Food Snubbing: Dairy

So far I haven't received near as much flack as I thought I would for my Food Snubbing blogs, but I have a feeling that is about to change today as I blog about my refusal to snub dairy. 

I'm going to start this blog out stating that I am not a dairy expert.  Far from it.  The biggest reason I still eat and drink dairy is because I've never seen ANY conclusive evidence that any of the evil/scary things I've heard proclaimed about it are true.  I make it policy to not blindly believe what I am told- I want to see facts to back it up. 

The biggest argument against dairy that I have seen is that adults don't have the enzymes necessary to digest it.  If you've been a long time without eating dairy you are right- You DON'T have the enzymes necessary to digest it.  Our bodies are pretty amazing things and if we don't eat something, anything, long enough we will have trouble digesting it when it is reintroduced into our diets.  If we continue to eat that food, though, our body will again start to produce the enzymes necessary to digest that particular food and we will be able to eat it again.  But this principle is not isolated to dairy- It's goes pretty much across the board with any food you stop eating and then reintroduce.  (Ever heard a vegetarian say "I don't eat meat because it hurts?"  If they ate it a few times, it probably wouldn't hurt anymore.)

Now, there are some people who are lactose intolerant, and these folks should not eat or drink dairy.  It's another one of those "duh" moments.  But get diagnosed by a doctor for this.  There's no point in cutting out a food if it's not necessary.

The big reason I personally keep eating dairy is that I like it.  I enjoy a glass of milk with my protein pancakes on the weekends.  Milk is a nice treat to mix with my protein powder on my higher calorie days, and a really good balance of carbs and protein for post-workout, as well.  I enjoy Greek yogurt mixed with whey protein powder for an afternoon snack, and I like to make my protein pudding with milk for dessert.  I love low-fat cheese sticks with an apple when I get the munchies.  If I take dairy out of my diet, I start going for really crummy snack and dessert choices.  In short, dairy helps keep me sane while I continue to strive to eliminate most processed foods from my diet.

Side note: I do buy organic for as much of my dairy, particularly milk.  I won't go into the details, but after I did some reading up on how milk is processed and what happens to the poor cows to get it into the carton, I couldn't stand to buy anything but organic.  AND it has more complete nutrients, particularly if the cows are grass-fed.  Plus, it has a longer expiration date due to it being ultra-pasteurized, unlike regular milk.  If you are someone who would like the occasional glass of milk but don't buy it because it goes bad before you can drink it up, look into organic.  It's more expensive, but there is less waste.


Many coaches will remove dairy from their clients diets when said client gets close to a competition or needs to lose weight quickly.  The thought is that the elimination of the natural sugar in dairy can expedite weight loss.  But personally I've usually lost weight faster when I have some dairy in my diet.  However, I will concede that this might not be the case for everyone.

Look, I'm not pushing you to eat dairy.  It might not be a necessary food for humans.  I really don't know.  But I hate to see people eliminating or feeling guilty about eating an entire food group that simply has not been conclusively proven to be bad for the population in general.

Food Snubbing: Corn and Potatoes

I want to apologize for taking so long to get to the next subject in my "Food Snubbing" blog series. Aside from my regular life of mother, wife, grandma, personal trainer, and homemaker, we've been dealing with the way-to-long installing of counters and back splash in a rather gi-normous kitchen (had no sink or counters in there for a week!), painting of said kitchen, plumbing emergencies, massive hail storm that required lots of insurance people and repairs, and trying to find a MIA ex-husband to get him to sign off so that my husband can adopt my teenage daughter. (After 5 years of virtually no contact, a small miracle occurred: He was located and signed the papers! Relieved is not an adequate enough word.)

Here is a picture of the beautiful daughter who is in the process of getting, finally, after 10 years, adopted by her REAL Daddy, the man who has raised her since she was 6:

And here is a picture of part of our newly countered, tiled, and sinked kitchen. I am SO enjoying it! (And yes- I am bragging a little. After the process taking 5 weeks, I feel entitled to show it off!)

At any rate, much of the above is still in the process of being worked out, but there is at least a bit of a respite for me to handle the next Food Snubbing Topic: Corn and Potatoes.

I'm not really sure that the snubbing of corn is all that common. I just heard someone at a Weight Watchers meeting once say that the reason Americans are so overweight is because we eat corn. Huh? My thought was that it probably has more to do with super-sized portions and eating too much processed foods than the sole introduction of corn into our diets.

