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Slowing Down to Eat Reduces Your Diabetes Risk
If you want to reduce your risk for diabetes, slow down.

That’s what a new study presented at the joint International Congress of Endocrinology and European Congress of Endocrinology concluded.

People who mindlessly devoured their food in this study were two and a half times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared with those who slowly savored what they ate.

Researchers here compared 234 people recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes with 468 people without diabetes. Besides taking body measurements, they asked participants to complete a questionnaire about diabetes risk factors. Among those questions included how quickly they ate compared with their dining companions.

Other than increased diabetes risk, people who ate faster had a higher body mass index (BMI).

Are you seeing a pattern here?

I’m willing to wager too the speed eaters weren’t eating wild salmon and broccoli. More likely, they were devouring In-N-Out burgers and milkshakes.

Diabetes studies come out all the time. This one proves significant because it was the first to show how quickly you eat can determine whether you’ll develop this chronic – and in my opinion, completely reversible – disease.

Experts often look for oversimplified culprits for diabetes, including higher consumption of high-fructose corn syrup HFCS), lack of exercise, and the ubiquitous fat-salt-sugar combo that makes up most of the processed and fast food people eat.

And while these things certainly play a role, scientists often overlook that psychological factors also significantly contribute to diabetes.

We’re a fast-paced, multitasking society that hardly seems aware what we’re shoveling down our mouths as we fight rush-hour traffic while taking a cell phone call from our irate boss.

That’s why this study proves important. It provides an often-neglected component to prevent diabetes: slow down.

I get it: saying it is easier than doing it, especially in these tough economic times where you might be struggling to stay afloat and stopping everything else for 30 minutes to savor your food just doesn’t seem possible.

But it’s worth it, for peace of mind and – as we’re seeing more and more – your health. I want to conclude with seven strategies to help you put the brakes on your eating pace:
1. Eat with slow people. You know those people who linger over their meal and enjoy every bite? Opt to dine with them rather than your friend who pounds cheeseburgers like a keg party at a fraternity house.
2. Put your fork down between bites. Remind yourself this isn’t one of those Coney Island hot dog eating contests and shoveling down your food will only give you indigestion.
3. Stop the dashboard dining. You know that cramming down an Egg McMuffin while sitting in rush hour traffic is hardly the best way to start your day. Whenever possible, eat sitting down (but not behind the wheel!), preferably at your kitchen table. My friend JJ Virgin has more great information about slowing down.
4. Chew thoroughly. A new study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that people who chew more eat less food and absorb more nutrients. Sounds like a win-win to me.
5. Be mindful while you’re eating. Put away your iPhone and other distractions. And establish a no-texting rule at the dinner table. Be present and listen to what others say. Or if you’re eating alone, focus on food rather than the TV.
6. Pause before you eat. If you’re religious, you could say a short prayer before you dive into your food. And if you’re not, simply taking a moment to breathe and offer thanks can calm your mind and digestive system.
7. Visit a gourmet multi-course restaurant. Ever visited one of those prix fixe restaurants where you linger for hours enjoying course after course? That’s a great way to learn how to slow down and savor food.
July 9, 2012
New Drug Provides Very “Modest Weight Loss”

Have you heard of the new weight loss drug, Belviq?

Then gather ‘round, boys and girls, cause we have a rare opportunity to watch sausage being made.

This is the best time to talk about Belviq, because no one’s really heard of it—yet—so we have a chance to talk about what it does and doesn’t do before we’ve been subjected to what will probably be one of the most expensive pharmaceutical marketing campaigns in years. At that point everyone will have heard of Belviq, anyone who is even a few pounds overweight will be asking their doctor about it—(“Ask your doctor if Belviq might be right for you”)—and I will undoubtedly get a gazillion questions about it on the website.

So, as Ed Schultz would sway, “Let’s get to work”.

On June 27, the Food and Drug administration approved a new weight loss drug, lorcaserin, which is made by Arena Pharmaceuticals and marketed under the brand name Belviq. It’s the first time in more than ten years that a weight loss drug has been approved by the agency, so expect everyone to make a really big deal out of that.

Up to now, everything about Belviq has been “behind the scenes”. It was reviewed by the FDA in 2010 and rejected, one because it produced “modest weight loss” and two because there were concerns about a rat study linking the drug to mammary tumors. But Arena came back to the FDA with new data.

