Diabetes is Caused by Poor Nutrition, not by Lack of Exercise!

“The researchers found that the less walkable one’s neighborhood is, the higher risk its inhabitants have of developing diabetes”.

Another ridiculous theory on why we get diabetes, almost as silly as Tree hugger’s  article a while back saying we are fat because of air conditioning!  (article here)

Diabetes is caused by malnutrition; not getting enough healthy fat and protein and ingesting too high a percentage of our calories from carbohydrates.

It’s that simple. 

Read Treehugger’s article, but take it with a grain of salt!-  How Neighborhood Design Can Make Us Sick

For Weight Loss, Less Exercise May Be More

From the NYTimes;

Most people who start working out in hopes of shedding pounds wind up disappointed, a lamentable circumstance familiar to both exercisers and scientists. Multiple studies, many of them covered in this column, have found that without major changes to diet, exercise typically results in only modest weight loss at best (although it generally makes people much healthier). Quite a few exercisers lose no weight. Some gain.

But there is encouraging news about physical activity and weight loss in anew study by researchers at the University of Copenhagen. It found that exercise does seem to contribute to waist-tightening, provided that the amount of exercise is neither too little nor, more strikingly, too much.

To reach that conclusion, the Danish scientists rounded up a group of pudgy and sedentary young men, a segment of the population increasingly common in Denmark, as elsewhere in the world. The volunteers, most in their 20s or early 30s, visited the scientists’ lab to undergo baseline measurements of their aerobic fitness, body fat, metabolic rates and general health. None had diabetes, high blood pressure or heart disease and, while heavy, they were not obese.

The men were then randomly assigned to exercise or not. The non-exercisers, who served as controls, returned to their former routines, with no change to their diets or sedentary ways.

A second group began 13 weeks of almost daily moderate workouts, consisting of jogging, cycling or otherwise sweating for about 30 minutes, or until each man had burned 300 calories (based on his individual metabolic rate).

A third group tackled a more strenuous routine of almost hour-long workouts, during which each man burned 600 calories.

The men were asked not to consciously change their diets, either by eating more or less, and to keep detailed daily food diaries throughout the 13 weeks.

On certain designated days, they also were asked to don sophisticated motion sensors that would measure how active they were in the hours before and after exercise.

At the end of the 13 weeks, the members of the control group weighed the same as they had at the start, and their body fat percentages were unchanged, which is hardly surprising.

On the other hand, the men who had exercised the most, working out for 60 minutes a day, had managed to drop some flab, losing an average of five pounds each. The scientists calculated that that weight loss, while by no means negligible, was still about 20 percent less than would have been expected given the number of calories the men were expending each day during exercise, if food intake and other aspects of their life had held steady.

Meanwhile, the volunteers who’d worked out for only 30 minutes a day did considerably better, shedding about seven pounds each, a total that, given the smaller number of calories that they were burning during exercise, represents a hefty 83 percent “bonus” beyond what would have been expected, says Mads Rosenkilde, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Copenhagen who led the study.

To Read the Full Post….

Why Exercise Has Little Effect On Weight Loss

What Effect Does Exercise have on Obesity and Weight Loss?

I had someone tell me today that he works out two hours a day, is incredibly strong (I guess so!) and cannot lose weight. He showed me the “healthy” snack he had with him; a granola crunch bar. I read the ingredients. Rice flour, oat flour, fructose. So far we are at all carbs. Next comes soy oil. Yuck. And about 20 more ingredients from there…So we talk, really talk. I explain to him what a great breakfast, nutritionally speaking, looks like; organic eggs for breakfast, cooked in coconut oil or butter. Three strips of turkey bacon, a handful of blueberries, some organic coffee. This is my breakfast most mornings. With a third of my calories for the day, RARING to go for 5-6 hours without even thinking about food. Enough fat, protein and nutrient packed carbs (fruits and veggies!) at every meal, 3 times a day. 2000 calories a day, every day. Healthy rapid weight loss occurs, energy quickly returns, you sleep better, feel wonderful upon awakening…and get in some play time each day. THAT is the way too lose weight. The ONLY healthy way there is. Period.

