Holistic Nutrition Bytes--San Francisco Nutrition Consultation » blood sugar

To Booze or Not to Booze

admin — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 05:22:19 +0000

No discussion of nutrition or holistic living would be complete without addressing alcohol. Booze has been used since the beginning of time for religious, medicinal, and recreational purposes, but like any elixir, there is a fine line between its benefits and its potential to cause damage. Some drinks, like wine & beer, contain antioxidants and may lower stress levels and contribute to heart & vascular health. But one man’s healing elixir can be another man’s poison. Because we are all so biochemically different, food and substances affect us all differently.

Alcohol is tricky because at a basic level, it is a simple sugar that spikes the body’s blood glucose levels immediately. This is one reason why people often get tired after they have a drink (blood sugar spike & crash), or why they end up hungry and making careless food choices, or why they eat too much after drinking (3am pizza, anyone?).

Here’s the thing. Alcoholic beverages are fermented and contain yeast, sugar, and whatever other ingredients they were made from (grapes, grains, potatoes, etc). Fermented drinks can provide health benefits, but some people are sensitive to the sugars and yeast that alcoholic beverages contain. These sugar sensitive folks may not be able to tolerate the alcohol (may suffer adverse reactions), or conversely, they may be predisposed to binge drinking because the sugars in the alcohol temporarily relieve the blood sugar instability or hypoglycemia to which they are prone. They feel better when they are drinking. The sugar and yeast in booze can cause intestinal inflammation and imbalance in the delicate gut ecology, causing candida infections (yeast overgrowth), which can cause health problems over time, from digestive issues to sugar cravings to hormonal problems to cognitive issues. Also, alcohol contains a lot of calories and breaks down as sugar. Sugar is your body’s main source of fuel, and when it gets what it needs, the remaining sugar is stored as fat. So yes, booze has the potential to make you fat if consumed in excess.

If you have normal alcohol chemistry, meaning you have no tendency toward binge drinking or dependence, alcohol can certainly be a part of a healthy lifestyle. After all, we equate it with special occasions and celebrations. Red wine especially is high in a potent antioxidant called resveratrol, which can slow signs of aging. The hops in beer can promote relaxation, and both can improve cardio health, according to research. I’m not an advocate of liquors, but vodka is low in sugar, and the potato-based vodkas are grain free if you avoid gluten, sugar, or other grains. Most guidelines assert that one drink per day is acceptable for women, two for men. While I don’t think anything should be used every day, it’s certainly fine in moderation. My philosophy is that you shouldn’t be addicted to or dependent upon anything, whether it be coffee, marijuana, cigarettes, chocolate, or booze, so if you *have* to have a drink every night to relax, you need to focus on the underlying reasons why you need it.

Abnormal alcohol chemistry ranges from allergic-addicted alcoholics to those who have low feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine, GABA, or serotonin, or even low levels of fatty acids. The feel-good chemicals in booze literally plug up the receptors and give these types of people a high that brings them to homeostasis. These are the people that can’t stop at one drink and tend to binge on four or more, then wake up the next morning and are able to do it again that night (or day, for that matter). Normal alcohol chemistry means that you are not compelled to binge and if you do, you wake up the next morning feeling truly crappy and may not drink again for a while. Despite potential health benefits, alcohol is a poison and must be detoxed by your liver. If you are binging or getting drunk regularly, you are putting enormous stress on the liver and causing inflammation throughout the body. When the pendulum swings this direction, you are no longer reaping health benefits from booze, and you are actually prone to damage.

With that said, there are a few guidelines to follow to use alcohol in a proper manner. Don’t drink on an empty stomach. Drink water in between alcoholic drinks. Booze is very dehydrating and disrupts the body’s delicate electrolyte & mineral balance. If you are using alcohol every day, even in moderation, ask yourself if you can go a few weeks without it. Try it, even. You might be amazed at how different you feel without it. Alcohol can be a depressant and an energy drain.

If you have alcoholism in your family, use it with caution. It is true that alcoholism in a genetic disease. The deficiencies and imbalances that alcoholics carry are passed along through generations. It’s the same with food addiction & depression issues–these are all biochemical disorders and not an issue of willpower. If you feel you have an addiction issue, realize that the issues can be corrected by addressing the underlying physiology, whether it be low neurotransmitters, a sugar sensitivity or hypoglycemia, a food allergy (gluten intolerance goes hand in hand with alcoholism and cravings), or a fatty acid deficiency.

Drink with care!

My Beef with the Food Pyramid

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:32:48 +0000

Remember that little pyramid you saw in grade school nutrition class? You know, the USDA’s guidelines about what to eat? They are responsible, in part, for our country’s obesity epidemic/crisis. 60 percent of Americans are overweight, and although many admittedly aren’t concerned with structuring their diets in accordance with the USDA’s nutrition guidelines, the food industry is. And so if you’re buying a lot of processed, refined, packaged, or fast food, as many folks are, you are eating the pyramid.

Now, the USDA recently revised the pyramid and made some slight alterations, but the guidelines are basically the same: grains should be the base of your meal, followed by veggies & fruits, and 3 servings of milk and dairy. Meat, beans, and fats should be consumed in moderation.

Follow me and get fat!

Food is information for your body. If grains such as bread, pasta, corn, rice, and cereals are the base of every meal, you are spiking your insulin levels and telling your body to store more fat. Simple as that. In addition, because the food industry is following these guidelines and proudly slapping on their cereal boxes that you are getting X number of servings of “whole grains,” you are falling for it and snatching up those products in a effort to be healthy, according to the USDA anyway. For example, the first few ingredients of Cheerios are Whole Grain Corn, Whole Grain Oats, Sugar, Whole Grain Barley, Whole Grain Rice, Whole Grain Wheat, Corn Starch, Brown Sugar Syrup, Corn Bran: all corn and gluten-based grains. These grains are high on the glycemic index and spike your blood sugar (and the sugar doesn’t help either), causing more fat storage!

The fact is, every body is different and not all guidelines work for everyone. But even in general, I don’t agree with these guidelines, because physiologically speaking, grains should not be the focus of your diet: it should be proteins & vegetables. Grains cause a lot of problems with blood sugar, and those that contain gluten (wheat, rye, barley) can cause so many other problems, like digestive & hormonal issues. If you’re overweight or trying to lose weight, grains are the enemy.

Grains are actually a fairly recent introduction into our diets. Our ancestors survived on proteins, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. Grains can be difficult to digest and may contribute to Chron’s, IBS, reflux, gas, bloating, belching, and yeast overgrowth. In addition, with the dairy, I have to say that A) if you’re eating conventional dairy, you’re getting an unhealthy dosage of antibiotics & growth hormones, and B) dairy is the most common food allergy I see in my practice. Probably up to 80 percent of my clients are dairy sensitive and are unaware until I have them do food allergy elimination diets. And consuming foods to which you are allergic can have very detrimental effects on your health over time! Dairy also contributes to congestion & can make seasonal allergies much worse.

Back to the food pyramid. I disagree with eating so many servings of grains, 3 servings of dairy (good lord), and even so much fruit, which can be too sugar heavy for certain people. So let’s make our own food pyramid, yes?

Base of every meal should be veggies of all kinds, both raw and cooked, both starchy and leafy. Think kale, chard, spinach, broccoli, mixed greens, etc. Then add a small servings of starchier root veggies like beets, carrots, potatoes/yams, or winter squash. The next category should be clean, organic protein such as wild fish, poultry, beef, bison, lamb, or pork. You can also add beans or legumes. One to two servings of seasonal fruit daily is fine. Add about one tablespoon of fat per meal: this could be an avocado, or good fats such as olive oil, butter, coconut oil, or sesame oil. Maybe you cooked your veggie saute in the fat, or maybe it’s a salad dressing. A handful of nuts or seeds a day makes a good snack. And dairy, grains, and sweets should be consumed sparingly!

