Just the flax!

Flax Seeds

The ancient flax seed, with its high content of alpha linolenic acids, become our modern miracle food. Alpha linolenic acid (ALA) is a type of plant-derived omega 3 fatty acid, similar to those found in fish such as salmon. Benefits of flax seed as shown in many studies include lowering total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol (the Bad cholesterol) levels. Other benefits show that flax seed may also help lower blood triglyceride and blood pressure. It may also keep platelets from becoming sticky therefore reducing the risk of a heart attack.

Aside from alpha linolenic acid, flax seed is rich in lignan. Lignan is a type phytoestrogen (antioxidant) and also provides fiber. Researches reveal that lignan in flax seed shows a lot of promise in fighting disease -- including a possible role in cancer prevention especially breast cancer. It is thought that lignan metabolites can bind to estrogen receptors, hence inhibiting the onset of estrogen-stimulated breast cancer.
Recent studies also showed positive benefits of flax seed oil in IBD (Crohn's Disease and Colitis). Flax seed oil seems to be able to heal the inner lining of the inflamed intestines.

Moderately include flax seed in your diet. Indeed, a lot of food products contain flax seed such as bread, cereal and bakery goods. Bakers may use flax seed flour or include flax seed in baking.

For example, flax and bran seed muffins:

1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour
¾ cups flaxseed meal
¾ cup oat bran
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1-1/2 cups carrots, shredded
2 apples peeled and shredded
½ cups raisins
1 cup nuts, chopped
¾ cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla

Mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in carrots, apples, raisins(if desired) and nuts.
Combine milk, beaten eggs and vanilla.
Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients.
Stir until ingredients are moistened, do not mix.
Fill muffin cups and bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 min.

Enjoy and think of this as better medicine!

LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers

Ronald McDonald to Retire?

Is it time for Ronald to get on the bus?

Is Ronald McDonald to burgers and fries what Joe the Camel was to cigarettes? Given everything that McDonalds does for charities, such as the Ronald McDonald houses around the country, it would perhaps be unfair to draw the same comparison. While we certainly wouldn’t want our kids coming home from school with a new pack of camels, do we want them being fed a Happy Meal, or the equivalent, every day at school?
A coalition of health professionals, parents and corporate accountability advocates is calling for Ronald McDonald to retire as a spokesman for the nation's largest restaurant chain, saying he has too much influence on kids.

While I love the costume, maybe this is Ronald’s time to retire to Florida. I’d certainly like to see our kids school lunches cleaned up. If this is what it takes, pack your bags Ronald and get on the bus!

LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers

A Choice regarding Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is a dark cloud for all women. Are there things that we can do rather than just hope we don’t become a victim? Are we locked into a fate because of our genetic make-up?

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. In Europe, there were about 421,000new cases and nearly 90,000 deaths in 2008, the latest available figures. The United States last year saw more than 190,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths.

Carlo La Vecchia, head of epidemiology at the University of Milan and who recently spoke on the influence of lifestyle factors at a European breast cancer conference in Barcelona, told the Associated Press, "What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can't do much more. It's time to move onto other things."

A woman's lifetime chance of getting breast cancer is about one in eight. Obese women are up to 60% more likely to develop any cancer than normal-weight women, according to a 2006 study by British researchers.

Many breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, a hormone produced in fat tissue. So experts suspect that the fatter a woman is, the more estrogen she's likely to produce, which could in turn spark breast cancer. Even in slim women, exercise can help reduce the cancer risk by converting more of the body's fat into muscle.

La Vecchia cited figures from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which estimated that 25 to 30% of breast cancer cases could be avoided if women were thinner and exercised more.

While better treatments, early diagnosis and mammogram screenings have dramatically slowed the disease, experts said the focus should now shift to changing behaviors like diet and physical activity.

La Vecchia said countries like Italy and France — where obesity rates have been stable for the past two decades — show that weight can be controlled at a population level.
"It's hard to lose weight, but it's not impossible," he said. "The potential benefit of preventing cancer is worth it."

LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers

Baby Fat?

The Beautiful Baby
Do you remember the “Gerber baby”? The cute plump cherub looking baby on the baby food jars? It’s beginning to look like the baby fat was coming from more than baby food. It appears that as children and teenagers have been getting fatter, our babies and toddlers are also dealing with the same issues. While 1 in 10 children, according to a recent article in the NY Times, under age 2 are overweight and the percentage of children ages 2 to 5 who are obese increased to 12.4 percent in 2006 from 5 percent in 1980, there’s a concern that “baby fat” may be just that (not in a good way). More and more evidence points to pivotal events very early in life — during the toddler years, infancy and even before birth, in the womb — that can set young children on an obesity trajectory that is hard to alter by the time they’re in kindergarten. Also new research suggests that interventions aimed at school-aged children may be, if not too little, too late.
So what’s going on? It used to be considered rude to label a child under 5 as overweight or obese, even if the child apparently was, because it might stigmatize the poor kid. The Times reported that “More and more evidence points to pivotal events very early in life — during the toddler years, infancy and even before birth, in the womb — that can set young children on an obesity trajectory that is hard to alter by the time they’re in kindergarten. The evidence is not ironclad, but it suggests that prevention efforts should start very early.”
While it’s easy to point fingers at the obvious things like not smoking (especially during pregnancy), not letting your baby be baby sat by the TV, and not letting your baby’s diet revolve around formula and processed foods, the issue really comes down to us, doesn’t it? Don’t we have to do the best for ourselves so we can model what is best for our children? Let’s educate ourselves so we know what is best for our families and then have the courage to take a stand for our kids.

LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers

High Anxiety?

These are times of high anxiety! We all know what anxiety is, we all have experienced it, we deal with it as best we can but for many of us it can be a debilitating condition. Anxiety is essentially a negative and weakening reaction to life situations typified by worry, self-doubt, and apprehension that often affects our health, such as panic attacks. It is estimated that in the United States approximately 7.3% of the adult population has an anxiety disorder that would normally require some form of treatment. And don’t forget about depression. Anxiety, as we know, is often associated with depression. Depression and anxiety are costly to our health care system in that our neighbors and friends who suffer with these issues annually spend 1.5 times more on health care than nondepressed individuals, and those being treated with antidepressants spend three times more on outpatient pharmacy costs than those not on drug therapy. Depression and anxiety are often considered to be in epidemic proportions in the US.

Got pills? Looking for an alternative? Your body could be okay but your emotional health not so much because stress-related emotions, such as anxiety, can be common among relatively healthy individuals. The current interest in prevention has heightened interest in exercise as an alternative or adjunct to traditional interventions such as psychotherapy or drug therapies.

Maybe the stodgy old Surgeon General of the US might have an idea? The US Surgeon General said that, “physical activity appears to relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety and improve mood” and that “regular physical activity may reduce the risk of developing depression…”

Do you think exercise is only good for developing a lean body, strong muscles and a strong heart? Physical activity has been shown to help with being emotionally and mentally fit also. While the majority of fitness research efforts focus on the physical and health benefits of exercise, there is a growing body of work demonstrating that exercise promotes wellness and mental health. Researchers at Duke University studied people suffering from depression for 4 months and found that 60% of the participants who exercised for 30 minutes three times a week overcame their depression without using antidepressant medication. This is the same percentage rate as for those who only used medication in their treatment for depression. Another study found that short workouts of 8 minutes in length could help lower sadness, tension and anger along with improving resistance to disease in healthy people. Many people exercise to boost confidence along with reducing anxiety and stress, all of which contribute to psychological health and well being. So, exercise can be viewed as a preventative or wellness activity that may actually help prevent physical and emotional conditions.

Clinical psychologist, Eliezer Margoles, PhD., claimed that feeling joyful and the pleasure of being in one's body is very beneficial. , He urged people to "take time out, and instead of saying no to exercise say no to something else." He also cautioned against a "punitive mindset" in which some people engage during exercise, viewing it as a task or punishment instead of a pleasure. Instead, he recommends that you view movement as an affirmation of living and a function to maintain wellness.

An affirmation of living! Anyone who remembers their childhood knows why exercise is a key to treating anxiety and depression. Do you remember being a kid? Do you remember being outside and running, playing, and moving around in the sunshine, the rain, and the “in between days”? It’s the movement, the activity, and the joy in being in our bodies that make those days of being alive so special. Don’t be one of those people who have come to believe that that those days of movement and exercise are an illusion and the days of “taking it easy” and modern pharmaceuticals is the new way. It’s not true! Reclaim your life!

LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers

Weight Loss and Health

We all want to be at a comfortable weight for the sake of our health and our appearance. But isn’t our health really the most important aspect of our weight? Weight loss alone does not necessarily mean that our health improves according to a study in the official journal of the American College of Sports Medicine.

Enette Larson-Meyer, Ph.D., R.D., FACSM, directed 36 overweight (not obese) adults to participate in one of three programs during a six-month intervention: diet alone, diet plus exercise, or a weight-maintenance program (control group). The diet-only and weight maintenance groups were instructed not to change their physical activity regimens during the six-month period.

Although both the diet and diet-plus-exercise groups lost weight during the course of the study – around 10 percent of total body weight – only the exercising individuals improved their internal fitness in addition to their waistlines.
“We saw marked improvements in cardiovascular fitness, blood pressure, insulin sensitivity and cholesterol levels in the individuals who regularly exercised,” Larson-Meyer said.

“Weight loss was a nice ‘side effect’ for these patients – but it’s the internal health improvements that will be most important to exercisers in the long run.”
Participants in the exercise group performed structured aerobic exercise – such as walking, running or stationary cycling – five days per week for around 50 minutes each session. These exercise prescriptions match ACSM’s recommendation for at least 250 minutes per week of physical activity for weight loss.

Men in the study burned around 500 calories each exercise session and women burned around 400 – approximately 12.5 percent of their daily caloric needs. Participants were allowed to choose their own exercise type and intensity according to what activities they enjoyed, as long as the intensity level fell between 65 and 90 percent of their maximal heart rate.

Larson-Meyer says this self-selection was important, as “some (study participants) preferred a higher heart rate and enjoyed shorter exercise sessions, while others liked a more leisurely pace – even knowing they would have to exercise longer.”
The American College of Sports Medicine is the largest sports medicine and exercise science organization in the world. More than 35,000 international, national, and regional members and certified professionals are dedicated to advancing and integrating scientific research to provide educational and practical applications of exercise science and sports medicine.

LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers