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According to a statement recently made by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, drugs designed to help control Type 2 diabetes, like the well-known prescription medication Avandia, should be subjected to more rigorous safety reviews to ensure they don’t raise the risk of heart problems. Take the following information with a grain of salt though, as I am NOT a medical doctor. Any stupid decisions you make, you make at your own risk.
Many people, when they start lifting weights, believe that training to failure on every set of every exercise is the key to growth. This is one of the biggest weightlifting myths, and one that is nearly impossible to squash unless you educate yourself on exercise physiology.
Failure is weightlifting is defined as the inability to generate the force required to complete the full range of motion for a single repetition. Many people, experts and trainees, fall on both sides of this debate. Some coaches insist on leaving a couple reps in the bag, stopping well short of failure to avoid stressing the central nervous system (CNS), while others recommend taking each set to that last rep. In order to get to the bottom of it, we really have to examine the science behind the theory.
This question of the week is a question to me, rather than a question to you. Let me know your thoughts on the subject after reading the article.
Let me tell you about a recent conversation with one of my friends over IM. This guy used to lift with me back in college, but he’s working on his own business right now and hasn’t touched a weight in almost a year. So the guy goes out and gets a gym membership and starts training again last Monday.
This is how the conversation went down…
my weightlifting friend: yo wtf
friend: my muscles hurt
friend: so bad
me: bwahaha
friend: chest and tris are killing me
friend: since Monday
friend: I can barely move
me: nasty
me: don’t push it so hard the first week back foo
friend: I can’t help it
friend: and I didn’t push that hard
friend: I just did as much as I could
friend: which is not as much as it used to be
me: yeah
me: you prolly did negative reps
me: and pushed out every last rep out of every set
me: and tried to use the weights you used to use
me: haha
friend: haha
friend: whatever I did
friend: it sucks ass
friend: what can I do to recover faster?
With the amount of starchy, sugary foods on the market today, we can never be too careful about our insulin sensitivity. Consuming too many high glycemic foods can decrease insulin sensitivity so much that we can develop adult-onset type 2 diabetes over time. Diabetes is bad in so many ways, causing (for example) heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and threatening the health of extremities.
Now there is hope for prediabetics (those with a high level of insulin insentivity). A new study presented on June 9 during the 68th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in San Francisco, has shown that people in prediabetic state were 81% less likely to convert their insulin insensitivity to type 2 diabetes when treated with a drug called pioglitazone, brand name Actos®.
If you are one of the more than 21 million people in the United States and an estimated 246 million adults worldwide who have diabetes, specifically type 2 diabetes, here is some excellent news for you. There is a new drug called exenatide, which when given weekly injections over the course of a year, has lowered glucose levels in diabetics and has assisted with weight loss, as shown by a recent study.
If you want to know how to treat insulin resistance so that it doesn’t develop into type 2 diabetes, read this article on how Actos decreases conversion of insulin resistance to type 2 diabetes by 81 percent.
Exenatide, aka “exenatide once weekly”, appears to also improve fasting plasma glucose and glycated hemoglobin (A1C) when administered twice a day using a product called Byetta. Byetta is the version of exenatide that is currently available on the market.
Dr. John B. Buse, director of the Diabetes Care Center and chief of the division of endocrinology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill said in a prepared statement…
After a 25 year increase, it seems that the percentage of obese or overweight children has plateaued. This news offers us some hope that perhaps the future of America will not be riddled with diabetes and heart disease.
One expert, Dr. David Ludwig, has commented that even though he is encouraged by these findings, “it is still too soon to know if this really means we’re beginning to make meaningful inroads into this epidemic. It may simply be a statistical fluke.” Another expert maintains that there is at least a small level of optimism about these results.
Yesterday I went to my thai kickboxing class where my lungs were served to me on a silver platter. After taking about a month off from kickboxing, I have lost most of my endurance. Not all that surprisingly, my lungs still don’t really seem to be working properly, as I am able to take only half breaths when my heart rate starts to rise. This is one of the reasons (aside from family and job issues) I started to slack at kickboxing for the last month. I attribute this to one of three things:
My original blog about the 300 workout I will be starting is here: The 300 Workout for Total Body Conditioning. I have not really started this yet, but I am preparing myself.
This is the tree on which I have been practicing my pull-ups. A couple weeks ago I was only able to get about 5 pull ups in a row, something that I used to be able to do with a 45 lb plate hanging from my waist. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Anyway, I can see in this picture my lack of width and girth, and the decrease in the circumference of my arms. It will be good to get swole again.
