Chili-Mango Chicken
from the book Cook “This Not That”
by David Zinczenko & matt Gouldin

Cooking with Redondo Beach Personal Trainer

I’m something of a hater when it comes to diet books, but Zinczenko and Goulding’s book “Cook This Not That” is a great diet/cookbook. This recipe looked so good I had to try it.

My Promise To You: Every recipe you find here I have cooked and eaten.

Rating 3 out of 5 stars

Calories and Serving size???
This recipe was relatively easy to prepare and tasted good. A serving is only 240 calories which is great. The recipe makes 4 servings, but the authors neglects to tell you how to measure the serving. Is it one cup, or 4oz. etc., be careful. The book also does not say if that 240 calories includes the rice, but I’m certain it doesn’t. This is where you can get into trouble with hidden calories. A cup of brown rice will add an additional 216 – 219 calories to this dish. Eat this dish with a cup of brown rice and all of a sudden it’s a 459 calorie meal, that’s almost double the calories. These additional calories will kill your diet. It will leave you baffled, heartbroken and frustrated when you weigh yourself.

When you think you’ve done everything right, you’re counting calories, you’re working out, and you step on the scale and have not lost weight or gained it can be a devastating disappointment.  Keeping a food journal will help you find hidden calories before you consume them.

To keep the caloric intake of this dish down use a half cup of rice, that’s 109 calories. The total calories for the dish 349.

A word about the ingredients
The ingredients were your standard fair except for the chili garlic sauce, sesame oil, mango and ginger. I mention this because some recipes  call for ingredients you have never heard of, are hard to find, and can be expensive especially if you never used it again. The Chili garlic sauce may fall into this category. I bought the smap peas and the onions at the Redondo Beach Farms Market.

Prep time
The prep time for this dish was average. chopping the onion was easy and quick. Pealing and chopping the mango was a bit time consuming. The recipe says to grate the ginger. I did not do this. I have a small food processor. I pealed the ginger and put it in the food processor, it saves a lot of time.

Served with . . .

This dish is meant to be served over brown rice. Avoid white rice, white rice is highly refined therefore less nutritious than a simple carbohydrate. Simple carbohydrates are quickly stored as in the body fat resulting in weight gain.

I used prepared brown rice from Trader Joe’s. I’ve never been good at making rice so when I saw this product I thought I’d try it. The rice comes prepared, you put it in the microwave for one minute and it’s ready to eat. No preservative, no dyes, no chemicals and it taste as good as plain brown rice can taste.

Chili-Mango Chicken

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, chopped into 1/2 pieces
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 Tbsp sesame oil
1/2 Tbsp peanut or canola oil
1 red onion, chopped
1 Tbsp grated or minced fresh ginger
2 cups sugar snap peas
1 mango, peeled pitted and chopped
1 Tbsp chili garlic sauce (preferably Sambal Oleek)

Black pepper to taste

° Combine the chicken, cornstarch, soy sauce and sesame oil in a mixing bowl and let sit for 10 minutes.

° Heat the peanut oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add the onion and ginger and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until the onion is translucent, Add the sugar snaps and  stir-fry for 1 minute, using a spatula to keep the vegetables in near-constant motion. Add the chicken,along with its marinade, and stir-fry for about 2 minutes,until the meat begins to brown on the outside. Add the mango, chili sauce, and black pepper and stir-fry for  1 minute longer, until the chicken is cooked through and the mango has softened into a near sauce-like consistency. Serve over brown rice.
Makes 4 servings.

Abs. . . The elusive six-pack — the flat tummy, every woman wants them. They represent beauty, and peak fitness. For this reason abdominal exercises are a staple of womens fitness routines, so it stands to reason, if you’re doing the work you should have defined abs right? Wrong.

Your fitness routines my include lots of abdominal exercises, but losing enough body fat to have a flat tummy is one of the hardest body shaping endeavors you’ll ever accomplish; in fact only 20% of women who try succeed.

A small percentage of the women who do succeed (surprise, surprise) become the fitness models pictured on health and fitness magazines — cover girls accompanied by headlines like this: Women’s Fitness Routines — Fab Abs in Thirty Days.

Womens Fitness Routines – For Fab Abs, page 55

First they sell you on the idea that Fab Abs have no Flab, which implies that flabby abs are less than fabulous; but no worries turn to page 55 for your Fab Ab Fitness Routines, and learn the best way to do crunches, and get the abs you’ve always wanted.

It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s what you’ve been looking for; and what you want to hear (as market research indicates) you’re sold!

You buy the magazine motivated to try these new Womens Fitness Routines For Fab Abs In Thirty Days, hoping this time will be different; that these fitness routines will work! So convinced you share your new-found knowledge with your trainer (poor trainer).

