2011 March | Sheehan Personal Training

Archive for March, 2011

Is Your Doctor an Expert in Nutrition?

Posted on: March 24th, 2011 | Author: sheehanfox | No Comments

It is not too often that something actually takes me off track, but just recently my temper rose to the point where I had a difficult time letting it go. Today I am going to talk about sabotage, and the definition of the word is as follows:

“deliberate destruction or hindering of one’s property or progress”

This past week I received an e-mail from a client with a lot of interesting questions. Before I delve into the questions, let me explain the history of the client.

This client came to us with a goal of losing weight and making it permanent by learning about nutrition and incorporating her new habits into her lifestyle.

pH Balance & Nutrition

Her results were remarkable, and after two months she lost 18 lbs and increased her performance in every one of the fitness modules we tested her on. She was believing in her nutrition plan and seeing the fruits of her labor. After years of research, we are believers in regulating the pH balance of our bodies with proper nutrition, and we reduce the amounts of acidic foods which most people eat on the Standard American Diet.

Now it is 4 months into our program and her e-mail started with the following points:

1. I feel better when I eat alkaline foods

2. I feel tons better than I did 6 months ago

3. I have been losing weight and have more energy

I was thrilled to hear this, and then I read on. Our client ran into someone who threw a wrench into our devious plan, you know the one to get her healthy and in shape. This saboteur planted seeds that pH balance was not a good measurement to determine whether one was healthy or not. Apparently some medical “bloggers” contradict our information and obviously must have superior information than what we have gleaned from our research.

Just like that, years of research and experience is undermined by someone who wants to use his technical knowledge to shoot down the success achieved by this happy and motivated person.

So what type of person would do this you ask? Well it just happened to be our clients’ brother, and what would his profession be?

That would be a doctor, and I don’t mean a doctor of philosophy. I mean a medical ER physician.

I have to premise my next paragraph by saying that I have the utmost respect for anyone who invests such a large portion of their life to the education and time commitment of the steps to become a doctor. The hard work and endless hours of study could only be accomplished by someone who truly desires to help people. We also are acquainted with some absolutely amazing doctors who understand that through living an active lifestyle and following a proper nutrition plan, many major diseases of today can be prevented from ever occurring. Unfortunately between the time of Hippocrates and today though, the vast majority of conventional doctors have become conditioned to accept disease and treating the symptoms of it, instead of finding a way to prevent them in the first place.

Are You Afraid to Question Your Doctor?

Today the majority of doctors are reactive instead of proactive. With some of the best medical schools in the country being funded by pharmaceutical companies, is it any wonder that doctors are trained in the protocol of administering drugs as a first option in the treatment of their patients? We also know that drug companies now provide major incentives for doctors who prescribe their drugs, and we recently have seen another company (who had been previously fined $515 million for defrauding Medicare) in the news being sued for providing kickbacks and bribes to doctors who prescribe their drugs.

Does a Medical Degree Guarantee Nutrition Expertise?

You might ask why doctors do not advise their patients on proper nutrition when discussing treatment options. According to Rupert Weldon, author of No Animal Food and Nutrition, dietetics, a science dealing with the very first principles of health, is an optional course in the curriculum of a medical student. In a recent study conducted on nutrition courses in medical school, the results indicated that only 25% of the accredited 127 medical schools in the US required a dedicated nutrition course.[1] A study conducted by the Intersociety Professional Nutrition Education Consortium reported that physicians remain insufficiently informed about the role of diet in the prevention of disease, and less than 6% of medical school graduates receive adequate nutrition training.[2] Some people would argue that we have the best hospitals and doctors in the world in America, and I would love to agree, but don’t statistics account for anything? Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and just about every major disease is on the rise, and the medical establishment looks to the pharmaceutical companies for yet another pill that will supposedly give us relief.

