In it, I explain how I used the experience I have gained battling addiction to permanently getting rid of the junk foods from my life.

I now haven’t touched sugar or gluten in over 6 months. I’ve lost ALL my excess weight with little effort and feel better than I ever have in my life.

More details here:

Vicious Eating – The Food Addict’s Guide to Redemption

The post Vicious Eating – My Book is Out! appeared first on KrisKris.com.

I’ve decided to start a new site. I’ll probably keep on writing some articles here, but it will be more of a personal type of blog with weight loss updates and stuff like that and I won’t be writing as frequently.

My new in-depth articles will be posted on AuthorityNutrition.com.

If you’re reading this, then I’d really appreciate it if you would check out the new site and re-subscribe (I have a new Facebook, Twitter, Google+ page and RSS feed for the new site).

Hope to see you there and a BIG thanks for reading my articles.

The post I’ve started a new site – please check it out appeared first on KrisKris.com.

The reason: I simply can not control myself… AT ALL… if I eat these foods.

For me, these foods lead to an endless vicious cycle of cravings, binges and relapses and end up ruining my health, my looks and my self-esteem along with it.

I am a food addict, and as it is with other substances of abuse, there can be NONE of it.

One bite and I’m out. Back to full-blown addiction.

If a food has sugar, corn syrup, gluten or wheat anywhere on the label I won’t touch it. Not a bite, not a sniff.

The results have been nothing short of amazing.

Cravings are almost gone

First of all, my cravings for junk food are almost gone.

It happens occasionally that I get a craving for something sweet after dinner, but it usually doesn’t last very long and it is easy to ignore.

I’m never really hungry and I’m now able to do some self-experimentation with my diet, which I wasn’t able to do before because I’d always end up binging and ruining it.

I almost never eat more than 2 meals per day now. Fasting is effortless, I’ve gone for 24 hours at a time without food at several occasions and it was incredibly easy.

Eating low-carb, along with complete abstinence from sugar and gluten, is a real appetite killer. At least in my case.

Nut Butters Became an Issue

I had lost about 18 pounds of weight without trying very hard, but then I started having problems with nut butters.

For about a week or so, I’d eat an entire jar in the evening after dinner.

I have now abandoned the peanut butter and put it in a “hazard” category. It’s not as problematic for me as sugar and gluten, but if I eat it I tend to eat way too much and I tend to crave it the next day.

So… that was one setback, which is now over.

Weight Loss Update

After my little peanut butter adventure (which made me gain back about 4 pounds) I started becoming more strict with my diet and began a little experimentation.

I did the slow-carb diet (from the 4 Hour Body) for two weeks. It worked pretty well and I felt satiated on it, but I needed to restrict calories for it to work.

Since then, I’ve been doing a full-blown ketogenic diet which has given me amazing results in a short amount of time. I will dedicate an entire post to my experiences with it soon.

But if I hadn’t completely given up sugar and gluten, I probably would never have been able to do these experiments with my diet. Not a chance, really. I’d never have lasted more than a week.

Today, I feel awesome, I’m sleeping great and don’t get tired at all in the afternoon, I feel ridiculously sharp mentally along with various other benefits.

I have to say that making the decision to go completely abstinent from sugar and gluten was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.

My Current Progress

As of today, I’ve lost 10 kg (22 pounds) and about 11 cm (4.3 inches) off of my waist.

The more weight I’ve lost, the more weight I’ve realized I have left.

3 months in, I’m only half way there… I’ve set a goal to get under 10% body fat.

Here are a few progress pics, at 15,8% body fat:

The post 3 Months Without Sugar And Gluten appeared first on KrisKris.com.

Don’t get me wrong… I love butter, cream and delicious cheese as much as the next person.

But when I see some well-meaning folks tout dairy (usually low-fat… yuck) as some kind of necessity for bone health I can’t help raising an eyebrow.

So I set out to explore whether dairy really has any part to play.

It’s a good source of calcium, that we know.

But bone metabolism is complex and there’s a lot more than just calcium in there.

