Shaolin Workout Update

My last post was about how I started doing the Shaolin Workout from the book. And I’ve been doing it since and I feel great. I haven’t made it all the way to the end yet because there have been a some days where I didn’t move to the next step I just reviewed what I already learned. Anyways, I can already feel my flexibility getting better. I can touch the ground with my fingertips while my feet are not bent and I can hold it for a couple of seconds. I wasn’t able to really do that before. Also, I’ve been doing punches while in MaBu (Horse stance) and can feel my legs getting stronger. This is fun!

Shaolin Workout

I was at Half Priced books one day and I came across this neat book called Shaolin Workout
I had it for a couple of weeks just sitting there then I decided to start doing the workout. First off all, the Sifu has a really interesting background, of which you can read a little about on his Wikipedia page.

Anyways, the workout is really neat. It’s divided into four sessions, each session being a week long. Each day you learn a new lesson. You learn six each week, and the seventh day is used for review. From these you build. So for the first day you do the day one lesson, then the second day you do the day one lesson then learn the day two lesson. The third day you do day one and two, then learn day three. You continue this until you learn them all and can be able to do them all in the correct order.

It’s really neat. I’m learning stretches, breathing exercises, postures. I’ll be learning some basic kicks and punches too. I want to do this because I’m really a hypocrite because I don’t work out much and I’d love to gain flexibility and eventually get back into martial arts again. It’s pretty cool, check it out!

You have diabetusssss

I was posting on Veggie Boards and there is a topic about Type II diabetes. Someone mentioned the American Diabetic Associations website for help with meal planning. I browsed the website BRIEFLY and noticed a couple of things that I thought was NOT good information. Let me start!

1. They mention sugar alcohols and then in parenthesis they call them artificial sweeteners. This is really stupid because they are not artificial. Xylitol for example, is produced in very small amounts by your body. It’s also found in many fruits and is most commercially obtained from birch bark. Erythryitol is found in some fruits and in fermented foods. Sorbitol is also found in some fruits. Maltitol is the only one that is really artificial but even then it’s made from non-artificial ingredients (maltose and starch in corn).

2. They have a superfoods page, awesome! Yet they list low fat dairy and yogurt as superfoods even though there has been studies that suggest a link between dairy products and diabetes. There have also been studies that suggest a benefit from dairy with diabetes. Even so, the website fails to mention the negative effects of dairy such as it’s contribution to mucus forming, it’s actual calcium depletion role, and the fact that animal protein is inferior to plant protein.

3. There is a section on the site that says limit your consumption of solid oils like coconut oil because these oils are high in calories and saturated fats. The later is true however saturated fats don’t increase heart disease risk and the ones in coconut oil are short chain unlike the long chain found in animal products. Plus, coconut oil is really beneficial for diabetics.

4. They mention to drink water (which is good) or sugar free diet drinks (which is bad) instead of sugary drinks like soda (also bad). Diet drinks often contain artificial sweeteners which can have negative effects on people. Aspartame, Splenda, Acesulfame-K…etc are not desirable ingredients we want to be ingesting. Sugar alcohols on the other hand (which are completely sugar free as well although not completely calorie free) have many health benefits and are natural. Stevia can be used as well.

4. The website fails to mention doctors and nutritionists who are actually REVERSING Type II (and in some cases Type I) diabetes. The entire thing is about controlling your diabetes, not curing it. Everyone keeps saying they want a cure for diabetes but there are already doctors and nutritionists out there who are reversing this horrible problem.

Dr. Gabriel Cousins is one amazing guy who has a retreat in Patagonia Arizona. He has a documentary out called Raw For 30 Days in which 6 diabetics (some Type I) went there and went raw for 30 days. One dropped out of the program but the other 5 stayed. After only 4 days (4 DAYS) all were off insulin and some of these people have been diabetic for 10+ years. Amazing stuff. Has a book out on the subject as well. Check out his book There is a Cure for Diabetes

Dr. Neal Barnard is another amazing guy. He’s from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. He also has a book out.

If you have diabetes, check out those two doctors and their books. I wish you all the best of luck.

Tinnitus

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110112132130.htm

I wanted to share this because I have a REALLY mild case (at least I think) of tinnitus. My mom has it worse though. For me, I hardly notice it unless everything else is really silent. It doesn’t bother me that much.

The above article talks about researchers who have found a promising treatment for Tinnitus in rats, and they’re going to be doing human clinical trials soon.

hcg diet

I wanted to make little post about the HCG Diet because one of my friends is on it and it seems to be gaining in popularity. I’m doing this because I don’t feel the HCG is that safe or healthy and I think it is a waste of money.

