Can you guess the unhealthiest beverage in the world?

July 12th, 2010 Milan

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What happens when you eat 17 eggs weekly?

February 8th, 2010 Milan

The answer is : Nothing.

The result actually could be a dramatic improvement in your overall diet.

Almost every Saturday I eat 7 whole eggs and  2 sprouted bread toasts for breakfast. I cook eggs on the pan with a little bit of olive oil. I eat eggs the other days of the week too, averaging about 17 eggs per week.

I completely understand, if you think now, that I will probably have a heart attack within a year from now from all that cholesterol. That’s how bad reputation eggs have.

Bud the opposite is true:

I am 33.  I am 6’3″ ,weigh 185 Lb from which about 9% is fat. My LDL (bad) cholesterol is about 80 mg/dl, my HDL (good) cholesterol is about 55 mg/dl, which are ideal healthy numbers. My blood pressure is 115/70.

My resting heart rate is about 37 beats per minute. I can run a mile under 6 minutes. I can do about 30 chin ups and 150 push ups. And my dad can beat up your dad.

With those numbers the probability that I will die  in teeth of  shark is much higher than having a heart attack.

I am not trying to say, that I am in perfect physical shape and super health because I eat so many eggs per week. What I want to say is, that eating eggs is not dangerous for your arteries and heart as it is considered to be.

There is a lot of misleading information about eggs out there.

I’m not surprised, that people are totally confused about eggs and their impact on their blood cholesterol.

A lot of people don’t eat eggs at all, because they believe that cholesterol they contain will eventually kill them.

Eggs are good food. Most people can eat 1, 2 or 3 a day. Just don’t mess them up by preparing them with fatty, salty ingredients or by serving them with unhealthy side dishes like sausages, biscuits, bacon, butter and other.

Eggs have a bad reputation because of their high cholesterol content: 210 milligrams in the yolk of large egg. But according to University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter, eggs do not raise blood cholesterol in most people – and they may even be good for your heart in some ways.

A large egg has only 1.5 grams of saturated fat and only about 70 calories, it is not packaged with preservatives, there is no sugar added. It has about 6 grams of high-quality protein.  The yolk is also a source of zink, B vitamins (including riboflavin and folate), vitamin A, iron and other nutrients. That makes it a true power-food.

Here is the latest on eggs:

• Dietary cholesterol, found in animal foods, raises blood cholesterol in only about one-third of people. And as shown in some egg studies, dietary cholesterol causes the body to produce HDL (“good”) cholesterol along with LDL (“bad”) cholesterol in these hyper responders, thus helping offset potential adverse effects.

• University of Connecticut study - eating 3 eggs a day for 30 days increased cholesterol in susceptible people,but their LDL particles were larger, and there was no change in the ratio between LDL and HDL, which means no major change in coronary risk.

• Harvard 1999 study of 120 000 men and women, found no association between eggs – up to 1 a day and heart disease and stroke.

• University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey 2007 study found no link between frequent egg consumption and heart disease.

• The unsaturated fats and other nutrients, including B vitamins, in eggs may even be beneficial to heart health.

• It’s the saturated-fat rich foods that typically accompany eggs (sausage, bacon, cheese, biscuits) and how eggs are often prepared (fried in lots of butter) that can rise blood cholesterol and the risk of heart disease.

• Egg yolks are rich source of lutein and zeaxantin, relatives of beta carotene that may help keep eyes healthy and have been linked to a reduced risk of age-related macular degeneration.

• Eggs promote satiety, due in part to their high protein content. And that means, less eating and less calories consumed.

• Researchers have also identified other compounds in eggs that may have anti-cancer, anti-hypertensive, immune boosting, and antioxidant properties.

• Free range chicken eggs are usually richer in vitamins and heart healthy omega-3 fatty acid.

• Brown eggs are not more nutritious than white.

