Month: May 2016

Celiac disease, more commonly known as gluten intolerance, affects one in 133 Americans.

This lifelong disease causes intestinal problems when eating gluten, which is the common name for offending proteins in wheat (including durum, semolina, spelt, kamut, einkorn, and faro), rye, barley and oats. Gluten is like poison to people with celiac disease.

How Common is Celiac Disease?

As many as 3 million people in the United States have celiac disease. It occurs when the body’s natural defense system reacts to gluten by attacking the lining of the small intestine.

Without a healthy intestinal lining, the body cannot absorb the nutrients it needs. Delayed growth and nutrient deficiencies can result and may lead to conditions such as anemia (a lower than normal number of red blood cells) and osteoporosis, a disease in which bones become fragile and more likely to break.

Other serious health problems may include diabetes, autoimmune thyroid disease and intestinal cancers.

Celiac disease affects those who are genetically susceptible. In fact, if one member of a family has celiac disease, about one out of 10 other members of the same family are likely to have it as well.

Some may harbor the tendency for a while without getting sick, but then stress, physical injury, infection, childbirth or surgery can actually “activate” the disease.

The disease mostly affects people of European (especially Northern European) descent, but recent studies show that it also affects Hispanic, Black and Asian populations as well.

How to Diagnose Celiac Disease

Because of the broad range of symptoms celiac disease presents, it can be difficult to diagnose. The symptoms can range from mild weakness, bone pain, and aphthous stomatitis to chronic diarrhea, abdominal bloating, and progressive loss.

Those with celiac disease who consistently consume gluten can increase their chances of developing gastrointestinal cancer by a factor of 40 to 100 times that of the normal population.

Furthermore, gastrointestinal carcinoma or lymphoma develops in up to 15 percent of patients with untreated or refractory celiac disease. Celiac disease should be quickly and properly diagnosed so it can be treated as soon as possible.

Testing is fairly simple and involves screening the patient’s blood for antigliadin (AGA) and endomysium antibodies (EmA), and/or doing a biopsy on specific areas of the intestines.

With a strict adherence to a 100 percent gluten-free diet, almost all complications caused by the disease can be prevented.

A gluten-free diet means avoiding all products that contain wheat, rye and barley, or any of their derivatives. This can be a difficult task as there are many hidden sources of gluten found in the ingredients of many processed foods.

It is important to read labels carefully and become educated on what types of ingredients to look out for.

Gluten Foods to Watch For

Durum flour, couscous, semolina, spelt, kamut, bulgur and triticale, a grain crossbred from wheat and rye, are all names for certain kinds of wheat.

Corn starch, wheat starch, dextrin, malt, maltodextrin, modified food starch, fillers, natural flavoring, hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), emulsifier, stabilizer and hydrolyzed plant protein (HPP).

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a final rule that defines what characteristics a food has to have to bear a label that proclaims it “gluten- free.” The rule also holds foods labeled “without gluten,” “free of gluten,” and “no gluten” to the same standard.

This rule has been eagerly awaited by advocates for people with celiac disease, who face potentially life-threatening illnesses if they eat the gluten found in breads, cakes, cereals, pastas and many other foods.

As one of the criteria for using the claim “gluten-free,” FDA is setting a gluten limit of less than 20 ppm (parts per million) in foods that carry this label.

This is the lowest level that can be consistently detected in foods using valid scientific analytical tools. Also, most people with celiac disease can tolerate foods with very small amounts of gluten. This level is consistent with those set by other countries and international bodies that set food safety standards.

“This standard ‘gluten-free’ definition will eliminate uncertainty about how food producers label their products and will assure people with celiac disease that foods labeled ‘gluten-free’ meet a clear standard established and enforced by FDA,” says Michael R. Taylor, J.D., deputy FDA commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine.

Foods that commonly contain gluten

Most cereals, grains, pastas, breads, and processed foods contain some type of gluten, unless, of course, they are specifically made to be gluten-free.

Vegetable cooking sprays, tomato pastes, spaghetti sauces, and veined cheeses, such as roquefort and blue cheese, may contain gluten.

Hidden sources of gluten

Many vitamins and medications can contain gluten in their additives. Always check with your doctor or pharmacist before taking any medication.

• Be careful of cross-contaminating foods. This can happen in the toaster, deep fryer, griddle, etc.
• Imitation seafood and instant or flavored coffees and teas
• Glue on envelopes and postage stamps
• Chewing gum
• Some lotions, creams, and cosmetics

 

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I have been using my Fitbit for almost a year now and it has been a fantastic experience. Not only am I able to track my steps and my sleeping habits but also great things like pulse rate, resting pulse, and a slew of other recent features.

Today I just wanted to point out a few new features that seem to have been pushed out for my Fitbit Charge HR with my Samsung S5 Android phone recently, but since I don’t have an iPhone I am not sure if these are there as well. Let me know if you are an iPhone Fitbit user and if these line up with yours.

New Features for the FitBit Charge HR

New Home Screen Layout

There is a new layout to the homescreen of the app. One of the things to remember is that the Fitbit software is customizable so you can decide what your daily success priority is, steps, miles, floors, or other.

As well as these basics, there are others that I do not use like a food tracker (Syncs really well with MyFitnessPal) and even tracking water intake.

Now though as you can see they have added a number of hours with 250 or more steps.

The idea behind this is that many of us will go for a long walk and otherwise be mostly sedentary.

 

 

 

 

 

Hourly Activity Page

Pretty dots, but what does it all mean? The hourly activity will identify which hours of the day that you do 250 or more steps.

The way that we can use this in its best way is to identify which hours of the day we get very few steps in and then look at our schedule to see how we can do better.

