INTENTIONAL, HEALTHY FOOD CHOICES

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The following information is excerpts from the book Thin Over 40 by Dr. Jantz. We encourage all members to purchase the book (remember you get a discount off the book price) and apply the 12-week weight loss plan that is fully outlined in the book. If you apply the principles in Thin Over 40 along with all the benefits provided on this website, you can be Thin for Life.

As we have stated throughout this site, at Thin for Life and The Center, Inc., we are concerned about all aspects of your life-emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, relational, and nutritional. The following information is to help you develop intellectually and enhance your body nutritionally, which can improve your emotional life. The end result will be an improvement to your body physically.

Healthy Eating, not Dieting
Thin for Life/Thin Over 40 is about freedom to eat healthy, not enslavement to a small number of “safe” foods. It’s about expanding your choices of good food to eat, not limiting them. Dieting is all about restriction, while Thin for Life is about choice. Don’t deprive yourself, just choose to treat yourself in a different way, with something healthy. You will learn ways to cut down on that number of calories without entering into the den of starvation and no win dieting. You will be taking baby steps to change the way you eat. If you say to yourself, “you must not have ice cream ever again!” the first thing you will want to do is eat the whole half-gallon. This is about making incremental, positive, lifestyle changes that you can implement for long-term success!

Here are some suggestions, to give you an idea of how this might work:

• Choose a colorful, flavorful salad for dinner, over a heavier, fried meal. Use an oil or vinegar dressing, instead of a creamed selection.
• If you enjoy going to an Italian restaurant, you might choose to order Antipasto before the meal, which is generally a selection of fresh vegetables.  This way, you can order a smaller ala carte selection instead of a full meal.
• Order a baked potato or rice pilaf instead of French fries or mashed potatoes and gravy.
• Forego the chips and salsa at your favorite Mexican restaurant and order fajitas, with their variety of sautéed vegetables. Fajitas also allow you to choose what you put into the tortillas and how many tortillas to eat. 
• For dessert, ask for a bowl of fresh fruit or order a piece of fruit pie, and leave the crust, with its high concentration of trans fats. Eat the fruit, not the fat! Ok, for some you that may be very hard, but in time you can have that kind of self-control.

Tracking your eating habits
One of the ways to make better choices in regards to making healthy choices and eating healthy foods is to track your eating habits. This will help you become aware of what you are eating, how often you are eating, and why you are eating. Most of us eat without thinking about it. By tracking your eating habits you may find out that you are using food as a drug; you are eating to replace boredom; you are mostly eating foods that are high in fat content, sugary, and have little nutritional value. Being aware of your eating habits gives you the opportunity to change them.

Tracking your eating habits is to build awareness, not obsession.  "Believe me when I tell you that 20 years of work with eating disorders has allowed me to see the damage done to lives through an obsession with food, weight, and body image." (Dr. Jantz) The Thin for Life/Thin Over 40 Plan is not designed to train you to obsess about these things. By becoming aware of your own patterns, realized and unrecognized, through tracking now, you’ll gain insight into your own behaviors. As you gain knowledge and understanding, you can disconnect from these behaviors to reintegrate new, healthier, ones. Once these new behaviors are fully integrated, you can discontinue the daily tracking because eating healthy will become part of who you are, not merely what you do. 

Concept of Portions/Servings
Most of us who live in the USA and many other countries consistently eat more food than what is needed by our body. We pay no attention to the concept of portions or servings. How many servings of a specific food are you eating in one day? For example, do you have three servings of mashed potatoes with your roast at dinner? Is your afternoon snack a serving and a half of milk and two servings (or three) of cookies? In the morning, are you eating two servings of cereal? 

If you want to be Thin for Life it is time to focus on serving size and portion control. Use the information provided in the Food Guide Pyramid and on the back of packaging to determine the true size of a serving. Use that measurement to calculate servings eaten at meal times. Be aware of your inner dialogue because part of you will want to argue that the amount of food represented in a single serving is really not enough. After you’ve eaten your plateful, especially at your evening meal, wait 5 minutes before deciding whether or not you really want more. Give your stomach a chance to catch up with your mouth. You may find you’re not really that hungry, after all.  our goal here is to begin to reorient your total food intake to more closely match the guidelines in the Food Guide Pyramid. 

One of the challenges for those desiring to loss weight is the issue of eating out at restaurants. Nowadays most restaurants (especially in the U.S.) provide much more food than one serving when you order a meal. Here is an assignment for you. Go to your favorite restaurant and order your favorite meal. Either ask for it as a take-out item, or go ahead and eat at the restaurant. If you get it as take-out, when you arrive home make sure to cut the meal in half. If you are eating it at the restaurant, immediately ask for a box as soon as the item arrives. When the server brings you the box, cut the meal in half and put half in the box. Now, enjoy the rest of the meal, making sure to drink your water before, during, and after. By cutting your meal in half, you are allowing your favorite dish to give you enjoyment for two days, instead of one!

Snacking
Many times, we think snacking at work doesn’t fall under the category of “eating” because it isn’t a full meal or we eat those snacks a little bit at a time, over an extended period of time. We have come to consider those calories not to “count” during our day. A cookie here. A candy bar there. A half a bag of chips. A donut during break. Because we’re distracted when we eat them, we simply forget or fail to notice them in the grand scheme of eating. Compounding matters is the reality that these foods are often the least healthy, with lots of fats, sugars, and sodium. They taste great, get us through the morning and/or afternoon, and are responsible for extra pounds around our waists and hips. 

For now, why not clear out all of your stashes. Gather them up, put them in a bag. Now, simply don’t replace them.  Instead, focus on drinking water, to meet your goal of drinking 8 cups a day. Every time you feel the need to reach for those chips, that pastry or candy bar, take a sip of water. When you’re genuinely hungry, get up and have a full, healthy meal. Enjoy a cookie as dessert afterward – but then don’t eat again until dinner in the evening. You may not be consistent at this in the beginning, but with practice, you really can get a away from the unhealthy snacks. At first you may not be able to remove all those stashes. That's ok. Just don't replace them once you have eaten them.

Fats
You want to also track how much sodium, fats, carbohydrates and calories consumed each day. For most people, the difficulty with extra weight has more to do with those items than an overabundance of broccoli in their diet.  Your goal is to begin to reduce these amounts to get more in-line with the recommended guidelines on the Pyramid. 

Let’s look at how extra fat is accumulated on the body:

Through the over-consumption of fat calories in our daily caloric totals.  Take a look at how many fat calories you are consuming and what percentage of your total calories those represent. Initially, you want any saturated fats to be no more than a third of your total fat intake.  (Remember that not all fats are equal and it is best to keep your intake of saturated fats – found in some red meats and whole milk – and trans fatty acids – found in hydrogenated vegetable shortenings and many margarines – to a minimum.)

• Saturated fats, found in red meat and some dairy products, as well as in some vegetable fat like coconut, palm, and palm kernel oils.
• Polyunsaturated fats, found in safflower, flax seed, sunflower, corn, soybean, and cotton seed oils. These types of fats are also found in some types of fish.
• Monounsaturated fats, found in olive, peanut, and canola oils.
• Trans fats or trans fatty acids, the principal fats found in prepared foods, such as cookies, cakes, doughnuts, crackers, French fries, and many frozen entrées. Trans fats are man-made when oils are turned into solid fats by the process of hydrogenization – the adding of hydrogen to the liquid oil to achieve a solid.  When you look at ingredient labels and see the words “partially hydrogenated” or “hydrogenated” in front of a vegetable oil, you know that the product will contain trans fats. New labeling guidelines require companies to list not only the amount of fat in foods but also to breakdown those fats into specific categories, such as saturated and trans fats.

Remember, saturated fats and trans fats are to be kept to a minimum. There are some products that are naturally high in saturated fats, due to the way they are processed. High calorie baked goods, like pies, cakes, cookies and pastries, are all high in saturated fats. Therefore, these foods should be eaten sparingly. It doesn’t mean you can’t have them, just that you need to watch the amount of these foods you eat.

Take note of times and places where you are eating high fat-high calorie foods, apart from an established meal. Don’t forget any beverages that are high calorie, like a milk shake, latte′, or frappuchino. Your goal is to give yourself permission to have these less. It doesn’t mean you are giving them up forever but rather you recognize that, while individually good, the amount you have been consuming is not contributing to good health or longevity. You will need to start consuming these items less frequently. Enjoy them fully when you do, but not as often. You’re exchanging less of these foods for greater health.

Let’s look at some ways you can cut down on the amount of fat you eat, even without reducing the amount of calories.  Take, for example, that candy bar you have during the afternoon. It’s just a regular sized candy bar, say a Kit Kat bar.  Pretty healthy, right?  No nuts, just chocolate covered vanilla sugar wafers. A Kit Kat bar has 290 calories, about the same number of calories as two fruit and grain bars.  But a Kit Kat bar has 15 grams of fat, of which 2/3^rds, or 10 grams, are saturated fat. Two fruit and grain bars have 280 calories but 6 grams of fat, of which 17%, or 1 gram, is saturated fat. For a medium caloric intake of 2,200 calories per day, the current Food Guide Pyramid recommends no more than 73 total fat grams, of which no more than 24 grams should be saturated fat, consumed per day. By eating that one Kit Kat bar, you’ve just had more than 40% of your saturated fat and more than 20% of your total fat for the day. If you’d chosen to eat the two fruit and grain bars, you’d have eaten just 4% of your saturated fat and just 8% of your total fat.  All within the same amount of calories.

Food and Mood
What you eat really does affect how you feel. And part of that difference has to do with the way the foods you eat affect your metabolism. When you feel run down, sluggish, unenergetic, you tend to have a depressed mood. You don’t feel good and your attitude reflects that. Refined and Highly Processed Food can affect our mood.

Refined and Highly Processed Food
Metabolism is the rate at which you burn calories. It’s like the heat of a fire. A hot, active fire burns fuel more quickly, while a slower, cooler fire takes longer to burn fuel and does not burn it as efficiently. You want your metabolism to be a hot, active fire that takes what you eat, utilizes it and leaves less fuel to be converted into fat by the body. The fuel or food you use can affect how hot your fire burns.

Today, many of the foods we eat are highly processed. They are full of refined sugar that enters the bloodstream on a fast track. On the surface, it would seem that these kinds of foods would be the perfect fuel to stoke up your metabolic fire.  On the contrary, these foods do the exact opposite. These fragmented foods supercharge your system by spiking your blood sugar, or glucose, levels. They don’t require a hot, active fire to burn because they are already so broken down in processing, they can enter your blood stream almost immediately. 

Once your blood sugar level has been elevated, your body responds by producing insulin. Insulin takes the excess sugar or glucose in your blood and stores in it your cells as fat. When you eat highly refined foods, high in sugar, you are setting yourself up for a roller coaster ride of glucose and insulin.  our glucose levels spike so insulin rushes in to counterbalance it. But if there is an overabundance of insulin produced, it not only takes the glucose and stores it away as fat, it also leaves too little in your blood to be used. This drop in blood sugar level causes fatigue and intense cravings, usually for those foods high in carbohydrates, which can be easily converted into glucose by the body. 

You get hungry and eat. But shortly after, you feel tired, and not too long after that you’re craving sweets or carbohydrates to feel better. So you get hungry and eat again. These peaks and valleys can cause a person to go over the edge into binge eating. Through all of these highs and lows of your blood sugar, there is a corresponding roller coaster on your moods.

Believe us, there is a better way!

Instead of highly processed, fragmented foods, you want to begin to substitute whole foods into your meal planning. Whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and beans take longer to be digested. As such, the amount of sugars/carbohydrates is released over a longer period of time. You avoid the spikes of blood sugar and the corresponding over production of insulin that causes the Jekyll and Hyde effect. When foods take longer to digest, they require your body to work harder.  You are basically using calories to gain calories. This keeps your metabolism higher, your fire remains hot and active. 

