Exercise and Diet
Section Content Guide
Exercise
Exercise Connects Everything
Illness – the Consequences of Overweight
Why is Muscle Important
How Muscle Contractions Work
Aerobic Exercise to Burn Fat
Anaerobic exercise to Build Muscle
Higher Levels of Exercise and Damage
Follow These Points to Become Lean
Exercise Guidelines
Daily Exercise
Level of Exercise
Exercise Schedule
A Recommended Program
Diet
Diets and Famine
The Fatpoint
Beware of Rapid Fat Loss Diets
Water
Free Radicals
Glycemic Index
Protein Intake
Insulin
Daily Eating Habits
Exercise: It Connects Everything
This section will show how diet and exercise go together. It will also review the types and amount of exercise. As you age, beginning at about age 30, you lose muscle, and gain fat in its place. Proper exercise can actually reverse all the biomarkers of aging. In order to keep yourself strong, flexible, agile and independent well into your 90’s, 100’s, 110’s or beyond, keep your body well toned and constantly exercising. “No pain, no gain” is not true. A steady low threshold activity can product enormous longevity gains. Be moderate but be consistent.
When not sleeping your body was designed to be almost continually active. Immobilize a limb for just 3 hours and it starts to degenerate. That’s why even during sleep you automatically flex and stretch and turn more than a hundred times a night. Disuse is deadly.
Exercise Can Save Your Life - What it Does:
• Protects your body by maintaining vital capacity (delivery of oxygen)
• The health benefits of restoring vital capacity are superior to any drug or medical treatment in existence
• The right exercise is a major strategy for preventing and treating all disease
• The majority of average people show blood pressures of 120/80 mm of mercury; regular exercise will lower blood pressure in just about anyone
• Death rates from cardiovascular disease start to rise as cholesterol goes above 168 mg/dL; cardiovascular disease from poor nutrition and sedentary life styles kill more that twice as many Americans and Canadians as all cancers, nine times as many as all forms of lung and liver diseases combined, and 28 times as many as all forms of diabetes; Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, and other high profile disorders are all minor (except to those suffering them);
• If you do the right exercises four or fives times per week for 30 minutes or more, then sudden exertion hardly increases your risk of heart attack at all. Check with your physician before beginning exercises to be assured
• In one study, unfit men and women were 300% more likely to develop cancer; the fitter that subjects were in the study, over 5 levels of fitness, the lower their risk of cancer
• Regular exercise can stop female cancers cold; exercise regulates estrogen and other sex hormones which left unchecked, cause uncontrolled proliferation in the female reproductive system; its likely that women who exercise regularly are simple activating an essential health mechanism in their bodies
• Colo-rectal cancers are the second leading cancer category, with more than 155,000 new cases every year; and the incidence of these cancers has jumped since 1970; red meats and animal fats are major causes, but so is inactivity
• Resting heart rate is a good measure of fitness; the risk of colon and rectal cancers was directly correlated with heart rate; exercise promotes regular bowel movements and increases the excretion of food wastes; it therefore reduces the time for carcinogen formation, and also prevents prolonged contact between carcinogens and intestinal walls;
• The right exercise maintains your heart, lungs, muscles, bones, and intestinal function
• Older but healthy men who maintain a lifelong exercise program have the same insulin efficiency as young men – that is blood sugar levels respond to insulin and they don’t get adult onset diabetes
• Regular exercise maintains arterial elasticity and even reverses arterial hardening of the arteries that has already occurred
• Regular exercise increases overall white cell blood counts in the blood that are required to fight infections and thus strengthens immunity against damage or injury, decay and natural cell death, bacteria, viruses, toxins and radiation
• Muscle is the health engine; all cell replication in the immune system, and therefore immune strength, is dependent on availability of the amino acid glutamine; the immune system uses a lot of it; only muscle cells can make glutamine and supply large amounts of it to the immune system each day; muscle is the vital link to immunity
Illness – the Consequences of Overweight
• Weight loss gains after adulthood causes a huge increase of all types of cardiovascular disease
• A 10% increase above ideal weight causes a 6-7% increase in blood pressure; losing that weight causes an immediate drop in blood pressure of 10-11%
• Women carrying 5060 lbs of extra weight are 700% more likely to develop hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Serious overweight causes rapid diabetes. Both men and women carrying 60 lbs extra or more are 3000% more likely to develop diabetes. Even moderate overweight increases your risk of diabetes by about 100%
• Men who are 40% overweight have higher rates of colon, prostate, and rectal cancer
• Women who are 40% or more overweight have higher rates of breast, ovarian, uterine, and gall bladder cancer
• Even moderate fatness damages the immune system reducing your resistance to everything
• Being overweight and going into surgery increases post operative infections by up to 700%
• Reduces vital capacity – that is it reduces you ability to take up oxygen so the muscles, organs, and brain become partially deprived of oxygen
