Junk Food Through Your Skin?

We live part of each year in Asia. For a few months, I was posting articles for you from various villages. The town shower of one is pictured at right. Imagine what the Internet café was like.

On the flights over, our only bag was lost. US transportation security required us to check our sole knapsack, since it had a small gift for friends containing liquid. It never reappeared. We don't need "things" and it was just as easy to make our own soap, comb, and toothbrushes as carry them.

In Western stores, I am astonished by the number of "personal care items." Not just shelves full, but aisles. Each promising better hair, skin, nails, and other parts, but with ingredients that are not healthy for your body, produced in ways that pollute the world, and packaged in plastics that are unhealthy to produce, pollute when discarded, and which apparently leak chemicals into the product that can be absorbed through your skin - see Green Water. A study commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association found that even shampoos, body washes, and lotions labeled "natural" and "organic" can contain unhealthful, even carcinogenic compounds.

I feel high maintenance just carrying a toothbrush. Then we arrived without even that. What freedom.

We made simple hand sanitizer from coarse salt, rubbed between the palms.


For body, face, and hair, we picked aloe leaves, squeezed out the gel inside, and rubbed directly on - see Fast Fitness - Aloe Inside and Out. It dries non-sticky, and makes your hair shiny, clean, and healthy. We used the rest of the gel in food and drink for healthy digestion.

Bamboo is easily made into cooking pots (photo above left). We also visit our favorite bean sprout PadThai restaurant - an outdoor wok on wheels run by a friend. Paul is always popular when we travel (photo at right).

Baking soda and salt makes clean toothpaste. Even without them, a short branch called a neem stick with one end mashed until fibrous, makes a soft, effective bristled toothbrush. Neem extract is said to be a good antiseptic, and effective against various health ills and germs.

After a long day at work and after hard training, instead of hand lotion, you can rub sesame or other light healthy cooking oil onto your hands and feet. You can scent it with mint leaves, citrus peels, spices, and flowers. More ideas in Healthy Mother's Day.

I don't use sunblock, even in the tropics. I do use something to stop some of the unwanted effects of too much sun, but I do not want to block the Vitamin D and other helpful effects of sunlight. Vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis (thin, brittle bones) and osteomalacia (rubbery, demineralized bones). Vitamin D deficiency is associated with increased risk of a few types of cancer, including lung cancer. Studies find that people with low blood levels of vitamin D were more likely to have high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Another study found that a number of patients with aches and weakness were vitamin D deficient and concluded, "A lot of 'fibromyalgia' may be D deficiency."

Instead of blocking or deflecting UV rays using chemical sunblocks that may contain chemicals that I am not sure are healthy, I mix my own, that I hope stops the oxidizing effects and makes my own body better able to stop skin cancer mechanisms. I mash together fresh coconut pulp, green tea, vegetable sprouts, mashed turmeric root, and aloe gel.

A study by Johns Hopkins researchers, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (October 30, 2007, vol. 104, no. 44, 17500-17505) found that rubbing an extract made from broccoli sprouts on your skin may help prevent skin cancer from high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Broccoli, and the sprouts in particular, contain a chemical called sulphoraphane, which is found to activate cancer-fighting enzymes in your own cells throughout your body, not only skin cells.

Instead of chemical anti-mosquito products, we try various things. Marigold flowers rubbed on the skin seem to work for us. I don't seem to be "sweet," and mosquitoes often ignore me while going after Paul. We have heard various theories from locals. One is that he eats sweet rice while I eat more garlic. Various grasses rubbed on the skin also work well for us. There are vines growing in Thailand with beautiful purple flowers. When you rub them on wet hair, it leaves your hair soft and shiny and sweet smelling, but the bugs do not like it. There are other vines that, when mashed with water made effective gentle soap and mosquito control combined.

In Asia, martial arts training is often more rigorous and disciplined than is common in the states. After hard evenings of training, I would sit by a candle made from oil and tightly wrapped bamboo leaves, and rub salt and oil into my, and Paul's, tired feet. Bliss.

• You can exercise for your health. Why undo that by eating junk food - Is Your Health Food Unhealthful
• or by adding junk food to your brain through thinking unhealthful thoughts - Healthier Heart
• or with junk food directly through your skin.

The biggest worry for Paul is just ducking the doorways.

Labels: cancer, diabetes, digestion, drugs, fix pain, nutrition, osteoporosis

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Non-Plastic Non-Aluminum Sports and Fitness Food Carriers

Readers were excited by the post Green Water which tells some of why the fitness craze of bottled water isn't healthy or necessary. You don't need that much water, and the containers are unhealthy in themselves in many ways. My student Lily found a site for us - KleanKanteen.com with stainless steel containers. This is an alternative to aluminum containers.

See what you can do to reduce litter and unhealthful packaging. It's cleaner for your spirit and the world. For travel, lunch, healthy things to eat after work and exercise, I pack everyone food wrapped in grape and banana leaves, and make edible little transportation boxes easily out of large leafy greens, sealed with a toothpick or just folded.

See Lily demonstrate healthier hip positioning for lunges and anterior hip stretch in the post Lunges and Beans, and see her quick healthy good tasting recipe for beans.

