Search results for fatty liver

Weight Loss: Gluten Free Foods Keep You Sugar Burning Instead Of Fat Burning

August 31, 2014 / / Comments Off on Weight Loss: Gluten Free Foods Keep You Sugar Burning Instead Of Fat Burning

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAClients I work with often make the mistake of thinking that Gluten Free Food PRODUCTS are not only healthy, but Weight Loss Inducing.  That’s a Big Mistake.

Gluten Free Food Products are missing the damaging gluten protein – that’s true.  But Gluten Free products like pasta, bread, cereal, and cookies, are made with High Glycemic, very easily digested and absorbed, SIMPLE SUGARS.

When we eat Simple Sugars, our blood sugar levels and blood insulin levels skyrocket, and damage happens, always.  Whether the simple sugar is from white flour, brown flour, rice flour, or corn flour, i.e. gluten-free or NOT, simple sugars flood our blood stream quickly and easily wreck havoc – every. single. time.

I love to say that a Carb is a Carb is a Carb.  No matter the source, our gut digests Carbs to the single sugar/simple sugar GLUCOSE, which then goes through the small intestine wall and into the blood stream.  When our blood sugar and insulin levels are high our arteries become damaged, our brain accumulates plaque, our blood becomes thick and sticky, and proteins and fats in the blood and affixed to the body ( our thyroid, our intestine walls, our skin..) become “Glycated”, or damaged – permanently.

These Simple Sugar Gluten Free Products also make us fat.  Here’s how:  when our blood sugar is high, anything above 100mg/dcl, insulin is released from the pancreas to lower it.  Some blood sugar can go into muscle cells (or not), a tiny bit of blood sugar can be stored in the liver (or not), and ALL THE REST OF THE EXCESS IS REMADE INTO TRIGLYCERIDES. Triglycerides = Body Fat.  

Glucose/blood sugar/carbs don’t make ANY part of us, not our hair, our eyes, our bones, our teeth. Carbs are just an energy source, and we can’t even store very much.  Excess ALWAYS gets made into Body Fat.  Always.

Another undesirable result of High Blood Sugar from Gluten Free Products:  Insulin Resistance.  When you have insulin resistance, your body’s ability to literally use FAT FOR FUEL is SHUT DOWN.  Instead, your body burns sugar.  Period.  This isn’t healthy or normal.  WebMD says at this point at least 34% of all Americans are fully Insulin Resistant.  Imagine what the number would be if it included everyone who was hovering at full Insulin Resistance??  50%?  60%?  More?   We’re 70% overweight in the country;  the correlation between ANY belly fat and insulin resistance is very high.   Got Belly Fat?

If you diet and exercise, and can’t lose weight, you’ve got a problem.  It’s not normal.  When you’re a Sugar Burner, your body sets itself up to mostly burn glucose.  Even in the absence of food, it still wants to burn Sugar not Body Fat.  This means that when Sugar Burners cut calories, or increase exercise, the body would rather break down muscle tissue and convert it to glucose than burn body fat.  It’s easier, and the body ALWAYS does what’s easier.

If you want to quit burning so much sugar for fuel, and start burning your fat stores, you’ll have to (1) cut out the grains and sugars, even gluten free grains, and (2) up your healthy fat intake.  Seriously, if you want your cells to become acclimated to burning fat, there’s a whole set up of enzymes and protocols that go along with that.  As long as there’s excess sugar in your body, from any source ( gluten free products, grains, and sugars, sometimes even fruit) YOUR BODY MUST BURN SUGAR.  It takes a real consistency of effort before your body believes you and sets up fat burning mechanisms in your cells.

Something that struck me in the book Keto-Clarity, was how many doctors were quoted as saying that before several decades ago, because the average American diet was much lower in carbohydrate, and higher in healthier fats, it would have been normal to burn both Glucose and Fat throughout the day and night.  Low states of Ketosis, where ketone bodies were burned, would also have been very normal.  There’s entire cultures that ran on Ketone bodies and fatty acids easily and with great health, throughout the world, throughout history and even today. ( For instance, very Northern  and Desert cultures with little access to plants or grains)

If you can’t lose weight, there’s a good chance you’re insulin resistant, you’re a sugar burner.  Even if you DON’T need to lose weight, but eat a high carb diet, you’re a sugar burner;  inflammation is happening.

If you want to STOP burning so much sugar and START BURNING YOUR FAT STORES,  Contact me and let’s get started.  It’s time to turn your metabolism around and make it work FOR you, not AGAINST you.

Category: Carbs, Fats, ketosis, Looks Healthy But Isn't, RWF, Uncategorized, Weight Loss / Tags: , , , ,

Got Heart Disease? There’s a Good Chance You Do. Luckily, You Have Power Over That.

August 24, 2014 / / Comments Off on Got Heart Disease? There’s a Good Chance You Do. Luckily, You Have Power Over That.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI wrote a Newsletter yesterday on Heart Disease and how to both prevent it and diminish any damage you’ve possibly already caused.  It takes about 20 years for a disease to develop blatant symptoms; “Silent Damage” is very real, and statistically, if we live a Standard American Life, we have it.

If you read my Newsletter already, re-read it with another horrible disease – Cancer – on your mind.  Most of the causes of Heart Disease are also causes of Cancer, and certainly causes of Inflammation.

Further, most of the causes of Heart Disease, Cancer, and Inflammation, will inhibit Weight Loss. 

This Newsletter contains both Reasons for damage to your arteries and heart, and Solutions.

Heart disease is the #1 killer in the U.S. About 1 million people die EACH year from heart attacks, strokes, or a “cardiovascular event”.

According to the American Heart Association, to lower our risk of Cardiovascular Disease we need to lower our cholesterol by eating low fat foods and taking statins if needed, exercise, reduce salt intake, and stop smoking.

Hmmm. Americans ARE taking statins ( 1 out of 4 over 45), we do eat less fat than 100 years ago ( when heart disease was rare), more people exercise than ever, salt intake IS down, and fewer Americans smoke.

The CDC predicts Heart Disease will increase EVERY SINGLE YEAR FOR THE NEXT 30 YEARS.
The advice has some problems.

One of the main causes of heart disease is damage to our Coronary Arteries, or CAD for short ( coronary artery disease). What damages our arteries? It’s not what you think.

Delete the image burned into our minds that we eat foods with saturated fats and cholesterol and within minutes those substances have filled our bloodstream, and then literally clog it. That’s biologically impossible.

