Step 2 of 5

Do you know what the most nutrient dense foods (calorie for calorie) on the planet are?  Green, leafy vegetables have more nutrition that anything else.  If you think of our bodies like a battery then green, leafy vegetables are the best source of power to re-charge us.  The sun gives these plants all of their energy and these plants give us all of what they soaked up from the sun. CLICK ON THIS LINK TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE REST!

They are low in calories but high in nutrients.  When I say nutrients, I mean protein, vitamins, minerals and micronutrients (many of which we haven’t even discovered yet).  There is a complex dance that happens in our digestive system.  To be honest, we don’t even know how it all works yet.  Sure, scientists have been able to isolate certain food nutrients that are key in supporting vital human function.  However, often when these substances are isolated and heavily supplemented they don’t show a large amount of benefit.  For example, lutein contributes to making tomatoes red.  Remember awhile back it was all the rage?  We were supposed to supplement with lutein in order to maintain good eye health and I think they said it was great for the heart too.

Just because lutein was present in more concentrated quantities in these organs doesn’t mean supplementing with it is the holy grail of eye health.  Tomatoes are an amazing food that is good for us, but there are so many things in the tomato that we don’t know about.  It is more effective to make sure to eat a couple tomatoes than remember to take your multi-vitamin everyday.  Like I said, there is a delicate dance that all the materials in these whole foods perform together.  Now, there are a few nutrients and ways to take vitamins/supplements that can make them more effective.

I spend all this time making one little point so that when I say, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables you understand why and have more of an intellectual connection to it.  Growing up we’re told don’t steal, but the point doesn’t really hit home until one of two things happens: either we get caught stealing, get in trouble and decide not to do it again, OR someone steals from us, it makes us mad and we vow not to do that to anyone else.  Then of course some people out there never learn or don’t care.

Health is the same way.  We are subtly told our entire lives how to eat healthy.  Granted, a lot of that information is not entirely correct but we still have an idea how to eat health(ier) and reduce our chances for illness.  It usually takes a major event for the point to really hit home.  We have a friend or family member get sick, develop disease or cancer and die.  OR, it happens to us.  These are the instances when change happens most often.

Well folks, you already know what will happen to you (with good likelihood) if you keep eating the same diet.  The evidence is out there on the news, around your neighborhood, in your family, or maybe it has already happened to you.  Realize you never have to get sick, you never have to get cancer or develop some debilitating disease.  You can really save a significant amount of money if you start this journey by cutting your meat consumption in half and cutting out dairy products.  Those are some of the more expensive products in the store.  I am 6’6’’ 200lbs and when I stopped buying dairy and cutting down on meat I was saving $100/month!  Think of all the delicious fresh fruit and vegetables you can transfer those savings too.

An initial goal can and should be to eat at least one full size (as in the majority of your meal) salad each day.  No more iceberg lettuce; while not entirely worthless doesn’t have as much nutrition.  Spinach, romaine, cabbage, kale are all great leafy veggies that you can use in your salad.  Throw in all the colorful veggies you want to. Tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, carrots, sprouts, onions etc.  Add some nuts too if you feel like for an excellent source of essential fats.  I would advise you make your own salad dressing.  Store-bought ones tend to have a lot of oils, salts and sugars in them,  Instead of the traditional 1 part oil to 1 part vinegar try 1 part oil to 5 parts vinegar.  Experiment with your vinegars. Specialty stores and health stores have plum, apple cider, orange, red wine and many other types of vinegar that are delicious and low calorie.  Vinegar is highly effective at helping to lower cholesterol and decrease heartburn and gas.

Eat carrots, cucumbers or celery with some hummus or salsa.  It’s a tasty snack that you won’t regret eating later.  If you remember from previous blogs to try and eat fruit by itself, especially melons as they digest most effectively that way, giving you maximum nutrients.  I’m on the road this week, and my posts may come at odd times.  Next one will be about how and why to incorporate certain supplements into your diet.  Subscribe to The Body Blog and you’ll get an email when I post a new one.  Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you soon.

A new, healthier you starts with a single step.

