Archive for Fats

Dandelion, Beet Greens, & Honey Comb; Plus, Is Your Butt Really Your Biggest Problem?

pestoWoop Woop!  I’ve been MIA from my blog, but I’m back, and I have a new Mantra! Instead of just “Food is Medicine or Food is Poison”, I’ve expanded that to:  “Moving Is Medicine, and Not Moving is Poison”, and “Good Thoughts are Medicine, and Bad Thoughts are Poison”.

The science behind each of those phrases is rock solid.  Today, though, we’re just talking about food.

Look at my title, does it sound silly? It’s not. I’m amazed at how many people obsess over their weight/thighs/butt/stomach, when their health/ energy/ mood is dangerously poor; when they’re constantly sick, or sore; when they struggle to get out of bed in the morning.

Feeling good, feeling positive and stable and healthy, that’s the result of our daily lifestyle choices.  Aging… jobs… difficult people.. those are excuses.  Change your thoughts if you’ve been using them to justify your bad habits or poor health.

First thought to change: that food is about calories, and if I could just keep my calories low enough, I’d lose weight, feel great, and be happy.

Load. Of. Crap. Thinking.

Calories-Smalories.  Food is medicine, or food is poison, and American’s eat a lot of poison.  We feed it to our children thinking it can’t hurt them, but it does.

Following is a Recipe Index for Kitchen Sink Smoothies, which is pure Medicine Food.

Americans need more Medicine Food, and here’s why:

The American Institute for Cancer Research predicts a 55% rise in cancer by 2055. The CDC predicts that every single chronic disease will continue to increase through 2030 ( that’s as far out as they predict.).  Depression has been rising since the 1980s and will continue to rise.

It’s not for lack of medications, because we take more medications THAN ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.

Hmmm.  If medications make you healthy – which is the total reason for their existence – than why would all of our markers for health be decreasing instead of increasing?

The problem is NONE of us are “low in medicine“;….  we’re low in nutrients – which literally make every single part of our body.  ( We also don’t move enough or control our thought life in the right direction. More later.)

Enter the “Kitchen Sink Smoothies”, so called because I throw in everything except the Kitchen Sink.  These are Real Whole Food Bonanzas!

Most people begin their Smoothie path with Starter Smoothies, and they’re great!  It’s like walking before you run.

Here’s an example of a Starter Smoothie Recipe:

Good Protein Powder (very few ingredients, NO artificial flavors or sweeteners, maybe even organic or grass fed whey – there’s plenty of good ones on the market.)

Berries & Banana

Spinach

Mix it all in a blender with a few ice cubes and go.  Easy Peasy.  Perfect for Busy Moms who also have to make breakfast for a pack of kids.

Unfortunately, it’s not going to keep you full very long, or at least this never kept me full very long.  There’s no fat, and it’s too easily digested.

Pros:  there’s some good nutrients, and it’s fast and easy

Cons:  there’s limited nutrients, especially because we all tend to get in to food ruts, and eat the same foods over and over.

Kitchen Sink Smoothies are a great way to broaden your range of nutrients, and (honestly) use Medicine Food to fight:  weight gain, Heart Disease, CANCER, depression, diabetes, auto-immune, bacterial/viral infections, aging skin, etc etc etc.

I’m going to give you a list of Greens, Fats, Herbs & Spices, and “Fun Add Ins”, and you should try to use at least one from each column to build your smoothie.

This list is by no means “complete”; these are a few options in a sea of more options.

Make accumulating these ingredients a gradual process; in other words, don’t buy all these this week.  Accumulate them over time, and get in the habit of rotating the ingredients.

Mantra:  My body needs a broad assortment of nutrients.

20160221_163012 (1)Greens (other than spinach):  Beet Greens;  Kale;  Chard;  Bok Choy;  Cabbage;  Dandelion Greens; Sprouts ( aka – sunflower sprouts, beet sprouts, kale sprouts, etc.)

20160221_164352TIP:  Wash (if they’re not already), baggie asap, and then freeze.  Greens become like glass in the freezer:  very easy to crush and dispense into your blender.  And this way they don’t decompose before you use them.

Fats: Coconut Oil; Flax Seed Oil ONLY IF YOU’RE NOT ESTROGEN DOMINANT; all Nuts, and all Seeds; Avocado Oil, Macadamia Nut Oil, Coconut Flakes, Avocado, Eggs/Raw ONLY IF YOU GET THEM FROM A FARMER/NOT A STORE, AND HAVE A GOOD IMMUNE SYSTEM, Real Cream; Real Yogurt; Real Keifer;  ( Check out Rich Food Poor Food by the Caltons if you have no idea what I mean by “real”).

TIP:  Don’t be afraid of using Fats.  Fats make us:  our hormones, our brain, our organs, our tissues, the membrane of every single cell in our body is made from fats.  Fats also assist many nutrients into the cells to be used.

Herbs & Spices:  Ginger ( real/powdered ); Cloves; Turmeric; Nutmeg; 0401162017Cinnamon; Salt; Parsley, Cilantro; Lemon Balm.

Tip:  Herbs & Spices are SERIOUS Medicine Food.  Check out www.greenmedinfo.com and and match your body/health/conditions with different herbs.  It’s a database of Pub Med Research articles.

More:  Cherries; Cranberries; Mixed Berries; Black Berries; Blueberries; Raspberries; Oranges; Carrots; Beets.

Tip: Don’t get stuck in a rut with your berries, their nutrient content is very different, and we need them all.

What else do I throw in?   Maca Root powder; Baking Soda, Greens Powders; L-Glutamine; Magnesium; Rose Hips; Collagen, and any leftover herbs from teas I made the day before.

You can really start your day off with a bang!  Here’s my last tip, and actually, I got this from my daughter Macy over Easter Break: add more water, and make enough to have a breakfast smoothie and a lunch smoothie.

Whew.  That was a lot. I hope you see how creative you can get with your smoothie.  A breakfast of bagels, cereal, or toast is fast, and easy, and….. Poison.

Take the steps, make the plan, do the shopping and the chopping and the prepping, to eat Medicine Food all day, every day.  What are some ingredients not on these lists that you use in your smoothies?

Don’t Give In Just Because It’s December!

elf eating spaghettiI’ve heard this more than a few times in the past couple of weeks: “Forget trying to be good.  It’s the Holiday’s.  It’s impossible! Can you help me lose weight in January?”

My answer:  Sure I can help you in January, but, GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF.  Having a specific date when you’re going to be “good”… that’s crazy talk.  That’s kickin the can down the road, like our government does with the federal budget (which keeps our debt constantly growing. Make the analogy).

When we pacify ourselves with promises to compensate later for over-indulging today, we actually reinforce the habits and desires that got us either overweight or unhealthy or both.

Here’s some blasts from the past to help you stay committed to Real Whole Food, and making good choices, even in December.  It’s critical to change our thoughts about food; food is medicine, or food is poison.  Food brings us energy and healing and beautiful skin, or food brings cancer, fatigue, gut issues, headaches, diabetes, and heart disease.

Fill your mind with thoughts that make you powerful.  Be purposeful about what you allow your brain to dwell on.

Click on the highlighted link to read the whole post, or just read the displayed paragraphs. Santa-Paws-Christmas-card-holiday-dog-pet-funny-hilarious-saying-sayings-500x338

From December, 2013:

I’ve heard from more than a few people expressing sadness about weight gain, specifically, weight gain since Thanksgiving. You’ve got a choice here, you either go with the line, ” I’ve already blown it, New Years Day is right around the corner, I’ll start then.” or this line, “More vegetables, more fruit, more healthy fats and proteins; I’m going to plan the next few days well and get back on track because I don’t like feeling this way.”

