10 things you can do to be healthier and fitter (Part 2)

Today, I’m doing the second part of a discussion we started last week about “10 things you can do to be healthier and fitter.” We talked about the first five in our last blog, and today we’re going to finish up with the last five

But first, let’s review some very frightening statistics. In today's world, it's harder than ever to keep your weight under control, as evidenced by the fact that more than 2/3 of all American adults are now overweight or obese.

In fact, in an alarming bit of information, the Centers for Disease Control statistics revealed that in the U.S., the number of obese people actually outnumber overweight people. And in 2011, one of three children is now overweight or obese; nearly triple the rate from 1963. The plain, unvarnished truth is the US has predominantly become a nation of fat and obese citizens.

Let’s review the first five items we discussed last week. The first thing to help you keep off weight is you must eliminate fructose from your diet. This is important, Number two that you must plan your meals. Very crucial. Number three is avoid all sodas, even and especially diet sodas. Number four is be sure to eat plenty of organic vegetables. Number five deals with proper exercise.

Now, we’ll discuss the last five things to keep pounds off.

Number six is to avoid drinking fruit juice. I thought that fruit juice was good for you. Fruit juice is probably the most requested drink by children of all ages, not because it quenches thirst, but because it tastes good. And fruit juice, it turns out, is not one of the best things you can put into your body, especially for children. Yes, I can hear all the fruitarians screaming that I am wrong and there are unusual situations in which this isn't true. For someone who is normal body weight with no insulin resistance it might not be a major problem, especially if you're drinking freshly squeezed organic juice in moderation.

However, that is clearly a very tiny minority of the population.  Drinking fruit juice is only slightly different from drinking soda. Both deliver a massive dose of sugar to your body unbound by any of the slow-releasing mechanisms provided by nature. So when you think of fruit juice, you should think of soda.

You should certainly by now be aware of the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, but please understand that simple fruit sugar extracted from fruit has virtually identical side effects and negative effects on your biochemistry. This means fruit juice will cause a major spike in your insulin levels. This is important because elevated insulin levels are one of the primary drivers for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and weight gain.

Number seven is avoid eating outside of your home. There's a reason your favorite restaurant food often tastes better than your home cooked meals: many times it's loaded with extra calories in the form of sugars, hydrogenated fats and artificial flavor enhancers like MSG.

And since most restaurants purchase the bulk of their food in advance, and frequently rely on frozen, pre-cut and pre-cooked foods, the chances are high that your restaurant meal is simply processed food, nutritionally far inferior to anything fresh and organic you can make at home. And unless your favorite restaurant is advertising its free-range meats and organic vegetables, chances are also high that you're consuming feedlot animals and conventionally grown vegetables that have been drenched in antibiotics and pesticides respectively. Neither are good for maintaining optimal health.

I'm not suggesting you never eat outside of your own home; I understand the pleasure and social importance of eating out occasionally. My suggestion is merely to keep eating out to a minimum, and try to frequent restaurants committed to buying organic and serving minimally processed meals. The other very real hazard of eating out is the temptation to order an innocuous looking dessert that is anything but innocuous when it comes to the caloric punch it packs.

Number eight is a no-brainer. Literally. Avoid excessive alcohol consumption. Alcohol is converted by your body into simple sugar, and it turns out the metabolic pathway converting alcohol into its simple sugar components is the same pathway your body uses to convert high fructose corn syrup into its component parts.

In a nutshell, you are basically ingesting fat. So any advances you may make by watching your diet will be more or less instantly wiped out by a night of binge drinking. I recommend no alcohol consumption at all, since it is a neurotoxin whose drawbacks far outweigh even the benefits found in a glass of red wine (one of the healthiest options when it comes to alcohol consumption).

But again, alcohol equals body fat unless you are in the minority and have a super-production of alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH), the enzymes that break down alcohol in your body. Most likely you are not in this minority.

Number nine is avoiding consuming fast or processed foods. We hear all the time but somehow, the message is not strong enough. There’s a recent article by Time Magazine has summed up the problem of fast food nicely. I encourage you to revisit both if you haven't been keeping up to date on all the health problems associated with consuming fast food.

Number 10 is avoid condiments and idle snacks. Cutting all of these things out would save you about 330 calories a day. That translates to a loss of about 1 pound every 10 days, or about 36 pounds a year. How much weight do you need to lose? How long would it take you to reach your goal by cutting out these unnecessary condiments?

For some final thoughts, if you're like most Americans, you probably have between a few and several unnecessary pounds you'd prefer not to be carrying around every day. I'm here to tell you that not only is it possible to take off the extra weight with a little thoughtful planning, it is also possible to keep the weight off simply by following a few sensible guidelines above.

Every purchase you make is a vote with your pocketbook about the kinds of food these manufacturers will continue to make.

The bottom line is very simple here, folks. Think VERY carefully about what you're eating so you and your family can take control of your health before someone else takes control of it from you.

10 things you can do to be healthier and fitter (Part 1)

Today, we’re going to talk about getting fit and keep off those unnecessary pounds. I recently read an article by a person I really respect, He wrote about the 10 things that can pack on pounds. I think for today’s discussion that I’ll put a positive spin on it and begin the discussion about 10 things you can do to be healthier and fitter.

Actually, since there’s a lot of material to cover for one blog, we’ll cover first five important things to do this week and we’ll follow up with the last five next week.

