Health Challenge Series
All of us have survived to this point by developing the various skills we have today. We have practiced them thousands of times. These skills include our eating and food selection skills. These are now burned into our brain pathways as the "right way" to do things for a lot of reasons other than health. Our food is used for a lot of things other than simple nutrition and consequently many of our choices may not be serving us well for our health...in fact they may well be making us sick. But changing these burned in habits requires several things. Number one is to make changes a little bit at a time. Number two is to feel what other things we use food for and find replacements for those needs . The number one reason people use food for non-food reasons is because they feel unfulfilled in various areas of their life. Food fills in those empty feelings with more pleasant feelings. If you try to change all your food coping mechanisms overnight to create a healthy diet, you will crash and burn because of all the other unmet needs having no way to feel better. So patience is needed and the creativity to find new coping methods while gradually learning how to actually get those feeling needs met. (See articles on Gracework and Heartflow for help in this area.)
With this understanding I am starting a health challenge series. To begin you simply engage each of the health lifestyle upgrades suggested below, adding one successive upgrade every two to three weeks. In this way you will have a guided gradual process for improving your health at a reasonable rate over the course of the year. These health priority issues will discuss several dozen lifestyle changes - way too much to do all at once. This way we can all start with just one little change to our lives every 2 – 3 weeks that we get used to before the next change comes along. If you are ahead of the game and already have a letter's change in place, then congratulations on your good choices in the past. Over the course of the year we will total a couple dozen changes which will add up to huge changes in our health and well being. So lets begin:
Health Challenge # 1: Replace your seed oils with healthier fats and oils like Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Butter, Avocado Oil, Macadamia Nut Oil, or Almond Oil.
This health poison is a more recently added hazard to our health - seed oils. Through out human history we have eaten animal fat, butter, and the oils from palm, olive, and coconut. This has been going on for thousands and thousands of years and has promoted excellent health. Our country was not well suited to growing the tropical oils so we had to make do with lard and butter from cows. But as our population grew we needed new concentrated fat sources. We didn't like being dependent on foreign sources for our food oil so we invented the mass production of seed oils - corn, soy, sunflower, safflower, canola, etc. Unfortunately our bodies are not designed to handle the omega 6 chemical structure of these oils except in small quantities. Our hormones, brain, nerves, and cell walls are made of an even mix of omega 6 and omega 3 oils - the mix found naturally in vegetables and grasses. Seeds and grains contain mostly omega 6 oils which "burn too hot" for our systems. They are designed to be burned by creatures like birds that have a much higher metabolism than we have. Consequently it causes inflammation in us. Inflammation is the basis of most disease.
The second problem with seed oils is that any time you heat these oils they go rancid - which is very poisonous. And if you cook any starch or protein in seed oil, it causes the formation of trans-fats, another poison. (Any bag of potato chips that says it is trans-fat free is lying because the cooking of a potato in oil creates trans-fats). Trans-fats are a serious problem for the basic structure of the body. Your body uses fats to make the cell walls of all the cells in your body as well as manufacture hormones. Trans-fats look like normal fats except that they are bent funny. Your body tries to use these bent fats to make walls and hormones but the end result does not work right. Imagine you were putting a new shingle roof on your house and half the load of shingles they delivered to you were bent 90 degrees in the middle. Your roof would be full of holes because the shingles could not lay down flat. This same thing happens with your cells. Their outer walls end up leaky if there are trans-fats being used. Could our body handle this toxin once or twice a year...fairly easily. Can it handle a daily barrage of toxic seed oils and trans-fats - no way.
So health rule number one: don't eat seed oils. Don't eat things made from seed oils like margarine or shortening (the way these become solid is by adding hydrogen the liquid oils which turns half of them into trans-fats). Don't cook in seed oils (that means nothing fried in oil). Don't cook with seed oils (use coconut or olive). Small amounts, cold pressed, used on salads (as salad dressings) are ok if they are balanced with sufficient omega 3 oils from fresh cold water fish and similar sources.
Health Challenge # 2: Replace all sugar and corn syrup in your diet with healthier alternatives like: stevia, erythritol, xylitol, or if you have no weight or blood sugar issues, honey, maple syrup, or sorghum syrup.
This challenge has such a huge impact on your health. Sugar and seed oils are the biggest challenge to the health of the American people over the last 60 years. This serious threat all began in the 50s with an unfortunate theory on the cause of heart disease. This was called the Cholesterol hypothesis and became the basis for all dietary recommendations promoted by the medical establishment and our government. The beliefs they formed have destroyed the health of several generations in this country. It has taken 60 years to prove that the Cholesterol theory is not only wrong, but that the diet changes it promoted were exactly the opposite of those needed for good health. The low-fat high-carbohydrate food pyramid has not only hugely increased the incidence of heart attacks, but has increased the incidence of diabetes over 1000%. Even now most medical doctors still recommend these old diet protocols even though they have been proven wrong.
