Holistic Nutrition Bytes--San Francisco Nutrition Consultation » cortisol

How Cortisol Makes You Fat

admin — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 18:13:04 +0000

I talk about cortisol a lot. Probably mention it several times every day. It’s important in my line of work, because I help people reduce stress and lose weight, and cortisol is a major player in both of these situations. First, some science.

Cortisol is one of our main stress hormones, produced by the adrenal glands. The adrenals sit atop your kidneys and are the command and control center of the body. They produce and secrete stress & sex hormones and govern thyroid hormones, sleep, stress, weight, sex drive, and metabolism. In optimum health, cortisol in normal levels has an anti-inflammatory effect in the body and impacts blood sugar, digestion, and immunity. But the human body is designed around the concept of survival rather than optimum health. When we are under stress, regardless of the source of stress, our system reacts with the intent of keeping us alive under whatever dire circumstances we may encounter. There is simultaneously a hormonal (endocrine) and brain (neurological) response to stress. Combined, this is referred to as the neuroendocrine system. The main stress hormone we produce is cortisol (actually named for its production location on the cortex, or outer edge, of the adrenal glands).

In the days when a saber tooth tiger would jump out of hiding and attack, we had two choices with which to respond: Pick up a spear and fight, or run really fast and try to get away. This is what is known as the fight or flight response. We are hard wired through our neuroendocrine system for this basic survival mechanism to kick into gear when threats appear. When the stressor appears (in this case, the tiger), cortisol shoots up to get you through the stressful situation. As these chemical messengers are produced, numerous body processes speed up, and others slow down. As cortisol is released, it travels through the blood stream and converts amino acids into sugars or glucose, our basic fuel needed to fuel our system to fight or run. Dopamine, adrenaline, and noreadrenaline levels go up, and these stimulating neurotransmitters motivate us, helping to bring us up to full speed—action mode. Not only does the flow of hormones and neurotransmitters shift, our blood supply also shifts. When under stress, we divert blood from non-critical functions like digestive tract organs and shunt it towards skeletal muscle so we can move. Even our sex hormone levels drop in response to increased production of stress hormones. Stress is no bueno for your sex life.

This scenario is not problematic in a situation where occasional stress occurs and there are extended periods of time for full rest and recovery to take place. Does that sound like modern day life? Uh, no. These days we are under constant stress, and the mechanism designed to fight off a tiger is invoked every morning and afternoon in rush hour traffic or during hectic days at work or a fight with a spouse or friend. When we experience chronic stress, the body is constantly churning out cortisol, and this can have negative physical side effects, causing anxiety, insomnia, increased fat storage (especially around the mid-section–”belly fat!”), poor digestion, inflammation, and lowered immunity (more frequent illness), to name a few. Cortisol is catabolic (meaning it breaks down) , so high levels can cause loss of muscle tissue. This is the beginning of imbalance in the body. Stress really is the root cause of disease.

Back to how cortisol makes you fat. When your cortisol levels remain high, your body thinks it is going through a hardship and that it may starve. It will begin to store more fat around the midsection for times of famine (a stress). This also increases insulin levels, and insulin is–you guessed it–the fat storage hormone. High cortisol increases blood sugar to help get you through the stressful situation, but high blood sugar = increased sugar cravings. Physiology is working against you–high cortisol triggers high insulin and high blood sugar, all of which cause increased fat. This was useful for our ancestors but works against us in modern life. If you’re consuming a diet high in sugar, flour, or grains that break down into sugar, you’re storing even more fat. If cortisol is high at night (it should be lowest at that point), you’re not sleeping or getting restful sleep, and the body interprets that as stress, and the vicious cycle continues: lack of sleep is a stress = high cortisol = high blood sugar = cravings. You ever notice how you crave sugar & carbs when you don’t sleep well?

Let’s break it down. High cortisol can be caused by the following:
-emotional stress
-poor diet (lots of sugar, booze, refined carbs)
-pain (from an injury, for example) & inflammation (from poor diet or eating foods you’re sensitive to, like wheat or dairy for most people)
-lack of sleep
-moving, new job, getting fired
-getting married OR divorced
Aside from increased fat storage, high cortisol wrecks your digestion, and the majority of your immune system is in your gut, so there goes your immunity. But that’s a story for another day. How do you get cortisol regulated?

