Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 21

My 7-Point Program For Preventing Heart Disease

Pay attention to these seven action items, and you just may find that you don’t need to worry quite so much about cholesterol after all.

1. Eat an anti-inflammatory diet. The fruit and vegetable kingdom is teemingwith natural anti-inflammatories like quercetin (apples and onions) and curcumin (turmeric). Drink green tea and pomegranate juice. Balance your protein and fat with tons of vegetables. And eat dark chocolate—it’s cocoa flavanols help lower blood pressure and keep the cardiovascular system healthy.

2. Reduce grains, starches, sugar and omega-6’s (vegetable oils).  Every one of these has the power to increase inflammation—a lot!

3. Manage Your Stress. Stress is an enormous risk factor for heart disease, and is inflammatory as well. Find a way to manage it. Anything from regular walks in the park to deep breathing exercises to warm baths can help.

 

4. Exercise. It’s probably the best anti-aging (and heart protective) drug on the planet.

5. Drink only in moderation. And if, like me, you don’t process the word “moderation” very well, don’t drink at all.

6. Don’t smoke. Probably the number one recommendation for heart disease prevention.

7. Supplement wisely.. Antioxidants like vitamin C protect against oxidative damage (one of the promoters of heart disease) while omega-3’s (particularly EPA and DHA from fish oil) are among the most anti-inflammatory molecule on earth. And curcumin does just about everything—it’s an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant.

No program in the world will eliminate risk. Wearing seat belts doesn’t guarantee a bolder won’t fall off the overpass and crush your car. But that doesn’t mean wearing seat belts is a bad idea. If an action can considerably reduce the risk of something bad happening, that’s really all we can ask from it.

The 7 recommended actions above will do that.

To me, that’s smart medicine.

Video: My Opinion of the US Weekly Diets Issue

 

This week, US Weekly published it’s annual issue on diets. Usually I get apoplectic when I read this stuff, but this time it wasn’t nearly as horrible as I expected. In this video, I’ll tell you what I think about celebrity diets. Spoiler alert: as long as you look at it in the right way—I explain how in this video—celebrity nutrition advice can be a hoot.

 

Diet Secrets of the Hollywood Stars

Oh, did I ever know that headline would get your attention.

OK, are you really, really ready for the real, true, honest dirt? The complete truth about Hollywood diet secrets? I promise you, this is the real deal, and I’m going to back it up with hard evidence, so get set to take notes. Here’s the real, serious-business truth about the dieting secrets of the Hollywood stars:

There are none.

Want proof? I compiled the following from recent interviews and articles on the dieting “secrets” of Hollywood stars: Alicia Silverstone is a vegan. Joan Lunden eats fruit. Jennifer Anniston is on the Zone. Dianne Sawyer does cabbage soup. Heather Locklear likes McDonalds and french fries. Jennifer Lopez eats eight mini-meals. Claudia Schiffer sips green tea. Kate Hudson tracks calories. Sofia Vegara does Pilates. Patricia Heaton eats lots of dairy. Melanie Griffith drinks smoothies. Demi Moore eats high-protein. Nia Peebles shuns protein. Kelly Preston eats oatmeal and bagels.

In other words, as the brilliant writer William Goldman once said about Hollywood….

“Nobody knows anything”.

We’d love to believe that everyone in Hollywood has the magic secret and if only we could figure out what it was, we too could look like they do. Nice theory, but it has a few holes in it.

Number one: There’s no “they”. Hollywood stars come in all shapes and sizes and metabolic and genetic types just like we do, and they respond completely differently to different regimens. Just like we do.

Number two: They don’t know any more than we do. Most go to their friends or hairdressers for diet tips, or get introduced to the latest diet guru because they share the same publicist.

Number three: They struggle with the same issues about food and drink, and their bodies respond in the same variety of ways. The only differences are that they do it in full view of the public.

Now this is not a put-down to Hollywood stars. I’ve known many of them and they’re very nice people. Or at least some are. But they are not the best people to turn to for nutritional advice. Why would you expect biochemistry expertise from Gwennyth Paltrow? Because she’s thin? Really?

Yet that’s what people do. Every single day.

There is one secret to Hollywood diets, and it’s the same secret I’ve been telling coaches, clients and readers for years now. It’s the only secret you’ll ever need to know, and if you really get it and accept it, you’ll be on the way to success not only in weight loss but in life. Here it is:

Everybody’s different.

Oh by the way, ‘case you were interested. Mel Gibson doesn’t eat chicken.

Wanna know why?

He read somewhere that men who eat chicken breasts run the risk of sprouting breasts themselves.

Questions, anyone?

