The US and Sweden have both conducted a long term study to determine the effectiveness of weight loss surgery. The results are in and it appears that the surgeries save lives and produce lasting weight loss. Now that there is support for the proceedures, insurance companies may be more willing to pay for them and the guidelines may be lowered so that more people can be put under the knife. The article is available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20395008/wid/11915773?gt1=10252.
The Swedish study found that the surgery group lost 14 to 25% of their weight compared to 2% from the non-surgery group. The death rate was 5% for the surgery group and 6% for the non surgery group.
The US study took 7,000 plus surgery patients and compared them to the same number of obese people. They found the obese people by looking at height and weight on driver's licenses. After 7 years, 2.6% of the surgery patients were dead compared to 4% of the driver's license people. This study did not look at weight loss.
They also found that people who have the surgeries are more likely to die from accidents, suicide and other non-disease related deaths but they couldn't explain this phenomenom.
Before you sign up for gastric bypass, there are some problems with the studies and with the surgery. So stop and think before you go under.
First, people undergoing weight loss surgeries are given detailed diet instruction months before they go under. They have to prove that they are willing to do what it takes to lose weight before a surgeon will cut them open. These people see a Registered Dietitian on a regular basis months before and months after. You still have to follow a rigid diet after the surgery because the stomach will grow again if you eat too much.
So what the studies are comparing is a group of committed people who have constant support to a group of people who have no support and aren't all that committed. For the study to be really good, they should have given the same diet instruction and support to the non-surgery group.
The US study is a load of crap, pardon my French. They didn't even look at weight loss and they compared the committed and supported people to people who weren't even trying to lose weight and, therefore, most likely had terrrible health habits which would explain the extra deaths.
A very strict low fat diet has to be followed for gastric bypass. After the bypass, you go on a liquid diet and gradually increase diet consistency, but the surgery and lack of nutrition leaves you open to nutrient deficiencies. These deficiencies and lack of fat and cholesterol are probably why there are more suicides and accidents in the surgery group. Low fat diets also cause gall bladder disease so you are likely to have to go under the knife again to remove the gall bladder.
A much better and safer way to lose weight is to eat whole, unprocessed foods, limit carbs (72 grams is ideal, but keep it under 120 at least) and eat lots of saturated fat. Get some exercise and limit portion sizes. This way, you get to eat food that actually tastes good, supplies your body with the nutrients it needs to stay healthy and it satisfies so you don't feel hungry again in an hour.
Also, learn to recognize the truth about who you are. You are not what you weigh and your worth as a person has nothing to do with the size of your body. And you don't need to look like the people on magazine covers. They don't even look like that, so stop believing the lies.
You are a beautiful, talented and unique individual who was created by God for a purpose. Focus on your purpose, not your weight.
Showing posts with label diet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diet. Show all posts
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
The Rise of ADHD
ADHD has been declared a real disease that appears to be linked to changes in the brain chemical, dopamine. (Read the full article here http://health.msn.com/centers/adhd/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100167402>1=10316)
Maybe we should look at our food supply to see if there is a correlation between new fangeled processed foods and dopamine production.
It just so happens that there is an ingredient in processed foods that lowers dopamine production. Most people believe this ingredient is a health food and we even feed it to children in the school cafeteria.
The ingredient is soy. Many infants are being raised on soy formula. Soy flour is put in most breads on the market. Soy lecithin is in just about every processed food. And soy is used to replace some meat in the school cafeteria to create lower fat meals. Soy milk consumption is growing as people seek alternatives to cow's milk.
Most engergy bars and protein shakes contain soy protein isolate and we seem to be consuming more of these foods. Smoothies are now popular and many people add a protein boost that is usually soy based. And most fast food contains soy.
The bottom line is that soy is impossible to avoid unless you eat only whole unprocessed foods. It is interesting that ADHD is increasing along with our intake of soy.
The brain uses the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine to produce dopamine. Soy affects the activity of tyrosine hydroxylase, an enzyme that converts tyrosine to dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) which is a precursor to dopamine.
Soy depletes dopamine levels which is now believed to be a cause of ADHD.
So, read ingredients and avoid anything with soy flour, soy protein isolate and soy lecithin if you can. (Avoiding soy lecithin is difficult because it is in everything). If you send your kids to school, pack them a lunch instead of sending them to the cafeteria. Do not give children soy milk or other soy based products. I recommend raw milk from a grass fed cow if it's available. But no milk is better than soy milk.