First off, you should consider a saliva test to check cortisol levels, because the stages of high cortisol progressing to burn out are treated very differently, and it’s difficult to determine where you are in the spectrum. If you have the symptoms I describe, especially the belly fat + difficulty losing it, you can be pretty sure you have high cortisol or had it at one point. If cortisol is high, you can also be sure that sex hormones are low and that digestion and immunity are suffering. I have very specific protocols for treating high cortisol, and I use plant based hormones. Various adaptogenic herbs work well: ashwaganda, holy basil, schizandra, for example. Also, vitamin C is a must, as your adrenals use a lot of C. A mineral complex should be taken at night, and increase your consumption: sea veggies, leafy greens, supergreens formulas with spirulina and chlorella. If you have trouble sleeping, consider taking a supplement like Seriphos at night. It contains phosphatidylserine to support adrenal function and promote restful sleep. Obviously, you need to regulate blood sugar levels through good diet (going long periods without eating or eating the wrong foods affects blood sugar, which your body interprets as a STRESS!). Targeted stress reduction like deep breathing & yoga work well, too. Chill out!

More posts you should read: http://www.maryvancenc.com/2009/02/inflammation/

http://www.maryvancenc.com/2008/10/stress/

http://www.maryvancenc.com/2010/04/overcoming-the-weight-loss-plateau/

http://www.maryvancenc.com/2008/12/solutions-for-sound-sleep/

Twinkie Diet = Weight Loss?

admin — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:40:50 +0000

Do you count calories or fat grams to lose weight? Is a calorie just a calorie? You may have recently read about the nutrition professor who lost 27 pounds by eating twinkies and junk food. His point is basically that one loses weight by cutting calories–no matter where they come from.

While it’s true that cutting calories leads to weight loss, but where calories come from counts more. This professor’s cholesterol dropped, which probably is a result from him simply dropping weight and reducing inflammation, BUT long term, this is not sustainable and certainly not healthy. Of course there is a difference between calories from organic protein, fruits, and veggies versus twinkies and junk food. But, as nutritionist and personal trainer to the stars JJ Virgin says, “The body isn’t a bank account–it’s a chemistry lab.”

She also says: “There is more to losing weight than merely creating a caloric deficit, especially when you focus on fat loss rather than overall weight loss. Your body is both a chemistry lab AND a history book. Food is information. It can tell your body to burn fat or store it, build muscle or burn it, balance blood sugar or send it spinning!”

What this means is that based on what you eat, certain hormones are released in the body that cause blood sugar imbalance, high cortisol, & fat storage (if you eat refined junk). And if you wait til you are starving to eat and your blood sugar is low, causing you to binge and overeat, you trigger a bigger insulin response. And insulin is the fat storage hormone. Plus, when blood sugar drops, cortisol spikes, also triggering fat storage. If you are eat a diet high in refined carbs like white flour, baked goods, and packaged/processed junk food, you also trigger a bigger insulin response = fat storage. If you’re eating unrefined whole foods meals with veggies and organic protein, and you’re eating regularly–every 4 hours–your insulin will regulate and your body will burn fat rather than store it. Think of it this way: sugar or glucose is your body’s main source of fuel, so if you’re eating a high carb/high sugar diet, even if they are unrefined grains or good carbs, it’s all breaking down into sugar. When your body gets what it need for fuel, it stores the rest. And since this diet triggers a higher insulin response, more is stored. When you focus on protein & veggies, stored fat is burned for energy because you are not providing your body with a lot of sugar.

When you skip meals or wait til you’re starving to eat, your cortisol (main stress hormone) spikes, causing increased fat storage, especially around the middle section. High cortisol can affect your menstrual cycles, cause sugar cravings, and cause bone loss. When you eat matters, too. Late night snackers are more likely to gain weight: eating late or at odd times during the night trigger more hormonal imbalance. Too much ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and not enough leptin (the I am full hormone) are produced.

The best diet for weight loss is organic protein, lots of veggies, 2 servings of fruit daily (or even one), and nuts & seeds. Proteins & good fat are essential for energy & satiety. Eat within and hour of waking, and eat every 4 hours. Stop eating 3 hours before bed, and have your largest meals at lunch & breakfast. This will trigger the proper hormonal response, balance cortisol & blood sugar, and burn fat!

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

Lose Those Last 5-10 Pounds

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:56:28 +0000

Losing weight is hard. But look at all your options! Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, countless ephedrine-fueled diet pills, The Special K diet (replace 2 meals with special K cereal. Of course you’ll lose weight–you’re only consuming about 1200 calories daily). The main thing these diets have in common is that they do not address the underlying reason behind the weight gain or inability to shed weight. And they do not change your habits; they merely offer a magic pill or 3 highly refined meals delivered to your door (what happens when you go off the meals, in most cases? You can guess).

