Tag: mike dolce

By: Anderson J. Wood
Originally posted at MikeDolceMMA.com
 
It’s been a while since my last blog. Sorry about that, the weather in Ohio is beautiful and I haven’t spent much time inside.
I’m 7 months in on the diet. I’m hovering around 200 lbs, that’s 65 LBS LOST. I wear 36″ pants loosely. 4 new notches in the belt and my XL shirts are baggy. I’m working out 3 to 4 times a week which is awesome. I’m now training for a Warrior Dash event in September. I’ve found I stick to the diet and exercise more if I’m training for something specific.
This diet really has changed my life. Exercise and a sound diet are now my every day life. I’ve found a girl who likes to exercise too so we’re complimenting each other very well. She’s is in much better shape than I am though…She’s training for a marathon, I’m still trying to run a 5k under 30m. I’m really only using the free meals the couple of nights a week we usually go out and I still get sauces on the side and stay away from the foods I know got me where I was last December.
I don’t know what else to say other than if you have doubts, don’t. This diet works. I have tried everything over the years. And while they all worked in one way or another, the only one I’ve stuck with is The Dolce Diet. The reason why are the results. They come on rather quickly and stay that way for a while. This is a diet where if you do the work, you see the results.

By Dr. Joseph Mercola
Researchers have been investigating a number of powerful natural agents that can help you stabilize your blood sugar, and once again, cinnamon has proven itself as a viable contender in the fight against diabetes, as the study in Diabetic Medicine reveals.(1)
One of cinnamon’s most impressive health benefits is its ability to improve blood glucose control.
For example, just half a teaspoon of cinnamon a day has previously been shown to significantly reduce blood sugar levels, triglycerides, LDL (bad) cholesterol, and total cholesterol levels in people with type 2 diabetes. (2)
The more you can make use of natural therapies such as nutrition and exercise, the better your health will be.
However, as helpful as supplements like cinnamon can be, they should not be misconstrued as cures. They are not substitutes for proper diet and lifestyle choices. You cannot properly address your diabetes if you still maintain a sedentary lifestyle and poor dietary choices — cinnamon supplementation or not!
How Cinnamon Can Benefit Diabetics
Below are five known ways cinnamon can be helpful to your metabolism:
1. Cinnamon can increase your glucose metabolism about 20-fold, which significantly improves blood sugar regulation. (4)
2. Cinnamon has been found to have “insulin-like effects” due to a bioactive compound, qualifying it as a candidate for an insulin substitute.
3. Cinnamon slows the emptying of your stomach to reduce sharp rises in blood sugar following meals, and improves the effectiveness, or sensitivity, of insulin.
4. Cinnamon actually enhances your antioxidant defenses. A study published in 2009 stated, “Polyphenols from cinnamon could be of special interest in people who are overweight with impaired fasting glucose since they might act as both insulin sensitizers and antioxidants.” (5)
5. A bioflavonoid found in cinnamon called proanthocyanidin may alter the insulin-signaling activity in your fat cells.
Other health benefits of cinnamon include:
• Supporting digestive function
• Relieving congestion
• Relieving pain and stiffness of muscles and joints
• Reducing inflammation and symptoms of arthritis
• Helping to prevent urinary tract infections, tooth decay and gum disease
• Relieving menstrual discomfort
• Stimulating circulation with blood-thinning compounds
Clearly, adding ample amounts of cinnamon to your diet is incredibly safe and inexpensive. Just remember, unless you are adding it to a proper diet — high in vegetables and extremely low in fructose and grains — it is unlikely you will experience any benefit whatsoever.
Original story posted on HuffingtonPost.com
Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder and director of Mercola.com.

