Beck Anderson Yoga & Wellness Hammock

When I first met him, he was 315 pounds and approximately 5’10″. He was pre-diabetic, had high cholesterol, using acid blockers, blood pressure medication and a sleep machine.

I’ve been consulting him since September. Eight months.

A conventional nutritionist or doctor would prescribe a low-fat, high carbohydrate diet and say the prescription drugs are helping his body stay healthy. At the worst, they would add a statin drug to his medication routine.

A conventional nutritionist would say nothing about cod liver oil, high vitamin butter, sea salt, or grass-fed meat. Heaven forbid they would suggest a probiotic or the GAPS (Gut And Psychology Syndrome) protocol.

But I did.

We spent hours in his kitchen removing processed, boxed “food” items with soy, hydrogenated oils, colorings and additives. I felt a twinge of guilt when I donated two laundry baskets of food at the food shelter: less-fortunate people shouldn’t be subjected to that “food” either.

We restocked his kitchen with nutrient-dense, full-fat foods. We found grass-fed protein, pulled in organic produce and talked about balancing blood sugar levels (super important for pre-diabetics).

Despite the nay-sayers and the calorie-in/calorie-out advocators, he stuck to our plan. He changed his lifestyle to a point that was slightly uncomfortable – but, as in every business takeover, there has to be a significant lifestyle change to prove that something is going to happen.

And something [good] did happen.

The first few week he spent eating through the six stages of the Introduction Diet to the GAPS protocol (purpose: to heal his gut). He lost a significant amount of weight all at once. Afterwards his lifestyle food plan is about healing his body on the inside. The excess weight is a symptom of what is wrong on the inside. So dietary changes are NOT about losing weight, although excess fat will not be sustained.

Now he’s wavering between being strict about what form nutrients take as they enter his body (generally a GAPS diet) and being a bit more indulgent. It’s a balancing game.

Now, eight months after we began, his blood test shows normal triglyceride and glucose levels. His doctor is helping him wean from his blood pressure medication. After more weight comes off, he’ll be able to wean off his sleep machine. He has Barrett’s esophagus and knows it is essentially a precursor to esophageal cancer. He knows the acid blocking medicine is not something to be ambivalent about and (soon!) he’ll be ready to begin the road of weaning off the acid blocker too.

He knows the road will be long, but he’s made a long-term committed to his health.

The Long Life Cocktail is great for increasing elimination and balancing hormones. This drink is filled with emulsifying enzymes from unsweetened cranberry juice that will help digest fat globules in the lymphatic system, and the psyllium (or ground-up flaxseed) will help bind toxins so they aren’t reabsorbed in the body. Flaxseed binds to estrogen receptors and interferes with enzymes that convert various hormones to estrogen and may help control estrogen dominance and the resulting water retention and weight gain.

This recipe is from Ann Louise Gittleman of The Fat Flush Plan.

Long Life Cocktail

Ingredients

4 oz unsweetened cranberry juice (Knudsen’s, Trader Joe’s, Mountain Sun’s)
28 oz water
1 tsp powdered psyllium husks OR 1 TBLS freshly ground flaxseed (or ground and then refrigerated)

Directions

1. Mix unsweetened cranberry juice and water together to make Cranberry Water.
2. Mix 8 oz of Cranberry Water with either psyllium husks or flaxseed

Mix the psyllium quickly and drink even quicker. It may be easier to get down with a straw. Drink 1 glass morning and night.

If you are on medications, take them a few hours either before or after drinking the Long LIfe Cocktail as the fiber can inhibit the effectiveness of prescription medications.

Many of the women I coach have the prevailing idea if they only decrease the number of calories they consume, the weight will melt off. This is, in fact, the prevailing nutritional basis in the world yet we are still in the middle of an obesity crisis. Could our one solid formula, calories in equals calories out, be the culprit? (more…)

Is Agave Nectar good or bad for your body? The short answer is a resounding NO.


I’ll let you come to your own conclusion through an article Food Renegade wrote– Click here. If you don’t have time to read the full article now, here are some highlights of the article and effects of Agave Nectar.

• “… increase[s] small, dense LDL particles and oxidized LDL, both factors that associate strongly with the risk of heart attack and may in fact contribute to it.”
• A study of two groups, one being people who used Agave Nectar for sweetener: “…the [Agave] group gained a disproportionate amount of visceral fat, which increased by 14%! Visceral fat is the most dangerous type; it’s associated with and contributes to chronic disease, particularly metabolic syndrome, the quintessential modern metabolic disorder.
• “The principal constituent of the agave root is starch, similar to the starch in corn or rice, and a complex carbohydrate called inulin, which is made up of chains of fructose molecules.”

