Category Archives: Ideal Body Weight

Post #65 – Fasting, the old new technology and panacea for Optimal Health – Part III

03 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by in Autophagy, Fasting, Ideal Body Weight, Lean Mass, Living to 120, Optimal Health, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Uncategorized, wellness

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In the Posts #63 and #64, I described that all fasting methods consist of some variations of these variables:

  1. What you eat or not eat,
  2. How much you eat or not eat,
  3. When you eat or not eat, and
  4. How frequently you repeat the process.

And, with these variables you can make all kinds of combinations. For example, you may have seen or heard of the following popular combinations:

  1. Water only Fast for, say, 1, 3, or 5 consecutive days; alternate day fasting; 5:2 fasting: fasting for 2 days and eating the other 5 days of the week.
  2. Calories Restricted Diet: 20% fewer calories per day, e.g., 1,600 calories per day when 2,000 is your regular intake
  3. Time-Restricted Feeding: 8:16 fasting: eating for 8 hours and fasting for 16 hours; 4:20 fasting, where you eat for 4 hours and fast for 20, etc.
  4. Fasting-Mimicking Diet: During fasting, you still eat but with certain restrictions on carbs and protein, so your body feels as if you are fasting.

So, what option is optimal for you or me, depends on a variety of variables including: state of your health, state of your fitness, your goals, your ability to follow the process in the short term or long term, any medicines you are taking, age, BMI.

There are a couple of important principles to remember while fasting.

Our bodies have Multiple Energy Sources: a) immediate energy from the food we eat, b) Glycogen stored in liver, and c) fat stored in the body, and d) lean body mass, and e) cellular debris. In different situations, body dips into appropriate energy source.

Chronobiology or body’s circadian clock dictates metabolism. For most people, metabolism is higher in the morning until early afternoon. So, it is better to eat heavier meals in at breakfast or lunch then at dinner.

The benefits of long-term fasting are numerous, seems almost too good to be true. But all theses have been demonstrated in research and personally I have experienced these:

  1. Lose weight
  2. Lose body fat, especially visceral fast, while retaining lean body mass
  3. Reverse diabetes, hypertension, lower LDL and many other health issues
  4. Become appreciative of tastes and smells of food
  5. Start to eat more mindfully
  6. Learn not to panic if food is not immediately available when feeling hungry
  7. Spend less time and money on food
  8. Improved mental and emotional outlook
  9. Increased lifespan and healthspan

Now for what works, what does not and how to make it work for you.

  1. Calorie Restricted Diet is the least effective for major weight loss: An important principle is that 1 pound of body weight does not always equal to 3500 calories. If you have tried to lose weight by counting calories, you know that by eating fewer calories by the same amount, you lose less weight in the second month than the first, and you less weight in the third month than the second and so on.

In fact, per Pennigton Biomedical Research Center Predictor Calculator, if I were to reduce my daily intake by 500 calories and keep it for a year, my weight loss over 12 months would look like the following:

Weight Predictor

As you can see from the chart, it gets harder and harder to lose weight by reducing number of calories and easy to hit a plateau.

  1. Calories restricted diet, however, does seem to offer benefits of both health span and lifespan 
  1. All other types for fasting are effective in weight loss and other benefits. What will work for you, depends upon your tolerance. 
  1. A good strategy often is to start with Time Restricted Feeding, work up to one or more days of water fasting or Fasting Mimicking Diets (FMD).

My wife Kimberly and I started with becoming conscious of how many hours we did not eat every day. And, then we tried to stretch that period to at least 12 hours every day and longer when possible. 

Next, we started with water only fasting for one day a week. For us, from Friday after dinner to Saturday dinner worked.

We did one-day-a-week water only fasts for about 4 to 5 weeks. We were working ourselves up to a 3-day and then a 5-day water only fast, but then we came across fasting mimicking diet programs. One such program is in the book: Grow a New Body, by Dr. Albert Villoldo.

Grow a new body

So, we moved to 5-day programs of fasting mimicking diet. We are doing the ProLon protocol that consists of prepackage food and supplements developed at the University of Southern California by Valter Longo and explained in his book, The Longevity Diet . We like the results.

The longevity Diet

Fasting does have side-effects that include headache, lethargy and low energy. But these tend to resolve themselves.  Drinking lots of water and staying hydrated really helps. On a longer fast, first day tends to be the most difficult.

And, finally, fasting is not recommended in the following situations,. It is best to check with your doctor and work under doctor’s supervision while fasting:

  1. For pregnant and lactating women or children
  2. If you are on any medications, especially for diabetes and hypertension
  3. If you are underweight
  4. If you are over 70 years old

Summary

  1. There are many benefits of fasting, from more mindful eating to reversing diseases and living longer.
  2. Several variables make up a fasting protocol: what, how, when and how frequently you eat or not eat.
  3. There are many types of fasting: water only fasts, calories restricted diet, time-restricted feeding, and fasting-mimicking diet. What is optimal for you depends on a number of factors related to your health, fitness, and goals.
  4. Three general principles that you can use as guide to choose a protocol that may best suit you are: multiple sources of energy, autophagy and chronobiology.
  5. Calories restricted diet is not the best for weight loss for long terms. However, you do get benefits of healthier and longer life
  6. You can start with time-restricted feeding, extend periods of not eating and then work up to multi-day fasting.
  7. Fasting mimicking diets are great ways to have the benefits of longer fasting.
  8. If you have any medical issues, fast only under the care of a medical doctor.

What do you think?

Have you an experience with fasting? What worked or not worked for you? What benefits or difficulties you faced while fasting?

I and the readers of this blog would love to hear from you and learn from you.

Please click on Comment to leave your comments or question so others can benefit from your input.

 

Post #48 – Is cancer preventable through optimal healthy living?

10 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Causes of Death, Ideal Body Weight, Living to 120, Nutrition, Optimal Exercise, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Supplements, Uncategorized, Vitality, wellness

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My wife Kimberly was telling me the other day that 2015 has been quite a remarkable year in that we had several cancer episodes among our friends and families.  Even a couple of them died.

So, that got me thinking… is cancer preventable through optimal healthy living?

What is cancer anyways?

According National Institute of Health (NIH), National Cancer Institute (NCI) website www.cancer.gov, cancer is the name given to a collection of related diseases. In all types of cancer, some of the body’s cells begin to divide without stopping and spread into surrounding tissues.

Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells. Normally, human cells grow and divide to form new cells as the body needs them. When cells grow old or become damaged, they die, and new cells take their place.

When cancer develops, however, this orderly process breaks down. As cells become more and more abnormal, old or damaged cells survive when they should die, and new cells form when they are not needed. These extra cells can divide without stopping and may form growths called tumors.

Many cancers form solid tumors, which are masses of tissue. Cancers of the blood, such as leukemias, generally do not form solid tumors.

Cancerous tumors are malignant, which means they can spread into, or invade, nearby tissues. In addition, as these tumors grow, some cancer cells can break off and travel to distant places in the body through the blood or the lymph system and form new tumors far from the original tumor.

A cancer that has spread from the place where it first started to another place in the body is called metastatic cancer. Under a microscope, metastatic cancer cells generally look the same as cells of the original cancer.

How does cancer arise?

Cancer is a genetic disease—that is, it is caused by changes to genes that control the way our cells function, especially how they grow and divide. Three main types of genes may be involved—proto-oncogenes or genes involved in normal cell growth, tumor suppressor genes, and DNA repair genes. These changes are sometimes called “drivers” of cancer.

Genetic changes that cause cancer can be inherited from our parents. They can also arise during a person’s lifetime as a result of errors that occur as cells divide or because of damage to DNA caused by certain environmental exposures. Cancer-causing environmental exposures include substances, such as the chemicals in tobacco smoke, and radiation, such as ultraviolet rays from the sun. (Our Cancer Causes and Risk Factors page has more information.)

Inherited genetic mutations play a major role in about 5 to 10 percent of all cancers. Researchers have associated mutations in specific genes with more than 50 hereditary cancer syndromes, which are disorders that may predispose individuals to developing certain cancers.

How to prevent cancer?

So, now finally getting to the topic we started with – how to prevent cancer. Here are the four major ways to help prevent cancer:

  1. Avoid or control things known to cause cancer.
  2. Changes in diet and lifestyle.
  3. Finding precancerous conditions early. Precancerous conditions are conditions that may become cancer.
  4. Chemoprevention (medicines to treat a precancerous condition or to keep cancer from starting).

Let us take these items one at a time.

  1. Avoid or control things known to cause cancer.

Factors that are known to increase the risk of cancer:

  • Cigarette Smoking and Tobacco Use
  • Infections: HPV, Hepatitis B and C, Espstein-Barr virus, Helcobater pylori
  • Radiation: Ultraviolet sunlight, medical radiation, radon gas in homes
  • Immunosuppressive Medicines
  1. Changes in diet and lifestyle

Factors that may affect the risk of cancer:

  • Diet
  • Alcohol
  • Physical Activity
  • Obesity
  • Environmental Risk Factors: second hand smoke, asbestos, air pollution, pesticides, arsenic in drinking ware

Diet is anything we put in our mouths on a regular basis.

Diet is always a controversial subject. Media loves to talk about any new tidbit that comes out through research regarding diet.

Some studies show that fruits and non-starchy vegetables may protect against cancers of the mouth, esophagus, and stomach. Fruits may also protect against lung cancer.

Some studies have shown that a diet high in fat, proteins, calories, and red meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer, but other studies have not shown this.

It is not known if a diet low in fat and high in fiber, fruits, and vegetables lowers the risk of colorectal cancer.

