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Many athletes who are injured performing their specific sport or physical activity, frequently seek treatment from chiropractors. Chiropractic care focuses on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of injuries and conditions affecting the musculoskeletal and nervous system. While chiropractic is a safe and effective form of conservative care for a variety of ailments, chiropractic can also be utilized to enhance athletic performance.
by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness
Australian researchers have found that a diet high in saturated fat is a prime suspect in the onset of osteoarthritis after finding that it changes the composition of cartilage, especially in the weight-bearing joints of the hip and knee.
“Our findings suggest that it’s not wear and tear but diet that has a lot to do with the onset of osteoarthritis,” said lead researcher Professor Yin Xiao.
In possibly the first study to investigate the link between osteoarthritis and common dietary fatty acids, scientists at the Queensland University of Technology studied the effects of diets rich in a variety of fatty acids, found in butter, coconut oil, palm oil, and animal fat, and simple carbohydrates. Simple carbs found in sugar, corn syrup, and high-fructose corn syrup and the combination of high-fat, high-carb foods are commonly known as “junk food.”
“The main function of cartilage is to seal the bone ends in a joint and absorb pressure on the bones during weight-bearing movement such as walking,” said Xiao.
“We found that a diet containing simple carbohydrates together with 20 percent saturated fats produced osteoarthritic-like changes in the knee.
“Saturated fatty acid deposits in the cartilage change its metabolism and weaken the cartilage, making it more prone to damage. This would, in turn, lead to osteoarthritic pain from the loss of the cushioning effect of cartilage.
“We also found changes in the bone under the cartilage on a diet rich in saturated fat.”
But when the team tested lauric acid, a saturated fatty acid found in coconut oil, their findings were different. “Interestingly, when we replaced the meat fat in the diet with lauric acid we found decreased signs of cartilage deterioration and metabolic syndrome so it seems to have a protective effect,” said researcher Sunder Sekar.
He said fatty acids could cause tissue inflammation throughout the entire joint. “We tested a variety of saturated fats and found that long term use of animal fat, butter, and palm oil could weaken the cartilage.
“Replacement of traditional diets containing coconut-derived lauric acid with palm oil-derived palmitic acid or animal fat-derived stearic acid has the potential to worsen the development of both metabolic syndrome and osteoarthritis,” Sekar said.
Other studies have found that coconut oil benefits the body in many ways, including reducing the deep abdominal fat that’s a risk for heart disease, and reducing the buildup of proteins in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s.
by Dr Alex Jimenez | Fitness, Wellness
Life is busy. It can feel impossible to move toward your dreams. If you have a full-time job and kids, it�s even harder.
How do you move forward?
If you don�t purposefully carve time out every day to progress and improve?�?without question, your time will get lost in the vacuum of our increasingly crowded lives. Before you know it, you�ll be old and withered?�?wondering where all that time went.
As Professor Harold Hill has said?�?�You pile up enough tomorrows, and you�ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.�
Rethinking Your Life &�Getting Out Of Survival�Mode
This article is intended to challenge you to rethink your entire approach to life. The purpose is to help you simplify and get back to the fundamentals.
Sadly, most people�s lives are filled to the brim with the nonessential and trivial. They don�t have time to build toward anything meaningful.
They are in survival mode. Are you in survival mode?
Like Bilbo, most of us are like butter scraped over too much bread. Unfortunately, the bread is not even our own, but someone else�s. Very few have taken the time to take their lives into their own hands.
It was social and cultural to live our lives on other people�s terms just one generation ago. And many millennials are perpetuating this process simply because it�s the only worldview we�ve been taught.
However, there is a growing collective-consciousness that with a lot of work and intention?�?you can live every moment of your life on your own terms.
You are the designer of your destiny.
You are responsible.
You get to decide. You must decide?�?because if you don�t, someone else will. Indecision is a bad decision.
With this short morning routine, your life will quickly change.
