I have found lately that putting cream or unsalted butter in my coffee or tea can really shut down my appetite, so much so that I have decided to reduce the butter I use with my morning egg.
Of course, I want to get the best fats in my diet. Pasture-fed dairy has more omega-3 fat and less omega-6 fat. The more the cow’s diet depends on pasture, the better the balance of these fats. Continue reading
60 Minutes aired an episode last night asking, “Is sugar toxic?” I set the DVR to record it earlier this week in case I missed it when I saw that the topic would be sugar. It’s interesting that Dr. Lustig tagged out fructose specifically. Glucose can be problematic, too, if one consumes too much of it. Dr. Lustig pointed out that most doctors don’t know that sugar can raise the very worst type of cholesterol, the small dense LDL. Continue reading
I finally got around to making kale chips. Wow! I should have done it sooner! Even hubby liked them, and he’s not big on eating veggies at all. I couldn’t remember how much time to cook them, so I looked up a recipe online. I found a recipe for Crispy Kale “Chips” on the Food Network page. It even has a video. Be careful with the time. Some of my chips were a bit overdone. Continue reading
I’m currently reading Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon. Mary Enig was a key scientist in the fight to get trans fats listed on our nutrition labels. She was actively opposed by the Institute for Shortening and Edible Oils (ISEO). This is an organization that pulls political clout to prevent the funding and publication of research intended to study the harm of vegetable oils and shortening. Continue reading
Leaky gut could be a cause for the multiple allergies and sensitivities that could in turn result in an autoimmune disease. So what is leaky gut?
Leaky gut is a condition in which the intestine is allowing passage into the bloodstream of incompletely digested food. The immune system then reacts to those food particles, resulting in a cascade of allergies and sensitivities. These multiple allergies and sensitivities are the hallmark of a leaky gut. If you have multiple food allergies and sensitivities, it’s a good bet that your gut is leaky. Way back in the 80s, I did an IgE test for food allergies, and the only thing that came back negative was walnuts. In other words, the only item in the test that I wasn’t allergic to was walnuts. The doctor said that I probably had not been eating them. Can you imagine the elimination diet required to treat that? Trust me, you don’t want to. The doctor put me on some obscure formula that was something like hot wheat cereal (but of course it wasn’t wheat), and that was all I could eat while I healed. Yes, been there, done that.
There are two causes of leaky gut that I know of. The first and the easiest to correct is a gluten problem. I’ve seen varying descriptions of the mechanism for how it works, but the upshot is the same. To correct the problem, you must eliminate all sources of gluten from the diet. This is principally wheat, rye, and barley, but your practitioner may suggest elimination of all grains.
The other cause is overgrowth of harmful microbes in the gut that can cause damage to the intestine. Antibiotic use or poor diet can set this in motion. To rebalance your intestinal flora, you need to starve the bad little critters. This requires elimination of all sugar, fruit, grains, and other starches. Since those buggers can also thrive on artificial sweeteners, that means completely forgoing sweets. The resulting diet is composed mainly of meat and non-starchy vegetables. Along with that, you need to encourage the increase of beneficial gut microbes. This can be done by consuming probiotic supplements, yogurt, and fermented vegetable products such as kimchee and fermented sauerkraut. The fermenting process should eliminate the goitrogens, so one need not be so concerned about consuming the cabbage products.
Serious solutions for serious problems. This is an issue best solved with the help of your health practitioner.
References:
Andrew Weil, M.D. What is Leaky Gut?
PubMed
In many cases, a malfunctioning thyroid is the result of an autoimmune reaction. In other words, your immune system could be attacking your thyroid. Such a situation could have been set in motion by a leaky gut and the cascade of food allergies and sensitivities that follows. Allergists will check for food allergies by checking IgE reactions. This won’t find sensitivities, though, since they are reactions of IgA, IgG, or IgM. It used to be that the only way to test for these was through elimination diets. They would begin with an extremely limited diet of least likely suspects and gradually add back in new foods to see what caused a reaction. In the last year or two, Cyrex Laboratories came out with blood tests that will check for sensitivity reactions. You can pass that on to your doctor, and he can order the tests for you. If you are allergic and/or sensitive to any foods and they are eliminated, in time you may heal from thyroid issues or any of a number of other autoimmune disorders.