If you’ve worked with me, you know that fat takes hours to digest. (that’s a good thing.) Fats from food sources are readily and easily used by the body for their individual fatty acids to build and repair. Remember, our body is made out of Water, Fat, and Protein; a teeny bit of mineral, and even less vitamin and carbohydrate (1-2%). Good fatty acids are CRUCIAL for our health. ( http://www.rocksolidnutritionandwellness.com/the-basics/fats/ )

We don’t develop heart disease because Saturated Fat and Cholesterol are horrible villains destroying our arteries. Other things do that. Here’s a list of reasons, and the solutions to go with it.

1) Insulin. Insulin is produced by the pancreas in response to sugar/glucose ( from flour, grains, fruit, beans, etc.) Insulin’s okay in SMALL amounts, critical even, and incredibly damaging in large amounts, like the amounts the average American makes due to ingesting simple carbohydrates several times a day. Think of the hormone Insulin like BARBWIRE COURSING THRU YOUR ARTERIES. It’s caustic and damaging in large amounts.

If you’re overweight, or over 40, and/or have high Triglycerides ( > 100) ask for a 3 hour Glucose Test. If your body can’t handle a bolus of glucose, that means your cells are saying “NO” to the Insulin, aka, Insulin Resistance. This is bad because this means high levels of Insulin and high levels of Glucose are staying in your blood stream WAY TOO LONG. The Insulin literally INFLAMES YOUR ARTERIES, and the Glucose attaches to the proteins in your arteries ( collagen, a protein, is a main component of arteries), and “GLYCATES” them: sticky sugar molecules inappropriately attach to the proteins and fats in your body and blood and DESTROY them. Their shape, their function: ruined. It’s bad.

Even easier: Buy A Glucometer and test your postprandial/after meal blood sugars. It’s simple – ask me how.

Solution: Quit eating Grains and Sugars! Insulin will decrease, Blood Sugar will decrease, Inflammation will decrease, Triglycerides decrease, VLDL ( the “bad” cholesterol) decreases, HDL INcreases, and your WEIGHT and STOMACH girth will decrease. Can’t imagine eliminating sugar and grains? Neither could I. It was easier than I thought; you can do it too. If you’re addicted, email me.

There’s NO medication to lower Insulin, there’s NO medication to lower Triglycerides, there’s NO medication to raise HDL, there’s NO medication to decrease Inflammation ( permanently). Statins don’t do any of that except for possibly, in some people, reduce some inflammation. SOME PEOPLE. What you put in your mouth is the only solution. A high fat, low carbohydrate REAL WHOLE FOOD diet, with great supplements, good sleep, and movement, is the fix.

2) Man made chemicals, found in foods ( preservatives, emulsifiers, flavors..), personal care products, lawn and garden chemicals, cigarettes, are LOADED with toxins that have the same effect on your arteries that Insulin does: they’re caustic and damaging. Did anyone read the Washington Post article on the FDA’s INABILITY to regulate and monitor all the chemicals in our daily lives? Pitiful. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/food-additives-on-the-rise-as-fda-scrutiny-wanes/2014/08/17/828e9bf8-1cb2-11e4-ab7b-696c295ddfd1_story.html) 100 years ago we had NO chemicals in our food supply, 50 years ago we had less than 1000, today, there’s more than 9,000. Many of these HAVEN’T been tested, and many that have, and are deemed possibly CARCINOGENIC, are granted a GRAS status (generally regarded as safe), and incorporated into items we eat, drink, and slather on. Other countries all over the world say NO to hundreds of chemicals that are prolific in American processed foods and products.

Solution: Quit eating processed foods! Shop, chop, pack, and cook. Become picky about food quality. Be suspicious of restaurant food. Read labels of your food and products.

3) Lack of Vitamin D3, the B vitamins ( the heart LOVES B’s), K2 ( essential for placing Calcium in BONES and not arteries), along with other nutrients. How could you be deficient in Nutrients? Your gut. If you burp, bloat, or reflux, you don’t have enough stomach acid. If you don’t have enough stomach acid, breakdown and absorption of nutrients are reduced and good gut bacteria, who have thousands of jobs, are negatively affected. All disease begins in the gut.

Solution: (a) fix your gut with HCL and/or digestive enzymes (b) supplement with D3, K2, and other nutrients. If you’re confused, ask me.

4) Plaque build up and Inflammatory compounds from the damage you keep doing. Plaque is literally a God-Send. It saves our lives over and over. Plaques get sent to the damaged areas in our arteries to prevent them from busting open ( an occlusion). If we didn’t have plaque, heart disease would kill us a whole lot faster than it does. Atherosclerosis is “never-healing-lesions”. They don’t heal because we keep damaging them over and over with Insulin, Glucose, chemicals, etc. The assaults don’t stop, so the plaque can’t stop.

Our liver makes the plaques and sends it to the damaged areas. What’s in plaque? 68% is fibrous tissue, 8% is calcium, 7% inflammatory cells ( they call our fighter cells to them to remedy damage), 1% foam cells, and 16% lipids/fats. MOST OF THE FATS, ~74%, ARE UNSATURATED.

Solutions: quit building plaque! and supplement: Niacin increases HDL which helps reduce plaque, and lowers LDL and triglycerides; Vit K2 reduces calcium in arteries; Vit C is heavily used by arterial walls to rebuild; a good fish oil soothes inflammation (instead of plaque patches soothing inflammation); CoQ10 reduces amyloid plaques ( Statins turn OFF the cells that make CoQ10, they’re the same cells in the liver that make Cholesterol.) and CoQ10 is a preferred fuel for the hearts cells mitochondria ( fuel furnaces).

5) Magnesium Deficiency. Magnesium is critical for over 300 daily functions, magnesium deficiency is EPIDEMIC. It takes 28 molecules of Magnesium to process 1 molecule of sugar ( from dessert, bread, or pasta). Magnesium relaxes the artery walls, reduces blood pressure, and makes it easier for the heart to pump blood and for the blood to flow freely.

Solution: Supplement every single day with Magnesium. It matters that you use GOOD magnesium and not one that passes through quickly without being absorbed into your cells. Ask me if you need a recommendation.

6) Fibrinogins. These are blood clotting cells. I know about these because I’ve had 2 blood clots. Instead of Coumadin ( never!), I’m on Systemic Enzymes. I get my blood analyzed on a regular basis, and I haven’t had Fibrins in my blood for years now thanks to Systemic Enzymes, fish oil, and an Anti-Inflammatory diet ( Real Whole Food, no sugars or grains).

Have you ever heard of Systemic Enzymes? I LOVE them! What an enormous difference they’ve made in my life. I’ve been on them for about 10 years, I’m almost 50, I work out HOURS a week, and my level of pain and inflammation ( from exercise or injuries) has never been lower. I’m savvier at how to manage it via years of trial and error with which enzymes work best for me.

