You don’t know how to exercise right. If you have ever tried to exercise to lose weight I can almost guarantee you that you were doing it wrong. How do I know that? I know that because most people who exercise for weight loss don’t exercise hard enough or for long enough and (most importantly) don’t understand why they are exercising. If you want to exercise to lose weight fast you need to learn how to exercise properly, let me show you how.

Hard Enough

In order to lose weight you have to exercise harder than you might think. Exercise that is hard enough has two components:

• Sustained Exercise: Exercises such as running or jogging, jumping rope, cross-country skiing, walking, running in place, bicycling, rowing, swimming, stair climbing, and dancing can all be sustained exercises. These are exercises where your heart rate is elevated over a long period of time and you don’t have any time where your heart rate drops. All other exercises (such as tennis, basketball, golf…) allow your heart rate to slow down in between times of effort.

• Intensity: Study after study has shown that exercise intensity is a key ingredient to both increasing your metabolism and exercising for weight loss. While there are many ways to measure the intensity of a workout, the easiest way is to buy a heart rate monitor. In order to lose weight and boost your metabolism you need to exercise at least 70 percent of your maximum heart rate.

While this is a bit complicated, here is how you determine your 70 percent of maximum:

• To find out what your 70 percent of maximum is, you first you have to find out your maximum heart rate. When you have your maximum heart rate, you can then determine 70 percent from that amount. To find your maximum heart rate, use this simple formula: subtract your age from the number 220. The result of your calculation is a good estimation of your Maximum Heart Rate. Now that you have your Maximum Heart Rate, you can compute your 70 percent (if you don’t remember how to do this math, you simply take your maximum heart rate and times it by .70).

Long Enough

Most people who exercise for weight loss don’t exercise long enough. Research shows that you need to exercise at least 20 minutes a day (but more like 40 minutes a day) in order to see some benefit.

Exercising this long is a big commitment on your part, but you can combine exercise with other things that you do every day (such as watching television) to minimize the impact on your schedule. Do you watch a show every night? Then use your stationary bicycle or treadmill while you are watching your show. If you do this after you eat, the benefits will be double (you will be burning off calories that would normally just be added to your waistline, as most people just sit after dinner and you will be getting in your exercise for the day).

The Reason Why You are Exercising

The biggest problem people have when they think about exercise for weight loss is that they really don’t know why they are exercising.

Take a look at the facts:

• One pound of fat contains 3,500 calories
• Walking fast for a mile will only burn off around 100 calories

Who wouldn’t get discouraged after reading that? Here is what you need to wrap your mind around about exercise: You don’t exercise to burn off calories; you exercise to boost your metabolism. Your metabolism (or Basal Metabolic Rate) burns somewhere between 1200 to 1800 calories a day even if you are lying in bed doing nothing.

The focus of exercise is not to burn calories, but to build muscles. This is why you exercise. When you add more muscles to your body it boosts your metabolism. When you exercise hard enough, you also boost your metabolism.

Let me say it again: The key to exercise is to raise your metabolism, not to burn calories. This is how you lose weight fast: exercise hard enough, for long enough and build your metabolism.

Start Slow

Before you start exercising, you should check in with your doctor and remember to take it easy at first. I suggest that you start your exercise for weight loss slow and work up in intensity and length. Yes, you can exercise to lose weight fast; but you just have to know what you are doing.

Note: If you really want to supercharge your weight loss, try the 30 Sugar Free Day Program.

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Insulin resistance is a modern day problem that is the result of eating modern day foods. What insulin resistance means is that the cells in your body are resistant to insulin. While this may not sound like a big deal, it is. The more insulin resistant your cells become, the high your blood sugar rises (and your body hates high blood sugar). Let’s take a look at just how insulin resistance happens in your body.

How Insulin Resistance Forms

If your blood sugar shoots up high occasionally, there is really no problem. The problem comes when your blood sugar is high over a long period of time or high blood sugar happens every day. To understand this, you have to understand what is happening in the cells of your body.

The cells in your body only want so much sugar; they just want enough sugar to do their jobs. When there is constantly too much insulin and too much sugar in the blood stream (like when you eat sugar at every meal) the only response that the cells have is to remove the doorways (receptors) from the outside of the cell. This process is called down-regulation of receptors. When insulin receptors disappear throughout the body, it creates a whole-body effect called “insulin resistance,” meaning the cells of the body become “resistant” to insulin.

Let’s take a look at what happens to the cell when the body removes receptors, in the following diagram the yellow represents the cell and the blue thingies are the receptors.

A cell goes from having this many receptors (normal):

To having, say, this many:

Now, this is a bit tricky to understand, but imagine if all the cells in your body began to respond to too much sugar by removing their insulin receptors. If every cell in the body removed its receptors, the doorways to sugar, what would happen? The end result would be that you’d have more sugar in your blood.

Why?

Remember that insulin used to be able to push sugar out of the blood stream and put it into the cells. The cells, though, are now getting rid of receptors because there is too much sugar around most of the time. The cells are becoming resistant to insulin. So, even though there is sugar in the blood stream and a lot of insulin, the sugar has no where to go because the cells won’t allow it in. So, now, where does the sugar go? It stays in the blood stream.

