Four Facts About Fat

Four Facts About Fat
By Joe Wilkes

We always talk about how we want to lose weight. But that’s not really what we mean. When we talk about losing weight, we’re really talking about losing fat, getting rid of the spare tire, turning the keg into a six-pack. It’s about more than getting ready for swimsuit season or squeezing back into your “skinny” jeans, though. (More importantly, it’s about having a healthy body fat amount so we don’t put ourselves at risk for myriad diseases.) After all, our bodies need some fat. Fat is responsible for regulating our body temperature. It insulates our vital organs. It stores energy that our bodies draw on to function. Not to mention, everyone wants a few strategically placed curves, and you can’t get them with just bone and muscle. So, what exactly is a healthy body fat amount?

What is body fat percentage? It’s simple enough. It’s the amount of adipose tissue (body fat) we carry compared to our weight. A 160-pound person who is carrying 32 pounds of fat would be said to have 20 percent body fat. We all want to be working toward an ideal body fat percentage, staying in a range wherein we carry enough fat to feel and look healthy, but not so much that we develop the health issues associated with obesity: hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. So what are the ideal ranges, and what are the best ways to get rid of unwanted excess adipose tissue, aka body fat?

Most organizations classify a healthy body fat percentage as 20 to 25 percent for women and 8 to 15 percent for men. Women who have over 30 percent body fat and men with over 25 percent are generally classified as obese. There can be some variations that are healthy. Athletes will tend to have less body fat, for example; however, below a point, low body fat can be as dangerous as high body fat.

There are various ways to calculate body fat percentage, with varying degrees of accuracy and expense. Many clinics offer what they describe as the only truly accurate readings, derived from water-displacement, ultrasonic, or X-ray tests. Much simpler than that are many home body fat scales. While simple, they are fairly inaccurate. The best home device is an inexpensive and simple test using skinfold calipers. These calipers measure folds of skin at various parts of the body and provide an estimate of body fat percentage based on those measurements.

Inaccurate or not, most trainers recommend using some sort of body fat calculation in addition to being weighed on a scale. For most of us, though, true accuracy isn’t that important, just as long as we’re sure that our body fat percentages are going down. We can starve ourselves and lose weight to reach that goal, but a lot of that loss will be muscle loss and won’t give us the healthy look or feeling that most of us seek.

Muscle burns fat. One reason we want to be so cognizant of our body fat loss, as opposed to mere weight loss, is because muscles burn calories, and if we lose muscle, it will make burning calories—and, by extension, fat—much more difficult. Because the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn—even when you’re resting! So it’s important to follow an exercise program that combines resistance activities, like weight lifting, that build muscle with aerobic cardio activities that burn calories. This combination is key to the success of Beachbody’s programs, including Chalene Johnson’s brand-new ChaLEAN Extreme™.

The really good news is that when you exercise, your body begins turning stored fat into glucose for fuel before it begins breaking down muscle for fuel. This is why high-level athletes can eat so much and still stay sleek. Take Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’s 12,000-calorie-a-day diet, for example. Because he has such a low percentage of body fat, he has to provide his body with enough fuel or his body will begin breaking down proteins in muscle, since it’s pretty much out of body fat to go to for fuel. During newsletter chats and on the Message Boards, P90X® graduates often complain of an ammonia-like smell after working out. That smell is indicative of the protein breakdown that occurs when their new elite, low-fat bodies have begun tapping into muscle for fuel. It generally means that they need to start eating more to make it through the workouts—a problem most of us would love to have! Most of us aren’t dealing with the problems of elite athletes trying to get enough fuel; we’re just trying to get our bodies to approach that kind of shape.

One popular exercise myth is that if we’re trying to lose body fat, we should just do lots of cardio and sweat and burn fat, then build muscle later. That’s a sort of “lose weight now, get in shape later” approach. There’s some truth there. The more we exercise, the more calories we expend and the sooner our bodies tap into our fat stores for energy. But by building up muscle, in addition to doing cardio activity, we can burn a lot more calories, even while we’re at rest, and maximize the calorie burn during cardio. Plus, when the stored fat begins to melt off, there will be lean, sexy muscle in its place.

