healthy weight loss meals plan

We’ve heard a lot about antioxidants lately and with good reason. They provide essential uses to our health and are an important anti-aging supplement. Most often, antioxidants come from fruits and vegetables, but the lowly flaxseed is perhaps one of our most powerful sources.

What is Flaxseed Oil?

Flaxseed Oil is also known as Linseed Oil. The oil is created from the seeds of the flax plant. Typically, linseed oil is the yellowish drying oil that is extracted and used as a carrier in oil paint and also as a wood finish. When the flax seed is cold pressed without the extraction, it is called flaxseed oil and is used as a nutritional supplement. More information than you need to know? Maybe, but I thought it was interesting that a lowly plant seed could be used for both furniture finish AND the next best nutritional supplement since the multi-vitamin.

Flaxseed oil is rich in Omega 3 fatty acids which are excellent in a whole host of ways – heart disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and arthritis to name a few. Omega 3
fatty acids are typically linked with fish oils but flaxseed oil provides a good alternative source of the Omega 3′s for the vegetarian that prefers plant based supplements.

Lignan is a chemical compound produced in plants that is a powerful antioxidant. Flaxseed oil contains one of the highest concentration of lignan known. Why is that important? Studies have shown populations that ingest a high amount of lignans have a lower incidence of cancer. Lignans are antioxidant molecules with anti-cancer, anti-viral, and anti-bacterial attributes. These plant hormones are also believed to block the manufacturing of hormone-based tumors.

Here’s an interesting tidbit:
Dark chocolate is also an antioxidant. It has the same antioxidants as tea.

Antioxidants have proven to have considerable health uses and anti-aging attributes. As an antioxidant, the flaxseed oil’s lignans can help increase the body’s immune system, keeping harmful, disease-causing germs from deteriorating the cells. Lignans also increase the manufacturing of a substance attached to estrogen and transports it out of the body which also makes it helpful in relieving PMS symptoms.

Other uses of flaxseed oil include helping to protect the body against inflammations, high blood pressure, lowering cholesterol and triglycerides and improves the absorption of calcium.

As you can see, flaxseed oil is a nutritional supplement that should not be overlooked. Easy to take and less expensive than the considerable supplements touted today.

I have written many emails over the years on the effect of fish oil on fat burning.

Lately there has been corroborating scientific evidence that fish oil can reduce belly fat and aid in fat burning as part of a solid diet and exercise program.

But still I get questions like the one below.

“Doc, I have read some of the stuff in your articles archive.

I don’t understand how fat can burn fat. It just does not make sense.” William Hennessey Kansas City.

Yikes!

This could be one of those god-awful scientific emails.

Ok I promise to keep it clean after all you’ve got enough on your plate.

Here’s the deal.

All foods have effects on the hormone systems of the body.

Some foods like fish oils actually behave like hormones in that they affect all kinds of other things from your genetic material to your proteins and other hormones.

Fish Oils especialy influence the way the cell behaves at an individual level.

On that level, fish oil helps to gets cells to take in more fat and become more able to use that fat as fuel.

Most of the fish oil you take has far more effect on these cellular and hormone systems than it ever has on your calorie intake.

Hence when someone asks me the inevitable, “Won’t I get fat on fish Oil since it’s a fat?” question, I can always say, “Nope” with confidence.

But there is another simple way to tell that fish oil is working for you. If and when you go to get your cholesterol checked you will usually see a couple of things on Fish Oil if it’s high quality.

First, your good cholesterol will go up. Very good.

Next your triglycerides will go down.

What are triglycerides?

Raw fat in transit.

This is the way your body moves fat through your bloodstream. Whether you export it (burn it up as fuel in your cells) or import it into your arteries to clog them depends a heck of a lot on how much fish oil you have in your system at the time.

So remember, when you eat a lousy meal, pop some extra fish oil!

Here is what happens to those ugly, nasty, artery clogging fats if you do:

“Doc,

Just wanted to let you know the results of my most recent blood tests. I am 61 years old and have been on Lipitor for the past 9 months. I have been taking your fish oil capsules for two months. My doctor’s office called yesterday to inform me of the results of my blood work done last week. They just said it was great. I asked to please let me know the differences from the last tests 6 months ago. My total cholesterol dropped from 158 to 149. The improvement was due to lower LDL, but the exciting numbers were the drop in triglycerides. My triglycerides have always been high. The test 6 months ago had me at 218, this latest one was 109. Cut in half!!

The doctor’s office asked what I was doing differently. I said 3 things. Two bad one good. I had not exercised in 8 months and had gained 8 pounds, but I started taking your pharmaceutical grade fish oil. They were impressed as I was. Now everyone in my office wants to get on the bandwagon. We are buying a case today!!!”

There a number of different specific hair vitamins and minerals that can play a major role in helping a person have a healthy head of hair. If a person does not have sufficient hair vitamins then the deficiencies can lead to thinning hair or even total baldness in the most severe cases. The fact is that the state of a person’s hair reflects the overall condition of their body. Extra hair vitamins are likely to be needed if a person is generally unwell or is undernourished as their hair will show damage too and may even stop growing.

Some of the most important hair vitamins that a person needs to have healthy hair include B6, biotin, inositol and folic acid. The best way to ensure that a person receives enough of these essential hair vitamins are for them to be taken as vitamin supplements. It is not just hair vitamins that are necessary for healthy hair though as there are a number of minerals that are essential, including magnesium, sulphur, silica and zinc.

The most essential hair vitamin is vitamin a but the best form of this is to include in the diet is beta-carotene. This is because the hair vitamin A can be toxic if consumed in large quantities but beta-carotene has no such problems and is converted by the body into vitamin A that can be used to promote healthy hair. Of course, vitamin A is not just a hair vitamin, it is also needed for a number of other functions including normal growth of bones, skin, nails and the protective sheath surrounding nerve fibres.

Protein is another essential hair vitamin. This is because hair itself is essentially protein. The amount of this hair vitamin that a person consumes in their diet can affect the hair directly. If a lot of protein is included in a person’s diet then this hair vitamin will lead to improved hair growth and a far fuller head of hair. However, a person who has a diet that is lacking in this hair vitamin will suffer from thinning hair and slow hair growth.

Of course, it is not just hair vitamins and minerals that are needed to ensure that a person has healthy, strong hair. There are a number of researchers who have found that there are direct links between the overall health of a person and the condition of their hair. If a person is under a lot of stress or suffers from a lack of sleep then their hair is also likely to suffer and it is likely that their diet will not provide enough hair vitamins to counter these effects. Hair vitamin and mineral supplements can be the solution to weak and damaged hair.