To Be or Not to Be Gluten Free?

While there is no one right answer, if you have symptoms of gluten intolerance, the answer is simple... do a gluten elimination diet. But what about everyone else? Why would eliminating important nutrients in wheat, barley and rye be a good idea? 

A gluten free diet in itself is not a better way to eat. Simply eliminating gluten will not transform a bad diet into a healthy eating plan. However, there are some advantages that have little to do with gluten.

• eating gluten free forces label reading

• eating gluten free requires mindful food choices 

• eating gluten free makes eating junk food less accessible and provides an excuse not to indulge in empty calories

• most gluten products have a high glycemic load  

• most wheat is GMO and contains pesticides and herbicides 

• most wheat flour is not whole grain, so lacks nutrition

• wheat flour often has added folic acid (synthetic vit.B9) which can be harmful to people with the MTHFR mutations

A gluten free diet can be a tool to help avoid poor quality food. However, a gluten free diet can also be a harmful. 

• popular gluten free flours such as rice flour and tapioca starch have low nutrition and a high glycemic load 
• rice, a popular substitute for wheat, is contaminated with arsenic 
• processed gluten free food is still junk food with added sugar, omega 6 oils and flavorings. A gluten free donut is still a donut  

Optimal nutrition should be the goal of any diet or eating style. Eating gluten free is an option that is worth a 2 week experiment. If you feel better, that is your answer. 

Glycemic Load vs Glycemic Index?

Glycemic index (GI) is a scaled measure from 1-100. The idea is to score the potential a food has to raise blood sugar. Food closer to 100 will effect blood sugar more than food closer to 0. A score under 55 is considered a low potential to raise blood sugar. All good information.

Here is the problem. Nutritious foods such as fruit, vegetables, and *whole grains can have a falsely elevated GI. Serving size and fiber are not considered in the calculation. GI is a based on consuming a serving that contains carbs equivalent to 50grams of sugar. That means mountains of fruit and vegetables. Who eats 1.5 pounds of carrots? 

And, like fruits and vegetables, the carbs in whole grains are wrapped in fiber and much slower to digest. The body has to work to extract the carbs so blood sugar is less effected.

Enter glycemic load (GL). GL is a measure of how blood sugar responds, but takes serving size and fiber into account. But don't be hasty to dismiss GI. While GL can be a more realistic measure, it relies on GI for its calculation.  

GL is calculated by multiplying the net carbs (carbs minus fiber) in a serving size by the GI, then dividing by 100. This comprehensive chart is from the Diabetes Journal.

If that seems complicated, make it easy. Eat fruit, vegetables, and whole grains for your carbs. 

A GL from 1-10 is considered to have little to no impact on blood sugar.

* Whole grains in this context are grains that have not been altered by processing. The difference between rolled oats and steel cut oats is a good example. 

While rolled oats are whole oats and have the same fiber as steel cut oats, they have been streamed, rolled, steamed again, and toasted. The processing makes rolled oats easier to digest, therefore they have a greater impact on blood sugar than steel cut oats.

Is Exercise Making You Fat?

Exercise is not always the answer to weight loss. Did you know too much exercise can cause weight gain? And the extra pounds are not from more muscle, but from increased fat storage.

The human body is acutely sensitive to stressors. Along with surviving infection, escaping predators and not starving are priority number one. When your body is stressed, it begins to save energy and store fat in preparation to escape that hairy mastodon or survive the coming famine. 

As with everything, when it comes to exercise and weight, you have to know your own body. It is tempting to use exercise to balance eating habits. It might work for a while but, after a certain point, the more you exercise the less energy your body uses.  In the long run, the body will come out ahead. It has so far. 

So how do you know if your are overexercising? Your pulse will tell you. Take your pulse in the morning just after you wake up for a week or so. Get a baseline number. If your pulse goes 5% over that number, cut back your exercise intensity by 50% that day. If it is 10% over baseline, replace your exercise routine with a walk, stretching or restorative yoga that day. 

What if you suspect you are already over exercising? Cut back your exercise intensity and frequency  by 50% while monitoring your morning heart rate trend for a few weeks. It should go down, if you have been overexercising. 

Anthropologist Herman Pontzer uses the evolution of human metabolism to explain why exercise is not an effective strategy for weight loss in this video. 

  

My BMI Says I'm Too Short

Sometimes Getting Taller is Not An Option

Is BMI a reliable measure of healthy weight? The inconvenient answer is... yes, for most people.

Many BMI haters think, because it is based on total body weight and not a measurement of body fat, it's a meaningless number. I think they miss the point.

