Aerobic exercise

Weight training wards off age-related abdominal fat better than aerobic activity

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Weight training for 20 minutes per day helped healthy men stave off age-related abdominal fat gain better than engaging in aerobic activities for the same amount of time, according to research published in Obesity.

Although aerobic exercise alone was associated with less weight gain than weight training overall, a combination of the two optimized waist circumference results, Harvard School of Public Health researchers and colleagues found.

“To combat sarcopenia that is inevitable with aging, older adults are recommended to engage in physical activities that achieve the most favorable changes in their body composition, such as loss of fat mass while preserving lean body mass,” Rania Mekary, PhD, of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard, told Endocrine Today.

“Because long-term weight training leads to this concomitant fat loss and muscle gain, this has been shown to prevent and treat many chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and osteoporosis,” she said.

Mekary, with Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD, and colleagues, prospectively examined the effects of weight training, moderate to vigorous aerobic activity and replacement between the two on waist circumference and body weight in 10,500 healthy men (mean age 58±7) from the ongoing Health Professionals Follow-up Study over 12 years.

All participants were followed through mailed biennial questionnaires regarding medical history, lifestyle and health-related behaviors, including physical activity. Multiple linear regression models (partition/substitution) were used to assess associations; diet components known to predict weight gain, smoking status, antidepressant use, sleep duration and baseline age were considered.

With adjustments for potential confounders, an inverse dose-response relationship was seen between weight training and waist circumference change (P-trend <.001). Less age-associated waist circumference increase was seen when activity was increased 20 minutes per day; the benefit was stronger for weight training (–0.67 cm; 95% CI, –0.93 to –0.41) than for moderate to vigorous aerobic activity (–0.33 cm; 95% CI, –0.40 to –0.27), other activities (–0.16 cm; 95% CI, –0.28 to –0.03) or television watching (0.08 cm; 95% CI, 0.05–0.12).

The strongest inverse association with waist circumference change was seen when weight training for 20 minutes per day was substituted for any other discretionary activity. Moderate to vigorous aerobic activity showed the strongest inverse association with body weight change (–0.23 kg; 95% CI, –0.29 to –0.17).

“Incorporating weight training with aerobic exercise is crucial to maintain a healthy waistline,” Mekary said. “Further studies are needed among women, older men, and other ethnic groups to compare the frequency and volume of weight training on waist circumference change.” — by Allegra Tiver

Regular aerobic exercise may slow down dementia.

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Regular aerobic exercise may help delay the progression of dementia in older women whose cognitive function has been affected by age, as indicated by a recent study.

A randomized controlled study tested the impact of different types of exercise on the hippocampal volume of 86 elderly women who were living independently at home but reported mild memory problems (or mild cognitive impairment [MCI]), a common risk factor for dementia. [Br J Sports Med 2013; doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2013-093184]

The women (aged 70-80) were randomized to one of three groups: the first group was assigned to a twice-weekly and hour-long exercise regime comprising aerobic training (brisk walking), the second group underwent resistance training involving lunges, squats and weights, while the third group was assigned to a balance and muscle toning exercise.

Participants were required to adhere to their respective exercise regimens over a period of 6 months. Hippocampus size was assessed at the start and the end of the 6-month period using an MRI scan, and participants’ verbal memory and learning capacity were assessed before and after using a validated test (RAVLT).

Out of the 86 women, 29 took the before and after MRI scans. The results revealed that the total volume of the hippocampus for the aerobic training group was significantly larger than the balance and muscle toning exercise group (p=0.03). There was no difference in hippocampal volume between the resistance training group and the balance and muscle toning group.

“Our study showed that aerobic training has significantly increased hippocampal volume in older women with probable MCI,” said co-author, Dr. Teresa Liu-Ambrose, Department of Physical Therapy, UBC, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The findings suggested that aerobic exercise seemed to be able to slow down the shrinkage of the hippocampus and maintain the volume in the group of women at risk of dementia at the minimum. The researchers also recommend regular aerobic exercise to stave off mild cognitive decline.

“However, more research is needed to ascertain the relevance of exercise-induced changes in hippocampal volume on memory performance in older adults with MCI,” elaborated Liu-Ambrose.

This finding is especially important as the researchers pointed out the rising toll of dementia worldwide – one new case is diagnosed every 4 seconds – and the number of those afflicted is set to rise to more than 115 million by 2050.

Clear Skin and Improved Mood—Two Oft-Forgotten Benefits of Exercise.

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Story at-a-glance
Exercise helps normalize your glucose, insulin, and leptin levels by optimizing your insulin/leptin receptor sensitivity. It also releases mood boosting brain chemicals that help combat depression
Another side effect of exercise include clearer complexion. To improve your skin, you’ll want to focus on resistance training. Excessive cardio can actually cause your skin to lose its youthful elasticity
Research shows that the “secret” to increased happiness is a long-term investment in regular exercise, and a little each day appears to go further than a lot once or twice a week
There’s plenty of research validating the use of exercise for the treatment of depression. In one study, aerobic exercise was found to be as effective as Zoloft.

Complexion

 

One of the primary reasons why exercise is such a potent medicine for chronic disease is because it optimizes your insulin and leptin receptor sensitivity. Normalizing your glucose, insulin, and leptin levels will have a beneficial effect on virtually every disease state you could ever acquire.

But exercise also promotes the release of mood-boosting brain chemicals that help combat depression, and more superficially, it can go a long way toward improving your complexion; clearing up acne and warding off signs of premature aging.

How is it that physical movement can achieve such effects? It’s easy to forget that your body is actually designed for more or less constant movement. When you do, all of your biological systems can work properly and efficiently, creating all-around beauty, health, and well-being.

It’s just not natural to remain seated for hours on end like we do today, courtesy of computers, cars, and other gadgets that remove our need to get up, stretch, reach, bend, and move from one area to another. In fact, we’re now starting to realize just how bad it is to sit for long periods of time.

I’ve previously written about this, and the importance of what I call “intermittent movement” throughout the day. That said, more vigorous exercise is equally important for optimal health, beauty, and happiness, and here’s why.

What Happens in Your Body When You Exercise?

As previously reported by the Huffington Post,1 a number of beneficial biological effects take place when you exercise. It quite literally affects your body from head to toe. This includes changes in your:

Muscles, which use glucose and ATP for contraction and movement. To create more ATP, your body needs extra oxygen, so breathing increases and your heart starts pumping more blood to your muscles. Without sufficient oxygen, lactic acid will form instead. Tiny tears in your muscles make them grow bigger and stronger as they heal.
Lungs. As your muscles call for more oxygen (as much as 15 times more oxygen than when you’re at rest), your breathing rate increases. Once the muscles surrounding your lungs cannot move any faster, you’ve reached what’s called your VO2 max—your maximum capacity of oxygen use. The higher your VO2 max, the fitter you are.
Heart. As mentioned, your heart rate increases with physical activity to supply more oxygenated blood to your muscles. The fitter you are, the more efficiently your heart can do this, allowing you to work out longer and harder. As a side effect, this increased efficiency will also reduce your resting heart rate. Your blood pressure will also decrease as a result of new blood vessels forming.
Brain. The increased blood flow also benefits your brain, allowing it to almost immediately function better. As a result, you tend to feel more focused after a workout. Furthermore, exercising regularly will promote the growth of new brain cells. In your hippocampus, these new brain cells help boost memory and learning. As stated in the featured article:
“When you work out regularly, your brain gets used to this frequent surge of blood and adapts by turning certain genes on or off. Many of these changes boost brain cell function and protect from diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or even stroke, and ward off age-related decline.”