Basically, the inflammatory compounds in our body are mostly Protein based. Bacteria, virus, most pathogens, are protein based. Systemic Enzymes break down proteins in our blood and tissues: scar tissues, blood clots, cysts, plaques. There’s studies all over the world validating Systemic Enzymes in not only the fight against inflammation, but cancer too. ( http://www.inflammation-systemicenzymes.com/).

Again, if you’re interested, ask me. There’s several different fantastic Enzyme Formulas out there, you’ll need to find the one that works best for you.

7) Excessive alcohol. If I had a dime for every time I heard that wine is healthy, I’d be a millionaire. We’re NOT Italian or French. We don’t eat, live, or sleep like them. We’re Americans, and we’re fat ( 70% overweight), sick ( 70% are on at least 1 drug), and tired ( the CDC says it’s EPIDEMIC: http://www.cdc.gov/features/dssleep/). We can’t get away with excessive alcohol. Alcohol’s effects on the heart are many: it directly causes a “weak heart” or Cardiac Myopathy; alcohol ruins liver functions which is critical for the CoQ10 and good cholesterol the heart craves; and alcohol literally ruins stomach lining, which decreases stomach acid which decreases nutrient breakdown and absorption. Stomach lining also produces Intrinsic Factor, which attaches to B12 and escorts it into cells for use. Deficiencies in B12 are associated with high Homocysteine, a HUGE risk factor for Heart Disease and Stroke. ( Acid suppressors also reduce B12)

B12 should be sublingual for good absorption. CoQ10 is an excellent idea for anyone over 40, as even if you’re NOT on a statin ( and you probably shouldn’t be), your body produces less as you age. Your heart needs CoQ10 for “food”, so supplementation is a very good idea.

8) Trans fats in Margarines, and Vegetable Oils that are heated, or exposed to light and air (O2), are damaging to the arteries. Quit using them! Use Saturated Fats for cooking instead: they’re LOADED with nutrients, and their chemical structure is STABLE, which means heat, light, and air don’t oxidize or damage them.

Heart Disease is preventible. Become informed, be proactive, learn, study, read. Don’t take your doctors advice if it’s old-fashioned and clearly not working. Reread the info in the Newsletter, and then read the link at the bottom. There’s so much science out there that’s not getting to the masses. Don’t let that be you!

Here’s an interview with 2 doctors from one of my favorite books, The Great Cholesterol Myth.  

Category: Exercise, Fats, RWF, Sugar, Weight Loss / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Day 3 Of Keto Diet

July 16, 2014 / / Comments Off on Day 3 Of Keto Diet

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASo far the Keto Diet’s no big deal.  I think that’s because I weaned down the carbs for 4 weeks prior, so there’s no drop in energy.  Even before I cut down my potatoes/bananas/corn/carrots etc ( I haven’t had grains in a few years, and sugar only once or twice a month), I’m pretty sure my body was good at burning fat ( not ketones, but fat), and I’m also pretty sure I don’t have Insulin Resistance.

If you’re thinking about a Keto Diet, then slowly switching is probably a whole lot easier ( physically and mentally) than suddenly switching.  Then again, if you’re in a Health Crisis, you might need to just jump in.

Check out my What I Eat page to see my meals from yesterday.  My weight this morning was 129.9, and I still tested NO on the ketone meter.  I’ve got to “overwhelm” my fatty acid conversion to Acetyl CoA for my liver to start producing ketones.  Maybe tomorrow!  If not, then Saturday or Sunday, I’ll have to start counting my carbs, fats, and proteins – ugg.  I’m trying to just see if I can get there intuitively first.

I had an email asking if I thought everyone needs to do a Ketogenic Diet.  NO!  But I do think EVERYONE should severely limit grains and sugars, everyone.  They’re not good, ever.

Everyone should also ditch the “low-fat” thinking.  Not just because good fats have enormous health benefits, or because low fat eating can cause brain and hormone problems, but because it’s INEFFECTIVE FOR WEIGHT LOSS.   Here’s a blurb from a Dr. Mercola post, look at the graph and note how weight has increased since the advent of “eat low fat”:

Let’s face it, if low-fat diets worked, the United States would be the healthiest nation on the planet—folks have been following them since the late 1970s! But if you look at the following graph, you can see that America’s waistline has done nothing but expand since then. There’s no telling how many people have been prematurely killed by following these flawed guidelines. Yet, despite mounting research to the contrary, low-fat diets are stillbeing pushed as “heart healthy” by the majority of nutritionists, cardiologists, and the like.

Category: Carbs, Fats, ketosis / Tags: , ,

Ketogenic Diets and Weight Loss; Keto Recipe

June 28, 2014 / / Comments Off on Ketogenic Diets and Weight Loss; Keto Recipe

I’ve had a few email questions this week about a comment I made in this post about Ketogenic Diets, it was about weight loss.  Here’s the quote that raised the questions: “If you’ve got a lot of Insulin Resistance, you’ll need to go Ketogenic,” .   

The questions can be summarized like this:  What’s a ketogenic diet?  Will it help me lose weight?

Here goes.   When we burn glucose ( sugar/carbs/pasta/bread/vegetables/fruit/etc), for fuel, that means that glucose goes into the cells “furnace” or mitochondria, and gets “burned” for energy. ( Geeks, I know I just skipped a bunch of steps..)  If you’ve been reading my blog or you’re into the whole sciencey world of metabolism, you know there’s several “negatives” about Sugar Burning.  Here’s a few ( no one has time for all of them.)

1) We need very little glucose to live/perform/grow, very little.  Our Normal blood sugar ( NOT JUST FASTING, BUT NORMAL), should be between 80 and 100.  ( Read this to know what I mean.)  The average daily intake of sugar in 2010 was 63 teaspoons a day; this doesn’t include the grains that become sugar in the body via digestion.  Obviously, we eat WAY more sugar/glucose than the body needs.

2) High blood sugar is Incredibly Damaging to our body.   Here’s a short list of what can happen:  brain tissue shrinks, blood becomes thick and sticky, the vasculature of our eyes, kidneys, feet, and hands narrows, our immune system is suppressed, proteins and fats become Glycated/Fried/Damaged, AND ALL FAT BURNING STOPS UNTIL LEVELS ARE NORMAL.

3) High Blood Sugar is met with corresponding High Insulin.  Insulin also wrecks havoc when there’s too much of it:  systemic inflammation, inhibition of cellular uptake of vitamins, minerals, and proteins; arterial wall damage, blood pressure increases, and HDL decreases.

You might have heard that our brain needs glucose to function.  And if you read Runner’s World, or listen to advice from 1980, you’ve heard that athlete’s need to carb load before a big workout.  Worse, you might think that AFTER a good workout, you actually DESERVE a carb load, or in the very least, you’ve created such a calorie deficit that you can take your carb load and crush it with your starving muscle cells.

