Dr. Dave on money

Before I give you “advice” on money let me tell you my qualifications.

I do not study money, I do not study finance and I know no more about money than the next person. Which, in the current situation makes me as qualified as anyone else who is out there.

Turn on any “news” channel and after the bevy of “reality news” featuring the latest tragedy that this economy has caused somewhere in some remote corner of the globe and you will see people known as pundits screaming at the top of their lungs about why their way is the way to correct the economy.

So everyone has an opinion and everyone knows everything. And you know what they say about opinions: they remind one of a certain body part because every one has one and they stink.

Sorry, I find that hard to believe that any of these so-called experts has any real value to add here except to upset people and glue them to the TV. So I took a different look at things. I looked at them through the eyes of "neuroeconomics” which is how the brain works “on money” as opposed to on drugs or alcohol (or food!).

Turns out that the brain reacts to money issues much the way people who are compulsive gamblers or crack head; addicts.

The other interesting things that were found were that people consistently overestimated the value of their investment and their ability to make good decisions about money.

It was very hard as well for people to divorce themselves from their emotions when it comes to money even though it is a relatively new invention in the grand scheme of humanity.

Even the lead author of the neuroeconomics text who was an editor for Money magazine admitted he lost over a quarter of million dollars in the market because “he knew better than the rest of the world”.

Money seems to represent love, lust, power, security, social status and vanity all wrapped up in one.

Now remember I have the same qualifications as the pundits do, maybe even more: I know nothing about money.

But I do know human behavior.


So here are my predictions about the economy.

It will be volatile, up and down and until it goes up continuously people will freak out every time it dips.

And it’s likely to dip a lot deeper for some time. Then if you’re smart you can make money!

And dip it will; the media will make sure you know this. They will also feed the fear and convince you that this is reality so you need to focus on it. And by focusing on this reality we will all create more of it, I promise you.

When the economy does finally recover everyone will take credit for it, and all the pundits will tell you “I said we needed to do this to turn it around”. No one will ever look back to now to see what they really said.

So my advice: Since I don’t play the market much, again I have all the qualifications to tell you this. Anyone who tells you they are doing much better than the market in returns is either lying or cheating.

So don’t expect your market investments to do any better than the market and for the immediate future that means don’t expect much!

Above all take care of your health. And take care of the ones you love. That is what will matter in the long run.

Take your fish oil!

Doc

On Thanksgiving

For me, Thanksgiving is one of the more solemn holidays.

Like many people I spend the time with my family and have a traditional meal, etc., relishing the time with those I love and keep close.

Perhaps, like you, I have a small nuclear family that I value above all else because they are the reason I get up every morning.

I do not speak of them much because they prefer to be in the background and remain anonymous, avoiding the sometime celebrity that follows my public appearances.

But I give thanks for and to them everyday, especially on this day.

Here are some other things you may relate to as well:

I am grateful for having the best friends any man could ever wish for.

I give thanks for my health and the ability to create more of it and share these discoveries with others. I can say that at my current age (50-ish) I am as fit and healthy as I have ever been and I look forward to the next decade with the positive expectation of more of the same, perhaps even better.

I will share that with you as well through my continued writings.

I am grateful that I live in the USA.

In spite of the media feast on the supposedly dead carcass of our economy, I know two things for sure: First, the rest of the world (yes, even China and Japan) will falter miserably if we are weak economically. We still matter that much, much to the chagrin of the rest of the world. And two, the economy will turn around and be resilient and strong again, hopefully devoid, at least for a while, of the greed and stupidity and duplicity that got us into this mess in the first place.

I am grateful that I avoided all that!

I am grateful that I believe with all my heart that I make my own future and that it is not totally dependent on all the outside forces that others seem to dwell on.

I am grateful that I understand that adversity is merely the flip side of opportunity.

I am grateful to my critics and to the people who dwell on the negative aspects of the world, my world and their world for reminding me of what I do not want to be.

I am grateful for the new wonderful people who continuously enter my life.

I am grateful for the people who have left and the lessons they taught me.