I've also heard that corn is for animal consumption, not people consumption. Er...... How many plants do animals and people both eat? Yeah.... That one falls apart pretty quickly for me.

Besides: Wasn't it the Indians who introduced corn to us? Didn't they eat it? Weren't they pretty darned healthy?

Now, let's move on to potatoes. Actually, it's not all potatoes that have a bad rap. Sweet potatoes are looked at as the Holy Grail in the potato world. White potatoes are generally seen as too high in starchy, quick-digesting carbs. Well, yes... but this is starch the way God intended it to be. We've found time and time again that when we eat stuff the way God grew it, not the way man modified it to be, it's good for us.

Also, you know how many famines potatoes saw people through? Talk to the Irish.

So my short answer on potatoes and corn? As long as they are minimally processed, I'm eatin' 'em.

The trouble with both, I believe, happens when we start to mess with them: Same problems I listed about white flour waaaaaaaaay back when I did the wheat blog. We smash 'em up and mix 'em with things like white flour or sugar or shortening (or all!), and then fry them (with corn, this is called a hushpuppy), which makes them fatty and super-high-glycemic, and NOW you have a problem on your hands.

Ever had fresh corn on the cob? Or a potato baked to perfection with just a little salt sprinkled on it? Yum-o! But when you add butter and sour cream and bacon bits and cheese and... well..... you get the point..... When you do all of these things.... heck!..... you can no longer taste the food you used as a base to pile all this junk on. Just put the goo in a bowl to eat it, and save the poor, unsuspecting, perfectly healthy potato or corn from being guilty by association.

One thing I do want to point out about both of these foods, though (as well as peas), is that the body treats them more as a starch than a veggie. So if you have potatoes or corn with your grilled chicken, you need to add at least one more veggie to your plate for a truly nutritionally balanced meal. And potatoes or corn AND a roll? THAT truly is high-carb. Just sayin'.

So, minimally mess with them: Bake, boil until JUST done, steam, shuck, and grill. Then count them as a starch and not a veggie, and you can enjoy without guilt.

Food Snubbing: Fruit

I'm a big believer that eating foods as close to the way God made them is the healthiest way to go.  So when people start villainizing fruit I get a little irritated.

The biggest beef I hear people raise about fruit is that it has so many sugars.  And of course it does indeed have a natural source of sugar in it, since it tastes sweet.  But the key word here is natural.  It's sweet in the form sweet is supposed to be:  In a food un-tampered and strait from nature.  There are fiber and other nutrients in fruits that, when eaten in moderation (more about that later), make their sugars a not-very-big concern.  The components of fruit are compatible with each other for maximum benefit to our bodies.  God's was kinda smart that way: When He made us and then made fruit as one of the foods for us to eat, He sorta knew what He was doing.

The problem comes in when you take fruit apart and mutilate it.  You remove the skin.  You smoosh it up and leave the pulp behind.  You bathe it in sugar and white flour and shortening and put it in the oven and call it pie.  "But hey!", folks reason, "It's got fruit in it!  That means it's at least a little good for me, right?"  Er...... not really.  You just destroyed the integrity of a whole food.

I'm not saying never enjoy a piece of apple pie.  Into everyone's life a little dessert must fall.  What I am saying is that a piece of apple pie should be a rare treat, and a whole apple should be a regular occurrence.

No one can ever deny that the healthiest way to eat an apple is just bite into it raw- peel and all.

And fructose?  Yes, it's fruit sugar, but again, it's been separated from the fruit.  By the time it gets processed out it's as poor nutritionally as plain white sugar.  So don't think that a food that uses fructose as opposed to sugar is any better for you.  It's not.

BUT we must keep in mind that fruit does have more dietary sugars than other natural foods and can contribute to a stall in weight loss if it is over eaten.  It would be hard to get extremely overweight from eating too much fruit (although not impossible). But on the other hand, it would be easy to stall your weight loss if you over-indulge.  I've actually seen this happen with the Weight Watchers program, which, last I knew, let folks have unlimited fruits as long as they stop eating when they are satisfied.  Hey.... If those people knew how to stop when they were satisfied, they wouldn't need Weight Watchers in the first place!  Unlimited non-starchy veggies?  It would be really hard to eat enough of those to stop weight loss.  But unlimited fruit, which is much more calorie dense?  It's very conceivable a stall would happen.  (If you want to know more, I blogged about tweaking the Weight Watchers program to get around this and other issues here.)

