What good is Vitamin D?

I am so grateful that the sun has come out in Oregon.  My body is really soaking up the Vitamin D.  Why is Vitamin D important?  Here is a great poster giving you lots of information.

Virgin Coconut Oil Uses and Benefits

Virgin Coconut Oil has really come on to my radar lately so I checked out The Coconut Oil Tips Web Site to learn more ways to use this great natural product. 

Virgin Coconut Oil General Health Benefits

1. Antioxidant
2. Antiviral
3. Antibacterial
4. Antifungal
5. Boosts metabolism, burns quickly
6. Immune support
7. Improves mineral absorption (calcium and the ever-important magnesium)

 Coconut Oil Uses for Beauty

1. Cuticle oil — Softens and strengthens cuticles, and soothes/prevents hangnails.

2. Eye makeup remover — Use it to remove makeup, even waterproof mascara.

3. Wrinkle buster — Reduces the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

4. Defrizzer. Use to defrizz and smooth fly-aways. Works especially well on dark hair.

5. Deep conditioner – Coconut oil works extremely well as a conditioning treatment, especially as a pre-shampoo hair repair mask.

6. Natural deodorant — You can dab some under your arms plain, or mix it with baking soda.

7. Toothpaste — Use it as an ingredient, with baking soda, for homemade toothpaste. Good for gum health.

8. Sunscreen (SPF) — It doesn’t sound like it, but coconut oil has an SPF of 4-6. And if you use it while tanning, it prevents skin damage due to its antioxidant and moisturizing properties.

9. Body scrub — Mix with a little sugar or sea salt for a yummy, moisturizing body scrub.

10. Lip balm — Hydrating on dry or cracked lips. You can try mixing it with shea butter to make it richer.

11. Foot/Heel softener — Softens and smooths dry, cracked heels.

12. Facial cleanser — Massage in like any facial cleanser and rinse with a cloth. Some have reported that it works especially well if you rinse it off with tea tree oil. (Not sure about coconut oil for face?

13. Body butter –  Coconut oil is a great moisturizer by itself, but for even more pampering, whip it into a homemade body butter using a kitchen mixer.

14. Aftershave — Men can use this on their face, and for ladies it is amazingly soothing on legs and the bikini area.

15. Massage Oil — Just melt some down.

16. Elbows — Improves look of dry dark elbow patches.

17. Shaving “cream” – Just use it in the shower like you would with shave cream/gel, or apply it before shaving normally as a pre-shave preparation.

18. Hair growth

19. Bug repellant — Just mix with a few drops of peppermint oil and apply to skin.

20. Stretch mark oil — Use it on your pregnant belly to prevent stretch marks. It also works on stretch marks to reduce their appearance.

21. Bath oil — Add to your bath for a tropical and moisturizing pampering.

22. Fades age spots.

23. Mole removal — Use it after removing moles with the apple cider vinegar compress method.

24. Tattoos — Aids in healing a new tattoo, and regular use prevents the ink from fading.

25. Cellulite.

26. Hair dye help — Use on skin along hair dye to keep dye off during coloring process.

Coconut Oil Uses for Health

1. Keratosis Pilaris – Slather on a little bit of coconut oil after your shower while your skin is still damp, and over a couple of weeks it will drastically reduce the appearance of the little red bumps known as KP or “chicken skin”.

2. Herpes treatment – reduces viral loads in test subjects, use internally and externally.

3. Candida – reduces candida culture in the gut.

4. Dementia/Alzheimer’s – Because of its ketogenic diet benefits, coconut oil improves symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

