9 Health Benefits of Pumpkin Seeds

If you’re in the mood for a chewy snack that doubles as a phenomenal health food, look no further than pumpkin seeds.
With a wide variety of nutrients ranging from magnesium and manganese to copper, protein and zinc, pumpkin seeds are nutritional powerhouses wrapped up in a very small package. They also contain plant compounds known as phytosterols and free-radical scavenging antioxidants,¹ which can give your health an added boost.
Best of all, because pumpkin seeds are highly portable and require no refrigeration, they make an excellent snack to keep with you whenever you’re on the go, or they can be used as a quick anytime snack at home, too.

1.  Heart Healthy Magnesium

One-quarter cup of pumpkin seeds contains nearly half of the recommended daily amount of magnesium, which participates in a wide range of vitally important physiological functions, including the creation of ATP (adenosine triphospate, the energy molecules of your body), the synthesis of RNA and DNA, the pumping of your heart, proper bone and tooth formation, relaxation of your blood vessels, and proper bowel function.
Magnesium has been shown to benefit your blood pressure and help prevent sudden cardiac arrest, heart attack, and stroke, yet an estimated 80 percent of Americans are deficient in this important mineral.

2.  Zinc for Immune Support

Pumpkin seeds are a rich source of zinc (one ounce contains more than 2 mg of this beneficial mineral). Zinc is important to your body in many ways, including immunity, cell growth and division, sleep, mood, your senses of taste and smell, eye and skin health, insulin regulation, and male sexual function.
Many are deficient in zinc due to mineral-depleted soils, drug effects, plant-based diets, and other diets high in grain. This deficiency is associated with increased colds and flu, chronic fatigue, depression, acne, low birth weight babies, learning problems and poor school performance in children, among others.

3.  Plant-Based Omega-3 Fats

Raw nuts and seeds, including pumpkin seeds, are one of the best sources of plant-based omega-3s (alpha-linolenic acid (ALA)). We all need ALA, however, ALA has to be converted by your body into the far more essential omega-3 fats EPA and DHA -- by an enzyme in which the vast majority of us have impaired by high insulin levels. So, while pumpkin seeds are an excellent source of ALA, I believe it is essential to get some of your omega-3 fats from animal sources, such as krill oil, as well.

4.  Prostate Health

Pumpkin seeds have long been valued as an important natural food for men’s health. This is in part because of their high zinc content, which is important for prostate health (where it is found in the highest concentrations in the body), and also because pumpkin seed extracts and oils may play a role in treating benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH, or enlarged prostate). Research suggests that both pumpkin seeds,² and pumpkin seed oil used in combination with saw palmetto may be particularly beneficial in supporting prostate health.

5.  Anti-Diabetic Effects

Animal studies suggest that pumpkin seeds may help improve insulin regulation and help prevent diabetic complications by decreasing oxidative stress.⁴

6.  Benefits for Postmenopausal Women

Pumpkin seed oil is rich in natural phytoestrogens and studies suggest it may lead to a significant increase in good “HDL” cholesterol along with decreases in blood pressure, hot flashes, headaches, joint pains and other menopausal symptoms in postmenopausal women.⁵

7.  Heart and Liver Health

Pumpkin seeds, rich in healthy fats, antioxidants and fibers, may provide benefits for heart and liver health, particularly when mixed with flax seeds.⁶

8.  Tryptophan for Restful Sleep

Pumpkin seeds are a rich source of tryptophan, an amino acid (protein building block) that your body converts into serotonin, which in turn is converted into melatonin, the “sleep hormone.” Eating pumpkin seeds a few hours before bed, along with a carbohydrate like a small piece of fruit, may be especially beneficial for providing your body the tryptophan needed for your melatonin and serotonin production to help promote a restful night’s sleep.⁷

9.  Anti-Inflammatory Benefits

Pumpkin seed oil has been found to exhibit anti-inflammatory effects. One animal study even found it worked as well as the anti-inflammatory drug indomethacin in treating arthritis, but without the side effects.⁸

What’s the Best Way to Consume Pumpkin Seeds?

In order to preserve the healthy fats present in the seeds, pumpkin seeds should be eaten raw. If you choose to purchase seeds from a bulk bin, make sure they smell fresh – not musty, spoiled or stale, which could indicate rancidity or the presence of fungal mycotoxins. Organic pumpkin seeds are preferred, as they will not be contaminated with pesticides or other harmful chemicals.
However, most nuts and seeds have anti-nutrients like phytic acid that can make all the previously discussed important nutrients less bioavailable when you consume them. So if you plan on consuming seeds or nuts on a regular basis it would be wise to soak or sprout them. To make them more palatable you can then dehydrate them in your oven, or better yet and more cost effectively in a dehydrator. There are many dehydrators on the market but Excalibur is generally considered the best. I have used one for over 20 years. They are readily available on Amazon.
If you prefer to eat the seeds roasted, do so yourself so you can control the roasting temperature and time. Raw pumpkin seeds can be roasted on a low heat setting in your oven (no more than 170 degrees F or 75 degrees Celsius), sprinkled with Himalayan or other natural salt, for about 15-20 minutes.

10 Best Foods for Cancer Prevention

Grapefruit

Vitamin C is an antioxidant that is found in many fruits and vegetables like grapefruit, oranges, bell peppers, and broccoli. Vitamin C helps prevent the formation of nitrogen compounds that causes cancer. There have been links of risk reduction of cancers of the stomach, colon, oesophagus, bladder, breast, and cervix to those whose diets are rich in vitamin C. These results are particular to vitamin C-rich foods, instead of supplements, which seems to be less reliable. Therefore, eat lots of fruits and vegetables rich in Vitamin C, they are great for your body in many ways.

Peanuts and peanut butter

Some study shows that eating vitamin E–rich foods can help reduce the risk of stomach, colon, lung, liver, and other cancers. Same with other antioxidants, vitamin E supplements aren’t as reliable. I recommend adding in vitamin E–rich foods like peanuts, peanut butter, almonds, almond butter, and sunflower seeds to your diet. They will help keep your cells strong. Spread a tablespoon of peanut butter or almond butter on a slice of whole grain toast for a filling snack packed with cancer-fighting vitamin E.

Berries

Berries are among the top ranked foods that most likely reduce the risk for cancer. As years pass, we learn more and more about the benefits of these nutrition powerhouse fruits. In particular, blueberries, cranberries, and raspberries have been shown to have the potential to help prevent cancer. Antioxidants that are naturally found in blueberries, have cancer-fighting properties. Cranberries are also packed with lots of cancer-fighting natural chemicals. Laboratory animals that were fed with black raspberries had a 60 percent reduction in tumors of the esophagus and an 80 percent reduction in colon tumors. Next time you want a sweet treat, skip the cookies and feast on juicy, delicious berries that can boost your health. Think of getting a sweet treat? Choose those juicy, delicious berries that can boost your health and enjoy.

Sweet potatoes

Beta-carotene is a powerful antioxidant. Studies shows that those whose diet are rich in beta-carotene which is found primarily orange and green leafy vegetables, have a reduce risk of cancer, specifically of the lung, colon and stomach. A study also found that for premenopausal women, eating lots of vegetables that that include beta-carotene, folate, vitamin C, and fiber, like sweet potatoes reduces the risk of breast cancer by about a half.

Wild salmon

Having low vitamin D levels have been linked to several cancers, including breast and colon. Scientists believe that vitamin D can help block the development of blood vessels that feed growing tumors and help stop the propagation of cancerous and precancerous cells. I recommend eating plenty of vitamin D rich foods, such as wild salmon, and choosing vitamin D fortified dairy products, like milk and yogurt. Since only few foods provide vitamin D, you should consider taking a daily multivitamin or separate supplement that provides at least 1,000 IUs of vitamin D3.Here are the remaining 5 foods.

Ground flaxseed

Omega-3 fatty acids can help prevent cancer by preventing cancer cell propagation and disturbing the steps that are critical to tumor development. Omega-3 fatty acids also help reduce inflammation, which means that theoretically it can lessen possibility of cellular mutations. Nonetheless, even if omega-3s don’t directly reduce the risk of cancer, they definitely help keep our bodies strong and healthy. For all of these reasons, I greatly recommend adding omega-3 rich foods to your diet. You can also mix in some ground flaxseed into your yogurt and smoothies which is an excellent way to take in more omega-3s in your diet.

Turmeric

Turmeric is the yellow-coloured spice found in curry powder. An active ingredient found in turmeric is curcumin. It functions as both an anti-inflammatory and an antioxidant, and may help prevent cancer by interfering with aspects of cellular signaling. Curcumin has been shown to help prevent cancer of the breast, colon, stomach, liver, and lung, in the test done on laboratory animals. Using curry powder to spice up chicken and egg dishes is an easy way to add it into your diet and as an extra bonus of it adds flavor to your meals.

Tea

Tea contains compounds called catechins. A compound that scientists believe may help stop the growth of cancer cells and prevent cellular mutations that contribute to cancer development. In Japan, where tea is a preferred beverage, green tea consumption has been linked to reduced risk of stomach cancer among women. In China, green tea drinkers were found to have a lower risk of developing rectal and pancreatic cancers compared with non-tea drinkers. It has also been shown that those who drink tea regularly have reduced risk for cancer of the colon, breast, ovarian, prostate, and lungs. It seems that all types of tea, green, black, white, oolong, are valued to have cancer preventive agents. Therefore, you should regularly drink and enjoy tea in a variety of flavors to gain all the benefits.

Cruciferous vegetables

All plant foods like grains, fruits, and vegetables, contain small amounts of phytonutrients. Phytonutrients are naturally occurring chemical compounds that are just as important as vitamins and minerals are for maintaining health. There are thousands of known phytonutrients, many of which have verified the possibility of protecting us from cancer. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage contain phytonutrients, which can help prevent the metabolism of some carcinogens and promote the production of detoxification enzymes in the body.

Pomegranates

Pomegranates can prevent cancer cell growth and deactivate cancer causing compounds based on the studies done in the laboratory animals. Hence, include pomegranate seeds into smoothies or use them as toppings for your bowl of yogurt or cereal and enjoy the health benefits it offers. Other fruits that contain high levels of ellagic acid are blackberries, cranberries, pecans, pomegranates, raspberries, strawberries, walnuts and grapes.

How to Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease

A Neurologist Speaks Out

By Dr. Mercola

Alzheimer's disease is at epidemic proportions, with 5.4 million Americans—including one in eight people aged 65 and over—living with the disease.¹ In the next 20 years, it is projected that Alzheimer's will affect one in four Americans, rivaling the current prevalence of obesity and diabetes.
There is still no known accepted cure for this devastating disease, and no effective treatments. Alzheimer's drugs are often of little to no benefit at all, which underscores the importance of prevention throughout your lifetime.
Fortunately, Alzheimer’s prevention is actually easier than you might think. There’s exceptionally compelling research showing that your brain has great plasticity, which you control through your diet and lifestyle choices.
Here, Dr. David Perlmutter—probably the leading natural medicine neurologist in the US, from my perspective—shares his insights into this pervasive problem. I don’t know anyone who exceeds his level of expertise in traditional neurology and still shares the same philosophical orientation that I have.
He has a clinic in Naples, Florida, and he’s been very active in publishing his findings in peer-reviewed medical journals. He’s also a fellow of the American College of Nutrition, as am I.

“I have a very strong background in traditional neurology,” Dr. Perlmutter says. “As a neurologist for many years, I became more and more frustrated with our lack of ability to actually treat diseases. We were really only treating symptoms.

When I finally began to understand what the proximate cause of the various illnesses we were dealing with was, I realized that mainstream neurology, though I don’t want to sound too critical, really pays no attention to the causation part of the story.”

The Role of Grains in Disease Propagation

He realized an answer would never become apparent by simply writing prescriptions and hoping for the best. Instead, he began investigating the role of nutrition on brain health. Alzheimer’s, according to the RAND Corporation, is currently costing us some $200 million a year, yet it is largely preventable. And virtually no one talks about that!

“This is a disease that is highly revenue-producing for mega factories of various so-called Alzheimer’s drugs,” Dr. Perlmutter says. “The point is there is no meaningful treatment in 2013. It is a disease predicated on lifestyle choices primarily, because of the high amount of carbohydrates/sugar that we now, as Western-culture individuals, are consuming.

It’s a preventable disease. It surprises me at my core that no one’s talking about the fact that so many of these devastating neurological problems are, in fact, modifiable based upon lifestyle choices.”

Dr. Perlmutter specifically looked at the impact of gluten and casein, or wheat and dairy primarily, on autoimmune diseases. His New York Times Bestseller, Grain Brain, reveals his findings, the cornerstones of which are the powerfully toxic role of glucose (sugar) and carbohydrates in one's diet.
He also stresses that gluten sensitivity is involved in most chronic disease, including those affecting the brain, because of how gluten affects your immune system. Unfortunately, many people, physicians included, still believe that if you don’t have celiac disease, gluten is fair game and you can eat as much of it as you like.
Full-blown Celiac disease, which is gluten sensitivity affecting your small intestine, affects an estimated 1.8 percent of people in Western cultures. But  gluten sensitivity may actually affect as much as 30 to 40 percent of all people, and according to Dr. Alessio Fasano at Massachusetts General Hospital, virtually all of us are affected to some degree.
This is because we all create something called zonulin in the intestine in response to gluten. This protein, found in wheat, barley and rye, makes your gut more permeable, which allows proteins to get into your bloodstream that would otherwise have been excluded. That then sensitizes your immune system and promotes inflammation and autoimmunity. This kind of gut permeability is also promoted by things like antibiotics and chlorinated water.

The Gut-Brain Connection is Critical to Understand

Once gluten sensitizes your gut, it then becomes more permeable and all manner of previously excluded proteins—including casein and other dairy proteins—have direct access to your bloodstream, thereby challenging your immune system.

“They’ve been talking about it for years and years (which is now just gaining traction in mainstream medicine) that our health really depends on maintaining a barrier of the intestine from the bloodstream,” Dr. Perlmutter says.

“We now understand that the so-called blood-brain barrier, or that barrier that keeps things out of the brain where they don’t belong, is also affected by gluten, according to new research. It’s a very exciting time when we recognize that our biggest exposure to the environment is actually the lining of our intestines – not our lungs, not our skin. We are in fact very much dependent on the microbiota, the bacteria living in the gut, to maintain our health.”

According to Dr. Perlmutter, much of our current disease burden stems from the fact that we are contaminating our immune systems with proteins to which the human immune system has never, in the history of humankind, been previously exposed to. While not discussed in this interview, a MAJOR factor is the development of genetically engineered (GE) grains, which are now pervasive in most processed foods sold in the US. These GE crops create proteins never before encountered in any natural grain or food, so GE grains deliver a double-whammy against your immune system. Food allergies clearly appear to be one of the most noticeable side effects of a GE-grain diet.

“We recognize that food is far more than protein, carbohydrates, fat, and micronutrients, and that food really does represent information. The foods that we consume are instructing our genes. Therefore, that’s a very empowering notion: you can change your genetic destiny based upon the food choices that you make,” Dr. Perlmutter says.

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, another neurologist who has also done remarkable work in this area as a result of seeking a solution for her autistic son, came to the same conclusion discussed by Dr. Perlmutter. Essentially, preventing and treating neurological disorders requires severe restriction of gluten and casein. You also need to address your gut flora.

“With specific response to your comments about autism, we do know that some of the milk-related proteins tend to lead to antibody production in the brains of autistic children, blocking what’s called the folate receptor,” Dr. Perlmutter says. “One of the propositions is that there’s this blockage of the ability of folate to get into the brains of certain children, and this leads to all kinds of cognitive and neurocognitive issues.

The State University of New York has actually developed a screen for looking at folate receptor antibodies. We have found that to be actually very helpful... It’s a very exciting time for those of us not just in neurology but in all branches of medicine, who are suddenly realizing that we’ve come full circle. We’re now back to understanding that nutrition plays a pivotal role in the health of humans.”

Avoiding Dairy Does NOT Include Avoiding Dairy Fats

I believe it would be wise for most people to avoid pasteurized dairy (primarily casein but also other proteins) and gluten. That said, there are subgroups of people who are particularly prone to harm from these proteins, and as a rule must avoid them in order to maintain their health. Bear in mind that dairy fat like butter, which has virtually no protein, is not problematic and can be consumed even by those who are sensitive to milk proteins. As stated by Dr. Perlmutter:

“We need to eat fat. We’re suggesting a revolutionary dietary change, telling people they should go on this new diet—which is only the diet humans have eaten for the past 2.6 million years! We’ve always eaten fat. Fat is the most wonderful health-providing food that we can obtain in the human diet. Of course, we have to qualify that with what type of fat you are eating.”

