Weightloss Stalls & Intermittent Fasting

Have you ever found yourself following a regimen, eating plan, or calorie level diet for days, weeks, even months with hardly more than a couple pounds of movement on the scale?  For those of us over 40, this can be a common and crushing thing that will send us into a junk-food binge faster than you can say Krispy Kreme.  This summer I found the one thing that worked:   Fasting.

*Gasp!*  Yes, I know this subject is taboo... even though Christianity and other religions lists it as a discipline of faith, fasting is more likely to elicit rants of cautions as images of Karen Carpenter or Mary-Kate Olsen flash before their eyes.  You'll be lucky not to be given a psych referral while you're still explaining that it's actually a healthy thing.

 

That's right, there are health benefits to fasting... not just spiritual, mental, political, but biological.  Here's the bullet points-- because I love bullet points!!

Time restricted eating has been shown to:

• Result in a 70% decrease in body fat in mice (that alone entices me, but there's more!)
• Decrease inflammation 
• Clear damaged white blood cells and increase their number
• Increase immunity
• Improved blood glucose levels 
• Improved lipid (cholesterol) levels
• Improved sleep 
• Increases BDNF (brain derived neurotropic factors--"miracle grow for the brain")
• Cause hematopoietic stem cells to increase and self-renew --hello MS patients!!
• Improved aging biomarkers like IGF-1 ...Hark!  Did someone say "lean out"?
• Make cancer cells more vulnerable (while fasting) while protecting the patient's cells
• Be easy to implement (at least in the 11-12hour window)

Fasting is a major way that we autophagize or take out all of our cellular trash we make all day by just eating, drinking, and just being alive.  In some studies, intermittent fasting was shown to improve cognitive function, brain structure, and neuroplasticity, which may help the brain to learn more easily.  Other exciting studies on time restricted eating and fasting-mimicking diets help us (as listed above) make stem cells, new blood cells, replenish WBCs,  positively effect systemic inflammation, lipid levels blood glucose levels, hemoglobin A1c levels, and in cancer patients, seemed to protect their cells while making the cancer cells more vulnerable to the chemotherapeutic agents.  Further research in this area has been done in breast cancer research, where subjects ate within an 11-12 hour window and reported sleeping better, losing weight, and had a great level of compliance.   As a nurse, I'm reading this and thinking about M.S. patients, diabetic patients, cardiac patients, neurological patients.... HECK, all the patients!!!

But wait, there's more!!!  In Dr Satchin Panda's findings:  in a mice study, restricting feeding times to 12 hours lead to reduced obesity and increased muscle mass as compared to unrestricted mice, despite the same diet of high fat and high sugar. Obesity was reduced by 70%.   No lie, I had been  trying these things all of last spring  after listening to these researchers through Dr Rhonda Patrick's podcast called Found My Fitness (highly recommended).  I ate in 11-12 hour window all while faithfully eating paleo and minding my calories like I always had, but still that darn scale would barely move!  That's when I decided to do my own self-research.  Considering that body builders for years have employed intermittent fasting (IF) as their go-to for leaning out while retaining their hard earned muscle mass, I wanted to try it.  Unfortunately, we also know that in studies, females often didn't see the same results using IF as their male counterparts both in research and anecdotally,  A good article from Mark's Daily Apple looks at multiple studies here, but I was determined to find a way.

Generally, IF for body builders have been larger gaps of fasting, followed by eating all of their day's calories in a small space of time... like playing catch up.  There's good science for that since during fasting you're asking the cell to break-down things like WBCs, but it's in the re-feeding that you see the re-building of the cells, structures, etc.  other methods encourage to fast alternate days, some do one large meal per day, others do 5 on,  off etc.  I'm not going to tell you one is better than the other, I'm just here to tell you what worked for me.

So once I took my vow of silence-- more for reasons of avoiding awkward conversations than for reaping my heavenly reward, here's how I proceeded.   I follow a very low carb Paleo/primal diet all the time so, happily, it mimics the effects of fasting a bit already and my breakfast of eggs fried in bacon fat daily gets those ketones to rolling first thing in the morning...7 a.m. for me.  The kicker is, I would not eat again until 4-5pm that night and when I did, I would eat within my lowest calorie restriction--around 1100 per day.  This is the number I had been holding fast to for all of winter/spring with no real results, but here's what's more interesting: on the weekends I counted nothing.  I didn't always go crazy, but I certainly cheated.  Likely my calories were likely more than 1100 those days and I began to see the scale move!  Every.  Single. Week.  I see more leanness now than in previous years where I'd exercise myself into tendonitis. AND I've reached my goal weight!! Woop-woop!!