How diet affects body fat composition. Something we’ve discussed before is the myth that dietary fat contributes to body fat. This is only half true. The fact is that body fat, or adipose tissue, comes from stored calories. Your body fat doesn’t care whether the calories come from fat, protein, or carbs. Don’t believe me? Try drinking a six-pack of fat-free beer every day—you’ll have a pony keg under your shirt in no time. The term “beer belly” comes by it honestly, and beer doesn’t have a gram of fat. Neither does soda, and it’s one of the main culprits behind the obesity crisis.

Fat does have more calories per gram than carbohydrates or protein, so it is wise to monitor the amount of fat in your diet, but if it’s healthy fat, like the kind found in avocados, olive oil, fish, or nuts, there’s no reason to exclude it from your diet. It is wise to avoid saturated and trans fats, but that has more to do with lipids in your blood, not the composition of adipose tissue.
Can you target areas to burn body fat? There’s a French proverb that says that sooner or later every woman must choose between her face and her bottom. What this means is that it’s a myth that you can target one area of your body over another for fat loss. While we may mainly want to get rid of our guts or slim down our thighs, our bodies are largely democratic about where they take stored fat from—they take fat from all over.

If you’ve seen Madonna lately, you can see the results of her latest workout regimen. She has incredibly low body fat, but her face has lost the fat as well, so that her bone structure is more prominent and has a more sunken appearance (although it looks like some cosmetic procedures have helped her fill it out somewhat). So if you ever see a product advertised that claims to burn fat off one part of your body and not others, it’s over-promising. You can target muscle groups specifically, but fat burning is general.

Any activity will go a long way toward reducing body fat percentage. And health professionals advise that even a modest decrease in body fat percentage will have extraordinary health benefits. So even if achieving your ideal supermodel weight seems impossibly far away, you can really increase your quality of life by making a few minor changes in your activity level and diet. Engaging in a comprehensive program like ChaLEAN Extreme, which encompasses resistance training and aerobic exercise, as well as a healthy diet, is a great place to start. Here’s to seeing less of us!

For more info please visit: http://www.successwithsarah.com

–
Create a Fabulous Day!

Sarah Tapp
Ruby Independent BeachBody Coach
Home Office: 707.789.9106

Diamond Global Marketing, LLC | P.O. Box 4663 | Petaluma | CA | 94955 | USA

8 Misleading Fitness “Facts”

8 Misleading Fitness “Facts”
By Steve Edwards

When it comes to our well-being, not much pricks up our ears like the word miracle. But when referring to health and fitness, the word miracle is generally synonymous with the word scam. That is unless finding yourself suddenly motivated to exercise and eat better is something you would consider a miracle. Other than that, miracles don’t exist.

At Beachbody®, we’re always on the lookout for the next great thing. We analyze every diet, every workout, and every medical breakthrough that promises to reverse the obesity epidemic and make the real world look like, well, the set of The Real World. What we find, without fail, is that the only “miracle” breakthroughs are those that expand on what we already know—that only through exercise and diet will you effectively change your body and your health for good. Let’s take a look at eight marketing miracles that fail to do much more considered miraculous than make their creators rich. We’ll interpret each one and then let you know how each claim may have a positive effect on your life.

You can get thin with a supplement. One of the most common questions we get is whether or not our programs will work without the supplements. Given how many claims there are about miracle cures involving a pill, this question makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that when we tell people that diet and exercise are the major components of our programs, they often become skeptical. We’ve been led to believe by advertisers that the reason we’re overweight or out of shape is because there’s a secret ingredient in some supplement that we’ve been missing. This, to put it a noninflammatory way, is not how it works. The obesity epidemic is the result of two rather simple numbers: we eat about 5 percent more calories than we once did, and we exercise about 20 percent less.

