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You might be a bit confused by some of the latest buzz words in the diet industry “glycemic index” and “glycemic load”.

I hate the word diet by the way - it always connotes a temporary negative “starvation” situation followed by a resumption of “normal” eating a bit later on.

Anyway one of the things we strive for here at FitnessByPhone is good education based on latest research and science so here is the explanation …

It is well known that hormone balance is the key to optimal health and that imbalances can be caused by what you eat. For instance a plate of white rice will very quickly raise your insulin levels to a higher than normal level, in an attempt to normalise your blood sugar levels.

Other hormones are released in excess because of this imbalance in insulin, and one result is result extra fat is added to your middle, plus an increasing chance of diabetes too over the long haul because your cells get resistant to all the excess insulin floating around.

So how does this relate to the terms glycemic index and glycemic load?

Well the glycemic index is an indicator of the liklihood of an abnormal increase in blood sugar. So high GI foods are likely to lift insulin production higher than normal to stabilise the sugar they dump into your blood stream.

However, the speed at which this happens is even more important. Thus the glycemic load.

The higher the glycemic load of foods, the faster insulin is produced. So you can have foods with a high GI overall, but they have a low Glycemic load, and so insulin is produced at a slower rate to cope. It is still higher than optimal, but there is not the undue load on your pancreas to release the hormone as fast as possible.

Whereas the food with a similar GI but the glycemic load is maybe 4 times as high is going to ask the pancrease to produce insulin four times faster (more or less).

If you eat these types of high glycemic load foods, the yoyo effect on your hormone levels is going to create stress, burn out your pancreas long term, make you fat, create diabetes and cause lots of other nasty little problems.

However if you learn to control your glycemic load with the right foods, even if they are sometimes high GI foods, then you will stabilise your hormones and reduce the liklihood of problems as you age, or indeed reverse problems you may have right now.

The best plan of course is to eat foods that are low in both GI and glycemic load.

Simple.

Live long. Live well.

Rick Rakauskas

Hi.

Been a while so lets get into it. This story has an interesting twist …

About 4 months ago I did a series of squat exercises after a long layoff. Thinking I was still superfit I pushed myself to the limit as usual.

Next day I could hardly move because the pain radiating from my left hip and lower back area was excruciating. As time went on the pain subsided a bit, but I was loathe to do much exercise that featured the back or hips areas. I massaged and heated and cooled and stretched and foam rolled - did everything I knew to relieve the pain and help the structures get back to normal. Without much effect by the way.

The continuing pain in my lower back in the left hip area was a weakness just waiting to let me down again.

Anyway on a whim I decided to start a static contraction strength regime. This involves really heavy weights held for a short period of time at almost the end of a full range of motion.

And by the way you don’t start the movement from zero - the barbells are held in positions on a rack where you can easily grab them and extend.

I started with deadlifts because they are a whole body exercise and create maximum growth hormone response. I loaded 110 kilos onto the bar and set it so I would only have to pick it up about 6 inches (150mm) to full extension, keeping in mind my sore back.

I did the exercises and noticed there was no extra pain in the following week of recovery.

After a week I did it again but got more adventurous with 130 kg. Seemed easy, so I jammed another 20 kg onto the bar for 150. I lifted with difficulty but got it up.

For the next week I noticed my back pain was almost non existent.

On the third session I jammed the load up to 180 kg and had to use the 1 ton hooks because I could no longer grip the bar safely.

I waited another week to recover - I had no back pain at all now - in fact I was now getting Doms in other muscle groups but my back felt fine.

So I tried a couple of short range squats (this was the exercise that originally created the problem). I set the bar so I only had to extend about 6 inches and loaded it to 130. I did it ok with no pain afterwards.

My last session I did a 200kg deadlift (just) and started on full range of motion squats again with just 60 kg - it felt like I was carying a feather.

Despite the lack of lower back pain, I am still not going to load up on full range of motion squats just yet - but I am really happy that this extreme weight (for me) lifting has helped make my pain disappear!!

BTW my bench press has increased to 120 kg, so I am pretty happy with that too.

Conclusions. The static contraction form of high intensity exercise seems to have solved my back problem - why or how I have no idea at this stage.
If you have any similar stories I would love to hear them.

Live long and live well.

Rick

In my last post I explained a few reasons why estrogen dominance is a significant problem for a lot of baby boomer women when they try to lose body fat through “diet and exercise”.

Osteoporosis is another problem in both men and women which is associated with out of balance hormone levels.

There are two types of activity going on in your bones at any one time - the destruction of existing bone matter and the creation of new bone matter.

The reason why both men and women get osteoporosis is this. The growth of new bone is regulated by testosterone levels. And the destruction of bone is regulated by estrogen.

There are two types of bone - the smooth crisp stuff on the outside and the honeycombed softer stuff on the inside.

When a Doctor orders you a drug to “prevent osteoporosis” what it usually does is slow the destruction of the smooth bone. This actualy becomes crisper and more likely to break strangely enough. It’s why some women who have a bone density check of their hips show a good density -and then break a hip in a fall soon after.

