"As a culture, we have confused velocity with accomplishment". We "run" ourselves ragged. Convinced that if we just do more and go faster we will succeed, we often lose the pulse of our own lives. We can find it again by slowing down and walking."
-- Julia Cameron from "The Vein of Gold"
Time pressure starts to subside when we shift to the heart to find quality of mood and ease. It's our unmanaged emotions that turn time into an opponent and make life a rat race. Managing time with the heart is the ultimate time management tool.
-- Doc Childre ~ HeartMath
LIVING YOUR BEST LIFE ~ Our goal is to provide valuable information on health and healing and the mind-body-spirit connection ~ Health is an active pursuit, not a passive result. Our life today is a direct result of the choices that we have made in the past. We hope to empower and help you make enlightened choices on your journey to better health.
The Intelligent Heart
This is an amazing book..... life changing
According to the authors of "The Intelligent Heart", David & Bruce McArthur
"The laws of love increase happiness, heal sorrow and regret, and bond people in healthy, life-enhancing relationships. Friends, lovers, parents, children, co-workers, and strangers will all be affected by your use of these simple yet powerful laws of love.
A simple five-step process is all it takes to change your heart. Scientific evidence from the HeartMath Institutes electrophysiology lab reveals that your EKG (heart rhythm) physically changes as you apply these simple laws. Happiness and health are within your reach each day, in any situation.
Free yourself of those heart-matters that age you. Whether a parent, spouse, or friend, you can be young-at-heart and happy in life."
.
According to the authors of "The Intelligent Heart", David & Bruce McArthur
"The laws of love increase happiness, heal sorrow and regret, and bond people in healthy, life-enhancing relationships. Friends, lovers, parents, children, co-workers, and strangers will all be affected by your use of these simple yet powerful laws of love.
A simple five-step process is all it takes to change your heart. Scientific evidence from the HeartMath Institutes electrophysiology lab reveals that your EKG (heart rhythm) physically changes as you apply these simple laws. Happiness and health are within your reach each day, in any situation.
Free yourself of those heart-matters that age you. Whether a parent, spouse, or friend, you can be young-at-heart and happy in life."
.
The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast
December 15, 2010, 12:01 am
Phys Ed: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
The holiday season brings many joys and, unfortunately, many countervailing dietary pitfalls. Even the fittest and most disciplined of us can succumb, indulging in more fat and calories than at any other time of the year. The health consequences, if the behavior is unchecked, can be swift and worrying. A recent study by scientists in Australia found that after only three days, an extremely high-fat, high-calorie diet can lead to increased blood sugar and insulin resistance, potentially increasing the risk for Type 2 diabetes. Waistlines also can expand at this time of year, prompting self-recrimination and unrealistic New Year’s resolutions.
But a new study published in The Journal of Physiology suggests a more reliable and far simpler response. Run or bicycle before breakfast. Exercising in the morning, before eating, the study results show, seems to significantly lessen the ill effects of holiday Bacchanalias.
For the study, researchers in Belgium recruited 28 healthy, active young men and began stuffing them with a truly lousy diet, composed of 50 percent fat and 30 percent more calories, overall, than the men had been consuming. Some of the men agreed not to exercise during the experiment. The rest were assigned to one of two exercise groups. The groups’ regimens were identical and exhausting. The men worked out four times a week in the mornings, running and cycling at a strenuous intensity. Two of the sessions lasted 90 minutes, the others, an hour. All of the workouts were supervised, so the energy expenditure of the two groups was identical.
Their early-morning routines, however, were not. One of the groups ate a hefty, carbohydrate-rich breakfast before exercising and continued to ingest carbohydrates, in the form of something like a sports drink, throughout their workouts. The second group worked out without eating first and drank only water during the training. They made up for their abstinence with breakfast later that morning, comparable in calories to the other group’s trencherman portions.
The experiment lasted for six weeks. At the end, the nonexercising group was, to no one’s surprise, super-sized, having packed on an average of more than six pounds. They had also developed insulin resistance — their muscles were no longer responding well to insulin and weren’t pulling sugar (or, more technically, glucose) out of the bloodstream efficiently — and they had begun storing extra fat within and between their muscle cells. Both insulin resistance and fat-marbled muscles are metabolically unhealthy conditions that can be precursors of diabetes.
The men who ate breakfast before exercising gained weight, too, although only about half as much as the control group. Like those sedentary big eaters, however, they had become more insulin-resistant and were storing a greater amount of fat in their muscles.
Only the group that exercised before breakfast gained almost no weight and showed no signs of insulin resistance. They also burned the fat they were taking in more efficiently. “Our current data,” the study’s authors wrote, “indicate that exercise training in the fasted state is more effective than exercise in the carbohydrate-fed state to stimulate glucose tolerance despite a hypercaloric high-fat diet.”
Just how exercising before breakfast blunts the deleterious effects of overindulging is not completely understood, although this study points toward several intriguing explanations. For one, as has been known for some time, exercising in a fasted state (usually possible only before breakfast), coaxes the body to burn a greater percentage of fat for fuel during vigorous exercise, instead of relying primarily on carbohydrates. When you burn fat, you obviously don’t store it in your muscles. In “our study, only the fasted group demonstrated beneficial metabolic adaptations, which eventually may enhance oxidative fatty acid turnover,” said Peter Hespel, Ph.D., a professor in the Research Center for Exercise and Health at Catholic University Leuven in Belgium and senior author of the study.
At the same time, the fasting group showed increased levels of a muscle protein that “is responsible for insulin-stimulated glucose transport in muscle and thus plays a pivotal role in regulation of insulin sensitivity,” Dr Hespel said.
In other words, working out before breakfast directly combated the two most detrimental effects of eating a high-fat, high-calorie diet. It also helped the men avoid gaining weight.
There are caveats, of course. Exercising on an empty stomach is unlikely to improve your performance during that workout. Carbohydrates are easier for working muscles to access and burn for energy than fat, which is why athletes typically eat a high-carbohydrate diet. The researchers also don’t know whether the same benefits will accrue if you exercise at a more leisurely pace and for less time than in this study, although, according to Leonie Heilbronn, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who has extensively studied the effects of high-fat diets and wrote a commentary about the Belgian study, “I would predict low intensity is better than nothing.”
So, unpleasant as the prospect may be, set your alarm after the next Christmas party to wake you early enough that you can run before sitting down to breakfast. “I would recommend this,” Dr. Heilbronn concluded, “as a way of combating Christmas” and those insidiously delectable cookies.
Phys Ed: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
The holiday season brings many joys and, unfortunately, many countervailing dietary pitfalls. Even the fittest and most disciplined of us can succumb, indulging in more fat and calories than at any other time of the year. The health consequences, if the behavior is unchecked, can be swift and worrying. A recent study by scientists in Australia found that after only three days, an extremely high-fat, high-calorie diet can lead to increased blood sugar and insulin resistance, potentially increasing the risk for Type 2 diabetes. Waistlines also can expand at this time of year, prompting self-recrimination and unrealistic New Year’s resolutions.
But a new study published in The Journal of Physiology suggests a more reliable and far simpler response. Run or bicycle before breakfast. Exercising in the morning, before eating, the study results show, seems to significantly lessen the ill effects of holiday Bacchanalias.
For the study, researchers in Belgium recruited 28 healthy, active young men and began stuffing them with a truly lousy diet, composed of 50 percent fat and 30 percent more calories, overall, than the men had been consuming. Some of the men agreed not to exercise during the experiment. The rest were assigned to one of two exercise groups. The groups’ regimens were identical and exhausting. The men worked out four times a week in the mornings, running and cycling at a strenuous intensity. Two of the sessions lasted 90 minutes, the others, an hour. All of the workouts were supervised, so the energy expenditure of the two groups was identical.
Their early-morning routines, however, were not. One of the groups ate a hefty, carbohydrate-rich breakfast before exercising and continued to ingest carbohydrates, in the form of something like a sports drink, throughout their workouts. The second group worked out without eating first and drank only water during the training. They made up for their abstinence with breakfast later that morning, comparable in calories to the other group’s trencherman portions.
The experiment lasted for six weeks. At the end, the nonexercising group was, to no one’s surprise, super-sized, having packed on an average of more than six pounds. They had also developed insulin resistance — their muscles were no longer responding well to insulin and weren’t pulling sugar (or, more technically, glucose) out of the bloodstream efficiently — and they had begun storing extra fat within and between their muscle cells. Both insulin resistance and fat-marbled muscles are metabolically unhealthy conditions that can be precursors of diabetes.
The men who ate breakfast before exercising gained weight, too, although only about half as much as the control group. Like those sedentary big eaters, however, they had become more insulin-resistant and were storing a greater amount of fat in their muscles.
Only the group that exercised before breakfast gained almost no weight and showed no signs of insulin resistance. They also burned the fat they were taking in more efficiently. “Our current data,” the study’s authors wrote, “indicate that exercise training in the fasted state is more effective than exercise in the carbohydrate-fed state to stimulate glucose tolerance despite a hypercaloric high-fat diet.”
Just how exercising before breakfast blunts the deleterious effects of overindulging is not completely understood, although this study points toward several intriguing explanations. For one, as has been known for some time, exercising in a fasted state (usually possible only before breakfast), coaxes the body to burn a greater percentage of fat for fuel during vigorous exercise, instead of relying primarily on carbohydrates. When you burn fat, you obviously don’t store it in your muscles. In “our study, only the fasted group demonstrated beneficial metabolic adaptations, which eventually may enhance oxidative fatty acid turnover,” said Peter Hespel, Ph.D., a professor in the Research Center for Exercise and Health at Catholic University Leuven in Belgium and senior author of the study.
At the same time, the fasting group showed increased levels of a muscle protein that “is responsible for insulin-stimulated glucose transport in muscle and thus plays a pivotal role in regulation of insulin sensitivity,” Dr Hespel said.
In other words, working out before breakfast directly combated the two most detrimental effects of eating a high-fat, high-calorie diet. It also helped the men avoid gaining weight.
There are caveats, of course. Exercising on an empty stomach is unlikely to improve your performance during that workout. Carbohydrates are easier for working muscles to access and burn for energy than fat, which is why athletes typically eat a high-carbohydrate diet. The researchers also don’t know whether the same benefits will accrue if you exercise at a more leisurely pace and for less time than in this study, although, according to Leonie Heilbronn, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who has extensively studied the effects of high-fat diets and wrote a commentary about the Belgian study, “I would predict low intensity is better than nothing.”
So, unpleasant as the prospect may be, set your alarm after the next Christmas party to wake you early enough that you can run before sitting down to breakfast. “I would recommend this,” Dr. Heilbronn concluded, “as a way of combating Christmas” and those insidiously delectable cookies.
Food Journals Double Weight Loss
It's All About Accountability and Awareness
Miranda HittiWebMD Health News Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
July 8, 2008 -- Keeping a food diary may be a key to losing extra weight, a new study shows.
The study, published in the August edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, included 1,685 overweight or obese U.S. adults aged 25 and older.
For six months, they kept food diaries and were encouraged to eat a healthy diet and be physically active. They also met weekly in groups to share their food diaries and brush up on skills like how to judge portion size.
After six months, participants had shed almost 13 pounds, on average. The most powerful predictor of their weight loss was how many days per week they kept their food diary, says Victor Stevens, PhD, senior investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore.
Those who kept food records six days a week -- jotting down everything they ate and drank on those days -- lost about twice as much weight as those who kept food records one day a week or less, Stevens tells WebMD.
Why Food Diaries Work
"I think the most powerful part is accountability and the next most powerful part is increasing awareness of where those extra calories are coming from," says Stevens.
Showing your food diary to someone else is even better, in terms of accountability; that's what participants in Stevens' study did. "You're accountable to yourself when you're writing it down and you're accountable to other people who are looking at your food record," says Stevens.
