What bingeing really does to you

Who hasn't blown the diet on a weekend?  After controlling what you eat and drink all week it's really easy to go off the rails at the weekend.  Socializing at weekends makes it all the more difficult to avoid temptation and also the just plain boredom of a restrictive diet makes it easier to give in.

Lots of people think that no harm can come from indulging at the weekends when you've been good all week, and whereas indulging occasionally doesn't hurt, when it becomes a weekly habit there are consequences.

Binge eating can also be an eating disorder sometimes due to a mental or traumatic issue.  When recognized, the problem can be solved helped a number of treatments such as self help or support groups, therapy and even medication.  If you suspect you have an eating disorder then you should seek help from you GP.

However there are physiological consequences to over-indulging:

Bloating.

This is a pretty obvious consequence.  Eating a large amount of food, often in a very short period of time, leads to bloating and abdominal discomfort.  This bloating can also cause a feeling of being breathless as the swollen stomach pushes upwards reducing the lung space available.

Let's face it, you aren't going to binge on salad and grilled fish.  Most binge food is unhealthy junk food which is seriously lacking in fibre.  As fibre is what helps move food through the digestive tract, eating low fibre foods just makes all that junk food hang around for a lot longer and can lead to constipation.  So your binge will take longer to leave you!

Heartburn.

An overfull stomach can lead to pressure on the sphincter or the "door" on the bottom of the gullet, causing it to open.

This "door" is there to stop food and digestive juices from coming back up into the gullet.  But pressure from beneath can cause it to open and release some food or juices causing a burning sensation from your stomach up to your throat.  This can also cause vomiting.  The juices that are involved are highly acidic and can cause longterm damage to the tissues in the gullet, and if not addressed it can also affect gums and teeth where regular vomiting is experienced.

Hormonal Disruption.

Binge eating has been linked to the several hormones; oestrogen and progesterone - made in the ovaries, ghrelin and leptin - otherwise known as the hunger hormones, cortisol - the stress hormone and of course, insulin which helps our bodies to process sugar from food.

When you binge, you often do so on foods high in sugar, causing a spike in blood sugar which triggers the release of insulin from the pancreas so that the blood sugar is normalized by storing the excess sugar as fat.

This process is why we gain weight.  But the stress caused by the overproduction of hormones can cause other problems such as lack of energy, fatigue, and tiredness that produce a signal to the brain to eat more.  If this is sustained, it can cause obesity and other weight associated illnesses such as type 2 diabetes.

Undernourishment.

Yes, you can eat a lot and still be undernourished,  Bingeing on high calorie foods with little nutritional value will not give you the nutrients you need.

A stable balanced diet is needed to carry out our daily routines, and exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, so if you are not eating enough and going to the gym - or whatever exercise you choose - in order to slim down quicker, you will not be doing yourself any favors.  Undernourishment whether caused by bingeing on inappropriate foods or under-eating can cause longterm effects on the skin, heart and bones.

Women especially should have regular bone-density scans once they reach menopause.

Anxiety and Low Mood.

Someone trying to lose weight who binges can often feel ashamed, guilty, anxious and worried.  It can turn into a vicious cycle... you control your diet during the week, you feel you are justified to have a treat at the weekend and when you do you feel guilty afterwards... This can go on and on and become very difficult to break.

I know it isn't easy, but try not to binge on the weekend.  If you need a treat, set a date in the future and plan what you are going to have, like a piece of your favorite chocolate cake.  Then when the day comes, enjoy it... just the one piece mind, not the whole cake!  Make sure it is WORTH IT!

Weight Gain.

Of course, all of this does lead to you putting on weight.  The cycle of control and weight loss during the week and then bingeing and weight gain at the weekend is due mostly to WHAT you are bingeing on.  As I said before, it isn't that easy to binge on salad and grilled fish!

Be mindful of what you are eating and how that food nourishes your body, how it keeps you healthy.  If you do binge, don't ignore how it makes you feel... sluggish?  Exhausted?  Sick?  Remember those feelings the next time you are faced with temptation.  Ask yourself if what your are tempted by is worth the consequences?  How are you going to feel after you have eaten it?  Will you feel guilty and wish you hadn't eaten it?  Will it give you heartburn or gas?

Think before you eat....