Labels: education, nutrition

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Sinus and Head Colds

Several readers asked what else they can do for painful head and sinus congestion, because after two+ weeks of medicines and doctor visits, they were no better, or were worse. Common treatments do not work as claimed, including decongestants and sprays, and can cause sinus pain to continue and recur.

What Are Sinuses?
The sinuses in your head are eight spaces in your skull behind your eyes and nose. They produce mucus, and that is good. Mucus produces antiseptics, and traps and filters germs and particles that you don't want to pass into your respiratory system and the rest of your body. Sinusitis occurs when one or more of your sinus cavities become inflamed.

Inflamed by Inhaling Things
Sinuses can become inflamed without any germs causing it, for example from inhaling particles, allergens, or liquids up the nose. If you have ever "gotten water up your nose" in a pool, you have felt the results. The practice of irrigating the nose and sinuses with salt-water sprays is often prescribed for sinus congestion, and even for preventive "maintenance," but it removes important protective mucus layers and natural disease-fighting compounds, and is irritating in itself. Some people regularly spray the sinuses using a variety of squeeze bottles, or a device called a neti pot. It is an unnecessary practice, and does not prevent the underlying cause of sinus pain. It sets up an addictive cycle of rebound congestion and irritation, and increased risk of infections and discomfort to follow.

Another contributor to rebound congestion is regular use of camphor inhalers. Sniffing camphor is a widespread practice throughout Asia, where decorative camphor containers shaped to fit the nose are sold in most grocery, pharmacy, and convenience stores. Camphor irritates mucus membranes causing a cycle of irritation, more camphor inhalation, and more congestion. Some people develop a habit of inhaling camphor, thinking it is for their congestion, not realizing they have a substance inhalation addiction called "huffing."

Decongestants
Decongestants are a big money item in drug store sales. They are not the best treatment for sinus pain and congestion. You are already too clogged up. You do not want more "drying out." The clogged areas would do better becoming more dilute by drinking hot liquids, not by becoming more gummy and concentrated with the "drying out" of a decongestant. After the decongestant wears off, a rebound can occur of more congestion. Taking more decongestant perpetuates a negative cycle, and can raise blood pressure. Cough syrups and pills that contain dexomethorphan (DXM) to block coughing are not as effective for coughs as hoped, but are popularly abused by kids looking for a cheap, easily available "high" ("rhobotripping") with unhealthy physical and psychoactive effects.

Infections and Antibiotics
Sometimes sinuses fill with bacterial or viral fluid. Antibiotic do not help against sinusitis, even the kinds colonized by bacteria. Antibiotics can kill your body's good "bugs" or weaken them, leaving you susceptible to stronger bad bugs, who learn how to live and multiply in your body. Antibiotics taken orally reduce the needed numbers of beneficial flora that normally live in your GI tract. The nutritional and immunogenic products that they normally make in your body are not made, and the organisms responsible for several illnesses can rapidly reproduce and get out of control. An example is antibiotic-associated Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) colitis, an infection of the colon that occurs primarily among patients exposed to antibiotics. More than three million C. difficile infections occur in hospitals in the U.S. each year. He number is growing. An estimated 20,000 C. difficile infections occur each year in the U.S. outside the hospital - directly caused by taking antibiotics.

Healthier Ways to Decongest and Sooth:

• Hot steamy showers and baths.
• Hot facial compresses.
• No need for fancy vaporizers with chemicals (more camphor or other irritants to inhale). Put on a kettle or any pot of water and heat until steaming. Stand at a distance where you feel the warm steam, without standing close enough for any chance of burns. No need to bend over as in the photo at right. Stand in healthy comfortable position for your back and neck.
• Eat spicy foods that you like, such as wasabi or chili peppers.
• Drink hot peppermint tea, or other warm, aromatic teas with lemon.
• Reduce irritating particles (rugs, cats, junk piles, cigarettes, or whatever concentrates trigger irritants).
• A walk outdoors in fresh air and sunshine helps clear breathing and pain.
• Do any fun exercise to heat your body. Increasing body temperature loosens clogging secretions and generates heat shock proteins that have been found to be pretty good for you. The post Exercise and Cancer touches on the basics of heat shock proteins.
• The post Fast Fitness - Quick Warm Up gives a quick method to increase body temperature to warm up.
• The post Regular Exercise Reduces Cold and Flu Incidence lists good practices to lower risk and increase resistance to infectious diseases.

More information on preventing and resolving sinus problems, things to know about antibiotic use, and other infectious topics are in the book Healthy Martial Arts.

Labels: breathing, children, colds/flu/infectious, drugs, heat, neck, nutrition, smoking, warmup

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How Strong Is Your Arm?

Is your arm strong enough to put down the junk food, soda, ice cream, French fries, fast food, cookie, processed sugar products masquerading as sports food, lunch meats, Danish, donut, cigarette, chips, pretzels, recreational drugs.

They are not healthy. They are not necessary. They are a bad habit. They work against you. They reduce your fitness. They create dependence. their production creates extra litter and pollution. It is money that is not necessary to spend that you could put toward healthful good food, or helping the poor.

How strong are you really? Is your arm strong enough to put them back down, away from your mouth?