This is the bench on which I will be doing step ups and any other exercises that might require a bench. Just to get back into the swing of pressing, I will probably bust out some high rep 45 lb Powerblock presses using this bench like I would an Olympic bench.
This is the park in which I will be doing any sort of running or carrying exercises. Any exercise that doesn’t involve a stationary tool of some sort will be done in the park.
As of today, I am back up to 9 consecutive pull ups without cheating. My goal is to hit 20, something I’ve never done before, but if I practice this all summer and keep my weight down through conditioning drills, I should be able to attain this before next winter.
Since I am operating a healthy lifestyle blog here, I feel that it is important to address some life or death medical considerations at times. Therefore, today we talk about cholesterol. While circulating blood cholesterol is important to know about, you can also gauge increased cholesterol levels my examining the molecules that transport the cholesterol to the cells. An increase in the number of dense fat-transporting molecules surely means an increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease.
In order for cholesterol to travel through blood, it must attach itself to small fat-carrying proteins called lipoproteins. A lipoprotein is a biochemical assembly that contains both proteins and lipids. Many molecules in the blood, including enzymes, transporters, and structural proteins, are lipoproteins. The higher the proportion of protein to lipid in the lipoprotein, the greater is its density. The greater the density of the lipoprotein, the more cholesterol it is transporting around to your organs.
The least dense lipoproteins are the chylomicrons, which carry very little cholesterol.
Next, come the very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL), which roughly carry 15% of the circulating cholesterol.
Following the VLDL are the LDL which are the most notorious since they carry roughly 65% of all circulating cholesterol. High LDL levels are almost always a sure sign of atherosclerosis, a life-threatening heart condition. This means an unusually dangerous amount of cholesterol is present in your blood, and therefore arteries, at any given time. Chance are you will end up with major blockages at precarious locations.
Lastly comes the “good” cholesterol, high-density lipoproteins (HDL), which are the smallest and densest of the lipid-carriers. These actually carry cholesterol from the cells to the liver so that they can be processed as bile acids, excreted in the bile as cholesterol, or returned to the plasma as a component of VLDL. In other words, they dispose of the cholesterol.
There are several notable factors that can dramatically influence blood cholesterol levels.
According to reports from the American scientists at the diabetes association, approximately 7% of US population, about 20 million people, suffer from diabetes. By 2050 diagnosis of type 2 diabetes will be confirmed for about 48 million people in the United States. We always knew diabetes is a very serious disease as it causes loss of hearing, loss of sight, nervous system disorders, amputation of extremities, and now we find out that diabetes is responsible for hormonal imbalances including low testosterone.
A recent study of 69 men with type 1 diabetes and 580 men with type 2 diabetes has confirmed that low testosterone levels are directly related to the existence diabetes. Blood samples were taken from the groups initially and after a 6 month period. Both groups of men exhibited a lower level of total testosterone than the average male without diabetes.
Since men with low testosterone typically show signs of depression, loss of libido, impaired physical and mental performance, and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, this study confirms that men with diabetes to have a legitimate overall heath concern as they grow older.
Typically men over 30 begin to show signs of decreased testosterone levels and often benefit greatly from testosterone replacement therapy. Now these men will have a better understanding of what is happening to them and why, and they can procure proper medical treatment in order to continue to lead happy and healthy lives well into their 70s and 80s.
Men who think they have a legitimate problem with strength, mood, or performance now have a reason to seek testosterone replacement therapy, especially if they have diabetes or think they might be insulin resistant.
While the use of testosterone replacement therapy has not show significant promise when trying to reduce insulin resistance, this type of therapy has been directly responsible for bringing hope to the lives of men with low testosterone. Testosterone replacement therapy reverses the effects of hypogonadism, which is an impairment of the reproductive system that limits the testes effectiveness at producing natural healthy levels of testosterone.
Supplementing with additional testosterone helps to decrease body fat, increase muscle mass, improve mood, improve physical endurance and strength, and also combat the threat of cardiovascular disease. The only downside is that there are no long-term clinical trials to report on the long term side effects of testosterone replacement therapy. But we do know that the short term effects definitely improve the quality of life for those with low testosterone.
By now everyone knows that testosterone and other steroids are illegal. Even prohormones such as androstenedione and nor-androstenedione have been banned. So what do we have left?