But you also have to remember, more sugar in the blood stream creates what? The answer is more sugar in the blood stream leads to more insulin. When your body becomes insulin resistant, the next time you eat a meal, you have a higher amount of sugar in your blood because the cells are refusing to take on that sugar. So, more sugar in the blood stream means that the body will now release more insulin. Do you see the vicious cycle that is starting to develop? More insulin circulating in the body will eventually lead to fewer receptors on cells, which will lead to more sugar in the blood, and more insulin, and fewer receptors and…you get the idea.

Cells will eventually look like this as they get rid of even more receptors:

Now you understand how insulin resistance can develop from eating a high amount of sugar every day. The association between eating sugars and the creation of insulin resistance is, however, far from being a proven phenomenon in human beings. Animal studies demonstrate a relationship between eating sugars and foods that act like sugar and the development of insulin resistance,[i]^,[ii] but the medical community is far from convinced. Like much of the scientific study on sugar and health, much more research is needed.

Over Time

Okay. Let’s see if we can pull this all together. Watch what happens over time, not to the individual cell, but in the whole body. The following chart shows how blood sugar and insulin react to each other and how insulin resistance builds over time when you are consuming sugar foods. (click on the image below to see full size).

What happens over time with insulin resistance is that the body can no longer produce enough insulin and, eventually, insulin production fails. When the body can no longer produce enough insulin or the cells have become resistant to insulin, your body is no longer able to keep blood sugar within a narrow range. This is called diabetes, a situation where the blood sugar is very high.

What Can You Do?

There is a lot that you can do to avoid insulin resistance, the chief among these is to stop eating sugar and foods that act like sugar. I have program called the 30 Sugar Free Days Program where you can join with other people who are giving sugar the boot.

Besides stopping the sugar feast, you can exercise, lower the amount of saturated fat in your diet and eat as many vegetables as you can. Insulin resistance is not a death sentence, but a wake-up call. There is a lot you can do to stop and reverse insulin resistance, but you have to get moving today.

[ii] Daly M: Sugars, insulin sensitivity, and the postprandial state. Am J Clin Nutr. 2003 Oct;78(4):865S-872S.

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Losing weight is not as difficult as it is keeping the weight off (you probably know that). But keeping the weight off is not as big of a mystery as you might think. You really don’t have to resort to some crazy diet plan like eating only rice or grapefruit, you do (however) have to change what you are doing. Remember the definition of crazy is trying the same thing over and over but expecting new results. In order to lose weight you have to change what you are doing.

If weight loss is your goal, here are the top 10 tips to lose weight.

1. Stop Short Thinking

Most people think that they can go on a diet and lose the weight that they want to lose and once they achieve their goal they can go back to eating the way that they were eating before their diet (not realizing that the way that they were eating is the cause of their weight gain). When you are looking for a new diet plan, find one that you can live with the rest of your life. Yes, you read that correctly: The Rest of Your Life. The reason why you have a hard time losing weight and keeping it off is because you are eating foods that are not meant to go in a human’s mouth. When you are looking for a diet, pick one that nourishes your body and allows you to lose weight. What does that look like? Read on.

2. You Don’t Have to Spend a Lot of Money

Any plan where you have to shell out a lot of money is a bad idea. Weight loss is simple (well, maybe not so simple to do, but simple to understand). In order to lose weight you simply have to give your body what it needs and your body will respond by giving you what you want: a lighter, healthier body.

3. Don’t Trust Prepackaged Anything

If you want to lose weight, you are going to have to stop letting other people make your food. Both restaurants and food companies want to make you happy and in order to make you happy they are going to fill their food with three magic ingredients: Sugar, Salt and Fat. These three are the deadly ingredients of the dietpocalypse are guaranteed to bring you back to the table over and over again, but also guaranteed to add to your waistline.

4. Remove Food Allergies

Most people don’t know that they are carrying around a lot of extra weight in the form of water weight. Your body holds on to water when you are eating foods that you are allergic to. How do you know if this might be you? Try an allergy elimination diet (see my article: I’m Allergic to Everything). The most common food allergies are probably the foods that you like most: wheat (and gluten-containing foods), nuts, shellfish, dairy, soy, corn and eggs.

5. Eat Your Veggies

You don’t eat enough veggies. How do I know that you don’t eat enough veggies? Because no one eats enough vegetables. You may know that eating enough vegetables is a good thing to do (after all, your mom told you to do it), but veggies are not only good for you but they are also good for your weight loss. Researchers have shown that people who eat a lot of vegetables weigh less than those that don’t.

6. Eat Your Fruits

Remember what I just told you about veggies? The same is true of fruit. If you want to lose weight, find a way to get as many fruits into your body as possible.

7. Exercise

I’m guessing that this is not the first time you have heard that you need to exercise in order to lose weight but I’m going to mention it here because exercise is critical to your weight loss. The only way to get your metabolism back is to make sure you are building new muscle. Get out there today and get some exercise.

8. Cut Out Dairy

While many people are allergic to dairy products (and that can cause weight gain) that is not the main reason why you want to kick dairy out of your life. You want to stop eating dairy foods because they are a major source of fat in your diet. After you read that sentence, you might be thinking that you will just switch to low-fat dairy products but even that won’t work because low-fat dairy products are still high in fat. Read the labels on dairy products and compute the number of fat calories compared to the number of total calories and you will find that even skim milk is around 40 percent fat – those milk producers are tricky when the calculate the total fat calories by volume (this is why they can say skim milk is only 2 percent fat). Worried about calcium? Check out this post: Calcium Myths

9. Reduce Meat

Reduce or eliminate meat from your diet is another great way to kick the fat out of your diet. People who are vegan or vegetarian have a much less chance of being overweight than the rest of us. Try a one-month trial of removing meat from your diet and see what it can do for your waistline.