Video: Ask Dr. Jonny

Babs Hogan asks, “What is the ideal ratio of omega 3 to omega 6?”

Post by Dr. Jonny Bowden.

Hormones and Weight Loss

The following is a guest article from my friend Glen Depke of Depke Wellness. Glen is a traditional naturopath, specializing in adrenal function.

 

When we think about weight loss, we typically think about diet and exercise. Far too often the issue that is staring us back in the face is that the diet and exercise haven’t helped us achieve our weight loss goals.

How can that be?

After all, we’ve been told for years that if we are carrying too much weight and fat, we simply need to exercise more or eat less. Not so fast!

Many of you reading this article have been watching your diet for years, and killing yourself at the gym, with what results? Perhaps minimal weight and fat loss if any.

When I lived in the Chicago area, I used to work out at a specific gym and almost every time I went to the gym, regardless of the day, I saw this one particular young woman. We’ll call her Jane (obviously this was not her name.) Jane was actually going to college to become a dietician, so she was learning mainstream nutritional ideals, such as calories in/ calories out, cut back on sugar and eat more lean meat and less fat. Based on her studies she was also very aware that she had to burn more calories, so she simply had to work out harder. I would watch Jane every day go from the StairMaster, to the treadmill and sometimes back to the StairMaster for more. She would put a towel on the machines because she would simply be dripping with perspiration. Honestly, I have never seen somebody work so hard, yet never seem to budge with her weight and the same level of fat around her midsection and hips. Actually, it was disheartening to watch.

So what was Jane’s problem?

Was she not paying attention to her diet? Was she lazy with her workouts? Of course the answer to both of these questions was absolutely not!

While I never had the pleasure of working with Jane to help her discover the core of her fat and weight loss challenges, I would bet the house that she had some significant hormonal imbalances.

So that’s the simple answer, right? Hormone imbalance is the weight loss issue?

Well, not so fast again. What hormones and from where? Are we talking about the thyroid and T3 and T4, are we talking about the ovaries and female hormones, perhaps for men the testes and testosterone, or maybe the pancreas and insulin. While all of these are of course playing a role, what we are really talking about here is adrenal function. Understand that your adrenal function will directly affect the pancreas, thyroid and ovaries. So while regulating thyroid hormones will assist your body’s metabolism and help with weight loss, the insulin produced in your pancreas will affect weight loss, and the female hormones produced in the ovaries will assist with weight loss. The common denominator affecting all of this is your adrenal function.

And reason why is adrenal function the focal point when we have so many other glands in the endocrine system playing a role? The answer is simple. Your adrenal function will be a direct response to stress in your life, whether your stress is mental/emotional, inflammatory, infection, injury, chemical, environmental or even spiritual/vibrational. And who in our culture is not dealing with at least one if not many more of these stress levels? The adrenal gland function is most often the first to go, thus dragging down all the other glands and ultimately driving up your weight too!

But that’s not all. Your adrenal function will actually play many roles in weight loss, beyond their affect on the above endocrine glands. Your adrenals will also affect your mucosal integrity and metabolism of fat and protein, thus hindering your body’s ability to regulate body weight and fat. The mucosal lining will impact digestion overall, as this lines the interior of your small intestines, which in turn will have a direct affect on your body’s ability to absorb and assimilate nutrients. In the end, this can leave you craving more food, and overweight. The poor metabolism of protein and fat will also have you sitting at the dinner table longer and more often because your body will be looking for more protein to convert to the amino acids, which are simply the building blocks of life, and more fat to fuel your body and enhance your brain function. After all, your brain is made up of fat and cholesterol. So please understand that poor adrenal function will simply lead to craving more food, more often.

Another area of concern with weight loss as tied into your adrenal function is centered around inflammation. While most are under the impression that the weight you are carrying is fat, you might be surprised how much of your extra weight is actually due to inflammation. You may ask, what the heck does inflammation have to do with adrenal function? More than you may think! Actually, your adrenal function plays a direct role in both pro and anti-inflammatory states. So often I see clients that create inflammation as a part of a healthy immune response, only to be “stuck” in chronic inflammation because their adrenal function is so depleted that they cannot produce the needed cortisone, which is your body’s natural anti-inflammatory hormone.

We can then take this one step further. The chronic inflammatory state leads to an increase in fat cell production, which leads to insulin resistance, which then creates insulin surges, and lastly creates more inflammation. Yikes! Right?

This is an ugly cycle that so many people get into. But why can’t they get out? You guessed it, poor adrenal function.

Beyond this, your adrenal function will also play a role in blood sugar balance, cellular energy (who doesn’t want more energy these days?), your quality of sleep and neural connectivity, all of which play a role in weight loss.

