Chocolate Chip Cookies

Testimony of the Day

“Maria, Thank You!

The scariest moment I had in 1992 is sitting in the Doctor’s Office and having him say, “You’re a Diabetic and you need to be on medications.” After I retired in 1994, I started to have more medical issues, High Cholesterol and High Blood Pressure and my weight ballooned to almost 300 pounds just to add to my misery. I lived with more problems than I could imagine and they just kept piling up. I stopped exercising, couldn’t lose weight, I had a persistent cough that caused visual blackouts (once while driving), muscle pains as if I had the flu aching all over my body and to top it all the last 10 years I started to notice head shakes and memory loss. To be honest, medically I was unsure of myself and nowhere to turn or what to do. I was sick for over 20 years.

So, my daughter and my wife started scheming and eventually started an intervention. It was extreme. My daughter flew home for a month and did the cooking and my wife and I started our extreme diet called HCG. It worked after 30 days and I lost 40 pounds. Tons of reactions that once again scared me as my body started to react badly to the medications I was taking. I finally got off diabetes medications as my weight came off. So where is the problem…I didn’t know how to keep the weight off. That is when my daughter introduced me to Maria Emmerich and now my life really started to change. Not only did I keep my weight off but I learned so much about how my body reacts to foods. 

Now I made it a priority in my life to learn about how my body works, how food works in the body and what it does. I always use Maria as my base of knowledge because of her explanation of human biology and information that guides me towards the information I need to fix myself. Here recipes and books have really helped me. This may sound dumb, I had to learn how to eat again. I needed to learn how to take care of my body. I obviously had not known this because if I did, I would like to think I would have never got myself into this mess in the first place.

I must say, as an extreme reaction to hitting bottom HCG was a huge part of my weight loss but Maria, you were crucial in my understanding and learning about health and how to keep it off. It has now been over 4 years that I have kept my weight stable. I have kept to low carbs, moderate proteins and a large part of my normal days are good fats. As of this month February 2014 and for over 22 years of illness with Hypertension Diabetes, and High Cholesterol, I am drug-free. Thank You, Maria. You have been instrumental in helping save my life.” – Ruben M. Peña Sr.

To get started on your path to health and healing, click HERE. 

Coconut Sugar

Coconut sugar is a sweetener that has become very popular in the past few years. Man, I get a million questions about this sweetener. This sugar is derived from the coconut palm tree and is hyped as being more nutritious and lower on the glycemic index than sugar. Coconut sugar is made in a two-step process:

1. A cut is made on the flower of the coconut palm, and the liquid sap is collected into containers.
2. The sap is placed under heat until most of the water in it has evaporated.

Coconut sugar does maintain some of the nutrients found in the coconut palm. It is difficult to find exact data on this, but according to the Philippine Department of Agriculture, coconut sugar contains several nutrients.[39] Most notable of these are the minerals iron, zinc, calcium, and potassium, along with some polyphenols and antioxidants that may also provide some health benefits. The reason it is lower on the glycemic index is that it also contains a fiber called inulin, which may slow glucose absorption.[40]

Even though coconut sugar does contain some nutrients, you’d have to eat a ridiculous amount of it to really get any benefits from these nutrients. You would get a lot more from non-sweet foods. Coconut sugar has the same amount of empty calories as table sugar.

One of the big contributors to the aging process and development and perpetuation of degenerative diseases is Advanced Glycation End Product (AGEs) glycation. Glycation is where a chemical reaction occurs between proteins and either sugars, lipid peroxidation products (free radicals from oxidative damage), or the breakdown products of sugar. So sugar plays a big role in glycation as does oxidative damage (think PUFA oils and sugar inflammation). Glycation is the forming of sort of a crust around our cells. Many different studies have shown that this crust contributes to a wide range of diseases including diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, asthma, stroke, cataracts, glaucoma, PCOS, autoimmune disease and much more. So what role does fructose play here? Studies have shown that fructose enables glycation reactions ten times more rapidly than glucose!

So again, you may be thinking, “OK Maria, if I want to sweeten something a little, I will use coconut sugar since it seems less harmless than honey.” No! Let me surprise you with a tidbit: even though I see claims all over the web that coconut sugar is commendably fructose-free, 70 to 80% of it is made of sucrose, which is half fructose (and half glucose)![41]  This essentially means that coconut sugar supplies the same amount of fructose as regular sugar, gram for gram.

Fructose can only be metabolized by the liver; glucose, on the other hand, can be metabolized by every cell in the body. Fructose raises triglycerides (blood fats) like no other food. Fructose bypasses the enzyme phosphofructokinase, which is the rate-limiting enzyme for glucose metabolism. Fructose is shunted past the sugar-regulating pathways and into the fat-formation pathway. The liver converts this fructose to fat, which, unfortunately, remains in the liver = FATTY LIVER DISEASE. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat! This is why I see so many children with fatty liver disease…they aren’t drinking alcohol, they are drinking sodas, juices and consuming too much fructose!

As long as you understand just how detrimental fructose is not only to your waistline but also to the overall health of your cells and liver, you see that coconut sugar should be avoided.

The liver governs how efficiently we lose weight as well as governs our moods. It can become congested from not only the fructose and sugar you eat but all of the make-up and soaps you use on your skin! I had one client who had her liver enzymes go back to normal once she ditched all of the lotions and make-up products she was using! It is important to look at what you are putting on your skin too! It all gets absorbed by the liver. Instead of store-bought lip balm, how about making this “healthified” lip balm for your Valentine? Click HERE to find ingredients.

Read more about fructose and liver health in my new book Keto-Adapted.

Click HERE to get a limited edition of the Hard Cover.

Click HERE to get a softcover.

Thank you all for your love and support!