We have both enjoyed sharing our thoughts here at Fitness Spotlight over the last couple years and are greatly humbled by all the readers and support that we got in the process! Unfortunately this will be the last official post here at Fitness Spotlight.

However, that is not the end of us (sorry, can’t get rid of us that easily!). We have “secretly” been working on our next step for some time…and they are ready to announce…

But We Also Have Good News!!

We are proud to present our NEW sites below! We both have worked on our own new sites for the past 6+ months and are excited to officially announce them.  These sites are going to be more complete and offer so much more, all in all a better experience for you the reader! (We will also be transferring our old Fitness Spotlight posts/articles into those new sites, so any old links will go to the new proper place).

So without further delay, here they are!

1) New Site #1 – The IF Life (Mike)

OK, for those that have been around a while you will recognize the name as really not “new”. The IF Life was actually my first blog name that I started with back in early 2008 (before combining with Scott to make Fitness Spotlight). I am now officially “re-launching” the IF Life better than ever! You could even probably call it the new and improved IF Life 2.0.

The “IF” in the IF Life stands for the 3 main principles I still hold dear…

• Simple eating for weight loss/health with Intermittent Feeding/Fasting.
• Getting more from your workouts with Intensity Fitness programming.
• Finding Instant Freedom by keeping it simple and letting go of your health/fitness/eating obsessions.

I am excited to get back to blogging again at the IF Life, with those 3 main principles in mind, and helping you to make your own IF based lifestyle!

~ Mike O’Donnell

2) New Site #2 – Naked Food Cooking (Scott)

Four years ago, when I started my first site, Modern Forager, there weren’t many people talking about the science of eating and the Paleo/Primal lifestyle. Today, there are tons of them and I feel that the movement is rolling along nicely.

I’ve decided to refocus and move away from the science aspect a bit and focus more on the enjoyment of food. Given my background of “Eating Real Food,” I’m now looking to teach people how to actually make magic in the kitchen rather than focusing solely on what they eat.

So come join me at Naked Food Cooking (don’t worry, only the food is naked) for recipes, cooking tips, and ideas for everyone from the kitchen newbie to those of you well-versed in cooking techniques. Let’s start a Real Food Revolution and help get people “clean” by teaching them how to opt out of the fast food lifestyle.

~ Scott Kustes

We Appreciate All of You

While we are still going to both be blogging at our new sites, we would also just like to say “Thank You” to all our readers for your support. It is all of you that inspire us to keep upping our game and bringing you more great resources to help everyone out there.

Unfortunately we can not transfer our Fitness Spotlight RSS account between both new sites, so please be sure to come sign up for both our new blog RSS feeds (direct links provided below). We look forward to bringing you more ongoing great information. See you there!

>> Click here to get the IF Life RSS

>> Click here to get the Naked Food Cooking RSS

Officially signing off from Fitness Spotlight for the last time,

~ Mike and Scott

So rather than bore you with a lengthy article about all the advantages, how about just some simple pictures and bullet points to drive it home. If a picture is worth a 1000 words…well here are 10,000 words that may surprise you:

The Pictures

Images and references reproduced below are originally sourced from Eatwild.com

The Bullet Points

So here’s what we have seen about the advantages of grass fed beef and dairy…..and it sounds pretty good:

• More antioxidant Vitamin E
• More antioxidant Beta Carotene
• More CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid – cancer prevention)
• Less Fat/Saturated Fat (this is more natural levels for wild meats)
• Less Omega 6s, More Omega 3s (more natural balance)
• Less chance of that animal getting sick or producing sick meat!

References

1. Rule, D. C., K. S. Brought on, S. M. Shellito, and G. Maiorano. “Comparison of Muscle Fatty Acid Profiles and Cholesterol Concentrations of Bison, Beef Cattle, Elk, and Chicken.” J Anim Sci 80, no. 5 (2002): 1202-11.

2. Davidson, M. H., D. Hunninghake, et al. (1999). “Comparison of the effects of lean red meat vs lean white meat on serum lipid levels among free-living persons with hypercholesterolemia: a long-term, randomized clinical trial.” Arch Intern Med 159(12): 1331-8. The conclusion of this study: “… diets containing primarily lean red meat or lean white meat produced similar reductions in LDL cholesterol and elevations in HDL cholesterol, which were maintained throughout the 36 weeks of treatment.”

3. Siscovick, D. S., T. E. Raghunathan, et al. (1995). “Dietary Intake and Cell Membrane Levels of Long-Chain n-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and the Risk of Primary Cardiac Arrest.” JAMA 274(17): 1363-1367.