So if you want to reach our fat and weight loss goals, do NOT forget your adrenal function. If you do, you are likely going to miss the weight loss boat. I wish I could have told Jane this years ago!

If you question your adrenal function, you are welcome to take the Depke Wellness complimentary adrenal stress profile assessment.

 

Glen Depke has made his Adrenal Assessment available to the  Jonny Bowden community for free. You can access it by clicking here.

 

My Video Interview With Glen Depke

One of the biggest misconceptions in the weight loss field is the notion that it’s all about calories and exercise.

It’s not. It’s actually about hormones.

If your hormones are screwed up, weight loss is going to be incredibly difficult and frustrating. In this video, I speak with traditional naturopath Glen Depke (of Depke Wellness) about the importance of adrenal hormones in weight loss. Glen’s got an amazing system called the Adrenal Recovery Program which starts with something everyone should have—an accurate and non-invasive method of measuring exactly what’s going on with your adrenal hormones. Getting your adrenals healthy is probably one of the most important things you can do to facilitate weight loss. Glen tells you how to do it and why it matters.

Glen Depke has made his Adrenal Assessment available to the  Jonny Bowden community for free. You can access it by clicking here.

Is Your Thyroid Holding You Back?

The thyroid got a lot of attention in the media back in 2007 when Oprah Winfrey announced she had had a thyroid condition, and with good reason—the thyroid is your metabolic gatekeeper.

This small, butterfly-shaped gland, located in your neck, is responsible for keeping your metabolism running smoothly. If it’s under-producing thyroid hormones—a condition known as hypothyroid—then your metabolic engine is idling really low, and fat gain is all but inevitable.

“When the thyroid gland is releasing inadequate amounts of thyroid hormone to meet the body’s metabolic demands, the metabolic rate is therefore reduced,” writes David Brownstein, MD, one of the leading experts in the integrative treatment of thyroid disorders. In other words, your metabolism slows down. And that means fat-burning crawls to a standstill.

“Thyroid hormone acts as the body’s metabolic regulator,” writes Brownstein, “every single muscle, organ and cell in the body depends on adequate thyroid hormone levels for achieving and maintaining optimal functioning.”4

So what can slow the thyroid down?

Glad you asked.

The adrenal hormones- stress hormones like cortisol—can have a profound effect on thyroid function. If your adrenals are out of whack, it’s not surprising that your thyroid is as well. Diet also has a profound effect. “Constantly eating devitalized food will result in deficiencies of vitamins, minerals and other essential products and will inevitably lead to hormonal and immune system abnormalities,” writes Brownstein.

Not surprisingly, he identifies sugar and refined carbohydrates among the major culprits.

Brownstein also considers detoxification essential to a healthy, functioning thyroid (which, in turn, is essential for a healthy fat-burning metabolism).

“One of the main reasons the thyroid gland can malfunction is from exposure to heavy metals, including mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic and nickel,” he writes. “These agents poison enzyme systems throughout the body and decrease the normal functioning of various organs and glands including the thyroid gland.

Detoxifying the body and removing these harmful elements can vastly improve the overall picture of one’s health.”5 When you have a sugar-burning metabolism, it virtually guarantees that the thyroid won’t be working at optimal levels. What’s more, a sugar-burning metabolism is a fast track to leptin resistance, a condition where the brain simply doesn’t “hear” or listen to the signals from the appetite-regulating hormone, leptin.

Leptin resistance is a fast track to being hungry all the time, since there’s a disconnect between the brain and the body—your fat cells and your tummy may be full, but your brain never gets the message. Since your brain thinks you’re starving—and no food is coming in—it makes an “executive decision” to conserve energy, which it does by slowing down the thyroid. Thus the vicious cycle continues.

If all of this inter-connectedness is starting to make your head spin, it should—we’ve only just begun to understand how all of your fat burning hormones work together.

But knowing every last detail of this isn’t important—what’s important is to understand that the hormones all work together and until, and unless, you take specific steps to get them all fixed, you’ll be stuck in sugar-burning, fat-gaining cycle.

What to Do, What to Do?

My most recent program, New You in 22, is specifically designed to trigger the hormones that burn fat, build or maintain muscle and keep you young and healthy while minimizing the hormones designed to pack fat on, eat away your muscle and age you faster. The promise of the program is to change your metabolism from that of a sugar-burner to that of a fat-burner. The idea is to correct your hormonal environment so that you can now access your fat stores and your body can burn fat for energy instead of sugar.

If you’re interested, you can find out more about it here.

My Video Response to the Latest Red Meat and Cancer Study

My video response to the latest red meat and cancer study.

