Don't Eat That Moldy, Old Apple!
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Choose local for fresher, healthier foods!
Next time you're standing in front of your pantry, examine a box of pasta, a bag of chips, or a jar of tomato sauce. - How many ingredients does the product contain?
- Do you know what these ingredients are?
- Where does the product come from?
- How far has it traveled to get to you?
- How were these crops raised?
By
now many of us are familiar with the impact that industrialized and
large scale commercial farming and monoculture can have on the
environment and our health. In growing, the key element to producing
quality food is soil richness. Building rich soils (as nature has done
for millennia) is a slow process. You, like many people, are probably looking for
way to answers some of the nagging questions above, without having to
find a personal solution that means you quit your job to become a full
time food systems researcher. One easy way to make this thoughtful
transition without having to research every item on your shelves is to
build a relationship with a local grower and have your produce freshly
delivered through a CSA.
Read more about eating local on Recess' blog!
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Health Immersion 2009 (Portland, OR)
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Two Months of Life-Changing Fitness, Friends & Fun!
July 1 - August 29, 2009 in Portland, Oregon
Dates, Times, Location, Workouts, and Goodie Bags!
For
this year's health immersion (formerly boot camp), we'll have two
groups--one that meets Mon/Wed and one that meets Tues/Thurs. The
groups will meet together on Saturdays.  Dates
2009 Health Immersion runs from 7/1-8/29.
Mon & Wed, 6:15-7:30 p.m.
/Sat 10-11 a.m. - or - Tues & Thurs, 6:15-7:30 p.m./Sat 10-11 a.m.
Enrollment ends by June 24th
Location
SW Portland - easily accessible by bike and close to every major roadway (26, 405, 5). Certain indoor activities may meet at other easy-to-reach locations. The Camp Includes
- Pre and post body composition/fitness assessment
- All of our personalized reports
- Seminars on nutrition, cooking, exercise and integrative arts like yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, Budokon, etc.
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A cool group of "campers" and Recess instructors
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Participant-only web portal access & interactive content
- Goodie bags and prizes worth over $200
Cost$250 a month, or, less than the cost of a latte and scone per day for a total life transformation. Return customers and employees of Recess corporate clients get 10% off! More Questions? Email Kaitlin at kaitlin[at]recesswellness.com
We Sell Out Every Year. Reserve Your Spot Now! >>
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| Embrace Your Winter Fat!
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Could cold weather fat make for healthier weight?
Feeling bummed at the thought of
your winter body in a summer tank top?
Don't despair yet. As it turns
out some kinds of winter fat stores serve important evolutionary purposes in
our body and don't necessarily doom us to permanent weight gain.
We've accepted that there are good
cholesterols and bad cholesterols, fats that are good and bad, omega 3's and
trans fats, for example. But what if there was a kind of good fat that burned
bad fat? Well there is! And it occurs naturally in your body.
What Is This Magic Fat & Where Can I Get It?
"Brown fat," found mainly in
newborn or hibernating animals, regulates body temperature. It's a compound
structure, composed of multiple lipid droplets, unlike its counterpart "white
fat," which contains only a single lipid droplet.
Because of its importance in
regulating body temperature, brown fat contains a much higher number of
capillaries (micro-arteries that carry blood to the tiny parts of the body).
What is more, brown fat burns white fat in order to keep your body warm. It's
the battle of the fats! And you're
always the winner.
Scientists used to believe that
adults lost all of their brown fat after infancy. Now, scientists have found
that many adults-if not most-retain some of their brown fat through adulthood,
particularly around the neck and collarbones.
New research also shows that the
presences of brown fat deposits are inversely correlated to BMI (body mass
index). That is to say: the more brown
fats you've got the more likely it is that you're probably lean and fit.
Jan
Nedergaard, a professor at the Wenner-Gren Institute at the University of
Stockholm in Sweden, a researcher who has been studying brown fat for 30 years,
claimed that "brown fat can be a very significant player in the game of how we
react to the food we eat and whether we store it or burn it away."
Make Like A Bear & Hibernate?
How does an adult acquire brown
fats? Easy: the cold. You can raise your supplies without changing you diet. If
you swim regularly, for example, you've probably noticed this phenomenon;
people who get in a pool every day tend to develop a very fine layer of fat
around their muscle tissue in order to keep warm.
Researchers from the
Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands, observed that when 24 male volunteers were subjected to a room kept at about 61° F, 23 of them showed
brown fat production activity. The 10 men who were lean had more brown fat than
the 14 who were overweight or obese, and their brown fat was also more active.
People with sizeable brown fat
deposits can burn, on average, 500 calories more than the normal person in a
day. But let's not go willy nilly: it doesn't take that much extra food (one soda and a cookie - thank you very much) to
eliminate the extra calorie burn.
Brown fat becomes active in low temperatures, because it warms you up by
burning white fat as fuel. Does this mean that we can just stop exercising and
step out into the cold to loose weight? Not exactly. Darnit!
Reduce Your Waistline & Greenhouse Gasses?
"Before we all turn our thermostats down or consider
joining the Polar Bear Club," said Alice Park in Time, we should let scientists
gather more information. Nobody knows, for example, why women are twice as
likely as men to have active brown fat.
Regardless, the study of brown fat
opens new doors for obesity and weight regulation research. Nothing can replace
the benefits of a balanced, whole foods diet, moderate exercise and healthy
sleep, but maybe our new dieting mantra will soon include: "Turn Down the
Heat!"
Brown fat
may hold new keys to understanding how we can better treat obesity in the US. In
an editorial article, Dr. Francesco Celi, of the National Institute of Diabetes
and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, noted that the current
research on brown fat points to "a potential 'natural' intervention to
stimulate energy expenditure: Turn down the heat and burn calories (and reduce
the carbon footprint in the process)."
Celi went on to say this could lead
to fat-fighting strategies that are healthier
for you and the environment rather than putting so much weight loss research
into chemical solutions which worsen environmental woes.
Ready to Put Your Winter Fat To Work For You? >> |
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