“Good broth can resurrect the dead.”

Broth Benefits:

Gelatin is the traditional way of assuring plenty of proline and glycine in the diet.  Gelatin is especially rich in proline and hydroxyproline, containing 15.5 and 13.3 grams per 100 grams of pure protein respectively.  A diet deficient in proline and glycine may lead to suffering from stiff joints, skin diseases and other collagen, connective tissue and cartilage disorders.  One suggestion for heart patients with elevated lipoprotein (a) levels (the only “bad”cholesterol) is that they should take a formula consisting of proline, lysine and vitamin C to help reverse the artery-blocking effects of lipoprotein (a).

Gelatin promotes digestion, heals allergies, improves rheumatoid arthritis as well as other degenerative joint conditions and inflammatory bowel diseases, detoxification in the liver, heals wounds, and promotes bone building.  Also helps people with celiac disease.

During fasting or rapid weight loss (such as an illness), the body tends to eat its own protein store from the muscles.  If a person wants to avoid that (and who doesn’t?) bone broth can help.  Gelatin helps the body to stay in a “nitrogen balance,” meaning gelatin is already decomposed and it prevents the breakdown of protein in the body.  The same researcher, Carl Voit, found that gelatin alone is not able to build up protein supplies in the body.  To me it means don’t stay on a bone broth fast for an extended period of time.

“Remember also that the amino acids in gelatin, like all amino acids, can only be properly utilized when the diet contains sufficient fat-soluble activators–vitamins A and D–found exclusively in animal fats. So don’t hesitate to put cream in your broth-based soups and sauces, and include other sources of vitamins A and D in your diet, such as butter, egg yolks and cod liver oil.” “Broth is Beautiful,” Kaayla Daniels, PhD

General Bone Broth Recipe

Ingredients

2 – 3 pounds chicken, ducks, turkeys, geese, beef, fish* (see simmer hours table below)
Gizzards and chicken feet (option, but nutritious)
4 quarts of water
2 Tb Apple Cider Vinegar
2 large Onions (yellow or white)
2 – 4 Carrots, cut into large pieces
3 stalks Celery, cut into large pieces
1 bunch of Parsley

*make sure you are using the best bones: Chickens should be free-range, organic allowed to peck insects and bugs outside.  If chickens are feed fed, make sure it’s not soy based.  But if it is, make sure it’s not Genetically Modified.  (Rules rules!  Don’t you wish all food was real food?)  Beef should also be free-range, organic and grass-fed.  Fish should be wild-caught (not feedlot raised!)

Equipment

Large stainless steel or enamel stock pot OR crock pot
Large glass jars or containers to store broth in freezer
Slotted Spoon

Directions

1. Add all ingredients (except parsley) into pot and bring to a boil.  Skim off the scum (less scum with higher quality bones).  Then continue to simmer for…
   1. Simmer Hours Chart
      1. Chicken Bones             12 – 24 hours
      2. Beef                               36 – 48 hours
      3. Fish                                 4 – 12 hours
2. Half an hour before simmering is finished, add the bunch of parsley for extra minerals.  With your slotted spoon, remove vegetables and bones and pour liquid into jars and/or containers to cool before transferring to long-term storage (freezer).

The container on the right is frozen already.

Recently the LA Times published an article, A Reversal on Carbs, alluding to what most Weston A Price Foundation (WAPF) members already know: carbohydrates are NOT the body’s preferred method of fuel and is, in fact, the number one reason why America is fat.

Yet many people think they “need” carbohydrates to function. The accepted knowledge is this: it doesn’t matter what you eat, as long as you stay within your daily nutrient allowance of so many calories. What does science have to say about the role of fats versus carbohydrates in the body?

Firstly, in the whole history of man-kind, it has only been since the mid 1900s that carbohydrates (not including vegetables and, to some extent, fruit) become the “norm,” so this “scientific study” in the LA Times is only bringing us back to what has been normal for thousands of years.

If a person consumes a balanced diet which is about 30-80% healthy fat, protein and no or very few carbohydrates their body will automatically find it’s healthy weight. Without effort.
 
Carbohydrates turn into glucose in the body and insulin comes in to turn it into energy or storage, right? Healthy fat, on the other hand, is usable from the minute it enters the body — the body and the brains’ primary source of fuel is designed to be fat in the form of ketones — not glucose!

