The Body Sculpting Bible for Women (23 page)

If you follow a very strict low-fat diet you’ll find that you begin to start having trouble keeping your strength up and losing fat. It is really easy to incur a fat deficiency when your diet is really clean.

To fix this you should also be taking in good oil, or fat supplements.

•
Fish oils
are best obtained through a consumption of salmon a minimum of three times a week. Fish oil caps are good, but you need at least 10 per day in order to get even 10 grams of fish oil.

•
Flax Oil
is best obtained from buying the whole ground flaxseed meal, which needs to be refrigerated at all times. Do not cook with this oil if you choose to use it instead of the meal, as it is light and heat sensitive. It should appear to be a clear yellow. If you purchase oil with brown particles, it is rancid and should be returned or thrown out.

• Your
extra virgin olive oil
should preferably be canned in either Italy or Spain. It’s best to purchase oil canned because light can reach the oil stored in a bottle and turn it rancid. Also remember that natural old-fashioned
peanut butter
is a great source of monounsaturated fats.

S
OURCES
:

You can find flaxseed meal from brands such as Spectrum, which keeps it refrigerated while it is on the way to the store.

Fish oil capsules can be found at health food stores and drug stores.

Q
UANTITY
:

Consume fats in the way recommended by the diet charts on
this page
.

VITAMIN C

Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin that improves your immune system and assists in faster recovery from your workouts. It suppresses the amount of cortisol (a hormone that kills muscle and aids in the accumulation of
fat) released by your body during a workout. This is the only vitamin we recommend taking in mega dose quantities. Because it is a water-soluble vitamin, it will not be stored by the body. If taken an hour before a workout (1000mg dose), research shows Vitamin C significantly reduces muscle soreness and speeds recovery.

Important Note:
Ensure that your water intake during the day is adequate (bodyweight × 0.66 = ounces of water per day). If you have a history of kidney stones, you should not take Vitamin C in these large quantities. As always, when in doubt, consult your doctor.

S
OURCES
:

Any health food store or drug store.

Q
UANTITY
:

We recommend a total of 3000 mg per day of Vitamin C. If your multiple vitamin pack already has 1000 mg, and you take this in the morning, then all you need is an extra 1000 mg at lunch and 1000 mg at dinner.

CHROMIUM PICOLINATE

There are many claims surrounding Chromium Picolinate, and most of them are as yet unproven. However, we suggest its use from our own experience with this mineral. Some of its benefits surround its enhanced effect on insulin, upgrading insulin’s capability to produce muscle and energy. An insulin-boosting vitamin could potentially assist in gaining muscle and losing fat faster. Chromium can also keep blood sugar levels stable, thereby preventing insulin levels from going high enough to begin promoting fat storage. However, chromium only functions if a suitable diet is followed.

S
OURCES
:

All chromium picolinate produced in the market is manufactured by a company called Nutrition 21; it is sold at stores like GNC, Eckerds, Walmart and Walgreens.

Q
UANTITY
:

200 mcg with the post-workout meal and with breakfast on days off.

Chapter 5

Rest and Recovery

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How much did you sleep last night; five, six maybe seven hours? Did you know that getting less than six hours a night can seriously affect your coordination, reaction time and judgment; not to mention your health?

Though the goal is to get in great shape, many of us are silently killing ourselves. With all of the stimulants now available such as high-octane coffee, ephedrine, “natural” fat burners and the like, why would we need sleep when we can simply get a “boost?” A recent segment on CNN discovered that “people who drove after being awake for 17 to 19 hours performed worse than those with a blood alcohol level of .05 percent. That’s the legal limit for drunk driving in most western European countries, though most States in the U.S. set their blood alcohol limits at .1 percent and a few at .08 percent.” The study revealed that 16 to 60 percent of all road accidents involved sleep deprivation.

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to pull an “all-nighter” for school or work? We see it all the time; people bragging about not sleeping because they don’t have enough time in a day. Not surprisingly, nearly half of all Americans have difficulty sleeping. A growing collection of research indicates that America’s sleep problems have reached epidemic proportions and may be the country’s number-one health problem. Would it change your mind if you knew that those who sleep fewer than six hours a night don’t live as long as those who sleep seven hours or more?

Lack of sleep can be expensive: The National Commission on Sleep Disorders estimates that sleep deprivation costs $150 billion a year in higher stress and reduced workplace productivity. Yes, most of us truly enjoy staying up late, ready to dive into the night life. We are magnetized to late night movies and late night surfing on the internet, yet did you know that we are robbing ourselves of 338 hours—two full weeks—of rest per year?

New research indicates that rest and sleep may well be the third essential component of a long and healthy life, right up there with a good diet and regular exercise! “Society is being victimized by not getting enough sleep,” says David Dinges, director of experimental psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “Our productivity, our safety, our health are at risk.” The findings are far from definitive but they strongly hint that long-term sleep debt could be a factor in the national epidemics of diabetes and obesity. Research is proving that sleep deprivation could weaken the immune system, leading to colds and other infections. There is even a bit of evidence proving how the increase in breast cancer, and perhaps other cancers, could have a link to decreased sleep.

THE SLEEP CYCLE

When we deprive ourselves of sleep, there is a delicate cycle that we disrupt.