10. Stop the Sugar

If you want to lose weight, you have to stop the sugar insanity. Sugar is easily turned into fat in our bodies and kicking it out of your life is a great way to keep the pounds off. But let me warn you that if you are trying to stop sugar you also have to stop eating the foods that act like sugar in our bodies.

There you go: Top 10 Tips to Lose Weight.

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All this is good advice, but there is really only one thing you have to do to improve the chances that you will live longer: Look further down the road.

Looking Further

You spend your days making decisions. You decide to get out of bed, what to eat for breakfast, what clothes you are gong to wear during the day… Many of these decisions are automatic such as brushing your teeth, wearing a seatbelt, scratching your head. And each of those decisions , no matter how minor,  has an impact on your life. Some have a small impact on your life. Other decisions have more impact such as: should you move? should you marry? should you take that job?

The most important decisions you make, though, are the ones that appear to have little impact on your life when taken as a one-time event, but when repeated over a whole lifetime, have a huge impact.

Take a look:

• One cigarette means nothing to your health, but a pack of cigarettes a day for years equal cancer.
• One soda is a tasty treat, three sodas a day means a bigger chance for being overweight and having diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease…
• Driving in a car is the easy way to get to the store, walking instead of driving every day means you live longer.
• You may be too busy to call a friend back, but having good friends means you are more likely to live a longer and fuller life.
• You can’t find the time to exercise today, but exercises over a lifetime gives you energy, better sleep and can forestall diseases such as dementia, heart disease, diabetes and more.

There are more of these you can probably think of, consider adding yours to the comment section below!

Our Brains

Here is the problem: our brains are not set up to look further down the road. Are brains are set up to notice sudden and dramatic threats and adjust to them. If people took a puff from a cigarette and fell down dead, then we would avoid them. But since they kill us slowly, we seem to hardly notice the destruction because it is so slow. The same is true of sugar and other poor foods that we eat. The same is true about deciding to exercise, or take time with friends or the hundred of other healthy things we could be doing.

Humans are unique, though, in the fact that they can see further down the road, they can look at their futures.

Here is what you should commit to in order to increase your odds of staying on the earth longer:

• Eat better: I suggest Eating Below the Glycemic Index you can also try my 30 Sugar Free Days as a way to kick start a healthy eating plan.
• Exercise: Move your body around every day, sweat a little.
• Make Connections: Connect to friends, family and other social groups.
• Laugh: If you are not enjoying life, what is the point?

Take the time to develop habits that empower you and lean you towards better health, the payback is well worth the effort.

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SODA TAX: New York Governor David Paterson is suggesting a 15 percent tax on soft drinks. This so-called “obesity tax”, will only be on soda that contains sugar and not on the diet versions of soda. Governor Paterson suggested that this might generate more than $400 million dollars in tax revenue and might lead to healthier choices for the people of New York.

Dr. Scott’s Comments: Taxes actually are a very effective way to curb consumption. Studies on cigarette consumption and taxes show that increasing the price of cigarettes is more effective at reducing smoking than any other campaign (including scare tactics). My thought would be: why stop at soda? If sugar is much more of a health burden than cigarettes (see my book Sugarettes), then its consumption should be curtailed by any means necessary.

original article

KEEP ACTIVE: Low-cost physical activity programs, such as those offered by senior centers and recreation centers was show to dramatically reduce disabilities in the elderly. 554 elderly persons who were not physically active were randomly selected to be in the exercise group or non-exercise group. The group that exercised has a much lower incidence of disability and had a larger amount of muscle mass than the non-exercisers.

Dr. Scott’s Comments: The importance of continuing an exercise program throughout your life cannot be overstated. The amount of lean body mass (muscle) you have is closely related to how long you are going to live. In fact, lean body mass is the best predictor for longevity we have. If you are not already exercising, get up from the computer right now and go do something!

original article

SLEEP AND EXERCISE KILL CANCER: A new study by the National Cancer Institute showed the women who exercised has a 25 percent reduction in the amount of cancer than non exercisers. But, the women who slept less than 7 hours every night (even if they were exercising) had twice the risk of women who slept more than 7 hours.

Dr. Scott’s Comments: Exercise is important, but so is sleep. A 25 percent reduction in cancer risk is HUGE and one of the best reasons to get off your butt and get some exercise. The benefits of exercise were cut short by not getting enough sleep. What I think this research shows is that there are many women out there who are excelling in their business lives, but who are not taking care of themselves. Sleep is where out bodies rebuild and repair and skimping on sleep can have dramatic results.

original article

BLOOD SUGAR SPIKES DESTROY MEMORY: The hippocampus, the area of the brain partly responsible for creating new memories has been shown to be especially sensitive to spikes in blood sugar.

