I truly believe that our bodies are adaptable to anything we ask of them with enough time and consistent training and nutrition we can make them as healthy – or unhealthy- as we want. Read Jules Marsh’s story and tell me you can’t drop those last 10 pounds.
From Level 4: CrossFit Seattle – The Story of Jules Marsh
Tying in to the previous post about the craziness in Wisconsin…this is an excellent blog relating to the raw milk debate.
Why Does Our Government Hate Raw Milk?
On the note of paleo food choices being better for you…a paleo approved video. Funny.
There once were two opposing thoughts in articles…okay, one was a blog post and one was from The Wall Street Journal…regarding food choices in these tight economic times. Still, the subject matters are the same but from opposing sides.
From the original Wall Street Journal article “Value is what counts to consumers right now,” says Bob Goldin, executive vice president at Technomic. “And, unfortunately, in the minds of many consumers, a lot of these lower-priced options are just not as healthy, but they’re still buying them.”
I like the irony in that bit about value being what counts right now. Really? If you continue on with the article it talks about potato and tortilla chip sales being up 22% and 18%, respectively, this year. That’s not food for survival. That’s straight up snack food.
And the use of microwaves is up 30% from ’08. This particular link to obesity I find suspect, personally. They didn’t say microwave meal sales are up 30%, but the use of microwaves is up. When I don’t want to heat up my entire kitchen I use the microwave…for veggies or re-heating meats we intentionally cooked enmass for cost and time savings.
The opposing thought process in the “cost of food” debate comes from a blog posted at Norcal Strength and Conditioning entitled CrossFit = Financially Fit that confronts head-on the notion that cheap junk food is actually cheap. It’s a thought provoking read. Our nation’s leaders would do well to apply the author’s logic into the healthcare debate and nutrition recommendations.
From Karina’s blog post – “As we all know from Robb’s nutrition talks, if you exercise, eat right and get adequate sleep you can most likely avoid things like: stroke, heart attack, cancer, diabetes, and orthopedic issues. These are just a few of the major issues. Let’s not forget about colds, the flu, over-use injuries, and general inflammation. All of these things cost a lot of $$$$$$ to treat.”
The thought that when one is poor or money is tight the only food one can afford is junk and fattening is simplistic and b.s. I’ve been poor. Honest-to-God-$20-covers-all-food-for-a-week poor. When you’re buying Ramen soup and the price-reduced meats to go with it, drinking water and splurging on bananas and a dozen eggs you will be hard pressed to gain weight. Maintaining weight is tough at that point. Twinkies, chips, ice cream, donuts, cereal, bread, etc. are luxuries, plain and simple, and luxuries that will kill you so skip the expense when times aren’t so lean and you’ll come out ahead.
That’s all I have to say about that.
(for now)
Everything you eat and drink effects your hormone levels.
What’s a hormone? According to Dictionary.com it is…”A substance, usually a peptide or steroid, produced by one tissue and conveyed by the bloodstream to another to effect physiological activity, such as growth or metabolism.”
And…that means? That means that hormones are little messengers that are made by one organ and sent out to tell another organ to get busy doing something. How’s that for simple? Make sense?
Your endocrine system is made of the pituitary, pineal, thyroid and adrenal glands as well as testes, ovaries, thymus and the pancreas.
When the levels of our hormones are out of line, our system reacts with illness and disease. When the various organs within the endocrine system are over worked our systems react with illness and disease. When we abuse our bodies by eating foods that cause repeated and constant damage, our bodies revolt and illness and disease takes hold. It really is that simple. Except its not. Each person has their ideal food prescription and finding it takes time and trial and error. Not to mention that even if we find your ideal prescription we still need to give your body time to heal itself, rebuild and start anew. Patience is key and that is no easy thing in an instant gratification world.
The food you eat is a drug that effects the production of two key hormones…insulin (a storage hormone) and glucagon (an energy releasing hormone). Protein that you eat effects your body’s production of glucagon. Glucagon causes your liver to release stored energy (glucose) into the bloodstream where insulin pulls that energy out of the bloodstream and into your cells to be used as fuel. This is good so far. Carbohydrates that you eat effect your body’s production of insulin. There needs to be a balance of insulin and glucagon in the bloodstream for mental and emotional health, optimal physical health and optimal physical performance. Eating fat is hormone neutral. When we eat a diet heavy on carbs we cause our bodies to produce excessive insulin…constantly. This state where our cells are constantly bombarded with insulin due to being heavy on carbohydrate consumption (much of your processed foods, grain-based foods) leads to the cells becoming insulin resistant.
What does that mean? Here’s a visual.