Does anyone remember the famous runner Jim Fixx?   I’ve read people’s recollections that he laughed at those in the health community that said good health is the result of good eating.  Jim Fixx was a runner and he ran a lot so he was visually in great shape.  He stood in opposition of those touting good nutrition as the trump card and said if everybody ran as much as he did they could eat whatever they wanted.  In reality, unfortunately, it seemed he put all his health eggs in one basket, exercise.  There are multiple risk factors for heart disease and exercise (or lack of) is only one of them as he tragically realized.

Here is what happened to Jim Fixx.

Being overweight is a strong indicator of ill health, but being skinny and fit doesn’t mean you are immune from disease.  I was only 2 years old when Jim Fixx died, but people talked about him for a long time.  I remember when I was in 3rd grade (8 years old) my teacher ran marathons and I heard adults talking to him about the dangers of running too much.  Jim Fixx’s legacy goes on but are we learning from his mistakes?  If you want to lose weight, exercise.  If you want to be healthy, free of disease and never get sick, eat right.  If you eat right, you will invariably slim down if you are overweight.  If you are already slim you will not need to worry about gaining any weight.

Step 1 from the last blog to take steps and get healthy was START CUTTING DOWN MEAT AND CUTTING OUT DAIRY.  There is a reason this point was #1 on the list.  One of the strongest and most reliable predictors of disease in modern society is meat and dairy consumption.  Animal proteins promote and accelerate tumor growths in our body.  That glass of milk you’re drinking whether its raw or processed contains very difficult to digest proteins that promote micro inflammation in your body.  These inflammations help suppress your immune system, lead to chronic pain, headaches and asthma.

Remember the key to short-term and long-term health is the alkalinity of your blood.  When you eat an alkalizing diet, your blood stays alkaline which is ideal to ward off sickness, prevent disease and heal quickly.  When your blood is acidic it creates an environment for viruses and bacteria to thrive and make you sick, for tumors and cancers to grow and diseases to take over your life.

When meat is broken down in your stomach, passes through into your small intestine and is absorbed into your body it turns acidic.  The same goes for milk and dairy products.  So eating a diet containing a lot of meat and dairy products promotes a lot of acid build up in your blood.  What happens when you have very acidic foods enter your blood?  Well your body tries really hard to keep a blood pH of about 7.3-7.4.  However when you have highly acidic substances like meat, dairy, soda entering the blood your body releases vitamins and minerals from where they are being stored in your bones and around your body into your blood to try and neutralize the acid.  It’s no wonder that osteoporosis rates are much higher in countries that consume the most meat and dairy.

“But Russ I always hear the best way to get calcium is by drinking milk and eating cheese.”  Well, milk can contain high levels of calcium, but let’s analyze this real quick with nice round numbers made up by me right now (but representative of the situation).  Drink a glass of milk that contains 100 units of calcium, milk digests and enters the blood where your body has to release 80 units of calcium to neutralize the acidity.  So even though that milk has 100 units of calcium your net gain is only 20 units.  But wait (there’s more?), your body doesn’t absorb all 100 units of calcium from the milk.  Our body doesn’t absorb 100% of anything we eat or drink.  So we go to all that trouble to drink our milk but it really doesn’t do our body good.  All the while you could have eaten a salad and gotten that same 100 units of calcium that digests and enters the blood alkaline which only promotes health instead of ruining it.

Exercise is good, but it doesn’t promise good health.  I want to give you a couple different perspectives to look at today.

The dangerous opinion (even more dangerous is spending all your time reading this leaving less time to read the rebuttal)

The Science based, health promoting advice

Less meat and dairy will lead to better health and less disease for you.  You can get plenty of protein from vegetable sources.  Thanks for reading and we’ll get to step two next time.

Let’s follow up that great day of eating with a game plan

There is a reason that I have a whole section of my blog dedicated to what I call, “The Health War.”  There really is a war going on out there and if we look closely enough, read between the lines and take personal responsibility we can begin to change our lives.  See health is not something achieved with a month of dieting or getting really motivated and training for a marathon.  Health is an everyday process realized over the course of months and years.  So is disease.  It’s not that one hamburger that kills you.  If one hamburger gave you a heart attack nobody would eat them.  More dangerous is the harsh realization that your triple bypass surgery could have been prevented with small but meaningful everyday decisions.