Dr. Scott’s Comments: Many people know of the “brain fog” that occurs with eating too much sugar, and now science is beginning to back up this notion. The interesting thing about this study is that the problems with memory begin with only moderate rise in blood sugar and the scientists suggest that sugar may be the reason behind why so many older adults have problems with memory: because it is common for us to lose blood sugar control as we age. Could sugar be the “smoking gun” in dementia? Don’t wait to find out, get sugar out of your life today!

original article

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You open a can of soda and pour that sugary drink into your mouth. The sugar travels down your throat and into your stomach and then has a very short trip from your stomach into your blood stream. As that sugar starts to move its way through your body, it eventually makes its way to your brain. You brain is happy with this shot of sugar you just gave it, because, while it only makes up only two percent of the body weight, your brain uses one-half of all the sugar energy in the body.¹

But, is there such a thing as too much sugar for your brain? And that soda you just drank will cause your blood sugar to skyrocket and eventually drop; what happens to your brain then? And what about other sugar-brain questions: doesn’t sugar make you or your kids hyperactive, and doesn’t sugar change your mood?

The short answer to these all these questions is: we don’t know. Scientific studies on the effects of sugar on the brain are sparse at best and most medical professionals and organizations will say that sugar has nothing to do with mood or hyperactivity. If you are surprised by that stance, you are not alone.

Most parents have witnessed firsthand the effect of sugar on little kid’s brains. Most adults will tell you that they have experienced a sort of mental fog from eating too much sugar, not to mention the sugar high and the sugar crash. But none of these experiences mean anything to researchers who report that there are no such thing as a sugar high or that hyperactivity could be caused by too much sugar.

But just because there isn’t much research on how sugar and foods that act like sugar and how they affect mental function doesn’t mean there isn’t any. This article will piece together the bits of information out there on sugar and brain function to get a better understanding of what sugar is doing to our brains. As usual, I will be including not only sugar, but foods that act like sugar in the discussion.

Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor

Let’s start with a brain chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF is the key to understanding what happens when sugar hits our brain.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor is responsible for the development of new brain tissue. If you didn’t have this chemical in your brain, your brain wouldn’t develop properly and you would die very soon after birth. The key to BDNF is to understand what it does: it helps to create new neurons (nerve tissue), and, therefore new memories.

You want as much BDNF around as possible if you want to learn, grow, and have normal brain functioning.

Research has shown that high sugar diets (along with high fat diets and lack of essential fatty acids) decrease a BDNF.² In fact, the relationship between BDNF and sugar gets even more interesting: low amounts of BDNF actually leads to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and even diabetes.³ This means that high sugar in the blood leads to low BDNF, and then low BDNF leads to a worsening of blood sugar control, which leads to high blood sugar, which leads to worse blood sugar control… and the cycle continues.

In an interesting study on rats, it was discovered that the animals that had the best ability to learn spatial and memory tasks also had the highest amount of BDNF. It took only two months on a high sugar and high fat diet to significantly reduce BDNF in the brains of the experimental animals and for the reduction to have an effect on the animal’s ability to perform spatial and memory tasks.⁴

Low BDNF is no small thing as it has also been associated with depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, Huntington’s disease, Rett syndrome, and schizophrenia.

But there is much more to the sugar-brain story than BDNF, let’s take a look.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is one of the best places to start when discussing how sugar affects our brains. There are quite a few clinical studies that link the consumption of grains (foods that act like sugar) with schizophrenia.⁵ It has long been thought that people who are schizophrenic may have a problem with the protein found in many grains (gluten) and there is a strong association between schizophrenia and Celiac disease.⁶

Interestingly, there is also a close association with poor blood sugar control (metabolic syndrome) and the severity of schizophrenia:

It appears that the same dietary factors which are associated with the metabolic syndrome, including high saturated fat, high glycemic load, and low omega-3 (PUFA), may also be detrimental to the symptoms of schizophrenia.⁷

These researcher show that once again, a diet low in essential fatty acids (omega-3) and high in fat and sugar will decrease BDNF and it makes me wonder if sugar and foods that act like sugar may be the “smoking gun” in schizophrenia.

Depression and Anxiety

As a hint that how we live and what we eat have some effect on our moods, it has long been known that coronary heart disease and diabetes all are common in people with depression.⁸ This means that the same dietary conditions that create heart disease and diabetes also can lead to depression. Interesting…

Sugar consumption in population studies have been shown to have a close link with major depression.⁹Researchers suggest that the sugar and brain association may be due to the oxidative stress that sugar can cause or the change in beta-endorphins (brain chemicals that make us feel good) that comes about because of sugar use.

Anxiety, too, has been closely linked with sugar use in a number of studies.¹⁰

Children

Perhaps the biggest questions arise when discussing children, mood, behavior and sugar. While any parent would tell you that sugar can dramatically change the behavior of a child, the medical community is silent. There have been a few studies that show an association between high blood sugars and problem behaviors, but these studies have mostly been performed in children who already have blood sugar problems (such as diabetes).¹¹¹² More studies need to be done and need to be done in children with normal blood sugar.

Autism is an interesting exception to the lack of research. A review by the prestigious Cochrane review admitted that many of the studies linking foods that act like sugar (grains) and gluten to autism have been of poor quality, but they do point to one study that does show a relationship between a gluten-free diet and improvement in the symptoms of autism.¹³ While far from conclusive, these studies open the possibility of a solution for the growing epidemic of autism.

