Perfect Health Diet – Week 2

It’s been over week so far and I’m starting to settle in to my new routine. Eating some fruit or starch every 3-5 hours seems to be the ticket for keeping my blood sugar stable. I really do need to keep it to one serving at a time (one small piece of fruit; half cup of starchy veg or rice) or else I activate the carb monster who just wants to keep eating and eating. I only eat the starches with meals so they’re paired with protein and fat. I do sometimes eat fruit on its own for snacks, and thankfully, that doesn't seem to cause any issues – maybe it’s the fiber and water that naturally comes packaged in fruit…

I have noticed that I’m a little more emotional lately. It’s not the horrendous mood swings of my high carb days, but it’s noticeable to me. I haven’t had any melt-downs or anything, I just feel little more raw. I will stay tuned in to this and see if this evens out, becomes my new normal, or what. As long as I don’t start going off on Cute Man like I did in the past, I think it’s OK.

One thing I have been emotional about is my weight. When will I just get over this? I am determined not to weigh myself for at least the next month, to give this a real shot. My clothes all fit fine, but I feel like an extra little roll has returned around my middle. Is that just from my glycogen refilling?

As these thoughts swirled around in my brain, making me doubt the road I’m on, I came across Stacy’s post about Fat Phobia today. It galls me to know that after all I've been through, all I've earned, I am STILL hung up about my weight. Reading that made me confront the fact that despite my lip service to acceptance, I am still on a weight loss journey. I talk about focusing on health first, but I really want that to result in losing excess fat.

I am quite familiar with the concept of Fat Acceptance and was very into the idea of Health at Every Size prior to discovering Paleo. I still hold to those ideas intellectually, but have refined them a bit. Trying to eat intuitively (as I did for two years), without the knowledge that wheat, in particular, stimulates appetite and makes me eat more than I need, was not effective. It felt great to not “worry about my weight”, but it did not feel good to keep getting bigger and bigger with no end in sight. I also had horrible heartburn, psoriasis, low energy, etc. Finding information about Paleo did resolve those things in time and did help me shed some of my excess fat. I guess at some point I lost sight of the health goals and fell back into the familiar trappings of a weight loss quest. 

I’ve written about this quandary many times here but it’s clear that I’m just not over it or at peace with where I am. There is a lot of work left to do. I’m so glad to have such a great support system – a husband who loves me at any size and friends, like Stacy, who are on a similar path.

Healthy World Cafe will be open for lunch Wednesday, May 22!

Take a break from your day and head down to Healthy World Cafe for lunch Wednesday, May 22. We'll be open from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. serving up healthy, locally sourced eats at First Moravian Church, 39 N. Duke St., York.

This Week's Menu:

• Chicken Rice Soup
• Mushroom Soup
• Seasonal Quiche with Asparagus
• Pulled Pork Sandwich
• Salad Bar
• Chocolate Bread Pudding

At Healthy World Cafe, we always feature our "eat what you want, pay how you can" philosophy.  The ability to pay should never be a barrier to accessing delicious, unprocessed, healthy food.  Take out orders are available by e-mailing your selections (by 10 a.m. May 22) to healthyworldcafe(at)gmail(dot)com.

Interested in volunteering for food prep or serving? Sign up through VolunteerSpot for our April lunch or other upcoming events.

And don't forget our switch to volunteer shifts for Wednesday's lunches: In order to better respect our volunteers' time, we'll be splitting the Wednesday lunch into two volunteer shifts: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and noon to 3 p.m. Feel free, of course, to sign up for both shifts, if you wish.

If you can't volunteer for an exact shift, hey, we understand that, too! We love that you're still eager to help out when you can. We would just ask that, after signing up through VolunteerSpot, that you'd send a quick email to sarah.e.chain(at)gmail(dot)com and let us know when to expect you. That makes it easier for us to plan out volunteer duties.

Check out a calendar of other upcoming events as well, including our June lunch.

And don't miss Healthy World Cafe profiled by FlipSide magazine as a place for "Cheap Eats."

The Goalless Goal

 
Shaolin Training doesn't underestimate a person's strength of body and mind. The masters knew how much we could achieve and they wouldn't let us get away with anything less. The first goal young disciples have when they come to the Shaolin Temple is "Never Give Up." This means the thought of quitting is not a seed in our mind therefore it can never grow into a tree.

While holding this goal, we follow the philosophy of Zen, which is to train just to train. We're told the importance of aimlessness and letting go.
"The harder you try to grab something, the further away it goes," my master told me.

So how does aimlessness and the goal of Never Give Up sit comfortably together? Maybe the word goal should be changed to intention. "It's my intention to never give up." And once that statement is made then it's like sitting on a plane and knowing the destination is Beijing. We don't need to think anymore about where we're heading. Our mind is no longer caught up thinking maybe I should head to Chicago or London instead. There's no way we can get off the plane, so we let go and focus on the journey. The goalless goal is another way of simplifying our life.

For more information visit shifuyanlei.com

The Perfect Health Diet - Take Two!

It’s no secret that I’ve been having a tough time lately in the food department. I’m doing my best to stay positive and get myself back on track. Toward that end, I’m giving the Perfect Health Diet (PHD) another shot. The first attempt was an utter disaster, mostly because it was during the holidays and I was not only incorporating starch and fruit into my diet, I was falling prey to holiday treats (aka sugar). This time around, I’ve got a solid plan in place and it’s going well so far (Day 4 as I write this).

I have determined that sugar just has to be a “no” for me, in the way I view gluten. It’s super scary but I know in my heart it’s true. I’m not saying that I’ll NEVER eat another bit of sugar again, but for now, I’m putting it in that category so I don’t have to think about it or agonize over how much is OK. In a similar vein, I’m avoiding anything that might trigger me. During my first attempt, I tried to make some rice pasta. Big mistake! I fell headfirst into my first bowl of “spaghetti” I’d had in years. Totally sent me over a cliff. For starch, I’m sticking to starchy veggies and rice for now because it’s easy to measure out a half cup and not feel compelled to eat more. If that goes well for a couple weeks, I may try some other things every now and then, but in a portion controlled way (only make enough for that meal so I’m not tempted to eat more).

To keep my blood sugar stable, I’m using what I learned back when I was doing the second step of the Metabolism Miracle. If I limit my carbs to just a single portion (one piece of fruit or about a half cup of starchy veg or rice), I don’t send myself reeling on the blood sugar rollercoaster. I’m incorporating that one portion into each meal and one snack a day, trying to evenly space out my dose of carbs every 3-5 hours. This strategy is keeping my total net carbs to about 100-125 per day, taking into account that there are also small amounts of carbs in the non-starchy veggies and nuts I eat as well.

I am not attempting the intermittent fasting that is an option on the PHD, at least not yet. I’m trying to send the message to my body that there is abundant nutrition – not too much, not too little. My whole day seems to go better when I have a big whack of protein in the morning. I’m doing my best to get in the 3 egg yolks per day, but am otherwise taking it easy on fat. I’m not afraid of it, but I know that with the addition of the carbs, I don’t need quite as much as I did when staying very low carb. I’m still eating regular versions of things (no low fat junk or anything), but I’m cutting back on how much butter and other added fats I cook with and put on my food (not eliminating, just cutting in back).

I’m making vats of bone broth in my crock pot and drinking it by the mug-full as well as using it to flavor my food (cooking rice in it, reducing it down for sauces, making soups). My nails are the strongest I’ve ever seen them (I’ve been hard core about the broth for about a month at this point). Another benefit is that the flavor it adds to food is a good way to reduce the amount of fat I want use. I alternate making chicken and beef broth since those are my favorites.

It’s only been a few days, but I’m feeling pretty good so far. I’m keeping up with my Smarter Science of Slim workouts, which are low in time commitment and high in results. It’s amazing how strong I’m getting! There is something about following through on a plan that really boosts my mood and confidence. And with only two 15 minutes workouts to worry about, it’s pretty easy to keep that commitment.

I should also mention that I'm continuing to keep the focus OFF weight loss. That tends to make me a bit crazy. My goal is to take the very best care of me and do the things that I know will help me feel my best.

Any updates on your end? What have you been doing lately to further your healthy goals? 

The Neurobiology of the Obesity Epidemic

I recently read an interesting review paper by Dr. Edmund T. Rolls titled "Taste, olfactory and food texture reward processing in the brain and the control of appetite" that I'll discuss in this post (1).  Dr. Rolls is a prolific neuroscience researcher at Oxford who focuses on "the brain mechanisms of perception, memory, emotion and feeding, and thus of perceptual, memory, emotional and appetite disorders."  His website is here.

The first half of the paper is technical and discusses some of Dr. Rolls' findings on how specific brain areas process sensory and reward information, and how individual neurons can integrate multiple sensory signals during this process.  I recommend reading it if you have the background and interest, but I'm not going to cover it here.  The second half of the paper is an attempt to explain the obesity epidemic based on what he knows about the brain and other aspects of human biology.

Read more »

Speaking at AHS13

The 2013 Ancestral Health Symposium will be held in Atlanta, GA, August 14-17.  Last year was a great conference, and I look forward to more informative talks and networking.  Tickets go fast, so reserve yours now if you plan to attend!

This year, I'll be speaking on insulin and obesity.  My talk will be titled "Insulin and Obesity: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence".  In this talk, I'll present the evidence for and against the idea that elevated insulin contributes to the development of obesity.  One hypothesis states that elevated insulin contributes to obesity, while the other states that elevated insulin is caused by obesity and does not contribute to it.  Both sides of the debate present evidence that appears compelling, and it often seems like each side is talking past the other rather than trying to incorporate all of the evidence into a larger, more powerful model.

There's a lot evidence that can be brought to bear on this question, but much of it hasn't reached the public yet.  I'll explore a broad swath of evidence from clinical case studies, observational studies, controlled trials, animal research, physiology, and cell biology to test the two competing hypotheses and outline a model that can explain all of the seemingly conflicting data.  Much of this information hasn't appeared on this blog.  My goal is to put together a talk that will be informative to a researcher but also accessible to an informed layperson.

On a separate note, my AHS12 talk "Digestive Health, Inflammation and the Metabolic Syndrome" has not been posted online because the video recording of my talk has mysteriously disappeared.  I think many WHS readers would be interested in the talk, since it covers research on the important and interdependent influence of gut health, inflammation, and psychological stress on the metabolic syndrome (the quintessential modern metabolic disorder).  I'm going to try to find time to make a narrated slideshow so I can post it on YouTube.