Food diaries can also help target areas for improvement. For instance, Stevens says a food diary might make someone realize that he or she is eating 1,000 calories at lunch and set a goal to trim lunches.
5 Tips for Keeping a Food Diary
Stevens offers this advice for keeping a food diary:
Write as you go. Don't wait until the end of the day to record what you ate and drank. "We recommend they write it down as soon as they can after they eat," says Stevens.
Focus on portion size. Practice at home with measuring cups, measuring spoons, or food scales. And be aware that people tend to underestimate how much food they're served.
Use whatever type of food diary works for you. It doesn't matter whether you use scrap paper, a personal digital assistant (PDA), or a notebook. What matters is that you use it, says Stevens.
Don't skip your indulgent days. "We encourage people to keep records especially on days when they're tempted to eat," says Stevens. "What gets measured tends to get changed."
Cook at home. You'll have more control over what you consume, and you know what that food contains, and how much of it you're eating. That makes for a more detailed entry in your food diary.
Also, remember that even modest weight loss -- even if it doesn't bring you down to your ideal weight -- may have health benefits, says Stevens.
Miranda HittiWebMD Health News Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
July 8, 2008 -- Keeping a food diary may be a key to losing extra weight, a new study shows.
The study, published in the August edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, included 1,685 overweight or obese U.S. adults aged 25 and older.
For six months, they kept food diaries and were encouraged to eat a healthy diet and be physically active. They also met weekly in groups to share their food diaries and brush up on skills like how to judge portion size.
After six months, participants had shed almost 13 pounds, on average. The most powerful predictor of their weight loss was how many days per week they kept their food diary, says Victor Stevens, PhD, senior investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore.
Those who kept food records six days a week -- jotting down everything they ate and drank on those days -- lost about twice as much weight as those who kept food records one day a week or less, Stevens tells WebMD.
Why Food Diaries Work
"I think the most powerful part is accountability and the next most powerful part is increasing awareness of where those extra calories are coming from," says Stevens.
Showing your food diary to someone else is even better, in terms of accountability; that's what participants in Stevens' study did. "You're accountable to yourself when you're writing it down and you're accountable to other people who are looking at your food record," says Stevens.
Food diaries can also help target areas for improvement. For instance, Stevens says a food diary might make someone realize that he or she is eating 1,000 calories at lunch and set a goal to trim lunches.
5 Tips for Keeping a Food Diary
Stevens offers this advice for keeping a food diary:
Write as you go. Don't wait until the end of the day to record what you ate and drank. "We recommend they write it down as soon as they can after they eat," says Stevens.
Focus on portion size. Practice at home with measuring cups, measuring spoons, or food scales. And be aware that people tend to underestimate how much food they're served.
Use whatever type of food diary works for you. It doesn't matter whether you use scrap paper, a personal digital assistant (PDA), or a notebook. What matters is that you use it, says Stevens.
Don't skip your indulgent days. "We encourage people to keep records especially on days when they're tempted to eat," says Stevens. "What gets measured tends to get changed."
Cook at home. You'll have more control over what you consume, and you know what that food contains, and how much of it you're eating. That makes for a more detailed entry in your food diary.
Also, remember that even modest weight loss -- even if it doesn't bring you down to your ideal weight -- may have health benefits, says Stevens.
Slow and Steady
Here is something to think about........
According to Garbrielle Reece, who writes for Yahoo Health, you don't have to make the change all at once.
Gabrielle
says, "I love it when people wake up one day and say, "That's it. No
sugar, pasta, bread, alcohol. I'm going to work out 18 hours a week, and
no more fun."
I
wonder if it occurs to them that this approach may be one of the
reasons they don't make it to the second week. Granted, for a small
percentage of individuals out there, this works. However, for the rest
of us flesh and blood humans, change is difficult.How about we approach the change with a slow and steady strategy?
1. Write down what changes you want to make in your day-to-day lifestyle.
2. Make a list of foods that you can't live without and foods that you are willing to give up.
3.
Figure out what forms of exercise are attractive to you, that you
relate to, and that you can see yourself participating in on a regular
basis.
4. Create some goals.
- lose weight
- have more energy
- exercise 3-4 times a week
- go out and do something fun, just for you, once a week
- read more
- laugh with your family
- be more spontaneous
- take that risk you have been contemplating
OK, you get my point. These are just ideas, but make it your own list.
After
you've written all of this information down, start to create your
strategy. If you can't live without pasta, then start slow. Don't go
cold turkey but try to eat it less often. If you eat it three times a
week, then make a vow to only eat it once. You could even begin by
"substituting" healthier alternatives (e.g., rice pasta). If you can't
live without five diet sodas a day, switch to an unsweetened tea and
only have one soda a day.
Are
you sedentary right now? Well don't start hitting the gym 5 days a week
and kill yourself. Begin with walking and doing little things at home
with light weights, and then start heading to the gym. Start by taking a
few classes and lifting 2 times a week. You don't need to begin by
going 2 hours a day -- start with 30 minutes.
How
does that sound? I know you can make the changes. Just have a real plan
to support you while going through the process. I like the idea of
keeping a journal and writing it all down.
If
you are up for it, you could even create a calendar to keep track of
all of the changes -- what activities you're doing, what foods you are
or aren't eating. This way, the change will not only become obvious in
you, but you'll be able to track how far you've come.
Hummmmmmmm........... this is definitely something to consider.
Hummmmmmmm........... this is definitely something to consider.
Flax and Fat Flush
From The Complete Fat Flush Program (Gittleman)
by Ann Louise Gittleman
Benefits of Flax
______________________________________________________
One of the key elements of the Fat Flush Plan is flax seed. I recommend daily consumption of both flax seed oil and ground flax seeds. Why? Because flax seeds offer amazing benefits for nearly every system in the body!
For example, flax:
Acts to raise the metabolism and helps carry oil- soluble poisons out of the body.
Stimulates bile production (and bile is essential for the breakdown of fats).
Creates a feeling of fullness, keeping the appetite at bay.
Promotes glowing skin, shiny hair and strong nails.
Improves the body's absorption of calcium.
Helps reenergize fatigued muscles.
Contains the marvelous omega-3 essential fatty acids. (These fatty acids are not produced by the body yet the body can't live without them!)
Alleviates certain allergy and asthma symptoms.
Serves as a great remedy for perimenopausal symptoms, especially skin conditions, depression and fatigue.
Improves immune function, protects against heart disease and improves male fertility. It also fights cancer, lowers cholesterol levels and makes insulin more effective!
Flax Facts
Flax is a plant whose seeds provide exceptional nutrition and whose stalks are used to produce linen fabric.
Flax plants grow in most areas around the globe- except for areas of extreme heat or brutal cold.
People have always valued flax. The Latin name for flax means "most useful".
In ancient times, flax plants were thought to be blessed. They had the power to generate good luck, restore health and guard against witchcraft.
Flax was often the first crop planted by the Colonists after they settled in North America.
by Ann Louise Gittleman
Benefits of Flax
______________________________________________________
One of the key elements of the Fat Flush Plan is flax seed. I recommend daily consumption of both flax seed oil and ground flax seeds. Why? Because flax seeds offer amazing benefits for nearly every system in the body!
For example, flax:
Acts to raise the metabolism and helps carry oil- soluble poisons out of the body.
Stimulates bile production (and bile is essential for the breakdown of fats).
Creates a feeling of fullness, keeping the appetite at bay.
Promotes glowing skin, shiny hair and strong nails.
Improves the body's absorption of calcium.
Helps reenergize fatigued muscles.
Contains the marvelous omega-3 essential fatty acids. (These fatty acids are not produced by the body yet the body can't live without them!)
Alleviates certain allergy and asthma symptoms.
Serves as a great remedy for perimenopausal symptoms, especially skin conditions, depression and fatigue.
Improves immune function, protects against heart disease and improves male fertility. It also fights cancer, lowers cholesterol levels and makes insulin more effective!
Flax Facts
Flax is a plant whose seeds provide exceptional nutrition and whose stalks are used to produce linen fabric.
Flax plants grow in most areas around the globe- except for areas of extreme heat or brutal cold.
People have always valued flax. The Latin name for flax means "most useful".
In ancient times, flax plants were thought to be blessed. They had the power to generate good luck, restore health and guard against witchcraft.
Flax was often the first crop planted by the Colonists after they settled in North America.
Meet the 5 Flat Belly Foods
These ingredients hold the power to truly transform your body, not to mention lengthen your life. The secret is their magical "MUFA" (Aka good fat!)
To the ancient Greeks, olive oil was liquid gold. For the Aztecs, chocolate was sacred. Almonds were prized by Egypt's pharaohs, and avocados have symbolized fertility for centuries. These can't-live-without-'em foods share more than history; they also share unique health properties. They're packed with monounsaturated fatty acids (also known as MUFAs, pronounced MOO-fahs), those good-for-you fats that protect you from chronic disease and, according to new research, can help you lose fat, specifically around your middle. That's why they're at the heart of the Flat Belly Diet, a unique Prevention-tested weight loss plan.
There are five major categories of MUFAs: (1) oils, (2) nuts and seeds, (3) avocado, (4) olives, and (5) chocolate. Eating one serving of any of these foods at every meal will help reduce your accumulation of dangerous belly fat; control your calorie intake and you'll lose inches and pounds, too--especially around your waistline. These mouth-watering recipes make it easy. Each portion contains high levels of MUFA, plus serving suggestions that allow you to create a meal that contains around 400 calories--enough to control your hunger and boost your energy without exceeding your daily needs. You can easily fit these meals into the Flat Belly Diet menu plans, but even if you're not following the diet, you can still enjoy the rich flavor of MUFAs and their numerous health benefits. For centuries, these foods and fats have been hard to resist.
1. Oils
Pick your MUFA: Canola oil, flaxseed oil, olive oil, peanut oil, pesto sauce, safflower oil, sesame oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, walnut oil
Use them like this: Stir-fry with sesame, peanut, or canola oil; pan-fry in walnut or olive oil; spread pesto on a sandwich, drizzle it over soups or grilled foods, or toss it with rice or pasta; add walnut, sesame, or olive oil to marinades; cook with safflower, soybean, or sunflower oil; use flaxseed oil in salad dressings (flaxseed oil cannot be used for cooking)
A serving equals: 1 tablespoon
2. Nuts & Seeds
Pick your MUFA: Almonds, almond butter, Brazil nuts, cashew butter, chunky natural peanut butter, dry-roasted cashews, dry-roasted peanuts, dry-roasted sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, roasted pumpkin seeds, smooth natural peanut butter, sunflower seeds, sunflower seed butter, tahini (sesame seed paste), walnuts
Use them like this: Eat these foods as a snack; sprinkle on a salad; crush and use as a crunchy topping for fish and chicken (dip fish or chicken in lightly beaten egg white to help nuts adhere); spread nut butters on crackers, bread, or fruit; stir nut butters into soups and sauces to add body and flavor
A serving equals: 2 tablespoons
3. Avocado
Pick your MUFA: Florida avocado, Hass avocado
Use them like this: Slice and serve with a salad or any entrée; mash with lime juice, salt, and pepper and serve with chips; chop and fold into store-bought salsa
A serving equals: 1/4 cup
4. Olives
Pick your MUFA: Black olives, black olive tapenade, green olives, green olive tapenade
Use them like this: Serve olives as a snack; sprinkle sliced olives on pizzas, salads, or pastas; spread tapenade on crackers or sandwiches; stuff tapenade into chicken breasts or fish fillets
A serving equals: 10 large olives or 2 tablespoons of tapenade
Make a MUFA meal with olives:
5. Chocolate
Pick your MUFA: Dark or semisweet chocolate chips, shavings, or chunks
Use them like this: Any way you crave!
