Hormones in fat loss, fitness and health!!

Today’s Re-Powering Information - My friend Nicole wrote some great information about hormones and how they play a role in fat loss, fitness and health. So much of how we feel is hormonally related. They control many of the symptoms we experience and we can influence them to be regulated naturally by how we sleep, what and when we eat, how we manage stress and so on. I’m passing it along to you as she wrote it.

As promised, I want to write about sugar/ insulin/hormones how they relate to fat loss or lack of fat loss. While I am not an expert in this area, I certainly can shed some light onto the topic as I best understand it. There is a lot more to the hormone story than I will present here, so these are just some basics:

Insulin- this is the number 1 hormone that needs to be controlled carefully in order to lose body fat. The better you control insulin , the leaner you will be. The very best way to control this hormone is by consuming low grams of carbohydrates at each meal and those carbs should only be of the highest quality and have a lower glycemic rating. When carbs are consumed beyond the moderate level, insulin is triggered and this happens rapidly. The fat storing, anabolic acting hormone goes right to work at reducing the sugar in the blood. If calories are high (and possibly even if they are not, fat storage is likely to result). Once in a while is not a big deal, but day after day this will cause weight gain and create the HABIT of over-consuming carbs. It is the refined carbs that you need to avoid, not the wholesome nutrient rich vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.

To control weight gain and increase fat loss- control carb consumption.

Leptin- hormone responsible for regulating appetite and metabolism. Do not fast and get plenty of sleep. Skipping meals as well as sleep deprivation lowers leptin level. Leptin is helpful in controlling appetite.

Side note from the web:

Fructose and leptin resistance- A study published recently suggests that the consumption of high amounts of fructose causes leptin resistance and elevated triglycerides in rats. The high fructose diet rats subsequently ate more and gained more weight than controls when fed a high fat, high calorie diet

Ghrelin- hormone that increases appetite. It is also affected by lack of sleep, which increases the levels of this hormone.

Growth Hormone- This hormone can be stimulated easily with resistance training as well as plyometric or some types of intensity training such as sprints and plyometrics.It is very important to simultaneously has adequate nutrient intake in order for the growth hormone to be effective in muscle building and fat loss. This is an anabolic hormone and creates muscle growth. If there is an over abundance of refined carb consumption this hormone gets shut down.

Cortisol- stress hormone that flows through the body and is caused by many types of stressors. Life stress, emotions, feelings and even high duration cardio or over training. It is a catobolic hormone that weakens the body, breaks down muscle tissue and decreases immunity.Since you can not control so many factors in life that cause stress, you are best able to CONTROL YOUR REACTIONS to them. I know , easier said than done. Reading books about happiness, how to re-evaluate situations, and quotes are all helpful in reacting with a more positive attitude.

Glucagon this hormone is involved in carbohydrate metabolism. It is when carb consumption is low. I is a hormone that helps to release stored bodyfat.

This is the reason I emphasize the importance of keeping your overall glycemic load of each meal in check when fat loss is your primary goal. Hope it helped.

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The standard of success in life isn't the things. It isn't the money or the stuff -- it is absolutely the amount of joy you feel.

--- Abraham

Have a restful weekend!

Motivation to get on the scale.. Understand what your scale number really means!

Today's Empowering Info and Motivation: Tomorrow is re-assessment day. Everyone should be losing on average 5 – 6 pounds a camp –assuming you have that to lose. Read below to see some facts about body weight and fat weight to prepare you for when you weigh in tomorrow.



Your scale can tell you how much you weigh in total, but it just cannot tell you if you've lost body fat - unless you have a body fat analyzer like I use at camp. Expect to add some muscle to your body when you are doing the conditioning we are doing in boot camp. You will want and need it for your metabolism and for your beautiful shape.

The following components all add up to the reading your scale gives you. Anything that is not considered fat is considered muscle by the body fat scales so you may see some variation some times. For the most part everyone goes down!


Connective tissue - specifically, tendons and ligaments. Connective tissue adapts through resistance training to allow you to function at higher levels, and it will not adversely affect your body's appearance in any way. The more fit you are, the stronger your connective tissues.

Muscle tissue - As you add lean muscle tissue to your body, you'll burn more calories and stored body fat during exercise as well as throughout the day doing normal activity. And the additional muscle tissue allows your body to look and feel firm and toned.

Glycogen - when you consume whole grain carbohydrates you're body will store glycogen (the reserve fuel that gets converted into glucose, the body's primary source of energy). And with each gram of additional glycogen, your body stores several grams of water along with it. This is a very beneficial process, but it will add to what your scale reads.

Blood Volume - as we become increasingly fit, we add blood volume.
In addition to these positive gains in weight, your scale can vary as much as 3-6% on any given day based on digestive contents and your hydration level.

