Spring Detox
By Linda | April 10, 2012
My inbox is filled with inquiries about detox diets. Many are looking for a quick way to burn winter fat, while others want renewed vitality.
Your body, in particular your liver, naturally detoxifies in Spring. Signs your liver is having trouble with this duty include fat you can’t burn off, hormone problems, allergies, frustration and anger. Many toxins are estrogen mimics, which leads to the added pain of PMS, mood issues and fibroids.
You can stimulate weight loss and relieve such health issues by giving your liver what it needs: Spring foods, good fats, high quality protein and less toxin exposure.
Our livers can be overwhelmed from things like air fresheners dangling in our cars, flame retardants from our beds, BPA from plastic wrap, pesticides, perfumed laundry detergent and harsh cleaners. Not only do we stay fat in the face of such chemicals, we tend to get moody and sluggish. Stress compounds the problem.
It turns out such toxins may increase risk of autism spectrum disorders in unborn children. Maybe it is all the chemicals, not the added weight per se?
A healthy liver can get rid of most toxins with a little help from you.
Start by getting out in nature, especially lush green areas, and move. Walking and other movement stimulates the body’s qi, and thus energy, relieving frustration, balancing moods and burning fat. The stress-reducing benefits of exercise are also key. Taking in the color green also supports your liver.
Shift to appropriate Spring foods. Sour and bitter flavors, most abundant in Spring, give your liver a boost. Begin your morning with a mug of warm water with fresh lemon or grapefruit juice. The sour flavor on an empty stomach stimulates the liver detox pathway. You might even consider a morning detox cocktail (see recipe at end).
Incorporate greens into meals, especially bitter dandelion, rapini and mustard greens as well as asparagus, artichokes and salads with arugula, radishes and romaine. Cooked greens are best steamed or boiled, then flavored with a generous pour of extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. The broccoli family also helps the liver detox.
Include protein at each meal, including grass fed meats, lamb, wild salmon, small fish, soft boiled eggs and soaked almonds. Despite the juice fast claims, your liver needs protein to detox.
Skip the alcohol and sugar for a few weeks. Sugar, and fructose in particular, causes the liver to get fatty. Avoid fried foods and other sources of liver-aggravating vegetable oils. Stick with EVOO, grass fed butter, ghee and coconut oil. See if you can get most of your foods from the produce and meat sections, less out of cans and packages.
Depending on your constitution the right liver herbs brewed into a tea or tincture and sipped before meals will also help. Licorice, burdock, boldo, dandelion and milk thistle are a few to consider.
I enjoy liver-cleansing foods and herbs most of the year (who doesn’t like garlicy sauteed greens?), so I am almost always detoxing to some degree, more in spring less in winter. This enables me to stay size 2-lean and balanced without dieting, fasting or eating like a bird. Why not skip agonizing diets and eat in a more detoxing way year-round? You too can be a natural fat-burner and a happier human being in the process.
Liver Flush Cocktail Recipe
1 lemon, peeled
½ grapefruit, peeled
1 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
½” piece peeled fresh ginger
1 large clove garlic, crushed
Blend all with enough water for a smoothie consistency. Sip slowly on an empty stomach each morning for 7 to 10 days in Spring. Follow with an appropriate liver-cleansing herb tea.
Topics: Weight Loss Diets | 5 Comments »
White Rice Better than Brown
By Linda | February 29, 2012
Eat White Not Brown Rice
What? White rice is better than brown rice?
Western thinking nutritionists assess food by nutrient levels, which gives brown rice a slight edge over white. Eastern thinkers look at the net effect on the body, which makes the winner white rice.
Brown rice can lead to digestive problems including gut heaviness after eating, an undesirable damp condition, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Despite claims, brown rice is not a pillar of nutrients to begin with. There’s only one gram of fiber more in a half-cup of brown rice than in the same amount of white. There’s five times more fiber in an apple or serving of broccoli.
Neither rice provides vitamins B2 or B12. A half-cup of brown rice contains 1.5 milligrams (mg) niacin versus .25 mg for white, which may sound like a big difference, but you can get more than 13 mg in a serving of salmon or a beef patty. Brown rice has 7.8 micrograms (mcg) folate compared to 1.7 mcg for white, but you get a whopping 236 mcg in a cup of spinach, and 468 mcg in 3 ounces of chicken liver.
The dark side to brown rice is its anti-nutrients, like phytic acid, which binds with magnesium, calcium, iron and zinc so they can’t be absorbed. Any extra magnesium in brown rice becomes irrelevant.
Grains, like rice, are the seeds of grasses and have evolved a survival mechanism in their outer bran: plant toxins. Phytates, tannins, enzyme inhibitors, and lectins protect grains form grazing insects and animals by causing health and digestive problems for them, and you.
Cows and other grazers evolved rumens capable of disarming grain toxins. We, on the other hand, have one stomach that is ill equipped to break down whole grains without side effects, including bloating and other digestive problems, deficiencies, weight gain and auto-immune problems.
