying up late, perhaps watching TV or surfing the Internet. But if you continue this habit, while trying to get up earlier, sooner or later one is going to give. And if it is the early rising that gives, then you will crash and sleep late and have to start over. I suggest going to bed earlier, even if you don’t think you’ll sleep, and read while in bed. If you’re really tired, you just might fall asleep much sooner than you think.
Put your alarm clock far from you bed. If it’s right next to your bed, you’ll shut it off or hit snooze. Never hit snooze. If it’s far from your bed, you have to get up out of bed to shut it off. By then, you’re up. Now you just have to stay up.
Go out of the bedroom as soon as you shut off the alarm. Don’t allow yourself to rationalize going back to bed. Just force yourself to go out of the room. My habit is to stumble into the bathroom and go pee. By the time I’ve done that, and flushed the toilet and washed my hands and looked at my ugly mug in the mirror, I’m awake enough to face the day.
Do not rationalize. If you allow your brain to talk you out of getting up early, you’ll never do it. Don’t make getting back in bed an option.
Have a good reason. Set something to do early in the morning that’s important. This reason will motivate you to get up. I like to write in the morning, so that’s my reason. Also, when I’m done with that, I like to read all of your comments!
Make waking up early a reward. Yes, it might seem at first that you’re forcing yourself to do something hard, but if you make it pleasurable, soon you will look forward to waking up early. A good reward is to make a hot cup of coffee or tea and read a book. Other rewards might be a tasty treat for breakfast (smoothies! yum!) or watching the sunrise, or meditating. Find something that’s pleasurable for you, and allow yourself to do it as part of your morning routine.
Take advantage of all that extra time. Don’t wake up an hour or two early just to read your blogs, unless that’s a major goal of yours. Don’t wake up early and waste that extra time. Get a jump start on your day! I like to use that time to get a head start on preparing my kids’ lunches, on planning for the rest of the day (when I set my MITs), on exercising or meditating, and on reading. By the time 6:30 rolls around, I’ve done more than many people do the entire day.

Targetting fat areas!

2011-02-17T00:42:00.001Z

Longing for a lean, toned body? The answer could lie in your hormones which, says scientist and fat-loss expert MARIE-CLAIRE WILSON, play a huge role in how and where we store fat. Wilson says her secret weapon is BioSignature Modulation which 'diagnoses' hormone imbalances by looking at where your body stores fat. Here's how to target those stubborn areas...

Get the perfect body: It's all about understanding your hormones, according to an expert

BINGO WINGS

Flabby arms (sometimes known as bingo wings) are very common in women and can indicate a lack of the so-called male hormone testosterone. In fact, both men and women need this and oestrogen, and testosterone plays a part in producing lean body mass. Often, lack of it indicates high levels of cortisol caused by stress.

HOW TO FIX IT

DIET: Fat, or cholesterol, is essential for the production of many hormones, particularly testosterone - so eat nuts, eggs and butter but no hydrogenated or trans-fats found in cakes and biscuits. Get enough protein to build muscle, but avoid soya which has been shown to affect male and female sex hormones, as well as the thyroid.

SUPPLEMENTS: Magnesium oil, in spray form from health food shops, can aid sleep and decrease stress. Phosphatidylserine and inositol are other supplements that can help with relaxation.

EXERCISE: Weight training boosts testosterone production. Not for big muscles, but for a lean look. Press-ups and chin-ups help arm muscle growth.

DROOPY DERRIERE

Fat thighs and bottom can mean excess oestrogen. Levels are naturally higher in women than men - hence our curvier thighs- but too much oestrogen can come from taking the Pill, levels in our water supply, excess alcohol and chemicals leaking from plastic water bottles, packaging and cling-film. Compounds in plastics, such as bisphenol A, can sensitise the body to oestrogen or have oestrogen-like effects.

HOW TO FIX IT

DIET: Remove refined carbs such as sugar, sweets, white bread and commercial breakfast cereals and eat more 'cruciferous' vegetables such as cabbage, sprouts and broccoli and kale. They contain a phytochemical which improves the efficiency of oestrogen processing in the liver. Check your thyroid function first, because these vegetables can result in symptoms of an underactive thyroid. Eat fibrous foods to speed up digestion and excretion of deactivated oestrogens.

SUPPLEMENTS: DIM (di-indolyl methane) is a concentrated form of the compound in cruciferous vegetables, and helps with PMS. Another key supplement is calcium-dglucarate, which supplies the body with the molecule used to de-activate oestrogen.

EXERCISE: Swap long-duration cardio for weight training to raise testosterone levels.

FAT CALVES AND ANKLES

This can indicate low levels of growth hormones essential for your body to maintain a good balance of lean tissue to fat. Cortisol prevents their release, so prolonged stress can be a cause.

HOW TO FIX IT

DIET: Protein and good natural fats. Avoid biscuits, desserts and ready meals.

SUPPLEMENTS: Sleep is needed for growth hormone production. Try magnesium, phosphatidylserine, or herbal products with hops or valerian that will help you to unwind.

EXERCISE: Sleep well. Try weight training.

LOVE HANDLES

Tone up: Simple changes to your diet and exercise can make all the difference

This can indicate overstimulated insulin production from too many refined carbs and sugar. Alcohol can show up here too, since when you have it in your bloodstream you cannot burn fat, and it also affects blood sugar and hormone levels.

HOW TO FIX IT

DIET: This area responds quickly to changes in diet. Insulin is the easiest hormone to control, as it responds very quickly to anything you eat. Eat good quality protein: Meat, fish, nuts, and lots of vegetables.

SUPPLEMENTS: Those suggested for back fat can be useful here as well. Also consider l-carnitine to boost general fat burning and performance in the gym. Don't bother with carb-blocking products such as Decarb - these can have side effects and don't help the root of the problem. But you might try green tea, which can stimulate metabolism, and other health benefits because of the catechins and theanine it contains.

EXERCISE: Again, weight training can help to improve the functioning of your insulin system. Aim for three well-designed sessions per week, and make sure you don't use increased levels of exercise as an excuse to indulge in desserts or sugary energy bars.

MUFFIN TOP

The big culprit is a high level of stress hormones, primarily cortisol. This puts sugar in your blood, proven to increase fat around the middle. People who store stomach fat may appear stressed, edgy or exhausted. Overexercising can be bad for you. Forty minutes-plus of cardio training, such as running and aerobics, triggers cortisol.

HOW TO FIX IT

DIET: Cut out or reduce sugar and alcohol, drink no more than two cups of coffee or tea a day. Eat healthy fats such as oily fish and avocados. Try beans, lentils, oats and wholegrains.

SUPPLEMENTS: Omega 3 fish oils, vitamin D to maintain lean body mass, plus a B complex to help combat stress.

EXERCISE: No more than 40 minutes with weights. Eat afterwards.

FLABBY SHOULDERS AND BACK

Excess fat on your shoulder blades and back is often caused by your body's inability to effectively break down sugars and starchy carbohydrates like pasta and cereals. The hormone insulin helps store foods after eating. If your insulin system is easily overwhelmed by starchy carbs and sugars, it's likely you have inherited this from your distant ancestors. The diet of ancient hunter-gatherers focused on meat and seasonally available fruit and vegetables and was combined with vigorous exercise. This meant their insulin systems didn't wade through sugars and starch.

HOW TO FIX IT

DIET: As someone potentially 'designed' to have a meat-and-veg diet, cut down dramatically on starchy carbs such as potatoes and especially grains. If you want carbs, use complex versions like brown rice, oats, root veg, millet and quinoa.

SUPPLEMENTS: Omega 3 fats in fish oils help the body manage sugar and lose fat generally. Two supplements, Fenuplex and Insulinomics, help improve insulin response. B vitamins can help an energy production system affected by years of wrong 'fuels'. If you crave chocolate, take Chromium and Magnesium chelates - mineral supplements.

EXERCISE: Any type of exercise improves insulin response. For a big boost, exercise before meals and have a low-carb protein shake, followed by a meal including protein

Sleep like a Baby

2011-02-15T23:04:00.001Z

Tossing and turning

Likely cause: You’re probably too hot.

‘Our bodies follow a strong natural rhythm, rising in temperature through the day and falling overnight,’ explains Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert.

‘At around 3am we have the biggest dip and anything that makes it difficult for us to lose heat at that point will cause disturbed sleep.’

One problem is central heating. ‘Although people set their central heating to 21 degrees because that’s comfortably warm, our bedroom feels very hot and we become restless, moving around to try and cool down.’

Women also tend to be more restless at night during menopause and their menstrual cycle because their body temperature rises.

What you can do:

‘The temperature under the covers should be around 29 degrees,’ says Dr Stanley.

‘Given enough time you will heat your bed up to the right temperature because you are always burning calories, which generates heat. On a cold night your body has to work harder, so people use electric blankets or hot-water bottles — but you can overheat your bed.

‘Make sure the bedroom is about 16 degrees because you need to lose temperature out of your head.’ So let your room cool by turning the heating off in the evening or opening a window.

Grogginess on waking

If your routine is disturbed your body has to catch up on all this when you wake

Likely cause: A change of routine or oversleeping.

‘The body craves regularity and wants to get up at the same time every day. It prepares for waking an hour beforehand,’ says Dr Stanley. ‘But it can only prepare if it knows when you’re going to get up.

‘So if you usually wake up at 7am during the week, then at 6am your body sets the wheels in motion so you can leap out of bed.’

Our natural body clock ensures hormone production is timed for waking. For example, an anti-diuretic hormone rises during the night to control urine production so your sleep isn’t disturbed by needing to go to the loo.

Your gastric juices kick-start your appetite in the morning, adds Professor Kevin Morgan, of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University. But if your routine is disturbed, for instance because you lie in at the weekend, your body has to catch up on all this when you wake.

The same happens on a Monday morning after a sleep-heavy weekend as the early start isn’t expected.

What you can do:

The solution is as simple as sticking to a pattern and not sleeping in at weekends. ‘This will help synchronise with your body’s natural rhythms and also prevent the feeling of “sleep drunkenness”, where you over sleep and don’t feel good afterwards,’ says Prof Morgan.

Walking/talking in your sleep

Likely cause: Alcohol, medication, genetics or having something on your mind can all trigger these night time activities, known as parasomnia.

‘Everyone is capable of sleepwalking or talking,’ explains Dr Stanley. ‘The conscious part of your brain can be deeply asleep while other bits, such as the area controlling movement and navigation, are still awake.’

The problem can run in families, but it can also be triggered in anyone when sleep is partially disturbed, meaning part of their brain is awake.

One trigger is alcohol, which lightens sleep. Parasomnia is also common in children as their nervous system is still developing. It can also be brought on by medications, such as some antidepressants, or by different drugs interacting.