Pick a line and go with it. If it’s the second line, MEDITATE ON IT. Choose your thoughts; quit letting a momentary whim lead to actions that make you feel horrible later. Do this for me: next time you want some food that’s not healthy, set a timer on your phone and see how long the desire lasts. Unless you’re genuinely starving, Hunger Is Temporary. Seriously. If you turn out to still be starving in 15 minutes, evaluate what you ate at your last meal. Was there enough fat, enough protein, enough vegetables, enough Real Whole Foods, or did you do the “diet” thing and now you’re hungry? Give your body the nutrients it needs, and that compulsive desire to eat will start to fade away. Weight loss (if you need it) is a side-effect of eating healthy.

Reasons to be scared of Flour and Sugar:

I’m going to blast some facts at you, because : All Behavior Is Belief Driven. Think it’s hard to walk past platters full of doughnuts, cookies, or bagels without eating any? It depends on your belief: do you believe that flour and sugar are literally toxic to your brain and body, or do you still look at food as calories that you can work-off or starve-off later?

Fact: flours that contain Gluten (a group of proteins that are in grains) have ADDICTIVE properties, they literally stimulate pleasure centers in your brain that make you want more.

Fact: no human being on earth has the digestive enzymes to break down glutens from wheat, barley, or rye. Think you don’t have a problem because you’re not a Celiac? Celiac disease is an AUTO IMMUNE reaction to the glutens. That happens to some people. For the rest of us, the damage accumulates over YEARS: the undigested proteins leak thru the gut wall, inappropriately; our immune system responds to the foreign objects, and wherever we’re most vulnerable (joints, brain, nervous system, thyroid, etc) gets attacked.

Fact: sugar has addictive properties. Studies show that it’s more addictive than Cocaine! In 1700, the average American ate 4 lbs of sugar a year; in 1800 it was 18 lbs; in 1900 it was 90 lbs, in 2009, it was 180 lbs.

Read the details of this Post for supplement and exercise tips; here’s the gist:

Three emails this weekend about Holiday Weight Gain are prompting a Post. Don’t Diet In December; don’t despair if you’ve gained a few pounds since Halloween; don’t “throw in the towel and restart in January”; and don’t kill yourself with extra hard workouts.

All that stuff would be SHORT TERM THINKING, and short term thinking never produces good Long Term Results.

What should you do instead? CHILL. Honestly. It’s the holidays and we’ve all got about 50 extra things on our to-do lists. Stressing about it = CORTISOL, which = WEIGHT GAIN and ILLNESS ( come January or sooner).

In addition to all our “extras”, is the assumption we’ll eat more just because it’s the holidays; constant indulgence = CORTISOL + INSULIN, which = WEIGHT GAIN AND ILLNESS ( come January, or sooner).

Blood sugar becomes a complete mess, and the impulse to soothe stress with food or alcohol feels irresistible. Here’s what to do instead-

And finally, from Holiday Eating Gone Bad, 8 Facts To Scare You Straight:

It’s the holiday season, you’re busy, you’re struggling, you want motivation, so I’ll be fast and effective.

I’ve had several emails and comments in the past two weeks full of regret and remorse over Eating Gone Bad. There’s definitely the sense of, ” I couldn’t help myself because…”

A client friend said to me yesterday, ” I want to become scared of flour and sugar, like you are.” I want ALL OF YOU TO BECOME SCARED OF FLOUR AND SUGAR, like I am! Let me scare you straight, quickly.

Simple carbs from Grains and Sugar cause high levels of sugar and insulin in your blood/arteries/veins. The negative health effects from this are PROFOUND:

1) Excess blood sugar ( from sugar and grains) is converted to Triglycerides and stored in our fat cells.

2) Excess blood sugar “GLYCATES” proteins and lipids in our blood and body. EXAMPLES OF GLYCATION ARE WRINKLES, AGE SPOTS, AND IMPOTENCE. Alzheimer’s is being called Diabetes Type 3 because of the plaques/glycation of the brain, which is composed of fats and proteins.

3) Alzheimer’s, Migraines, Dementia, and all sorts of Neurological Conditions, including ADD and Mood Disorders, are highly associated with high blood sugar and insulin.

4) Cancer cells are covered with Insulin Receptors. Cancer cells eat SUGAR. The insulin receptors that cover cancer cells make sure those cells get all the sugar they want and need to grow and thrive. APPLY THAT THOUGHT TO YOUR KIDS THE NEXT TIME YOU FEED THEM MAC N CHEESE WITH A SIDE OF BREAD. Seriously. That stuff is poison!

5) Heart disease is caused by several conditions initiated by sugar and insulin: excess sugar thickens the blood; excess sugar robs the heart of it’s favorite mineral – Magnesium, and it’s favorite vitamin – the Bs ( that’s because digesting/metabolizing sugar requires an enormous amount of Magnesium and B vitamins ); and excess sugar and insulin severely damage artery walls, in several ways.

6) Damage to the artery walls ( whether those arteries are near your heart, in your neck, or MEN: IN YOUR FAVORITE ORGAN THAT FILLS WITH BLOOD!!) means they need to be “fixed”. In an effort to mitigate the damage we do, the liver puts together PLAQUE patches, and sends them to the sites of the damage. This keeps us alive for years, but eventually, the high blood pressure, the thick blood, the extra stress on the heart, comes back to Bite Us In The Butt.

7) Excess sugars can completely change the Bacterial Composition of your entire gut: from the stomach, which needs to have just a tiny bit of H-Pylori and a TON of acid to be optimal, to the small intestine, which should be intact but more often then not is “LEAKY” or plagued with SIBO ( small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. If you bloat badly, ask me about this.), to the large intestine, which should house at least a few POUNDS of beneficial bacteria that perform literally THOUSANDS of jobs for our bodies. Constipation, Bloat, Reflux, Diarrhea: NOT NORMAL! It means you’re not breaking down and absorbing your nutrients which sets the stage for all sorts of disease and dysfunctions.

8) Excess sugar and insulin suppress your immune system, IMMEDIATELY, for up to 24 hours. This means if you let your kid eat a breakfast of pop tarts or crappy cereal, and then send them to school to sit by someone on the bus or in the classroom who’s coughing or sneezing, they’re an EASY TARGET for the germs to set up house and proliferate. Same for you: a quick muffin or sugar/chemical drink at Starbucks, then off to an office/gym filled with bad germs? You’re a sitting duck!

I could go on and on, but say this to yourself: Food Is Medicine, or Food Is Poison; for me, and for my kids.

Then, delete the ancient notion that eating well means Dieting; eating low fat/no fat chicken and steamed broccoli is a recipe for a Rebound Binge.

That’s why I love the Paleo Diet: Real Whole Food with plenty of good FAT, good meats and proteins, TONS of vegetables, some fruit, some nuts and seeds, and GOOD dairy if you can tolerate it. The Paleo Diet even includes Real Whole Food DESSERTS, what’s not to like? ( Christmas Paleo Party at my house, 12/12/14, from 12 -2. Everyone’s invited, and you’ll get to see just how good Real Whole Food is!)

If Food Addiction is your struggle, then all the common sense/information in the world doesn’t help too much. Read my last post. If you have trouble staying away from grains and sugar, know that they contain compounds that trigger addiction centers in your brain, and your child’s brain. That doesn’t happen with Real Whole Food.

Finally, in this stressful, busy season of the year, acknowledge that “eating for stress relief” doesn’t actually Relieve Your Stress, it makes you MORE STRESSED afterwards. Just the opposite of sitting down to a Real Whole Food meal, which actually satiates your mind and body.

Change today. Don’t wait til the season is over. We’re talking about your health, your mind, and the example you’re instilling in your kids. The food you put in your mouth matters. I’ll say it again: Food is Medicine, or Food is Poison.

5 Love Languages, Greens, Chocolate, & 10,000 Steps: The Heart Weekend!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAMark and I are on a Healthy Heart Weekend:  paddle-boarding, sight seeing, and a Marriage Conference with Dr. Gary Chapman of the 5 Love Languages.  We’ve slept in 2 different hotels in 2 days, but we packed all our food, so we’ve managed to eat well, move a lot, and do some Positive Thinking.  In other words, we’re traveling healthy.  I get a lot of emails and questions about traveling, and I want to answer them with a leaning towards Heart Health.

