It’s time to clear something up.

Books, magazines, and weight loss courses have all been spreading a bit of misinformation about eating fats and your body’s insulin response.

After vilifying  insulin response to foods, “experts” are recommending adding healthy fats to carbohydrates to reduce insulin in your blood after meals.  Here are just 3 examples I’ve seen today:

• Adding peanut butter to your whole grain english muffin
• Adding butter to your baked potato
• Adding sesame oil to your steamed rice

The idea is that the fats will slow/level out the rise in blood sugar in prevent a big insulin release after eating.

Nope.

Fat doesn’t cause an immediate insulin response, it’s true.  But when added to a protein or carbohydrate, fat either has no effect on insulin response or else it slightly increases insulin response.

Sorry, but it doesn’t slow insulin down.

But there’s good news!  When fat REPLACES an equal caloric amount of carbohydrates, the insulin response is reduced.

To really make it clear, let’s use one of the examples above.  If you add butter to your baked potato, your insulin response will be the same or a little greater than if you ate the baked potato alone.  But if you eat half a potato with butter (even if you replace, calorie for calorie the butter for half a potato) your insulin response will be much lower than if you ate the whole potato plain.

So the key to using fats to lower insulin response isn’t in adding them to the meal, as if they were an anchor being dragged to slow your food.  The key is to exchange carbohydrates for fat to produce lower insulin levels.

Most of the confusion comes from people’s failure to recognize the difference between adding fat versus substituting fat.

See, adding fat to a meal does (in fact) slow down the rise in blood sugar that follows eating carbohydrates.  Since your insulin response is usually – in healthy people – aligned with the rise in blood sugar, it makes total sense to assume that adding fat to a meal would reduce the insulin response to that meal.

It makes sense, but that isn’t what actually happens!

As I said before, it turns out that insulin is either not affected or it rises with the addition of fat to carbohydrates.

(This is probably related to gastric inhibitory polypeptide, which is a hormone secreted from the pancreas in response to eating fat and which can heighten insulin reaction)

What about the insulin effects of protein?  Everything so far has focused on carbohydrates.  Well, first off, protein doesn’t raise insulin levels as much as carbohydrate… not by a long shot.

But it does affect insulin levels a little (about 30% as much as carbohydrate).  There are three main factors that determine your insulin response to protein:

1.  Fat Content.  The more fat versus protein, the lower your insulin response.

2. Amino Acid Profile.  Sources that are higher in lysine (example: beef) bring on more insulin than other protein sources

3. Processing.  The more processed your protein is, the more it will raise your insulin.  Ground beef doesn’t require as much digestion as steak, so it enters your bloodstream more rapidly.  (Ground meat actually ends up giving you more calories as well, because you don’t use up as much energy during the digestion process.  For a fascinating look at how cooking and grinding food shaped human evolution, I recommend reading Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human)

Fortunately, protein stimulates glucagon release as well, so you don’t need to worry as much about the insulinogenic properties of protein as you do about carbohydrates.  (If you don’t know much about glucagon, think of it as the opposite of insulin).

What does all this mean from a practical standpoint?  How then can you control the insulin response to bread, protatoes, rice – to go with the examples from earlier in this post?

In fact, why worry about the insulin response to carbohydrates at all?

Well, to control the insulin response from carbs… stop eating so many carbs!  Use the insulin response with strategically timed meals, after a workout or as part of a carb cyling plan, for example.

And you should be concerned about bumping insulin when you’re eating fat because when fat is consumed while your body is in fat-storage mode (high insulin), it is more likely to end up as bodyfat.

When your insulin levels are high, everything you eat is more liable to end up in your fat stores.  Fat especially heads straight for your fat cells when your insulin is high, especially because insulin causes fat burning to stop.

Translation: Fat is fattening IF you are in a fat storing mode (high insulin).

Your solution is to not eat fat when your insulin levels are high, and keeping carbs low the rest of the time.  You want to keep fat and insulin producing carbs apart from each other.

One situation would be to have protein and fat at every meal except for one or two meals right after your workout.  Here’s a sample schedule:

7 am: Protein + Fat

11 am: Protein + Fat

2 pm: Protein + Fat

4 pm: Workout

5 pm: Protein + Carbs

7 pm: Protein + Carbs

Or if you workout in the morning:

6 am: Workout

7 am: Protein + Carbs

10 am: Protein + Carbs

1 pm: Protein + Fat

4 pm: Protein + Fat

7 pm: Protein + Fat

Another option is to have higher carb “refeeds” every few days.  This is a good strategy when you’re looking to gain muscle and lose fat.

