High blood sugar is bad. Carbohydrates raise blood sugar. Therefore carbohydrates are bad. The theory is simple, and yet incredibly flawed.
The truth is, you can have chronically high blood sugar even while religiously avoiding every starch and sugar in sight. Low-carb forums are littered with posts asking a very relevant question:
Why is my blood sugar so high when I'm not eating any carbs?
The answer is simple, yet often overlooked.
The Hormone that Raises Blood Sugar: No Carbohydrates Required
If the body were an engine, glucose would be its fuel. Most people think glucose only comes from carbohydrates (sugar and starch), but protein can also be turned into glucose when there aren't enough carbs around to do the job. This is called gluconeogenesis, and it's performed by one of the major stress hormones cortisol.
When you have high cortisol levels, the cortisol rapidly breaks down protein into glucose, which can raise blood sugar levels considerably. For some folks, this results in chronically high blood sugar--even if they are on a low-carb diet.
The trouble is, cortisol isn't just breaking down the protein you eat. It's doing something far more destructive.
The body is quite a smart machine, and it has no problem taking detours to get energy if necessary. If your body isn't getting the energy it needs from your diet, it has a back-up source: its own tissue.
It sounds kind of cannibalistic, eating your own lean body tissue for energy. I mean, I seriously doubt any one of you would relish cutting off a chunk of your leg for dinner. I know I wouldn't. But every time your body uses cortisol to break down lean tissue for energy, this is basically what you are doing.
Aside from eating up your lean tissue (which includes muscles, bones and organs), chronically high cortisol levels can also have some other unpleasant side effects, including:
Acne
Panic attacks
Weight gain
Fatigue
Irritability
Hair loss
Insomnia
Lower back pain
Allergies
Impotence
Low sex drive
Poor memory
High blood pressure
Arthritis
Gut flora imbalance
Fibromyalgia
Irritable bowel syndrome
Suppressed immunity
Asthma
Accelerated aging
Headaches
Depression
and more...
Doesn't look too fun, does it? So before you blame carbs for your high blood sugar woes, consider that high cortisol may be the underlying problem. And addressing the root issue can have a pleasant domino effect by preventing or eliminating the issues above as well.
If you're interested in learning more about stress and cortisol, check out my other posts on the topic:
There comes a point when you've tried every single over-the-counter product you could find in your battle against the dreaded blight of acne... and yet still the battle rages on. You may have even crossed over to more natural methods of skincare like the honey face mask, homemade toner and coconut oil. And while these certainly help (I know from experience!), they fail to do one important thing: address the root causes of acne.
For a few, cleansing methods alone are enough to eradicate acne. But for the rest of us, there is something going on under the surface that is causing acne to rear its ugly head.
They say beauty isn't just skin deep. Well, neither is your acne.
Getting down to the root of the issue isn't easy. For one thing, we're all different. What causes my acne may have nothing to do with yours. It's all about how our bodies function as individuals. Still, while there are many factors that may be contributing to your acne, they all boil down to four simple categories:
1. Gut Health
2. Stress
3. Toxins
4. Hormonal Imbalance
Keep in mind that these can be tied together (and usually are). Stress can cause hormonal imbalances, poor gut health can cause toxins to build up, toxic overload can cause stress, etc. It's all just one big cycle of cause and effect. Because of this, you may have to address all four of these root issues to truly achieve clear skin (and excellent health). But many of you may experience dramatic results simply by identifying the one factor that's at the bottom of everything and addressing it accordingly.
Let's delve a little deeper into these four categories:
1. Gut Health
I put this one first for a reason--mainly because the condition of your gut affects your entire body far more than most of us realize. Balancing gut flora and rebuilding the strength of your gut lining is imperative to good health. An unhealthy gut system can contribute to toxic overload, hormonal imbalances and stress--gut health is truly the foundation of your overall health and well being.
Acne may actually be one of the first problems to surface when something in your gut isn't functioning properly. Better to catch this one early on than to wait until even more devastating symptoms arise. Simple ways to improve your gut health include eating probiotic foods like raw milk yogurt, taking herbal bitters to improve digestion, and having at least one cup of bone broth every day. Others find they experience more healing when they cut out more difficult to digest foods such as dairy and grains.
