Gluten-Free, Paleo and Emotional Eating

Three Healthy Discoveries have recently crossed my path and I want to share them with you.

 

1. Wheat Belly:  Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health

In full disclosure I have not read this book, yet.  But I have heard all the buzz regarding its August 30, 2011 release. I did listen to an interview with the author, William Davis, M.D. who is a cardiologist. It’s a fascinating interview and you can listen to it here.  Dr. Davis has treated over 2,000 patients in his medical career and he attributes gluten to many of our modern day diseases and health issues.  For example he believes:

• Gluten is the single largest contributor to our nationwide obesity epidemic.
• There is a strong connection between eating gluten and behavior in schizophrenics (and I would suggest other mood disorders as well.)
• The glycemic index of wheat and how it negatively affects blood sugar.
• Wheat has changed over the years and its modifications have affected our ability to digest gluten.

I’m looking forward to reading this book.  I think most people would look and feel much better and their health would improve significantly if they took gluten out of their diets.  The science is strong and gluten-free is not some “silly diet fad” that will fall out of fashion. But don’t take my word for it; experiment for yourself, completely avoid gluten for 1-3 months and see what happens.

 

With that said there is an interesting rumble that happened in the Paleo/Primal community a couple weeks ago.

 

2.  Mathieu Lalonde – “There are no absolutes!” – Things are debated and new discoveries are constantly being made when in comes to nutrition.

Mathieu Lalonde is a Harvard trained organic chemist and he was one of the speakers at the Ancestral Health Symposium at UCLA last month. Mathieu is part of the Paleo community but he is also a nutritional contrarian. As a well-trained Ivy League scientist Mathieu delivered a bit of a smack down to the Paleo Community.  I say Bravo!  I value critical thinking. Whether it’s an individual, an organization, an institution or a philosophical position there must be a set of checks and balances. I hate propaganda wrapped in vague, unverifiable language. I think it is far to easy to jump on a bandwagon and a soapbox and become dogmatic and rigid in our thinking; nutrition or otherwise.

At the end of the day there are no absolutes.

Sure, I sit strongly in the Paleo camp when it comes to nutrition. As I’ve written here before, I’ve had great results personally and with my clients when eating Paleo. But Mathieu cautions which words, terms and definitions we use as well as making sweeping generalizations. His points are well taken.  The fact that the Paleo community can be flexible, humble and smart enough to have a dose of reality built into their annual conferences makes me respect their nutritional position even more.

To listen to Mathieu’s full smack down lecture, click here.

 

3.  The Slow Down Diet:  Eating for Pleasure, Energy & Weight Loss

Lately I’ve been thinking and talking to people about the emotions and the psychology that surround healthy eating and weight loss. As much as I love the geeky science that surrounds Gluten-Free and Paleo I believe the physical food (while important) is only one piece to the pie.  No pun intended.

Last week at church I ran into a friend who I hadn’t seen for a couple years.  She serendipitously mentioned that she was looking into the Institute For the Psychology of Eating in Boulder.

Huh?

How is it that I did not know about this place?  And it’s right in my own backyard. Well okay, 40 minutes away, but still.

The website lists the classes, certifications and resources available to the public.  I dashed to my local bookstore and bought the book.  The general philosophy is:

“When people stopped denying and began nourishing themselves (in all areas of their lives).  When they chose healthy pleasure over pain and worked with natural rhythms rather than against them, they ceased being victimized by food, by their bodies, and by anyone else’s standards.  They took responsibility for making simple but profound changes that created an empowered metabolic state.”

Eight-Universal Metabolizers

Relaxation – The more you regulate and lower the stress hormone (cortisol) through sleep, consistent relaxation and deep breathing practices the better you metabolize food.

Quality– Choose high quality foods as much as possible and eliminate poor quality foods which slow metabolism and digestion.

Awareness – The less aware we are of what we eat (shoveling a burger in our mouth while driving down the free-way) the more the brain sends signals that it is constantly hungry.

Rhythm – Time of day effects how we metabolize food as does the time of the year and the season.

Pleasure – A pleasurable experience of the meal increases metabolism.  The French sit down, enjoy and savor a meal for a couple hours with loved ones which improves their metabolism ten fold. The type of food doesn’t matter as much as the atmosphere in which it is eaten.

Thought – Negative self-talk “I am so fat”, “I shouldn’t eat this”, “I can’t lose weight”, “I hate myself therefore I will punish myself with food” restricts the nerve pathways, hormones and neuropeptides that are responsible for digestion and metabolism.

Story – Our bodies hold memories. Current body image, feelings about sexuality, relationships or emotional boundaries get tied up in how we metabolize food.  People unconsciously try to buffer, hide and protect themselves (because of past abuse/trauma) and the body will therefore slow metabolism in order to “pad the body” with extra weight for protection.

Sacred- Creating routines and ritual in the actual cooking, preparing, sharing of whole food, along with blessing and giving thanks while eating are all metabolic enhancers.

 

So there you go, a couple Healthy Discoveries for you to chew on and think about, until next time…