Day One: Several moderate protein, moderate fat meals

Day Two: Same as Day One

Day Three: Moderate protein, low fat meals during the day, 3 hour high carb, low protein, minimal fat refeed after your workout

Day Four: Same as Day One

Day Five: Same as Day One

Day Six: Same as Day One

Day Seven: Moderate protein, low fat meals during the day, 3 hour high carb, low protein, minimal fat refeed after your workout

What a plan like this does is keep you in fat burning mode most of the time, but still bump insulin to keep you anabolic and allow you to build muscle.  If you have more fat to lose, you’d want to go longer between refeeds.  If you’re already lean and looking to build muscle, you can have your refeeds closer together.

So to loop back to the original point of this post, adding fat to carbs doesn’t benefit you from a hormonal standpoint, in fact, it makes it more likely you’re going to store that meal as fat.

EDIT: I was asked why, if adding fat to meals doesn’t help with insulin, does adding fat make you feel fuller longer?

The answer is simple: You ate more calories!

When I was in college I was friends with an insanely strong football player.  He could jump out of the gym, lift more weight than anyone, and outrun the track stars…. Plus he was good-looking (the jerk).

And all he ate was buffalo meat, berries, and mountains of green vegetables.  A naturopath had told him that was the perfect diet for his blood type.  It definitely worked in his case.

In fact, over the years I’ve seen people have lots of success by following blood type based diets.  I figure it’s because people believe in them and thus stick to them – and sticking to your chosen diet is the key to making it work

A quick search on Amazon.com showed 895 results for “blood type diet”, but the best known book is Eat Right 4 Your Type by Dr. Peter D’Adamo, and it’s where to start if you want more info on matching your food choices to your blood type.

Now, what does it mean in the title of this post when it says “What NOT To Eat”?

I think that blood type/food matching isn’t the first thing you should worry about.  Food quality, quantity, and timing are more important for weight loss and athletic performance.

And yet and yet and yet… This can be a big tipping point for losing stubborn fat and getting rid of nagging health issues.

Your blood type is actually better at informing you which foods you should avoid (yes, even some healthy foods) than telling you what you should eat.

The main reason for this is the lectins found in foods.

(For more than you ever wanted to know about lectins, check out this blog post: Chemical Warfare: Lectins Attack!)

Lectins are scary little proteins that work (or force!) their way undigested into your bloodstream where your body recognizes them as invaders and goes into defense mode.  Certain lectins bind to the surfaces of certain blood cells.

Besides causing an autoimmune response in your body, lectins also clump up and then destroy your blood cells.  You know…. those things that keep you alive.

Lectins also:

• interfere with digestion
• interfere with absorption
• cause nutrient deficiencies
• lead to food allergies
• can cause inflammatory bowel disease
• cause headaches
• give you general achiness
• give you diarrhea
• can make you irritable
• can give you anemia
• contribute to diabetic problems
• are definitely linked to rheumatoid arthritis
• are definitely linked to psoriasis
• can give you painful gas
• can lead to immune deficiencies

Many of the effects of different lectins are blood type specific.  So you can avoid a lot of the problems with lectins by avoiding eating foods that contain the lectins that react with your blood type.

If you’re suffering from any of the problems listed above, or if you want an extra nutritional edge to help you lose fat faster, stay away from the foods that react with your blood type.  Here’s how to do it – it’s only two steps.

Step One: Find out your blood type.

If you already know your blood type, go ahead to step two.  If you don’t, you can donate blood and they’ll tell you.  You can ask your doctor.  Or you can get a home blood test type kit from the pharmacy or order one from Amazon (here’s a link: Eldoncard Blood Type Kit).

Step Two: Don’t eat the foods that react most strongly to your blood type.

Special Note: GMO foods usually have increased lectin levels, avoid all GMO foods.  The most common genetically modified foods in the US are: Corn, soy, cotton (the oil is used in foods), papaya, rice, tomatoes, rapeseed, dairy, potatoes, and peas.  Wheat is often heavily modified too.

What Not To Eat: Blood Type A

• blackberries
• brown trout
• clams
• corn
• french mushrooms
• halibut
• flounder
• lima beans
• snow white mushrooms
• sole
• soy
• string beans
• tora beans

What Not To Eat: Blood Type B

• bitter melons
• black-eyed peas
• castor beans
• chicken
• chocolate/cocoa
• french mushrooms
• pomeranates
• salmon
• sesame
• sunflower seeds
• soy
• tuna

What Not To Eat: Blood Type AB

• blackberries
• black-eyed peas
• brown trout
• clams
• cocoa/chocolate
• corn
• french mushrooms
• halibut
• flounder
• lima beans
• pomegranates
• salmon
• sesame
• white mushrooms
• sole
• soy
• string beans
• sunflower seeds
• tuna

What Not To Eat: Blood Type O

• blackberries
• cocoa/chocolate
• french mushrooms
• halibut
• flounder
• sole
• sunflower seeds

Avoiding GMO foods and the foods that react with your blood type will help your body get back into it’s naturally healthy state and help ease the system stress that is causing you to hold onto stubborn pounds.

Plus, it’s really easy – just don’t eat the foods on your list!

“Ya gotta stretch before you work out!”

