UPDATE FOR BOOK:  Unfortunately due to family issues, time constraints and the like I haven’t been able to complete my book.  It will most likely be another few months before completion as I have more pressing issues that have unfortunately had to take priority recently   Shame but it is coming along nicely!

I just came across a great article I would like to share by Dr John McDougall on the poisons found in animal foods.

“Protein, fat, cholesterol, methionine (a sulfur-containing amino acid), and dietary acids, which are all superabundant in animal foods, are poisoning nearly everyone following the standard Western diet. Most people cannot fathom this, because it takes four or more decades of consumption before disability, disfigurement, and death become common from these endogenous toxins. This long latent period fools the public into thinking there is no harm done by choosing an animal-food-based diet. If the case were one of instantaneous feedback—one plate of fried eggs caused excruciating chest pains, paralysis from a stroke followed a prime rib dinner, or a hard cancerous lump appeared within a week of a grilled cheese sandwich—then eating animal foods would be widely recognized as an exceedingly unwise choice.

Similar failures to appreciate slow poisonings from our lifestyle choices are seen with tobacco and alcohol use. If one package of cigarettes were followed by a week on a respirator or a bottle or two of gin caused hepatic (liver) coma then no one would indulge in these instruments of long-drawn-out death either. The difference defining the failure to take long overdue actions is that the dangers from tobacco and alcohol use are universally known and accepted, whereas almost everyone considers red meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products necessary parts of a healthy diet…”

Click Here to Read Full Story.

Are you wondering how animal fats – meat/dairy affect your health?  Maybe you eat these products thinking they are good for your health.  Well today, I came across a great video about animal fats and their effect on the human body and wanted to share it with you.  The link is below.  I would love your comments on it!

The Effect Of Animal Fats On The Human Body

I was talking to a friend just now about her craving issues and how she struggles a lot with keeping them under control. She revealed that she rarely ever gets breakfast in and ends up drinking coffee all morning, which doesn’t really help with her hunger.  I told her that if she wants to overcome her cravings then the first step is to get a good breakfast!

So this article is just a quick overview of why it is important to eat breakfast and make a regular habit of it. WHAT you eat is just as important as eating. In Neal Barnard’s book Breaking the Food Seduction he mentions a study done where for 1 week volunteers had instant oatmeal and for another week they had regular oatmeal. Volunteer’s cravings and snacking reduced by 35%. The difference in these bowls was the amount of fiber. More refined foods have less fiber so make sure you have a fiber rich breakfast to sustain you until lunch.

A Breakfast To End All Cravings!

Breakfast is considered by many to be the most important meal of the day. Although I don’t necessarily agree with the “breakfast” part I do agree that the first meal you eat of the day is going to have the biggest impact on cravings and energy levels. I know that if my first meal is small and not very nutritious I will tend to crave like my by the time lunch has come around or very soon after. This feeling will often spill into the afternoon as well. If I have a nutritious breakfast then I tend to feel sustained throughout the day. So from my own experience the first meal I eat is usually a fairly hefty size

As stated above having a breakfast full of fiber is important as it keeps you from snacking. I also feel it is important to keep it simple, make it easy on your digestion and also quick for you to obtain the nutrients you need from it. This is why I start my day with a large banana smoothie (5-6 bananas or more! with some added water to blend). My smoothie will give me about 500-600 calories maybe more depending on how greedy I am. I tend to have this after being up out of bed for an hour as I don’t get hungry straight away.

Fruit to me is the best starter of the day – full of fiber, easy on digestion and quickly digested. The key is to eat plenty of it to feel satiated.

So if you want to lose weight and avoid cravings, make breakfast an important part of your day. For me, it was the easiest part to get right about my diet and the most crucial part to get right for my weight loss and well being.

End Cravings

Salt is literally in everything we eat – soup, bread, chocolate, macaroni and cheese, canned vegetables pizza…the list is endless. But it should be avoided at all costs – it is toxic, irritating, stimulating and a potentially deadly poison to us. If you have ever had an open wound and gotten salt in it – you will know firsthand how destructive it is.

