Contents

• A "Will" to Succeed
• Feed Yourself, Starve out Cancer
• Featured Product: Apple Cider Vinegar
  
• Counselor's Corner
  
• Recipes
  
  

Will: Lost 85 lbs -- and has a brand new chassis!

Client of the Month

A "Will" to Succeed Results in an 85 pound Weight Loss

Will Lancaster will be traveling lighter this summer as he hits the road in his 1931 Ford Model A on a cross country tour.

When Will came in for his free consultation at Lite for Life of Los Altos back in October of 2004 he wasn’t quite ready to start yet. "I dragged my feet a little," he admits. "I wasn’t sure I could do it. I wasn’t ready until after Christmas." Fifteen months later, he’s lost 85 pounds. What he’s most proud of is that he’s finally made a long lasting commitment to his health.

"Once Will made up his mind to join Lite For Life he put everything he had into it," says Bernice Sorrentino, one of Will’s counselors. "He was in here almost every day and he really hung in there through all the ups and downs."

Before coming to Lite For Life, Will had already been through Weight Watchers and ended up regaining the weight he has lost on their program. What he loves about Lite for Life is the individualized attention he’s gotten from our staff. "I felt a little uncomfortable at Weight Watchers," he explains. "I’ve never felt out of place at Lite for Life." Even though the counselors were strict, he feels they offered him the right kind of support. "The staff is wonderful. They’re great motivators! They always made me think about what I had done and why I had done it."

"Will has gone through such an incredible transformation," says Karolyn, another of Will’s counselors. "His energy is incredible. He rides his bike now from Sunnyvale to our office! He’s working out three times per week with a trainer now. Watching his transformation has been inspirational. It really shows how successful this program can be."

Now that Will is in tip top shape, he’s hitting the road. Later this month he’ll take his 1931 Model A Ford across the country and back! He and a group of his friends will be making the trip together and attending a classic car meet in Massachusetts.

Although he’s a little nervous about sticking to the program on the road, he feels he has learned how to make the best choices possible. "You can always find a salad anywhere you go. I stick with fish or chicken. Carl’s Junior even has a sandwich wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun. That’s not a perfect solution, but sometimes it’s the best you can do."

Looking and feeling great has really helped Will become focused and motivated to keep his healthy eating habits up. "Everyone’s been telling me how great I look!" he laughs.

"Plus, I feel so much better--I hardly ever get those peaks and valleys like I used to. Sure I have cravings sometimes, but a lot less often than I used to. Pancakes or waffles is a big one, and I might give in once in a while, but usually I just think back on all the work I’ve done and realize, this isn’t going to do me any good—it’s more pain than it’s worth. It takes a week and a half to lose the weight, so it’s just not worth it."

We all wish Will the best and Bon Voyage on his cross country adventure!

What has increased is our overall consumption of sugar. In 1821, the average sugar intake in America was 10 pounds per person per year. In 1960, it was about 20 pounds; today it is 170 pounds per person, representing over one-fourth the average caloric intake.

The decline in heart disease may be due to the fact that fewer Americans are smoking, long known to be a major risk factor for heart disease. Between 1965 and 2000, smoking among adults fell from 42 percent to 22 percent.

Nutrition in the News

Feed Yourself and Starve Out Cancer

At Lite for Life, we recommend eliminating refined sugars for the purpose of weight loss through blood sugar stabilization. Beyond weight reduction however, there are a multitude of reasons to cut back on sugars. While there is a growing awareness that too much sugar can lead to Type II Diabetes, not everyone realizes that sugar may play a role in everything from gingivitis (a pre-cursor to heart disease) to cancer--now the fastest growing killer in this country

USA Today reported earlier this year that cancer will soon top heart disease as the number one killer in the United States. While the very oldest Americans continue to die of heart disease more frequently than of cancer, cancer has already edged out heart disease as the top killer of the younger elderly. According to a 2002 study, 476,009 Americans under 85 died of cancer, while 450,637 died of heart disease. Cancer is expected to become the number one killer across all age groups by 2018.

The decline in heart disease may be due to the fact that fewer Americans are smoking, long known to be a major risk factor for heart disease. Between 1965 and 2000, smoking among adults fell from 42 percent to 22 percent.

What has increased during that time, however, is our overall consumption of sugar. In 1821, the average sugar intake in America was 10 pounds per person per year. In 1960, it was about 20 pounds; today it is 170 pounds per person, representing over one-fourth the average caloric intake.

The American public has been made well aware of the dangers of smoking and as a result, there are far fewer smokers than there were 30 years ago. It is now time for us to become aware of the risks of excessive sugar consumption. Many people already know that like nicotine, sugar can be addictive.

What most people do not realize is the important role sugar plays in the growth of cancer cells. As far back as 1931, we have known that sugar feeds cancer cells. The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Dr. Otto Warburg for this discovery, and since then research has connected sugar with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, biliary tract, lungs, gallbladder and stomach.

Cancer cells metabolize approximately 8 times faster than a normal cell through a process of fermentation requiring sugar. This results in the body constantly needing to feed the cancerous cells, which it does by breaking down the body’s proteins and converting them to sugar in a process called glycogenesis. This is a long process that eventually results in cachexia, the wasting of the body associated with cancer.

