יום שבת, 31 באוגוסט 2013

If you can keep your Cholesterol under 140 - you chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very small

"If you can keep your Cholesterol under 140 - you chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very small"

Says Dr. Ellsworth Wareham, a 98 year old Cardiothoracic surgeon. The guy is 98 years old and is on a low fat vegan diet.

I urge you to take the time to listen to these 13 minutes - what can I say - these are some words of wisdom and are a true inspiration for me.


In short - 

  1. Vegan is a very fine form of nutrition.
  2. He tries to maintain a calm approach to life - not to get worried because of
  3. He has a good night sleep, and he takes a nap during the day if he feels like it.
  4. Vegetable based diet is the healthiest way to go.
  5. "All tastes are acquired except for breast milk" - You can change your taste habits and any time given will power and a little patience.
  6. Cholesterol is the chief problem that we have to be concerned about - as far as coronary disease.
  7. if your cholesterol is under 140 - very very seldom a person experiences a heart attack when cholesterol is under 140.
  8. One of the factors for high Cholesterol is the consumption of foods that are high in saturdated fats.
  9. Most animal fat is saturated, nost plant based fat is non saturated or mono saturated.
  10. There are scientists like Dr. Campbell of the Cornell university who claims that not only animal fat shall increase cholesterol but also animal protein.
  11. If you can keep your Cholesterol under a 140 - you chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very small.
  12. If you go on a low fat vegan diet then your chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very low.


Aviel.

יום רביעי, 28 באוגוסט 2013

You are going to end up very fat if you follow the weight watchers diet - here's why

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I skipped the weight watchers meeting. It's not the first time that I skip this meeting. After starting to follow the nutritarian diet I no longer feel the need to know what my weight is. When asked in weight watchers about my diet I always said that it's about healthy stuff - I don't care much about the weight. Actually I am losing weight too fast!! In fact I wish I could be healthy without losing my weight so fast!!!

I am also sort of 'helping' a friend and on a weekly basis we weigh our self. It's not for me - I don't care about my weight. I am in a total different league - I care about my health. I care about my glucose level way more than I care about my weight. I care about my longevity and stress level. So when he whats-apps me and tells me that this week he won't come to the weighing because he gained 1 kilogram instead of losing 2... - I mean obviously he's not committed and he can't pursue his diet because it's not full of nutrients.

Yes, I have been sitting there in weight watchers and looking at the poor women discussing how they fight the hunger. How they need something sweet and I hear the coach telling them that she eats ice cream every night and it is OK because she calculated the points. And I am thinking to myself - wow these women are struggling with something that they will never win. No way they are going to win this war - even if they lose 20 Kgs, they will go back to where they were. No force in the world shall help them. I am admiring some of them - how stubborn they are, they plan, they know the points of this and of that, so given the weight watchers program flexibility they now optimize such as to avoid hunger and how to get that sweet food and all that. Here in this picture you can see one food type that these women are consuming and it is perfectly "all right" to eat this trash. It's... "something for the soul" - that sweet time of the day where they sit there and munch on this trash. And I am saying that this is something for their FAT WAIST. It contains low calories and it tastes good and all that - yea it contains zero nutrition, all sorts of taste enhancing materials and they are bad for their health. But this is how these women are optimizing their well being without crossing the PointsPlus limit....



But they will fail eventually - it only takes time. I mean I failed, I went all the way down from 125 Kg to 86 Kgs with weight watchers and I maintained it for 1.5 years before I gave it all up and I started this round weighing 139.6 Kg!!!! They will fail, and they will fail miserably. And you know why? Because their body is hungry!!!! hungry for REAL food, for REAL NUTRITION. Here, take a look at this picture here - this is REAL food - this is REAL NUTRITION.


The food that they eat has such low nutritional value that they need to eat 4000 calories in order to give the body what it needs - which means they consume tons of calories. The trick is to eat 2000 calories or for these small women 1200 calories and still get whatever nutrients the body needs. I don't dare to even raise this issue during those roundup meetings. It's like saying that I am a Jew in the middle of a Ku-Klux-Klan meeting. I mean - no body will understand - they will think it's too harsh, too extreme but truth is that it's not. I have to make an effort to eat 3 meals a day... I am not hungry at all - I forgot what hunger is - because my body is getting now all the nutrients that it needs with so less calories. 

