We all have days, or moments throughout the day, when the insomnia from the night before catches up with us or a busy schedule seems to have consumed all of our energy. The question is: what to do about it? If coffee is your go-to pick-me-up but you’re tired of the inevitable crash, there are some great alternatives you should know about. The article 11 All-Natural, Instant Energy Boosters from Shape Magazine offers some useful suggestions such as drinking more water, spending a few minutes in the sun, or even just standing:

Are you reading this slumped over your computer, feeling tired at the moment? Perk up by standing up, says Moshe Lewis M.D., chief of the department of physical medicine and rehab at the California Pacific Medical Center, St. Luke’s Campus, in Redwood City, California.

Never sit too long. Vessels have a natural tendency to constrict during periods of inactivity, zapping you of energy and making you feel tired—even if you are not sleep deprived.

Standing up and walking around even just for a few minutes is enough to jump start your heart and muscles. Plus, it can help you be more productive once you sit down at your desk again, Dr. Lewis says.

1. Tap your thymus.

2. Get some sun.

3. Sip some green tea.

4. Stand up.

5. Give your brain a mini-vacation.

6. Drink a green monster.

7. Socialize with high-energy friends.

8. Breathe deeply.

9. Sit up straight.

10. Eat an apple.

11. Drink some water.

Visit Shape Magazine online for more information.

Cooking legend Paula Deen is the epitome of you are what you eat. The Savannah restaurant owner and author of several cookbooks, who also appears in her own television show, tells “kids to have cheesecake for breakfast… chocolate cake and meatloaf for lunch—and french fries” according to Barbara Walters. Apparently the chef heeded her own advice and now the blatant disregard for eating healthy has caught up with her as she has been diagnosed with type II diabetes. The official announcement of her type II diabetes only came about recently, several years after she was actually diagnosed. Unfortunately this announcement did not come out in conjunction with a public service announcement promoting organic foods, fresh fruits and vegetables, or while pushing healthy entree selections at the buffet of her world famous restaurant. Instead Chef Deen elected to take her diabetes story public in conjunction with her role as a paid spokeswoman for Novo, the Danish-based pharmaceutical manufacturer, pushing its new diabetes management program. With role models such as Chef Deen, it is no wonder that America is becoming the fattest nation, with staggering statistics on cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes and more alarmingly, juvenile diabetes, to back it up.

With Chef Deen on the air and in our children’s cookbooks the nation will turn into the capital of juvenile diabetes in no time unless parents take a proactive stance against such role models. As a parent and physician myself, I will not allow Chef Deen’s children’s cookbook in my home because I don’t want any child to follow in her footsteps and become a diabetic. I encourage all parents to step away from the plate and lead by example by deep-sixing Chef Deen’s cookbooks and planting an organic garden with your children instead.

KPFA Radio - Interview with Dr. Moshe Lewis (Acute vs. Chronic Pain)

Interview length: 56 minutes — Interview date: November 21st, 2011

In this interview with Dr. Michael A. Lenoir on KPFA Radio's About Health, we touched on acute vs. chronic pain, Michael Jackson and dietary considerations. We answered many listener questions regarding increased sensitivity to pain, acupuncture, avoiding surgery, chiropractors, arthritis, the stress caused by pain, and more.

Listen to this interview on KPFA Radio's website

I often encourage my patients to cook at home since it tends to be healthier, but I understand that cooking can put a lot of ware on the body, especially if you’re not using well-made equipment. I was interviewed by EverydayHealth.com for advice on the most useful cooking tools and gadgets around. With these eight cooking appliances, pain caused by working in the kitchen will be replaced by fun and pleasure.

1. Food processor
2. Slow cooker
3. Bamboo steamer
4. Lightweight cookware
5. Electronic can opener
6. Electric jar opener
7. Ergonomic tools
8. Reacher/grabber

Tomorrow, being Thanksgiving day, officially starts off the holiday season! Come Friday, I will allow myself to listen to the Christmas music that has been playing on the radio for the last month or so. It will ring in my ears for the next four weeks as I merrily bop around, vomiting Christmas Spirit upon everyone I encounter. The holidays are a joyful time for me. However, they are also a very busy time filled with parties, shopping, and gatherings. Food always accompanies these occasions and I always manage to consume much more than a comfortable portion.

This year (like I say every year), I’m not going to let myself pack on extra pounds for Christmas. What’s different? I’m prepared. Read the following tips from our expert contributor to better prepare yourself to battle the bulge over the holidays:

1. Make an appointment with yourself.

   Walk, exercise, make time for fitness and wellness by scheduling time into your day for walking or other aerobic activity.



2. Join a fitness club.

   As the weather turns and the days grow darker earlier, it’s understandable that going out to exercise in the dark could turn into both a cold and unsafe experience. If outdoor exercise doesn’t work then bring the exercise indoors and check out the local YMCA.




3. Bring exercise into the home.

   Download a simple exercise or beginner yoga video form Netflix, iTunes, or YouTube or consider borrowing a DVD from your local library if funds are tight. Get a pedometer at your local Walmart and head to the nearest mall to go walking. The 10,000 steps a day Global Challenge is a free health promotion program that encourages the use of step-counting pedometers to monitor your daily physical activity levels.