Heart Disease is the #1 killer in America, and it’s something we should all be working to prevent.  It’s showing up in children now – moms, here’s where we step in.

Heart disease is a LIFESTYLE DISEASE.  High blood pressure, plaque, heavy-dense cholesterol, high blood sugar, hard arteries….. these are caused by the what we put in our mouth, the exercise we don’t get, and the stress we don’t manage.

No one has heart disease because they’re low in statins.

Whether we’re traveling or home, it’s important to take the steps to make our body healthy.

Let’s start with food.  Our heart primarily runs on fatty acids for fuel.  Surprising? It’s the truth, so feed your heart healthy fats!  Have you read that the new Dietary Guidelines will “un-vilify” cholesterol as a cause of heart disease?  It’s true!

“Previously the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended that cholesterol intake be limited to no more than 300 mg/day. The 2015 DGAC (Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee) will not bring forward this recommendation because available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol, consistent with the conclusions of the AHA/ACC (American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology report. Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.”

What about the fact that Saturated Fat has NEVER been scientifically proven to cause heart disease?

“Saturated fat has remained the main dietary villain for heart disease for over 50 years. Last year a meta-analysis of 72 studies with more than 600,000 participants determined that there was no association between how much saturated fat people ate and their risk of having a fatal or nonfatal heart attack (Annals of Internal Medicine, March 18, 2014).”

This isn’t carte blanche to eat any thing we want.  Fats are very unique and different; some are great, some are good, and some are horrible.

Stay away from vegetable oils, margarines, and trans fats, they’re always bad, always.

Eat up grass fed butter and ghee, extra virgin olive oil, coconut butter, avocados, and nuts.  Bonus: these fats have anti-fungal/bacterial/viral properties, immune boosting properties, anti-inflammatory properties, and are even healthy for our brain.

The heart also loves amino acids/protein (it is a muscle after all, and needs to rebuild it’s cells), and vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients.

You know how I always say “eat a TON of vegetables”?  Herbs and spices too;  Moms, stay strong when it comes to vegetables and picky kids.  You’ve GOT to win this battle.  Here’s why.

The heart (and the arteries in the penis, the neurotransmitters in the brain, the lining of the gut, bone remodeling, and white blood cell function) heavily depends on Nitric Oxide (NO).  NO is a vasodilator that relaxes the lining of the arteries and increases blood flow.  If there’s any damage to the arteries at all, which is where a lot of that NO is made, then there’s NO deficiency.

Here’s a list of foods high in natural nitrates ( which convert to NO):

*Garlic
*Beets
*Greens
*Walnuts
*Cranberries
*Honey
*Black Tea
*Pistachios
*Salmon
*Animal Organs
*Shrimp
*Onions
*Peanut Butter

Cool fact: chew your food well, because it’s the bacteria in our mouth that convert the nitrates to NO – who knew!!!

We want to leverage all the colors of the vegetable (and fruit) kingdom, because they have nutrients, besides their vitamins and minerals which are vital, called phytonutrients, that scientists are really just beginning to discover.  Nutrients called lycopene, lutein, alpha carotene, and beta carotene.

Studies show that bodies with higher levels of these nutrients have less stroke and heart attack.

What’d we pack to eat this weekend?  Chicken (already cooked), eggs, salad greens, zucchinis, cukes, tomatoes, onion, garlic, sea salt, EVOO and balsamic, roasted potatoes (left over from Wednesday- so I just warmed them) dates, peaches, nuts, Jay Robb protein powder, raw milk, raw cream, and kerry gold butter.  Oh, plus organic chocolate and coffee!  We stay in Residence Inns whenever we can because they have kitchens.

Exercise: almost as critical for the heart as food.  Have I told you I LOVE MY FITBIT??  Even on days like yesterday, where we were in a seminar from 9 to 3:30, we managed to get over 10,000 steps in.  We walked on each break, plus lunch, and again after dinner.  Had I not had the Fitbit, we’d never had taken that many steps. Most phones have counters on them if you don’t have a smart watch yet.  Friday we paddle boarded a few miles, and then walked a battlefield and Civil War Park.  Links are attached if you’re looking for fun in Richmond, Va.  Today:  lifting with Macy at the VCU gym!

5 Love Languages – for heart health?  YES!  Have you ever read the book, The Blue Zones?  It’s about the 4 places on earth with the largest populations of centenarians, or people who live past 100.  I’ve been obsessed with it for years, the same with any story I see of a Centenarian, or studies on Centenarians.

What do these people have in common, is it Kale Smoothies or Cross Fit or Veganism?  NOPE!  The biggest common link is community, usefulness, and purpose.  In other words, they’re fulfilled and happy. They have love in their life.

That’s where the 5 Love Languages comes in.  Mark and I are regular pursuers of both Happy Marriage and Happy Minds.  I say “pursuer” because happiness doesn’t just drop on our heads, it’s something we have to focus on and work for.  That’s really what “stress management” is about, right?  It’s how we handle life that matters, and the 5 Love Languages has great advice for communicating and getting along.

On that note, our heart apparently THRIVES on happy hormones and chemicals, and can be destroyed by destructive hormones (cortisol and insulin) and chemicals.  This is a big deal, and an area of growing research.

Meditation is part of progressive heart disease reversal programs because it’s been proven again and again to work.  There’s too much evidence to ignore: if leading with our negative emotions is our normal go-to, then all the good food and exercise in the world could be negated when it comes to heart health.

I’m leaving you with a few really great heart health resources, please check them out.  What we hear in our doctors offices often doesn’t correlate with the latest in the scientific research.

Most research on reversing heart disease, (not merely managing symptoms) is based on Life Style answers, like food, exercise, stress management, and sleep.

NO ONE’S MAKING MONEY OFF THOSE REMEDIES; the likely hood of a stress management rep, or a Real Whole Food rep, walking into our doctors office to sell him/her on the latest and greatest reasons to use these tools isn’t going to happen.

We’re going to have to do this on our own.

Dr. Mercola/fats/heart health.

Dr. Davis/fats/heart health.

Dr. Wortman/fats/heart health.

Podcast/Dr. Kahn/heart health and testing – FASCINATING & INFORMATIVE.

I LOVE Essential Oils! From Skin Care to Fighting Virus and Bacteria, They’re Fantastic.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWe’re living in a world of rampant illness; 70% of us are are both overweight, and on at least one medication.  70%.  The good news: 86% of those meds (and the money spent on them), are for Life Style Conditions.  That means we could reverse or at least lessen the condition through Life Style.

Because we can control our life style; we have tremendous power to improve our immunity, our mood, our energy, and our weight with the steps we take to be healthy every single day.

Here’s the thing:  good health isn’t going to fall on our heads like rain, we have to pursue it.  Essential oils (EOs) are a great tool in that pursuit.  Here’s how my family and I use EOs.

Mea Culpa: a couple of years ago, way after I was deeply into real whole foods, stress management, and using herbs and supplements instead of drugs, I was a total skeptic when it came to essential oils.  I knew nothing about them – I’M STILL LEARNING/NOT AN EXPERT AT ALL.

I’m not a doctor, and I’m not pretending to be one.  My General Practitioner probably wouldn’t use an Essential Oil if you paid him.  But I do.

And I love them! EO’s are amazing!!  The more I read and learn and use them, the more convinced I am that we sure veered off track when somehow we believed that pharmaceutical medications, with all their side effects and placebo effects and risks, were the only way to treat our ills.

They’re not, much of the world uses essential oils, and has for thousands of years.  The Magi brought frankincense and myrrh to baby Jesus.  How exceptional is that?

Is there research on them? Oh yeah!  More and more regular MDs are promoting and using them; here’s both examples and resources for you to use if you’re interested in EO’s for your health.

Wintergreen Oil for pain relief: why?  wintergreen oil contains compounds called “methyl salicylate”; menthyl salicylate is an integral ingredient of nearly every anti-arthritic and analgesic balm for muscle and joint pain that is currently available on the market.