• Reduces cardiac output – the ability of the heart to pump blood around the body; tissues get less nutrients
In an effort to make up these deficits, the body constricts arteries, thereby raising blood pressure; the arterial constriction on an already weakened heart increases the risk of clots and stroke and also makes the cardiovascular system less able to respond to sudden movement or changes of position; this results in dizziness, falls, staggering, and accidents because the restricted system of blood flow cannot respond efficiently; sedentary people are likely to show resting heart rates in the 80 -90 beats per minute, in comparison to a fit individual with a rate at or below 65; when the resting heart rate rises above 84, risk of coronary heart disease more than doubles
• The lymph system relies on exercise to pump toxins to the liver and pancreas for disposal; without exercise, toxins pool, stagnate, and cause disease
• Inactivity increases the levels of cholesterol and triglycerides (form of fat stored in tissues)
• Muscles begin to shrink in size, compromising your ability to burn fat, to perform even simple tasks like running upstairs
• Bones thin and weaken because your skeleton requires continuous exercise in order to grow new bone matrix; a combination of poor bone nutrition and inactivity is causing an epidemic of osteoporosis
• Disrupts bowel function and disorders glucose metabolism independently of whatever you eat; the near epidemics of intestinal disorders and adult onset diabetes are testimony to the couch lifestyle
• Sex hormones decline with inactivity now linked to the huge impotence in North America; it has doubled since the 1940’s
• Without exercise, life can be nasty, sick, and short
With 32.6 million Americans classified as overweight and about another 40 million on the way, body fat is by far the worst health risk. It causes more illness than all the health problems caused by: poor environments, bad nutrition, smoking, alcohol and all other drugs put together.
Why is Muscle Important
Muscle is always in motion. Opposing muscles are in constant dynamic tension to hold up your skeleton and enable every movement. Muscle is the engine of your body where almost all your energy is created by burning fats, carbohydrates, and proteins in the mitochondria of every muscle cell. Mitochondria in cells are the furnaces where food is combined with oxygen to produce energy. Even an ounce of muscle lost, lowers your basal metabolic rate of fuel consumption, and reduces your ability to burn body fat.
How Muscle Contractions Work
Muscle contractions require a unique chemical energy source called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This energy source is rapidly used up with each muscle contraction and has to be replaced for further contractions. The replacement source of energy is either fat or carbohydrates and the preferred source is fat because its more efficient. Each gram of fat contains 9 calories, compared to 4 calories in carbohydrate.
Aerobic Exercise to Burn Fat
Two sources of energy are carried in the body for muscle function: fats and carbohydrates. Fat burning exercises take fat from fat storage, or adipose tissues. If you begin exercising too hard and the muscle can’t get enough fat, they switch over to carbohydrates stored within the muscle.
Aerobic exercise is exercising in the presence of oxygen. This type of exercise is mainly for burning fat. It does not build muscle. It is some type of activity that raises your heart rate to some percentage of its maximum. When you are sitting in a chair your heart rate is 42% of its maximum. A good approximation of your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. .
The latest research indicates that the maximum benefits for increased longevity occur when expend 2,000 calories per week exercising. Above that level there is no further benefit. Walking uses slightly more that 300 calories per hour. If you walk 6 hours per week – less than an hour per day – the level of 2,000 will be reached. Jogging burns about twice as many calories per hour as walking does, so you can spend 3 hours a week jogging.
The intensity of exercise that produces an improved balance of hormones is 65% of your maximum heart rate. The exercise must be continuous. This includes jogging, running, swimming, or skipping a rope. Other activities like sports or golf are not continuous therefore have fewer hormonal benefits. Fat loss has little to do with calories used in aerobic exercises. See the following Section on Diet.
Aerobic exercises that raise your heart rate above 120 beats a minute strips off muscle as much as they strip off fat. This includes all the fancy aerobics classes, including swimming, running, rowing, and cycling. Muscle loss reduces your ability to burn fat and sets you up to become fatter. Mild aerobics such as walking is good exercise for many health reasons. It also burns some fat and will not burn muscle.
A high carbohydrate diet (sugar, flour, starch) may keep you from achieving your goals if you are on a good aerobic program. You can expect constant hunger, decreased mental alertness, difficulty in losing body fat (because excess carbs are turned into fat resulting in fat gain), decreased oxygen transfer to the muscle cells, and decreased endurance. Follow the Rules.
Anaerobic Exercise to Build Muscle
The goal of anaerobic exercise is to build muscle. Muscle is the engine in which body fat is burned. You should do everything possible to maintain it lifelong. Anaerobic (without oxygen) activity, such as weight training, causes you to gain lean muscle mass and is one of your most critical tools in achieving and maintaining a young biological age, much younger than your chronological age.
Aerobic exercise fails to maintain your bones, and weight bearing anaerobic exercise does the job easily. Aerobics cannot maintain muscle. Weight training not only maintains but also increases muscle mass. You have to move some weights if you want a long and healthy life. Done correctly, weight training is the most efficient, effective, and safest form of exercise there is, and it won’t be too long before people realize it.
Most activities in sports require short bursts of action. In these short bursts, the rate of oxygen transfer to the muscle cells is no longer great enough to maintain aerobic metabolism. At that point your muscles must switch to anaerobic metabolism. The energy source in anaerobic metabolism is the carbohydrates within the muscle and not fat and oxygen. The waste product from burning carbohydrates in the muscle during anaerobic activity is lactic acid. The buildup of lactic acid causes muscle pain and exhaustion. The efficiency of energy generation in anaerobic exercise is about 5% of aerobic and rapidly depletes the energy source in the muscle.
Higher Levels of Exercise and Damage
Higher levels of exercise intensity generate sheer stress. Adrenalin rises and with it cortisol, and these cause stress and inflammation. Our body instinctively knows that high levels of stress indicate emergency – flight or fight. Free radicals explode with intense exercise. The rule of thumb is never more than 45 minutes of weight training. After 45 minutes of anaerobic exercise, the levels of cortisol and free radicals rise to the point where recovery from exercise can be difficult.
Follow These Points to Become Lean
1. Lose no more than ½ pound of fat per week. The first trick is to reduce your total daily calories by no more than 20%. That’s 400 calories off a 2000 caloric diet. That’s 2800 or 0.7 lbs of fat per week (2800 cal / 9 cal of fat per gram = 311 g / 29 g per oz = 10.9 oz = 0.7 lbs). Because of increases in body efficiency you will not lose 0.7 lbs but only about half a pound. That’s the most you can lose without triggering your bodies defenses.
2. Eat a diet low in fats. The calories you cut from your diet have to be the right calories. First and most important are calories from all kinds of fat. Contrary to the calorie counting strategies of much of the weight loss industry, fat calories are fatter (9 calories per gram vs 4 calories per gram from carbs).
When excess carbohydrate are eaten, the body makes complex metabolic adjustments to promote glycogen storage in muscle and increase the use of sugar for fuel. It also has to use a lot of energy to convert these foods to body fat. Remember, fat is the preferred fuel for muscle and is burned first. Therefore, you have to eat more carbohydrates than fat before the excess carbohydrates are converted to fat and wind up on your gut or hips. But when excess fat is eaten, metabolism remains unchanged. All the excess is promptly trowelled onto your gut or hips. You put on more body fat by eating fat, than by eating the same number of calories from carbohydrate or protein. Calorie counting doesn’t work.
When excess protein is eaten, it is stored in temporary protein storage areas, which are cells walls, artery walls, and around organs such as the heart and kidneys and brain. Its been pointed out to avoid excess protein intake.
3. Do not eat foods containing more that 20% fat. Since 1994, the Nutrition Facts label must appear on all packaged foods by law . If they don’t have the label, they are either illegal or have been on the shelf too long. Look at the line near the top showing calories. Divide the total calories by the calories from fat and multiply by 100 to show the percentage of fat. If the food has 20% or less calories from fat then its okay. In a diet of 2000 calories, that’s a maximum of 400 fat calories. At 9 calories a gram, that’s 44 grams of total fat per day. One double cheeseburger can contain 100 grams (3 oz) of fat which is 900 calories (100 x 9 grams = 900).
4. Trust only the Nutrition Facts panel. Dry foods like cookies, baked goods, crackers and chips, are higher in fat than ice cream. Even low fat milk is really high fat. The dairy industry got an exemption from the label requirement. An 8 oz glass of low fat milk (2%) gives you a hefty 1/3 of its calories from fat. Food industry lawyers have filed exemption claims for all kinds of foods. Thousands of copywriters are busy writing new loopholes around the laws – confusing the issue even more by labeling everything “organic”. “Reduced fat” products abound – but reduced from what level?
5. Cut the sugar – eat complex carbohydrates instead.
Chocolate, candy, cookies and table sugar are obvious. But raw sugar, brown sugar, refined honey, high fructose corn syrup, fruit juice concentrates, date sugar, and turbinado sugar are just as bad. So are fruit juices. Ounce for ounce, orange juice contains more sugar that Coca Cola, and sodas in general contain up to 10 teaspoons of sugar per serving.
As mentioned in Section 3, sugar is converted first to acetyl groups, then if not used for energy converted to saturated fats and cholesterol. Sugar also causes a spike of insulin which leads to cortisol production and inflammatory hormones. Not good.
