Metabolic Syndrome in Brief

October 27th, 2008 |


Metabolic Syndrome in Brief

Metabolic syndrome  a group of risk factors linked to overweight and obesity that increase your probability for heart disease and other health problems such as diabetes and stroke. The term “metabolic” refers to the biochemical processes involved in the body’s normal functioning. Risk factors are behaviors or conditions that greatly increase your chance of getting a disease. In this article, “heart disease” refers to coronary heart disease.

The 5 conditions presented below are metabolic risk factors for coronary heart disease. A person can easily develop any one of these risk factors by itself, but they tend to happen together. Metabolic syndrome is diagnosed when a person has at least three of these dreaded heart disease risk factors:

  • A larger waistline. This is also called abdominal obesity or “having an apple shape.” Excess fat in the abdominal area is a greater risk factor for heart disease than excess fat in other parts of the body, such as on the hips.
  • A high triglyceride level in the blood (or you’re on medicine to treat high triglycerides). Triglycerides are a  fat  in the blood.
  • A low level of HDL cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) in the blood (or you’re on medicine to treat low HDL). HDL is considered “good” cholesterol because it lessens your chances of heart disease. Low levels of HDL increase your chances of heart disease.
  • Above normal blood pressure (or you’re on medicine to treat high blood pressure). Your blood pressure is recorded as two numbers, usually written one on top of or before the other, such as 120/80. The top or first number, called the systolic blood pressure, measures the pressure in the bloodstream when your ticker beats. The bottom or second number, called the diastolic blood pressure, measures the pressure in your blood stream between heart beats when the heart is in a relaxed state.
  • High normal fasting blood sugar (glucose) (or you’re on medicine to treat high blood sugar). Even mildly high blood sugar can be an early warning sign of diabetes.

The more of these risk factors you have, the larger your chance of developing heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. In general, a person with metabolic syndrome is twice as likely to develop heart disease and five times as likely to develop diabetes as someone without Metabolic Syndrome.

Other risk factors aside from those of the metabolic syndrome also increase your risk for heart disease. A high level of LDL cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol; considered “bad” cholesterol) and smoking, for example, are key risk factors for heart disease, but they aren’t components of metabolic syndrome. Even a single risk factor raises your risk for heart disease, and every risk factor should be lowered to reduce the risk.

The chance of developing metabolic syndrome is closely linked to being overweight or obese and to a lack of physical activity. Another cause is insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is a condition in which the body can’t use its insulin properly, efficiently. Insulin is a hormone the body uses to help convert blood sugar into energy. Insulin resistance can lead to high blood sugar levels and is closely linked with being overweight or obese.

Genetics (ethnicity and family history) and advanced age are other important underlying causes of metabolic syndrome.

For more try wikipedia on Metabolic Syndrome.

Back soon … Liz Lowry

  .

 Mail this post

Technorati Tags: , ,

Pay Attention When You Eat

October 27th, 2008 |

PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU EAT

Recently, at a major University researchers asked a group of people a elemenatry question: "How do you know when you’re through eating dinner?"

The answer might seem clear. Everyone pushes the plate away when they feel full, right? The answer is, no. The leanest people do, maybe. That, according to the researchers, but people who are overweight rely more on other clues what are known as "external cues." People packing a few (or many)extra pounds tend to stop eating at the time…

  • They have made sure their plates are clean.
  • Everyone in their dining group is finished eating.
  • The entertainment on TV  they’re watching is over.

Sadly, these cues have nothing to do with how they feel physically. "People’s brains are often out of touch with their bodies," to quote C. Peter Herman, Ph.D., a University expert on appetite control. "And when eating becomes mindless, overeating becomes routine."

The key  in all of this appears to be a region of your brain called the left posterior amygdala, or LPA. This part monitors the amount of food in your stomach during a meal. Stuff your gut to a comfortable level, and the LPA tells your brain to drop the fork. Problem is, it delivers that information too slowly. "Many men consume calories faster than their bodies can say, ‘Stop!’" explains Herman. "So they look to external cues to guide their consumption."