Try it today.

Labels: arm, nutrition, spirit

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Healthy Youth Parties - Fun Exercise, No Junk Food

Mike is a Fitness Fixer reader who fixed many injuries - impinged shoulder, hip pain, radiating pain down the leg, and bad nutrition from sports food that is really junk food in a sporty label. In December, he sent us his reader success story that I posted in A Whole Big Fix. In the comments of a follow-up post on the December 28 2007 Fast Fitness - Dynamic Partner Balance Challenge, Mike wrote,

"I'm going to use some of your partner exercises as breaks for my students. They will get blood moving, muscles exercising and coordinating, and they will probably giggle. These will be a nice break from sitting so long.
Mike."

Mike kept his promise and sent this update:

"This whole year we have not had food at our class parties, with no complaints from students. We just play games involving social interaction. I have tried to have "healthy food parties." In the past, parents send boxes of food-like substances that say, "whole grains" on the sides but still are very processed, loaded with sugar, and have a lot of the nutrition processed out (like granola bars, sports drinks, and "fruit" roll-ups). So, it's easier just to not allow any food.

"The kids still have a blast instead of just sitting and stuffing their faces with cupcakes and cookies (I have 3 ten-year-olds who weigh over 135 lbs). We are taking exercise breaks.
Mike"

Mike couldn't send photos of actual kids because of privacy and other issues, so I asked Mike if he would share some of the fun activities they do. He wrote:

"We just had our Valentine's Day party with cut up fruit. They were only allowed to put candy in the individual cards if they chose to, so we didn't have mounds of cup cakes and cookies. We had pineapple, apples, kiwi, two kinds of grapes, and oranges. No one complained. The kids played board games only, no electronic solitary games. They played games like Cranium, Jenga, Life, and Yahtzee, which encourage lots of dialog.

The same day we did an analysis of "Vitamin Water," which shows 13 g of sugar on the label. The whole bottle has 6.5 teaspoons of sugar in it, so I spooned 6.5 tsp. of sugar into a similar sized glass of water and dropped a multi-vitamin in it to show what they are paying for."

Readers, have fun getting ideas throughout the Fitness Fixer column, and send in your stories, and photos where appropriate.

Labels: children, mind, nutrition, partner exercise, readers inspiring story

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Fast Fitness - Quick Homemade Almond Milk and Rice Milk

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - easy, inexpensive almond milk and rice milk.

Good tasting and healthier than dairy milk or soymilk. See Is Your Health Food Unhealthful?

Use in place of milk in most recipes, desserts, in coffee or tea.

For almond milk:

1. Soak a cup of raw almonds for several hours until soft. Four hours is a good start.
2. Use a blender or other mixer to blend softened almonds with several (about 4) cups of clean water until you like the consistency.
3. Optional flavors can be cinnamon, vanilla, unsweetened undutched cocoa, nutmeg, small fresh piece of ginger root, fresh berries, and others.

For rice milk, throw cooked rice in a blender or bowl and mash with water until the consistency you want. Flavor as above.

Don't slouch your neck forward as in the right-hand person in the second photo above. Stand straight, pictured in Fast Fitness - Homemade Sports Food.

Labels: fast fitness, nutrition, posture, upper back

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Fast Fitness - Aloe Inside and Out

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - aloe vera fresher and cheaper, and probably more effective than bottled, to help cell repair.






Add a chunk when making fitness water and sports shakes, and rub the inside of the peel on your face and hands, or apply to cuts and small wounds. Dries without stickiness.


Aloe is promoted as aiding cell growth and repair, as an anti-inflammatory, and helps move slow digestion on through. Promotes fitness inside and out.

Labels: digestion, fast fitness, fix pain, injury, nutrition

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Fix Neck, Play Hockey, Use Brain, Fun Life

Rich Tarpinian, IT systems engineer, musician, hockey coach, and vegan, fixed grinding neck pain, back spasms, disc pain, and tension-type headaches. He had not been comfortable sleeping in any position. Rich said the neck grinding and discomfort, "felt like it was never going to go away."

Rich writes:

"Thanks again for your help! Here's my update. I stopped cranking my neck around and the grinding stopped within the 2 weeks or so that you had indicated.

"I am controlling my body positioning, more aware, and have eliminated lots of neck tension even though I work at a computer all day. The anxiety I was having about disc problems, etc., has mostly been replaced with good knowledge, a feeling of control, and an ability to heal.

"Every morning (instead of sitting on the bed) I get out of bed the way you have recommended - why? because it makes sense. I don't sit on the bed and then try to straighten my body as I start to walk. I get up from the face down position in the already standing position.

"I've always had an interest in the mechanical aspect of how the body moves and what the sources of problems can be which is why, when I was pouring over information on the internet, your information regarding cause/effect relationships instantly caught and held my attention.

"I eat a pretty good diet - vegan with a good amount of raw foods, but had not paid much attention to posture and movement. I will now.

"As a side note, I coached hockey for about 8 years and played up until about 4 years ago. I had an opportunity to get back into some coaching recently but was really worried about the neck issues that I had been having for weeks. I also used to get a lot of back spasms when I played/coached. After experiencing the progress from your recommendations, which came just in time, I stepped confidently back on the ice a couple of weeks ago and have felt good given some expected muscle soreness that is now gone. The hardest thing was lacing up the skates but, once I was on the ice, I felt great.