If you find yourself facing food intolerances, consider doing the GAPS diet or the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) in order to restore gut health and reverse food sensitivities. These are strict diets, but they are also only temporary and can be extremely effective at repairing a damaged gut.
2. Stress
Stress is a common root cause of acne because it raises adrenaline and cortisol levels. When these stress hormones are chronically elevated, certain health issues begin to crop up. Acne is just one of them (others include back pain, irritability, headaches, insomnia and more--read more about high cortisol here).
For me, a telltale sign of stress-induced acne is--for lack of a better term--bacne. I only experience breakouts on my back and shoulders when stress is the issue. Fortunately I rarely experience this anymore, most likely because I've put a lot of effort into learning to manage my stressors and deal with them in a more positive way. I've also taken up a few positive habits like yoga practice and getting plenty of quality sleep.
Let's face it: in many ways our world is more toxic than ever. Some suggest that when our systems are overloaded with toxins (think chemical dyes, pesticides, synthetic hormones, fluoride, chlorine, etc.), the body has trouble processing and eliminating all of them. This overload ends up manifesting itself as clogged pores and acne. If you are sensitive to certain chemicals, this may be doubly true. Melissa from The Cellulite Investigation has written extensively about her experience with fluoroderma and acne. For her, exposure to fluoride guarantees cystic acne breakouts. Read more about her thoughts on fluoroderma and acne here.
Whether you are sensitive to specific chemicals or just suffer from general toxic overload, practicing some simple detoxification methods may prove to be very helpful. Try things like dry brushing your skin, drinking a glass of warm lemon water first thing in the morning, oil pulling, taking Epsom salt baths, or rebounding.
4. Hormonal Imbalance
Hormonal imbalance is another common underlying cause of acne, but unfortunately conventional medicine offers only one solution: birth control pills. Not my cup of tea!
But hormonal imbalances is last on my list simply because restoring gut health, managing stress and detoxing can all help balance your hormones. But for some, hormones are truly the root cause of their acne, and in that case it's an appropriate place to focus your efforts. I always recommend natural remedies for balancing hormones first and foremost. For instance, many people experience positive results with raw maca powder or vitex (chaste berry extract), both of which are well known for their ability to naturally balance hormones.
Elevated levels of DHT (dihydrotestosterone) may also contribute to your acne, especially if you experience mostly cystic acne along your jawline and chin. Herbs that balance DHT levels include saw palmetto extract and spearmint tea.
Managing blood sugar and insulin levels is also a key in balancing your hormones. Balanced, real food meals are the best way to get your blood sugar under control. Include some protein and fat with your carbs (specific amounts will vary based on your individual metabolism), and eat smaller meals to avoid drastic upswings in your blood sugar and insulin levels. Some people find specific foods trigger a blood sugar roller coaster. Refined white flour and white sugar seem to be the most common culprits.
If you suspect hormonal imbalance to be the root cause of your acne, then getting a hormone profile test may be needed to determine where you should focus your efforts and if bioidentical hormone replacement is necessary in your particular case.
Try to remember the bigger picture when figuring out the root causes of your acne. Addressing the above issues may not solve your acne woes overnight. It takes time to heal. Impatience will only conjure up feelings of stress--which we know does nothing to improve your complexion! So think long term and make healing your acne just as much about healing your body as a whole. That's when the real benefits happen.
There is a detrimental ingredient lurking in our food. Often we don't even realize it's there. It could be in the ice cream you ate last night or the pizza you ordered yesterday. It could be in the homemade fermented sourdough bread you have every morning for breakfast. And--believe it or not--this ingredient could even be hiding in your grass-fed burger, your pastured eggs or the fresh berries and raw cream you have for dessert.
Yes, this ingredient can be present in every single food you eat... or none at all. It's all up to you.
The number one ingredient you need to avoid?
Guilt.
I know. Not what you wanted to hear.
Sorry. I know you wanted me to say MSG. Or fructose. Or omega-6 fatty acids or gluten or hydrolyzed soy protein... or some other commonly demonized ingredient. But no. Although there are certainly foods out there that can damage our bodies and brains, the most toxic food can't hold a candle to the destruction that can be incurred when every bite of food is swallowed with a hefty side of guilt, anxiety, fear or obsessive thinking.