Beneficial health-promoting fats that your body—and your brain in particular—needs for optimal function include organic butter from raw milk, clarified butter called organic grass fed raw butter, olives, organic virgin olive oil and coconut oil, nuts like pecans and macadamia, free-range eggs, wild Alaskan salmon, and avocado, for example.
According to Dr. Perlmutter, our current dietary fat phobia “has absolutely been the cornerstone of our most common degenerative diseases of the day, including Alzheimer’s.” Why? Because when you cut dietary fat and keep protein about the same, you’re going to fill in the gaps with health-harming carbohydrate foods, predominantly grains.

“This whole grain goodness, as the US Department of Agriculture is trying to convince us we should focus on in terms of our dietary choices, is the cornerstone of our most devastating diseases. I mean, brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, and obviously, what leads to them, diabetes, which is so prevalent in Western societies. Again, it’s the getting away from fat and the substitution with wheat- and corn-based carbohydrate (high-fructose corn syrup) that really, in my opinion, explains this huge explosion of degenerative conditions that are crippling us medically and crippling us economically as well,” he says.

“But the quality of the fat that we consume is absolutely fundamental. When we’re saying high-fat diet, we’re not talking about prepared foods on the Twinkie aisle at the grocery store that contain modified trans fats; hydrogenated fats that are clearly coffin nails. They’re a great risk for brain disorders, heart disorders, diabetes, etc. We’re talking about these beautiful, natural fats that we have been consuming for more than two million years.”

Recommended Tests to Evaluate Disease Risks

There are specific tests that can help you determine your level of sensitivity to dairy proteins like casein, as well as gluten. The most effective test for gluten sensitivity, according to Dr. Perlmutter, is a test called the Cyrex Array 3 test. Most laboratories, when you order a test for either gluten sensitivity or celiac disease specifically, will look for antibodies against just one type of gliadin. However, there are dozens of different types of gliadin that can incite immune reaction or immune reactivity. The Cyrex test looks at 24 different parameters of gluten sensitivity, which gives you a much clearer picture.

“Most commonly when I’m seeing patients, they’ve already had some form of preliminary gluten sensitivity test which was negative, and we find [out the truth] by doing the Cyrex test,” he says.

The same lab offers another test, Cyrex Array 4, which looks at cross-sensitivity in people who are gluten-sensitive. This test includes a dairy product panel as well as amaranth, spelt, quinoa, rice, coffee, chocolate, and other foods that may be cross-reactive with respect to gliadin. Two other tests recommended by Dr. Perlmutter that are potent predictors of Alzheimer’s disease specifically are:

• Fasting blood sugar, as this is a powerful predictor of your risk for Alzheimer’s disease. In this interview, he discusses research showing a very direct correlation between your fasting blood sugar and the rate at which your brain shrinks.  The higher your fasting blood sugar, the greater your risk. Interestingly, brain shrinkage occurs at blood sugar levels that are currently considered within the normal range (90-100), and even small elevations of blood sugar directly correlate to increased risk for having shrinkage of your hippocampus, your memory center, which is the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
• Hemoglobin A1c. This is a marker of your average blood sugar over about a three-to four-month period of time. Again, there’s a striking correlation between hemoglobin A1c and the rate at which your brain is shrinking.

Both of these factors, your blood sugar and hemoglobin A1c, are entirely within your power to control, as they respond to dietary changes. Quite simply, you lower them by reducing your carbohydrate consumption. As stated by Dr. Perlmutter:

“You can absolutely control your blood sugar. It’s a lifestyle choice. Do you eat grain? Do you drink orange juice in the morning? Are you having cereal in the morning? Have you decided to go low-carb and high-fat? In the latter case, your hemoglobin A1c will come down, your fasting blood sugar will come down, and lo and behold, you have taken positive steps to reduce your risk of brain shrinkage.”

How the Science of Neuroplasticity Changes the Game

It’s important to realize that, despite what the media tells you, your brain is not “programmed” to shrink and fail as a matter of course as you age. We now know that every activity in which you engage—be it exercise, the foods you eat, the supplements you take, your personal relationships, your emotional state, your sleep patterns—all of these factors dramatically influence your genetic expression from moment to moment. Any given gene is not in a static “on” or “off” position. Neither are they deterministic. You may be a carrier of a gene that never gets expressed, simply because you never supply the required environment for it to turn on.

“We interact with our genome every moment of our lives, and we can do so very, very positively,” Dr. Perlmutter says. “Keeping your blood sugar low is very positive in terms of allowing the genes to express reduced inflammation, which increase the production of life-giving antioxidants. So that’s rule number one: You can change your genetic destiny.

Rule number two: you can change your genetic destiny to grow new brain cells, specifically in the hippocampus... Your brain’s memory center regenerates. You are constantly growing new brain cells into your 50s, 60s, 80s, and 90s – throughout your lifetime – through a process called neurogenesis.

That said, these two ideas come together because you can turn on your genes through lifestyle choices that enhance neurogenesis and that enhance regrowth of cells and expansion of your brain’s memory center. This was proven by researchers recently. They demonstrated that there are factors under our control that can make that happen.”

Lifestyle strategies that promote neurogenesis and regrowth of brain cells include the following. All of these strategies target a specific gene pathway called BDNF or brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which promotes brain cell growth and connectivity as demonstrated on MRI scans.

• Exercise. In one year-long study, individuals who engaged in exercise were actually growing and expanding the brain’s memory center one to two percent per year, where typically that center would have continued to decline in size.
• Reducing overall calorie consumption
• Reducing carbohydrate consumption
• Increasing healthy fat consumption
• Increasing your omega-3 fat intake and reducing consumption of damaged omega-6 fats (think processed vegetable oils) in order to balance your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. I prefer krill oil to fish oil here, as krill oil also contains astaxanthin, which appears to be particularly beneficial for brain health. As explained by Dr. Perlmutter, it belongs to the class of carotenoids, and is very “focused” on reducing free radical-mediated damage to fat, and your brain is 60 or 70 percent fat

The Importance of Vitamin D and Cholesterol for Brain Health

Vitamin D also plays a fundamental role in brain health, immune function, and inflammation. According to Dr. Perlmutter, vitamin D influences the expression of more than 913 genes. Sadly, a vast majority of people are dramatically deficient in this critical steroid hormone, in large part because they’ve been fooled into fearing sun exposure. You’ve also been deceived into fearing cholesterol, which is another critical component of health.

“Obviously, sunshine makes vitamin D in your body from some precursor. When I ask my patients what is that precursor, nobody seems to know. I tell them it’s this horrible thing called cholesterol, and their eyebrows go up,” he says. “Cholesterol is so drastically important for health, because (1) it’s the precursor for which you make vitamin D and (2) it’s a fundamental compound of every cell in your body and made by every cell in your body. It’s a brain antioxidant. It’s a precursor for all the steroid sex hormones – it’s fundamentally important.”

According to Dr. Perlmutter, research shows that elderly individuals with the lowest cholesterol levels have the highest risk for Alzheimer’s. They also have the highest risk for dying. As he says, the war on cholesterol is fundamentally inappropriate and harmful.

“I say to my audiences very frequently, “If cholesterol is so bad, what you’re saying is that if you believe in evolution or if you believe in creation – either way – either nature got it wrong or God got it wrong by putting the ability to make cholesterol in every one of our cells. Why would that be a mistake?”

It’s not a mistake. We are desperate for cholesterol. It’s a fundamental player in every cell membrane. We’ve been on a high-cholesterol diet for millions of years, and it has served us well. In fact, our genome has been selected based upon that diet, being on a high-cholesterol diet – eating eggs, animal fat, and animal protein.”

The Benefits of Fasting

Dr. Perlmutter places most of his patients on a ketogenic, high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that is gluten-free, along with prescribed aerobic exercise. Certain supplements may also be used, especially if the patient is vitamin D deficient or has any other critical deficiency.
I’ve previously interviewed Dr. Seyfried, who is a researcher at Boston University and connected with Harvard. He was one of the leading investigators to adopt the ketogenic diet for a neurological condition, the treatment of seizures, and then from there started investigating its use for treatment of cancer. Another PhD, Dr. D’Agostino in Florida, is also doing similar work in this area.
It’s interesting to note that it all stemmed from the treatment of intractable seizure disorders; before they realized that it was also a potent treatment adjunct for cancer patients. Most interestingly, cancer cells do not have the ability to any significant degree to metabolize fat and are almost completely dependent on metabolizing sugar. When you go on a ketogenic diet, you effectively deprive the cancer cells of sugar, which starves them, while allowing normal cells to thrive. Beyond that, you also need to recognize that the balance of organisms in your intestine play a critical role in maintaining your immunity. Clearly, if you’re fighting disease of any kind, you want your immune system to function optimally.

“When you damage your microbiom, the balance of bacteria, in your gut by taking chemotherapy, at the very least add in an aggressive probiotic approach to keep bad bacteria count healthy,” Dr. Perlmutter says.

I’m particularly fond of using fermented vegetables, because they can deliver extraordinarily high levels of beneficial bacteria. Most people aren’t aware that in a healthy serving of sauerkraut – two to three ounces or so – you’re getting the equivalent of nearly 100 capsules of the highest-potency probiotic you can buy. It’s clearly one of the most cost-effective alternatives. Furthermore, if it’s fermented with a starter culture, which we’re going to be offering soon, you can also get very high levels of vitamin K2, which is crucial to balance vitamin D.
Dr. Perlmutter also highly recommends fasting. Contrary to popular belief, the ideal fuel for your brain is not glucose but ketones, which is the fat that your body mobilizes when you stop feeding it carbs and introduce coconut oil and other sources of healthy fats into your diet. A one-day fast can help your body to “reset” itself, and start to burn fat instead of sugar. As part of a healthy lifestyle, I prefer an intermittent fasting schedule that simply calls for limiting your eating to a narrower window of time each day. By restricting your eating to a 6-8 hour window, you effectively fast 16-18 hours each day. To learn more, please see this previous article.

“The easiest way to become ketotic is just to stop eating. Because if you go through your sugar stores and then your glycogen stores relatively soon, you begin to burn fat, the most incredibly powerful source of fuel for human physiology and especially for the brain,” he says.

More Information

To learn more, I highly recommend Dr. Perlmutter’s New York Times Best Selling book, Grain Brain. You can also find more information on his web site, DrPerlmutter.com,² or on his Facebook page, which he posts to every day, highlighting recent research and upcoming conferences and lectures. You can also find more tips and guidelines in this previous article on Alzheimer’s prevention.

“These changes that people can make in their diets are not draconian,” he says. “The only thing that makes it difficult is because of what we are told by society we should be eating. Those statements are not given to us with good, sound scientific backing. Again, these are simple but profound choices that people can make.”

I couldn’t agree more. Applying the strategies discussed in this interview and article can dramatically reduce your risk of succumbing to Alzheimer’s and other chronic diseases. Overall, it will also raise your general quality of life. Clearly, prevention is much easier than treating it after the fact. And even though there is this element of neuroplasticity, it’s far better to prevent brain degeneration to begin with. As Dr. Perlutter says:

“The time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining. That’s the segment of the population I really want to target – people who have not yet had cognitive issues but are at risk, which is basically all of us. In fact, this is the time to make the changes – while you’re still healthy. Time to cut back on the carbohydrates, increase your consumption of good fats, get out and exercise... these are the fundamentals that could keep these problems from happening in the first place.”

4 Most Unhealthy Ways To Lose Weight Fast

Losing weight is an evergreen topic. It is an ongoing goal for some! Most people really do want to get results fast when it comes to losing weight.
Some people have genuine reasons, like say, a wedding that’s coming in a couple of weeks and they want to look good in a dress. Some others might have a vacation and they want to look slim in their bikini and so on.
But whatever be the reason and how important could be the reason for you to lose weight fast, it is totally unhealthy to go “fast” when it comes to losing weight.
Slow and steady is the only healthy way to go with losing weight. In this post let me discuss 10 most unhealthy ways people tend to lose weight fast! Make sure you avoid these ways when you are into losing weight!

Skipping meals

Most of my friends during college were fans of skipping breakfast. They believed that it is a quick and easy way to lose pounds. They were totally wrong.
Breakfast is a meal we east after fasting for the whole night. During the day we eat multiple times and we also snack quite a few times. But during the night, since we are asleep, our body goes without food for 8-12 hours depending upon when we take dinner and when we wake up.

Since we are breaking this fast after we wake up in the morning, the morning meal is aptly named breakfast. And by skipping breakfast, you are doing total injustice to your body.
A healthy breakfast in the morning is absolutely necessary to boost your metabolism, and to improve your body’s functions. Without a healthy breakfast, you will deprive of the nutrients and hence your body and mind will not be active, creative and hence you will certainly have a dull day.
Not to mention, you will starve and you are most likely to go on unhealthy snacks and also over-eat lunch. All these are not only unhealthy but will contribute to weight gain – just the opposite of what you were expecting!

Going on crash diets

Crash diets are so popular because of their hype and unrealistic promises. There are diets that include only certain type of food and most part of those diet programs comprise of just starving.
Can you imagine putting your precious body through that? Crash diets are also popular for another reason – they say that most celebrities follow crash diets that help them achieve the zero size figure.
So even though those celebs look slim on the outside, most of us do forget that slim doesn’t equate to healthy!
If you put yourself through crash diets, you will certainly starve and your body will also miss all the important vitamins and minerals that it needs to get to keep functioning on a regular and normal basis.
Eating a balanced diet is highly important to maintain a healthy body and a healthy mind and the crash diets defeat the whole purpose of this goal.

Working out too much!

Although it is true that the more you work out the more you feel refreshed, demanding too much from your body is never a good idea.
You can easily run into fatigue or strain your muscles in an attempt to lose quick pounds by indulging in heavy and intensive workouts.
And if you are working out alongside a crash diet, you are seriously killing yourself.
I am not against exercising! It is great if done in a consistent manner and in the level your body can withstand. Just remember, too much of anything is not good.

Weight loss pills and supplements

These are quite popular because they not only promise quick weight loss but they also claim to work even if the person eats junk.
That is, you can have your cake and eat it too and lose weight as well – how mesmerizing and how tempting this is! However we must understand the simple fact that it is impossible to eat junk and stay slim just by swallowing a couple of pills everyday.
These fake weight loss supplements make you look slim for a few days, but do a lot of nasty things on the inside to your organs. Not to mention, the fat will come back as fast as it (seemingly) went away and as a byproduct you would have ruined something precious inside of you.

Bottom line: Stay away from unhealthy weight loss diets/practices

So please stay away from anything that promises fast or quick results when it comes to weight loss. In my opinion, do not aim at zero figure (or as they call it “size zero”).
And do not have the misconception that being skinny is healthy; it is not so. And in most cases it is quite the opposite.
Just make sure you are in the healthy weight regime – do the math with your body weight and height to get the BMI and see if you are in the healthy range.
Don’t be too hard on yourself to get that slim figure. It is more important that you stay healthy than stay slim!

Obesity and Toxic Food

Harvard Researchers Address Obesity and Toxic Food

A staggering two-thirds of Americans are now overweight, and according to the American Heart Association,¹ five percent of American children can now be considered “severely obese,” which puts their health at grave risk.
One in four Americans are either diabetic or pre-diabetic, and an estimated 110,000 Americans die as a result of obesity-related ailments each year. This includes cancer, about one-third of which are directly related to obesity.
Carb-rich processed foods, along with rarely ever fasting, are primary drivers of these statistics, and while many blame Americans’ overindulgence of processed junk foods on lack of self control, scientists are now starting to reveal the truly addictive nature of such foods.
The video above features Huffington Post’s Editorial Director Meredith Melnick and a panel of experts in nutrition, public health, and obesity. In it, they discuss the effects that our toxic food environment have on weight. The video also includes clips from the four-part HBO documentary series,² Weight of the Nation.
As reported in the featured article:³

“Obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. People who are obese may also face social and professional discrimination, limited mobility and elevated rates of depression.
In June of this year, the American Medical Association (AMA) classified obesity as a disease for the first time -- and what a complicated disease it is. At the time of the resolution, the organization wrote:
“The suggestion that obesity is not a disease but rather a consequence of a chosen lifestyle exemplified by overeating and/or inactivity is equivalent to suggesting that lung cancer is not a disease because it was brought about by individual choice to smoke cigarettes.”
 It is this gray area -- "the suggestion of the chosen lifestyle" -- that we joined together to discuss.

Obesity—A Disease, or the Outcome of Poor Lifestyle Choices?

As the article mentions, the conventional view has been that obesity is either the result of “bad genetics” or poor lifestyle choices combined with a certain amount of laziness or lack of willpower.
But as panelist Walter Willett (who chairs the department of nutrition at the Harvard school of public health) points out, the fact that obesity rates 50-60 years ago were only one-third of what they are today is a potent clue that genetics are not to blame.
Also, a number of other affluent nations do not have the same obesity problems as the US. For example, the obesity rate among Swedish and Japanese women is between five and six percent, compared to almost 40 percent for American women. Furthermore, when people from such countries move to the US, they end up gaining significant amounts of weight...
This tells us there’s something in the American diet that is different from other nations, in which people do not have the same level of difficulty with their weight.
Unfortunately, branding obesity as a disease is not going to do anything to change matters for the better. If anything, it will only deepen the problem, as drugs, surgery and even “anti-obesity vaccines”⁴ will quickly become the advertised answer for this new “disease.”
For example, just one month before the AMA’s reveal of obesity as a disease, a new diet drug sold under the name Belviq became available by prescription to patients with a body mass index (BMI) above 30, or a BMI of 27 with at least one weight-related condition, such as hypertension or Type 2 diabetes.
The drug works by activating serotonin receptors in your brain, which is thought to reduce feelings of hunger—although it sounds awfully similar to the action of certain antidepressants, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which boost serotonin levels and are fraught with dangerous side effects, including suicide. CNN Health⁵ also reported that some patients taking the drug have reported heart valve problems.

The drug’s website⁶ admits that it’s still not known whether Belviq might increase your risk of heart problems or stroke. A sound health care system simply would not encourage the use of a weight loss drug that might lead to increased heart attack or stroke risk when the appropriate dietary- and lifestyle changes would REDUCE those risks right along with the lost weight...
The fact is, well-educated nutritional experts already KNOW what’s causing obesity and how to fix the problem. But this involves massive changes to the processed food industry, updating agricultural subsidies to promote healthier non-processed foods, and telling the public the truth about nutrition—without any regard for industry profitability. We also need to stop the dangerous marketing of junk food to children.

Food Addiction and Obesity Is a Profit-Driven Enterprise

At the heart of the problem is the issue of toxic food—foods that are heavily processed and purposely designed for maximum “craveability.”  None of this happened by chance. Companies spend untold amounts concocting just the right flavor formulas to keep you coming back for more. To illustrate my point, consider this: Researchers at the Boston Children's Hospital recently demonstrated that highly processed carbohydrates stimulate brain regions involved in reward and cravings, promoting excess hunger.⁷ As reported by Science Daily:⁸

“These findings suggest that limiting these "high-glycemic index" foods could help obese individuals avoid overeating.”

While I don’t agree with the concept of high glycemic foods, the featured research shows just how foolhardy the AMA’s decision to reclassify obesity as a disease really is, because drugs and vaccines are clearly not going to do anything to address the underlying problem of addictive junk food!
“Sensory-specific satiety” is a fundamental guiding principle in the processed food industry, and this applies to everything from junky snacks to staples like pasta sauce—that’s part of the problem! Processed fructose, salt and fat are the top three substances making processed foods so addictive. Novel biotech flavor companies like Senomyx also play an important role in the development of foods that trick you into thinking it’s healthier than it really is.
Senomyx, for example, specializes in helping companies find new flavors that allow them to use less salt and sugar in their foods. But does that really make the food healthier? This is a questionable assertion at best, as these “flavor enhancers” are being created using carefully guarded patented processes. They also do not need to be listed on the food label, which leaves you completely in the dark—all you see is that the food contains far less of the dietary culprits you’re told to avoid.

Following USDA Diet Recommendations is a Recipe for Obesity

Some of you may be old enough to recall the 1992 Food Pyramid, which had grains as the largest bottom block of the pyramid, encouraging you to eat 6-11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta each day. This excess of carbohydrates, most of them refined, is precisely the opposite of what most people need to stay healthy. At the very top of the pyramid was fats and sugar, and while sugar clearly belongs there, healthy fats do not. In fact, most people would benefit from getting anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of their total calories from healthy fats!
The food pyramid was replaced with “MyPlate”⁹ in 2011, which slightly downplayed grains as the most important dietary ingredient, making vegetables the largest “slice,” but it still has a long way to go before it will offer a meal plan that will truly support your optimal health.
One of its most glaring faults is that MyPlate virtually removed all fats from the equation! In fact, except for a small portion of dairy, which is advised to be fat-free or low-fat, fats are missing entirely... There is no mention of the importance of dietary fats, even the "politically correct" ones like the monounsaturated fats in olive oil and nuts, such as pecans (canola oil is also in this category, but I advise avoiding it and using coconut oil instead).
The US government refuses to accept the ever mounting data showing that saturated fat is actually an incredibly healthy, nourishing, and all-natural fat that humans have been thriving on for generations. It provides the necessary building blocks for your cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone like substances that are critical to your health. Saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources (such as coconut oil, avocado, non-CAFO meat and dairy,  also provide a concentrated source of energy in your diet.
When you eat fats as part of your meal, they also slow down absorption so that you can feel satiated longer, which helps curb overeating. Additionally, they act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, and are needed for mineral absorption and a host of other biological processes. To get these healthy saturated fats in your diet, you need to eat animal foods like butter and other full-fat raw dairy products and eggs, yet these foods are still demonized by the establishment.

Take Control of Your Health and Embrace REAL Food

With a food system and dietary guidelines that promote obesity and actively prevents optimal health by restricting critical nutrients, is it any wonder Americans are struggling? If you're at all concerned about your health, nutrition is paramount, and you’re simply not going to get what you need from a boxed concoction of processed ingredients.
So, first and foremost, you have to realize that a healthy diet equates to fresh whole, preferably organic foods, and foods that have been minimally processed. I advise spending 90 percent of your food budget on whole foods, and only 10 percent (or less) on processed foods. If the food meets the following criteria, it would fall under the designation of "real food," which is the very foundation of good health:

1. It's grown without pesticides and chemical fertilizers (organic foods fit this description, but so do some non-organic foods)
2. It's not genetically engineered 
3. It contains no added growth hormones, antibiotics, or other drugs
4. It does not contain any artificial ingredients, including chemical preservatives
5. It is fresh (keep in mind that if you have to choose between wilted organic produce or fresh conventional produce, the latter may be the better option)
6. It did not come from a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO)
7. It is grown with the laws of nature in mind (meaning animals are fed their native diets, not a mix of grains and animal byproducts, and have free-range access to the outdoors)
8. It is grown in a sustainable way (using minimal amounts of water, protecting the soil from burnout, and turning animal wastes into natural fertilizers instead of environmental pollutants)

How to Combat Food Addiction and Regain Your Health

The sad fact is, if you eat a standard American diet (SAD), which primarily consists of processed foods, you’re virtually guaranteed to inadvertently pack on extra pounds, even if you think you’re eating healthy.  For the majority of people, limiting carbs to non-starchy vegetables and severely restricting or eliminating carbohydrates such as sugars, fructose, and grains in your diet will be the key to sustained weight loss.
It’s important to realize that refined carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, bagels, waffles, pretzels, and most other processed foods quickly break down to sugar, increase your insulin levels, and cause insulin resistance, which is the number one underlying factor of nearly every chronic disease and condition known to man, including weight gain.
As you cut these dietary villains from your meals, you need to replace them with healthy fats, such as the following. (Avoid the common Paleo mistake of replacing carbs with protein as that could actually convert to sugar in your diet and could be more problematic than excess carbs.)

Olives and Olive oil	Coconuts and coconut oil	Butter made from raw grass-fed organic milk
Organic raw nuts, especially macadamia nuts, which are low in protein and omega-6 fat	Organic pastured egg yolks and pastured meats	Avocados

I've detailed a step-by-step guide to this type of healthy eating program in my free comprehensive nutrition plan.
Additionally, a growing body of evidence shows that intermittent fasting is particularly effective for losing weight. One of the mechanisms that makes intermittent fasting so effective for weight loss is the fact that it provokes the natural secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), which is a fat-burning hormone. Fasting also increases catecholamines, which increases resting energy expenditure, while decreasing insulin levels, which allows stored fat to be burned for fuel. Together, these and other factors will turn you into an effective fat-burning machine. Hence, if like many tens of millions of people, your goal is to shed excess fat, fasting can be both effective and beneficial for improving many disease markers.
Best of all, once you transition to fat burning mode your cravings for sugar and carbs will virtually disappear—it’s really as close to a “magic pill”-effect as you’ll ever get. While you’re making the adjustment, you could try an energy psychology technique called Turbo Tapping, which has helped many sugar addicts kick their sweet habit.
Last but certainly not least, to boost weight loss, make sure to incorporate high-intensity, short-burst-type exercises, such as my Peak Fitness Program, two to three times per week. Several studies have confirmed that exercising in shorter bursts with rest periods in between burns more fat than exercising continuously for an entire session. High intensity exercise can also combat food cravings. It always amazes me how my appetite, especially for sweets, dramatically decreases after a good workout. I believe the mechanism is related to the dramatic reduction in insulin levels that occurs after exercise.

Leading Health Threats for Men

• Written by  Lynn Glenn and Jeff Behar

The following are the top health threats for men, along with tips on how you can reduce the risks:
Cardiovascular disease. Atherosclerosis is the leading men's health threat. In cardiovascular disease, cholesterol plaques gradually block the arteries in the heart and brain. If a plaque becomes unstable, a blood clot forms, blocking the artery and causing a heart attack or stroke. One in five men will die from cardiovascular disease for unclear reasons. Men's average age for death from cardiovascular disease is under 65. Reduce heart disease and stroke risk by: Getting your cholesterol checked, can reduce this health threat, beginning at age 25 and every five years after. Control your blood pressure and cholesterol. If you smoke, stop. Increase your physical activity level to 30 minutes per day. Eat more fruits and vegetables and less saturated or trans fats.
Diabetes. Diabetes, the silent health threat for men, usually begins without symptoms. Over years, blood sugar levels creep higher, eventually spilling into the urine. The resulting frequent urination and thirst are what finally bring many men to the doctor. Excess glucose acts like a slow poison on blood vessels and nerves everywhere in the body. Heart attacks, strokes, blindness, kidney failure, and amputations are the fallout for thousands of men. Reduce diabetes risk by: Exercising, in combination with a healthy diet, can prevent type 2 diabetes from becoming a health threat. Moderate weight loss -- for those who are overweight -- and 30 minutes a day of physical activity reduced the chance of diabetes by more than 50%.
Lung cancer. Lung cancer is still a leading health threat to men. Lung cancer spreads early, usually before it grows large enough to cause symptoms or even show up on an X-ray. By the time it's found, lung cancer is often advanced and difficult to cure. Less than half of men are alive a year later. Tobacco smoke causes 90% of all lung cancers. Reduce lung cancer risk by: Quitting smoking, at any age reduces the risk for lung cancer and prevents lung cancer from becoming a leading health threat for men.
Prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the leading cancer health threat for men. The prostate, a walnut-sized gland behind the penis, is prone to problems as men age. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men other than skin cancer. Close to 200,000 men will develop prostate cancer this year in the U.S. But while one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime, only one in 35 will die from it. Many prostate cancers are slow-growing and unlikely to spread, while others are aggressive. Reduce prostate cancer risk by: Having your prostate screen for cancer, which requires a digital rectal exam and a blood test for prostate specific antigen (PSA) can reduce this health threat. See your doctor regularly and talk about your overall risk.
Erectile dysfunction. Erectile dysfunction is a common health threat in men. Erectile dysfunction may not be life threatening, but it's still signals an important health problem. Two-thirds of men older than 70 and up to 39% of 40-year-old men have problems with erectile dysfunction. Erectile dysfunction is most often caused by atherosclerosis -- the same process that causes heart attacks and strokes. In fact, having ED frequently means that blood vessels throughout the body are in less-than-perfect health. Doctors consider erectile dysfunction an early warning sign for cardiovascular disease. Treatment for erectile dysfunction: There are drugs and treatments that help with erectile dysfunction and make a fulfilling sex life possible, but they don't cure the condition. If you have erectile dysfunction, before it becomes a health threat, see your doctor and ask if more than your sex life is at risk.
Depression and suicide. Men are at greater risk for depression. This health threat isn't just a bad mood, a rough patch, or the blues. It's an emotional disturbance that affects your whole body and overall health. Brain chemicals and stress hormones are out of balance. Sleep, appetite, and energy level are disturbed. Research even suggests men with depression are more likely to develop heart disease. Men are less likely to seek help for depression. The results can be tragic. Women attempt suicide more often, but men are more successful at completing it. Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death among all men; for young men it's higher. Reduce depression and suicide risk by: For this health threat most men respond well to depression treatment with medications, therapy, or both. If you think you might be depressed, reach out to your doctor or someone close to you, and seek help.
Men’s Health Bottom Line
If you would like to lower these health threats and live well past 74.8, (the statistical average age that men in the US live according to MayoClinic.com), you should lead a healthier lifestyle through diet and exercise, stop smoking or avoid it completely. Also in order to significantly reduce these health threats affecting men it is important to take preventive measures against injuries and accidents – and get regular checkups with your doctor.

Can Eating Too Many Vegetables and Fruits be a Problem?

 EAT A BALANCED MEAL PLAN

It may make you scratch your head, but you can overeat healthy foods, like vegetables and fruits.
"While fruits are nutritious, too much of even a healthy food can lead to weight gain," says Loyola University Health System registered dietitian Brooke Schantz.. "The key is to remember to control the portion sizes of the foods you consume."

Schantz reported that overeating healthy foods is easy to do, but the same rules apply to healthy food as junk food. Weight fluctuates based on a basic concept -- energy in versus energy out. If your total caloric intake is higher than the energy you burn off in a day, you will gain weight. If it is lower, you will lose weight.
"I have had many patients tell me that they don't know why they are not losing weight," Schantz said. "Then they report that they eat fruit all day long. They are almost always shocked when I advise them to watch the quantity of food they eat even if it is healthy."
Schantz said that one exception applies. Nonstarchy vegetables are difficult to overeat unless they are accompanied by unnecessary calories from sauces, cheeses and butter. This is due to the high water and fiber content of these vegetables coupled with the stretching capacity of the stomach. The vegetables she suggested limiting are those that are high in starch, such as peas, corn and potatoes. Foods that are labeled as fat-free or low-fat are another area of concern.
"People tend to give themselves the freedom to overeat 'healthy' foods," Schantz said. "While the label might say that a food or beverage is low-fat or fat-free, watch the quantity you consume and refrain from eating an excessive amount. Foods that carry these health claims may be high in sugar and calories."
Nutrition expert Jeff Behar, CEO of www.MyBestHealthPortal.net aznd www.MuscleMagFitness.com, agrees, "Many of my clients come to me with bad eating habits, many due to lack of nutrition knowledge. They chugg down fruit juices, which are loaded with calories and spike blood sugarf levels. They grab what they think are healthy foods, but the add unhealthy condiments, or prepare them unhealthy oils. Very few of them understand glycemic index, glycemic lodas and how the effect weight loss."
Reference: Loyola University Health System (2012, July 24). Is there such a thing as eating too many fruits and vegetables?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 30, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2012/07/120724144423.htm

To Drink or NOT to Drink Coffee……..

• Many clients are surprised when I tell them that they can still drink their coffee. Personally, I have never liked the taste. I remember craving it all but once in the past, but other than that, I have never had the urge or need to try.
  This of course doesn’t mean I will tell all others to avoid it.
  There is a stigma attached to it’s consumption, and like most other foods criticized for their role in disease, including dairy, meat and carbohydrates, all the bad press should probably be blamed on their quality, rather than their inerrant traits.
  Moreover, mounting research is showing that the consumption of coffee could hold many benefits for those who cling to it on a regular basis. Let’s weigh the good and bad….
  Why would someone NOT want to drink coffee?
  1)It’s any easy way to gain some quick energy in our high stress and compromised recovery (nutrition and sleep) world.
  

  • Relying on it for energy may not be the best thing in the long run if we are burning the candle at both ends.

  2)For some people it replaces breakfast and suppresses appetite, which might not be a great thing if your goal is fat loss and/or performance.
  

  • Starvation can lead to fat loss, but an under consumption of nutrition is not optimal for performance and cognition, especially in healthy individuals.

  3)Because it causes increases in stress hormones, it may lead to high blood sugar levels, when consumed with other carbohydrates.
  

  • This may be problematic for those with blood sugar issues, including diabetics.

