How Sweet It Isn’t: What happened to me when I gave up sugar – Part 3

…continued from September 1/2014

infographic-sugarsI notice that my appetite has diminished. I grew up a farm girl and I’ve always had the appetite of a hired hand, proudly able to keep up with my brother or my dad when it comes to putting away a piled up plate of food. I am also less prone to snacking in the evenings.

And the scale continues to show it. Five months into the “experiment” I am down 30 pounds.

I notice my knees no longer crackle when I climb stairs, something that I had heard off and on since my 20’s. It makes sense. Sugar causes inflammation, which leads to lots of debilitating diseases like arthritis, perhaps even crackling knees!

I also notice that I have no pain. I spend one weekend moving ten pickup truck loads of furniture with my daughter. The old me would have been unable to get out of bed the next day with stiffness and soreness from using muscles that are usually inert. But I have no pain.

I have not had a headache, backache or any other body-part-ache since stopping sugar. I no longer keep over the counter pain medication in my home. It is not relevant.

Before stopping sugar I had done a hormone profile in an effort to address post-menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats. Four of the five hormones they measure were so low they didn’t register. I didn’t know it because I forgot to get my results until June. When I went for the results I suggested that I should redo the profile given that I was feeling so different. We did another profile.

The results were astonishing. All my hormones were in the middle of the normal range. My health care professional was astounded that removing sugar could make such a profound difference.

I am very happy about my own results but also sad to know that so many women are on risky Hormone Replacement Therapy when one simple change in their diets could bring them relief. And so many other benefits.

Altogether I lost 35 pounds, stabilizing in the last six months at the ideal weight for my height, a goal I have only achieved a couple times in my life and with great effort. This has been virtually effortless. My goal was not weight loss but I am happy to experience that benefit.

I am amazed by my energy. My husband says, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” Right now, I have to say 30! That is almost half my age. I know I can outrun and outwork most 30-year-olds. I keep up with my granddaughters (grandtoys) biking and hiking.

People often comment that I don’t look like a grandmother. I’ve started to reply, “I eat right” and I am amazed by how people are taken aback at this simple mantra.

Many people say, “Oh, I could never give up sugar!” I used to think that too.

I didn’t do it overnight. For years I was oblivious to the need for eliminating sugar, believing cutting back was good enough. It was a good start and looking back, it prepared me for quitting. It simply wasn’t enough.

I learned that it doesn’t take much of this poison to cause crazy things to happen to your body. I never would have experienced all those benefits if I had not given up sugar entirely.

You might have great success simply by cutting down on sugar. I have to give it up because I can’t eat just one cookie; I need the whole bag. I can’t eat a two-inch piece of cake; it ends up being six inches! Remember my doughnut story? I am a sugar addict. One doesn’t need to drink alcohol to be an alcoholic. (Incidentally, I suspect alcoholism is a sugar addiction).

Currently, sugar has little appeal. In fact, I think it stinks. I never thought sugar smelled but since I’m off it I can smell a chemical/plastic odor when I’m in the presence of doughnuts, candy or cake.

I now find sweet fruits like pineapple, grapes and ripe bananas too sweet to eat. In the last few months, I’ve eaten less fruit. Mostly, it’s a snack or a treat once or twice a day. I usually gorge on in-season fruits like cherries. We’ll see if I have the same appetite for them this year.

Many people ask me about sugar substitutes. I avoid them (the sugar substitutes, not the people asking me!) as they all fall under the processed food category. There is evidence that the body doesn’t quite know what to do with fake sugars (and other fake foods). They are suspected of contributing to, not preventing, as they claim, obesity. Even more alarming, sugar substitutes are implicit in the diabetes epidemic.

“What about in your tea and coffee?” I am frequently asked. I never was a coffee fan and I drink herbal teas that have an implied sweetness like mint or some of the fruit blends, without honey or sugar. I most often drink hot water with lemon. Lemon helps the liver (which is affected by sugar and other chemicals in our food and water.) If you sweeten your beverages, gradually cut back then switch to a small amount of stevia, maple syrup or honey. Eventually you will do without.

“I’m okay. I drink Diet Coke,“ some folks assure me if the topic of sugar arises. I don’t always get into it but they think it’s a good thing to have sugar-free drinks. I do not. Aspartame is a known neurotoxin. Evidence points to its contribution to Gulf War Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis, even some cases of Parkinson’s Disease.