Traditional cultures spend days soaking, sprouting, acidifying, grinding and fermenting grains in order to neutralize grain toxins and render them digestible. Not so in the U.S. Here are ideas for treating brown rice.
Making matters worse, last month Dartmouth researchers discovered brown rice may contain alarming amounts of arsenic. Much of the nation’s rice is grown in the southern US, once a cotton-growing region regularly doused with arsenic-based pesticides. High levels of arsenic increase risk of cancer heart disease, asthma and type 2 diabetes. The extra gram of fiber in brown rice will not help you here.
White rice is far easier to digest and assimilate than other grains. Although not loaded with nutrients rice helps strengthen digestion and health. Basmati and jasmine rice are aromatic, lighter and better choices for weight loss. Avoid instant rice.
It’s very western to just judge a food by solely by fiber or vitamin content. Poison oak is high fiber too, but you don’t see this recommended for health. Learn more about the energetic properties of food before calling it a health food.
Topics: Flavors & Foods, Uncategorized | 10 Comments »
Raise the Chocolate Bar
By Linda | February 9, 2012
If you’re overeating sweets, I tell my clients, you need to raise the bar on quality, especially with chocolate. It takes a lot more M&M’s than uber rich dark Scharffin Berger chocolate to feel sated.
We love chocolate not only for its rich taste and silky texture but because it makes us feel good. Chocolate calms us. Studies show dark chocolate can reduce brain cortisol and thus anxiety levels. Chocolate also boosts endorphins and serotonin, our feel-good brain chemicals.
A fat in chocolate called anandamide activates the same receptors in the brain as pot, albeit not as vigorously.
Single this Valentine’s Day? Chocolate boosts brain levels of phenylethylamine, the very same chemical that bathes our brain in euphoria when we’re wildly in love. Try wrapping your lips around a dark chocolate truffle.
Unfortunately Hershey’s kisses may not do it for you. Food giants (Hershey’s in particular) are replacing velvety cocoa butter with cheap vegetable oil. A contributor to inflammation, vegetable oils promote obesity (in particular belly fat), heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. Inflammation doesn’t feel good either. Think pain.
Cocoa butter, found in higher end white and dark chocolate, is a blend of oleic acid (of olive oil fame) along with two saturated fats that may actually reduce risk of a heart attack, while protecting your liver from alcohol and drug damage. A few bites of cocoa-butter-rich chocolate may be just what your liver needs with that wine.
Dr. Nicholas Proia, MD points to research showing that high end chocolate lowers cholesterol, prevents heart attacks and reduces blood pressure. He also sells it.
High-end dark chocolate is loaded with antioxidants that protect our organs and prolong life. Highly processed chocolate however, is missing the full complement of these age-slowing chemicals, not to mention being laden with refined sugar, which counters the health benefits.
Raise the chocolate quality bar and you will be happier with less, the rich silky experience will make you feel good and you’ll be protecting your heart and liver. Here are a few sources of healthy dark chocolate.
Here are a few sources of high quality chocolate. The higher the cocoa percentage the better.
Theo
Brix
Endangered Species
Dagoba
Topics: Flavors & Foods, Uncategorized | 20 Comments »
Top Fat-Burning Breakfast
By Linda | January 23, 2012
Best Weight Loss Breakfast
What single food do you think is most linked with weight loss? Celery? Chicken breasts? Neither.
A detailed 20-year study conducted by Harvard School of Public Health looked at food choices and weight changes in over 120,000 health professionals. Those who lost weight or maintained a healthy weight ate the most yogurt. They also ate the most nuts.
The study also showed a slight fat-burning advantage to whole milk products over skim and low fat dairy – more evidence that fat may help in the war on fat.
Interestingly, whole milk yogurt and nuts, both fat-rich, are not at the top of most diet lists.
Co-author Dr. Frank B Hu explains yogurt contains healthful bacteria that in animal studies increase production of intestinal hormones that enhance satiety and decrease hunger. The bacteria may also raise the body’s metabolic rate. Studies show fat people and animals harbor unhealthy GI bacteria.
If you want to take this one step further, choose plain whole goat’s milk yogurt topped with freshly ground flax or chia seeds, almonds and other nuts. Fruit adds sugar to a protein meal, which will not help in your quest for weight loss.
Goat yogurt contains double the fat-burning short and medium-chain fatty acids of cow’s milk. These fats not only help you lose weight, they nourish your GI tract. Cow’s milk does not have this level of fat-burning potential and can actually lead to bloating and other digestive problems.
Ground seeds and nuts add a nutty, almost grain-like sweetness and texture, plus you get metabolism-boosting properties from the omega-3 fats of flax and chia seeds.
Dariush Mozaffarian, epidemiologist and lead author of the study said in an interview, “What you eat makes quite a difference. Just counting calories won’t matter much unless you look at the kind of calories you’re eating.”
My favorite breakfast has long been a big bowl of creamy goat yogurt topped with ground flax seeds and other nuts. It is filling, energizing and satisfying. It is also one reason I have reached a comfy size 2 without cutting fat or calories.
Topics: Breakfast | 13 Comments »