The new data—in research sponsored by the manufacturer—showing that 38% of patients had lost 5% or more of their starting weight in a year. Among people taking a placebo, only 16% of patients lost that amount of weight.

OK everyone, let’s do some math.

If you’re 200 pounds and you lose 5% of your weight over the course of a year—commendable, by the way, I’m all for it—you’ve lost all of 10 pounds. In a year. Which, if I remember my elementary school long division, would come to 10 divided by 12 months or a grand total of .83 pounds per month.

That’s decimal point 83, in case you missed it.

Meaning less than one pound per month.

Meaning approximately 4/5 of one pound. Per month.

Am I making myself clear?

Not only that, but 16% of patients were able to lose that much just taking a placebo, meaning that of the 38% of patients on the drug who had these nothing-to-write-home-about results, 16% would have lost the weight on a sugar pill anyway. That means that the actual percentage of patients in the study who achieved these results because of the drug was only 22%.

FDA Committee member and Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado Daniel Bessesen, who voted for approval, said the drug provides “a modest weight loss, and it’s not what we would like.”

No kidding.

Then there are the safety issues. The data shown to the FDA fell just short of the standard the agency sets to rule out an excess risk of valvular heart disease. An increased risk for heart-valve disease was what ultimately caused Fen-Phen to be withdrawn from the market.

The sausage making part of this story is this: Watch carefully over the next couple of years at how the data on this drug is spun in the sure-to-be spectacular marketing campaign that will be waged on its behalf. These guys are so good at what they do that they will make you forget that their own studies showed only 8/10 of a pound a month weight loss (for a 200 pound patient), and that most people didn’t even achieve that.

And when you’re tempted to give it a try, please remember to come back to this article and read it again.

Four-fifths of one pound a month.

In about 22% of patients. (In other words, 78% didn’t even achieve that!)

With potential safety issues and side effects that generally don’t become well known till a drug has been out in the market for a while (i.e. Vioxx, Fen-Phen.. shall I continue?)

But by the time Big Pharma’s marketing departments get done trumpeting “significant results” and “38% of all patients lost an impressive 5% of body weight” and showing you commercials with happy, slim people running around the beach, you’ll almost be convinced.

Don’t feel bad. I almost bought a thighmaster once.

July 9, 2012
“Low Fat” Comes in Last Place… Again
So three penguins walk into a bar, get to talking, and decide to enroll in a diet study.

I’m kidding of course, but I thought it might be a novel way to introduce the new diet study that was just published in the august Journal of the American Medical Association, and has got the media all a dither.

It’s actually a pretty good study, and there’s even been some truthful and accurate reporting on it, a rarity in an age when simplistic sound bites substitute for careful analysis. But in case you missed reading about it, here’s what you need to know, starting with the back story.

See, The conventional wisdom is that all calories are calories, that it doesn’t matter where they come from, and that weight loss is essentially about “calories in, calories out”. It’ called the “energy balance” theory; you take in calories through food, you burn up calories through activity, and if you “burn” more than you take in, you lose weight. If, on the other hand, you take in more than you burn up, you gain weight. Period.

We’ve been hearing this same old past-its-expiration-date claptrap about all calories being equal for decades now. I won’t name names (American Dietetic Association) but lots of mainstream organizations and health authorities have been parroting this “a calorie is a calorie” stuff to us for years. They’re still doing it.

The researchers decided to see if it were true.

Spoiler alert: it’s not.

The researchers in this study wanted to specifically look at the metabolic effects of different diets composed of the same number of calories. They wanted to see if varying the amount of protein, fat or carbs impacted important metabolic markers, like, for example, how many calories you burn at rest.

Remember—the holy grail of “diet” programs, the promise of every infomercial, is the ability to “boost your metabolism”. Burning more calories at rest—and burning more calories, proportionately, when you’re active—is the very definition of a “boosted” metabolism, isn’t it? The researchers wanted to see if, for example, a high-protein diet caused people to “burn” more calories than, say, a low-fat diet, even if calories were kept the same.

So what happened?

Let’s go to the videotape.

Researchers first took 21 participants, age 18-40, and put them on a variation of the Zone diet, feeding them 45% carbs, 30% fat and 25% protein. All of them lost between 10-15% of their body weight over the course of three months. So far, so good.

