Naturopathic Source

I try not to work at night (same as I tell my patients!), but I wanted to get this posted before it runs through my head all night --this is a perfect example of advertisers telling you what it takes to sell something, versus the truth. On my way from the office this evening I heard a commonly heard radio commercial for a special rapid weight-loss diet. They were saying how you lose weight very rapidly and feel great the entire time and because it's medically supervised you can feel confident that it's very safe.

The truth is that any diet where the calories are very low and you lose weight very fast is not safe. Weight loss should be no more than 2 pounds per week (except in the first week where it can be much greater due to water loss). Any more than 2 pounds per week and the extra weight is muscle that is being lost. And never forget that the old cliche "Easy come, easy go." applies here absolutely. Any weight you lose very quickly will come right back -- most people gain the weight back and then some.

I have had patients who did the quick, very low-calorie diets and although they initially lost a lot of weight (before they gained it all back plus more), most of them also felt dizzy and experienced hair loss. They were told that this was a result of the shock their body was experiencing due to such rapid weight loss. Let's just call a spade a spade: It's starvation. Any diet where you are consuming less than 1000 calories per day (some active/muscular people need up to 2000 calories per day just to maintain their current body weight; some people need more) is starvation. Period. This is not a healthy way to lose weight and can cause damage to your body.

I understand the need to want to lose weight and lose it quickly, I really do. But please don't fall prey to these lose weight quick schemes. In order to lose weight you need a healthy diet (evaluated by a nutritionist or naturopath and not necessarily what you think is healthy), exercise, good sleep, stress management techniques and patience. It takes time to lose weight. It takes effort and changes in both diet and lifestyle to lose weight. You don't gain weight in a day and you don't lose it in a day.

So please, don't be fooled by this weight-loss version of a get-rich-quick scheme. Even if you have a lot of weight to lose the above mentioned steps and time will bring your weight down in a healthy way and will keep it off.

TC

In short: Don't do it.

The websites promoting these products claim that the plastic does not transfer into food. However, they don't provide any safety studies or even tell you what types of plastics are used in the bags.

I have to say that I don't buy it. Plastic water bottles have been around for many years and now there is finally evidence coming out that they leach chemicals that cause cancer. These plastic bags are brand new products. They are also thin, pliable plastic. In general, the more pliable (ie. the softer) a plastic is the more chemicals they tend to leach. And plastics leach more chemicals when they are heated. 

And remember: the number one goal of these companies is to sell you their product. Whether or not it's good for your health is not important when it comes to a company's bottom line.

Don't waste healthy ingredients by cooking your foods in plastic of any kind. This includes food steaming bags, slow-cooker bags, instant rice in bags, plastic containers and so on. If it's plastic, keep it away from cooking food or hot food.

TC

This is a very interesting article about trace amounts of all kinds of pharmaceuticals that end up in our drinking water.  I have included the link to the article here. I am in the midst of researching what kind of water is best -- it's a big subject, but as soon as I have it all sorted out, I will write a post on it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080309/ap_on_re_us/pharmawater_i

TC

There has been some talk/news lately about how good chocolate is for you and how it is full of antioxidants. There are some companies that have been marketing their "therapeutic"chocolate bars as a health food. Here's the real deal on chocolate.

Raw cacao beans and nibs do have a good quantity of antioxidants. Once you add milk to it, to make milk chocolate, those antioxidants get bound up and are no longer active. (The same, by the way, is true for green tea: you lose the antioxidants when you add milk.) So milk chocolate is just tasty, but not good for your health.

If chocolate is eaten in any appreciable quantity, the caffeine content does a lot of people more bad than good. Caffeine increases hormones that promote anxiety and daily caffeine intake actually increases your stress perception. That is, you will perceive events throughout your day as being more stressful than they really are. Only those with strong, calm constitutions should have caffeine on any kind of regular basis. If you tend to be wound up and high stress (the majority of society here in North America), you'll only be served by staying away from caffeine.

The sugar content in most chocolate products far outweighs any benefits. I think this one is fairly self-explanatory...

Chocolate contains magnesium and a magnesium deficiency is probably why some people crave it and why many women crave it premenstrually, when the need for magnesium increases. Interestingly enough, magnesium is also depleted by sugar. So "chocoholics" often crave chocolate for the magnesium and then, as the metabolism of that chocolate further depletes magnesium, they crave it more. Try eating a lot of green leafy vegetables at your meals as they also contain a lot of magnesium. Magnesium can also be found in supplement form, but it's a bit tricky in my opinion. Magnesium is a very safe supplement and there are no serious concerns, but I do have one concern. In terms of Traditional Chinese Medicine (bear with me here, Chinese Medicine is a very different way of looking at things, but very accurate and insightful), magnesium is "cold". Many people today, especially women (for a variety of reasons) do not have enough heat in their digestive systems and unfortunately it's a more complicated than just eating spicy foods. So if someone`s digestive system is not warm enough and possibly already has cold in it, when you add a cold supplement you risk furthering this deficiency. What does this mean in plain english: the possibility of more digestive weakness, gas, bloating, heartburn, constipation, diarrhea (or alternating constipation and diarrhea), cold body temperature and slower metabolism, to name a few. And once you put more cold into your system, it`s not that easy to undo. For many people, low dose magnesium (50-100mg) should be okay, but check with your doctor first, to make sure you are not on any conflicting medication.

Even bitter chocolate, which is roasted and processed at high temperatures, has lost 7/8 of it`s antioxidants (ie. most of them).

Is there any chocolate you can use? Yes. Use raw cacao beans, nibs or powder. They will be bitter, though. For a treat you can mix with some agave syrup (a natural sweetener that is low on the glycemic index) and make a chocolate syrup. You can also mix it with some coconut oil (I will be posting soon about coconut oil) and agave syrup to make a frosting.

Raw cacao is available at most health food stores and through many websites online. As I was writing this post, I came across this one: www.wildernessfamilynaturals.com

TC

Many people who have tests done at their doctor are told that if they do not hear back, then the results were normal. This is not always the case. Lately I have had 3 patients who did not hear back after tests were performed. One of them found out that the hospital lost her test results and had to go back in; another patient was told that her test results were fine, when in fact, she had some abnormalities which need to be treated. And another patient had been told that a message for her to call the doctor's office, but she never got that message. In yet another case, a few years ago, I had a patient who told me she had been diagnosed with fibroids -- she was pretty sure. She had recently had some tests done and she was pretty sure that the results showed fibroids. She had the test results at home, and so I asked her to bring them in on her next visit. As it turned out, she did not have fibroids, but she had been diagnosed with three other conditions that she was not even aware of.

So, when you have tests done at your doctor's, my best advice is to always get a copy of them. If you are one of my patients, always bring them in to me so I can take a look at them and keep a copy in your file. If if there is anything that is borderline or abnormal, always, always make sure you understand the significance, or any potential significance of that result. It is an unacceptable but true reality, that from time to time, things (ie. people and test results) fall through the cracks; when someone is really busy, it is not difficult to accidentally overlook something. Make sure you are not just taking someone's word for it that everything is okay -- make sure you see for yourself.

TC