Embracing Health Radio #62 – Eating Fat to Stay Lean? Plus, High Carbohydrate Diet During Pregnancy Linked to Gallbladder Disease

Hi there Folks!  Hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of this summer season, as things are warming up rather quickly here in Northeast Georgia.  Today’s posts covers some interesting topics that I think you’ll find interesting.  First, more research data is supporting that higher fat diets that are within optimal calorie ranges are found to be very healthy, helping people to lose fat faster and showing no signs of vascular damage, which has been the current thinking.  Indeed it is commonly thought that dietary fat clogs arteries, and actually, in the context of an appropriate calorie intake, there seems to be advantages over equal calorie higher carbohydrate diets.  Those of you that have been reading my posts already know about the advantages of lower carbohydrate diets, particularly in weight loss efforts as it helps decrease hunger which allows you to follow the eating plan LONG TERM.  That’s the thing with diets, what helps you in the long term is really what is going to help you overall.  Not to mention all the cardiometabolic improvements for folks who have damaged glucose metabolism.

Next, I talk about gallbadder problems and I highlight a recent study that links overconsumption of carbohydrate to gallbladder disease during pregnancy.  I get into understanding the hormone factors involved in pregnancy and how that predisposes one to blood sugar disorders and then as the study states, ultimately to gallbladder issue.  Find out this and much much more on this recent edition of Embracing Health —– enjoy!

(click here to listen =>)Research Updates: Higher Fat Diet Resulting in Quicker Weight Loss Compared to Higher Carbohydrate Diet, Plus Healthy Blood Vessels – Evidence Continues to Mount In Favor of the Benefits of Dietary Fat; Higher Carbohydrate During Pregnancy Linked to Gallbladder Disease; How to Know if You Are At Risk for Gallbladder Disease

Thinking of Spring

The weather here in the North Georgia Mountain area is challenging this time of year isn’t it? It is officially spring time, trees and flowers are blooming and the allergies have kicked in, yet we still have to layer our clothes or just end up inappropriately dressed for the weather on any given day.

I speak of spring because traditionally this time of year is when we all tend to break out the short sleeved shirts, shorts, and yes……the dreaded bathing suits. It is my job to help others to not only get ready for this time of year, physically and mentally but to learn to look forward to spring rather than dread it’s impending arrival. No, we can’t hide under our layers all year, unless of course we move to Alaska.

Anyone in their 40’s and above can attest that it takes much more commitment and diligence than it used to in our 20’s and 30’s, to have what would be a pleasant experience when we shed our layers  of clothing. This process should not be a similar situation to cramming for a final exam. I find that so many of us wait until March to decide to develop a fitness and nutritional plan in order to shed some excess weight. Though, it’s better late than never, I believe that for the long term health of the body, we must be more proactive and learn to develop new and lasting lifestyle habits and have them remain year round.

Here are a few tips on shedding the fat for Spring 2011:

• Find a friend or group of like-minded individuals who are also looking to live healthier lifestyles.
• Take the time each week to plan out your meals; it helps cut grocery costs as well.
• Minimize your intake of process food and complex carbohydrates; eat more protein, vegetables and fruit.
• Start moving; find a group class, personal trainer or a buddy who will hold you accountable. Start with 30 minutes 3 x week minimum.

Join us here on April 7^th at The Spa on Green Street for our “Shed the Fat” Seminar at 6pm. We will discuss the details and starting points to helping you change the way your live and transform your body permanently!!! Sign up soon as space is very limited. Call us today 678.450.1570

Behaviors, Actions and the Wisdom of Austin Powers

Oftentimes when it comes to achieving some desired outcome in our lives, we are forced to break up common routines that we have set up for ourselves in our daily living simply due to the fact that those routines are the things we do that lead to the person we are today.  If we want something different, if we want to be someone different, then we simply have to do things differently to obtain that desired goal.  Thus, the interplay between our actions and our behaviors becomes an extremely critical component in achieving success. 

In reading through an interesting book on psychology, Control Theory, by renowned psychiatrist Dr. William Glasser, I came across an interesting perspective on the matter of behavior.  He mentions that all behavior is made up of three components: what we do, what we think, and what we feel.  He goes on to say that these elements actually come from inside of us and are not, as most people believe, an automatic response to things and people around us.  Isn’t it true that we tend to justify our actions and behaviors based on what’s happening around us?  “Well, if it wasn’t for so and so, or if wasn’t because of this, I’d already be 10 pounds lighter!”  Not so says Dr. Glasser,  His perspective is more about how our thoughts, feelings and actions are a part of our internal programming, where brain chemistry and physiology meet our psychology.  A lot has been written in this field, and especially in the field of appetite, body weight regulation and food intake where neurochemistry plays a huge role.  Neurochemistry is the study of the complex array of chemical messengers  by which the brain communicates with the rest of the body.