How often have you heard this advice?  Lots of times, I’ll bet.

But it’s only kinda sorta true.

Stretching is traditionally recommended pre-exercise as a way to reduce injuries.  Unfortunately, research and real life doesn’t support the stretching-reduces-injuries theory.

The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC) dug through all the research on stretching and injuries and concluded that people who stretch are no less likely to suffer injuries than those who don’t and that stretching does nothing to prevent injuries.

And even worse, several studies have found that stretching before exercise actually makes you more likely to get injured.

Stretching before a workout doesn’t make you more flexible either.  There’s a limit to how far a muscle can be stretched…

Picture a steak.  You can grab the ends and pull hard, and it will stretch a bit.  Keep pulling and pulling and it won’t stretch, it will rip.  Your muscles are like that steak.  There’s a limit to how far you can stretch before you start ripping.

Stretching beyond your limits weakens your tendons and ligaments.  (Loose joints might give you a bigger range of motion though, at the high cost of greatly increased chance of injury)

The British Journal Of Sports Medicine stated that test subjects’s “flexibility index decreased significantly after stretching training.”

The warm-up aspect of stretching is also overrated.  Stretching doesn’t contract your muscles (muscles are designed to do only one thing: contract).  Contraction is what pulls blood into the muscle and bumps your metabolism to produce heat as a byproduct of effort.  No muscular contraction, no warm up.

Stretching before you are warm is another good way to injure yourself, incidentally.  Pulling the ends of a cold rubber band make it more likely to snap.  Cold taffy doesn’t stretch out, it breaks.  Your muscles do this too – a cold muscle getting stretched out will tear.

Stretching a muscle makes it weaker.  You have these little things called Golgi Tendon Organs in your tendons that are stretch sensors.  When they feel a stretch they try to contract your muscles to protect your muscles and joints from injury.  if you hold a stretch long enough (and without going too far), the golgi tendon organs “turn off” and allow your muscle to stretch a bit more.

The problem with relaxed golgi tendon organs is that they are designed to help your muscles contract.  Turn them off, and you’ve instantly become weaker.  This not only affects your strength, speed, power, and endurance; your muscles are what support your joints – and if you turn off your support system, you’re left with no protection from moving your joints beyond their range of motion.  Moving your joint outside of its range of motion = injury.

Weakened muscles from stretching also limit how effective your workout will be (while also making you more likely to get injured).  If you’re training to lose fat and re-shape your body, being stronger means you can exercise with more weights, go longer, do the exercises better, burn more calories, and raise your metabolism higher.

The American College Of Sports Medicine published a study that checked out the effect that stretching has on strength.  They tested hamstring strength and then the next session had subjects stretch their hamstrings before being tested.  Strength declined every time after stretching, even if the stretch was only held for 30 seconds.

So really, stretching doesn’t do anything that common knowledge holds it does.  Stretching doesn’t warm you up, make you more flexible, make you stronger, or protect you from injury.

Stretching a muscle weakens it.

Stretching your working muscles before practice (in athletes) or a workout is like going in overtrained and tired.  You’ll perform on an inferior level and be more likely to get injured.

That’s why you don’t want to stretch your prime mover muscles before exertion.  Weakened hamstrings, quads, and shoulders lead to injury and impaired performance.  Of course, what are the most often stretched muscles?  Hamstrings, quads, and shoulders…

Now, when is stretching a good thing?

You can slightly increase a muscle’s range of motion with stretching if it’s not done too vigorously.  And stretching is ideally done an hour or so after your workout, when the muscles are still warm but not firing lots of electrical signals that cause contraction.

As your strength and mobility improves, your workouts themselves become active “stretches.”  Sitting into a deep squat is a real world exercise that ensures you keep a big range of motion.  (Doing real-world movements like squatting, pulling, pushing, and lunging means you’ll move freely, without even a risk of becoming “muscle bound”)

It’s time for the big idea: Sometimes making a muscle weaker is a good thing!

Really.  After all the slams on stretching so far, sometimes you really do want to make a muscle weaker.

When a muscle is in a contracted position all day, it shortens and becomes very tight.  This can pull your body out of alignment and really mess you up when you try to move.

So you can stretch that muscle to weaken it and let your joints get back into alignment.

Time for a few examples of when stretching a muscle to weaken it is what you should do…

Calves – Wearing shoes with a heel all day keeps your calf muscles shortened and they tighten up.  Then when you go to exercise you can’t keep your feet flat on the floor, your knees shoot forward, and your back goes wonky.

So stretching your calves to weaken them allows you to keep your heels down when you exercise so your body is aligned and you have less risk of injuring other joints.

One caveat with stretching your calves: you don’t want to stretch them so much they’re weakened before doing power jumping exercises.  In this case it’s better to warm them up with little hops and active squat stretches (like toe grab squats) instead of stretching.

 Chest – Sitting hunched over in front of a computer (or on any chair, really) draws your shoulders forward and shortens your chest muscles.  This in turn weakens the muscles of your back and raises your shoulder blades which weakens your shoulders and makes them more likely to get get injured.  A tight chest is no bueno.

Opening and loosening your chest will let you activate your back muscles and keep your shoulders in place.

Again, you don’t want to weaken your chest muscles if you’re going to be doing aggressive chest exercises, but anything involving your back or lower body – go for it.

Hip Flexors And Piriformis – This is a big one.  In fact, the most popular post on this website is all about just stretching your hip flexors (Here it is: One Exercise To End Lower Belly Pooch).

Sitting shortens these muscles and tips your hips out of alignment, which throws all of your exercise onto your lower back and prevents you from engaging your abs and glute muscles.

When your hip flexors are tight, your low back is going to hurt.  And you see all the benefits from your core and butt exercises.

And a tight piriformis can cause shooting pain (and a shortened range of motion) through your low back and the back of your legs.

Weakening these two muscle groups with stretching is one of the best things you can do for yourself.  We sit so much that it affects everything, and these are two great weapons you can use to counterattack.

There’s no caveat here, do the hip flexor stretch and the piriformis stretch as often as possible.  I start every one of my workouts and the workouts of my clients with these two.  Plus, stretch again throughout the day.

Wrap Up

What doesn’t work about stretching:

• Doesn’t Warm You Up
• Doesn’t Decrease Injuries
• Doesn’t Increase Strength
• Doesn’t Increase Flexibility
• Doesn’t Improve Power Output

What stretching does:

• Slightly Increase Muscle Length
• Turn Off Contraction System

When stretching is a good thing:

• To Deliberately Weaken A Muscle To Improve Alignment

I think protein is awesome.

It does all sorts of cool stuff in your body:

• It forms antibodies to protect you when viruses and bacteria wanna play dirty
• It forms enzymes to help you digest your food
• It builds your body, from muscles and bones to organs and connective tissue
• It carries oxygen through your blood and delivers it to your organs and muscles
• It forms hormones to tell your body when to burn food for energy and when to store it as fat

Protein is like the all-star kid from high school that letters in every sport, gets straight As, plays in the band, leads the debate team, and still has time to organize a blood drive and parade.  In short, it’s a versatile superstar.

You should make getting quality protein the number one foundation of your diet because it does so much for you.  Plus…

Protein burns more calories.  Your body has to break down foods to get at the nutrients and energy in the food.  Protein takes about twice as much energy to break down as carbohydrate.  So getting at the energy in the food costs more energy and you use a lot more calories to do it.  When you eat more protein (in place of carbs and fats) you burn more calories all day.

Protein is delicious.  Lobster.  Steak.  Chicken.  Salmon.  Shrimp.  Oooh yeah.  When your diet is built around super-tasty food it’s a lot easier to stick to.

Protein attacks belly fat.  Well, not directly… But a high-protein diet helps you body control cortisol, a “stress hormone” that leads to fat storage on your abs and upper back.  Less cortisol = less body fat.

Protein satisfies.  You feel full faster when you eat a high protein meal.  I can eat a plate full of cookies in nothing flat. Eating a can of salmon though?  It’s tough!  The fullness will help keep you from overeating.  Plus, high-protein meals keep you satisfied longer, so you’re not starving again an hour later (like you would be after the cookie binge).

Protein helps you firm up.  The lean, toned muscle you build from working out?  Yeah, it’s made from protein.  When you exercise, you create tiny little tears in your muscles.  To repair these tears, your body needs protein.  So if you wanna tone up, you need protein.  Lots of protein.  (And when your body is rebuilding proteins, it’s totally in fat burning mode too.  Win win situation.)

That’s five good reasons to make protein the cornerstone of your diet.  Combine them and you can see how focusing on protein will get you burning fat and toning up.

A few tips to help you get the most from protein:

• ALL plant proteins are incomplete protein sources (yes, even soy).  Get complete protein from animal foods.
• Choose the wildest meat you can find.
• Most protein drinks are loaded with fillers and other junky chemicals.  If you supplement with protein powders, read the labels carefully.
• Your minimum protein intake should be one gram of protein for every pound you weigh.  Ex: If you weigh 150 pounds, get at least 150 grams of protein.
• Protein is a mild diuretic, so drink lots of water when on a high-protein diet.
• If you have gout or are diabetic, work with a doctor or nutritionist to plan your diet.
• Make your protein as delicious as possible.  Try new foods, use lots of spices, keep things interesting

Have fun and go eat some protein!

Small changes made and sustained over time are a much easier way to lose weight than crash diets.

Sure, you might not lose weight as quickly as your friend who is eating only 2 apricots a day, but you’ll lose the excess weight painlessly, and the results will last (no more rebounding after a crash diet!)

With the overarching goals of being stressless and sustainable, here are some simple changes that will help you transform your body and your health:

• Cook more, eat out less.
• Think about good things to eat. (Instead of worrying about bad things to eat)
• Eat what’s in-season for maximum flavor and value.  Availability doesn’t equal quality.  (Eating in-season is better for the environment as well)
• Explore farmer’s markets, co-ops, and ethnic markets.
• Take the stairs.  Park farther out.  Add as much non-exercise movement as you can.
• Don’t watch much TV. (Or spend forever on Facebook)
• Experiment with herbs, spices, and other taste-makers to discover new flavors and make meals seem new.  (I never used coriander or cardamom before making Paleo Butter Chicken, now they’re two of my favorite spices)
• Eat smaller portions of more things, instead of larger portions of fewer things.
• Eat more vegetables.
• Eat more fruit.
• Drink more water.
• Walk everywhere you can.
• Present your food appealingly, even if you’re just serving yourself.
• Don’t eat “fat free” or “sugar free.”  Stay away from artificial flavors.  Instead, enjoy the real thing in moderation.
• Indulge healthfully – see this post: Coffee, Chocolate, And Red Wine
• Drink lots and lots of water.
• Plan meals in advance.
• Choose your own indulgences and compensations.
• Don’t follow media fads.
• Laugh more.  (True laughter leads to positive hormonal changes)
• Use all five of your senses while you’re eating and less will seem like more.
• If you choose to exercise in addition to moving more, choose something you enjoy that motivates you.
• Use clothing and the mirror to keep track of your body shape, not the scale.
• If you slip up on your plan, just come back.  Don’t focus on the negative.
• Don’t snack all the time.
• Never get too hungry.
• Never get too full.
• Never eat standing up, walking, in front of the TV, in front of the computer, or while driving.
• Train your taste buds.
• Sleep more.  But not too much.
• Get more sunshine and fresh air.

Blood tests are a great objective fitness tool.

Weight changes as fat and muscle ratios change.  Pictures and the mirror change subjectively.

But a blood test… you can compare this year’s blood test to last year’s blood test and see exactly how you compare.

The tests below are a good starting point for you.  Your first test will show you how much room for improvement you have.  Subsequent tests will show you exactly what improvements you’ve made.

All of these are important indicators of your health and longevity, and you can use them for an accurate self-assessment.

So here are 5 blood tests you should have done regularly:

Blood Test #1: Fasting Insulin

This test involves an overnight fast.  It might be the most important test you can have done.

Your fasting insulin is a direct indicator of your metabolic health.  In fact, insulin levels are so key to your health that they can predict the outcome of many other tests.

High fasting insulin levels are associated with other negative health signals, like high triglycerides, hypertension, high bad cholesterol, low good cholesterol, high inflammation, and leptin resistance.

Plus, insulin tells you a lot about your fat storage.  High fasting insulin levels means you’re more likely to store fat and have dangerous visceral fat deposits.

Doctors won’t usually test your fasting insulin levels unless they’re looking for a specific problem, so you will probably need to ask or go to a testing lab and order it done for yourself.

Blood Test #2: Testosterone

Testosterone levels are declining rapidly in both men and women.  (In fact, adults now have about a quarter of the testosterone of their grandparents)

Low testosterone is associated with low muscle, increased body fat, moodiness, depression, hypertension, low strength, low energy, and a slower metabolism.

Age-related decline in testosterone is largely preventable with the proper diet, workout, and lifestyle factors in place.

Chronic cardio and stress both will lower your testosterone.

Blood Test #3: Cholesterol

Usually you get a report of your total cholesterol.  That number is basically useless for assessing your health.  What you need to know are your “good” and “bad” cholesterol levels.

HDL (High density lipoprotein) is the good cholesterol.  Higher HDL levels are associated with increased longevity and improved health.  HDL carries fats to your liver where you can break them down and use them for energy.

LDL (Low density lipoprotein) is the bad cholesterol.  LDL oxidizes (turns rancid) very easily, blocks your blood vessels, and contributes to lesions inside your body.

If you have a high total cholesterol but most of that is HDL, you’re sitting pretty.  If you have elevated LDL, you’re about to run into a lot of health problems.

Blood Test #4: C-Reactive Protein

C-reactive proteins are a sign of inflammation in your body.  Unfortunately, most doctors won’t test your C-reactive protein levels unless they think you’re at risk for a heart attack.

C-reactive protein (CRP) testing is more accurate at predicting a heart attack than either triglyceride or cholesterol levels.  Elevated CRP levels means you’re at risk for developing diabetes, hypertension, and other cardiovascular diseases.

Having a high percentage of CRP is directly linked to higher levels of body fat.  The increased inflammation from the fat stores taxes your body’s immune system and damages healthy tissues (like your brain, liver, and kidneys).

Blood Test #5: Triglycerides

High triglycerides are almost always signals of a metabolic disorder.  This test tells you the levels of fats that are circulating around in your bloodstream.