We certainly hear about obesity being an epidemic around the world but especially here in the US. In today's world, it's harder than ever to keep your weight under control, as evidenced by the fact that more than 2/3 of all American adults are now overweight or obese.

In fact, here’s an alarming bit of information; the Centers for Disease Control recently revealed statistics citing that in the U.S., the number of obese people actually outnumber the number of merely overweight people. And in 2011, one of three children is now overweight or obese; nearly triple the rate from 1963. The plain, unvarnished truth is the US has predominantly become a nation of fat and obese citizens.

This may be a good place to begin the discussion of 10 things we can do to start reversing this trend.

·     The first “must do” thing to help you keep off weight is you must eliminate fructose from your diet. You've gone to all the trouble of getting some exercise. But despite sticking to your new plan you discover the pounds are not coming off. You ask yourself, "Why?"

It’s important to understand and know that while exercise is important and crucial for weight loss and I am a major fan, the foods you choose to eat are three times more important for controlling your weight than your exercise. It's very easy to sabotage yourself with sugary foods and exercise beverages. Especially beverages containing high fructose corn syrup. These drinks include "vitamin water", energy drinks, and similar types of recovery drinks. You need to avoid these drinks and ignore the slick marketing messages that suggest you need them because you workout.

·     Number two is that you must plan your meals. It's said that failing to plan means you're planning to fail. When it comes to meals designed to promote your health and eliminate unwanted calories, you're going to have to heed this advice. The problem is, if you fail to plan your meals you are basically eating according to either your emotions or whatever whim may come over you around mealtime. Both of these can mean added calories, poor nutritional choices and a growing waistline.

I do advise some general principles to follow when planning your meals, but the takeaway message to this nutritional no-no is you need to think independently of your shifting moods about what you will be consuming for up to the next week in advance -- in order to keep your plate free of unnecessary calories. This means shopping in advance with specific meals in mind and it means putting your intended meals down on paper and sticking to your meal schedule. You've probably discovered that both of these things are much harder in practice than they are in theory. There's a reason for that. Processed food manufacturers are spending a lot of money, billions and billions of dollars each year, to convince you that their food will satisfy you emotionally. Processed foods are not the answer. Processed foods are part of your growing waist line problem. Remember this truth as you take on the billion dollar advertising industry while you take control of your health!

·     Number three is to avoid all sodas, especially diet soda, In my opinion, this is one of the primary health threats. Did you know that just one can of Coke contains 10 teaspoons of sugar?  This is 100 percent of your recommended daily intake (which is more than double my recommended daily allowance to begin with). Within 20 minutes of drinking that soda, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat. It ‘s a proven fact that sugar increases your insulin levels, which leads not only to weight gain, but also high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, premature aging and many more negative side effects. In fact, sugar is so bad for your health in so many ways, I've created an entire list outlining the ways sugar can damage your health.

Some people laugh when I say it, but diet soda is even worse! Billions of dollars worth of advertising tells you that diet soda gives you all the pleasure of a sweet beverage without any of the calories. But is the marketing too good to be true? Are the makers of diet sodas actually lying to you? In a word, yes! In fact, just the opposite now appears to be true. Drinking diet soda actually is positively linked to weight gain. It turns out the latest research shows that your brain can tell the difference between real and artificial sugar, and not only are artificial sugars less satisfying to your brain at a cellular level, they also increase your craving for the real thing. So artificial sweeteners and diet soda in particular, must be avoided if you don't want to crave sugar. By the way, craving sugar is one of the surest ways to add extra calories to your diet. So avoid diet soda if you care about keeping your weight in check.

·     Number four is be sure to eat plenty of organic vegetables. This is very important. One of the best ways to improve your health is to make sure you're eating plenty of fresh, minimally processed high quality vegetables, ideally locally-grown and organic, with a majority of them consumed raw. One simple way to boost your vegetable intake is to juice them. Juicing organic vegetables is something that I highly recommend to anyone working to restore or improve their health. I am firmly convinced that juicing is one of the key factors to giving you a radiant, energetic life, and truly optimal health. I simply do not know of any other single nutritional intervention that has a more profound influence on health than eating and/or juicing fresh, organic vegetables. And for every vegetable you pack onto your plate, you'll have less room for all those other simple carbohydrates that can expand your waistline.

·     Number five is to make sure you do “Peak 8” exercises once or twice a week. “Peak 8”-style exercises have many benefits, the biggest being it naturally increases your body's production of human growth hormone (HGH), which plays a significant role in the aging process. We call it “Peak 8” because if you graph your heart rate, you will see that it peaks eight times during the workout. This technique is exponentially superior to regular cardio workouts and you're doing yourself a great disservice if you ignore it. The nice thing about “Peak 8” exercises is that you can perform them with many types of exercise; with or without equipment. So, while having access to a gym or exercise equipment will provide you with a larger variety of options, you don't require either. You can just as easily perform “Peak 8” by walking or running outdoors. Another benefit is in the time it will save you. Instead of doing an hour-long cardio workout, you'll be done in 20 minutes or so. The actual sprinting totals only 4 minutes! Keep in mind however, that you should only do “Peak 8” exercises once to twice a week, occasionally three times.

Well, that’s all for this week. Next week, we’ll continue discussing the subject of “10 things you can do to be healthier and fitter.”