Brisk Walk 20 minutes Everyday

Walking is literally the best exercise you can do. For a normal person with no great aspiration of athletic greatness, brisk walking is the best. It will lower your stress, help you to maintain or lower your weight and will make you feel just great! Walking is also a gentle exercise that won’t torment you too much if you hate exercise. Even if you start out with a gentle walk and work up to brisk walking, the walk itself will energize and uplift you. It will help lower your stress and give you a clearer mind to conquer the difficulties you encounter.

A great pedometer will significantly enhance your walking experience. The pedometer will give you some measurement that will cause you to walk more and try harder in order to get more steps or use more calories. Just wearing a pedometer will help increase your everyday movement without any extra effort on your part. Everyone can find 30 minutes in their day to do a good healthy walk. If the weather is an issue, either too hot or too cold, you can use a treadmill indoors. Make the time. Make yourself a priority. You will find that these three improvements to your daily routine will pay huge dividends in how much better you feel and how much better you can cope with the stresses in your life.

Exercise in moderation is necessary to live a really healthy life. If you don't like exercise, a brisk walk isn't really too difficult to learn to cope with. Everyone has the time for a 30 minute daily walk, so make it a priority and it will give you so much more energy to make the rest of your day superb.

Selecting Fats and Oils for Health

One very important influence on our health is our choice of fats and oils in our diet. In general, we should look for oils and fat that are close to what is found in our bodies - mostly saturated and monounsaturated, with only a small amount of polyunsaturated fat. Below is a table showing the percentage of these types of fat in various fats and oils that we eat. The omega-6 and omega-3 fats are also included in the polyunsaturated total in this table. We need small amounts of omega-6 fat, but most people eating a Standard American Diet (SAD) get way too much of this type of fat and that depresses your immune system and increases your chances of getting cancer and heart disease. It's best to avoid fats/oils that have more than about 20 percent as omega-6 and use sparingly fats/oils that are more than about 10 percent omega-6. Oils high in omega-6 are commonly used in processed/packaged foods and in restaurants because they are inexpensive and because of misguided advice to avoid saturated fats. Because of the polyunsaturated bonds, the high omega-6 oils easily go rancid and are easily damaged in processing and cooking. Also be sure to read "Some Typical Questions and Misconceptions on Fats and Oils" by Mary Enig, PhD nutritionist and "The Great Con-ola".

Percentage of Classified Fats for Different Fats and Oils

Fat/oil	Omg-6	Omg-3	Poly	Mono	Sat
Cod liver oil	1.0	20.5	24.5	50.9	24.6
Palm kernel oil	1.7	0.0	1.7	12.1	86.2
Macadamia oil	1.8	0.3	2.1	81.5	16.4
Coconut oil	1.9	0.0	1.9	6.2	91.9
Butter	2.9	0.4	4.0	27.9	68.1
Beef fat (tallow)	3.2	0.6	4.2	43.7	52.1
Sunflower high oleic oil	3.7	0.2	3.9	86.1	10.0
Mutton fat (tallow)	5.7	2.4	8.2	42.4	49.4
Palm oil	9.5	0.2	9.7	38.7	51.6
Olive oil	10.0	0.8	10.8	75.0	14.2
Goose fat	10.3	0.5	11.5	59.4	29.0
Pork fat (lard)	10.7	1.0	11.7	47.2	41.0
Duck fat	12.6	1.0	13.5	51.7	34.8
Avocado oil	13.1	1.0	14.1	73.8	12.1
Flax oil	13.3	55.8	69.0	21.1	9.8
Safflower high oleic oil	15.1	0.0	15.1	78.4	6.5
Almond oil	18.2	0.0	18.2	73.2	8.6
Canola (rape seed) oil	19.2	9.2	28.5	64.1	7.5
Chicken fat	20.4	1.0	21.9	46.9	31.2
Peanut oil	33.6	0.0	33.6	48.6	17.8
Rice bran oil	35.5	1.7	37.2	41.8	21.0
Sesame oil	43.2	0.3	43.6	41.5	14.9
Soybean oil	53.0	7.1	60.0	23.7	16.3
Cottonseed oil	53.9	0.2	54.3	18.6	27.1
Corn oil	56.2	1.2	57.4	29.0	13.6
Sunflower oil	68.8	0.0	68.8	20.4	10.8
Grapeseed oil	72.8	0.1	73.1	16.8	10.0
Safflower oil	78.4	0.0	78.4	15.1	6.5