This in no way means that supplements are worthless. While there are many shady supplement manufacturers in the marketplace, the reason that we have supplements at all is because they can be effective in keeping us healthy. The use of supplements goes back thousands of years. Traditional medicines were the original supplements. There have been many advancements in the modern world, but basically, those same herbs and nutrients that aided people’s health once upon a time have the same effects today. But they weren’t miracle cures in the old days, and they still aren’t. This is the reason we refer to our programs as being supplement-assisted exercises.
Medicine can make you healthy. Medicine can make you not sick, but it can’t make you healthy. Along with curing us from diseases and injuries, doctors now inject, alter, and prescribe us into becoming healthier-appearing beings. Cosmetic medical advancements are indeed impressive, but let’s not lose sight of the facts. The human body needs exercise and nutrients to run smoothly. There is no way to chemically change this. There are certainly medical alterations that can be done to change our bodies once they’ve been misused and started to fall apart. And there are drugs and other chemical alterations that can reverse certain conditions. But try as they might, scientists have still yet to come up with a way for us not to need to exercise and eat properly so that we can perform to the best of our abilities. We may be able to increase our natural abilities using medicine, but without the fundamental groundwork that is exercise and what we eat, no amount of medical help will allow us to live long and vibrant lives.
You can get ripped with the right diet. With the “Flat Belly Diet” on the bestseller list and the “Abs Diet” on the cover of Men’s Health, it may be hard to believe that no diet alone is going to land you on the cover of a Joe Weider publication. Dieting can help you lose weight and greatly improve your health. But since that isn’t what marketers like to spin, it’s generally not what they pitch. The only diet that will give you ripped abs is a starvation diet. And that one comes with a lot of undesirable side effects.

Many of these diets, including the two referenced above, are basically very healthy. But if you want your body to look ripped, you need to exercise and diet in combination. A healthy body can look lean but rarely ripped. A muscular body with too much fat won’t look ripped, either. Only a healthy and muscular body can allow you to both look ripped and perform well. A starved body will be both lean and ripped in appearance, but this is not due to your body being healthy—rather, it’s due to the catabolic state you enter as your body feeds on its muscle for survival.
You can have a six-pack by only working out your abs. Ab work will make your abdominal muscles strong, but you won’t be able to see them unless your diet is in line with your exercise expenditure. The easiest and quickest way to see your abs is to work your entire body intensely and eat well. The more muscle you add to your frame—your entire frame—the more your metabolism will increase, the more fat your body will burn at rest, and the sooner your ab muscles will appear. And, of course, the cleaner you eat, the faster you will make this happen.

Six-pack abs—like most things used to gauge fitness—are a function of one’s overall health and condition. They won’t pop up on their own.¹ But you’re also not wasting your time working on them. Your core, which is in part your abs, is the foundation that all of your movements are based on. Having a strong core is the single most important aspect to being physically fit.
One supplement can make up for a bad diet. We love miracles, especially when they don’t require much work on our part. That’s why we’re always looking for a pill we can take that will make up for our bad habits. Supposed muscle-enhancing supplements have been available since Jack LaLanne invented the Universal Gym, but in the last decade, we’ve also been bombarded with things promising the opposite. Fat blockers, carb blockers, diet pills, cleansing pills, and so on all promise to rid us of something we wished we hadn’t eaten in the first place. This, unfortunately, can’t be done.

There are many good dietary supplements, but heed the word “dietary.” Supplements work along with the other factors of your diet. Nothing can even hint at offsetting a poor diet. In fact, one of the main advantages of supplements is exactly the opposite: they make the biggest difference when you’re dieting already. Supplements are, basically, condensed nutrients. When you’re exercising and also attempting to lose weight, it becomes difficult to get all of the nutrients that your body requires to recover from exercise. This is the realm of the highly effective supplement. Proper supplementation can allow you to eat fewer calories than you normally could and still allow you to recover from hard workouts, which greatly enhances your results. Beachbody’s ActiVit® Multivitamin is a great way to make sure you get the nutrients you need each day to get the most out of your fitness program.
Cardio is the only exercise you need. Cardio isn’t even a scientific term for a type of exercise, yet it’s still often trumpeted as the be-all and end-all for exercise effectiveness. This, in my experience, is often a cop-out by medical practitioners who feel the need to recommend exercise but don’t want to risk being specific. Cardio as a general term means anything affecting the heart. The problem with interpreting the term is that everything you do has an effect on your heart. And although intense exercise works the heart much more than easy aerobic exercise does, it seems that most people define cardio as aerobic, meaning low-level movement. And low-level movement is not the only exercise you need, unless your physical state inhibits you from doing something more intense.

