Category Archives: Living to 120

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 #22 – So, what should you eat for optimal health?

29 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by in Aging, Nutrition, Optimal Health, Puposely Living, Vitality, wellness

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So, what should you eat for optimal health? – Part I

That is the million dollar question. Isn’t it? This is such a big and controversial topic that so far I had dared not touch it. There is so much information out there on this topic. It is mind boggling.

Let us start from a simple premise.

Let’s assume for a moment that you can get over all the excuses like: I don’t like the taste of it, or I am a vegetarian, or I cannot live without meat, or but that’s the way I was raised, or but I travel too much, or, I don’t have time to eat healthy, etc., etc., etc.

If the only objective was optimal health and you could follow whatever diet or nutritional plan was optimal, what should you eat?

Well, that is the question I have been asking and answer I have been searching for quite a while now.

Here is a sampling of the books I have read, in no particular order, looking for the answer:

The South Beach Diet The Perfect 10 Diet The Life Plan The Top 100 Zone Foods The Disease Dillusion The China Study The Body For Life The Blue Zones The Blood Sugar Solution The Top 100 Zone Foods Dr. Atkins DietPrevent and Reverse Heart DiseaseThe Joe Dillon DiferencePower Foods

All of these books have their specific points-of-view.

Some of these advocate vegetarian or vegan food.

Some recommend high protein.

Some recommend low carbs.

Some balanced meals.

Some advocate very low amount fats.

Some recommend saturated fats. Some don’t.

Some focus on eating simple foods.

Some focus on sugar management.

Some say track (count) calories.

Some say don’t bother with calories counting.

So, what is one to do?

It is so easy to get lost in trees or the nuances of different food paradigms.

While there are so many things these books don’t agree on, there are also a lot they all do agree on.

Looking for what they do agree on, here are some basic principles I have extracted from these and other books and resources:

  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

Over the next posts, I plan to take each of these items one at time and share my thoughts. For now, I would like to hear your feedback on this list of basic principles.

Have you seen any diet book or nutritional studies that violate any of these basic principles?

Do you think there should be other basic principles to add to this list?

Post #21 – So, this past week I turned 60 – exact mid-point of my 120-year goal. Yeah!

25 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by in Aging, Living to 120, Puposely Living

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I had a great birthday party, thanks to my wife Kimberly and a bunch of people she recruited.

Thanks to all who attended, I connected and reconnected with lots of family and friends. We enjoyed good food, danced through the evening to the music played by a great live band, received lots of wishes and prayers, had good fun and took lots of pictures to memorialize the event.

In the days following the party, we talked about how wonderful the party was.

And, now what?

Well, for one thing, I have started wondering what will my 90th birthday be like?

Where will I be health wise, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and financially on my 90th birthday?

Which old and new friends and family members will be around to attend my 90th birthday party?

What new skills I will have on my 90th birthday that I did not have on my 60th?

To me, part of purposely living is to have a vision and design of life that one is purposely pursuing.

I know, nothing is guaranteed in life. And, the vision or design may be totally off the mark. After all, my life is not totally in my control.

For all I know, my Maker may have a totally different design for me. I may have to check out tomorrow or day after from this life. And then again, may be my Maker is waiting for my designs to figure out how to make that happen. But since I have not heard from my Maker either way, I might as well make plans that both of us could follow.

Is it even possible to envision personal life 30 years into the future? In the past thirty years, I have done this only in 4-year chunks and even that with not much precision.

Jim Collins and Morten Hansen open their book Great by Choice with a thesis:

You cannot predict the future. But you can create it.

They further elaborate this thesis as follows:

“Think back to 15 years ago, and consider what’s happened since, the destabilizing events – in the world, in your country, in the markets, in your work, in your life – that defied all expectations. We can be astonished, confounded, shocked, stunned, delighted, or terrified, but rarely prescient. None of us can predict with uncertainty the twists and turns our lives will take. Life is uncertain, the future unknown. This is neither good nor bad. It just is, like gravity. Yet the task remains: how to master our own fate, even so.”

And, then the rest of the book backs up that claim with various examples of businesses and people who prove his thesis.

That sounds like an interesting approach to life.

This is about as far as I have gone until today in thinking of my 90th birthday and towards a vision, design or plan for purposely living the next six decades.

Any thoughts?

I would like to believe that these are NOT simply musings of a mid-life crisis. That would be too simplistic a rationalization to dismiss these questions with.

I would love to hear how you approach life.

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.

Post #19 – So, where do our ideas about food, medicine, and health come from?

27 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Aging, Nutrition, Stress, wellness

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I recently heard a July 7 ,2014 story on the National Public Radio (NPR), and it blew me away. Here is an excerpt from it:

“For the past decade or so, [Mark] Petticrew and a group of colleagues in London have been searching through millions of documents from the tobacco industry that were archived online in the late ’90s as part of a legal settlement with tobacco companies.

What they’ve discovered is that both Selye’s work and much of the work around Type A personality [by two American cardiologists — Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman] were profoundly influenced by cigarette manufacturers. They were interested in promoting the concept of stress because it allowed them to argue that it was stress — not cigarettes — that was to blame for heart disease and cancer.”

You remember, in one of the previous post, I talked about endocrinologist Hans Selye being the pioneer of stress research and was even the first to use the term stress in the context of health?

Here is another one that made me shake my head, an essay in the Wall Street Journal May 6, 2014, about the link between saturated fat and heart disease that included the following:

“Butter and lard had long been staples of the American pantry until Crisco, introduced in 1911, became the first vegetable-based fat to win wide acceptance in U.S. kitchens. Then came margarines made from vegetable oil and then just plain vegetable oil in bottles.

All of these got a boost from the American Heart Association—which Procter & Gamble, the maker of Crisco oil, coincidentally helped launch as a national organization. In 1948, P&G made the AHA the beneficiary of the popular “Walking Man” radio contest, which the company sponsored. The show raised $1.7 million for the group and transformed it (according to the AHA’s official history) from a small, underfunded professional society into the powerhouse that it remains today.

After the AHA advised the public to eat less saturated fat and switch to vegetable oils for a “healthy heart” in 1961, Americans changed their diets. Now these oils represent 7% to 8% of all calories in our diet, up from nearly zero in 1900, the biggest increase in consumption of any type of food over the past century.”

And, I am sure by now you well know about Crisco and partially hydrogenated oils definitely not being good for a “healthy heart.”

I can’t but wonder, if this story that “saturated fats are not bad after all” in WSJ is factual or planted (or suggested, advised, recommended, advocated, proposed – you pick the right word) by the animal food industry.

Or, did you know that what you might have learned in the elementary school in the US, may be in 2nd, 3rd or 4th grade, about food groups, e.g.,

Milk Group (Build strong bones)

Meat Group (Build strong muscles)

Vegetable Group (Help you see in the dark)

Fruit Group (Help heal cuts and bruises)

Grain Group (Give us energy)

All these associations are the gift of marketing through school education by the National Dairy Council. [Chapter 15, the “science” of industry, The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.]

What about the following:

“Eggs, bacon and toast is a perfect American breakfast”

“Orange juice is not for breakfast anymore”

“Pork – the other white meat”

“Chicken in every pot”

“Cholesterol causes heart attack”

“To lower cholesterol eat turkey”

The old saying, “follow the money” to get the real story, is definitely true in these cases.

In our house, when we used to watch commercial TV with our boys, I would insist that we turn the volume off during commercials. That was a one very small attempt to minimize the impact of commercials and programmed associations.

So, how do we figure out what is best for our health and longevity?

It is certainly not easy to filter this information out from the deep seeded subconscious associations we have, the financially motivated deluge of marketing information and finally the good old biases people have, whether scientists, politicians, professionals or friends and family?

Any thoughts? How do you  figure out what is best for you?

I would love to hear and learn.

[By the way, to leave your comment, click on the link “leave a comment” at the top right hand corner of the post just below the title, simply enter your comment in the box  that will appear where it says, “Enter your comment here..”. As soon as you put your cursor there, you will see a button “Post Comment” to click and submit after you have typed your comment]

Post #17 – Is meditation an effective antidote to stress?

