Just wanted to come on and give a quick note to say that I will be heading off on Maternity Leave and with a new baby on the way, I can’t see having much time on my hands in the near future to continue with this blog.
The blog will be active for a little while longer so if you have any comments or questions, feel free to leave me a note.
I wanted to thank you all for reading and wish you all great health in the New Year!
Tiana
I have found the best way to learn what your body does and doesn’t like, what is good for you and what isn’t is to experiment. You read about what foods help you and which ones hinder your health and while all the information is overwhelming, putting it to the test really is one of the best ways to know how your body will react to it. I have been my experiment for many years now and have learned lots of valuable lessons along the way. The fact is this… EVERYONE is different, everyone reacts to foods differently, some are more sensitive than others to foods like dairy and wheat. When you have learned what foods are good for you, what gives you energy, what fuels your body the best, you’re active, healthy, is it because you are following the Canada’s Food Guide?
Well a personal trainer over at Free Form Fitness has come up with a great experiment of his own! This is actually going to put the Canada Food Guide to the test. Free Form Fitness Personal Trainer Eric Briere is going to eat following the Canada Food Guide for the next month. (The fact that he is doing this clearly gives you the answer that NO he doesn’t follow the Canada Food Guide daily)
I’m sure he’s probably pretty excited about this since! What he normally eats likely doesn’t consist of a morning bagel, or a sandwich for lunch to stay lean in fit I know I’d be stoked, at least maybe for a day!
At the same time, I know how I feel when I eat foods (GRAINS) that are a huge part of the Canada food guide.. I also know how much weight I gain, how much stomach problems I have and how little energy I have. So here you have a very fit, athletic guy who is going to follow the food guide for the next month? Will he merely work off all those carbs with his workouts, will he feel better, worse? I love this idea and can’t wait to hear his updates. Check out his blog, where he’ll be posting video updates as well.
My last blog post I talked about how gluten and sugary carbs cause a long-range of health problems.
BUT did you know that the whole wheat bread you are eating to get more fibre actually raises your blood sugar MORE than say a can of soda?
Why is this important? Well if you are diabetic or trying to lose weight it’s very important. The more sugar you eat, the more fat you store, your body responds by producing insulin and insulin plays a HUGE role in fat storage and the repeated effect of eating sugar can likely cause insulin resistance which leads to diabetes and even more weight gain.
If you are obese you likely have some form of insulin resistance and therefore need to try and keep your blood sugar as stable as possible. How do you do that? Definitely not by eating whole wheat! Stay away from sugar, cut out those sugary carbs. I’m not saying all carbs are bad, if you look at ingredients on the back of a package you see carbs, subtract the fibre which is good carbs( if it has any fibre) and the rest is bad carbs that lead to weight gain.
For those of you who have access to a blood sugar monitor you can test what foods cause a spike in blood sugar and which ones don’t. Test your blood sugar before you eat, eat a few slices of whole wheat toast or whole wheat cereal and an hour later, test again. You can even test again every hour to see how long the sugar high lasts, sometimes you might find it spike even earlier/later depending on what you eat. Either way I can guarantee you it’s high, sometimes VERY high, especially if you are a diabetic.
Some people can eat as many as 150 grams of carbs in a day and still lose weight, others can only eat between 20 and 50 grams of carbs to lose weight. Everyone is different and once you get a handle on what has more carbs in it, what has a higher glycemic index (raises your blood sugar quicker/higher) you’ll have better control of your weight and will finally start seeing huge improvements in your health.
For more information on the effects of blood sugar by eating wheat you can refer to Dr. William Davis’ new book WHEAT BELLY, chapter 3 is called wheat deconstructed and goes into more detail how wheat affects your blood sugar and fat storage.
In my opinion you shouldn’t and I’m not the only one who thinks this. It’s funny that it took me, a person with NO PhD to figure this out ON MY OWN, but our “EXPERTS” still tell us that we should eat these “HEALTHY FOODS”
Come on, seriously! Recently I have been so excited to see more books, more studies and even more evidence proving that the way we have done things for the past 40 years is wrong. I really wish I didn’t have to figure this out on my own, I really wish the doctor told me this 15 years ago rather than saying “you have IBS” eat more fibre.
