Did you find yourself sweeter and kinder after Whole30 reintro?

[MeadowLily]

 

The Link Between Carbs, Gut Microbes, and Colon Cancer

 

 

BY JOHN UPTON • July 22, 2014 

 

 

Reduced carb intake among mice protected them from colon cancer.

•

Colorectal cancer is a scourge of modern times, killing 50,000 Americans every year. It’s responsible for a heavier death toll than any other cancer besides lung cancer and, when it comes to women, breast cancer.

 

And new research, which was published last week in Cell, has provided insights into the dangerous link between colorectal cancers and modern diets heavy in wheat, rice, and other complex carbohydrates—diets that became possible with the advent of agriculture.

 

University of Toronto scientists led research that suggests a common type of gut-dwelling bacteria breaks down carbs into certain metabolites that can lead to cancer. These metabolites appear to cause cells that line the colon to divide and proliferate rapidly, forming polyps. These polyps, which can grow into a cancer, are the abnormal growths that your doctor is probing for when they subject you to a colonoscopy.

“The microbiota in our gut play an important role in our physiology, so wiping out a specific phylum of bacteria is probably not a healthy thing to do.”

 

The scientists found that they could protect specially bred mice from the cancers in two ways. In some mice, they used targeted antibiotics to kill off theclostridia bacteria that convert carbs into the metabolite butyrate. In other mice, they reduced the amount of carbs in their diets.

 

“We know it depends on bacteria, and we know it depends on carbs,” says Alberto Martin, an associate immunology professor at the University of Toronto and one of the authors of the study. “This is the part of the study that’s still not solid, but we think that butyrate is somehow fueling the hyperproliferation of colon epithelial cells.” Other metabolites of carbohydrates might also be involved, he says. “It would be naïve to think it’s only butyrate.”

The phyla of bacteria inhabiting mouse guts resembles that in human intestines, which suggests the findings could be relevant for human health. And that suggests that you could protect yourself from colon cancer by taking the same potent cocktail of targeted antibiotics, including ampicillin, metronidazole, neomycin, and vancomycin, that were fed to the mice.

 

But Martin definitely doesn’t think you should do that. Colorectal cancers tend to crop up in older people, meaning 30 or 40 years’ worth of antibiotics might need to be taken before they would do any good. Meanwhile, the clostridia would likely become resistant to the drugs, and the antibiotics could do more harm during those years than good.

 

“The microbiota in our gut play an important role in our physiology, so wiping out a specific phylum of bacteria is probably not a healthy thing to do,” Martin says. “We’re investigating whether probiotics can modulate colon cancer, but we don’t have any answers on that yet.”

 

A change in diet would be a better approach than taking prophylactic antibiotics.

“Reducing carb intake might be an approach to reducing the incidence of this type of colon cancer,” Martin says. But “before we declare war on carbs,” he warns that it would be important to undertake similar studies in humans—not just mice. “We’re really only beginning to learn about these things.”

 

 

[MeadowLily]

THE AMISH STUDIES

THE AMISH

The Amish Studies

STUDIES

The Amish still farm with horses as they have for 300 years

What makes the Amish such fertile ground for study on subjects such as weight loss is because they all live the same way they lived 300 years ago. They still plow their fields with horses, don't drive cars, use lanterns for electricity and only use telephones in a dire emergency. Their life expectancy is right at the US average even though they avoid modern medicine whenever they can...but the life expectancy of the Amish has been 72 or greater for almost 300 years, even when ours was 40 and they still eat like our ancestors did too, which is pretty much whatever they want. We don't recommend the Amish Diet, but there is much to be learned from the studies that measure their physical activity.

 

One recent study of the Amish, published in the official scientific journal of the American College of Sports Medicine (the largest sports medicine and exercise organization in the world), provides enormous insight into the relationship between high amounts of work-related physical activity and obesity. The study was designed to use the Amish, known for their physically demanding hard working lifestyle and living without modern technology, to determine how technology influences physical activity levels in modern society. Pedometers were placed on a large group of Amish farmers and their physical activities were logged for 7 days. Amish men recorded an average of 18,425 steps a day, Amish women logged 14,196 daily steps. By most standards 10,000 steps per day is required to be considered to live a "very active lifestyle". Other forms of physical activity were also measured and the findings were that the Amish performed 6 times more physical activity per day than a study of 2,000 participants in 12 modernized nations. Only 4% of the Amish population are obese as defined by

a Body Mass Index above 30, whereas 31% of the US adult population is obese.

 

“The Amish were able to show us just how far we’ve fallen in the last 150 years or so in terms of the amount of physical activity we typically perform,” said David R. Bassett, Ph.D., FACSM, a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and lead researcher for the study. “Their lifestyle indicates that physical activity played a critical role in keeping our ancestors fit and healthy.”

 

THE OBESITY GENE

The Amish still use a Horse and Buggy for transportation

Carriers of mutations in one gene, called the fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) gene, present in nearly half of Europeans, are about 30 to 60 percent more likely to be fat. University of Maryland researchers decided to examine the FTO gene in the homogenous Amish community since almost all of them are of European descent. They found that, as with others of European descent, this gene did contribute to being overweight in the Amish community. But the excess weight was seen only in those individuals with low physical activity scores, mostly women performing house chores. The genes had absolutely no effect for those burning additional calories through several hours of moderately intensive physical exercise such as farming.

 

In this study physical activity even trumped diet. The Amish enjoy eating every part of the pig with gusto, along with gravy, potatoes and pies. And they get away with it. The Amish do have an advantage in that they burn more calories through exercise throughout their entire lives, and they are in effect nurturing nature. Not gaining excess weight is the easiest way to maintain a healthy weight. Yet at a very basic level the University of Maryland study reveals what is perhaps obvious to many: Population-wide obesity is a modern phenomenon. We carry the same genes as our ancestors did, but lifestyle changes have brought on the obesity epidemic. The lesson the Amish have for us all is that our bodies didn't change we did!

 

 

 

Written by World Life Expectancy

[Deb.]