From a Dr. Jon Barron newsletter: One reason for wintergreen oil’s analgesic effect is because the methyl salicylate found in the herb is a substance that is similar to aspirin. Did you know that one teaspoon (5 mL) of wintergreen oil is equivalent to approximately 7000 mg of salicylate or 21.5 adult aspirin tablets? That just might explain why it is used in high concentrations in deep liniments such as Bengay to help treat joint and muscular pain. Studies have shown, however, that it is more effective for acute rather than chronic pain.

Here’s a study from Pub Med showing methyl salicylate’s incredibly similar effects to aspirin in an anti-platelet (blood thinning) study for heart disease sufferers. Wow!  Aspirin’s really rough on the stomach, how wonderful to have an alternative that’s not.

Oregano Oil: anti-bacterial/fungal/viral/parasitic.  This one’s a powerhouse.  From Dr. Mercola:

Carvacol and thymol, two phytochemicals in oregano, are powerful antimicrobials. Research has shown essential oils from oregano may kill the foodborne pathogen Listeria4 and the superbug MRSA (making it a useful addition to hand soaps and disinfectants).5 According to one of the researchers involved in the MRSA study:6

“We have done a few preliminary tests and have found that the essential oil from the oregano kills MRSA at a dilution 1 to 1,000. The tests show that the oil kills MRSA both as a liquid and as a vapor and its antimicrobial activity is not diminished by heating in boiling water.”

Studies have also found essential oils of oregano to be useful against certain Candida species.7

Yesterday morning I sliced my hands in 2 places cutting peaches.  We were planning on spending the whole afternoon in the Shenandoah River, paddle boarding. I applied oregano oil before we left to each cut, and brought it with me in a cooler with an ice pack, so I could apply it again after we got out.  The river’s full of bacteria, so I protected myself.

For more science on Oregano oil, go here, and here.  That second link is to 33 Pub Med studies on Oregano oil and it’s effectiveness on everything from bacteria to candida to encouraging liver regeneration after hepatitis.  Seriously!

Cinnamon oil Ginger oil, and Peppermint Oil,  have huge anti-inflammatory and pro-digestion properties.

Shelby tends to get stomach aches and nausea; ginger oil has become our #1 go to for it.  We dose it 2 ways:  rubbing some on her stomach, or putting a little swipe of the oil on the inside of her cheek.  It’s fast and it works.  Ginger chews and real ginger are fantastic also, but when you’re nauseous, it can be hard to get that stuff down.

Did you know that the American Academy of Pediatrics has changed their stance on ear infections?   That’s because most ear infections are viral, not bacterial.

Girlfriends, if your mom argues with you about this, tell her the rules have changed since her kids were young.

Anyway, what to do when your child has an ear ache?  Garlic oil and tea tree oil.  We used these last year on Shelby and they worked FAST.  Check out Dr. Axe’s protocol here.

Hopefully I’ve piqued your interest, and if you’ve clicked on any of the links, you’ll see that Essential Oils aren’t woo-woo, at all.  I really really encourage you to learn as much as possible about them, because I’m barely scratching the surface in this Post.

Let me wrap it up with my Skin Care Routine, which is ALL about the essential oils and other fats.

I’m 50, I went through Menopause about a year and a half ago; I spend a lot of time outside.  Preface: I’m not saying this because I’m proud, I’m saying this because I’m pleased:  my skin looks pretty good.  I think it’s because I quit using soap and all conventional products years ago, and just started washing my face with an organic scrub once a day, and using only organic lotions.  I think not slathering chemicals on my skin was a good start. But two winters ago, I began getting little lines on my lips and checks; panic sunk in.  I quit the organic lotions and started using homemade coconut oil/shea butter/cocoa butter/olive oil and Essential Oils.

(Read the ingredients in Clinique Dramatic Difference Moisturizer here.  It’s gross.)

The lines REVERSED.  REALLY!!  I’m not saying I have the skin of a 20 something ( I live with three 20-somethings, they have a freshness…) but I don’t have (big/many) wrinkles yet!  ( I also added way more fat to my diet, and gelatin/collagen – critical to skin formation.)

What I use after my homemade lotion:  Rose Hip Serum, Clary Sage, Geranium Oil, and Frankincense.  I use the serum every night, but the oils I rotate nightly. I’ve also used Carrot oil, and Myrrh.  I’ll probably change this up as I continue to age, and learn more.  But right now, it’s totally working for me.  If you want to read more about skin and EO’s, check here, and here, and here.

Again, I want to say I’m just scratching the surface, but Essential Oils are so fun and effective and – for myself and my girls – addicting!  I’ve made sure all my daughters have their own Essential Oil stockpiles for both home, school, and travel, and that they know how to use them.  The more we learn and use them, the more we want to learn and use them.

What brand do I recommend?  A bunch.  I started with DoTerra, which along with Young Living are the two biggest names in EO’s.  However, they’re not the only names.  I buy from my local health food store, Natural Market, whom I trust to examine their vendors authenticity; but I have other brands I trust also.  Right now, Plant Guru is one of my favs.

If you’re interested, learn more! I am.  There was an Essential Oil Summit earlier this summer, you can find access to it here.  Order some books; look at all the links I provided in this Post.

Take your health into your own hands!  We spend more money on our health through medications and doctors and surgery’s and procedures THAN ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, AND YET WE’RE THE SICKEST AND THE FATTEST – IN. THE. WORLD.

To me, that means it’s time for a change.  Besides, who doesn’t want to look and feel better?

Will Crunches Give You A Six Pack?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’m away at my annual fitness convention, the DCAC, So Fun! I’m here with my sister Christy, who’s a trainer and pilates instructor; and my daughter Macy, – I love it!  Macy plans on becoming a yoga teacher after graduation, and this place is a great intro to the industry.

I’ve been in this business for 28 years.  Things have changed!  We’re having a greater awareness of why we need to exercise, which I’ve written about in a few recents Posts, here, and here.  We all know we’re in a stressed filled environment, and that exercise helps that, tremendously.

(Stressing about our body fat can make us fatter!)

Why do so many still pursue the 6 Pack? Why is weight loss still the number one goal of new gym members?  Smart marketing; promising weight loss hooks people.

It’s a lie, trust me, because weight loss and 6 packs come from the kitchen, not the gym.  It’s FOOD!  Food is so important!  Not just for losing weight or getting lean, but for how we feel day to day.

You know my mantra:  eat clean proteins, good fats, a TON of vegetables, some fruit, some nuts, some beans, good dairy if you tolerate it, and stay far away from flours, sugar, chemicals, and hydrogenated fats.

But about that 6 Pack, and weight loss: what negative goals, honestly!  Exercising to pursue those intents is just so…….. gloomy, and stressful! Delete!  Exercise for your mind. Exercise for your mood.  Exercise for your longevity and immune system and hormones.

It’s the same with eating well; eat Real Whole Foods because you’ll feel so darned good afterwards!

Guess what happens if we eat well and exercise every day? We lose weight. We become healthier, we feel more energetic, we’re happier, we cope with stress better, and we sleep better.  Why would we NOT eat right and exercise everyday?  It’s the consistency of our good habits, the repetition, that make us who we are.

Back to my conference:)  Have any of you ever taken Piloxing Barre?  O.M.G! What fun!

Summer Shape Up Part 4: You Don’t Deserve A Treat/Moral Licensing/Tomorrow Logic.

20150620_125014 (1)Hello from Aspen, Colorado!  Mark and I lived here in the early 90s, and we’re back for a long weekend.  I’d forgotten how majestic the Rockies are!

Pictures that have absolutely nothing to do with this Post will be randomly sprinkled throughout:)  You’ll see Maroon Bells, Ajax Mountain, and a 20150619_195723Food Festival – OMGosh.  Grilled Gizzards are now my new favorite food.

Did you catch my title?  If you take my group fitness classes, you’ve heard me say this a 1000 times at the end of the class.  Then I usually say, “it was just a workout, we didn’t do anything to make the world a better place.”  And therein lies my purpose in today’s piece.

There’s a theory called the “Moral Licensing Loophole”;  I learned that term in Gretchen Rubin’s book on Habits, called Better Than Before.  ( I’m ALL about habits.)  The Moral Licensing Loophole means that we give ourselves permission to do something “bad”, because we feel we’ve been “good”. (This is a continuation of my assertion that our thoughts are more important than a food plan.)

In my 28 years of working in health and fitness, I see this theory used all. the. time.  Heck.  I’ve used this theory!

Here’s some examples:

*That class was so hard, I can definitely afford wine tonight.

* That run was so long, I deserve ice cream.

* I just did 100 lunges! The french fries and cookies won’t even register with my body!

* I’ve worked out every day this week – I must have Calorie Deficit going on, potato chips and beer won’t even bring me back to normal!

* I’m going to overeat today and just work it off tomorrow, and probably the next day too.  So this doesn’t really count.

20150620_171446(0)Actually, that last one also falls under the “tomorrow logic” category.  As in, Now doesn’t matter because I’m going to follow good habits Tomorrow.

I’ve even fooled myself into thinking that extreme indulgence today will give me extra self control tomorrow.  Does that sound familiar?

Here’s some facts, followed by thoughts we need to cement in our brain:

1) Studies show that Rewards inspire TEMPORARY behavior.

2) Everything we do counts. We are the culmination of our every day habits.

3) Tomorrow-logic doesn’t work, because our actions and behaviors cause brain chemistry that perpetuates more of the same behavior, not different behavior.

Let’s look at these points a little deeper.

“Rewards only inspire temporary behavior”.  That’s a well studied, well 20150619_203249documented fact, yet rewards are used so often to motivate behavior change that you’d never know it. Think about all those 12 week weight loss contests.  Or attempts at losing weight before a wedding or a beach vacation. Who do you know that’s actually kept the weight off once the designated time frame is over?  I have to keep beating this drum:  weight loss is NEVER a big enough motivation to eat healthy and exercise forever.  If it was, 95% of everyone who goes on a diet wouldn’t gain their weight – plus a few extra pounds – back.

A “reward” implies an “end”.  When this is about weight loss, that translates to a temporary, and often heroic, effort at Deprivation, feelings of Sacrifice, and a sense of Hardship.  All of these are Negative Values.  They make us feel as if we deserve some sort of Prize at the end, usually a food prize.

SOLUTION:

20150619_200732Change your thoughts about the food you eat.  This was what my last Post focused on, but there’s more.  In addition to looking at Bad Foods as potentially cancer causing, or migraine causing, or heart disease causing, what about framing Good Foods and Good Choices in a positive light.

*”Thank goodness I don’t eat after dinner anymore, I sleep so much better now.”

*”Thank goodness I don’t drink alcohol every night, I sleep better, my face isn’t puffy, and I have better energy in the morning.”

*”Thank goodness I started packing lunch every day.  I can’t remember the last time I felt sleepy in the afternoon.”

*”Thank goodness I’ve gotten rid of the starchy and sugary carbs, my stomach is so flat!”

Positive Assertions!  Friday night we went to a food festival, which was amazing!  We both ate a lot of food, and felt pretty full.   Alright, we probably ate too much, BUT, no bread and no pasta.  ( there were no desserts, so that wasn’t even a temptation)  We got back (walked home up a mountain!), feeling stuffed, but our stomachs looked fine – honestly.

Not being bloated and sick and gassy, it’s WONDERFUL. That’s our motivation for not eating grainy, sugary carbs.  We Feel So NORMAL and good that it’s worth it.

“Everything we do counts. We’re the culmination of our every day habits.” 20150620_171508 This is why I counsel my clients to start eating well RIGHT NOW.  Don’t wait for Sunday, or the 1st, start now.  It’s not about weight, it’s about whether you’re putting foods in your mouth that make you feel good or make you feel like crap – in the long term.

No fooling ourselves that a little bit of poison doesn’t matter.  Or that falling off the wagon won’t hurt.  Everything counts.  Look down at your stomach – is it flat or puffy?  Are you energetic and clear thinking, or tired and foggy?  How’s your skin?  How’s your sleep?  Do you digest without bloating, farting or burping?

Everything counts, and here’s why:

“Tomorrow-logic doesn’t work, because our actions and behaviors always cause brain chemistry that perpetuates more of the same behavior, not different behavior.”

When we tell ourselves that we’re not going to drink the wine or eat the pasta or have the chips, and then we do, we STRENGTHEN the habit in our brain.  We don’t weaken it with our actions or our pledge to be better tomorrow, ever.  The action creates chemicals that create substance -matter- in our brain. The action makes it harder to resist next time, not easier.  If over indulgence was a deterrent, we’d have no obese people, no alcoholics, no drug addicts, no gamblers, etc.  

Indulgence begets more indulgence.  Always.

Solution:  In addition to changing your thoughts about what makes you feel good and happy, access your circumstances and surroundings.  What do you need to change there?

Could you:

*Keep your home a junk free zone.

*Pack a lunch every day.

* Make enough dinner that you have leftovers for lunch.

*Pledge to quit depriving yourself, and eat 3 meals a day of Real Whole Food.

*Make butter, olive oil, and coconut oil regular additions to each of your meals so that you’re not starving.

*Set aside time to plan your whole week, so you can schedule grocery shopping, packing, and cooking, and power cooking.

*Want a sweet or a salty?  Make It Yourself.  Learn how to bake cookies with almond flour, honey, and dark chocolate.  Learn how to bake homemade french fries in your oven. Learn how to make homemade ice cream, with real cream, swerve, and vanilla or cocoa powder.

Back to the word “deprivation”, that’s not what being healthy is about, but that’s the term and the attitude that’s been instilled in all of us since the 1970s, right?  “If you want to be healthy, you need to eat boiled chicken and steamed broccoli.”  That’s such bull crap!

I still remember Mrs Poland from my high school saying, “if you’re not hungry, you’re not losing weight”.  I believed that for decades, and it’s so wrong! Hunger and deprivation set us up to Fail, not Win.

Hunger’s the enemy, and we can keep it at bay by having hearty meals full of good fats, good proteins, and a TON of vegetables; not over exercising, and working hard at getting enough sleep.

Those are the secrets and the tricks to being a Normal Weight, feeling good, being healthy, and having nice skin.  Honest.  Get in touch with me if you need help. 

Part 3 Summer Shape Up: Change Your Thoughts About Food to Change Your Body

change aristotleYes!  to constantly working to have better thought patterns!  Yes to not accepting that we’re stuck with where we are, because we’re not amoebas – we’re humans, and our brain is literally capable of changing and growing until we die.  Or not.  It’s up to us.  Taking control of our thoughts by focusing and being intentional is exercise for the brain.

Deliberate, studied, conscious thinking keeps our brain young and vital!  This is how we grow new neurons and thought patterns, this is how we determine whether positive chemicals or negative chemicals flow through our brain.

So what are our thoughts about food?  My aim for these last few Posts is to convince you that our thoughts are more important than a particular food plan when it comes to our weight and our health.

Counting calories, tracking food, weighing, measuring, diet meals, diet this could be the daydesserts, diet pills, diet plans… their long term success rate is an abysmal 1-5%.  This stat shows that the desire to lose weight isn’t a strong enough force to change our habits permanently, and temporary changes are useless.

Unfortunately, the HABIT and PATTERN of thinking of our body as the end result of how much we diet and exercise is fairly fixed in most of our brains.

It’s so untrue.  Let’s change that!

Our body’s not a Math Equation, it’s a Chemistry Set.  Start THINKING about our body that way, start looking at food as chemicals that send signals and have consequences as to how we function and feel and perform, and we can change our body, forever.  Losing weight, getting fit, becoming healthy, that happens when we care about every bite that goes into our mouth because we understand that food’s consequences.

My last Post was on stressing about our food, and how counter-productive stress is to our weight and health.  So I’m not suggesting hours of research, or logging everything we eat on to FitDay.

