Northfield Chiropractor Talks New Year Nutrition

That time of the year is coming up again. Yep. Weight loss goals motivated by New Year resolutions. There are several gimmicks out there that can help people lose weight every which way. Remember ephedra? Yeah, it turns out that stuff is very similar to amphetamine, and very terrible for your heart. Weight loss is such a stressful subject, and I propose that we get rid of that stress and

Shouldn’t this be a happy egg?

gimmick. The motivation should not be weight loss. The motivation should be better, longer, and healthier life that allows you to do the fun things you want to for as long as you can. Ephedra was helpful for weight loss, but if it kills you young what is the point?

This article is intended to get you on the right foot for New Year’s. It will hopefully give you some ideas of where you can start, but more importantly give you a different motivation. This motivation should be to be healthier, have more energy, and as a side-effect your waist gets smaller. There are some challenges that people can face, and I will try to tackle them better than a last minute drive against the MN Vikings. I will also try to tackle them in installments.

Blood Sugar Regulation: Why calories are not that important

It has been postulated that a calorie in equals a calorie out. That is fiction. A calorie is calculated by burning it with a flame, and finding out how much energy comes out of it. I am not sure about you, but I don’t have a furnace in my body. We process different foods in different ways using hormones and chemical reactions. The more important thing to think about is the ease at which our bodies can store a product.

Fats–

Man have we hated these things for far too long. They are definitely high in calories, but our bodies process them in a way where we don’t overuse hormones that eventually lead to inflammatory cytokines that wreak havoc on our bodies (as long as they are good fats). They also do a very important thing. They slow down our digestion. That means we feel fuller for a longer period of time. Don’t you just hate feeling hungry and tired around 10am and 2pm? They also help us bring in very important fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, and E. There is also more and more research that shows that your brain prefers to burn the byproducts of fats (ketone bodies) than it does to burn glucose (the byproduct of carbohydrates). This is the cutting edge method that physicians are looking at to help prevent Alzheimer’s.

What are good and bad fats?

Good Fats

v Olive oil –there is a difference between the stuff you get at Northfield Vinegars and Oils and the off brand stuff you get at Cub

v Coconut oil- Try to get as unprocessed as you can

v Unheated nut oils- I really LOVE the stuff from Driftless Organics

v Grass fed meats- These have a much higher omega 3 to omega 6 ratio which helps with inflammation. Try the meat from Sunshine Harvest Farms

v Fish oils-Colder the water the better. Make sure to eat the skin. Also you can supplement with a good quality fish oil supplement

v Palm oil

v Butter- grass-fed animals are much better for this product

v Nuts! – The raw ones are better and make sure there is not too much salt. Too much salt can trigger your immune system

Bad Fats

v Anything too processed

• Margarine
• Hydrogenated Oils
• Intesterified fats

v Man-made oils

Carb- (Carbohydrates, sugars).

Man I wish I had more time to talk about this one. If you would like that talk for a business I would be more than willing to come discuss this with them. It will most likely cause your business to spend less money on health care. I will try to discuss this as best I can.

Farmers I would like to ask you a question. If you really need that cow or pig to gain weight real fast what do you feed them? Do you feed them fat-filled nuts? No, you should feet them carbohydrate rich corn.

There are several forms of carbohydrates that are all processed very differently. A simple thing to think about with carbohydrates is that the easier it is for our bodies to break these down the worse they are for our bodies. One way that we decide this is to look at the glycemic index. This calculates how fast our body can turn a carbohydrate into glucose. The higher the number the more insulin it takes to get our bodies to absorb it. The more insulin that our bodies produce the more detrimental inflammation our bodies are succumbing to. Also, the more insulin that our bodies produce the more likely our bodies are going to be resistant to insulin (type II diabetes process).

What is a good way to know what the glycemic index is for a food? That one is easy. How close is the food to its natural form? Another question is how much work was done to process that food? The more work done means that the less work our body has to do to turn it into glucose, and this means that the glycemic index is much higher. That way you don’t have to take out your smart phone to calculate everything that you buy at the store.

The easiest way to look at it is that carbohydrates from fresh vegetables are FAR BETTER than anything that you can label with the term “whole grain”. You really cannot go wrong with that stuff. I postulate that anything that says “whole grain” should

The other thing to think about is that carbs from grains (corn, wheat, rice, oats, barley, ect) are far more detrimental to your insulin pump than any other type of food. This means that they have the highest amount of inflammation effect on your bodies. This means that they are the most harmful. Again the more processed the food (less like the original form of the food) the worse it is for you.

Call to Action:

For a two week period make a change to your most important meal of the day; breakfast. Make sure there are no grains and put in as many veggies are you can in your breakfast. This will most likely give you more energy, more alertness, less hunger sensation, more satisfaction, and perhaps as a side-effect cause some weight loss.

If you need assistance with nutrition or wellness goals give us a call 507-645-8000.