Tag Archive for wheat belly blog

Do You Suffer With Headaches or Migraines? Here’s Some Tips:)

st thomasConfession: Headaches and Migraines aren’t an issue I’ve struggled with very much.  Until 3 years ago, I’d only had 2 migraines, and a handful of headaches.  Then Menopause hit, or rather the tail end of Peri Menopause, and wow, I got a serious taste of some serious headaches.

For me, it was a matter of getting my hormones tested, and getting on some bio-identical estrogen and progesterone for a year. The headaches stopped immediately.  After a year, I went off both because subsequent testing showed that my hormones levels had gone from way too low to way too high.  I went cold turkey on the hormones out of fear, got on some great herbs, and all was well,…for a while.  Then the headaches came back.

A hormone test (January 2015) showed that my high levels had plummeted way back down to those of old Mother Hubbard, so this time I went on a natural progesterone cream(February, 2015), and added flax (oil and seed) very consistently to my diet to up my estrogen level naturally.  I’m due for another test soon, and I’ll let you know what my results are, but I haven’t had a headache since February.

Point of my story:  my headaches were hormone related.

What causes yours and what can you do about them?  You’re gonna need to put on your detective hat, because this is a condition that has so many causes and triggers.  Drugs are a bandaid at best, as they often don’t even work well with migraines; they don’t eliminate the cause of the pain, and they come with too many side effects to ignore.

Those side effects are real and scary. It’s worth the time and effort to figure out your migraine and headache causes, and then experiment with different solutions.

You already have my hormone/headache story. If your headaches are completely centered around your cycle, no matter your age, then you can assume it has something to do with your hormones.  This doesn’t mean – at all – that you need to start taking hormones!  That’s something for you and your doctor to figure out.

There’s other responses that could be triggering the headache (and cravings and PMS too):  low B vitamins, and low magnesium.  Both of which get depleted during our period. (or I should say, your period) B6 and B12 are the most commonly sited Bs when it comes to our hormones shifting and symptoms, but I recommend a good B Complex to every woman I work with.  Magnesium too; as a matter of fact, Magnesium deficiency is very common.  Studies show that at least 56% of our population is Magnesium deficient,  but my point with Magnesium and female cycles, is that it’s easy to become deficient right before your period, even if you aren’t usually.

So B vitamins and Magnesium, recommendations 1 and 2.  (These are the 2 supplements I have my girls on.)

Next, look at your life style patterns.  Do you sleep enough?  Do you drink alcohol?  What drugs are you on? Trigger, trigger, trigger.

Here’s a biggie:  do you eat gluten, or a high refined carbohydrate diet? Both can be HUGE headache/migraine triggers. For a one stop shop on this, check out the Wheat Belly blog.

MSG, artificial colors, flavor enhancers, histamine containing foods, artificial sweeteners, these can all be triggers.

Even healthy foods can trigger headaches for certain people; foods like eggs, dairy, nuts, …..pretty common allergens, and allergens can cause headaches.

One of my favorite go-to’s is America’s Pharmacist, Suzy Cohen.  That woman’s awesome, and prolific with both her free advice and books, so let’s start there.

Resources:  Her book, called Headache Free.  A podcast where she dispenses all sorts of great advice, here.   Her response to a question about tension headaches, here.  Her blog, here. And finally, a great article kind of wrapping up a whole bunch of her advice on headaches, here.

One last trick to try when it comes to headaches, a Liver Detox.  If you work with me, you know that I believe in always “loving my liver”.  I’m constantly taking dandelion or milk thistle, or doing a Biotics liver detox or taking Herb Pharm Liver tincture.  I also make sure to eat plenty of liver loving foods every single day.

If our liver is so overwhelmed with chemicals and toxins and sludge from high fructose corn syrup or trans fats or SUGAR, then of course it’s unable to perform perfectly.  One of the results from that would be toxins circulating through our brain and causing headaches.

If you think this might be your problem, get in touch with me.

You don’t have to suffer!  What I said in the beginning is true:  become a detective.  Headache meds are band aides with side effects.  Figure out your causes, and then work on natural and healthy ways to eliminate them.