I’m talking about sitting with the thought – the fact – that our food becomes us. Not just our weight, but our mood, our skin, our hair, our energy, and every cell in our body.

Our thought patterns and habits dictate what we eat.  When we believe that certain foods give us energy or heal our body or give us pretty skin, it makes us more likely to seek it out and eat it.

When we believe that certain foods cause cancer, heart disease, migraines, fatigue, diabetes, and allergies, it’s easier to avoid them.

Put “consequence facts” in your mind that allow you to make good choices:    howlongdoyouwantotcontin

– White flour raises blood sugar, insulin and triglycerides; it’s also been sprayed with chlorine gas. The EPA sites this gas as a dangerous irritant that can be lethal.  It also has gluten, which damages the gut and the brain.

– Sugar is cancer cells favorite food.  The same with High Fructose Corn syrup.  They’re both very, very easy for cancer cells to metabolize.

Garlic reduces plaque build up in the arteries.

– Sugar is pathogenic bacteria, virus, and fungi’s favorite food. So sugar feeds the bugs that make us sick.

– Avocados have fats which are great for our skin and vitamins which are good for our eyes.

– Sugar and processed grains cause high blood sugar which causes “glycation”, which damages our skin by causing age spots and wrinkles.  Alcohol – even wine! – causes glycation.

– Leafy greens are loaded with nutrients that make our skin and arteries healthy.  Beets have ingredients that help our liver do all it’s many jobs.  Cruciferous vegetables prevent cancer.

– Sugar suppresses the ability of white blood cells to kill pathogens. Sugar and our immune system are highly connected.

– Saturated fat and cholesterol make up our glands, our hormones, and 60% of our brain.

– Proteins make up our muscles, hair, skin, nails, ligaments, and organs. Proteins become the connections between the fatty parts of our brain that allow messages to jump from one neuron to neuron to another.  They also build our chemical messengers, neurotransmitters:  dopamine, serotonin, GABA, etc.

When we eat sugar and flour and hydrogenated fats and toxic chemicals, we damage our heart, our brain, our liver, our kidneys, our skin, etc etc etc.  Damage.  It’s slow, it’s subtle, it might be mistaken for “aging”, or a bad mood, or fatigue, but it’s damage, and it’s inevitable.

Damage is also revealed in an inability to lose weight.  Our bodies should be masters at burning fat for fuel,  and using nutrients to rebuild our cells.  When illness, chronic fatigue, and resistant weight loss happens, there’s our proof that Damage is Done.

habittilobserve then choiceThank God it’s possible to reverse the damage by changing our habits. Here’s an Action Plan:

– Set aside time every week for planning, as in write down your schedule.  Your work, your kids schedule, your errands, your workouts, everything, including Food.  Schedule your grocery store, keep a running list all week, make time to chop and prep, power cook a few meals and put them in the freezer.

Does planning sound stressful? Studies show that organizing and scheduling REDUCE stress.  Living by the Seat of the Pants increases stress.

– Don’t buy your trigger foods. This is a no-brainer!  Keep foods that tempt you far, far away.  Convenience of trigger foods makes resisting really tough, so don’t let them be convenient. Worried your family will object to no chips or cookies in the house?  Junk food is Poison food.  No one in our families needs that crap.  No one.  All those above listed facts on sugar and grains and their links to cancer and immune function, they apply to children too.

There’s a great study on Flight Attendants who smoke, and the desire they feel for their cigarettes while they’re on their flights. The study revealed that it didn’t matter how long the duration of the flight was, whether it was short or long, their desire for their cigarette rose as they got closer and closer to the end of the flight.  Smoking was about to go from “Not Allowed”, to Convenient, and the craving appeared.

– If shopping is your albatross, take advantage of shopping on line, or having your groceries delivered, or buying the precut vegetables or prepared meats at most grocery stores now.  At least have a list ready!

bo bennett quote– Commit to 5 minutes a day of reading information that trains the brain to think of Food as Medicine or Food as Poison.  Please.  To beat the drum again: wishing for weight loss isn’t enough to inspire permanent habit changes.  Believing our food can make usfeelgood healthy and vibrant or sick and old, can.

One of my favorite sites, based solely on studies but written for succinct, easy reads:  Green Med Info.

Need help with your habits and thoughts? Get in touch with me! I have skill set of tricks to change behavior. Imagine yourself a year from now; you could be a whole new you, you could be the same, or you could be worse. Make the choice, take the action.

 

 

Ditch The Starchy Carbs and Paleo Indulgences to Get Rid of Winter Fluff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’ve had several questions on “safe starches” and paleo indulgences. Here’s a Post with the 411 on both, and advice at the end for making it easier to get rid of winter weight gain.

If our starch is coming from a grain, as opposed to vegetables or fruit, I don’t think it’s safe – for most people.

If the grains contain the protein “gluten”, we’re ingesting one of the most common allergens out there. If we don’t see typical symptoms, like stomach ache or stuffy nose, that’s because food allergies, or food sensitivities, often manifest in sore joints, headaches, skin problems, fatigue, and auto-immune conditions.

The gluten protein is incredibly difficult to digest; humans don’t even have enzymes for gluten. Gluten goes thru the small intestine IN-completely digested, perforates the intestine wall, and leaks into the blood stream as a large protein. When our immune system sees the big proteins in the blood, it mounts an Immune Attack, and this can manifest as joint pain or an attack on different organs or systems. Pretty serious stuff.

What about gluten-free grains, such as kamult or spelt? They still contain “gliadins”. Gliadins, once digested, become “exorphins”, which are morphine-like compounds that bind to opiate receptors in the brain. Their effect is to cause Addictive Behavior, and Appetite Stimulation. This explains binges and eating way past full.

What about “healthy whole grains”, like buckwheat, quinoa, or millet? Look at their carb counts:

1/2 c oatmeal 29g carb

1/4 c wild rice 34g carb

2 oz wheat pilaf w orzo 40g carb

1/4c barley 32g carb

1/4c quinoa 30g carb

2oz whole wheat pasta 44g

Note that these serving are really, really, small; I mean, who eats a quarter cup?  Have you ever measured 2 oz of pasta?  I have.  It’s miniscule.

4 grams of carbs = 1 tsp of sugar.  2 ounces of pasta is 10 teaspoons of sugar.  Think about that.

Excess blood sugar is ALWAYS repackaged as triglycerides, always.  I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but high blood sugar is tied to every disease out there through the inflammation and glycatation it causes.  It’s also a big cause of Weight Gain.

Next, Paleo Indulgences.  I’m talking treats made with almond or coconut flour, plantains, honey, molasses, Swerve, chocolate, cream, nut butters, etc.  I’m going to call them P.I. for short, and if you need recipes, search Pintrest.

P.I.s are wonderful for kids. They’re practically a necessity when transitioning from a SAD ( standard american diet) to RWF (real whole food).  I LOVE a good paleo cookie or homemade ice cream. But unfortunately, and this is where I am right now, for weight loss, or just leaning out the Junk In The Trunk after a long winter, they need to either go, or be strictly limited.  Sad.

But summer clothes just don’t have the “hide the poochy stomach” ability that winter clothes do!

What to do? Set up your house/office so that temptations don’t trigger you.  Don’t buy anything that tempts you, because tempting food calls to us, loudly.  No lying that we’re buying something “for the kids”.  If it’s a temptation, it’s banned.  Treats need to be “treats”, and the definition of treat is: “an event or item that is out of the ordinary and gives great pleasure.”  Once or twice a week is an out of ordinary event.  EVERY DAY IS NOT OUT OF THE ORDINARY.

Girlfriends, thanks to estrogen, a propensity for slow thyroid, very little testosterone, and high cortisol, we just don’t have tons of leeway for jumping off the path of a RWF, fairly low carb diet, if we want to be a healthy weight and feel great.  It’s the price of being a woman.

