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bettertheworld · 3 years

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How and why fear scares people into eating meat.

Did you ever wonder why you ate what you ate as a child? Do you wonder why you continue to eat what you eat? Or are you simply on autopilot because you don’t think it matters all that much and you basically have it all figured out? Or do you feel powerless, and confused with the amount of fake news out there about food and you’re not sure where the hell to find real information? The answer does not lie in marketing, it lies in scientific research; geeks required.

Quick disclaimer - I’ve been through University and have a Bachelor of Science with a minor in Psychology and am trained as a Paramedic and for all of the years I’ve been out of school, I’ve become a geeky Paramedic thereby educating myself with regard to emergency medicine and the causes of our main killers.

What I find to be most useful with regard to school is how I am able to read research and make sense of it. Giving credit to where credit is due is not as easy as it seems - this is why ‘that guy’ or ‘my friend’s friend’ literally knows nothing, and anyone who refers to life rules from those sources, does not know as much as a person who refers to scientific journals.

Now with regard to food, I’ll be able to help you digest some of what’s out there and help you critically think for yourself. I won’t do it for you, but I’ll help you do it yourself, so bring your critical thinking, and bring your skepticism, I welcome it.

“Everything in moderation”, we’ve been told, except moderation has never been shown to be effective, i.e. reversing certain illnesses the way a specific diet has. Can you guess which diet has cured a the most common killers in today’s society? If you were able to guess, do enjoy this write-up, if not here’s a hint - it contains no animal products and I encourage you to open your mind and do some research after reading this. If this challenges you to your core and are offended, you are probably upset that your feelings and actions are in direct conflict, but that’s okay - real information will fix that.

On the topic of real news, here’s a few gems; butter from dairy in your coffee is never healthy, eggs are never part of the healthiest diet possible, and bacon is the quickest way for you to cause cancer and heart attacks in yourself. Eggs are the most concentrated glom of cholesterol you can eat on the planet and most people are born lactose-intolerant because we’re not cows, we’re people, so why would it ever be a good idea to challenge the body in such a way that it actually doesn’t want to be? In later write-ups, I’ll discuss the ‘Lac-operon’.

One thing you’ll need to do is always consider the source of research. Just because Dr. Oz or some “Doctor” or “professional” goes on TV blabbing out the benefits, of X, Y and Z or saying “the relationship isn’t strong enough to prove anything”, you have to ask yourself, who has done the research on the topic and who paid for the research to be done?

Rich people paying for research have a reason for doing research, it’s always about money, and they always get what they want in some way, shape or form due to the flexibility of statistical analysis. Rich people with money who have gone out of their way to pay for research, are also most likely to be taking advantage of nearly everyone downhill - kind of the way Trump does business. The sick-minded narcissistic ways the meat and dairy industries are run, if admitted by everyone would shudder in disbelief. The veil that has been pulled down before all of our eyes is real, and needs to be lifted.

The problem with foods is that as the research comes out, then another paper comes out to deny the ‘realness’ of the original - now who do you believe? This is especially true when it comes to foods containing cholesterol - animals products. You might wonder why animal products contain cholesterol? Because their cell walls contain cholesterol, just like ours do. Why do companies want to exploit this? Animals do not have rights the way humans do, so if companies can get away with exploiting animals and make a bunch of money doing so, and people are dumb enough to support this because they need huge amount of protein (because they don’t know how little they actually need), then my friend, you are indeed a sucker supporting Trump-like meat and dairy businessmen.

Cholesterol is needed by the human body to have strong cell walls and it’s made inside our own bodies, it’s never required to be eaten because your body makes all it needs. When people eat cholesterol, consider the fact that it is a solid at room temperature and has a melting point of 148 degrees Celsius. That means until you get to that temperature, it’s a solid - this is why it gets stuck in your arteries, and remaining in your arteries until it’s pushed into the walls or is broken down; if you’re smart enough to stop eating cholesterol.

Our bodies make what it needs, you never need to eat cholesterol, so saying certain foods have ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol is like saying cyanide, sometimes is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. We all know that ALL CYANIDE IS BAD CYANIDE, but we don’t all know that ALL CHOLESTEROL IS BAD CHOLESTEROL. We know all cyanide is bad cyanide because the effects of cyanide poisoning are very quick and easy to notice, but the effects of cholesterol-poisoning have a delayed onset - so long that many of us could never piece it altogether, and we call the manifestations of this poisoning ‘heart attacks’.

Do you know there are strong correlations between certain types of foods and certain illnesses? Do you know you can avoid the major killers in today’s society by avoiding the bad foods? It’s difficult to say what’s ‘good’ and what’s ‘bad’ because both of those denotations are subjective, but when it comes to cancer, heart attacks, strokes, the science is clear, animal products are killing you, slowly but surely - decreasing the years you get to live on this earth, and decreasing the quality of life that you live.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, a life not fearing cancer, heart attacks, high blood cholesterol, and best of all, not fearing high blood pressure which is also called “the silent killer”? All too often you hear people say, “Yeah, my father died of a heart attack, so I will one day too”. While there is a wee bit of truth to this statement, the amount of greatly overestimated. Habits and traditions are what are subconsciously passed down to next generation, thereby the body tends to react similarly as time goes because you’re eating the same foods with roughly the same body.

But what is hugely undervalued is with a change of habits, i.e. change of food sources, comes great opportunity to change your destiny. Just because dad had a heart attack or had cancer, does not mean you’re going to have one or die from one. Even if we have cancer genetics, certain foods promote ‘cancer-genetics’ and others thwart these genes from producing cancer.

Once you remove the foods that are associated with hardening of the arteries, you don’t have to worry about hardening arteries anymore. Without hardening arteries and clogging them with cholesterol, your risk for a heart attack was just cut down to nearly to a huge degree. Food matters, food matters a lot.

There are many peer-reviewed scientific journals out there - pubmed being a great starting place, which discusses how plant-based whole foods diets are reversing diabetes and reversing clogged arteries associated with heart attacks? Did the meat-producers forget to tell you this?

If my memory serves me correctly, it was something like 84% of diabetic patients, within 20 weeks of a new whole foods plant-based diets were off their diabetic medications having fixed their insulin resistance. Diabetes is a problem of physical nature, if all or most of the sites where the sugar goes from your vasculature to your functional cells of your body are blocked with cholesterol and other fats, then you my friend are ‘diabetic’. When you clear those sites with a whole-foods, plant-based diet you have essentially cured yourself of diabetes. Animal-fats have higher boiling points than that of vegetable sources, this is why they’re problematic for us.

Similarly, this same vegan diet was proven to erode the cholesterol in the arteries, thereby cleaning up the arteries, and with regard to the heart, you’ve now decreased your likelihood of having a heart attack. The vegan diet works for both illnesses because both of these problems happen in the tubes of the body, the highway, the vasculature, arteries to be exact.

With diabetes, you remove the cholesterol and stuff that sticks to it, thereby allowing insulin to let sugar into the cells from the arteries, and with heart attacks, you allow blood to circulate through the coronary arteries more freely now that the plant-based whole foods diet has eroded away the cholesterol and other fat-soluble substances stuck into the walls thereby blocking the blood-flow.

This is where we discuss the problem with saying ‘everything in moderation’. Science can now say, with certainty that a plant-based whole foods diet will fix your arteries nearly all of the time, but no one can say that eating one piece of meat per day will allow the same progress to occur - so let’s critically think, is ‘everything in moderation’ even true? Who made this garbage up? My guess is probably some Doctor who was making allowances for him or herself!

We all love to hear good things about our bad habits, but you’ll never hear a teacher tell a student, “It’s ok that you don’t really try very often in my class, everything in moderation my dear.” So why do we give ourselves allowances based on our own wants when it comes to food? If you’re a scholar, if you’re a critical thinker, if you value your body, you need to begin asking yourselves the questions that matter; how much do I value my health - do I even care about myself, or the future? Or maybe you aren’t a scholar, thinker, or maybe you don’t care and that’s why you refuse to understand what science has proven. Again, if you take offence to this, you’re at war with yourself. Everything I write is based on science but I do not write the sources in.

When I discovered these facts, I went on a rampage, trying to help everyone, wasting my energy and burning bridges, but now I’m leaving it all out on the table for like-minded people to read. I assume we all are like-minded because everyone just wants the best for themselves and their loved ones. It might be shocking to be challenged, so I’ll do my best to maintain neutrality, but what you might discover by following me might change the course of your life and sometimes we need a little challenge, but not too much.

You can’t free an oppressor, or the oppressed with oppression itself, it must be with deliberate care and without imposing ones beliefs, it must be with information, not by force. While I could use the platform to shred fools who base their decisions not on science but tradition, instead I’m going to empower you and not make you feel stupid for being duped - because we all have been duped by the meat and dairy industry. I want to continue to critically think, and beg for you to do the same.

Did you think you had free will when you were developing your eating habits and family traditions? Did you think you chose your food yourself with a sense of ownership? Or did you just want to fit in with the rest of your family? Did you not want to disappoint your parents by not finishing food prepared for you? Did you want to be guilty of letting an animal die for you, and you denying eating it forcing your parents to throw it out and waste its life? Did you want to avoid being called and feeling ungrateful? Was trying to be a good boy or girl causing you to compromise your thoughts and feelings? Did you love zoos but ask yourself, why am I eating this animal? And why don’t we have pet cows? Why do we think dogs are cute and cows not? So many children have thoughts that are repressed and never entertained by true critical thought, this is a crime of parenting.

Now circulating all over the internet are videos of cows playing fetch with fitness balls, just like dogs fetch a tennis ball. Imagine you could watch the video without thinking that because you eat meat, that you’ll completely disregard the emotions you’re feeling of how cute the cow is, so that it won’t be hard to eat your next beef-oriented meal?

Conversely, imagine you are healthy, strong, full of energy and vegan person who can fully enjoy videos of cute animals because you don’t see them as food, you see them as sentient beings capable of feelings, social structure, language and emotion. This is just one way people differ because of food choices.

This is how people are split when it comes to cute animal videos. No self-proclaimed animal lover wants me to bring up this comparison because for me to even suggest eating a dog is the same as eating a cow, the omnivore will become so enraged that they won’t be able to focus on the conversation and they’ll begin hating on this argument before I finish the thought - likely because they’ve repressed the thought in their own mind. I think eating all animals is completely wrong and completely necessary, but is eating a cow any different than eating a dog? Not in the slightest, but facts don’t change belief systems - they polarize the crowd

Why are some people not able to accept this logic? It’s because of a little thing called Carnism. A viral belief system where some foods and animals should be looked at as food, while other animals can be considered cute and not-to-be eaten. To one, a cow might be considered cuter than a dog, and a dog might be considered cuter than a cow to some, but to the alien coming from a different planet, they would not be able to see why which is cuter because they have not been affected by carnism itself. If a cow and a dog are both animals, then they are both food or neither are food. Why does one get preferential treatment in today’s society? Carnism is to blame for why. Carnism is with a simple google search, a basic idea that meat is there for us to eat, and if we’re not eating it, we could be because we’ve conquered the world, so it’s now there for the taking; aside other important points.

Who does carnism affect? Everyone who thinks they need meat and everyone who despises the idea of people who think they need meat to survive? Who started carnism? When science got interested in food, we made some inaccurate discoveries and statements, and we’ve sort of run with that. A 200 year-old science paper by Liebig which has been debunked plays a small role, but companies who saw the profit in exploiting animal protein are the true perpetrators of this.

How do they do it? Marketing. Marketing is a genius tool that highlights the good, and ignores the bad. Marketing is telling you what you want to hear about something that has no part in offering what you’re being told it offers. Marketing also tells you that if you wear the same sunglasses as Jason Statham, that you’ll be as desirable as Jason Statham. Clearly you’ve been affected by marketing because if you put on the same sunnies as him, you’re not going to resemble Jason Statham because you are not Jason Statham, and have a different bone structure than him. As a result, the sunglasses will have a different effect on you, and more than likely you just wasted $600. Buying what other people wear won’t make you look like them, but your feelings tell you otherwise - welcome to the level of marketing - your feels. And also, he’s 5′8, sorry if you thought he was 6′1.

Feeling a certain way about something is what determines our beliefs then our actions. When people feel that they need meat, they defend their ‘right’ to eat it, instead of listening to the ways you can get everything meat offers, and be so much more healthier. Try questioning an omnivore as to why they eat meat and then prepare yourself for heaping pile of shit excuses, and subjective garbage because none it’s true or valuable.

Humans have needs for amino acids, not meat. We need some fats and are pretty damn happy with certain types of carbohydrates. When it comes down to it, we need a fuel source, and a machine to move us that turns energy into movement, we’ll call this tool our muscles, we need muscles.

Since muscles move us, we need to fuel them. What are the ways we can do do? Plants and or animal products. If we think that we need to eat cow’s muscles for energy, we should know that this is completely false. Let’s discuss why this is not optimal.

For us to use muscles for energy, we have to eat that muscle, break it down, store it, then mobilize it for energy, and this process takes time and energy and you can refer to it as a slow process. On the other hand, if we eat carbohydrates, these sources are quickly accepted by the body and are ready to be used for energy extremely quickly by comparison.