BMI is not a body fat analysis. It is a quatitative measure used to identify health risk. BMI is calculated by taking your weight in kilograms and dividing it by your height in centimeters squared.  The target range is a BMI between 18.5-24.5.

Why? People with a BMI between 18.5-24.5 experience fewer health related problems.

Can you be unhealthy and have a healthy BMI? Of course.

And the reverse is true, particularly in elite athletes who are in a muscle building sport. They will have low body fat and a high BMI. But the smart money is on BMI to predict health risk.

White Kidney Bean Extract

Mexican Food is Packed With Yummy and Nutritious Complex Carbs
 photo from aliceandthemockturtle.blogspot.com

Do you want to eat complex carbohydrates and have a slimmer waistline, too? White Kidney Bean Extract could make that happen. There are good studies that show taking White Kidney Bean Extract with meals results in some weight loss, and a significant decrease in waist circumference. 

White Kidney Bean Extract works by making the starch in complex carbohydrate foods (grains- including corn, beans, and root vegetables) function as resistant starch, instead of converting to glucose. As resistant starch doesn't spike blood sugar, it creates an environment where an insulin sensitive person's response to complex carbohydrates is more like someone whose body processes carbohydrates well.

It doesn't block calories. It doesn't block sugar. The weight loss results from better glucose control after eating complex carbohydrates. That translates into less cravings, more energy, and less fat storage.

Try taking 1000 mgs daily with the meal that contains the most complex carbohydrates. Or, if your diet includes complex carbohydrates in more than one meal, choose the 2 meals with the greatest amount of complex carbohydrates and take 1000 mgs with each of those meals. Or, just go for it and take it with all three meals. 

If you have GI symptoms, you can take 500mgs to start, as resistant starch fuels your beneficial weight loss gut bacteria, they may be a bit overfed at first. 

Is Vodka A Diet Drink?

Read about alcohol and weight gain at Calorie Secrets

Can you drink alcohol and still lose weight?

The short answer is that it depends on how well your body metabolizes alcohol. Your body can use alcohol as fuel, but alcohol can't be stored as fat for future use. As a result, alcohol is metabolized first before the calories from carbs, proteins, and fat.

Metabolically, alcohol is like a super carb. Alcohol shuts down fat burning and encourages fat storage... more in some than others.

Popular Diets Reviewed

From manrepeller.com

Weight loss diets in 2017 are more eating strategies for better health than the traditional Twinkie, Grapefruit, or White Food crash diets of the past. Many of them seem to be focused on minimizing gut damage symptoms. They all have eliminating processed foods, sugar and eating fresh foods in their natural state as a main theme. 

Dr. Robin Berzin on Man Repeller has done a quick and informative analysis of the most popular of these diets. 

Blood Sugar Levels and Weight Gain

Information is power and a blood sugar level can be a valuable metabolism management and weight loss tool. A blood sugar level can indicate your insulin production after you eat carbohydrates. 

The amount of insulin that is produced after eating carbohydrates is individual and can vary dramatically in different people. Higher insulin production is associated with weight gain. Think about the person who just looks at carbs and gains weight. In contrast, that person who eats pizza and french fries and never gains weight, probably has a low insulin response.

To find out, if you have an over enthusiastic insulin response to carbohydrates, take your blood sugar level two hours after you eat a simple carbohydrate heavy meal. Something like a bagel with jelly. If your blood sugar is over 140 after 2 hours, you have a high insulin response. Consuming carbohydrates contributes to your weight gain.

It is important to know your fasting blood sugar before you do a challenge. Measure your blood sugar in the morning before you eat. It should be under 90. If it is over 90, it indicates you are having a problem metabolizing the carbohydrates in your diet. Without a lifestyle change, your blood sugar will continue to climb. If it is over 125 on two separate mornings,  you meet the criteria for type 2 diabetes and should see a doctor.

Milk Thistle Can Help Weight loss

Milk thistle 

Body fat is like a hoarder. But, instead of piles of trash in the living room, environmental toxins from things like pesticides, plastics, and pollution are housed in body fat. 

Your weight loss plateau could be caused by an overload of those toxins being released in the body as your fat is burned as fuel. Yes, weight loss can be toxic. 

Milk thistle (Silybum marianum), a potent liver detoxifier, can restore energy and fat burning by helping clear the body of excess toxins, which slow your metabolism.

For an active detox, while you're losing weight, try 150 mgs of milk thistle 1-3 times daily. For ongoing support, the dose is 50 mg 1-3 times daily. Milk thistle dosages are individual and too much can result in GI distress.