Tribex Gold alone is a good supplement to stay on permanently, as is Carbolin 19. Alpha Male is a great supplement to boost your training for a couple months here or there. For those of you suffering with diabetes or insulin resistance, it looks like perhaps if you tried boosting your testosterone through natural means like this, you might feel a whole lot better.
If you wanted to go all out, I might recommend getting some Tribex Gold and Carbolin 19 in addition to your Alpha Male, and take the former two supplements when you are off Alpha Male, whether for 1 day or 1 month. No matter what, don’t forget to bust your ass training.
In recent years the acai berry diet has quickly become the most popular diet in the world, while the acai berry itself has become the most popular antioxidant diet supplement in world.
Combined with a colon cleanser, a sensible diet, and a moderate exercise routine, the acai berry can help you lose fat faster than you ever thought possible, and its antioxidant health properties will keep you feeling youthful and energized every day.
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Acai berries – acai is pronounced ‘a-sigh-ee’ – are small, black, and round, and they resemble small grapes. There is not much acai fruit on each individual berry. Rather, each acai berry has a large seed that is surrounded by a small amount of pulp.
Harvesting. When harvesting the acai berries, harvesters must remove the pulp from the outside of the berry, and process it immediately into an acai product or flash freeze it for shipping to a manufacturing facility. The acai fruit will spoil if left unprocessed for several days.
Acai Products. The fruit from the acai berry is often used in a variety of dietary supplements, healthy foods, ice cream, sorbet, juices, and other common grocery store items. Best of all, the acai berry is the most important food used with the acai berry diet. With the highest antioxidant concentration of any known food, the acai berry is now known as the most important superfood for a maintaining proper health.
Bad Products. Some common commerical acai products, like Monavie and Amazon Thunder are just juices, which really don’t have a place in the acai berry diet. Juice is, after all, full of sugars and other un-diet-like ingredients. Some of the products like Leanspa Acai, Acai Burn, and Acai Plus are now known as scams. They get you to buy into a 6 month supply, send you an initial shipment, then take the rest of your money and run.
Good Products. One of the best products I’ve had a chance to use is Acai Berry Select, which contains is 100% pure concentrated acai – a complete antioxidant, weight loss powerhouse – plus high effective energy boosters and other great thermogenic ingredients.
Another awesome product is Pure Raspberry Ketone. This has a highly potent combination of 5 popular superfoods:
African Mango and Raspberry Ketone are both fairly new to the super-food world. African Mango extract is really high in antioxidants, while Raspberry Ketone is an effective FDA approved fat loss supplement.
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Sambazon acai juice is the best juice product I’ve tried, but it does contain extra calories so is not the best product for an acai berry diet.
I am psyched because I am always talking about the benefits of antioxidants, and in particular how acai is currently the food with the highest antioxidant concentration in the world. The ORAC rating for acai beats out even that of pomegranate and blueberries!
The antioxidant benefits of the acai berry rival several other superfoods, including:
The super healthy vitamin, mineral, and macronutrient concentrations in acai berries blend together in your diet and in your body, to exert a powerful effect on your mind, body, health and overall well-being. For those of us looking for protection from cancer, weight loss, help with diabetes, better cardiovascular health, or just to look and feel healthy, should consider giving the acai berry a try. Learn more about the history of the acai berry itself on WikiPedia.
Oxygen Radical Absorbence Capacity, or ORAC, is the measurement of the antioxidant concentration of individual foods. The foods that have a higher ORAC value have a higher concentration of antioxidants, which means they are more effective at fighting the cellular damage caused by free-radicals. We want to load our diet up on fruits and vegetables if we wants to fight skin wrinkles, cancer, and various other diseases associated with toxins and aging.
As you can see by the chart below, the acai berry’s powerful 18,400 ORAC rating is the highest of any known fruit or vegetable. As a side note, I should let you know that the Maqui berry has taken over the ORAC crown, but acai berries are still better for weight loss.
When used in amounts up to 1000 mg a day, acai berry supplements will help to decrease the cell oxidization damage caused by free radicals pretty significantly, even when used for just 14 days. Of course, long term use is recommended since the antioxoidant benefits will cease a couple days after you stop using acai. Even WebMD agrees that the acai berry diet is the healthiest nutrition plan to follow for life.
