Raw Nutrition #2 - Nuts & Seeds

Great news!  ....some fats are good...as long as we don't eat too much of it. Nut oils are a great source of fat. If you are trying to lose weight, use them very sparingly. If you are trying to gain weight, they will make you feel better.

Nuts and seeds are not cleansing. They should be eaten after cleansing. Cleansing is good, but you can't cleanse all the time. That is when you eat nuts and seeds, just not too much.

If you are eating a nice, healthy, raw diet, you don't want your calorie count to get too low. Nuts and seeds can add calories when you need them.

There are all different kinds of nuts to choose from. Some nuts have more heart-healthy nutrients and fats than others. Walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, macadamia, every type of nut has a lot of nutrition packed into a teeny little shell. 

If you have heart disease, eating nuts can be heart healthy. Eating nuts can lower the LDL, low-density lipoprotein or "bad," cholesterol level in their blood. 

"Many nuts are also rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3s are a healthy form of fatty acids that seem to help your heart by, among other things, preventing dangerous heart rhythms that can lead to heart attacks. Omega-3 fatty acids are also found in many kinds of fish, but nuts are one of the best plant-based sources of omega-3 fatty acids."

Nuts also have fiber, vitamin E, plant sterols and L-arginine.

Here's some nutrition information on common types of nuts. All calorie and fat content measurements are for 1 ounce, or 28.4 grams (g), of unsalted nuts.

Type of nut	Calories	Total fat (saturated/unsaturated fat)*
Almonds, raw	163	14 g (1.1 g/12.2 g)
Almonds, dry roasted	169	15 g (1.1 g/12.9 g)
Brazil nuts, raw	186	19 g (4.3 g/12.8 g)
Cashews, dry roasted	163	13.1 g (2.6 g/10 g)
Chestnuts, roasted	69	0.6 g (0.1 g/0.5 g)
Hazelnuts (filberts), raw	178	17 g (1.3 g/15.2 g)
Hazelnuts (filberts), dry roasted	183	17.7 g (1.3 g/15.6 g)
Macadamia nuts, raw	204	21.5 g (3.4 g/17.1 g)
Macadamia nuts, dry roasted	204	21.6 g (3.4 g/17.2 g)
Peanuts, dry roasted	166	14 g (2g/11.4 g)
Pecans, dry roasted	201	21 g (1.8 g/18.3 g)
Pistachios, dry roasted	161	12.7 g (1.6 g/10.5 g)
Walnuts, halved	185	18.5 g (1.7 g/15.9 g)

*The saturated and unsaturated fat contents in each nut may not add up to the total fat content because the fat value may also include some non-fatty acid material, such as sugars or phosphates.

Enjoy your nuts knowing that they are healthy and good for you as well as tasty!

~Cathy

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/nuts/HB00085

Raw Nutrition - #1 Blending and Juicing

What is the difference between blending and juicing? 

Blenders retain everything from the food.  They take the fiber and pulp and blend it all together.  Juicers separate the pulp from the juice and we drink the juice only.

When you first start out, juicing is a lot easier on your body.  Whether you are juicing to treat a health condition or just to stay healthy, you will experience a lot of detoxification. 

If you are not used to all that fiber, the juice will still give you loads of energy.  When you advance, and if you enjoy the texture, go ahead and make smoothies.

When we juice green vegetables, we liberate the chlorophyll  and our bodies immediately absorb it.  Chlorophyll is a detoxifier, deodorant and is an incredible healer of inner and topical inflammation and wounds.  The chlorophyll remakes our blood.  It is centered on magnesium and our blood is centered on iron.

You need to be careful to use simple juices if you are on a lot of medication.  If you are very sick, you will probably release toxins very quickly.  This will happen in the form of bowel movements.  Sometimes your live dumps a lot of toxins.  Chlorophyll is a neutralizer of toxins and can deal with anything you have.  It is good for kidney, heart and liver conditions. Green juice is an amazing detoxifier.

Enjoy your greens!  ~Cathy

Forgiveness

A couple of days ago I talked about life's balance and how health is much more than nutrition and exercise.  For true health and a balanced life...we need to take care of our other needs...one is our connection to others.  Whether you consider forgiveness spiritual, relationship or self esteem...(I consider it part of all)...it is an important part of emotional health...and thereby physical as well.

I borrowed the following from a man who has been sending out love to everyone for a long time.  His blog is called "The Daily Love" and his name is Masten Kipp.

"The joy that comes from realizing that suffering in our lives comes from the meaning we have given it is unlimited.

I am not saying that painful things in your past didn't happen, but what I am saying is that they no longer have to be painful. And it's not as easy as changing your mind once or twice. It takes work, and reps, like in the gym. But if you try and try enough over time, new life and new meaning can emerge.

One of the best ways I know how to do this is to take ourselves out of our own story and step into the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of the person who hurt us. Not so we can make right what they did, but so we can begin to understand the painful event from their point of view.

As I have guided clients through this process, the outcomes have been amazing. Forgiveness on a whole new level of themselves and others. And from VERY traumatic events.

The point of forgiveness is not to make right what happened, but to bring a new sense of empathy and compassion to all involved - this includes you.

The best way to get back at people who have hurt us is to forgive them, because that is how we break the bond over the painful event. And from there, when we step into their shoes and consider how they must have been thinking and feeling, we begin to understand that their actions were not truly against us, but a request for Love or Significance in a very messed up way; that was the best way that they knew how to at that time.

And from a SOUL perspective, we can claim ownership over the meaning we give that event, and no longer make it about how it hurt us, but about how they were hurt and our job is now to step into more Love and compassion and empathy, for them and for us. This takes us deeper and helps to bring clarity, resolution and forgiveness.

The words I am writing in this blog are easy to say and hard to do. It's not as easy as reading The Daily Love and being done with it. But my hope is that this blog can be a beginning point for you to start the journey of forgiveness, of empathy and of compassion, so that one day soon you will be set free of the chains that bind you from the past.

When we see things from the point of view of others, we realize that what they are doing as not against us, but as an action to make up for the Love they didn't get. It's that simple. And in this realization, we can transcend the hurt and the pain because we realize it was never about us in the first place, and so the victim story can be replaced with the story of the hero who overcame the darkness in another with Love."

I love what Masten says here.  I believe that there is unbelievable healing in forgiveness.  Forgiving someone can take years of burden off your shoulders...not to mention your soul.  It restores relationships, enables new beginnings and allows us to move on to better things.  ~ Cathy

 http://thedailylove.com/

http://www.thehealthcoach.net

cathy@thehealthcoach.net

 

Low Metabolism vs Ultra Metabolism

The difference in diet philosophy was really obvious as I listened to the speakers at the Integrative Nutrition Mega Conference last September, 2011.  I was so excited to listen to Dr. Mark Hyman.  I have listened to his audio books in my car, over and over for the last few years and I know it all by heart.  Do everything you can ....and there is a long, strong list...to reach ultra-metabolism.  I listened to him and I loved everything he said in New York. 

I bought Dr. Fuhrman's books knowing that I would be hearing him in New York.  The name of his book is "Eat to Live".  Dr. Joel Fuhrman spoke of lowering our metabolism to increase our longevity.  WHAT!!!  How can that be?  If you google "increase metabolism" on the internet you get 100's of responses with advice on how to raise our metabolism to lose weight.  Dr. Fuhrman pretty much stands alone on google to lower the metabolism.
 
Metabolism is our resting metabolic rate.  It is the amount of energy that the body requires to maintain life.  According to Dr. Fuhrman, " there are unfavorable consequences to running your body at faster than normal speed, and raising your metabolism is not the key to weight loss."  He says that by increasing our metabolism we increase damage to our DNA, proteins and lipids, thereby decreasing the body's physiological functions over time and leading to tissue and organ damage which leads to chronic disease and death. 