The key to changing your body composition, staying young, and remaining healthy is to do short bouts of high-intensity exercise. If done correctly, this is all the “cardio” you need. It also promotes muscle breakdown and hormonal releases that have a pronounced effect on your health. All “cardio” training is good, including low-level aerobic training. It just should, however, not be the only exercise you do.
You can plug in and get ripped. Remember the old exercise machine that had a strap you placed around your butt that would vibrate like a washing machine? Back in the 60s, this odd contraption filled fitness centers worldwide and, undoubtedly, made someone a lot of money. It also never shed a pound off of anyone. And even though it’s used in many gimmick jokes, we just can’t stop trying to replicate it. If you ever see an advertisement for something that does all the work for you and claims you’ll look better because of it, start searching for the remote. The calories you burn looking for it will exceed any amount you’ll burn using the device.

As is the case with most gimmicks, there is a scientific example at their root somewhere. Most of these modern contraptions are some type of electronic muscle stimulation (EMS) device. These machines use electrodes to contract your muscles while you do nothing. They were designed for physical therapy and work well within this application of keeping your muscle tissue from atrophying when you can’t work your muscles naturally. So, yes, these machines do build muscle. But they lack the ability to stimulate anything near what you would do naturally. To keep the type of physique you would acquire in a round of P90X® would require you to be plugged in for most of any given 24-hour period. And if you’re going to go to this much trouble, you’ll save yourself a lot of effort by doing any 30-minute exercise video—shoot, one 10-Minute Trainer® workout will do a lot more for you than a full night on an EMS machine!
A single type of workout will make you fit. Beware of exercise that promises to be “the only workout you’ll ever need.” Even if one workout did cover all of your energy systems using each workout modality, it still would not be all you need. The reasons are many, but, primarily, it’s because your body adapts over time to any exercise regimen. To achieve continued progress, you need to alter what you do from time to time. The more planned out this is the better.

There is a reason that Beachbody designs fitness programs. For best results, you should train your body progressively and periodizationally. That is to say that you need to progressively overload your system as it becomes used to any one thing. Then, you should change the focus of your program to target various energy systems. By doing this, you keep your body stimulated and your progress curve will continually ascend.

For More Info Visit: http://www.sarahtapp.com

3 New Media Myths About Fat

3 New Media Myths About Fat
By Denis Faye

If America could somehow harness the energy it puts into looking for excuses not to exercise into actually exercising, we’d be the fittest nation on earth. But instead, we’re a country with a rapidly expanding waistline that takes any opportunity to sit on the couch, watching advertisements and news reports that only enforce our belief that working out is outdated.

Like a codependent boyfriend or girlfriend, the media wants you to hang around, so it tells you what you want to hear. On the contrary, we at Beachbody® like to call it like we see it. With that in mind, we’ve decided to take some of the “information” you may have seen recently on the evening news and look at it from a fresh perspective.

1. The exercise pill
In August, scientists at the Salk Institute near San Diego announced they’d discovered two drugs that mimic the benefits of exercise. The two drugs, Aicar and GW1516, were given to mice. They increased endurance and burned fat, just like cardio, only without the sweat. It’s been suggested that the drugs could be used to treat obesity or even give athletes a performance edge. “If you like exercise, you like the idea of getting ‘more bang for your buck,’” said Professor Ronald Evan, who headed up the study. “If you don’t like exercise, you love the idea of getting the benefits from a pill.”

That’s the part the media got all excited about. What got lost in the hype, though, is that the pill doesn’t clear clogged arteries or strengthen tendons and joints needed to support your magically increased jogging stamina. So even if a pill like this can help you look good, you’ll still probably drop dead of a heart attack before your time—that is, if your knees don’t give out first.

Furthermore, the pills were tested on mice, which have an entirely different physiology from humans. So don’t get too excited yet.

2. The Flat Belly Diet
Prevention’s “Flat Belly Diet” has been all over the news lately, from the papers to Rachael Ray. The diet, which is based on the magazine’s own research, centers around monounsaturated fats, or MUFAs as they call them, that theoretically target and blast away belly fat. According to the actual book, exercise is optional but encouraged. There’s an entire chapter devoted to a workout plan, but there’s still a mixed message happening here, considering that the Flat Belly Diet Web site has “Never Do a Single Crunch” plastered across it in big, purple letters.

The sad thing here is that the eating plan itself is pretty good. It’s a 1,600-calorie, Mediterranean diet made up of mostly healthy foods. Sure, you’ll lose weight, but it’s not because MUFAs are zapping your gut. The “research” for this goofy MUFA theory consisted of 11 people studied over 28 days. Some of the people were on the MUFA diet. The rest were on a high-carb, saturated-fat-rich diet. Of course, the MUFA people lost the most weight, and some of that fat came off the stomach, but that hardly proves anything.

Despite this being the extent of the research, The Flat Belly Diet has received almost entirely positive press. The only reportage calling this plan out we could find appeared on the noted medical Web site WebMD. “You can lose weight on The Flat Belly Diet plan,” WebMD director of nutrition points out in her review, “but don’t be fooled into thinking MUFAs have magic belly-flattening nutrients capable of melting away belly fat.”

So if you’re going to follow the diet, go for it. It’s fine for what it is, but remember, there’s no such thing as targeted fat loss.

3. The fat gene
Last year, the press went nuts when British Researchers at Oxford discovered a “fat gene” that promoted obesity in some people. In an oddly defeatist way, this was great news for couch potatoes across the world who assumed that they had this faulty gene. For them, diet and exercise were now, thankfully, futile.

But in a recent issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers announced that they’ve found a cure for the fat gene. It’s called “exercise.” After surveying 700 people in a Pennsylvania Amish community, they discovered that people with the gene who did moderate exercise for 3 to 4 hours a day showed no difference in weight gain from people without the gene.

Daunted by spending a fifth of your day working out? Consider that these people were doing moderate exercise. Given that a hard workout falls under the category of intense exercise, it’s relatively safe to say you can get away with doing somewhat less than 3 to 4 hours. Furthermore, the exercise can be cumulative. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Pull weeds from the garden for a couple minutes when you get home. Chase your kid around. These little things add up quickly.

But most important of all, stop staring at this computer and go Push Play!

Create a Tremendous Day!

Sarah Tapp
707.789.9106

*** See what I’m Excited about ***
NEW! http://www.sarahtapp.com

6 Foods with Hidden Sugar

6 Foods with Hidden Sugar
By Joe Wilkes

The average American eats approximately 1,500 pounds of food every year. Of that, 160 pounds are primarily sugar. Of course, sugar is delicious, and I know I’m the happier for its existence, but of all the things we consume, it has the least nutritive value. In fact, except for the energy in its calories, there’s not much to recommend about sugar. It’s a prime source of empty calories. And for those of us who are trying to lose weight by committing to a healthy diet and an exercise program like 10-Minute Trainer® or Slim in 6®, sugar’s the first thing we should start trimming from our diets. But here’s the problem, despite our best intentions to remove excess sugar from our diets, the food industry has found more and more devious ways of slipping us the sweet stuff. Whether the food industry calls sugar by another name or adds it to foods we never thought would have needed it, our sweet teeth are constantly being bombarded. Fortunately, with stricter labeling laws, we have a fighting chance at cutting back on sugar.

Why does the food industry want us so full of sugar?
It’s basically the same as any other industry. For the oil industry to make more money, it needs us to use more of its product by driving more miles. And the food industry needs us to use more of its products by eating more calories. The problem is that the American food industry is already producing around 3,900 calories per person per day, which is way more than we need. One solution to this surplus is to sell the food cheaply overseas, which the industry does. The other solution is for Americans to eat more calories. And sugar and its corn sweetener brethren are great calorie delivery systems—they pack a huge caloric punch, without causing much satiety or fullness. (Check out Steve Edwards’ “Sugar vs. Fat” article, in Related Articles below, for more about why sugar is the world-champion fattener.) Most people would probably stop eating steak after they reached 1,000 calories, because they’d be stuffed, but after drinking 1,000 calories from their Big Gulp cups, they’d still have room for dinner. The other reason the industry pushes sugar so hard is that it’s cheap to produce, and the cheaper the calorie, the larger the profit margin.