Well-balanced diet
What you want is a well-balanced diet that includes lots of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, lean protein and proper water intake. 

• Fresh vegetables and fruit. This is important to both genders. Whenever possible, look for organically grown produce. Many people are chemically sensitive to pesticides. In addition, one study has shown a link between the pesticide compound methoxychlor and a decrease in testosterone production because of its estrogen-like properties. For women, eat at least 5 servings per day, especially of green, leafy vegetables, which are rich in nutrients and phytochemicals. Phytochemicals include phytoestrogens, which are estrogen compounds found in plants, especially in soy beans and flax seed.  hese can help augment low estrogen during menopause.
• Lean meats. Protein is important in the production of muscle tissue. Men, lean muscle is a component of testosterone production so the less muscle you have, the more your testosterone production is compromised.  Women, you also need to be sure to eat protein in order to assist in muscle protection. Lean beef is fine but remember that poultry has a higher protein content than beef. Pork is also an excellent choice for a lean, white meat. Women need to be sure that they do not eat too much protein. Calcium, a necessary component in bone production, can be compromised by too much protein, increasing the risk of loss of bone density and osteoporosis. 
• Fish.  We’ve talked about the benefit of fish before because of the beneficial omega-3 oils they contain. These oils can help women to alleviate vaginal dryness. For men, the fatty acids found in fish, EPH and DHA, are also extremely beneficial, as they reduce cholesterol levels and can help thwart the production of a compound that binds up free testosterone in a man’s system, leaving less available testosterone.
• Water. We can’t stress enough the importance of water, especially in the area of fat metabolism. Water lubricates life and acts as a transport vehicle for many bodily functions, not the least of which is toxin removal. During menopause, women can become more dehydrated so make sure to drink your water!  For those exercising, both strength training and cardiovascular, water can be used to help flush toxins produced by the breakdown of muscle tissue. Sweat uses up even more water so increase your water intake to compensate for your increased activity level.

There is a recognized mental disorder known as binge eating disorder. It is characterized by eating very rapidly, eating beyond full to uncomfortable, eating large amounts of food even when not hungry, eating alone out of embarrassment or shame, and after bingeing, feeling ashamed, disgusted, depressed or guilty. We are not suggesting you have this diagnosable disorder but within that definition are the seeds of disordered eating, even if it’s not an eating disorder. We would like you to consider those times when you eat and it has nothing to do with feeling hungry. We would like you to examine what you eat during those times and why you choose to eat this way. 

Many will use food as an acceptable form of rebellion and comfort. It may stem from childhood where there was constant pressure to eat everything on their plate – and they responded by restricting food. Others come from a home environment where physical perfection is emphasized to such a degree, they binge, as a way to numb their feelings of insecurity and lack of acceptance, and purge, in order to “undo the damage” and avoid unwanted weight gain. 

We also see people who have, over the years, turned to food as a way to deal with uncomfortable feelings of sadness, disappointment or frustration. These people also express a certain rebellion through food against all of the pressures they feel in life. They may feel powerless over that dead-end job or loveless marriage or contentious relationship with their children but there is one thing about their life they can control – their food choices. Over the years, they have turned to comfort foods as a way to gain back a small measure of personal control. They figure, if life doesn’t feel good, food certainly does. They also rebel against age. Tired of wishing for a body they feel they can no longer have, they fight back by giving in. Food is used as a form of control but it does nothing to deal with the real issues – it doesn’t give any lasting relief and, by eating the wrong types of foods, it robs the person of the ability to generate the physical stamina necessary for optimism, hope, and joy.  In short, as they age they become larger and more depressed.  t’s time to stop this cycle and take charge!  If this pattern speaks to you, realize you’ve already made significant improvements by adopting what you’re learning through Thin for Life/Thin Over 40. You’re ready to tackle the stubborn issue of binge eating.

