Book Review: The Diet Cure

Now, you might think it strange that I’m writing a book review for “The Diet Cure” by Julia Ross.  While I am a health coach, I don’t specialize in weight loss.  Instead, I specialize in helping people recover from symptoms of chronic neurological and/or autoimmune issues like autism, ADHD, allergies, asthma, SPD, lupus, fibromyalgia, Lyme and more.

But I don’t like throwing the baby out with the bath water, so I read the book to see what’s in it for my clients.  There’s a lot!

In the book, Ms. Ross teaches us about adrenal, thyroid, yeast-overgrowth, nutritional deficiencies, fatty-acid deficiency, food sensitivities and blood-sugar issues, which are all common in my clients (both the children and their mothers) and how many of these issues can be controlled with diet (food choices) as well as amino acid therapy.

She recommends a whole-foods diet for all of these issues, as well as an Atkins-ish diet especially for those with blood sugar issues. It’s about the elimination of sugar with an emphasis on protein and fats to keep you full.  For anyone that’s ever done the Atkins diet, you know that one piece of bread will send you into a carb-lover’s binge-fest.

Ms. Ross provides us with the missing links for why the Atkins diet is not successful in the long run:

  • “Dr. Atkins did not know that carbs could be more addictive than cocaine.”
  • “Dr. Atkins specifically did not recognize the addictive power of grains, particularly wheat, for many people.”

The key to overcoming carb and sugar addiction is the addition of the amino acids that Ms. Ross recommends.

The book goes step-by-step into explaining how the factors I mentioned above as well as depleted brain chemistry and malnutrition from chronic dieting make it almost impossible to stay at a healthy weight.  Ms. Ross also shows us how to correct these imbalances.

Given that Ms. Ross has headed up the Recovery Systems Clinic for many years, she has dealt with the full gamut of different types of addiction (drug, alcohol and food).  She writes that the reason her clinic is so successful is because of the use of amino acid therapy to correct these biochemical imbalances in the brain and elsewhere.  It’s not willpower; it’s biochemistry.

When I read this book, I took a step back and looked at it from my perspective of not only a health coach but also the media director and a board member of Epidemic Answers, a non-profit that lets parents know that recovery is possible from autism, ADHD, SPD, allergies, asthma, autoimmune and more.

We let parents know WHY there is such an epidemic of children’s chronic illnesses:  it’s a perfect storm of the Standard American diet that is nutritionally deficient, the overuse of antibiotics, toxins in our environment, stressful lifestyles and gut dysbiosis (an imbalance of good vs. bad gut flora).

But when I read this book, I thought, “Huh.  All those women that have been on nutritionally deficient diets for years since at least the 1970’s are having kids, and those kids are being born with nutritional deficiencies that are compounded by gut dysbiosis, toxicity and stress.  No wonder we’re seeing such epidemics of autism, ADHD, allergies and more.”

Moms being on nutritionally deficient diets isn’t the only reason for this epidemic, but it certainly plays a key, overlooked role.

I’ll be hosting Ms. Ross on my upcoming webinar on April 23, 2014 at 1:00pm ET.  We’ll be discussing these imbalances and how to correct them with amino acids and diet, and you can sign up for your chance to ask questions here.

 

Body Ecology Diet: An Interview with Donna Gates

Body Ecology Diet: An Interview with Donna GatesDonna Gates is the developer of the Body Ecology Diet, a gut-healing diet that can be used to recover symptoms of autism, ADHD, autoimmune diseases, hormonal imbalances and more.

Sign up for the webinar replay below.

In this interview, Donna talks about how she developed the Body Ecology Diet, almost as an offshoot of what she learned studying macrobiotics.

We talk about gut health is important for the immune system and how, if you have gut dysbiosis (an imbalance of bad bacteria, yeast, parasites and pathaogens vs. good), that it leads to ill health.

Gut health also affects brain health, as most (95%) of your neurotransmitters are made in your gut.  Most, if not all, people with neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders have impaired gut function, which is why cleaning up the gut can help recover people from symptoms of these chronic disorders.

Find out how this diet can help those with:

  • Allergies
  • Food allergies
  • ADHD
  • Asthma
  • Autism
  • Neurological disorders
  • Thyroid disorders
  • Autoimmune disorders

 

Listen to Your Gut

Listen to Your GutIn the fall of 2013, I attended “An Evening of Inspiration“, a fabulous benefit put on my non-profit, Epidemic Answers, to benefit our Canary Kids Film Project, a film in which we’ll be documenting the potential recovery of 14 children from autism, ADHD, asthma, atopic dermatitis, juvenile RA, mood disorders and type 2 diabetes as they receive free healing and recovery services for 18 months.

My fellow board member and friend, Patty Lemer, the Executive Director of Developmental Delay Resources, was interviewing people on film at the event about how they got involved in the project.

I told Patty my story of how I originally started blogging for Epidemic Answers four years ago after I heard our Executive Director, Beth Lambert, give a presentation about her just-published book, “A Compromised Generation:  The Epidemic of Chronic Illness in America’s Children” at the Wilton library.

I found myself finishing Beth’s sentences and was astounded that someone else was on the same page as me and had also recovered her children.  Of course, I immediately asked to volunteer for them, which is how I started blogging for them.

If you don’t know my story, I’ve recovered my sons from sensory processing disorder (I call it “autism light”), asthma, acid reflux and eczema, and they also have had or continue to have developmental delays, hypotonia, hypothyroidism, mitochondrial dysfunction, immune dysregulation, methylation defects and failure to thrive.

It has been a long row to hoe, but it has very much been worth it.  Along the way, I discovered that many of my own health problems were related to and/or contributed to the health problems of my children.

I would not have achieved this level of success in our health if I had listened to what my western, allopathic doctors were telling me.

I would say, “My son barely eats; he eats 2 spoonfuls of yogurt and 5 Cheerios, and it takes him an hour to eat, and then he throws it all back up”.  They would say, “He’s fine, don’t worry about it”.  They said that all the way from his beginning at the 40th percentile for weight until he fell all the way down to the 3rd percentile at 18 months, when he lost weight.  THEN they said, “There’s a problem.”  Really!?!

I would say, “He has poor motor skills.  His first crawling happened when he was 8 months old, and he slithered backwards.  Then, he army-crawled until he was 19 months old.  He cross-crawled for only a couple of weeks before he began to walk at 20 months.”  All along, they were saying, “He’s fine; don’t worry about it”.  Until he hit 18 months, THEN all of a sudden they said, “There’s a problem.”

I would say, “He projectile vomits, and my clothes, his clothes, his car seat, chairs and rugs are covered with it constantly.  He throws up after every meal.”  They said, “He’s got a weak gag reflex; he’ll grow out of it.”  They said this until he was 2-1/2 years old, and THEN they said, “He has acid reflux.  Give him some Prevacid.”

I would say, “He’s hypersensitive to sounds, lights and motions.  He cries all the time.  Something is wrong.”  They would say, “He’s fine; he’ll grow out of it.”  By this point, my son was 3 years old, and I had had enough of being told that, “He’s fine.  There’s nothing to worry about.  He’ll grow out of it.”

The truth is, there was a gnawing feeling inside of me that “something’s not right, something’s not right”.  I couldn’t put my finger on it.  So, even though my then pediatrician du jour said, “Don’t worry about it; he’ll grow out of it”, I had grown a pair by then and learned to put my foot down for my child.

I badgered her with questions until finally she gave up and said that maybe we should see a developmental psychologist.  We did, and voila, we got the diagnosis (even though it’s not a DSM diagnosis) that my son had sensory processing disorder.

From then on, nothing could stop us.  I began to research WHY he was like this.  Therapy obviously helped, but there was more to it.

Why was he sick all the time?  Why had he had so many ear infections?  Why did he develop asthma?  Why did he have developmental delays and acid reflux?  Why was he so sensitive?

Nobody that I knew really knew, so I had to keep digging and digging until I got to the point where I figured it out.  It’s toxicity, gut dysbiosis, nutritional deficiencies and hormonal imbalances.

Try getting THAT answer from your pediatrician.  Unless you’re one of the lucky few with an integrative pediatrician, you’ll never hear that answer, despite a multitude of peer-reviewed medical research journal studies out there that they just don’t have the time to read.

The system is broken.  If you want health and recovery for yourself and/or your children, you will need to take your health back into your own hands and stop giving away your power to the religion of worshiping men and women in white coats as if they know everything.  They probably don’t.

You need to listen to your gut instinct when it tells you that something is wrong.

It’s so easy to push that knowing down and stuff it aside and listen to the authorities who tell you that nothing is wrong and don’t worry about it.  I’m telling you don’t do it; you’ll regret it if you do.

I teach my clients to become their own and their children’s own advocates.  If you don’t do it, who will?  You can’t expect that someone else will care more about you and your children than you do.

My children and I would not have recovered from our health problems if I had not listened to my intuition, that little voice that said, “Something’s wrong.”

 

Top 10 Reasons Why Fresh Food Is Best

Top 10 Reasons Why Fresh Is Best

Eat like your grandma did, and your health will improve!

  1. Fresh food tastes best: I think we’ve gotten away from knowing what real, fresh food tastes like. Chef Jamie Oliver is famous for going into schools and asking children to name the vegetables he holds up. Very few can correctly identify them because they never eat them!
  2. “The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison” (quote by Ann Wigmore): If we have to detoxify from the processed food that we eat, then our bodies are not able to properly detoxify. Eating whole, fresh foods made from scratch ensures high nutrient levels.
  3. Our “food” isn’t food if it’s packed with artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and long chemical names: “The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children” is a book that shows us how food additives contribute to declining mental health. Your brain and your child’s brain are starved for nutrition, and they’re not getting it if your “food” comes with a long list of chemicals in the ingredients.
  4. Artificial colors, flavors and preservatives can cause ADHD symptoms: The Feingold diet for ADHD shows how all of those pretty blues, yellows, reds and other colors in our kids’ fun foods can cause spaciness or hyperactivity, especially in children. Artificial flavors and preservatives, especially BHA and BHT, do the same. Food isn’t fresh if it’s got these ingredients in it.
  5. Canned foods have high levels of endocrine-disrupting BPA, BPS and phthalates: That plastic lining on the inside of your canned food is doing more harm to your health than you think, as it can lead to hypothyroidism and gunk up your cells’ mitochondrial dysfunction. Plus, the food is definitely not fresh!
  6. Even frozen food isn’t fresh: The late Dr. Annemarie Colbin, author and founder of The Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City, said that freezing fruits and vegetables ruptures the cell walls of the plants, thereby reducing the nutritional value of the food.
  7. You can add love to your food when you cook it: Have you ever noticed how much better food tastes when it’s homemade or made by your mom? Some people think it’s love that makes the food taste better.
  8. Processed food contains more sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup: Robert Lustig teaches how harmful sugar is to our health. I know you’ve read that statement before, but did you know that sugar is the most inflammatory food there is AND it feeds cancer?
  9. Processed food typically contains unhealthy canola, soy and other harmful vegetable oils: I know you’re scratching your head at this one. It took me a while to wrap my head around it, especially because many “healthy food” magazines tout the benefits of canola and other vegetable oils. The Weston A. Price Foundation shows us how the extreme processing of these oils leads to rancid oils containing high amounts of inflammatory free radicals. Grandma didn’t eat these oils, and neither does my family!
  10. Fresh food has more nutrients: Compared to “healthy” fast food alternatives, fresh, homemade food has more nutrients plus the love you put into it!

THE “R” WORD

road to recovery signYou may or may not know my personal recovery story. I have recovered my 2 sons, now ages 5 and 7, from sensory processing disorder (SPD), asthma, allergies, acid reflux and eczema with a biomedical approach, which means correcting nutritional and hormonal deficiencies, removing toxicities and correcting gut dysbiosis.

I’m still working on failure to thrive, mitochondrial dysfunction, hypothyroidism and persistent eczema in my older son. In addition, they both had developmental delays, and my older son had severe hypotonia as a baby.

I have recovered from immune dysregulation, in which I had shingles twice, the worst case of poison-ivy ever, bronchitis (which I’d never had before), constant sinus infections and constant colds that would last 3-4 weeks at a time.

My older son had immune dysregulation, too, when he was younger: he would go to preschool, get sick and be out for at least a week at a time, then go to school the next week, get sick, and the cycle repeated ad nauseum (pun intended).

I also had severe adrenal fatigue, which was caused by dealing with my older son’s severe SPD.

Adrenal fatigue caused middle-of-the-night insomnia, in which I would be awake for hours at a time in the middle of the night and be so dead tired the next day that 3 hour naps wouldn’t help.

I later learned that adrenal fatigue was the cause of the onslaught of my “female problems”, which I’d never had before: a suddenly irregular menstrual cycle, a uterine fibroid and ovarian cysts.

I also found out I have two types of anemia: iron-deficiency (the more commonly known about kind) and folate-deficiency. I learned how these and most of out other problems can be tied back to gut dysbiosis and its chronic infections, especially Candidiasis.

I also discovered that I am hypothyroid and that this may have played a large part in my sons’ problems when I was pregnant with them.

I found out that I was loaded with heavy metals, especially mercury and lead, which are the most neurologically damaging. I immediately had my sons tested and found out they were full of them, too.

It’s been very hard going through this, as most people, even most doctors, don’t know about the causes of all these problems. They don’t understand that all of these problems are related, and they certainly don’t know that recovery is possible.

We got a lot of help from changing our diets and seeing a naturopath, a functional-medicine doctor and a holistic nutritionist, as well as from me doing never-ending research about how all of these problems are connected.

We’ve recovered from so much, although there is still more work to be done. In any case, we are so much better off now than we were 4 years ago, when all of these problems hit a crescendo.

I want people to know that recovery is possible, which is why I joined the non-profit Epidemic Answers. We seek to educate parents about the causes of these problems as well as let them know that recovery is possible.

In fact, we’re making a documentary film to show the world that recovery is possible because most people just don’t know that.

Most people don’t know that a child can recover from autism or asthma or that an adult can recover from an autoimmune disease, even multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis.

If you want to learn more about our film, you can find out more by watching this video or by visiting our website. Please help us get this film made!

 

BOOK REVIEW: IT’S ALL GOOD, GWYNETH PALTROW’S COOKBOOK

Gwyneth Paltrow It's All Good book coverMy husband bought me a copy of Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook, “It’s All Good:  Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great” the other day for my birthday.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised!

She openly talks about the health problems that she had that led to her needing to make dietary changes.  I can relate because I’ve had to do the same for myself and my children.  [Read more…]

THE “R” WORD

recover button

recover button

You may or may not know my personal recovery story.

I have recovered my 2 sons, now ages 6 and 8, from sensory processing disorder (SPD), asthma and acid reflux with a biomedical approach, which means correcting nutritional and hormonal deficiencies, removing toxicities and correcting gut dysbiosis.

I’m still working on failure to thrive, mitochondrial dysfunction and hypothyroidism.  In addition, they both had developmental delays, and my older son had severe hypotonia as a baby.

I have recovered from immune dysregulation, in which I had shingles twice, the worst case of poison-ivy ever, bronchitis (which I’d never had before), constant sinus infections and constant colds that would last 3-4 weeks at a time.  [Read more…]

TSH Thyroid Test

TSH Thyroid TestA TSH thyroid test is not the end-all, be-all for hypothyroidism diagnosis; TSH means “thyroid stimulating hormone”.  Your TSH results can be absolutely normal, yet you can have all the symptoms of hypothyroidism.  Suzy Cohen, RPh, explains that your doctor needs to also test free T3 and reverse T3.

SOURCE:  Suzy Cohen, RPh

 

 

Why Is Gut Dysbiosis So Bad for You?

Why Is Gut Dysbiosis So Bad for You?Gut dysbiosis is an imbalance of good vs. bad bacteria, yeast and other pathogens in your intestines. This is important because most of our immune system is located in our gastrointestinal tract, as most pathogens enter our bodies through our mouths.

Gut dysbiosis can cause lowered dopamine and lowered serotonin, as well as an inability to remember something in the short term, because most neurotransmitters are made in the intestines.

It can also cause leaky gut (intestinal permeability) which means that waste products that should be pooped out are not and are instead leaking out and causing an immune response.

Gut dysbiosis also causes nutritional deficiencies and can lower thyroid function, as well as cause lowered excretion of waste through the kidneys.

In addition, it causes increased ghrelin and lowered leptin, making you feel hungrier than you should, thereby contributing to weight gain.

Toxins produced by gut pathogens impairs your liver’s ability to detoxify, and because they are stressors, your adrenal glands will produce more cortisol, leading to fatigue and an inability to handle stress.

Gut dysbiosis causes inflammation and oxidative stress, as well as damage mitochondria, thereby increasing fatigue and lowering glutathione, the body’s powerful antioxidant.

 

FLUORIDE LEADS TO HYPOTHYROIDISM

Fluoride suppresses the thyroid by displacing iodine.  To help support optimal function of your thyroid, limit fluoride exposure and add iodine into your diet.  Read more…

SOURCE:  Dr. John Douillard