4. Keep warm by protecting your head, hands, and feet.

   More than 70% of your body heat escapes from your head, hands, and feet. Maintain your body by wearing a cap, gloves, and thick socks when exercising in the cold.




5. Drink lighter.

   Buy low fat egg nog, eliminate desserts, cut back on empty calories from alcohol and try hot tea instead of hot chocolate.



6. Keep Vitamin D in check.

   In the fall and winter, exposure to sunlight decreases which is why patients often experience a corresponding decrease in their vitamin D levels. Take vitamin D supplements to compensate for this diminished exposure to sunlight may be advisable for these patients. New evidence suggests that minimum recommended intake is 2000 IU/day so check with your doctor to make sure your bone labs, including vitamin D, calcium, phosphorous and magnesium are adequate.

This article was featured on 5Ktours.com

Most people know the danger of high cholesterol: It puts people at increased risk for heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular conditions. But the good news is that you can lower your “bad” cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein, or LDL) and raise your “good” cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein, or HDL) — just by altering your diet. Here is a list of cholesterol lowering foods that are most effective at keeping your blood vessels and heart in tip-top shape.

1. Green tea
2. Red wine
3. Fruits and vegetables
4. Chocolate
5. Beans & oats
6. Nuts
7. Salmon & other fish
8. Olive oil
9. Yogurts

Read more about these ten 10 foods that reduce your Cholesterol at EveryDayHealth.com

 

“I don’t understand it. I am successful in so many other areas of my life. It’s just with eating that I can’t seem to control myself. I’ve tried everything”.

 

Many of my clients say something similar to this when they first come to see me. Often they are successful and accomplished and their friends and colleagues, even their family, think they have it all together. Inside, however, they often feel trapped by overeating, low self-esteem, and sometimes bulimia, anorexia, or other eating disorder. They may be overweight, or they may not.

What is it that keeps them trapped? It’s the “Cycle of Overeating”.

FEEL BAD => EAT => FEEL GOOD => GUILT => FEEL BAD

 

This cycle generally starts sometime during our formative years. We experience emotional pain, and don’t know a constructive way to deal with it. This pain makes us FEEL BAD. We hate feeling bad, so we look for something that will make us FEEL GOOD, not in a week or a month, but right now in the moment that we are feeling bad. We try eating and find that at least temporarily, it makes us FEEL GOOD, right now. Great! We have found a solution that works.

 

Then, if we have eaten too much, we feel GUILT. GUILT makes us FEEL BAD. We hate feeling bad, and want to FEEL GOOD, right now. So we do what we know works, we EAT! Now we FEEL GOOD. Then, of course comes the familiar GUILT, for having eaten too much, and it very effectively gets us to FEEL BAD again. This is a perfect self-sustaining cycle: FEEL BAD => EAT => FEEL GOOD => GUILT => FEEL BAD, and it begins again.

 

So the real question is, how do we break this cycle? Diets, by their very nature, are directed at getting us to not eat, and therefore, we don’t get to FEEL GOOD, right now. We get to FEEL GOOD in a week, or a month when the scale brings good news or our clothes become loose, but not right now.

 

Willpower can carry us through for some time-weeks, months, even a year. Yet at some point we feel emotional pain again, the kind that we really hate to feel, and we break down. We eat again. We say “ Just this once won’t matter” or even the more bold “If this is what it takes to get me through this, then so be it”.

 

 

Breaking this cycle by trying not to eat is a strategy that is doomed to failure because it doesn’t teach us a new way to get out of feeling bad in the short-term.

 

So, what will work? One approach is to break the cycle by reducing the sting of the guilt. If you don’t feel the guilt, then you won’t FEEL so BAD, and won’t have to fix that feeling by eating.

 

This guilt-neutralization strategy is a good one, especially for short-term relief. Ultimately, however, one has to learn a new strategy to process and release the emotional pain, without eating. While you may be thinking “how many years of therapy will that take?”, it’s comforting to know that there are some quick and effective strategies that you can do on your own. One of my favorites is the more Eastern approach of leaning right into the pain and deeply breathing into it. Through this process, we come to realize not only that the pain won’t kill us, but also that it typically on its own.

 

By both neutralizing the guilt, and releasing the pain that’s been fueling the cycle, we can truly heal the cycle of overeating.

A former food addict, Renée Stephens is the host of iTunes top weight loss podcast “Inside Out Weight Loss”, with over 3,000,000 downloads to date. She is featured in the breakthrough film “The Inner Weigh” available at www.theinnerweigh.com/renee. She has consulted with Weight Watchers International as a behavioral weight loss expert, and coaches by phone and in person out of her San Francisco office. Her website is www.reneemethod.com.

 

How many of us haven’t yet figured out that broccoli is generally a better choice than a Big Mac? The challenge for most isn’t in knowing what we should do to lose weight, but rather in actually doing it.  Enjoy these five strategies that will help you enjoyably do what you already know you should.