13 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Biomarkers for Stress, Living to 120, meditation, Optimal Health, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Stress, TM

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30 years ago when I co-founded A&T Systems, Inc., I would passionately talk to others in general conversations about the company and its future possibilities. Which, of course, I still do today. No surprise there. But one thing I found surprising were the comments I would get pretty frequently in response, such as: So how would you handle stress of running a business?, or you want to have a heart attack at young age?

So, when one day in 1986, I saw a commercial on a local TV station, about Transcendental Meditation (TM) and how that was an indispensable tool for managing stress, I quickly signed up for an introductory meeting. At the meeting, the organizers served up lots of evidence on how TM helps manage and reduce stress.

My wife, Kimberly, and I were both sold. We signed up right there. That weekend, we learned the TM technique and were told to do the meditation for 20 minutes twice a day. There were three follow up sessions on the following three days in which the teacher explained the theory behind the practice and answered the questions as they arose through the experience of actually doing the meditation. In these sessions, the teacher also did ‘checking’, a process whereby the teacher makes sure that we are practicing the meditation correctly.

After these initial sessions, we went for checking after a couple of weeks, then couple of months and then once a year and then every few years.

We immediately started to notice some changes in our lifestyle. Before learning TM, after work, I used to come home and grab a beer, turn on the TV and unwind. Now, I would come home, do TM and find that I no longer felt the need or desire for a beer. For Kimberly it was not as much beer in the evening, but a cup of coffee first thing in the morning to get going. After starting TM, she would wake up, do TM and then not feel the need or desire for a cup of coffee. She also noticed that the number of cups of coffee she used to drink in a day went down dramatically.

Along the way, we learned that TM is one of the most researched meditation techniques. There are over 350 peer-reviewed research studies. Through this research, there is plenty evidence of the efficacy of the TM for managing stress and a host of other biomarkers for stress, many of those I discussed in the last post. The following are just a couple of examples from the TM website page, Proven effective for stress and anxiety.

Effective for Stress and Anxiety v2

Decresed Cortisol

Recently, many celebrities have started to talk about and promote TM, e.g., Oprah, Seinfeld, Ellen Degeneres, some of them from their personal experience of having practiced TM for many years.

But I am an experiential kind of guy, always asking the question, “But will it work for me?” From my personal experience, I can unequivocally say that it is an indispensable tool to be able to handle stress.

There are days that I get home from work in the evening, when just looking at me Kimberly would says, “You look tired and hungry. Why don’t you eat something right away?” And, I would tell her that I need TM worse than I need food. I just do a 20 minute of TM and then I am refreshed and good to go until bed time.

If anyone talks of being under stress all the time, they usually hear from me about the TM. I recommend TM without any reservations. Because of my proselytizing, In my immediate and extended family, everyone has learned TM – our sons, my brothers, my sister, and their children. I am not sure everyone does TM as regularly as I do, but they all have this tool that they can fall back upon. Our sons and nieces have mentioned of TM being very helpful in dealng with their  college stress.

I have been so impressed with the TM that I have actually gone and learned advanced methods, beyond the basic TM technique that I learned in 1985. I learned what is called Advanced Technique. I have also learned a process of TM that is called TM Sidhi, which requires much more commitment of time and money. TM Sidhi learning culminates into techniques for Yogic Flying, where you offer intention and your body lifts off from the ground.

Of course, there are many other types of mediation. However, I have only incidental or superficial knowledge and experience of these, especially their role in stress management. I am not really able to talk about those with any authority or offer any guidance.

Recently, I have been exposed to a type of meditation called Mindful Meditation. This type of meditation is being taken up in medical schools and universities such as UCLA, and is subject of research for stress reduction and management.

What is your experience with meditation?

Have you found meditation useful method for managing stress?

 

Post #16 – What is stress really and why is it bad for longevity and health?

22 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in Aging, Biomarkers for Stress, Life-Span, Optimal Health, Stress

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Stress has become such a common buzz word. We all talk about it. We generally know it is bad for us. It is constantly in the news.