A serving equals: 1/4 cup
These ingredients hold the power to truly transform your body, not to mention lengthen your life. The secret is their magical "MUFA" (Aka good fat!)
To the ancient Greeks, olive oil was liquid gold. For the Aztecs, chocolate was sacred. Almonds were prized by Egypt's pharaohs, and avocados have symbolized fertility for centuries. These can't-live-without-'em foods share more than history; they also share unique health properties. They're packed with monounsaturated fatty acids (also known as MUFAs, pronounced MOO-fahs), those good-for-you fats that protect you from chronic disease and, according to new research, can help you lose fat, specifically around your middle. That's why they're at the heart of the Flat Belly Diet, a unique Prevention-tested weight loss plan.
There are five major categories of MUFAs: (1) oils, (2) nuts and seeds, (3) avocado, (4) olives, and (5) chocolate. Eating one serving of any of these foods at every meal will help reduce your accumulation of dangerous belly fat; control your calorie intake and you'll lose inches and pounds, too--especially around your waistline. These mouth-watering recipes make it easy. Each portion contains high levels of MUFA, plus serving suggestions that allow you to create a meal that contains around 400 calories--enough to control your hunger and boost your energy without exceeding your daily needs. You can easily fit these meals into the Flat Belly Diet menu plans, but even if you're not following the diet, you can still enjoy the rich flavor of MUFAs and their numerous health benefits. For centuries, these foods and fats have been hard to resist.
1. Oils
Pick your MUFA: Canola oil, flaxseed oil, olive oil, peanut oil, pesto sauce, safflower oil, sesame oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, walnut oil
Use them like this: Stir-fry with sesame, peanut, or canola oil; pan-fry in walnut or olive oil; spread pesto on a sandwich, drizzle it over soups or grilled foods, or toss it with rice or pasta; add walnut, sesame, or olive oil to marinades; cook with safflower, soybean, or sunflower oil; use flaxseed oil in salad dressings (flaxseed oil cannot be used for cooking)
A serving equals: 1 tablespoon
2. Nuts & Seeds
Pick your MUFA: Almonds, almond butter, Brazil nuts, cashew butter, chunky natural peanut butter, dry-roasted cashews, dry-roasted peanuts, dry-roasted sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, roasted pumpkin seeds, smooth natural peanut butter, sunflower seeds, sunflower seed butter, tahini (sesame seed paste), walnuts
Use them like this: Eat these foods as a snack; sprinkle on a salad; crush and use as a crunchy topping for fish and chicken (dip fish or chicken in lightly beaten egg white to help nuts adhere); spread nut butters on crackers, bread, or fruit; stir nut butters into soups and sauces to add body and flavor
A serving equals: 2 tablespoons
3. Avocado
Pick your MUFA: Florida avocado, Hass avocado
Use them like this: Slice and serve with a salad or any entrée; mash with lime juice, salt, and pepper and serve with chips; chop and fold into store-bought salsa
A serving equals: 1/4 cup
4. Olives
Pick your MUFA: Black olives, black olive tapenade, green olives, green olive tapenade
Use them like this: Serve olives as a snack; sprinkle sliced olives on pizzas, salads, or pastas; spread tapenade on crackers or sandwiches; stuff tapenade into chicken breasts or fish fillets
A serving equals: 10 large olives or 2 tablespoons of tapenade
Make a MUFA meal with olives:
5. Chocolate
Pick your MUFA: Dark or semisweet chocolate chips, shavings, or chunks
Use them like this: Any way you crave!
A serving equals: 1/4 cup
Searching for the Truth About Dietary Fat
The Pathways To Health
Searching for the Truth about Dietary Fats and Health
Written by Noni Kaufman, ANA Nutraceutical Consultant, Wellness Educator
"A massive crusade has been conceived to ‘lower your cholesterol count’ by rigidly restricting dietary fat, coupled with aggressive drug treatment. The public is so brainwashed, that many people believe that the lower your cholesterol, the healthier you will be or the longer you will live. Nothing could be further from the truth." -- Dr. Paul J. Rosch, President of the American Institute of Stress, Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at New York Medical College.
I recently attended a lecture by Sally Fallon, co-author of Eat Fat Lose Fat and co-author of cookbook Nourishing Traditions* with Mary Enig, Ph.D. Her talk entitled "The Oiling of America" filled in many gaps for me about why there has been so much confusion about fats and oils. The bottom line diet recommendation from her talk: If we eat a traditional diet like our ancestors--including animal fats, foods rich in saturated fats, such as coconut oil, we have a better chance of a long healthy life than if we follow the "Prudent Diet" which was launched in 1956 advocating a low fat diet including the substitution of margarine instead of butter and cereals instead of eggs.
Please read this summary and refer to the links and books provided to learn more. The subject of dietary fats is important to understand so that you can make healthy choices for you and your family. We have been educated with false information about fats for a very long time, and now, actually, over the last several years, we are being exposed to more of the truth, albeit difficult to sort out at times due to the extent of misinformation. This overall problem seems to come from misuse of scientific data and inquiry to support the edible oil industry's agenda over the last fifty years.
Why are so many people confused about fats in their diets? Why does the popular South Beach Diet book recommend against eating saturated fats? Why so much emphasis on lowering cholesterol and eating a low fat diet when we need fats to properly grow and develop, support immunity, process fatty acids, support the integrity of our cell membranes, have our brains function properly, etc. ?
What Fallon shared with us the other night was the story of "The Oiling of America," written by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D. in 1999 and published in Nexus Magazine. It was a revealing and amazing story about the history of the move from the traditional diet to the "Prudent Diet" as the leaders in the edible oil industry with their connections to FDA officials misguided public opinion to dramatically change our diets. This has been a terrible scam perpetrated on the American public over the last fifty years.
