Weight Loss Myth No 2

Weight loss myth number 2
If you eat a diet low in fat, you’ll lose fat and won’t be overweight.  It’s an assumption we all make, and with the supermarket shelves piled high with ‘Low fat’, ‘light’ and ‘0%’, it’s easy to get drawn into the hype.
So what fuelled this paradigm?  It seems to make perfect sense until you realise that obesity and heart disease are on the increase, and this low fat diet we’ve been following for decades appears to be having the opposite effect.

It was in the seventies when the research was carried out claiming a high fat diet leads to coronary heart disease, hence the birth of the low-fat craze in the early eighties that has been with us ever since.  But this research was flawed, not analysed properly, and has led us all astray. 

The research was based on LDL (low density lipoproteins, aka ‘bad cholesterol’) levels in the body.   Here’s what it concludes:
In the mid seventies they discovered that dietary fat (A) raises LDL (B):
   A → B
In the late seventies it was found that LDL (B) levels correlated with cardiovascular disease (C):
   B → C
So therefore, dietary fat leads to heart disease:
   A → C
Right?  

Wrong.  Here’s why:
There are two types of LDL that can currently only be tested as one:

1. Pattern A, large, buoyant LDL that floats through the bloodstream and doesn’t stick to your arteries (neutral)
2. Pattern B, small, dense LDL, which starts the plaque formation that causes heart disease (bad).

You have to look at the ratio of HDL (high density lipoproteins) to triglycerides (other fatty substances) to determine if the LDL you have is bad or neutral – low triglycerides to high HDL is considered good, high triglycerides to low HDL is considered bad. 

So what causes these different types of LDL to rise?   Pattern A is affected dietary fat, pattern B is affected by carbohydrates. 

And then what happened?   The American government started a campaign to reduce the amount of fat in the diet from 40% to 30%, and in true British style, we followed.  And achieved it.   But by reducing the fat in food, you also reduce the flavour, and it becomes unpalatable.  So to make it taste nice (and therefore sellable), food manufacturers added sugar, and sweeteners.   And what’s sugar?  A carbohydrate. And what do carbohydrates do?  Increase the bad form of LDL.   So we were doubly duped!
Click here for my previous article on sugar.  Sweeteners are just as, if not more evil than sugar – don’t get me started on them!   

Now I’m not proposing you give up all carbohydrates and eat bacon for the rest of your days, it’s all about finding out what’s right for your body.  Listen to it, it will tell you.  Feel bloated after bread?   Don’t eat it.  Get heartburn after fatty food?  Stay off it.   These are just a couple of examples of your body telling you it doesn’t like what you’re giving it.  And then of course there are my general guidelines such as avoiding sugar, exercising, eating whole, unprocessed foods, lots of fruit and veg and being happy.   Simples.

Blood acidity imbalance linked to weight gain, premature aging and cancer

How your acid/alkaline balance affects your health
Your blood pH has a very narrow range of around 7.35 to 7.45 and going outside of this range causes illness. Should it go below 6.8 or above 7.8, cells stop functioning and start to die, leading to fatality. It's serious stuff. Your body naturally buffers the pH balance by breathing out carbon dioxide, releasing alkaline bile, retaining sodium in the kidneys and removing calcium from the bones. This used to be sufficient until our modern lifestyle kicked in.

What causes acid imbalance?
The modern lifestyle has a lot to answer for, with stress being a primary factor, along with processed food, environmental pollution, candida and parasite (unfriendly bacteria) infections, tap water and many medications leading to acid build up.

So why is acid imbalance harmful?
When your body is more acid than alkaline, it’s not able to absorb nutrients and minerals as easily from your food, your cells produce less energy and aren’t able to repair themselves as well, your body’s ability to detox heavy metals is decreased, you’re more susceptible to fatigue & illness, and tumours can thrive in an acidic environment.

Acidosis:

• Corrodes arteries, veins and heart tissues
• Accelerates premature aging
• Disrupts fat metabolism
• Studies suggest that acidity levels in terminal cancer patients is 1,000 times more than in healthy people.
• Slows oxygen delivery to cells
• Leads to weight gain and diabetes

According to Dr Robert Young, Author of pH Miracle for Weight Loss, “Weight loss is not about fat grams, cholesterol, carbs or calories, it’s about acid.” When you look at the foods that are acidic, one of the worst offenders is sugar, in all it’s forms. This ties in with the sugar (fructose) theory of being the number one cause of obesity, which I wrote about in March (See What could possibly be worse for your health than smoking?). Your body stores acids in fat tissue to protect the liver and kidneys from acid damage, so by balancing your body’s pH level, you’ll naturally lose weight.

Acidic blood is thicker, with less oxygen and nutrients being transported to the cells. When the cell becomes deprived of oxygen, it either dies or becomes malignant. Cancer cells then thrive in this environment, as they get their energy through fermentation, a process that doesn’t require oxygen. Professor Felicia Kliment, in her book ‘The Acid Alkaline Balance Diet’, says ‘Clearly, the prevention of cancer should begin with removing from the body acidic wastes that turn normal cells into cancerous ones. If an individual is being treated for cancer, the removal of acidic wastes generated by toxic chemotherapy could prevent a recurrence.’

So what can we do to help ourselves?
Can you guess what I’m going to say?!! Avoid sugar and processed foods, eat lots of fruit & veg, don’t smoke or drink alcohol, manage your stress and drink plenty of alkaline water. You’ve heard most of that before, but until recently I wasn’t aware of the benefits of alkaline, ionised water. Clearly if we’re trying to tip the balance towards the alkaline side of the scale, one of the easiest things to do is make sure the water we drink is as health giving as possible. Did you know that most water filters make your tap water more acidic? I certainly didn’t, and tested it for myself just to make sure. I found that straight tap water was around pH 7.5, Brita filtered water around pH 6.5 and with my new alkaline water filter, it’s around pH 8.5. I know what I’ll be sticking with from now on!