If. Only.   It’s thinking like this that get’s a lot of us in trouble!

Here’s where a need for a ketogenic diet comes in.

Years of high blood sugar cause our muscle and liver cells to become damaged and sensitive ( in a bad, “get away from me” fashion) to Insulin.  (fyi,  Insulin attaches to Glucose/Sugar and tries to get it out of your blood and into your cells.)  This is called Insulin Resistance.   It’s the cells response to what’s basically an assault; they’re protecting themselves.  Insulin Resistance is a blanket term for a whole host of health issues that result when (1) our cells can’t absorb their needed nutrients, and (2) we have sustained, high, circulating levels of glucose and insulin.

Interestingly, the cells on the backs of our eyes, our kidney cells, and the cells of our extremities CAN’T say no.  That’s why in diabetics, they become so damaged.

Anyway, a Ketogenic Diet is a very high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet.  This has several positive effects, here’s a few:  (a) because blood sugar levels are low, there won’t be any further damage to cells from Glycation ( high blood sugar kind of “fries” a cell, like a grilled cheese sandwich – literally.) (b) because insulin is in low amounts, the Fat Burning Hormone GLUCAGON can be released from the pancreas ( Insulin and Glucagon are pretty much an “either/or” situation) and fat can be used for energy instead of just glucose  (c)  cells that have been assaulted by both the glucose and the insulin will start to reverse their
“get away from me” stance, and (1) nutrients will be allowed into the cells once again, and (2) blood levels of glucose and insulin will normalize.

What about your brain, will it starve if there’s not enough glucose?  Is ketosis dangerous? Or the whole exercise conundrum – who wants to bonk while we’re out on a run or lifting weights?

No, no, and won’t happen.  A ketogenic diet produces a substance called Ketones, and our cells LOOOVEEE ketones.  As a matter of fact, the heart and the brain work 25% MORE efficiently on ketones than on glucose, and ketones have NO bad side effects.  Our muscle cells THRIVE on ketones, and ketones have an ANTI-Inflammatory effect.  (They also have “anti-seizure” properties, which is why it’s a great diet for epileptics.) The anti-inflammatory effects helps counter the normal inflammation that occurs with exercise.

Go back to this sentence: “because insulin is in low amounts, the Fat Burning Hormone GLUCAGON can be released from the pancreas ( Insulin and Glucagon are pretty much an “either/or” situation) and fat can be used for energy instead of just glucose”.  

If we have Insulin Resistance, that means that the insulin levels in our blood is probably always high, despite what our blood sugar readings are.  That’s why blood sugar ISN’T always a good indication of your Insulin levels.  If you’re overweight and have belly fat and yet you don’t eat much and you exercise, that’s a good indication that you have Insulin Resistance.  Your body literally RESISTS burning body fat.  It’s actually more normal than not in todays world to have Insulin Resistance by middle age; for many today, even younger than middle age.   If you’re Insulin Resistant, you burn mostly Sugar.  A Ketogenic Diet can make you a Fat Burner.  ( Yep, you have to eat fat to burn fat. )

If this is the case, you need to reverse the Insulin Resistance by stopping the assault on your cells.  This happens when you lower your carbs, which causes less Insulin to be made and released by the pancreas.  You also need to WAY UP YOUR FAT intake, to heal cells ( all cell membranes are made of cholesterol and fatty acids), regulate your hormones, and stop the addictive voices in your brain.

Good fats, from butter, coconut oil, healthy meats, nuts/seeds, whole fat dairy, and good oils like MCT oil or olive oil, are incredibly nourishing, honestly, they’re loaded with nutrients that our body uses to heal, build, and repair.  Fats don’t make us fat; Sugar and Grains make us fat.  Wait, fats along with a ton of sugar and grains DO make us fat.  You can’t mix them, that’s a recipe for disaster.  Same with “bad” fats, like hydrogenated oils and too much inflammatory Omega 6s – disaster.

Wow, there’s more, but that’s enough info for today.  Let me leave you with a recipe that’s “ketogenic”, and DELICIOUS:brussels bacon  Brussels, Bacon, and Onions, cooked in plenty of Butter, sprinkled with Parm.

1) I melted 6 tablespoons of Kerrygold in the baking dish for 5 minutes, til liquid, and then added 1/4c of water

2) I chopped a giant bagful of brussels, then completely stirred/tossed them in the butter/water

3) I chopped 3 smallish red onions and mixed them in there too

4) added lots of Salt and Pepper, roasted at 400 for 30 minutes

5) on stove top, I cooked 6 slices of bacon that I cut with scissors first, til almost crisp

6) added them to the brussels, and continued baking for 5 more minutes, took out, topped with fresh grated parmesan.     Delicious!

Category: Carbs, Cooking, Fats, Hormones, ketosis, No Recipe Paleo Meals, Paleo Recipe, RWF, Sugar, Weight Loss / Tags: , , , , ,

Still Afraid of Fat? Time to Rethink that.

June 18, 2014 / / 2 comments

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHas anyone read The Big Fat Surprise, by Nina Teicholz? It’s getting a lot of press because it’s a great book!  She goes through step by step details of how meat, full fat dairy, eggs, cholesterol, and saturated fats came to be demonized in America.  What happened?  Let’s just say it’s Big Phuvernment in full swing.

You all, we’ve been duped.  Yep.  There’s ZERO scientific research that CONCLUSIVELY links eating fat and cholesterol with heart disease, yet that connection is accepted as gospel.  Study after study demonstrates no correlation between our level of blood cholesterol and any degree of atherosclerosis.  Study after study shows no link between lowering our cholesterol through diet or drugs, and avoiding heart disease. We wouldn’t know this from talking to our doctor or watching TV commercials.  It’s time to rethink how we make decisions about our own health.

Here’s a few lines on the results of a UCLA School of Medicine study which looked at 136,900 patients in 2009:

A nationwide study conducted by UCLA School of Medicine found that 75 percent of patients hospitalized for a heart attack had LDL cholesterol within the so called safe range – below 130 mg/dl. (21 percent of the patients were taking a statin cholesterol-lowering drug.) Even more astounding, 50 percent of patients had LDL less than 100 mg/dL – considered optimal levels! The mean LDL cholesterol among the hospitalized patients was 104.9 mg/dL.

Read that again! Seriously!

Study after study has shown that lowering cholesterol doesn’t make us live longer or better or have less heart disease. Actually, there are several studies showing that really low cholesterol is linked with more infections ( cholesterol is vital to our immune system), a lack of sex hormones ( all steroid hormones are derived from cholesterol), and associations with aggressive behavior and suicides.  Low cholesterol can be bad for our health – ever heard your doctor say that?

