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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 SALIVA test. The hormones measured in blood tests are not freely available for use, so measuring blood serum hormone levels is a waste of time.

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 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

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

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 

    Stress has a direct affect on abdominal fat storage and accumulation. Stress involves an arousal mechanism which lifts production of chemicals like cortisol.

    When we experience stress, one of the first steps our body takes is increase the production of adrenaline and quickly release it into the bloodstream so you respond to stress effectively. When this happens, fat cells thru out the body, and especially in the abdominal area, relsease fat into the bloodstream so it can be quickly converted for energy if needed.

    If you eliminate the stress, all is ok. But if the stress is chronic, the fat isn’t used. However, for some reason it gets redeposited in the midsection, despite wherever it came from in the first instance. The reason why is it’s stored near the liver so the liver can convert the fat into energy as fast as possible. Since the stress hormones are telling your body it is still in danger, it stays ready to combat that with the flight or fight response.

    Research  proves that if you destress, the liver uses this stored midsection fat during its normal course of business, and doesn’t force the body to redeposit the fat in the blood stream back into the abdomen.

    One of the best ways to manage chronic stress is exercise, the more vigorous the better. Exercise with the attitude that you are not doing it to lose weight, but to live your life joyfully and to get as much as you can out of it.

Live long. Live well.

Further reading …

Why Don’t Diets Work? Discover a Healthy Weight Loss Alternative
American Chronicle - Beverly Hills,CA,USA
But before that change can be seen physically through healthy weight loss, it is important to identify the harmful psychological patterns that permeate our …

Phoenix Gilman Shares Diet Information for Weight Loss and …
Natural News.com - Phoenix,AZ,USA
In this excerpt, Phoenix Gilman shares on maintaining serotonin levels in ADD, ADHD and weight loss. Phoenix: This whole thing with ADD, ADHD, if people and …

What to do when weight-loss hits a plateau
OCRegister - Santa Ana,CA,USA
Why so long to lose so little? Because I want those pounds gone for good. I want to know I’ve changed my eating and exercise habits permanently. …

Hi and Thanks for reading …

I just posted an article here about how stress causes you to hang onto fat, no matter how hard you exercise and how little you eat.

Amazing how our body works against us when it is actually trying to save itself from harm.

Live long. Live well.

What is a politician doing on a health and fitness blog?

Well it seems that Gordon Brown has taken up the services of a personal trainer. He obviously knows the lead up to his re-election (or not) is going to be gruelling and he will need as much energy as he can get. Working with a personal trainer is the best way to get fit short and long term.

I applaud him for showing some leadership in that regard.

However, this article in the Telegraph, despite it’s sarcastic and class driven tone, has a couple of very interesting points to make, more about its author and his expereinces with personal training than Gordon and his…

The author lost a lot of weight under the guidance of a personal trainer in under 8 weeks. He was pleased and proud of himself…

BUT

after 12 months he says he put it all back on again.

Sound familiar???

See traditional personal training has shortcomings - you (the client) become dependent on the trainer actually being there when you train. You are not really taught to train on your own. University studies show time and again that only about 4% of people who take up a fitness program stick with it if left to themselves.

This is where Fitness by Phone® is a proven superior system to any other weight loss or fitness method out there. We teach you to become your own “personal trainer”, so inside 6 months, you are in a lifelong habit of making healthy food and exercise choices and acting on them.

Go here and see if you qualify for our weight loss and fitness system. You’ll be glad you did.

Live long. Live well.

Rick

One of the best vids I have seen in a long time. True to the philosophy of Fitness by Phone®

Have a great life.

Rick

Well here is something different!

Like most of you I love chocolate, but did you know good chocolate is heart healthy plus has a host of other benefits? It was noticed in the 1600’s that it reduced angina and heart pain…

Now I am not talking about the chocolate you get in the picture theatre, your local convenience store or Coles or Woolies.

Milk chocolate particularly is full of sugar, and often that is high fructose corn syrup, a known cause of health problems. And often too it is “Dutch’ processed. This is a method of adding alakali to the chocolate to reduce acid and darken the colour.

