Good Mood Diet Articles

Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN, CNS, FISSN

The news media and chocolate manufacturers certainly are living it up these days. What better news is fit to print than the story that chocolate will make you healthy? But do we really want to turn one of our favorite "feel great foods" into medicine?

An Apple - er - Chocolate Bar a Day?
It all started with the research on dietary saturated fats and their association with an increased risk of developing heart disease. Over a decade ago researchers discovered that stearic acid, the predominant saturated fat in chocolate, actually has a neutral effect on blood cholesterol levels. This discovery exonerated chocolate from the list of foods that are bad for your heart. Even feeding subjects one whole chocolate bar a day didn't change levels of blood cholesterol.

Current research is even better. Spurred by the latest studies that show the health and life-extending benefits of antioxidants found in green tea and red wine, food scientists discovered similar compounds in cacao beans. A number of scientific journal articles have now documented the flavonol content of cacao beans, cocoa powder and chocolates. Flavanoids are a class of compounds found naturally in a variety of plant-based foods; flavonols are a specific type of flavonoid found predominantly in tea, red wine and cocoa. These compounds appear to have cardio-protective effects, including antioxidant properties, the ability to reduce the stickiness of blood cells, and even an effect on the lining of blood vessels so that they can remain dilated, allowing blood to pass more freely and keep blood pressure at normal levels.

My favorite data is about how chocolate makes us feel. When we're feeling low or run down, a bit of chocolate not only is a way to pamper ourselves, but it actually works with our brain chemistry to lift our moods and make us feel better. The combination of sugar and fat in chocolate elevate two key neurotransmitters, serotonin and endorphins. By raising them you may feel calmer, more relaxed and happier. Low levels of these brain chemicals are linked with depression and anxiety. Chocolate contains theobromine, a cousin of caffeine, which acts as a stimulant and raises your mood as a side-effect. Chocolate also contains a high level of phenylethylamine, the chemical produced by the brain when we fall in love. Combine that with the awesome taste, mouthfeel, aroma, and even memories associated with chocolate and you've got a number of factors that affect brain chemistry. Not bad for a few hundred calories.

The pivotal concept here is "a few hundred calories." The problem with chocolate is you can quickly go from there up to 1000 calories if you get carried away with how good you feel. Overweight and obesity are major risk factors for chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Healthful or Harmful?
Deciding which side of the line chocolate falls on goes back to two major tenets of nutrition: variety and moderation. To be sure, chocolate bars, whether very dark or milk, are high in calories, sugar and fat. When searching for sources of antioxidants in your diet, remember that fruits and vegetables, fish, nuts and seeds are rich sources of many important nutrients and antioxidants. Flavonol-rich cocoa is available in dark chocolate candy bars, cocoa powder and even desserts. On a regular basis it is probably best to get your flavonols from a cup of cocoa that is lighter in fat and calories, and that you can even make sugar-free (think: your Good Mood Diet nightly hot cocoa). But save your piece of dark chocolate for a time when you can really enjoy it, like you would sip from a glass of fine wine.

If you are looking for a good reason to eat chocolate, pampering yourself may be just as credible as its health benefits. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather think of my chocolate as a healthy indulgence, not medicine.

Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN, CNS, FISSN

You've read The Good Mood Diet. You've committed to The Good Mood plan. You may have already changed your diet and your fitness routines, and even signed onto an online chat group. Why bother to record what you are doing?

The Key to Success
It's not enough to learn about it, read about it, think about it, or talk about it. Resoundingly, successful dieters claim that the most important thing that they did to ensure their success was to write down what they ate and how they exercised every day. This is how you change old habits into new ones, and in the end, that is exactly what you are doing: creating new habits in place of old ones.

This tidbit of wisdom is even supported by scientific research. We know that when people keep records of what they eat every day, they eat more healthfully, lose more weight and are more successful at keeping that weight off. And if they happen to put on a few pounds, they can go right back to recording their food and easily lose the weight again. The difference with The Good Mood Diet is that how you feel is also a great reinforcement to keeping you on the Good Mood track. After a while, how you feel will be your barometer for checking on your diet and fitness behaviors.

Available through the Good Mood Diet Club
When you download the daily log from The Good Mood Diet Club page, you'll see that I have designed the log to fit exactly with the diet plan. No time-consuming writing down of every food you're eating all day long. You just check off the foods that you've eaten at each meal during the day. If you're eating from the Feel-Great Foods list but not really following the menu plan, you can just check off those all-important key Feel-Great foods for the day on the Instant Good Mood Food Checklist. Of course, tracking your fitness is critical to feeling good. You'll be doing that on the log, too.

