Best Weight Loss Tips: HDL Good Cholesterol

by Kevin DiDonato, MS, CSCS, CES<br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 12px; width: auto;"><span style="font-size: 16px; width: auto;">Are you over the <strong><a href="http://myfitnesshut.getprograde.com/prevent-middle-age-death.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #16387c; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, serif; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">age of 45</a></strong>?<br /><br />Do you exercise regularly?<br /><br />Are you one of the 25 percent of adults that needs statins - the cholesterol-lowering medication?<br /><br />If so, you may be impairing your body’s ability to adapt to exercise.<br /><br />And this may not be good news for people who are not just older, but older AND overweight.<br /><br />Before we get into the surprising findings, there is some background information you should know about…<br /><br /><strong>Statins and Exercise</strong><br />Statins are normally prescribed by doctors, cardiologists, and other healthcare practitioners as a way to lower your total cholesterol numbers, lower your LDL cholesterol, and in some cases, increase your HDL cholesterol.<br /><br />This type of medication is used to control at least one factor associated with heart disease, and is also commonly prescribed after a heart attack or stroke has happened.<br /><br />Statins are one of the FIVE core medications routinely prescribed to heart attack survivors and other people who are at an increased risk for heart disease or having a heart attack.<br /><br />Now, however, current research suggests that statins may be linked to skeletal muscle myopathy (muscle disease often associated with weakness), and impaired mitochondrial function.<br /><br />But, the use of statins and inhibiting exercise adaptions has not been fully investigated, or it’s unclear if statin use is a culprit.<br /><br />Until now!<br /><br />A new study released by Duke University shows that statin use may be linked to impaired adaptions to exercise.<br /><br />Here’s what they found:<br /><br />The study included 37 participants who were divided into an exercise-only group or an exercise and statin group.<br /><br />They found that exercise alone increased cardiorespiratory fitness by 10 percent.<br /><br />However, the participants exercising with statins showed a 1.5 percent increase in cardiorespiratory fitness levels.<br /><br />Similarly, in the exercise-only group, muscle citrate synthase activity (measure of mitochondrial function) increased by 13 percent, but in the exercise and statin group, it decreased by 4.5 percent.<br /><br />What did they conclude?</span></div><blockquote style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 12px;"><div style="width: auto;"><em><span style="font-size: 16px; width: auto;">“Simvastatin attenuates increases in cardiorespiratory fitness and skeletal muscle mitochondrial content when combined with exercise training in overweight or obese patients at risk of the metabolic syndrome.”</span></em></div></blockquote><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 12px; width: auto;"><span style="font-size: 16px; width: auto;"><strong>Exercise and Statin Use</strong><br />Exercise is an important – often vital – component to a healthy life.<br /><br />For those who are at risk for cardiovascular disease, including walking, jogging, biking, or swimming may lead to improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol, and other factors related to heart health.<br /><br />And for those who are 45 years and older, exercise may be one of the BIGGEST factors for improvements in health and longevity.<br /><br />But, there is sad news.  Roughly 25 percent of people, who are 45 years and older, may currently be taking a statin in order to control cholesterol.<br /><br />And this may pose problems for exercise and the adaptations related to exercise.<br /><br />According to the study above, statin use may decrease the adaptions associated with exercise, therefore possibly reducing the positive effects that may be seen with exercise.<br /><br />Although statins may be important for <strong><a href="http://myfitnesshut.getprograde.com/essential-fatty-acid.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #16387c; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, serif; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">better heart health</a></strong>, they may disrupt how your body adapts to your current exercise program.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 16px; width: auto;"><br /></span><br /><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"><div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><b>Mark Dilworth, BA, PES</b></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><b><a data-mce-href="http://myfitnesshut.blogspot.com/" href="http://myfitnesshut.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">My Fitness Hut</a></b></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></div></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"></div></div>

Do Cholesterol Medications Make You Fat?

by Kevin DiDonato, MS, CSCS, CES Are you over the age of 45 ? Do you exercise regularly? Are you one of the 25 percent of adults that needs...

<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist<br />Author, <strong><a href="http://healthhut.mikegeary1.hop.clickbank.net/?pid=33" rel="nofollow" style="color: #000099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Truth about 6-Pack Abs</a></strong></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">I was on a weekend trip with some friends recently and one of my friends was cooking breakfast for the whole group. I went over to see what he was cooking and saw he was getting ready to make a big batch of eggs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9vz9QNsRH3jKD2rVM5mZu082Y7fNHBGH3CS8FpEvL-vMz_X-OAiLSEvnvC63TwGgNDA5QeYwXZEbPWXYmWhEDCKQPC8mvEZxM72YorDrj-vgXz0_n26lDHXMwNL-W7i7CB6bjR790zA9/s1600/eggs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9vz9QNsRH3jKD2rVM5mZu082Y7fNHBGH3CS8FpEvL-vMz_X-OAiLSEvnvC63TwGgNDA5QeYwXZEbPWXYmWhEDCKQPC8mvEZxM72YorDrj-vgXz0_n26lDHXMwNL-W7i7CB6bjR790zA9/s320/eggs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">Well, to my shock and horror, I noticed that he was cracking the eggs open and screening the egg whites into a bowl and throwing out the egg yolks. I asked him why the heck he was throwing out the egg yolks, and he replied something like this…</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">“because I thought the egg yolks were terrible for you…that’s where all the nasty fat and cholesterol is”.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">And I replied, “you mean that’s where all of the nutrition is!”</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">This is a perfect example of how confused most people are about nutrition. In a world full of misinformation about nutrition, somehow most people now mistakenly think that the egg yolk is the worst part of the egg, when in fact, the YOLK IS THE HEALTHIEST PART OF THE EGG!</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">By throwing out the yolk and only eating egg whites, you’re essentially throwing out the most nutrient dense, antioxidant-rich, vitamin and mineral loaded portion of the egg. The yolks contain so many B-vitamins, trace minerals, vitamin A, folate, choline, lutein, and other powerful nutrients… it’s not even worth trying to list them all.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">In fact, the egg whites are almost devoid of nutrition compared to the yolks.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">Even the protein in egg whites isn’t as powerful without the yolks to balance out the amino acid profile and make the protein more bio-available. Not to even mention that the egg yolks from free range chickens are loaded with healthy omega-3 fatty acids.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">Yolks contain more than 90% of the calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc, thiamin, B6, folate, and B12, and panthothenic acid of the egg. In addition, the yolks contain ALL of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K in the egg, as well as ALL of the essential fatty acids (EFAs).</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">And now the common objection I get all the time when I say that the yolks are the most nutritious part of the egg…</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">“But I heard that whole eggs will skyrocket my cholesterol through the roof”</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">No, this is FALSE!</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">First of all, when you eat a food that contains a high amount of dietary cholesterol such as eggs, your body down-regulates it’s internal production of cholesterol to balance things out.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">On the other hand, if you don’t eat enough cholesterol, your body simply produces more since cholesterol has dozens of important vital functions in the body.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">healthy whole eggsAnd here’s where it gets even more interesting…</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">There have been plenty of studies lately that indicate that eating whole eggs actually raises your good HDL cholesterol to a higher degree than LDL cholesterol, thereby improving your overall cholesterol ratio and blood chemistry.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">And 3rd… high cholesterol is NOT a disease! Heart disease is a disease…but high cholesterol is NOT. Cholesterol is actually a VERY important substance in your body and has vitally important functions… it is DEAD WRONG to try to “lower your cholesterol” just because of pharmaceutical companies propaganda that everyone on the planet should be on statin drugs.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">If you’re interested in this topic of cholesterol specifically, I have another article listed at the bottom of this page about why trying to attack cholesterol is a mistake, and what the REAL deadly risk factors actually are.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">In addition, the yolks contain the antioxidant lutein as well as other antioxidants which can help protect you from inflammation within your body (the REAL culprit in heart disease, not dietary cholesterol!), giving yet another reason why the yolks are actually GOOD for you, and not detrimental.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">To help bring even more proof that whole eggs are better for you than egg whites, I recently read a University of Connecticut study that showed that a group of men in the study that ate 3 eggs per day for 12 weeks while on a reduced carb, higher fat diet increased their HDL good cholesterol by 20%, while their LDL bad cholesterol stayed the same during the study. However, the group that ate egg substitutes (egg whites) saw no change in either and did not see the improvement in good cholesterol (remember that higher HDL levels are associated with lower risk of heart disease) that the whole egg eaters did.