You’ll find there are certain times you eat too much. Daily life and full schedules are highly stressful and you can be fooled by the body into thinking what you need is a caloric “pick me up.” Snack food advertisers promote certain high-calorie, high- fat foods like candy bars as a way to make it through the afternoon. We’re used to responding to our body’s low-time by giving it something to eat. It doesn’t matter what the real reason for that dip in energy, we respond by popping something into our mouths. Feel tired – pop. Feel anxious – pop. Feel frustrated – pop. Feel tense – pop.Feel cranky – pop. Feel bored – pop. 

Here are some other times you want to be aware of:
Mornings, right upon waking. Using a high-caffeine and/or high-calorie infusion to jump start the day.

Mid-morning or mid-afternoon. This could be nothing more than the stress involved of waiting either for that lunch break or end of the day. Your body may be asking for you to get up and relieve the stress. You suddenly feel a drop in energy or a need to provide a diversion from what you’re doing. It’s easy and convenient to provide that break through food. Even when a snack is the appropriate response, our choice of what that snack is can be inappropriate. 

At night after the evening meal. Many people only give themselves “permission” to relax only after they’ve gotten everything done or are too tired to care anymore. Evening then becomes a time to let down, to relax.  And relaxing has come to mean eating or snacking, often something salty or sweet.  It’s the bag of chips while the game’s on or the bowl of ice cream during a favorite drama. You’re not hungry, you’re keyed up, and the way you’ve chosen to deal with calming down is through food.

We want you to look at the time patterns to your binge or non-hunger eating. Recognize they’re not due to hunger but how you cope with physical or emotional discomfort. For example, upon waking, your body is gearing up by increasing metabolism, heart rate and blood pressure. This is perfectly normal but it can leave you feeling a little fuzzy as you adjust.  Check to make sure you’re still drinking your water right upon waking. Rehydrating after sleep can help regulate your blood pressure. The physical activity you’re doing in the morning helps clear out the mental cobwebs. Use your body’s own stimulants to get you going instead of caffeine. 

For those mid-morning or mid-afternoon times, get up and move around, like we’ve talked about before. You needn’t interpret every sign of physical sluggishness as a need to pop something into your mouth. Stretch, move around, get some fresh air – these are all non-food alternatives.

Night eating can be the stumbling block for many. We push and prod ourselves during the day. We don’t get enough sleep.  We get far too much stress. Evening comes, the sun sets, and we want to eat for comfort. After the noise of the day, the quiet of the evening allows the echo of loneliness, frustration, or distress to be heard, prompting a reach for food to comfort. Whatever the reason, too many of us think getting ready for bed means filling up our stomachs.  Working through this entrenched pattern may mean you need to stop eating in the evening, after dinner, completely. As an alcoholic must abstain from alcohol, if you are prone to night eating, you need to remove snacking after dinner as an activity.  The goal is to go to bed with your stomach mostly cleared out from dinner. It needs a rest overnight, too. What you don’t need are those digesting calories turning to fat while you sleep!

Sometimes, it’s not merely a desire for a candy bar or a bag of chips that overtake you. It’s not just grabbing a handful of cookies when you get home from work as you’re preparing dinner. Rather, it’s an intense, focused desire to practically shove food into your mouth. It has nothing to do with physical hunger and everything to do with emotional hunger. This emotional feeling, however, is so strong, it can be interpreted as physical. Physical or emotional? Sometimes, it’s hard to know the difference.

Generally, we find that physical hunger can wait a bit. It’s there, it’s noticeable, you need to do something about it but you can hold off. Generally, that warning, that burning in your stomach will go away if you ignore it. Oh, it will return but not right away, especially if you’re engaged in some interesting activity. When your stomach starts to rumble, then you know you’re pushing the limit because your gastric juices are complaining. That’s physical hunger and it comes on gradually, as your stores of food are utilized by the body and it lets you know it’s ready for more. Physical hunger can usually be ignored for a while.

Emotional hunger can be identified by its sudden appearance, by its susceptibility to outside stimuli, and by its compelling nature. Like the hit of a fish on a pole, emotional hunger can strike without warning. Detached from a physical imperative, the subconscious is free to demand satisfaction from food at any moment. You may have been mulling over how that off-handed comment yesterday made you feel. Resentful and bitter, the impulse strikes to throw caution to the wind and immediately overeat.  And I do mean immediately. One of the signposts of emotional eating is its imperative. Once you’ve decided the only way to feel better is to eat, few things are allowed to come between you and food. You’ll go out of your way to get exactly what you want. 