Sugar in labels—hiding in plain sight
One of the best ways to disguise the amount of sugar in a product is through something the government already requires—printing the information in grams. Most Americans only have the foggiest idea of how much a gram is, because Americans are unaccustomed to the metric system. So when we pick up a can of soda that contains 40 grams of sugar, we pretty much shrug our shoulders and pop the top. And that attitude is all right with the soda industry! But what if the label said that it contained over 10 teaspoons of sugar? If you saw someone ladling 10 teaspoons of sugar into his or her morning coffee, you’d think he or she was crazy, but that’s how much people consume in a typical 12-ounce can of soda. In a 64-ounce fountain drink that you’d get at a movie theater or a convenience store, you get over 53 teaspoons of sugar—that’s almost 2 cups! Naturally, people would probably think twice if the nutritional information on products were given in measurements that were meaningful to them. But until our heavily food-industry-subsidized government decides to change its policy, it’s a metric world, and we just live in it. But we can take note that 4 grams equals 1 teaspoon. So when you check out a food label, divide the grams of sugar by four, and that’s how many teaspoons you’re consuming.

Sugar, by any other name, would taste just as sweet
Another strategy the sugar pushers use to get us to consume more calories is to rename the offending ingredient. We know to stay away from sugar, but how about molasses, honey, sorghum, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, glucose, fructose, lactose, dextrose, sucrose, galactose, maltose, or concentrated juices like grape or apple? Another profit path that the food industry has discovered is that instead of harvesting relatively more expensive sugar cane and beets, the industry produces sweeteners in a laboratory more cheaply and with just as many calories as beet and cane sugars. And with some sweeteners, especially the popular high fructose corn syrup, it is believed that your body will be less likely to reach satiety than with sugar, so you can consume more. Mo’ calories, mo’ money. Another advantage to these doses of “-oses” is that, aside from the fact that many people won’t guess they’re just different forms of sugar, they can be spread out in the ingredient list—under what the law requires—so that it won’t be as obvious that what you’re consuming is pretty much all sugar. When you look at a list of ingredients on a product, the manufacturer is required to list them in order of amount, from highest to lowest. So they can bury a 1/4 cup of fructose, a 1/4 cup of sucrose, a 1/4 cup of dextrose, and a 1/4 cup of corn syrup in the middle of the list. You won’t be as likely to notice that when you add them all up, the main ingredient in the product is sugar.

Hide and seek. You’re it.
So, if you’re like me, you may have sworn off soda, except on special occasions, and turned the candy bowl into an unsalted-almond bowl. No more sugar, no more problems. Except for this problem: The food industry has cleverly snuck its sugars and corn syrups into products we never would have thought contained sugar. It’s good for the manufacturer. It jacks up the calorie load, can enhance the product’s appearance (high fructose corn syrup gives hamburger buns their golden glow), and can keep our sugar jones simmering at a low boil, in case we ever decide to go back to the real thing. Here are some types of products whose labels could bear more scrutiny.

Spaghetti sauce. A 1/2 cup of store-bought sauce can contain as many as 3 teaspoons of corn syrup or sugar. While some of the naturally occurring sugar in tomatoes and other vegetables will show up on the nutrition label, most of the sugar is added. Look for brands that don’t include sugar or its aliases, or make your own from fresh or canned tomatoes.
Ketchup. Ketchup can be 20 percent sugar or more. Not to mention that you’ll get 7 percent of your daily sodium allowance in 1 tablespoon. Look for low-salt, no-sugar brands, or make your own using pureed carrots to add flavor and texture to the tomatoes.
Reduced-fat cookies. Most brands of cookies now offer reduced-fat versions of their regular products. Nabisco even offers its own line of low-fat treats, Snackwells. But while you’re patting yourself on the back for choosing the low-fat option, check the label. The sneaky food manufacturers did take out the fat, but they replaced it with, you guessed it, sugar. Many times, the reduced-fat cookie is only slightly less caloric than the one you really want to eat. And because there’s no fat to make you feel full, you’ll be tempted to eat more “guilt-free” cookies. And just because there’s less fat, it doesn’t mean you’ll be less fat. Fat doesn’t make you fat. Calories make you fat.
Low-fat salad dressing. Like the cookies, manufacturers have taken the fat out of the dressing, but they’ve added extra salt and sugar to make up for it. Check the label to make sure you’re not replacing heart-healthy olive oil with diabetes-causing sugar—because that’s not really a “healthy choice.” Your best bet? Make your own vinaigrettes using a small amount of olive oil, a tasty gourmet vinegar or fresh lemon juice, and some fresh herbs.
Bread. Most processed breads, especially white hamburger and hot dog buns, can contain a good bit of sugar or corn syrup. That’s what gives them the golden-brown crust. As always, check the ingredient label, and consider getting your bread at a real bakery or a farmers’ market—it’s the best idea since, well, you know.
Fast food. Needless to say, fast food is generally not good for you. But even if you’re staying away from the sodas and the shakes, everything from the burgers to the fries to the salads is a potential place to hide sugar. Check out the ingredients carefully at your favorite restaurant. You may be getting more than you bargained for.

