Enjoying the eating process without focus on dietary restrictions may be key to managing weight and staying healthy, as per scientists who have unveiled a new and effective model for managing eating.

The Satter Eating Competence Model, also known as ecSatter, was created by Ellyn Satter, a registered dietitian, family therapist and author of Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, Kelcy Press.

Competent eaters are positive, flexible and comfortable with their eating habits and make it a priority to regularly provide themselves with enjoyable and nourishing food. They guide food intake based on the internal processes of hunger, appetite and satisfaction, and rely on the bodys innate ability to maintain a preferred and stable weight.

Satter observes that the eating competence model cultivates effective eating attitudes and behavior by emphasizing permission and discipline:

• The permission to choose food you enjoy and eat it in amounts you find satisfying.

• The discipline to provide yourself with regular and reliable meals and snacks and to pay attention when you eat them.

Being eating competent appears to mirror overall-well being, notes Satter of Madison, Wis. People with high eating competence feel more effective, are more self-aware and are more trusting and comfortable both with themselves and with other people.

Barbara Lohse, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State, directed the research on ecSatter. Lohse underscores the models attention to psychological and biological needs.

"A number of of us have eating problems, because as children, we are forced into eating more or less food than we need. That is traumatic. Eating becomes a mindless activity invested with conflict and anxiety, and not something to be enjoyed. To overcome those feelings, you have to ignore how you feel about eating, just eat," said Lohse.

Research by Lohse and her Penn State colleagues suggests that people with high eating competence do better nutritionally, have healthier body weights, higher levels of good cholesterol and fewer of the components of sticky plaque, todays high-tech approach to predicting the tendency to cardiovascular disease.

The Penn State researcher says ecSatter represents a fundamental shift from the conventional approach to eating management. "If it was successful to have people be uncomfortable and restrictive with what they eat, just going by the rules for the nutrients and calories they need, we would not have an obesity problem," said Lohse, whose findings appear this month (September/October) in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

"We need a different mindset: Weight is not the big issue, but rather being comfortable with how you eat," she added.

As per Satter and Lohse, there are four steps to competent eating:

• Take time to eat, and provide yourself with rewarding meals and snacks at regular and reliable times.

• Cultivate positive attitudes about eating and about food. Emphasize providing rather than depriving; seeking food rather than avoiding it.

• Enjoy your eating, eat things you like, and let yourself be comfortable with and relaxed about what you eat. Enjoying eating supports the natural inclination to seek variety, the keystone of healthful food selection.

• Pay attention to sensations of hunger and fullness to determine how much to eat. Go to the table hungry, eat until you feel satisfied, and then stop, knowing another meal or snack is coming soon when you can do it again.

Posted by: Evelyn    Source

Researchers have shown that when either lean or obese individuals exercise after eating a high fat meal, their fats are broken down and oxidized in skeletal muscle, making them healthier. These results show for the first time how a high fat diet and exercise stimulate the breakdown of fats and may help design ways to reduce excessive fat in the body.

Fat is broken down inside fat cells to generate energy by a process called lipolysis. The resulting fatty acids are released into the bloodstream and carried to tissues that require energy. In obese individuals, too much fat accumulates, compromising lipolysis, but the details of how this happens are not well understood. Also, obese individuals can show altered responsiveness to the stress hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine in their subcutaneous fat.

Max Lafontan and his colleagues investigated how fat is broken down in both lean and obese subjects who exercised after either fasting or eating a high-fat diet. They noticed that after eating a high-fat diet, fats were broken down in both lean and obese individuals. Under fasting conditions, the breakdown of fats was more pronounced in the lean subjects, but the high fat meal enhanced lipolysis in the obese subjects.

The researchers also studied the effects of long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs) which are found in high fat diet on cultured fat cells. They noticed that LCFAs increase lipolysis when it is induced by epinephrine, one of the hormones known to stimulate lipolysis.

By showing for the first time how a high fat diet and LCFAs affect hormone-induced lipolysis in fat cells, this study paves the way for further research on the role of various fatty acids on the metabolism of muscle and blood vessel cells, the scientists conclude.

Article: Acute exposure to long-chain fatty acids impairs alpha2-adrenergic receptor-mediated antilipolysis in human adipose tissue, by Jan Polak, Cedric Moro, David Bessiere, Jindra Hejnova, Marie A. Marques, Magda Bajzova, Max Lafontan, Francois Crampes, Michel Berlan, and Vladimir Stich.


Posted by: Evelyn    Source

The healing continues. From laughter, that is.

As we wait with great hope for a cure for diabetes, we do so with a smile thanks to humor to be found on the new website LOL Diabetes (www.loldiabetes.com). I've posted before about this site, which itself is part of the popular diabetes website Six Until Me (www.sixuntilme.com). Nevertheless, things have become waaaaaay to funny over there for me to not highlight some of my favorites.

These would be my Top 5:

5 - The Insulin Monkey.This picture features a stuffed animal, a monkey to be exact, with dozens of syringes sticking out of it, much like a pin cushion. The words "You're Doing it Wrong" that are printed on the picture sum it up perfectly.

4 - iPump.A play on the now famous iPod silhouette ads, this mock version of this campaign features people wearing insulin pumps in place of iPods.

3 - Thumbtacks.A photo of a child's Spider Man poster fastened to the wall with -- Thumb Tacks? No, no, no. Look again...those are lancets! As someone aptly commented on the entry, what a great use for all those extras!

2 - Wanted!In this Old West style Wanted poster, there's a bounty for bringing in Twinkie the Kid. Turns out "The Kid" is wanted for Shootin' Up High Blood Sugars.