What you can do:

Some parasomnias, such as talking, are often harmless. Others, such as having sex while asleep (most prevalent in young men) may be more problematic. Sleep- walking can be especially dangerous.

The advice is to try to work out the triggers which disturb full sleep (such as alcohol), check side-effects of medication with your GP and check if the problem runs in your family.

Daytime tiredness

Likely cause: If you’ve had sufficient sleep, tiredness may be a result of weight gain (leading to sleep apnoea) or anxiety, which disrupt sleep without you realising it.

‘Sleep apnoea is a prevalent condition which affects 2 to 4 per cent of the population,’ says sleep nurse Rebecca Mullins. ‘It is common in the overweight, particularly men with large collar sizes.’

As they sleep, sufferers’ airways start to collapse and they can stop breathing for anything from ten to 60 seconds. Their oxygen levels drop so low the brain wakes them and they start breathing again with a snore.

‘Sufferers are not usually aware of the problem, but they don’t get refreshing sleep,’ says Mullins.

Another cause is anxiety. Dr Stanley says: ‘This makes sleep lighter and reduces the amount of deep sleep, the most restful part.

‘Some people accept feeling sleepy during the day as being their natural state, but nothing could be further from the truth — sleepiness isn’t natural.

‘If you’ve had a good night’s sleep you should feel brilliant. Unexplained tiredness during the day is always indicative of something.’ Other causes are chronic disease and teeth grinding.

What you can do:

‘If week after week you feel sleepy, then something is going on you need to look at,’ says Dr Stanley, who suggests speaking to your doctor.

Waking in the night

Likely cause: Intermittent waking without obvious cause is probably due to changes in your environment, stress or age.

‘From an evolutionary point of view, you could only sleep well if you felt safe and secure,’ says Dr Stanley. ‘So anything that stops this will disturb your sleep.’

We sleep in cycles and wake very briefly at the end of each cycle, but usually only vaguely recollect this. However, if you have something on your mind or are attentive to the environment, you will become more awake at that point.

Also, as we get older we wake up more easily. ‘Throughout adulthood your sleep becomes progressively lighter and more fragmented,’ says Prof Morgan. ‘This is because of changes in the nervous system and hormones.’

What can you do: Rebecca Mullins says: ‘Avoid drinks as these fill the bladder. Don’t eat late as your body will still be digesting.’

Waking too early

Likely cause: Depression-induced insomnia or your environment are the usual triggers.

‘Everyone thinks insomnia is not being able to fall asleep, but there are three types — not being able to fall asleep, waking up and waking too early,’ says Dr Stanley. ‘The latter is one of the classic signs of depression, though no one knows why.’ Changes in your environment can also wake you too early, as we wake easily in the morning anyway as sleep becomes lighter.

‘You almost certainly won’t wake up for the first three hours of night as you are deeply asleep,’ says Dr Stanley. ‘But later sleep is much lighter and more prone to be disturbed by noises.’

What you can do:

‘The big caveat is that if you feel fine during the day then whatever’s happening isn’t a problem,’ says Dr Stanley. If you think the issue is insomnia, speak to your doctor.

Teeth-grinding

Likely cause: Known as bruxism, teeth-grinding varies from jaw clenching to ferocious grinding that wears teeth down to stumps. It is usually due to genetics or stress.

‘There’s nothing serious underlying teeth grinding,’ says Dr Stanley. ‘Though it can be caused by stress, it is often just due to genetics.’

What you can do:

‘Treatment is important, as people who grind their teeth have dental problems but also tension headaches,’ says Dr Stanley.

Usual treatment is a gum shield, though some people grind through these. If teeth-grinding is caused by stress, then the cause should be addressed.

Nightmares

Likely cause: Stress may be a factor, but otherwise they are a random occurrence.

‘Nightmares are luck of the draw,’ says Dr Stanley. ‘We all dream four or five times a night, but only remember them if we wake up during or just after them. So we are all probably having disturbing dreams and just not remembering them.’

What you can do:

People often associate nightmares with stress, which then makes them more anxious.

‘If you’re stressed and have a scary dream, you put them together and everything seems worse,’ says Dr Stanley.

Although stress can cause you to wake up more, remember we all have bad dreams all the time. Try to improve your sleep so you wake up less often.

Sleeping too much

Likely cause: A common cause of hypersomnia is disease.

‘Lots of people with long-term conditions tend to sleep longer,’ says Professor Francesco Cappuccio, a sleep expert at the University of Warwick. ‘It is a marker of ill health.’

This also occurs in the chronic stage of long-term depression (while the early stages are characterised by insomnia).

What you can do:

Tell your doctor. ‘Long sleep could be a marker for your GP,’ says Prof Cappuccio. ‘Unfortunately, doctors never ask how many hours you sleep — but problems can be picked up from that.

‘If someone sleeps too much, they may have a health problem.’ Though we all have our own sleep need, you should take notice if you’re sleeping significantly more over a prolonged period, napping during the day or have trouble waking up.

Can’t sleep until late

Likely cause: If you find you don’t want to go to bed until very late at night and you then struggle to get up in the morning, this could be due to a late natural body clock.

‘Everyone has an internal biological clock,’ says Prof Cappuccio. ‘But this clock is not exactly 24 hours — it is between 23 and 25, which can make us morning or night people.’

People with a late clock have the propensity to go to bed a bit later every day. However, this internal timing interacts with external cues, such as light, to synchronise with the day.

But left without these clues, for instance bright light at night, you would become mismatched with the day, says Prof Cappuccio.

‘There is also another sleep/wake cycle regulated by light,’ he adds. ‘Melatonin is a hormone that sends you to sleep and this increases when the brain perceives that it is night. When it’s daylight, melatonin is shut down and we wake up.’

However, for some people getting up late or early is simply learned behaviour that can be changed.

What you can do:

Turn down main lights before bed and use a lamp. If possible, let daylight wake you.

Learning meditation

2011-02-14T15:28:00.000Z

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

By training the mind to focus on a movement such as walking - you become aware of your normal uncontrolled thinking patterns

Although there are numerous meditation traditions - Eastern and Western, religious and secular - most meditation techniques fall into four ways of working with the mind.

Using a focus

The first technique involves learning to focus and concentrate. By training the mind to focus on an object – such as a candle, on the breath, or on a movement such as walking - you become aware of your normal uncontrolled thinking patterns and eventually learn to relax and quiet your mind.

It is a good beginning practice and important as a basis for mindfulness meditation.

Using mindfulness

The second technique involves learning about yourself and the world around you. You become aware of the content of your mind and the subtle feelings in your body. Then you begin to observe the mental habits and patterns that may be holding you back in life.

Through mindfulness you learn to be mentally present - aware of what you are doing and thinking, and aware also of the world around you - while maintaining a non-judgmental and compassionate attitude.

Using a topic

The third way to meditate is to contemplate a topic. The early Christians for example meditatedon passages of The New Testament, while Tibetan Buddhists meditate on topics such as compassion.

Often spiritual adepts of all traditions East and West meditate on death to help recognise the fleeting quality and precious nature of human life.

Using the senses

The fourth type of meditation engages the senses. For instance using your sense of hearing and your voice you can practise chanting and mantra recitation and listen to music and the sounds of nature.

MASTERING THE BASICS

EXERCISE ONE: Relaxing your body

Relaxation reduces stress and prepares you for meditation. The body’s bio-chemistry responds in the same way to real or imagined threat, releasing chemicals into the bloodstream that tell body and brain to get ready for danger.

Try this exercise to negate this response and bring peace...

Relaxation can help you prepare for meditation

Put on loose, comfortable clothing and remove any jewellery and your watch.

Then lie on your bed or on the floor in a place where you will not be disturbed. If the room is cool, cover yourself with a light blanket to preserve body heat.

Let your feet fall apart and your arms relax by your sides. Close your eyes.

Feel your feet. Sense their weight. Consciously relax them and let them sink into the floor. Start with relaxing your toes, then the ball of your foot, the arch, your heels and your ankles.

Relax your lower legs. Feel your knees. Sense their weight. Consciously relax them and feel any tension dissolve.

Continue slowly working up your body through your thighs, abdomen, chest and buttocks.

Then consciously relax your hands, arms, shoulders and neck. Finish by relaxing your head, mouth and jaw, eyes and cheeks. Let any tension release.

Mentally scan your body. If you find any place that is still tense, then consciously relax that place and let the tension dissipate.

When you are ready open your eyes and stretch.

EXERCISE TWO: Breathing more deeply

In many meditations you will be advised to breathe ‘into the belly’. Belly breathing focuses you on using the diaphragm to expand and contract the belly, which helps to deepen the breath.

Many of us simply expand the rib-cage, which sits on top of the diaphragm. This results in a shallow breath.

Try this exercise to counter stress and anger...

When inhaling soften your belly as this allows your diaphragm to drop down., making room for your lungs

Lie down and get comfortable. Suck in your belly and try to inhale deeply. With your belly contracted you should feel a great deal of tension and difficulty in breathing, forcing you to take frequent, shallow breaths. When the belly is tight, the diaphragm has a difficult time moving downwards because it is resisted by contracted abdominal muscles and internal organs.

Place one hand on your belly and one on your chest. Now soften your belly and let it expand as you take a long slow breath in. Feel your diaphragm drop,
as first the lower then the upper part of your lungs fills with air.

When you soften your belly, allowing it to expand as you inhale, your organs drop, allowing the diaphragm to more easily contract downwards.

Exhale slowly, allowing your belly to settle into its normal position. As your diaphragm relaxes and moves upwards feel your belly settle back into its
normal place.

Practise belly breathing in this way for ten minutes. Bear in mind that exhaling for twice as long as you inhale helps the body relax and let go of the ‘fight-or-flight’ stress responses. Sit up carefully after ending your practice.

EXERCISE THREE: Sitting to meditate

When meditating you can sit on a straight-backed chair, cross-legged on a cushion or in a kneeling pose sitting on your calves with the backs of your feet flat against the floor...

Sitting cross-legged on a cushion is one of the popular meditative poses

Sit in your chosen position. Gently sway your body from side to side until your spine feels centred. Lengthen your spine into its natural curve by imagining you have a
string attached to the crown of your head and that it is being pulled gently
from above.

Relax your stomach muscles so that your abdomen becomes soft and rounded and the small of your back gently curves forward. Scan your body and release any tension or tightness.

Check that your head is level, your shoulders are relaxed and your ears are parallel with your shoulders. Align your nose directly over your navel, and slightly tuck in your chin.

Focus your eyes in the space about 3 to 4ft in front of you, lowering your eyelids slightly at a 45-degree angle.

Place your left hand on top of your right hand with both palms facing upwards and your thumbs raised slightly and just touching. The sides of your little fingers should rest against your lower abdomen about three inches below your navel.

