Teaching you how to achieve superior health, leanness and performance.
January 26th, 2012 Milan
What really causes heart attacks? Majority of very smart people will tell you immediately and they are partially right, that heart attacks are caused by eating too much of saturated fat, not exercising enough, eating cholesterol rich foods like eggs, eating trans fats, drinking too much coke and eating too many cookies.
Inflammation and heart disease
Yes, not exercising enough, eating bad diet and drinking soda are very bad for your heart and they will eventually cause the hart to fail working properly. But the main reason, why heart attacks happen is inflammation. Inflammation in our bodies creates great conditions for heart disease.
There is always certain level of inflammation in our bodies and it is ok. When your knee hurts, when your tooth hurts, when you cut yourself, fighting a flu or when you brake a bone. However our body is able to deal with this kind of inflammation just fine. The main problem is the extra inflammation we are causing to ourselves.
If this extra inflammation is the main reason why heart attacks eventually happen, and it really is, than we have to find out what creates this extra inflammation and avoid it.
4 main causes of inflammation in our body:
Poor diet – mostly sugar, refined flour, processed foods and trans fatty rich foods.
Lack of exercise
Too much stress
Toxins in environment such as mercury and pesticides
Low energy and inflammation
Do you feel tired and out of energy often? While part of it might be your overall motivation and enthusiasm, part of it is certainly inflammation in your body. Inflammation that is caused mainly by your diet and overall activity level.
I am by nature very motivated and enthusiastic person. I don’t even know what the bad mood means. I seem to be always in a good mood. Unless you pull the plug and drain the ocean, you can always, and I really mean that see me smiling and enjoying every moment of my days. But the last Saturday I didn’t get to have my fun surfing workout and I ate some crappy Indian food. And you certainly didn’t want to be around me at all this day. I was in a bad mood, with the foggy mind, tired and I was barking on everybody like a mean dog. It really made me realize, how important these two things are – physical exercise and perfect diet. They can really ruin your day, if you don’t take them seriously.
6 ways to fight extra inflammation:
1. Eat whole foods – high fiber mainly plant based diet, rich in fruits and green leafy vegetables with optimal protein consumption coming mainly from small fish like sardines, wild salmon, mackerel, anchovies, eggs, chicken, turkey, tofu and some whole dairy products like probiotic buttered unsweetened milk, white yogurt and cottage cheese.
2. Eat healthy fat – monounsaturated fats like olive oil, all kinds of nuts, avocados, omega 3 fats that mainly small fish contain. You don’t have to be afraid of saturated fat, just don’t go overboard, eating too much of it. Those naturally occurring in dairy products, and animal products if not over consumed are not inflammatory to your body. Avoid trans fats.
3. Regular exercise – mounting evidence shows that regular exercise has huge anti inflammatory effect on our body. Regular exercise strengthens your cardiovascular system, improves immunity system and reduces stress among many other benefits. That makes it a strong inflammation fighter.
4. Relax – don’t pick up many more responsibilities in your already demanding job. If it’s required, than just quit! If you can’t afford to quit, than rearrange your life, so leaving you stressful demanding job, you already hate is an option. And actively relax by hanging out a lot in nature and taking frequent breathing breaks.
5. Eat some natural probiotics for your gut – eat some probiotic rich unsweetened dairy like kefir, buttered milk, cottage cheese, yogurt. Non pasteurized Sauerkraut and some pickles are rich in probiotics too.
6. Stay away from chemicals – toxins are all around us. Try to avoid them. One of the best way to avoid toxins is not to buy new stuff like cars, houses, furniture, toys, toxic carpets and flooring or just buy everything made with natural ingredients. The new stuff out gasses toxic gasses for few years. When you get 3 year old used car, all the outgassing already happened and you don’t have to breath those toxic chemicals.
What really causes heart attack?
No, eggs don’t cause heart attacks. I eat about 20 of them per week and so should you. Egg is the power food. Not even trans fats cause heart attacks. The inflammation that happens in your arteries mainly because of processed poor diet and lack of exercise does cause heart attacks.
Excessive insulin production and sugar spikes from eating sweetened and white flour loaded foods create the highest, most dangerous inflammation in our bodies. This inflammation damages arteries where fertile condition for plugging happen. And heart attack becomes unavoidable.
When you exercise regularly and intensively you are helping your own pancreas manage these sugar spikes by improving insulin sensitivity. And that is a huge anti-inflammatory factor. Add perfect diet to it and you will become the person that is not supporting statins selling pharmaceutical companies with healthy cardiovascular system.
Toxins in your environment and stress will not have very much effect to your body inflammation if you do those two things right – exercise regularly and eat healthy unprocessed diet free of sugar and rich in vegetables and fruits. They both make your body to calm down and rest more effectively so you are not overstressed. Plus they create an environment for your body to successfully deal with these toxins. My heavily smoking grand father was the perfect example of this. But if you don’t do those two highly anti-inflammatory things right, toxins in your environment and too much stress will magnify the inflammation in your body.