Eat real food and you won't have to worry about all these new fangeled diseases.
Maybe we should look at our food supply to see if there is a correlation between new fangeled processed foods and dopamine production.
It just so happens that there is an ingredient in processed foods that lowers dopamine production. Most people believe this ingredient is a health food and we even feed it to children in the school cafeteria.
The ingredient is soy. Many infants are being raised on soy formula. Soy flour is put in most breads on the market. Soy lecithin is in just about every processed food. And soy is used to replace some meat in the school cafeteria to create lower fat meals. Soy milk consumption is growing as people seek alternatives to cow's milk.
Most engergy bars and protein shakes contain soy protein isolate and we seem to be consuming more of these foods. Smoothies are now popular and many people add a protein boost that is usually soy based. And most fast food contains soy.
The bottom line is that soy is impossible to avoid unless you eat only whole unprocessed foods. It is interesting that ADHD is increasing along with our intake of soy.
The brain uses the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine to produce dopamine. Soy affects the activity of tyrosine hydroxylase, an enzyme that converts tyrosine to dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) which is a precursor to dopamine.
Soy depletes dopamine levels which is now believed to be a cause of ADHD.
So, read ingredients and avoid anything with soy flour, soy protein isolate and soy lecithin if you can. (Avoiding soy lecithin is difficult because it is in everything). If you send your kids to school, pack them a lunch instead of sending them to the cafeteria. Do not give children soy milk or other soy based products. I recommend raw milk from a grass fed cow if it's available. But no milk is better than soy milk.
Eat real food and you won't have to worry about all these new fangeled diseases.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Diet Soda: Is it really better than regular?
It appears that, just like regular soda, more than 1 diet soda a day may increase the risk of heart disease. (See the full story at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070723/ap_on_he_me/diet_soda_heart_risks;_ylt=AgYTL.eDQUYZxaKfshgASg8DW7oF).
Nutrition expert, Barry Popkin, and American Beverage Association president, Susan Neely, can't fathom how a beverage with no calories could contribute to bulging waistlines. They believe we should drink diet soda instead of regular soda. I'm guessing they believe bulging waistlines are the only link from soda to heart disease and excess calories are the only way to gain weight.
I looked up "diet soda and weight loss" on pubmed.com and 3 articles showed up. One of them, published in the International Journal of Food Science Nutrition in May 2007, involved 2 groups of teens. One group was put on a 1500 calorie diet but allowed a 150 calorie snack and the other group, on the same diet, was allowed a no-calorie snack.
The conclusion was that there was no difference in weight loss between the teens that had a regular soda for a snack vs a diet soda.
The other 2 studies had nothing to do with diet soda or weight.
If calorie intake is the only determinate for weight gain/loss/maintenance, then why have our waistlines bulged since the introduction of artificial sweeteners? Could it be that something other than calories may contribute to obesity?
Appetite is regulated by hormones and brain chemicals and these play a role in our weight. The hormone insulin causes us to store fat, so foods that trigger insulin make us fatter. Carbohydrates are the only calorie source that trigger insulin. Fat and protein do not. The diet we are told to eat, based on the food guide pyramid, is a high carbohydrate diet and it is no wonder we are all getting fat.
While aspartame, the artificial sweetener in diet soda, does not contain calories, it does contain an amino acid that blocks the production of serotonin, a chemical in the brain that controls food cravings. A lack of serotonin causes the body to scream out for foods that will increase serotonin production. And those foods happen to be carbohydrates.
So lets get this straight. Aspartame in diet soda has the ability to increase our cravings for foods that make us fat. Somehow, I don't think that's going to help with any weight loss goals, even if there are no calories in the diet soda.
And here's a freebie. Aspartame also raises blood pressure which is a risk factor for heart disease. If you have high blood pressure and you drink diet soda, stop drinking it and see what happens. You may be able to get off some medication.
The bottom line is diet soda is poison to the body. Regular soda isn't much better, but it's a lot safer than diet soda.
I recommend not drinking soda period. But I realize that most people can't live with that. So here's what you do. Avoid diet soda completely. Limit regular soda, preferrably one that doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup, to no more than 1 12 oz can a day. No supersizing allowed.
If you are a soda junkie, you are going to have to reduce your cravings first. Let's say you drink 6 sodas a day. Next week, drink 5 sodas a day. The week after that, drink 4 per day and so on until you are down to 1 soda a day. If you can, get down to 1 soda a week.
