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Addicted to Food?

Are you addicted and don’t know it? From time to time, we all stray off of our normal ‘healthy’ or weight loss diet. It’s not a big deal unless you have trouble getting back on track…

Are you addicted and don’t know it?

From time to time, we all stray off of our normal ‘healthy’ or weight loss diet. It’s not a big deal unless you have trouble getting back on track. Did you know you can have hidden addictions to foods that you eat on a regular basis? These addictions can be as strong as nicotine to a smoker or heroin to a junkie.

For most people, it’s foods containing sugar, grains (especially wheat), and dairy products. While these foods seem to be everywhere, they are also actually highly addictive. And don’t be fooled for a second in thinking that food manufacturers don’t know this little factoid, and do their best to put sugar, wheat and dairy in as many things as they can.

These foods can stimulate opiate-like receptors in the brain, and your body actually responds to these foods just as it would heroin or morphine. The opiate-like ingredients in dairy and wheat are proteins, which coincidentally are also known to be highly allergenic. In dairy, that protein is casein, and in wheat, it is gluten.

These proteins trigger the release of exorphins (very similar to endorphins) that go straight to the brain and create a feeling of instant comfort and pleasure. Think of all the combinations of dairy and wheat that people love and consider as comfort foods, or foods they can’t live without: macaroni and cheese, pizza, bagels and cream cheese, cookies and milk, grilled cheese sandwiches, and on and on.

Are sugar, wheat and dairy your weakness? Think about it. Maybe you weren’t even aware of that addiction.

The tough thing about straying off your diet and eating foods with wheat, dairy or sugar makes it especially difficult to get back on track. You become addicted. And just like the heroin junkie who thinks he can have “just a little”—once you’re off track, it becomes exceptionally difficult to break free from these foods’ grasp.

The interesting thing about wheat and dairy is that most often if you find you have a hard time living without, or staying away from these foods, you most likely are allergic to those proteins—the gluten and the casein. And I don’t mean the kind of allergy that makes you break out in hives, and or makes your throat swell, but it is often an allergy, nonetheless.

What do these allergic reactions cause? Inflammation in the form of stuff like bloating, weight gain, (usually excess water) stomachaches, sinus and nasal drainage, earaches, irritability, depression, fatigue, brain fog, ADHD, acne, joint pain, headaches….and non-stop eating.

This vicious cycle of allergy and addiction can interfere with digestion and your body’s ability to extract nutrients from food. It also affects the immune system, helping to magnify allergies, and weaken it’s defense system, so you become more susceptible to viruses, bacteria, and yeast overgrowth.

Ironically, the very foods that you just cannot live without are usually the same foods that cause some of the worst reactions, and cause you to overeat. So you are caught in an allergy-addiction cycle.

Think about it.

Have you ever eaten a bowl of cereal and as you are eating it, you get hungrier and hungrier? Next thing you know you’ve eaten three bowls of cereal. Have you ever said, “I just can’t live without my bagels? Or “My pasta”? You need bread and butter at every meal, or just can’t stop when you eat crackers and cheese? Is your favorite comfort food ice cream or pudding?

Take a look at what you are eating…addiction often lurks in your daily habits.

Does this mean you’re weak? Do you lack willpower? No. It’s just that these addictive substances are wreaking their havoc on you and your best laid dietary plans.

Many ‘diets’ actually contain a built-in plan to fail if they contain dairy, wheat or sugar. How many times have you heard the standard “Eat whole grains and lots of dairy” instruction? Some of the most popular diet plans like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig all contain moderate amounts of the big three addictive allergens—wheat, dairy, and sugar. This should come as no surprise. They want consumers to keep coming back and buying more of this stuff.

Having an allergy-addiction to any one or more of these substances is a little like an alcoholic thinking it’s ok to have just a small glass of wine or beer, instead a big one. What would you guess is going to happen at some point? That small portion grows or becomes more and more frequent.

The best solution to break free of the addiction/allergy cycle is to eliminate wheat, sugar and dairy from your diet altogether. While may sound somewhat extreme, you will be amazed at how much easier it becomes to stick to a healthy diet that keeps you at your optimal weight.

If giving up bread or milk makes you feel anxious and deprived, I can sympathize. I too, was once addicted to bread, milk and sugar as well. I’d try to cut back and cut calories to lose weight, only to end up on a (coffee cake, cookie, bagel, cinnamon toast) wheat binge after a few days.

I tried to eat less only to be on that same Merry-go-Round of addiction and overeating. I gained weight, and I felt awful. It wasn’t until I actually tried a two-week elimination diet, that I realized how fantastic and energetic I felt once I had gotten totally away from those foods.