One last word:  Often when someone wants to "Cut in" or "lean out" a coach will recommend omitting fruit for the last 2 or 3 pounds.  Keep in mind:  This is a temporary situation.  Reduction of every little bit of dietary sugars, even in the most natural forms, will indeed help you shed some water weight for something like a photo shoot or figure show.  Living the rest of your life without eating fruit (or dairy- another thing that gets cut for situations like this) is unrealistic and denies your body nutrients it needs in their most readily-absorb-able and natural forms.

So limit fruit to one or two pieces a day, and enjoy every last bite without guilt.  It won't hurt you, and will deliver nutrients that aren't available in many other foods.   

Food Snubbing- Wheat

Poor wheat.  And fruit. And Corn.  And potatoes. And dairy. And red meat.  They are all getting an unnecessarily bad rap.

I don't know about you, but I have heard reports speaking against all of the above, even to the extremes of saying many of these shouldn't have been in the human diet in the first place and should be eliminated.  I think this is, at least, very inconvenient (and expensive) and, at most, dangerous.  My belief is that God put on these foods on earth for our consumption.  Eliminating any or all of them from our diets, for reasons other than allergies or intolerance's, leaves our bodies void of many nutrients they need to run at max efficiency.

Food fads come and go.  Someone will decide that a food "causes" problems.  Remember when they said peanut butter caused cancer?  The same thing came around about cauliflower.  Now, peanuts are considered a valuable source of healthy fats (A-hem... They always were!), and cruciferous vegetables, to include cauliflower, are considered nutritious for their unique blend of nutrients and fiber.

Hey, if you overeat ANY food, even a healthy one in it's most natural form possible, there are going to be negative side effects.  The key is to eat a very wide variety all the time.

So, starting with wheat, I plan to do a series of blogs on what I have heard to be the reasons to avoid the above mentioned foods, and my rebuttal to these reasons:

Wheat 

Reason to avoid: It has a high glycemic index, making it mess with blood sugar.
My rebuttal:  When wheat isn't stripped of it's wheat bran, bleached free of it's nutrients, smooshed to bits, and then sprayed with vitamins to "fortify it" (in other words, been turned into common white flour), the glycemic index isn't bad at all and it can actually help to stabilize blood sugar, due to the high fiber content.  It's the fact that man has jacked with it so much that has screwed it up.  If you want to use white flour for a special and rare dessert, be my guest!  Whole wheat flour does not a light dessert make. But for your regular, day-to-day use, go with whole wheat: either white wheat (it's actually a type wheat, still in it's whole form) or regular brown whole wheat flour.  King Arthur is my favorite brand of either.  Try it once, and you'll see why.  Totally worth the extra cost, IMHO

Reason to avoid:  The glucose in it is bad for you.
My rebuttal: The glucose in your regular, cheap, processed white wheat is indeed bad for you.  The glucose in whole wheat is not.  (See above.)

Reason to avoid: It is a high allergen.
My rebuttal: Are you allergic to it?  If so, then avoid it.  If not, this is a moot point.  I am allergic to tree nuts, but I'm not going to tell you to avoid tree nuts if you are not allergic to them.  They are good for you, but they are bad for me.  You should eat them, I should not.  Duh. 

Reason to avoid: It makes you bloat ("wheat belly").
My rebuttal: When some people digest wheat their midriffs do indeed temporarily swell.  It's the gases produced by the bacteria in the intestinal tract that are digesting the wheat. In other words, it's air.  And  this is a good thing:  It means the body is breaking the wheat down and sending the good stuff into your body to be used as healthy fuel, as well as separating the fiber to keep your elimination system moving regularly and in a healthy manner.  It's a temporary, healthy, and necessary process that will go down as soon as the digestion is complete.  Additionally, this tendency tends to be worse if you haven't had wheat for a while.  As your system adjusts to it, "wheat belly" will usually go away.  If it doesn't, you may be one of the rare people with either celiac disease or a gluten intolerance (keep reading).
 
Reason to avoid: It has little nutritional value.
My rebuttal: Hogwash!  It's an excellent source of thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, folate, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, choline, betaine, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, selenium, copper, zinc, potassium, not to mention fiber.  If that's not a nutrient-rich food, I don't know what is.