Weekly Health Tip: Soluble Fiber: Your Heart’s Best Friend
By Deepak Chopra, MD
“Oatmeal is good for your heart.” You hear that a lot, and not just from oatmeal companies. Many cardiologists and other health professionals recommend starting the day with a bowl of oats. There’s a good reason: Oatmeal is one of many foods that contains soluble fiber, a substance that can help your heart by reducing the amount of LDL cholesterol (also know as “bad” cholesterol) in your blood (1). Research shows that a moderate increase in the amount of soluble fiber in a person’s diet is likely to lower his or her risk of developing heart disease. It can also slow the progression of heart disease once it has begun. That’s not all: Soluble fiber can help lower the risk of developing diabetes. And the benefits of a diet rich in soluble fiber apply to children as well as adults. A 2009 study showed that soluble fiber helps reduce a child’s risk for future chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease, and diabetes by helping to maintain normal blood sugar and blood pressure levels (2).
A Sponge for Cholesterol What exactly is soluble fiber, and how does it work its magic? Fiber is the part of a plant food that your body cannot digest. It travels intact through your stomach, intestines, and colon and exits from your body. There are two kinds of fiber, and both are good for you. Insoluble fiber, which does not dissolve in water, adds bulk to the material moving through your digestive system and is good at relieving constipation. It’s found in whole wheat, nuts, and many vegetables. Soluble fiber, as the name implies, dissolves in water, forming a gel-like substance. In addition to oats, soluble fiber can be found in beans, barley, flaxseed, and certain vegetables and fruits.
Scientists aren’t sure exactly how soluble fiber reduces the LDL or “bad” cholesterol in your blood, but they suspect it works like this: Soluble fiber acts like a cholesterol “sponge” by soaking up cholesterol-laden bile salts in the small intestine and eliminating these salts along with waste. That not only removes harmful cholesterol from your body, it also keeps bile acids from being “recycled” back to the liver. As a result, the liver must produce new bile acids, and to do that, it pulls LDL cholesterol out of the bloodstream (1). That reduces “bad” cholesterol levels even further, which is good news for your heart: If there’s less bad cholesterol floating around in your bloodstream, it means there’s less that can collect on the walls of the arteries, where it increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Other Health Benefits The benefit of soluble fiber doesn’t stop with cholesterol reduction. Soluble fiber can also lower triglycerides—fats in the blood that contribute to heart disease. According to a 2010 study, it may also help reduce blood pressure and that’s good for your heart health (3, 4). Soluble fiber can also benefit people at risk for diabetes by regulating blood sugar. It slows down the body’s absorption of sugar, reducing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and helping to control existing cases of diabetes (4, 5). If that’s not impressive enough, emerging research shows that certain forms of soluble fiber may enhance the body’s immune function (2).
Foods With Fiber Does this make you want to eat more soluble fiber? It should. And if you’re like many Americans, you probably need to boost your intake of both kinds of fiber, soluble and insoluble. On average, children and adults in the U.S. consume less than half of the recommended amount of fiber. The USDA suggests that adult women get about 28 grams of total dietary fiber a day and adult men consume 36 grams a day. Children one year and older should consume 14 grams for every 1,000 calories in their diet (2).
At least 5 to 10 grams of your total daily fiber intake should consist of soluble fiber if you want to reap its cholesterol-lowering benefits, advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in its guidelines for a heart-healthy diet (6). That translates into about 1 ½ cups of cooked oatmeal (6 g of soluble fiber) plus a serving of fruit, such as apples or bananas (4 grams of soluble fiber). If you’re not a fan of oatmeal, there are lots of other tasty ways to get soluble fiber into your diet. Pears, citrus fruits, legumes such as kidney beans, peas, carrots, barley, and psyllium (seed husks) are all good sources (4, 5). Try to avoid processed foods like pulp-free juice and canned fruits and vegetables and substitute fresh high-fiber ones instead. While packaged fiber supplements are an option, it’s best to get your fiber fix from food sources, since you get the additional benefits of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. Whether you get your soluble fiber by starting the day with oat-based cereal, or munching on apples, beans, or barley as the day progresses, your body will thank you from the bottom of its heart.
Original article posted at www.TheVisualMD.com