If you’ve seen The Gamechangers movie, there is a study that uses beet juice and proves that you’re going to be able to cycle longer if working out after drinking beet juice vs not drinking it at all. This is because you’re providing a high-octane fuel source vs using meat which contains much less high-octane fuel to the point we’ll just call it low-octane fuel source. In addition using protein for energy requires you to be in starvation mode and you’re deciding to break down your body because there is no high-octane fuel around, this is not optimal - this sounds a lot like chronic fatigue. Using meat for energy is not optimal, not even close.

How does beet juice then offer us the chance to have stronger, better muscles? The juice offers energy that your muscles use quickly and readily. From my time at the University of Guelph where I completed my undergrad, I took a Cardiorespiratory Physiology Lab course, and I sure am glad that I did. I learned that whatever system you challenge, you will have gains in. So, if I provide my leg muscles with energy thereby allowing them to cycle, and I challenge my leg muscles with exercise just beyond what it comfortably, there will be growth - you will change the physical structure of individual cells. This means that the next time you challenge these muscles in the same way, the work that was 10% beyond your comfort zone, next time is 9% beyond your comfort zone, which means you have experienced 1% growth.

How did this growth happen? You fed your body what it needed for growth to occur. Did you need meat for this growth to happen? No, you needed essential amino acids. Amino acids that are made by plants. All amino acids are made by plants, and so many plant sources contain every single amino acid. As long as you’re challenging your body beyond it’s comfort zone and you’re feeding it the building blocks it requires for growth, growth will happen. Animals are not required, amino acids are, amino acids that can all be provided by plants.

The difference between vegans and omnivores is that vegans say, “No, it’s not ok for us to exploit animals for any reason”, but omnivores don’t want to discuss this matter because they feel that meat is required, so they do not fully allow themselves to empathize with what they’re eating, if they did, an omnivore would not be able to eat the cow, pig or chicken.

If it comes down to taste; what a greedy reason it is to kill a sentient being taste is? If it comes down to nutritional needs, saying you need animals to be healthy is a lot like thinking you need to only breathe oxygen from Nepal, because only Nepalese oxygen provides me with what I need. False! If we’re eating food and getting enough amino acids from a plant-based whole foods diet, is it in any way deficient compared to amino acids from animals? The answer is no, and additionally, you’re not priming yourself for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, other cardiovascular disorders.

Just a few thoughts maybe we should revisit. Were you given a choice between eating meat and not eating meat? When you were 5 years old and could conceptualize that you’re eating another life, did your parents sit you down and ask you how you felt about it or even talk to you about it? Did they even bother to tell you that you’re eating a sentient being capable of thought and having feelings? Do you think your parents had a clue about what they were feeding you beyond whatever food guide was popular at the time? Did you know that food guides are based on financial relationships and not what’s actually best for your body (until recent history in Canada)? Does this information enrage you the way it did to me? Do you know what government subsidies are? Does it make sense that you can find burgers at fast food joints for super cheap which contained the life of an animal, but can never find a ridiculously cheap head of broccoli? In fact, have you ever seen a cheap salad at McDonald’s? No, and you never will, because there are no government subsidies for lettuce or anything that goes in a salad. The government is in bed with whoever pays them the most money, and due to the fear that people have regarding becoming protein-deficient, 98% of people are afraid to turn their back on meat and dairy. I did this is 2014 and to this day, it’s been the best choice of my life.

The interesting fact is in the 1950s and 1960s, the FDA artificially increased the amount of protein ‘needed’ to sell more dairy and meat. Especially after Babe Ruth died of throat cancer due to smoking. At the time ‘Doctors’ were claiming cigarettes weren’t bad for you or cancer-causing, the relationship ‘wasn’t strong enough’. The baseball community should all be vegan for this reason alone.

If we’re human, always been and always will be human, then out there somewhere is a perfect diet for us, but what if we’re too afraid to eat the healthiest diet for us because of scare tactics used by the meat and dairy industry? Wouldn’t that be sad, maybe even criminal? I think so, but you only have yourself to blame once someone informs you or you read this.

I want to discuss the process of cooking food, but I want to get into that next time, the idea of what’s on the label, vs what’s on your plate after you cooked the carcinogens into it, and the vitamins out of it.

Ask yourself, what is the meat and dairy industry doing for you, aside from providing you with a much-less-than-healthy source of calories? They’re providing you with cancer, cardiovascular disease, double-standards, an emotional haze and basically, you work for them while they make you sick - this sounds a lot like the exploitation of you, the consumer. You think it’s time to wake up yet?

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devanlifts · 5 years

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Dissecting the Science of Nutrition

First and foremost, I am not a Doctor, I am not a scientist, I have not performed any medical studies on this topic, published or otherwise. I am not trying to give medical advice, and as such, I will not be linking any medical journals or studies. By all means, if your curiosity is sparked, feel free to do your own research and come to your own conclusions, because that is the best any of us can do. I also do not claim that these ideas are original to me; like all of us, my beliefs and ideas are an amalgamation of my surroundings and the people who have influenced me. Alright, so I’m just gonna come out and say it- please stop taking every study on diet that comes out as gospel.

I need to start with a great big disclaimer, no, I am not anti-science, and I’m not saying that all the science on food and nutrition is bad. What I AM saying is that you can find studies and anecdotal evidence that can reinforce almost anything. It is the application and manipulation of data that can be dubious. If interpreting the vast oceans of scientific results was easy, you wouldn’t find doctors on all sides of the issues. There are studies that find an association with eating meat and cardiovascular disease, and studies where there is not a correlation. Which one is correct? Both! In the manner that those studies were conducted, from what ever sample size they used, with whatever variables that were or were not controlled, those results were found on that day. That does not invalidate both studies, what it does is it gives us an idea of what we may need to factor into the next study to dig deeper into the truth.

Next, I want to make clear that not all nutritional research is created equal. In a perfect world, everything published would be fair and unbiased, but that is unfortunately not the case. Studies cost money, and sometimes funding comes from a company with particular interest in a certain outcome, for example if a big dairy company funded a study on if the calcium found in milk and cheese made your bones stronger. Of COURSE they would want there to be positive results to consuming their product. That is not to say that all studies that get funding this way will be biased, but it can be very hard to know the difference sometimes. In the 1960s and 70s, the sugar industry funded research that suggested that the major culprit of coronary heart disease and other health concerns was fat, not sugar. Now whether or not the scientists were paid off, and whether it was all because of the sugar industry’s involvement or not, doesn’t change the result; by 1977, the government was recommending that people eat a low fat diet, and this has made huge waves in our country to this day. When food companies started taking out fat in their foods, they were replaced by sugar to maintain palatability, and major sugar sources like soda were glossed over, since soda is not a fatty food. We are sold on the idea that “Lean” branded food (Lean Cuisine, Lean Pockets), are somehow magically better than their full fat counterparts by swapping a few grams of fat for a few grams of carbs, and that smoothies full of sugar will make you healthy. Whether or not you believe that these recommendations are good, and if it resulted in a healthier American polulation, it goes without saying what a huge impact that these privately funded scientific studies can potentially have. Beyond this, even scientific results that are 100% unbiased are still not all equal. Observational data collects information on numerous factors from a population and then examined to identify potential patterns. This is a useful tool, but it can, at best, provide a potential correlation, it does not provide causation, let alone irrefutable “proof” of something. For example, and this is totally made up, let’s say that a high correlation is found with people who are on a paleo diet and ankle sprains. Some people might read that and go, “Hey, look at that! Paleo gives you weak ankles!” And start demonizing paleo foods and people who adhere to that lifestyle, protesting in the streets that feeding your children a paleo diet constitutes abuse. That’s wrong. That’s not only bad science, it is non-science and nonsense. Good science might say something like, “Well, many people who eat a paleo diet are conscious of health, so there is a likelihood that they are also running and jumping and climbing more than people who are not on a paleo diet, which could increase risk for ankle sprains. We need to now factor exercise into the equation, with a hypothesis that it is increased exercise that leads to a proportional increase in ankle injury,” or something along those lines. Again, this is a made up example, but you’ll find people zealously defending their beliefs based on data that is not unlike what I have presented. Observational studies are excellent- they helped us identify smoking as a potential carcinogen, they can show us large scale trends, and are great for forming hypotheses, but they do NOT give us conclusions.

I get it, why would you listen to a non-expert, who is telling you to ignore the ACTUAL experts? Well to that I say, I’m not! I’m just trying to get across that I don’t know everything, but neither does anyone else, and if you’re talking to someone who says they do, I promise they’re not an expert. There are a few things that I think are generally(not universally) accepted about nutrition that are worth mentioning-

-We should all be eating more vegetables

-We need to cut back on processed sugars

-fresh foods with fewer, whole ingredients are typically better than foods with lots and lots of processed and artificial ingredients

-We are only just starting to understand how complex and diverse we are in how we consume and utilize nutrients.

I hold my own opinions on what we should and shouldn’t eat, but I won’t tell you that your opinion has to match mine. I just want to implore anyone reading this to take everything that they hear with a grain of salt, do your own own research, make your own conclusions, and do what makes you feel like you are living your best life.

#nutrition #fitness #science #food #diet

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jedimaster941 · 5 years

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A Declaration of Lost Independence

As we get older, as we live life, like stone eroding under the power of crashing waves, our bodies break down. And as our bodies break down, we become more and more unable to do things. Sometimes not to the standard we once did, and sometimes we lose the ability completely. We lose things that bring us joy, and we lose things that bring us to life. Whether it be slowly or quickly, we all lose our independence. Aging is something, like it or not, we have all signed up for. We will get older, our bodies will break down, and we will lose our overall independence. It’s not ideal, but we understand it to be true.

For Chronically ill people, however, we can lose our independence rather suddenly, and it has absolutely nothing to do with natural aging. If someone aged 78 years has trouble walking, getting dressed, or going to the bathroom, very few would question it. But imagine you are 28 years old and you have the same difficulties. Think of how you would feel. In this article I will discuss the ways in which people with chronic illness lose their independence in the areas of physical, mental, social, and dietary, and the toll it takes on us when the things that we should be able to do becomes out of reach.

*This post features responses from chronically ill patients whom I asked…*

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Physical

Loss of physical independence is the area that most people think about when illness takes over. It is at least the most public. People see wheelchairs, walkers, canes, crutches, and handicapped placards. They are also readily aware when someone takes a little longer to stand up, when they have trouble buttoning a shirt, or their handwriting becomes illegible. If someone gets to know a disabled person well enough they may also become aware of PIK lines, feeding tubes, and colostomy bags among others.

When someone is chronically ill/disabled their bodies are the primary victim of their disease. In one way or another, our bodies are malfunctioning. As my primary care physician said to me once, “We are all getting older, you're a just doing it a lot faster”. (If anyone is curious, I did not take offense, I appreciated that he acknowledged my illness and my lack of certain abilities)

Our independence is very much directly lost in these examples. We lose the ability of climb stairs, walk short distances, wash ourselves, cook food, and one I’d like to discuss a little more, exercise.

Doctors and online experts tell us we need to exercise. I can’t disagree with that. Exercise is important to keeping what we have left tip top. However, when we can’t climb stairs, walk short distances, or wash ourselves, how do you expect us to get the the gym to do some Cross Fit? I know for me, exercise of any kind hurts and has lasting effects. Some of my readers may remember how not long ago I walked a peppy poodle for half a mile and my legs hurt for three days after. This wasn't from being out of shape, this was due of my condition. Yes, exercise, but understand sometimes it's more harm than help.

I used to be a distance runner, a golfer, and could give the best piggy back rides. Now, due to Ankylosing Spondylitis, I can’t do any of that. And believe me when I tell you, that hurts me mentally as well.

Mental

With chronic illness and disability there comes a mental toll as well. Both in the areas of cognitive ability, and depression.

First, let's touch on cognitive ability which will then (as all of these sections do) we will move on to depression.

I imagine many of my readers are already well versed in the words and terminology used in the discussion of chronic illness. However, if you are new to this world, let me share a term that I, and all of us use probably on a daily basis: “Brain Fog”.

Brain Fog is exactly what it sounds like, a thick layer of fog on your brain. You know how hard it is to see through a covering of fog? Now, imagine that fog is in your head and your brain is trying to see thoughts, feelings, and ideas through it. It’s not easy and often things are lost.

Brain fog is caused by pain and the inability to actually shut down and rest. When people go to sleep their bodies and minds go into power saver mode to recharge, refresh, and do diagnostics checks. However, what happens when you drink caffeine, or you eat a big meal before bed? Well, if you can sleep, your body has now been given other things to work on. The caffeine makes your heart work harder, and your body needs to work to digest that big meal. So what happens? You don’t wake up rested because your body never actually got any rest. The same thing happens every night for people with chronic illness, but without the caffeine and steak dinner. In my case, with Ankylosing Spondylitis, my body is always working to fight off a foreign invader known as the lining between my joints. (I guess it’s actually a domestic invader) For most of us, because of constant pain, we can never get comfortable and even when we do sleep, we aren't actually resting. This lack of true sleep causes our brains to process at a diminished rate limiting our abilities to remember, problem solve, and function.