It doesn’t mean we have to starve or exercise a ton – as a matter of fact, that plan slows down thyroid hormones and raises cortisol – exactly what we don’t want.  But we do need to pay attention to the details:  TONS of vegetables, plenty of good meats and eggs, healthy fats, some fruit, some nuts and seeds, and some real dairy if we tolerate it.

Hours need to go by between meals so that Sugar Burning stops and Fat Burning happens.  Avoidance of foods that cause headaches, stomachaches, and skin problems is important; those symptoms are signs of inflammation, which raises cortisol, which inhibits fat burning.

So there’s my Sunday take on grainy carbs and paleo treats.  Have a wonderful Mother’s Day, and eat smart!

 

Want To Lose Weight? Ditch the Dumb Mini Meal!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s Spring and I have several clients who want to lose weight by summer.  Many of them have been eating 5 to 6 times a day, as suggested by their doctor, their weight loss center, or some book they’ve read.

I hate the Mini Meal Plan! If you want to lose weight, the constant grazing just has to stop.

Years of Diet and Supplement companies advising us to eat 5 or 6 times a day to “speed up our metabolism” has been disproven -scientifically – over and over.  Unfortunately, the “eat all day long” idea has taken hold; that’s an exciting thought for Foodies! But how’s that working out for health and weight loss? Not so well, and no wonder.

Mini meals don’t speed up metabolism. If you eat 2000 calories in a day, divided by 3 meals or 6, it takes the same amount of energy (thermogenesis) to digest that food. Sadly, thermogenesis doesn’t actually account for much of our calorie burn at all, so as a weight loss tool, it’s ineffectual. As a weight GAIN tool, multiple meals are perfect! The habit of eating all day is pleasurable for our brain to establish. For everyone who’s tried this form of eating, you know that dependency and excitement about the next meal becomes a happy mental focal point.

Mini-meals cause eating to happen whether there’s hunger or not. Eating happens because “it’s time to eat”.

I recently heard an interesting study on Flight Attendants who smoked.  They were questioned as to when their desire for a cigarette started to well up while on their flights.  The answer:  the duration of the flight had nothing to do with wanting a cigarette, but how close they were to landing, and actually being able to smoke, was what triggered the wanting.

Apply that to food, and constant mini-meals:  the schedule, or thought that your next meal is right around the corner, produces a desire and excitement for eating.  So does plummeting blood sugar.  Join mini-meals with high carb “snacks” ( like most diet bars or shakes ), and you’ve got a problem: constant glucose/sugar in the blood stream, going up up up, and then crashing down down down.

By the way, who does benefit from Mini Meals?  The Diet, Supplement, and Food Industry.  Snacking is a multi-BILLION dollar business.

Snacking was pretty much unheard of for Adult Americans until the early 1970s.  Hmm, that’s about the same time Weight Gain started to ramp up!  Until then, snacking was considered something only for young and growing children.

Quick Review:  Carbs are digested to blood sugar/glucose.  When glucose is present in amounts over 100mg/dcl, that’s considered TOO MUCH GLUCOSE in the blood (remember: excess glucose is TOXIC to the body). Your pancreas releases the hormone Insulin, which takes the excess glucose and (1) puts it in needy muscle cells, or (2) puts in empty liver cells, or (3) takes all the leftovers and remakes the glucose into TRIGLYCERIDES.  Triglycerides are FATTY ACIDS.

Say out loud to yourself:  “Excess sugar and carbs are turned into body fat.”

Wonder if this is happening to you? Look down at your stomach. The body deposits most of these homemade triglycerides in the abdominal area. In addition to belly fat, excess glucose and excess insulin dramatically create/cause inflammation in the body. Inflammation is linked to absolutely every single chronic disease and condition out there, including weight gain.

Here’s my approach: we only eat 3 meals a day; we eat mostly healthy fats and proteins, tons of vegetables, some fruits, some nuts and seeds, some whole fat dairy, our blood sugar/glucose stays under 100, we go hours WITHOUT insulin in our blood.

****Then our pancreas releases the hormone GLUCAGON. Glucagon “taps” the fat cells holding those triglycerides, takes them to the liver, which remakes them into glucose for the body to burn. Now we’ve literally “burned fat”.

What about “crashing”?  Please don’t worry that you’ll “crash your metabolism” if you don’t eat every couple of hours. That’s ridiculous. Your metabolism is at the mercy of your HORMONES; the hormone Insulin BUILDS, the hormone glucagon TEARS DOWN. Anabolic and Catabolic. ( We’re a Chemistry Set, not a math equation. )

Worried because you can’t seem to go more than a few hours without STARVING?

Two reasons.  1) You’re a sugar burner. Sugar burners have created systems for digesting and storing sugar/glucose, and because that system runs so fast, you’re genuinely hungry all the time. Fat Burners can go HOURS without feeling hungry, even through hard workouts. IT FEELS GREAT TO BE A FAT BURNER. Honestly! For years I was a 5/6 mini-meal a dayer. What a pain in the butt.

2) You’re addicted to either food or eating, or both.  🙁

Either way, get in touch with me.

Anyone and everyone can break the patterns and habits that have led to weight gain, fatigue, and inflammation.  Everyone.  It’s Mid April, you could be a rock star in a few months if you start now.  You could be a whole new person by Christmas!  

Food is Medicine or Food Is Poison.  Let me teach you how to make Food your Friend.

I’m 50! Here’s my Diet and Body Image Story, See If You Relate.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERATomorrow I turn 50, woo-hoo!  Big day, and I thank God for all my blessings.  One of those blessings is that I’m healthier at 50 than I was at 40, and even 35.  Are my abs leaner? No. But that’s about the only health marker that hasn’t improved in the past several years since I gave up Dieting and switched to Real Whole Food.

Confession:  I used to be a food addict; and I had an obsession with wanting to be thinner and leaner. Now, after 28 years in the fitness and nutrition business, I can definitely say that way too many women feel the same way, and those thoughts rule the mind, and ruin the body.

It doesn’t have to be like that!

Here’s my story of dieting and negative body image, see if you relate.

I was a typical female teenager. I’d read Teen Magazine and Seventeen, stare at the models, and dream of looking like them. My first diet started when I was 15. I’d busted through the 114 pound weight limit I set for myself in 9th grade, which compelled me to sneak home a pack of Dexatrim – it worked, for a while. Til it didn’t. Next, I tried the Fruit Only diet; which worked less well than Dexatrim. In 12th grade I bought a pair of special pants that – for real here – attached to our vacuum cleaner, and I had to wear them while exercising – while the vacuum was running. I believed in those pants, but they didn’t work either. I still just looked like me.

Reality Check: at 5’6 and 128 pounds, I wasn’t overweight; I just didn’t look like the girls in the magazines, or on TV. And it bugged me.

Fast forward to 1987, I’d graduated from college and married Mark. My 4 years of college had me totally committed to the world of fitness,  I loved exercising!  Not only did I get a serious endorphin rush from workouts, (and still do) but I fully, deeply believed that exercise would keep me slim; the whole “calories in – calories out” theory. I took a full time job managing the Aerobics Department at a local gym, and my career was born. Through the rest of the 80’s, and the 90’s, my desire to be fit – and weigh less – never waned.

Well, actually, after my first baby, Megan, in 1990, between heavy nursing and working out, I got down to 114, my 9th grade goal weight! Let me tell you all: Happy. Days. But then she quit nursing and I got pregnant again (Amanda), and again (Macy), and again (Shelby).

Through constant diet efforts, I managed to stay around 128, but I never looked like Cindy Crawford. It bugged me. I wanted that thigh gap.

Sometime in the mid 90s, I switched from reading regular women’s magazines, to body builder women’s magazine. This did so much for my self esteem! Now my dream shape wasn’t just thin; it was ripped, lean, and muscular. (Strong is the new skinny.) Since I was a group ex instructor, and personal trainer, I had the opportunity to workout hours a day. I fueled myself with frozen diet meals, diet desserts, diet drinks, cereals that had more fiber than hay, and (thank you mom! ) vegetables. Meat was a rarity, and fat was an absolute no-way. I ate 5 to 6 “mini-meals” a day, carried my protein bars with me everywhere (I was scared I’d get hungry), and counted the hours to the recommended “cheat meals”, which sometimes consisted of a whole pizza and a pint of ice cream. No, actually, and honestly, that was just starter food; because I was never full from crap like that; I was just triggered to eat more.