Here's how you can determine real progress:
Answer the following questions: Do I have more energy? Are my clothes fitting more loosely? Have others commented that I'm "looking good"? Am I starting to like what I see in the mirror?
Measure your body composition - discover how much of you is made up of body fat versus lean body mass. All the methods of measuring body composition are subject to some error, but if you stick to the same method and tester, you'll find that change over time is reliable.

Some of you took a picture at the start of this program. It’s never too late to do that (I won’t ask you to re-gain any weight). You don't have to look at the photo (yet). We’ll wait another 2 months to get more conditioning under your belt! I know the results will be extraordinary!


It's ironic that the increases in connective tissue, lean muscle tissue, glycogen and blood volume - the things that are crucial to improving how your body looks, feels and functions - can be the same things that initially make you think you're making no progress.


Why the Scale Lies
By Renee Cloe

We've been told over and over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can't resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can't bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence its readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale. Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body's water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don't understand what's happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains.

If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto its water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water. Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium.

Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it's easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn't have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That's why, when it comes to eating, it's wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains.

Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners. Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum. Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and its packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it's stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with its associated water. It's normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it's wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you've had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It's the actual weight of everything you've had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you've finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it's not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, its likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it's only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week.

When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it's physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you're really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle. This brings us to the scale's sneakiest attribute. It doesn't just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn't necessarily mean that you've lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you've lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you're just sitting around. That's one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn't differentiate between the two. It can't tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat.

There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current. If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn't appeal to you, don't worry.

The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don't be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. Its a matter of mind over scale.

25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Your Body and Health

Today’s Re-Powering Information. First read an article with the 25 Things about Your Body and Health and then Read Dr. Mercola’s take on them below it including his list of top ways to optimize health.. The list will look familiar!





25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Your Body and Health



1. Rinsing your nose with salt water can help keep you healthy and ward off allergy symptoms.

2. Dogs can smell cancer and low blood sugar. A study showed that it is possible to train dogs to identify, based on breath samples, which patients had lung and breast cancer. For diabetics, the dogs can smell ketones in urine and on the breath when blood sugars are high. Dogs can pick up on other smells that humans can’t when glucose levels drop.

3. Researchers found that people who pass through an entryway near the kitchen tend to eat 15 percent more than those who use the front door.

4. You're more likely to have a heart attack on a Monday, or up to three days after you've been diagnosed with the flu or a respiratory tract infection.

5. You can't get a tan from your computer screen. The Computer Tan Web site was created as a hoax to raise awareness about skin cancer.

6. Obese people spend approximately $485 more on clothing, $828 on extra plane seats, and $36 more on gas each year than their thinner counterparts. An overweight driver burns about 18 additional gallons of gas a year.

7. Smokers are four times as likely to report feeling unrested after a night's sleep than nonsmokers. Smokers often experience withdrawal symptoms at night, thus causing periods of restlessness and waking.

8. Eating fruits and vegetables may help your body make its own aspirin. Benzoic acid, a natural substance in fruits and vegetables, causes people to produce their own salicylic acid, the key component that gives aspirin its anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties.

9. A 20-minute nap can improve your overall alertness, boost your mood, and increase productivity. In addition, your heart may reap benefits from napping -- a six-year study found that that men who took naps at least three times a week had a 37 percent lower risk of heart-related death.

10. Your kitchen sink is dirtier than your bathroom. There are typically more than 500,000 bacteria per square inch in its drain, and the faucet, basin, and sponge are crawling with germs as well.

11. Four out of five doctors in the UK don't work out enough. Heavy workloads, lack of time and poor motivation contributed to the lack of exercise.

12. Baking soda can whiten teeth, garlic can help treat athlete's foot, and honey can soothe a hangover.

13. Using a food diary can double your weight-loss efforts. Your food diary makes you accountable to yourself and provides you with clues on where the extra calories are sneaking in.

14. Regular exercise can lower a woman's cancer risk -- but only if she's getting enough sleep. The National Cancer Institute followed nearly 6,000 women for almost 10 years. Women in the top half of physical activity levels showed an approximate 20 percent reduction in cancer risk, but sleeping less than seven hours per night resulted in a decreased benefit.

15. Watching yourself run in a mirror can make a treadmill workout go by faster and feel easier.

16. Third-hand smoke -- the particles that cling to smokers' hair and clothing and linger in a room long after they've left -- is a cancer risk to young children and pets.

17. Walking against the wind, in the water, or while wearing a backpack burns about 50 more calories per hour than walking with no resistance. People who wear pedometers also tend to burn more calories and lose more weight.

18. Trained sexologists can infer a woman's orgasm history by observing the way she walks. In other news, men find women who wear red sexier than those who wear "cool" colors such as blue and green.