When you’re insulin resistant, the fats just keep circulating and building up, causing all sorts of problems – from becoming rancid to blocking bloodflow.

You should measure both your triglyceride level and your ratio of triglycerides to HDL.

Getting Blood Tests

Until recently most of these tests had to be ordered by a physician, but now you can start taking a more proactive role in protecting your health.

First, ask your doctor and see if you can get these tests done there and covered by your insurance.  If that’s not available, there are many local testing facilities that will take blood samples and send them into a lab where the tests you order are carried out.  (I use Direct Laboratory Services Inc.)

Even if the tests are covered by your insurance you should still invest in them, they provide an invaluable view into your current health and show you your risks for future disease.

Getting tested twice a year is a good baseline, but you can get tested over even shorter periods if you’re experimenting with changing certain levels.

For instance, a client of mine had a blood test done and discovered she had low vitamin D.  She went on a vitamin D raising plan and was tested again at 4, 8, and 12 weeks.  At 12 weeks her levels were in a healthier range and she could take on a more moderate program for maintenance.

But here’s the kicker: at 4 weeks there was no change, so it would have been easy to quit.  Instead we made a few tweaks and at 8 weeks her levels were rising.  After 12 weeks she was where she needed to be.  If we had waited 6 months or a year to get a follow-up test done, who knows what kind of results we’d have seen – good or bad?

So use testing as an assessment tool.  If you have no specific issues, every six months is a perfect place to start.

Since Carson City, where I live, is located at 4,800 feet elevation friends and family who come to visit notice they get tired much faster.

And up in even higher cities, you might notice that just a minimal workout will lead to extreme shortness of breath – almost like you’re breathing through a straw and can’t get enough air.

But in just a few days your breathing gets easier and you carry on as normal.  It’s just a short acclimation process.

Athletes train at high altitudes because they want to improve their oxygen uptake and then take their improved cardiovascular system back to sea level and destrominate the competition.

Most people would totally agree with this – that their breathing at high altitudes gets easier because their lungs are picking up more oxygen.

Science Time

In fact, you breath more easily after acclimation because your oxygen uptake has gotten worse.

What?!?

Yep.

See, oxygen is passed from your lungs to your blood, where it is picked up by hemoglobin molecules.

Hemoglobin binds to the oxygen and carries it along your bloodstream to where it is needed in your body.

The problem with this system is that when the hemoglobin/oxygen combo reaches your tissues, the hemoglobin bond is so strong that it doesn’t give up the oxygen easily.

That’s right: your blood doesn’t want to give up its oxygen to the rest of your body.  Selfish.

You can adapt though, and decrease hemoglobin’s attachment to oxygen in a way that lowers oxygen uptake in your lungs in order for you to get better delivery to your body’s tissues.

This is known as the Bohr Effect.

Here’s the definition:

Hemoglobin’s oxygen binding affinity is inversely related both to acidity and to the concentration of carbon dioxide. That is to say, a decrease in blood pH or an increase in blood CO2 concentration will result in hemoglobin proteins releasing their loads of oxygen and a decrease in carbon dioxide or increase in pH will result in hemoglobin picking up more oxygen.

So training at altitude DOES have the potential to increase your performance, just not in the way you’d think.

And now it’s time to get even more cool with science…

When you exercise really hard you produce lactic acid.  The hydrogen ions from lactic acid spread through your blood vessels (that’s the burn you feel during hard exercise) and change the shape of your hemoglobin so that the hemoglobin is less sticky to the oxygen.

In short, hard training leads to improved oxygen delivery inside of your body.

Repeated training at a high enough intensity leads your body to make a chemical called… wait for it… 2,3 diphosphoglycerate.  This chemical works like the Bohr effect – but the results last longer

2,3 diphosphiglycerate is made in high amounts in people who live at high altitudes and in people who regularly work out at a high intensity.

What’s high intensity?  Where you go so hard that your body’s demand for oxygen momentarily exceeds your ability to deliver it.  (Panting breathing and muscle burn)

So, the moral of the story is:  Training super-hard or at elevation (or both!) will increase your ability to deliver oxygen to your body… while absorbing less oxygen from the air.  How cool is that!

Lack of sleep and chronic stress come together.

Not sleeping makes you stressed and stress makes you lose sleep (which leads to more stress…)

Here’s some bad news: sleep deprivation and stress both play a role in struggling with weight loss and health problems.

Most people who are trying to lose weight never stop to think about the effects that missing sleep can have on their body.

Some people think that staying up longer can help them lose weight because they might be able to burn more calories. In fact, the opposite is true: a good night’s sleep actually helps you achieve a healthy weight, while a lack of sleep makes losing weight more difficult. (And people don’t realize one of the clearest truths about sleeping – when you’re asleep, you’re not eating!)

Not only does sleeping refresh your brain – so you can make clear decisions about food choices the next day – sleep (or a lack thereof), affects your metabolism, your hormones, and your immune system. All together these have a powerful affect on your health and weight.