A month later, the participants were placed on one of three diets for a month.
1. A low-fat diet (fat= 20% of calories)
2. A low-carb diet modeled on Atkins (10% of calories from carbs)
3. A low-glycemic diet (40% carbs, 40% fats and 20% protein)
(Note: low-glycemic means that all the foods had minimal impact on blood sugar; essentially that means a very low-sugar diet with minimal amounts of processed carbs like cereals and breads. Processed carbs have the most dramatic effect on blood sugar, which, in turn, raises levels of the fat-storage hormone insulin, making it really easy to gain weight.)

Participants were switched around so that every person ultimately went on each of the three diets for one solid month.

Ready for the results?

The low-fat diet had the worst effect on calorie burning.

Low-fat dieters also had increases in triglycerides—a major risk factor for heart disease—and had decreases in protective HDL cholesterol. “The low-fat diet that has been the primary approach for more than a generation is actually the worst for most outcomes, with the worst effects on insulin resistance, triglycerides and HDL, or good cholesterol, said David Ludwig, MD, lead researcher on the study.

In other words, the low-fat diet stunk.

(No news to readers of this newsletter, but I digress.)

The group that had the greatest increase in “energy expenditure” (calories burned)? The low-carb group.

The low-carbers actually boosted their metabolism by a whopping 350 calories a day compared to those on the low-fat diet, approximately the same as an hour of moderate exercise. And the low-glycemic dieters did pretty well also, burning 150 calories more per day than those following the god-awful low-fat diet.

The news wasn’t all good for low-carbers, however. The extra calories burned came at a cost. Those on the low-carb diet had higher levels of CRP- a measure of systemic inflammation—and higher levels of cortisol, the major stress hormone in the body. Those on the low-glycemic diet did not have any of those negative results.

I’m a huge fan of David Ludwig, one of the smartest and least biased researchers working in the field of weight loss. And I can certainly see why he concluded that, all things considered, the low-glycemic diet is the way to go. You still get a huge bump in metabolism, but no negatives to go along with it.

My only question here is why the low-carbers saw their CRP and cortisol levels rise. It’s tempting to think it’s simply the low-carb diet, but I’d want to know more specifics.

For example, the low-carbers were on a diet of 40% fat. I’m guessing most of that fat was vegetable oil, the kind we’ve been taught is so “healthy” but is actually quite pro-inflammatory. (That could have accounted for why their CRP, which is a measure of inflammation, went up.)

The take-away from this very good study is this: Stick with whole foods, minimally processed. “We should avoid severely restricting any major nutrient and focus on the quality of the nutrient”, said Ludwig.

“It’s time to reacquaint ourselves with minimally processed carbs. If you take three servings of refined carbohydrates and substitute one of fruit, one of beans and one of nuts, you could eliminate 50 percent of diet-related disease in the United States. These relatively modest changes can provide great benefit.”

Amen.

And hopefully we can finally put to rest the outdated notion that “all calories are created equal”.
July 2, 2012
Ancient Ayurvedic Secret for Boosting Immunity

A new study in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry found that curcumin could increase levels of an immune-boosting protein that prevents infection.

Researchers here looked at the ability of curcumin and omega-3 fatty acids to increase the cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide, or CAMP, gene. CAMP helps your immune system fight off bacteria, viruses, and fungi. For instance, it protects against the bacteria that triggers tuberculosis.

Now, researchers found no increase in CAMP levels with omega-3 fatty acids. (Which shouldn’t deter you from taking fish oil, since it’s good for about a million other things.)

Curcumin was more impressive: it allowed CAMP levels to nearly triple in this study.

We knew that vitamin D boosted CAMP levels, but this study was the first to show curcumin could also boost CAMP.

“Curcumin, as part of turmeric, is generally consumed in the diet at fairly low levels,” researchers said. “However, it’s possible that sustained consumption over time may be healthy and help protect against infection, especially in the stomach and intestinal tract.”

If you’ve read my book The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth you know I’m a huge fan of turmeric, a pungent orange-yellow spice that’s used in curries and other Indian, South Asian, and Middle Eastern cuisines.

Ayurvedic (Indian) medicine, in fact, treats this spice with absolute reverence and often incorporates it for anti-inflammatory and other medicinal purposes. Chronic inflammation, also known as the silent killer, contributes to nearly every disease, from cancer to diabetes to heart disease.