  4)Conventional coffee can be a high source of pesticides, which are thought to be responsible for many of its side effects.
  5)Some people are slow metabolizers of coffee and as a result, it stays in their system longer and may effect sleep or the ability to calm down.
  Why would someone WANT to drink coffee?
  1)For those who eat poorly, coffee may be the highest source of antioxidants in their diet.
  2)Coffee has been shown to have a protective effect on the pancreas and liver
  3)Coffee can help enhance detoxification
  4)Coffee can stimulate the growth of neurons in the brain and improve cognition through energy restoration.
  5)A healthier alternative to most pre-workout formulas that are full of chemicals and sugar, if you want your body to favour fat as a source for fuel during exercise.
  As far as I am concerned, if you are addicted to coffee you should try to reduce your intake, especially during times of detoxification and cleansing. Too much of anything can easily lead to negative side effects; In the case of coffee, food intolerance may just be one side effect.
  For lots of Stoy Fitness’ followers, this would be during lent. But as we have already alluded to in past articles, make sure you are taking in nutrient dense foods with enough quality protein. Furthermore, there are many other things to get rid of before coffee (ie, processed foods), so don’t get ahead of yourself. Taking steps that are compatible with your current situation.
  Nevertheless, if you enjoy the taste of coffee in the morning, try to make sure it’s organic, sugar free (you can use some cream if you like) and does NOT take the place of your breakfast (as it might restrict appetite).
  So in conclusion, coffee is not going to be the worst thing for you and might even help you with your goals. You have to look at your nutrition as a whole and ask yourself, “where is it lacking and what can I do to make up for the holes in it?” If adding or increasing coffee consumption looks like it might help, give it a try. However, if you find yourself relying on coffee at the expense of a colourful plate then you might want to rethink things!
  Either way, make steady, solid changes that will last.

Why Crunches and Sit Ups do NOT Get You Six Pack Abs

Doing countless crunches and sit ups are by far the most common exercise mistake for anyone who wants to slim down their midsection. The thought is that doing hundreds of crunches and sit ups will work the abs so hard that the fat covering them will disappear. If this were true, you would see people walking around with toned and defined abs and a soft and flabby body everywhere else.

Here's something to think about: we're always focusing on the abs but you ever noticed that the people who have the best abs also have a great body everywhere else? This is by design - not by coincidence. The idea that doing lots of crunches is going to get you six pack abs is a myth that is known as "spot reduction". Fat burning is not a local phenomenon. When you do bicep curls your biceps do not pull fat from your arm for energy, so why would crunches reduce the fat around your waistline?

In order to lose body fat you need to create a caloric deficit, which means that your body is burning more calories than it is taking in. Your diet constitutes how many calories you are taking in and your level of physical activity is what constitutes how many calories you burn off (in addition to your resting metabolism).

The biggest problem with crunches and sit ups are that they do not give you a very big "bang for your buck" with regard to caloric expenditure. You can spend 15 minutes doing crunches and get your abs working very hard, but you will only burn a small number of calories. This is not enough to have a large impact on losing body fat.

The answer burn more calories. The more calories you burn the more fat you will lose on your entire body, thus exposing your abs to the world.

Doing hundreds of crunches and sit ups are simply not a very efficient way to spend your time exercising. Your goal with exercising to lose body fat is to burn a lot of calories and to boost your metabolism.

So get to the gym, lift to add muscle - the more muscle you add the higher your metabolic rate and the more calories you will burn 24/7 - even when you are sleeping!

For more on this check out musclemagfitness.com

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7 Bad Habits that you are Screwing Up your Metabolism

If I had a quarter for every time I heard someone blame his or her weight gain on metabolism — well, I'd be pretty darn rich. But what exactly is metabolism?

Here’s the short answer: metabolism is just a measure of how quickly we convert calories into fuel, made up of many chemical reactions in our body. Take the liver, for instance. If that organ is clogged, it’ll be sluggish and inefficient, and it won’t help you burn fat.

We all want a fast metabolism, and we all know that a healthy, low-fat, low-sugar diet that helps build muscle mass and includes exercise can boost it. However, if you want to slow your metabolism, make it inefficient, have low energy, and keep those pounds on, you probably practice any combination of the following bad habits

1. You skimp on sleep.

Sleep has a direct effect on three hormones that regulate stress and appetite: cortisol, grehlin and leptin. When we sleep less, we have higher levels of cortisol and ghrelin, and decreased levels of leptin, which suppresses appetite and moderates energy balance.

2. You eat simple carbohydrates.

Simple carbohydrates (for example: bagels, candies, and cookies) don't contain nearly the same levels of vitamins, minerals and fiber as whole foods, so your body needs to tap into its own store, and that requires a lot of effort to digest. Simple carbs also create dramatic fluctuations in blood sugar levels.

3. You don't drink enough water.

Drink less than the recommended 8 to 10 glasses per day and you’ll be lethargic, unproductive and unable to focus.

4. You skip meals.

This is a terrible idea for a few reasons: (1) Your body will think you’re starving and lower your metabolism to conserve energy. (2) Your body will insist on making up those lost calories, so you might even overeat at the next meal. 3. You’ll become tired and irritable, and let’s face it, we don’t exactly make the best choices when we feel that way.

5. You stay stressed out.

I have a friend who asked me why she always rips into a bag of potato chips every night before dinner, even when she's not really hungry. There are layoffs at her job, and she's afraid she'll be the next one to get canned. Cravings for crunchy (and sometimes salty) foods are pretty common when you're stressed and anxious. Worse, chronic stress not only keeps us tossing and turning at night, but it also keeps those “fight-or-flight” hormones, like cortisol, flowing.

6. You eat processed foods.

Processed foods contain a lot of sugar, which interferes with that enzyme we all need for fat burning, lipase. Lipase is suppressed when blood sugar spikes. Processed foods also have a lot of salt, additives (like MSG) and other hormones which can actually interfere with the good, fat-burning ones. Sometimes, though, even healthy raw foods like broccoli, cabbage, peanuts and pine nuts can hinder fat burning. These raw foods contain chemicals called goitrogens, which can interfere with the way the thyroid processes iodine.

7. You eat a high-fat diet.

Fat is very hard to digest, and that interferes with your metabolic process. Ever eat a high fat dinner, then not feel like eating until early afternoon because you’re still digesting? Think about it: You’re skipping a meal or two, your body thinks it’s starving and slows (or shuts down) your metabolism. End of story.

This Is What Happens to Your Body When You Exercise

One of the key health benefits of exercise is that it helps normalize your glucose, insulin, and leptin levels by optimizing insulin/leptin receptor sensitivity. This is perhaps the most important factor for optimizing your overall health and preventing chronic disease.
But exercise affects your body in countless other ways as well—both directly and indirectly. Here, however, even the most unexpected side effects are almost universally beneficial. For example, as illustrated in the featured article,¹ side effects of exercise include but are not limited to:

• Improved sexual function
• Changes in gene expression
• Clearer skin
• Improved mood
• Improved sleep

What Happens in Your Body When You Exercise?

The featured article in Huffington Post² highlights a number of biological effects that occur, from head to toe, when you exercise. This includes changes in your:

• Muscles, which use glucose and ATP for contraction and movement. To create more ATP, your body needs extra oxygen, so breathing increases and your heart starts pumping more blood to your muscles.
Without sufficient oxygen, lactic acid will form instead. Tiny tears in your muscles make them grow bigger and stronger as they heal.

• Lungs. As your muscles call for more oxygen (as much as 15 times more oxygen than when you’re at rest), your breathing rate increases. Once the muscles surrounding your lungs cannot move any faster, you’ve reached what’s called your VO2 max—your maximum capacity of oxygen use. The higher your VO2 max, the fitter you are.
• Heart. As mentioned, your heart rate increases with physical activity to supply more oxygenated blood to your muscles. The fitter you are, the more efficiently your heart can do this, allowing you to work out longer and harder. As a side effect, this increased efficiency will also reduce your resting heart rate. Your blood pressure will also decrease as a result of new blood vessels forming.
• Brain. The increased blood flow also benefits your brain, allowing it to almost immediately function better. As a result, you tend to feel more focused after a workout. Furthermore, exercising regularly will promote the growth of new brain cells. In your hippocampus, these new brain cells help boost memory and learning. As stated in the featured article:

“When you work out regularly, your brain gets used to this frequent surge of blood and adapts by turning certain genes on or off. Many of these changes boost brain cell function and protect from diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or even stroke, and ward off age-related decline.”


A number of neurotransmitters are also triggered, such as endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, and GABA. Some of these are well-known for their role in mood control. Exercise, in fact, is one of the most effective prevention and treatment strategies for depression.

• Joints and bones, as exercise can place as much as five or six times more than your body weight on them. Peak bone mass is achieved in adulthood and then begins a slow decline, but exercise can help you to maintain healthy bone mass as you get older.
Weight-bearing exercise is actually one of the most effective remedies against osteoporosis, as your bones are very porous and soft, and as you get older your bones can easily become less dense and hence, more brittle -- especially if you are inactive.

Your Brain Health Is Directly Related to Exercise

A related article published by Lifehacker.com³ focuses exclusively on brain-related changes that occur when you exercise. While I just mentioned that neurotransmitters, chemical messengers in your brain, such as mood-boosting serotonin, are released during a bout of exercise, that doesn’t account for all the benefits your brain reaps.

