Health for life

If youre a human being, and you are, more than likely youve been affected by cancer in some way.  Whether its a close relative, or a friend, or someone more distant, weve all dealt with it.  Ive been one of the lucky ones, though.  I only had my first encounter with the deadly disease a few months ago, when my good friend Shawns mother passed away after a battle with breast cancer.  She was a wonderful woman, and it certainly was, and continues to be, a difficult time for all involved.

Unfortunately, nobody truly understands what causes cancer to develop.  Sure there are some things we know can cause cancer, like excessive sun exposure.  But the truth is there are more unknowns that knowns.  Take diet for example.  It seems intuitive that cancer would be linked to what we eat, and no doubt it is.  But what foods actually cause cancer?  Which foods protect against it?  And how would you even go about studying something like this scientifically, when the disease takes a lifetime to develop?

Well there seems to be have been a breakthrough, according to this recent video presentation by Craig Thompson, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.  And I quote...

"If you overfeed somebody with fat, you dont increase their cancer risk at all.  You overfeed somebody with carbohydrates, and you dramatically increase their cancer rate.  And protein is halfway in between."



Do a double take if you need it.  Queue up the video at about 27:10 for the real meat and potatoes.  And I repeat...  Overeating fat does not increase your risk for cancer, but overeating on carbohydrates DRAMATICALLY increases your risk for cancer.  And Id like to reiterate, this is not some bozo on the internet saying this... this is the president and CEO of the #2 ranked cancer hospital in the country.  This is mainstream news.  This is real.

Now.  Here are my points, displayed in an organized fashion.


1.)  Eating fat does not increase your cancer risk.  And Ive said this before, like two years ago in fact (1, 2, 3).  Youve been fed a load of bullshit.  I told you so.

2.)  We eat too many carbohydrates.  In the past few decades, we as Americans have increased our caloric intake.  Many of us are eating more calories than we need.  Fact.  However... our fat intake has barely changed.  The extra calories were eating are coming from CARBOHYDRATES (4)!  This does not bode well for our cancer risk.  


3.)  We do not eat too much fat.  Although Mr. Thompson feels that overeating on fat is perfectly fine for your cancer risk, he still thinks you should keep the fat in check for the sake of your heart health.  According to him, "Right now, every dietary guideline that youve learned about in school was developed for heart fitness.  Youre much, much less likely to die of the diseases associated with heart disease [on a low fat diet].  And so weve had a dramatic decrease of almost 60% in the deaths in one generation from heart disease."

Okay, so weve had a 60% decrease in deaths from heart disease... but were not eating less fat!  There are plenty of reasons were not dying as often from heart disease, like a reduction in societal stress (believe it or not, its true (5) ) and widespread use of statin drugs (they may not save lives, but they certainly reduce your risk for heart disease (6) ). 

4.)  Eating fat, specifically saturated fat, does NOT increase your risk for heart disease.  If theres anything Ive talked about exhaustively on this blog, its this very topic... the best of which can be found HERE, while related articles can be found here and here.  This mans specialty is in cancer, and I think he should stick to what he knows best.

5.)  Go enjoy a stick of butter!  Okay not really, thats gross.  But a small slab??  Aint nothin wrong with that!


I leave you with a little poem I wrote...
Fat doesnt give me cancer,
And it wont give me heart disease. 
Why dont I stop worrying then,
Pass the butter, please!

Our life, our planet. Over 70% of the earths surface is water. However, most of it—98%--is salt water. Only 2% of the earths H20 is fresh water that we can drink, and of this, almost all is trapped in frozen glaciers.


You are not just what you eat; you are what you drink.

This is why water is so important to your health.

The Water Cure (TWC) does not sell water or purification systems or any related products. We offer insights and information; both free and in books that give you easy-to-understand scientific explanations on why water is vital to your well-being.

TWC believes promoting "water for health, for healing, for life" is an invaluable public health message. We can all change the way we drink – by drinking pure, natural water that is good for our health, our pocket book, and our environment.

No miracles. Just common sense backed by Dr. F. Batmaghelidj’s years of research and investigation into why water works so well in keeping us healthy and pain free. It can even cure illness in some people who get sick.

Water is the basis of all life and that includes your body. Your muscles that move your body are 75% water; your blood that transport nutrients is 82% water; your lungs that provide your oxygen are 90% water; your brain that is the control center of your body is 76% water; even your bones are 25% water.

Our health is truly dependent on the quality and quantity of the water we drink.

Dr. Bs pioneering work shows that Unintentional Chronic Dehydration (UCD) contributes to and even produces pain and many degenerative diseases that can be prevented and treated by increasing water intake on a regular basis.

If you are committed to a healthy lifestyle, make drinking enough natural water a habit in your life. It wont take long for you to feel the benefit.

It is a free investment for your long-term health.

In fact, according to Dr. Unger, senior author of a study that appeared in the April 22 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: ¹

"Obesity delays the onset of metabolic syndrome."

Although he adds,

"But it doesnt prevent it."

Metabolic Syndrome is a constellation of conditions associated with diabetes and heart disease. These conditions include high blood pressure, central obesity, dyslipidemia (low HDL/high LDL/high triglycerides), insulin resistance, and glucose intolerance. Fatty liver, elevated uric acid levels, and polycystic ovarian syndrome are among other possibly related conditions.

In Dr. Ungers words: ²

"We’re ingrained to think obesity is the cause of all health problems, when in fact it is the spillover of fat into organs other than fat cells that damages these organs, such as the heart and the liver. Depositing fatty molecules in fat cells where they belong actually delays that harmful spillover."

To investigate whether the capacity to store fat in fat cells plays a role in developing metabolic syndrome, researchers overfed two groups of mice. One group was genetically altered to prevent their fat cells from storing fat. These slim mice got sick quicker than the normal mice - whose fat cells expanded as they overate.

This study suggests that where fat is stored on the body is probably a better predictor of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes than overweight by itself.
________
¹ Adipogenic Capacity And The Susceptibility To Type 2 Diabetes And Metabolic Syndrome, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April, 2008
² University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center press release:
How And Where Fat Is Stored Predicts Disease Risk Better Than Weight

I dont really care for Valentines Day.

You know how it goes. The heavy pressure on that romantic aspect of our lives, that may or may not, live up to "Sense and Sensibility" expectations. The courting, the chocolates, the flowers, the glittery stuff. The "proposals" and declarations. Bah. Humbug. It was enough to make some of my dearest friends... joyfully declare their mood of choice for the holiday, by getting creative on Facebook...

(I have to admit, since I also dislike romance novels, I thoroughly enjoyed this little creation.)

So... though I do the usual, quiet penance at home with the husband, I cant say I focus very much on Valentines Day. I certainly dont think of walking away with any sort of "wordless Wednesday lessons," if you would. Whats to learn? Materialism? Impossible-to-live-to expectations? Yeah, so one would think. (I dont even have any kids, so I cant make this post about them! lol)

Often, though, life quietly speaks to us in its own way... especially when our hearts are open, and not just open to diamonds, or chocolates, and other distractions and materialisms, but open to whats TRULY being expressed... by fate? God? The universe? Your own inner self? Perhaps. But, maybe... Just maybe... Valentines Day needs to be a bit more "selfish" than it already is, you see. Valentines Day should be about the one love that actually matters more than almost any love out there: self love. Yes, not the kind of self love that goes around expecting what can I get from others... but the kind of self love that goes around expecting what can I get from MYSELF. 

The little image, above... the heart made of wholesome food. That was IT. That was all Valentines Day had to give me, yesterday. And it gave me a LOT; more than I could have imagined. A random posting of sorts, shared by a stranger, with entirely different intentions.

Food is love.

For me, food has always been love (even though I sort of dislike food). Just, perhaps, not the right kind of love.

Like any other person struggling with binge eating, and disordered eating, I tend to, unwittingly, look for love in food. I tend to want to FEEL things from the food I eat -- comfort, enjoyment, numbing of bad feelings, friendship, avoidance of issues, appeasing of bad memories, etc, etc. Often, Ive tried, again and again, to replace the love that others would not give me, or the missing attention from parents... with food, or bury whatever awful life traumas, underneath it.

Often, this is termed "When Food is Love."

Recently, though, Ive been quietly asking myself... what if I can just change that definition around? What if food can still be love, but, from a different angle?

The image above gave me the answer. It almost literally screamed it:

"You can do more than just THINK youre getting emotional support from food... you can actually LOVE YOURSELF with food. Good food. Quality food... HEALTHY FOOD. To show yourself love with proper nourishment is the purest form of self love... Be very selfish with it. Do not abuse it, and do not entrust it to just any food. Treasure it."

When we thoroughly manage our health and give ourselves quality foods that make us FEEL healthy, able bodied, and able minded, capable of taking on the world, of thinking, and making proper decisions... When we give ourselves foods that dont just fuel our bodies, but make our hearts sing because they are wholesome and tasty, and FULFILLING, and in more than just temporary emotions we might feel... But also in HEALTHY emotions we may anticipate because weve put effort into making such meals, and invested in ourselves, as we would in our children... We are literally, feeding ourselves love. We ARE our children. We ARE our loved ones.

Its not a diet, its not a "healthy lifestyle..." It is SELF LOVE. It is simply... Loving Yourself.  

Work on loving yourself, today. Youll be glad you did.

Our life, our planet. Over 70% of the earths surface is water. However, most of it—98%--is salt water. Only 2% of the earths H20 is fresh water that we can drink, and of this, almost all is trapped in frozen glaciers.
You are not just what you eat; you are what you drink.
This is why water is so important to your health.
The Water Cure (TWC) does not sell water or purification systems or any related products. We offer insights and information; both free and in books that give you easy-to-understand scientific explanations on why water is vital to your well-being.
TWC believes promoting "water for health, for healing, for life" is an invaluable public health message. We can all change the way we drink – by drinking pure, natural water that is good for our health, our pocket book, and our environment.

No miracles. Just common sense backed by Dr. F. Batmaghelidj’s years of research and investigation into why water works so well in keeping us healthy and pain free. It can even cure illness in some people who get sick.
Water is the basis of all life and that includes your body. Your muscles that move your body are 75% water; your blood that transports nutrients is 82% water; your lungs that provide your oxygen are 90% water; your brain that is the control center of your body is 76% water; even your bones are 25% water.
Our health is truly dependent on the quality and quantity of the water we drink.

