Every month I attend a seminar called the "Functional Forum", a meeting to help clinicians use the latest scientific discoveries to take better care patients with complex chronic diseases. Last week, the keynote speaker was one of my favorite medical doctors/authors.
I love attending talks like this. First, because I'm a bit of a nerd so it's always fun to learn new ideas. Second, because they inspire me. This talk confirmed that I am on the right track with the messages I am sending to all of you, which inspires me to keep it up!
Who was this speaker?
Terry Wahls MD. The author of The Wahls Protocol.
Why does she inspire me?
Dr. Wahls is a medical doctor who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in the early 2000s. She looked to experts for the best treatment possible for her disease. She went to the Cleveland Clinic, where doctors prescribed medication to suppress her immune system. To her surprise, she got worse. She knew that MS was a progressive disease, but she did not expect it to progress so quickly. Soon Dr. Wahls was limited to a tilt recline wheelchair, and could not support her own body weight.
Dr. Wahls decided that she was an intelligent doctor and there must be a better solution, so she went to the research. She found potential experimental drugs, but decided they would be too difficult to get quickly, and that they might not even work. Her next line of research was nutrition. Little do most people know that medical doctors have little, if any, training in nutrition. She found some studies on how certain nutrients might be helpful, but she did not know what foods contained those nutrients. She started using her body as an experiment, giving it as many nutrients as possible. Much to her surprise. her condition improved. In 1 year, she went from being in a wheelchair to bicycling 18 miles! She stopped taking the medication, and realized that the nutrients in real whole foods were healing her body! She was amazed at how the body can heal itself when you give it what it needs, and remove the junk that is getting in the way and causing the body to attack itself!
What did I learn at the seminar?
Dr. Wahls explained that autoimmune disease means that the body is attacking itself. but it manifests itself in different ways in different people:
- Multiple sclerosis: the body attacks the myelin surrounding the nerves.
- Diabetes: the body attacks the insulin producing cells in the pancreas,
- Psoriasis: the body attacks the skin,
- So many more: I have a list of well over 100 autoimmune conditions if you are curious about something specific!
Dr. Wahls is relentless to get studies done to show that nutrition protocols are effective. It has been an uphill battle because there are no big companies with financial interest in seeing this happen. She has finally received grant money to fund her research and the initial results are phenomenal!
She currently works at a VA hospital. She has been working with veterans who struggle from conditions like obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, pain, post traumatic stress/traumatic brain injury, and sexual dysfunction. She has realized that the protocols that helped with her multiple sclerosis are also helpful for these veterans. The veterans that have complied with her protocols for 100 days have seen improvements with all of these conditions WHILE LOWERING their medications! That's right, they were able to take less pain medication, less blood pressure medication, etc- while having fewer symptoms! She has also been granted money to begin a comprehensive randomized nutrition study on MS patients.
So what does this mean for you?
First, it means I am re-inspired to keep telling you to eat real food (vegetables, meats, some fruit) and to ditch the crap (all things processed). I know that you might think I am a broken record, but it is so important for any condition or pain that you are struggling with. If you aren't giving your body all of the right ingredients and nutrients, you can't expect it to heal properly and perform the way it is supposed to perform.
Second, I was inspired by Dr. Wahls to be more direct with people who ask for my help. If you want to see real changes and improvements in your health. you might need to make some big changes! Dr. Wahls expects 100% compliance from her patients for 100 days. This seems like a big commitment, but when it is your health were talking about, you are worth it! Making big changes will get you real results which will inspire you to keep going.
If you are curious about the changes Dr. Wahls made to her diet,
watch her Ted Talk on You Tube.
Start thinking about changes you'd like to make.
If you are ready to make some changes, and need help figuring out how to get started, please Contact Me!
If you know anyone suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) or any other autoimmune disease. please share this with them!
Re-usable water bottle and lunch box that contains salad (with hard boiled egg, bacon, cucumber, tomato, and avocado), container of homemade vinaigrette dressing, hash with potatoes, zucchini, onions and kale, and a homemade chocolate chip muffin
Pack a Lunch that Keeps You Full and Focused All Afternoon
This week I was chatting with a teacher friend who said "It's only 3 weeks into the school year, and I'm already tired of my lunch . Help!".
