Tag: Convenience food

Weight Loss, Why Is It So Difficult?

Wallace Bishop I.N.H.C, C.N.C.5 Comments
Lose Weight and Build Health at the Same Time!!

This question has been asked and will continue to be asked for ever, I think.  So, how do we honestly answer such a broad question. Let’s face the facts, not many people lose a significant amount of weight and keep it off.

The weight loss market is a multi-billion dollar industry and although there are many people and companies developing great products and methods that really care about helping us get the weight off and keep it off many more just want your hard-earned money. But, this is a much more complex situation than the products and systems available to us and if we use them or not.

Everyone wants the magic pill or solution so they do not have to change their diet or lifestyle. Sorry, it just isn’t going to happen. Even people who undergo gastric bypass will sometimes gain it back because they have not fixed the problem causing the weight gain.  Change is a result from an action you do. You must make changes.

The Truth

Losing weight is the easy part, yes it is. Your weight is controlled by the number of calories you consume over time. You can lose weight eating cheese burgers as long as you do not over consume calories. However cheese burgers will not be a healthy way to lose weight. If you eat more than you body burns (needs) then the excess calories will turn to fat. However there are many parts of the equation that can throw the wrench in the mix. The realty is much different!

Energy Balance

Most people do not know how many calories their body requires.  There is formula, however, I highly suggest your read my earlier blog about calories and energy balance. Click here.  How can you manage your calories if you do not know how many you need?

Behavior

Here is where part of the complexity comes in, your body’s calorie needs can be very low if you are eating a nutrient poor diet, not moving (exercising) enough, have been yo-yo dieting and have been under consuming calories.  Also, certain medications and illnesses can cause a drop in your metabolism that will make it more difficult to lose weight.  These illness and need for medications are most often caused by poor diet and a lack of exercise and sometimes genetics. However genetics can be overcome most of the time. By having a low-calorie need for your metabolism the foods you eat turn to fat stores when you eat more than you need.

Stress

Stress is a big hormonal disruptor and increases the bodies output of cortisol and ghrelin. These build waist and hip fat and drive your appetite to eat more. You must find ways to lower your stress. Exercise is a great way to reduce stress. Other examples are Ti Chi, Yoga, walking, bicycling and swimming. Get outside and get some fresh air.

Sabotage by Food Manufacturers and regulatory agencies

Hopefully you know that when I say food manufacturing, the FOOD I am discussing is processed or refined. That is what food manufacturing does. You end up with a food like product that may have only a little real food and little if any nutritional and health benefit and foods that may be in their natural form like white rice but has lost most of its nutritional content.  Most food manufacturers are more concerned with profits than your health. It’s obvious, they will use any FDA approved ingredient in the food manufacturing process regardless of what non-biased health experts say about the health impact of the ingredient.  Refined and processed foods are a major cause of illness in our country. Just remember the longer a foods shelf life, the shorter it can make your life.

Sugar

Sugar is the evil food. It is addicting, seductive, taste great and causes complete havoc to your hormonal, neurological and immune systems. If you don’t avoid and limit simple and refined sugar out of your diet it will slowly bring about disease and ultimately death.  Sugar comes in many forms and names, beware the food manufacturers like to hide it.

All of the conditions or situations I just mentioned cause things to happen in your body that make it more difficult to lose weight. They are all stressors on the body creating chronic inflammation which causes hormonal imbalances.   These specific  hormonal imbalances cause cravings, a drop in metabolism and a build up of fat around the middle of our body. This situation becomes a self-perpetuating condition. The fat build up of fat around the midsection disrupts hunger regulation by interfering with three primary hormones that help us regulate the need to eat. These hormones are ghrelin (increases appetite), leptin (signals the brain the body does not need food, its satisfied) and insulin which controls blood sugar levels. To much insulin circulating and your hunger increases.  If you do not burn sugar (glucose) for energy the body has to store it as fat.

If we add these together we get a formula that keeps people from keeping weight off forever.  People do not balance calories, they eat unhealthy foods, the do not manage their stress, they eat way too much sugar, they do not move or exercise enough.

What is the solution?

If you will integrate as many of these keys of health into your life, you will not only lose weight, you will gain in health. And you can keep both forever because this isn’t a diet, it’s a lifestyle.

Of utmost importance is developing a passion for a better and healthier life. The passion will get you through the difficult times.

10 Keys to Wellness

  1. Eat from Mother Nature as often as possible, avoiding refined and processed foods and simple sugars. Your diet should be primarily vegetables then fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds and sprouted grains. Raw vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds are even healthier.  Beans must be cooked.
  2. Reduce and learn to manage stress. Stress is the biggest influence to our health.
  3. Eliminate or limit the intake of animal foods (they are very acidic to the body).
  4. Avoid stimulants such as caffeine as much as possible. They are body stressors.
  5. Avoid or limit your alcohol intake.
  6. Avoid cigarettes and second hand smoke.
  7. Stay hydrated; drink plenty of fresh pure water daily.
  8. Get adequate time outside. Sunshine provides the best source of Vitamin D. Even when under cloud cover the ultraviolet rays penetrate and nourish our bodies. Always remember more is not always better. Just 15 to 20 minutes under the daylight sky 3 times per week will provide a lot of Vitamin D.
  9. Our body requires activity to be healthy. Exercise is vitally important.
  10.  Balance your life with spiritual and societal involvement.

Four Principles of Wellness

  1. 1.     Nutrition is king, king, king! Nutrition is 300 to 400% more important than exercise is to your state of wellness.  You can’t handle stress or get the benefits of exercise without great nutrition.
  2. 2.     Stress is a killer and will undermine all attempts to reach a state of MAXIMUM LIFE.
  3. 3.     Physical activity is critical to reach a place of wellness. You cannot have a MAXIMUM LIFE without exercise in some form.
  4. 4.     Spiritual and social fulfillment is critical for a state of wellness, happiness and having a MAXIMUM LIFE.

Be passionate about your health and do not let anyone undermine your success.

Healthy Wishes

Wally Bishop C.N.C.

WebND

The contents of this blog is not and should not be  considered medical advice. This blog is for informational purposes only. Always consult with your doctor before making any dietary or lifestyle changes. Never quit taking prescription medications unless advised to do so by your doctor.

What Are You Eating? Better Find Out!!

Wallace Bishop I.N.H.C, C.N.C.2 Comments
Refined and Processed Foods Damage the Body!

Did you ever think that there might be harmful chemicals in your food? I am not talking about contaminants like pesticides. I am talking about natural compounds made harmful by the food processing or cooking methods we use?

There are harmful compounds in raw foods as well as cooked foods. For example; many foods (mostly dairy, beans and grains) contain lectins and cruciferous vegetables contain goitrogens and oxalic acid (cooking will neutralize most of the oxalic acid) and there are others as well.  However, most people never have a problem from consuming these compounds in moderation. Cooked foods, as long as they are healthy foods also give us detoxing nutrients. However, unhealthy foods like those that are refined and processed give us different challenges and little nutrition to help remove the unhealthy compounds.

What I want to discuss today is cooking or processing methods that create unhealthy and damaging compounds in our foods.

I do not want to make you paranoid about eating the foods you like. That’s not my intent. If you practice the 80/20 rule, eat and live healthy 80% of the time, you can have an occasional indulgence. When you eat healthy,  your body will have the nutrition to detox and function optimally.

Because of the rapid advancement in technology in the last century, we are faced with new discoveries alerting us to the hidden dangers in our foods.   We commonly hear about mercury, aluminum, fluoride, BPA’s and PCB’s. Now we need to pay attention to acrylamides and glycation.  You may have never heard of them, however, it is important you know about them.  Acrylamides and glycation have been around since man started cooking foods.

I am sure you are wondering acrylamides and AGE’s are now an issue. The Standard American Diet (SAD) is why!!  The SAD is nutrient bankrupt. If you eat healthy, the body can detox the acrylamide and AGE’s made from glycation.  When your total body stores of nutrition are high, your immune system and detoxing ability can function at a high level. This ability reduces your risk of adverse effects from the harmful compounds caused from different methods of food preparation.  When most of your diet is from a box, bag or plastic container you will end up with a fast food body.

