Count Nutrients; Not Calories

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By Richard Labaki 

 

(RenYou)  “How many calories should I ingest on a daily basis in order to be healthy and to manage my bodyweight?”  This is a question that I get asked repeatedly.  And my answer is always the same: Eat as much as you want, as long as your calories are coming from the right food sources.  Alright, I can hear you wondering how preposterous this sounds – how come it’s possible to eat as much as you want!  What if you overeat – wouldn’t this make you gain weight?  Besides, you are constantly informed by the media as well as most dieticians that counting calories is essential to staying slim.  

Well let us get this straight: First, don’t believe everything you hear – be it through the media or as conveyed by the so-called experts, who probably don’t keep abreast of the latest research and very likely stopped reading scientific books the minute they earned their degree.  Nutrition, and its impact on health, is one of those fields that are constantly being shaped by ongoing studies.  It is a moving target.  And so while some principles remain sound and solid, others crumble under the weight of new and credible research.  Counting calories is one such principle that has been proven to be neither effective nor practical (come on, do you actually have the time and the energy to calculate every food item you ingest even if counting calories were effective?!)  

Here is my simple argument: The appetite center in the brain is there to maintain your health and life.  Your brain is constantly monitoring the level of nutrients your body is receiving through food.  When you eat “empty calories” – ones that come from processed foods, such as bread, sugar, corn flakes and others – your appetite goes into overdrive.  You would be eating a lot and gaining weight but your food is devoid of the necessary nutrients to sustain health.  Ironically, this makes you overweight yet totally and utterly malnourished. 

Your appetite goes “mad” in an attempt to make you eat more until you acquire the needed vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.  However, when you eat foods that have high nutritional value (like avocado and free-range eggs for example) and your body receives the needed nutrients, then your appetite automatically regulates over time.  In other words, you reach a point where you only eat as much as your body requires – no more and no less.  Moreover, healthy food choices regulate and balance all the hormones that have an impact on appetite and satiety while poor food choices (nutrient deficient meals) have the opposite effect.  

So here is a word of advice: Instead of constantly worrying about how many calories you are consuming with every bite, start by focusing more on foods that nourish your body and well-being – giving you strength, energy and vitality.  This is an effective – and very liberating – approach.  Share your experience if you have ever tried counting calories in the past; how did it go for you?

How clean are you on the inside?

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Nutritional and fitness plans alone are insufficient if you aim to reach optimal health – unless heavy metals are removed from the body

By Richard Labaki


(RenYou) “Do you eat a lot of fish?” I ask Jennifer, as I’m going through her OligoScan test results.  “Not a week goes by without enjoying sushi/sashimi with friends and family,” she beams.  But my question here was not a form of establishing rapport with a client I had just met.  I was simply trying to analyze her test results, which showed alarming levels of mercury.  My question regarding seafood intake stemmed from the fact that big fish, such as tuna, contain high concentrations of this heavy metal (due to rising pollution in oceans worldwide.)  In other words, consuming seafood regularly could increase mercury accumulation in the human body – and this is bad news! 
 
There are various reasons as to why our health deteriorates.  And one of the main contributors to this problem, which is rarely addressed by the conventional medicine community, is heavy metal toxicity.  Heavy metals have been building up in our body due to pollution that is finding its way into our air, water and food supply.  These heavy metals, which include aluminum, lead, mercury and others, could severely damage our health. 
 
The spectrum of symptoms and diseases they could cause ranges from fatigue, nausea and hitting a weight loss plateau to diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.   Simply put, removing these heavy metals from the body through safe and effective means is crucial for our wellbeing.  Until recently, testing for heavy metals was a costly and tiring process – but not anymore.
 
A couple of months back, I came across a new test called OligoScan at the Dermapro center in Beirut.  To cut a long story short, this is a quick and non-invasive test that provides valuable information concerning heavy metal toxicity and mineral deficiencies in the body (read the info below for a scientific explanation on how it works.)  And so once you undergo this test, the therapist could then determine the best detoxification approach to recommend and the most suitable mineral supplements to administer. 
 
For example, Jennifer had several heavy metals well above the normal range.  In addition to mercury, she also suffered high levels of aluminum, cadmium and arsenic.  Her mineral deficiencies included phosphorus, chromium, iodine and selenium.  All these imbalances contributed to reduced metabolic performance, poor cognitive functions (focus, memory, etc…), digestive discomfort and hormonal imbalances.  So yes, Jennifer’s health was a total wreck.
  