**WARNING** The word “BS” is used a few times…

Post by Dr. Jonny Bowden.

Weight Loss Tips That Work

I’ve been talking about all the bad weight loss advice out there, but today, in this short video, I share with you some weight loss tips that actually work. And they work with almost any eating plan you might be following.

Check it out. And, as always, let me know what you think!

The 5 Tastiest Snacks that Flatten Your Stomach

Let’s start with the bad news. You can do 1,000 sit ups every day and it won’t give you a six pack. What it will do is give you abs of steel; but whether anyone will actually see those rock-hard abs, well that’s a completely different question.

Whether anyone actually notices those new ab muscles of yours depends on one thing only- how much belly fat you’ve got in front of them. Sumo wrestlers have some of the hardest abs in the world but you’ll never see those abs cause they’re surrounded by fat.

Losing Belly Fat: A Simple 2-step Process

Losing belly fat is a simple two-step process. Step number one: Figure out what you’re doing to put the belly fat on in the first place. Step number two: stop doing that.

What drives the accumulation of belly fat, for most people, is a hormone called insulin, which rises in direct response to your blood sugar. Shoot your blood sugar up with a nice million-calorie “low fat” bran muffin and a mocca latte, and your insulin will shoot up faster than the Challenger with a tail wind. And when insulin is high, fat storage is in overdrive. Not only that, but high levels of insulin prevent your fat-burning switch—a hormone called glucagon—from doing its job. On top of that, insulin locks the doors to the fat cells, making fat loss extremely difficult.

Solution: Eat in a way that doesn’t drive blood sugar (and insulin) skyward.

Five Belly-Flattening Snacks

The following five snacks are favorites of mine not just because they’re tasty and convenient and easy to make, but because the combination of fiber, fat and protein is unlikely to send your blood sugar on a trajectory that feels like the roller coaster at the New York, New York Hotel in Vegas.

“With a Smear”. This is one of my favorite snacks, period. I take some hearts of celery and fill in the groove with some organic almond butter or peanut butter. This snack really travels well in tuperware, and makes a terrific pre-workout snack. Why? The celery has fiber and nutrients (including calcium and vitamin A) and a ridiculously low 6 calories per medium stalk. The nut butter has protein and fat. The overall calories are low and this really fills you up without slowing you down. Great for “slow-release” energy.
“The Double A”: An apple with almonds. The apple is the perfect food for a snack especially if coupled with some fat and or protein (i.e. string cheese). It’s sugar load is very moderate, it contains valuable pectin fiber which slows the entrance of that sugar into the bloodstream, and it’s a nutritional powerhouse containing vitamins and minerals and antioxidants. Try combining it with about a dozen almonds, which adds some fat and protein, further slows the entrance of the sugar into the bloodstream for sustained energy, and keeps hunger away.
“Whey to go”: Whey protein is my favorite kind of protein powder. Not only is it extremely high quality, bioavailable protein, but it supports the immune system by providing the body with the building blocks for glutathione, arguably the body’s most important antioxidant. And studies indicate that whey protein may boost weight-loss efforts. According to one French study, consuming whey before exercise supports fat burning and may help with gaining or maintaining lean body mass. I suggest a whey protein shake made with either water alone or with frozen berries. The berries add fiber, nutrients, some extra carbohydrates, and make for a more delicious drink.
“Berry Cheesy”: Here’s a little tidbit of info for you that you might enjoy: In my book, “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth” I asked 16 of the best known experts in the country to contribute their personal “top ten” list of favorite healthy foods. Berries- especially blueberries- made the list of more experts than any other food. Berries are loaded with phytonutrients, antioxidants and fiber, and are low in sugar. Mix a bowl of berries with a piece of string cheese for the perfect pre-workout snack. The string cheese has 8 grams of protein, some fat to keep hunger at bay, and only about 80 calories. Plus it’s an excellent source of calcium.
“TG/ Too Good”: The initials of this snack stand for turkey and grapes. It’s a perfectly matched trifecta of protein, carbs and low-calories to take the edge off your hunger. Four small slices of deli packaged turkey contain only 87 calories but give you more than 14 grams of protein, plus some of the cancer-fighting mineral selenium to boot. A cup of grapes adds some carbs to the mix together with all the health-giving phytochemicals grapes are known for. Suggestion: Go for fresh turkey whenever possible as the packaged kind is high in sodium and nitrates, and go for red or purple grapes as they have a higher antioxidant content.

By keeping blood sugar even, and insulin levels in the ideal “zone”, you’ll be turning your body from a fat storage machine into one that eats fat for breakfast.

Bellyfat, watch out!