How to Eat (And Still Lose Weight) – by Dr. Andrew Jenkinson
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You may be wondering: what diet is he recommending?
The answer is: some guiding principles aside…. He’s not recommending a diet, per se.
What this book does instead is outline why we eat too much ← link is to where we previously had this author as a spotlight featured expert on this topic! Check it out!
He goes into a lot more detail than we ever could have in our little article, though, and this book is one of those where the reader may feel as though we have had a few classes at medical school. The style, however, is very comprehensible and accessible; there’s no obfuscating jargon here.
Once we understand the signalling that goes on in terms of hunger/satiety, and the signalling that goes on in terms of fat storage/metabolism, we can simply choose to not give our bodies the wrong signals. Yes, it’s really that simple. It feels quite like a cheat code!
Bottom line: if you’d like a better understanding of what regulates our body’s “set point” in weight/adiposity, and what can change it (for better or for worse), then this is the book for you.
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Bulgarian Split Squats: How To Get The Best Glute Strength & Size
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Even without considering aesthetics, the glutes are very important muscles (you absolutely cannot have a healthy back and hips without strong glutes).
Bulgarian split squats have a name that makes them sound complicated; they’re actually very simple, but there are mistakes that people make that sabotage their progress.
Professional coach Elisi Wolf explains in this video:
Mistakes most people make
There are quite a few, but bear with us, as they really do come together—and once you understand them, you’ll have it for life;
- Lack of neural pathway establishment: most people skip the step of building a mind-muscle connection before adding weight. Focus on bodyweight movements first until you can feel your glutes working.
- Not focusing on glute contraction: avoid counting reps; it distracts the brain. Don’t use weights too soon, as they can prevent neural pathway development. Focus on time under tension and feeling the glutes before adding resistance.
- Not lowering slowly enough: slow, controlled movements give the brain time to activate the glutes. This increases time under tension and improves neural pathway formation.
- Not wearing knee sleeves: knee sleeves stabilize the joint, allowing the brain to recruit the glutes more efficiently.
- Not leaning over to the working side: staying upright distributes weight to the back leg instead of the glute, whereas leaning over the working side maximizes glute activation.
- Holding two dumbbells instead of one: two dumbbells force your body to stay level, reducing glute activation. Instead, hold a single dumbbell on the opposite side to improve balance and allow for a greater lean. You can even rest it on your thigh if you like; you’re not here for an arm workout, after all, and allowing the body to focus on one task is better.
- Not pushing out the working knee: pushing the knee outward mimics a sprinting motion, engaging the glutes more effectively.
- Allowing the pelvis to tilt down: if the pelvis tilts as you lower, the glutes disengage. Keeping the pelvis level ensures the glute medius stays activated.
For more on all of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Strong Curves: A Woman’s Guide to Building a Better Butt and Body – by Bret Contreras & Kellie Davis
Take care!
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America’s Health System Isn’t Ready for the Surge of Seniors With Disabilities
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The number of older adults with disabilities — difficulty with walking, seeing, hearing, memory, cognition, or performing daily tasks such as bathing or using the bathroom — will soar in the decades ahead, as baby boomers enter their 70s, 80s, and 90s.
But the health care system isn’t ready to address their needs.
That became painfully obvious during the covid-19 pandemic, when older adults with disabilities had trouble getting treatments and hundreds of thousands died. Now, the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health are targeting some failures that led to those problems.
One initiative strengthens access to medical treatments, equipment, and web-based programs for people with disabilities. The other recognizes that people with disabilities, including older adults, are a separate population with special health concerns that need more research and attention.
Lisa Iezzoni, 69, a professor at Harvard Medical School who has lived with multiple sclerosis since her early 20s and is widely considered the godmother of research on disability, called the developments “an important attempt to make health care more equitable for people with disabilities.”
“For too long, medical providers have failed to address change in society, changes in technology, and changes in the kind of assistance that people need,” she said.
Among Iezzoni’s notable findings published in recent years:
Most doctors are biased. In survey results published in 2021, 82% of physicians admitted they believed people with significant disabilities have a worse quality of life than those without impairments. Only 57% said they welcomed disabled patients.
