Tag Archive for Gluten Free Foods

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.

More Gluten Free Summit Snipits, and a Focus Reminder

gluten e summitThe Gluten E Summit continues to impress, if you haven’t registered, it’s not too late, there’s still 3 more full days of FREE lectures by doctors and researchers who are at the top of the game when it comes to Preventative and Functional Medicine.   Dr. O Bryan, who’s at the helm of all this, has created a listening ability to access each of the lectures right through your email.  If you don’t have Stitcher or iTunes, that’s okay, you don’t need them.  Just click on the link and listen in your car, your home, the gym, where ever.

Here’s some highlights from the past couple of days:

“Main stream medicine does NOT have a monopoly on knowledge” ( this from Dr. Natasha, who has TWO MDs)

“Fat makes you thin, and Sugar/Glucose makes you fat.”  (all carbohydrates break down to glucose)

Two slices of Whole Wheat bread have more glucose and will raise your blood sugar HIGHER than Two Tablespoons of Sugar.  ( whole wheat’s not the health food it’s cracked up to be)

Gluten-Free Foods are a BIG PROBLEM.  They’re made with high glycemic flours (rice flour gluten free mini browniesshoots blood sugar up quicker than wheat flour), sugar, and chemicals.   They’re usually just another processed food.    (from me:  if you go Gluten Free, let it mean Real Whole Foods)

Gluten Free = Gluten Free.  Microscopic amounts of Gluten trigger the same Immune Response that large amounts do.

“Removing gluten is NOT Alternative/Functional/Holistic medicine;  it’s good medicine backed solidly by Science.”

Put Gluten and Sugar together ( for example, in a processed food like crackers, cereal, bagels…), and you’ve got the perfect storm for Addiction.  Chemicals are triggered that are “opioid-like”;capn crunch  the same areas of the brain that respond to drugs and alcohol light up.  Why set your kids up for a life time of the same battles you’re fighting, or worse?

“It’s become NORMAL to start the day with dessert: cereal, danishes, bagels;  this matters because Food is Information, and the information anyone gets from those kinds of foods is All Bad”

Everyone who lectures reminds us that reactions to Gluten don’t just happen in the Gut.  As a matter of fact, around 70% of all reactions happen in places OTHER THAN THE GUT:  the brain, the cardiovascular system, the joints, and the skin.  Several Neurologists who’ve spoken say that Gluten Sensitivity is responsible for a large portion of Parkinson’s, Bells Palsy, Shaking, Migraines, etc.    Our food has consequences!

And my favorite quote of the day:  “Your Body Is NOT a Math Equation (calories in calories out doesn’t work), It’s a Chemical Reaction.”   The food we eat triggers hormones, and they determine whether we store fat or burn fat.

throw bread awayWhich leads right into our Change Effort that I’m running through January:  Most negative thoughts about your body lead to a plan to reduce calories through diet or burn more calories through exercise.  None of this works:  not the negative thoughts, and not the diet and exercise program (that’s the calories in – calories out paradigm).   Check the statistics:  almost 100% of everyone who loses weight on a “diet” gains it back.  Want real change?  Change Your Thoughts!!!  Quit focusing on what you don’t like about yourself ( your thighs, your stomach, your weight), and start focusing on being a better person, having a kinder heart, fostering better relationships.  Use the Mantra “I practice being kind, not right.”

As for really changing your body?  Start thinking of Food in terms of the Effects it has on your hormones:  carbs encourage you to store body fat through the hormone Insulin; and the main two components that build your body structurally are Fat and Protein.  Feed your body what it takes to run beautifully, and be beautiful.  Eat Real Whole Foods.  Work on being in charge of your thoughts.  Our food matters, and our thoughts matter.  We have so much power, control, and choice over our life! There’s some people who climb into little boxes and stay there for days, they will their Respiratory System and Cardiovascular System to slow down – just to prove they can.  These people aren’t magic, they’re focused;  you can focus too!  Start practicing now and change will happen.     “I practice being kind, not right.”