Sunshine exposure and vitamin D levels have been shown to influence, pain, heart disease, diabetes, parkinson's, cancer, infections, weight gain, mental health and many other conditions. Now that Spring has sprung, and the midday sun has enough power to activate your body's production of vitamin D, it's time to review your vitamin D supplementation.

1) Get your 25 hydroxy vitamin D levels tested. If you are lower than 65 you need to supplement and/or get out in the sun.

2) Get 15 minutes of midday (11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.) sunshine on your face and arms each day. Any type of sunscreen or UV coating on glass will stop your body from making the vitamin D. Many face creams and even make-up now has sunscreen added.

3) Take at least 2,000 i.u of vitamin D3 a day even during the summer.

4) If you cannot get out in the sun regularly you need to take at least 5,000 iu of D3 a day.

5) If your test shows your vitamin D levels are low, you can take as much as 10,000 i.u a day to recover from your deficiency.

The April/May/June issue of Scientific American Mind has a brief review of a study out of Columbia University. The sub-head of the article is "Lowering blood sugar levels may thwart forgetfulness."

This maybe a reason why we crave carbs after an upsetting experience. Comfort foods raise our blood sugar and impair memory creation. This memory blocking mechanism also plays a role in memory degradation as we age. Of course the researcher immediately jumps on the exercise band wagon as the answer to insulin resistance. Me? I'll just keep my carbs low.

Senior moments, those pesky instances of not so total recall—forgetting where we left our keys or what we did last weekend—are a subtle but significant part of the aging process. Another effect of growing old: rising blood sugar levels, which typically take off in our late 30s or early 40s as our bodies become less adept at metabolizing glucose in the bloodstream. Now a study has linked these rising levels with momentary forgetfulness, pinpointing exactly where in the brain the aging process acts—a finding that could help the elderly ward off memory lapses.The nature of senior moments led scientists to believe they stem from disruptions in the hippocampus—an area that, among other roles, acts as the brain’s “save” button, allowing us to retain new information. Using functional MRI, researchers looked at the effects of increased blood glucose in the hippocampus of 181 subjects aged 65 or older with no history of dementia. They found that elevated levels impaired function of a section of the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus, which is a “hotspot” of age-related impairment, according to study author Scott Small, a neurologist at Columbia University.Blood glucose is not alone in selectively affecting dentate gyrus performance. A 2007 study co-authored by Small shows that exercise improves its function in both mice and humans. The newer research, he points out, suggests that these positive effects may actually result from the influence of regular exercise on the body’s ability to break down glucose.Psychiatrist Mony de Leon of New York University explains that the new study “may be showing a very funda­mental aging process that might have some reversibility built into it.” If you correct the glucose intolerance, he says, you may be able to forget about forgetfulness.

The biggest trigger on my first rebound from weight loss was mental. I had what I call "penance mentality."

I felt bad because of gaining weight, so I wanted to make up for it by being extra good, doing "penance." By doing "penance" I was "forgiven." Nature and my metabolism started working for me and I lost weight. All was "forgiven" and I felt like then I could go back to my old "normal" ways, just not quite as bad as before.

Failure was set up from the very beginning, it just manifested at the end after my weight was lost. Now being thin is no longer a "diet" for me. It's long-term and residual effect of following the Yin Yang Diet, switching my metabolism from late summer weight gain mode, to winter weight loss mode.

When will I go back to "normal" eating? Well the answer is, "When do I want to pack on the fat to make it through a lean winter?"

Ummmm.....never :)

Your body was designed to move; walk to gather food; lift heavy objects to build shelter; and run to escape danger. All these activities activate muscle fibers which burn calories in order to contract and move your body. Health experts took note as society became more sedentary with the end of the "industrial age." These experts focused on the most "efficient" of these activities. In 1968 American physician Kenneth Cooper coined the term aerobics in his exercise book Aerobics. He used the term to describe exercises that use oxygen to keep large muscle groups moving continuously for at least 20 minutes. Based on this definition, the name aerobics came to refer to calisthenics taught to music. (Encarta) A movement was born and women all over the country bought leg warmers and danced in classes and in front of the TV sweating to the "oldies."