Anyway, I thought it was such a great Diet Plan! Just like the women in the magazines! Except for when I fell off the wagon, which happened all the time. And not for a meal, but for a day, or two, or more. I lived on what I call the Diet Roller Coaster: Starve – Feast – Starve – Feast, for years. My weight actually averaged out, but it was all so consuming that I started to worry about myself. I didn’t want my 4 daughters disliking their body, or obsessing about food, like me.

I began to see the insanity of this cycle, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted to stop, badly, but I literally couldn’t. I went to a counselor sometime in my late 30s to describe what I guessed was bulimia, or food addiction. He told me I was probably either depressed or anxious, and did I want a prescription. I was neither, and I was pissed he’d even suggested that.

(Ever notice how often a doctors default with a woman’s health issues is, “do you want an anti-depressant?” )

This is when my health started to take a nose dive. Really, it started to go downhill at 30, when I developed asthma, but it took 10 years for me to see what was happening. (Inflammation from the crap I ate) The asthma came on quick and strong, and I was put on 3 separate daily drugs to “manage” it.

Then, after my 4th baby at 31, severe IBS began. Severe. Like, sometime starting in my mid 30s, my stomach would bloat every afternoon to the point of me looking 5 months pregnant.  And.. I had bad gas. It was awful. I thought it was a side effect of eating so healthfully….

Right around then my period stopped, for the first of many times. My GYN ran a blood test which determined I was so low in estrogen that the lab listed me as “post-menopausal”. I was 34. The solution? Put me on The Pill to force a period, and make me “normal” again. I did it, but it kept happening, for years. (Today I know that low estrogen isn’t normal, and it’s fixable.)

At 36, fatigue and low energy set in; a test showed my thyroid hormones were low, which meant daily thyroid meds. At this point, our medicine cabinet was loaded with drugs to deal with all the symptoms I considered completely normal: Gas X, Beano, Tums, Seravent, Advar, Fast Acting Inhalers, Armor, the Pill, Midol, and Advil. I popped these things in my mouth every day without a thought. I carried them in my car…. Now I carry systemic enzymes and “bitters”.

The final straw, my Ah-Ha moment, came at 40. I got my second blood clot. My doctor told me that since this was my second one, I needed to go on Coumadin, a blood thinner. OMG. Grandmas take that stuff! Thank you God for the clot, because THAT was my wake up call. Instead of Coumadin, I went to a Functional MD, and was put on systemic enzymes and big doses of fish oil, (actually, those were my starter supplements). Every blood test I’ve had since then has shown zero “sticky blood”, just normal blood.

For the first time, I started to look and connect what I ate, with the health problems I was having. Up til then, I’d just Dieted, which I thought was supposed to make me healthy, but it hadn’t. The big shocker: I realized that the majority of what I put in my mouth wasn’t actual food, it was Pretend Food that looked real and tasted great, or at least I thought it did at the time. But except for pretty big daily serving of vegetables, I lived on processed foods high in carbs, chemicals, and bad oils; in other words, pure crap.

I served COMPANY frozen diet dinners with vegetables added, topped with slices of fat free cheese! I thought I was a smart Gourmet! I wasn’t.  Those “foods” slowly made me sick, and kept me constantly hungry.

Over the next few years, I morphed from a “Diet” based paradigm, to a Real Whole Foods paradigm, eating (seriously) copious amounts of healthy fats, healthy meats, and absolute loads of vegetables.

I quit eating grains, then sugar. That was hard because I was addicted, but I preserved, and thank goodness! Today I use ZERO effort or will power to stay away from that stuff.

The “no grain/no sugar” scares people, but consider this. Imagine what it’s like to never have gas, bloat, or constipation. I said my stomach’s not as lean, but it’s flattish! Or to not constantly think about food.  Or to have more energy at 50 than at 40? My asthma’s gone. My thyroid labs are normal. My estrogen’s still low, but I made it through menopause, fully, without one hot flash or night sweat.

Best part? My weight’s not an issue. Not because I weigh 114 or 128, but because the obsession is over. The Diet Roller Coaster, which was caused by dieting, is over. I don’t gain every weekend and lose every week. I don’t promise myself every Monday morning that “this will be the week I lose weight.” I’m just…. stable, and normal. There’s still no thigh gap. I don’t for a moment look 20, but, I look fine.

I’ve stopped being so ridiculously hard on myself.

I feel like I used to live “Under The Dome”, but now I see how I was manipulated into wanting someone else’s unattainable ideal body image. Those images are just Temptations, trying to entice us to spend our money on products!

This brings me to the point of my piece: Women, I think many (most?) of us are the victims of slick marketing created to make us feel bad about our looks.

I think said marketing conspires to convince us that we’re too fat, too busy, too depressed, too stressed, and too inadequate to handle life with out special diet food, diet pills, diet aids and diet groups. Science Daily reports a study that says 75% of American women surveyed report unhealthy thoughts, feelings or behaviors related to food or their bodies.

Really? 75% of us feel badly about ourselves and/or food? Is this what we’re teaching our daughters? Talking about with girlfriends? We’re being duped into wasting most of our lives stressing and obsessing about our weight! This is criminal, and the efforts aren’t just making companies money (billions!) while we continue to gain weight; they’re making us sick, which leads to pharmaceutical drugs, which have side effects, which leads to more drugs.

Yes, I’m a conspiracy theorist. Here’s a few statistics that I base my conspiracy theories on: In 1960, about 10% of Americans were obese and an overweight child was a rarity. Today, we have 68% of our adult population either overweight or obese, and 1 out of 3 kids. In the 1970s, new Federal policy stated that Americans needed to lower their intake of fat and cholesterol from animal or tropical sources, which they did. Butter decreased and margarine and vegetable oils increased. Weight, Heart Disease, and Cancer rose.

In the 1970s, the same policy recommended that Grains comprise a majority of our diet, up to 12 servings a day, which we did; consumption of grains – and sugar – skyrocketed. Weight, Heart Disease, and Cancer rose. As weight and heart disease and cancer continued to rise, our doctors medicated us for the ills, and told us to eat less and exercise more. We have. Weight and disease continue to rise.

In the 1980s, weight loss centers, diet foods, and diet drugs, as a business, were booming. Today, Dieting is a multi billion dollar industry. We’re all dieting, and yet weight and disease continue to rise. This makes us feel pretty badly about ourselves.

Meanwhile, in 2015, 1 out of 4 American women are on a psychiatric drug. Read that sentence again. It doesn’t have to be like this. Women, we don’t have to be fat, bloated, tired, and unhappy. We’ve fallen prey to companies and foods that cause addictive behavior, that lead to weight ups and downs which cause depression, and Moms, if we don’t stop the cycle, our kids won’t just be on the same boat we are, they’ll be on a worse boat.

The Surgeon General says that there’s a strong possibility that todays children might be there first generation of American children to have a shorter life span than their parents.

I started by opening up to you about a decades long body issue and food battle. I put myself through some crazy crap, which I know from my work with other women is not unique. I don’t do crazy anymore, I changed. You can change. Anyone can change. Everyone can break cycles and habits.

If you’re ready to change, evaluate what you’ve been doing. Get in touch with me. The definition of insanity is doing the same old thing and expecting a different outcome, right? Change your belief system from Calories In Calories Out, Low Fat blah blah blah, to Food Is Medicine, or Food Is Poison.

Understand that good fat is good for us; starving ourselves backfires; our hormones always rule; and small plates and baby forks for weight control are Dumb. Come on! We can be positive examples for our kids; we can be the one in our circle to stop the cycle and start a trend; and let’s not waste another minute lamenting our stomach, thighs, butt, or weight. There’s so much more to life than that.