4. Simopolous, A. P. and Jo Robinson (1999). The Omega Diet. New York, HarperCollins. My previous book, a collaboration with Dr. Artemis P. Simopoulos, devotes an entire chapter to the vital role that omega-3s play in brain function.

5. Rose, D. P., J. M. Connolly, et al. (1995). “Influence of Diets Containing Eicosapentaenoic or Docasahexaenoic Acid on Growth and Metastasis of Breast Cancer Cells in Nude Mice.” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 87(8): 587-92.

6. Tisdale, M. J. (1999). “Wasting in cancer.” J Nutr 129(1S Suppl): 243S-246S.

7. Tashiro, T., H. Yamamori, et al. (1998). “n-3 versus n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids in critical illness.” Nutrition 14(6): 551-3.

8. Duckett, S. K., D. G. Wagner, et al. (1993). “Effects of time on feed on beef nutrient composition.” J Anim Sci 71(8): 2079-88.

9. Lopez-Bote, C. J., R.Sanz Arias, A.I. Rey, A. Castano, B. Isabel, J. Thos (1998). “Effect of free-range feeding on omega-3 fatty acids and alpha-tocopherol content and oxidative stability of eggs.” Animal Feed Science and Technology 72: 33-40.

10. Dolecek, T. A. and G. Grandits (1991). “Dietary Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Mortality in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT).” World Rev Nutr Diet 66: 205-16.

11. Dhiman, T. R., G. R. Anand, et al. (1999). “Conjugated linoleic acid content of milk from cows fed different diets.” J Dairy Sci 82(10): 2146-56. Interestingly, when the pasture was machine-harvested and then fed to the animals as hay, the cows produced far less CLA than when they were grazing on that pasture, even though the hay was made from the very same grass. The fat that the animals use to produce CLA is oxidized during the wilting, drying process. For maximum CLA, animals need to be grazing living pasture.

12. Ip, C, J.A. Scimeca, et al. (1994) “Conjugated linoleic acid. A powerful anti-carcinogen from animal fat sources.” p. 1053. Cancer 74(3 suppl):1050-4.

13. Aro, A., S. Mannisto, I. Salminen, M. L. Ovaskainen, V. Kataja, and M. Uusitupa. “Inverse Association between Dietary and Serum Conjugated Linoleic Acid and Risk of Breast Cancer in Postmenopausal Women.” Nutr Cancer 38, no. 2 (2000): 151-7.

14. Smith, G.C. “Dietary supplementation of vitamin E to cattle to improve shelf life and case life of beef for domestic and international markets.” Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1171

Hey everyone. Now that the challenge is over, time to get back to business as usual. We are excited for another great year here at fitness spotlight, but want to know what YOU the reader would like to see more of. Please take time to fill out the survey online in this post (if you are reading this with RSS/Email) to let us know your honest thoughts.

The polls only allow for one answer per question, and some also may let you write in your own. You can also leave more details in the comments below as well. So let us hear from you, what do you want in 2010 to see? We want to make this the best possible resource for all your health and fitness lifestyle pursuits!

Updates/Articles Per Week

Types of Content Format

Presentation of Material

Expand on Specific Topics

Is this just part of a wake-up call on an evolutionary level?

Where did We go Wrong?

Today’s environment that we live in (including the foods that we eat) is far from the natural conditions that people lived in long ago. That is not to say we all need to move back into caves and hunt for food, but we should focus on the more important recent (esp the last hundred years) changes that are taking our health in the wrong direction.

Those big changes include:

• Rancid Fats/Oils/Trans Fats in Processed Foods
• Sugars/HFCS in Processed Foods (disaster for the liver)
• Lack of Daily Exercise/Activity/Movement
• Calorie Excess/Overload (processed foods high in calorie density)
• Hormones and Pesticides in Food (dairy and meat especially)
• Exposure to Environmental Chemicals (pollution, plastics, medications)
• Drugs (legal or illegal), Smoking, Alcohol abuse
• Lack of Essential Vitamins/Minerals (esp fat soluble) in diet
• High Stress Lifestyles/Lack of Sleep

While I am not going to ever point out just one thing to blame for our sad state of health today, they all play a part. We need to start looking at the damage being done on the body as a whole and how it effects us at the cellular level. Optimizing health at the cellular level is vital.

For example, what is cancer? Essentially it is a bunch of cells gone bad and destructive. If left unchecked it will continue to damage other cells and create more and more “cells gone bad”. Do this in your lung and you have lung cancer, in your brain and you have brain cancer, etc.

So in our modern goal of health awareness and reducing risks of disease, we should be looking to focus our efforts on maintaining health at the cellular level (which means creating less destruction and increasing repair/rebuilding).