The anti-inflammatory and other benefits here come from curcumin, the active compound in turmeric. This potent antioxidant can neutralize damaging free radicals and also stop them from occurring in the first place.

Curcumin’s antioxidant abilities protect your colon, heart, liver, and other organs. Just one example: curcumin induces glutathione S-transferase, an enzyme that helps your liver detoxify.

Studies also show curcumin helps fight numerous cancers and cognitive decline. A study in the journal CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics showed curcumin could even reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

Now, here’s the deal. I want you to sprinkle turmeric liberally to spice up your foods and receive its numerous health benefits. I love turmeric on eggs, for instance, and green vegetables like spinach. And, of course, enjoy this spice in your favorite Indian dish.

But to get therapeutic doses of curcumin, the active, anti-inflammatory antioxidant in turmeric, you need a highly absorbable supplement. That’s because turmeric powder contains a small amount of curcumin, while a supplement can be standardized up to 95% curcumin.

Curcumin works synergistically with other anti-inflammatory compounds. One formula I really like is Inflammatone from Designs for Health »

This “natural” Vioxx combines a proteolytic enzyme mix with turmeric (standardized to contain 95% curcumin), boswellia, ginger, quercetin, rutin, rosemary, as well as the anti-aging compound resveratrol.

Together these nutrients provide a powerful antioxidant, anti-inflammatory punch.

June 26, 2012
5 Tips for Kicking The Junk Food Habit
A study in the International Journal of Obesity found that sugary, fatty foods create similar reactions (including the inevitable crash) to drugs.

Similar to drug addicts, researchers found bingers seek to recreate this destructive food euphoria to beat depression. Not surprisingly, a vicious cycle ensues.

“Data shows that obesity is associated with increased risk of developing depression, but we have very little understanding of the neural mechanisms and brain reward patterns that link the two,” researchers said. “We are demonstrating for the first time that the chronic consumption of palatable, high-fat diets has pro-depressive effects.”

Researchers fed mice different kinds of food and monitored how those foods affected behavior.

They also determined the relationship between rewarding mice with food and the behavior and emotions these foods evoked. Later, researchers looked at the mice’s brains to see how they changed.

The gorging mice’s brains showed increased anxiety, stress, and depression. In other words, these eating binges physically changed their brain structure.

Other studies show the same thing. One in the journal Nature Neuroscience found lab rats gravitated to high-fat foods and became dependent on getting their “fat fix” much like drug users need their daily fix.

Dopamine played a key role in getting those fixes. I’ve written before about this brain molecule, which controls pleasure and rewards certain kinds of behavior. Dopamine plays a powerful role in overeating.

But here’s the keeper: the anticipation of eating fatty foods, rather than eating the food itself, releases this powerful hormone.

Nothing wrong with anticipation: it helped us evolve as a species, after all. But problems arise when you associate pleasure with the wrong stimuli or the system malfunctions, as it did in these mice’s brains after eating the fatty foods.

When your reward circuitry becomes hijacked, your “enough!” switch becomes blunted, and addiction often results.

Ultimately, that chocolate chip cookie (or whatever your food addiction might be) fails to satisfy. But oddly enough, you repeatedly gravitate to it again because you anticipate it will satisfy.

When you return, two things happen. You strengthen the association between cue (chocolate chip cookie) and reward (that dopamine blast). And the cue itself (the thought or sight of a cookie) triggers dopamine circuits, where after you have little control over your behavior.

Dopamine is what fuels your drive to get a chocolate chip cookie when it feels like nothing else will satisfy you, and when you certainly know you don’t need or even want it.

Pair that cookie with a powerful emotional stimuli—say, wonderful memories of your grandmother baking gooey chocolate chip cookies — and those powerful associations release so much dopamine that your reward circuits become hijacked.

Next time you notice a powerful craving for something sweet, stop and ask yourself whether the anticipation of eating something is more rewarding than actually eating it.

