Why Low-Fat Diets Don't Work

The reason low-fat diets are so ineffective is related to our blood sugar levels. A low-fat diet will usually mean that we end up eating more carbohydrate. This carbohydrate is converted into glucose (sugar) in the bloodstream. There is a large variation between different people, but in general, the more carbohydrate we eat, the higher our blood glucose levels get.

Glucose in the bloodstream triggers the release of the hormone insulin. So, high levels of blood glucose result in high levels of insulin. The problem is that insulin actually blocks the ability to burn body fat and it is the hormone that is responsible for depositing fat into our tissues.

The excess glucose in our bloodstream (created by excess carbohydrate in our diet) is directly converted into stored body fat The situation gets much worse as time goes by since high levels of blood glucose lead to

type II diabetes. Studies have also repeatedly demonstrated that excess glucose damages the arteries and causes heart disease.

A study published in the health journal Lancet in 2006 collated data on blood glucose and cardiovascular
disease from 52 countries. It was found that more than 3 million deaths were attributable to high blood glucose levels. The total number of deaths related to higher than optimum blood glucose was comparable to the number of deaths from smoking.

So next time somebody tells you they are on a low-fat diet, offer them a cigarette to go along with their super-high carb diet--it'll be just as healthy for them.

P.S. If you really want to understand causes of heart disease, read a brilliant book (available online) a Metabolic Typing colleague of mine Justin Smith wrote. Available at http://www.29billion.com/

Reversing the Diabetes Trend

In October 2010, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) projected that by the year 2050, as many as one-third of all adults in the U.S. could have diabetes. Despite the dire prediction, it’s quite possible to prevent, manage or even reverse diabetes.

According to one diabetes-prevention website, almost 60 million Americans are on the verge of becoming diabetic, while over 20 million already—about 8 percent of the U.S. population—have type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes accounts for approximately 90 percent of all diabetes diagnoses. Commonly referred to as a “lifestyle disease”, diabetes currently costs the global economy almost $400 billion per year.

That number is expected to jump to almost $500 billion in 20 years.

Diabetes, though, can usually be prevented, controlled, or possibly even reversed by:

• Managing blood sugar levels
• Losing weight
• Exercising
• Making dietary changes

In order to stem the tide of the diabetes epidemic, Al Pirnia, president of a diabetes-prevention company called Transformations, says that education and communication is crucial to managing and preventing diabetes.

“Every diabetes educator will encourage those with diabetes to lose weight and eat fewer carbohydrates, but what few people are saying is that you don’t need to have a huge belly in order to become pre-diabetic or diabetic,” says Pirnia.

Although it’s estimated that 80 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are obese, Pirnia says just a little extra abdominal fat can lead to a pre-diabetic condition.

“Just 10 pounds of extra abdominal fat,” he says, along with a stressful lifestyle that makes no time for exercise, “can get you over the top and make you become a diabetic,” cautions Pirnia.

More important than weight loss, says Pirnia, is educating people how to be in total control of their blood sugar.

“Diabetes is easy to correct at the early stage with simple food habit changes. Unfortunately, the [healthcare] system usually waits until it’s a disease condition before any action is taken,” Pirnia says.

Rather than educating the populace on how to regulate blood sugar levels, Pirnia claims that often times, a person’s blood sugar fasting levels are at 100 or even 110 before any comment is made by a healthcare professional.

Pirnia encourages those with pre-diabetic and diabetic conditions to frequently monitor blood sugar levels by using a self-administered glucometer.

Fasting blood sugar levels, says Pirnia, should not exceed 90.

Rather than simply telling someone with diabetes to modify their diet, Pirnia suggests educating those with diabetes on how to:

• Eat protein at every meal, including snacks
• Take a healthy snack between meals
• Never eat large meals full of starchy foods
• Learning, through use of the glucometer, which foods spike up blood sugar
• Eliminating or minimizing those foods which spike blood sugar
• Biochemically boosting the body’s fat burning process by adjusting carbohydrate to protein ratios
• Encourage hydrochloric acid (HCL) supplementation to support digestion and nutrient absorption
• Support healthy pancreatic function, especially those who have been on medication
• Educate pre-diabetics on the consequences of not changing their lifestyle

“It’s meaningless to tell someone, ‘lose weight’ if they are not going to learn how to burn abdominal fat,” says Pirnia.