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Most people who use the acai berry diet report the following healthy effects:
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Other known benefits of the acai berry diet:
In our generation, the world is full of chemicals, phytoestrogens, pesticides, herbicides, nuclear waste, and other harmful environmental toxins. Personally, I enjoy the acai berry diet because it allows me to maintain a healthy low body fat, and my antioxidant intake is sky-high. Even at age 33 I feel like I am still 21!
Anyone specifically looking to combat the effects of aging, recover from injury, and lose excess bodyfat should definitely looking into using the acai berry, temporarily if not indefinitely.
Other reasons you should try the acai berry diet:
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I wrote earlier that acai berry supplements are a great weight loss aid, but I didn’t get into all the details. Well, here are the specific details about why the acai berry is so helpful when you are trying to lose fat.
The acai’s natural concentration of fiber, fatty acids (including essential fatty acids – EFAs), raw amino acids, and phytosterols work in unison to assist your body with burning fat more efficiently. All of these nutrients will help your digestive system to process food faster and more efficiently, which will help your body to burn its stored fat quicker than diet and exercise alone.
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Dietary Fiber
85% of the carbohydrate content of acai is dietary fiber. As we all know, fiber helps your body to move food through the digestive tract. Excess food and calories are therefore eliminated quickly, rather than being absorbed into the bloodstream and stored away as excess adipose tissue (fat mass).
A high fiber diet is also known to reduce hunger, curb the appetite, and eliminate cravings. Make sure your regular diet is full of healthy fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; then supplement with acai berry every morning and you’ll be virtually guaranteed to lose weight and maintain regular bowel movements.
Fatty Acid Content
56.2% of the fat content of acai is oleic acid, which in simple terms, is olive oil. Know how nutritionists are always telling us to use olive oil in our recipes because it’s so healthy? Well there you go! Supplementing with acai berry is like supplementing with olive oil. But that’s not the best part…
Additionally, your body is unable to produce Omega 3 or Omega 6 essential fatty acids (EFAs) naturally, which means you’ll have to make it a point to supplement with fish oil or eat foods with high concentrations of those EFAs. Conveniently, these EFAs are plentiful in acai berries, making up the additional 43.8% of fat. That means you can say supplementing with acai berry is like supplementing with fish oil!
Just some of the benefits of supplementing with EFAs include:
Amino Acids
Acai berries are chalk-full of amino acids, widely known as the building blocks of protein. In order for your muscles to recover from workouts or even just to function properly, you need an adequate intake of amino acids. I recommend .8 grams of protein in your diet per pound of goal body weight, so that’s a lot of amino acids.
Furthermore, when dieting, a lack of amino acids leads to muscle catabolism (muscle loss), which in turn leads to a slower metabolism, less stamina, fatigue, and loss of strength. Supplementing with acai berry gives you those extra amino acids that your body needs to function at optimal levels, especially when following a regular exercise routine.
Phytosterols
Phytosterols such as ß-sitosterol, which is prevalent in acai, decreases cholesterol levels by inhibiting cholesterol absorption in the intestines. When phytosterols are absorbed in the intestines, they are transported into the cell membrane where they bind to micelles in place of dietary cholesterol. This means that when your diet contains cholesterol, it is more likely to be transported from the body, rather than absorbed into the bloodstream.
There are 2 ways to add acai berries to your daily diet:
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Disgusting, harmful toxins infiltrate your body at work, at home, in the car, when you eat, when you sleep, and even when you breathe. They are on the vegetables and fruits you buy, they are in your meat, in your dairy products, on your clothes, in your deodorant and perfume, and even in the air.
Furthermore, in westernized culture, we eat more sugary, processed, and fried food than ever. We poison our bodies with a variety of sedatives, stimulants, pain relievers, and a million other medications. A high percentage of these medicine and food toxins build up in our liver, kidneys, and colon. They pollute our body and stress out our digestive systems.
To combat these toxins, we sometimes resort to enemas, detox diets, cleansing drinks, and colon cleansers. Our main goals is to cleanse the colon walls of stagnant toxic waste build up, which we can do cheaply and comfortably by using a colon cleansing dietary supplement.
By using a colon cleanser you will increase your vitality, improve your digestion, and lose weight. When combined with an acai berry diet, using a colon cleanser regularly will help to keep your intestines clean and your body free of toxins. It is recommended to use a colon cleansing supplement for 14-30 days, 4-6 times a year.
While not mandatory for the acai berry diet, using a colon cleanser will make the detox process much easier and faster, and it will help your efforts to lose weight. I’d choose a colon cleanser before I’d choose an enima, that’s for sure.
