[as seen in the Oxford Review April 19th, 2012]
The dandelions are out and my lawn has a few of them. Looking at my lawn and the sea of yellow got me thinking about doing an article about the liver and how to spring clean it. Few of us probably give our liver a second thought. Yet this overworked organ is responsible for over 500 different functions like storing fat soluble vitamins, detoxifying bad chemicals, modifying cholesterol levels, processing fructose, and even regulating some hormones. Now, more than ever before in history, your liver needs a cleansing to help it do its job properly.

Eating a healthy diet is job #1 in your daily defence against the toxins in our environment. Every spring it is a good idea to think about liver support and cleansing. I have put together a few things you can do right now to get your liver clean and functioning properly this spring.

1. Drink plenty of water with the juice of one-half to one lemon squeezed into it. Your body needs water to flush out toxins in your bowel movements and urine. The addition of fresh lemon juice helps to stimulate your liver to produce bile that helps flush out toxins.

2. Eat lots of garlic and onions. Your friends might stay away but your liver will love you for it. Garlic and Onions contain important phytonutrients that break down fatty deposits in the body. As a bonus: they kill viruses, bacteria, and fungi and protect against heart disease too.

3. Supplement with milk thistle extract. Milk thistle contains a potent substance called silymarin that protects the liver by inhibiting damaging substances that can cause liver cell damage. Silymarin also prevents the depletion of the nutrient glutathione–one of the most critical nutrients for liver detoxification. Both alcohol consumption and exposure to various types of synthetic chemicals can deplete glutathione in the liver. A typical dose for liver cleansing is about 140 mg of silymarin.

4. Take dandelion extract. Most people are obsessed with removing one of Nature’s medicinal powerhouses–dandelion–from their lawns. The Australian Journal of Medical Herbalism cites research supporting the liver-regenerating properties of dandelion. Due to pesticides and pollutants I don’t recommend picking dandelion root from your lawn. You can take one to two teaspoons of dandelion root extract or supplement with 500 to 2000 mg daily in capsules for two weeks to help cleanse your liver.

5. Eat Indian curries. Turmeric, one of the main spices used in Indian cuisine, adds a yellow-orange color to curry dishes along with a potent healing boost. Turmeric decreases cholesterol levels, lowers inflammation in the body, and protects the liver from free radical damage. Free radicals are highly reactive molecules that can damage healthy cells. Add turmeric powder to soups, stews, and curries or supplement with 50 mg of curcumin, turmeric’s active ingredient to bolster your liver’s cleansing abilities. adf.

6. Put down the sugar. All of it. Too much sugar in the diet can start a process called NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). If the liver becomes fatty it loses some of its detoxification ability. Also, when too much sugar is eaten you increase the inflammation in your body by the upregulation of an enzyme called JNK1 (jun-kinanse-1). Increased inflammation and a liver which is lost dexotification capacity doesn’t have a happy ending. Sugar restriction and elimination is one of the best things you can do for yourself today – and you will probably trim a few pounds too!

As always – Eat Healthy. Workout Hard. And Smile!

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[as seen in the Oxford Review January 20th, 2011]
There are a few things that you don’t want to do when trying to lose some weight. They are crucial and you will not get the results you want if you tumble into these pitfalls.

Lack Discipline
A lack of discipline is most likely the most harmful pitfall if you are trying to lose weight. You have to have what I call persistent consistency. You have to tough it out even when you don’t feel like it. Then tough it out again. And again.

Cutting down on your waistline takes a reasonable amount of effort which must be sustained over the course of a year (or more). This didn’t happen to you overnight so it is unreasonable to expect results in less time than is actually possible.

There is one word that describes the staying power of winners. One word that describes the type of commitment that is needed. One word that you need to learn to use and become. That word is: Grit.

Eliminate Fat
Eliminating fat or eating a very low fat diet is a common error that people are encouraged to make by food marketing. Eliminating fat intake to get rid of fat from the body may seem like a good idea at first glance, but when you understand that most food producers add sugar when they take out the fat you will begin to understand why ‘low-fat’ doesn’t mean healthy. (Note: all trans-fat should be removed from your diet because they will hurt you).

You need a decent amount of good fat in the diet because all the cells in the body are made up of two layers of lipids or fats, which will be composed of good fats or bad fats depending on the type you eat. If the cell lipid layers are made up of healthy fats, it will make them more sensitive to insulin and allow the receptors to bind more easily, which is necessary for good metabolism and energy production. Remember to balance your fat intake by taking fish oil for the high levels of available Omega-3. I recommend at least 1g of EPA per day.

Keep Getting Stressed
To lose fat, it’s essential that you minimize stress to lower your cortisol levels. It is well established that chronically high cortisol results in fat gain, particularly around the middle. This means that no matter how much you exercise or eat healthy, you won’t lose weight if your cortisol is elevated because of how cortisol makes the body insensitive to insulin.

One recent study looked at the relationship between cortisol levels, insulin sensitivity, and visceral belly fat in men. Men with more belly fat produced far more cortisol throughout the day and had decreased insulin sensitivity than those with less belly fat. Interestingly, subcutaneous fat—the jiggly kind that’s right below the skin—was not related to insulin or cortisol levels. Researchers suggest both external stress and internal physiological stress (in the form of chronic inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract) are the cause of the elevated cortisol.