The biology of the "runner's high"
As their classes wore on, and the brain became starved for oxygen and fuel, a funny thing happened to these women. A region of the temporal lobe got more active, a lot more active. This is the same are area of the brain that is activated when religious people "talk to God." Dr. Michael Persinger, who is an expert on this part of the brain, reports that when this part of the brain is activated, people feel an "opiate-like effect with a substantial decrease in anxiety." and a "heightened sense of well being." Millions of women were hooked, literally stoned on aerobics.

This blissful experience is triggered by two activities, meditation/prayer and stress/lack of oxygen. This euphoria is designed so that when it's time to "meet our maker," after being chased to exhaustion, it is a peaceful transition. What this aerobic "runner's high" is covering up is the huge increase in cortisol that accompanies survival mimicking activities -- aerobics, running, spinning, stairmaster, treadmill, kick boxing, etc.

How stress makes you want to eat "junk"
These elevated cortisol levels keep your blood sugar high, and your insulin system working overtime to supply your muscles with the fuel they need to escape "danger." Chronically high cortisol levels also skew your perception of time so you feel rushed during the day and have problems turning off your brain at night so you stay up late feeling that there is more work to do and searching for sweet and starchy foods to feed this permanent "fight or flight" state.

The end result off job related stress getting pushed over the edge by heavy aerobic exercise is a damaging high cortisol state masked by the mimicking of a blissful "near death" experience all of which forces you to over eat sweets and starches, feel guilty adding more stress and more exercise. It's no wonder many people drop out after just a few months and some who get hooked on the "high" fall over dead on the treadmill.

So what's the answer
I'm not saying don't move your body, just concentrate on the other less "efficient" exercises that don't create stress or burn calories, like yoga, pilates, tai chi, weight lifting and walking.

The ancient Chinese acupuncturists say, "Eat breakfast like a Queen, lunch like a princess, and dinner like a pauper." Most people have heard a variation of this advice and know that breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day, but they ask me, "I'm just not hungry in the morning. What should I do?" What I'm going to teach you today is why lack of hunger in the morning is a symptom of too little sleep and why you want to fix that.

Does your alarm clock wake you from the dead?
The problem with lack of sleep is that your body does not have enough time manage your hormones, especially melatonin. Among it's other jobs, melatonin is a master hormone that coordinates other hormones. When you go to bed too late, your melatonin levels peak right when they should be fading away, right about when the hated alarm goes off.

When your melatonin peak is shifted into the morning hours, the hormone controlling your appetite, leptin, is also high. (High levels of leptin at night keep you from waking up and raiding the fridge.) The elevated melatonin and leptin prevent hunger in the morning and explain why that lack of hunger is a serious sign that you are sleep deprived. Elevated morning melatonin also changes the timing of your natural cortisol spike which is your body's natural alarm clock. We are forced to replace our natural alarm clock with the much hated clock radio. Ugh!

Its all downhill from there!
So you drag yourself out of bed, forcing your body to wake up when it is just should be getting into deep sleep. You skip breakfast and sleep walk through the first part of the day. Because your cortisol levels are low, you cannot effectively deal with the stress of the day and your time perception gets warped and before you know it, the day has passed and you have accomplished little. Sound familiar?

The 5-element acupuncture body clock
The ancient Chinese understood the effects of these hormone waves. Even though they could not measure the hormones with blood tests, they could see the effects when normal sleep patterns were disturbed. They called this the Law of Midday/Midnight. If your internal body clock is off, not only do you have no hunger in the morning, but acupuncturists go on to say if your energy is not balanced, at 3:00 p.m. (bladder meridian time) you will crave sweets, get sleepy, irritable and stupid. Not exactly a recipe for success.

There are special 5-element acupuncture points to re-set your body clock called horary points. They help balance your energy through the day and help your hormones return to normal daylight patterns. So if you are feeling the effects of sleep deprivation, you will want to go to bed earlier and call me for an acupuncture appointment!

Albert Einstein said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." The calorie is too simple an explanation for weight gain. Because it's too simple, we get caught in a logic trap about calories. We mistakenly believe a calorie measures something about our food. In fact, it measures something about our wood stove. The two are quite different dontcha think?

