Healthy Diet for the New Year
Sometimes it takes a mini-crisis to get us back on track. Some different sensations in my heart was the trigger to examine my diet and recalibrate. No medical issue was found but I renewed my understanding of Dean Ornish’s diet and life plans for health. You may remember the Dean Ornish MD has a demonstrated track record of reversing heart disease through diet, exercise and meditation. Why wait until you develop problems? His plan for staying healthy is a lot easier to accomplish than the reversal one. Besides cardiovascular health, weight loss is almost guaranteed. The Spectrum gives his plan and recipes along with some of the research. An earlier book Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease discusses research and focuses on the cardiovascular issues. It is well worth reading. The results of his program are amazing. After one year, 82% who made the lifestyle changes demonstrated measurable reversal of coronary artery blockages. Some reversal started in as little as one month. His approach leads to weight loss, lower blood pressure, prevents and reverses Type 2 diabetes, and likely lowers reist of prostate and breast cancer along with the cardiovascular benefits. Check it out now!
Be Wary of McDonalds
Did you know that there are 38 ingredients in McDonald’s chicken McNuggets? You will be eating things like modified cornstarch, tri- and diglycerides, dextrose, lecithin, partially hydrogenated corn oil, citric acid, sodium aluminum phosphate, calcium lactate, dimethylpolysiloxene and more. And you thought you were eating chicken. If you are concerned about your health and diet and you want to eat some meat or fish, you must read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. You will change your food habits and most likely lose weight and get healthier. He tells an amazing story about farm industry, cattle feed lots, chicken farms etc. The destruction of healthy farming and the impoverishment of the family farm unit all created from industrializing animal production and the greed of a few corporations. He travels the farms and the feedlots to tell us what is happening and how it is affecting our health. You will never eat the same again.
Forrest Yoga and Weight
Check out this new book – Fierce Medicine by Ana T. Forrest. She has an amazing self-transformation story to tell and worth reading even if you are not a yoga person. This is an uplifting read. Along about the middle of the book, she discusses her struggle with bulimia and how she healed. She presents exercises for self-help around eating. These involve “Tuning into the Wisdom of Your Body.” She advises listening to the body, feeding hunger from inside and not numbing out. “Get quiet, get grounded, and feel around inside.” This is not so easy but bit by bit you can do it and it works. For inspiration, read about her struggles and triumphs.
Brain Changing
Yes, there is much information out there about the ability of the brain to change dramatically. We are very flexible and always developing in new ways. Check out the wonderful summary of some of the research in Norman Doidge’s book THE BRAIN THAT CHANGES ITSELF. You will be amazed. But that’s not all. Genes also get turned on and off depending upon our thoughts and actions. Surprise! Herbert Benson, the father of the Relaxation Response, found that just 8 weeks of relaxation training changes the genes. Some genes are turned on and others turned off. The ones that are turned on create faster cell regeneration and more destruction of free radicals – good things for our health. Inflammation genes are turned down. The mind can affect gene expression. Check out Dawson Church’s book, THE GENIE IN YOUR GENES, for review of some of this type of research. Then make a decision to take time in your life for relaxation training or meditation. The benefits are great!
Stress and Overeating
Chronic stress leads to weight gain. Stress increases ghrelin, an appetite stimulant, and this also increases the preference for high sugar and fat foods. Then there is a release of endogenous opioids which help us to feel good and this seems to be a natural protector from stress. However, these opioids then stimulate the intake of food and those we find very tasty (often fatty or sugary). Then the stress increases cortisol which leads to visceral fat accumulation (the worst kind) and makes the brain more sensitive to rewards of tasty food. The end result is weight gain and often around the middle. Ever hear of metabolic syndrome?
What can you do now? Check out Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction or other approaches like this. They are based on simple breathing, noticing the moment, noticing how your body feels. That’s it. Simple and very effective for stress reduction.
Exercise and New Brain Cells
If you are concerned about your memory and the future of your memory, read on. Regular exercise produces new brain cells in the area of the brain essential for memory – the dentate gyrus. Exercise increases the blood flow into the brain and boosts the production of new neurons. A study in 2006 found that in a group of over 60 year olds who did regular aerobic exercise – an hour walking at a pace of 3 miles an hour 3 times a week – had increased brain volumes in the frontal lobes gray matter, the neurons in the while matter of the corpus callosum which connects our two hemispheres. This means that more than memory is improved. Exercisers focus better.
On the other side, obesity when linked with type 2 diabetes gives someone twice the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s as well as all the cardiovascular problems. The cardio problems link to poorer blood flow to the brain. There is also a link with dementia and inflammation. Inflammation in the body is linked to type 2 diabetes as well.
It’s almost the New Year. Do you need more incentive to exercise?
Antidepressants and Weight Gain
A common impact of depression is increased comfort food eating. This leads to weight gain. But could it be that antidepressants also increase weight? If so which ones? Yes, for women, some antidepressants lead to weight gain. Studies have shown Paxil to lead to a weight gain of about 5-6 pounds. Prozac may lead to a very slight weight loss. Welllbutrin is associated with a weight loss of 5 pounds. Keep in mind that these are not large amounts and can be kept lower through good diet and regular exercise. It is more important to have an antidepressant that works well for you when you are having a major depression. If it is a milder depression, diet and exercise may be all you need. For more information on these studies, see www.womensmentalhealth.org.
Eat Slow, Lose Weight
Yes, it is true that when you eat slowly, you will eat less and lose weight. The brain needs to get the informaton that the stomach is full. The process is a wonderful interaction of receptors, hormones and nerves. The vagus nerve signals to the brain about the fullness of the stomach. CCK hormone is released by the intestines and gives another signal to the brain of fullness. Leptin, produced by fat cells, transmits another bit of information about satiety. Leptin reverberates with CCK to amplify the fullness signal. Leptin also connects with dopamine in the brain to give the feeling of pleasure. All this takes some time. It also takes awareness of your body signals. Eating too fast or not focusing on eating can result in your lack of awareness. Then you can bypass these signals and overeat. Also you will not be enjoying your food. Take more time and feel the pleasure of your eating.
Weight Loss and Early Life Trauma
Why do diets not work? We know the usual answers: difficult to change habits, poor coping techniques, too stressed, and general life style issues. Then there is the biggie: early life trauma (especially sexual trauma). Vincent Felitti at Kaiser Permanente led a weight loss program that was successful in getting weight loss but not in helping people keep it off. No surprise there. As he studied this, he found that in 286 obese people half had been sexually abused as children. This is 50% higher than normal. The weight helped them feel safe. He began to look into it more and started a large-scale study, the ACE Study. This had 17,337 participants. Researchers with this data set have found that up to 66% of the group, which was middle-class, predominantly white and educated, had some childhood trauma. They developed a scale for childhood trauma. It was found that higher scores were related to many major medical problems: heart and lung disease, autoimmune disease, liver disease, cancer and diabetes. This was the case even when they controlled for other risk factors, like smoking etc. The take home message is to heal past trauma, the sooner the better for your medical health.
Mindfullness-Based Stress Reduction
MBSR is a program started by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. It is simple and involves mindfulness meditation, body scan and yoga. It has been demonstrated to improve immune functioning, speed up healing, improve mood and reduce suffering from chronic pain. The later seems to happen by helping someone distinguish between the senory experience of pain from the cognitive processes related to the experience. Staying with just the primary experience eases pain. This approach has a sound scientific basis and is easy to learn. There are CDs available. Just Google on Jon Kabat-Zinn Ph.D. Check it out for better emotional and physical health.
