YourHealthMatters

Pillar# 7 - Restore Healthy Fat Cell Signaling

When we eat too many carbs our insulin will increase production of triglycerides when it can't get all the sugars into our cells. This is the end result of insulin resistance which many of us have, and all adult diabetics and pre-diabetics have. The triglycerides are stored in our fat cells which then swell and we get fatter.

Even though we may try to diet by eating less, take supplements and follow other weight loss practices, often we fail to lose weight. The problem likely is in our fat cells and the signaling system they have with our brain. Fat cells (adipocytes) secrete three hormone signals that the brain can interpret to determine how much fat we have stored. When working properly these three - leptin, adiponectin, and glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase - will rise with increasing fat and the brain will respond appropriately to prevent us from making more fat.

Leptin is supposed to signal the brain when enough food has been consumed and shuts down appetite. It then signals the fat cells holding all those triglycerides stores to burn off the fat. But the leptin receptors on cells become resistant to leptin just as the insulin receptors become resistant to insulin. This happens when we eat too many pro-inflammatory foods on a daily basis. Dr. Galland published "The Fat Resistance Diet" a few years ago and it contains the foods that turn off this inflammatory response and increase leptin sensitivity. I have recommended this diet to many people and seen weight loss occur when they follow it. It is easy to follow, based on very healthy recipes that are easy to prepare and the tastes are awesome! I was able to purchase every food and spice in this diet right here in Liberal, KS. I highly suggest you purchase this book and follow it when you are on a weight loss program. It can also help any inflammaory disease such as arthritis, asthma, allergy and polycystic ovary syndrome. Sugar craving is markedly reduced on this diet. The new supplement, Irvingia gabonensis, also improves leptin receptor sensitivity on fat cells in addition to this diet.

Adiponectin is increased when you have more fat cells and actually helps protect your arteries from plaque damage and the increased adiponectin also improver insulin sensitivity. Irvinigia gabonensis increases adiponectin levels in the blood.

Glycerol-3-phopsphate dehydrogenase (G3PD) increases the conversion of blood sugar into stored triglycerides and must be decreased in amount and activity to slow your building of fat. This enzyme is inhibited by Irvingia.

These three hormones must be addressed in any weight reduction program you begin. I now have in the office a new supplement containing Irvingia gabonensis. In a double-blind study using this Irvingia gabonensis, over 6 months use with no dietary restriction, resulted in an average weight loss of 24 pounds in the participants.

drBob

Pillar # 6 - Restore Resting Energy Expenditure Rate

Wouldn't it great if we couldn't just sit around and burn fat? But we can't without help. One of the important considerations in weight reduction is how to increase our resting fat burn. There have been countless supplements sold as thermogenic, meaning they increase the metabolic rate of the body tissue. Most don't work.

A number of natural agents have shown the ability to increase resting metabolic rate. Fucoxanthin and pomegranate oil are two. Others include green tea extract when taken in large doses, the fish oils DHA and EPA, CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) and ginger extracts. Virgin coconut oil contains oils that also increase metabolic rate when consumed daily. These various agents should be tried to see if they help you increase your metabolism. Although there is evidence they work, they do not work well unless you follow the other steps in this series.

Of course, muscle building resistance training also provides an increase in metabolic rate. There is controversy about whether this increased metabolism lasts after the exercise is finished. Most importantly if you eat soon after exercise, which many people do, those calories may quickly make fat to replace what you just burned off. It may take 30 minutes to burn off 400 calories, but only a few minutes to consume this in fast food or pop.

My favorite exercise system for burning fat reliably with short periods of daily interval training is still Dr. Sear's PACE system which you can read about here and purchase as an eBook or a DVD.

drBob

PS - 4 pillars to go before I put this all together and introduce a plan based on these principles. Stay tuned....