There are tens of trillions of cells in our body.  Thousands of different kinds of cells all replicate in different ways.  Our skin cells replace themselves in a few days time.  Crucial organs take more time and our bones can take up to a year to replace all the old cells.  Think about it: eating healthy or not eating healthy doesn’t necessarily affect tomorrow.  It’s a cumulative effect.  Read between the lines with me for a second.  So if you really want to make changes and set yourself up for a lifetime of vibrance and vitality plan on giving it a year of your life!  A year from now all the cells that are living inside of you will be gone and replaced with new ones.  It’s your choice what you feed those cells.

We have talked about the Men’s Health article for the last week.  I used them not to pick on them but they were a ready example.  There are many books and websites out there that dispense truly dangerous health advice under the guise of expertise and accreditation.  In fact they present their arguments in a very convincing manner as well citing scientific studies and basic biological processes.  The most important thing these false prophets lack is common sense science.  We all know by now that eating a low fat diet, rich in plant based foods and low in animal products is the modern day ambrosia.  All we need to do to confirm this is look at the healthiest, lowest disease rate societies in the world and compare what they have in common.  Asian cultures eating a plant based diet thousands of years ago were outliving the Europeans eating a lot of meat, the same that is true today.

Modern-day industry doesn’t want you to know this.  The meat, dairy and farming industry lobby to set government policy that is beneficial to their bottom line, not our health.  Watch “Food Inc ” “The Future of Food,” “Fast Food Nation,” “Super Size Me” and think for yourself.  I eat spinach every day and it doesn’t make me sick and fat but if I went to McDonald’s every day it would be a different story.

I think I am done beating the dead horse.  Step 1: start cutting down and cutting out meat and dairy in your diet.  Step 2: with the money you save from not buying as much meat and dairy, spend it on fruits and vegetables.  Step 3: Start actively trying to get more nutrient rich foods into your body with diet and supplementation.  Step 4: drink more water (an ounce for every 2 pounds of body weight) Step 5: start exercising 3-5 days per week for 45 minutes  Step 6: go back to step 1 and repeat the process.

It’s not rocket science, BUT it is work.  I’ll take this 5 step program over the next couple days and give you some specific details about what you can do to implement them and evidence that it will work.  Subscribe to The Body Blog if you don’t want to miss any of this.  Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you soon.

A healthy day of eating (for everyone) part 3

I hope everyone had a good weekend.  So we ended last week talking about the lunch time menu referring to the Men’s Health article about an ideal day of eating.  The Body Blog has a much different view on eating healthy.  We believe that if you put the correct balance of nutrient dense foods into your body that you won’t get sick, will avoid diseases, chronic illnesses and live a long, healthy and vibrant life.

Let’s get back to business and talk about the end of the day.  The MH article has you working out at 5pm and eating dinner at 9.  I understand that a majority of people work 9-5 so I don’t see anything wrong with working out after work.  Working out in the morning before work is cool too or at lunch.  Basically, any exercise you do is better than not doing it.  If we had to categorize exercise and nutrition in order of importance for being healthy exercise would be 1 and nutrition/eating healthy would be 1 (a).  MH says eat and apple and take a shot of espresso before workout.  Probably the best piece of advice they give you all day!  I like to drink an energy drink before I work out.  Yea they have sugar in them but the caffeine really helps to increase circulation inside and help you get a more intense workout.  If you are serious about working out, the calories in that energy drink should be burned off by the end of your warm up!  I’ll talk more about the workout and energy drink in the follow up blog.

So you’ve worked out, got your blood pumping, endorphins released, now what?  Instead of typing it all over again, I will refer you to the “post-workout” blog I wrote previously.  Now onto dinner.  You’ve put in a hard day at work and just want to relax so you go out to dinner.  First of all, eating out twice per day is bad for your body, not to mention expensive.  There are very few restaurants that offer truly healthy options.  Even quite a few of the vegetarian or vegan restaurants end up frying a lot of their food.  If you are reading this series of blogs and thinking I need to get healthier but I can’t afford it, consider this:  if you eat out once or twice less each week you could not only afford the cost of buying healthier food but more than cover the cost of purchasing healthy supplements too!

