Knowing one's iron levels is crucial to long term health. For guys, the problem is more often excess iron (iron overload), but for women it is more likely deficiency (resulting in anemia). Either can be corrected easily but many people are not aware of their iron levels.
Technically there are a number of ways of measuring iron, including blood levels and stored levels. But anyone can find out a basic measure of your blood iron levels simply by donating blood at the Red Cross (you can also find out your blood type this way, it is printed on the ID card they send you in the mail). Before they draw blood they will do an iron test to make sure the levels are high enough to take out blood. They give a number that one can check against the recommended range.
Excess iron builds up in your liver and when the liver is full it floats around in the body, potentially doing a lot of damage. A prominent book on the subject is The Iron Time Bomb, summaries can be found all over the net.
http://www.naturalhealthlibrarian.com/ebook.asp?page=Iron%20Overload
Those who turn out to have excessively high iron levels used to have to go give blood every month or so to lower them, but now it has actually become very easy to lower them due to a cheap extract from rice bran called IP6. It chelates (binds to) iron, escorting it out of your body. Iron levels come down very quickly.
Those who have low iron can eat more foods containing iron--however plant-based iron is not absorbed well, so meat is a better option.
You can find out how much iron (or other nutrients) a food has at
nutritiondata.com
Monday, August 22, 2011
Fiber and detox
It is baffling how so many fiber supplements claim to be for detox when in fact they do not have the type of fiber involved in detox.
Soluble fiber is what most supplements contain.
Insoluble fiber is the one that is good for detox, yet it is very rarely found in supplements. Good ways to get it are from the skins of vegetables, from seeds like chia or flax (flax for women only), nuts, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_fiber
Soluble fiber is what most supplements contain.
Insoluble fiber is the one that is good for detox, yet it is very rarely found in supplements. Good ways to get it are from the skins of vegetables, from seeds like chia or flax (flax for women only), nuts, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_fiber
The sugar and caffeine daily rollercoasters
Many people (including myself for years) ride two rollercoasters simultaneously all day, the sugar rollercoaster along with the caffeine rollercoaster. It's a wild ride, not one I wish to repeat. Often, they go together, as people jump on the caffeine rollercoater looking for a pick-me-up from the downs of the sugar rollercoaster. Here's how it goes:
1) Eat way too many carbs and way too little protein at a meal
2) Hyper - Blood sugar skyrockets (hyperglycemia) to unhealthy levels due to excess carbs, creating hyper-energy state
3) Crash - Since high blood sugar eventually spikes insulin, which takes sugar out of the blood sream, it is followed by a low blood sugar (hypoglycemic) crash; this up and down is the first rollercoaster. Further, eating too little protein results in insufficient secretion of glucagon hormone, which could have helped to mitigate the crash. Glucagon is the natural counter to insulin that sustains blood sugar levels even when insulin is high.
4) When fatigue from low blood sugar hits (dip in the sugar rollercoaster), reach for caffeine to "wake up" and get "energy" (begin caffeine rollercoaster). Caffeine stimulates your adrenal glands to produce adrenaline, giving an "adrenal high".
5) Crash again when the adrenaline from caffeine wears off in 4 hours, resulting in fatigue, irritability, headache, or confusion. Moreover, spiking adrenaline repeatedly through caffeine, day after day, leads to adrenal fatigue in the long term, a burnout of the adrenal glands, with its own constellation of symptoms (see article below)
Repeat cycle morning, afternoon, and evening.
The point: you don't have to ride either of these cycles. You aren't supposed to be tired after meals. Changing the type of food you eat by lowering carbs to a more reasonable amount and including more protein and fats will prevent the insulin spike that sets off this cycle.
The hidden dangers of caffeine: How coffee causes exhaustion, fatigue and addiction
http://www.naturalnews.com/012352.html
1) Eat way too many carbs and way too little protein at a meal
2) Hyper - Blood sugar skyrockets (hyperglycemia) to unhealthy levels due to excess carbs, creating hyper-energy state
3) Crash - Since high blood sugar eventually spikes insulin, which takes sugar out of the blood sream, it is followed by a low blood sugar (hypoglycemic) crash; this up and down is the first rollercoaster. Further, eating too little protein results in insufficient secretion of glucagon hormone, which could have helped to mitigate the crash. Glucagon is the natural counter to insulin that sustains blood sugar levels even when insulin is high.
4) When fatigue from low blood sugar hits (dip in the sugar rollercoaster), reach for caffeine to "wake up" and get "energy" (begin caffeine rollercoaster). Caffeine stimulates your adrenal glands to produce adrenaline, giving an "adrenal high".
5) Crash again when the adrenaline from caffeine wears off in 4 hours, resulting in fatigue, irritability, headache, or confusion. Moreover, spiking adrenaline repeatedly through caffeine, day after day, leads to adrenal fatigue in the long term, a burnout of the adrenal glands, with its own constellation of symptoms (see article below)
Repeat cycle morning, afternoon, and evening.
