Weight: 216.8
I wrote this in an email to a friend today and thought it fit with a post for my health blog:
I managed to be "okay" over the weekend. I did have corn-on-the-cob and managed a sip of sweetened lemonade (thought it was water). However, the last two days, I've made a fruit smoothie that has upticked my weight by a couple pounds. I know it'll come off over the next few days, but I was bad. ;)
Every day is a new day. Every meal is a new choice. I used to look at it and say, "Well, I was bad, so I might as well be worse today." And I'd say, "I'll start on Monday, so I'll clean out the fridge all weekend long (into my belly)..."
I had to change my thinking. I had to look at each and every meal as a new choice and a new step. It helped me to think of it in that way.
Robb Wolf's book ("The Paleo Solution Diet") is very good in that it explains that it's your hormones that cause your body to crave, to signal hunger, to signal rest, etc. When you're overweight and eating the wrong diet, your hormones get out of whack and mix up the signals. It takes awhile to get the signals working right again--and then it takes awhile to clear up the traffic jam. ;)
I take more supplements than Robb recommends--and I also use other sources of information that I believe complement the paleo lifestyle. I'm about to go back to juice-fasting for 10 days again. I've been eating paleo for 19 days now. It's time for me to switch over to juicing for 10 days. :) Then I'll be back to paleo again.
My biggest difficulty is portion control. Last night, for instance, I ate two hamburgers (about 6oz each) a big portion of stir-fried vegetables (with some hamburger in it), some steamed brussel sprouts, broccoli, onions and cabbage then followed it with a fruit-smoothie. Then I had *another* small bowl of stir-fry. I wasn't hungry. I just really liked the flavor.
I ate more because it tasted good than anything else. Truth be told, I probably could've been completely satisfied with half a burger, a smaller portion of stir fry and 1/4 of the fruit smoothie that I drank.
*shrug* Today is a new day. :) Today I make different choices.
In the next week or so, I'll start a major walking regimen for an office competition, so I'll be getting more exercise.
And I'm going to work in my garden in the next few days (possibly tonight, possibly Friday--depends on rain) and that always makes me work my muscles, sweat and get closer to the foods that will sustain me through the fall and winter. :)
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
After Memorial Day Weekend
Weight: 215.2
I had some stuff by accident on Memorial Day--some lemonade that I thought was water (I only had a sip, but got some sugar) and I had a whole cob of sweet-corn. Aside from that, though, I was pretty good. Beef and turkey burgers with mustard. Fresh green salad. Fruit and a fruit smoothey. I didn't go "off" my diet (much). It certainly could have been worse. (I avoided the potato salad, beer brats, all the breads and the ice-cream.) :)
I've had a can of V8 and an orange for lunch so far. I'm planning a paleo dinner this evening. I'm tracking my weight carefully this week. If I start ticking up I'm going back into juice fasting to drive it down again. However, I'd really like to get myself "stabilized" on a normal eating plan so that I'm not in a "diet mode" anymore.
My wife has said she has noticed that my portions are getting smaller. I'm only eating when I feel hungry and only enough to eliminate hunger. I've had a few times where I snacked on cashews while watching TV this weekend, but that's definitely not the norm.
I'm really feeling a need to consume some veggies. I think I'm a little light on veggies. I'm seriously tempted to run some through the juicer just to be sure I'm getting all my micronutrients.
I'll go and check on the garden tonight, I think.
And I'm down to 24 chicks. We lost one over the weekend. She had "crusty butt". I was hoping we could nurse her through it, but she died. :( Oh, sure, we were planning to eat 10-12 of these chickens when they mature--but it's still a waste to lose one like this.
I had some stuff by accident on Memorial Day--some lemonade that I thought was water (I only had a sip, but got some sugar) and I had a whole cob of sweet-corn. Aside from that, though, I was pretty good. Beef and turkey burgers with mustard. Fresh green salad. Fruit and a fruit smoothey. I didn't go "off" my diet (much). It certainly could have been worse. (I avoided the potato salad, beer brats, all the breads and the ice-cream.) :)
I've had a can of V8 and an orange for lunch so far. I'm planning a paleo dinner this evening. I'm tracking my weight carefully this week. If I start ticking up I'm going back into juice fasting to drive it down again. However, I'd really like to get myself "stabilized" on a normal eating plan so that I'm not in a "diet mode" anymore.
My wife has said she has noticed that my portions are getting smaller. I'm only eating when I feel hungry and only enough to eliminate hunger. I've had a few times where I snacked on cashews while watching TV this weekend, but that's definitely not the norm.
I'm really feeling a need to consume some veggies. I think I'm a little light on veggies. I'm seriously tempted to run some through the juicer just to be sure I'm getting all my micronutrients.
I'll go and check on the garden tonight, I think.
And I'm down to 24 chicks. We lost one over the weekend. She had "crusty butt". I was hoping we could nurse her through it, but she died. :( Oh, sure, we were planning to eat 10-12 of these chickens when they mature--but it's still a waste to lose one like this.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Weight: 213 (214.4 this morning, then took 5 hour "nap" and woke up at 213)
I was really short on sleep, apparently. I woke up at 7am to help my brother-in-law with some compost and firewood. Then I worked in the back yard for a bit, weeded the little garden plot and then took a shower and laid down to rest... woke up 5 hours later!
I've not changed my eating habits and even eaten out a few times. I started the week at 217. Now I'm at 213. I know I have food and water in my system. I haven't been fasting.
I've also noticed that my muscle-tone continues to improve, even though I'm not doing any kind of strength training. My wife has commented that she has noticed an improvement in my muscle-tone, as well. I'm hoping that the rest I got today has made up for my sleep deficit...
Stress is light this weekend--it's Memorial Day Weekend! :) Three days out away from work. :)
I was really short on sleep, apparently. I woke up at 7am to help my brother-in-law with some compost and firewood. Then I worked in the back yard for a bit, weeded the little garden plot and then took a shower and laid down to rest... woke up 5 hours later!
I've not changed my eating habits and even eaten out a few times. I started the week at 217. Now I'm at 213. I know I have food and water in my system. I haven't been fasting.
I've also noticed that my muscle-tone continues to improve, even though I'm not doing any kind of strength training. My wife has commented that she has noticed an improvement in my muscle-tone, as well. I'm hoping that the rest I got today has made up for my sleep deficit...
Stress is light this weekend--it's Memorial Day Weekend! :) Three days out away from work. :)
Friday, May 25, 2012
Summer Begins (Unofficially...)
Weight: 215.2
It is Memorial Day Weekend. It will be in the high 90s all weekend. Summer is here! LOL
I'm stretched pretty thin, but I wanted to share this article with with you. It's excellent! :) After reading this, it completely makes sense why my juice-fasting and water-only fasting was so effective in the early stages of my health efforts--I was cleansing the junk out! Now it's time to build--with paleo. :)
http://www.doctor-natasha.com/feeding-versus-cleansing.php
Feeding Versus Cleansing
A 21 year old Helen was brought to my clinic by her worried aunt. Helen was dangerously underweight and getting thinner by the day. She was a tall girl - 185 cm in height (over 6 feet) with a weight of 51 kg (8 stone). She obviously used to be quite beautiful, but now she looked emaciated, pale, her eyes were dull and her voice feeble. Her menstruations have stopped 7 months ago.
Helen grew up abroad and came to England to study at a university. Back at home there were shortages of food and processed foods were not available. So, Helen was brought up on home-cooked wholesome meals made from fresh locally produced ingredients; fresh meat, fresh eggs and fresh milk constituted a large percent of her diet. She was always very healthy. When she came to England she soon developed a dislike for the processed junk diets her fellow students lived on and decided to eat a healthy diet. Short research in popular literature leads her to the idea that the 'healthiest diet' is a vegetarian one and a low-fat one. So, Helen started cooking her own meals out of whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, lots of vegetables and fruit. She drank only water and fruit juices. The only fat she had was some olive oil and peanut butter. She consumed no animal foods at all and tried to eat everything organic. She became very involved with yoga and enjoyed it.
After a few months on this diet Helen's menstruations have stopped and she started loosing weight. But none of it seemed to worry her and she 'felt well'. When she went home for a visit her family were horrified by the way she looked and contacted her aunt in England asking for help. By the time of the consultation Helen has been on her 'healthy diet' for more than a year.
So, what happened to Helen? Didn't she follow the healthiest diet in the world and the one we should all strive for? That is what the authorities and all the mainstream media are telling us.1 And what about all the research showing that following a vegan diet reduces high blood pressure, helps to recover from diabetes and many other chronic diseases?2,3,4 What about Gerson treatment protocol for cancer and other chronic disease, which is purely vegan?5 What about other cancer-treatment protocols most of which are vegan?6 These protocols and approaches show a good record of success.
Let us try and understand the whole issue.
Helen is an intelligent girl and the first good thing she did was she stopped eating all processed foods. These man-made concoctions wrapped in colourful packaging have no right to be called with the noble name 'food'. They are at the root of all modern epidemics of degenerative disease. We will not devote any time to processed foods here; I would just sum them up with a great quote: "Man is the only species clever enough to make his own food and the only one stupid enough to eat it."7,17 To have good health we need to eat foods created by Mother Nature. Mother Nature took billions of years to design our bodies while at the same time designing all the foods suitable for our bodies to use. How arrogant it is for humans to think that they can know better than Mother Nature, having tinkered in their laboratories just for a few decades, generally motivated by greed!
Mother Nature has provided us with two groups of food: plant foods and animal foods. These two groups work differently in the body and both are important to be consumed. Human beings are omnivores: we have evolved on this planet eating everything we could find in our immediate environment from both plants and animals. That is what researchers like Weston A Price have confirmed in their extensive study of traditional cultures around the world. Let us have a look at these two groups of natural foods in more detail.
Energy comes to our beautiful planet from the sun. We, humans, cannot live off that energy directly as far as we know at the moment. In order to capture the energy of the sun and convert it into solid matter Mother Nature has designed plants - they have photosynthesis. The next group of creatures on the planet to consume the energy of the sun in the form of plants are herbivorous animals - animals designed to eat plant matter. In order for herbivorous animals to digest plants and extract nutrients from them Mother Nature equipped them with very special digestive systems, called rumen: it is very long with several stomachs full of special plant-breaking bacteria (the word stomach here is used as an anatomical term for the organ between oesophagus and duodenum, it does not describe the whole abdomen). So, it is not the cow (or any other herbivorous animal) that digests the grass but the bacteria in her rumen. In order to consume the energy of the sun in the form of herbivorous animals Mother Nature has designed the next group of life - predators. Wolves, lions, tigers, foxes, etc. cannot digest plant matter because they are equipped with a very different digestive system. Human digestive system is similar to the gut of predatory animals: our digestive system is fairly short and we have only one stomach with virtually no bacteria in it. In fact our human stomach is designed to produce acid and pepsin, which are only able to break down meat, fish, milk and eggs. In short our digestive systems have been designed to best cope with animal foods.12 People knew this fact for millennia. They knew that the best foods for them come from animals; they would only eat plants as a supplement to meat or when animal foods were in short supply.
But what about all those tables, which show that plants are full of nourishment, published in popular nutrition books, you would ask? All those B vitamins, proteins and oils? Yes, when we analyse different plant foods in a laboratory, they show good amounts of various nutrients. This information is then published in common nutritional literature. Unfortunately, these tables of nutrient content of plants are no use for the human body. Why? Because, in a laboratory we can use all sorts of methods and chemicals for extracting nutrients from plants: methods, which our human digestive system does not possess. Human gut has a very limited ability to digest plants and to extract anything useful from them.12 People knew that plant foods are hard for humans to digest, that is why all traditional cultures have developed methods of food preparation to extract more nutrition from plants and to make them more digestible, such as fermentation, malting, sprouting and special ways of cooking. Unfortunately, in our modern world many of these methods have been forgotten and replaced with recipes which suite the food industry's commercial agenda.13
If we cook and prepare the plant foods properly, can't we live on them? That is exactly what Helen tried to do: she prepared all her food at home from natural plant ingredients. She cooked rice, oats, quinoa and buckwheat, she made her own bread, she cooked beans and lentils, she snacked on nuts and fruit and consumed lots of vegetables. Why did she get into trouble? Let us see.
Human body (without water) is largely made out of protein and fat, these are the 'bricks and mortar' from which your bones, muscles, brain, heart, lungs, liver and all other organs made.9 Laboratory analysis of plants and animal foods show that the best protein and fat for human physiology comes from animal foods.8 The amino acid profile of animal protein is correct for the human body, while amino acid profile of plant-derived proteins is incomplete and unsuitable for human physiology.9 The same with fat: animal fat has the right fatty acid composition for human body to thrive on, while plant oils are unsuitable.10 So, when it comes to FEEDING your body and BUILDING your bodily tissues and structures animal foods are the best and the only suitable ones. Human body has a wonderful process which goes on from the moment of conception till death, called Cell Regeneration.11 Cells in your body (in all of your organs and tissues) constantly get old, die and get replaced by newly-born cells. This way the body maintains itself, rejuvenates itself and heals any damage. In order for your body to give birth to those baby cells to replace the old ones building materials are needed - proteins and fats. The best building materials to feed your cell regeneration process come from animal foods: meats, fish, eggs and dairy. Apart from feeding, animal products provide the body with energy, in fact the best source of energy for most cells in your body is fat.9
One of the hungriest organs in the human body is the brain: it 'sponges up' around 25 - 45 % of all nutrition floating in your blood. Your body spends a lot of effort on feeding the brain 24 hours a day, every day.9 Contrary to popular beliefs there is much more your brain needs than just energy in the form of glucose; it is a physical organ and it requires feeding its own cell regeneration processes with good quality protein and fat. The brain is a very fatty organ, so it requires a lot of good quality fat to be fed properly.15 On top of that your brain manufactures neurotransmitters, hormones and hundreds of other active molecules, which are largely proteins; the brain needs building materials to make them from. Again the best building materials to feed your brain come from animal foods. In the clinical practice we see the degeneration of the brain function in people on purely vegan diets and other poor diets: first the sense of humour goes, the person becomes 'black-and-white' in their thinking and behaviour, the sharpness of the mind goes, memory suffers, depression sets in and other mental problems follow. These are all the signs of a starving brain.
But what about all the plant-based diets shown to help with chronic disease? Why are cold-pressed good quality omega-3 and omega-6 plant oils shown to be beneficial for so many degenerative conditions? Supplementing these oils is promoted by both the mainstream and alternative medical community. What about all the antioxidants, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, bio-flavoniods and other substances in plants that are shown to be so beneficial for our bodies? Here we come to the real purpose of eating plants: they are CLEANSERS. While they are unable to feed us to any serious degree they are wonderful at keeping us clean on the inside.5 They can also provide some energy for the body to use and some co-factors in the form of vitamins and minerals. But their main purpose is to keep your body clean and free of toxins. Indeed plants are equipped with powerful detoxifying substances, which can remove various man-made chemicals, pollution and other toxins you have accumulated in your body. Plants are particularly powerful cleansers when consumed raw. Their juices absorb in the upper parts of the digestive system contributing a plethora of detoxifying substances and co-factors; indeed juicing of raw vegetables and fruit is a major part of cancer-healing protocols, such as Gerson programme. When the plant matter moves further down in the gut it feeds the gut flora in the bowel. Human bowel is an equivalent of the rumen of the herbivorous animals; it has a rich population of microbes which can convert plant fibre into some useful nutrients for the human body, such as short-chain fatty acids. Of course that depends on the composition of your bowel flora: if it is healthy the plant fibre will do you good, if it is unhealthy the plant fibre can do a lot of damage. When we cook plants we reduce their cleansing ability, but make them more digestible, so they provide some building materials for the body to use. Unfortunately, these materials cannot build the body to any degree: they are largely carbohydrates, which the body can only use for producing energy and store surplice of them as fat. When plants are severely processed (grains in particular) they provide the wrong building materials for the body causing weight gain and obesity.7
Let us summarise: there are two groups of natural foods on the planet and each of them has its own role to play in human physiology.