Trading one toxin for another possibly more dangerous toxin does not make sense. Yet my friends send me recipes calling for Sucralose or Cool Whip (fake fat with fake sugar) and they drink Diet Coke! (If it’s not diet, it might be sweetened with high fructose corn syrup another unfood that the body doesn’t know how to process. All sodas contain phosphoric acid, which essentially leeches calcium from your bones).

One of the most dangerous things about sugar is that it is everywhere, in almost every processed food. When we embraced low-fat diets, manufacturers substituted sugar for the fat. To avoid sugar successfully, one must avoid processed foods. They may not seem to have much sugar but manufacturers trick us by using several different sugars. That way, they appear lower down on the ingredients list, leading the consumer to believe that sugar is not the main ingredient, when in fact, it is.

How much sugar is too much? Recently the World Health Organization slashed their recommended limit of sugar calories to 5% from 10% of the diet. The new levels equate to three teaspoons for women and five for men per day. For perspective, a bowl of cereal or a half-cup serving of yogurt typically contain six teaspoons of sugar. A can of Coke has ten teaspoons of sugar, two days’ allotment for men, three days’ for women!

The average North American consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar each day; the average child, 32 teaspoons each day! Then we wonder about the scary cancer statistics threatening that one in two of us will develop cancer in our lives.

Why don’t these stats come partnered with the message that sugar feeds cancer and that when sugar is removed from the diet, tumors shrink? Why? Because food manufacturers and lobbyists don’t want consumers to know that their products are killing them.

We never hear that cutting sugar decreases our risk of heart disease because inflammation, (not cholesterol) is the cause of heart disease. Sugar causes inflammation. And statin drugs (anti-cholesterol) are some of the most profitable pharmaceuticals invented, so nobody wants to step forward to say “stop eating sugar and you won’t need this medication”.

Astoundingly, the sickness care business is oblivious to sugar’s role in the mushrooming diabetes rates, affecting younger and younger children. Type II diabetes was once called “adult-onset diabetes” but so many kids have it, that name no longer accurately describes the condition. Sadly, much money is made on diabetes treatments and monitoring, and the health companies aren’t about to start telling us the truth about why we have diabetes.

I believe most cases of diabetes could be prevented if we eliminated processed food and sugar from the diet. A few years ago an experiment was conducted at the London Zoo. A number of volunteers were confined to the zoo and fed what a gorilla would eat: up to ten kilograms of raw fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts each day. After one month the results were incredible. All participants lost weight. Many had to get off their medications for diabetes and heart disease. They enjoyed many other surprising health benefits.

Some online searching will reveal many success stories of people going back to eating the way nature intended: whole real food. People have cured themselves of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, the big killers, and a host of other ailments by adjusting their diet. We don’t hear about these miracles because there is no money to be made treating disease with food.

Not every eating plan works for every person. You can’t go wrong with eating simple foods, mostly raw, mostly plants and not too much of anything.

I strongly recommend you weed out the processed sugar (and even the fruit sugar if you’re overdoing it). I suspect you will be surprised and delighted with the changes you’ll see in your body and how you feel in general.

I am personally astounded by the magnitude of the changes in my body and overall feeling of good health and energy simply because I consciously eliminated processed sugar from my diet.

Good health is a journey. We are all on different places on the path. I feel like I am many steps closer to my goal of optimum health because I gave up sugar. Knowing what I know now, I am convinced I will never go back to consuming copious amounts of sugar like I once did.

I have discovered that sugar isn’t so sweet after all.

Head-Lies: Headlines that Mislead

headliesLast week a friend sent me some links to a story trumpeting that vegetarians are not healthier than carnivores. She felt this story justified her meat consumption. I disagree.

I am not against eating meat. But I am against misleading information.

This story is a classic example of a Head-lie, a misleading headline: one that rings true but upon further investigation, it’s fishy.

First there are many significant studies that show otherwise, that vegetarians have lower rates of modern diseases like cancer and heart disease. In light of dozens of studies showing that reducing meat consumption brings health benefits, I would not change my life because of this one study.

In fact it wasn’t a study but a survey. Big difference. A study has a chance of following good scientific protocol, not that it automatically does; but a survey has little chance of being accurate.

