I received this in my email from my “almost” sister-in-law this morning and thought it was interesting enough to share. Some of you may have seen this already. I couldn’t help but notice that sugar, bread, and white potatoes didn’t make the list.

God’s Pharmacy
 
  This is absolutely amazing - and makes perfect sense!!
         
    
   
  It’s been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, and made animals and fish… all before making a human. He made and provided what we’d need before we were born. These are best & more powerful when eaten raw.  (I don’t know about eating fish and meat raw. I don’t know where that came from. A lot of them eaten raw make you sick.) We’re such slow learners…God left us a great clue as to what foods help what  part of our body!

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye.  The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye… and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

 
A  Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes   hang  in a cluster that has the shape of the heart.  Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A  Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums.  Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney  Beans  actually heal and help maintain kidney function  and yes, they look exactly like the human  kidneys.

Celery,  Bok Choy, Rhubarb  and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body  pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak.  These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Avocadoes,  Eggplant and Pears  target the health and function of the womb and  cervix of the female - they look just like these  organs. Today’s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this?   It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).  

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.  
  
  
  Sweet  Potatoes  look  like the pancreas and actually balance the  glycemic index of  diabetics.
 

  
  Olives   assist  the health and function of the ovaries  
 

  
  Oranges,  Grapefruits ,  and other Citrus fruits look just like  the mammary glands of the female and actually  assist the health of the breasts and the  movement of lymph in and out of the  breasts.
 

  
  Onions look like the body’s cells. Today’s research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

If I could stick to this list, weight would never be a problem! LOL

The title says it all, doesn’t it. I managed over 6 hours of exercise last week! I’m not sure how - it didn’t feel like I was working out all the time. It felt quite doable actually. Check out last weeks score sheet from Joe’s Goals.

In fact, I did really well on all my goals, with the exception of going to bed early, and even that’s not as bad as it looks. At least one night, I was in bed by 11.30, and a couple of days I got home from work and went straight to bed, sleeping till 9 or 10pm, getting up for a few hours and then going back to bed. So although not an ideal sleep pattern, I was still getting sufficient sleep overall.

My goals for next week will remain much the same, but I am going to add one more - I’ve got a bit of residual soreness from the weight training programme, so I am going to include at least one bodyrolling session this week. I bought a DVD and ball (for rolling under muscles) kit last year sometime and it is still in the plastic, partly because I am scared it is going to hurt too much. Oh well, no pain no gain, right. So, at least one session, and I’ll write about bodyrolling and self myofascial release after I have given it a go.

In my last post I talked about relaxing, and I think that it’s an important part about staying healthy. As with any lifestyle choice, what is important that what we do is beneficial to us.

Making good choices and having a good balance of relaxation, fun, exercise and meaningful work is essential for a healthy mindset. Here are some lifestyle choices that I choose (and some that I’m trying to work on myself!).

Resting Well
Sleeping enough (8~9 hours a night) means that during the day, we can properly live our life. Being tired means that we just drift through the day. We miss the interesting things that happen around us because we are less aware; conversation and confidence can suffer because you’re just not in the mood for it; and depending on the person, you can become easily annoyed or irate. It is also easy to fall into it as a bad habit, which means that we can end up drifting through a large part of our lives without actually *waking up*. This I can see in a lot of my friends, and I admit once in a while I fall into this bad pattern. I suppose you just have to be a bit more strict with yourself, so you can live better.

Exercising Well
For me, there’s nothing more depressing than sitting on my fat ass realizing how massively overweight I am. And I’m not just saying that. At the start of last year, having just come home from a trip to China, I was 66kg. Eating out every night was probably the cause of it.

After I came back to China I would pretty much stay home everyday. That didn’t help. It got to the point where I could poke my thighs from the sides, and I could wobble for about 5 seconds before they’d come to a rest.

I started cutting down on my food, but not impractically - I didn’t want to do it unhealthily - eating just enough so I was satisfied - and I supplemented this with somewhat regular exercising.

I try to run a lap of the oval everyday (~1km), getting some fresh air is nice too. Then at night I’d usually just do some arm, calf and leg exercises to stretch out. Sometimes I like to do hip flexes and squats to work on my thighs, but usually I just stay with some calf raises.

Through exercise I look better and feel better. One year since China, I’m 56kg.

Living life with a meaning
When I say live life with a meaning, I mean find something in life that is meaningful to you. Something you are interested in to work on or improve. Something you can feel good about when you bring yourself  ‘to the next level’.

For many this means school or work, but while these are essential for a happy life, it’s just not enough (have you ever had those times when holidays arrive and suddenly you lose your way? I sure have… I used to drown myself in computer games. It was the worst).

What I’m talking about are hobbies. This is bound to be different for everyone, but I guess its up to you to find something that you like. As for me, I enjoy jamming on my guitar, or flipping through Japanese fashion magazines to improve my fashion sense. Anything that gives you a sense of satisfaction when you achieve something is a hobby. I suppose exercising, learning Japanese, and writing this blog could be considered hobbies for me as well~

I suppose, just take some time to think a bit, and decide on the right lifestyle choices for yourselves.

Loads of exercise today, already, by walking around my village delivering the Parish News magazine. It is a job I asked for, which although unpaid, it does some good for the community and helps me keep fitter. It also keeps Scruffy on her toes. Oh by the way! Scruffy has a new video on www.YouTube.com - just visit the site and type in - Scruffy playing hockey not cricket.

I stand corrected about the tags us Oldies are given. We are called ´Wrinklies` if we are over 50, ´Crinklies` if we have been out in the sun for too long and ´Crumblies` once our teeth and bones start to seriously go down hill. ´Crusties`, rumour has it, is a term given to any people, no matter how old they are, who are very ´scabby`, with wounds that do not heal quickly because the scabs keep getting picked. This is probably the least pleasant of all the nick-names and one I think I will avoid in future - In fact, I will give a wide berth, not only the name, but the holders´of the names as well.

Inspired by my lovely Niece, I am trying some Quorn dishes over the weekend, as well as nibbling on a little near-pure choc and looking more carefully at some pudding recipes. The weight is still falling and my life style is improving so much, by the change in my eating regimen and exercise routine, that I cannot ever see myself returning to my sad old ways of over-indulgence and excesses.

Good news, the soya flour has finally been delivered …. It´s baking time!

How do we actually lose fat? What do we mean by fat “burning”? Here’s a very simple, (dumbed down) explanation of what actually goes on to create a fat loss effect.

The key concept that trainers and physiologists have shoved down our throat for years is that it’s all about calories in vs calories out. This is true – for weight loss - but it’s not the whole truth for fat loss– there are a number of protective mechanisms that the body has in place, called rate limiting steps to prevent fat being lost.…continue reading

From Scientific American:

…a study published today in The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that the smartest way to lose weight is to eat heart healthy foods (think: Mediterranean diet—lots of veggies and fish, limited amounts of red meat) and reduce your caloric intake.

“Reduced calorie, heart-healthy diets can help you lose weight, regardless of the proportions of fat, protein and carbohydrates,” says study co-author Catherine Loria, a nutritional epidemiologist at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md.

The researchers, led by Frank Sacks, a professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, focused their study on 811 overweight and obese adults ages 30 to 70 in Boston and Baton Rouge, La. (”Overweight” includes those with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9; people are considered obese if they have a BMI over 30. The BMI is a standard index used to gauge body fat based on a person’s height and weight.)

Onion, ham, paprika, cheese surprise

Get yourself a basic pizza, lay onion-rings on top, sliced ham, some mixed pepper, and extra cheese on top and that’s it.

12 Minutes in a 180 degrees oven and it’s ready.
Finish up with a cold beer or lager and there’s your perfect meal.

Aatos Beck © 27-2-2009.

I am still waiting for the delivery of my ordered flours. I cannot wait to play around with soya flour and yeast to create the most amazing protein bread. In Holland, Bapaos, which are delicious meaty buns made from soya flour, risen with yeast and stufffed with spiced chilli flavoured chicken, pork or beef, are everso popular and positively scrummy. I intend to have a go at them, so wish me luck! If they work out, mass production might be on the cards.

I went swimming again today and as usual, slotted into the´over 50s`session. It is actually so pleasant paddling around without being annoyed by splash happy youths or kids. It is so peaceful and serene and very enjoyable. I must admit that, being aged around 60, I seem, most of the time, to be the youngest swimmer in the pool but it is all very civilized and contrary to what you younger ones might think, it is not all ducking and diving between incontinent pads or colostomy bags. It is great fun and once us crinklies are free from our beige and grey (though I only wear black) uniforms and clad in our Speedos or Bikinis, we still have something to offer, although quite what and quite to whom, I am slightly uncertain.

The weight loss industry is rife with fads, and every other day, I see a new fad coming up. Even more surprising than the rapid innovation of fads is how easily the common people are accepting these fads without thinking twice abut possible repercussions. People hope to lose weight quickly with the help of these fad products, but if you ask me, I never believe in fads, and never will! In this article I will tell you about the latest weight loss fad called HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) and how far it can help you lose weight.

To start with, if you are wondering that HCG is just another drug, you are dead wrong! It is just a hormone which is already present in the human body. The hormone is found in abundance in the body of pregnant women. This is the reason why any woman who tests positive for it is confirmed to be pregnant.

People didn’t know about the benefits of HCG on overweight people until a notorious author called Kevin Trudeau came up with a book that claimed that HCG can indeed help people lose weight. For those who don’t know, Kevin Trudeau has already spent a considerable amount of time in jail for several violations of FTC guidelines. While Kevin Trudeau claims that HCG is a miraculous hormone that can help people lose weight quicker than any other weight loss supplement, there is no medical or scientific evidence that backs up this claim. Not even the manufacturers who produce a synthesized version of this hormone claim that it is beneficial for obese people. It is only a handful of doctors and experts who are claiming that they have proof of its effectiveness on overweight people.

For almost forty years, several tests and studies were done on HCG to prove the validity of these claims. A lot of research was done regarding the effectiveness of HCG on overweight people. No study or research done till date has been able to prove that HCG indeed helps one lose weight. So how can the doctors claim the opposite?

Well, in case you don’t know, if you opt for HCG treatment, doctors will also ask you to follow a low calorie diet. So whether it is the low calorie diet or the HCG hormone that is helping people to lose weight is not clear. Last but not the least, HCG has been banned in the US long time ago. If you want to purchase synthetic HCG, you will need to purchase it either from the black market or import it from another country, both of which can prove very costly for you!

If you take my advice, I would recommend that until the effectiveness of HCG is fully proved, you should just follow the old method of healthy food plan and exercises. Health food plan doesn’t mean that you will have to diet; just eat lost of raw vegetables and fruits, and drink lots of water, and make sure that you avoid the fatty and junk foods as much as possible! This is a proven way to weight loss success.

Jade Teta ND CSCS

An article in the May 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows fish oil supplements enhance fat loss when combined with exercise. 75 adults were studied to determine the effect of exercise with or without fish oil supplementation of fat loss, muscle gain, and heart health. Participants were assigned to 4 groups in this study. One group did low intensity walking exercise for 45 minutes three times a week, a second group took 6 grams of fish oil daily and did no exercise, a third group did both the 45 minutes of walking and the 6 grams of fish oil daily, and the last group took a sunflower oil supplement without any exercise.

At the end of the study only the group taking fish oil and exercise saw changes.  The fish oil plus exercise group lost almost 3.5 pounds of fat over a 12 week period. There was no change in the exercise only group or the fish oil only group hinting that there is a synergistic action between fish oil and exercise.  It is interesting to note that many animal studies and a handful of human studies support the findings that fish oil either alone or in combination with exercise has beneficial effects on body compostion.  There was also a slight increase in muscle mass and profound changes in cardiac risk factors in the fish oil and exercise group that were not seen in the other groups. 

For those of you wondering how fish oil works, this study did not elaborate, but other studies have shown fish oil acts as a metabolic messenger molecule that interacts with receptors on the nucleus of cells.  When it binds these receptors genes responsible for producing fat burning enzymes are switched on.  These receptors called PPAR are the same things that many diabetes drugs attempt to regulate to help control blood sugar in diabetics.  The amount of fish oil most people need to take to benefit is between three to six grams daily.  This is a far higher amount than most people supplementing with fish oils take but is usually easy to obtain with 3 to 6 capsules of a high potency fish oil daily. At Metabolic Effect we have seen fish oil be a potent tool for fat loss in our clients and recommend at least three grams of oils daily. 

A couple key points about fish oil.  You get what you pay for.  You should look for a high potency molecularly distilled fish oil free of contaminants like heavy metals and PCBs.  Fish concentrate many of the chemicals found in our oceans and the oils are the primary place they are found.  Also, a good fish oil supplement should not smell or taste overly fishy.  If it does the oil is most probably a low quality and or has gone bad. Fish oil should be taken with food.  If you have “re-tasting”, where the oils are burped up and tasted after consumption, take the oils at night before bed.  A high quality fish oil rarely has this effect.  Another thing to keep in mind is that other omega 3 oils like flax seed oil have never been shown to have the same affect on health as fish oil.  That is because these oils must be made into the end omega 3 oils found in fish and that process is fairly slow in humans.  It has been estimated that it would require about 12g of flax seed oil to derive 1 gram of EPA and DHA which are the oils in fish that have the health benefits.  This would mean the consumption of between 36 and 72g of flaxseed oil daily  to get the 3 to 6 grams of fish oil you would need.  That is an amount of oil that would be near impossible to consume without causing digestive complaints.

If you want a simple effective and healthy tool to aid your exercise fat loss goals, fish oil is a good bet.