Of course, this division is not black-and-white, there is a small overlap: animal products, particularly raw, have some cleansing ability while plants have some feeding ability, particularly when cooked.
A cleaner body always feels better than a toxic one. That is why so many people feel well on the plant-based diet in the first few weeks. But when the body finished cleansing you need to start feeding it with animal foods. If that point is missed the body starts starving and deteriorating. What happened to Helen? With her vegan diet she was cleansing herself, and cleansing herself, and cleansing herself until she literally got 'washed out'. She has missed the point when her body has finished cleansing and needed to start feeding. That is why she lost so much weight and her menstruations stopped: her body was starving and conserving whatever precious resources it had left; it could not afford to waste them on monthly menstruations.
We need to feed our bodies with animal foods. But it is also important to keep your body clean on the inside. What methods of cleansing do we know?
We live in a polluted world and a lot of this pollution gets stored in our bodies. On top of that we add toxic substances to our bodies in the form of processed foods, personal care products, various chemicals, radiation and other man-made things. This man-made toxicity leads to development of many chronic diseases and ultimately cancer. So it is a good idea for us to have periods of cleansing, which can take several forms.
1. Fasting is one of the oldest and very effective ways to cleanse and rejuvenate your body. Our bodies spend huge amounts of energy on digesting and metabolising food on a daily basis. When we stop eating, the body re-directs its energy to other jobs, such as removing toxins and parasites, and healing itself. Fasting has an excellent record of curing all sorts of 'incurable' conditions - from rheumatoid arthritis to cancer. One can fast at home one day a week or a few days at a time every month (or even just miss an evening meal a few times per week). But if you want to attempt a longer fast (some people fast as long as 45 days) it is essential to do it under professional supervision. There are many nuances to a long fast and it is easy to get into trouble if you are not experienced. Coming out of a long fast is also quite a special procedure and needs professional supervision. There are many well-established fasting clinics around the word. I have fasted at Dr Buchinger clinic in Germany for 10 days and would highly recommend it.14 Obviously one cannot fast forever and you do have to start eating at some point. If your fast has achieved what you aimed for, when you came out of it you can start feeding your body with animal foods and plants straight away. But if you feel that you have to continue cleansing for a while, you can move to the next step - the vegan diet.
2. Vegan diets (plant only diets) can be seen as a form of fasting. They do not feed the body properly but provide it with a lot of cleansing. While your digestive system is busy processing plant matter (so you don't feel hungry), the diet will provide your body with large amounts of cleansing substances. The ultimately toxic people are cancer victims; they require a lot of cleansing. That is why most nutritional cancer protocols are vegan. Remember that vegan diets are only suitable for a period of cleansing. They must never be chosen as a permanent life-style. When your body has finished cleansing it will need feeding, and that is when you have to introduce animal foods. If that is not done the body starves, starts cannibalising itself and problems start developing.15 What happened to Helen is a good example of that.
Vegetarian diets, which include animal foods, can be adopted as a long-term strategy. It is possible to be a healthy vegetarian as long as you continue eating some animal foods to provide feeding/building substances for your body, such as eggs and dairy. Obviously all processed foods should be removed and the diet needs to be natural. Such vegetarian cultures exist in India. People there understand just how valuable animal foods are for them. That is why the cow is considered a sacred animal in India (you can be prosecuted for harming a cow), because she provides milk, butter, cheese and ghee. These people also keep chickens and consume plenty of fresh eggs on a daily basis. There are many forms of vegetarianism: some eat fish, some eat eggs and dairy, some allow occasional consumption of meat. People who get into trouble are those who decide to stop eating meat and live largely on processed foods. They put weight on very quickly and get ill. This group of people is particularly prone to mental illness and immune system abnormalities.
What about those of us who are not particularly toxic and are fairly healthy? Do we need to have periods of cleansing?
Human body is equipped with a wonderful system, called Detoxification System.12 This system is the cleaner in the body with its headquarters in the liver and departments in every cell. It is staggeringly complex and extremely efficient: anything toxic that comes into your body or produced as a by-product of your own metabolism gets neutralised and removed in minutes. But there are two conditions: this system needs to be fed properly and not overloaded with work. What food does it require? Animal foods - fresh good quality meats, fish, eggs and dairy on a daily basis. Combine these foods with some vegetables, fruit and nuts (which are cleansers and will give your detoxification system a hand) and you will have a powerful combination to keep your body clean. If you do not feed your detoxification system properly (and that is what the majority of the Western population is doing), it cannot function well and you start accumulating toxins. The second condition is not to overload your detoxification system with work. What are the most commons sources of this overload? Unhealthy gut is the most important: if your gut flora is abnormal, your gut will provide a river of toxicity, which can overwhelm and break down your detoxification system. Other sources of toxicity can be large exposure to man-made chemicals, radiation, vaccinations and other toxic influences; this is what happens to Gulf War veterans and other military personnel, to people who work with toxic substances and people involved in industrial accidents. When your detoxification system is overwhelmed and breaks down, you start accumulating various toxins in your body very quickly, which manifests with disease: your energy production drops and you develop various health problems. One of the most common causes of break-down of detoxification system in our modern world is eating a lot of processed foods. If you live on breakfast cereals, soft drinks, standard bread, sugar, vegetable oils and processed meals you are not feeding your detoxification system well and you are overloading it with work.
But even the healthiest of us, with well-functioning detoxification systems, need to have periods of cleansing occasionally. How often and when? Your body will tell you, all you have to do is listen. These are the days when your body does not feel like feeding, so you don't have a big appetite; you may just feel like grazing on some fruit, berries or vegetables, or may not feel like eating anything at all. Respect your body in the times like that and give it a rest from food. When your body has finished cleansing it will give you a signal: you will become hungry for a piece of meat or some other feeding/building food. Children go through these periods as well, and it is important for the parents to respect that and not force the child to eat. Just be on the alert for addictions to sugar and processed carbohydrates: if your child wants those at the expense of eating real food there is a problem, and you must deal with it as quickly as possible (you may need to look into GAPS). Some adults have that problem too. It is essential to feed our bodies well and to keep them clean and toxin-free on the inside. That is why we need to eat foods from both the animal and the plant kingdoms.
In what proportions should we eat plants and animal foods? Here is the answer: One man's meat is another man's poison!
We are all different; every one of us is a unique individual. So, 'one size fits all' never works. That is why we have such a bewildering number of various diets being proposed: high carbohydrate / low carbohydrate, high fat / low fat, high protein / low protein, all raw / all cooked, etc. etc.; and the interesting thing is that every diet suits some people and does not suit others. Why is that? Because 'it takes two to tango', which means that there is no such thing as a bad food per se or good food per se without taking into account a very important factor, who is eating it! Not only who is eating it, but what state that person is in.
Let's try and understand this in more detail.
We all have different heredity and constitution. If your predecessors were Vikings or Eskimos, then chances are that you will generally need to eat lots of fish, meat and fat. But if your predecessors came from a Mediterranean culture or some tropical area of the world, then you will probably need more carbohydrates in your diet. Ancient Chinese and Ayurvedic medicines try to classify different constitutional types of people, and would not dream of applying diet or herbs without this knowledge, as different constitutional types need very different approaches.
Constitution is just one factor. There are many more.
Throughout our lives our bodies go through anabolic / catabolic cycles, in other words cycles of building itself up and cleansing itself 11,12. There is a daily building / cleansing cycle, a seasonal one and 'as-it-is-necessary' ones which can happen any time. For building itself your body needs very different nutrients from those it uses for cleansing itself (animal foods are generally building, while plant foods are generally cleansing). Only your body knows what it needs at every moment of your life.
Depending on what your body is doing at the time, depending on the season of the year, on the weather and the level of stress you are under, your body can switch between different ways of energy production: using glucose for example or using fats11,12. Only your body knows what is appropriate at any particular moment of your existence, and it requires very different nutrients for different patterns of energy production.
We all have an autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for all the 'autopilot' functions of the body: for your heart beating, for your blood circulating, for your digestive system feeding you, etc. The autonomic nervous system is made out of two branches: a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system. These two systems generally work in opposition to each other providing a very complex balance in every function of the body12. Again, depending on an infinite number of factors (daily cycle of activity and sleep, season, weather, stress, infection, feeding / cleansing, your occupation at the time, etc.) you will shift from being 'sympathetic dominant' to 'parasympathetic dominant'. This shift can happen several times every day, every few days, every season and it is different in different age-groups. The important thing is that these two branches of our nervous system require very different sets of nutrients to be fed: one likes meat and fat, while the other needs more plant foods. Only your body knows what proportions of protein/fat/carbohydrate it needs at any given moment of your life; no laboratory or scientist will be able to calculate this for you.
Then there is the acid / alkaline balance in the body, which again changes all the time every day depending on many factors. There is a myth in nutritional circles that 'being acid is bad' and that all of us have to strive to be alkaline all the time. Different foods have been classified to be 'alkalising' (such as fruit and vegetables) or 'acidifying' (such as grains and meats). This simply is not true. Your body shifts from alkaline to acid states all the time depending on many factors: activity of your autonomic nervous system, the type of energy production at the time, your hormonal profile at the time, respiration, kidney function, many of which in turn change according to daily cycle, season, weather and your activity11. Depending on all those factors an apple, for example, which is considered to be an 'alkalising' food, can make your body acid, and vice versa, a piece of meat, which is considered to be 'acidifying' can make your body alkaline. Only your body knows how to use foods at any given moment of your life; only your body has the inner intelligence to make these impossibly complex calculations.
As if that is not enough, then there is the water and electrolyte balance in the body, which also shifts all the time depending on many factors11,12. Our mainstream medicine pronounced salt to be 'evil' and recommends reducing its consumption. Processed salt should not be consumed just as all processed foods should not be consumed (as these things are unnatural for human physiology and should not be called 'food'). However, natural unprocessed salt (such as Himalayan crystal salt or Celtic salt) contains more than 90 minerals and not only is good for us, it is essential for our bodies to maintain the right water/electrolyte balance. Then there is the myth that we need to drink lots of water every day, even different amounts in litres-per-day are prescribed in nutritional literature. Following that advice blindly can get you into a lot of trouble, if your body is low on electrolytes and needs salt instead of water. No matter how clever we think we are, we cannot calculate how much salt or water we should consume at any given time: only your body knows that, and it has excellent ways of telling you what it needs - thirst for water, desire for salt or any particular food, which may have the right mineral composition. Make no mistake: your body knows the nutrient composition of foods on this planet!
These are just a few factors to demonstrate to you that no laboratory, no clever doctor or scientist and no clever book can calculate for you what you should be eating at 8am, or 1pm, or 6pm or in between. Only your body has the unsurpassed intelligence to figure out what it needs at any given moment of your life, as your nutritional needs change all the time: every minute, every hour and every day.
So, what do we do? How do we feed ourselves properly? The answer is: get back in touch with your body's inner intelligence. Just think: if your body needs so much protein right now + so much fat + so much carbohydrate + so much of vitamin B12 and so much of vitamin C, how would it let you know that it needs this particular composition of nutrients? And even if your body had a way of letting you know all this information, how would you go about providing this mix of nutrients? How are you to calculate all those factors and provide the right amounts? Well, Mother Nature is kind and it is not asking us to do anything so complicated. Instead it gave us senses of SMELL, TASTE, DESIRE for a particular food and a sense of SATISFACTION after eating it. So, when your body needs a particular mix of nutrients, it will give you a desire for a particular food, which contains just that right mix; this particular food will smell divine to you and taste wonderful, and you will feel satisfied after eating it. But in an hour or two the needs of your body will change, and that particular food will not be appealing anymore for you; instead you will have a desire for another food, which nutritionally will serve you correctly for that particular moment of your life.
So, the only way for us to serve our bodies properly with the right food is to be in touch with our senses!
Let us think about it a little more.
The DESIRE for a particular food
The word 'desire' has somewhat a negative feel for many people thanks to centuries of religious and political conditioning, desire is considered to be something we 'have to resist' and must not 'succumb to'. Yet, desire for a particular food is the main way your body tells you what it needs at any particular moment nutritionally. So, when you get hungry stop and think: "What would I desire to eat right now? What is the most appealing food for me right now?" Forget about all the books you have read, forget about all the nutritional mantras of what you have to eat at a particular time of day, and just ask the question. The answer will come immediately, and just the thought of that particular food will fill your mouth with saliva. Respect your desire! Desire is your inner body intelligence talking to you, letting you know what it needs to keep you healthy, energetic and happy. If you listen to your desire every time you eat, you will be able to digest that food well and it will do you only good, because you have eaten it at the right time, just when your body asked for it.
Trouble is that in our modern commercial world people's desires for food have been manipulated through the use of addictive and taste-altering chemicals in processed foods. Yes, many processed so-called 'foods' contain chemicals specifically designed to make them addictive. Listening to your desire only applies to natural foods - foods that Mother Nature has designed. Stop eating processed foods and your normal sense of desire for food will return.
The sense of SMELL
Have you ever observed animals? They will never put anything in their mouths without smelling it first. Why? Because wild animals are fully in touch with their instincts - their inner body intelligence. Sense of smell gives your body a lot of information about the food: is it safe to eat, has it been contaminated by chemicals or microbes, is it fresh, and most importantly, is it appropriate for your bodily needs at the moment? So, before putting anything into your mouth smell it: if it is the right food for you at the moment, it will smell very appealing. If it is not the right food, it will smell repulsive. Respect your sense of smell and listen to it.
Trouble is, that many people in our modern world have a damaged sense of smell due to use of synthetic perfumes17. All smelly man-made chemicals, such as laundry detergents, domestic cleaning chemicals, so-called air fresheners and perfumes block the olfactory receptors (the smell receptors) in your nose. Your nose has a limited number of olfactory receptors, and once they are blocked by a chemical, new molecules of that chemical coming in have nothing to attach to, so you cannot smell it anymore. We all have met people who smell like a perfume factory, but they do not realise just how excessively they apply their perfume onto themselves, because they cannot smell it anymore, their smell receptors in the nose are blocked with that chemical. The same happens with common laundry detergents, which use very powerful perfumes in order to disguise the unpleasant smell of the detergent itself. People who use them regularly are unable to smell them anymore, because these people are exposed to this smell all the time from their clothes, towels and bedding. These people cannot smell their food properly either, as their smell receptors in the nose are permanently occupied by their laundry detergent. To restore you sense of smell, remove all smelly/perfumed chemicals from your environment: replace your laundry detergent with a non-scented natural one and do not use any perfumes, scented personal care products or air fresheners. In a few weeks time your olfactory receptors will clean themselves up and your sense of smell will return.
The sense of TASTE
Food is one of the greatest pleasures of life, and so it must be! If the food is not pleasurable, then it is the wrong food for you at the moment (no matter how 'healthy' it is supposed to be)! So, listen to your sense of taste and respect it! It is your friend as it is one of the channels of communication between your body's inner intelligence and your conscious mind. How else would your body tell you that it needs a particular mix of nutrients, but by giving you great pleasure from consuming them in the form of food?