Compiled from USDA Nutrient Database
Note: about 4 to 6 percent of total fats were unclassified

Table Abbreviations
Omg-6: Omega-6
Omg-3: Omega-3
Poly: Polyunsaturated (including both omega-6 and omega-3)
Mono: Monounsaturated
Sat: Saturated

Avoiding Heart Disease and Cancer

Heart disease and cancer have become the top killers in the most affluent nations of this world. So, what can we do to avoid these killers? Following these simple dietary guidelines should greatly reduce your chances of facing these killers.

1) Minimize sugars and refined carbohydrates and maximize nutrition
2) Minimize omega-6 fats and eliminate artificial trans-fats
3) Get plenty of vitamin D from sunshine and/or diet

Minimize Sugars and Refined Carbohydrates
and Maximize Nutrition

Modern society is so addicted to sugars and refined carbohydrates that most people are in complete denial that these foods could be bad. This problem has only gotten worse because of the pervasive misguided advice to reduce fat and increase carbohydrates in the diet. Even if you want to quit, the addiction is so strong it is very difficult. However, once the addiction is broken, the cravings will end. Getting adequate amounts of good dietary fats and nutrients is the key to breaking sugar addiction. The good fats are mostly saturated and monounsaturated fat - just like the composition of our bodies. These fats help to promote satiation for a longer time and help to reduce the blood sugar spikes and resulting insulin spikes from carbohydrates in the diet. When insulin levels are raised too high too often, insulin resistance begins to develop and can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Be sure and read "Insulin and Its Metabolic Effects" by Dr Ron Rosedale MD for more details. Elevated blood sugar also suppresses the immune system and accelerates aging by increasing the glycation of important molecules. Our immune system is our front line against cancer as well as harmful microbes - so decreasing our immune function is definitely not a good thing! And here is what Dr Rosedale says about glycation:

"Remember, you are what you eat and you most certainly do not want your arteries to become sugarcoated. That is in fact what can happen. Glucose, as it turns out, is a very sticky molecule. It readily combines with many types of critical molecules in our body causing them damage and to malfunction. The process of glucose combining with other molecules is called "glycation" and glycation is now being recognized as one of the most important molecular causes of heart disease and contributing to most, if not all diseases of aging. In fact, when a molecule in your body combines with glucose and that now damaged molecule is not readily replaced by an undamaged molecule, it can turn into what are called advanced glycated end products with the acronym called purposefully and appropriately "AGE's", since they are now thought by scientists to contribute greatly to the damage that we know as "aging". Sugar is used by chefs to "caramelize" cream and other foods. That is, in fact, what happens to us as we age. Ultimately we turn rancid (oxidize) and caramelize (glycate). It is our goal to slow that down."

Eating a variety of nutrient-dense foods will also help to reduce sugar cravings. It may actually be nutrients that the body is craving. Most people don't get enough nutrients from their diet and taking supplements may not be a reliable way to get those nutrients. Foods full of sugar and refined carbohydrates generally have much lower nutrition. So it can be a vicious circle if not broken. Make your calories count!