Other minerals, vitamins, hormones, dietary factors etc. also play a part and it doesn’t make evolutionary sense that we should need dairy because we didn’t eat dairy after weaning throughout evolution.

So… is dairy really good for your bones or is it just another myth?

A Quick Primer on Osteoporosis

The most common bone disease is osteoporosis, characterized by bone demineralization and deterioration of bone structure.

Osteoporosis = “porous” bones.

Healthy bones contain minerals and proteins tied together in an extremely rigid structure. In osteoporosis, these minerals and proteins deteriorate, the bones become less dense and therefore more likely to break.

Osteoporosis is most common in post-menopausal women and the resultant fractures can have a significant negative effect on quality of life.

The main reason why we would want to keep our bones dense and strong, is to prevent osteoporosis and resultant fractures later in life.

This is a pretty big problem in western countries and may perhaps be considered as one of many diseases of civilization as it is rare in hunter-gatherer populations.

It seems logical enough to associate dairy, the richest dietary source of Calcium, with bone mineral density given that calcium (in the form of calcium phosphate) is the most abundant mineral in bone.

Of course, there’s more to dairy than just calcium.

Dairy is a whole food rich in animal protein, phosphorus, Vitamin K2 and various other nutrients that may or may not have an impact on our bones.

Controlled Trials on Dairy Consumption

Luckily for us, this issue has been investigated intensely and multiple randomized controlled trials have explored the effects of dairy consumption on bone mineral density.

In one study published in 1990, pre-menopausal women that added dairy to their diet had much lower rate of bone loss than a control group.

The control group lost 2,9% of bone mass from the vertebrae (bones of the spine) over a 3 year period, while the women who added dairy to their diet maintained their bone mass (1).

Another study published in 1997, this time in adolescent girls, discovered that the group of girls who drank additional milk had increased bone growth compared to a control group who didn’t (2).

Several other randomized trials that look at dairy consumption specifically show significant positive association with bone mineral content, which should lead to a reduced risk of fracture later in life (3, 4).

Basically, it seems that dairy products do in fact build stronger bones.

Despite the promising results of the controlled trials however, there are some observational studies, including the massive Nurses Health Study, that fail to show a positive effect for dairy and calcium consumption on fracture risk (5, 6).

(Of course, randomized controlled trials trump observational studies).

What About Calcium Supplements?

If you prefer to avoid dairy for one reason or another, there is the option to take a calcium supplement.

This has also been studied extensively, and calcium supplements on their own also lead to improved bone density and lower risk of fracture (7, 8).

However, I must warn against the use of calcium supplements because there is some evidence that taking calcium in the form of a supplement can increase risk of cardiovascular disease (9).

For further reading on calcium, dairy and bone health, read this excellent paper by Dr. Robert P. Heaney, one of the world’s leading experts on bone health.

Take Home Message

It turns out that the dairy and bone thing isn’t a myth after all. It has been extensively studied and there is no doubt about it that both calcium supplements and dairy lead to improved bone health.

I personally don’t take a calcium supplement, but I do eat a hefty amount of full-fat cheese at least several times per week. This brings my weekly calcium intake to appropriate levels.

If you’re female, then optimizing your calcium intake among other things, may be important to prevent bone loss and fractures later in life.

I should point out though, that this picture is more complicated than it seems.

For example, countries such as the U.S. which consume a lot of dairy also have a lot of osteoporosis.

And of course… dairy isn’t the only food that contains calcium. Leafy greens, nuts, some types of fish, eggs, etc. all contain a hefty amount.

What I recommend you do is eat a real food based diet that includes all the necessary vitamins and minerals, engage in weight bearing exercise (lift heavy things), optimize your Vitamin D status and generally make an effort to live a healthy lifestyle.

To sum up, yes… dairy appears to be good for your bones, but it is just one part of an extremely complex picture that involves various modifiable lifestyle factors that can impact future bone health.

The post Got Milk or Got Myth? Is Dairy Really Good For Your Bones? appeared first on KrisKris.com.