5. Hypothyroidism – boosts metabolism, raises basal body temp.

6. Cold sores – can be applied topically to remove them.

7. Lice — Just slather some on the scalp under a shower cap for a few hours. A lot of people report success with this!

8. Detox.

9. Helps absorb vitamins and mineral supplements.

10. Scrapes and cuts ointment — Use coconut oil, which is antibacterial, topically to kill bacteria and heal the skin.

11. Athlete’s foot.

12. Nail fungus.

13. Pink eye.

14. Burn ointment — Like aloe vera, coconut oil has anti-inflammatory properties and is soothing.

15. Canker sores.

16. Gum disease/gingivitis — aids in gum health when used as toothpaste or rubbed on gums.

17. Asthma.

18. Autism.

19. Epilepsy — Coconut oil has been known to reduce epileptic seizures.

20. ADHD.

21. Breastfeeding discomfort — Sooth chaffed nipples from breastfeeding with coconut oil.

Coconut Oil Uses for Cooking

1. Cooking oil – Virgin coconut oil has a high smoke point, so it is less likely to degrade during cooking than other oils, and is more suitable for healthy cooking.

2. Butter substitute — Great substitute for baking, or just plain on toast!

3. Popcorn – Coconut oil has traditionally been used for movie theater popcorn and it’s just as tasty but much healthier if you use the extra virgin, unrefined kind! Just put a big spoonful in a pot, let it melt slightly then add the kernels on top for popping. Amazing!

4. Smoothies — Add 1 to 3 tablespoons of coconut oil to fruit smoothies and green smoothies for a subtle tropical flavor. This is my favorite way to get my daily fix and boost my energy, since it revs metabolism and also is known to help you absorb vitamins and nutrients.

Household Uses for Coconut Oil

1. Conditions wooden cutting boards.

2. Wood polish.

3. Furniture polish (mix with lemon juice).

Coconut Oil Uses for Baby

1. Diaper rash cream.

2. Cradle cap.

3. Circumcision healing.

4. Breastfeeding salve.

Miscellaneous Coconut Oil Uses

1. Massage oil.

2. Personal lubricant.

3. Shoe polish.

4. Unsticks fabric in zippers.

5. Unsticks gum.

Conclusion

Virgin coconut oil is an awesome product that everyone ought to keep around the house! If you want to learn more about coconut oil uses and cures, you can browse the rest of the Coconut Oil Tips site. I also highly recommend you check out the book The Coconut Oil Miracle by Bruce Fife.

There are several good brands of coconut oil — Just always make sure you choose well: It must be unrefined (also called “virgin”) coconut oil, ideally that has been cold-pressed and is stored in a nontoxic container.

How Apple Cider Vinegar Helps Your Body

I know it sounds disgusting, but a few teaspoons of Apple Cider Vinegar can really be helpful to you and your body!  Patricia Bragg suggests 1-2 teaspoons of vinegar diluted with 8 ounces of water with each meal.

Here are 10 reasons given by LiveFit Revolution for adding Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) to your diet.

1. It is enormously helpful to your digestive system. The enzymes in the ACV help your body to break down the food you eat, which helps you get more nutrients out of it;

2. It helps your body eliminate, so if you’ve had problems with constipation, or even just a “slow system”, the ACV will help you have bowel movements more frequently and easily;

3. Full and frequent bowel movements also help our body detoxify, and the more we detox, the more weight our bodies will allow us to lose, and they’ll do it more quickly! We store toxins in our body fat, and our ability to burn fat will slow down if the body can’t eliminate the toxins quickly enough to keep a healthy balance. So ACV aids in weight loss;

4. ACV kills sugar cravings. If your body (or your brain!) is screaming for something sugary, an ACV drink will usually kill that craving;

5. It helps keep your blood sugars balanced, which means an increased ability to lose weight AND less simple-carb cravings. WebMD.com mentions studies that support the claim that ACV can help in this way with Diabetes;

6. One study found that obese people who consumed acetic acid (ACV) daily for 12 weeks experienced significant decreases in body weight, abdominal fat, waist circumference, and triglycerides;*

7. Triglycerides are a mechanism for storing unused calories, and their high concentration in blood correlates with the consumption of starchy and other high carbohydrate foods (Wikipedia). As ACV is said to reduce triglycerides, this means a reduction in our ability to store unused calories;