Let’s look at trying to exercise enough to lose weight;

It takes 35 miles of walking or jogging to burn the calories in one pound of fat. Losing weight requires optimum nutrition; a balance of healthy fats, protein, fruits, and vegetables. In addition, if a person exercises but doesn’t diet any actual pounds lost may be minimal because dense and heavier muscle mass replaces fat. Also bear in mind that vigorous exercise such as jogging or running on hard surfaces is essentially unnatural to the body and can lower the immune response. Human beings in virtually every culture have typically, throughout time, engaged in anaerobic functional exercise common to regular labor or work functions on the farm, at sea or while hunting wild game, punctuated by occasional bursts of intense activity. Getting on the treadmill, running, or jogging is not that affective for weight loss, is hard on the joints, and wears you out. Use that same energy for weight training, bursts of hard work such as gardening, surfing, dancing, yoga or sex! You will be in better shape, get toned faster…and save a lot of time that is wasted on the treadmill!
While exercise has little impact on weight loss (that comes from eating enough calories that contain all the nutrients you need on a day to day basis) a fit body will look more toned and be healthier. And exercise even without dieting adds benefit. For example, one study found that overweight but fit people have half the death rate of overweight and unfit people. And, studies suggest that people who have trained for a long time develop more efficient mechanisms for burning fat and are able to stay leaner.

Exercise is vitally important, it helps us stay in shape, stimulates and improves cardiovascular health, helps make us happier and gets us into the sunshine we need so badly. This should include cardiovascular and resistance training. Every type of exercise that you do for resistance should be balanced with stretching exercises. This is called cross training. Most types of resistance training or repetitive movements cause some of our muscles to shorten. You need to balance this with stretching these muscles very well. I mean serious stretching, not what we usually do for five minutes before we run! I mean a true warm up. When we try to stretch without warming the muscles up, we can pull muscles or tendons. We only are able to stretch effectively when our muscles are truly warmed up.

I think yoga is the perfect cross training for almost every other form of exercise. Plus, it is also tones muscles, helps us detox, aids digestion and stills the mind. It is a perfect way to learn to meditate. If someone told me I had to choose just one type of exercise, then yoga would be my first choice. It is also important that find something that you love to do every day that will help you gain cardiovascular health. I mean something that will make you work up a serious sweat! Notice I say find something you love to do. Very few people really love aerobics classes. They are not that effective in toning muscles. You are better off riding a bike, running, rollerblading, surfing, dancing,playing soccer or tennis, . These things are so much fun that they tend to be things you love to do, instead of things you make yourself do in order to get in shape. You’re more likely to do them more often.

Weight training should be practiced 3 to 4 times a week in order to build bone and muscle mass. You may find it very effective to work with a personal trainer or find a workout buddy in the first few months. This will keep you motivated. The hardest part of getting on a regular schedule of exercising is getting started. In the beginning, it seems harder to fit it into our schedules. We get sore and tired. But after a few weeks you reach the point where you see results, you’re sleeping better, feeling energized. You notice that you don’t feel as good on the days you don’t exercise. You feel edgy. I love those endorphins!

But to lose 5 pounds a week AND meet out nutrient and energy needs you need 2000 calories a day. You won’t get weight lose by caloric restriction, that has been proven. At that rate of caloric intake your body is in starvation mode; So eat plenty of healthy fats, get plenty of high quality protein and eat ½ way down the glycemic index…including plenty of green leafy veggies each day. Did you know that green leafy vegetables have NO glycemic scale whatsoever and offer you a depth of nutrients that includes plenty of calcium? They must be cooked with saturated fats to assimilate the nutrients, so use butter or animal fats to cook with.

Yes, bacon and eggs cooked in butter is a great breakfast!

Coffee or Tea: Enjoy Both in Moderation for Heart Benefits, Dutch Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (June 19, 2010) — Coffee and tea drinkers may not need to worry about indulging — high and moderate consumption of tea and moderate coffee consumption are linked with reduced heart disease, according to a study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers in The Netherlands found:

• Drinking more than six cups of tea per day was associated with a 36 percent lower risk of heart disease compared to those who drank less than one cup of tea per day.
• Drinking three to six cups of tea per day was associated with a 45 percent reduced risk of death from heart disease, compared to consumption of less than one cup per day.

And for coffee they found:

• Coffee drinkers with a modest intake, two to four cups per day, had a 20 percent lower risk of heart disease compared to those drinking less than two cups or more than four cups.
• Although not considered significant, moderate coffee consumption slightly reduced the risk of heart disease death and deaths from all causes.

Researchers also found that neither coffee nor tea consumption affected stroke risk.

"While previous studies have shown that coffee and tea seem to reduce the risk of heart disease, evidence on stroke risk and the risk of death from heart disease was not conclusive," said Yvonne T. van der Schouw, Ph.D., study senior author and professor of chronic disease epidemiology, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands. "Our results found the benefits of drinking coffee and tea occur without increasing risk of stroke or death from all causes.

Van der Schouw and colleagues used a questionnaire to evaluate coffee and tea consumption among 37,514 participants. They followed the participants for 13 years for occurrences of cardiovascular disease and death.