When I go to the doctor, I bring my wife. Not because I need a supportive hand, but because I need a partner and coach to help me tell the doctor what I need to say, and then remember what the doctor tells me. There have been times I have come home from an appointment solo and either forgot what treatment we discussed or, through my fogginess, made up something completely different because I could have sworn the doctor said she wanted to try bloodletting. (Or was it Methotrexate? I can’t remember) Although I love my wife, and I will always welcome her to join me at an appointment, I'm 37 years old, I shouldn't need someone to be my brain while the doctor checks out my body. While I am not depressed about this, this loss of mental and physical independence can also lead to depression.

I used to run, and I loved running. When my health got worse I took up walking long distance. However, only a few short years later, I couldn't even walk short distances without great pain and weakness. I was 34 the last time I walked with any kind of purpose. Far too young to lose so much ability. When I see people out running, or I drive past the local health club with overly large windows, I get sad longing for my glory days. When I watch American Ninja Warrior I’m sometimes heartbroken. Believe it or not, I used to be able to do stuff like that. It’s crushing to think that somebody actually has the freedom to wake up in the morning, pop up out of bed, and then think to themselves “Well, I think I will run 10 miles, shower, go to work, spend an hour at the gym, play with my kids, and then get 8 hours of restful sleep before doing it all over again.” Here I am thinking, “I hope I can get out of bed.”

Chronic illness can take a great toll on our mental state and subsequent independence.

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Diet

With the chronic illness life, more often than not it seems, comes a list of dietary restrictions. 90% (not actual figures) of life comes from our gut. What we eat and drink. Other than breathing and IV treatments, it’s the only way anything gets into the factory known as our bodies. So, there is much stress put on us by our doctors, friends, family, TV, and the woman on the corner to eat right to better our condition. And not everyone is wrong. There are certain things that improve or worsen our condition. We will listen to the “experts” and try certain things. Excluding things like sugar, dairy, nightshades, and gluten. Or “fad diets” like Paleo, Keto, Vampire, or Atkins.* We might even try Kale! Many of us will try anything if it means we reduce our pain and get a little life back. But, the more foods we give up, the more independence we lose.

Personally this area has been my biggest struggle. Two years ago I went dairy free at the suggestion of a nutritionist, and one year ago I totally cut out sugar. And, I won’t lie, excluding both of those have been fantastic for me! I may not always notice the improvement, but if I happen to slip up on purpose of by accident, I certainly notice then. I am solid and confident in my sugar free/dairy free life, and for the most part I am happy.

However, this does not mean everything is butterflies and unicorns. I still struggle as I’m sure many many of my chronically ill brothers, sisters, and non-binary siblings do. Two examples: My birthday, and the ice cream aisle. On my birthday my co-workers wanted to know what to get me for my party. Typically the birthday treat is cupcakes and fudge. Hello sugar and milk! After much thought, I received the treat of peanuts and pickles. (And I didn't complain) However, it didn’t mean it didn't hurt. My co-workers needed to avoid yummy delicious treats because of my AS. They were supportive, but it didn’t mean I didn’t feel like a party pooper. As for the ice cream aisle, they have dairy free ice cream, and they have sugar free ice cream, but as a friendly store clerk told me, diary free & sugar free ice cream isn't ice cream. I'm out of luck there.

When it comes to dairy and sugar, I have lost my independence. People need to accommodate for me. Oftentimes meaning they might miss out on what they want. When my school does nacho day, frozen custard day, cookie day, etc for staff wellness days, I’m the only one not well. I could tell the people that sorry I can’t eat this, but that opens me up to feeling bad for making them feel bad.

Or when you need to find out if a restruant is accessible. Many would think that with all the handicapped parking spots all places would also be accessible. This is not always true. I have seen places where the "accessible" table is in a door way or up against a wall. The freedom to go to any restaurant one wants is never a guarantee.

When friends want to go out those of us with diet restrictions need to be “that guy/girl”. The one who has hard opinions on what we can eat. Ever stand behind the person at Starbucks who insists on soy milk and Stevia? Have you ever thought “Just take your coffee and drink it! You're holding up the line!” Yeah, that’s us, the ones holding up the line. Doesn't feel good.

We are jealous of those people who can eat whatever they want. Go to any restaurant, order anything off the menu, and even have dessert. This isn't about gaining weight, it's about being able to get out of bed in the morning.

Social

The next topic of how we lose our social independence ties into the three topics above and any others I have not mentioned. Humans are meant to be social. We aren't bears where we can just crawl into our cave and sleep for a few months. If any human crawled into a cave, nobody would be friends with them. Why? Because interacting is one of the standards of human life. We need other people! Sure, there are the mountain folk who go out, kill a deer, make clothing from it, light a fire and live their life in seclusion. (And there is nothing wrong with that) But, most humans need other people to cook our food, make our clothes, work on projects, drive us, and socialize purely for fun. The problem is, for many chronically ill people, getting out of the house and socializing sounds equal to climbing up and living in a mountain.

We are exhausted! Chronic illness takes a lot out of us! Every day can be a struggle to move, breathe, think, and complete other daily activities. Showering can be one of the most difficult activities for some. Doing laundry is pure hell! When most people hate it for the fact they have to do it, for me, folding makes me want to die! Seriously, I don't fully know why, but it hurts so much and takes so much out of me. After doing everything we have to do, we don’t have energy left for what we want to do.

I come home from work, my shoes come off, and I’m done! Very little is going to convince me to put my shoes back on and go out with friends when all I want to do is sleep. Because of this, many chronically ill people are forgotten. We bail on friends two or three times, and they just stop inviting us. But, then we have a good day, we are ready to accept an invite. Do we take it? No. Why? Because, we feel good now, we don’t know if we will feel good later.

Chronic illness symptoms can come in waves. We can have good days (or at least the start of a day) but then we drop. We don’t always know why we drop, but our feelings and mood are in no way guaranteed. So, we don’t risk it. It’s far better to be at home near our bed than 30 minutes away with a group of people you will need to apologize to for leaving early. Declining the invite or simple ghosting is far easier and less harmful to our psyche.

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Chronically ill patients lose all sorts of independence. We can not truly live free with AS, Fibro, EDS, POTS, Lyme, MS, ME or one of the many other chronic illnesses that totally sap us of life. We are not free do do as we like.

While others wake up and get to choose between running, biking, partying, fixing cars, eating amazing food, and/or playing with their kids. We wake up and.. well.. that's it.

In closing. If you know a person with a disability/chronic illness try to be understanding of their limitations. Don’t give them a hard time when they can't do everything you want them to. Our lives are hard enough dealing with all the independence we may have lost.

*I might have made up one of these diets

#spoonie #chronic illness #ankylosing spondylitis #chronicpain #chronic pain #lymedisease #eds #ms #fibromyalgia #freedom #independent #independence #sickness #food #depression #church #infertility #childless

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willowlark369 · 6 years

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Relationship Status: Complicated

There’s no other way to say this.

I am fat. I haven’t always been that way. As a child, I was waif-thin, a fact that didn’t help my mother any when DFS began investigating her for neglect or potential abuse because my brother was rapidly dropping off the bottom of the weight chart. It looked particularly damning next to my other two siblings who were rather thick (not fat but certainly fatter than many felt appropriate for female children). Both my brother and I were small and thin, though, and often covered in bruises and bumps. It wasn’t from abuse (though looking back now, I can understand why DFS might have thought that, beyond the bruises). It was just the curse of active children who had very little padding to protect them when they inevitably fell or crashed.

My brother’s problem was actually relatively simple. He had hyperthyroidism. Once they realized the problem (which was made complicated by no one initially listening to my mother that yes, she was actually feeding him and could they please focus now because something’s clearly wrong) and worked out how to counter it long enough to get him to puberty where it straightened itself out, he stopped being so weedy. He grew up to be a very respectable 6′4″ with a linebacker’s build.

My problem wasn’t so simple. I would go through periods of time when I refused to eat foods that I had been obsessed with and wouldn’t eat anything else the week before. Most children hated trying new things, but I would seek out new flavors or textures and would tell everyone about the subtle differences in amounts of ingredients. I would go through periods of time when I was very sick with GI issues, for seemingly no reason, and my family’s home cure (crackers crumbled in milk) would only make it worse until I had spent a day or two just drinking jello water or Pedisure.

None of this was treated as something understandable. The explanations were things like picky eater and active imagination and stomach flu. It was only later, as an adult raising a child with similar issues, that I came across things like hyposensitivity, hyperesthesia, and lactose intolerance. It helped both Bug and I to know those words, and to understand that there were others with the same issue out there. I’m rather proud of Bug’s relationship with food, even with previous problem periods.

But I’m skipping parts.

When I was eight, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I was put on medication, of course, and that did help with the mood swings and the more obviously related symptoms. But the med had another effect, as meds often do. It suppressed my appetite. I wasn’t very good at remembering to eat anyway and had problems keeping food down a lot, and now I didn’t seem to have a hunger signal.

My body thought I was starving, which yeah, I probably was (again, looking back with the clarity of hindsight). So it did what humans are so fucking great at: it adapted to survive. It stored everything it could, everything not immediately necessary for biological functions. This was probably made very difficult by my habit of preferring vegetables and fruits to things that had easily made-into-fat parts like meats and dairy. Grains were the closest that I came, and even those, I tended to avoid because they tended to make me itchy or sick. (Later, I would learn about gluten and its effect on autoimmune disorders.)

By the time I was thirteen, I was 5′4″, the same height I am now in my thirties, and I had a stomach that made me look four to five months pregnant. My limbs were still waif-like, with very little padding, though. My body was storing the fat predominantly in the hardest place to get rid of it.

I started getting the comments. You probably know the ones.

Are you sure you should eat that?

Maybe you could do with skipping a few meals.

Have you tried exercising? Or X diet?

I was thirteen, and people, complete strangers, were making judgements. Even worse was when family members made similar comments. So I became self-conscious about eating in front of others, preferring to simply not, and I started trying to change the topic whenever it came up. Being prone to research anyway, I started looking up diets and exercises with what could only be termed as obsessive compulsion.

And I grew thicker around the middle, while doctors and nurse tisked over my risking BMI and blamed the worsening health issues on overeating and simply eating the wrong things. Trying so hard to be healthy, I tried to follow their advice. I kept a food journal, only to be constantly reminded that I needed to include everything I ate or drank, not just what I thought they wanted to see. I cut portions and even skipped meals. I gave up sauces and dressings.

I stayed fat and got fatter. My body and I were at war with each other, both trying to do the best thing to keep me alive.

I got pregnant, complicating things further as hormones, morning sickness, and food cravings got added to the mix. Oh, and stress, as I failed to skip periods and nearly had a panic attack every single time I started, not even able to be comforted by movement most of the time because of the fat I carried around my middle having a “muffling” effect.

Things didn’t get better. For a long time, everything kept getting worse. Medical personnel would treat whatever health issues I had as a symptom of being overweight and their advice was always the same: cut portions, don’t eat X, and exercise more. If they had me keep a food journal, I would always face the accusation, both direct and not, of not recording everything or not doing so correctly. As I became the primary income as well caregiver for my daughters, I didn’t have time to exercise, but no one asked about the miles I walked back and forth to work or to run errands or chasing the girls around the park.

I was fat, so fat must be the problem.

Then my insurance stopped covering my med, and I had to switch. The new one had an even worse effect than merely suppressing hunger. It still did that, but it also caused weight gain. I gained sixty pounds in under three months. Already stressed as it was, my body couldn’t handle pushing 300 pounds, and my pancreas started having issues producing insulin.

I became diabetic. Only the diet they suggested didn’t help and in fact seemed to make everything even worse, with “weird” reactions like starches making my blood sugar plummet while “safe” foods like carrots or tomatoes making it skyrocket. The nutritionist I was assigned to scratched her head and assigned a food journal, and suggested a step monitor with daily recording but no set goal.

Then she did what no one else had ever done: she believed me when I said that I was recording everything, and doing so correctly. Do you know what looking at the data provided without assumption did? It revealed that I was routinely struggling to go over 1000 calories a day while I was routinely burning over 3500 calories in the same time frame. There was often days were I had caloric intakes of less than 500 because I had simply forgot to eat.

Disordered eating is what she called it, not deliberate enough to be anorexia, but still a problem. She pulled a Remus Lupin and instead of telling me to cut portions, she said eat and you’ll feel better. She recommended telling my psychiatrist to find another med and to not take ‘no’ for answer this time. This can’t continue, she said, or you’ll die.

She brought up that there were two types of diabetics: starch and sugar. Most diabetics are starch diabetics who benefit from avoiding things like bread, pasta, and potatoes while heaping on veggies indiscriminately. But sugar diabetics were different and really efficient at digesting simple sugars like those found in fruit and certain veggies which made their blood sugar spike just the same as candy but they benefited from ingesting more complex carbs like starches.

