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Are you getting enough sunshine?

Sunshine exposure and vitamin D levels have been shown to influence, pain, heart disease, diabetes, parkinson's, cancer, infections, weight gain, mental health and many other conditions. Now that Spring has sprung, and the midday sun has enough power to activate your body's production of vitamin D, it's time to review your vitamin D supplementation.

1) Get your 25 hydroxy vitamin D levels tested. If you are lower than 65 you need to supplement and/or get out in the sun.

2) Get 15 minutes of midday (11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.) sunshine on your face and arms each day. Any type of sunscreen or UV coating on glass will stop your body from making the vitamin D. Many face creams and even make-up now has sunscreen added.

3) Take at least 2,000 i.u of vitamin D3 a day even during the summer.

4) If you cannot get out in the sun regularly you need to take at least 5,000 iu of D3 a day.

5) If your test shows your vitamin D levels are low, you can take as much as 10,000 i.u a day to recover from your deficiency.

Have scientists discovered the root of emotional eating?

The April/May/June issue of Scientific American Mind has a brief review of a study out of Columbia University. The sub-head of the article is "Lowering blood sugar levels may thwart forgetfulness."

This maybe a reason why we crave carbs after an upsetting experience. Comfort foods raise our blood sugar and impair memory creation. This memory blocking mechanism also plays a role in memory degradation as we age. Of course the researcher immediately jumps on the exercise band wagon as the answer to insulin resistance. Me? I'll just keep my carbs low.

Senior moments, those pesky instances of not so total recall—forgetting where we left our keys or what we did last weekend—are a subtle but significant part of the aging process. Another effect of growing old: rising blood sugar levels, which typically take off in our late 30s or early 40s as our bodies become less adept at metabolizing glucose in the bloodstream. Now a study has linked these rising levels with momentary forgetfulness, pinpointing exactly where in the brain the aging process acts—a finding that could help the elderly ward off memory lapses.The nature of senior moments led scientists to believe they stem from disruptions in the hippocampus—an area that, among other roles, acts as the brain’s “save” button, allowing us to retain new information. Using functional MRI, researchers looked at the effects of increased blood glucose in the hippocampus of 181 subjects aged 65 or older with no history of dementia. They found that elevated levels impaired function of a section of the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus, which is a “hotspot” of age-related impairment, according to study author Scott Small, a neurologist at Columbia University.Blood glucose is not alone in selectively affecting dentate gyrus performance. A 2007 study co-authored by Small shows that exercise improves its function in both mice and humans. The newer research, he points out, suggests that these positive effects may actually result from the influence of regular exercise on the body’s ability to break down glucose.Psychiatrist Mony de Leon of New York University explains that the new study “may be showing a very funda­mental aging process that might have some reversibility built into it.” If you correct the glucose intolerance, he says, you may be able to forget about forgetfulness.

Remembering the Alamo

I'm visiting San Antonio with the Hamilton College Women's Lacrosse Team Spring break training trip. The weather is 43 and cloudy, but 43 in San Antonio is a completely different animal than 43 in Deansboro, NY. We play two games against Salisbury and Rowan on Wednesday and Thursday. Wish us luck!

Eating right while traveling isn't easy! I managed to stay away from carbs, but didn't get enough Yin foods and I feel a bit off. Looking for some good Texas beef today. That will help.

Why lying in bed awake is good for you

Dr. Thomas Wehr at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), studied what happens when we sleep very long nights, mimicking deep winter when night are very very long. Before electric lights we would go to bed early.

"Early to bed, early to rise, make a man healthy, wealthy and wise." -- Benjamin Franklin

In the early morning, it was still dark so we would stay in bed in a half-awake almost meditative state. Modern day brain wave readings of people in this half-awake state were similar to people in a transcendental meditative state. Dr. Wehr states that the hormone prolactin, released at night, "probably facilitates the switch to a 'quiescent wakefulness'." That's a fancy scientific way of saying half-awake. Now how many of you get out of bed to do something "productive" if you enter this phase of sleep?

