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It’s Sur la Table’s 45th anniversary! And to celebrate the kitchen retailer is marking stuff down by up to 50 percent. Cookware and baking gear is up to 50 percent off, small electrics are up to 45 percent off, cooking tools are up to 30 percent off, and the list goes on. (Knives are actually up to 55 percent off, which means the deals are even bigger than the store’s homepage lets on!)

Stuff will be marked down through October 18 and there will be all sorts of special deals during the days throughout. Here’s what we’re eyeing right now.

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Come fall, there is nothing I look forward to more than working winter squash — butternut, spaghetti, kabocha, acorn — into my meal plan. What I don’t look forward to, however, is cutting into these hard, roly-poly veggies. I used to dread it every single time, until I learned a few helpful tips that make it easier (and not so scary!).

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Saunas are common in spas and are popping up in fitness centers across the United States. Most people find a sauna relaxing after a spa treatment or a workout. Saunas might not only feel good but could also be advantageous for your health. In the past two decades, dozens of studies have reported health benefits from regular sauna use.

Saunas: dry, steam, or infrared

Saunas come in three varieties: dry, steam, and infrared. A dry sauna is based on the traditional Finnish sauna, with low humidity and a high temperature, from 80 to 100° C (176 to 212° F). (2) A steam sauna has higher humidity and therefore cannot be as hot as a dry sauna. Steam saunas are more uncomfortable and stressful than dry saunas. (3)

Infrared saunas, like in Japanese Waon therapy, use infrared radiation lamps that emit both visible and infrared light. Far-infrared saunas emit longer wavelengths of infrared light that penetrate tissue to 0.1 mm deep. Near-infrared saunas emit shorter wavelengths that can penetrate the body up to 5 mm. (1) Because of the deep tissue penetration, infrared saunas operate at cooler temperatures than dry saunas while still heating up the body.

What happens to your body in a sauna

Saunas are hot—so hot, in fact, that the body’s usual means of cooling down through sweating cannot compensate for the extreme heat. As a result, oral temperature rises 1 to 3° C (1.8 to 5.4° F), and rectal temperature increases up to 0.9° C (1.6° F), depending on humidity, temperature, and duration. (4, 5, 6) Heart rate increases by up to 130 percent. (4) This is accompanied by increased cardiac output and reduced blood pressure.

The endocrine system responds to the heat by increasing several circulating hormones. (1) Growth hormone increases, which also happens after a deep sleep or fasting. Beta-endorphins, which are responsible for the “pleasure” and “analgesic” effects of a sauna, also increase. Norepinephrine increases, causing the increased heart rate. (7)

Are saunas healthy? Here’s what the research says.

A single sauna session stimulates the immune system. White blood cell, lymphocyte, neutrophil, and basophil counts are all increased, which may translate to fewer illnesses. (8) In a six-month study, participants who engaged in regular sauna baths had significantly fewer colds than the control group over the same time period. (9)

Saunas might also reduce oxidative stress, which is linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and degenerative diseases. After a 30-minute aerobic workout, men who recovered in the sauna had significantly lower markers of oxidative stress than those who followed their workout in room temperature. (10)

Health benefits of saunas

The physiological effects experienced during sauna baths translate to a variety of health benefits, including positive outcomes for cardiovascular health, fitness, and detoxification.

Cardiovascular

Heart disease was once contraindicated for saunas, but more and more research is proving the opposite—that saunas can be safe and actually beneficial for people with cardiovascular disease. A 2015 prospective study followed 2,315 middle-aged Finnish men for 20 years. Those who frequented saunas the most (four to seven times per week) had a lower risk of sudden cardiac death, fatal coronary heart disease, and fatal cardiovascular disease compared to those who visited saunas two to three times per week or one time per week. (2) Incredibly, increased sauna use was also associated with lower all-cause mortality.

A large number of studies highlight many cardiovascular benefits of regular sauna use, especially Waon (infrared) therapy, including the following:

• increased left ventricular ejection fraction (11, 12)
• improved exercise tolerance (12, 13, 14)
• increased cardiac output (15)
• better prognosis for patients with chronic heart failure (16)
• lowered markers of oxidative stress (17, 18)

Blood pressure

Nitric oxide, a vasodilator, increases during a sauna bath, which may be one mechanism by which sauna therapy has been shown to lower blood pressure. (17) Frequenting the sauna twice weekly for three months decreased blood pressure in hypertensive men from 166/101 mmHg to 143/92 mmHg, a result similar to taking one blood pressure-lowering medicine. (1, 19)

Exercise is often advised for hypertensive patients, but combining sauna use with exercise for eight weeks lowered diastolic blood pressure 1.8 times greater and systolic blood pressure 3.3 times greater than just exercise alone. (1) The patients who engaged in both activities also lost more weight and body fat.

Lipid profiles

Regular sauna therapy can also improve lipid profiles. In healthy young men, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol decreased after three weeks of sauna treatment, and blood plasma volume increased. (20) In healthy young women, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol decreased, while HDL cholesterol increased after two weeks of sauna therapy. (21)

Fitness

Probably at least partially due to its cardiovascular benefits, sauna use can improve athletic performance. In a cross-over study, runners had better endurance and higher plasma red-cell volume after regular sauna therapy. (22) Cyclists also benefited from sauna therapy, shown by increased plasma volume and better heart rate recovery after a cycling test. (23)

Detoxification

We are exposed to thousands of environmental toxins, and we don’t yet understand the long-term health effects of the vast majority of them. Sweating as a means of detoxification is a controversial topic, but there’s no denying that our sweat contains toxins like BPA, phthalates, and heavy metals. (24, 25, 26) In people who have higher toxic body burdens, the concentration of toxins in sweat can exceed that of the plasma or urine, indicating that increased sweating could help rid the body of harmful substances. (27)

In several small studies, detoxification therapies have incorporated sauna baths. Police officers were treated successfully for methamphetamine exposure using a combination of exercise, nutritional support, and sauna therapy. (28) Women with occupational exposure to solvents improved after therapy that included sauna use. (29) In a case report, a patient recovering from mercury poisoning used sauna sweats to help recover after chelation therapy. (30) Using saunas to aid in detoxification is a promising option, but further exploration into understanding the mechanisms is needed.

Additional benefits

Numerous other positive health outcomes have been linked to sauna use:

• reduced pain in patients with fibromyalgia (31)
• reduced fatigue, anxiety, and depression in individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome (32)
• lower risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia with increased sauna use (33)
• improved relaxation and mental complaints in patients with depression (34)
• improved insulin sensitivity (35)
• improved respiratory symptoms, including vital capacity, minute ventilation, and forced expiratory volume of lungs (36, 37)

A lot of what the body experiences in a sauna is similar to what happens during exercise—increased heart rate, nitric oxide, acute metabolic rate, and oxygen consumption, to name a few. (38, 39, 40) Many of the benefits of saunas discussed above are also benefits of regular exercise, probably not coincidentally. I’m not suggesting that you replace your weight lifting and yoga with daily sauna baths, but incorporating saunas into your wellness routine could be a healthy addition.

Who should avoid the sauna?

Recommendations on who should avoid saunas have changed over the years. Although pregnancy and saunas are often contraindicated, several studies have concluded that saunas are not teratogenic (i.e., they don’t disturb the development of the fetus) in healthy women. (41, 42, 43, 44) However, one study reported that sauna use near conception for the mother or father and in early pregnancy for the mother were linked to increased brain tumors in the children. (45)

The basis for recommending against sauna use for pregnant women probably stems from the fact that fevers during early pregnancy are correlated with neural tube defects. (46) In pregnant animal models, teratogenic effects don’t occur until the mother’s core temperature is raised 1.5° C (2.7° F). (1) Under regular conditions, a sauna visit is short, unlike a fever that can last days, and body temperature shouldn’t increase 1.5° C (2.7° F). If you are adamant about wanting to continue the sauna during pregnancy, play it safe and consider decreasing the duration and temperature, or avoiding it during the first trimester altogether.

