Fit Tip#1

You can't find time during the day to get ANY exercise in?

Everyday you have to take a shower, right? I hope so. While the water is heating up, do 20 squats while holding onto the sink in your bathroom. Take an extra minute under the water and do 20 wall pushups in the shower! Something is better than nothing!

The Holidays...

... are around the corner! Of course, it's natural to want to indulge in the wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas treats that are coming into season. It's hard to skip by that sugar cookie and pass up the rum cake. But you still have goals and it's best to keep with them through even the toughest season of all. If you can make it out of the other end of the holiday season then you'll have no problem with meeting your goals in the new year.

My suggestion: be proactive against those tantalizing sweets! Eat before you go to the gathering. Make your own healthy desserts at home and bring them to the party, Turkey Day dinner, or other Holiday social gatherings.

Trust me, for the most part, others are not going to stop in their tracks to make sure you are not tempted by the unhealthy, sugary, carb-filled foods that will comprimise everything you are working hard towards. You have to be the one that says No to those foods and stick to the limited healthy ones. There are plenty of ways to have healthy, veggie filled, fruitful, sugar-free Turkey Day and Christmas dinners. But it'll take work on your part to keep on this path.

But it'll be totally worth it!

The best way to find desserts and fun foods that are healthy and not loaded down with sugar is to use a search engine, type in "holiday desserts paleo" and voila! You havehealthy recipes at your finger tips... and yes, I type "paleo" at the end of every recipe search.

Another great link is http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-holiday-desserts/

I'm always happy with this website and Mark has great additional resources for cooking healthy too.

Good luck to you over the season! Contact me if you have any questions or want additional suggestions for awesome holiday foods...

-Jenn :) 

Cholesterol… The Villain? Or the Knight in Shining Armor?

There’s a battle going on, and it's about cholesterol. I have been reading loads of articles, health sites, blogs, and medical information sites to find the truth to cholesterol.

It has become common knowledge that fats and cholesterol are bad for us. Anything low-fat and low-cholesterol is better for us. Eat too many eggs and your chances of experiencing heart disease and/or a heart attack will sky rocket. There is no need to eat saturated fats because the liver will produce ALL the cholesterol that the body needs.

We’ve all heard these statements. But you know what? They are all wrong.

We are accustomed to being told that in order to lower your sky-high cholesterol, you need to take medications. You need to reduce your intake of high cholesterol foods and saturated fats. Eat more oatmeal, low-fat yogurt, more whole grains breads, pastas, and rice. It is east to believe that if you have too much cholesterol in your blood it is because your food sources are high in cholesterol. By eating more grains and limiting your meats, you will lower your risk of heart disease.

Again. Wrong.

I’ll explain why, but first…. can you answer this question? … 

What is cholesterol?

Really, ask yourself... do you know what cholesterol is??

First, something to know is that cholesterol and fat are not the same things. Cholesterol is found in fat, and it is a waxy substance that is produced by the liver and it is needed for your overall health and body functions.

• ·      Production and maintenance of cell membranes
• ·      Production of hormones
• o   Particularly estrogen in women and testosterone in men
• ·      Production of bile in intestines to aid in digestion
• o   Aids in digestion of fat-soluble vitamins (ie, A, D, E, K)
• ·      Brain functions and neurotransmitter function
• o   Necessary for synapses to occur and transmission of electrical impulses
• ·      Production and maintenance of brain and nerve tissues
• ·      Precursor for Vitamin D
• o   Vit D is best known for it’s role in calcium metabolism and bone health
• o   Sunlight is required to turn cholesterol into Vit D

And last BUT not least!

• ·      Cholesterol is vital in repairing damages within our body
•  It will concentrate on a part of the body that has inflammation, infection, or a wound.

Real Quick:

• ·      When we eat large amounts of cholesterol, the body’s production decreases.
• ·      When you eat smaller amounts of cholesterol, the body will go into protection mode and the liver will increase its production.
• In addition to this, when the body detects an increase in inflammation, free radicals, and infection it will produce more cholesterol to combat the problem.

So… Is Cholesterol a Villian? Or a Knight in Shining Armor?

The average person, who doesn’t watch what they eat, will have tons of inflammation and free radicals floating through their body. This comes from eating junk foods, sugars, refined grains, processed foods, chemically altered foods, drinking too much alcohol, tons of corn-made-somethings (cornmeal, corn syrup, corn starch, etc) and other toxins that aren’t natural to the human body.

These free radicals, this uncontrolled blood sugar, along with other inflammation causing activities cause microscopic tears in your arteries. That’s when the Knight in Shining Armor (Chooo-leees-ter-ooool!!) comes to the rescue to repair the damages. This waxy substance acts like spackle on a wall, repairing the tear and hoping that will do the trick of resolving the problem.

Well, if the cause of the issue is not addressed and free radicals and inflammation continue to occur, the Knight will continue to comeback, setting more plaster into the wound.

