Posts Tagged ‘Most’

The World's Most Effective Diet

Monday morning in town. Skies are bright, air is clear and as I stroll to work, I easily spy 40 000kJ. Office workers gobbling croissants, muffins and coffees. The deli at the corner does brisk business. Two giant cheeseburgers hover over me on a billboard. But none for me, thanks.

 

I haven’t eaten since Saturday night. Thirty-six hours. I’m not hungry. A bit spaced out, maybe, but in a peaceful way. This is maybe my sixtieth weekly fast in a row. I do this, honestly, because I love food. It’s my favorite comfort, my most exquisite treat. I’ve forgone clothes, electronics and a better car in order to budget more for beef ravioli, fresh mozzarella and my favorite Cabernet Sauvignon.

 

But a few years ago, something began to turn. Knowing the way food soothed me, I started slipping – a milkshake from the popular takeaway outlet near work, a convenient cashew chicken from the local Chinese place.

 

My eating became mechanical, joyless. This is an easy trap to fall into: from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, we retain a genetically encoded anxiety – however unconscious – that food can be scarce. So we’re hard-wired to eat when we can, even though food is ubiquitous. It’s also cheap and tasty. Primal fear plus abundant food equals an obesity epidemic. For me, my love of food evolved into an imperative to eat that cared little for the distinction between fast food and foie gras. Apostasy. I committed to a year of weekly fasting to see if I could restore the relish to my life.

 

There are, it turns out, many reasons to fast. I was only vaguely aware of the health benefits when I started, but studies suggest that regularly abstaining from food lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, staves off diabetes and protects your tissues from the ravages of free radicals.

 

Fasting poses a good kind of stress, much like exercise. Our cells respond by increasing their ability to cope with other, stronger stresses. In rodent studies, fasting also confers dramatic resistance to cancer, brain ageing, stroke and heart disease. Since I began this experiment, I’ve lost five kilograms (from 83 to 78) and shaved two points from my body-mass index (from 25.6 to 23.6). More important, I love food again.

 

Fasting does, in fact, improve your taste-bud sensitivity to sweet and salty flavors. And fasting forces me to make better choices when I do eat. On either side of a fasting day, I crave smaller, more vegetal meals. Come midweek, I want to celebrate. I go for dry-aged steak and stinky cheese with less guilt and more gusto. And more patience. In practice, an empty gut brings a sense of peace, as if I’m on holiday. This calm, along with the promise of health, has kept me fasting beyond the year I initially committed to.

 

In the last hour of my fast this Monday morning, I fed my dogs, then myself. Nothing tastes better than a sip of orange juice poured into that calm. And strawberries. Yum. Three of them and I’m full.

 

Nearly a week later, I’m ready again. Eager for it, really: my gustatory reset button. I typically fast from Saturday night until breakfast on Monday, drinking only water, only when I’m thirsty, and beginning and ending the fast with light meals. Tonight it’s kale, rice, chicken and melon – a high-fibre selection. Last meals can lead to constipation if they don’t contain enough fibre to push through your system. I read this in a book and confirmed its veracity by ignoring it.

 

That book, called Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster, is a guide to spiritual Christian practices. Tonight, I read the fasting chapter again. Foster’s tone works for me. There’s no histrionics – going without food is no big deal. This was critical for my first few fasts. When my inner food-child threw a tantrum, I responded with nonchalance, and it worked.

 

I didn’t look beyond Foster for months, and I’m glad. Most fasting information out there is nonsense. Charlatans promote it as part of their weight-loss scams. Most doctors are equally as ignorant. When I asked one about it, he mumbled something about electrolytes and cardiac arrhythmias before surrendering: ‘They don’t teach fasting in medical school.’

 

They ought to, if only out of respect for the billions of people who fast for religious reasons, from Yom Kippur to various Christian and Hindu holidays to Ramadan. And there is strong, if scattered, scientific literature that includes empirical evidence from doctors with fasting experience; a smattering of more-controlled experiments in humans; overwhelming evidence from animal experiments; and a sort of amicus brief from a better-studied field called calorie restriction. In calorie restriction, participants eat only 60 percent to 70 percent of their weight-maintenance intake. This consistently decreases the biological rate of ageing and increases lifespan.