I am grateful for the mind I have been given and the ability to see and create things that did not exist in the past because every man and woman wants to leave a legacy and to a large extent Dr. Dave’s Best will be mine.

I am grateful for my home, my car, my bikes, my hobbies, my talents, the beautiful area I live in and my continued ability to share and uplift people with them.

I could go on but you get the picture.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

I hope you do too and that you are able to recognize it.

Thanks for spending this little time with me and have a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving and a gratifying rest of the year!

Doc

P.S. To all of you who will be joining me at my Boot Camp in Boca this February, my sincere gratitude as well and be ready for a tour de force in fitness and fun!

How to increase your calorie burn by twenty percent

How to increase your calorie burn by twenty percent

A few months ago I took a little run through the Canadian Rockies. I ran 78 miles to be exact and when I crossed the finish line of this race known as the Canadian Death Race (because if you finish you probably cheated death) I had achieved something that only 35% of the people who started as solo runners did.

I finished the race!

Now there were many factors in this. As a matter of fact, I am in the process of writing a book about the experience but I can distill it down to a few biggies.

And it's one of those biggies I want to tell you about now.

Trekking poles.

After attempting to come down one of the mountain sides in practice I realized there is no way my quads and my legs are going to survive such a race. Enter "Dr. Death" also known as Dale, the originator of the Death Race. After a 5 minute session on trekking pole use, I was set and I found them to be one of the major keys to completing such a long, hard race over such difficult terrain.

They especially helped me literally fly down the mountain sides without breaking my neck. This helped make up for my less than stellar speed on the climbing side of things.

So when I got back from the Death Race I decided that just about any run on any trail I would take would see my trusty trekking poles by my side.

Thus when I showed up at some shorter races in my local area I got a bunch of funny looks and a few comments about "the dude with the ski poles".

Most had never even seen them let alone seen anyone using them.

What my running friends didn't know is that trekking polls stand poised to be "the next big thing" along with band training in the fitness industry.

And with good reason, they help you burn more fat.

I could go on and on about why I use trekking poles for my trail runs, but the main reason I want to bring them to your attention is that recent studies in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research have shown that they increase the calorie burn without increasing the perceived exertion of the exercise.

So whether you walk or run, you burn more calories and you don't feel more tired.

It has been estimated that you actually burn about 20% more calories using the poles because they engage your upper body and core.

So if you are looking for a way to improve your walking/running efficiency in terms of calorie burning this is a great way to do it.

And if like me you live in areas of ice and snow in the winter, the poles behave like extra legs so now you have 4 legs instead of 2!

Get out, move and enjoy!

Doc

Learning to say goodbye

If I had to put my finger on the one thing that bugs most people, causes more problems in people's lives and more emotional, physical and spiritual discord it would be this: other people!

In twenty + years of practicing medicine I have listened over and over to people complain about other people. The most common complaint I hear would boil down to this: They just won't behave the way I want them to!

Now no one actually comes out and says this. What you get is a litany of complaints instead about reactions, behaviors, responses, lack of responses and overall multiple reasons why one or more people is making the selected individual miserable.

If only they would be the way I want them to be and then I could be happy.

A scary thought isn't it?

Needing someone to behave a certain way for you to be happy!

My advice to these folks is "don’t hold your breathe and learn to say goodbye and good luck."

It is very rare that anyone will permanently modify their behavior willingly to suit another person.

Those that try usually get bitter and miserable themselves and ultimately find that there is really no end to the need to change for someone else once you have tried.

Now goodbye is a tough thing and not always possible. After all we are pretty much stuck with some of our family members. In those situations you pretty much have to simply accept them as they are. I'll tell you one thing: at least they're consistent.

I think goodbye is an underutilized word in our lives.

Loyal, determined and persistent beings that we are, we tend to cling too long to things and people that no longer serve us.

I am all about evolution personally and I will tell you that as life changes so do relationships.

Not always for the better.

Your goal is to be happy in your world, not to change the worlds of others so the world looks the same for everyone. It will never work anyway.

