Tag: Dieting

Fasting

Fasting has been around in many different cultures for centuries. Fasting is a form of clearing out your system. If you’ve ever fasted, I am sure you realize that it is an emotional and physical challenge; yet it is a challenge worth persevering through.

In fact, Dr. Brian Clements, of the Hippocrates Health Institute, is a big advocate of fasting and feels that fasting one day per week can extend your life. The premise is that harmful toxins are stored in your fat, and when you go without food for an extended period of time, your body uses fat as an energy source. When the fat breaks down, toxins are released. Some other benefits of fasting include giving your digestive system a much needed rest, allowing your body to detox and cleanse, promoting mental clarity, increasing energy levels, clearing up your skin, helping with weight loss, improving your immune system, and increasing white blood cell count.

Juicing

Juice fasts became very popular among celebrities a few years ago, and this encouraged many others to climb onto the bandwagon. So many people are now into juice fasting. This is fantastic because fasting is so incredibly healthy. Denise Mari, founder of Organic Avenue in New York, was one of the first instigators of the mainstream market juice craze. She worked together with her partner Doug Evans, to build a hugely successful company, which delivers organic juices right to you, and that’s your food intake for the day. This service is now available in many large cities across North America, through a large variety of companies.

Types of Fasting

  • Long term fasting: abstinence from food or calorie intake for a period over seventy-two hours.
  • Short term fasting: abstinence from food or calorie intake for a period of seventy-two hours or less.
  • Intermittent fasting: occasionally taking a break from eating.
  • Intermittent feeding: taking the  occasional break from fasting to eat during a predetermined window.

Fasting is so beneficial that numerous diet plans have been developed around the concept. Here are some of the most popular:

The Fast Diet

The Fast Diet: The Secret of Intermittent Fasting by Dr. Michael Mosley is very popular in Britain. It encourages intermittent fasting. You eat the way you normally do for five days and fast for two days, consuming about 600 calories for men and 500 for women on the fasting days. Although you might experience some hunger pangs, Dr. Mosley says these pangs eventually pass, and you’ll find that fasting actually sharpens your mental capacity and your senses. You might think two days of fasting could lead to overeating on the no fasting days, yet this was not Dr. Mosley’s experience. Neither did he experience muscle loss. He found the first few fasts the most difficult, yet over time, the diet became easier. After two months, he lost about twenty pounds and says his overall health greatly improved.

Dr. Mosley feels that fasting can lead to weight loss and long term health and wellbeing benefits, including a reduced risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. It gives your pancreas a rest, which boosts the effectiveness of the insulin it produces in response to elevated blood glucose. Increased insulin sensitivity will reduce your risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cognitive decline. The diet also resulted in an overall enhancement of mood and sense of wellbeing, perhaps as a consequence of the brain producing increased levels of neurotropic factor. This diet approach forces you to think about what you eat and when you eat. There is no daily calorie control or deprivation regime like most diet plans. You won’t starve on any given day, and you will still enjoy the foods you love most of the time. Once you lose the weight, sticking to the basic program keeps your weight off because it’s not really a diet. It’s a sustainable strategy for a long, healthy life.

Alternate Day Fasting

A slightly different approach to fasting is Alternate-Day Fasting (ADF), popularized by Dr. James Johnson. Having struggled with weight issues throughout much of his adult life and witnessing his patients’ weight loss challenges, he came up with the Johnson UpDayDownDay Diet, which he describes in his book The Alternate-Day Diet. On this diet, you fast every second day. On fasting days, men are limited to 600 calories and women to 500 calories. These calories must be consumed in one meal, normally lunch.

Intermittent Fasting (IF)

One widely accepted approach to intermittent fasting is going without food for a 12-18 hour stretch. This can be as simple as skipping breakfast. It’s been drilled into our heads forever that we should never miss breakfast; however, this is not necessarily the case.

Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat, has a master’s degree in human biology and nutritional science and is considered a guru of intermittent fasting. His extensive research indicated that one of the keys to longevity is to skip eating. In his book, he recommends two twenty-four-hour fasts a week. “Fat loss starts happening at about 12 to 13 hours and plateaus around 18 hours,” he says. What works for a lot of people is to have an early dinner, no bedtime snack, skip breakfast and enjoy a late lunch. This is a relatively easy way to accomplish an effective fast because you are sleeping through a large portion of it. If you can’t handle doing this twice a week, you’ll still obtain benefits by doing it once per week or even once a month! Human growth hormone goes up, insulin level goes down, cortisol level is stabilized, adrenals become healthy, metabolism is increased, hormones that burn body fat are boosted, and you lose body fat, hunger cravings subside, triglyceride levels drop, and the body adjusts from burning carbohydrates to burning fats.

Extended Fasting

Gabriel Cousens is a holistic physician, homeopath, psychiatrist, family therapist, Ayurvedic practitioner, Chinese herbalist, spiritual master, and founder of Tree of Life Center US. He fasts 2-4 times per year for 7-10 days at a time. Cousens believes that:

“Fasting is perhaps the simplest and most remarkable self-healing approach related to our food intake for re-balancing and clearing the body and mind and elevating the spirit. I call it the elixir of fasting. It is one of the greatest health benefits.”

If you decide to do a long-term fast, you want to avoid muscle loss, which can happen if  you don’t know what you’re doing. First and foremost, it is dependent on the kind of fast you are doing: a water fast, a total fast, or a juice fast. How much fat you have stored in your body and whether you exercise are also factors. Your body has three sources of energy: carbohydrates, which is the preferred fuel for quick energy; fat, which is its next source of energy; and protein. However, the body’s utilization of the three sources of energy is not always in this order. If you exercise during a long-term fast, this can cause muscle loss if you are not properly nurturing your body. Your body’s metabolism will shift to a fat-burning mode called ketosis as a result of fasting or depriving your body of carbohydrates. Both the Atkins and the Paleo diets focus on protein for fuel rather than carbohydrates, which helps your body burn fat for fuel and you don’t feel that hungry. They also maintain muscle mass. The body can convert some of the protein you eat into glucose; however, the body is not able to convert fat into glucose. The key component to this kind of diet is to have the correct amount of  carbohydrates and protein. You have to know what you are doing because this is based on a very specific formula.

As a general rule intermittent fasting is best for physical health, and long-term fasts are best for emotional, psychological, and spiritual health.

Is Fasting for You?

It may be difficult to believe so many benefits could result from simple fasting, however, the advantages have been extensively researched. Through experimentation, you will find the right approach for you.

For more on Alternate Day Fasting, Extended Fasting, Intermittent Fasting, and Fasting While Exercising, pick up your copy of the Recipes for Life Boxed Set.

Access your complementary FASTING recipe here.

Health Coach Rita Thomas and Chef Erin Holm hope to inspire families, friends and communities to live happier, healthier and more delicious lives.
Sign up for their weekly health and recipe blog to start your journey to good health.

Blood Sugar and Low-Sugar Impact

Dr. Mark Hyman, author of The Blood Sugar Solution and 8 time New York Times best seller, has inspired many people, including  President  Clinton, with the notion that “as long as you burn more calories than you consume you will lose weight” as NOT being a true statement. Dr. Hyman believes very strongly that the type of calories you consume does make a difference because not all calories are created equal. The same number of calories from different types of food can have very different biological effects.

Think about 750 calories of soda to 750 calories of broccoli.

Here is what happens when you consume the soda:

  1. First and foremost, the soda contains empty calories with absolutely no nutritional value.
  2. Your gut quickly absorbs the fiber-free sugars, which makes the glucose spike your blood sugar, starting a domino effect of high insulin and hormonal responses.
  3. High insulin then increases storage of belly fat, inflammation, raises triglycerides and lowers HDL, raises blood pressure, lowers testosterone in men, and contributes to infertility in women..!
  4. Not to mention now your appetite is increased because the insulin effect on your brain and the fructose go directly to your liver where it starts making fat.

Now, here’s what happens when you eat the broccoli:

  1. Broccoli is a high-fiber, low-sugar carb that is digested very slowly. Because it has so much fiber, very few calories are actually absorbed.
  2. There are no blood sugar or insulin spikes, no fatty liver, and no hormonal chaos.
  3. After eating it, you eventually feel full, and you also get all the benefits of the nutrients in the broccoli like lowered cholesterol, reduced inflammation, and a detoxification
  4. Broccoli is full of vitamin C, folate, and all kinds of wonderful nutrients that nourish your body.

