Tag Archive for carbs

Amanda’s Journey; Sleep Deprivation and Carb Cravings

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?

 

Change Your Body By Changing Your Thoughts, and a LHBI

You really can’t change your body without changing your thoughts. If your thoughts about food have been dominated by Calories and Fat Grams, then you’ve probably either been in a yo-yo weight pattern, or a gaining pattern, or you’re always hungry. Because thinking of food in terms of Calories and Fat is NEVER a winning, healthy, long term strategy. (70% of Americans are overweight, and Diet Foods are a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry.)
It’s the INGREDIENTS in our food, and the amount of SUGAR/CARBOHYDRATES that have the biggest impact on your hormones, your mood, your willpower, and your hunger. Here’s what I mean.

juice bottlesLook at Odwalla Juices, which you’ll find in the healthy section of your grocery store.
Wow, their Website looks Natural!! They’ve got soft colors, what looks to be hand-drawn leaves and flowers, and you can even help them Plant Trees for the Environment. You have to keep their juices refrigerated, and they have little “gluten free” signs on their bottles. Surely this would be a healthy food for you or your kids? A Real Whole Food??
I pulled out 10 different product lists, some of which had 16 ingredients, and they all contain HUGE amounts of carbohydrate. 43 grams/bottle, 30 grams/bottle, 28 grams/bottle, and so on.

All Carbs Become Sugar/Glucose In the Body. Period. Always. Carbs are Sugar/Glucose. So under the Carbohydrate line in the ingredient list, where it has a sub catagory for sugar, DISREGARD that line. It’s deceiving. All Carbs Become Sugar In the Body.
4 grams of Carbohydate equals 1 Teaspoon of sugar. Our body can handle about 2 teaspsoons of Sugar in the Blood before the pancreas has to spit out Insulin and do Damage Control.
I’ll go into this further later, but for now know this: All Excess Sugar/Carb/Blood Glucose gets remade into Triglycerides and deposited in the midriff area. Plus, this amount of sugar leads to a blood sugar high, and a blood sugar drop.
High Blood Sugar and High Insulin do a lot of damage to every area of the body: your brain, your organs, your hormones, your extremities, your eyes, your arteries.
Lots more on Blood Sugar later.
Let’s examine a FEW of the many ingredients on the ingredient lists. Soy Protein, and Soy Protein Isolate: soy is usually GMO and always a Phytoestrogen, – no one needs phytoestrogens!!! Not males, and not females. Think excess female hormones, thyroid problems, and cancer. “Invert Cane Sugar” is on several lists, that’s just Sugar. Tricalcium phosphate is on several lists, which is listed on the Hazaradous Chemical Data base as having possible side effects of irritation to the skin, eyes, lungs, and gastrointestional tract. There’s also plenty of “added” vitamins. If they’re ADDED, they’ve usually been synthesized in a factory. As opposed to Real Vitamins and Minerals and PhytoNutrients that are Naturally contained within Real Whole Foods. The ability of the body to absorb and use Real nutrients as opposed to Synthetic nutrients is very different.
The bottom line is, if you want some fruit, grab an apple or a banana, or some strawberries.
Let’s go back to my subject line: you can’t make a physical change without making a mental change. If you’ve been struggling with your weight or your health, and thinking of food in terms of just calories and fat, it’s kept you in your holding pattern. Thinking of food in terms of Real, and Whole, and Nutrients will make you Healthy. Leanness is a Side Effect of being Healthy.