Related articles

• Your cholesterol blood test
• How to keep your heart fit
• The cost of inactivity – heart

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How to have more energy than people 10 years younger than you

January 18th, 2010 Milan

Andrea’s case – she feels tired all the time.

My friend Andrea recently asked me why she is feeling tired and out of energy most of the time. She is 27 and she doesn’t sleep well.  And she is gaining weight too. Andrea has an office job where she sits on her butt in the front of computer all day.

Here is Andrea’s day:

Breakfast:

Andrea gets up from bed at 7:00 AM and she has almost always the same breakfast. She gets coffee and danish on her way to work every day.

Mid-morning snack:

She said, that she likes snickers candy bar and she usually gets one as a mid-morning snack from office kitchen vending machine.

Lunch:

She is having her lunch with her coworkers in some nearby restaurant where she usually gets sandwich, burrito or some Thai or Indian food.

Afternoon snack:

At around 2 PM Andrea usually feels sleepy, so she has another coffee and eats energy bar like Luna bar or Cliff bar.

Dinner:

When she comes home from work, she is tired to cook so she heats up some prepackaged meal and eats it while watching TV. She has couple  glasses of vine after and scoop of ice cream.

Andrea exercises only occasionally when she feels like it. And that’s almost never. She  goes to sleep at around 12:30 – 1 AM after her 2 hour facebook ventures.

Advice for Andrea and everybody who wants to have more energy:

1. Don’t eat sugar. The only sweet things you can eat are fruits and vegetables.

2. Don’t eat flour products and processed grain products like breads, pasta, white rice. Eat only whole grain variations in moderation.

3. Exercise every day. Strength train 2 times per week all major muscle parts in your body and do cardiovascular exercise the other 5 days for at least 30 minutes. Add interval training to them 2 times per week. Stretch 15 minutes everyday. 

4. Don’t drink coffee and other caffeinated beverages after 11 : 30 AM. It takes about 22 hours for your body to get rid off caffeine from your system.

5. Everything you drink should be 0-zero on sugar. You are left with only water, teas, mineral water and coffee.

6. Sleep at least 7 hours everyday. Some people need more than that.

7. Don’t eat red meat and processed meats. Red meat is  heavy on saturated fat and processed meat products are full of sodium and conservatives.

8. Eat enough lean protein every day and have it with every meal.

9. Eat at least 7 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Especially green leafy vegetables are great for more sustained energy.

10. Always eat nutritious breakfast.

11. Eat every 4 – 5 hours a meal containing lean protein with vegetables and fruits and some olive oil or nuts with it.

12. Don’t eat  sport energy bars and don’t drink energy drinks. They are loaded with sugar. And too much sugar is bad for your energy.

13. Don’t eat baked goods.

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Resveratrol for longer and healthier life?

January 3rd, 2010 Milan

According to Joseph Maroon M.D. in his book – The Longevity Factor (2009) you can live healthier and longer life if you add certain foods that contain xenofactor -  Resveratrol, the most potent poly-phenol to your diet.  Resveratrol has powerful benefits for us, like prevention of heart attack, cancer and strokes, writes Maroon.

I don’t know if this is true.  But if you look at these foods, they are really good healthy food choices. If  you never eat some of these foods, you might want to add them to your diet to make sure, that you are not missing anything. Just take it easy on the drinks.

Here are the best dietary sources of Resveratrol:

• Red wine

• White vine

• Port and sherry

• Grapes

• Dry grape skins

• Red grape juice

• White grape juice

• Raw cranberry juice

• Blueberries

• Bilberries

• Peanuts

• Roasted peanuts

• Boiled peanuts

• Peanut butter – 100 % natural

• Pistachios

• Dry rhubarb root

• Pomegranate juice

• Dark chocolate

My personal goal is not to live 120 or 130 years, but to maintain my present quality of life for as long as possible. To that end, I will continue to exercise my body and mind, cultivate family and friends, and extend altruism and kindness to my patients. Finally, I intend to continue to supplement my daily glass of Pinot Noir wine with natural xeno factors.   – Joseph Maroon.

