Now I know, I’m not supposed to make guarantees about your health. But here’s the thing: when you start fueling your body better, you’ll feel better and it will improve your health to some degree (though I can’t predict how much.)

A quick analogy: if you put cheap gas in a Maserati, it’s not going to perform as well as if you put the high octane premium stuff in, right? 

Your body is the same way.

The trick with your body is understanding what’s high octane and what’s garbage. Sometimes we can be misled.

But what IS high octane for the human body?

It’s not the rich stuff that makes up much of people’s diets today. It’s not the concentrated fat & protein in cheese. That’s high octane for a baby cow!

It’s not large amounts of animal food. You’re not REALLY a carnivore. Just look at your teeth compared to your dog’s or cat’s; the difference is obvious. That stuff is high octane for Rover but not you!

High octane for the human body is whole plant food. It’s the stuff our cells need to make all the healthy things to fuel our bodies. It’s the stuff our gut microbiome needs as well. Does that make sense?

I could pretty much end this blog with that and it would be complete, except that I wouldn’t have given you the 5 rules!

So here they are:

1. Always keep fresh and frozen fruit in the house.
You can use this in a variety of ways.

I like to use fresh fruit in my oatmeal in the mornings. In the summertime, I eat berries of all types; blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and more. In the wintertime, it might be apples or pears.

I eat fresh fruit with a cup of tea for dessert after dinner. It satisfies that urge for something sweet and keeps me away from chocolate, my nemesis.

I also eat fresh fruit for my afternoon pick-me-up instead of junk food or candy.

2. Increase your fiber intake.

What IS fiber anyway? Fiber is that part of plants that we don’t really digest well. And that is the beauty of fiber. It fills up our tummy and keeps it working so we are satiated with fewer calories. All plant foods contain fiber.

Fiber also feeds the good-guy bugs that make up your gut microbiota. Now I know you’re hearing more about the importance of your gut bugs lately because we’re learning more about them daily.

Basically plant foods help feed the healthy ones and animal foods and processed foods help feed the bad-guys. So you choose!

To get more fiber, just eat more plants! Plants at breakfast (cereal). Plants at lunch, plants at dinner (vegetables, beans, grains).

3. Put things together that you normally use together in advance to save time.

Here’s an example: I use ground flax seeds & chia seeds together for a couple of different things so I grind about ½ cup of each and put them together in a mason jar. Every couple of weeks, I need to grind more.

What do I use flax & chia for?

(i) I add them to my oatmeal for protein and omega-3s.

(ii) They can be used as an egg substitute in cooking and baking. Mix 1Tbsp. With 3 Tbsp, of water and let sit for about 5 minutes. Use as 1 egg.

(iii) I add them to smoothies to thicken and add nutritional value.

If you find yourself using the same things together all the time, mix them in a container & make it easier.

4. Use spices or fruit instead of sweeteners.

Some examples: I have a mix (see #3) of cinnamon, ginger and cardamom that I use in my oatmeal. I also use it in baked sweet potatoes and other places where I might want a little hint of sweet flavor.

You can use mashed up banana, applesauce or crushed pineapple in place of both sweetener and oil in baked goods. (I’ll publish some recipes soon.)

5. Don’t be afraid of whole-grain carbs.

Perfect example: I was talking to a potential new client yesterday. She mentioned that she didn’t eat avocado toast for lunch because of a concern about the calories in the toast. Two pieces of toast are about 180 Calories. Add the 1/4 avocado; probably 280 Calories total. Meanwhile, she had resisted getting herself a fast-food burger when she picked one up for her husband at his request. (Refusing to do that might also be a conversation!)That would have been closer to 600 calories.

Of course, better than that would have been a bowl of intact whole grain like quinoa, millet, or brown rice. It could have been made in advance and simply warmed up. Add some beans (whole canned beans are fine) and a ½ cup of frozen spinach. Throw it in the microwave and top it with some salsa and you have a hearty lunch for just a couple hundred calories with virtually no fat.

The point of any of this is NOT Calorie counting. It’s Calorie and nutritional AWARENESS.

Here’s what calorie awareness looks like:

A cup of most vegetables contains less than 50 Calories
A cup of most fruit is about 100 Calories
A cup of starchy vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, etc.) about 100.
A cup of most whole intact whole grains (cooked) 200-300
A cup of ground beef is about 5.3 ounces and has 617 Calories with 40 gm fat

Conclusion: When you fuel your body with mostly plants and you don’t add liquid oils (at 270 Calories per OUNCE!), losing weight is much easier.

With weight loss comes decreased inflammation. That leads to easier movement which helps fitness, energy and a host of other things.
Like I said. . .improved health.

Want more specifics for your particular health issues?
Join me in my new Empowered Wellness Membership Program.

Your first 30 days are free with no obligation. Check it out here. If you have any questions, I’d love to talk with you.

The post 5 Simple Ways to Advance Your Health Today appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.

People point to the changes that happened in the ’80s when the USDA switched to using the infamous pyramid and started emphasizing low-fat eating. Then, over the next decade, Americans started gaining weight.