The Bottom Line is How You Feel
As I always say, the bottom line is how you feel. That will be the last thing that you record each day. At the end of the day, the week or the month, go back and see how you felt on different days. See how your diet and exercise coordinate with how you feel each day, day after day. The tiny bit of time that you commit to keeping a log each day will have a great big payoff.

My first client in Seattle, Melody Biringer, wrote these points about keeping a log:

Why you should keep a log:

• Daily recording gives you a feeling of accomplishment.
• Looking back on a good day is the ultimate pat-on-the-back.
• Recording what you do motivates you to do better.
• Your log is the pulse of your lifestyle.
• A log helps you set goals for future improvement.
• Recording what you eat gives you the discipline to change eating habits.
• A food and exercise log helps you get back on track when you've strayed from your healthy habits.
• By keeping a log you can see that you are slowly making changes that count.
• A diet log helps you see your diet and create the balance that you need.
• A food log forces you to have variety in your diet; otherwise it looks bad.
• The best way to learn about what you eat and how much you are eating is to keep a log.

Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN, CNS, FISSN

If you've read The Good Mood Diet, or any of my books, you know that fish is one of my favorite Feel-Great foods. It is full of mood-elevating, brain-healthy and heart-healthy omega-3 fats. The protein in fish is also fabulous for muscle building and fat loss. And fat-rich fish are a great source of vitamin D, critical for the support of healthy bones and a healthy mood. Recently, higher rates of breast cancer incidence have been linked with low levels of vitamin D.

Readers also know that there's always a caveat to my praises: choose safe fish. The fish safety story is full of twists and turns and many unanswered questions. Here are the most common questions with answers that are as complete as I can make them at this moment in time.

Are Any Fish Safe to Eat?
The Mercury Problem
A Mercury Solution
The Pesticide Problem
A Pesticide Solution
Tuna Steaks and Sushi
Sushi Bars and Quality
Wild vs. Organic Salmon
Variety Helps
Safe Fish Resouces

Are Any Fish Safe to Eat?
There are two primary concerns with fish safety: contamination with mercury and contamination with pesticides.

The Mercury Problem
The mercury problem is a matter of contaminated waters and food chain hierarchy. Mercury is a by-product of heavy industry and manufacturing. It is released as pollution into the air where it is trapped in the clouds and released in rainwater into the oceans, becoming methylmercury. Methylmercury is a toxin to humans, and poisoning results in neurological disorders in adults. High levels of mercury will harm an unborn baby or young child's developing nervous system. As fish feed in these waters, the mercury builds up in them. The larger and longer-lived the fish, the greater the amount of smaller fish it consumes. Over years the methylmercury builds up in large predatory fish to relatively unsafe levels.

Nearly all fish contain trace amounts of mercury, as do all living things. Large fish, however, like swordfish, shark, tuna, king mackerel and tilefish pose the greatest risks. Some shellfish can also be high in methylmercury based on their very small size, the waters that they feed in and their key food sources. The Unites States Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency warn against eating shark, swordfish, king mackeral and tilefish completely and limiting intake of seafoods containing lower levels of mercury. (See the Fish Advisory from the EPA for details).

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A Mercury Solution: Buying Safe and Nutritionally Superior Tuna
What the advisory doesn't tell you is that there are sources of non-contaminated tuna available from independently owned fishing vessels that sail out of the Pacific Northwest. These fishers troll-catch small tuna - fish weighing 7 to 12 pounds versus the 40- to 70-pound fish caught by the longlining large commercial canneries. In addition, the large commercial canneries process the tuna out in the ocean and boil off the wonderful omega-3 fats. They throw the omega-3 oils overboard into the ocean! (One major cannery now has their own omega-3 fat supplement; they take it out of the fish and bottle it.)

Independent fishers, however, catch small tuna. They flash-freeze and can the fish with all their healthy fats intact. The fish are virtually mercury-free due to their small size and the waters where they are caught. These fishers are also very environmentally responsible, catching only tuna with no sea turtle or other by-catch, and fishing within sustainable catch sizes. You get a delicious tuna with all the healthy fat and none of the mercury. The large nationwide canneries can't say that about their products. (See NOTE for resources.)

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The Pesticide Problem
The other major concern about fish is pesticide contamination. This is particularly a problem in the farmed salmon industry. Wild salmon are born in the cold rivers that run from Alaska to California. After hatching they make their way to the ocean where they grow into mature fish, then return to their natal rivers to spawn. Most of the wild salmon is caught in a short period in the late spring through the summer when the fish migrate back from the oceans to the rivers. This natural life process produces a lean, high-quality protein fish that is high in vitamins D and E and omega-3 fatty acids.

