Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Zucchini and Green Zebra Tomato Lasagne
This is a delicious uncooked Zucchini Lasagna with basil-pistachio pesto, tomato sauce, and pignoli ricotta.
This is great for a special occasion meal. It passed my taste testers who gave it an 8 on the raw food scale (10 being as good as it gets). This is what everyone had for dinner and they loved it. You can find this recipe in the book Raw Food, Real World. I like to create my own recipes, but also love trying other peoples delicious and amazing food ideas. I have had this book by Sarma Mengailis (published in 2005) for years and enjoy making some of the recipes from time to time. If you don't already have it, check it out for some fun ideas.
Monday, 30 August 2010
Habenero Ranch~Kale in a Krunch
So.....Yummy and nutritious!! While shopping today at Good Earth, I found packages of 'Kale in a Krunch' by Alive & Radiant Foods out of Berkeley, CA. Some of you may have already found this and tried it. (Raw~Vegan~Dehydrated) They use Kale, Cashew, Lemon Juice, Nutritional Yeast, Miso, Apple Cider Vinegar, Habernero, Garlic, Spices & Himalayan Crystal Salt. This product has such a delicious flavor and delightful crunch. The package is usually more full than this, but I ate quite a few pieces and then took the picture. All you need is a few and a glass of water to make you feel completely satisfied. I just kept eating them, because I couldn't believe how good they tasted. Has anyone else tried this delicious snack?
Marathon? More like Moron-athon. Smarter Ways to Exercise
In the last post we discussed the “not so fast” exercise. Not so fast as in endurance exercise and not so fast as in be careful about believing that endurance exercise will enhance metabolism, help you lose weight, improve your health, improve your insulin sensitivity, and so on. For the vast majority of people, it won’t – particularly if taken to extremes of intensity and duration – like marathon running.
Although, in marathon-running’s defense, it is a great way to achieve infertility, risk sudden heart attack, damage joints, suffer from chronic inflammation, raise cortisol, suppress your immune system, suffer from frequent colds and infections, develop arthritis, asthma, and autoimmune disease, lose sex drive, get rid of pesky muscle tissue, and age much more quickly including developing raisin skin. That’s of course if you keep doing it. If you suddenly stop, you’ll probably get extremely ill and fall into a deep depression for a while.
Ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes summed it up best when asked “What’s the longest you’ve gone without running?” His reply…
“The longest I’ve gone without running in the past ten years has been three days. It wasn’t pretty. By day two, I was grumpy and depressed. On the third day, all I wanted to do was lie in bed all morning. This may sound peaceful to some, but relaxing to me is really stressful. By day four, I couldn’t take it any longer and went for a run, even though I had the flu and a 103-degree fever.”
Basically, with the brutality of endurance exercise you enter into the same hormonal state as a spawning salmon, which have been found to have astronomical cortisol levels prior to their quick death following spawning. Shawn Talbott, in THIS INTERESTING ARTICLE which couldn’t be more on topic writes:
“If you took a close look at these just-spawned salmon, you'd notice one striking feature--they're a mess! These fish suffer from immune system breakdown, infections, open sores, muscle loss and brain destruction. Why is this important? Because the same hormonal stress response and elevated cortisol levels may occur in your body when you exercise. In many ways, the salmon are a perfect example of the dangers of overtraining and cortisol overexposure.”
For an almost foolproof way to lower cortisol and avoid its negative complications, read THIS FREE EBOOK.
Now it’s time to peer into another form of exercise, one that is gaining popularity due to various exercise fads rapidly on the rise such as High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), circuit training, Tabata’s, Plyometrics, Sprints, and other forms of exercise that are more or less the antithesis of steady-state cardio and aerobic workouts that have dominated the fitness industry since its recent birth (very few people actively sought out a workout until a half century ago).
The commonality between all these types of exercise is that instead of being moderate in intensity – like a level of activity that you can continue for hours on end without collapsing, they are extremely high in intensity and cannot be performed for more than a few minutes at a time.
Sprinting obviously represents the most high-intensity exercise on earth. I don’t think a single human on earth can even perform 40 seconds of sprinting at 100% maximum effort. If Michael Johnson, the current 400-meter world record holder could have, his time in the 400m would have been nearly 5 seconds faster based on his 200-meter time.
Sprinting more or less involves every single muscle in the human body in full-out effort. The involvement of all muscle groups also has a metabolic advantage which I won’t quite get into yet, but we’ll definitely be discussing that over the coming posts on our continuing conversation on exercise.
But sprinting is not really all that practical for a lot of people. It’s simply too damn hard, and the risk of injury with sprinting is very high. Sprinters are always hurt, and it’s not uncommon when watching races to actually see one of the competitors come up limping. Note, this is usually not chronic joint pain like with endurance athletes, but actual muscle strain from the intensity of the exercise itself. At the very least, you can minimize the impact and risk of injury by sprinting up steep hills instead of on flat ground, or running at 80-90% intensity instead of full throttle.
The most practical is Tabata training, or a modified version of Tabata exercises until you have achieved the level of fitness required to perform a full round of Tabata. Tabata was created by a Tokyo scientist based on a 1996 study in which subjects had greater improvements in both anaerobic and aerobic capacity than control subjects doing steady-state aerobic workouts. This video is a good example of a true Tabata session. Don’t be intimidated though if you are out of shape, overweight, incredibly unfit, or just an old fart. You could turn something as simple as jumping jacks into a Tabata session starting out, and go at your own pace. Take longer breaks in between, or whatever you need to do to make it work.
Remember, your exercise program must be YOURS, created by you, owned by you, making sense for you, working for you, catering to former injury or personal limitation, and so on.
Tabata training involves doing 20 seconds at full capacity followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times in succession. Tabata training requires no equipment, can work the entire body, and requires as little as 2:40 of actual exercise just a few times per week (although many people do several sets of Tabata in succession for a more comprehensive full-body workout – common in the ever-popular “Crossfit”). This type of exercise is so practical that it is worth an entire post, coming to 180 soon I hope.
The Little Method, which is a similar form of exercise using max capacity exercise (for 60 seconds) punctuated by brief rest periods (75 seconds), for a total of 8-12 cycles was developed due to a similar study which yielded similar results in fitness increase and metabolic enhancement (increased mitochondrial biogenesis).
Both of these methods fall under the broader category of “high-intensity interval training” or HIIT. Typical HIIT is done on a treadmill or exercise bike by simply going hard for a minute or two, going easy for a minute or two, going hard for a minute or two, and so on repeated for 10-20 minutes. Most agree that it makes steady-state and long-duration cardio obsolete in terms of fitness, health enhancement, improved stress response, physique enhancement, and even endurance (to an extent) – all while minimizing the risk of overtraining and potentially lowering cortisol and raising testosterone (opposite of long-duration cardio). This is, no doubt, a great secret to achieving greater muscle mass to body fat ratios and much better aging and longevity.
Circuit training is similar in that rest periods are minimized, the intensity level is high, and the exercise routine is typically short in duration – lasting 30-45 minutes. Circuit training is typically performed at a gym with weights and machines, but gym circuit training has many limitations (they are often crowded and having to wait to use a machine doesn’t fit into true circuit-style training, which is HARD), and circuit training does not require weights per se. Certainly not a whole gym.
In fact, at home, with only 1 set of cheap dumbbells or kettlebells, you could easily do 5 simple exercises as a circuit repeated several times to near-failure with each set emphasizing big movements that incorporate several muscle groups. That could be:
Burpees with dumbbell press – like that shown in the Tabata video but without jumping at the end – instead extending the dumbbells straight overhead when you come to a standing position
Squats Curls – Do squats, while doing dumbbell bicep curls each time you come up from the squatted position
Pushups or dips – With all kinds of variations including asymmetrical hand positions, raising one leg, etc.
Abs/core – Any exercise or combination you choose, from Pilates moves to using those cheap little ab wheels to more complicated stuff
Dead lift rows – Bend over and lift both dumbbells like you are starting a pull-cord engine, slowly let them down, and then stand up tall with arms extended, legs straight, and back flat before lowering the weight and repeating the 2-part sequence
You could try to do a full circuit in 10 minutes for a total of 3 rounds and a 30-minute total workout, for example.
Anyway, that’s all for this post. Think short, fast, challenging, and variety when it comes to exercise vs. long, slow, moderate, and repetitive. Craft your own exercise routine, and be more cautious about making it TOO HARD and TOO GRUELING than not hard enough.
Ultimately, for any form of exercise to provide benefit, it has the be the kind that you can realistically do and enjoy several times per week (minimum) consistently almost every week from now until you go to the old folk’s home and rely solely on Checkers for your workouts (unless of course you are an old male, in which case inappropriate ass-grabbing will by your standby). If you fear and dread your workouts, or keep getting injured, or steadily notice declines in fitness and well-being instead of improvements – you are not working out correctly for you, and you need to modify your program.
Stay tuned for the next blog posts on this topic. We still have a TON to cover on the topic of exercise, including weight training or “resistance” exercise, ultimate forms of metabolic enhancement exercise such as Scott Abel’s MET training, plyometrics (which I mentioned briefly here, and can certainly be incorporated into quick interval-style training), and why dance, gymnastics, martial arts, many sports, and other highly-athletic disciplines seem to be so beneficial for creating a body that takes ingested energy and turns it into muscle, heat, and energy instead of fat.
Once again, I give thee the famous pictures of fitness icon Rachel Cosgrove on invisible ab triathlon training (boo!) vs. a combination of weights and intervals (yea!)...
Although, in marathon-running’s defense, it is a great way to achieve infertility, risk sudden heart attack, damage joints, suffer from chronic inflammation, raise cortisol, suppress your immune system, suffer from frequent colds and infections, develop arthritis, asthma, and autoimmune disease, lose sex drive, get rid of pesky muscle tissue, and age much more quickly including developing raisin skin. That’s of course if you keep doing it. If you suddenly stop, you’ll probably get extremely ill and fall into a deep depression for a while.
Ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes summed it up best when asked “What’s the longest you’ve gone without running?” His reply…
“The longest I’ve gone without running in the past ten years has been three days. It wasn’t pretty. By day two, I was grumpy and depressed. On the third day, all I wanted to do was lie in bed all morning. This may sound peaceful to some, but relaxing to me is really stressful. By day four, I couldn’t take it any longer and went for a run, even though I had the flu and a 103-degree fever.”
Basically, with the brutality of endurance exercise you enter into the same hormonal state as a spawning salmon, which have been found to have astronomical cortisol levels prior to their quick death following spawning. Shawn Talbott, in THIS INTERESTING ARTICLE which couldn’t be more on topic writes:
“If you took a close look at these just-spawned salmon, you'd notice one striking feature--they're a mess! These fish suffer from immune system breakdown, infections, open sores, muscle loss and brain destruction. Why is this important? Because the same hormonal stress response and elevated cortisol levels may occur in your body when you exercise. In many ways, the salmon are a perfect example of the dangers of overtraining and cortisol overexposure.”
