Broccoli Stalks

What do you do with your broccoli stalks after you have cut those tasty flowers off to eat?  Believe it or not we had been throwing ours away!  Until we saw a friend quickly cut up the stalks and make an awesome side dish for a dinner we were having(thanks again Nicole).  That was a game changer and we have been coming up with new ways to eat both our broccoli and cauliflower stalks ever since.  This is a recipe we have come to use quite frequently and wanted to share.

First cut off the broccoli flowers.  We like to broil ours and the kids love them.  We also save them for a handy snack.

Cut the stalks into small cubes.

Slice up half an onion, we used a white one here but it does not matter.

Heat some coconut oil in a saute pan

Saute for 10 to 15 minutes over medium heat until they are tender.  I peeled an extra carrot I had in the fridge.  I also sprinkle in some garlic powder, sea salt, black and red pepper.  It makes an awesome side dish.

The End of The Challenge

 Our 15 day clean eating challenge ends today.  This one kind of fizzled on us and we could not get any momentum going with comments.  I think we waited too late into the spring and people had too much going on to even keep track of the blog.  As of last count I know of three people who completed the challenge.  My Mom held strong and is 7 pounds lighter and feeling great.  Good job Mom!  I have been off of sugar for 15 days and swear I am not going back this time.  We will see how that goes.  Dawn was her consistent self and stayed strong throughout.  Let us know if you attempted the challenge and how things went.


We are going to do the Warrior Dash this weekend and will have a report sometime next week.  We are still trying to come up with costume ideas, let us know if you have any.  Have a great week!

Balanced Bites Seminar Part 2

If you have not read part 1 read that first.

I intended to sit down and write a quick review of the seminar and it turned into this two part series.  As a quick recap, Diane Sanfilippo is a holistic lifestyle coach and certified nutrition educator out of San Francisco and recently gave a 4 hour seminar in Bethesda.  You can find her on her web site Balanced Bites. 

I left off in part 1 talking about the cholesterol myth and a promise for a post about that soon.  It is in the works and is near and dear to my heart as I have close friends and family members who are being pushed, by their doctors to take Lipitor or some other STATIN drug.  They do not like how it makes them feel or the fact that they are being told they will have to take it the rest of their lives, but the alternative, as it is presented to them, is death.  This is not right and I hope to able to arm them with information to have a conversation with their doctors.

On to the seminar.

An important point to make about Diane's approach and ordering of her seminar was the fact that the grains and legume part did not play center stage.  It was presented after discussing hormones, blood sugar regulation, and cholesterol.  The no grains and legumes piece of  Paleo nutrition is where we get the most resistance from people we work with as well as from people who disagree with our nutrition prescription altogether.  However, as Diane points out, there are so many more reasons to take a look at how you are eating.  Grains and legumes are just a part of it.  "How can heart healthy whole grains be bad for you?"  "How can beans be bad for you?"  "They are both natural."  These are the questions we get a lot. Diane went on to break down the reasons grains and legumes can have an adverse impact on your health.  Whole grain flour is still a refined, processed, food.  Grains contain an internal defense mechanism of proteins or anti-nutrients that our digestive enzymes cannot break down causing gut irritation.  Remember the bean song?  "Beans beans good for your heart"  The gut irritation caused by these anit-nutrients also inhibit your ability to absorb minerals leading to deficiencies in things like calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D.

Diane's approach to dairy is a bit more liberal than others.  In her opinion, it should be eliminated from your diet if you are experiencing any autoimmune issues or other digestion issues.  However, if you have no know issues with dairy, raw whole milk, from grass fed cows gets a green light.

With regards to essential fatty acids (omega 3 and Omega 6) Diane's views are a bit different than what we have been practicing.  We have been following the Robb Wolf, Whole 9 perscription (here is The Whole 9 fish Oil perscription)trying to even things out with fish oil, whereas Diane would like you to first reduce your omega 6 intake as much as possible with better quality meats and less nuts and then work to increase your omega 3 levels by eating fish rather than using fish oil.  Her fear is that fish oil is highly oxidizable(not sure if that is a word?).

We quickly went through the effects of fructose on the liver and looked at macronutrients.  The emphasis in this section was to not wed yourself to any one approach as there is no one right way for everyone.  Again, Diane did not shy away from taking a look at how we got to where we are in the medical community today.  We have screwed a bunch of things up by trying to "manage chronic conditions with an approach designed to fix acute problems."  This has led us to the point where we go to the doctors with the expectation of walking out with a pill that will fix our problems.

