Looking Back to Move Forward

“A [healthy] being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.” – Charles Darwin

As we near the end of 2011, I feel that one of the most important things a person can do is to reflect. We will all undoubtedly have resolutions and goals for the new year, but before we dive into those, let’s look back at how we did this past year. Do you remember your resolutions from January 1^st, 2011? Do you still have them written down somewhere? If so, take a look and see how you did. If you cannot find them, take some time to think about what you were focused on last year at this time. Maybe you had the same resolution that you have had for the past five years. Maybe you had a new resolution. Whatever it was, commit some time to reflecting on your success (or lack of success). Take each goal and ask yourself three questions:


1) What worked?
2) What didn't?
3) Why?

If you thoroughly examine these three questions for each goal, you will be fully equipped for succeeding in 2012. Many times we set goals for ourselves without any type of plan or forethought. Then, regardless of outcome, we never look back and learn from our experience. If you fail to achieve a goal, you have a huge opportunity to learn and try again. If you succeed, you again have an opportunity to learn and apply those lessons to other goals. Either way, if you are not using your past experiences as success training tools, you are wasting time and potential. 

Only once you have determined what works and what does not should you set your goals for next year. You now have the ammunition for battle, and are ready for devising a plan of attack. Start by writing down EXACTLY what you want to achieve. Do you want to lose 20 lbs. this year? Do you want to increase your income by $10,000? Whatever it is, write it down and try to be as specific as possible. Next, write down how you are going to achieve these goals. This part can be vague, but make sure to use the principles and ideas that you have learned from reflecting on last year. If your goal last year was to lose 20 lbs. and you only lost 5 lbs. (or none at all), then you should have a very good idea of what went wrong. Did you not plan your time well enough to get to the gym? Did you leave too many junk foods in the house as temptations? Did you fail to enlist your friends and family in your efforts? Whatever it was, my guess is that it was an unexpected barrier that can now be planned for.

Whatever your goal is, writing down ideas for achieving those goals will set you up for success. It does not mean that it will be easy, or that you will reach your exact goals, but the more you reflect and the more you learn from your experiences, the faster you will reach your goals. And please believe that you truly can do anything you put your mind to. If you want it badly enough, you can and will make it happen. The first step is just deciding what it is you want...

Happy New Year everyone, see you in 2012!!

Why am I Not Losing Fat?! (FINALE)

Over the last month, we have been diving deeper into the challenges that people have in losing fat. To reiterate, the first step is always to determine if your eating, exercise, social support/environment, and mental focus are in line with your goals. If you are on track in all these areas, but are STILL struggling, this series is meant for you. We have now reached our fourth and final part to this series. If you have not read the previous articles, you can find them here: part 1, part 2, and part 3. If you have worked your way through these already, it is time to learn about what I feel is the most under-appreciate issue even though it may affect almost all of us. Today we will be discussing the importance of your digestive system.

Fat Loss Barrier #4: The gastrointestinal system

A properly functioning gastrointestinal system is critical for overall health and well-being, yet it is often disregarded, ill-treated, and otherwise ignored unless it starts making a lot of commotion. If your gut is not in good health, it could lead to problems in just about every part of your body including, but not limited to, your nerves, brain, lungs, arteries, joints, bones, eyes, and hair. As you may guess, poor digestion can also have a huge influence on fat loss.

Consider the following about the gastrointestinal system:

• The gastrointestinal system comprises 75% of the body’s immune system.
• There are more neurons in the small intestine than in the entire spinal cord.
• It is the only system in the body that has its own, independently operating nervous system.
• If you stretched out the gastrointestinal system in its entirety, it would have the surface area of a regulation-sized tennis court.
• There are over 400 species of microbes living in your gut, totaling over 15 pounds of mass and containing more bacteria than there are known stars in the sky.

Suffice it to say, if the body allocates this many resources to one particular system, it must be important. In fact, we should start treating our gut with the utmost respect if we are interested in weight loss, muscle gain, or overall health.

My guts feel fine…I think

While your intestines do a lot of amazing things, the one thing they do not do is feel pain. There are no pain receptors in your intestines, so it is not always easy to know when your guts are not happy.  Instead we have to wait until things get bad enough to present symptoms to tell us. This would be the equivalent of stepping on a nail and not realizing it until your foot goes numb and starts changing color. These symptoms can include gas/bloating, feeling like you have a heavy stomach after meals, constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, bad breath, and foul-smelling stool.

As we mentioned before, however, many other symptoms typically aren’t manifested in our GI systems. Often, things like hormonal imbalances, migraines, allergies, eczema, and autoimmune disease can be traced back to GI system problems. And this is not all. Everything from a compromised immune system, to a problematic stress hormone situation, to an altered sex hormone system, to blood sugar irregularities can be related to gut problems. These problems can even feed back to cause more gut problems. Once you’ve hit this point, your gut has become seriously damaged and is in need of help quickly.