This is the tagline of a book I was reading the other day, The Art And Science of Low-Carbohydrate Living.

This book was written by two of the leading researchers on low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diets worldwide, Drs Stephen D. Phinney and Jeff S. Volek.

One of them is a medical doctor, the other a registered dietitian (one of the “good” ones – yes, they do exist).

These guys have many years of clinical experience prescribing low-carb diets for patients and are therefore in a unique position to give practical advice on how to do this diet properly.

According to these guys, cutting back on carbs isn’t enough.

To reap the full benefits and get your body into full-blown nutritional ketosis, some additional steps are required.

When your brain is fully keto-adapted and efficiently burning ketones for fuel, that’s where the “metabolic magic” happens, so to speak.

Kind of like Atkins on steroids.

1. The Fear of Fat May be Holding You Back

When you take carbs out of the diet, you have to replace them with fat.

Many people think that because low-carb is good, a combination of low-carb AND low-fat will be even better. That’s a big mistake.

All of the populations around the world that have sustained themselves with little carbs (the Inuit, for example) have eaten a LOT of fat to compensate. They choose the really fatty cuts of meat, they don’t go for the lean parts.

Fat should be your biggest source of calories on a “well-formulated” low-carb/ketogenic diet. I’ve personally aimed for 50-60% in the past but according to Volek and Phinney 70-80% might be even better.

2. Eating Too Many Carbs

“Low” carb is a pretty vague term. Someone might call 100-150 gram per day pretty low, at least compared to the Standard American Diet (SAD).

To get into ketosis, a carb intake of less than 50g per day is recommended. Even lower may be optimal, but this depends on the individual.

Personally I now aim for 20-30g per day, but I still manage to fit in plenty of low-carb vegetables like leafy greens.

3. Eating Too Much Protein

Normally, a low-carb diet restricts carbs only. Fat and protein are allowed in unlimited amounts.

This appears to be a potential issue for some folks. The thing is, when you eat very little carbs but a high amount of protein, a lot of this protein will be used for energy or turned into glucose by the liver.

According to Volek and Phinney, too much protein can keep you out of ketosis, which is the metabolic state that we should be aiming for to reap the full benefits of low-carb.

A “well-formulated” low-carb/ketogenic diet, according to the authors, is low-carb, high-fat and moderate-protein.

4. Sodium Requirements go Way up on Low-Carb Diets

A high-carb diet raises insulin levels. That we know.

One of the side effects of elevated insulin is that the kidneys start hoarding sodium, which leads to bloating and excess water weight.

This is the reason people lose so much weight when they start a low-carb/ketogenic diet. Their body “sheds” the excess sodium and water follows along.

This is a good thing, but it can become too much of a good thing when your kidneys keep dumping sodium until you become deficient.

Sodium is a crucial electrolyte in the body and cells require it to remain within a tight range.

If you ever feel “lousy” on low-carb; headache, fatigue, lightheadedness, even constipation then you should add some sodium to your diet (if you have a medical condition, consult your doctor).

There’s no need to fear a little extra sodium on a low-carb diet. Your requirement goes up and you are simply replacing what is lost via urine.

What you can do is simply put more salt on your food (salt = sodium + chloride).

Or better yet, you can drink a cup of broth every day.

What I do is dissolve an organic (no MSG) bouillon cube in a cup of hot water and drink. Adds 2g of sodium to my daily intake.

It’s delicious actually. Like a low-calorie soup in a cup. Yum.

5. Not Supplementing With Potassium And Magnesium

Another two electrolytes that may need to be supplemented are potassium and magnesium.

According to most of the low-carb/keto experts, including Dr. Petter Attia, Dr. Michael Eades, Drs. Volek and Phinney and Lyle McDonald, supplementing with magnesium and potassium is a good idea.

Personally I take 200mg of Potassium with each meal and 400mg of Magnesium Citrate in the evening, about an hour or two before sleep.