Contrary to the lives of wild salmon, farm-raised salmon are raised in an industrialized and contained habitat that allows for mass production. They are fed an artificial diet made up of small fish that are ground up into fishmeal. An artificial dye is added to the fishmeal to give the fish the pinkish hue that they will not naturally develop since the color comes only from consuming the same diet as wild salmon.

Pollutants get into farmed salmon through the small fish used in the fishmeal. Pollutants, such as factory runoff, enter the habitat of small fish. The small fish absorb the pollutants and then are highly concentrated in the fishmeal. When the fishmeal is fed to the farmed salmon, the pollutants are stored in the salmon's fat.

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A Pesticide Solution: Buying Wild Salmon
A study examining 700 salmon from around the world analyzed them for more than 50 contaminants. The greatest difference between farmed and wild salmon was in the organochlorine compounds, and particularly the cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dieldrin and toxaphene. Farmed salmon in Europe had the highest levels, followed by those from North America. Farm-raised Chilean salmon were the cleanest.

The authors stated the concern that eating more than one meal of farmed salmon per month may hike the risk of cancer. Then they got down to specifics. You can safely eat:

Source of salmon	Serving and frequency
Farm-raised...
Scotland and Faroe Islands Canada and Maine Chile and Washington State	2 oz. per month 4 oz. per month 8 oz. per month
Wild Salmon	64 oz. per month (1 pound per week)

Note for pregnant women: These recommendations are based on how much salmon is safe to eat for the average person. Advice for pregnant women is still under debate. These pollutants can damage the developing endocrine system, immune system and brain. The compounds build up in body fat and linger there for decades - where they can be passed to a woman's fetus during pregnancy or fed to the baby through breast milk. Farmed salmon in the diets of women of child-bearing age are a definite concern.

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Tuna Steaks and Sushi? Safe or Not?
All types of longline caught (the most common method of catching these fish) albacore tuna, bigeye tuna (also known as ahi) and yellowfin tuna are considered high sources of mercury, regardless of whether they are canned or served as steaks or sushi. If you eat just a piece or two of tuna sushi every once in a while, then this shouldn't be a problem. But if you make tuna sushi your meal twice a week, your mercury levels may be high.

Bluefin and skipjack tunas are considered safe for health but the longline fishing technique is considered unsafe for the environment. Longline fishing leads to overfishing of the waters and high levels of by-catch, catching sea turtles, sea birds, sharks and occasionally marine mammals. Tuna caught by hand-polling or trolling are considered the most environmentally safe fishing methods.

Skipjack tuna is typically the "light" canned tuna, and this is why it has been considered safer to eat "light" tuna. However, a Chicago Tribune investigation uncovered information that "light" tuna sometimes contains yellowfin tuna, which is significantly higher in mercury, but it isn't labeled as such.

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Sometimes I think certain sushi bars serve inferior quality fish. How do they hide it?
One easy way to disguise less-than-top-quality tuna is to mix it with other ingredients. The spicy tuna roll is notorious in the sushi industry for exactly this reason. There are also methods to make the fish look fresher than it really is. "Gassing" or "smoking" tuna is a way to make it look rosier than it is. Fish that is not processed using very high quality methods can naturally lose its redness after death, even with freezing. After the tuna is butchered into loins or filets and before it is frozen, it is exposed to carbon monoxide. The gas binds with hemoglobin to prevent any change in the flesh from red to brown or even to gray. This misrepresents the product to the consumer, making it difficult to evaluate the age of the fish based on the color of the flesh.

While we hope that you get what you pay for, price is not always an indicator of the quality of the fish in a sushi restaurant. Here are a few tips to help you guide you:

• Fresh fish is rarely delivered on the weekend. Rule out Sundays and Mondays when considering a sushi restaurant meal.


• Fresh never means fishy. You should never know by walking in the door with your eyes closed that the restaurant serves fish. If there's a fishy smell, walk out.


• If it looks too good... while fresh fish should be translucent and shiny, if the tuna looks like it was painted red it may have been gassed. Ask the chef if it has been smoked. If so, don't eat it.


• Busy is better. A busy restaurant will have a higher turnover and fresher fish.