 

One empiricist is Dr Joel Fuhrman, a family doctor and author of Fasting and Eating for Health. He has put thousands of patients on multiday fasts and followed their vital signs and blood work closely. For a healthy person, medical supervision is not needed for a five-day fast. He’s never seen electrolyte depletion or potassium loss, which can cause cardiac arrhythmias, prior to the tenth day of a fast.

 

Fuhrman instructs patients with inflammatory problems like lupus and arthritis to consider episodic fasting. I have Crohn’s, an inflammatory bowel disease. I’ve had far fewer flare-ups in the past 14 months. Rodent studies show this anti-inflammatory benefit, as does at least one human study. Dr James Johnson, author of The Alternate-Day Diet, put nine overweight asthma patients on a near-fasting regime every other day for eight weeks. On average, those patients lost eight percent of their weight, lowered their cholesterol by 20 points and improved their airflow by 15 percent due to less airway inflammation. There’s nothing out there that would work as well as that, other than systemic steroids.

 

Other studies piece together what happens to hunger strikers and starvation victims. The bottom line: our bodies are built to go long stretches without food. When you eat, your liver and muscles store up energy in the form of glycogen. When you fast, your body feeds off that glycogen for several days and then starts burning your fat stores. Once those are depleted, starvation starts: the body breaks down muscle first and then organs, which leads to death after eight to 10 weeks. This timeline assumes access to water. Dehydration can kill in days.

 

For me, fasting is vaguely spiritual, a time for reflection. I close my eyes and munch on my last bit of melon. I picture a hunter-gatherer ancestor. He hasn’t killed game in days, but that’s okay. He has bodily wisdom to last many weeks. That’s an awesome capability. My 36 hours is a mere gesture.

 

Any other day I develop a headache if I skip coffee, but not on fasting days. I have no idea why. I often play squash with my friend, and I exhibit fierce energy on the court. My body feels springy on fasting mornings, and my mind is as clear as water. I occasionally choose different days to fast, to work it comfortably around dinner parties, travel and whatnot, and by now I’ve done it on every day of the week. I’ve gone to work, driven long distances, taken hikes, had sex and lifted weights while fasting. Admittedly, I’m flying in the face of alternative medicine, which considers fasting a detoxifying process best done by easing into it. Don’t send so much blood to your muscles, the theory goes – send it all to your liver. Without digestion of food to deal with, the liver can scrub the blood, ridding it of pesticides, food additives and other toxins. These exit through your pores, sinuses, colon and urine. Some people apparently suffer from acne, rashes and headaches while fasting. I don’t. But my tongue coats over with a white film, and my breath stinks. These are class
ic signs of detoxification.

 

Fasting increases production of several molecules, including brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which protect the neurons from all sorts of disease down the line. Fasting rats show better memory, cognition, motor function and neurogenesis (production of new nerve cells from stem cells). He’s shown that fasting mice bounce back from heart attacks and strokes better than everyday eaters.

 

If just a fraction of the fasting benefits seen in rodents were conferred by a pill, drug companies would be racing to prove them in humans. The human studies so far have involved too few participants to yield sweeping claims. Having said that, in the studies that have been done, there are no documented downsides to fasting. None. But that doesn’t mean they’re not there. One problem that crops up in the similar world of calorie restriction: fertility takes a dive. I know my sperm is okay. A Crohn’s medication had tanked my sperm count, but I’ve been off the drug for three months – fasting weekly the whole time – and recent testing shows my swimmers are once again rigorous and plentiful.

 

I admit it: on Sunday afternoon, I usually get hungry. The primitive drive to eat is strong. I’ve cut a few fasts down to 24 hours. Twice I gave up fasting for good, but within 10 days I noticed my food sense regressing. I started eating crap again, and my body started creeping back up to its prefasting weight. I returned to the practice. I’m hooked, it seems, despite myself.

 

None of this helps when I’m hungry on a fasting day. I don’t know if, like the rats, I’m getting any smarter over time, but I do know that when I’m in the thick of a 36-hour fast, intellectual activity is best avoided. Rearranging the furniture is great. The best afternoon pastime, honestly, is to nap. Naps on fasting days are glorious. I instantly go deep and drool on my pillow, and I wake up in the best part of my fast, my peaceful zone.