She brought up how studies had been showing that more than just celiacs needed to avoid gluten, that it caused flare-ups in everyone with autoimmune disorders which psoriasis had been discovered to be. She pointed out that I was likely lactose intolerant just like my Bug and how the same sources of dairy that were safe for her would be safe for me.

Don’t listen to them, she said, when they assume what makes fat. And she pointed me in the direction of nutritional (not diet) research. She gave me a list of tips on how to eat and things to discuss with my therapist, who was less enthused with the nutritionist’s conclusion about the importance of eating more instead of less, because I was fat so obviously couldn’t have any kind of eating disorder unless it was binging or overeating.

The therapist wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand. Family members continued to suggest whatever diet they were on or had heard about or just to not eat. But now I was armed with knowledge and the voice of a tiny redhead saying eat to get well or you’ll die, because you’ve been dying for a long time.

It’s not a magical fix. I still struggle. I still don’t like eating in front of others, preferring to either not or to get that part of things done as quickly as possible. I have mixed reactions to being asked if I should be eating things or if I think I should cut back. I still forget to eat sometimes, even though I’m getting better about remembering and most days now I remember at least one meal.

At 246 pounds and 5′4″, I’m fat and overweight, obese. People still judge me when I discuss having health issues, both mental and physical, and they still assume that it’s the fault of the weight instead of the weight just being a part of it. They still assume it’s my fault, a choice I made instead of a reaction to things.

My relationship with food is complicated and difficult to explain.

I just thought I would share, in case there is someone else out there in a similar situation, someone dying without knowing it and haven’t met their own tiny redhead to tell them to eat to get better.

You are not alone.

It’s okay to have a complicated relationship with food.

Eat.

#Magi's Thoughts #Real Life #Eating Disorders #Weight Issues #Social Justice through Writing

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alifeleadsimply · 4 years

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Why you should eat less sugar

I don’t know if you have noticed, but I try to follow a zero sugar lifestyle. In South Africa, the Banting (LCHF) lifestyle has exploded as one of the biggest trends, probably ever. A big portion of the population has jumped on the bandwagon, with products and support groups and even restaurants popping up everywhere. I have read the reasoning behind it, and have done my own research, and although I agree with most of their principles and guidelines I just couldn’t get around the fact that legumes and beans were not allowed. It is not like I eat boat loads of the stuff anyway, but painting them as villains just didn’t sit well with me. We live in a world where our extreme levels of meat consumption is becoming a problem, from agricultural to economic reasons, and now you are telling me the only other affordable protein is off limits? Not going to fly.

So I delved in deeper, and eventually came across Sarah Wilson’s I quit sugar series of books, podcasts, blog posts, etc. Yes! She seemed like she had all of the answers, and her way of eating allowed beans and legumes. Not only did I agree with her proposed way of eating, I also liked how simple she made it. No funny ingredients or processes, real food that you can do in bulk or quickly at night. Nothing fancy or too complicated. Plus she advocated using the whole veg/fruit/etc. to minimize waste. And she tried to keep her cooking processes as money-saving as possible. Think crockpot dinners, using the oven to roast and dry at the same time, etc. She seemed as if she not only wanted to save her own body, but the planet as well. And that is all that I am about!

I embarked on my zero sugar journey. There were same radical changed, and a few that I am still working on (such as cutting out all dairy) but all in all, I have made great progress. For all of the changes, I feel a lot healthier, have more energy, get sick less often and focus better. For me especially that last part is crucial!

Sugar is highly addictive, and the biggest challenge we face when trying to consume less of the white stuff is the fact that it lurks in the most unassuming foods. Sauces, fruit, medicine, processed meats, spices, even things that you would never consider is loaded with it. Sugar is used as a preserving agent, a flavouring agent – especially in those garish low-fat or no-fat foods – it aids fermentation, is added to give colour, texture, and a binder. Dairy is full of the stuff, as is most processed food. The health guidelines says you must have no more than 6 teaspoons of added sugar for women daily, and 9 teaspoons of added sugar for men daily. We are averaging between 13 and 20 teaspoons, so almost double than the recommended amount. Yes, sugar is necessary for some metabolical processes. And yes we all deserve a sweet treat every now and then. But I don’t think we realise the impact sugar has on our health, our moods, and our general wellbeing.

Here are a few reasons to cut back (if not totally out) on your added sugar intake:

It will lower your blood pressure, and lower your risk of having a heart attack

New research has shown that added dietary sugar can increase your blood pressure, leading to an increase in the workload of your heart and added pressure on your arteries. Over time, your circulatory system can damage, leading to heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, kidney damage, artery diseases and other serious conditions. People whose diets is composed of at least 25% added sugar are twice as likely to die from heart attacks than those who follow diets made up of less than 10% added sugars.

Your breath will smell better

Sugar provides a quick energy source for bacteria, which causes plaque to build up giving you that terrible morning breath.

You will have fewer cravings

Over-consumption of sugar triggers the production of a hormone called ghrelin. Ghrelin is responsible for signaling your body when it is hungry, so having less of the hormone means feeling hungry less often.

You will help mother nature

Sugarcane plantations is often very destructive to the habitat around it, it needs a lot of water and is often heavily sprayed with chemicals, causing pollution. If we lessen the demand for sugar, we will decrease the destruction.

It can reduce your risk of getting certain types of cancers

Some research suggests that excessive sugar intake can be correlated to increased chances of certain cancers such as pancreatic cancer.

You will see your dentist a lot less

You have stopped giving the bacteria in your mouth the food needed to grow, so less cavities and gum disease!

And also your doctor

Excessive sugar intake lowers your immune system by inhibiting phagocytosis – the way your body destroys viruses and bacteria. All the simple sugars, including honey, cause a block on the ability of your white blood cells to defend your body. Less sugar, less sick days.

It is anti-ageing on the skin

Too much sugar can make your skin look dull and wrinkled. How? The excess sugar in your blood stream attaches to proteins forming glycation end products (AGEs for short) which then damage collagen and elastin. Both these proteins are needed to keep the skin firm and elastic, thus leading to sagging skin, fine lines, and wrinkles. Furthermore, sugar also interferes with your body’s natural antioxidant enzymes making you vulnerable to sun damage. Your sugar addiction literally will show on your face.

And decrease anxiety and depression

High sugar intake has been linked to an increase in depression diagnoses when compared to people who prefer less sweet options. Why? When glucose (another name for sugar) enters the body, insulin is needed to give glucose access to the cells. When your brain experiences a continuous or constant barrage of sugar, insulin becomes slow to respond or even immune to the effects. This makes insulin less effective, and glucose cannot enter the cells. This can lead to anxiety and depression.

You will lower your risk of developing diabetes

Research has shown that drinking one or more sugary drinks daily increases your chances of developing type 2 diabetes by 26%. A diet that is constantly high in sugar leads to insulin resistance, which keeps excess sugar from being taken into the cells. The sugar than becomes stranded in your bloodstream, increasing your blood sugar levels, leading to pre-diabetes and eventually can cause actual diabetes.

You also lower your chances of getting Alzheimer’s and dementia

High sugar intake reduces the body’s ability to produce BDNF, a chemical which helps the brain to form new memories as well as remember old ones. People with impaired glucose metabolism, such as pre-diabetics and diabetics, have especially low levels of BDNF, and low levels have been linked to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

You will improve your energy levels

Excessive sugar from your diet can decrease the effectiveness of the orexin cells, who are responsible to induce wakefulness, rev up your metabolism and keep your body going. When orexin cells are turned off because of too much sugar, we feel sleepy and sluggish, less focused and cranky.

You will breathe easier

A diet high in sugar can make you more likely to suffer from asthma or COPD. I know sugar makes my asthma flare!

It will lower your bad cholesterol levels

A high-sugar diet is directly linked to lower levels of good cholesterol (HDL), high levels of bad cholesterol (LDL) and elevated levels of triglycerides (blood fats). Bad cholesterol and blood fats are partly responsible for clogging up arteries and blood vessels, which can cause heart disease.

You can prevent fatty liver disease

One of the most common diseases in the industrialised world, fatty liver disease occurs when insulin spikes caused by elevated sugar levels in the blood drives fat into the liver’s cells. This then causes inflammation and can lead to scarring. Fatty liver disease is an important indicator for the risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer.

It keeps your brain sharp

Sugar can impede on your brain functions. Research has found that a high sugar intake can be correlated to impaired cognitive functions as the sugar reduces the level of proteins necessary for memory and responsiveness.

And your skin clear

Sugar has been found to increase the severity of acne because of the hormonal fluctuations they cause. The link has also been made to other skin conditions, such as eczema and psoriasis.

You will save money

Less trips to the doctor and dentist, no more junk food. Less chronic medication, less sick days. Decrease in medical aid costs because your overall health has improved and you have decreased your chances of developing a lifestyle syndrome such as diabetes. Win win win!

I am convinced that after reading these points, and doing your own research, you will agree that all of us can do a lot worse than cutting out sugar. And although a lot of conflicting studies have emerged with regards to the effectiveness and safety of a high fat, low carb diet, all researchers agree that sugar is not the innocent “food additive” it has been painted as for decades. So skip the white stuff, and reap the rewards!

Share with me your stories of how you cut sugar, or if you don’t want to, why. I just love me a good debate!

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#Alifeleadsimply #singlemama

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inloveandwords · 4 years

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For those of you who are new around here, TeaChats are a monthly post that I do in which I pretend that you and I are going out and grabbing a cup of tea (or coffee or wine) and we’re chatting about what we’ve been up to lately.

Let’s chat!

Happy Month of Love, everyone!

Aside from having a great reading month, January overall was… eventful to say the least.

My mom was hospitalized in the beginning of the month for what they thought was a heartattack. I can’t even tell you how I felt the world fall out from under me when I got that phone call. For years, it has always been issues with my father’s heart, but to hear something happen with my mom, too? I couldn’t handle it.

I rushed to the hospital at 1am, stayed there until 3am, went back to my parents house to sleep for a couple hours before heading back to the hospital and staying there with them for a couple of days.

The good news is she’s home and doing much better now. She got a full workup and everything looks good. They just don’t know what happened – which isn’t ideal, but better than other possible outcomes.

I went back to my parents’ house toward the end the the month and stayed over there so that I could go to a couple days of their library’s book sale. I only found one book for me, but several for my daughter and I got to spend some time with my parents, which was nice.

I barely ate anything while I was there, though, because my diet is so restrictive, and I haven’t quite figured out how to ask for food that I can eat. I end up just telling people I’m not hungry (lies. I’m ALWAYS hungry these days.) I just hate being that person, you know?

Anyway… onward to the usual TeaChat updates:

At Present I Am…

Reading

War (The Four Horsemen #2) by Laura Thalassa I read the first book, Pestilence, last month and gave it 5 stars. It’s such a unique romance about the four horseman of the apocalypse. This horseman, War, seems to be like a Jason Mamoa-type!

Four Psychos (The Dark Side #1) by Kristy Cunning This is my first reverse harem that was recommended to my by the queen of reverse harems, Melissa H. over at @SheIsAnOpenBook. So far I’m actually really liking it and it’s available on Kindle Unlimited!

Watching

MISS AMERICANA

Consuming

Still going strong with the mix of the Wahls Protocol and Autoimmune Paleo diet since November when I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

This means I don’t eat: dairy, grains, gluten, nightshade vegetables, eggs, soy, corn, white potatoes, ANY type of sugar, NO processed foods, and I try to eat as much organic/antibiotic free/nitrate free foods as possible. I also cut out honey, maple syrup, fruit juice, and dried fruits per my Dr’s instructions, which I used to be able to eat.

It sucks. A lot.

But, my other choices are to either do hardcore drug infusions that suppress my immune system (I work at a school and have two young kids) or risk more flair ups that could leave me wheelchair bound.

A friend shared this image on her Instagram, and it’s pretty accurate.

I work in an office that is constantly full of treats and coworkers who like to order lunch and breakfast all the time. Like I said, I work at a school and the parents are so lovely and bring food and treats for everyone frequently – but my diet is so restrictive, there is rarely anything I can eat.

I also had this diet throughout the holidays, including Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Needless to say, a lot of people are always telling me, “I don’t know how you do it.” I usually just say, “Pure fear.”

Listening to

youtube

This freaking song is so good and heartbreaking.

Obsessing over

All things Jordan Fisher. He’s Evan Hansen AND John Ambrose! And he’s so full of charisma and magnetism and TALENT. I can’t even.

What’s Next?

Though my husband and I don’t have any set plans for Valentine’s Day, I’m sure we’ll at least hang out that night at home with the girls. Normally we’d order in, but I can’t really eat anything from our local restaurants.

I have doctor appointments every Friday this month, which is cute. BUT, I am going to my friend’s house for a reading date later in the month. We are going to cook dinner together (probably make a giant salad full of veggies I can eat!), chat a bit, then read.

It’s also my sister’s birthday this month, and we’re going to have our bookclub and celebrate her birthday all at once. I’m really looking forward to that. We’re reading (I’m re-reading) Marriage for One by Ella Maise. I ADORED that book and I hope they will, too!

Tell me… what have you been up to lately? What’s up next?

