The Power of Habit

The book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business was written by journalist Charles Duhigg who became interested in habits while covering the Iraq war after observing US troops quickly and calmly respond to attacks. He learned that most military training is teaching soldiers habits so they know what to do without thinking. The author explains how habits allow us to do complex tasks without thinking, like driving a car, cooking breakfast, and walking in a familiar place.

Much of the new understanding about habits is from Eugene Pauly who had significant brain damage caused by a viral infection at age 70. Though much of his brain was destroyed by the virus including his ability to make new memories, he was able to perform complex tasks that had been established as existing habits and create new habits. By studying Pauly, scientists discovered that habits are stored in the basal ganglia, the small primitive part of the brain. Habits make up over 40% of our daily activities, which makes us very dependent on this small part of our brain. If we had to think (in our cerebral cortex) through every action we take during the day we would quickly become exhausted and unable to function. Habits are instantaneous responses to stimuli; if a child jumps in front of your car you slam on the brakes without thinking.

Habits are described as behavior loops that start with a cue like being hungry, followed by a behavior, like cooking breakfast, and ending with a reward like feeling full.  All habits start out with a craving of some kind, like a craving for food, or a craving for stimulation or socialization. Habits effectively satisfy a craving by an automatic behavior.  This seems a bit simplistic of an explanation to me considering that habits can be formed without a craving through external pressures, like a job or by your own initiative.

Although habits are powerful and never really go away, they are also fragile and can be altered by small changes to the cue. An example given was the loss of customers to a McDonalds that moved just a block away; the cue at the specific place where drivers saw the McDonalds sign was disrupted and that stopped their behavior of driving in for food.

The author states that to gain control over a habit we must understand what craving is being satisfied by the behavior. To uncover the unconscious craving  we must experiment by giving ourselves different rewards. The author gives a personal example of his cookie craving in the afternoon at work. His routine was to go to the cafeteria, buy a cookie, and talk to people while he ate it. He didn’t know if the craving was for food, stimulation, or socialization. To test out food, he brought an apple to work and ate at his desk. This did not stop his afternoon cookie craving. The next day he went for a walk around the block and that didn’t stop his craving either. Finally, he tried leaving his desk to talk to people and that stopped his craving. So he set an alarm 30 minutes before he normally went to get a cookie in the afternoon and instead talked to coworkers for ten minutes and no longer craved his afternoon cookie.

I found the description of keystone habits very useful. Keystone habits are good habits that lead to developing other good habits. One example of a keystone habit is daily exercise. Once daily exercise becomes a habit, it can lead to a habit of controlling spending, drinking less alcohol, and eating less. For weight loss, keystone habits are keeping a daily food journal and recording your weight every day.  Studies have found people who exhibit these two habits lose more weight than people who don’t have these habits. I am trying to develop these keystone habits to see if they will help me take off the ten pounds I have put on since moving to Oahu.

Another keystone habit is keeping a “conflict planning journal”, which leads to preparation for difficult circumstances. By writing down ahead of time how you are going to deal with a conflict, for instance how will you deal with a really hostile customer, you will be less upset and emotional when it happens. Being less upset leads to other positive things.

The author described successful organizations that teach their employees habits to make their businesses more effective and profitable. Alco Aluminum increased their profits by 500% by developing safety habits in their employees. Starbucks teaches their employees communication habits to deal with hostile customers. A low ranked NFL team became top ranked by teaching their players better football habits.

Although some of the author’s claims in this book are thin and there is minimal discussion about how to create habits, I found the book worth reading and recommend it.  Five stars.

Iron, The Secret Killer

I became concerned about iron in my body after reading an article by a researcher at Duke on the “Golden Age of Iron Biology”.  I then read, “Dumping Iron: How to Ditch this Secret Killer and Reclaim Your Health” by P.D. Mangan, an excellent book on recent research about the negative effects of high levels of iron in the body.  In simple language a non-biologist like me can understand, the book explains astonishing new discoveries of why high iron concentrations in the body degrades health and shortens lives.  

According to the book, iron starts accumulating in men at age 19 and in most women starting at about age 50 after the end of their menses. At 50, the average man has 4 times as much iron in his body as the average women; he also has 4 times the mortality from diseases that appear to be caused by high iron. Women’s mortality increases as their iron levels reach the same high levels as men. Though women live 4 years longer than men, at their death the average iron levels of women are the same as the average men's level. The author notes that the majority of the oldest people alive have had low levels of iron most of their lives and populations that are long lived have low levels of iron in their blood.

According to the book, there was a dramatic rise in iron levels in the US population due to the addition of iron to grains and cereals, which has caused the average person to have higher levels of iron than is healthy. One of the issues with iron is that the body has no natural way to get rid of it so it builds up first in the liver, then in the pancreas, then other organs including the heart and brain. To make matters worse, sugar and fructose increase iron absorption significantly. So all the sugary drinks and foods people have added to their diet over the past few decades has further increased their iron levels.