“It’s shocking that so many physicians say they don’t want to care for these patients,” said Eric Campbell, a co-author of the study and professor of medicine at the University of Colorado.
While the findings apply to disabled people of all ages, a larger proportion of older adults live with disabilities than younger age groups. About one-third of people 65 and older — nearly 19 million seniors — have a disability, according to the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire.
Doctors don’t understand their responsibilities. In 2022, Iezzoni, Campbell, and colleagues reported that 36% of physicians had little to no knowledge of their responsibilities under the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act, indicating a concerning lack of training. The ADA requires medical practices to provide equal access to people with disabilities and accommodate disability-related needs.
Among the practical consequences: Few clinics have height-adjustable tables or mechanical lifts that enable people who are frail or use wheelchairs to receive thorough medical examinations. Only a small number have scales to weigh patients in wheelchairs. And most diagnostic imaging equipment can’t be used by people with serious mobility limitations.
Iezzoni has experienced these issues directly. She relies on a wheelchair and can’t transfer to a fixed-height exam table. She told me she hasn’t been weighed in years.
Among the medical consequences: People with disabilities receive less preventive care and suffer from poorer health than other people, as well as more coexisting medical conditions. Physicians too often rely on incomplete information in making recommendations. There are more barriers to treatment and patients are less satisfied with the care they do get.
Egregiously, during the pandemic, when crisis standards of care were developed, people with disabilities and older adults were deemed low priorities. These standards were meant to ration care, when necessary, given shortages of respirators and other potentially lifesaving interventions.
There’s no starker example of the deleterious confluence of bias against seniors and people with disabilities. Unfortunately, older adults with disabilities routinely encounter these twinned types of discrimination when seeking medical care.
Such discrimination would be explicitly banned under a rule proposed by HHS in September. For the first time in 50 years, it would update Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a landmark statute that helped establish civil rights for people with disabilities.
The new rule sets specific, enforceable standards for accessible equipment, including exam tables, scales, and diagnostic equipment. And it requires that electronic medical records, medical apps, and websites be made usable for people with various impairments and prohibits treatment policies based on stereotypes about people with disabilities, such as covid-era crisis standards of care.
“This will make a really big difference to disabled people of all ages, especially older adults,” said Alison Barkoff, who heads the HHS Administration for Community Living. She expects the rule to be finalized this year, with provisions related to medical equipment going into effect in 2026. Medical providers will bear extra costs associated with compliance.
Also in September, NIH designated people with disabilities as a population with health disparities that deserves further attention. This makes a new funding stream available and “should spur data collection that allows us to look with greater precision at the barriers and structural issues that have held people with disabilities back,” said Bonnielin Swenor, director of the Johns Hopkins University Disability Health Research Center.
One important barrier for older adults: Unlike younger adults with disabilities, many seniors with impairments don’t identify themselves as disabled.
“Before my mom died in October 2019, she became blind from macular degeneration and deaf from hereditary hearing loss. But she would never say she was disabled,” Iezzoni said.
Similarly, older adults who can’t walk after a stroke or because of severe osteoarthritis generally think of themselves as having a medical condition, not a disability.
Meanwhile, seniors haven’t been well integrated into the disability rights movement, which has been led by young and middle-aged adults. They typically don’t join disability-oriented communities that offer support from people with similar experiences. And they don’t ask for accommodations they might be entitled to under the ADA or the 1973 Rehabilitation Act.
Many seniors don’t even realize they have rights under these laws, Swenor said. “We need to think more inclusively about people with disabilities and ensure that older adults are fully included at this really important moment of change.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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Lifestyle vs Multiple Sclerosis & More
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This is Dr. Saray Stancic. She’s another from the ranks of “doctors who got a serious illness and it completely changed how they view the treatment of serious illness”.
In her case, Stancic was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and wasn’t impressed with the results from the treatments offered, so (after 8 years of pain, suffering, and many medications, only for her condition to worsen) she set about doing better with an evidence-based lifestyle medicine approach.