So there you have it: veggies, both starchy and low carb veggies; proteins/legumes/meats; fruits; good fats. If you are making meals at home, you are in control of your own food pyramid!

Why Am I So Tired? (and other complaints)

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:08:14 +0000

dog tired

Overweight, fatigued, and insomnia. These are the most common complaints I get. They are all related. Let me explain.

Your adrenal glands, situated atop the kidneys, are your body’s command and control center, regulating stress and sleep and sugar cravings, metabolism, and even female hormone balance. They manufacture stress and sex hormones, and when you run yourself ragged with too much work, too little sleep, too much sugar, too much partying, emotional stress, or even positive stress like a new job or a new baby, your stress hormones start to go wonky and become imbalanced.

Your main stress hormone is cortisol. You’ve probably heard of cortisone, the steroid hormone that acts as an anti-inflammatory. Cortisol has a similar effect on the body: it is an anti-inflammatory hormone that promotes burning of body fat, stabilizes mood, and plays a strong role in allergies and blood sugar control. Too much cortisol can cause bone loss, increased abdominal fat, high blood sugar, high blood pressure.

Think of the fight-or-flight response: your body is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol to jack you up so you can handle stressful situations. But when you experience chronic stress from work, finances, relationships, drugs, poor diet, or toxins, your cortisol can remain high, causing problems. You might notice weight gain, anxiety, depression, and insomnia, or frequent waking throughout the night. There is also a strong cortisol-gut connection, so you may notice digestive issues or frequent illness when your cortisol is high (because the majority of your immune system is in your gut). Everything is connected!

So you may run at this level for a while, and you may be fueling yourself with coffee every day, which also drives cortisol up. Eventually, your body cannot keep up with the sustained high cortisol production and you begin to burn out, feeling fatigued. Your stress and female hormones come from the same source, and when your body is under stress, it uses everything it’s got to make cortisol to keep you going, so other hormones, mainly progesterone, your main female hormone, begin to suffer. You may start having menstrual issues or infertility issues at this point. Normal progesterone levels are critical for fertility & regular menstrual cycles.

So, to summarize: stress=high cortisol=weight gain, anxiety, insomnia=burnout=fatigue and more weight gain and female hormone issues like infertility or irregular cycles. What to do?

Solution: Keep blood sugar balanced by eating a whole foods (not processed junk) diet with enough protein at each meal (about 15 grams, palm-sized portion of meat or cup of legumes). Get 8 hours of sleep. Address the stress in your life and deal with it. Some is unavoidable, but what counts is how you handle it. Exercise–both cardio and stress relief.

Take it a step farther and do a saliva test to assess adrenal hormones. It’s an easy take-home test that I regularly use for clients. It’s easy to design a holistic protocol based on your results. Now, put the coffee down, quit stressing, and get in bed before 11pm.

Those Pesky Sugar Cravings

admin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:59:53 +0000

I hear a very common complaint from clients: “I get so tired at 3pm.” or “I have terrible sugar cravings, especially after I eat or in the afternoon and evening time.” Is this you? Read on.

Sugar cravings occur for a number of reasons. Could be hormonal. Most commonly, it means you haven’t properly managed your blood sugar levels, meaning that you either waited too long to eat and experienced a sharp dip in blood sugar (hypoglycemia), or you ate a lot of sugar or drank a lot of coffee, which spiked your blood sugar (hyperglycemia), and now it’s plummeted again, leaving you craving more sugar as your body tries to establish homeostatis (balance).

Let me explain. Your brain and body need glucose to survive. When your body perceives that blood sugar is getting too low, it sends you a signal that it needs fuel. You get hungry. When you eat sugar, in the form of white sugar, white flour (breaks down as sugar), alcohol, sodas, candy, cookies, pastries, etc, your body uses a hormone called insulin to transport the glucose to your cells for usage. When you eat too much sugar, too much insulin ushers too much glucose into cells, leaving not enough in your blood. This means your blood sugar has dropped too low, so you crave sugar again to bring the level back up.

