Food Coaching Workshop Calendar - January 2011

Quite a few patients have expressed the desire to receive help with planning, shopping and preparing tasty foods without spending an exorbitant amount of money or time. Please join us on any or all of the following dates to receive lots of tips to be healthier and look your best. Whether you're trying to lose weight or improve your heath you'll learn a lot at hour long presentation.

Food Coaching Workshops are perfect to help with weight loss, hypothyroidism/Hashimoto's, diabetes and food sensitivities.

The Upcoming Food Coaching Classes for 2011 are as follows:

Tuesday, January 4th

Wednesday, January 12

Tuesday, January 18

Wednesday, January 26

All classes start at 6:30 and are by reservation only. Classes Limited To 10 People. Call 212-286-9098 to reserve a seat. You are welcome to bring friends, family and co-workers.

Each Week We Will Answer Your Questions And Discuss Various Topics Including;
How to plan your meals 1 week in advance.

How to shop for healthy, economical food.

How to prepare tasty, healthy meals.

How to lose weight without being hungry

How to snack for energy

The most important meal of the day

Foods to avoid

5 Ways A Clean Liver Can Help You Burn Fat

As part of our new "Turbo-Charged Zerona Cleanse" we take great care to cleanse the liver. Why? If the liver is overwhelmed by the presence of abnormal microbes in the intestine, food sensitivities or abnormal immune function for example, it can’t do one of its most important jobs: keep weight and body fat under control.

Here are five ways this super-organ of detoxification helps keep you slim.

Thyroid
The liver influences hormone activity, which can significantly affect your ability to maintain your desired weight and shape. For example, the liver produces about 80 percent of the active thyroid hormone T3. T3 increases your body's metabolism meaning that you burn more calories when your T3 levels are normal. Some people who suffer from hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's can
have trouble with this conversion.

Inflammation
Every day we are exposed to a variety of external and internal toxins that the liver must neutralize in order to keep us healthy. Buildup of toxins can result in a sluggish liver with decreased fat-burning capacity. This can happen because the inflammation caused by some toxic substances inhibits fat-burning chemicals, or enzymes.

Estrogen
The liver breaks down excess estrogen. Too much of this hormone can cause weight gain. Also, excess estrogen increases the amount of fat the body stores. It does this in a number of ways such as by interfering with normal thyroid hormone activity - causing hypothyroidism.

Cortisol
The liver decreases the amount of circulating cortisol. Cortisol, also know as the stress hormone, is a culprit behind the build-up of abdominal fat. High levels of the hormone interfere with the normal breakdown of fats and increase the activity of enzymes responsible for producing fat. This is why stress can actually make you fat.

Insulin
Similar to cortisol, the liver also keeps insulin levels in check. Too much insulin slows down fat metabolism and causes weight gain.

Introducing…The Turbo-Charged Zerona Cleanse

Earlier this month I went to a conference in San Diego to learn the newest information about weight loss and natural body contouring. One of the presenters described getting great results from the combination of Zerona treatments with a cleanse. So, I came back home determined to put a program together for people who want to lose the maximum amount of weight and/or inches in just 3 weeks.

We're calling it the "Turbo-Charged Zerona Cleanse".

The Zerona Cleanse is for people who are willing to change their diet, eat healthier for three weeks, and takesupplements in order to get their best results.

The Turbo-Charged Zerona Cleanse consists of the following:

1. Nine Zerona laser treatments over a 3-week period.

2. Nutritional support to reduce inflammation, assist in fat burning, enhance weight loss and promote good health. Twice weekly, our staff reviews patient food choices.

3. A diet that is not calorie-restrictive but instead relies upon abundant vegetables and foods high in protein such as fish, chicken, turkey and lamb.

4. Elimination of foods that are known to cause food sensitivities like gluten, soy, dairy, eggs and yeast.

Each patient also receives a comprehensive workbook that provides information about low-level laser therapy, food selection and nutritional supplements. The workbook also includes recipes and a daily food diary.

How good are the results? Well, our first Turbo-Charged Zerona Cleanse patient lost 15 pounds and 9 inches. Not bad for 3 weeks!

Exercising With Zerona

Many of our Zerona laser patients have a history of exercising. For some patients exercise is effective at keeping them in shape, but for many others exercise fails to remove fat in "problem areas”.

What Happens When You Exercise

Exercise is work that increases the metabolic rate, which in turn burns more calories. Ideally, calories burned would consist of stored fat, but that is not what happens initially. After the body utilizes the small amount of readily available energy in the form of blood sugar, it turns to glycogen—stored carbohydrates in the liver and muscles.

After approximately 25 minutes of moderate exercise the body will then begin to use fat stores to create energy. Fat is broken down into molecules of water, glycerol and free fatty acids. Free fatty acids are energy dense and break down much slower than blood sugar or stored glycogen. Even if you work out long enough, the fat you’re burning may not be from your problem areas.

You can’t target specific areas through exercise.

What Happens When You Use the Zerona Laser

In contrast, the Zerona laser metabolizes fats in the areas where the laser is pointed. The Zerona Laser liberates approximately 40 to 60 grams of fat in 40 minutes. Since a gram of fat is 9 calories this equates to at least 360 calories of pure fat—and that’s in just one session. Compare that to an exercise session: You may burn between 400 and 600 calories but it won’t be pure fat.

The key to losing the fat for good is increasing metabolic demand around the time of the laser session. We do that through a combination of short-term calorie restriction before the laser treatment and a 10-minute session of whole-body vibration after.

This combination increases the body’s immediate need for energy and fat liberated by the Zerona laser can then be utilized. Lose the fat by exercising immediately after your Zerona session.

I’ve previously blogged about several other strategies to achieve maximum fat reduction. We always work with each individual patient to determine the best strategy for maximum fat reduction. Our latest service is the Turbo-Charged Zerona Cleanse. In this treatment, we combine the Zerona laser with a medically assisted cleanse to burn the maximum amount of fat. More on that later…

Cleansing with ClearVite

For many of our patients with chronic conditions, cleanses are a way to give the body a “tune-up”.

At Better Body Solutions we usually recommend a 3-week cleanse for patients with chronic conditions ( e.g. thyroid, diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, fibromyalgia) or weight-loss issues. During the cleanse we use ClearVite, a multi-nutrient supplement made by Apex Energetics that is designed to “clean” the intestines and liver, which is the main site of detoxification in the body. This particular detox program is less restrictive than some and includes vegetables, fruits and fish. We use the supplement 1 to 3 times per day and we modify the diet to remove unhealthy foods.

Cleanses, such as ClearVite, can provide some health benefits by giving the body a break from hi-fat and unhealthy diets. For example, by avoiding certain foods that may irritate the gastrointestinal tract, an individual may experience relief from inflammatory conditions, such as ulcerative colitis.

In particular, cleanses may be able to help with the diagnosis of food allergies and sensitivities. At the end of the ClearVite program we add restricted foods back one at a time to determine if the body can tolerate them. In this way the ClearVite cleanse is an elimination challenge. It's usually pretty obvious when someone adds a "bad" food back into their diet because they get symptoms like constipation, diarrhea, headaches and rash.

It is possible that the drastic diet adjustment brought about by cleanses may result in health improvements such as weight loss, increased energy, improved digestion and elimination, and clearer skin. These benefits will only persist, however, if permanent adjustments to diet are made. Furthermore, a cleanse should never be done unless under the supervision of a medical professional.