For an almost foolproof way to lower cortisol and avoid its negative complications, read THIS FREE EBOOK.
Now it’s time to peer into another form of exercise, one that is gaining popularity due to various exercise fads rapidly on the rise such as High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), circuit training, Tabata’s, Plyometrics, Sprints, and other forms of exercise that are more or less the antithesis of steady-state cardio and aerobic workouts that have dominated the fitness industry since its recent birth (very few people actively sought out a workout until a half century ago).
The commonality between all these types of exercise is that instead of being moderate in intensity – like a level of activity that you can continue for hours on end without collapsing, they are extremely high in intensity and cannot be performed for more than a few minutes at a time.
Sprinting obviously represents the most high-intensity exercise on earth. I don’t think a single human on earth can even perform 40 seconds of sprinting at 100% maximum effort. If Michael Johnson, the current 400-meter world record holder could have, his time in the 400m would have been nearly 5 seconds faster based on his 200-meter time.
Sprinting more or less involves every single muscle in the human body in full-out effort. The involvement of all muscle groups also has a metabolic advantage which I won’t quite get into yet, but we’ll definitely be discussing that over the coming posts on our continuing conversation on exercise.
But sprinting is not really all that practical for a lot of people. It’s simply too damn hard, and the risk of injury with sprinting is very high. Sprinters are always hurt, and it’s not uncommon when watching races to actually see one of the competitors come up limping. Note, this is usually not chronic joint pain like with endurance athletes, but actual muscle strain from the intensity of the exercise itself. At the very least, you can minimize the impact and risk of injury by sprinting up steep hills instead of on flat ground, or running at 80-90% intensity instead of full throttle.
The most practical is Tabata training, or a modified version of Tabata exercises until you have achieved the level of fitness required to perform a full round of Tabata. Tabata was created by a Tokyo scientist based on a 1996 study in which subjects had greater improvements in both anaerobic and aerobic capacity than control subjects doing steady-state aerobic workouts. This video is a good example of a true Tabata session. Don’t be intimidated though if you are out of shape, overweight, incredibly unfit, or just an old fart. You could turn something as simple as jumping jacks into a Tabata session starting out, and go at your own pace. Take longer breaks in between, or whatever you need to do to make it work.
Remember, your exercise program must be YOURS, created by you, owned by you, making sense for you, working for you, catering to former injury or personal limitation, and so on.
Tabata training involves doing 20 seconds at full capacity followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times in succession. Tabata training requires no equipment, can work the entire body, and requires as little as 2:40 of actual exercise just a few times per week (although many people do several sets of Tabata in succession for a more comprehensive full-body workout – common in the ever-popular “Crossfit”). This type of exercise is so practical that it is worth an entire post, coming to 180 soon I hope.
The Little Method, which is a similar form of exercise using max capacity exercise (for 60 seconds) punctuated by brief rest periods (75 seconds), for a total of 8-12 cycles was developed due to a similar study which yielded similar results in fitness increase and metabolic enhancement (increased mitochondrial biogenesis).
Both of these methods fall under the broader category of “high-intensity interval training” or HIIT. Typical HIIT is done on a treadmill or exercise bike by simply going hard for a minute or two, going easy for a minute or two, going hard for a minute or two, and so on repeated for 10-20 minutes. Most agree that it makes steady-state and long-duration cardio obsolete in terms of fitness, health enhancement, improved stress response, physique enhancement, and even endurance (to an extent) – all while minimizing the risk of overtraining and potentially lowering cortisol and raising testosterone (opposite of long-duration cardio). This is, no doubt, a great secret to achieving greater muscle mass to body fat ratios and much better aging and longevity.
Circuit training is similar in that rest periods are minimized, the intensity level is high, and the exercise routine is typically short in duration – lasting 30-45 minutes. Circuit training is typically performed at a gym with weights and machines, but gym circuit training has many limitations (they are often crowded and having to wait to use a machine doesn’t fit into true circuit-style training, which is HARD), and circuit training does not require weights per se. Certainly not a whole gym.
In fact, at home, with only 1 set of cheap dumbbells or kettlebells, you could easily do 5 simple exercises as a circuit repeated several times to near-failure with each set emphasizing big movements that incorporate several muscle groups. That could be:
Burpees with dumbbell press – like that shown in the Tabata video but without jumping at the end – instead extending the dumbbells straight overhead when you come to a standing position
Squats Curls – Do squats, while doing dumbbell bicep curls each time you come up from the squatted position
Pushups or dips – With all kinds of variations including asymmetrical hand positions, raising one leg, etc.
Abs/core – Any exercise or combination you choose, from Pilates moves to using those cheap little ab wheels to more complicated stuff
Dead lift rows – Bend over and lift both dumbbells like you are starting a pull-cord engine, slowly let them down, and then stand up tall with arms extended, legs straight, and back flat before lowering the weight and repeating the 2-part sequence
You could try to do a full circuit in 10 minutes for a total of 3 rounds and a 30-minute total workout, for example.
Anyway, that’s all for this post. Think short, fast, challenging, and variety when it comes to exercise vs. long, slow, moderate, and repetitive. Craft your own exercise routine, and be more cautious about making it TOO HARD and TOO GRUELING than not hard enough.
Ultimately, for any form of exercise to provide benefit, it has the be the kind that you can realistically do and enjoy several times per week (minimum) consistently almost every week from now until you go to the old folk’s home and rely solely on Checkers for your workouts (unless of course you are an old male, in which case inappropriate ass-grabbing will by your standby). If you fear and dread your workouts, or keep getting injured, or steadily notice declines in fitness and well-being instead of improvements – you are not working out correctly for you, and you need to modify your program.
Stay tuned for the next blog posts on this topic. We still have a TON to cover on the topic of exercise, including weight training or “resistance” exercise, ultimate forms of metabolic enhancement exercise such as Scott Abel’s MET training, plyometrics (which I mentioned briefly here, and can certainly be incorporated into quick interval-style training), and why dance, gymnastics, martial arts, many sports, and other highly-athletic disciplines seem to be so beneficial for creating a body that takes ingested energy and turns it into muscle, heat, and energy instead of fat.
Once again, I give thee the famous pictures of fitness icon Rachel Cosgrove on invisible ab triathlon training (boo!) vs. a combination of weights and intervals (yea!)...
Friday, 27 August 2010
Whole Wheat Raisin-Walnut Artisan Bread
My Mom purchased a La Cloche for me several years ago and I have loved making delicious Artisan bread in it. What I love about making your own bread this way is that it only uses 1/4 tsp. instant yeast and ferments overnight for a much better, healthier bread. This Whole Wheat Raisin-Walnut Artisan Bread tastes so delicious! You can purchase a La Cloche from Breadtopia. I also have a Danish Dough Whisk for stirring the ingredients together. This bread is so simple with few ingredients. I like to make 3 loaves, one to eat while warm, one to save for sandwiches and the other to give away:) When making a loaf for sandwiches, leave out the raisins and walnuts.
View video instructions on Breadtopia for a basic artisan bread in the La Cloche. I have cut down on the salt, put equal amounts of whole wheat flour to unbleached flour as well as adding raisins & walnuts. Sooo....yummy. Breadtopia has a lot of different recipes for all kinds of yummy breads on their website. Add in the raisins & walnuts after you have formed the dough.
Ingredients for No Knead Whole Wheat Raisin-Walnut Artisan Bread:
(Printable Recipe)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat white flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
1/4 tsp. instant yeast
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups purified or spring water
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I like mine a little chunky to notice them in the bread)
Mix together the dry ingredients.
Mix in water until the water is incorporated. Dough should be sticky.
Fold in raisins & walnuts.
Cover with plastic (I use plastic shower caps) and let sit overnight on counter.
In the morning transfer dough to floured board and flatten into a rectangle and fold in thirds. Use enough flour to form dough and shape into ball.
Transfer to well floured bowl or basket for proofing . Cover with towel and let rise about 1 1/2 hours.
Bake in covered La Cloche or Dutch oven preheated to 500 degrees for 30 minutes. La Cloche should gradually heat along with the oven when preheating. Let bread cool completely on rack. Let La Cloche cool down with the oven. You want to prevent extreme temperature changes with the La Cloche to prevent cracking. You do not need to wash your La Cloche.
To watch video on how to make this bread click the link below:
No Knead Bread
Endurance Exercise and Metabolism
After a grueling 2-mile ride on Aurora’s cruiser bike (“Mojito”) while talking on a cell phone – and carrying a large load (1 book) in the basket on my way to the post office to do a book trade with Riles, I figured now was a perfectly good time to lay out some definitive 180 thoughts on the topic of exercise.
In the last post, we talked about triglycerides. Yes, the blood level can be revealing, but more important is the amount of triglyceride – or fat, that hangs out in the muscles. This is referred to as intramuscular triglyceride, or intramyocellular fat.
It appears that this intramyocellular fat is the primary driver of insulin resistance, and also leptin resistance which increases appetite and reduces metabolism/body temperature even if you are overweight and eating a high-calorie diet (which should normally trigger feedback mechanisms that bring your weight down, like a rise in metabolism and decrease in appetite).
For those uninitiated, low body temperature is a primary focus at 180D… the kind that isn’t related to legitimate thyroid gland dysfunction (much less common). The reasons why body temperature is such an important indicator of overall health and how it can most effectively be brought to normal is all laid out in THIS FREE EBOOK.
Anyway, let’s have a little chat about how exercise impacts this type of fat, how it therefore impacts insulin and leptin resistance, and where exercise figures into the big picture of health attainment and maintenance…
Endurance Exercise
Endurance exercise, something I’m very familiar with after over a dozen years of being an obsessive hiker and backpacker (I actually worked as a Wilderness Ranger for 7 seasons, hiking 500-1,000 miles during the summer, and wrote a book about backpacking many years ago), is a perfect example of a Catch-22.
We know that lots of exercise burns intramuscular fat and is insulin sensitizing. That is why everybody and their uncle in mainstream health is infatuated with it. We’ve known since forever that doing a ton of exercise is a good counter to a diet that otherwise would result in lots of intramuscular fat storage (high-fat, high-omega 6, high-sugar, high-calorie). It is, and the single greatest reason that it has been found to be beneficial is probably the ability to increase insulin sensitivity.
But not so fast. Long-duration cardio or endurance exercise makes the body more proficient at storing intramuscular fat, because intramuscular fat just so happens to comprise a large percentage of the bodily fuel used to do this type of exercise. Generally speaking, the higher the intensity level and the shorter duration of the exercise, the higher the ratio of glucose to fat used as fuel and vice versa. And, after a couple hours of exercise, much of the glucose is used up, and the ratio of fat burned to glucose burned becomes even higher.
