valshealthblog.com

Hi,

There was an article featured on Yahoo News titled “Can You be Fat and Fat”?  It was originally published in Prevention this month by David Katz.

In it he states that some people can indeed be fit and heavy.  That is a subtle change and one that most people might not pick up on.

I can cite numerous examples of heavy people that are fit.  Start with most athletes. 

They have bigger muscles and weigh more because of it.  Yet, they are very fit individuals.

Some  heavy weight bodybuilders weigh over 300 pounds, yet have less than 10% body fat.  But, they are over weight by most health standardized charts.

But, what about the average Joe or Jane? 

Here is where what you do and what you eat is more important than what you weigh.

If you move a lot and exercise then you are going to have bigger muscles.  If you also eat a lot, then more than likely you will weigh more than is recommended. 

But, if you are active then your internal organs are probably functioning properly.  Your blood levels are probably okay.  And if you feel great and can function then being a little overweight isn’t going to hurt you.

If the food you eat is mostly junk foods and you are overweight, then you are going to have health issues somewhere down the road.  

This is true even if you are not overweight now. 

The type of fat you have stored over the years will also make a difference to your health.  If most of the fat is near the surface or skin of your body, this is not as bad for your health.

The fat that is stored deeper and next to your organs is called visceral fat.  This is possibly the worst kind of fat you can have. 

It is harder to get rid of and has more health consequences than surface fat. 

Possibly the worst kind of fat you can have is the kind you lose and regain – time after time after time.

This losing and regaining weight is very harmful to your body. 

It would be much better for you to maintain a higher weight and keep it there than to lose and regain it again and again.

Being leaner is usually considered healthier and I would agree with it.  But, there are plenty of lean people that are not as healthy as some heavier people.

It has to do more with your lifestyle and the choices you make that will determine if you can be fit and fat.

We’ll look into this further in future posts.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Can you raise your metabolism by eating? 

You probably know that you can raise your metabolism by moving more or doing more exercise.  That is pretty simple to figure out.

But, can you raise it just by eating?  Turns out you can.

Your metabolism is simply how much of your calories are converted from food into fuel.  The higher your metabolism the more calories your burn.

This happens no matter what you are doing.  You could be exercising, eating, sleeping or just breathing.  A higher metabolism will burn more calories doing all of these things.

Before we get into how to do this, let’s get rid of the myth that there are negative calorie foods.  These would be foods that if you eat them they will burn more calories then you take in. 

Sorry, but there is no scientific evidence that this is true at all.

Okay, that is out of the way.  One way to raise your metabolism is to eat more times per day.  That doesn’t mean that your should raise your calories.

Just take the same number of calories you eat and spread it out over a couple of more meals.  Eating burns calories.  Eating a couple of more times a day burns more calories.

Now an important concept with this is to eat at least a half way decent diet.  Eating a bunch of junk food and spreading it out over more meals doesn’t really help you and may actually be more harmful. 

Make sure you include more protein for your extra meals.  You could actually eat something like beef jerky, tuna or hard boiled eggs for a couple of extra snacks.  Protein burns more calories. 

Drink some caffeine.  Drinking coffee or tea (without adding sugar and whipping cream) will raise your metabolism by 3-4% for a few hours after drinking. 

There are the ways you can raise your metabolism by eating.  Next post we’ll look at a couple of other ways to raise it without eating.

Thanks,

Mike

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Hi,

Whoa be it the person that tries to attack the junk food industry. 

Remember Marion Nestle, the author of Food Politics I mentioned in a previous post?

You can go to this link to see what the Center of Consumer Freedom thinks about her:
http://activistcash.com/biography.cfm/b/3381-marion-nestle-dr

This website calls her one of the country’s most hysterical anti-food-industry fanatics.

Wow, pretty strong stuff.  So just who is the Center of Consumer Freedom?

Turns out it is a front for the junk food industry.  Its main purpose is to lobby against obesity related public health campaigns. 

This would include things like lobbying against removing junk food from the schools. 

The CCF is funded with donations from Coca-Cola, Wendy’s, Tyson foods and Cargill.  None of these companies is too high on the healthy foods list. 

The other purpose of the CCF is to discredit anyone that is publically against junk food.  “We have to attack (activists’) credibility as spokespersons” is the stated strategy of the CCF.

Okay, you might think this little series of articles on the junk food industry was interesting.

But, the bottom line is what are you going to do?

When I started this article I told you I eat junk food occasionally. 

Occasionally is the key word. 

But, I used to eat a lot more.  I used to eat it every day. Now I am down to eating it a couple of times a month.

