Tag Archive for Weston A Price Foundation

Weight Loss, Heart Disease, Sugar Addiction, Plus, How I Stopped My Cravings.

I received some good emails this week that I want to address in the blog.  In one, a 43 year old man described himself as diabetic, overweight, hypertensive ( high blood pressure ), and on a blood thinner (from thick, sticky, blood).  He needs help losing weight, and doesn’t understand why I would say he has Heart Disease.  He’s gained 14 pounds in the past month.

Another email was a plea for help with sugar addiction, from a woman who has chronic fatigue and depression to the point of not being able to get out of bed for 7 weeks.  She’s also gained 28 pounds since September.

While these 2 people seem to present different problems, honestly, their issues are the same:  they’re incredibly nutrient deficient; their cells haven’t received the vitamins, minerals, fats and proteins they need to function normally, and now their bodies are breaking down.

How can you be nutrient deficient and overweight?  Easy.  Just because our fat cells are stuffed, doesn’t mean we’re getting the nutrients our body needs to run correctly.

Imagine putting water in your car’s gas tank.  It’s a liquid.  The tank would be full, but it wouldn’t run. That’s not the right fuel for the car.

Sugar, grains, bad fats, and chemicals aren’t the right fuels for us. Food is medicine, or food is poison.  That stuff is poison and it’ll kill us eventually, after making us sick for years.

Resources and suggestions will be at the end of the Post, but first:

Robert wants to know why I said he has Heart Disease when his doctors have given his heart a clean bill of health.  I’m so glad he asked, because this applies to so many people.

The causes of Heart Disease are being re-identified by modern science.  Inflammation ( anywhere in the body ) that’s persistent or chronic ( i.e., not just a response to a cut or injury ) is damaging, and a huge cause of Heart Disease, the number one killer in the US.

Diabetes causes inflammation from high blood sugar and high insulin, that’s because blood sugar(glucose) and insulin do a lot of damage when they zip too long and too often through the blood stream. Diabetes causes heart disease.  Heart disease and stroke are the #1 cause of death among Type 2 Diabetics.  Think you’re okay because you’re on diabetes meds?  You’re not.  In the studies determining who died of what, the diabetics who died from heart disease were on meds.  Besides that, meds all come with a long and dangerous list of side effects.  Medications address symptoms – not causes.  Diabetes drugs cause pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, kidney problems and more.  These diseases take years to manifest, just like diabetes takes years to manifest, and while it’s “manifesting”, damage is happening.

Other clues to Robert having heart disease:  high blood pressure (HBP) and thick blood.  This means the arteries are either narrowed or stiff, which makes the heart pump harder, and thick blood is also harder for the heart to push around.  HBP is the #1 cause for Cardiovascular Disease.  Thick blood is on that list too.  Medications mask the symptoms, but the REASON for the symptom isn’t solved by meds, so the problems persist all the while the side effects of the medications are building.

Natasha, you ate a healthy diet and ran 20 miles a week before you fell ill.  I thought that I ate a healthy diet, but I still got blood clots, asthma, fatigue, and horrible IBS ( inflammatory bowel syndrome ). That’s because I actually just “dieted”:  low calorie, low fat foods, many of them processed.  Luckily for me, I’ve always eaten a lot of vegetables, and I’m going to assume you did too.  Unluckily for me, thanks to keeping my fat grams to 20 or less a DAY (except for the days I’d binge), I absorbed very little of the vitamins or minerals in those vegetables.  I also consumed an enormous amount of trans fats and hydrogenated oils in all my fake cheese and dairy products, protein bars, and frozen diet meals. To add insult to injury, I was a big “healthy whole grain” believer/ addict, and did my best to get the 6 to 12 daily servings our government recommended.

I was at a lecture yesterday by the Weston A Price foundation, and the speaker – Sally Fallon – called this kind of diet a Diabetes Starter Kit.  I love that!!

Anyway, Natasha’s struggle with fatigue and depression are the result of her brain, her heart, and her mitochondria/ fuel burners in her cells, NOT getting the fuel they need to function optimally.

Luckily, our body wants to be normal, and our cells are constantly renewing themselves.  For most of us, we can fix what’s wrong.  Robert and Natasha can. I did, you can too.  All we have to do is eat a diet that supplies the nutrients our body craves:  healthy fats, good proteins, tons of vegetables, some nuts and seeds, and a little fruit.  Whole fat dairy, preferably raw, if you tolerate it.