High iron levels damages cellular mitochondria and is suspected to cause cancer. Even more interesting, cancer cells need large amounts of iron to grow and spread. Tumors in people with low iron tend to be very small and grow slowly.

Iron is also implicated in cancer reoccurring after treatments of chemotherapy and radiation because iron is needed for cancer stem cells to form. Cancer stem cells are special cancer cells that can travel throughout the body and restart cancer growth after treatment. Low levels of iron in the blood may prevent them from forming.

I was surprised to learn that high iron levels are needed for invasive bacteria to grow in the body and low iron levels actually increase immunity to bacteria. Even viruses, like colds and flu, need lots of iron to grow so low iron levels are also antiviral. It helps explains why people with low levels of iron live so long.

Evidence is also growing that high iron levels contribute to obesity because it destroys the hormone leptin, the key hormone that reduces hunger after eating. High iron levels can make you insatiably hungry which can lead to obesity.

The author believes that the best blood iron level is just over what would normally be considered anemia. He recommends that people keep their iron levels much lower than the normal ranges and consume things that both remove iron from the body and take things that decrease iron absorption from the foods you eat. What is really interesting about this is that most of the things that decrease iron absorption are considered life-extending like green tea, dark chocolate, red wine, low dose aspirin, low calorie diets, high fiber, vegetarian diets, and exercise.

I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to improve the quality of their health and longevity using recent discoveries about iron biology. Five stars!!!!

Amazing Apple Pectin

We recently discovered some amazing health benefits of taking apple pectin.  We have known for awhile about the benefits of malic acid found in tart green apples, which we take as a supplement for sore muscles and gout.  But we did not realize that the pectin in tart apples helps with digestion, colon health, lowering cholesterol, removing heavy metals from the blood, and keeping cancer from spreading.

Pectin is found in many fruits, however most of the health studies were done with apple pectin.  The most concentrated apple pectin is found in under-ripe, hard, green apples.  As the fruit ripens the pectin is destroyed and some varieties of apples have no pectin at all when they are ripe. Pectin is extracted by boiling the apples, skins and all, until it becomes a runny applesauce.  Some people just use apple cores and skins.  The thick slimy liquid that drips through the strainer is liquid pectin.

Pectin is a soluble fiber which has the benefit of attaching to LDL cholesterol and removing it.  Taking pectin as a supplement can lower levels of LDL in the blood and liver and improve the functioning of the gall bladder.  Pectin fiber has also been shown to remove heavy metals from the blood stream. Children with high levels of lead in their blood stream had a 50% reduction in lead levels by being on apple pectin for one month.  Ukrainian children exposed to uranium had success removing it from their bodies over a year with pectin. Pectin has also been used to remove cadmium and mercury. Like other nutritional fiber, pectin slows the rate of fat and carbohydrate absorption. If pectin is taken 30 minutes before a meal it can reduce your appetite. A study showed women taking it for a year lost an average of 12% of their body fat.  

Pectin increases the moisture in the intestines which increases the removal of old waste that can block the intestines from absorbing nutrition.  The increased moisture also makes it much easier for good probiotic bacteria to thrive in the intestines.  Pectin also appears to reduce the incidence of bowel cancer if consumed long term.

Pectin attaches to and destroys an enzyme that allows prostate cancer to metastasize. Laboratory studies show that contact with pectin causes the cancer cell rate of apoptosis (cell death) to increase by 40 times.  

Although we have only been taking Now Foods Apple Pectin  Capsules for only a month, it does seem to be helping our intestines and increasing our stamina and it is only about costs around $15 a month.

East Hawaii Blue Zones Project

East Hawaii, which includes Hilo, was selected as one of 3 communities in the state of Hawaii as a Blue Zones project by HSMA, Blue Zones LLC, and Healthways Inc.  The Island of Kauai has been a Blue Zones Project pilot since 2013.

According to Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones, people in the Blue Zones he identified reach age 100 at 10 times the average rate.  Blue Zones LLC states that only 20% of how long a person lives is because of their genes; the other 80% is due to their lifestyle and environment. 

The Blue Zones project has best practices for communities to improve the lifestyle and environment for the residents. In Albert Lea, Minnesota, a Blue Zones project since 2009, the residents lost a total of 12,000 pounds, cut their health care costs, and added over 3 years to the residents’ average life expectancy.    

To be selected as a Blue Zones project, the community must have broad buy-in within the community including local leaders, schools, employers, restaurants, and grocery stores who agree to support the program.  In addition, at least 20% of the citizens must sign a personal pledge to take actions to improve their well-being which include eating wisely, moving naturally, making changes at home, connecting socially, and finding a purpose.

The personal pledges are based on 9 shared traits of the world’s longest lived people that Buettner identified.  Summaries of these traits listed on bluezones.com website include:

Move Naturally The world’s longest-lived people don’t pump iron or run marathons or join gyms. Their environments nudge them into moving without thinking about it.