Consider the following:

- A large study that followed more than 68,000 women for 16 years showed that women who slept less than 7 hours per night put on more weight than those who slept at least 7 hours. Additionally, women who slept only 5 hours per night were 33% more likely to gain significant weight (33 pounds or more).

- Sleep deprivation impairs insulin sensitivity, impairs carbohydrate tolerance, increases ghrelin (appetite hormone), decreases leptin, and increases cortisol.

- Research has shown that about 7 hours of QUALITY sleep are necessary for weight control and good health. Chronic sleep deprivation accelerates the onset and increases the symptoms of aging – including memory loss, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.

- Less than 4 hours of sleep in one night, or chronic sleep loss, has been shown to have a negative effect on carbohydrate metabolism. Put simply, carbs make you fatter if you’re missing sleep!

- A study found that adults who slept 4 hours or less per night are 73% more likely to be obese than those who slept between 7 and 9 hours per night. Sleeping between 5 and 6 hours per night leads to a 50% greater risk of being overweight and a 23% greater risk of being obese.

Missing sleep occasionally can be overcome, missing sleep every night (or almost every night!) is what starts to damage your body.

What you need to do is make a plan for getting at least 7 hours of restful sleep every night. Here are some tips to help:

1. No TV near bedtime and ABSOLUTELY no TV in the bedroom
2. Make sure your bedroom has good window coverings (for darkness), is uncluttered, and well ventilated.
3. Create a “wind-down” ritual before bed.  Try herbal tea, dimmed lights, journaling, or a warm bath.
4. Take calcium and magnesium before bed.
5. No working or studying in bed.  Beds are for sex and sleep.
6. Try aromatherapy – lavender helps with relaxation.
7. Avoid eating right before bed, and try to have 3 hours between bedtime and your last big meal.
8. Alcohol lowers sleep quality, so limit or avoid alcoholic drinks within a few hours of bedtime.
9. A cooler room helps promote deeper sleep.
10. Leave your worries outside the door – make your bedroom a stress-free zone.
11. Guided imagery, progressive relaxation, meditation, and breathing exercises can all help with sleep.
12. Caffeine interferes with sleep (it is a stimulant and also affects your production of the sleep hormone melatonin).  Time your intake so you can fall asleep easily.  This might mean no caffeine after 3pm, or it might mean no caffeine after 11am.  Everyone is different.
13. Try using a sleep mask for perfect darkness.
14. Invest in a comfortable pillow and mattress.
15. Get a quality alarm with a back up battery so you won’t stress about sleeping in.
16. Have white noise.  A fan, air purifier, or white noise machine are all good choices.
17. Put blue light filters on all electronic screens in your home.  The blue light from monitors, laptops, and TVs simulates sunlight and blocks the release of melatonin.
18. Paint and decorate your bedroom with serene and restful colors.
19. Practice regular rhythms of sleep.  Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day.
20. Keep your room dust-free.  Keep pets out of the bedroom at all times and consider getting an air filtering system.
21. Get exposure to sunlight on your body and face as soon as possible after waking.  This helps tell your body it is time to wake up and enhances your sleep rhythm.
22. Use a hot rice pack on your solar plexus (just below your rib cage) – this helps trigger your body chemistry for sleep.  (Cuddling a partner works too)
23. Try herbal supplements before bed: Valerian Root, Kava Kava, Passionflower, Chamomile, and Lemon Balm all help with sleep.
24. Get tested.  The most common and underdiagnosed sleep disorder is sleep apnea.  If you experience excessive daytime sleepiness, fatgiue, snoring, or have been seen to momentarily stop breathing during the night, get tested by a sleep lab.  (Sleep apnea greatly raises your risk of hypertension and heart disease)

Getting enough quality sleep will not only make you healthier, help you de-stress, and speed up weight loss, it will recharge you so that you can enjoy everything that life has to offer.

Sugar reminds me of a ninja.  It sneaks in when you least expect it and does some serious damage.

In order to help you guard yourself from the sugar ninja menace, here’s a list of other names for sugar, ways it disguises itself to sneak into your food:

• Agave syrup
• Grape sugar
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Icing sugar
• Invert sugar

• Lactose
• Maltodextrin
• Maltose
• Malt syrup
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Muscovado sugar
• Panocha
• Raw sugar
• Refiner’s syrup
• Rice syrup
• Sorbitol
• Sorghum syrup
• Sucrose

• Evaporated cane juice
• Sugar
• Treacle
• Turbinado sugar
• Yellow sugar
• Date sugar
• Demerara sugar
• Dextran
• Dextrose
• Diastatic malt
• Diatase
• Ethyl maltol
• Fructose
• Fruit juice
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Galactose
• Glucose
• Glucose solids
• Golden sugar
• Golden syrup
• Barley malt

• Beet sugar
• Brown sugar
• Buttered syrup
• Cane juice crystals
• Cane sugar
• Caramel
• Corn syrup
• Corn syrup solids
• Confectioner’s sugar
• Carob syrup
• Castor sugar

Did you know that because of sneaky sugars, the average American eats more than 6oz of sugar a day?