Follow along with me for a thought experiment. Imagine you have a wood stove that acted more like your metabolism and less like a wood stove. You feed your special wood stove and you know to keep you house warm it needs 2,000 calories per day. So you happily keep your house warm enough for you, but you are worried that your grandmother, who is visiting the next day will be cold, so you start putting more wood on the fire. You up the calories to 2,500, but a funny thing happens. The house doesn't get any warmer. It seems the wood stove has a mind of it's own and has become less efficient. Sadly you offer you grandma a sweater and hat when she arrives. What happened? If you give the stove more calories, shouldn't it get warmer? Well, it would have if it acted like a wood stove and not our metabolism.

Our metabolism is dynamic and responds to external and internal stimuli including how much you eat. If you eat more, your body adapts and burns more. So you can begin to understand that the calorie is insufficient measure of this dynamic process. It's kind of like trying to steer your car using the speedometer! It turns out that independent of carbohydrates, calories really are not a main factor in our metabolism (burn me at the scientific stake.) The human metabolism is a duel fuel system. It burns fats and carbohydrates, and in emergencies it can burn protein as well. But these two fuels have completely different actions and require different maintenance.

In my house we have a duel fuel furnace that can burn wood and natural gas. The natural gas is like fat in the body, it burns cleanly, we don't have any ash left over building up in the furnace and no creosote lining the chimney. If we were to switch to wood (the carbohydrate equivalent) , we would periodically have to shut down the furnace (a fast so to speak) so that we could clean it out the accumulating ash and creosote.

To simply measure the BTU's in a cord of wood versus the natural gas is too simply an equation for maintaining our house. We also have to know how the fuel burns in our furnace so we maintain its efficiency and don't burn our house down. The same is true for calories, carbs and fats.

Why saturated fat is a marker for disease in the body is not because we eat saturated fat, but because the liver converts excess carbohydrates to saturated fats. The error logic is to assume that eating the same is harmful.

Here are a bunch of snippets from the Weston Price Foundation. They have abbreviated citations, but it should give you a start if you are inclined.

Myth: Heart disease in America is caused by consumption of cholesterol and saturated fat from animal products.
Truth: During the period of rapid increase in heart disease (1920-1960), American consumption of animal fats declined but consumption of hydrogenated and industrially processed vegetable fats increased dramatically. (USDA-HNI)

Myth: Saturated fat clogs arteries.
Truth: The fatty acids found in artery clogs are mostly unsaturated (74%) of which 41% are polyunsaturated. (Lancet 1994 344:1195)

Myth: Vegetarianism is healthy.
Truth: The annual all-cause death rate of vegetarian men is slightly more than that of non-vegetarian men (.93% vs .89%); the annual death rate of vegetarian women is significantly more than that of non-vegetarian women (.86% vs .54%) (Am J Clin Nutr 1982 36:873)

Myth: Vitamin B12 can be obtained from certain plant sources such as blue-green algae and soy products.
Truth: Vitamin B12 is not absorbed from plant sources. Modern soy products increase the body's need for B12. (Soybeans: Chemistry & Technology Vol 1 1972)

Myth: For good health, serum cholesterol should be less than 180 mg/dl.
Truth: The all-cause death rate is higher in individuals with cholesterol levels lower than 180 mg/dl. (Circulation 1992 86:3:1026-1029)

Myth: Animal fats cause cancer and heart disease.
Truth: Animal fats contain many nutrients that protect against cancer and heart disease; elevated rates of cancer and heart disease are associated with consumption of large amounts of vegetable oils. (Fed Proc July 1978 37:2215)

Myth: Children benefit from a low-fat diet.
Truth: Children on low-fat diets suffer from growth problems, failure to thrive & learning disabilities. (Food Chem News 10/3/94)

Myth: A low-fat diet will make you "feel better . . . and increase your joy of living."
Truth: Low-fat diets are associated with increased rates of depression, psychological problems, fatigue, violence and suicide. (Lancet 3/21/92 v339)