6. Not Giving it Enough Time

It can take weeks to become fully adapted to a low-carb, ketogenic diet. You can expect to be in ketosis within a few days, but the entire adaptation period can take weeks.

Feeling like crap is not uncommon for the first few days, but that’s because your body is still adapting to using ketones and fatty acids for fuel instead of glucose.

Once the adaptation period is over, many people claim feeling better than before. Sharper mentally, less hunger and even improved physical performance.

Take Home Message

If you want to try this out, I suggest you sign up on Fitday (free) and log your food intake for a few days.

Trust me, if you want to keep your macros within a tight range, this is a MUST… at least in the beginning until you get a “feel” for your portions.

Personally I’m now keeping carbs under 30g per day and protein under 125g. Before, I was eating too many carbs, too much protein and wasn’t drinking broth to add sodium.

If you’ve tried low-carb in the past but didn’t get the results you expected, then perhaps you were doing it wrong.

The post 6 Common Low-Carb & Keto Mistakes and How to Avoid Them appeared first on KrisKris.com.

Excited, right?

That’s how I felt one morning in October when I opened my inbox and saw a message from one of Tim’s assistants, inviting me to do an interview with him about his new book, The 4 Hour Chef.

Having read his other books, I was excited. Tim Ferriss is among my all-time favorite authors.

His two previous books, The 4 Hour Workweek and The 4 Hour Body both made it to #1 on the New York Times best seller list, major successes. I highly recommend both of them, they made a lasting impression on me.

Published today, his new book The 4 Hour Chef is a little bit different, and I’ll let Tim explain the details in his own words.

Why would I talk about cooking on this blog? Well, because cooking is one of those essential skills that can multiply your chances of succeeding on a diet or healthy eating plan.

The best meals are cooked at home and having the skills to make nutritious and healthy meals is not to be taken lightly.

Kris - Tim, you are a bestselling author of two books; The 4 Hour Work Week and The 4 Hour Body. Can you explain in a few words what these books are about, for those who are unfamiliar with your previous work?

Tim - The 4 Hour Workweek and The 4 Hour Body look primarily at how you can apply the 80/20 principle, so identifying the 20% of activities that produce 80% or more of the results.

Work, lifestyle, then physical performance and appearance enhancement, we could say. So, fat loss, muscle gain and swimming, jumping, etc. That is the unifying theme of the two.

Kris - Cooking is radically different from the topics you have become known for, what qualifies you to write a book about cooking?

Tim - Nothing whatsoever, that’s the best part. I’m a lifelong non-cook and my readers have asked me for a book on accelerated learning for 5 or 6 years because I tackle so many different skills like setting a world record in Tango, learning languages, kickboxing, etc.

This all happened very recently and so the 4 hour chef is a cookbook for all skills, disguised as a cookbook about food. It explains all of the tools that I used to learn how to cook last year and in doing so explains how you can learn anything from shooting a basketball 3-pointer to Spanish to Japanese.

Kris - Can you explain what makes this book different from all the other thousands of cookbooks out there?

Tim - There are a few things. First, it’s just more fun to read, there are Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, supermodels and more. It’s fun.

Second, I’m a lifelong non-cook, so I looked at all these cookbooks that had no logical progression, no logical organization and rather than write a book that is easy for a chef to write, I wrote a book that removes all the failure points that lead people to quit cooking.

Third, this is really a book for people who don’t buy cookbooks and I talk about survival training, trips to Japan, Calcutta and lesson learned from Okinawa. Also things that people can apply even if they never make a single dish in the book.

Kris - There are some rather interesting passages in the book, for example how to cook fish in a bathroom sink and how to turn a garbage can into a cooking device. Did you try all these methods yourself?

Tim - Yeah, I tried everything myself. That’s part of the reason it took me so long to write. I don’t ask my readers to do anything that I won’t try myself.

We actually cut 250 pages from the book. I had people try them and even if 1 person completely failed I removed it from the book.