So, in a nutshell, working 10-hour days which often included more than 15 miles of hiking at moderate intensity levels (right in the perfect heart rate range for optimal fat burning), had the following impact on me AND most of my co-workers (generally speaking)…
1) Go from not exercising much to exercising a ton – lose fat at an incredibly rapid rate, can get away with anything diet-wise (I used to eat a half dozen cake doughnuts and a quart of chocolate milk for my first breakfast of the day), feel awesome
2) Get kind of tired and drained after a few months, with greater proneness to illness and injury - in my case an increase in digestive problems, have a drop in metabolism (my morning body temperature dropped from 97.9 to 96.2, resting pulse into the 30’s and low-40’s), and no longer lose an ounce exercising 10 hours a day, even if you are not eating that much food… but note, physical conditioning is superhuman
3) Stop exercising at the end of the season and have ravenous hunger, lethargy (I always promised myself I’d “stay in shape” after the season but went 0 for 12 during my avid hiking years), and gain fat at an incredibly rapid rate – usually eclipsing my weight prior to the beginning of the season
Of course, part of this is due strictly to calorie deficit. It’s impossible to eat as many calories as you burn, no matter how hard you try to stuff yourself. One season I consumed 2 pounds of butter, 4 gallons of whole milk, 10 pounds of fatty beef and pork, and a heck of a lot more each week and still lost 10 pounds of body fat in about 5 weeks. I figure I must have eaten about 5,000 calories per day during this time but burned an average of 6,000, for a daily 1,000 calorie deficit. Get lean enough, and this will crush your metabolism, which brings up an important point…
Endurance exercise slows down your metabolism!
Most people think that burning more calories means that your metabolism is higher. This is not true. Driving your car more often does not change its gas metabolism. Rather, it works something like this…
In my case, as a hiking fanatic for 5 months out of the year, I might have started the season with a 1:1 appetite to metabolism ratio (AM Ratio) at 175 pounds while sedentary. I was burning 3,000 calories at rest, and had the appetite for 3,000 calories each day on average.
By the 5th week I’d weigh 165 pounds, but let’s say now that my resting metabolism dropped to 2,500 while I burned 3,500 through exercise for a total of 6,000 calories per day. I could maintain weight eating twice as many calories, but my actual metabolism had dropped, hence the fall in body temperature (more significant) and heart rate (less significant – and can just be a sign of improved cardiovascular efficiency).
But no matter what, I never would lose weight below 165 (I did my first season, going from 170 to 155, but my body adapted to never let that happen again).
As you get more and more “in shape” for endurance exercise, your body is able to do increasingly more difficult and longer-duration exercise while burning fewer and fewer calories. Testosterone levels drop along with your resting metabolism, and you lose muscle mass as well – making you able to perform endurance exercise more efficiently.
So, the irony is that to be a really good endurance athlete, you must have as little muscle as possible, store intramuscular triglyceride for fuel very efficiently, and burn as little calories as possible while exercising. These are the precise adaptations that occurred with me and my co-workers, which is why, doing ever-increasing amounts of work in a work day as we got in better and better shape, our rate of weight loss would slow and then stop completely.
Basically, if you want to get to where you can exercise 10 hours a day without losing any weight, burn fewer calories at rest AND during exercise, and develop an unprecedented ability to store fat eating to appetite if you stop exercising, then I highly recommend endurance exercise. It is unparalleled for making your body a fat storage machine. I would say that by the end of the season my resting metabolism was probably near 2,000 calories per day instead of 3,000, and my appetite was probably around 4,000 calories per day – 2:1 AM Ratio, which leads to rapid fat storage if you are not a believer in willpower like me.
Unfortunately, most exercise fanatics point to what happens during the first phase of exercise – an improvement in insulin sensitivity from burning all that muscle fat, fat loss, improved cardiovascular performance, and the ability to eat more food and still lose weight.
What they ignore, is that the vast majority (call it 19 outta 20) of people that have insulin resistance and are overweight DO NOT continue long-duration exercise for the rest of their lives once they start it. Those who start and then stop, take 1 step forward and 2 steps back, just like someone who goes on a low-carb diet and then quits it at some point (also call it 19 out of 20 people), which has almost an identical impact (you burn a higher percentage of fat to glucose for fuel, and thus store it in muscle better, you raise cortisol – which is also fattening and happens with endurance exercise, and so on). More on cortisol and weight gain in this video:
Grand conclusion:
If you want to be able to eat to appetite and exercise as a leisure activity, solely for pleasure, while being healthy, insulin sensitive, and not gain weight – then endurance exercise will take you farther from that destination. I don’t see how anyone could argue otherwise.
If you want to be a prisoner of exercise, dependent on doing hours of it per day to maintain your weight and be insulin sensitive, then endurance exercise is your ticket.
Stay tuned for more on the short-duration type of exercise and high-intensity exercise recommended by various fitness moguls like Craig Ballantyne, Scott Abel, Rachel Cosgrove, Chad Waterbury, and others in the next post.
P.S. – I still like hiking. It is an enjoyable activity for me. But I do not recommend doing it habitually for several hours on end – more than a couple times per week. Every time I do lots of hiking my weight set point increases. One example is that when I tried overfeeding for the first time after not hiking for 2 years, my weight increased from 174 to 179 and then started creeping back down. After a summer of very intense hiking, where my weight bottomed out briefly at 168, I tried overfeeding again at the end of the season and my weight went up to 194.5 (thanks in part to a 2-week blood sugar monitoring vegan stint, which was, in hindsight, lower in calories than I first estimated and sent my appetite into the stratosphere).
Picture of Flat Top Mountain from a hike almost exactly 1 year ago - Wind River Range, Wyoming.
In the last post, we talked about triglycerides. Yes, the blood level can be revealing, but more important is the amount of triglyceride – or fat, that hangs out in the muscles. This is referred to as intramuscular triglyceride, or intramyocellular fat.
It appears that this intramyocellular fat is the primary driver of insulin resistance, and also leptin resistance which increases appetite and reduces metabolism/body temperature even if you are overweight and eating a high-calorie diet (which should normally trigger feedback mechanisms that bring your weight down, like a rise in metabolism and decrease in appetite).
For those uninitiated, low body temperature is a primary focus at 180D… the kind that isn’t related to legitimate thyroid gland dysfunction (much less common). The reasons why body temperature is such an important indicator of overall health and how it can most effectively be brought to normal is all laid out in THIS FREE EBOOK.
Anyway, let’s have a little chat about how exercise impacts this type of fat, how it therefore impacts insulin and leptin resistance, and where exercise figures into the big picture of health attainment and maintenance…
Endurance Exercise
Endurance exercise, something I’m very familiar with after over a dozen years of being an obsessive hiker and backpacker (I actually worked as a Wilderness Ranger for 7 seasons, hiking 500-1,000 miles during the summer, and wrote a book about backpacking many years ago), is a perfect example of a Catch-22.
We know that lots of exercise burns intramuscular fat and is insulin sensitizing. That is why everybody and their uncle in mainstream health is infatuated with it. We’ve known since forever that doing a ton of exercise is a good counter to a diet that otherwise would result in lots of intramuscular fat storage (high-fat, high-omega 6, high-sugar, high-calorie). It is, and the single greatest reason that it has been found to be beneficial is probably the ability to increase insulin sensitivity.
But not so fast. Long-duration cardio or endurance exercise makes the body more proficient at storing intramuscular fat, because intramuscular fat just so happens to comprise a large percentage of the bodily fuel used to do this type of exercise. Generally speaking, the higher the intensity level and the shorter duration of the exercise, the higher the ratio of glucose to fat used as fuel and vice versa. And, after a couple hours of exercise, much of the glucose is used up, and the ratio of fat burned to glucose burned becomes even higher.
So, in a nutshell, working 10-hour days which often included more than 15 miles of hiking at moderate intensity levels (right in the perfect heart rate range for optimal fat burning), had the following impact on me AND most of my co-workers (generally speaking)…
1) Go from not exercising much to exercising a ton – lose fat at an incredibly rapid rate, can get away with anything diet-wise (I used to eat a half dozen cake doughnuts and a quart of chocolate milk for my first breakfast of the day), feel awesome
2) Get kind of tired and drained after a few months, with greater proneness to illness and injury - in my case an increase in digestive problems, have a drop in metabolism (my morning body temperature dropped from 97.9 to 96.2, resting pulse into the 30’s and low-40’s), and no longer lose an ounce exercising 10 hours a day, even if you are not eating that much food… but note, physical conditioning is superhuman
3) Stop exercising at the end of the season and have ravenous hunger, lethargy (I always promised myself I’d “stay in shape” after the season but went 0 for 12 during my avid hiking years), and gain fat at an incredibly rapid rate – usually eclipsing my weight prior to the beginning of the season
Of course, part of this is due strictly to calorie deficit. It’s impossible to eat as many calories as you burn, no matter how hard you try to stuff yourself. One season I consumed 2 pounds of butter, 4 gallons of whole milk, 10 pounds of fatty beef and pork, and a heck of a lot more each week and still lost 10 pounds of body fat in about 5 weeks. I figure I must have eaten about 5,000 calories per day during this time but burned an average of 6,000, for a daily 1,000 calorie deficit. Get lean enough, and this will crush your metabolism, which brings up an important point…
Endurance exercise slows down your metabolism!
Most people think that burning more calories means that your metabolism is higher. This is not true. Driving your car more often does not change its gas metabolism. Rather, it works something like this…
In my case, as a hiking fanatic for 5 months out of the year, I might have started the season with a 1:1 appetite to metabolism ratio (AM Ratio) at 175 pounds while sedentary. I was burning 3,000 calories at rest, and had the appetite for 3,000 calories each day on average.
By the 5th week I’d weigh 165 pounds, but let’s say now that my resting metabolism dropped to 2,500 while I burned 3,500 through exercise for a total of 6,000 calories per day. I could maintain weight eating twice as many calories, but my actual metabolism had dropped, hence the fall in body temperature (more significant) and heart rate (less significant – and can just be a sign of improved cardiovascular efficiency).
But no matter what, I never would lose weight below 165 (I did my first season, going from 170 to 155, but my body adapted to never let that happen again).
As you get more and more “in shape” for endurance exercise, your body is able to do increasingly more difficult and longer-duration exercise while burning fewer and fewer calories. Testosterone levels drop along with your resting metabolism, and you lose muscle mass as well – making you able to perform endurance exercise more efficiently.
So, the irony is that to be a really good endurance athlete, you must have as little muscle as possible, store intramuscular triglyceride for fuel very efficiently, and burn as little calories as possible while exercising. These are the precise adaptations that occurred with me and my co-workers, which is why, doing ever-increasing amounts of work in a work day as we got in better and better shape, our rate of weight loss would slow and then stop completely.