1 - The Enemy. By far my favorite, Short, simple, and hilarious. The photo features no other than Willy Wonka himself, with the words "The Enemy" written below. Very true. And very funny.

There are a whole bunch more that could have made a Top 10 list (namely: Soundtrack to a Low, Is This the Remix?, My Pump Makes Me Look Like a Cross-Dresser, Ah! Needle Landslide, and What's Better Than a Cookie).

Be sure to check out LOL Diabetes. Think you have something funny to add? I say go for it!!

Tags:diabetes, Kerri Morrone, KerriMorrone, LOL, LOL Diabetes, LolDiabetes, Six Until Me, SixUntilMe, type 1, type 2, Type1, Type2

There's a workout, and then there's a Work Out. And THEN, there's a BOXING WORK OUT. Trust me, there's a reason why boxers are able to spend over a half an hour in a ring exchanging punches and not go into cardiac arrest. It's because these guys and gals have trained their butts off for months before ever stepping foot in that arena, let alone that ring. But, you don't have to be Rocky Balboa to get the benefit of a boxing workout, which is why I am this week highlighting some of the basic boxing moves that you too can add to your fitness routine.

First of all, be sure to always maintain a proper stance. This means keeping your feet a little more than shoulder width apart, with your dominant foot in the back (in other words, if you're right handed/footed, than you want your right foot in the back and for your left foot to lead). Try your best to stay on the balls on your feet, which will allow you to do all your fancy stutter-stepping footwork (or for now, just keep you balanced). Your hands should be made into fists and kept close to your face. Your elbows need to be tucked closely to your body. From here, you're ready to start dotting some imaginary bad guy's eyes.

There are four basic punches in boxing: the Jab, the Cross, the Hook, and the Uppercut. To keep things easy, we're going to only focus on the Jab and the Cross. To throw the Jab, you need to flick out your lead hand (which should be the hand that is not dominant -- again, if you are right handed/footed, that hand/foot is kept toward the rear, whereas the weaker hand/foot leads...which, in this case, is your left). As you extend your arm to throw your Jab, your hand should twist like a corkscrew at the end of the punch. Once you have extended your arm, be sure to immediately bring your arm back, tuck your elbow back into your side and return your fist to the side of your face. To throw a Cross, you take your dominant hand and throw a straight punch with it, twisting at the waist as you do. Again, you want to twist your wrist at the end of the punch, adding more 'snap' to the motion. Once the punch is thrown, bring your arm back right away, tuck your elbow back in, and bring your fist back next to your face.

By combining these two punches, you are doing a 1-2 combination. A lot of times people will throw a few jabs before throwing a cross, which of course is fine (and very much the case in an actual boxing match). Use this punch combination on a large heavy punching bag (the cylindrical kind that hangs from the ceiling or stand) while wearing what are known as bag gloves (lightweight boxing gloves that can be purchased at most any sporting goods store or even Wal-Mart).

Boxing is broken into three-minute rounds with one-minute rests in between each round. In accordance with this design, that is how you will also train. Three minutes of, say, shadowboxing -- using the 1-2 combination I just taught you, followed by a round or two of jumping rope, followed by three or four rounds of hitting the heavy bag, and then finishing off with a few rounds of abdominal work.

Even if you take it slow at first (which I really suggest you do), you'll find that the boxing workout is absolutely exhausting. This is exactly why so many health clubs now offer "cardio-boxing" as a group aerobics class. You'll burn far more calories doing this workout than you will on a stair-stepper or walking on a treadmill, and you'll do so during less time. Intensity is the key. Like I said, there's a workout, and then there's a Workout. And then there's a BOXING WORKOUT. Try this routine and, before long, you'll be wearing a grey track suit and running the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

For a great video demonstration I found online that features the basics of boxing, click HERE.

Note: The content presented in this post is for informational purposes only. Please consult your doctor or fitness professional before starting a physical fitness program.

Tags:Boxing Workout, BoxingWorkout, Chris Sparling, ChrisSparling, Exercise of the Week, ExerciseOfTheWeek

A type 1 diabetic mystery is why do some Type 1s get complications and others seem to never get them? A massive Japanese study of Type 1 diabetics found that those with fulminant diabetes developed complications much faster and more severely than those with non-fulminant diabetes.

The difference between fulminant and non-fulminant is the speed and intensity at which the disease develops. Fulminant Type 1 diabetes typically develops suddenly with near total loss of beta cell function. This type of diabetes is confirmed with testing c-peptide levels. Non-fulminant type 1 diabetes has residual c-peptide levels that eventually taper to undetectable. Sometimes this is seen through many years of the Honeymoon Period.

This study may be the antithesis of conventional wisdom for preventing complications. Staking all hopes on blood sugar control is heavily optimistic. Yes controlling blood sugar does lessen the workload for existing beta cells, and thus extends the lifespan of each beta cell. Research suggests that c-peptide offers protection to beta cells, both from apoptosis (cell death) and encourages new cell growth. This new cell growth applies to beta cells and other cells of the body that endure long-term Type 1 diabetes complications.

Diabetics are instructed that maintaining normal blood sugars is the Holy Grail of preventing long-term complications. Yes and no. The truth is controlling your blood sugar will not allow complications of Type 1 diabetes to develop as quickly, presuming you still had some level of beta cell function upon diagnosis (i.e., c-peptide). That doesn't sound like a reward as much as it does a delayed punishment. I'd like c-peptide with my insulin, please. It's off the à la carte menu? That's fine - serve it up! I want to thank Klausen for bringing this study to my attention.

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