Meadow, very interesting stuff about the Amish!!

[MeadowLily]

WEIGHT LOSS: CRASH DIETS VS. THE WHOLE30

 

27 May, 2014

One of the criticisms of the Whole30 (as voiced in the piece ABC’s Nightline ran about the program) is that once you come off the program, you’ll quickly regain any weight you’ve lost. The only way you could believe this to be true is if you assumed the Whole30 was like every other crash diet out there. (Even a cursory glance of our website, book, or program rules would have dispelled this assumption. Just sayin’.)

 

The real question should be, “Is the Whole30 like every other diet, where you lose some weight but regain it all (and then some) when the diet is over?”  The answer to that question is definitively no. The difference lies in the structure of the Whole30 compared to every other diet.

 

It’s not about just passing the test

You can compare crash diets, quick fixes, and “diets” in general to cramming for an exam. You haven’t paid attention in class, done the homework, or studied, but you still want to pass the test. So you stay up all night mainlining coffee and rote-memorizing the things you think you’ll need to know. The next morning, you squeak by with a B-, but a week later you’ve forgotten everything you memorized.

 

This is what happens when you diet. You want to lose ten pounds for your vacation. You haven’t been eating healthy, changed your habits, or made any effort to change your tastes. So, you diet. You eat tiny portions, drink most of your meals, and/or take metabolism-boosting pills. You lose ten pounds–yay!–but are you any healthier for the experience? Nope. And a week later, when you’re back in the real world (with the same habits and relationship with food), your body has forgotten all that weight loss, and you’re right back where you started.

 

Diets don’t work

Study after study shows that “dieting” doesn’t work to keep weight off long-term. In fact, most dieters end up regaining all the weight they lost and then some when the diet is over. That’s because most diets focus on caloric restriction as a means to lose weight. Maybe they also limit food groups, or have you only eat certain foods with other foods, or not eat carbs after dark, but the reason these plans work in the short-term to help you drop pounds is that you’re eating less. Sometimes way less.

 

Truth: the plans that boast you’ll drop the most weight the fastest are closer to “starvation” than “diet.”

 

So why don’t these plans work long-term? Because you’re eating less, but you haven’t changed your tastes, habits, or relationship with food. You’re relying on nothing but willpower to maintain your caloric deficit, and in the face of caloric restriction (especially the low-carb variety), willpower runs out fast. Plus your hormones and brain are struggling keep you going in the face of not enough calories. Your metabolism tanks. Your body craves nutrients. Stress hormones promote cravings for sugar and carbs, leading to a larger requirement of willpower to stay the course.

 

And the entire time, you’re still stuck in a dysfunctional relationship with food.

You still crave the things you’re not eating. You still want to turn to food for comfort, love, or relief. Your taste buds are still crying out, “Viva, Las Vegas!” and your cup of Splenda-topped grapefruit with no fat whipped topping just isn’t cutting it.

 

So you wrap up your diet, happy that you lost ten pounds… but your body is stuck with a slower metabolism and a propensity to store fat. The stress of your dieting makes you crave sugar and sweets. Your hold on willpower is tentative at best, as you’ve stretching it to capacity every minute of every day. And your tongue and brain have joined forces while you were dieting, singing songs of pleasure and reward from the beloved Oreo cookies which you still believe to taste amazing.

 

So… you eat. You go right back to your old habits, your old foods, your old patterns, your old food-as-coping strategies.

Of course, you regain the weight you lost. Diets don’t work.

 

The Whole30 is not a diet

The Whole30 doesn’t want you to just pass the test—we built it to make you smarter. By following the program, you pay attention in class. You take good notes. You study after hours. You do your own research, and hold yourself accountable every single day. And you actually learn the material. You don’t just pass the test, you (and your body) retain this information for the rest of your life.

 

The Whole30 is not a diet. There is no caloric restriction. You’re never under-fed or under-nourished, which means your body isn’t in panic mode. And because we teach your body how to rely on fat as fuel (and not just sugar), your hormones and metabolism are changing in a positive direction—you’re getting more energetic, less “hangry” between meals, and more efficient at burning body fat and dietary fat.

 

This is already sounding different.

Plus, the foods we eliminate during the program have a powerful impact on your taste buds. By stripping the supernormally stimulating foods from your everyday plate, your tastes will change. The stuff you used to think was delicious (diet soda, fat-free yogurt, snack cakes) aren’t as appealing. You can appreciate the natural sweetness found in a sweet potato or a piece of fruit. You come out of the program with new taste buds, and often going back to your old favorites is a huge disappointment. (“It tastes like chemicals” is the refrain we often hear.)

This is also different.

 

Finally, the psychology we’ve built into the Whole30—no SWYPO, and no scale—means you have to change your habits during the program. You can’t rely on cookies, muffins, candy, or sweets when you need comfort or love—so you find a healthier way to self-soothe. You can’t satisfy that sugar craving the way you used to, so you learn to distract yourself and move forward with a new sense of self-confidence. You can’t obsess about your body weight, so you become aware of all of the non-scale victories the program is bringing you.

 

When you leave the Whole30, you are not the same person as when you started. You have a humming metabolism, some solid new habits, a healthier relationship with food, and a stronger sense of self-efficacy. And because of that, you are far less likely to dive right back into old habits on Day 31.

 

Less healthy foods

If you choose to reintroduce some foods after your program is over, your new metabolism, habits, and healthier relationship with food will keep you from over-indulging, bingeing, or falling face-first off the wagon. Because you’ve built a more solid foundation of health, you’ll be able to indulge from time to time in life after your Whole30* without the same blood sugar roller-coaster, uncontrollable cravings, and slide into carb-a-palooza that you used to experience when you enjoyed a treat. Which means that eating some rice, black beans, or even a pancake from time to time won’t result in weight regain.

 

*Refer to Chapter 21 in It Starts With Food for our “life after” game plan

Of course, life happens, and not everyone takes to the Whole30. If your program was less than successful, or if you end up in a period of major stress after your program is over and fall right back into old foods and old habits, yes, you’ll probably end up gaining weight back. But you can say that about any healthy venture, can’t you? If you exercise, and then stop exercising, you’ll probably lose some muscle. If you meditate, and then stop meditating, you’ll probably regain some stress.

 

We’ve built as many healthy fail-safes into the Whole30 as possible. Adequate calories, tons of nutrition, true satiety, habit-changing parameters, awareness initiatives, self-confidence boosters, craving-busters. We’ve done as much as we can on our end to prevent you coming off the program and falling face-first into a box of donuts.

 

The rest is up to you.

You need to work the program. You need to pay attention to the spirit and intention of the Whole30, not just the technicalities. You need to be honest with yourself, call yourself out when you’re falling back into old thought processes, rely on our community for support and accountability. You need to actively work to change your habits, to create a new relationship with food, and to exorcise some of the food demons that you’ve been dragging around for years, if not decades.

 

We’ve done our part. You do yours, and the Whole30 will change your life—and you’ll never again have to diet. Go to the head of the class.

- See more at: http://whole30.com/2014/05/whole30-vs-crash-diets/#sthash.Mb7WC5fh.dpuf

[MeadowLily]

Scorch Through a "Fat Loss" Plateau

 

"I believe most foods can be consumed in the right context, but should be avoided in another context, in order to optimize body recomposition and fat loss. For example, most of my clients consume a fair amount of starchy carbohydrates following a workout. This isn’t a problem because it’s part of optimizing the plan. In this context, starchy carbs are great for restoring muscle glycogen. On rest days however, my clients might skip starches, eating fewer carbs and more satiating ones. This strategy optimizes satiety, fat loss, diet adherence and performance.

That being said, there are some foods that should be ditched first from your diet if weight loss is stalling or if you want to speed things up. Same thing goes if you just want to make the diet as easy and painless as possible. Having reviewed and created hundreds of meal plans throughout the years, I know a little something about this topic.

Your diet is where you fix things first and foremost. Adding more cardio when your diet is suboptimal is an inefficient and time-wasting strategy that will result in an increased risk of burnout and overtraining."

 

 

Nuts, protein bars and dried fruit

Nuts in all their various forms... because it’s a natural food doesn’t mean it’s all that diet friendly.

Packing a higher calorie density than chocolate, it’s no big mystery that people easily overdo it with nuts. Some people rationalize a high nut consumption by saying it’s a healthy and natural snack, but this is wrong. Nuts contain an incomplete amino acid profile and consist mostly of plant fats. The westernized diet is already highly unbalanced in the omega 3: omega 6-ratio—the polyunsaturated fats from nuts certainly won’t help.

Optimize the fat composition of your diet by kicking nuts to the curb and add more fish, that’s my recommendation. You’ll be more satiated and healthier to boot.

 

A protein bar is nothing more than a chocolate bar with slightly higher protein content and crappier taste. A whopping 300 calories for a bar that you’ll gulf down in a few minutes is crazy. For most women that amount makes up about ¼-1/5 of the daily total calorie intake needed to lose fat efficiently. Besides that, eating protein bars to up your protein intake isn’t a great strategy as a bar’s protein content makes up only about 30-40% of its calories. You could down half a Snickers bar and a protein shake, and end up consuming fewer calories with a better nutritional breakdown than having your typical protein bar. Protein bars are nothing more than glamorized candy. And you don’t eat candy on a regular basis if you want to optimize fat loss and diet adherence.

Unprocessed fruit is good, but dried fruit including dried apricots, dates and raisins are just sugar lumps with some extra fiber. These snacks have high calorie density and tend to stimulate hunger rather than quench it. Out of the three popular snacks discussed here, dried fruit may just be the worst of the lot. You don’t want or need them on a fat loss diet.

Shakes

Shakes, liquids and anything else that resembles baby food shouldn’t stay on menu when it’s time to shave off calories or make your diet more manageable and painless. This includes “recovery shakes” with high-glycemic index carbs and protein shakes, fruit juices, milk and yogurt. Packing a good deal of calories in proportion to the little satiety they provide, liquid calories have no place in your diet other than for convenience.

Think you need a “recovery shake” post-workout? Think again. Unless you’re an elite athlete training twice a day and need to refill muscle glycogen as fast as possible for your next training session, “fast carbs” are a complete waste of calories. Your time (and money) is better spent with whole food carbohydrates that offer chewing resistance.

Are you drinking whey protein shakes throughout the day because you’re too lazy to cook or eat real food? Well, if you’re too lazy to step into the kitchen or chew your food, you’re probably not going to reach your fat loss goals anyway. I’d rather have you learn to savour a good steak with veggies rather than rapidly chugging insulin-spiking and appetite-triggering whey protein shakes. Liquid calories should be replaced with whole foods, including your protein choices. But if you must supplement your diet with protein shakes, I recommend casein or milk protein isolate over whey.

What about those vitamin drinks, smoothies and fruit juices people are drinking to make sure they’re getting enough antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals? Another complete waste of calories Do you think you risk missing vital nutrients if you cut these “health drinks” out from your diet? It’s actually the other way around: strong evidence suggests that overdoing intake of antioxidants and vitamins can negatively affect your health and your training results. A balanced diet with wholesome foods such as meat, eggs, berries, veggies and some starches, doesn’t need vitamin or antioxidant support. It has everything in abundance. If you’re still paranoid, take a multivitamin with your first meal."

 

Written by Martin Berkhan

[MeadowLily]

What's Really In A Big Mac? McDonald's Says It's Ready To Tell All

 

 

by MARIA GODOY

October 14, 2014 

McDonald's still won't reveal the recipe for its secret sauce, but it will show you how that Big Mac patty gets made.

Keith Srakocic/AP

Did you hear the one about the McDonald's hamburger that still hadn't decomposed after 14 years?

And "pink slime" — how much goes into McDonald's beef?

Over the years, fast-food behemoth McDonald's has faced some pretty disturbing questions about the ingredients that go into its meals. And lately, its North American sales have been slumping. That may have something to do with the growing ranks of consumers asking pesky questions about what Big Food is feeding them.