Catching the glimpse or a whiff of a favorite food can also produce an emotional eating response. Your sense of smell has powerful ties to your emotions. Smells can provoke an amazing emotional connection to memories and associations.  You may not be remotely hungry when you catch the mouthwatering odor of buttered popcorn or a fresh baked cookie. All at once, you have to have it, and not just one. Again, the imperative. It’s about self-gratification, not hunger.

Most of us in the U.S. never go long enough between eating to produce the kind of physical need that emotional eating counterfeits. It feels like we’re starving but, deep down, we know we’re not.  he desire for relief from that feeling of emptiness, of deprivation, is so great, however, we obey. 

We completely agree that we should give our bodies what we need. What we disagree on is that something is always food.  We agree we feel a lack, or loss, emotionally and that needs to be addressed. But instead of always defaulting to food, we need to take time to evaluate the source of the true hunger and then find a way to fill it that doesn’t involve empty promises through empty calories.

Sugar in our Diet
Recently, I (Dr. Jantz) read a fascinating blurb in a fitness magazine. It talked about a study done at the University of Wisconsin, where rats were fed a high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt diet. Of course, the rats didn’t have any choice; they could only eat what they were given. An interesting thing happened, though, when the rats were returned to a healthy diet.  They developed symptoms consistent with withdrawal. The lead researcher, Dr. Matthew Will, believes the high fat, sugar and salt diet altered the rats’ brain biochemistry “with effects similar to those of powerful opiates such as morphine.”  Simply put, the rats got “hooked” on the bad food to the point of a physical alteration in their brain chemistry.

As we look at why we eat certain foods in inappropriate quantities, we need to be open to the possibility that when we say ice cream is our “nightly fix,” we’re not just engaging in harmless hyperbole. Still think this is far-fetched? It isn’t to Princeton University’s Bart Hoebel, who in 2002 released the results of his own study with rats. The rats were made to binge on sugar. Then, the effects of the sugar were blocked. At that point, the rats experienced withdrawal symptoms such as “the shakes” and brain chemistry changes, linked to sugar’s ability to stimulate the brain’s own opiates. Hoebel said, “The brain is getting addicted to its own opiods as it would to morphine or heroin. Drugs give a bigger effect, but it is essentially the same process.” You choose these foods for a reason – they stimulate the pleasure center of the brain.  Sugar consumption, and its effect, can produce a drug-like response. And we eat a lot of sugar every day, every year.

For you to have long-term success in your Thin for Life/Thin Over 40 lifestyle, you need to cut down on your consumption of sugar. This may prove extremely difficult if you have developed an addictive reaction to sugar. Simply put, for a while you may not feel the best. Cravings, headaches, muscle tension, and irritability are all symptoms of withdrawal – just ask anyone who has tried to quit smoking. 

At The Center, Inc., we’ve helped many individuals “come down” off sugar, as they work to incorporate healthier eating.  It isn’t easy at first but after making it through the “withdrawal” symptoms, they report feeling better and losing weight.  We encourage them to avoid as much processed sugar as possible and choose fruits as a sweet alternative. Another interested effect has been reported - when they return to eating some sugar, they say they feel satisfied with a much smaller amount.  In fact, if they eat “too much” sugar, they experience nausea and headaches. They have learned that a little bit of sugar goes a long way.   

How about trying a day without eating any processed sugar. Try another day without refined sugar. For some of you, it may be a matter of retooling an established habit. For others, this drop in sugar consumption may have set off a major craving.  The culprit could be a compromised digestive system not a lack of willpower. Over the years, we have seen first-hand the effects of a small, simple celled organism called Candida albans, or yeast. "A vast majority of those I have treated with eating disorders have an overgrowth of yeast in their systems." (Dr. Jantz) Eating disorders can produce yeast blooms in the body and so can other conditions more common, such as medication and antibiotic use, or simply poor nutritional habits. 