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Your daily protein requirement and how much extra protein should you eat to build extra muscle

November 19th, 2009 Milan

Getting right amount of protein in your diet makes a huge difference in physical and mental performance. If you have enough of it, you feel better, you think better and you perform physically better.The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for an active adult is 0.36 gram of protein per 1 pound of body weight. For 140-pound woman, that equals 50.4 grams of protein.  This is a bare minimum. If you want to know exactly how much protein you should eat daily and what to do to gain some lean muscle mass, keep reading.

First figure out your daily protein requirements.

For that you need to find out what is your lean body mass.

Your lean body mass = your body weight – fat weight

Your body requires adequate levels of protein to maintain this amount of lean body mass. Your fat mass does not require any incoming dietary protein to maintain it.

To find out, what is your fat weight, you need to know your body fat %. Get it checked at your doctor’s office or hire a personal trainer to do it for you or buy a simple fat % monitor and measure it yourself. Or just use this simple rule:

Stand naked in the front of a mirror and look at your body:

• If you have “love handles” than you are about 25% body fat for men and 33% body fat for women.
• If you don’t have any “love handles” than you are about 15% body fat for men and 22% body fat for women.
• When you raise your hands and see your ribs, than you have about 13% body fat If you are men and 20% body fat if you are women.
• If you can clearly see your abdominal muscles you are about 10% body fat if you are men and 17% if you are women.

Let’s say, you are 160 pounds and have 25% body fat. Than your total fat weight will be:

160 X 0.25 = 40 pounds

This means that 40 pounds of pure fat is sitting on your body. Since fat contains 3500 calories per pound, this means you have approximately 140 000 calories of stored usable fat energy, and this stored energy is the equivalent of the calories in more than 2000 pancakes.

Let’s get back to out example:

If you have 40 pounds of total fat weight, than you need to subtract it from your total body weight to get your lean body mass.

160 lb – 40 lb = 120 lb of your lean body mass

Now when you have your lean body mass number in pounds, you need to apply activity factor to get your daily protein requirement. The amount of protein that you will require to maintain your lean body mass: multiply your lean body mass by your physical activity factor. (See below)

Daily protein requirement = lean body mass X activity factor

 

 

Phys. activity factor	Grams of protein per pound of lean body mass
Sedentary	0.5
Light activity (walking)	0.6
Moderate activity (1.5 hours per week)	0.7
Active (1.5 to 2.5 hours per week)	0.8
Very active (more than 2.5 hours per week)	0.9
Elite athlete (weight training five times per week)	1.0

 

If you have 120 pounds of lean body mass and were lightly active, you would require 72 grams of protein per day:

120 pounds X 0.6 (activity factor) = 72 grams of protein.

If you want to gain lean muscle mass.

The only way to build muscle mass is by hard physical work or exercise, primarily weight training. If you can build 1 pound of muscle mass per month, that’s a very ambitious goal to achieve. It takes time to build muscle. To do so, however, you will need only about 7 extra grams of protein per day in addition to the number of grams of protein required to maintain your existing lean body mass.

1 pound of new muscle equals 454 grams. Bud muscle is 70% water, which means that 1 pound of new muscle contains about 136 grams of protein. Divide 136 grams by 30 days, and you get 4.5 grams of extra protein per day required to build new muscle.

Taking  in extra 7 grams of protein with your required amount per day will be more than enough to build extra pound of muscle per month.