Health Challenge # 3: Replace soda pop and other sugar filled drinks with water, fruit essence flavored water, club soda, iced tea, herb teas, and other naturally flavored liquids.
The only sweetening agents you want to use are Stevia, Erythritol, Xylitol, or Lo Han. I know Stevia has been a poor substitute in the past because of the bitter aftertaste, however the FDA just approved a non-bitter Stevia extract 2 weeks ago and it is excellent. I have created a blend of Erythritol and Stevia in the office for the convenience of my patients that is either twice as sweet as sugar (for baking) or 4 times as sweet as sugar (for beverages). At these strengths it is less than half the cost of the Truvia brand in the stores. Some health food stores may have the non-bitter Stevia by now.
Do not use artificial sweeteners like Equal or Splenda. Not only are there too many toxic issues with these products, they are also found to disrupt blood sugar control. Also do not use fructose or products like Agave Syrup. I will devote a whole issue to the dangers of fructose.
Stabilizing our blood sugar is probably the biggest general step we can take to improve our health. We have been conned into believing that sugar is love. We associate the sweet taste with every imaginable good thing in our lives. The natural attraction to sweetness served us when we were hunters and gatherers of our food from the wild, as sweet things were usually safe to eat. But the sweetness of meat or fruit are a very different thing than the intense experience of candy, cookies and sodas. Letting go of the cultural addiction to sugar is a big step. It says you value yourself enough to stop poisoning yourself...even though the poison stimulates the happy part of your brain. Heroin does that too. Lets step out and find real happiness.
Health Challenge # 4: Stop buying any products with sugar as one of the first seven ingredients.
Sugar hides in products under many names like high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup solids, rice syrup, sucrose, fructose, maltose, dextrose, lactose, glucose, fruit juice concentrate, honey, molasses, cane sugar, turbinado sugar, invert sugar, date sugar, modified food starch, disaccharides, polysaccharides, and many others. The idea is not to be afraid of sugar, but to recognize that it is designed to be used like salt or spices - as a flavoring agent, not as a main food ingredient. Sugar is not dangerous in small quantities. It is the excess that creates the danger - anything in excess can kill us, even water.
Health Challenge #5 Stop eating cereals and breads made with flours.
I have suggested this to many of you individually and the usual response I get is "What is there to eat for breakfast?" Around my house breakfast and dinner look alike. Your body actually likes its biggest protein meals early - before 2pm. Free-range eggs are a wonderful choice for those looking for a traditional breakfast. But for us any combination of vegetables and protein works to get us going in the morning.
Some of you are wondering what I mean by "breads made with flours". Most breads are made with flour - usually some type of wheat flour. All breads made with flours are too high on the glycemic index. The alternative is breads made solely with sprouted grains. If you have no problem with gluten or gliadin (the allergenic proteins in most grains) then sprouted grain breads may work well for you. Give these a try. They are usually better toasted as they tend to be more crumbly than flour based breads.
In case you are wondering cereals includes Muesli and granola. They may look good for you, but they aren't. Would it hurt you to eat a bowl once a week - probably not much. Will it hurt you if you eat it every day - absolutely (unless you are one of the starch tolerant people).
Health Challenge #6 Eat 1 to 2 cups of steamed or raw vegetables (or 2 to 4 cups of salad greens) before at least 2 meals each day.
One of the best ways to reduce the Killer Pleasure pattern is to eliminate hunger by filling up with good nutritious food that actually meets the deep micro-nutrient needs of our body's cells. If we really fill up with healthy good stuff, it will reduce the cravings for the Killer Pleasure excesses we usually chase. Those cravings we still feel are usually part of our desire to either control, manipulate, or suppress feelings with us. We use foods as drugs to give us power over what we feel...except the power is a lie. We can distract ourselves from what we feel temporarily, but it gives us no power over the feelings.
Feelings are the vital internal feedback that is designed to let us know what is working and what isn't. We are not supposed to mess with them, we need them to guide our life. I am not talking about our ego protecting reactions to life - those we are designed to learn to moderate. I am talking about primary feeling relationships with life. Any attempt to control, manipulate, or suppress these will cost you your health. I will discuss more about true feelings and how to relate to life in future issues.