You say to her “I read in this months issue (insert the name of you favorite womens magazine) that if I include crunches like these in my fitness routines . . .”

Womens Fitness Routines – and The Crunch

You can do more crunches than Arnold Schwarzenegger has done in his life time; you can have abdominal fitness routines that would make Arnold blush; you can use the best equipment, consume all-matter of herbs, teas, supplements, and pills and never get the abs you’ve always wanted because “fab abs” have little to do with crunches.

Your abs are like any other muscle in your body. Do you have fitness routines that train your legs every day, doing 100 squats, and 100 lunges? Heck no! So why do you train you abs this way?

The Abdominal Anatomy

Your abdominal muscles consist of the transversus abdominis; these are the deep core muscles that stabilize your body; they are the source of your strength and power. A weak transversus abdominis forces smaller weaker muscles surrounding it to do the work it can’t.

This too common occurrence is the catalyst of low back pain. Even so, the transversus abdominis, to the determent of the body as a whole, is given little consideration when it comes to womens fitness routines. It is the most neglected muscle in the body, which brings us to the over-trained abdominal muscles, the internal and external obliques.

Covered by fat people refer to as love handles, these muscles stabilize, flex and rotate the spine. Though overworked the obliques got nothing on this last muscle; the most over worked muscle in the body, drum roll please . . . the rectus abdominis; you know it as “the six pack.“

The rectus abdominis is a long broad flat muscle, inconspicuous to most as it’s usually covered by a thick layer of subcantious fat. This famous muscle, contrary to belief will not grow large enough to be seen though your stomach fat as a result of hundreds of crunches; what it will do is flex, rotate and stabilized your spine.

Let’s Talk Fat

What is subcutaneous fat? Subcutaneous fat is the fat that lies just beneath the skin. It’s the fat that is measured when determining your body fat. It’s the fat womens fitness routines are designed to combat.

Deposits of subcutaneous fat together with fibrous tissue cause the dimpling effect commonly referred to as CELLULITE. Subcutaneous fat is the fat that’s keeping those of you who do lots of crunches from seeing the six-pack (oh yeah — it’s there) you already have.

In part 2 of this article, I will discuss:

• How Much Fat Is Too Much Fat To See Your Abs?
• Spot Reduction
• Diet and exercise
• Women’s fitness solutions for the total body

Leave Womens Fitness Routines and Get Fit!

In part one of this article: Womens Fitness Routines – How’d She Get Those Abs? The topics of body fat, and crunches were a reoccurring theme. As explained, the number of crunches in your womens fitness workout, how you do them, and what equipment you use has little to do with having great abs.

The same is true for womens fitness workouts for your arms, legs and butt. Exercising a particular body part thinking it will get rid of the fat or cellulite in that area, otherwise know as spot reduction, or spot training, is a huge misconception, that leads to a lot of frustration. While a womens fitness workout like this will tone the area you are training, you won’t get the results you expected or hoped for, because exercising a particular body part to get rid of fat or cellulite doesn’t work.

It didn’t work for you, it hasn’t worked for anyone, and it won’t work no matter how motivated, or disciplined you are, or how hard you work; it is physically impossible; the human body simply does not work like this.

So why are Womens fitness magazines filled with womens fitness workouts that emphasize training a particular body part, usually the arms, legs, butts and abs? They do this because it’s what women are interested in, it’s what gets us to pick up the magazine. The exercises are usually good exercises, not anything you haven’t seen, or won’t see in gyms across America.

Where the advice falls short is the emphasis on body fat. It’s the body fat covering your muscles that is keeping you from having the body you want. What most womens fitness workouts don’t fully explain is; crunches, lunges etc. These exercises will not burn enough calories to significantly reduce the fat covering these areas.

How Much Fat Is Too Much Fat?

The percentage of body fat you can carry in order see your abs is very low, 14% to 21%, the size of female athletes and fitness models. The average American woman’s body is 30% fat and higher. Even for genetically gifted women who have a fast, calorie burning metabolism; achieving and maintaining a body fat percentage this low is very difficult. For women in their 30’s, 40’s and up it’s even harder.

At this age your metabolism is slower making weight loss, and weight maintenance progressively more challenging, which explains why as we get older we put on weight.

In part #3 of Womens Fitness Workouts – How’d She Get Those Abs? I’ll discuss the diet and exercise requirements for Fab Abs.

Leave Womens Fitness Workout and Get Fit!

A Good Reason To Workout

A combination of exercise and diet is the only way to lose weight and keep it off. Remember, as you get older your body’s ability to burn calories is diminished, the only way to off set this inevitable occurrence is to exercise. Your womens fitness workout helps you maintain and increase your metabolism, and your body’s ability to burn calories.

Another benefit of exercise pertaining to weight loss is that even after you stop exercising, your body continues to burn calories (to a lesser degree than the activity itself) for hours after completing the fitness workout. In other words your body will burn more calories sitting at your desk than the person in the next cubical who did not get up and workout that morning.

Not exercising or quitting your womens fitness workout, because you can’t see your six-pack, or didn’t lose the 10, 15, 20 or more pounds you wanted to is a bad reason to stop exercising.

Exercise Will Never Fail You

Exercise itself is not the problem; the exercise did not fail you. The only way exercise can ever fail you is if you injure yourself to the extent you can no longer exercise. The root of most exercise program failures is your reasons — your motivations for exercising.

If you consider your womens fitness workout a failure despite all the things it does for your body then it’s time to review the benefits of exercise.

The Benefits of Your Womens Fitness Workout

• reduces the risk of premature death
• helps maintain body weight
• carries toxins that make you look and feel old out of the body
• helps prevent heart disease
• helps Build and maintain muscles, bones, and joints
• reduces risk of developing colon cancer and breast cancer
• helps control high blood pressure, and reduces the risk of developing it
• reduces depression and anxiety
• helps control high cholesterol or the risk of developing high cholesterol
• enhances performance at work and at play
• reduces risk of developing diabetes

Womens Fitness Workout – The Practical Approach

So — you don’t have the time or the inclination to eat every 2 to 2 ½ hours, and do your womens fitness workout twice a day 5-6 days a week? No. What you’re looking for is a practical workout where you can reap all the benefits of exercise, including a toned fit body — it is inevitable.

Leave Womens Fitness Workout and Get Fit!

The womens fitness workout, and the kind of dieting you have to do to get your body fat down to 14% to 21% is so difficult, and time consuming people become unmotivated and frustrated with the process, that they end up quitting their womens fitness workout despite all the benefits. If your reason for exercising was weight loss, quitting your womens fitness workout is the worst thing to do.

A Good Reason To Workout

A combination of exercise and diet is the only way to lose weight and keep it off. Remember, as you get older your body’s ability to burn calories is diminished, the only way to off set this inevitable occurrence is to exercise.

Your womens fitness workout helps you maintain and increase your metabolism, and your body’s ability to burn calories. Another benefit of exercise pertaining to weight loss is that even after you stop exercising, your body continues to burn calories (to a lesser degree than the activity itself) for hours after completing the fitness workout.

In other words your body will burn more calories sitting at your desk than the person in the next cubical who did not get up and workout that morning. Not exercising or quitting your womens fitness workout because you can’t see your six pack, or didn’t lose the 10, 15, 20 or more pounds you wanted to is a bad reason to stop exercising.

Exercise Will Never Fail You

Exercise itself is not the problem; the exercise did not fail you. The only way exercise can ever fail you is if you injure yourself to the extent you can no longer exercise. The roots of most exercise program failures are your reasons — your motivations for exercising. If you consider your womens fitness workout a failure despite all the things it does for your body then it’s time you reacquainted yourself with the benefits of exercise.

The Benefits Exercise Via Your Womens Fitness Workout

• reduces the risk of premature death
• helps maintain body weight
• carries toxins that make you look and feel old out of the body
• helps prevent heart disease
• helps Build and maintain muscles, bones, and joints
• reduces risk of developing colon cancer and breast cancer
• helps control high blood pressure, and reduces the risk of developing it
• reduces depression and anxiety
• helps control high cholesterol, or the risk of developing high cholesterol
• enhances performance at work and at play
• reduces risk of developing diabetes

Womens Fitness Workout – The Practical Approach

So — you don’t have the time or the inclination to eat every 2 to 2 ½ hours, and do your womens fitness workout twice a day 5-6 days a week? No. What you’re looking for is a practical workout where you can reap all the benefits of exercise, including a toned fit body.

The Workout, 2 Simple Scenarios

1. Weight-train a minimum 2 days a week; start with a five minute warm-up; stretch for 5 minutes; weight-train for 30 minutes; then do cardio for 20 minutes; cool down for 5 minutes; and stretch again. Cardio days consist of cardio exercises done a minimum of 3 days a week, for a minimum of 30 minutes.

2. Weight-train a minimum 2 days a week; start with a five minute warm-up; stretch for 5 minutes; weight train for 30 minutes; then do cardio for 20 minutes; cool down for 5 minutes; and stretch again; with your cardio days consisting of walking 10,000 steps a day.

This is it! Obviously you can exercise more, some people weight train up to 6 days a week; the more you exercise the greater the benefits. It’s not rocket science, it can be as simple, or as complicated as you want it to be. Tedious does not equal effective.

Personal Training and Online Services

For those of you who want the kind of personal attention and exercise expertise that only a personal trainer can provide, and you live in the Redondo Beach CA, area I can be contacted via the Services page at this web site.

Also available — online programming. I provide exercises programs designed specifically for you, they are based on your fitness level and goals, they provide detailed instructions with pictures, and video clips showing you how to do which exercises; at what weight, how many sets, and repetitions, how to do them safely and effectively, again refer to the Services page of the web site for more information.

Good Luck

Leave Womens Fitness Workout Part 4 and Get Fit!

Keeping it simple, women are supplementing their diets with multivitamins. This womens health product is growing in popularity. Multivitamins designed specifically for women help maintain and improve health, prevent disease, and slows the aging process.

Feeling Good

There is a direct connection between nutrition and how well a woman feels. Nutrition effects a woman’s organ function, and metabolism, it effects her hormonal balance, immune system, and how fast she ages. Doctors in the know, not only recommend nutritious womens health products like multivitamins they prescribe them.

Nourishing Womens Health Product

You probably don’t think of yourself as malnourished, or in need of a nourishing womens health product. Most of us equate malnourishment with starvation and third-world countries. Though American is no third world country, nutritionist consider Americans an overfed undernourished population.

A person is considered malnourished if her diet lacks the appropriate amount and quality of nutrients for an extended period of time? Due to the mass production of food, even those people who consistently eat a variety of nutrient dense foods can be malnourished, and therefore in need of a nourishing womens health product.

Symptoms of Malnourishment

• Fatigue
• Cravings for sweets and carbohydrates
• Weight gain
• Hot flashes or night sweats
• PMS
• Feeling depressed or overwhelmed
• Mood swings or irritability
• Insomnia or restless sleep
• Headaches/migraines
• Fuzzy thinking
• Digestive issues
• Stiffness or joint pain
• Anxiety
• Dry skin
• Irregular periods
• Yeast infections

The Business of Food

Produced in mass to turn a profit, food has precipitated the need for a nutritious womens health product. The foods we eat today have fewer nutrients then the foods our grandparents ate. Fruits and vegetables are grown nutrient depleted soil over and over again.

Yielding profitable crops requires fertilizers, pesticides and then preservatives to keep it fresh. The meat we consume is filled with antibiotics, pesticides and hormones; and the fish we eat is harvested from polluted waters.

Though health experts debate weather supplements and other nutritious womans health products are needed; how our food is processed, packaged, cleaned, distributed, and even how we cook it depletes it of nutrients. Other factors to consider:

1. The typical American diet lacks nutrient dense foods. It consist of high calorie, over processed simple carbohydrates, filled with sodium, sugar, artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives.
2. Americans eat a lot of meat and fish. Filled with antibiotics, hormones, and pesticides, these toxins wreak havoc on a woman’s already nutrient deficient body.
3. Americans drink more soda, alcohol, and caffeinated drinks than water. Though a key ingredient in diet pills, and a must for some in the morning, caffeine is not a womens health product. Caffeine blocks the absorption of certain nutrients. For this reason some health experts consider caffeine the anti womens health product.
4. The average American’s liver is over worked. It isn’t designed to handle amount of toxins we consume. In addition to the additives, preservatives and pesticides in food, your liver detoxes alcohol, legal and illegal drugs, chemicals, and other pollutants from your body. If you’re malnourished the stores of essential nutrients your over worked liver needs to function properly are unavailable. Toxins left in the body poison it.

Environmental Toxins – Nutrition – And A Women’s Body

When over worked, and undernourished the liver is unable to excrete all toxins from the body. This is especially true of the fat-soluble toxin xenoestrogens. Produced by agriculture and chemical companies, xenoestrogens bind to estrogen receptors: the main sex hormone in women produced by ovaries. When bound to estrogen, xenoestrogens act like estrogen.

They mimic, alter, and stop the natural effects estrogen. Xenoestrogens interfere with the body’s natural balance, and normal hormonal regulation. Scientist believe xenoestrogens cause infertility, endometriosis, breast and ovarian cancers in women.

Stored In Fat!

When not excreted, toxins like xenoestrogens accumulate in high fat content areas of the body where they can reside for years. The storage of these toxins in fat makes women particularly vulnerable. By design a women’s body stores more fat then men’s body.

The cells of the vagina, uterus and breast contain large numbers of estrogen receptors that xenoestrogens like to bind to. The normal hormonal changes that women experience during menstruation; pregnancy, lactation and menopause can mobilize these stored toxins even years after exposure. A well nourished body and liver will help to excrete these toxins.