1. Using traditional research to detect a "statistically significant" decrease in insurance claims expense is notoriously difficult.

2. Theres scientific statistical proof and then there is a reasonable business assurance.  The latter may be enough for business-minded health insurers.

3. The conclusion is based on published research.  Unpublished "in house" data have convinced many insurers to include the medical home in their covered benefit.  They know something AHRQ doesnt.

4. While medical homes alone may be insufficient to save money, that doesnt mean that medical homes that are part of a package of interventions (value-based purchasing, P4P, vendor-based population health management or an ACO) are unnecessary.

5. While there is no evidence of savings, there is also no consistent evidence of increased cost. That means the quality associated with the medical home represents high value.

That being said, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Evidence Report Technology Assessment on the Patient Centered Medical Home says:

"Based on a combination of good- and fair-quality studies, there is a low strength of evidence that PCMH implementation may lead to lower utilization (inpatient and emergency department) for some subgroups of patients, but this effect was not uniform. Moreover, total costs were not lowered in the reviewed studies.

However, three observational studies specifically designed to test PCMH do report lower inpatient and emergency department utilization among patients in the PCMH program. However, total costs were not statistically different for PCMH and non-PCMH patients in the three studies. None of the clinical trials of functional PCMH interventions had statistically significant differences between intervention and control arms for inpatient or emergency department utilization.

No studies reported statistically significant cost savings among PCMH patients. In fact, when taking into account program costs, two studies, one good-quality trial and one fair-quality observational study, reported greater total costs among intervention patients."

 Image from Wikipedia

A new study by Queen’s University researchers has determined that adults who accumulated 150 minutes of exercise on a few days of the week were not any less healthy than adults who exercised more frequently throughout the week.

Ian Janssen and his graduate student Janine Clarke studied 2,324 adults from across Canada to determine whether the frequency of physical activity throughout the week is associated with risk factors for diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

“The findings indicate that it does not matter how adults choose to accumulate their 150 weekly minutes of physical activity,” says Dr. Janssen. “For instance, someone who did not perform any physical activity on Monday to Friday but was active for 150 minutes over the weekend would obtain the same health benefits from their activity as someone who accumulated 150 minutes of activity over the week by doing 20-25 minutes of activity on a daily basis.”

Physical activity was measured continuously throughout the week by having research participants wear accelerometers on their waists. Accelerometers are tiny electrical devices (about the size of a small package of matches) that record how much a person moves every minute.

Dr. Janssen divided the adults who met the physical activity guidelines (more than 150 minutes per week of aerobic activity) into those who were frequently active (active five to seven days of the week) and infrequently active (active one to four days of the week).

“The important message is that adults should aim to accumulate at least 150 minutes of weekly physical activity in whatever pattern that works for their schedule.”

The paper was published today in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism

Coffee is one of the most extensively researched components in the diet. New studies are regularly being added to the already large body of scientific research, which overall suggests that moderate habitual coffee consumption is not associated with detrimental effects on cardiovascular health

Among recent studies, a new review paper1 highlights that for most healthy people, moderate coffee consumption is unlikely to adversely affect cardiovascular health. Furthermore a new paper2 concluded that higher green tea and coffee consumption is inversely associated with risk of CVD and stroke in the general population.

Considerable research has also been devoted to investigating associations between coffee consumption and key risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as hypertension (high blood pressure) and elevated cholesterol. Most evidence suggests that regular moderate consumption of caffeinated coffee has no long-term effect on blood pressure and does not increase the risk of hypertension.

A recent study suggests that moderate consumption of paper-filtered coffee may have an unfavourable effect on plasma cholesterol3. The wider body of evidence indicates that the impact of coffee on cholesterol is dependent on the brewing method. Unfiltered coffee raises serum cholesterol levels whereas this is not the case with filter coffee because the cholesterol-raising compounds in coffee are retained in the paper filter.

Throughout 2013 coffee and mortality has been a subject of several scientific research papers, which have produced conflicting results. One study4 found a 21% increase in mortality rate in those drinking more than 28 cups of coffee a week. However recent data from a meta-analysis and systematic review5 assessed 23 studies and concluded that coffee consumption is, in fact, inversely related to the risk of mortality.

###
More information about this research is available at http://www.coffeeandhealth.org/coffee-and-health-topics/coffee-consumption-and-cardiovascular-health-2/the-latest-research-on-coffee-and-cardiovascular-health/.

References

1 Rebello S.A. & van Dam R.M. (2013) Coffee Consumption and Cardiovascular Health: Getting to the Heart of the Matter. Current Cardiology Reports, 15:403.

2 Kokubo Y. et al. (2013) The Impact of Green Tea and Coffee Consumption on the Reduced Risk of Stroke Incidence in Japanese Population: The Japan Public Health Center-Based Study Cohort. Stroke, published online ahead of print.

3 Correa T.A.F. et al. (2013) Paper filtered coffee increases cholesterol and inflammation biomarkers independent of roasting degree. Nutrition, 29(7-8):977-81.

4 Liu J. et al. (2013) Association of coffee consumtpion with all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, published online ahead of print.

5 Malerba S. et al. (2013) A meta-analysis of prospective studies of coffee consumtpion and mortality for all causes, cancers and cardiovascular disease. European Journal of Epidemiology, 28(7):527-539.

Approximately one-third of Americans take a daily multivitamin, but little is known about a multivitamins long-term affect on chronic diseases. Now, new research from Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) finds that daily multivitamin use does not reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in men. A similar BWH study, announced last month, found daily multivitamin use can reduce a mans risk of cancer by 8 percent. The cardiovascular disease findings will be presented Nov. 5 at the American Heart Associations Scientific Sessions 2012 and published simultaneously in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The findings from our large clinical trial do not support the use of a common daily multivitamin supplement for the sole purpose of preventing cardiovascular disease in men," said Howard D. Sesso, ScD, lead author and an associate epidemiologist in the Division of Preventive Medicine at BWH. "The decision to take a daily multivitamin should be made in consultation with ones doctor and consideration given to an individuals nutritional status and other potential effects of multivitamins, including the previously reported modest reduction in cancer risk."

Researchers enrolled nearly 15,000 men over the age of 50 in the study and followed them for more than 10 years. The men were randomly assigned to take either a multivitamin or a placebo every day which ensured that both treatment groups were identical with respect to risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The men self-reported episodes of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular disease, and a panel of physicians reviewed and confirmed their events with medical records. Researchers then compared the group that took the multivitamin with the group that took the placebo and found no significant impact on risk of heart attack, stroke, or cardiovascular mortality. Additionally, the effect of a daily multivitamin on major cardiovascular events did not differ on participants with a baseline history of cardiovascular disease and those who were initially free of cardiovascular disease.

J. Michael Gaziano, MD, chief of the Division of Aging at BWH, investigator at VA Boston and senior author of the study, said, "Since so many Americans take daily multivitamins, studies like this are key to providing us with valuable information about what specific benefits multivitamins do or do not provide in terms of their long-term impact on chronic diseases. For cardiovascular disease, we must continue to emphasize a heart-healthy diet, physical activity, smoking cessation and regular screening for cardiovascular risk factors."

Which naturally worries the contrarian DMCB.

In Bob Woodwards tell-all book The Price of Politics, Mr. Obama reportedly  reassured a skeptical Speaker Boehner by saying  "John, Ive got great confidence in my ability to sway the American people." 

That was certainly evident today.  He really thinks speeches can win hearts and minds.

Contrast Mr. Obamas oratory self-assurance with his predecessor, Ronald Reagan.  In the book, Reagan, A Life In Letters, it seems our 40th President used the written word to not only hone his communication skills but to internally develop and ine his thinking on the great issues of the day. Armed with that kind of self-clarity, Mr. Reagan speeches were secondary to his far more important skill of compromising without giving up on his principles.

Über academic Pat Thomson says it best: "Binge writing" allows authors to become immersed in a topic "to make sense of it."  Fifty Shades of Gray author, E.L. James, may have expressed it best: “Write for yourself,” she said. "That’s it. And write every day."

The modest DMCB agrees. Its bloggery (just over 1500 posts and counting) helps it better fashion real-world business plans that involve inevitable trade-offs between what the scientific evidence says what should be with what clients have already decided what will be.

The DMCB will never give a speech on the Washington Mall, thank goodness, and its not like Presidents will ever seek its counsel.  But it knows that philosophic certitude is better tasked to navigating inevitable compromises in the real world, not convincing skeptical listeners to give in.

Let the games continue!

As a class, people who dont drink at all have a higher mortality risk than light drinkers. But nondrinkers are a diverse bunch, and the reasons people have for abstaining affects their individual mortality risk, in some cases lowering it on par with the risk for light drinkers, according to a University of Colorado study.

Multiple studies have shown that the likelihood of dying for people who drink increases as they consume more alcohol. Those same studies have shown that a persons mortality risk also increases at the other end of the spectrum — among people who choose not to drink at all — though the risk is still much less than for heavy drinkers.

Some researchers have hypothesized that the increased mortality among nondrinkers could be related to the fact that light alcohol consumption — drinking, on average, less than one drink a day — might actually protect people from disease and reduce their stress levels.

But researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, working with colleagues at the University of Colorado Denver, decided to examine whether characteristics of different subgroups of nondrinkers could explain the increased mortality risk.

"Among nondrinkers, people have all sorts of background reasons for why they dont drink," said sociology Professor Richard Rogers, director of CU-Boulders Population Program in the Institute of Behavioral Science. "We wanted to tease that out because its not really informative to just assume that nondrinkers are a unified group."

For the new study, published in last months issue of the journal Population Research and Policy Review, Rogers and his colleagues relied on data collected in 1988 by the National Health Interview Survey about the drinking habits of more than 41,000 people from across the United States. The researchers also had access to information about which respondents died between taking the survey and 2006.

During the survey, nondrinkers were asked to provide their reasons for not drinking. Possible answers ranged from "dont socialize very much" to "am an alcoholic" to "religious or moral reasons."

