Category Archives: Uncategorized

Is Caffeine Really That Bad For You?

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I always read the Health Debate section in the Sunday Mail where Dr Cindy Pan and Naturopath Leah Hechtman write their take on a question or issue.  Have just read their comments on “Is Caffeine Really That Bad For You?”

“If used in excess any substance has the potential to be harmful, and caffeine is no exception,” says Dr Cindy Pan.  I am always glad to find common sense has a place in the medical spectrum of advice.

Coffee can become addictive, so be aware.  If you find you need more cups of coffee because the lift doesn’t last as long any more, or need stronger coffee for the same lift to kick in, then it may be time to cut out coffee for four days and see what happens.

If you are addicted then you may experience withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, muscle aches, extreme tiredness, lethargy, irritability, or temporary depression.  That is clear evidence your nervous system has been relying on coffee to keep going.

Why cut out coffee for four days?  Because it takes your liver a minimum four days to clear the influence of anything you eat or drink out of your blood and dump any offending components out of your body.

Ever increasing intake of coffee can disturb your sleep, trigger rebound headaches, create low-level anxiety, disturb your appetite, make you jittery, even give you the shakes.

What’s a rebound headache?  If you drink coffee to settle a headache and it works for you, it may work only for a short time.  Used too often or for too long, coffee that helped a headache initially will actually bring on a headache.

The same thing can happen with various medications.  Sleeping pills may help at first then rebound and actually become the cause of on-going sleeping problems.  Same with some sinus medications, so always ask about rebound possibilities when you are taking prescription or over the counter drugs.

But there are some benefits with coffee, if used as part of your diet and not as a replacement for healthy eating, regular sleep and effective stress management.

“Ultimately caffeine is a drug”, says naturopath Leah Hechtman.  I agree with her.  And so is the sugar you may be adding to your coffee.  If coffee is the only way you can rev up in the morning and a glass of wine is the only way your can wind down at night then you are addicted to uppers and downers.

“Caffeine is also an incredibly potent diuretic,” adds Leah Hechtman.  You may recognize the truth of that when you find that within twenty to thirty minutes of drinking coffee your need to empty your bladder.  So your body and brain cells become dehydrated each time you drink coffee.  That causes some chaos in your system.

To rescue your brain cells and keep your muscles and organs hydrated too, drink a glass of water before you drink coffee and another after your coffee.

The other influence of dumping fluids so fast with coffee is that you may wash out minerals, but that’s another story for another time.

So, is caffeine really that bad for you?  I guess it depends on how much and how often and what purpose it serves.  It’s not a substitute for food or rest.  Be aware of your intake and choose wisely.

Cheers

Anna McRobert

anna@annamcrobert.com.au

How You Grow Into Yourself

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I have often said that through experience we grow into more of who we are.  While everything is going smoothly and easily we draw on existing skills and abilities and have no reason, no pressure, to go beyond what we already know of who we are and what we can do.  So what do I mean by you grow into yourself?

Until we take on a new challenge, change jobs, add new qualifications, learn a new language, join a sports team, start a new relationship, or, life throws us into new territory, we don’t know what of our self we can expand or pull forward from within and develop.

I believe our capacity is endless and when our interest is tweaked or life events shift and there is a necessity, we activate and germinate the seeds of hidden or undeveloped aspects that can grow and flourish with nurturing and attention.  We grow into more of our self.  We become more of who we are.  And our brain maps the growth and expansion.

Each time you learn something new your brain sprouts new connections between brain cells in the area activated by that new learning.  Even in one week of diligently practicing a new physical activity, like playing a piano or strumming a guitar, or throwing a ball into a hoop, the primary muscle motor area in the brain changes.  You grow new connections and also strengthen existing ones that are part of the activity.

What you already do well is more “matured”, more integrated as second nature, than what you are just starting to develop.  The new skill is at “kindergarten” level, just a seedling, and as you apply yourself to the new task you grow more and more connections.  Just like a seedling that grows fine roots that reach into the soil round them for sustenance and support, continuing nurturing of the skill is required to sustain the growth.   If you stop after one week, then within another week those brain connections can shrink again.

The interesting part is even if you continue to practise your new skill and become more proficient with it, your brain networks also shrink.  It seems once your body and brain are familiar with the new requirement, you need fewer brain cells to do the task.  And it’s likely you now need less energy, less effort and concentration to make it happen.

For the masters in their field, the people who practise day in and day out, for years, who continually exercise their skills and apply their craft, a further progressive change takes place in their brain neurology.  The networks migrate to join into their primary neural maps so that what they do becomes

imbedded into who they are.

Their skill is not an add-on as it might have once been.  It is an integral aspect of their whole self.  They are at one with what they do.  They experience a sense of oneness and their activity is an expression of who they are or have become.  Fulfillment is the word that comes to mind for this state.

These are the musicians, the artists, the surgeons, the orchestra conductors, the Olympians, the builders, the mechanics, the parents, the teachers.  In every walk of life you will find people who are at one with what they do, that find fulfillment in engaging in what they love.     Their life path and mode of travel and self-expression are in sync.

“The brain changes with anything you do, including any thought you might have,” says Alvaro Pascual-Leone, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

This quote comes out of The Body Has A Mind Of Its Own by Sandra Blakeslee & Matthew Blakeslee and is one of the books I am enjoying at present.  I love it when scientific research finally catches up with our personal experience and validates our explorations into how we tick.  I enjoy how people flower, come into their own, discover what is innate in them and express it and make that uniqueness available to others, in turn triggering their development too.

As I read and explore, it becomes clear that not only do we integrate our skills into our brain networks over time, but also into our self image, into how we see ourselves, and into our self-talk and what we say to our selves.

If your self image does not shift to encompass your new abilities you will continue to feel uncomfortable, not congruent, even if you are performing well.   You may even fear the new ability will fail you, or disappear, or believe it to be a fluke and not a permanent part of ability you can call on at any time.  It feels almost like cheating as it is happening with so little effort.  And doesn’t it take effort to excel?

Well, if your belief system says you can’t excel, can’t be at the top, then your self image is tied to being second best, or less than the best or something similar.  It’s time to challenge the old belief and create a new one based on present time achievements, and not on what you or others have said of you in the past.  Doubting your ability is something you have learned and needs to be un-learned, up-graded or replaced so you can grow into yourself some more.

And you’ll know its done when someone admires what you do or achieve and you can say “thank you” and accept their feedback without having to justify, deny or belittle your achievement.

And you’ll know you have integrated your advanced ability when your self-talk reflects your present and not your past.  More on how to upgrade your self-image and self-talk another time.

Cheers
Anna
anna@annamcrobert.com.au

More on Great Expectations

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Have you ever had great expectations of yourself that have set you up for stress?

With your nearest and dearest you might be fully open about how you feel about your personal progress, but outsiders may get your public persona, an upbeat version of how you are going.    From your place of uncertainty and early stages of learning in a new arena others may seem so much more effective and productive.  Well, you may be seeing an illusion.

With little knowledge of the ups and downs of others journey and their struggles its easy to assume that they did it all with much greater ease than was their true reality.   But even when others speak of their struggles from a position of having made it, the impact of their story of how they got there is not the same as if they were telling their story while still in the middle of the struggle.

So what is normal versus not normal in terms of progress along our road of education, application and experience?  We may have ingrained in our thinking a form of unexamined assumptions about what is normal and therefore what is better than or less than normal.

Fear
Hearing a summary of what others have achieved over years can set up overwhelm and fear that you can’t possibly measure up to or match them.

Seeing others succeed to extraordinary levels can play havoc with self-esteem, feeding feelings of worthlessness, or uselessness, especially when you are personally not experiencing anything near what you would like to be experiencing in terms of progress and results.  The bigger the gap between your possible and actual the easier it is to so give up.