Stressing About Food: It's No Way to Live
Don't get me wrong: there's nothing wrong with trying to eat healthy and live healthy. But it's not hard to cross the line from living healthfully to agonizing over every bite you take.
Does figuring out what to eat for lunch trigger anxiety?
Do you try to make a healthy choice and then feel ashamed of it later because part of your meal didn't line up with some health guru's recommendations?
Are you constantly wondering which guru is right?
What if all this anxiety and agony is causing more health problems than whatever food you may (or may not) be eating?
Don't believe me?
Don't underestimate how stress impacts your health!
And yes: anxiety, worry, fear, obsession, guilt and shame all fall under the category of stress. Stress triggers a cascade of endocrine response in the body. Essentially, too much stress floods your body with hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. An overload of these hormones can cause a myriad of health problems. Robert Sapolsky talks about this extensively in his book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Here's a short list of health problems that can be caused by stress:
Acne
Panic attacks
Weight gain
Fatigue
Irritability
Hair loss
High blood sugar
High insulin
Insomnia
Lower back pain
Allergies
Impotence
Poor memory
High blood pressure
Arthritis
Gut flora imbalance
Fibromyalgia
Irritable bowel syndrome
Suppressed immunity
Asthma
Accelerated aging
Headaches
Depression
Loss of lean tissue mass
And that's the short list. Basically, stress is not your friend, especially the chronic kind. And believe me, worrying about what you'll eat and then feeling guilty afterward definitely translates into stress.
After all, aren't all the problems listed above the kind you're trying to overcome by eating healthy food? So don't thwart your efforts by replacing junk foods with obsessive thought patterns and negative emotions like shame and guilt.
So what do you do? Sure, work towards eating food that gives you a sense of health and vitality. But don't let your eating choices rule your life.
Enjoy your food and enjoy your life without the bondage of anxiety and guilt!
There are a couple of things I really like about Linda Bacon. First of all, her name is Bacon. Somehow that is just cool. Secondly, she doesn't just think outside the box. She questions the entire box and all its assorted contents. In her book, Health at Every Size, Bacon turns current theories on obesity, health and weight loss upside down (or should I say right side up?).
It's the kind of book that gets folks in tizzy. People don't like it when their basic assumptions are questioned. But I say it's good for the soul. That's why I write posts like There is No Obesity Epidemic and Does Obesity Really Kill?. It's not because I like to stir up trouble. It's because we have to question our ideas from time to time. Otherwise ideas become dogma. And that's never a good thing.
So I guess Linda Bacon likes to question ideas and assumptions, too. In fact, that's exactly what Health at Every Size is all about. One of the key points Bacon makes in her book is that weight does not determine our health in the way most of us believe. She argues that focusing on weight may actually be drawing attention to the wrong issue:
"Body weight might be a marker for an imprudent lifestyle in some people, but its role in determining health, particularly when compared to regular activity, is grossly exaggerated."
She goes on to say:
"It is well established that the relationship between activity and longevity is stronger than the relationship between weight and longevity."
It's simple: being sedentary is more harmful to your health than being overweight. (And remember that movement trumps exercise as well.)
"You are not only what you eat, you may also be what your mother ate. Several studies find that if your mother dieted during her pregnancy, you're more likely to be heavier as an adult."
Makes me glad I didn't fall prey to worrying about my weight during pregnancy (though I dieted like a madwoman while nursing--I wonder if that has a similar effect?).
Diets Simply Don't Work
One concept that Bacon tears to pieces in Health at Every Size is the idea that we can diet all of our weight problems into oblivion. She points out that the facts simply don't point that way:
"It may be hard to believe that there just isn't any scientific evidence to support any theory of how to lose weight and keep it off. No matter how many times or how authoritatively the message is repeated that diet, exercise and discipline can get you what you want, it doesn't change the fact that it has not proven true for any but a tiny minority of people."
Stop. Go back. Read that again.
Hope it sunk in that time.
"Losing weight is not about finding the perfect proportions of carbohydrates, protein and fat or tricking yourself into feeling satisfied. Rather, maintaining the right weight for you is about respecting your hunger and trusting your body to guide you in doing what's best."
Skip the Section on Nutrition
To be honest, I can't call Bacon's nutrition advice (found in chapter 11, Change Your Tastes) terrible. Overall, she disagrees with bashing food groups and macronutrients. I can appreciate that.