So what would happen if you kept putting spackle onto the same hole in a wall? It gets thicker, naturally. As the plaque builds up in your arteries, the plaque hardens, then the artery hardens and you are on your way to Heart Attack-ville.

Is it fair to say that cholesterol is the problem or the answer to damages arties? I’d say that cholesterol is just doing its job. But in order to lower your cholesterol you need to stop eating the inflammation inducing foods. The high cholesterol is a red-flag for other problems that are going on in your body.

I think this ideology can be linked to many doctors wanting to fix the symptoms, not the problems. If you have high cholesterol, rethink the idea that it’s the fats doing the damage rather than the other foods you are eating.

My philosophy is that if the food is readily accessible, easy to open, easy to eat, and has to advertise a single “health benefit” on the package, it’s probably not good for you. If the food is from nature and takes effort to prepare, than it’s more likely to be natural to your body and will not cause the inflammation and health problems that Americans face.

Check out these sources, and rethink everything you’ve been told about fats and cholesterols.

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/

http://www.womentowomen.com/healthyweight/fatandcholesterol.aspx

http://www.experiencelifemag.com/issues/june-2009/healthy-eating/cholesterol-reconsidered.php

The Paleo Diet

The Paleolithic Diet.

The first time I heard of this diet I was at work (a physical therapy clinic). My co-workers and I were talking about a cake that one of our patients had brought us, when one of my friends mentioned that she couldn't eat any because she was on a Paleolithic Diet. 

A Paleo-whaaaaat? ...  Is that a religion?

After talking with her a little more about it, along with her reviews of how good she was feeling and basics of her eating habits, I decided that I wanted to learn more about it.

So, what is this Paleolithic diet? What makes it healthy?

The Paleo-diet is also known as the “caveman” diet. The basis of this diet is to only eat what your ancestors from 10,000 years ago would have eaten. It is believed that our bodies evolved into what they are today during the Paleolithic period. Hence, our bodies are best regulated to eat the kinds of foods that were available to us while we were hunter-gatherers.

What does this mean?

According to Robb Wolf, author of The Paleo Solution, the diet requires you to eat lean proteins and fresh (wild) fish, seasonal fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats such as nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil, and coconut oil.

The Paleolithic people mainly had a 60/40 diet: 60% of their diet was meat from hunting or fishing, 40% was fruits, vegetables, nuts, and berries from gathering. Their diet was also rich in antioxidants, fiber, and vitamins. 

Having these kinds of eating habits means that you have to say no to grains, legumes (beans, peanuts, peas, soy, etc), dairy products, yogurts, pastas, anything with refined sugar, anything that contains yeast, and anything with processed vegetable oils.

Seems like a lot more DO NOT’S than DO’s, doesn’t it? True. But when you look at it a little closer, it makes good sense.

At the end of the Paleolithic period, domestication of animals and the methods of agriculture were developed. Humans settled into living in single areas, evolving from living as hunters and gatherers. Then, humans began to learn new ways to make food. It also brought new kinds of foods into the human diet, such as dairy products, beans, cereals, and alcohol.

In the late 1800's and in the 1900's, techniques were developed to process foods on large scales along with methods of mass livestock farming which enabled the production of large quantities of refined sugars, cereals, and fatty domestic meats… Bringing us to our current eating habits.

Today, the eating habits of our society are filled with sugary-sweet, easy access, pre-packaged processed foods. We eat loads of sugar, salt, processed vegetable oils, sodium, nitrates, and alcohol- among many other impure additives and foods. Scientists believe that the mal-adaptation to today’s eating habits is the culprit for the chronic diseases and health problems that Americans face.  

As Wikipedia says: These dietary compositional changes have been theorized as risk factors in the pathogenesis of many of the so-called "diseases of civilization" and other chronic illnesses that are widely prevalent in Western societies including obesity, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases, colorectal cancer, myopia, acne, depression, and diseases related to vitamin and mineral deficiencies (2). 

So… here are some benefits of the Paleolithic diet:

Research shows that even short-term consumption of a paleolithic type diet improves blood pressure and glucose tolerance, decreases insulin secretion, increases insulin sensitivity and improves lipid profiles without weight loss in healthy sedentary humans. (3)

Dr Loren Cordain is a leading expert in the Paleolithic diet. His research supports that this diet will eliminate acne, improve athletic performance, slow progression of an autoimmune disease, lose weight without dieting and exercise, reduce or eliminate risk of diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and the vast majority of all chronic degenerative diseases that affect humanity.

After quite a bit of my own of research on this diet, I highly recommend doing some on your own as well. This is a very very healthy diet. The lifestyle and results seem to be pretty amazing for the people who live and eat like this. Even in efforts to lose weight, these eating guidelines are good way to go. How and what you eat makes up a dynamic part of your body composition. When you are loading your body's system up on healthy veggies, proteins, fruits, and fats while cutting out sugars, gluten, and the many impurities that added into our food, you are bound to see and feel the very positive repercussions.