8. ACV is an acidic substance (more on this below), but when you ingest it, it becomes an alkalizer, which means it balances body pH by making you more alkaline. Research has shown that an alkaline diet fights cancer;

9. It supports healthy regeneration in your body. The evidence of this comes after a few months, when you’ll notice your hair and nails are both longer and a lot stronger. You’ll notice your skin looks even better too;

10. ACV is also said to reduce our “bad” (LDL) cholesterol.

“BUT I DON’T LIKE THE TASTE”

Some of us like ACV right away. Some of us find the flavor a challenge. As children, most of us didn’t like certain vegetables when we first tried them either, but sometimes it’s worth persevering for the sake of our health.

You can add a few drops of Stevia to your ACV; diluting it with more water can make it more palatable too. If you have a strong reaction to it (like an overly-active digestive system, too-soft stools, or nausea – especially when you drink it first thing in the morning), you might try cutting it down to one or two TEAspoons of ACV in 8oz water, and build up your tolerance. You can also add ground flax to your drink; the nuttiness of the flax goes well with the sharp apple flavor of the ACV.

Most people find that in a short time, they feel so good that they start to look forward to their ACV drinks, and develop a taste for it!

ACIDITY

ACV has a pH of 4.25 to 5.0 when it is undiluted. Since tap water usually has a pH of approximately 7.6, when you put a couple of tablespoons of ACV into 8oz water, it will be MUCH less acidic. It’s interesting to note that the ph of Coca Cola is 2.5, and 7-Up is 3.2, and since soda is consumed undiluted, it is FAR worse for your teeth than ACV could ever be.**

CAUTIONS

If you have sensitive teeth or are concerned about your enamel, you should consult your dentist. Some people choose to swish their mouth with a sip of plain water after drinking their ACV.

Also, ACV is high in Potassium, so if you take drugs such as Coumadin/Warfarin (for preventing blood clots) you should not take ACV.

And finally, people with some forms of inflammatory bowel disease (such as Crohn’s disease) should not take ACV. So if you do have health issues, you should consult your Doctor before adding ACV to your personal nutrition plan.

*  Published in Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry in 2009; full article here

**Softpedia.com – read their article on the acidity of soft drinks here

Percentage of Body Fat Calculator

This is a great tool to figure out the percentage of body fat you are carrying.  Even more exciting is watching how much body fat you are LOSING!!!!

Body Fat Calculator:  http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/body-fat-percentage-calculator

About the Body Fat Calculator:

How much fat are you carrying? Find out if you are in the healthy range with this fat calculator. This tool provides: body fat percentage for women, body fat percentage for men. This body fat calculator is based on the body fat algorithms developed by the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corp and the YMCA.

Here is the information you will need to provide so the calculator can calculate your percentage of body fat:

Are you male or female? 

Waist size at narrowest point:  inches

Waist size at your navel:  inches

Hip size at widest point:  inches

Neck at narrowest point:  inches

Select your height: feet and inches

What is your weight?  lbs

SHORT VERSION BODY FAT CALCULATOR: http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/bfc

How much fat are you carrying? Find out if you are in the healthy range with this fat calculator. This tool provides: body fat percentage for women, body fat percentage for men. This calculator is based on the YMCA formula.

Information you will need for the short version calculator:

Are you male or female?

What is your waist size? Inches

What is your weight? lbs

Thinking About It Diet!!!

Okay ... this does it .... I am off the "ThinkAboutItDiet" and starting the "DoingItDiet!!!"

Join Me .... log onto
www.thehealthyhelms.com

Belly Fat Worse for Your Heart Than Obesity

Belly fat worse for your heart than obesity, study suggests

From http://todayhealth.today.com/_news/2012/08/27/13508211-belly-fat-worse-for-your-heart-than-obesity-study-suggests?lite

People who are normal weight but carry extra fat around their belly have a higher risk of dying from heart disease than obese people, a new study suggests.

The findings add to a growing body of research that so-called visceral fat, or fat around the organs of the abdomen, is particularly bad for health.

