Entries by Chet Zelasko

Gourmet Detox Weekend: Creating Healthier Habits

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A long-time reader shared an interesting email response regarding the message on Fast Day. When he read that I was only doing liquids as part of the Gourmet Detox Weekend, he said that he has done one fast day with just liquids as well. When he does, he feels great and actually has more energy at the end of the day. He’s adapted it to fit his work schedule, but it’s a habit he’s had for over 20 years—20 years!

That’s . . .

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Fast Day

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Tomorrow is the beginning of the Gourmet Detox weekend that I mentioned last week. Personally, I’m going to begin with a one-day fast. Why? Here is an excerpt from Real-Life Detox:

It’s a bit like rebooting your system. When your computer starts acting weird or the apps aren’t working right on your phone, you know it’s time to reboot—turn it off and then turn it back on. Usually your phone or computer work normally after a . . .

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Reach Higher

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The Michigan State football team is in the final four for the national collegiate football championship. They may win, they may lose, but they made it to this point. Their motto this year was “Reach Higher” and they did. They worked harder, lifted more weights, studied more film, prepared better. They built the habits necessary to win. More than that, they learned to win on the field.

They didn’t do this in one season; they’ve built the attitude over the past eight years. They failed a lot before they began to win. When new players joined the team . . .

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Why Now?

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In the last two messages, I’ve challenged you not to waste the entire month of December before changing to a healthier lifestyle after January 1st. Why now? Why didn’t I just wait until the New Year when everyone is “ready”? Maybe the latest report from the CDC will put things in perspective.

Researchers from the CDC and Emory University analyzed data from NHANES studies conducted between 2005 and 2012. They were interested in finding out how many people with high LDL cholesterol were taking medication and making lifestyle changes. There were a lot of results reported in the . . .

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Clean Start

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On Tuesday, I called December a month of opportunity. You can choose to grab hold of a healthier lifestyle right now or ignore things until the New Year and waste this opportunity. On my Facebook page, I took things one step further. I asked people to take some measurements: body weight as well as chest, waist, and hip circumferences. I’m asking you to do the same thing today. You could also include a measurement of a particular spot that you’re troubled by such as your upper arm or above the knee.

Why? To measure it again on January . . .

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December Is an Opportunity

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Thanksgiving is over, and whether you stuffed your face or just picked at the holiday foods, it’s in the past. We’re back at work, back to our routine, for the next three weeks. There’s a tremendous opportunity here. What you do this month will determine what your 2016 health goals will be. Think about it.

Are you going to set a goal to lose the weight you’ve gained over the holidays, or will you just continue the healthy eating pattern you’ve begun?

  • Are you going to the gym to begin the path to . . .

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The Cause of Obesity: The Lack of Exercise

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After reading Thursday’s message, I’ll bet you all saw this one coming. Together with taking in too many calories, we just move way too little and it costs us. I specifically made the title of Thursday’s message “Muscle Aging” instead of “Aging Muscle.” The reason is that our sedentary lifestyle causes the muscle to age faster than it should. The solution is exercise. Here’s a partial list of what exercise does for skeletal muscle:


Better Blood Flow

Regular exercise increases blood flow to the exercising muscles. That allows nutrients in and more important, waste . . .

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The Cause of Obesity: Muscle Aging

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In the previous message, I said that there was one factor besides calorie intake that affected the rate of obesity in the United States. Because a picture is worth a thousand words, just take a look at the CT scans at right (1). These are scans of the thighs of a 25-year-old man and an 81-year-old man, matched for body weight and height. There are a couple of things that you can notice. The white area is the muscle and the dark area is mostly fat; the older man’s thigh has visibly less muscle mass . . .

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The Cause of Obesity: Vegetarian Diet

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Last week I talked about the causes of obesity as it related to food choices. It all comes down to calories in versus calories out. There are a couple of more points I want to make so I decided to continue the message arc this week.

Let’s begin with vegetarians. Do they have any advantage in the calories in versus calories out? Yes and no. Based on the available research, mostly done on 7th Day Adventists, vegetarians have lower average BMIs than non-vegetarians. The more vegetarian the diet, the lower the BMI, with complete vegans having the lowest . . .

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The Cause of Obesity: The Data

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The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, NHANES for short, is large-scale survey performed by the CDC every few years. I’ve written about studies that have used the data many times. I like the survey because they use a dietary recall from the previous 24 hours instead of a food frequency questionnaire; there’s still potential for errors, but most people can remember what they ate yesterday. It’s also open-access data, meaning that if you have the credentials, you can use the data to answer questions. A couple of Cornell researchers did have a question: did . . .

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