Basically, if you want to get to where you can exercise 10 hours a day without losing any weight, burn fewer calories at rest AND during exercise, and develop an unprecedented ability to store fat eating to appetite if you stop exercising, then I highly recommend endurance exercise. It is unparalleled for making your body a fat storage machine. I would say that by the end of the season my resting metabolism was probably near 2,000 calories per day instead of 3,000, and my appetite was probably around 4,000 calories per day – 2:1 AM Ratio, which leads to rapid fat storage if you are not a believer in willpower like me.
Unfortunately, most exercise fanatics point to what happens during the first phase of exercise – an improvement in insulin sensitivity from burning all that muscle fat, fat loss, improved cardiovascular performance, and the ability to eat more food and still lose weight.
What they ignore, is that the vast majority (call it 19 outta 20) of people that have insulin resistance and are overweight DO NOT continue long-duration exercise for the rest of their lives once they start it. Those who start and then stop, take 1 step forward and 2 steps back, just like someone who goes on a low-carb diet and then quits it at some point (also call it 19 out of 20 people), which has almost an identical impact (you burn a higher percentage of fat to glucose for fuel, and thus store it in muscle better, you raise cortisol – which is also fattening and happens with endurance exercise, and so on). More on cortisol and weight gain in this video:
Grand conclusion:
If you want to be able to eat to appetite and exercise as a leisure activity, solely for pleasure, while being healthy, insulin sensitive, and not gain weight – then endurance exercise will take you farther from that destination. I don’t see how anyone could argue otherwise.
If you want to be a prisoner of exercise, dependent on doing hours of it per day to maintain your weight and be insulin sensitive, then endurance exercise is your ticket.
Stay tuned for more on the short-duration type of exercise and high-intensity exercise recommended by various fitness moguls like Craig Ballantyne, Scott Abel, Rachel Cosgrove, Chad Waterbury, and others in the next post.
P.S. – I still like hiking. It is an enjoyable activity for me. But I do not recommend doing it habitually for several hours on end – more than a couple times per week. Every time I do lots of hiking my weight set point increases. One example is that when I tried overfeeding for the first time after not hiking for 2 years, my weight increased from 174 to 179 and then started creeping back down. After a summer of very intense hiking, where my weight bottomed out briefly at 168, I tried overfeeding again at the end of the season and my weight went up to 194.5 (thanks in part to a 2-week blood sugar monitoring vegan stint, which was, in hindsight, lower in calories than I first estimated and sent my appetite into the stratosphere).
Picture of Flat Top Mountain from a hike almost exactly 1 year ago - Wind River Range, Wyoming.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Ovarian Cancer: The Importance of Early Detection
September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. Ovarian cancer strikes one out of every 57 women. It is the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women between the ages of 35 and 74. Ovarian cancer is often difficult to diagnose, especially in its early states, because the symptoms are often vague and mimic other health conditions. The symptoms often associated with ovarian cancer include abdominal or pelvic pain, bloating, difficulty eating/feeling full quickly and urinary urgency or frequency.
When ovarian cancer is detected early, more than 90 percent of women survive longer than five years. Unfortunately, there are currently no standard screening methods for ovarian cancer as there are for breast or cervical cancers. That’s why Penn Medicine urges you to be your best advocate. Know the symptoms of ovarian cancer, know your body and know your family history.
Learn more about ovarian cancer
Penn’s Jordan Center for Gynecologic Cancer
Penn’s Ovarian Cancer Research Center
When ovarian cancer is detected early, more than 90 percent of women survive longer than five years. Unfortunately, there are currently no standard screening methods for ovarian cancer as there are for breast or cervical cancers. That’s why Penn Medicine urges you to be your best advocate. Know the symptoms of ovarian cancer, know your body and know your family history.
Learn more about ovarian cancer
Penn’s Jordan Center for Gynecologic Cancer
Penn’s Ovarian Cancer Research Center
Rotator Cuff Injury: Know Your Risks and All of Your Options
The Penn Shoulder and Elbow Service is recognized as a national leader in patient care. Penn's surgeons are advancing the clinical and basic science knowledge of shoulder and elbow problems, and are highly specialized in treating complex shoulder and elbow injuries. Experienced in the most current, minimally invasive arthroscopic and reconstructive techniques, the shoulder and elbow physicians are dedicated to treating every condition that affects the shoulder and elbow, including rotator cuff tears, a common cause of shoulder pain and disability among adults.
Learn More
Penn Shoulder and Elbow Service
Learn More
Penn Shoulder and Elbow Service
Light Watermelon Muffins
I purchased a delicious watermelon today and had an idea to use it in muffins. My taste testers said it was a definite go!! Eat these with a big bowl of watermelon on the side and you've got a tasty breakfast or lunch! These are not a sweet muffin, so you can put your favorite spread on them. YUMMY!!
They turned out amazingly good. Warm from the oven, these muffins will satisfy many a craving for "homemade". When my son was in Japan a month ago, he brought back the cutest muffin paper baking cups. His girlfriend picked them out for me. You just put the muffin cups on a pan and they bake beautifully. They really make my muffins look impressive:) I hope you will give this recipe a try. It's simple & light with few ingredients, healthy & yummy.
Light Watermelon Muffins
(Printable Recipe)
2 cups white whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons Aluminum Free Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups cubed watermelon (After cubing, place in blender and puree)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons ground flax seed mixed with 2 tablespoons water (stir until mixed well)
Heat oven to 400 degrees F. In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt; mix well. In another bowl, combine watermelon puree, oil and flax seed.
Add liquid ingredients to dry and stir gently. Fill either muffin tins or muffin papers 3/4 full. Bake at 400 degrees F for 18-23 minutes or until light golden brown. Enjoy!!
They turned out amazingly good. Warm from the oven, these muffins will satisfy many a craving for "homemade". When my son was in Japan a month ago, he brought back the cutest muffin paper baking cups. His girlfriend picked them out for me. You just put the muffin cups on a pan and they bake beautifully. They really make my muffins look impressive:) I hope you will give this recipe a try. It's simple & light with few ingredients, healthy & yummy.
Light Watermelon Muffins
(Printable Recipe)
2 cups white whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons Aluminum Free Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups cubed watermelon (After cubing, place in blender and puree)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons ground flax seed mixed with 2 tablespoons water (stir until mixed well)
Heat oven to 400 degrees F. In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt; mix well. In another bowl, combine watermelon puree, oil and flax seed.
Add liquid ingredients to dry and stir gently. Fill either muffin tins or muffin papers 3/4 full. Bake at 400 degrees F for 18-23 minutes or until light golden brown. Enjoy!!
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Lower Triglycerides
Here are a couple of fresh new videos about Triglycerides - little fat molecules that hang out in our blood, tissues, and liver. The first is an ode to what you can do to lower your triglyceride levels if that is an issue, and what metabolic effects can be expected if you do (reduced leptin and insulin resistance and a corresponding decrease in the appetite to metabolism ratio, increased energy levels, and so on).
The gist, for you video haters out there, would be to:
1) Increase the starch to simple sugar ratio in the diet - particularly fructose found in soft drinks and juices
2) Reduce alcohol consumption
3) Increase fiber intake (unrefined starches instead of refined starches)
4) Decrease the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio in your diet (which can take years to take effect)
5) Eat solid foods, and no liquid calories
By the way, the shirt says "Arnold is Numero Uno," his vintage shirt from the movie Pumping Iron. Chris from http://www.zentofitness.com/ should like it.
Next up is a simple video on why the belief that "spiking" insulin again and again leading to insulin resistance as portrayed by various low-carb authors is a myth. Excess triglycerides appear to be the predominant cause of insulin resistance, not spikes in insulin from a high-carbohydrate meal. If the latter was the case, rural Asia and Africa, home to a diet consisting of 60-90% of calories as carbohydrate, would have the highest, and not the lowest rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
For more specific guidelines that can assist in overcoming hypertriglyceridemia using diet and lifestyle change, please read THIS FREE EBOOK
Last but not least - It's About Friggin' Time (AFT) for a new 180 Kitchen Video. This time - it's my all-time favorite without any shadow of a doubt. Click here to become a Corn Star.
The gist, for you video haters out there, would be to:
1) Increase the starch to simple sugar ratio in the diet - particularly fructose found in soft drinks and juices
2) Reduce alcohol consumption
3) Increase fiber intake (unrefined starches instead of refined starches)
4) Decrease the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio in your diet (which can take years to take effect)
5) Eat solid foods, and no liquid calories
By the way, the shirt says "Arnold is Numero Uno," his vintage shirt from the movie Pumping Iron. Chris from http://www.zentofitness.com/ should like it.
Next up is a simple video on why the belief that "spiking" insulin again and again leading to insulin resistance as portrayed by various low-carb authors is a myth. Excess triglycerides appear to be the predominant cause of insulin resistance, not spikes in insulin from a high-carbohydrate meal. If the latter was the case, rural Asia and Africa, home to a diet consisting of 60-90% of calories as carbohydrate, would have the highest, and not the lowest rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
For more specific guidelines that can assist in overcoming hypertriglyceridemia using diet and lifestyle change, please read THIS FREE EBOOK
Last but not least - It's About Friggin' Time (AFT) for a new 180 Kitchen Video. This time - it's my all-time favorite without any shadow of a doubt. Click here to become a Corn Star.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Vegan Chick'n Salad With Grapes
This is a quick and easy Vegan Chick'n Salad that tastes delicious. Serve on sprouted wheat buns or mound on lettuce for a luncheon dish. You will love this! Just a few ingredients-simple and healthy.
Vegan Chick'n Salad With Grapes
(Printable Recipe)
1 1/2 cups diced Chick'n Scallopini (2 patties)
12 red seedless grapes, quartered
4 tablespoons Vegenaise
1 rib celery, chopped
1 green onion, with about 2 inches of green, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
dash curry powder
Sprouted Wheat Buns (I used Alvarado St. Bakery brand)
Cook the 2 patties of Chick'n Scallopini in 1 tsp. olive oil (2 1/2 min. on each side). Cut-up in small squares. Combine all ingredients. Add salt & pepper to taste. Serves 4.
Tender Green Bean with Mushroom & Lemon peel
I created this beautiful and delicious green bean dish tonight for dinner and served it with the Chick'n Salad Sandwich (Post Below). The fresh, tender green beans were sooo....good. You have to give this one a try. You could serve this at any holiday meal as well.
Tender Green Bean with Mushroom & Lemon Peel
(Printable Recipe)
Serves 6 as a side dish.
Saute:
1 Portebello Mushroom, diced
1 Portebello Mushroom, diced
2 tab. yellow onion diced
1/4 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. olive oil
salt & pepper
Steam:
1 lb. fresh tender green beans
1/4 cup water
Steam:
1 lb. fresh tender green beans
1/4 cup water
1/8 tsp. dried dill
Rind of 1 lemon (use lemon zester to make long thin slices)
Cook mushroom, onions and oregano in olive oil and season with salt & pepper. Cook until mushrooms look soft and turn color. Remove from pan.