Eating, feeling good, appetite and overeating behavior can all be traced to internal programming and neurochemistry.  It is hard to control our behavior if we are not consistently mindful of our choices and simply just let the old ‘lizard brain’ unconsciously dominate our actions, because it appears that we are almost hardwired to get fat and put on weight as recent scientific evidence supports this being part of a built in survival strategy to deal with times of scarcity.  This of course leads to the worst possible scenario for all of us – lack of control in a never ending calorie-rich environment!  

The lesson here is that your body (lizard brain) doesn’t always want what you (rational brain) — conscious, analytical, rational you — want to happen. If you want to make changes, you have to realize this and not only fight for physical changes, but work to change your mental frame of reference as well. Your psychology is part of your physiology.  (Thanks Matt!)

So, what to do? We have to apply something of a pattern interrupt.

For starters, it’s always helpful to have a bit of honest reflection.  If you get off track, do you think and feel that other people or other circumstances are causing you to veer off course, to cause you to behave in a way that isn’t in line with your goals?  That if it wasn’t for that person or that particular situation at work, you’d easily do the right thing, eat the right foods, do your workout?  Well if you’ve seen any of the Austin Power’s movies, think of him simply telling you, “Oh, behave!” 

Watch for those tendencies, because they will haunt you and allow you to rationalize your way out of taking responsibility for your actions.  Not good, as you’ll end up in a mental tail-spin where it becomes very hard to recover from that and get yourself back on track.  Days and weeks can be completely lost, and if you are in the midst of developing healthy habits, then you have lost momentum and greater effort will be required. 

One of the best methods to continue this pattern interrupt and to get our behaviors and actions to line up constructively is to undergo a simple process of goal setting.  I’d like to share with you a step by step plan that I have found to be helpful in this regard, and this will become more necessary if the end goal requires long-term consistency and effort, such as the noble aspirations of greater health, fitness and improved body composition.  Stay tuned for my next post as I will describe this plan in greater detail. 

Are there challenges you are going to face in achieving these goals?  You better believe it, so let’s see how best we can encourage positivity in what we think, feel and do.  I’d love to hear from you and learn what you have done to encourage positivity!

Dialing It In: Nutrition and Exercise for Weight Loss

In the last seminar I gave a few weeks back, Secrets to Fat Loss, I mentioned an important concept that I feel merits a bit more discussion in our efforts to lose weight.  I think we all can agree that the simpler the program, without sacrificing practical effectiveness, is the way to go.  So what if there are complicated methods that can allow you to burn 4-5 pounds of fat per week – they are out there and I may talk about them in future posts, but you have to configure your diet and your exercise just so that for most people, the complexity of the program makes it unsustainable for the long term.  It requires a level of obsessive discipline for them to work, and there is a tendency for people to develop a condition called ‘orthorexia nervosa’, a type of eating disorder coined by Dr. Steven Bratman, which is characterized as an unhealthy preoccupation with eating healthy food and avoiding anything artificial or ‘toxic’.  You don’t want to go there; it is a slippery slope and I counsel everyone to keep their diet and fitness in perspective.  Many a top athlete have suffered serious drawbacks as a result of placing these unreasonable demands upon their bodies.

Fat loss should be looked at in much more sensible ways.  Just as it takes time for a significant amount of fat to develop in your body — it doesn’t happen overnight or even just in a few short weeks — it takes times to get it off.  For women ½ lb. to 1 lb. of fat loss per week is normal, or even every 2 weeks given our schedules, holidays, travel, etc.  Men can reasonably expect slightly quicker results, roughly double that amount, if things are working right.

One of the guiding principles of weight loss is in the regulation of your food intake relative to the energy your body expends.  It gets much more involved than that when you factor in metabolic imbalances and diseases of metabolism like diabetes, which is a growing concern for the world today and especially right here in our country, but as an entry-level starting point, you should look at the interrelationship between the amount of energy you take in as food, and the amount of energy you expend through your metabolism plus the exercise you do.  Think of a bank account – you put more money in the bank than you take out, then your account has more money, i.e., you gain weight.  You withdraw more than you have, then you are in a deficit — you lose weight in this scenario.  Now I know this borders on the simplistic as many of you have heard me say that there is much much more to consider, but bear with me for just a bit.