Reason to avoid: Celiac Disease
My rebuttal:  If you have celiac disease, wheat is going to be a problem for you.  So is anything else with gluten in it.  But do you know how rare celiac disease is?  Last I heard, about 1/2 of a percent of all mankind actually have it, and only 15% are gluten intolerant.  How many of the remaining 84 & 1/2% are avoiding gluten because they think it is bad for them?  They are missing out on important nutrients all packaged into one very healthy food unnecessarily.  This is ridiculous.  Gluten is what gives wheat it's protein and is rich in iron, among other things.  Vegetarians often use it for this reason.  Don't go for gluten-free foods unless you have been medically diagnosed to have a sensitivity to gluten.

Next up: Fruit......

The Great Weigh-In Debate

Do you ever struggle with how often you should weigh yourself? I've seen rather heated discussions on the subject.  Everyone seems to have an opinion.  It can get confusing. 

Personally?  I don't think there is one answer for everyone.  I think this has more to do with your own personality than anything else.  And, to a lesser degree, your goals.

If you are someone who needs constant accountability to keep your head in the game, daily weighing is what I would suggest.  Knowing that you have to face the scale every morning might help you to stay on-track during the day.

On the other hand, if you are someone who gets discouraged with the daily (normal) fluctuations in scale weight, a weekly or bi-weekly weigh-in might be better for you.

And some people do better if they just don't get on a scale at all and instead focus on the changes in how clothes fit, measurements, and how they look in the mirror.  Which are actually more accurate, albeit slower, gauges, anyhow.

Then there is the factor of goals.  Weight loss is a completely different mindset than maintenance.  You might decide you need to weigh more or less often, depending on where your head is in your current journey.  Personally, I do best during maintenance when I weigh daily.  But that's me.  Some people are better at letting it go entirely or just jumping on a scale every once in a while to make sure they are still on target.

And then there is the goal of muscle gain.  When I start with a new client, I ask them to step away from the scale, if at all possible. This is because, for reasons unknown to me, often the scale weight will change very little while the body shape changes fairly rapidly once intense resistance training is introduced.  If someone is focusing on the scale it makes it very hard for them to acknowledge the physical changes taking place in their body.

Likewise, if you are working with a trainer who wants you to weigh in at certain intervals, that is what you need to do.  Don't jack with their program!  (I did a blog by [almost] that title here.)

There is so much more to your fitness than a number on the scale!

And lastly, however often you decide to weigh, strive to do it at the same time of day, in the same amount of dress, having eaten (or not eaten) the same number of meals before hand.  The most accurate time to weigh is first thing in the morning, after you have used the restroom and buck naked.  But even then, there are fluctuations, so don't let a gain of a pound or two ruin your day.  Just make note of it, keep doing the right thing, and weigh at the next scheduled weigh date.  The most important thing is that the overall trend is downward.

Don't allow someone else's opinion of how often you should weigh guilt you or have you second-guessing what is right for you. We are all individuals.  Do what works for you, and respect what others say works for them.  It's a big fitness world and there is room for all of our differences.

Gym Judgements

I've heard so many people who are not where they want to be in their fitness journey worry about what others in the gym will think about them.  I get this-  I have been not fit and afraid to go to the gym, not fit and going to the gym, fit going to the gym, and a trainer who works IN the gym.  Basically, all sides of the equation. 

And so, based on not only my own personal experience but from what I have polled other people of all categories, is what people of various points in their fitness journeys are thinking when they see a very overweight and out of shape person in the gym:

- The person not fit and afraid to go to the gym sees you walking into the gym and is envious that you have the guts to go in there.  As a bonus, you may have unwittingly inspired them to try it, too.

- The person not-fit and going to the gym is thinking the same thing you are, of course. Which is something along the lines of "Oh, look!  Someone like me!".  You help to make them feel like they belong.

- The fit person going to the gym... well.... no offense, but they aren't thinking about you much at all.  They actually are so focused on and/or worn out from their own workout that they don't have the energy to think of you. Their primary thought is "Dear God, please let me survive this workout."  But if they do have a fleeting thought about you it is "Good for them!  They are just where they need to be!"