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Isn't wild salmon expensive? Can I buy organic salmon instead?
Wild salmon is definitely more expensive than farm-raised salmon. But it's well worth the price when you consider the risks involved and the benefits of eating salmon. But you do have some choices. During the salmon fishing season you should be able to find half-fish filets of wild salmon at the large warehouse stores like Costco. I buy 5 pounds at a time, cut it into portions and freeze it. Salmon will stay fresh in a frost-free freezer for at least 6 weeks, as long as it is well sealed.

There is still no definitive word on organic labeling of fish. The U.S. government does not control "organic" labeling standards for fish like other organic foods.

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Variety Helps
Finally, remember that there are many fish that contain omega-3 fats besides tuna and salmon. Sardines, anchovies, black cod, catfish and shrimp are all excellent sources of omega-3 fats. And any fish has more omega-3 fats than a hot dog!

Safe Fish Resouces

• www.montereybayaquarium.com
  The Seafood Watch program provides a guide that can help you make safe choices that are good for you and good for the oceans.


• www.gotmercury.org
  Gotmercury.org is part of Turtle Island Restoration Network's efforts to protect the environment and the public from mercury. It has a mercury calculator tool that takes the mystery out of which seafood is safe to eat with regard to the presence of mercury in certain species of seafood and allows consumers to make informed choices about eating seafood.

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Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN, CNS, FISSN

The front page of the January 24, 2007 Wall Street Journal ran a story about so-called spiritual healers with an MD after their names, a dollar sign on their entry doors, and bottles of snake-oil for sale masquerading as cancer treatments. They use faith and prayer as their sales pitch and a promise of unsubstantiated cures to prey on the fearful and the faithful. They don't reveal their methods beyond prayer vigils, and never expose the list of ingredients in their supplements.

For someone who is facing death and has unsuccessfully reached the end of available treatment options, these purveyors of quasi-faith-based medicine may offer a sweeter final stage of their disease, at least offering some comfort and hope when traditional medicine can offer none. The financial cost of this hope can be extraordinarily high, leaving loved ones in debt but perhaps feeling some emotional satisfaction for their dear departed one.

For those who have just been diagnosed with serious illness, turning first to these untested practitioners and unsubstantiated cures rather than science-based medical specialists can lead to a devastating outcome. Cancers that were at a treatable stage can advance and spread, and the time is lost where the patient could have looked forward to a successful outcome. They may have spent their financial resources on supplements costing from hundreds to thousands of dollars weekly, along with additional costs for visits, whether in-person or even long-distance.

While I am not against (and I am often an advocate of) the use of alternative therapies as a first start or adjunctive therapy, your practitioner should be willing to tell you the risks and benefits of the treatments, the supporting data behind their methods (published research is the gold standard), and certainly the ingredients in any supplement or product that you are asked to consume. Any secret mixture or magic potion should be suspected immediately.

This should be a guiding principle for all supplements.

Recommended Supplements for Good Mood Dieters

I do recommend two different supplements in The Good Mood Diet: a daily multi-vitamin mineral supplement (brand of your choice) and isolated whey protein (also your choice of brand).

I am frequently asked how to choose a mutli-vitamin-mineral supplement. First, ingredients should be fully disclosed on the labels. Brands from nationally known companies are generally more reliable than from small obscure manufacturers. Manufacturers should follow "good manufacturing practices" (known as GMPs). This is a sign of quality control in processing.

The US Pharmacopeia (USP) sets quality standards for ingredients and their disintegration rates during digestion. The USP symbol on a supplement label indicates that the ingredients listed on the label have been tested against a high standard. These standards can be for disintegration, meaning that the product disintegrates with digestion in an area of the gut where it can be absorbed into the body. Often, supplements either are not digested at all, or are digested too low in the gut to be absorbed and are ultimately excreted. The USP symbol can also indicate quality, purity and potency standards.

Finding More Information about Supplements

You can do a little research on your own to decide which product might be right for you. Just last week Consumerlab.com published a report investigating the quality of 35 popular multi-vitamin-mineral supplements. They are the "Consumer Reports" of the nutrition products industry. To see the full report there is a membership fee which supports the ongoing work of the lab.

Research reports are occasionally published in scientific journals. One very good and unusually large report was published by researchers from The University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada in February 2006: Investigation of vitamin and mineral tablets and capsules on the Canadian market. While they investigated products in the Canadian marketplace, many of the same products are available in the U.S. as well.

Skepticism: The Best Supplement of All?

Don't just pop anything into your mouth just because someone tells you to do so. Whether you are working with a physician, a dietitian, or other health care practitioner, ask questions and get satisfactory answers before blindly following anyone purely on faith. While faith can be a powerful participant in healing, medical practice should be based on science.

Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN, CNS, FISSN

Family dinners, tea ceremonies, sharing a bottle of wine, religious ceremonies, family game night, or curling up with a good book... All of these are rituals in our lives. Imagine life without them; a life without patterns, without the ability to know what's coming, or what to look forward to.

Rituals decrease stress and anxiety. When you have a plan, or you know what to look forward to, you don't have to worry about what is going to happen, what is expected of you, or whom you will be sharing your time with.

The Japanese Tea Ceremony is a great example. In an article published in 1996 in the Holistic Nurse Practitioner Journal, Keenan wrote, "When people attend a Japanese Tea Ceremony, they often remark that it had a calming effect on them." The effect comes from ritualizing everyday chores and giving them an aesthetic dimension. Rather than focusing on the mundane acts, you concentrate solely on the present moment, shutting out worries about the past and anxieties about the future.

Research has shown that adolescents raised in families with frequent family dinners and celebrations have better mental health, better relationships, and fewer high-risk behaviors. According to the researchers, "Family rituals such as regular mealtimes may ease the stress of daily living in the fast-paced families of today's society."

If you look, you'll find lots of rituals built into The Good Mood Diet. The most obvious is the pattern that you follow as your Good Mood Template every day. Your hot cocoa in the evening is a very important end-of-day ritual to look forward to as you ease into rest and relaxation, and finally sleep.

If you are a tea drinker, your afternoon tea can also become a ritual that you look forward to. I have a cupboard full of different teas that I enjoy depending on my mood in the afternoon. I have loose teas for when I'm home, and I have bags for when I'm out and about. I find it especially important to carry tea with me when I travel, bringing a little bit of home and comfort with me while I'm on the road.

Alcohol plays a big ritualistic role in our society. It is part of religious ceremonies and celebrations of any size. We associate it with relaxation. It acts as an ice-breaker at a gathering, giving party-goers something to talk about and to do with their hands.

Alcohol (more than 2 drinks per week) is on the Feel Bad Foods list. Because of the important ritual surrounding alcohol, I would never remove alcohol from The Good Mood Diet without giving you another ritual as an alternative. If you enjoy the ritual of alcohol more often than twice a week, we have created a great alternative for you. While you won't have the alcohol, it may actually be the ritual of it all that you really enjoy.

In the recipe section of the book you'll find several "smoothie" recipes that are actually wonderful juice drinks. Call them "mocktails" if you must, but we have created them to create a whole new Good Mood ritual. You can still use the fancy glassware, and get all dressed up, but instead of drinking a Cosmopolitan, drink a Good Mood Metropolitan. The Mango Mambo and Blackberry Bliss were big hits at our last Good Mood Diet Club party.

So create some new rituals that feel good to you. Even better, create some new Good Mood Juice Drink recipes and send them in to us to share online. Have a party. Get your club together and get those creative juices flowing!

Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN, CNS, FISSN

Heart Disease accounts for the deaths of 1 out of every 3 women. It is considered nearly epidemic. For years the symptoms and risks of heart disease in women were ignored. This week the American Heart Association published the most comprehensive guidelines yet for preventing heart disease in women. The focus has changed to a woman’s lifetime risk for heart disease, rather than the short-term risk that was the focus of the 2004 guidelines.

According to Dr. Lori Mosca, chair of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) expert panel that devised the guidelines, “Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among women. The rate of awareness among women has increased from 30 to almost 60 percent, but we still need to work on the confusion around preventive strategies. We are very encouraged that the release of these new guidelines can help clear up some of this confusion and help our women engage in more conversations with physicians and health care providers as to what are the best strategies to reduce the burden of the number-one killer of women.”

The new guidelines include expanded recommendations on lifestyle factors such as physical activity, nutrition and smoking cessation, as well as more in-depth recommendations on drug treatments for blood pressure and cholesterol control that you can pursue with your health care provider.

Highlights of the changes include:

Help manage blood pressure by controlling weight, increasing physical activity, moderating alcohol intake, restricting sodium intake, and especially eating fresh fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products.

Quit smoking. If you need to quit, the 2007 guidelines recommend counseling, nicotine replacement or other forms of smoking cessation therapy.

If you need to lose weight or sustain weight-loss, exercise. Include at least 60 to 90 minutes of moderate-intensity activity on most, and preferably all, days of the week. Brisk walking is a good, moderate-intensity activity.

All women should reduce their intake of saturated fats to less than 7 percent of calories, if possible. (See the Chapter Notes for Chapter 1 in The Good Mood Diet for more information on saturated fats.)