“If people lose muscle mass when they lose weight, they are doing more harm than good. Furthermore, if those with diabetes or at risk of getting diabetes aren’t properly educated, they will just end up on medication and ultimately, their pancreas will be undermined or completely destroyed,” adds Pirnia, referring to the organ that secretes insulin to regulate blood sugar.

Failure to reverse diabetes could also lead to developing Alzheimer’s disease, certain cancers and heart disease, according to several contemporary studies.

The Gycemic Index scale, a measure of how quickly and for how long carbohydrates in a given food raises blood sugar levels, is one tool that nutritionists and dieticians frequently use to educate their clients.

But Thomas Wolever, Ph.D., a professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto cautions that people often think that the GI tells you what your individual glycemic response will be all the time for a specific food.

“It doesn’t,” he says, in HealthCommunities.com’s Diabetes Focus.

“The GI of any food is consistent from day to day…what changes is a person’s response.”

For example, white bread has the same GI regardless. But if someone eats bread three days in a row, Wolever claims the GI response could vary by as much as three fold because of activity, stress levels, sleep quality, and what other foods have been eaten at other times of the day and at the same time as the bread.

The aforementioned Pirnia would no doubt educate those interested in managing their diabetes to avoid white bread at all costs.

“The bottom line,” says Pirnia, “is to empower people to learn how to manage and be in control of their blood sugar so they can impact their need for medication if they are already a diabetic, and for those who are pre-diabetic to never become a diabetic.”

Judd Handler is an Encinitas, CA-based health reporter and wellness consultant.

The Only Time You Should Eat Sugar (and not Fat)

Sugar is evil. It'll make you fat. You'll get diabetes.....you've heard it all before. 

As well as it should. Without going off on a tangent, part of the reason the U.S. economy won't rebound anytime soon, is the spiraling, out of control cost of health care. Millions of people are eating way too much junk food loaded with high fructose corn syrup. They get sick, have to go to the doctor, swallow a lifetime supply of medication and drive up health insurance premiums for everybody.

While this might be a simplistic view, partially blaming obesity for our sluggish economy, illness prevention is simple: eat real food, exercise at least a little bit several times a week and avoid sugar. 

For those of us who are on the wellness path, there is one time you should gulp down sugar and that's after a high-intensity workout.

Immediately after a hard core workout, your body's glycogen (blood sugar) levels are low. It's at this time you have a window of opportunity of around one hour when calories will be used up to 400% more efficiently than at any other time. 

Physiologically, it's as if you can eat almost anything you want. Think of this time as free calories. 

But don't go reaching for the Twinkies yet, if you've just completed a 5-mile run and did 200 pushups. 

In the past, sugary sports drinks were the staple of athletes. But in the last five to ten years, studies have shown that the best recovery drink or food has both simple carbs and protein, in a ratio of 4 parts carbs to 1 part protein. 

Unless you are lactose intolerant, one of the best foods to consume after a brutal workout is chocolate milk. 

Who would have thunk it? But chocolate milk has about 28 grams of sugar to 7 grams protein, a perfect 4:1 ratio.  

Including some protein aids the recovery process. After all, when you're strength training, what you're really doing is creating micro tears in the muscle fibers. Protein and plenty of rest rebuilds the muscle tissue.

So what about fat? Should that be consumed after a workout? Just like sugar, fat has a bad rap. I've always thought fat should really be called "lipids." Then, fat-phobic aerobic junkies and models wouldn't be afraid to eat a nutritious avocado for fear of being fat.

But the one and only time you should avoid eating fat is after a challenging workout as it theoretically interferes with the uptake of nutrients to the bloodstream, muscle tissue and organs. 

Under normal circumstances, natural dietary fat should be eaten at every meal to prevent blood sugar spikes--perhaps the number one reason people complain of being tired.

So reach for the sugar, only after a hard workout. Because if your blood is constantly full of sugar you will unknowingly create damage to the lining of your arteries and over time this will create inflammation.