Cut and paste the following link into your browser to read the entire story of "The Oiling of America": http://easydiagnosis.com/articles/oiling.html
To sum up what I learned from Fallon's talk and reading Enig's article: in the 1950's as the incidence of Heart Disease was climbing, there was a search for key causal factors. Some scientific studies held the hypothesis that eating saturated fats was the key contributing factor to high cholesterol levels and a high risk of coronary heart disease. This hypothesis is highly suspect since the incidence of heart disease had been climbing in the first half of the 1900’s while saturated fat consumption had been falling!
This hypothesis was referred to as the lipid hypothesis, namely that saturated fat and cholesterol from animal sources raise cholesterol levels in the blood, leading to deposition of cholesterol and fatty material as pathogenic plaques in the arteries.
Some of the people who were heavily invested in the edible oil industry began promoting this theory and producing expensive studies that supposedly proved their hypothesis. The problem was that the scientific data was often altered by grouping data incorrectly, choosing only data points that supported their hypotheses, or drawing conclusions that didn't support their findings. Also, studies that concluded that there was no link between saturated fats and coronary heart disease and especially data that those who had eaten low cholesterol diets died earlier were kept suppressed. To read more, get The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, Ph.D. and the article, "The Oiling of America."
Scientists who reported evidence contrary to the lipid hypothesis were harassed and threatened with loss of funding. This happened to Mary Enig who, after publishing her findings about fats in an obscure journal in 1978, was visited by the oil industry leaders and told that her funding would be taken away. Enig’s research continued to come under attack for many years. Many other researchers declined to pursue their interests in dietary fats because they knew no funding would be available to support research that might oppose the lipid hypothesis.
Another subject of misinformation were cholesterol levels indicating risk of heart disease which were set by self-appointed experts at the 1984 Cholesterol Consensus Conference where they set the level of 200 as the risk marker, which implied most Americans were at risk. The American Medical Association in the 1960’s, refuted the lipid hypothesis. Enig quotes from their warning: "the anti-fat, anti-cholesterol fad is not just foolish and futile. . . it also carries some risk." In the 1980’s, the physicians were sent kits to educate them about the supposed high risks of heart disease for cholesterol counts. In the early 1990’s the standard recommendation for children above two years of age was a low fat, low cholesterol diet.
Fallon argues convincingly that this misguided science and promotion of low cholesterol diets has proven to be genocidal dietary advice to Americans and has extended itself around the world as other countries mimic the low fat diets and eating fast foods. A part of this global adoption of processed foods includes the participation of Peter Barton Hutt, a lawyer with ties to the edible oil industry. In the early 1970's, Hutt became the General Counsel for the FDA and on his own authority changed the rules about food labeling in 1973. What Hutt put into practice was a policy whereby food manufacturers no longer had to state they were producing imitation foods. This opened the flood gates for processed foods in the United States.
Enig explains "The new imitation policy meant that imitation sour cream, made with vegetable oil and fillers like guar gum and carrageenan, need not be labeled imitation as long as artificial vitamins were added to bring macro nutrient levels up to the same amounts as those in real sour cream. Coffee creamers, imitation egg mixes, processed cheeses and imitation whipped cream no longer required the imitation label, but could be sold as real and beneficial foods, low in cholesterol and rich in polyunsaturates.
These new regulations were adopted without the consent of Congress, continuing the trend instituted under Nixon in which the White House would use the FDA to promote certain social agendas through government food policies."
Enig goes on to state," The American Medical Association at first opposed the commercialization of the lipid hypothesis and warned that "the anti-fat, anti-cholesterol fad is not just foolish and futile. . . it also carries some risk."
Finally, the medical community succumbed to the marketing tactics of the oil industry and started doing cholesterol screenings and recommending the "Prudent Diet" to lower cholesterol levels and supposedly the risk of heart attack. In 1990, it was recommended that all children 2 years old or older should be put on a low fat, low cholesterol diet. In The Cholesterol Myths, Ravnskov points out that the fatty streaks seen in young children used to promote the lipid hypothesis are false indicators. That is, fatty streaks in the arteries exist in all humans before birth in all populations and carry no predictive relationship to heart disease.
One of Mary Fallon's comments about cholesterol testing at the lecture was, "If your doctor wants to screen for cholesterol, find another doctor!" The data over the last 50 years does NOT support the lipid hypothesis and in fact there is significant data to show there is no relationship between low cholesterol eating and coronary heart disease. Risk levels apparently only start being a slight consideration for men at levels of 350 and above. Fallon also suggested that there is no clear scientific data to validate that there should be concerns about LDL being the "bad cholesterol" that people should consciously be working to lower. (No reference available for this, but there is information about LDL and HDL in The Cholesterol Myths.)
What followed after all the misinformation about oils and cholesterol was the marketing of cholesterol-reducing drugs. When the statin class of drugs was being researched in Japan, the scientists concluded that they were highly toxic and would have no medical applications. The patents were sold to U.S. pharmaceutical companies which produce these drugs like Lipitor that have many serious side effects beyond the fundamental error of stimulating the lowering of cholesterol. Side effects of Lipitor: reduced libido, muscle wasting, neuropathy, cancer, intestinal disease, accidents, slow reaction time, back pain, heart failure, stroke, depression, and suicide. It also inhibits the absorption of CoQ10 that is needed for muscles to function and blocks the absorption of Vitamin A. An ad for Lipitor even states that it has not been shown to prevent heart disease or heart attacks. Consider the increased risks of innocent drivers on the road with the statin drug consumers known to have slower reaction times and increased incidence of accidents.
Enig quotes from one of the Medical Doctors implicated in the spread of false science: " 'Many physicians will see the advantages of using drugs for cholesterol lowering. . ' said Grundy, even though 'a positive benefit/risk ratio for cholesterol-lowering drugs will be difficult to prove.' The cost in the US of cholesterol screening and cholesterol-lowering drugs alone now stands at sixty billion dollars per year, even though a positive risk/benefit ratio for such treatment has never been established. Physicians, however, have 'seen the advantages of using drugs for cholesterol lowering" as a way of creating patients out of healthy people.' "
"George Mann, formerly with the Framingham project, [a long term, large scale study of the lipid hypothesis] possessed neither funding nor patience—he was, in fact, very angry with what he called the Diet/Heart scam. His independent studies of the Masai in Africa, whose diet is extremely rich in cholesterol and saturated fat, and who are virtually free of heart disease, had convinced him that the lipid hypothesis was 'the public health diversion of this century. . . the greatest scam in the history of medicine.' "
The following is a section on the dangers of large amounts of dietary polyunsaturates written by Mary Enig in the Oiling of America." Excess consumption of vegetable oils is especially damaging to the reproductive organs and the lungs—both of which are sites for huge increases in cancer in the US. In test animals, diets high in polyunsaturates from vegetable oils inhibit the ability to learn, especially under conditions of stress; they are toxic to the liver; they compromise the integrity of the immune system; they depress the mental and physical growth of infants; they increase levels of uric acid in the blood; they cause abnormal fatty acid profiles in the adipose tissues; they have been linked to mental decline and chromosomal damage; they accelerate aging.
Excess consumption of polyunsaturates is associated with increasing rates of cancer, heart disease and weight gain; excess use of commercial vegetable oils interferes with the production of prostaglandins leading to an array of complaints ranging from autoimmune disease to PMS. Disruption of prostaglandin production leads to an increased tendency to form blood clots, and hence myocardial infarction, which has reached epidemic levels in America. "
"Vegetable oils are more toxic when heated. One study reported that polyunsaturates turn to varnish in the intestines. A study by a plastic surgeon found that women who consumed mostly vegetable oils had far more wrinkles than those who used traditional animal fats. A 1994 study appearing in the Lancet showed that almost three quarters of the fat in artery clogs is unsaturated. The 'artery clogging' fats are not animal fats but vegetable oils."
Searching for the Truth about Dietary Fats and Health
Written by Noni Kaufman, ANA Nutraceutical Consultant, Wellness Educator
"A massive crusade has been conceived to ‘lower your cholesterol count’ by rigidly restricting dietary fat, coupled with aggressive drug treatment. The public is so brainwashed, that many people believe that the lower your cholesterol, the healthier you will be or the longer you will live. Nothing could be further from the truth." -- Dr. Paul J. Rosch, President of the American Institute of Stress, Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at New York Medical College.
I recently attended a lecture by Sally Fallon, co-author of Eat Fat Lose Fat and co-author of cookbook Nourishing Traditions* with Mary Enig, Ph.D. Her talk entitled "The Oiling of America" filled in many gaps for me about why there has been so much confusion about fats and oils. The bottom line diet recommendation from her talk: If we eat a traditional diet like our ancestors--including animal fats, foods rich in saturated fats, such as coconut oil, we have a better chance of a long healthy life than if we follow the "Prudent Diet" which was launched in 1956 advocating a low fat diet including the substitution of margarine instead of butter and cereals instead of eggs.
Please read this summary and refer to the links and books provided to learn more. The subject of dietary fats is important to understand so that you can make healthy choices for you and your family. We have been educated with false information about fats for a very long time, and now, actually, over the last several years, we are being exposed to more of the truth, albeit difficult to sort out at times due to the extent of misinformation. This overall problem seems to come from misuse of scientific data and inquiry to support the edible oil industry's agenda over the last fifty years.
Why are so many people confused about fats in their diets? Why does the popular South Beach Diet book recommend against eating saturated fats? Why so much emphasis on lowering cholesterol and eating a low fat diet when we need fats to properly grow and develop, support immunity, process fatty acids, support the integrity of our cell membranes, have our brains function properly, etc. ?
What Fallon shared with us the other night was the story of "The Oiling of America," written by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D. in 1999 and published in Nexus Magazine. It was a revealing and amazing story about the history of the move from the traditional diet to the "Prudent Diet" as the leaders in the edible oil industry with their connections to FDA officials misguided public opinion to dramatically change our diets. This has been a terrible scam perpetrated on the American public over the last fifty years.
Cut and paste the following link into your browser to read the entire story of "The Oiling of America": http://easydiagnosis.com/articles/oiling.html
To sum up what I learned from Fallon's talk and reading Enig's article: in the 1950's as the incidence of Heart Disease was climbing, there was a search for key causal factors. Some scientific studies held the hypothesis that eating saturated fats was the key contributing factor to high cholesterol levels and a high risk of coronary heart disease. This hypothesis is highly suspect since the incidence of heart disease had been climbing in the first half of the 1900’s while saturated fat consumption had been falling!
This hypothesis was referred to as the lipid hypothesis, namely that saturated fat and cholesterol from animal sources raise cholesterol levels in the blood, leading to deposition of cholesterol and fatty material as pathogenic plaques in the arteries.
Some of the people who were heavily invested in the edible oil industry began promoting this theory and producing expensive studies that supposedly proved their hypothesis. The problem was that the scientific data was often altered by grouping data incorrectly, choosing only data points that supported their hypotheses, or drawing conclusions that didn't support their findings. Also, studies that concluded that there was no link between saturated fats and coronary heart disease and especially data that those who had eaten low cholesterol diets died earlier were kept suppressed. To read more, get The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, Ph.D. and the article, "The Oiling of America."
Scientists who reported evidence contrary to the lipid hypothesis were harassed and threatened with loss of funding. This happened to Mary Enig who, after publishing her findings about fats in an obscure journal in 1978, was visited by the oil industry leaders and told that her funding would be taken away. Enig’s research continued to come under attack for many years. Many other researchers declined to pursue their interests in dietary fats because they knew no funding would be available to support research that might oppose the lipid hypothesis.