The Basics of a Blood Sugar Diet

The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet has been very effective for thousands of people. A recent book that also made it to the New York Times best seller list is The Sugar Impact Diet by JJ Virgin. Both diets unequivocally agree that the old paradigm of calories in and calories out is passé and that not all sugars are equal. In JJ Virgin’s Sugar Impact Diet, she provides a revolutionary new approach to gradually transitioning into a low sugar impact diet for fast, lasting fat loss and optimal health.

Most other diets look at one aspect of sugar such as glycemic load, glucose load, fructose, nutrient density, or fiber quota. In The Sugar Impact Diet JJ combines all of these measurements to determine whether a certain food has a low-, medium-, or high-sugar impact on your body. She has provided extensive, easy-to-follow lists in her book, so there’s no guessing which category a food falls under. This helps you gradually taper and transition off sugar forever. You literally shift from being a sugar burner to a fat burner. You’ll learn to identify and eliminate the sneaky sugars from so-called healthy foods that hold your weight and health hostage.

If you suffer from sugar cravings and consume a diet made up of mostly high sugar impact foods, this may be the plan for you.

For more information:

Access your complementary LOW-SUGAR IMPACT recipe here.

Health Coach Rita Thomas and Chef Erin Holm hope to inspire families, friends and communities to live happier, healthier and more delicious lives.
Sign up for their weekly health and recipe blog to start your journey to good health.

Bio-Individuality

We have researched many diets available on the market. In fact, we have discovered that there are over one hundred dietary theories! There are many diets that are very similar; some that are downright silly, and others that aren’t very healthy. However, most offered little nuggets of good information.

As we studied the diverse eating regimes, one point became obvious. We are all unique, and there is no single diet that works for everyone. After all, we are all wired differently, and what feels really good to me might feel really bad to you. It’s called bio-individuality. It’s why so many diets don’t work; they don’t take into consideration that “one man’s food is another man’s poison.”

There is no universal right or wrong way to eat since so many factors come into play including your age, gender, activity level, time and place of birth, and even your heritage. What works for me might not work for you.

For example, Rita Thomas eats a lot of food. She exercises regularly and has a crazy-fast metabolism. Then, when she had an injury a few years ago and was advised not to work out for a month, she cut her food intake by about two thirds and was amazed at how quickly her voracious appetite diminished. Her constant desire to snack disappeared. She listened to her body and followed its lead.

Know that change is demanding and takes time. If you incorporate five new supplements or five new foods into your diet all at once, you won’t know the effects of any one item, so make modifications gradually. Be patient and disciplined, so you are able to follow through with a reasonable plan. It will take time for your body to make adjustments, so go easy but be persistent. Don’t get frustrated; try to enjoy the process. Visualize your body as a complicated puzzle that you need to figure out.

Finally, please remember, it is more important to be fit than thin and it’s better to be fit and fat than unfit and skinny (according to Carl J. Lavie, MD, author of The Obesity Paradox: When Thinner Means Sicker and Heavier Means Healthier). Dr. Lavie says that, while you might think longevity hinges on maintaining a normal body mass index, new research indicates overweight and even moderately obese people with certain chronic diseases from heart disease to cancer, often live longer and fare better than normal weight individuals with the same ailments. He says the extra fat provides additional fuel to help fight illness.

We’ve become so used to framing health issues in terms of obesity that we ignore other potential causes of disease. It’s important to look at our bodies as holistic systems and that’s what we hope this blog ispires you to do.

Throughout the next 2 months you will be getting a summary of different diets that that seem to work for many people. We’ll be going over Blood Sugar and Low-Sugar diets, Fasting, Animal-Free Diets, Raw Food Diets, as well as the Paleo diet and the pH diet. If you are struggling with how to eat to maintain good health, pay extra close attention throughout the next two months and try to find an eating plan that resonates with you. It might even be a combination of diets or, if you are already happy with the way you eat, you might find some interesting details to fine tune your eating habits. Make it a pleasurable experiment that gets you where you want to be!

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances of survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
– Albert Einstein

Access your complementary recipe here.

Health Coach Rita Thomas and Chef Erin Holm hope to inspire families, friends and communities to live happier, healthier and more delicious lives.
Sign up for their weekly health and recipe blog to start your journey to good health.