Add 1/4 cup water to pan you cooked mushroom in. Add green beans and simmer with lid on until water has disappeared. Remove green beans and put in bowl.
Mix sauce well and stir into green beans. Add mushroom mixture.
Add rind of lemon to green beans and mix. Enjoy.
Add 1/4 cup water to pan you cooked mushroom in. Add green beans and simmer with lid on until water has disappeared. Remove green beans and put in bowl.
Mix sauce well and stir into green beans. Add mushroom mixture.
Add rind of lemon to green beans and mix. Enjoy.
Friday, 20 August 2010
Carbohydrate Propaganda
Still busy working on a side project, but didn't want anyone to miss out on some more quality carbohydrate propaganda.
First up is Scott Abel, totally abusing his power as the world's most successful fitness trainer in marketing some bogus supplement. He claims this supplement boosts leptin, strengthens your immune system, keeps sex hormones at peak function for muscle building, increases athletic performance and more. Yeah right Scott, like any supplement could to that!
And then Riles, a total starch-pusher that thinks carbohydrate is good just because it helps him to be really muscular and lean and feel really good, sent me a video of some kid talking about a study in which 11 out of 20 type 2 diabetics were able to come off of their insulin by eating a high-fiber, high-carbohydrate diet for 16 days. The kid's name is Robby Barbaro. Something sound fishy about that name? You bet it does! Barbaro sounds eerily similar to "Carbaro." But hey, I can't be trusted. I live in a town called CARBondale - a town mysteriously lacking in obese people, gyms, and fast food joints. In fact, THIS is the only fast food burger joint in town. Sounds like a Commie conspiracy against America if you ask me!
Oh yeah, here's CARBaro (who is a 22-year old type 1 diabetic):
Note, after reviewing several of JW Anderson's studies, one thing is clear. It's not the carbohydrate per se that causes the positive insulin-sensitizing impact and enhanced glycemic control. It's not necessarily the severe fat restriction either. It appears that the big drops in triglycerides and increase in insulin sensitivity that commonly occur on the type of diet used by Anderson, as well as in real life in clinical practice by guys like Joel Fuhrman (who prescribes a "beans and greens" approach to reversing type 2 diabetes), result from a heavy intake of fiber - including resistant starch discussed last week, and a high ratio of starch or "complex" carbohydrate to simple sugars.
This increases the production of short-chain fatty acids in the gut such as acetate, butyrate, and propionate - discussed in part in this FREE EBOOK , which increases metabolism, decreases appetite, causes spontaneous weight loss, increases physical activity, drops triglycerides, lowers cholesterol, improves both insulin and leptin sensitivity, and improves HDL to LDL ratio all in one shot. This also patterns an improvement in gut flora to favor the type of gut flora seen in lean people such as rural Africans as opposed to that seen in the obese, which also provides better resistance to infection and decreased chance of developing bowel cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, and more.
You can hear more about resistant starch and fiber in my latest videos at:
http://youtube.com/180degreehealth
First up is Scott Abel, totally abusing his power as the world's most successful fitness trainer in marketing some bogus supplement. He claims this supplement boosts leptin, strengthens your immune system, keeps sex hormones at peak function for muscle building, increases athletic performance and more. Yeah right Scott, like any supplement could to that!
And then Riles, a total starch-pusher that thinks carbohydrate is good just because it helps him to be really muscular and lean and feel really good, sent me a video of some kid talking about a study in which 11 out of 20 type 2 diabetics were able to come off of their insulin by eating a high-fiber, high-carbohydrate diet for 16 days. The kid's name is Robby Barbaro. Something sound fishy about that name? You bet it does! Barbaro sounds eerily similar to "Carbaro." But hey, I can't be trusted. I live in a town called CARBondale - a town mysteriously lacking in obese people, gyms, and fast food joints. In fact, THIS is the only fast food burger joint in town. Sounds like a Commie conspiracy against America if you ask me!
Oh yeah, here's CARBaro (who is a 22-year old type 1 diabetic):
Note, after reviewing several of JW Anderson's studies, one thing is clear. It's not the carbohydrate per se that causes the positive insulin-sensitizing impact and enhanced glycemic control. It's not necessarily the severe fat restriction either. It appears that the big drops in triglycerides and increase in insulin sensitivity that commonly occur on the type of diet used by Anderson, as well as in real life in clinical practice by guys like Joel Fuhrman (who prescribes a "beans and greens" approach to reversing type 2 diabetes), result from a heavy intake of fiber - including resistant starch discussed last week, and a high ratio of starch or "complex" carbohydrate to simple sugars.
This increases the production of short-chain fatty acids in the gut such as acetate, butyrate, and propionate - discussed in part in this FREE EBOOK , which increases metabolism, decreases appetite, causes spontaneous weight loss, increases physical activity, drops triglycerides, lowers cholesterol, improves both insulin and leptin sensitivity, and improves HDL to LDL ratio all in one shot. This also patterns an improvement in gut flora to favor the type of gut flora seen in lean people such as rural Africans as opposed to that seen in the obese, which also provides better resistance to infection and decreased chance of developing bowel cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, and more.
You can hear more about resistant starch and fiber in my latest videos at:
http://youtube.com/180degreehealth
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
Hibiscus Flower Punch with Apple & Lemon
Today I created this delicious & fun drink that is both thirst quenching & healthy for these hot summer days. It has Hibiscus Flowers, Apple, Lemon and a small amount of Stevia to sweeten. It is not only a beautiful, impressive drink, but delicious, fun and healthful. Kids and adults alike will love its taste, and the drink is a healthy alternative to high-sugar fruit punches. The punch has a vibrant, deep-red color that makes it look like traditional fruit punch. You can watch the video below to show the health benefits of Hibiscus Herbal Tea.
Medical Benefits of Hibiscus Tea: Nutritional Supplements eHow.com
Hisbiscus Flower Punch with Apple & Lemon
5 Cups water (bring to a boil)
1 Tablespoon loose Dried Hisbiscus Flowers (buy in bulk packages at Health Food Store) or 4 tea bags
1 Apple
2 Lemons
1 1/2 tsp. Stevia (3 packets)
Put 1 Tablespoon Hisbiscus Flowers in Tea Holder Use Stainless Steel Tea Infuser Let sit for 15 minutes and remove infuser.
After cooling a bit, put 2 of the cups of hibisicus water in a blender with the apple (sliced) and the juice of 2 lemons. Blend well. Strain tea through nut milk bag and mix with the other 3 cups of tea. Add ice and enjoy. Garnish with lemon slices. If you have a juicer, you can juice the apples and add to the drink instead of blending and straining through a nut milk bag.
Medical Benefits of Hibiscus Tea: Nutritional Supplements eHow.com
Hisbiscus Flower Punch with Apple & Lemon
5 Cups water (bring to a boil)
1 Tablespoon loose Dried Hisbiscus Flowers (buy in bulk packages at Health Food Store) or 4 tea bags
1 Apple
2 Lemons
1 1/2 tsp. Stevia (3 packets)
Put 1 Tablespoon Hisbiscus Flowers in Tea Holder Use Stainless Steel Tea Infuser Let sit for 15 minutes and remove infuser.
After cooling a bit, put 2 of the cups of hibisicus water in a blender with the apple (sliced) and the juice of 2 lemons. Blend well. Strain tea through nut milk bag and mix with the other 3 cups of tea. Add ice and enjoy. Garnish with lemon slices. If you have a juicer, you can juice the apples and add to the drink instead of blending and straining through a nut milk bag.
Monday, 16 August 2010
Clarence Bass
In an ongoing conversation about what the best of the fitness and physique industry has to offer someone trying to lose body fat without sacrificing metabolic health, room needs to be made for Clarence Bass.
Bass is a famous ripped old dude, known for his multiple Over-40 Mr. America titles and maintenance of a very impressive physique all the way into his 70's as shown in the photo (age 70).
Bass is an excellent example of someone who truly has achieved great leanness and has maintained that leanness his entire life - and done so without excessive strain, hunger, and so on. His secret - a coarse, low-calorie density whole foods diet of "coarse," and more or less allowing the weight to come off naturally by eating to appetite of a whole foods diet (high-carb/low-fat relatively speaking) while doing a lot of exercise (but nothing absurd - his exercise routine includes a couple of 20-minute aerobic intervals per week, a couple of leisurely hikes, and two full-body weightlifting sessions).
Although Bass should not be worshipped for his appearance of health - he has had many health problems recently including hip replacement, osteoarthritis, and hypertriglyceridemia (I probably would too if I consumed soy milk, skim milk, and a peanut butter sandwich every day and fruit with every meal), clearly he has some secrets to share. His main secret, as you can read about in this online article, is simply eating a nutritious whole foods diet and being very patient with the weight loss - losing no more than a couple of pounds per month.
But as you can see from the compilation of quotes below, his philosophy is very much in line with that promoted by 180 and other 180 favorites like Jon Gabriel. In short, if you are hungry and deprived, impatient, and you don't eat real, whole, nutritious food most of the time - you will fail.
These are all themes of healing the metabolism, regaining lost health, and pursuing any health and physical appearance goal as lined out in THIS FREE EBOOK.
Anyway, here's some words of wisdom from this largemouth Bass (the dude writes almost as much as I do) from his most recent book, Great Expectations... Emphasis on certain lines by me:
pp. 36-37
“…it’s not a good idea to limit the quantity of food you eat. Forcing yourself to stop eating before you’re full and satisfied doesn’t work very well. My observation is that few people can do it for long, and it’s not necessary anyway. As explained in my earlier books, eating a balanced diet of mostly whole foods will usually put your weight on a downward path. You don’t have to worry about restricting the amount you eat, because you become full before exceeding your calorie needs.”
p. 87
“Some of you, especially new readers, may be wondering why a guy interested in lifetime leanness would eat calorie-dense nut butter. The answer is simple and lies at the very core of my diet philosophy. I like nut butter, and it’s a bad idea to deprive yourself of foods you enjoy… Diets based on denial are psychologically flawed… It’s human nature to crave what you can’t have, and craving usually spells doom for dieters. I don’t have cravings – because I don’t deny myself foods such as nut butter.”
p. 98
“My dieting philosophy is that I don’t believe in dieting. I don’t diet in the normal sense of the word, ever, even when peaking… Dieting conjures up thoughts of hunger and deprivation. Dieting doesn’t work, because it makes people uncomfortable and unhappy. I believe the key to permanent body fat control is eating satisfaction. There’s no need to eat foods you don’t like – even when peaking – and there’s no need to ever leave the table feeling hungry.”
p. 104
“Severe dieting (or starvation) causes the body to produce more of the enzymes responsible for depositing fat. These fat-depositing enzymes create a tendency to get fat. Severe dieting also causes a slowdown in metabolism. This isn’t just a theory. It has happened to me on several occasions. Cutting calories too severely caused me to lose weight but gain fat. On one occasion, I lost 5.6 pounds, and my body fat went up. I lost a little over 6 pounds of muscle and gained a pound of fat. Not good!”
p. 141
“… if you want to stay motivated for a lifetime, develop your own health and fitness program. Own it.”