A number of neurotransmitters are also triggered, such as endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, and GABA. Some of these are well-known for their role in mood control. Exercise, in fact, is one of the most effective prevention and treatment strategies for depression.

Joints and bones, as exercise can place as much as five or six times more than your body weight on them. Peak bone mass is achieved in adulthood and then begins a slow decline, but exercise can help you to maintain healthy bone mass as you get older.
Weight-bearing exercise is actually one of the most effective remedies against osteoporosis, as your bones are very porous and soft, and as you get older your bones can easily become less dense and hence, more brittle — especially if you are inactive.

How Exercise Can Improve Your Complexion

Exercise can also go a long way toward “cleaning up” and toning your complexion. Makeup artist Michelle Phan has blogged about the beauty benefits of exercise.2 And, according to Dalton Wong, a celebrity trainer featured in a previous Telegraph article,3 engaging in the correct exercises will help you tone your skin in much the same way you tone your muscles. Katy Young writes:

“‘The key in training to tone your skin is to focus on increasing lean muscle mass,’ explains Wong. As we age, our skin naturally loses its plumping, youthful layer of fat. But if you exercise the right way, you can build up muscle which gives that same volatizing effect. As Wong explains; ‘it’s the lean muscle mass that sits just under the surface which can create a lifted, taught looking, skin.'”

According to Wong, to improve your skin, you’ll want to focus on resistance training, where you’re using your own bodyweight to challenge your muscles. Lunges, pushups, and planking are examples of resistance exercises. To tone both muscles and skin, and help eliminate cellulite, he recommends implementing a circuit routine consisting of three to four sets of weight bearing exercises with two to four minutes of cardio in between, repeated four times.

Excessive cardio training is not recommended if skin toning is your goal. It’s also one of the least effective ways to improve your fitness, as discussed in previous articles, as your body is designed for great exertion in short bursts, which is how our hunter-gatherer ancestors used to move. Conventional cardio or long-distance running can actually do more harm than good, and this extends to your skin as well.

Wong warns that excessive cardio can actually cause your skin to lose its youthful elasticity, especially if you’re over- or underweight. One of the reasons for this is because the stress placed on your body when you’re running long distances produces excessive amounts of cortisol, a stress hormone responsible for inflammation. This can take a heavy toll on your skin, as cortisol tends to break down collagen, resulting in wrinkling and sagging.

Stay Well Hydrated When Exercising

It should come as no great surprise that sweating and improving blood flow is good for your skin. Your skin is the largest organ for detoxification, and sweating not only helps regulate body temperature; it also helps eliminate toxins. Improved blood flow, in turn, helps shuttle oxygen and nutrients to your skin, which is key for beautiful complexion. Water is another key ingredient. As stated in the featured article:4

“One of the things Wong tells his celebrity clients – who include Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence – is to stay well hydrated. ‘It’s not just that it helps you train better – no one can work out if they’re not properly hydrated – it makes your skin look better, too. Conversely, if you’re training without drinking enough water, you’ll damage your skin pretty quickly,’ he warns. How to tell if you’re drinking enough? Try the hydration test by pinching the skin on the back of your hand; if it doesn’t spring back fast, you’re dehydrated.”

In addition to hydrating your skin from the inside out, increasing your water intake will also help flush out trapped toxins, oils, and debris that can contribute to acne. The combination of being well-hydrated and boosting blood flow can also benefit your hair, as it will naturally stimulate your hair follicles and promote hair growth.

Exercise Can Help You Feel Better from the Inside Out

Regular exercise is also one of the “secret weapons” to overcoming depression. Indeed, it is a recipe for both looking and feeling better. A recent article in The Atlantic5 tells the story of Joel Ginsberg who, as a college sophomore, struggled with feelings of “an all-consuming hopelessness” and immobilizing self-doubt. For Ginsberg, as for so many others who decide to try it, exercise turned out to be a key ingredient for recovering his joie-de-vivre.

“He thought getting some exercise might help, but it was hard to motivate himself to go to the campus gym,” Olga Khazan writes.6 “So what I did is break it down into mini-steps,” he said. “I would think about just getting to the gym, rather than going for 30 minutes. Once I was at the gym, I would say, ‘I’m just going to get on the treadmill for five minutes.'”

Eventually, he found himself reading novels for long stretches at a time while pedaling away on a stationary bike. Soon, his gym visits became daily. If he skipped one day, his mood would plummet the next. ‘It was kind of like a boost,’ he said, recalling how exercise helped him break out of his inertia. ‘It was a shift in mindset that kind of got me over the hump.’

There is plenty of research validating the value of exercise for the treatment of depression. As noted in the featured article, a 1999 study7 found that aerobic exercise was as effective as Zoloft. More recently, a 2011 study8 concluded that exercise led to a 30 percent remission in patients who had failed to get any relief from antidepressant medications.

Guidelines for Using Exercise as an Antidepressant

In 2006, a meta-analysis9 of 11 studies concluded that doctors would be well advised to recommend exercise to patients suffering from depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, as the evidence showed “substantial benefit.” Yet according to a 2009 paper,10 a mere 40 percent of depressed patients reported that their doctors suggested exercise. As noted in the featured Atlantic article:11

“Instead, Americans are awash in pills. The use of antidepressants has increased 400 percent between 1988 and 2008. They’re now one of the three most-prescribed categories of drugs, coming in right after painkillers and cholesterol medications.

After 15 years of research on the depression-relieving effects of exercise, why are there still so many people on pills? The answer speaks volumes about our mental-health infrastructure and physician reimbursement system, as well as about how difficult it remains to decipher the nature of depression and what patients want from their doctors.”

This is clearly a shortfall of modern medicine and psychiatry. Despite the evidence, many doctors still are not savvy enough to broach the subject of exercise and other lifestyle factors with their patients. And, of course, there’s the lack of financial incentive… It may be worth noting that doctors who do not accept insurance tend to be more likely to prescribe non-drug treatments for their depressed patients. The other side of the coin is that many patients are looking for a quick fix, and resist taking physical action to improve their own situation…

If you were to view exercise as a drug, how much would you need in order to reap clinical results? According to research12 by Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, depressed patients would do well to exercise for 45-60 minutes, three to five times per week. He also recommends raising your heart rate to at least 50-85 percent of your maximum, in order to reap results.

Keep in mind that major depression is typically associated with thoughts of suicide, and feelings of deep hopelessness or helplessness, making it critical to recognize and address such symptoms. (To assess your or a loved one’s risk factors, please review this previous article.) If you are feeling desperate or have any thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline,13 a toll-free number 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or call 911, or simply go to your nearest Hospital Emergency Department.

How Does Exercise Alleviate Depression?

A number of cascading changes occur when you exercise that contribute to improved mood and mental health. For starters, it helps normalize your insulin and leptin levels, as mentioned earlier. It also boosts the production of mood-boosting hormones in your brain. According to Dr. James S. Gordon, MD, a world-renowned expert in using mind-body medicine to heal depression:

“What we’re finding in the research on physical exercise is that exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed… physical exercise changes the level of serotonin in your brain. And it increases your endorphin levels, your ‘feel good hormones.’

Also—and these are amazing studies—exercise can increase the number of cells in your brain, in the region of the brain called the hippocampus… they’re very important because sometimes in depression, there are fewer of those cells in the hippocampus. But you can actually change your brain with exercise. So it’s got to be part of everybody’s treatment, everybody’s plan.”

Aside from serotonin and endorphins (which are responsible for that feeling of euphoria you get with regular exercise), other chemical messengers also play a significant role.14 When you exercise, your brain recognizes the exertion as a fight-or-flight stress situation. To protect itself from stress-related harm, your brain releases a protective protein called Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF).

This protein helps repair neurons, and acts as a “reset switch,” which may explain why solutions tend to come into clearer focus after a bout of exercise. BDNF also activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons, and triggers numerous other chemicals that promote neural health. Recent research15, 16 has actually made it quite clear that exercise and brain health are inextricably intertwined. The evidence shows that physical exercise helps you build a brain that not only resists shrinkage, but increases overall cognitive abilities—and feelings of happiness.17

Aim for a Well-Rounded Fitness Program

Whether you simply want to look better, or actually feel better—physically and mentally, I strongly suggest carving out the necessary time to exercise. Ideally, you’ll want to strive for a varied and well-rounded fitness program that incorporates a variety of exercises. I recommend incorporating the following types of exercise into your program in order to truly optimize your results:

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT): This is when you alternate short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods. For more information, please see this previous article.
Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen, and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury, and help you gain greater balance and stability.
Foundation Training, created by Dr. Eric Goodman, is an integral first step of a larger program he calls “Modern Moveology,” which consists of a catalog of exercises. Postural exercises such as those taught in Foundation Training are critical not just for properly supporting your frame during daily activities, they also retrain your body so you can safely perform high-intensity exercises without risking injury. Exercise programs like Pilates and yoga are also great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you can learn from a personal trainer.

Stretching: My favorite type of stretching is active isolated stretches developed by Aaron Mattes. With Active Isolated Stretching, you hold each stretch for only two seconds, which works with your body’s natural physiological makeup to improve circulation and increase the elasticity of muscle joints. This technique also allows your body to repair itself and prepare for daily activity. You can also use devices like the Power Plate to help you stretch.
Strength Training: Rounding out your exercise program with a 1-set strength training routine will ensure that you’re really optimizing the possible health benefits of a regular exercise program. You can also “up” the intensity by slowing it down. For more information about using super slow weight training as a form of high intensity interval exercise, please see my interview with Dr. Doug McGuff.
Avoid Sitting for More Than 15 Minutes. Last but not least, while it may not have a direct effect on your mood or beauty regimen, there’s a lot to be said for avoiding prolonged sitting. Chronic sitting has actually been shown to take years off your life even if you exercise regularly.
To counteract the ill effects of sitting, I recommend setting a timer to go off every 15 minutes while you’re sitting. When it goes off, simply stand up. I usually recommend going a step further; personally, I stand up and do one legged squats, jump squats or lunges when the timer goes off. The key is that you need to be moving all day long, even in non-exercise, or as I now like to call them, intermittent movement activities.

Intense But Short Exercise Is All You Need to Boost Calorie Burning.

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intense-training

Story at-a-glance

  • Recent research demonstrates that high intensity interval training burns more calories in less time. Just 2.5 minutes, divided into five 30-second sprint intervals at maximum exertion, each followed by four minutes of light pedaling to recuperate, can burn as much as 220 calories
  • Anaerobic exercises also increase insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, and promote production of human growth hormone—all of which are critical components of optimal health. Previous research has shown that just three minutes of high intensity exercise per week for four weeks can result in a 24 percent improvement in insulin sensitivity
  • If you’re ready to take your fitness routine to the next level, you may want to consider skipping breakfast and work out on an empty stomach. This is a form of intermittent fasting that can greatly contribute to improved weight loss, as it shifts your body into fat burning mode
  • The combination of high intensity interval training, avoiding grain carbs and sugars, especially fructose, and exercising in a fasted state, can help you become increasingly fat adapted, which is the preferred metabolic state of the human body

If you have a difficult time fitting exercise into an already crammed schedule, you’ll be excited to know you can reap truly remarkable results in a very limited amount of time. Can you carve out 20 minutes two to three times a week?

If so, you can dramatically improve your overall fitness and health – as long as you engage in high-intensity interval training, that is.

Research presented at the Integrative Biology of Exercise VI meeting1, 2 in Colorado on October 10-13 this year, demonstrated that high-intensity interval training burns more calories in less time – a mere 2.5 minutes, divided into five 30-second sprint intervals at maximum exertion, each followed by four minutes of light pedaling to recuperate, can burn as much as 220 calories.

According to lead researcher Kyle Sevits:3

“You burn a lot of calories in a very short time… Nearly all the calories are burned in those 2.5 minutes; you burn very few during the rest period.”

Besides burning more calories, high-intensity interval training, which is part of my total Peak Fitness program, has also been shown to produce greater health benefits overall than conventional aerobic training, such as increasing insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance – both of which are critical components of optimal health. Back in April, I reported on a study that found doing just three minutes of high-intensity exercise per week for four weeks, could lead to a 24 percent improvement in insulin sensitivity.

Another important benefit of high-intensity interval training is its ability to naturally increase your body’s production of human growth hormone (HGH), also known as “the fitness hormone.” HGH is a synergistic, foundational biochemical underpinning that promotes muscle and effectively burns excessive fat.

It also plays an important part in promoting overall health and longevity. This too is something you cannot get from conventional, aerobic endurance training. Other benefits associated with high-intensity interval training include:

Decrease in body fat Improved muscle tone
Improved athletic speed and performance Ability to achieve your fitness goals much faster
Increase in energy and sexual desire Firmer skin and reduces wrinkles

Are You Maximizing the Health Benefits from Your Fitness Routine?

The key that unlocks the many health benefits associated with exercise is intensity. To perform anaerobic exercises correctly, regardless of how you do them (sprinting outdoors, using a stationary bike or elliptical machine, or using weights), you’ll want to raise your heart rate to your anaerobic threshold, and to do that, you have to give it your all for those 20 to 30 second intervals.

Different studies will use different intervals of exertion and recuperation. For example, in the featured study, 30-second bouts of exertion were separated by four-minute rest intervals. I use and recommend the program developed by Phil Campbell, where you go all out for 30 seconds, followed by 90 seconds of recuperation. If you do the recommended eight repetitions, you’ll be done in 20 minutes or less.

Depending on your level of fitness when you’re first starting out, you may only be able to do two or three repetitions of the high-intensity intervals. That’s okay. As you get fitter, just keep adding repetitions until you’re doing eight during your 20 minute session. Here’s a summary of what a typical interval routine might look like using an elliptical:

  • Warm up for three minutes
  • Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should be gasping for breath and feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds. It is better to use lower resistance and higher repetitions to increase your heart rate
  • Recover for 90 seconds, still moving, but at slower pace and decreased resistance
  • Repeat the high-intensity exercise and recovery 7 more times

Greater Intensity = Greater Need for Recovery

To optimize results, do these types of peak exercises twice or three times a week. Again, you only need about 20 minutes per session, and you don’t even need a gym membership to do them. If you have beach access, you may want to take to sprinting barefoot by the water’s edge. However, before you give it a go, make sure to review some basic safety guidelines, which I discussed in depth in my previous article, Proper Sprinting and Warm-Up Techniques to Optimize Your Workout and Avoid Injury.

You can also turn your weight training session into an anaerobic exercise by following the guidelines presented by Dr. Doug McGuff. The key that turns strength training into a high-intensity exercise is the speed. Reducing the speed increases the intensity.

Whichever way you choose to do them, you do not need to do high-intensity exercises more frequently than three times a week. In fact, doing so can be counterproductive, as your body needs to recover between sessions. The importance of recovery should not be overlooked, as your body needs time to rebuild itself in order to function optimally. As explained by Dr. Jeff Spencer:

“To achieve the most beneficial effects from your workouts in the shortest time it’s essential to understand the concept of total load. Total Training Load refers to the total amount of training ‘strain’ on the body over time. For example, one single super-hard workout can strain the body as much as several moderate intensity workouts done back to back can.

The Total Training Load can be increased by increasing the number of exercise repetitions, resistance, length of workout sets and by increasing the speed of repetitions and, also, by shortening the rest interval between exercise sets. If the Total Training Load is in excess too long, the body breaks down, and illness, over-training, burnout, and injury occur.”

Recovery also includes giving your body the proper nutrients it needs in the recovery phase, as your post-workout meal can support or inhibit the health benefits of exercise. For instance, fast-assimilating protein such as high-quality whey protein, eaten within 30 minutes of your workout, will essentially “rescue” your muscle tissue out of the catabolic state and supply it with the proper nutrients to stimulate repair and rejuvenation.

The Synergy Between Exercise and Diet, and Boosting Results with Intermittent Fasting

It’s well worth noting that your choice of breakfast food may play a significant role in altering your metabolic functioning, which can either improve or deter weight loss. For example, eating carbohydrates for breakfast will inhibit your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and reduce the fat burning effect of your exercise. Instead, it activates your parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS), which promotes storage of fat – the complete opposite of what you’re aiming for.

Avoiding fructose and other grain carbohydrates is a critical element of a successful weight loss strategy. This includes sports or energy drinks and fruit juices (even if they’re freshly squeezed). Exercise cannot counteract the harmful effects of a high-fructose diet. It’s also important to remember that if you consume fructose within two hours before or after high-intensity exercise, you effectively negate the ability of the exercise to produce HGH – one of the MAJOR benefits of interval training.

If you’re ready to take your fitness routine to the next level, you may even want to consider skipping breakfast altogether and work out on an empty stomach. You can review the article I recently wrote on this here. This is a form of intermittent fasting and I believe it’s one of the most profound new developments in weight loss management. This can radically improve your ability to shift to fat burning mode and effectively burn fat rather than glucose.

Also, exercising in a fasted state can help your cells rebuild and repair, keeping them biologically young. I’ve previously interviewed fitness expert Ori Hofmekler on the issue of fasting and exercise. According to Ori, fasting actually has the surprising benefit of helping you reconstruct your muscles when combined with exercise. This is due to an ingenious preservation mechanism that protects your active muscle from wasting itself.

In a nutshell, if you don’t have sufficient fuel in your system when you exercise, your body will break down other tissues but not the active muscle, i.e. the muscle being exercised. That said, neither Ori nor I advocate starvation combined with rigorous exercise. It’s important to be sensible. And you need to consume sufficient amounts of protein in order to prevent muscle wasting. While most people need to address the foods they DO eat before considering skipping meals, intermittent fasting can provide you with many benefits, and is another tool you can experiment with to help you reach your goals. Research has shown that the combined effect of intermittent fasting (IF) with short intense exercise may help you to:

Turn back the biological clock in your muscle and brain Boost growth hormone Improve body composition
Boost cognitive function Boost testosterone Prevent depression

Being Fat-Adapted Can Help Improve Your Health

If you follow the recommendations mentioned above, which include:

  • High-intensity interval training
  • Avoiding grain carbs and sugars, especially fructose
  • Exercising in a fasted state

another side effect will eventually become apparent: you’ll become increasingly “fat-adapted.” Fat-adaption describes the ability to burn fat directly via beta-oxidation. It is the normal, preferred metabolic state of the human body, in which your body burns fat rather than glucose as its primary source of energy. Sadly, the bodies of many, if not most, Americans operate in a state of sugar-dependency, which is an abnormal metabolic state that inevitably results in insulin resistance and related chronic disease. Signs that you’re a sugar-burner and are heading down a path of disease include:

  • Low satiety
  • Persistent hunger
  • Carb cravings

As Mark Sisson explains in a recent article, if you are fat-adapted, you:

  1. Can effectively burn stored fat for energy throughout the day.

If you can handle missing meals and are able to go hours without getting ravenous and cranky (or craving carbs), you’re likely fat-adapted.

  1. Are able to effectively oxidize dietary fat for energy.

If you’re adapted, your post-prandial fat oxidation will be increased, and less dietary fat will be stored in adipose tissue.

  1. Can rely more on fat for energy during exercise, sparing glycogen for when you really need it.

Being able to mobilize and oxidize stored fat during exercise can reduce an athlete’s reliance on glycogen. This is the classic “train low, race high” phenomenon, and it can improve performance, save the glycogen for the truly intense segments of a session, and burn more body fat.

According to Sisson, once you can go three hours or more without feeling hungry, you’re on your way toward being fat-adapted. If you can handle exercising without having to carb-load, you’re probably fat-adapted. And if you can work out effectively in a fasted state, you’re definitely fat-adapted.

Source : mercola.com

Japanese Doctor Confirms Health Benefits of Working Out Less, But More Intensely.

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Story at-a-glance

  • High-intensity interval training (HIIT) gives a natural boost to human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor. HIIT has also been shown to significantly improve insulin sensitivity, boost fat loss, and increase muscle growth
  • According to Japanese research, a mere four minutes of exercise performed at extreme intensity, four times a week, can improve your anaerobic capacity by 28 percent, and your VO2 max and maximal aerobic power by 15 percent in as little as six weeks
  • Study participants who performed an hour of steady cardiovascular exercise on a stationary bike five times a week only improved VO2 max by 10 percent, and their regimen had no effect on their anaerobic capacity after six weeks
  • Previous research showed that just three minutes of HIIT per week for four weeks improved participants’ insulin sensitivity by an average of 24 percent

A little over three years ago, I was introduced to high intensity interval training, commonly referred to as HIIT, when I met Phil Campbell at a fitness camp in Mexico. I refer to it as Peak Fitness Training.

Since then, researchers have repeatedly confirmed the superior health benefits of HIIT compared to traditional and typically performed aerobic workouts.

For example, high-intensity interval-type training gives a natural boost to human growth hormone (HGH) production—which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor—and has been shown to significantly improve insulin sensitivity, boost fat loss, and increase muscle growth.

Anaerobic HIIT can be performed on a recumbent bike or an elliptical machine, or sprinting outdoors (with proper guidelines to avoid injury).

While there are a large number of variations, the HIIT routine I recommend involves going all out for 30 seconds and then resting for 90 seconds between sprints. Total workout is typically 8 repetitions. In all, you’ll be done in about 20 minutes, and you only need to perform HIIT two or three times a week.

But researchers such as Dr. Izumi Tabata have shown that even shorter workouts can work, as long as the intensity is high enough.1

The video above shows a modified high intensity workout from the DVD Mash Up Conditioning. It demonstrates 30 seconds of high intensity followed by 30 seconds of recovery with repeated intervals. There are 3 different levels demonstrated at the same time in the video.

Personal Modifications

I personally modified the Peak 8 to a Peak 6 this year as it was sometimes just too strenuous for me to do all 8. So by listening to my body and cutting it back to 6 reps, I can now easily tolerate the workout and go full out and I no longer dread doing them.

Another tweak is to incorporate Butyenko breathing into the workout and do most of the workout by only breathing through my nose. This raises the challenge to another level. I will discuss more of the benefits of this in a future article but I do believe it has many benefits.

I then finish my Peak 6 workout with Power Plate stretches, 10 pull ups, 10 dips and 20 inverted pushups, and call it a day. I personally have never tried the Tabata protocol as it seems too intimidating and I’m not sure I could do it, but it is yet another option that people can use.

Can You Get Fit in Just Four Minutes, Four Times a Week?

After monitoring the Japanese speed skating team in the early 90’s, Dr. Tabata noticed that extremely hard but intermittent exercise appeared to be at least as effective as standard workouts that require several hours a week. The training protocol he came up with as a result requires a mere four minutes, four times a week. The caveat? Extreme intensity.

Dr. Tabata’s HIIT protocol calls for just 20 seconds of all-out drop-dead effort, followed by a mere 10 seconds of rest. This intense cycle is repeated eight times. According to Dr. Tabata:2

“All-out effort at 170 percent of your VO2 max is the criterion of the protocol. If you feel OK afterwards you’ve not done it properly. The first three repetitions will feel easy but the last two will feel impossibly hard. In the original plan the aim was to get to eight, but some only lasted six or seven.”

When performed four times per week for six weeks, participants in one experiment increased their anaerobic capacity by 28 percent, and their VO2 max (an indicator of cardiovascular health) and maximal aerobic power by 15 percent. This is in contrast to the control group, who performed an hour of steady cardiovascular exercise on a stationary bike five times a week. These participants improved their VO2 max by just 10 percent, and their regimen had no effect on their anaerobic capacity.

Dr. Tabata also has forthcoming research findings showing that his protocol reduces your risk of diabetes, which other HIIT studies have already suggested. And, according to the featured article:3

“Another soon-to-be-published finding, which Tabata describes as ‘rather significant,’ shows that the Tabata protocol burns an extra 150 calories in the 12 hours after exercise, even at rest, due to the effect of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. So while it is used by most people to get fit – or by fit people to get even fitter – it also burns fat.”

As Little as Three Minutes of HIIT Per Week Can Improve Your Health, Previous Study Suggests

Dr. Tabata’s claims may sound crazy, but previous research has also found that performing high intensity exercises for just minutes per week can significantly improve important health indices. One such study found that just three minutes of HIIT per week for four weeks improved participants’ insulin sensitivity an average of 24 percent. This truly is amazing, and while aerobic fitness is indeed important, improving and maintaining good insulin sensitivity is perhaps one of the most important aspects of optimal health.

Other research has also demonstrated that 20 minutes of high intensity training, two to three times a week, can yieldgreater results than slow and steady conventional aerobics done five times a week. But the fact that you can improve your insulin sensitivity by nearly 25 percent with a time investment of less than ONE HOUR A MONTH really shows that you can significantly improve your health without having to eliminate hours of other commitments from your calendar.

As I mentioned previously I have not even attempted this protocol as I know how hard Peak Fitness is with a 90 second recovery. I shudder to think how painful the Tabata protocol is with only 10 seconds to recover. That said, I believe that while it’s theoretically possible to reap valuable results with as little as three minutes once a week, it might be more beneficial to do these exercises two or three times a week for a total of four minutes of intense exertion, especially if you are not doing strength training.

You do not need to do them more often than that however. In fact, doing HIIT more frequently than two or three times a week can be counterproductive, as your body needs to recover between these intense sessions. If you feel the urge to do more, make sure you’re really pushing yourself as hard as you can during those two or three weekly sessions, rather than increasing the frequency. Remember, intensity is KEY for reaping all the benefits interval training can offer. To perform it correctly, you’ll want to raise your heart rate to your anaerobic threshold, and to do that, you have to give it your all for those 20 to 30 seconds. Phil Campbell suggests that it needs to be even higher than your maximum calculated heart rate, which is about 220 minus your age.

Why High Intensity Interval Training May Be Ideal for Most

Contrary to popular belief, extended extreme cardio actually sets in motion inflammatory mechanisms that damage your heart. So while your heart is indeed designed to work very hard, and will be strengthened from doing so, it’s only designed to do sointermittently, and for short periods—not for an hour or more at a time. This is the natural body mechanics you tap into when you perform HIIT.

Repeatedly and consistently overwhelming your heart by long distance marathon running, for example, can actually prematurely age your heart and make you more vulnerable to irregular heart rhythm. This is why you sometimes hear of seasoned endurance athletes dropping dead from cardiac arrest during a race.

Compelling and ever-mounting research shows that the ideal form of exercise is short bursts of high intensity exercise. Not only does it beat conventional cardio as the most effective and efficient form of exercise, it also provides health benefits you simply cannot get from regular aerobics, such as a tremendous boost in human growth hormone (HGH), aka the “fitness hormone.”

What Makes HIIT so Effective?

Your body has three types of muscle fibers: slow, fast, and super-fast twitch muscles. Slow twitch muscles are the red muscles, which are activated by traditional strength training and cardio exercises. The latter two (fast and super-fast) are white muscle fibers, and these are only activated during high intensity interval exercises or sprints.

According to fitness expert Phil Campbell, author of Ready, Set, Go, getting cardiovascular benefits requires working all three types of muscle fibers and their associated energy systems — and this cannot be done with traditional cardio, which onlyactivates your red, slow twitch muscles. If your fitness routine doesn’t work your white muscle, you aren’t really working your heart in the most beneficial way. The reason for this is because your heart has two different metabolic processes:

  • The aerobic, which requires oxygen for fuel, and
  • The anaerobic, which does not require any oxygen

Traditional strength training and cardio exercises work primarily the aerobic process, while high intensity interval exercises work both your aerobic AND your anaerobic processes, which is what you need for optimal cardiovascular benefit. This is why you may not see the results you desire even when you’re spending an hour on the treadmill several times a week. Interestingly enough, when it comes to high intensity exercises, less really is more. You can get all the benefits you need in just a 20-minute session, start to finish, performed two or a max of three times per week.

How to Properly Perform Peak Fitness Exercises

If you are using exercise equipment, I recommend using a recumbent bicycle or an elliptical machine for your high-intensity interval training, although you certainly can use a treadmill, or sprint anywhere outdoors. Just beware that if you sprint outside, you must be very careful about stretching prior to sprinting.