The point: you don't have to ride either of these cycles. You aren't supposed to be tired after meals. Changing the type of food you eat by lowering carbs to a more reasonable amount and including more protein and fats will prevent the insulin spike that sets off this cycle.
The hidden dangers of caffeine: How coffee causes exhaustion, fatigue and addiction
http://www.naturalnews.com/012352.html
The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs
People have very different metabolisms but this is a good basic starting point for nutrition by Jon Berardi a prominent sports nutritionist.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/berardi17.htm
Key additional points:
-Eat decent amounts of fat, including saturated fat. Low fat diets were a fad of the 80s, now science has shown it was a bad idea that pushed millions towards diabetes
-Know the difference between good and bad fats
-Don't skip breakfast and eat a solid amount of protein with breakfast--that's your #1 energy source; just carbs i.e. cereal/bread/juice will spike your insulin and you'll crash in an hour or two
-Never drink a soda again as long as you live, unless it is the last drink on earth.
-Never drink a diet soda again as long as you live, even if it is the last drink on earth. They have no value except as neurotoxins including aspartame.
-Eating vegetables is key particularly because they contain fiber, which fills you up and makes your system run better. Figure out what vegetables contain more fiber and eat those.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/berardi17.htm
Key additional points:
-Eat decent amounts of fat, including saturated fat. Low fat diets were a fad of the 80s, now science has shown it was a bad idea that pushed millions towards diabetes
-Know the difference between good and bad fats
-Don't skip breakfast and eat a solid amount of protein with breakfast--that's your #1 energy source; just carbs i.e. cereal/bread/juice will spike your insulin and you'll crash in an hour or two
-Never drink a soda again as long as you live, unless it is the last drink on earth.
-Never drink a diet soda again as long as you live, even if it is the last drink on earth. They have no value except as neurotoxins including aspartame.
-Eating vegetables is key particularly because they contain fiber, which fills you up and makes your system run better. Figure out what vegetables contain more fiber and eat those.
"Burner types"
Essential reading to get an idea of where you fall on a spectrum based on where you most naturally get your blood sugar from: either from sugar that you eat (called "sugar burners") or from muscle that your burn up into sugar ("muscle burners"). Their diets are totally different.
http://blog.metaboliceffect.com/2010/10/18/the-me-burner-types/
http://blog.metaboliceffect.com/2010/10/18/the-me-burner-types/
Sunday, August 7, 2011
TV/computers and kids: bad combination
"Before the age of 3, children's brains go through rapid development and are being physically shaped in response to whatever they are exposed to. Exposing children to fast-moving images for sustained periods at this time can inhibit their ability to sustain attention, and hinder their development of social skills."
It has been shown that the rays from TV and computers alter young children's developing brains. TV and computer screens emit blue light, the only rays the eye cannot block out. This can alter one's sense of time as well as day and night, it keeps adults up at night. Moreover, TV produces extremely fast images which are not found in nature. Children become accustomed to being passive observers of a hyper-speed world flying by.
Doctors recommend that kids should not be exposed to any TV and internet before the age of 3, and between 3 and 7 very little if at all, "one hour a day at most".
So it's not just that TV leads to kids being sedentary. TV has detrimental effects apart from the couch-potato problem. As this link shows, exercising apart from TV "doesn't make up for kids screen time".
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/10/27/exercise-doesnt-make-up-for-kids-screen-time.aspx
The nature of early childhood learning offers other reasons not to expose children to TV and Internet.
In Rousseau's book Emile: or, On Education, he explores the question of what constitutes a good education for kids. Railing against the over-civilized "educations" of his contemporary French enlightenment society much the way many people railed against Tiger Mom, one of his conclusions is that young kids should not learn to write and read and construct arguments until they have learned to interact with the world i.e. do things first. This theory is echoed by modern childhood developmental psychology, which finds that by nature kids up to middle school are predominantly "tactile-kinesthetic learners", they learn by touching and doing: bumping into stuff, clapping to songs, cutting with scissors, kicking balls, acting out, playing tag, etc. Learn to cut a piece of wood. Learn to climb up a ladder, smell a forest, kick a ball, bake a cake, tie your shoes, wash your hands, draw, make a poster, ride a bike. Gardens and farms, people, walking, fresh air, cooking and shopping, music, sports, museums, painting...
In short, kids are naturally designed to learn by doing. Thus is there a more un-kinesthetic and therefore un-kidlike experience than to sit idly in front of a TV--no matter how "educational" the program? This is Rousseau's problem in Emile: that kids were being "educated" like adults rather than as what they are, kids. Watching TV is purely audial and visual, completely devoid of the very touch and movement that is kids' primary learning mode (unless they're dancing along with a dance instructor...).
There is nothing about computers that can't be learned when one is 10, 20, or older.
Some parents (or teachers) may believe that young kids need to get experience with computers to keep up with a "tech-savvy" generation. It's just the opposite. What kids need is freedom from TV and computers to learn to interact with the world, move and do things, viz., to be kids. Kids need a chance not to be sitting in front of a glowing screen.
http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2007/04/24/Why-You-Want-to-Keep-Your-Baby-Away-From-the-TV.aspx
It has been shown that the rays from TV and computers alter young children's developing brains. TV and computer screens emit blue light, the only rays the eye cannot block out. This can alter one's sense of time as well as day and night, it keeps adults up at night. Moreover, TV produces extremely fast images which are not found in nature. Children become accustomed to being passive observers of a hyper-speed world flying by.
Doctors recommend that kids should not be exposed to any TV and internet before the age of 3, and between 3 and 7 very little if at all, "one hour a day at most".
So it's not just that TV leads to kids being sedentary. TV has detrimental effects apart from the couch-potato problem. As this link shows, exercising apart from TV "doesn't make up for kids screen time".
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/10/27/exercise-doesnt-make-up-for-kids-screen-time.aspx
The nature of early childhood learning offers other reasons not to expose children to TV and Internet.
In Rousseau's book Emile: or, On Education, he explores the question of what constitutes a good education for kids. Railing against the over-civilized "educations" of his contemporary French enlightenment society much the way many people railed against Tiger Mom, one of his conclusions is that young kids should not learn to write and read and construct arguments until they have learned to interact with the world i.e. do things first. This theory is echoed by modern childhood developmental psychology, which finds that by nature kids up to middle school are predominantly "tactile-kinesthetic learners", they learn by touching and doing: bumping into stuff, clapping to songs, cutting with scissors, kicking balls, acting out, playing tag, etc. Learn to cut a piece of wood. Learn to climb up a ladder, smell a forest, kick a ball, bake a cake, tie your shoes, wash your hands, draw, make a poster, ride a bike. Gardens and farms, people, walking, fresh air, cooking and shopping, music, sports, museums, painting...
In short, kids are naturally designed to learn by doing. Thus is there a more un-kinesthetic and therefore un-kidlike experience than to sit idly in front of a TV--no matter how "educational" the program? This is Rousseau's problem in Emile: that kids were being "educated" like adults rather than as what they are, kids. Watching TV is purely audial and visual, completely devoid of the very touch and movement that is kids' primary learning mode (unless they're dancing along with a dance instructor...).
There is nothing about computers that can't be learned when one is 10, 20, or older.
Some parents (or teachers) may believe that young kids need to get experience with computers to keep up with a "tech-savvy" generation. It's just the opposite. What kids need is freedom from TV and computers to learn to interact with the world, move and do things, viz., to be kids. Kids need a chance not to be sitting in front of a glowing screen.
http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2007/04/24/Why-You-Want-to-Keep-Your-Baby-Away-From-the-TV.aspx
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
"Chronic cardio" is not a good way to lose fat and/or change your body composition
One time my car broke down and a tow truck came to get me. The driver turned out to be a kickboxer. He said he couldn't lose his belly fat, even though he ran six miles a day. Long cardio sessions day after day have been called "chronic cardio." It is counterproductive for losing fat.
Doing cardio (i.e. 45-90 min jogs) is not "bad" in itself as some bodybuilding sites say and plays a big role in keeping weight under control. Done a couple times a week it just reduces your overall weight, both fat and muscle. However, you don't want to lose too much muscle since muscle mass is a key component that helps burn fat. When you do cardio excessively, you lose so much muscle that you burn fat less effectively. As a result people often end up "skinny fat", with really skinny legs and arms (no fat and no muscle) but still carrying fat on their belly/thighs/etc. (depending on what body type they have).
See "Slow-mo cardio and interval training" on this "Tools of the Fat Loss Physique Page"
http://blog.metaboliceffect.com/2011/07/25/tools-fat-loss-physique/
Doing cardio (i.e. 45-90 min jogs) is not "bad" in itself as some bodybuilding sites say and plays a big role in keeping weight under control. Done a couple times a week it just reduces your overall weight, both fat and muscle. However, you don't want to lose too much muscle since muscle mass is a key component that helps burn fat. When you do cardio excessively, you lose so much muscle that you burn fat less effectively. As a result people often end up "skinny fat", with really skinny legs and arms (no fat and no muscle) but still carrying fat on their belly/thighs/etc. (depending on what body type they have).
See "Slow-mo cardio and interval training" on this "Tools of the Fat Loss Physique Page"
http://blog.metaboliceffect.com/2011/07/25/tools-fat-loss-physique/
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