Let me tell you something, I was 60 lbs over weight! What did I do to try to lose weight? The same thing everyone else did, I changed the way I ate. I started eating more fruits and vegetables but I also followed the dietary guidelines, I cut out the fats, salt and ate more whole wheat. This was supposed to help with IBS… BUT where did that get me, LESS energy, sure I lost weight because I did cut out my daily restaurant meals and pop habit but adding the whole wheat created even more problems. I started getting EVEN WORSE stomach pains, MORE bloating, infections and I was getting sick every other month..
According to our dietary guidelines I’m supposedly healthier because I am eating exactly the way I am supposed to be BUT why do I feel so much worse? I lost 20 lbs, then what happened? No matter how much I tried, no matter how healthy I ate, I couldn’t lose the rest. I exercised like a maniac, I ate healthier than I ever ate before and yes I did lose some weight but it stopped and I felt awful. I would burn out really fast and I just couldn’t keep it up for very long. I needed my carbs… I cut out carbs I lost weight, but if I did it for too long I would burn out, I’d get sick, I would be run down with no energy.
Why is it that this is what the doctors, health experts tell us to do.. are you having the same problem as I did? No energy, burning out, getting sick, getting injuries from overdoing it at the gym. Do you have a list of health problems that are getting worse no matter how much you follow the doctor’s advice? I thought I was making things better, but things were getting worse.
It took me hours of research to discover that food might be playing a part in my ill-health and stalling my weight loss. So, I did what any person looking for answers would do, became my own science experiment. I cut out foods, one at a time and I started feeling better. Now my energy at this point hadn’t returned but I wasn’t getting sick, I was starting to lose some weight again and the pains were slowly getting better. Muscle pain, joint pain, stomach troubles, all getting better. I started adding foods back in oddly enough milk was a bit of a culprit (didn’t figure that) but I could eat cheese, cream was fine, what about bread? It didn’t seem to bother me at first, while I noticed a difference right away with milk I figured I’d notice a difference quickly with bread. I was without it for many months and I started adding it back in (white bread) and at first I didn’t notice much, slight pains in my stomach but then symptoms slowly started returning. When I re-introduced whole wheat into my diet thinking grains weren’t the culprit all my aches, pains, quickly came back. NOW I go without grains for a week and try to have something and I have stomach pains within 30 minutes. My body has quickly adapted to me being without them and is telling me something. The funny thing is, I never thought maybe other grains might be bothering me too.
So there you have it, I went gluten-free but why am I still not losing weight? Why do I still not have energy, is something wrong with me? Back to googling I go and discover LCHF and the wonderful world of Paleo. I bought books, read blogs and guess what? It made sense. Grains and most of all CARBS were still in my diet, I went gluten-free but I was trying all these gluten-free foods like GF muffins and cookies, GF tortilla’s. I was eating rice, still eating potatoes and corn and every morning I was having a big bowl of oatmeal!
The most amazing discovery I made though was the discovery that fats are actually good for you! OMG! That explains it, I was eating High Carb, low-fat, Mod protein before and felt awful, had no energy. When I did the opposite, went LOW CARB, HIGH FAT(healthy fat) and mod protein it was like a light bulb turned on in my body. I woke up, I was alive. I needed less sleep in one night, I’d wake up refreshed, I had lots of energy and I lost weight EATING FAT!
If you don’t think there’s any truth to this, then I ask you to give it a try. You don’t have to read a book, you don’t have to do anything other than eat REAL foods. Skip the processed foods, get rid of anything that is white (potatoes, sugar, starch) Eat Fruits, Vegetables, Nuts, Seeds, MEAT, FISH, even dairy if you can tolerate it but rid your life of low-fat. Don’t be afraid of bacon, get rid of the margarine and switch to BUTTER. If you buy something and the label has ingredients you don’t know, you can’t pronounce, leave it on the shelf. Cook with Olive Oil, Butter or coconut Oil. Discover your spice rack again, have some eggs, WITH the yolk! Enjoy the benefits of eating the foods you were meant to eat and after 30 days come back, say HI and tell me how it went.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you read about the food revolution that is happening in Sweden. There’s a couple people who are leading the LowCarb High Fat(LCHF) revolution over there.. one of those people is Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt aka the dietdoctor.