I feel like it's  a bit of a double-fast since nighttime is already a fasting state, I just reboot at 7am then nothing till evening.  It's just a little tweak, but it works great!  

Here's the take-away: find what works for you.  Don't keep doing the same thing you've always done and try to get different results.  Time restricted eating is one of the easiest ways to benefit your health.  In the breast cancer study there were benefits to those who made no other change in their eating EXCEPT for the time restriction.  So give it a try and let me know how it goes!!

Easy Homemade Probiotics: Sauerkraut!

I hope I've shared enough info and research with you to convince you of the positive health benefits of probiotics like better mental/emotional health, better digestion, increased immunity, production of vitamins in the gut, and their benefits for certain diseases (like Autism, Depression, Anxiety, Parkinsons, C-Diff overgrowth, and MORE!) that researchers are only beginning to scratch the surface of!

In our house we do spring for the pricey probiotic capsules, but also try to incorporate probiotic foods into our diet.  And at the price of a head of cabbage, some kosher salt, and a clove or 2 of garlic, we're talking less than a buck for the family!


I've made this before and did have photos, but I'm not sure of the recipe I used before, so I went with my Primal Guy, Mark Sisson's recipe.

I love that he had other ingredients in this recipe.  Most especially... garlic!!!
Here's the blow by blow:
Start with a fresh head of cabbage.  Organic is essential in this process as I found out the hard way.  Apparently non-organic kills off the organisms you need to develop.  You need to save some outer leaves for later, too.  So go with the cleanest.





Next is the chopping.  I broke out the Pampered Chef mandolin. I filled my 8 cup bowl very full and you'll be shocked that this fits in the jar, but it does!  He recommends salting as you go ...and yes, you really do need all he says.  No you won't die of hypertension or sodium toxicity, lacto-fermentation has been around longer than you and me combined.  And the not-so-evils of sodium will be discussed on another day--Oi!!



Here's where you defy logic.  Packing this into a jar.  If you haven't really squeezed the slaw in your bowl well enough, you'll get a second chance.  You're actually macerating the vegetables by using the salt to draw out liquid.  It takes about 10-15 minutes either way.   Anyway you'll be able to use a wooden spoon to both pack the cabbage and to be rough with it some more to work up some liquid.  I'm lucky enough to have this cute little antique jar with the clamp lid! 

 The final step is to fold a couple full sized leaves and press them into the top.  In a standard 2 quart jar you'll be able to wedge them under the neck of the jar a bit.  Either way you'll need to pile them enough to push the chopped cabbage below the level of the briny liquid.  You'll throw the finished leaves away when your kraut is complete.

  

Clamp that jar shut and you're done!  (A screw-on lid works fine too)

Leave this on your counter out of direct sunlight and check it every day or so.  I found mine was ready last time a bit on the later side. Not only is the homemade tastier than the store-bought kind (canned has next to nothing... the refrigerated kind may or may not be pasteurized as well) but here are some of the beneficial organism you just made: 

• Lactococcus lactis subsp lactis -associated with increased immunity
• Lactobacillus brevis-anti-inflammatory benefits to the GI tract
• Lactobacillus plantarum. - associated with: improved IBS symptoms, decreased GI symptoms in chemo patients, decreased cold symptoms, supportive of liver/gallbladder/ GI transit, allergy prevention
• Lactobacillus Bulgaricus- blocks pathogen adhesion thereby increases immunity, and suspected as anti-cancer
• Lactobacillus thermophilus- associated with improvements in:  lactose intolerance, constipation, diarrhea, colon cancer, IBS, H. pylori overgrowth/infection.

Butternut Squash Soup

With half the country on blizzard-mode, I think we'll be needing another soup recipe.  This one has become a staple in our house.  I think I fell in love with it at the edition of my secret ingredient:  pork broth!  I've blogged before on the benefits of a good bone broth and you can read that when you like, but for today we're getting straight to the recipe!