“Our research shows that if a person has a normal BMI, this by itself should not reassure them that their risk for heart disease is low. Where their fat is distributed on their body can mean a lot," said study researcher Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

The study involved 12,785 U.S. adults who participated in a national survey and were followed for an average of 14 years. During that time, 2,562 participants died, including 1,138 from heart disease.

Researchers classified the study participants as normal weight if their body mass index (BMI) was between 18.5 and 24.9, overweight if their body mass index was 25 to 29.9 and obese if their body mass index was above 30. The amount of weight they carried around their waist was determined by their waist-to-hip ratio.

Participants were divided into six groups based on which of the three BMI groups they fell into, and whether they had a normal or high waist-to-hip ratio. Men whose waist measurement was 90 percent or more of their hip measurement were considered to have a high hip-to-waist ratio. The same was true of women; those with waists that were 85 percent of their hip size were classified as having a high hip-to-waist ratio.

Participants with normal BMI but a high waist-to-hip ratio had the risk of dying of cardiovascular disease, and the highest risk of dying from any causes among the six groups.

The risk of cardiovascular death was 2.75 times higher, and the risk of death from any cause was 2.08 times higher among normal-weight people with "central obesity," compared with normal-weight people who had a normal waist-to-hip ratio.

"The high risk of death may be related to a higher visceral fat accumulation in this group, which is associated with insulin resistance and other risk factors," said study researcher Dr. Karine Sahakyan, also of Mayo Clinic.

The study was presented Aug. 27 at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Munich.

Exercise for Fat Loss

Article by Dr. Michael Colgan of the Colgan Institute:

If you are exercising to lose body fat, you have to be concerned you have too much of it. For many folk that much has taken years to establish. Some have solidified the same, 20, 30, 40 lbs, year after year by yo-yo dieting. It’s not easy to change a body that has got into such a state, but if you follow the rules it works like a charm.

People who don’t like rules may want to just get their head down and bull it out. Boot camps love these folk, telling them “You just have to work your butt off at our level and you will lose the fat.” The science says, “No way”. Others read some social buzz that whole neighbourhoods lost masses of fat by getting together and running (biking, mud-wrestling, swimming in holes in the ice). Not going to work.

Anyone who has run a marathon, an extreme 3-4 hour effort for most of us, knows with disgust they lost negligible body fat doing it. Having measured runners in quite a few marathons, an average person well trained to run a marathon, is lucky to lose a quarter pound of fat. Some folk who stuff with carbs during a marathon, actually gain fat. They may feel like hell at the finish, and be 7 lbs lighter in water weight, because the carbs prevent water absorption from the gut, but their belly rebounds and then some within 24 hours.

One controlled study representative of the science, measured body fat losses accurately in groups of men and women over the whole 20-week training program for a half-marathon. In 20 weeks of fairly intense endurance exercise (80 workouts), the men lost an average of 5.3 lbs of fat. That’s just 4.25 ounces per week of exercise. The women lost an average of only 2.0 lbs. That’s a measly 1.6 ounces of fat loss per week of exercise.(1) 

This negligible loss of body fat with exercise is the usual result, and often gives folk the false belief they are different from everyone else, and just can’t get slim. Yes you can. All you need is the right nutrition and exercise. It’s not rocket science. Here are eight exercise rules to get you started on the right track. Stated briefly, with just a major reference or two, they are grounded in a lot of recent science that I will be covering in future articles. You need to follow them all to get sterling results.

Exercise for Fat Loss-Rule 1 

Get 8 hours sleep a night. The US National Center on Sleep Disorders reports that approximately 90 million Americans currently do not get sound sleep.(2) Children sleep better, so it’s a one in three bet that you have sleep disturbance. If you are overweight, it’s 50/50 that you have poor sleep. Sound sleep is an essential physiological restorative process that programs one-third of your life, and controls much of what happens in the other two-thirds.(3) To cut to the chase, without sound sleep, you cannot effectively exercise or effectively lose body fat. Visceral fat gain, food cravings, insulin disruption, fatigue, your whole hormone cascade, the metabolic syndrome, and many other bodily disorders are driven by disruption of your circadian rhythm.(4) Get your sleep fixed first or you will be unable to effectively exercise or lose fat.