 

By five in the afternoon, my hunger is gone and I am infused in this calm that I can’t describe, except to say that when I’m in it, I’d rather not talk to you. For once in my week, I don’t give a crap about email or my to-do list. Time dilates in my perception. It also frees up for real, regifting me the two hours I’d normally spend preparing and eating food. I also like grocery shopping on fasting days.

 

It’s a happy preview of what I will eat in the days ahead. What I will savor with the gusto and guiltlessness of a man who’s earned it: fresh asparagus with organic blue cheese, roasted leek and Rosa tomata tart, lamb tagine with medjool dates, home-made chocolate-cake with cracked hazelnuts…

 

It’s enough to make me not want to eat. Not yet.

Dog Health – What is the Single, Most Important Thing You Can Do to Keep it?

It seems that dog health is on the decline. Depending on the breed, dogs can live to 20 years or more. Today, you’re lucky if they reach eight.

Why is this?

Years ago, dogs were fed table scraps, kitchen scraps and homemade food, as commercial pet food hadn’t been invented. The table scraps were more healthy then, as junk food didn’t abound.

Years ago, it was rare to take a dog to a veterinarian. Vets, as doctors, were only visited when deemed absolutely necessary.

And yet, still dogs lived longer.

Could there be a connection between dog health today and their diet?

In my opinion, the answer to that is a resounding YES!

As with most people, I’m sure you’re blissfully unaware of what goes into making your own food, let alone that of your dogs. When people are asked if they know, the frequent answer is “I don’t want to know”.

Obviously you suspect the worst.

But why don’t you want to know?

Is it because you’re caught out not knowing, so fear looking stupid?

I can understand that.

Or perhaps the knowledge of what goes into dog food is too revolting to consider. If this is the case, don’t you think your dog might agree with you? Maybe he thinks it’s revolting too, but if he doesn’t eat it, he fears he may not be offered an alternative. Even revolting food will keep you alive.

Well, now you have the chance of finding out what really goes into pet food, so next time someone accosts you in the street, you can answer with confidence. Not only that, you can change the diet of your dog to something he will love and that will keep him in peak condition, to boot.

There’s a saying ‘garbage in, garbage out’. Dog health IS dog food, by the very nature of its frequent consumption.

The pet food industry remains more or less unregulated in all countries. The little regulation there is, is poorly policed. It would require too much funding, which tends to be spent on human needs.

So the industry gets away with whatever it wants.

Low quality meat (called meat by-products) is the start of the slippery slope. While dogs can eat some low quality food (hair, beaks, feathers, intestines and contents, fat), they can’t survive on it. They need some good quality to maintain health.

Euthanased animals may be rejected by a more ethical company, but may be eagerly snapped up by those who are less so. The lethal injection forms part of the resulting food. Can this be contributing to poor dog health?

To bulk out the food, to make it more profitable, a filler is added. This can be whatever is available cheaply. It might be melamine. It might be sugar. It may be sawdust.

All pet food is cooked under high temperatures and pressures. This kills off enzymes, vitamins and other nutrients that are essential for good dog health.

To redress this shortfall, nutrients are added. But these are normally the synthetic ones as they’re the cheapest. Synthetic nutrients are not easily absorbed by the body. As most of them are also isolated, they are of little value. Dog health is all about getting complex nutrients in a complete and natural form, which are easily absorbed.

To give the resulting dog ‘food’ a long shelf life (which is good for business, but not for dog health), toxic preservatives are used, preservatives that would never be allowed in human food because of their highly poisonous nature. Poisons such as ethoxyquin and formalin.

Don’t be fooled by packets which maintain they use ‘natural’ preservatives, or are even preservative free. Ask yourself this – can meat be kept indefinitely at room temperature, without the use of preservatives?

It’s down to you to be vigilant in the quality of your dog’s food. To maintain good health, you need to be in control, which means you need to know the worst. Putting your head in the sand isn’t going to keep your dog healthy.

Cat Care – The Best, The Easiest, The Most Natural

Caring for your cat is easy when you try to remember her origins. Being domesticated doesn’t mean you should abandon how she would live in the wild. Cats have evolved in the wild over millennia. They have been domesticated for a mere trifle in comparison.

This means that their nutritional and emotional needs remain identical to those of their forebears. In attempting to provide the best cat care means looking at these needs.

Lets look at their nutritional needs first.

Wild cats hunt on their own. They hunt small animals, sometimes up to about their own size, but mostly smaller than themselves. They rarely eat anything other than freshly killed meat.

Contrasting this with a typical domestic cat’s diet of dried pellets and you realise how off the mark commercial pet food is. Even if dried pellets were made with the best cuts of meat (which they aren’t), the meat is still not fresh or raw.

So, if you’re trying to provide the most complete cat care, what should you feed your cat?

In my opinion, the best cat food is raw meat and bones. You can’t completely duplicate a wild cat’s diet, but you can come so close as to not compromise her health. Cat care starts with food as this is consumed daily. Something done daily has much more impact on our health than say something that only happens once a year.

When a cat eats her prey, she will eat all the meat, including the bones. Bones are the best source of calcium for a cat. And meat can only be properly digested when it is consumed with bones. After all, all carnivores eat meat with bones.

Not only that, crunching up on bones is the best way of keeping her teeth and gums healthy, as long as they’re not too big. No dried pellets can do that as well, despite the promises on the label.

Some think that giving a cat raw meat will trigger their hunting instinct. In my experience, it does the exact opposite. Because raw meat is nutrient dense, your cat will be satisfied and won’t feel the need to supplement her diet as when fed a nutrient deficient diet.

Natural cat care also means providing your cat with her basic emotional and physical needs. Cats are intelligent and inquisitive. They need visual stimulation. This is best served by being outdoors, where nature provides an abundance of stimulation.

If it’s impossible or too dangerous to let your cat outside, do make sure she has access to safe stimulants, perhaps in the form of toys. Make sure you play with her to ensure she gets adequate exercise.

Sun is an important aspect of good cat care. Cats love the sun and it is essential to good health for all of us, not just your cat. Regular outdoor access will allow her to choose for herself. For confined cats, make sure there are times when you can open a window (safely) to allow the sun’s rays in, unhindered by glass or plastic.

Easy cat care really means allowing your cat the freedom she desires. Confining cats indoors is going against good animal husbandry,

I am also of the opinion that declawing cats is not only painfully inhumane, it deprives the cat of the natural joy of stretching. If you are considering declawing your cat, maybe you should also consider having a cat is not for you. Cats have already adapted a great deal to live with us. Putting them through an unnecessary, inhumane and painful operation is purely for your benefit, not your cats.

Cats provide us with an abundance affection, love and enjoyment. To provide even adequate cat care, we should at least do the same for them.

Cat Food – The Best, The Healthiest, The Most Nutritious

We humans have a capacity of extremes. There are those of us who are honest to the letter and there are those of us who are equally dishonest. Stress often plays an important part of being dishonest, especially for a struggling businessman desperately trying to provide for his family.

Then there are those who are just plain greedy and don’t care how they arrive at their fortune as long as they do.

Luckily, in most countries, there is now a system in place that ensures a basic (some might say very basic) standard that all manufacturers or suppliers of human food must meet.

Sadly this is either not the case for animal feed, or the standards are so low as to be useless.

So despite all the pretty advertising, all the logically convincing and reassuring words from your vet, chances are, if you’re feeding your cat a processed cat food, you’re directly contributing to her ill health.

The big brand names in cat food contribute financially to veterinary colleges, which explains why vets surgery reception areas are now piled high with these brands. But does it spell quality?

To find out we need to look at what’s in processed cat food. Most fresh meat goes for human consumption as more money can be made there. So pet food tends to get the dregs. Dregs can include meat meal or meat by-products (chicken feet, feathers, hair, skin, intestinal waste (poo to you and me), general slaughterhouse wastes), meat not considered safe (spoiled or toxic) or desirable for human consumption, fat, diseased carcasses (which may be far from fresh), including euthanised animals.

To bulk this out, low cost carbohydrates are used, which can include sugar, propylene glycol, leftover fast food, mouldy and rancid grain deemed unsuitable for human consumption, corn syrup, non-nutritive fillers such as sawdust or newspaper and so forth.