“I’ll never be that successful.  I should have saved my energy and not even started.”

Expectations unmet and feeling not skilled enough, not smart enough, not discerning enough, failing to live up to expectations, your own or others, can be demoralizing.

Ability to attract
Often people feel disqualified from success if they don’t have specific abilities.   “I’m no good with numbers, or planning, or selling.”  The truth is people are unhappy and not focused for many reasons.  Being told that following a formula set by others will prevent failure and solve all problems is common advice.   Yet is success something to acquire, like a consumer item?  Maybe it’s all about self development.

We live in a culture that tells us that success or lack reveals all about who we are, especially revealing deficiencies, and judging us as too incompetent, not focused or lacking disciplined.

The message sent is you have to be successful, you have to want success, and be good at success, yet there is no training in honest feed back and self-evaluation.  I often ask, “Successful according to whom?”  “For the purpose of what?”

Each of us will have our own idea of what success looks like or feels like.  Where we got that idea in the first place is something else to explore.  But once we choose our own arena for experiencing success, matched to our interests and desires, then we can take whatever action that will fulfill that blueprint we created for ourselves.

Watch a youngster learning to ride a bicycle or a skate board.  Note the concentration, the practice over and over, the falling over, the getting up and doing it again, the progressive development of co-ordination and balance over time – till mastery is achieved, till success is attained.  Will that same dedication and tenacity be automatically engaged for learning geography or English grammar?  It all depends on the interest and goals of the individual.

Like the expectations themselves, the secret is all in our head.   The mechanism for success is controlled by our higher faculties brain, the part housed behind the forehead, the front brain, the only part that does new thinking.  Performance is controlled by what you think based on what you believe.  Lets explore beliefs another time.

Questions for now
Who sets standards for your life?  Is it you, your parents, your peers, industry gurus, the papers, movies?  What is your definition of success?  Success in what areas?   For the purpose of what?  How will that change how you feel about yourself?

Stress on any of these questions can be identified and dissolved with Kinesiology so you can be in a stress free creative state to find your own answers to the questions and create the life you want.

Life is a journey of self-evolution through experience.  Good luck and have fun.

Cheers

Anna McRobert
www.annamcrobert.com

Growing Wisdom

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The mother of three teenage daughters asks, “Does judgment improve?  Do we get better at dealing with other humans, at making the right call?” I guess this is a question about growing wisdom.  Can we do that?  Do we do that?

And the answer is “Yes.  And such insight is rooted in brain biology,” says Barbara Strauch, health and medical science editor at the New York Times, and author of Secrets of the Grown-Up Brain.  Her book is based on extensive interviews with dozens of neuroscientists, psychologists and cognitive researchers.

It seems by middle age our many dealings with real people in the real world have created “brain cells devoted to navigating the human landscape.”

Scans show parts of the frontal brain that deal with emotional regulation maintain their functionality better than some other parts of our brain as the years go on.

And it’s the ability to regulate our emotional state along with our mental “prowess” plus our life experiences that is part of growing our wisdom.

I loved the sound and feel of the word “prowess” so looked it up in the dictionary.  Prowess:  ability, accomplishment, aptitude, attainment, command, excellence, expertise, genius, mastery, skill, talent.  That sounds well worth achieving to me.

So if you have entered your middle years, that is, over 40 years old, then bask in the recognition, knowledge and acceptance of your increasing “prowess,” and if you are younger, you can see what your life’s ups and downs are preparing you for.   Your are growing wisdom.

One of the advantages of middle years is that wisdom can start to show through in how you handle day to day events, and even know when to reign in your impulsiveness, to keep your reactions in check, to hold your tongue, to consider, before taking action.  This has saved many a relationship, as well as ended some too.  When we reign in our impulsiveness, we take time to draw breath, weigh up, to feel into the happenings and consciously choose how to best handle it.  It’s not just a knee jerk reaction.

Looking back we will recognize how much wiser we are today compared with when we were age ten or fifteen or twenty or twenty-five.  It’s an on-going development, a growing into our selves, a maturing, a ripening to a delicious and nutritious peak.

In our times this ripening, our middle years, has been prolonged to sixty-five, sixty-eight, and even longer before becoming over-ripe and declining.   There are many people in their seventy-s and eighty-s who are still growing their brain, still involved in harnessing their experiences and insights in a way that surpasses their earlier years, still contributing to nurturing and nourishing their family, their local community and beyond.

So the scientific news is that our brains continue to change, grow new cells and connections, and remold existing pathways, as we master the challenges life presents us with along our journey.  It doesn’t happen over night.

We’ve often heard “You cant put an old head on young shoulders,” and that’s not just referring to appearance.  It refers very specifically to exercising wise judgment when the pressure is on.

Study results from the financial sector show people between forty and sixty-five years more easily grasp the consequences of financial decisions and have better judgment in general.

Certainly, in 20s and 30s there seems to be plenty of time down the track to knuckle down and be consistent and considered.  In those early adult years tasting all life has to offer is a delicious and exciting option for many.  They can’t yet envisage living at a different pace, or a more settled way.  And don’t particularly want to.

The capacity to savour, really absorb, and internalize the wonders of the world, not just be excited but to be in awe, of nature, of people, tends to increase as the years go by.

This depth of appreciation is to go from doing to being, from active thinking to no thought, to just living in the majesty of the moment, like watching a sunset, breathing it in, being in stillness, to recognize and experience a sense of oneness.

We are amazing beings and being in tune with nature, in the outer world, makes us more aware and in tune with our inner nature too.

Wisdom comes out of calm and stillness in the middle of activity and chaos.

And that capacity for growing wisdom is being tracked by science now to identify the specific changes that occur in the brain as we mature our wisdom.

I’m glad we don’t wait for science but get on with living our lives and grow wisdom as a satisfying side effect.

Cheers

Anna McRobert
07-3378 2050
anna@annamcrobert.com

Compounding Happiness – More

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Compounding: to gather, combine, aggregate, amalgamate, blend, heighten, increase, intensify, magnify, fuse, unite, build up.

You can compound a mistake by repeating it instead of learning from the first mistake and doing things differently from then on.

Compounding is a word often used in the financial world relating to growing your assets or finances or riches.

Yet some of your greatest riches may not be money as such.
What makes your life rich?  What makes you feel rich?  How are you enriched?

Have you noticed when engaging your greatest ability, strength, gift, or asset, it leads to fulfillment and growth that enriches your life?

So what is your greatest asset?  Is it your imagination, your good sense, your mathematical bent, your artistic ability, your attitude, your friendliness, your confidence, your sense of style, your willingness to take part, your leadership capacity, your ability to work in a team, your interest in others, your caring nature, your capable hands, your physical stamina, your eye for detail or your big view perspective, your positivity, your self-belief, your sensitivity?

Riches come in many forms.  Financial riches are one part of the spectrum.  Some riches we are born with, like our instinct and intuition, some we inherit like beautiful hair or lovely skin, others we build, generate, nurture or acquire.  Add rich food, rich smells, rich experiences, rich environment, all provide enrichment in this life.

Regular conscious appreciation of your riches compounds their benefits to you.

Classical financial advice is to build wealth by depositing 10% minimum of earnings and accumulating steadily.   The compounding impact of regular deposits of capital, no matter how small, encourages good habits for establishing priorities and sticking to them.  It’s about compounding as a habit while engaged and focused on day-to-day living.  That’s one way to get rich.

Compounding interest – each week, month, year gaining interest on your accruing savings, plus interest on the interest you are paid, all the while getting progressively richer.

