We live in the informational age. With the press of a button, it has become incredibly simple to learn about anything you put into your body and break down its nutrients on a microscopic level. This is the generation of electronics and gadgets to help you track every physical aspect of your day which can be especially beneficial when keeping tabs on your weight. After my first session with clients, I give them a bit of homework; specifically, to track their progress. The cool part is that everything can be shared with me electronically and reviewed together in subsequent meetings.

Whether you use your smart phone, a wrist band, or a watch that looks as if you double as a secret agent, these devices can keep tabs on the nutritional profile of the foods you eat, amount of exercise you’re getting, calories burned after activities or even the number of hours that you sleep.

Often when I’m working with a client and we’re not seeing progress. They might say something like, “I only eat a small breakfast, just some salad for lunch and then fish and vegetables for dinner. It’s not like I have a sweet tooth, either. Then I go to the gym almost every day.” Being that I don’t have anyone under 24-hour surveillance, I have to take their word for it. It makes my job difficult because I’m not always sure what to say to that seemingly perfect effort. If someone is paying you, it’s a little overstepping boundaries to interrogate them to uncover why the results don’t add up.

My solution to cutting through the confusion? It’s all about tracking. Yes, it requires some homework but the picture becomes much clearer for both parties. I want to know what you are eating and drinking for breakfast, lunch and dinner, what you go for at snack time and if you slip up before bed. What kind of physical activity you are up to, how many hours are you sleeping and are you eliminating every day or plugged up and constipated. Asking for all this information can seem a bit intrusive. Yet, without this full transparency will just delay major improvements.

Before you give up and assume with certainty that nothing will work, tracking has to be step #1. Once you’ve logged all of your daily information, trust me it will be more apparent where the problem lies. In many cases, your caloric could exceed your estimation by more than double. Portions, snacking and drinking all have to be accounted for – including nibbling on popcorn or nuts, sipping on juices and coconut waters or the lazy bowl of cereal at night instead of cooking dinner. These habits seemed so harmless that they would probably have been missed through conversations in the first few consults.

Additionally, what you were doing for exercise may be completely wrong for your body type. You may have also come to realize that you could sleep better, feel less stressed and less toxic with better habits. Most people are not in touch with their bodies so it’s no surprise that half our population is overweight.  Without these tracking devices, you can keep going in circles and not understanding why you are fated to a body that won’t change. Please be certain that’s not the case. What I want to stress is that you shouldn’t be upset if you come to realize that you’ve been going about your weight loss attempts all wrong. This is actually the opposite and should be viewed as a blessing. I’m always thrilled when I work with clients and we figure out where mistakes were being made. This only means that we can make corrections and repair the damage.

Joint health and arthritic issues are a huge problem worldwide. Anti-inflammatory and painkilling drugs are being overprescribed more than ever. The concern with this issue is that most over-the-counter and prescription drugs are highly dangerous when used long term. Whether people are dealing with sports injuries, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, or age-related wear and tear, reducing pain and protecting the joints – medication is not a safe long time alternative. Reliance on pain killers can lead to dependence and even be fatal. Before turning to drugs it may be helpful to consider more natural alternatives. These natural ingredients offer holistic preventive care that helps in the management of inflammation.

Curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric, which is a very popular supplement and also used as a spice. Both Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine have been using curumin for thousands of years due to its anti-inflammatory properties. This herb has been found to be effective for pain relief, joint support, inflammation reduction, oxidative damage, and cellular health of rheumatoid and osteoarthritis.

Boswellia (boswellia serrata) is a tree gum resin that has multiple health benefits. Also known as frankincense, it has been burned as incense in religious and cultural ceremonies and folk medicine for centuries to treat inflammatory diseases. Boswellia has anti-inflammatory action much like conventional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Long term usage of Boswellia does not lead to irritation or ulceration of stomach, which makes it safer than NSAIDs.

Ginger is a spice that is well documented in Indian system of Ayurvedic medicine for its anti-inflammatory properties. It helps to reduce severity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Ginger contains very potent anti-inflammatory compounds called gingerols. These substances are believed to explain why so many people with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis experience reductions in their pain levels and improvements in their mobility when they consume ginger regularly.