Phase One:
Phase one begins as soon as the sun sets, when the pineal gland starts to release melatonin, a hormone released in the absence of light and responsible for making us sleepy. When you lie down in your bed at this time, your muscles relax, heart rate and breathing slow down, and body temperature drops. The brain also relaxes but still remains alert. If you could look at the wave patterns being generated by the brain, you would see a change from the rapid beta waves of daytime to slower alpha waves. When the alpha waves disappear, replaced by theta waves, the sleeper has tumbled into the sensory void called stage one sleep. In this stage, the sleeper is unable to sense anything.

Phase Two:
Phase two occurs a moment after phase one and in this stage the sleeper lays still for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Phase Three:
After phase two is over, the sleeper falls into a deeper sleep. During this
stage, the sleeper falls deeper into phase three which lasts about 5 to 15 minutes.

Phase Four:
With a maximum of 15 minutes spent within the phase three cycle, the sleeper then falls into yet another relaxed stage called phase four, lasting a half hour or so. In stage four, the eyes move back and forth very quickly in what’s called rapid eye movement, or REM. This is the point at which the first dream occurs. After this dream has ended, the sleeper goes back to phase two and starts the whole process over again. These processes repeat themselves about five times during the night.

Sleep research indicates that the average sleeper will sleep approximately eight hours and 15 minutes when uninterrupted. During this research, there were no alarm clocks or disturbing noises to interrupt normal sleep patterns. Eight hours and 15 minutes is believed to be the ideal physiological amount of time that the body requires for sleep.

MALADIES CAUSED BY SLEEP DEPRIVATION

The following are the maladies that, according to research, can result in consistent sleep deprivation:

•
Impaired glucose tolerance
. Without sleep, the central nervous system becomes more active, inhibiting the pancreas from producing adequate insulin, the hormone the body needs to digest glucose. “In healthy young men with no risk factor, in one week, we had them in a pre-diabetic state,” says researcher Van Cauter when referring to a study that he conducted on the effects of sleep deprivation.

•
Possible link to obesity
. This is due to the fact that much of people’s growth hormone is secreted during the first round of deep sleep. As both men and women age, they naturally spend less time in deep sleep, which reduces growth hormone secretion. Lack of sleep at a younger age, however, could drive down growth hormone prematurely, accelerating the fat-gaining process. In addition, research indicates a lowering of the hormone testosterone as well as fat gain and muscle loss.

•
Increased carbohydrate cravings
. Sleep deprivation negatively affects the production of a hormone called Leptin. This hormone is responsible for telling the body when it is full. However, with decreased production of this hormone, your body will crave calories (especially in the form of carbs) even though its requirements have been met. Not a good situation to be in for a dieter.

•
Weakened immune system
. Research indicates that sleep deprivation adversely affects the white blood cell count in humans as well as the body’s ability to fight infections.

•
Increased risk of breast cancer
. Richard Stevens, a cancer researcher at the University of Connecticut Health Center, has speculated that there might be a connection between breast cancer and hormone cycles disrupted by late-night light. Melatonin, primarily secreted at night, may trigger a reduction in the body’s production of estrogen. But light interferes with melatonin release (recall that the hormone is secreted in response to a lack of light), allowing estrogen levels to rise. Too much estrogen is known to promote the growth of breast cancers.

•
Decreased alertness and ability to focus
. A recent study showed that people who were awake for up to 19 hours scored worse on performance tests and alertness scales than those with a blood-alcohol
level of .08 percent—legally drunk in some states.

•
Hardening of the arteries
. Some studies suggest that the stress imposed on the body due to lack of sleep causes a very sharp rise in cortisol levels. Such an imbalance can lead to hardening of the arteries, increasing the risk of heart attacks. In addition, we also know that very high cortisol levels lead to muscle loss, increased fat storage, loss of bone mass, depression, hypertension, insulin resistance (the cells in the body lose the ability to accept insulin), and lower growth hormone and testosterone production.

•
Depression and irritability
. Lack of sleep also causes depletion of neurotransmitters in the brain that are in charge of regulating mood. Because of this, sleep deprived people have a “shorter fuse” and also tend to get depressed more easily.

ARE YOU SLEEP DEPRIVED?

It’s easy to tell if you’re sleep-deprived. If you can lie down in the middle of the day and fall asleep within 10 minutes, you are sleep deprived. Catching up is basic math. For every hour, or fraction, under eight hours, you need an equal extra amount of time asleep soon after. But if you’re hundreds of hours in debt, you may never pay it all off. According to recent research, 17 hours was all the catching up people could do, and it generally took three weeks. Most people probably need three times that amount of sleep!

FAQ:

I try to find time for seven to nine hours of sleep, but having a family and a full-time job just doesn’t permit it
.

ANSWER:

That’s reality. The best case scenario is to get seven to nine hours per night. We’re lucky if we get four to six sometimes! The key is not to feel bad or give up because you can’t stick to every detail, but instead to become aware and do your best to stick to it. it’s all about balance and doing your best to get back on track.

SLEEPING PILLS

Beware of sleeping pills!
They not only tend to be addicting but people that use them find that they tend to wake up groggy. As far as melatonin supplementation, scientists are divided in opinion but most agree that the 3-milligram dose available in health food stores is too high, especially as the supplement has never been tested for safety in humans. Since we are very cautious when it comes to hormones, we would rather have you follow the guidelines below in order to ensure a good night’s sleep:

•
Avoid activities that involve deep concentration
as these activities will increase adrenaline levels and will prevent the brain from achieving the state of relaxation required to achieve sleep.