valshealthblog.com

Hi,

I just read an article about your aging metabolsim. 

It started out like this: “Getting older means losing muscle and a slowing metabolism.  That is a harsh fact.”

So is this really true?

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of people it is.  And that is because they don’t do anything about it. 

One of the side consequences of this “truism” is that as you lose muscle mass, you metabolism will slow down.  And that means weight gain.

You will not be able to control this weight gain by dieting alone.  Because of the way the body works any diet you go one will only make the slowing metabolism problem worse. 

If you look around you, you will see that most older people do have more body weight and their body shape is not that of a healthy athlete.  And they pretty much don’t have much muscle. 

This trend has been going on for some time and it is affecting younger and younger older people.  And it will get worse.

You have read the statistics.  Over 2/3 of the population is overweight or obese. 

I would guess that the vast majority of these people do not do anything to keep their muscles strong and their metabolism stoked.

So, the question is, do you have to be one of these people?

The answer is NO. 

However, once you say that you are not going to be one of those out of shape older persons, what are you going to do about it?

Here are two things you can start doing.

One if to change your eating patterns.  Notice I did not say go on a diet.  That is the worst thing you can do.

But, you can eat healthier.  You can eat more organic foods.  You can up the good quality protein you eat.

You also have to move you body.  And not just a leisurely stroll for a few minutes a day.

Now if you are already terribly out of shape, then maybe a leisurely stroll is all you can do.  To start with. 

You do need to start however.  And you need to increase the amount of movement you do.  That is because your body is a great adapting machine.

If you do the same exercise for the same amount of time and with the same level of intensity pretty soon that exercise will not give you the same benefits.

Your body will adapt to whatever stress that exercise is providing you.  And soon that exercise will not be stressful.

This is good in that it shows that you are making progress.

It is bad in that you now have to do either more or something else to continue to get the benefits of this stress (this is good stress).

So now my question is can you start doing this tomorrow?

Stay tuned for my surprising take on the probable answer to this question.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Well, we are done with the junk food posts, so let’s move to what you can do on the positive side.  Start with eat more protein to burn more fat.

Most dieticians and nutritionists focus too much on low carbs and low fat diets. 

Maybe they should focus more on eating more protein.

But, let’s make it high quality protein.  Eating a hamburger that has more fat than protein is not the way to go. 

But, a lean hamburger could be just what you need. 

So exactly how much protein do you need?  The amount will vary depending on your activity levels.  The more active, the more protein.

If you are a weight lifter or body builder most recommend from 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. 

The average sit at work, sit at home person probably only needs .75 to 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.

However, an interesting study done with obese people found that eating more protein equaled more fat burned.

This study, reported in the Nutrition Journal took 100 obese men and women.  They all got 2 protein shakes per day to replace two meals. 

Everyone lost weight on this 12 week diet.

The 100 participants got either 1/2 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight or 1 gram.

The average weight loss for both groups was 8.5 pounds for the 12 weeks.

The interesting part was that the group that got double the protein lost almost 3 times as much fat – 3.6 pounds vs. 1.32 pounds for the lower protein group. 

That is a pretty significant difference.  So everyone should eat some high quality protein every day. 

If you are very overweight or obese, eating even more protein could be just the thing you need to start burning more of your body fat.

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,

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,

You may be wondering what the brain of Frankenstein’s monster has to do with exercise.  Or any brain for that matter. 

Well, it all has to do with Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor or BDNF.  

If you recall Frankenstein’s monster was not the happiest creature in the world.   But, he was pretty smart – even though he wasn’t always protrayed that way in the movies.

But, the odds are he had very little BDNF.  The less BDNF that a person, or creature has the more prone they can become to depression.  Anti depressant treatment increases the levels of BDNF.

And so does exercise.  This was found in a study from the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia, University of California, Irvine, California, USA back in 2000. 

You have probably heard of the runner’s high and the positive mental aspects of exercise before.  This makes sense. 

But, now, even more amazingly, it has been found that BDNF plays a role in obesity.  A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people with low levels of BDNF have a higher risk of being overweight. 

Another study actually took out the BDNF genes in the appetite regulating areas of the brain (this was done in rats, not humans).  These rats became fat very quickly.

It was found however, that with a very strict calorie restriction the weight could be lost.

However, most of us humans don’t live in a cage where the doctors can totally control our diets. 

It is thought that possibly giving more BDNF will help humans control their appetites.  So I am sure there will be a drug developed in the near future to do just this. 

But, since we already know that exercise can raise BDNF naturally, it seems to me it makes more sense to start an exercise program now. 

Just maybe, it would have helped Frankenstein’s monster become happier and lose a little weight at the same time.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Dieting is too hard.  That was the conclusion of a survey on eating patterns in America. 

Yesterday we talked about why this is so.  We discussed the physical aspects of dieting and how your body will fight you every step of the way when you go on a diet. 

But, the physical part is only one part of the equation.  The other two parts are the mental and spiritual.

