American Fitness Professionals & Associates

You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind. To conquer fear and worry-keep busy!

We can endure disaster and tragedy, and triumph over them-if we have to. We may not think we can, but we have surprisingly strong inner resources that will see us through if we will only make use of them. We are stronger than we think.
The world is filled with interesting things to do. Don’t lead a dull life in such a thrilling world.

Table of Contents:

Rebuliding the Food Pyramid: Nutrition Experts says government’s advice outdated
Tools to Help the Fitness Professional
Drug Industry Lies About New Drug Research and Development
HRT [Hormone Replacement Therapy]
Does Not Protect a Woman’s Heart-It Can Cause More Damage
Secrets for Treating and Preventing Ear Infections
Medications Don’t Work for High Blood Pressure in Many Patients
Questions and Answers: Trying to Lose Weight in All the Wrong Ways

A new theory threatens to upend the government’s food pyramid, the nutrition bible that is used by dieters, taught to schoolchildren across the country and plastered on bread labels. The U.S. Department of Agriculture pyramid is outdated and doesn’t reflect the latest food research, says Harvard professor Walter Willett, a top national nutrition researcher and author of a new book,

Eat, Drink and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating (Simon & Schuster, $25).http://www.usatoday.com/life/2001-07-food-pyramid.htm

Create professional-quality exercise routines your clients will love. VHI’s computer software PC-Kits is designed specifically for the fitness professional. Choose from VHI’s extensive exercise collections which include, Strength Training, Pilates Mat, Yoga, Stretching, Plyometrics, Tubing and much more.. For more information or to request a FREE DEMO go to www.vhikits.com\afpa\count.asp

The pharmaceutical industry spends about one-fifth of what it says it spends on the research and development. A Public Citizen report reveals how major U.S. drug companies have carried out a misleading campaign to scare policymakers and the public. http://www.mercola.com/2001/aug/4/drug_industry.htm

The American Heart Association is now advising doctors to avoid considering Synthetic Hormone Replacement Therapy in women In the wake of recent study findings that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may not protect older women’s hearts as once thought, the American Heart Association (AHA) is cautioning doctors not to prescribe HRT for heart reasons alone. In new guidelines issued Jul 23, the AHA states that women with cardiovascular disease should not be given HRT for the sole reason of preventing future heart attacks. In fact, its panel of experts advises, heart health should essentially be left out of HRT decisions for these patients.  The AHA panel based its advisory on the results of several studies of HRT and heart disease, including the Heart and Estrogen/progestin Replacement Study (HERS). That 4-year trial found that among women with heart disease, taking oral estrogen plus progestin actually raised the risk of recurrent heart attack and death during the first year of use, and thereafter lowered it only slightly. Circulation July 24, 2001;104:499-503  http://www.mercola.com/2001/aug/4/estrogen.htm

Ear drops that include extracts of garlic may help reduce the pain of middle-ear infection in children. Antibiotics are often used to kill the bugs that cause middle-ear infections, but doctors also frequently recommend painkillers to ease children’s discomfort.  Most American children will develop a middle-ear infection by the age of 7, but occur most frequently between the ages of 6 months and 18 months. They often arise when a throat infection or cold spreads to the ear, and may be accompanied by fever.  Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine July, 2001; 155: 796-799

The garlic solution above is certainly simple to use for the treatment of acute ear infections. One can easily make this up by crushing a clove FRESH raw garlic and dissolving it in some olive oil and then put a few drops of the oil in the ear canal, as long as the ear drum is not perforated.  A majority of ear infections occur from the ages of 6 to 18 months, so if the children are being breastfed, not only would the breast milk be easy to obtain, but the ear infections would be less likely to occur in the first place.  Ear aches are one of the most common reasons that sick children see doctors. They also happen to be one of the easiest problems to prevent. Following the food choice program and eliminating milk and grains and all fluids but water eliminates most of them.

In most cases, failing to take prescribed blood pressure medications–what doctors call poor compliance–does not explain why patients still have higher than normal blood pressure.

Past research found that only a minority of patients with high blood pressure consistently took their medications as prescribed, but no study has compared compliance in patients whose blood pressure was well-controlled with that in patients with poor blood pressure control.

The investigators, therefore, did exactly that–measured blood pressure and monitored the medication taken by 105 patients, including 55 with good blood pressure control and 50 without. Both groups of patients showed similar compliance with their prescriptions. More than 80% of each group took their medications regularly.  Did simply monitoring their behavior contribute to blood pressure control?  No, the authors show, as blood pressures did not change significantly in either group over the 4-week study.   Looking for other explanations, the researchers were able to show only that the more pills a person had to take, the less likely it was that he or she would take them consistently.  More than 90% of patients who had once-daily medication prescribed took their medication, whereas only 77% took their twice-daily medication.  Doctors very often believe that the lack of a response to their therapy is due to the fact that their patients do not follow their prescriptions correctly and do not take the drugs.  This may sometimes be the case but it is much less frequent than is commonly assumed and does not often explain resistance to therapy.  The investigators warned patients that the lack of a response to therapy might make the doctor believe that the patient does not take the drug.
British Medical Journal July 21, 2001;323:142-146

Question:  I have been on a slim fast plan for about 7 Weeks, started at 220lbs.  I have a friend that is doing it with me. We try to speed walk at least 3 times a week for 1 hour and 10 minutes.  We walk 5 miles each time.  Some weeks we walk 4 times a week.  We are now starting to jog a little bit.  For advice I want to know if we are doing something wrong as far as eating habits and doing the slim fast.  I have done the calorie intake and it says my body needs around 2400 calories.  So far I have lost 6 pounds.  

My goal is 198.  Do you have any advice. I have a wedding on june 23 that I am in I would like to lose some of the fat hanging stuff on my back on the sides right under my arm pits.  Any ideas or exercises to do.  I have some 3.5 weights that I could use but I am not sure what to do with them.  Do you have any ideas and am I on the right  track. It seems the weight is coming off so slow.

How I Eat:  1 slimfast for breakfast 1 cup of coffee

1 slimfast for lunch or 1 cup of soup 1 slimfast bar for snack any kind of dinner like spaghetti, bread, salad or meat, potato, vegetable. 3 liter of water a day.

Answer: You are eating toward disease, not towards health. Slim fast is not designed for health-look at the ingredients.  After depriving your body of nutrients all day you eat refined carbohydrates and fats for dinner.

If you really want to drop fat weight you need to trash the meal replacements, and coffee, meat, refined flour pasta and embark on a healthy eating plan of fresh vegetables, and whole grains [brown rice, millet, barley, oats], sweet potato’s, olive oil, flax seed oil.

Read Andrew Weil’s “Eight Weeks to Optimum Health”, and Dr. Dean Ornish, “Reversing Heart Disease”.  These doctors preach health through a diet absent of refined carbohydrates, sugars and bad fats [loaded in products that are quick packaged].

An excellent website is www.pcrm.org.  also read our position paper on weight management at:

http://www.afpafitness.com/articles/AFPAPosWtMg.htm

Your walking is great-work towards two sessions each day for as long as you can walk.  Work with heavier weights if you can to strengthen your upper body.  This will assist you in dropping the fat weight more efficiently. For more information on learning the correct form for resistance training check: http://www.afpafitness.com/cert-AdvancedStrength.html