Focus on nutrient-dense, REAL foods!
Fill lunch boxes with quality fats and proteins to maintain energy all afternoon. Resist the temptation to pack typical lunch foods that are refined and processed (i.e. bread, crackers, chips, cookies, pop, juice boxes, candy, etc). These convenient foods might be easy to grab and stick in the lunch box, but the high sugar and carbohydrate levels cause blood sugar to spike after lunch. When it crashes down, it can cause you to lose energy. You will be ready for a nap before the afternoon is over On the other hand, a lunch with fat and protein keeps blood sugar even, making you feel satisfied and engaged all afternoon.
Eat leftover dinner for lunch
Think about lunch when you make a delicious dinner. Make extra, and remind yourself that you'll have a good lunch if you don't eat it all. We put the leftovers into grab-and-go glass containers when cleaning up the dinner. In the morning, just pop the leftovers into your lunch box.
Nutritious lunch box ideas:
- Wrap a nitrate/nitrite-free lunch meat (Applegate Farms) around slices of avocado
- Breadless sandwiches! Check out these ideas for 15 breadless sandwiches: no bread sandwich ideas
- Homemade soup or leftovers in a thermos
- Chicken, tuna, or egg salad made with homemade mayo
- Salad with homemade oil and vinegar or ranch dressing (easy to make from homemade mayo)
- Guacamole with veggies
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Lettuce Wraps
- Handful of nuts
- Unsweetened dried fruit
- Homemade muffins (Freeze well) – These are a few favorites: cornbread muffins and banana muffins
- Good quality cheese, preferably from pastured cows
- Unsweetened, Plain, Full Fat Yogurt or kefir (try making your own yogurt)
- Apple or celery w/ nut butter
- Unsweetened applesauce - This is easy to make: crockpot applesauce
- Beef Jerky (make your own if you have a dehydrator!)
- Smoked salmon
- Homemade fruit snacks
- Coconut bombs
Having trouble imagining how to make these ideas into a lunch. Pick several items and pack them together for a lunch that will keep you satisfied until dinner.
Our favorite real food lunch combinations:
- Leftover dinner and a piece of fruit
- Chicken salad, celery with nut butter, and a few slices of high-quality cheese
- Two Hard boiled eggs, cornbread muffins smeared with real butter, and a mashed avocado (guacamole) with bell pepper slices
- Homemade soup in a thermos with plain yogurt topped with blueberries, nuts, and cinnamon
- Lettuce wraps with ham, cheese, and avocado slices, a handful of nuts with unsweetened dried fruit (easy trail mix), and applesauce
Remember that transitioning to a real food diet may not happen overnight.
If you aren’t ready to make your own mayo and ranch dressing, it's OK! Just keep moving toward eating more real foods and less packaged, processed, corporation-made "food". Many of the “modern convenience foods” that we buy automatically aren’t that difficult to make on your own. The real ingredients that you use at home are much better for you than the ingredients used in the processed foods in the middle aisles of grocery stores!
A couple of tips to help:
• Set aside a couple of hours each week to prep lunch items (i.e. cut veggies, make a big batch of soup or chicken salad, make and freeze muffins, etc) will make it easy when trying to get everyone out the door in the morning!
• If you have kids, encourage them to help choose, make, and pack their own lunch!
Your challenge this week is to try some of these ideas to make yourself a real food lunch. Let us know how it goes on Facebook.
Joelle Kurczodyna, NTP
Our Two Favorite Techniques for Cutting Vegetables
We realize that eating a real, whole food diet, void of convenience processed stuff, takes some time. Yes, it is easier to unwrap a pre-made pan of lasagna than it is to make it from scratch. Remember that the health benefits of eating real food far outweigh the time saved by the convenience of their processed counterparts. I love this short video by author and journalist, Michael Pollan that explains why homemade is better than corporation made.
Fruits and vegetables are important ingredients in most real food recipes. Learning to cut quickly is a key skill.