9 Pillars of Successful Weight Loss - #5

The brain's neurotransmitters play a key role in whether you feel hungry or satisfied. One key neurotransmitter in this is serotonin and there are a couple of more as well, known as catecholamines. Serotonin deficiency is associated with carbohydrate binging (sugars and  starches). When you eat carbohydrates the brain will release serotonin momentarily although carbs do not directly produce serotonin. This reaction to carb binging can lead to a very addictive dependence on more and more carbs just to feel good.
Serotonin is produced from 5HTP in the brain, which is produced from tryptophan, an essential amino acid found mainly in grass-fed beef. Who still eats grass-fed or range-fed beef in this country?? Grass contains lots of tryptophan, corn contains none.
As we build more unnecessary fat stores, this excess fat releases inflammatory chemicals which trigger the breakdown of tryptophan in our bodies. This of course reduces the amount of serotonin the brain has available. One of the my favorite diet books is called The Fat Resistance Diet. It lays out a way of eating that minimizes inflammation in the body caused by the wrong diet. This book is high on my list of recommended ways to eat and I have seen major weight loss in my patients closely following this approach.
Research shows that taking 5HTP or tryptophan supplements before meals can reduce carb binging and appetite. In my practice I use a supplement containing both 5HTP and the amino acids that raise catecholamines in the body to help reduce appetite. The natural supplement is taken before at least two meals each day as part of an overall approach to reducing appetite.

drBob

Pillar # 4 - Effective Exercise

Most overweight people starting to lose weight suffer from fatigue and can't exercise. I explain to them that a calorie has two places to go in the body. You want your calories to supply energy to your cells and get into the cells through the action of insulin. But, if you are eating too many carbs and have resistance to the insulin (Pillar #1), then too many carb calories are shunted to triglycerides and stored as fat. This leaves you tired chronically, chronically hungry and overeating. When you begin to reduce your intake of carbs, and get your insulin working again to move the calories into the cells, then your energy will actually rise despite eating less carbohydrates. Then exercise is possible. People will often say to me they can't understand why eating less and losing weight actually happens this way. I hope understand this now.

Exercise will burn fat to make more muscle and will also make your muscles  more sensitive to insulin, helping you use carbohydrates properly. Regular exercise also will increase testosterone levels and can improve endorphin levels in the brain. This neurotransmitter helps you cope with stress and pain and increase your good feelings.

But what exercise? Aerobics does not burn fat fast enough for the time invested in my experience. I recommend Dr. Sear's PACE system as one of the few proven methods of burning fat with exercise using only 20 minutes or less per day. His eBook on the PACE system is available for purchase and download here. He also now has a DVD showing the system on this page
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I often find people having problems scheduling their exercise into their daily routine.  One suggestion I have is to look at your day's routine and find a time when you are always doing the same things in a row, be that on arising in the morning or after work or whenever. If you have a set routine that you follow at the same time every day, this may be the easiest time to insert one more step, namely exercise. With Dr. Sears' PACE taking only 15-20 minutes, it should be easier to follow his program daily than going for a walk for an hour.

drBob

Pillar # 3 - Control Carbohydrate Absorption

We often eat too many carbs and usually they are absorbed too quickly. This spike in blood sugar level causes a surge in insulin output and can cause fat to be laid down just where you don't want it. Continual use of too many carbs can be very detrimental to weight loss. However it is possible to slow down the absorption of sugar by using fiber in your diet. Numerous studies confirm this connection between fiber and slower uptake of sugar and health benefits. Beta-glucan is a fiber that markedly slows carbohydrate absorption and also gives you a feeling of fullness as it swells in your stomach. Taking 5 grams of beta-glucan fiber before each meal will level out the spikes in blood sugar and therefore keep insulin levels lower. Another fiber to consider is glucomannan, which if taken before each meal can also blunt the glucose-insulin spikes that occur with too many carbs in your meal.

Then there are ways to reduce carbohydrate breakdown and absorption in your gut. Simple carbohydrate sugars are broken down using an enzyme called alpha-glucosidase. This can be blocked by a drug called acarbose taken before each meal. Complex carbohydrates such as starches are broken down with an enzyme called alpha-amylase. This enzyme is found in an extract of white kidney bean.

It is very important to know how many carbs you eat so I often have patients record their carb foods and calculate the total grams of carbs they eat each day. The numbers can be much higher than you would think.  Excess carb intake will increase your fat. Last year a major study compared low carb dieting with calorie restriction with the Mediterranean diet for effective weight loss. Do I have to tell you which diet won hands-down? Finally the late Dr. Atkins was vindicated.