The trouble is that many people have an altered or dulled sense of taste due to regular consumption of processed foods. Many processed foods contain taste-altering chemicals, which are deliberately added to the 'food'17. These chemicals are not only toxic, but can alter your perception of taste for a long time, so it is essential to stop consuming processed foods in order to restore your normal sense of taste. Many nutritional deficiencies can alter the perception of taste (zinc deficiency is particularly known for this). As you start consuming a natural wholesome diet your nutritional deficiencies will diminish and your sense of taste will return. Toxins in your mouth can also alter your perception of taste. Try to brush your teeth with cold-pressed olive oil (or any other cold-pressed oil) instead of toothpaste: this Ayurvedic procedure has a good record in detoxifying the mouth. Working with a holistic dentist is very important, as many dental materials in the mouth can make it toxic and alter your sense of taste.
The sense of SATISFACTION after eating
If you have eaten a meal appropriate for your body's nutritional needs at the time, you will feel fully satisfied. There will be no cravings for something else, only a nice comfortable feeling of satisfaction, which will allow you to focus on other things in your life and forget about food for a while.
It is important not to overeat, so you don't feel 'stuffed'. However, if you listen to your sense of pleasure from food, then you will not overeat because you would stop eating as soon as the food stops being pleasurable. Pleasure on / pleasure off are the signals your body gives you to let you know about its needs. Your sense of pleasure will keep you eating as long as your body still needs the nutrients from that particular food; as soon as your body had enough of those nutrients, the food will stop giving you pleasure.
In conclusion: Human beings are omnivores; we have evolved on this planet to eat everything we can find in our environment from both plant and animal kingdoms. Animal foods are largely feeding / building while plant foods are largely cleansing. Purely plant-based diets (vegan diets) are inappropriate for human physiology long-term; they can only be used as a temporary cleansing procedure. Mother Nature took billions of years to design the human body; it is an incredibly intelligent creation! As the natural foods on this planet have been designed during the same time, your inner body intelligence knows their composition, and knows what foods to choose for particular needs. All we have to do is treat this intelligence with respect. Use your senses of smell, taste, desire for food and satisfaction from eating it to guide you in your decisions: when to eat, what foods to eat and in what combinations. And remember: you are unique, so what suits your neighbour may not suite you at all.
References
1. American Dietetic Association. Position of the American Dietetic Association and dieticians of Canada: vegetarian diets. J Am Dietetic Assoc, 103 (2003): 748-65.
2. N Barnard. The reverse diabetes diet. 2007, Rodale.
3. ND Barnard et al. The effects of low-fat, plant-based dietary intervention on body, weight, metabolism and insulin sensitivity, Am J Med, 118 (2005):991-7.
4. S Berkow and ND Barnard. Blood pressure regulation and vegetarian diets. Nutrition Reviews, 63 (2005): 1-8.
5. C Gerson and B Bishop. Healing the Gerson way. Defeating cancer and other chronic diseases. 2007, Totality Books.
6. S Kelly and E Kelly. Cancer action plan. Useful, innovative, alternative cancer therapies. 2003, The London Press.
7. Z Harcombe. The obesity epidemic. What caused it? How can we stop it? Columbus Publishing Ltd, 2010, p. 285.
8. F Kummerow. Protein: building blocks of the body. Wise Traditions, fall-2011:12, 3, pp. 33-45.
9. Garrow JS, James WPT, Ralph A. Human nutrition and dietetics. 2000. 10th edition. Churchill Livingstone.
10. MG Enig. Know your fats. 2000. Bethesda Press.
11. BM Carlson. Principles of regenerative biology. 2007, Elsevier.
12. FH Martini, JL Nath, EF Bartholomew. Fundamentals of anatomy and physiology. 2011, Pearson Education.
13. WA Price. Nutrition and physical degeneration. 2010, Benediction Classics.
14. OHF Buchinger. About fasting. A royal road to healing. 1961, Steinhage, Bad Pyrmont, translated from German.
15. L Keith. The vegetarian myth. 2009, Flashpoint Press.
16. Puri B, Boyd H. 2004. The natural way to beat depression. Hodder & Stoughton.
17. B Groves. Trick and treat. How 'healthy eating' is making us ill. 2008, Hammersmith Press ltd, London, UK.
It is Memorial Day Weekend. It will be in the high 90s all weekend. Summer is here! LOL
I'm stretched pretty thin, but I wanted to share this article with with you. It's excellent! :) After reading this, it completely makes sense why my juice-fasting and water-only fasting was so effective in the early stages of my health efforts--I was cleansing the junk out! Now it's time to build--with paleo. :)
http://www.doctor-natasha.com/feeding-versus-cleansing.php
Feeding Versus Cleansing
A 21 year old Helen was brought to my clinic by her worried aunt. Helen was dangerously underweight and getting thinner by the day. She was a tall girl - 185 cm in height (over 6 feet) with a weight of 51 kg (8 stone). She obviously used to be quite beautiful, but now she looked emaciated, pale, her eyes were dull and her voice feeble. Her menstruations have stopped 7 months ago.
Helen grew up abroad and came to England to study at a university. Back at home there were shortages of food and processed foods were not available. So, Helen was brought up on home-cooked wholesome meals made from fresh locally produced ingredients; fresh meat, fresh eggs and fresh milk constituted a large percent of her diet. She was always very healthy. When she came to England she soon developed a dislike for the processed junk diets her fellow students lived on and decided to eat a healthy diet. Short research in popular literature leads her to the idea that the 'healthiest diet' is a vegetarian one and a low-fat one. So, Helen started cooking her own meals out of whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, lots of vegetables and fruit. She drank only water and fruit juices. The only fat she had was some olive oil and peanut butter. She consumed no animal foods at all and tried to eat everything organic. She became very involved with yoga and enjoyed it.
After a few months on this diet Helen's menstruations have stopped and she started loosing weight. But none of it seemed to worry her and she 'felt well'. When she went home for a visit her family were horrified by the way she looked and contacted her aunt in England asking for help. By the time of the consultation Helen has been on her 'healthy diet' for more than a year.
So, what happened to Helen? Didn't she follow the healthiest diet in the world and the one we should all strive for? That is what the authorities and all the mainstream media are telling us.1 And what about all the research showing that following a vegan diet reduces high blood pressure, helps to recover from diabetes and many other chronic diseases?2,3,4 What about Gerson treatment protocol for cancer and other chronic disease, which is purely vegan?5 What about other cancer-treatment protocols most of which are vegan?6 These protocols and approaches show a good record of success.
Let us try and understand the whole issue.
Helen is an intelligent girl and the first good thing she did was she stopped eating all processed foods. These man-made concoctions wrapped in colourful packaging have no right to be called with the noble name 'food'. They are at the root of all modern epidemics of degenerative disease. We will not devote any time to processed foods here; I would just sum them up with a great quote: "Man is the only species clever enough to make his own food and the only one stupid enough to eat it."7,17 To have good health we need to eat foods created by Mother Nature. Mother Nature took billions of years to design our bodies while at the same time designing all the foods suitable for our bodies to use. How arrogant it is for humans to think that they can know better than Mother Nature, having tinkered in their laboratories just for a few decades, generally motivated by greed!
Mother Nature has provided us with two groups of food: plant foods and animal foods. These two groups work differently in the body and both are important to be consumed. Human beings are omnivores: we have evolved on this planet eating everything we could find in our immediate environment from both plants and animals. That is what researchers like Weston A Price have confirmed in their extensive study of traditional cultures around the world. Let us have a look at these two groups of natural foods in more detail.
Energy comes to our beautiful planet from the sun. We, humans, cannot live off that energy directly as far as we know at the moment. In order to capture the energy of the sun and convert it into solid matter Mother Nature has designed plants - they have photosynthesis. The next group of creatures on the planet to consume the energy of the sun in the form of plants are herbivorous animals - animals designed to eat plant matter. In order for herbivorous animals to digest plants and extract nutrients from them Mother Nature equipped them with very special digestive systems, called rumen: it is very long with several stomachs full of special plant-breaking bacteria (the word stomach here is used as an anatomical term for the organ between oesophagus and duodenum, it does not describe the whole abdomen). So, it is not the cow (or any other herbivorous animal) that digests the grass but the bacteria in her rumen. In order to consume the energy of the sun in the form of herbivorous animals Mother Nature has designed the next group of life - predators. Wolves, lions, tigers, foxes, etc. cannot digest plant matter because they are equipped with a very different digestive system. Human digestive system is similar to the gut of predatory animals: our digestive system is fairly short and we have only one stomach with virtually no bacteria in it. In fact our human stomach is designed to produce acid and pepsin, which are only able to break down meat, fish, milk and eggs. In short our digestive systems have been designed to best cope with animal foods.12 People knew this fact for millennia. They knew that the best foods for them come from animals; they would only eat plants as a supplement to meat or when animal foods were in short supply.
But what about all those tables, which show that plants are full of nourishment, published in popular nutrition books, you would ask? All those B vitamins, proteins and oils? Yes, when we analyse different plant foods in a laboratory, they show good amounts of various nutrients. This information is then published in common nutritional literature. Unfortunately, these tables of nutrient content of plants are no use for the human body. Why? Because, in a laboratory we can use all sorts of methods and chemicals for extracting nutrients from plants: methods, which our human digestive system does not possess. Human gut has a very limited ability to digest plants and to extract anything useful from them.12 People knew that plant foods are hard for humans to digest, that is why all traditional cultures have developed methods of food preparation to extract more nutrition from plants and to make them more digestible, such as fermentation, malting, sprouting and special ways of cooking. Unfortunately, in our modern world many of these methods have been forgotten and replaced with recipes which suite the food industry's commercial agenda.13
If we cook and prepare the plant foods properly, can't we live on them? That is exactly what Helen tried to do: she prepared all her food at home from natural plant ingredients. She cooked rice, oats, quinoa and buckwheat, she made her own bread, she cooked beans and lentils, she snacked on nuts and fruit and consumed lots of vegetables. Why did she get into trouble? Let us see.
Human body (without water) is largely made out of protein and fat, these are the 'bricks and mortar' from which your bones, muscles, brain, heart, lungs, liver and all other organs made.9 Laboratory analysis of plants and animal foods show that the best protein and fat for human physiology comes from animal foods.8 The amino acid profile of animal protein is correct for the human body, while amino acid profile of plant-derived proteins is incomplete and unsuitable for human physiology.9 The same with fat: animal fat has the right fatty acid composition for human body to thrive on, while plant oils are unsuitable.10 So, when it comes to FEEDING your body and BUILDING your bodily tissues and structures animal foods are the best and the only suitable ones. Human body has a wonderful process which goes on from the moment of conception till death, called Cell Regeneration.11 Cells in your body (in all of your organs and tissues) constantly get old, die and get replaced by newly-born cells. This way the body maintains itself, rejuvenates itself and heals any damage. In order for your body to give birth to those baby cells to replace the old ones building materials are needed - proteins and fats. The best building materials to feed your cell regeneration process come from animal foods: meats, fish, eggs and dairy. Apart from feeding, animal products provide the body with energy, in fact the best source of energy for most cells in your body is fat.9
One of the hungriest organs in the human body is the brain: it 'sponges up' around 25 - 45 % of all nutrition floating in your blood. Your body spends a lot of effort on feeding the brain 24 hours a day, every day.9 Contrary to popular beliefs there is much more your brain needs than just energy in the form of glucose; it is a physical organ and it requires feeding its own cell regeneration processes with good quality protein and fat. The brain is a very fatty organ, so it requires a lot of good quality fat to be fed properly.15 On top of that your brain manufactures neurotransmitters, hormones and hundreds of other active molecules, which are largely proteins; the brain needs building materials to make them from. Again the best building materials to feed your brain come from animal foods. In the clinical practice we see the degeneration of the brain function in people on purely vegan diets and other poor diets: first the sense of humour goes, the person becomes 'black-and-white' in their thinking and behaviour, the sharpness of the mind goes, memory suffers, depression sets in and other mental problems follow. These are all the signs of a starving brain.
But what about all the plant-based diets shown to help with chronic disease? Why are cold-pressed good quality omega-3 and omega-6 plant oils shown to be beneficial for so many degenerative conditions? Supplementing these oils is promoted by both the mainstream and alternative medical community. What about all the antioxidants, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, bio-flavoniods and other substances in plants that are shown to be so beneficial for our bodies? Here we come to the real purpose of eating plants: they are CLEANSERS. While they are unable to feed us to any serious degree they are wonderful at keeping us clean on the inside.5 They can also provide some energy for the body to use and some co-factors in the form of vitamins and minerals. But their main purpose is to keep your body clean and free of toxins. Indeed plants are equipped with powerful detoxifying substances, which can remove various man-made chemicals, pollution and other toxins you have accumulated in your body. Plants are particularly powerful cleansers when consumed raw. Their juices absorb in the upper parts of the digestive system contributing a plethora of detoxifying substances and co-factors; indeed juicing of raw vegetables and fruit is a major part of cancer-healing protocols, such as Gerson programme. When the plant matter moves further down in the gut it feeds the gut flora in the bowel. Human bowel is an equivalent of the rumen of the herbivorous animals; it has a rich population of microbes which can convert plant fibre into some useful nutrients for the human body, such as short-chain fatty acids. Of course that depends on the composition of your bowel flora: if it is healthy the plant fibre will do you good, if it is unhealthy the plant fibre can do a lot of damage. When we cook plants we reduce their cleansing ability, but make them more digestible, so they provide some building materials for the body to use. Unfortunately, these materials cannot build the body to any degree: they are largely carbohydrates, which the body can only use for producing energy and store surplice of them as fat. When plants are severely processed (grains in particular) they provide the wrong building materials for the body causing weight gain and obesity.7
Let us summarise: there are two groups of natural foods on the planet and each of them has its own role to play in human physiology.
ANIMAL FOODS
BUILDING / FEEDING |
PLANT FOODS
CLEANSING / DETOXIFYING |
Meat, fish, eggs, dairy
|
Grains, beans, fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds
|
Of course, this division is not black-and-white, there is a small overlap: animal products, particularly raw, have some cleansing ability while plants have some feeding ability, particularly when cooked.
A cleaner body always feels better than a toxic one. That is why so many people feel well on the plant-based diet in the first few weeks. But when the body finished cleansing you need to start feeding it with animal foods. If that point is missed the body starts starving and deteriorating. What happened to Helen? With her vegan diet she was cleansing herself, and cleansing herself, and cleansing herself until she literally got 'washed out'. She has missed the point when her body has finished cleansing and needed to start feeding. That is why she lost so much weight and her menstruations stopped: her body was starving and conserving whatever precious resources it had left; it could not afford to waste them on monthly menstruations.
We need to feed our bodies with animal foods. But it is also important to keep your body clean on the inside. What methods of cleansing do we know?
We live in a polluted world and a lot of this pollution gets stored in our bodies. On top of that we add toxic substances to our bodies in the form of processed foods, personal care products, various chemicals, radiation and other man-made things. This man-made toxicity leads to development of many chronic diseases and ultimately cancer. So it is a good idea for us to have periods of cleansing, which can take several forms.
1. Fasting is one of the oldest and very effective ways to cleanse and rejuvenate your body. Our bodies spend huge amounts of energy on digesting and metabolising food on a daily basis. When we stop eating, the body re-directs its energy to other jobs, such as removing toxins and parasites, and healing itself. Fasting has an excellent record of curing all sorts of 'incurable' conditions - from rheumatoid arthritis to cancer. One can fast at home one day a week or a few days at a time every month (or even just miss an evening meal a few times per week). But if you want to attempt a longer fast (some people fast as long as 45 days) it is essential to do it under professional supervision. There are many nuances to a long fast and it is easy to get into trouble if you are not experienced. Coming out of a long fast is also quite a special procedure and needs professional supervision. There are many well-established fasting clinics around the word. I have fasted at Dr Buchinger clinic in Germany for 10 days and would highly recommend it.14 Obviously one cannot fast forever and you do have to start eating at some point. If your fast has achieved what you aimed for, when you came out of it you can start feeding your body with animal foods and plants straight away. But if you feel that you have to continue cleansing for a while, you can move to the next step - the vegan diet.