If only for once they give a chance to a truly healthy diet, then they will feel great, look great and they will forget about their weight - it shall go down so fast they wouldn't have a chance to remember how much they weigh.

Sincerely,

Aviel.

יום שישי, 23 באוגוסט 2013

how come your skin looks so good?

Hi everyone,

I am a very planned person. I know that if I eat this food and do these exercises then I shall lose such and such weight and I shall get rid of diabetes and shall be able to fight those future diseases and so on.

But sometimes you discover something unexpected - something good...

My special lady told me several times over the last couple days that my skin looks so much better lately. My initial response was to brush it off, cause it's not something that I read about.

But then my daughter too said it several times today that my skin looks great, I look tan, my eyes are sparkling, I look this, I look that and perhaps maybe I should only take care of that missing tooth...

I thought it has to do with my vitamin D sun baths but then I realized that there's more to this.

Tell you the truth - I have no conclusive understanding why my skin looks great. But from what I read it is obvious that the solution for a healthy skin is not in putting more and more ugly creams on your face or going to the beach and tanning yourself to oblivion. It's all about your diet. If you eat a healthy diet - then you are gonna look great. Period.

It's the same woman - 1 year apart (read her story here)



I saw this article that explains that the human mind prefers a healthy carotenoid glow over a suntan. let me translate this to plain English for you - women will be attracted to you if your skin is a bit orange and not from tanning but because of your diet. I mean it does make sense - right:? Women are going to be attracted to a male with superior health in order to mate and have healthy kids... Same applies to men that are attracted to women, etc. I am not sure about men that are attracted to men and all that. 

Anyway, according to this article - carotenoids are a groups of 600 antioxidants including alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein, zeaxantin and other curses and the food that are richest are green, orange and red vegetable and fruits. These nutrients provide health benefits and attractive colors. According to this article there is a direct relationship between skin appearance and health - if your skin does not have an orange tinge, then you are not on a healthy diet.

And I also enjoyed reading eilen's talkback there saying "Everyone I come across, either on TV, the Internet, or in person, who eats a Vegan diet is always gorgeous"

I rushed to my USDA data base and sorted all the food according to beta-carotene and here are the winners... - 

squash (78 ug per calorie)
דלורית, דלעת


Paprika (22 ug per calorie)
פלפל אדום חריף

Tangerine (20.4 ug per calorie)
קלמנטינה


red pepper (19.7 ug per calorie)
פלפל אדום


papaya (13.7 ug per calorie)
פאפאיה


coriander (8.8 ug per calorie)
כוסברה

carrot (6.3 ug per calorie)
גזר



Peaches (4.5 ug per calorie)
אפרסקים


cucumber, pickle (4.3 ug per calorie)
מלפפון חמוץ


rose hips (3 ug per calorie)
פרי הורד


I was eating most of the above even before becoming vegan, but surely it's not only about what you eat - your skin health has also to do with what you don't eat... - that is - if you are drinking lots of coffee, or eating cheese or poultry - then your body may inhibit some of the effects of these foods.

Aviel.

The best blender in the world - Vitamix 5200S

My diet regime requires a good blender. It has to be good because I require that it shall turn almonds into milk! It should work hard and serve me for years.

The Vitamix 5200S is one such excellent blender. a 1380 Watts machine.

Here's how you make peaches sorbet using this blender - 

you throw in half a kilogram peaches, 1/4 cup almonds (or soya) milk and 4 pitted dates.


After maybe 10 seconds it's all over -


And you can eat it... yum-yum - 


It is sooo sweeeeet and yummy - wow!

Aviel.

יום חמישי, 22 באוגוסט 2013

Reverse Engineering the weight watchers PointsPlus

Hi there folks,

Weight Watchers have this PointsPlus system. Each food is given PointsPlus and the idea is that when you sum up all the PointsPlus that you "ate" during the day - you should not cross a specific limit.

How do you know how many PointsPlus is each food? Each new member get a small book containing all the points of all common foods. So for example - this is how you know that a medium Avocado costs you 4 PointsPlus.