The research team divided nondrinkers into three general categories: "abstainers," or people who have never had more than 12 drinks in their lives; "infrequent drinkers," or people who have fewer than 12 drinks a year; and "former drinkers." Each category was further divided using a statistical technique that grouped people together who gave similar clusters of reasons for not drinking.

The team then calculated the mortality risk for each subgroup compared with the mortality risk for light drinkers, and they found that the risks varied markedly.

Abstainers who chose not to drink for a cluster of reasons that included religious or moral motivations, being brought up not to drink, responsibilities to their family, as well as not liking the taste, had similar mortality risks over the follow-up period to light drinkers.

"So this idea that nondrinkers always have higher mortality than light drinkers isnt true," Rogers said. "You can find some groups of nondrinkers who have similar mortality risks to light drinkers."

The other subgroup of abstainers — whose largest reason for not drinking appeared to be a dislike of the taste and to a lesser degree family responsibilities, religious or moral motivations or upbringing — had a 17 percent higher mortality risk over the follow-up period compared with light drinkers.

The scientists also found that infrequent drinkers generally had a slightly higher mortality risk than light drinkers. Former drinkers, however, had the highest mortality risk of all nondrinkers. Former drinkers whose cluster of reasons for not drinking now included being an alcoholic and problems with drinking, for example, had a 38 percent higher mortality risk than light drinkers over the follow-up period.

By comparison, people who drink between one and two drinks per day, on average, have a 9 percent higher mortality rate than light drinkers, while people who drink between two and three drinks per day have a 49 percent higher mortality. People who consume more than three drinks per day had a 58 percent higher mortality risk over the follow-up period compared with light drinkers.

Despite confirming that some subgroups of nondrinkers have a higher mortality rate than light drinkers, it doesnt necessarily follow that those peoples mortality rates would fall if they began drinking, Rogers said. For example, people who were problem drinkers in the past might increase their mortality risk further by starting to drink again.

Also, people who dont drink at all, as a group, have lower socioeconomic characteristics than light drinkers, which could be one of the underlying causes for the mortality differences, Rogers said. In that case, starting to drink without changing a persons socioeconomic status also would not likely lower mortality rates.

"I think the idea that drinking could be somewhat beneficial seems like its overstated," Rogers said. "There may be other factors that lower mortality for light drinkers. Its not just the act of drinking."

Diabetes education is effective, but sure doesnt pay ... at least for providers. Ask Dr. Bernstein (at right), former president of the American Diabetes Association, and director of one of 3 hospital-based diabetes centers in New York City that recently closed.

Dr. Jerry Bernsteins diabetes clinic at Manhattans Beth Israel Medical Center was reporting a 60% success rate for patients controlling their blood glucose - when news came from the hospitals president, "Jerry, ... were going to have to close your program."

In one of a series of articles the New York Times is running on diabetes, the plight of prevention, and the demise of Dr. Bernsteins clinic, is explored:

"[These clinics] did not shut down because they had failed their patients. They closed because they had failed to make money. They were victims of the byzantine world of American health care, in which the real profit is made not by controlling chronic diseases like diabetes but by treating their many complications."

To drive home the point:

"Not surprising, as the epidemic of Type 2 diabetes has grown, more than 100 dialysis centers have opened in the city."

The article ran in the New York Times yesterday. You can read it at:
In the Treatment of Diabetes, Success Often Does Not Pay

In his PDF book, "Eat Stop Eat" Brad Pilon makes the following statement:

"While you may find this guideline overly simplistic at first, the truth is there is NO normal or perfect way to eat for weight loss. This is the great fallacy behind most diet books. The fact is, and always will be, it is calorie restriction that causes weight loss."

I am amazed that this statement is so amazing to me. I hope you are getting the double whammy that is in that statement. It does not say you have to count calories, he says you have to restrict them... in other words: eat less. I know. I know. Whats so unusual about that? Everybody knows that! If you want to lose weight you have to eat less. Point made. Point taken. Lose the food, lose the weight.

I have spent so much time trying to figure out what to eat to lose weight that this simple truth somehow whizzed right over my head. Brads statement brought it down in front of my eyes. I dont like to think of myself as "simple minded" but, darn, maybe I am. I worked hard to find a style of eating that would help me lose weight and what I really needed was a style of not eating. Oh my.

The "double" part is that eating "low carb" or "low fat" or "high protein" is not the point. The point is less food. What my mother used to say. All this time, Ive been avoiding it, but it turns out she was right. It is the one thing that works. Just eat smaller portions. It is not even important how much smaller, just smaller than what youve been eating. You dont need "guidelines" from someone else. Just make your portions smaller than what you usually eat. Start where you are and trim a little off the contents of the plate. Drink plenty of water, too.

Surprise. You dont need to fill up all the spaces in your stomach. Once it becomes a habit, it will not seem unusual or strange to you.

I think the thing I feared was not having food to eat. Or eating less. Or being deprived. Somehow. I know... I feared "hunger." Is that possible? Yes, I think it is. I feared being hungry. I dont know why... and Im not even interested in finding out why. Im just glad that Ive already discovered that "hunger" is nothing to fear!! That is the major lesson I learned from fasting. It is not the overpowering, all consuming, scary thing that I seemed to think it was. Hunger. Wow.  Starvation? Yes, that should be feared and worked against. But, simple ordinary every day hunger? What is there to fear in that. It is almost silly. Funny.

