(Part 4)
What Can You Do?
1
. Remove Trans Fats from your Diet
Remove trans fats that are formed through an industrial process that adds hydrogen to vegetable oil, which causes the oil to become solid at room temperature. Partially hydrogenated oil is less likely to spoil, so restaurants use it in deep fryers.
a. Baked Goods- cakes, cookies, pie crusts, crackers that contain shortening, ready made frosting!
b. Snacks- potato, corn and tortilla chips, microwave or packaged popcorn.
c. Fried foods- french fries, doughnuts, fried chicken.
d. Refrigerator dough- canned biscuits, cinnamon rolls and frozen pizza crusts.
2. Kick the Sugar Habit
Did you know that eating sugar leads to brain to release the Dopamine exactly the same reaction
with cocaine usage? You get a momentary high, leading to a crash and craving more!
How many of us know the feelings of increased appetite, insomnia, brain fog, mental chatter, depression - all generated from
sugar consumption
.
a. Use My Fitness Pal to track your Sugar consumption
b. Don't skip meals- add good fats and protein through the day to avoid bad decisions with sugar.
c. Essential oils like Peppermint or Grapefruit can curb cravings, lavender can help with relaxation, cedar wood and frankincense to calm the mind.
d. Distract Yourself- Exercise, meditate, drink water, go to bed!
3. It's All About the Bugs
Studies show that certain strains of pathogenic Gut bacteria and yeast may cause weight gain! This gut imbalance may be why some folks don't have to eat very much to gain weight.
In one study, they took two groups of mice whose digestive tracts had been sterilized. In the first group, they colonized the mice's intestines with flora from an obese cage mate. In the second group, they colonized the intestines with flora from a lean mouse. They then fed these two groups of mice the same diet for 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks, the mice that were inoculated with the obese microbiome had gained more weight than the mice exposed to the lean mouse's gut microbiome, despite equivalent food intake and activity.
(Turnbaugh PJ, Backhed F, Fulton L, Gordon JI. Diet-induced obesity is linked to marked but reversible alterations in the mouse distal gut microbiome.
Cell Host Microbe
. 2008;3(4):213-23.)
Good, diverse gut bacteria like bifidobacterium and lactobacilli can help balance the gut flora, promote weight loss and remove the bad bacteria. Healthy strains that promote weight loss can be found in fermented foods including traditional foods such as yogurt, kefir, miso, kimchi and sauerkraut. Also consume more fiber to feed the good bacteria like psyllium husk and pre-biotics like garlic, leeks, onions and chicory root.
Fecal transplants and poo-pills are on the horizon, until then grow your garden of microflora with real food!