So, where do you get good fats and good nutrition? The best sources are meat, organs, dairy, and eggs from pastured or wild animals, as well as organic vegetables and limited amounts of heritage whole grains, fruits, and nuts. These are the foods that our healthy ancestors ate. Pastured animal fats are mostly saturated and monounsaturated with only small amounts of polyunsaturated fat. Grain-fed animals have higher amounts of polyunsaturated fat, so it is best to find meat and dairy from pastured animals that eat little or no grain. Meat and dairy from grass-fed ruminants also have more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), the only good trans-fat, that helps to fight cancer and heart disease.

Minimize Omega-6 Fats (Linoleic Acid)
and Eliminate Artificial Trans-Fats

Our modern society has also been misled about which types of fat are best for our health. For about the last 30 years we have been told to avoid saturated fat and eat more polyunsaturated fat. Unfortunately this advice has made our health worse, not better. In fact, our healthy ancestors typically ate no more than about 4% to 10% of their calories from polyunsaturated fat and this is a good goal for us today. Saturated fats strengthen our immune system. We need small amounts of polyunsaturated omega-6 fat in our diet, but too much suppresses the immune system and promotes cancer and heart disease, as discussed in more detail by health researcher Barry Groves, PhD in this article: "Polyunsaturated oils increase cancer risk".

Artificial trans-fats are made from hydrogenating polyunsaturated fats. Now, even the "health authorities" agree that trans-fats are bad, even though not long ago they were promoting margarines laden with trans-fats. Even small amounts of artificial trans-fats can increase your chances for heart disease, so eliminating them from your diet is ideal. They are found in many packaged and processed foods and also in many fried foods and deserts at restaurants. Ideally, make your own food from fresh ingredients. However, if you do buy packaged or processed foods, reject any foods that have "hydrogenated" in the ingredients list. When you eat out, don't eat fried foods or most deserts. The deserts are high in sugar anyway :)

Get Plenty of Vitamin D from Sunshine and/or Diet

Most people are deficient in vitamin D, but adequate vitamin D is critical for our health. Recent research has shown that people with low levels of vitamin D are much more prone to cancer. Additional research also indicates that vitamin D deficiency is associated with greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Adequate Vitamins A, D, and K2 are also necessary for proper calcium metabolism, so that calcium goes to our bones and teeth and not in excess to our blood vessels and tissues. Together, vitamins A and D also help to strengthen our immune system.

Our bodies can produce vitamin D from cholesterol if we get enough sunshine. At higher latitudes, this may not be possible most of the year. The best dietary sources of vitamin D are animal fats from pastured or wild animals. One of the best sources is cod liver oil, which is also high in vitamin A and beneficial omega-3 fats. However, not all cod liver oils are created equal. Most have lost most of their natural vitamins in processing and have artificial vitamins added back. If you are interested in taking cod liver oil, be sure to read more about it here.

Shocking Dietary Advice?

For those of you who think cholesterol and saturated fats are your enemy and a low-fat diet is your salvation: THINK AGAIN!

Modern "health authorities" are dishing out poor advice based on garbage "science" pushed by big business interests. Money talks and money is the root of all evil when it comes to these misguided conventional dietary recommendations.

The cholesterol theory of heart disease is based on shoddy "science" that has been promoted by big food companies and pushed by big pharmaceutical companies - the biggest drug pushers in the world! Anthony Colpo's excellent book, "The Great Cholesterol Con" exposes this flawed "science" as a sham. The first major proponent of the cholesterol theory, Ancel Keys, selectively chose six countries that fit his theory to show a correlation between cholesterol and heart disease. However, he conveniently ignored data from eight other countries that did not support his theory. And this is just the beginning tip of the iceberg. Read Anthony Colpo's book for more details on how this unfortunate myth was perpetuated.

Cholesterol is vitally important to our health. It is involved in the body's immune and repair processes and is the precursor to many important hormones as well as vitamin D via sunshine. Elderly people with higher cholesterol levels live longer than those with lower cholesterol levels! There is no real evidence that cholesterol and saturated fat "clog" our arteries to cause heart disease. Evidence more strongly points to oxidation of unsaturated fats and glycation of associated lipoproteins as important factors in heart disease. These lipoproteins also contain cholesterol, but there is no evidence that the cholesterol itself causes any harm. Glycation is aggravated by excess blood sugar that can result from diets high in sugar and refined carbohydrates.