Coconut Oil Benefits: When Fat Is Good For You
by: Dr. Joseph Mercola Physician and author
Posted: HuffingtonPost.com February 14, 2011
You’ve no doubt noticed that for about the last 60 years, the majority of health care officials and the media have been telling you saturated fats are bad for your health and lead to a host of negative consequences, including high cholesterol, obesity, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
Meanwhile during this same 60 years, the American levels of heart disease, obesity, elevated serum cholesterol and Alzheimer’s have skyrocketed.
Did you know that multiple studies on Pacific Island populations who get 30-60 percent of their total caloric intake from fully saturated coconut oil have all shown nearly non-existent rates of cardiovascular disease? (1)
The fact is, all saturated fats are not created equal.
The operative word here is “created,” because some saturated fats occur naturally, while other fats are artificially manipulated into a saturated state through the man-made process called hydrogenation.
Hydrogenation manipulates vegetable and seed oils by adding hydrogen atoms while heating the oil, producing a rancid, thickened substance that really only benefits processed food shelf life and corporate profits — just about all experts now agree, hydrogenation does nothing good for your health.
These manipulated saturated fats are also called trans-fats — and you should avoid them like the plague. But if one form of saturated fat is bad for you, does that mean all saturated fat is bad for you?
Absolutely not!
The Tropics’ Best Kept Secret
The truth about coconut oil is obvious to anyone who has studied the health of those who live in native tropical cultures, where coconut has been a primary dietary staple for thousands of years.
Back in the 1930s, Dr. Weston Price found South Pacific Islanders whose diets were high in coconut to be healthy and trim, despite high dietary fat, and heart disease was virtually non-existent. Similarly, in 1981, researchers studying two Polynesian communities for whom coconut was the primary caloric energy source found them to have excellent cardiovascular health and fitness. (2)
Where were all the clogged arteries and heart attacks from eating all of this “evil” saturated fat?
Obviously, coconut oil was doing nothing to harm the health of these islanders.
It may be surprising for you to learn that the naturally occurring saturated fat in coconut oil is actually good for you and provides a number of profound health benefits, such as:
• Improving your heart health.(3)
• Boosting your thyroid. (4)
• Increasing your metabolism.
• Promoting a lean body and weight loss if needed.
• Supporting your immune system. (5)
Coconut oil even benefits your skin when applied topically and has been found to have anti-aging, regenerative effects.
So, what are coconut oil’s secrets to success?
How Coconut Oil Works Wonders in Your Body
Nearly 50 percent of the fat in coconut oil is of a type rarely found in nature called lauric acid, a “miracle” compound because of its unique health promoting properties. Your body converts lauric acid into monolaurin, which has anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-protozoa properties. (6)
Coconut oil is also nature’s richest source of medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), also called medium-chain triglycerides or MCTs. By contrast, most common vegetable or seed oils are comprised of long chain fatty acids (LCFAs), also known as long-chain triglycerides or LCTs.
LCTs are large molecules, so they are difficult for your body to break down and are predominantly stored as fat.
But MCTs (7) , being smaller, are easily digested and immediately burned by your liver for energy — like carbohydrates, but without the insulin spike. MCTs actually boost your metabolism and help your body use fat for energy, as opposed to storing it, so it can actually help you become leaner.
Back in the 1940s, farmers discovered this effect accidentally when they tried using inexpensive coconut oil to fatten their livestock.
It didn’t work!
Instead, coconut oil made the animals lean, active and hungry.
Coconut oil has actually been shown to help optimize body weight, which can dramatically reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes (8). Besides weight loss, boosting your metabolic rate will improve your energy, accelerate healing and improve your overall immune function.
And several studies have now shown that MCTs can enhance physical or athletic performance.(9)
And finally, as we have already discussed, coconut oil is incedibly good for your heart. The truth is this: it is unsaturated fats that are primarily involved in heart disease and too much sugar and processed foods, not the naturally occurring saturated fats, as you have been led to believe. (10)
Coconut Oil in Your Kitchen
Personally, I use only two oils in my food preparation.
The first, extra-virgin olive oil is the best monounsaturated fat and works great as a salad dressing. However, olive oil should not be used for cooking. Due to its chemical structure, heat makes olive oil susceptible to oxidative damage. So for cooking, I use coconut oil exclusively.
And polyunsaturated fats, which include common vegetable oils such as corn, soy, safflower, sunflower and canola, are absolutely the worst oils to cook with.
Why?
Three primary reasons:
1) Cooking your food in omega-6 vegetable oils produces a variety of very toxic chemicals, as well as forming trans-fats. Frying destroys the antioxidants in oil, actually oxidizing the oil, which causes even worse problems for your body than trans-fats.
2) Most vegetable oils are GM (genetically modified), including more than 90 percent of soy, corn and canola oils.
3) Vegetable oils contribute to the overabundance of damaged omega-6 fats in your diet, throwing offyour omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. Nearly everyone in Western society consumes far too many omega-6 fats — about 100 times more than a century ago — and insufficient omega 3 fats, which contributes to numerous chronic degenerative diseases.
There is only one oil that is stable enough to withstand the heat of cooking, and that’s coconut oil. So, do yourself a favor and ditch all those “healthy oil wannabes,” and replace them with a large jar of fresh, organic, heart-supporting coconut oil.
Original story posted on HuffingtonPost.com
Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder and director of Mercola.com.

Chris Leben fought and beat his hero, Wanderlei Silva, in their UFC 132 match-up, stopping the MMA legend in the first round.

Leben put Silva away with a first-round knockout, forcing the referee to stop the fight within the first 30 seconds.
This fight barely had a chance to get going before Leben landed a left hand that shook “The Axe Murderer.” After that, Silva tried to grab Leben to put him into a Thai clinch, but “The Crippler” threw several uppercuts and the Brazilian fighter fell the floor. From there, Leben finished off the fight by landing several punches to the side of Silva’s face, forcing the referee to step in and stop the action.
The stoppage came at 0:27 of the very first round.
Chris Leben KOs Wanderlei Silva
Leben, who defeats the biggest name he’s ever faced in his career, was still showing a ton of respect to the man he beat, just as he did leading into their fight.
“Wanderlei, I love you,” Leben said after the win. “You are my hero… thank you.”
Leben jumps back in the winning ways with his victory over Silva after dropping his last fight to Brian Stann at UFC 125: Resolution on New Year’s Day. The win also stands as his fourth out of his last five. Silva, who hadn’t seen competition since UFC 110 against Michael Bisping, drops his first fight since cutting down to middleweight. The man who was once considered the fiercest fighter on the planet may have his best days behind him with six losses in his last eight outings, spanning nearly five years.
Original story posted on July 2, 2011 by Erik Fontanez courtesy of MMAweekly.com

Chris ‘The Crippler’ Leben weighs in at 185lbs for his bout against Wanderlei ‘The Axe Murderer’ Silva at UFC 132!

“Chris Leben Calls on Old Teammate, Mike Dolce, To Guide His Weight Cut for UFC 132” by Damon Martin
Chris Leben learned a few valuable lessons from his last fight against Brian Stann.
Leben openly admitted that he went into the fight with the wrong mindset, feeling a bit over confident when facing Stann, and his weight-cut and post-fight eating habits backfired on him.
Leben put the onus back on himself for making the mistakes he made, especially when it came to his diet for the Stann fight.
“That’s my fault,” Leben said about his health for the fight. “I cut a bunch of weight and then I went out and ate a bunch of candy after I made weight. Probably not the best idea.”
To remedy the situation for his upcoming fight at UFC 132 against Wanderlei Silva, Leben called on an old friend from his days training at Team Quest in Oregon to insure he would not fall into the same traps as last time.
“Chris and I, we’ve been friends since the Team Quest days back in ’05, we’ve been friends, we’ve been teammates, all that good stuff. I helped him out back then when we were at Team Quest together for a few fights and whatnot,” Mike Dolce told MMAWeekly.com after getting the call to help Leben for his weight cut.
“He reached out to through Twitter and email a few months ago and it was kind of hard to communicate because I was with Thiago (Alves) and things like that, and then Greg Thompson, his head coach, he reached out to me last week and we started talking, and talking about his weight cut the last time and it just kind of came together that way.”
While Dolce wasn’t with Leben for his entire training camp like he works with so many athletes, one of the sport’s top nutritionists and trainers came in for the last week to help his old friend make sure he not only made weight, but felt better than ever after it was over.
Thompson was also a teammate with Dolce at Team Quest, and when the band got back together they were able to dissect exactly what went wrong the last time and how they had to change things to make sure it didn’t happen again.
“His weight’s pretty good, but he had a lot of trouble with that last fight. Greg and Chris wanted to make sure they didn’t have any of those issues this time. He’s just in the best shape of his life. They pulled me in to set up his food, his meal planning, the structure that stays into the weight cut, which we’re starting to do that now, and the post-fight rehydration, which is really the most important time,” Dolce explained.
“We discussed what happened, what went wrong last time, and that’s when I described what it has to be for a world-class performance to be unveiled, which Chris is about to do. That is the crucial time, the rehydration. Most guys lose the fight on the scale, not because the weight cut is so hard, but because they don’t know how to refuel the body afterwards, and get all the systems back up and running for the fight time.”
Dolce’s work has been on display several times, dealing with fighters like Thiago Alves, Michael Bisping, and Mike Pyle.
Working with Chris Leben over the last several days, Dolce says he has the former “Ultimate Fighter” eating up to six meals a day, but he’s watching the pounds fall off each morning and is currently weighing in the mid-190s, and could easily make weight today if the fight was happening tomorrow.
It’s a proven formula that works and Dolce is confident his plan will pay off for Leben on Friday at the weigh-ins and then again on Saturday during the fight.
“I don’t do anything special other than allow the fighter to compete at their best possible ability. That’s all within the heart, the mind, and the skill set of Chris Leben,” Dolce said.
“I’m very confident he will be in the absolute best shape, best condition of his career, when he steps into that cage. He’ll be firing on all cylinders.”
Dolce will be with Leben for the rest of the week as he makes his cut down to 185 pounds and he’ll see it through Saturday night when he steps in to face Wanderlei Silva in the co-main event for UFC 132.
(Originally written for www.MMAweekly.com)

I have had great success with 3W2S. I quickly hit my goal weight and have now started to gain more from lean muscle mass. Started at 214lbs then went to 190lbs.I have been holding at 193 for 3-4 wks now. My family has taken notice and have decided to follow suit.
My sister and brother in law have gotten on The Dolce Diet and now my 17 yr old nephew as well.My wife is not a big workout person but she has really supported and enjoys when I cook for her, especially fresh locally farmed greens. Bloomsdale Spinach is my favorite I eat it non-stop.
Love all the videos that Mike is doing and am looking forward to the Living Lean book.
I started pulling out some of my favorite cookbooks and I modify some of the recipes to fit my new lean style. Great feeling, being more involved with what I am eating.
Ok, have to go, need to drink some more water.
By Todd H. on MikeDolceMMA.com

The Dolce Diet now has its own YouTube Channel! Take a look to get behind-the-scenes access to news, events, nutrition, recipes, workouts and much more, only available from Mike Dolce & The Dolce Diet!

A BLOG POST by Lyndsey Foreman

Just want to give a big thanks to Mike and Brandy Dolce for their tremendous support!!
I’ve been a size 10 since I can remember, like high school days…
This week, I fit into a size 6, and literally cried. It was a huge moment in my life. For the past 6 years it’s been a hassle getting ready in the mornings and having nothing fit and everything TOO tight. Barely squeezing into jeans made for one HORRIBLE day and frame of mind. But Monday morning when I fit into a pair of jeans I had from long ago, with nothing hanging over the sides, no jumping up and down to pull them up, just slipping into these cute pair of jeans that I’ve kept in the closet for motivation, was a damn good feeling.
For 2 months now, my boyfriend and I have been wearing clothes that have literally been falling off of us, and we finally got a chance to order some new jeans and shorts. We both ordered one size lower than what we had been wearing, and guess what? Their Loose!!
Anyone who hasn’t tried this lifestyle out but is interested in getting healthy, and loosing weight in the process–this is the real deal. Its simple common sense that WORKS!! It changes your body into a healthy being, while giving you a whole new perspective on life. I’ll be 26 this year, and in the past 4 months I’ve learned more about myself than the past 26 years. I look at my life totally different. I am more conscious of every thing I take in and am happy about the new me. For the first time I can look in the mirror and actually LOOK at myself and LIKE what I see. Not only is the physical aspects wonderful, but the frame of mind I am in now is going to add years to my life. We don’t even count the weeks anymore, it’s just healthy eating and striving to make our bodies in the best physical shape possible.
All the while, anything that we have posted on twitter about our progress, gets a positive response from Mike or Brandy, and that is a HUGE deal to me. Getting support from the source of our change is the best inspiration. Their dedication to their “product” says a lot about the type of people they are, and shows that they really care. So thanks ya’ll, I appreciate all that you do!