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June 2009 - Posts
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Dr. Lipman kicks off Week 5 by reminding us that, until now, we have focused on making changes to improve our diet, exercise and posture, and sleep. `Balance’ focuses on our core, including our spirit.
This week includes probably the fewest recommendations around food and supplements. In Daily Beat 29, we learn about the hazards of mercury in fish and learn an astonishing fact – when we eat fish we absorb more than 95% of the mercury in that fish. The book provides a thorough list of the fish we should and should not eat, and how frequently. The “good” fish include anchovies, black cod, wild salmon (not farm raised) and canned sardines (see pages 172 and 173 for the full list). Nutritionist Rebecca Mohning will be doing a nutritional review of salmon in tomorrow’s blog.
Much of the focus in this week is on exercises for the mind and spirit. Daily Beat 31 provides an interesting perspective on how our perceptions can affect our level of Spent. Since we can’t change the external environment, the author supports us viewing things through different lenses – this is an exercise he refers to as “thinking again.” By doing this, we can feel more positive and happy, as well as less stressed.
Daily Beat 34 further supports the idea of changing our feelings, by using touch to feel happier and make others feel happier. For example, he recommends we hug a friend, snuggle with our children or even pat people on the back. The final Daily Beat which supports the whole mental well-being part of Spent is 35 – Forgive. The reason forgiveness is mentioned is that, while we can do exercises (both physical and breathing) to relieve tension, we need to choose to get rid of resentment. Most importantly, we need to forgive ourselves for our mistakes.
Finally, I wanted to draw attention to Dr. Lipman’s favorite yoga pose, the Supta Baddha Konasana on pages 196 and 197. It’s difficult to explain in a blog, so I recommend checking it out in his book or online. But essentially, it is a lying down post that is an excellent way to relax and is supposed to be very good for stress and exhaustion.
On Thursday, Dr. Tony will talk even further about Balance. And next Tuesday, we’ll start the last week in the program, Week 6 (Sustain).
Finally, it’s my pleasure to announce that starting this Friday, July 3, Dr. Lipman will post three weekly Friday guest blogs on Ignite. If you have any questions for him, please feel free to post a comment to his blog for him to answer.
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The theme of Week 4 – Release is to “check-in” with yourself and ask honest questions about your feelings now that you have completed half of the “Six Weeks of Healing” course. Dr. Lipman notes that your body may feel better, more energized, perhaps you feel slimmer if you lost weight or your blood-pressure and pulse may even be lower.
Whatever your body is feeling, it is important to note that your mind may still be very busy with day to day events, cluttered with thoughts and just a bit exhausted. This is to be expected because the mind is the “hardest part of the body to adjust” according to yoga experts. He recommends that we avoid over-exertion at this time and just take more time to enjoy random unstructured activities and even take a day off from the daily beats. Part of this relaxation process also includes laughing at ourselves, laughing with others and not taking ourselves too seriously because we are mere mortals.
Daily Beat 25 – Fight Chair Body was enlightening because it helps us understand the excessive trauma or stress we put on our muscles and bone structure – such as hip, back and neck joints – when we sit all day. It clearly creates tension, muscle aches and imbalance to our body. This chapter notes the importance of physical movement to counter-balance the muscle-joint fatigue that sets in. The former Chief Medical Officer for the Lumenos health plans, Dr. Mike Parkinson, would fully agree with these recommendations and I can recall him stating that any kind of activity or movement is just as important as structured exercise.
The NEAT study (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) at the Mayo Clinic showed that your daily movements and walking around was equal to or better exercise than working out at the gym for an hour. I have included the following excerpt from Dr. Levine’s web site http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/levine_lab/ at the Mayo Clinic:
You can expend calories in one of two ways. One is to go to the gym and the other is through all the activities of daily living called NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis). It appears that NEAT is far more important for calorie-burning than exercise in nearly everyone.
Even lean individuals store at least two to three months of their energy needs in adipose tissue whereas obese persons can carry a year's worth of their energy needs. It is the cumulative impact of energy imbalance over months and years that results in the development of obesity or undernutrition.
Daily Beat 27 – Eat Seasonally, is also very interesting to see how Dr. Lipman relates our natural eating patterns and the availability of seasonal foods to our genetic evolution as hunters and gatherers. He notes that our bodies had to adjust to seasonal foods because of long periods of famine. Researchers have actually proposed the “thrifty gene theory” to show how our bodies would store energy in fat tissue as a very efficient way to withstand long periods of famine. Our innate and natural rhythms seem to do better when we seek seasonal fruits and vegetables just like our evolutionary ancestors did.