"What you have done effectively is to empower people with the knowledge of how to find and return to the correct answers in order to maintain their own bodies. You've done that by providing reasons where needed, presenting conflicting information to show contrast, and using repetition to help solidify the important concepts."

"The key is that I now understand the causes of the problem and can, for the most part, manage the process when things start going wrong. As I cruised the internet looking at information, my anxiety meter kept rising - until I found your article on fixing the neck grinding problem which prompted me to read your other articles on sitting, lifting, etc. The article was immediately positive with a no strings attached approach to fixing and preventing the problem. My overcoming the neck issues is directly attributable to you."

Rich first fixed his pain using my web site summary sheets.
These Fitness Fixer posts also describe techniques used:

• To understand and spot the injury and pain from unhealthful head and neck position - Upper Back Exercise and Neck Pain Prevention Too
• Spot and prevent upper body pain when carrying a backpack - Prevent Neck Pain and Get Upper Back Exercise Carrying Backpacks
• Two important stretches to do first thing in the morning and throughout the day to restore ability to sit, move, and stand without unhealthful neck position - Fixing Upper Back and Neck Pain and Nice Neck Stretch
• Looking upward with good neck mechanics - Gaze Perseid Meteors Without Neck Pain
• Two nice upper back stretches to relax - Tax Stretch and Quick, Feel-Good Upper Back and Chest Stretch
• Stopping neck pain from sitting - Are You Making Your Exercise Unhealthy?
• Stopping neck pain from exercise - Common Exercises Teach Upper Back and Neck Pain
• Photo of healthful neck position when cooking - Fast Fitness - Homemade Sports Food
• Do this Wall Test to check for unhealthful neck positioning - Breasts Causing Upper Back Pain is a Myth.
• Having muscles soreness is not bad, it means you're out having fun. Make sure there is no pain or soreness in the joint. That is the difference. See Teen Dies After Using Muscle Soreness Rub
• November is Vegan month. More on vegetarian and vegan eating - World Vegetarian Day.

I wrote Rich to congratulate him on his initiative and great work, and thank him for his story. He replied:

"Just when I've corrected the forward head problem, I'm going to need those neck exercises to treat "swelled head syndrome."

Smile and laugh. It's healthy too.

Labels: disc, hockey, lower back, neck, nutrition, readers inspiring story, sitting, sleep, upper back

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World Vegan Day is November 1

November 1 is World Vegan Day, and all of November is celebrated as Vegan month.

Vegans are vegetarians who don't eat, and often don't wear, any products from animals. The idea is no more unusual than not wanting to hurt, wear, or eat your pets. Vegan living can be healthier, and vegan diet can fuel both endurance and strength athletes.

Vegans and vegetarians have been found to have lower body fat on average than non-vegetarians, and lower risk of diabetes. A new study by The World Cancer Research Fund making big news as "a landmark study" found that keeping slim is one of the best ways of preventing cancer, and that evidence is stronger than previously realized that eating meat, and processed meats such as ham and bacon, increase risk of colorectal cancer. The report makes 10 recommendations including getting exercise every day, drinking water rather than sugary drinks, and eating fruit, vegetables, and fiber. There is no fiber in meat, dairy, or eggs. Vegan meals can provide enough calcium to prevent osteoporosis. See Exercise is More Important Than Calcium Supplements for Bones and Stomach Acid Drugs Increase Osteoporosis and Hip Fractures.

Vegans may promote farm sanctuaries and work for better ways than vivisection (hurtful testing on animals). The argument is not if you would rather that a child not get needed medicine rather than test on an animal, the quest is for neither to suffer, and find smarter, healthier ways for all. Significant examples exist of tests based on animal physiology that were ineffective or injurious when applied to humans in need.

Vegan bodybuilder Kenneth G. Williams is pictured above and at right. His web site is www.VeganMusclePower.org.




In the tradition of fighting monks, Chris Price is a vegan Muay Thai and mixed martial arts fighter. His web site is http://www.veganfighter.com/


Resources:
www.americanvegan.org for information about health, ahimsa, a celebration in New York City at Candle 79 Café Saturday Nov 17, and fun events including cooking classes across the U.S.
www.VeganHolidayFestival.com
www.WorldGoVeganDays.com
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/

Recipes:
http://www.veganoutreach.org/
www.worldveganday.org has a nice summary of healthy vegan diet choices on their nutrition link.

Post link:
World Vegetarian Day October 1.

Helpful Book:
Healthy Martial Arts - Healthier training for all sports, featuring vegetarian and vegan athletes. Chapters on strength, endurance, speed, balance, nutrition, performance enhancement, injuries, building the spirit and the mind.

Labels: cancer, diabetes, endurance, martial arts, nutrition, osteoporosis, spirit, strength, weight loss

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Happy Birthday Happy Halloween

Happy Birthday to readers who celebrate their birthday today, October 31. Also those with birthdays yesterday and tomorrow. Everyday too.

