By Michael Biamonte, C.C.N.
The most common questions we get at the center, are about diet.
In a nation riddled with obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease it is not surprising that people are confused about what to eat. What is a healthy diet? Is it Low fat, Low carb, Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten free, Lactose free, Raw?
It seems everywhere you turn you have another expert telling you that their diet is the only way to eat.
That’s before you even begin to bring an illness like Candida, Leaky Gut or Autism into the picture.
The truth of the matter is that there is no one perfect diet for everyone.
It seems like a strange concept. You are not the same as your friends, your neighbor, or even your family.
Your body has its own particular set of genetics and circumstances that makes it unique. What works for one person will not necessarily work for another.
Today we will talk about the general building blocks of a healthy diet, there will be a follow up to this article that talks about the specifics of a Candida safe diet but you should have this information first.
Hydration: Other than air this is our body’s most basic necessity. A person can actually survive weeks without food, but only days without water. Make sure you drink 6-8 glasses of water a day. Notice I said water, not liquids? While its true you can function with coffee, juice tea or soda, your body has to work to distill these to down to what it really wants; useable h20. Better to think of other liquids as a treat and make sure that you get enough pure water. ( lemon or lime can be added for flavor and electrolytes)
I can’t tell you how many people have solved low energy, headaches or die off from our program just by ensuring they got enough water throughout the day.
Protein: Protein is a nutrient needed for growth and maintenance of cells.After water, protein is the most abundant substance in the body.
Without protein our bodies can not grow, can not heal and can not function. Eating proteins also supply certain amino acids (the building blocks of protein) that the human body can not make itself. For the most part, proteins are found in meats or animal products such as milk or eggs. But it is also available in certain nuts, seeds and legumes, although in lower concentrations.
Lipids: Lipids are not the same thing as fats. The group of lipids includes fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K. Essential fatty acids, Triglycerides and Cholesterol.
Lipids are probably the most misunderstood portion of nutrition. I could write an entire article on lipids alone, and there are many books on the subject. But for the sake of what’s needed in a generally healthy diet, here’s what you need to know:
Our bodies need fat. One of the most important ways that the body uses lipids is in the makeup of cells. Healthy fats can be found in nuts, seeds, olive oil, avocado, fish oil, and grass fed beef.
Lipids play a key role in energy production. When you eat, your body converts any calories it doesn’t need to use right away into triglycerides. They are then the body’s go-to source of energy between meals. The body can obtain energy from many sources, but Triglycerides store the most energy in the least amount of space. I am sure you’re thinking: “wait a minute, aren’t triglycerides bad? I have to keep an eye on them or I’ll have a heart attack”. We’ll get back to them. Keep reading.
Trans fats:
Trans fats are one of the few things I will tell people to avoid completely. They are found in most processed foods. Such as fast food, crackers, packaged cookies, cakes, etc. Trans fats can be made from many different oils, and are usually listed on ingredients as “partially hydrogenated xxx oil”
Partial hydrogenation is an industrial process used to make perfectly good oil, such as soybean oil, into perfectly bad oil. The process is used to make an oil more solid; provide longer shelf-life in baked products; offer longer fry-life for cooking oils, and produce a certain kind of texture or “mouthfeel to a product.”
If the label says zero trans fats it isn’t always true! If includes the words “partially hydrogenated” or “shortening” on the ingredients list, it DOES contain trans fat. The FDA allows .5 grams of trans fats or less to be listed as “no trans fats”. Trans fats will increase your bad cholesterol, lower your good cholesterol and harden your arteries. If you avoid these fats, and follow the rest of the diet advice below, it is unlikely you will have the heart and cholesterol problems so many others can’t seem to get a handle on.