Brain Plan

Okay, let’s say you actually want to take care of your brain. What is the best way to go?

• Avoid grains and sugars: Read my book Sugarettes or take the 30 Sugar Free Days Challenge, and get yourself off sugar and foods that act like sugar.
• Exercise: It has been shown that exercise is great for your brain, and it increases BDNF.¹⁴
• Supplement: Your brain thrives on vitamins, especially the B vitamins and make sure you are taking some form of omega 3 oils (fish oils).

We can take care of our brains much better than we do and knowing that the foods that we put into our mouths can dramatically how we think, how we feel and act, and which diseases we get means that your brain and how well it functions is in your hands. You have a choice and what you eat and drink can make dramatic differences in how you think, feel and behave.

Take the plunge and try the 30 sugar free days challenge:

Citations:

1. Fehm HL, Kern W, Peters A. The selfish brain: competition for energy resources. Prog Brain Res. 2006;153:129-40.
2. Molteni R, Barnard RJ, Ying Z, et al. A high-fat, refined sugar diet reduces hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor, neuronal plasticity, and learning. Neuroscience. 2002;112(4):803-14.
3. Krabbe KS, Nielsen AR, Krogh-Madsen R, et al. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and type 2 diabetes. Diabetologia. 2007 Feb;50(2):431-8. Epub 2006 Dec 7.
4. Molteni R, Barnard RJ, Ying Z, Roberts CK, Gómez-Pinilla F. A high-fat, refined sugar diet reduces hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor, neuronal plasticity, and learning. Neuroscience. 2002;112(4):803-14.
5. Peet M. International variations in the outcome of schizophrenia and the prevalence of depression in relation to national dietary practices: an ecological analysis. Br J Psychiatry. 2004 May;184:404-8.
6. Kalaydjian AE, Eaton W, Cascella N, Fasano A. The gluten connection: the association between schizophrenia and celiac disease. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2006 Feb;113(2):82-90.
7. Peet M. Nutrition and schizophrenia: beyond omega-3 fatty acids. Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 2004 Apr;70(4):417-22.
8. Peet M. International variations in the outcome of schizophrenia and the prevalence of depression in relation to national dietary practices: an ecological analysis. Br J Psychiatry. 2004 May;184:404-8.
9. Westover AN, Marangell LB. A cross-national relationship between sugar consumption and major depression? Depress Anxiety. 2002;16(3):118-20
10. Yannakoulia M, Panagiotakos DB, Pitsavos C, et al. Eating habits in relations to anxiety symptoms among apparently healthy adults. A pattern analysis from the ATTICA Study. Appetite. 2008 Nov;51(3):519-25.
11. Valdovinos MG, Weyand D. Blood glucose levels and problem behavior. Res Dev Disabil. 2006 Mar-Apr;27(2):227-31.
12. McDonnell CM, Northam EA, Donath SM, et al. Hyperglycemia and externalizing behavior in children with type 1 diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2007 Sep;30(9):2211-5.
13. Millward C, Ferriter M, Calver S, Connell-Jones G. Gluten- and casein-free diets for autistic spectrum disorder. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2004;(2):CD003498.
14. Exercise: Ang ET, Gomez-Pinilla F. Potential therapeutic effects of exercise to the brain. Curr Med Chem. 2007;14(24):2564-71.

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I have long said that exercise is a panacea and a cure-all, and recent research has backed up my claim. I find it funny to think that Ponce De Lion, the legendary explorer who went off in search of the fountain of youth, actually found the elixir to long life, only it wasn’t a fountain at all, but the exercise he was getting looking for the fountain. Ponce De Lion would have lived a long life if an arrow hadn’t cut it short.

Exercise is a powerful way to change how you feel and it can actually alter or reverse many diseases. If exercise were a drug, doctors couldn’t keep it on the shelf. Exercise is truly the best drug ever, and the incredible part about the exercise story is that this “drug” is free and it has virtually no side effects.

The importance of exercising is summed up well in this quote:

The Global Burden of Disease Study initiated by the World Health Organization included physical inactivity among the most important risk factors threatening global health. A sedentary life style may be as detrimental to health as smoking.(1)

Read that again! That quote is saying that not exercising has the same bad health effects as smoking. Clearly you have to get up off your butt and start moving it around some.

Let’s take a look and see just how powerful of a drug exercise can be.

Health Benefits of Exercise

The research supporting the benefits of exercise is enormous and the following are just a sample of what is out there.

• Cardiovascular Disease: Exercise improves heart function, blood flow to the whole body, nervous system control over the heart, and a technical measurement called endothelial function in patients with heart disease.(2) It appears from a large number of studies that exercise can help prevent heart disease. Exercise even helps people who have had a heart attack, reducing symptoms, complications, trips back to the hospital, and longer life. Not only that, but their quality of their life is better, they have lower depression, and they return to work or active life quicker than people who don’t exercise.⁽³⁾
  

• High Blood Pressure: The good news is that high blood pressure appears to respond best to moderate exercise (as opposed to strenuous exercise). With as little as 30 minutes of continuous exercise a day, patients are able to reduce their high blood pressure. It is important to note that the kind of exercise is important: continuous. Continuous exercise is walking, running, biking and not tennis, golf or even soccer or basketball.⁽⁴⁾ The jury is still out if weight training or high-intensity exercise will help high blood pressure.