Purpose Why do you wake up in the morning? Knowing your sense of purpose adds up to seven years of extra life expectancy.

Down Shift Stress leads to chronic inflammation, associated with every major age-related disease. The world’s longest-lived people have routines to reduce their stress.

80% Rule “Hara hachi bu” – the Okinawans say this mantra before meals as a reminder to stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full. That could be the difference between losing weight or gaining it.

Plant Slant The cornerstone of most centenarian diets are beans. They typically eat meat, mostly pork, only five times per month.

Wine  Moderate drinkers outlive non-drinkers, especially if they share those drinks with friends.

Belong Attending faith-based services four times a month adds 4 to 14 years of life expectancy.

Loved Ones First Centenarians put their families first. They keep aging parents and grandparents nearby, commit to a life partner, and invest time and love in their children.

Right Tribe They world’s longest lived people chose or were born into social circles that support healthy behaviors.

East Hawaii is the perfect place for a Blue Zone project as it already has many of the nine shared traits listed above. When we researched our book on “Why People in Hawaii are so Healthy and Happy” we found lots of reasons why people in Hawaii already live longer and have better health than the rest of the US. 

Why are People in Hawaii so Healthy and Happy?

We moved to Hawaii seven years ago to escape our stressful life in California.  We were out of shape, exhausted, and obese.  Fortunately, just being in Hawaii improved our health and helped us lose weight.  We have watched many other people lose fat  and improve their health by spending  time in Hawaii. We have even seen people who arrived in Hawaii barely able to walk with a walker become more mobile every month; some were ultimately able to walk freely without any assistance.

After completing our Hawaii Island travel guide, a friend of ours insisted that our next book be about why people feel so much better when they are in Hawaii.   We agreed that it would be fasinating to research the mystery of why every year residents in Hawaii are ranked the healthiest and happiest in the US.

We were not prepared for the shocking answer. We found hundreds of medical studies that completely contradicted everything we had been taught about what is healthy to eat. The diet we thought was healthy was actually harming our health significantly according to the health studies.

Our weight loss and improved fitness in Hawaii were due to high levels of nutrients in Hawaii’s food and environment, not because of the foods we thought were healthy.  Just by living in Hawaii we had stumbled into better health. The miracle health improvements we saw in ourselves and others were because of critically missing essential nutrients abundant in Hawaii yet missing on the mainland.

Our new book, Your Ideal Hawaii Health: Why People in Hawaii are so Healthy and Happy, answers our friend’s question.  The book cites the health studies  and tells our personal experiences of the changes we made in our diet and lifestyle in Hawaii that allowed us to achieve our health goals, improve our fitness, and increase our happiness.

If you are struggling with your weight, depression, or health conditions you may want to read the book and find out why just living in Hawaii can make you healthier and happier. 

Your Ideal Hawaii 2015 Day Planner

Every year we use to hunt for a day planner to keep track of our goals, events, daily to-do lists, and record the food we ate.  Although some day planners were close to what we were looking for, none provided everything we wanted and we were frustrated by their high cost.  Two years ago, we started to published our own day planner with all the tools we needed to set goals and keep track of our progress every day and month during the year.  If you are looking for a day planner for 2015, consider Your Ideal Hawaii Day Planner 2015, available now on Amazon for $5.99.

We tend to get more of the things we appreciate, so the front of the Hawaii-themed Day Planner has a page to list the things you appreciate to refer to every day.  Each day in the Planner has space to track food eaten, calories, and your daily weight, which we have found keeps us achieving our weight and health goals. Each week has a space write down your insights, which we find helpful to refer to later, sometimes years later.  We also record the events of the world and important happenings in our life in our Day Planner.

Your Ideal Hawaii Day Planner 2015  is a 9”x 6” paperback book that is sturdy and easy to carry. The front cover has a picture of a beautiful red Lehua flower from Hawaii’s native Ohia trees. The 150 pages in the interior are black and white.   The 2015 Day Planner has all the Federal holidays as well as unique holidays and special days celebrated in Hawaii.

At the front of the Planner are pages for writing your Goals for the year, what you are Thankful for, your Choices for the upcoming year, and your Plans for where you want to spend your time in 2015.  Each month has an overview calendar with a section on the side for writing monthly Goals, Health Choices, Appreciations, Projects, Adventures, and Events.  Each monthly calendar is followed by two pages for each week to plan and record each day. 

Overview calendars for December 2014 and January 2016 are also included.  At the back of the Planner are pages to record your 2015 Accomplishments and make Plans for 2016.  You can look inside the day planner on Amazon here.

If you are looking for a great Day Planner for 2015 for yourself or someone else, give this one a try and let us know how it works for you.

Bread, Gout, and Breathlessness

We recently read The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance by Jeff Volek and Stephen Phinney and it gave us a new insight into how bread and other carbohydrates cause gout attacks and make us short of breath.