I personally prefer and recommend the Peak Fitness approach of 30 seconds of maximum effort followed by 90 seconds of recuperation, opposed to Dr. Tabata’s more intense routine of 20 seconds of exertion and only 10 seconds of recovery. But some might like his strategy more. His approach may be better suited to fitter athletes who want to kick it up another notch, but may be too intense for most people. For a demonstration using an elliptical machine, please see the following video. Here are the core principles:

  • Warm up for three minutes
  • Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should be gasping for breath and feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds. It is better to use lower resistance and higher repetitions to increase your heart rate
  • Recover for 90 seconds, still moving, but at slower pace and decreased resistance
  • Repeat the high-intensity exercise and recovery 7 more times. (When you’re first starting out, depending on your level of fitness, you may only be able to do two or three repetitions of the high-intensity intervals. As you get fitter, just keep adding repetitions until you’re doing eight during your 20-minute session)
  • Cool down for a few minutes afterward by cutting down your intensity by 50-80 percent

 

Source: mercola.com

 

 

How Exercise Can Moderate Brain Damage Caused by Drinking.

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brain-exercise

 

It’s well known that chronic, heavy drinking damages your brain and actually speeds up the brain shrinkage that occurs with age.  This is associated with memory loss, symptoms of dementia and cognitive decline.

Physical exercise is touted as one of the key ways to protect against brain shrinkage and other age-related brain changes, and now it appears it may help protect against some of the brain damage caused by drinking.

Exercise May Help Protect Your Brain From Alcohol-Related Damage

Among 60 long-time drinkers, those who were the most physically active had less damaged white matter in their brains compared to those who were less active.1The white matter is considered the “wiring” of your brain’s communication system, and is known to decline in quality with age and heavy alcohol consumption.

Although the study didn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship, the researchers concluded that “exercise may protect WM [white matter] integrity from alcohol-related damage,” continuing:2

“We cannot say whether exercise would necessarily improve white matter damage in individuals with a history of heavy drinking.

However, our findings in combination with the many well-established positive physiological and psychological benefits of aerobic exercise suggest that aerobic exercise could be potentially helpful for individuals with history of heavy alcohol use.”

Exercise Protects Your Brain From Shrinkage, Slows Cognitive Decline

One of the effects of chronic heavy drinking is that it speeds the shrinkage of key regions in your brain. Exercise is useful in this area, as research has shown that people who engaged in the most physical exercise showed the least amount of brain shrinkage, a protective effect that was even greater than that offered by mentally stimulating activities.3

Exercise encourages your brain to work at optimum capacity by causing nerve cells to multiply, strengthening their interconnections and protecting them from damage.

During exercise, nerve cells release proteins known as neurotrophic factors, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF, which activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons. BDNF also triggers numerous other chemicals that promote neural health.

Scientific evidence shows that physical exercise helps you build a brain that not only resists shrinkage, but also increases cognitive abilities.4 In one review of more than 100 studies, both aerobic and resistance training were found to be important for maintaining cognitive and brain health in old age.5

Moderate exercise may even reverse normal brain shrinkage by 2 percent, effectively reversing age-related hippocampus degeneration, which is associated with dementia and poor memory, by one to two years.6 On the other hand, the people in the control group who didn’t exercise saw an average of 1.4 percentdecrease in hippocampus size.

Exercise is a Powerful Tool for Brain Health for Drinkers and Non-Drinkers Alike

The hippocampus region of your brain increases in size as a response to exercise, making this activity a powerful tool to fight the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The hippocampus, which is considered the memory center of your brain, is the first region of your brain to suffer shrinkage and impairment at the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, leading to memory problems and disorientation.

Other contributing factors to brain disease caused by the normal aging process may also include a decrease in blood flow to your brain, and the accumulation of environmental toxins in your brain. Exercise can help ameliorate both of these conditions by increasing blood flow to your brain, thereby increasing oxygen supply to your brain and encouraging a more vigorous release and removal of accumulated toxins through better blood circulation.

If you’re a regular drinker, this becomes even more important, as alcohol is a neurotoxin that can poison your brain. Increased blood flow may also promote delivery of more of the nutrients necessary to keep your brain cells healthy in the first place.

Brain Exercises are Better than Drugs in Preventing Cognitive Decline

Exercise has been shown to be better than mentally stimulating activities like brain training exercises at protecting your brain, but mental “exercise” is still important. In fact, new research shows it works better than drugs in preventing cognitive decline. The analysis of 32 trials found that mental exercise, such as computer-based brain training programs or memory, reasoning and speed-processing exercises, protected against cognitive decline better than leading dementia drugs like donepezil. Research into brain plasticity has proven that your brain continues to make new neurons throughout life in response to mental activity, which means that cognitive function can be improved, regardless of your age, and cognitive decline can be reversed.

If you’re interested in mental exercises for your brain, Dr. Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus at the University of California, who has pioneered research in brain plasticity for more than 30 years, has been instrumental in the development of a kind of “brain gym” environment — a computer-based brain training program that can help you sharpen a range of skills, from reading and comprehension to improved memorization and more. The program is called Brain HQ.7

“There are some very useful exercises in there that are for free, and you can actually drive improvements, for example, in brain speed, in the accuracy, with which the brain represents information in detail,” he says. “Basically, what you’re doing is reducing the chatter, the noisiness of the process of your brain. That impacts your capacity, for example, to record that information, to remember it. Because when the information is in its degraded form, when it’s fuzzy, when it’s imprecise, all of the uses of it – like your brain makes basically – are degraded.”

In the above-mentioned study, those who used computer-based training programs had significantly better memory and attention skills, improvements that were, in some cases, retained even five years later.

Another Reason for Chronic Heavy Drinkers to Take Up Exercise

There’s little doubt that exercise is one of the most important aspects of optimal health – not only for your brain but also for your entire body. That said, if you or someone you love has been affected by alcohol abuse, you know the great toll it can take on your personal relationships, work life and ability to function normally on a day-to-day basis, let alone fit in regular workouts.

The cravings for alcohol can become all-consuming and eventually an alcoholic does not feel “normal” until they’ve had a drink. The alcohol abuse inevitably throws off your circadian rhythm — the normal times you eat, sleep and wake up — as well, leading to a downward spiral of health and emotional effects. When you drink, it forces your brain to release unnaturally elevated levels of dopamine, a chemical your brain associates with rewarding behaviors. When you exercise, however, this same reward chemical is released, which means you can get the same “buzz” from working out that you can get from a six-pack of beer, with far better outcomes for your health.

This is why, if you know you’re prone to alcohol abuse or have a family history of alcohol addiction, exercising regularly can greatly reduce your risk of becoming dependent.

For those already addicted, exercise is beneficial too, and may actually help to lessen cravings. Research has found, in fact, that hamsters that ran the most consumed less alcohol, while less active hamsters had greater cravings for and consumption of alcohol.8  By replacing drinking with exercise, you may find that the rewarding feeling you get from exercise provides you with a suitable alternative to the rewarding feeling you previously got from alcohol.

What Type of Fitness Program is Best?

Ideally, to truly optimize your health, you’ll want to strive for a varied and well-rounded fitness program that incorporates a variety of exercises. As a general rule, as soon as an exercise becomes easy to complete, you need to increase the intensity and/or try another exercise to keep challenging your body. I recommend incorporating the following types of exercise into your program:

  • High-Intensity Interval (Anaerobic) Training: This is when you alternate short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods.
  • Strength Training: Rounding out your exercise program with a 1-set strength training routine will ensure that you’re really optimizing the possible health benefits of a regular exercise program. You need enough repetitions to exhaust your muscles. The weight should be heavy enough that this can be done in fewer than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do a minimum of four repetitions. It is also important NOT to exercise the same muscle groups every day. They need at least two days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild.
  • You can also “up” the intensity by slowing it down. For more information about using super slow weight training as a form of high-intensity interval exercise, please see my interview with Dr. Doug McGuff.
  • Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury and help you gain greater balance and stability. Exercise programs like Pilates and yoga are also great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you can learn from a personal trainer.
  • Stretching: My favorite type of stretching is active isolated stretching developed by Aaron Mattes. With Active Isolated Stretching (AIS), you hold each stretch for only two seconds, which works with your body’s natural physiological makeup to improve circulation and increase the elasticity of muscle joints. This technique also allows your body to repair itself and prepare for daily activity. You can also use devices like the Power Plate to help you stretch.

Source: .mercola.com

Exercise Helps Your Immune System Protect Against Future Cancers.

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fight-cancer-exerciseIf you are like most people, when you think of reducing your risk of cancer, exercise probably isn’t at the top of your list. However, there is compelling evidence that exercise can not only help slash your risk of cancer, but can also help cancer patients get well sooner, and help prevent cancer recurrence.

Research has also shown it may help minimize the side effects of conventional cancer treatment.

A preliminary study presented at The Integrative Biology of Exercise VI meeting in mid-October1 helps shed light on why exercise is so effective for decreasing the risk of secondary cancers in survivors, or why it can decrease your risk of getting cancer in the first place.

Exercise Improves Your Immune System’s “Cancer Surveillance”

Sixteen cancer survivors who had just completed chemotherapy participated in the three-month long study. The fitness program, which was tailored to each individual, included:

The researchers examined the immune cells in the participants’ blood before and after completion of the 12-week program, and the analysis showed that a large portion of the T cells were altered into a more effective disease-fighting form, called “naïve” T cells. As reported by Medical News Today:2

“[Lead researcher] Bilek explained, ‘What we’re suggesting is that with exercise, you might be getting rid of T cells that aren’t helpful and making room for T cells that might be helpful.’

This research is important because it not only emphasizes the advantages of exercise for cancer patients and cancer survivors, but it also demonstrates how it can benefit healthy individuals. However, the increased ‘cancer surveillance,’ or the power of the immune system to stop emerging cancers, is particularly beneficial for those struggling with cancer, or who have just survived it.

Bilek concluded: ‘There’s a litany of positive benefits from exercise. If exercise indeed strengthens the immune system and potentially improves cancer surveillance, it’s one more thing we should educate patients about as a reason they should schedule regular activity throughout their day and make it a priority in their lives.'”

Viewing Exercise as a Drug

Besides altering your immune cells into a more potent disease-fighting form and improving circulation of those immune cells in your blood, another primary way exercise lowers your risk for cancer is by reducing elevated insulin levels. This creates a low sugar environment that discourages the growth and spread of cancer cells. It’s also been suggested that apoptosis (programmed cell death) is triggered by exercise, causing cancer cells to die.

The trick though, is understanding how to use exercise as a precise tool. I like to suggest viewing it as a “drug” that needs to be carefully prescribed to achieve its maximum benefit. This ensures you’re getting enough to achieve the benefit, not too much to cause injury, and the right variety to balance your entire physical structure and maintain strength, flexibility, and aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels.

Ideally, doctors would prescribe exercise in specific “doses” and intervals. To do this properly, oncologists would be wise to develop relationships with personal trainers, and prescribe training sessions for their patients. If you have cancer, I would highly recommend discussing exercise with your oncologist, and/or work with a trained fitness professional who can help you devise a safe and effective regimen.

Unfortunately, many public health guidelines still focus only on the aerobic aspects of exercise, and this exclusive focus can lead to imbalances that may actually prevent optimal health.

It’s important to include a large variety of techniques in your exercise routine, such as strength training, aerobics, core-building activities, and stretching. Most important of all, however, is to make sure you include high-intensity, burst-type exercise, once or twice a week, in which you raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, and then you recover for 90 seconds. These exercises can increase your body’s natural production of human growth hormone.

Compelling Evidence in Support of Exercise as Cancer Prophylactic

In the 1980s the notion that exercise may help prevent cancer started getting its due attention. According to a study published 12 years ago in the British Medical Journal,3 which explored the relationship between exercise and cancer, exercise affects several biological functions that may directly influence your cancer risk. These effects include changes in:

Cardiovascular capacity Energy balance
Pulmonary capacity Immune function
Bowel motility Antioxidant defense
Hormone levels DNA repair

 

In 2003, a paper in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise4 reported that “more than a hundred epidemiologic studies on the role of physical activity and cancer prevention have been published.” The authors noted that:

“The data are clear in showing that physically active men and women have about a 30-40 percent reduction in the risk of developing colon cancer, compared with inactive persons … With regard to breast cancer, there is reasonably clear evidence that physically active women have about a 20-30 percent reduction in risk, compared with inactive women. It also appears that 30-60 min·d-1 of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity is needed to decrease the risk of breast cancer, and that there is likely a dose-response relation.”

Cancer Groups Recommend Making Exercise Part of Standard Care

In recent years, a number of cancer groups have started taking exercise seriously. For example, a recent report issued by the British organization Macmillan Cancer Support5 argues that exercise really should be part of standard cancer care. It recommends that all patients getting cancer treatment should be told to engage in moderate-intensity exercise for two and a half hours every week, stating that the advice to rest and take it easy after treatment is an outdated view.

According to Ciaran Devane, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support:7

“Cancer patients would be shocked if they knew just how much of a benefit physical activity could have on their recovery and long term health, in some cases reducing their chances of having to go through the grueling ordeal of treatment all over again…”

Indeed, the reduction in risk for recurrence is quite impressive. Previous research has shown that breast and colon cancer patients who exercise regularly have half the recurrence rate than non-exercisers.8 Macmillan Cancer Support also notes that exercise can help you to mitigate some of the common side effects of conventional cancer treatment, including:

Reduce fatigue and improve your energy levels Manage stress, anxiety, low mood or depression Improve bone health
Improve heart health (some chemotherapy drugs and radiotherapy can cause heart problems later in life) Build muscle strength, relieve pain and improve range of movement Maintain a healthy weight
Sleep better Improve your appetite Prevent constipation

Exercise Tips for Cancer Patients

I would strongly recommend you read up on my Peak Fitness program, which includes high-intensity exercises that can reduce your exercise time while actually improving your benefits.