–
Create a Tremendous Day!

Sarah Tapp
Ruby Independent BeachBody Coach
707.789.9106

*** See what I’m Excited about ***
NEW! http://www.sarahtapp.com

Are You at Risk for Type 2 Diabetes?

Are You at Risk for Type 2 Diabetes?
By Linda York

Imagine sitting in your doctor’s office and being told you have type 2 diabetes. Maybe it takes a few seconds to sink in. Then, your mind is flooded with fear, confusion, and questions. So many questions, but where do you begin? And the one thing you know is that your life will never be the same again. This is the experience reported by countless people who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. “I never heard anything the doctor said, after she said the word diabetes. The next thing I knew, I had a handful of pamphlets and was told I needed to schedule a follow-up visit,” said Kathy Stender, 48, the mother of four who has type 2 diabetes. But, even with such a life-altering diagnosis, there is hope through simple lifestyle changes than can turn the tide against type 2 diabetes. And Beachbody® has joined the fight with Kathy Smith’s Project:YOU! Type 2™.

Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is outside the scope of this article. Type 1 diabetes has no cure, and despite healthy lifestyle changes and medication, a person with type 1 diabetes has a very unclear future.

Type 2 diabetes, on the other hand, can be prevented, and even reversed, through healthy lifestyle changes. Type 2 diabetes used to be a disease that was associated with much older people; in fact, it was referred to as adult onset diabetes. Now, there are kids as young as 8 who are being diagnosed with the disease. Currently, 24 million people in the United States have diabetes. Almost 95 percent of them have type 2, which can be managed by making healthy lifestyle choices—exercising, eating right, handling stress, and, in some cases, taking medication.

There is also a third diagnosis: pre-diabetes. The 57 million Americans diagnosed with pre-diabetes are already headed toward developing type 2. But there is hope for those with pre-diabetes, and type 2 diabetes, and there are choices available that can help reverse the trend. “I know any kind of diabetes can be difficult, but I get mad sometimes at people who have type 2,” said Jack Lopez, 22. “I have had type 1 since I was 4 and I don’t know if I will live to have grandchildren, or if I’ll lose my eyesight, or a leg. People with type 2 have choices; they have control. They can do something about their diabetes, and I can’t,” he concluded.

The long trip to type 2 diabetes
The long trip to type 2 diabetes is silent. There are no symptoms, not even ones that can be recognized in retrospect. Routine glucose tests can’t detect the problem. For many people, when they start gaining weight in their late teens and 20s, their body chemistries change and their cells become increasingly insulin-resistant.

When someone is insulin-resistant, the beta cells in his or her pancreas produce plenty of insulin, but the cells throughout his or her body don’t respond normally to it. To maintain homeostasis, the pancreas makes more and more insulin. This works temporarily: the extra insulin compensates for the cells’ insensitivity, so blood glucose remains normal. That’s why the condition is silent.

Over time, however, the beta cells become exhausted and can no longer sustain their abnormally high insulin production rate. Why this happens is still not completely understood, but the assumption is that multiple factors are at work. Some of these factors are linked to obesity: the beta cells may be damaged by excess fat deposited within them; other hormones released by visceral fat may interfere with the function or even the survival of beta cells. Additionally, a person’s genetic heritage and early life probably play important roles, since these factors help determine how the beta cells develop and how robust they will be later in life.

Despite getting medical checkups and normal test results, an abnormal process begins, without the doctor even realizing it. After many years, the beta cells began to falter. Insulin production drops and blood glucose levels begin to rise.

Diagnosing diabetes and pre-diabetes
Blood glucose fluctuates throughout the day. Because of these fluctuations, it’s best to perform routine blood glucose tests—the kind used to screen apparently healthy people after an overnight fast. Fasting blood glucose under 100 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) is considered normal; 126 mg/dl or higher signifies diabetes. Sometimes, blood is checked over the next 1 to 3 hours after a person drinks a liquid that contains a fixed dose of glucose. This is called an oral glucose tolerance test. If blood is tested this way—or if it’s simply checked at a random time over the day, rather than after an overnight fast—a level of 200 mg/dl or greater indicates diabetes.