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How to get a six pack – flat abs

September 10th, 2009 Milan

My friend Sano asked me for advice the other day. Here is the partial  answer:

1. Six pack starts with nutrition – don’t eat crap.
2. Stay active.
3. Don’t drink soda.
4. Calories in  are < than calories out, in other words – burn more than you eat.
5. Stay very active.
6. Eat lean fish.
7. Don’t eat fries.
8. No Burgers.
9. Limit your restaurant meals.
10. Always have breakfast.
11. Have a big, healthy nutritious breakfast.
12. Stop wanting to have six pack and start wanting to lead healthy lifestyle – six pack will fallow.
13. Eat 7 – 10 servings of fruits and vegetables everyday.
14. Do weight training 2 times per week.
15. Run.
16. Do heavy weight training.
17. Run fast.
18. Do interval training 2 times per week.
19. Don’t drink fruit juices you can buy in grocery store.
20. Eat cheese only once a week, very little and very low fat kind.
21. Drink fruit juices, but only the ones you just freshly squeezed from real fruits.
22. No alcohol; maybe 2 drinks per week.
23. When you weight train, focus on big muscle group exercises – the ones that use 2 and more joints.
24. Drink only water and unsweetened herbal teas and coffee.
25. Get enough sleep.
26. Exercise everyday.
27. Do long cardio workouts.
28. Don’t eat candy and candy bars.
29. Do intensive cardio workouts.
30. Don’t eat red meat.
31. White lean chicken and turkey breast meat is fine.
32. Eat a lot of fiber – beans, garbanzo beans, peas, grains, fruits and vegetables.
33. You can eat eggs; if you eat lot of them, more than 7 per week, take some yolks out.
34. Honey is the same as brown sugar and brown sugar is the same as white sugar – use very little of it.
35. Control your portions.
36. Eat a lot = move a lot.
37. Walk.
38. Bike uphill.
39. No grandma’s chocolate cake.
40. Dark chocolate is OK to eat occasionally.
41. No fast food.
42. Work out your legs.
43. Go to bed a little hungry every day.
44. Work out you legs intensively.
45. Walk upstairs.
46. Exercise with free weights.
47. Run upstairs.
48. Exercise with heavy free weights.
49. Coffee is OK – no sugar – no cream, or very little.
50. Love nature and animals; if you don’t you will never have a six pack.
51. Eat only low fat dairy.
52. Eat some nuts.
53. Raw foods are the best.
54. Everything packaged is bad.
55. Don’t eat white flour products.
56. Switch white rice for brown rice.
57. Have 8 smaller meals every day.
58. Desert = fresh strawberries.
59. Desert = apple.
60. Desert = fresh fruit and nothing else.
61. Be consistent.
62. Surf.
63. Look into dictionary what words intensity and consistency mean and remember it forever.
64. Get some sun everyday.
65. Realize, that having a six pack is probably  not worth the effort.

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Top 10 sources of fiber

July 6th, 2009 Milan

Studies have linked high fiber intake with lower occurrence of some serious medical problems including: heart disease, diabetes, obesity, intestinal disorders, hypertension, and several types of cancer, including colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, and breast cancer.

Here are the top 10 sources of fiber:

1. Beans (legumes) cooked, 1 cup – 12 grams of fiber

2. Peas, green, cooked 1 cup – 9 grams of fiber

3. Raspberries, 1 cup – 8 grams of fiber

4. Bulgur, cooked, 1 cup - 8 grams of fiber

5. Rye wafers, 3 pieces – 7 grams of fiber

6. Wheat bran, 1/4 cup – 6 grams of fiber

7. Pasta, whole wheat, cooked, 1 cup – 6 grams of fiber

8. Oat bran, cooked, 1 cup – 6 grams of fiber

9. Squash, 1 piece 4 oz. – 5 grams of fiber

10. Potato, baked with skin, 1 medium – 5 grams of fiber

Benefits of fiber:

• removes cholesterol from the body
• it moves waste through your intestines more quickly, lessening the chances of bad things remaining in you system too long
• makes your bowel movements softer and more regular, reducing the chances of developing hemorrhoids
• it slows down the rate at which carbohydrates are digested, resulting in slower and steadier glucose release
• it contains micro nutrients, particularly magnesium, which may help prevent diabetes
• it helps you feel full longer

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