Keep yourself safe from ninja sugars, when you see any of these names on a label, think twice before putting it in your mouth.  It might just be waiting for its chance to attack…

Check out some of these other posts on Wold Fitness about sugar:

Sugar Cravings Taking Over Your Brain!

99 Ways Sugar Is Poisoning You

Sugar Primer

Before modern chemical pesticides, nature developed its own powerful defense system: lectins.

To keep themselves from being eaten to extinction, plants evolved dangerous anti-nutrients to attack the digestive systems of the animals that fed on them.  These anti-nutrients are essentially low-grade toxins – not powerful enough to kill instantly, they are more of a passive-aggressive defense.  “Go ahead and eat me, I’ll mess you up.”

Lectins are a mixture of proteins and carbohydrates that can bind to almost any tissue in our bodies and start causing trouble.  This “stickyness” really takes place in your small intestine, where they bind with your intestinal villi.

The result of lectins binding to your small intestine is cellular damage with a reduced ability to repair themselves, cellular death, and compromised villi.  All of this leads to you developing “leaky gut” syndrome, as well as reducing your ability to absorb healthy nutrients like protein, vitamins, and minerals.

This lectin binding also leads to problems with your gut flora, the beneficial bacteria that support digestion and keeps your immune system healthy.  When your good gut flora is suppressed, bad bacteria like e coli is allowed to run rampant.

(And it doesn’t take a medical degree to figure out that a leaky gut plus bad bacteria equals health problems)

When lectins are causing problems with your digestive system, your immune systems and bodily resources are all redirected to fixing these problems and won’t be able to focus on basic growth and repair processes (such as building lean muscle, metabolizing fat, repairing organs, and keeping your energy levels high).

Back to leaky gut and lectins.  Once the lectins open holes in your digestive system, rogue particles are free to move around in your body and bind to anything they come across – thyroid, pancreas, kidneys, etc.

Your body then reacts to these particles (and whatever they have bonded to) as a foreign invader and attacks them.  This leads to autoimmune disorders such as Crohn’s, colitis, thyroiditis, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and arthritis.

Some lectins are definitely linked to certain autoimmune disorders – such as wheat to rheumatoid arthritis – but it remains a new area of study.  Your best bet is to avoid lectins as much as possible.

All right, so how do lectins do this? When you normally eat food, all of the proteins are broken down into their basic amino acid building blocks and are then absorbed in your small intestine.  Lectins are different.  Instead of being broken down during digestion, they attach to the cells where nutrient absorption should be taking place.  “Barring the door,” so to speak.

Usually, specific immune cells immediately take care of foreign bacteria and un-broken proteins.  But lectins are like sneaky little Trojan Horses, they slip past your defenses and then make your intestines easier to penetrate PLUS they impair your immune system’s ability to close holes in your digestive track.

High amounts of lectins are found in all grains, soy, legumes, nuts, dairy, and nightshade plants.  (Nightshade plants include eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers)

And there are even more lectins in genetically modified foods, because additional lectins are added to increase “pest” resistance.  (Yes, they genetically added things that cause your body to attack itself.  Thank you, Monsanto!)

So, what can you do to minimize damage to your body from lectins?

First, stop eating the worst foods!  This includes grains and soy for sure, but I would take out legumes and grain-fed dairy as well.  Here is some more info on grains and soy:

Reasons Besides Weight Loss To Cut Out Wheat And Grains

Grains Suck!

Soy, My Nipples, And Your Health

Soy Tried To Kill Me! (Profanity Warning)

Ok, once you’ve cut out grains, soy, and legumes, the next step is to eliminate all Genetically Modified Food (GMO).  This can be tough to do at the supermarket, your best bet is to get friendly with your local farmer’s market and get local, natural food.

Next, diversify your diet.  When you take away grains, soy, and legumes, most people get into a standard rotation of foods.  3 types of protein, 3 types of fruit, 4 kinds of vegetables, 1-2 kinds of nuts.  The problem is that consuming only a small number of foods will maximize your sensitivity to any lectins (or allergens) in the food.

Studies have shown that mixing up your primary food sources will limit lectin damage, so a healthy diet based on low-lectin foods will minimize any damage caused by occasional higher-lectin sources.

And finally – this is very important – take care of your digestive system!  Minimize use of antibiotics, take probiotics, eat prebiotics (garlic, onions, dandelion greens), get rid of ibuprofen, and de-stress.

Minimizing lectin damage is a big step towards improving your health and changing your body, so get started on the steps above right away!

[EDIT: Check out this post for more cool info on lectins!  Your Blood Type And What NOT To Eat]