Saturated fats have been falsely accused of causing problems that are more correctly blamed on artificial trans-fats, another recently-invented processed-damaged food. Can you say "hydrogenated"? If you see that word on a label, that food has artificial trans-fats in it. Now even the "health authorities" have finally recognized that artificial trans-fats are bad. Just a few years ago, they were touting margarines loaded with trans-fat as "healthy".

The real culprits in heart disease and even cancer and diabetes appear to be huge increases in sugars and often rancid refined vegetable oils in the modern diet. Our ancestors did not eat these foods. One hundred years ago, heart attacks, cancer, and diabetes were rare - even in the elderly. Lots of sugars and vegetable oils are packaged with modern foods of convenience and heavily advertised, often as "healthy" foods. Low-fat diets for many people contribute to cravings for sweets and ironically, excess sugar is converted into saturated fat by our bodies, leading to obesity. Our healthy ancestors ate good quality animal and dairy fats, with mainly fruits for sweets. Now people are addicted to processed convenient foods laden with sugar and high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners as well as "healthy" vegetable oils (not to mention all the other artificial junk in them). Too much sugar and refined carbohydrates raise insulin levels. Too much insulin causes accelerated aging. Elevated blood sugar and too much polyunsaturated fats from vegetable oils also suppress the immune system and are major factors leading to diabetes and autoimmune diseases. No wonder obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease are running rampant!

So, avoid processed fake foods like the plague! Choose foods that have nurtured our ancestors for thousands of years. The most nutritious foods are meats, organs, and raw dairy from fully pastured or wild animals along with organic vegetables, heritage whole grains, nuts, and fruits. This is what our healthy ancestors ate!

Oh .... please, don't take my word for it. Go to the "Health Links" on the right side bar and read the abundant and compelling information they provide. For some healthy recipe ideas, see the "Healthy Cooking Ideas" links. And if you like to discuss health with like minded people, join us in the "Health Discussion Groups".

Let food be your medicine. Say NO to drugs :)

Food Nutrient Information

Here are some resources for information about nutrients in food.

Search the USDA National Nutrient Database
The USDA has nutrient data for a large number of foods. You can even download their entire data base if you want. They also have convenient Nutrient Lists sorted alphabetically or by nutrient content.

Danish National Food Institute
A much smaller but complimentary nutrient data base with measurements for European foods.

Linus Pauling Institute
Excellent detailed information about nutrients.

Worlds Healthiest Foods
More good information about nutrients in food and a few anti-nutrients. Just ignore their fat phobia and love of soy :)

NutritionData
They offer nutrient data from the USDA data base in a convenient form. Be sure to ignore their misguided conventional dietary advice. They require registration to get full access to their most useful features, but it's free and so far I have not had any spam from giving them my e-mail address. To get summaries of the nutrients in the food you eat, first search for each food item and add it to your "Pantry" by clicking on the "Add to Pantry" button at the top of the food nutrient information. Then go to the "Pantry" (menu selection) and enter the food amounts for a meal or a day's worth of food and click on the "Total +" button at the bottom. All the nutrients are quickly tallied for the foods and amounts you have selected. If you enter or change amounts, it keeps accumulating the results until you click the "Total 0" button at the bottom of the "Pantry" to reset to zero. You can also save "Recipes" for foods or meals you make with multiple items. Overall it's a very powerful, fast, and relatively easy to use system. Too bad they don't have better dietary advice.

FitDay
Offers free online tools to help you monitor your daily nutrition and exercise to meet health goals. I haven't tried it yet but it looks useful. I did look at the tutorial and it looks like FitDay is geared towards weight loss.