Close your mouth and rest your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Let
the tip of your tongue rest gently against your upper front teeth.

Remain in this position while focusing on slow belly breathing for a few minutes. Then unfold your hands and legs and stretch carefully before slowly standing up, raising your head last.

Extracted from The Meditation Experience by Madonna Gauding, RRP £12.99, and published by Godsfield Press (part of the Octopus Publishing Group)

Even cheaper here....

Best way to lose belly fat

2011-02-14T10:35:00.001Z

Best Way to Lose Belly Fat

Find out how to curb appetite, learn healthy ways to lose weight, and -- the goal -- get a flat stomach.

Fast Way to Lose Weight? Get Moving Count this as one of the easy ways to burn calories: Turn off the TV and get moving! More	Burn Off Belly Fat with This Condiment Apple cider vinegar and weight loss? Yes, adding this condiment to your diet is one of the healthy ways to lose weight. More	Lose Stomach Fat Fast Without Dieting Healthy ways to lose weight include both high intensity cardio and walking. Try walking to lose weight, and mix it up with more intense exercise. More	Get a Flat Stomach with Healthy Fats A Mediterranean menu, which includes cooking with olive oil, will help you get a flat stomach. More

Get Rid of Belly Fat -- Just Wing It! Stress and weight gain can go hand in hand. Burn off belly fat by following these health tips. More	Safflower Oil: Weight Loss Food? Try this safflower dressing recipe for a flatter stomach. Including healthy fats in your diet is one of the healthy ways to lose weight. More	Slim Your Waist with Green Tea Turn a routine workout into a powerful waist-whittler with green tea! More	Eat Whole Grains for a Flatter Stomach This wild rice salad will help you get a flat stomach. Eat whole grains as part of a flat-stomach diet. More

Belly-Fat Reduction with Antioxidant-Rich Foods Eating foods high in antioxidants can help you lose your belly fat. Learn the best antioxidant foods to burn belly fat fast. More	Best Exercises to Lose Belly Fat Try high-intensity cardio as well as walking. These healthy ways to lose weight can help you burn off belly fat. More	Eating to Lose Weight? Sprinkle on Red Pepper Flakes Research suggests these fiery flakes might fit the bill to help you lose weight. More	Weight Loss Recipes with a Belly-Fat Burner Enjoy this mango smoothie recipe and other healthy smoothie recipes, and they may help you lose your belly fat, too. More

Removing stomach problems..

2011-02-09T23:21:00.000Z

Stomach related problems are mainly constipation, indigestion, acidity, motions and dysentery. There are few other problems related to food habits, they are – stomach ache, spasms, heaviness in the stomach, burning sensation, vomiting, discomfort etc. Yoga practice and natural medicine can cure these problems.

Stomach Spasm:

For stomach spasms uttanapadasana, shashakasana, dhanurasana, naukasana, can be practiced any time during the day as per convenience. Yogasanas have to be practiced slowly and the duration should be increased gradually.

Pranayama for Stomach Spasms: Kapalabhati is the sure shot for all problems related to the stomach.

Natural Medication for Stomach Spasms: Take an equal quantity of cow's milk and water, boil it. When the water evaporates and the milk is reduced to half the quantity and drink when lukewarm. It is beneficial for stomach spasm and dysentery.

Mix fenugreek seeds powder in curd (yoghurt) and eat it. It gives relief for stomach spasms.

To get relief from spasms add wood apple pulp (bilva fruit) in buttermilk and drink it.

Stomachache:

Practice yogasanas, which will strengthen the stomach, and improve digestion. Pavanmuktasana, Kandharasana, Vajrasana, Padangusthasparshasana, should be practiced regularly. By practicing these asanas the stomach, and intestines, become strong and they prevent stomachache. Exercise as per your convenience.

Add pranayam in this practice. If not all the types of pranayam, practice at least Nadi Shodhan and Kapalbhati pranayam regularly.

Natural medication: Add radish juice in lemon juice and drink after meals, this will give relief from the pain caused by gas.

Take two grams of rock salt to get immediate relief from stomachache.

To get relief from stomachache add one gm of rock salt in three grams of tender tamarind leaves and consume.

Mix two spoons of lemon juice in a spoonful of ginger juice and a little sugar and consume. This will help in any kind of stomachache.

Stomach Discomfort:

Pavanmuktasana, Vajrasana, Suptavajrasana, Shashakasana practiced regularly give relief from gas, indigestion and constipation, which in turn reduces discomfort. The patient should practice these asanas accordingly.

Along with these you should also practice Anulom-Vilom pranayam. This gives a good effect to the other organs of the stomach.

Natural Medication: One to two grams of cardamom (small) seeds powder or cardamom oil should be mixed in pomegranate juice to relieve stomach discomfort.

Discomfort is caused due to various problems related to the stomach. 50 gm of rice should be soaked in a glass of water and then consume the water after one hour.

Cut lemon into two equal parts. Apply rock salt and black pepper on the surface, heat it and suck it hot. You will get relief from the uneasiness in the stomach and discomfort.

Put one clove in the mouth and keep sucking its juice to overcome discomfort.

Heaviness in the Stomach:

Regular practice of Pavanmuktasana, Vajrasana, Uttanapadasana, Bhujangasana, and Yogamudrasana gives relief from heaviness in the stomach and it gradually gives a permanent cure.

The patient should practice Agnisar kriya and Kapalbhati pranayam. Asanas and pranayam can be done even if the patient is having any other type of pain or he may stop for sometime if there is too much pain. One can practice it regularly after being relieved from pain.

Natural Medication: Take 125 gm of buttermilk, add two gm of Ajowan and half gm of black salt and drink. This will give relief from heaviness in the stomach. Continue this for a week.

For instant relief, mix two garlic pods with drumstick seeds and chew it thoroughly after meals. Within a few minutes the foul air present in the stomach passes out and the stomach becomes light. Waist or hip pain due to cold can also be cured with this medicine.

Take 20 grams of black grapes and aniseeds and soak it in half liter of water. In the morning squeeze it thoroughly, filter it and add ten grams of sugar and drink it for few days. Heaviness in the stomach will be relieved.

Burning Sensation in Stomach:

Pavanmuktasana, Vajrasana, Padangusthasparshasana, Mandookasana, Ardhamatysendrasana, etc., will increase the strength of the stomach and reduces the burning sensation. Regular exercise of Kapalbhati pranayam, Agnisar kriya, uddiyan bandh, etc., gives relief from burning sensation in the stomach.

Natural Medication: Grind Ajowan and salt and swallow it. You will get relief from burning sensation of stomach.

Make syrup of coriander and sugar and drink it.

Take 10 grams each of coriander and cumin seeds, grind them coarsely, mix it in 250 ml of water in the night and keep it. In the morning squeeze it thoroughly, sieve and drink it five to six times daily.

Tastelessness and Loss of Appetite:

Sarvangasana, Naukasana, Paschimottasana, Janushirasana, Bhujangasana, Uttanapadasana, Katichakrasana, Shalabhasana if done regularly reduces all the problems related to stomach and improves the appetite. It helps you to develop good taste also.

Natural Medication: Take six parts of sugar syrup, add one part of lemon juice, clove and black pepper and make a syrup. By consuming this syrup dislike towards food is reduced and it is good for digestion.

Take 200 grams of ginger, peel off the skin, make a paste and fry it in 200 grams of clarified butter (ghee) till it turns into a golden brown colour, add 400 grams of jaggery, make a paste and consume it twice daily. The dislike towards food reduces and it improves the appetite.

Natural Medication for Vomiting:

If vomiting is due to phlegm, then add vaividing, dry ginger, and motha powder in honey and lick it. You can get instant relief.

Mix six grams of mint, two grams of rock salt in fresh water and drink. You will get instant relief.

Dry the orange peel, grind it and mix it in honey and lick it, you will get relief immediately.

In 10 ml of ginger add the same quantity of onion juice and drink, vomiting stops immediately.

Add honey in a spoonful of basil juice and drink it, vomiting stops immediately.

Source...

Health Checks over-50s

2011-02-05T19:41:00.002Z

Part of healthy living is to break free from bad habits. Here are 11 tips to good health:

Do not smoke
Cut calories, limit fat, sugar and salt.
Add fibre and eat more complex carbohydrates.
Practise moderation in all things.
Exercise regularly- it doesn't matter what exercise you do or where you do it - its activity on a regular basis that is important.
Maintain a healthy weight
Exercise the mind. Learn something new ; take up a new hobby, read and then learn how to relax.
Develop a positive attitude to life. Learn to laugh at petty annoyances. Keep things in proportion.
Monitor your health. See the doctor about any worrying symptoms and do a self-examination monthly.
Brush the teeth, tongue and roof of the mouth. Visit the dentist regularly.
Get enough sleep. Experts believe that we need between 7 and 10 hours depending on our genetic predisposition.

Source...

In your 50s

Keep having smear tests They might not be the most comfortable of health checks, but it’s vital that you carry on having regular smear tests. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women under 35, and while your risk is much lower at 50+, there is still a risk. A study in the British Journal of Cancer concluded that women aged between 50 and 64 should have a smear test every five years – so get one booked.

Get your eyes tested
The older you get, the more chance you have of sight problems – but the good news is that most of the serious ones such as glaucoma and age- related macular degeneration (AMD) are preventable. According to the RNIB, regular sight tests and a healthy diet and exercise routine are the secret of healthy eyes. Until you’re 59, you should have your eyes checked at least every two years; once you hit 60, or if you have a family history of glaucoma, go for a yearly check-up.

Don’t neglect your smile
Aside from looking great, well cared for teeth could be good for your wider health too. “Gum disease has been linked to heart disease, so you and your dentist should monitor your gums regularly,” says Dr Uchenna Okoye from the London Smiling Dental Group. Get your teeth checked every six months by your dentist, and brush and floss every day. Be extra vigilant with flossing because studies have linked regular flossing with a reduced risk of diabetes and Alzheimer’s, too.

