Switch Your Metabolism Class: set for Mondays: Oct 7,14,21, 6 – 7:30pm;  and Wednesdays: Oct 9,16,23, 1 – 2:30.  The goal: to teach you how to be a Fat Burner and not a Sugar Burner.  We’ll cover the Paleo Diet, Digestion, Blood Sugar (you HAVE to understand your biology to lose weight and get healthy), Ketosis, Power Cooking, Compliance Strategies and much more.  The class will be held at the Marshall Community Center (4133A Rectortown Rd, Marshall Va), which is right off Rt 17 and Rt 66 – it’s easy to get to.  The total cost: $100.  My goal:  to help you understand that your weight and your health are a matter of your Biology, not a low cal/low fat diet that never works, ever; and that you have the Power to change yourself.  Email me if you can attend, or just show up at the door.  Phone and Skype sessions are available if you’re long distance.

Grain Brain!!  It’s the title of the latest book I’m reading by neurologist Dr. David Perlmutter, MD.  You should read it if you’re worried about your brain health, but if you don’t have time, let me condense the message for you.  I’m going to use a bunch of quotes from his book:  “We have a habit of categorizing brain ailments separately from the other afflictions we attribute to bad habits.  …..I believe that the shift in our diet that has occurred over the past century – from high fat, low carb to today’s low-fat, high carb diet, fundamentally consisting of grains and other damaging carbohydrates – is the origin of many of our modern scourges linked to the brain, including chronic headaches, insomnia, anxiety, depression, epilepsy, ADHD, cognitive decline, and full-blown, irreversible, untreatable, incurable, brain disease.”

He says that carbohydrates from grains along with processed polyunsaturated vegetable oils (canola, corn, soy, peanut, safflower, etc), have replaced the diet that’s HEALTHY for the brain and the body:  high fat/high cholesterol containing, traditional foods.

He says that diabetes and brain disease are this country’s costliest diseases, yet they are PREVENTABLE and uniquely tied together:  having diabetes more than doubles your risk for Alzheimer’s disease. He uses research showing that gluten, and a high-carb diet are among the most prominent stimulators of inflammatory pathways that reach the brain. ”

“This whole grain goodness, as the US Department of Agriculture is trying to convince us we should focus on in terms of our dietary choices, is the cornerstone of our most devastating diseases. I mean, brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, and obviously, what leads to them, diabetes, which is so prevalent in Western societies. Again, it’s the getting away from fat and the substitution with wheat- and corn-based carbohydrate (high-fructose corn syrup) that really, in my opinion, explains this huge explosion of degenerative conditions that are crippling us medically and crippling us economically as well,” he says.

“But the quality of the fat that we consume is absolutely fundamental. When we’re saying high-fat diet, we’re not talking about prepared foods on the Twinkie aisle at the grocery store that contain modified trans fats; hydrogenated fats that are clearly coffin nails. They’re a great risk for brain disorders, heart disorders, diabetes, etc. We’re talking about these beautiful, natural fats that we have been consuming for more than two million years.”

That’s enough quotes for now.  I get questions all the time, “how can healthy whole grains be bad for me??”  My own husband was recently told by his doctor how good whole grains are, and that he himself eats them all the time.  LISTEN TO ME:  WHEN DOCTORS SAY THAT, OR MAGAZINES SAY THAT, THEY’RE WRONG.  The evidence and research piling up against whole grains isn’t small and it isn’t new.  Between the high blood sugar and high insulin they instigate, and/or the proteins they contain that are extremely difficult to digest ( gluten is one example) causing permeable/leaky gut, Grains Cause Inflammation To The Whole Body.  Inflammation is the root of all disease, whether it’s in the body or the brain.

We’ll be thoroughly discussing this in my Metabolism Class.  If you want to be healthy, and achieve a healthy weight, you need to understand how your body works.  Decades of being told to eat a low fat, high carb diet have had DEVESTATING consequences on us.  Again: the link between high blood sugar and Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and just about every single disease condition out there is very, very strong.

Interested in hearing a great podcast with Dr. Perlmutter?  Listen here.  The more you know, the more you learn about your body, the easier it becomes to say NO to foods that call you.  What are foods that call you?  Refined and processed foods containing sugar, flours, vegetable oils and chemicals that are created in a laboratory to stimulate the addiction centers of your brain.  They’re pretty powerful, aren’t they.  You can break the addiction.  You can change your life, you can change your weight, you can change your health.  What can’t you change?  Established neurological brain conditions.  There’s drugs that might prolong the condition, but there are NO drugs to END Alzheimer’s or dementia.  None, zero, nada.  The only solution is to not let it happen.  You can do this.  You have power over the state of your body and your mind; you just need to exercise that power.  Hope to see you at my classes; if you can’t make them, contact me and we’ll work one on one.