Organic salt (sodium) is an essential mineral and can be naturally found in fruits, vegetables, nut and seeds. We only need a very small amount of sodium, which can easily be supplied by these natural sources. The salt found in these natural sources is also complexed with other organic molecules. This causes them to be absorbed slowly. This contrasts with table salt (including Celtic and Sea Salts), which enters quickly through the stomach lining.

Salt, unless in its natural form in fruits and vegetables, is very dehydrating. When excess salt enters the bloodstream, the body is forced to store it between cells until the kidney can filter it. While in between cells, salt causes a burning effect on the surrounding tissue. To protect themselves, the cells release water in order to dilute the excess salt. Giving up their water means the cells lose their elasticity and shrink. This causes an imbalance in the cell’s chemistry as a result of the loss of potassium.

Having low potassium levels causes more salt to penetrate the cell walls. When the sodium level rises, water enters the cell in order to dilute it. This causes the cell to become swollen. This continuous disruption to the cell’s fluid balance, in time, scars, calcifies and destroys the muscles, valves and arteries of the entire coronary route. Salt is an accomplice to one of America’s top killers – cardiovascular disease.

The body has to compensate to maintain homeostasis when you eat salty foods. If you eat salty foods for a prolonged period of time, just like caffeine and nicotine, your body becomes dependent on salt to maintain the balance. So when you begin to reduce salt intake, you may experience physical withdrawal symptoms.

Because salt is pretty much in everything we eat (you may not even notice or taste it because you have become so accustomed to it) it is very unlikely you wouldn’t have some sort of withdrawal from it. This can be one of the factors that prevent you from losing weight – craving salty snacks.

If you want to be healthy, lose weight and improve health conditions you need to simply cut out salt (unless its in your fruits/vegetables).

Your body potentially cannot even handle a little bit of salt and why risk it when salt has been linked to hypertension, stroke, asthma, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, premenstrual tension, cancer among many other diseases.

On top of this you are messing up your taste buds. Salt doesn’t bring flavor to food like so many of us think – what it does do is overpowers your taste buds and deadens them to all sensation other than salt. This causes unnatural cravings and overeating. So if you want to have your taste buds back, enjoy natural foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, then cut out the salt: if not for your taste buds for your health.

The little salt our body does need we should be getting from fruits and vegetables, for example celery. Salts in fruits and vegetables are in a safe natural usable form.

Completely cut out salt from your diet, eat whole fresh ripe raw organic fruits and greens, and your salt cravings will disappear for good. You will also live a much healthier life and foods that once tasted bland will suddenly become awesomely delicious again.

Previous Post: The Truth About Cellulite: What Is It & What Causes It

Cellulite is just the visibility of subcutaneous fat cells. It is as simple as that.

It isn’t caused by too much fat, or isn’t about trapped toxins of inflamed subcutaneous cells – it is just the visibility of them.

Cellulite is predominantly a female issue. Not many men seem to have this problem and this is because fat cells in women are clustered in sacs as well as the fact that we carry twice us much fat as men do.

Despite needing fat to fill fat cells, cellulite isn’t caused by being overweight. Have you noticed that many skinny women also suffer from the dreaded sight of cellulite? So losing weight isn’t necessarily your answer to ridding it. You can’t avoid having some fat anyway – it’s important for health to have some fat. So even though you may be able to reduce the visibility of the cellulite by losing weight (half filled fat cells will be less pronounced than full fat cells), you still will have cellulite, because as mentioned it is about visibility not how much fat you have.

So if most women have cellulite isn’t it natural?

Cellulite, despite most women suffering from it, is NOT natural. It can be considered normal by today’s standards to have it, especially when roughly 90% of us in the Western world have it. This is simply down to the health and junk foods we consume in the Western world and also the extra protein we eat. Our protein consumption is excessive!