Stay on this roller coaster too long, and not only are you feeling crabby and tired and craving sugar throughout the day, you are also setting yourself up for insulin resistance, meaning your cells don’t want anymore of the glucose your insulin is trying to give. This sets you up for diabetes, or chronic hyperglycemia.

Enough with the physiology. Let’s say you start your morning with coffee and a pastry, or coffee and nothing at all. You probably feel pretty good until you crash, then you’re starving, jittery, anxious, moody, irritable. You eat, probably too much because you’re starving and miscalculated your hunger needs, and probably feel tired as all your energy is diverted into digestion. Or, you eat more sugar and put yourself back on the roller coaster. Or you get a wicked sugar craving later in the afternoon or evening.

Do you wake up in the middle of the night? This may be nocturnal hypoglycemia. If you’ve had alcohol that evening or haven’t properly managed your blood sugar during the day, your blood sugar drops too low at night, and you’ll be rudely wakened as your brain tells your body it needs fuel.

Mismanaging your blood sugar drives your stress hormone, cortisol, up. High cortisol=weight gain, inflammation, anxiety, and can lead to female hormone problems as well. Cortisol levels that fluctuate during the day = periods of fatigue (especially at the dreaded 3pm slump) and trouble falling or staying asleep.

Step One: eat every 3 hours, beginning within an hour of waking, to set yourself up properly for the day. Reconsider so much coffee, which jacks your blood sugar, and if you must, drink it with protein. Muffins aren’t protein, but a couple hard-boiled eggs will suffice. Ideally, your breakfast will have some good fats, good protein, good carbs (smoothie is so perfect here, with flaxseeds, whey protein, supergreens). Make sure you are getting protein with every meal and that you don’t booze on an empty stomach (leads to blood sugar spike and crash, meaning bigger appetite and you’ll eat more ’cause you’re buzzed. Then you’ll wake up around 3am, unhappy). Eating regularly means stable blood sugar. Know that sugar cravings can also indicate you’re not getting enough protein. Snack on almonds or fruit and walnuts if you tend toward hypoglycemia during the day.

Are you eating a lot of refined sugar and want to break the habit? Go on a sugar detox. Quit cold turkey. It will be unpleasant for about 3 days, but it will get easier. Plan a month with no sugar. Take a multi-mineral and extra magnesium to help, and take extra chromium to help with the cravings. A supplement with 5HTP or 500mg glutamine on an empty stomach helps break the cravings, too. Not to beat a dead horse here, but coffee exacerbates sugar cravings, so try some green tea for a while. Make sugar free treats (see below recipe) with stevia or agave nectar. Use this as an opportunity to get more leafy greens and root vegetables to replenish the minerals that sugar depletes. Know also that eating sugar triggers the craving for more sugar (this is why you can’t stop with a couple M&Ms), so just don’t go there for this month. When you try some sugar on day 31, I bet you find it too sweet. We are inundated with corn syrupy overly sweet junk foods in our society and are desensitized to sweet. A couple bites will do. I bet at the end of the month, you have more energy and when you try sugar again, it makes you feel crappy.

Chew thoroughly and eat slowly. Cravings for sweets after you eat indicate you are eating too quickly and that food is not being assimilated properly. Chew so that food can be mixed with digestive enzymes and fully broken down.

According to a Chinese proverb, “Sour, sweet, bitter, pungent, all must be tasted.” Know that sweet is one of the five tastes and shouldn’t be eliminated altogether. Substitute fruit and non-refined sugar sweets to satisfy your palate.