I also regularly do a parasite cleanse, by using a herbal tincture or essential oil capsules. I support my body through this process by taking lots of vitamin C, friendly bacteria and digestive enzymes, as sometimes the “die-off” from the parasites can be an unpleasant experience.

When you look into the effects of acidosis in the body, it appears to be at the source of a whole host of degenerative diseases, and ties together much of the thinking around weight loss and wellbeing in general. I’ve always said it’s a full time job being healthy, and every time I write an article, I add to the list of things to do to keep me balanced. But like a very wise person once said, “If you haven’t got your health, then you haven’t got anything.”

Wishing you peace and good health,

Bess

What could possibly be worse for your health than smoking?

What could possibly be worse for your health than smoking?

Some experts suggest there is an everyday substance even worse for your health than tobacco. A substance that is far reaching, it can be hidden or the main ingredient in many foods. It is as pure and white as the driven snow, and sweeter than your sweetheart.

The substance is sugar. It comes in many different disguises and always tastes good. It’s not just found in the obviously sweet foods such as pop, cakes, biscuits and chocolate, but also in tomato ketchup, salad dressing, cereal, peanut butter, bread, pickle, baked beans, yoghurts and many, many, more everyday foods.

So how can you tell what to look for and what makes sugar so bad?
Check the ingredients of the foods you buy, you’ll be surprised at how many contain sugar and/or it’s disguised derivatives:Glucose/Dextrose (refined sugar)

• Glucose Syrup/Corn Syrup (processed from corn)
• Sucrose (white sugar)
• Invert Syrup/Treacle (found in golden syrup, toffee, black treacle)
• Lactose (milk sugar)
• Maltose (found in germinating seeds such as barley for beer)
• Hydrolysed Starch (just another description for sugar)
• Fructose (fruit sugar)
• Raw, Brown or Demerara Sugar

All the items in the above list are refined sugars, which are anti-nutrients. They deplete your body instead of nourishing it (giving ‘empty calories’), some would say in the same way a poison does. The raw plants are stripped of all their nutrients during the refining process.

Sugar is linked to all sorts of nasties, including -Immune system suppression

• Hyperactivity, anxiety and difficulty concentrating
• Premature aging
• Alcoholism
• Weakened eyesight
• Yeast imbalance leading to thrush
• Increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and obesity

It’s no coincidence that some sugar plantation owners during the slave era suffered type 2 diabetes (they were the only ones who could afford refined sugar), while the slaves themselves who chewed on the raw cane had no problems from it.

Glucose, lactose, maltose and fructose can all be found in nature. That doesn’t mean they’re ‘natural’ when refined and added to foods. They’re all found in whole foods, and when eaten as a whole food (a fresh, crisp apple), all the necessary fibre and enzymes are included for correct metabolism and absorption of all the goodness of that said food. That’s why whole foods don’t come with a list of ingredients.

Although no type of sugar is good for you, refined fructose has been implicated in some pretty serious crimes - obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, high blood pressure and lipid (cholesterol) problems. These diseases are collectively known as metabolic syndrome, and are the cause of the obesity epidemic we’re now facing.

Fructose is found in ice cream, fromage frais desserts, soya yogurts, cakes and ‘light’ foods. This refined sugar has the same long term effects on your body as alcoholism (alcohol is fermented sugar), only you don’t notice so much as you don’t get drunk. So next time you see someone with a beer belly (not just on men!), it means they’re likely to have a sweet tooth instead of/as well as high alcohol consumption.

What about brown sugar? Is that better for you than white sugar?
Sorry, but it’s bad news. Brown sugar has either been washed less than white sugar, or has had molasses added back into the white sugar to coat the crystals and give it a bit of a different flavour. So it’s still had all its nutrients stripped during the refining process and is no better for you than white sugar.

What about artificial sweeteners?
The news is even worse for artificial sweeteners. Aspartame, found in Canderel, diet colas, sugar-free fruit squashes etc, has had more reactions reported to the US Food & Drug Administration than every other food additive combined. Reactions included migraines, headaches, memory loss, hallucination, fatigue, nausea and vomiting to name just a few of the milder symptoms. Sucralose (E-number E955), found in Splenda, is linked with enlarged liver and kidneys, reduced growth rate, aborted pregnancy and diarrhoea.

So what can I use?
My personal approach is to avoid sugar all together. I’m not always successful at it, but once you cut it out, you realise how sickly doughnuts and chocolate are, and how sweet fruit and vegetables are. Suddenly I have a whole new appreciation for roast parsnips, sweet potato wedges and slow-cooked onions. Strawberries that have been warmed by the sun become like nectar, and pineapple is my version of a bag of penny chews.

If ever the mood takes me to do some baking, I’ll use xylitol to replace the sugar in the recipe. This is found in shops as Xylobrit, Xylosweet or Perfect Sweet. It’s not perfect, it has a laxative effect in high doses, but it has also been found to be good for your teeth (its used in sugar-free gum) amongst other benefits.

So now we’ve discovered the true source of the obesity epidemic and it’s nothing to do with fat. It’s all about the sugar. Phew, after all this technical stuff I need a break, and in the next article, we’ll discover the power of taking 15 minutes out everyday.

Wishing you peace and good health,

Bess