Then there is the ambiguous definition of vegetarian. I once worked with a man whose wife was a “vegetarian”. When I met her I was surprised to see she was overweight and looked unhealthy in general, unlike the vegetarians I know.

I asked him about her diet. It turns out she was a vegetarian who hated vegetables. She lived on vegetarian pizza (hold the veggies!), cereal, Kraft dinner, frozen dinners, chips, crackers, soft drinks, milkshakes, ice cream and French fries.

No meat. But no nutrition. Grain-heavy, like feedlot cattle. Not “vegeta”rian, but simply a person who doesn’t eat meat! If the vegetarians surveyed ate like she did I don’t doubt the “study” is accurate.

I know vegans who shun animal products but they eat “fake“ meats like hot dogs and luncheon “meats” and fake cheese made with vegetable oils. They are full of chemical fillers, artificial flavours and colours. I call this stuff “unfood”.

I do eat meat. I know my meat. I know my farmer. My small servings of grass-fed beef and lamb are far healthier than a vegan hotdog or most veggie burgers in restaurants or in the freezer aisle.

I’m not a great fan of labels like vegan, vegetarian, or carnivore. If I have to choose a label for myself it is “flexitarian”. I eat a variety of foods, as I believe our bodies were designed to secure nutrients from many available sources.

Apparently there are 80,000 edible real foods (I don’t think of processed foods as real or edible in the sense of nutrition). About 3000 of those foods are commonly eaten.

Sadly the average North American’s diet is derived 90% from only twelve foods, including wheat, corn, soy, and milk, incidentally some of the most modified and processed of foods.

Consequently we are deficient in micronutrients: vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients. The ensuing malnourishment leads to all kinds of mysterious conditions and diseases.

Because mainstream medicine refuses to see the food-health connection they blindly treat symptoms with drugs. Many people still are in god-like awe of their doctors, despite their ignorance of food and any “medicine” other than what they prescribe.

Media collaborates by running head-lies like this one. People don’t know what to believe and eventually give up trying to understand. My advice is:

1. Broaden your sources of information. We live in the Internet age. Snoop around. Go beyond the first Google page! Sign up for a variety of health newsletters. Find opposing views and information and weigh it yourself.

2. Don’t ever change your life or your diet based on one news story. Investigate.

3. Read widely about both (or many) sides of issues. Coconut oil was once vilified as a heart-disease-causing-saturated-fat. When evidence began to emerge that coconut is actually more beneficial than so-called-healthy-processed-vegetable-oils, I was skeptical. I began to research it for myself and found much evidence supporting the use of coconut oil.

4. Remember that there is no single right way to do anything. What works for me may not work for you. In fact pharmaceutical medicines are allowed on the market if as few as one third of patients realize desired results, often regardless of side effects. (The other two-thirds may have no benefit, but still suffer from side effects.)

5. Try things. Nothing crazy. But if you’ve been plagued with something and tried everything the doctor suggests, what have you got to lose by removing gluten or dairy or sugar from your diet for a month?

I tried coconut oil. Now I use it in my cooking and baking, on my skin and to oil pull (swishing oil in mouth to improve mouth/teeth health). I stopped using all processed oils like corn, sunflower and canola, regardless of their health claims, which I’ve learned are simply marketing tactics.

Articles like the one heralding unhealthy vegetarians are often designed to get out a message, an agenda, propaganda for a product or industry. In fact, they mention that the study authors are suspected of working for the meat industry.

Be cautious. Don’t believe the head-lies!

Besides eating does not have to be so complicated. Food writer, Michael Pollan says: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

I like that.

My policy is:

Eat the Food, the Whole Food and Nothing but the Food.

Links:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vegetarians-are-less-healthy-and-have-a-lower-quality-of-life-than-meateaters-scientists-say-9236340.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan

Got Milk? Just Say No

milkWhy Avoiding Dairy Might Be a Good Option

Food issues are complicated.

I recently ranted about butter vs margarine (see article here). I came out in favour of butter.

Now I have a confession.

I stopped ingesting dairy in January 2012.

Every year I try to make a change to improve my health. I decided to try eliminating all dairy products.

I was surprised at the outcome. I immediately stopped snoring, a condition of great concern to my light-sleeping husband. I also ceased to require deodorant (unless I have cheese. Then I stink the next day!)

Truthfully, dairy hasn’t agreed with me since I was a child. My grandparents had mixed farms, including a few dairy cows. We drank warm milk, fresh from the separator (a machine for separating cream (milk fat) from milk).