The Only Known way to Live Longer/Healthier

Scientists have known for a long time that there is really only one proven way to increase the lifespan of animals in test conditions (as well as improve health in humans). This is what is known as Calorie Restriction (or CR). Here is an excerpt from a recent article in the New York Times on the calorie restriction experiment:

A curious aspect of the Calerie project, though, is that it is not meant to study weight loss or if one type of diet is better than another. Instead, Calerie is investigating how (and if) a spartan diet affects the aging process and its associated diseases. To the Calerie researchers, these are quite distinct. The aging process, which researchers sometimes call “primary” or “intrinsic” aging, refers to the damage that ordinarily accumulates in our cells as we grow older, a natural condition that seems to have limited the maximal lifespan of humans to 120 years. Diseases that accompany the aging process — often called “secondary aging” — are those afflictions increasingly prevalent in the elderly, like cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

There seems little doubt that calorie restriction can have significant effects on secondary aging. A recent spate of papers in some of the world’s leading medical journals demonstrate that in small studies, human subjects following such diets experience astounding drops in cardiovascular risk factors; a forthcoming review on cancer risks in animals with such diets, moreover, suggests a stark correlation — fewer calories mean fewer tumors.

Fontana connected his point to his continuing observations of some Calorie Restriction Society members. “In terms of cardiovascular diseases — the No. 1 cause of death; 4 out of 10 people die of it in the U.S. and Europe — we know that they will not die of cardiovascular death,” Fontana said. His subjects have cholesterol around 160, blood pressure around 100 over 60, high HDL, low triglycerides and very low levels of inflammation. “So these people won’t develop these diseases,” he said. “And I think that’s an important finding. Because every day doctors are publishing hundreds of papers on circulation research and medications that are lowering blood pressure or cholesterol by a small bit. And here we have such a powerful intervention that is basically cleaning out the arteries.”

Calorie Restriction is a natural way in which the body can produce less damage and be more resistant to damage at the cellular level. All this leads to a healthier and longer life. Also it seems that there is another process going on that helps to repair the damage due to aging. This could hold the key to helping not only treat people with diseases, but also help people live longer (by slowing down the destructive aging process).

Cell Death and Recycling

More and more light is being put into how the cells can “recycle” their own damaged parts and create a new and healthy cell in the process. This is what is known as autophagy and could be one of the keys to living longer and healthier!

Here’s a good summary from the University of Florida Health news on UF scientists reveal how dietary restriction cleans cells:

During the aging process, free radicals . – highly reactive byproducts of our cells’ respiration – wreak havoc on our cellular machinery. Mitochondria, the tiny power plants that keep a cell functioning, are especially vulnerable to this type of damage. The effects can be disastrous – if malfunctioning mitochondria aren’t removed, they begin to spew out suicidal proteins that prompt the entire cell to die. Cell death, on a whole-body scale, is what aging is all about.

Fortunately, younger cells are adept at reducing, recycling and rebuilding. In this process, damaged mitochondria are quickly swallowed up and degraded. The broken down pieces are then recycled and used to build new mitochondria. However, older cells are less adept at this process, so damaged mitochondria tend to accumulate and contribute to aging.

“Cell survival is dependent upon the ability of the cell to reduce and recycle by a mechanism called autophagy,” said William Dunn Jr., Ph.D., a professor of anatomy and cell biology in UF’s College of Medicine and senior author of the study,

and more from this really good article in Scientific American on How Cells Clean House:

Mitochondria, for instance, are the organelles primarily responsible for generating energy within a cell, and they can send signals to other parts of the cell that initiate apoptosis, or cellular suicide.

Cells induce apoptosis for a variety of reasons, all more or less for the greater good of the organism. For example, the body continually generates more cells than it needs, and they must be eliminated. An aging cell that has ceased functioning efficiently may kill itself to make room for younger, more robust cells. A cell that switches from normal growth to cancerous proliferation can also be induced to commit suicide, making apoptosis one of the most important built-in barriers against cancer. Apoptosis depends on a complex series of cellular events, rigorously orchestrated by numerous protein signals, and so the death of the cell by apoptosis is considered to be a programmed event.

But a faulty mitochondrion can wreak havoc if it sets off apoptosis at the wrong time. Among the by-products of a functioning mitochondrion are reactive oxygen species (ROS)—oxygen ions and other oxygen-based molecular fragments. Working with such volatile chemicals often causes mitochondria to leak some of their contents, including the signaling proteins that initiate apoptosis. In other words, a minor flaw in a small part of the cell can lead, inadvertently, to the death of the entire cell. The accidental cellular demise of a few skin cells might not be a big deal, but such a loss of memory neurons in the brain would definitely spell trouble.