If you're in need of a recommendation for good recovery formulas, email me at judd@fitnessandbodywork.com. 

To your health,

Judd

Food Allergies: Reasons, Symptoms and Cures

Are you one of the 12 million people in the U.S. with a food allergy? 

Only eight foods account for 90 percent of all food allergies. They are:

·         Corn

·         Soy

·         Wheat

·         Cow’s Milk

·         Eggs (from hens)

·         Peanuts

·         Tree Nuts

·         Seafood

Symptoms of food allergies can appear within as little as two minutes or up to two hours.

If you’re one out of the 25 adults—or one out of 17 kids age 3 and under—who suffer from food allergies, you’ll likely have at least one of the following symptoms:

·         rashes

·         hives

·         itching

·         swelling

·         wheezing and breathing difficulty

·         swollen lips or eyelids

Some people experience severe gastrointestinal symptoms from food allergies such as:

·         vomiting,

·         cramps

·         diarrhea

Food allergies, especially to peanuts and shellfish, can even, in extreme cases, lead to death from anaphylactic shock.

Causes of Food Allergies

Diligently, western society scrubs itself clean of all germs with heavily-marketed anti-bacterial soap. Is this obsessive cooties phobia cause for an increase in food allergies?

That’s one theory that’s been circulating among physicians, allergists and naturopaths and holistic healers for at least the past two decades.

Had no clue that anti-bacterial soap could actually weaken your immune system, causing it to attack a particular food substance, releasing histamines and other inflammatory chemicals in your system?

Have you succumbed to the hygiene propaganda?

If you have a toddler and keep your house spic and span, neutralizing all foreign microscopic invaders—both good and bad—your child may become more vulnerable to developing food allergies.

Other causes of food allergies

Processed foods, breast milk from mother to infant, and cross contamination from processors who produce many different food products in the same facility, are some of the other theories accounting for the increased incidence of food allergies.

In the case of peanuts, one theory exists that although Chinese cuisine contains lots of them, peanuts do not promote allergic reactions in most Chinese people because they boil their nuts—not roast them, as is commonly the case in western processed snacks and butters.

Whole-wheat-sandwich-eating Eskimos: More prone to food allergies?

Perhaps some sufferers of food allergies get dismayed because they think they are eating a food that is generally considered healthy.

“No fair, why is that I start wheezing after eating whole wheat bread—I thought it was much more nutritious than white bread,” pleads a despondent hypothetical food allergy sufferer.

It’s true of course that white bread lacks as many nutrients as whole wheat bread, but for some people, for reasons mentioned already, plus another important one— genetics—their DNA is not particularly well suited to digest, in this case, wheat.

If a traditional Nunavut igloo dweller living in far northern Canada abandoned that region’s traditional diet and subsisted instead on baloney sandwiches on whole wheat, there’s a chance this Nanuk of the North might develop a food allergy.

Dieticians, nutritionists and food coaches schooled in the concept of individualized nutrition and Metabolic Typing® understand that certain foods, especially in the case of wheat, corn, peanuts and soy, were introduced to humans, relatively, a short time ago.

Because many of us are ethnic mutts, it’s hard to know what traditional foods our ancestors ate.

Are you 100 percent Scottish-American? Then maybe your ancestors subsisted on seafood and unadulterated porridges. A pure-bred Scot from the Hebrides who now eats foods fortified with soy protein could develop an allergy to soy.

Eating bad foods kills enzymes, causes allergies

Over time, eating foods that trigger allergic reactions can render ineffective the digestive enzymes in your gut. Take cow’s milk for example. A common food allergen, it’s theorized by some progressive-thinking nutritionists that the pasteurization process in milk suppresses lactase, the enzyme needed to break down milk proteins.

Avoiding Food Allergies

It’s important to get in touch with your body and recognize any symptoms. Eliminating offending foods is the only tried and true way to avoid flare ups.

You can have your physician or allergist do a skin test for food allergies, but keep in mind that just because your skin shows sensitivity, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll experience allergic reactions, at least not severe ones.

Keeping a food journal is one of the best ways to learn how to eliminate foods that trigger reactions.