Archive for July, 2009

Weight loss-Is there really a quick fix?

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

It is estimated that over $40 billion dollars islose-weight-fast-scale spent on weight loss annually, and that figure keeps rising. There have been countless pills, diet and exercise fads, and even natural remedies such as green tea extract, the acai berry and now african mango extract that look promising at first glance for weight loss, but do they really work and is it safe? These are questions you need to ask yourself before taking part in something that may not work and can potentially be harmful.

Lets take a closer look into the newest weight loss quick fix. A study recently published in the online journal Lipids in Health and Disease found that study participants lowered their LDL (”bad”) cholesterol and lost an average of 28 pounds by taking an extract made from the African mango (Irvingia gabonensis). Studies suggest that the African mango may reduced body fat production by affecting genes and enzymes involved in metabolism. What’s most appealing about these findings is that not only did participants lose the weight and lower cholesterol, they were told to make no changes in their diet or exercise routine. Sound too good to be true? It probably is.

First off, a sample size of 102 participants is not large enough to make the generalized assumption that everyone will see these results. In fact, personal testimonials of people who took the extract after the study reported varying results. From what I’ve read, many individuals experienced no weight loss at all and others even gained weight after taking the extract. This actually makes sense. It’s important to understand that each one of us has different biochemical needs to make our bodies work optimally, which is called metabolic typing. Some people need to eat more protein than carbohydrates, for others the reverse is true, and some need a balance of both. The old saying “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” is true in more than just the figurative sense. I’m hypothesizing here but it could be that the people who lost weight had metabolic types that complimented the addition of the oil in this extract to their diets, while those who gained weight didn’t. As we’ve said in the past, when it comes to food and exercise, there is no “one size fits all”.

You also have to research potential side effects, both short term and long term. Since these studies are recent, I’m sure the answer is simply “We don’t know”. That’s pretty scary if you ask me. The truth is, you need to be healthy to lose weight, and to be healthy you need to identify and reduce stress in all its forms so your body can work the way it’s intended to. This means you need to find out how your body converts food into energy (metabolic typing) and also just as importantly look at your lifestyle (in the form of sleep, exercise, hydration, toxicity, the health of your digestive system, and so on) so you can make the necessary changes to create a healthy environment so you CAN lose weight, and feel much better than you will with any of the quick fix solutions out there.

If you’d like to learn more about metabolic typing and other health related topics, sign up for our monthly newsletter which usually includes information not posted in our blogs. If you have a personal experience on this or any related topic, we’d love to hear from you. 

 

Dorothy Lizak

Nutrition and Wellness Specialist

Posted in Weight Managment | 3 Comments »

Exercise tips for a safe workout!

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

male-female-bicep-curlExercise is a great thing and is very much needed.  However, there are so many people out there exercising improperly and I know this because I am in gyms on a daily basis; that is why I have decided to write about exercise tips for a safe workout.  There are many items that go into working out, working out is not just about getting your run in, seeing how much you can lift, following the next fun craze or performing exercises that you learned off of a DVD.  It’s about understanding the science of the body particular to a specific exercise.  Now, this may sound a bit much but it’s the truth.  How many of you out there found an exercise that promised you flat abs in a week in some exercise magazine? You found yourself trying them and either you hurt yourself or you saw no results, this is because you did not have the proper education and this is how injury happens and exercise goals are not met.

For the purpose of this blog I am going to keep it simple but you do need to understand that having the correct exercise prescription entails having a routine that includes reps, sets, tempo, intensity and volume.  Now, some of these words may make sense to you and others may not.  If that is the case then I suggest you find yourself an educated trainer particularly a CHEK trained practitioner.  All of the variables that I listed above influence how your body responds.  So many times I see in the gym individuals both male and female lifting weight too heavy.  For example, let’s take a bicep curl, you hold weights in your hands with your arms hanging down by your sides, you bend your elbows and move your hands up towards your shoulder and then you lower the weight back down to the start position. That is all the exercise should be, is the elbow bending and straightening but  what  I see so many times in the gym are people arching their backs  or using momentum (rocking back and forth) to get the weight lifted up.  You are doing nothing good for your body here, you may think you are but you are a back injury or bicep tear waiting to happen.  When lifting weights it is about isolating the muscles, what do I mean by this…well, if you are performing a bicep exercise then why does your back need to come into the picture?  When you are moving too fast through an exercise and most people do because they “just want to get it done” you are not working the muscles the way that they are to be worked in order to get results.  This is one reason why so many people don’t get the results they are looking for because they don’t have a clear understanding of what needs to go into a program to make change happen and prevent injury.