A Somewhat Whiney TeaChat For those of you who are new around here, TeaChats are a monthly post that I do in which I pretend that you and I are going out and grabbing a cup of tea (or coffee or wine) and we’re chatting about what we’ve been up to lately.

#personal #teachat

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edoughty2876-blog · 5 years

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#JanStewary: How Soup Changed My Life (& Body)…Really

I've changed. I discovered how fun and relaxing it is to cook and at 39, I'm a new woman. For anyone who is about to stop reading and likely never come back, I promise that brand new design content starts all next week, so don't worry. But it's the first week of the year, and it's natural to look inward and try to “be your best self.”

But meanwhile, I have to address how my life has changed for the better since September, or I should say SOUPtember. So, here is the story…

I had hit bottom in terms of how I was feeling on my insides over Labor Day/my birthday so I wanted and needed a reset. We had spent 10 days with friends on vacation and I just felt so unhealthy and my body needed nutrients, vitamins and less processed foods, sugar, alcohol, etc. So naturally the answer was ONLY EAT SOUP. Soup in the morning, soup in the evening, soup at supper time. Instead of grabbing crackers and cheese for a snack, I warm up a small bowl of soup. And these soups did not have any grains, starch, dairy or gluten, just vegetables, broth and lean protein.

Before you freak out at how weird and boring it is, you have to hear me out: this is truly the easiest and most satisfying change I've ever made in my eating habits, and more effective than ANYTHING I've ever tried. I hesitate to call it a “diet” because it truly is more than that, it's my new lifestyle. Essentially, it's a way to only eat vegetables and protein without sugar or dairy which we all know is generally what we should be doing in life, but eating it in the form of soup is far EASIER and more satisfying than it sounds. Not sold yet? Hear me out.

Here are the benefits of soup (as per my years/weeks of expertise):

Soups can be SO hearty. The ones I've been making are so loaded with lean proteins and vegetables with richness and depth, and after a huge bowl, I'm FAR more satisfied than I am with a huge salad. I normally add WAY more vegetables than the recipe calls for and my goodness, it's so filling and these veggies are full of texture and crunch…we aren't eating a bowl of mush, I promise.

You can meal prep. I joked that “soup is the salad you don't have to make again and again.” Unlike the always popular salad, a soup can be made the night before and it stays good for days so it's SO much easier to bring to work and warm up. I make a big pot of soup and eat it for every meal 'til it's gone, then I make a new one. It's not normal, but it's so easy. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to wonder how I'm going to have a healthy lunch. It's just me and my soup.

They are easier to digest. Soups have cooked vegetables, therefore, they are so much easier to digest than salads (for me). I was SHOCKED at how my body reacted. No digestive issues AT ALL, if you know what I mean. Raw vegetables can be hard on your tummy and bloat or give you gas, but cooked is at least what my body wants. You get all the nutrition without the side effects.

Soups are EASY to cook (generally). All you need is a cutting board, knife, pot and spoon. The chopping can take a while, but otherwise it's all in ONE POT. You aren't juggling a million sauces on different burners. Just one. August Emily would be SHOCKED at how good of a cook I've become and it's all thanks to soups.

Soups are naturally lower in calorie. I'm not talking clam chowder, of course. Avoid anything cream based, but if you make one of the soups we are recommending, they are simply full of vegetables, lean protein and water. Yes, there might be some avocado oil or olive oil, but it's just straight up nutrition. My goal was not really to lose weight, just feel better. I cannot stress that enough here. I don't actually have a scale but all of a sudden all my clothes were fitting differently and what was tight around the tummy was no longer. I've always carried weight there but all of a sudden, 10 days in, it was gone (it's back now, but will be gone soon).

There's tons of variety-trust me. There are a million types of soups so while you might think “aren't you sick of soup yet?” the answer is NOPE. I've only started to enter the world of soup recipes.

You have a ton of control over all the ingredients. Obviously, we aren't buying canned soup here, it's just fresh vegetables and lean organic meats. That's it. No dairy. No grains. No gluten. You feel like a good person when you cook like this.

Soups are full of water…so A. it fills you up fast and B. you are drinking more water than you usually do. Again, no big cream-based soups and I've really stayed away from the chili world. Most of my bases are either chicken broth or tomato based.

To be fair in September, I also didn't drink for a month (with the exception of one cheat night for our anniversary) and ran probably 3-4 times a week, so all my friends were like “uh, it's not a secret why you feel better…you are just super healthy” but I'm telling you, it's never been this easy or fast. And in CROCKtober when I went back to more normal habits, I kept it off just by keeping up my soup habits.

Now, after taking the last six weeks off from being healthy (not working out, drinking too much over the holidays, eating crackers and chips all day) I'm so excited to get healthier again, but I will say that I normally feel WAY grosser after New Years and I think the reason I don't feel so unhealthy is that I was still eating more homemade soups than anything else. But yeah, I miss my SOUPtember body (inside and out). Like most vegetable/protein-based diets that eliminate processed foods, carbs and sugar, of course, it's going to work, but by making it in the form of soups, I LOOK FORWARD to each meal and I actually ENJOY this life. I don't feel like I'm missing out. I don't make eyes at bread as if it's an ex-boyfriend that I crave to be with. I'm perfectly happy eating my healthy ass soup (I will miss my wine, however).

If you've made it this far in this post, thanks for sticking around, but I'm not just talking about the brothier me for the sake of blabbing about soup. Enough of you asked me (like every day, I got so many DMs on Instagram) for recipes when I started storying about my soup journey (or telling me they thought I looked leaner and asking me how I lost weight), so it's time to start sharing…it all started with SOUPtember. Then CROCKktober, then STOVEember, followed by DecemBROTH and yes, we are finally into JanSTEWary.

I wasn't the only one on this lifestyle change. Sara and Arlyn at the office also started souping (to feel better inside, but also to prep pre-holiday for what was to come). So we are going to share with you our FAVORITES and then starting next Saturday, we'll post a new healthy and hearty soup on the blog every Saturday for you to try with us the following week (and of course we are wanting your recommendations, too). For today, I'm going to share my go-to that I've literally made again and again and again, followed by a handful of some of Arlyn's that she made while adopting the souping lifestyle (that she also used while doing a fall Whole30).

30 Minute Turkey Meatball and Kale Soup via Savory Lotus

Okay, so…my #1 favorite soup was inspired by THIS recipe, but I've tweaked it and now made it probably 12 times over the last couple of months. I'm so proficient, I don't even have to look at the recipe anymore.

I do have to mention I've tweaked it to my liking, and while the original recipe is great, here is how I doctor mine up:

Add sauteed sliced mushrooms and celery, as well as spinach. For the meatballs, I sometimes chop up extra spinach to sneak in some more veggies (kid-friendly!), add in dill, oregano and thyme to the ground turkey, and use bone broth instead of chicken stock (it gives it a heartier, richer flavor). Arlyn suggests drizzling a little olive oil atop the soup once it's served with a shake of red pepper flakes, but if you don't want to add any extra fat, it's great without it, too.

I'm going to save the rest of my favorites for the weekends like I promised, but to get you started on your soup odyssey, I'm going to hand it over to Arlyn to share six of her dairy-, grain-, sugar- and soy-free soup recipes that she promises she cooks all the time for her and her picky husband (with her notes).

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Detox Immune-Boosting Chicken Soup via Eat Yourself Skinny

Hi guys! I'm so excited to be talking about soup…wait…have I been brainwashed?

Anyhow, say hello to my favorite insanely easy and healthy weeknight soup. The first time I made this soup, I really didn't have high expectations. Like…it's just chicken and kale and broth and some veggies. But I'm telling you, it's INSANELY fast to bring together (as long as you use a rotisserie chicken or pre-shredded roasted chicken), really satisfying and somehow feels nearly magical with the combination of turmeric, red pepper flakes and…everything else that comes together. The chickpeas make it filling, the mushrooms give it really nice texture, OH and use bone broth for extra richness. I've played around with this (adding nutritional yeast, hot sauce, and other add-ons) but it's pretty solid as-is.

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Simple Lemony Chicken & Spring Veggie Soup via The Cozy Apron

Sometimes, you just want a soup that's light, fresh and you know won't make you feel like an overstuffed trash bag of a human. This is that soup. I'm pretty sure I skipped the leek every time I've made this and it was still great. Not sure how this would fare with picky kids because there are a lot of green things floating around here, but I bet you can swap out most of these veggies for whatever you/your household prefers and it would still be great. The lemony broth will not be stopped by your decision to ditch the zucchini in place of broccoli. It's a fighter. The quinoa rounds out the whole thing to make it a full meal and filling.

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Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili With Sweet Potato via Paleo Running Momma

During my September Whole30, I made this soup about three times (that and slow cooker buffalo chicken dip over sweet potato…life changing), and I have to admit, it turned out differently every time I made it and I can't figure out why, but overall, it was a solid addition to my go-to list of “what on earth do I cook this week without making my tight pants even tighter or going broke” solutions. Definitely use bone broth if you can (it makes it richer and more complex than regular broth or stock), and if you can't find a white or Japanese sweet potato, it would be just as good with regular sweet potato. If you make it as-is, a bowl of this yummy goodness (which is less of a chili honestly and more of a soup) is dairy-free, sugar-free and grain-free (which sounds like a snore-fest but I promise it's super yummy…once you double the nutritional yeast).

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Easy Thai Shrimp Soup via Damn Delicious

I remember when I first made this for myself and DH, he said “this tastes like it could have come from a restaurant”, so I knew it was a winner in his eyes (funny how home-cooked meals are top rated if they could have come from a restaurant, while restaurant food gets a gold star if it taste homemade, oh the ironies of life). I think you could easily swap out the rice for riced cauliflower and butter for ghee (to make it Whole30 approved), but as-is, it's super simple, comes together in under 30 minutes (if you're a fast prepper/chopper), and satisfying.

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Gluten-Free Zuppa Toscana via Noshtastic

Another Whole 30-approved soup here (i.e. dairy-, sugar-, grain-, and happiness-free). Okay, it's not happiness-free because this one made the cut for this article. I'm more of a pasta e fagioli girl myself, and I will never deny my love of Olive Garden's soup, salad and breadsticks combo, but buttery logs of bread soaking up heavenly, narcotic-like dressing are absolutely off limits during a tortuous totally doable month-long healthy eating stint. This lady freezes really well, so I usually make a big batch and then parse it out into one-serving containers for easy meals when I don't have the will to even glance over at my knife block. I've always used curly kale, but I think dino kale (the darker, bumpier but straight variety that looks like, well, a dino could have noshed on it) might actually be better. FYI for any newbie Whole 30ers, Pederson's makes a pretty rad sugar-free bacon (I get mine at Whole Foods when I'm feeling rich, obviously, or Sprouts when I've brought myself back down to earth).

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Heart Vegetable & Beef Soup via I Heart Nap Time

Okay, I really love this soup. This is not a soup that leaves you starving in 20 minutes. This is a soup that pulls its weight as a stand-alone entree. Sometimes, the potatoes go rogue and thicken it up while it sits in the fridge before I eat leftovers the next day (I just add chicken or beef broth before heating up), but overall, it's pretty low-maintenance. I tend to OD on the balsamic vinegar (I exaggerate all spices and other flavor additions when I cook because I never find what a recipe calls for to be enough), which renders down into a super yummy flavor. And DO NOT SKIP THE BASIL. I did last time and it just fell flat. The basil at the end makes this pot of richness totally sing. I've never tried this with anything but ground beef, but I bet it'd still be pretty yummy with ground turkey or chicken. Give it a whirl, because this one is a winner for all (except vegetarians).

UPDATE: So many of you commented this morning that we didn't provide any vegetarian options, and we happened to be cooking up a vegan Zuppa Toscana for lunch during our editorial retreat. All the vegetarians on staff went back for seconds, so it definitely got the seal of approval. Sara drafted up the recipe to share with you below. Take it away Sara:

There are a LOT of “Zuppa Toscana” recipes out there. But they all kind of have the same base-onions, garlic, red pepper, broth, a leafy green, and an Italian sausage. I've been making this soup for years now, and I don't follow a specific recipe anymore. To be honest, I switch it up a little every time I make it based on what sounds good or what I have in my fridge. Sometimes I use spinach instead of kale, sometimes I make it creamy (traditional style) but sometimes I keep it spicer and broth-y, the list goes on and on…

And this time I've made it super hearty and totally VEGAN (vegetarians and vegans, we heard you, and we have a lot more veggie soups coming your way in the upcoming weeks). It's kind of like a good chicken soup or chili, after you make it once, you can make it again and again, a little different each time.

Ingredients:

8 cups vegetable broth

1 bunch green kale (de-stemmed and torn into small pieces)

Two large carrots, chopped

2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup potatoes, chopped

Two heads chopped garlic (or as much garlic as you want, I will use two tablespoons minced sometimes)

1 tablespoon avocado oil (for sautéing)

1 white onion, chopped

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp herbs de Provence

Salt and pepper to taste

Juice of one lemon

Sauteé onion, garlic, carrot with salt, pepper, garlic powder, red chili pepper, and dried herbs until onions are translucent and soft. Add veggie broth and bring to boil, add potatoes and let simmer until potatoes are soft (about 20 minutes). Add coconut milk, mix in. Add drained cannellini beans and kale, and bring to a boil for 5 minutes (until kale is tender). Finish with lemon juice and garnish with red pepper flakes if you like it spicy. If you're not vegan, add some cooked spicy Italian sausage. If you prefer a softer green, swap spinach for kale. If you want a lighter soup only use half a can of coconut milk, or use 1 can of light coconut milk. No matter what you do, it will be delicious.