What to do

One of the best ways to stop a vicious GI-related cycle is to control inflammation and identify food sensitivities. The most effective way to do this is to start with an elimination diet for 3-6 weeks. A good elimination diet means removing foods to which many people are sensitive, including: wheat & gluten-containing foods, soy, dairy, corn, the nightshade family of vegetables (e.g. bell pepper, tomatoes, eggplant), and legumes. It could also possibly include a few other items (eggs, pork, citrus), but this is a good place to start.

You may be asking, “What’s left to eat?” Good question. You’ll eat a lot of vegetable matter, poultry, fish, lamb, beef (grass-fed), and certain fruits (i.e. blueberries, apples). This may seem restrictive, but it is truly amazing how effective it can be for those people who actually follow the diet. It can be life-changing. As a general rule, the more strict you can be, the better. When you are ready to start, it may be best to find an expert to help guide you through as it can be challenging to know all the foods that you should avoid. If nothing else, track your own food so that you know if you are keeping to it.

Once you have followed three weeks of a strict elimination plan, you will then want to reintroduce one food item at a time. Keep it in your diet for two days and see what happens. Pay careful attention to any symptoms experienced, such as joint pain, headaches, sinus issues, foggy thinking, fatigue, nausea, skin issues, and/or poor sleep. Almost anything can resurface that otherwise disappeared during the previous three weeks.

If there are any “positive” reactions to a food — meaning certain symptoms reappeared — that means the food is a problem and must be avoided for a period of at least 6 months. The reason you want to avoid them for 6 months is because you may only be having an acute reaction due to gut inflammation. If after 6 months, you do not have the reaction, you can add them back in without concern.

In the meantime, you might consult with a doctor that understands gastrointestinal function and can recommend gut-repairing nutrients. Please, please, please, do not take detoxifiers or fiber supplements. These are usually full of the items that are hurting your gut and only appear to work (if at all) because one response your body has to irritants is to push everything out. Remove the foods, eat clean, and start testing foods. While this may seem simple, it is not necessarily easy. You must stay on track to know what is problematic for you. If you do, you will see profound effects.

Conclusion

We have come to the end of our series and I hope that all of you have learned something that you will start working on today. Fat loss is not always easy, but in the grand scheme of things, is there anything worth spending more time on than your health? Health and fitness is a lifelong journey full of trial and error, and while there are many theories as to how to be in the best health, sometimes it just comes down to what makes you look and feel the best. Be mindful of your environment, how you feel, and how different things affect you. The more aware you are, the more quickly you will learn what is good for your body and what is not. And it is through this self-exploration that you will discover your best self and your best health. 

Why am I Not Losing Fat?! (Part 3)

We are back again to tackle our next limiting factor in the quest to lose fat. We have already talked about the oxygen delivery system and the blood sugar management system, which, if you have not yet read, you can find in Part 1 and Part 2. Today we look at the third most common issue with losing fat: stress.

Fat Loss Barrier #3: The adrenal system

The adrenal glands are your body’s primary defense for managing stress. When the adrenal glands are activated, they produce a number of hormones that help your body deal with both acute and chronic stressors. One such hormone is cortisol. Cortisol’s primary function is to increase blood sugar levels so your brain, muscles and organs have enough fuel to get you through a stressful situation. This is very important for survival, but it can cause some serious issues when it becomes chronic. Chronically elevated cortisol levels increase blood sugar levels, which then elevate insulin levels. As we talked about last time, this can stop you from burning fat no matter what exercise or diet program you follow.

Chronic stress - it’s everywhere

There are many chronic stressors in today’s society including mental/emotional stress, food sensitivities, blood sugar imbalances, infections, excessive exercise and anything else that the body perceives as a stress. Each of these things can not only cause overactivity of the adrenals (possibly resulting in chronically elevated cortisol levels), but also underactivity. This can result in other problems such as waking up in the middle of the night, feelings of irritability or extreme hunger, or low energy.

All of these stressors have to be managed by the adrenals, so it is not always easy to know what exactly is causing adrenal dysfunction. Any time you are trying to lose weight though, it is best to remove as much stress from your life as possible. Easier said than done, but better to know what could be holding you back than feeling frustrated and discouraged.

I want to highlight a few stressors that are often overlooked: exercise and food sensitivities. Exercise, while beneficial when used appropriately, can be just as stressful as work/life stressors when done in excess. Many times people think that they just need to exercise more and they will lose weight, but this is not always true. Exercise must be done just enough to produce an adaptive response, followed by adequate recovery to avoid overloading the system. If you are not recovering from exercise, it is actually working against you reaching your goals.

Food sensitivities may be one of the most common forms of stress, but are usually not even considered when trying to remove stress or lose weight. If you have ever felt bloated, constipated, or experienced any upset stomach or digestive issues, you probably have a food sensitivity. This is different than a food intolerance, but can cause just as much harm over the long run. Chronic bloating can lead to a host of other issues, including adrenal dysfunction. It is a stress on your digestive system, and your body does not like having its food delivery system messed with (more on this next week!). So while work and life stress is going to be an important thing to deal with, don’t forget about some of these other stressors as well.

