Author Archive
Ancient principles for a healthy diet
Posted by: | CommentsFrom the Charaka Samhita, which is thought to be the oldest of the treatises of Ayurvedic medicine (1000BCE):
1. Food needs to be hot (usually cooked).
2. Food needs to be tasty and easy to digest.
3. Food needs to be eaten in the proper amounts, not too much or too little.
4. Foods needs to be eaten on an empty stomach, after your last meal has been digested, and not before.
5. Foods need to work together and not contradict one another in their actions.
6. Foods need to be eaten in pleasant surroundings with the proper equipment for their enjoyment.
7. Eating should not be rushed.
8. Eating should not be a horrendously drawn out affair either.
9. It is best to focus on your food while eating.
10. Only eat food which is nourishing to your particular constitution and which suits your mental and emotional temperament.
Yoga and back health
Posted by: | CommentsHow yoga can help and prevent chronic and occasional back pain (from Loren Fishman MD, Cure Back Pain with Yoga):
1. Yoga stretches muscles to reduce spasm and increase flexibility
2. It strengthens muscles and bones (both isotonically [i.e., with movement of a joint, and through the use of one's own body weight] and isometrically [i.e., without movement of the joints]).
3. Increases range of motion, by: (a) enlarging the joint capsule and promoting joint lubrication, (b) gently stretching the ligaments, and (c) lengthening shortened and tense muscles.
4. Sharpening focus.
5. Heightening self awareness. A better understanding of the way your own body works – what it can or cannot do – is the first line of defense against back pain. One of the most important lessons I learned from my first yoga teacher (Denise Thibault) is that yoga acts as a gauge of one’s physical and mental condition.
6. Producing calm. The regular practice of physical process of yoga (both the postures [asanas] and breathing [pranayama] results in creating a mind that is calm and steady.
Yoga is both a preventive and healing practice that uses the body to manage the mind, simultaneously using the mind to restore the body back into a state of strength, balance and symmetry.
Strength training guidelines
Posted by: | CommentsThe guidelines of the American College of Medicine (ACSM) advocates the use of simpler training protocols for both beginners and experienced trainees. Here are some key ideas for effective weight training:
* Intensity can be effectively measured by “perceived effort.”
* A wide range of reps per set can be equally effective, depending on the effort spent.
* There is no evidence that there is a separate way to train for strength or endurance. Getting stronger also increases muscular endurance. (I’m not quite sure about this one actually. I think that the concept of training specificity can negate this claim.)
* Take about 3 seconds to raise the resistance and about 3 seconds to lower the resistance using a full range of motion for each repetition.
* To increase strength, training has to produce an overload beyond a minimal threshold. Focus on progression without compromising the form of the exercise, and using as complete a range of motion as is possible.
* The intensity of training can be increased by increasing the weight, number of repetitions, and by reducing momentum through increasing the repetition’s duration.
* A variety of exercises can be used for each muscle group, with some physiological and psychological benefits against “staleness.” The overall evidence does not support the superiority of higher volume training — eight to 10 exercises performed two to three days per week is sufficient.
Power smoothie recipe
Posted by: | CommentsAnother mouth-watering green-fruit power drink (that I had for lunch today):
1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk
100 grams mango
120 grams banana
150 grams frozen spinach
61 grams frozen strawberries
50 grams blueberries
plus: optional 7 grams walnuts & 7 grams almonds ground and mixed in with the shake.
Meditation and weight loss
Posted by: | CommentsResearchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that practicing daily meditation (even for small amounts) can enhance focus and performance. Mindfulness training can improve the subcomponents of attention, such as the ability to prioritize and manage tasks and goals, the ability to voluntarily focus on specific information and the ability to stay alert to the environment. The results suggest even a half hour of meditation practice can improve attention and focus for those with heavy demands on their time – thereby increasing effectiveness and efficiency throughout the workday. While practicing meditation may itself may not be relaxing or restful, the attention-performance improvements that come with practice can help people to be more relaxed and less stressed. This in turn allows us to be more mindful of what we eat and more tuned in to what our body needs in terms of rest and exercise.
Lifestyle choices and cancer prevention
Posted by: | CommentsThe National Cancer Institute provides the following recommendations regarding diet and physical activity:
1. Adopt policies and provide funding to improve the built environment to encourage physical activity. For example:
• Address safety issues that discourage physical activity.
• Plan new communities that encourage physical activity.
• Retrofit existing communities to encourage physical activity (e.g., install sidewalks, improve community centers, parks, playgrounds).
2. Coordinate U.S. agricultural subsidy and public health policy related to diet and nutrition to improve the food supply and help ensure that all people have access to affordable, healthy food. Specifically:
• Structure farm supports to incentivize/encourage increased production of fruits and vegetables; limit farm subsidies that promote the production of high fructose corn syrup for use in food.
• Support healthier food choices by restructuring regulations governing acceptable food choices allowed by the Women, Infants, and Children Program, Headstart, and school lunch programs.
3. Improve access to affordable, healthy foods in urban communities; implement “fair food” policies similar to fair housing policies.
4. Regulate and monitor food advertising in media targeting children.
5. Reinstate physical education at meaningful levels in grades K-12 andexpand physical activity offerings to include individually-oriented activities (e.g., yoga, weight training) that could be maintained for life. Though not an ideal measure, include body mass index (BMI) measurement, as adapted for youth, as part of school physical fitness assessments and provide this information to parents. Parents also should receive information about the relationship of BMI to disease risk and how to decrease BMI through behavioral change.
6. Replace unhealthy food choices in school food service facilities and vending machines with healthful foods and beverages. Include information in elementary and secondary school health curricula about the meaning of energy balance and how to read and interpret food labels and other health information related to diet and nutrition.
7. Make nutrition information about restaurant foods readily available on menus and understandable to customers.
8. Increase support and incentives for employee wellness (e.g., diet, fitness). Provide healthier choices in workplace food service facilities/vending machines and provide economic subsidies that encourage healthy food choices.
9. Provide coverage for nutrition counseling and fitness promotion as part of all comprehensive health benefit packages as an accepted mechanism for reducing risk and preventing disease.
10. Measure BMI as part of routine physical exams and counsel patients about the meaning of this measurement. Educate patients about the necessity of balancing food intake and physical activity to avoid and reverse obesity.
11. Seek out opportunities to increase personal and family fitness and health.
The importance of Vitamin D
Posted by: | CommentsVitamin D deficiency is much more common than we think, and can cause serious health issues that may be be erroneously attributed to other causes. Not enough vitamin D can lead to or worsen muscle weakness, osteopenia, osteoporosis, fractures, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases. According to the National institutes of Health:
… Americans age 50 and older are at an increased risk of developing vitamin D deficiency. As people age, skin cannot synthesize vitamin D as efficiently and the kidney is less able to convert vitamin D to its active hormone form. As much as 30% to 40% of hip fractures are due to vitamin D insufficiency.
Deficiencies are usually the result of dietary inadequacy, impaired absorption and utilization, increased requirement, or increased excretion (loss). A deficiency of vitamin D can occur when: (a) when usual intake is below recommended levels, (b) when there is limited exposure to sunlight. (c) when the kidney cannot convert vitamin D to its active hormone form, and (d) when someone cannot adequately absorb it from the digestive tract.
“It is estimated that over 25 million people in the United States have, or are at risk of developing, osteoporosis. It is a disease characterized by fragile bones, and it significantly increases the risk of bone fractures. It is most often associated with inadequate calcium intake. However, a deficiency of vitamin D also contributes to osteoporosis by reducing calcium absorption and is an example of a long-term effect of vitamin D insufficiency. Adequate storage levels of vitamin D help keep bones strong and may help prevent osteoporosis in older people, in non-ambulatory individuals (those who have difficulty walking and exercising), in post-menopausal women, and in individuals on chronic steroid therapy. Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with greater incidence of hip fractures. In a review of women with osteoporosis hospitalized for hip fractures, 50 percent were found to have signs of vitamin D deficiency. Daily supplementation with 20 micrograms (800 IU) of vitamin D may reduce the risk of osteoporotic fractures in elderly populations with low levels of vitamin D.”
Muscle strength and avoidance of falls also require adequate vitamin D stores in the body. As vitamin D levels decrease, the chance of falls increases. In fact, vitamin D deficiency is a dangerous cycle, since it increases the risk of falling and reduces the strength of bones to withstand breaking on impact.
Some good food sources of vitamin D: cod liver oil, salmon, mackerel, and sardines.
(Caveat: Cod liver oil is problematic. Just one teaspoon of cod liver oil has 4,500 IU of vitamin A, for instance, and the standard dose is one to three teaspoons a day. Studies have found that as little as 6,000 IU of vitamin A daily can interfere with bone growth and promote fractures. And women of childbearing age should not exceed 10,000 IU of vitamin A because of the risk of birth defects. Cod liver oil is made from livers, so toxins (such as PCBs) get concentrated there. Cod liver oil is more likely to be contaminated than other fish-oil sources.)
Food volume, appetite, and weight loss
Posted by: | CommentsDrinking water before or with your meals doesn’t really help one eat less or induce satiety, although of course eating water-rich foods (e.g., pasta dishes with additional vegetables, smoothies, soup, fruits and vegetables) can lower calorie intake. This is because the body processes hunger and thirst through different mechanisms.