Can this work with happiness – depositing small amounts each day, receiving interest on what you deposit, so next day you start with more happiness than yesterday, increasing your return daily.  A smile brings another smile.  A word of appreciation can enhance the day.   You get interest on interest.  You get joy on joy.  You get happiness on happiness.  Getting progressively richer in happiness.

So how do you compound happiness?

Cheers
Anna               www.AnnaMcRobert.com.au

Facial Harmony Is Like A Glorious Mini Holiday

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Life can be demanding, energy sapping, full of stressful ups and downs, leaving you feeling drained, exhausted, worn out – and your face showing it too.

The need for time out, for recovery, for catching your breath, increases as the days and years go by.  A whole month away from it all would be wonderful – yet often this is not possible with the commitments to family, work and community taking priority over time for self.

So what can you do?

Well, all is not lost.  An hour of Facial Harmony can take you into another world, where your face, your body, and your mind can take a break – to repair, regenerate and rejuvenate.

Facial Harmony takes you into a deep inner space where stresses and worries recede and dissolve while you are nurtured and soothed.

The focus of Facial Harmony is to gently release the stress patterns in the muscles of your face, release the blocks in the energy flow of the meridians of your face, head, neck and shoulders.

The release continues along the meridian pathways, through your torso and the internal organs, through the pathways in your back and spine, through your hips and legs, all the way to tour toes, and along your arms to your fingertips.

Your entire being benefits from this tension and stress release as the energy flow re-energizes the cells of your face, your skin, your underlying tissues.

With your energy released and flowing you literally light up.  Your face glows.  Your energy from within, when released, is so vivid, so vital, that it literally glows through your skin and radiates out.

You look and feel more youthful, rested and revitalized, feel young again.

Facial Harmony As Therapy

Facial Harmony is a health enhancing therapy in its own right.  By creating energy flow, soothing the nervous system, and releasing old imbedded stress-full muscle patterns, your tissues are open to the new memory of gently caring touch of Facial Harmony that leaves you feeling at peace with the world.

Facial Harmony is the perfect complement to other forms of natural therapies and body-work and is particularly suited to Kinesiology, where conscious awareness is engaged as issues are handled directly.   Then Facial Harmony as a follow up releases the memory of the stress from the face muscles that were part of the issue Kinesiology has rebalanced in the body.

After a body Facial Harmony enhances the wonderful sense of wellbeing that only a massage can bring.
Facial Harmony as Relaxation and Meditation

When life stresses build up and energy goes down the ability to relax can be a health and relationship saver.  How we think, communicate and behave when stressed is a far cry from how we interact when relaxed, at peace within, calm, and contented.

Facial Harmony is a gentle way to lull your body and nervous system into a relaxed state, taking you deeper each time you experience this process.  It relaxes the mind and nervous system, allowing the brain rhythms to slow down out of rushing active beta rhythms, down into the slower rhythms of alpha and theta.

This is the arena of meditation, where you are at peace with your world and yourself.  This is precious time for anchoring a pattern or restfulness that your body remembers and returns to with greater ease.

Cumulative experiences of Facial Harmony release your deeper nature, your creative self, your hidden talents, your intuitive insights, your innate capacities.  Life can open in quite a new way, out of inner certainty and connection to your original state of being, a totally different state from daily hassles.

You deserve such an experience, to uncover the real you under the “cope at all costs” you, the “have to keep going” you, the “I can’t let others down” you.

Book yourself in for a Facial Harmony experience and revel in the discovery of the best of you hidden under the stress.  Take that rediscovered feeling into daily life – calm, relaxed, rested, rejuvenated, at peace, looking and feeling younger, fresher, lighter.

For your one hour appointment contact:

Anna McRobert
anna@annamcrobert.com

Brain Integration Technique For Great Expectations

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In 9 steps you can align with your future.

Here’s a technique to help you integrate the “where you want to be brain”, the big picture brain with the “how to get there brain”, details and steps brain.