But at the same time her recommendations lean too much toward the same old USDA food pyramid baloney you hear everywhere else. Don't get me wrong: Bacon includes some decent information about how certain foods create biochemical responses in the body and offers general recommendations that can be helpful. It just smacks of conventional diet advice a little too much for my taste.
My suggestion? Read the chapter and take it with a grain of salt. Or skip it altogether and just dig in to the juicier parts of the book.
Why So Many Weight Myths? Follow the Money...
So why are we barraged with these myths about weight and health? Well, according to Bacon, some of it is simply misinterpreted science... and some may be the result of far more sinister motives:
"Fearmongering about weight is worth billions to the health care system, government agencies, scientists and the media. And it ties in seamlessly with cultural values. The result is that weight myths have become unquestioned assumptions, so strongly a part of our cultural landscape that we regard them as self-evident."
Question Your Assumptions About Weight and Dieting
It's not the facts that get us into trouble: it's the "unquestioned assumptions" that do us in. We have to be willing to question our current theories on health and wellness if we want to move forward. The answers aren't half as important as being willing to look for them in the first place.
"The only way to solve the weight problem is to stop making weight a problem--to stop judging ourselves and others by our size. Weight is not an effective measure of attractiveness, moral character or health. The real enemy is weight stigma, for it is the stigmatization and fear of fat that causes the damage and deflects attention from the true threats to our health and well-being."
Question about the book? Have some thoughts on all of this? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below!
Yesterday I had the opportunity to interview one of my favorite bloggers and health researchers, Matt Stone from 180 Degree Health, about the body weight set point. After listening to his new audio seminar, I knew this was something people needed to hear about.
What Matt and I discuss in this podcast goes against everything we're told about diet, weight and exercise. And yet I know anyone who's ever been on a diet is going to be nodding their head when they hear what Matt has to say.
Ever feel like your body is fighting against fat loss?
Wonder why it's so hard to stick to a diet?
Does restrictive dieting lead you to cravings and binging on "bad" foods?
Are you cold, tired or irritable when you're trying to lose weight?
Are you "check" dieting?
Learn why Matt (and many other leading researchers) believe the focus should be on the weight set point, and not on weight. I personally believe this could be secret to finding a healthy, permanent weight without being chained to a life of deprivation and misery.
Listen to the podcast now to learn about the body weight set point and metabolism:
You can also click here if you want to listen to an additional in-depth presentation from Matt about the weight set point, dieting, metabolism and health, or to find out more about his free e-book or the new audio seminar. You might also want to check out his blog to hear the latest on achieving true metabolic health.
Some say small, healthy snacks are a vital part of fueling the metabolism. Others claim eating larger, less frequent meals is the key to metabolic health. Who's correct? Well, as you might suspect, there's no black and white answer here. I was lucky enough to hash out this and similar questions about meal spacing and intermittent fasting with Matt Stone from 180 Degree Health. You can read our back-and-forth below and also at Matt's blog:
Elizabeth: Mainstream advice says we need to eat 5-6 small meals throughout the day to keep our insulin levels low and keep our metabolism going strong. Is this true?
Matt: Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is mainstream advice, but there are many who recommend eating small, frequent meals (nibbling) vs. eating less frequent, much larger meals. As you know, there are endless ways to investigate the matter. Roger Williams, in Nutrition Against Disease, spoke candidly about the superiority of nibbling long-term in body composition. This was found to be true in a wide variety of animal subjects of different species eating equal amounts of calories, and it makes sense on some level. There is not much impetus for the body to store anything extra if food is being supplied very often.
Going without food for 24 hours at a time definitely encourages the body to store fat when it encounters food, but it encourages fat burning during the long window without food as well. Likewise, a big meal once or twice per day will spike insulin through the roof, but will hold insulin lower throughout the rest of the day compared to someone eating 5-6 smaller meals.
In the animal kingdom it doesn't seem to matter whether you graze all day like a horse, or eat a couple times a week like a lion or tiger. I suspect that, all things considered, it really doesn't matter, and is up to a person's personal preferences and what he or she has found to be the most effective, practical, and comforting for them. I would think someone with really shot adrenals would fare much better with small, frequent meals. Long periods without food cause a big rise in catecholamines (which has its advantages, don't get me wrong), but this rise in catecholamines can do damage. Like anything, both approaches have benefits and drawbacks, so I guess the main thing is to not get blindsided by one theory vs. the other, but hold on to your own decision-making power - and make your decision based on your own biofeedback.
Elizabeth: Improving leptin sensitivity and insulin sensitivity appear to be top priorities if you want better health and body composition. I've heard from some experts that decreasing meal frequency helps improve leptin and insulin sensitivity. Do you think small, frequent meals contribute to leptin resistance and insulin resistance, or are there other factors that we should be more concerned about?
Matt: I doubt that meal frequency is the primary driver of leptin and insulin resistance as someone like Byron Richards, author of The Leptin Diet, suggests. If you look at any truly obese person with severe leptin and insulin resistance, you are unlikely to see someone who eats small, frequent meals - or hops out of bed in the morning to eat a huge breakfast to end the fasting period. In fact, you are more likely to see a breakfast skipper that eats 75% of their calories between 6pm and midnight.
In the short-term, I can see how a rise in catecholamines (adrenal hormones) from a long fasting period could increase leptin - and why so many intermittent fasters are witnessing a huge drop in appetite from it with great fat loss. But remember that ephedra and methamphetamine have the same properties - increasing fat burning and blunting appetite. Hell yes those worked amazingly well in the short-term, but did amazing amounts of damage to the adrenal glands of those consuming them over time. Just because something appears to work in the short-term, even if there are oodles of studies to validate it, doesn't make it the be-all, end-all. I'm sure you noticed while reading Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat on intermittent fasting that most of the studies supporting fasting were based on hormonal changes seen within 72 hours of fasting. That is not good enough to prove anything. The human body is an equilibrium machine, and repeated spikes in adrenal hormones from going long periods without food - while creating miracles in the short-term - are still fraught with Catch-22's. The body's adrenal glands can become fatigued, and/or adrenergic receptors (adrenal hormone receptors) can start to shut down so that your body becomes less responsive to your adrenal hormones and the appetite-blunting/fat-burning effect of intermittent fasting and decreased meal frequency can vanish and be replaced by rebound. Not trying to scare anyone away from decreased meal frequency. I've had some success with it myself, and it is incredibly more practical than eating 6 times per day. Just playing devil's advocate - keeping the great benefits attributed to it, such as its impact on leptin and insulin in perspective.
Elizabeth: Do you think there's a safer way to use intermittent fasting for someone who is concerned about adrenal health? I personally was thinking that Brad Pilon's plan was somewhat more reasonable simply because you aren't fasting every day - just two days a week, in fact. Other days you would eat normally with your preferred meal frequency. Do you think that is enough to offset some of the possible risks involved? Can someone with adrenal concerns use intermittent fasting safely?
Matt: Good question. I think Pilon's approach is pretty good, but people must remember it's not a case of the more the better. Pilon does allow people to restore normal eating habits and give the adrenals a break. Thus, you have an opportunity there to lose a pound of fat per week and "get away with it." Martin Berkhan of www.leangains.blogspot.com takes the opposite approach, where you fast a little each day by eating only between the hours of say, 11am to 7pm (8-hour feeding window). This he counters with other very wise approaches, such as huge post-workout feasts and short windows in which you eat way more calories than you are used to. This allows the body, during any given week, to experience short windows of losing body fat (with high catecholamines) AND periods of muscle growth and recovery in which catecholamines are low and in recovery. This prevents the body from adapting to constantly-elevated catecholamines, which is a beautiful thing for those looking to avoid the yo-yo scenario. He seems to have gotten it down to a science where when he eats too little he loses fat and no muscle - and when he eats too much he gains muscle but no fat. Thus, over the course of weeks and months, he gains muscle, loses lots of fat, and has no negative metabolic adaptation - such as having his sex drive crash, his energy levels plummet, constant coldness, poor workout performance, increased appetite, and so on.
Elizabeth: So, it's all about balance and staying away from that chronic stress of constantly elevated catecholamines. How do you suggest coming to a personal decision about meal frequency? What factors should someone take into consideration? Do you have any suggestions for how an individual can determine what works best for them?
Matt: "Constantly elevated catecholamines" is an excellent phrase. Pardon me while I go off on a huge geekazoid tangent on this one. The trick is to get the fat-burning, metabolism-boosting, hunger-regulating effects of the catecholamines, but do so in a way that doesn't allow the body to adjust to a chronic, steady-state of elevated catecholamines. That's the biggest mistake that people make in dieting, with low-carb dieting in particular. Low-carb diets, for example, raise catecholamines really well, suppress your appetite, burn fat like crazy with no lean losses, and can make you feel tremendously amazing with great mental focus and energy. But people often get seduced by these great feelings, and with the panacea attributed to low-carb diets that's given by low-carb and now Paleo authors and health educators, people do low-carb diets until they hit the plateau of all plateaus and feel like absolute crap - often with health problems like food allergies, horrendous athletic performance, insomnia, and digestive problems - not to mention an uncanny ability to gain weight at the end of that rainbow. This could all be called "negative metabolic adaptation" to anything that keeps catecholamines constantly elevated, which includes low-calorie diets with no reprieve or "re-feed," low-carb diets without "carb cycling" (eating a big, high-carbohydrate meal once every 2-3 days), overexercising (particularly long-duration cardio without enough rest days), and so forth.
So to answer your question about choosing for yourself what determines a good approach to meal frequency, you really have to take the rest of your lifestyle, diet, and exercise habits into account to decide.
Let's say there are 5 ways to elevate catecholamines:
1) Going long periods between meals
2) Eating meals with less than 30 grams of carbohydrates
3) Cutting calories
4) Exercise
5) Fasting
And there are 5 ways to lower catecholamines:
1) Sleep
2) Rest
3) High-carbohydrate meals
4) Excessive calorie intake
5) Eating frequent, small meals
From this list, the best way to lose the most fat in the shortest period of time would be to eat a very low-carb, low-calorie diet combined with fasting and lots of exercise. But this is adrenal suicide. Note that fitness competitors often do this a few weeks prior to a show - but at great cost.
For long-term success, and without undermining your health, you need balance between those two lists. If you want to take advantage of dropping carbohydrates, do so with eating big carbohydrate feasts once every three days. This is the premise of Rob Faigin's Natural Hormone Enhancement program, which is light years ahead of any standard low-carb diet.
If you want to take advantage of intermittent fasting, don't pair this with 2 hours of cardio 5 times per week. Instead, you'd be much better off pairing IF with only 2, 1-hour anaerobic workouts (weightlifting) like what you see Martin Berkhan practicing.
If you want to eat two large meals per day, and don't want to be bothered with the headache of the 6 meal per day plan, great! But these meals should contain lots of healthy, unrefined carbohydrates.
So, the moral of the story is to be patient, methodical, and wise about losing weight. You can't sprint for the finish or the body will make adjustments that create an impenetrable wall between you and your weight loss goals (to say nothing of the catastrophic impact this can have on your health as well).
And your question about helping a person to determine what is right for them is perhaps even more complicated!!! Ha!
The simplest answer to that is this:
If you suspect any kind of adrenal problems, you better try to rehabilitate yourself before pursuing weight loss. That comes by doing a lot of what - in list #2 - helps to lower catecholamines. That is the basic premise of the rehabilitative strategy that I've created in a free eBook online that you can get at www.180degreehealth.com
If your adrenal glands are healthy, you'll respond to many things in the list of what raises catecholamines with a decline in appetite, a rise in energy levels and mental focus, very quick fat loss with no lean losses, and so forth. If that is what you experience, DO NOT get carried away with it. Take action to lower catecholamines at some point each week, preferably with rest and eating a lot of food - particularly carbohydrates. In other words, take 1 step back for every 2 steps forward.
As for me, I'm kinda done fooling around with catecholamines. I eat until I am full, when I am hungry (usually 3 times per day evenly spaced, starting with an early breakfast), and eat a very high-carbohydrate diet with very little cardio-style exercise. I did start out earlier this summer doing a lot of hiking, but I could immediately feel the negative consequences of it. Instead, my current focus is doing a couple of very high-intensity, full-body weightlifting/bodyweight exercise sessions once every 3-4 days. This, in and of itself, has great potential to force the body to adapt by increasing anabolic (muscle-building) hormones and decrease body fat. You won't catch a sprinter or gymnast - arguably the two types of athletes with the best muscle to body fat ratios on earth - on a treadmill or Elliptical machine. You won't catch Martin Berkhan or legendary trainers like Scott Abel or Rachel Cosgrove near one either.
*Matt also wrote a phenomenal guest post for me earlier this year. Check it out here.
*Want to learn more about sustainable weight loss? Check out my other posts on weight loss, dieting and fitness here.
R eal food has healed me in so many ways, but one problem that has persisted throughout my real food journey is PMS. For me PMS meant a short temper, crying easily, and craving junk foods. Often this would start about 10 days before my period and get progressively worse until I would often wonder if I was going nuts. Within one day of starting my period, all symptoms would disappear and I would become a productive, balanced Elizabeth once again.
Believe it or not, this scenario is an improvement compared to what I've experienced before changing my eating habits. Back then PMS seemed to last more than half of every month, my mood swings were more turbulent, I often felt depressed and I could easily down more donuts than Homer Simpson.
But after eating well for a year and a half while also working on other areas to improve my health (stress, sleep, sensible exercise, etc.), I felt like I could use some more help in this department. PMS was one of my top reasons for trying out the milk diet, because ultimately I want to heal any health issues I have with real food whenever possible. And you can't get much more real than pure raw milk.
Since the milk diet is known for stimulating metabolic function and healing imbalances, I figured it couldn't hurt to try it out for PMS.
How does the milk diet heal endocrine imbalances?
That's a good question, and one I'm not fully capable of answering. However, one thing I know is that our hormones are built from material provided by our diet (fat, protein, etc.). The efficiency of this process is also influenced by our metabolism, which regulates the rate at which hormones are produced and received throughout the body. So eating an intensive diet like the milk diet provides the body with the bioavailable nutrition and metabolic stimulation it needs to produce and utilize hormones that regulate everything from reproductive health to mental alertness to fat storage.
My Results with the Milk Diet and PMS
During my 23 days on the milk diet I kept track of my moods and cravings to gauge my PMS. My findings were not dramatic, but I did notice things moving in a positive direction. My mood was slightly improved, and my cravings were nothing more than passing fancies. As I mentioned in my podcasts, I was able to turn down chocolate cake without a problem while on the milk diet... and right smack in the middle of PMS as well. As someone who has never turned down a decent piece of chocolate cake in my life, I was seriously impressed by this.
My cycle was also extremely regular on the milk diet, and I experienced less bleeding and cramping during my period as well (sorry if that's TMI, but I feel it's relevant). Moreover, I'm still experiencing these benefits more than one month after coming off the milk diet. My PMS symptoms are less pronounced and start later than usual, while my cycles are still very regular and far closer to painless than before.
Nothing I've ever tried to help me cope with PMS has worked this well for me, and that's enough to motivate me to do another round on the milk diet in May (or possibly June). This time I'm aiming for a shorter round so I'll have the resources to drink more milk each day and also focus even more on resting. Who wants to join me? :-)
far more than most of us realize. Balancing gut flora and rebuilding the strength of your gut lining is imperative to good health. An unhealthy gut system can contribute to toxic overload, hormonal imbalances and stress--gut health is truly the foundation of your overall health and well being.
in order to restore gut health and reverse food sensitivities. These are strict diets, but they are also only temporary and can be extremely effective at repairing a damaged gut.
and getting plenty of quality sleep. 
or 
. Or fructose. Or omega-6 fatty acids or gluten or hydrolyzed soy protein... or some other commonly demonized ingredient. But no. Although there are certainly foods out there that can damage our bodies and brains, the most toxic food can't hold a candle to the destruction that can be incurred when every bite of food is swallowed with a hefty side of guilt, anxiety, fear or obsessive thinking.
. An overload of these hormones can cause a myriad of health problems. Robert Sapolsky talks about this extensively in his book 
just cool. Secondly, she doesn't just think outside the box. She questions the entire box and all its assorted contents. In her book, 
, Bacon turns current theories on obesity, health and weight loss upside down (or should I say right side up?).
, suggests. If you look at any truly obese person with severe leptin and insulin resistance, you are unlikely to see someone who eats small, frequent meals - or hops out of bed in the morning to eat a huge breakfast to end the fasting period. In fact, you are more likely to see a breakfast skipper that eats 75% of their calories between 6pm and midnight.
program, which is light years ahead of any standard low-carb diet.