The sabotage this doctor provided is a little more serious than our normal every day sabotage because he can claim expertise with those two letters after his name. We also must watch out for normal daily sabotage which comes from comments such as “you look too thin,” or “are you sick?” We also love the pushy (and usually fat) relatives that won’t take “no” for an answer when pushing their massive calorie-laden cookies or cake at us during family events.

When it comes to our health we need to own it ourselves and conduct the due diligence required to determine what treatment works best for us. We also need to keep our guard up against the sabotage that will undoubtedly come if we are doing what it takes to get healthy and in shape.

[1] Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, September 2010 – Volume 85 – Issue 9 – pp 1537-1542

[2] American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1998;68.

Don’t Touch My Animal Protein

Posted on: March 16th, 2011 | Author: sheehanfox | No Comments

If you’re thinking it’s pretty safe because the government is protecting us, time to take off the utopian sunglasses. In fact, if you are eating meat that is non-organic, this might make you sick to your stomach. The vast majority of animals who are raised for consumption in this country are from factory farms. Most people know in their heart that animals are treated very poorly and put through tremendous suffering, but would prefer not to acknowledge it. I am not on a crusade, but people should know as a result of this treatment, massive amounts of antibiotics must be administered to these animals, causing antibiotic resistance in people who eat them. According to David Steinman in Diet for a Poisoned Planet, more than half of all antibiotics made in this country are for farm animals! Walter Willett also reports that these same factory farms feed their animals grains sowed and reaped specifically for the purpose of consumption, and this requires increasingly large amounts of petroleum, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Factory farms also pump large quantities of growth hormones into their animals to increase profits by decreasing the growth period necessary before harvesting. Do you think these chemicals and poisons magically disappear in the process between harvesting and making it into your mouth? Of course they don’t, and you don’t even have to pay extra for these lovely substances that food manufacturers use to pump up their profits.

Does this sound like bias from a militant vegan? Consider this. The Food and Drug Administration, yes the United States FDA, conducted an evaluation called the Total Diet Study that found bacon had 48 different pesticide residues, bologna and other luncheon meats had 102 different industrial pollutants and pesticides, fast food hamburgers had 113 residues, hot dogs had 123, and ground beef had 82 industrial and chemical residues. I’m sure the FDA wasn’t jumping for joy when they had to release those results, but chances are they didn’t call in the media for a press conference either.

People who choose not to eat meat or animal products altogether do not have to work hard to meet the body’s protein needs. The American Dietetic Association reports that eating a vegetarian diet provides twice the amount of protein needed daily. Beans, nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and soy products (all organic of course), provide more than enough nutrients for us to receive sufficient protein.

There are some great documentaries that are in DVD format now, such as Food Inc, Food Matters, and Processed People. The newest and most progressive documentary to come out on what our food is doing to us has been released. It is Forks Over Knives, and highlights work done by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study. As powerful and formidable as the food manufacturers are, there are still many organizations and people (such as us!) who will work tirelessly to provide the truth about the massive health problems in this country. We will also keep working to present solutions to preventing these problems from becoming an issue in the lives of the people who work with us and read our material!

I Can’t Be a Vegan Because I Require Protein

Posted on: March 11th, 2011 | Author: sheehanfox | No Comments

It is often that we hear people ask how vegetarians and vegans get their protein, so once in a while I like to post the truth about how much protein we need. You will not find this in most fitness magazines, but you will find hundreds of “studies” conducted by the people selling supplements themselves that state you need considerably more protein than you actually need, especially if you want to be bulked up like the models in their pictures!

More Protein = Giant Muscles (not)

Most people are conditioned to think that we need more protein than we do, and that it is healthiest to attain that protein from animal sources. That fact is that people are wrong on both accounts. People who have worked out at a gym or who have worked with a personal trainer have heard for years how we need to eat much more protein if we are to build muscles, and usually they are the ones that can sell it to us! I cringe when I see high school kids pouring scoop after scoop of whey protein into their post workout drink because they think that 3 times what is recommended will make their muscles three times as big!

