Dear Reader,
Today, I want to give you a great, often overlooked tool to get lean and stay slim.
If you’ve joined my Dr. Sears’ Fat Loss Challenge, congratulations… you’re well on your way to a lean, fat-free body. (If you haven’t, there’s still time. And you could win $5,000!)
To help you achieve your fat-loss goals, I want to tell you about a nutrient that quickly boosts your body’s response to insulin. Exactly what you need to lose fat fast. It’s a deficient mineral, magnesium.
Thousands of years ago, your caveman ancestors got plenty of magnesium every day from their native diet. As much as 800-mg to 1,500-mg. But today, you’re lucky to get 200-mg. And that’s bad news… Magnesium is responsible for over 300 biological and enzymatic functions in your body.
Symptoms of low magnesium are surprisingly similar to what many doctors call metabolic syndrome, or “syndrome X.” This is a chronic disorder that increases your risk of each of these:
• Obesity
• Insulin resistance
• High blood pressure
• Low HDL, (good cholesterol)
• High Triglycerides, (blood fat)
• Diabetes
In a recent study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, researchers found that simply having enough magnesium in your diet lowers your level of insulin and helps you control your blood sugar.
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that insulin tells your body how much fat to make and store. Keeping your insulin in check is one of the keys to fat loss.
Starchy, high-carb foods spike your blood sugar, triggering insulin. Over time, you become insulin resistant. This puts you on the fast track to obesity, diabetes and eventually heart disease.
Magnesium helps regulate insulin. But 75 percent of Americans don’t get their recommended daily allowance (RDA) of this vital mineral. And more than 30 percent don’t even get half!
There are several reasons: Commercial farming methods use depleted soil, which makes it almost impossible for your food to soak up magnesium as it grows. And many processed foods have little or no mineral content by the time they end up in the freezer section of your local grocery store.
And, magnesium used to be in your drinking water but water with high mineral content – hard water – fell out of favor because most people don’t like the taste.
Think of magnesium as your “fat-loss mineral.” Restoring your magnesium levels to that of your caveman ancestors will take you a step closer to your real native diet – the kind you were designed to eat.
You can add magnesium to your diet by eating nuts, seeds, dairy products and dark green, leafy vegetables. You can also take a supplement. For better absorption, I recommend spending a little extra and getting the chelated form.
In the process of chelation, amino acids form a protective structure around the magnesium ions, helping them pass into the digestive tract where they can be better absorbed. For long-term success, this is the better option.
In most cases, an effective dose is 300 to 400-mg daily. If you have kidney problems or high-degree heart block, don’t take any magnesium supplements until you talk to your doctor.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD