USDA Food Pyramids Vs Paleo Food Pyramid - Explained

Do you workout?

 Click here to see video on YouTube

Here is a video I put together about the gym where I work out. Everyone should be doing some sort of exercise 5-6 days a week. It doesn't have to be this intense, but it should be varied and it should push you. If it's easy, it isn't working.

Lard, it's what's for dinner!

Make Your Own Lard

Believe it or not, it's good for you
by Lynn Siprelle

ou WHAT?!" said my friend, making the most disgusted face I've seen someone make in some time. I rendered some lard over the weekend, I repeated. "WHY on EARTH would you want to do THAT?!" she cried.
I wasn't surprised. North American culture is so fat-phobic we demonize some of the very foods that are best for us, and among those foods is homemade lard. The store stuff isn't worth bothering with; it's hydrogenated to make it shelf-stable. What I'm talking about is lard from the fat of well-raised pigs, not factory farmed pigs. To get it, you're going to have to make it yourself. Luckily, that's not hard.
What you don't know about lard
Not only does lard make the best pie crusts, it's lower in saturated fat than butter--if saturated fat bothers you. It doesn't bother me, in fact, the plaque levels in my heart have actually improved since I've started eating good saturated fats. (They've actually gone and looked, so I feel safe in saying this.)
Technically lard isn't even a saturated fat; it's a monounsaturated fat. And it's one of the best dietary sources of vitamin D. It also contains no trans-fats. If there's fat to be avoided, trans-fats are the ones.
Finding fat
The hardest part of making lard is finding a good source of pork fat. You're going to have to do a little digging, and it's important that you not just use any pork fat you find; you want to make sure the pig was properly cared for and fed right. Your average supermarket "butcher," and I use that term loosely, isn't going to have it; that pork is all factory farmed, and very few supermarket butchers cut whole carcasses any more. You may have more luck at a specialty market like Whole Foods, Wild Oats or the like, but be sure to inquire after the feeding practices.
If there is a farmer's market near you, look around and ask questions. That's how we stumbled onto our farmer, who is really in the goat cheese biz; he raises pigs on the leftover whey. We've bought two (incredibly delicious) pigs from him in as many years, and surprised the butcher by asking for all of the fat--and as much of the offal as we could get, but that's another article. Hey, we were paying for it. If you don't have a farmer's market, try EatWild.com where you can find farmers with good growing practices, and not just for meat.
Making it
Once you've found your fat, decide what you want to use it for. If you want it for pastries, try to find and use only the fat from around the kidneys--what's called "leaf" lard. I don't make much pastry, so I don't care about that.
Chop the fat into at least 1" cubes, taking any meat chunks off in the process. Some folks put it through a meat grinder. In any event, you want small pieces; otherwise you won't get as much fat out.
Heat your oven to 225°F. I use my cast iron dutch oven to render lard in. Put about a quarter-inch of water at the bottom of the pot; this keeps the fat from browning too much at the beginning, and it'll burn off in time. Add your chopped-up fat. Pop it in the oven for at least a couple of hours, stirring now and then. Eventually the chunks won't give up any more fat--it'll become obvious, the chunks will look the same after an hour as they did before.
As you're doing all this there will be a distinct smell. Some people like it, some people don't. It's a little too intense for my comfort, frankly, which is why I try to do a bunch of lard at once. If you can do this outside, or in a canning kitchen if you have one, so much the better.
Let the lard cool to lukewarm; while it's cooling is a good time to gather up your jars and lids and make sure they're clean and ready to go. There are various methods to filter out the bits of meat and unrendered fat--the cracklings--from the lard, but what I use is a paper coffee filter and cone. Ladle the still-liquid lard, skipping the bigger chunks, into the filter.
Refrigerate the lard and use it within a month. If you've made more than you can use in a month, it freezes well.
Using it
Use it anywhere you'd use butter or shortening: To pop popcorn (the best!); to make pie crust; to fry eggs. In some cultures it's even spread on bread, topped with onions and salt, and called a sandwich. As for the leftover bits, the cracklings? Salt them and put them on salads or just munch on them. Josie loves them. We got more cracklings than we could eat, so we fed a lot of them to the chickens and used them as doggie and kitty treats.

Pasture Raised Eggs

News story out of Texas about how pasture raised eggs are produced and what the health benefits are. You either pay a little for your health now through superior foods, or you pay for you health later trying to cure sickness and disease.

Light and moderate physical activity reduces the risk of early death, study finds

Eric says, "It never seems to amaze me how we need research to confirm what we already know. Check out this study done by Captain Obvious:"
Light and moderate physical activity reduces the risk of early death, study finds

Prepare your own food

A fantastic quote that I have seen on multiple fitness sites:

"Your relationship with food is one of the most important determinants of your long-term well-being.

An inability or unwillingness to cook is a serious barrier to your health and fitness."

Smelling food can trick your brain into thinking you've eaten

This weightloss information appeared in the fitness section of MSNBC:

If you want to lose weight should you suppress your appetite or increase your metabolism (the rate at which
your body uses food for fuel)? The answer is to eat the right foods at the right time.

Most people go off a food plan at night (after dinner) when they feel the urge to nosh…so to curb your appetite tonight…. use these tips from the article:

1. Protein First
“Rise and shine with protein.” But what does this have to do with night-time cravings? Everything. Set the body up to use your own fat-stores for fuel by eating protein in the morning and your appetite FOR fatty foods goes way down during the day and the night. Protein is “thermogenic”, meaning it helps increase your metabolism. It also acts as a natural appetite regulator.
2. Grapefruit
In a study at the Nutrition and Metabolic Research Center at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego, people who ate half a grapefruit with each meal lost an average of 3.6 pounds in three months. That doesn’t sound like a lot (and it isn’t) but that’s ALL they changed.
Grapefruit makes for a good night time snack, especially if you have a few bites of lean protein with it.

3. Use your nose & smell !
This is a great trick. Smelling food can trick your brain into thinking you’ve eaten. A recent study found that those who inhaled peppermint in scent form every 2 hours at (get this) ate 2700 calories LESS per week than they normally did. If you decrease your calorie intake by just 2500 calories per week, that’s a fatloss of more than half a pound a week… from sniffing peppermint!

Vanilla also works. You can keep vanilla-scented drops or candles around the house or office and take a sniff every few hours.

The 76 Dangers of Sugar to Your Health

The 76 Dangers of Sugar to Your Health

Managing Your Child’s Asthma with Natural Medicine

Managing Your Child’s Asthma with Natural Medicine

Chiropractors earn High Marks

Great article published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. Just another example of how well Chiropractors due with their customer service.

-Eric Clements

Patients in Medicare Demonstration Project Give Chiropractors High Marks

Published Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Patients in Medicare Demonstration Project Give Chiropractors High Marks

According to long-awaited results from a congressionally mandated pilot project testing the feasibility of expanding chiropractic services in the Medicare program, patients have a high rate of satisfaction with the care they receive from doctors of chiropractic.

When asked to rate their satisfaction on a 10-point scale, 87 percent of patients in the study gave their doctor of chiropractic a level of 8 or higher. What’s more, 56 percent of those patients rated their chiropractor with a perfect 10.

Contributing to that satisfaction was the attention given to patients’ needs and the accessibility of chiropractic care. Patients reported that doctors of chiropractic listened to them carefully and spent sufficient time with them. Some 95 percent said they had to wait no longer than one week for appointments.

“Doctors of chiropractic everywhere should feel pride in these patient satisfaction results and in being part of a profession that still sees the great need for spending time with patients and truly listening to them,” said Dr. Rick McMichael, president of the American Chiropractic Association (ACA). “It’s clear that patients deeply value the time their chiropractic providers spend with them and the expert care that DCs offer.”

The pilot, known as a “demonstration project” in Congress, was conducted from April 2005 to March 2007 throughout the states of Maine and New Mexico, and also in Scott County, Iowa, 26 counties comprising the Chicago metropolitan area, and 17 counties in central Virginia.

Current chiropractic coverage under Medicare is limited to spinal manipulation. Under the demonstration project, however, chiropractic care was expanded to include diagnostic and other services, such as X-rays, examinations, physical therapy and rehabilitation services.

The final report to Congress also includes information on the costs of expanding chiropractic services in the demonstration sites. The report indicates that in all but one of the demonstration sites, patients’ health care costs were not significantly changed by expanding coverage of chiropractic services. In contrast, a cost increase was found in the Chicago metropolitan area. Further research into the reasons why the results in Chicago differ from the rest of the demonstration project sites is needed to better understand these findings.

“We already know that Medicare costs in general tend to be higher in Chicago than other similar areas of the country. We must find the underlying cause of the cost difference found in the chiropractic demonstration project and determine whether it had anything at all to do with the expansion of chiropractic services,” Dr. McMichael noted.



To further analyze the results of the demonstration project, ACA is creating a taskforce of Medicare experts and researchers who will review the report and develop a response for the



Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Crossfit Omaha at Sectionals WOD1

Low back pain sufferers and back muscle weakness

Nice research article linking weakness in back muscles with chronic low back pain. Just another reason to stay active and try to stimulate/exercise those muscles.

Less Activity in Multifidus of LBP Sufferers

Smooth and correct torso movements depend on the coordination of some trunk muscles that produce torque combined with the fine-tuned variations from other muscle groups. Studies have shown that the back extensor muscles are not simply a muscle group, but instead have specific functions for strength or control.

The multifidus appears to be a primary contributor to control and stabilization, while the iliocostalis lumborum pars thoracis (ICLT) produces torque forces in the lumbar region.

This study determined back muscle activity in three groups (77 healthy controls, 24 subacute back-pain patients, and 51 chronic back-pain patients) during strength, coordination, and stabilization exercises. Subacute pain was considered back pain of less than one year. Subjects performed 15 exercises involving kneeling/standing, loading, and lifting. Electromyographic (EMG) activity was recorded for the multifidus and the ICLT at maximum voluntary contraction. The results of the study were as follows:

* During coordination exercises, there was a significant decrease in EMG activity of the multifidus in the chronic-pain group compared to the control group, in post-hoc tests.

* Tests revealed significantly lower activity in both muscles in the chronic-pain group during strength exercises.

* Regarding stabilization exercises, muscle activity was similar for all three groups.

In the long run, low-back-pain patients may have more difficulty recruiting the multifidus for neutral lordosis. The authors conclude, "The possible dysfunction of the [multifidus] during coordination exercises and the altered activity of both muscles during strength exercises may be important in the symptom generation, recurrence or maintenance of low back pain."

Danneels LA, Coorevits PL, Cools AM, et al. Differences in electromyographic activity in the multifidus muscle and the iliocostalis lumborum between healthy subjects and patients with sub-acute and chronic low back pain. European Spine Journal 2002:11(1), pp. 13-19.