Remember this one exercise program does not fit all, what works for Mary is not going to work for Jane; everyone has different needs and different bodies.  Therefore, the safe exercise tips you will be reading below are general but very important and are usually not taught.  If you have specific questions or concerns feel free to ask us on our blog.

 

Safe workout tips

  • 1. Never use momentum. If you find that you need momentum to complete the exercise lower your weight and finish your set. When you use other muscles then the ones that are meant to be used then this gives your nervous system the wrong information and injury can occur. There are exceptions to this rule such as when you are working in the power phase but we will not be discussing this for this article.

 

  • 2. Breathe - when performing an exercise you must remember to breathe. For more specific information about how and when to breathe read our blog article entitled “To breathe or not to breathe”.

 

  • 3. Never put your hands under your low back when doing abdominal leg raises- If you are placing your hands under your low back because your low back is lifting off the floor then guess what you need to alter this exercise. If your low back is lifting off the floor then you have an imbalance between your hip muscles and your abdominals and most likely have low back discomfort or hip muscle tightness. By placing your hands behind your low back you’re not correcting the problem but just disguising it.

 

  • 4. Never do the same workouts - mix up your workout routines. When performing the same routine over and over again whether its cardio, resistance training, and yoga etc the body needs a change in the stimulus to cause change in the body. Remember rest is good too; this is how your body repairs and builds.

 

  • 5. Do not look up at the ceiling when crunching - we are taught to look up at the ceiling when doing crunches, this is wrong! All you are doing is causing a forward head posture which so many of us suffer from to begin with because of desk jobs and poor posture. Think about it, we want the body to be in balance, right? Well, if we are bending our thoracic spines (mid back) and lumbar spines (low back) then why should be not be bending our cervical spines (neck)? Therefore, when crunching keep your mouth closed, tongue resting at the roof of your mouth, chin to chest then come up and crunch. If you have neck weakness yes, you will feel this exercise more in your neck at first than in your abdominals. Take your time and go slow and never put your hands behing your head but rather across your chest!

 

We hope these exercise tips are of help, for more exclusive articles about health, wellness and exercise that are not listed on our blog sign up for our newsletter by visiting www.replenishingsoul.com and Happy & Safe Exercising!

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My Body Doesn’t Feel Right, but My Doctor Says I’m O.K.

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Has there ever been a time in your life where your body just didn’t feel right? You then go to your doctor who tells you that you’re fine, and you’ll just “have to live with it.”  We hear stories like this over and over again, and today I’d like to share a personal experience I recently went through. A couple of months ago, I started to feel really run down. I was tired all of the time, sometimes I felt anxious, my heart would race (especially in the morning when I woke up), I had difficulty with my digestion, was dizzy and felt lightheaded when I stood up, noticed more hair loss, had cold hands and feet, headaches, and was getting sick more often (my immune system is usually excellent). I also noticed PMS symptoms, which I haven’t had since high school. Mentally I felt as if I were walking in a fog. I had trouble concentrating and an unusually poor memory.

My training in nutrition and wellness lead me to suspectadrenal that I had adrenal fatigue, which could also be the cause of my PMS symptoms (The stress hormone, cortisol, that the adrenal glands produce also impacts the production of the female sex hormones. As an aside, I should mention that cortisol also impacts thyroid function). Before I ran my own testing, I went to my primary care physician to get his input. He ran some blood tests and per my request also checked my cortisol, thyroid hormones, and checked for celiac disease (which is intolerance to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley). After reviewing the results, he said that everything, including my cortisol level, was “normal”. When asked what to do to alleviate these symptoms, he replied  “Sometimes you just have to learn to live with these things”. I must say that I have a tremendous amount of respect for my doctor, and the purpose of this blog is not to speak harshly about him or the medical community. My goal is to bring awareness to the notion that sometimes doctors don’t have all of the answers.