Okay, back to Emily…

Before you do anything else, be sure to pin the above image so you can refer back to this post. It'll save you on a Sunday morning while you're meal planning for the week!

So, all I really have left to say for today is…welcome to #JanStewary. Absolutely make sure to follow along on Instagram Stories, use the hashtag to share your favorite recipes (and throw them into the comments, too!) and please come back on Saturdays during January for more of our tested and approved (and modified) soup recipes. Happy souping everyone. xx

The post #JanStewary: How Soup Changed My Life (& Body)…Really appeared first on Emily Henderson.

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kirain · 7 years

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Medical Questions (Funny)

Hello, everyone! I found an old document when I was sorting through my old computer, and I thought you might get a kick out of it. When I was in high school, nine years ago, there was a website where people could go to ask medical questions; but predictably it became a popular hangout for trolls. Being the shit-disturber I was, I got in on the action and wrote responses to some of the most ridiculous questions I could find. I couldn’t track down the website so I think it’s since been removed, but I saved all of the questions I answered to my Word program. All of the questions I answered were fully attended to before I got there, by the way, so I highly doubt anyone took my answers seriously. Although I’m not particularly proud of it now, it was just a bit of teenage fun. In the very least, I still think my answers were a bit entertaining, and I hope you feel similarly. Enjoy!

What does it mean when you can hear your own heartbeat? It means your heart and blood vessels are working overtime and your heart is probably about to explode in your chest. You have one minute to call an ambulance before it's too late. Where do babies come from? The bigger question is, where do they go? What is that squiggly thing in your eye? It means you're infested with tapeworms and they're laying eggs in your stomach. Most people don't know how they caught these parasites, but it's usually from using a public toilet, getting dirt in a cut, sharing drinks or lip balm, touching a public door handle, getting coughed on or near (tapeworms can be airborne, but only for a few minutes), absorbing someone else's sweat, and sharing clothes. These parasites are microscopic outside of the human body and rarely thrive inside humans, but when they do they're almost impossible to detect until it's too late. If you're seeing them in your eyes it means they've travelled up your nervous system and will soon reach your brain. There is no known cure when they reach this stage. What does it mean when my nose is itchy on the inside? Nasal cancer. Why do my eyes hurt when I open them in the ocean? Because the ocean is 12% sulphuric acid. Every time you take a dip, you're actually melting your optic nerve a little. Prolonged swims in the ocean can lead to temporary or even permanent blindness. Why are my little toes smaller than all my other toes? I've never heard of this condition. Please seek medical attention immediately. Why am I constipated? I understand this is a sensitive subject, but I'm glad you had the courage to ask. If you're constipated, it means you drank too much water or ate too much fruit. To reverse the process, gorge yourself on dairy products, such as milk and cheese, and drink plenty of alcohol or caffeine. If you choose caffeine, add lots of sugar. It is also important that you NOT exercise while trying to recover. Following these easy steps will cause a healthy buildup in your intestines and it will eventually push out the blockage. My four-year-old son got a sliver. What should I do? There's nothing you can do, I'm afraid. Except play the waiting game and hope he doesn't contract tetanus. It could take weeks before he starts showing signs, so keep a close eye on him. And next time keep your son away from wood. Too many parents lose their children to slivers. I haven't had my period in over 4 months. I’ve been having lots of sex with my boyfriend, but he’s always pulled out. Still, I can’t help but think he might’ve got me pregnant. Should I be concerned? I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. I cut my hand on my kitchen knife and now it won't stop bleeding. It's new and stainless surgical steel so I'm not sure how to proceed. It doesn't hurt or anything and I don't think it's very deep, it just won't stop bleeding. Can someone help me? I was cutting tomatoes, if that makes a difference. It's very important that you do NOT put any pressure on the wound. Let it continue to hemorrhage, as this will ensure that you don't get an infection. It's also fortunate that you were cutting tomatoes, as they are known for having medicinal qualities. I was eating watermelon and one of the seeds popped out and fell on the floor. My 18 month old son picked it up and swallowed it before I could stop him. Is he going to be OK? Should I take him to the hospital to get his stomach pumped? More than likely the seed will dissolve in his stomach, but there are cases where watermelon seeds have lodged themselves just above the stomach and sprouted, causing a watermelon to form inside the unfortunate victim. Either monitor him daily and make sure he isn't growing a bump in his lower chest area, or take him to the hospital immediately and explain what happened. I'm sure the doctors will be more than understanding. After all, it's better to be safe than sorry. What are eyelashes really for? Much like armpit hair, eyelashes are just extra hairs that we inherited from our ancestors. We've actually evolved so much that we no longer need them. Anthropologists theorise that they were once used to keep tiny debris from entering our eyes when we fished under water. Today they're simply a societal construct of beauty and wealth. Ads say that the longer and fuller the lashes you have, the better you are; but in truth they're completely useless. My friends keep telling me to masturbate with vegetables, like cucumbers and carrots, but I'm not sure if I should do it. Isn't that kind of dirty? What do you guys think? It's a historical fact that vaginas were exclusively used to make salads. They used to stick all manner of vegetables up there and have the woman clench her thighs together repeatedly, until every veggie was perfectly diced. They also did this with bread crusts, which is where croutons come from. In fact, in ancient Rome they were originally referred to as "coochtons". Caesar was the first to discover this method. Is it true that dust is made of dead human skin? Yes, 90% of it. What you're seeing is the remains of all who lived before you. The other 10% is ectoplasm. Why do my farts smell so bad? You're probably not getting enough broccoli or asparagus in your diet. My five year old daughter is really shy. I find this really disappointing, since I'm such an outgoing person myself. Is there anything I can do to fix her? If she's already five and really that shy, your only option now is to give her back to the hospital. I suspect this will be a good decision for everyone involved, especially your daughter. If she's lucky, they'll put her with a mother who isn't a resoundingly self-absorbed bitch. Can someone help me? I think I have stigmata. You do, Antoinette. But don't worry, Hell's servants will be coming for you soon. Faciam te ad infernum. I think I'm allergic to my cat but I don't want to kick her out of the house. What should I do? Leave the cat at the house and move out yourself.

#doctor #medical #questions #funny #troll #shit disturber #high school #sarcastic #medicine #I was so evil

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benjamingarden · 4 years

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What I've Learned From Whole Foods Plant Based Eating

I've been eating a strict whole foods plant based (WFPB) diet since the middle of September of this year. I've lost almost 30 pounds in that short period of time and more than that, I feel good. I have a lot more energy (although the release of stress from caretaking is likely part of that). I don't suffer any sinus headaches at all (and with fall I usually suffered immensely) and my immune system feels stronger. This post is in no way an attempt to convince anyone to go WFPB. Heck, I'm not at all sure how long I will continue following the strict guidelines, but I have learned a LOT in this short period of time and thought I would share what I've learned with you. I feel some of it I should have known, but I guess I never really thought about it. Regardless, it came about, I suppose, when I needed to see it. A Quick Recap: Four years ago I gave up dairy. I was sick of being sick. Sinus infection after sinus infection continued to land me in Urgent Care and my doctor's office and after one rather severe infection that just wouldn't get better I decided to give it up. That was step one in my WFPB journey. I've suffered from seasonal and dust mite allergies since my early twenties and developed additional allergies to cats and dogs in the past 10 years. My allergies caused me constant issues (after all, I have cats AND dogs in my life and live around molds and mildews of the great northeast!) and some years I would end up on antibiotics up to 4 times. After 30 days of being dairy free, I felt so good that I decided to try what I'd suspected might help me out health wise - going WFPB. Mostly to help lower my blood pressure and gradually increasing cholesterol. If you look up info on the WFPB movement, it involves giving up not only meat, seafood, and dairy but also oils, salt, and refined sugar too in addition to cutting down consumption of nuts to just a small handful daily, at most. While that is a quick list of what to cut out, what you add in is just as important. Veggies - a LOT of veggies, at least two times a day. Lots of leafy greens, cruciferous veg, as well as all of the other types you can think of. Beans or legumes and whole grains as well as fruits are added in volume to your daily meal plan too. When I first gave up meat, almost three years ago, I did not go completely WFPB. I was still cooking with oils half the time and water the other half, I started using butter again, but only as a spread for bread. I still consumed refined sugar (although quite a bit less)and although I believed I was eating nuts in moderation, I now know that I wasn't. I was also eating some vegan "junk food" (vegan cheese & vegan sausage/"meats"). I lost 15 pounds and I did feel a bit better. While I did not get any further sinus infections, I continued to suffer from sinus headaches with the changing of seasons, before rain or snow, etc. After about a year and a half of that I began eating meat and seafood here and there, once every 1-2 weeks. Then, when I began trying to adjust my life to include caring for my terminally ill mother, I began eating more meat. Rather than finding time that I didn't have to continue cooking a meal for J, a meal for her (food was very difficult for her at the end), and a meal for me for lunches and dinners. Every. Single. Day. For months. I gave into eating meat and seafood about 3 times a week so that I could cook one meal for two of us and then I only had to figure out a separate meal for my mom. And I gained most of the 15 pounds back.

Me sporting my graying hair

My mother passed away in September of this year and what really shook me to the core was how rare her cancer was. Not only how rare it was but also how far progressed it was by the time anyone found it. My health suddenly became the most important thing in my life (which it should have been...). I fully understand that I can't do much about genetics. But what I can do, is try to be the healthiest version of me that I can so hopefully when/if I have to battle a serious illness, my body will respond well. I can also hope that being the healthiest version of myself may help protect me for either a longer period of time or, lessen the impact. I went full-on WFPB the very next day. Here is what I've learned the past 2 months that I've been following a strict WFPB diet:

1. Nuts Are Good (In Moderation)

While there are some studies that show and physicians who believe that the nutritional value nuts holds is not worth the risk of consuming the amount of fat they are comprised of, most say they are very good for us in moderation. Moderation is further defined as a small handful per day.

I began adding a small handful of chopped walnuts to my daily oatmeal and thought "I've got this!" Additionally, once a month I eat 2-4 Brazilian nuts. Once I switched to the strict WFPB guidelines, and began actually consciously paying attention to what I was eating, I realized I'd been fooling myself. Most vegan alternatives ("cheese", "sauces", "milk", etc.) contain nuts. This meant I was eating my small handful in the morning (I use oat milk rather than nut milk), and then again at lunch with a "cheese" I added to my veggie burger, and sometimes at dinner in a sauce made of a large amount of cashews. My personal theory is that following the "nuts are good in moderation" determination is the one I'd like to continue following. I believe they do offer a significant nutritional benefit, I enjoy them, and will choose to continue consuming them. In moderation, of course, because first, they are high in fats and I'm not interested in ever going back to consuming as much fat as I'd previously been consuming. Second, they are expensive. And third, there are other ways to make sauces, etc. It just takes a bit of research and trial and error.

2. Most Of Us Do Not Consume Enough Vegetables Eating a strict WFPB diet where I incorporate a salad of leafy greens with almost every meal has really opened my eyes to the fact that I was definitely not previously eating enough vegetables. I mean, honestly, when was the last time you ate leafy greens (they don't count if they were drenched in a high fat dressing) with lunch AND with dinner for more than one day in a row? They are chock full of nutrients and just make you feel good. Additionally, there's just so much information out there touting the benefits of cruciferous veggies as well as eating a rainbow of colors at every meal, that I will definitely continue this practice. I've found that chopping veggies on the weekend and keeping them in the refrigerator in containers allows me to easily make side salads to go with my weeks worth of lunches and dinners. If I don't prep ahead of time it's, unfortunately, more likely I will not eat a salad.

3. Are "Healthy Oils" Really Healthy? The short answer is, I have no idea. There's so much research on both ends of the spectrum, but what I do know is that I have been using and consuming way too much oil. (did you know that many packaged oat milks contain oil? what???? it makes no sense to me....) Like nuts, oil is expensive, so at the very least using less is good for my budget. But the bigger picture is that oil-free cooking and eating is really easy once you get used to the alternatives. Salad dressings, roasted veggies, stir fry, and baking are all easily created with healthy replacements to oils. I use water or broth for roasting or stir frying, applesauce for baking, and I'm a big fan of just a bit of balsamic vinegar for my salad. That also brings up processed vegan foods. When you look at the ingredients list for most alternative meats, cheeses, etc. they are loaded with oils. Loaded I tell you! Yes, technically they can call the "plant-based" because the oils come from plants. But is that really healthy??? I, personally, don't believe it is so I'm choosing to continue to omit them from my life. Oils as a part of a whole food (fish, avocado, olive, etc.) I can see could be healthy. But stripping oil from the food and just consuming the oil (like consuming fruit juice instead of the whole fruit leaves you devoid of fiber) doesn't seem like it would be a good idea. Again, I never thought of this before until I began delving into WFPB but it sits well with me. 4. Whole Grains Have A Place In My Heart I have no issue at all with a switch from white pasta to whole wheat. I also have found a short-grain brown rice that I really like. My husband, on the other hand, isn't interested in trying either. He's sticking with the white versions, thank you very much. If you can't or aren't interested in eating wheat, quinoa and millet are gluten free and also delicious and so easy to prepare (even my husband likes both of these!). There are a number of alternative whole grains out there whether you are gluten-free or not, and they are a great addition to meals. One thing I have found, however, is you could go broke and crazy (ok, not really, but you get the idea) trying to follow different whole grain recipes because it seems like each one calls for a different grain. I've decided to convert any recipe I try to using one of the 4 grains I'm choosing to purchase (whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, quinoa, & millet). Whole grains make me feel full, they are satisfying to me, and I plan to continue eating them.