According to American Cancer Society website www.cancer.org, here are the dietary guidelines to prevent cancer:

  • Be as lean as possible throughout life without being underweight.
  • Avoid excess weight gain at all ages. For those who are overweight or obese, losing even a small amount of weight has health benefits and is a good place to start.
  • Choose foods and drinks in amounts that help you get to and maintain a healthy weight.
  • Limit how much processed meat and red meat you eat.
  • Eat at least 2½ cups of vegetables and fruits each day.
  • Choose whole grains instead of refined grain products.
  • Avoid alcohol or drink no more than 1 drink per day for women or 2 per day for men.

T. Colin Campbell, PhD distills his 30 years of research on cancer and diet in “The China Study”. He concludes that a vegan diet minimizes the risk of all types of cancers as well as many other types of health risks.

For Physical Activity, American Cancer Society recommendation is for cancer prevention:

  • Exercise:
    • Adults: Get at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity each week (or a combination of these), preferably spread throughout the week.
    • Children and teens: Get at least 1 hour of moderate or vigorous intensity activity each day, with vigorous activity on at least 3 days each week.
  • Limit sedentary behavior such as sitting, lying down, watching TV, and other forms of screen-based entertainment.

Doing some physical activity above usual activities, no matter what one’s level of activity, can have many health benefits.

  1. Finding cancer or precancerous conditions early. Precancerous conditions are conditions that may become cancer.

Then there is the matter of “early detection and early cure.”

Cancer is a group of diseases that can cause almost any sign or symptom. The signs and symptoms will depend on where the cancer is, how big it is, and how much it affects the organs or tissues. If a cancer has spread (metastasized), signs or symptoms may appear in different parts of the body.

 Treatments work best when cancer is found early – while it’s still small and is less likely to have spread to other parts of the body. This often means a better chance for a cure, especially if the cancer can be removed with surgery.

A good example of the importance of finding cancer early is melanoma skin cancer. It can be easy to remove if it has not grown deep into the skin. The 5-year survival rate (percentage of people who live at least 5 years after diagnosis) at this early stage is around 98%. Once melanoma has spread to other parts of the body, the 5-year survival rate drops to about 16%.

Some symptoms, such as tiredness or coughing, are more likely caused by something other than cancer. Symptoms can seem unimportant, especially if there’s a clear cause or the problem only lasts a short time. In the same way, a person may reason that a symptom like a breast lump is probably a cyst that will go away by itself. But no symptom should be ignored or overlooked, especially if it has lasted a long time or is getting worse.

Most likely, symptoms are not caused by cancer, but it’s important to have them checked out, just in case. If cancer is not the cause, a doctor can help figure out what the cause is and treat it, if needed.

These days it is not that difficult to get one’s genome mapped and find out any cancer syndromes that might be present and actively take the necessary preventative actions.

The American Cancer Society recommends these cancer screening guidelines for early detection of cancer  for most adults. Screening tests are used to find cancer before a person has any symptoms.

  1. Chemoprevention (medicines to treat a precancerous condition or to keep cancer from starting).

Chemoprevention is the use of substances to lower the risk of cancer, or keep it from recurring. The substances may be natural or made in the laboratory. Some chemopreventive agents are tested in people who are at high risk for a certain type of cancer. The risk may be because of a precancerous condition, family history, or lifestyle factors.

Some chemoprevention studies have shown good results. For example, selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMS) such as tamoxifen or raloxifene have been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer in women at high risk. Finasteride and dutasteride have been shown to reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

Bottomline

Cancer is a genetic disease that may be the result of either mutated inherited genes or the ones occur later due to health, lifestyle and environment issues.  Only about 5 to 10% of the risk of cancer is due to mutated inherited genes.

Yes, healthy lifestyle choices we have been discussing in other blog posts do lead to decreasing the chances of cancer.  To minimize the risk of cancer:

  1. Be of Lean weight
  2. Eat clean with lots of fruits and vegetables and only sparing amount of white meats
  3. Avoid the use of alcohol or tobacco
  4. Avoid second-hand smoke, pesticides and other environmental carcinogens
  5. Stay active and exercise
  6. Get regular checkups and screening tests
  7. In case of any signs or symptoms, get a quick check up to rule out any cancerous or precancerous condition.

 

Your thoughts on this subject?

Would love to hear, learn and share information.

If possible, please do leave comment in the blog itself, so others can share and learn.

Post #28 – Eating for Optimal Health Part VII – Best beverage to drink is pure water

16 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in Ideal Body Weight, Lean Mass, Life-Span, Living to 120, meditation, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Vitality

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In blog post of 9/29/2014: So, what should you eat for optimal health?, I listed the seven basic principles I have extracted from the many diet books and resources I have studied. These principles are:

  1. What you eat, how much you eat and when you eat, all matter
  2. Eat clean
  3. Eat lots of vegetables and fruits
  4. Use only healthy fats and fat sources
  5. Incorporate sufficient proteins in your diet
  6. Best beverage to drink is pure water
  7. Add or subtract specific foods based on your personal needs

In the last posts, we discussed the first five of these principles. Today, let’s focus on the fifth principle: Best beverage to drink is pure water. And, as usual without any fluff stuff, let’s get to it.