Sometimes goodbye is the best thing you can do for everyone involved.

Remember this. When you say goodbye be thankful to the person you are saying goodbye to even if it's painful, sad or angering.

Like it or not they were part of your evolution. Hey, at least you know what you don't want!

Doc

Total Bull

Something came across my desk today that felt like Deja Vu.

One of my friends and customers from Los Angeles sent me an article about an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which suggested fraudulent or at least exaggerated positive claims for prescription drugs.

You may remember a few months ago I referred to an article published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. In this article it was revealed that if a drug company sponsored a clinical trial of its drug, there was a whopping 90% chance that it would come out favorably. If they did not sponsor the trial and it was done independently, positive results happened often less than 50% of the time.

The new Journal of the American Medical Association article showed that the same thing happens over in Britain! In this case the numbers were a little better. 80% backed by drug companies were positive, 50% positive if they were not backed by drug companies.

Now let's look at some particulars. As a real Doctor who sees and cares for real live patients, I can tell you that most of us "hands on" docs are bombarded everyday with drug company propaganda. As a matter of fact, most of our “education” is provided by drug companies!

If you don't read independent literature, and read critically, you are in my opinion being brainwashed by Big Pharmacy. Most doctors are just that, brainwashed by Big Pharmacy.

Now, why would things be at least a little better in Britain? Maybe it's because they are less likely to play into the hands of the drug companies because they have socialized medicine and have less to gain from it.

Maybe they are taking their Fish Oil and thinking a little more clearly than us!

Either way, when contacted by the authors of this article and confronted with the evidence 90% of the research teams denied they hadn't reported everything the way they should have.

On either side of the pond the bottom line is: over half of the trials and their outcomes were not honest!!!!

And what is it that traditional medicine bases its approach on? You guessed it; these very same trials.

So, a Full Half of what is taught to doctors is TOTAL BULL!

Now I know why so many things I was taught in Medical School turned out not to be true!

Doc

THE REAL SKINNY ON ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS

If I were to pick one area of controversy that generates more emotional attachment and pseudo science, it would be the comparison of artificial sweeteners with sugar.

It is immensely popular, especially if you represent alternative medicine as I do, to say that artificial sweeteners are evil, wicked, mean and nasty.

Let me warn you that I am going to be brutal in my approach today and that when the smoke clears, there is still going to be some low hanging fog!

Let me begin by asking you this question: How do you feel about artificial sweeteners and why do you feel that way?

Before I go any further, let me say first that I am not trying to convince you or change your mind. I am merely going to present the facts as I see them.

Here they are:

1) Artificial sweeteners have been linked to hundreds of different human illnesses via personal complaints to the FDA.

2) Artificial sweeteners have been linked in some lab studies to serious illnesses in lab animals (rats) like cancer.

3) The doses used in those studies exceed the reasonable human consumption limit by hundreds to thousands of times and produce cancer in rats that have been inbred for over 40 years, ultimately causing them to have a higher cancer rate to begin with.

4) No clear well controlled human studies have proven any link to any serious disease from any artificial sweetener. EVER.

5) Aspartame is the culprit in over 75% over the food additive complaints reported to the FDA. Cited side effects range from seizures and death to Gulf War Syndrome, hair loss, and 90 different types of complaints!

6) These complaints are not scientifically proven or investigated for validity. There are basically people calling or writing saying "aspartame caused me to have a problem". Anyone can report a complaint and no one is required to prove its validity.

I promise you there is no death certificate anywhere that lists "NutraSweet" as the cause of death!

7) In spite of their completely diverse and unrelated chemical nature, the complaints lodged against all artificial sweeteners are strikingly similar. Most common are headaches, GI intolerance, memory, brain and personality disorders, and of course, cancer.



8) No one is "For" artificial sweeteners. Only "against" them. The 50 + million people who use them on a yearly basis in this country do not come to their aid or defend them against their critics; they just keep quietly using them! A far smaller but far more vocal minority slams them with tremendous vehemence.