Ingesting sugar makes it easier for cancer cells to get the sugar they need to grow, facilitating their rapid increase. For this reason, many doctors and nutritionists are advising their cancer patients to avoid sugar. Combining healthy nutrition with other therapies to eradicate the cancer will keep the patient strong and starve the cancerous cells.

Of course, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and there are a good many health benefits to cutting back on sugars.

Nancy Appleton, Ph.D author of Lick the Sugar Habit goes into great detail about sugar’s detrimental impact on health, both physical and mental. According to Appleton, sugar can:

• Suppress your immune system and impair your defenses against infectious disease for up to 4 hours.
• Produce a significant rise in total cholesterol, triglycerides and bad cholesterol and a decrease in good cholesterol
• Increase fasting levels of glucose and can cause reactive hypoglycemia.
• Weaken eyesight.
• Cause many problems with the gastrointestinal tract including: an acidic digestive tract, indigestion, malabsorption in patients with functional bowel disease, increased risk of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.
• Cause premature aging.
• Impair the structure of your DNA.

Luckily, there are ways to add sweetness without sugar. At Lite for Life, we recommend Stevia. Unlike Aspartame and Splenda, Stevia contains no chemical ingredients and is a completely natural and plant based. And unlike sugar, which is natural as well, Stevia has virtually no impact on blood sugar, is non-caloric, has been used in other countries for many years and has never been linked with any health problems.

With sugar being added to everything from ketchup to fruit juice these days, breaking the sugar habit can be difficult—but not impossible. Based on our experience helping people cut back on sugars to lose weight, we find that once they follow our program for a few weeks, the desire for sugary treats dissipates. Their taste buds change and things that are sweetened with refined sugars actually begin to taste "too sweet."

To all of our active reducers and maintainers, remember that not only are you balancing your blood sugar and staying trim by avoiding refined sugar, you’re doing wonders for your health.

• Appleton, Nancy. Lick the Sugar Habit. Santa Monica, CA: 1996.
• Dufty, William. Sugar Blues. (New York:Warner Books, 1975)
• Enig, Mary G. Ph.D., Fallon, Sally. Nourishing Traditions. Washington DC: New Trends Publishing. 2001
• Sanchez, A., et al. Role of Sugars in Human Neutrophilic Phagocytosis, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Nov 1973;261:1180_1184. Bernstein, J., al. Depression of Lymphocyte Transformation Following Oral Glucose Ingestion. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.1997;30:613

Apple cider vinegar has been used for millennia as both a food and a medicine to improve a wide range of ills, including weight loss.

Featured Product
Upgrade to Apple Cider Vinegar

One of the keys to losing weight and keeping it off is being in good health, and one of the keys to that is making the best possible choices in every food category, for example in your choice of vinegar. Replacing distilled vinegars with unfiltered apple cider vinegar is a small but significant nutritional upgrade that’s both easy and delicious.

Apple cider vinegar has been used for millennia as both a food and a medicine to improve a wide range of ills, including weight loss. Unpasteurized, unfiltered apple cider vinegar containing the "mother of the vinegar", (the cloudy sediment that settles at the bottom of the bottle) is a living food containing over 90 beneficial substances such as carbolic acids, aldehydes, and ketones, as well as many vitamins and minerals.

If your cider vinegar is crystal clear and does not contain the mother of the vinegar, then those beneficial substances have been processed out in the distilling process.

Fermenting apple juice and then letting it interact with oxygen also allows for the formation of acetic acid. Acetic acid is believed to be the miracle ingredient in apple cider vinegar because it reacts with compounds in your body and makes them more chemically bioavailable. It also converts toxins into a form which causes them to be less toxic.

Apple cider vinegar has long been used to aid weight loss. It is believed to help the body metabolize proteins, fats and minerals. It also allows for the proper break down of fats, and helps stabilize blood sugar. It may also support weight loss because the acetic acid inhibits carbohydrates.

While some practitioners suggest adding a couple of tablespoons to a glass of water for a health drink, perhaps a more palatable way to incorporate it into your diet is to use it on salads and vegetables. A little apple cider vinegar adds zest to spinach and other steamed greens, steamed broccoli, raw cucumbers and many other vegetables.

Counselor’s Corner

This month’s tip comes from our founder, Maureen Sullivan, who counsels in our Burlingame, California location.

Going to the movies can be hard because everyone else is loading up on soft drinks and candy. Maureen suggests using a SugaSure bar for your matinee treat. To make room in your program for the bar, which counts as 1 protein and 1 starch serving, for lunch preceding the matinee, have a half of a fruit serving to lift your blood sugar, followed by a big salad with at least two ounces of protein, such as the Sweet Earth Tuna Garden Salad. The salad gives you a large volume of food for few calories, and the protein helps maintain stable blood sugar during the afternoon. Then when everyone at the matinee is breaking into their supersized treats, treat your self to a dense and chewy Sugasure bar. You’ll feel satisfied with your treat, and with the fact that you’ve stuck to your program.

Maureen Sullivan, M.A., Certified Nutritionist is the
original founder of Lite for Life.