- And the Personal Trainers in the gym are thinking several things, depending on their situation.  If they are with a client they probably aren't paying any attention to you- They are focused on their client.  If they aren't with a client, they are thinking the same thing the fit person working out in the gym is thinking- That you are just where you need to be, although probably with a bit more pride in you being there, since Trainers are schooled in how hard it is for someone who is not in stellar shape to even get themselves through the door.

Another thing the trainer might be thinking is that they wish you would ask them for help if you have a quick question.  The fact is that we see people execute a lot of moves incorrectly and so very want to straiten them out, but we don't. This is because we have learned that 9 times out of 10 people don't appreciate it and look at us as judgmental, even though we were truly trying to help.  So we learn to bite our tongues and wish that someone would ask "If you have a minute, could you please show me how to do this?".  Just don't ask us when we are with a client- They are paying for us to pay 100% attention to them. 

It's your workout, it's  your business.  Do it because it is good for you, not because of what anyone else thinks.  Odds are it's not nearly as bad as you are imagining, anyhow.

Handy Dandy Gadget Blog #3- My Rice Cooker

I really suck at making brown rice on the stove.  White rice?  I'm a pro.  But Brown rice?  The long-cook kind?  Just about every time it comes out crunchy.

I knew about rice cookers (Who doesn't know about rice cookers?), but I thought it would wind up being just another appliance that was more trouble than it was worth and after two frustrating attempts it'd wind up in a garage sale.  That is, until I posted another whiney status update on Facebook saying that I, once again, broke the brown rice.  That prompted someone (may have been Carolyn, who told me to suck it up and get a coffee grinder for my flaxseed) to tell me that rice cookers do a great job at making brown rice the way it should be (non-crunchy), and that they aren't hard to use OR hard to clean, which were my biggest concerns.

So I asked for a rice cooker for my birthday, and my husband gave me one.  I told him to please not get me the kind that vacuums the carpets and does taxes.  I just wanted the most basic model possible, because I never use the extra stuff on appliances.  He was obedient and got me the basic model by Aroma:

It comes with a steamer insert thingy, so that you can cook veggies on top (It has yet to be put into action.  See? I don't use extra stuff), and a measuring cup.  The inside is non-stick and the inside of the top of the lid pops off for super-easy cleanup: 

The process for making rice with this thing couldn't be simpler- Toss the rice and water in there, close the lid down tight, plug it in, and turn it on.  It somehow senses when the rice is done and moves it to the "keep warm" setting for several hours.  No watching for water to boil, cleaning up of boil-overs on my stove, or scrubbing burnt rice of of the bottom of a pan because I accidentally cooked it too long.  Additionally, I can set it off to the side and all my burners are still free for anything else I might be cooking.  As an added bonus, it's ready in about half the time it takes to make rice on the stove.

The ratio of water to rice are different for brown rice than white, so I still have to look it up in the manual each time I use it, but let me tell ya something; this thing couldn't be easier to use.  And the rice has never once turned out anything other than wonderful!  Sometimes I use chicken broth instead of water, for some extra flavor. I almost always cook up more than we need and store the leftover in the fridge to use as a healthy carb over the next few days.  (Did you know that cold brown rice makes a wonderful addition to salads?)

As is always the case, though, I started thinking:  I usually have oatmeal for breakfast, which I cook in my Micro Steamer (blogged about it here).  But I've wanted to try steel cut oats.  The thing is, they take so blessed long to cook that I only tried them once.  I'm just too hungry in the mornings to wait that long to eat, plus I had to keep stirring them because they threatened to burn to the bottom of my pot.  Since the cooking method for steel-cut oats is very similar to rice, I started wondering if I could cook them in the rice cooker.  I did a quick Google search and, sure enough, you can.  One part oats and three parts water, but don't fill the cooker more than half full, because oats like to foam up when they cook.  This is REALLY cool, because I can jump out of bed, dump the oats and water in the rice cooker, then run off to the bedroom to make the bed, brush my teeth, and do my normal morning "stuff".  When I get to the kitchen, the oats are pretty much done.  I just give them a quick stir because there is water on top, then close the lid back down and let it absorb a bit while I get my vitamins together, feed the dog, and make my eggs or mix up a protein shake. 

So there 'ya have it- My third and final gadget blog.  (To link my first one, CLICK HERE. The link to the second one is above in the coffee grinder link.)  Useful things I use regularly and make my life a lot easier AND healthier.  Let me know what you think!  (And tell me what you use YOUR rice cooker for- I'm always looking for new ideas!)