86% of our health care expenses are spent on Life Style Diseases, like headaches and migraines.  That’s actually great news, because we can fix our life style and positively effect our health.

Have a wonderful day!

Cereal Stumbling Blocks, and Recipes

Wow!  My little post on Thomas English Muffins struck several nerves – good!  It’s pretty eye opening when you realize that food you’ve put in your body for (decades?) years, and are now feeding your kids, is toxic sludge that’s setting you up for disease.  And weight gain.  And depression.

Let’s look at a few more products that are pretty embedded as healthy breakfast options, and examine their ingredients.

Total-Blueberry-Pomegranate-750General Mills Total Blueberry Pomegranate 100% Nutrition Cereal

Oh good grief. 100% Nutrition? Are you kidding?  By the way, 3/4 cup of this stuff is 100 calories, and 0 fat – it’s a Dieter’s Dream! Plus look: it’s healthy!  There’s Blueberry and Pomegranate, which we all know from Dr. Oz are really good for us, and it’s America’s #1 Source of Whole Grain.

Just kidding, there’s no actual fruit, they just concoct a smell and taste effect fromwheat chemicals, and there’s no actual “Whole Grain”.  Here’s what a whole grain of wheat looks like:

See the first 7 ingredients listed?  Ingredients are listed in the order of their predominance; this means that the first 7 ingredients in this cereal are SIMPLE SUGARS.  There’s no complex carbs here that might take a while to break down and slowly seep from your small intestine to your blood stream.  There’s a bunch of Simple Sugars that your body (or your child’s) will have no problem quickly breaking down to glucose (bc it’s so highly processed), shooting through the intestine wall, into your blood steam, creating high blood sugar, the resultant insulin reaction, and then inflammation, glycation, brain fog, and finally, low blood sugar fatigue and hunger.

All the chemicals, many of which are linked to cancer and behavior problems, will go to your liver, as that’s one of it’s jobs: break down chemicals and dispose of them.  Your liver has around 500 jobs.  It’s actually the BIGGEST PIECE OF OUR DAILY METABOLISM, around 50/60% of our total daily calorie burn.  What do you think happens to your liver, or your child’s, when it’s hampered from it’s duties because it’s trying to breakdown and dispose of Red dye 40, Blue dye 2, “and other color”?

Notice there’s also Sucralose.  Ugh.  Remember that from the Thomas English Muffins?  It kills beneficial gut bacteria, it causes migraines and headaches, it raises blood sugar, it’s highly linked to cancer.

All those vitamins and minerals on the list:  They’re Added in, let’s be very clear that they’re in NO WAY a natural part of this cereal.  Anything of nutritional value was destroyed in processing the wheat, the barley, the sugars, the rice, and the corn.  Destroyed.  Those synthetic vitamins and minerals you see listed were manufactured in China (that’s where most cheap vitamins and minerals come from now) and added to the cereal.  Trust me, those are rarely EVER the body’s preferred forms of those vitamins and minerals. Ever.

Now I’m going to expose a Dieter’s Dirty Little Secret.  Cereal like this isn’t just for kids; adults eat it too, often times for dinner, or after dinner snacks.  HELLO STOMACH BLOAT:)  Wheat/carb products like this are incredibly addictive.  Remember the link to Dr. Davis’s site, Wheatbellyblog, he does a great job of breaking down the science of gliadian proteins, their opiate effects, and the resultant appetite stimulate they cause.

What are some good alternatives to Cereal?  There’s plenty, and I’ll list them below, but a few more words about Cereal and how it’s a very common “stumbling block” food.

I get questions all the time asking me how to lose weight.  Many of the people who ask this are highly, highly addicted to both whole grains and simple sugars, and when it comes down to it, they have a really hard time thinking of giving them up.  So don’t focus on that.  Don’t focus on what you can’t have and how sad it makes you feel.  Focus instead on the nutrients in your food, what exactly those nutrients OR ANTI NUTRIENTS are doing in your body, and ASK YOURSELF THIS:  If I eat this, how will I feel in ONE hour:  Not even thinking about food?  Stuffed?  Depressed? Hating myself? Bloated? On to the next project? Level? In a Tailspin?  HINT:  An hour after you eat, you shouldn’t even be thinking about your meal; that would mean you ate healthy food that satiated you, and your digestion worked perfectly.  You can MOVE ON.

If that’s not your reality, try to not be so mindless about eating, which is hard if you’ve got an addiction.  Addictions highjack your brain neurons, make them throb and pulse and send signals that compel you to dig in.  If you’re addicted, make a promise to yourself that at least you won’t keep cereal, crackers, pretzels, chips, bagged cookies, and other hand-to-mouth munchie/easy/brainless foods in your house.  Start there.  What about the kids and their need for snacks?  THEY DON’T NEED THIS POISON, AND THEY DON’T NEED TO FIRMLY ESTABLISH MINDLESS MUNCHING IN THE LITTLE BRAINS. Why set them up for a life time of struggle? They’ll not only live if you get that stuff out of your house, they’ll actually thrive.  So will you.  You can do this!  Pledge today that you’re on your way to being a Real Whole Foodie.  Now for the Breakfast Ideas:

1. meat and cheese roll ups

2. eggs scrambled in butter/coconut oil, veggies added or not

3. nitrate free sausages and bacon

4. assorted smoothies:

Wheat Withdrawl Zinger, Dr. Davis;  Elana’s Pantry Smoothie list

5. paleo pancakes ( make a big batch and freeze the leftovers for another morning)

6. apricot power bars  ( love Elana’s Pantry!!!)

7. egg cups  ( super fast to reheat; great for “on the road”)

 

Looks Heathy But Isn’t; Two Good Bread Recipes

I get to do a “Looks Healthy But Isn’t”! So excited! Got a great email asking my opinion on breads; as in, if I HAD to feed one to my kids, wouldn’t whole wheat at least be best?  (I don’t think she’s read my blog – but I hope she starts!)  I’ve got to answer here, because I know this will interest other people, especially busy people who turn to processed food for convenience, and people who are completely convinced that bread is a biblically mandated food item.  It’s not.  If you’re feeding your kids most of the breads on the market, you’re honestly feeding them a crappy, chemical, sugar concoction that contains indigestible proteins that will affect their behavior negatively, their gut negatively, their weight, their hormones, their skin, and I could go on and on and on.

Here’s an ingredient list of Thomas Whole Wheat English Muffins:

english muffins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whole wheat bread has this weird halo above it, as if we’ll all be thin and healthy if we eat it.  Look at these ingredients.  Do you honestly think there won’t be repercussions from that stuff? Here’s a few ingredient breakdowns:  azodicarbonamide:   Azodicarbonamide is manufactured by the reaction of dihydrazine sulfate and urea under high temperature and pressure. The product of this reaction is then oxidized using sodium chlorate and centrifuged to yield a slurry containing azodicarbonamide. The slurry is washed to remove impurities and dried to obtain the azodicarbonamide powder. This is then micronized to a fine powder before packaging. This product is banned in Europe and Australia because:  it’s killed dogs in experiments, many links to asthma and skin problems, and is found to be a mutagen to bacteria,    Sucralose:  kills beneficial gut bacteria, highly linked with migraines and headaches, causes cramping and intestinal discomfort, raises blood and has many links to cancer. Carmel Coloring:  caramel coloring is created by heating ammonia and is considered a carcinogen when created this way. Calcium Propinate linked to irritability, restlessness, inattention, and sleep disturbance in children. The Ecologist Online claims that it is linked to allergic reactions in bakery workers.

That’s gross.  These are NORMAL ingredients in Normal (processed) foods.  If you eat these, or feed these to your children, you’re creating a disease state in the body.  I really believe that.  Our body uses the food we eat to make ALL OF OUR CELLS.  We are what we eat. The average disease takes about 20 years to manifest. This stuff is poison.