Eat oily fish at least twice a week and consider taking supplements as follows:

• Women with heart disease should consider taking a capsule supplement of 850 to 1000 mg of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid).


• Women with high triglycerides should take a capsule supplement of 2 to 4 grams of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid).

Not recommended to prevent heart disease:

• Hormone replacement therapy and selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) are not recommended to prevent heart disease in women.



• Antioxidant supplements (such as vitamins E and C and beta-carotene) should not be used for primary or secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease.



• Folic acid should not be used to prevent cardiovascular disease. This is a change from the 2004 guidelines that did recommend it be considered for use in certain high-risk women.

Aspirin therapy may be considered as follows:

• For women age 65 or older, regardless of their risk for cardiovascular disease, routine low-dose aspirin therapy may be considered, if the benefits are likely to outweigh other risks. (Previous guidelines did not recommend aspirin in lower-risk or healthy women.)


• For women with a very high-risk for heart disease, consider reducing LDL cholesterol to less than 70 mg/dL. (This may require a combination of cholesterol-lowering drugs.)

All women should take these guidelines very seriously. If you are in a room with 2 other women, the odds are that one of you will die of heart disease. Make the choice to change that statistic today.

Proteins, carbs, vitamins, minerals, water, and fats. Of the six primary classes of nutrients, which is the most critical for growth, muscle development, and health? If you guessed water, you’re right!

It is hard to say enough good things about water. Water is the most abundant compound in the human body, making up about 60 percent of the body weight in adults. It fills virtually every space in cells and between them. All biochemical reactions occur in water, and water is an active participant in those reactions. From energy production to joint lubrication to reproduction, there is no system in your body that does not depend on water.

But with all the obvious importance of water, it appears that most of us aren’t drinking enough. Nearly one-third of the U.S. population is walking around slightly dehydrated. “So what?” you ask. “What’s the big deal about being slightly dehydrated?”

A voluminous problem

Just about everyone knows that you can get pretty sick and even die from severe dehydration. But the fact is that chronic, mild dehydration – a constant 1 to 2 percent deficit of body weight caused by loss of fluids – can have a measurable effect on mental and physical performance, muscle growth, and even long-term health.

Water and your muscles

Since muscles are nearly 70 percent water, even a small loss of fluid will affect their function. Muscles are controlled by nerves. The electrical stimulation of nerves and contraction of muscles occurs due to the exchange of electrolytes dissolved in water across the nerve and muscle cell membranes.

• If you’re low on water or electrolytes, your muscle strength and control are weakened.
• A water deficit of just 2 to 4 percent of your body weight can cut your strength-training workout by as much as 21 percent, and your aerobic power by a whopping 48 percent!

If gaining muscle is your goal, then you should care about cell volumization, or the hydration state of your muscle cells. In a well-hydrated muscle cell, protein synthesis is stimulated and protein breakdown is decreased. On the other hand, muscle-cell dehydration promotes protein breakdown and inhibits protein synthesis.

Cell volume has also been shown to influence genetic expression, enzyme and hormone activity, and metabolic regulation.

Water and your body fat

As you mobilize your stored fatty acids to burn off as energy, you release any fat-soluble toxins that have been benignly stored in your fat cells. The more fluid you drink, the more dilute the toxins in your bloodstream, and the more rapidly they exit from your body.

When your goal is losing body fat, water is your friend.

• Drinking an adequate amount of water can help take the edge off hunger so that you eat less. And water has no calories.


• If you are on a high protein diet, water is required to detoxify ammonia, a by-product of protein energy metabolism.

Water and your brain

When it comes to peak mental capacity, whether at the office or in competition, your hydration state will affect your performance. In a study of subjects’ abilities to perform mental exercises after heat-stress induced dehydration, a fluid loss of only 2 percent of body weight caused 20 percent reductions (as compared to their well-hydrated state) in:

• Arithmetic ability


• Short-term memory


• The ability to visually track an object

Kidney stones, cancer, heart problems

Probably most surprising is the effect that chronic, mild dehydration has on health and disease. It was a practice of Hippocrates to recommend large intakes of water to increase urine production and decrease the recurrence of urinary tract stones. Today approximately 12 to 15 percent of the general population will form a kidney stone at some time.

Many factors can modify the urinary risk factors for developing stones.

• Of these, diet – especially fluid intake – is the only one that can be easily changed and that has a marked effect on all urinary risk factors.