Test and Treat

If you think that stress may be a factor in limited fat loss, it would be best to get your adrenals tested. The most effective way of assessing adrenal gland function is the Adrenal Salivary Test. You will have to set up an appointment with your doctor to take care of this, but it can be very revealing. If you want to do a quick at home test, try this: Lie down for 5 minutes, then take your blood pressure. Then stand up and take your blood pressure again.

If your systolic pressure (the first number) remained the same or decreased, you may not have optimal adrenal function. Ideally the number would go up as your body should now be working harder to pump blood. If it goes down, it means that your system is not responding as it should. This is just a quick test, but to find out more about your adrenals, talk to your doctor about the Adrenal Salivary Test.

If you do find that your adrenals are not functioning as well as they could be, start by determining what could be stressing you out. Remember, stress is not always emotional (food sensitivities, infection, over-training) and it does not have to be negative (juggling children, work, family, etc.) You need to first decide how to best manage the stress you have now before trying any other methods.

Once you have adjusted your current stressors, there are a few other things that may help as well. You may want to talk to your doctor or possibly a naturopathic doctor about specific herbs called “adaptogens” because of their ability to assist the body in handling stress. The most common are ginseng (can come in various forms) and licorice root, and they can be beneficial for both overactive and underactive adrenal glands. You may also want to talk with your doctor about phosphatidylserine (PS). This compound is best known for its ability to lower cortisol and can also be used for both overactive adrenal glands and underactive adrenal glands. You can take it in supplement form, or it can be found in mackerel and herring, if you are not one for supplements.

Almost there

We have come to the end of our third segment on why you might not be losing fat. Again, if you haven’t looked at your diet, exercise, social support, and your motivation, start there. If those all seem to be good, this series should help to weed out any last issues in trying to lose fat. These are not necessarily easy things to fix, but it is important to remember, it takes YEARS to put on weight, and it can take years to take off weight (especially when it is fat, not just generic weight). Keep up the good work, and check back next week for the final topic of the series: the digestive system!

Why am I Not Losing Fat?! (Part 2)

In last week’s article, we began our discussion on what to do if you seem to have everything in line to lose weight/fat, but you just do not seem to be having success. This week we will continue our discussion with the second of four key components to losing fat: your ability to manage blood sugar.

Fat Loss Barrier #2: The blood sugar management system

The ability to control one’s blood sugar is often talked about but not always fully explained or understood. It is the key component to many successful diets; and without it, fat loss is very difficult. If your body is not very good at regulating its blood sugar, then there are inevitable health concerns just around the corner, including being overweight.

When talking about blood sugar balance, there are two main issues. The first is when you have chronically elevated blood sugar, resulting from something called insulin resistance. The second is when your blood sugar fluctuates and can sometimes crash. This is known as hypoglycemia. Both of these imbalances result in elevated insulin.

Insulin resistance vs Hypoglycemia

Insulin is a hormone that is necessary for life. When your body is functioning properly, insulin is responsible (among other things) for signaling your cells to open their doors to glucose (blood sugar). But as with most hormones, insulin should be balanced. In excess, elevated insulin levels have a host of negative consequences on the body. Here are some reasons you want to take excess insulin seriously: an increase in inflammation, estrogen, oxidative stress, cholesterol, and blood pressure; a decrease in your body’s ability to handle toxins; an imbalance of neurotransmitters (the messengers in your brain that control how you think and feel, and are key players in many diseases).

When someone is insulin resistant, it means their cells are resistant to the signals of insulin and no longer open up when they should. Because blood sugar cannot enter into one’s cells as much as it should, it stays in their blood stream rather than being stored. As a result, the body produces higher levels of insulin to try and help remove glucose from the blood stream. This cycle, however, causes even greater metabolic dysfunction (low energy, weight gain, difficulty sleeping, sugar cravings that do not go away).

Individuals who tend to be hypoglycemic, on the other hand, will have periods of low blood sugar, followed by a release of adrenaline which acts to elevate blood sugar. This is a survival mechanism which can become problematic when happening too often. The adrenaline leads to a sharp increase in blood sugar, followed by a spike in insulin. This can lead to other metabolic issues (feeling jittery before meals/starving between meals, irritability, sugar cravings before meals, difficulty staying asleep, difficult losing weight) plus issues with one’s adrenal glands (excessive production of adrenaline).

Lean, mean, dysfunctional machine

While both insulin resistance and hypoglycemia can lead to weight gain, it is also possible to look healthy and be exercising regularly but still have trouble regulating blood sugar. There are a number of potential issues that can all interplay to make one’s blood sugar management system not work properly, among them the abundance of sugar in our diets, increased stress associated with long and demanding work days, little down time away from and type of stimuli, inflammatory foods, chemicals, and products, and many more.

All of these factors play a role in a vicious cycle of blood sugar management: Elevated blood sugar increases insulin. Insulin causes an increase cortisol. Cortisol increases blood sugar. And round and round it goes.

People can enter into this cycle in one of two ways. The first is through improper eating. Excess sugar or carbohydrates, and excessively large meals can elevate blood sugar levels to a point where this cycle can begin and persist if that eating is not controlled. The second way the cycle can be started is via cortisol. Anything that elevates cortisol (e.g. stress, parasitic infection, food allergies, inflammation, or inadequate sleep) will also elevate blood sugar and therefore insulin levels. In other words, you could have a perfect diet and exercise program, but if you have elevated cortisol levels, you may also be increasing your blood sugar from the inside.

What to do now?

If you think you might have an issue with blood sugar, you may want to get some blood work done. A good blood chemistry screen will contain enough markers to adequately identify patterns of blood sugar mismanagement. Here is a very general guideline of patterns to look for in blood work.

Hypoglycemic: Usually will see fasting blood sugar below 85 mg/dL & LDH (lactate dehydrogenase) below 140 U/L.

Insulin Resistant: Usually will see fasting blood sugar above 100 md/dL, triglycerides above 100 mg/dL, HDL below 55 md/dL, LDL above 120 md/dL. Note: the higher your triglycerides, the more concerned you should be.

Remember that these are just the norms, but use your own experience every day as feedback as well. If you often have cravings for sugar, have low energy, feel jittery between meals, or have been putting on weight recently, take some time to reflect on your diet and your lifestyle. If you tend to eat a lot of carbs and/or sugar, that would be a great place to start. If you are stressed out, are not sleeping well, and have not taken the time to center yourself and relax, then see how you can work to de-stress. Each of these plays a major role in your health, weight, energy, and longevity, so if you want to look and feel your best, this is a crucial area to work on.

Again, a big issue today, so stay tuned for our 3^rd segment next week where we will talk more about the adrenal system!

Why am I Not Losing Fat?! (Part 1)

If you are currently trying to lose weight or have tried in the past, you know that it is not always easy. Part of the reason why losing weight AND keeping it off is so hard is that weight loss does not always mean fat loss which is really what we are looking for. If you lose a bunch of weight, but it is all muscle, you are sure to gain the weight back and more. Even if you lose fat, but do not make the lifestyle changes necessary to keep with your new exercise and eating routines, it can be easy to fall back into old habits and regain the weight. So what can we do to fight fat and keep it off for good??

Fat loss can be a complicated subject to teach because there are so many possible limiting factors in a person’s ability to lose fat. There’s the exercise part, which plays a huge role in building muscle and burning fat. There’s the diet part, which affects everything. There’s the psychology, which is often overlooked, but is crucial to staying on track. And there’s the social part, which again, is a must. Without the help of family and friends it is impossible to form new habits. BUT, what happens if you have a good exercise & eating routine, you are focused and your friends and family all back you up…and you still can’t lose fat?

Well, that’s when we start looking to your physiology.  In particular, we need to examine four major physiological systems that can greatly influence fat loss:

1. Your oxygen delivery system
2. Your blood sugar management system
3. Your adrenal system
4. Your digestive system

To be clear, exercise, diet, motivation, and social support are always the first places to look if you are struggling to lose and keep fat off. Under normal physiological situations, the body has no problem giving up the fat as long as these areas are covered. However, there are some people who just cannot seem to lose the fat, regardless of how well everything else is going. What’s up with them?

Well, assuming they really are on track, they’re likely experiencing abnormal physiological situations where fat loss is quite difficult because the body isn’t functioning as it should. It’s kind of like planting a garden. Sunshine and water are requirements for a garden to grow, just like diet and exercise are necessary for fat loss.  But even with all the sunshine and water in the world, your garden won’t grow if the soil is unhealthy. In other words, you can diet and exercise all you want, you can develop a strong social support circle, and you can get your head screwed on right.  But if your body — your soil — is not working properly, neither will your weight loss program.

So let’s dig a little deeper and discuss the big 4 physiological situations that might be preventing you from losing fat.

Fat Loss Barrier #1: The oxygen delivery system

The cells of your body run primarily on two things: oxygen and glucose.  If either one of these is deficient in any way, your body will be unable to work properly. One of the most important things your cells can do is to produce energy. They essentially take in nutrients to create energy, allowing them to perform their specific functions. To create this energy, however, one very important nutrient MUST be present: oxygen. If your cells are not receiving adequate amounts of oxygen, nothing in your body will work correctly… including weight loss.

In conventional medicine, a decrease in the ability to deliver oxygen to cells is often called anemia, a condition referring to a deficiency in red blood cells’ ability to deliver oxygen to the tissues and organs of the body. Anemia can be caused by any number of things – iron deficiency, vitamin B12/folate deficiency, excessive blood loss (i.e. heavy menses, gastrointestinal bleeding), medications, specific chronic or hereditary conditions (i.e. thalassemia), etc. The three main causes of anemia are red blood cell destruction, blood loss, or an inability to produce an adequate number of healthy red blood cells.

If you feel that you are struggling to lose weight, or that your body is just not functioning as well as it used to, you may want to have your doctor run standard blood work, and make sure the following tests are included: hemoglobin, hematocrit, red blood cells, MCV, MCH, MCHC, iron, and ferritin.

If these numbers are below the optimal reference range, and another marker called transferrin is increased above the optimal reference range, you may have low iron. If this is the case, increased dietary iron might be necessary, but first consult with a qualified medical professional.

If your hemoglobin, hematocrit, red blood cells, are decreased below the optimal reference range, but your MCV, MCHC and MCH are increased, you might be experiencing decreased oxygen deliverability due to either deficient B12, folic acid or both. If this is the case, increasing dietary B12 and/or folic acid might be necessary. Additionally, digestive function (which we will talk more about later) should be assessed as this pattern is often due to poor absorption.

If you have not had blood work done in a while, it may be a good idea to find out sooner than later if you have any deficiencies. These can have a number of negative influences, not the least of which is the inability to lose fat!

This is all I want to dive into this week as we have already gone over two important points. First, exercise, diet, psychology, and social support are all needed to lose weight (fat) and keep it off. Second, if you have all of these in place and are still struggling, your oxygen delivery system may not be working properly.  Next week we will continue to look at why you may not be losing fat.

Urgency: The Missing Link to Success

Think about the last time you had a deadline to meet. What were your actions like? Were they random and unfocused or were they concentrated and purposeful? More importantly, did you meet the deadline? My guess is that you got it done and were probably very focused on your effort until the task was complete. This, the power of urgency, is something that is all too often overlooked when it comes to making changes in our health.

We have all had those times where we thought “today is the day I get back on track”, only to fall right back into our old habits a week (or an hour) later. We want to look, feel, or perform better, but we just cannot seem to change. The problem is that there is no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs., you know you need to start moving more and eating better. But what is the urgency? If there is no upcoming reunion, serious health concern, competition, etc., then there is no perceived importance in making changes right now. So what if you don’t lose the 10 lbs.? Well, you may be heading down a road to problems that become increasingly more difficult to recover from.

Attitude is everything

When we have the attitude that “I can always change tomorrow”, the change almost always comes too late, if at all. 10 lbs. becomes 20 lbs. becomes 30 lbs., and as we age, it becomes harder to lose the weight. This means that you now have 3x as much weight to lose and it will be 3x harder to lose each pound.

There is also a motivation factor. The longer you wait, the harder it is to get the momentum turned in the right direction, meaning that you will probably not see results as fast as you like. We do not end up overweight and unhealthy because of one bad habit. It happened because of 100 bad habits that built up over time. The lack of results and the seemingly endless work we have to do to reach our goals can lead to discouragement and again makes change hard. Even in the presence of a LIFE-THREATENING condition, change can be almost impossible to tackle. What was once 10 lbs. of extra weight has now become Type II Diabetes and the problem is more frightening and more complicated than we ever thought it could be.

On the contrary, when we have a mindset of urgency, we start figuring out what we can do TODAY to make a difference. We start to break down the problem into manageable parts because there is no other way to manage it. Just like a project deadline, we must figure out what needs to be accomplished and start chipping away.

So ask yourself, shouldn’t something as important as your health be your top priority every day? Without health, what do you have? There is nothing that can replace good health and it can be a full-time job to regain health once it’s lost.

Where to focus

The most difficult thing in prioritizing health is that the idea of health is so ambiguous. Feeling good, looking good, having energy, having stamina; these are all terms that are highly subjective and have many ways to achieve them in the short and long term. If you decide today that your health should in fact become more of a priority, what will your first step be?

I would suggest starting with that thing that you KNOW you should and can improve today. If you have a job that stresses you out and keeps you up late, then yes, it might not be the best for your health, but no, you don’t have to change jobs today just to get moving. Start with something small, but important. How much water have you had today? What did you have for breakfast? Have you moved at all since you sat down at your desk this morning? Write down 10 things that you know you can change, and pick the one that is easiest. Work on that for a while, and then once it becomes a habit, move to the next easiest.

Urgency does not mean that you have to do everything today, but it does mean you need to do SOMETHING today. Every day we choose to either improve our health or damage our health. We choose what we eat. We choose how we spend our free time. We choose how much we move. So let’s see what choices we can make today so that we set ourselves up for a healthy, fulfilling life. Start thinking about your health as if tomorrow depends on your actions today (which it does), and you will discover a whole new level of health and vitality that you may not have thought possible. 

Important Health Announcement: Avoid Gluten!

Let’s start with a simple question: when is the last time you felt bloated? If you’re answer is anything but, “What does bloated even feel like?”, then you may need to re-examine what you are eating. Bloating is just one common sign that your body is not happy about what it has eaten, and it can be a quick and useful tool for guiding our eating choices. Other indications that your diet is not in line with your body’s requirements are constipation, heartburn, general aching in your joints, acne, migraines, and more. While not all of these have the same root cause, they all can many times be traced back to poor eating habits.

While bloating may not seem like a big deal, it can actually be a sign that your body is on the road to much more serious concerns. Bloating is an indication that your intestines are not happy. Your intestines are some of the most important organs in the body because they are responsible for absorbing good nutrients and blocking toxins. If they are damaged or irritated, the rest of your body cannot function at 100%, and will eventually start breaking down.

So what does all of this have to do with gluten?? For that matter, what IS gluten?? Let’s see why this common protein may be causing more issue than you realize.

What is gluten?

Gluten is a protein found in some grains, especially wheat. Technically, “gluten” is a term applied to the combination of two specific proteins called gliadins and glutenins that are found in wheat.

“Gluten” has also been used generically to refer to the protein mixtures found in other cereal grains including wheat, barley, bulgur, rye, spelt, oats, kamut, and more. As for the rest of grains (rice, corn, quinoa, millet, etc.), while their proteins are not referred to as “gluten”, some people have been shown to have similar negative reactions to the comparable proteins.

Why should you care?

Gluten intolerance is the most common food related-disease of the intestine. About 15% of the US population has been diagnosed with gluten intolerance, but with many undiagnosed, and even more that are sensitive to gluten, the number of people that should be avoiding gluten is much higher.

Gluten intolerance, also known as Celiac disease, is much more severe than gluten sensitivity, in which gluten triggers an immune response in gluten-intolerant people.

For those people with gluten-intolerance, eating something with gluten results in the body working to fighting what it sees as a foreign invader, much like a germ. White cells recognize the gluten particles and destroy them. When the white cells are overwhelmed, however, systemic inflammation results.

It all comes back to bloating

Initially, gluten intolerance or sensitivity can manifest as diarrhea, bloating, flatulence, uncomfortable stools, and malnutrition. Other inflammatory symptoms can also result which we will talk about more later. For a person who is intolerant, regularly consuming gluten will result in long-term damage, including intestinal scarring and nutrient malabsorption. Chronic inflammation can atrophy and flatten the intestinal lining, which impairs digestion. Gluten and other inflammatory proteins can weaken the intestinal wall by opening tight junctions.

When the intestinal lining is compromised, food particles that would normally be broken down more or blocked from absorption completely are able to cross the intestinal barrier and enter the bloodstream. This causes the body to fight back against these foreign invaders meaning that the immune system is on full alert.

This is not good. As we said before, your intestine determines what gets in and what doesn’t, but when the lining breaks down, your body will go into an all-out attack to resolve the situation. The problem is that if you continue to eat gut-damaging foods, your body will be putting all of it’s resources into fixing the gut, and will have nothing left over to keep the rest of your body safe.

While this is much more pronounced in gluten-intolerant indiviuals, having a sensitivity to gluten can still lead to some of these issues, worsening with repeated exposure.

What are the signs or intolerance/sensitivity?

Because these processes can trigger widespread effects throughout the body, it can often be challenging to figure out exactly what is going on. Digestive upset is one of the most common and obvious symptoms; this can include heartburn, bloating, gas, abdominal pain, constipation, and diarrhea.

In addition, there can be other symptoms that we may not always think would be in connection to our diets. However, if we understand that gluten can lead to a wide-ranging systemic inflammatory response, then this broad range of symptoms makes more sense.

Other symptoms include weight gain, nutritional deficiencies due to malabsorbtion, aching joints, depression, anxiety, irritability, headaches, chronic fatigue, infertility, cramps, slow child growth, poor dental health, asthma, allergies, and food cravings.

If you think you might be experiencing some of these symptoms, it might be a good idea to examine what you are eating. If you tend to eat a lot of gluten-containing items (or grains in general) I would highly recommend that you try cutting them from your diet. The worst thing that could happen is that you would need to learn some new recipes, but I would guess that there would be a least a few positive benefits. When it comes down to it, grain proteins are not easy for our digestive systems to handle, and more often than not, they cause issues.

There have even been special cases in which a gluten-free diet has helped in reducing autism, schizophrenia, rheumatoid arthritis, dementia, and a number of auto-immune disorders. More research is needed, but when you understand the overarching influence that gut damage has on the body, it is not surprising that so many things can be positively affected once those irritants are removed from one’s diet.

How to cut it out?

Now that’s the hard part! Gluten is everywhere because wheat and wheat derivatives are so common in our food. Besides removing grains, specifically wheat, you should also look out for the following: modified food starch, MSG, emulsifiers, soy sauce, some medications and supplements (read the labels for ingredients), and most processed foods. Many times you have to really investigate packaged food products and pre-made meals to know if there are wheat derivatives or gluten containing items in them. It can be hard, but the health concerns are serious too.

All in all, if you just cut out the most common wheat-filled items (bread, pasta, beer, pizza, crackers, cookies, bagels, etc), you could make a HUGE difference in your health. If you notice, many things that have gluten also have a bunch of sugar! So you would be doing a doubly good thing for your health, and trust me, your body will thank you for it. 

Save Your Shoulders!

The shoulder is one of the most vulnerable joints in the body, and yet we rarely focus our efforts on protecting it. We chase strength and definition in our shoulder muscles without ensuring that the joint can even handle the exercises we put it through. While there are many exercises out there for the shoulders (or any body part for that matter), usually there are just a few that really are safe AND effective.

In the New York Times this week, an article was published touching on some important ideas about the shoulder while providing information about some of these safe and effective exercises. In the link below, you can read the whole article and learn about a few exercises that will help keep your shoulders safe.

A Safer Shoulder Workout

In case you did not read the article above, here are some take aways:

1) The shoulder is easily injured and “exercise” often is a cause, not a cure.

2) Exercise is not inherently bad, but poor technique and hubris can easily lead to issues over time.

3) If you are strict with your form, you will help to stay injury free (good rule for all exercise).

4) Exercises to start with: Upright row (as demonstrated in the article). Lateral raises.

5) Exercises to avoid: Behind the neck presses & pull downs.

What I would add to this is that shoulder health is not just about choosing the right exercises, but also about your breathing, your posture, and your willingness to do the small stuff. Allow me to demonstrate the first two points. First, breathe so that your shoulders move up and down with every breath, then hunch over. Now try to lift your arms over your head. What do you notice? Well besides the fact that everyone else in the office is probably now looking at you, you may also notice that you cannot lift your arms up straight over your head, and it becomes very hard to take a full breath. This means that if you try to pick up a weight, and put it over your head, your shoulder is going to be working x10 as hard in an effort to keep your arm straight over head. This puts a lot of pressure on your rotator cuff, and can easily lead to issues now or later.

As for one’s willingness to do the small stuff, this comes down to taking the time to stretch, roll, and warm up your shoulders before exercise. You only need 5-10 minutes of warm up, but with that you can set yourself up for keeping those shoulders healthy. Check out my previous post Pull Yourself to Better Posture for more ideas on how to work on warming up, breathing, and posture.

In the end, you have to stay smart when it comes to your shoulders, but do not think that shoulder issues are just a natural part of aging. You can keep them healthy by taking some smart steps in your daily life and in your exercise program and can still build some strong, sexy shoulders.

15 Shocking Exercise Facts

I came upon a great article this week that I wanted to share with you all. We all know that exercise is important, but we often forget just how many areas of our life exercise can positively influence. I would also say that movement in general can have many of these benefits as it is such a fundamental element of begin human. When we are sedentary, there is no way to be fully healthy, because our bodies are meant to be active.

For today, however, let's look specifically at exercise and find out just how important it is to our mind and body.

15 Shocking Exercise Facts

Here are some of my takeaways:

1) Some is better than none. Even if you can just get 5 minutes of exercise/movement/stretching each day, you will be better off for it.

2) Hard is better than easy. If you do decide to hit the weights or go for a run, push yourself. You will get much more out of the workout in much less time.

3)There are not many things that exercise does not improve. Between mood, sleep, looks, energy, and endurance, exercise can have significant benefits in a lot of areas.

Enjoy the article and stay active!

You are What You Eat Eats (Part 2)

In our last post we began an important discussion about the food that our food eats. It is not enough to eat food that is thought to be healthy; we must also look at how that food was raised/grown to make sure that we are truly deriving the most nutrients possible from what we eat. Our focus last week was mostly on meat and how the feed provided for our commercially-raised animals is anything but optimal. Cows and other ruminants are most affected by this because they are not designed to eat the most abundant food source provided to them: corn. Other animals are also negatively affected when not given proper feed, so be sure to know what food your animals eat before you get out the knife and fork.

To continue our discussion, we turn our focus this week to our other main food source: plants. Plants are a vital part of any healthful diet, but often the plants that we eat are poorly grown and void of many nutrients that our bodies need.

Plants Need Food, Too

While plant products are not subjected to the grain overload that most farm-raised animals have received, plant health has not fared much better. With a combination of poor topsoil and an overload of chemicals, our plants have been drained of a majority of their nutrients. Many plants are picked early and ripened with chemicals as they ship. Others are doused so heavily in pesticide that they have no ability to grow to their full potential. With few nutrients coming from the ground, and chemicals coming from the sky, plants just are not what they used to be.

While I would like to say that organic is our saving grace, I am sorry to report that organic food is a toss-up. When you buy organic, you may be selecting something that was grown in better conditions, but you may just be eating the same food in a different package. Companies know that people are moving toward organic products, so they are looking for ways to cash in without raising costs. The market is poorly regulated and many times the word “organic” does not mean much. What does mean something is talking with farmers at your local farmers’ market. If you have a local farmer that you know, and you can visit their farm, it is much more likely that you will get the whole story. Choosing produce sold at farmers’ markets saves on transportation as well, as well as ensuring that there is less time between the plants being harvested and eating them. There is a loss of nutrients the longer a plant has been out of the earth, so the shorter the travel time, the better off you will be.

If you cannot get to a farmers’ market, I will say that if you can find food items with a USDA Certified Organic logo, you have the best chance of actually eating organically grown items. By contrast, terms such as “natural”, “cage-free”, and “vegetarian-fed” do not offer much help. The food industry works hard to confuse the public by using key phrases that seem beneficial, but really have no bearing on the quality of the food item. USDA Organic is as good as you will get.

The Cost of Health

For many people, eating well is often at odds with other priorities in their lives. Two of the most common areas of concern are the increased cost and time associated with eating healthily. The cost will always be higher for food items that have been raised/grown properly and with quality feed. You cannot subsidize topsoil and green grass, so the cost of production will inherently be higher. You will also find that you have less time available to you when your food becomes a priority. Between the time spent purchasing (multiple trips per week, multiple locations) and the time spent preparing (it is hard to stay healthy when you eat out a lot) you may be devoting an extra hour or more per day to eating well.

There are clearly reasons why it can be hard to change what you eat, but as with all health-related topics, it all comes down to your goals. The reality is that we will all spend time and money on our health. If you spend a little extra now on food, keep active, cook your own food, and sleep well, you will enjoy a certain quality of life which will stay pretty consistent into old age. If you wait to act, you may have more time and money now for entertainment, relaxation, or even reinvesting in your work, but  at some point you will be spending more time in the doctor’s office, at the hospital, recovering from injury, taking sick days, and being generally limited in what you are capable of doing. All of these will cost a lot of money too, so it’s up to you, do you choose now or later?

This is not always an easy choice to make, but just having the conversation is a great place to start. We often like to put off our health until later, but later is often too late. You cannot medicate or operate your way back to full function. Once your body starts to fail, only a long, slow progression of significant lifestyle changes can help you get back on the right track, but many times even this is not enough. And it will turn out that you will be spending more money on food and exercise, while ALSO spending it on health care. So again: now or later? It will cost you time, it will cost you money (probably more of both, the longer you wait), but only you can make that choice. 

You are What You Eat Eats (Part 1)

We all know that to look and feel your best, you have to eat well. Nutrition truly is the most important factor when it comes to optimizing health, and without a conscious effort to fuel your body with good foods, it is easy to put on the pounds. That is why I love the saying, “You are what you eat.” I think it perfectly describes how our bodies interact with the food we provide. If you provide poor-quality food, you are going to have a poor-quality body. The food you eat affects your body fat, your recovery, your likelihood of becoming sick or injured, your mood, your sleep, your strength, and your energy. It does it all! What is not so cliché, however, is understanding that it’s NOT just about what you eat…it’s about what you eat eats.

Healthy Food = Healthy People

While there are a wide variety of plants, animals, and their derivatives, there are a few things that all life needs to flourish. While we do not need to go into a biology lesson in this article, the one thing I do want to focus on is nutrients. All life requires some form of nutrients, and when these nutrients are poor in abundance or quality, the life form suffers. For plants, sun, soil, and water are vital components for optimizing health. For animals, the key components for good health are plants, other animals, and water. Without these elements, plant and animals cannot grow to their full potential and can become sick or malnourished.

As you can probably see, what we depend on for fuel depends on its own source of fuel to stay healthy. If what you’re eating was not cared for properly and fed properly, then it doesn’t really matter that you are eating stereotypically “healthy” food items…you are eating a sick plant or animal. On the other hand, when you provide your body with food items that have been well-nourished and have lived healthy lives, you, too, can enjoy a healthy life. When your food is health, you are healthy.

COWS DO NOT EAT GRAIN

One of the most blatant examples of how malnourished food can lead to problems up the food chain is our consumption of cow. Cow and red meat in general has gotten a pretty bad rap over the last few decades and it’s time to clear things up. Cow meat is not unhealthy. Sick cow meat is. Cows and other ruminants have a unique digestive system designed to break down and utilize grass and other forage, but not corn. Add to this that corn (especially feed-lot corn) contains very few nutrients to begin with, and overfeeding of corn to cows results in fat, sick animals. This is where hormones and antibiotics come into play in the meat industry. They have to keep these cows alive long enough to get them to slaughter, while making them as fat as possible.

Unfortunately, what ends up on your plate is a sick, over-fat piece of meat. Yummy! Contrast this with the story behind a grass-fed and finished source of meat, and you can begin to see why well fed food is important. When you provide a cow with an abundance of food it would naturally eat, the meat comes out full of vitamins and minerals, lean (only 10-15% fat), and with an abundance of healthy and essential fats such as omega-3s and CLA. These are very important fats that our bodies need to thrive, yet we rarely consume the necessary quantities to reap the benefits.

The problem with the extra fat in grain-fed meat is not only its caloric load, it is the TYPE of fat. Grains have a very high omega-6 content, and as we learned in Fat is Fuel, Not Foe (Part 2), having an imbalance of omega-6 and omega-3 can lead to some serious problems. So it turns out that cow is a great source of nutrients, but grain-fed (aka sick) cows are not. And this story does not just include cows. These days, just about every mass-produced animal is fed corn and/or soy and/or other animal byproducts. Chickens, pigs, and fish are fed a host of items that they would not naturally consume. And just like in cows, and just like in our own bodies, eating an abundance of grain leads to poor health.

While meat is most commonly talked about when it comes to grass-fed vs. grain fed, the food products which are derived from these same animals are a concern as well. Cow meat is not the only thing we consume from cows; there is milk, butter, yogurt, cheese, and kefir. These are all coming from the same sick cow that provides the over-fat piece of meat, and they have many of the same issues. The fat and protein quality can be greatly affected, and your health is very much dependent on the quality of your food.

To Be Continued…

While animal products can be a major source of high-quality proteins and fats, they are not the only thing that makes for a healthful diet. In next week’s article, we will look at the importance of plants in your diet, and why their health is just as important as that of our animal friends. We will also discuss strategies for eating healthily and how to find the quality foods your body desires.