So the cat food starts out as low quality, too low in digestible protein essential to a cats well being, too high in fat, too high in carbohydrates and possibly poisonous – 100 Bald and Golden Eagles in North America have died recently from eating a euthanised animal.

Then the ‘food’ is cooked, usually at very high temperatures. Cooking destroys many nutrients which are essential for good health. Cats evolved by killing and eating their food instantly, showing that freshness is essential for a cats overall good health.

To address this, the cat food manufacturers add synthetic nutrients. Synthetic nutrients are isolated and not easily digested by anyone let alone your cat. So a label reassuringly boasting of a ‘nutritionally complete’ or ‘scientific’ diet are purposefully vague as neither are true. Unqualified claims are legally acceptable in most countries with their poor or non-existent pet food regulations.

As this resultant cat food doesn’t look very appealing, colour is added (Red 40, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Blue 2), obviously for your benefit as I doubt your cat cares much about the colour of cat food.

Now, most processed food is in a dry or semi dry form. This means that you have to preserve the food to keep it. If you purchase any meat product that keeps longer than a couple of days in the fridge, you know it has preservative in.

Some common preservatives include disodium guanylate, butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), menadione sodium bisulfite complex (a very controversial synthetic vitamin K.), mixed-tocopherols (synthetic form of Vitamin E) and others considered unfit for human consumption.

All processed food is ‘dead’ food, with no life. Dead food is that which has been cooked, particularly at high temperature and for long periods.

So you might think that buying cat food direct from a pet food supplier or butcher might be the answer. A quality butcher I buy from once told me that most pet mince sold at butchers is all the excess fat they can’t use, mixed with beetroot juice. On further inspection of the pet mince in discussion, I didn’t doubt him.

I read recently of someone buying from a pet shop. As she walked up to the shop from the car park, she noticed a pickup truck loaded down with large boxes marked poultry. On closer inspection she saw they contained pre-packaged chicken pieces. Fresh chicken sitting in boxes, in the hot summer sun, not on ice, not in a refrigerated truck, but in the back of an open pick up truck waiting to be carried into the store for sale to consumers.

Enjoy Holidays in the Most Memorable Way with Shimla, Kullu and Manali Tour Package

Are you planning to spend holidays in India? Are you looking for destination where the nature is always refreshing and rejuvenating? Then visit to Himachal Pradesh, one of the most beautiful tourism destinations of India. Himachal Pradesh is endowed with superb natural beauty; it catches the tourist attraction from the entire corner of the globe. Tourist from every corner of the world visit naturally blessed state to grasp its scintillating beauty on their holiday tour to India. There are several captivating destination in Himachal Pradesh where visitors can have lots of fun, frolic and amusement to enjoy holidays in the most memorable way. Visit once to this beautiful place and it is sure you will fall in love with its mesmerizing natural beauty.

There are several captivating destination in Himachal Pradesh for visitors to enjoy their holidays in most memorable way. Shimla, Kullu and Manali are the most sought after destination of Himachal Pradesh. These are the most admired tourism destination where nature are always captivating and refreshing. These places are famous for Pine forest, deodar forest, pleasant weather, snow capped mountains, exotic natural beauty, apple orchards, beautiful flower gardens, colonial style cottage and the captivating destinations gains marvelous tourism attraction to these Places. Infact every place of Himachal Pradesh are mesmerizing and captivating, that make these beautiful state, the most beautiful tourism destination in India.

Visit to Manali one of the most admired tourist place in Himachal Pradesh. This place is popularly known as Switzerland of the India. This captivating city of Apple state has mane reason to get the attention of tourist from far end of the world. It is one of the most beautiful places decorated with playful waterfall, gushing of river, emerald forest dotted with pine and fir trees, snow capped mountains, apple orchards, serenity of temples, beautiful gardens with flower tossing head with cheerful smile etc. Being here tourist can enjoy visiting Rohtang Pass, serenity of Hadimba temple, Mountaineering Institute, Arjun Gufa, Vashist Hot water spring, Rahala Waterfalls etc. Most of all taking a medicinal bath in Vashist hot water spring is an awesome experience as well as memorable moment of Manali tour packages. After all it is also the dream destination of Honeymoon couples.