But what about products that are not listed in that book? What if you go to the grocery store and you see a new product and you want to know how many PointsPlus are in 100 grams of this product?

Well this is a huge shooshoo thing - Weight watchers used to provide their customers with a paper 'points calculator' but not any more. If you want to know how many PointsPlus then you have to send mail to your coach and she replies with the number of PointsPlus... Or you could use a pirate android application that tells you how many PointsPlus per 100 grams of a product...

So for example - if you encounter a food product that has 5 grams of fat, 2 grams carb, 3 grams protein and 0.8 grams fiber then you input this into the android application and then you get that the worth of this in term of PointsPlus is 2 :




I tried some numbers on this app - and you know the drill, 4 linear equations for 4 variables...

And we get 

PointsPlus = 0.26 * Fat + 0.11 * Carbs + 0.095 * Proteins - 0.08 * Fiber  

Let's decipher this equation.... if we multiply it by 40 then we get

PointsPlus * 40 = 10.4 * Fat + 4.4 * Carbs + 3.8 * Proteins - 3.2 * Fiber

Which is not that far away from

Calories = 9 calories/g * Fat + 4 calories/g * Carbs + 4 calories/g * Proteins - 3.2 calories/g * Fiber


So PointsPlus is not that different from Calories divided by 40....

It's just that weight watchers "punish" their customers by 10% tax on eating fat + carbs and give them a 10% discount for eating calories and make sure to appreciate those customers that consume lots of fiber.

So how do we simplify life for weight watchers customers - give them some simple formula that they can use?

Fat / 4 + (Carbs + Proteins - Fiber) / 10

And even simpler version (but less accurate) is: 

Calories / 40

Nice eh?

Aviel.





יום רביעי, 21 באוגוסט 2013

How to calculate your optimal target weight

Hi,

I am trying to estimate my target weight here. 

First to put us on common ground here's a short primer on BMI - Body Mass Index.  Here's the definition


For example, when I started my diet I weighted 139.6 Kg and my height was 181 cm. My BMI was thus equal to 139.6 / 1.81^2 = 42.6.

The higher the BMI - the fatter you are.
  • Normal values are 18.5 till 25. 
  • Beyond 25 you are "Overweight" 
  • Beyond 30 is called "Obesity".
  • Beyond 35 is called "Severe Obesity"
  • beyond 40 it's called "Morbid Obesity"

In order to get rid of my diabetes I have to give up on my plans to be a macho muscular well built man. I have to go all the way down down down till I am normal. I would say that if normal means 18.5 till 25 then the normal of the normal means the middle number BMI=21.75.


Multiplying this by 1.81^2 provides
my estimation for my target weight: 71 Kg.


yes it's a long way to go.... - from 139.6 Kg to 71 Kg or so, but this is how I should defeat diabetes for good. Yes I may look bad, too skinny and such. Men will feel comfortable punching me in the face if there's a need - but what can I say? This is the penalty for neglection, stress, overeating and bad genetics....

I put my target weight into a calculator of nutritiondata.self.com 


And here's what I got - 




This is amazing - I thought that at this weight level I shall require maybe only 1800 calories for maintenance but this is what the calculator says.

Aviel.

Lost 20.6 KGs in 7 weeks.

Hi there,

Weight watchers combined with being a nutritarian vegan... - 

First week lost 5.5 Kgs.
Second week lost 2.1 Kgs
Third week lost 2.2 Kgs
Fourth week lost 1.7 Kgs
Fifth week lost 2.1 Kgs
Sixth week skipped weight watchers.
Seventh week lost 7 Kgs in two weeks. (vegan)

I feel good, I am never hungry, I have no diabetes and I enjoy my vacation,

Aviel.


Top ten nutritious foods

Hi there,

The most important and basic nutritional tip that you ever hear is to get just enough calories such that your body gets all the nutrients that it needs. Just enough means way less calories than normal western diets provide. I know many of you hate math - but just remember that your goal is to maximinze N/C where N stands for nutrients and C stands for calories. You want to get more nutrients for less calories. 