 

1. Recognize the Positive Intent

We overeat for a reason, and the reason, believe it or not,  isn’t self-torture.  We all prefer pleasure over pain, and let’s face it, you’re getting some pleasure out of overeating, or you wouldn’t do it.  Perhaps it’s the distraction, the taste, or the comfort.

 

Whatever the reason, notice that, in it’s essence, it’s positive. Then begin to design new behaviors and thought patterns that work even better than food.  For example, if food is a distraction, what are you distracting yourself from? How could you enjoy that more?

2. Whisper Sweet Things to Yourself

How do you talk to yourself? Would you speak to a friend or a child in this way?  If you did, how would it affect them? Just for fun, pretend you are your own best friend, and say the nicest, most supportive things you can imagine to yourself.  Switch to “I feel good about myself” or even “I am so silly!” from your top ten self criticisms and watch your sweet words replace your sweet tooth.

 

3. Focus on Self-Correcting

No matter what your resolve, no matter how miraculous the diet, you will overeat again. We know this because Naturally Slender people overeat from time to time.  Sometimes they misjudge how filling their food will be, other times they make a conscious choice to do it.  But it doesn’t matter. They are still naturally slender.

 

The difference is that the Naturally Slender self correct.  They know how to bring themselves back into balance after over-indulging.  So if they dip their chips a few too many times at a cocktail party, they eat less at dinner. If they become upset emotionally, they get the support they need before coping with cookies and cake.

 

Shift your focus to how you bring yourself back into balance after overindulging, and on decreasing the time it takes to do so.  Whether it’s a walk in nature, a workout, or a talk with a friend that brings you back into balance, make self-correcting your new priority.

 

4. Focus on the Solution, not the Problem

There is a Huna saying  (Huna is the spiritual practice of the traditional Hawaiian culture) that goes “Energy goes where attention flows”. In other words, what you think about expands. If you are constantly thinking about what you don’t want, you will have more of it.  The subconscious mind does not understand a negative command. So if I were to say “don’t think of a pink elephant with purple spots on it’s big floppy ears right now” what do you think about?  If you tell yourself “don’t eat”, what do you think you will want to do?

 

Consider focusing on what you do want instead.  For example, “I want to be relaxed around food” or “I want to love to exercise”.  The energy will happily flow to the solution, and your subconscious mind will begin to design ways to get you what you want.

 

 

5. Change Your Definition of Success

If you have set a goal for yourself of reaching a certain weight, it will probably take some time before you reach that goal. And along the way, the scale may not always tell you what you want to hear.

 

Because it’s hard to stay motivated for a long term goal that involves short term “sacrifice”, consider changing your goal to something that you can be successful at every day, such as making a healthy choice, or self-correcting

Have fun with these strategies, and let us know how it goes!

 

A former food addict, Renée Stephens is the host of iTunes top weight loss podcast “Inside Out Weight Loss”, with over 3,000,000 downloads to date. She is featured in the breakthrough film “The Inner Weigh” available at www.theinnerweigh.com/renee. She has consulted with Weight Watchers International as a behavioral weight loss expert, and coaches by phone and in person out of her San Francisco office. Her website is www.reneemethod.com.

Before Running

Your pre-exercise goal is to be fueled for your training. The ideal pre-exercise meal should be carbohydrate rich and well tolerated. The number of carbohydrates you need depends on your weight and the timing of the meal prior to exercise. Generally, you should consume 0.5g to 2g per pound of body weight of carbohydrate 1 to 4 hours prior to exercise.

An hour before a run, consume 0.5 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight. For a 145-lb runner that’s 145 lb x 0.5 g/lb or 72.5 grams of carbohydrates.

Sample meal:
1. one small banana (15g of carbs) + one slice toast (15g of carbs) + one Tbsp of jam (15g of carbs) + 16oz of Gatorade (30g of carbs) = 75 grams of carbohydrate
2. one cup of cooked oatmeal (30g of carbs) + 4 Tbsp raisins (30g of carbs) + 8 oz Gatorade (15g of carbs) = 75 grams of carbohydrate

During Running

Consuming 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates every hour has proven to improve performance in exercise lasting longer than 90 minutes. Your pre-workout meal will provide enough energy for exercises lasting less than 90 minutes. Try gels, energy drinks, or anything that you can tolerate.

After Running

If your exercise lasts longer than 90 minutes, you should consume 0.7 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight immediately after exercise, followed by 0.7 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight 2 hours later, which will enhance your muscle recovery rate.

Consume carbohydrates that are quickly absorbed into your bloodstream. You may prefer a high carbohydrate drink if your stomach does not tolerate solid food immediately after exercise. Adding a small amount of protein (about 6-15grams) will also provide amino acids for building and repairing muscle tissue.

For a 145-lb runner that’s 145 lb x 0.7 g/lb or 101 grams of carbohydrates plus 6-15 grams of protein.

Sample meal:
one bagel (60 grams of carbs) + 8 oz chocolate milk (45 grams of carbs) + 2 oz of low fat cheese (14 grams of protein)