  1. Stand up and put your feet together.  Put one hand on your forehead and the other on the back of your head covering the fullest part.
  2. Now take a breath in and out and put your feet apart.  Bring your hands down and don’t move your feet.  This is a little trick so your brain thinks you are still holding specific acupuncture points and areas (tell you more about that another time).
  3. Turn your left hand palm up.  Imagine you are holding your Right Brain in your left hand.  This is the big picture brain.  This is the non-judgmental brain, it sees and records all and stores it without needing to decide if it is right or wrong, or good or bad, or important or not, or possible or not.
  4. Turn your right hand palm up.  Imagine you are holding your Left Brain in your right hand.  This is the details brain, the comparing brain, the brain that decides what to do and how to do it based on what is stored in you memory from past experience.
  5. Hold your arms out wide at shoulder height and keeping your eyes straight ahead.  Check you can just see your arms in your peripheral vision.  If not, adjust and bring them slightly forward till you can see them out of the corner of your eyes, while your eyes are looking straight ahead.
  6. Slowly bring your outstretched arms towards centre front where your eyes are looking.
  7. Be aware that your left hand is linked to your right brain, big picture, and your right hand is linked to your left brain, details and steps, as you slowly bring your straight arms together in front of your eyes, and deliberately watch your fingers interlace.
  8. Imagine the two brains interlinking as you watch your fingers cross through and lace together.  Cross your thumbs too. How you put things together expresses the unique you, honouring your left and right brain’s ability to create and integrate in a unique and original way.

9.  Turn your hands over so you are seeing the back of your integrated fingers where the fingers of your left hand/right brain cross the midline into the territory of the left brain.  And the fingers of your right hand/left brain cross into the territory of your left brain.
Take a deep breath and breathe out.  You have completed the integration process once.

Do this several times till you feel comfortable looking at your hands/brains integrating on the visual midline in front of you.  Sometimes this may take several attempts to have this happen.

Reinforce this daily as you prepare and plan and take the steps towards the outcome you want.  Use this technique on any goal you set for yourself.

We can have great expectations of ourselves and live up to them and even enjoy the whole journey from here to there.

Have fun
Cheers

Anna
anna@annamcrobert.com.au

Great Expectations

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Life is interesting, so are people.  Yet you may often discover that things aren’t as they seem?  Our great expectations may need some examining.

Have you ever had someone say to you that they are disappointed with their progress in life, their lack of success?  Have you been disappointed in your own progress or achievements?  Are you disappointed in where you’re at right now?

What can be surprising is when someone you considered was doing well, or seemed to have it all, makes an admission that they feel a failure or inadequate somehow.  It can be so completely contradictory to the impression about their life that you were getting.  You had great expectations of them as the role model for success, one for you to copy.

Until that moment you had assumed that their life, and maybe even everyone else’s life, was more successful, more productive, more admirable or more whatever, than your own.  So how is it that what you were seeing turned out to be not how things actually are for them?

Look again.  What did you not see?  This view of others, and of yourself, like many expectations, can seem kind of misguided once you start to explore it a bit deeper.  And you may not be the only one with this skewed view when looking at others and comparing yourself with them.   The idea that everyone except you is having an amazing, effortless, happy, fulfilling, successful life is a powerful misconception many have.

How can so many of us human beings be so off the mark?  It’s not unusual to attend presentations by experts, who have mastered an area of knowledge or skill, like growing the best orchids, or making money on the internet, or copywriting, or share trading, or interior decorating, or presenting on stage, and finding yourself short on ability or achievement by comparison with them.

Compare the best with the best
Often you are comparing their most developed area with your own least developed area.  It’s not about being right or wrong, it’s often just a fact that they have more knowledge and experience and expertise in a specific area than you have.

The next bit is worth looking at again too.  Listening to experts presenting a condensed summary of their journey to success and the steps they took can lead to an almost inescapable conclusion that everyone can be successful in the same way, by following their steps.  And, of course, if you want what they have achieved then it makes sense to be guided by them.