I did not make the mistake of trying to cut all junk food out of my life overnight.

I say mistake because your body is based on homeostasis.  This means the same old, same old.  Or don’t upset the apple cart. 

If you go on a strict healthy diet and reduce your calories quite a bit, you are going to have one hell of a time losing weight and keeping it off.

Your body (and your mind and spirit) does not mind slow moderate changes.  It does mind drastic changes. 

So make it easy on yourself.  Start by eating an apple a day, or whatever fruit you like.

The next week reduce 1 sugary drink a day. 

The next week maintain this level.  The next week cut out something that you know is bad for you.  Maybe it is skipping a candy bar for your afternoon snack, or not eating ice cream right before bed every night. 

Keep making these small changes over 4-6-12 months.  You will start to notice positive changes in your appearance, your energy levels and the way you feel within this time frame. 

Before long you will wonder why you ever ate so much of that junk food. 

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

The junk industry has come up with a two prong attack regarding food labels. 

The first is to make distracting claims on the label so that you don’t read the food label. 

Such statements like reduced fat, zero trans fats, contains real fruit juice are plastered all over the front of the container.

These statements are designed to create the impression that the product is healthy. 

And the statement is usually true.  You can reduce a fat in a product by 1/2% and claim it has reduced fat.  But, is it healthier for you. 

Maybe they also increased the sodium content of the product by 50%, but they sure aren’t going to tell you that. 

You are at the grocery store, picking something up on your way home from work.  You are in a hurry and just want to get in and out of the store.  You see some deli meats and one says reduced fat. 

Hey, reduced fat is good, You are going to get that.  So you throw that in the basket and move on without even bothering to compare that products protein, fat, salt or sugar contents with other products. 

And maybe the reduced fat product still has twice as much fat as another product that didn’t label their product as reduced fat. 

Or let’s use my favorite – contains real fruit juice.  If you read the label you will see that it is almost always less than 20% real fruit juice and I have seen it as low as 2% real fruit juice. 

Of course having real fruit juice sounds good and the costs are usually a little more. 

What these labels do is make the consumer forget about really comparing the value of the product with other hopefully more nutrient products that you could be eating. 

Okay, the second thing the junk food industry does is to go all out to comply with labeling requirements.  In fact they go overboard to satisfy the requirements. 

They do this to keep you confused and bored.  Have you ever tried to really figure out those labels?  If you can get by all the technical and scientific jargon, then you have to have a calculator in your head to figure out what you are really getting.

The real big gotcha is the serving size.  Most people look at a product and if they look at the amount of sugar and see only 17 gms of sugar they think, well that is okay.

However, if they looked at the serving size and saw that there were 2.5 servings per bottle, then they are really getting 42.5 gms of sugar.  That is a big jump. 

But, this info is hard to find and because they try to put so much info on the labels it is hard to read for us that need reading glasses. 

I am one of those people and I never take my reading glasses to buy groceries.  So I am always squinting at the labels or asking someone to read them for me. 

Most people won’t take the time to do that.

Will you?

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Let’s look at an apple.  An apple is a nutrionists best friend.  It has a great reputation.

Remember the motto, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”?

There is a lot of truth to that. 

Apples have a lot of nutrients, anti-oxidants and fiber. If you eat an apple every day for a snack it will do wonders for your health.  This is assuming you don’t counter it with 3 bags of potato chips:-)

Now you might think that applesauce would be just as good as apples.  Not so.

The processing of the apple into applesauce takes out most of the nutrients and fiber in the apple. 

And worse, it is not as filling. So your body wants to eat more of it to make up for not getting as many nutrients. 

Even worse than that is the fact that not only is the applesauce robbed of its nutrients, but sugar and other sweeteners are added.  This increases the number of calories, yet gives no added benefit from a nutrional point of view. 

Take this a step further and make apple juice.  Now there are basically no nutrients, no anti-oxidants and no fiber.  But, there are a lot more sugars and sweeteners and a ton more calories. 

You can even go further and make apple flavored fruit beverages.  These are basically sugar flavored drinks. 
Some of these beverages are called sports drinks and vitamin waters.  This sounds much better to the public and makes a ton of money. 

Who ever thought of the idea that a simple apple – and you can substitute almost any fruit or vegetable – that is so healthy for you could be turned into a flavored sugar water that costs almost nothing to make and has almost zero nutritional value.

This is really a genius idea from the point of view of making money.

It is a really evil idea from the point of view of improving your health.   

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Do we really need to eat so much junk food?