Furthermore, if one is not consuming enough healthy fat, ones own body will synthesize fat from other sources, most notably, carbohydrates, and absorb and store this unwanted fat. Grains (most common source of carbohydrates) cause many health problems due to its ant-nutrient content, its tryptophan-poor profile, high omega-6 levels… it’s an allery and sensitivity potential to tons of people. One only feels like one NEEDS carbs to get through the day when ones body is in glucose-burning mode (sugar addiction). Then one will have cravings. When one body is in fat burning mode, one can last without food longer between meals and will have more energy because ones body isn’t spending energy converting glucose into something usable. 

Just to clarify about “healthy” fat, this includes saturated fats, monounsaturated fats and certain essential polyunsaturated fats such as omega-3s but stay away from the poly-unsaturated vegetable oils. These last oils are simply damaging to ones body. Most of ones fat consumption should be from animal fats though, it’s only natural.  Unadulterated animal fats, preferably, are the best source of fat for ones body… so yes: butter, raw full fat cheese, raw milk, etc. God made it that way, that’s the way humans ate for thousands of years… what’s wrong with it? SCIENCE has proven it’s healthy even. It’s basic biochemistry.

As far as exercise goes, it’s good for keeping a value of life–being flexible and able to run, jump, sprint, etc and lift things, but I put very little value in exercise as far as weight control. Exercise can never compensate for an unhealthy diet, any more than supplements and drugs can. To get/maintain a healthy body and healthy weight it’s 80% nutrition and 20% exercise. I see physical activity as a fun thing, not do-it-or-you’ll-get-fat type of a thing.

About the whole calorie in/calorie out idea: if this worked, a lot of people would be normal weighted. BABIES are overweight these days, do we have a plethora of under active babies? Uh, no. They just eat, sleep and poop as they are programmed, yet they are fat. Being fat must not be about willpower or exercise. I think we have to dig deeper.

What exactly is a calorie?  A calorie is the amount of energy required to heat 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree Celsius in a bomb calorimeter. Every gram of protein and carbohydrate takes about 4 calories to heat the water while every gram of fat takes about 9 calories and alcohol takes about 7. BUT, the human body doesn’t burn calories the way a bomb calorimeter burns calories. The human body is complex with multiple organs, enzymes, hormones, brain chemicals, and more – every day new cells are made, hormones are manufactured and toxins are neutralized.  On the other hand, the bomb calorimeter is a tank. Food goes in and then goes out in the form of heat. There is no manufacturing going on, no thyroid glands or hormones to contend with.

So just because a gram of fat produces 9 calories in a bomb calorimeter doesn’t mean the body will store 9 calories from that same fat gram. Calories are used for other things in humans other than storing fat and providing energy for exercise.

Then where did the calorie in/calorie out come from? Let me quote from Nora Gedgaudas: The first law of thermodynamics states that energy in a closed system at thermal equilibrium is neither created nor destroyed. Energy can be transformed. First, is the human body a closed system? Nope.

So what does the law of thermodynamics and caloric deficit have to do with calories and weight gain? NOTHING. This law really says that the calories we eat can be stored (in fat or glycogen), burned off with work (as in exercise or digesting food), or burned off as waste (as in carbon dioxide or sweat). It simply says not all calories will go to the fat stores in our hips because some of those calories will be used to do work and some will be discarded as waste.

Summary

Animal fats are healthy and necessary for the human body and carbohydrates are not, exercise is not necessary for weight control but is good for quality of life, a calorie of food in a human is much different than in a bomb calorimeter, and the first law of thermodynamics (caloric deficit) has nothing to do with calories and weight gain.

I feel fairly brave posting this, seeing as the before photo IS me and is NOT attractive.  But here are the facts:

• I lost 15 pounds from December 18 until… well a few weeks ago.

What I did NOT do:

• I did NOT work out at the gym.
• I did NOT eat low or no fat.
• I did NOT eat lots of fiber.
• I did NOT eat only protein.
• I did NOT get liposuction.
• I did NOT go on a fad diet like Weight Watchers, the Cookie Diet or any “loose 10 pounds in 10 minutes” type of diet.
• I did NOT become bulimic or anorexic.
• Or any other numerous weird things people do for the sake of losing weight.

Now this is what I DID do.  First, remember that I’m just stating what I did/am doing and not necessarily suggesting anyone follow this exact plan to lose weight.  I began this diet with the sole purposes of promoting healthy digestion and healing my gut and in the process I lost the excess body weight.