Dr. Fuhrman says with a faster metabolism our body wears out quicker.  This is due to oxidative damage.  "In animals, energy expenditure is indeed inversely related to lifespan. Though both these mechanisms of aging are related, as a faster metabolic rate means faster energy turnover and greater production of free radicals, leading to increased oxidative damage."

"A study on thyroid function published last year further supported the idea that a slower metabolic rate could prolong lifespan.  Now, a new study has measured resting metabolic rate directly and come to the same conclusion.  Metabolic rate was measured by two different methods at the start of the study.  Subjects were followed for 11-15 years, and deaths from natural causes were recorded.  For each 100 calorie increase in 24-hour resting metabolic rate, the risk of natural mortality increased by 25-29%.  These results strongly support the hypothesis that a slow metabolic rate promotes longevity."

According to Dr. Fuhrman, our resting metabolic rate is mostly genetic.  We can influence it by reducing the number of calories we take in.  Calorie restriction has been consistently shown to prolong length of life by up to 60% in animals.  Fuhrman says "My findings have demonstrated that an optimal micronutrient intake reduces the desire for calories and reduces body temperature and white blood cell counts. This means that if follow a high-nutrient eating style that reduces calorie intake while meeting micronutrient demands, we can reduce our resting metabolic rate and potentially increase our longevity potential dramatically."

It is very interesting that Dr. Fuhrman says it is okay to raise your metabolism by exercising!  This is because exercise does not raise our body's basal metabolism, it raises the total calorie expenditure.  Exercise increases longevity.

I remember seeing Dr. Fuhrman on Dr. Oz, he had this huge bowl with greens and berries and recommended eating it for breakfast.  The number of calories in that bowl were few and the nutrients were enormous!  The idea of being able to get that many nutrients with so few calories is pretty exciting.  I am not so sure about eating a salad for breakfast, but it influenced me to put that huge bowl into a blender and have a delicious smoothie!

Dr. Fuhrman's is to eat so healthy that it reduces your desire to overeat and it slows your metabolism gradually.  This all makes sense to me because when I gave up gluten, processed foods and dairy, this is what happened.  I ate less and I was much more satisfied by the foods I ate.  If you watch the movie Forks Over Knives, they have a great illustration that explains this as well.

The information in this blog does not cover everything that Dr. Hyman and Dr. Fuhrman represent.  It is just thoughts and explanation of Dr. Fuhrman's assertion that maybe (well not maybe...definitely) we should not be running after the fastest metabolism....maybe we should be slowing it down.  Both of their diet programs make a lot of sense and have so much to offer.  The one thing I have found in studying all of the diet theories is that they all work.  This is true especially if you are still eating the standard American diet of processed foods (check and see if your food is in boxes or cans).  In this case, anything we do will make us healthier. 

Ultra Metabolism....of low metabolism?  It is something to think about!
~Cathy


http://www.drfuhrman.com/weightloss/why.aspx
http://drhyman.com/
http://www.thehealthcoach.net
cathy@the healthcoach.net

Life's Balance

Is your life feeling out of balance?

No matter what we use as criteria when it comes to experiencing balance in our lives, we have certain needs that need to be filled throughout our lives—and the more balanced our fulfillment of these needs, the smoother our boat will sail.

IIN calls it primary foods

Maslow called it a hierarchy of needs

Anthony Robbins called it a wheel

I call it a pie.  

Whatever we call it, it all comes down to balance. If our life is not in balance then we are in trouble.

Self actualization (morality, creativity, problem solving
learning, lack of prejudice and acceptance of facts
Esteem (self esteem, confidence, respect) 
Love and belonging (friendship, family and intimacy) 
Safety (security of body, health, family, property, employment, resources and morality) 
Physiological (breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion).  

Everyone can rank these in a different order of importance. At the same time, we may each rank them differently at different times in our lives. What is certain: if one of the above is lacking and another is over emphasized, then we are out of balance.