One reader with a special birthday today is Ivy who turns 71 - Inspiring Ivy. Ivy has been generously sending in stories for all to benefit, giving ideas for healthy exercise as part of normal daily life.


When I posted about Pearl who turned 97 last February and uses Bending Right for Fitness as a Lifestyle, Ivy wrote:

"I hope I can look as great as Pearl does when I reach 97, she is amazing. You will smile when I tell you that I did this fun test on the internet whereby you have to answer 34 questions re your health, what you eat, if you take medication etc. etc. The answer came back that I really was 45.5 years of age and I was going to live until I was 106.5 years of age.

"I had already told my kids that I am going to live until I am 96 and that it would be pay back time. I have now changed it to 106.5 years of age - my very words being "May God help you." Of course they laughed - I reminded them of the old saying 'Words said in Jest.'"

Happy Birthday! We made everyone delicious Internet birthday party and Halloween party food. Everyone come celebrate.

Happy Halloween and everyday. "Boo unto others" with good happy food, activity, and spirit. Celebrate everyday, by eating, moving, and living with fun, happy, intelligent, good spirit. Here is a Halloween poem to laugh:

Don't yell at us
Don't scream and shout
'Cause when we're scared
Our eyes fall out!

Labels: holiday, nutrition, readers inspiring story, spirit

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Mischief is Not Good Exercise - Halloween Ahimsa

The third harvest is here in the Northern Hemisphere. The Hunter's Moon is bright in the sky.

The last harvest of fall is a time of endings and beginnings. More than a commercial holiday of destruction and gruesome death, the approaching winter was historically a time to reverently mark departure of the living and life-giving fields, and be thankful for the harvests they gave. Revering of elders was observed in analogy.

The first and most important precept of thousands of years of yoga and martial arts is ahimsa. Ahimsa means non-violence, non-harm, non-destruction. Ahimsa was reaffirmed in recent times by the Mahatma Gandhi, and in the West by Martin Luther King, Jr. In all the classes I teach, I remind the students that ahimsa is something you incorporate in all your actions. Don't harm yourself by sitting in injury-producing bad slouching. Don't harm yourself with bad exercise. Don't harm yourself by destructive thoughts and actions. Don't harm yourself with unhealthful food and drink. Don't harm yourself by hunching your shoulders to stress through preparing meals, when you can relax your shoulders, straighten your back, breathe, and use each stoke of washing, cutting, and preparing food as beautiful meditation in the same amount of time. Don't harm others with spiteful words, deeds, and thoughts. Don't cause others fear or pain. Don't cause yourself fear and pain.

In many of the countries where we have traveled and lived, lovely short public service announcements occur daily with kind messages of doing good. Television and radio commercials are paid for with no other purpose than to give specific positive examples of helping each other for a better world. Where we have lived in the US, continuous messages of spiteful and worse behavior are common as entertainment.

Several centers in your brain process self-control. They need exercise like anything else. Studies of imaging these brain centers in people who overeat, showed that with retraining, the centers changed in level of activity when pictures of food were viewed. "Exercising self-control" is more than an expression.

Children, and even adults, need consistent positive examples. It is good and crucial exercise. It is easy to destroy, and takes (but also gives) energy to be good. Instead of "Mischief Night" tonight, do good. Instead of spending money on destroying property with thrown eggs and toilet paper, have fun learning a healthful recipe that you can enjoy for years to come. Learn to stand on your hands safely. Paint or draw a picture of a good wish. Talk about how it can come true. Design and construct inspired homemade costumes. Help the community. Volunteer at a shelter. Exercise your spirit. Develop a fun, beautiful positive public service announcement for your home, or a commercial project, that reminds to uplift spirit and behavior. Teach a child something. Don't wait until they are already doing bad. Teach them consistently, before they know to do either, so that they will more often know to choose good and why.

The average American spends nearly $15 on Halloween candy - more than $1 billion total on unhealthful refined sugar and hydrogenated fat candy - just for Halloween. This is not parental love. It is the same as giving them cigarettes or addictive drugs. Change that. Parental love is giving them beautifully functioning self-control brain centers. Halloween story and ideas in Exercise Common Sense Discipline - Turn Down Halloween Junk Food.

Positive behavior is too important to leave up to only the schools, the entertainment industry, the government, the Internet, the home. We all add ahimsa.

Many chapters of ideas for happy bountiful living are in the book Healthy Martial Arts.

Labels: aging, children, holiday, martial arts, mind, nutrition, performance enhancing modality, posture, spirit, stress, yoga

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Top Diabetes Treatment is Exercise

Diabetes causes such serious health problems that the risk of death is twice as high for someone with diabetes compared to someone of similar age without. More than 20 million people in the US have diabetes (colloquially called "the sugar" disease) with 2 million a year more cases diagnosed every year. Exercise has been found to be a top factor to prevent and treat diabetes.

Three main types of diabetes are type 1, type 2, and gestational.

Type 1 diabetes, where the body does not make enough insulin (in the body organ called the pancreas), is treated with injected or inhaled insulin, although nutrition and exercise changes are a fundamental part of management.

An estimated 90–95% of cases of diabetes in North American are type 2. Type 2 diabetes is also called non insulin-dependent diabetes and obesity-related diabetes. Type 2 was rare until modern sedentary habits combined with mass sales of unhealthful food.