Forget Your Gut
Fix your gut health and support digestion by taking a probiotic to lose fat, have more energy, and feel better. Probiotics are the tiny bacteria that naturally occur in the gastrointestinal tract and are commonly found in dairy products such as yogurt and kefir.

Gut health is essential in that it will improve digestion and help you feel better. You will actually feel more energetic because your neurotransmitters will be firing at optimal levels, and your metabolism will be supported so that nutrients and energy sources are getting broken down, absorbed, and used by the body in the most effective manner. Additionally, research shows probiotic supplementation helps lower anxiety and stress levels, which leads to less secretion of cortisol.

Miss Adding Protein to Breakfast
Skipping breakfast and missing meals will set you up to fail when trying to lose weight. Eating breakfast is one of the simplest, healthiest things you can do to feel better and have more energy, but there’s one catch. You have to eat protein at breakfast. Eating cereal for breakfast is a common pitfall that is often not addressed by the media or mainstream health professionals.

Cereal is bad for breakfast because it’s typically packed with sugar and additives. In the rare case that you can find a cereal that doesn’t have added sugar, cereal tends to be low in protein. You can always add some high quality whey protein to your breakfast. It what I do and it works wonders.

Stay Focused, have Grit, and Smile.

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[as seen in the Oxford Review December 16th, 2011]
A lot of people have been asking me about the difference between anaerobic and aerobic fitness. It is somewhat technical – here goes:

The anaerobic and aerobic metabolic pathways are two mechanisms of cellular respiration. Our bodies will use a combination of both anaerobic and aerobic respiratory functions depending on specific energy requirements and the activity being performed. Aerobic respiration uses oxygen to create ATP (the ‘currency’ of energy) while anaerobic respiration does not need oxygen to create ATP.

Functions
Anaerobic respiration is needed for high intensity activities lasting two minutes or less. Think of running a 400m race or a shift in hockey. Anaerobic respiration is used when performance is limited by oxygen availability. Anaerobic respiration can occur in the absence of oxygen and results in lactic acid production./p
On the other hand Aerobic respiration is needed for sustained activity. Aerobic respiration is used for lower-intensity, long-term exercise (i.e. marathon). Aerobic activity requires oxygen to produce energy

Anaerobic vs. Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise is done with continuous contraction and repetitive movement of large muscle groups. The exercises are usually classified as rhythmic and continuous. The body demands an increase in the supply of oxygen to the working muscles that have additional energy needs. Aerobic exercise gives off carbon dioxide and H20 as waste products. Aerobic exercise is easily maintained over an extended period of time and is immediately limited only by the amount of available oxygen. Anaerobic respiration is needed when energy needs are not being met by aerobic transport of oxygen or when the intensity is too high to be supported by the aerobic system. Anaerobic respiration is used for maximal effort activity usually lasting two minutes in duration. Anaerobic respiration cannot be sustained over time and is self limiting in that as lactic acid concentration rises muscle contraction begins to decline. A combination of anaerobic and aerobic activity is necessary for optimal fitness.

Aerobic Efficiency
Aerobic respiration is the metabolic process that involves the break down of molecules in the presence of oxygen in energy production. A quick reading of almost any biochemistry text states that aerobic respiration requires glucose and oxygen to create energy, carbon dioxide and water. The amount of energy produced per glucose molecule is 36 ATP. Aerobic respiration is very efficient when comparing ATP production and the elimination of carbon dioxide and water. Aerobic respiration will produce approximately 18 times the amount of energy as anaerobic respiration per glucose molecule.

Anaerobic Efficiency
Anaerobic respiration produces energy without oxygen. Anaerobic respiration only requires glucose to produce ATP. The energy production through anaerobic respiration occurs when glucose is burned without oxygen present – keeping in mind that lactic acid is the major metabolic by product here and acts to shut muscle contraction down after about 2 minutes of intense exercise.

Anaerobic respiration produces two ATP per one molecule of glucose. Compared to aerobic respiration anaerobic respiration has a much lower energy yield and that is the reason it is the main ingredient in interval training, which has been shown by numerous research studies (many of them done at McMaster) to help people lose weight faster.

Health Benefits of Aerobic Respiration
Aerobic respiration is used during continuous lower intensity and longer duration exercises. According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, aerobic exercise strengthens your lungs and decreases the risk of heart disease. Common aerobic exercises include cycling, swimming, some types of dance, walking and running.

Health Benefits of Anaerobic Respiration
According to the American Sports Medicine Institute, anaerobic training can improve strength, muscle mass and power. Heavy weightlifting, sprinting and interval training all incorporate anaerobic respiration (with interval training being show to be the best way to lose weight and increase glucose tolerance in type 2 diabetics). It has also been shown that increasing anaerobic efficiency and increase lactate threshold have a dramatic carry over to aerobic efficiency – however the same is not true for the opposite (increases in aerobic performance has little-to-no effect on anaerobic performance).

It is important to train both the aerobic and anaerobic systems. Most people do enough aerobic cardio training, but don’t do enough anaerobic training. Make anaerobic training your New Year’s resolution – you won’t be sorry!

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