Nutritious Womens Health Products

The correlation between nutrition and disease prevention is obvious. Besides looking and feeling good a nourished body is less vulnerable to disease then an unnourished body.

Whether it’s to prevent disease, or supplement their diets women are buying and consuming herbs, botanical and vitamins. Which supplements if any is right for you, do they work, and are they safe, are important questions?

Part 2 of this article takes a look at the effectiveness and safety of supplements.

Leave Womens Health Supplement Part 1 and Get Fit!

When taken as directed a good womens health supplement promotes health and helps prevent disease. So why all the controversy, why do some doctors recommend a good womens health supplement; while others opposed their consumption?

Your Womens Health Supplement — Reasons To Be Concerned

Manufactures of dietary supplements have been guilty of:

• making unsubstantiated health claims about their products
• mislabeling products
• listing ingredients and dosages their products do not contain

Unlike conventional drugs, dietary supplements, are not regulated for purity and potency. It is suspected that batch-to-batch variability’s and impurities, besides being unreliable may be the cause of reported adverse events.

Government Regulations

Critics of the dietary supplement industry are quick to point out that supplements are unregulated. This is not true. Dietary supplement are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and by government agencies at the state level. Because supplements fall under the category of food, they are not regulated like drugs, leaving some to believe they are not as safe as drugs.

FDA Oversight?

• The FDA has authority over and requires prescription and over-the-counter drugs to undergo pre market approval for safety and efficacy. They do not have the same authority over your womens health supplement.
• The FDA’s oversight of supplements relies on adverse event reporting.
• An adverse event report is a report made by consumers, health care professionals, or the manufacturer to the FDA. The report is made when a supplement causes an illness or injury that may be associated with the product. Reporting an adverse event is voluntary.
• Pharmaceutical drugs are monitored similarly for adverse drug reactions.
• Adverse drug reactions (ADR’s) are unintended responses to approved pharmaceuticals given in appropriate dosages.

Adverse event reports typically reflect a small proportion of actual events for both pharmaceutical drugs and supplements. A study commissioned by the FDA estimated that it received information on less than one percent of all adverse events associated with dietary supplements. Supplement advocates argue the reason for this is supplements are safe. Safer they say then chlorinated tap water, and table salt.

In April 2001 The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) published a report titled “Adverse Event Reporting For Dietary Supplements — An Inadequate Safety Valve.” Though the report found that about 60 percent of Americans take supplements daily without apparent problems, conclusions as to safety based on these finding could not be drawn. According to the report the FDA lacked the necessary information to effectively analyze adverse event reports, respond to them, or make conclusions as to their safety.

“Our evaluation of FDA’s dietary supplement adverse event reporting system leads us to conclude that without further development of the overall regulatory framework for dietary supplements, the potential of the system to serve as a consumer safeguard is inherently limited. The program simply cannot serve as an adequate safety valve until other measures are taken . . .” – Adverse Event Reporting For Dietary Supplements — An Inadequate Safety Valve.

Pharmaceutical Drug safety Vs. Dietary Supplement safety

Dating back to 2000 the FDA has issued 12 warnings about supplements. It advised the industry remove Comfrey from the market. The FDA banned only ephderine alkaloids. This womens health supplement was marketed as a fat burner and as diet pills.

As of January 2007 the FDA has recalled 48 Pharmaceutical drugs it pre approved. (www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/enforce/2007/ENF00985.html)

Reviewed before and after they are marketed the FDA’s oversight of pharmaceutical drugs is clearly more comprehensive than that of supplements. Like supplements, pharmaceutical drugs are reviewed post-market via a manual assessment of voluntary adverse drug reports (ADR)

The exact number of ADR’s is unknown. Research indicates that adverse drug reports represent a significant public health problem due to a lack of data, unreliable reporting, and a lack of a common reporting methodology. Sound familiar? Remember, the DHHS found similar problems with adverse event reports for dietary supplements.

165,000 Avoidable Deaths

Both prescription strength and over-the-counter ibuprofen is taken by more than 30 million people and is considered safe. In June 1999 the New England Journal of Medicine estimated deaths related to ibuprofen (a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) to be 165,000 annually.

This estimate is considered conservative. It only accounted for Americans prescribed the drug for arthritis. It did not account for any other condition, or the over-the-counter low dose version of the drug. The Journal also estimated that ibuprofen hospitalized 103,000 annually. Advocates for dietary supplements describe the deaths related to ibuprofen as avoidable.

