Fad Diets – Paleo, Wheat Belly – Just Eat Real

Posting from my friend Judi Finneran’s post today. I agree 100% with what she’s saying. She and I did our 60-day Juice-fest together. Let me know what you think.

Wheat Belly, The Paleo Caveman Diet, Dr Atkins and Eat to Live

Let me just start off this post by saying very clearly, I am not a doctor, a dietician, a nutritionist, a scientist or an expert of any kind in the field of healthy eating.  I am simply a person who has battled weight my entire adult life and have spent the same amount of time in personal study, reading, trying, living and coming to finally understand what healthy eating is for me.  Being almost 200 pounds overweight at one time, did not in any way diminish my knowledge of calories, carbs, fats, food combining, healthy eating etc. I just did not always choose to act on what I knew to be true for me.

For the past several days I have been listening to the book Wheat Belly, by William Davis, MD.  While I was initially drawn to reading the book due to my own loveof starch carbs (give me a potato or a chocolate any day) I was underwhelmed to say the least and frightened by some of the information espoused in the Wheat Belly Diet.  90% of what I heard, in MY OPINION, was complete hooey as much as I would have loved to believe it.  Anyone who tells me I can grab a block of high fat cheese for breakfast, not worry about how much I eat and still lose weight causes me to drop to my knees, saying “tell me it’s true.”   Suggesting fried eggs as a great breakfast nearly made me trip on the sidewalk.  I do agree with the points made about we eat too much junk and many of them are wheat, bagels, pretzels, crackers, etc.  But overall, listening to this book made me fearful for people reading it.  It is just another fad diet, again in my opinion and designed to excite those who worship at the alter of a highly saturated fat diet.

Which brings me to other very popular fad diet book out there right now, The Paleo Diet.  The author is Loren Cordain, Ph.D., the world’s leading expert on Paleolithic diets.  Seriously, how many experts on there on the Paleo Diet to make him the leading expert?  When I hear people talking about “The Paleo Diet”, I picture plates loaded with big bloody slabs of beef.  And as in Wheat Belly, carbs are the enemy.  Not just junk food carbs, but also vegetables.  I would like to find one physician who would ever tell a patient to eat more red meat.  To me, this was Wheat Belly was a caveman slant, designed to attract real men who eat meat.  Right.

To me, in my opinion, these are both just redressed versions of the Atkins Diet of the 70′s and 80′s.  The same old stuff in a new outfit, out to fool an new bunch of people.  The reason I keep stressing in my opinion is because I am not an expert.  I am just someone who has never, ever, not even once heard of someone dying from eating too many vegetables.   I was a server in a restaurant when the Atkins Diet was in its heyday. I most often worked the breakfast shift and the most common meal was steak and eggs.  The eggs were either fried or scrambled with cheese added.  Again, seriously.  Oh and no toast.  And we all remember how Dr Atkins died, right?

I admit it, I am a true believer in Eat to Live, Nutritarian Lifestyle by Dr Joel Fuhrman.  It just makes sense to me and I don’t see anything in there which could possibly kill me.  Fresh whole fruits, tons of veggies, no processed foods, healthy whole oils, no added salt or sugar.  Just whole, healthy clean food.  Dr Fuhrman and Eat to Live has stood the test of time and there are 1000′s of long term success stories to back every thing up.

Come learn more about Dr Fuhrman, Eat to Live, Nutritarian Lifestyles in my Dr Fuhrman’s Eat to Live – Nutritarian Plant Based Diet and see for yourself…

Teaching Healthy Living and Eating to Live,

Juicy Judi, Living Vegan

Reboot 30 – Day 6

Made it through the Super Bowl Party relatively unscathed – I knew chocolate covered cherry jello shooters are probably not in the Top Ten Healthiest Foods category, but hey, this is a juice fest not a fast and daaaay-um they were tasty! And I’m not gonna consider it a real cheat because I didn’t chew, but I did inhale 😉

I used to eat a lot of Jello back in the 80s – it was considered a diet food. Then I became completely intolerant of artificial sweetners and quit eating it. The lady that made the jello shots last night assured me hers were not from sugar free jello and she was right because I get terrible migraines within 20 minutes of ingesting artificial sweetners especially NutriSweet.