My favorite portion of the presentation by far was the portion on digestion.  Diane went through the digestive process and highlighted several ways of knowing if your digestion was working.  This was enlightening for both of us as we have been eating Paleo for more than two years now and still have issues with proper digestion.  I have always known that I can tell the quality of my nutrition by what comes out the back end, but we were given detailed descriptions of what the various bowel movements mean from a nutrient absorption standpoint as gross as it sounds it was very enlightening.

We went on to leaky gut(intestinal permeability) and spent a considerable amount of time going over what it is and the mechanisims that can cause leaky gut.  Diet is only one of six.  The presentation included some really nice visuals that helped to clarify exactly what is going on at the microscopic level of the villi of the small intestine.

The presentation finished by going over what a paleo approach would look like for various groups of people.  Someone focused solely on health, someone trying to lose fat and lean out, someone trying to gain weight or build mass, and someone with an autoimmune condition.  All would have a slightly different approach.

I said at the beginning of part 1 that I was not going to go into detail and as long as these two posts are I have not touched the detail you get from actually attending the seminar.  Dawn and I have been to Robb Wolf's seminar twice and The Whole 9 twice and rank Diane's seminar right up there with both.  She knows her stuff and has a casual, freindly way of presenting. We were glad we were able to get in early and look forward to the expanded version in the future. 

Balanced Bites Seminar Part 1

Two of Dawn's clients Pete(left) and Diara(right) joined us at the seminar

Diane Sanfilippo is a holistic nutritionist and lifestyle coach out of San Francisco, California and is also the creator of the blog Balanced Bites that we have come to appreciate as a great resource for recipes, food source information and lifestyle issues that can affect the quality of your life.  You can find her site on our blog list to the right of our page and would benefit from spending some time on it.  We were thrilled when we found out Diane was coming to Bethesda to give a Paleo Nutrition Seminar.  Without recapping the whole seminar, we wanted to give you the highlights and what we took away from the morning.

First and foremost we really liked the order of the presentation.  You can get really geeked out on all the complexities and variables that go into nutrition, but it always boils down to the effects of the food you eat on your hormones.  Specifically the hormones of insulin, glucagon, and cortisol.  These hormones are important in that they play a crucial role in blood sugar regulation.  As Diane pointed out, regulating your blood sugar has to be the starting point for any lasting changes to your health and this can be done through what you eat.   Failure to regulate your blood sugars creates a yo-yo of blood sugar peaks and crashes.  This feeds a spinning loop of systemic inflammation from constantly high insulin and cortisol leading to metabolic derangement and a host of chronic conditions that we have talked about many times.

Another great part of the seminar was Diane's willingness to take on conventional wisdom and address how we got to the point where a large part of our population is sick because of the food we are told to eat.  Other seminars we have been to tend to shy away from this piece.  Diane talks about the inherent conflict of interest that exists between the US Department of AGRICULTURE being tasked with developing what is the best  diet for us to eat.  Their primary goal is to promote agriculture and their dietary advice is based more on economical factors than what is most healthy.  As Diane said many times Saturday, if you want to know how we got into this predicament where our kids life expectancy is projected to be shorter than ours, "Follow the money."  Even the labeling of "Food" has been manipulated to place your focus on nutrition facts as they relate to USDA guidelines rather than the actual ingredients found in "Foods."  I put food in parenthesis because much of what is considered healthy by USDA guidelines has been processed to the point that it can no longer even be considered a food.

One of the more powerful points of the presentation was a side by side comparison of a traditional healthy breakfast as defined by USDA standards compared to a traditional Paleo breakfast.  For the example Diane used a very popular, organic, "healthy," cereal  Kashi with skim milk, a 12oz orange juice, and coffee with 2tsp of sugar and skim milk compared to 3 whole eggs, 1/4 avocado, 1c broccoli, 2 tomato slices and a 16oz coffee with half and half.  Calorically speaking the meals are the same, both under 500 calories.  However, if you examine the carbohydrate and sugar content(the body treats these two the same), which we now know has a direct effect on blood sugar regulation, you are looking at 123g of refined sugar compare to 27g of sugar.  This starts the roller coaster of blood sugar for the day and you are left playing catch up.  How many of us have had this same breakfast of cereal/oatmeal, juice and a little coffee with our cream and sugar and we are starving two hours later and running to the vending machine or pounding back nutra-grain bars to keep the cycle rolling?  Again it's all about that blood sugar regulation.

The presentation went on to debunk the myth that eating fats makes you fat or that eating fats will give you heart disease.  Diane explained that dietary fat alone causes no insulin response and excess sugar in the bloodstream from carb consumption causes insulin to store body fat.  She also went into the flawed analysis that Ancel Keys used to come up with the lipid hypothesis that started the ball rolling on the notion that fat causes heart disease.  Another revalation for us was the notion that damaged fats are bad fats.  Fats that have been oxidized through whatever means, but mostly by heating can cause adverse health issues.  What this means for us is we need to move away from using olive oil as our cooking fat.  We have started using coconut oil in most of our heated cooking but still go to olive oil when we run out.  We need to do more digging on this one, but a good rule of thumb is, if it is solid at room temperature and is not man made it is probably good for cooking.  Diane also talked about the bad rap that cholesterol has gotten and how the drug companies have created a billion dollar industry out of scaring the public into taking statins when there is no scientific evidence that statins help to prevent cardiovascular disease.  This is another area where we will post about soon.

Wow we covered alot and we have yet to get into Grains, legumes, dairy and leaky gut.  We have talked about all of this in the past but wanted to share some of different takes in the hopes of making things make more sense for you.  You can read Part 2 Here.

Is anyone out there?

Gotta love Mom.  She was the only one to check in on Friday.  We will try again for a Monday check in today and if the interest is not there we will discontinue the check in posts. We will still post what we find interesting and what we think will help you change your life through nutrition, exercise and lifestyle.

We attended a nutrition seminar this weekend given by a holistic nutritionist out of California and will have a review of that as well as several posts spurred from that seminar in the coming days.

So let us know how things went for you this weekend.  We had parties and Mother's Day to navigate, but were able to do so and stay clean.  We have reached a point where just about everyone we know, knows how we eat and they are used to us showing up with our cooler of food just in case there are no clean foods around.

Have a great week!

First Friday Check In

Happy Friday to everyone!  We hope your week went well, the comments on Monday were light so we are anxious to know how everyone is doing.  Leave us a comment and let us know how your first week went.  Were there any withdrawal symptoms from the carbs(headaches, mood swings, restlessness)?  Was the transition easier than you thought?  Harder than you thought?  Did you have any strong cravings that were hard to resist?  How did you resist them?  Did you resist them?  Are you still master of your domain?  Inquiring minds want to know.

The weekends present their own challenges.  During the week our schedules are pretty much set and we can cruise along without much worry.  The weekends however, present any number of challenges from happy hours, to birthdays, to Mothers Day.  All are tough with much temptation but, the ability to handle these tough situations provides a sense of pride and confidence that make the small temptations a breeze.  Stay strong this weekend and we will check in with you on Monday.

We have two Friday Inspiration pieces for you today.  The first comes from Sarah Fragoso's blog Everyday Paleo, which we have linked to on the right of our page.  We are in the process of reading her new book, Everyday Paleo, and will have a review for you soon, but so far, it is really good.  She shares a real life story about what can happen when the stubborn husband finally decides to join in the clean eating.  Click here

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there. You are the focus of our Friday Inspiration.

Meals in Pictures

In a comment on Tuesday, Mike asked about people sharing what they were having for meals and we agree that it would be super helpful.  So if you get the chance and are willing, share with us in the comments what you ate throughout the week.  We have several pictures of past meals and have been slacking on taking pictures of our meals so far this week but will do so from now on and make it a weekly post.  Below is what we have saved on the camera.

Kylie's dinner two Trader Joe's meatballs and pieces of a pork roast, cabbage cooked in olive oil, salt and pepper and sweet potato fries.

Will's dinner.  Same as Kylie's above with an extra wing thrown in.  Neither ate much of the cabbage but, they both tried it.

Kids lunch sliced turkey topped with peperoni and bacon, kale chips, and some kind of spinach thing with what looks like a sprinkle of cheese(not challenge friendly) and tomato sauce.