6. Regular meals. One big secret of lean for life is to keep your insulin output even all day long. To keep insulin levels steady, never miss meals. But, keep the portions small, within the allowable calorie range, and follow the Yes Rules. For optimum fat loss, get into the habit of eating 5 small meals per day. The breakfast recommended in Section 6 can be eaten in 2 stages by eating ½ at normal breakfast. Put the other ½ into a baggie or plastic cup for eating later in the morning.
7. Take nutrient supplements as recommended in Section 6.
8. Fiber. High fiber diets are not only great disease preventers, but also create slow, even food absorption from your intestines. This process helps keep your insulin level steady and also promotes use of the food for energy rather than for deposition as body fat. 30 -50 grams of fiber a day are recommended and this can be sourced from the breakfast in Section 6, and from fiber in vegetables. The National Cancer Institute states the average American consumption of fiber is only 10-20 grams per day.
Each of the following items contain 10 grams of dietary fiber. This will give an idea of the quantities of food types required.
Grains
½ cup all bran 1 cup rolled oats 1 cup whole grain cereal 3 slices whole rye bread
3 cups puffed wheat 4 oz. bag of popcorn
Vegetables
½ cup peas 1 cup peanuts ½ cup mixed beans, lentils 2 cups soybeans
4 servings mixed salad 4 carrots 2 cups steamed vegetables
Fruits
3 pears 3 bananas 4 peaches 4 oz blueberries
5 apples 6 oranges 6 dried pear halves 10 dried figs
20 prunes 20 dried apricots
9. Do repetition, wide variety resistance exercise. Exercise is more important than food intake in regulating body fat. Regular exercisers eat a lot more than sedentary people but are a lot slimmer. The best exercise for fat control is wide variety, high repetition resistance training using weights or machines. By exercising muscles all over your body, it burns a lot of fat. Resistance exercise yields a further fat loss bonus. It not only maintains muscle mass, it increases muscle, thereby providing more muscle cells in which fat can be burned.
10. For maximum fat loss do one set of each exercise with a weight that exhausts you in 20 – 25 repetitions. The basic rules of muscle work are simple. For example, if you use heavy resistance, so that you can complete on 3-6 repetitions of an exercise, and you do 5-6 sets, you build maximum strength but you don’t lose much fat. If you set the weight so you can just complete 8-12 repetitions, and you do 3-4 sets you build muscle well and burn medium amounts of fat. If you set the weight so you run out of steam in 20-25 repetitions, and you do only one set, you build a little muscle and burn a lot of fat.
11. Exercise in the morning. The right exercise raises your metabolic rate not only while you are doing it, but up to 18 hours afterwards. Also, testosterone levels peak in the early morning. If you exercise in the evenings and then go to bed, you lose most of the fat-loss effect, because sleep causes your metabolic rate to drop like a stone. So you have to exercise in the morning and the earlier the better.
12. Exercise 5 mornings weekly for a minimum of 30 minutes. People who exercise five times a week lose 3 times as much fat as those who exercise only twice or three times a week, even if they exercise longer. Those who exercised only once a week lost no fat at all. Five days a week of 30 minutes is much superior to 3 days a week of 70 minutes, even though the 70 minute total is longer. In order to keep that metabolic rate churning, frequent exercise is the key.
Morning exercise raises your resting metabolism rate (RMR) so you burn extra calories for a full 12 hours after your activity.
13. Take a multiple antioxidant every day. As pointed out in the section on Antioxidants, oxidation is the primary mechanism of human degeneration. Because exercise uses 12-20 time more oxygen than sitting in a chair, it also creates masses of free radicals that do a lot of oxidation damage. Without additional antioxidants you are slowly killing yourself. In order to reap the resistance exercise benefits of greater muscle and lower body fat, you have to combat exercise oxidation with antioxidant supplements. An average person exercising for slimness and health (but not a competitive athlete) can overcome the extra oxidation caused by 5 x 30 minutes exercise per week by taking a multiple antioxidant supplement. Supplements taken on a daily basis include antioxidants and are reviewed in the Section on Antioxidants. An outstanding antioxidant supplement is EMA Fortified. EMA by itself has antioxidant activity, but EMA Fortified has added beta carotenes14. Form specific, measurable, public, rewarded fat loss goals. Being lean for life is a long term goal, so sub goals are essential to tell you how you are doing. Set birthday date, mid year dates, quarter year dates and assign goals. The maximum fat loss per month is about 2 ½ lbs a month if you want to keep the fat off.
15. Walking
Proper daily activity is necessary to allow for your maximum antiaging hormonal release. You need to be involved in daily activity for a minimum of 30 minutes or more to burn 300 calories, which will extend your healthy life. Moving arms and legs during a brisk walk, stimulates your internal organs and glands, as well as for promoting efficient, regular bowel movements. Recommended are 30 minutes of weight training 3 times a week, and walking 2 times a week for 1 hour. Added benefits will happen with walking 30 minutes to 1 hour every day.