Study limitations included self-reported tea and coffee consumption, and the lack of specific information on the type of tea participants drank. However, black tea accounts for 78 percent of the total tea consumed in The Netherlands and green tea accounts for 4.6 percent. Coffee and tea drinkers have very different health behaviors, researchers note. Many coffee drinkers tend to also smoke and have a less healthy diet compared to tea drinkers.

Researchers suggest that the cardiovascular benefit of drinking tea may be explained by antioxidants. Flavonoids in tea are thought to contribute to reduced risk, but the underlying mechanism is still not known.

Fruity Science Halves Fat in Chocolate

But WHY would they want to do so???

FATs are healthy, when they are from organic sources.  Saturated fats are crucial for health, for weight control, for all biological functions.  So to take the fat out of chocolate and replace it with fruit juice would CAUSE you to gain weight!!

Crazy!  So eat chocolate, make it dark chocolate, fair trade and organic!  Enjoy!

The article from Science Daily;

ScienceDaily (Aug. 13, 2012) — It may not make chocolate one of your five a day — but scientists have found a way to replace up to 50 per cent of its fat content with fruit juice.

University of Warwick chemists have taken out much of the cocoa butter and milk fats that go into chocolate bars, substituting them with tiny droplets of juice measuring under 30 microns in diameter.

They infused orange and cranberry juice into milk, dark and white chocolate using what is known as a Pickering emulsion.

Crucially, the clever chemistry does not take away the chocolate ‘mouth-feel’ given by the fatty ingredients.

This is because the new technique maintains the prized Polymorph V content, the substance in the crystal structure of the fat which gives chocolate its glossy appearance, firm and snappy texture but which also allows it to melt smoothly in the mouth.

The final product will taste fruity — but there is the option to use water and a small amount of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) instead of juice to maintain a chocolatey taste.

Dr Stefan Bon from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick was lead author on the study published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry.

He said the research looked at the chemistry behind reducing fat in chocolate, but now it was up to the food industry to use this new technique to develop tasty ways to use it in chocolate.

FULL POST….

Weight Loss “Products”

I have never dieted,, never never taken any weight loss tea or product.  I weigh 109 and though had health problems in the past, was never overweight.   I teach my Nutrition Coaching clients how to eat 2000 calories a day and lose weight safely, while becoming better nourished. 

I ended up trying a weight loss coffee a few nights ago.  I Facebook friend posted an event at his real estate office, mentioned coffee…and I signed up.  Frankly I thought it was a networking event and they were serving coffee. He followed up later in the day by posting that it was a weight loss coffee.   Since it was in my neighborhood, only a few blocks away…I decided to go. I figured I’d mix and mingle and meet people. 

If you read my blog regularly you know I don’t eat “products”, I eat real food…and teach my clients how to do the same.   There are no shortcuts or products that will make you healthier…only great nutrition and exercise. 

I got to the meeting, there were only 6 people,,,disappointing.  They offered my a cup of coffee, told me the main ingredients were coffee and yerba mate’. I drank about half the cup and as they were doing there sales spiel I noticed my heat racing.  Now, I’m no wimp when it comes to caffeine…I drink one cup of Turkish coffee each morning and have no issues or jittery-ness.

About an hour into the whole meeting I was bored by listening to how I could make a fortune on this stuff, still had seen no label or ingredient list…and my heart was racing..   The people putting on the meeting were saying they were drinking this coffee, eating the same and losing 5 or 6 pounds a week.  They assured us that it was good for you, helped brain function because of the herbs and coffee, didn’t keep you up at night….

I got home and realized I was feeling as though I had taken a dose of speed.  My son told me I wasn’t taking breaths between sentences.  I cleaned, couldn’t settle down, wasn’t hungry at dinner time.  I ate a small bowl of soup.  Cleaned some more…Usually I am asleep by midnight…at two AM I was still reading and my heart was still racing.   I was not happy. 

Finally went to bed, didn’t sleep well (which never happens to me!).  I got up and for the first time in years, didn’t have coffee…my heart was still racing intermittently.  And my stomach was upset.  It took until that afternoon for me to feel better, normal.

People want easy solutions to weight loss.  This product, Javita, is another products promising people an easy answer. The website claims that portion control is the key to weight loss and that this product helps you control food intake.  It does this by suppressing the appetite.  This is not a good idea because you need nourishment, need foods  composed of a healthy mix of fat, protein and crabs.

As most of us have discovered, there are no easy answers to dieting…only great nutrition keeps us healthy, or can repair and restore health.  Weight loss is about getting the right amount of nourishment; 2000 calories a day from the right foods,. Period.