The escape of such large amounts of ROS poses a cancer threat, because ROS that reach the nucleus may induce malignant changes in genes. Once again, autophagy can come to the rescue, removing the dysfunctional mitochondria from the cell. Eileen White of Rutgers University believes that autophagy also mitigates genome damage in cancer cells, thereby helping to prevent new tumors from forming.

Most people take it for granted that many diseases become more frequent with age, including cancer and the degeneration of neurons. The reason, in part, may be a decline in the efficiency of auto­phagy. According to Ana Maria Cuervo of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the current thinking is that cellular systems, including autophagy, undergo a steady loss of function with age.

Recall that a restricted food supply—incipient starvation—speeds up autophagy.

The programmed cell death/self-suicide of a cell, otherwise known as apoptosis, is a good thing in some cases. While you don’t want all your cells to die off, you definitely don’t want the cancerous cells gone bad sticking around and creating more damage. It could be summed up that a defective apoptosis system is a big reason for the progression of cancerous cells in a body. If left unchecked, the cancerous cells spread and create more. A functioning apoptosis system would call for the cancerous cells to commit suicide and stop the progression.

So it seems that autophagy through various pathways can not only help stop new progression of cancerous cells, but may also help improve apotosis signaling through healthy mitochondria. Add this to a continual process of healthy cell repair and “going green” (recycling) at the cell level may be the real fountain of youth.

Understanding Aging to Reduce Diseases

Researchers are now currently looking for a pharmaceutical treatment to increase autophagy in healthy cells and apoptosis in cancerous ones (although more is not always better and with every treatment seems to come more negative side effects). By looking at the real source of the problem (aging), evolutionary solutions can be seen in helping people with diseases associated with it.

from this recent article in the Boston Globe on Age-old woes, New Tactic.

The drugs in Sirtris’s pipeline are aimed at treating two diseases associated with aging: type 2 diabetes and cancer. The drugs target sirtuins, the enzymes identified by Gaurente and others as regulating cell metabolism.

Much of the discussion at the Harvard lifespan conference centered on sirtuin modulators, which appear to provide the same benefits as calorie restriction (CR) – a practice enthusiasts believe will extend their life spans. Their faith is based on the results of studies with yeast, flies, and primates.

Resveratrol, found most abundantly in red wine and Japanese knotweed, is the best-known sirtuin modulator. Many scientists speculate that the resveratrol in red wine is behind the “French paradox,’’ the low incidence of heart disease in the French despite their love for fatty foods.

Message is Simple: Eat Less (and Eat Real Foods)

While researchers are trying to come up with patented pharmaceutical versions to enhance autophagy (and they will probably not be cheap either), we already have those systems built in if we send the right signals to help increase their function. Namely through a “restricted food supply”, like the “feast-famine” environments that our bodies were designed to survive.

While CR is certainly not the most realistic nor enjoyable solution for many, there is still many of the same benefits found with Intermittent Fasting (or IF). The benefits of IF is you can also maintain lean bodyweight (muscle) while burning fat and still enjoy eating. Plus, it is the cheapest way I know of that you can reduce your risks for degenerative diseases!

So while health care costs are going through the roof and medical treatments are too expensive for many to afford, maybe it is time we all start to realize the evolutionary plan for the body to help heal itself. It costs nothing more than just personal awareness into how you eat effects your own health. Eat less and eat more “real foods” is the best advice I think we all need to take to heart (and tell others to do as well). The bonus is if you eat mainly real foods anyways, that it is hard to actually overeat in the first place!

If you want to know more about IF, you can get the FREE IF Revolution ebooks here. Don’t forget to join us all on Nov 1st for “IF Day” to help spread awareness into how eating less (taking breaks) can help us to lose weight and just be healthy. Tell a friend/family member/coworker and help spread the awareness.

