I recently had the honor of educating an Eighth grade class about the benefits of intentional Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, and Stress.

I formulated this handout on Exercise. I will publish the handouts on Sleep and Stress in the weeks to come.

EXERCISE is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle. Regular physical activity can help improve your physical health, boost your mood, and increase your energy levels. Here are some key facts about exercise that you should know:

This recipe is from the Mara-labs.com website, the supplement company I started with three very excellent people.

I thought I would just have to share:

https://mara-labs.com/blogs/journal/potato-arugula-dill-salad?mc_cid=059590258b&mc_eid=8ab03e5431

Enjoy, all the best in health,

Martin

Soaring through the air for a slam dunk has got to be a great feeling. The good news is it’s not imperative to enjoy the health benefits of exercise.

Benefits include mitogenesis, BDNF, NO, VEGF, and GLUT-4 upregulation, which you don’t need to understand. Fortunately, your body does and appreciates and utilizes these beneficial physiological occurrences when you exercise.

Mitogenesis or, more accurately, mitochondrial biogenesis: do you want power plants working sub optimally, at worst, leaking nuclear waste? No! You would also not want this for our energy producers – the mitochondria. Studies demonstrate that dysfunctional mitochondria – ones that leak electrons are a primary source for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, or even cancer. (1) But not to worry, exercise can rescue your mitochondria from disuse and decay by restoring them to healthy functioning.

BDNF: Brain-Derived Neurotrophic factor is upregulated by exercise; this brain protein helps with the process of learning and memory, as well as improved mood, which helps explain why exercise is beneficial for neurodegenerative and psychiatric illnesses. (2)

NO: Nitric oxide, which supports endothelial health (the cells that line the blood vessels) and improves blood pressure, is induced by exercise (3). NO also has anti-oxidant capacity, another way exercise helps to fight disease.

VEGF: this is another reason to exercise but a reason to start slowly. This unique factor will help cannulize (open up) blocked blood vessels or create new vessel pathways around blockages (4). This process takes time, so when starting an exercise program, slowly build time and frequency before taking on exertion. Keep your heart rate to approximately 75-80% of the maximum. Once you have established an exercise regime, start building exertion; this should be done over weeks, possibly months, not days.

GLUT-4 upregulation: glucose must get into the cell for energy and glycogen storage; glut-4 is the cellular protein that gets it done. Insulin resistance is arguably a major, if not the major, contributor to aging, and this exercise-generated Glut-4 mechanism is a great way to limit this process. (5)

1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7205802/
2 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4915811/
3 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33472351/
4 - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1365-2362.2001.00816.x
5 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23899560/

Many studies in the medical literature support consumption of vegetables and fruit as the mainstay of our diet (1). So when planning a meal, such as breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even snacks, we should concentrate on the vegetable or fruit part of the meal and add ingredients to enhance or compliment the taste.

The beauty of fruits and veggies – so many choices to suit almost any palate, especially when combined with favorite herbs, spices, and natural flavoring.

This way of eating should be a long-term goal for most, if not all of us, so take a deep breath, and enjoy the journey. As parents, we strive to get it right, and our children need support and encouragement to keep trying. When making meals, be creative, and focus on taste rather than trying to convince the little critters it is good for them and, therefore, they should consume the food in front of them.

It is vital to ensure a wide variety of BENEFICIAL vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals (the treasured part of the plant) present in our foods. Some of the different ways we can consider adding a variety of fruits and vegetables to our families’ diet are as follows:

A QUICK THOUGHT I am sharing (please discuss with your kids or a kid you care about as appropriate).

When was the last time you took something for granted, and it worked out well?

In the words of Cynthia Ozick – “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”

I often ask my patients – “do you want to be healthy?”. Fortunately, all have responded positively, so intervention is not needed.

Not only should most of us have gratitude for being created so wonderfully, but we should also have intention and limit taking our health for granted.

Moreover, health feels so good. We can burn out our cells with poor nutrition, little hydration, and sleep or build them up with highly nutritious food, exercise, adequate hydration, and restorative sleep. So join many of my patients and me in taking steps away from disease and towards health. Consider your health as a gauge: full indicates health and empty signaling disease.

Move that needle by making small, intentional changes, and build on those. Instead of regular pasta, make zucchini squash pasta. Instead of bland, almost tasteless microwaved veggies, add some spices, roast them in the oven and enjoy. Instead of minute rice, explore an ancient whole grain. Slowly (or rapidly if you think you can maintain the change), move away from processed foods and refined sugar – add whole foods and fruits instead.

Don’t take your health for granted, as that window of feeling good will rapidly disappear. As Robert Brault commented: “Time is all we have and don’t.”

Don’t take your health for granted, as there is only so much to go around. “We never know the worth of water till the well is dry” – Thomas Fuller.

Thanks for listening, and take care of your human.

I would love to start “Parents of Picky Eaters Anonymous” due to the number of times I see frazzled parents with concern about their child’s eating habits or parents who have just given up to the “chicken fingers and peas/corn/broccoli” option. But giving in or giving up, while understandable, does not have to happen. Stay relaxed, every meal is not going to be enjoyed or appreciated by your child/children, and the last thing the table should become is a battle of wills;-)

Here are ten ways to help picky eaters become healthy eaters:

KIWI: Used as a medicinal, and packed with nutrients, antioxidants, and phytochemicals, this is a must-keep fruit in the rotation. Even without the skin, this fruit provides a good amount of fiber.

Glycemic Index: 4

Great in smoothies, salads, fruit bowls, or even frozen for a fun hot day snack. Due to some beneficial fruit compounds, it has been shown that eating some kiwi fruit in the evening, may help with sleep.