Eating carbohydrates causes glucose (blood sugar) levels to rise and the body to produce insulin to store any excess glucose as glycogen in the liver.  When the insulin level goes down, the stored glycogen is broken down into glucose for energy.   The process of glycogen breaking down produces CO2 which is released through breathing.  Exercise uses the stored glycogen faster and increases the concentration of CO2 in the blood making it more acidic. The increased acidity can cause Uric acid in the blood to start precipitating out into the needle like crystals that cause gout.   Exercise causes rapid breathing to rid of the body of CO2 and can make you breathless.

However, there is a form of fuel other than glucose.  If there is no glucose available, the liver will convert fat to ketones for energy.  Ketones are burned differently and produce much less CO2 than glycogen so you can exercise more before you are out of breath. There are other benefits to ketogenic energy including better efficiency of the muscles, like the heart.  The average person can only store about 2000 calories as glycogen and although it can be quickly converted to energy, once it is gone the muscles and brain stop functioning.  We have seen this happen to Ironman athletes in Kona. When the body is using ketones for fuel, it can convert up to 40,000 calories a day, 20 times more than from glucogen.

We have been on the ketogenic diet for almost 6 months.  After the adaption period, we are feeling more energetic than ever.   We love not being hungry all the time and have made great progress on our weight loss.   The best part is no gout attacks, even though it has been very hot and humid this year and we have been exercising more. 

Healthy Sunlight in Hawaii

Measuring Light in Hawaii

After reading studies about the health benefits of sunlight and reports that world-wide pollution is blocking sunlight in the northern hemisphere, we wondered how bright the sun is in Hawaii?  

To find out we ordered a digital light meter (Dr Meter) to see how much light we are getting inside our home and on our walks.  Is the sunlight as bright as it seems?

Researchers at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine found that exposure to light was correlated to BMI (Body Mass Index).  The key was to bask in light of at least 500 Lux (a unit of light measurement) and the best time for the exposure was early in the day. Every hour the light exposure was delayed, BMI rose by 1.28 points.  

With new our light meter we measured the Lux during our early morning walk at 6:20 in the morning.   The sun was just on the horizon so were surprised to see the readings ranging from 800 to 3000 Lux.  Later in the morning, sitting on our couch next to the open windows, the readings ranged from 500 to 600 Lux.  At noon, on a cloudless day with the sunlight directly overhead, we measured over 140,000 Lux.  In Kona, even on a morning with moderate Vog (Volcanic smog), the reading was still 70,000 Lux.

Measuring Lux at sunset in Hawaii

At 5:30PM, with the sun low in the sky and cloud cover, the light was still over 3000 Lux on the beach.  

3250 Lux on the beach at 5:30PM

We were expecting higher light levels than on the mainland since Hawaii is the only state south of the Tropic of Cancer.  But the extremely high noon Lux measurements confirms Hawaii is giving us an incredible amount of healthy sunlight. 

As the days get shorter and we head into winter, we are curious to see how much the light levels will change in Hawaii.

Our caffeine story

We have been caffeine users and coffee lovers for over 40 years.  Though we moved to Hawaii for the laid-back lifestyle and to reduce our stress, giving up coffee was never on our list of things to improve our health.   A couple of months ago, we started reading some disturbing studies about caffeine and how it keeps the body from losing weight and degrades health.

We knew that too much caffeine can cause anxiety, sleep problems, spasms, dehydration, and stomach upset. But we didn’t know that just 200 mg of caffeine increases the cortisol levels in the blood by 30% within an hour (*).  Cortisol reduces metabolism, increases belly fat, and causes the body to breakdown muscle tissue. Cortisol also reduces leptin, the hormone that regulates hunger, so you feel hungry no matter how much food you have eaten.  

A cup of coffee once had less than 100 mg of caffeine (according to folgersofficecoffee.com, Folgers has about 70 mg in a 6 oz cup) but times have changed.  A Grande size of plain brewed coffee at Starbucks has 330 mg of caffeine.  Rockstar Energy drink has 240 mg per can and other super energy potions have double that.  Caffeine is not only in coffee, teas, energy drinks, soft drinks, and chocolate, it is also in mints, ice-cream, chewing gums, pain-relievers, and cold remedies (**).

When we added up all the caffeine we were getting through our multiple pots of coffee, daily dark chocolate, additional afternoon coffee, we realized we were going to have caffeine withdrawal.  We  started by gradually reducing the amount of coffee grounds in our morning brew.  After a couple of weeks we were able to get down to one cup of coffee a day.  Although we didn’t have severe headaches, we felt lethargic and missed our morning adrenal jolt.  After two more weeks, we cut out coffee entirely and then the caffeine headaches started. Caffeine causes the blood vessels to be constricted; one study showed that just 250 mg of caffeine reduced blood flow to the brain by 30% (***).  This is scary since caffeine also increases blood pressure, a combination that increases the risk of stroke. Without caffeine the blood flow increases to the brain and causes headaches.  On the upside the additional blood and oxygen to the brain increases concentration and memory, but it also helped us to remember how much we loved our morning coffee.  Taking painkillers for the headache is not helpful as many painkillers contain caffeine.