This blog will go into the details of an elimination diet, but basically you totally remove wheat, dairy and any other foods you feel you just can’t live without. Then you re-introduce them, one at a time, and observe your reactions over a period of 24-48 hours

I’ve kinda developed and evolved a dietary strategy that helps me get back on track after a few days of this type of dietary disaster. I’d like to share that with you and hopefully you will be able to adopt this and find success as I have.

First of all, the best thing to do is to go ‘cold turkey’. Take the offenders out of your diet, totally. Remember the alcoholic with the small glass of wine? It doesn’t work. Take it all out—the sugar, the wheat and grains (other grains contain addictive gluten-like substances as well), and the dairy.

Then plan out your meals for the next couple days. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but make it super healthy and high fiber. You’re doing a mini detox basically.

Surround yourself with awesome superfood veggies that are brilliant and brightly colored and will make you feel so spectacular that you won’t want to go back to those addictive foods. Add in some top quality protein and good fats and you’re golden. Cravings go away when you give your body what it truly needs.

So the idea is to load your body up with a ton of powerful antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, powerful nutrition to overcome the toxic load you’ve put in your body. And you want to have a lot of veggies in there that will feed your body what it needs and help to clean house as well.

So I generally plan on a few humongous salads with a good portion of healthy protein added in—free range chicken, grass fed beef, or some wild-caught fish, like salmon.

TAKEAWAY #1

Wheat, Dairy and Sugar are addictive substances, and for many people they produce an allergic, inflammatory reaction in addition to the addiction, making it extremely difficult to eat ‘just a little’. Meanwhile, you make it harder to lose weight and mess with your health.

TAKEAWAY #2

AVOID Wheat, Dairy and Sugar all the time. Avoid all processed, packaged foods and especially avoid “Diet” foods. Just an alcoholic cannot drink once in a while, neither can you eat this stuff “once in a while”.

TAKEWAY #3

When you get off track, quit the grains, sugar and dairy, COLD TURKEY, and arm yourself with a healthy diet plan for the next few days. Load up on veggies and healthy proteins and let your body detox this crap out. You’ll feel better quickly! Have a plan, and have some healthy meals lined up and you will feel satisfied and ‘clean’ again in no time.

Stay healthy and lean, my friends!!

Find out what foods age you the fastest and how to reverse aging here.

The Top 101 Foods that Fight Aging

Catherine (Cat) Ebeling RN BSN, is a back to basics diet and nutrition specialist. In addition to her advanced degree in nursing from a major medical school, she has spent the last 30 years intensely studying diet, health and nutrition.

Cat’s book titled “The Fat Burning Kitchen, Your 24 Hour Diet Transformation” has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide, and has helped thousands of people transform their lives, lose weight and improve their health.

Her mission is to help others prevent disease and live their best life ever.

Nutrition made Easy. Simple.Smart.Nutrition.

Incredible Lipid Panel-YOU Can Do it Too!

I recently had my blood lipid panel done for a physical. My Physician was absolutely blown away, and the results astounded even me!

Here are my numbers:

Total Cholesterol 192 mg/DL (physicians recommend total cholesterol below 200, but this number is subject to drug companies push for statins, and the ratio of HDL cholesterol to total cholesterol is most important.)

High Density Lipoprotein 158 mg/DL (above 50 is recommended)

Low Density Lipoprotein 30mg/DL (ideal is below 130)

Triglycerides 18 (ideal is below 150).

Am I some kind of freak of nature? No–YOU can get numbers like this too–without medication!

The “Good” cholesterol HDL actually removes cholesterol from the blood stream and carries it to the liver for processing. This good cholesterol goes up in response to a healthy diet and consistent exercise.

The total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol ratio is a number that is helpful in predicting an individual’s risk of developing atherosclerosis. This number comes from dividing Total Cholesterol by HDL cholesterol.

High total cholesterol and low HDL are undesirable. A high ratio indicates higher risks of heart attacks, low ratios indicate lower risk.

An average ratio would be about 4.5. Of course you should be better than average if you can. So the best ratio would be LOW and about a 2 or 3 or less. Mine was 1.2. That according to my physician is off the charts, and any risk of heart attack is virtually nil.

Another ratio to check is LDL/HDL. The LDL/HDL ratio is actually a purer ratio than total cholesterol/HDL, because LDL is a measure of “bad’ cholesterol and HDL is a measure of “good” cholesterol.

The goal is to keep the ratio above 0.3, with the ideal HDL/LDL ratio being over 0.4. Mine was 5.27.

Both LDL and HDL are important for heart health. Lifestyle factors are key here. Although dietary changes can help lower LDL, raising the HDL numbers can be done with exercise and a healthy diet.

Triglyceride levels are actually one of the most important indicators of heart health–but this is something that can totally be controlled by a healthy lifestyle. Being overweight, physically inactive, smoking cigarettes and diet high in refined carbohydrates or sugar will make this number go up.

A healthy diet consisting of lean, all-natural, heart-healthy grass fed meats and vegetables like you will find in The Fat Burning Kitchen, instead of processed, packaged foods will give you a spectacular lipid panel too.

My diet consists of healthy grass fed meats, wild caught fish, free range chicken and free range eggs (from a nearby farm), whole raw milk, raw grass fed cheese, lots of grass fed butter, and generous amounts of coconut oil, rich in medium chain triglycerides.

So no low-fat diet for me! Does this sound like what your physician would recommend for lowering cholesterol and reducing heart attack risk? Not at all. But it is by far, the healthiest diet, believe me.

I eat very little grain and when I do, it is usually only whole brown rice, or quinoa. No wheat (especially processed wheat!), no corn whatsoever–including and especially high fructose corn syrup, very little sugar, unless it is naturally occurring in foods like fruits.

I love to eat TONS of fresh, raw and mostly locally grown raw produce, like raw fresh dark green salads with many other colorful vegetables added.

I snack on grass fed cheese (no crackers for me, but sometimes an apple or organic grapes with it), all natural beef jerky from USWM, and lots of nuts, especially those that are prepared without added oils.

Even though your doctor may have recommended vegetable oils, avoiding these inflammatory omega 6 rich vegetable oils like safflower oil, corn oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, and canola oils is the best thing you can do for your health. And NO TRANS FATS at all, ever!

Sound extreme? No really it isn’t. And yes, I have been known to actually eat a few French fries once in a great while, or nibble on dark chocolate–and even drink a beer or two.

I never go hungry, yet stay healthy and lean and feel great.

Because of all the propaganda that’s out there about cholesterol and saturated fats, you may think that cholesterol itself and saturated fats are harmful substances that should be avoided at all costs.

Many still do.

In fact, though, quite the opposite is true. Cholesterol is an essential element in our bodies. It is found in all the cells of the body, particularly in the brain and nerve cells.

Cholesterol is also used to make a number of other important substances: hormones (including the sex hormones), bile acids and, in conjunction with sunlight on the skin, vitamin D 3.

Our bodies uses large quantities of cholesterol every day and the substance is so important that, with the exception of brain cells, every body cell has the ability to make it.

So you see, saturated fats, especially those that come from naturally pastured, grass fed meats, cheeses, milk and wild caught fish full of healthy omega 3 fats are not the way to a heart attack, rather they are the way to good health and a healthy heart.

A Votre Sante!

Barry Groves, PhD, “The Great Cholesterol Lie”

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/cholesterol_myth_1.html

By Peter Libby, “Atherosclerosis: The New View”, Scientific American, November 10, 2008.

The Most Preventable Epidemic

According to some of the most recent estimates, the number of Americans with diabetes will double in the next 25 years — from the current 23.7 million to 44.1 million in 2034. And of course, annual health costs for treating those patients are expected to soar, nearly tripling from the current $113 billion to some $336 billion.

This latest information on the diabetes trends in the United States is a very sad testament that the food pyramid, the media, conventional medicine and the food industry are very wrong in their standard diabetes recommendations–in terms of lifestyle, diet and medication.

Even sadder is that these current figures are on conservative side as they are based on the obesity levels staying the same and not increasing. So, it is entirely possible and even likely, that the number of the cases of diabetes, and resulting health care costs, could be even higher than predicted.

And the past is a great example. Previous estimates from 1991 projected that around 11.6 million Americans would have diabetes by 2030. The number of Americans with diabetes right now, in 2010, is double that number!

Besides the rapidly growing numbers of diagnosed diabetics, even worse are those with ‘pre-diabetes’, who are only steps away from having the full-blown disease. Nearly one out of four people in the US have a condition called ‘pre-diabetes’. And many do not even know they have this condition.

What is ‘pre-diabetes’?

Before people develop type 2 diabetes, they almost always have ‘pre-diabetes’–in which blood glucose levels stay higher than the normal range, but are not high enough to be diagnosed as full-blown diabetes. There are approximately some 60 million people in the United States who have pre-diabetes. Recent research has shown that similar long-term damage to the heart and circulatory system may already be occurring during the pre-diabetes stage.

Physicians can use three different tests to check for pre-diabetes conditions:

# The A1C test

# The fasting plasma glucose test (FPG)

# Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT).

The blood glucose levels measured after these tests determine whether you have a normal metabolism, or whether you have pre-diabetes or diabetes.

Because it’s now so common, it’s almost easy to overlook the seriousness of this disease. It increases your risk of early heart disease and fatal and non-fatal heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events up to 15 years earlier than in those without diabetes, as well as significantly shortening your lifespan.

The additional health complications are numerous and include:

· Heart disease and stroke
· High blood pressure
· Blindness
· Kidney disease
· Nervous system disease
· Amputations
· Dental disease
· Pregnancy complications

However, in spite of all these dire statistics, the fact is that diabetes can be preventable. And if you already have it, you can improve or actually cure it. Especially type 2 diabetes. No you won’t hear this from mainstream medical practice, or pharmaceutical companies, because treating diabetics is just too darned profitable. But a real cure can come from YOU — by changing your lifestyle, your diet and increasing exercise.

Drew Carey did it and many others less famous have done it too.

Conventional treatment focuses on treating the symptom of elevated blood sugar, rather than addressing the true causes of the underlying disease. Treatments that concentrate merely on lowering blood sugar while raising insulin levels can actually worsen the actual problem of metabolic miscommunication.

Consider this–diabetes may not be caused by elevated blood sugar–but more likely is caused by insulin resistance and faulty leptin signaling, both of which can be managed with diet and exercise.

What is Leptin?
The hormone leptin is largely responsible for the accuracy of insulin signaling and whether you become insulin resistant or not.

Leptin, is a relatively recently discovered hormone produced by fat cells in the body. It communicates to your and brain how much energy it has, whether it needs more (appetite increases), whether it should get rid of some (decrease in appetite) and most importantly, how to utilize the energy.

When your blood sugar becomes elevated it signals for insulin to be released to store the extra energy. A small amount is stored as glycogen in your body, but the majority is stored as your main energy supply–fat. So, insulin’s major role is not to lower sugar, but to take that extra energy and store it as fat for energy.

Insulin lowers your blood sugar as a side effect of moving the extra energy to the fat cells. This is why treatments that concentrate merely on lowering blood sugar for diabetes while raising insulin levels can actually worsen rather than remedy the actual problem of metabolic miscommunication.

Lifestyle Changes Can Get Rid of or Drastically Improve Diabetes

The good news is if you can make–and maintain–major changes in your diet and lifestyle, you can reverse diabetes yourself! Diabetes is actually not a difficult disease to prevent or reverse because it’s not really an affliction that takes over randomly. It is the biological and cumulative effect of following unhealthy diet and lifestyle choices and you have control over these factors!

Even the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine concludes that “the majority of cases of type 2 diabetes could be prevented by the adoption of a healthier diet and lifestyle”.

The results of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine show that intense lifestyle changes including diet and exercise demonstrated significant decreases in body weight and lowered blood pressure and A1C blood glucose readings. Cardiovascular health also improved as blood pressure was reduced and HDL cholesterol levels increased.

The study continued over the course of four years and found that compared to a control group the lifestyle intervention participants experienced a considerably lowered risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as biomarkers which predict diabetes. The study also found that the prescribed lifestyle intervention group also lost (around 7%) weight as a beneficial side effect. This is significant as research has shown that losing as little as 5% of total weight can reduce the risk of mortality from all causes.

Diet is the single most important factor which leads to metabolic dysfunction, rising blood sugar, insulin control issues, and excessive levels of triglycerides which then become stored as abdominal fat.

Following a natural diet which excludes all sugar, processed carbohydrates, grains and hydrogenated fats in favor of grass fed meats, wild caught fatty fish, free range chicken, and plenty of fresh, raw fruits and vegetables is the best and healthiest way to regain your body’s natural balance, prevent diabetes and related cardiovascular disease.

1. Eliminate Grains and Sugars
For the last 25 years, many people have been following the nutritional recommendations dictated by the food pyramid, uninformed physicians, and the food industry of consuming a high carbohydrate diet and avoiding fats. The end result has been a several hundred percent increase in diabetes–so this route is obviously NOT working.
Eliminate foods that cause an insulin response in your body–this includes all types of sugars and grains–even so-called “healthy” grains such as whole, organic grains promote an insulin response. Avoid all breads, pasta, cereals, rice, potatoes, and corn (which is in fact a grain not a vegetable and highly glycemic). You may even need to avoid most fruits until your blood sugar is under control.

Stop eating all refined sugars. This means totally avoiding made with HFCS (especially soda) or other refined sugars, including regular table sugar, syrups, honey, fructose, agave and more. This means reading labels carefully and HFCS has been snuck into many foods you would not suspect–catsup, sauces, soups, mixes, etc.