But, is the inherent “fattening-ness” of a baked potato really the underlying cause of our obesity?

I say NO! Here are some reasons:

Checking websites from the USDA, the Farm Bureau, and other commodities, I quickly uncovered that
we are currently consuming several times as much vegetable oil and more than double the amount of cheese we were in the ’70s.
We are also eating more than double the amount of chicken; far more than the amount of red meat we’ve decreased.

Compare:

• a pound of cooked chicken breast = 748 calories
• a pound of ground meat = 1,506 calories
• a pound of baked potatoes = 350 calories!

And it’s no secret that we’re eating more processed starches; white flour & cornmeal products that are laden not just with empty-calorie starches but also empty-calorie fats and sugar.

The white flour & cornmeal, devoid of nutrients, are bad enough but add the sugar and the fat and you’ve got a
5-part recipe for obesity:

1. Processed starches; devoid of both fiber and nutrients.
2. Processed sugar, corn syrup or similar sweeteners also devoid of nutrients.
3. Processed fats (mostly vegetable oils); which are not only devoid of nutrients, but also raise cholesterol and LDL levels, cause inflammation and more; again, with no nutrition and lots of empty calories. (a graph I found indicates that vegetable oil consumption in the US rose several-fold between 1980 & 2000.)
4. The lack of fiber means they are quickly digested and don’t have enough volume to stimulate stretch receptors in our stomachs, leaving us hungry in as little as an hour even though we’ve consumed several hundred calories. Our satiety centers are never satisfied by this “food.”
5.  The lack of nutrients means the other thing that stimulates our satiety centers (taking in nutritious food) also isn’t happening here.

So it’s not the “starch” per se that’s the problem, it’s the combination of processed dead starch and processed dead fat & sugar.

Back to the baked potato; it’s not the problem. It’s the sour cream, bacon bits, cheese, and all the other stuff people commonly add to it.

As our per capita consumption of pizza and burgers has skyrocketed along with the “foods” mentioned above that are even more devoid of nutrition, our obesity rates have also skyrocketed. Meanwhile, our consumption of nutritious starches like beans, whole grain rice, barley, millet, quinoa, and more have plummeted. (Except for quinoa recently because it’s in vogue. But eating it once every week or 2 doesn’t make up for what we’re not getting on a daily basis.)

Taking this a little further and looking around the world, we find that the Okinawans, famous for their longevity, eat a diet that is over 60% sweet potatoes, squash, and gourds. . . starches!  They have virtually no heart disease, diabetes, or cancer in their 80s, 90s, and beyond! We also find that in other regions of the world where people eat traditional diets and remain healthy throughout life, they eat predominantly beans, whole grains (starches), and veggies. They typically eat less than 10% of their calories from animal foods (they use meat as a condiment; for flavor). They also use little added oil and little or no dairy.

Further, contrary to what you (and your doctor) may think, animal fat in the diet the cause of type 2 diabetes.

So, if you insist you must have sour cream on your baked potato, here you go!

Vegan Sour Cream
1 lb. silken tofu
2Tbsp. lemon juice  
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp salt.
Blend in blender or food processor until smooth.
Notes: Silken tofu can be found NON-refrigerated, usually near the canned beans or condiments in your health food store. It comes in a box similar to that of (unrefrigerated) non-dairy milk or juice. (I always buy organic soy products so I know they’re not genetically modified.)

Other baked potato toppings:
Salsa
Steamed broccoli
Nutritional yeast (this is a powder or flake. I use it with other stuff as it adds richness)
Spiced black beans
Let your imagination go, there’s much more.

So, when you eat the baked potato mentioned above, you can round it out to a full meal by adding the vegan sour cream or black beans as a protein source, adding a veggie, a salad, or both and completing the meal with a piece of fruit for dessert.

Stay tuned for more ideas.

The post Starches: Weight-gain, Diabetes & more; the truth. appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.

A friend asked my opinion on grains . . .

I had posted an article on my Facebook page about the fact that the most popular commercial cereals are also the ones most contaminated with Monsanto’s RoundUp and the glyphosate in it. Included in the testing was Cheerios, with a concentration of glyphosate of 729 ppb when tested by the Environmental Working Group. The upper limit of what EWG calls ‘safe’ for children is 160 ppb! That’s almost 5X the upper limit of ‘safe’ in a children’s cereal often eaten daily!

My post comment was that if one only consumed organic grains (NOT most commercial cereals), one need not be as concerned because they could not be sprayed DIRECTLY and still be considered organic. Thus, they are inherently safer. Although they COULD still be subject to contamination from overspray & drift from nearby fields. Still, those concentrations would be far lower and therefore, your safest option. (I’m a big fan of doing what makes you the best you can and then choosing not to stress about inherent imperfections.) Thus, since most commercial grains are apparently sprayed with RoundUp, the safest option, until we know otherwise is to eat only organic grains.

My friend’s comment was that she had stopped consuming most grains but thought she felt better when she consumed ancient grains and was wondering about my opinion on these grains. 

There’s more going on here than meets the eye:

First, my response included my perspective that I think most people are not sensitive to grains but to pesticide contamination.

Her comment indicated she basically agreed with my view that uncontaminated whole (UNpulverized) grains are fine.  However, it’s important to realize (even IF she DID agree with me) how one feels is not necessarily a good indicator of what is or is not healthy. Examples of this abound; from the guy who has a fatal heart attack when he ‘felt great’ yesterday to how you feel after a couple of drinks or how I used to feel after a bowl of ice cream when I was younger and more. Lack of symptoms are not necessarily a good indicator of what is healthy.

Then there’s also the other side: you can feel miserable and still be healthy! What does that look like? An example: If you eat contaminated food & wind up in the bathroom all night, your body is having a healthy response; detoxifying itself from having taken in a toxic substance; even if you ‘feel sick.’

Another thing: People often ‘go off the deep end’ and make crazy and unhealthy changes in their diet; changes that can’t be kept long term as they are too restrictive (and unhealthy). They make these changes because they’re listening to unsupported ‘science’ of gurus who have their own agenda.  I like to caution people to not take anyone’s word for anything. (with that in mind, I’m happy to supply resources for your further research on anything I write about)

You can find doctors and other ‘health gurus’ out there that purpose everything from not eating fruit to not eating grains or starches to eating high fat, to keto, or only specific highly restrictive foods or nearly anything & everything. . . How do know what works and what’s healthy?

Let’s look at some thing: The human genome has multiple copies of genes (and multiple pathways) that breakdown starches. The typical person has 6-10 different genes that code for breaking down starch. In contrast, we all have just one or two ways to break down protein or fat. This means we evolved by eating starches or we wouldn’t have so many ways to break them down. So basically, our bodies are designed, by the environment and nature, to consume predominantly starches. This does NOT mean bread or processed foods or white rice are of the same VALUE as sweet potatoes, squash or corn even though we can utilize them. It doesn’t mean white potatoes with butter and sour cream are healthy. It CAN mean white potatoes with the skin, stuffed with other veggies & laced balsamic vinegar is a good choice.

The ancient grains my friend was referring to are whole unprocessed grains like quinoa, amaranth, whole grain brown rice and more. Good choices! In general, the closer to nature we consume a food the better; though these foods, obviously, must be cooked.

Some keto/paleo fanatics use the above statement (can’t be eaten raw) to say we shouldn’t consume these things. My standard response to that is:

• The compounds in these foods that can cause us physical problems, e.g. lectins, are inactivated by heat. So beans & grains should be cooked & once cooked, there is no problem. Further, there is no evidence anywhere that these foods are harmful to most people.
• The healthiest cultures in the world, people like the Okinawans, who live to be 100-105, the Sardinians (an island in Italy), The Ikarians (an island in Greece) and some native cultures in South America and Africa (who also live quite healthfully to 90 and beyond; the so called ‘Blue Zone regions) subsist on mainly these kinds of foods. There’s also pretty good archaeological evidence that our ancestors ate as much as 200 gms. of fiber per day (the average American now eats 20-25 gms.)
• The rates of many diseases of the Western World are inversely proportional to the amount of fiber in our diet. So the more fiber, in the form of REAL whole food we eat, the healthier we are & the longer we live, in general.
• Fiber additives that you mix into water or juice and drink do not seem to promote the same effect as whole food.

I assert that most people (not including those who are allergic and some others) who are cutting out grains, corn & potatoes could eat them if (1) they are organic and (2) didn’t eat processed foods (3) ate animal foods no more than just a few times per week. 

All of this is to say that there is much evidence that supports the notion we should be eating grains and whole complex carbohydrates in general.

Notice I said “whole complex carbos” as I talked about above.

Here’s the biggest problem: many in the industry improperly associate lump ALL starches into the same category. The fact remains that processed starches, almost by definition contain (1) next to no fiber, (2) next to no other nutritional value (3) typically also have lots of added isolated fat and processed sugar. It is inaccurate, to say the least, to compare a white potato (often vilified) with a donut!

And while the potato is, admittedly not the MOST nutritious food, many studies have shown Type 2 diabetes can be reversed in a matter of days to weeks on a diet rich in things like potatoes, brown rice and more when animal foods and other added fats are removed (or markedly decrease to just a couple servings per week) from the diet .

Further, saying you shouldn’t eat white potatoes because they’re not as nutritious as say sweet potatoes or squash is like saying you shouldn’t consume strawberries because blueberries have more nutrients! We eat FOOD, not nutrient values and as long as we are consuming whole food and predominantly plant-based, it is perfectly fine to let personal preference guide our choices. I think it’s preferable because you way less likely to go buy something processed & full of junk if you have a large variety of foods you love that you can consume.

So eat your beans, your whole (unprocessed) grains, your squash & sweet potatoes and YES, even that vilified white potato! Just don’t fry it or slather it with sour cream! Try adding veggies like steamed broccoli or some mushrooms & garlic sautéed in a dash of veggie broth to them. Then dress them with a high-quality balsamic vinegar! YUM!

Let me know how you like them!

The post Grains of Thoughts on Grains (and other carbos) appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.