Health Tips

Weight Control

“Breakfast turns to gold, lunch to silver, and dinner to lead”

Food eaten and digested is turned into amino acids (protein), fatty acids (fat) short chain sugar molecules (glucose). Glucose is used by the body to convert ADP into its energy cell, ATP.

Once the body’s current energy need for ATP is fulfilled, it converts remaining glucose into long chains called glycogen. Glycogen is then stored in the muscles and the liver. Glycogen is used for short and medium term energy needs. Any remainder glycogen is then stored as fat.

Therefore the calories from a large meal eaten in the evening are primarily stored as fat. Also “Once a fat, always a fat”, this phrase refers to the body’s inability to burn fat by itself. Humans need to burn some carbohydrates while burning fat.

The following information may be of assistance when controlling body weight:

• When eating a high carbohydrate meal, be sure to include some protein plus fats/oils. The fat produces “carb specific satiety”, which reduces hunger for more carbs. If your meal includes some fat, usually within minutes the great desire for additional food, especially carbs, is diminished.
• When some fat is included with the meal, the fat slows down digestion. This enables a person to burn the ingested calories, rather than quickly storing them as fat. An example is having one egg in the morning, with cereal.
• A third method to reduce fat storage is to eat slower digesting carbohydrates such as whole grains rather than food made from white flour. Replacing cold cereal (out of a box) with 9-Grain hot cereal provides energy for several hours duration. Of course, eating only a moderate amount of carbs is also effective.
• When eating in the evening, try to eat fairly early. 6:00 pm works well if sleeping by 10 pm. This gives your body a chance to burn the calories that were ingested at dinner. All extra calories not burned are then turned into fat.
• Fruits and vegetables provide quite a bit of nutrition, but eventually you have a strong desire for some protein and fat in the diet. Rather than overeating junk food when you become hungry, try eating good food and a balanced diet during the day.
• The more you exercise, the more you can eat. The best exercise for burning fat is medium intensity for moderate to long duration. Low intensity and very high intensity exercise burns mostly stored glucose, not fat.
• One of the best exercises is hiking which is easy to do for many hours, and improves almost all areas of the body.
• The most effective exercise of all is named “push-aways”. This is done when you push your self away from the dinner table before overeating.

Athlete's Foot/fungal infections

Medications alone will not solve Athlete's Foot, the environment that allows the infection to persist needs to be changed. Dr. Danaher recommends:

• Wear two pairs of shoes during the day, switching them to allow one pair to dry.
• Use two Peet Shoe Dryers to keep shoes dry. This greatly limits the environment that fungi need to live in. Keep one shoe dryer at work if possible.
• Wash your feet twice per day, using soap and water. Washing feet at night before sleeping is very important.
• Over the counter fungal medications definitely can help in acute phases. Apply 1 or 2x/day after washing feet.
• As much as possible, try to go barefoot once at home.