Gestational diabetes is generally a form of type 2 during pregnancy.

In the recent past, type 2 diabetes developed only in adults as they gained weight, reduced activity, and increased packaged, commercial, unhealthful foods. An escalating phenomenon of type 2 diabetes in children is now occurring.

Approximately 85% percent of adults and children diagnosed with type 2 are overweight and less active than they could be. Type 2 is increasingly being found to be best treated with more fun movement and less bad food, a win-win situation.

Several studies have found that exercise and healthier diet are more effective than medicine for people with type 2 diabetes. A recent randomized controlled Canadian study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that people with type 2 diabetes who began exercising developed better blood sugar control, both from aerobic exercise and resistance training. Not exercising yielded no improvements in sugar control. People who combined aerobic exercise and also lifted weights had the biggest improvement. It is not known in this study if results occurred because of the type of exercise mattered, or because the duration of exercise was greater in the combined exercise training group. According to an editorial co-published with the study, "Doctors should prescribe exercise to all type 2 diabetes patients who are healthy enough to work out."

In the past people with diabetes and diabetes-related complications were discouraged from exercise. However, exercise has been known in the past, with recent substantiating studies, to be the top factor to prevent and reverse diabetic problems. According to William Kraus, MD, of Duke University Medical Center, "Failing to prescribe exercise to patients with diabetes is simply unacceptable practice."

Things To Help

• You do not need a gym or special clothes or equipment to get aerobic or weight lifting exercise.
• Go outdoors for a break every day that you can, for fresh air, sunshine, and fun movement.
• For both active and resistance exercise indoors and out, remember that daily healthful movement easily accumulates from your healthy bending, balancing while dressing, taking the stairs, and other daily real life movement.
• Have fun - skate, bowl, cycle, walk, go dancing, gardening, shoot hoops, take food to shut-ins and get them moving too, with improvised exercise of moving arms and legs, clapping, singing, and having fun.
• For fun exercise-as-lifestyle ideas, check through lists of Fitness Fixer posts, linked at the right of each article.
• For better nutritional mindset, click A Little Good Exercise, a Lot of Bad Food - Overweight Still No Mystery. Then for specific recipes and methods click the nutrition label under this and related posts.
  
• My post Hyperbarics for Diabetic Foot Injury gives more information on preventing amputations from diabetic wounds, and lists some of the ways that exercise reverses the contributors and complications of diabetes.

There is great hope. Have fun making a new healthier life.

Labels: aging, children, diabetes, endurance, feet, injury, nutrition, strength, weight loss

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Fast Fitness Friday - Healthier Fitness Water

Trendy vitamin water for exercise is big business, adding cost, litter, and sometimes dyes, synthetic isolated vitamins, and questionable sweeteners. Instead, easily make your own sweet, whole-food vitamin water for pennies:

1. Put clean water in a blender
2. Add a few grapes with the skin and seeds and blend well.
3. Carry it with you in healthful containers - described in Green Water

Grape skins and seeds have been found to contain cancer-fighting and other disease-fighting compounds. Think of the money you just saved on expensive grape seed oil products.

For a different light flavor, squeeze in some fresh lemon. Helps keep the container cleaner, too. If you like tea, put a tea bag in the container. No need for hot water. Try a few strawberries with the green tops, watermelon with the seeds, or some raw sweet red pepper to make a variety of light, vitamin water drinks.

Energy drinks are different purpose and recipe - Healthier Sports Shake.

Experiment and have fun.

Labels: cancer, fast fitness, nutrition

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Green Water

Commercially bottled water may not be a healthy fitness drink, from the container it comes in to the water inside.

The water may be no healthier than tap water, the plastic containers may leach chemicals into the water they hold, and the bottling, transport, and disposal all seriously weaken environmental fitness, and ultimately your own.


The Cornell Daily Sun made a nice summary of the information:

• CNN news reports that Aquafina and Dasani are no different than tap water
• Plastic water bottle manufacturing process, requires 1.5 million barrels of crude oil a year
• 13,700 18-wheelers are used per week to transport one billion bottles of water across the world.
• Bottled water undergoes eight tests under Environmental Protection Agency requirements. Tap water must undergo 22 different tests (tests in countries like Great Britain and Canada are more stringent).

The Journal of Queen's University (Ontario) adds:

• One kilogram of plastic bottles requires 17.5 kilograms of water to be used in the production process. You're putting more water into it than you're getting out.
• Bottling and shipping water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2006.
• Tap water is a safe and economical alternative to plastic bottles.

Both articles, plus others, advocate avoiding commercially bottled water and re-filling your own plastic or Nalgene bottles with simple tap water. I add two things:

1. Use non-plastic bottles. Small glass bottles have been working for me and my students. For more safety, wrap them in protective neoprene sleeves, available easily in many places, including "dollar" stores. Some students have come in with stainless steel bottles from old army supply. We discourage aluminum bottles until we know if there is possibility of the aluminum leaching into the water and if that may affect health.