I am sure by now you have heard over and over again, “Keep yourself hydrated.” Or “Drink plenty of water”. But why do we need to keep hydrated?

Water is the solvent for biochemical reactions and has unique physical properties (e.g., high specific heat) to absorb metabolic heat within the body.

Water is also essential for maintaining vascular volume and serves as the medium for transport within the body by supplying nutrients and removing waste. In addition, cell hydration has been has been suggested to be an important signal to regulate cell metabolism and gene expression.

Water is the largest component of human bodies. About 70% of our body weight is water. To maintain homeostasis, i.e., equilibrium in our biology, we need to replenish the daily water loss. Water loss comes from breathing out, sweating, urination and excretion.

You may have noticed feeling sluggish if you are dehydrated. In fact dehydration can bring on a variety of symptoms:

Mild to moderate dehydration is likely to cause:

  • Dry, sticky mouth
  • Sleepiness or tiredness — children are likely to be less active than usual
  • Thirst
  • Decreased urine output
  • No wet diapers for three hours for infants
  • Few or no tears when crying
  • Dry skin
  • Headache
  • Constipation
  • Dizziness or lightheadedness

Severe dehydration, a medical emergency, can cause:

  • Extreme thirst
  • Extreme fussiness or sleepiness in infants and children; irritability and confusion in adults
  • Very dry mouth, skin and mucous membranes
  • Little or no urination — any urine that is produced will be darker than normal
  • Sunken eyes
  • Shriveled and dry skin that lacks elasticity and doesn’t “bounce back” when pinched into a fold
  • In infants, sunken fontanels — the soft spots on the top of a baby’s head
  • Low blood pressure
  • Rapid heartbeat
  • Rapid breathing
  • No tears when crying
  • Fever
  • In the most serious cases, delirium or unconsciousness

Many diseases are linked to dehydration. These include kidney stones, gall stones, bladder, colon and other cancers, arrhythmias, blood clots, Mitral Valve Prolapse, and Osteoporosis.

How much water do we need?

So, given that we need to keep body hydrated, that is, replace the H2O we lose daily with equivalent amount of H2O, how much water do we need everyday?

Institute of Medicine of the National Academies report on Dietary Reference Intake for Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride and Sulfate recommends the following DAILY Recommended intakes for water for different age groups:

For Children

1–3 years         1.3 L total; 0.9 L (4 cups) as beverages

4–8 years         1.7 L total; 1.2 L (5 cups) as beverages

For Males

9–13 years       2.4 L total; 1.8 L (8 cups) as beverages

14–18 years     3.3 L total; 2.6 L (11 cups) as beverages

Over 19 years   3.7 L total; 3.0 L (13 cups) as beverages

 For Females

9–13 years       2.1 L/day of total water; 1.6 L (7 cups)

14–18 years     2.3 L/day of total water; 1.8 L (8 cups)

Over 19 years   2.7 L total; 2.2 L (9 cups) as beverages

Pregnant and Lactating women are exception and will need even more for each respective age group.

Can you drink too much water?

In very unusual circumstances, excess consumption of water and low sodium intake may lead to excess body water, resulting in hyponatremia and cellular edema. This condition comes from body getting too low in sodium rather than too much water.

What are the sources for water?

So, given that we need to keep body hydrated, that is replace the H2O we lose daily with equivalent amount of H2O, where do we get it from and where should we get it from?

Well first of all we do get a little bit of it when the body oxidizes hydrogen-containing substances during metabolism or energy production cycle. This water, called Metabolic Water is generally enough to offset the water we breathe out as vapors.

Rest of the water comes from what we consume, i.e., the stuff that crosses our lips. Of course, if you are taking nutrients intravenously (as saline solution or glucose solution in a hospital) that also counts.

All foods, especially, fruits and vegetables contain water. Beverages Coffees, tea, ice tea, milk, sodas, juices, beer all contain water. Institute of Medicine of the National Academies report on Dietary Reference Intake for Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride and Sulfate has the following table on daily water intake from a 2,200 calories daily diet. (Please click on the graphic below if it is not readable)

Table

NOTE: This diet meets the Adequate Intake or the Recommended Dietary Allowance for adult men and women for all nutrients for which one has been established (for fiber, it meets the ratio of 14 g/1,000 kcal) and provides energy nutrients within the acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges. Nutrient totals may not equal the sum of the parts, due to rounding. Vegetables prepared without salt.

Food composition data: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 16.

DATA SOURCE: ENVIRON International

So, what is the optimal source of hydration?

When I came to the US, 37 years ago, I somehow created associations that beer is the only drink that really goes with pizza and at McDonald’s you always ate hamburger with French fries and Coke. I don’t know how those associations happened, since I did not eat pizzas or McDonald’s’ hamburgers before coming to the US. I guess it was from watching all those TV commercials or just mimicking what everyone else around me was doing.   In fact, it was four years later that watching a friend of mine, I learned that you could actually ask for water at McDonalds.