I worked so hard to avoid the fact of simply eating less that I went round in circles over and over again. I did not think I could control the quantity of food that I eat in a session, so avoided attempting something at which I believed I would fail. I believed I could not simply eat smaller portions and be satisfied. I was used to dealing with the eating machine which is the antithesis of portion control. The eating machine is portion out of control.

But Ive been fasting for 24 hour periods for a while now so I know I can do it and love it. Not that every time I try it, it is successful. Just today I was going to do a spur of the moment fast, but I petered out later and ate. But ESE is flexible and I know I can do it tomorrow and if I prepare for it, I will do it.

Fasting has shown me there is a different way to approach food and eating. You do know those are two different things. Food. And eating. Food is simply a substance. Eating is an act that is performed. If you want to lose weight, you have to eat less.



The other day I had gotten out one of my mothers old dessert dishes (picture above). I dont remember what for. But as I walked across the floor I stopped and looked at the size of this tiny dish that had the name "dessert dish." It fit in the palm of my hand. I thought about the gargantuan bowls of ice cream I used to eat when I was a kid. I remember my Dad teasing that I would "make a good step mother" because I served everyone large portions. They never used them. And here in my hand was this tiny little cut glass dessert dish. If every dessert I had would fit in that small dish, I would probably be thin.

It is almost as if the size of the bowl creates the size of the person.

I was recently watching episodes of the BBC program call "Supersize vs. Super Skinny" where one humongous person and one tiny person swapped meals for a certain amount of time in what they call their feeding clinic. They have to sit across the table from one another, after preparing a meal from a day in their own food diary, and then when they sit down to eat, they trade meals. The big person eats the small persons meal and the small person eats the big persons meal for a few days in a row. 

They are both flabbergasted at what the other one eats and they have conversations about this experiment as they do it. Often the big person quickly eats the little persons meal and then sits and watches the tiny person struggle to eat their gigantic portions of food which they almost never finish. Each one feels responsible for the other ones discomfort. When they see how the other person has to struggle to do what they do on a regular basis, they begin to realize what they have been doing to themselves. The big person realizes just how unrealistically large their portions are. The thin person realizes that the tiny meals they eat are not enough for an adult to live on.

The supersize person gets a trip to America that the skinny person does not get. They go to visit a person who can be as much as a couple hundred pounds larger than they are for the purpose of seeing, for themselves, what the effects of continuing to pack on the pounds does to a human body. The people they visit often have many ailments and they often are not doing anything to curb their appetites and lose weight, although not all of them are like that. They suffer from immobility, pain, seeping legs, high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea and all kinds of weight related problems. They often need help, just to go to the bathroom. This is the "wake up" call for the English participant. They get to be up close and personal with what it really means to continue doing what they are doing. It works. They get it.
 
From having watched many episodes this feeding clinic exercise seems to help the overly slim or super skinny person get in touch with their hunger, which for whatever reason, got turned off sometime in the past. When they return to the show about 8 weeks later they look more normal sized and not so skinny, even though they worked hard, ate lots, and put on about 3 pounds they look like theyve put on 15 or 20. The fat person also looks different. They often lose quite a bit of weight and feel very good about themselves and they look good too.  But... a year later the formerly super skinny person now looks like a normal human being, the fat person looks like a smaller fat person. Sometimes the "one year later" show has three of the participants back and very often it is two of the ormed super skinnies, and one of the somewhat smaller fat people. Makes me wonder if the fatties got lost somewhere, or put their weight back on again, so they are not on the show. They never say anything like that. You just never see them again.

All of these prove that we have perceptions about food and eating that show up as body size. Sometimes they are easy to change and sometimes they are not. I find that the twice weekly fasting has taught me some things about me that I did not know before. For one thing, I can now skip a meal and not have a cow. In fact, it really is rather simple and very easy to skip a meal, or two, or three in a row, and not die. It does not make me sick. I dont get light headed. I dont feel faint. I dont get tired. In fact, just the opposite happens. I feel lighter on my feet, awake and alert and, dare I say it: happy. I still know where my next meal is coming from. Im not starving. I dont go into starvation mode and my metabolism is not harmed in any way. Studies on fasting prove this is true. (You can read about it in ESE.)

You wont go into starvation mode until about 72 hours of not eating. The body also knows how to maintain your metabolism. If it is not getting food to run on, it uses the storage of fat. A fat belly really is like a pantry for the body to feed itself, but if you keep eating continually, it never gets the opportunity to use up the one year supply of food on your back. This makes it very hard to lose weight and very easy to pack on more pounds. It is not the style of eating that needs to be changed. It is the style of not eating!!

Short, 24-hour fasts for one, two, or even three days in a week gives your body the chance to go into fat burning mode. In between you can eat what you normally eat but in a responsible manner. Brad suggests that you eat more fruit and vegetables, which will replace a lot of processed foods. If you are conscious enough to be eating more fruit and veggies you probably are already not eating as much sugar and starchy foods. Brad says that the key to making this work for you is "self control." You cannot eat like a sumo wrestler and expect to look like a super model. On the days you eat, eat sensibly. Eat enough. And then move on.