Being curious because I’ve not had Jello in so long, I looked up the label. Wow, what the heck is all that stuff? Apart from my current juice fest, I avoid processed foods in general and I can tell you that no matter how tasty those jello shots were, I’m not having any more jello!

My honey started this juice fest with me (wow – I love him!) But he started going through the normal detox symptoms and he caved.

If you are thinking of doing a juice fest and are concerned about encoutering the same kinds of detox symptoms (headaches, body aches, lethargy, depression, cravings) the detox process is normal. The severity of the symptoms is equal to the level of toxicity in your body and its dependence on sugar or starchy carbohydrates (which is really the same thing.)

Sugar, an addiction the food industry is pushing hard.

Just as a side note, the body metabolizes both sugar and starchy foods causing the same insulin release and physiological opiod dependence in the brain as heroin. That’s why some people crave sweets and others crave breads & pasta – same addiction. Me? My drug of choice was bread & pasta.

The worst sympotoms of sugar detox are, I think, somewhat ameliorated in a juice fest because you’re getting so many good healthy nutrients and no processed sugars or starches. Also, I use and suggest making juices in a rainbow with mostly greens – basically 80% vegetables & 20% fruits, so while you are still getting fructose it is balanced with the nourishment of the carrots, apples, pears, etc. 

From various chats and social media conversations, the concensus of folks going through the change from their old eating habits to juicing exclusively for 30 to more days is after the first 3 to 5 days, the detox type symptoms subside. After that you start to really feel the energy and positive mood that is the gift of healthy living.

My honey is still juicing off and on each day, and he knows what it has done for my health and attitudes, so maybe he’ll come around in his time at his pace – we all do, or not.

Day 56 – Protein: Is the Cow Safe?

More folks are starting to notice the change I’m going through and asking about what I’m doing. I spoke with a lady last night about my juicing. She is wondering if she can fix her cholesterol problem with diet alone as her doctor wants to put her on pills. She’s concerned enough to have made an appointment with an ND. I told her to get the 2 movies Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead and Forks over Knives. I also told her juicing was making me feel great: lots of energy, sleeping better, no more feeling the endless insatiable cravings.

First question she asked was where are you getting your protein? That’s usually one of the first questions I’m asked when people learn I’m juicing for 60 days.

I too, asked myself the same question when I started. My sister the physical therapist was very concerned. And here’s what I’ve learned from a variety of nutrition sites, not all vegan/vegetarian, either And a lot has to do with what you consider a serving, too – most of these figures are for a cup or 100g serving.

Protein in Legumes: lentils (8 g), black beans (8 g), kidney beans (8 g), chickpeas (12 g), pinto beans (7 g), black-eyed peas (7 g)

Protein in Grain: brown rice (5 g), buckwheat (8 g), millet (8 g), oatmeal(9 g) , quinoa (8 g), wheat (7 g), wild rice (8 g)

Vegetable Protein: Artichokes (4 g), beets (2 g), broccoli (4 g), brussels sprouts (3 g), cauliflower (2 g),  kale (10 g), lettuce, mushroom (3 g), peas (9 g), potatoes (2 g), spinach (5 g), tomatoes (6 g),   yams (2 g).

 Protein in Fruit: Apple, banana, cantaloupe, grape, grapefruit, honeydew melon, orange, papaya, peach, pear, pineapple, strawberry, tangerine, watermelon

Protein in Nuts and Seeds: Almonds (5 g), cashews (5 g), peanuts (6 g), pumpkin seeds, (8 g) sesame seeds (6 g), sunflower seeds (7 g), walnuts (English) (7 g)

Additionally,super greens like spirulina and chlorella provide an excellent source of protein (70% to 90% in some cases).

So the next question is how much protein do you need? According to Eat to Live By Joel Fuhrman, almost any assortment of plant foods contain about 30 to 40 grams of protein per 1,000 calories, easily meeting Furhman’s recommended range of 40 to 70 g protein per 1,200 to 1,800 calorie day.

Additionally, Dr. Colin T. Campbell’s The China Study, based on 20 years of research sums it up, “People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease… People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease. The results could not be ignored.”

So to my sister and to my friend I say, I’m alert, energetic, my hair looks great and my nails are strong enough to use as screwdrivers (!) so I’m getting plenty of protein.

The cows in my neighborhood are safe!