The answer is this: Tune in to your stomach. Tune into your eating. for some this has shown to cut their caloric consumption by half. Some tricks to use to do just that:

  • always sit for a meal no matter how small never stand to eat
  • keep a food diary this is the best thing to keep from underestimating your caloric intake
  • taste your food savor every bite besides being good for weight loss it makes the food so much better
  • savoring your food should facilitate slowing down and vice versa make this conscious put the fork down take a mindful breathe
  • be careful not to pick at food that you did not put on your plate when deciding how much to eat if you didn’t decide to eat it then don’t do it mindlessly because it is there
  • avoid distractions when eating you can’t savor your food and watch a Seinfeld re-run or the Nightly news turn off the boob tube

 Mail this post

Technorati Tags:

A Notice Served On Us by the Material Girl, Madonna

October 25th, 2008 |


  Notice Served On Us by the the Material Girl, Madonna

 

October 25 ‘08

 

"A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want."    — Madonna

 

Many of you won’t be surprised that I am quoting the material girl today in the blog. 

 I admire her spunk and she is a great role model in the area of fitness and weight management for many of us as we enter the middle  years of our lives.  She works very hard at staying in good shape much harder than I advocate for fitness of course but you have to admit she is a winner.

 

The reason I quote her today is to remind you with her words that you must stand up and shout to the world that you demand the space to create the fitness level and the cooperation you need to achieve that in your life. Insist that family, organizations and friends don’t impose on the time that you need to achieve your goals. Insist that they resist  derailing you with all the care for you that they can muster. they must resist sabotaging  you in the pursuit of this important task.  Be gentle but stern and determined in this. In the end the happier, healthier you will be far better for them too.  It’s anything but selfish to want the time and the cooperation you need to free yourself from the pain of fat and the misery of less than optimal fitness.

Back soon..Liz Lowry

 Mail this post

Technorati Tags:

Emotional Eating Part 2

October 23rd, 2008 |

Liz here… 

Emotional Eating part 2

 October  08′ 

A week ago we started a dialogue about Emotional Eating. I asked you to keep a diary specific to the eating that you were about to engage in. I asked you to identify which hunger you were seeking to satiate. If the answer was an emotional hunger you were to note the specific trigger.

 

Before I go any further I want to concede that there is a mountain of literature out there that addresses the issue of emotional eating. Much of this is provided by very smart people who have your best interest at heart. My explanations and solutions are my own. They are what works for me and what works for others whom I have suggested them to.

 

To me the whole thing is not that complicated or doesn’t need to be. You teach yourself to always ask the question before you eat. Emotional or physical? You will know the difference you are not a fool especially in this area(eating) it is an area that is always in your consciousness.

 

NOTE: By the way simple pleasure is a valid reason to eat but not to excess in frequency and most definitely not in volume.

 

Ok what works for me is breathing, yes simple mindful breathing.. Before my head is in the refrigerator  I have asked myself which trigger is sending me there. If the answer is real physical hunger I go and eat mindfully.

 

If it is that I am driven by emotions no matter where I am I  take a half dozen controlled belly breathes deep but not so they would bring attention from others but deep. Fortunately,  I find that these moments of emotionally triggered eating are usually when I am alone so I can really get the most from the breathing. Hold on there’s a little more. If you have the luxury to breathe in through your nose in a slow and a slightly exxagerated way do this. Make yourself very mindful of the sounds of your breath the filling of your lungs the expanding of your belly. In other words give your breathing all of your attention. I assure you that this will break the power of the emotional eating trigger.

 

When I am alone I also indulge sometimes in what a guru I traveled to Southern India with taught me many years ago. He called it the ahhh. meditation. He was a wise and holy fellow he said it was the best meditation for manifesting. You may want to think of it as a moment for creating intentions. The Guru by the way at that time was known as Sri Guruji I believe he is now known here as Sri Siva. Oh yes the meditation, I digress. Simply breathe out mouth open making the ahhhh sound do this until your breathe is fully out now with closed mouth breathe in through your nose, a deep breathe. Do this for as long as you feel inclined to. What I do is think of the positive life I have created and want to continue free from the pain of fat. I see myself trim and fit. Try FatPain for more.

 

I know I was a little long winded today but I shared some things that I know first hand are almost miraculous in effectiveness, easy to do and as free as the air you breathe.

