Health

I am sure you have heard you have to build more muscle so you can burn more fat. I’m sure you have also heard that you have to put your body into extreme calorie deficit in order to lose weight. I’ll bet you’ve also been told that eating a high protein diet will make you lose weight faster.

Do not do high protein diets! Too much protein can cause kidney failure. Be careful!

If all we had to do is burn more calories than we take in, weight loss would be easy. Why? Because most people stop eating when they want to lose weight. It works for 2-4 weeks but then all of a sudden, it stops. Your body adjusts to the lower calories. Now you have to drop your calories even further to keep losing weight. Pretty soon, you’re starving yourself.

Think about this. Let’s say your body required 1600 calories per day. If you ate only 1000 calories that would mean you would lose weight according to the theory. If that’s the case you should be able to eat all the STARCHES and SUGARS you want as long as you did not exceed 1000 calories. Let’s take it one step further. Let’s say you eat nothing but 1000 calories from doughnuts. Well, you should lose weight, right? Definitely not!

The research in support of dietary omega-3 fatty acids (such as in fish oils) continues to flood the scientific literature. This is perfectly predictable given our genetic roots. In the wild, eating natural raw foods, we would be consuming large amounts of omega-3 fatty acids daily. But today, on processed, grain-based diets, we get little.

Instead, we have dramatically increased the consumption of omega-6 fatty acids. Although these too are essential in the diet, their excess results in a pro-inflammatory response that lies at the base of a mix of modern degenerative diseases such as arthritis, autoimmunities and heart disease. The natural diet should have a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 of about 1:1, but today is more like 20 or 30 to 1! See a problem?

Certain fish, algae, some vegetables, grass-fed meats, wild meats, high omega-3 eggs, seeds such as flax and supplements help. Variety is always important. Any food may contain toxins, so varying the diet gives the body an opportunity to detoxify.

It is shocking how many people are not taking advantage of the lessons from 21st Century research on cellular health. The syntax of disease is known by many researchers; and many of them are telling you what you can do to protect yourself. They wonder why so many still choose to age and ultimately die prematurely.

Throughout human history, infectious disease was the leading cause of death. By the 20th Century, non-infectious ailments like heart attacks, strokes and cardio-vascular disease along with cancer replaced it as the leading cause. Furthermore, this occurred among the industrial nations, despite greater wealth, better housing and so-called, better nutrition.

So, whether you live longer and healthier than your parents just may depend, not on your monetary wealth or your medical insurance card, but on how well you know and react to the mechanisms of disease in the modern world.

While the message of ancient wisdom has also spoken clear enough, leaving us clues for the last 6,000 years of mankind’s history, our modern world has equally spoken. In a world that has the greatest scientific research available, men, women and children still die prematurely. Why? Is there a root cause for this effect?

Salt is vital for our health. Right now, you have around 250 gr. of salt - about a cupful - working for keeping you alive. Without enough of it, muscles won’t contract, blood won’t circulate, food won’t digest, and the heart won’t beat.

Salt, the sodium chloride, is an essential part of the diet of humans and animals and is a part of our fluids, such as blood, sweat, and tears.

The two elements of salt - sodium and chloride - play a variety of very important and crucial roles in our bodies as maintaining the balance of our fluids, which carry oxygen and nutrients around our bodies.

The sodium it contains is helping maintain the fluid in the blood cells and enables the transmission of electrical impulses between our brain, nerves and muscles. It is responsible for our taste, smell and tactile senses and helps our muscles - including the heart - to contract.

The chloride is essential to our food digestion process by providing chloride for hydrochloric acid - an essential element of human digestive fluid - and helps in preserving the acid-base balance in our body. It plays an important role in absorbing potassium and helping the blood to carry carbon dioxide from respiring tissues to the lungs.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard all about the amazing health benefits of antioxidant rich foods in your diet. Not only do these free-radical fighting antioxidants help you look and feel younger by slowing down the aging process, but they also help to prevent cancer, heart disease, and loads of other degenerative diseases. But that’s not all. Antioxidants also help you to recover better from exercise…and that means more muscle and less fat on your body in the long run!

The function that antioxidants play in aiding your recovery from exercise is the inhibition of free radicals produced during exercise. Any time you workout, free radicals are produced in the body that damage muscle tissue. Having an adequate supply of antioxidants about an hour or so before your workout can greatly reduce the muscle damage caused by free radicals, hence, improving your muscular recovery from exercise.

Some of the most potent sources of whole food antioxidants are berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cranberries), cherries, acai fruit, various teas (green tea, white tea, black tea, and red tea - a.k.a. rooibos tea), nuts, seeds, red and black beans, purple potatoes, grapes, red wine, cinnamon, and dark chocolate or cocoa. Don’t be fooled by all of the intense marketing for expensive antioxidant supplement pills…remember whole foods are always better for you (and cheaper) than a pill.

As you’ve probably heard before, your post-workout meal may very well be your most important meal of the day. The reason is that when you’re finished with an intense workout, you’re entering a catabolic state where your muscle glycogen is depleted and increased cortisol levels are beginning to excessively break down muscle tissue. These conditions are not good and the only way to reverse this catabolic state (and promote an anabolic state) is to consume a quickly digestible post-workout meal as soon as you can after training. The goal is to choose a meal with quickly digestible carbs to replenish muscle glycogen as well as quickly digestible protein to provide the amino acids needed to jump start muscular repair. The surge of carbohydrates and amino acids from this quickly digested meal promotes an insulin spike from the pancreas, which shuttles nutrients into the muscle cells.

The post-workout meal should generally contain between 300-500 calories to get the best response. For example, a 120-lb female may only need a 300-calorie meal, whereas a 200-lb male may need a 500-calorie post-workout meal. Your post-workout meal should also contain anywhere from a 2:1 ratio of carbs:protein to a 4:1 ratio of carbs:protein. While most of your other daily meals should contain a source of healthy fats, keep the fat content of your post-workout meal to a bare minimum, since fat slows the absorption of the meal, which is the opposite of what you want after a workout.

Initially discovered as a new element in 1811 by Barnard Courtois, knowledge of this substance has come to include the host of benefits it brings to the body as an essential nutrient. For many years, getting enough iodine in the diet naturally was difficult in many geographic regions and remains so for an unfortunately high percentage of the world’s population in the developing nations. With the introduction of iodized salt, meeting the daily iodine requirement became nearly effortless and inexpensive in the industrialized nations. In these nations, iodine deficiency is now rare. As developing nations are able to make the shift to iodized salt, their rates of iodine deficiency and the diseases associated with it have also begun to decrease.

One of the main ways that iodine affects the body and health is through its interactions with the thyroid gland. Approximately 80% of the iodine found in the body is located in the thyroid. With the help of iodine, the thyroid is able to produce its hormones: thyroxine and triodothyronine. These hormones play a major part in regulating processes relating to growth and development of the body and influence the maturation of the reproductive system.

When I hear the word fat I usually think of a roll of it hanging over a persons belt, or that guy Milty, from the movie Van Wilder, doing a belly flop off of the top diving platform with the words, "save the swim team", written across his backside. Sometimes, however, the picture of a big, juicy, double quarter pounder with cheese will slip its way into my mind. Although, if I were to eat more than the one per month that I allow myself now I would probably be sick for days, thanks to the health food lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to over the past few years. For the most part, the word fat has a negative connotation.

Like a lot of people, I like to avoid fat. We’ve been warned against it for years. There’s even an entire industry that promotes the idea that fat is horrible. Just take a walk down almost any isle in a grocery store and you’ll see a parade of items labeled "low-fat", "no fat", "reduced fat", or "fat-free". Doctors, dieticians, and nutritionists have been on our cases about it for what seems like an eternity.

Do we really need a home water filter? Can’t we just assume the water that flows from our kitchen and bathroom tap is sufficiently treated for contaminants by our municipal water facility? In order to answer these questions, we need to obtain a little more background information.

Next to air, water is the most important element for our survival.

Water is an integral part of our life and we use it for many household tasks throughout the day, such as: drinking and brushing our teeth, steaming fish and vegetables, washing salad greens, face and hand washing, showering and bathing, feeding the pets and watering our plants.

Most of us take it for granted that our tap water is safe to drink and use for common household tasks. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), however, estimates that 45,000,000 people drink tap water that is polluted with chemicals, lead, germs, parasites and other impurities.

A large majority of the major U.S. cities still employ the same basic water treatment technologies that have been used since before World War I. In cities such as Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C. consumers are relying on pipes that are, on average, over a century old. Many people don’t realize that our municipal water treatment plants are not designed to remove synthetic chemicals and as a result we find traces of health threatening contaminants in most of our public water supplies.

Some say they don’t or can’t buy organic foods due to higher cost and less availability. Here are a few ways to make organics more affordable and easier to purchase for your family.

1. Do not always assume organic is more expensive. Look at the prices of conventional and organic products and compare. You may be surprised that on some items, there is little or no difference in price, depending on where and when you buy.

2. Buy in season. These items will be the lowest priced, whether you’re shopping at a specialty market or local farmer’s market.

3. Grow your own. Even a small window box can yield some organic herbs or tomatoes. Larger areas can accommodate lettuce, strawberries, broccoli, carrots and more. A garden is also a great classroom and hobby for children and adults alike.

4. Shop at one of the more than 2,500 farmers’ markets in the United States. The produce here is as fresh as possible, because the food is usually picked within 24 hours of your purchase. This is a great place to check prices with little effort. Becoming a regular shopper and getting to know growers personally, is a good way to get the best selection and price.