Testimony of the Day
“Hi Maria, I just want to tell everyone what a difference you’ve made in not only my family’s life, but my patients too. As a doctor, I was always pushing “healthy whole grains” and fruits like bananas for potassium, but after looking at myself in the mirror, I knew something wasn’t right with this idea of calories in and calories out. I was eating a very clean diet of “healthy whole grains,” quinoa and tons of fruit, but I was overweight, had adult acne and was feeling a bit depressed. And I had anxiety when it came to food; counting points was not working for me.
One of my patients gave me a copy of your book and I was so inspired, I decided to do a phone consult, which forever changed my life. I have to be honest, the first week was awful. I felt like one of my patients suffering from drug withdrawal, but I now understand that the sugars and grains were my drug. Your explanation on how the protein in the wheat is similar to other proteins in the body which was causing cellular mimicry in my nervous system and brain was causing my slight depression made total sense. You taught me that I was gluten sensitive; this too was shocking to me since I didn’t suffer from any intestinal issues. But after working with you for 6 weeks I no longer felt depressed! Not only that, but I lost 31 pounds and no longer had to use my topical medication for adult acne (but after watching your cosmetics tutorial video, I realized how toxic those products were to my liver which also contributed to my poor moods and inability to lose weight).
You not only changed my life, but my kids are now 100% grain free and enjoy picking out recipes from your kids cookbook for snacks at school. I also feel so much better about setting a good example for my patients, I felt uncomfortable preaching to them about what to eat while being overweight. Now I know the whole truth and I am forever grateful. The consult with you really changed my life more than you will ever realize.” – Dr. Sally
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HERBS vs FRUITS
A lot of American’s are en-grained with the idea that they should be eating an apple a day so they pick a big red Golden Delicious feeling like they are doing a “body good.” But did you know that Golden Delicious are a hundred year heirloom? Shouldn’t heirlooms be better for us since we can breed more phytonutrients into it? Not necessarily; many times we focus on taste, or should I say sugar content, to stimulate sales. In the book, Eating on the Wild Side, Jo Robinson’s reviews a 2009 study that refers to 46 overweight men with high cholesterol and triglycerides who agreed to participate in an eating experiment. Half of the men stayed on their regular diets, serving as a control group. The other 23 added a Golden Delicious apple to their fare. The goal was to determine if eating an apple a day would reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. At the end of the study, the men who ate a golden a day had higher levels of triglycerides and LDL cholesterol than before the study began. The conclusion is that the golden delicious used were too low in phytonutrients to lower the men’s bad cholesterol, and too high in sugar causing an increase in their triglycerides.
For example, most animals have learned how to become fat and how to become thin. They do it in a tightly regulated way… Hibernating mammals will double their weight and fat in the fall in preparation for winter… I realized that I can learn by reading the studies about these animals. As I read them, I had another insight, which had not been appreciated before; these animals develop all the features of metabolic syndrome that we do. They get fat. They’re visceral fat goes up. They get fatty liver. The triglycerides go up in their blood. They get insulin-resistant… It’s a normal process.
Millions of years ago, our ancestors consumed fructose from natural fruits rather than the massive doses of high fructose corn syrup like we do today, but they still experienced this fat-gaining phenomenon. During the summer, they would consume large amounts of fruit and would put on weight in order to survive the famine during the colder months when fruits were unavailable. This led to a genetic mutation that resulted in a greater uric acid response to fructose. The more sugar we eat, the more uric acid our bodies produce, which increases our liver and intestines’ ability to absorb sugar, which is a bad thing! Obese people absorb fructose effortlessly, where skinny people don’t absorb it as well.
It is a detrimental snowball effect for my obese clients; the more sugar they eat, the more uric acid you make; which leads to the sensitivity to fructose absorption. Once you head down that path, it is almost impossible to stop. This is why I have to get so extreme with clients and cut out fruit too. If you start soon enough and cut out all foods that are creating the fat-creating snowball, you can recover, but if you don’t, you will lose the fat-burning, energy-producing mitochondria and you can’t restore them. At this point, you reset your fat cells at higher set point and our bodies want to stay at that set point for homeostasis.