Fruits and vegetables are definitely good sources for water. Other than getting water from food, what about beverages? Are all beverages, coffees, tea, ice tea, milk, sodas, juices, beer, and wine as good a source of water?

Given the western culture, the answer could be quite confusing.

In research literature, there seems to be some controversy about whether coffee and alcohol are only transitional diuretics or permanent diuretics. Some say that caffeine and alcohol actually cause dehydration. Others disagree.

And, the citrus industry convinced us over two decades ago that “orange juice is not just for breakfast anymore”, so we should be  drinking that all day long.

Coke and Pepsi, of course, promise us sex and happiness.

“Got Milk” teaches us that all the hip people drink milk and it is a fun drink and of course, it is the only source of calcium out there.

Beer is the real beverage to quench thirst, besides it gets us sex and popularity.

Wine is definitely one for sophisticated people and of course makes us live longer.

All this just to get people to drink their stuff to get hydrated! So, what is one to do?

I tend to agree with Joe Dillon, who likes to say, “Just because it is wet, does not mean it will hydrate you.”

Bottom Line

My take on all this is to ask the basic question: when I drink a beverage for hydration, do I want the collateral stuff?

Whether it is caffeine, or alcohol, or sugars or artificial sweeteners, or artificial colors, or whatever else,  if I do want the collateral stuff, then the particular beverage at that moment is an acceptable, desirable or even a good source of hydration. If not, I rather just drink water.

And, in most of the situations, when I am looking to hydrate myself, I rather go directly to the source of hydration that my body is ultimately looking for, which, of course, is Water.

What do you think of this approach?

Do you feel that this simplifies the confusion about water and hydration?

Do you see a hole in this approach? What would you do differently?

Post #27 – Eating for Optimal Health Part VI – Incorporate sufficient protein in your diet

02 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in Ideal Body Weight, Lean Mass, Living to 120, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Optimal Nutrition

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In blog post of 9/29/2014: So, what should you eat for optimal health?, I listed the seven basic principles I have extracted from the many diet books and resources I have studied. These principles are:

  1. What you eat, how much you eat and when you eat, all matter
  2. Eat clean
  3. Eat lots of vegetables and fruits
  4. Use only healthy fats and fat sources
  5. Incorporate sufficient proteins in your diet
  6. Best beverage to drink is pure water
  7. Add or subtract specific foods based on your personal needs

In the last posts, we discussed the first four of these principles. Today, let’s focus on the fifth principle: Incorporate sufficient protein in your diet. And, as usual without any fluff stuff, let’s get to it.

First, what are proteins and what is the big deal?

Proteins are the main building blocks of the body. They’re used to make muscles, tendons, organs and skin. Proteins are also used to make enzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters and various tiny molecules that serve important functions.

Without protein, life as we know it would not be possible.

Proteins are made out of smaller molecules called amino acids, which are linked together like beads on a string. The linked amino acids form long protein chains, which are then folded into complex shapes.

Some of these amino acids can be produced by the body, while we must get others from the diet. The ones we cannot produce and must get from our foods are called the “indispensable” (sometimes also called “essential”) amino acids.

Protein from animal sources such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, and yogurt provide all nine indispensable amino acids, and for this reason are referred to as “complete proteins.”

Proteins from plants, legumes, grains, nuts, seeds, and vegetables tend to be deficient in one or more of the indispensable amino acids and are called “incomplete proteins.”

So, how much protein do we need?

There are different opinions on how much protein we actually need.

Most official nutrition organizations recommend a fairly modest protein intake. Food and Nutrition Board of Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in their Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) reference manual recommends 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, or 0.36 grams per pound. This amounts to:

  • 56 grams per day for the average sedentary man.
  • 46 grams per day for the average sedentary woman.

These are clearly amounts below which nutritional deficiency will result. Interestingly, DRI reference manual does not specify any upper limit at which protein might be harmful, although there is quite a bit of discussion about adverse effects of taking too much of a specific amino acid.

Most experts agrees that protein needs depends upon a number of factors that include activity level, age, muscle (or lean) mass and current state of health. 

But still, how much?

The range seems to be from 0.5 gram to 1.0 grams per pound of body weight. In case one is overweight, it is recommended to use lean mass weight to calculate the protein need.

Most optimal health experts, such as Joe Dillon (The Joe Dillon Difference), Dr. Life (Life Plan), Bill Phillips (Body for Life) whose focus is on building optimal muscle mass, recommend amounts on the higher end of the range. That is, 1.0 or 1.2 grams per pound of body weight per day.

What are the best sources of protein?

The factors often discussed in terms of quality of protein are efficiency of absorption, and how “complete” the protein is, i.e., does it contain all indispensable  amino acids. Another important factor I believe is whether eating enough protein will bust your carbs, fats or calories budget.

Eating lots of breads may give you sufficient proteins but it will probably bust the carbs and calories budgets.  Also, eating lots of rich or fatty meats for sufficient protein will most likely bust your fats budget.

Joe Dillon offers the following hierarchy for selecting optimal sources of lean, quality protein (from highest to lowest):

  • 100% Whey protein isolate powder
  • Egg whites
  • Wild Game (venison, buffalo, elk, moose, etc.)
  • Salmon, Ahi Tuna
  • Turkey (white meat, dark meat, no skin)
  • Fish (all kinds)
  • Chicken (white meat only, no skin)
  • Shellfish (oysters, mussels, clams, lobster, shrimp, crab)
  • Nonfat Dairy (nonfat milk, nonfat cheese, nonfat cottage cheese, nonfat plain yogurt)

But how much of these foods should I eat?

Here is a quick guide:

  • 3 ounces of lean meat or poultry contain about 25 g of protein,
  • 3 ounces of fish contain about 20 g of protein
  • 1 cup of soybeans supplies about 20 g of protein.
  • 1 cup of yogurt is approximately 8 g,
  • 1 cup of milk is 8 g
  • 1 egg or 1 ounce of cheese contains about 6 g
  • One cup of legumes has approximately 15 g of protein
  • Cereals, grains, nuts, and vegetables contain about 2 g of protein per serving.

Bottom Line:

Still confused? May be this will help. Looking for optimal nutrition, this is what I am doing:

  1. Since I am interested in continuing to build my lean mass reserves, I decided to budget protein in the upper end of the range, about 1 gram per pound of my body weight. I weigh 161 plus minus 2 pounds these days, so 160 grams of protein per day is my target.
  2. I am a vegetarian, I assume I get about 10 to 20 grams from vegetables, legumes and eggs and egg whites.
  3. I supplement the remaining using shakes of whey isolates or whey concentrates and isolates mixed. That makes for shakes 4 to 5 times a day: breakfast, lunch, while going home from work, post-exercise and sometime before going to bed. If I ate meat, I will do just one or two shakes a day.

What do you think of this approach?

Do you feel that this simplifies the confusion about proteins?

Do you see a hole in this approach? What would you do differently?

Post #23 – Eating for Optimal Health Part II – What you eat, how much you eat and when you eat, all matter.

06 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Ideal Body Weight, Lean Mass, Living to 120, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Percent Body Fat, wellness

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Eating for Optimal Health Part II – What you eat, how much you eat and when you eat, all matter.

In last week’s blog post: So, what should you eat for optimal health? – Part I, I listed the seven basic principles I have extracted from the many diet books and resources I have studied. These principles are:

  1. What you eat, how much you eat and when you eat, all matter
  2. Eat clean
  3. Eat lots of vegetables and fruits
  4. Use only healthy fats and fat sources
  5. Incorporate sufficient proteins in your diet
  6. Best beverage to drink is pure water
  7. Add or subtract specific foods based on your personal needs

Today, let’s focus on the very first principle: What you eat, how much you eat and when you eat, all matter. And, without any fluff, let’s get to it.

What you eat: Our physical bodies need:

  • Oxygen
  • Water
  • Macro nutrients: carbs, proteins and fats
  • Micro nutrients: vitamins and minerals
  • Enzymes
  • Bacteria
  • Certain molecules

For optimal health, what we eat needs to provide all these items in optimal quantities. If any of these are taken in insufficient quantities, suboptimal health will result.

How much you eat: One aspect of how much to eat is based on how much energy we need every day. The other aspect is to eat so as to receive optimal quantities for our bodies’ needs a) through g) above.

The first aspect about energy, in-turn depends upon two factors. How many Kcals (or Calories) do we need for the basic metabolic activities (beating heart, circulation of blood, breathing, maintaining body temperature etc.). And, for other physical activities which can depend upon our lifestyle, taking elevators vs. taking stairs, number of steps walked in a day, exercise or no exercise, driving to work or biking to work, doing the work manually or letting machines do the work, etc.

And, there is yet another factor that dictates how much to eat question, i.e., how efficiently is your body able to convert food to energy. Basic metabolic cycle, called Krebs Cycle or the Citric Acid Cycle involves myriads of elements to convert carbs, protein and water into energy.

When to eat: While there are many theories as to when to eat, there is one major principle that is well understood and is critical to optimal health: Sugar Management. Body converts carbohydrates into glucose (sugars) before they can be converted to energy using the Krebs cycle. Rate at which carbs convert to sugars depends on the glycemic index of the specific food. And, how much sugar is generated, also called glycemic load, in this process is based on glycemic index and the quantity of food.

Body either uses up all the glucose it generates or it stores away what it cannot use in the form of body fat. For optimal health, one must eat just enough, so that all of it can be converted into stored energy rather than stored fat. This means eating meals more often, if necessary, to not generate excess that will have to be stored away as fat.

Bottom line and My Personal Plan: Given all these factors, you can easily imagine why there is much room for controversy about what to eat, how much to eat and when to eat.