According to Catherine Shanahan MD in Deep Nutrition, eating damaged fats such as trans-fats and mega-trans-fats from damaged polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) encourages the storing of fat in the abdomen (omental fat) and under the chin. So if you’ve got fat there, it’s a sign that you need to change the type of fat you’re eating.
Avoid: hydrogenated fats (Crisco and margarine), vegetable oils, commercial salad dressings and mayonnaise, and anything fried in a restaurant since they likely use the wrong type of fat. NEVER cook with vegetable oil. This damages the PUFA in the oil, which in turn encourages oxidative damage of the cells.
Consume: olive oil, coconut oil, butter, and other animal fats. These fats contain mostly monounsaturated and saturated fats that are safe to cook with and protect cells against oxidative damage.
Healthy dietary fat is not something to be afraid of. Fat is a major component of the membrane of every cell of your body. Fat is needed for the metabolism of fat soluble vitamins. Fat is needed for bone formation. Low-fat diets are associated with osteoporosis. Fat is also needed for healthy nerve function.
I can vouch for this last one since low-fat diets including NutriSystem followed as directed have led to depressive episodes that required medical intervention. These coincided with dangerously low cholesterol levels. Once I figured out that connection with the help of my psychiatrist, I understood that my weight-loss efforts could not be based on low-fat diets. That is why my modified NutriSystem plan is not low-fat.
I thought the section in The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living: An Expert Guide to Making the Life-Saving Benefits of Carbohydrate Restriction Sustainable and Enjoyable by Dr. Stephen Phinney and Dr. Jeff Volek about “bonking” or “hitting the wall” was particularly fascinating. It happens to athletes when they engage in endurance sports. It has applicability to the NutriSystem diet as well in that it could happen to us to a lesser degree if meals are delayed or skipped. Bonking is the result of the brain running low on glucose. The first symptom is intrusive thoughts about food. Then, after a while if nothing is eaten, anxiety and the shakes can set in. If the person still fails to eat something and he reaches the end of his glucose supply, he’ll feel a profound depression. This is why you might see a marathoner in tears toward the end of a race. He’s hit the wall. This has applicability to my business as well. I doubt that hypnotic suggestions are much of a match against physiologically induced cravings caused by skipping meals. If a client chooses to do an ADA style low-fat/high-carb diet like NutriSystem, then it makes sense to give him suggestions to eat small meals at regularly scheduled frequent intervals the way NutriSystem recommends so that he won’t bonk. Those ketoadapted to a low-carb diet don’t bonk because their brains are running on ketones, not glucose. As long as they’ve got body fat, there’s a continuous supply.
Fatty liver disease has been on the increase since the government advised a low-fat/high-carbohydrate diet. It’s even being found in kids now.
Fructose consumption can be a factor in the development of fatty liver disease. Did you know that fructose is metabolized in the liver the same way as alcohol? I would be wary of fruit and anything made with added sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.
Have you heard of foie gras, the goose liver paté? It literally means “fat liver.” It is liver from a goose induced with fatty liver disease by force-feeding it grains, usually corn. So I would be wary of grains, too, if you want to reverse fatty liver disease.
I looked around online for information about fatty liver reversal. I found this blog entry by someone who reversed his fatty liver by eating a low-carb diet. And there’s this blog by someone else who also reversed his fatty liver with a low-carb diet (scroll down to the bottom of the post for the specifics of what was done). And this link quotes studies, including one showing that a low-carb diet is best for getting rid of liver fat. One commenter on the page cited vegetable oil as a potential contributor to fatty liver disease as well.
I’m sure there are more references out there.
There are five questions to ask when making food choices:
If you can answer “yes” to all of these, you are good to go.