Sauna use may, at least temporarily, impact male fertility. Decreases in sperm count, motility, and average path velocity following a few weeks of regular sauna use have been reported in the literature. (47, 48, 49) Prospectively, sauna habits had no effect on overall fertility, according to people’s reported habits. (50) If you are having trouble conceiving or anticipate that you might, temporarily dropping the sauna habit is worth a shot.

Most sauna accidents and death involve alcohol consumption. (51, 52) Don’t mix the two.

People who already have heat sensitivities, such as those with multiple sclerosis, probably want to avoid the sauna. (53)

Saunas can feel relaxing and luxurious, but don’t forget that they are also stressful for the body. Be smart about it. Go into the sauna well hydrated, don’t stay beyond your comfort level, and don’t exceed the recommended 20 to 30 minutes, even if you are not yet feeling uncomfortable.

Now I’d like to hear from you. Do you enjoy the sauna? Do you prefer dry, humid, or infrared? What do you think about the health benefits shared in this post? Let us know in the comments!

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For a long time, galley kitchens have gotten a bad rap as the most undesirable layout. And while they tend to be more on the snug side compared to other designs, they’re not all that bad. For one, they make it easy to hide your mess (you can’t say the same for covetable open-concept kitchens!). They also hold the potential for lots of smart storage.

If you happen to be the proud (or not-so-proud?) home cook in a galley kitchen, you might be able to put some of these brilliant ideas to good use.

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While marinades are brilliant at turning cuts of meat that can often dry out when cooked into flavorful, moist meals, it’s easy to forget to plan ahead and get that meat into a marinade well before you’re ready to cook it. Enter: the freezer marinade, when you bring that meat home from the grocery store toss it in a marinade first and freeze it right in it. It will absorb the marinade whenever you decide to thaw it, and then all you have to do is bake, sauté, or grill it. This is a weeknight dinner game-changer.

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Thank you so much for your support and interest in my latest passion of keto as we finally arrive at the official release date of The Keto Reset Diet—today, October 3rd. The response to my assorted ruminations about keto over the past several months has been overwhelming. A brief mention here on September 14th about joining our Keto Reset Facebook group resulted in 1,000 people joining within hours! There are now over 6,600 people engaged in lively discussion at this time. The “join group” requests blew up the phone of our Facebook group host, senior writer/researcher, and resident keto recipe and lifestyle queen Dr. Lindsay Taylor. She spearheaded the recipe and 21-day meal plan projects for The Keto Reset Diet. You’ll get to know her quickly on the highly active Facebook group.

But today I want to celebrate the release and share with you one of my favorite excerpts from the book as well as a video conversation I think you’ll enjoy.

By the way, if you haven’t purchased the book yet, we have decided to extend the “pre-order” offer of four digital bonus items indefinitely for MDA readers: a $10 gift certificate to PrimalBlueprint.com, a Keto Recipe eBook, a complete eBook version of my popular Healthy Sauces, Dressings and Toppings, and an exclusive hour-long talk show with co-author Brad Kearns and myself getting deep into the keto konversation.

These items are worth more than the book price, so hopefully it’s enough to get you to take action and start your Keto Reset journey.

Today I’m sharing a passage from Chapter 3 that talks about the immediate fat loss potential of keto eating and the long-term advantages of being keto-adapted. It’s part of an extensive section that discusses the broad health, performance and disease protection benefits of keto. My publisher actually advised me to not “give away” the book, but I explained that these are my peeps at MDA, so a family who shares together stays together. See what you think and, as always, I look forward to your comments.

Enjoy this excerpt from The Keto Reset Diet, and please attribute if you decide to share this content on your blog or social platforms.