I also want to provide five strategies to gain control over hormones like dopamine so you don’t subsequently spiral into overeating and depression:
1. Make lateral shifts. Telling yourself you can’t have something only makes you want it more. Instead of deprivation, make what my friend JJ Virgin calls a lateral shift. Instead of cookies, for instance, have apple slices with almond butter. You’ll get a satisfying crunch and sweetness without the sugar.
2. Find non-food rewards. Isn’t it funny how we can always find a reason to celebrate with food? Instead, give yourself a non-food reward, such as a massage or long walk with your dog.
3. Distract yourself and the temptation will pass. Instead of succumbing to the chocolate chip cookies, get lost in a good book or call an old friend. Other strategies include brushing your teeth and drinking a glass of water. I can almost guarantee you’ll forget about your craving.
4. Keep the enemy out of your house. Don’t set yourself up for disaster. Even if you’ve been good all day, all bets are off around 11 p.m. when you’re exhausted and suddenly remember those freshly baked cookies in the fridge. Don’t let them into your house and you’ll be far less likely to give in.
5. Get enough sleep. A study in The Journal of Neuroscience found that your brain compensates for lack of sleep by increasing dopamine. Too little sleep also knocks your fat-burning hormones out of whack. Couple that with sleep-deprived lack of judgment, and you’ve got a surefire strategy to overeat. Aim for seven to nine hours of high-quality sleep every night to trigger fat burning, balance dopamine levels, and reduce your urge to overeat.
If you want more in-depth information on the topic of food addiction then you should know I’ve dedicated an entire 12 page chapter to it in my new weight loss program Unleash Your Thin »
June 25, 2012
Overnight Fasting Brings Big Gains for Fat Loss

A study in the journal Cell Metabolism found enforcing a late-night food curfew could help you burn fat without dieting.

Researchers here discovered that mice confined to an eight-hour feeding period became leaner and healthier than mice that casually ate throughout the day.

Here’s the story. They divided the mice – all of which shared the same genes, gender, and age – into one of two groups. Both groups ate the same mice equivalent of pizza, Ben & Jerrys, and beer.

But their meal timing was different. One group ate whenever they wanted. Because mice are nocturnal, these guys put away half their food at night and otherwise casually noshed throughout the day.

The second group, however, could only eat within an eight-hour window every night. In other words, for 16 hours every day, these mice fasted.

Bad news for the mice that chowed down 24/7: after 100 days, they became fat with high blood sugar, cholesterol, liver damage, and with deteriorating health.

The fasting mice, on the other hand, weighed 28% less and – you guessed it – were in glowing health.

Oh, and guess which group won the exercise contest? Yep, the fasting mice.

I’ll repeat that again: both groups ate the same crappy diet, just at different times.

“It’s a dogma that a high-fat diet leads to obesity and that we should eat frequently when we are awake,” said senior author Satchidananda Panda. “Our findings, however, suggest that regular eating times and fasting for a significant number of hours a day might be beneficial to our health.”

These researchers suggested people could get the same metabolic benefits as the eight-hour mice by putting the brakes on eating after dinner until the next morning’s breakfast.

You’ve probably heard about intermittent fasting (IF), where you voluntarily forego food for a certain period of time. Besides numerous health benefits, proponents claim IF is a great way to burn fat.

The concept is nothing new. Even in the early 60s researchers noted that people could become and stay lean by doing one water-only fast every week, which allowed “them to be more liberal with their diet on the other days.”

Hunger is a powerful force. And despite these benefits, walking around famished and cranky all day is absolutely no fun. That’s a big reason you might be reluctant to try IF.

Which makes this study so relevant and interesting: by doing most of your IF while you’re asleep, you can get its benefits without suffering hunger or deprivation. At worst, you might have to surrender your midnight snack.

So you could have a big dinner at 6 p.m. and then resume eating the following morning at, say, 9 a.m. In other words, you’ll be “fasting” for about 14 hours, which gives your body enough time to shift into serious fat-burning mode.

Now, I’m certainly not suggesting you have an all-you-can-eat deep dish and cheesecake dinner and then expect your fat to melt away.

But if you’re stalling with your current eating plan (maybe your low-carb diet has hit a plateau) or want to burn a few pounds before your two-week trip to Kauai, you might want to give this overnight fast a try.

June 18, 2012
Want to Burn More Fat? Spend More Time in Bed!
A study in the journal Sleep found that getting adequate sleep could help you overcome a genetic predisposition towards being overweight.

The study looked at 1,088 pairs of twins. Researchers learned those who slept less than seven hours a night had a higher body mass index (BMI), one measure of being overweight or obese.

What’s more, genes influenced about 70% of that high BMI. (The other 30%, in case you were wondering, involved environment.)

On the other hand, for twins who got more than nine hours’ sleep, genes contributed only about 32% to higher BMI.

In other words, sleep determined how much genes influenced these twins being overweight.

“The results suggest that shorter sleep provides a more permissive environment for the expression of obesity related genes,” said lead researcher Dr. Nathaniel Watson. “Or it may be that extended sleep is protective by suppressing expression of obesity genes.”

If you keep up with science, you’ll know genetics are the next big thing for fat loss and ultimate health. You can now take tests, for instance, that look at your genetic DNA profile to determine your ideal diet, nutrient needs, and exercise regimen.

But I think this study proves a valuable point beyond genetics: sleep matters for fat loss.

Indeed, too many people coast by on five hours’ sleep and caffeinate themselves the next morning with a big vat of Starbucks. But as you’ll see, that’s a recipe for terrible health and gaining fat.

That’s because too little sleep knocks your hormones out of whack. Let’s take a look at five hormones that sleep impacts:
1. Ghrelin – this is your hunger hormone: it tells your brain to eat. When you get a crappy night’s sleep, you crank out more ghrelin. Couple that with lack of judgment from being so tired, and you can see why you’re mindlessly devouring a Starbucks Danish that you didn’t even want.
2. Leptin – leptin tells you to stop eating. In other words, it has the opposite effect of ghrelin. When you don’t sleep well, you become more leptin resistant so your brain doesn’t get the message as effectively.
3. Insulin – insulin is your ultimate fat-storing hormone. Chronically elevated insulin makes fat burning almost impossible. Guess what? A few nights of terrible sleep can make your cells insulin resistant, leading to higher insulin levels.
4. Human growth hormone (GH) – this “youth” hormone prevents aging, builds muscle, and helps fat burning. Lack of sleep means you make less GH.
5. Cortisol – cortisol is your stress hormone. Couple a crappy night’s sleep with rush-hour traffic and an irate boss, and you’ve got a recipe for chronically elevated cortisol levels.
Get what I’m saying now about poor sleep adversely affecting your hormones? It all adds up to a dismal picture for fat burning and feeling your best.

I know getting a good night’s sleep is easier said than done. I want to leave you with three tips to prepare for a good night’s sleep so it happens more often:
1. Cut off the stimulation and power down. About an hour before your bedtime, turn off your laptop, TV, and other distractions. Take a hot bath, drink some chamomile tea, meditate, or do whatever works for you to unwind.
2. Stop eating about three hours before bed. Those late-night Haagen-Dazs freezer raids aren’t doing anything for sleep or your waistline. Close the kitchen after dinner for better sleep and fat burning.
3. Try a natural sleep aid. Everyone needs a little help falling asleep sometimes. If you suffer jet lag or are trying to adjust to a new time zone, melatonin could be your answer to fall and stay asleep.
June 18, 2012
7 Tips for Healthy Family Dining at Home
A recent meta-analysis at Rutgers University reviewed 68 studies that looked at the connection between families eating together and childhood obesity rates.

Based on these previously published studies, researchers asked whether scientific evidence supports the idea that eating together more often can reduce overweight and obesity in kids.

Just as you probably concluded, kids who more frequently dined at McDonald’s with peers or devoured microwave-heated Hot Pockets were more likely to struggle with weight and not get important nutrients compared to those who regularly dined at home with their families.

Family dinners also meant these kids ate more fruits, vegetables, fiber, and nutrient-rich foods.

Researchers presented their findings in a user-friendly graphic they hope will simplify the dining process, but expressed concern that because of time restraints, parents won’t get this important message.

I also worry parents will dismiss these studies – or the sound-bite, poorly summarized media clips you more likely hear – as unrealistic for their ultra-fast paced lives.

I get it. Couple a horrible economy with both parents working long hours and kids having crazy schedules of their own with extracurricular activities. Preparing dinner and gathering the family to eat can become a Herculean task or a quaint reminder of a bygone era.

Having dinner together isn’t easy, but it’s certainly worth the time and effort that will repay dividends for your kids down the road. If nothing else, you’ll teach them good eating habits they can adapt for life.

Even dining together one or two times a week can bring your family together, help you slow down, and even reduce your kids’ risk for obesity.