As you read Chapter 4 – Release, make sure to take some time to laugh, get up off your chair and find some local seasonal fruits. Next week we’ll discuss Week 5 – Balance.
Dr. Tony Linares
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During the Spent program Week 3 (Release) we’re talking about eating seasonally. A wonderful food that works best only during the summer is gazpacho. It uses one of the most popular summer vegetables, the tomato.
Compared to many other soups, gazpacho is the most nutritional, because the main ingredient is the tomato. Tomatoes are the main source for lycopene, an antioxidant that is absorbed more readily in the presence of fat, which is provided by the olive oil in gazpacho. Tomatoes are also an excellent source of vitamin C, vitamin A, and vitamin K. They are a very good source of potassium, fiber, and vitamin B. In gazpacho, besides the lycopene, vitamin C and other antioxidants in the tomatoes, you also get a hearty dose of disease-fighting phytochemicals from the bell pepper, garlic and onions.
The best news about the soup is that it only has 46 calories per cup and very little fat. It also has 7 grams of protein per cup which makes it very satisfying. If you’re looking to eat seasonally, and healthfully, go out this summer and try some soup…or make it yourself.
Rebecca
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This week marks the mid-point of the 6-week Spent program. And Daily Beat 24 acknowledges that our minds might feel very tired at this point. In Dr. Lipman’s experience, he says that once his patients start feeling better through the program, they want to take on even more and more suggestions to feel less Spent. The message I took away from this Daily Beat is two-fold: it’s OK to make mistakes and if you need a day off of the program, take one.
Several of the Daily Beats touch on removing toxins (both food and environmental). In Daily Beat 22, Dr. Lipman makes a strong case for limiting unfermented soy (the Asian cultures we often model our soy eating off of eat 2 teaspoons of soy a day; soy isn’t a total meat replacement). The phytoestrogens in soy can have a hormonal impact, potentially disrupting endocrine and thyroid function. Instead of eating soy in large quantities, he recommends we limit intake to tempeh, miso and wheat-free tamari or soy sauce, which have been fermented.
Similarly, in Daily Beat 26 he recommends limiting our exposure to chemicals – at the end of the section he gives us some hints to think about around our homes, many of which are easy to do right now. For example, he believes everyone should use a water filter, avoid wearing shoes in the house and switch to natural household cleaners. In my own experience, I try never to wear shoes in the house, especially in the spring with all the pollen on the ground. This Daily Beat served as a reminder that even though there may not be visible pollutants, it’s best to leave the outside, outside.
On the flip side of removing toxins from our environment, two of the recommendations focus on what to add back. Daily Beat 27 reminds us how our natural rhythms support us eating seasonally. To this end, Dr. Lipman says, “I do think that eating more complex carbohydrates in the summer and more animal protein, nuts, and root vegetables in the winter is a good idea.” Essentially, our bodies did not evolve to eat the carbohydrates available in the summer year-round. In Daily Beat 23 he talks about probiotics and the benefits for those with digestive problems – these are available in stores and can be added to the smoothie recipes at the end of the book.
Throughout Week 4 there are new and previously discussed restorative exercises recommended. The exercises to fight “chair body” seem easy enough to do in an office setting – I’ve just started incorporating the Piriformis Stretch on page 158 into my routine. In addition, a great way to fight that physical exhaustion and discomfort from sitting all day is with a walk around the building or on the stairs (he recommends 7 minutes of every hour). If there’s nothing else we take away from Week 4, I think this is a hugely helpful recommendation.
On Thursday, Dr. Tony will continue our discussion of Week 4 and next week we move on to learning to have Balance, with Week 5.
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I thought this chapter’s theme provided a simple and concise message – adaptation to a more relaxing environment is a means to finding our natural rhythm. Dr. Lipman makes the point that most of us live on the extremes of social extroversion or self-imposed work related isolation and have difficulty fine-tuning our work-life balance to find inter-personal harmony. Three beats resonated very well with my experience and past research. They include the power of friendships, the power of the sun and the power of music in creating a healthy and preventive care environment.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School recently published an article in the British Medical Journal on the health and happiness benefits of social networks including three degrees of friendship. Nicholas Christakis studied a social network from the Framingham Heart Study (over 20 years) and discovered that a person’s happiness was not only dependent on the happiness of an immediate friend but also on the happiness of the friend’s friend and their friend’s friend’s friend. When you are better connected to happy people, friends, and family your chances of being happy and healthy increase significantly. The article was featured as the cover story for the January 2009 issue of New Scientist and read: “Detox your life – How friends can transform you.”