You’ve all seen it, lived it or wanted to strangle someone who was in the midst of dealing (or not dealing) with a child who is repeating “mom…mom…mom…mom…Mom…Mom…Mom…MOM…MOM…MOM…MOM!!…” over and over again until you could strangle the kid or the parent or both. Just reading that bit above is enough to start a low grade headache. Yikes! Ok…the mom not hearing the kid anymore is ‘mom’-resistant. They are desensitized to the kid saying mom. It’s the SAME THING as insulin resistance. Your cells love insulin and need insulin and want to do their jobs but your constant supply of carbohydrates which directly causes a constant supply of insulin flooding the bloodstream has them too tired to use what’s right in front of them. So they don’t.
Is that bad? YES!! Too much insulin floating around in the bloodstream leads to a giant host of illness and disease. Remember the 5th paragraph above? It’s like that. Excess insulin in the blood leads to Hypertension (insulin increases sodium retention by the renal tubules), Coronary Artery Disease (increased insulin damages endothelial cells), Increased synthesis of VLDL (hypertriglyceridemia), Type 2 Diabetes (insulin resistance and insulin deficiency within the cells) as well as damage and function impairment of many organs the cardiovascular system. This is the short list.
The processed foods, the soft drinks, the high-fructose corn syrup laden everything are all plotting and scheming to take us down and its worse for our kids! We feed our children cereal for breakfast, pack a Lunchables for lunch and pick up chicken tenders and fries for dinner and wonder why they can’t shut down and focus on their studies. There wasn’t even any soda mentioned in that list. Dang!
Here’s another kicker…my previous post talked about Fruit Loops getting this its healthy for you check mark on the box for being ONLY 12 grams of sugar per serving (and the serving size is?). Prior to us finding out the information we share with you today we ate what the typical “healthy” family ate and searched the cereal aisle for the better foods. Compare the “heart-healthy” cereals and their load of sugar with the much maligned Fruit Loops and you’ll be surprised to find that, in comparison, Fruit Loops is lower in sugar. Crazy! Compare it to that packet of instant oatmeal. Holy cow! We swore off foods in boxes. It took less time than standing in the aisle reading the back of every box, trying to find something at least okay for the girls. It didn’t even need to be good for them!
This post doesn’t even tap into thyroid issues and pancreatic cancer and imbalanced sex-hormones affecting the ability to have children, enjoy your spouse or transition through the various stages of life. Everything you are and everything you do is controlled by the hormones your body produces and your hormone production is controlled by the foods you ingest. The magic pill, the miracle diet, the savior of your health is the food that you choose to eat. Choose simple. Choose wisely.
I love cole slaw. Different kinds. Home made kinds. All kinds. Love it! The broccoli slaw mix in little bags from the HEB or giant bags from Costco is awesome as a slaw or sprinkled for crunch in salads. I joke that my love of all kinds of cabbage goods is geneticly tied in through my German genes.
Darlene can tell you that I also LOVE chicken salad! I’d never had chicken salad prior to this past weekend up in Rockwall. At lunch time on Saturday, Mary gave local eating options for participants and one of which was Square Market. We got lost at first which is difficult to do, I’m sure, during normal times but we were distracted by the road construction and, in our defense, we were following folks who we thought knew where they were going. Once we figured out our mistake we corrected and found the place just like Mary had said. Square Market has deli-cut meats, specialty cheeses, sandwiches, desserts and chicken salad. Darlene got one of their chicken plates and I got the salad and was in love. It was awesome! For the life of me I can’t think of why I’d never eaten chicken salad. At the last Paleo party I brought chicken balls (chicken balls for goodness sake!) and they were a hit!
So anyway, today I was trying to come up with lunch and had on hand cooked chicken breast and shredded cabbage. Soo…here’s what I came up with. This is a beginning and base for future meal options.
Chicken Coleslaw Salad
3 cups chopped cooked chicken
6 cups shredded cabbage
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup canola or olive oil based mayonnaise
1/4 cup Brianna’s Real French Vinaigrette dressing
Toss dry ingredients together to mix in BIG bowl. Mix wet ingredients with a fork in a seperate bowl until well blended, then pour into dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly.
I didn’t add any other spices or seasoning since this is my first run at this and there is plenty of flavor in the vinaigrette. Next time I’ll probably add chopped red grapes and celery. Maybe some garlic. I also love garlic. The whole family loved this!
Related to the baking post below…
Last Friday we came home to a box sitting on our front door step. Matt and I looked at each other and each said “What did you order?”. We live together. We work together. We are all up in each other’s business with very few surprises on a day to day basis. We know what the other one is doing. It doesn’t work for everyone but, fifteen years later, it works for us still. Neither of us knew about any purchases.
