Diabetes Rate In Pregnant Women Doubles

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit | Add Comment

Doctors have found that the diabetes rate for pregnant women doubled during the 99-05 period. Since this is 08, we can probably expect the rate to be higher now. The primary cause is of course lifestyle- obesity from overeating and under-exercising. The big problem is that not only is the mother’s health at risk, but the baby’s as well.

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Diabetes can be a dangerous complication during pregnancy, endangering the mother and also raising the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or birth defects, said Jean M. Lawrence, lead author of the study published in the May issue of the journal Diabetes Care.

It also can lead to bigger babies and to children who are at risk of developing diabetes and obesity later in life, said Lawrence, who is also a research scientist at Kaiser Permanente in Pasadena, Calif.

“Having diabetes during pregnancy has implications for the baby,” she said.

The rise in diabetes in pregnant women is “a big problem” because it’s probably a nationwide trend occurring hand-in-hand with obesity, which also carries other risk factors for birth complications, said Dr. Raul Artal, chairman of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health at St. Louis University’s School of Medicine in Missouri.

Artal noted that in addition to diabetes, obese women often develop high blood pressure, which can lead to pregnancy complications. Also, some birth defects, such as neural tube defects —in which the brain or spinal fail to develop normally — are more common among infants born to obese moms.

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MSNBC has the whole article. If you know someone who is pregnant and overweight, encourage them to ask their doctor about how to lose weight since things are obviously more complicated due to the pregnancy.

Diet Studies Confirm Basics

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Seniors/fit, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment

Several diet studies that Alwyn Cosgrove sites on his blog confirm what many of us in the fitness world have known all along- lower carbs, lower calories and increased meal frequency (see my 6 meal/day diet) make a big difference in weight loss. Bodybuilders have used this formula to get ready for competitions for many years. When you add them all together, you get a synergistic effect. Here are a few excerpts that are particularly interesting-

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This study compared two groups – one following a 4% carbohydrate diet, and one following a 35% carbohydrate diet. After 4 weeks the 4% carbohydrate group had lost 14lbs while the 35% group had lost 9.5lbs. The interesting thing was that the participants were allowed to eat as much food as they wanted within the nutritional guidelines.

…This one showed that adults who were accustomed to eating 4 meals a day gained body fat and weight when switched to 3 meals a day (despite calories remaining the same). it seems that meal frequency is an important tool.

…Three groups on different diets for 12 weeks:

Low fat/low cal (1800 cals per day) diet: Lost on average 17 lbs
Low carb/higher cal (+300) group: Lost on average 20 lbs.
But when they combined low carbs AND low calories (1800 again) – that group lost 23lbs.
Conclusion – it might not be just about the calories – but calories STILL count!

Turkey Sandwich

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Seniors/fit, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment

One of the things that the bigger restaurant chains have done in the past few years to capitalize on the health craze is to offer menu items that look and sound healthy and low calorie. The truth is that not all turkey burgers and sandwiches are what they seem. Take for instance a turkey sandwich from Subway and one from Panera Bread Co. Here is the breakdown from Eat This, Not That on MSN-

TURKEY SANDWICH

Eat This:

Subway 6-inch Turkey Sub with provolone
330 calories
8.5 g fat

Not That:

Panera Sierra Turkey
840 calories
41 g fat

Save 510 calories and 33 grams of fat!

Don’t sweat the meat in the sandwich: turkey, roast beef, and ham are all lean cuts. But Panera slathers its turkey with a thick layer of chipotle mayo and slides it into a heavy, oily wedge of focaccia, so this turkey is a porker. A Subway 6-incher not enough to quell your raging lunchtime hunger? Double up on the meat for just 50 calories more.

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It is really important to know what is in and added to your food. Mayo, cheese and even the type of bread can make a huge difference. This is really important if you travel a lot since even salads have vary widely in calories depending on toppings and dressings. Pretty much all national restaurant chains have their nutritional info on their websites, so be smart and check them out so you know what to get and what to avoid.

Effect of Exercise and Diet in Your 60’s and 70’s

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Seniors/fit | Add Comment

I think a lot of people wonder about this… Can people who are already in their senior years make a significant change to their health and well being by adopting a healthy eating and exercise program that late in life. Well, the answer is yes, and it is backed up by research from Cornell Medical College.

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A reader wrote us asking if it’s really worth it for older people to change their eating habits for the better.

Indeed it is. People in their 60s, 70s, and beyond can benefit from improving the way they eat, as detailed in a review in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by Dr. Richard S. Rivlin, a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.