Myth: To avoid heart disease, we should use margarine instead of butter.
Truth: Margarine eaters have twice the rate of heart disease as butter eaters. (Nutrition Week 3/22/91 21:12)

Myth: Americans do not consume enough essential fatty acids.
Truth: Americans consume far too much of one kind of EFA (omega-6 EFAs found in most polyunsaturated vegetable oils) but not enough of another kind of EFA (omega-3 EFAs found in fish, fish oils, eggs from properly fed chickens, dark green vegetables and herbs, and oils from certain seeds such as flax and chia, nuts such as walnuts and in small amounts in all whole grains.) (Am J Clin Nutr 1991 54:438-63)

Myth: A vegetarian diet will protect you against atherosclerosis.
Truth: The International Atherosclerosis Project found that vegetarians had just as much atherosclerosis as meat eaters. (Lab Invest 1968 18:498)

Myth: Low-fat diets prevent breast cancer.
Truth: A recent study found that women on very low-fat diets (less than 20%) had the same rate of breast cancer as women who consumed large amounts of fat. (NEJM 2/8/96)

Myth: The "cave man diet" was low in fat.
Truth: Throughout the world, primitive peoples sought out and consumed fat from fish and shellfish, water fowl, sea mammals, land birds, insects, reptiles, rodents, bears, dogs, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, game, eggs, nuts and milk products. (Abrams, Food & Evolution 1987)

Myth: Coconut oil causes heart disease.
Truth: When coconut oil was fed as 7% of energy to patients recovering from heart attacks, the patients had greater improvement compared to untreated controls, and no difference compared to patents treated with corn or safflower oils. Populations that consume coconut oil have low rates of heart disease. Coconut oil may also be one of the most useful oils to prevent heart disease because of its antiviral and antimicrobial characteristics. (JAMA 1967 202:1119-1123; Am J Clin Nutr 1981 34:1552)

Myth: Saturated fats inhibit production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins.
Truth: Saturated fats actually improve the production of all prostaglandins by facilitating the conversion of essential fatty acids. (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Journal 20:3)

Myth: Arachidonic acid in foods like liver, butter and egg yolks causes production of "bad" inflammatory prostaglandins.
Truth: Series 2 prostaglandins that the body makes from arachidonic acid both encourage and inhibit inflammation under appropriate circumstances. Arachidonic acid is vital for the function of the brain and nervous system. (Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Journal 20:3)

Myth: Beef causes colon cancer
Truth: Argentina, with higher beef consumption, has lower rates of colon cancer than the US. Mormons have lower rates of colon cancer than vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists (Cancer Res 35:3513 1975)

Follow along with a little back story, before I get to my point. Ancient Chinese acupuncturists developed a theory of healthy eating based on five flavors, salty, sour, bitter, sweet, pungent. They believed these five flavors, found in foods created the right balance of energy to lead a long, healthy life.

When I was earning my Master's Degree at the Tai Sophia Institute (http://www.tai.edu), we had many discussions about the flavors, and would always get hung up on "pungent." What exactly does that mean? This is what the dictionary says: pungent |ˈpənjənt| adjective --having a sharply strong taste or smell : the pungent smell of frying onions.

In class, we left the discussion with the understanding that pungent meant spicy. I'd love to say that I wasn't satisfied with the answer and spent the next 20 years researching what the Chinese meant by pungent, but that would be a lie. Truth is, back then I didn't much concern myself with nutrition. As the saying goes, "That was then, tjis is now."

That's the back story, the point is there is a developing base of research showing that fats are critical to our immune system. The interesting thing is, the ancient Chinese say that the "pungent" flavor strengthens "wei qi" which is the protective energy of the body, guarding us from pathogens during the day, and nourishing our internal organs at night.

Take for example, this article from U.S. News and World Report. THURSDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Virgin coconut oil, added to antibiotic therapy, may help relieve the symptoms of community-acquired pneumonia in kids faster than antibiotic therapy alone, a new study finds. Children who received coconut oil therapy along with antibiotics had fewer crackles (a wheezing sound in the lungs), a shorter time with an elevated respiratory rate and fever, better oxygen saturation in the blood, and shorter hospital stays, according to the study.