There are exceptions though. Some believe that stress is good, arguing that if you take away the stress you take away the motivation and drive.

But whenever I get into conversation with someone and start to dig a little deeper with questions like, “So, what do you think is stress?” “Why do you think that stress is bad?” Why do you think it is good?” Or, “How do you deal with stress?” The subject becomes very squishy, very quickly.

Even Hans Selye, the person who originally coined the term stress in 1936 in the context of health and spent life-time studying it, at one time threw up his hands and declared, “Everyone knows what stress is, but no one really knows.”

So, let us take the first question first, what is stress, any ways.

Webster’s Dictionary defines Stress as “a state of mental or worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc.”; or, “something that causes strong feelings of worry or anxiety”

According to the American Institute of Stress, another popular definition of stress is, “a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize.”

Few useful concepts, while talking about stress are:

Acute Stress: Fight or flight. The body prepares to defend itself. It takes about 90 minutes for the metabolism to return to normal when the response is over.

Chronic Stress: The cost of daily living: bills, kids, jobs…This is the stress we tend to ignore or push down. Left uncontrolled this stress affects our health- our body and our immune system. This is the type of stress that causes wear and tear on our bodies and can impact health and longevity.

Eustress: “Good stress” in daily life that has positive connotations, e.g., marriage, promotion, child birth, winning money, new friends, graduation

Distress: “Bad stress” in daily life that has negative connotations, e.g., divorce, punishment, injury, negative feelings, financial problems, work difficulties.

So, from  the point of view of theses definitions, the stress is really a subjective concept, based on how we perceive a thing or an event. The same event or activity, say a roller coaster ride, could be a eustress (good stress) for one person and distress for another. This is why psychologists or mental health practitioners often get involved in diagnosing and helping cope with chronic stress.

Although stress is a subjective concept, the impact on our bodies is often very objective and real. We have all experienced the rising of hairs on the back of the neck, the sweats, tension in our gut, racing of heart, dilating of pupils, and pumping of blood in our face, arms and legs.

As the following figure shows, stress starting in mind, causes, a chain reaction of neurological, chemical and biological processes. (Figure is taken from a presentation,Why Stress Is A Far More Important Cause Of Coronary Disease Than Cholesterol, by Paul J. Rosch, M.D., F.A.C.P. President, The American Institute of Stress)

Effects of Stress

Physiological effects of most acute stress events subside about 90 minutes after the conclusion of the stress event. Body returns to normal homeostasis or biological equilibrium.

However, it is the repeated acute stress events or chronic stress that are real cause for concern and take toll on our bodies. The results of such chronic stress can be objectively measured from a host of biomarkers that include (from Biomarkers of Chronic Stress, by Laalithya Konduru):

  • Metabolic Biomarkers: Cholesterol, Albumin, Waist-to-Hip Ratio, Glycosylated Hemoglobin
  • Immunological Biomarkers: IL-6, TNF-α, CRP, IGF-1
  • Neuroendocrine Biomarkers: Cortisol, DHEA, Adrenaline, Noradrenaline, Dopamine, Aldosterone
  • Certain Metabolites, chemical figure prints of cellular processes
  • Modifications in Mitochondria
  • Induction in the Brain of DRR1, a tumor suppressor gene

Most of us recognize some of these biomarkers. Others are quite esoteric. In any case, from this list, it does not take a neuroscientist to figure out that chronic stress can mess with a number of things that are key to our health: insulin, cholesterol, hormones, our immune system, can cause inflammation, reduce energy level in the body and impact working of our brain.

Looks like a real important subject to me, if we want to live healthy life free of chronic diseases for an optimal life span.

What do you think? How do you fee about stress?

In a future post, I would like to explore some anti-dotes to chronic stress

Post #15 – Is taking multivitamin and supplements helpful, harmless or harmful?

08 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in Aging, Optimal Health, Vigor, Vitality

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So, my son Dan visited us over the last weekend. He is 22, generally eats well, is in great health and has no health issues whatsoever. As he watched me taking my multivitamins and a handful of supplements he asked, “What is all this stuff you are taking Dad? Should I be taking any of this stuff for optimal health?”

