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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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06 February 2012

Nutrition: Food Intake and Fat, 6 Feb 2012

Happy, Post-Super Bowl Monday! Did you survive the night to make it to work this morning? No matter what team you wanted to win – the question stands, How did you fare with your fare? Did you make good choices or did you choose to cheat because of some arbitrary argument that you won with yourself? I would love for it to be the former, though we all know that it was mostly the latter. Let’s not stress over it. The scale might care however, so get back on track ASAP for your contest – and more importantly, for your health. Pay close attention to how you felt today and through the next 4 or 5 days. If you’re sore, tired, cranky, overly energetic, bloated, gassy, not able to sleep, overly thirsty, or anything similar – note it! Then you can see how these conditions go away and stay away as you get back to whole, healthy eating.

 

This is one form of something called an “elimination diet.” Where you take out the “might be bads” and then after 30 days try them again and see how you feel. Since we started this year, I was using the Whole30 eating plan which eliminated all dairy from my diet. This included the yogurt and cottage cheese that usually made up a portion of my breakfast. After two weeks (my nutrition maturity is slightly advanced of yours, one month of elimination is ideal), I reintroduced the cottage cheese and within a day started to note some negative effects. You probably don’t want to know what, but it was certainly enough to get me to re-evaluate. So I’m pulling the dairy again. And in two weeks I’ll try it in yogurt form. If the symptoms return then I’ll have the culprit! If they don’t then I’ll know yogurt is okay, but cottage cheese is not.

 

This week will mark the fourth week of your nutritional journey. Did you start your journal yet? This is really important! If you have, go back and look through it. See what kind of changes you have made and what are the results you are seeing. Also- it’s the end of a month so plan on taking your second set of photographs and measurements soon. Because many of you will experience decreased inflammation from the elimination of grains and beans your measurements may be more telling than the number on the scale right now. Shoot me a quick email to let me know how you are progressing!

 

Speaking of emails and personal appeals; over the last couple of weeks I have had several conversations with people about their food intake. Some have come from our parenting-age group and a couple have come from our just-out-of-college group too. Mostly I have seen two main issues when we have talked. First, many of you are choosing to NOT EAT ENOUGH. Mostly this is because of conventional wisdom and the old adage that weight loss comes from eating less than you are burning. Excuse me when I say this is bull. So forget it. And start to eat again. If you need some guidance use the MealSimple template that was in the attachment a couple weeks ago or check out this posting from our site 28 Jan 2011:

 

Attached is a document listing the Zone Blocks with a bunch of recipes that have been modified to fit from 2 to 5 blocks. Eat ONE of these recipes and you have your entire meal done – perfectly balanced. There are also a list of one block snacks that can be doubled for 2 block snack times if desired. I’m including the unfavorable carbs list as well since I know many of you will want some pasta or bread. With this, you must be real, real strict on your portion size. If you need more recipe ideas then you can borrow my Zone Meals in Seconds book or register and go online to Zonediet.com – ignore the advertising and just use the recipes that are listed there for free.

 

Remember, the women are at 12 blocks – the guys range from 15 to 18. Your kids should have 2 blocks – 4 times a day, 1 block – 1 time. Most husbands should be at 16.

 

The second issue comes from this statement “I was eating high protein, low fat…” I stopped him right there. Listen, you need to eat fat. It’s extremely important in a way I don’t have the room to explain here. So important that Dr. Kurt Harris of PaNu tells us as number 2 on his 12 step list to substitute calories that came from sugars and flours with animal or coconut fats. Fat is energy dense so a little goes a long way! Here’s another posting from last year (23 Feb 2011):

 

Nutrition Tip of the Week: It’s okay to go against conventional wisdom. Eating FAT will not make you FAT! A super quick email yesterday after the meeting brought up the topic of Saturated Fats. The basis started in my very brief explanation of the Seven Countries Study by Ancel Keys in which he condemned Saturated Fat as the reason behind our country’s increasing Heart Disease rate in the 1940’s. Below is a link to Mark Sisson’s Definitive Guide to Saturated Fats in which he does a very good job of addressing the study as well as other points of this debate. Personally I like the line where he states – “Saturated fat is also a fantastic source of energy, at least if you trust your body to make the right decision – otherwise, why else would we store excess carbohydrates as saturated body fat?” There are three things you can do with fat once it is in your body – burn it (through ketosis), excrete it (no explanation needed), or store it (through the direction of any extra insulin you have floating around due to excess carb intake). Keep your insulin levels down and there goes the storage factor! Also check out the Wikipedia article for a viewpoint from the supporters of Keys’ study.

 

We promised you a way to get moving this week. The following workout can be done very easily and very quickly. Perform it three times this week and go for an extended walk this weekend (at least 1 hour). Be sure to check the notes to see how to vary the workout so you can do it three times, three different ways.

 

Workout of the Week: (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.

Notes: You can do it this way too! Run, do 3 rounds of the 15/10, Run again. Here’s another way: Run, do 21 squats, 21 push-ups, 15 squats, 15 push-ups, 9 squats, 9 push-ups, Run again.

 

This was a lot! And I’m sure you’ll have questions so please send them along. I look forward to hearing from you!

 

To eating well. And bucking Conventional Wisdom.

Mike.

 

 

The Definitive Guide to Saturated Fat

It’s probably the one thing that prevents people from fully buying into the Primal Blueprint. Almost anyone can agree with the basic tenets – eating more vegetables, choosing only clean, organic meats, and getting plenty of sleepand exercise is fairly acceptable to the mainstream notion of good nutrition. The concept of Grok and a lifestyle based on evolutionary biology can be a harder sell, but anyone who’s familiar with (and accepts) the basics of human evolution tends to agree (whether they follow through and adopt the lifestyle is another question), at least intellectually. But saturated fat? People have this weird conditioned response to the very phrase.

 

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