What about the effects of blood sugar with an english muffin? It would be different for everyone, depending on the shape of their pancreas and liver, and how readily their muscle cells uptake glucose, but even if everything’s working well, this is a big hit. Dieters love english muffins because they’re low cal/low fat. ( 120 calories, 1 gram of fat).  Big deal.  There’s 23 grams of sugar in them.  The label says “sugar – 2 g.”,  that’s ADDED sugar.  LOOK AT THE TOTAL CARB COUNT BECAUSE THAT’S ALL THAT COUNTS.  ALL CARBS BREAK DOWN TO EITHER GLUCOSE OR FRUCTOSE.  ALL OF THEM.  That’s the job of our digestive system: break all carbs down to single molecule sugars, and there’s only two, glucose or fructose.  They both wreck havoc on our body.   Ignore everything you’ve ever heard about Whole Wheat being good for you.  The glycemic index of Whole Wheat is actually WORSE than white flour! Honest!  This means that the speed with which it can go from mouth, to stomach, to small intestine to blood stream ( causing a big blood sugar rise), is super quick.  That’s NEVER good.  Hormonal disaster.  Avoid it.

Next, let’s talk about the ANTI-NUTRIENTS in wheat, and I’m going to quote from the Wheat Belly blog (you should check it out!) :

“–Gliadin–While some gliadin is degraded to small peptides that act as opiates on the human brain, a substantial proportion of gliadin remains undigested. The intact, undigested form is the form that initiates the zonulin mechanism that increases intestinal permeability, the first step in generating the diseases of autoimmunity.
–Wheat germ agglutinin (WGA)–The complex, 4-part protein present in wheat, rye, barley, and rice is completely indigestible. WGA that enters the mouth comes out the back end–except for the small quantity that penetrates intestinal barriers, causing direct intestinal toxicity and entering the bloodstream to activate antibodies, mimic insulin, and block leptin (the hormone of satiety).
–Trypsin inhibitors–Trypsin inhibitors block–no surprise–trypsin, a protein required for protein digestion. This further reduces the digestibility of grain proteins, a fact that organizations, such as the World Health Organization, grapples with when starving nations are fed grains but then struggle with malnutrition despite the calories.

There is a digestible component of wheat and the seeds of other grasses: the amylopectin A carbohydrate, highly susceptible to digestion by the amylase enzyme of saliva and stomach. This explains why two slices of whole wheat bread raise blood sugar higher than six teaspoons of table sugar. ”

Really, between the chemical ingredients and the simple sugars and the toxic proteins and the opiate/addictive properties of wheat, why would you feed this to your kids or eat it yourself?  And before you write me off as an extremist, ask yourself, what is making cancer rates rise every year, what’s making heart disease rates rise every year, what’s making autism rates rise every year, what’s making asthma rise every year, what’s making weight, auto-immune disease, diabetes, lyme, neurological disorders, rise every year?  It’s the NORMAL every day foods that pervade our lives.  Read the ingredient list again, please, wrap your mind around the fact that our government is in bed with big business and neither cares one bit about our health and well-being.  This is all about money.  Thomas English Muffins racks up 500 MILLION ANNUALLY in sales.   That’s a lot of money!  Please don’t think they’re the only bad bread;  these are very common ingredients in a whole bunch of different processed foods.  These chemicals and this level of simple carb is NORMAL.

Back to the question, what breads do I feed my kids?  Grain free breads, I’ve become pretty good at them (that’s what practice does – makes you good at things).  Here’s two recipes that are big hits at our house:

Coconut Flour Biscuits
Ingredients
3/4 cup Coconut Flour
1 stick Butter, softened but not melted
4 eggs
1/2 -1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
Put all ingredients into medium sized bowl and mix well with immersion blender or hand mixer until well incorporated
Using your hands, carefully form into nine small balls and mash each one down with a spoon to make it about ½ inch thick.
Bake for 12-15 minutes until just starting to brown.

We also make this: Coconut Flour Bread

Ingredients
¼ cup flax meal
½ cup filtered water
¾ cup coconut flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
4 eggs
½ cup coconut oil ( I always use butter – I like the taste better in baked goods)
1 Tablespoon raw honey
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
Instructions
In a small bowl, combine the flax meal and water. Set aside for 10 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously grease a loaf pan with coconut oil.
In a food processor, combine the coconut flour, baking soda and salt. Add the eggs, coconut oil, honey, flax mixture and vinegar.
Transfer the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, until a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about an hour before slicing.