For instance, I cooked the two Michelin star fish in the bathroom sink at a hotel in Chicago. I used the iron in the closet afterwards to sear it, to get a nice crust on it and then I got the wine from the mini-bar and had a nice little meal, cooked in the bathroom sink.

It was this dish I bought 2 hours earlier at one of the top restaurants in Chicago and a few floors down in the same hotel so I was able to compare the two.

Kris - I’m terrible at cooking myself and have a real hard time understanding cookbooks. I’ve always gotten the impression that you have to have quite a lot of experience to be able to understand these books and I’ve usually given up on them.

I take it that the 4 hour chef is different and appropriate for those who have absolutely no cooking skills to begin with?

Tim - Absolutely, I had to start there as well and like most people I had picked up cookbooks before. There was a lot of French, you had to buy 3K dollars worth of equipment before you got started and a lot of headaches and hassle.

What I did before writing this book is I polled 500 thousand Facebook and Twitter followers and asked them why they put cookbooks down. I didn’t really care why they picked them up, I cared about why they put them down.

I analyzed the results using virtual assistants and spotted patterns and then removed all of those things from the book.

So, it’s fine for people who have never used a knife properly for cooking, who have maybe 15-20 minutes to spend twice a week on experimenting with things.

Kris - Are the meals and cooking methods directly related to the slow carb diet [The diet from The 4 Hour Body] or does the book cover how to cook any type of meal?

Tim - The techniques in the book apply to any type of meal but most of the recipes are slow-carb diet compliant, so people should lose a lot of body fat without ever thinking about it or being hungry.

The cheat day meals are really intense and over the top. A lot of them make cookies but we also have the TurBacon, which is a quail inside a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey inside a pig.

If you want to get aggressive, I have things like that. I did experiments, for instance, where I ate Ben & Jerry’s Vermonster, which is a bucket of ice cream with bananas and brownies and cookies and whipped cream. It’s 15.000 calories and 500 grams of fat. I had a competition with a bodybuilder to eat it in 20 minutes.

Then I did a Food-A-Thon the next day for another 15.000 calories, and then using Ultrasound I measured lower body fat than before starting. How I used biochemical tricks, supplements, things like that to pull that kind of stuff off is also part of the book.

Kris - Can you explain what meta-learning is, one of the main themes in your book?

Tim - Meta-learning is the skill of learning skills. It is the true recipe of the book and a I wanted to answer the question “is there a single blueprint, a single recipe you can apply to any skill to learn it in, say, half the time it would usually take?”

So you can apply it to physical skills like swimming and kickboxing to factual skills like memorizing things like a deck of cards. Meta-learning is the blueprint I’ve tested on all these various skills that works.

It ranges from deconstruction to selection of material, like an 80/20 analysis, sequencing, putting them in the right order, like the proper off-swing.

Then we got cramming, the ways of cramming, frequency and then coding, where we take really slippery stuff and tie it to things we already know so we can accelerate faster.

Kris - What are some of the things you have managed to master yourself using these learning methods?

Tim - Tango, Argentine Tango. I went from my first lesson to the world championships and set a world record after 5 and a half months. My language learning, I’ve refined it over time. I actually failed at learning Spanish for the first few years that I studied it and concluded that I was bad at languages.

Until figuring out a better way to do things and learned to speak and write Japaneese fluently in less than a year. Did the same with Mandarin Chinese 6 months later, then German.

After that I tackled Spanish again in Argentina and got to the advanced text level from the university of Buenos Aires.

Swimming, basketball, cooking and hopefully some day Icelandic, we’ll see.

Conclusion

The book launched today and you can get it from Amazon here: The 4 Hour Chef.

If you want to read more about it, check out the book’s official website.

I just ordered a copy for myself and can’t wait to read it.

Here’s the official trailer for the book:

Photo: FourHourWorkWeek.com

The post The 4 Hour Chef – Interview With Bestselling Author Tim Ferriss appeared first on KrisKris.com.

Despite what conventional wisdom says, coffee may actually provide a range of health benefits.

Here are 5 deadly diseases that coffee may save you from, at least if the epidemiological studies mean anything.