After 7 years of her new approach, she would go on to successfully run a marathon and live symptom-free.
All this to say: her approach isn’t a magic quick fix, but it is a serious method for serious results, and after all, while it’d be nice to be magically in perfect health tomorrow, what’s important is being in good health for life, right?
If you’re interested in her impressive story, check out:
Doctor With Multiple Sclerosis On The Collapse Of US Healthcare
If you want to know what she did, then read on…
Six key lifestyle changes
Dr. Stancic credits her recovery to focus on the following evidence-based approaches:
The plant-centered plate
This is critical, and is the one she places most emphasis on. Most chronic diseases are exacerbated, if not outright caused, by chronic inflammation, and one cannot fix that without an anti-inflammatory diet.
An anti-inflammatory diet doesn’t have to be 100% plant-based, but broadly speaking, plants are almost always anti-inflammatory to a greater or lesser degree, while animal products are often pro-inflammatory—especially red meat and unfermented dairy.
For more details, see:
Anti-Inflammatory Diet 101 (What to Eat to Fight Inflammation)
Movement every day
While “exercise is good for you” is in principle not a shocker, remember that her starting point was being in terrible condition with badly flared-up MS.
Important to understand here is that excessive exercise can weaken the immune system and sometimes cause flare-ups of various chronic diseases.
Moving thoroughly and moving often, however, is best. So walking yes, absolutely, but also don’t neglect the rest of your body, do some gentle bodyweight squats (if you can; if you can’t, work up to them), stretch your arms as well as your legs, take all your joints through a full range of motion.
See also:
The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More
Mindful stress management
Stress in life is unavoidable, but how we manage it is up to us. Bad things will continue to happen, great and small, but we can take a deep breath, remember that those things aren’t the boss of us, and deal with it calmly and conscientiously.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is of course the evidence-based “gold standard” for this, but whatever (not substance-based) method works for you, works for you!
About MBSR:
No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
Good sleeping habits
Getting good sleep can be hard for anyone, let alone if you have chronic pain. However, Dr. Stancic advocates for doing whatever we can to get good sleep—which means not just duration (the famous “7–9 hours”), but also quality.
Learn more:
The 6 Dimensions Of Sleep (And Why They Matter)
Substance intake awareness
This one’s not so much of a “don’t do drugs, kids” as the heading makes it look. Dr. Stancic assumes we already know, for example, that smoking is bad for us in a long list of ways, and alcohol isn’t much better.
However, she also advises us that in our eagerness to do that plant-based diet, we would do better to go for whole foods plant-based, rather than the latest processed meat substitutes, for example.
And supplements? She bids us exercise caution, and to make sure to get good quality, as poor quality supplements can be worse than taking nothing (looking at you, cheap turmeric supplements that contain heavy metals).
And of course, that nutrients gained from diet will almost always be better than nutrients gained from supplements, as our body can usually use them better.
And see also, some commonly-made supplements mistakes:
Do You Know Which Supplements You Shouldn’t Take Together? (10 Pairs!)
Human connection
Lastly, we humans are a social species by evolution; as individuals, we may enjoy relatively more or less social contact, but having access to such is important not just for our mental health, but our physical health too—we will tend to deteriorate much more quickly when we have to deal with everything alone, all other things being equal.
It doesn’t mean you need a busy social life if that’s not in your nature, but it does mean it’s incredibly beneficial to have at least a small number of people that you trust and whose company you enjoy, at least relatively accessible to you (i.e., their life need not revolve around you, but they are the kind of people who will generally happily spend time with you and provide support when needed if they can).
As for how:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
Want to know more from Dr. Stancic?
We recently reviewed this very good book of hers, which goes over each of these six things in much more detail than we have room for here:
What’s Missing from Medicine – by Dr. Saray Stancic
Enjoy!
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Meals That Heal – by Dr. Carolyn Williams
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Inflammation is implicated as a contributory or casual factor in almost all chronic diseases (and still exacerbates the ones in which it’s not directly implicated causally), so if there’s one area of health to focus on with one’s diet, then reducing inflammation is a top candidate.
This book sets about doing exactly that.
You may be wondering whether, per the book’s subtitle, they can really all be done in 30 minutes or under. The answer is: no, not unless you have a team of sous-chefs to do all the prep work for you, and line up everything mise-en-place style for when you start the clock. If you do have that team of sous-chefs working for you, then you can probably do most of them in under 30 minutes. If you don’t have that team, then budget about an hour in total, sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on the recipe.
The recipes themselves are mostly Mediterranean-inspired, though you might want to do a few swaps where the author has oddly recommended using seed oils instead of olive oil, or plant milk in place of where she has used dairy milk in a couple of “recipes” for smoothies. You might also want to be a little more generous with the seasonings, if you’re anything like this reviewer.
Bottom line: if you’re looking for an anti-inflammatory starter cookbook, you could do worse than this. You could probably do better, too, such as starting with The Inflammation Spectrum – by Dr. Will Cole.
Alternatively, click here if you want to check out Meals That Heal, and dive straight in!
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Top 10 Foods That Promote Lymphatic Drainage and Lymph Flow
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Melissa Gallagher, a naturopath by profession, recommends the following 10 foods that she says promote lymphatic drainage and lymph flow, as well as the below-mentioned additional properties:
Ginger
Ginger is a natural anti-inflammatory, which we wrote about here:
Ginger Does A Lot More Than You Think
Turmeric
Turmeric is another natural anti-inflammatory, which we wrote about here:
Why Curcumin (Turmeric) Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
Garlic
Garlic is—you guessed it—another natural anti-inflammatory which we wrote about here:
The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
Pineapple
Pineapple contains a collection of enzymes collectively called bromelain—which is a unique kind of anti-inflammatory, and which we have written about here:
Bromelain vs Inflammation & Much More
Citrus
Citrus fruits like oranges, lemons, and grapefruits are rich in vitamin C, which can help support the immune system in general.
Cranberry
Cranberries contain antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, which we wrote about here:
Health Benefits Of Cranberries (But: You’d Better Watch Out)
The video also explains how cranberry bioactives inhibit adipogenesis and reduces fat congestion in your lymphatic system.
Dandelion Tea
Dandelion is a natural diuretic and anti-inflammatory herb, which we’ve not written about yet!
Nettle Tea
Nettle is a natural diuretic and anti-inflammatory herb, which we’ve also not written about yet!
Healthy Fats
Healthy fats like avocado, nuts, and olive oil can help reduce inflammation and support the immune system.
Fermented Foods
Fermented foods, such as kimchi and sauerkraut, contain probiotics that can improve gut health, which in turn boosts the immune system. You can read all about it here:
Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
Want the full explanation? Here’s the video:
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How was the video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!
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Get On It! – by Jane Aronovitch, Miriane Taylor, & Colleen Craig
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Balance is important; without it, we die early. That’s quite a strong selling point for improving one’s balance, but why this book in particular?
This is—with one drawback—the best book of balance ball exercises we’ve seen. Notwithstanding the cover photo, many exercises do, by the way, involve standing on it with one or both feet, doing various kinds of squats, lunges, get-ups, and so forth. The ball (it’s not really a ball so much as an oblate hemisphere) can also be flipped and used the other way around, with a flat platform that will now wobble per your weight distribution, and train balance in different ways (dome-up trains large stabilizing muscles more; platform-up trains smaller stabilizing muscles more).
Indeed, that’s where the brand name Bosu, often stylized “BOSU”, comes from: both sides up!
So, what’s the drawback? Alas, the photos are black and white, which means in some cases they’re not as clear as they could be. Nothing that will prevent understanding the exercises, which are well-explained in any case, but it does mean that sometimes it’s necessary to look closely to see which leg is in front of the other for a given exercise, for example.
Still, with 80 different exercises it really does cover the whole body, and even gives workout program varieties for those who want that, including targeted to particular areas, e.g. lower body, core, upper body, or complete.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your balance (and have, or are willing to acquire, a balance ball like the Bosu), then this book will give you everything else you need in that regard.
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