So, here is what I told Dan.

Through all my reading and learning, I have come across all three points of view on multivitamins:

  1. Unless you have deficiency in some vitamin or mineral, you don’t really need to take daily vitamins and mineral supplements. If you do, they just get secreted out of the body in urine. So, by taking multivitamin as supplements, all you get is expensive urine.
  2. You have to be careful very careful with the supplements. They can actually cause harm to your body. For example, have you not heard about the study about taking too much antioxidants is harmful?
  3. To get all vitamins and minerals, you really need to eat all the various foods during the week. Besides, many of our fruits and vegetables are depleted of nutrition due to the present day methods of farming. Moreover, there are many studies that demonstrate effectiveness of the many supplements in Optimal Daily Allowance, which can be significantly more than the minimum Required Daily Allowance (RDA). So, not only one should take multivitamins every day, but make sure to take based on optimal daily allowance.

I have come to subscribe to number 3, i.e., for optimal health we must take daily optimal quantity of multivitamins and minerals.

While there is no shortage of material out there discussing this topic, I would briefly share here some information and sources that have influenced my thinking.

Kimberly and I attended a presentation by Chris D’Adamo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor and Director of Research at Center of Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine, in Baltimore, MD. I found his presentation, D’ADAMO – Supplementing Your Dietary Supplement IQ – 2013 to be very objective and informative. He discussed each vitamin and mineral, their impact on health, the required and optimal intake and sources from which we get those. And, culturally, do we get sufficient quantity or not. Bottom line: Consider taking the following: Multivitamin, Vitamin D, Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Probiotics. Add other supplements for specific issues as needed.

Pretty much the same conclusion is described in “Blood Sugar Solution”, by Dr. Mark Hyman, “The Life Plan: How Any Man Can Achieve Lasting Health, Great Sex, and a Stronger, Leaner Body”, by Jeffry S. Life M.D. Ph.D., and in The Joe Dillon Difference, by Joe Dillon.

The next question is which brand. Should I just go to Safeway, Giant, Cosco and pick the cheapest multivitamin? Is there difference between any of these brands?

Before you pick a brand, I advised Dan, you need to do some research, since there are no guidelines or standards or compliance audits for supplements.

Multivitaminguide compares and ranks multivitamin brands. ConsumerLabs also tests supplements and assigns Approved or Not Approved designations. These websites claim they have tested brands for composition, bioavailability, safety and potency.

From the Multivitaminguide check out the top five. Some of them have extensive information on what is in the capsules and why. For example, two of the top five brand websites, Xtend-life and LifeExtension, describe in detail not only the different ingredients, but also cite research studies from where they derive the reasons for including a particular ingredient as well as the quantity of the ingredient.

National Institute of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements is also a great place to get educated on this subject.

You will also notice that in addition to the basic 26 vitamins and mineral, some multivitamins on the list (including the ones from Xtend-life and LifeExtension) have other ingredients, e.g., green tea extract, Lycopene (from tomatoes, alfalfa extract etc. So, that becomes another consideration in selecting a multivitamin. Do you want to add these other ingredient, “everyone” is talking about being important for wellness, curcumin, ginger, turmeric, resveratrol (from Red wine) and so many others.

Given all this information, what would I recommend? Just like Dr. D’Admo recommends: a good multivitamin, omega-3’s, vitamin D and probiotics as a baseline. Then add specific supplements that you may need due to specific health condition.

These days, I am taking the following:

  1. Xtend-life Men’s Total Balance Premium. Comes in 7 capsule a day
  2. Xtend-life Omega 3 / QH Ultra. 4 capsules a day.
  3. Nature’s Bounty 1200 mg Flaxseed Oil Softgels. 2 capsules a day
  4. Vitamin D3 2000 mg. One capsule a day
  5. Raw Probiotics – Ultimate Care. One capsule a day. Just today ordered for the first time.
  6. Nature’s Plus – Extended Release 600mg Red Yeast Rice. 2 capsules a day for managing my cholesterol.
  7. Now Foods Calcium Citrate Plus Caps 600mg, 2 a day for bone health.
  8. Cosamin ASU Active People Capsule. 2 a day for joint health
  9. Male Rejuvinator. 3 capsules a day for Prostate Health
  10. Life Extension Super MiraForte with Standardized Lignans. 4 capsules a days. Added recently to restore Testosterone level – indicated as low by blood work. Too early to say if it works.
  11. Miracle Phytoceramides. One capsule a day. Another experiment for healthy moist skin and wrinkle prevention.

So, based on my experience, I advised Dan to read up some of the related literature and start with the following:

  1. Xtend-life Multi-Xtra. $18.95 + 4.49 shipping from Amazon or Xtend-life.com. 2 capsule a day.
  2. Xtend-life Omega 3 / DHA Fish Oil. $17.95 + 4.49 shipping from Amazon or Xtend-life.com. 2 capsules a day.
  3. Nature’s Bounty 1200 mg Flaxseed Oil Softgels. $8.95 from Amazon. 1 capsules a day
  4. Nature’s Bounty Vitamin D3 2000 mg $11.52 from Amazon for 240 capsules. One capsule a day

You should take it for three months and see how you feel. Then may be stop taking it for a week or two and see how you feel. Based on that comparison you should be able to see for yourself if it is worthwhile for you to keep taking these.

Dan told me that this was a good topic for my future blog posts. So, here it is Dan and feel free to share it with others.

What is your experience with multivitamins and supplements?

Do you have your favorite brands or supplements that have had major impact on your physical and mental health?

Post #13 – Ever heard of Functional Medicine?

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by in Aging, Functional Medicine, Living to 120, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Vigor, Vitality

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In my previous blog posts, I have talked about curing my allergies, fixing migraines, and curing a whole host of other issues without pharmacological medicines. Yes, actually curing these issues and not just managing or controlling the symptoms.

For the longest amount of time, I found it difficult to talk about to these things with my physicians or even lay people. I must admit it all sounded so much like woo doo even to me as I would talk about it. A common refrain from doctors was, “We only practice evidence based medicine.” I did not know what to believe or not believe, except that from my personal experience (evidence of n=1), I could prove that these things work.

All that changed, when last year Kimberly and I attended the Health and Wellness Conference 2013 at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine at the Center of Integrative Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. There we heard talks about yoga, Qi Gong, nutrition, meditation, detoxing, and many other so called “alternative” therapies in the setting of Evidence Based Medicine.

Key note speaker was Mark Hyman, MD. He has a private practice Ultra Wellness Center in Massachusetts. He wrote a book, The Blood Sugar Solution, which received endorsement from President Bill Clinton. He talked about the diagnosis and cure of Diabesity, a term he has coined as combination of diabetes and obesity. And, he talked about diabesity in the context of what he called Functional Medicine.

Since then I have studied up quite a bit on Functional Medicine and I do believe that many of my conversations in my blog posts fit in that framework. More I dig into this topic the more entranced I am getting with this topic. I feel that functional medicine is the key to the kingdom, when it comes to wellness, vitality and living the optimal health span and life span.

Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D. is considered “father” of this field. Mark Hyman calls him his mentor. Among Bland’s other accomplishments, he has founded Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute and The Institute for Functional Medicine. Recently, he has written a book, “The Disease Delusion, Conquering the Causes of Chronic Illness for a Healthier, Longer, and Happier Life.”

Institute for functional medicine describes functional medicine as follows:

“Functional medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership. It is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.”

So, the basic idea of functional medicine is to take a systems approach to disease and wellness rather than either chasing symptoms or taking germ theory approach that generally focuses on single point of correction. In his book, Jeffrey Bland talks of seven different systems for our bodies:

  1. Assimilation and Elimination
  2. Detoxification
  3. Defense
  4. Cellular Communication
  5. Cellular Transport
  6. Energy
  7. Structure

So the objective in functional medicine is to investigate symptoms to pinpoint one or more of these seven systems that are not working properly and then to change diet, exercise and lifestyle to fix the system imbalance and thereby the diseases and the symptoms.