In fact lots of “dark” choclates are just dutched and have added sugar  to boot…

Result? A sticky mess that clogs your arteries because it is so high in fat and sugar!!!
However, there is “real” chocolate available that can deliver real health benefits…

In fact,  the list of our cocoa beans health lifting powers just keeps growing. Research indicates that its active ingredients can help the following conditions –

•    High blood pressure
•    Stroke
•    Clogged arteries
•    Heart disease
•    Infectious diseses
•    Dementia
•    Prostate and lung cancer
•    Blood clots
•    Liver problems
•    Inflammation
•    Allergies
•    Asthma

There is another benefit researchers have discovered.

As you may know one of the big problems with type II diabetes is the way it cuts down blood circulation to extremities.

When I was in the heart ward of the Gold Coast Hospital for nine days back in early 2006, I was amazed at how bad the legs and feet of some of those blokes were. (Most were diabetes sufferers and they were in there with heart problems as a result). A couple of them were looking at amputations according to the doctors, on top of all their other problems. Yuk.

My ears pricked up when I heard of a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology discovered that cocoa significantly enhances blood flow in folks with type II diabetes.
(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)

In that study, researchers divided diabetes sufferers into 2 groups – one group had 1000 mg of cocoa a day (in three doses spread over the day) and the other 25 mg.

At the end of one month, the higher cocoa groups circulation had normalised (from “severly impaired”) while the low cocoa group had no changes.

I discovered the way it works is this – the cocoa improves the nitric oxide output. This causes the blood vessels to relax and open up, improves circulation, which drops blood pressure and helps deliver oxygen and nutrients more effectively…

Anyway pure chocolate is what delivers these benefits. When I say pure I mean cacao bean only – no fluff or fillers like added sugar or fat…

If you can get it, the pure bean is best. The way it is usually supplied is as “nibs”. What’s a nib? If you open a cacao pod, you find a sort of bean or “nib”. If you want to use chocolate as a health supplement (and who wouldn’t?) then you have to eat the beans only.

To my knowledge there is only one way to get pure organic cacao bean “nibs”.

Dagoba Chocolate nibs are just lightly roasted organic cacao beans which are coarsely ground. You sprinkle them onto cereals etc, on salads (you’ve had pine nuts on salad right?) or eat straight form the pack as a snack. They are a little bitter, but still nice enough for my taste. You can get them cheaply in Australia at www.aldermanprovidore.com.au - just search on “dagoba” and you will see a range of excellent products including the nibs.

It isn’t hard to eat a gram a day, which is all you need to get the benefits…

Speaking of which, here are some other reasons to eat cacao bean nibs.

There is a class of chemicals called “flavonoids”. They are actually a poisonous anti-microbial substance, used by the producing plant to fight disease in itself. They are not an antioxidant as first thought. Latest research indicates they are recognised by your body as a toxin, and it tries to eliminate them. (Lotito SB, Frei B. “Consumption of flavonoid-rich foods and increased plasma antioxidant capacity in humans: cause, consequence, or epiphenomenon?” 2006. Free Radical Biology and Medicine. 41(12):1727–46.)

Flavonoids are found in fruits and vegetables, coffee, tea, beer and red wine. But cacao has them in the highest concentrations. (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.)

How does a poison help you stay well then? Flavonoids activate special enzymes and uric acid production. Together these compounds change your body’s response to allergens, tends to disable some cancer cells and cancer causing agents, and flush other dangerous substances out of your system (at the same time it is trying to get rid of the flavonoids).
Mind you, if your liver is over stressed (being the main way your body gets rid of toxins) then the benefits will not be as pronounced. See my other articles about fatty liver and syndrome x.

So there you have it… another heart healthy treat from nature that reverses or prevents a number of life threatening conditions.

Cheers to chocolate nibs…

Rick Rakauskas

I was grizzling to a really good friend the other day about trials and tribulations - chiefly my own lack of energy sometimes because of side effects of beta blockers including badly interrupted sleep paterns.

Anyway, she listed the things I had done, or started in both my physical fitness regime, my work habits and my hobbies over the last couple of months.

It dawned on me that I was being too hard on myself, and that I WAS achiveing quite a bit despite the challenges.

Then I realised we all do that. We are hard on ourselves, and when we do achieve a lot, we tend to dismiss it and worry about what is yet to do…

Fitness and health programs often fall over because of this - we fail to achieve some impossible target all at once, and give up. Instead of celebrating the mini milestones we have achieved on the way…

Food for thought.