2. Vegan diets (plant only diets) can be seen as a form of fasting. They do not feed the body properly but provide it with a lot of cleansing. While your digestive system is busy processing plant matter (so you don't feel hungry), the diet will provide your body with large amounts of cleansing substances. The ultimately toxic people are cancer victims; they require a lot of cleansing. That is why most nutritional cancer protocols are vegan. Remember that vegan diets are only suitable for a period of cleansing. They must never be chosen as a permanent life-style. When your body has finished cleansing it will need feeding, and that is when you have to introduce animal foods. If that is not done the body starves, starts cannibalising itself and problems start developing.15 What happened to Helen is a good example of that.
Vegetarian diets, which include animal foods, can be adopted as a long-term strategy. It is possible to be a healthy vegetarian as long as you continue eating some animal foods to provide feeding/building substances for your body, such as eggs and dairy. Obviously all processed foods should be removed and the diet needs to be natural. Such vegetarian cultures exist in India. People there understand just how valuable animal foods are for them. That is why the cow is considered a sacred animal in India (you can be prosecuted for harming a cow), because she provides milk, butter, cheese and ghee. These people also keep chickens and consume plenty of fresh eggs on a daily basis. There are many forms of vegetarianism: some eat fish, some eat eggs and dairy, some allow occasional consumption of meat. People who get into trouble are those who decide to stop eating meat and live largely on processed foods. They put weight on very quickly and get ill. This group of people is particularly prone to mental illness and immune system abnormalities.
What about those of us who are not particularly toxic and are fairly healthy? Do we need to have periods of cleansing?
Human body is equipped with a wonderful system, called Detoxification System.12 This system is the cleaner in the body with its headquarters in the liver and departments in every cell. It is staggeringly complex and extremely efficient: anything toxic that comes into your body or produced as a by-product of your own metabolism gets neutralised and removed in minutes. But there are two conditions: this system needs to be fed properly and not overloaded with work. What food does it require? Animal foods - fresh good quality meats, fish, eggs and dairy on a daily basis. Combine these foods with some vegetables, fruit and nuts (which are cleansers and will give your detoxification system a hand) and you will have a powerful combination to keep your body clean. If you do not feed your detoxification system properly (and that is what the majority of the Western population is doing), it cannot function well and you start accumulating toxins. The second condition is not to overload your detoxification system with work. What are the most commons sources of this overload? Unhealthy gut is the most important: if your gut flora is abnormal, your gut will provide a river of toxicity, which can overwhelm and break down your detoxification system. Other sources of toxicity can be large exposure to man-made chemicals, radiation, vaccinations and other toxic influences; this is what happens to Gulf War veterans and other military personnel, to people who work with toxic substances and people involved in industrial accidents. When your detoxification system is overwhelmed and breaks down, you start accumulating various toxins in your body very quickly, which manifests with disease: your energy production drops and you develop various health problems. One of the most common causes of break-down of detoxification system in our modern world is eating a lot of processed foods. If you live on breakfast cereals, soft drinks, standard bread, sugar, vegetable oils and processed meals you are not feeding your detoxification system well and you are overloading it with work.
But even the healthiest of us, with well-functioning detoxification systems, need to have periods of cleansing occasionally. How often and when? Your body will tell you, all you have to do is listen. These are the days when your body does not feel like feeding, so you don't have a big appetite; you may just feel like grazing on some fruit, berries or vegetables, or may not feel like eating anything at all. Respect your body in the times like that and give it a rest from food. When your body has finished cleansing it will give you a signal: you will become hungry for a piece of meat or some other feeding/building food. Children go through these periods as well, and it is important for the parents to respect that and not force the child to eat. Just be on the alert for addictions to sugar and processed carbohydrates: if your child wants those at the expense of eating real food there is a problem, and you must deal with it as quickly as possible (you may need to look into GAPS). Some adults have that problem too. It is essential to feed our bodies well and to keep them clean and toxin-free on the inside. That is why we need to eat foods from both the animal and the plant kingdoms.
In what proportions should we eat plants and animal foods? Here is the answer: One man's meat is another man's poison!
We are all different; every one of us is a unique individual. So, 'one size fits all' never works. That is why we have such a bewildering number of various diets being proposed: high carbohydrate / low carbohydrate, high fat / low fat, high protein / low protein, all raw / all cooked, etc. etc.; and the interesting thing is that every diet suits some people and does not suit others. Why is that? Because 'it takes two to tango', which means that there is no such thing as a bad food per se or good food per se without taking into account a very important factor, who is eating it! Not only who is eating it, but what state that person is in.
Let's try and understand this in more detail.
We all have different heredity and constitution. If your predecessors were Vikings or Eskimos, then chances are that you will generally need to eat lots of fish, meat and fat. But if your predecessors came from a Mediterranean culture or some tropical area of the world, then you will probably need more carbohydrates in your diet. Ancient Chinese and Ayurvedic medicines try to classify different constitutional types of people, and would not dream of applying diet or herbs without this knowledge, as different constitutional types need very different approaches.
Constitution is just one factor. There are many more.
Throughout our lives our bodies go through anabolic / catabolic cycles, in other words cycles of building itself up and cleansing itself 11,12. There is a daily building / cleansing cycle, a seasonal one and 'as-it-is-necessary' ones which can happen any time. For building itself your body needs very different nutrients from those it uses for cleansing itself (animal foods are generally building, while plant foods are generally cleansing). Only your body knows what it needs at every moment of your life.
Depending on what your body is doing at the time, depending on the season of the year, on the weather and the level of stress you are under, your body can switch between different ways of energy production: using glucose for example or using fats11,12. Only your body knows what is appropriate at any particular moment of your existence, and it requires very different nutrients for different patterns of energy production.
We all have an autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for all the 'autopilot' functions of the body: for your heart beating, for your blood circulating, for your digestive system feeding you, etc. The autonomic nervous system is made out of two branches: a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system. These two systems generally work in opposition to each other providing a very complex balance in every function of the body12. Again, depending on an infinite number of factors (daily cycle of activity and sleep, season, weather, stress, infection, feeding / cleansing, your occupation at the time, etc.) you will shift from being 'sympathetic dominant' to 'parasympathetic dominant'. This shift can happen several times every day, every few days, every season and it is different in different age-groups. The important thing is that these two branches of our nervous system require very different sets of nutrients to be fed: one likes meat and fat, while the other needs more plant foods. Only your body knows what proportions of protein/fat/carbohydrate it needs at any given moment of your life; no laboratory or scientist will be able to calculate this for you.
Then there is the acid / alkaline balance in the body, which again changes all the time every day depending on many factors. There is a myth in nutritional circles that 'being acid is bad' and that all of us have to strive to be alkaline all the time. Different foods have been classified to be 'alkalising' (such as fruit and vegetables) or 'acidifying' (such as grains and meats). This simply is not true. Your body shifts from alkaline to acid states all the time depending on many factors: activity of your autonomic nervous system, the type of energy production at the time, your hormonal profile at the time, respiration, kidney function, many of which in turn change according to daily cycle, season, weather and your activity11. Depending on all those factors an apple, for example, which is considered to be an 'alkalising' food, can make your body acid, and vice versa, a piece of meat, which is considered to be 'acidifying' can make your body alkaline. Only your body knows how to use foods at any given moment of your life; only your body has the inner intelligence to make these impossibly complex calculations.
As if that is not enough, then there is the water and electrolyte balance in the body, which also shifts all the time depending on many factors11,12. Our mainstream medicine pronounced salt to be 'evil' and recommends reducing its consumption. Processed salt should not be consumed just as all processed foods should not be consumed (as these things are unnatural for human physiology and should not be called 'food'). However, natural unprocessed salt (such as Himalayan crystal salt or Celtic salt) contains more than 90 minerals and not only is good for us, it is essential for our bodies to maintain the right water/electrolyte balance. Then there is the myth that we need to drink lots of water every day, even different amounts in litres-per-day are prescribed in nutritional literature. Following that advice blindly can get you into a lot of trouble, if your body is low on electrolytes and needs salt instead of water. No matter how clever we think we are, we cannot calculate how much salt or water we should consume at any given time: only your body knows that, and it has excellent ways of telling you what it needs - thirst for water, desire for salt or any particular food, which may have the right mineral composition. Make no mistake: your body knows the nutrient composition of foods on this planet!
These are just a few factors to demonstrate to you that no laboratory, no clever doctor or scientist and no clever book can calculate for you what you should be eating at 8am, or 1pm, or 6pm or in between. Only your body has the unsurpassed intelligence to figure out what it needs at any given moment of your life, as your nutritional needs change all the time: every minute, every hour and every day.
So, what do we do? How do we feed ourselves properly? The answer is: get back in touch with your body's inner intelligence. Just think: if your body needs so much protein right now + so much fat + so much carbohydrate + so much of vitamin B12 and so much of vitamin C, how would it let you know that it needs this particular composition of nutrients? And even if your body had a way of letting you know all this information, how would you go about providing this mix of nutrients? How are you to calculate all those factors and provide the right amounts? Well, Mother Nature is kind and it is not asking us to do anything so complicated. Instead it gave us senses of SMELL, TASTE, DESIRE for a particular food and a sense of SATISFACTION after eating it. So, when your body needs a particular mix of nutrients, it will give you a desire for a particular food, which contains just that right mix; this particular food will smell divine to you and taste wonderful, and you will feel satisfied after eating it. But in an hour or two the needs of your body will change, and that particular food will not be appealing anymore for you; instead you will have a desire for another food, which nutritionally will serve you correctly for that particular moment of your life.
So, the only way for us to serve our bodies properly with the right food is to be in touch with our senses!
Let us think about it a little more.
The DESIRE for a particular food
The word 'desire' has somewhat a negative feel for many people thanks to centuries of religious and political conditioning, desire is considered to be something we 'have to resist' and must not 'succumb to'. Yet, desire for a particular food is the main way your body tells you what it needs at any particular moment nutritionally. So, when you get hungry stop and think: "What would I desire to eat right now? What is the most appealing food for me right now?" Forget about all the books you have read, forget about all the nutritional mantras of what you have to eat at a particular time of day, and just ask the question. The answer will come immediately, and just the thought of that particular food will fill your mouth with saliva. Respect your desire! Desire is your inner body intelligence talking to you, letting you know what it needs to keep you healthy, energetic and happy. If you listen to your desire every time you eat, you will be able to digest that food well and it will do you only good, because you have eaten it at the right time, just when your body asked for it.
Trouble is that in our modern commercial world people's desires for food have been manipulated through the use of addictive and taste-altering chemicals in processed foods. Yes, many processed so-called 'foods' contain chemicals specifically designed to make them addictive. Listening to your desire only applies to natural foods - foods that Mother Nature has designed. Stop eating processed foods and your normal sense of desire for food will return.
The sense of SMELL
Have you ever observed animals? They will never put anything in their mouths without smelling it first. Why? Because wild animals are fully in touch with their instincts - their inner body intelligence. Sense of smell gives your body a lot of information about the food: is it safe to eat, has it been contaminated by chemicals or microbes, is it fresh, and most importantly, is it appropriate for your bodily needs at the moment? So, before putting anything into your mouth smell it: if it is the right food for you at the moment, it will smell very appealing. If it is not the right food, it will smell repulsive. Respect your sense of smell and listen to it.
Trouble is, that many people in our modern world have a damaged sense of smell due to use of synthetic perfumes17. All smelly man-made chemicals, such as laundry detergents, domestic cleaning chemicals, so-called air fresheners and perfumes block the olfactory receptors (the smell receptors) in your nose. Your nose has a limited number of olfactory receptors, and once they are blocked by a chemical, new molecules of that chemical coming in have nothing to attach to, so you cannot smell it anymore. We all have met people who smell like a perfume factory, but they do not realise just how excessively they apply their perfume onto themselves, because they cannot smell it anymore, their smell receptors in the nose are blocked with that chemical. The same happens with common laundry detergents, which use very powerful perfumes in order to disguise the unpleasant smell of the detergent itself. People who use them regularly are unable to smell them anymore, because these people are exposed to this smell all the time from their clothes, towels and bedding. These people cannot smell their food properly either, as their smell receptors in the nose are permanently occupied by their laundry detergent. To restore you sense of smell, remove all smelly/perfumed chemicals from your environment: replace your laundry detergent with a non-scented natural one and do not use any perfumes, scented personal care products or air fresheners. In a few weeks time your olfactory receptors will clean themselves up and your sense of smell will return.
The sense of TASTE
Food is one of the greatest pleasures of life, and so it must be! If the food is not pleasurable, then it is the wrong food for you at the moment (no matter how 'healthy' it is supposed to be)! So, listen to your sense of taste and respect it! It is your friend as it is one of the channels of communication between your body's inner intelligence and your conscious mind. How else would your body tell you that it needs a particular mix of nutrients, but by giving you great pleasure from consuming them in the form of food?
The trouble is that many people have an altered or dulled sense of taste due to regular consumption of processed foods. Many processed foods contain taste-altering chemicals, which are deliberately added to the 'food'17. These chemicals are not only toxic, but can alter your perception of taste for a long time, so it is essential to stop consuming processed foods in order to restore your normal sense of taste. Many nutritional deficiencies can alter the perception of taste (zinc deficiency is particularly known for this). As you start consuming a natural wholesome diet your nutritional deficiencies will diminish and your sense of taste will return. Toxins in your mouth can also alter your perception of taste. Try to brush your teeth with cold-pressed olive oil (or any other cold-pressed oil) instead of toothpaste: this Ayurvedic procedure has a good record in detoxifying the mouth. Working with a holistic dentist is very important, as many dental materials in the mouth can make it toxic and alter your sense of taste.
The sense of SATISFACTION after eating
If you have eaten a meal appropriate for your body's nutritional needs at the time, you will feel fully satisfied. There will be no cravings for something else, only a nice comfortable feeling of satisfaction, which will allow you to focus on other things in your life and forget about food for a while.
It is important not to overeat, so you don't feel 'stuffed'. However, if you listen to your sense of pleasure from food, then you will not overeat because you would stop eating as soon as the food stops being pleasurable. Pleasure on / pleasure off are the signals your body gives you to let you know about its needs. Your sense of pleasure will keep you eating as long as your body still needs the nutrients from that particular food; as soon as your body had enough of those nutrients, the food will stop giving you pleasure.
In conclusion: Human beings are omnivores; we have evolved on this planet to eat everything we can find in our environment from both plant and animal kingdoms. Animal foods are largely feeding / building while plant foods are largely cleansing. Purely plant-based diets (vegan diets) are inappropriate for human physiology long-term; they can only be used as a temporary cleansing procedure. Mother Nature took billions of years to design the human body; it is an incredibly intelligent creation! As the natural foods on this planet have been designed during the same time, your inner body intelligence knows their composition, and knows what foods to choose for particular needs. All we have to do is treat this intelligence with respect. Use your senses of smell, taste, desire for food and satisfaction from eating it to guide you in your decisions: when to eat, what foods to eat and in what combinations. And remember: you are unique, so what suits your neighbour may not suite you at all.
References
1. American Dietetic Association. Position of the American Dietetic Association and dieticians of Canada: vegetarian diets. J Am Dietetic Assoc, 103 (2003): 748-65.
2. N Barnard. The reverse diabetes diet. 2007, Rodale.
3. ND Barnard et al. The effects of low-fat, plant-based dietary intervention on body, weight, metabolism and insulin sensitivity, Am J Med, 118 (2005):991-7.