• A 2 day day fast of all solid foods: I drank beef broth, teas and [weak] coffee.  And every night a special treat: an enema (used for people who’s body doesn’t eliminate waste naturally).
• Then I began the Introduction to Gut and Psychology Syndrome Diet and continued until just after the New Year slowly introducing foods that didn’t cause digestive issues or inflammation in my body.  There are six stages, the first stage included adding cooked vegetables to the bone broth soup and probiotic juices, the next stage raw egg yolk is added to the soup and cooked meat.  Then avocados, and pancakes and the list goes on.
• Then after the Intro was done I jumped into the Full GAPS diet which will last about 2 years.  Most of the recipes I post on this blog is GAPS friendly, meaning possible digestive-problem foods are not used: grain, lactose, sugar (processed).

Summary

Fasting diet: bone broth, I’m guessing, is 95% animal (healthy) fats and 5% protein.  No exercise routine other than normal daily living.
Introduction diet: 80% healthy fats 10% animal products and 10% [vegetable] carbohydrates.  No exercise routine other than normal daily living.
Full GAPS diet: 50% healthy fats, 40% animal products and 10% in carbohydrates.  Exercise: Weight lifting 2-3 times per week for 15 minutes, cardio 3-4 times per week for 30 minutes and stretching in the form of yoga 3 times per week for at least 30 minutes.
Now for the photos.
NOTE: I was not sticking out my stomach in the before photo.
Sadly.

BEFORE: 26 Dec 2010

AFTER: 27 Jan 2011

Store bought granola is high in carbohydrates and low in fat and protein.  This granola is high in fat and normal in carbohydrates so all you need to do is add your own protein (a good serving of protein is the size of your palm) and you’ve got a balanced AND healthy snack. Eating plenty of saturated fats gives your body the building blocks for energy and helps with other hormone related tasks in your body.

Nut Granola

Ingredients

1 cup Pumpkin seeds
1 cup Sunflower seeds
1 cup Coconut shreds
1/3 cup honey
1 Tb cinnamon
2 tsp Vanilla
a pinch of Salt
1 cup dried fruit (I’ve used Currants for this recipe)

Directions

The following is an excerpt from GAPS online:

Q: After reading your book about dietary fat, cooking fats, and toxins stored in body fats, I now am wondering what your understanding of belly fat on individuals is?

A: Fat is the preferred source of energy for most of the cells and organs in the human body. Body fat is stored energy. There are two main depots of energy in the body: under skin fat and visceral fat (belly fat).

Under skin fat is an endocrine organ producing certain hormones essential for human physiology, such as leptin, resistin and cytokine TNF alpha. Women normally have more under skin fat than men, as female hormones lay the foundation for feminine fat storage on hips, breasts, buttocks and thighs, giving women their beautiful shape. Male hormones favour storage of under skin fat on the upper body, giving men their masculine shape. Regular consumption of sugar, flour and other processed carbohydrates alters hormonal balance in the body: that is why nowadays we see many women with male-type bodies and many men with feminine looking bodies.

Belly fat is largely a storage space for quick energy: this energy is stored inside the abdomen around inner organs: intestines, bowel, stomach, liver, kidneys, etc. Normal amounts of visceral fat are essential to support and insulate our inner organs. Processed carbohydrates in the body are quickly converted into fat. Some of this fat is stored under skin, which has a limited storage capacity. But if the carbohydrates keep coming, excessive fat is largely stored in the abdomen. Alcohol is a form of energy, which is quickly converted into fat and stored almost exclusively in the abdomen, giving the person a “pregnant” look. Fat attracts water: almost a quarter of belly fat tissue can be stored water. Men (and women) who drink too much alcohol regularly without consuming too much carbohydrates have large, hard-to-touch bellies with very little under skin fat – a “pregnant” belly; a belly full of fat and water. Men and women who indulge in both (too much alcohol and processed carbohydrates) will have large hard bellies and too much fat stored under skin as well.

The obesity epidemic is caused by processed carbohydrates which came to dominate our modern diets. Natural animal fats (butter and fats in eggs, meat and fish) balance our hormones and go into our bodily structure. Unfortunately, our modern diet is very low in these nourishing fats. Eating lots of carbohydrates while depriving your body of essential-to-life animal fats lead to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, auto immunity and most other modern plagues. 

Dr. Natasha Cambell-McBride:

“Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride holds a degree in medicine and Postgraduate degrees in both Neurology and Human Nutrition.  In her clinic in Cambridge she specializes in nutritino for children and adults with behavioral and learning disabilities, and adults with digestive and immune system disorders.

She believes that the link between learning disabilities, the food and drink that we take, and the condition of our digestive system is absolute, and the results of her work have supported her position on this subject.”  Read more about Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride here!