If you’re looking for an interesting non-fiction read, this is it.  It’s time that everyone discovers that  (1) Fat’s not bad for us, and (2), fat is actually GOOD for us. Here’s a few of the many benefits of fats;  read and consider how DECADES of low-fat advice has impacted our health:

Every singe cell in our entire body has a membrane that’s partially composed of saturated fats and cholesterol.  They provide a support structure that allows nutrients in, trash out, and information to be passed cell to cell properly.  That’s important.

Our brain matter is about 60% fat and cholesterol.  ( If you haven’t read Grain Brain yet, you should! )  Fat has many functions up there;  one of them is making memories. Our memories come from our synapses, and synapse formation is almost entirely dependent on cholesterol.  Our brain’s own cells produce a lot of the cholesterol needed for this.  Statin drugs, which shut down our own natural cholesterol production, are famous for interfering with memory.

What about LDL, surely that’s definitely bad, right? It depends.  There’s several types of LDL; one type bind directly to dangerous bacterial toxins and inactivates them, preventing them from doing any damage in the body. We need that particular LDL!   A diet rich in cholesterol has been demonstrated to improve recovery from acute or chronic infections, so the next time you get sick, focus on healthy fatty foods:  eggs, liver, butter, and fatty broth.

There is an LDL that’s small, dense, and prone to damaging arteries, it’s called VLDL, and our body makes that in response to high amounts of carbohydrates in the diet.  (Triglycerides, a fat that’s highly correlated with heart disease, also rises in response to high amounts of carbs.)

Maybe you believe that eating fat doesn’t cause heart attacks, but can you believe that eating fat doesn’t necessarily make you fat?  Notice I say “necessarily”.  A diet full of processed foods, crappy carbs, hydrogenated fats, old polyunsaturated fats left in a deep fryer for days, and a pile of chemicals that create smells, flavors, textures, and colors – just like real food – will make anyone fat as a tick. And sick too. ( This includes our children. )

A diet full of healthy animal fats, coconut oil, olive oil, butter, and cream, along with copious amounts of vegetables, good proteins, some fruit, some nuts and seeds, and some full fat dairy ( if you can tolerate that), will absolutely NOT make you fat.  The opposite will happen, I promise! How?  You’d be feeding your body what it needs to make new cells, repair cells, and function correctly.  When your body has what it needs to build and repair, it runs smoothly. Your weight normalizes, you have energy, your immune system is strong, and you think better!

Bonus?  Fat satiates.  The food cravings that drive constant eating or binges?  Gone on a high fat diet. That’s because a high carb, high crap diet leaves your brain searching for nutrients.  You won’t be able to ignore the messages demanding that you eat now if you’re not feeding your body the nutrients it needs to be normal and healthy.

Confused, dubious, but hopeful that fat could actually be good for you?  If you’re in the mood for a Big Read, buy The Big Fat Secret.  If you need something quicker, easier to read, and much more direct about fat and cholesterol’s relationship to heart disease, and the dangerous side effects of statin drugs, buy Cholesterol Clarity.   I recommend this to clients, family and friends all the time, it’s excellent.

Want to implement a high fat diet, but you’re not sure how?  Get in touch with me. If you’ve been on a low fat/high carb bandwagon, you’re going to need help making the switch, mentally and physically ( in your kitchen ).  If you’ve been struggling with your weight and your health, this is the answer you’ve been looking for, honest.  Real Whole Food, with plenty fats.  Honestly, try it for a month.  See the difference it can make in your mood, your thinking, and your life – it’s profound.

The Big Take Away:  We all need to be our own best health care provider.  To truly be healthy, fit, and full of energy, it’s up to us to read, to learn, and to question the main stream establishment.  Big Phuvernment stands for the union of Big Government, Big Business, and Big Pharma.  Medicine today is very drug and money oriented.  As a matter of fact, the US spends more on health care than any country in the world, with horrible results.  It’s time for us to stop following blindly, and start taking control of our own health.

Category: Carbs, Cooking, Fats, Hormones, Mind/Body, RWF, Weight Loss / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

High Fat Diet for Weight Loss? It works, and it’s Healthy. Get Over Your Fear!

June 11, 2014 / / Comments Off on High Fat Diet for Weight Loss? It works, and it’s Healthy. Get Over Your Fear!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAReady for another Reader Email?  See who doesn’t relate to this one:

Dear Debbie, Thank you for your blog, I’ve been reading you for over a year now.  I know you say that we shouldn’t start a “diet” on a certain date, or count calories, or go low fat, but I did.  I’ve gained so much weight this past winter, that I thought I needed to do something drastic to get a jump start before our July 4th beach vacation.  Every year, I’m the biggest one in our group, and I’m sick of it.   I started a diet on June 1, and, it lasted 3 days.  

I’ve already been derailed by one of my kid’s Field Days, a end of year soccer party ( at a pizza restaurant), and a graduation party this past Sunday.  This is the story of my life. I’m ready to try something different. 

I’m stopping there, because you get the picture.  Maybe this is your picture?  This lady also has daily headaches, miserable periods and PMS, and has carried extra weight since she’s had kids.  She’s also lost weight on Weight Watchers, twice; and is on prescription migraine meds along with a whole lot of Advil.  She’s 40, with 3 kids still at home.  She had planned on eating 1200 calories a day to lose the weight.  That lasted from Sunday til Wednesday.

Reality: if you want to lose weight, sticking to a Low Calorie, Low Fat food plan NEVER works in the long run.  Statistically, between 95 and 99% of EVERYONE who loses weight on that kind of plan gains it back.  It’s hard enough to stick to a plan with soccer games, work, parties, and weekends.  It’s even harder to stick to a plan when you’re starving!  Most people won’t last but a few days; for those who can tough it out longer than that, the body and mind will only allow self imposed starvation for just so long before the dreaded “Rebound Binge” happens. “Diets” just perpetuate a Cycle of gaining/losing, gaining/losing, and then eventually, JUST GAINING.

What to do if you need to lose weight? First, you have to eliminate all grains and sugars. Second, you must eat more Fat, Protein, and Vegetables; especially Fat. I’ve learned that this is the sticking point for most people.  It seems counterintuitive, because we associate Fat in our foods with Fat on our body, but that’s not how it works, honest.  Read this to learn how our body makes fat.

Our body is made mainly out of water, fatty acids, and amino acids.  We need to eat accordingly.  (Minerals make up about 4% of our body, and sugars and vitamins both come in at 2% of our body comp. ) We’ve had decades of Low Fat dieting advice based on the assumption that the fat we eat goes straight to our butt, stomachs, or arteries.   That’s just not true, and there’s plenty of science to prove it.  But who needs science?  Look around.  We’ve got 70% both Sick and Overweight in this country.  The Low Fat Paradigm is so obviously not working.

For Sarah, who wrote this email, and for anyone struggling to lose weight, here’s my advice:

Take a chance, step outside your box, and just for a few weeks, try a different way of eating.  Nix your grains and sugars, and anything “fat free or low calorie”; instead, load up on plenty of  FATS:  good butter, olive oil, coconut oil, egg yolks,  chicken skin, the fattier and nutrient dense animal parts, like liver and kidneys, and switch to whole dairy products (yogurt and keifer).  Add this to tons of vegetables, some good protein, some fruit, some nuts, seeds, and diary if they work for you.

Push past your fear that fat will make you fat, and try eating this way.  I guarantee that if you can make this a lifestyle, not only will you lose weight, but issues like migraines and PMS will disappear.  How can I confidently say that?  Because migraine’s and PMS are from nutrient deficiencies, not medication deficiencies.  Fat is LOADED with nutrients.  Low calorie, low fat diet’s aren’t.

Did you know God made at least 500 fatty acids?? That’s not an accident; fats have numerous purposes.  Our hormones are made from fatty acids, so are our cell walls; saturated fats protect the liver, they play a crucial role in our immune system, and a vital role in our bone health. Fats make up about 60% of our brain matter, they build our glands, and they’re our hearts favorite food; I could go on and on, but you get the picture? Fats Are Important and Vital to Our Existence.

Just as Important:  Eating Fat Can Make you Thin if you eliminate the grains and sugars.  Honest.  Just try it; what do you have to lose, except weight.  What do you have to gain?  Your health, your self confidence, and a great body.  Not sure how to live the Low Carb, High Fat lifestyle?  Work with me.  Even if you have kids, a job, and a busy life, you can do this.

Category: Carbs, Fats, Hormones, Question of the Week, RWF / Tags: , , ,

Stress can make you Fat and Sick

April 19, 2014 / / Comments Off on Stress can make you Fat and Sick

I’ve had several meetings in the past 2 weeks about health and weight problems that were stress induced.  For those of you who wonder how stress could possibly make you sick or heavy, here’s a couple of reasons out of the many (you’d need text books to cover everything.)

Our adrenal glands, which sit right on top of the kidneys, make dozens of hormones.stessbinge  HORMONES RULE US. PERIOD.  When we feel stress from anything ( an argument, over exercising, traffic, kids, a project, illness/infections, work stress, dieting.. etc) our adrenal glands squirt some “fight or flight” hormones into our blood.  There’s several, but I’m going to lump them all under the one called “CORTISOL”.

Follow me here:  even though most stressful situations do NOT involve having to physically run/kill/chase/escape from a physical danger, the response from our body is as if that was the case.  Cortisol/adrenaline prepares us for a physical exertion. ( It’s a very primal response. ) How?  So many ways..   this is just a couple.

1) When “stress” is felt, sugar is immediately dumped into the blood stream.  Sugar is FAST energy and fat is SLOW energy, right?  If the body is preparing for a threat, it wants FAST energy.  Where does the sugar come from?  First, the liver shoots out it’s teaspoon or so of stored sugar, then, if the stress continues, the muscle cells will be easily converted to glucose/sugar (that’s called “muscle wasting”) and then fat cells will give up their fatty acids and they’ll be converted to sugar.    *************  What if you don’t actually need all that SUGAR/GLUCOSE because your emergency didn’t involve anything physical?    YouGottaProblem.   Excess sugar is ALWAYS CONVERTED TO TRIGLYCERIDES AND STORED IN THE MIDSECTION.  ALWAYS.  That’s why stress causes heart disease, because the cortisol dumps sugar in the blood that’s not needed, so it becomes dangerous belly fat.  ( The many dangers of belly fat are a whole nother lecture, seriously.)

2) Cortisol in the blood immediately causes the heart rate to increase, the blood pressure to increase, and it causes your cells to DUMP their Magnesium (remember, this is the short list).  Studies are showing that most of us are Magnesium deficient, which is bad, because Mag has many, many jobs to do in our body. One of them is to relax our muscles.  When Cortisol is present though, we’re in an “anti-relaxed state”;  dumping Magnesium allows our muscles to contract quickly.  Again, so we can zebra losing spotsrun/kill/chase/escape.   Stay in a stressed state, and the Magnesium deficit just grows.

3) Cortisol shuts down stomach acid, which means it shuts down digestion.  Digestion’s NOT a priority in a “fight or flight” situation.  Stay stressed, and you become nutrient deficient.  Nutrients run and build our body;  consequences are inevitable.

4) Cortisol halts Sex Hormone production, because the same “ingredients” (aka nutrients) are used to make the fight / flight hormones and the sex hormones.  There’s only just so many of those ingredients, and Reproduction is NOT a priority in a “fight or flight” situation.  The body will ALWAYS choose to make fight or flight hormones over sex hormones.  Hormones run and build our body: consequences are inevitable.

I could go on and on and on.  There’s not one single part of us that isn’t negatively affected by TOO MUCH cortisol.  That said, we need cortisol!  It gets us up in the morning, and it’s supposed to be our bodies “anti-inflammatory” response to injury.  Unfortunately, when the cortisol valve doesn’t shut off, the opposite response happens:  INFLAMMATION.  The cause of everything bad:(

If this post is ringing bells in your head because “this sounds like you”,  email me.  Your health, your weight, your moods, your energy, greatly depend on having healthy adrenal glands and normal levels of cortisol.  When damage has been done, you need to undo it, as soon as possible!

Oh, you know what else causes stress/cortisol/inflammation?  Too much sugar, flour, and toxins.  Seriously.  Yet another reason to eat Real Whole Foods.

Category: Hormones, Mind/Body, RWF / Tags: , , , , , ,

Amanda’s Journey; Sleep Deprivation and Carb Cravings

March 6, 2014 / / One comment

manda me uvaEpilepsy sucks.  Trust me.  I don’t have it, but I’ve watched my #2 daughter struggle with this for almost 15 years.  She somehow gets up most days, goes to class, participates in sports, and clubs, and she (thank God) has a ton of great friends ( who’ve always been very supportive); but it can really knock you down sometimes. She had a really rough weekend that culminated in a middle of the night hospital stay, scary “heart attack like pains”, memory issues, and other symptoms.   We’re changing her meds and prayingmanda w wrap that it works.  Here’s two pictures of Amanda:  on the left is about a month ago on the lawn at her school, and on the right is in December after getting about 25 electrodes glued on her head for a 2 day EEG.  It didn’t last 2 days because she had a middle of the night seizure and “activity” that caused her to get up and take every single electrode out.  That’s from the meds, one of them disrupts her REM sleep, a lot.