I want to offer seven strategies to make dining together easier and more enjoyable:
1. If dinner doesn’t work, try breakfast or brunch. The important thing is that you’re together and enjoying a healthy meal together. Easy suggestions for breakfast or brunch include omelets and crustless quiche.
2. Prepare foods ahead of time. You’re not going to have hours to prep, so do as much as you can ahead of time. For instance, chop broccoli and pre-season chicken breasts the night before.
3. Involve your kids. Let them chop, slice, or otherwise prepare food. You can also ask them to set the table. It will help them feel more invested in the meal and take some of the burden off you.
4. Turn off other distractions and be present. Have a no-cell-phone rule at the table. Same deal with newspapers, iPads, and any other distractions. You’re there to enjoy each other’s company and the food.
5. Make it mandatory and schedule the time. Just like you would schedule a meeting for work or soccer practice for your kids, reserve an hour simply to eat together. Make dinner a “must attend” priority.
6. Make favorite meals. You can always make healthier versions of your kids’ favorites. For instance, try almond sliver-crusted chicken strips with sweet potato fries, spaghetti squash with pesto, or grass-fed beef with faux-tatoes.
7. Do the best you can. The important thing is ultimately that you’re together and enjoying healthy food, even if that means you occasionally have to stop by Whole Foods for a rotisserie chicken and some pre-cooked vegetables.
June 4, 2012

10 Simple Strategies for Eating More Veggies

A study in the journal Environment and Behavior found that if you keep fruits and vegetables close by in a clear bowl, you’re more likely to eat them.

On the other hand, making them more visible could increase your intake of fruit but not vegetables.

Using 96 college students, researchers placed apple slices and carrot cuts in clear or opaque bowls, either at a nearby table or about seven feet away. Researchers unwrapped these two foods and told students to help themselves.

They discovered two things:

When they left these students alone with the carrots or apples for 10 minutes, students were more likely to eat them when they were positioned close by rather than seven feet away.
When researchers offered these foods in clear bowls, they found students ate more apples but not carrots.

“Apples, but not carrots, have sugar, which is known to stimulate brain reward regions that induce a ‘wanting’ for foods that contain sugar,” researchers said. “Hence, apple slices may be more visually appealing than carrots.”

Actually, a cup of carrots do have about six grams of sugar, but I get what researchers are saying. People more likely gravitate to a sweeter, aesthetically pleasing fruit than a vegetable.

Researchers concluded students would eat more fruits and vegetables if positioned near where they enter or sit (at, say, a school cafeteria), and when produce is more visible.

I think this study reveals more about choices. Cut out opportunities to choose junk foods and you’re less likely to eat them.

I can’t help wondering what would have happened if, say, researchers put a bowl of Snickers bars beside those apples. Unless these were really health-conscious students, my bet would be on the Snickers bars disappearing fast.

Everyone needs to increase fruit and vegetable intake. I know that sounds obvious, but it’s one of those things we nod our heads in agreement about but don’t always do.

Admittedly, with our hectic lives, eating fresh broccoli or blueberries isn’t always convenient. Here are 10 simple strategies to meet your quota:

Upgrade your salad greens. Instead of Romaine or (God forbid) iceberg lettuce, opt for nutrient-packed spinach or kale.
Dump the starch for another vegetable. Swap the potato or rice for, say, sautéed spinach in garlic. Just as satisfying with far more nutrients and less carbs.
Make fresh or frozen fruit your dessert of choice. Have you tried frozen cherries or grapes in Greek yogurt? The fruit freezes the yogurt on contact, making this a healthy less-sugar alternative to Ben & Jerry’s for the hot days ahead.
Try a new vegetable or fruit at the farmers market. Make it an adventure and pick something like kohlrabi that you’ve never had before.
Venture out on your restaurant vegetable choices. Why is it that vegetables always taste better at restaurants? Regardless, order kimchi or another arcane vegetable you wouldn’t prepare at home.
Make vegetables into starch alternatives. Instead of mashed potatoes, make faux-tatoes (mashed cauliflower). I’m not going to say you won’t notice the difference, but it’s pretty darn close and far healthier. Or swap the fries for baked sweet potato fries.
Snack on apple slices with almond butter. Delicious, sweet, crunchy, and easy to make. Even your most finicky eater or sugarholic will love these.
Bring a vegetable or fruit tray to your next party. Skip (or cut down) on the pastries and other carb bombs and enjoy fresh broccoli or cauliflower with delicious dips like hummus instead.
Make a veggie omelet for breakfast (or any meal). An easy way to disguise tons of vegetables.
Top your protein with salsa and/ or guacamole. These nutrient- and fiber-rich toppings make grilled chicken or grass-fed steak even more flavorful and enjoyable.

