Get Rid of Western Disease Once And For All

Patty's Great post, informative and concise on gluten. See original here.

Ok bear with me here….I might get some terms a bit off and some dates have a tolerance, but I am going to paraphrase why Gluten sucks so bad for your health.

After hanging with my old pal Robb Wolf for 4 days it has become apparent that there is a chemical war going on between our bodies and the nature of grains to defend themselves.

Now Robby correct me where I have Pattersonized this too far. (see comments section)

In short: It is not the fat that is trying to kill us…..nor are the high glycemic foods 100% the culprit, nor is it necessarily sugar or starch.

The worst part of our diet comes from grains and more specifically a protein in them called gluten.

Here is how it all started: We have evolved for over 4 million years. We have subsisted on a hunter gatherer diet consisting of game meats, fish, seasonal fruits and vegetables, nuts and tubers. It has only been the past 5,000 years or so that grains were introduced into our diet. Cultures that switched to grain as a major source of nutrition shrunk by over 6 inches and lost over 25lbs of lean body mass.

The tallest people on earth in the late 19th century were plains indians (5 ‘ 11″ average ht) who lived on a hunter gatherer diet. By contrast the average height of a US calvary man was 5’4″. Also Hunter Gathers showed no sign of Cv disease, type II diabetes, various cancers, Alzheimer’s and a host of other gnarly diseases that are killing us in record numbers.

The difference……grains

Why? Think of the goal of every living thing on earth………..especially think Tbear.

It’s goal is to procreate. Now also recognize that every living thing has some sort of mechanism to defend itself from being killed so it can pas on its genes (Try to get the remote from Tbear when there are females present and you shall see)

Clams have shells, roses thorns, snakes have venom (Tbear has skinny wrists, but watch out for the elbows). Grains have gluten and its purpose is to beak down your gut and kill you.

Stop eating gluten (none….zip….zilch) for 30 days and see what happens. Talk to Tbear or check Robb’s site for what to eat in combination with zero gluten.

Zone Diet vs. Paleo Diet: What's fthe Difference? Which one is better?

There are a lot of diets out there. I’m sure you have tried or know someone who have tried a popular diet before. If you go to your local bookstore and look at the diet/weight loss section, you will see a plethora of books like the Zone Diet, the Atkins Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, etc. Diet books are a dime a dozen, most of the diets that you find are “fad” diets, you must delve further into the science and research behind the diets in order to make the best decision for yourself. If you are part of the every growing and popular Crossfit community, you have probably come across two types of diets. One is known as the Zone Diet, and the other is the Paleo Diet. The Zone Diet is a diet popularized by the books of biochemist, Dr. Barry Sears. It advocates that there is a specific ratio of macronutrients that is optimal for health and performance. The Paleo Diet, also known as the caveman diet or hunter-gatherer diet advocates eating a diet based on pre-agricultural foods like wild game meats, fish, fowl, vegetables, fibrous fruits, nuts, and seeds. If you are new to Crossfit or just want to learn about nutrition in general, you may have asked yourself what the difference is between these two diets and which one is better? I’ll start with the similarities. First of all, if you plan on adopting either the Zone or the Paleo Diet, they are both much better options than what the Canada Food Guide or USDA recommends. You have probably seen this pyramid somewhere before, either in school or online or in your doctor’ office. The Canada Food Guide has gone through some changes recently recommending vegetables and fruits as the base of their pyramid whereas grain products use to be the biggest food group recommendation. That is a step in the right direction. I don’t want to talk about grains vs. vegetables as a carb source, I’ll save that for another blog post. Just log on to http://www.nutritiondata.com/ and plug in 100 calories of broccoli vs. 100 calories of whole wheat bread and look at the vitamin and minerals content between the two. One of the problems with eating too many grain products is that they contain gluten – a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley that causes gut irritation, digestive problems and may lead to celiac disease. Furthermore, eating too many carbohydrates in one meal will lead to quick increase of carbohydrates in the bloodstream which then leads to a spike in insulin levels. If you don’t quickly use up these carbs as a fuel source, the extra insulin will store the extra carbohydrates in your fat cells. Most of the research being done on a high carb diets are funded by agricultural corporations like Monsanto therefore, the research is most likely tainted. These are the studies that the Canada Food Guide and USDA uses to back up their recommendations. Many of the top shareholders from these agricultural companies are also top politicians. Watch Food Inc. – it is definitely an eye opener.
The biggest difference between the Zone Diet and Paleo Diet is that the Zone leans toward a diet that is quantifiable in terms of the ratio between the macro-nutrients. The diet centers on a ratio of 40:30:30 of carbohydrates, protein, and fat. The idea is that with this ratio, your body is at a hormonal balance, controlling your release of insulin and glucagon. Eating within the “Zone” principles enables a slower rate of carbohydrates being released into the bloodstream, a smaller insulin release, which means less fat stored and a faster transition to fat burning. Sears claims that meals balanced in this ratio are anti-inflammatory and heart-friendly. The Paleolithic Diet, on the other hand, focuses more on an un-weighted, unmeasured diet based on the quality of the food. The presumption of this diet is that modern humans are genetically adapted to the diet that our Paleolithic ancestors ate and that our genetics have hardly changed since the dawn of the agricultural revolution – roughly 10,000 years ago. The diet consists largely of meat, seafood, vegetables, tubers, fruits, nuts and excludes Neolithic foods such as grains, legumes, dairy products, refined sugar, and processed oil. Paleo approved foods are nutrient dense and make you feel better. Below is an example of what a Paleo pyramid would look like, this is taken from http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