Exercise for Fat Loss- Rule 2 

Exercise on waking to raise your metabolic rate for the whole day. When you wake in the morning, your metabolism is sluggish. Your metabolic rate for the day is then determined by what you do. If you have a lazy day off for example, your metabolic rate will remain low throughout, and you will be on maximum calorie retention from anything you eat. If, however, you exercise on waking, even if it is only a 30 minute walk, it raises your metabolic rate immediately. The rate then remains high for most of the day, and you lower your calorie retention from food. Get in the habit. Do that smidgeon of exercise every day.

Exercise for Fat Loss- Rule 3

Exercise on an empty stomach. Your body takes the easiest route to energy. If you eat before exercise, or start at the juice bar with a smoothie at the gym, your body will use the calories in your gut preferentially to using bodyfat for fuel. A single small “all fruit” smoothie will eliminate any weight loss effect of an hour of exercise after it. And, drinking “energy drinks” while working out is just plain dumb if you want to achieve fat loss. It’s just plain dumb for any exercise goal.(5)

Exercise for fat Loss- Rule 4

Do 20-30 minutes of light aerobic exercise before your workout. When you begin exercising, your body uses mainly sugar for fuel, the glycogen in your muscles, sugar made by gluconeogenesis in the liver, and sugar from food in your gut. (Remember, no eating before exercise) To achieve your goal of using body fat for fuel, you first have to induce hormonal changes to switch to greater fat oxidation. You can do this with light aerobic exercise for 20-30 minutes, such as walking to the gym. You cannot achieve these complex changes by lumbering on the treadmill, as I see some folk do, because, as soon as you begin to pant, signaling a shortage of oxygen, you keep the body stuck in sugar burning mode. A whole workout done with great effort, treadmilling wildly, then rushing from station to station for an hour, uses near zero bodyfat, and exhausts you into the bargain, as it empties the muscles of glycogen. It’s tragic but somehow comical to see people doing this week after week, and losing no fat at all.

Exercise for Fat Loss- Rule 5

Do your workout in the “Fat Burning Zone”. There is much nonsense written about the fat burning zone, as if it’s some magical state that melts fat. It is just a range of exercise intensity where fat use (fat oxidation) settles into a high steady level. Studies have measured this range in all sorts of complex ways involving VO2max and weird and wonderful equations. It also varies somewhat with the individual, and how much exercise you do, and how often. But I can state it pretty simply. 

The fat burning zone is exercise done at 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. If you run at maximum on the treadmill, and get your highest heart rate at 170 beats per minute, then your fat burning zone is 60-70% of that score, that is, about 100-120 beats per minute. At this level of exercise you can still carry on a normal conversation.

First, do your 20-30 minute warm up in the fat burning zone to make the hormonal changes to trigger a higher proportion of fat burning. Then, for a one-hour workout on an empty stomach, keep your heart rate within the same range. Your body will then pull approximately 50% of its energy from body fat. That’s about as good as you can get.

Above or below this range, your body’s use of sugar increases, and it pulls only 20 -30% of its energy from body fat. So, it makes sense to wear a heart rate monitor, and set your fat burning range so that it beeps you automatically if you move out of it.

Exercise for Fat Loss- Rule 6

Build muscle to lose fat. All the gym programs I have seen that concentrate on aerobic exercise have been a failure for fat loss. We measured one aerobics group for a year at Frogs Gym in San Diego. All of the women in the group wanted to lose weight. They actually gained an average of 2.9 lbs of fat while doing an average of three aerobics sessions a week for 12 months.The best form of exercise for fat loss is resistance training that adds muscle to your body. Muscle is moving tissue, fat is not. Over 100 muscles are constantly active just to keep you standing up, and about 200 are merrily using energy just to maintain their tone. Fat hangs limp like jello. Muscle is the engine that uses body fat for fuel. With more muscle, more fat is burned 24 hours a day, even just couch sitting with heavy breathing. In her book Strong Women Stay Slim, Miriam Nelson, a Tufts University researcher, followed a group of women who did a weight loss diet plus resistance training. They lost 44% more fat than those who followed the diet alone. So, put resistance training at the top of your list. 