Why would you assume otherwise?  What is often minimized is what it really takes in terms of stepping up, over and over, till you get there – making the outcome your single focus for as long as it takes, disregarding all else in your life.  Not to mention their personality, past history, pre-existing training and skills, their preferences, their connections and their attitudes.  None of these are created or developed in an hour or two.

Overnight success is rarely overnight
Writers, actors, artists and musicians have at times been acclaimed as an overnight success, after struggling to get there for years and years.  Even when they admit it took twenty years to become a success, it’s only what is happening in the limelight that is obvious to us as admirers.

So, can you be a “fair witness” of yourself and others, see without enhancing or diminishing, acknowledge and accept what is as is?  When you stop judging yourself as a success or failure, just recognize where you are at right now and where you want to be, you can then focus on how to get there from here.

Role models are a valuable example, but you are unique so are not meant to be a rubber stamp of another person, no matter how much you admire them and what they have achieved.

What’s the Secret?
The trick is to integrate what you know for yourself and what you learn from others, into your own unique expression to move forward, towards what you want to gain or achieve or contribute, to align with your great expectations.

Use the Brain Integration Technique to get started in developing your unique, original, harmonized, blend of resources, experience, knowledge, insight, support and skills to do what you want to do in your life.

If you get stuck, bogged down, or lose your way, I’ll show you another technique  next time that will get you unstuck.

Wishing you much success

Cheers
Anna McRobert
anna@annamcrobert.com.au

The Latest on Exercise for Weight Loss

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I was reading an article in the Courier Mail Q Weekend 15,16 May 2010, by Gretchen Reynolds, about the latest on exercise and weight loss.  She quotes Eric Ravusssin, a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, “In general exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight loss.”

That’s a strong statement and not very encouraging for many of us who persevere with gym programs in an effort to shed weight and become fitter and healthier.   But there’s more.

What goes with that statement is an insight about appetite.   If exercise increases your appetite, and you eat more than previously, then your weight will not go down.  So it is still about consuming fewer calories than you burn up to lose weight.

Science is researching three options for losing weight.  One is to reduce what you eat and drink.  We know about that one.  Another is to exercise more.  Many of us have tried that one too.   And then there is the half and half option, eat a little less and exercise a little more.

Researchers tracked volunteers who either reduced calorie intake by 25%, or reduced calorie intake by 12.5% and increased exercise by 12.5%, to about an hour a day.  Both groups lost weight, around a half kilo per week.  So it looks like less adjustment is needed to your diet if you add or increase exercise at the same time.

But research revealed exercise supports weight loss for some and makes it more difficult for others.  Even though exercise has a positive impact on general health and well-being, it can also trigger an increase in appetite, which doesn’t help on the weight loss side of things.   It doesn’t seem fair, but often for women, when they exercise more, their appetite goes up.  Yet it’s not the same for most men.

With increased exercise researchers found women activate production of more acylated ghrelin, known to increase appetite, plus set off changes to insulin and leptin hormones that affect how their body burns fuel.

When healthy young men exercised for one and half hours a day, their appetite was actually reduced and tests showed that blood concentrations of ghrelin dropped.  Yet when women exercised, this increased their acylated ghrelin if they burned more calories than they had consumed recently.  Their body was driving them to eat more food to replace the extra energy used exercising.  Nature and pre-set programs are involved.   Is there a solution?

It seems the female body is wanting to maintain homeostasis in terms of weight, and that means staying the same weight after exercise as before.  Nature can interpret loss of weight as counter to producing a baby, so steps in to keep weight stable.  So is it possible to burn up more calories and not trigger appetite?

Here’s more news for the exercise brigade.  It seems if you do lose weight by whatever means, then exercise will keep you slimmer, even if you resume previous eating habits.  90 percent of women who shed weight and held the improvement also exercised consistently.   This comes from a study of 34,000 middle-age women followed for over 13 years.