OK, but what causes those fat cells to become visible?

Cellulite is categorized by the bulging of fat cells into the outer skin and this is caused by an increase in concentration of damaged proteins that have very high water-attracting properties. This leads to a rise in the amount of water the skin retains, which causes the fat cells to extrude. [1][2]

So if you retain a lot of water, then it is most likely you are consuming too much protein and too much damaged protein. A likely sign of this would be cellulite!

So cellulite is caused by:

1. Consuming too much protein! If you are eating a lot of cooked protein (rather than plant protein which will not cause this issue) then you are contributing to your cellulite issue. The heat from cooking the protein damages the amino acids and creates new substances within it. This creates amino acids that are much harder for our bodies to separate and utilized. As a result they aren’t utilized immediately and end up in the skin, making you retain water and making your fat cells visible.

But it also can be caused by:

2. An impaired hormone metabolism. One of the reasons you have impaired hormone metabolism can be contraceptive pills. The only way the pill can work is by dominating your hormone metabolism and if it didn’t you would get pregnant. It is known that contraceptives can cause water retention thus cellulite.

What about genetics?

No, cellulite isn’t hereditary at all, even though many sources seem to claim that it is. I think this is down to making people feel better by putting the blame on something that is out of ones control. Well I am sorry, but cellulite IS in your control.

The only way that cellulite can be even seen as remotely hereditary is that you possibly have picked up your parents eating habits. If you have become accustomed to eating a high protein diet from birth, then in that sense it is hereditary. This is something that can be very difficult to overcome because it has been a life long habit.

Conclusion

Cellulite maybe normal for society but its only because of all the health and junk foods we consume on a daily basis. It is a sign of ill health and nothing about it is natural. It isn’t hereditary, only in the sense of what your eating habits may be as a result of your parents.

You can get rid of it and it comes down to beating your addictions to wheat and dairy based products and high protein cooked foods. If you decrease your intake of cooked protein you will see a decrease in cellulite. If you want to have good looking skin then you must change your diet.

Upcoming posts on cellulite:

Cellulite and the Skin

Cellulite and How to Treat It

References for this article:

[1] Rosenbaum, M. et al, An exploratory investigation of the morphology and biochemistry of cellulite. Plast. Reconstr. Surg. 1998 / 101 (7) / 1934-1939.

[2] Lotti, T. et al, Proteoglycans in so-called cellulite. Int. J. Dermatol. 1990 / 29 (4) / 272-274.

[3] http://www.waisays.com

Previous Post: Weight Loss Goals Part 2: The 3 Beliefs You Need For Weight Loss Success

UPDATE: For some great articles on high carb diets and interviews with athletes who follow them I strongly urge you to check out the FoodnSport Blog here

Low carb diets are everywhere. Everyone seems to be doing them and everyone is supposedly losing weight and feeling great. I don’t believe it for one second (especially the “feeling great” part).

I have scoured many resources and listened to many people try to convince me that a low carbohydrate diet can be healthy, yet the very same people trying to convince me of that are tired all the time, moody, struggle to make their days work out and struggle to stay on the diet (if you are struggling to stay on a diet then its not going to help you long term so why put your body and mind through it? Struggling to stay on a diet means something is wrong).

Many people do lose weight using low carb diets, that can’t be denied. However, Dr Michael Greger who wrote Atkins’ Facts, states that the only reason people lose weight this way is because they eat less calories.

Eating fewer calories may be a good thing if you are over consuming on calories but if you are eating a low carbohydrate diet and fewer calories, you will feel terrible.

I mean, if low carbohydrate diets are so great then why is it we are still struggling to lose weight? Why is it that 2 out of 3 Americans are either overweight or obese?

Just like most other diets available or putting in the limelight, low carb diets work well in the short term. In the long term they fail because you are either too tired, exhausted, moody or you have serious health issues.

When we don’t eat enough carbohydrates we rely on fat for fuel. This creates toxic by-products like acetone/ketones. The kidneys use minerals such as potassium and calcium to help rid the body of these toxins. So by going on a low-carb diet you urinate out essential minerals, which lead to low levels in our bodies. This can result in fatal cardiac arrhythmias. Ketosis (the process in which your body converts fats into energy) is a potentially life threatening condition and can also cause other problems due to the unnecessary stress put on the liver (resulting in potential liver damage).

When there are insufficient carbohydrates present to convert to sugar, the body will transform fat and protein into sugar, but at a higher cost: more time and energy spent on digestion with the creation of toxic residues.

Unpleasant side effects to low carb diets also include bad breath, constant cravings for sweets, irritability, constipation and low energy (As mentioned several times). Is it really worth the outcome of being slim for a short period of time when there are healthier, more long-term ways of losing weight?

A number of independent medical studies have also shown that a low carb, high protein diet can be dangerous to your health and even life threatening. This danger increases over time – so the longer you stay on it, the greater the risk.

Another problem with low carb diets is that they require people to eat an unnaturally high amount of protein every day, and generally high-fat protein as well.

The American Heart Association recommends getting 10 to 15 percent of your daily calories from protein. High protein diets overload the body by cramming their menus with meals that deliver 35 to 50 percent of the daily calorie intake as protein.

According to the John Hopkins Hospital, a leading medical research institution, high protein low carb diets cause the body to excrete calcium, and are associated with increased risk of heart disease and risk of kidney failure.

According to a University of Chicago study done in 2002, participants who were on a high protein low carb diet for a mere six weeks had a sharply elevated rate of calcium excretion, which leads to an increased risk of osteoporosis (thinning bones). They also had a high “acid load” in their blood streams, leading to an increased risk of kidney stones.

A study published by the American College of Nutrition found that the long-term use of the Atkins Diet would result in a 25 percent increase of blood cholesterol levels.

And – as if that’s not enough – the low carb diet tends to lead to constipation and other health problems associated with low fiber diets, because high fiber cereals, fruits and many vegetables are eliminated from the meal plans

People who stay on low fiber diets long term are also at increased risk of diverticulosis – a condition in which areas of the intestines weaken and bulge outward. This condition is virtually unheard of in societies that have diets rich in fiber.

Yes, people do tend to lose some water weight right away on high protein low carb diets. But they also get fatigued, grouchy, and crave carbs constantly. And as we’ve just demonstrated, staying on those diets long term can be life threatening – AND as soon as you start eating normally again you will gain that water weight right back, at an alarming rate!

But here’s the good news: it is absolutely not necessary to risk your health with a high protein diet.

Eating a high carb is important to your health. For example, we all know that fruit is good for us. A typical item of fruit contains around 80-90% carbohydrates, 1-10% fats, 1-10% proteins. This should be evident enough to not risk your health.

Previous Post: Stop Binge Eating One Step At A Time

Staying hydrated is an important aspect to our overall well being. If we are even slightly dehydrated it can be detrimental to our health. It can also make us feel very tired and run down. If you are overweight, you are most likely to be dehydrated.

Fruits and most greens contain a high percentage of water and if our diet contained lots of these foods additional water needed would be kept to a minimum. Sadly however, this isn’t the case. The majority of the Western world consumes far too little water-dense whole foods and too much dehydrated refined junk foods.

By nature, we are not water drinkers, so getting most of our water needs from fruits and greens is important. There is no firm reason why we should drink 8 glasses of water a day and should only drink when thirsty. This shouldn’t arise very often if we are consuming the fruits and greens our body needs.

No hard and fast rules can be set down when it comes to the matter of water. You can faithfully drink 8 glasses a day and be getting too much water or too little, maybe. If you are wise, you will listen to your body’s requirements.

It is often said that our body needs minimum amount of water per day and we should attempt to drink this amount each time. This isn’t necessarily something I would agree with following. Unless you body is telling you you are thirsty then don’t drink water for the sake of drinking it. Drinking too much water can be damaging to your health as well as too little.