We tend to think that our bowel movements are just the leftovers from what we ate…not true. The most important component of your bowel movements are the toxic breakdown products of your body’s chemistry. Your liver gathers these poisons, breaks them down, and excretes them into your small intestine. Here is why fiber is so critical. These poisons have to bind to various fibers to be carried out of the body to be eliminated. If there is insufficient fiber, these poisons will be re-absorbed back into your bloodstream. Fiber carries out the poisonous trash of your body.
Our ancestors regularly ate 100 to 200 grams of fiber a day. The average American is lucky if he gets 10 to 15 grams of fiber daily. We have processed out the fiber from our diet. Very little fiber means we are gradually being poisoned from the inside out. Where do we get fiber? You guessed it, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and legumes. For those that can tolerate them, whole grains (and that means actually eating the whole grain, not some flour that gas been allowed to sit around for hours or days and gone rancid) are also a good source.
The answer is fasting. For 20+ years I fasted every Thursday night to Saturday morning on water only. This simple little addition to your lifestyle can make a world of difference in your total health. Many people are challenged with the idea of not eating for any length of time. For myself my first water fast was tremendously liberating. I took in water only for 2 weeks when I was a freshman in college. I was astounded by how easy this was after the first 3 days. I still attended all my classes and even went to the dinning commons with my friends, but had no desire for food. It was very freeing to break the hold food had on my life.
We have talked about the many poisons to avoid in your diet in this health challenge series. But even healthy, clean, organic food can become a poison if your digestive system can not work properly because you are stressed while you eat. For this reason the feeling environment you are in when you eat is very important. Mealtime must be a time of relaxation and peace so your parasympathetic nervous system can take over and maximize your digestion ability. Mealtime must be a happy time.
Turn off your TV. Put aside the paper. Sit down and relax. Enjoy your food and the company you are with. This will support your body as it engages the complexities of turning food into you.
Protein stimulates your brain making you more awake. Most of us prefer to be awake in the morning. Carbohydrates slow us down and make us sleepy. They are the worst foods to eat in the morning. Completely avoid breakfast carb foods like pastries, cereals, doughnuts, and other surgary foods. Most people can't tolerate them any time, and those that can would do best only using them late in the day. Avoid heavy protein meals late in the day as they interfere with good sleep. The end of the day is better for your light protein and vegetable meal or your low glycemic pasta or legume based meal.
Walking stimulates good bowel peristaltic movement. This is the proper squishy-squeezy movement of the intestines that keeps stuff moving along. A nice 15 to 20 minute walk after you have finished a meal does wonders for your health by stimulating good bowel movement. We are not talking about power walking here, but casual walking. The goal is to keep the relaxed attitude from the meal and engage a little light walking with the same relaxed feeling. Try it, your body will like it.
We focus a lot on healthy eating as a health challenges. Just as important as eating is your ability to get that healthy nutrition to the cells that need it. That requires good circulation. Your body is the ultimate energy efficiency machine. Any part of your body that you are not using regularly, your body will tear down and use the components somewhere else. This conserves energy and resources. Unfortunately this applies strongly to muscles and blood vessels. Just two weeks lying in bed will cost you half of your muscle tone – tone that will not come back unless you force it to do so. The blood vessels that bring nutrition to your body cells also come and go depending on need.
The real purpose of healthy eating is so that you feel good and are able to do what you want and need to do to live life fully. Because of this energy efficiency in your body, your body will only provide you with the minimum necessary tone and circulation to get you through your average day. The extra strength, tone, and oxygen carrying circulation you need to be able to play on the weekend won’t be there if you don’t tell the body you need that extra on a more regular basis than 1 day on the weekend.
Movement is also necessary to flush the toxic waste byproducts of normal cell functioning out of the tissues to be processed. This makes good circulation critical so that our own bodily wastes do not poison us. To feel healthy we need our basic tone, strength, and circulation to be operating at a level much higher than the bare minimum necessary for just surviving. Because of the “minimum necessary” rule in the body, to feel healthy we have to regularly push the body’s needs to much higher levels than our usual and customary to establish a high enough minimum that we can feel energized and healthy all the time.
What does that mean? It means exercising each part of your body you want to feel good to its limits every 3 to 4 days. If you want to be able to breathe as you get older you need to push you breathing capacity to its limits twice a week. Breathing capacity is one of the strongest predictors of long you will live. If you want to be able to walk as you age you need to push your lower body muscles to the limit twice a week. Body movement is one of the strongest workouts available for your brain as well. It takes a lot of brainpower to coordinate body activity.
So am I saying you need to be a super jock with memberships to 3 different gyms to be healthy? No. Everything you need you already have in your home right now. All you need is a few feet of floor space, your body, and gravity. Do you need hours and hours of time? No. An hour a week will cover the high intensity basics. With more time you expand your capabilities, but an intense hour a week is the minimum. Building endurance adds an extra 30 to 60 minutes a day of an activity like walking. Sorry, but this is minimum required maintenance for living in a human body. Eat right and move it or lose it.
The science is in and long hours of aerobic workouts are not good for you. Unless you are getting paid to do it, don’t go there. Long aerobic workouts actually make your heart weaker, damage your blood vessels, and encourage your body to store more fat to use as energy during the long workouts. (You burn up all your stored sugar in the first 10 to 15 minutes – when you tell your body you are going to need fat to burn on a regular basis, it will store more fat.)
The best way to maintain your body in a healthy, ready to serve you manner is with something called interval training and maximum burst weight training. This advice is for regular folks, not for the specific needs of various sports or heavy labor professions.
Be sure to stretch out your muscles before engaging your interval training to prevent injuries.
With interval training the goal is to move your body as fast as you can for 15 to 60 seconds then rest for 1 to 2 minutes, and repeat this cycle 3 to 6 times. The entire workout will generally take 10 to 15 minutes. The objective is to get your heart rate pumped up in short spurts until it reaches maximum functional capacity. Functional capacity in this case means that your heart rate stays elevated for the 60 seconds right after you stop your activity burst. If your heart is able to recover and your heart rate drops by 10 to 20 beats after 60 seconds then your body is ready for another interval of rapid movement.
How high do you want your heart rate to go? Count your number of heartbeats for 15 seconds immediately after stopping the intense phase, then again for 15 seconds one minute later. The commonly accepted 15 second level is based on your age – age 30 would be 38 to 43, age 40 would be 36 to 40, age 50 would be 33 to 38, age 60 would be 32 to 36, and age 70 would be 30 to 33. After 1 minute recheck your heart rate. If it drops by 3 to 5 beats then go another round of rapid exercise and retest.
Generally you will reach a point in your training process where your heart rate does not drop down within 3 to 5 cycles of exercise and rest. If not, then it is time to increase the number of seconds you do your rapid exercise. Start at only 15 seconds of rapid movement and 1 to 2 minutes of slow movement while you check your heart rate. As your conditioning improves you will gradually increase your rapid exercise interval to 60 seconds. This is much easier to do on fancy gym equipment that has sensors that measure your heart rate as you are working out. In the gym the treadmill, stationary bikes, stair steppers, and my personal favorite the elliptical machines all work well for interval training.
After you have gone to all the effort of checking your heart rate a few times you will probably be able to tell how hard you have worked out and whether you have recovered enough to go another round just by how hard you are breathing.
Your body is very energy efficient. Any tissue that burns a lot of energy that you are not using, your body will break down and use it elsewhere. Muscles use a lot of energy just sitting there. Consequently your body is always keeping track of just how much you use and need your muscle mass and getting rid of any excess. (Too bad it doesn’t do that for fat.) How does your body know how much muscle you need? It measures just how much microtrauma takes place in your muscles. When you push a muscle to its limit and ask it to do more than it can, little micro tears occur in the muscle. When this happens, the body says, “we need more muscle” and proceeds to build more. When the chemical messengers that are released with this trauma stop being released your body figures it has plenty of muscle and starts tearing it down. This teeter-tooter balance between ‘no enough’ and ‘too much’ is what physiologists call homeostasis. Homeostasis (balance) means health to the body.
One extra piece is needed in this puzzle. The stress hormone cortisol suppresses muscle building. That means that too much muscle stress from too much microtrauma actually stops muscle building. So…
How to build muscle strength:
To build muscle mass and strength you have to push your muscles to do more than they are capable of just long enough to produce a little bit of microtrauma but not too much.
For average people that looks like this. Contract or extend the muscle you want to build against resistance. The amount of resistance should be just enough to push the muscle to failure somewhere between the 7th and 12th push. When I say “push to failure” what I mean is that as you are pushing your muscle just can’t push any longer or further. It will start to tremble and then begin to fail. For average people pushing to failure just once with each muscle group twice a week is all that is needed. The muscle needs a couple of days to rebuild after the microtrauma and it needs proper nutrition to rebuild with. Muscles are made of amino acids and need them to repair themselves. It has been found that the optimal time to flood the system with good amino acids from protein is about 15 minutes after the workout…so have a nice protein shake after your workout.
Your whole muscle building workout might only take 20 minutes twice a week. Alternate muscle building with another 20 minutes twice a week doing interval training for lung capacity and cardiovascular tone and you have the some of the best health insurance you can get.