Although a challenging process, the effects of getting off caffeine have been dramatic.  We no longer drink a bottle of wine every night to get to sleep. We sleep more and much deeper.  We have less appetite and are eating less. The best part is that we both lost about 5 pounds in three weeks.  These were the last 5 pounds (after our weight leveled out on our low-carb diet) to get under our normal BMI weights.

Though we often miss drinking coffee in the morning, we are delighted to find another way to lose fat, improve our concentration, and get even more laid back.  Now, we are hoping for other health benefits promised by being off caffeine over a long period of time.

Sources:
* “Stress-like adrenocorticotropin responses to caffeine in young healthy men” by Lovallo W., et al. published in Parmacol Biochem Behav 55, 1996

** caffeineinformer.com (caffeine content in drinks and foods)

*** Caffeine Blues:  Wake up to the Hidden Dangers of America’s #1 Drug by Stephen Cherniske

The Decaf Diet: Is Caffeine Making you Fat? by Eugene Wells  

Iodine and the Ocean in Hawaii

We have always been drawn to the ocean and mesmerized by the crashing waves.  Living in Hawaii, we look forward to our daily walks along the Kohala Coast; after the walk, we sit close to the crashing waves and feel invigorated and revitalized as the salty mist covers our bodies and fills our lungs.  Our recent research into iodine has given us new insight into our addiction to ocean surf.  The ocean’s mist contains iodine, which affects the body’s metabolism (which the thyroid gland located in your neck controls). A shortage of iodine causes cold feet, hair loss, constipation, depression, dry skin, fatigue, poor memory, throat pain, muscle weakness, cysts, and worse in adults. In babies and children, iodine deficiency is catastrophic to the brain’s development.

In his book Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can't Live Without It, Dr. David Brownstein, claims up to 40% of Americans have thyroid disease from lack of iodine, which every cell, muscle, and organ in the body depends upon.  A minimum amount of iodine was added to table salt to prevent goiter (the swelling of the thyroid) and mental retardation in babies.  However, iodine deficiencies in the US population has been increasing dramatically with low-salt diets and the use of bromine (in flour and soft drinks) and fluorine (in toothpaste and drinking water) which both block iodine absorption in the body.

In 1829, a French physician Jean Lugol discovered that a solution of potassium iodide and iodine treated infections and numerous other ailments.  Different tissues and glands in the body require iodide or iodine or both, for example, the thyroid needs iodide (which was the form added to salt to prevent goiter) whereas the breast and prostate glands require iodine.  "Lugol's Solution" was a major breakthrough in the medical world and widely prescribed by physicians before being replaced by prescription drugs.  The use of iodine to treat breast cancer dates back to 1896.  It has been known for 5 decades that low iodine levels result in cysts and ultimately cancer in the breasts, ovaries, uterus, and prostate where iodine is concentrated.  Iodine is also required by the gastrointestinal tract, salivary glands, bones, and body fluids.  Without sufficient iodide, the thyroid won’t stimulate the mitochondria to produce energy (ATP) and muscle soreness, fatigue, and brain fog takes over.

Our discovery about iodine explains why we feel so wonderful after our daily pilgrimage to the Kohala Coast.   The ocean is unique in that it has both iodine and iodide in the mist, both of which are needed by the body and are absorbed by the skin. There are lots of ideal places under coconut trees further from the surf,  but our favorite place is out on a point where the waves crash around us. Though we are getting iodine and iodide from the ocean, seafood, and even local grass-fed beef, we have found new levels of energy and concentration since starting supplements of J.CROW'S® Lugol's Solution of Iodine 2%.

Wheat Free Diet Update

We started a wheat free diet last November and although we had some great results weight loss was not one of them.  In July we happened to watch a documentary, “The Perfect Human Diet”, that tells about the original human diet and health issues with grains.  The movie presented a radically different view of the ideal human diet when compared to the currently accepted “healthy” diet and foods. 

Citing research on the skeletal remains of pre-agriculture societies in Europe, the movie concludes that the human body is designed to flourish on the diet of northern European hunter gatherers.  The film makes a lot of assumptions such as the reason all skeletal remains are all tall and disease free is because of diet; it may be that environmental challenges at the time led to a minimum size and food requirement to survive rather than diet alone.  And there is the even greater assumption that a diet ideal for people from northern Europe is good for all humans.  Even so, the journalist CJ Hunt made a very convincing argument that modern grains are a major cause of obesity and diet related illnesses and we were intrigued at his proposal for ancestral eating.

Since becoming wheat-free 8 months earlier, we had come to rely heavily on rice in our diet.  Not eating wheat, spelt, rye, and oats, had just changed, and not reduced, the grains in our diet.  We decided to remove all grains from our diet after watching the movie because our ancestors are northern European and since we had seen beneficial results from taking wheat out of our diet (in particular ending gout flare ups) it seemed possible that removing all grains would offer even more benefits.  We had already stopped eating what we considered “unhealthy” foods years ago like sugar, corn, GMO foods, etc. and although we had lost weight and felt much better, we were still struggling with losing the last pounds.