Coffee and Type II Diabetes

Type II diabetes is a metabolic disorder characterized by insulin resistance, a relative insulin deficiency and elevated blood glucose levels.

Today, about 300 million people worldwide have type II diabetes and prevalence has increased about 10-fold within a few decades. Complications of this disease include cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, blindness and amputation.

Luckily for us, the epidemiology shows that coffee consumption may drastically reduce incidence of this disease.

A meta-analysis published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2009 looked at 18 different studies with 457.922 participants that examined the association of coffee consumption and diabetes.

According to the analysis, each additional cup of coffee per day reduced risk of developing type II diabetes by 7% (1).

Other studies reveal that coffee consumption may lead to a 23% to 67% reduction in risk (2, 3, 4).

Coffee and Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease and a leading cause of dementia worldwide. Currently about 30 million people in the world have Alzheimer’s disease.

There is no known cure for Alzheimer’s, but there are a few lifestyle factors known to reduce risk of developing the disease later in life.

One of the most powerful lifestyle factors it seems, is drinking coffee.

Several epidemiological studies that have examined the relationship of coffee consumption with Alzheimer’s reveal up to a 65% lower risk for those who drink 3-5 cups per day (5, 6, 7).

Coffee and Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is a malignant type of cancer that originates in the liver. Globally, liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death.

Drinking coffee may drastically reduce risk of developing liver cancer.

A meta-analysis published in the journal Gastroenterology in 2007 discovered that consumption of 2 cups of coffee per day lowered the risk of liver cancer by 43% (8).

Coffee and Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease is another common neurodegenerative disease caused by the death of dopamine producing neurons in a certain area of the brain.

It affects about 0.3% of the population in industrialized countries and is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer’s.

A meta-analysis that pooled data from 26 studies was published in 2010 and examined the relationship between coffee consumption and Parkinson’s disease.

They found a linear inverse relationship, with 300mg of caffeine per day lowering the risk of Parkinson’s by 24% (9).

Other prospective studies confirm this inverse relationship, some revealing a risk reduction as high as 58% for those who consume the greatest amount of caffeine (10, 11, 12).

Coffee and Colon Cancer

Colon cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer death and kills about a half million people per year.

A meta-analysis measured the association of coffee and colon cancer and revealed a risk reduction of 24% for coffee drinkers (13).

Correlation Does Not Equal Causation

The epidemiological studies don’t prove anything, but the available evidence seems to point out that coffee isn’t the villain it has been made out to be.

There are a few ways to make sure that your coffee remains healthy, such as not loading it with sugar or artificial chemicals.

The post 5 Deadly Diseases That Coffee May Save You From appeared first on KrisKris.com.

My main goal has been to break my addiction to unhealthy foods by being completely abstinent.

And I’ve managed to do it. I haven’t eaten a single bite of junk food since September 3rd.

Not a bite, not a sip, not a sniff. For 7 weeks now.

This has been my primary goal and I’ve made it less of a priority to lose weight.

I’m not that much overweight anyway, but I have been building up a “wheat belly” in the past year or so due to excessive binge eating on ice cream, fast foods and other garbage.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel certain that a low-carb diet is the best option for those who are very overweight, diabetic or have symptoms of the metabolic syndrome.

But for those who are trying to break their food addiction, it might be best to pick your battles wisely and make it a primary goal to only abstain from the foods that you are addicted to.

So, this is the diet I’ve been following for the past few weeks. I call it the Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free diet.

What it basically is about, is avoiding all sources of added sugar and gluten and replacing them with real foods. Simple.

It is less restrictive than a low-carb, paleo diet as it does allow for some non-gluten grains.

Basically, it is paleo + dairy + healthier grains like oats and rice.

The 4 Rules of The Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free (GFSF) Diet

#1 – Don’t eat any added sugar or gluten. Not ever, not a single bite! Read labels.

#2 – Don’t drink calories.

#3 – Eat natural foods: meat, fish eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, health(ier) grains, full-fat dairy products, fats and oils.