So perhaps it's not so surprising that this week, McDonald's USA decided to tell the public, all right, we're throwing open the doors. On Monday, the company launched "Your Questions, Our Food," a new advertising blitz aimed at dispelling the rumors and convincing consumers it has nothing to hide.

This new tell-all, social media-based approach — "in many ways, it's the way the world is going," Ben Stringfellow, vice president of communications for McDonald's USA, told the Associated Press.

As part of that effort, the company is inviting questions via Facebook and Twitter. And it has enlisted the help of Grant Imahara, former co-host of the Discovery Channel'sMythbusters, to help address some of the most persistent concerns. In a video posted on the company's website, Imahara tours a factory in Fresno, Calif., run by Cargill, which supplies the beef used in McD's burgers.

During the tour, we learn that no, there are no eyeballs or lips in the meat and no, there's no ammonia or lean, finely textured beef (the so-called pink slime), either.

"Beef in and beef out — nothing else is added," one Cargill worker tells Imahara.

 

What the video fails to mention is that yes, McDonald's burgers at one point did contain lean, finely textured beef, though the company phased it out in 2011. The company does acknowledge this in a longer Q&A on its website, which addresses other unsavory issues, like the fact that most of its beef comes from cattle treated with hormones.

The new campaign follows similar efforts to pull back the curtain at McDonald's Australian and Canadian divisions, which released a highly publicized video that let us witness the birth of a chicken McNugget earlier this year. (Perhaps the most illuminating bit of information from that video was that the iconic chicken lumps are made in four shapes — the bell, ball, bow tie and boot.)

The shift in tone also comes as McDonald's sales falter at its U.S. stores. Same-store sales slipped 1.5 percent during the most recent fiscal quarter, and the company is having a tough time appealing to millennials. Since 2011, the number of 19- to 21-year-olds who visited a McDonald's each month has dropped by 12.9 percentage points, as the demographic flocks to fast-casual chains like Chipotle and Five Guys, according todata the restaurant consulting group Technomic gathered forThe Wall Street Journal.

While consumers may welcome McDonald's move toward more transparency, some critics say what's really needed is a change in its core menu.

 

"Most people simply don't think of McDonald's as a healthy place to eat, despite its efforts to offer more menu choices," Civil Eats co-founder Naomi Starkman writes. In a world where farm-to-table increasingly dominates eating ethos, McDonald's is still essentially serving up "factory farm-to-table," she says.

"The truth is," she writes, "McDonald's is facing a marketplace where people no longer want fast food, but good food served fast."

Adds Sriram Madhusoodanan of Corporate Accountability International, an advocacy group that has called on McDonald's to stop marketing to kids, "Instead of addressing people's concerns with the corporation's marketing practices and food quality, McDonald's continues to double-down on advertising that simply won't make its problems go away."

Speaking of things that won't go away, remember that burger-that-never ages we mentioned? Yeah, it's scientifically possible, McDonald's has previously acknowledged, if you stored the thing in superdry conditions where bacteria and mold can't form.

[MeadowLily]

My name is Beth Zupec-Kania and I'm the consultant nutritionist for The Charlie Foundation.

In my 33 years of working with nutrition therapies, none comes close to the remarkable results I’ve seen achieved with ketogenic diets. I’ve had the honor of working with hundreds of people on the diet, which has taken me all over the world where together with The Charlie Foundation we have trained over 130 hospitals in ten countries.

 

The ketogenic diet was used in several major U.S. medical centers as an epilepsy treatment until post-World War II development of new anti-seizure medications became standard protocol. The ketogenic diet was almost extinct in 1994 when a little boy named Charlie Abrahamsdeveloped difficult-to-control epilepsy. His parents learned about the diet in a medical textbook and took him to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md. His seizures stopped within days of starting the diet and he remained on it for five years. He is now 21, remains seizure-free, lives on his own and attends college.

 

The family shared their story with the media and answered thousands of letters that followed. Charlie’s father, Jim Abrahams, wrote, directed and produced First Do No Harm, a 1997 television movie starring Meryl Streep and based on a true story of another child who also became seizure-free thanks to a ketogenic diet. This began a surge in interest worldwide and spurred further research which has proven the effectiveness of the diet as a treatment for epilepsy.

 

The ketogenic diet as a treatment for epilepsy was discovered in 1921 by Dr. Russel Wilder, MD, of the Mayo Clinic. At about the same time, German biochemist and Nobel laureate Otto Warburg published a study showing that cancer cells, unlike normal cells, use glucose for energy. (Recent interest in this theory has prompted both animal and human studies showing striking results of the low-carbohydrate [low-glucose] ketogenic diet in certain cancers.)

 

In 1995 I worked with a teenager who had a large inoperable brain tumor that caused seizures. He was given just weeks to live but his tenacious mother pursued all possible treatments and was referred to me to start the ketogenic diet. Not only did he stop having seizures, he became more alert and active, and was able to enjoy life for another year. His neurologist determined that the diet stopped his seizures and also slowed the rapid growth of his lethal brain tumor. It was then that I realized the diet worked for more than epilepsy.

 

In 1999 I was asked to initiate the diet in a girl who had been in intensive care for three months. She was suffering constant seizures and had been placed in a drug-induced coma several times in efforts to arrest her seizures. Within a week of providing her a ketogenic formula through a feeding tube, her seizures diminished and she was soon able to go home. This method of ketogenic diet delivery has since been reported effective in over 40 patients in a dozen separate medical publications. A recent publication that I co-wrote includes five such cases.

 

The diet is traditionally offered after the failure of two or more anti-seizure medications. Statistically, after a second drug has been tried, the likelihood of another one controlling seizures is less than 3 percent. Those are poor odds, yet many of the people I’ve worked with over the years have tried multiple combinations and as many as seven different drugs.

 

Ketogenic diets improve epilepsy in over half of those who try it. This has been documented in multiple prospective studies including a report summarizing the results from 19 hospitals that collectively treated over 1,000 children.