When one expert says, “Just figure out  how many calories you need and then simply eat that many calories.”

Next expert might say, “Not true, because you still need all of the elements 1 through 7 that body needs. That is why, 2500 calories from sodas is not the same as 2500 calories from fruits and vegetables.”

Yet, third expert may argue that if you are missing just a few key ingredients, your energy cycle may be all messed up and nothing else will matter.

So, what is one to do? The best answer, I have synthesized from all those book and resources I mentioned in part I, is as follows. I am here using my personal example to illustrate. These days, my weight is 161 (plus minus 2 lbs.)

  1. Decide how many calories you need to consume in a day, based on your build and life style (usually 2300 calories to 2800 calories):

In my case, I decided about 2500 calories meet my daily need.

  1. If you are not at optimal percent body fat, reduce the calorie in-take by 20%

So in my case, since I am still working on losing body fat, I budgeted 2500 x 80% = 2000 calories

  1. 15% should come from fat

For me, 2000 x 15% = 300 calories. 300/9 = 33 grams of fat

  1. Budget 1 gram per pound of body weight for protein.

For me: 160 grams of proteins. 160gms x 4 cals/ gm = 640 calories

  1. What remains is budget for carbs. Thus, Calories from carbs = Total Calorie budget – fat cals – protein calories. Divide by 4 for number of grams of carbs.

So my daily intake budgets are:

  • Total 2000 calories
  • 300 cals from fat, i.e., 33 gms
  • 640 cals from protein, i.e., 160 gms
  • 1060 cals from carbs, i.e., 265 gms.
  1. Use fruits and vegetables as the basis for carbs that will not only meet carb requirements but also most of the micro nutrients. It is really easy to blow carbs budget with breads and pasta, and most of those also have very high glycemic load.
  2. Use your choice of protein sources for the budgeted amount of protein requirement. Again, be careful in selecting protein sources, since it is very easy to blow the fat budget with poor choice of protein sources.
  3. Break up intake into at least six meals and mix proteins with carbs for each meal to keep sugar level throughout out the day and also prevent spikes after each meal.

For one day, I did a complete journal of what I ate and also using resources on the Internet figured calories for carbs, proteins and fats. This was a particular intense day during my 21-day Muscle Mania challenge. I don’t always do strength training workout with my trainer and Bikram yoga the same day.

Below here is the result. Remember, I am a vegetarian and I have been using Whey Protein as my major source of protein.

You can Click on the picture to enlarge it, if it is not readable.

Meal Planner and Journal for Ashok

What do you think of this approach?

Do you feel that this simplifies the mumbo jumbo of what to eat, how much to eat and when to eat for optimal health?

Do you see a hole in this approach? What would you do differently?

Post #20 – So, how much muscle can you gain in a short period and why you may want to?

10 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Aging, Bikram Yoga, Biomarkers for Stress, Ideal Body Weight, Lean Mass, Life-Span, Living to 120, Optimal Health, Percent Body Fat, Vitality, wellness, Yoga

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In most health literature, one thing I find repeated over and over again is that muscle or lean body mass is a very important factor for health and longevity.

When I heard from Joe Dillon about 15 months ago a concrete technique to lose body fat and gain muscle mass, I got inspired. Although, I had generally been keeping track of my weight, up until then I had never really thought of tracking or targeting body fat and lean mass directly.

More I studied this topic, the more it all made sense. Weight and Body Mass Index (BMI) are just proxy for tracking body fat and lean mass, which are what really count. It is the body fat that is harmful and it is the lean mass that is helpful – and both in so many different ways. And, at times BMI and body fat can be very poor approximation of body fat and lean mass.

If in the process of losing weight, you lose muscle mass rather than fat, that is not a good thing at all. In fact, that can be very harmful to your health. Mark Hyman, MD talks about a term call skinny fat to describe someone who looks quite skinning, has good weight, but the weight is very disproportionately fat mass.

William Evans, Ph.D. and Irwin Rosenberg, MD in their seminal work, Biomarkers, The 10 Determinants of Aging You Can Control,” coined the term Sarcopenia, to describe a “disease” when someone lacks adequate lean body mass.

Jim Karas, in his book, The Business Plan for the Body”, calls lean mass the net worth. When he talks to business people, who understand financials, he explains weight, muscle and fat this way: weight is your total assets, fat is total debt and lean muscle mass is your equity or net worth. And, if you do nothing, starting with age 30, you lose muscle mass, about 7 lbs. per decade for men and women, and accelerating to one pound per year after menopause for women. So, if you do nothing to counteract, by the age of 60, you will have lost 21 lbs. of muscle mass and replaced with 21 plus your weight gained, since the age of 30, in body fat. Is that 31 lbs. or 41 lbs. or more of additional body fat? Yikes!

You get the idea.

Through all this studying, I found a new way to articulate that object of the game (or obsession) of weight loss, i.e., to simply target and measure percent body fat. And, Joe Dillon provided ideal targets. He feels that for optimal health men should have no more than 15% body fat, while woman should have no more than 22%. Further, he says, that the world class male athletes have body fat percent in the range of 6 to 12% and female athletes in the range of 12% to 18%.