4. S Berkow and ND Barnard. Blood pressure regulation and vegetarian diets. Nutrition Reviews, 63 (2005): 1-8.
5. C Gerson and B Bishop. Healing the Gerson way. Defeating cancer and other chronic diseases. 2007, Totality Books.
6. S Kelly and E Kelly. Cancer action plan. Useful, innovative, alternative cancer therapies. 2003, The London Press.
7. Z Harcombe. The obesity epidemic. What caused it? How can we stop it? Columbus Publishing Ltd, 2010, p. 285.
8. F Kummerow. Protein: building blocks of the body. Wise Traditions, fall-2011:12, 3, pp. 33-45.
9. Garrow JS, James WPT, Ralph A. Human nutrition and dietetics. 2000. 10th edition. Churchill Livingstone.
10. MG Enig. Know your fats. 2000. Bethesda Press.
11. BM Carlson. Principles of regenerative biology. 2007, Elsevier.
12. FH Martini, JL Nath, EF Bartholomew. Fundamentals of anatomy and physiology. 2011, Pearson Education.
13. WA Price. Nutrition and physical degeneration. 2010, Benediction Classics.
14. OHF Buchinger. About fasting. A royal road to healing. 1961, Steinhage, Bad Pyrmont, translated from German.
15. L Keith. The vegetarian myth. 2009, Flashpoint Press.
16. Puri B, Boyd H. 2004. The natural way to beat depression. Hodder & Stoughton.
17. B Groves. Trick and treat. How 'healthy eating' is making us ill. 2008, Hammersmith Press ltd, London, UK.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
It's Been a Busy Weekend and Then Some...
Gun show this weekend. Slower than hoped. Ate out a bunch, but didn't go off my diet. Just had more quantity than usual--and more fruit.
My wife went to the post office today and picked up 25 chicks...
...then had them waiting for me on my bed when I got home from work...
...in a box! ;)
25 chicks, 15 will be kept--may eat or sell the other 10. In 6 months they'll be producing an average of 10-12 eggs per day. They'll be free-range and the eggs will be high Omega-3. :)
Here's a little movie I made of them:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/?action=view¤t=VIDEO0020.mp4
I had just dropped in some worms that the kids dug out of the back-yard. Just prior to this, they had been quiet and docile, but with the influx of protein, they went nuts! :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1199.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1200.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1201.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1202.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1203.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1204.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1205.jpg
My wife went to the post office today and picked up 25 chicks...
...then had them waiting for me on my bed when I got home from work...
...in a box! ;)
25 chicks, 15 will be kept--may eat or sell the other 10. In 6 months they'll be producing an average of 10-12 eggs per day. They'll be free-range and the eggs will be high Omega-3. :)
Here's a little movie I made of them:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/?action=view¤t=VIDEO0020.mp4
I had just dropped in some worms that the kids dug out of the back-yard. Just prior to this, they had been quiet and docile, but with the influx of protein, they went nuts! :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1199.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1200.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1201.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1202.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1203.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1204.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1205.jpg
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Stress and Busy-ness Continues...
Weight: 212.8
Apologies for not taking pictures, but I started making dinner at 8:30pm and it was 9:45 by the time we were washing dishes. It was a crazy busy evening...
Costco had Atlantic wild salmon. We bought some for $15 and change. It was $6.29 a lb. We bought some fresh greenbeans, asparagus and broccoli, too.
I made a spice marinade for the salmon:
Garlic salt (two teaspoons)
Bleck Pepper (one teaspoon)
Oregano flakes (one teaspoon)
Basil flakes (one teaspoon)
Chili pepper (two teaspoons)
Diced garlic (one large clove)
Diced onions (about 1/4 of a medium onion)
Diced serrano pepper (about half a pepper)
I mixed the spices with coconut oil in a little plastic container while I readied the fish on the pan.
Added enough olive oil to lightly coat the baking pan. It was a baking pan with sides--this is important! I laid the fish in the pan (had to cut it to make it all fit in one pan). Coated the fish with the spices, realized I needed a little more oil, so I put it in the same spice container I'd used before and "swished" the excess spices out with the added oil. The fish went into the oven at 475 for 20 minutes (I checked it at 15 minutes and put it back in for 5 more). It came out with crispy edges and tender flesh through the middle--but fully cooked.
The stir fry was made while it was cooking:
Green beans
Asparagus
Broccoli
The rest of the onion
Two gloves garlic
The rest of the serrano
I spiced it much the same as the fish--with the added element of a splash of tamari (soy sauce).
I also added a half stick of butter (already had both coconut oil and olive oil).
I sauteed/stir-fried/steamed the whole thing for about 15-20 minutes.
(I'm an "instinctive cook" so it's hard for me to give specific times, quantities of spices and so forth--it's all estimates. I give the food what I feel like it's asking for.)
Originally, I put in the green beans whole--but realized that chopping them would be better, so partway through the process, I pulled them out and chopped them, then put them back in. I ended up getting a lot of the oils and spices on my fingers. It's the first time I've ever licked and sucked my every finger, from tip to hand -- and licked my palms! -- to get all the delicious flavor!
When I served it, I also included some fermented veggies I'd made 12 days before--only one of my kiddos enjoyed the fermented veggies with me.
The whole family was *amazed* at how good it was! *I* was amazed at how good it was!
It was a tad expensive for a typical family meal, probably cost us about $20. However, it took 30 minutes to prepare, it was absolutely delicious and pulled our family together for a family meal where we all ate the same food together.
I also had some cashew butter and seeded grapes last night.
My sleep is not good--I went to bed last night at 2am. I had to get up at 6:30 this morning. I have a busy working weekend planned. I had to work on the garden last night (weeding). I'm *tired* and I haven't given my body enough rest--and no real opportunity to give it the rest it needs till sometime next week, sandwiched into my normal working schedule.
I worked in the garden last night, weeding. Haven't been to the sauna or gym all week because of band concerts, choir concerts, weeding, and tonight I have to help my wife make her fermented veggies. Then I'll be working all weekend. Next chance to sauna/gym again won't be till next week.
Apologies for not taking pictures, but I started making dinner at 8:30pm and it was 9:45 by the time we were washing dishes. It was a crazy busy evening...
Costco had Atlantic wild salmon. We bought some for $15 and change. It was $6.29 a lb. We bought some fresh greenbeans, asparagus and broccoli, too.
I made a spice marinade for the salmon:
Garlic salt (two teaspoons)
Bleck Pepper (one teaspoon)
Oregano flakes (one teaspoon)
Basil flakes (one teaspoon)
Chili pepper (two teaspoons)
Diced garlic (one large clove)
Diced onions (about 1/4 of a medium onion)
Diced serrano pepper (about half a pepper)
I mixed the spices with coconut oil in a little plastic container while I readied the fish on the pan.
Added enough olive oil to lightly coat the baking pan. It was a baking pan with sides--this is important! I laid the fish in the pan (had to cut it to make it all fit in one pan). Coated the fish with the spices, realized I needed a little more oil, so I put it in the same spice container I'd used before and "swished" the excess spices out with the added oil. The fish went into the oven at 475 for 20 minutes (I checked it at 15 minutes and put it back in for 5 more). It came out with crispy edges and tender flesh through the middle--but fully cooked.
The stir fry was made while it was cooking:
Green beans
Asparagus
Broccoli
The rest of the onion
Two gloves garlic
The rest of the serrano
I spiced it much the same as the fish--with the added element of a splash of tamari (soy sauce).
I also added a half stick of butter (already had both coconut oil and olive oil).
I sauteed/stir-fried/steamed the whole thing for about 15-20 minutes.
(I'm an "instinctive cook" so it's hard for me to give specific times, quantities of spices and so forth--it's all estimates. I give the food what I feel like it's asking for.)
Originally, I put in the green beans whole--but realized that chopping them would be better, so partway through the process, I pulled them out and chopped them, then put them back in. I ended up getting a lot of the oils and spices on my fingers. It's the first time I've ever licked and sucked my every finger, from tip to hand -- and licked my palms! -- to get all the delicious flavor!
When I served it, I also included some fermented veggies I'd made 12 days before--only one of my kiddos enjoyed the fermented veggies with me.
The whole family was *amazed* at how good it was! *I* was amazed at how good it was!
It was a tad expensive for a typical family meal, probably cost us about $20. However, it took 30 minutes to prepare, it was absolutely delicious and pulled our family together for a family meal where we all ate the same food together.
I also had some cashew butter and seeded grapes last night.
My sleep is not good--I went to bed last night at 2am. I had to get up at 6:30 this morning. I have a busy working weekend planned. I had to work on the garden last night (weeding). I'm *tired* and I haven't given my body enough rest--and no real opportunity to give it the rest it needs till sometime next week, sandwiched into my normal working schedule.
I worked in the garden last night, weeding. Haven't been to the sauna or gym all week because of band concerts, choir concerts, weeding, and tonight I have to help my wife make her fermented veggies. Then I'll be working all weekend. Next chance to sauna/gym again won't be till next week.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Stress and Busy-ness
Tuesday Weight: 213.6
Wednesday Weight: 213.6
I'm very stressed right now. Work is intense. I'm doing a show this weekend in Springfield. I have some writing pressures on me from my sideline activities. My garden is in severe need of weeding. The house is still torn up in remodel. And I am short on sleep. *sigh*
How I can be the same weight two days in a row after last nights' feast, I'll never understand...
Okay, Monday night, I ate some leftover stir fry, two avacados (with onions and serrano), and a big container of steamed brussel sprouts, onions and cabbage. I went to my kids' band concert and then picked up 2lbs of hamburger on the way home. I diced up some onions and serrano, and cracked an egg into the mix. I mashed it all together and fried it up with some coconut oil and coconut butter. I also had some cashew butter mixed with coconut milk (highly *not* recommended--it was not a good flavor mix).
I ate 4 of the 5 burgers that it created.
That accounts for Tuesday's 213.6.
Then on Tuesday for lunch, I had 12oz of salmon from the local grocery's deli, a big tub of strawberries, a small tub of raspberries and a container of grape tomatoes. (It was a very "red" lunch.)
After the choir concert last night, I came home and fried up 5 eggs, a 0 carb polish sausage and another avacado (my daughter claims it was 2, but I think it was more like 1 and she enjoyed some snacking). I also had some cashew butter. I also had a smoothie with pineapple, grapes and coconut milk. It was absolute, sheer delight--pure heaven in a drink!
It sat in my gut all night, apparently and didn't really start digesting till this morning. I've been gassy all night and morning as the food basically fermented in my system.
And no uptick in my weight. Go figure.
Wednesday Weight: 213.6
I'm very stressed right now. Work is intense. I'm doing a show this weekend in Springfield. I have some writing pressures on me from my sideline activities. My garden is in severe need of weeding. The house is still torn up in remodel. And I am short on sleep. *sigh*
How I can be the same weight two days in a row after last nights' feast, I'll never understand...
Okay, Monday night, I ate some leftover stir fry, two avacados (with onions and serrano), and a big container of steamed brussel sprouts, onions and cabbage. I went to my kids' band concert and then picked up 2lbs of hamburger on the way home. I diced up some onions and serrano, and cracked an egg into the mix. I mashed it all together and fried it up with some coconut oil and coconut butter. I also had some cashew butter mixed with coconut milk (highly *not* recommended--it was not a good flavor mix).
I ate 4 of the 5 burgers that it created.
That accounts for Tuesday's 213.6.
Then on Tuesday for lunch, I had 12oz of salmon from the local grocery's deli, a big tub of strawberries, a small tub of raspberries and a container of grape tomatoes. (It was a very "red" lunch.)
After the choir concert last night, I came home and fried up 5 eggs, a 0 carb polish sausage and another avacado (my daughter claims it was 2, but I think it was more like 1 and she enjoyed some snacking). I also had some cashew butter. I also had a smoothie with pineapple, grapes and coconut milk. It was absolute, sheer delight--pure heaven in a drink!
It sat in my gut all night, apparently and didn't really start digesting till this morning. I've been gassy all night and morning as the food basically fermented in my system.
And no uptick in my weight. Go figure.
So, I posted this over at the Robb Wolf forums and wanted to share it here:
The one thing that has been the best for me on paleo has
been that my butt hurts. Yes, it may sound strange and funny, but my butt
hurts.
Why does my butt hurt? Because I've lost all the padding in my buns and sitting for more than a short stint makes my butt hurt--so I have to get up and walk around or just stand for awhile. And that's a really, really good thing for you to do. Sedentary jobs are life-killers.
I have a sedentary job. However, I find that I stand in meetings, now. And I walk around more often. If I've been sitting for very long, my legs fall asleep and my butt hurts--and I have to get up and move around.
Sure, we can talk about our intense workouts with all the strange letter and number combinations (P90x, 5x5, etc.)--but if you just get your body moving, get off your butt, bend over and pick up a pencil or the trash on the floor, walk it to the trash can, greet your co-workers with a smile (yes, smiling takes muscle movement!)... You'll be amazed at how much easier life is.
I used to *dread* going up stairs. Now, I routinely take 2 flights without thinking about it, my heart rate doesn't even tick up noticeably. :)
So, I wish you the strangest thing of all...
...I hope your butt hurts! :)
Why does my butt hurt? Because I've lost all the padding in my buns and sitting for more than a short stint makes my butt hurt--so I have to get up and walk around or just stand for awhile. And that's a really, really good thing for you to do. Sedentary jobs are life-killers.
I have a sedentary job. However, I find that I stand in meetings, now. And I walk around more often. If I've been sitting for very long, my legs fall asleep and my butt hurts--and I have to get up and move around.
Sure, we can talk about our intense workouts with all the strange letter and number combinations (P90x, 5x5, etc.)--but if you just get your body moving, get off your butt, bend over and pick up a pencil or the trash on the floor, walk it to the trash can, greet your co-workers with a smile (yes, smiling takes muscle movement!)... You'll be amazed at how much easier life is.
I used to *dread* going up stairs. Now, I routinely take 2 flights without thinking about it, my heart rate doesn't even tick up noticeably. :)
So, I wish you the strangest thing of all...
...I hope your butt hurts! :)
Monday, May 14, 2012
Uptick: Food/Salt -- Fasting Again
Saturday Weight: 205
Sunday Weight: 209.4
Monday Weight: 211.4
Saturday I went to a friend's graduation party and I had a delicious dinner. :)
Sunday I made a stir fry and an incredibly delicious fruit cobbler using coconut milk.
And my weight took the expected uptick.
I'm back on fasting, clearing it out of my system. I'll eat again on Friday when I head out of town.
Last Night's Delight
I took strawberries and chopped them up. I added blackberries and blueberries. I layered these in a baking dish. Then I chopped two apples and a peach and added them. I took a bunch of grapes and juiced them (I also added some of the blackberries and blueberries to the juice).
I mixed the juice with coconut milk (why didn't anyone tell me this was like heavy whipping cream and incredibly thick, rich and delicious?!) and a little almond milk. I added vanilla and cinnamon.
I poured the juice-mix over the top of the chopped fruits and then smeared the pulp remains from the juicer on the top of the concoction.
I baked it at 425F for about 20 minutes.
Two mule teams and a Mack truck were needed to keep me from going back for seconds! LOL
The kids absolutely devoured it! :) I think they licked the baking dish clean after it cooled... (or maybe before it cooled, I'm not sure...)
I had no idea that coconut milk was so ... intense! If I ever start drinking coffee again, I know what I'm putting in mine! LOL
Sunday Weight: 209.4
Monday Weight: 211.4
Saturday I went to a friend's graduation party and I had a delicious dinner. :)
Sunday I made a stir fry and an incredibly delicious fruit cobbler using coconut milk.
And my weight took the expected uptick.
I'm back on fasting, clearing it out of my system. I'll eat again on Friday when I head out of town.
Last Night's Delight
I took strawberries and chopped them up. I added blackberries and blueberries. I layered these in a baking dish. Then I chopped two apples and a peach and added them. I took a bunch of grapes and juiced them (I also added some of the blackberries and blueberries to the juice).