Anthony Robbins does an exercise with a wheel representing career, physical, spiritual and financial. We have to rank each by "how it is going." Visually we are able to see, for example, that we are doing great financially and physically, but perhaps not spiritually or career-wise. If we are out of balance, our wheel will not roll.

The Institute for Integrative Nutrition calls it "primary foods." Outside our triangle of nutrition is a circle that consists of relationship, spirituality, career and physical activity.

The truth is, we can fix what we eat.  We can eat more greens and get rid of processed foods, but if we don't take care of the other areas of our life, we will still not experience balanced health and happiness.

To help you see the topics more clearly, take a look at the following basic needs and ways of fulfillment.

Self actualization (morality, creativity, problem solving, learning, lack of prejudice and acceptance of facts)

• Prayer, Thoughtfulness, Meditation
• Hobby
• Study
• Spirituality
• Contribution

Esteem (self esteem, confidence, respect)

• Gratitude
• Feelings

Love and belonging (friendship, family and intimacy)

• Relationship building
• Caregiving
• Forgiveness
• Intimacy

Safety (security of body, health, family, property, employment, resources and morality)

• Environmental safety
• Health & well being
• Job Security
• Career growth
• Financial empowerment
• Environmental preservation
• Ethics and morality

Physiological (breathing, environmental, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion)

• Clean air, meditation, breathing exercise
• Environmental impact on health and well being through design (ex. bringing nature into the home, healthy light, smart space)
• Bringing it all together - Home and Health
• Nutrition 
• Superfoods
• Acai
  Algae
  Aloe Vera
  Bee Products
  Cacao
  Camu Camu Berry
  Chlorella
  Coconut
  Goji Berries 
  Hempseed
  Incan Berries
  Kelp
  Maca
  Marine Phytoplankton
  Noni
  Yacon
• Raw Nutrition
• An explanation of raw nutrition
• Juicing vs Blending
• Nuts and Seeds
• Sprouts
• Grasses
• Seaweed
• Roots
• Mushrooms
• Recipes
• Water, amount and clean
• Intimacy as a physical need
• Amount and quality of sleep
• Digestion
• Bodily function, sight, hearing, pain
• Cleansing
• Illness and healing

We will be adding to this and focusing on each topic as total wellness.  Look forward to future blogs on each line item and broken down even further for more tips on how to improve the quality of our lives.  If anyone has any categories they would add to each need, please comment below.

~Cathy

Medicare pays for Health Coaching

Can Medicare Help Me Lose Weight?

You may qualify for free counseling sessions to get rid of those extra pounds

by: Patricia Barry | from: AARP Bulletin | March 27, 2012

Q. I’m overweight and worried I could get diabetes. I’ve tried diets without much success. Can Medicare help me lose the pounds and keep them off?

A. Maybe. That depends on whether you tip the scales at the point where you would be considered not just overweight but obese. Medicare has just begun covering counseling sessions to help obese people lose weight. Shedding those extra pounds greatly reduces your risk of not only diabetes but also heart disease, high blood pressure, breathing problems and some cancers.
See also: Percent of obese adults in each state and D.C.

The new coverage means that, for the first time, Medicare will pay doctors to discuss weight problems with patients, advise them on diet and exercise, monitor progress and provide encouragement in regular visits. Patients enrolled in Medicare Part B pay no copays or deductible for these visits.

To qualify for free counseling, your body mass index — called BMI — must be 30 or higher — a score that currently applies to more than a third of Medicare beneficiaries, according to Medicare officials.

As a first step, you can use an online BMI calculator, such as the one provided by AARP. Enter your height and weight, and it instantly calculates your BMI number. In general, a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal; 25 to 29.9 is overweight; and 30 or higher is obese.
The Medicare counseling coverage includes:

• One session every week for the first month
• One session every other week for months 2 through 6
• Monthly sessions for a further six months (7 through 12) if you have lost at least 6.6 pounds by the sixth month.

