Most trainers and gyms will tell you how the mid to late summer months can be pretty slow. For whatever reason it seems that the average American feels an urgent need to “get in shape” for certain seasons, then let themselves go for others.

Wouldn’t it be great if you were always fit, always, healthy, and always looked great?

Forget New Year’s resolutions, why not start now? It really is much easier than you might think to improve your health. For example, just choose an area you would like to see change, then pick one small thing that you can perform on a regular basis to achieve your goal.

Make sure that whatever step you take, that it is doable. If fat loss is a goal, then choose something small like exchanging half your starchy carbohydrates for veggies at dinner. If your goal is to increase your punching speed, then commit to throwing ten or twenty extra high speed punches per day. Just make sure that the feeling you get when choosing your new habit is “Yeah, I can do that,” instead of “Ugh.  I really don’t wan to do that.”

One of my recent goals, for example, is to develop the ability to perform a full side split. I’m fairly flexible, but I have not been able to complete a side split since I was 10 years old and it’s a crowd pleaser that I have been wanting to develop for a few years now. In any case, my new habit will be to spend ten minutes every day performing strength and flexibility exercises for side splits.

So, once you get started with your new habit make sure to keep it up religiously for at least a month; by then the habit should be pretty well set and you can add another.

If you think about it, you can have 12 new healthy habits every year. At that rate, you will be at your best in no time!

As an added measure of accountability, let people know what you are doing. In fact, feel free to post your goal and new habit here or better yet, start your own blog and document your journey to better health.

Let me know how it goes!

In Health,

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

OK, so there really isn’t an actual “JKD Nutrition Plan” but there should be.

For those who may not know, Bruce Lee was a huge proponent of optimal health and performance via careful and deliberate nutrition. He experimented heavily with vitamins, protein shakes, and other health supplements; he even explored the latest fads, quickly dismissing nonsense and keeping what worked for him.

In the spirit of Jeet Kune Do, I’ll clear up a few myths and outright fallacies of modern nutrition so that you may “absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is uniquely your own.”

I warn you however, that what you read here will probably go contrary to everything you think you know about nutrition.

Let’s begin . . .

Myth: Your diet should include small amounts of polyunsaturated oils and no unsaturated fats.

This is perhaps the biggest misunderstanding in nutrition. Unlike what the FDA has lead the public to believe, fat is your friend. In fact, fat is an absolutely essential nutrient that has received a lot of abuse from the media and so-called diet and nutrition gurus over the years.

Polyunsaturated fats like canola oil have been hailed as healthy oils due to their low saturated fat content when the opposite is actually true. “Vegetable” oils like canola and corn oil actually have a high potential of harming the body simply due to their unstable molecular structure. These “polyunsaturated” oils are highly susceptible to oxidation and formation of toxic substances (such as acrylamide) under heat. Furthermore, oxidized oils create a whole host of problems including harmful free radical cascades arterial plaques (analysis of arterial plaques show their composition to be primarily oxidized polyunsaturated fats, not cholesterol as everybody seems to think).

Saturated fats like organic coconut oil and butter, on the other hand, are nutritional powerhouses. Taken raw, their health benefits put them in the class of super foods with their immune boosting and gut healing properties. These fats are also much healthier options for cooking due to their higher molecular stability.

Similarly, mono unsaturated fats like olive oil, hemp oil are more stable than their polyunsaturated cousins and also have positive health promoting properties of their own when taken raw.

Remember that most of the fats in our own body are actually saturated, not to mention that medium chain fatty acids (like coconut oil) make an excellent energy source comparable to carbohydrates. In fact, saturated fat is the primary source of energy for the heart.

Why all the negative hype in the media about saturated fats? Most likely, this is due to the advent of trans fats in margarine and other hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenation, being a process that artificially saturates an oil, thus making it more stable for longer shelf life in stores.

Consider trans and hydrogenated fats as public enemy number one and avoid at all costs. Used as a preservative, nothing eats hydrogenated fat . . . not even mold and bacteria, and neither should you.

The final, but no less important, element in dietary fats concern essential fatty acids. These are a class of fats that the body needs but is unable to produce and therefore, must get out of the diet. Omega three fatty acids are really the only ones you need to be conscious about as they are less abundant than the others (ie. omega 6). Just make certain that the omega three in your diet is coming from an animal source such as fish and egg yolks, as omega 3 from flax and other plant sources is inadequate. Again, as an unsaturated oil, it is better taken raw and with plenty of anti-oxidants to preserve its healthful state.

I’ll also take this opportunity to mention raw milk as s great source of beneficial fats.  I’ll talk again about milk when addressing protein, but as an important note about fats, unprocessed butterfat cells have special properties that are not well understood yet but obviously promote gut health and deliver certain fat soluble nutrients very effectively.  More to come on the subject of raw milk later.

This is only a rough guide to dietary fats, but will none-the-less produce extraordinary health benefits in the long run.

For in-depth information about nutrition and healthy fats, visit the Weston Price Foundation

Stay tuned for Part II of this series where I’ll be covering dietary protein.

In Health,

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com