Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 28

Dr. Jonny Speaks at the American Nutrition Association

Dr. Jonny Bowden discusses the myths surrounding cholesterol at this talk given for the American Nutrition Association.

 

Protein-Powered Muesli With Coconut and Raisins

(from The Great Cholesterol Myth Cookbook, by Jonny Bowden, PhD and Steven Sinatra, MD)

Loaded with fiber and rich in antioxidants, this sublimely tasty muesli is nutrient rich, crunchy, and flavorful. It will satisfy your appetite and keep your system working like a well-oiled machine for hours. Enjoy this dish as part of a nourishing breakfast or filling snack.

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup rye flakes

1 cup dried dates, chopped

1 cup raisins

1 cup almonds, chopped roughly

½ cup walnuts, chopped roughly

½ cup pecans, chopped roughly

½ cup shredded coconut

½ cup sunflower seeds

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 cups apple cider

1 banana

1 ½ cups blueberries

In a large bowl, combine the oats and the cinnamon. Mix well. Place the mixture in an airtight, sealable container and stir in the apple cider. Cover, refrigerate overnight, and serve in the morning with chopped banana and blueberries.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings

Note: Nuts and seeds provide protein, essential fatty acids, and several antioxidant vitamins and minerals.

 

Cholesterol Does Matter… But Not In The Way You Might Think

Since the publication of “The Great Cholesterol Myth”, I’ve been known for taking the position that cholesterol doesn’t matter.

But a casual conversation with a crew member at a Chicago TV station made me realize that cholesterol does matter– only not in the way you might think!

 

Super-Energizing Baked Beans

(from The Great Cholesterol Myth Cookbook by Jonny Bowden, PhD and Steven Sinatra, MD)

The humble baked bean is the perfect breakfast food! Navy beans—used in this recipe—are a nutritional powerhouse of plant protein, fiber, iron, magnesium, copper, and calcium that supports cellular energy and an overall healthy metabolism. The pureed tomatoes are tasty and also a good source of the antioxidant lycopene. You’ll love the savory and flavorful addition of the herbs and spices that enhance the cardioprotective benefits of this dish.

2 cups dried navy beans

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil or ghee

2 cups chopped onions

1 clove garlic, minced

2 cups tomato puree

½ cup organic honey

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 bay leaves

½ teaspoon each: ground turmeric and cumin

¼ teaspoon each: black pepper and salt (Celtic or sea)

Soak the beans overnight. Drain and rinse under cold water. Add the beans to a large pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for up to 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees

Drain the beans and place them in a large casserole dish, in a small skillet, heat the oil or ghee and sauté the onions and garlic until browned, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the onions and garlic to the beans and combine. With the lid on, bake the beans for 3 hours, stirring frequently. Check the moisture level and water if needed. After 3 ½ hours, remove the cover and bake for another 30 minutes.

Yield: 1 quart – approximately 8 servings

Note: the insoluble fiber in baked beans is not fully digested but moves into the large intestine or colon, where friendly bacteria thrive on it to produce beneficial B-complex vitamins, enzymes, and short-chain fatty acids.

Why Cholesterol Matters… and Why it Doesn’t

When you saw the title of this article, did you do a double take? I wouldn’t blame you a bit.

For over a decade I’ve been calling “naked emperor” (a nicer way to say “B…s…t”) on the cholesterol establishment, an industry worth well over 31 billion dollars a year (but who’s counting) the sole purpose of which seems to be perpetuating the myth that cholesterol causes heart disease, while at the same time promoting the message that statin drugs should be in the water supply.

(I exaggerate, but not by much.)

In 2012, cardiologist Stephen Sinatra and I published a book (The Great Cholesterol Myth) in which we argued that cholesterol was a poor predictor of heart disease, was certainly not the cause of heart disease, and that trying to lower your risk for heart disease by lowering your cholesterol was like trying to lower your risk for obesity by taking the lettuce off your Big Mac. (I actually said that on the Dr. Oz show and I still smile when I think of it!)

So what in the world do I mean when I now say, “cholesterol matters”?

Glad you asked.

The other day I was getting ready to appear on the morning show on WHN in Chicago. The segment was on healthy oils and fats, and I was setting up my prop table with samples of good oils and bad oils. On the table was a bottle of crummy generic vegetable oil—which I brought along as an example of what not to cook with. The label on this junk food oil proudly proclaimed “NO CHOLESTEROL”.

One of the crew stopped by my table, picked up the bottle, and snorted. “No cholesterol, huh?” he said. “Must taste like crap”.

OK, where do we begin?

Cholesterol matters, not as a blood test, but as a cultural meme. We are so deeply, profoundly entrenched in the myth that cholesterol is “bad”, that my poor clueless crew member assumed that anything that didn’t have this “bad” thing in it must be some kind of horrible tasting “health food”. (Cholesterol, by the way, is tasteless.) We cling to the notion that lowering the Satanic Molecule will make us healthy, lowering our risk for cardiovascular disease and early death.

None of it is true.

The point here isn’t to reargue why it isn’t true. Trust me on this for now—it’s not.

But huge masses of people continue to believe it is, and that’s why it matters. Those same people also believe that saturated fat is bad and dangerous. Why? Altogether now, class: Because saturated fat raises cholesterol. Which, as we all know, causes heart disease.

See where I’m going with this?

Continuing to believe that saturated fat causes heart disease, cholesterol clogs your arteries, and statin drugs are the 21st century’s version of penicillin—costs all of us. The belief in the dangers of cholesterol allow doctors to continue to practice medicine as a paint-by-numbers affair, allows them to continue treating numbers rather than patients, blood tests rather than diseases, and symptoms rather than causes.

Your cholesterol is 240? Get out the script pad. Never mind the fact that statin drugs have only been shown to be beneficial (and modestly so at that) in middle aged men with previous heart disease. Never mind that there’s not a single research study showing a single woman’s life has ever been extended by statin drugs. Never mind that research shows that higher cholesterol is protective in older people. Never mind that we’re measuring cholesterol with old-fashioned, out-of-date tests. Never mind that several major studies published in august, conservative journals like the Annals of Internal Medicine and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition  have exonerated saturated fat of any involvement in heart disease.

And never mind that the side-effect profile of statin drugs includes memory loss, muscle pain, fatigue, and loss of libido. (Is it really a coincidence that we have an epidemic of “erectile dysfunction” in middle-aged men precisely when millions of those same men are on statin drugs? Maybe it is. But it doesn’t pass the smell test.)

So cholesterol matters. To many people.

And therein lies the problem.

I believe we’ve been on the wrong track in our attempts to extend life by lowering this critical, vital molecule.

I believe that the dietary recommendations of the last forty years have been built on a house of cards that crumbled when saturated fat was found “not guilty”.

And I believe that the true promoters of heart disease—and practically every other degenerative disease you don’t want to get—are inflammation, stress, and oxidation. By obsessively focusing on cholesterol, we’ve taken our collective eyes off the things that really matter when it comes to health.

I also believe that sugar—not fat—has always been the culprit in the modern diet.

Now getting that message out there—in a sea of well-funded, establishment attempts by virtually every major health organization and pharmaceutical company—has not been easy

But we’ve been doing it.

More and more doctors are getting on board, more and more books are being written detailing how we got on the wrong path, and more and more research is emerging to support the position that we’ve been wildly, bone-headedly wrong about fat and cholesterol. And that research is getting harder and harder to ignore or explain away.

But cholesterol still matters because so many people think it does.

Which means people like me—and Dr. Sinatra, Dr. William Davis, Dr. David Perlmutter, Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, Dr. Chris Masterjohn, Chris Kresser, many of our friends in the Paleo movement, and so many others to numerous to mention—have our work cut out for us.

Let the games begin!

The Three Worst Exercise Mistakes

The following is a guest blog post by Dr. Jade Teta, one of my top go-to guys for exercise.

I am going to tell you three very real stories from my clinical experience.

Story 1:  The Marathoner

She entered one of those marathon running training programs.  The reason?  She wanted to lose weight.  She ran almost every day for 12 weeks slowly adding time to her runs until she was doing 60 to 90 minute runs 6 days per week.