This last pic is one of my four daughters getting together yesterday in Richmond, Va.  Moms, you can raise a family without refined, processed foods.  We have the opportunity to turn the Health Crisis around; let’s use our power to reverse the direction our Nation’s youth are heading.   Eat Well.

Switch Your Metabolism Class: set for Mondays: Oct 7,14,21, 6 – 7:30;  and Wednesdays: Oct 9,16,23, 1 – 2:30.  The goal: to teach you how to be a Fat Burner and not a Sugar Burner.  We’ll cover the Paleo Diet, Digestion, Blood Sugar (you HAVE to understand your biology to lose weight and get healthy), Ketosis, Power Cooking, Compliance Strategies and much more.  The class will be held at the Marshall Community Center (4133A Rectortown Rd, Marshall Va), which is right off Rt 17 and Rt 66 – it’s easy to get to.  The total cost: $100.  My goal:  to help you understand that your weight and your health are a matter of your Biology, not a low cal/low fat diet that never works, ever; and that you have the Power to change yourself.  Email me if you can attend.  Phone and Skype sessions are available if you’re long distance.

If you’ve ever been to one of my talks, or worked with me one-on-one, you know that Digestion is always a big topic for me.  Good digestion, and the health of our gut, reflects the health of our entire body.  More than 10% of Americans have some level of heartburn everyday, and almost half of all Americans have at least one episode a month.

Gas, Bloat, Reflux, Heartburn, GERD, Constipation/Diarrhea,  these aren’t normal – and they’re Fixable!  But not with the OTC or prescription meds you’ve been using ( have they solved the problem yet – on a permanent basis?)  Antacids (like Tums)  and PPIs (proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec and Prevacid) temporarily suppress stomach acid, allowing you to think that everything’s okay.  It’s not.  God put that stomach acid there for a reason:  it digests our food and kills bacteria, virus, and pathogens. Most of those things can’t live 15 minutes in a PROPERLY acidic stomach.  The acid also triggers a cascade of digestive actions that allows our body to cleave off minerals and fatty acids and amino acids and then actually use them.

Take meds to suppress the stomach acid, and you cause a detrimental shift in your gut bacterial environment (there goes your immune system), and leave yourself wide open to nutrient deficiencies( goodbye B12, calcium, magnesium, folic acid, niacin, iron, and zinc – just to name a few).  Let’s take that mentioned list, and apply it:  no B12 = high homocysteine levels; folic acid makes red blood cells and prevents birth defects; niacin improves HDL levels and lowers triglycerides; calcium and magnesium are important for heart and bone health; iron is necessary for oxygenated blood; and zinc is vital to the immune system and to make testosterone.  They’re important.

What to do if you have regular reflux?  So many options!!!  None of which would involve suppressing stomach acid – after all, we need to think Long Term, not short term. Band -aiding problems NEVER solves the problems, it just covers them.

If you’re over 40, there’s a strong chance that the cells which make the acid (parietel cells) have slowed down. There are also several OTC and prescription drugs, and chemicals in municipal water sources, that decrease stomach acid.  HCL (hydrachloric acid – the same thing that our stomach cells produce) supplements are available from any health food store.  Digestive enzymes can also help (our stomach’s HCl normally triggers the pancreas to release those enzymes, not so with insufficent acid). A little Apple Cider Vinegar added to water and consumed before the meal can make the stomach more acidic, which makes food digest quicker.  That said, if you’ve let this condition continue for years, you could have an ulcer (low stomach acid allows Hpylori to proliferate), and in that case, you’d need supplements to heal the ulcer and the gut lining.  Probiotics are probably also necessary.  These would also be available from a good Natural Health food store.  Email me if you have any questions about this.

What should you not do?? Don’t do anything that exacerbates the condition.  Got stress? Work on controlling it, because cortisol wrecks havoc on the parietal cells, it literally shuts down their HCl production in order to shift the bodies focus to a more “fight or flight” mode.  Alcohol for “relaxation”?  Alcohol destroys the thick mucus membrane that protects the stomach from the acid.  Sugar and starches? Excess ( which is EASY to consume) cause an up and down blood sugar response – that triggers cortisol.  Excess carbs also feed bacteria and yeast – hello Hpylori and candida.

Once again, what we eat, what we drink, matters.  Every bite matters.  Not only do excess carbs put on undesired weight, but they cause a really bad gut environment, and a bad gut environment leads to reflux, ulcers, nutrient deficiencies, leaky gut, a poor immune system, and just about every single disease condition.  Your food either builds you up or tears you down.  There are no neutral foods.

Eat for health, and weight loss will be a side effect.  Fill yourself up with tons of vegetables, clean meats, healthy fats, some fruit, some nuts and seeds, and some full fat dairy (if your stomach says yes).  Don’t starve yourself – it always backfires.  Try to let hours lapse between your meals.  Keep your endgame in mind and let it guide you through your day.  You have the power to change your health, your energy, and your vitality.