However that being said, for the majority of us, our thirst mechanism isn’t usually working so well and for some of us we can’t even make the distinction between being hungry or being thirsty. We become dehydrated without even realizing it.

Here are some possible signs that you could be dehydrated:

Lack of energy & fatigue
Migraine headaches
Dandruff

Apathy
Salty sweat
Irritability and mild depression
Low back pain
Dry mouth
Dry and flaky skin
Weakness
Excessive sleepiness
Constipation

Chronic Dehydration

Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, author of Your Body’s Many Cries For Water, claims that many of our health problems are a result of dehydration. He claims that chronic dehydration can cause many conditions including asthma, allergies, arthritis, migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression etc.

I must say, having suffered from asthma and allergies once upon a time, I can see how being dehydrated may have affected those things in me. Since I upped my intake of fruits and greens (water-dense foods) my asthma and allergies have COMPLETELY disappeared. Water, or lack of, could have potentially be an irritant to my asthma/allergies.

Drinking more water will most likely not hurt you if you aren’t someone very familiar with your thirst signals and who doesn’t eat a lot of water dense fruits. In fact it can only help you. Whether you need 8 glasses is largely debateable on the premise of individual differences, so don’t worry if you aren’t consuming that many.

The best things you can to increase your water intake is:

Cut out other drinks.

Soda, Alcohol, Coffee are all dehydrating and should not be included in your add up of how much water you have consumed. Instead of drinking these, make an effort to only consume water as a drink through out the day. If you have any of the other drinks, drink twice as much water to make up for it.

Up your intake of fruits and greens.

This is one of the best things you can do. By getting a lot of water from the foods you eat means you have to worry less about how much water you are drinking.

What do you do to stay hydrated?

Previous Post: Superfoods Diet: Gree Superfood Supplements Not So Super

Superfoods are a hot topic in the world of health and are increasing touted as being among the healthiest food sources available. The term superfood is usually used to describe any food with a high concentration of phytonutrients. Phytonnutrients are celebrated for their health promoting benefits by many health food companies and researchers.

Superfoods include berries, leafy greens, sprouts, bee pollen, aloe vera, raw cacao (if you can call it “raw”), gogji berries, flax seeds and many others.

I don’t have a problem really with berries or leafy greens. In fact I really feel that we all need to be consuming lots of leafy greens in our diet and plenty of fruits. So if you desire berries, go for it and eat lots of them (I currently have a major love for blueberries!). When we take those superfoods and ground them down into a powder or a pill form, that’s when I have an issue.

Green superfoods or green powders have received a lot of attention in the past few decades; specifically green superfoods such as spirulina, blue green algae and chlorella. I was even suckered into buying some green blue algae at one point in my life, believing it would was beneficial and necessary for health. I am not saying they can’t be beneficial but I do not think they are necessary for a healthy lifestyle.

Superfoods, along with vitamin supplements (more on this in another post), are recommended regardless of what diet we are on, to make up for nutritional inadequacies but claims for superfoods are ridiculous and scientifically false.

If you are eating a diet with an abundance of fresh whole fruits, vegetables and leafy greens, getting plenty of exercise, plenty of sleep, sunshine and fresh air and leading a healthy lifestyle, you do not need to supplement with anything, including superfoods.

If you do not live this way, simply supplementing or eating “superfoods” isn’t the answer and isn’t going to be helpful in the long run.

Any food that has had its water removed, its fiber removed and vital components stripped out is not a whole food let alone a health food. Concentrated vitamins out of the ratio that nature intended in whole fruits and vegetables aren’t healthy either. Not to mention when one removes the water from food, the oxidation process destroys many of the remaining nutrients, making them far less nutritious than they were in a whole state.

We do not need them and we are the only creatures on the earth to grind things into dried powders and pills and think we will benefit from them and even call them superfoods. On top of this supplementation really is only necessary under some circumstances.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman (a nutrition expert and practising physician) recommends supplements in some circumstances, but agrees that they can be dangerous. He states in his book Eat to Live:

“A high intake of just one nutrient when nature has combined it with many others may make things worse, not better. We humans, especially physicians, are notorious for interfering with nature, thinking we know better. Sometimes we do- all too often we don’t.

Only later, when it is often too late, do we realize that in fact we have made things worse. While it still may take decades longer to understand how whole foods promote health, we must accept the fact that the foods found in nature are ideally suited to the biological needs of the species.“

Dr Doug Graham (author of the 80/10/10 diet and Grain Damage) also believes supplementation may be necessary in some cases during the initial stages of lifestyle change and “would be done solely to allow time for the benefits of correct living to accrue or for extenuating circumstances to pass”.

The amount of nutrients we require are far less than medical advice allows us to believe. High fat and low raw food diets mean we absorb very small amounts of nutrients from the food we eat, making it seem as though we need more of them, when really we need to change the way we eat to a low fat, high raw diet.

Correcting one’s lifestyle, consuming lots of fruits and vegetables and cutting down our fat intake is key to improving absorption and utilization of nutrients and health.

Save Your Money for Fruit and Greens: Avoid Superfood Supplements!

Anyone endorsing superfoods, trying to sell to you the latest scientific breakthrough, is only after your money and isn’t concerned about your health.

Superfoods are an expensive waste of time and money. Do yourself a favor and use the money you would have spent on superfoods and use it to buy some fruit and vegetables – you will be MUCH better off.

I have just created a special report on the top 5 nutrition myths out there.  Avoid being misled by mainstream research and know the truth now.  You could be damaging your health! To get this report sign up below!

Part Three: Food Addiction & Its Origin

I am forever seeing the question “What are some healthy snacks for someone trying to lose weight?”. I have even been asked this question time after time and always answer with the same thing time after time. Unfortunately many seem to be disappointed with the answer but I think this is more due to lack of understanding than not wanting to eat what I suggest.

The answer I give is very simple but is often overlooked because people see this food as insufficient or not filling. So what is it I suggest?

FRUIT!

We have had it drilled into us that it is important to have our 5-a-day. We have had it drilled into us that a fruit snack is something like 1 banana or 1 apple. This is exactly why people do not wish to turn to fruit for snacking purposes. It doesn’t fill us up, it doesn’t provide nutritional satisfaction or emotional comfort.

Fruit is, along with greens, packed full of essentially all the nutrients our body needs, but it is not calorie-dense, so in order to be fulfilled nutritionally we need to be eating much more than 1 banana or 1 apple. Fruit is also not heavy like other foods such as grains and meat, or packed full of addictive substances, so we do not get the emotional fulfilment many of us want from food from fruit. We may not even realize that we want emotional comfort from food. I didn’t realize how much I used food as an aid to emotional issues until I started becoming aware of my eating habits. I still now find it sometimes difficult, but I find comfort in my husband, distraction or exercise.

So how much fruit should we be eating? A lot! If you find yourself hungry, eat 5-6 apples or 5-6 bananas or even more than this (or less) depending on how you feel. Listen to your body and stop eating when you are satisfied. If you incorporate fruits (as well as greens) into your diet more and more, your cravings for unhealthy snacks will decrease and you will feel much better physically and emotionally.

If you are out on the run, and lugging 5 plus bits of fruit about seems a bit big annoyance, take some dates out or maybe some sun-dried fruits. Make sure though that if you take dried fruits out with you, you have plenty of water. Whereas if you have 5 apples, they will help keep you hydrated, you need to replace the water missing from dried fruits with drinking water.

The more fruit you eat the more you will learn to love it and the more you will miss it when you don’t have it. Fruit is very good for you – it will satisfy that sweet tooth for you much better than a chocolate bar or candy will and won’t leave you moody or tired.

Previous Post: Calorie Counting: Determining How Many Calories You Need