In your 60s

Know your numbers One third of people with high blood pressure don’t know they have it, say the Blood Pressure Association. If it goes unchecked, it can increase your risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and even dementia. Your blood pressure is considered high if it is consistently at or above 140mmHg/90mmHg. Get yours checked for free during Know Your Numbers Week, running from September 7 to 13, at one of more than 3,000 Pressure Stations around the UK. Call 0845 241 0989 or get more information at www.bpassoc.org.uk/kyn

Work your pelvic floor
It can be embarrassing, but incontinence certainly isn’t rare. In fact, one in five women over 40 are thought to be dealing with it. Professor Grace Dorey recommends doing this pelvic floor exercise every day to help regain control: sit on a chair with your knees slightly apart and tighten your pelvic floor muscles as if you were trying to stop wind escaping and urine leaking. Try to avoid holding your breath or tensing your buttocks. Perform three strong contractions, holding for up to ten seconds, followed by a ten second rest. For more details, visit www.yourpelvicfloor.co.uk

Look behind you
Someone dies of bowel cancer every 30 minutes in the UK, and 97 per cent of people diagnosed with it are over 50, according to Bowel Cancer UK. Catching it early is the key. Look for a change in your bowel movements, blood in your stools, bleeding from your bottom, feeling tired, or painful lumps around your abdomen. A non-invasive screening test is available on the NHS for people aged 60-69, so ask your GP. To find out more call 0800 840 3540 or visit www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk

In your 70s

Keep having mammograms In the UK, the NHS provides breast cancer screening for women aged between 50 and 70. Once you hit 71 you’ll no longer be routinely invited for screening, but you can still ask for a mammogram every three years. And it’s well worth doing, because a study from the Netherlands found that when mammograms were offered to women over 70 the breast cancer death rate of women aged 75-79 dropped by almost 30 per cent.

Test your bones
If you’ve recently shrunk, have a family history of osteoporosis, and if you smoke or lead a sedentary lifestyle, ask your GP for a DEXA scan to measure your bone density. Your risk of osteoporosis and hip fracture go up as you get older and because there are so few symptoms, you’re unlikely to discover that your bones have weakened until you fall and break one – unless you get tested.

Don’t forget your feet
It can be hard to get to your feet as you get older, but keeping them in good shape is important if you want to stay mobile. “Try to see a podiatrist every two years,” says foot expert Emma Supple (www.supplefeet.com). “We can assist with basic foot care, and tackle any problems such as fungal infections, bunions, corns and calluses. You can also help yourself by washing and scrubbing your feet daily, apply a good foot cream, and wear well-fitting shoes.” Find a podiatrist in your area by calling 0207 234 8620 or by visiting www.feetforlife.org

Source....

A seven-year old book listing health checks....

Recommended screening tests :

obesity,
STDs,
HIV,
Cholesterol,
Diabetes,
High blood pressure,
Depression,
Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, and
Colon Cancer.

From Planet Green...

2011-01-26T11:54:00.000Z

5 Superfoods For Under $20 (And How To Prepare Them)

Photo: Comstock Images

1. Kale
At just over a dollar a bunch, kale is a member of the dark, leafy greens group. It's loaded with vitamin C and vitamin B as well as calcium. Want to relieve depression? Eat kale.

Emeril's Sauteed Kale

2. Broccoli
This low cost cruciferous vegetable has it all. Cruciferous vegetables are known for a compound that neutralizes toxins in the liver and helps cleanse the system.

Broccoli Stir Fry

3. Winter Squash
Winter squash is only a few dollars a pound and when compared to the summer squash variety, it's much better for you. They're a good source of vitamin B6, which is important for the nervous and immune system, as well as folate for heart and pregnancy health.

Butternut Squash Orzo

4. Sweet Potatoes

Photo: Sara Novak

Sweet, savory, and downright delicious, nothing beats this winter staple. Sweet potatoes are loaded with fiber, protein, vitamin A, and vitamin C.

Sweet Potato Pancakes

5. Cabbage
Roger Doiron says, "what cabbage lacks in sex appeal and trendiness it makes up for in dependability and productivity." He's right. Cabbage is cheap and just like broccoli, it's a cruciferous super veggie.

Braised Purple Cabbage with Goat Cheese

6. Apples
Apples are our best foodie friends. Sweet, tangy, crunchy, and low in calories, apples have fiber and tons of phytochemicals or antioxidants that serve to fight free radicals in the body that cause disease and aging.

Chopped Brussels Sprouts with Walnuts, Green Apple, and Pecorino

7. Quinoa
At $1 a pound quinoa is cheap and nutrient dense. Quinoa is a complete protein and can substitute for less sustainable proteins. Compared to other grains, quinoa is higher in calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, iron, copper, manganese, and zinc.

Emeril's Quinoa With Butternut Squash

8. Brown Basmati Rice
Talk about cheap, rice is one of the least expensive foods in the world. At just a few dollars a pound, a little goes a long way. I also love brown basmati rice, It's an excellent source of manganese and a good source of the minerals selenium and magnesium.

Sweet Potato Red Curry with Baby Bok Choy and Tofu and Brown Basmati Rice

9. Barley

Photo: Sara Novak

Barley is one of my favorite grains. The little bubbles burst in your mouth, full of flavor. Barley is rich in manganese, selenium, phosphorus, copper, magnesium, iron, zinc and potassium.

Ayurvedic Kitchari

10. Adzuki Beans
Beans are one of the least expensive protein sources. In fact, these little guys contain some of the highest levels of protein and the lowest levels of fat of any variety of beans. They also contain high levels of potassium, fiber, B vitamins, iron, zinc, and manganese.

Easy, Cheesy Upscale Nachos For a Snack

11. Black Beans
This is an obvious one, but no less important. Black beans are a good source of folate, dietary fiber, manganese, protein, magnesium, vitamin B1 (thiamin), phosphorus, and iron.

Butternut Squash and Black Bean Chili

12. Flaxseed
Omega 3 fatty acids are an ever important building block nutrient that like B12, the body cannot produce on its own. Don’t worry because you can get the nutrient without fatty fish. Instead, get it from flaxseed.

Emeril's Whole Wheat and Buckwheat Chicago Style Pizza with FlaxSeeds (Video)

13. Sunflower Seeds

Photo: Creatas Images

Sunflower seeds are one of the least expensive seeds that you can buy in bulk and if you buy the raw variety, they're quite good for you as well. Sunflower seeds have 76 percent of the RDA for vitamin E.

A Healthy Alternative: Sunflower Seed Falafels

14. Sesame Seeds
Great for sprinkling on all your favorite Asian dishes, who knew that they were so good for you? Again, a little goes a long way with this one. You don't need a whole lot to absorb the benefits. Sesame seeds are rich in calcium and magnesium. Who knew?

Weekday Vegetarian: Vegan Napa Cabbage and Sesame Slaw

15. Almonds

Photo: Sara Novak

I saved the best for last. If you're not eating almonds, it's time to start. Almonds are good for heart health and loaded with vitamin E, an antioxidant that keeps you from aging.

Creamy Vegan Pumpkin Soup with Almond Milk

Kettlebells!

2011-01-22T12:21:00.001Z

Kettlebells : An Antidote to the Hype

By Raymond Brennan
Copyright © Raymond Brennan 2003. All rights reserved.

A lot of interest has been generated lately in kettlebells (the so-called “iron balls”) , in the fitness media, in online forums and (to a lesser extent) in the US press. A lot of claims have been and are being made as to how effective kettlebells are for fitness, strength, endurance, flexibility…in fact, just about everything except getting a date and doing the dishes. While there is no doubt that kettlebelling can be a reasonable form of exercise if combined with other methods of training, there is also little doubt that most of the claims made about them are exaggerated and they are surrounded by hype and overblown language as few other methods of training are. No mention is made of the real risks involved to the average person picking up a kettlebell for the first time. Added to that is the mystique attached to them in the US, because they were supposedly the main training method of the Spetnaz of the former USSR and are therefore somehow perceived as exotic and as a repository of “hidden” or “secret” techniques. The novice kettlebeller believes that he or she is getting a shortcut to a fit, strong and aesthetically pleasing body in a fraction of the time available via other methods. Is this actually the case?

I propose to have a look at these many claims (and some of the supposed “facts”) in an objective manner and examine their merits or lack thereof. Please note that I am not going to say “Kettlebells are rubbish” or “Don’t waste your money on them-spend it on something useful, like a silent alarm clock”. What I am going to say that they can have some use in conjunction with other methods of training, but that there are other methods to “get there” which are safe, rational and which respect the structure of the body. If you are already using the “iron balls” and are happy with them, then hold onto them as hard as you can. Just keep it real for the rest of us, OK?

Kettlebells are Russian
No, they are not. In fact, they originated in the Highlands of Scotland. A popular pastime in the Highlands in winter is the sport of curling. This was originally played using birch brooms and round stones on frozen lakes and river mouths. In freezing temperatures, picking up a round stone covered in frost in the midwinter gloom can be a tricky proposition. Therefore, a cast iron handle was attached to the stones to make then easier to handle. Highland and Cumberland wrestlers then began using the stones during the spring as a training tool (one among many) for the Highland Games. The handle made it easy to pick up for pressing motions, so why not?
This is not a reason not to use kettlebells, but more of a hype-busting exercise. If you want to be an “authentic” kettlebeller, then learn to play the bagpipes and wear your kilt with pride. The USSR is nothing now but a bad memory-and please let’s leave it that way. To evoke a spurious mystique about the unique horror that was the USSR in order to promote what are nothing more than iron balls is, quite frankly, in bad taste. I wonder what the reaction would be if they were hyped as “the favourite training tool of Nazi Germany” or “what the Viet Cong used in the tunnels underneath Saigon” or (in the post September 11th era) “what Al-Queda used in the caves of Afghanistan”? Think about this, please.

Kettlebelling was the Primary Training Method of the Spetnaz
Not according to http://www.russianmartialart.com . I hold Russian military training methods in high regard, but as far as I know, they (like most military units around the world) consist primarily of callisthenics and running.

I have only ever heard of one video from Russia which had kettlebelling in it. It was of villagers in the hinterland doing a folk dance for tourists which involved doing somersaults with a kettlebell in each hand. The economy of the USSR was not “at its best” when it came to producing consumer goods. Could they have been using kettlebells instead of ornate dumbbells because the kettlebells were cheaper and easier for the local blacksmith to make?

Kettlebells have a Unique Training Effect
Really? In the dictionary I use, resistance is resistance. Here is a quote from George Walsh, a famous British bodybuilder from the late 1930s:

“There is no such thing as a secret exercise which will produce miraculous results. There are no mysterious appliances which will work wonders for you. Progressive exercise against resistance-whether furnished by the weight of your own body or by an appliance-and adherence to certain rules of living, will infallibly produce results for every fit man”.

Good old George Walsh. Common sense, wouldn’t you say ? I have certainly found what he said to be true in my own training. There is no substitute for rational, systematic exercise and there are no secret mysterious ways to exercise. Millions of other people realise this also-otherwise every city would be replete with the sight of millions of shiny (and sometimes rusty) iron balls moving rhythmically in the morning sun i.e. We would all be kettlebelling. What makes those of us who don’t use kettlebells so stupid that we keep doing bodyweight callisthenics, barbell training, dumbbell exercises, strand pulling, yoga, running, swimming…..or whatever ? Could it possibly be because these forms of exercise also produce results? Could it be that these forms of exercise have been proven to work and have been around for a long time? Could it even be that some of them are fun to do (which is why people keep doing them)?