Perhaps the most immediate and dramatic benefit of ketogenic eating is the opportunity for quick and efficient reduction of excess body fat and easy, long-term maintenance of your ideal body composition. Ketogenic eating stabilizes appetite hormones, up regulates the metabolic processes that prioritize fat burning, and delivers a high satiety factor owing to the high fat composition of keto-friendly meals and snacks. Ketogenic eating can make you an efficient fat-burning machine. When you are in full-blown keto, you enjoy complete dietary satisfaction, rarely feel hungry (even if you skip meals!), and never have to struggle, suffer, restrict calories, or force strenuous workouts in order to burn extra calories. Instead, you allow your genetic setting as a fat-burning beast to naturally calibrate you to a healthy body composition. You will be able to properly utilize tools like Intermittent Fasting, nutritional ketosis, and ketone supplements to drop excess body fat whenever you want, without a struggle or a second thought.

While it’s a literal truth—the law of thermodynamics—that you must burn more calories than you store to lose excess body fat, the secret is not burning extra calories through exercise while painstakingly restricting dietary calories. It’s been scientifically validated that calories burned during exercise lead to a corresponding increase in appetite and a decrease in general physical activity. These dynamics are especially true for the chronic exercise patterns that desperate dieters engage in. The secret to reducing excess body fat is in hormone optimization—being a fat- and ketone-burner instead of a carbohydrate- or sugar-burner. When you eat keto, you correct the wildly excessive insulin production that is endemic to the Standard American Diet, since fat becomes your readily available fuel source around the clock.

In contrast, a high insulin–producing eating pattern shuts off fat burning and forces you to rely on ingested calories as your primary energy source. It starts disastrously with breakfast, the “most important meal of the day . . . to not screw up,” says Dr. Cate Shanahan. At your highfalutin corporate retreat at the Ritz-Carlton, your “Healthy Start” breakfast buffet features fresh berries, low-fat Greek yogurt, homemade granola, low-fat banana-nut bread with apple butter, raisin bran muffins, steel-cut Irish oatmeal (with brown sugar, raisins, and pecans), orange or cranberry juice, and coffee. If you are conscientious and serve yourself moderate portions, you’ll still consume at least 100 grams of carbohydrates and possibly up to 200 grams—more than our ancestors might have consumed over several days. And you’ll be out 36 bucks. Seriously.

You’ll burn some of this energy off right away (generating inflammation and free radicals in the process), then prompt a flood of insulin into your bloodstream to store as fat (in the form of triglycerides) any excess glucose that you don’t burn right away. When insulin removes glucose from your bloodstream in the hours after your Healthy Start, you will become lethargic and start to feel hungry for lunch. You’ll have another high-carbohydrate binge (yes, binge; because low blood sugar triggers a fight-or-flight reaction that causes you to overeat and your hormones to more likely direct those extra calories into storage as fat—all to protect you from the perceived life-or-death matter of low blood sugar). When you repeat this high-carbohydrate, high insulin–producing eating pattern day after day for the rest of your life, you’ll contribute to the statistic that the average American gains 1.5 pounds (2/3 kilo) of body fat (and loses a half pound (1/3 kilo) of muscle each year from the ages of 25 to 55. If you fast or eat a keto-aligned meal for breakfast, none of this story happens. Instead, you sail along burning the clean fuels of fat (either from a meal or from storage), ketones, and an optimally minimal amount of glucose.

Fully Understanding the Keto Message

That’s the excerpt from Chapter 3, but please understand it’s only an excerpt. To fully appreciate the keto message and the health benefits of keto, it’s essential to adopt a big picture perspective. Case in point: another section in the book is titled, “The Keto Reset Diet is Not a Shortcut Program!” You cannot just jump into a keto eating pattern and expect the aforementioned benefits to accrue. When you cut carbs too abruptly or fail to integrate complementary lifestyle practices such as exercise, sleep, and stress management, your keto effort will likely result in the increased production of stress hormones, the conversion of lean muscle tissue into glucose to give your body the fuel source it’s grown dependent upon for decades, and eventually fatigue, poor compliance and burnout from an ill-advised effort.

Even in an enlightened group of MDA followers, our history surely includes decades of carbohydrate dependency before we saw the light and started embracing the Primal eating principles. If you have been Primal for a while, doing a great job avoiding or strictly minimizing grains and sugars, but still carry around some unwanted body fat, or have adverse blood values, or struggle with thyroid or adrenal irregularities, you likely have some level of metabolic damage and lingering carbohydrate dependency.

This is where the Keto Reset journey becomes an extremely attractive option. Go through the entire process (21-Day Reset, fine-tuning period, and six-week nutritional ketosis period) at least once, and you will experience a reset effect at the genetic level that will benefit you for the rest of your life. An annual six-week Keto Reset exercise is also a highly recommended health practice to hone your metabolic flexibility, protect against today’s epidemic of diet-related disease, and promote peak cognitive and physical performance. Even a lean, fit, athletic person will benefit from an annual Reset, whether or not they decide to adhere to nutritional ketosis over the long-term.

On the topic of extending the benefits of that annual Reset, I sat down with co-author Brad Kearns to talk about the health benefits of fasting in the big picture of keto-adaptation. In this video, we cover everything from dirty burning glucose and clean burning fat and ketones, the concept of metabolic efficiency, the contrast between overfeeding/accelerated cell division and metabolic efficiency/improved cellular repair, and all the good stuff that’s happening in your body when you ditch carbohydrate dependency and progress toward being fat- and keto-adapted.

As you likely realize, keto is incredibly hot right now, and with this attention comes lots of healthy debate—and even controversy. I’m encouraged to notice that virtually every concept presented in the book is free from objection by the thought leaders in the keto game. Even my crusty contrarian friend Richard Nikoley gives my message a stamp of approval—hard-earned praise indeed! The Keto Reset Diet presents a sensible approach that is flexible, customizable, and driven strongly by personal preference and self-experimentation. Regardless of your particulars, I’m confident the journey will appeal to you and deliver a great benefit to your long-term health.

Thank you so much for your interest and commentary. I appreciate the comments below the post and also welcome you to join the Keto Reset group on Facebook for long-term engagement.

The post The Keto Reset Diet Excerpt—and a Video!—to Celebrate Today’s Release appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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This Halloween, if you want to be the coolest house on the block, you’re going to need to be super clever. Delight every ghoul, goblin, and trick-or-treater that comes your way with one of these clever front porch ideas.

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You try really hard to eat healthfully, so buying a whole machine dedicated to making fried foods seems overly indulgent, right? But listen — sometimes you just want (read: need) some french fries. We get it.

This Philips Air Fryer allows you to have your fries (and more) without feeling like you’re being incredibly unhealthy.

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To say that I’m frugal isn’t exactly accurate. I have survived on a very meager salary; used Dove soap bars to wash body, face, and hair; and eaten rice and beans for an entire summer due to insufficient funds (my fault for lending a guy all of my savings, only to find he used the money to pay off his credit card bills). I am also a minimalist when it comes to things, so the temptation to buy something just because it’s pretty is tempered by the anxiety I get from having too much stuff.

But still, I have always been willing to splurge on things that make me happy.

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If you’ve heard it once this year, you’ve heard it a million times: Sponges are disgusting, bacteria-ridden pieces of cellulose. (By some estimates, they are dirtier than toilet seats!) And while you used to zap them in the microwave to kill said bacteria, we all learned this summer that doing so is actually pretty ineffective. While the microwave can nuke weaker bacteria, it has no effect on stronger species. Even more, it’s pretty easy to start a fire in there if your sponge isn’t wet enough.

Cool. Even cooler? The fact there’s basically no good alternative. Microfiber cloths actually suck up more bacteria because they’re so porous. Bristled brushes tend to harbor less bacteria, but they’re not as effective at getting food off of dishes.

So we’ve just been sticking with our sponges. We try to swap them out every week or so, but they still end up feeling a little gross after a few uses. Which is why we are so excited to learn about this new product.

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