As you may already know I am a huge fan of Paleo and the LCHF lifestyle and the story of the Swede’s Food Revolution really goes to show you that we can take control of our own health, we CAN make a difference. All it takes is one person to try this way of eating … they find amazing results, change their health and they tell someone else. That’s all it takes… One person at a time.
Please take the time to watch some, if not all of what Dr. Eenfeldt has to say at the Ancestral Health Symposium. I am not a big fan of listening to long talks, especially ones on YouTube, but talks like this are what give people that light bulb moment. This one talk can help change your health and your life.
So although I don’t always post on a regular basis anymore I still spend time reading and catching up on the news that is surrounding me about Low Carb High Fat and Paleo.
With lots of new books coming out, it’s really hard to catch up and while I would love to read all books on this subject. Alas, I can only read so fast! Plus my bookshelf is getting full, so until books come out as an e-book I tend not to read them.
I am in the middle of reading Everday Paleo by Sarah Fragoso and Robb Wolff. I love this book because it’s written for families struggling to get onto the Paleo bandwagon. When you start eating this way and realizing how much your health is improving you want to do everything you can to get your friends and family involved, this is a great book for that. It has family friendly recipes, advice and some great workouts, even ones to do with your kids!
Make sure to check out Sarah’s website where you can order the book, check out news and other interesting stuff.
Now over to the Former Fat Guy’s blog.. this post I love, 124 ways sugar can ruin your health. This list is great and it really puts in perspective what all these sugary carbs are doing to your body. Check out the post here!
If you have checked out blogs recently in the Paleo world you’ll have heard of the Ancestral Health Symposium. Slowly different presentations from the symposium have been popping up on YouTube. Here’s one of those talks by Professor Robert Lustig, which I found on the Diet Doctors blog.
I have had a few talks with people recently who were curious about fertility and how it may be linked with the foods you eat. So as usual I looked it up and found lots of stuff on this topic. Apparently even some people put warnings up on their blogs that if you start eating Paleo and don’t take the proper precautions, you will get pregnant. Pretty interesting stuff, especially for those who are struggling to start a family. Here are a few links – Primal Nutrition and Fertility, Paleo vs. Infertility – You must be warned, Interview with Reproductive Endocrinologist Dr. Michael Fox on Jimmy Moore’s Podcast
Love Youtube, you can find lots of great talks about all things Paleo on there. Here is Donald W Miller JR M.D., he is professor of surgery in the Cardiothoracic Division at the University of Washington – he gives a great talk on why you should enjoy eating Saturated fats. This is for all those of you who think that eating fat will give you a heart attack.
And for those of you who want to read a book.. a new book just came out, it’s called Wheat Belly and it’s by Doctor William Davis – another cardiologist. I haven’t had a chance to read this book yet but it’s getting LOTS of attention and I am really looking forward to getting my hands on it and finding out why. I’m sure I already know but still curious.
So you can do one of two things – buy the book. Or you can go to his blog and get updates on what is happening following the launch of his book. Here’s the link to his blog trackyourplaque.com
Ok all, I’m done linking for today, have a great long weekend!
Did you know you can be fat and still be healthier than your skinny friend sitting beside you? Just because you are skinny doesn’t mean you are healthy. One thing I have learned over the years is that your health has nothing to do with your waist size, it has everything to do with what you put in your mouth and the amount of exercise you get.
People who have no fat but eat all they want, indulge in sweets and fried foods & takeout BUT exercise regularly. They think they are just as healthy, if not healthier than the people who are 100 lbs over weight, eat healthy (fruits, veggies, healthy fats) and exercise regularly. If you think this way, I have news for you. You are wrong!
Younger people(late teens, 20′s) are the worst for this, they think they are invincible to begin with, they haven’t endured the aches and pains yet from the food choices they have made since they were younger.
I was one of these young naïve young people. I had the odd ache and pain, the odd headache growing up. I didn’t eat healthy, wasn’t really fat but I ate whatever I wanted, when I wanted. Some foods I knew bothered me but I had no clue why, I just avoided them. But it was my normal and until I gained weight and the aches and pains got worse, I continued eating this way and being lazy.
I have news for all of you like this, it will catch up with you. Some people will notice it slowly over time, lack of energy, digestive problems, headaches getting worse. A long list of problems that are just getting worse, with no explanation. Some might seek medical treatment, the doctor shrugs his/her shoulders and says I’m not sure but it might be this, so take this medication and it should help. It doesn’t help.
Then there’s the other people, they eat what they want, they have digestive tracts of steel, they have no headaches no OBVIOUS symptoms, they are active and always seem to have enough energy to get by. Until one day, the end up in the hospital.. heart attack, stroke, asthma or something even more dreadful, cancer.
I can’t emphasize enough, no matter what your age. You have ONE BODY and no matter what you think, no matter how invincible you think you are, what you are doing to yourself WILL affect you one day. If you don’t take care of yourself, if you don’t eat properly if you don’t get adequate exercise, healthy food, enough sunshine. Your body will start paying for it.
I’m not saying that every single health problem in the world is completely related to the foods you eat(some are there when we’re born) but I can say a large portion, everything from arthritis, diabetes, obesity, epilepsy, cancers, immune disorders, acid reflux, colitis, allergies to acne or headaches is caused by the foods you eat.
Those who get early signs of a problem such as digestive issues, aches and pains, high blood pressure/blood sugar. Consider yourself lucky because you are being told something very important by your body, something isn’t right. It’s up to you to figure out what that is and fix it. I guarantee it won’t fix itself and while a doctor will be quick to give you a pill to cover up and help you cope with whatever issue you may be having, all it is doing is giving you the false illusion that something isn’t wrong. That this will be your new normal and that you will always be this way.
Except, something is wrong and you can help make things better…
Our body is energized and nourished by the things we put into it… now do you think that putting foods that weren’t around 10′s of thousands of years ago, even hundreds of years ago like chemicals, additives, processed junk foods we can’t even pronounce. Do you think these are nourishing your body? Absolutely not, they are slowly wearing you down, your organs, your energy, your digestive system, your immunity. Your entire body is affected by these foods in a negative way. Your body is a complex system that over 100′s of thousands of years of evolution has found ways to survive to cope with it surroundings and adapt. We aren’t giving ourselves time to adjust to our new surroundings, we expect our body to adapt to it quickly when realistically adding something such as SUGAR and GRAINS would take us 100′s of thousands of years to adapt to and we expect it to adapt literally overnight. These foods aren’t what we are meant to eat and should be consumed on a regular daily basis. Can your body cope with these foods on a daily basis, sure, for a while. But do you want to live just for a while?
If you’re someone who is dealing with an illness, lacks energy, digestive issues, fertility problems, obesity a LONG number of health issues that just literally seem to come out of nowhere. You owe it to yourself to make the changes in the way you eat and find out what is causing these health problems.
Did I ever think that food was causing me headaches or joint and muscle pain, digestive problems? No, I just thought it was normal. I was told IBS was something I would have to deal with, my aches and pains were something I would have to deal with. I was given medication, it helped but it never went away completely. Until I changed the way I ate. Now I don’t take any pills and when I do get sore, an infection, a headache.. I know the reason why. Do you?
I didn’t accept what doctors told me to be true, I knew there had to be a reason why I was feeling the way I was and I had a strong feeling it was the food I was eating, I didn’t know what food but I was on a mission to find out and I am so glad I did.
Eating healthy should not be ONLY for losing weight, Exercising should not be ONLY for losing weight. It should be because you want to be healthy, strong and live a long life.. To die of old age and not an illness, disease and health problem that could have easily been avoided had you made a change.
For those of you who want to keep up to date with the happenings in the Paleo world there’s a magazine that recently came out called Paleo Magazine.
As far as I know you can get it in Whole Food stores in the US but I don’t think it has made its way to Canada. Hopefully by the time we get our new Whole Foods store here in Ottawa at the Lansdowne development, it will have reached us Canadians and it will be easy for us to get. For now you will have to subscribe online and get it delivered to your door. I haven’t gotten a subscription yet, would love to but can’t afford it now. So for any of you out there that do get a subscription would love to hear from you on what you think of the new magazine. The Canadian Subscription is $36.25 USD for 6 issues/year.