19. Foreign accent syndrome and exploding head syndrome are real (but very rare) medical conditions. A person with exploding head syndrome experiences a loud, indecipherable noise that seems to originate from inside their head.

20. Vitamins don't seem to help older women guard against cancer or heart disease.

21. Some men experience pain, headaches, or sneezing as a result of ejaculation. The increased activity in the nervous system during orgasm may be the culprit.

22. Germ-killing wipes can spread bacteria from one spot to another if you reuse them.

23. Oatmeal, citrus fruits, and honey can boost your sex drive and improve fertility. Oats produce a chemical that releases testosterone into the blood supply, vitamin C improves sperm count and motility, and vitamin B from honey helps your body use estrogen, a key factor in blood flow and arousal.

24. Twenty-nine percent of Americans say they have skipped filling a prescription due to the cost, and 23 percent use pill splitting as a way to save money.

25. Facebook may be good for your health; studies show that staying in touch with family and friends can ward off memory loss and help you live longer.


Sources:


MSN Health & Fitness April 21, 2009





Dr. Mercola''s Comments


Dr. Mercola's Comments:



The 25 items covered in the article above are not necessarily critical knowledge to help you live a healthier and longer life, but it’s clear there is much confusion over what’s truly necessary for optimal health. And as the examples listed below will show you, the shortcuts to health and beauty are many, but the potential hazards are just as numerous.

When it comes to the intricate workings of your body and your health it’s clear most people (including health professionals and scientists) know less than we’d like to believe. Just take a look at some of the most common health myths I covered in a previous article and you’ll get a sense of what I mean.

Not only that, but people do all sorts of things to their bodies, thinking it will make them happier, healthier, or more beautiful, or at the very least that it will not harm them.

Here are a few examples you may not know could be harmful to your body and health:

Laser Hair Removal: The treatment disables hair follicles and can lead to scarring if not properly done. In addition, it doesn’t remove all the hair, and it might only last for a couple of years.

Body Piercing: Piercing delicate places like nipples, genitals or your tongue can interfere with breastfeeding; increase the risk of spreading STDs; increase your risk of allergies; and chip your teeth, respectively. Less obvious problems may result from disruption of your body’s subtle energy fields. Inserting pieces of metal into your body can disrupt vital energy flow. If you are healthy you probably won’t notice any difference, but piercings can be a problem if you have a more serious health challenge.

Bariatric Surgery: Over 40 percent of these surgeries result in major complications within six months, such as diarrhea or hernia.

Skin Whitening: Some topical whiteners contain mercury, which causes nerve and kidney damage. Others contain hydroquinone, a carcinogen banned in Europe that blotches your skin.

Botox: Botox, which paralyzes your facial muscles to rid you of wrinkles, can cause respiratory failure and death.

Liposuction: Liposuction removes only about 10 pounds of fat after four hours of dangerous surgery. Recovery is long and painful, and the fatality rate is the highest of any elective surgery.

Do You Know What Your Body Needs for Optimal Health?

It’s important to realize that optimal health and beauty are side effects of an overall healthy lifestyle. There are no shortcuts; no magic pills.

However, there are certain basic tenets of optimal health -- which includes maintaining a healthy weight and radiating true inner beauty – that are permanent truths. These strategies won’t change, regardless of what modern science and conventional medicine comes up with next:

1. Eat a healthy diet that’s right for your nutritional type (paying very careful attention to keeping your insulin levels down)

2. Drink plenty of clean water

3. Manage your stress

4. Exercise

5. Sunlight

6. Limit toxin exposure

7. Consume healthy fat

8. Eat plenty of raw food

9. Optimize insulin and leptin levels

10. Get plenty of sleep

If you memorize these ten items and incorporate them into your lifestyle, you’ll be way ahead of the rest of the pack toward optimal health and longevity.

Fitness Motivation for Men and Women Differ?

For the past 8 years I have primarily been focused on helping women get fit although I still coach male clients. What becomes obvious is that incentive to get is often driven from different motives.. As I get ready to launch a men's camp I have a heightened awareness about what motivates men to exercise. I know some of you have husbands who are exercise fanatics and others who are weekend warriors and some couch potatoes. There are lots of factors that go into deciding to exercise (and stick with it) such as your past experience with exercise, how uncomfortable you are with your present situation, something in the future that you aspire to, such as a child watching you in an event or a family reunion. There are both internal and external forces that motivate us. We are motivated to move away from pain 2.5 more times than we are to move towards pleasure. There was likely a moment in time where you decided to join boot camp. Some of you had not exercised in decades and others were looking for a new challenge. You may have thought about exercise / weight loss many times before actually committing, but there was some emotion that actually caused you to be motivated to exercise.