Both beta-glucan and white bean extract are in the new product for weight control that I am leading up to announcing in this series. Stay tuned.....

drBob

9 Pillars of Successful Weight Loss - #2

The second pillar of successful weight loss is to know your hormone levels This is a very important aspect of weight management and metabolism. We don't know enough about this but we know some hormones that affect it, namely thyroid, DHEA, testosterone and estrogen.

Let's start with women. It is important to know their blood levels of all these hormones, especially if they are in menopausal age range. When estrogen levels drop in menopause, this leads to fat deposition especially around the belly. Aging women also often have thyroid problems, with low free T3 levels definitely slowing metabolism.  I have seen many women of all ages with thyroid problems associated with weight gain. However, thyroid replacement by itself is not enough to restart the metabolism and cause weight loss. Prolonged stress in your life may reduce your thyroid function also.

In men we need to know their testosterone levels because low levels affects their ability to build muscle instead of fat. Also as men age they may produce more estrogen from their fat cells using aromatase. Blockers for aromatase can reduce estrogen and enhance the positive benefits from testosterone.

In both sexes DHEA can be low and this slows metabolism and promotes fat storage. DHEA can be easily measured in your blood and then easily adjusted with supplements. There are a number of studies showing DHEA supplementation can help fat metabolism and weight. Do not take DHEA blindly without blood testing first.

I use an infrared fat measuring device in my office to assess body fat as this can tell you how much fat you must lose to regain youthful healthy fat levels. Other fat measuring devices are not as accurate as this technique.

drBob

Wrong Ways to Diet!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31329422/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

There are many ways to safely control your weight and there increasing numbers of wrong ways. I am hearing more patients ask me about detox diets, cleansing diets and fasting. These 3 approaches I would not recommend. Firstly they teach you nothing about longterm dietary changes you must learn to make for success. Second, they do nothing to help your mindset about food and health. Third, taken to the extremes they often are, they can be dangerous. I remember the so-called protein sparing fast many years ago and I remember how sick some of my patients became on this vile-tasting liquid protein.

Here is an MSNBC article on problems with these approaches, focusing on Hollywood people using them for perhaps the wrongs reasons.

As I wrote about recently your beliefs about food, health and weight are crucial to good health. Steve Seibold's excellent eBook "Get Tough or Die Fat" is now released in paperback form also. You can order it here and I highly recommend you do and start changing your self-destructive beliefs about food and weight.

And frankly, one of the most successful weight loss programs is still Weight Watchers, where you pay regularly and show up regularly for weigh-ins and have a group to support you and compete with.

drBob

Another Side to Weight Control

One of my  patients sent this email this week highlighting another aspect of weight loss - the spiritual side. He has used this free online course with the close followup it includes and he says he lost 65 pounds this year with its help.. This is an impressive result and I am very happy to recommend this course to you for consideration. The link is near the end of his email. I would welcome other readers to submit their success stories with their weight and health and what they used.

drBob

"I know that there are, without a doubt, many physical, as well as mental aspects to weight loss. How often is another aspect of weight loss, the spiritual, considered? In January, I ran across a series of Bible-based studies that have been literally changed my life. I am a Christian and have the privilege of serving as a pastor. That being said, I am very cynical and skeptical of most things labeled "Christian" these days. I've been around long enough to understand that books, products, etc. are marketed and labeled "Christian" or "Bible-Based", just like everything else competing for a buck. The study I've found and gone through is entitled, "The Lord's Table". It is free, in that there is no charge to go through the course, and also free from the hype that comes with most programs or schemes.

Personally, I have lost 65 lbs. since January of this year. That is all well and good, but the best benefit I have derived is from a renewed and deeper relationship with my Creator, my wife, as well as the other relationships in my life. In addition, my outlook towards food has completely changed. I know see it as a gift that the Lord has provided to sustain and enrich my life...not as medication to get over a bad day or difficult times. If I wouldn't have lost one pound, I believe I would have benefited greatly from going through this study.