Going on the diet was fairly simple for us, we just stopped eating rice, which was much easier than removing wheat and bread from our diet a year earlier.  To replace rice at our meals, we added  more vegetables (carrots, kale, sweet potatoes, romaine lettuce, avocados, green beans) more nuts (macadamia nuts, almonds, walnuts, pecans) and hunter gather fruits (dates, figs, cherries, bananas).  We realize  the  availability of the foods on the “perfect diet” is one of the many gifts of living on Hawaii Island and we doubt we could have made the diet change as easily and inexpensively on the mainland.

Within weeks we started to lose weight and had a major reduction in our hunger.  We noticed that a meal of beef heated us up and we were more physically active during the day.  At night we are sore and more tired than we used to be from our additional activity.   Within three months we had both lost 10 pounds without having to count calories or be hungry.  Even better, our weight has stopped fluctuating so much and seems stabilized.  We plan to get our blood tested to verify the effect of this new diet.

Although the non-grain diet has been positive for us, we are not sure this diet is for everyone. 

Living Wheat Free in Hawaii

Bread is expensive in Hawaii and often hard to find fresh, so it was easy to note that my gout attacks occurred after eating a lot of bread.  When researching the relationship between wheat and gout in November 2012, we could find no evidence that wheat caused gout, but we decided to try a wheat free diet anyway.  Though many people report immediate weight loss on a wheat free diet, we both put on 10 lbs.  The wonderful upside has been no gout attacks and the swelling and inflammation I usually have in my feet is gone. The spaces between my toes, where I usually get gout, is now much smaller as are the joints in my fingers.

The problem with modern wheat is thought to be the gliadin protein which acts as an opiate; it misdirects the immune system, increases appetite, and causes emotional highs and lows from surges in insulin production.   

Though gluten intolerance is often seen as a  digestive problem, eating wheat can also cause joint inflammation, skin problems, and respiratory distress without a person having digestive symptoms.  Dr. Kenneth Fine, a researcher at Entero Lab, uses stool samples, rather than blood tests, to detect antibodies in the digestive tract from a reaction to gliadin.  His research has found that 35% of Americans cannot tolerate wheat and more than 80% have genes types that are more likely to have problems with wheat.

Instead of wheat pasta, we now eat brown rice pasta.  We also replaced wheat tortillas, bread, and pancakes with our own dough consisting of rice flour and ground flax.  Ground flax makes dough easier to roll out, so we don’t have to use additives like guar gum or xantham gum. We use almond flour and coconut flour to make cookies and pie crusts.  (We use maple syrup and fruit as sweeteners.)  We also add green pea and buckwheat (which is not wheat in spite of its name) flours, which are actually fruits, in our tortilla and pancake dough. 

The wheat-free diet is challenging as one must totally avoid wheat because the immune response to the gliadin protein can last up to 6 months each time wheat is consumed.  It took us about 6 months for our bread craving to stop and we are just starting to feel that a wheat-free diet is worth all the trouble.  We have found wheat in all sorts of products, even some yogurts and cheeses.  We cut back on our almond flour and nut consumption to get back down to the weight we were before we started the no-wheat diet.  

From a gout perspective, getting rid of wheat has been wonderful.  For the first time since I can remember, my feet and toes are not swollen.  Our skin has changed remarkably; it looks younger and tauter.  Our hair looks glossier, but that may be just from eating so much flax.   Experiences of other 50-something guys is that it takes 4 years to get the ultimate benefit of a flat stomach.  Though our bellies have shrunk, we still have 10 more pounds to lose to gain the full benefit of being wheat-free.  

A Wheat free Thanksgiving with Hawaii Ingredients

Mac-nut Biscuits

This Thanksgiving we made a major change in our favorite holiday foods.  We replaced our bread dressing with wild rice dressing and made a crushed nut crust for our pumpkin pie.  We found alternatives to our favorite cream gravy and buttermilk biscuits using Hawaii ingredients and started a new tradition of wheat-free Thanksgivings. 

We started a wheat-free diet after two recent gout attacks that occurred after eating a lot of bread.  We have not found any studies that show that wheat causes gout.  However, some doctors claim that the modern hybrid dwarf wheat, the primary wheat available today, causes insulin spikes, inflammation, and is responsible for many other health problems.  Though we find it hard to believe that wheat is as toxic as Dr. Davis claims in his book: Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health having a gout attack after eating a lot of bread motivated us to see if a wheat free diet would improve our health.  After only six weeks on a wheat free diet, my feet are less swollen and shoes that were too small a year ago suddenly fit which makes me suspect that bread may indeed be the cause in my most recent gout attacks.   Though we miss bread, we have found healthy replacements for our favorite foods using local products from the Big Island of Hawaii.