Bass is a famous ripped old dude, known for his multiple Over-40 Mr. America titles and maintenance of a very impressive physique all the way into his 70's as shown in the photo (age 70).
Bass is an excellent example of someone who truly has achieved great leanness and has maintained that leanness his entire life - and done so without excessive strain, hunger, and so on. His secret - a coarse, low-calorie density whole foods diet of "coarse," and more or less allowing the weight to come off naturally by eating to appetite of a whole foods diet (high-carb/low-fat relatively speaking) while doing a lot of exercise (but nothing absurd - his exercise routine includes a couple of 20-minute aerobic intervals per week, a couple of leisurely hikes, and two full-body weightlifting sessions).
Although Bass should not be worshipped for his appearance of health - he has had many health problems recently including hip replacement, osteoarthritis, and hypertriglyceridemia (I probably would too if I consumed soy milk, skim milk, and a peanut butter sandwich every day and fruit with every meal), clearly he has some secrets to share. His main secret, as you can read about in this online article, is simply eating a nutritious whole foods diet and being very patient with the weight loss - losing no more than a couple of pounds per month.
But as you can see from the compilation of quotes below, his philosophy is very much in line with that promoted by 180 and other 180 favorites like Jon Gabriel. In short, if you are hungry and deprived, impatient, and you don't eat real, whole, nutritious food most of the time - you will fail.
These are all themes of healing the metabolism, regaining lost health, and pursuing any health and physical appearance goal as lined out in THIS FREE EBOOK.
Anyway, here's some words of wisdom from this largemouth Bass (the dude writes almost as much as I do) from his most recent book, Great Expectations... Emphasis on certain lines by me:
pp. 36-37
“…it’s not a good idea to limit the quantity of food you eat. Forcing yourself to stop eating before you’re full and satisfied doesn’t work very well. My observation is that few people can do it for long, and it’s not necessary anyway. As explained in my earlier books, eating a balanced diet of mostly whole foods will usually put your weight on a downward path. You don’t have to worry about restricting the amount you eat, because you become full before exceeding your calorie needs.”
p. 87
“Some of you, especially new readers, may be wondering why a guy interested in lifetime leanness would eat calorie-dense nut butter. The answer is simple and lies at the very core of my diet philosophy. I like nut butter, and it’s a bad idea to deprive yourself of foods you enjoy… Diets based on denial are psychologically flawed… It’s human nature to crave what you can’t have, and craving usually spells doom for dieters. I don’t have cravings – because I don’t deny myself foods such as nut butter.”
p. 98
“My dieting philosophy is that I don’t believe in dieting. I don’t diet in the normal sense of the word, ever, even when peaking… Dieting conjures up thoughts of hunger and deprivation. Dieting doesn’t work, because it makes people uncomfortable and unhappy. I believe the key to permanent body fat control is eating satisfaction. There’s no need to eat foods you don’t like – even when peaking – and there’s no need to ever leave the table feeling hungry.”
p. 104
“Severe dieting (or starvation) causes the body to produce more of the enzymes responsible for depositing fat. These fat-depositing enzymes create a tendency to get fat. Severe dieting also causes a slowdown in metabolism. This isn’t just a theory. It has happened to me on several occasions. Cutting calories too severely caused me to lose weight but gain fat. On one occasion, I lost 5.6 pounds, and my body fat went up. I lost a little over 6 pounds of muscle and gained a pound of fat. Not good!”
p. 141
“… if you want to stay motivated for a lifetime, develop your own health and fitness program. Own it.”
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Deb's Minestrone Soup
I created this minestrone recipe years ago. My husband is crazy about it and requests it all the time. It really is his absolute favorite meal, especially with my homemade artisan bread (recipe soon to come!)This is truly comfort food to me. I love it, and I hope you do too!
Deb's Minestrone Soup
Serves 6-8
Ingredients:
2 cups carrots, diced
1 stalk celery diced
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 small zucchini diced
8 cups vegetable broth
1 15-ounce can Muir Gien tomato basil soup
1 15-ounce can Annies Organic Medium Vegan Chili
1 15-ounce can organic vegetarian chili beans (combo of pinto, kidney, black beans and sea salt)
1 10-ounce can Rotel Tomatoes
4 Tbsp. Tomato paste
1 cup frozen peas
1 1/2 Tbsp. Agave nectar
3/4 tsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp. Spike
2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
2 cups whole grain fusilli pasta (spirals)
Daiya Vegan Mozzarella for garnish
Toss all ingredients except pasta and Daiya cheese into a large soup pot. Bring to a boil, then add in the pasta and simmer until veggies and pasta are tender, about 15 minutes. Serve each bowl garnished with vegan cheese and whole grain artisan bread. It doesn't get any better than this, just ask my hubby!
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Summer Vegetable Pasta Salad
My daughter has been in town visiting from Southern California this past week, and when the two of us get together we just can't help ourselves, we have to get cooking! After all, that is our favorite pastime. We were in heaven wandering Whole Foods today (for way to long) searching for inspiration for something to make for dinner. What resulted was one of the tastiest pasta salads I have created to date. The whole grain noodles and Vegan Gardein Chick'n added substance to the dish, and all of the fresh seasonal veggies added a rainbow of colors! Color is always a good sign when you are eating for health. The best part about this salad is that it is really good eaten cold or room temperature so it is perfect for summer picnics or potlucks. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!
Summer Vegetable Pasta Salad
Summer Vegetable Pasta Salad
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
1 lb. whole wheat penne rigate noodles
Cook according to Pckg. directions. Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water.
1 bag of Gardein Chick'n Scallopini
1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Spike seasoning
Heat 1 Tbsp. of olive oil in a large non stick skillet over medium high heat. Season the chick'n with spike seasoning and saute in the pan until lightly browned on both sides. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes, then slice into 2 inch pieces.
1/4 cup chopped green onion, white and green parts
1 lb. asparagus, steamed and sliced into 2 inch pieces
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced in 2 inch pieces
8-10 basil leaves, chopped
2 Tbsp. Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped
1/2 cup Daiya vegan mozzarella cheese or any vegan cheese of choice
Chop all veggies and place in a large bowl or serving platter.
Creamy Dill Dressing:
zest of 2 lemons
Juice of 2 lemons
2 tsp. dried dill
2 Tbsp. Veganaise or Tofutti vegan sour cream
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp mustard
4-5 splashes green Tabasco sauce
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
fresh black pepper (few pinches)
Whisk all ingredients together and set aside.
Assembling the salad:
Place the pasta noodles, Gardein Chick'n, veggies and Vegan cheese into a large bowl or serving dish. Add all of the dressing and toss to coat. Add 1/2 cup reserved pasta liquid and toss one more time. Enjoy!!
Me and my beautiful daughters (Debbie (ME), Morgan & Heather)
Morgan- Little House of Veggies
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Resistant Starch
Not trying to promote resistant starch as the next Acai berry or something like that, but the studies done on resistant starch show that, like fiber - and perhaps to an ever greater degree, resistant starch is something that sets refined carbohydrates apart from unrefined carbohydrates - and that sets starch apart from sugar, particularly refined sugar.
For losing weight, there's no question that the studies on it reveal a rise in metabolism and a spontaneous decrease in food consumption that is patterned by drops in triglycerides, insulin resistance, and other facets of metabolic syndrome as would be expected with big improvements in insulin sensitivity. This is most likely due to the increase in production of butyric and propionic acids in the digestive tract, known to exert tremendous metabolic enhancement.
For more on butyric acid, the importance of a healthy metabolism, and a lengthy discussion on the difference between refined and unrefined carbohydrates in terms of how they influence weight, appetite, digestion, insulin sensitivty, and so on - please READ THIS FREE EBOOK.
Side tangent, sharing some local culture, and attempt at humor:
Resistant starch, the ultimate "prebiotic" also likely plays a role in the microbial environment of the GI tract as well, changing the microbial environment towards one that fosters colonization by the very type of bacteria associated with leanness, heightened immunity, protection from colon cancer, and so on.
If I had to choose between taking probiotics or consuming more resistant starch for improving gut flora, I'd go all in on resistant starch as being a more effective route.
A good analogy might be that of trying to attract white people to an area, something I'm very familiar with as I live near Aspen, CO where virtually all marketing and business efforts are geared up towards attracting affluent white people and their money to the area.
Taking probiotics is akin to kidnapping affluent white people and bringing them in by bus to an Aspen filled with Pawn shops, tattoo parlors, Swap meets, discount liquor stores, a Bass pro shop, and an RV Superstore - all things a truly offensively-wealthy white person is terribly fearful of, or being associated with.
Consuming resistant starch is like building golf courses, constructing massive timeshare developments adorned with the name Ritz Carlton, building ski areas, hosting a Classical Music Festival, a Food and Wine Festival, and most genius of all - a Jazz Festival with no Jazz (affluent white people think Jazz is really cool, but don't want to admit that they don't actually like it and would rather see Wilco, the Black Crowes, Skynard, the Dixie Chicks, and Glenn Frey).
Get that going and you won't need to kidnap any rich white people. The skies will darken with private planes within minutes, and you will be surrounded by popped collars, sweatered chihuahas, George Hamilton, and rumors of Johnny Depp building a house up Castle Creek.
"If you build it, they will come."
Read more about resistant starch at http://www.resistantstarch.com/
For an even more extreme abuse of stereotypes of my semi-hometown (I did graduate from Aspen High School), please enjoy this quality All-American television programming trailer. I'm so proud.
For losing weight, there's no question that the studies on it reveal a rise in metabolism and a spontaneous decrease in food consumption that is patterned by drops in triglycerides, insulin resistance, and other facets of metabolic syndrome as would be expected with big improvements in insulin sensitivity. This is most likely due to the increase in production of butyric and propionic acids in the digestive tract, known to exert tremendous metabolic enhancement.
For more on butyric acid, the importance of a healthy metabolism, and a lengthy discussion on the difference between refined and unrefined carbohydrates in terms of how they influence weight, appetite, digestion, insulin sensitivty, and so on - please READ THIS FREE EBOOK.
Side tangent, sharing some local culture, and attempt at humor:
Resistant starch, the ultimate "prebiotic" also likely plays a role in the microbial environment of the GI tract as well, changing the microbial environment towards one that fosters colonization by the very type of bacteria associated with leanness, heightened immunity, protection from colon cancer, and so on.