5. Eating Natural Or Other Sugars Sparingly Is Key We know this, right? But do we follow this? I may have told myself I was eating sugars sparingly, but after really examining my daily eating habits, I was not. (look closely at labels - it's so frustrating how many items have sugar in them!) If you aren't addicted to sweet foods then this isn't an issue for you (and you are VERY lucky). I, however, am. I've begun using primarily maple syrup and dates for sweeteners and they have worked out very well! But even better, I've cut down what I make that needs any sweetener and instead we eat whole fruit. And fruit is sooooooo much sweeter now that I rarely consume any sweetener. Although I may consume refined sugar very rarely and not be so restrictive, I have no desire to go back to consuming it more than a couple of times a year. For a few reasons. First, I don't believe it's a good thing to put in our bodies. Second, it's too easy for me to get addicted to it and want it more and more. And third, because I want to continue with natural sugars for any baked goods we do consume, which is rare nowadays. 6. No Salt, Or Low Salt? On WFPB you either cut out salt completely or cut it back quite a bit, depending on who's version you follow. Salt is an item I don't eat a lot of but I have cut it back even more (because of my high blood pressure). For the first month I consumed no added salt. The few items I purchase that are processed (canned tomatoes and boxed veggie broth) I purchased the no salt added versions. These past couple of weeks, I have added a very small amount of salt here and there because, well, it just makes food taste soooo much better. I now use Redmond Real Salt from Utah (affiliate link) and really like it. And I use it very very sparingly. It only took about 2 weeks for my taste buds to adjust when I originally omitted it, although many foods do still taste very bland without any salt. Those are now the only ones I (sparingly) salt and I no longer use it when cooking. 7. Follow Your Gut I really believe that we know, intuitively, what is best for us. And what is best for me may not be best for you. We have to also factor in that we change - our bodies change, our needs change, etc. I don't know about you but I've spent my entire life worried about weight. Weight and clothing size have been the main focus points. No more! My focus now shifts to getting myself and then keeping myself as healthy as I can. The only numbers I'm going to concern myself with are those from routine blood tests and blood pressure tests. No more scale or clothing size. Additionally, I want to keep the weight off my middle (which is where I gain it first) since that's the most dangerous, and feeling good. Stress and poor eating have nearly destroyed my immune system and I'm sure I will spend the next year or more rebuilding it. That being said, I've made that commitment to myself.

Oliver doesn't care if I eat WFPB or not. As long as he gets his treats.

So, for now I continue to eat WFPB as I work on healing my immune system. As noted above, many of the guidelines I will continue to follow, regardless of whether or not I continue with the strictness of WFPB. I can see the benefit of following it but I do crave fish and will likely eat it at the very least, when we occasionally go out for dinner.

What I've Learned From Whole Foods Plant Based Eating was originally posted by My Favorite Chicken Blogs(benjamingardening)

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wantweightloss · 5 years

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My Weight Loss Story - Whole Lifestyle Nutrition

New Post has been published on https://weightlossguideto.com/trending/my-weight-loss-story-whole-lifestyle-nutrition/

My Weight Loss Story - Whole Lifestyle Nutrition

My Weight Loss Story

For years, and I mean almost my whole life, I’ve struggled with weight issues.

Yay, I am that kind of person that goes up and down on the scale, even when I am eating incredibly clean! Let me repeat that. My weight goes up and down even when I am eating clean, organic and wholesome healthy foods.

What in heaven’s name was I doing wrong? You better believe that I have thrown myself into every health book out there. I have worked with holistic practitioners, integrative medicine doctors, and even spiritual advisors.

It wasn’t until I started to remove toxins from my life (with this book: ) and when I stumbled upon this incredible book () that all the AH-HA moments and lightbulbs went off. I finally discovered how to start healing myself. THIS WAS HUGE!!!

The book that changed EVERYTHING for me.

I recently picked up the book . You guys, this book is INCREDIBLE! It is a very spiritual book and connected with me on so many different levels!

Let me first tell you that this is NOT a book review and I am not making money from this company to sponsor this book. It is just the book that has helped me start my healing journey.

This book isn’t like any other health book that you have read, I can promise you that. In fact, it actually goes against the grain. Sounds just like me!

I have been looking for answers to my health issues for years. I knew it was more than just about “losing the weight”, it was figuring out what was going on internally that was going to make the difference.

After reading this book, I had the answers to what was going on with me and the solutions to help my body heal. Pretty powerful stuff!

What I am suffering from….

After doing a ton of research, reading this book, and visiting quality integrative medicine doctors, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am suffering from the following:

This might seem scary to many, it was scary for me too, but your body has the amazing ability to heal itself if given the right foods.

It was time to start cleansing the toxins out of my body. I started this by doing a 28-day raw fruit and vegetable cleanse. My body will take time to heal, anywhere from 3 months to 18 months, I am okay with that. I’ll be sure to keep you updated along the way.

What I didn’t Eat…

Giving up meat, cheese, eggs, corn, nuts, and dairy for an entire month was nothing that I would have ever considered doing! Sure I already stay away from wheat, gluten and eat minimal grains, but I love my cheese and meat.

I was a firm believer that you needed protein (preferably from animals), fat and carbohydrates at every meal. This is what balances your blood sugar, right?

For me, the eggs were actually feeding the viruses in me, and the meat (more specifically the fat in the meat) was making my liver even more sluggish. I needed to eliminate them both for a 28-day raw cleanse. Keep in mind that eliminating meat is only for the 28-day cleanse. I am not becoming a vegan or a vegetarian, this is just for the cleanse.

I was in this cleanse for the long haul so I gave it a whirl, even though it went against everything I believed.

What an incredible experience this was. I learned a lot about my body, my beliefs, and I had plenty of Ah-Ha moments throughout this cleanse.

What I Ate…

Here is what a typical day on this cleanse looked like for me. I eat over 2000 calories every day (not that I count, I do NOT). This is not a cleanse that you should feel hungry on. If you are hungry eat more. If you are not, don’t eat. I found that I was eating every hour and a half.

All ingredients were organic. I should note that I gave up drinking coffee and alcohol for this cleanse as well.

I use to think that I had to limit my fruit intake. But clearly you can see that I was wrong. Eating fruit is imperative if you want to reverse your health conditions.

Symptoms & Side Effects of My 28 Day Raw Cleanse

Week 1 of the Cleanse

The first week was tough, I am not going to lie. The first couple days were great. I had all sorts of energy! But after about 3 days, my body started to heavily detox. I had these symptoms:

But after day 7, I started to feel better. I lost 10 pounds in the first week, which was most likely excess water weight.

Week 2 of Cleanse

The second week I feel I started to turn the corner a bit. I had a different set of symptoms.

I took extra care to get extra sleep and listen to my bodies language. I took several naps throughout the day and went to bed at 9 PM every night. I also added an hour massage every day to my routine. I have a massage chair, so this is how I afforded to do that. I lost no weight this week.

Week 3 of Cleanse

Wow, what a difference one week can make. I am excited to be at the half way point of this detox. I noticed that I am now craving cooked food, gosh a baked sweet potato sounds so good at this point. I have an excellent amount of energy and have continued with my massages but have dropped them down to 1/2 hour sessions per day. My extreme exhaustion has disappeared and I am feeling reenergized. Here are the symptoms from this week.

I lost 3 pounds this week, making it a total of 13 pounds. I have struggled with rosacea and eczema my whole life and I am absolutely amazed that after 3 weeks BOTH are disappearing.

Week 4 of Cleanse

I am in the home stretch! Week 1, I didn’t know how I was going to do this for 28 days. It is starting to be a new normal for me, and what once tasted bad (like the celery juice each morning) is now tasting much better. Here are some symptoms from this week:

I lost another 2 pounds this week making my total weight loss for this 28-day cleanse 15 pounds. I am shocked that my rosacea, eczema, and achy joints are gone, and I mean GONE — 100%! The celery juice was incredibly beneficial for these ailments.

My Transformation After 1 Month!

Take a look at the picture above. Those pictures were taken 2 months apart from one another. The one on the left was taken on New Year’s Eve and the one on the right was taken Feb 26, 2016. There is only a 15-pound weight loss but the transformation is HUGE.

I removed the inflammatory foods from my diet and my body naturally started to reduce its swelling. My eczema is gone and so is my rosacea. My joints no longer ache. Your body is capable of doing amazing things!

Here is what I looked like after the 28-day raw cleanse. Sorry for the selfie, but it’s all I had.

Where do I go from here?

This journey is not over, in fact, it has just begun. Healing takes time. I am ok with this. For once, my focus is on healing and moving forward in life knowing that I am working on being the healthiest that I can be.

Now that the 28-day cleanse is over, I won’t be going back to eating meat or eggs for every meal, I simply couldn’t heal doing that. Am I saying meat and eggs are bad for you? No. They just aren’t right for me while I am trying to heal.

What I am doing for next month is keeping with this routine and replacing my dinner from time to time with a piece of lean cut meat or fish and fresh cooked veggies. I am adding more cooked veggies throughout the day. I am looking forward to my first cooked meal that is for sure!

I will also continue to . I strongly believe that this has played a HUGE role with my healing success.

So stay tuned…I will keep you posted at the end of next month, promise!

My Healing Journey Series

Hey there! I’m excited that so many of you wanted more posts like this! So…I decided to create this into a series of posts. It will continue to grow so be sure to come back!

If you’ve had a hard time losing weight, or if you’ve ever suffered from a number of illnesses that no one knows how to heal (like thyroid or adrenal issues, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, anxiety, leaky gut syndrome, ADHD and much more), then you might want to invest some time in this series. Here is a list of my current posts on my healing journey.

Update: 2 Years Later…

Hey everyone! I’ve been asked on numerous occasions to post an update on my weight loss journey.

So here it is:

And if you’d like a current picture, here’s that too!

One Final Note & A Free Book Offer…

Earlier I mentioned that had a HUGE impact on helping me to heal. For a limited time, I’m offering this book to you FOR FREE (all I ask is that you help me out with the shipping)!

What’s the catch? There is none! This is my contribution — to help change the lives of as many people that I can.

As you can imagine, this offer won’t be around for long…

Source

https://wholelifestylenutrition.com/health/my-weight-loss-story/

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ruthellisneda · 6 years

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Paleo? Keto? Slow Carb? Vegan? How to Determine the Perfect Diet For You.

Today we’re gonna get down and dirty and dig into the big diets:

Paleo. Keto. Slow Carb. IF. Vegan. Twinkie (yes this is a thing).

And it all starts with an admission of guilt. Every day, we get multiple emails from people that say something like:

“I know you guys are a paleo blog, but…”

I guess that doesn’t really surprise me. Our “beginner’s guide to the Paleo Diet” has been viewed like 25 million times since I first wrote it.

So I get it. But I have a confession to make. Step into my trust tree.

Outside of a 30 day experiment back in 2011, I haven’t been “Paleo.”

[AUDIBLE GASP]

Seriously, I just heard you gasp.

I have three more truth bombs for you:

I don’t care what cavemen actually ate, nor if the Paleo Diet is historically accurate.

I don’t think it works for a majority of people.

I LOVE the Paleo Diet and have seen it help hundreds of thousands.

I know. “What the hell, Steve!?”

Am I a walking writing contradiction?

Am I flip-flopper who can’t commit?!

For starters, when it comes to health and fitness, flip-flopping is a good thing. It’s called “getting smarter undumber when new information comes to light.”

But that’s irrelevant here.

Why? Because it literally DOESN’T MATTER what a caveman actually ate!

I don’t care if a caveman once ate wheat 30,000 years ago—this is what people rage about on the internet because they need to be angry at something and it’s fun to point out holes in a dogmatic popular approach to nutrition.

So, why do I like the Paleo Diet?

Because of “reality” and “human behavior.”

I like the Paleo Diet, just like I like the Keto Diet.

And Intermittent Fasting, and the Slow Carb Diet.[1]

I even like the vegetarian diet or vegan diet for the right people (with some caveats, which I’ll explain below).

I don’t actually think of the diets above as “diets,” but rather as a Mental Model for how to understand and navigate the food choices we make every day.

And mental models can be the difference between effortless weight loss and frustration.