Achieving a healthy weight involves a lot more than just calorie control. You have to feed your body the nutrients it needs to do all the things it needs to do. And interestingly enough, most of those nutrients are in animal fat and those that aren't require fat to be absorbed properly.
So, skip the diet foods and eat your butter. You'll end up controlling calories naturally and you'll see your waistline shrink.
Nutrition expert, Barry Popkin, and American Beverage Association president, Susan Neely, can't fathom how a beverage with no calories could contribute to bulging waistlines. They believe we should drink diet soda instead of regular soda. I'm guessing they believe bulging waistlines are the only link from soda to heart disease and excess calories are the only way to gain weight.
I looked up "diet soda and weight loss" on pubmed.com and 3 articles showed up. One of them, published in the International Journal of Food Science Nutrition in May 2007, involved 2 groups of teens. One group was put on a 1500 calorie diet but allowed a 150 calorie snack and the other group, on the same diet, was allowed a no-calorie snack.
The conclusion was that there was no difference in weight loss between the teens that had a regular soda for a snack vs a diet soda.
The other 2 studies had nothing to do with diet soda or weight.
If calorie intake is the only determinate for weight gain/loss/maintenance, then why have our waistlines bulged since the introduction of artificial sweeteners? Could it be that something other than calories may contribute to obesity?
Appetite is regulated by hormones and brain chemicals and these play a role in our weight. The hormone insulin causes us to store fat, so foods that trigger insulin make us fatter. Carbohydrates are the only calorie source that trigger insulin. Fat and protein do not. The diet we are told to eat, based on the food guide pyramid, is a high carbohydrate diet and it is no wonder we are all getting fat.
While aspartame, the artificial sweetener in diet soda, does not contain calories, it does contain an amino acid that blocks the production of serotonin, a chemical in the brain that controls food cravings. A lack of serotonin causes the body to scream out for foods that will increase serotonin production. And those foods happen to be carbohydrates.
So lets get this straight. Aspartame in diet soda has the ability to increase our cravings for foods that make us fat. Somehow, I don't think that's going to help with any weight loss goals, even if there are no calories in the diet soda.
And here's a freebie. Aspartame also raises blood pressure which is a risk factor for heart disease. If you have high blood pressure and you drink diet soda, stop drinking it and see what happens. You may be able to get off some medication.
The bottom line is diet soda is poison to the body. Regular soda isn't much better, but it's a lot safer than diet soda.
I recommend not drinking soda period. But I realize that most people can't live with that. So here's what you do. Avoid diet soda completely. Limit regular soda, preferrably one that doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup, to no more than 1 12 oz can a day. No supersizing allowed.
If you are a soda junkie, you are going to have to reduce your cravings first. Let's say you drink 6 sodas a day. Next week, drink 5 sodas a day. The week after that, drink 4 per day and so on until you are down to 1 soda a day. If you can, get down to 1 soda a week.
Achieving a healthy weight involves a lot more than just calorie control. You have to feed your body the nutrients it needs to do all the things it needs to do. And interestingly enough, most of those nutrients are in animal fat and those that aren't require fat to be absorbed properly.
So, skip the diet foods and eat your butter. You'll end up controlling calories naturally and you'll see your waistline shrink.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Why Saturated Fat is Good For You
In the early 1900's, we heart disease was rare and usually consisted of congestive heart failure. Miocardial infarctions were unheard of until about 10 years after the introduction of Crisco, a trans fat.
Back in the early 1900's, we ate 18 lbs of butter a year. In 1990, that number dropped to 5 lbs a year. During that time, vegetable oil intake increase by 40%. So, while we were decreasing saturated fat and increasing polyunsaturated fat, we developed obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
If you refer back to the little chemistry lesson, you'll remember that saturated fat is the most stable of the fats. It does not go rancid as quickly, even when heated. Rancid fats produce free radicals, those nasty things that destroy your cells and cause disease. Eating saturated fat produces fewer free radicals and may even help get rid of them.
Butter contains nutrients that are good for the heart. Vitamin A helps the heart function properly. Lecithin is needed for the proper assimilation and metabolism of cholesterol. The fat surrounding the heart is mostly saturated and it is that fat that the heart draws on for energy.
Here is an interesting side note. Have you ever heard of heart cancer? I haven't either. You want to know why? The heart gets it's energy from fat (the saturated fat surrounding it). Cancer cannot grow on fat, it needs sugar. That should tell us something, I think.
Anyway, back to the saturated fat. Butter also helps protect against cancer with it's vitamin A and E, selenium and cholesterol (which, by the way, is an antioxidant). And because butter contains fat, you actually get to absorb the vitamins and antioxidants so your body can use them.
Coconut oil and butter contain immune enhancing properties and are great for the lungs. These are the best things to eat if you have asthma. The protective lining in the lungs is composed of saturated fat.
Coconut oil and butter are also more likely to be burned as energy rather than stored as fat, so they aid in losing weight or maintaining an ideal weight.
Saturated fat is necessary to put calcium into your bones. I wonder if the increase in osteoporosis is due to our lowfat diet.
Saturated fat and cholesterol are the building blocks of the hormones, including testosterone and estrogen. Our lowfat diet is providing a market for drugs like viagra and women are suffering menopausal problems. More and more women are also having difficulty bearing children (soy plays a role in this as does our lowfat diet).
While cutting out the fat and replacing saturated fat with vegetable oil, we have developed heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, infertility, ADHD and other wonderful diseases that require medication to treat.
We are indoctrinated into the lowfat cult from birth. Even in dietetics school, we are told that saturated fat is bad, but we aren't given any proof for this assumption.
The French eat lots of saturated fat, yet have way less heart disease and obesity than we do. Since the French don't fit in with the lipid hypothesis, we call it a paradox and blame the wine for the lower heart disease.
Well, I personally, would rather eat a high saturated fat diet with some red wine than a tasteless diet of cardboard and plastic to prevent disease. The French diet obviously works better than our lowfat diet and I can guarantee you it tastes a whole lot better.
So, eat your saturated fat. It's what your body needs.
Back in the early 1900's, we ate 18 lbs of butter a year. In 1990, that number dropped to 5 lbs a year. During that time, vegetable oil intake increase by 40%. So, while we were decreasing saturated fat and increasing polyunsaturated fat, we developed obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
If you refer back to the little chemistry lesson, you'll remember that saturated fat is the most stable of the fats. It does not go rancid as quickly, even when heated. Rancid fats produce free radicals, those nasty things that destroy your cells and cause disease. Eating saturated fat produces fewer free radicals and may even help get rid of them.
Butter contains nutrients that are good for the heart. Vitamin A helps the heart function properly. Lecithin is needed for the proper assimilation and metabolism of cholesterol. The fat surrounding the heart is mostly saturated and it is that fat that the heart draws on for energy.
Here is an interesting side note. Have you ever heard of heart cancer? I haven't either. You want to know why? The heart gets it's energy from fat (the saturated fat surrounding it). Cancer cannot grow on fat, it needs sugar. That should tell us something, I think.
Anyway, back to the saturated fat. Butter also helps protect against cancer with it's vitamin A and E, selenium and cholesterol (which, by the way, is an antioxidant). And because butter contains fat, you actually get to absorb the vitamins and antioxidants so your body can use them.
Coconut oil and butter contain immune enhancing properties and are great for the lungs. These are the best things to eat if you have asthma. The protective lining in the lungs is composed of saturated fat.
Coconut oil and butter are also more likely to be burned as energy rather than stored as fat, so they aid in losing weight or maintaining an ideal weight.
Saturated fat is necessary to put calcium into your bones. I wonder if the increase in osteoporosis is due to our lowfat diet.
Saturated fat and cholesterol are the building blocks of the hormones, including testosterone and estrogen. Our lowfat diet is providing a market for drugs like viagra and women are suffering menopausal problems. More and more women are also having difficulty bearing children (soy plays a role in this as does our lowfat diet).
While cutting out the fat and replacing saturated fat with vegetable oil, we have developed heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, infertility, ADHD and other wonderful diseases that require medication to treat.
We are indoctrinated into the lowfat cult from birth. Even in dietetics school, we are told that saturated fat is bad, but we aren't given any proof for this assumption.
The French eat lots of saturated fat, yet have way less heart disease and obesity than we do. Since the French don't fit in with the lipid hypothesis, we call it a paradox and blame the wine for the lower heart disease.
Well, I personally, would rather eat a high saturated fat diet with some red wine than a tasteless diet of cardboard and plastic to prevent disease. The French diet obviously works better than our lowfat diet and I can guarantee you it tastes a whole lot better.
So, eat your saturated fat. It's what your body needs.
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