Try this:  Buy Kerry Gold Butter, a good Olive Oil, and unrefined Coconut Oil.  Start using these in Every Single Meal.  For me, this is the #1 key to stopping cravings, losing weight, and changing our cells for the better.  What do you have to lose???

Eggs/sausage/bacon/veggies for breakfast?  Fry them in 2 to 3 tablespoons of butter or coconut oil.  Or add Coconut oil to your smoothie.

Cover your lunch meats and veggies and cheeses with olive oil – and I mean cover.

Make sure every dinner is cooked or covered in these fats.

No more tiny meals either, on small plates with baby forks, THAT’S JUST DUMB. Small meals of insufficient calories slow down your thyroid, something NOT conducive to losing weight.  Use a grown up plate and eat a serving size that makes your brain relax and not go into starvation mode.

Make your own salad dressings, again, using those good fats.  Go through your pantry and THROW OUT all your crackers, cereal, breads, cookies, and junk food.  Anything “snackie”;  this might include NUTS.

Here’s my opinion on nuts (which I literally get asked at least once a week):  nuts have a TON of nutrients.  Unfortunately, for so many, they’re a trigger food, and most people, and ALL ADDICTS, can’t stop at a handful.  Trigger foods in your house will ALWAYS rule you, ALWAYS.  This is a fact, so get rid of your trigger foods today.

Make a shopping list, then shop, chop, prep, and do power cooking ( cook in big batches ) if you need too.  Take your weekly schedule into consideration when you make your list and then make a food plan of when and where and what you’re going to eat in the coming week.  Got a bunch of kid’s activities in the evening?  Put food in a crock pot that morning.  Need to pack lunches but know your morning is going to be rushed?  Do it the night before.  Bake 10 potatoes at one time and refrigerate them.  Make a batch of broth ( another great source of fats and nutrients ) and use that like water in your food all week.  Make and refrigerate chili’s or stews or soups, their flavors intensify after a few days.

The more attention you give to making Real Whole Food work in your daily life, the easier it gets, and the healthier – and leaner – you get.  You can do this.  I met a woman yesterday who, at age 55, lost 70 pounds by switching to Real Whole Foods, and she’s kept if off for 8 years.  After years of dieting, she now eats a ton of fat and is thin.

You can be too, I promise.  Please investigate the resources below; fill your mind with the why’s and how-to’s of feeding your body the nutrients it needs to remake and repair itself every single day.

http://www.rocksolidnutritionandwellness.com/want-to-lose-weight-reduce-inflammation-gain-energy-and-look-younger/

http://www.heartmdinstitute.com/health-topics/heart-disease/424-heart-disease-risks-is-your-doctor-covering-your-bases

http://www.rocksolidnutritionandwellness.com/fat-makes-us-lean-fat-makes-us-smart-fat-gives-us-energy-step-out-of-1980-and-into-2015/

http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/?s=heart+disease

http://www.drugwatch.com/2014/05/12/increasing-side-effects-diabetes-drugs/

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/

Fat makes us Lean, Fat makes us Smart, Fat gives us Energy. Step out of 1980 and into 2015.

20150201_071721These candies have 2 names: Fat Bombs and Brain Candy; and OMGosh are they delicious, and easy!  Scared of the them?  Thinking that maybe a low calorie treat would be better for your weight?  You’re wrong.  After this recipe, I’ll tell you why.  Here’s the ingredients:

1/4 c coconut butter
1/2 c coconut oil
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 heaping spoonful of Nuttzo/favorite nut butter
a few turns of your salt shaker
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 TBSP of MCT oil (not crucial to flavor, just for brain)
Heat gently then whisk in
2 TBSP  SWERVE – confectioners kind (if you only have granulated, run it thru your coffee grinder to make it powdery)
Or use stevia ( big dropper full)  after it’s cooled for a moment and off the burner.   Pour into mini muffin cups and freeze.
More recipes at the end of the Post.

We’ve all heard that EATING FAT MAKES US FAT, and CHOLESTEROL IS BAD BECAUSE IT CAUSES HEART DISEASE. The science disputing these false premises has never been louder or more clear, yet it’s hard to change course.