Chop or Dice Vegetables Quickly by Hand
Learning to chop veggies was a game changer. When I first started to eat more vegetables (usually 8+ servings a day), I was a SLOW chopper, so making a meal took forever. Once I learned this simple trick, chopping was so much faster. Follow these easy steps to chop any circular vegetable (onion, zucchini, carrot, eggplant, mushroom, etc):
- Make your first cut a cut in half long ways. and place the 2 flat sides down. Then the food doesn't roll away from you!
- Make quick slices in one direction (lenthwise).
- Slice in the other direction, across all the strips, as thin or thick as you need.
- Voila! You you have chopped or diced veggies.
Use a good sharp chopping knife! Don't be afraid of the big knife like the one pictured here. It makes the job easier! The more you chop, the faster you get!
Shred or Slice in the Food Processor
Dusting off the food processor might feel like a lot of work, but this tool can save you time. This is especially true when you are bulk cooking. Yesterday, I made a zucchini and eggplant lasagna. Using the slicer attachment, I had the veggies uniformly sliced in no time. I then switched to the shredder attachment. In less than 2 minutes, I shredded cauliflower into “cauli-rice” to go in a stir fry for another meal. This also works well for slicing vegetables to roast or shredding vegetables for many recipes, including egg casseroles.
Weekly Wellness Challenge
This week we challenge you to think about your chopping and make changes if necessary. Are you using the right knife? Are there any tools like a food processor that could make the job easier? Don't let the time it takes to prepare "real food" stop you from eating healthy! Try out these tips and let us know how it goes! Any other fruits or veggies you struggle to chop? Chat with us on facebook, and we'll try to come up with a tip for you!
- Dr. Jamie and Joelle
This delicious fruit cobbler has been my go to dessert this summer. It is gluten free, grain free, nut free, and delicious! I love its versatility and have made it with berries, peaches, and apples so far. I also love that it contains only a small amount of honey and is mainly sweetened by the roasted fruit.
This cobbler contains my new favorite grain free baking flour – Otto’s Cassava Flour! I heard a buzz about Otto’s, but it seemed expensive. What does a foodie on a budget do? Ask for it for your birthday to try it out! I was not disappointed!
What is Cassava Flour?
Cassava flour comes from the peeled and baked yuca plant root. The fiber and starch properties of this plant make cassava flour act similar to whole wheat flour in recipes.
Why Use Cassava Flour?
I prefer Cassava flour over whole wheat flour because it contains the additional fiber and nutrients from the yuca plant that are not contained in whole wheat flour. Whole wheat flour is mostly starch, and lacks nutrient density.
Today, most standard wheat flours have been treated and processed in undesirable ways making them often unrecognizable by the body and difficult to digest. Otto’s Cassava Flour is made from a clean, unadulterated source of yuca plants, making it more healthful and easier for the body to digest.
Cassava flour is popular because it can be substituted 1:1 for the regular flour in recipes. I’ve also made chocolate chip cookies and tortillas that you would never know were grain free and gluten free. Almond and coconut flour have different properties, and cannot be subbed 1:1 in traditional recipes.
Although I highly recommend cassava flour for the occasional grain free, sweet treat, it is still something to avoid as an every day part of your diet, as discussed in the previous article on moderation.
Otto's Cassava Flour is the only brand that I have researched and tried, therefore I recommend it. There are other cassava flours out there that may also work well but, but I do not have experience with them.
Grain Free Fruit Cobbler Recipe
Cobbler Filling Ingredients:
- Fruit of choice (6-8 peaches or apples, 3-4 cups of berries)
- 2 tsp of Otto’s Cassava Flour
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- ½ tsp Cinnamon (optional)
- 2 tbsp honey (optional – I usually omit and just enjoy the sweetness from the fruit)
Cobbler Topping Ingredients:
- 1 cup Otto’s Cassava Flour
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1/3 cup cold butter (coconut oil or lard work also)
- 1/3 cup water
- 2 tbsp honey
- ½ tsp cinnamon (optional)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees
- Make the filling: Mix fruit, 2 tsp of cassava flour, lemon juice and cinnamon and honey if desired in a large bowl until coated. Pour into an 8x8 glass baking dish and place in preheated oven for 10 minutes.