This page I believe defaults with 8 hours or something, I cranked it up to tracking 14 hours a day so that I can track more of my hours.

I guess I should probably really add my first couple hours of the day as well.

 

 

 

 

2nd Hourly Activity Page

This is another view of the hourly activity that really just breaks down the day.

This day can of course be today or yesterday, or some Tuesday last month.

The top half really just gives those same dots from morning until night but the bottom half is interesting.

According to recent studies, the longer you are stationary the harder it is on your body. This will tell you your longest period of inactivity and the longest period on average over the last month.

Now we can try and make sure we are taking the opportunity every hour or even more often to be at least a bit active.

The cool thing with this is that since Fitbit keeps all this data on their servers anyway I have been able to go back in time and see what my trend has been every day over the last year.

 

 

Daily Active Minutes

This feature is just tracking active minutes. This would be the opposite of the sleep tracking. What our Fitbit is doing here is just tracking when we are doing something more than just walking.

This could be anything from a brisk walk to a run to cardio of other types.

You can set a goal for this and track how well you are doing over time. There is another view that lets you compare days, weeks, or even months to see when you have been most active.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exercise and Exercise Goals

The Fitbit has had this for a little while but it is always being enhanced it seems. Since this little wristband has an accelerometer inside it, it can kind of figure out what you are doing.

It can tell if you are riding a bike, running, even using an elliptical machine. Sometimes poor little Fitbit gets confused, like when I am playing street hockey and just calls it “Sport”.

This gives us a bit of a better way to track our exercise times. As you can see here it will track minutes, average heart rate, and estimated calories burned.

This is great info to track and to again see if we are getting more and better exercise in or not over time.

 

 

 

 

Sleep Quality Tracking

This is not really new but I just wanted to add this sleep tracking in as it has really made a big difference in my life.

At times I sleep well and sometimes I do not. I know that most of the time we track out hours of sleep and with the Fitbit we can get a really good track of this with weekly averages over time to see if we are running ourselves down.

The great thing with the sleep quality though is to see how often we are not sleeping deep.

If we are restless quite a few times at night it could be a sign of stress in our lives, too much alcohol consumption, eating too late, or even a sign that we are suffering from sleep apnea.

This could be a real lifesaver.

Getting back to quality vs hours though, I have found that even if I get 8 hours of sleep that if I am restless a lot at night that I am still going to be tired, maybe not today but in a couple days.

So this can be a great bit of journalling to see how our lifestyle is affecting our sleep.

These are the features that I have found new over the last couple of months on my Fitbit. Have you seen any others that you are taking advantage of?

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Wow, what a scandalous last few weeks for the Biggest Loser. First, there was news that “They all gained the weight back”.

Well maybe no all the people but a large majority anyway.

Then this weekend a story broke in the New York Post that there were drugs being given out, weight loss drugs and ephedrine.

I remember a story a couple years ago about Jillian telling her team to take Caffeine pills to lose weight on the show, so these latest stories don’t seem too shocking to me.

In the bodybuilding sport/industry the idea of getting down to weight has gone on for a half century, as well as in boxing, and any other sport where your weight is important so we shouldn’t be super surprised.

The fact that Biggest Loser may be encountering cheating was just another step in the spectacle of reality TV and especially reality TV with millions of viewers.

I remember when the Biggest Loser started it seemed to be a joke until the ratings quickly climbed and we saw people armchair quarterbacking and cheering for their favorite even in that first season.

Building Expectations on TV

The trouble with the excitement and hype is that it is really hard to keep up. As we watched and became excited with 10 pounds a week weight losses we would look for more and faster. 20 pounds in a week, throwing up from working out so hard, losing 100 pounds in a season.

And then finally an anorexic looking winner that had to diet down that low to beat a man that could afford to lose 60% of his bodyweight.

I think that was the episode that the show jumped the shark. Finally, we saw someone willing to sacrifice anything including their health to win the Title of Biggest Loser and 1 million dollars.

But between the beginning and now there has had to have been a steady ratcheting up of pressure on the show to keep us tuning in and sadly the contestants on the show were the ones that weren’t really taken care of.

The Pain of Biggest Loser Success

Sure someone that is living a really sedentary lifestyle can have their body pushed and pulled to lose 100 pounds in just a few months but the damage to the spirit and body can’t be easily healed.

Everyone that gets on the show and under the lights of network television where the only people they can talk to are in on the deal will say that “Never Ever will I eat that way again” or “Activity is my new lifestyle”. But once they limo takes them home for the last time these poor contestants have no support system that will keep them working out 6 hours a day and eating 800 calories of food a day. Who the hell would want to anyway?

So here we are with a show that has run out of tricks, failed to keep helping people safe and healthy during the show let alone afterward and the stories are starting to leak out.

It was a fun ride for those of us watching, but the people that wanted to turn their life around where in for far bigger stakes than their bodies could really live up to.

I am guessing a show that follows people over a couple years changing their lives and losing a couple pounds a week would never do very well on TV anyway.

As for the show itself and the people that run it, they deserve all the punishment being thrown their way now. You can’t just go along with bigger and bigger spectacles and not expect to hurt people.

The fitness and health industry can be terrible for selling a dream that is not attainable as quickly as it is sold.

• You can’t just cheat people on the show or in the audience by saying 1500 calories a day and instead, only let them eat 800 calories.
• You can’t have people taking ephedrine, which has been linked to heart attacks and strokes.
• You can’t work people’s bodies for 6 or 8 hours a day without knowing that you will tear apart knees, hips, ankles, and other body parts, especially on sedentary morbidly obese people.

The producers and trainers on the Biggest Loser may have had us as an audience to watch this train wreck but the lives that they have put at risk are still entirely their fault

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