Now, if you have cancer or any other chronic disease, you will of course need to tailor your exercise routine to your individual circumstances, taking into account your fitness level and current health. Often, you will be able to take part in a regular exercise program — one that involves a variety of exercises like strength training, core-building, stretching, aerobic and anaerobic — with very little changes necessary. However, at times you may find you need to exercise at a lower intensity, or for shorter durations.

Always listen to your body and if you feel you need a break, take time to rest.

Just remember that exercising for just a few minutes a day is better than not exercising at all, and you’ll likely find that your stamina increases and you’re able to complete more challenging workouts with each passing day. In the event you are suffering from a very weakened immune system, you may want to exercise at home instead of visiting a public gym. But remember that exercise will ultimately help to boost your immune system, so it’s very important to continue with your program, even if you suffer from chronic illness or cancer.

That said, if your body will not allow you to exercise, either due to pain or worsening of your underlying condition, then you have no practical option but to honor your body’s signals and exercise less. Even though your body desperately needs the exercise to improve, you will only get worse if you violate your current limitations.

Protein Intake Also Crucial for Cancers

I recently interviewed Dr. Ron Rosedale for nearly fifteen hours and i hope to be able to start posting those articles very soon. He is one of the first physicians in the U.S. that started measuring leptin levels clinically and was far ahead of the curve on this one. In our interview, he helped me understand the major importance that excessive protein intake can have on cancer growth.

The mTOR pathway is short for mammalian target of rapamycin. This pathway is ancient but relatively recently appreciated and has only been known for less than 20 years. Odds are very high your doctor was never taught this is medical school and isn’t even aware of it. Many new cancer drugs are actually being targeted to use this pathway. Drugs using this pathway have also been given to animals to radically extend their lifespan. But you don’t have to use drugs to get this pathway to work for you.

You can biohack your body and merely restrict your protein intake and replace the decreased protein with healthy fats as this will provide virtually identical benefits as these dangerous and expensive drugs.

Eating excessive protein can be an additional synergistically powerful mechanism. Dr. Rosedale believes that when you consume protein in levels higher than one gram of protein per kilogram of LEAN body mass you can activate the mTOR pathway, which will radically increase your risk of cancers. It is very easy to consume excess protein and my guess is that most people reading this are. I know I was, and as a result of this new insight I have reduced my protein intake by about half.

To determine your lean body mass find out your percent body fat and subtract from 100. So if you are 20% body fat you would have 80% lean body mass. Just multiply that times your current weight to get lean body mass. For most people this means restricting protein intake from 35 to 75 grams. Pregnant women and those working out extensively need about 25% more protein though.

Of course when you reduce protein you need to replace it with other calories, so the key is to replace the lost calories with high-quality fats such as avocados, butter, coconut oil, olives, olive oil, nuts and eggs. It is also very helpful to avoid eating anything for three hours before going to bed as this allows you to have relatively low blood sugars while you are sleeping. This is another good trick to move your body to fat burning mode.

Nearly everyone is primarily in carb burning mode because of the amount of carbohydrate content that they consume. The beauty of shifting over to fat burning mode is that it virtually eliminates hunger. Intermittent fasting is one way to help achieve this, but radically cutting back on non-vegetable carbs is also very important. Coconut oil is particularly useful to use in making the transition to fat burning mode as it is primarily short and medium chain fats which break down very quickly and can be used as an energy source which is important for countering the decreased energy and other physical challenges that many encounter in the several weeks it typically takes to make the transition to fat burning mode .

Cancer Prevention Begins with Your Lifestyle Choices

While exercise is an important facet of cancer prevention and treatment, it’s certainly not the only one. I believe the vast majority of all cancers could be prevented by strictly applying the healthy lifestyle recommendations below:

  • Avoid sugar, especially fructose. All forms of sugar are detrimental to health in general and promote cancer. Fructose, however, is clearly one of the most harmful and should be avoided as much as possible.
  • Optimize your vitamin D. Vitamin D influences virtually every cell in your body and is one of nature’s most potent cancer fighters. Vitamin D is actually able to enter cancer cells and trigger apoptosis (cell death). If you have cancer, your vitamin D level should be between 70 and 100 ng/ml. Vitamin D works synergistically with every cancer treatment I’m aware of, with no adverse effects. I suggest you try watching my one-hour free lecture on vitamin D to learn more.
  • Limit your protein. Newer research has emphasized the importance of the mTOR pathways. When these are active, cancer growth is accelerated. The best way to quiet this pathway is by limiting your protein to one gram of protein per kilogram of lean body weight, or roughly a bit less than half a gram of protein per every pound of lean body weight. For most people this ranges between 40 and 70 grams of protein a day, which is about 2/3 to half of what they are currently eating.
  • Avoid unfermented soy products. Unfermented soy is high in plant estrogens, or phytoestrogens, also known as isoflavones. In some studies, soy appears to work in concert with human estrogen to increase breast cell proliferation, which increases the chances for mutations and cancerous cells.
  • Improve your insulin and leptin receptor sensitivity. The best way to do this is by avoiding sugar and grains and restricting carbs to mostly fiber vegetables. Also making sure you are exercising, especially with Peak Fitness.
  • Maintain a healthy body weight. This will come naturally when you begin eating right for your nutritional type and exercising. It’s important to lose excess body fat because fat produces estrogen.
  • Drink a pint to a quart of organic green vegetable juice daily. Please review my juicing instructions for more detailed information.
  • Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil. Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
  • Curcumin. This is the active ingredient in turmeric and in high concentrations can be very useful adjunct in the treatment of cancer. For example, it has demonstrated major therapeutic potential in preventing breast cancer metastasis.9 It’s important to know that curcumin is generally not absorbed that well, so I’ve provided several absorption tips here.
  • Avoid drinking alcohol, or at least limit your alcoholic drinks to one per day.
  • Avoid electromagnetic fields as much as possible. Even electric blankets can increase your cancer risk.
  • Avoid synthetic hormone replacement therapy, especially if you have risk factors for breast cancer. Breast cancer is an estrogen-related cancer, and according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer rates for women dropped in tandem with decreased use of hormone replacement therapy. (There are similar risks for younger women who use oral contraceptives. Birth control pills, which are also comprised of synthetic hormones, have been linked to cervical and breast cancers.)

If you are experiencing excessive menopausal symptoms, you may want to consider bioidentical hormone replacement therapy instead, which uses hormones that are molecularly identical to the ones your body produces and do not wreak havoc on your system. This is a much safer alternative.

  • Avoid BPA, phthalates and other xenoestrogens. These are estrogen-like compounds that have been linked to increased breast cancer risk
  • Make sure you’re not iodine deficient, as there’s compelling evidence linking iodine deficiency with certain forms of cancer. Dr. David Brownstein10, author of the book Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It, is a proponent of iodine for breast cancer. It actually has potent anticancer properties and has been shown to cause cell death in breast and thyroid cancer cells.

For more information, I recommend reading Dr. Brownstein’s book. I have been researching iodine for some time ever since I interviewed Dr. Brownstein as I do believe that the bulk of what he states is spot on. However, I am not at all convinced that his dosage recommendations are correct. I believe they are too high.

  • Avoid charring your meats. Charcoal or flame broiled meat is linked with increased breast cancer risk. Acrylamide—a carcinogen created when starchy foods are baked, roasted or fried—has been found to increase cancer risk as well.

Source: Dr. Mercola