So the new thing for me in this is the dessert dish. Now I know what size a dessert should be for a normal sized human being. With the combination of 24 hour fasts, and in between, sensible eating, I should be able to speed up the weight loss thingy. 

Wonder what people will think when I bring my dessert dish with me as a reminder for myself that I can have dessert as long as it fits in my dessert dish? I picture holding it up and saying (more to myself than to anyone else), "As long as it fits in here, I can eat it. If it does not fit in here, then I dont eat it."

I guess Ill find out.

Be back soon,

Marcia



 

The risks associated with hypertension, high blood pressure (BP) as its commonly called, may be different for very old compared to younger adults. Paula Span, who writes the New Old Age Blog at the New York Times discussed this in her post:

For the Very Old, a Surprise in Blood Pressure Readings, New York Times, 8 August 2012

Span writes:

"I was startled to learn that in the very elderly - those over 85, say - high blood pressure may indicate better health while lower numbers could mean trouble ahead."

Span had been reading a study and an accompanying editorial published in the Archives of Internal Medicine last year:

Rethinking the Association of High Blood Pressure With Mortality in Elderly Adults, JAMA Internal Medicine, August 2012
Comment on “Rethinking the Association of High Blood Pressure With Mortality in Elderly Adults," Goodwin JS, JAMA Internal Medicine, August 2012

In his editorial, Goodwin offered some background:

"In 1988, Matilla et al reported that, among the very old, elevated systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) were associated with longer survival. The differences were not subtle. The 5-year survival of those with systolic BPs greater than 200 mm Hg were almost twice as high as those with levels of 120 to 140 mm Hg. Over the ensuing 25 years, a substantial number of population-based studies have reported the same findings: in those older than 85 years (or older than 80 years in some studies), high BP is an excellent prognostic sign.

Perhaps the most rigorous assessment came from the Framingham Study, which reported that the strong positive association of BP with cardiovascular mortality was reversed between the ages of 75 and 85. Importantly, no population-based study has found the opposite, that high BP is a marker for bad outcomes in octogenarians. Conversely, “normal” BP is bad. Perhaps the worst sign is falling BP."

Why does high BP appear to be a good sign in an older population? Goodwin explains that the old are a mixture of frail and more robust individuals.  High BP does not connote the same level of health in both groups.  Referring to Diehr et al. he said:

"[The very old] showed a steady decrease in BP in the 3 years before death. ... High BP is only a good sign in very old age because many of those with “normal” BP have it for bad reasons."

When is it advantageous to treat high blood pressure in an older person? Goodwin says:

"Many robust, very old individuals have hypertension. Antihypertensive treatment in those individuals is beneficial. Frail older individuals are less likely to have hypertension, and treating those who do may produce bad outcomes."

How do you measure robustness? One good test is walking speed.

In the study at the top of this post, those with hypertension who could walk a 20-foot corridor at an average pace of 1.8 mph or better had about the same risk of dying as younger adults. Those with high BP who walked slower did not have an increased risk. And those with high BP who couldnt complete the walk had a 60% lower risk of death:

"Higher systolic BP was associated with an increased risk of mortality only among elderly adults who had a medium to fast walking pace. In contrast, among slower-walking older adults, there was not an association between elevated systolic or diastolic BP and mortality. Strikingly, we found elevated systolic and diastolic BP was strongly and independently associated with a lower mortality risk in participants who did not complete the walk test."

The lead author of the study, Dr. Michelle Odden, said:

"The paradigm in medicine is, high blood pressure is bad, treating it is good. We’re saying, maybe we need to look more closely at the guidelines and tailor them more to older adults."

________

I am old and learning a lot of things now that would have been nice to have known, before, but Im glad they are happening at all!! LOL

There is nothing wrong with being beautiful, unless it is the only pair of glasses you use to see yourself or others. If your self worth is based on your degree of beauty, or lack of it, dont look now, but you are missing the boat. Degrees are comparisons. One is more, the other is less. You are always going to be more beautiful than some, and less beautiful, than others. So what? This narrow and distorted focus is not what life is about.

There have been times when I felt beautiful, and times when I was convinced that I was absolutely unattractive, for this, or that, reason -- one of them being "fat." Cultural beauty is based on swim suit models, magazines, fashion, and makeup. Advertising. Someone elses manufactured opinion, used to get you to feel an emotion that results in their selling you a product. Flimsy, but extremely effective manipulation based on both "envy" and "belief."

"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly is to the bone."

So why am I thinking about this? A friend shared a blog post about a young mother who wants to set a good example for her little daughters so she has started saying, "Im beautiful" in front of them in the hopes that they will say the same things about themselves. She does not believe what she is saying inside herself, but is grabbing at this straw in hopes that she can help her daughters to not go through what she went through.

She believes she is modeling the appropriate thing to them and is to be commended because she really wants to be a good Mom to her girls. I hope this works for her and her girls. I have a feeling it may backfire, though, because she is not telling them the truth about how she feels about herself. There was a clue in her writing that her little girls recognized her out-of-character behavior and falsehood. So rather than learning to say, "Im beautiful", they are learning that "making stuff up" is appropriate behavior.