PEPPER: whether cooked or raw, this South American vegetable is a great addition to a healthy diet. Primarily composed of water, it is packed with vitamin C, yes, vitamin C as well as other health-supportive nutrients including carotenoids due to the variety of colors. They come in the sweeter varieties of yellow, orange, red, or slightly more bitter, especially if eaten before ripe, green colors.

Glycemic load: 3

Due to being on the vine longer, red peppers have significantly more nutrient value than green peppers, so spice/mix it up.

RASPBERRY: these tasty little berries, while most commonly red, may also be black, golden, or purple in color. But they do have a short shelf life. So be sure to eat this delicious fruit shortly after purchase to enjoy the health benefits of high fiber, vitamin C as well as other beneficial nutrients while being quite low in calories. Health benefits include limiting obesity, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer.

Glycemic Index: 3

Originally described as white in Greek Stories, that changed after Zeus’ nursemaid pricked her finger, giving the fruit a red color, despite the flower remaining white.

While we hope for perfection, this is not what life gives us. And this is true of the book. Fortunately, we can use these imperfections as teaching moments!

First moment: 5 pages in – “your trillions of cells (that’s 1,000,000,000).”

Well, that’s actually 1 billion! What’s impressive is how big of a number that seems, but it is 999,000,000,000 cells short of the actual number. That’s an incredible amount, and makes it abundantly clear just how important clear COMMUNICATION needs to be amongst our TRILLION cells! So, keep reading and teaching, and learning!

Second moment: Page 10 – my youngest child noted, while paging through his favorite ` book, that the raspberry looked black, possibly more like a blackberry. I took the opportunity to teach that there are indeed black raspberries. You could counter that the fruit does look like a blackberry. This brings me to yet another teaching point: I should never have left blackberries out of the book1 Some consider it a Superfood – high in fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. They are versatile and have a low glycemic load (4 – which makes them a great snack for the kids). https://www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-blackberries#nutrition-facts-and-calories

3rd moment: Page 31 – this lesson has to do with the alphabet. See if you can spot the mistake; if not, hopefully, with your parent’s help you can. If not, email me at martin@martinkatzmd.com to discover the teachable moment.

4th moment: Page 32 – similar to above.

5th moment: after looking for my description of raspberries to see if I commented on the fact that they are found in numerous different colors, I realized, I had not written anything about this wonderful fruit. Well, I had to ensure that all vegetables and fruits in the book were accounted for and fun facts are written. I guess I got tired, or brain fatigued by having to write creatively about the health benefits of these incredible foods, as I had also not written facts about peppers, and kiwis.

Health is something you CARE about.

Fortunately, I am yet to find a patient or person who does not consider health of paramount importance.

Paradoxically, and not surprisingly for so many, this is not the goal in the current Healthcare paradigm! Health SHOULD be the universal language and purpose of physicians, hospitals, insurance carriers, and care administrators as this is who YOU are paying to provide YOU HEALTHcare! Surprisingly and unfortunately, it is not!

So WE need to make a change. We have to make a change! This juggernaut of disease care management (aka healthcare as it is currently known) may be too big and disastrous to change. So let’s not wait for laws and mandates; it is absolutely up to us, the physicians, the patients, and the entrepreneurs who want to see change and can make it happen. The need to be healthy is middle ground America, where we can all meet and agree that change can and needs to happen. And I believe in you. The current system seems to be systematically removing your hope and possibly your fundamental understanding of what health can be and should embrace.

The system also limits your control. It can be overwhelming if you try to figure out and heal from a diseased state. As big conglomerates and hospital systems buy up practices and smaller hospitals, you will find yourself in a scenario where more procedures, medicines, and diagnostics are mandated and incentivized. As opposed to an understanding of what it is YOU can be doing to improve the situation. There is no time or incentive for education or a discussion of prevention, whether primary or secondary. It is just more, more, more, which makes your protection from these high costs desirable, and therefore the insurance model a necessary expense. So the machine moves on, disregarding any other possible options to assist patients in getting healthier.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times that procedures and tests are necessary, but understand that the majority of the top ten causes of death in America would fit into Preventable disorders. The top two make up almost 50% of deaths. This alarming statistic should make us scream, “Houston, we have a problem!” Heart disease (nearly 700,000 deaths – that’s well more than one death a minute) and Cancer (602,350, still well more than one death a minute) continue to account for many preventable deaths. Despite spending dizzying amounts of money for care and research dollars while looking for that as-of-yet elusive cure, high death rates persist. (1)

Yet, the cure is in our backyard. In other words, we DO have a good amount of control – food, exercise, sleep, hydration, stress control, community, and the microbiome.

Unfortunately, we humans, including physicians, are not educated about ‘how’ the human body operates physiologically and optimally with what is at our fingertips. To the haters, and unfortunately, there are always some, I will grant that there is still a lot we do not understand. Even something as simple as which nutritional approach is best. I would argue there is no ONE particular approach. Still, indeed, an approach best suits YOU, as long as YOU intentionally listen to your body and have a practitioner who understands preventive HEALTH to guide you.

There are just too many studies demonstrating the health utility of these vital health strategies – food, exercise, sleep, hydration, stress control, community, and the microbiome.

So please help me, help YOUrselves in making this transition. There is no more important time to embrace this approach!

In future posts, I will address each of these health approaches to gain perspective on how we can make a difference in our lives and those of our loved ones.

This broken system is part of why I wrote the book “Making a Magnificent You.” I want to guide children to make better choices and to support parents in helping make that change possible. But please understand it is not about reading a book, nodding in acknowledgement, and then putting the book down to sit and watch a show while eating something convenient. It is about making a change, possibly small if this is all you can do. Still, building on that change, making tomorrow better from a YOU health perspective.

- 1 - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm