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Nutritional Stress

Stress is defined as anything that causes a spike in our stress hormones, such as cortisol and insulin.

Nutritional stress is anything we eat or drink which causes an increase in stress hormones. The two main categories of nutritional stress are:

an increase in blood sugar, causing an increase in cortisol and insulin
a decrease in blood calcium, causing an increase in the stress hormone calcitriol

The stress of blood-sugar spikes causes us to use part of our valuable reservoir of insulin, and causes our metabolism to change from one that burns 100% fat for body fuel to one that burns a combination of fat and muscle. This, in turn, results in more stored fat and less muscle mass, which causes us to burn fewer calories each day via our metabolism. Our metabolism, or our resting metabolic rate, is a huge part of the weight-loss equation.

So, the higher our muscle mass, the greater our metabolism. And the higher our metabolism, the greater our ability to neutralize the calories we take in.

So, what should we do in order to keep our blood sugar level from spiking up and down all day? Successful blood-sugar management begins with eating a healthy breakfast, then paying attention to meal portions, staying under 600 calories and differentiating between good and bad carbs.

A good day of healthy nutrition starts by eating a breakfast which includes good fats, good carbs, fiber, and healthy protein. Two of my favorite morning meals are oatmeal (slower cooked the better), ground flaxseed sprinkled on and then topped off with blueberries. Add whole grain toast with butter (not margarine) and green tea with raw honey and you have a great-tasting, filling meal. About 3 days a week I substitute the oatmeal for 3 organic, free-range eggs (yolk and all) and then have a fruit snack before lunch. Keeping portions under 600 calories is easy when a fruit or raw veggie snack is planned for between each meal.

As far as good and bad carbs go, the easiest rule is this: All vegetables and most fruits are good carbs. With regard to bad carbs, just think: if it's white, it ain't right. Begin to reduce white and wheat flour products like pancakes, cake, pie, cookies, donuts, pizza, chips, pretzels, white and whole wheat bread, and pasta. Instead of white rice, choose wild brown rice. Think sweet potatoes instead of white or red potatoes and try to forget that french fries even exist! These foods are included in the category of simple carbs and are quickly converted into sugar, which spikes our blood-sugar level causing sugar to be converted into stored fat while our body begins to break down muscle - using protein as an alternative metabolic fuel.

And the worst white, simple carb of them all is sugar, followed closely behind by high-fructose corn syrup. Americans now consume, on average, over ½ pound of sugar per day. In 1920, when heart disease was very rare in America, we consumed approximately 15 pounds of sugar per year and high-fructose corn syrup wasn't even invented yet! Begin to cut way back on all carbonated beverages, fruit juice, milk, energy drinks, ice cream, alcohol, chocolate, candy, all cereal which contains wheat, corn and sugar, processed foods, and all food or drinks which contain the artificial sugar aspartame. Sugar not only equals stored fat, it is the perfect environment for cancer to flourish and leads to diabetes, osteoporosis, and heart disease. I would consider the daily intake of sugar to be the greatest threat to our health and well being. It is added in significant amounts to nearly all fast-food and restaurant items and is equally prevalent in most processed foods. Why? Because it is cheap, makes crappy food taste good, and because it is the most addictive drug on the planet. This is true for refined white sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and for artificial sugar like aspartame.

Instead of these deadly (artificial) choices, satisfy your sweet tooth with moderate amounts of raw honey, molasses, and pure maple syrup which are all loaded with vitamins and minerals which are easily absorbed by the body.

In addition to improving our good-carb intake and reducing bad carbs from our diet, focus on chromium-rich foods that help regulate blood-sugar levels. These include apples, eggs, broccoli, brown rice, sweet potatoes, nuts, and whole grains.

Failure to maintain healthy blood-sugar levels is a guaranteed way to gain weight, create disease, and invite chronic pain into our lives. Insulin is the fastest growing drug in America for a reason. Lousy nutrition is that reason.