Look for a product that is 80% pure milk thistle extract. You can also use a blend that combines milk thistle with other herbs that aid in liver function. As with all supplements: if it works for you, go with it, if is doesn't work for you, move on.

What About Stevia?

from Global Stevia Institute

What's not to love about stevia? It's a sweet little herb. It has no calories and doesn't raise blood sugar.

So, what's the downside? It seems that actual stevia can be tricky to find and will involve extensive label reading. One reason is that stevia is 200 times sweeter than sugar resulting in manufacturers bulking it up with added ingredients.

Products like Truvia are not really stevia. Trivia's main ingredient is erythritol, a poorly absorbed sugar alcohol, which can cause GI distress and headaches. Or, Stevia In The Raw, which contains more dextrose than stevia is somewhat misleading. Even an organic product like Sweet Leaf has more inulin fiber than stevia. Others add flavor enhancers and thickeners. 

 Dr. Axe has some excellent information on stevia, with lots of green and yellow graphics.

It is important to remember that, just like with sugars, the brain's drive for sweet is intensified and the ability to taste sweet is diminished by Stevia. As a result, naturally sweet foods like fruits and vegetables may not be perceived as sweet. 

Know Your Carbs

from dietdoctor.com

Losing fat by reducing the percentage of calories from carbohydrates is generally agreed to be an effect weight loss strategy. It's not a new concept. It is the principle of diets ranging from the Atkins Diet to Paleo to the Mediterranean Diet. 

The website Diet Doctor has a world of expert information on low carb eating. 

Whether you just want to recognize a carb before you eat it, get some delicous lower carb recipes, or learn about a ketogenic diet, this is your go to resource.

Read Yourself Healthy

David Kessler's book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of America's Insatiable Appetite, has the power to change the way you look at food, what food you eat,  and where you choose to eat that food.

The first part is an explanation of how and why we eat. The second part exposes how the food industry uses that knowledge to manipulate food to increase appetite and consumption. The last part puts it together.

Or, if you prefer to hear the author speak, you can watch David Kessler give a lecture.

Less Butter More Fat

While Americans eat closely the same proportion of carbs, protein, and fat as they did in 1889, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the past 50 years. Why? I choose to focus on the reduced butter consumption; however, it may be more complex.

Those smart people at Authority Nutrition have a more complete takeaway of Stephan Guyenet's TedxHarvardLaw talk, along with the talk on their website. 

Putting Portions in Proportion

Seems that the larger the plate, the smaller the food looks... and the more we eat. The amount of food we perceive is relative to how much of the plate is showing, because of something called the Delboeuf Illusion. It blocks our ability to calculate the size of circles when they are surrounded by other circles. Square plates, perhaps?

How To Be a Meal-Preppy

Do you aspire to be a trendy foodie,  causally eating a beautiful salad from a mason jar, while others microwave frozen Lean Cuisine? Hello Glow is all about the beauty of healthy.

Be A Good Host

Feed your gut bacteria and they will be your best friend. You feed them resistant starch and they make you lean, energetic, and happy by producing butyrate.

One of the easiest ways to increase butyrate production is by adding resistant starch with a daily serving of green banana flour. 

The good news is that butter and ghee are rich scores of butyrate (butyr... butter). And, to make it even better news, cooked potatoes and yams, after they have cooled, are another excellent source of  butyrate through resistant starch. Reheating does not change the resistant starch.

Conventional wisdom has been that, when you eat fiber, it fills you up and you lose weight because you eat less.  However, it seems the reasons for weight loss are more complex and unexpected than just calories. So... what about those skinny French women and their butter obsession?

Are Fruits and Veggies Making You Fat?

You do not have to be a weed or bug to know that herbicides and pesticides are poison and definitely not part of a healthy diet. Besides giving you terminal diseases, they can make you tired, grumpy, and fat.

I know, you're thinking the cost of eating 100% organic will make you poor, grumpy, and homeless.

Fortunately, the conscientious people at ewg.org have made two lists of produce, The Clean Fifteen and The Dirty Dozen.  You can even download the app for free.

Daily Food Porn

If you are what you eat, then prepare to be healthy, delicious, and completely gorgeous with recipes from Feasting at Home.

Stressed? You Talk'n to Me?

Is that chocolate bar the only thing keeping you sane and pleasant? Do you feel like you have a coffee deficiency? Are you too busy to get anything done? The answer to a happier, more energetic and healthier future may be as simple as better living through chemistry.