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Contents
1. Ask Craig Anything:
If I walk, my heart rate is too low. If I
run, it's too high. What should I do?
2. Ask Craig
Anything: Is a glass of red wine OK for people
with insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome?
3.
Book Excerpt: Philosophy of the HRH
Program
Your HRH Program E-book and
Bonuses
If you haven’t yet
purchased the HRH Program e-book, there’s no
time like the present! Go to
www.heartratehealth.com to get a copy, plus
nearly $100 in bonus material. And remember, if
it doesn’t work for you for any reason, you have
a full year to return it for a full refund.
Ask Craig
Anything: If I walk, my heart rate is too low.
If I run, it's too high. What should I do?
This problem happens
often. Fortunately, there is an easy solution.
You simply “run” at your maximum walking speed
until your body gets used to it, and then you’ll
be able to pick up the pace gradually and
comfortably from there. It’s like running in
place at first because it feels so slow.
Just by changing your
fastest walk into your slowest run, you should
increase your heart rate into the right zone for
the Workout Phase of your run, as covered in the
book.
Our legs house our largest
aerobic and anaerobic muscles, and our heart
rates are very responsive to any extra work they
are required to do. Losing your breath after
walking up a flight of stairs is a good example
of this. Plus, when we had to run away from
predators, getting blood pumping to the legs was
a high priority when they needed it.
Don’t worry, then, if your
heart rate goes up too far for a few minutes
after starting this routine. It will likely go
down after your body figures out you won’t be
needing it to run away from animals with sharp
teeth and claws.
Ask Craig
Anything: Is a glass of red wine OK for someone
with insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome?
Wine, especially red wine, has virtually no
sugar, which means that it won’t increase your
blood glucose. Some studies have shown that
having a glass of wine with a high carbohydrate
meal will decrease the insulin spike you
normally get after a meal, which is great for
helping with pre-diabetic or diabetic blood
sugar levels.
But let’s keep a few things in mind. First,
it’s
not the alcohol that is helping with the blood
sugar. Instead, it seems to be polyphenols from
the grape seed itself. That means you can get
the same effect from grape seed extract
supplements.
I mention this because of my second point. After
a glass, you’re probably OK. After another
glass, you’re starting to get a little tipsy.
And getting tipsy often means consuming more
food—especially if you happen to be me! If you
struggle, with eating down the house after
drinking, like I do, then you have to be aware
that the extra wine is not going to offset the
calories, even if it does offset the blood sugar
spikes.
And maybe I should mention a third point. A
glass of wine is about 100 calories, and an
extra 100 calories per day will result in 10
pounds of extra weight in a year. Do that for 50
years, and suddenly you’re 500 pounds over
weight. OK, I’m kidding about that, but you get
the point. You should try to offset the extra
calories from a glass of wine by lowering your
food intake a little.
Book Excerpt: Philosophy of the
HRH Program (I’ve been
thinking about a way to write a piece on
patience, living well one day at a time, and
trusting that the process works. I went back to
the book itself and found something that
approximates what I wanted to write for this
newsletter, and I thought I might as well share
it with you. Kick back, relax, and enjoy!)
Philosophy of the HRH
Program
“The big
reward for living a good life is a good life.”
We live in a culture that
longs for a magic pill. Whenever there is the
slightest hope for a product that does it all
without any effort on the part of the user, the
media covers it relentlessly and numerous
schlock businesses pop up to take advantage.
The health and wellness craze we have is a big
part of this.
For example, we’ve seen the
introduction of Olestra, which is a fat
substitute that is non-digestible and passes
through the body unchanged. Unfortunately, it
takes a lot of vitamins and minerals with it and
you have to be near a restroom to use it.