My advice is don't. Stay warm in bed with the lights out. Daydream. Plan your day. Meditate. Pray. Envision world peace. Then get up when you are supposed to with the sun.

Dr. Thomas Wehr at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), studied the difference between getting a short night of sleep versus a long night's sleep. What he found was that short nights:

• reduced melatonin secretion which impairs your immune cells
• melatonin is a potent antioxidant and low levels reduce your body's ability to repair itself
• shifting of the hormone prolactin (in men and women) to daytime production which increases carbohydrate cravings

Are you doing "penance" for your weight gain

The biggest trigger on my first rebound from weight loss was mental. I had what I call "penance mentality."

I felt bad because of gaining weight, so I wanted to make up for it by being extra good, doing "penance." By doing "penance" I was "forgiven." Nature and my metabolism started working for me and I lost weight. All was "forgiven" and I felt like then I could go back to my old "normal" ways, just not quite as bad as before.

Failure was set up from the very beginning, it just manifested at the end after my weight was lost. Now being thin is no longer a "diet" for me. It's long-term and residual effect of following the Yin Yang Diet, switching my metabolism from late summer weight gain mode, to winter weight loss mode.

When will I go back to "normal" eating? Well the answer is, "When do I want to pack on the fat to make it through a lean winter?"

Ummmm.....never :)

Is exercise is making you fat?

Your body was designed to move; walk to gather food; lift heavy objects to build shelter; and run to escape danger. All these activities activate muscle fibers which burn calories in order to contract and move your body. Health experts took note as society became more sedentary with the end of the "industrial age." These experts focused on the most "efficient" of these activities. In 1968 American physician Kenneth Cooper coined the term aerobics in his exercise book Aerobics. He used the term to describe exercises that use oxygen to keep large muscle groups moving continuously for at least 20 minutes. Based on this definition, the name aerobics came to refer to calisthenics taught to music. (Encarta) A movement was born and women all over the country bought leg warmers and danced in classes and in front of the TV sweating to the "oldies."

The biology of the "runner's high"
As their classes wore on, and the brain became starved for oxygen and fuel, a funny thing happened to these women. A region of the temporal lobe got more active, a lot more active. This is the same are area of the brain that is activated when religious people "talk to God." Dr. Michael Persinger, who is an expert on this part of the brain, reports that when this part of the brain is activated, people feel an "opiate-like effect with a substantial decrease in anxiety." and a "heightened sense of well being." Millions of women were hooked, literally stoned on aerobics.

This blissful experience is triggered by two activities, meditation/prayer and stress/lack of oxygen. This euphoria is designed so that when it's time to "meet our maker," after being chased to exhaustion, it is a peaceful transition. What this aerobic "runner's high" is covering up is the huge increase in cortisol that accompanies survival mimicking activities -- aerobics, running, spinning, stairmaster, treadmill, kick boxing, etc.

How stress makes you want to eat "junk"
These elevated cortisol levels keep your blood sugar high, and your insulin system working overtime to supply your muscles with the fuel they need to escape "danger." Chronically high cortisol levels also skew your perception of time so you feel rushed during the day and have problems turning off your brain at night so you stay up late feeling that there is more work to do and searching for sweet and starchy foods to feed this permanent "fight or flight" state.

The end result off job related stress getting pushed over the edge by heavy aerobic exercise is a damaging high cortisol state masked by the mimicking of a blissful "near death" experience all of which forces you to over eat sweets and starches, feel guilty adding more stress and more exercise. It's no wonder many people drop out after just a few months and some who get hooked on the "high" fall over dead on the treadmill.

So what's the answer
I'm not saying don't move your body, just concentrate on the other less "efficient" exercises that don't create stress or burn calories, like yoga, pilates, tai chi, weight lifting and walking.