Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! (18 page)
Read Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! Online
Authors: Kris Carr,Rory Freedman (Preface),Dean Ornish M.D. (Foreword)
Tags: #Nutrition, #Motivational & Inspirational, #Health & Fitness, #Diets, #Medical, #General, #Women - Health and hygiene, #Health, #Diet Therapy, #Self-Help, #Vegetarianism, #Women
Life without pasta? No way! Just choose glutenfree brands—there are lots of delish kinds to select from. You can also eat grains, such as brown rice, wild rice, amaranth, corn, buckwheat, millet, teff, and quinoa. Some people can eat oats without any problems, although others may have to skip them because oats are often processed in the same plants where wheat is processed, and cross-contamination may occur. Check out
glutenfreeoats.com
for more information. Instead of wheat flour, you can use gluten-free flours made from a variety of grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds. In fact, many supermarkets today have a good selection of gluten-free breads and other products, and it’s amazing what great gluten-free stuff you can get online. And don’t forget that fruits, veggies, leafies, beans, potatoes, squashes, seeds, and nuts don’t have gluten, so you have tons of great options.
GO GLUTEN-FREE
with
Mark Hyman, MD
A recent large study
in the
Journal of the American Medical Association
found that people with diagnosed, undiagnosed, and “latent” celiac disease or gluten sensitivity had a higher risk of death, mostly from heart disease and cancer. The findings were dramatic. There was a 39 percent increased risk of death in those with celiac disease, 72 percent increased risk in those with gut inflammation related to gluten, and 35 percent increased risk in those with gluten sensitivity but no celiac disease.
This groundbreaking—and startling—research proves you don’t have to have full-blown celiac disease to experience serious health problems and complications—even accelerated death—from eating gluten. Yet an estimated 99 percent of people who have a problem with eating gluten don’t even know it. They ascribe their ill health or symptoms to something else.
A review paper in
The New England Journal of Medicine
listed fifty-five “diseases” that can be caused by eating gluten. These include osteoporosis, irritable bowel disease, inflammatory bowel disease, anemia, cancer, fatigue, and canker sores, as well as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and almost all other autoimmune diseases. Gluten is also linked to many psychiatric and neurological diseases, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, dementia, migraines, epilepsy, and neuropathy (nerve damage). It has also been linked to autism.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that all cases of these conditions are caused by gluten intolerance—but if you have a chronic illness, you may want to follow an elimination/reintegration diet. While a blood test can help identify gluten sensitivity, the only way you will know if this is really a problem for you is to eliminate all gluten for a short period of time (two to four weeks) and see how you feel. Check the labels of all foods. They must indicate, by law, the potential presence of wheat, peanuts, and soy.
For this test to work, you must eliminate 100 percent of the gluten from your diet—no exceptions, no hidden gluten, and not a single crumb of bread. If at the end of the test period you feel great, ditch the gluten. If you go back to gluten and feel at all bad, you know you need to stay off gluten permanently. We do not need gluten to live; it is completely optional as far as our health goes.
If you are still interested in knowing more, gluten allergy/celiac disease tests are available through Labcorp or Quest Diagnostics. They help identify various forms of allergy or sensitivity to gluten or wheat by looking for various antibodies
that signal gluten-related conditions. You can also have an intestinal biopsy, although it is rarely needed if gluten antibodies are positive.
When you see your test results, consider that I believe any elevation of antibodies is significant and worthy of a trial of gluten elimination. Many doctors consider elevated anti-gliadin antibodies in the absence of a positive intestinal biopsy showing damage to be “false positives.” That means the test looks positive but really isn’t significant. We can no longer say that. Positive is positive and, as with all illness, there is a continuum of disease, from mild gluten sensitivity to full-blown celiac disease.
Mark Hyman, MD,
author of the best-selling
The UltraMind Solution
and other books, is a practicing physician and a pioneer in the emerging field of functional medicine, which strives to use new research to understand and treat the underlying causes of disease.
SOCIAL LUBRICANTS AND JAVA
Now for the liquid lovers.
And who doesn’t love a cup o’ Joe and a glass of red? Enjoy them from time to time; just don’t make them an everyday habit. Like sugar, these mischievous Casanovas are highly addictive. Once you dip your toe in, they’ve got ya. Your adrenals, kidneys, skin, breath, cholesterol, blood, and blood pressure will thank you when you dial down your consumption.
Coffee is extremely acidic and causes considerable dehydration. Remember that minerals are required to balance pH. Kiss these minerals good-bye as you piss them down the toilet along with your hot cup of Starbucks. Those who advocate regular moderate use claim that coffee contains beneficial properties. Maybe so, but that doesn’t take into account the whole picture. We can’t dissect the good from the bad in order to make the case for our health choices.
In addition to being acidic, coffee beans are roasted. These beans have oils in them. Roasted oils become rancid and clog up your lovely liver. It’s kinda obvious that this stuff isn’t good for you. The fact that you get the jitters when you drink it, and migraines when you don’t, should tell
you something. How about insomnia? Coffee is definitely the enemy of restful sleep. And if you’re dealing with anxiety, panic disorders, or a really stressful job, coffee will only exacerbate the chaos. If a cold sweat really turns you on, then by all means, drink up.