Just to make sure I have all my bases covered I always add powdered veggies and powdered fruits to my morning smoothie:

	Paleoreds is a whole food extract of cherries, strawberries, blueberries, beets, carrots and other organic fruits and vegetables.
	Barlean’s Greens allow you to get all the alkalizing benefits of vegetables in a convenient juice form. It is a great crave-buster and very useful in controlling appetite too!

June 4, 2012

Vitamin C Can Reduce High Blood Pressure

A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed large amounts of vitamin C could reduce high blood pressure.

Researchers here gathered data from 29 randomized, controlled clinical trials that looked at how vitamin C versus a placebo affected hypertension.

They found that 500 milligrams (mg) of vitamin C daily – way more than the painfully low 90 mg recommended daily intake – could lower blood pressure. For people diagnosed with full-blown hypertension, those positive results became even greater.

For instance, researchers found vitamin C could reduce blood pressure almost as well as ACE inhibitors and diuretics, without the drugs’ side effects. That’s because vitamin C works as a natural diuretic to help blood vessel walls relax and lower blood pressure.

The study concluded that if people took 500 mg of vitamin C every day, “there would be a lot fewer strokes.”

That’s enough reason for me to take it. Fortunately, vitamin C does about a zillion other beneficial things.

Regardless of those positive outcomes, researchers offered the typical fence-straddling reply about needing “more research to understand the implications of taking [vitamin C and other supplements].” Uh, huh.

This skepticism is nothing new. Linus Pauling, who a century ago championed mega-doses of vitamin C for heart disease, cancer, infections, and many other conditions, was branded a quack by the medical establishment.

Despite criticism even today, Pauling’s reputation endures. Dr. Hilary Roberts calls him the greatest ever American scientistand he remains the only person to win two unshared Nobel Prizes for chemistry and later peace.

Pauling understood how this vitamin positively impacted numerous conditions way before the medical profession and food manufacturers hopped on the vitamin-C bandwagon.

Today we have countless studies proving vitamin C’s effectiveness and safety in larger doses. One in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition for instance, found that two grams of vitamin C was completely safe for most adults.

I know many experts who take three or more grams of vitamin C a day. More progressive practitioners often put people with chronic diseases like cancer and HIV on 10 or more grams with excellent results and no side effects.

I want you to increase your vitamin C intake, but your go-to source should not be orange juice. I see juices commonly tout they contain 100% of your day’s vitamin C. Most are also loaded with enough sugar (some more than soda) to wipe away what benefits you get from this little bit of vitamin C.

So skip the juice, but eat plenty of vitamin-C rich vegetables and fruits. The top 10 sources of dietary vitamin C are…

Papaya
Bell Peppers
Strawberries
Broccoli
Pineapple
Brussels Sprouts
Kiwifruit
Oranges
Cantaloupe
Kale

I want you to eat as many of these foods on a daily basis as possible. With the warm weather approaching, you can find abundant fresh fruits and vegetables at your local farmers market.

To get therapeutic amounts of this multitasking vitamin, however, you’ll probably need to supplement:

	You can get over 500 mg of vitamin C – the amount these studies confirmed benefit blood pressure – with just one capsule of Stellar C. Unlike those poorly absorbed drugstore brands that can upset your stomach, this powerful formula combines vitamin C with synergistic immune-boosting bioflavanoids like hesperidin, rutin, quercitin, and Ayurvedic fruits.
	If you’d rather get it in a multi, you can take Twice Daily from Designs for Health. Just two capsules a day provide 500 mg of vitamin C as well as numerous other vitamins and minerals.
	I can’t talk about vitamin C without mentioning Lipoic Synergy, also from Designs for Health. Alpha-lipoic acid does a great job recycling vitamins C and E as well as your master antioxidant glutathione, so you need less of these nutrients to do their many jobs. Lipoic Synergy also contains 200 mg of taurine. A study in the journal Amino Acids found taurine created measureable decreases in blood pressure. So you get the anti-hypertensive combo of vitamin-C recycling alpha-lipoic acid and taurine in one capsule.

May 28, 2012