In Daily Beat 18 we are told that humans “evolved in and under the sun and we are genetically engineered to get sun.” Sunshine is another element that helps regulate our circadian rhythms, metabolism and hormone functions. It is estimated that 35 million Americans may suffer mood disorders during the winter months – also called seasonal affective disorder (SAD) – and a contributing factor is the lack of sunlight during the winter, which is especially prevalent in northern states. Over 75 percent of those affected by SAD are women, and the majority of these individuals are over the age of 30. Some of the symptoms include:
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Increased sleep
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Increased appetite with carbohydrate craving
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Marked increase in weight
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Irritability
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Interpersonal difficulties (especially rejection sensitivity)
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Leaden paralysis (heavy, leaden feelings in arms or legs)
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality practice guidelines recommend light therapy as an effective treatment option for seasonal depression.
Rounding out the relaxation exercises in this chapter was Daily Beat 21 that discussed the use of music by many cultures to help healing and promote well-being. In my own brief research, I was surprised to discover that there is actually an organization that promotes the science of music as medicine and a healing art: the International Society for Music in Medicine. Last year at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association, doctors from University of Maryland School of Medicine showed that “listening to your favorite music may be good for your cardiovascular system.” Dr. Miller presented his research that demonstrated improved blood flow caused by the release of endorphins. Just 30 minutes of enjoyable music each day can lower your systolic blood pressure, relieve stress, and decrease pain. I agree with Dr. Lipman that everyone can use music daily as a health and wellness strategy.
I hope you enjoy Week 3 – Adapt as much as I did and I look forward to Week 4 – Release.
Dr. Tony Linares
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In Week 3 (Adapt) of Spent, the author talks about the virtues of organic meat, poultry and eggs. Organic meat and poultry comes from farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water. Organic farmers must also adhere to a set of standards:
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animals are given no antibiotics, hormones, or growth stimulants;
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animals are treated humanely and given access to outdoors;
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animals must be fed 100% organic feed; and
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animals must graze in certified organic pastures.
So then the question is: do these standards result in a health or nutritional benefit in the meat?
Meat is often raised with the help of hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. These items make their way into the meat and, potentially, into those who eat it. Children and pregnant and lactating women especially should consider eating only organic meats because these individuals tend to be more sensitive to chemical residues.
In terms of nutritional content, both organic and non-organic meats have a considerable amount of fat and cholesterol. However, while organic meats might have the amount of fat comparable to the conventional meats, the fat will have fewer impurities. For example, in comparing beef, grass fed beef is lower in fat and contains higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid and omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids are associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer. In general, there are not any other nutritional and/or calorie differences between organic and non-organic meats and eggs.
While we may not be able to totally limit are exposure to environmental toxins, the bottom line is that choosing organic meats and eggs can help limit the introduction of impurities in our bodies.
Rebecca
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Week 3 of the Spent program is all about helping our bodies adapt to all the changes we are making. As a prelude to this chapter, Dr. Lipman points out how much our bodies have adapted to being Spent – having stress in our lives, not sleeping properly and so on – so our bodies can adapt to these new changes too.
As with Weeks 1 and 2, this week there are several suggestions for eating, including Daily Beat 15 (eliminating dairy). Dr. Lipman states that 10% of people are lactose intolerant, which can cause digestive problems, and many have trouble digesting the casein in dairy. In Daily Beat 19, Dr. Lipman recommends we eat organic, grass-fed meat, poultry and eggs. According to Dr. Lipman, animals that are fed grains vs. grass and other plants and are kept in crowded living quarters have digestive issues which require them to be given antibiotics. The grain diet also lowers nutritional content of the meat – such as vitamin E, beta-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids.
As we know by now, Dr. Lipman’s program includes many restorative exercises, many of which can be done at home before bed. In adapting, we learn the Viparita Karani (page 115-116), an exercise we can do lying down, which is supposed to regular blood pressure and prevent varicose veins (Dr. Lipman recommends this pose after flying as well). The neck and shoulder release (page 125-126) provides additional relief from strain from sitting at a desk. Finally, the neck and cranial release (page 142) is designed to relieve headaches and sinus congestion, by massaging neck and head muscles using a foam roller.
Two of the Daily Beats in this chapter revolve around improving our emotional well-being and spirit. For example, in Daily Beat 17, Dr. Lipman recommends balance in our lives, by spending time alone and with friends. In his experience, he’s found that people who are Spent either stay home alone all the time or go out every night. On one hand, research shows that being alone all the time can harm one’s health, but being out all the time leaves no time for introspection. He recommends a balance between spending time with friends and spending time ourselves. In Daily Beat 20, he provides his thoughts around “returning to the breath.” He feels we can all benefit from meditating, because it allows our minds to recover and our bodies to relax. He reminds us that meditating – including the style of meditating – is very personal, and he provides a technique for meditating in a chair that may be useful for those who are new to the practice.
We’re halfway through the Spent program– if you’re not already incorporating some of these Daily Beats into your routine, now might be the perfect time. This Thursday Dr. Tony will continue the discussion of Week 3 and next week, we’ll start the second half of the program, with Week 4 – Release.
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In this chapter, Dr. Lipman continues the journey of adding good activity and motion while removing bad food items like caffeine and gluten-based products. He takes a similar approach of easing us into the changes, such as identifying the excess energy we use by having poor posture, requiring our digestive system to work harder by eating gluten and taxing our nervous system excessively with caffeine. The central theme still revolves around restoring our natural rhythm by working to resolve the imbalances in our bodies and in our diets.
I enjoyed the section on improving posture to prevent muscle aches, joint pains, neck pain or back pain. It turns out that back pain is the most frequent condition that people seek medical care for and bad posture could be a major reason. This chapter provides a simple test to look for asymmetry or imbalance in our major muscle groups and find aches or tension that need to be corrected. Muscle has a special relationship with the brain because it keeps its own memory. A ballet instructor tells her students that it is important to learn the correct technique in the beginning because muscle memory develops quickly. If they fail to use correct technique at the beginning, they must unlearn the muscle movement and relearn later. It appears that Dr. Lipman is telling us that we must unlearn our bad posture and retrain our muscles to adopt a healthier posture.
It was hard for me to remove caffeine and gluten from my daily diet, but it was easy to follow the instructions in Daily Beat 10 and vitalize my diet with colorful fruits and vegetables that are rich in phytonutrients. In California, so many vegetables and fruits – like strawberries, cherries and apricots – are now in season. It is easy to enjoy fresh fruits and buy at the local market. It is also easy to grow your own garden and get the vegetables one step removed from the land in the freshest condition and highest content of phytonutrients. This week NBC News announced that 43 million families will be growing vegetables in their own garden, which is an increase of 20% from the previous year. That is good news.
When I was in college, I did basic research to identify plant flavonoids (they provide color to corn) and my professor, Dr. Mikula, would tell us about the important role they played in protecting the plants from harmful bacteria or bugs. The researchers at the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition are discovering that some phytonutrients may have protective functions in humans. The more color a plant has, the richer the phytonutrient load and anti-oxidant potential. The researchers have discovered over 20,000 beneficial chemicals in fruits and vegetables. That is a lot of protection!
Along with a good spinal reset and better posture, these are some of the fun facts you will find in this chapter. Next week we will review Week 3 – Adapt.
Dr. Tony Linares
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In continuing our discussion of foods in the book club selection Spent, this week we’re looking at Ezekiel bread.
When it comes to making a healthier choice for which type of bread to buy, there is a lot to consider. Bread should contain whole grains and therefore be a good source of fiber. Bread that is considered to be a good source of fiber has at least 3 grams of fiber per serving. Don’t be fooled when a bread is listed as multigrain or 12 grain, since these grains can be processed and hold very little nutritional value.
Ezekiel bread is a wonderful bread that contains at least 6 whole grains and legumes and is high in fiber. The grains and legumes in this bread are sprouted and form a complete protein. This is similar to the protein found in milk and eggs. According to the company that makes Ezekiel bread, “The protein quality is so high, that it is 84.3% as efficient as the highest recognized source of protein, containing all 9 essential amino acids. There are 18 amino acids present in this unique bread – from all vegetable sources – naturally balanced in nature.”