The math is pretty easy: you’ll lose weight if you eat less and exercise more, taking in fewer calories than you are burning. But the physiology isn’t always that easy. You may find it difficult to lose weight if you are overly stressed and have high cortisol, low thyroid hormone, bad bacteria overgrowth in your gut, or too many toxins stored in the body from your environment, lifestyle, or food supply. Or you may hit a plateau, meaning you can’t lose those 5-10 pounds. Here are a few tips.

1. Sorry, but you have to exercise. With that said, change up your routine so that your body doesn’t get used to your exercise pattern. Always integrate strength training into your routine for 2-3 days a week–it boosts metabolism and increases bone density. Interval training is very effective. Instead of running 5 miles, try sprinting for 1 minute and jogging for 2 in intervals. Do this only for 30 minutes, and your performance will increase dramatically over jogging at the same pace for an hour. Plus, long term jogging is extremely hard on the joints.

2. Reduce stress. If you have high or low cortisol due to chronic stress, you will have low thyroid hormone, so no matter what you’re doing, you won’t lose weight. Take time each day for meditation/deep breathing/yoga/whatever relaxes you. Consider adaptogenic herbs to boost adrenal hormone levels, which will normalize thyroid. Try a combo of ashwaganda, rhodiola, licorice root, schizandra berry. Also try tyrosine to boost thyroid levels naturally.

3. Correct dysbiosis. Dysbiosis is a fancy way of saying your gut is off balance. We have billions of bacteria living in our intestinal tract: some good, some bad. When the bad overtake the good due to poor diet, antibiotic or birth control use, or too much sugar, it wreaks havoc on your body chemistry and can prevent weight loss. Take a high quality full spectrum probiotic, do an herbal digestive cleanse, and eat more probiotic food: cultured vegetables and krauts, miso, kefir, rejuvelac, kombucha.

4. Remove gluten, dairy, soy for 8 weeks. These are the most common allergenic foods, and if you consume foods to which you are sensitive/allergic, it affects everything from hormone balance to gut ecology (see above), sabotaging weight loss efforts. If you’re really feeling adventurous, cut out refined sugar for this period too. You’ll be amazed by how much your energy will increase. Your cells need glucose to function, but too much is stored as fat.

5. Try a 2-3 week liver cleanse. Your body stores toxins in your fat cells to protect your organs (smart!), and when these toxins build up, you cannot shed weight because your body knows when the weight comes off, the toxins will recirculate in the blood stream, and you’ll feel crappy. If you’re very toxic, you’ll feel somewhat crappy on a liver cleanse, but this means it’s working! Eliminate gluten, dairy, soy, alcohol, coffee, and sugar for 2-3 weeks. Eat seasonal, organic whole foods and lots of leafy greens. Ask me about our detox workshops, or click the workshops tab above for more.

Good luck and stay motivated! Don’t weigh yourself every day–only once a week.

Good Sleep Hygiene

admin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:03:01 +0000

I’ve written about sleep before, but sleep is critical to good health. Just ask anyone who isn’t getting any! Let’s have a refresher.

Poor sleep means waking frequently throughout the night, difficulty falling asleep, or waking up and not being able to get back to sleep. This affects every area of your life: you feel foggy, irritable, unable to concentrate, and you may experience cravings or increased hunger due to imbalanced blood sugar.

While we sleep, our immune systems are most active, scavenging through the body for abnormal cells, kind of like the night cleaning crew. Organs detoxify and repair and regeneration occurs. Lack of sleep means you’re robbing your body of this crucial process, and you may notice accelerated aging and higher susceptibility to illness.

Insomnia or poor sleep can be caused by a number of factors. A very common culprit is high cortisol. Cortisol is your main stress hormone, and it is high during times of stress to sharpen senses and increase chances of survival (if you were, say, outrunning a tiger). After the stress passes, cortisol should lower, but if you remain stressed out for long periods of time and cortisol stays high, it affects your overall hormonal balance.

Other than acute periods of stress, cortisol should be highest first thing in the morning to wake you, and lowest at night so you can fall asleep. If your cortisol levels do not fall naturally during the day because you are constantly under stress, you will have trouble falling asleep, or wake throughout the night. Ever have that wired feeling at night when you should be tired? Likely due to high stress hormones.

Get your cortisol levels tested. We offer a very easy take-home saliva test, and it is easy to correct imbalanced stress hormone levels. Lifestyle changes along with a treatment plan are critical to rebalance stress hormones.

For everyone that has trouble sleeping, practicing good sleep hygiene can make all the difference. Here are some tips:

*First, check your bedroom. Make it as dark as possible (think cave). Remove electric appliances, save for an alarm clock that is not directly next to your head. That means no tv, no stereo, and absolutely NO computers or cell phones.