Here are two of the recipes we used last week for Thanksgiving. 

Wheat-free Biscuits

2½  cups dry-roasted macadamia meal (we ground Mauna Loa Baking pieces)

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp gluten free baking powder

3 Tbsp coconut oil

3 tsp coconut milk

2 eggs

Mix the baking powder and soda with the macadamia nut meal.  Whisk the eggs, coconut oil, and coconut milk and add to dry ingredients.  The mixture is very wet – you can roll it into flat balls or spoon it on to an oiled flat pan.  Cook in oven (preheated 350 degrees) for about 20 minutes until lightly brown.  This makes about 12 biscuits.

Coconut Cream Gravy

2 Tbsp  rice flour

3 Tbsp  coconut flour

4 Tbsp  coconut oil

1/2 cup broth

1/2 cup coconut milk

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix the flours and oil in a pan and heat the roux.  Slowly stir in the cup of broth and coconut milk until all the roux is absorbed.  Turn up the heat and stir until it boils, then lower the heat. Stir until the gravy thickens – makes 1 cup of gravy.

Coconut Cream Gravy

Designing an “ideal” 2013 calendar and planner for Hawaii

Every year we have trouble finding a good calendar for planning and keeping track of our activities in Hawaii.  Few stores on the island even carry daily planners and those that do run out quickly.  We end up spending a lot of money for marginally useful calendars without any of the state holidays and celebrations that we like to keep track of in Hawaii.

We thought it would be easy to design a much better daily planner for 2013 with Hawaii holidays and celebrations.   It turned out to be lot more work than we guessed to include everything we wanted and to research the many unique holidays and special days celebrated in Hawaii.

We wanted the calendar to have room to record food, calories, and weight so we could track the relationship between what we ate and our weight loss or gain each day, week, and month. We wanted a calendar with a place to write annual goals so we could easily review them every day. We have read several studies about goal setting that showed people who write down their goals have a greater chance of achieving them.

Every week we take some time to think about how we can improve our life and write down any insights or lessons learned, so we added a place to write them down in the planner every week.

We have been inspired by stories of how top athletes use visualizations to improve their performance.  We want to keep visualizations of our future in our thoughts every day, so we included an area to write them down as well as an area to write our appreciations. 

“Your Ideal Hawaii Calendar 2013: Daily Planner and Calories Counter” incorporates goal setting, calorie counting, weight tracking, visualizations, and affirmations with space to schedule and record monthly and daily activities.  The planner has holidays, special days, and annual events celebrated in Hawaii with information about what is going on around the state every month. We left out photos to make as much space for writing as possible. The calendar is in paperback book form, because we think the wire bound calendars are not as easy to read or keep in a book shelf for later reference. 

If you are looking for a 2013 calendar/planner, you may want to try this planner.  We priced it at $8.99 on Amazon so it is not a big investment to try.   If you find it useful or have ideas for improvements for next year, please let us know.

Gout and the Wheat Free Diet

After a series of gout attacks in Hilo five years ago, I now carefully avoid foods I know cause my gout.  I do not eat canola oil because of its uric acid content; corn-fed and rape-seed fed meats and fish; and sugars because they are all highly acidic and can bring on gout attacks.   I also make sure my drinking water is not acidic.   So, I was really surprised when I had another gout attack a week ago, after not having problems for so long.

Surprisingly, my last two gout attacks followed eating a lot of bread.   The first episode happened after I ate pizza and bread with olive oil at a restaurant.  I assumed at the time that the olive oil had been substituted with canola oil and was the cause of the attack.   However, my most recent gout attack happened after I ate a lot of English muffins and French bread.  I normally do not eat much bread and prefer rice and rice pasta with my meals.  However, I tend to eat wheat when I am restricting my calories.   Even though bread has never shown up on any list as a cause for gout, I am beginning to think it may be another food that is contributing to my gout attacks.  

When we started researching the negative health effects of bread, we found that there is a “modern” wheat controversy.  We did not realize that wheat today is very different than what we ate as kids, the result of intensive crossbreeding to make it shorter and hardier.   Doctor Davis, author of “Wheat Belly”, claims this new dwarf wheat has a different protein structure and contains the starch amylopectin A which is absorbed in the body like a super sugar.  According to Doctor Davis, eating wheat products, even organic whole-grain wheat makes you hungry, fat, and results in other side effects like arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease.  

We are skeptical of miraculous health claims from diets, especially by doctors, however after reflecting on what we were eating during the times we felt really healthy over the past 30 years, it seems like it was when we had very little wheat in our diet.   With the agony of my recent gout attack fresh in my mind, we were very willing to  start on a no-wheat diet.  Another motivation is that weight-loss, in particular belly fat, is a reported result of getting this starch and gluten out of the diet.  Even on our restricted calorie diet, we have 10 stubborn pounds of fat that we can not keep off.