Kettlebells do indeed have a training effect, but it is certainly not unique. In fact, any of the above activities have a training effect-to work your muscles, tone your body, raise your heartbeat, increase your strength , improve your health and appearance and add to the overall quality of your life.

Kettlebells Provide Progressive Resistance
There are plate-loaded kettlebells available which do precisely this. Plates can be added or subtracted in the same manner as they can be on a dumbbell or barbell. Progressive Resistance, as everyone interested in strength training knows, is a must. How else can you gauge how stronger you are getting? How else can you avoid overtraining or undertraining? No argument from me here.

However, this does not hold true for solid-ball kettlebells. There are a number of these on the market, which are manufactured by several vendors. These solid-ball versions can’t be incrementally made heavier. How do you add 1KG to a smooth iron ball? Super-strong glue? Maybe Mulder and Scully could figure this one out, if they were still together.

The Old-Time Strongmen Used Kettlebells
Some of them certainly did-though for two purposes only.
One was to pose for sculptors. A large part of their income was generated from posing for sculptors and artists and a kettlebell held in the crook of one arm while wearing a loincloth or figleaf does how the muscles to good effect, you have to admit. I have seen great photos of Eugen Sandow and Lionel Strongfort holding kettlebells and they look terrific. However, now you know why there are so many pictures of them holding kettlebells in dramatic poses-earning a living.

The second purpose they used them for was in order to perform fingertip presses. The spherical shape meant that each finger could grip the ball in an easy manner. This is a definite advantage of using kettlebells in preference to dumbbells or barbells. However, this only holds true for solid balls, not plate-loaded ones.

The two best fitness and exercise websites that I know of on the internet today are http://www.sandowplus.co.uk. and http://www.maxalding.plus.com . I urge you to do yourself a favour and visit both of them. They have good biographies of some of the old-timers, plus dozens of their systems of training freely available. These were the old “mail order musclemen” and include among them some of my own favourites such as Lionel Strongfort, George Walsh , K.Y. Iyer and Maxick. Please count the number of these old-timers who trained exclusively with a kettlebell. As I am a nice man, I will save you the trouble and give you the answer: None. Bear in mind that a lot of these men set weightlifting records nearly a hundred years ago, which are unbeaten to this day, as well as being champion wrestlers, boxers and gymnasts. (This was in the days before protein shakes, supplements, steppers, gyms filled with machines, sweatbands and all the rest of the modern paraphernalia that we are all constantly told we “need”). Now, have a look through ANY of the courses on either of those two sites and tell me how many times you see a kettlebell being used or advocated, or how many times you see a kettlebell portrayed as the ultimate fitness tool. I wish you the best of luck in your search-because you are going to need it.

I believe I have illustrated my point here.

Kettlebells Don’t Take Up Much Room
I agree. They can easily be stored in a corner of your garage and you don’t need a huge amount of space to use them. However, the plate-loaded ones require the storage of the plates in a plate-tree of some sort.

On the other hand, you could say the same thing about barbells and dumbbells.

Kettlebells Have Good Carryover to Martial Arts
As a martial artist myself, I respectfully but emphatically disagree. The single activity which benefits martial arts the most (whichever art you’re talking about) is the art itself. Practice makes perfect-and nowhere more so than in the dojo or dojang. No appliance, apparatus or piece of equipment can replicate the experience of being thrown, of applying a wrist-lock, of performing a leg sweep or leglock or of having one applied to you. Only another martial artist can provide this (which may be why we train in classes). Similarly, the best way to practice a punch, palm-heel, edge-of-hand, side-kick, footsweep or whatever strike you have in mind is to actually hit something. It may be a heavy bag, empty air (as in a kata or pattern) or a heavily padded opponent . Only in these ways can you improve your body alignment (eg. Getting the hip behind the strike, moving off the opponent’s centre-line), learn to put force into the technique (whether taking someone down onto a dojo mat or applying a side-kick to a heavy bag), learn limb retraction (an iron ball is not able to grab your wrist or ankle after you grab or strike it) and countering (as an iron ball cannot hit back).

In aikido and aikijutsu in particular, there is a lot of emphasis placed on breaking the opponent’s balance and thereby gaining control of his or her body. To do this, you must have a live opponent to practice on. Even the very basic mechanics of pushing when being pulled and pulling when being pushed without the ability to predict the outcome are something that no inanimate object can replicate.

Another related point is the area of “body awareness”. Simply put, when on the mat, you need to be aware of your own body and to be able to handle your own body. You need to know where your limbs are, how flexible they are, what positions they are strong in (and weak in), how stable your trunk is and how fast you can move. The best and most effective way to do this is to do callisthenics. The best way to become aware of your body in this way is to use it. This is why, in most dojos and dojangs, you see the warm-up and stretching all being done with bodyweight exercises. This is sometimes not the case with weapon-related arts such as iaido and kendo. However, with these, they use the weapon-as it makes sense to do so. I personally have never been in or heard of a dojo or dojang where the beginning warm-up and stretching was done using iron. There may well be one or two somewhere who do so, but they are in a tiny minority.

Using heavy iron will not make you “body aware” in this sense, but rather “iron aware”. You will be aware of how heavy the iron is, where it is , how far away from you it is and you will be concentrating on the iron, not yourself. This will make you good at moving heavy iron, but not at martial arts. Arguing otherwise is like saying that practicing golf will make you a good swimmer. This is not to say that resistance training in some form is not good for martial arts. However, there is no substitute for moving your body on the mat.

Kettlebells Work The Body Across a Wide Range of Angles
Again, this is important for martial arts. A martial artist has to be able to move across a wide range of angles and among many planes of motion. This is the case whether attacking or defending, striking or throwing, standing up or on the ground.

Kettlebells certainly work the shoulders across a wide range of angles…and the wrists and the elbows and the lower back. They can work these areas of the body really well. They can really stretch them. In fact, unless you are really careful and have perfect technique every time you move the bell, they can overextend them. Several message boards on the internet are replete with stories of people suffering extension-stress injuries from kettlebells, especially in the shoulders, wrists, elbows and lower back. This may be for a number of reasons… One may be going for too many reps of an exercise too soon. It is a fact of biology that the body has to get used to any kind of exercise, especially if one is a beginner at exercise or is returning after a number of years’ inactivity. The muscles and ligaments have to adapt. Your whole body has to adapt, in fact. If you do too much of anything too fast and too soon, then something will go BANG! If that happens, then not only will you have to stop exercising for a matter of weeks or months, but you also have a nice new injury to cope with. This is particularly true if the kind of exercise you are intending to take up is strenuous and/or places severe demands on your strength, speed and/or flexibility.

Another reason may be that the type of exercise may be too complex to perform alone, without the benefit of someone watching your technique. Kettlebells are particularly notorious in this regard, much more so than other forms of resistance-based exercise.

A fair number of the exercises, for example, are ballistic in nature. A good example of this is the simple swing. If done with one hand, it can hyperextend the shoulder joint itself and the muscles surrounding it. This is the case whether a kettlebell or dumbbell is used. However, because the centre of gravity of a kettlebell is that further away from the hand than is the case with a dumbbell, the risk is way higher with a kettlebell and the need for perfect technique all the more imperative. There is much more of a pull on the connective tissues because the iron is flying away from your body at speed. You can’t control it as well because you haven’t got the same close grip as you would if using a dumbbell. Maybe you need your connective tissues stretched to this degree and are happy with the high risk involved? If so, I have to ask you why? What kind of sport or activity are you participating in that warrants this degree of risk?

The same can hold true for pressing exercises performed with a kettlebell. Take the one-hand overhead press. With a dumbbell, the iron is gripped either side of the hand and the wrist is upright. With a kettlebell, however, you have to really grip it hard, otherwise, the bell will flop onto the back of your hand. This will hyperextend the wrist, put undue (and unnecessary) strain on the forearm and if done regularly, can over time place the elbow under severe strain. Also, when pressing, the wrist and forearm will take the bulk of the strain, not the upper arm and shoulder. The first warning you will have of this is a burning sensation under the elbow. Your wrist may swell up gradually. Your lower back may complain in the form of sudden sharp pains n the evenings. If you keep it up, you may even get a clicking noise in your shoulder, which will definitely warrant medical attention. If you are wise, you will stop at that point.

“OK” you retort, “then I’ll make sure to grip the hell out of it every time I do a press”. Your resoluteness is commendable. However, have you always done every repetition of every exercise perfectly? I certainly haven’t, nor do I know anyone who has. I’m only human-just like you. Furthermore, do you exercise first thing in the morning? Does it take you a few minutes to wake up and be aware? Are you able to fully concentrate fully on anything first thing in the morning, or indeed in the evening immediately after a long day’s work? For your sake, I hope so.

Let’s face it, there are many ways in which you can work your body by resistance. Pitting one muscle against another is one way. Callisthenic exercises such as the lunge and press-up also use the principle of resistance, as does sparring with a live opponent. Using dumbbells and barbells is another form of resistance. Strand pulling is yet another. A Bullworker is still another….and there are dozens more, if not hundreds. As was pointed out earlier, resistance is resistance - simple to understand. There is nothing mystical or magical about this statement. When all is said and done, it is so simple as to be axiomatic. How you train against resistance is largely up to you and is a matter of personal preference more than anything else. However, why train in a way that hyperextends certain bodyparts and which involves exercises which are so complex and demand perfect form every single rep? If you are already a seasoned athlete or martial artists, your connective tissues may allow you to get away with poor technique (such as letting the bell flop onto the back of your hand). On the other hand, you may not get away with it, even if you have been training for years. You know your own body best, not me. Finally, if you are an absolute beginner to exercise or are returning after a number of years’ inactivity, then your motto should be “Safety First” and there are numerous other ways to train with resistance which are much simpler and much safer than kettlebells. Also, any increases in either repetitions or resistance in any exercise should be gradual and moderate. Ease into exercise gradually. Don’t let it take over your life. Your connective tissues are just as important as your muscles - and just as necessary to the smooth functioning of your body. Use your intelligence here and don’t let anyone else do your thinking for you.

Kettlebells exercise the system more efficiently than bodyweight exercises
The truth is that any form of heavy resistance places a far greater workload on the body - simply because the body has more work to do, the heavier the resistance actually is. Again, just to reiterate, this is so whether the resistance comes in the form of a kettlebell, dumbbell, barbell, a Bullworker, a set of strands or whatever. However, in the interests of fairness, let’s examine this point more closely with a few examples…

Can you do a one-legged squat? This is where you stand up right, then stick one leg out in front, toes pointing forward and away from your body. Holding your arms out in front for balance, bend the leg that is on the ground till your rear (I believe the American expression is “butt”?) touches your ankle and then straighten the same leg again. A tough exercise and no mistake, isn’t it? If you can do the one-legged squat, how did you first achieve it? I did it by holding a pair of dumbbells at arms’s length, as the extra resistance on the upper body kept the lower body in balance. Once I could do them with dumbbells, I tried doing them without and they were much harder to do. Why? Because there was no counterforce effect which helped me to remain upright. The truth is that one-legged squats are fair harder using your own bodyweight, whereas adding resistance makes them easier.

Can you do a handstand pushup? If so, have you tried with a weight tied to your waist or wearing a weighted vest? You might think that the added weight makes the handstand pushup much harder to do. In fact, the additional resistance causes the abdominal muscles to contract forcibly in order to stabilise the trunk of your body. This takes some work off your shoulders-work that your shoulders would be doing if you had used no resistance. Again, the added weight makes it easier.

How about endurance? Is doing thirty swings with a kettlebell better than doing one hundred pushups? One definite advantage is that the swings wouldn’t take so long. One definite disadvantage is that you are exercising for a shorter time. If you are involved in a sport or activity which requires you to remain active for protracted periods of time, then you should train to be active for protracted periods of time. You can do this with heavy resistance if you wish, but I hope your joints can take it. I doubt if mine could - or indeed most people’s. Bodyweight exercises use the weight of your own body - no more and no less. As a means of training for endurance, they are the sensible choice. It doesn’t even have to be a specific exercise. Brisk walking is by far the best overall exercise there is. Swimming is also fantastic, especially for your back, and the buoyancy of the water takes a great load off your joints.
Let’s get even more specific: boxing. Can you imagine the effort required in simply holding your arms up for a three minute round and having to do that twelve times? This is quiet apart from having to bob and weave or throwing any punches at all. Merely holding your arms up for thirty six minutes (twelve three minute rounds) takes quite a bit of doing. The best way to train for this is to use the arms, shoulders, abs and upper back and use them for a similar length of time. Now, can you see why boxers do so many pushups?

How about cardiovascular exercise? High repetition kettlebell swings are indeed a good cardiovascular exercise. However, they are in no way superior to other cardiovascular activities. Take brisk walking. If you can go outside and walk briskly, you’re getting fresh air and the whole body is getting exercised evenly. Also, the joints of the upper body in particular get a rest - unlike kettlebell swinging. Fresh air is in itself a very important component in health. How about swimming? Again, the buoyancy of the water rests the joints and the entire body (especially the back) gets a workout. Also, spending time in the water is a good way to prepare the body against sudden chills or cold draughts. Finally, swimming in a local pool can be a rewarding social activity. Let’s put it this way: Where are you more likely to see a bikini-clad beauty - in a swimming pool or in your own garage? If the answer is the latter, then I want a garage like yours.

Kettlebells look great and feel great
I don’t know about you, but a pair of solid balls just doesn’t “do it” for me. What is so aesthetically pleasing about a pair of spherical pieces of iron? Anyone? Please?
The plate-loaded ones don’t look much better, but then again neither do dumbbells or barbells. However, they are not meant to look “nice”. They are meant to be used, just like all exercise equipment. I could say a few more things about how they “look”, but their appearance is completely irrelevant. “Are they OK to use?” is what I am concerned with.

As regards the “feel”, they definitely feel much different than dumbbells. A given amount of weight on a kettlebell is much harder to handle than the same weight on a dumbbell. Why is this? Again, there is nothing magical or mysterious about it. It is a simple matter of leverage. Because the centre of gravity of the kettlebell is at the end of a handle rather than either side of your hand, the weight itself is further away from the hand. Because of the added distance, the resistance on the body is actually greater than the weight of the kettlebell alone. If you want the science, then here it is: The amount of resistance increases with distance from the lever or fulcrum which is acting against the resistance. If you don’t want the science, then how about a practical demonstration? Take a rubber ball. Hold it close to your chest for two minutes, then put it down. Then pick it up again and hold it in front of you with your arms outstretched for two minutes. Difficult, isn’t it? Why is it so much more difficult? After all, the rubber ball weighs the same, doesn’t it? Yes, but the second time around, it is further away from you. That is why it is much harder to handle - the extra distance. This is precisely why the kettlebell “feels” different. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that adding a little more weight to a dumbbell will equal the resistance obtained from an equivalent kettlebell. Again, there is nothing mysterious about this. There is no magic, no “secrets” and no shortcuts, just simple resistance.

You Can’t Be Bored Using Kettlebells Because They Are so Versatile
Kettlebells , because of their compact size, are very versatile and lend themselves to all sorts of exercises. This true-but it is also true of dumbbells and strands. Any exercise shown using a kettlebell can be done using a dumbbell. Sure, you can attach rubber bands to a kettlebell and use it in different ways, but exactly the same things can be done with a dumbbell.

However, you can become bored with kettlebells just as easily as with any other apparatus. The mere fact that you are holding a heavy object in your hand (or both hands) limits what you can do. How can you use a kettlebell in a pushup? How many ways can you exercise lying down (grapplers, judoka and aikidoka, please take note) with a kettlebell? There is an infinite variety of exercises that can be performed using your own bodyweight and, for some exercises and some areas of the body, it is much more appropriate to do just that. Similarly, strands can exercise the body in all sorts of ways. Just ask any strandpuller. In fact, it is possible to exercise all the main areas in the body while seated using strands. Callisthenics, conversely, need no equipment and can be done anywhere - which is convenient if you travel a lot. For rehabbing injuries, strands have proven their worth time and time again, as have bodyweight callisthenics.

Kettlebells are nowhere near as versatile. The intelligent martial artist, sportsperson, or the average person who just wants to get fit should apply some serious thought to this matter. A combination of different kinds of exercise, after the body has been systematically built up to a reasonable level, is the optimal combination for good results. Anything else and you are selling yourself short as well as missing out on a whole host of benefits - increased flexibility, increased cardiovascular fitness, more strength, a more toned appearance, clearer skin, fat loss and the ability to perform well in your chosen martial art, sport, hobby or pastime.

Last But Not Least : Kettlebells Will Work For Everyone
Yes, the old classic “One size fits all” approach (the same approach, coincidentally, as was used by the erstwhile USSR in its Cold War propaganda). Of course, the truth is that nothing works for everyone. Some people take well to one thing and some people feel attracted to another thing. Equally well, the same person’s likes and dislikes may change over time. It is very important that you like and enjoy how you exercise. If you don’t, then you probably won't stick at it for very long. There is nothing wrong at all with changing an exercise routine every now and again - in fact, it can be a positively good thing to do, as the resulting “muscle confusion” can shock the body into great performance and/or growth. There is an old Irish saying that “Variety is the spice of life”. (Actually, I am unsure as to whether this saying is Irish in origin or not, but I am claiming it for Ireland for patriotic reasons, OK?). On the other hand, I have found a routine of exercises that work well for me and I tend to stick with what works.
In this regard, I have to ask one question : How much do you use your shoulders? Are you a swimmer? If so, your shoulders must be pretty well worked as they are. Are you a boxer or striker? Then your pushups and bag-punching have already given you rock-hard shoulders. Are you a wrestler, grappler or judoka? Then your shoulders must already be supple and firm from all that mat-work alone.

I could go on and on with different examples, but the point I am making is this : You already use your shoulders an awful lot if you are engaged in a martial art or a sport. This is true of most activities, as they involve the use of the arms. Even runners swing their arms as they run and derive some momentum from this, as well as keeping their body alignment correct.

So why am I saying this? Because every kettlebell move which involves using a kettlebell or pair without any other apparatus involves the shoulders to a greater or lesser extent. There is no way to take the shoulders out of an exercise session which involves the sole use of kettlebells. Can I mention the real possibility of overuse-related injury? Can I mention the need the shoulders have for rest, no less than any other part of the body?

Conclusion and some food for thought
Kettlebells are definitely not suitable for the beginner at exercise, or for those who are returning to exercise after a protracted period of inactivity. This is due to the high risk to the wrists, elbows, shoulders and lower back inherent in their use, plus the complexity involved in many of the exercises. Only those who are already fairly fit and who have trained their connective tissues to withstand repeated shocks of a ballistic nature should even consider using them. The plate-loaded kettlebell is more sensible in general than the solid ball, as the plate-loaded model allows for gradual incremental loading of increased resistance, though exactly the same benefits can be derived from a pair of plate-loaded dumbbells. However, the solid balls are good for fingertip presses and some forms of grip training. Finally, there is nothing mysterious, “secret” or magical about kettlebells .

Please note that in this article I have not even considered related questions such as the advisability of ballistic exercises in general, the effect on the joints and posture over time of high-repetition overhead lifting per se, and the role of good taste in marketing. I have also purposefully avoided mentioning cost, as I am not American nor do I live in America. However, I can say for certain that, in the British Isles at least, a standard set of dumbbells, a beginner barbell set or a set of strands all cost considerably less than one kettlebell.

Beat fatigue

2011-01-22T12:14:00.000Z

Over two million Americans complain of being fatigued each day, not to mention the four Million who have been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. With the chronic tiredness often comes lack of focus, feelings of being overwhelmed, flu-like symptoms, pain, memory loss, chronic aches and pains, unrestful sleep, short temper and even depression.

While many people accept their tiredness as part and parcel of their daily lives, it needn't be the standard way of life. Yes, we are more over-worked and stressed out than ever, but the following 10 lifestyle changes can make all the difference.

1. Eat 4 to 6 times per day — In the past 10 years the idea of ditching the "three square meals a day" plan has proven successful. In its place is the three-hour diet, or eating something every 3-to-4 hours. Eating more frequently prevents one from overeating at one time, thus zapping energy. It also helps sustain a steady level of energy throughout the day.

2. Consume energy-giving foods — While eating more frequently is a great way to stay energized, eating the wrong foods over and over will take the wind right out of you. For best energy results from food, it is important to eat plenty of fiber, which helps clean fats from blood and create bulk to move stools and this frees up energy in the body. Consuming complex carbohydrates like whole grain breads, seeds and pasta provides glucose for brainpower and sustained fuel for physical energy. Eating lean protein also adds fuel for the body. And whereas carbohydrates are fast-burning (instant energy) fuel, proteins provide slower burning (continued energy) for the day. Drinking plenty of filtered or distilled water keep the body hydrated, helps move toxins from the body and aids the kidneys.

3. Avoid energy-sapping foods — Food is certainly the main source of energy for us humans, but consuming the wrong types of food can drain and waste energy faster than we want it to. The basic idea is to avoid all foods that create an instant energy rush as a sudden energy crash is soon to follow. Such foods include caffeine, soda, coffee, chocolate, sugar, and simple carbohydrates like white bread, rice and potatoes. The energy derived from such foods is fast to come and go, and is harassing to the metabolism and wreaks havoc with ones energy. In short, they cause fatigue.