Today I’m gonna teach you how to determine the diet that is perfect for you.

This is one of the most important articles I think you can read on Nerd Fitness, so make sure you set aside the time to dive in!

Quick note: This MASSIVE article is actually the exact philosophy we incorporate into our uber popular 1-on-1 Coaching Program. We cut through the crap, learn your situation, and then help you adjust your nutrition each month until you reach your goals.

Read this monster article, and if you want expert guidance and accountability, click on the image below to schedule a free call with our team to learn more.

How to Eat For Healthy Weight Loss

#1 – Eat fewer calories than you burn every day.

#2 – Want to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Full stop.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add #3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

This solution will get you like 90% of the way towards a killer physique and a consistently healthy checkup at the doctor.

Mix in the right training and you’ll be 99% of the way there.

The problem is that pesky things like “reality” and “genetics” and “human behavior” keep getting in the way.

It’s why everybody goes on diet after diet after diet, gaining and losing the same 10-50 lbs.

Most people can only stick with a diet for a few weeks before they’re so miserable that they can’t wait to go back to how they were eating before.

They count calories and allow themselves to eat “health food” like low-fat ice cream and low-fat chips and just two Oreos. These people are so nutritionally deficient—eating calorie-heavy, unfulfilling foods—that they struggle to stay under their allotment of calories for they day. D’oh.

To make matters worse, even if they’re counting calories, they’re probably overeating without realizing it.[2]

This is why people get so dang frustrated when they go on a calorie-restricted diet, track their food, and still don’t lose weight. The only explanation must be that their bodies must have slow metabolisms.

Watch this quick video of a person who believes she has a slow metabolism[3].

It turns out the exact opposite is true. Crap.:

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Despite everything stacked against us, Nerd Fitness is FULL of success stories of people who have lost 100s of pounds and kept the weight off. Here are a few dramatic ones (click on the images to read their full stories):

What gives?

Nerd Fitness doesn’t just tell you what to eat. Any Google search can tell you that.

Though we help there too.

At Nerd Fitness, we’re helping you learn HOW to think about eating too.

And that’s the difference maker.

Mental Models for the Win

The Nerd Fitness community is full of ridiculously smart people. Smart people that have tried in vain to lose weight for years or decades.

It’s because we’re fighting a brutal, uphill battle.

For many of us, food is way more than fuel: it’s a coping mechanism. It’s how our moms showed us love. It’s what we turn to when we’re happy or sad. It’s the only thing that provides us with a small bit of happiness in a boring existence.

Add in the fact that unhealthy food has been designed in a laboratory to be so delicious that it must be consumed in mass quantities, and trying to eat “just a few” of something is nearly impossible.

Next, add a dash of “I am obsessive and if I start to track calories I’m going to drive myself insane,” “even if I track my calories I’ll probably underreport how many calories I eat by at least 20%,” and “there is so much information that this all appears so overwhelming, so it’s a lost cause.”

This is why Mental Models are so useful (hat tip to my friend Shane over at Farnam Street Blog who taught me about Mental Models). I’m gonna borrow the concept here for nutrition.

Enter a MENTAL MODEL DIET:

Paleo Diet: If a caveman didn’t eat it, neither should you. “Okay, what would a caveman eat? Probably things that grow in the ground, so vegetables and fruit, and also animals. They wouldn’t eat candy or bread or pasta or drink soda.”

Keto Diet: Keep your carb intake under 5% (or more extreme, 10 grams, for example) of your total calories so your body has to burn fat for fuel instead of carbs and sugar. “Time to learn how many carbs are in everything I eat, and start tracking.”

Slow Carb Diet: Eat legumes, protein, veggies. “Time to learn how to make food that only fits the slow carb model. At least until cheat day!”

Intermittent Fasting: Only eat between 12pm and 8pm. Occasionally do 24 hour fasts. “Okay, so I’ll just skip breakfast. That’s one less meal I have to think about.”

In each of the above options, there are a few similarities that make them such trendy/popular diet choices.

For the sake of simplicity, we’re going to hold off on digging into the health benefits that apply to a small percentage of the population on certain diets (Keto to treat epilepsy, Paleo/Keto for Hashimoto’s Disease, identifying a gluten intolerance, etc), we’re going to focus on the reasons MOST people pick these diets.

They’re simple to comprehend and will probably help you lose weight:

#1) They all will result in you eating fewer calories (usually).

If you follow the Paleo Diet, you are eliminating some of the most calorie dense, nutritionally deficient, unhealthy foods out there. No more soda, no candy, no bread, no pasta, no sugar, no dairy.

If you follow the Keto Diet, you must track your carb intake, which means you’re going to also learn how many calories are in everything else you eat. You’re also essentially eliminating an entire macronutrient from your diet that’s notorious for keeping people overweight.

If you follow the Slow Carb Diet, you learn about which foods you can eat and which foods you can’t eat: yes to beans, no to dairy and grains. Like Paleo or Keto, you’re eliminating massively unhealthy foods from your diet, which will most likely result in weight loss.

If you do Intermittent Fasting, you’re eliminating 1/3rd of your meals for the day! Let’s say you normally ate an 800 calorie breakfast, 800 calorie lunch, and 800 calorie dinner. If you SKIP breakfast, that means you could eat larger lunches and dinners (1000 calories each) and still end up eating 400 calories less per day on average. That’s enough for 3-4 pounds of weight loss per month!

#2) You can answer “YES” or “NO” to adherence.

Sure, it would be great if you could weigh every element of food that you eat, and track each meal in a spreadsheet and KNOW you’re tracking each calorie and macronutrient correctly.

And for some people looking to get to bodybuilder levels of bodyfat, this level of perfection is required.

However, for the rest of us, working regular jobs, with kids, and lives, this shit is wayyyyy too much.

So these mental models are so damn helpful because they can simplify the overly complicated and allow us to get out of our own heads.

These Mental Model Diets require compliance and consistency. In each instance, there’s a very specific answer you can say every day, and a question you can ask yourself with each meal.

As our favorite green Jedi Master once said, “Do or do not. There is no try.”:

Paleo Diet: “Would a caveman eat this?” Yes or no.

Keto Diet: “Am I in ketosis?” Yes or no. You can even pee on strips to see if you are in ketosis.

Slow Carb Diet: “Did I only eat slow carb foods today?” Yes or no.

Intermittent Fasting: “Did I skip breakfast today? Did I stop eating after my feeding window?” Yes or no.

In each of these examples above, it removes ALLLLLLLL of the fluff, simplifies the heck out of our complex physiology and a complex problem. And it allows us to stop fooling ourselves.

With the mental models above, we have rules and a framework within which we can operate. It starts with black and white YES or NO questions we can ask.

We know what (or when) we can and can’t eat.

It’s a lot easier to fool ourselves when we are sneaking bites of cookies, having an extra roll at dinner, drinking a larger soda during a long night at work, eating some of our kid’s Halloween candy, and overeating while absentmindedly watching television.

When the rules are black and white, yes or no, there’s no place to hide.

Which means we need to get our act together if we’re going to stick with something.

We start to understand the quality and quantity of things we are putting in our pie holes. We start to dig into our relationship with food.

And in MANY cases, we start to lose some weight (again, see #1 above); this starts to make us feel better about ourselves. And we chase that feeling.

We create a positive virtuous cycle where you lose weight, get complimented, wake up not feeling like crap, look forward to exercising, and over time we become permanently changed, healthier, happier people.

In a similar vein, The Whole 30 Diet works for many people (“I only eat Whole 30 foods for the next 30 days”), but it will not result in long term changes if somebody goes back to their original unhealthy diet after the 30 days are up.

Temporary changes = temporary results.

#3) They can be done incorrectly, are tough to stick with long term, and won’t work for everybody.

Depending on our genetics, upbringing, lifestyle choices, addiction to sugar, relationship with food, what foods satiate us, etc., some of these options might work better for us than others.

As mentioned above, if ANY of the above nutritional strategies are done temporarily, they will result in temporary changes. This is how the majority of people go through life: gaining and losing the same 15-30 (or 50, or 100) pounds as they go on a diet and off a diet.

It’s a rollercoaster.

And not the good kind of rollercoaster with flips and corkscrews and probably involving Batman. It’s more like one of those rickety old wooden coasters that ruins your back.

Those rollercoasters suck, and so does putting your body through crazy weight loss extremes, up down, yes no, yo-yo.

Although these Mental Model diets can help people lose weight, they are often done for short time periods to get quick results.

And that’s only if people can actually stick with them long enough to get results!

Let me explain.

Why These Diets Probably Won’t Work For You

There are two main reasons why these diets won’t work for you.

Some of them are more strict, have more rules, and require you to be more militant in your approach. And even if you are strict in applying the rules, you can STILL do the diets incorrectly and gain weight because of this whole concept of thermodynamics.

Don’t get mad at me. Get mad at science.[4]

#1) You Can Do These Mental Model Diets Incorrectly:

Paleo: I know people who “go paleo” but eat just as many calories as they did in the past: they are eating paleo cookies, buckets of dried fruit (soooo much sugar and carbs), sweet potatoes, and so on. This person will be frustrated when they don’t lose weight.

Keto: If you go Keto but eat 5,000 calories per day, you’re gonna put on weight. Do this while sitting on your ass not doing heavy strength training, and that weight will be all fat.

Intermittent Fasting: If you do intermittent fasting but eat 2,000 calorie lunches and dinners, you’re gonna put on weight. Hell, I put on probably 30 pounds while doing IF, which was my plan.

Slow Carb: If you go slow carb but eat 6,000 calories of beans and other slow-carb worthy foods, you’re gonna gain weight (and have extreme flatulence).

#2) Sticking with these Mental Model Diets for the long haul can be tough

The Paleo Diet and the Keto diet often come up dead last when it comes to a “List of Best Diets.”[5]

Now, the people writing those lists certainly have agendas, are trying to deal with the general population, adherence, a number of other factors, and more. In addition, there just haven’t been enough long term studies on some of these newer diet strategies.

Oh, and factor in anybody too that wants to get page views by taking shots and tearing down whatever becomes popular. We’ll call this the “hipster phenomenon.” I look forward to the vitriolic backlash to Keto Diets over the next 3 years.

And you never know who to trust. Coca-Cola famously used to bribe scientists to conduct studies claiming sugar was healthy.

So why the hate for diets that have changed millions of lives and will probably help you lose weight?

The reason these diets have poor compliance is because most people will abandon them within days/weeks after starting them:

If somebody is following Paleo or Keto, they’re gonna go through “carb flu” symptoms as their body has to learn to burn fat instead of carbs for fuel. Their body can revolt against this, making them miserable for days or weeks.

Many give up and go back to sweet, comforting carbs. I imagine this happens to a majority of people.

For others, they might make it past the physiological challenges but still give up on the date. They hate having to be the difficult one at barbecues, they hate weighing food or counting carbs, and find the diets too restrictive to fit into their lives.

Compliance and elimination of certain foods can be really challenging, especially for people with families, who travel for work, and aren’t in control of the lunch and dinner options.

In an EXTREME example of a Mental Model diet done for publicity, a professor went on the Twinkie Diet (he ONLY ate Twinkies) and lost 27 pounds.[6]

Disregarding the health implications of only eating Twinkies, I can’t imagine saying “this is a diet I can stick with for the next decade.”

#3) People think “All or Nothing” and quickly abandon the diet when compliance fails.

If you are somebody who is on a Keto Diet or Paleo, you have a very specific set of rules to follow. If you accidentally slip up:

Oh crap, that food had more carbs than I realized, I am now out of ketosis and my world has ended.

Oh crap, I didn’t realize this was dairy. I have now brought shame upon my paleo heritage and must attone for my sins.

Life happens. Shit happens. And with these diets, we dumb humans have this unique ability to take one tiny mistake and allow it to ruin the next decade:

“I ate a breakfast that wasn’t Paleo, today is ruined and so this month. I’ll try again next month (even though it’s only the 5th). Oh look, a pile of carbs! NOM NOM NOM.”

“I got knocked out of Ketosis, which makes me a loser that can’t stick with anything and I hate myself. What’s the point? Who cares that I was in ketosis and lost 30 pounds. I’ll try again later. Now back to my regularly scheduled program of carbs and carbs and carbs topped with carbs!”

No wonder 60+% of America is overweight! We’re surrounded by calorie-dense, nutritionally-deficient foods designed to make us overeat. We’re also surrounded by diet plans and products that promise fast results with no effort. We sabotage ourselves by thinking “99% complaint” is a failure and thus it’s a quick slide back to “0% compliant.”

It’s for these reasons I LOVE the IDEA of the Mental Model Diets above, but know that they’re not for everybody. They’re actually not for most people.

I think they can be a valuable starting point to help somebody simplify their decision-making process and educate themselves about the food they’re eating.

These Mental Model Diets can help people identify certain nutritional deficiencies or imbalances somebody might have, or unknown allergies.

They can help people identify sugar addictions, gluten intolerances, emotional triggers for food, and other valuable information to uncover. And as..

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#Paleo? Keto? Slow Carb? Vegan? How to Determine the Perfect Diet For You.

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