I mixed the juice with coconut milk (why didn't anyone tell me this was like heavy whipping cream and incredibly thick, rich and delicious?!) and a little almond milk. I added vanilla and cinnamon.
I poured the juice-mix over the top of the chopped fruits and then smeared the pulp remains from the juicer on the top of the concoction.
I baked it at 425F for about 20 minutes.
Two mule teams and a Mack truck were needed to keep me from going back for seconds! LOL
The kids absolutely devoured it! :) I think they licked the baking dish clean after it cooled... (or maybe before it cooled, I'm not sure...)
I had no idea that coconut milk was so ... intense! If I ever start drinking coffee again, I know what I'm putting in mine! LOL
Friday, May 11, 2012
Water-Only Fasting: Day 5
Weight: 208.0
I drank over a gallon of water yesterday--that's 8.5lbs of water. Lost all that plus 1.4lbs.
Because I'm drinking Natural Calm at the full dose, the magnesium makes me very regular. So regular, in fact, that I have no question that my intestines are completely empty. What is it that I'm eliminating, then? It's more than just liquid, There is solid residue mixed in. Is it scraping bile off the inside of my intestinal walls? Can the little bits of pulp and lemon seeds really produce that much residue? Is burning my body fat producing some solid residue that was stored with the fat?
I'm anticipating eating BBQ tomorrow (well, "fire-grilled beef" -- I won't have the BBQ sauce). I forgot that I am going to a friend's college graduation party. Better to eat something good and healthy--like a grass-fed BBQ steak--than to be tempted beyond resistance capability and wind up going hog-wild. On the other hand, maybe just exercise phenomenal willpower and "soldier on".
If I'm paying $40 in gas to get there and back, I might as well enjoy the trip and have a good meal. :)
Then I'm back to fasting again. I really want to break the 200 barrier. The closest I've been is 204.
Interestingly, when I got married 23 years ago, I was at 191. I still want to get back to my 17 year old weight of 175. (Actually, I want to go lower--to 170, so that when I start eating again, I come back to about 180.)
Sauna last night:
30 mins sauna
10 mins cooldown
10 mins hottub
5 mins cooldown
15 mins sauna
Stress levels are high. Remodeling the house--which is in complete disarray. Summer activities are starting while school activities are winding down. And last night my friend helping me with the remodel showed up at midnight (our kids were watching his daughter, so I stayed up to wait for him) and was distraught because a friend of his had died. We stayed up talking a bit. Then my oldest got up (she'd gone to bed really early) and we talked till 2am. I got up at 6:30. Not enough sleep. No where close.
I'm stressed. I'm not sleeping enough. I'm ravenous because my body is full of cortizol. At least the water helps to flush it out...
Going up to check on the garden again on Sunday. This is what it looked like on Saturday.
They're coming up! :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1132.jpg
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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/BenjaminRogers/IMAG1151.jpg
I drank over a gallon of water yesterday--that's 8.5lbs of water. Lost all that plus 1.4lbs.
Because I'm drinking Natural Calm at the full dose, the magnesium makes me very regular. So regular, in fact, that I have no question that my intestines are completely empty. What is it that I'm eliminating, then? It's more than just liquid, There is solid residue mixed in. Is it scraping bile off the inside of my intestinal walls? Can the little bits of pulp and lemon seeds really produce that much residue? Is burning my body fat producing some solid residue that was stored with the fat?
I'm anticipating eating BBQ tomorrow (well, "fire-grilled beef" -- I won't have the BBQ sauce). I forgot that I am going to a friend's college graduation party. Better to eat something good and healthy--like a grass-fed BBQ steak--than to be tempted beyond resistance capability and wind up going hog-wild. On the other hand, maybe just exercise phenomenal willpower and "soldier on".
If I'm paying $40 in gas to get there and back, I might as well enjoy the trip and have a good meal. :)
Then I'm back to fasting again. I really want to break the 200 barrier. The closest I've been is 204.
Interestingly, when I got married 23 years ago, I was at 191. I still want to get back to my 17 year old weight of 175. (Actually, I want to go lower--to 170, so that when I start eating again, I come back to about 180.)
Sauna last night:
30 mins sauna
10 mins cooldown
10 mins hottub
5 mins cooldown
15 mins sauna
Stress levels are high. Remodeling the house--which is in complete disarray. Summer activities are starting while school activities are winding down. And last night my friend helping me with the remodel showed up at midnight (our kids were watching his daughter, so I stayed up to wait for him) and was distraught because a friend of his had died. We stayed up talking a bit. Then my oldest got up (she'd gone to bed really early) and we talked till 2am. I got up at 6:30. Not enough sleep. No where close.
I'm stressed. I'm not sleeping enough. I'm ravenous because my body is full of cortizol. At least the water helps to flush it out...
Going up to check on the garden again on Sunday. This is what it looked like on Saturday.
They're coming up! :)
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
Water-Only Fasting: Day 4
Weight: 209.4
Last night was really difficult. I'd been slightly struggling all day with some minor interest in food. Not enough to really call it "temptation" -- but enough to call it "interest". It came and went, sometimes easily ignored, sometimes requiring a little more distraction. Then we went to a movie and came home to find that my kids had completely ignored their younger brothers and let them tear up the house. That sent my stress levels through the roof--I must've flooded my body with cortizol. I was ravenous and could not stop thinking about food.
I didn't succomb, however. I was also exhausted, so I just went to bed. Best thing I could've done.
Because of the movie, I didn't make it to the sauna last night. I still managed a 1.4lbs drop yesterday. Again, I'm convinced this is still water loss. Although, it's hard to imagine me losing that much water, considering I drank *over a gallon* of water yesterday.
Yes, I drank 4 - 32oz bottles of water, plus a little more here and there. That's 128+ oz of water. Nearly 8.5 lbs of water. And I still lost 1.4lbs. I didn't pee all that frequently (from the mindset of a former diabetic)--but I peed *a lot* of volume.
The Natural Calm continues to clean out my intestines, even though it feels like there's nothing left in them.
I may need to run up and check out my garden tonight. We havn't had rain in a few days, but the ground was still soaked on Tuesday, so it may still be moist. If so, then I'll wait till Saturday. I want to water my new plants and get some weeding done. There's a big patch of what can only be called "lawn" that has cropped up (pardon the pun) in the midst of the garden. Interestingly, I think it might be wheat. I'm tempted to let some of it come up and harvest it with my garden. Although I'm not a grain eater anymore, I have friends who are and they might appreciate some fresh-grown, fresh ground wheat.
I'm also considering planting some Einkorn wheat. It's an ancient grain. It's still really bad as far as the nastiness that grain does to people's intestines and increasing their chances of serious diseases--but it's "better" than anything the modern world has to offer.
Last night was really difficult. I'd been slightly struggling all day with some minor interest in food. Not enough to really call it "temptation" -- but enough to call it "interest". It came and went, sometimes easily ignored, sometimes requiring a little more distraction. Then we went to a movie and came home to find that my kids had completely ignored their younger brothers and let them tear up the house. That sent my stress levels through the roof--I must've flooded my body with cortizol. I was ravenous and could not stop thinking about food.
I didn't succomb, however. I was also exhausted, so I just went to bed. Best thing I could've done.
Because of the movie, I didn't make it to the sauna last night. I still managed a 1.4lbs drop yesterday. Again, I'm convinced this is still water loss. Although, it's hard to imagine me losing that much water, considering I drank *over a gallon* of water yesterday.
Yes, I drank 4 - 32oz bottles of water, plus a little more here and there. That's 128+ oz of water. Nearly 8.5 lbs of water. And I still lost 1.4lbs. I didn't pee all that frequently (from the mindset of a former diabetic)--but I peed *a lot* of volume.
The Natural Calm continues to clean out my intestines, even though it feels like there's nothing left in them.
I may need to run up and check out my garden tonight. We havn't had rain in a few days, but the ground was still soaked on Tuesday, so it may still be moist. If so, then I'll wait till Saturday. I want to water my new plants and get some weeding done. There's a big patch of what can only be called "lawn" that has cropped up (pardon the pun) in the midst of the garden. Interestingly, I think it might be wheat. I'm tempted to let some of it come up and harvest it with my garden. Although I'm not a grain eater anymore, I have friends who are and they might appreciate some fresh-grown, fresh ground wheat.
I'm also considering planting some Einkorn wheat. It's an ancient grain. It's still really bad as far as the nastiness that grain does to people's intestines and increasing their chances of serious diseases--but it's "better" than anything the modern world has to offer.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Coconut Milk Concerns
3 Reasons Why Coconut Milk May Not Be Your Friend
http://chriskresser.com/3-reasons-why-coconut-milk-may-not-be-your-friend
Coconut milk is often a staple fat source for those following a Paleo diet. From a nutritional perspective, it’s an excellent choice. It’s high in saturated fatty acids and medium-chain triglycerides (MCT), which are both easily burned as fuel by the body. MCTs are particularly beneficial in that they don’t require bile acids for digestion, and they’re directly shunted to the liver via the portal vein.
Coconut milk and fruit can be a great snack for Paleo folks, and coconut milk smoothies make a great Paleo breakfast choice – especially in the summer.
So what could be wrong with coconut milk? Here are three things to consider.
We’ve known for decades that BPA has estrogenic activity. In vivo animal studies and in vitro cell-culture research has linked low-level estrogenic activity associated with BPA exposure to all kinds of fun stuff, like diabetes, ADHD, heart disease, infertility and cancer.
Is BPA exposure common? You bet. This CDC report found BPA in the urine of 93% of adults. Perhaps most troubling is that companies like Nestle, Similac, Enfamil and PBM all use BPA in the linings of metal cans holding baby formula. This is scary in light of a recent study which found an association between neurobehavioral problems in infants and high levels of BPA in their mothers.
So why is BPA even legal, you ask? Its safety status is still somewhat controversial. Although I’m not sure how “real” the controversy is.
On the one side you have consumer advocates and independent researchers and scientists who claim that there’s sufficient evidence against BPA, including plausible mechanisms for how it causes harm, to ban it completely. They argue that continued use of BPA in industrial and commercial materials is akin to performing a large, uncontrolled experiment on us all. I tend to agree.
On the other side, you’ve got industry scientists claiming that there’s no significant evidence that low levels of BPA causes harm in humans. If I was a cynic, I might point out that these chemical industry groups are out to protect a multi-billion dollar market from government regulation. Global BPA demand is up to 12 billion pounds and growing at 5% per year.
Okay, back to coconut milk. BPA is used in the lining of certain canned foods. BPA especially leaches into canned foods that are acidic, salty or fatty, such as coconut milk, tomatoes, soup, and vegetables.
So what’s the solution here? In short, if you want to be on the safe side and reduce your exposure to BPA, you have to reduce your consumption of canned foods (including coconut milk) as much as possible. I made this recommendation in 9 Steps for Perfect Health-#3: Eat Real Food.
A study published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that families who ate fresh food for three days with no canned food, and using only glass storage containers, experienced a 60% reduction of BPA in their urine. The reductions were even higher (75%) for those with the highest BPA levels at the beginning of the study.
The good news, however, is that there are at least two brands of coconut milk that don’t have BPA in them. One is Native Forest, which you can purchase on Amazon if it’s not available at your local store. The other is Arroy-D, which is a brand imported from Thailand. You can get it here (but you have to scroll down and order the version that comes in cartons, not the cans at the top). I’m a little suspicious of Arroy-D, though, because one Thai reader mentioned that it does contain other ingredients aside from coconut milk. I don’t read Thai, so I can’t confirm this. If anyone out there can, please leave a comment below.
Coconut milk can also be made quite easily at home, with coconut flakes, a blender and cheesecloth. Here’s a video to show you how (get a load of the soundtrack). I find that blanching the coconut flakes prior to blending improves the results.
Beans and legumes have a variety of compounds in them that make them difficult to digest, especially for people with digestive problems (1 in 3 Americans, from the latest statistics).
In my clinical experience, many patients with gut issues improve when they remove guar gum from their diet – including canned coconut milk.
Unlike BPA, there’s no evidence that guar gum may cause serious harm. So, if you’re able to tolerate guar gum, I don’t see a problem with buying coconut milk from Native Forest or Arroy-D or making it at home.
The clinical effects of FM include: intestinal dysbiosis, changes in motility, promotion of mucosal biofilm, and decreased levels of tryptophan, folates and zinc in the blood. Symptoms produced include bloating, gas, pain, constipation or diarrhea, vomiting and fatigue (to name a few). Recent research has also tied fructose malabsorption to depression.
Lest you think this isn’t a common problem, studies have shown that up to 40% of people in Western countries suffer from fructose malabsorption.
Even in healthy people without fructose malabsorption, however, only about 20-25g of fructose can be properly absorbed at one sitting. Glucose assists in transport of fructose across the intestine, so in general foods with equal amounts of glucose and fructose will be better absorbed than foods with excess amounts of fructose (in relation to glucose).
While fructose malabsorption can cause symptoms in anyone, those with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) are particularly affected. While the prevalence of FM is the same in healthy populations and those with IBS & IBD, the experience of FM appears to be more intense in the latter group. This is probably due to the increased visceral sensitivity common in IBS and IBD patients.
In fact, one of the most promising clinical approaches to treating IBS & IBD right now is something called the FODMAP diet. FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligo-, Di- and Mono-saccharides And Polyols. These include:
What does this have to do with coconut milk, you ask? According to Drs. Gibson & Barrett, experts in fructose malabsorption, coconut milk is is a FODMAP and should be avoided by people with digestive conditions like IBS & IBD.
According to NutritionData.com, coconut milk has very little sugar of any kind – including fructose. Nevertheless, I do have patients that cannot even tolerate homemade coconut milk (which has no guar gum in it), even though they are fine with coconut oil. I assume that they are reacting to the fructose in the coconut milk – but I can’t be sure.
http://chriskresser.com/3-reasons-why-coconut-milk-may-not-be-your-friend
Coconut milk is often a staple fat source for those following a Paleo diet. From a nutritional perspective, it’s an excellent choice. It’s high in saturated fatty acids and medium-chain triglycerides (MCT), which are both easily burned as fuel by the body. MCTs are particularly beneficial in that they don’t require bile acids for digestion, and they’re directly shunted to the liver via the portal vein.
Coconut milk and fruit can be a great snack for Paleo folks, and coconut milk smoothies make a great Paleo breakfast choice – especially in the summer.
So what could be wrong with coconut milk? Here are three things to consider.
Bisphenol-A
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a chemical that has been used in consumer goods since the 50s. It’s found in reusable drink containers, DVDs, cell phones, eyeglass lenses, automobile parts and sports equipment. One of the highest sources of BPA is cash register receipts.We’ve known for decades that BPA has estrogenic activity. In vivo animal studies and in vitro cell-culture research has linked low-level estrogenic activity associated with BPA exposure to all kinds of fun stuff, like diabetes, ADHD, heart disease, infertility and cancer.
Is BPA exposure common? You bet. This CDC report found BPA in the urine of 93% of adults. Perhaps most troubling is that companies like Nestle, Similac, Enfamil and PBM all use BPA in the linings of metal cans holding baby formula. This is scary in light of a recent study which found an association between neurobehavioral problems in infants and high levels of BPA in their mothers.
So why is BPA even legal, you ask? Its safety status is still somewhat controversial. Although I’m not sure how “real” the controversy is.
On the one side you have consumer advocates and independent researchers and scientists who claim that there’s sufficient evidence against BPA, including plausible mechanisms for how it causes harm, to ban it completely. They argue that continued use of BPA in industrial and commercial materials is akin to performing a large, uncontrolled experiment on us all. I tend to agree.