Peel and cube one large butternut squash... or you can buy them pre-cubed at the store.  They're a bit of work since the peel is so hard, but it's about half the cost.  My one squash made about 6 cups of cubes. 

Saute 1 onion in grass-fed butter til soft.  Season with coarse salt.  The longer and lower you cook onions the sweeter they'll be.  I let mine get a hint of brown on them.  

This is a great time to deglaze.  If you're feeling non-Paleo a bit of Chardonnay is a nice acid for the mix, but I'm deglazing here with the broth.... bring on that porky goodness!

You're pot should have cooled down with your cold stock, otherwise let it cool.   Add raw cubed butternut squash with cold pork stock, chicken stock (or a combination. (pork adds an amazing flavor!) Just enough to cover the squash.  Bring to a boil then cook another 10 minutes or until squash is soft. Use a stick blender to blend smooth or regular blender in batches. 

Butternut Squash Soup
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 c butter or pork fat (saved mine from the chilled broth)
6 cups cubed squash
4 -5 cups pork broth
salt/pepper to taste

Black and Blue Burger

1.5 pounds grass fed ground beef

1 t fresh ground black pepper
2 t granulated onion
1/4 t cayenne
1 t granulated garlic
1/2 t paprika
1/2 t rubbed thyme or 1 t fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Combine ingredients in a bowl, adjusting seasonings to taste.  Mix together, but if you're like me and enjoy a little streak of flavor, leave it slightly undermixed and season in the skillet with additional salt and ground pepper.  Form patties and fry over medium to medium high (depending on thickness) until juices run pink/clear.

Top with blue cheese the last 1-2 minutes of cooking and then a strip of bacon or crumbles.  You can even press the cheese into the middle and/or the bacon, but I like the presentation.  A dry red wine is also a nice complement and a delicious way to get your polyphenols!

How German Potato Salad will make you healthier and thinner

When I read about potatoes as a beneficial food, I was all ears.  As a staple of every holiday meal,  they fit most people's description of comfort food, and, well, BACON!  They fit in the Paleo gray area, but for all but a few of my athletes, I encourage most to work them back in about weekly once they've weeded out the useless processed carbs.  One of the biggest reasons being something called resistant starch

Chris Kresser has an excellent article on the finer points of why this is a fantastic thing to have in your diet, helps us with insulin sensitivity and why having the right gut flora help you maintain a healthy weight, but the gist of it comes down to foods like cooked,  cooled potatoes have the ability to provide food to some very important gut flora.  Lots of fiber provide food for these happy little bacteria to eat,  but not all can make it the distance that resistant starch can.  For example according to the Sonnenburgs from their book The Good Gut , sugar and processed foods (which act like sugars) barely make it further than the large intestine, leaving the bacteria we want and need for our health to snack on our intestinal mucosal layer or die.  Here is where resistant starch comes in... in the cooked and cooled potatoes of a potato salad.   My German potato salad is more often cooled and slightly reheated so it suits this nutritional lesson perfectly.  It also contains onions, a great source of inulin... another food for our microbial friends, plus a dab of pectin from the unpasteurized cider vinegar and you have a feast for both tongue and tummy!

German Potato Salad

6 c cubed unpeeled potatoes
1/2 lb bacon
1 medium onion, chopped
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/3 c unpasteurized cider vinegar
1/4 c water  (from the cooked potatoes)
3 T cane sugar
3 T chopped parsley

Boil the cubed potatoes in cold lightly salted water until tender.  Meanwhile, fry the bacon until crisp, crumble the bacon, and reserve the drippings.  Fry the onions until tender and lightly browned.  Add salt, pepper, vinegar, and water and set asside.

Drain the cooked potatoes,  add the crumbled bacon, and the vinegar mixture.

If you're like me, this is a favorite take-along for potlucks.  So refrigerate overnight and bring up to temp in your crockpot and top with parsley before serving.

Why REAL chicken soup is for sick days

Ah, a warm steamy broth, fragrant with aromatic flavors and herbs can be music to even the tenderest of tummies not to mention the stuffiest of heads.  Even before formalized hospitals broths were used as the first foods to welcome weary patients back to the conscious world.  Not to mention in modern hospitals, patients will still be offered a form of this.  Sadly, convenience and cost has eclipsed even the highest of hospital standards and even they have forgone what is most healthy for patients.  I'm talking about bouillon.  No, not the french preparation, but the handy little beef and chicken flavored "soup starters".  I'm not opposed to a non-msg form to add flavor here and there, but it is offering you nothing else.