4. Exercise 30 minutes per day — While it may seem counterintuitive, exercising each day creates more energy in the body. It requires energy to exercise, and the result of exercise in increased energy. Exercise creates feelings of wellbeing because one is able to let off steam, get out anger, move the blood, sweat out toxins, and help the body release chemicals like endorphins, serotonin and dopamine. And mixing up the daily routine between running, walking, weight and aerobics keep things interesting and less boring.

5. Compartmentalize your time — One of the main reasons people feel overworked, stressed out and unhappy is because they do not prioritize their time. They often feel a greater obligation to their job than to their family, themselves, or to friends. And this is draining physically, spiritually, and emotionally and can lead to an unpleasant home life. The key to maintaining harmony and prevent burnout is to set time each day for work, family, social occasions and for your own quiet time. All of these areas need to be met to maintain a whole life that is full of love, happiness and energy.

6. Derail the burnout — There are times when taking time for yourself or leaving the office on time is not an option. In these cases when burnout and fatigue can just drain you dry, you must derail the freight train and create energizing blocks of minutes. A few suggestions include standing up and doing jumping jacks, walking a few laps a around the building or parking lot, talking to someone in the office or on the phone who makes you laugh, splashing cold water in the face and doing some deep breaths.

7. Break the stress each night — It is important not to allow stress to grip you firmly all day and night. This leads to too much tension in the body, which takes up energy. Engaging in deep breathing, taking yoga or Pilates, watching sports or listening to music you enjoy are easy things to do to relax and break the stress. Above all, it is important not to go to bed and then wake up stressed out, or you will have a very difficult time waking up and making it through the day.

8. Cut out the cancer — In this sense, "cancer" is any person, place or thing that is in your life that saps your energy and spirit. If you don't remove these things, then your energy will forever be drained each day. You know those friends or co-workers who expect too much from you and always ask too much of your time? Set clear boundaries and don't allow them instant access to you or your time. Does your email fill up too fast? There is no reason to read and answer every correspondence right away. Create email folders and prioritize which ones you read and respond to, and when. Don't allow work to interfere with personal time. Pay bills on time. Avoid unnecessary arguments. Let go of old grudges. All of these tips will cut out the old and free up stores of energy that have needlessly been wasted, making you tired and fatigued.

9. Set your sleep/wake cycle — The power of restorative rest and sleep is one of the most essential things one can do for rejuvenating the mind and body. Many people feel overly tired even at the start of each day because their sleep is not restful. They are work late into the evening, lie awake in bed worried and often awake after only a few hours of deep REM sleep. To be energized while also repairing your muscles and tissues setting a firm bedtime and wake-up time is essential. Sleeping from 10pm to 6am is said to be the best time for our body clocks.

10. Express love and gratitude — One of the easiest ways to free up energy and reduce stress and fatigue is to express your love and gratitude as often as possible. Each day you can tell those around you how grateful you are for their help, work, friendship, etc. You can tell your spouse or children or parents how much you love them. Acting with love and feeling grateful for even the smallest of things makes life worth living. And with purpose to each day, and gratitude for the work we do, it seems less a burden. When life burdens, and we thank it for the lessons or experience, we are less apt to become overwhelmed, cranky and resentful... and without these, we have more energy available for living life to its fullest.

Exercise to lose weight

2011-01-09T10:50:00.001Z

Why Time Magazine Owes the Fitness Industry a Big Fat Apology

Tom Venuto

At first I was tempted to title this article, “why John Cloud and the editors of Time magazine are idiots.” But then I thought that might be a bit harsh and decided to simply call for an apology and a correction for all the errors they made in last week’s article, Why exercise won’t make you thin.

I wasn’t even going to write this at first, because I figured that sending it to my 300,000+ subscribers would only draw more attention to the TIME story, and they’ve gotten enough free publicity from the blogosphere already.

But after receiving countless e-mails from my Burn The Fat subscribers, all imploring me to write a rebuttal, and then after receiving the email from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) yesterday, I reconsidered. The ACSM said:

“Last Friday, an article appeared in Time Magazine making statements that we believe run counter to fact and the public interest. The article claimed that exercise, contrary to the research with which we are all familiar, is not an effective health tool, particularly as it pertains to weight loss…”

They continued, (addressing the fitness professionals on their mailing list):

“Your assistance is needed in getting the right health message out to the public. Also we encourage you to adapt our letter to the editor and submit it to your local news outlets, helping readers and viewers get the best evidence-based facts and information. “

Assistance has arrived. Here is the right health message that the ACSM was calling for. I believe you’ll find my information below more accurately reflects the facts than TIME’s one-sided story. Feel free to forward this information to your friends and colleagues. Link to this, Digg this, re-tweet this and share this on facebook. I also encourage you to send your letters to the editors of TIME.

The truth about exercise, appetite and weight loss

John Cloud, a writer for Time magazine, says that he gets hungry after exercise, so he often eats more on the days he works out than on the days he doesn’t. Therefore, he proposes that exercise won’t make you thin and might actually prevent you from losing weight.

You don’t say? You mean that you don’t lose weight if you put the calories you just burned right back in by stuffing your face with muffins and doughnuts! Who’d have thunk?

It’s tough not to pick on a “fitness journalist” who thinks that exercise turns fat into muscle. But sarcasm aside for a moment, exercise can increase hunger in some cases. Hunger is a normal regulatory response of the body to maintain energy balance and weight homeostasis anytime you’re in a calorie deficit and losing body mass, whether that is achieved through exercise or dietary restriction. That doesn’t mean exercise is ineffective for weight loss, it means you need DIETARY RESTRAINT to lose weight! Dietary restraint means that if you want to lose weight, sometimes you have to feel hungry and NOT EAT! (even while stressed, emotional, tempted, etc.) This takes work, and part of that work is to practice the self-discipline to not eat every time you feel the urge and to pursue the self-education to understand the realities of the energy balance equation.

You’ll have to provide the self-discipline, but let me see if I can help with the education part (pay attention, Time magazine!)

Not exercising = not smart

The International Journal of Obesity recently published a review of the effects of exercise on appetite regulation. Dr. Martins of the Obesity research group in Norway explained that in our obesogenic environment today, NOT exercising is likely to lead to weight gain:

“It has been systematically shown that the adoption of a sedentary lifestyle inevitably produces a state of positive energy balance, as the physiological system is unable, at least in the short to medium term, to compensate by decreasing energy intake.”

Translation: if you sit on your butt, and you live in a Western society in this technologically-advanced, convenience-based world, surrounded by eating cues and temptation, it is hard NOT to gain weight, especially for people with a genetic predisposition to obesity.

Exercise does NOT always increase appetite

Dr. Martins’ review, based on 110 related studies, also explained that exercise does not necessarily stimulate energy intake:

“There have been a multitude of studies published in the last two decades exploring the association between exercise and food intake. The majority of them have shown that acute exercise does not increase hunger or energy intake.”

In the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, Dr. Neil King of The Human Appetite Research Unit at Leeds University Psychology department agreed with Martins’ findings:

“Despite the commonly held belief that the energy demand created by exercise automatically generates a drive to eat, the evidence for this is weak.”

That’s right, some studies do show that exercise increases appetite, but the majority say it doesn’t. Cloud has committed the journalistic sin known as “cherry picking,” where he selectively reported the few studies that supported his viewpoint, while conveniently “forgetting” to mention the many that didn’t.

Exercise may even DECREASE appetite

To further throw a wrench in Cloud’s argument, some studies even suggest that exercise DECREASES appetite. Cloud’s article in TIME says, “Be warned: fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain.” That’s not what the research says. Studies confirm that high intensity exercise in particular, will reduce hunger. In The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, Dr. King wrote:

“In contrast to the idea that a compensatory rise in hunger should follow exercise, many studies have shown that following a bout of intense exercise (> 60% of maximum 02 update), hunger is actually suppressed.”

A study from Laval University in Quebec (Yoshioka) concurred:

“Indeed it would seem that in the post-exercise period, high-intensity exercise seems to inhibit energy intake to a greater extent than a low-intensity exercise session of the same caloric cost.”

You may have heard that high intensity interval training (HIIT) is a very time-efficient form of exercise and that it not only leads to increased levels of fitness, but is also effective for fat loss. Now you can add to the list of benefits for HIIT — it helps support fat loss by suppressing energy intake after the workout. Does this mean you should abandon low or moderate intensity cardio? Absolutely not. Although low intensity exercise burns fewer calories per unit of time than high intensity cardio, there is plenty of research which proves that steady state exercise such as walking or cycling is also effective for weight control. A study from the School of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences at the University of Surrey in the UK found that after 60 minutes of cycling, hormones released from the gut were responsible for a suppression of appetite after exercise:

“Acute exercise, of moderate intensity, temporarily decreased hunger sensations and was able to produce a short-term negative energy balance.”

Exercise is the key to long term weight maintenance

When it comes to long term weight maintenance, the importance of exercise is even more critical. Virtually all the weight loss experts and research studies agree: a high level of physical activity is the number one key to maintaining your ideal weight after weight loss. One of the best examples of this comes from the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR). The NWCR has been tracking the habits of successful maintainers for years. They published a new report in 2008 revealing that people who are successful at maintaining their weight loss are an extremely physically active group.

Exercise may increase appetite over time, but not enough to cancel out the weight loss benefits

Even if exercise did increase appetite 100% of the time, that STILL wouldn’t mean exercise is ineffective. When there is an increase in hunger and energy intake after exercise, the increase is not significant enough to cancel out the benefits. In a review paper published in the journal Sports Medicine, Alan Titchenal of Department of Nutrition and Food Intake Laboratory at UC Davis wrote:

“When energy intake increases in response to exercise it is usually below total energy expenditure, resulting in negative energy balance and loss of bodyweight and fat. Thus, if energy intake is expressed relative to energy expenditure, appetite is usually reduced by exercise.”

In a study titled, “Cross talk between physical activity and appetite control” JE Blundell confirmed it:

“There exists a belief that physical activity drives up hunger and increases food intake, thereby rendering it futile as a method of weight control. There is however, no evidence for such an immediate or automatic effect…”

“The immediate effect of taking up exercise is weight loss. Subsequently, food intake begins to increase in order to provide compensation for about 30% of the energy expended in activity. The compensation is partial and incomplete.”

Blundell’s comments underscore the fact that you have to go on quite an unrestrained eating binge in order to completely undo the effects of an effective exercise program. I still can’t help but laugh at Time magazine’s article, which was mostly journalistic sensationalism passed off as science, when you consider how utterly obvious and intuitive all these research findings are. Binge after working out and you don’t lose weight? No kidding? Listen, it’s not my intention to be purely sarcastic or suggest that some people aren’t experiencing exactly what the article described: some people are doing a lot of exercise and still not losing weight. I don’t dispute that. The problem is in their explanation about why they’re not losing weight. It’s NOT because exercise doesn’t help with weight loss. It’s because some people over-compensate for the calories burned through exercise by eating more. However, that is an argument for proper nutrition, not an argument against exercise.