It is often said that knowing the problem is half the solution.  Using the OligoScan, especially when coupled with other tests, could be an important tool for understanding your own unique health issues.  Consequently, a customized program could be designed to help restore balance to your body. 
 
Three months into her detoxification and dietary program, Jennifer redid the OligoScan test and we noticed encouraging improvements on multiple levels.  Heavy metals dropped while mineral levels increased to an optimal range.  This was achieved because she fully followed the plan that I had given her.  “I feel so much better,” she explains.  “I feel more energized, less bloated and I sleep like a baby now.”   
 
Jennifer continues to enjoy seafood, but her body is now more adept at eliminating the heavy metals that will continually find their way into her system.  After all, no one has control over the increasing levels of pollution we’re exposed to in this day and age.  But at least there is something we can all do to lessen the damage it causes to our health.

How does OligoScan work?
OligoScan is designed to test the bioavailability of minerals and heavy metals in the tissues of the body.  It uses an optical method (spectrophotometry) to obtain results on the amount of trace elements – measuring the absorbance or the optical density of a chemical substance. Every chemical compound absorbs, emits or reflects light (electromagnetic radiation) over a certain range of wavelength.  The measure is made on the skin of the palm, and this allows you to see what is happening directly in tissues (not in the body’s fluids, which are unstable.) Optical methods are used in various domains, such as chemistry, pharmacy, environment, food-processing, biology, medical, material/chemical engineering and clinical applications. 

The Red or the Blue Pill? Awaking to the truth that not all supplements are created equal

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(RenYou) So you have taken that vitamin C tablet to boost your immunity and added a probiotic to lessen your digestive discomfort.  But very little or nothing has happened!  Your immunity is still weak and that bloat and indigestion have not abandoned your midsection.  And so your faith in the natural health approach may have been lost forever.  What your physician has been telling you all along turned out to be true, you think to yourself.  "You don't need supplements and multivitamins," you remember him/her preaching.  "When you have a headache just take pharmaceutical painkillers.  When you have high cholesterol levels take statins (which are cholesterol lowering drugs).  When your face breaks out with acne, just lather it with a facial cream made out from petrochemicals and you'll be just fine!"

Well, if this has ever happened to you then this article was simply written to restore your faith in natural healing.  Fact is, supplements could play an integral role in fortifying your health and alleviating many of today's diseases and conditions.  Certainly, relying on supplements alone while maintaining lousy and unhealthy lifestyle habits would not yield the desired results… hence the name, SUPPLEMENTS!  Supplements do not neutralize the effects of ongoing unhealthy habits.  What they do, however, is help in cleaning up the mess and improving conditions when you finally decide to fix your lifestyle habits and food choices.  And so this is the first point to keep in mind: Supplements are not magic pills. They only help when they are part of a holistic approach to healing.

The second element to keep in mind when it comes to supplements is that they weren’t all created equal.  Of the thousands of supplement brands out there, only a handful have passed the strict standards that I have set for the supplements I would use myself and even give to my 85-year-old grandmother.  Not all companies apply stringent quality control in terms of using only the best ingredients and following strict safety measures to rule out potentially dangerous contaminants.  There are so many issues that could make the difference between a supplement that works safely and effectively and another that creates more harm than good.  Here’s one way I like to look at it: We’re all well aware that all cars have four wheels and they all take us from point A to point B.  But we also know that a Rolls Royce is very different from a Fiat.  There is no room for comparison here.  The same principle applies to the realm of supplements – a vitamin C capsule from a certain brand could be completely and totally different from a vitamin C from another brand.    

You will be constantly reading about my take on the various supplement brands that I highly recommend.  I will be even reviewing specific products and sharing with you my thoughts on their level of effectiveness, mode of use and several other important variables.  While we’re on the topic, I am pleased to announce that RenYou is now an affiliate of Life Extension – one of the largest anti-aging organizations and makers of high grade natural supplements and vitamins.  Stay tuned for constant updates on the latest breakthroughs in the realm of natural supplements.   

Until then, remember the next time you go supplement shopping (or browsing) to ask yourself this very simple question, "Am I shopping for a 'Rolls Royce' or a 'Fiat' today?" 

 

Richard Labaki