Refined and processed foods didn’t exist until the late 1800’s. The decline in our health as Americans has a lot to do with the absence of nutrients in the diet. The body cannot detox naturally occurring or man-made substances without adequate nutrition. Refined and processed foods give very little nutritional value. They are in fact junk foods.

Advanced Glycation End Products (AGE’s) are harmful by-products of cooking with sugar, proteins and fat.  The body also makes some AGE’s as part of normal metabolic function however the amount of damage from this is small. Most of the harm to our bodies comes from the AGE’s in the foods we eat and these add to our aging process and disease formation. Because of chronically elevated blood sugar levels, diabetics have consistently faced the challenge of AGEs.  Unfortunately, this problem has now become an issue for the American public.  Over the past 30 years sugar consumption has increased dramatically.

The Standard American Diet is full of simple sugars like sucrose, fructose and galactose (milk sugar). Many of the natural sweeteners available today are at least 50% fructose or a fructose derivative, think high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, agave nectar and agave syrup. These simple sugars undergo glycation at about 10 times a higher rate than glucose (blood sugar).  Fructose (list of fructose content in foods)seems to have the highest negative health impact because it tends to make many more AGE’s in the diet. This means we are accelerating disease and illness due to our nutrient poor diet of convenience.

When cooking foods, the higher the temperature, the longer the time and the type of heat determine the amount of AGE’s produced.  Dry heat produces substantially more AGE’s than wet heat.  Boiling, poaching, steaming and stewing are the cooking methods that produce the least amount of AGE’s and cooking, grilling, frying, baking, and broiling produces the most AGE’s.

AGE’s accelerate our aging at the cellular level.  Research performed over the past several years has shown that about 30% of the AGEs in food are absorbed into the body and remain in various tissues for considerable periods of time. In animal studies, restriction of dietary AGEs slowed the progression of atherosclerosis and diabetes. A study in humans found that a low-AGE diet reduced blood levels of C-reactive protein, which is a measure of inflammation and a known risk factor for heart disease.

AGEs form as food browns during cooking, primarily when foods high in protein or fat are subjected to high temperatures. Cooking at a higher temperature for a shorter period of time creates more AGEs than cooking at lower temperatures for longer periods of time. Also, exposure to dry heat produces more AGEs than cooking in liquid. Thus, broiling, frying, or grilling of meats creates more AGEs than boiling, poaching, or stewing. For example, a chicken breast broiled for 15 minutes contains more than five times as many AGEs as the same food boiled for one hour.  If you barbecue or allow meats to char ,not only do you have AGE’s you also have other cancer causing compounds. .

Research over the last 20 years has implicated AGEs in most of the diseases associated with aging like:

  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Cancer
  • Heart disease
  • Type II diabetes
  • Kidney disorders
  • Atherosclerosis
  • High blood pressure
  • Stroke
  • Visual impairment
  • Skin disorders

The amount of AGE’s in food varies. In the list provided in this link you can see the foods with the highest AGE content are animal foods and a few roasted nuts.  Eat the nuts raw for the best health. There are very few AGE’s in plant based foods like vegetables and fruits, You can see the complete article and AGE content list at this link.

Summary

If you eat nutritious foods and prepare your foods in different ways, you will reduce the risk of health issues from harmful chemicals and compound present in everyday foods.

Enjoy your food but eat healthy to minimize your risk of disease and illness promoted through refined and processed foods.  Avoid as much sugar as possible particularly those foods high in fructose sugars. This does not mean avoid fruits. It means all things in moderation. You should consume three (3) times more vegetables than fruits. You should reduce your intake of all sugars and avoid any foods with high fructose corn syrup, agave nectar and agave syrup.

Healthy Wishes

Wally Bishop C.N.C.

WebND

The contents of this blog is not and should not be  considered medical advice. This blog is for informational purposes only. Always consult with your doctor before making any dietary or lifestyle changes. Never quit taking prescription medications unless advised to do so by your doctor.

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