Why doesn’t all the research agree?

Why do some studies say that exercise isn’t effective for weight loss? Part of the answer is due to experimental designs. Some studies did not include a control group and many estimated energy intake by self report, which is notoriously inaccurate, as most people underestimate how much they eat (Lichtman 1992). And why do a few studies say that exercise increases appetite and excess food intake? That too depends on study designs as well as individual differences: Lean or obese? Male or female? Under what conditions? Fed or fasted exercise? Dieted down or just starting the diet? Under stress or without stress? With or without social support? The macronutrient composition of the diet and timing of the meals can also influence the outcome. When discussing weight loss, exercise and appetite, not just in the mainstream media, but even in the scientific literature as well, it’s also a common mistake to generalize and the type of exercise is often not specified. High, medium or low intensity? Aerobic exercise or strength training? (the latter can increase lean body mass, offsetting weight loss). And what kind, specifically? Certain types of exercise, such as swimming in cold water, are well known to increase appetite, while others like HIIT, can suppress appetite. And why research scientists in this day and age think exercise only means aerobics is beyond my comprehension. What about weight training? The relationship between exercise and appetite is complex. Every one of these factors can influence whether exercise affects energy intake and subsequently, the amount of weight loss.

Individual variability uncovered: Compensators vs non compensators and restrained vs unrestrained eaters

Studies show that a fixed amount of exercise will not lead to the same amount of weight loss in all individuals. On the surface, this leads one to think that indeed exercise doesn’t work or there are differences in individual response to exercise and biological ability to lose fat (genetics, etc.). The truth is, most of the variability in results can be accounted for by the type of exercise and study designs as I mentioned above, by behavioral factors and lack of compliance. That’s right, most people just don’t stay on their diets consistently - they may exercise more, but also eat more, and move less the rest of the day, which cancels out the calorie deficit. Researchers call these individuals “compensators.” There are people who appear to compensate “automatically” for genetic or biological reasons, but there are also non-compensators who adjust their nutrition and training according to their results. You are never influenced only by genes, but also by behavior and environment. How well you comply with your diet and exercise programs and what kind of results you get are ultimately up to you and your level of dietary restraint. Some people choose to eat inappropriately after exercise because they think they deserve a reward or they over-estimate how many calories they burned during their workout. That has nothing to do with exercise not helping with weight loss. That is called a dietary blunder! It is entirely possible for an un-educated or unrestrained eater to out-eat even the best workout program and highest levels of physical activity.

The bottom line:

The effectiveness of exercise for weight loss was never really in question. The real issue is compliance to a calorie deficit. Exercise IS effective for weight loss – significantly so – especially when you combine weight training and cardio training with an effective nutrition plan, as I have recommended for years in my Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle program.

The health benefits of exercise are indisputable. Not to mention that training makes you look good naked. No amount of dieting will ever make you stronger, fitter and more muscular. Only training can do that. Dieting without exercising turns you into a skinny fat person. You may look thin in clothes, but when you take off the shirt, you will still look soft and flabby.

But no matter how much you exercise, you can’t lose weight if you eat yourself into a calorie surplus. Just because you start an exercise program doesn’t mean you have free license to abandon all restraint and freely indulge in eating anything you want. So whaddya say, TIME magazine? Do you acknowledge your errors? Will you write a retraction? Thousands of fitness professionals and hundreds of thousands of fitness enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting your answer.

- Tom Venuto, author of:
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle

Founder & CEO,
Burn The Fat Inner Circle

References

Blundell JE, cross talk between physical activity and appetite control: does physical activity stimulate appetite? Proc Nutr Soc, 62, 651-661. 2003 Catenacci VA, Phelan S, Wing RR, Hill JO. Physical activity patterns in the national weight control registry. Obesity research. 16: 153-161, 2008 Donahoo WT, Variability in energy expenditure and its components. Curr Op Clin Nutr Metab. 7: 599-605. 2004. Hubert P, et al, Uncoupling the effects of energy expenditure and energy intake: appetite response to short-term energy deficit induced by meal omission and physical activity. Appetite. 1998 Aug;31(1):9-19. King NA, et al, Individual variability following 12 weeks of supervised exercise: Identification and characterization of compensation for exercise-induced weight loss. Int J Obes, 32, 177-184, 2008. King NA, effects of exercise on appetite control: Implications for energy balance. Med Sci Sport Exer, 29(8): 1076-1089. 1997 King, NA, The relationship between physical activity and food intake. 57: 77-84. 1998. Lichtman, S., Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects. NEJM. 327: 1893-1898. 1992 Lluch A, Exercise enhances palatability of food, but does not increase food consumption, in lean restrained females. Int J Obes, 21: supp a129. Melzer K., effects of physical activity on food intake. Clin Nutr, 24: 885-895. 2005 Slentz CA. Effects of the amount of exercise on body weight, body composition, and measures of central obesity. Arch Intern Med. 164: 31-39. 2004 Titchenal A., Exercise and Food Intake: what is the relationship? Sports Med, 6: 135-145. 1988 White, L., Increased caloric intake soon after exercise in cold water. Int J Sport Nutr Exer Metab, 15: 38-47, 2005. University of Gainesville, FL USA. Yoshioka M, Impact of high-intensity exercise on energy expenditure, lipid oxidation and body fatness. Int J Obes. 25, 332-339. 2001.

Warm-up

2010-12-31T10:39:00.002Z

How to pick the exercises.

1. Exercises should always work multiple muscle groups.
2. Exercises should be done standing, whenever possible.
3. Exercises should be effective for fat loss even if only the bodyweight version is used (i.e. squats).
4. The hardest (most intense) exercises should always be first in your workout.

Now before I explain the rules in detail, let's cover your warm-up.

Start with a general bodyweight exercise warm-up. The purpose of the warm-up is to specifically prepare your muscles for action. Walking on a treadmill for 5 minutes does little in
terms of preparing your body for resistance training.

These hot zones are:

a) Back of Legs
b) Upper Back
c) Chest
d) Abdominals/Torso

Why do I only worry about the back of legs? Because almost all multi-joint movements that train the back of the legs will also stress the quadriceps, even if only in a static contraction.

So use this Hot Zone warm-up in place of the treadmill:

A) Y-Squat (put hands over your head in a "Y" formation) - 15 reps
B) Close-grip Push-ups (kneeling or advanced) - 8 reps
C) Stick-up - 8 reps

Ok, now we are ready to move on to the main workout.

As stated in the workout rules, we must pick our hardest, most intense exercises first, and perform them in sets of low reps.

1A) Split Squat (8 reps) [Advanced: Use the Bulgarian Split Squat]
1B) Elevated Push-up (8 reps per side) [Beginner: Use kneeling push-ups)
2A) Step-up (12 reps)
2B) Bodyweight Row (8 reps) (Beginners do with knees bent)
3A) Stability Ball Jackknife (15 reps) (Beginners do Mountain Climbers)
3B) Back Extension (15 reps) (Replace with DB row if necessary)

Each superset (i.e. 1A & 1B) is done 3 times with no rest between exercises A and B, but with a 30-60 second rest after B, and then you repeat the superset.

As you can see, each exercise uses multiple muscle groups, so that more calories will be burned during and after exercise.

That means you should be able to perform the two exercises back to back with minimal fatiguing effects from the prior exercise. You have to pair exercises that don't use the same muscle groups.

The rules of exercise selection and exercise order will allow you to get lean, boost your metabolism, and to train with a high-intensity throughout the entire workout.

7 Exercises for maximum strength - 1

2010-12-29T16:41:00.001Z

Weighted Pull-Ups

It’d be great it if the common gym question of “How much can you bench?” were replaced by “How many pull-ups can you do?”

Most guys cheat the pull-up by failing to fully extend their arms at the bottom or get their chin completely above the bar at the top, and this creates problems.

If you can finish 10 real manly pull ups, try adding some weight. You can hold a dumbbell between your ankles, sport a weight belt and hang some plates, wear a weighted vest or back back, or put your wife or girlfriend on your back if you’re up to it (and if they’re willing, of course).

The added weight on the pull-up will help add width to your back and give you that tapered V-shaped look.

7 Exercises for maximum strength - 2

2010-12-29T16:36:00.001Z

Sandbag Clean

Another reversion to manual labor, the sandbag clean is a handy exercise for overall physical development a well as for strengthing the grip. Sandbags with handles are not to be used.

Grip the bag by the cloth only and work on developing some man-hands. A strong grip equals a strong man.

7 Exercises for maximum strength - 3

2010-12-29T16:34:00.001Z

Sledge Hammer Drills

Manual labor is always, well, manly. And in modern society’s sea of white collars and cubicles, it is beneficial to your health to create some physical work even when your paycheck doesn’t require it.

Repeatedly slam the sledge hammer with all of your might into an old tire or some soft dirt. Your forearms, midsection, shoulders and back will reap the rewards of this manly workout and sledge hammer drills are excellent for stress relief as well!

7 Exercises for maximum strength - 4

2010-12-29T16:33:00.001Z

Sled Drag

With a chain, rope or nylon strap, connect yourself to a shoulder harness hooked to a tire, weighted sled or other heavy object.

Now, lean forward, begin moving and pull with all your might! Your legs will get the maximum workout, and your heart and lungs will be used at full capacity.

Enjoy the feeling of your heart pounding strong and know that you are training like a real man.

7 Exercises for maximum strength - 5

2010-12-29T16:28:00.001Z

Push Press/Shoulder Press

If deadlifting as much weight off the ground as possible is the exercise that makes you feel the most manly, then pushing as much weight overhead as possible comes in as a close second.

The bench press receives way too much credit. It is difficult for me to imagine a scenario in life where we are we caught with our back stuck to the floor and a heavy weight extended towards the ceiling.

However, the functionality of pushing weight overhead from a standing position is incontestible. Need to put away that heavy box up in your attic? Or help lift your buddy over a tall fence when it’s time to evade and escape?

The push press will help you move heavy objects to high places and give you the broad, rounded shoulders that make women weak in the knees.

and

7 Exercises for maximum strength - 6

2010-12-29T16:24:00.001Z

Squat

As men, we can feel at times as if the weight of the world is on our shoulders. Well, get used to bearing some serious weight by stepping under the squat bar!

Legs that are pillars of strength and a torso that is rock solid are tangible benefits to be had from doing the squat.

So be like Atlas and squat big! If you ignore the value of squats because you’re an “upperbody only” type of guy, then it’s time to make a serious change in your workout routine.

Heavy and deep squatting will make you look and feel like a warrior inside and out