If you keep your hipster ear to the ground, you will already know the Paleo buzz words "Bone Broth".  But keep your scarf on sister, it's really not that new.  In the culinary world, it's referred to as a stock.

A simple stock or bone broth consists of lots of bones, joints, and cartilage roasted or not, thrown into a pot often with veggies like celery, onion, garlic, carrots, brought to a boil then simmered for hours even days until all their good things are extracted.  Some choose to add a couple tablespoons of cider vinegar to help release minerals.  Either way it should give you a lovely flavorful soup base or even something to sip straight!

Before anyone really thought about the glorious flavor stocks impart into all sorts of cooking, hungry folks... very hungry folks... learned to get every last bit out of every scrap God graciously gave them.  In so doing, they reaped extra benefits they likely didn't even realize they were getting:  tons of minerals like calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, to name just a few and some really interesting proteins we'll discuss here. 
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Collagen, found in bone, skin, and cartilage, is a big reason to have real "bone broth".  It is broken down in smaller pieces so it is easier for you to absorb.  When you are ill, your body is trying to repair damaged tissues and as we age our ability to repair our connective tissue decreases. This is just one way of giving it those needed building blocks. 

Gelatin is another aspect of "bone broth".  It is the stuff that looks like meat jelly when you pull out your leftover meats out of the fridge.   Gelatin provides glycine and proline, two amino acids that help you make your own collagen and rebuild more of these connective tissues, not to mention it supports joint health, and healthy skin.  All of these proteins not only heal your gut, but are very low-inflammatory for very sensitive tummies.

By the time you add some other goodies to your soup, like carrots, parsley, celery, onion, you'll be getting beta-carotene, true vitamin C (not ascorbic acid) that initiates tissue repair, pre-biotic fiber and inulin to build up your gut flora for prevention of that next nasty virus that heads your way. 

And here's a yummy recipe from Nourished Kitchen for gluten-free dumplings made with spouted grains (we'll blog more on that another day).  I normally opt for all grain-free, but the nut-based flours, I find, tend to fall apart with cooking.  Enjoy!

Paleo Warm Cranberry Sauce

Nothing balances all the beautifully rich and savory foods of Thanksgiving like a naturally sweet and tangy cranberry sauce.   Not only are they rich in anthocyanadins (a type of anti-oxidant), vitamin C, vitamin K, manganese, and even vitamin E, but they are praised for their association with supporting cardiovascular health by reducing LDL cholesterol, and preventing urinary tract infections (UTIs) and maybe even kidney stones.  Recent research has shown that it's not the acidity of the cranberries, but the unusual nature of their proanthocyanidins (PACs) that is related to prevention of UTIs. The special structure of these PACs acts as a barrier to bacteria that might otherwise latch on to the urinary tract lining.   But enough of that aspect.

I am most interested in the anti-oxidant/vitamin C aspect.  We do a lot of talking about anti-oxidants because they fight inflammation, but isn't it curious that God packaged it with an inflammation promoter:  Vitamin C.  Now don't wave that carving knife at me just yet, hear me out!  We love to encourage anti-inflammatory foods because our modern diet has led us to so much chronic inflammation which translates to chronic joint pain, gut pain, auto-immune type diseases and so on.  But if you want to heal injuries, build muscle, repair damage internal tissues, etc. normal inflammation is part of that process and rather than getting it from high doses of processed food, I recommend vitamin C.  


Think of it like how both heat and ice on sore muscles pump blood, fluids, and lymph in and out of tissue, so both anti-oxidants and vitamin C are needed.  Please keep in mind that true vitamin C that is prized for its tissue repair is not the ascorbic acid you get from your typical vitamin tablet... the real stuff is what will actually heal you. 

So go enjoy your cranberries!

Warm Cranberry Sauce

15 oz fresh cranberries
Zest and juice of 2 large oranges 
1/2 c raw local honey

In a medium saucepan, add all ingredients, cook on medium heat until cranberries begin to pop continue to cook for 10 minutes or until the sauce thickens.  Refrigerating will thicken further, but we enjoy this warm at the table. 

Happy Thanksgiving!