MH says to eat a steak or oysters for dinner.  Keep the same principle in mind from lunch: any place that is serving steak or oysters is most likely serving bread and butter.  The meat at a restaurant is usually the focus of the meal with vegetable garnish.  ”Healthy at 100″ which documents the lifestyle habits of the longest lived cultures on the planet reports this about health and longevity:  these cultures have basic nutrient percentages in common.  60-70% of calories should come from carbohydrates, 20-30% of calories from protein, and 10-15% of calories from fat.  These are the percentages that human bodies are designed for and stay healthy on.  You get roughly 4 calories from each gram of protein and carbohydrate and 9 calories from each gram of fat.  A steak or shellfish dinner like MH advises is going to get about 30-50% of the calories from fat!  I understand how hard it is to give up meat, but cutting down on it will dramatically start to change our health.

Eating a diet rich in vegetables, legumes and whole grains has so much variety.  When it comes to meat, variety comes in the form of different sauces that are high in fats and sugars to garnish the meat.  With vegetables, there are so many different kinds and so many different combinations with whole grains that you will never get bored!  Scientific studies have shown that animal proteins advance tumor growth.  Not only that but they can stimulate growth too.  However, its not protein that is the problem but animal proteins because plant based proteins do not show the same effect.  In fact the opposite is true that plant based diets, even high protein ones tend to reverse or stop tumor growth.  People, we literally dig our graves with our teeth by what we choose to put in our mouths.  I could spend all day giving you delicious vegetarian meal options but once again I will refer you to the discussion board of our Facebook group, Health and Wellness Education.

Sprouted grain breads are much healthier for us than just your average breads.  They are high in protein, fiber and micro nutrients.  Your everyday bread that you get at the grocery store and the fancy breads they serve at restaurants all have the same downfall: they are made with processed flours which have been stripped of fiber, vitamins and minerals.  When you are making meals for yourself consider that the healthier breads are actually about the same price ($3) as the unhealthy ones.

Healthy lunch and dinners are about the same.  You don’t need to have a lighter lunch or a heartier dinner if its full of nutrient dense foods like green leafy vegetables (spinach is my favorite), whole grains (quinoa, wild rice, etc.), colorful veggies like carrots, bell peppers, onions, broccoli, cauliflower etc… Beans are excellent sources of amino acids, fiber and iron.  They are versatile to cook with as well and can be added to salads, mashed (and eaten as re-fried beans), or pureed like hummus.  Most importantly, if you are eating high fiber nutrient dense foods you can eat as much as you want.  Keep the added fats (like olive oil, flax oil, sesame oil) to a reasonable level keeping in mind your caloric percentages and you’ll be in great shape!

Everybody loves dessert so learn how to make your own without refined flours, sugars and eggs.  There are many delicious desserts out there that are lower calorie without refined ingredients.  I made killer almond coconut bars yesterday using only coconut, almond flour, oats, vanilla, applesauce and honey.  Topped them with some melted organic dark chocolate and they were incredible.  Like eating an almond joy but without all the extra sugar, fat and preservatives AND GUILT.

Keep subscribing to the blog so you can be tuned in for the follow-up to this healthy day of eating.  I will gather some information and website links for you to access.  Also, I will mention some more of the routines and products I use throughout my day to eat healthy, stay happy and vibrant.  Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you soon.

Ideal Eating Plan

Taking the weekend off. We will do the 3rd installment of our ideal eating day on Monday. If you have a minute go to the blog and check out some of the archived articles. Try and read an extra 1 or 2 each week. It would only take 5 minutes (total) to read each one, but would totally shorten the learning curve to understanding your body’s needs.

A healthy day of eating (for everyone) part 2

I want to jump right into it today.  We discussed some healthy options for breakfast and starting out your day on the last blog.  I’ve gotten quite a few questions recently about how and when I take my supplements so I wanted to address that briefly before talking about lunch today.

So in the morning when I wake up and make my master cleanse and my super greens I take my fish oil at the same time.  Fish oil appears to absorb better in an alkaline environment.  Don’t listen to the naysayers about fish oil or the other supplements I will mention.  I will give you some pointers about finding some good nutritional supplements that are low cost and highly effective.  I mean think about it; if the money you pay for supplements means you go to the doctor a couple times less per year then they pay for themselves plus you don’t have to deal with getting sick.  If you have some chronic illness or disease and you can get that under control or make it better then the cost savings are exponential!  I take an effervescent vitamin powder as well, sometimes in the morning and sometimes later in the day.  It’s best to take something like that on an empty stomach so when you have an empty stomach during the day will vary but your body stores vitamins, amino acids and micronutrients temporarily for when you need them.