 

Back soon…Liz Lowry

 Mail this post

Technorati Tags: , ,

Emotional Eating Part One

October 16th, 2008 |

 The bullets below are from a list of questions asked to determine your level of Emotional eating. Have a look but if you are an Emotional eater you don’t need this list if you are You Know It. The imprtant lesson is to spot it when it rears it’s fattening haed and deal with it mindfully. Just the same for a reminder of just some of the hundreds of potential emotional eating triggers

  • I feel lonely a lot.
  • When I go to a get together, I tend to put too much food on my plate or hover near the food table.
  • I tend to carry extra fat on my thighs and/or calves.
  • I tend to have extra fat on my lower stomach (below my navel).
  • I would rather have food  than have sex.
  • Whenever I have extra moneyand time, the first thing I buy is food.
  • I have too much fat on my upper abdomen (between the bottom of my ribs and my navel)
  • I have food to procrastinate.
  • I often feel criticized for my weight or eating style.
  • I am a woman or man with large breasts.
  • I eat too much because I’m afraid to hurt someone else’s feelings by saying No to food.
  • Food makes me feel better when I feel sad ,lonely,angry,  hurt.
  • I carry some extra fat on my neck or under my chin.
  • I feel like people never listen to me never hear what I am really saying.
  • I wish that I could be myself much more often.
  • I often feel emotionally numb empty.
  • I haven’t forgiven people who have hurt me in the past and I can’t.
  • I have trouble admitting when I’m wrong about things large and small.
  • I worry about money a lot, all the time in fact.

With the holidays right around the corner I wanted to talk about an old favorite of the Fat is Pain blog, Emotional Eating.

Imagine something I always recommend you imagine you at your goal weight. Your success in maintenance of your hard earned victory over the pain of fat requires you to take control of your tendency to eat responsively to the wrong stimuli. Eating in response to feelings versus real hunger. Some examples of the wrong stimuli to eating often characterized by a certain mindlessness about the eating include

- guilt

- being afraid of a variety of events

-the pain of fat
-anger or rage about past events

-disappointment in yourself, in others, in life, in the congress in God

-a dispute at work or with a family member

- a lover’s quarrel

- loneliness this is a tough one food becomes companion, friend

- boredom

- business challenges

- money troubles

 

You understand the idea the list could go on. You are stuffing yourself due to feelings some from deep inside some triggered by life events. Importantly these feelings have nothing to do with hunger as in a need for physical nourishment. You may have a need for nourishment but not the food kind. So don’t, please don’t feed it with food. Easier to say than do. Before you can be victorious in the skirmishes with emotional stimuli to eating you have to bring to full blown consciousness these triggers. You must get better at knowing what type of hunger you are experiencing.

 

So for the next 10 days every meal you have try to identify the stimuli. Keep a record of this because you will need to see it coming to beat the response. Your heightened awareness will be the key to  your success. Keep a record. We’ll talk soon about what to do when you see a bout of emotional eating coming.For more visit FatPain.com

Additional resources:

The Mayo Clinic

Web MD

 FatPain.com

Strip The Fat

Back soon…Liz Lowry

 Mail this post

Technorati Tags: ,

Eat Sugar for Weight Loss?

October 14th, 2008 |

Most of us that have been trying to strip the pounds for a long time have learned some things about weight loss that we tend to carry around with this.  One of these things that we have learned is that in order for us to lose weight, we need to cut certain things out of our eating regimen.  For some , it is fat and for others, it is carbohydrates but you might be surprised to learn that the truth of the matter is, our body needs both of these things in order to function effectively.  Rather than cutting out sugar from  your diet, why not change the version of sugar that you’re eating?

I believe that this might sound foreign to you but you might be surprised that the sweet stuff is in almost everything that we put in our mouths.  I’m not talking about just the white sugar, the kind that we like to dump into our coffee and onto our food, I’m talking about the so called natural sugars that are carbohydrates and exist in many of the fruits and vegetables that we eat.  It is not a bad thing to eat these and as a matter of fact, eating raw fruits and vegetables can actually help you steadily lose weight if you do so in the right way.

Primarily what you need to do is to make yourself familiar with the0Aglycemic index.  A list of foods that is rated on a scale of 1 to a hundred, the higher the number, the quicker the sugar that is in the food is going to be released into your body.  If you eat high glycemic foods, you’re going to be getting fat for one reason and one reason only.  The sugar that is released into your body from these foods is released so fast that our pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin to take care of it all.  Additional sugar that is not used up by the insulin is stored as fat in order for it to be taken care of at a later time. Sadly as we know too well, that time never comes.

If you begin to change the varieties of foods that you are eating to low glycemic, an amazing thing is going to happen.  First, you’re going to feel full because the food is going to stick around longer with the sugars being released into your system slowly.  Secondly, your pancreas is going to be able to get a break and it is not going to be putting so much insulin in your system that you will feel sluggish.  Therefore not only will you feel better  inside, you will begin to look good on the outside because you will be losing weight very easily and naturally. Further treatment of this  is discussed at http://www.fatpain.com

Even though this may seem like a simplistic way to lose weight, it is one that can easily be used without even trying any type of regimented weight-loss program. Rather than trying diet after diet and failing at all 20 of them, you will be making a small adjustment that will result in healthy weight loss that will last for a lifetime. Some additional resources on the subject of weight control utilizing the Glycemic Index.