So basically, if you are overweight sedentary person with poor diet, your body is on fire all the time. Inflammation is there to stay unless you change your lifestyle radically. What is causing heart attack is not really that interesting to you. Why? Because deep down you already know what is causing it. But you are not willing to give up the good stuff – the couch, chips and coke and cookies. Anyway, you will be facing some near death situation probably not that long from now. If you get out of it alive, than you might change. Good luck!
Posted in Heart | No Comments »
November 8th, 2010 Milan
There are other things to worry about, that will kill you, but shark is not one of them, even if you are a surfer.
Yes it happens occasionally, and it is gruesome.
But, chances are very low to get attacked by shark. like I said, even if you are a surfer on Northern California coast, where there is the most of them, and you surf everyday.
People get frightened of water, especially after seeing in the news, that somebody got attacked by shark.
I have a friend, who will be going to Hawaii for a week. She was swearing to me the other day that she is not going to step into the water at all. Not a chance!
Well, my friend is slightly overweight and she is only 30, she drinks lots of soda, alcohol, she doesn’t exercise and she smokes like a chimney.
I wanted to bet her 100 bucks that diabetes and eventually heart attack is going to get her sooner than shark, even if she swam around the Farallon islands everyday. But I ended up biting my tongue and not saying anything.
Anyway, the real things to worry about – the real danger comes from:
- Diabetes
- Heart attack
- Stroke
- Fast driving
- Cancer
And you actually have pretty good control to eliminate these dangers yourself.
Compare to shark attack. That’s just being very unlucky, and being on the wrong spot at the wrong time.
Posted in Health and fitness, Heart | No Comments »
August 30th, 2010 Milan
There is a lot of fuss out there about how to prevent heart attack.
Heart failure kills the most people in the world.
I would say this: Don’t worry about details just remember this:
If you are exercising everyday regularly and intensively and you are eating healthy diet free of processed foods, rich in fruits and vegetables, you will not have heart attack.
If you don’t, you will have a heart attack at some point.
It’s as simple as that.
End of the story.
Posted in Heart | No Comments »
March 15th, 2010 Milan
Once upon a time, doctors relied upon the body mass index (BMI) to determine who was at risk for heart disease and other dangerous health conditions like diabetes and stroke.
These days, that’s old-school.
There is a method out there, that’s more accurate and much easy to calculate.
It’s called the waist-to-hip-ratio.
You simply measure your waist and divide it by the measurement of your hips.
If the number you get is higher than 0.8 in women or o.9 in men, you are in a health dangerous zone.
The higher the waist-to-hip ratio, the higher your risk of heart attack and other dangerous health conditions like diabetes and stroke.
If you are over the cutoff point but think like many overweight people that you eat right and you are active, think again.
If your waist is almost as big as your hips or bigger, you don’t eat right. Maybe you are active a little, but what you eat is bad stuff.
The interesting thing is that, even if you don’t exercise at all and you eat right stuff you would not be overweight and your waist-to-hip-ratio would be low.
To take this a little further; if your waist to hip ratio is higher than safe number, I recommend you to don’t exercise at all, keep that comfort zone, but eat 100% right and watch your weight go down.
If you exercise, great, but the nutrition is the key to keeping your weight down.
Read about the right eating here:
Posted in Health and fitness, Heart | No Comments »
November 5th, 2009 Milan
Cardiologists and nutritionists hate the French. They don’t exercise, they smoke, they drink, they eat lots of fat, they party and always seem to have a great time, which means, they probably don’t even sleep enough and they have the lowest rates of heart disease in Europe and of course lower than in United States. It’s called the french paradox.
It seems like a big paradox for all of us.
Good looking, skinny athletic woman in her late fifties is sitting on Shanselise in coffee shop enjoying her 3-rd glass of Bordeaux, smoking her forth cigarette and eating fat cheese and grease covered pate. A month ago she got her blood test done and it shows that she is in perfect health. That really is not fair. So where is the difference between rest of us and French that makes their heart so healthy?
Some nutritionists say that there are a number of reasons for these surprising statistics. But they think the major factor is that their meals are moderate in calories, are rich in fruits and vegetables, always contain protein and also include some fat. They eat less processed grain foods which are simple carbohydrates and also limit their complex carbohydrates intake. By simply eating in moderation, eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having some protein at every meal, they keep their insulin levels in check.
There is a hormonal response that occurs every time you eat. Insulin level is responsible for these hormonal response. The French keep their hormonal response in balance. It means their insulin levels don’t raise too high, and don’t drop too low, which is causing hormonal imbalance. And that hormonal imbalance is believed to be the major risk factor for heart disease.
How do you know that you don’t create hormonal imbalance when you eat?