• Rheumatoid arthritis: Moderate exercise has been shown to improve the symptoms (less pain) and the functional ability (they can do more) in people with rheumatoid arthritis.(5)

• Diabetes: Exercise has been studied in diabetics for a long time and has been shown to improve blood sugar control and reduce the need for medications. In a new study on the effects of exercise in diabetics, researchers were able to prove that long-term blood sugar control (by measuring hemoglobin A1c) is much better in diabetics that exercise than those that don’t, even when there they didn’t lose weight because of the exercising.(6)

• Weight Loss: As you can guess, exercise and weight loss has been extensively studied. A new study on overweight children showed that exercise helped them (more than adults) maintain their weight loss over a long period of time.(7) This study is so important and demonstrates that exercise can become a habit if introduced early enough in someone’s life. While normal-weight people should exercise at least 30 minutes (moderate intensity) on most days; overweight people should exercise 60 to 80 minutes a day.(8)

• Cognitive function: There is pretty good evidence that exercise will help maintain brain function, including memory, cognitive function, and attention in older adults. Since Alzheimer’s (and dementia in general) are becoming such a health disaster, it is good to know that exercise can be preventive.(9)

• Depression and Anxiety: A prescription for exercise often works better in people with depression and anxiety than taking a drug. New research suggests that this effect may be due to the ability of exercise to help us deal with stress.(10) Who couldn’t use a little stress and anxiety reduction?

What Else?

Exercise has been show to:

• Improve self-esteem, especially in children.(11)
• Reduce the risk for colon cancer.(12)
• Improves our quality of life, especially in older people.(13)
• Reduce back pain.(14)
• Prevent osteoporosis.(15)

Move Your Buns Around

Okay, I didn’t quite tell you the truth above, there are side-effects from exercise and you can hurt yourself; luckily, though, most of the damage you can do is only temporary (unlike some drug damage).

Here is what you need to know to get started on your own exercise program:

• Always check with your health care provider before starting an exercise program.
• You don’t have to kill yourself; moderate exercise is what has been shown to be the most effective for most conditions.
• Start slow and build up to 30 minutes every (or most) days. You’ll want to do more if you are overweight.
• Pick a continuous exercise: this means your heart rate is up for a sustained period. Choose exercise like running, walking, cycling, cross-country skiing and others.
• Consider adding weight lifting into your program.

Most of all, you want to have fun and stick with it. Yes, it can be a drag putting on clothes and getting out the door in the rain and snow, but most people love their exercise once they get going. If you can’t exercise outside, I recommend that you “pay” for the television that you watch by putting an exercise bike or a treadmill in front of the TV.

Take advantage of the best drug ever and start your exercise program today!

Citations

1. Erikssen G. Physical fitness and changes in mortality: the survival of the fittest. Sports Med. 2001;31(8):571-6.

2. Humphrey R, Bartels MN. Exercise, cardiovascular disease, and chronic heart failure. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2001 Mar;82(3 Suppl 1):S76-81

3. Ades PA, Coello CE. Effects of exercise and cardiac rehabilitation on cardiovascular outcomes. Med Clin North Am. 2000 Jan;84(1):251-65, x-xi.

4. Pescatello LS. Exercise and hypertension: recent advances in exercise prescription. Curr Hypertens Rep. 2005 Aug;7(4):281-6.

5. Metsios GS, Stavropoulos-Kalinoglou A, et al. Rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease and physical exercise: a systematic review. Rheumatology (Oxford). 2008 Mar;47(3):239-48.

6. Boulé NG, Haddad E, Kenny GP, et al. Effects of exercise on glycemic control and body mass in type 2 diabetes mellitus: a meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials. JAMA. 2001 Sep 12;286(10):1218-27.

7. Sothern MS. Exercise as a modality in the treatment of childhood obesity. Pediatr Clin North Am. 2001 Aug;48(4):995-1015.

8. Leermakers EA, Dunn AL, Blair SN. Exercise management of obesity. Med Clin North Am. 2000 Mar;84(2):419-40.

9. Angevaren M, Aufdemkampe G, Verhaar HJ. Physical activity and enhanced fitness to improve cognitive function in older people without known cognitive impairment. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008 Apr 16;(2):CD005381

10.  Salmon P. Effects of physical exercise on anxiety, depression, and sensitivity to stress: a unifying theory. Clin Psychol Rev. 2001 Feb;21(1):33-61.

11. Ekeland E, Heian F, Hagen KB. Can exercise improve self esteem in children and young people? A systematic review of randomised controlled trials. Br J Sports Med. 2005 Nov;39(11):792-8

12. Trojian TH, Mody K, Chain P. Exercise and colon cancer: primary and secondary prevention. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2007 Apr;6(2):120-4.

13. Stewart KJ. Physical activity and aging. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2005 Dec;1055:193-206.

14. Hayden JA, van Tulder MW, Tomlinson G. Systematic review: strategies for using exercise therapy to improve outcomes in chronic low back pain. Ann Intern Med. 2005 May 3;142(9):776-85.