The 100% whole grain flourless variety of this bread has 80 calories per slice, which is standard for other types of bread. It has 4g of protein, 3g of fiber and 0.5g of fat. You can usually find Ezekiel bread in the frozen section of healthy grocery stores.
Rebecca
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While last week’s book discussion looked at nourishing our bodies – through eating, relaxation and sleep – this week is all about moving. Since some of the symptoms of being Spent include being tired and achy, Dr. Lipman reminds us that moving soothes a sore and tired body.
Daily Beats 8 and 13 contain the most information about movement, including exercise and relaxation. In Daily Beat 8, we learn that having good posture can make you feel more energized. This idea makes a lot of sense when you think about how sometimes you ache after sitting at a desk for a long period of time. Dr. Lipman provides a posture checking exercise on pages 79 and 80, which we can use to test which parts of our bodies may be affected by inadequate posture.
In Daily Beat 13, we get some insight into the Spent approach to exercise. His main belief is that exercise should be done in spurts – bursts of energy followed by rest (he equates this to the way children play). This idea is in tune with our bodily rhythms, where our ancestors’ main source of movement was hunting and gathering. Rather than being a “fanatical exerciser” (pushing oneself to the limit) or a “marathon sitter” (not exercising at all), Dr. Lipman suggests that we exercise in this restorative way. As an added bonus, this should increase our metabolism. He recommends walking 1 minute at a high intensity and then 3-4 minutes at a low intensity, doing this program again and again for 30 minutes.
In addition to movement, this chapter contains several recommendations around eating and nutrition. First, the approach asks us to step down caffeine intake (see page 97 for a way to wean off caffeine with less withdrawal). He strongly advises that during the 6-week program, we remove gluten from our diet (see page 84 for a list of products that contain gluten), substituting it with gluten-free products such as brown rice, quinoa and Ezekiel bread (a grain bread that is flourless and sprouted). In Daily Beat 10, he suggests we include phytonutrients in our diet, including a variety of colors on our plate, greens powder and a multivitamin.
Finally, Daily Beat 14 has a message most people can appreciate – and particularly, those of us who feel Spent – “Don’t Should Yourself.” By constantly thinking about what we should be doing, we are adding more stress and more emotions for us to handle, thereby making us feel even more Spent.
This Thursday, Dr. Tony will share his thoughts on Move and next week we’ll learn about how to Adapt. Until then, happy reading – and I am off to taste some Ezekiel bread.
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“Nourish” is a very appropriate topic for the first week of 7 Daily Beats and the daily discussions support a nice transition to a relatively drastic change from the dietary routines of most people. Dr. Lipman specifically wants to provide daily hints on how to make the lifestyle changes of removing bad or toxic foods each week and adding the more wholesome and nourishing food groups to a daily routine. I fully agree that removing sugars, artificial sweeteners, and highly processed food substances can be very challenging. When you start to read food labels as a habit, it is amazing to see how frequently sugar is listed as a top ingredient. I like the recommendation to add smoothies as a nutritious meal and to eat fruits as snacks instead of cookies or chips. For me, giving up coffee and bread products was the biggest hurdle in the first week.
Dr. Lipman’s reference to the National Cancer Institute study highlights the magnitude of the Spent-related illness in the US: 87% of American families do not follow the recommended intake of fruits and vegetables of 5 to 9 servings per day. He clearly points out that the traditional American diet has already taken a major health toll on most individuals and families. A recent study showed that between 2002 and the end of 2005, the percentage of US kids (tweens and teens) taking medications for diabetes doubled.
The increase was mostly in girls and was not completely explained by obesity alone because the boys had higher obesity rates. We are now also seeing many children taking adult medications for conditions like high cholesterol.
I agree with Dr. Lipman that there is much more research now on the adverse effects of refined sugars. There was a study a few years ago that found the blood sugar level in your body one hour after a meal to be the highest predictor of future diabetes. The higher the levels, the higher the risk; as we learn in Spent, the smaller sugars raise our blood levels faster.
As the book suggests, adequate sleep is very important. Your melatonin levels respond to the daylight and darkness, so it is important to maintain good sleep hygiene and habits. Our bodies have been designed to live in a natural environment and even a person who is blind can sense night and day because of special receptors in the back of the eye that communicate messages of lightness and darkness directly to the brain. Pediatricians will also tell you that children who do not get sufficient sleep will have a tendency toward obesity due to the hormonal imbalance described in this chapter.