OK, onto the lunch and afternoon part of the Men’s Health “ideal day.” In order to make it to lunch you should drink peppermint tea to improve your concentration according to them.  I can’t imagine how a fatty, fried breakfast of bacon and eggs would lead to a lack of concentration or sluggishness.  For lunch they advise you to have salmon (or some fish) and a spinach salad.  The best piece of advice they offer is not to drink tea with milk.  So vegetables do kind of make an appearance with the spinach salad reference but there is no advice as to salad dressing or salad ingredients.  For the record most salads at restaurants contain cheese and a sugary dressing that makes the salad taste sweet.  In addition, the salmon is more than likely accompanied by some kind of rich sauce.  Restaurants that serve salmon for lunch probably give you bread and butter as well.

I won’t go down the vegetarian path too far (not because I don’t believe in it) because I don’t want to lose the audience yet.  I will say to be careful with fish consumption.  It is no longer safe to consume fish more than twice per week now because of environmental toxins.  (fish oil is different if its purified)  So if you have a lunch with bread, butter, salmon and a spinach salad you are getting a meal that won’t digest very well.  There isn’t much fiber in a meal like this which will keep you full longer but also help to regulate your blood sugars.  Fish is one of the simpler proteins for your body to break down but combine that with the enzymes needed to digest the bread and they can neutralize each other leaving the food partially digested and putrifying through your digestive track.  Spinach is one of the best foods you can eat, but don’t combine it with a sugary dressing or cheese.  The net gain of eating the spinach will be offset by the amount of nutrients it takes to digest and get rid of the dairy products.

Before giving some simple advice for lunch, maybe refer to the MH article at the 3;11pm post.  The article tells you to take stuff for being sick!  It’s ironic because if you eat like they tell you in the article you WILL get sick.

So, what would a healthy lunch consist of?  Well keep these principles in mind.  You want to give your body a high fiber, nutrient dense meal to keep your energy and spirits high all the way through to dinner.  Notice I said high fiber again?  High fiber diets are linked to lower body weight, lower incidence of disease and less spikes in blood sugars for stable energy.  What foods are high fiber and nutrient dense?  PLANTS.  I like to make wraps with whole grain “lavash bread” from Trader Joe’s.  I spread hummus on the bottom and then pile on the spinach, onion, carrot, bell pepper, tomato, black beans, sprouts and avocado.  Being “mostly vegan” I add tofurkey to the wrap for a smokey, tasty treat!  I also love salads and you can get quite creative with those.  On our Health and Wellness Facebook group discussion board there are lots of great recipes for salads, wraps, soups and other delicious meals.

Now that we are into the middle of the day our body is done cleansing and now wants to being building up and storing nutrients to get us through the rest of the day.  Mid-day meals should contain lots of vegetables, beans and whole grains.  The vegetables have fiber and vitamins, beans have fiber and amino acids, whole grains carbs and amino acids.  Amino acids are what our body uses to make the countless different proteins inside.  You can get amino acids from vegetables the same as meat.  In fact a lot of vegetables contain more amino acids (protein) than meat does calorie for calorie.  Don’t try and “cut out the carbs” because that’s what our bodies use for fuel.  Just be aware that whole grains are higher in fiber and amino acids than the refined breads, pastas and sugars.  The refined stuff just breaks down quickly and spikes our blood sugar.  The longest lived, healthiest societies get about 2/3 of their calories from carbohydrates.  Be more afraid of fat and processed food calories than carbs ok?

I haven’t mentioned yet (and neither did Men’s Health) that drinking water throughout the day helps to transport those nutrients around your body.  HOWEVER, you don’t want to drink water with your meals.  If you drink water while you’re eating or down a big glass afterwards you are hurting digestion.  See your stomach produces powerful hydrochloric acid to break down food.  If you drink a bunch of water you are diluting this acid and your food is not being digested and utilized correctly.  Rule of thumb: don’t drink 20 minutes before a meal or 45 minutes after.  Feel free to subscribe to the blog.  Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you soon.