There are 2 ways to add colon cleansing to your daily diet:
Clear here to read more about colon cleansing on Project Swole.
To maximize your weight loss on the acai diet, you should be working out at least three times a week for at least 30 minutes per session. Exercise is not mandatory on the acai berry diet, but it will help you lose fat even faster.
The best fat loss workout routines on Project Swole are:
These routines prescribe 6 days of exercise per week, and consist of 3 intense full body weight training workouts and 3 cardiovascular routines. Use these workouts to kick your fat loss into overdrive!
An intermittent fast is the best approach to losing fat quickly on the acai berry diet. Intermittent fasting calls for a 6-8 hour feeding window, where you eat all of your calories for the day in 2 or 3 meals. Don’t eat after 8pm or before noon. Drink only water, tea, or coffee in between.
Like colon cleansing and the fat loss workout routines, fasting is not mandatory for the acai berry diet. However, intermittent fasting is a great lifestyle eating plan if you can get accustomed to it. Whole-day fasts are not typically recommended for those of us looking to build or maintain muscle mass, but intermittent fasting is a great solution.
Click here to read more about intermittent fasting on Project Swole.
Once again, here are the instructions for ordering the best acai and colon cleansing supplements online. The free trial offers provide you with an inexpensive solution, while a full order will let you stock up and possibly get a couple free bottles. Just click on a link, submit your address, and away you go!
The 2 ways to add acai to your daily diet:
The 2 ways to add colon cleanse to your daily diet:
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Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about acai. You can read the whole list here: Acai Berry FAQ
Q: How much acai berry should I take each day?
A: It is recommended to take between 500 mg and 1000 mg (1 g) each day. This can be taken all at once or divided into several doses. See the previous question for more information on timing your acai intake.
Q: How much weight will I lose by taking acai?
A: You can lose between 1-2 pounds a week on a healthy diet and exercise plan. When taking acai you may lose at least twice that many pounds. You could definitely lose up to 12 or even 15 pounds a month by using acai, as long as you continue eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly.
Q: Will I gain the weight back after I stop using acai?
A: As long as you maintain a healthy diet and keep exercising, you will not gain fat just because you stop using acai. You might experience decreased weight loss or a plateau in your fat loss progress, but you will not suddenly start gaining it back.
Q: Can my pre-teen or teenage, son or daughter use acai?
A: Acai berries are fruit just like blueberries, oranges, and apples. It makes sense that if you are old enough to eat other fruit, then you are old enough to eat acai. The one caveat is that the supplement must be 100% pure acai. If your acai pill or juice contains other ingredients like Hoodia, caffeine or another thermogenic compound, I can’t promise it will be good for your kid.
Q: What are the side effects of acai berry supplements?
For 100% pure acai supplements, there are no side effects, just as there would be no side effects to taking a highly concentrated blueberry supplements. Sometimes acai berry pills have added ingredients such as caffeine, green tea, or hoodia, which could cause some acai berry side effects like increased energy and heart rate. This doesn’t make them dangerous by any means, but it should be noted that some acai berry supplements do have added ingredients.
Q: When should I take my acai berry supplement?
A: If you have an acai supplement with added ingredients like caffeine and hoodia, then you should only take your acai berry supplement in the morning. If you have a 100% pure acai supplement, then it is OK to take it in the morning and before bed, however I recommend you consistently take your acai supplement once per day, in the morning with breakfast.
Q: How many calories are in the acai berry supplements?
A: There are a ton of calories in the acai juices. Upwards of 200-500 calories per serving, depending on the product. I don’t recommend the juices for a weight loss diet, although they can fit nicely into a regular breakfast or as a pre-workout drink. The acai berry pills have negligible calories in comparison, and even then the calories are attributed to fiber, healthy fatty acids, and amino acids, as I mentioned above.
Q: Is the acai berry a scam?
A: No! This question frustrates me, because the acai berry diet is now receiving unnecessary negative publicity thanks to a few shady businesses. The acai berry received a bad rap in recent years because some companies took huge orders over the course of several months, shut down their customer service departments, and ran for the hills.
When you consider the health benefits of the acai berry itself, the proof is in the pudding… the acai berry pudding. Antioxidants are very real, and the acai berry is very high in antioxidants. If you ever wanted to take a supplement that could help you lose weight, stay healthy, and feel young, then the acai berry is for you.
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