A week later, I repeated the testing through our clinic and was diagnosed with stage 2 adrenal fatigue. As I suspected, my adrenal glands had been overworked, and were not function properly, which was causing the laundry list of symptoms I mentioned earlier. I started taking bio-identical hormones (which are in liquid form and placed under your tongue), made sure to eat according to my metabolic type, and changed my exercise routine to one that would support my overly stressed body. I started to feel better in a couple of days. My mental clarity and mood were the first symptoms I noticed improvement in. My energy level has also gradually increased, and my PMS symptoms are gone.

You might be wondering how the tests my doctor ran came out “normal” while the ones that were conducted through our clinic weren’t. It’s because the tests we run look at sub clinical levels. In other words, the tests your doctor run are set up to identify disease or severe dysfunction. They are not sensitive to the more subtle shifts that take place in your body when you begin to have symptoms THAT CAN LATER BECOME DISEASE.

So, as for me, I’ve found one piece of my puzzle. I’m now working on getting answers to explain why I’m having issues with my digestion, something I’ve never had to deal with. If you need help putting the pieces of the puzzle together for your own medical needs, we’re here to help.

 

Dorothy Lizak

Nutrition and Wellness Specialist

 

 

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Posted in Hormone Health, Prevention information | 1 Comment »

How to rid yourself of the “pooch belly”

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

belly-fatPaunch belly, pooch belly call it what you may but I know many of you out there reading this wonder how you can rid yourself of the “Pooch Belly”.  Believe it or not you can, but first you need to understand how this situation occurs.

The most obvious situation that brings on pooch belly syndrome is pregnancy as many of you women reading this know.  But did you also know, men listen up… weight gain and an inflamed GI system (gastrointestinal) can also be culprits and all of these situations can lead to chronic back pain among other aliments.  Many times I can tell if someone is suffering from back pain or weak abdominal strength not just by looking at someone’s abdominal area but also their butt.  Why is this?  Because when the abdominals are weak the entire core system that includes the pelvic floor muscles also becomes weak and as a result the butt appears flat and looks like an upside down heart. Think of the core system as a sling when the sling is healthy it is taut and lifted and when it has become stretched and weakened it hangs thus causing instability.

Let’s talk about a few common situations that lead to weakened abdominals.

  • 1. Weight gain - whether you gain weight from pregnancy, an inactive lifestyle or poor food choices the belly begins to grow resulting in lengthening of the abdominal wall. As the abdominal muscles begin to lengthen this action produces a stretch force. When the abdominal muscles have been under a prolong stretch they become long and weak therefore causing pooch belly. The lengthening that occurs can be fixed over time however you should be aware that the longer the muscles have been under a stretch it may take a bit longer in getting them back to their original length. Therefore, ladies it is always better to not become pregnant too soon after you already have had a pregnancy and be cautious of C-sections. The reason to be cautious of C-sections is that you already have the abdominals lengthened from the pregnancy itself then the abdominals get cut (all 3 layers), which causes more weakness. In addition, when these layers get sewn back together again scarring and adhesions can occur which then make it difficult for the muscles to slide across each other effectively. As a result when muscles cannot work efficiently they begin to shut off and other muscles take over thus destabilizing the back and causes weakness.

 

  • 2. Inflamed GI system- an inflamed GI system can be caused by food allergies and/or food intolerances. The reason this happens is when we are eating foods that are not good for our bodies or we continue to eat the same foods over and over again (this is usually what causes food intolerances) this will inflame the digestive system. When the digestive system gets inflamed the organs can swell. When the organs swell this pushes on our abdominal muscles and makes it difficult for the abdominal muscles to activate properly. When the abdominal muscles cannot turn on guess what happens…they begin to get weak and we now know what happens from there.

 

If you suffer from pooch belly syndrome or any ailment caused from weak abdominal muscles this would be a great time to go see a professional.  I would advise you to first look for CHEK practitioners in your area at www.chekinstitute.com.  CHEK practitioners like us here at Replenishing Soul have been trained on how to look at the person as a whole not a part.  For example, you can strengthen the abdominal muscles until you’re blue in the face but if your problem is not being assessed appropriately and your root cause is coming from inflammation in your digestive system and has not been identified all the physical strengthening in the world will not fix the problem. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us. We are more than happy to help you.

Replenishing Soul

“An alternative solution to better health”

 

Resources:  “How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy” by Paul Chek

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