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Men Vs Women in the fight against fat

It has been a long standing joke that men and women come from different planets - but when it comes to losing weight, it just isn't funny.

Men just don't SEEM to care as much as women about weight gain or weight loss.  In fact, lots of men don't even seem to have a problem and can basically eat anything they want without putting on weight.  Whereas we women tend to have a life long struggle with watching what we eat and going to the gym.  However, this is not true.  Men do care about their appearance and the incidence of men with eating disorders is on the rise.  They also have all the common weight problems that we women have.

So why are men and women so different?

Well, mother nature made us different because we have different functions in life.  Now, don't go all feminist on me here - I'm talking on a body function level, not on the paid employment scene!

Women were built to have babies - to carry a child and nourish it through pregnancy and bring it into the world.  In order to accomplish this, women are designed to have a lower percentage of muscle and more body fat than men.  Due to women having less muscle, they tend to have lower basal metabolic rates than men.  This means that men with more muscle require more calories than women of comparable weight.

Men were built to provide for the women and children and to fight/ defend.  Having babies and providing for families are two very different but equally important "jobs".

However, tens of thousands of years later our bodies haven't changed at all as far as our "mission" is concerned.  Yes, we have changed greatly in our ideals, ambitions, obligations and of course our diets.  But, physiologically we are still the same.

So, on a hormonal level, women are naturally engineered to retain and store more fat than men due to

their higher levels of estrogen.  Estrogen is a hormone in charge of keeping fat on the female body in preparation for pregnancy.

Men, have higher levels of testosterone than women.  Testosterone (the male sex hormone) means lower body fat and increased muscle mass.  The differing degree of testosterone in men and women is responsible  for the differences in total body fat percentage, fat distribution, and muscle mass.

Men and women also store fat differently.  You have all heard me talk about different body shapes; apple and pear shapes.  Women tend to store fat around their thighs and hips (pear) whereas men tend to store fat around their middles (apple).  I hope you understand these are tendencies and you will find female apples and male pears!

But the difference in fat storage also means different types of fat and different dangers.  The subcutaneous or peripheral fat found in pear shapes is "safe" fat.  You may not like it, but this is the safe kind... it stays where it is and does not move around the body.  Unfortunately, this type is very difficult to lose.

The abdominal fat of the apple shaped person is the DANGEROUS kind.  This fat is behind the abdominal wall and attaches itself to the internal organs.  It is also known as visceral fat.  This type of fat is able to move freely around the body and is what clogs arteries leading to heart attacks and strokes.  The good news is, it's the easiest fat to lose.

If you and your partner are both trying to lose weight then you might get frustrated that he is losing weight quicker than you.  This is due to everything I've already said.  He probably has more visceral fat which is easier to lose and YOUR FEMALE body is fighting to hold on to what it can in case you decide you want to have a baby.  Working out with your partner is a great thing to do, you can support and motivate each other and it will bring your closer.

So here's what you can do:

• If you are trying to burn fat through exercise, follow a low carb - high protein diet.  When you eat carbs your body stores the sugar for energy - your body can not burn fat in the presence of glucose.  First it uses up all the glucose for energy before it gets round to burning fat for energy.  It's that simple.  So no carbs before your gym session.
• Eat a varied diet with lots of vegetables, animal protein and some fruit.  A high protein diet will keep you feeling full for longer.
• If you need to lose a fair amount of weight, limit your carb intake to twice a week.
• Eat when you are hungry, but eat the right stuff.  Snack on fresh fruit or raw vegetables.
• A handful of raw nuts (if you are not allergic or intolerant) every few days will help enormously in boosting your energy levels.  But remember, they are very high in calories so don't eat the whole bag, just a handful and make sure they are raw.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

The Milk Dilemma

First off I would like to apologize for not posting for a while.  The Christmas period has been full of life changes and a large dose of stress, so posting had to be put on hold for a while.

That said, let's get down to business.  Well, I hardly know where to begin on the milk dilema.  There is so much evidence AGAINST milk consumption that I still can't understand why milk is being pushed at us on such a constant and in your face way.

I am going to try and make this as brief as possible, but I might not manage it as there is so much to be said.