Chondroitin Sulfate and Glucosamine are 2 different compounds that are often used together in supplement form. Chondroitin is naturally occurring in the body and is known for its anti-inflammatory effect, which can help to reduce the painful swelling in the joints that occurs when the exposed bones in the joint rub together. In addition, chondroitin sulfate may also help slow the breakdown of cartilage and help restore cartilage growth to better cushion the joints. Glucosamine is extracted from shell fish, while chondroitin sulfate is found in animal cartilage such as tracheas or shark cartilage. Some laboratory tests show that glucosamine sulfate may help protect joint cartilage by limiting breakdown and helping to build up levels of cartilage.

Methylsulfonylmethane, otherwise known as (MSM) is an organic sulfur compound that is naturally found in fruits, vegetables and some grains. MSM contains the sulfur needed to form connective tissue. It helps to act as a natural pain reliever by lessening nerve impulses that transmit pain.

Still be advised that although these pain relieving alternatives are natural, it doesn’t mean they can be safely taken with other medications. To avoid any potential interactions, with your health care provider before you begin a new regimen.

A lot of people tend to think that if they adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, they will automatically lose weight. Not so fast! You have to do it right in order to be healthy. There are a large percentage of vegetarians that eat way too many starchy carbohydrates in an attempt to cut out other foods. Just because you are eliminating meat, however, does not mean that there are no consequences to eating unlimited amounts of nuts, seeds, avocados, and other healthy oils. All the foods mentioned above are extremely healthy and necessary for vegetarians, but these are not “free foods” just because they come from the plant kingdom.

When newcomer vegans and raw fooders begin to make the transition, they often gravitate to the same kinds of foods they were used to eating – just the “healthier version”. Yet what is often missed is that a raw pizza or a vegan version made with soy cheese is still a pizza. Having a cocoa, fruit and hemp seed shake for breakfast and a nut pate with an avocado salad dripping in oil or tahini will still rack on hefty amounts of fat and calories. It’s not unusual for a loaded salad with avocado and heaps of dressing to rack in over 1000 calories!

Eating vegan foods predominantly high in carbohydrates or excessive raw calories coming from fat does not always make for good health or weight loss if that’s the goal. It’s not uncommon for people following these diets without supervision to be plagued with candida, chronic fatigue and blood sugar imbalances.

It’s not to say that raw or vegan foods should be avoided. In fact your diet should be rich in organic fruits and vegetables. The issue only becomes problematic when we try to replicate the Standard American Diet with a raw or vegan version.

Whether you choose to be a vegetarian or not is a personal preference. In its original form – eating mostly fruits and vegetables, naturally fermented tofu, tempeh and small portions of beans, lentils, seeds, nuts and non glutenous grains are honestly more humane and better for the planet. You just should be cautious about how clean your meal choices are stay away from designer raw and vegan foods for the novelty.

It’s not surprising that displaying nutritional facts are a requirement in many chain restaurants and cafes. Salt is excessive in the Standard American Diet and all the processed foods that accompany it. Even some of the most unsuspecting foods are pretty bad offenders. Health foods like whole grain bagels, cereals, and even cottage cheese that are marketed as “heart healthy” don’t have to taste salty to be laden with sodium. We think we’re doing ourselves a favor when in fact it’s the exact opposite.

This is not to say that all salt is bad and we should be scared to eat. In fact we need salt, it’s just about having the right kind. Salt plays a vital role in many bodily functions. When we sweat, exert ourselves, or exercise, we need to replace minerals and electrolytes. Salt is one of the ways to do this.

What’s the difference between good salt and bad salt?

Refined Salt: This is the salt that’s found in a restaurant salt shaker or in packed food. Once refined, it’s been treated and stripped of all its nutrients. After it has undergone the process of being cleaned, what’s left is mostly inorganic sodium chloride. Too much will lead to inflammation, fluid retention, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol and potentially other serious health problems.

Unrefined Salt: This salt has a totally different constitution than refined. In fact, it includes all the necessary elements for life. Celtic sea salt, Himalayan sea salt, or Hawaiian sea salt are some of the best examples since they are usually unprocessed and rich in minerals. Maintaining adequate sodium levels is important for healthy bodily function – not to mention for your adrenals. Adrenal fatigue is a big issue for many people who are under constant stress. Adequate salt and minerals are required for the adrenal glands to work optimally. Numerous minerals such as potassium and magnesium are abundant in unrefined salt and help bring life back to someone suffering from adrenal related issues.