It may seem like a long list. But in short, it�s really quite simple:
- Wake up
- Get in the zone
- Get moving
- Put the right food in your body
- Get ready
- Get inspired
- Get perspective
- Do something to move you forward
Let�s begin:
1. Get A Healthy 7+ Hours of�Sleep
Let�s face it?�?Sleep is just as important as eating and drinking water. Despite this, millions of people do not sleep enough and experience insane problems as a result.
The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) conducted surveys revealing that at least 40 million Americans suffer from over 70 different sleep disorders. Not only that, 60 percent of adults, and 69 percent of children, experience one or more sleep problems a few nights or more during a week.
In addition, more than 40 percent of adults experience daytime sleepiness severe enough to interfere with their daily activities at least a few days each month?�?with 20 percent reporting problem sleepiness a few days a week or more.
On the flipside, getting a healthy amount of sleep is linked to:
- Increased memory
- Longer life
- Decreased inflammation
- Increased creativity
- Increased attention and focus
- Decreased fat and increased muscle mass with exercise
- Lower stress
- Decreased dependence on stimulants like caffeine
- Decreased risk of getting into accidents
- Decreased risk of depression
- And tons more� google it.
The rest of this blog post is worthless if you don�t make sleep a priority. Who cares if you wake up at 5 o�clock A.M. if you went to bed three hours earlier?
You won�t last long.
You may use stimulants to compensate, but that isn�t sustainable. In the long-run, your health will fall apart. The goal needs to be long-term sustainability.
2. Prayer & Meditation To Facilitate Clarity & Abundance
After waking from a healthy and restful sleep session, prayer and meditation are crucial for orienting yourself toward the positive. What you focus on expands.
Prayer and meditation facilitate intense gratitude for all that you have. Gratitude is having an abundance mindset. When you think abundantly, the world is your oyster. There is limitless opportunity and possibility for you.
People are magnets. When you�re grateful for what you have, you will attract more of the positive and good. Gratitude is contagious.
Gratitude may be the most important key to success. It has been called the mother of all virtues.
If you start every morning putting yourself in a space of gratitude and clarity, you will attract the best the world has to offer, and not get distracted.
3. Hard Physical�Activity
Despite endless evidence of the need for exercise, only one-third of American men and women between the ages of 25 to 64 years engage in regular physical activity according to the Center for Disease Control�s National Health Interview Survey.
If you want to be among the healthy, happy, and productive people in the world, get in the habit of regular exercise. Many people go immediately to the gym to get their body moving. I have lately found that doing yard work in the wee hours of the morning generates an intense inflow of inspiration and clarity.
Whatever your preference, get your body moving.
Exercise has been found to decrease your chance of depression, anxiety, and stress. It is also related to higher success in your career.
If you don�t care about your body, every other aspect of your life will suffer. Humans are holistic beings.
4. Consume 30 Grams Of�Protein
Donald Layman, professor emeritus of nutrition at the University of Illinois, recommends consuming at least 30 grams of protein for breakfast. Similarly, Tim Ferriss, in his book, The 4-Hour Body, also recommends 30 grams of protein 30 minutes after waking up.
According to Tim, his father did this and lost 19 pounds in one month.
Protein-rich foods keep you full longer than other foods because they take longer to leave the stomach. Also, protein keeps blood-sugar levels steady, which prevents spikes in hunger.
Eating protein first decreases your white carbohydrate cravings. These are the types of carbs that get you fat. Think bagels, toast, and donuts.
Tim makes four recommendations for getting adequate protein in the morning:
- Eat at least 40% of your breakfast calories as protein
- Do it with two or three whole eggs (each egg has about 6g protein)
- If you don�t like eggs, use something like turkey bacon, organic pork bacon or sausage, or cottage cheese
- Or, you could always do a protein shake with water
For people who avoid dairy, meat, and eggs, there are several plant-based proteins. Legumes, greens, nuts, and seeds all are rich in protein.
5. Take A Cold�Shower
Tony Robbins starts every morning by jumping into a 57-degree Fahrenheit swimming pool.