*Create a sleep ritual and get your body on a schedule. Plan to go to bed at 10:30 or 11pm every night. What’s important is to get to bed at the same time every night. Start an hour before you hit the sack: stop watching tv, put down the computer, and start winding down with a cup of herbal tea (chamomile, skullcap, valerian, passion flower, lemon balm). Take an epsom salt bath–the magnesium will help you sleep. Then get in bed and read for 30 minutes til you fall asleep. Do this every night.

*Take the minerals magnesium and calcium in the evening to relax your nervous system.

*Taking 50mg of 5HTP in the evenings can also help. 5HTP is the precursor to serotonin, which regulates sleep, mood, and appetite.

*Stop drinking so much coffee! Even if you drink in the mornings, it can affect sleep at night (caffeine has a long half life). Stop drinking caffeinated herbal teas after 3pm and absolutely no coffee after noon!

*If you toss and turn and can’t fall asleep after 30 minutes, pick up a book and read, or do another relaxing activity, then try again.

*If you wake up around 3 or 4am feeling wired and can’t get back to sleep, the culprit might be blood sugar. Nocturnal hypoglycemia means your blood sugar drops too low at night, signaling to your brain that you need food, so your brain signals to your body to wake you. Eat a snack about 30 minutes before bed. Try a potato or some yogurt – sounds funny, but it works. Potatoes increase serotonin, and yogurt is high in tryptophan. But any small protein-based snack will work. NOT sugar or refined carbs, which will exacerbate the problem. Other ideas are toast with nut butter, eggs, nuts, or a gluten-free bran muffin.

*Avoid alcohol, which affects blood sugar and interferes with nighttime liver detox. If you wake between 1am and 3am, especially take this under consideration.

*Avoid heavy meals three hours before bed.

*Consider kicking your snoring partner out into the guest bedroom. Better yet, figure out why he/she is snoring. This is an entire other post. Hmmmm.

Avoiding the Big D

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:05:02 +0000

Blood sugar. It may not mean as much to you as, say, diabetes, but learn to manage your blood sugar properly and you’ll stay healthy and avoid diabetes. Or if you have type 2 diabetes and take a medication such as Metformin, you can control your glucose levels through diet and possibly cut down on your meds.

First, a little physiology. Type 2 diabetes is a relatively new disease, first discovered in the 1930s and now rising to epidemic proportions. We are seeing cases of type 2 diabetes in children as young as 7 or 8 (!) years old. Why? The good ole Standard American Diet of excess–the Western refined diet of soda, processed foods, and SUGAR.

When you eat sugar and it is broken down and released to your blood stream, your pancreas releases insulin, a hormone that helps usher the sugar (glucose) from your blood stream and into your cells. When you eat too much sugar, your body must produce more and more insulin to prevent high blood sugar. After you eat too much sugar for a long period of time, your cells decide they have enough glucose and don’t want any more. When glucose is no longer allowed into the cells, insulin levels build up, and the person is called “insulin resistant.” Blood sugar levels continue to rise until the person is called diabetic.

High insulin levels along the way to diabetes are very detrimental: insulin causes obesity because it tells the body to store fat; it contributes to hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure, making the person more susceptible to heart disease. The deadly trio of belly fat, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar is known as “metabolic syndrome,” or syndrome X, and is a warning sign that you are at high risk for diabetes or heart disease.

Thing about diabetes and high insulin is that they are PREVENTABLE. Diabetes is a disease of prolonged mismanaged blood sugar and poor diet. A diet of excess sugar. Here are my recommendations for eating your blood sugar levels down and managing your diabetes through diet:
*diabetics and pre-diabetics respond very well to a low carbohydrate diet with moderate to high levels of good fats and proteins.

*eliminate man-made foods from your diet: NOTHING that comes from a box or a package; no refined foods; no refined sugar; no baked goods, cookies, candy, fruit juice, sweets, soda. Absolutely no man-made fats such as hydrogenated oils or trans fatty acids. Time for a whole foods diet!

Eat for health.

*increase trace minerals that help regulate blood sugar: chromium, vanadium, magnesium, zinc. Green vegetables such as chard, spinach, kale, and collards are high in minerals. Sea vegetables are excellent sources of trace minerals. Try nopales – prickly pear cactus pads- grilled, with olive oil. They contain a substance that is remarkably close to the drug Metformin, and can be very useful for blood sugar regulation. Use Celtic sea salt and sip on mineral broths (for my recipe see http://tinyurl.com/kr9czk)

*eat organic, nutrient-rich meats and fats: grass fed beef, lamb, organic chicken and fatty fish such as wild salmon and cod. Use olive and coconut and flax oils. Take a fish oil supplement.