Here is a summary of the above points. Print it out, tack it in the bathroom, on the dash, on the fridge.
1. Loose no more than ½ pound of fat per week
2. Eat a diet low in fats
3. Do not eat foods containing more that 20% fat
4. Trust only the Nutrition Facts panel
5. Cut the sugar – eat complex carbohydrates instead
6. Regular meals
7. Take nutrient supplements
8. Fiber
9. Do repetition, wide variety resistance exercise
10. 10. For maximum fat loss do one set of each exercise with a weight that exhausts you in 20 – 25 repetitions
11. Exercise in the morning
12. Exercise 5 mornings weekly for a minimum of 30 minutes.
13. Take a multiple antioxidant every day
14. Form specific, measurable, public, rewarded fat loss goals
15. Walking is good on days off from weight training
Exercise Guidelines
Here are some secrets that will give you faster progress and a better body than most people you see in health clubs.
1. Never do more per exercise than one warmup set of 12-15 easy repetitions followed by one medium heavy set of 6-10 repetitions.
2. Work a body part only about once per week. Exercised muscle takes about 48 hours to breakdown worn cells, then about 48-72 hours to build new stronger replacements. That’s 5 days. From 5-8 days strength remains at a maximum then slowly declines. So exercising a muscle every 5-8 days is the optimum program for progress.
3. Do not train with weights for more than 1 hour per workout. Your anabolic potential, that is your ability to gain lean mass, is limited by your hormonal levels. After 45 minutes to an hour, hormone levels decline. After an hour it won’t do your body any good.
4. Do as wide a variety of exercises as possible. Restricted resistance exercises, especially those on machines, stress only certain fibers of a muscle in certain positions. You want to get all the fibers in all positions.
5. Emphasize the eccentric contraction of each repetition. That is, the return phase of the repetition, when the muscle is lengthening under load. In a barbell bicep curl for example, the eccentric contraction occurs when you are lowering the weight back to the start position. Fight it all the way down, because it is the stress of lengthening under load that causes most of the strength and lean mass gains that you are seeking.
6. Take daily antioxidant supplements. EMA Fortified, plus the regular antioxidant supplements, is excellent.
7. Eat an alkaline diet which is heavy on vegetables. All exercises increases body acidity. A good recommendation is to drink 2-4 ounces of EMA before a session. Muscles working in an alkaline environment increase the benefit of the workout. EMA will make your tissues alkaline so that you can work your muscles longer before they become restricted by lactic acid buildup which is the limiting factor in anaerobic exercise.
8. Weight bearing exercise provides a stimulus for the body to grow and allows nutritional supplements to work. Important research in 1995 showed that multi vitamin and multi mineral supplementation had little effect in improving the health of old people. But when a resistance exercise program was added, the health benefits were astonishing, ranging from over 100% improvements in strength and muscle size to big improvements in mobility and recreational activity.
Daily Exercise
Daily exercise or exercise at least five times a week actually helps to regulate blood sugar levels, and provides a cool endorphin rush without all those sugars, fats, salt, and excess calories. Aerobic activity such as walking, jogging, swimming, rowing, or bicycling should be done for half an hour or more at 65% of your maximum heart rate. An intensity greater than this will build your heart, but you will not burn fat. Exercise is an important consideration for controlling our cravings. We also offset unhealthy cravings with natural, unprocessed, whole foods – pure, heathy, salad vegetables grown by SA. This is the basic equation to both cutting caloric intake and increasing caloric expenditure.
Level of Exercise
We need to burn about 2,100 calories in exercise each week. This is 300 exercise related caloric expenditures per day. For most people a brisk walk for about ½ hour per day will do the job. The following table explains further.
Minutes Required for Various Activities to Burn 300 Calories Per Day
Activity Average Female Average Male
Bicycling 35 25
Jogging slowly 40 30
Rowing machine 30 24
Stationary bike 35 30
Swimming 35 30
Walking briskly 45 35
Walking slowly 90 75
If you drink an EMA type green drink with water before you exercise, you will force your body to burn 22% more of its calories from fat, while at the same time preserving you blood glucose and muscle glycogen levels for an extended exercise period. For many 12 hours after, your resting metabolism rate (RMR) will remain elevated and continue to burn calories. This is the reason for exercising in the morning and not before going to bed because your RMR will drop.
Exercise Schedule
Start easy. Never strain. Anytime you ache the next day, you are going too hard. The body does not need to be inflamed to improve. Inflammation is counter productive. The first day you begin exercising, even after doing none for 30 years, your body starts to rejuvenate. Get your physicians approval to start exercising.
Your exercise program has 3 goals: 1) maintain and increase your muscle mass – the most important 2) maintain your cardiovascular system 3) maintain your flexibility; we stiffen as we age increasing the risks of all sorts of strains, and tendon, ligament and skeletal disorders.