For those gals looking to start a family, a 2008 study in the
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
found that mamas who guzzled high doses of caffeine during pregnancy (around 200 milligrams or more per day, or two cups of brewed coffee) had a greater risk of miscarriage than those who drank less caffeine; the more caffeine the women drank over 200 mg, the greater their risk of miscarriage. Think about it: Who wants to live in a house that’s dirty and stressful? The baby’s immature metabolism hits the roof while your coffee break strangles the blood flow to the placenta. And that includes sodas with caffeine, energy drinks, and black tea.
Women who are prone to breast cysts will also want to stay away from coffee and other highly caffeinated drinks. See your gynecologist if you ever feel even the slightest lump. If it turns out to be a benign cyst, you may want to check out evening primrose and vitamin E. (I myself take about 1,000 mg of evening primrose and 400 to 800 IUs of vitamin E.) This helps tremendously; within a few weeks the cysts will likely disappear.
Getting off coffee isn’t all that hard, but don’t do it cold tofurkey. If you’re a heavy caffeine consumer, dumping it suddenly might make you a homicidal zombie. Wean yourself slowly over a week or so.
•
MAKE—AND DOWN—A GREEN JUICE!
The more juice you drink, the fewer outside stimulants you’ll need. Green juice, a mixture of glorious green veggies and herbs, is loaded with a hefty blast of sustainable energy.
•
HAVE A CUPPA GREEN TEA
, white tea, or yerba maté. The relatively small amount of caffeine in these drinks will definitely help you transition. Bancha and genmaicha teas both have a very earthy taste and are made from older green tea leaves picked at the end of the season. Kukicha, made from the twigs, stalks, and stems of the tea plant, contains the tiniest amount of caffeine. Kukicha tea has a slightly alkalizing effect and is good for bellyaches.
•
TRY CACAO (RAW CHOCOLATE)
, the coffee alternative that will knock your socks off. It contains only trace amounts of caffeine. I love making a superfood smoothie out of cacao, nut milk, stevia or agave, and vanilla—add a few goji berries and a banana. Or try making a delish hot chocolate by heating some hemp milk and adding a scoop of cacao and a dash of agave!
•
BREW UP SOME TEECCINO
with almond or hemp milk and a drizzle of agave for an amazing cup of herbal coffee. Teeccino is made from grains and doesn’t contain any caffeine. It does have a wee bit of gluten in it, so if you’re sensitive you may want to avoid it.
•
SAMPLE CHICORY
, a totally natural product made from a perennial plant. It’s completely caffeine-free and can be brewed right in your home coffeemaker (after you give it a good washin’). Use 2 to 3 tablespoons of ground roast chicory for each cup of brew desired. Vary the amount to suit your taste. Sweeten with hemp or almond milk and a drop of stevia.
•
IF THERE’S NO WAY IN HELL YOU’LL TRY ANY OF THESE
alternatives, then at the very least choose organic, shade-grown coffee and cut back to no more than one cup per day. Remember, flirt—don’t marry! Some folks do the half-caf, half-decaf thing, or transition to decaf. Find companies that use a water process to strip the caffeine. Most store decaf brands use toxic chemicals that often remain in the brew. And buy the best you can afford—if you’re going to drink coffee, it might as well taste good.
Guess what? You ain’t Jesus. Now, I’m not saying you have to haul your ass to AA and sober up ASAP; breaking (gluten-free) bread and sipping vino is a lovely thing. Let’s just make sure we’re keeping it in a healthy range. Like coffee, alcohol is very acidic. Even when consumed in moderation, alcohol interferes with your ability to absorb nutrients. So let’s define moderation: That’s one drink daily for women, and no more than two drinks a day for men. What’s a drink? One 12-ounce serving of beer, or one 5-ounce glass of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits. I bet some of y’all thought moderate was a 7-Eleven Big Gulp with a phat blast of Jack. Nope!
More than two drinks a day increases your risk of liver disease, high blood pressure, and cancer. For women, the risk of breast cancer goes up the more you drink—women who regularly have more than two drinks a day are at higher risk than women who drink less or don’t drink at all. Since alcohol creates blood sugar spikes, people with diabetes need to be particularly careful—their levels can peak and plummet into a dangerously hypoglycemic range.
If you’re trying to lose weight, alcohol will sabotage your plans. Drinking too much booze messes with your ability to know if you’re full. Since alcohol contains tons of empty calories, overdoing the sauce will make you look like a bloated hag. Excess booze also damages your cute little intestinal villi and reduces the absorption of nutrients—especially folate, vitamin B
12
, and calcium. Though some studies suggest that moderate amounts of red wine (one glass daily) have health benefits, especially to the heart, these perks can be obtained in other ways that are far less risky. Fresh-squeezed Concord grape juice, anyone?