Children often see some things more clearly than adults think they do. They reacted by looking at her strangely... and that was the clue that something went through their heads. They had a thought or made a decision about what they saw in their mother. I remember doing the same thing when I was very very young.

I can only speak from my own experience of having the view of myself that I was ugly, having often been told so by my older brothers -- and others. I believed them. Believing them means that I took their words about me and internalized them as if they were the truth. They became my own words about me. Their, "Yourre so ugly..." statements got transformed into very painful "Im so ugly...." statements inside myself. Im not blaming them. I truly believe that if they had really known how that affected me, they would not have done it. But children, and adults, can sometimes be very cruel. Those feelings still creep up from time to time, but, Im no longer concerned about them, because I have learned something better. I have learned the truth.

When I look at young women, young mothers, and see that they are entangled in a negative self image and worried that they might pass that on to their daughters, I want to reach out and say, "Dont do that," as if I could stop their worrying, somehow, and also help them and their little girls.

Heres an idea that I think might work better and I noticed it in the movie called "The Help": "You is kind, you is smart, you is important" -- and the little girl repeated back, "You is kind, you is smart, you is important."

I loved it because I had had something similar taught to me, only, much later in life, by God, who said to me, "You are loved, and you are worthwhile."  I repeated the words back in personal form, "I am loved, and I am worthwhile" and my life changed.

We cannot make up a self image. We already have one. We also dont know who we are - until - we know who God is, and I very firmly believe that. Once I began to understand who God is, I began to have a more accurate understanding of who of I am. He changes me. We also cannot make up a self image for someone else, but we can certainly begin planting good things in the soil -- theirs and ours.

Even now, there is a man at church, who will sometimes shake my hand and say to me, "Youre a blessing" -- and guess what? For a while, I feel like a blessing!! For a moment, I am a blessing. We are all like that. We women seem to unconsciously think about ourselves, the way that others speak to us, about us. That is also why emotional abuse is so effective. If we listen to repeated positive, or negative, statements about us, we begin to believe there must be some truth in them whether there really is or not. So we need to be sure we are getting and believing accurate information about us and giving the same to our girls. And who better to get accurate information about us, than from God, our Creator? The God who knows us better than we do ourselves, and loves us, anyway.

That may be why there is so much relationship teaching in the church that "Women need love," and "Men need respect."   Actually we all need both of these things, but a woman can go a long time on the knowledge that someone loves her. If I know that God loves me.... I dont actually crave to have someone else say that to me. I like it and enjoy it, but dont need it. I have Gods love and that is enough -- that is my self image: I am loved. The more I know God, the more I know myself. Dont get me wrong, I often forget and have to be reminded -- but that is the human condition. We are forgetful and need to be reminded. So, I remind myself as often as I realize I need it.

But, for this young mother to simply and suddenly start staying out loud, "Im beautiful," when she does not really believe it is true, will ring false inside herself, and also inside her children. If that young mother began to know, understand, and accept Gods love for her, her own self image would truly begin to change. Then she would no longer have to worry that she is passing on something bad to her daughters. Then, if she felt the need to say, "I am beautiful," because God loves her, which makes her beautiful, her words would ring true inside herself, and her children. I doubt she would need to say that, though, because the words, "I am loved" said inside herself, are so much more powerful -- because they are the truth.

I suggest that she needs to start planting the seeds of Gods love in her girls. I think she should be saying things like, "Jesus loves you, and you are beautiful, and intelligent," to her daughters at the appropriate times. (Not as a sort of mindless "mantra" but when the situation calls for it.) She should be saying, "You are loved, and you are worthwhile" to her girls when they need encouragement. I saw the young author say things about her daughters in her post that she needs to be telling them out loud.

If she models sincere honesty and kindness to them, and teaches them what God is like, they will admire her and want to copy her. If she tells them that they are beautiful and responsible, they will believe her and say they are beautiful and responsible to themselves. The best window of time for this is when they are very young -- but it will work at any age, really. If done when young, they wont have to grow through so much pain. They will have other pains, but not that one, which can be so debilitating.

Help them to be strong in Christ. Tell them, "Jesus loves you." Tell them, "I love you." Tell them "You are loved" and they will know they are beautiful, just as they are -- to the bone. Being beautiful means being loved by God. Nothing can replace that particular glow!!

Jesus loves you.
You are loved.
You are worthwhile.
You are beautiful and responsible.
You are kind.
You are smart.
You are important.
You are a good girl (or boy.)
You are a blessing!!

Praise the Lord!! God is good! God is holy! God is love! God is infinite!

If you really want to begin to know God better, ask Him to show you what you need to know about Him. He knows what you need and will show you.

For those who need some intellectual type spiritual inspiration I also recommend studying Volumes one and two of A.W. Tozers books: "The Attributes of God." You can find both of these titles at Amazon.com, and other places where Christian literature is sold.

Be back soon,

Marcia


Here is the blog post, in case you would like to read it for yourself, http://offbeatfamilies.com/2012/11/telling-daughters-im-beautiful