Taco meat mixed with sweet peppers, broccoli stalks, and spinach

Hamburger made with lean ground beef, grilled zucchini, spinach salad, and avocado

Kids dinner almond meal breaded chicken breast with broiled broccoli and carrots

Breakfast egg burrito

Kylie's lunch.  Turkey, peperoni, nuts, fruit and carrots

London Broil with kale and onions cooked in coconut oil and butternut squash

Will's London broil with kale chips, carrots, and strawberries

Kylie's same as Will's but with pineapple

Hamburger topped with avocado, broiled broccoli, and collards cooked with peppers and onions

Hot dogs and kale chips

Chicken breast breaded with almond meal, cooked with butternut squash

Taco meat, diced tomatoes, salsa and avocado with brussel sprouts

Taco meat on a corn tortilla with shredded cheese broccoli and salsa

Sugar

Before we start talking about the evils of sugar, we are anxious to know how your first day went.  How did everyone do?  Was it an easy transition?  Are there still a few kinks that need to be worked out?  We will have a full check in on Friday, but would love to hear how the first day went.

For many of us, myself included, sugar proves to be the toughest part of clean eating for the long term.  I have a sweet tooth that dates back as far as I can remember and to this day the smallest treat can send me on a night long sugar binge.  I have tried several times to go cold turkey and cut the sugar out for good, but unless I am on a challenge and have some external motivation to cut it out I find it sneaking its way back in.  This post is an attempt to look at what happens on the physiological level when we go on these sugar binges and hopefully provide some motivation to help avoid them in the future.

We all know that sugar filled treats are not good for us, but we partake anyway for a variety of reasons that we usually think are emotional.  Birthdays, a special treat to celebrate something, or just to mark the end of a long week, but there is more to it than just an emotional connection.

Lets look at the whole process.  Refined sugars are what we are looking at specifically.  What happens when you eat that piece of cake, candy bar, pie, or drink that soda, juice, or sports drink? 

Within minutes of consumption that sugar will be broken down to glucose and make it's way to your blood stream.  High levels of glucose in the blood are toxic and the body treats this situation as an emergency.  The pancreas will respond by pumping out a storage hormone called insulin to get that sugar out of the blood.  Insulin will store glucose in the muscles and liver first, but each have a limited capacity for storage and anything else will be shoved into fat cells to be used up later.

That is what is happening inside, but what is going on outside?  Many people will notice they are getting warmer, your heart can start to race, some may even sweat.  Some have a sense of a "high"  and some may not notice a thing(if this is the case it is a bad sign), but you can rest assured things are happening. 

The rush of insulin is more than what you need to return the blood chemistry back to normal and insulin does its job very effectively.   So now, about 45 minutes to an hour, after you eat that treat your blood sugars are now low.  You are starting to feel tired and a bit cranky.  The remaining insulin in your blood wants to do its job and store something, so a signal is sent to your brain that you are hungry and need to eat.  This explains why you can and want to eat that last piece of cake, candy, cookies, pizza(carbs are sugar ya know) even though you are full and your stomach hurts.

Most of us, with the exception of Dawn(who has the will power of a Tibetan Monk) will give in to this craving and eat more crap and the cycle repeats itself.  Now we are stuck on this blood sugar roller coaster ride with our energy swinging wildly and we use more "quick energy" foods.  Remember the Snickers slogan "Hungry? Grab a Snickers." Some rely on an afternoon latte, or diet soda (if they are health conscious) to keep them going.

If this is an occasional thing your body is an incredible machine with the ability to adapt and return itself back to normal within a couple of days.  If this is your daily practice the eventual consequences are much worse.  Remember high and low levels of blood sugars signal an emergency in the body.  Your body responds to an emergency the same way, whether you are being chased by a lion or your blood sugar is suddenly elevated from a high sugar meal, just in varying degrees.  It releases hormones called cortisol and adrenaline, raises inflammation, and increases blood pressure.

Over time this constant low grade stress and inflammation can lead to any number of chronic conditions such as dysregulated adrenal function, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and thyroid dysregulation.  The constant presence of insulin in the blood leads to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

Is that piece of cake still looking so good?  The scary thing is that I know this and I still eat it.  That brings me to sugar as a drug. Consider this surprising fact.

Dr. David Reuben, author of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nutrition says, “…white refined sugar-is not a food. It is a pure chemical extracted from plant sources, purer in fact than cocaine, which it resembles in many ways. Its true name is sucrose and its chemical formula is C12H22O11.

It has 12 carbon atoms, 22 hydrogen atoms, 11 oxygen atoms, and absolutely nothing else to offer.” ...The chemical formula for cocaine is C17H21NO4. Sugar’s formula again is C12H22O11. For all practical purposes, the difference is that sugar is missing the “N”, or nitrogen atom. ...Refining means to make “pure” by a process of extraction or separation. Sugars are refined by taking a natural food, which contains a high percentage of sugar, and then removing all elements of that food until only the sugar remains. ...While sugar is commonly made from sugar cane or sugar beets.