No Drug or Supplement is 100% Safe

Though there are legitimate concerns about the safety of dietary supplements there may be even more reason to be concerned about pharmaceutical drugs. Because they are FDA approved, Americans trust that the aspirin, cough syrup and drugs prescribed by their doctors are safe.

But consider this — death and sudden heart attack, like stomach upset and drowsiness are side effects of FDA approved drugs. Four years after the FDA fast-tracked the approval of Vioxx, post-marketing found that it might have contributed to as many as 88,000 to 139,000 heart attacks in America. Thirty to forty percent of those who experienced this “side effect” died. Thirty to Forty percent of 88,000 to 139,000 is 27,000 to 55,000 preventable deaths.

2.5 Billion

Internal e-mails, marketing documents, and interviews with outside scientists questioning the safety of Vioxx indicate that the drugs manufacture, Merck was aware the drug might not be safe. According to The Wall Street Journal not only did Merck suspect the drug was dangerous, the company hid this information to protect sales. When pulled from the market in 2004 annual sales of Vioxx were 2.5 billion. As early as 2000 the FDA knew there were problems with Vioxx, but didn’t pulled it from the market.

Merck voluntarily pulled Vioxx in 2004 due to mounting criticisms and law suits. The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal both reported that FDA officials attempted to suppress negative conclusions about the drug. Why would the FDA do this? Some scientist at the FDA suggested the reason was money. Drug companies like Merk provide half of the agency’s $400 million dollar budget.

In 2002, about one in five FDA scientists told federal investigators that despite expressed reservations about the safety and efficacy of certain drugs they felt pressure to approve those drugs. The same scientist said they lacked confidence in the agency’s ability to adequately monitor drug safety after they are approved and marketed. An FDA publication notes, “ . . . once medical products are on the market . . . ensuring safety is principally the responsibility of health care providers and patients . . .”

Killer Supplement Ephedra Vs. Killer Drug Vioxx
. . . No Contest

The popular dietary supplement ephedra (ephderine alkaloids) marketed as a fat burner, and diet pill, is estimated to have caused over 155 deaths (Public Citizen’s Health Research Group). In 1994 adverse event reports relating to ephedra resulted in an FDA medical bulletin. The FDA banned ephedra in 2004 — ten years after the first adverse event reports.

More Evidence

The FDA approved Vioxx in 1999. A year later one of their top scientists, Dr. David Graham recommended it be pulled from the market. It wasn’t. In August 2004 Dr. Graham again recommended Vioxx be pulled from the market. The doctor’s latest research indicated that high-doses of Vioxx appeared to triple heart attack rates. The FDA did not pull Vioxx off the market, but did ban ephedra that year.

The Verdict

Ephedra based weight loss products have been linked to 16,000 adverse event reports including strokes, irregular heartbeats, and heart attacks resulting in an estimated 155 deaths. FDA approved Vioxx is believed to have caused 88,000 to 139,000 heart attacks resulting in more than 55,000 deaths in America. Testifying before congress Dr. Graham said, the FDA as currently configured is “incapable of protecting America” from dangerous drugs.

Do Supplements Work?

Are supplements effective? People who take them regularly swear by them. The medical community is bitterly split on this subject. Some health experts not only rave about the effectivness of good supplements, they prescribe them to their patients. Doctors who oppose their use say they are unnecessary, and have the potential to be dangerous. The Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institute of health, both say they need more information to make any conclusions.

As for the effectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs — if your are one of the 20 million people who take ibuprofen, or owe your life to drugs that kill cancer cells you know how effective they can be.

Health Philosophy

For consumers the primary difference between dietary supplements and pharmaceutical drugs maybe philosophical. Is your approach to your health a proactive, or reactive, clinical or holistic? Conventional practitioners — your doctor will treat whatever ails you, from acne to chronic diseases with pharmaceutical drugs.

Those medications may relieve your symptoms, but they will not address the cause of your condition, therefore relief may by temporary. There’s no doubt that pharmaceutical drugs relieve symptoms, but symptoms are an indication that something is wrong.

When symptoms are treated the underlying causes of migraines, fatigue, painful menstrual cramps, etc., are ignored. In addition relieving symptoms mask sometime serious health problems.

Good Health

Dietary supplements promote good health, and disease prevention. Part 3 of the series (available June 2007) will teach you how and what to look for when choosing supplements.

Leave Womens Health Supplement Part 2 and Get Fit!

Though inundated with womens health information about exercise, very little of it explains that women 40 and up have slower metabolisms, and serious muscle imbalances. The exercise regiments that worked when you were 20 and 30 year olds won’t work as well at age 40.

