Welcome back!

I love to make a raw cacao powder drink with hot water and a bit of milk.

According to the studies below, I am going a long way towards preventing diabetes and vascular diseases.

Have a look and see what you think.

Live long. Live free.
Rick

Balzer et al. “Sustained Benefits in Vascular Function Through Flavanol-Containing Cocoa in Medicated Diabetic Patients: A Double-Masked, Randomized, Controlled Trial.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2008. 51:2141-2149.

Lee et al. “Cocoa Has More Phenolic Phytochemicals and a Higher Antioxidant Capacity than Teas and Red Wine.” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 2003. 51:7292-7295.

Thanks for reading…

I can honestly say afterwards you feel like you’ve been run over by a bus that’s what.

I had a pulmonary vein cryogenic ablation last Tuesday. It is amazing the hole a 3/8″ tube can leave in your groin. Anyway the op was a success (we think). For the two days and nights I was off antiarrythmic meds I felt human again. Even got the first of the morning testosterone flush back again (guys know what I am on about).

Unfortunately I have to take meds for another 6-8 weeks whilst the heart muscle heals. This was a blow since I thought I could immediately cease forever.

But I am surprised at how ummm… flat I feel. Stuff hurts of course, they make a mess of your groin and a couple other spots plus the heart muscle itself aches too. And all the good painkillers have worn off lol so I am stuck with just compound analgesics for a while.

One thing I don’t look forward to each morning is sticking myself with a hypodermic and injecting blood thinners. Still it’s only for 10 days so I will put up with it of course. Sticking the needle in isn’t the issue - the pain associated with the blood thinner a minute later is

I guess what I am saying is the shock to your system of such radical surgery is not to be underestimated. Even writing this short blog post is a bit of an effort.

And I am continually admonished to just rest, recuperate and heal (don’t you hate that?).

Anyway if you are going to have an ablation and want a bit of info from one who has done it, email me or place a comment below.

Live long. Live free.
Rick

I came across an interesting study the other day which was done by the National Weight Control Registry.

Over 5000 participants were surveyed and on average they lost 30kg (67lbs) and kept it off for 5.5 years…

Most of the people who participated used both diet AND exercise to lose and keep body fat off. The three core behaviours that were used to keep weight off are

• eat breakfast (preferably high protein to get the furnace burning)
• weigh yourself daily (self monitoring and mindfulness)
• exercise daily (equipment is kept close at hand and easily visible

What does this mean for you when you have reached your target weight?

Well you have to examine your own behaviour. For example, if you want to eat healthy, buy healthy. If the high carb high fat “foods” are not in the fridge or pantry, then they are less likely to be eaten.

Be mindful of what causes certain eating behaviours… Then plan to avoid those situations or if that is impossible, have an alternative strategy.

Have a plan for when you fall off the wagon (and you will). Instead of beating yourself up and bingeing, just accept you slipped up, examine the circumstances of the slipup, LEARN and move on.

An example is if you go out to a restaurant. Plan in advance what you’d like to eat and then when you get there, stick to it. You can congratulate yourself afterwards.

Conduct lots of mini experiments to discover what works for YOU… Rather than rely on one all or nothing strategy, play with different exercise techniques, shopping patterns, food availability in the home, recipes etc. until you find what suits you and your long term goals best.

Make it into a plan you can follow, being mindfully aware of what you are doing.

You have to search for behaviours, not outcomes. Most experts disguise an outcome as a behaviour, thereby frustrating millions of dieters in the process. You know what you want to achieve, now you have to learn what to DO…

Just a few key behaviours can drive huge change in your life. Keep an eye out for them, because if you can concentrate on just a few, you will achieve sucess rather than scattering efforts. If you can discover what other people are doing when they experience the same problems as you, find out what they do to get a successful outcome and model their behaviour. Test and measure.

You will make mistakes - pre plan recovery behaviours to get you back on track. You will have problems but now you will not sink into despair and give up.

Rather you will learn and move forward.

The NWCR survey discovered that the key difference between those who failed at long term weight loss and those who succeeded was simple - the ability to be CONSISTENT in positive behaviour changes OVER TIME.

Remember, it took years and years for most people to gain the body fat that is causing them grief. It can take years to get rid of it, years to rejig exercise and lifestyle behaviours so they become lifelong habits. Don’t get sucked in by those who would have you believe there is a miracle cure or instant fix.

There isn’t - plan for the long haul and you will reap the health benefits, chief among them being lower stress levels because you are not trying to achieve an impossible outcome. Now you know better…

And the NWCR study showed weight loss maintenance becomes easier over time. AND if you can keep it off for 2-5 years, you probably have a permanent fix. Now isn’t that something to look forward to?

Live long. Live free.

Rick

P.S. As always comments are welcome - good, bad or indifferent…

A lot of trainers are into the “compound” exercise scene as if doing full range, natural motion exercises is a new discovery. (Ask any cave man lugging home part of a wooly mammoth about the newness of this type of exercise).

At the same time they are decrying the use of pinweight machines for various reasons.

I disagree and here is why.

If you are a complete beginner to strength training, a number of pinweight exercises will start to build up certain muscles. Instead of trying to concentrate on lots of things at once, the nature of the pinweight machine and its realtive isolation of muscle groups, means you concentrate on less and can end up doing more.

You get to feel how certain muscles are working together, instead of worrying if you are gonna fall over or not. So when you do attempt the bigger compound exercises your (shoulders lets say) will just naturally do the right thing because they are used to working out and are stronger already.

This is the exact same regime I used to rehabilitate myself after a half dozen visits to hospital with heart problems.

Strength gains in the early stages come along very fast, so the psychological booster effect of progress and success already will mean a trainee is willing to try different more complicated moves. Then the compound exercises with free weights can be introduced.

And by the way, despite doing one armed dumbell rows with 100 lbs, I much prefer a seated row on a pinweight machine any day of the week. So even for advanced trainees I believe pinweight machines have a place within an overall training program.

However, once past the beginner stage, then I am an advocate of free weights and olympic style lifting for overall body conditioning.

In that respect the “new” fangled science of free weights is the best way to strength train.

Oh by the way, a lot of rehab or realignment exercises can only be successfully done with pinweights - rubber bands just won’t cut it.

Live long. Live free.

Rick

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