We found studies on the negative health effects of eating amylopectin starch. This type of starch is absorbed so rapidly into the blood stream that it causes a huge spike in insulin which causes calories to be stored as fat, even when eating a low calorie diet. This may explain why we are not losing weight eating low calorie breads and tortillas.   Amylopectin  also causes an increase in production of LDL cholesterol and inflammation in the body, similar to the effects of eating high fructose corn syrup.  

We have been on a wheat-free diet for ten days now and we noticed right away that we felt much less hungry, but we haven’t had any weight loss yet.  The relief from hunger may be due to taking gluten out of our diet, but since rice and potatoes have as much amylopectin starch as wheat, we may have to forego those foods to get the weight loss benefit.  While contemplating that, we plan to remain wheat-free and see if we get some of the health benefits others are claiming just by removing wheat from their diet.  

Ironman Championships 2013 : Extreme racing in Kona

Once again, it is Ironman World Championships time in Kona and the athletes and their entourages have taken over the highways, roads, and pier in Kona practicing for the big race on Saturday.  We marvel at the extreme and dangerous workouts of the Ironman athletes in Hawaii’s hot, tropical sun.  They bicycle for a hundred miles next to fast moving traffic on a highway carved into a lava field with 100 degree temperatures and winds up to 45 miles a hour. 

Observing the athletes pushing themselves so hard has interested us in the recent controversy over whether being an Ironman is good for your health or not.  Until recently, it has been considered an undisputed fact that an Ironman-type training was good for your health.

Last year a cardiac specialist, Dr. John M, wrote in his blog that it was not healthy for the middle-aged heart to run in Ironman competitions and doing so causes inflammation, coronary calcium, and atrial fibrillation. His blog got a lot of comments from athletes with strong opinions about their Ironman status and extreme workouts and other blogs agreeing with the increased risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) and scarring in the heart from training and competing in marathons and events like the Ironman.

In June of this year Mayo Clinic Proceedings published a study on marathon runners that reported that 12% of apparently healthy marathon runners showed signs of heart damage called Phidippides cardiomyopathy (named after an ancient Greek messenger who died after a long run) related to their extreme conditioning. The study found that repeated, long distance racing can cause premature aging of the heart, stiffening of the heart muscles, and coronary artery calcification.

It makes a lot of sense to us that the Ironman competition is not healthy.  The athletes in Kona look and act injured for days after completing the Ironman race and after observing the event over the past years, the participants act more like the event is a challenge they are trying to survive rather than something they are doing for good health.

Most studies state that daily exercise for 30 minutes to an hour is best for health and this seems about right to us. We feel really good after we walk and swim for 45 minutes to an hour. Any more than that and we are really sore the next day and the times we have exercised for many hours has often resulted in injuries that prevented us from exercising for days.

Though we find it inspiring to watch the world’s top endurance athletes compete in harsh conditions in Kona, unlike previous years we are more than satisfied with our 45 minute workouts after reading about the health risks of extreme exercise regimes. 

The Obesity Paradox

local, caught Hawaii Ahi (Tuna)

A recent study on health and obesity had the usual finding that obese people had better longevity than normal weight or thin people. For over a century insurance companies have been using weight as a way to determine longevity; people within the BMI (Body Mass Index based on weight and height) range of 18 to 24 have historically outlived obese people by a decade or more. Now a new study claims the opposite to be true; people with BMIs up to 40 are living longer than people with BMIs under 25. This health paradox of increased longevity for obese people began less than 20 years ago.

As strange as this new finding seems to us, there are things about it that ring true with our own experience of obesity. When we moved to Santa Cruz County in the mid-1990’s we were able to buy fresh foods from local farmers.  Over ten years, the farms were replaced by housing developments and our sources of fresh fruits and vegetables disappeared. At the same time that our nutritious fresh foods disappeared, our appetites became insatiable. Even after huge meals, we were often still ravenous. We were hungry for something that we used to get in our food but was lacking no matter how much we ate. On vacations to Hawaii, however, our experience of hunger was different. After a few days of gorging ourselves on fish and fruit, we felt full even after small meals and if we were able to stay in Hawaii long enough, we started to  lose weight.   We suspect the foods we were eating in California had less nutrition as compared to the foods in Hawaii.

If foods are less nutritionally dense than they use to be, then it makes sense that people that over eat will be healthier than those that do not because they are actually getting the nutrition they need. Thin people, living on box foods and fast foods, may actually be significantly under nourished which leads to disease and susceptibility to illnesses. Interestingly,  anorexia nervosa has become a more deadly eating disorder, possibly because of less nutrition in food.

Since moving to Hawaii Island, we are able to get the fresh foods that we use to get in Santa Cruz plus many other fresh foods like fish and grass-fed beef that were harder to find there.  Eating local foods has allowed us to eat substantially less than we use to eat in California and have a wonderful feeling of fullness.  We are convinced our highly nutritious, small meals of fresh local foods allows us to be healthy even though we are no longer obese.