#4 – Eat protein and fat at every meal, stick to the moderate-carb range.

What I’ve Been Eating

Basically, for breakfast I’ve had my usual stir fry with eggs and vegetables but I’ve added a bit of organic whole oats to it on my workout days.

For dinner, I’ll have lots of meat or fish with some vegetables. If I eat somewhere else (restaurant or mom’s) then I will often have some potatoes or rice with dinner.

During the first 3 weeks of this diet, I used to have lunch and a snack in the afternoon. A total of 4 meals throughout the day.

But after about 3 weeks on this program I started feeling so satiated that I only need to eat twice per day.

Late “breakfast” and dinner.

Breaking the blood sugar roller coaster and addictive cycle that comes with the sugar and gluten grains has really changed the way my appetite works. I just don’t need to eat that often.

Take Home Message

I’ve been doing this for 7 weeks now and I’ve lost 18 pounds and three inches off of my waist. I haven’t counted a single calorie.

I feel awesome too. Sleeping better, full of energy.

Going to the gym feels like something I actually want to do now, not a chore like it used to.

What worked for me was to focus on breaking the addiction first, for at least a few weeks, then allow weight loss to happen as a welcome side effect of removing sugar, gluten grains and their appetite stimulating effects.

I think going “completely abstinent” from sugar and gluten is one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.

The post The Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free (GFSF) Diet appeared first on KrisKris.com.

Lifting weights, setting personal records and gradually seeing the visible changes on my body.

I love it.

There is literally nothing that makes me feel better in my day-to-day life than strength training.

It doesn’t just make me feel good after the workout, also in the days between.

But there’s more to strength training than that.

Lifting Weight is a MUST

I’ve been reading a book called Eat Stop Eat (great book, btw – highly recommended).

It opened my eyes to the incredible importance of lifting weights.

I didn’t know that there was such compelling evidence for the importance of lifting weights on a weight loss diet.

Losing Weight – Cardio Just Isn’t Enough

When it comes to exercise, cardio just doesn’t cut it.

Those who stick to cardio only and don’t do any strength training experience the negative effects of long term calorie restriction, which are muscle loss and metabolic slowdown.

Preventing Muscle Loss and Metabolic Slowdown

In a study published in the journal Obesity in the year 2008, 94 overweight premenopausal women went on a calorie restricted (800cal/day) diet until they had reached a normal weight.

The women were split into three groups (1):

1. Resistance Training.
2. Aerobic Training.
3. No Training.

The finding of the study was very interesting.

The groups undergoing either no training or aerobic training both lost some of their muscle mass and experienced a reduction in Resting Energy Expenditure (calories burned at rest).

The women who did resistance training both maintained their muscle mass and their energy expenditure.

[Other studies of a similar nature confirm this finding: Resistance training maintains muscle mass and resting energy expenditure (2, 3, 4).]

How to Fit Strength Training Into Your Life

If you want to lose weight but maintain your muscle mass and metabolic rate, then you need to fit strength training into your life somehow.

Your best bet is to find yourself a good workout program. I’m doing a program called Visual Impact.

Then go to the gym and follow the program. Lift heavy and try to improve your strength. The women in the study above went three times per week.

If you’re a complete gym newbie, then consider getting a session with a personal trainer or someone that has experience working out in a gym, in order to show you how to do the exercises.

Of course, exercise can also lead to a plethora of health benefits besides just preservation of lean muscle and metabolic rate:

• More energy.
• Better mood.
• Improved self-esteem, body image.
• Higher HDL (good) cholesterol.
• Lower triglycerides.
• Higher insulin sensitivity.
• Improved blood sugar control.
• Increased strength and endurance.
• Better sleep.
• Can even be fun, if you do it right!

It is your birthright to be fit and healthy. Exercise is a critical piece of the puzzle and no less important than having the perfect diet.

The post Lifting Weights is a MUST… to Prevent Muscle Loss and Metabolic “Slowdown” appeared first on KrisKris.com.