How to Avoid Refined Salt

Be cautious when you see ingredients such as monosodium glutamate, baking soda, or soy sauce listed on the box or bottle. These words all mean that you are about to ingest a lot of sodium- so be aware.

There is no need to eat meals that are bland if you are taking your salt intake seriously. Just follow the following suggestions.

Avoid marinades, dressings, and bouillon – Instead, get creative with lemon and spices and use olive oil for extra flavor.

Bring your own salt shaker-A tiny shaker of sea salt can fit easily into your bag. If you’re at a guest’s home you may think twice, but you can use it discreetly in a restaurant.

Drink plenty of water- Drinking at least 8 glasses of pure water daily is always a good idea, although it’s especially important when you are trying to combat fluid retention and flush out excess sodium.

Article courtesy of The New York Times. Image courtesy of Gary Taxali.

Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging in Maryland, has not had breakfast in 35 years. Most days he practices a form of fasting — skipping lunch, taking a midafternoon run, and then eating all of his daily calories (about 2,000) in a six-hour window starting in the afternoon.

“Once you get used to it, it’s not a big deal,” said Dr. Mattson, chief of the institute’s laboratory of neurosciences. “I’m not hungry at all in the morning, and this is other people’s experience as well. It’s just a matter of getting adapted to it.”

In a culture in which it’s customary to eat three large meals a day while snacking from morning to midnight, the idea of regularly skipping meals may sound extreme. But in recent years intermittent fasting has been gaining popular attention and scientific endorsement.

It has been promoted in best-selling books and endorsed by celebrities like the actors Hugh Jackman and Benedict Cumberbatch. The late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel claims that for the past two years he has followed an intermittent fasting program known as the 5:2 diet, which entails normal eating for five days and fasting for two — a practice Mr. Kimmel credits for his significant weight loss.

Fasting to improve health dates back thousands of years, with Hippocrates and Plato among its earliest proponents. Dr. Mattson argues that humans are well suited for it: For much of human history, sporadic access to food was likely the norm, especially for hunter-gatherers. As a result, we’ve evolved with livers and muscles that store quickly accessible carbohydrates in the form of glycogen, and our fat tissue holds long-lasting energy reserves that can sustain the body for weeks when food is not available.

“From an evolutionary perspective, it’s pretty clear that our ancestors did not eat three meals a day plus snacks,” Dr. Mattson said.

Across the world, millions of people fast periodically for religious and spiritual reasons. But some are now looking at the practice as a source of health and longevity.

Valter Longo, the director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, initially studied fasting in mice that showed that two to five days of fasting each month reduced biomarkers for diabetes, cancer and heart disease. The research has since been expanded to people, and scientists saw a similar reduction in disease risk factors.

Dr. Longo said the health benefits of fasting might result from the fact that fasting lowers insulin and another hormone called insulinlike growth factor, or IGF-1, which is linked to cancer and diabetes. Lowering these hormones may slow cell growth and development, which in turn helps slow the aging process and reduces risk factors for disease.

“When you have low insulin and low IGF-1, the body goes into a state of maintenance, a state of standby,” Dr. Longo said. “There is not a lot of push for cells to grow, and in general the cells enter a protected mode.”

Critics say that health benefits or not, various forms of intermittent fasting are too impractical for most people.

The 5:2 diet, for example, advocates eating without restrictions for five days and then consuming just 500 calories — roughly the equivalent of a light meal — on each of the other two days of the week. Another regimen, called alternate-day fasting, involves eating no more than 500 calories every other day.

A third regimen, which Dr. Mattson follows, is known as time-restricted feeding. The idea is to consume all of the day’s calories in a narrow window, typically six to eight hours, and fasting for the remaining 16 to 18 hours in a day. Studies of time-restricted feeding practices in both animals and humans have suggested that the practice may lower cancer risk and help people maintain their weight.

The scientific community remains divided about the value of intermittent fasting. Critics say that the science is not yet strong enough to justify widespread recommendations for fasting as a way to lose weight or boost health, and that most of the evidence supporting it comes from animal research. Advocates say the body of research on intermittent fasting is growing rapidly and indicates that the health benefits are striking.