For some reason the drug does nothing to prevent the loss of the honeycomb bone. And does nothing to create new bone.

And it seems to be pointless taking supplements to “prevent osteoporosis” if the hormones which regulate bone growth and destruction are out of kilter.

Research reveals the following -

• Testosterone levels are the major predictor of skeletal mass.
• Low testosterone leads to frailty and osteoporosis.
• Long term studies have shown testosterone replacement is able to improve bone density in lumbar and hip.
• The ratio of testosterone and estrogen determines the ocurrence of osteoporosis.

Testosterone is also important for a lot of other reasons. Recent research has shown that women low in this hormone have the similar risks as men for coronary heart disease, depressed mood, low libido and reduced energy.

Both HRT and estrogen dominance cause increased levels of sex hormone binding globulin which in turn causes free testosterone to reduce, and that creates an increase in aromatase which converts more of the free testosterone into estrogen in your body fat. A chain reaction of diastrous consequences.

Recall that only about 50% of pre and post menopausal women will have this problem. The rest may put on a little weight but be “normal” size. These “normal” sized women have about 50% of the testosterone they had in their 20’s.

But the obese woman will only have about 25%. Low free testosterone levels are proven to be associated with coronary heart disease.

Enough bad news - what can you do to fix it so you can get a normal life back?

Knowledgeable doctors say the first thing to do is have a hormone test to see what the free levels are.

This can only be done with a combination of blood serum and a  saliva test. The hormones measured in blood tests may not be freely available for use, so measuring blood serum hormone levels only may give incorrect results.

You then need to take these results to a sympathetic doctor who is willing to understand the problem, and they prescribe the appropriate amounts of progesterone and testosterone usually as a topical cream. The hormones used are bioidentical to your own i.e. natural and not produced by a drug company. A compounding pharmacist makes it up according to the doctors prescription.

There are a number of websites which explain in greater depth the possible dangers of artificial patented hormones.

Once you have balanced your hormones, “diet and exercise” along with your own burning desire for positive change is guaranteed to produce better results.

Why do women have these problems which seem to cascade like falling dominos?

My theory is simple. When we were hunter gatherers, people generally didn’t live past their 40’s. So women and men had a biological use by date, and weren’t designed to live past it.

Nowadays of course we do, hence the problems of deterioration. Still it’s reversible to some extent.

And that is what Fitness by Phone is all about - helping you live a quality life thru education and personal mentoring. It is my sincere desire this article will prompt you to seek more information so you can move forward.

Live long. Live well.

Rick Rakauskas

I bet you have been on the “diet and exercise” merry go round more than once. And have had terrible problems where you eat like a bird, exercise like a caveman, and still can’t budge the scales.

There is a real chance it’s not your fault!

Let me explain…

Recent research has discovered that about 50% women who are peri and post menopausal are estrogen dominant to some degree.
This is a natural outcome of the cessation of a major progesterone spike when ovulating.

When progesterone production stops, then testosterone plunges too.

So what does it mean to you and why does it stop you from burning fat and thus “losing weight”?

First we must understand what each of the three hormones does.

Estrogen is a group of steroidal hormones that prepare the body for a baby. They make the endometrium thicker in preparation for the arrival of a fertilised egg.
They the womb stronger, and prepare the breasts for milk production and stimulate the fat cells to store more fat as an energy reservoir for milk production.

Excess estrogen also affects the neurons in the brain and hence mood. Plus they dilate blood vessels too causing flushes and headaches.

The day before the egg is released estrogens are at peak levels. Progesterone is essentially non existent during this phase.

When the egg (or eggs) are released, there is a large amount of progesterone made and it counteracts the growth activities of the estrogens. If there is no pregnancy, both hormone levels fall abruptly until a period occurs, and the cycle occurs all over again.

Progesterone is a growth modulator or controller. It is there to counteract the undesirable growth affects of estrogen. It helps control flushes, stops hormone based headaches, helps burn fat for energy, acts as an antidepressant and controls over growth conditions in the breast and womb.

Regular ovulation, and hence progesterone production can cease up to 10 years before cessation of periods (menopause)! Many women think they are ovulating just because they are having periods but this often isn’t the case.

Starting to see a connection here? No ovulation = no progesterone = no control of excess growth caused by estrogens.

As well women make testosterone at about a third of the rate seen in age same males. Testosterone is essential for bone growth, fat burning, libido and energy stimulation.

Progesterone production in women helps to make testosterone, and its brothers ASD and DHT.

Overweight and normal weight people can convert testosterone into estrogen in fat cells. This occurs in the presence of an enzyme called aromatase. So in fact estrogen levels in both men and women can climb as a result of this conversion.

What is so bad about estrogen dominance?
Maybe you can relate to the following…

• Weight gain that resists “diet and exercise”
• Hot flushes plus insomnia
• Clouded thinking
• Fatigue and depression
• Low or non existent libido
• Breast tenderness with headaches
• Mood swings and anxiety

And it gets worse.