I’ve done my best to stay away from it and constantly recommended that others do so as well.

But I just finished reading a book called Wheat Belly.

While going through it and looking at some of the hundreds of scientific references in it, I have come to the opinion that wheat is much, much worse than I originally thought.

Wheat, either directly or indirectly, can contribute to various chronic, life-threatening diseases.

Here are 10 reasons not to eat wheat.

1. Wheat Raises Blood Sugar Rapidly

According to Dr. Davis, the author of Wheat Belly, wheat contains a type of starch called Amylopectin A which is digested a lot faster than the starches found in other foods like beans and rice.

The starches in wheat are readily broken down into glucose by digestive enzymes (1).

When starch is broken down into glucose in the digestive tract, next it goes in to the bloodstream to become blood sugar.

Wheat, even the “heart-healthy” whole wheat, has large amounts of this fast acting starch, which gives wheat a high glycemic index (2).

This can lead to various health problems down the line.

2. Wheat Can Give You Acne

One of the dietary factors that can cause acne are foods that raise blood sugar levels quickly (3, 4).

Wheat, with its unique ability to elevate blood sugar rapidly, will therefore be particularly prone to exacerbate acne.

3. Wheat May Stimulate Opioid Receptors in The Brain

When gluten proteins are broken down by enzymes in the digestive tract, the small peptides they form are able to stimulate opiate receptors, just like morphine and heroin (5).

One indicator of these opiate-like peptides being able to reach into the brain is the fact that consuming gluten can increase severity and risk of mental disorders like schizophrenia (6, 7).

Taking an opiate blocking drug changes the response to gluten, another strong indicator of gluten having an activity similar to opiates (8).

4. Wheat is Addictive

There are many indicators that wheat may be downright addictive.

Ever crave a piece of bread? A slice of pizza? A muffin? Cravings that have nothing to do with hunger?

That’s not normal and is potentially caused by the addictive properties of wheat.

Time will tell whether wheat can be downright addictive. I personally think that it is.

5. Wheat Can Give You Heart Disease

Wheat, with its high carbohydrate content and rapid increase in blood sugar, can raise risk factors for heart disease like triglycerides and small, dense LDL.

In fact, whole wheat may raise small, dense LDL (really bad!) by as much as 60% in as little as 12 weeks (9). How’s that for a “heart-healthy” slice of whole wheat bread?

6. Wheat is an Appetite Stimulant

When blood sugar levels go up rapidly, they tend to go down rapidly as well. This leads to the constant cycles of hunger and cravings that occur when we eat refined carbs.

Add to that the potential for addictive opiate activity in the brain and you’ve got a monster on your hands.

When overweight celiacs are placed on a gluten-free diet, they automatically eat 400 fewer calories every single day (10, 11).

7. Wheat is Horrible For Your Digestion

Wheat may be one of the worst things you could possibly do to your digestive system.

Celiac disease may afflict about 1% of the population and its little brother Gluten Sensitivity may be much more common (12).

Those who have these disorders mount an immune response to gluten. When they eat wheat, their immune system attacks the walls of the digestive system.

The incredibly common ailment irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) may be improved on a gluten-free diet as well, but that has yet to be proven (13).

8. Wheat Can Make You Fat

Through it’s 400 cal/day appetite stimulating mechanisms, the opiate-like activity and blood sugar roller coaster, wheat can make you fat.

9. Wheat Can Make You Crazy

Wheat gluten is believed to exacerbate the serious mental disease schizophrenia and this disease is highly correlated with celiac disease (14, 15).

When schizophrenic patients are placed on a gluten-free diet, their symptoms drastically improve (16, 17).

10. Wheat Can Make You Tired

Ever felt tired a few hours after having cereal for breakfast?

That’s the blood sugar roller coaster that you automatically take a ride with every time you eat a meal loaded with wheat.

Wheat Belly

Additionally, wheat and celiac disease have been associated with various other disorders like diabetes, cerebellar ataxia, autism, ADHD and premature ageing.

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