So basically, the HCG diet is a VERY LOW calorie diet in which you eat only 500 calories a day. That’s not all though, you have to also take Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone which is found in pregnant females. Proponents claim that the HCG actually helps tell your body what type of fat to burn rather than just burn off any fat and even muscle. They also say the HCG helps so people do not get hunger pangs. So basically they say a 500 calorie diet isn’t good but a 500 calorie diet + HCG is ok!

Taking HCG is a waste of money in my opinion. Studies in a couple of major scientific medical journals and many doctors have shown that HCG does nothing beneficial in regards to weight loss:

http://www.ajcn.org/content/29/9/940.full.pdf

http://www.dietscam.org/reports/hcg.shtml

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1365103/?tool=pmcentrez

So people are basically spending their money on products that don’t even do anything. It is a waste.

You may know of some people who did go on this diet and have lost weight, but that is because they eat only 500 calories a day, which is pretty much a starvation diet. There is really no way you can get all of your nutrients you need on this restricted diet. If done for awhile deficiencies are sure to develop. You don’t lose weight because of HCG, you lose weight because you don’t eat enough food. There are also certain foods you can and cannot have and for every protein (meat) you eat you have to weigh out 100g.

This diet is dumb. If you want to lose weight do it the correct weight. Exercise and lose calories that way rather than not eat enough. Eat the right foods, mostly fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes, and if not vegan then small amounts of meat and dairy. Make sure all food is organic when possible and preferably locally grown and bought. Minimize processed foods. Eat more than 500 calorie (lol). Also green tea has some promise in helping with weight loss so you should drink that as well.

Fun fact: Kevin Trudeau advocates this diet in his book ‘Weight Loss Cures They Don’t Want You to Know About.’

Fact two

2. A third of the world’s obese people live in the developing world.

Candied Pumpkin Seeds!

I love this recipe because it’s raw, and they taste like candy! Very easy too but you need a dehydrator. It’s from Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis’ book Raw Food/Real Word but I changed it a bit:

*2 cups pumpkin seeds, soaked 4 hours or more
*1/2 tsp sea salt or Himalayan pink salt
*1 tbsp ginger powder
*1/4 cup xylitol

Drain water from pumpkin seeds and mix ingredients together. Put on a dehydrator tray lined with Paraflexx sheets or parchment paper and dehydrate 12 to 24 hours at around 110F until dried and yummy.

Pumpkin seeds are high in protein and zinc which great! So these are a good way to eat them.

still in there

I still want to do raw. I keep reading more books about it and it just seems right. Next time I go raw, I’ll experiment with different dietary patterns like lower fat, higher fruit, less dehydrated…etc.

I made a raw soup a friend suggested and it contained one avocado, two handfuls of spinach, one lemon juiced, water, one red bell pepper, and two celery stalks. It was really good although I added a bit too much water. I think next time I’ll try other leafy veggies and maybe add some spice like a jalapeno or chili powder and some kelp powder in place of salt. Yum!

lemongrass

Use it

“In 2006, a research team from the Ben Gurion University in Israel found that lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) caused apoptosis (programmed cell death) in cancer cells. Through in vitro studies, the researchers examined the effect of citral, a molecule found in lemon grass, on both normal and cancerous cells. Using concentrations of citral equivalent to the quantity in a cup of tea (one gram of lemon grass in hot water), the researchers observed that citral induces programmed cell death in the cancerous cells, while the normal cells were left unharmed.[5]“

I’m so confused…who’s right?

All this raw diet stuff is EXTREMELY confusing. It’s hard to know who is right, who is wrong…maybe they are all wrong. I’m even confused at myself because I went raw, liked it, but stopped because I didn’t notice a change. When I went back to cooked food it was just like, “MEH!” because I keep having thoughts of being raw in the back of my head. Like, I know it’s the right thing to do (is it?) but I always go back. And when I go back it’s nothing spectacular like I don’t go back because I can’t not eat the cooked food. I just had two vegan cooked grilled cheese and I thought that I was craving them but after I finished eating them (they were good) I was just like, “Meh, I could of had a raw salad meal and it still would have satisfied me just the same.”

Here is what is confusing. You get one raw author saying hey green smoothies are the best do them everyday, they have changed my life! Then you get other authors saying green smoothies are ok but juicing is best you should do that instead. You get people saying fiber in the juice is great and people saying plain juice is better. You also get people saying you have to do colonics to get the max benefit of health. Yet when I read online, the scientific consensus is that colonics offer little to no beneifts. Then you people saying Norman Walker lived to be 118 years old yet in reality he only lived to 99.

What’s right? I believe in science. I also believe that if someone does something that makes them feel great then that is awesome. But why is it making them feel great? If colonics really offer little no benefits then how come the people that do them say they are amazing?

I will continue doing research and figures what works best for me. For now, I’m happy and healthy the way things are. I must be doing something right!

Have a good day everyone!