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">So I hope we’ve established that whole eggs are not some evil food that will wreck your body… instead whole eggs are FAR superior to egg whites.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">But what about the extra calories in the yolks?</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">This is actually a non-issue and here’s why… even though egg yolks contain more calories than just eating the egg whites, the yolks have such a high micro-nutrient density in those calories, that it increases your overall nutrient density per calorie you consume. Essentially, what this does is help to regulate your appetite for the remainder of the day, so you end up eating less calories overall. In addition, the healthy fats in the egg yolks help to maintain a good level of fat-burning hormones in your body.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">Overall, this means that the extra fats (healthy fats) and calories from the yolk are so nutrient-dense that they actually HELP you to burn off body fat!</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">Also, your normal supermarket eggs coming from mass factory farming just don’t compare nutritionally with organic free range eggs from healthy chickens that are allowed to roam freely and eat a more natural diet. Your typical cheap grocery store eggs will have lower nutrient levels and a higher omega-6 level and lower omega-3 level. On the other hand, the cage-free organic eggs from healthier chickens allowed to eat more natural feed and roam freely will have much higher vitamin and mineral levels and a more balanced healthier omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">I recently compared eggs I bought at the grocery store with a batch of eggs I got at a farm stand where the chickens were free roaming and healthy.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">Most people don’t realize that there’s a major difference because they’ve never bought real eggs from healthy chickens… The eggs from the grocery store had pale yellow yolks and thin weak shells. On the other hand, the healthier free range eggs from the local farm had strong thick shells and deep orange colored yolks indicating much higher nutrition levels and carotenoids… and just a healthier egg in general.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">This is due to the fact that a free-roaming hen allowed to roam on plenty of land will eat a variety of greens, insects, worms, etc transferring MUCH higher levels of nutrients to the eggs compared to an unhealthy hen that is trapped inside a dark factory farm hen house in horrible conditions and fed nothing but piles of corn and soy. It’s a DRASTIC difference in the nutrition that you get from the egg.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">So next time a health or fitness professional tells you that egg whites are superior (because of their “fat-phobic” mentality towards dietary fats), you can quietly ignore their advice knowing that you now understand the REAL deal about egg yolks.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">And can we all please STOP with this sillyness about eating an omelete with 4-5 egg whites and only 1 egg yolk… If you want real taste and real health benefits, we’d all be better off eating ALL of our eggs with the yolks.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">After all, do you REALLY think that our ancestors thousands of years ago threw out the yolks and only ate the egg whites? NOT A CHANCE! They intuitively knew that all of the nutrition was found in the yolks. But our modern society has been brainwashed with misinformation about fats and cholesterol.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">Another interesting study about eggs…</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">I read a study recently that compared groups of people that ate egg breakfasts vs groups of people that ate cereal or bagel-based breakfasts. The results of the study showed that the egg eaters lost or maintained a healthier bodyweight, while the cereal/bagel eaters gained weight.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">It was hypothesized that the egg eaters actually ate less calories during the remainder of the day because their appetite was more satisfied compared to the cereal/bagel eaters who would have been more prone to wild blood sugar swings and food cravings.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">Oh, one last thing I almost forgot… I personally eat 4 whole eggs almost every day with breakfast, and I maintain single-digit bodyfat most of the year.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;">Enjoy your eggs and get a leaner body!</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;"><strong>Mike Geary</strong><br />Certified Nutrition Specialist<br />Certified Personal Trainer<br /><strong>Author, <a href="http://healthhut.mikegeary1.hop.clickbank.net/?pid=33" rel="nofollow" style="color: #000099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Truth about 6-Pack Abs</a></strong><br /><br /><br /><div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; line-height: 19px;"><b>Mark Dilworth, BA, PES</b></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; line-height: 19px;"><b><a data-mce-href="http://myfitnesshut.blogspot.com/" href="http://myfitnesshut.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">My Fitness Hut</a></b></div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.35em;"><br /></div>

Are Whole Eggs or Egg Whites Better for You?

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist Author, The Truth about 6-Pack Abs I was on a weekend trip with s...