Cow's milk is for... cows

All mammals receive their mother's milk directly (in most cases) from the mammary gland.  That's what they're for.  But it is only for the first several months of life or for as long as possible in some HUMANS.  We all know there is a huge following to breast feed your child for as long as possible - it's a matter of individual opinion and to be respected.  However, in the animal kingdom (and let's not forget we humans are animals too), feeding on mother's milk is limited in time and limited to the same species.  Human breast milk has everything a human baby needs to develop in the initial stages of life in the outside world.  We don't give human breast milk to other animals. 

Why is cow's milk dangerous to human health?

The mass production of cow's milk has lead to cows being treated in some of the most abominable ways.  They are kept pregnant to increase and continue milk production, in order to do this they are injected with hormones.  Steroids are used to promote growth and antibiotics for all those diseases they have for living in poor, confined conditions and also genetically modified substances.  All cows release toxins through their milk, just as women are advised not to smoke, drink alcohol, take drugs, medication and spicy foods or drink caffeine, etc if breast feeding as amounts of these are found in breast milk and transferred to the baby, so do the toxins in cow's milk pass on to us humans.

So what exactly is in cow's milk?  Well, lots of potentially harmful substances for humans:

• A hormone cocktail of pituitary, steroid, hypothalamic and thyroid hormones.
• rBGH (Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) a genetically engineered  hormone directly linked to breast, colon and prostate cancer.  This is used in cows to increase milk production.  I would like to point out that this is banned in Europe.
• Pus:  National averages for USA show at least 322 million cell-counts of pus per glass of milk.  This is well above the human limit for pus-intake and has been directly linked to paratuberculosis bacteria, as well as Chron's Disease.  This happens because the cows suffer from mastitis from infected udders from too much milking.
• Gastrointestinal Peptides:  Nerve and epidermal growth factors, and growth inhibitors MDGI and MAF.
• Blood cells: The USDA allows up to 1.5 million white blood cells per milliliter of commonly-sold milk.  This means you and your children are drinking cow's blood in your milk!
• Antibiotics:  As previously mentioned, factory cows are in such a state of disease and are so mistreated that they are constantly injected with antibiotics to combat infections, and are rubbed down with chemical laden ointments.  Right now, regulatory committees only test for 4 of the 85 drugs in dairy cows.  This means that the other 81 drugs in cow's milk are poured directly into your glass or over your breakfast cereal and then ingested by you.  Estimates show that 38% of milk in the US is "contaminated with sulfa drugs or other antibiotics" according to a study by the Centre for Science in the Public Interest and published in the Wall Street Journal on December 29th, 1989.  A study from the FDA data showed that over half of all milk was laden with traces of pharmaceuticals yet nothing has been done to control or change this.

More Information?

If the above isn't enough to stop you consuming milk produce, here is some more interesting information to consider.  In 2008 Harvard researchers studied the effect of giving US commercial milk to third-grade students in Mongolia.  After drinking it for a month, their growth hormone levels increased dramatically by 40%  The children actually grew about 1cm during the month.  This was considered a significant statistical change by the researchers.  The researchers are currently studying whether growth spurts from milk will affect sexual maturity and puberty age.

It is known that puberty is starting at a younger age nowadays.  Some less enlightened people consider this to be evolution.  However, a lot of the problem is linked to diet and what many don't realize is that early onset puberty can lead to serious health problems in later life.

According to researchers at the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in Westernized societies, girls who start their periods before the age of 12 and who have the most menstrual cycles over a lifetime have a higher risk of dying from ovarian cancer than women with fewer periods.  The same appears to be true of breast cancer.  Earlier puberty means more menstrual cycles - and hormone laced milk produce, meat and poultry are associated with early puberty.  Childhood obesity also triggers puberty sooner.

But it isn't just the girls having all the problems.  US dairy produce accounts for 60-80% of estrogens consumed.  Excess estrogen not only makes boys mature later and have "man-boobs", but it can also delay emotional development.  Estrogen is also being studied as a possible culprit in declining sperm counts.

Nowadays we have choices.  There are other products on the market to substitute cow's milk, cheese, yogurts, etc..  You can substitute milk for rice milk, almond milk, hemp milk, etc.. Yogurts can be substituted by soy yogurts.  Cheese doesn't really have a substitute yet but, believe me, you can live without it!