Another subject of misinformation were cholesterol levels indicating risk of heart disease which were set by self-appointed experts at the 1984 Cholesterol Consensus Conference where they set the level of 200 as the risk marker, which implied most Americans were at risk. The American Medical Association in the 1960’s, refuted the lipid hypothesis. Enig quotes from their warning: "the anti-fat, anti-cholesterol fad is not just foolish and futile. . . it also carries some risk." In the 1980’s, the physicians were sent kits to educate them about the supposed high risks of heart disease for cholesterol counts. In the early 1990’s the standard recommendation for children above two years of age was a low fat, low cholesterol diet.
Fallon argues convincingly that this misguided science and promotion of low cholesterol diets has proven to be genocidal dietary advice to Americans and has extended itself around the world as other countries mimic the low fat diets and eating fast foods. A part of this global adoption of processed foods includes the participation of Peter Barton Hutt, a lawyer with ties to the edible oil industry. In the early 1970's, Hutt became the General Counsel for the FDA and on his own authority changed the rules about food labeling in 1973. What Hutt put into practice was a policy whereby food manufacturers no longer had to state they were producing imitation foods. This opened the flood gates for processed foods in the United States.
Enig explains "The new imitation policy meant that imitation sour cream, made with vegetable oil and fillers like guar gum and carrageenan, need not be labeled imitation as long as artificial vitamins were added to bring macro nutrient levels up to the same amounts as those in real sour cream. Coffee creamers, imitation egg mixes, processed cheeses and imitation whipped cream no longer required the imitation label, but could be sold as real and beneficial foods, low in cholesterol and rich in polyunsaturates.
These new regulations were adopted without the consent of Congress, continuing the trend instituted under Nixon in which the White House would use the FDA to promote certain social agendas through government food policies."
Enig goes on to state," The American Medical Association at first opposed the commercialization of the lipid hypothesis and warned that "the anti-fat, anti-cholesterol fad is not just foolish and futile. . . it also carries some risk."
Finally, the medical community succumbed to the marketing tactics of the oil industry and started doing cholesterol screenings and recommending the "Prudent Diet" to lower cholesterol levels and supposedly the risk of heart attack. In 1990, it was recommended that all children 2 years old or older should be put on a low fat, low cholesterol diet. In The Cholesterol Myths, Ravnskov points out that the fatty streaks seen in young children used to promote the lipid hypothesis are false indicators. That is, fatty streaks in the arteries exist in all humans before birth in all populations and carry no predictive relationship to heart disease.
One of Mary Fallon's comments about cholesterol testing at the lecture was, "If your doctor wants to screen for cholesterol, find another doctor!" The data over the last 50 years does NOT support the lipid hypothesis and in fact there is significant data to show there is no relationship between low cholesterol eating and coronary heart disease. Risk levels apparently only start being a slight consideration for men at levels of 350 and above. Fallon also suggested that there is no clear scientific data to validate that there should be concerns about LDL being the "bad cholesterol" that people should consciously be working to lower. (No reference available for this, but there is information about LDL and HDL in The Cholesterol Myths.)
What followed after all the misinformation about oils and cholesterol was the marketing of cholesterol-reducing drugs. When the statin class of drugs was being researched in Japan, the scientists concluded that they were highly toxic and would have no medical applications. The patents were sold to U.S. pharmaceutical companies which produce these drugs like Lipitor that have many serious side effects beyond the fundamental error of stimulating the lowering of cholesterol. Side effects of Lipitor: reduced libido, muscle wasting, neuropathy, cancer, intestinal disease, accidents, slow reaction time, back pain, heart failure, stroke, depression, and suicide. It also inhibits the absorption of CoQ10 that is needed for muscles to function and blocks the absorption of Vitamin A. An ad for Lipitor even states that it has not been shown to prevent heart disease or heart attacks. Consider the increased risks of innocent drivers on the road with the statin drug consumers known to have slower reaction times and increased incidence of accidents.
Enig quotes from one of the Medical Doctors implicated in the spread of false science: " 'Many physicians will see the advantages of using drugs for cholesterol lowering. . ' said Grundy, even though 'a positive benefit/risk ratio for cholesterol-lowering drugs will be difficult to prove.' The cost in the US of cholesterol screening and cholesterol-lowering drugs alone now stands at sixty billion dollars per year, even though a positive risk/benefit ratio for such treatment has never been established. Physicians, however, have 'seen the advantages of using drugs for cholesterol lowering" as a way of creating patients out of healthy people.' "
"George Mann, formerly with the Framingham project, [a long term, large scale study of the lipid hypothesis] possessed neither funding nor patience—he was, in fact, very angry with what he called the Diet/Heart scam. His independent studies of the Masai in Africa, whose diet is extremely rich in cholesterol and saturated fat, and who are virtually free of heart disease, had convinced him that the lipid hypothesis was 'the public health diversion of this century. . . the greatest scam in the history of medicine.' "
The following is a section on the dangers of large amounts of dietary polyunsaturates written by Mary Enig in the Oiling of America." Excess consumption of vegetable oils is especially damaging to the reproductive organs and the lungs—both of which are sites for huge increases in cancer in the US. In test animals, diets high in polyunsaturates from vegetable oils inhibit the ability to learn, especially under conditions of stress; they are toxic to the liver; they compromise the integrity of the immune system; they depress the mental and physical growth of infants; they increase levels of uric acid in the blood; they cause abnormal fatty acid profiles in the adipose tissues; they have been linked to mental decline and chromosomal damage; they accelerate aging.
Excess consumption of polyunsaturates is associated with increasing rates of cancer, heart disease and weight gain; excess use of commercial vegetable oils interferes with the production of prostaglandins leading to an array of complaints ranging from autoimmune disease to PMS. Disruption of prostaglandin production leads to an increased tendency to form blood clots, and hence myocardial infarction, which has reached epidemic levels in America. "
"Vegetable oils are more toxic when heated. One study reported that polyunsaturates turn to varnish in the intestines. A study by a plastic surgeon found that women who consumed mostly vegetable oils had far more wrinkles than those who used traditional animal fats. A 1994 study appearing in the Lancet showed that almost three quarters of the fat in artery clogs is unsaturated. The 'artery clogging' fats are not animal fats but vegetable oils."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)