I already presented you with the nutritional target map where you can see how nutritious is every food type and how it makes you feel full. But is there a way to give a total score to a food and then sort all foods on earth according to this score?

Well there *IS* !!! - The ANDI Score!

ANDI stands for "aggregate Nutrient Density Index". It shows the nutrient density of a food on a scale of 1 to 1000 after evaluating an extensive range of micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidant capacities.


Now let's look at the top 10 - they all belong to the green family!!


KALE (score = 1000)
קייל

Just a week ago I was frustrated cause I could only find it in the Tel-Aviv Port but this week it appeared in Shufersal both in Ayalon Mall and Givataim and also the store where I get my greens in Ramat-Gan. Do yourself a favor - eat this stuff!!



COLLARD GREENS(score = 1000)
עלי קולארד

I couldn't find it in our little country.

MUSTARD GREENS(score = 1000)
עלי חרדל



WATERCRESS(score = 1000)
גרגר הנחלים


The guy from the greens store in Ramat Gan told me that *this* was watercress - but it was NOT. I haven't found this one in Israel yet.


SWISS CHART(score = 895)
עלי סלק


BOK CHOY(score = 865)
בוק צ'וי \ פאק צ'וי


SPINACH (score = 707)
תרד




ARUGULA (score = 604)
ארוגולה

ROMAINE (score = 604)
חסה ערבית

as pictured in my kitchen...

BRUSSEL SPROUTS (score = 490)
כרוב ניצנים

I eat these every day at least once, I keep them frozen. They are very yummy - a bit bitter.



Anyway - what's common to the top ten nutritious foods in the world? They are all greens. Yes - this is what humans should consume! Remember that!

Aviel.







יום שבת, 17 באוגוסט 2013

Diabetic my ass

Hi there folks,

I was very satisfied with my visit to my doctor. To cut story short she said I will definitely erase this diabetic and she's expecting my 3 months blood tests (In September) to confirm that. She said it's not true that diabetes cannot be reversed and that those few clients who lost weight - got rid of their diabetes.

I still asked her to get this gluco meter cause I just love to experiment, take tests and explore stuff. Hey I did it for my aquarium...

Here's a picture of my war room from the days I was maintaining a planted aquarium - 


So in the last 24 hours I had the pleasure of stabbing myself no less than 37 times!!..

And here are the results of the Israeli Jury as they say...

Friday I woke up after a good deep 8 hours of sleep and measured 85.
Today I woke up after again sleeping good 8 hours and measured 89.

This is < 100 - it's not diabetes guys.

If I lower a bit more - say to the 75-80 zone then I am in the range of calorie restriction.

It was interesting to follow how the sugar in the blood reacts to eating. so here's an example


The 0 point in this chart is when I just finished breakfast. As you can see right at that time the blood sugar was still not affected. It was 109 just like it was 75 minutes before. But then, 20 minutes later it shoots up to 151 as the oats and blueberries are being digested. 80 minutes after breakfast is over - my blood glucose level drops down to 102, but then 20 minutes later it all of a sudden remembers to digest something and it goes back to 115 and then down to 105 where it stays even after 6 hours... It doesn't go back to the 85 baseline for some reason. Go figure.

Let's see another example - 


This time the lunch was probably big - I ate a big salad with beans a dragon fruit. So one hour after I finisehd my lunch the glucose level was at ~150 and wouldn't go down. 20 minutes later it undershoot to 95 and then stabilized at 105. It didn't return to the base line.

Friday night dinner with kids I ate kale with spinach as a starter and then Austrian cauliflower soup followed by a dragon fruit. I also drank a little wine. and here's the chart - 


At the 80 minutes mark time - it was all over, nice... and when I woke up after 8 hours I had a fasting glucose level of 89.

As for today - I didn't need to take many blood tests. Lunch was 5 hours after breakfast and right before lunch the glucose level was 87 !! It means that yes I returned to the baseline. That's what "calorie restriction" recommended - don't eat before blood sugar goes back to your baseline... :)

Anyway - I am in good shape, I feel quite ok and I think I am on my way to optimal health,

Aviel.