On the other side, you’ve got industry scientists claiming that there’s no significant evidence that low levels of BPA causes harm in humans. If I was a cynic, I might point out that these chemical industry groups are out to protect a multi-billion dollar market from government regulation. Global BPA demand is up to 12 billion pounds and growing at 5% per year.
Okay, back to coconut milk. BPA is used in the lining of certain canned foods. BPA especially leaches into canned foods that are acidic, salty or fatty, such as coconut milk, tomatoes, soup, and vegetables.
So what’s the solution here? In short, if you want to be on the safe side and reduce your exposure to BPA, you have to reduce your consumption of canned foods (including coconut milk) as much as possible. I made this recommendation in 9 Steps for Perfect Health-#3: Eat Real Food.
A study published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that families who ate fresh food for three days with no canned food, and using only glass storage containers, experienced a 60% reduction of BPA in their urine. The reductions were even higher (75%) for those with the highest BPA levels at the beginning of the study.
The good news, however, is that there are at least two brands of coconut milk that don’t have BPA in them. One is Native Forest, which you can purchase on Amazon if it’s not available at your local store. The other is Arroy-D, which is a brand imported from Thailand. You can get it here (but you have to scroll down and order the version that comes in cartons, not the cans at the top). I’m a little suspicious of Arroy-D, though, because one Thai reader mentioned that it does contain other ingredients aside from coconut milk. I don’t read Thai, so I can’t confirm this. If anyone out there can, please leave a comment below.
Coconut milk can also be made quite easily at home, with coconut flakes, a blender and cheesecloth. Here’s a video to show you how (get a load of the soundtrack). I find that blanching the coconut flakes prior to blending improves the results.
Guar gum
The other potential problem with canned coconut milk is guar gum. Guar gum is a galactomannan, which is a polysaccharide consisting of a mannose backbone with a galactose side group. It’s primarily the endosperm of guar beans.Beans and legumes have a variety of compounds in them that make them difficult to digest, especially for people with digestive problems (1 in 3 Americans, from the latest statistics).
In my clinical experience, many patients with gut issues improve when they remove guar gum from their diet – including canned coconut milk.
Unlike BPA, there’s no evidence that guar gum may cause serious harm. So, if you’re able to tolerate guar gum, I don’t see a problem with buying coconut milk from Native Forest or Arroy-D or making it at home.
Fructose malabsorption
Fructose malabsorption (FM) is a digestive disorder characterized by impaired transport of fructose across the small intestine. This results in increased levels of undigested fructose in the gut, which in turn causes overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine. Undigested fructose also reduces the absorption of water into the intestine.The clinical effects of FM include: intestinal dysbiosis, changes in motility, promotion of mucosal biofilm, and decreased levels of tryptophan, folates and zinc in the blood. Symptoms produced include bloating, gas, pain, constipation or diarrhea, vomiting and fatigue (to name a few). Recent research has also tied fructose malabsorption to depression.
Lest you think this isn’t a common problem, studies have shown that up to 40% of people in Western countries suffer from fructose malabsorption.
Even in healthy people without fructose malabsorption, however, only about 20-25g of fructose can be properly absorbed at one sitting. Glucose assists in transport of fructose across the intestine, so in general foods with equal amounts of glucose and fructose will be better absorbed than foods with excess amounts of fructose (in relation to glucose).
While fructose malabsorption can cause symptoms in anyone, those with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) are particularly affected. While the prevalence of FM is the same in healthy populations and those with IBS & IBD, the experience of FM appears to be more intense in the latter group. This is probably due to the increased visceral sensitivity common in IBS and IBD patients.
In fact, one of the most promising clinical approaches to treating IBS & IBD right now is something called the FODMAP diet. FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligo-, Di- and Mono-saccharides And Polyols. These include:
- fructose (fruits, honey, HFCS)
- fructans (wheat, onions)
- lactose (milk sugar)
- polyols (sugar alcohols like sorbitol, xylitol & mannitol, along with fruits like apples, pears and plums)
- galactooligosaccharides (legumes & beans, brussel sprouts, onions)
- other sweeteners like polydextrose and isomalt
What does this have to do with coconut milk, you ask? According to Drs. Gibson & Barrett, experts in fructose malabsorption, coconut milk is is a FODMAP and should be avoided by people with digestive conditions like IBS & IBD.
According to NutritionData.com, coconut milk has very little sugar of any kind – including fructose. Nevertheless, I do have patients that cannot even tolerate homemade coconut milk (which has no guar gum in it), even though they are fine with coconut oil. I assume that they are reacting to the fructose in the coconut milk – but I can’t be sure.
Recommendations
Let’s bring this together into recommendations for three different groups of people:- Women who are trying to get pregnant, pregnant or breastfeeding, children and other vulnerable populations (chronically ill): should avoid canned coconut milk products except for those that are BPA-free, like Native Forest and Arroy-D. Note: Native Forest is organic, but Arroy-D is not.
- People with digestive problems (IBS, IBD, GERD, etc.): may want to avoid coconut products entirely, except for coconut oil
- Healthy people: may be fine with canned coconut milk, provided they don’t react to the guar gum, and provided they’re willing to take the side of industry scientists that claim BPA doesn’t cause harm in humans
Want organic coconut milk – but without the BPA and guar gum?
As of the time of this writing there is no widely available commercial brand of coconut milk that is organic and free of BPA and guar gum. The good news, however, is that with a little extra effort you can easily make this at home yourself.- Purchase coconut cream (Let’s Do Organic
and Artisana
are good choices) and blend with water to make coconut milk.
- Purchase shredded coconut (again, Let’s Do Organic
is a good choice), and follow the instructions below for making homemade coconut milk.
Homemade coconut milk instructions
Ingredients
- 4 cups water
- 1.5 – 2 cups unsweetened coconut flakes
Instructions
- Heat water until hot (but not boiling).
- Add shredded coconut and water to blender (preferably a Vitamix!
) If all of the water won’t fit, you can add it in two batches.
- Blend on high for several minutes until thick and creamy.
- Pour through a colander to filter out the coconut pulp, then squeeze through a cheese cloth
or nut milk bagto filter the smaller pieces of coconut.
- If you separated the water into two batches, put the strained coconut back into the blender with the second batch of water.
- Drink immediately or store in the fridge. Fresh coconut milk should be used within 3-4 days of making it for the best flavor and texture.
What It Means When You Crave...
A good friend of mine recently posted this on the Robb Wolf Forums. I found it most interesting.
http://www.naturopathyworks.com/pages/cravings.php
http://www.naturopathyworks.com/pages/cravings.php
| If you crave this... | What you really need is... | And here are healthy foods that have it: |
|---|---|---|
| Chocolate | Magnesium | Raw nuts and seeds, legumes, fruits |
| Sweets | Chromium | Broccoli, grapes, cheese, dried beans, calves liver, chicken |
| Carbon | Fresh fruits | |
| Phosphorus | Chicken, beef, liver, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, legumes, grains | |
| Sulfur | Cranberries, horseradish, cruciferous vegetables, kale, cabbage | |
| Tryptophan | Cheese, liver, lamb, raisins, sweet potato, spinach | |
| Bread, toast | Nitrogen | High protein foods: fish, meat, nuts, beans |
| Oily snacks, fatty foods | Calcium | Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, kale, legumes, cheese, sesame |
| Coffee or tea | Phosphorous | Chicken, beef, liver, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, legumes |
| Sulfur | Egg yolks, red peppers, muscle protein, garlic, onion, cruciferous vegetables | |
| NaCl (salt) | Sea salt, apple cider vinegar (on salad) | |
| Iron | Meat, fish and poultry, seaweed, greens, black cherries | |
| Alcohol, recreational drugs | Protein | Meat, poultry, seafood, dairy, nuts |
| Avenin | Granola, oatmeal | |
| Calcium | Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, kale, legumes, cheese, sesame | |
| Glutamine | Supplement glutamine powder for withdrawal, raw cabbage juice | |
| Potassium | Sun-dried black olives, potato peel broth, seaweed, bitter greens | |
| Chewing ice | Iron | Meat, fish, poultry, seaweed, greens, black cherries |
| Burned food | Carbon | Fresh fruits |
| Soda and other carbonated drinks | Calcium | Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, kale, legumes, cheese, sesame |
| Salty foods | Chloride | Raw goat milk, fish, unrefined sea salt |
| Acid foods | Magnesium | Raw nuts and seeds, legumes, fruits |
| Preference for liquids rather than solids | Water | Flavor water with lemon or lime. You need 8 to 10 glasses per day. |
| Preference for solids rather than liquids | Water | You have been so dehydrated for so long that you have lost your thirst. Flavor water with lemon or lime. You need 8 to 10 glasses per day. |
| Cool drinks | Manganese | Walnuts, almonds, pecans, pineapple, blueberries |
| Pre-menstrual cravings | Zinc | Red meats (especially organ meats), seafood, leafy vegetables, root vegetables |
| General overeating | Silicon | Nuts, seeds; avoid refined starches |
| Tryptophan | Cheese, liver, lamb, raisins, sweet potato, spinach | |
| Tyrosine | Vitamin C supplements or orange, green, red fruits and vegetables | |
| Lack of appetite | Vitamin B1 | Nuts, seeds, beans, liver and other organ meats |
| Vitamin B3 | Tuna, halibut, beef, chicken, turkey, pork, seeds and legumes | |
| Manganese | Walnuts, almonds, pecans, pineapple, blueberries | |
| Chloride | Raw goat milk, unrefined sea salt | |
| Tobacco | Silicon | Nuts, seeds; avoid refined starches |
| Tyrosine | Vitamin C supplements or orange, green and red fruits and vegetables |
- Lectures, Cheryl M. Deroin, NMD, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, Spring 2003 (healthy food recommendations)
- Benard Jenson, PhD, The Chemistry of Man B. Jensen Publisher, 1983 (deficiencies linked to specific cravings and some food recommendations)
Fasting: Water-Only, Day 3
Weight: 210.8
Water: 128oz (+/-) with 3 lemons squeezed into it (three bottles at home, plus one at work without lemon).
Sauna: 30/10/15 (30 sauna, 10 cooldown, 15 sauna)
I am still continually amazed at my body's ability to absorb and flush water. I drank nearly 6.5lbs of water on both Monday and Tuesday. I experienced a net loss of 5lbs between Monday and Tuesday and 2.2lbs between Tuesday and Wednesday. That's 7.2lbs of water in two days. However, when you add to it that I also drank at least 13lbs of water (6.5lbs each day) then the weight loss is really remarkable. That's over 20lbs of water in and out of my system in two days.
Yes, I am peeing a little more, though my frequency is much less than when I was experiencing diabetic symptoms. And the Natural Calm that I put into one bottle each day is loosening my stool (I've had several bowel movements that are obviously due to the Natural Calm--I can tell based on texture.)
My intent is to stay on my water-only fast until the evening of May 18th. After that, I will return to paleo eating style through at least Memorial Day. I'm undecided how I will proceed after that--though I'm considering another water-only fast between May 29 and June 15. That would be my longest water-only fast and another step working me toward a 30 day water-only fast.
I feel incredible. My muscles continue to become more visible in my arms, shoulders and especially my legs. I still have my spare tire, but instead of it being firm, it's loosening up--which indicates to me that my body is starting to tap into it. I'm still not doing any specific exercising of targeted muscle groups. I'm just increasing my activity levels slightly as the days progress. The gardening has been my biggest effort so far--and it was, indeed, a big effort!
My sleep has been intense. Lots of interesting dreams. Sleeping very soundly and still. My snoring is nearly non-existant. I don't suffer from sleep apnea anymore. Today I awoke 30 minutes before my alarm went off. I lay there and dozed, enjoying the relaxation of just lying in bed with no pressure or demands on me. Even though I'm short on the number of hours I should be sleeping, I'm much more rested than I have been in a long time.
Fasting significantly improves my sleep. I sleep much more soundly and more deeply when my body is not processing food.
Water: 128oz (+/-) with 3 lemons squeezed into it (three bottles at home, plus one at work without lemon).
Sauna: 30/10/15 (30 sauna, 10 cooldown, 15 sauna)
I am still continually amazed at my body's ability to absorb and flush water. I drank nearly 6.5lbs of water on both Monday and Tuesday. I experienced a net loss of 5lbs between Monday and Tuesday and 2.2lbs between Tuesday and Wednesday. That's 7.2lbs of water in two days. However, when you add to it that I also drank at least 13lbs of water (6.5lbs each day) then the weight loss is really remarkable. That's over 20lbs of water in and out of my system in two days.
Yes, I am peeing a little more, though my frequency is much less than when I was experiencing diabetic symptoms. And the Natural Calm that I put into one bottle each day is loosening my stool (I've had several bowel movements that are obviously due to the Natural Calm--I can tell based on texture.)
My intent is to stay on my water-only fast until the evening of May 18th. After that, I will return to paleo eating style through at least Memorial Day. I'm undecided how I will proceed after that--though I'm considering another water-only fast between May 29 and June 15. That would be my longest water-only fast and another step working me toward a 30 day water-only fast.
I feel incredible. My muscles continue to become more visible in my arms, shoulders and especially my legs. I still have my spare tire, but instead of it being firm, it's loosening up--which indicates to me that my body is starting to tap into it. I'm still not doing any specific exercising of targeted muscle groups. I'm just increasing my activity levels slightly as the days progress. The gardening has been my biggest effort so far--and it was, indeed, a big effort!
My sleep has been intense. Lots of interesting dreams. Sleeping very soundly and still. My snoring is nearly non-existant. I don't suffer from sleep apnea anymore. Today I awoke 30 minutes before my alarm went off. I lay there and dozed, enjoying the relaxation of just lying in bed with no pressure or demands on me. Even though I'm short on the number of hours I should be sleeping, I'm much more rested than I have been in a long time.
Fasting significantly improves my sleep. I sleep much more soundly and more deeply when my body is not processing food.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The Surprising Shortcut to Better Health
I just discovered this information, I have not read the book. However, what I read sounds very interesting and fits in line with my thinking on the matter.
The Surprising Shortcut to Better Health By TARA PARKER-POPE
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/the-surprising-shortcut-to-better-health/
For more than a decade, Gretchen Reynolds has been writing about the science of health and fitness. Her weekly column, Phys Ed, is one of this paper’s most popular features, regularly appearing on top of the “Most E-mailed” list. Now Ms. Reynolds has distilled the knowledge gained from years of fitness reporting into a new book, “The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer,’’ published last month.
While the subtitle alone makes bold promises about the potential of exercise to protect the human body, the most surprising message from Ms. Reynolds is not that we all need to exercise more — or at least not the way exercise is typically defined by the American public. Ms. Reynolds makes a clear distinction between the amount of exercise we do to improve sports performance and the amount of exercise that leads to better health. To achieve the latter, she explains, we don’t need to run marathons, sweat it out on exercise bikes or measure our peak oxygen uptake. We just need to do something.
“Humans,” she writes, “are born to stroll.”
I recently spoke with Ms. Reynolds about the science of exercise, why standing up is good for you and why, after writing a book about fitness, she began to exercise less. Here’s our conversation.
Q. Why did you choose “The First 20 Minutes” for the title of a fitness book?
A. The first 20 minutes of moving around, if someone has been really sedentary, provide most of the health benefits. You get prolonged life, reduced disease risk — all of those things come in in the first 20 minutes of being active.
Without being evangelical, I wanted people to understand that this is a book about how little exercise you can do in order to get lots and lots of health benefits. Two-thirds of Americans get no exercise at all. If one of those people gets up and moves around for 20 minutes, they are going to get a huge number of health benefits, and everything beyond that 20 minutes is, to some degree, gravy.
That doesn’t mean I’m suggesting people should not exercise more if they want to. You can always do more. But the science shows that if you just do anything, even stand in place 20 minutes, you will be healthier.