How did it work?  She gained about 6 pounds.

Story 2:  The Crossfitter.

She signed up for a program called Crossfit hoping she would lose weight and tone up.  She did intense workouts 5 days a week.  These included weight lifting exercises, cardio based calisthenics, and other exercise based skills.  She did it for a year before coming to me. Her complaint. She did not lose a single pound despite exercising more than she ever had her entire life.

Story 2:  The Gym Rat

He was in the gym every single day.  He would do a Body Pump class three times per week. He did 30 minutes of cardio 3 times per week.  He played tennis and did yoga on the weekends.  Despite all this work he said he was 5 pounds heavier and 2% greater body fat 5 years after beginning this regime.

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The 3 big exercise mistakes.

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It took me many years to figure out what so many people in the same situation as those above were doing wrong.  And it was a hard won lesson. A lesson I refused to believe until I saw it play out again and again with individual after individual.

What made it so hard to learn this lesson is that it was not a universal phenomenon. There were certainly many others who did the same types of workout regimes who seemed to get results from them.  Granted, most of these people were guys in their teens, twenties and thirties.

So what were these people doing wrong. Three things actually:

• Exercising too long

• Exercising too hard

• Exercising too frequently

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Stress can keep you fat and make you fat

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Exercising is a type of stress.  When just the right amount is done it is a positive stress.  Something physiologists call “eustress.”  This type of stress causes favorable adaptations in the body and usually leads to a healthier, more fit, leaner and functional body.

Exercise that is overdone in any of the three ways above is a negative stress. And we now know that this type of stress can keep you fat or make you fat.  And I want to explain exactly why so you can stop making this same mistake.

Stress can keep you fat or make you fat for 3 reasons:

• It makes you hungry

• It makes you crave

• It turns on your fat storing physiology

When you exercise for too long, too hard or too often you go past the tipping point of exercise benefits and several biochemical changes occur that make it difficult for you to lose fat.

Remember, to lose weight you need two things: 1) a calorie deficit and 2) hormonal balance.

If you achieve a calorie deficit but your hormonal system is not balanced you will be far more likely to lose muscle but not fat.  But that is unlikely to happen because hormonal imbalance is almost always associated with cravings for and consumption of highly palatable calorie dense foods.

When stress hormones rise as a result of exercise that is too long, too hard or too frequent hunger hormones like ghrelin and leptin change in a way that make you hungry all the time.

This same stress physiology causes the motivation centers in the brain (areas of the brain that keep you goal focused and on task) to shut down. At the same time, they turn on the reward centers of the brain.  These are the areas of the brain that make you seek out short-term pleasure.  In other words, if there is a Cheesecake factory next to your gym, exercise that is too long, too intense and too frequent makes you more likely to hit the cake bar than the weight room.

The final nail in the coffin comes from a hormone called neuropeptide Y or just NPY.  Under normal short-term stress NPY is suppressed because cortisol is controlled. But under chronic stress your nervous system releases more NPY. My other name for NPY is the NEW PUFFY YOU hormone………because it causes immature fat cells to grow into full-grown puffy fat cells.

This is why stress, any type of stress and even stress of too much exercise, can make you fat or at least keep you that way.

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The Fix

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So how do you fix this issue?  Well, the exercise junky in you is not going to like this.  I have found that many people wear the amount of exercise they do like a badge of honor. But nothing could be sillier. It is just like those people you hear bragging about not needing but 4 hours of sleep………and then when they walk away you are saying to yourself, “No wonder they look 10 years older than they actually are!”

Why the hell would you want to keep doing all that exercise if you are not getting results from it?

The fix is to cut back on the duration, intensity and frequency of your exercise. In each of the above cases, after much convincing and cajoling, I moved each person to a workout program that was no more than 3 to 4 days per week (plus plenty of walking and relaxation activities) and they ALL started losing weight.  EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!!

I have rarely seen this fail. It is so successful in fact I barely have to do an intake on these people any more. And yes, it even happens with my own Metabolic Effect workout.  I remember one client looking at me in shock when I told them you are not going to get great results from doing Metabolic Effect workouts 6 days a week.  They almost fell out of their chair.

If you want results from exercise you need to master the art of exercise efficiency, doing the amount to get the result you want and no more.

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Enter Metabolic Aftershock

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When I put together the Metabolic Aftershock program many people asked me what type of program it was. I told them it is a workout program, but at its core it is really a metabolic restoration program.

What I meant by that is that it is a workout and diet program designed to get the exercising tipping point just right.  You train hard a few times per week.  You walk.  You eat the right things at the right times and you turn negative exercise stress into positive eustress fat burning exercise.

That is how it works…one 9-week cycle of this program has already taken hundreds of people who were stuck in a weight loss plateau, or heading in the wrong direction, and started stripping the fat off of their bodies.

And the program was specifically designed for the high stress, time crunched, convenience minded person.  The workout uses only body weight, takes only 15 minutes and is only done 3 times per week. It can be done by all fitness levels and physical abilities. And it works like you would not believe.

I’d love for you to try it.  And just to give you a little extra incentive, the program comes with a 100% money back guarantee.  If you’re not satisfied just return it within 30 days to get your money back…

To find out more about my program, Metabolic Aftershock, click here

My #1 Exercise Tip: Get a Workout Buddy!

The following is a guest blog post by Lara Sebastian, professional dancer and fitness junkie.

Fitness has always been a huge part of my life. Ever since I was young I have been involved in some type of group activity from gymnastics to yoga, ballet to rock climbing, you name it, I have done it! I feel that being a part of a team, class or organized group is the best way to enjoy exercise because you can help to motivate each other and there is always an opportunity to make a new friend!

If you are social like me and are looking for motivation to get your exercise program in gear, I highly encourage you to exercise with a partner. This could be your boy/girlfriend, sister, mother, friend, co-worker… anyone who shares the common interest in health and well-being. I do best when I have someone to push me (especially on days when I don’t have self-motivation). Healthy competition between friends is great and will give you more incentive!

Lara as a teenager with Source Dance Company under the direction of Joanne Pesusich. 2008

Lara as a professional dancer performing in the music video “Automatic” by Danny Fernandes. 2010

 

 

 

 

 

Lara Sebastian is a Canadian professional dancer and fitness junkie. She loves health and exercise – be it in the form of swimming, cycling, hiking or dancing. She also believes diet is a lifestyle, not a fad and she loves spreading her love and knowledge to her followers and friends!

Follow Lara on Vine: https://vine.co/Lara.Sebastian

Follow Lara on Instagram: https://instagram.com/larasebastian

Follow Lara on Twitter: https://twitter.com/larasebastian

My Video Interview With Jade Teta

If you’ve always wondered why you weren’t getting the most out of your exercise program, maybe it’s because you’ve been exercising wrong. Watch my fascinating 15-minute interview with Dr. Jade Teta, one of my top go-to guys for exercise. Dr. Teta designed the revolutionary new Metabolic Aftershock exercise program that’s knocking the exercise world on its socks.

Check out Jade Teta’s revolutionary exercise program Metabolic Aftershock

My #1 Healthy Recipe: Chicken Orange and Pomegranate Salad

The Following is a guest blog post by Sharna Burgess, professional dancer, choreographer and troupe member of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.

Aussie-born dancer and choreographer,  Sharna Burgess is well known as a professional partner and troupe member on the ABC hit series, Dancing With The Stars.  As you can imagine, exercise is an important part of Sharna’s life, “I train the most when I am in the middle of the Dancing With The Stars season.  During this time, I am in the dance studio every day so I end up working out 7 days a week.”

To avoid diet and exercise burnout, Sharna advocates eating healthy well-balanced meals, “You don’t have to eat boring and bland meals to keep slim and trim.  There are many recipes that taste delicious and keep you on the right track.”

The former Australian National Ballroom Dance Champion and former Broadway star of   Burn The Floor gives us one of her favorite recipes for Chicken Orange and Pomegranate Salad!