It is hard to imagine, but a very large per centage of dieter’s don’t go on a diet because they want to.

They go on a diet because someone else wants them to.  This someone else could be their doctor, their spouse, a family member or even a friend. 

All these other people are well meaning and concerned about their friend’s or loved one’s health and being overweight.

This is good and can be a motivation.  But, if you (as the person that needs to lose weight) don’t have that motivation from within, then the diet is not going to work. 

Yes, you can know all the health statistics in the world.  You can wish to be in better shape.  But, if you don’t have the internal fire or desire to lose the weight, then you aren’t going to do it.

Or at best you will do it for a little while and maybe even lose a little weight.  But, will you keep it off.  The answer is no.

Look, dieting is hard.  Mainly because a diet is depriving you of something you want. 

If your body is fighting you and if you see a diet as something where you can’t eat what you want and have to eat rabbit food, then all the discipline in the world isn’t going to overcome that. 

Add to that the fact that you are eating less food and you just know you are going to be hungry and grouchy all the time, then any motivation you do have goes out the window. 

It then becomes so easy to have just one extra serving of food, or one sugary snack in the afternoon, or a dish of ice cream on a hot night. 

Then you are on that slippery slope of falling off your diet and there really isn’t any return. 

Is it hopeless?  Not at all.

First thing is to not go on a diet in the first place.  Diets are about deprivation. 

So instead of depriving yourself, how about enhancing what you eat.

Do it gradually.  Add some good foods in with the bad foods you have been eating.  Do this over a period of time and keep doing it until you are eating mostly good foods.

The more good foods you eat, the less you will have to eat.  Your body needs nutrients to function at its peak.  It needs these nutrients every day.

If you give it these nutrients, it will signal your body that is has enough and you will stop eating.  This is how the body is designed to work.

If you feed it junk or food with very few nutrients, then your body is not satisfied.  It is going to keep looking for the nutrients and it is going to keep signaling you to eat in hopes that the next meal will have enough nutrients.

This is a vicious cycle and even though it is not healthy your body will continue to signal you to eat (to find the nutrients) no matter how overweight or obese you become. 

Want to get off this merry-go-round?   Keep reading this blog and check out my Stop Dieting ebook

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Hi,

Dieting is simply too hard, says a survey titled, “Annual Report on Eating Patterns in America” (2008).

They came to this conclusion based upon the fact that more and more people are giving up on dieting. 

And you know what, they are right.

Dieting is too hard. 

It is hard not only from a physical aspect, but also from your mental and spiritual aspects also. 

You have heard of the body, mind and spirit, right?  Well, if you can get all three of these aligned to accomplish something, you will be able to accomplish it much easier. 

If, one aspect is not in alignment, then your task becomes much more difficult, if not impossible.

Think of trying to push a wheelbarrow when the wheel is not attached and you will get an idea of what it is like trying to accomplish a goal when you are not aligned. 

So why is dieting such a problem?

First, you body is not designed to diet.  Your body is a series of checks and balances that help you function at the optimal levels. 

When you are hungry a hormone called ghrelin signals you to eat.  When you are full another hormone called leptin tells you to stop eating.

Every system in your body has these checks and balances.  As long as that system is maintained then you will never need to diet. 

So, if the system gets whacked out of balance then the body doesn’t really understand how to get back in balance, so it resists.

Let me explain.  If you overeat a little bit everyday (finish all the food on your plate), the leptin learns not to react as quickly.  This process is a desensitization of leptin. 

So it takes more and more leptin to tell you when you are full.  This is a gradual process and eventually it doesn’t work well at all. 

It was found that obese people actually have very high levels of leptin, but it doesn’t work anymore. 

Now there is nothing to tell you when you are full.  Ghrelin has no counter force. 

So you keep eating and eating and eating.   Why doesn’t ghrelin slow down or stop working also?

No one knows for sure, but I am guessing it has to do with what you eat.

Your body needs nutrients to function properly.  If it is not getting these nutrients, that doesn’t mean it stops wanting them.

What it means is it keeps signaling your body to keep eating until it gets the nutrients.

Try this.  Eat a well balanced meal of proteins, fats and carbs.  Something like wild salmon with vegetables and a sweet potato.  That will give your body all the nutrients it needs and the body will be satisfied.

If you eat a meal of a double bacon burger with fries and a soda, your body will not be getting hardly any nutrients.   And you will be signaled that your body still needs the nutrient.  Go eat some more says your body. 

This becomes a vicious cycle.  And even though continual eating of bad food is not good for you, it doesn’t matter to your body.  It will keep signaling you to eat more until it gets the nutrients it needs.

As you can see your body doesn’t want to go on a diet.  It doesn’t know how to act on a diet and it will rebel every step of the way.

That is one of the reasons that dieting is simply too hard.  Stay tuned for the mental and spiritual sides of the equation tomorrow. 

Thanks,

Mike Val

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