Fat cells can also make estrogen.
Which causes more fat to be deposited (remember the body is storing energy for milk production).
Which causes more estrogen production. And the cycle repeats because the modifying progesterone is no longer made in the body in the quantities required to control the growth promoting estrogen.

There is also a complex interaction between estrogen and thyroid hormone.
And estrogen and insulin. And estrogen and cortisol, the main stress hormone

Too much estrogen causes thyroid hormone binding i.e. there is not enough freely available hormone to do it’s job so hypothyroidism becomes another problem (weight gain and loss of energy).

Too much insulin causes estrogen receptors in the body to become more active. So eating too many sugary foods (which stimulate more insulin production) will add to estrogen dominance. Diabetes can result.

Estrogen is linked to the stress hormone cortisol, which also causes fat to deposit, and helps create male hormones which are then converted into more estrogen.

If you stop and think about it this all makes sense. And you can now see the connection between weight loss failure despite “diet and exercise”.

So how can you solve this problem?

In my next article on the subject I will give you some more problems caused by estrogen dominance and the possible solutions.

Live long. Live well.

Rick Rakauskas

Whilst using Twitter one of the folks I was following asked for support in this little challenge.

Can you do 100 straight pushups? I can’t (yet), but it is a good example of the type of incremental training you will get at Fitnessbyphone, no matter what your current fitness level is.

I am doing it, so how about you? It’s only 100 pushups.

Live long. Live well.

Rick Rakauskas

I am going to try and do one of these every day. Was supposed to be two minutes but how do you explain something like cortisol and stress nexus in 2 minutes PLUS a tactic to overcome it? LOL

I am going to try for one of these little Vlogs every day - this took nearly an hour before I got it ok and it still isn’t professional (yet).

Anyway now to work on an in depth explanation of how cortisol makes you fat and more importantly what to do about it …

Live long. live well

Most of us lose our mind when it comes to weight loss.

I want to discuss a simple method of using our mind instead to ensure weight loss success.

I bought a course many years ago from a bloke named Stuart Lichtmann which opened my eyes to the way our minds work, and how we can trick them into producing positive results.

I recently rediscovered it, because I saw this video and it pricked my conscience a bit. This bloke was fat, then thin and has gained back. And is now on the way back to being thinner again. And he gives a lot of good reasons why his life as a fat bloke sucks.

You will empathise if you are or ever have been in the same situation whether you are a baby boomer man or woman …

So anyway, I went and dug up my old affiliate site and code and put the site up here. The book is really badly named (maybe I should create different graphics) , but the psychology it forces you to use on yourself is brilliant. What’s more it works, and applies in ANY area of life and the success you want to achieve, including business.

Sign up for the free course and do the exercises before you buy it. I guarantee you will never regret it.

Like everything in life, tools are only good if you use them.

Live long. Live well.

Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) helps enzymes which process fuel in the body. Some food sources of ALA are spinach, broccoli, potatoes plus kidney heart and liver meats. ALA is also an important signaling chemical that regulates body weight.

An Oregon State Universtiy study found ALA supplements helped prevent hardening of the arteries in mice. It worked by reducing inflammation, triglycerides (blood fats) and obesity. This article explains how those mechanismas work. From this it was concluded ALA supplements might help prevent heart disease and obesity.

In other studies, rats given ALA reduced their food intake and lifted meatbolic burn. The ALA rats were 20% lighter than their controls.

ALA is a powerful antioxidant and protects from free radicals which are produced as a result of metabolism. These are linked to cell membrane destruction and immune system breakdown. ALA also improves bloood sugar control, thus increasing insulin sensitivity in people with diabetes.

ALA has promise as a supplement, but there have not been any large scale human studies to date.

Well this isn’t about health or fitness but it is about visibility. I installed a few plugins to my WP blog and am now testing them. You might even see an automatic Twitter update too.

The Plugins I installed allowed me to display the last few Twitter tweets, auto updates of blog post headings to my Twitter account, easy post meta-tags and descriptions, tag cloud, a greeting that asks you to subscribe to my feed and the Seesmic video comment widget, which allows you to post video comments without having to login to any sort of account including my blog.

Ok enough for now - I have to go find something relevant to my blogs content philosophy to publish now

Live long. Live well.

Adding Web 2.0 Friendly Plugins to my Blog 

It was reported today that the State Government is giving community prizes of up to One Million Dollars each year for the best suggestion to combat the “obesity epidemic”.

The money is to be used by the winners to create some sort of community facility like a pool to get people slimmer. Maybe a school auditorium full of Wii fits will do the trick?

What happened to proper food and exercise? Turn off the TV, computer and Playstation, and drag the kids down to a park or beach for a few hours with a hamper full of salads, fruit and good protein sources…

As far as building community swimming pools - well how are you going to convince an overweight woman whose self image is already suffering - to put on a swimming suit and parade in front of the neightbours at the local pool?

Live long. Live well.