If the ketogenic diet can have such a strong impact where no drug or drug combination has helped, could it help others with less intense epilepsy?

Similarly, is it possible to prevent certain types of epilepsy simply by eating differently? It would seem that a clue may be found in the type of epilepsy.

And if we evaluate those who become seizure-free on ketogenic diets, could we determine the metabolic link to their epilepsy? Could they achieve seizure control or even prevent their epilepsy by following a special diet (without going to the extreme of a high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet)?

 

My educated guess is this “special diet” would be based on whole (unprocessed) foods including fats and would eliminate sweets and added sugars. The Charlie Foundation has recently published guidelines on how to follow this type of special diet.

 

I feel privileged to be involved in the lives of people who have tried ketogenic diet therapies. Their cooperation and diligence has fueled my efforts to educate the community and professionals to make the diet more available, easier to manage and more delicious. With research underway on the impact of ketogenic diets in many different conditions, it is my greatest hope that these special diets evolve to the level of disease prevention.

 

On a personal note, I myself have adopted a low-carbohydrate diet with sufficient protein and liberal fat.

 

People are shocked when they see me pour olive or grapeseed oil over my fish or salad. Although I don’t attempt to achieve the extremely high fat content of ketogenic diets, fat is the main source of calories in my diet.

 

Eating this way I’ve experienced many benefits including clearer thinking and a greater energy level. No longer do I have the afternoon “slump.” My complexion is clearer and the post-meal bloating I experienced before is gone.

When I’m asked about my diet, my simplest explanation is that I'm on ancestral diet with generous fats—this means natural and unprocessed foods including meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, berries and fats from nut and seed oils. This is what our early ancestors ate. I feel full for long periods and typically eat only two meals a day (not advised for children).

 

Although it can be difficult to maintain this kind of diet in our carb-loaded society, eating at home is my best option. This lifestyle has also forced me to be a better advisor to my patients and students.

[MeadowLily]

Slower not better: myth of gradual weight loss debunked by study

 

'If you lose weight quickly, you still gain it back at the same time as someone who loses it gradually.' 

Losing weight gradually - as opposed to rapidly - does not increase the chances of keeping the weight off after dieting, a study has found.

 

Researchers from the University of Melbourne teamed up with the Weight Control Clinic at Austin Health to explore the commonly held belief that those who lose weight quickly also regain weight at a fast rate.

 

Their trial involved 200 obese adults who were randomly assigned to either a 12-week, rapid weight-loss program based on a low calorie diet, or a 36-week gradual weight-loss program based on current dietary recommendations. 

 

The gradual program was based on Australian weight-loss guidelines, which recommend eating 600 calories less than what "you'd normally eat" in fats, protein and carbohydrates, while the rapid weight-loss diet included replacing three daily meals with low energy diet products before having vegetables in the evening to stimulate the bowel.  

 

"Because the rapid-weight loss diet did not include carbohydrates, the participants began to burn fat instead, releasing hunger suppressant hormones called ketones," said Joseph Proietto, a professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne, and head of Austin Health's Weight Control Clinic. 

 

Professor Proietto and co-author and dietician Katrina Purcell said the study revealed that obesity was "predominantly genetic".

"We don't believe that obesity is caused by lifestyle," Professor Proietto told Fairfax Media.

"For example, in my clinic at the Austin, 80 per cent of people referred to me have a family history of obesity."

 

However, in cases of someone being "mildly overweight", lifestyle played a bigger role than genetics, he said.

 

Ms Purcell said that while she was told to recommend gradual weight loss when she was studying to be a dietician, "when I looked at the literature, there was no current evidence to suggest that losing weight slowly is superior to losing weight quickly". 

"If you lose weight quickly, you still gain it back at the same time as someone who loses it gradually," she said.

 

"When you lose weight gradually you're not excluding carbs, so your body is still burning carbohydrates and not fat.

 

"It's highly likely that we had success in the rapid group because they were producing ketones... which suppressed  their hunger," Ms Purcell said.

"Ketones have also been shown to increase the fullness hormone, making you feel more full."

 

The participants were also given a pedometre during the trial, and were encouraged to exercise in conjunction with their diet. 

 

Irrespective of which program they were part of, 71 per cent of all participants regained the weight within a year of completing the trial, Ms Purcell said.

 

"We found that the hunger hormone followed weight loss for up to three years later," she said. 

 

"So for up to three years, your body will want to get back to its normal weight. The key is in maintaining the diet after you lose the weight."

[MeadowLily]

10/15/2014  Another Diet Myth Exploded: Gradual Weight Loss No Better Than Rapid Weight Loss

 

Once again, a popular weight loss myth has been exploded. It has been widely believed that weight loss, which is nearly always difficult to maintain, is even less likely to stay lost if it is the product of a rapid weight loss. The belief is even enshrined in current guidelines. Now a study published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology provides no support for this belief. Instead, the study suggests that although long-term weight loss remains elusive regardless of the diet, short-term weight loss is actually more likely with rapid weight loss.

 

Australian researchers randomized 204 obese adults to either a 12-week rapid weight loss diet (with Nestlé’s Optifast) or a 36-week gradual diet. A weight loss of 15% was the goal of both diets. Participants who lost at least 12.5% of their weight then participated in the second phase of the study, in which they were placed on a 144-week maintenance diet.

 

In the first phase of the study, 50% of people on the gradual diet and 81% of people on the rapid diet achieved the 12.5% weight loss goal. Both groups struggled considerably in the second phase: 71.2% in the gradual diet group and 70.5% in the rapid diet regained most of the weight they had shed in the first phase. In both groups, patients who successfully completed phase 1 lost a little over 14 kilograms in the first phase but then gained back all but 4 kg in the second phase.

 

In an accompanying comment, Corby Martin and Kishore Gadde write that the study shows that “a slow and steady approach does not win the race, and the myth that rapid weight loss is associated with rapid weight regain is no more true than Aesop’s fable.” They cite a number of potential short-term advantages of very low calorie diets and note that these diets are now well formulated and provide adequate protein and essential micronutrients. They are “safe if used under expert supervision,” the write.

 

“Across the world, guidelines recommend gradual weight loss for the treatment of obesity, reflecting the widely held belief that fast weight loss is more quickly regained,” said the first author of the paper, Katrina Purcell, of the University of Melbourne, in a press release. “However, our results show that achieving a weight loss target of 12.5% is more likely, and drop-out is lower, if losing weight is done quickly.”

[MeadowLily]

Gradual weight loss no better than rapid weight loss for long-term weight control

 

Date:

October 15, 2014

 

Source:

The Lancet

 

Summary:

Contrary to current dietary recommendations, slow and steady weight loss does not reduce the amount or rate of weight regain compared with losing weight quickly, new research has found.

 

 

 

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology has found.

The study, led by Joseph Proietto, Sir Edward Dunlop Professor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne and Head of the Weight Control Clinic at Austin Health in Australia, set out to examine whether losing weight at a slow initial rate, as recommended by current guidelines worldwide, results in larger long-term weight reduction and less weight regain than losing weight at a faster initial rate in obese individuals.

 

The Australian trial included 200 obese adults (BMI 30-45kg/m²) who were randomly assigned to either a 12-week rapid weight loss (RWL) programme on a very-low-calorie diet (450-800 kcal/day) or a 36-week gradual weight-loss (GWL) programme. The GWL programme reduced participants' energy intake by approximately 500 kcal/day in line with current dietary weight loss guidelines. Participants who lost more than 12.5% of their bodyweight were then placed on a weight maintenance diet for 3 years.

 

Participants who lost weight faster were more likely to achieve target weight loss: 81% of participants in the RWL group lost ≥12.5% of their bodyweight versus just 50% in the GWL group. The researchers found that the initial rate of weight loss did not affect the amount or rate of weight regain in these patients who entered the subsequent weight maintenance period, as similar amounts of weight were regained after 3 years by participants who had lost weight on either diet programme. Weight regain was around 71% in both groups after 3 years.

 

According to Katrina Purcell, dietician and the first author on the paper from the University of Melbourne, "Across the world, guidelines recommend gradual weight loss for the treatment of obesity, reflecting the widely held belief that fast weight loss is more quickly regained. However, our results show that achieving a weight loss target of 12.5% is more likely, and drop-out is lower, if losing weight is done quickly."

 

The authors suggest a number of possible explanations for their findings. The limited carbohydrate intake of very-low-calorie diets might promote greater satiety, and less food intake by inducing ketosis. Losing weight quickly may also motivate participants to persist with their diet and achieve better results.

 

Writing in a linked Comment, Dr Corby Martin and Professor Kishore Gadde from Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, USA say, "The study...indicates that for weight loss, a slow and steady approach does not win the race, and the myth that rapid weight loss is associated with rapid weight regain is no more true than Aesop's fable. Clinicians should bear in mind that different weight loss approaches might be suitable for different patients in the management of clinical obesity, and that efforts to curb the speed of initial weight loss might hinder their ultimate weight loss success.

 

[kirkor]

The Amish Studies

...

We carry the same genes as our ancestors did, but lifestyle changes have brought on the obesity epidemic.

 

Epigenetics is a harsh mistress!

[MeadowLily]

When You Reach a Fork in the Road....Take It

 

 

 

 

 

DEAR MELISSA: SLOW MY (REINTRODUCTION) ROLL

 

2 September, 2014

Welcome to Dear Melissa, where we answer your questions about transitioning into or or maintaining a healthy Whole9 life, helping you make what you learned during the Whole30 work in the real world. Today, we’re helping a guy who feels so awesome after his Whole30, he’s not sure he event wants to reintroduce anything back into his diet.

Dear Melissa, 

I finished my Whole30, and I feel amazing! I lost 12 pounds, my energy is up, I’m sleeping better, and my sugar cravings are gone for the first time in my entire life. I totally got the “tiger blood!” But now I’m nervous to reintroduce anything because I don’t want to go back to where I was. Help me! –Alan, Atlanta, GA 

Dear Alan,

I totally understand where you are coming from. After the Whole30, some people know exactly what they’ve been missing and want to dive into reintroduction ASAP, to know whether some of their favorite foods will still be “worth it.” Others aren’t missing any food as much as they are loving how wonderful they feel, and they’re hesitant to change anything for fear it’s going to knock them off their game.

This scenario is very common with those battling a chronic illness, where there are serious repercussions for going off-plan. (Think joints swollen and aching, migraines returning, or psoriasis flaring—not something you’d be in a hurry to return to.) It’s also common with someone who has battled a vicious Sugar Dragon, are finally free of the cravings that once ruled their life, and have a really thin margin between “in control” and “sugar-inhaling-autopilot.”

 

Fear Not!

Note, there’s a difference between being afraid to change anything, and not feeling the need to change anything. The former (being afraid) is not our intention. The Whole30 is designed to teach you how foods interact with your unique body and brain, so you can take that information out into the real world and apply it in a fully sustainable fashion—riding your own bike, as we call it. To stay on the Whole30 indefinitely out of fear is missing the whole point of our program. Is the idea of eating a small piece of your Mom’s once-a-year holiday dessert (your favorite food ever) giving you anxiety? Do you really want to reintroduce something you’ve been missing (cream in your coffee, hot buttered popcorn on movie night, or a glass of wine on date night) but you just won’t let yourself? Do you feel lost, without a sustainable plan for eating in the real world, because you’re not really on the Whole30, but you won’t really come off it, either? If this is your story, then hold on the rest of this advice and read the above-referenced Ride Your Own Bike article first. You need to get over that fear, because it’s holding up your progress! You’ll never find a healthy, balanced, sustainable way to eat—a way that works for you—if you blindly follow our rules for the rest of your life.