There’s a enewsletter that you can subscribe to as well, which I just did. Haven’t received any newsletter yet but curious to see what is in it.
If you check out the website you can order single issues of the magazine and I think I saw some clothes and other books on their including Robb Wolff’s The Paleo Solution and Everyday Paleo by Sarah Fragoso. I have read both books and they are great. Everyday Paloe helps you start the Paleo lifestyle with your family, it gives great exercise tips you and your family can try and has some family friendly recipes that look delicious!
Anyways, go check it out! Leave a comment about the magazine or any of the books I mentioned if you’ve read them and let me know what you think!
So I’ll start with the bad, I feel bad because I feel like I abandoned people who came to my blog often. I know some people are curious about how I eat and others just like to catch up on how I’m doing. Being away for a few months from blogging, I can’t say I actually missed blogging but I feel that I have let people down.
My health is important to me and even more so now. Learning about my health and eating healthy, it’s a process and I know it is not only a process for me but for many people. I know I’m not alone in my struggles and I’m not always perfect. I screw up, I get away from how I should be eating, sometimes purposely to test what works and what doesn’t for me and sometimes because it just can’t be helped, life happens.
I find it hard to blog about my life and how things are going in terms of my struggles, especially when I am really struggling or just plain old don’t have any time. I want you all to realize though that even though I don’t always enjoy admitting that I am not perfect, I do realize nobody is.
So for the good, now that I am in a place in my life once again that I can get my health back on track, I feel energized again. Even though I have only been eating better for a day, I just feel great. When you know you are eating things you shouldn’t be eating, when you feel out of control, it really brings you down. You feel like you’ve lost control and can’t get back to where you were. I have been down in the dumps for the past few months and I didn’t really realize that it was because I just felt bad that I was losing control of my health once again. I was sore, tired and it made me sad. I couldn’t do much about it at the time and now that I can, it feels like a new beginning. I woke up more excited today than I have in a while and I feel good that I am going to start feeling good again. Sounds strange to say but it’s true.
This is day two and I am already noticing a difference in my mood, my energy, my skin and for the first day in a few weeks I didn’t wake up with a headache. I drove by fast food last night and didn’t feel the urge to stop in for a treat.(not that I do all the time) It was nice, my cravings are going away already and that just makes me smile. I hate craving food that I know isn’t good for me. Now if only I could start craving more foods that are actually good for me, it would make things easier!
So I am looking for your input here, I want to see what gyms/fitness centres in the Ottawa and surrounding area are Paleo, Primal, LCHF friendly.
I know of two in Ottawa but I am more than certain there are more out there, so I ask you to let me know. If you want to add your gym from another part of Canada, feel free. I will start compiling a list and make it available once I have a few on my blog for easy access.
PALEO/PRIMAL/LCHF Friendly Gym’s
My friends over at FREE FORM FITNESS will be sure to explain the benefits of eating Paleo and help you get on track for with your exercise needs. They have three locations here in Ottawa, one in the West end off Carling, one on Wellington and another off Dalhousie.
CROSSFIT O-TOWN, if you’ve never heard of Crossfit before it’s something you should definitely look into, not only is it a very unique gym in the sense that you aren’t going to find your typical gym equipment when you step into this facility, they are also a Paleo friendly gym. There’s many Crossfit gym’s across Canada and we are lucky enough to have one here in Ottawa.
Got anymore? Share in the comments!
Tiana has been a multimedia editor with the Ottawa Sun since 2007. She has worked in the Media/Television industry for the past 10 years and many of those years have been spent teaching others.
For most of her adult life, Tiana has been overweight. In 2008 she decided to do something about it, and has lost 50 lbs. Along the way, she's picked up many tips on health, nutrition and exercise.
Through this blog, she wants to share that knowledge with others who struggle with their weight. She will also feature the experiences of others who have been through similar situations and succeeded ...
To become healthier, happier and wiser!