Exercise for Fat Loss Rule 7

Do weight training that makes you taller and more flexible. We have seen it many times, especially with women. They embrace resistance training in order to lose fat, then do all the wrong stuff. Often they hire trainers who give them bodybuilding exercises, or worse, uni-planar exercises guided by machines with comfy seats, exercises that bear no relation to movements in life. They often turn the posture into a muscle-thickened crouch. Though they can achieve lower body fat because of muscle growth, the unfortunate girls look shorter and fatter. 

One example I saw recently. Under a trainer’s direction, a somewhat overweight girl was vigorously doing deadlifts with a bar and two 45lb weights, 135lbs, about her own weight. Each time she lifted the bar you could see her stomach stick out. She did not realize she was training hard to grow a stuck out gut. 

Also, the heavy weight was pulling her shoulders down and forward, shortening and thickening the muscle connections from the arms to the pectoralis major of the chest. It was growing round shoulders with dumpy arms, about the worst training you can think of for most women, who usually aim to be upright, slim, and elegant. 

Another thing this girl didn’t realise was, if you lift your own body weight from the floor, it immediately compresses your spine and makes you temporarily about an inch shorter. Over a long period, the erector spinae muscles that hold up the spine becomes shorter from that form of training. Bulging stomach, forward-sloping shoulders, dumpy arms, and a shortened spine. Not exactly what most folk want from a weight program to lose fat.

The best resistance training for fat loss (and muscle gain) is free-movement exercises, done standing, exercises that lengthen the spine while contracting the muscles. Overhead cables like we use in the Colgan Power Program are best as they can simulate virtually any free movement in life. The Program was first developed for Olympic athletes at Colorado Springs, so you can bet it’s first class for making people muscular and strong. But it also trains long, lean, flexible muscles. And more than 100 different exercises in it lengthen the spine while contracting the muscles. That should be your aim, a tall, elegant, flexible body that emphasizes the low body fat you have worked so hard in the kitchen to achieve.

Exercise for Fat Loss Rule 8

Get a mentor. You can go it alone, but a mentor adds immensely to any program for any skill. To achieve a great body you need someone who is an example, someone who has the skills, someone who can calm your wavering doubts and unerringly guide you in your quest. 

In my article The Making of Genius, 2005, which has been reprinted and copied innumerable times worldwide, I analysed the components that have produced genius in science, music, and arts. One vital component is the mentors that most geniuses had to develop them throughout their lives. These mentors were all experts in the different fields in which the individuals wanted to excel. They were all folk who had already been there, and had learned to excel at the skills.

Your goal of a great body for life is a difficult one. Most people who try fail repeatedly. You need a personal mentor. What Isagenix offers that no one else can, is hundreds of members who have done what you want to do, and who are on the same lifelong journey, walking the same good talk. 

1. Meijer GA, et al. Body composition and sleeping metabolic rate in response to a 5-month endurance-training programme in adults. Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1991;62(1):18-21.2. US National Center on Sleep Disorders.http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/ncsdr/index.htm. Accessed 15 July 2012.3. Aldabal L, Bahammam AS. Metabolic, endocrine, and immune consequences of sleep deprivation. Open Respir Med J. 2011;5:31-43.4. Maury E, et al. Circadian rhythms and metabolic syndrome: from experimental genetics to human disease. Circ Res. 2010 February 19;106(3): 447–462.5. Van Proeyen K, et al. Beneficial metabolic adaptations due to endurance exercise training in the fasted state. J Appl Physiol. 2011 January; 110(1):236–245.