I never liked warm milk with the fresh froth on top. It tasted like cow.

In fact milk has always tasted off to me. (When my kids were little and drank milk I could never discern whether the milk in the carton was sour).

But buying into the “dairy is essential to good health” mantra, I sought palatable forms. I liked cottage cheese and other soft and hard cheeses, sour cream and ice cream. Cream didn’t bother me and I would pour it on my cereal instead of milk. I drank chocolate milk and added milk to soups in an effort to consume dairy.

One day about 20 years ago, I had a Dairy Queen strawberry milkshake, my favourite rare treat. Within an hour my intestines were twisting. I felt like I had a couple of sumo wrestlers in there. It lasted for several hours, tempting me to go to Emergency more than once.

I noticed discomfort with other ice cream so I eliminated it from my diet for five years. When I reintroduced it, it was occasional and only high-quality varieties.

By the time I gave up dairy, I was eating cheese once per week, cream on berries occasionally, ice cream twice a month. I would add a tsp of butter to steamed veggies or to fry a free-range egg. A pound of butter would last a month or two.

Post snore, I find coconut oil is a suitable butter substitute. Now that I’ve tasted ice cream made with coconut milk I will never go back to dairy: no cow taste and no mucous! Almond milk is another product that I use. I find it works in most places milk is required.

I am conflicted. Butter is natural.

But is it really?

Modern dairy operations are CAFO’s (Confined Animal Feeding Operations).  Milk from grass-fed, hormone-free, pesticide-free cattle is nutritionally superior to milk from CAFO animals. It has more vitamins and more healthy fats.

Animals in CAFO’s are sick. They need antibiotics to survive like junkies need heroine. They live and produce for only a fraction of their natural life expectancy due to inferior feed and the stress of CAFO life.

I was taught that we don’t eat sick animals or their products. CAFO milk is sick. Therefore so is its milk fat (butter).

Modern dairy processing further renders milk indigestible and void of most of its celebrated benefits. Pasteurization and homogenization threaten enzymes, kill beneficial bacteria and change the structure of the milk and, some claim, affect our bodies’ ability to assimilate it.

Pasteurization is unavoidable for big dairy operations but small farmers can safely distribute unpasteurized products. The pro-biotic benefits of raw milk are real. Unfortunately, raw milk farmers are often persecuted in North America so it’s tough to find suppliers.

Some experts claim adult humans are not designed to eat dairy. After age four, the majority of us lose our ability to digest lactose. Asian and African populations have particular difficulty digesting dairy.

One researcher suggests one’s blood type may affect the ability to digest dairy, with B and AB tolerating better than A and O types. If that were true, I would be able to tolerate dairy. But just because it’s not true for me, doesn’t mean it’s not true for another.

When they learn I avoid dairy, people are alarmed. Where do you get your calcium? What about osteoporosis? I get my calcium from greens and nuts. Dairy isn’t the only food with calcium. Osteoporosis is higher in countries with high dairy consumption. The fact is milk causes acidosis and the body leeches calcium from the bones to neutralize the acid, causing bone thinning.

Calcium from cow’s milk is not very bio-available. The official recommended intake for calcium is high because the body can only use a small portion of calcium from dairy.  Incidentally, my latest bone scan indicated I have bones of a 20 year old. The technician raved that I must be a milk drinker. He was dismayed when I revealed the truth.

If you do consume dairy, seek products that are from grass-fed cows, unpasteurized, and organic, (no hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and no unnatural feeds like ground up carcasses). Ideally you know and support your local farmer.

Consider goat milk, which is more easily digestible than cows’ milk, having a molecular structure closer to human milk. Goats are not generally subjected to CAFO life and appear to leave a smaller “footprint” on the earth.

When I was in Arizona I drove by a dairy farm that was miles and miles of Holstein cows standing in their own feces, forlornly searching for food and stimulation, a black and white wall of despair.

There are many good reasons to avoid dairy but the most important is I feel better. I sleep better.

If you have mysterious illnesses for which you’ve found no solution, consider giving up dairy for a short while. You might find solutions to heath issues you don’t even know you have.

Many people I know have transformed their health by just saying “no” to, “Got milk?”

http://organicconnectmag.com/got-proof-the-myth-of-milks-benefits/#.UkzYnBzoOgg