I wouldn't be surprised if lard or tallow accomplished the same thing if researchers would have the courage, and funding, to do such a study. The same cannot be said of polyunsaturated fats however. Those are the supposedly superior vegetable oils. Excess consumption of polyunsaturated oils has been shown to contribute to a large number of disease conditions including increased cancer and heart disease; immune system dysfunction; damage to the liver, reproductive organs and lungs; digestive disorders; depressed learning ability; impaired growth; and weight gain.

So to tie this up in a nice little bow, I believe the translation from the ancient acupuncture texts has been influenced by the low fat folks. I believe pungent is the taste of fat in foods and is an essential component of any healthy diet.

It's amazing that nutritionists working for the most advanced medical institutions on Earth are so ignorant on the important health benefits of saturated fats and cholesterol.

Not that measuring cholesterol is a particularly good predictor of heart problems. 50% of people who suffer from heart attacks have "normal" cholesterol levels and for 33% of people with heart disease, sudden death is the first symptom. As a nation, if we were as bad at driving as we are at predicting heart disease, we'd all be walking for fear of death!

In fact, part of the cause of these dismal numbers, are the very recommendations that the medical "establishment" are pushing on us. Eating a low fat diet, and replacing fat with carbohydrates, wreaks havoc on triglycerides and increases inflammation, and increases LDL cholesterol. Then to compensate for the bad diets sold by nutrition "experts," unenlightened doctors foist cholesterol drugson their patients.

If I were an evil genius working for a pharmaceutical company, that's exactly the marketing plan I would draw up. I'd like to believe that nutritionists are not an army of "mini me's" doing the bidding of Big Pharmacueticals. But you have to wonder.

One last note on the health benefits of saturated fats. During the 1970s, Canadian researchers found that animals fed "heart healthy" canola oil actualy developed heart lesions. The lesions healed when the researchers added saturated fat to the animals diets. These researchers went on to recommend that 25% of dietary fat should be saturated - and the healthiest amongst saturated fats? Lard. Fire up the bacon boys!

There are five phases of implementing long-term residual weight loss: inspiration, preparation, beginner, expert, sage. Together, of these phases form an inseparable system that will propel you forward. They are in essence nature’s engine that enables all living creatures to thrive.

The five phases of setting up permanent Residual Weight Loss:
Inspiration: In the “inspiration phase” you will re-connect with the “healthy you” that you may have lost contact with over the years. It’s a glimpse of you as God and nature intended you to be. Don’t worry, we are not talking about being perfect, that’s above our pay grade.

Preparation: During the “preparation phase” you will gather the mental/physical/tools tools and information you will need to successfully complete the 52 week program. Some of these we will pick up as your journey progresses. You can’t carry everything with you!

Beginner: The ancient Chinese wise man, Lao Tzu, said, “An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.” During the “beginner phase” you learn that small actions are the foundation for residual weight loss.

Expert: As you enter the “expert phase” you gain more experience, you will learn to overcome obstacles and set-backs without abandoning the fundamental that created your initial success. You might even be inspired to help others.

Sage: Lao Tzu also says, “The sage is sick of being sick.” As you complete this program you will enter the “sage phase” and no longer be willing to trade in your newfound health and well-being for false and temporary pleasures. In fact, you will derive a deep and honest satisfaction and be able to enjoy all you have accomplished over the year, even if you still have not arrived at your final goal yet.

Ancient Chinese acupuncturists realized that people react differently to food. What heals one person, injures another. In the simplest form, people are diagnosed as Yin or Yang dominant. Whether you are Yin or Yang determines how your body reacts to food, vitamins and herbs. This is your personal Yin/Yang Factor.

Yang dominant people require light foods like chicken breast and vegetables to balance their metabolism. In Yin dominant people, the food is metabolized differently and an amazing thing happens. The same light foods that balance a Yang person, will create a greater imbalance in a Yin person. Yin dominant people need a heavy diet of meat and good fats. This point is critical, so I’m going to repeat it. What nourishes Yin people is poison to Yang people and what nourishes Yang people poisons Yin People.