*remove grains from diet. No gluten, no wheat, no white flour, no white rice, no cereal, no pasta, no bread or buns or rolls. The majority of your diet should consist of meats, leafy green vegetables and other non-starchy vegetables, seeds, nuts, and good fats. Brown rice and quinoa may be introduced once levels begin dropping. No fruit and absolutely NO fruit juice. Vegetables provide plenty of nutrients, fiber, and antioxidants. I highly recommend a spirulina and chlorella-based green food powder for additional nutrient support.

There are many blood sugar stabilizing products on the market. The one I use contains chromium, gymnema leaf, biotin, trace minerals, and cinnamon bark. Cinnamon is great for blood sugar balance!

Reduce stress levels – high cortisol (the “stress hormone”) levels contribute to high blood sugar levels, so it’s critical that you address your stress level. Consider adrenal hormone testing so you know and correct your stress hormone levels, and begin a gentle exercise program. Try meditation and deep breathing.

Do not reduce any medication without your doctor’s advice. But following a whole foods diet filled with nutrient-dense, unrefined foods, you can regulate your blood sugar levels naturally!

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.

Inflammation

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:40:48 +0000

We hear a lot about inflammation. Internally, it can be linked to accelerated aging, heart disease, cancer, irritable bowel and chron’s disease, and arthritis. So what is inflammation?

Think about what happens when you cut your finger. It swells and turns red as your body sends white blood cells to the injury site to prevent foreign invaders from causing infection. The swelling caused by this reaction is inflammation, and it is good, in this instance. But this same low-grade inflammation can occur inside your body, making you susceptible to pain and disease.

A main cause of inflammation is low-grade intestinal infection caused by parasites, yeast overgrowth (candida), fungus, or pathogenic bacteria. Your immune system is constantly fighting these infections, and similar to the reaction you get when you cut your finger, the attack it mounts on these foreign invaders causes inflammation in the gastro-intestinal tract. The bacteria H pylori is a perfect example: this insidious bacteria always causes inflammation in the gut and can lead to heart burn (inflammation in the esophagus) and ulcers. Systemic inflammation is always implicated in cardiovascular disease, and h pylori has been linked to heart disease.

Eating foods to which you are allergic (most often gluten or dairy) can exacerbate this intestinal inflammation and worsen infections or even cause them, because inflammation damages the gut lining, making it more permeable so that viruses and bacteria and parasites have an easier way in.

Another cause of inflammation is stress, of course. Stress causes high cortisol, and high cortisol leads to inflammation. Correcting cortisol lessens the body’s inflammatory response, so its ability to handle inflammation improves. Cortisol is your body’s natural anti-inflammatory hormone, but when stress raises cortisol, it actually causes inflammation. Chronic stress and digestive problems lead to inflammation, causing high cortisol, which causes an inability to burn body fat, and weight gain leads to more inflammation. A vicious cycle!

Other sources of inflammation include toxicity from your food, water, or environment. Pollution, chemicals from cosmetics, use of alcohol or drugs (legal and otherwise), and the Standard American Diet of caffeine, sugar (a HUGE contributor to inflammation), and refined foods all contribute to inflammation.

So, how do you know if you have it? Symptoms include the following:
-high blood pressure
-high cholesterol
-weight gain
-heartburn (acid reflux)
-inflamed skin conditions like eczema or acne
-chronic pain and arthritis
-diagnosis with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, colitis, Chron’s disease, or gastritis
-yeast infections or candidiasis
-diabetes

What should you do about it?

First off, clean up your diet. Cut out gluten, soy, and dairy, and consider food allergy testing to determine which foods are causing your gut to be inflamed. Eat dark leafy greens like kale, collards, spinach, and chard–high in anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids–and eat other omega-3 rich foods like salmon, walnuts, and grass fed beef. Cut out sugar, booze, and caffeine. Consider a fish oil supplement to boost your omega-3 levels.

Clean up your gut with a good digestive cleanse. Consider parasite testing, then choose the proper herbs or meds to kill whatever uninvited inhabitants are lurking. Correct dysbiosis (overgrowth of bad bacteria) with probiotics and probiotic-rich foods like cultured veggies and kefir. Choose a probiotic with S. boulardi.

Finally, reduce stress and test your adrenal hormones to correct high cortisol. You can bring high cortisol levels down with bio-identical hormones, but you need to test first. Get plenty of sleep and don’t over-exercise! Meditate or do some deep breathing.