Our next nutritional stress is chronic low levels of blood calcium. Like blood-sugar problems, low levels of blood calcium occur because we consume too many acidic foods like sugar, colas, coffee, brown tea, pork, and beef in relation to fruits and vegetables, which are alkaline. When our blood becomes too acidic, the hormone calcitriol is called upon to bring our pH back into balance. In order to accomplish this, calcitriol borrows calcium from our bones and muscles, weakening them; it also orders fat to be stored instead of burned. This is because foods that are acidic like sugar can damage the lining of our stomach. Fat is the perfect insulator to help prevent this damage from occurring. Chronic levels of low blood calcium will result in weakened bones, lost muscle mass, reduced metabolism, and an accumulation of unwanted fat. We must eat fruits and veggies on a daily basis or accept an acceleration of the aging process and an unhealthy overweight body.

Two other nutritional stressors which can cause our body to hold onto fat instead of burning it are:

eating too little
eating a low-fat diet

When we eat less than our resting metabolic rate, the stress of a food shortage raises cortisol levels. Any weight lost by low-calorie dieting results in a ratio of 70% fat and 30% muscle. Lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks with the help of diet pills or a starvation diet, and the result will be the loss of 7 pounds of fat and 3 pounds of muscle. Losing 3 pounds of muscle will result in reduced metabolism over the next 365 days equal to 15.6 pounds. Losing weight quickly causes our body to burn muscle and hold onto fat. It is a guaranteed way to wind up with more weight than you started with! When we build muscle, we increase our metabolism--the rate at which we burn calories 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We need to change our mindset away from losing weight using the calories IN side of the equation and start thinking about increasing the calories burned on the OUT side of the equation. And while we are building muscle and burning fat through regular exercise, we must raise our stress-management awareness so we can accomplish our #1 goal--to maintain a 100% fat-burning metabolism.

Another common mistake we make when trying to lose fat is to engage in a low-fat diet. We think that choosing fat-free and low-fat foods is a good choice that will help us reduce fat. Unfortunately, this is faulty thinking. The Law of Scarcity applies not only to lack of caloric intake, but also to fat intake. And whereas we need to eat enough fat to ensure a fat-burning metabolism, we need to know good fats from bad. Two excellent sources to do your own research on good and bad fats is the website mercola.com or the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, PhD.

Good fats include organic, free-range eggs, free-range cold-water fish such as salmon, trout, herring, mackerel, and halibut, avocado, walnuts, almonds, flaxseed, coconut oil, butter, olive oil, and lard. These are known as Omega 3 essential fatty acids and healthy saturated animal fat.

Unhealthy fats include vegetable oil, Crisco, margarine, soy, corn oil, sunflower and canola oil, and hydrogenated vegetable oils.

The food companies promote the cheap oils as being the most healthy. With their considerable financial power, they lean on the federal government to endorse their positions and then the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society follows suit. And with all the disease that is created by these Fortune 500 untruths, the AMA and the drug companies are more than happy to agree with these entities because bad diet equals bad health, and health equals big money.

Ok, we've covered good carbs and good fats - how about good protein? Good protein comes from healthy animal and plant sources. Some examples of this are beef, eggs, and salmon. Free-range, organic eggs are up to 19 times healthier from an Omega 3/Omega 6 ratio standpoint than those which come from chickens whose diet is mainly grains. And wild-caught salmon is one of the best sources of healthy protein, rich in Omega 3 essential fatty acids, while farm-raised salmon are an extremely pro- inflammatory food. And grass-fed beef has 500% less fat than grain-fed commercial beef that are routinely injected with antibiotics and steroids.

The average plant and grain crop receives 10 applications of pesticides. This alone makes a great case for buying organic vegetables whenever possible.

The better you know the history of your protein, the greater the likelihood you will be putting healthy protein in your body.

In general, commercially raised beef, chicken, turkey, and pork and farm-raised fish are poor choices, while free-range animals fed a natural diet will be healthier.

Wild game such as bison, lamb, duck, venison, pheasant, and Cornish hens can be excellent sources of healthy protein.