9) Artificial sweeteners did not make anyone fat. EVER. No matter what some supposed studies say. If you look at the test subjects, they were all overweight to begin with. Sorry, but the general rule is: If you are overweight, you are likely to continue the behaviors that got you there in the first place. You know…the ones that were not controlled in the studies (what you ate and drank besides diet soda).

By now you probably realize that I don't oppose the use of artificial sweeteners. You may think that means I support their use. Not so fast, because there’s more to consider.

Remember those big studies I told you about that showed that the artificial sweeteners we use here in the U.S. are safe? Well, they were done by the sweetener manufacturers, which automatically open them up to biased results.

Keep in mind that these studies cost big bucks, so the companies are not likely to repeat them. After all, they got the results they wanted.

A similar, large well-designed highly controlled study run by an independent agency that has nothing to gain but has to spend millions is not likely to ever happen.

So what proof do we really have they are safe? We have the fact that 50 million people use them without complaints every year. That is a pretty big study!

Now here is some more food for thought: Let's look at sugar, especially refined table sugar.

1) It started the slave trade in the western hemisphere

2) It has been directly linked to diabetes and obesity

3) It causes tooth decay

4) Before the 1600's, few cultures used sugar

5) Sugar has been reported as 200x more addictive to the human brain than cocaine

Ultimately, the human body does not need highly refined sugar OR artificial sweeteners. There are plenty of naturally occurring substitutes for sugar you can use if you want, like Stevia.

So, let’s be clear that the overconsumption of refined sugar poses a very clear and well documented danger compared to artificial sweeteners.

Weight Training Versus Cardio for Fat Loss

It’s time for me to weigh in on a very hot and controversial topic…which is better for fat loss - weight training or cardio?

The real answer is that it depends on your definitions of cardio and weight training.
Once these are established, there really is no controversy.

For opening arguments, let's define each of them in a traditional manner.

We'll say weight training is a typical hypertrophy/strength program centered on barbells and dumbbells with the desired end result being to build lean muscle as opposed to pure strength (low reps/high weights) or neuromuscular strength and coordination as in Olympic weight lifting.

In this definition, we can include some power moves like squats, bench presses, lat pull downs, bent over rows, biceps and triceps work, and even a few compound moves like power cleans or clean and presses. We'll set our rep range to 12 and do 3 to 4 sets of each for a total time of one hour, 3 to 4 times a week.

Split routines fit nicely into this definition.

For cardio, we'll say anything from brisk walking to jogging and throw in all the usual cardio equipment like treadmills, elliptical trainers and steppers. To keep it within the long slow distance realm, we'll say our heart rates need to stay around 70% of our max (220-age) x 7.

However, if you use those somewhat narrow definitions, you then have to face some harsh facts.

Neither of these quite typical routines is all that great for burning fat.

Resistance training mavens will tell you that you need lean muscle to burn fat and therefore weight training is superior.

They will not tell you that it will take you several months of this training to build enough muscle to have a meaningful impact on your fat burning abilities.

Some will even cite the after burn effect, but frankly there is not much of that in this type of training either. An hour of this type of training will burn around 300 to 400 calories during exercise and if you hit it hard maybe another 50 to 100 calories in after burn.

Cardio buffs will tell you that by keeping your heart rate in the 70% max range you are in the "fat burning zone" and if you run on a treadmill at 6 m.p.h. with a little incline you'll burn 600 calories, the bulk of them from fat.

This is true but you'll have very little after burn from this type of long slow cardio.

Now here is the key: intensity.

If you push very hard through your weight training routines and keep your heart rate up in the 85 to 90% range, you will have increased calorie burn during exercise and after.

Same with your cardio. If you throw in intervals of speed running on the treadmill for 1 to 2 minutes with 1 to 2 minutes of recovery at the 70% max heart rate range, you'll be practicing interval training and get some of the best fat burning you can have.

If you do strength training and interval training either separately or together in what is known as a circuit interval ala www.downunderstrength.com/ you will have the best of both worlds and the best most efficient fat burning anyone can give you!


Doc