If you don’t hit the required target of 6.6 pounds by the end of the first six months, you still get another shot. But you have to wait six months before Medicare will pay for you to try again, officials say. There is no limit to how many attempts you can make, provided that your body mass is still 30 or greater and that six months have gone by since the last attempt.
The counseling must be provided by a primary care doctor, nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist or physician assistant. Any of them can refer you to other facilities or specialists such as nutritionists, but you’ll have to pay for those. Medicare will cover only sessions that take place in a primary care setting.

If you’re interested in getting weight-loss counseling, remember that the coverage is so new that some doctors may not have heard about it. So you need to know that the program is officially called “Intensive Behavioral Therapy for Obesity,” and doctors should use billing code G0447 to submit to Medicare for reimbursement. If necessary, refer them to Medicare’s guidance for physicians on this topic.

Will doctors be able to help patients lose weight and keep it off?  A recent study by the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania showed that such counseling can work well, even in sessions lasting only five to seven minutes. But researchers also found that the best results came over a two-year period of more intensive counseling by doctors who had received a few hours of special training. Research by the STOP Obesity Alliance found that 89 percent of doctors believed they had a responsibility to help their patients lose weight, but 72 percent also said they lacked the training to do it.

Still, obesity experts have welcomed the Medicare coverage as an important step in encouraging both doctors and patients to treat the issue seriously. 

Can Medicare Help You Quit Smoking?

Free counseling sessions are available for those trying to kick the habit

by: Patricia Barry | from: AARP Bulletin | November 17, 2011

Q. I am trying to quit smoking. Does Medicare have any programs to help me?

A. Yes. Medicare now offers free counseling sessions to help people kick the smoking habit.

Break that smoking habit before it damages your health. — Photo by Getty Images

In the past, Medicare has covered antismoking counseling only for those who have already developed health problems from tobacco use. These sessions require a 20 percent copayment and are subject to the annual Part B deductible.
But the new benefit at last puts the horse before the cart: It's for people who have no symptoms of tobacco-related diseases but want to quit smoking before it harms their health. And there's no copay or deductible for this counseling, provided that you see a doctor or other qualified practitioner who accepts the Medicare-approved payment as full reimbursement.
Among the 46 million Americans who smoke, about 5.5 million are Medicare beneficiaries, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. And a recent CDC study (PDF) found that more than 50 percent of smokers age 65 and older said they wanted to stop completely.

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable illness, responsible for an estimated one-fifth of deaths in the United States each year, and by 2015 it will have cost Medicare $800 billion over a 20-year period, according to an estimate by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new coverage allows up to two "quit-smoking" attempts a year, and each attempt includes up to four counseling sessions — a total of eight in any 12-month period. So if you have the first session in March, for example, and the next seven sessions don't break your habit, you can start another attempt the following March and have up to seven more sessions over the next 11 months, and so on.

What happens in these sessions? Medicare officials haven't released specifics, but recommend that doctors follow the "5-A" approach formulated by the federal government 11 years ago: ask patients about their smoking habits; advise them to quit; assess their willingness to quit; assist their attempts to quit; and arrange follow-up.

To help the process, doctors also may prescribe one of seven antismoking drugs currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These medications are covered under the Medicare Part D drug program.

Research shows that either counseling or medications are effective in helping people to quit smoking. "But what is most effective is when you combine the two," says Michael C. Fiore, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin. "That's why Medicare now covering counseling is so important."

Weight Correction!

An opinion on Gary Taube's Program

I saw Gary Taubes at the Long Beach, CA conference in March.  It was probably pretty difficult for him to be sandwiched between charismatic and quirky David Wolfe and hunky paleo man, Mark Sisson.  I also saw him on Dr. Oz, I felt kind of bad for him...he was on his defense because Dr. Oz was after him for some of the things he includes in his diet.  He looked very uncomfortable, but he was brave to be on the show.  I am particularly interested in what he has to say because Gary is a physicist.  My son is a physicist too...and although he works in nuclear detection research...he still has a lot of strong opinions on diet and they all make perfect sense.  Gary has written a book and promotes a diet based on his scientific theory.  The information he presents is well thought out and backed up.  He says his diet doesn't really make you lose weight, it corrects your weight.  That sounds nice.  His diet is a restricted carbohydrate diet.  He isn't restricting the good green stuff, he is restricting the things we know we should not eat too much of...the bad carbs and limit the fruit.  He doesn't say no fruit...just like David Wolfe doesn't say no nuts...just...if you need to correct your weight...that isn't what you should be shoveling down.

Gary says "This diet is focused on providing your body with the nutrition it needs, while eliminating foods that your body does not require, namely, nutritionally empty carbohydrates."  For WEIGHT LOSS, you will need to keep the total number of grams to less than 20 grams per day.

His diet is definitely a meat eater's diet.  He says when you are hungry you should eat...  (that is a good concept in itself)..."when you are hungry you should eat"...anyway...this is what he says you should eat;

Meat, poultry, fish, eggs:  He says that you should not need to avoid fat.  This may be true as far as weight loss goes, but in reality we have to look at something as, if not more important than weight loss...and that is health.  We know that animal fat is not good for us...so, even though Gary says we can eat it and lose weight...it does not mean we can eat it and be free of heart disease or stroke.  Cut the fat off.

Salad Greens.  Must be eaten every day...2 cups a day!  He says ALL varieties!

Vegetables.  Must be eaten every day...1 cup per day.  I saw no exclusions.

Bouillion:  Must be eaten every day...2 cups daily.  He says for sodium replenishment.  I don't agree with this one.  He did exclude people with hypertension or heart failure...but I think most of us could use a little sea salt and do not need to make an effort to add MORE salt into our diets.

Cheese: up to 4oz a day...thank goodness, no processed cheese like Velveeta...or those spray cans.

Cream:  up to 4 tbsp a day...full cream not half and half.

Mayonnaise:  Low carb...not agreeing with this one either.

Olives: Up to 6 a day
Avocado: Up to 1/2 a day (Yay!)
Lemon/Lime Juice: Up to 4 tsp a day
Soy Sauce:  Up to 4 tbsp a day...(definitely won't be needing the bouillion)
Pickles, Dill or sugar free:  up to 2 svgs a day
Snacks:  (OMG)  pork rinds/skins; pepperoni slices; ham, beef, turkey and other meat roll ups; deviled eggs.  May help you lose weight on his diet but it isn't going to do your health any good.

He promotes sugar substitutes. These sugar substitutes have been proven to be unhealthy.  Pass on the aspartame and sucralose.  Stevia (sorry Dr. Hyman)...is a good substitute if you need sweet.

He says drink water!  YAY!  He says that caffeine has messed with peoples' blood sugar but allows 3 cups in a day.  He also has you stay off alcohol at first, but since this is a lifestyle...allows it back in later.

Fruit:  is nowhere in his meal plan...it is on the restricted list.  He does say in the book that fruit was seasonal in early civilization and was not like the fruit that is available in the supermarket.  People ate it infrequently.  This is something that I would agree with, but think it should be added in sparingly.  Although the fruit is healthy, it is full of sugar and will not help people who are trying to correct their weight.

Carbs are the primary restriction here.  Gary makes wonderful suggestions to cut the starches, sugars and processed carbs.  This is a very healthy thing to do.  My primary problem with this diet is the fats.  I am not a physicist and I have no doubt that the principles he is basing this weight loss diet are sound.  The animal fat is just plain unhealthy.  Coconut oil for fat would be a good addition and lean meat.  I can see ways to work within his plan and make it a healthy weight correction alternative.  (I LOVE THAT PART!  Weight Correction!)

If you want to check him out, I am including his web site!  The book was very educational and interesting and worth the read.   http://garytaubes.com/

~Cathy

http://www.thehealthcoach.net
https://www.facebook.com/Thehealthcoach.net
cathy@thehealthcoach.net