 

The Conservative Whole30 Reintroduction

We understand your hesitance to (potentially) sacrifice some of the awesomeness you’re feeling right now for a few bites of ice cream—so let’s talk about a more conservative plan to reintroduce foods mindfully, while still using our reintroduction schedule as a template.

First, to give yourself a little breathing room, relax on the “no added sugar” rule. This doesn’t mean you’re eating cupcakes washed down with energy drinks, but if you want some maple chicken sausage, bacon with your eggs, ketchup on your burger, or the vinaigrette dressing that comes with your restaurant salad, go right ahead. Note that we’re not actually changing your diet much here—you were already eating meat, condiments, and salads with dressing on the Whole30. We’re just broadening your choices a bit, in a way that is unlikely to send you running for the nearest donut shop.

Whew. That already feels a little more sustainable, doesn’t it?

 

Sugar Caution:

 

Note, if there are some foods you suspect (or know) will be “triggers” for your Sugar Dragon, don’t slack on the no added sugar rule with them. Sweetened nut butters, coconut butters, dark chocolate, or coffee creamers may lead you down the path of “food with no brakes” in a flash.

Next, you’re going to follow the general reintroduction schedule and order, but you’re not going to eat things you don’t really, really want to eat. Just because it’s Day 31 doesn’t mean you have to have a legume-filled day. If you wake up and don’t feel like eating beans, tofu, or peanut butter, then don’t! If your “relaxed Whole30” is working great for you and nothing is calling your name, then there is no reason to change anything.

However, the day will come when the idea of something bean-y sounds really delicious. When that happens, you reintroduce. Enjoy the soy sauce at sushi, slather some peanut butter on your celery, or add some black beans to your deconstructed taco salad. (Or do all three!) The point is that you decided this could be worth it—not that our reintroduction schedule said you had to.

 

Next step: prepare yourself for some potentially not-so-awesomeness. There’s a chance that what you chose to introduce will knock you off your Tiger Blood high—but we’ve got you covered, so if it happens, don’t panic. Remember, part of the reintroduction is to return to 100% strict (including no added sugar) Whole30 eating for the next two days, so you can evaluation the results of your experiment. So even if you get digestive distress, your tummy bloats, your migraines return, or your energy tanks, you’ve got the next two days to do a mini-reset and get back to Whole30 awesomeness. The important part?

Take longer if you need it.

 

There’s nothing that says you have to do your reintroduction in just 10 days. If your legume experiment went horribly wrong and you feel like you really need extra time to get your Tiger Blood back online, take it! Five days, a week, ten days… what’s important is that you only reintroduce one food group at a time, and that you allow yourself enough time between food groups to be able to effectively evaluate each of the independently. And if you decide to take longer than two days between reintroduction groups, feel free to go back to a “relaxed Whole30,” if that was working for you.

So, you’re back on the Whole30 for a few days (or more), and then you keep your eyes peeled for some kind of non-gluten grain calling your name. If some popcorn during your movie sounds delicious, you want a corn tortilla with your fajita, or you’re dying for a rice-wrapped sushi roll, go for it whenever you’re ready.

 

Wash, rinse, repeat with dairy and gluten-grains. Get it?

Order, please.

But what if something gluten-filled appears first—before legumes? We’ve created the reintroduction schedule in this specific order, going from food group least likely to mess you up (legumes) to most (gluten-grains). However, the order is really most important if you’re going to reintroduce all food groups in just ten days. If you decide to stretch it out longer, feel free to reintroduce out of order—but know that if dairy or gluten comes early in the process, you may need extra-extra days to recover.

 

Proceed with (Craving) Caution

Finally, an important point, and something that trips up many Whole30’ers during their reintroduction. If at any point, you start to feel out of control (like what you’ve reintroduced woke up your Sugar Dragon), get back on the Whole30 for as long as it takes to stabilize. This is most common with the reintroduction of sugary foods or gluten grains—eating muffins, chocolate, “dessert,” or bread again can make some people rabid with desire for processed carbs and sugar again. So be on the lookout for cravings rearing their ugly heads, and halt that process before it takes over your brain by returning to a strict Whole30.

 

Does this advice sound a little… extreme? Like, really, will I feel out of control after just a day of off-plan food? Yeah, you might. And we take sugar and carb-addiction very seriously around here so please, listen to us, and don’t feel like a failure if you have to jump back on the Whole30 for a few days to calm things down. You’re actually succeeding, because you’re not afraid to do the best thing for you, your long-term health, and relationship with food. Winning!

 

The good news? Chances are it will only take a few days before you’re breathing easy again, and will know to be even more careful when reintroducing those “trigger foods.”

 

Best in health,
Melissa

- See more at: http://whole30.com/2014/09/dear-melissa-slow-reintroduction-roll/#sthash.H06qxUgk.dpuf

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

Why Cheat Meals Don't Work

 

 

Now you can do whatever you want with your own body, but I thought I’d give you a few reasons why having a cheat meal or cheat day may not be the best idea.

 

1. Your Body Won’t Fully Adapt to the Healthy Diet

 

When you drastically change the way you eat, a certain adaptation process needs to take place.

 

For example, if you’re doing a Whole 30 or  low-carb ketogenic diet (keto) then your body needs to change certain hormones and ramp up production of enzymes to make use of fat as the primary source of fuel.

 

If you keep cheating, you will prevent this metabolic adaptation from ever fully completing.

 

 

Also, when you abandon the standard western diet and start eating more real foods, it can take some time for the sense of taste to adapt.

 

If you have ever done the Whole 30 or paleo diet for an extended period of time without cheating then you may have experienced this. With time, real foods start to taste much better.

 

If you cheat and eat junk foods frequently, your taste sensations won’t adapt completely and you won’t be able to experience the same satisfaction from real foods.

 

 

Kris Gunnars

[MeadowLily]

Why Cheat Meals Don't Work

 

 

You Might Binge and Eat Way Too Much

 

Some people can binge like there’s no tomorrow and ruin a week’s worth of paleo or Whole 30 in one sitting.

 

A particular binge  may have 5,000 calories in one sitting.

That’s two days worth of calories for a grown man.

 

 

You May Feel Guilty Afterwards

 

Ever feel bloated, guilty and miserable after eating junk food?

That’s pretty common...

The cheat meal may give you some pleasure while you are eating it, but it sure won’t make you feel good afterwards.

 

 

 Cheating Does Not Raise Metabolism or Prevent “Starvation Mode”

 

The concept of “starvation mode” is largely a myth with no real science behind it and doesn’t really happen until you get to an extremely low body fat percentage.

 

If you’re a bodybuilder on a long cut for a show, then refeeds are likely to help prevent adverse effects of dieting for too long. But even in this case, choosing healthy foods is still a better idea.

However, most people aren’t preparing for a bodybuilding or fitness competition and do not need to take drastic action to boost metabolism or prevent starvation mode, whatever that means.

For healthy people trying to stay healthy or lose a bit of weight, cheat meals are unnecessary at best and may be detrimental.

 

Junk Food is Bad For You

 

Junk food is bad for you (duh) and that is probably the reason you gave it up in the first place.

 

Having McDonalds or a pizza with some ice cream once a week may not seem like a big deal compared to people who eat this sort of crap every single day.

 

 

But eating these junk foods once a week is still clearly worse than having none at all.

 

These Nasty Ingredients Will Never Completely Leave Your Body

 

Trans fats, seed oils and gluten… these nasty ingredients linger in the body for a while and it takes a long time to fully recover from their effects.

 

 

 

 

If you keep eating them, they will never completely leave your body.

 

Kris Gunnars

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

 

 

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

   

 

 

 

It’s apple season! While we love all the colorful varieties, it turns out that all apples may not be created equal: A recent study found that the nondigestible compounds in Granny Smiths specifically aid the growth of friendly bacteria in the colon. These healthy levels of bacteria help stabilize our satiety, or feeling of fullness, which prevents overeating and weight gain.

 

 

[kirkor]

Hmm granny smith's are too tart for me! (unless they're in apple pie!  )

[MeadowLily]

Your Afternoon Soda Could Be Making You Age Faster

• By Christina Heiser
• A soda a day could be making your skin look older, new research finds.
  

   

  You might want to rethink that soda.

   

   

   

  Soda can lead to wrinkles, acne, or a psoriasis flare-up.

  For a healthy substitute , add fresh fruit to water.

  Always read  carefully; if an ingredient ends in “ose,” that’s a good sign it’s sugar. 

  October 22, 2014

   

  If the threat of , diabetes, or obesity wasn’t enough to make you put down your afternoon cola, this might: A new study published in the  reports that drinking one sugary soda a day may speed up the rate at which your body ages.

  Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, looked at a sample of 5,300 healthy adults aged 20-65 and found that those who drank an 8-ounce serving of soda a day over the course of three years experienced an additional 1.9 years of aging. Drinking a daily 20-ounce serving of soda in that same time period, meanwhile, was linked to a whopping 4.6 more years of aging — similar to the amount of added aging associated with smoking.

   

   

   

  The researchers who worked on the study found that the soda drinkers had shorter telomeres — the protective ends of DNA that are found in every cell in the body — than those who don’t drink soda daily.

  “A good analogy would be the plastic ends of a shoe lace — they keep the shoe lace tethered together,” says Adam Friedman, MD, FAAD, an  and an assistant professor of dermatology at Montefiore Medical Center – Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “That’s kind of what a telomere is — it’s at the edge of DNA, helping to protect and repair it.” Over time, telomeres get shorter and shorter until they ultimately fall apart, signaling the cell to die, Friedman explains.

  However, it’s still just speculation as to whether the sugar in soda is what actually causes extra aging. “There could be something else in soda that [caused] an accelerated shortening of the telomeres,” notes Friedman. 

   

  How Sugar Ages You

  “This concept of sugar and aging, it’s not really new news, because we’ve heard so much about sugar over the years — how it can hurt your heart, how it can hurt your brain, how it can suppress your immune system,” says Bonnie Taub-Dix, MA, RDN, CDN, author of Read It Before You Eat It and the writer behind the Everyday Health Column, . “And if you have these medical issues, they all chip away at you and therefore cause you to age more quickly.”

   

  And all that aging can leave its mark on your skin.

  “What happens over time, after telomeres shorten [is that] the ability to repair and maintain DNA decreases, so cells don’t function properly,” says Friedman. “So with shortened telomeres, you’ll get signs of aging,” including wrinkles. The upper layer of your skin, known as the epidermis, also won’t be able to function correctly and may not be able to turn over and shed off appropriately, leading to dull skin. Sugar also increases inflammation, which can lead to acne or a psoriasis flare-up, he says.

  When it comes to soda, whether it contains sugar or an artificial sweetener, its dehydrating effect — caused by caffeine, which is a diuretic — can mess with your skin’s ability to bounce back. If you’re hydrated properly, you should be able to pinch your skin and have it snap back immediately.

   

  5 Ways to Slow Down the Aging Process

  There are easy ways to lower your sugar intake — and prevent major signs of skin aging caused by sugar. Here’s what you can do:

  • Add fresh fruit to water. “Not only will you get more water, which will be naturally flavored with delicious fruit, you’ll also be getting the benefits of more fiber and a whole host of minerals if you eat the fruit,” Taub-Dix says.
  • Mix up a better-for-you drink. If you can’t quit soda completely, Taub-Dix suggests mixing a splash of 100 percent fruit juice with a glass of club soda. You can also try mixing half a can or cup of soda with club soda. “You’ll still get the bubbles,” she says.
  • Read labels carefully. Sugar can be called by a lot of different names, so look out for words like corn sweeteners, dehydrated cane juice, maple syrup, and high fructose corn syrup. “Anything that ends in ‘ose’ should be a red flag that it’s sugar,” Taub-Dix says.
  • Get up and move. “While smoking or drinking soda can shorten telomeres, you can actually protect them,” says Friedman. “Exercise has been shown to maintain the lengths of telomeres.”

[MeadowLily]

 

 

[MeadowLily]