A healthy day of eating (for everyone) part 1

There is a growing opinion and science based approach to eating in the health world and it is kinesiology.  The theory as it applies to food is that if you hold a food in your hand and go through a series of muscle tests your body will let you know which foods will make you stronger and which ones do not.  This theory goes a little more mainstream as dietitians, nutritionists and doctors simply advise, “eat what makes you feel good.”  Well the Western diet high in sugars, meat and refined carbohydrates changes your taste preferences so what makes you feel good is actually what your brain perceives as comfort food.

We all need to be very careful who and where we take our health advice from.  This includes our doctors whom we are supposed to be able to trust.  Did you know that nutrition is such a small percentage of the curriculum in medical school that the average doctor can’t even recall one lesson (about nutrition) from their 6 figure educational investment.  Since what we put in our mouths directly correlates to how many times we see our doctor over the course of our lives, where is the motivation to teach about good nutrition if you are a doctor trying to feed your family.

Onto the Men’s Health article I referenced yesterday.  Quick recap of a healthy day’s eating according to the article: Breakfast fried ham and eggs, Lunch grilled salmon and spinach salad, (Late) Dinner steak or oysters and something with dark chocolate for dessert.  All the other stuff in between meals is kind of filler.

So basically, Men’s Health Magazine is telling us to eat a high fat, high protein diet.  There is no mention of vegetables as part of a healthy “ideal” diet.  The bell pepper reference as a snack doesn’t really count because I think its a fruit.  I want to take the next couple days to give you a brief but effective tour through eating (and drinking) healthy throughout your day so that if these 2 or 3 blog entries are all you ever read on The Body Blog, if you follow this advice you will be healthier.

For the sake of being able to verify what I am saying as scientific, I will use the 2 most recent book reports I have done and book I am finishing now: “The China Study” by T. Colin Campbell, “Healthy at 100″ by John Robbins and “Eat to Live” by Joel Fuhrman.  These books reference many scientific articles, journals, books and studies.

Now that this is all set up, I will give you a short assessment for today and then jump right into it tomorrow.  Feel free to subscribe to the blog if you are worried about remembering to come back tomorrow.  So let’s start with the first meal of the day, breakfast.  When you are sleeping your body is working at recharging, rebuilding and realigning itself.  This takes a tremendous amount of process and conversion.  The result is that there are a lot of byproducts.  Have you ever noticed in the morning that your pee is darker yellow?  There is a lot of excess stuff your liver and kidneys are processing and cleaning out at night.  So instead of jumping right into that fat filled breakfast the first thing you should do is get a lot of fluids into your blood system.  You need to kind of force fluids through to flush out your organs and prep them for the day ahead.  The most effective way I have found to do this is alkalize your blood first thing.  I make a master cleanse (1 lemon, pinch of cayenne pepper and tbsp of grade B maple syrup).  Blend it with about 24-32 oz of water.  This drink is very alkalizing to the system and you literally feel it wake you up inside!

I drink this down and wait a few minutes then drink an 8oz glass with water and my super greens.  Once again, very alkalizing and its helping your body to finish the cleansing process from the day before so that it can begin to build back up.  Wait a few minutes once again.  From there you can eat fruit (by itself).  Whole grains provide complex carbs, high fiber and protein.  If you eat high fiber foods you won’t be starving until lunch.  Nuts, nut milk, whole grain cereal, oatmeal are very satisfying and waaay lower in calories than fried meats and eggs.  Think about this for tomorrow.  Use a little mental kinesiology.  Do you really think a breakfast of friend bacon and eggs is healthier than plenty of alkalizing liquids, fruit, whole grains and nuts?  I think we all know the answer.  See you tomorrow on The Body Blog.

Do you really get accurate health information from magazines and big business publications?

I don’t claim to be perfect.  Never have, but in all my years of studying health I keep running into the same thing: Un-educated people posing as experts.  I am filing the blog post today under “rants and raves” and tomorrow I will continue with some good, solid, science based nutrition commentary.  I am very open about the fact that I am not a doctor, nutritionist or “dietitian.”  I make a habit out of studying the healthiest people, cultures and societies to find out what they have in common.  Then when some trends present themselves I study the science and the breakdown of why certain foods and nutrients affect the body they way they do.