Here's a humorous video about the Paleo diet:

So which diet should you adopt? If you are someone who prefers to adhere to a system and you like measuring your food intake and being really precise about everything you eat, then you should try the Zone Diet. Like every diet, try it out for a few weeks, if you look, feel, and perform better, stick to what you’re doing. However, if you find it an annoyance to measure everything you eat, the Paleo Diet may be right for you. Skeptics of the Zone Diet will always point to the fact that you can eat twinkies for your carb portion, and fatty meats for your protein and fat portions, you will still technically be eating within the “Zone.” Now this is an extreme example and Dr. Barry Sears does recommend eating quality foods but the Zone is still defined as anything within the 40:30:30 ratio. If you eat strict paleo, your carb intake will be slightly lower (22-40%) and your fat intake (28-58%) will be higher than what the Zone recommends. Eating this way will make you fuller for a longer period of time. It is hard to overeat while on this diet. My two cents: for such a dynamic and constantly varied program like Crossfit, I don’t understand why they have a static, “one size fits all,” diet prescribed for their athletes. The Zone also does not change its recommendations for pre or post workout meals and there is a lot of science on varying your pre and post-workout meals to optimize performance. Just like you would want to individualize your workout programs based on your different needs and weaknesses, your diet should also be individualized. Not everyone is built the same way. Some people are more carb tolerant than others, some are more gluten tolerant than others. Some people need more calories, some people perform better on high carbs; most perform better on high fat. The sport you play also dictates what diet is most appropriate for you. Bottom line, if a diet is working for you, stick with it. If it’s not, try something else, if it makes you feel better and perform better, it’s probably better for you.

“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not and add what is uniquely your own.” ~ Bruce Lee

A certified personal trainer and crossfit coach with more than four years of experience, Patrick Vuong has helped countless athletes, elderly, and everyday folk improve their lives through better movement, nutrition, and body re-composition. A kinesiology graduate of UBC, Patrick continues to educate himself daily promote the benefits of regular exercise to everyone. He currently is the Assistant Manager at Fitness Town Burnaby.

Grains To The Grave

Everyday, we are bombarded by images of grains and grain products all around us. Turn on the television, how many commercials do you see of boxed cereal and beer? How many commercials do you see advertising vegetables and fruits? Go to a supermarket, how many aisles are there of bread, bagels, donuts, muffins, rice crackers, and cereal? Heck, even the government tells us to eat copious amounts of grain products. I’m about to let you in on a little secret … grains are unhealthy.

Homo sapiens have been hunting and foraging food for our survival for 150,000 + years. Their ancestors (Homo Habilus, Homo Erectus, Neanderthal) have been doing the same for over 2 million years. That means for over two million years, we have been eating meats, nuts, leafy greens, regional veggies, tubers and roots, seasonal fruits and berries. Only about 10,000 years ago with the agricultural revolution, have our diet shifted towards a predominantly grain based diet (wheat, rye, barley, rice).

10,000 years may seem like a long time, however, it is just a drop in the bucket in the evolutionary scale. Our digestive system has not yet evolved to effectively digest grains. Need some proof? Continue reading…

Grains have a very unfavorable inflammatory response to our system. Lectins are specialized proteins found particularly in wheat, legumes, and dairy. Lectins are not easily broken down in the stomach and they are resistant to stomach acids and digestive enzymes. They bind to insulin receptors, attack the stomach lining of insects, and they seemingly cause leptin resistance. Furthermore, they bind to human intestinal lining causing ulcers and holes in the gut lining. This becomes problematic because it leads to the leaky gut syndrome, holes in your gut causes contents of your gut being leaked out into your bloodstream. Think about it, your poop gets leaked out of your gut into your bloodstream. The body sees that as foreign substances in your bloodstream and ignites your immune system into overdrive. This may lead to auto-immune diseases where like diabetes, narcolepsy, psoriasis, Crohn’s Disease and many more.

