The Truth, The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth

Oprah and Friends - update

I thought that the interview with Bob Greene was live for today. My apologies. I was informed to day that this is a taped show on XM Satellite Radio 156 and will air on Feb 20th. More details at www.Oprah.com

A thousand apologies!

Oprah and Friends - Bob Greene show

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I'll be interviewed by Bob Greene on Oprah and Friends, tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon at 1PM EST.We'll be discussing my new book Strong Kids Healthy Kids.

Tune in and listen!

Heart cancer - a thought

Have you ever heard of malignant heart cancer? Neither have I. And you probably never will.

Hypothesis - lack of sugar.

While the heart muscle can use sugar as fuel, many experts claim that the hearts preferred source of fuel is saturated fat and ketone bodies.

In fact, Richard Veech MD has shown that the heart works 28 percent more efficiently using ketones as a fuel than it does using glucose. Therefore, more than likely the experts are right that fat is the 'gas' of the heart.

Cancer needs sugar to survive. No sugar, no cancer. Your liver is the creator of glucose (sugar) and liver cancer is one of the worst forms of cancer you can get. You pretty much don't get better once you have liver cancer.

I tried to help my mother who died of lung cancer a few months ago to adopt a no sugar diet. She didn't or wouldn't. Same for my father who died of liver cancer.

I've noticed that people with cancer eat a lot of sugar -or drink it.

And when you are in the hospital taking chemo to treat your cancer, you tend to lose your appetite. And what does the hospital give you to eat since you do need to eat? They give you a drink called Nutrament. The primary ingredients in Nutrament are carbohydrate and sugar to the tune of 52 grams and 49 grams respectively.

Seems to me the thing to do to help combat cancer is to remove sugar (carbs) from the diet. Eskimo's never got cancer. And they never ate sugar. A coincidence? Maybe, maybe...

Make a change at the USDA

You now have just 1day left to submit comments for consideration at the Jan 29th meeting to change the USDA food/dietary recommendations.

Attachments may accompany your comments.

To submit or view written public comments related to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines revision process, please go here.

Hurry!

Waldorf=Astoria window

It's official - we are now on the window of the Waldorf=Astoria.

If you're interested in training at the W=A, please come and check us out. Email me at FHahn@seriousstrength.com for a complimentary session!

Who's right and who's wrong

A thought...

You go and get your yearly physical.

After reviewing your blood report, the well-meaning, Harvard graduate doctor tells you that your cholesterol level is too high. She tells you you need to be on statin medications to lower your cholesterol level and to eat less eggs and cheese. This bothers you.

You really don't want to takes any medications nor do you want to give up your soft boiled eggs and brie. You've read and heard about the controversy surrounding cholesterol lowering medications so you go to another doctor to get a second opinion.

The second doctor, a well-meaning, Yale graduate says your cholesterol levels are high by current guidelines, but that research reveals that it doesn't really matter that much if at all what your cholesterol levels are. That statin drugs damage your liver and nervous system and that eating eggs and cheese do not raise blood cholesterol levels.

One of them is wrong.

But who?

Outliers

Riding in the car to Michigan over the holidays, I listened to Malcolm Gladwell's new book Outliers. It's a fascinating treatise on how the very successful got that way. According to Gladwell, it's more than just being born with a giant brain or a perfect pitch. It has more to do with your particular set of life circumstances - where and when you were born, what your parents did for a living, what month you were born in, etc.

In other words, just because your IQ is 19 billion it does not necessarily follow you will become a Nobel Laureate or a virtuoso violinist. In fact, you may wind up being nothing more than a bouncer in a bar. Check out Chris Langon.

From a fitness perspective this is an important concept to understand. If fully understood, it would save millions of people from despair and regression in their fitness endeavors. Allow me to explain.

This impossibly 'perfect' man (Frank Zane)

is an Outlier. He inherited or, rather, was born with several rare and unalterable (or attainable) genetic factors like the shape of his skeleton (wide shoulders and narrow ribs), more total muscle fibers, longer than average muscle length and width, low amount of total fat cells, and several other hormonal markers which allowed him to have the body he has. Lifting weights simply amplified these effects.

The same is true for this gal:

Now, I am NOT suggesting in any way that these people are to be envied; nor am I suggesting that these people are perfect or beautiful. I am just pointing out that if these types of bodies are something you are aspiring towards, the chances that you will achieve your goal - or even come remotely close - are slim to none.

These people and those like them are true genetic outliers. They are one in a million. It is not because they eat right, or exercise more, or sleep better, or anything else. If you don't already posses a body like this or close to it you can never have it.