The program should include resistance exercises for shoulders, arms, chest, back, legs, and abdominals.
Exercise five to six days a week but avoid damaging your body by going too hard, too soon. Do a combination of aerobics and anaerobic weight training. An recommended 8 day cycle schedule is as follows
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8
Arm Ab Legs Walk Walk Arm Ab Legs
Wts Wts Wts 1 hr 1 hr Wts Wts Wts
+ + + + + +
Optional Walk Walk Walk Walk Walk Walk
30 min 30 min 30 min 30 min 30 min 30 min
Note there is a 5 day interval between weight exercises for each muscle group. This is to allow for the replacement of old tissue with new muscle. Walking every day is encouraged, because walking is an aerobic, fat burning exercise.
A Recommended Program
This has been tested, and proven to be highly acceptable.
Definitions:
Repetition one unit of the exercise
Set 12 repetitions
To Exhaustion Until your muscles can’t do it anymore
Session One exercise session
Duration Duration of one session
Interval The time between sessions
Weights: 2 to 10 lbs (1 to 5 kgs); start with as much weight as you can work with and graduate to heavier weights. An excellent weight is a 4 quart (1 gal. or 4L) plastic jug with handles. Fill to the weight you can handle at the start, and gradually increase the weight by filling with water.
Arm Exercises
While standing up, hold the water filled jugs or weights in your hands; 216 repetitions; 2 sets of 12; 12 of one set, and 12 or to exhaustion: duration = about 30 min. Interval = every 5 days
1) curl front palms up: 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
2) push up to the ceiling from shoulders – arms straight up 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
3) lift arms from sides to horizontal - oblique - hold for 3 sec. 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
4) lift arms from sides to horizontal - oblique - hold for 3 sec. and curl 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
5) lift arms from sides to horizontal at sides palms up 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
6) lift arms from sides to horizontal at sides palms down 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
7) lift arms from sides and straight back palms up –hold for 3 sec. 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
8) lift arms from sides and straight back palms down – hold for 3 sec. 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
9) lift arms from sides and straight back – hold for 3 sec. – curl 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
10) push ups: push from knees to start 2 sets of 12 each; or 2nd set to exhaustion
Abdominal Exercises
20 sets of situps; 12 repetions each set: duration = about 30 min. Interval = every 5 days
Tips:
• Place feet under a bed as a method to hold your feet down while doing situps
• Wear socks to prevent abrasion; if the bottom of the bed is too high, use a pillow on top of your feet
• Use a pillows for your head and shoulders so you don't go all the way down on your back
• Use a folded blanket as a cushion for your back and especially tailbone
• As an aid at the beginning of the situp, bend your knees, and grab your thighs
• Keep track of the number of sets on a piece of paper as you progress through the sets
• As the situps become easier after many sessions, carry weights while doing the situps
Leg Exercises
Fill the plastic jugs ¼ full of water to start. Double wrap a length of cloth (dish towel or longer cloth about 6” wide and 3’ long; 9 cm x 90 cm) and tie the jugs around your ankles with a double wrap of cloth and a double knot. Increase the volume of water after each session. Always press the limit. If its too much, pour some of the water out.
25 sets of leg exercise; 12 repetitions each: duration = about 30 min. Interval = every 5 days
1) Tie the weight to the right ankle. Lie face down on a bed with your legs free in the air; lift the weighted leg up straight with your body and hold for 3 seconds; let down slowly.
5 sets of 12 repetitions each – right leg
2) Turn over and lie face up on the bed with your legs free in the air; lift the weighted leg up straight with your body and hold for 3 seconds; let down slowly
5 sets of 12 repetitions each – right leg
3) Tie the weight to the left ankle. Lie face down on a bed with your legs free in the air; lift the weighted leg up straight with your body and hold for 3 seconds; let down slowly.
5 sets of 12 repetitions each – left leg
4) Turn over and lie face up on the bed with your legs free in the air; lift the weighted leg up straight with your body and hold for 3 seconds; let down slowly
5 sets of 12 repetitions each – left leg
5) Stand up; hold the weights in your hands and do leg squats.
5 sets of 12 repetitions each
DIET
Diets and Famine
When we diet our body only recognizes a “famine mode” and does what it has always done from the time of ancestral hominids. Famine mode slows down our metabolism to conserve our bodies portable energy stores of fat. We then lose critical water, muscle, and bone. Once we begin eating again, we “feast” as our body will store fat at a greater capacity than before the diet, because it now recognizes that there still are “famines”.
The Fatpoint
Rapid fat loss alerts your body’s potent defenses of its energy reserve. The amount of fat you carry is not ordained by your genes. It is caused by what you eat and what you do. The number or size of fat cells are not genetically fixed. When you remain at a particular level of fat for a year or more, your body develops all the adipose cells, capillaries, enzyme counts, peripheral nerves, hormone levels, and connective tissue to support it. It takes years of overeating to grow fat. It creeps on only about an ounce per day, a pound or two every two or three weeks. In a year you are 20 lbs over, and in 3-4 years you gain 60 lbs of flab. The body has invested a lot of work and infrastructure to maintain this fat. It recognizes the level as the fatpoint.
The body constantly monitors its fatpoint with hormonal messengers, such as glycerol, which warn the brain to take defensive action if even one pound is used for fuel. So usual forms of dieting can’t work.
The body shifts its fatpoint up slowly. To shift it down, you operate in the same way. Otherwise your body will cannibalize your muscle, excite your fat storage enzyme, and boost your appetite to ravenous.
Beware of Rapid Fat Loss Diets
Low calorie diets not only deprive your body of nutrients, they also cause devastating muscle loss.
Reducing calories from the required 2,000 per day to 800-1200 per day causes you to cannibalize your own muscles for fuel. On these diets, muscle provides up to 45% of the energy deficit. If the deficit in essential energy requirement is 500 calories per day, then up to 225 calories will come from muscle breakdown. At 4 calories per gram, that’s 56 grams or 2 ounces. In only four weeks on such a diet, you can lose 31/2 lbs of vital muscle. All diets that are below the essential energy requirements of your body are a guaranteed recipe for failure.
Low calorie diets cause so much muscle loss, that overweight people who use them repeatedly train their bodies into permanent obesity. They have so little muscle left to burn fuel they have to limit their existence on 1000 calories a day, all the time. Otherwise they plump up into a tub.
Rapid fat loss immediately increases the quantity and activity of an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase. Its collects digested fat from the bloodstream and stuffs it into fat cells. As the fat is being stored, you burn muscle to make up the deficit. Muscle is harder to burn and generates more residues than burning fat’. So your metabolism slows down. The toxic residues makes you sick, cranky, and irritable. Also you grow progressively hungrier.
When you can’t stand it any longer and start eating real food, lipoprotein lipase continues to stuff the fat into fat cells, and you can regain six weeks of painful fat loss in 6 days. But, you don’t regain any of the lost muscle which reduces your ability to burn the fats you have, and sets you up for further fat gain.
In 1988 a study was done on 200 people who had lost an average of 84% of their excess weight on a medically supervised crash diet. Within 3 years subjects had regained 60-80% of the flab. This is typical, and illustrates that crash diets don’t work. Most people who take the programs either drop out before completing them, or regain most or all of the weight lost.
Water
Drink plenty of water (8 glasses a day). Avoid drinks containing caffeine (tea, coffee, soda pops) because they all act as diuretics. Diuretics stimulate the loss of water through urination. Herbal teas are also diuretics and should not be used as a substitute for drinking water. Stick with pure water. Its cheaper and you’ll be surprised at how things change for the better.
Free Radicals
Free radicals are quickly formed through stress, excess sunlight, a hard workout or exercise regime, water or airborne pollution, veterinary residue from antibiotics or bovine growth hormones in animal products (milk), pesticides, herbicides, late nights, lack of deep rejuvenating sleep, factory or car emissions, and from the natural process of cellular respiration. We can’t avoid the formation of oxidants or free radicals, but we can minimize their destructive potential.
Maintain the levels of antioxidants.
Glycemic Index
The rate of entry of a carbohydrate into the bloodstream is known as its glycemic index. The lower the glycemic index, the slower the rate of absorption. When a carbohydrate enters the bloodstream too fast, the pancreas responds by secreting high levels of insulin. While that brings the blood sugar level down, it also tells the body to convert it to fat and keep it stored. Too many high glycemic carbohydrates can not only make you fat, they will also keep you that way. By eliminating foods with a high glycemic index, you will eliminate the worst fat forming foods. If a high glycemic food is tempting, then mix it with a food with a low index.
To our hunter gatherer ancestors, producing a strong insulin response to store incoming calories was a powerful survival mechanism. Today, that ancient survival mechanism has become a potent accelerator of aging because we are surrounded by excess calories from processed foods day and night. When we eat sugar (or refined carbs) the body interprets this as eating a whole deer and the insulin rush begins, and causes all types of health problems if repeated. Therefore, we must select foods with a low glycemic index.