Gluten, a form of lectin, is even worse. Gluten is found in wheat, rye, and barley. Celiacs are 1% of the population who are completely intolerant to gluten. Any gluten in their diet can be disastrous. But just because you’re not diagnosed with Celiac disease, doesn’t mean that grains won’t have an effect on you. Everyone is in some degree or another, susceptible to gluten side effects. Gluten intake compromises your body’s ability to process calcium and Vitamin D3, leads to hyperparathyroidism and other bone defects. You do not want to be deficient in Vitamin D.

Another unfavorable response of eating grains is the associating insulin spike you get. Grains are chock-full of carbohydrates. When we consume high amounts of carbohydrates, it gets broken down into simple sugars in our blood stream. When our blood sugar levels get too high, our pancreas releases a hormone called insulin. Insulin is the hormone that signals to our cells to start storing this extra sugar in our muscle and liver cells as stored energy. If we do not readily use up the glucose as energy, and our muscle and liver glycogen stores are full, we will store the glucose into our fat cells. Now imagine when you’re eating large amounts of carbs in every meal: pasta, cereal, rice, bread, bagels, dessert, donuts, muffins, your constantly increasing your blood sugar levels and constantly releasing more and more insulin. Too much insulin poses a serious health problem. As you keep releasing insulin, your body’s cells become desensitized to the amount of insulin and will not respond to its signal. Thus, insulin and glucose stay in your blood stream. This insensitivity to insulin leads to hyperinsulinism (Google it and find that it is related to a host of diseases), and type II diabetes.

Still not convinced that grains are bad? Let’s analyze exactly how nutritious grains are. The government, nutritionists, and trainers are constantly telling us how healthy whole grains are. Well, let’s compare whole wheat bread to broccoli and see what we come up with.

As you can see from the data above, I have compared 100 grams of multi-grain/whole-grain bread (two slices) versus 184 grams (1 cup) of chopped, cooked broccoli. The bread contains a whopping 265 calories per 100 grams while broccoli only has 52 calories per 184 grams. If you’re trying to lose weight, think about how much bread you’re eating versus the amount of broccoli or veggies you’re eating. Furthermore, the bread has more than 20 times the amount of sodium and over 4 times the amount of carbohydrates leading to higher insulin release and we’ve already discussed how bad that is. People always defend bread by saying how much fiber bread has but broccoli, spinach, and other veggies have just as much. When we look at the micronutrients of these two foods, you’ll notice that bread is pretty much devoid of any vitamins and minerals whereas broccoli is a good source of Calcium, Iron, Magnesium and Phosphorus, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Potassium and Manganese.

One final note to add, eating too many grains produces an acidifying effect in your body. A net acid producing diet promotes bone de-mineralization leading to osteopenia and osteoporosis. The acid must be buffered by alkaline stores in your body and the largest alkaline store in your body is calcium from your bones. Therefore, calcium is actually stripped from your bones to buffer the high acidic diet you’re eating from dairy, cereal grains, legumes, and meat and excreted in your urine. Eat more fruits and vegetables if you want to preserve your muscle mass and bone mineral density as they have an alkaline effect.

I know most of you cannot cut out all grains from your diet but hopefully this article will shed some light on what happens to you when you eat the stuff you eat and entice you to make a change. I just want you to make an informed choice, not one dictated by governmental agenda and nutritional “experts.” At most, grain products will kill you, at the very least, there are much better options for your health and body composition.

A Calorie Is Not a Calorie!

My sister is always reading the caloric information on the side of boxes. I always knew that it was more important to eat clean, healthy, natural foods than to concern yourself with how many calories you’re eating. If you’re eating tons of veggies, fruits, organic meat, nuts, and fish, you do not have to worry about your weight. Eating this way will keep your full and your appetite in control. Having said all that, people still are concerned about “calories” so I will talk about it. Mostly because nutritionists and dietitians use it as a unit of measurement to help people lose weight.

Calorie counting is not as simple as it sounds. The law of thermodynamics state that as long as your calories in = calories out, you will stay the same weight. If your caloric intake is greater than your caloric expenditure, you will gain weight and vice versa. Advocates of the low fat diet use this law to explain their reasoning. A gram of fat contains 9 calories, carbohydrates and protein, on the other hand, contain 4 calories per gram. Therefore, eating less fat means fewer calories, which means you’ll lose weight, right? Wrong. Low fat often means high carb, and ever since the government instituted the Canada Food Guide some 30 years ago, we have only seen obesity, diabetes, and osteoporosis rates rise exponentially. It’s not as simple as it sounds. Here’s why.