Apart from Manali, Shimla is perhaps the most visited tourist place in Himachal Pradesh. This picturesque town was once the summer capital of British India, and is now the gateway of Himachal Tourism. This picturesque town has several captivating destination to catch the attention of tourist to make them visit to this town. Being here one can enjoy visiting Viceregal Lodge, Himachal State Museum, Chadwick Falls, Tara Devi Temple, Sankat Mochan, Summer Hill, the ridge, Viceregal Lodge, Botanical Garden, the mall etc. The mall is the major attraction of tourist and visitors enjoy shopping in the heavenly environment of mall. Enjoying shopping walking along the mall roads surfing the perfumed cool air is an awesome experience of Shimla tour.

Furthermore the town of Kullu grasps the attention of tourist visiting Himachal Pradesh. Popularly known as Valley of Gods this picturesque town is famous for exhilarating natural beauty, breathtaking views of snow capped mountains, exotic natural beauty, apple orchards, serenity of temples, beautiful flower gardens, adventurous sport etc. It is one of the most beautiful hill town gifted with numerous fabulous tourist destination for visitors to visit and enjoy the beauty in its natural best. Sultanpur Palace, Raghunathji Temple, Deo Tibba, Tabo Monastery, Sujanpur Fort, Kasol, ManiKaran etc are the most famous attraction of tourist in Kullu Manali. These awe-inspiring destinations give bouncy feeling to visitors once they visit these captivating destinations on their holiday tour to Kullu Manali and Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.

Kerala- The Most Amazing and Beautiful Place on Earth

Kerala- the land of God’s own country is wedged on the bank of Arabian Sea and rumbling Western Ghats. Its alluring beauty is attracting tourists from every corner of the world. Dressed in with the emerald green forest, colourful flowers, sprinkling water and perfume air, no doubt Kerala is the best place to spend holidays. Backwater destination, exhilarating beauty of Munnar and the copious beauty of the landscape gives a unique look than other tourist’s destination of India. These unique possessions of this place make one of the most admired tourist’s destinations of India. Visit any time of the year and you are sure to get spell bound with its mesmerizing beauty.

The coconut country is blessed with serene beaches submerged in the golden smiles of sun. Its running waves and the silver beaches attracts tourist to touch the pristine water running towards the shore. Tourist enjoy there holidays in the beautiful picturesque beaches. Take a long walk on the silver line dotted with palm and coconut trees leaving a foot print on the silver sand. Some enjoy sunbath sipping the nature’s best necture that gives an awesome experience of beach life. Couples do enjoy the beach life in there fullest. While some enjoy indulging in the beach sports, some are seen sprinkling water on each other. Beaches of this place are full of life and give a perfect environment to spent memorable moments of your life and your visit to God’s own country.

As one can never think life without oxygen, it’s same with Kerala backwater destination. This coconut state is incomplete without backwater destinations. Though time is changing at its own pace but beauty of Backwater retains its properties still the same. Enrolling yourself in this famous backwater gives memorable moments to cherish all through you tours to Kerala. As the traditionally attired houseboat moves inside the heart of Kerala, windows of beautiful vistas comes near to your eyes. Its mesmerizing beauty leaves every visitor spell bound.

Being in Kerala tourists must not miss a trip to Munnar. It is exceptionally beautiful and tourists are sure to fall in love with the eye catching beauty of Munnar. The enchanting views of the hills dotted with wooded forest, sprawling tea gardens and refreshing waterfalls give a heavenly look to this unique hill station. It is one of the famous and dream destination of honeymoon couples. Couples do have a lovely time enjoying the romantic moments in the mesmerizing beauty of Munnar. Take a walk down to the sprawling tea gardens holding your hand. Visit any time of the year and you will find Munnar at its natural best. Capture the best picturesque view of the hills and its landscape in there best natural dress.

Undoubtedly, Kerala melting pot stores lips smacking and mouthwatering cuisines. These cuisines are prepared in coconut oil, coconut paste and in pure natural spice. The taste of these foods really enriches your taste buds giving you a delightful moment being in this place. Once you start tasting the lips smacking food you will too lick you finger. It may sound funny and astonishing but it’s true. Book your package tour to Kerala and experience the real magic of this God’s own country.