The 5:2 diet, in particular, is backed by “promising” studies that show that it lowers weight and improves blood sugar, inflammation and other aspects of metabolic health, said Joy Dubost, a registered dietitian and a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the country’s largest organization of dietitians. She noted that fasting isn’t appropriate for pregnant women, people with diabetes and people on medications.

“Most people who do this understand that it’s not about binge eating,” Dr. Dubost said. “But they like that it gives them the freedom not to worry about calories, carbs and other restrictions on days when they’re not fasting.”

Krista Varady, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has studied the effects of alternate-day fasting on hundreds of obese adults. In trials lasting eight to 10 weeks, she has found that people lose on average about 13 pounds and experience marked reductions in LDL cholesterol, blood pressure, triglycerides and insulin, the fat-storage hormone.

Dr. Varady found in her research that intermittent fasting was easiest when people ate a moderately high-fat diet and were allowed to consume up to 500 calories on their fasting days. In her studies, 10 percent to 20 percent of people usually find the diet too difficult and quickly stop. Those who stick with it typically adjust after a rocky first few weeks.

“We’ve run close to 700 people through various trials,” Dr. Varady said. “We thought people would overeat on their feast days to compensate. But people for some reason, regardless of their body weight, can only eat about 10 or 15 percent more than usual. They don’t really overeat, and I think that’s why this works.”

In 2011, Dr. Mattson and his colleagues reported a study of the 5:2 program that followed 107 overweight and obese women. Half of the subjects were assigned to eat no more than 500 calories each on two consecutive days each week. A control group was assigned to follow a low-calorie diet.

After six months, both groups had lost weight. But the intermittent fasting group lost slightly more — about 14 pounds on average — and had greater reductions in belly fat. They also retained more muscle and had greater improvements in blood sugar regulation.

Dr. Mattson’s interest in intermittent fasting grew out of work on animals that showed that alternate-day fasting protected mice from strokes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and consistently extended their life spans by 30 percent. Dr. Mattson and his colleagues found that alternate-day fasting increased the production of proteins that protect brain cells, enhancing their ability to repair damaged DNA. Fasting, he said, acts as a mild stress that makes cells throughout the body stronger, shoring up their ability to adapt to later insults.

In this way, intermittent fasting is like exercise, which causes immediate stress and inflammation, but protects against chronic disease in the long run. Eating fruits and vegetables may have a similar effect. While very large doses of antioxidants can cause cancer in humans, moderate amounts of exposure can make cells more resilient, Dr. Mattson said.

“There is overlap between the way cells respond to exercise, to fasting, and even to exposure to some of the chemicals in fruits and vegetables,” he added.

Dr. Mattson is now starting a rigorous clinical trial of people 55 to 70 years old who are prediabetic and at high risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease. He plans to study whether intermittent fasting may slow cognitive decline.

Dr. David Ludwig, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, said one benefit of fasting is that it forces the body to shift from using glucose for fuel to using fat. During this process, the fat is converted to compounds known as ketones, a “clean” energy source that burns more efficiently than glucose, like high-octane gasoline, Dr. Ludwig said.

The same process, known as ketosis, occurs when people go on extremely low-carb, high-fat diets. Dr. Ludwig said ketones seem to have unique effects on the brain. High-fat diets, for example, have been used for years to treat people who suffer from epileptic seizures.

“There are extensive reports of children who had debilitating seizures who were cured on ketogenic diets,” Dr. Ludwig said. “If it benefits the brain to prevent seizures, then maybe it benefits the brain in other ways.”

Dr. Ludwig noted that the long-term effectiveness of fasting had not been well studied. He cautioned that for many people, fasting is simply too difficult and may slow metabolism. A potentially more practical approach is to limit sugar and other processed carbohydrates, replacing them with natural fats, protein and unrefined carbohydrates, he said.

“It takes a very disciplined person to skip a couple meals every day,” he added.

But Dr. Mattson, who has been skipping meals for decades, said the adjustment to skipping breakfast and lunch was a lot like the change that occurs when a couch potato starts exercising.

“If you’ve been sedentary for years and then you go out and try to run five miles, you’re not going to feel very good until you get in shape,” he said. “ It’s not going to be a smooth transition right away. It takes two weeks to a month to adapt.”

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