Do NOT substitute with artificial sweeteners. These sweeteners are very harmful and will cause more health problems in the long run. In addition, they do not help keep blood sugar and insulin levels in check–contrary to what you may have been told. Best to use Stevia–an all natural low calorie sweetener that will not affect blood sugar levels.

2. Eat real, whole foods. Refuse to eat refined or processed anything. That includes packaged foods, processed meat (which strongly promotes diabetes) and commercial dairy products.

3. Get plenty of omega 3 fats in your diet.
There is clear evidence supporting the link between fish oil and diabetes relief. Administration of EPA (a component of omega 2 fats) was shown to decrease the glucose and get clotting factors under control (a major contributor to heart disease), as well as lowering LDL cholesterol.
According to some researchers omega-3 fatty acids may improve the adverse effects of insulin resistance by lowering blood pressure. Omega 3 fats given to patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus also resulted in significant beneficial effects on diabetic neuropathy and serum lipids and triglycerides. Research studies suggest that omega-3 is useful in combating circulation problems associated with diabetes by rendering the walls of the veins and arteries smoother and more elastic.
A large study on the omega 3 fats and the diabetes link found that taking one gram of omega 3 a day reduced cardiovascular mortality by 30% and the risk of death by heart attack by 45%.

4. Optimize Your Vitamin D Level
More than 70% of white Americans are vitamin D deficient. That number rises to an even higher percentage among those people with darker skin pigmentation. Vitamin D deficiency promotes diabetes (and cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, immune suppression, and more).

Boost your vitamin D levels with either daily sunshine or quality vitamin D3 supplements. Interestingly, optimizing your vitamin D levels can not only help improve type 2 diabetes if you have it, but can likely eliminate the risk of type 1 diabetes in your children if you are pregnant.

Ideally the best way to receive vitamin D is to get it from the sun, but if you live in colder climates in the winter, it is often hard to do. In that case, you may want to use an oral vitamin D3 supplement. If you choose to take an oral supplement it is suggested that you get your levels tested to make sure you’re not reaching toxic levels, and are within the therapeutic range.

5. Exercise
Exercise is an absolutely essential factor, without which you’re highly unlikely to get this devastating disease under control. It is clearly one of the most potent ways to lower your insulin and leptin resistance.

Regular exercise reduces the demand for medication by 20% in diabetics and checking the blood glucose levels before and after exercise can be a motivator to continue the exercise regimen. The benefits of exercise for diabetes are many and include:

· Control of blood glucose levels: Glucose is the source of energy in our body. Physical activity utilizes the glucose and helps to reduce the blood glucose levels. Physical activity also decreases insulin resistance. A few studies have also indicated that activity increases the insulin receptors in the red blood cells. All this together helps to keep the glycosylated hemoglobin (three-month average of blood glucose levels) levels normal.

· Improved cardiovascular function: Individuals with type II diabetes are more prone to cardiovascular diseases (hardening of arteries, heart attack, and stroke). Exercise increases the cardio-respiratory fitness by

Lowering the blood pressure

Lowering the bad cholesterol (triglyceride)

And increasing the good cholesterol (HDL)

· Psychological benefit: Physical activity is associated with an increased sense of well-being, a positive attitude and improved quality of life.

· Weight control: Physical activity helps obese/overweight individuals to lose weight and also helps them to maintain a healthy BMI.

6. Monitor Your Fasting Insulin Level

This is every bit as important as your fasting blood sugar. You’ll want your fasting insulin level to be between 2 to 4. The higher your level, the worse your insulin receptor sensitivity is.

Serious lifestyle and dietary changes mean making a huge commitment to implementing and maintaining the changes. However, you can and will greatly improve your health, your quality and length of life if you follow these guidelines. Don’t be a diabetes statistic!

Sources:

Time, “Why so Many of Us are Getting Diabetes” November 27, 2009

Elbert S. Huang, MD, MPH1, Anirban Basu, PHD1,Michael O’Grady, PHD2 and James C. Capretta, MA3, “Projecting the Future Diabetes Population Size and Related Costs for the U.S”. Diabetes Care, December 2009, vol. 32 no. 12 2225-2229

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, “How I cured diabetes in five steps, and why one-third of U.S. adults will have diabetes by 2050” Natural News, October 23, 2010

Dr. Joseph Mercola, “Diabetes Epidemic Expected to Double”, December 15, 2009.

Effects of Omega-3 Fatty Acids on Lipids
Glycemic Control in Type II Diabetes and the Metabolic Syndrome and on Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Renal Disease, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, and Osteoporosis, http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epcsums/o3lipidsum.html.
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