Pre-diabetes is diagnosed when fasting blood glucose is elevated but not high enough to be considered diabetic: between 100 and 125 mg/dl after an overnight fast, or between 140 and 199 mg/dl at the 2-hour point during an oral glucose tolerance test. As previously stated, more than 57 million Americans have pre-diabetes. Sometimes doctors refer to this as borderline diabetes, or they call it “glucose intolerance,” when it’s diagnosed via an oral glucose tolerance test, or “impaired fasting glucose” if a fasting glucose test was used. By any name, the diagnosis should serve as a loud warning signal. Studies have shown that, each year, about 10 percent of people with pre-diabetes will develop type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes Prevention Program study
We know that lifestyle changes can prevent type 2 diabetes, even in people who have already begun the march toward the disease. The Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) study proved this. This investigation, which began in the mid 1990s, was the single most important study ever conducted in diabetes prevention.

Three groups were set up. The first group received metformin, a medication that makes cells more sensitive to the insulin naturally produced by the pancreas. If insulin sensitivity could be improved in people with pre-diabetes, the investigators reasoned, perhaps diabetes could be prevented altogether. The second group was given a placebo, a pill that contained no active ingredients. This part of the study was blinded, which means that neither the participants nor the investigators knew who received the real medications. Members of both groups were also given printed information on diet and exercise.

The third group, with more than 1,000 high-risk participants, received no pills at all. Instead, they underwent extensive training with lifestyle coaches, who taught them how to alter their lives to lose weight and to become more physically active. The coaches counseled them about diet and exercise. They learned how to set goals and keep track of their success. Group members were expected to eat less fat and fewer calories overall and to exercise for a total of at least 2-1/2 hours per week. The coaches led problem-solving discussions to help participants deal with lapses. Members of the lifestyle-change group also attended classes on healthy eating, physical activity, and behavioral topics. In addition to all this, they participated in special events, such as group walks or competitions. Meanwhile, those in the other two groups simply took their pills and went about their usual lives.

At the end of the 3-year study period, 29 percent of the participants who received only a placebo had developed diabetes. Those who took the medications fared better—just 22 percent of that group developed diabetes. But the people in the lifestyle change group enjoyed the most success of all; only 14 percent developed diabetes during the 3 years of the study. What’s more, they lost an average of 12.3 pounds.

Diabesity and alarming statistics
Dr. Fran Kaufman was president elect of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in 2001. She, along with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, was part of a press conference to announce the findings of the DPP study. Dr. Kaufman said, “It was thrilling to learn conclusively that each of us has it within our power to reverse diabesity (diabetes caused by [being] overweight or [obese . . . .]” The term diabesity, from diabetes and obesity, is synonymous with type 2 diabetes.

Currently, more people die of diabetes than die of AIDS and breast cancer combined. And diabetes complications include illnesses such as heart disease—people often die because of these secondary illnesses linked to diabetes. Additionally, diabetes is the leading cause of blindness and amputations. With one in three children born after 2000 predicted to get diabetes, diabetes is growing at a phenomenally rapid rate. But we don’t have to watch 300 million people worldwide develop diabetes by 2020, as is presently projected. We have the opportunity to set a new course and stop the epidemic.

The Beachbody solution: Kathy Smith’s Project:YOU! Type 2
Beachbody, the ADA, and Kathy Smith joined together to create a simple, comprehensive program to help people with pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes learn how to lead healthy lifestyles. Project:YOU! Type 2 is the healthy approach to managing type 2 diabetes and, if you have pre-diabetes, to preventing it.

The ADA has called this program “revolutionary” because it includes eating tips, exercise, journaling, and support all in one inclusive package. This is the first time the ADA has recognized a total lifestyle solution program. The ADA’s mission, to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes, is shared by Beachbody. Additionally, a portion from the sale of each Project:YOU! Type 2 program will be donated to the ADA.

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Create a Tremendous Day!

Sarah Tapp
Ruby Independent BeachBody Coach
707.789.9106

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