Although protein is an energy source, it is not a major one. They are many other vital roles that protein plays for our metabolism and the body will only metabolize them for energy when the other energy nutrients are not available. Our skin, hair, muscles, and multitude of enzymes that keep us alive and active are made up mostly of protein, and our body is made up of at least 10,000 different ones. Protein also plays the role replacing worn out cells, transporting various substances throughout the body, and aiding in the growth and repair of our tissues and muscles.

Are animals the only source of protein?

If this was the case, there would be a lot of dead vegan and vegetarian people out there. Yet this is the question we get 90 % of the time after learning we are vegans. Although we do not influence our lifestyle on others, it is important for people to know that there are much healthier sources of protein than animal products. In Walter Willett’s bestselling book, Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy, The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, it states that worldwide surveys of protein consumption and heart disease death rates hint that the more animal protein in the diet, the more heart disease, and the more vegetable protein, the less heart disease. It also reflects that there are studies that hint that people who regularly eat hot dogs, bologna, bacon, and other processed meats are more likely to develop type II diabetes than those who don’t.

Next week I will talk about the risks with consuming protein from animals, so keep an open mind and if you are skeptical, do a little research over the weekend and you will be amazed at what you find when you discover our true protein requirements.

How Do We Make Like the Zebra and Stay Skinny?

Posted on: March 3rd, 2011 | Author: sheehanfox | No Comments

Last week I talked about the internal mechanism that all animals possess, but that doesn’t seem to be working in humans. It wasn’t always this way, and it apparently is still working in some humans, albeit the minority of them! If you ever have a chance to peruse old photos of people and crowds at the beginning of the 20^th century, you will be surprised to see that the vast majority of people were not overweight and were healthier with fewer incidences of most of the major diseases of today.

In the early 1900’s cancer was a rare occurrence in the American population. Now one in every 2.5 people will get some form of invasive cancer in their lifetime, and half of them will die from it.[1] Recent studies have shown that certain animal proteins can accelerate the growth of cancer. Studies are also showing that there are many foods that provide nutrients to our cells which build our immune system to recognize these cancerous cells and remove them from our body.

Heart disease is another affliction that has consistently risen in occurrence, and it is still the leading cause of death amongst our citizens. Studies have shown that the risk of such vascular diseases is associated with cholesterol levels, which are heavily influenced by our dietary cholesterol intake. In the 35 years of the famous Framingham Heart Study, Dr. William Castelli has reported that not one single subject with a cholesterol level under 150 ever suffered a heart attack.[2]

Could re-building the internal mechanism that will keep us zebra skinny help us to lower the risk of these diseases?

To re-build the mechanism that will keep us skinny and afford us the bonus of building our immune system to fight diseases, we need to re-train our minds to seek the food that will not only satisfy us, but will provide us the nutrients and sustenance that will allow us to feel full and satisfied when we’ve had enough. There is a complex set of neural circuits embedded within every animal’s brain known as the mechanisms of satiety.[3] By consuming whole natural foods not laden with harmful chemicals, we can restore this mechanism which will eventually lead us to our optimal weight. What most people do not understand though is that taste buds can actually change and new tastes can be developed within weeks of eating a food that you might not have found palatable earlier.

I meet many people who think that they cannot change their eating habits. I hear comments like “I could never live without my ice cream every night,” and they do not get the correlation that if they continue their eating patterns they won’t have a choice. I also met a man who was slowly killing himself with obesity and suffered from Type II diabetes, but couldn’t stop eating the Volkswagen sized desserts after dinner. I would ask him if he understood the possible consequences to the path he was on, and his response was always, “Tom, but it tasted soooo good.” Nice. Yumminess now, amputated leg later.

[1] American Cancer Society. “Cancer Facts and Figures 2003.”

[2] Barnard, N. D. The Power of Your Plate. Summertown, TN: Book Publishing Company, 1995

[3] Lisle, Douglas J.,Ph.D & Alan Goldhamer, D.C., Healthy Living Publications, The Pleasure Trap, (2003)