You can try and try to lose weight, but our fat cells have memory. They are cozy in your body and think they are protecting you. This causes the hormone leptin to be mis-firing too. Leptin and ghrelin are very important hormones that work like a “checks and balances” that manage hunger and fullness. Ghrelin, produced in the stomach, increases appetite, while leptin, produced in fat cells, sends a message to our brain when we are full. This imbalance causes us to intensely crave food and never feel full. The worst part is that we don’t crave broccoli, we crave high calorie sweets and starchy foods. Over time, this imbalance can easily lead to long-term weight gain. Since insulin, ghrelin and leptin, function as significant indicators to the central nervous system in the long-term regulation of energy balance, decreases of circulating insulin and leptin and increased ghrelin concentrations, studies prove that it leads to increased caloric intake and eventually contribute to increased fat cells during high consumption of fructose.
HEALTH TIP: A damaged liver causes low moods and can lead to serious depression. Are you depressed? Get your liver checked and eliminate all foods that bog down your liver.
NO FRUIT? How will I get nutrients? When I am asked if I eat fruits, I jokingly say of course! I eat avocado, olives and tomatoes! But most people think I am a bit extreme when I limit most vegetable consumption for my clients too. To get keto adapted, even some low-starch vegetables may keep someone with a damaged metabolism out of ketosis. Which is why my Accelerated 30 day meal plans are so detailed with what low-starch vegetables are allowed to get into ketosis fast.
We need to update the recommendation of eating 9 servings of fruitsand vegetables for maximum health. This suggestion has a few issues with it. A few years ago, I read that most kids actually do get the recommended servings for fruits and vegetables. Are you shocked to read this? Yep, they eat French fries, onion rings and ketchup. Sad, but it does fit the guidelines. Will you reap the benefits of eating 7-9 servings of these foods? Absolutely not.
So even if you aren’t even eating French fries or ketchup, eating 3 bananas a day isn’t a good idea. Studies prove that the current state of the produce we consume is relatively low in phytonutrients, and much higher in sugar than it was in our Paleo days. All of the fruits and vegetables displayed in our supermarkets have much less nutrients than what you would find in the wild. Consumers want fruit that tastes sweet. This is why we now have “Cotton Candy Grapes!” Traditional grapes weren’t sweet enough, so we modified them to satisfy our kid’s desire for sweets in order for them to eat fruit. The sad part is, we think it is a good thing when our kids eat massive amounts of fruits. The more palatable our produce has become, the less beneficial they are for our health. The most beneficial phytonutrients have a bitter, sour or astringent taste.
Sure many high sugar fruits have healthy antioxidants such as Vitamin A, C and E. Antioxidants protect cells against the effects of free radicals. Free radicals are molecules produced when your body breaks down food BUT you produce little to no free radicals if you stay in a keto-adapted state. And what is interesting is an orange that is high in vitamin C also has a lot of sugar. Glucose and vitamin C have similar chemical structures, so what happens when the sugar levels go up? They compete for one another when entering the cells. And the thing that mediates the entry of glucose into the cells is the same thing that mediates the entry of vitamin C into the cells. If there is more glucose around, there is going to be less vitamin C allowed into the cell. It doesn’t take much: a blood sugar value of 120 reduces the phagocytic index by 75%.So when you eat sugar, think of your immune system slowing down to a crawl. Instead try parsley or bell peppers!
Fresh herbs like parsley, rosemary, oregano and basil are the most nutritious plants you can consume. For example, everyone things spinach is the perfect food, but fresh oregano has eight times the amount of antioxidants! Sure, we don’t eat a cup of oregano like we would spinach, but it does go to show that a little bit provides a huge benefit. Instead of consuming fruits and starchy veggies that have fructose and raise blood sugar quickly, I suggest using herbs and spices more often in your cooking preparations.