Why would he do such a thing?
Cold water immersion radically facilitates physical and mental wellness.When practiced regularly, it provides long-lasting changes to your body�s immune, lymphatic, circulatory and digestive systems that improve the quality of your life. It can also increase weight-loss because it boosts your metabolism.
A 2007 research study found that taking cold showers routinely can help treat depression symptoms often more effectively than prescription medications. That�s because cold water triggers a wave of mood-boosting neurochemicals which make you feel happy.
There is of course, an initial fear of stepping into a cold shower. Without a doubt, if you�ve tried this before, you have found yourself standing outside the shower dreading the thought of going in.
You may have even talked yourself out of it and said, �Maybe tomorrow.� And turned the hot water handle before getting in.
Or, maybe you jumped in but quickly turned the hot water on?
What has helped me is thinking about it like a swimming pool. It�s a slow painful death to get into a cold pool slowly. You just need to jump in. After 20 seconds, you�re fine.
It�s the same way with taking a cold shower. You get in, you heart starts beating like crazy. Then, after like 20 seconds, you feel fine.
To me, it increases my willpower and boosts my creativity and inspiration. While standing with the cold water hitting my back, I practice slowing my breathing and calming down. After I�ve chilled out, I feel super happy and inspired. Lots of ideas start flowing and I become way motivated to achieve my goals.
Plus, it�s healthy to do something in the morning that kind of freaks you out! Get�s you feeling alive and sets the tone for living outside your comfort zone!
6. Listen To/Read Uplifting Content
Ordinary people seek entertainment. Extraordinary people seek education and learning. It is common for the world�s most successful people to read at least one book per week. They are constantly learning.
I can easily get through one audiobook per week by just listening during my commute to school and while walking on campus.
Taking even 15�30 minutes every morning to read uplifting and instructive information changes you. It puts you in the zone to perform at your highest.
Over a long enough period of time, you will have read hundreds of books. You�ll be knowledgeable on several topics. You�ll think and see the world differently. You�ll be able to make more connections between different topics.
7. Review Your Life�Vision
Your goals should be written down?�?short term and long term. Taking just a few minutes to read your life vision puts your day into perspective.
If you read your long term goals every day you will think about them every day. If you think about them every day, and spend your days working toward them, they�ll manifest.
Achieving goals is a science. There�s no confusion or ambiguity to it. If you follow a simple pattern, you can accomplish all of your goals, no matter how big they are.
A fundamental aspect of that is writing them down and reviewing them every single day.
8. Do At Least One Thing Towards Long-Term Goals
Willpower is like a muscle that depletes when it is exercised. Similarly, our ability to make high quality decisions becomes fatigued over time. The more decisions you make, the lower quality they become?�?the weaker your willpower.
Consequently, you need to do the hard stuff first thing in the morning. The important stuff.
If you don�t, it simply will not get done. By the end of your day, you�ll be exhausted. You�ll be fried. There will be a million reasons to just start tomorrow. And you will start tomorrow?�?which is never.
So your mantra becomes: The worst comes first. Do that thing you�ve been needing to do. Then do it again tomorrow.
If you take just one step toward you big goals every day, you�ll realize those goals weren�t really far away.
Conclusion
After you�ve done this, no matter what you have for the rest of your day, you�ll have done the important stuff first. You�ll have put yourself in a place to succeed. You�ll have inched toward your dreams.
Because you�ll have done all these things, you�ll show up better in life. You�ll be better at your job. You�ll be better in your relationships. You�ll be happier. You�ll be more confident. You�ll be more bold and daring. You�ll have more clarity and vision.
Your life will shortly change.
You can�t have mornings like this consistently without waking up to all that is incongruent in your life. Those things you despise will meet their demise. They�ll disappear and never return.
You�ll quickly find you�re doing the work you�re passionate about.
Your relationships will be passionate, meaningful, deep, and fun!
You will have freedom and abundance.
The world, and the universe, will respond to you in beautiful ways.