Sugar Free Cookies
1/3 c almond butter
2 Tbs butter or coconut oil
1.5 or 2 large pink lady apples
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
¾ c carob powder or 1/2 cup cocoa powder
¼ tsp sea salt
1 ¼ c brown rice flour or other gluten free flour
about 30 whole almonds (optional)
½ – 1 c carob chips (optional)
¼ c agave nectar or pinch green stevia (optional)

Grease cookie sheets and preheat oven to 350. Chop apples into small chunks and put in blender. Add almond butter, butter (or oil) and eggs. Puree. Can add a bit of water to make more of a puree. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, carob/cocoa powder and salt. Mix well and add carob chips. Add puree to dry mix and stir just until well blended. Add optional sweetener if desired (stevia or agave). Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. If desired, press almond onto top of each cookie. Bake for 10 min or so – don’t overbake. Yum!

Calories: 70
Protein: 2g
Carb: 8.5
Total Fat: 3.5g
Fiber: 1.6g

Coffee: Yay or Nay?

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:20:09 +0000

it's so good.

I love coffee. Hazelnut, with some cream and a dash of honey. I love the smell. I would drink it every day, if it didn’t contribute to severe anxiety and blood sugar instability for me. Instead, I’ll have a cup a few times a month if the mood strikes. Sometimes I’ll go months without. But I always notice how nearly everyone I encounter on my way to work has a cup of coffee in their hands. We, as a society, love our coffee.

Coffee is hotly debated in the nutrition world. Like booze, I think that those who want to defend its merits can easily find positive health benefits associated with coffee, and those who are “against” it can find negatives. Let’s examine the great coffee debate.

On the plus side, coffee is very high in antioxidants. In fact, in the Standard American Diet, most people probably get the majority of their antioxidants from their morning coffee. There is also evidence that coffee possesses liver-protective qualities, especially in those who drink alcohol (good news for those of you who reach for a java when you’re heading to work, hungover). We’ve also heard that coffee may prevent Alzheimers and Parkinson’s. And we’re addicted to the buzz: coffee increases productivity and alertness and also helps us “go” in the morning. Many drink it just so they can maintain a regular morning (or whenever) poop. And it sure is tasty and comforting: a warm beverage ritual is a great way to start off the day. And then again at 3pm, when the afternoon crash disrupts your day.

On the minus, coffee is one of the most heavily sprayed crops. It has a very high concentration of pesticides that are also xenoestrogenic and can lead to endocrine disorders and toxic build-up. Coffee, like booze, is a drug, because it contains a lot of caffeine. It’s addicting. If you’re addicted to coffee, you’ll experience headaches – sometimes severe migraines – if you go a day without it, not to mention the fatigue and haze you’ll likely encounter. Caffeine can cause anxiety and sleep disturbances. Caffeine has a long half-life, meaning it takes your body a long time to break it down. Coffee consumed at 10am can still affect your sleep 12 hours later. Also, caffeine affects everyone differently: some can drink coffee after dinner and fall asleep within the hour, whereas others can be wired all day and experience high blood pressure or heart palpitations. Some people just metabolize caffeine more effectively.

Coffee can also adversely affect blood sugar and cortisol levels. Many people like the appetite-suppressing effects and use coffee to stave off hunger. It raises blood sugar, temporarily arresting hunger. But about an hour or 2 later, your blood sugar comes crashing down, leaving you starving, irritable, and/or tired and craving more coffee or sugar. Coffee raises cortisol levels, which can lead to adrenal burn-out and eventually, weight gain. Coffee is not a friend to your adrenals.

Coffee is a diuretic: it causes the body to flush delicate B vitamins and minerals, such as magnesium and potassium. Coffee is acid-forming: it leaches minerals from the body as your system attempts to maintain alkalinity, because it fosters an acidic state in the body. It is also dehydrating (read: bad for your skin!)

So here’s the thing: coffee, like everything else, is probably fine in moderation. And by moderation, I mean once a week or so if you’re otherwise healthy and not physically dependent upon it. But why be a slave to addiction? If you can’t go a day without your coffee, it’s time to examine why. Are you excessively fatigued? Time for adrenal repair. Are you constipated and can’t poop without your coffee? Time for digestive assessment or cleansing. Are you using coffee to kill your appetite so you can avoid breakfast (only to binge later)? Skipping meals is not the way to lose weight. Do you lack focus, or are you foggy without coffee?

Try a week without. Switch to green tea, which is very high in minerals, has less than half the caffeine, and nourishes the adrenals rather than frying them. Green tea promotes good solid, stable energy without the spike and crash, and stokes the body’s fat burning furnace. Break your addiction by switching from half caff/half decaf, then cut down to once a week. Avoid coffee altogether if you have insomnia, high blood pressure/cholesterol, anxiety, if you’re trying to lose weight, or if you’re doing a cleanse. Caffeine affects everyone differently. Use it with care.

My Experiement with Processed Food

admin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:31:09 +0000

Today I woke up and went to Safeway with the following goal in mind: eat processed food for a day and assess how I feel, a la Supersize Me. You see, normally I feel pretty darn good during the days. I may have a smoothie with spirulina and rice protein and fruit for breakfast; a salad with chicken for lunch; and maybe some fish and kale with cultured vegetables for dinner. (throw some dark chocolate in the mix with plenty of green tea throughout the day) I buy 90 percent organic, from the farmers’ market when I can, and I avoiding eating boxed food. I make everything from scratch unless I’m dining out.

The payoff? Stable blood sugar, good energy, I sleep well and am focused (most days). So today, I decided to experiment first hand how a trip to Safeway could influence my mood/energy level/well being for the day.

First off, it’s worth noting that Safeway is a scene of misery and despair. With that said, I decided to attempt to “shop healthy” and not just choose what most would consider junk foods.

For breakfast, I choose a yoplait yogurt paired with trail mix that contained white chocolate chip looking things that I assume are meant to be “yogurt” but are really white chocolate candy.

i have to admit, though, it did taste good.

Yogurt seems healthy, right? It even says it has live and active cultures! Here is the ingredient list:
cultured, pasteurized grade A milk
sugar
nonfat milk
fructose
high fructose corn syrup
dextrose
modified food starch
kosher gelatin
artificial flavor, red #40, yellow #6, blue #1 (oh god, i feel ill already)

Since when does yogurt need high fructose corn syrup? Artificial flavors and colors? High fructose corn syrup is highly processed and will spike your blood sugar so fast it’ll make your head spin, kind of like mine right now. Ug, I feel nauseous. I fed part of this yoplait to the dog, and she wouldn’t even eat it.

On to lunch. I pick out a box of Thai Kitchen Curry Stir-fry Rice Noodles with sauce.

too sweet. yuck. i still ate it, however. sugar is addicting, after all.

I love noodles, and the ingredient list is somewhat non-threatening (meaning I could pronounce everything, and it can be found in nature), so I give it a go. I decide to add spinach, so I grab a bag of that too. I boil the noodles, add the spinach, and add the sauce. Yowza! Too sweet! Yuck. Boy, this really tastes like it’s from a box. 500 calories and 20 grams of sugar later (why do my noodles need sugar?), I feel like crap again.

Just to top it all off, I have an oatmeal cranberry cookie for dessert. It’s almost 2pm now and I don’t even want to think about dinner. I need a nap, and I predict I’ll be hungry soon since I’ve not had adequate protein with my refined carbs. Probably all that sugar – 20 grams in my yogurt and 30 grams in my lunch – and all those refined carbs have put me to bed and are going to fatten me up since they’re not satisfying.

Your meals should energize you, not fatigue you. Aside from feeling bloated and tired, I also feel kind of depressed that processed foods marketed as healthy are still filled with all this junk. I am also reminded that anything I cook tastes 100 percent better than anything in a box for about the same amount of time. The payoff? I get to feel good. Right now? I feel like shit.