Kjersti Kote add a 9^th Rule:

Use Isagenix to fuel your body after your workouts! I recently interviewed Dr. Colgan and he said the best time to bring a shake into your body is exactly 30 minutes (not 1 hour or 2 hours) after your workouts. This will assist in leam muscle developement and recovery!

I have this poster hanging on my refrigerator to remind me of all the GOOD my healthy diet is doing for me!  The poster comes from: LiveFit Revolution.

Consequences of the National Obesity Epidemic

I’m surely not alone in feeling alarmed when I read that the obesity epidemic is worse now than ever. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently posted a website with a map of the United States showing the changes in obesity that have taken place over the last 25 years. I strongly suggest that you use this link and see for yourself.
Just to give you an idea of the gravity of the situation, I would like to share with you the following statistics:

• In 1985, the highest state obesity rate was equal to or less than 14 percent.  Six years later it increased.
• In 1991, the highest state obesity rate was equal to or less than 19 percent.  Six years later it increased.
• In 1997, the highest state obesity rate was equal to or greater than 20 percent.  Four years later it increased.
• In 2001, the highest state obesity rate was equal to or greater than 25 percent.  Four years later it increased.
• In 2005, the highest state obesity rate was equal to or greater than 30 percent.
• Currently there are 12 states that are in this category and one state is at 34 percent.
• In 1990, 10 states were equal to or less than 10 percent obesity range.
• In 2000, no states were in the equal to or less than 10 percent obesity range.
• In 2010, no states were in the equal to or less than 20 percent obesity range.
• Sixty-eight percent of the American population is considered to be either overweight or obese

To read the rest of the article, click this link.

Are You A Night Owl?

I have to confess I am writing this blog entry after midnight, so I am guilty of not getting enough sleep.  I found these two studies that show that not getting enough sleep not only slows your metabolism but it makes it harder for you to lose your excess fat.

Here are excerpts from the studies: 

Lack of Sleep Slows Metabolism

A small study published by Dr. Christian Benedict in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a lack of sleep slows metabolism.  In the study, healthy men were examined after a good night’s sleep compared to a night of continuous wakefulness.  The results showed a reduction in energy expenditure by 5 to 20% in participants as well as elevated levels of ghrelin, a hormone that promotes hunger, and blood sugar after sleep deprivation.  With the study only examining one night of sleep deprivation, it raises the question of how metabolism is affected over time by a lack of sleep. 

Sleep More and Lose More Fat

A study conducted by the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that, regardless of their diet and exercise regimen, dieters lost more fat when they got more sleep.  The study placed obese and overweight participants in two groups, one with 5.5 hours of sleep and one which got 8.5 hours of sleep over a 14-day span.  With the same exercise and diet during that time, those with more sleep lost more than 50% of their weight from fat, while the group with 5.5 hours of sleep saw only a 25% fat loss.  Despite consistent evidence, small studies do have not offered definitive or causative indicators as to why this is, so it’s incumbent on Americans to make sleep a priority. 

The Fattening of America

(Image from asean-oshnet.net)

In a study conducted by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America's Healthy, obesity rates rise in 17 states of U.S. from 1995 to last year.  The rate of obesity has not been decreased in any state. In 2007, only 1 state had obesity rate over 30% but now 12 states have over 30% rates and 38 states have above 25% rates. Colorado is the only state with obesity rate below 20%. The highest adult obesity rate is maintained by Mississippi for the 7th consecutive year followed by West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee.

Southern states have the most dramatic obesity epidemic. In the South 9 out of 10 states have maximum adult obesity rates. Northeastern and Western states have lower obesity rates. The study reports that obesity rates are 2 times more in 7 states and raised by 90% in 10 others, since 1995. In Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee the rates of obesity has grown fastest while in D.C., Washington, Connecticut and Colorado the rates has grown slowest. Obesity leads to several health problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure. The study also shows that the rates of high blood pressure and diabetes have been doubled in 8 states. Diabetes rates are more than 7% in over 40 states.