Dietary Nutrition Calculator
This is my Excel workbook that allows you to estimate your daily intake of nutrients from the foods you eat. Click the link above for more information.

Dietary Nutrition Calculator

In the quest for good health, getting a nutritious diet is the best foundation. To that end, I have developed an Excel workbook that calculates the approximate amount of nutrients in the food that you choose to eat and compares it to estimated dietary intake references. The nutrient data is primarily from the USDA food nutrient data base, supplemented with some additional data from other sources that are noted. The food nutrient data are very approximate, so this only provides a rough estimate of what is in the food that you eat. Also, nutrient absorption and utilization by the body will vary, depending on the food, combination of foods eaten, and your digestive health status. So, even though the nutrients are in the food, that doesn't necessarily mean that your body will be able to fully utilize them. But at least you have given it the opportunity :)

The Excel workbook has nine worksheets. It opens with the Result sheet, showing a sample week of food pro-rated to a daily basis. The Detail sheet shows even more detail, including individual fatty acids and amino acids. The Input sheet allows you to input the amounts of food that you have eaten or plan to eat. You can use formulas to prorate amounts over a longer time period to a daily basis for comparison to the dietary references. The Calc sheet performs the calculations using the input amounts and the nutrient data in the Data sheet. The Calc sheet can be reviewed to see which foods are contributing what portion of the nutrients in the foods you are eating. The Data sheet has nutrient data per 100 grams of each food. It can be used to compare the nutrient density on a per weight basis between different foods. The Data by Calories sheet has nutrient data per 100 calories of food and can be used to compare nutrients for different foods on a calorie basis. The Load sheet provides assistance for adding additional nutrient data obtained from the USDA food nutrient data base. Follow the instructions on the sheet to load new data. More data loading tips and information are in the Notes sheet. And finally, the BMR sheet will calculate the target number of calories for your ideal weight, based on your height, age, and activity levels. It uses the Harris Benedict Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR) formulas.

Download the Dietary Nutrition Calculator
Click on the link above to download the latest version of the Excel workbook. This link will take you to the MediaFire file hosting site where you can download the Excel file free. Wait for the "Click here to download.." box to appear and then click on that link to download the file to your computer. To return here, use the "back" button on your browser.

Update 2008-12-03: The number of food listings has been expanded to 289 and calculations have been added for percent of calories as PUFA in the Data sheet and calories from PUFA and from total fat in the Data by Calories sheet. Also, the Metabolic Rate sheet terminology was corrected.

Update 2009-09-21: Found a bug in the data input sheet. It was missing peppermint and listings below were not being mapped properly. Fixed this bug and added hazelnuts.

Good luck in your quest for health!

Principles for good health

Some basic guidelines for health and happiness

Diet
Get good nutrition by eating healthy foods
Choose a variety of traditional nutrient-dense foods
Preferably organic, fully pastured, and wild foods
Boost immune system and digestive function with probiotic foods
Avoid sweets, refined carbs, vegetable oils, margarine, trans-fats
Avoid highly processed foods, artificial food additives
Listen to your body

Mind
Nurture a positive attitude
Focus on the good things
Relax and enjoy life
No worries mate :)

Exercise
Get at least 30 minutes of vigorous exercise on most days
Include 10 to 15 minutes of intense exercise several days per week
Interval exercise is best

Environment
Avoid exposure to toxins and anti-nutrients
(in food, water, air, and skin contact)
Drive carefully!

Natural food-based supplements
Use to boost nutrition if diet is inadequate
May be less effective than a good diet

Herbal remedies
Use to treat causes more than symptoms
Reserve for acute illness

Refined supplements
Use to boost nutrition if diet is inadequate
Can be a doubled edged sword if not carefully used
May be less effective than food-based supplements

Refined medicinal remedies
A last resort for acute health problems if all else fails
Will likely have adverse side-effects over time

Count your blessings
Good health is not something to take for granted