Consistent and regular exercise was the key for long-term maintenance of weight loss.   For women who exercised regularly any weight gain that did occur was distributed more evenly and not just round the middle.  That is important for long-term health as weight gain round the belly is linked with heart disease, diabetes and a host of other health problems.  Non-exercisers, who regain weight after dropping it, put it back primarily on the belly, increasing their health risks

Yet there may be some solutions for women who put on weight when exercising.  Very latest scientific research has found low intensity exercise, even as simple as standing more than sitting, can contribute to increased energy use and support weight loss without triggering hunger signals.  These are the latest findings by Barry Braun, associate professor in the department of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Volunteers spent an entire day sitting and another entire day standing.  Just standing produced a remarkable increase of energy use representing “hundreds of calories” without any increase in ghrelin production or other appetite producing hormones according to Braun.

Maybe we need to watch TV standing up, or put the computer on a shelf and stand up to use it instead of sitting for hours.  That would certainly improve circulation, avoid back problems, increase lymphatic clearance of waste products plus a whole lot of other healthy benefits.  It’s worth doing your own experiment to see what it does for you.

So a summary of the latest on exercise and weight loss:
It may be easier to lose weight by reducing intake a little and increasing incidental exercise through the day, like standing more than sitting.   Exercise helps maintain a slimmer you.  Regular exercise seems to remodel metabolic pathways that determine how your body stores and uses fuel so it’s easier to stay slim once you are slim with continuing exercise.

So there are many ideas about how to lose weight and keep it off to be healthy:
– change what and how much you eat
– change when you eat (see previous newsletters)
– improve your digestion (see previous newsletters)
– increase energy expenditure
– increase incidental energy burn
– add specific and regular exercise
Yet the biggest influences to sort out are you attitude, beliefs, motivation and energy blocks.  Lets tackle those another time to complete the holistic view.

Cheers
Anna McRobert
anna@annamcrobert.com

The Middle Age Brain

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Well, it’s official, sort of.  Middle age is from 40 to 68.  And your brain doesn’t even peak till 50s.  And it can even continue to peak into your 70s and 80s.

Scientists are turning their attention to what actually happens in our middle years.  Research is accumulating that turns old ideas of the aging process on its head – and about time if you ask me.

What natural therapies, and of course for me that includes Kinesiology, have been saying and addressing for the last 30 years, is now being validated by the very people who were previously dismissing personal experience as not valid as research.

Now they are saying your personal experience does count, which of course you already knew, but only if it is in a group scientists are monitoring.  Hmm.  The latest findings highlight that life and work experience accumulates and cross references in your head in such a way that your brain becomes better, more effective in problem solving, in seeing ahead and avoiding pitfalls, especially in your area of expertise, be that in the scientific world, corporate world, or in the family arena.

Certainly some brain connections do faulter, like remembering names or where you left your glasses or keys, but that happens to the young too.   In other areas you go from strength to strength and can match and often outperform those in their 20s and 30s according to research studies.

Ask anyone in their middle years and many will tell you, “I don’t want to go back to teens or early adulthood.”  And I personally feel the same way.  Working out all the child to adult transition questions, who am I, what are my strengths and abilities, where do I belong, who do I belong with, how will I find what’s right for me, and many other related questions, generated far too much angst to want to repeat.  The lessons learned in those early years were often difficult, confusing, emotionally painful and exhausting.

So it seems that by middle age we are more at home with ourselves, have discovered what we like and don’t like, found at least some of our strengths, have established our direction, and honed many abilities.  We are now masters in some areas of our life.  And it seems that makes us more positive in our outlook too.  So the middle age brain is more contented.

The next bit that I want confirmed is that we can stay well, fit and healthy, till the day we die.  More on this theme to come.

Cheers
Anna McRobert
anna@annamcrobert.com.au