Two insidious effects of aging are the loss of muscle and the weakening of bone. Alone and together, these can restrict mobility, limit the ability to carry out everyday tasks, make breathing difficult by distorting the size and shape of the rib cage, and cause falls. Improving nutrition and getting more exercise can halt or slow the loss of muscle and bone. Other benefits include:

• A healthier heart. Switching to a better diet and exercising can lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Older folks gain more from lowering their blood pressure than younger people do. Among those who already have heart disease, lowering cholesterol can reduce the risk of having a heart attack by 50%.
• Protection against cancer. Early detection and action are clearly the keys to fighting cancer, but two large studies indicate that a healthy diet and exercise are essential, too.

As Dr. Rivlin points out, there is no one-size-fits-all recommendation for what constitutes healthy eating among older people. Some need to focus on eating less, others on eating more. Seeing a nutritionist can help you devise a plan that’s right for you.

Making positive changes can’t erase a lifetime of triple cheeseburgers, chips, and inactivity. But it can set you on a new track that will help you through the years ahead.

… From MSN Health

Worst Foods/Places to Eat

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, Health, Prime/fit, Seniors/fit, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment

From “Eat This, Not That“- number 1 on the restaurant list comes from a favorite place for many people- Outback Steakhouse. Check this out… it is the equivalent of eating 14 Krispy Kreme donuts. That is the problem with most people- they simply don’t realize or add up how many calories they eat- and this is just the appetizer.

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Outback Steakhouse Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing

2,900 calories
182 g fat
240 g carbs

This weapon of mass construction is the caloric equivalent of eating 14 Krispy Kreme doughnuts, before your dinner arrives. Even if you split this “starter” with 3 friends, you’ll have downed a meal’s worth of calories.

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Holy cow! No wait, the cow comes after 3000 calories of cheese fries. Actually, you can eat good at Outback. You just have to be deliberate about it. A small lean steak with steamed vegetables and rice or baked potato is OK for a dinner out. Of course as soon as you add cheese, butter, bacon and whatever else to the potato, you just ate at least 1000 calories. Be careful when you order and you can eat out and be healthy.

The Key to Fat Loss

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment

Everyone is looking for the magic formula, pill or tip. So here it is- eat fewer calories if you want to lose weight. It is just arithmetic. If you want to lose fat, you have to burn more calories than you consume. The guy who works out with me had a startling discovery this week- he found out that even though he eats a good clean diet, he was eating about 50% more calories than he thought he was. The only way to really know how much you eat, is to write down everything that goes into you mouth (drinks, snacks, fruit etc.) and calculate it. One place most people get tripped up is with portion size. If you use the nutrition label to calculate the calories, make sure you are eating only one portion. Most people eat two and calculate for one and then can’t figure out why they aren’t losing weight when they “are only eating 1800 calories”. The reason is because they are really eating 3000 calories!

That said, Alwyn Cosgrove has a great post on the heirarchy for fat loss over at his blog. Definitely take the time to go read the entire post. But here are the 2 main highlights-

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Yep. It really is that important. Not eating a Big Mac with a large fries and a large soda saves you about 1400 calories and takes zero seconds. Eating them and then trying to burn off the calories will require 2+ hours of pretty hard work….

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I think it’s fairly obvious that the bulk of calories burned are determined by our resting metabolic rate or RMR. The amount of calories burned outside of our resting metabolism (through exercise, thermic effect of feeding, etc.) is a smaller contributor to overall calories burned per day. The biggest chunk is your RMR.

We can also accept that RMR is largely a function of how much muscle you have on your body — and how hard it works. Therefore, adding activities that promote or maintain muscle mass will make that muscle mass work harder and over time- elevate the metabolic rate. This will become our number one training priority when developing fat loss programs. There are studies showing RMR to be elevated after 12 weeks of only 800 calories when resistance training is performed. Other studies show an acute effect of increased metabolism for 38 hours post workout.

So if you only have time to do one activity – make it resistance training.

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So here is the pop quiz- what do you do to lose fat?

EAT LESS and do resistence training to build muscle mass.

Vitamin D and Muscle Problems

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment

 Dr Mirkin has a good article on his blog about the effect of vitamin D on muscle pain and injuries. He examines his own tendency for training injuries during the winter months when he doesn’t get enough sun. Since sunlight on our skin is the primary way we make vitamin D, there is a good chance that many people are vitamin D deficient because of the skin cancer scare and the fact that a lot of people just don’t do much outside anymore.

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Over the last few years I have reported on numerous studies linking vitamin D deficiency with various diseases: diabetes, heart attacks, at least 30 types of cancer, and autoimmune disease such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis (a list of these reports appears below).

This winter I have had a series of baffling exercise- associated muscle injuries. My blood levels of vitamin D have been extremely low, even though I spend a lot of time outside riding my bike. I reviewed my diaries and found that wintertime injuries have been a lifelong pattern for me. I have not been able to find any strong evidence that lack of vitamin D causes muscle injuries. However, it is associated with muscle weakness, falling in older people, bone deformities and fractures.

…While we wait for the scientific community to resolve whether lack of vitamin D causes cancers, heart attacks and so forth, or is just a marker for other risk factors such as lack of activity or excess weight, I think you should be aware of your own vitamin D status and take action if you are deficient.

If you seldom go outdoors, have dark skin, are over 50 or are overweight, I recommend that you ask your doctor to do blood tests for vitamin D3 and D2. D3 is made by your skin from ultraviolet light (UVB) or from the vitamin D you get in foods or supplements. D2 comes just from food or supplements. Your total blood level of vitamin D should be over 50. If it is below 50, you may need to take a tropical vacation, use a tanning bed or take vitamin D supplements. A safe dose appears to be 1000 IU per day during the winter.

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If you are in this group, you really should get your vitamin D level checked and consider spending more time in the sun. You don’t have to get burned, just spend 15-20 minutes a day outside in the sun. You will look and feel healthier!

Testosterone and the Financial Markets

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Health, Prime/fit, Supplements, Travel/fit | Add Comment

Well this goes in the “unusual” category… British researchers have found that traders who had higher levels of testosterone in the morning were more successful than those who had, I guess, normal levels. At any rate, the theory is that the higher levels of testosterone make the men less cautious and more aggressive. I guess I can see that, but the theory goes on to suggest that it even affects stock market bubbles. Lots of speculation here.

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New research out of Britain finds that financial traders who wake up with high levels of the male hormone testosterone tend to make more money that day, probably because they feel more daring.

On the flip side, traders with higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol tend to be more cautious.

“We think that, during bubbles, traders are experiencing extremely high levels of testosterone, and this is affecting not only their judgment, but the ability of monetary policy to control bubbles,” said study author John Coates, a research fellow at Judge Business School and the department of physiology development in neuroscience at the University of Cambridge in Britain. “Alan Greenspan spent most of his career trying to stop a bubble and never succeeded. Why are these things so hard to stop?”

The findings are consistent with previous research, said Dr. Julio Licinio, chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “”If testosterone is higher, you push yourself more,” he said.

The Skinny On Cooking Oils

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Supplements, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment

Good post over at fitsugar about coconut oil and why it really isn’t such a good choice for cooking. You are better off sticking with olive or canola oil because they contain much less saturated fat. Coconut oil is trans fat free, but is about 90% saturated fat (the bad kind that clogs your arteries). So if you do use it, use it rarely and sparingly.

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• Coconut oil has relatively high smoke point of 400°F, this makes it stable and ideal for many commercial kitchens and bakeries.
• It has a long shelf life, which is why many food manufacturers are switching to coconut oil to avoid using hydrogenated oils – aka trans fats.
• It is 90 percent saturated fat, and in case you forgot, that is the “bad” fat.
  
• Fats, no matter the type, are not metabolized before carbs, and this oil should not be considered a good fuel for exercise. Unless you are training for super-distance events like ultra marathons (or training sessions over 5 hours).
• The high percentage of artery-clogging saturated fats in coconut oil should not be taken lightly. For comparison, olive oil contain 13 percent saturated fats and canola oil only 7 percent.

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You probably ought to start checking the labels to see what kind of oil they use since coconut oil is becoming more popular with manufacturers.

Holding Off Old Age

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, General Fitness, Ladies/fit, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit | Add Comment

Surprise, surprise- exercise helps stave off the effect of getting older. Who would have thought… Well, there is actual research that goes with the common sense. Science Daily has the details and it is worth paying attention to since we are all going to get old- well, if we don’t die of heart attacks, diabetes, etc while we are young! So I guess the point is that we need that exercise no matter how old we are. Personally, getting old and becoming immobile scares the hell out of me. The old part we really can’t change, but there is a lot we can do about quality of life as we age. Get out and do something!

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Maintaining aerobic fitness through middle age and beyond can delay biological ageing by up to 12 years and prolong independence during old age, concludes an analysis published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

… But the evidence shows that regular aerobic exercise can slow or reverse the inexorable decline, even in later life.

Research shows that relatively high intensity aerobic exercise over a relatively long period boosted maximal aerobic power by 25%, equivalent to a gain of 6 ml/ [kg.min], or 10 to 12 biological years.

“There seems good evidence that the conservation of maximal oxygen intake increases the likelihood that the healthy elderly person will retain functional independence,” says the author.

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