You might think that we need so many calories a day to live.  This is actually partially true. 

While we do need a certain minimum amount of calories to survive, we also need a certain amount of nutrients to function. 

So it is possible for someone to eat a very highly nutritional meal with only 500 calories in it.  Do this 3 times a day and add another 1-200 calories of a nutritional snack(s) and your body is satisfied throughout the day. 

Not only is it satisfied, but it signals the rest of your body and its hormones saying “Hey, I’m good.  Don’t need anymore food”.

On the other hand you could also go to a fast food joint and munch down 1500 calories in one meal.  Do this a couple of times a day, add in a few high sugar sodas and candy snacks throughout the day and you could easily top 4000 calories a day. 

Yet, your body is not happy.  It is not getting enough nutrients.  It is getting way to many calories, but not enough nutrients.

So it signals your body by saying, “Hey, I need some nutrients.  Eat more.  Give me my nutrients.”

So your body will actually realign your hormones.  It will  encourge ghrelin, the hunger hormone to tell your brain to eat more. 

It will stop the leptin hormone (tells your brain it is full) from working. 

At first it will cause the leptin to counter balance the ghrelin.  But, over time it takes more and more leptin to counter balance ghrelin.

And eventually, it gives up. 

Overweight and obese people have very high levels of leptin.  But, since it stops functioning these people keep on eating with no counter balance to stop it. 

Add this to the fact that most fast and junk foods do taste good and you can see how hard it is to counter this. 

Don’t worry there are ways to get your hormones back in balance again. 

Just keep reading this blog. 

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Hi,

In the last post, it was mentioned that the junk food industry sponsors its own studies showing how their junk food products are “healthier” than anybody else’s.

Legitimate studies have never shown this correlation, but they don’t have the money to do the studies and if they do get some money they never have enough left over to publicize their results. 

Now you might have read where some legitimate organizations do some studies and publicize their results. 

What you might not realize is who is behind the supposed legitimate organization.

Some junk food companies actually start legitimate sounding organizations and fund it entirely to publish “legitimate” studies showing the benefits of junk food. 

Other quasi-legitimate companies claim they are entirely independent of any influence yet they accept money from the junk food companies.

So again we come back to where can you go to find correct information?

It seems like you can’t trust anyone.  And this might just be the attitude that saves your life and your family’s life.

And that goes for even my information.  Everything you read, hear about or see on television or the internet should be sorted through your own filters. 

If it makes logical sense then you can follow through.  This does mean you do have to do some work.  You have to find out what is really true.  

You have to do your own research. 

Now I realize this can be hard to do and that a lot of you don’t have time to do this. 

That is why I and a few other legitimate health and fitness professional educators do what we do. 

I love to research and separate the bull from the legitimate.  And I love to be fit and in great health. 

I get a kick out of running up stairs at work while the younger kids have to take the elevator. 

But, that is just me.  You have to live your life the way you feel is right for you.

I do know if you pay attention to what you eat, don’t eat too much and get some physical movement every day, that you will feel like Tony Tiger – “GREEAAAAATTT!
If interested in more information on this subject check out
Food Politics by Marion Nestle  

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Last post we talked about the junk food industry and how much they spend on advertising their products – especially to children.

Some of them get creative and say they have research and studies proving that their products, juices, burgers, fries, milk shakes and so on are healthier. 

Now this junk food research is a lot of studies that were paid for by the very companies that are selling you these “healthier” alternatives. 

What they don’t bring up is the fact that any independent studies on the same products never seem to find these same supposed healthier benefits.

Gee, I wonder why that is.

These junk food companies that can spend $10 billion a year on advertising are obviously raking in much more than that. So they can afford to throw some money on hiring these favorable studies.  And on publicizing the results. 

Independent agencies, when they have the money to do a study almost never have enough money left over to publicize the results. 

So they publish their research in some obscure journal that a very large per centage of the population has never heard of or could find even if they were looking for it.

Bottom line is very few people understand the immensity of the problem

So it shouldn’t be any wonder that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 32 per cent of children in the US are overweight.  Another 16 per cent are obese and another 11% are extremely obese. 

That is over 59% of the children that have weight issues. 

Don’t let yourself or your children be a statistic.  Don’t let yourself or your children live a life of extra health problems throughout your lives. 

Fight.

Mike Val

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Hi,

Just a quick update to let you know next week I will be starting a series on junk food.  What it is and why we all want to eat it. 

So I am putting the finishing touches on it today and this weekend.

In the meantime, have a great weekend.  Get out there and eat healthy and do a little exercise.

Mike Val

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