So, instead of looking up on the BMI tables to estimate what ideal body weight should be, a precise method is:

Ideal weight = Body Fat Weight/0.15 for 15% body fat target.

Where, Body Fat Weight = Current Weight * Current % body fat

Current % body fat is measureable by taking seven different measurements with calipers and them plugging into calculator.

With all this knowledge in hand, I started my journey. On May 17, 2013, started with these measurements:

Table 4

Notice that in May 2013, at 23.9% body fat, my ideal weight was150.0 lbs. And, as it generally happens if I were to lose 17.5 lbs to get to 150.0, it will prTable 1obably not all be body fat. So, as more weight I lost lower my ideal body weight would need to be. No wonder this is a sucker’s game (or obsession)!

My goal was to lose body fat, while at the same time gain lean mass!

I changed my diet per Joe Dillon’s recommendations. Basically, took breads and sweets totally out of my meals and all processed foods, added more raw fruits and vegetables, decreased quantity of what I would eat and added about 150 grams of proteins through Whey concentrate and isolate shakes. I kept to my then most recent routine of one fitness/resistance training workout and two to three Bikram Yoga sessions a week.

I progressed along pretty well as you can see in the table below, especially through the end of the year.

Table 5

Every month I was losing about a pound of fat and gaining a pound of lean mass. That seemed very encouraging. After a few months of watching that trend, I even raised my target. I started to ask, “Wouldn’t it be cool to get six-pack at sixty?” I have never had six-pack abs before. Why not? May be 12% body fat would do it.

And, then starting beginning of year, the progress sort of plateaued. In April, I added to my weekly workout routine Joe Dillon’s power walks with weights about three days a week. And, I started to make a very gentle progress again.

About then, I did some blood work and found out that my testosterone was low. Aha, may be that was the reason my progress had stalled! I theorized. Low-T and elevated estradiol wreaks havoc on lean mass for muscle. “Man boobs” are signs of low-T and elevated estradiol in men. Health literature is quite sure about this, e.g., check out, Testosterone for Life: Recharge Your Vitality, Sex Drive, Muscle Mass, and Overall Health by Abraham Morgentaler, MD.

So, I started to work on that through herbal supplements, which is still work-in-progress and another story for another day. Joe Dillon recommends getting that test up-front, which I did not do, so I did not really have any baseline numbers to compare.

About a month ago, I saw an exercise program by Shawn Phillips, who is a world class body sculptor. He called this program, Muscle Mania – a program made up of intense workouts, one muscle a day, every single day for 21 days. His promise was add 4 pound of muscle mass in 21 days.

I talked to our trainer Saleem and my wife Kimberly. Both were encouraging and we went for it. Starting July 16th, for the next 21 mornings, under Saleem’s coaching Kimberly and I worked out. (Actually on day 20, I did not feel well, so we skipped a day and finished the program in 22 days). For 21 days, we bombed one muscle group every morning: chest, biceps/triceps, legs, back, shoulders in whatever order and with whatever exercises the program recommended. Some days, I felt totally exhausted, some days very energized. But we pushed through it and finished the program as intended.

My right shoulder stiffened up a little during one of the bench press exercises. So, I started using the foam roller for rolling. Found it to be incredible beneficial. From then on, I incorporated about 10 minute of rolling as part of the warm up routine. Jeffry S. Life, MD Ph.D. in his book, “The Life Plan: How Any Man Can Achieve Lasting Health, Great Sex, and a Stronger, Leaner Body” recommends rolling for warm-ups and flexibility by working on the fascia.

So, here is the result.

Table 6

As of August 9, if I am measuring, it correctly (Kimberly did the measuring wherever I can’t reach), I have achieved 15.1% body fat! And, as the table shows my weight of 161.0 is the same as ideal weight of 160.9 at 15% body fat.

I did not really do the measurements before and after the 21-day program. But no doubt, I made most of this progress between May and August during the 21-day program. During this period, I lost 4 lbs. of body fat and gained 2 lbs. lean mass.

And, I can see hints of my six-pack! It seems like 12% body fat will surely make my abs visible.

So, there you have it – the story of my chase for 15% body fat and in turn for my ideal weight.

I definitely, feel more energized. This has also brought my cholesterol in line. I quit taking Lipitor last year in May, the same time I started this journey. And, the most recent blood work showed total cholesterol of 145, LDL of 88, HDL 43 and Triglycerides of 69. That is the best it has been even with Lipitor!

To continue the progress, for the near future, Kimberly and I are planning on two days of strength/resistance training, two days of some aerobics including power walks and two days of Bikram Yoga for flexibility, balance and cleansing the internal organs.

What are your thoughts or comments on this whole endeavor?

If any of this helps you or inspires you to take on some health challenge, I would love to hear about it and/or answer any questions you may have.