I’m telling, you need to change course. Now. Our bodies want and need fat and cholesterol to thrive.  Healthy fat makes a healthy body; healthy bodies are healthy weights.  Here’s a short science list, followed with recipe inspiration. The more we know, the less stressful good choices become.

1) fat and cholesterol make up the cell membrane of every single cell in our body

2) fat and cholesterol make all our sex and adrenal hormones

3) fat and cholesterol make up about 60% of the dry matter of the brain

4) cholesterol is an anti-oxidant and a healing molecule

5) there’s a direct link between low cholesterol and suicide, depression, and violence

6) saturated fats allow minerals to be absorbed into our bones

7) fats are an essential part of our immune system

8) fats have anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties

9) fats allow fat soluble vitamins (A,D,E,K) to be absorbed and used

10) Pretty skin, good hair, great energy – FAT FAT FAT.

That part’s easy to absorb; this isn’t: when you eat MORE fat, and nix the grains and sugars, you get leaner and leaner and healthier and healthier. When you eat MORE fat, and nix the grains and sugars, your appetite becomes normal, and being controlled by hunger is a thing of the past.

I emphasized the “MORE” part because for many, that’s what’s missing. It’s not enough to just eat a bunch of vegetables and lean proteins with a drizzle of olive oil. You’ll still be hungry because you’re skimping on a key constituent of your bodies make-up:  fat.

Mark and I, and our daughters, are amazed at how much fat we eat (in the absence of grains) without gaining weight.  I can’t say we eat like Grandma ate, because Grandma only ate seasonally and locally and didn’t have near the options we do.  But Grandma would LOVE the food in our house, because it’s just Real Whole Food, with a ton of vegetables and fats, good meats, a little fruit, and some nuts and seeds.

Eating Real Whole Food with a lot of fat satisfies – physiologically and mentally – our body and our brain.

Here’s some of our meals from this past week:

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Twice Baked Potatoes:  bake whole at 425 for an hour/til soft, scoop out, and in a bowl mix the potato with broth and butter.  Put that back in the skin and flatten with the back of a spoon.  Top with sausage or bacon ( I did both), onions, chopped kale, garlic, oregano, tomatoes, and more cheese.  Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.  These keep in the fridge perfectly for about 5 days and are easy to reheat.

MOMS:  kids LOVE these.

YES, these are white potatoes.  They’re not the devil unless you’re pre-diabetic or diabetic.

 

 

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This is Nameless:  mushrooms, garlic, and onions sautéed in 2 cups of broth and 6 tbsp of butter w Italian herbs, cauliflower, 3 left over meatballs, collards, and bacon – this was delicious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Right here you’re looking at all the ingredients for Kale Chips:  about a quarter of the bag of kale (remove all the big stems), massage (with your hands) on: 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 to 1 tsp of garam marsala, 1/2 tsp of salt, and a sprinkle of pepper.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, then turn the oven to 170 and let them stay in there for about an hour, longer if you can.  Shelby eats this whole thing by herself, with it resting on her lap. She’s amazing.  She eats with one hand and texts with the other.               20150126_174444

Finished Product

 

 

 

I get emails all the time about not being able to stick to a healthy eating plan, questions about tricks and secrets to keep on track.

Here’s my answer:  Add Fat now.  Force yourself to drop your fear of fat.  Make yourself act and think differently.  Grab ahold of your thoughts.  Read the following links for more science:

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/the-skinny-on-fats/

http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-diseases/beyond-cholesterol/

http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Fat-Surprise-Healthy/dp/1451624425

How to make bone broth for your recipes:http://www.rocksolidnutritionandwellness.com/working-man-parts-weight-loss-youthful-skin-joint-pain-what-do-they-have-in-common-they-all-benefit-from-bone-broth-and-gelatin/

Meal Ideas, Food Pics, and Butter Facts

How bout some Fun Facts about Butter before I show more Food Pictures?  Good butter is definitely a “Real Whole Food”, one that’s been used by traditional, healthy cultures for thousands of years.  Between 1920 and 1960, heart disease skyrocketed to the number one cause of death in the U.S.  Butter consumption, between 1920 and 1960, plummeted from 18 lbs per person, per year, to 4 lbs per person, per year.  Look at those numbers again and ask yourself where our Health Gurus got the idea that Butter is Bad, and a cause of heart disease.