If I had to choose between taking probiotics or consuming more resistant starch for improving gut flora, I'd go all in on resistant starch as being a more effective route.
A good analogy might be that of trying to attract white people to an area, something I'm very familiar with as I live near Aspen, CO where virtually all marketing and business efforts are geared up towards attracting affluent white people and their money to the area.
Taking probiotics is akin to kidnapping affluent white people and bringing them in by bus to an Aspen filled with Pawn shops, tattoo parlors, Swap meets, discount liquor stores, a Bass pro shop, and an RV Superstore - all things a truly offensively-wealthy white person is terribly fearful of, or being associated with.
Consuming resistant starch is like building golf courses, constructing massive timeshare developments adorned with the name Ritz Carlton, building ski areas, hosting a Classical Music Festival, a Food and Wine Festival, and most genius of all - a Jazz Festival with no Jazz (affluent white people think Jazz is really cool, but don't want to admit that they don't actually like it and would rather see Wilco, the Black Crowes, Skynard, the Dixie Chicks, and Glenn Frey).
Get that going and you won't need to kidnap any rich white people. The skies will darken with private planes within minutes, and you will be surrounded by popped collars, sweatered chihuahas, George Hamilton, and rumors of Johnny Depp building a house up Castle Creek.
"If you build it, they will come."
Read more about resistant starch at http://www.resistantstarch.com/
For an even more extreme abuse of stereotypes of my semi-hometown (I did graduate from Aspen High School), please enjoy this quality All-American television programming trailer. I'm so proud.
Monday, 9 August 2010
Dopamine and Weight Loss
In the book 180 Degree Metabolism: The Smart Strategy for Fat Loss, I mentioned how the primary driver of leptin resistance and/or excess fat gain in general without the corresponding decrease in hunger and increase in metabolism is unknown. With some All-American speculation, I came up with what I believed to be the 5 most common causes of excess fat accumulation.
Dieting, stress, inflammation, and excessive fructose intake all got their own special chapters. In addition to that, I mentioned Seth Roberts and the Flavor-Calorie Association Theory of obesity that I got super nerded-out on last week in THIS POST.
Out of all causes of obesity; however, there is no doubt that Seth’s explanation – that foods that exert the most stimulus to the reward centers in our brains and thus causing a rise in weight set point (the “ponderstat”), is the most promising. Not only is it the most promising, but it helps to explain multiple phenomena. Let’s get into it a little deeper, and clear up some of the misconceptions that metastasized last week.
First off, I explained my current diet, which contains about 1/3 of the fat that I have been eating over the last several years (call it 60-70 grams per day averaged out throughout the week as opposed to 180-210 grams per day) as “bland.”
Oops, “bland” is a major misnomer. Actually, my food is FAR more flavorful than it has been over the past several years, as I have substituted things like spices and potent salsa LIKE THIS for butter, creamy cheeses, heavy use of coconut oil, and fatty cuts of meat. No one would argue that salsa has less flavor than any of the above-mentioned foods. My salsa is like a nuclear bomb hitting my tongue.
But what my food is, or at least was initially, was less pleasurable to eat. Eating boiled potatoes with salsa as opposed to eating fried potatoes covered in parmesan cheese and truffle oil has a different level of satisfaction – just like eating a strawberry on a lettuce leaf has a different level of satisfaction than eating a chocolate-covered strawberry topped with whipped cream on a shortcake.
Now, if you love potatoes covered with creamy Fromager D’Affinois, there’s no foreseeable reason to stop eating them that way. That wasn’t the point. The point, rather, is furthering the discussion about ways you can get your body to cooperate with losing weight if weight loss is something you are seeking. In other words, what can you eat that helps increase your metabolism in relation to your appetite?
First, let’s examine the extreme importance of that question. If it takes 3,000 calories to satisfy your appetite, and your metabolism burns 3,000 calories in a normal day, then eating to appetite will neither cause weight loss or weight gain. Sure, you could slowly replace fat with muscle while in calorie balance from doing something like Metabolic Enhancement Training, and I hope to post about that next week, but for the most part your weight is unlikely to change much while in calorie balance.
Actually, I shouldn’t downplay what is at least physically possible. Since 6 pounds of muscle and 1 pound of fat contain the same amount of calories, theoretically you could lose 10 pounds of fat, gain 60 pounds of muscle, and increase your weight by 50 pounds without a calorie surplus. You’re not likely to do anything like this to such an extreme, but mathematically, it is possible. Likewise, you could lose 50 pounds while in calorie balance on the other side of that coin. I’m sure Arnold, during his heyday, could have easily achieved a 50-pound weight loss while in calorie balance by doing a prolonged juice fast and taking a break from the weights and the roids.
But assuming no change in muscle to fat ratio - when your appetite is satisfied on fewer calories than you burn metabolically you will lose weight. Likewise, when you need more calories to satisfy your appetite than your body burns you will gain weight. This can happen at high calorie intakes which is most typical, or low calorie intakes (if you have to average 1,600 calories per day to satisfy your hunger but your body refuses to burn more than 1,500 on average, you will gain weight – more than 10 pounds per year with such a disparity in the appetite to metabolism ratio).
Okay, so that’s outta the way. Let’s get going further with the Flavor-Calorie Theory.
First of all, forget Seth Roberts and what he calls the Flavor-Calorie Theory. What he is really talking about is Pleasure Center Activation Theory (PCAT) of weight set point.
Yeah, it was time to bust out a new acronym. PCAT is a sweet one, and it can also be referred to as “Poodie Tat.” Too many people were getting caught up on “flavor” and not focusing on the real meat of the theory, which is that reward centers in the human brain that guide us towards foods that have the most bang for the buck exert a powerful influence over our weight set point.
The primary pleasure center substance is called dopamine – or “dope,” and it be some good shit.
It’s really very useful. The “land of milk and honey” was not called the “land of lettuce and lentil sprouts” because lettuce and lentil sprouts don’t activate the pleasure centers in the brain to the same extent of milk and honey – which are without question the most calorie-dense, rapidly-ingested, rapidly-absorbed calories that can be consumed on God’s green earth without some form of refinement (including cooking). Remember that liquids activate pleasure centers more than solids (to a certain extent – once the diet is 100% liquid that is no longer true… monotony rules and it has the opposite effect).
But modern foodstuffs and substances exploit the pleasure centers and spike dopamine to levels that real food, no matter how calorie-dense or flavorful, is simply not capable of doing to the same degree.
In terms of promoting a rise in weight set point, which increases the appetite to metabolism ratio (AM Ratio – kinda like AM Radio), the most powerful promoters seem to be substances that are the most sweet. Saccharine, Aspartame, and Sucralose (Splenda) cause much greater increase in the AM Ratio than plain ol’ sugar. Of course, throwing caffeine into the mix activates those pleasure centers even more. Diet drinks are the perfect obesigenic substances when paired with a calorie-dense meal. Say what you want about Stevia, but that is another dime-a-dozen sweetener for raising your weight set point – it just comes without so much of the neurotoxicity of aspartame, or the bowel destruction of sucralose.
Anyway, I will continue to try to poke holes in PCAT like I have over the past several years after coming across the work of Seth Roberts, but as of now I have little doubt that the PCAT explains most cases of obesity – and by eating foods that trigger a smaller dopamine response one can easily become satisfied on fewer calories and lose weight without a revolt from the metabolism (drop in body temperature).
More reasons why I find the Pleasure Center Activation Theory to be so compelling:
1) Ethnic groups with a history of eating foods that are not very calorie dense, or without a long history of alcohol use (which spikes the hell out of dopamine) are naturally FAR more susceptible to obesity, diabetes, and alcoholism than Whitey, who has consumed milk, honey, grain, and alcohol in abundance for thousands of years – and has consumed refined sugar and grain longer than most other Ethnic groups.
This suggests to me that many various ethnic groups have much more highly-attuned dopamine receptors (although dopamine is just one pleasure neurotransmitter, serotonin could certainly be involved as well) – to have a more acute sense for calorie-dense and rapidly-absorbed calories for the purposes of survival. When encountering alcohol as well as foods that are more calorie dense, highly-sweetened, and rapidly-absorbed, such as is the case with the Nauru of the Pacific (above) and the Pima of Arizona (the two fattest, most diabetic peoples on earth) who saw their sparse, lean, fibrous diets replaced by tons of animal and vegetable fat, soft drinks, refined grain, packaged junk foods, and alcohol, a huge rise in weight set point struck a large percentage of the population.
2) Alcoholism is considered to have a very strong hereditary component. Obesity researchers know very little about what causes obesity, but they do know that the strongest correlation by far is heredity. In fact, twins that are separated at birth and live separate lives with different families and different diets and influences almost invariably end up at the exact same weight – and even store excess fat in the exact same place on their bodies. Neurotransmitter profiles are certainly hereditary, and would explain the connections between both alcoholism and heredity and obesity and heredity.
3) It seems after hearing hundreds of testimonials for both weight loss and weight gain following my advice to eat to appetite of a “high-everything” whole foods (slower absorption) no sugar (unsweet), low to no alcohol diet, that the prime determinant of whether a person loses weight or not can be directly linked to the degree of pleasure center activation of the diet they ate preceding RRARF. In other words, if they were eating to appetite of fast food, doughnuts, Pepsi or diet drinks, white bread, and beer and switched to a whole foods diet with no sugar or alcohol, there was typically an instant drop in weight set point – causing rapid weight loss and presumably a big decrease in calorie intake.
Those who were eating a calorie-restricted diet, a carbohydrate-restricted diet, an already unsweetened diet with no alcohol, a vegan diet, a raw foods diet, or any other version of a diet that provided LESS pleasure center activation, often GAINED weight eating to appetite on RRARF and had a sudden increase in appetite and calorie intake. These people were the equivalent, basically, of ethnic groups that are highly sensitive to weight gain when switching from a low-calorie density diet with very little alcohol and sweetness to standard "Western" fare.
To read more about this, please check out the FREE EBOOK HERE.
Final Thoughts…
The PCAT is a similar theory to the Thrifty Gene Hypothesis, except that the abundance of food is not the reason our “biology that once insured survival has now turned against us.” Rather, it is the nature of that food, not the quantity of it, that has taken the biological mechanisms of those predisposed to fat gain and switched on the fat storage programs. I believe these same mechanisms underlie many forms of addiction.
Unfortunately, even if this is the undeniable way that most people gain excess body fat and run into metabolic disease, trying to lose body fat and reverse disease remains a tricky thing to solve that reeks of tail-chasing (the PCAT chasing its tail, not a dog). It is tail-chasing because simply eating whole foods that have low-calorie density, like Joel Fuhrman’s nutritarian diet for example, which by definition is all about eating foods with the lowest calorie-density, upregulates the pleasure center receptors even more. So it in no way enables a person to be able to eat the calorie-dense foods that the rest of society eats, and that everyone enjoys, without becoming increasingly sensitive to their fattening effects. But I guess the good news is that the more you eat low-dopamine triggering foods the more tasty they become (trust me, when your pleasure neurotransmitters are upregulated enough, even the blandest food on earth will taste incredible).