The end result is often pretty low tech, and may seem underwhelming. That is, implement changes in diet, exercise and lifestyle to redirect expression of certain genes to cure a disease.

However, approach to getting there can be fairly high-tech in identifying the true root cause, identifying the systems that are out of balance and gene expressions that may be responsible for the underlying imbalance. And, as you see from the stories, results can be very profound and almost magical.

If you know someone, who is being treated for certain symptoms of chronic diseases by meds. e.g., high blood pressure, obesity, brain fog, constant fatigue, high cholesterol, inflammation, muscle aches, etc..  The meds being used often lead to side effects that need to be treated by other meds, which in turn are causing other side effects etc.. Such a person is the perfect candidates for functional medicine.

Have you heard of functional medicine?

Do you have any experience with functional medicine?

I have been looking for good certified functional medicine practitioners in our area that we could consult and also recommend to our friends and family. We have access to some lists, but no personal experience yet. Do you know of such a practitioner?

I would love to learn if you know someone.

Post #12 – My SECOND Year of Experience with Bikram Yoga

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by in Bikram Yoga, Living to 120, Vigor, Vitality, Yoga

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Here is my SECOND year of experience with Bikram Yoga that I wrote down in February 2014. This makes a nice sequel to my last week’s blog post, where I shared the first year of experience.

Today is Presidents Day 2014, two years after I started the Bikram Yoga. It seems like a good time to reflect on my progress with Bikram Yoga.

Experimenting for Regaining Control of Breath

At the beginning of my second year, I started experimenting and also talked to various teachers about my desire to keep control of my breath and conserve energy to perfect my poses. Most of the teachers discouraged skipping an asana, emphasizing that that asana are designed with certain flow in mind. Best suggestion, I thought, came from Rosa. She advised to do the first sets as easy as I needed to and then give my all in the second sets.

I started this technique with almost skipping the first sets. Then slowly I started to do the firsts sets lightly to build endurance and maintain form. I would then give my all in the second set, reminding myself that I could always skip the first set of the following asana if I needed to regain control of my breath. I felt better and better with this method.

Reintroducing Strength Training

One downside I found for doing Bikram only was that after a year I started to feel that my strength was waning. I did not feel as confident in simple things like lifting my laptop brief case, which is about 30lbs. In April 2013, Kimberly and I restarted working out with our trainer Saleem for one day every week. Initially, I would do three times Bikram and one time Saleem every week. For the last few months, I have settled into twice Bikram and one time Saleem. With Saleem’s workouts, my strength is definitely back. With Birkram twice a week, I am able to maintain the flexibility and balance.

Visit to the Egoscue Clinic – Crooked Body Fixers

Another thing I was quite encouraged by was improvements in my knee pain through Bikram. So, I decided to see if I could really get them to be 100% cured. For that I decided to visit with the local Egoscue Clinic. Kristen Thor, the therapist there, showed me that my knees were misaligned in that they were pronated, i.e., faced outwards. Although, knees were my major concern why I went to her, she also showed me that the reason my right shoulders kept getting stiff whenever I worked out with heavy weights is that my upper body was misaligned in that my right shoulder was rotated forward. That, she said, was also the reason why my right wrist would hurt when I would put weight on it, for example, when I did pushups. She was clearly able to demonstrate these issues.

As she worked through those issues, I also told her about my awkwardness with the Awkward Pose (Utkat Aasna) or even weighted squats. For that she showed me that my upper back lacked flexibility and did not have the proper curvature. This made it difficult for me to balance when I did the Awkward Pose or the squats. For years, Saleem and my sons have been telling me to stick my butt out while squatting, which was hard to do, according to Kristen, if my upper back did not provide me the counter balance when I was sticking my butt out.

Finally, I talked to her about how it felt difficult and my back used to get really tired when I was doing the Standing Head to Knee Pose (Dandyamana Janusheer Aasna). For that, she told me that my hips were not open and flexible enough.

So, over a period of about seven months, I worked with her. I started to feel improvements with my posture in general, my Saleem workouts, and the Bikram poses. Knees got even better. Finally, she gave me routines to do before doing my Saleem and Bikram sessions. Pre-Saleem exercises are to warm up my shoulders before the workout. Pre-Bikram e-cises are to open my hips and upper body before the class.