The article below shares some differences between men and women in motivation towards exercise. It may give you some insight into your spouse.

When it comes to fitness, men and women motives certainly not the same
Posted by Chris Bynum, Health and Fitness Writer, The Times-Picayune August 22, 2008 5:00AM
Categories: Living: Health and Fitness

Kenneth Harrison / The Times-Picayune
Health, appearance, athletic performance and social approval are the main reasons people work out. And while men and women may express their motivations differently, the differences between the sexes seem to be narrowing when it comes to fitness. A recent poll conducted by Fitness magazine asked readers to identify the thing that inspired them to join a health club. For 41 percent of the women respondents, the answer was: shopping for clothes.

But women aren't the only ones who experience their ah-ha (or uh-oh) moment in the dressing room. When it comes to finding the motivation to pursue fitness goals, it turns out that men aren't from Mars. They're with women on Venus. They just express it differently.

"It used to be that women took better care of themselves and were therefore more inclined to join a gym for health reasons. Men went to the gym to build muscle," says Fabio Comana, exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise. "Now women go to the gym because they want to look better in their clothes. In recent years, men are more driven by health reasons than aesthetics to work out.

"I wouldn't say they are reversing roles. There's just a merging of the reasons men and women exercise."

Health, appearance, athletic performance and social approval are the main reasons people work out. And while men and women may express their motivations differently, the differences between the sexes seem to be narrowing when it comes to fitness.

While you might think that the motivation to work out comes down to the fact we all want to look good naked, local personal trainers say the Mars-Venus differences are more complex. Their observations reflect both subtle and significant contrasts.

"Men are more likely to say, 'My doctor says I should get fit' rather than 'I want to get fit,'¤" says local certified personal trainer Rusty Roussel, the co-owner of Salvation Studio, who says men are often motivated by health scares. "Women simply want to embrace what exercise can do for them -- having more energy, looking good, feeling good."

Jonas Deffes, a personal trainer who also conducts NOLA Boot Camp for women, says men work out to look good, and women work out to gain confidence.

But he has observed that once men start to look good as a result of their workouts, they also start to feel better as a result of their commitment to work out.

"And as women start to feel better about themselves, they also feel that they look better," Deffes says.

Local trainers say most women want to lose fat and most men want to build muscle -- the same fundamental goal of a more toned body conveyed in a completely different way.

"Women keep their skinny pants. If one day they try those on and can't get into them, they are motivated to work out," says Shawn Oddo, personal trainer to Simply Fit in Metairie. The "skinny jeans" factor is not one he has heard discussed among men.

"Men just want to be buff," says Oddo.

And because their instinct is always to nurture others before self, women also are more likely than men to require external pressure to work out, says performance expert Mackie Shilstone, director of The Fitness Principle at East Jefferson General Hospital.

"Women make 70 percent of the health care decisions in this country, but they don't make (enough) decisions for themselves," Shilstone says. "In many cases, a woman begins a health program to satisfy a mother, a friend, a spouse."

Important life events -- such as a class reunion, a vacation, a milestone birthday, a wedding -- also play strongly into the workout habits of women, says Joe Moore, president of International Health Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA).

Men, on the other hand, are often motivated by their jobs.

"I have two riverboat pilots whose jobs are demanding both physically and mentally, and they see fitness as part of the skill set for their jobs," says Roussel, the Salvation Studio trainer.

Life changes -- new romance, divorce, job promotion, empty nest -- are also fitness motivators for men and women alike, local trainer say.

A strong indicator that the sexes have more fitness goals in common than ever before is borne out by the fact that health clubs, once segregated by sex, are now almost exclusively co-ed. Even free weight rooms, once an all-boys' club, are now unisex environments.

"Men and women did not work out together. Clubs often alternated days between men and women, or they provided dual facilities to accommodate both sexes," Moore says. Now IHRSA's membership rolls show that women make up more than half of health-club memberships, which runs counter to research that shows women are still hesitant to work out alongside men.

And then there's Dara Torres, at 41 the oldest American Olympic swimmer ever, whose influence crosses both age and gender barriers. She swam the fastest times in her 24-year career while winning three silver medals for the United States in Beijing and inspired countless aging adults along the way.

"Men and women are signing up all over the country for swim classes," Moore says.

Both male and female clients, Roussel says, have come in to his studio to request some of the workout strategies Torres has shared with the world as cameras followed her quest.

Men and women may be different, says Comana, but when it comes to the pursuit of fitness, "They are not as diametrically opposed as they once were."


Health and fitness writer Chris Bynum can be reached at cbynum@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3458. Comment or read past stories at www.nola.com/health.

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Have a wonderful weekend.

Kelli@KelliCalabrese.com
www.KelliCalabrese.com
www.DentonBootCamp.com