My redcurrant berries morning treat

Hi everyone,

Such a delicious breakfast treat - wooohoooo mmmmm.... yumyum!!

just take a look at this beauty - 


Yes, that's what I call a delicious and nutritious breakfast.

  • Half cup frozen redcurrant berries
  • 1 tsp chia seeds.
  • 1 green apple
  • 1 orange
  • 15 grams walnuts.

Redcurrants berries are members of the berries family. As you know I am focusing my diet on the G-BOMBS... - Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries & Seeds/Nuts. So yea berries are full of pytochemicals, life lengthening, and brain enhancing nutrients and so are redcurrants. Redcurrants are a very good source of Potassium and Vitamin C.



Chia is great for diabetes because it slows down the absorption of sugar into your blood. It contains lots of fiber and is full of omega-3. As for daily recommended intake this one teaspoon provides 9% of required calcium, 15% of required manganese and 14% of required phosphoros. One such box contains 300 g of chia seeds and costs 55 IS (~15$).



Aviel.




יום חמישי, 15 באוגוסט 2013

Throw your olive oil in the garbage - eat nuts!

Hi there my friends,

Today I am going to reveal my source for fats.

Fat is important. 15% to 30% of the calories should come from fat. If you go below that then you will feel fatique and without energy.

Dr. Fuhrman's nutritarian diet that I am practicing specifies that I should consume around 50 g of nuts & seeds as the fat source.

Why not olive oil? Every grandmother thinks that olive oil is healthy, healthy, healthy. Yea right! it's not! oil is the worst product in terms of nutrients per calorie - you get tons of calories for ZERO nutrients. What a waste.

Nuts and seeds (and also Avocados) are a better source for fat because they are nutritious - see here for the nutiriton target map of one of them.

But this of course not the reason I eat them. If you want to memorize one thing that nuts are doing for you then please memorize - they protect your heart. Let me write it in big letters here so that you won't forget - 

NUTS PROTECT YOUR HEART.

They also contain omega-3, fibers, vitamin E and even L-arginine which can boost sex drive for those of you that are interested. My special lady consumes cashew nuts on a daily basis and what can I say - I am under attack!...

OK now, let's see the boys - please welcome - THE NUTS TEAM!!!


Walnuts
אגוזי מוח


Brazil Nuts
אגוזי ברזיל



Pistachios
פיצוחים



Pecans
פקאן


Almonds
שקדים


Make sure you eat enough of these folks!

Aviel.

יום רביעי, 14 באוגוסט 2013

The USDA SR-21 data base

Hi everyone,

In the last few days I have been preparing the data base for solving the above optimization problem and I would like to share with you my efforts as I progress...

But first let's define the goal.

Goal

Eat the lowest number of calories per day.

Constraint

Provide the body with all the nutrients that it needs.

Why such a goal?

Because the secret for optimal health is losing weight, maintaining low glucose level while providing the body with everything that it needs. If you try to use weight using the conventional stupid diets (weight watchers, atkins, etc) then at that low calorie intake your body won't get all the nutrients that it needs and it shall bug you with hunger will you surrender and regain all your weight back.

Which data base am I using?

There are several dietary programs in the market but I prefer to work with the data directly, I prefer to feel it, to touch it without the GUI of those programs, I would like to do things that are impossible with those programs. 

I am going to use the USDA SR-21 data base directly. You can download the zipped excel file from the following page.

This data base is an excel that contains information about any food that you can think about, cooked, not cooked, frozen, with salt, without salt, etc, etc. For each food it provides the number of calories, sugar, proteins, vitamin this, vitamin that and a long list of maybe 40 elements. 

Here's a snapshot - 



Now on a second sheet in the same excel I organized all of my intake for one single day.

Here - take a look


So you can see that I take two tbsp of almonds milk (using a blender) in the morning which adds 172.5 calories, 6.37 grams of protein to my diet.


My daily calorie intake

Summing up the numbers give us the number of calories: 1857.

And we can also draw the cake that tells us where do we get the calories from:



As you can see we get most of our calories from nuts & seeds.


The first nutrient that I am looking at - Protein

If we take as an example Protein as an important nutrient that should be provided to the body - then we see that I get 79 grams a day. This is very good. Where do I get them from? let's see - 


So you can see the importance of nuts, seeds and beans in this business. 