I hope that makes sense to you.  Basically, I am a nerd when it comes to studying health.  I love it, can’t get enough of it and enjoy sharing it with you.  Sometimes I guess I enjoy sharing too much because I have gotten emails about my blogs being too long.  I think I’ve gotten better at shortening them, but I will not reduce myself to talking points that do nothing to educate you.  So does this rant segue into anything?  Yes, allow me to introduce you to Men’s Health Magazine’s latest (online) article. If you can stand it, I recommend reading the whole thing.

That article is THE reason I spend so much time with The Body Blog, write articles and do what I do.  Outlets like this magazine are where the majority of Americans get their health and nutrition info.  Keep in mind that Men’s health being the big publication it is has to consider the advertisers buying into their issues when publishing a product.  If they published true nutritional information like “milk and milk products are NOT health promoting” they would lose every milk, whey protein and any other product containing milk derivatives advertiser they have.  There is an old saying that I have quoted before: “It’s hard to get a man/woman to understand something when his/her salary depends on not understanding it.”

So let me end this post with this:  Health is big business in this country, like politics and finance.  Do you really think they tell you how politics works and what happens behind closed doors?  Do you really think the financial institutions want us to know how they do business?  Do you really think these big food companies want us to know what they do to their products and what kind of effect they have on our long-term health?  NO, NO and NO.  You can’t rely on corporate America for the information you want and need when it comes to health.  It’s the little publications like Veg News, the books like “The China Study” that didn’t make the best seller list, the studies and research done by the little guys, found and delivered to you by me, the little guy that really get you the facts on health.  Read through that article linked above and come back tomorrow for a look at what eating healthy for a day actually looks like.

A little something encouraging for your day! Bonus: Intro to Navitas Naturals

I have talked about “Food inc” recently.  By the way, I still advise you see that movie, even if you are a meat eater and have no intention of cutting back on your meat consumption, the information is important for people to know.

One of the important points at the end of the movie was the encouragement that our individuals can be heard.  We vote every time we buy an item and it scans at the grocery store.  We vote each time we need to buy food by which store we go to.  We vote every time we are in the store and decide whether to buy organic.  Here is one of those little tips that people like: Next time you are buying food at the store, go for the organic option over the regular.  So get the bag or organic apples instead of the ones treated with fertilizer and pesticide.  That’s not such a big deal right?  Just switching one thing doesn’t put a dent in your wallet but it will make your soul feel better!  Think of The Body Blog every time you go shopping for food.

So here is the super-cool announcement from today.  Click on this link. Probably a 45 second read.  How cool is that huh?  Happy voting at the grocery store and remember to take your re-usable bags in with you.  Save some trees too!

See I am getting better at cutting down the reading time on my posts!  On that note I wanted to capitalize on the upbeat theme from today and introduce you to another awesome company I’ve been using their products for awhile and got to sit down with at Natural Products Expo West a few weeks ago.

Navitas Naturals

This company is freakin’ cool.  They run a serious business but have laid back, surfer attitudes.  I felt like I was talking to a long time friend when I got to meet them.  I have been using the raw organic cacao and maca in my “power shakes” for awhile now.  I recently picked up some Goji berries to use in smoothies.  Amazing!  So anyway, aside from having great products, why do I love them?  Well check out their “About Us” page.  They are committed to sustainability, purity and fair trade to name a few.  For the raw food purists their whole line of products will surpass your scrutinous eye’s most stringent tests.

Let me tell you about a few products and some ideas that you may be able to incorporate into your daily routine.  So you all know about my love of the maca and cacao shake.  Here is something else to consider that is a very low cost way to get tons of extra antioxidants and micro-nutrients.  If you have a blender at home take a banana, orange and apple and slice them up.  Put them in the blender add some water and now add your raw food powder to make a healthier smoothie than you’ll get at your local juice store.  Navitas Naturals has acai powder, mulberry, goji and now camu camu powder.  This little berry is the richest source of concentrated vitamin C on the planet!  Also, they have a wheat grass powder and a plethora of other products which will save you the money and trip to the juice store from now on.  Thanks Navitas for helping us save money, live healthier, for caring about our health and that of the planet as well!