This is not fully explained in the womens health information we’re getting, leaving us frustrated, and disenchanted with exercise. A slower metabolism and imbalanced muscles doesn’t mean you can’t lose weight or change the shape of your body.

It does mean you have to be smarter. You can’t exercise smart without good womens health information. With good information and proper guidance you can meet all of your fitness goals.

Your Metabolism

Womens Health Information has convinced women that regular exercise is important. We make up 52% of gym memberships. Regular exercise helps us maintain and increase our muscle mass i.e. our metabolisms — the process our bodies use to break down food, produce energy, build new cells and tissues.

Every year after the age of thirty, thirty-five we lose 1/2 to 1/3 of a pound of muscle. There is an inverse relationship between muscle mass and weight maintenance.

Each pound of lean muscle mass burns approximately 50 calories per day. A subsequent loss of muscle, results in weight gain even if you eat the same number of calories, which is why as we get older we get heavier.

Muscle Imbalances

An imbalanced muscle is a tight and or stretched muscle. When you were in your twenty’s and younger, your muscles were at or close to their proper length, and working efficiently. At 40 some of your muscles are tighter then they should be, while others are stretched. Tight “knotted” and stretched muscle fibers can’t create the force they are designed to create.

In this condition they are weakened. Unless you address your muscle imbalances you’ll have to exercise a little harder to get the same results. Sometimes an imbalanced muscle is inflamed and injured.

Exercising harder worsens the injury, creates new imbalances in surrounding muscles, and causes excessive wear to joints. This isn’t thoroughly explained in womens health information regarding exercise. Frustrated because you expect to loose weight as quickly as you did when you were younger, you stop exercising. Weight gain for most of is inevitable.

40 and Fabulous

You’re 40 and up you’re fabulous, and you’re exercising hard, or plan to. The thing is, exercising hard is for 20 year olds. As a woman of 40 or more years you’re smarter than you were when you were 20. Exercising smart versus exercising hard is a natural progression.

In part 2 of this articles you’ll learn to exercise smart versus hard, and get tips on how to increase your metabolism.

Leave Womens Health Information Part 1 and Get Fit!

Part one of this article, Womens Health Information – Fitness Advice For Women 40 Plus explained why and how, much of the fitness advice for women forty years and older produces poor result.

There is nothing wrong with the womens health information regarding exercise, weight loss and maintenance. If you follow the recommendations you’ll likely lose weight – eventually. The problem isn’t the information; it’s the unrealistic expectations.

Women expect to lose a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time. When this does not happen some of women exercise harder. Exercising harder and with this attitude can result in injury; it also makes exercise an unpleasant chore rather than a good habit.

Savvy Womens Health Information

Women 40 and up are vibrant, and sophisticated. You are smarter then you were when you were 20, and you want to be fit. Much of the womens health information regarding exercise is from the media. It is geared toward twenty and thirty year old women. Women 40 and older have always had to be savvy to get things done.

Weight loss for you now requires your savvy. Exercising smart means addressing health issues and injuries, like low back pain, and limited flexibility caused by muscle imbalances. As a savvy exerciser you must establish realistic goals.

It is not realistic to believe you can lose a significant amount of weight, or change the shape of your body in a few months. Losing a pound to a pound and a half a week is realistic.

Forced to be patient at work and at home, be patient with your body, treat it with care. The intended purpose of exercise and responsible womens health information is to help women care for their bodies. Exercising hard because you’re “fat” is abusive and never works in the long run.

Exercising smart means knowing what a particular exercise is doing to your body. For example if you sit at a computer all day it may not be smart to do any exercise that requires you to press weight over your head. Molded by a chair you may be the victim of a common condition known as rounded shoulder syndrome, and forward head tilt.

Doing overhead press with this condition will further injure already overworked, tight, stretched inflamed muscles, causing discomfort or pain in your neck and upper back, and further limit your mobility in that area.

Womens Health Information that encourages you to exercise smart also encourages you to know what your Basle Metabolic Rate is i.e., how many calories your body burns a day. You also should know how many calories you consume.

Considered time consuming and tedious most women don’t want to count calories. People with beautiful bodies, the women pictured on the covers of your favorite fitness magazine know how many calories they’re putting into their bodies. If you want to look like them so should you.

Woman 40 and up are practical in ever aspect of their lives except for when is comes to their bodies. Counting calories is more practical than going on a diet that promises quick results, or exercising hard until you lose weight.

Counting calories gives you the freedom to eat foods you like, and makes you conscious of what you’re eating. Wanting to lose weight and not knowing how many calories your body burns, and how many you consume is like walking through a maze blindfolded.

If you’re ready to exercise smart, contact me with your questions, and for more advice.

Leave Womens Health Information Part 2 and Get Fit!

Factoring your BMR with how active you are determines how many calories your body needs to sustain its current weight. This will also help you determine how many calories to consume if you want to lose weight.

Use The Following Formula To Calculate Your BMR

Womens BMR Formula:

BMR = 655 + (4.35 x your weight in pounds) + (4.7 x your height in inches) – (4.7 x your age in years)

ex. A woman weighing 135 lbs, she is 5’3, 40 years old, she exercises 4 times a week.

135 lbs.
x 4.35
———
= 587.25
+ 655
———
= 1242.25
+ 4.7
x 63 inches
———–
= 1538.35
- 4.7
x 40 age
———–
= 1350.35 BMR
———–
= 2093.04 calories needed to maintain current weight

Activity Chart

• Sedentary – little or no exercise, calorie-calculation = BMR X 1.2
• Lightly active – light exercise 1-3 days/week calorie-calculation = BMR X 1.375
• Moderately active – moderate exercise 3-5 days/week calorie-calculation = BMR X 1.55
• Very active – hard exercise 6-7 days/week calorie-calculation = BMR X 1.725
• Extra active – very hard daily exercise or exercise twice a day training calorie- calculation = BMR X 1.9

Now that you know your BMR you’ll know how many calories to eat to maintain your weight, and lose weight. For example if you want to lose a pound a week you’ll have to create a 3500 calorie deficit (for that week). If you exercise 4 times a week (moderate activity) and cut 500 calories a day from your diet, you would eat 1593 calories a day to meet your goal.

BMR 2093.04
-500 calories
———-
= 1593.04 daily calories

1) Count Calories
Most people are surprised to discover how many calories they consume, and how many calories are in are in their favorite foods. Trying to change the shape of your body without knowing what you put into it is like walking through a maze blindfolded.

2) Eat Breakfast
Womens health information has shown, that people who eat breakfast lose more weight than people who don’t. Your metabolism slows down while you sleep. Eating breakfast gets it going, and prevents your body from going into starvation mode.

When your body thinks it’s starving it will store calories to protect itself. By eating breakfast your body will actually burn more calories than if you skip it. The trick is to not overeat. Knowing your BMR will keep you from making this crucial mistake.

3) Eat All Day
Eating five to six small meals though out the day doesn’t allow your metabolism to slow down. This is particularly advantageous for those with sedentary jobs. Snacking on a low cal food at your desk will keep your metabolism humming, and will not interfere with your work.

Again the trick is not to overeat. To avoid this mistake determine the serving size of the food and how many calories are in it. For example if there are 500 calories in a serving, that’s too much for a snack. Bring only half of that serving to work. Womens health information suggest that women who make an appointment with themselves to eat lose more weight than women who eat when the have time. If the snack fills you and you haven’t finished the snack, don’t feel obligated to eat it all. Learn to listen to your body.

4) Don’t Skip Meals
Your body needs a certain number of calories to function. If you skip meals your body will think it’s starving. Your metabolism will slow down, and your body will store energy (calories) as fat. Even though you are dieting and exercising, allowing your body to go into starvation mode works against your body.

All the time and effort put into exercising is negated. For example, let’s say you worked out in the morning and burned 300 calories, then skipped breakfast. Your revved up metabolism slows. If you had eaten breakfast your metabolism would still be working at a high rate. Skipping breakfast sends your body into starvation mode, causing it to burn fewer calories. When you do eat 2 things will happen. Number one, you’ll likely overeat because by that time you’re very hungry. When you over eat the calories your body does not burn are stored as fat. Number two, your insulin level spikes. Your body thinks it’s starving; to protect it’s self it stores a high percentage of the calories you just ate as fat, even if you don’t over eat. Skipping a meal while trying to change the shape of your body is like pushing a rock up a hill.

5) Drink Water
Womens health information indicates that drinking water, 6 to 8 glasses a day will keep your metabolism from slowing. It carries toxins out of your body, keeps your body hydrated, and functioning efficiently.

6) Eat Nutrient Dense Food
Choose energy-dense high fiber carbohydrates, such as fruits vegetables, whole grains, and beans. Womens health information suggest high fiber foods help regulate your metabolism. Proteins such as lean meats, poultry, fish, soy, and tofu help build muscle mass.

7) Exercise
Cardiovascular exercises such as aerobics, running, swimming, biking and weight training helps maintain and improve your metabolic rate, and keep weight off. Cardiovascular exercise burns a lot of calories. Weight training maintains, and increases your muscle mass/metabolism.

If you’re ready to feel good about exercise, contact me with your questions, and for more advice.

Leave Womens Health Information Part 3 and Get Fit!