- While fruit filling is cooking make the topping. Mix 1 cup of cassava flour, baking soda, salt and ½ tsp of cinnamon. Using a fork, cut in the butter. Add water and 2 tbsp of honey. Mix until a dough comes together.
- Putting on the filling: Drop small spoonfuls of cobbler topping over the pan evenly. Bake for an additional 15-20 minutes until topping begins to turn golden.
Enjoy!
-Joelle Kurczodyna, NTP
When I was studying nutrition in college, one of my professors always told us “everything in moderation.” I clung to this well known saying and used it to excuse my occasional (but really more like daily) consumption of sweets and treats. I have since come to believe that this is not the best advice.
What is Moderation?
Moderation: the avoidance of extremes or excesses
The first problem is that it's there are no "rules" to know what moderation means. Who decides what is extreme or excess? There was a recent study to delve into this concept more. Researchers found that not only was everyone's definition of moderation different, but the more people liked a certain food, the more they considered moderate. They almost always set their definition of what was moderate above the amount that they ate- therefore passing off their own behavior as being moderate.
I really like ice cream- so in my mind when I used to have a bowl of ice cream everyday- I was still under the threshold of eating it "in moderation."
You may have problems even if you can avoid excess.
Several years ago, Dr. Jamie told me this analogy, which has resonated with me. Think about this:
When you are born, you have a cup. Each person’s cup is unique, some very small and others, quite large (based on your genes). The cup represents how much junk (stress, toxins, sugar, etc) that your body can handle before showing external signs of break down. For those with smaller cups, you may notice symptoms beginning from a young age ranging in severity from headaches or digestive issues to more serious chronic disease. For those with larger cups, you may be able to go a long time in life before experiencing any negative side effects from your diet and lifestyle choices.
Although this analogy is simplistic, it illustrates why you may not remain healthy if you consume “everything in moderation” forever.
Once your cup overflows, “everything in moderation” is not good advice. At this point, your body is trying desperately to fix itself, while giving you warning signals that something is not right. If you ignore these signals, every little bit causes more damage to your body. When this happens, taking drastic measures for a time will allow your body to heal, remove the warning signs, and restore health.
I often hear people say, “But I’ve done that my whole life” in regards to eating a certain diet or some other lifestyle habit. This leads to the belief that the diet or lifestyle choice could not possibly be tied to whatever negative symptom they are experiencing. Unfortunately or fortunately, your body works hard to keep you healthy. You can abuse it for quite awhile, depending on the size of your cup, before the signs of damage begin to show. The poor choices we make "in moderation” lead to damaging consequences over time.
What advice would I give instead?
My advice would be to listen to your body. If you experience a negative health symptom, your body is trying to send you a message. Do not ignore these symptoms. Rather, dig deep and reach out to figure out the root cause of the symptom you’re experiencing. It just might be caused by the thing that you are "doing in moderation".
What kind of negative health symptoms could be caused by this "overflowing cup?"
The list is long, but here are a few: constipation, diarrhea, bloating, heart burn, joint pain, arthritis, acne, dry skin, allergies, poor blood sugar control, anxiety, depression, headaches, high cholesterol, asthma, fatigue, brain fog, and many more.
Many people have at least one of these symptoms and live with it thinking it is normal. They either think that there is nothing they can do, or that the only solution is to take medication. What most people don't realize is that diet and lifestyle changes could alleviate their symptoms altogether!
This week we have two challenges for you:
1. Think about what you are doing. Notice when you convince yourself that something is OK because it is "in moderation", when you know it's not a good thing. For many people (myself included), avoiding unhealthy foods altogether is easier then just eating a little.
2. Pay attention to your body. Are you ignoring symptoms? Do you assume your aches and pains or digestive symptoms are normal, or just something have to live with?
Do you have any questions or want to discuss this with us? Simply reply to this email, or head over to our facebook page and comment there!
- Joelle Kurczodyna NTP