{"id":288,"date":"2015-11-28T20:27:52","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T20:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lymebook.com\/bryan\/?p=288"},"modified":"2015-11-28T21:14:56","modified_gmt":"2015-11-28T21:14:56","slug":"staying-fit-and-healthy-during-the-holidays-bryans-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lymebook.com\/bryan\/2015\/11\/28\/staying-fit-and-healthy-during-the-holidays-bryans-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Staying fit and healthy during the holidays: Bryan’s tips"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

How do I look? Actually, as you’ll read in today’s article, I don’t care how I look. I work out and stay lean because of how it makes me feel, especially after Lyme disease. Keep reading the article to learn more…<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The mistake many people make when it comes to “gym rats” and “muscle heads” is assuming that the only reason to work out is to look good. This may be true when you are 19, but when you are older\u00a0and getting over Lyme disease, muscle mass, fitness, and body fat percentage aren’t a question of looks: they are a question, literally, of survival.<\/p>\n

Managing weight gain is a real challenge during the holiday season, and an important one. Here are some of my thoughts on weight management and Lyme disease, and some strategies you can employ to stay trim and healthy through the holiday season, with a specific focus on Lyme disease. If you haven’t already, read the free chapter from my recent book<\/a> on the topic of diet and Lyme disease.<\/p>\n

First, let me start by saying that this is a very important topic. Lyme sufferers\u2019 hormones are already very compromised, and obesity further throws off the balance. The consequences of deranged hormones are very real and perceptible. One of the most common consequences is lack of energy, immune dysfunction, depression, lowered sex hormone levels, insulin resistance, and more.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m working hard on a very long series of articles on diet and exercise. So, consider this post today, just a brief glimpse at one micro-topic in this subject area. Stay tuned for the series of posts, coming in Spring, 2016.<\/p>\n

OK, back to the topic at hand. I\u2019ll start with a very useful principle. When you are herxing, or feel bad, or fighting a cold or flu, it is often not possible or practical to watch what you eat. When chronically ill people are having a \u201cbad day,\u201d the body generally needs a much higher caloric count in order to heal and sustain daily energy. So, if you are still really in the thick of the fight, it\u2019s best to just eat what your body needs and craves (with the exception of processed carbohydrates and sugars, or any other obviously unhealthy food).<\/p>\n

This is why it is so important to control your diet when you feel good. While most of the population feels good a lot, you may only feel good some of the time. So you have a smaller window during which to really make a concerted effort to eat what keeps you healthy. I\u2019m definitely not saying you should just throw caution to the wind on bad days and eat crap all day – on the contrary, bad days are often helped greatly by veggie smoothies or juicing and many other healthy eating habits. What I am saying is that weight gain and close watching of carbohydrate intake is much less realistic when the body is under stress. That\u2019s the time when your body needs all the energy it can get. So, during your good days when you feel like you are on top of things, that\u2019s the time to really focus on keeping your weight under control.<\/p>\n

One very useful strategy for weight control is to do strength training (lifting weights) consistently. Many Lyme sufferers can\u2019t tolerate a lot of cardio exercise due to adrenal fatigue<\/a> and other consequences. And here\u2019s the good news – while cardio is important, the benefits of strength training are typically much more useful for Lyme sufferers, plus, strength training doesn\u2019t drain you in the same way that cardio typically can. Strength training causes a spike in many important hormones like human growth hormone (HGH), sex hormones, and other rejuvinating hormones. So, strength training can really make you feel better, pretty quickly, as these hormones directly cause regeneration and healing in your damaged tissues. However, the benefit of strength training which is relevant to our discussion today is that it revs up the metabolism and really helps shed the pounds, and prevents new pounds of fat from being added during over-eating. When I do a very hard strength training workout, even if I forego cardio, I can eat almost whatever I want for the next two days, without any weight gain. Note that I am an experienced weight lifter, so start slow and only under the supervision of your doctor. Note also that because Lyme disease is stressful to the body, and so is exercise, that your recovery window should be longer than that of a normal person. If a normal person works out every 3 days, you should probably double that and give your body 6 days to rest between workouts. Also be aware that Lyme-damaged joints should be treated with extra care at the gym. Don\u2019t do exercises or movements that hurt you, period. Injury is never justified or helpful during recovery. I had to experiment for a long time to determine which exercises are helpful to me and which are harmful.<\/p>\n

So, there\u2019s your first strategy for the holiday season: strength training (and cardio if you can tolerate it). Remember that even Lyme Disease legends like Dr. Burrascano have said, and I quote: \u201cYou cannot recover from Lyme disease without exercise.\u201d Dr. Burrascano, as I do, recommends strength training as being as, or usually more, important than cardio exercise.<\/p>\n

Next, consider the wisdom of intermittent fasting<\/a>. I\u2019ve been fascinated by intermittent fasting for several months now and implemented it in my own life, and it is one of the most helpful things I\u2019ve done in years. There have been several research articles about how fasting can regenerate the immune system and improve health, but most of us can\u2019t fast for 3 days, let alone even one full day. That\u2019s where intermittent fasting (IF for short) comes in. Instead of fasting for days, IF dictates that you simply try to eat breakfast as late as you can, and dinner as early as you can. I\u2019ll be writing much more about this in depth later, but for now, know that this way of eating keeps you more satiated and helps you lose weight. The long stretches with no food also cause spikes in all your important hormones, rejuvinating and regenerating your tissues.<\/p>\n

But for our purposes in the holiday season, IF also has other great benefits. Here\u2019s an example. If you are trying to not overeat on Thanksgiving, let\u2019s say, you may go home after your Thanksgiving dinner and feel guilty that you stuffed yourself. But here\u2019s a life-changing insight which very much changed how I think about this. Instead of measuring how much you eat over the course of 24 hours, change your thinking to the course of 48 hours. Here\u2019s my recent\u00a0example. On Thanksgiving, I too overate. However, the next day, I fasted until noon (and actually I wasn\u2019t very hungry anyway, due to the feast of the night before – this is one of the secrets of IF\u2026 ride out that full feeling and don\u2019t eat again until you are perceptively HUNGRY, don\u2019t simply eat breakfast because everyone else is). At noon I broke my mini-fast with some vegetables and veggie juice. Then I didn\u2019t eat again until dinner. At dinner, I ate Thanksgiving leftovers, but I didn\u2019t gorge. Then I went to the gym for 45 minutes of strength training. The next morning, I woke up and waited until 11am to eat breakfast. I didn\u2019t gain any weight at all, despite stuffing myself on Thanksgiving night!<\/p>\n

There\u2019s actually a deeper wisdom ingrained in our DNA when it comes to IF. You aren\u2019t just using the latest diet fad. IF is actually how humans, and animals, have survived for thousands of years. The occurrence of a very large feast or meal, followed by scarcity of food, is how our bodies were designed to function and how they did in fact function for long periods of time. By using IF in your daily life you are actually putting yourself much more in tune with the way your body is designed to function, and your body will thank you for it in the form of increased hormones, weight control, detoxification, and other benefits. There is a tremendous amount of information on IF available online and it is becoming more and more common and accepted among respected experts such as Dr. Joseph Mercola<\/a>. I suggest Googling \u00a0\u201cintermittent fasting\u201d and doing some reading.<\/p>\n

So, now you have two tools in your tool box for the holidays: IF and strength training.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at a few more options you can also employ:<\/p>\n