The study is a series of 60 lessons completed online. A mentor who has gone through the course and training is assigned. Their job is to pray for, encourage and support as one goes through the course. I found my mentor to be a great source of encouragement and strength. The answers from each lesson are emailed to your mentor and also to one other person you select to be a support during the course.

Here is the link to the course: http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/courses/lords-table/day1/
The web site also offers many different courses and studies for substance abuse, sexual addiction, etc.

God Bless,
Eric Mason
Hugoton, KS

9 Pillars of Successful Weight Loss - #1

I highlighted an article from Life Extension Foundation recently and promised to write more details. Here is the first pillar - Restore Insulin Sensitivity. Insulin resistance is a growing problem in North America and leads to diabetes if not controlled, increased weight, heart disease and hormonal disturbances such as polycystic ovary syndrome.

Insulin is the trigger molecule that opens cells to permit carbs to enter and be burned for energy. With increasing carb intake and poor exercise the cells become resistant to this effect and then insulin levels must rise to get the carbs into your cells. If the resistance becomes severe then the insulin becomes a fat storage signal and you make more and more fat. Since your energy from food is being stored this way, you feel tired and usually more hungry and thus eat more, keeping the destructive fat storage cycle continuing.

Here are some other issues involved with insulin sensitivity. Last year the Mayo School of Medicine proved which tissue first develops insulin resistance. Guess which tissue and saying fat is wrong.

Their excellent research showed that muscle cells are the first to become resistant to insulin. What they didn't say but is widely known, is that exercise of muscles restores insulin sensitivity. The proper exercise is muscle building and resistance training, not just aerobics. I highly recommend Dr. Al Sears' PACE system which you can download here as an info-packed eBook or here as a DVD.

Excess carb intake is the villain with inadequate exercise. I routinely have patients record and count carb intakes, usually with surprising results. The highest carb intake I have seen in someone was over 700 gms per day. This person was markedy obese. Average counts in obese people are 250-350 gms per day. One gm of carbs is worth about 5 calories. Do the math.

Other factors that can help insulin sensitivity are:
1. Chromium with each meal. Chromium is the mineral that makes insulin work best at the cellular level. Excess carb intakes robs our body of its precious chromium stores.
2. Vanadium - you will see this mineral recommended for insulin issues. There are some issues with getting too much and I don't suggest this mineral until chromium is tried first.
3. Slowing/blocking absorption of carbs in the gut. There have some supplments that do thus by blocking the enzyme that breaks down carbohyrates into the simple sugars needed for absorption.
4. Metformin - a very old inexpensive diabetic drug that improves insulin sensitivty. Last year the FDA authorized this drug to be used in pre-diabetic patients (anyone with a fasting sugar between 95-125)
5. Get a blood test for Vitamin D3 and take enough extra D3 to keep your blood level above 50 ng/ml. Deficiency of this vitamin is so common now that I only find 2-3 people per year with adequate levels. Sunbathing does not usually make enough Vitamin D for us to absorb before we sweat it off or towel it off.

This is an essential issue to address if you want to attain a lifelong healthy weight. Stay tuned for the other 8 pillars....

drBob

Die Fat or Get Tough! - book review

One of the most important aspects to successful weight loss and then maintaining your new healthy weight is your mental attitude and beliefs about weight loss. I have asked many patients after they lose weight about their beliefs and thinking about weight loss. Few can easily speak about what changed in their thinking to achieve their goal. It is obvious to me that those who keep weight off for long periods have changed their views  of how they regard food, exercise, and their health.

Now comes a book which records the changes in thinking for its author as he finally achieved a healthy weight. This is a downloadable eBook by Steve Siebold packed with over 200 pages of content. Each change in thinking has 2 pages. The first page compares the author's new thinking to the old thinking while obese. The second page then gives some ideas for helping you adopt this new belief. Steve & his wife offer workshops on Mental Toughness and losing weight and are very experienced in this field.

I highly recommend this eBook to anyone pursuing permanent control of their weight. See how many of these beliefs you still have that have blocked your successful weight control.

Click here to purchase and download online . 

drBob