1. Thermic Effect of Food

People treat calories in and calories out as independent factors but they are not. They are actually dependent factors as they affect one another. The energy cost to metabolize protein, fat, and carbohydrates is different. It takes more energy to digest protein than it does to digest carbohydrates and fat. For example, a 2000 calorie diet containing say 30% protein will make you expend more energy than a 2000 calorie diet containing 20% protein. Remember the energy balance teeter totter above? Eating different foods (left side) will affect the calories out (right side). People often only think the right side as exercise and daily lifestyle activities. Now you know that different foods will affect your total caloric metabolism at the end of the day.

2. Caloric restriction slows down metabolism

If you decide to cut calories in order to lose weight, you will probably start seeing an immediate weight loss in the beginning. However, the rate of your weight loss will slow down in subsequent weeks. That’s because as you start restricting your calories, your body runs cooler to conserve the reduced calories you’re taking in.

3. Different foods have different effects on your appetite

This has everything to do with hormones. When you eat a high carbohydrate meal, it breaks down into sugar in your blood. This causes a spike in insulin to communicate with the cells in your body to store the sugar. The spike in insulin is followed by a sharp fall in blood sugar which will then make you feel hungry again. Eating fat and protein affects satiety hormones like PPY and leptin, making you feel fuller longer.

4. Timing of meals affect calorie processing

Food calories are more likely to be stored as fat if not used immediately for energy. When liver and muscle glycogen stores are full, carbohydrates get converted and stored in the fat cells. On the contrary, food calories are more likely to be used for energy, stored as glycogen, and protein synthesis at times of an energy deficit such as first thing in the morning and right after exercise. That’s why pre and post workout nutrition is extra important. The best time to consume high glycemic carbohydrates is after your workout when the insulin spike is crucial for replenishing glycogen stores.

In conclusion, counting calories has some value but should be used with a grain of salt. As cited in the reasons above, there is a lot more to gain from eating good quality foods than there is from counting calories.

Paleolithic Nutritioin

Kurt G. Harris MD

The PāNu approach to nutrition is grounded on clinical medicine and basic sciences disciplined by knowledge of evolutionary biology and paleoanthropology. The best evidence from multiple disciplines supports eating an animal-based diet high in fat, low in cereal grains and relatively low in carbohydrate.

PaNu - A modified paleolithic diet that can improve your health by duplicating the evolutionary metabolic milieu.

How do you do it?

Here is a 12- step list of what to do. Go as far down the list as you can in whatever time frame you can manage. The further along the list you stop, the healthier you will be. There is no counting, measuring, or weighing. You are not required to purchase anything specific from me or anyone else. There are no special supplements, drugs or testing required.*

1. Eliminate sugar (including fruit juices and sports drinks) and all foods that contain flour.

2. Start eating proper fats - Use healthy animal fats or coconut fat to substitute fat calories for carbohydrate calories that formerly came from sugar and flour. Drink whole cream or coconut milk.

3. Eliminate gluten grains. Limit grains like corn and rice, which are nutritionally poor.

4. Eliminate grain and seed derived oils (cooking oils) Cook with Ghee, butter, animal fats, or coconut oil.

5. Favor ruminants like beef, lamb and bison for your meat. Eat eggs and some fish.

6. Get daily midday sun or take 2-8000 iu vit D daily.

7. Try intermittent fasting or infrequent meals (2 meals a day is best). Don't graze like a herbivore.

8. Adjust your 6s and 3s. Pastured (grass fed) dairy and grass fed beef or bison has a more optimal 6:3 ratio, more vitamins and CLA. A teaspoon or two of Carlson's fish oil (1-2 g DHA/EPA) daily is good compensatory supplementation if you eat grain-fed beef or no fish.

9. Proper exercise - emphasizing resistance and interval training over long aerobic sessions.

10. Most modern fruit is just a candy bar from a tree. Go easy on bags of sugar like apples. Stick with berries and avoid watermelon which is pure fructose. Eat in moderation.

11. Eliminate legumes

12. Eliminate all remaining dairy including cheese- (now you are "Orthodox paleolithic")

"Let food be your medicine, let medicine be your food" - Hippocrates

- Eat Small Meals
- Have some protein at every meal
- Eat primarily vegatables
- Take your fish oil (15 grams/day)

By Dr. Barry Sears