Q. Is part of the problem that people equate exercise with trying to lose weight, and many of them have given up?
A. I think a lot of people look to exercise to help them lose weight, and when they don’t lose weight immediately with exercise, they quit. They return to the couch, and they basically never move again. What is lost in that is that fitness is almost certainly more important than fatness.
If you are overweight but fit, meaning you have a reasonably good V012 max (a measure of oxygen uptake), then your risk of premature death, all the chronic diseases — diabetes, heart disease, cancer — will drop. If you have to choose, choose to be fit, whether you lose weight or not.
If someone starts an exercise program and improves his fitness, even if he doesn’t lose an ounce, he will generally have a longer life and a much healthier life. It would be nice if people would look at exercise as a way to make themselves feel better and live longer and not necessarily as a way to make themselves skinnier.
Q. In researching this book, what did you find are the biggest misconceptions about exercise?
A. One of the biggest misconceptions is that exercise has to be hard, that exercise means marathon running or riding your bike for three hours or doing something really strenuous. That’s untrue and, I think, discourages a lot of people from exercising. If you walk, your body registers that as motion, and you get all sorts of physiological changes that result in better health. Gardening counts as exercise. What would be nice would be for people to identify with the whole idea of moving more as opposed to quote “exercise.”
Q.A regular theme of your column is the risks of being sedentary. What’s more important to health: exercise or sedentary behavior?
A.It’s also an important theme in the book. There are two things going on: One is activity, and the other is inactivity, and they have different effects on the body. There is a whole scientific discipline called inactivity physiology that looks at what happens if you just sit still for hours at a time. If the big muscles in your legs don’t contract for hours on end, then you get physiological changes in your body that exercise won’t necessarily undo. Exercise causes one set of changes in your body, and being completely sedentary causes another.
Q. Has writing this book changed your own approach to fitness?
A. It validated some of the things I was already doing, like not stretching before a workout, which I always hated doing. I hated sit-ups and found out they were bad for your back. I was pleased to learn that. It has changed how I approach hydration in exercise. Now I drink when I’m thirsty, and it seems to be completely fine.
I also exercise a whole lot less. Partly it’s because I have less time, but it’s also because I have learned that I don’t have to do more to be healthy. My main goal now is not to be competitive. What I really want is to be healthy and to set a good example for my son. I want to be around for the next 40 years, and the science seems to show very clearly that you don’t have to do a lot to make yourself a whole lot healthier.
I run a couple of miles most days. I used to feel like if I didn’t run five miles it didn’t count. Now I’m very content to get out for half an hour or 20 minutes, and I feel reasonably healthy after that.
Q. And you told me that you also stand more?
A. I really do stand up at least every 20 minutes now, because I was spending five or six hours unmoving in my chair. The science is really clear that that is very unhealthy, and that it promotes all sorts of disease. All you have to do to ameliorate that is to stand up. You don’t even have to move. I’m standing up right now as I talk on the phone. I stand during most of my interviews now.
Q. I’m finding this very inspirational. What is your advice for people reading this — what should they go do today?
A. If people want to be healthier and prolong their life span, all they really need to do is go for a walk. It’s the single easiest thing anyone can do. There are some people who honestly can’t walk, so I would say to those people to try to go to the local Y.M.C.A. and swim.
There are always options for moving. You don’t have to do anything that hurts. You don’t have to buy equipment. If you have a pair of shoes, they don’t even have to be sneakers. People have gotten the idea that exercise has to be complicated, and that they need a heart rate monitor, and a coach, and equipment and special instruction. They don’t.
The human body is a really excellent coach. If you listen to it, it will tell you if you’re going hard enough, if you’re going too hard. If it starts to hurt, then you back off. It should just feel good, because we really are built to move, and not moving is so unnatural. Just move, because it really can be so easy, and it really can change your life.
The Surprising Shortcut to Better Health By TARA PARKER-POPE
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/the-surprising-shortcut-to-better-health/
For more than a decade, Gretchen Reynolds has been writing about the science of health and fitness. Her weekly column, Phys Ed, is one of this paper’s most popular features, regularly appearing on top of the “Most E-mailed” list. Now Ms. Reynolds has distilled the knowledge gained from years of fitness reporting into a new book, “The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer,’’ published last month.
While the subtitle alone makes bold promises about the potential of exercise to protect the human body, the most surprising message from Ms. Reynolds is not that we all need to exercise more — or at least not the way exercise is typically defined by the American public. Ms. Reynolds makes a clear distinction between the amount of exercise we do to improve sports performance and the amount of exercise that leads to better health. To achieve the latter, she explains, we don’t need to run marathons, sweat it out on exercise bikes or measure our peak oxygen uptake. We just need to do something.
“Humans,” she writes, “are born to stroll.”
I recently spoke with Ms. Reynolds about the science of exercise, why standing up is good for you and why, after writing a book about fitness, she began to exercise less. Here’s our conversation.
Q. Why did you choose “The First 20 Minutes” for the title of a fitness book?
A. The first 20 minutes of moving around, if someone has been really sedentary, provide most of the health benefits. You get prolonged life, reduced disease risk — all of those things come in in the first 20 minutes of being active.
Without being evangelical, I wanted people to understand that this is a book about how little exercise you can do in order to get lots and lots of health benefits. Two-thirds of Americans get no exercise at all. If one of those people gets up and moves around for 20 minutes, they are going to get a huge number of health benefits, and everything beyond that 20 minutes is, to some degree, gravy.
That doesn’t mean I’m suggesting people should not exercise more if they want to. You can always do more. But the science shows that if you just do anything, even stand in place 20 minutes, you will be healthier.
Q. Is part of the problem that people equate exercise with trying to lose weight, and many of them have given up?
A. I think a lot of people look to exercise to help them lose weight, and when they don’t lose weight immediately with exercise, they quit. They return to the couch, and they basically never move again. What is lost in that is that fitness is almost certainly more important than fatness.
If you are overweight but fit, meaning you have a reasonably good V012 max (a measure of oxygen uptake), then your risk of premature death, all the chronic diseases — diabetes, heart disease, cancer — will drop. If you have to choose, choose to be fit, whether you lose weight or not.
If someone starts an exercise program and improves his fitness, even if he doesn’t lose an ounce, he will generally have a longer life and a much healthier life. It would be nice if people would look at exercise as a way to make themselves feel better and live longer and not necessarily as a way to make themselves skinnier.
Q. In researching this book, what did you find are the biggest misconceptions about exercise?
A. One of the biggest misconceptions is that exercise has to be hard, that exercise means marathon running or riding your bike for three hours or doing something really strenuous. That’s untrue and, I think, discourages a lot of people from exercising. If you walk, your body registers that as motion, and you get all sorts of physiological changes that result in better health. Gardening counts as exercise. What would be nice would be for people to identify with the whole idea of moving more as opposed to quote “exercise.”
Q.A regular theme of your column is the risks of being sedentary. What’s more important to health: exercise or sedentary behavior?
A.It’s also an important theme in the book. There are two things going on: One is activity, and the other is inactivity, and they have different effects on the body. There is a whole scientific discipline called inactivity physiology that looks at what happens if you just sit still for hours at a time. If the big muscles in your legs don’t contract for hours on end, then you get physiological changes in your body that exercise won’t necessarily undo. Exercise causes one set of changes in your body, and being completely sedentary causes another.
Q. Has writing this book changed your own approach to fitness?
A. It validated some of the things I was already doing, like not stretching before a workout, which I always hated doing. I hated sit-ups and found out they were bad for your back. I was pleased to learn that. It has changed how I approach hydration in exercise. Now I drink when I’m thirsty, and it seems to be completely fine.
I also exercise a whole lot less. Partly it’s because I have less time, but it’s also because I have learned that I don’t have to do more to be healthy. My main goal now is not to be competitive. What I really want is to be healthy and to set a good example for my son. I want to be around for the next 40 years, and the science seems to show very clearly that you don’t have to do a lot to make yourself a whole lot healthier.
I run a couple of miles most days. I used to feel like if I didn’t run five miles it didn’t count. Now I’m very content to get out for half an hour or 20 minutes, and I feel reasonably healthy after that.
Q. And you told me that you also stand more?
A. I really do stand up at least every 20 minutes now, because I was spending five or six hours unmoving in my chair. The science is really clear that that is very unhealthy, and that it promotes all sorts of disease. All you have to do to ameliorate that is to stand up. You don’t even have to move. I’m standing up right now as I talk on the phone. I stand during most of my interviews now.
Q. I’m finding this very inspirational. What is your advice for people reading this — what should they go do today?
A. If people want to be healthier and prolong their life span, all they really need to do is go for a walk. It’s the single easiest thing anyone can do. There are some people who honestly can’t walk, so I would say to those people to try to go to the local Y.M.C.A. and swim.
There are always options for moving. You don’t have to do anything that hurts. You don’t have to buy equipment. If you have a pair of shoes, they don’t even have to be sneakers. People have gotten the idea that exercise has to be complicated, and that they need a heart rate monitor, and a coach, and equipment and special instruction. They don’t.
The human body is a really excellent coach. If you listen to it, it will tell you if you’re going hard enough, if you’re going too hard. If it starts to hurt, then you back off. It should just feel good, because we really are built to move, and not moving is so unnatural. Just move, because it really can be so easy, and it really can change your life.
Drugs that can make you gain weight
Drugs that can make you gain weight
Pharmaceuticals and fat
About 70 percent of people in the United States are overweight and, in a cruel catch-22, many of the drugs used to treat obesity-linked conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and depression can themselves cause weight gain.
"Patients and doctors need to be more aware of this—it's an under-recognized driver of our obesity problem," says Lawrence Cheskin, MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center, in Baltimore.
Here are 13 drugs that could cause you to gain weight. But don't stop taking your (possibly life-saving) medicine! There are strategies for keeping off the pounds.
Paxil (paroxetine)
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) generally don't cause weight gain because the antidepressants boost serotonin, which helps you feel full. Paxil is an exception.
Paxil is one of the best anxiety treatments, but if you gain weight while using it you could talk with a doctor about switching to a more weight-neutral SSRI such as Prozac or Zoloft, says Louis Aronne, MD, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, in New York City. (Dr. Aronne is a consultant for the maker of Paxil.)
Depakote (valproic acid)
Depakote is used to treat bipolar disorder and seizures, and prevent migraines.
A 2007 study of epilepsy patients found that 44 percent of women and 24 percent of men gained 11 pounds or more while taking Depakote for about a year. The drug affects proteins involved in appetite and metabolism, although it's not clear why it appears to affect women more than men.
Lithium, another mood stabilizer for treating bipolar disorder, is also associated with weight gain, albeit less than Depakote.
Prozac (fluoxetine)
Although Prozac, an SSRI, is generally associated with weight loss, it can have the opposite effect in the long term.
A 60-week study found that, although patients on Prozac shed more than the placebo group (up to 11 pounds in the first six months), they started to regain the weight about halfway through the study.
Dr. Cheskin says the reason could be that patients develop tolerance to the satiety effect. "If someone is trying to lose weight, and is on an SSRI for depression, I will often switch to Wellbutrin (bupropion)," which is associated with weight loss, he says.
Remeron (mirtazapine)
Remeron is an antidepressant that enhances serotonin and norepinephrine, which are linked to weight loss. Yet the antihistamine activity of this drug may tip the scales toward weight gain.
This side effect can be a good thing, however. Remeron is sometimes given to elderly people who are underweight to improve their appetite, Roerig says.
Zyprexa (olanzapine)
Atypical antipsychotics, such as Zyprexa and Clozaril (clozapine), can pile on the pounds. A 2005 study found that 30 percent of people on Zyprexa gained 7 percent or more of their body weight within 18 months.
These drugs, used for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, have potent antihistamine activity and inhibit serotonin, which may trigger weight gain.
The diabetes drug metformin may help keep weight off, as can switching to weight-neutral antipsychotics like Geodon (ziprasidone) and Abilify (aripiprazole).
Deltasone (prednisone)
Oral corticosteroids, such as Deltasone, are more potent than inhaled forms and carry a higher risk of weight gain, particularly with long-term use.
A 2006 survey of long-term oral-corticosteroid users suggested 60 percent to 80 percent had gained weight. Higher doses, such as those for asthma and inflammatory bowel disease, are more likely to have this effect than lower doses, such as those for rheumatoid arthritis.
It can be hard to counteract the side effects of long-term steroid use, but exercise, diet, and, in some cases, taking metformin can help, Dr. Aronne says.
Thorazine (chlorpromazine)
When the first-generation antipsychotic Thorazine entered the market in 1954, it was clear that it could cause weight gain.
Thorazine, along with Mellaril (thioridazine), has antihistamine activity, which increases your appetite and is sedating, says James Roerig, associate professor of clinical neuroscience at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, in Fargo.
These drugs may cause less weight gain than Zyprexa and Clozaril. Still, they aren't as effective at treating schizophrenia, and may have other side effects, such as motor problems, says Roerig. (Roerig gets research funding from Eli Lilly, the maker of Zyprexa.)
Elavil, Endep, Vanatrip (amitriptyline)
Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), such as amitriptyline, are linked to weight gain more than other antidepressants or migraine meds.
TCAs affect neurotransmitters involved in energy and appetite, such as serotonin, dopamine, and acetylcholine, but their antihistamine activity is probably the reason for weight changes, Roerig says.
These drugs are given less often for depression because an overdose can damage the heart. Lower doses can prevent migraines, but a 2006 study found that 30 percent of people taking amitriptyline for migraines gained more than 5 percent of their body weight in 26 weeks.
Allegra (fexofenadine and pseudoephedrine)
The antihistamine activity in psychiatric drugs often is what causes weight gain, but it turns out that this property is not important for these drugs to be effective, Roerig says.
Antihistamine activity, however, is crucial for the effectiveness of allergy drugs. A 2010 study found that people taking prescription antihistamines such as Allegra and Zyrtec were 55 percent more likely to be overweight than those not taking the drugs.
Blocking histamine can disrupt an enzyme in the brain that helps regulate food consumption.
Diabinese, Insulase (chlorpropamide)
Some type 2 diabetes drugs cause weight loss. Others have the opposite effect.
Sulfonylurea drugs such as Diabinese and Insulase—and others such as Actos and Prandin—stimulate insulin production or activity, which lowers blood sugar and may increase appetite.
Metformin, Byetta, and Januvia are more likely to cause weight loss, Dr. Aronne says. (Dr. Aronne receives research support from and consults for the companies that make Byetta and other drugs.)
Insulin
Insulin tends to promote weight gain. But certain types, such as the long-acting insulin Levemir, have less extreme effects.
One study found that people gained nearly 11 pounds on average during their first three years taking insulin. About half of the weight gain is thought to occur in the first three months.
Dr. Cheskin calls the weight-promoting effect of insulin paradoxical. "The things that we use to treat some conditions that are the result of obesity, like [type 2] diabetes, are prone to make you more obese," he says.
Tenormin (atenolol)
Beta-blockers are among the go-to drugs for high blood pressure, but the older ones, such as Tenormin, Lopressor (metoprolol), and Inderal (propranolol), can expand the waistline.
One study found that people taking Tenormin gained about 5 more pounds than the placebo group, and research suggests that most of the weight is gained in the first few months. These drugs can slow calorie burning and cause fatigue.
Newer beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, and ACE inhibitors are less likely to cause weight gain, Dr. Cheskin says.
Birth control
Birth-control pills are often blamed for weight gain, but it is largely unwarranted, Dr. Cheskin says.
In fact, only the long-acting, progestin-only injectable called depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) has been consistently linked with weight gain.
Research suggests that young women who were obese to begin with are most prone to weight gain on DMPA.
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