Unbelievable!  Sugar has been shown to have an effect on opoidoids and dopamine in the brain in the same way that drugs do leading to strong addictions.

The following is a list of the negative effects associated with sugar consumption.  The list was taken from the web site healingdaily.com

Sugar can suppress the immune system.

Sugar can upset the body's mineral balance.

Sugar can contribute to hyperactivity, anxiety, depression, concentration difficulties, and crankiness in children.

Sugar can produce a significant rise in triglycerides.

Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.

Sugar can reduce helpful high density cholesterol (HDLs).

Sugar can promote an elevation of harmful cholesterol (LDLs).

Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.

Sugar contributes to a weakened defense against bacterial infection.

Sugar can cause kidney damage.

Sugar can increase the risk of coronary heart disease.

Sugar may lead to chromium deficiency.

Sugar can cause copper deficiency.

Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.

Sugar can increase fasting levels of blood glucose.

Sugar can promote tooth decay.

Sugar can produce an acidic stomach.

Sugar can raise adrenaline levels in children.

Sugar can lead to periodontal disease.

Sugar can speed the aging process, causing wrinkles and grey hair.

Sugar can increase total cholesterol.

Sugar can contribute to weight gain and obesity.

High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

Sugar can contribute to diabetes.

Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.

Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity.

Sugar leads to decreased glucose tolerance.

Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease.

Sugar can increase systolic blood pressure.

Sugar causes food allergies.

Sugar can cause free radical formation in the bloodstream.

Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.

Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.

Sugar can overstress the pancreas, causing damage.

Sugar can cause atherosclerosis.

Sugar can compromise the lining of the capillaries.

Sugar can cause liver cells to divide, increasing the size of the liver.

Sugar can increase the amount of fat in the liver.

Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney.

Sugar can cause depression.

Sugar can increase the body's fluid retention.

Sugar can cause hormonal imbalance.

Sugar can cause hypertension.

Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.

Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves, which can alter the mind's ability to think clearly.

Sugar can increase blood platelet adhesiveness which increases risk of blood clots and strokes.

Sugar can increase insulin responses in those consuming high-sugar diets compared to low sugar diets.

Sugar increases bacterial fermentation in the colon.

Need any more convincing to curb that sweet tooth?  Here is an awesome video that does a great job of explaining the process by which sugar does it's damage in the body.  It is a summary of a video of a lecture by Dr. Robert Lustig called Sugar the Bitter Truth.  That video is 90 minutes long and fairly technical, but if you are interested you can see it here.  This video is done by trainer and nutrition blogger Sean Croxton.  His site is called Underground Wellness and is worth spending some time on.
 

Are You Ready?

Ready or not, the challenge starts tomorrow!  If your fridge is not stocked with lean meats and a ton of fresh vegetables you still have time to make it to the store and stock up. 

Here are a few last minute items

• Here is a quick recap of the rules.  Starting tomorrow you are going to eat nothing but lean meats, seafood, vegetables, and good fats.  You will drink nothing but water, tea, or coffee for 15 days.  You cannot eat any grains, legumes, or dairy.  You are also going to avoid anything with sugar in it (real , natural or chemical) or consume any alcohol.  Easy, right?

• We offer our obligatory warning for those who are not used to this way of eating and who have relied on a mostly carbohydrate diet, especially processed carbohydrates.  The first few days to a week can be extremely tough as your body makes the transition.  It is not uncommon to have crazy energy swings, mood issues, jitters, or just plain feel like crap. Stay with it and your energy will level off and you will feel better than ever.
•  Totally invest in this process and you will reap the full benefits of the experience.  Focus on the positive health benefits you are working towards and what you like about the foods you are eating rather than the crap food you are missing out on and the experience will fly by.  Like anything else in life, your outlook will determine your level of success.
• Don't forget about the comment section!  Collectively we are an intelligent group with a wealth of experiences to offer each other. The comments section allows us to harness that knowledge and share, but only if it is used.  Every time we talk to a challenge participant they ask questions.  Try asking those questions in the comments so we can all learn as we go through this.  The questions also help us direct what information we blog about.
• We will have check in posts every Friday to see how the week went and on Mondays to see who survived the weekends, as well as posts throughout the week on various topics relating to health and nutrition.

I think that is it.  Good luck to all, our next check in will be Friday.  Remember, this experience will change your life!

Yours in health,
Dawn & Paul