“If you start exercising, your brain recognizes this as a moment of stress. As your heart pressure increases, the brain thinks you are either fighting the enemy or fleeing from it. To protect yourself and your brain from stress, you release a protein called BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor). This BDNF has a protective and also reparative element to your memory neurons and acts as a reset switch. That's why we often feel so at ease and like things are clear after exercising,” Leo Widrich writes.

Simultaneously, your brain releases endorphins, another stress-related chemical. According to researcher MK McGovern, the endorphins minimize the physical pain and discomfort associated with exercise. They’re also responsible for the feeling of euphoria that many people report when exercising regularly.
Scientists have been linking the benefits of physical exercise to brain health for many years, but recent research^{4, 5} has made it clear that the two aren't just simply related; rather, it is THE relationship. The evidence shows that physical exercise helps you build a brain that not only resists shrinkage, but increases cognitive abilities. Exercise encourages your brain to work at optimum capacity by causing your nerve cells to multiply, strengthening their interconnections, and protecting them from damage. There are multiple mechanisms at play here, but some are becoming more well-understood than others.
The rejuvenating role of BDNF is one of them. BDNF activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons. It also triggers numerous other chemicals that promote neural health. Further, exercise provides protective effects to your brain through:

• The production of nerve-protecting compounds
• Improved development and survival of neurons
• Decreased risk of heart and blood vessel diseases
• Altering the way damaging proteins reside inside your brain, which appears to slow the development of Alzheimer's disease

Both Fasting and Exercise Trigger Brain Rejuvenation

Growing evidence indicates that both fasting and exercise trigger genes and growth factors that recycle and rejuvenate your brain and muscle tissues. These growth factors include BDNF, as just mentioned, and muscle regulatory factors, or MRFs.
These growth factors signal brain stem cells and muscle satellite cells to convert into new neurons and new muscle cells respectively. Interestingly enough, BDNF also expresses itself in the neuro-muscular system where it protects neuro-motors from degradation. (The neuromotor is the most critical element in your muscle. Without the neuromotor, your muscle is like an engine without ignition. Neuro-motor degradation is part of the process that explains age-related muscle atrophy.)
So BDNF is actively involved in both your muscles and your brain, and this cross-connection, if you will, appears to be a major part of the explanation for why a physical workout can have such a beneficial impact on your brain tissue. It, quite literally, helps prevent, and even reverse, brain decay as much as it prevents and reverses age-related muscle decay.
This also helps explain why exercise while fasting can help keep your brain, neuro-motors, and muscle fibers biologically young. For more information on how to incorporate intermittent fasting into your exercise routine for maximum benefits, please see this previous article. Sugar suppresses BDNF, which also helps explain why a low-sugar diet in combination with regular exercise is so effective for protecting memory and staving off depression.

This Is Your Brain on Exercise

BDNF and endorphins are two of the factors triggered by exercise that help boost your mood, make you feel good, and sharpen your cognition. As mentioned by Lifehacker, they’re similar to morphine and heroin in their action and addictiveness—but without any of the harmful side effects. Quite the contrary! So, how much do you have to exercise in order to maintain a sunnier disposition and better memory long-term?
According to a 2012 study⁶ published in the journal Neuroscience, the “secret” to increased productivity and happiness on any given day is a long-term investment in regular exercise. And a little each day appears to go further than a lot once or twice a week.

"Those who had exercised during the preceding month but not on the day of testing generally did better on the memory test than those who had been sedentary, but did not perform nearly as well as those who had worked out that morning,” the authors note.

The reasons for this can perhaps be best perceived visually. Take a look at these images, showing the dramatic increase in brain activity after a 20 minute walk, compared to sitting quietly for the same amount of time.

There is a minor caveat, however. The researchers also discovered that exercise does not affect the brains of all people in exactly the same way. Some people, about 30 percent of people of European Caucasian descent, have a BDNF gene variant that hinders post-exercise BDNF production. The people with this BDNF variant did not improve their memory scores, even when exercising regularly, as significantly as those without this variant. Still, the research clearly suggests that—with individual variations as to the degree—regular exercise will cumulatively enhance your memory and other brain functions.

You Don’t Need to Train Like an Athlete to Reap the Benefits of Exercise

If you are sedentary there is hope for you. In her book, The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer, New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Reynolds addresses the issue of exercise as a way to improve longevity and happiness as well.⁷

"The first 20 minutes of moving around, if someone has been really sedentary, provide most of the health benefits. You get prolonged life, reduced disease risk - all of those things come in in the first 20 minutes of being active,” she said in a 2012 interview⁸.

“Two-thirds of Americans get no exercise at all. If one of those people gets up and moves around for 20 minutes, they are going to get a huge number of health benefits, and everything beyond that 20 minutes is, to some degree, gravy. That doesn’t mean I’m suggesting people should not exercise more if they want to. You can always do more. But the science shows that if you just do anything, even stand in place 20 minutes, you will be healthier.”

Similarly, research⁹ published in 2008 found that those who exercised on work days experienced significantly improved mood on days that they exercised. Interestingly, while their mood remained fairly constant even on non-exercise work days, their sense of inner calm deteriorated on those days. According to the authors:¹⁰

“Critically, workers performed significantly better on exercise days and across all three areas we measured, known as mental-interpersonal, output and time demands.”

Key findings included:

• 72 percent had improved time management on exercise days compared to non-exercise days
• 79 percent reported improved mental and interpersonal performance in exercise days
• 74 percent said they managed their workload better
• Those who exercised regularly also reported feeling more than 40 percent more “motivated to work” and scored more than 20 percent higher for concentration and finishing work on time

But remember, it is FAR better to exercise regularly. I believe it is also vital to engage in regular movement if you have a sitting job like most of us do, including me. I typically sit in front of a computer for more than 12 hours a day. What I have recently appreciated is that standing up every 10 minutes (with the help of a timer) and engaging in some type of brief exercise, is an enormously powerful habit to minimize the damage of long term sitting.

Aim for a Well-Rounded Fitness Program

Ideally, to truly optimize your health, you’ll want to strive for a varied and well-rounded fitness program that incorporates a wide variety of exercises. As a general rule, as soon as an exercise becomes easy to complete, you need to increase the intensity and/or try another exercise to keep challenging your body.
Additionally, more recent research has really opened my eyes to the importance of non-exercise movement. Truly, the key to health is to remain as active as you can, all day long, but that doesn’t mean you train like an athlete for hours a day. It simply means, whenever you have a chance to move and stretch your body in the course of going about your day—do it!
And the more frequently, the better. Everything from standing up, to reaching for an item on a tall shelf, to weeding in your garden and walking from one room to another, and even doing dishes count. In short, it’s physical movement, period, that promotes health benefits by the interaction your body gets with gravity. To learn more about this important aspect of health, please see this previous article. That said, I recommend incorporating the following types of exercise into your program:

• Interval (Anaerobic) Training: This is when you alternate short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods.
• Strength Training: Rounding out your exercise program with a 1-set strength training routine will ensure that you're really optimizing the possible health benefits of a regular exercise program. You can also "up" the intensity by slowing it down. For more information about using super slow weight training as a form of high intensity interval exercise, please see my interview with Dr. Doug McGuff.
• Stand Up Every 10 Minutes. This is not intuitively obvious, but emerging evidence clearly shows that even highly fit people who exceed the expert exercise recommendations are headed for premature death if they sit for long periods of time. My interview with NASA scientist Dr. Joan Vernikos goes into great detail why this is so, and what you can do about it. Personally, I usually set my timer for 10 minutes while sitting, and then stand up and do one legged squats, jump squats or lunges when the timer goes off. The key is that you need to be moving all day long, even in non-exercise activities.
• Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury and help you gain greater balance and stability.
Foundation Training, created by Dr. Eric Goodman, is an integral first step of a larger program he calls “Modern Moveology,” which consists of a catalog of exercises. Postural exercises such as those taught in Foundation Training are critical not just for properly supporting your frame during daily activities, they also retrain your body so you can safely perform high-intensity exercises without risking injury.
Exercise programs like Pilates and yoga are also great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you can learn from a personal trainer.

• Stretching: My favorite type of stretching is active isolated stretches developed by Aaron Mattes. With Active Isolated Stretching, you hold each stretch for only two seconds, which works with your body's natural physiological makeup to improve circulation and increase the elasticity of muscle joints. This technique also allows your body to repair itself and prepare for daily activity. You can also use devices like the Power Plate to help you stretch.