Anyway, Mark and I rushed down to Charlottesville around 1 am last night and stayed up the whole night.  It’s a busy, busy hospital and there’s absolutely NO sleeping in the ER.  Checking my email the next day, I got not 1 but 2 emails about lack of sleep and over eating / craving bad foods.  One was a friend who has a puppy, and the other was a lady with a baby.  Sometimes there’s no way you can sleep through the night, right?  And wow, it really does a number on your immune system, your neurotransmitters, and your “hunger hormones”, ghrelin and leptin.

I have good news though:  the “unavoidable munchies because of lack of sleep”??  They can be avoided!!  Lack of sleep is such a hit to the body because GOOD THINGS DON’T HAPPEN when you’re up in the middle of the night (these are different things from what we’re warning our teenagers about, but just as bad).  When we’re asleep, the brain does repairs, the muscles do repairs, the immune system makes particular hormones, our glands make corticosteroids and sex hormones, the body makes Human Growth Hormone, the liver is incredibly busy breaking down hormones and toxins, the skin the lungs the kidneys, EVERYTHING is cleaning and repairing or making things.  Trust me when I say I just seriously condensed what goes on during our sleep.  If your sleep is disrupted, or you don’t go to bed early enough, you can get into real trouble.

Sleep has been a pretty big issue and topic in the news for the past few years, and I’ve often seen advice to “eat more protein” on the days you’ve missed sleep.  I agree with that, but I want to add:  Eat More Fat, on these days and every day.  Your body is CRAVING nutrients; you think it wants junk food, but that’s YOU, not your inner brain talking.  Your deepest smartest brain parts know exactly what it takes to build and repair your body, and it’s not carby cereal, or ice cream, or pizza, or chips, or a trip to Fast Food. Carbs build NOTHING, they’re just an energy source.  What you “hear” are the habits you’ve established as comfort when you’re tired/stressed/happy/sad/etc.  Give your body the fat and protein and vitamins and minerals it really wants, and you’ll see those cravings disappear, I promise.

Add the butter, add the fatty broths, pour on the olive oil, make treats with coconut oil, butter, or milk;  up the good fats with your proteins and vegetables and truly sooth your brain and body.  Also, make sure your Neurotransmitters are full:  the serotonin, dopamine, GABA, catecholamines.  These things make you “normal” feeling.  Amino acid supplements, on a particular timed schedule, do this.  Read the Mood Cure or the Diet Cure by Julia Ross, I swear it’s for real.  I’ve used her protocol on ourselves and several nutrition clients now, IT’S FOR REAL.

Another important factor:  don’t set yourself up for failure by having any thing munchie/quick/junkie in your house.  Nothing.  Quit telling yourself your kids might need a snack.  NO ONE needs crap that sets up life long bad habits or creates a state of terrible health in the body and mind.  NO ONE.  Not you, not your kids.

DO SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS:  have plenty of fats, vegetables, ….INGREDIENTS,.. that you can mix up and genuinely provide your brain and body what it’s actually craving to rebuild, repair, and make hormones and neurotransmitters.  (Remember:  ALL your steroid hormones, and ALL your sex hormones are made from Cholesterol, Saturated Fat, and Minerals.  ALL OF THEM. )

It always comes back to: eat Real Whole Food, doesn’t it?

 

Category: Carbs, Fats, Mind/Body, Question of the Week / Tags: , , , , , ,

Diet Products, Cleanses and Poop, and A Recipe

January 18, 2014 / / Comments Off on Diet Products, Cleanses and Poop, and A Recipe

debbie (22)This past week I’ve had emails on Diet Soda, Weight Watchers points and meals, oatmeal, and a question about an Acai Berry Cleanse.

Here’s some facts to ponder:

(1) Most of the calories we burn in a 24 hour day have NOTHING to do with exercise.  Our liver uses the most energy (calories), with our heart and brain following up.  Our muscles use far less calories than these organs.  If your blood stream is loaded with sugar (blood sugar readings above 100 on a glucometer), your muscle cells MUST use that excess sugar BEFORE any fat cells get tapped for energy. That’s our Biology.  Oatmeal has about 27 grams of carbs/sugar per cup, that’s almost 7 teaspoons of glucose in your blood.  “Normal/Optimal” blood sugar is about 2 teaspoons in the blood. Start your day with a big bowl of carbs, and even during a workout, your muscle cells use up that glucose before they burn fat for fuel.

(2)  If your liver is clogged by years of chemicals, like the ones found in diet sodas and diet frozen meals or any processed food on a shelf, it’s not running well; your shot at your liver using a whole bunch of calories and functioning like it’s supposed to is impeded. Want a clean, high functioning liver?  Quit flooding it with toxins and chemicals that weaken it and slow it down.  Did you know there are over 10,000 chemicals in our food supply and most of them AREN’T tested?  And several that are have only been given a GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status, this means that even though there were several Red Flags in the testing, the FDA approved it anyway.

(3) Diet foods, diet drinks, and processed foods are created in labs; the Food Scientists make them delicious and stimulating.  Ever notice how hard it is to quit eating processed foods?  They’ve been designed to stimulate areas of your brain that make you want more.  Honestly.  That’s diet and non-diet processed foods.  When your pleasure centers in your brain are constantly being triggered by sugars and chemicals, those neural nets get used to that pleasure, they demand it.  That’s why so often powerful, overwhelming desires for food practically assault you:  certain times, certain places, certain people, print ads, television ads, they can all flip a switch that makes you have to have it now.

Here’s a link to one of my favorite sites, Fooducate.  They’ve done an excellent piece on Weight Watchers and the ingredients in their Chicken Ranchero Mini Wraps.  After reading it, you’ll see why I call this kind of crap “Poison”.

Remember, the Diet Industry is a BUSINESS out to MAKE MONEY.

(4) If you really can stick to your low calorie regimen, your Thyroid, which is in charge of the Cell Turnover of EVERY SINGLE CELL IN YOUR BODY, will determine that there’s some type of food shortage or famine, and will SLOW DOWN TURNOVER/METABOLISM IMMEDIATELY.   Here’s the really bad part:  for some people, it’ll only take doing “low-cal” once, for others, it’ll take more, but eventually, that Thyroid stays “down-regulated”.  This is why the same diet that worked before doesn’t work anymore, and it’s why the majority of dieters gain MORE WEIGHT THAN THEY LOST.

(5) I love the Cleanse questions, I’ve had them for years.  Here’s the fact:  there is no Cleanse on earth that will pull fatty acids out of your fat cells. Period.  The subtle message in Cleanse advertising, showing a beautiful flat stomach, is trying to convince you that if you buy this product, you’ll poop out pounds of fat and then you’ll look like the picture.  Don’t be tricked by this!  Your poop is mostly water, bacteria from your large intestine, discarded cells and waste products, and indigestible fibers.  If your gut is working correctly, the fats/ proteins/sugars/calories and nutrients were extracted in the small intestine, BEFORE they get to the large intestine.  Cleanses that promise diarrhea in exchange for weight loss are stupid, so don’t be fooled.  Want to “Cleanse”?  Quit putting toxins in your liver, kidney, brain, and bowels, honestly.

Let me leave you with a recipe I’ve found that’s fast, easy, and delicious; it’s for  Chocolate Dipped Chocolate Meringue Cookies.  (click on for link)

Ingredients

For the meringue:
    • 4 large pastured egg whites
    • 1/4 tsp cream of tarter
    • 1/2 cup powdered sweetener (or 5 Tbsp honey for Paleo)
    • 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
    • 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
For the chocolate coating:

Instructions

    1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F.
    2. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites and cream of tarter on medium speed.
    3. Add the sweetener and cocoa powder. Increase the speed to high until the egg whites form very stiff peaks. Add the vanilla and mix to incorporate.
    4. With a large star shaped pastry tip, pipe a 2″ disc on to the parchment paper and pipe another layer on top to form a small peak. Repeat with the remaining meringue batter. (Makes about 26 cookies)
    5. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes and turn off the oven and let sit for 3 hours or until the meringues have dried out.
                      For the chocolate coating:
  1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler.
  2. Dip the meringue cookie into the chocolate (either just the bottom or half of the cookie) and set on parchment paper. Refrigerate until the chocolate has set.
Category: Carbs, Food Additives, Psychology of Eating, Sugar / Tags: , , , ,

Why I Eat Fat; Saturated Fat Is Validated AGAIN; and a Recipe

November 6, 2013 / / Comments Off on Why I Eat Fat; Saturated Fat Is Validated AGAIN; and a Recipe

debbie (44)I eat a pretty high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet.  Can I give you my Fitday breakdown?  No.  And I probably never will.  I counted calories and obsessed for YEARS.  All it did was make me crazy, and starving.  I learned about the dangers of carbs years ago when I read Protein Power and The Atkins Diet,  cutting back on bread and pasta wasn’t hard.  The reason for the craziness was that for a long time, I was Low Carb and Low Fat, because I believed that Fat Was Bad, and it would make me fat. That mantra had been drilled into my head.    Diet and low-carb “foods”, with plenty of vegetables and fruits on the side, were what I lived off of (during the week).  It kept my weight good ( weekday stringency combined with weekend binges), but I hated the binges, and the stomach aches, the nightly bloats,  and now looking back, my energy levels and moods were just okay.  A couple of years ago I dropped the “food products”, and incorporated fat, tons of it.  Literally, if my foods don’t haveIMG_2737 enough fat in them, I add it.  The results?  The most stable weight I’ve ever been (good bye binges), great energy, great mood, ( right Mark??), and ***a flat stomach that rarely ever bloats anymore.  I feel confident that I’m following a food plan that’s giving me Optimal Health and a Normal, Stable Weight, but I constantly run into or work with people who are deathly afraid of fat, and their fear is often compounded by their doctor’s 1970 advice to cut the fat.  Oh but the Tide is Turning  and I love it!

It seems like everyday there’s more scientific validation that Saturated Fat is healthy, and that decades of Main Stream Medical Advice has been Wrong.  If you have time to read a long article on some of the latest information, here’s a link to Dr. Mercola’s excellent post.  If you want the short version, here it is:  Saturated fat and Cholesterol have NEVER been conclusively linked to Heart Disease, ever.  When our Government decided to demonize fat, they relied on a study by Ancel Keys called the 7 Countries Study, which linked high levels of fat and cholesterol to heart disease.  The problem with using this as the basis of their Health Paradigm is:  There Were 22 Countries in the study – 15 of them didn’t fit the theory, so they were ignored.

Here’s a link to the British Medical Journal  that just published an article called “Saturated Fat is Not the Issue”.   Another testament to the power of High Fat – Low Carb, is that Sweden has developed NATIONAL DIETARY GUIDELINES proclaiming low fat diets not good for your health or waistlines,  and that High Fat diets  DO fight disease and obesity.   This was a total turn around from decades of previous dogma, which was pretty identical to our government/health care system dogma.  However, after reviewing 16,000 studies, the results were clear:  sugar and grains, (which break down to glucose and fructose), and trans fats are dangerous for your health and a disaster for weight loss; and Real Fats such as saturated fats and cholesterol, are  actually good for you.

Our body uses Healthy Fats to BUILD ITSELF.  Our brain is 60% fat, our heart, organs, and glands, are loaded with fat – on purpose by God.  Fat’s even part of our bones!    Fat doesn’t go rogue and clog our arteries.  That’s a really, really  incorrect picture.

What else is good about saturated fats?   They lower the bad, small LDL, and they raise HDL. They literally escort calcium and other minerals into bone to be assimilated.  They’re good for the liver’s health and actually protect the liver from NSAIDS and alcohol.     The surfactant of your lungs is lined with saturated fat; they contribute to proper nerve signaling, and several fatty acids have anti-viral/anti-bacterial properties that help the immune system.

The best thing about saturated fat?  Satiety.

before roastingLet me leave you with a recipe for Roasted Vegetable Soup, it’s delicious!  I’ve been making a version of this for the past year, never the same way twice, and it always comes out good.

Ingredients:  2 big sweet potatoes, a giant onion, a round squash, 3 big carrots, 1 big green, tart apple, 3 beets.  Scrub and cut everything but the squash into pieces.   Puncture the squash and roast it whole, scoop out the seeds after it  bakes.   I like to add a little water to the vegetables and cover with foil, that helps everything stay moist.   Bake at 425 for 40 minutes.   When it’s done, cool slightly; peel the skin off the squash, put all this into your food processor and blend til smooth.

Add the vegetables, about 6 cups of (any) broth, and a can of full fat coconut milk together in a big pot and start whisking, with the heat on medium high.    Next, whisk in 2 tablespoons coconut oil, 2 tsp sea salt, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ginger, 1tsp cloves, a couple pinches of curry powder ( we like heat).

I’ve used so many different vegetable combinations, and a few other fruits (pears and plantains), different spice mixes, different levels of heat, and every time it comes out good.  Oh!, I also added sausage.  Crispy bacon also rocks it.

What’s the message of the day?  Fat is Healthy.  Fat doesn’t make you Fat; sugars and grains make you fat, and unhealthy.  Read those last lines again:)   Off to practice yoga;  Make Good Choices!!

Category: Carbs, Fats, Sugar / Tags: , , , , , , ,
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