Previous research by the Penn State’s Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive Behavior has also shown that consuming water-rich foods allow dieters to eat their typical size serving of food (i.e., not limit their portion size), reduce calorie intake and still be satisfied.
What this means is that feeling full depends on the volume of what we eat. Eating small portions tend to make us feel more deprived, which in the long run cannot be sustained. Hence the phenomenon of yo-yo dieting. I think that low caloric density (high volume, high water foods) and high nutritional density (phytochemicals such as minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants) go hand in hand quite easily when we choose an eating style that is based on leafy greens, other vegetables and legumes, and fresh fruit. Foods with a high energy density (such as meat, cake, dried fruit, candy) have lots of calories in a small serving and are lower in water content and volume. From an appetite control perspective, we have a positive interaction effect: high volume, high water-volume food that is highly nutritious and low calorie at the same time will curb our tendency to overeat over the long haul.
Health benefits of nuts and seeds
Posted by: | CommentsFrom the Johns Hopkins University Medicine reports, the following is a summary on the benefits most informed “health nuts” (pun intended) already know. For those who don’t, its time to join the bandwagon.
Nuts contain monounsaturated fats, which help lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad”) cholesterol and may raise high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good”) cholesterol when substituted for saturated fats in the diet. Several major studies have found that eating nuts significantly reduces the risk of coronary heart disease — by 25–50% in both men and women. The Nurses’ Health Study, found that regularly eating nuts and peanut butter reduces the chance of developing type 2 diabetes by 21–27%.
Nuts are rich in vitamins, minerals, and other phytochemicals beneficial to your health. For example, walnuts contain a type of omega-3 fat similar to fish oil, and almonds contain calcium and vitamin E. Nuts are also excellent sources of protein and fiber.
Despite nuts and seeds being calorie dense (160–200 calories per oz), research shows that people who eat nuts tend to weigh less than those who don’t eat nuts. Possible explanations: Nut eaters may follow a healthier diet (lower in calories and saturated fat) than people who abstain from nuts, and those who are overweight may shun nuts because of their high-calorie content.
Because nuts are filling due to their high protein and fiber content, snacking on them tend to curb appetite afterwards and help decrease caloric intake naturally. Furthermore, because protein requires more energy to digest than fats or carbohydrates, more calories are used in the process.
I know some high-level vegan strength athletes who are serious eaters of nuts and seeds, using them as the mainstays to supply the extra calories and protein requirements that their gruelling training regimen requires.
So as not to overeat on nuts and seeds, I usually measure what I choose to eat, grind them on my coffee/spice grinder, and spread them over my salads or steamed vegetables, or mix them with my stews or soups. That way I don’t get tempted to eat the whole bag ! Remember, these are very high caloric foods, and should be approached carefully and mindfully.
Eating strategy for weight loss
Posted by: | CommentsMore from Helen Nearing’s book Simple Food:
“Why go to a lot of trouble, and use a lot of time and energy, just feeding the body? By keeping foods and meals simple and easy, the tasks may be so shortened that there is little labor involved. Keep frills and fanciness to a minimum. Keep fundamentals in the foreground. Try to get the most nourishment for the least effort. Learn what foods the body requires – the vitamins, minerals and proteins for good functioning. Find the natural right diet and stick to it.”
“I believe the work of feeding people could be simplified to such a point that it would take less time to prepare a meal than to eat it, whereas now it is usually the other way around. Perhaps that might be the test for rational eating. If you eat for half an hour, or an hour, put only that much (or less) time into preparation; no more. Then you would be closer to living simply on simple food.”
“. . . Eat with one dish or bowl. Eliminate all nonessentials in tools and utensils as well as elaboration in food preparation.”
“Nutritional value should come before taste value: so should economy and ease of preparation. Our menus are simple, but vary within the daily pattern; some fruit or fruit juice and our own herb tea for breakfast; a hearty vegetable soup, with boiled grains, peanut butter, honey and apples for lunch; a big salad, some cooked vegetable from the garden and a fruit dessert for supper. Every day the soup can be different. The grain can be millet, buckwheat, oats, wheat or rye. The salad need never be the same. The vegetables vary with the season. Our dessert can be any of many fruits, raw or cooked. But the general pattern remains, so that the diet is uninvolved and the preparation uncomplicated.”
I really like this approach to eating, food choices, and food preparation. It’s all about simplification of process and minimizing our attachment to sensory stimulation. Its really about developing habits that limit and simplify the strategies and activities for nutritional excellence.
I believe that an effective strategy doesn’t have to be complicated. One can develop a working pattern (e.g., a “daily menu” that one sticks to) and still have the variation within that system to prevent boredom (which can backfire) and to ensure micronutrient diversity and coverage.