Glycemic index greater than 100%
Grain based foods
Puffed rice, Corn flakes, Puffed wheat, Millet, Instant rice
Instant potato, Microwaved potato, French bread Rice cakes
Snacks
Tofu, ice cream, Puffed rice cakes
Sweeteners
Maltose, Glucose
Glycemic index standard = 100%
White bread, Baked potato
Glycemic index between 80 and 100%
Grain based foods
Grapenuts, Whole wheat bread, Rolled oats, Oat bran, Instant mashed potatoes
White rice, Brown rice, Muesli, Shredded wheat
Vegetables
Carrots – cooked** Carrot juice, Parsnip, Corn French fries
Fruits
Raisins, Papaya
Snacks
Ice cream (low fat), Corn chips, Rye crisps, Milk chocolate, Candy bars
Pretzels, Bagels
Sweeteners
Corn syrup
Glycemic index between 50-80%: Moderate insulin secretion
Grain based foods
Spaghetti (white), Spaghetti (whole wheat), Pasta, other Pumpernickel bread, All bran cereal
White flour, Crackers, Boxed breakfast cereals, Chocolate, 70% cocoa, Corn tortilla
Pita bread, Brown rice, Wild rice, Oatmeal, Popcorn
Fruits
Orange juice, Watermelon, Banana, Mango, Orange juice
Vegetables
Peas, Pinto beans, Garbanzo beans, Kidney beans, Baked beans
Navy beans, Beets, Carrots raw
Simple sugars
Lactose Sucrose
Snacks
Candy bar*, Potato chips (with fat)*
Sweeteners
Raw honey, Raw brown sugar, Raw molasses Honey, processed Barley malt
Brown rice syrup, Maple syrup
Glycemic index between 30-50%: Reduced insulin secretion
Grain based foods
Barley, Oatmeal (slow cooking), Whole grain rye bread, Whole grain breads, Whole grain pastas
Fruits
Apple, Apple juice, Applesauce, Pears, Grapes Peaches, Grapes, Kiwi, Oranges, Plums
Legumes and Proteins
Green beans, Pinto beans, Lentils Peas, Lima beans
Soy lecithin, miso, tempeh Extra firm tofu, Black beans, Azuki beans, Garbanzo beans, Kidney beans, Soy beans (or milk), Soy protein isolate, Whey protein isolate, Black eyed peas
Chick peas, Kidney beans (dried)
Vegetables
Tomato soup
Dairy products
Ice cream (high fat)*, Milk (skim) Milk (whole), Yogurt, Dry curd no fat cottage
cheese
Juices
Grapefruit juice, Tomato juice, Vegetable juice
Glycemic index of 30% or less
Fruits
Cherries, Plums, Grapefruit, Apricot, Acerola berries, Blueberries, Strawberries Blackberries, Raspberries, Cranberries
Vegetables
Soy beans *, Artichokes, Asparagus, Wheatgrass, Alfalfa grass, Barley grass, Tomatoes, fresh Kale, Swiss Chard, Squash, Celery, Peppers, Lettuces, Sea vegetables
Snacks
Fresh or Dried Herbs
Basil, Fennel seeds, French lavender, Marjoram, Milk Thistle, Mint, Parsley Rosemary, Sage, Tarragon, Thyme, Watercress, Commercial dandelions
Seeds and Nuts
Almonds, Sunflower, Pumpkin, Dry roasted peanuts*, Walnuts, Pine nuts
Juices
EMA juice
Sweeteners
Fructose (avoid), Stevia, Xylitol ("straw sugar")
Exotic Spices
Cardamon, Cinnamon, Cloves, Mustard seed, Cayenne, Paprika, Peppercorn, Saffron, Nutmeg, Cloves, Coriander, Allspice, Turmeric (curcumin), Curry, Garlic,
Ginger
* High fat content will retard the rate of absorption of carbohydrates into the body
** “Crunchy steamed” carrots are okay; when juicing do not use more that 2 medium sized carrots
Protein Intake
The rule of thumb for the daily intake of protein is 1/3 gram of protein per pound of body weight for ordinary daily activities (160 lb person would require 53 grams or about 2 ounces), ½ gram for moderate exercise (160 lb person would require 80 grams or about 3 ounces), and 1 gram of protein for intensive tissue building training (160 lb person would require 160 grams or about 6 ounces).
Insulin
Insulin drives nutrients into cells either for immediate use or for future storage as fat. Glucagon mobilized stored energy (primarily carbohydrates) to recirculate back into the bloodstream as a source of energy, especially for the brain, between meals. These two hormones operate closely on a feed back system. When one is too high, the other responds. This controls blood sugar levels in the blood.
Daily Eating Habits
Eat a good breakfast followed by 4 light snacks to maintain even levels of insulin. Eat abundantly from natural, pure, raw foods (salad vegetables from SA) at each and every meal and snack. Practice portion control. Treat lunch and dinner as snacks and eat lightly. This shouldn’t discourage the usual social contact during these meals. Just eat less.
References
Colgan, The New Nutrition 1995
Ensminger, Ensminger, Konlande, Robson, Food and Nutrition Encyclopedia, 1983
Graci, The Food Connection, 2001
Murray, The Healing Power of Foods, 1993
Sears, The Zone, 1995
Alive Magazine, www.alivepublishing.com Data Base
Webster’s Online Dictionary http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Data Base and Links