The Glycemic Research Institute

Food and Drug Administration

Be well Be Happy Liz Lowry

p.s. here’s what another offers:

GLYCEMIC INDEX AND IT’S EFFECT ON BLOOD SUGAR

I remember dieting in my 20s. 95% of what I ate was fat-free, the rest low-fat. Yet, having carte blanche with the fat-free cookies, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, kept me pretty happy. I would lose weight drastically, without exercising, only to gain it back with interest when I stopped depriving my body of essential fatty acids. In those days my Russian grandmother would say: "Stop eating bread, if you want to lose weight", and I would smugly explain that her take on nutrition needs updating. Looking back, my blood sugar levels must have thought they were dancing the jig with the "Riverdance", the way I made them jump up and down over the years. Whaddaya know, grandma was right!

Turns out, watching the quality of the carbs we eat really affects our blood sugar. When examined from this point, potatoes are worse than pure table sugar. And, healthy amounts of those vital Omega-3 fats are… well, vital. Think back to all the trans fats we happily consumed with the low-fat margarine. The body can’t digest them, so they’re still where we put them - lining the walls of our arteries. Remember puffed rice cakes, the staple of every healthy diet? Deadly for those watching their blood sugar and insulin levels, they pack a whopping GI of like 90… You know, Glycemic Index. Surely by now you’ve heard how GI revolutionized the way we eat, flipping the old food pyramid on its side, if not almost upside down. Let’s compare notes for a minute.

The Glycemic Index  or Teaching blood sugars to slow-dance
Not all carbohydrates are created equally. The GI ranks carbs according to their effect on blood sugar. Low-GI carbs (55* or less) barely send a ripple through our blood sugar and insulin levels. Excessive consumption of high-GI carbs (70* or more) causes a rapid surge in blood sugar, pushing the body to extremes. Low-GI foods drip small controlled doses of glucose into the blood stream over longer periods of time. Choosing mainly low-GI and some medium-GI (56-69*) carbs balances energy levels and prolongs satisfaction between meals. It is the secret to sustainable health and weight loss. For what wikipedia has to say about the Glycemic Index.

Recent studies indicate that the effect of protein and fat on blood sugar is negligible. Looks like one can simply ignore protein and fat in mixed-meal carb calculations. And get this: studies have shown that consuming an alcoholic drink before eating reduces the GI of the meal by approximately 15%. (!)

Control portions, or you’ll dance the jig again
The GI is about the quality, not quantity of carbs. Obviously, size matters, but the food’s GI doesn’t measure portions. It remains the same whether you eat 10 grams or 1000. That’s because for fairness of comparison GI tests use 50 grams of net carbohydrate in each food. You can eat twice as many carbs with a GI of 50 than a GI of 100, and have the same blood sugar response. Scientists have determined the recommended daily glycemic load value (GL) of about 60 to 80 grams for at-risk individuals.

Let’s keep it simple. Eat small, frequent meals consisting of:
whole-grain brown carbs,
lean proteins, omega-3 oils,
fresh fruits and veggies,
milk /soy products with no added sugar,
and an occasional small bite of that delectable dessert.

Remember though, many brown breads are treated with enzymes to soften the crust, which makes the starch more accessible and elevates the GI to over 100. I can’t stress it enough: check the ingredients. Go for the natural products with the word "whole" next to the grain (wheat does not equal whole wheat).

Now that I’m married with children, I no longer obsessively watch my weight, but I’m thinking about my health more often. A word from the wise: don’t go on low-to-no-carb diet: we need those pesky carbs to maintain healthy blood sugar level, energy and muscle mass, unless you’re into fainting and the emaciated look. We know now that the Atkins diet was yet another extreme, and that’s exactly what we are trying to avoid.

*The GI tables with exact values for specific foods are widely available.
About the author: Helena Lofgren is a Web Content Specialist for Innuity, Inc. in Redmond, Washington. Are you ready to improve your health, prolong your life, and satisfy your sweet tooth? Check out Xlear and find more information and products that lower your blood sugar.

By 10x Marketing
Published: 4/10/2007

 Mail this post

Technorati Tags: , ,

Benefits of the Salad and Salmon Diet.

October 8th, 2008 |
 Mail this post

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,