When you are seeking to lose weight, you need to create this energy imbalance where your body makes up for the extra energy needed to fuel both your metabolism and exercise by drawing from its fat stores.  And you create this energy imbalance only if you are eating less food than what your metabolism and exercise require, plain and simple.  The main thing to focus on here is how to create the deficit.  Many choose to create the deficit by exercising even more and eating a bit less.  Sounds simple enough right?  In fact the newly released 2010 Dietary Guidelines for America state this simple fact.  However, I’ve seen many problems related to this and perhaps the largest issue I have is in the overestimation of how many ‘calories’ people burn during exercise.

If you have ever looked at a treadmill or any exercise device that measures how many calories you burn, you can come away with the impression that “wow, I can eat an extra 150 calories and still stay in a deficit!”  Calorie burn and energy expenditure is grossly overestimated in these machines, and the tendency is to have the idea that you can reward yourself with ‘x’ amount of food because you burned a certain amount.  This puts you on a slippery slope of cutting deals with yourself, where you rationalize yourself off of your nutrition plan for example, by planning to take an extra 30 minutes to walk or treadmill your way out of indulging in ‘more food’.  Good intentions, but then your plan falls apart because something changes in your schedule or some other thing comes in you didn’t quite expect.  Don’t let your mind go there, it’s got plenty of tricks and sneak attacks up its sleeves that can get you off course real quick.

Teryl and I both feel we should instead focus our efforts in exercise to:

• Build shape and lean muscle mass
• Strengthen our bones
• Improve our cardiovascular health
• Improve blood sugar balance
• Gain flexibility and mobility
• Move and have fun

Exercise will surely enough burn some calories, but you really shouldn’t count on it for weight loss because of the aforementioned problems.  Instead, think about your exercise as icing on the cake, an added bonus on top of what you can achieve with your diet.  This will help you stay on track by keeping your mind focused on the food side of the equation when it comes to weight loss.  If you are not losing weight, don’t look to work out harder or longer if that is not what you like to do or can reasonably and consistently do – rather, focus on your nutrition.  Trying to juggle too many variables can create confusion which can lead to frustration and lack of results.  You are already working hard at this, and so the best advice comes to all of us in the form of simplicity -  K.I.S.S. — Keep It Simple Silly! to laser your mind always towards nutrition when you want to lose weight.

Fitness in the Round Success !!

Last night we had our first “Fitness in the Round Meeting” of 2011 here at The Spa on Green Street, it was a great success. Everyone arrived enthusiastic, excited and full of appreciation for the opportunity to gain education and connect with others who have chosen to take on the daunting task of making “permanent lifestyle changes”.   We discovered over the course of our very short time together, that each one of us has many things to learn and that we each have the ability to make a difference to others.  The sun had set on a great day and signaled a new start for all of us, a new mindset is emerging.

Our country is currently in the middle of a massive health crisis, mostly due to “lifestyle” related diseases, preventable diseases. The only way we can make a difference on a larger scale is to create connections and communities where health and wellness are priorities, and exercise is not considered an option. Exercise can look different for each of us, depending on our goals, physical abilities and our interests. It does not have to look like spending every Wednesday in the gym or slinging around heavy weights to a video in your living room.  Exercise is not about getting in a workout on Wednesday, it is about adding 20 years to your life! If we can look at getting active as a way of extending our lives with quality living, maybe we can find the motivation and inspiration to do so.

A great man passed away recently who lived this motto to the very end, Jack Lalane. He was a heavy child who fell in love with physical fitness in his teens and lived every day as an example to others, an inspiration! He set out to do things that nobody had done relative to group exercise and fitness instruction. He leaves behind an amazing legacy, he revolutionized the world of fitness and created many of the fitness tools we all use today. The last few years of his life were lived vibrantly, not in a nursing home carting around oxygen tanks and various other external containers. Isn’t that how we all want to live our lives?  What we choose to do each day will be the example we set for our children and grandchildren. If we can change the course of OUR future relative to OUR  health we can lift a  great financial and physical burden off of our loved ones, and hopefully break the cycle of disease and create  a legacy of health for our descendants.

 The following are a few questions we left with our group to ponder over the next few weeks . Please take the time to answer these questions and feel free to make any comments or ask any further questions. We will be providing solutions along the way to help with the challenges we face when we are making long lasting lifestyle changes. Hope to see you on February 22,2011 at 6pm for another great Fitness in the Round meeting!

• What have been the biggest obstacles to achieving your fitness goals?
• What is your biggest concern relative to exercise: time, energy, money, motivation?
• What is your biggest challenge when it comes to eating healthy?
• What percentage of ingredients do you understand when you read food labels?
• Do you pay attention to how you feel after you eat? Are you aware of how certain food affect your body?
• Do you know which foods are good to eat and which ones you should be avoiding? Ie: healthy fats, sweeteners, salt, natural foods, soy, etc….