Now the hot topic of
research is leptin, which is a regulator
of metabolism. If one has a high level of
leptin, then the body starts to burn more
calories, and one would lose weight. Research
on this topic is just beginning, and the results
are good, but much, much more needs to be done
before it can be said that it helps people lose
weight. Even though there’s not much to go on
yet, a Google search in late 2004 yielded
736,000 hits, and numerous supplement companies
have risen up to offer the hormone. (Update: in
early 2006, the number of citations on Google is
2,440,000.) Most of the marketing for this says
the major problem people have is genetic, not
behavioral, and that you just can’t fight
against that. If this is true at all, it’s only
partially so.
In my opinion, the search
for a magic pill for infinite health and
wellness is time ill-spent. In the 1980s, for
instance, people were saying that cancer would
likely be cured by the year 2000, so they didn’t
have to worry about the consequences of their
behavior.
Not that we don’t want to
have a cure, of course. I’m an advocate for
public scientific funding and a contributor to
some campaigns to cure these problems.
But even if there is truly
something right over the horizon,
the
biggest problem of living a life with no
supposed consequences is that it’s a highly
compromised life. I like to say that the
reward for living a good life is a good life.
The more you do right, the better you feel, and
isn’t that what we’re all after?
Additionally, the more you
do right with health and wellness, the more your
body comes into tune with doing the right
things. Once you’ve broken the sugar-burning
metabolism, your body starts to cooperate with
you on your path, and your cravings for it go
down. At the same time, your cravings for
healthful choices go up. I think it’s a pretty
tough road if the mind wants to stop eating
sweets but the body craves them. But I’ve found
that once the body stops craving sweets, the
mind will naturally follow.
Wouldn’t it be nice if this
could all happen in a couple of days? Of course,
it would. But it doesn’t work that way. If
we’ve spent twenty years doing extensive damage
to our “infrastructure”, a couple of quick
fix-ups won’t do anything but put a nice façade
on a crumbling building, and that’s if we’re
lucky.
Instead, why not
acknowledge that we’ve done some harm to
ourselves and set out to fix it a little at a
time? Slow but sure works! (And it doesn’t even
take as long as you would think.)
I like to think of the HRH
Program in a long term investment framework. If
a girl invested a few dollars a day in the
American stock market starting when she is
fifteen years old, the likely retirement fund
for her will be about $1 million when she is
65. Not a bad trade for the price of a cup or
two of coffee if you ask me.
Similarly, by exercising
just a little each day according to the HRH
Program,
you can have all you want physically, and
perhaps even mentally, for years and years to
come.
The advantage with the HRH
Program is that it doesn’t take fifty years to
start enjoying the benefits. Instead,
preliminary results can start coming after just
three weeks, when you’ll start feeling better
with more energy and enthusiasm. Extraordinary
benefits are available after about four months,
by which time you’ll burn off 20-40 pounds of
pure fat. And full benefits can be had between
6-18 months, depending on where you start.
Is 18 months (at the max)
too long to wait for a completely remodeled
self? Not really. Just think back 18 months
from now. It probably doesn’t seem like all
that long ago, does it? What if you had started
then instead of now?
The
major philosophical underpinning of the HRH
Program is that consistent action on a daily
basis will create multiple long-term rewards.
Or put another way, the small actions we take
every day are far more powerful and life
altering than anything we can do once.
You know that some of the
rewards will include weight loss and a better
fitness level. But did you know that you’ll
have more energy than you know what to do with?
Did you know you’ll have a more positive outlook
on life? Did you know your memory will operate
better and your thinking will be much more
clear? Did you know you’ll cherish the time to
think and plan and dream each day? And did you
know you’ll seek out new challenges—and conquer
them?
And do you have to give
110% all the time to get it? Absolutely not! In
fact, you’ll never be required to exert more
than 75% effort. After doing the program for a
while, though, you will notice that 75% effort
for you gets a lot more done. And other people
will marvel that it all looks so easy for you.
That’s the guarantee from
the HRH Program. If you simply slow down,
follow some simple guidelines, enjoy the
process, and make it a daily priority, you’ll
get more out of this program than you imagined
possible.
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