Several studies have discovered a direct correlation between fluid intake and the incidence of certain cancers.

• Studies in Israel, Great Britain, and the United States have observed that the more fluid that people drink, the lower their risks of bladder, prostate, kidney, testicle, renal pelvis, ureter, colon, and breast cancers.

In some of the studies, a decrease in cancer risk was specifically associated with water intake.

• A study in Seattle Washington showed that women who drank more than 5 glasses of water a day had a 45 percent decreased risk of colon cancer, versus those who consumed 2 or fewer glasses per day. Men had a non-statistically significant reduction of cancer by 32 percent when they drank more than 4 glasses a day, versus 1 or fewer glasses a day.


• Although the data are preliminary, a pilot study in Great Britain found that the risk for developing breast cancer was reduced by 79 percent among water drinkers when adjusted for all other related factors.

Mild dehydration can also be a factor in the occurrence of mitral valve prolapse.

• In a study of 14 healthy women with normal heart function, mitral valve prolapse was induced by mild dehydration, and resolved with rehydration.

Your fluid plan

Contrary to our drive to eat, our drive to drink is not as keen. Our thirst mechanism doesn’t kick in until we are already mildly dehydrated.

When you’re working out moderately in a mild climate, you are probably losing 1 to 2 quarts (2 to 4 pounds) of fluid per hour through perspiration. That means that a 150-pound person can easily lose 2 percent of their body weight in fluid (3 pounds) within an hour. If exercise is more intense or the environment is more extreme fluid, losses will be greater. You can see how easily you become dehydrated.

• If you don’t replenish your fluid losses during exercise, you will fatigue early and your performance will be diminished.


• Without fluid replenishment after exercise, your performance on successive days will decay, and your long-term health may be at risk.

Design a fluid plan just like you plan your food. To cover your minimum intake, make sure you drink non-caffeinated and non-alcoholic beverages all day, as follows. Since alcohol and caffeine can promote water loss, make at least 5 of your beverages water.

• A couple cups when you get up in the morning


• A few more cups mid-morning


• A couple cups at lunch


• Two more in the mid-afternoon


• Two more at dinner

Then add what you need to be well hydrated before, during, and after exercise.

Monitor your hydration status. One of the easiest ways is to check your urine; it should be relatively odorless and no darker colored than straw. Anything darker is a good sign that you are dehydrated and need to be drinking more.

Don’t get caught empty-handed

Many factors increase water requirements, including high heat, low humidity, high altitude, exercise, dieting, illness, travel and pregnancy.

• Carry water and fluids with you as a constant reminder to drink.
• Freeze fluids in water bottles to keep them cold during long-distance exercise.
• Remember that fruits and vegetables are great sources of water.

And whoever is driving you to drink, tell them “thank you!”

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Symptoms of dehydration

Early signs	Severe signs
Fatigue Loss of appetite Flushed skin Burning in stomach Light-headedness Headache Dry mouth Dry cough Heat intolerance Dark urine with strong odor	Difficulty swallowing Stumbling Clumsiness Shriveled skin Sunken eyes and dim vision Painful urination Numb skin Muscle spasm Delirium

Fluid intake guidelines

• Drink a minimum of 1 quart (4 cups) of fluid for every 1,000 calories you eat every day.
• Drink at least 5 cups of water every day.
• Fluids should be cool.
• For moderate exercise that lasts an hour or less, water is sufficient for replacing lost fluids. If you like flavored drinks better, then use flavored beverages.
• For intense exercise that lasts less than 1 hour and exercise lasting more than an hour, carbohydrate-electrolyte sport drinks are best.
• Drink 2 cups of fluid 2 hours before exercise.
• Drink 4-6 ounces every 15 to 20 minutes during exercise.
• After exercise, drink 16-20 ounces (2-2½ cups) of fluid for every pound of body weight lost during exercise.

The reaction to listing trans fats on food labels has created a revolution in the food industry. If you look at the nutrition facts label on the back of most packaged foods, you’ll see a big zero beside the trans fat column, except for several stragglers in the frozen food, snack food and popcorn categories. If trans fats were so pervasive in the food supply before the labeling legislation, what are the food manufacturers using to replace it in the list of ingredients?

More importantly, are the trans fat alternatives better, or worse for our health, than the original?

Trans fat primer

Just in case you’ve been living on the moon for the past few years and you’re not sure what the big deal is about trans fats, here’s a quick lesson. Unlike other fats in our food supply, trans fats are mostly artificial. A very small percentage of trans fats are actually found naturally in meat and dairy products, but the mother - load of trans fats are manufactured in the laboratory through the process of hydrogenation. This process changes a healthy liquid vegetable oil into a partially saturated fat.