It is very simple to recognize. If you feel sleepy and tired after a meal, it means you created a hormonal imbalance in you body by high levels of insulin which is a result of eating too much simple carbohydrates in your meal. Also, if you feel hungry sooner than 4 hours after your meal.
What should you do to keep hormonal balance in your body?
Eat small portions. When you eat, eat always some lean protein, which is insulin neutral. Have vegetables and fruits with your meal, which are good source of low density carbohydrates. It is almost impossible to overeat on fruits and vegetables. With their low density on carbohydrates, they don’t increase your insulin levels too high. Now you can have some complex carbohydrates with your meal like brown rice or little bit of pasta, but put some olive oil on it. Insulin secretion is very sensitive to these carbohydrates, but fat in form of olive oil and other healthy polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, slows down the process of getting these carbohydrates to your blood, which keeps insulin in control.
When you do all these and still feel tired after your meal, decrease the amount of complex carbohydrates in your meal. If you feel great and energized and you don’t get hungry for next 4 hours, remember that meal and write it down. That’s your perfect hormonal balance keeping meal. Everybody is different, so the amount of protein and carbohydrates will vary with different people. It will take little bit of experimenting for you to create you perfect meals, but keeping these simple principles in mind, it will keep you on right track, right next to French.
Posted in Heart | No Comments »
September 20th, 2009 Milan
1. Do not smoke
Smokers double their risk of heart disease and have a 70% greater chance of dying of a heart attack than nonsmokers. The risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked daily.
In addition to increasing the risk for coronary heart disease, smoking is a major cause of lung cancer.
The easiest way to handle smoking, of course, is don’t even start. However, if you do smoke, try as hard as you can to quit.
2. Maintain your ideal body weight
People who maintain an ideal body weight can lower their risk of heart disease by 40 – 50% compared to people who are 20% or more over their desirable weight.
With the right approach of lowering the calories in your diet and regular exercise you can loose weight and keep it off.
3. Exercise regularly
Lack of exercise is a big risk factor for coronary heart disease and heart attack. The connection between regular exercise and good health is very strong.
Consistent and intensive exercise controls weight, develops muscle strength, increases endurance and reduces stress. It protects your heart by raising HDL (good) cholesterol levels.
4. Maintain a normal blood pressure
Your blood pressure shows how hard your heart has to work to keep blood flowing through the arteries.
Have your blood pressure checked regularly. Generally, a blood pressure higher than 140/80 is a cause for concern.
Exercise, maintain healthy weight and limit saturated fat in your diet to prevent high blood pressure.
5. Limit salt
About 25% of people are salt sensitive and salt – sodium will cause their blood pressure to raise.
A lot of salt is now days in packaged commercial foods. Avoid them and try to eat more raw foods like fruits and vegetables and other unprocessed foods.
The American Heart Association recommends, healthy individuals limit sodium to 3000 milligrams per day.
Posted in Heart | No Comments »
August 24th, 2009 Milan
A cholesterol blood test is is a barometer of your heart health and will give you the one piece of crucial information upon which you can base your future heart-smart decision.
Doctors recommend to start getting your cholesterol checked when you reach 35 years.
A cholesterol test involves having a small amount of blood drawn from your arm, which is than analyzed in laboratory.
Stanford University Medical Center recommends these numbers:
Total cholesterol level – recommended range – below 200 mg/dl, ideal levels – 160 mg/dl.
HDL (healthy) cholesterol level (men) - recommended range – above 45 mg/dl, ideal levels – above 45 mg/dl.
HDL cholesterol level (women) – recommended range - above 55 mg/dl, ideal levels – above 55 mg/dl.
LDL (lethal) level (men and women) – recommended levels – below 130 mg/dl, ideals levels – below 100 mg/dl.
Total cholesterol/HDL ratio (men) – recommended levels – below 4.5, ideal levels – the lower the better.
Total cholesterol/HDL ratio (women) – recommended levels – below 3.5, ideal levels – the lower the better.
- Your total cholesterol gives you overall picture of the amount of cholesterol circulating in your bloodstream. The recommended level is under 200 mg per deciliter (dl), but studies show that heart attacks almost never occur when the cholesterol level drops to the 160 mg per dl range.
- The LDL (lethal) cholesterol reading indicates how much of the harmful cholesterol (the type that promote development of plaque in arteries) you have. The recommended reading is below 130 mg per dl and the ideal reading is under 100 mg per dl. Some recommend LDL reading under 80 mg per dl.
- The HDL (healthy) cholesterol reading indicates how much good cholesterol (the type that prevents plaque from forming) you have. This number should at least be above 45 mg per dl for men and 55 mg per dl for women – and the higher the better.
- Total cholesterol to HDL ratio should be between 3.5 and 4.5. Studies show that ratios above 4.5 double your risk of suffering heart attack. The ideal ratio is below 3.5 and ideally as low as you can get it.
Posted in Heart | No Comments »