Think of it this way - since there are over 9 billion humans on the earth, if only one half of one percent of all humans inherited the rare set of genetics necessary to have bodies like these people (or even close), this means that there are millions of people with such genetics.

All, and I mean ALL of the 'perfect' people you see in the magazines, on TV, movies, etc. are one of these outliers. It is no different than having extremely blue eyes, full, thick hair, or if you are very tall. It also pertains to the opposite - being bald, short, stocky or freckled. None of these are good or bad mind you - all have their advantages.

So remember, if you are exercising properly (strength training) and eating healthfully (low carb/paleo) you should be able to reach YOUR complete genetic potential in 1-2 years time. What you will see in the mirror at that time will be about as close to YOUR ideal self as possible. Rejoice in this whatever it turns out to be.

Oprah's dilemma

Take a look at this.

It's a story about a well-meaning personal trainer from Canada, Jessica Zapata, who is trying to appeal to Oprah to try her way of training to lose the weight she has regained. Kudos to her for giving it a shot. But Oprah already has a top, expert, veteran trainer by her side named Bob Greene. It is doubtful Bob doesn't know everything Jessica knows and then some.

The interesting thing is though Ms. Zapata is correct that a busy person like Oprah needs to keep her workouts simple and focus on strength training (pretty much like anyone else), her recommendations are anything but simple. In fact, the workouts Zapata recommends are overly complicated, hugely cumbersome and way overkill. If you haven't clicked on the article yet please do so and take a look. Clearly she means well, but I would cut the volume of exercise she suggests in half - at least.

I watch Oprah from time to time. The unfortunate thing for Oprah is that she, like Jessica Zapata and many others, believe that exercise is part of the cure for obesity. It's not and literally has almost nothing to do with it. Sure, be active. Run, skip jump all you like. But it won't do much at all for losing fat. That's a fact. Inactivity is not how we become fat in the first place. We all know lean, inactive people and over fat active people.

So how do we become over fat? I'm going to bold the answer for emphasis:

We become fat mainly because we eat too many carbohydrates.

Fat loss (and gain) is a hormonal game, not a calorie game. And the specific hormone is insulin.

Some people are more susceptible to fat gain due to having a less robust hormonal tone. But ALL people function the same in that eating carbohydrate increases the hormone insulin. One of the main jobs of insulin is to store body fat. In fact, without insulin, you can eat anything you want and you will remain lean.

Of course, without insulin you'll be dead too. But before you die you won't store a molecule of fat.

If Oprah really wants to lose fat and keep it off forever, she needs to eat foods that will not allow her insulin levels to rise too high. And restricting carbohydrate is the key to keeping her insulin levels low. A previous show revealed an eating plan that science would suggest included too many total carbs. Though her choices were smart for being lower on the glycemic scale, she still had far too many total carbs on her menu.

It's this simple. It really is. And again it's science, not my opinion. If she eats the menu she talked about on her show, she's going to have a tough fat loss road ahead. It's not that it can't work the way she is approaching it mind you, but it will be harder to achieve - all the while with a loss of lean mass (muscle and bone) to boot. Her diet is too low in fat and protein to maintain her current lean mass.

Again, this is not my personal opinion - what I am saying is rooted in science. 'Don't shoot me - I'm only the messenger!' as it were. Anyone reading this who disagrees with me and perhaps is getting slightly ticked off by my words I urge you to delve deeper into the current research on the issue. Go here to start your journey.

Call it Atkins. Call it Protein Power. What both these eating plans have in common is science. We've known that restricting carbs is the way to leanness and better health for a century or more. It's nothing new. These two diets are not fad diets at all. The fad diet is actually the current food pyramid which suggests that almost 80% of our calories come from carbohydrates. No wonder there is an obesity/diabetes epidemic!

I hope Oprah succeeds. More than likely she will. But it is far tougher to go the route she is going to travel than the one science suggests she should. We must all be willing to step outside ourselves - our opinions - and take a fresh look at many of the ideas and tenets we hold onto especially when it's painless to do so. Heck, you never know what you might find out.

"Science as a candle in the dark." - Carl Sagan

ABC Eyewitness News

For those of you who missed the Eyewitness News clip here it is.

The people at ABC, especially Michelle Charlesworth, were extremely warm and friendly.

ABC Eyewitness News

Just as a heads up, my daughter and I will be on ABC's Eyewitness News this Sunday morning at 7:45 AM live to promote my new book Strong Kids Healthy Kids.