We should all seek greater balance in our life and exercise, relaxation/meditation, and restful sleep should be a basic discipline. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine indicated that the number of adults using deep breathing exercises, Yoga, meditation or massage therapy has increased from 2002 to 2007. These are lifestyle changes that are encouraged in the Nourish chapter as you begin to feel more comfortable with your own natural rhythm.
Enjoy your smoothies, do some deep breathing and keep nourishing yourself until we get to the next chapter of Spent – next week, we will be reviewing Week 2 – Move.
Dr. Tony Linares
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This week, the book Spent includes several smoothie recipes, which the author offers as a healthy alternative for breakfast.
Smoothies are a handy way of fitting in lots of nutrition in a simple way. In general, when making a nourishing smoothie be sure to include protein from a protein powder and/or soy milk, skim milk, or yogurt. Avoid added sugar and juices which don’t add nutritional value, but add unwanted calories. A smoothie is smart way to sneak in some of your vegetable servings besides just using fruit. You can choose to use a greens powder or process some vegetables, such as spinach (you won’t even know they are in there).
The Banana Berry Smoothie recipe discussed in Daily Beat 2 includes frozen banana, frozen mixed berries, whey protein powder, greens powder and almond milk, all mixed with filtered water and ice. See page 272 of Spent for the recipe, including proportions. It has only 240 calories and is packed full with 24 grams of protein. This smoothie has as much protein as 3 oz of chicken or 3 cups of milk. The smoothie has 9 grams of fiber from the added fruit, which provides one-third of your daily fiber. There is also 30% of the daily calcium needs in the smoothie. See below for the Nutritional Information.
When making your next smoothie try using different fruits and even some peanut butter for added protein. You can add 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed to add in the omega 3 fatty acids which are good for heart health.
Rebecca
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This week’s reading takes us through the first week of “The Spent Restorative Program.” Each week includes 7 Daily Beats, guiding us through the Spent program. While the focus of Week 1’s Daily Beats are around food, much of the nourishment comes through relaxation and sleep techniques.
The recommendations in this chapter may seem difficult to do all at once, but Dr. Lipman gives us advice around how to make sure we’re not shocking our bodies with these changes. In fact, page 45 asks us to look at our own personal style (perfectionist vs. someone who tends not to persevere) and use that style to figure out how to approach the Spent program in a more personalized way.
Daily Beats 1 and 5 are all about removing the unhealthy foods from our diet that add to our Spent feeling. In Daily Beat 1, he advises us to remove all sugar and artificial sweetener from our diets – this includes white and brown sugar, -ose sugars (fructose, sucrose and so on), sorbitol, etc. (there is a full list on page 43). He provides insight into some of the research around the potential health risks associated with sugar, like chronic diseases including diabetes, arthritis and some forms of cancer. Similarly, Daily Beat 5 recommends removing processed foods from your diet, leading with an explanation of the effects of trans fats (remember, these are the fats that are so bad for our health they’re being banned in cities and states nationwide?). Other refined foods Dr. Lipman suggests we remove include white rice, factory-made bread, commercial cereals, single-serving snack foods and more. Daily Beat 2 provides information on recipes for quick and easy smoothies, which can replace many of our traditional sugar-heavy and processed foods.
In Dr. Lipman’s practice, he often sees patients that complain of achiness – neck, back and shoulders – which is a symptom of being Spent. He believes that if you treat the soft tissues properly, you can prevent overstressing other parts of the body that are compensating for the injured portions. In Daily Beats 3 and 4 we learn some relaxation and releasing techniques, most of which we can do with a few tennis balls and a floor mat and blanket. The Ultimate Neck and Shoulder Release (page 57) is designed to release the fascia (which help muscles change shape and lengthen during movement) and should be done before bed. In addition, Daily Beat 7 provides insight into how to use restorative yoga, calling out two poses (one for morning and one for evening) that are particularly useful for people who are Spent.
As you read this section of the book, you will find many other tips throughout, including the research on how these tips can help you feel less Spent. For example, darkening our bedrooms completely (no TV or light from cell phones and alarm clocks) allows our bodies to create melatonin, which is necessary for our circadian rhythms.
This Thursday, Dr. Tony will provide more insight into Week 1 – Nourish. And next week we will discuss Week 2 – Move. If you haven’t picked up a copy of Spent yet and you are intrigued by the topics we’ve covered so far, there’s still time to join in!
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