More related quotes and articles on Autophagy

Aging denotes a postmaturational deterioration of cells and organisms with the passage of time, an increased vulnerability to challenges and prevalence of age-associated diseases, and a decreased ability to survive. Causes of this deterioration may be found in an enhanced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative damage and incomplete “housekeeping.” Caloric restriction is the most robust anti-aging intervention known so far. Similar beneficial effects on median and maximum life span were obtained by feeding animals a 40%-reduced diet or by every-other-day ad libitum feeding. In both instances, animals are forced to spend a great part of their time in a state of fasting and activated autophagy. …. Several pieces of evidence show that autophagy is involved in aging and is an essential part of the anti-aging mechanism of caloric restriction.

from role of autophagy in aging

As a consequence of the induction of autophagy during short periods of fasting, animals experience diurnal rhythms of autophagy in concert with their circadian cycle.

from Diurnal rhythms of autophagy

Overview of the importance of autophagy and diseases (which still shows there is much we don’t know as well)

Precise regulation of autophagy is necessary to maintain metabolic equilibrium, immune homeostasis, delineate cell fate and influence host cell responses to cytosolic pathogens. A growing number of studies have implicated that inactivation of autophagy-selective responses contributes to inflammatory disorders, neurodegeneration and cancer, but the precise steps at which disease-associated autophagy-related (ATG) genes affect autophagy pathways is unknown at present

and how some viruses actually attack (and inhibit) autophagy/apoptosis

Viral subversion and inhibition of host cell autophagy has been documented for several viruses. In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe,Gannagé et al. (2009) show that the influenza virus M2 integral membrane protein blocks autophagosome maturation, significantly affecting host cell apoptosis.

and Intermittent fasting alleviates neuropathic disease

Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 1A (CMT1A) neuropathies linked to the misexpression of peripheral myelin protein 22 (PMP22) are progressive demyelinating disorders of the peripheral nervous system. In this study we asked whether dietary restriction by intermittent fasting (IF) could alleviate the neuropathic phenotype in the Trembler J (TrJ) mouse model of CMT1A. Our results show that neuropathic mice kept on a five month long IF regimen had improved locomotor performance compared to ad libitum (AL) fed littermates. The functional benefits of this dietary intervention are associated with an increased expression of myelin proteins combined with a thicker myelin sheath, less redundant basal lamina, and a reduction in aberrant Schwann cell proliferation. These morphological improvements are accompanied by a decrease in PMP22 protein aggregates, and enhanced expression of cytosolic chaperones and constituents of the autophagy-lysosomal pathway.

• Resveratrol, Red Wine, Diabetes, Cancer and Longevity
• The Longevity Gene Sirt1 – CR, Fasting and Aging Diseases
• Weight training and Autophagy at Conditioning Research
• Cellular Autophagy from Artur De Vany
• Autophagy required for calorie restriction benefits? from Fight Aging
• How dietary restriction cleans cells from U of Fl
• How cells clean house from Scientific American (PDF)

Maybe it will be some new dumbbells for home…..a great new workout outfit…..a canoe……or any other of the great things they have.

So here’s the details, sign up for the free email workouts at BodyFitBurn.com and follow along at http://twitter.com/dickssportcmo. We will pick one lucky subscriber next Fri at noon to receive a $100 gift card. (note they are also giving away $100 gift cards daily at their Twitter page for about another 20 days when you tell them how you would spend the $100 at Dicks).

You have 2 (or more) great chances to win some free cash to spend. So tell us in the comments, what would you buy if you had $100 to spend at Dicks Sporting Goods?

The study found that preschool kids served homegrown fruits and vegetables were nearly twice as likely to eat five servings per day than those who rarely or never had homegrown produce. These kids prefer the taste of fruits and vegetables to other foods and eat a greater variety of fruits and vegetables. This is obviously a great finding. Kids that learn healthful eating habits as young’ins will tend to grow up to be healthier adults. Overweight kids tend to grow up to be overweight adults, so reducing the intake of McDonald’s and Burger King in favor of meat and produce is a positive step.

I’m not sure planting a garden is necessary. I bet that much of the reason for the difference is that those that grow their own vegetables just have more vegetables readily available than those that don’t. I surmise that a study comparing two groups of families, one group eating 5+ servings/day of homegrown vegetables and one group eating 5+ servings/day of store-bought vegetables, would yield very little difference in the attitudes of kids toward produce. The key is availability and familiarity rather than where the produce is grown. Granted kids are probably more excited about eating something that is grown by mom and/or dad, but I think just having a menu replete with fruits and vegetables will accomplish at least 90% of getting kids to eat their vegetables. And of course mom and dad have to eat them too.

I am working on building my own garden. I’ve been so busy with the new house and such that I haven’t found the time yet and since we’re fast approaching summer, it won’t happen this year. However, I have picked a spot in my backyard and will start working on getting the soil up to snuff soon. I’m also deciding on what I would like to grow. I’m thinking about broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, asparagus, some sort of lettuce, perhaps onions, and squash. I’d also like to plant some herbs and maybe a chili pepper plant. As I’ve never really grown anything before, we’ll see how my first “harvest” turns out. No kids yet, but hopefully by the time they come along, I’ll have a nice green thumb and can provide them with fresh, homegrown produce.