How can we get as many proteins as possible but without 'spending' lots of calories? That's a very easy question for the excel. We create an additional colum that contains the proteins divided by calories, sort everything according to that column and look at the winners - those that have the highest grams of protein per calorie.

So the winner is soy which requires 3.6 calories per gram of protein - that's very cheap. It is followed by all sorts of animals living in the cold sea, and also egg whites. This is followed by "normal animals", and followed by cheese.

Now if we look for vegan stuff then we can see
  1. Water crest - 4.78 calories per 1 gram of protein.
  2. Cabbage - 13.3
  3. Some mushroom - 13.4
  4. Beans - 13.5
  5. Lentils - 13.6
  6. Turnip - 13.7
  7. Pumpkin - 13.8
  8. Tomatoes - 13.8
  9. Lettuce - 13.8
  10. peas - 13.9
  11. brussels sprouts - 14.1
  12. oats - 14.2
  13. tofu - 14.2
  14. artichokes - 14.4
  15. Brocolli - 14.7
  16. Kale - 14.7
  17. Kohlrabi - 15.8
Down below you can find the nuts & seeds at 30-40 calories per gram of protein. This looks like a waste of calories - this is not the reason why we include nuts & beans in the nutritarian diet. The reason for including them is that the body needs fat and instead of consuming olive oil or canola oil (empty calories), we prefer to consume it from the nuts & seeds where we can still get some nutrients apart from other benefits.

Needless to say that at the end of this list are all sorts of oils, sweets, margarines, puddings, candies, alcoholic beverages, all sorts of salad dressings are that are good for nothing - in short food that have lots of empty calories.

Aviel.





יום שני, 12 באוגוסט 2013

My nutritarian breakfast

Hi everyone,

Just a quick shot of my extremely healthy and nutritious breakfast today...

DELICIOUS, NUTRITIOUS AND FULFILLING!!


  • 2 tbsp soy or almond milk
  • 1/2 cup oats (old-fashioned rolled oats)
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
  • 1 chopped green apple
  • 1 full tsp ground flaxseeds
Soak the oats in the water for the night together with the oats and the water.
In the morning add the blueberries, the flaxseeds and the apple.

I couldn't find fresh blueberries yet so I am using frozen yogurts. One package of 300 g costs ~30 IS (~9 $) and it can serve roughly two breakfasts. Expensive!


Aviel.

יום ראשון, 11 באוגוסט 2013

Couch Potato to 5K

Hi there everyone,

The "Couch potato to 5K" program takes a fat slob that sits all day in front of the computer screen and all night in front of the TV screen and slowly but surely makes him a 5K runner! The program spans over 9 weeks and the difficulty goes up and up and up. In the beginning you just run one minute and then walk two minutes and then run again a little bit and then walk briskly and so on. And after 9 weeks you can run 5Km without stopping...



I discoverd this program maybe 10 years ago and back then it worked! I started running with my kids back then and yes during the first/two weeks it was easy so they joined me. But then they found all sorts of excuses to avoid this but I continued. I still remember the day when I could run 2 Km and how I blogged about it in their website. Back then I progressed even more till I was able to run 10 Km and I even ran 21 Km three times in my life... But then came the injury, I got fat and since then my legs are not like they used to be.



Now since I am on vacation till the end of August (yes, I am...) and thus away from my gym which is in the office - I decided to give this plan a try. It's just for fun. I run, I walk, it's fairly easy. I know I am prone to injury, I know that my leg started becoming sugary, I am wearing insoles, I can't walk w/o them - I am so heavy that really running is not for me, but still I shall try it. It's not first on my priority list - it's not a commitment, I may stop when I feel a pain but just let's give it a try.

The cool thing about this program is that now you can download an android application that tells you when  to run, when to walk, when to warm up, how good you were and so on while you are listening to your music.  The application is called "C25K Couch to 5K by RunDouble".



Now I know that you geeks probably have better ideas for android applications. I know there are applications that are very friendly and encouraging and make you post to your facebook etc, so if you know how to connect them to the c25K program - drop me a line.

Aviel.