2. Get a water filter for your tap water. There is work showing the water supply increasingly contains medical drugs excreted by the users and other chemicals that constitute a "body burden" of compounds with potential health effects. Future posts will explain those topics.

One of my students, Lily, who brings me a wonderful quick-bean recipe in thoughtful glass jars, adds this site for more eco-health through Deforesting Your Mailbox of catalogs.

Friday Fast Fitness gives recipes for Healthier Fitness Water. Readers, send your ideas for healthy, convenient water and photos of your inventive, fun containers.

Labels: drugs, nutrition, performance enhancing modality

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Fast Fitness - Healthier Sports Shake

A New Zealand swimmer asked for more sports nutrition. Here is Friday Fast Fitness - quick, good tasting sports shakes - cheaper and healthier than store-bought.

My father and grandfather, (and great-grandfather+) were Ice Swimmers. We all swam all year in open water including several over 20 miles (32km). My grandfather's sure-power recipe was an oily mixture (for future posts). When I raced competitively, I swam 5-7 miles a day, 35-40 miles a week (up to 64km/week). The coach pushed the common fad of eating Jello powder. As a vegetarian I skipped it, and watched other vogue sports food assumptions come and go. Best is real food.

Throw in a blender or other mixer:

• Clean water
• Peeled banana
• Peeled orange with the seeds
• Some of the well-washed orange peel
• Raw walnuts or other favorite
• Some cooked brown rice left from a meal
• Sweeten with raisins or a prune softened in clean water. Molasses optional. Adds many minerals.
• Cinnamon powder to level blood sugar

Tips:

• For the day of the event, you can substitute tea for the water.
• Experiment with amounts to get preferred consistency
• If you want a chocolate shake, add a scoop of unsweetened cocoa powder (unsweetened non-dutched baking cocoa). People with migraine can leave out the cocoa.
• Don't junk it up with milk, sugar, artificial sweeteners, commercial sports powders.
• If you use a juicer, put the solids and pulp back in, or you will be drinking sugar water and throwing away the point and the nutrition.
• Try different fruit - Persimmons, mangosteen, pineapple, melon, berries, your favorite. Raw red beets are an overlooked sweet fitness food good in shakes.
  
• For flavors, add a small slice of unpeeled ginger root, washed mint leaves.

Labels: cold, endurance, fast fitness, nutrition, performance enhancing modality, swimming

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Nutrition for Endurance Swim Training

"Dr. Ernie" is training to swim the Cook Strait of New Zealand. We met him in May in Sixteen Miles of Cold Water, learned about cold acclimatization with him in Getting Fitter in 50 Degrees, and did Better Stretches for Swimming with him in Cook Strait Update.

Dr.Ernie (blog name) writes,

"The water temp now (has risen to) 14 degrees Celsius (57F) and I had a robust swim this afternoon in Wellington Harbour (photo below right). Interestingly enough there was virtually no shivering. I'd swum for about an hour and a half in the pool earlier today.

"I was struck by the difference between pool and ocean swimming... technically I've improved tremendously in the pool over the past few weeks and my times have improved greatly. In the ocean it's much harder -- but I felt faster nonetheless.

"I am not a fast swimmer -- in fact, at this point I am still too slow to pass Phil's test -- but I can feel I'm making progress. I've been able to hold a pace of 2.5 km/hour for a few hours, and this has been an improvement from a measly 2 km/hour not very long ago. And I'll be up to 25 km/week by the end of this month (about 15.5 miles a week - longer and generally more work swimming than running).

"My plan is to increase weekly mileage to 40 km (approx 25 miles) per week by the end of November and then to make a push through to 50 km/week (about 31 miles) by the end of December -- the 'crunch' month. I'll attempt to renter the open waters by mid-November and begin reacclimatization to the cold. With luck and persistence, I'll be granted the privilege of attempting the Cook Strait swim.

"I met with Phil Rush -- the man who has crossed the Strait seven times (including a double-crossing) and who holds the world's record for a triple crossing of the English Channel. He will be piloting the support boat for my attempt, which will hopefully be in February 2008. His advice: swim, swim, swim… then be ready to take a 6-hour test in early January. In the test I will have to demonstrate that I can sustain at least a 3 km/hour pace for the 6 hours. He told me I'd have to figure out the kind of sustenance I'd need on my own, and he recommended that I not try to gain too much weight -- though he cautioned not to lose any from this point on. He also suggested that I procure the skills of a swim coach to refine technique (Fitness Fixer posts in progress on faster healthier stroke mechanics for swimming).

"Any advice on nutrition or cross-training would be appreciated. Because I also have a full-time job, time is tight and hours in the water are limited. I've experimented with a commercial product (name deleted) for multi-hour endurance activities that's easy on the stomach."

I am not a nutrient biochemistry or epidemiology researcher, so I can only report what I have read from others, which can inadvertently repeat and perpetuate wrong information incestuously (we all say so, it must be true). Following is a summary of what I believe and have seen from working with my patients and athletes:

• In general, good nutrition all year will give more benefit than eating special foods for an event, race, or hike.


• Processed packaged sports supplement foods cost far more than the ingredients, and you can get healthier ingredients, cheaper, and just as easily without commercial sports powders, bars, drinks, and other preparations.