So what was it? Being as that we’re not big time enough to be concerned about unknown packages, we brought the box into the house. (I don’t know that Patrick M. would agree with us on that but lets assume he would. I did check for ticking sounds. It was quiet.) When we finally opened it there were stevia products and LOTS of paperwork from Ron Redding, VP of Sales and Marketing for NuNaturals. It’s all interesting reading with info about their products and recipes and such. He’d read about my attempts at healthier recipes and thought I might like to try their products. Ok.
So first things first…I googled NuNaturals to see if I could find any complaints or problems. Most folks are real quick to share the bad experiences and not the good ones so if there’s dirt it should be easy to find. 6 pages into my search and nothing bad. Cool. I kept thinking that Mr. Redding was maybe taking a big chance sending product. What if I don’t like it? What if I am like the majority and quickly share the bad but not the good? Kinda ballsy on his part. I don’t guess you get to be V.P. of sales and marketing by being timid.
Ok. So here’s a bit of honesty. I’ve tried stevia products before and didn’t care for them. There was an after taste. Mr. Redding is right, though. I am trying to find a different way of cooking, of eating, of living and my goals don’t work with what I’ve always done so there has to be something better.
So far we’ve only tried the Pure Liquid Vanilla Stevia in our coffee. It’s actually good! No after taste, vanilla flavoring in the coffee, no guilty conscience about chemicals from artificial sweeteners. I like that. We’ll be running through all of the products he sent to see what’s a winner and what isn’t.
Maybe there is a way to have my cake and eat it too.
My fingers are crossed.
Mia has a sweet tooth. A really big sweet tooth! Thank goodness! Because of this sweet tooth she is willing to attempt recipes out of the ‘healthy’ cookbooks and websites after I’ve looked around and liked the pictures enough to ask if she’ll make them. Alyx likes being in the kitchen as well between the two of them the recipes actually get tried. Mia has made Almond Flour Pancakes out of desperation because we tossed the Bisquick mix a while back. (I personally think the hunt for sugary foods is a big motivator for her to spend the night with friends.)
Yesterday I mentioned that some kind of cookie would be cool & I thought there might be some coconut flour left over still in the fridge and Alyx hunted down a recipe online. We modified it (just a teeny bit) and next thing you know…viola!…we had Coconut Butter Cookies! They were good!
The recipe:
Coconut Butter Cookies
These cookies taste great (a lot like a macaroon), are low in sugars and starches, gluten-free, and a great source of energy. They are also fast and easy to mix up; clean-up is easy, too.
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), very soft or slightly melted and creamy
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 t stevia powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs
1/2 cup sifted coconut flour
2 cups unsweetened grated coconut: fine, coarse or combination
Makes 24 cookies
Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease cookie sheet
Mix together soft butter, sugar, and stevia. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well.
Add coconut flour and grated coconut; mix well.
Drop cookie dough by spoonfuls or dough scoop onto pan one inch apart (cookies don’t spread).
I picked up a cookbook a couple weeks back, trying to find something in hand for recipes. I don’t care what ‘they’ say…I’ll always prefer an actual book to the electronic version. This is part of the appeal of us making one of our own up at the gym. I like books of all kinds but especially love cookbooks. I can’t remember how I ended up being by myself but there I was so off I went to Barnes & Noble to try and find something to specifically work with almond flour. Would you believe that out of all the cookbooks there only found ONE that would work! Crazy! That book ended up being the Everyday Grain-Free Gourmet by Jodi Bager and Jenny Lass. In the intro there is a really interesting read about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), its history and its benefits. It made total sense in light of what I believe about what we should and shouldn’t eat.
That lead me to the official website for the SCD where I found some great info about this diet and its benefits.
From the FAQs on the website…
The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) is a strict grain-free, lactose-free, and sucrose-free dietary regimen intended for those suffering from Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Celiac Disease, IBD, and IBS.
Of all dietary components, carbohydrates have the greatest influence on intestinal microbes (yeast and bacteria) which are believed to be involved in intestinal disorders. Most intestinal microbes require carbohydrates for energy. The SCD works by severely limiting the availability of carbohydrates to intestinal microbes. When carbohydrates are not digested, they are not absorbed. They remain in the intestinal tract, thus encouraging microbes to multiply by providing food for them. This can lead to the formation of acids and toxins which can injure the small intestine. Once bacteria multiply within the small intestine, they can destroy the enzymes on the intestinal cell surface, preventing carbohydrate digestion and absorption. At this point, production of excessive mucus may be triggered as the intestinal tract attempts to “lubricate” itself against the irritation caused by the toxins, acids, and the presence of incompletely digested and unabsorbed carbohydrates.
The SCD is based on the principle that specifically selected carbohydrates requiring minimal digestion are well absorbed, leaving virtually nothing for intestinal microbes to feed on. As the microbes decrease due to lack of food, their harmful by-products also diminish. No longer needing protection, the mucus producing cells stop producing excessive mucus and carbohydrate digestion is improved. The SCD corrects malabsorption, allowing nutrients to enter the bloodstream and be made available to the cells of the body, thereby strengthening the immune system’s ability to fight. Further debilitation is prevented, weight can return to normal, and ultimately there is a return to health.
The SCD was developed by Dr. Sydney Valentine Haas, and is described in his book, “The Management of Celiac Disease”. Elaine Gottschall’s daughter was saved by the SCD, causing Elaine to further research the diet and to describe it in further detail in her own book, “Breaking The Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet”.
For those of us eating Paleo, this information isn’t new. At least not the basic benefits of ditching grains. What I liked about this diet is the way the benefits are explained for this group of illnesses and diseases. It is all one more argument in the case against the typical diet. Our bodies are not designed to process what 99% of us insist on eating and the signs that we’re eating the wrong things are everywhere. The difference between the SCD and Gluten-free dieting is that allowance of grains (sans gluten) in the diet. I, personally, don’t believe the removal of glutens from grains makes them acceptable to the body in such a way that allows them to consumed and not do harm. Read the info in the opening of the cookbook. Read the info on the website. It’s good stuff. I’ll post recipes and meal ideas more regularly.
I need new ideas for snacking…and fruit. I am sooo not interested in fruit right now. Besides buying it out of guilt. What I want are the brownies that Stephanie R. made for the Paleo Party. They were ridiculous! I need to email her anyway to see where she’s been. I’ll ask and pass it along. You’re welcome in advance.
So I was searching around on my Simply Recipes google gadget because it’s on my google page and this search lead to that search which led to this result and then I found one for apple recipes. Hmmm…apples sound ok. I’m at least not opposed. (For some reason I can hear Stephanie C saying that last line and I’m cracking myself up! She’s very funny.) Anyhoo…I found a Waldorf Salad recipe. I’d never thought of a Waldorf Salad before. I mean, why would I? It sounds wonderful, especially when you add in Canola mayonnaise instead of any of the other soy oil based mayos. This week! Then there was Persimmon Pomegranate Fruit Salad. I don’t know about persimmons but I’m open to trying anything once. And then there was Bacon-wrapped Pork Loin. Okay…there’s no apple involved in that one and I honestly don’t know how I found that recipe but I like the sound of it and there aren’t many ingredients. There is already thought going into what food to bring to the post No Excuses Challenge Party and I’d like to bring something good. I may bring the Waldorf Salad and curl my lip and raise a pinky when eating it and say cheerio and tut-tut and all that. That would crack me up.
The ideal – (from CrossFit.com)
The CrossFit dietary prescription is as follows:
Protein should be lean and varied and account for about 30% of your total caloric load.
Carbohydrates should be predominantly low-glycemic and account for about 40% of your total caloric load.
Fat should be predominantly monounsaturated and account for about 30% of your total caloric load.
Calories should be set at between .7 and 1.0 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass depending on your activity level. The .7 figure is for moderate daily workout loads and the 1.0 figure is for the hardcore athlete.
What Should I Eat?
In plain language, base your diet on garden vegetables, especially greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar. That’s about as simple as we can get. Many have observed that keeping your grocery cart to the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the aisles is a great way to protect your health. Food is perishable. The stuff with long shelf life is all suspect. If you follow these simple guidelines you will benefit from nearly all that can be achieved through nutrition.
Life at it’s simplest is also at it’s finest. I believe that food at its most basic is what we are designed to eat. While science can and has improved many, many areas of life (lightbulbs, airbags, air conditioning…) the more food is “fixed” or “improved” the more it is polluted as far as our bodies are concerned. The “improvements” are most often for the sake of shelf life, not health. If that box of noodles can sit on the shelf for 4 weeks it has a great chance of being purchased. The moment fruit has a dark-ish color it is getting passed by. We get more out of the fruit.
This will be an ongoing topic…what to eat. I get the difficulties. Life is busy. Kids won’t eat the non-fun stuff. I’m on the go all day. I’m living it, too. What I hope is happening every where is that folks are choosing quality over quantity. Quantity is making us fat. It’s time to be food snobs!
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