These fats were created as alternatives to butter and lard in processed foods, removing the saturated fats found naturally in those foods. The trans fats maintained the same flakiness, crispness and taste imparted by butter and lard, and at the same time increased shelf life by reducing rancidity. They were a miracle boon to the world of packaged foods and restaurant fare.

In 1993 Dr. Walter Willet of the Harvard School of Public Health questioned the impact on health that artificially manufactured trans fats might have on the American public. Research that he conducted at that time showed that the more industrially produced trans fats you ate, the higher your risk of heart disease. Except for the consumer watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest, few people paid heed to Dr. Willet’s findings. The explanation at the time was that trans fats just weren’t that prevalent in the food supply; they were found mostly in margarines.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Current research on trans fats shows that they are at least as bad, if not worse, than butter and lard in promoting heart disease. Until the labeling law went into effect last year, trans fats were almost ubiquitous in our food supply, and heart disease is rampant. Huge serving sizes and overeating of fast foods, fried foods and snack foods haven’t helped the situation any. The solution to the abundance of trans fats in the food supply was to require their listing on the nutrition facts labels of all packaged foods. With the negative press and public opinion weighing on their shoulders, food manufacturers took rapid flight from the use of trans fats and are racing to find an alternative.

The race is on

So what is in the food that we’re eating now that trans fats are out? Well, first you should know that up to .49 grams of trans fat can be in a serving of food that is labeled as 0 grams of trans fat.

Some manufacturers have just reduced the portion sizes of their foods to meet the zero trans fat threshold.

Others have removed some proportion of their trans fat ingredients (but not all) and replaced it with mixtures of other oils.

Many manufacturers are using the tropical oils: palm, palm kernel, and coconut oils, which are saturated vegetable fats, as replacements for trans fats. They can mimic many of the food chemistry attributes of saturated fats like butter. Historically, nutritionists have guided consumers away from these saturated oils, but there is some speculation that because these come from plants, and not animals, their saturated fat content may not be as bad as we thought. The jury is still out on that one.

New chemically rearranged fats are also on the market and are big news in the industry. Called interesterified fats, the fatty acids are shuffled on each fat molecule in the laboratory to create partially saturated fats. Just like hydrogenation, interesterification produces some molecules that are rarely, if ever, found in nature.

In a recently published study from Malaysia in the January 15th issue of the online journal Nutrition & Metabolism, researchers found that the interesterified fat that they tested had significantly more negative effects on blood sugar and cholesterol levels compared to a trans fat or palm oil. The study received wide press coverage. Many scientific experts, however, have argued that the design of the study was flawed. They claim that the study was funded by a Malaysian palm-oil-industry group, that the researchers conducting the study all had financial ties to the industry group, and the volunteers were employees of the organization. The goal, say experts, was to create the illusion that palm oil is the healthy alternative when compared to interesterified fats or trans fats.

The interesterified fat used in the study was more highly saturated than a typical fat that would be used in place of trans fats by the food industry. Additionally, the trans fat was less hydrogenated, containing fewer trans fats, than one typically used in food processing. In fact, some industry scientists say that in past studies, interesterified fats have had more healthful effects on cholesterol than have trans fats. I’m not sure that’s saying all that much. So the jury is still out on this one, too.

The high-tech agricultural industry is getting in on the race, too. With genetic alteration through selection and interbreeding, more stable oils could be cultivated. These might be derived from soy, corn, sunflower and other domestically grown crops. Genetic engineering is also a possibility for creating entirely new crops.

Who wins?

Right now we don’t have a clue about the health risks associated with any of the trans fat alternatives. Many feel that the tropical oils are the best option; others feel that interesterified fats hold the most promise.

The fact is that something is already replacing the trans fats in packaged foods. But not only packaged foods. Restaurants in NYC have had to make their menus trans fat-free. Nationwide, the Starbucks chain has required all its bakeries to meet the requirements for zero trans fat labeling. In all likelihood, unless you only eat fresh, unprocessed foods at home, you are already eating foods using the trans fat alternatives.

Who wins? In my book, it’s the food manufacturers. A whole new industry of processed oils is being reborn. New products will be created that will be more palatable with the new oils. And it will be another decade or more before anyone notices whether these oils are healthy or harmful. Either enjoy being a guinea pig, or reduce your use of packaged foods and fast foods.

As always, the most healthy alternatives are fresh, whole foods from a trusted source.