• Many nutrients need to work in the original food containing other components that make each part work better. Some do not work, or have even been found to increase health risks when concentrated in vitamin and mineral supplements.
  


• In general, no commercial processed "sports food," no matter how engineered or marketed as effective for training, will give you the health of healthful real food. Whole foods, for example, a simple apple with the skin, contain combinations of nutritional and disease fighting chemicals that are not available in supplements.


• "Energy food" technically means it has calories. Extra calories alone will not enable you to build muscle or win a race.


• Increasingly, some "energy food" and drinks contain stimulant compounds. This practice is a foolhardy one to become accustomed to, building cycles of inability to focus, exercise, or feel well without them, and varying degrees of agitation with them, sleep difficulties, and various cardiovascular risks.


• Products with soy are usually unfermented soy. Unfermented soy contains enzyme inhibitors which block digestion, goitrogens which inhibit thyroid function, phytic acid, which blocks minerals like zinc and calcium, and estrogen-promoting compounds. Anyone with tendency to estrogen-dependent tumors or cancer, fibroids, cystic ovary and breast, or endometriosis will be better to avoid unfermented soy.


• Even if sugar water will extend endurance, it is still junk food, not healthy for the long term. Science Daily reports "Sports drinks face junk food label"


• Protein and carbohydrate together work better for training than sugar alone, however commercial processed powdered mixtures are still not the healthy choice over the long term.

This is all good news. You can eat good tasting food, that is quick to make, and cheaper and better for you than expensive commercial "sports food." Click the nutrition label under this post for suggestions, with more to come in future Fitness Fixer posts.

Don't worry that you have to eat engineered products to be able to win. You will win better in the long run without them.

Recipe follows in Fast Fitness - Healthier Sports Shake.

More on all these issues plus some Halloween treat suggestions - Is Your Health Food Unhealthful?

Labels: cold, endurance, nutrition, performance enhancing modality, readers inspiring story, swimming

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Fast Fitness - Homemade Sports Food

Here is Friday Fast Fitness - for clean, healthy, fresh energy food for hiking, exercise, and sports, and October Vegetarian Month - Easy peanut butter in your own kitchen:

1. Put fresh, raw peanuts, or other favorite like walnuts, in a bowl and crush them for arm exercise with any kitchen pounding tool. Or use a chopper, grinder, blender, coffee grinder, or other processor.


2. Crush to powder, depending how chunky you want it.


3. Mash in apple cubes to make moist, creamy sweet peanut butter. Spice with cinnamon if you want.

Spread on apple, carrot, and other fruit and vegetable slices. Make it portable by stuffing inside raw sweet green and red peppers, in sandwich and wraps (non-grain eaters can make tasty wraps from leafy greens). Use for toppings.

Vary the combination - try almonds mashed with pears. Sunflower seeds or walnut and banana. Sesame seeds and figs. Make with a friend for healthy social fun. Exercise your imagination for healthy sports food.

Labels: arm, endurance, fast fitness, nutrition, partner exercise

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World Vegetarian Day

"Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rates of coronary disease of any group in the country. [T]hey have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate."
—William Castelli, M.D., Director, Framingham Heart Study, the longest-running epidemiological study in medical history

From my work in sports medicine, I will add to Dr. Castelli's work that I see fairly consistent reduction in joint pain and other pain syndromes when patients stop known "inflammatory foods" including meat and dairy.


October 1 is World Vegetarian Day (www.WorldVegetarianDay.org). The month of October is Vegetarian Awareness Month. The purpose is for a happier, more aware and respectful, and healthier society.

Hurting animals is unhealthy for all involved. In the spirit of healthy body and mind, this post gives four ideas:

1. Build your own health and benefit your exercise: food and recipes for better exercise training (regardless of your sport), and preventing disease and pain syndromes. Get the book Healthy Martial Arts


2. Enjoy healthy extra years: From the blog DiseaseProof.com - How Much Longer Do Vegetarians Live?


3. Free vegetarian starter kit, free newsletter, with materials in Spanish, to avoid cruelty to yourself, animals, and the Earth, one meal at a time - TryVeg.com


4. Reduce global warming: GoVeg.org reports on work published in NewScientist.com - It's Better to Green Your Diet Than Your Car (17 Dec. 2005). "You could exchange your "regular" car for a hybrid Toyota Prius and, by doing so, prevent about 1 ton of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year, but according to the University of Chicago, being vegan is more effective in the fight against global warming; a vegan prevents approximately 1.5 fewer tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year than a meat-eater does. The math is simple: You could spend more than $20,000 on a Prius and still emit 50 percent more carbon dioxide than you would if you just gave up eating meat and other animal products."

Feel encouraged. Being vegetarian or making occasional vegetarian meals does not have to involve any strange or expensive foods from specialty stores. You do not need any special pots or food processing equipment. It is a myth that vitamin supplements are necessary. Grocery bills can also be also far less expensive when you don't purchase meat (and don't substitute other expensive food that you do not need).

I will post easy-to-make healthful (real) food for athletes and exercisers, during October vegetarian month, and for Vegan month in November. NonVegetarians are welcome.

Labels: cancer, circulation, fix pain, holiday, nutrition, spirit

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