 

Chicken Orange and Pomegranate Salad

Serves 4

4 large oranges, peeled and thinly sliced

5 tbsp of olive oil juice from ¼ lemon

a handful of coriander, chopped

7 ½ ounces pomegranate seeds

4 skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips

Freshly ground black pepper

Place the orange slices in a large mixing bowl.  Add 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, plus the lemon juice, coriander and pomegranate seeds.  Toss well to combine and set aside to marinate while you cook the chicken.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a non-stick grill pan and sear the chicken over high heat for about 3 minutes on each side, or until cooked through.  Turn off the heat and set aside to rest for a few minutes.

To serve, divide the salad between 4 serving plates, top with the warm chicken slices and finish with a few grinds of black pepper.

 

Follow Sharna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SharnaBurgess

Follow Sharna on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharnaburgess

Visit Sharna’s Website: www.SharnaBurgess.com

Exercise: The News You Don’t Want To Hear

My mentor, the late great nutritionist Robert Crayhon, used to say this: “The two great dangers with nutrition are thinking it does everything, and thinking it does nothing”.

The same can be said of exercise.

This article is about exercise. And about weight loss. And about the relationship between the two.

Which, sad to say, is probably a very different relationship than you might think.

Now before we get started, a disclaimer. I exercise regularly. I think you should too, no matter who you are. I think exercise is the greatest anti-aging activity on the planet. And the data are clear: exercise can help with depression, lower the risk for heart disease and cancer, reduce the risk and complications of diabetes. It can even grow new brain cells.

What it can’t do is cause you to lose weight—at least not if you do exercise in the traditional way.

(I told you this was news you didn’t want to hear.)

For every person who managed to make the annual weight loss issue of People magazine, for every healthy guy smilingly holding up an old pair of pants twice the size of Cleveland, for every 100-pound lighter winner of “the Biggest Loser”, there are thousands more who lose, regain, lose, regain, give up and essentially look the same year in and year out. If exercising the traditional way could produce weight loss, we’d be a whole lot skinnier as a nation and those “success” stories would be far more common.

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association followed the exercise habits of over 34,000 women and concluded that it took about an hour a day of moderate (3mph walking) exercising to maintain weight. This research confirms the findings of the National Weight Control Registry which reports that 90% of people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off exercise on average for an hour a day.

Now that sounds like a lot. But remember that nearly all of this research focuses on moderate intensity exercise like walking. And walking is fine—for all the health benefits mentioned above—but it’s pretty inefficient for weight loss.

A much better and more efficient way to exercise—and one which research is clearly showing works a lot better—is to do high intensity circuit training. Put the beauty bells down and lift some iron. Shorten your rest periods. If you’re doing “aerobics” do some interval training where you sprint for a while then jog to catch your breath. (This is exactly what programs like Metabolic Aftershock do! )

So here’s the strategy:

One: Revamp your diet, concentrating on carbohydrates. Carbohydrates- particularly sugar, soft drinks and starches like potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, cereals and crackers—drive levels of insulin, your “fat storage” hormone, through the roof, which makes it brutally hard to lose body fat. Eat more protein and fat, get your carbs from vegetables and fruits, and eat less of everything.

Two: Exercise regularly, but exercise smart. Increase the intensity and shorten the time. Circuit and interval training are the modalities that have trainers and exercise physiologists the most excited these days when it comes to both health benefits and fat burning. Pay attention—they’re right! (My current favorite exercise program is Jade Teta’s Metabolic Aftershock.)

Three: Recognize that fitness and six-pack abs aren’t the same thing. Exercise for fitness and for health, and to maintain your gains. But don’t expect your morning walk to create a complete body transformation, especially if you don’t take serious aim at your diet.

Eric Ravussin, professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA and an expert on weight loss put it best: “In general, exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight loss”.

That’s certainly true—if you’re doing exercise in the conventional way.

But with a brilliantly designed, scientifically based, high-intensity interval program like Metabolic Aftershock—which takes just 15 minutes three times a week—it’s a whole different story. Combine that program with a controlled carbohydrate diet like New You in 22, and you’ll be on your way to a body—and a state of health—that you’ll be proud of for the rest of your life.