15. Hingorjo MR, Syed S, Qureshi MA. Role of exercise in osteoporosis prevention–current concepts. J Pak Med Assoc. 2008 Feb;58(2):78-81

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There are two ways to look at cold and flu season. The first is to think that there are bugs out there and if you are too close to someone who has those bugs, you are going to get sick. The second is to realize that there are bugs out there, but there are always bugs out there, and that you only get sick when the conditions are right for the bugs to thrive.

Growing Flowers in a Desert

The best way to understand the second way of thinking is to picture a desert and think about what can grow in a desert environment. Only certain plants and animals can thrive in the desert. If you take a plant from a tropical climate and put it in a desert, it will die almost immediately. The reason why the tropical plant will not thrive and grow in the dry desert is because deserts don’t provide the right conditions for the tropical plant to grow.

The same is true of bacteria and viruses.

If you provide the right conditions for the bugs to grow, then, yes, you are going to get a cold. If you body is more like a desert, then the bugs will never get a hold and you will avoid the cold altogether. There are ways you can prepare for cold and flu season so that you can avoid getting sick.

Tips for Growing Your Own Personal Desert

• Slow down: take time off and spend time with the ones that you love. Remember that winter is the time to slow down; everything in the natural world is getting slower. Take a hint from nature and take a break from your busy schedule. In talking with dying patients who may not have much time left, they often lament the time that wasn’t spent with family and friends. Fall offers us this opportunity to slow down, enjoy our meals, and focus on loved ones.
  
• Eat for Health: You want to focus on vegetables that have been growing all summer and are now ready to eat. The more hearty vegetables should start showing up on your plate. Beets, turnips, parsnips, rutabaga, and winter squashes such as Acorn, Butternut, Pumpkins are a welcome addition to any meal. Add more protein to your diet as you need the extra amino acids to boost your immune system. As always kick sugar out of your diet, it ruins your immune system (and remember to remove the foods that act like sugar too: see my book Sugarettes).
  
• Soup: Both Chinese and Indian culture’s placed high emphasis on what are called “tonifing” soups. These, like your grandmother’s chicken soup recipe for a cold, act to increase the body’s ability to fight disease. Choose fresh vegetables, with emphasis on garlic and onion, chicken or fish may be added to boost protein content. Add plenty of spices: turmeric, thyme, basil, all have antimicrobial properties and also help to support the body’s own healing mechanism.
  
• Sweat: As the weather turns cold, take advantage of any opportunity to enjoy a steam-room or sauna. Not only have this been shown to aid in detoxification, but it also allows you a chance to relax and take some time off. Massage is another good way to aid in detoxification and promote a relaxed atmosphere. I still think you should exercise in winter, but just take it a bit slower.
  
• Sleep: With more nighttime and less daytime it would make sense that we sleep longer. Sleep impacts health in so many ways, getting the right amount of sleep for you is essential to your health and your body’s ability to fight disease.
  
• Herbs and Vitamins: There are many herbs such as Echinacea and others that promote healing and make colds shorter and less painful. These are best when they are chosen for the individual and their particular illness. Consult a professional who can personalize an herbal and nutritional program just for you.
  

What if you do get a Cold?

Okay, even if you do get a cold, you might want to look at it another way.

From a more natural perspective, fall and spring are times for the body to clean junk out of your system and a cold or flu may be a companion to help you clear out that junk. From this perspective, when you get a cold, you are not going to battle it, but accept it as a friend. Take a cold for what it truly should be: a hint that you need to slow down, get more sleep, eat better and take care of yourself.

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Do you find yourself scratching your head when you read the latest news? One headline suggests that coffee is good for you and the next reads that it is not good for you; another headline says alcohol is great for your health and then another tells you that it is not. What about a high protein diet, or a high carbohydrate diet, or an all-grapefruit diet? Do you choose bottled water or filtered water? What about using a microwave?

If you are confused, you are not alone.

One of the problems we have is that there is so much health information out there that it is often hard to decide what is good for you. The other problem, and one that I think is the root of all this confusion, is in understanding what is truly important versus what is not. What health advice is worth investing your time and effort in and what it just simply good advice.

Since we are all busy, let me try and give you some guidelines when dealing with health information, let’s start with alcohol and coffee.

Sitting on a Fence

There is something I call the Health Fence that a lot of health advice falls under. If one day you read that alcohol is the fountain of youth and the next day you read that it has the potential to do harm, then it belongs on the Health Fence. What you have to understand about the items that end up on the Health Fence is that they are both good and bad for you, often depending on the dose.

On the Health Fence are things like coffee, wine, and sunshine. Coffee is good for you, but not if you are drinking 3 or more cups a day. Wine, likewise, has health benefits, but not if you are drinking more than a glass or two a day. Sunshine is essential for your health, but if you are out in the sun long enough to have a severe burn, then it is not so good for you.

Don’t be confused by conflicting studies with items on the Health Fence; just understand that all of these items can be either good or bad for you depending on how much you use or are exposed to them.

Other Health Confusions

Besides items that end up on the Health Fence, let me give you an idea of how important the rest of the confusing health questions.

