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Welcome to the LanCo Whole Health Group Blog! We started as a few employees at CNH interested in learning more about nutrition and general well-being. Since our first meeting in January of 2011 our membership has increasingly grown within our local company offices as well as to a number of friends and family outside of our area. We invite you to become a member as well!

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24 February 2011

Nutrition - 24 Feb 2011 - Feedback, Tips, and a Workout

Good morning, team!

A fantastic Thursday is among us and many of you have news to share! How did your weigh-in go? I am very anxious to hear of how you are doing and to receive those updated measurements! For anyone who has not taken measurements and sent them to me yet - please do so. I will continue to use them for purposes of tracking your progress (many times you will see a change in the tape rather than the scale - which is a GREAT thing!) as well as to inform you of your current body composition as well as daily caloric needs. This will help define such areas as portion control. So...get them to me when possible. If you do not have a tape, I will leave mine with Greg Beall in Building 43 and he can help you get them recorded - he's a master at it!

There has been a lot of great dialogue in the last couple days about conventional wisdom as well as a couple articles I sent out that contained possible conflicted information. This feedback is EXACTLY what I am asking for from you. So, my thanks to those who have spoken up.

Let's start with Conventional Wisdom.

Conventional wisdom tells us to eat 3 times a day. It tells us that we need 8 hours of unbroken sleep. It tells us that if you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. It tells us cigarettes are bad. Okay - they're right on the last one. :-) Have you ever wondered where "conventional wisdom" came from? Was it something that evolved naturally and became second nature? Or did someone get on the news, in the paper, on the internet and tell you this is the way to do it? Study after study suggest that you should do this - just to be refuted by another study that says just the opposite. So what to believe? I can't help you here. It really is up to you to decide. However, I can say that most conventional wisdom should probably be taken with a grain of sea salt - iodized of course!

Are there days you only feel hungry once or twice that day? Or, maybe you're hungry all day long? How about killing yourself on a treadmill for 60 minutes a day, every day - yet not losing a pound? Do you get your 8 glasses a day - and not have to spend half of it running to the washroom? This "conventional wisdom" seems rather flawed to me. Here's why. When I eat - I eat when I'm hungry. I only eat until I'm full. Some days that's once. Other's it's five times. With all the water in fruits and veggies - especially fresh - well I generally do not ever feel thirsty. Thirst is your bodies mechanism for telling you it needs fluid. So it causes me to ask - why don't I feel thirsty? Answer - my diet is providing me with all of my daily fluid needs. I LIKE to drink coffee and tea. Very rarely do I feel that I NEED to do so. The more fluid you put in, the more your body must then remove - with it water soluble vitamins and minerals. The reason for the SAD (standard American diet) recommendation of 8 glasses a day? A series of studies in the 40's suggested that 1 ml of water was needed per calorie consumed for proper digestion. 2000 calories = 64 ounces of water. Eight 8 ounce glasses. What people forgot was to subtract the amount of water already present in the food they were eating. (And our over abundance of grain consumption - which has almost no water - required supplementation) Did you know that you can die from too much water intake? It's called hyponatremia. And then there's cerebral edema. That sounds fun. So why did everyone start carrying around water bottles and buying Dasani? Cup holders. And marketing. Really. How many of you remember stopping at 7-11 back in the 80's to get a bottle of water. When did Pepsi start selling Dasani? When did they start putting 15 thousand cup holders in cars? Yup - you're getting it now. I still have no idea how parachute pants became popular.

Here's a study on the 8 glasses a day thing.

What this all comes down to is that I only ask you to be open with your thinking. Humans did not go around drinking gallons of water a day - carrying it around with them - for the last 2 million years. Our thirst told us when to drink. We didn't die immediately when it came. We also didn't go around trimming every piece of fat off of the sabre-tooth tiger we just killed. Nah - we ate the whole thing - meat, fat, bones, brain... Yes, a lot of this information is completely opposite of what you've heard over most of your life. Let's explore each topic together and make personal decisions based upon the facts and reasonable deduction - not simply accepting what others have told us. That's why I ask you to keep challenging me. I learn, you learn. We become healthier together.

Our second concern came with the 12 step list from PaNu founder Dr. Harris. At the very bottom of the second page he states that if you like potatoes or rice, eat them. Which is good advice, right? But Mike! You told us not to eat potatoes or grains! Here's the deal - you are right, I did. And he is right too. Eating white potatoes (hash browns, mmm...) is not a bad thing. They do not contain any Neolithic agents (disease causing) so there is not much cause for concern. But for those who are trying to LOSE WEIGHT - they are extremely starchy (non-fiber, polysaccharide = MANY sugars) and thus are carbohydrate heavy resulting in an easy over-consumption of carbs as well as the subsequent blood glucose spike which drives up your insulin level which turns down your Leptin (hunger shut-off) hormone which causes you to continue eating which drives up your blood glucose... In the end, you eat more than you should and end up storing the excess as (anybody remember from yesterday's article?) SATURATED fat. It's a vicious cycle. So yes, every so often white potatoes are fine. A little more often - sweet potatoes (white or orange - Louisiana yams) are a better choice due to the higher fiber (non-digestible) content. Still portion control is key - unless you just ran a marathon, then have your fill!

And the rice? White rice only. Milled and polished to remove the germ and bran (the toxin and anti-nutrient containing components) or true wild rice. No brown rice. And 1/4 cup cooked is 1 block (serving) - just like 1/2 slice bread or 1 cup blueberries or 4 cups broccoli.

Make sense? Let me know if you need more information! I'll be happy to oblige!

Nutrition Tip of the Day: Eat Local. You do far more than just support the local community. You support your health by eating fresher foods, ones that you know where they came from and how they were raised. You keep down such events as transportation and ripening by fumigation. And myriad other benefits. For me, it's the fresh factor. Here's a suggestion - Farmer's Markets. Lancaster County is 68% farmland. There is no excuse for not having access to fresh produce. I drive by at least 10 stands every day on my 10 mile commute to CNH. And my other favorite - Community Supported Agriculture. See Amber Karnes article about CSA's. I am a member of the Buckhill Farms (Lititz) CSA and love it. A big bag of food every week. Always something different. It's fun to have to figure out what to do with what you got! Plus I support my local farmers as well as the food bank when I'm traveling and can't pick it up. It also saves me money. The initial outlay is tough, but I spend at least 50 bucks a week on veggies. Multiply that by 4.3 (weeks in a month) by 5 (months in a normal CSA harvest year) and you get a savings of over 400 bucks. Sorry Giant - I love you too.

Workout of the Day: (Yes, these will not take very long. Buck Conventional Wisdom. Do them at high intensity and you'll get the effect.) Warm-up: 2 rounds of 15 reps - Jumping Jacks, Shoulder stretches, Push-ups (5 reps ea rnd), Samson Stretch (hold 10 secs ea leg), Squat (hold bottom of last rep for 10 secs). Workout - Run 400 m THEN with a countdown of 8 minutes do as many rounds as possible (AMRAP) of - 15 squats and 10 push-ups. THEN run 400m again. If you can't measure distance run 2 minutes each one.

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." - Booker T. Washington

Attached is the article on CSA's. You can find information on the one at Buckhill Farms here. If you know of others in the area please reply all and let the group know where to find them.

Fresher is tastier!

Mike.

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