Butter is loaded with the fat-soluble vitamins, A,D, E, and K, in their most usable and absorbable forms.  These vitamins support the Thyroid gland, the Heart, the Immune System, and several other places in our body.  Vitamin A and D are critical for the absorption of calcium, and vitamin K2 (which the cows make in their stomachs from the K1 in grass) is critical for making sure the calcium goes into the bones and teeth, where it belongs, and not in the arteries, the eyes, the joints, etc, where calcium doesn’t belong.  Butter’s a good source of iodine; it also contains short and medium chain fatty acids that have strong anti-bacterial/anti-viral properties.

Butter from cows raised on grass is much more nutrient dense than butter from grain fed cows.  Interestingly, the vitamin D levels in the butterfat are actually reflective of how much sunlight the cows get, just like us!

And finally, butter doesn’t make you gain weight.  Your body uses and utilizes the nutrients (all the fats and vitamins) butter provides.  Any spare tires around your middle are usually the result of grains, hydrogenated oils, excess sugar, and chemicals masquerading as food products.   Your body USES the nutrients from Real Whole Food to build and to repair.

That said, we eat a lot of butter in this house, mostly Kerry Gold, and sometimes I make it from cream I get at my dairy.  Want to make vegetables taste great?  Add butter.  Even the pickiest eater will cave.

Ready to switch gears to Food Ideas:  here’s some meals from the past couple of days:

smoothie ingredTo the left: ingredients that went into a morning smoothie:  whole, raw milk; egg yolks and an egg, frozen spinach, frozen bananas, frozen cranberries, chia seeds, clove oil, cinnamon and nutmeg, frozen avocado chunks, frozen shredded ginger, cocoa powder, and stevia (which I forgot to put in the picture).frozen fruit

I always use frozen fruit and frozen greens instead of ice.  Here’s a pic: frozen oranges, bananas, blueberries, and cranberries.

chicken lunchOver to the left is one of my lunches:  left over chicken, carrots, brussels, onions, with sea kelp flakes and a plop of fermented beets that I got at Wegmans in the “healthy aisle”.  Got to get in your bacteria!

Here’s some peanut butter/almond butter cookies, the basic pb cookiesrecipe is from Elana’s Pantry, but I’ve messed with it.  I only use butter in cookies, even when it calls for coconut oil, bc I like the taste better.  I doubled the recipe, and used half chunky peanut butter and half chunky almond butter. And where she uses honey, I use Swerve – I LOVE that stuff!

Okay, I’m going to throw out something some of you may think is weird, and I’ve debated about disclosing this, but the last picture is my crock of Kombucha.  If you’re not already drinking it, surely you’ve seen bottles of Kombucha in the store?  It’s fermented tea, and to ferment, it needs bacteria, actually, it needs kombuchaa SCOBY which means Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast.  That’s what the yucky thing on top it.  Before you think that’s going to far, know this, we have over 100 TRILLION bacteria cells in our body. We’re supposed to have 3-5 POUNDS of bacteria just in our colon alone (party trivia fact)!  Current science has shown that we’ve really done an awful job maintaining and nurturing our bacterial “Micro-biome”, and we’re paying for in weak immune systems, mental problems, heart disease, skin issues, and I could go on and on.  Know this:  we need as much good bacteria as we can get, and homemade Kombucha is a traditional food/drink that’s been used since 212BC to do just that.

That’s it for now.  You can see why I don’t get hungry between meals, I eat too much fat and too many nutrients for that to happen.  Eating Real Whole Food everyday can be challenging at first if you’ve had years of fast, easy, thoughtless Processed Food.  Honestly though, a few weeks of effort in planning, shopping, cooking and packing, and it’s not an effort anymore, it’s a habit.  You’ll think differently, and what starts as hard becomes easy and normal.  I promise.  Nurture your body, give it what it needs to be healthy, to feel energetic, to stay well.  Your weight will normalize, your moods will stabilize, you’ll be stronger, less prone to illness, and if you start cooking for your family, your children will reap those same benefits.  Our body is made from trillions of cells that get made out of the foods we eat.  It matters what those foods are.  Be a Real Whole Foodie.