Call Today!
Source:
Thrive Global
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by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness
One in three Americans is overweight and another third are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But while carrying too many extra pounds can increase your risk for heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers, health experts say a little bit of flab may actually be healthy.
But there is a kind of “Goldilocks Effect” — not too much, not too little — when it comes to body fat.
“Researchers have concluded that fat is actually a vital organ that releases hormones and sends special signals to the brain,” notes Dr. Holly Lucille, ND, RN. “Fat is an important macro nutrient and like any other macro nutrient, the quality makes a difference. Having the right kind of fat on your body is both protective and important.”
Jeffrey Friedman, a molecular biologist at Rockefeller University was among the first scientists back in the 1980s to discover that there was more to fat than merely storing calories. In his experiments with mice, he found that fat produces a hormone called leptin which is released into the bloodstream and binds with the areas in our brain that are responsible for appetite.
His lab’s obese mice had a genetic defect in their fat that prevented the manufacture of leptin which gave them the signal to stop eating. Humans with the same genetic defect can eventually eat themselves into obesity and premature death.
So, losing weight becomes a double-edged sword. When we lose fat, we lower our levels levels of leptin, the appetite off switch, and we become hungrier than before.
Leptin also affects our muscles and thyroid hormones so that lower levels of leptin slow down our metabolism. This combined effect drives us to regain weight. It may also explain why extreme dieters who lose vast amounts of weight in short periods of time nearly always gain it all back — and then some, scientists say.
Scientists also know that fat affects the size of our brains. People who are genetically leptin-deficient have smaller brain volume in some areas as do patients who are suffering from eating disorders such as anorexia which leave them malnourished. Leptin is also helpful in healing wounds and strengthens our immune system by activating T-cells.
“What’s important is the quantity and quality of your stored fat,” Lucille tells Newsmax Health. “The ‘good’ type of fat is called subcutaneous and is found directly under our skin in places such as our abdomen thighs, buttocks, and arms.”
Subcutaneous fat is easy to grab with your hand and tends to shift as the body changes position.
The so-called “bad” type of fat is visceral fat which is stored under the stomach wall, nestled against our internal organs. This type of fat can become inflamed and lead to diabetes and heart disease. It tends to be firmer and dense.
But experts warn that excess body fat of either kind is unlikely to be health-promoting. It’s important to keep fat levels at their optimal levels which can vary according to age and sex.
In general, women with more than 30 percent body fat are considered to be overweight and for men, the threshold is more than 25 percent.
Dr. Cate Shanahan, author of “Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food,” tells Newsmax Health that women, especially need a body composition of at least 10-12 percent fat in order to produce enough estrogen to cycle regularly and to maintain normal libido.
And as we age, a little more fat can enhance our looks.
“As we age we lose that facial body fat and our hormones simultaneously fall,’ she says. “Body fat helps support normal estrogen levels and therefore contributes to normal bone density — a critical factor in healthy aging after the age of 65.
“But that minimum percentage must be subcutaneous fat. When the visceral fat reaches more than 2 percent of our body composition it can lead to poor insulin sensitivity and potentially the beginnings of diabetes.”
The good news is that the “good” fat can fight the “bad” fat. By making a substance called adiponectin, subcutaneous fat helps take circulating fats out of your veins and into the subcutaneous tissues where they belong.
This hormone also reduces visceral fat. Exercise helps release adiponectin which is why sumo wrestlers can be both fat and fit. They exercise seven hours daily which keeps their visceral fat under control.
Experts say we should embrace the new science of fat, and Shanahan quotes an old French proverb that praises fat more poetically: “After a certain age a woman must choose between guarding her figure at the price of a hollow face.”
“I think the take away message of the new research is that we must keep a healthy level of fat to reduce our risk of disease while maintaining optimal body function,” notes Shanahan. “But don’t rationalize and run with the theory that eating bad fats are good for your health. You still need to choose your fats wisely and keep them within healthy levels.”