Nutrient rich roughage: This category of foods is the easiest to explain, it’s likely you grew up hearing “Eat your vegetables” at every meal. It was great advise. The technical reason it is very important to consume a good amount ofroughage, is that it helps keep your digestive system moving, by adding fiber and bulk, and thus keeps your body detoxified. A slow moving bowel will leech all your energy, and is a haven for parasites and other opportunistic organisms. Greens also contain many antioxidants and are a great source of vitamins and trace minerals. Many people seem to have the idea that these vegetables are “boring” or eat them as a chore. I personally find vegetables to be my favorite food group. Try new vegetables, like Kale, Mustard Greens, Bok Choy and Swiss Chard. Eat broccoli Rabe with olive oil, lemon and hot pepper, or Escarole soup with garlic and white beans and tell me that vegetables are boring, I’ll bet you won’t. Challenge yourself to have a serving of green vegetables at every meal for a week (even breakfast) You will feel full longer, have more energy and crave less processed foods.
Carbohydrates: Strictly speaking a body does not require many carbohydrates at all.
That’s not to say carbs don’t have their uses or that everyone should be on a no carb diet. Many foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals have a carbohydrate component to them. Carbohydrates are broken down very quickly into glucose. Glucose is your cells primary source of energy. But they are not the only source ( see, triglycerides in lipids section). The more active you are at any given moment, the more energy your body needs to keep functioning while it does the work of running your organs and breaking down lipids and proteins etc. The problem arises when a person consumes more energy than they need at the time, on a consistent basis. If you eat a serving of carbohydrates, especially when they are processed which makes them breakdown faster, your blood glucose levels shoot up almost instantly. In order to maintain the proper levels of sugar in your blood and prevent the catastrophe of glucose shock, your body releases a hormone called insulin. Insulin is a “master” hormone. If your metabolism were a ship, Insulin would be the captain. When it is released it is a signal for cells in the liver, muscles and fat tissues to stop doing what they normally would be doing and focus on taking in glucose from the blood and store it as glycogen. ( Stop cleaning the deck, stop repairing the sails, grab a bucket and start bailing water!) Glycogen is similar to triglycerides, in that it is a molecule that stores energy. The main difference is that it is far less efficient. Now here’s the kicker. When Insulin is released, it stops the use of fat as energy; presumably this is because it is better for your body to use the less efficient glycogen first, before tapping into its sources of triglycerides which are more valuable to the body since they store more energy in less space. What begins to happen when this occurs regularly is your body gets a massive stockpile of glycogen, which the insulin forces it to use first.
Then those triglycerides start to stockpile too, since you’re not just eating carbs, you’re eating fats, and now those fat stores start to become more visible on your body, your jeans don’t fit well, your energy starts to sag because you’re body is forced to use lower quality fuel, and you want to move around less.
Through all of this it’s likely that you’re still eating the same amount of carbohydrates and continuing the vicious cycle.
What can happen next? Insulin resistance. The receptors in your muscles and liver and fat tissues have had enough of this game, they aren’t as quick to jump when the captain says grab the bucket, it takes longer and longer, to get the job done, and your body is subject to high glucose levels for too long which will eventually begin to cause problems.
If everything isn’t brought under control quickly, the ship will sink or a mutiny will occur, your metabolism can’t do its job properly and you may diabetic.
So what does all this mean to the average person? Should I, or should I not cut carbs?
Well the answer is yes and no.
You really should cut out processed carbohydrates. ( that means white flour, pasta, white rice, white sugar, etc) as they have no nutritional value beyond raising your blood glucose level. No one needs these types of foods, and studies have shown that eating them can cause you to crave them more. However, if you are otherwise healthy you could eat them in limited amounts. As for other carbohydrates, you should eat them in the form of legumes, whole grains, fruits, and other carbohydrate and nutrient rich vegetables such as carrots, cauliflower and sweet potatoes. All in relation to how active you are. An athlete or extremely active individual who is moving around all day needs to eat a fairly large amount of carbohydrates to keep their energy up. Chances are this type of person does not have huge stock piles of glycogen and triglycerides because they are always moving and their body is using that energy. Conversely, a person who wakes up, drives to work, sits at work, drives home, is not physically active there, and doesn’t exercise needs almost no carbohydrates. It is likely you fall somewhere in the middle, for an active person about 30% of your diet being carbs is probably sufficient, Just make sure the source of those carbohydrates are not refined. If you start loosing more weight than you should, that’s a good indicator that you need to eat more carbohydrates.