• Obesity: Being overweight or obese has received a lot of attention in the last few years, with a few popular books suggesting that weight has little to do with health. The truth, though, is that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that associates increases in weight with many diseases including diabetes, insulin resistance, heart disease and some cancers.
• Smoking: There is no confusion about smoking; it is bad for your health and you should stop yesterday if you are a smoker.
• Sugar: Sugar is every bit as harmful as cigarettes and I describe the extent of the damage in my book Sugarettes. While the medical community says little about the harm done by sugar, very soon they will realize what a health tragedy sugar is and reverse their stance.
• Fast food: Eating fast food means, for the most part, that you are eating processed foods that are often overcooked and that are full of additives, preservatives and colorings. There are, however, healthier choices when picking up something quick. Some fast food restaurants serve made-to-order burritos, or Asian-style foods, or even sushi, which are all relatively healthy. Choosing from these healthier fast food restaurants is much better for your health.
• Chocolate: Chocolate itself is healthy; the sugar that usually surrounds it is not. If you must eat chocolate (and, yes, I know for some of you it is a MUST), find a low-sugar alternative to your typical high-sugar chocolate treat.
• Artificial Sweeteners: There is no question that these are bad for you and you should avoid them. There are many good books about this subject; educate yourself before you ever put these chemicals in your body again.
• Bottled water: There is no doubt that bottled water is not your best choice when you are thirsty. From the plastic chemicals that leach into the water to the environmental problems with dealing with the plastic, using filtered or even tap water is often your best choice.
• Margarine: Thank goodness that the truth about margarine is finally out! Avoid this plastic-non-food as it is very bad for you and your health.
• Exercise: There is no question that exercise is good for you, so stop reading this right now and get out and move your buns around. Exercise has so many health benefits that it should be called the fountain of youth. Exercise has been shown in research studies to improve insulin resistance, heart disease, depression, longevity, insomnia and a long list of other conditions.
• Microwave cooking: Microwave cooking falls in that sort of in-between space. Yes, microwaves destroy vitamins and other nutrients, but so does almost every way of cooking. Microwaves have the potential to alter the structure of proteins and fats, but it is unclear how harmful this may be; once again, it is probably a matter of dose. I generally recommend eating foods as close to their original state as possible, but cooking foods occasionally in a microwave shouldn’t be a problem.
  
• Dietary Fat: Is fat good for you or bad for you? The answer to that question depends on the type of fat you are talking about. The good fats are essential fats found in fish oil and flax oil and in many foods. The bad fats are artificially hydrogenated and trans fats (such as margarine). The lack of good fats in most people’s diet is a major cause of illness and you should consider supplementing with fish oil if you don’t already.
  

What Else?

Do you have any other health concerns that you are confused about? I’ll keep updating this post as your questions come in. Use the comments at the end of the post, or submit a question using the question link.

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I’ve created this list of top Health Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make because it will give you an idea where to best focus your energies. Yes, you should consider which bottled water you should be drinking (if you should be drinking any bottled water), but the areas Health Mistakes below are where you are going to get the most bang for your buck. Some of them are not easy (actually most are not that easy), and the reason why most people don’t do them. But choosing to take care of you requires a bit of dedication because we live in a world that supports our ill health and not our good health.

Take a look the following Health Mistakes and see how well you are taking care of yourself.

Not Investing in Yourself

Most people will throw money at a new car, new TV, or new cell phone before they will spend the extra money on their anything to do with their health. You, by the way, are worth spending money on; once you’ve lost your health, you’ve lost everything (including your new cell phone). Investing in yourself means not only making sure you visit your naturopathic doctor, chiropractor or other health practitioners, but that you also you consider your health a priority and invest in yourself by buying supplements, reading books about health, getting massages and exercising.

Eating Sugar and Foods that Act like Sugar

This is probably the toughest one on the list and the topic of my book Sugarettes, but there is not a single thing you do every day that will cause more harm to your body than eating sugar and foods that act like sugar. When your blood sugar rises, your body pays the price.

Not Getting Enough Sleep

Sleep is so important; it should be considered a vitamin in itself. There is good research that shows that not getting enough sleep harms memory, concentration, mood and poor sleep even has been linked to heart disease. How much sleep should you get? The answer is individual to each person, but it is generally recommended to get somewhere between 7 and 9 hours of sleep.

Not Exercising

Outside of the food that you put into your mouth there is nothing than can have a bigger impact on your health than maintaining a lifetime exercise program. Exercise improves blood sugar control, can help with weight loss, improves mood, reduces anxiety… exercise is so powerful it is almost a panacea. Walking is enough, but cycling, running, swimming and other forms of exercise are great.

Not Relaxing

Here is the funny thing, we all know how to keep busy and get things done, but very few of us know how to truly relax. In order for the body and mind to rejuvenate, we all need a rest period. This can be as simple as taking a 15 minute walk after lunch. Better yet, try taking a week off every year to focus on relaxing; this is not a typical vacation where you are running around, but a time to just hang out and do nothing.

Avoiding the Sun

If you are typical, you are probably a bit sun-phobic, but you shouldn’t be. The dangers of the sun have been highly overblown. Yes, you should avoid being burned, but we need sun like we need water and food. We tend to live and even travel in boxes that block out the sun and fresh air. Get out of your boxes and see the real world.

The Best Investment You’ll Ever Make!

Focusing on your health is well worth it; especially as you age. Some of the above tips are hard, but working on your health will pay great dividends. When asked what they fear the most, older people tend to fear having to have someone take care of them in their old age. Do you really want someone dressing and feeding you? You can avoid this kind of fall into ill health by making a small investment in your health over time. Start Today.

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