While many of you may be unfamiliar with candida, most of you are aware of yeast. When used in breads, yeast is combined with three things – heat, moisture and sugar – to grow. It’s no different for your body. Yeast loves to find moist, warm areas.  In the nose and mouth, a yeast overgrowth is called thrush. But yeast can grow just about anywhere.  It is especially fond of the intestinal tract and the vagina. This is why women can be plagued with recurrent yeast infections. 

Every one has yeast colonies inside, which are kept in check by healthy digestive bacteria. These healthy bacteria can be decimated, however, by the stress of a chronic illness, or simply a prolonged exposure to stress, by antibiotics, and by certain medications. When the healthy bacteria are compromised, yeast flourishes. Yeast, being simple, demands only one thing really – sugar. The more candida in the system, the more intense cravings can be for sugary foods. To help control an existing yeast overgrowth, we have developed a product at The Center, Inc. called Canditrol, which inhibits yeast growth. 

Food Allergies/Sensitivities
Lets look at another reason for food cravings. It’s true that we often crave the very things that aren’t good for us. This is certainly true in the area of food sensitivities. Let us take a minute to differentiate food sensitivities with food allergies.  Food allergies cause a specific response from your immune system and create a range of symptoms from a tingly mouth, to hives, to life-threatening anaphylactic shock.

Food sensitivities can come about when you do not introduce variety into your diet. In other words, if you eat the same type of food over and over, you can develop sensitivity to it. We have seen the most sensitivity to wheat, eggs, and dairy products. Problems can also develop if your intestinal tract is not properly digesting your food. Poorly digested food particles enter the blood stream and your organs.Your body responds to this irritation in a perfectly understandable way - it causes inflammation in an effort to cushion the effects. This inflammation is handled through water retention. Like a blister that forms when you injure your big toe, the body uses water to cushion the site of the irritant. The result is you feel bloated and uncomfortable.

When your body has developed food sensitivity, it can actually crave the food that caused it, experiencing withdrawal symptoms of fatigue, headaches, fibromyalgia, and irritability. With wheat sensitivities, people experience intense cravings for wheat products like breads. After ingesting the wheat product, they experience a temporary respite from the symptoms. Of course, the symptoms return because wheat’s been eaten. The symptoms return as does the desire to eat the product again to mitigate those symptoms. Over and over it goes.

About the only way to determine if you’ve developed sensitivity to a certain food is to temporarily remove it from your diet.  While wheat is the most common sensitivity I’ve found because of how pervasive it is in foods, it is possible to remove or reduce the amount of wheat ingested. It takes some investigation of other sources of flour, such as rye, barley, and oat.  As in the case of sugar, by cutting back on your consumption, you may first experience some discomfort but those feelings should fade and you’ll actually start to feel much better. Once you’ve cleansed the food item from your diet, you can choose to use other alternatives or begin to slowly reintroduce small amounts back in. You can also obtain the help of a health care professional to investigate whether you have an allergy to a specific food that could be causing some of your symptoms. An allergist can test you for a variety of common irritants, including different foods, and determine whether you should avoid any specific food.

Look over the foods you predominantly eat, especially breads and sweets. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether you have developed an emotional attachment to them or food sensitivity.  We encourage you to seek the help of an allergist, nutritionist or health care professional to determine if a food allergy or sensitivity is complicating your desire to be Thin for Life. There is help available! More and more professionals are recognizing this as a legitimate issue. By altering your food selection, and even increasing the variety of foods you eat, you can identify problem foods and make different choices.

Today, take a look at the top three foods you eat.  Answer whether they are processed or whole – naturally sweet or sugared – naturally flavored or artificially salted.  If your chosen three are processed, sugary or salty, intentionally reduce your consumption.  Pick healthier alternatives and give yourself permission to explore just how “hooked” you are to these foods. 

For more detailed information on the topics discussed, read Thin Over 40 by Dr. Jantz. And remember, it is not just for those who are over 40.

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