End of the cleanse, beginning of the journey

I want to keep the group cleanse we did from being forgotten.  There is always so much stuff to talk about health-wise on The Body Blog that I myself, the writer sometimes forget to blog about these dedicated people.  Remember Jen Caponi, our runner?  If not click on her name to take you back to her profile.  Well she had been dealing with some fatigue issues and also trying to get ready for some runs in Florida.  Jen was concerned with what eating “mostly vegan” would do to her body while she was trying to be at the top of her game athletically.  We figured there was nothing to lose and she was a trooper in sticking with the plan.  We cut out the dairy and increased the fruits, veggies and whole grains.

This was the last entry from her log.  I won’t include all of her meals because she stuck with the limited meat twice per week thing pretty well.  In fact she was so good with the meals, a lot of the vegan recipes on our Health and Wellness Education discussion board on Facebook are hers!  You should check them out because they are not only delicious but healthy for you!

I had a great week in terms of energy.  I am consistently doing 3 weight sessions (not my favorite thing, I must admit!), one day of yoga and my running and volleyball. All my runs this week were really fast.  I logged my fastest times ever and felt great doing it.  I even made my finishing kick closer to a half mile on some of the runs (usually I wait until ¼ mile to finish before I pick up the pace).  Everyone in the running group is remarking that I am getting super fast.  It feels awesome to know that all my training and nutrition is paying off.  I am still down those 6 pounds from week one.  Some days I bounce up a pound, but staying pretty consistent.  I think that alone is helping me to go faster.  According to my body fat scale, I have lost a few percentage points of body fat.  I am currently floating between the high 19’s- the low 21’s…..the readings are most often about 20.6%. I am just trying to make sure I am losing fat and not any of my muscle or water.  I do my weight and body fat every other morning first thing in the morning.

In terms of my eating this week, I am noticing that I am starting to crave sugar again, but I think most of that is because where I am in my womanly “cycle”.  These next few days should be interesting.  I leave tomorrow (Thursday) for my trip to Florida with the running group for our races.  We will be eating most of our meals out, so I need to be very careful that I don’t upset my tummy and get the runs during my run!  My mom is already in Fl, so I called her yesterday and asked her to get me a bunch of fruit so I can at least make myself a protein smoothie every day.  It should be interesting to see what my body does on more conventional and probably slightly processed food.  I am going to try to stay with healthy options, but we all know that healthy options in restaurants tend to not be as healthy as we think.  One note…. I will probably cheat and eat more than my two servings of meat this week.  My mom is making spaghetti casserole for us before the races (it will have ground turkey in it), and when I am in Florida, I try to eat as much fresh fish as possible, so I am apologizing in advance.  There were a few weeks where I did not have all my servings of meat, so let’s just say I am borrowing from those weeks!

I have similar insights as your other blogger, the Dr.  I definitely pay more attention to when I am eating my fruit.  I always have it at breakfast, and if I eat it during the rest of the day, it is always at work when it is the only thing I am eating in between clients.  In 2004 I went to New Zealand and one of our guides was a vegan and he started every day with a ½ gallon (!!) milk jug filled with mixed fruits smoothie and spirulina.  He would sip on that as we drove to our next adventure.  He said that he never ate fruit after noon.  This guy was amazingly fit, so my interest in being a vegan and the whole food combining thing actually started quite a few years ago.  I am excited that I have finally started to experiment with it!

Another insight was with the usage of olive oil as a condiment as opposed to cooking with it.  I have used grapeseed oil to cook with if I need to brush something with oil before roasting. I have had the grapeseed oil in my pantry for a while now, so I am glad I finally got to use it!  I am going to experiment with safflower oil next.

So, I am in the final week of the blog and it probably wont be as thorough, as I will be out of town and won’t be experimenting with any fun recipes this week.  I hope you have been able to try some of the recipes I have logged.

So how did Jen do with her runs?  Well, ran 1hr 58 min for the 1/2 marathon got 114th out of 3000+ for one of the other races.  First of all Jen, congrats because even if I was a runner I don’t think my times would ever be that good.  Secondly, not only did you run better, but felt better with your new “mostly vegan” diet!  Most people would acknowledge the health benefits of eating a “mostly vegan” diet, but actually doing it is something different.  Good job, thanks for your participation and I look forward to sharing updates about you from time to time, including a comparison of your before and after blood work.  Stay tuned…