This scores yet another big point in favor of the fat loss strategies of guys like Martin Berkhan and Joel Marion – who punctuate plain, whole foods-centric weight loss diets with major Cheesecake and pizza slayings. Berkhan has also been known to spank some Heineys.
Could it be that this acute, infrequent, monster dopamine rush is enough to keep the dopamine and/or serotonin receptors from opening up? Could this enable your average 100-pounds overweight Joe to take advantage of low-calorie density foods that induce weight loss while still being able to eat Brie-bombed potatoes and Jambalaya without falling off the deep end once ideal weight has been achieved? I dunno. We’ll see I guess.
Dieting, stress, inflammation, and excessive fructose intake all got their own special chapters. In addition to that, I mentioned Seth Roberts and the Flavor-Calorie Association Theory of obesity that I got super nerded-out on last week in THIS POST.
Out of all causes of obesity; however, there is no doubt that Seth’s explanation – that foods that exert the most stimulus to the reward centers in our brains and thus causing a rise in weight set point (the “ponderstat”), is the most promising. Not only is it the most promising, but it helps to explain multiple phenomena. Let’s get into it a little deeper, and clear up some of the misconceptions that metastasized last week.
First off, I explained my current diet, which contains about 1/3 of the fat that I have been eating over the last several years (call it 60-70 grams per day averaged out throughout the week as opposed to 180-210 grams per day) as “bland.”
Oops, “bland” is a major misnomer. Actually, my food is FAR more flavorful than it has been over the past several years, as I have substituted things like spices and potent salsa LIKE THIS for butter, creamy cheeses, heavy use of coconut oil, and fatty cuts of meat. No one would argue that salsa has less flavor than any of the above-mentioned foods. My salsa is like a nuclear bomb hitting my tongue.
But what my food is, or at least was initially, was less pleasurable to eat. Eating boiled potatoes with salsa as opposed to eating fried potatoes covered in parmesan cheese and truffle oil has a different level of satisfaction – just like eating a strawberry on a lettuce leaf has a different level of satisfaction than eating a chocolate-covered strawberry topped with whipped cream on a shortcake.
Now, if you love potatoes covered with creamy Fromager D’Affinois, there’s no foreseeable reason to stop eating them that way. That wasn’t the point. The point, rather, is furthering the discussion about ways you can get your body to cooperate with losing weight if weight loss is something you are seeking. In other words, what can you eat that helps increase your metabolism in relation to your appetite?
First, let’s examine the extreme importance of that question. If it takes 3,000 calories to satisfy your appetite, and your metabolism burns 3,000 calories in a normal day, then eating to appetite will neither cause weight loss or weight gain. Sure, you could slowly replace fat with muscle while in calorie balance from doing something like Metabolic Enhancement Training, and I hope to post about that next week, but for the most part your weight is unlikely to change much while in calorie balance.
Actually, I shouldn’t downplay what is at least physically possible. Since 6 pounds of muscle and 1 pound of fat contain the same amount of calories, theoretically you could lose 10 pounds of fat, gain 60 pounds of muscle, and increase your weight by 50 pounds without a calorie surplus. You’re not likely to do anything like this to such an extreme, but mathematically, it is possible. Likewise, you could lose 50 pounds while in calorie balance on the other side of that coin. I’m sure Arnold, during his heyday, could have easily achieved a 50-pound weight loss while in calorie balance by doing a prolonged juice fast and taking a break from the weights and the roids.
But assuming no change in muscle to fat ratio - when your appetite is satisfied on fewer calories than you burn metabolically you will lose weight. Likewise, when you need more calories to satisfy your appetite than your body burns you will gain weight. This can happen at high calorie intakes which is most typical, or low calorie intakes (if you have to average 1,600 calories per day to satisfy your hunger but your body refuses to burn more than 1,500 on average, you will gain weight – more than 10 pounds per year with such a disparity in the appetite to metabolism ratio).
Okay, so that’s outta the way. Let’s get going further with the Flavor-Calorie Theory.
First of all, forget Seth Roberts and what he calls the Flavor-Calorie Theory. What he is really talking about is Pleasure Center Activation Theory (PCAT) of weight set point.
Yeah, it was time to bust out a new acronym. PCAT is a sweet one, and it can also be referred to as “Poodie Tat.” Too many people were getting caught up on “flavor” and not focusing on the real meat of the theory, which is that reward centers in the human brain that guide us towards foods that have the most bang for the buck exert a powerful influence over our weight set point.
The primary pleasure center substance is called dopamine – or “dope,” and it be some good shit.
It’s really very useful. The “land of milk and honey” was not called the “land of lettuce and lentil sprouts” because lettuce and lentil sprouts don’t activate the pleasure centers in the brain to the same extent of milk and honey – which are without question the most calorie-dense, rapidly-ingested, rapidly-absorbed calories that can be consumed on God’s green earth without some form of refinement (including cooking). Remember that liquids activate pleasure centers more than solids (to a certain extent – once the diet is 100% liquid that is no longer true… monotony rules and it has the opposite effect).
But modern foodstuffs and substances exploit the pleasure centers and spike dopamine to levels that real food, no matter how calorie-dense or flavorful, is simply not capable of doing to the same degree.
In terms of promoting a rise in weight set point, which increases the appetite to metabolism ratio (AM Ratio – kinda like AM Radio), the most powerful promoters seem to be substances that are the most sweet. Saccharine, Aspartame, and Sucralose (Splenda) cause much greater increase in the AM Ratio than plain ol’ sugar. Of course, throwing caffeine into the mix activates those pleasure centers even more. Diet drinks are the perfect obesigenic substances when paired with a calorie-dense meal. Say what you want about Stevia, but that is another dime-a-dozen sweetener for raising your weight set point – it just comes without so much of the neurotoxicity of aspartame, or the bowel destruction of sucralose.
Anyway, I will continue to try to poke holes in PCAT like I have over the past several years after coming across the work of Seth Roberts, but as of now I have little doubt that the PCAT explains most cases of obesity – and by eating foods that trigger a smaller dopamine response one can easily become satisfied on fewer calories and lose weight without a revolt from the metabolism (drop in body temperature).
More reasons why I find the Pleasure Center Activation Theory to be so compelling:
1) Ethnic groups with a history of eating foods that are not very calorie dense, or without a long history of alcohol use (which spikes the hell out of dopamine) are naturally FAR more susceptible to obesity, diabetes, and alcoholism than Whitey, who has consumed milk, honey, grain, and alcohol in abundance for thousands of years – and has consumed refined sugar and grain longer than most other Ethnic groups.
This suggests to me that many various ethnic groups have much more highly-attuned dopamine receptors (although dopamine is just one pleasure neurotransmitter, serotonin could certainly be involved as well) – to have a more acute sense for calorie-dense and rapidly-absorbed calories for the purposes of survival. When encountering alcohol as well as foods that are more calorie dense, highly-sweetened, and rapidly-absorbed, such as is the case with the Nauru of the Pacific (above) and the Pima of Arizona (the two fattest, most diabetic peoples on earth) who saw their sparse, lean, fibrous diets replaced by tons of animal and vegetable fat, soft drinks, refined grain, packaged junk foods, and alcohol, a huge rise in weight set point struck a large percentage of the population.
2) Alcoholism is considered to have a very strong hereditary component. Obesity researchers know very little about what causes obesity, but they do know that the strongest correlation by far is heredity. In fact, twins that are separated at birth and live separate lives with different families and different diets and influences almost invariably end up at the exact same weight – and even store excess fat in the exact same place on their bodies. Neurotransmitter profiles are certainly hereditary, and would explain the connections between both alcoholism and heredity and obesity and heredity.
3) It seems after hearing hundreds of testimonials for both weight loss and weight gain following my advice to eat to appetite of a “high-everything” whole foods (slower absorption) no sugar (unsweet), low to no alcohol diet, that the prime determinant of whether a person loses weight or not can be directly linked to the degree of pleasure center activation of the diet they ate preceding RRARF. In other words, if they were eating to appetite of fast food, doughnuts, Pepsi or diet drinks, white bread, and beer and switched to a whole foods diet with no sugar or alcohol, there was typically an instant drop in weight set point – causing rapid weight loss and presumably a big decrease in calorie intake.
Those who were eating a calorie-restricted diet, a carbohydrate-restricted diet, an already unsweetened diet with no alcohol, a vegan diet, a raw foods diet, or any other version of a diet that provided LESS pleasure center activation, often GAINED weight eating to appetite on RRARF and had a sudden increase in appetite and calorie intake. These people were the equivalent, basically, of ethnic groups that are highly sensitive to weight gain when switching from a low-calorie density diet with very little alcohol and sweetness to standard "Western" fare.
To read more about this, please check out the FREE EBOOK HERE.
Final Thoughts…
The PCAT is a similar theory to the Thrifty Gene Hypothesis, except that the abundance of food is not the reason our “biology that once insured survival has now turned against us.” Rather, it is the nature of that food, not the quantity of it, that has taken the biological mechanisms of those predisposed to fat gain and switched on the fat storage programs. I believe these same mechanisms underlie many forms of addiction.
Unfortunately, even if this is the undeniable way that most people gain excess body fat and run into metabolic disease, trying to lose body fat and reverse disease remains a tricky thing to solve that reeks of tail-chasing (the PCAT chasing its tail, not a dog). It is tail-chasing because simply eating whole foods that have low-calorie density, like Joel Fuhrman’s nutritarian diet for example, which by definition is all about eating foods with the lowest calorie-density, upregulates the pleasure center receptors even more. So it in no way enables a person to be able to eat the calorie-dense foods that the rest of society eats, and that everyone enjoys, without becoming increasingly sensitive to their fattening effects. But I guess the good news is that the more you eat low-dopamine triggering foods the more tasty they become (trust me, when your pleasure neurotransmitters are upregulated enough, even the blandest food on earth will taste incredible).
This scores yet another big point in favor of the fat loss strategies of guys like Martin Berkhan and Joel Marion – who punctuate plain, whole foods-centric weight loss diets with major Cheesecake and pizza slayings. Berkhan has also been known to spank some Heineys.
Could it be that this acute, infrequent, monster dopamine rush is enough to keep the dopamine and/or serotonin receptors from opening up? Could this enable your average 100-pounds overweight Joe to take advantage of low-calorie density foods that induce weight loss while still being able to eat Brie-bombed potatoes and Jambalaya without falling off the deep end once ideal weight has been achieved? I dunno. We’ll see I guess.
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