My knees pain is mostly gone. I can comfortably do weighted lunges, weighted squats, and single leg jump ropes. I have not really felt any significant pain in months. Although, based on memories, I still often hesitate before I do knee straining exercises, as I have been conscious of the knees for years now.

The Joe Dillon Difference

Oh yeah another thing. During our May 2013 Vistage meeting, I met our Vistage speaker Joe Dillon. He was a 69 year old in-your-face kind of guy, who has coached Olympic swimmers and thousands of other people. He got me thinking that it was possible to change my body composition, with the right nutrition. You mean I could dramatically reduce my body fat percent by simply changing what I eat? With the information I got from him and his book and videos, I dramatically changed my eating habits. With Joe Dillon’s protein shakes and Full Strength protein shakes, I added about my body weight equivalent in grams of proteins every day to my intake. I eliminated most raw sugar and flour based products from my meals and started to do a better job for sugar management. I also added to my diet fish oil (Omega-3 Ultra from X-tendlife.com), Flax Seed Oil and a better quality of daily vitamins and supplements (from Premium Daily vitamins from X-tendlife.com).

Since June 2013, when I started the program my weight has decreased only by about four to six pounds, but body fat percent has decreased from 25% to 18%. That means I have added about 7 lbs of muscles and lost about 12 lbs of fat. And, my belly fat is down by 3 inches! I like the trend.

Wow, I Can Touch My Head to My Knee and Hold!

With all these factors and as my endurance built up at Bikram, I started to do the first set more and more deeply. And, I made significant progress on some harder poses. While all of the poses can be done better and at a deeper level, by now, I can reach closer to the final expression of most poses. In the Standing Head to Knee pose, I can now touch head to knee as the final expression for the three counts, though not very gracefully. My knees get a little wobbly. I can almost do Toe Stands with hands in prayer position, but not always for the complete time. My awkward poses are fairly deep and decent, and am able to rise much more slowly in the third part. I can see my complete foot over my head in the Standing Bow. I am able to touch my head against knees in the rabbit pose. My Triangle pose is nice and deep and stable.

And, at times, if the room is not too hot, or my body is feeling up to it, I even attempt the first sets with all I got.

No More Lipitor

Oh yeah. I did two blood works to test my Cholesterol over the last seven months, WITHOUT taking Lipitor. In August, my LDL was 135, so I added Red Rice Yeast to my supplements and in January it was 124. My primary care physician said that with these types of results I can safely stay off Lipitor. Yeah! That is another big goal accomplished. Check.

So, today on Presidents Day, February 17, 2014, on my second anniversary of Bikram Yoga, where to from here:

  1. All the poses can of course be done better. I would like to keep working on improving the poses and my teachers to keep critiquing me for the finer points of my postures. Twice a week seems like good maintenance discipline. At some point, I may want to do another 30-day challenge to see if I can get another step improvement. At this time, I am doing too much other stuff to do any more than twice a week.
  2. I have already raised my goal for body composition – Six Pack at Sixty! For that I would need to get to 12% body fat percent by my birthday. I have another six months until my 60th birthday. I may need to add another couple of days’ worth of workout a week, even just aerobics or walks with weights to create the needed caloric deficit, to get to the body fat target. And, I have to make sure I am providing my body enough protein to build the needed lean mass.   Saleem has also recommended for me to do some Abs and Core workout during the week on my own.
  3. I would like to get an X-ray done of my knees to see if there is any cartilage that is worn out and not yet rebuilt. Then I could more precisely focus on getting that to 100%.
  4. Continue to do Egoscue a couple of times a week in addition to the pre-Saleem and pre-Bikram sessions. Also, work in at least one set of Egoscue Tower e-cises a week for alignment. Getting Tower in has been the hardest part for last couple of months.
  5. Ringing in my ear has not abated. I only feel it when I focus on it. I need a solution for that. Don’t have any solution yet, other than getting a hearing aid, which the Audiologist said, sometimes fixes it.