I wanted to spend some time talking about living a wholistic life.  What does this mean?  Well, in a general way, it means attempting to be more naturally-minded in living, eating, in health, attitude and philosophy.  A person is made up of body, soul and spirit, so attention to all of these areas is essential for “wholeness.”  There are many people who take great care with their diet and health, but they neglect the soul and spirit and in doing so, sometimes they continue to not feel or be well.  Many times people feel overwhelmed in terms of looking about how many things are wrong in the world, or in their life and relationships.  Some people shut down when confronted by stress, abuse, perfectionism, or health obstacles.  I am here to tell you that the first thing you need to do is take some pressure off yourself and realize that while many things may be wrong, a journey starts with one step.  Too many clichés may be aggravating, but another I commonly use is, “Rome was not built in a day.”  Frequently when I am evaluating patients, we find multiple areas that need work.  Sometimes that information in and of itself can be stressful.  But my advice to my patients is that they should expect that changes can come slowly, but having an area to focus on for many is a great relief, instead of a big question mark, i.e. “what is wrong?”

A more natural approach to living can start very slowly and be gradually built upon.  The first thing you can do is to
begin to educate yourself:  read, Read, READ!  It doesn’t matter what age you start, you can always make positive changes to your life starting right now!  Just remember to relax and enjoy the ride (don’t sweat the small stuff):

DIETARY CHANGES:

Since we all have to eat every day, this is a great place to start. To try to improve your health, you have to ENGAGE in your health.  Too many people are seeking a quick fix or a magic pill to address their particular medical problem, but the truth is that many problems start with what we are eating.  As our society has gotten more technologically advanced, everything has speeded up.  How many of you have felt that you just never have enough hours in the day to get things done?  Many times our diets have taken a backseat because of our crazy schedules.  I know about this from personal experience.  My husband and I are both physicians, with five active boys, in addition to church, sports and other family activities.  Trying to be healthy in the midst of this life can be very difficult, but ironically it can be just as difficult for a single college student, a retired couple, or just a very busy working person.

SHOPPING FOR HEALTH

Many of you know about the advice to shop the perimeter of the store as most of the packaged, convenience and frozen foods are centrally located.  But as a busy mom, I don’t always have time to prepare elaborate meals, although I have some great babysitters who do.  In more recent years, there has been a greater appreciation by the grocery stores and the food industry that people are trying to be healthier.  I frequently buy quick brown rice or other natural whole grain goodies like couscous that are very easily prepared to go along with your dinner.  My kids love couscous and it literally takes about 7 minutes to make.  Whole-grain or high protein blended pasta is a better choice than white refined pastas.  If you look closely, you may even be able to find high-fiber sprouted grain products like Ezekiel bread (www.foodforlife.com).  Many people who have digestive issues need to go gluten-free (www.glutenfree.com).

What if your grocery store doesn’t carry much organic produce or it’s too expensive for your budget?  Then try a great fruit and vegetable wash to get rid of most of the chemicals (I like this one: www.veggie-wash.com).  I don’t
usually recommend washing fruits and vegetables in bleach water because food can be porous and absorb detergents.
Plain soap and water will get off most dirt and pesticides but not wax.  Here’s a useful guide to know when to spring for
organic if you have limited funds.

What about meat?  If you can’t pay $12.00 a pound for Laura’s beef (www.laurasleanbeef.com), look for sales on meat that is labeled hormone and antibiotic free.  The FDA does not allow poultry to be given hormones, but sometimes the birds are injected with colorings, preservatives and flavorings.  Look for those products that are minimally processed or organic.

Time magazine recently did article about which organic products were worth paying more for.  Milk and eggs came out on top.  It stands to reason that the better the animals have it, the higher quality there is in what comes out of them.  For milk, whole organic milk is a great choice for most, especially kids who need that fat for brain development.  The way to fight the obesity epidemic in America is not to make kids drink non-fat milk:  it is to get them off sugar and processed foods.  I personally feel even commercial organic milk is not optimal due to the lack of digestive enzymes.  If you know of a small, safe and clean local farm that can supply raw grass-fed milk, I believe that form of dairy has the
optimum nutrition.  If you don’t have this access or you don’t feel comfortable with raw milk, although our former
generations did just fine on it, then go for organic whole milk as long as your family is not sensitive to dairy.  Eggs
that are from hens that are allowed to run free-range and not given pesticide-laden feed are the best (don’t pay extra for the addition of omega-3 fatty acids as most of these are poor quality and rancid).  For an excellent review of chicken and egg issues, see this article by Dr. Mercola.  Organic cheese is hard tocome by but at least you can look for natural on the label.

One of my frequent statements to my patients is “if it comes out of the ground, or hangs from a tree or comes out of an animal, it is better for you than if it comes in a box with fifteen ingredients on the side, half of which you can’t
pronounce.”  The more “convenient” the food, the more likely it is that it is highly processed and full of
preservatives and artificial ingredients. And rather than most “diet” products being better for you, they are
generally full of more fake ingredients like artificial sweeteners, chemical flavor enhancers and fake fats.  The more
your food looks like real food the better and the rule of thumb is fresh is better than frozen is better than canned.

In our sugarized society, it is no wonder that diabetes is on the rise as well as heart disease, obesity and cancer, all of which can be associated with excessive sugar intake.  In general, I recommend being on the lookout for high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is very metabolically destructive and hidden in many foods that you wouldn’t imagine (like salad dressings, pickles, bread).   I highly recommend you go to www.youtube.com and watch Dr. Robert Lustig’s videos entitled “Sugar:  The Bitter Truth.”  Dr. Lustig is a pediatric endocrinologist and childhood obesity specialist.  He cites high fructose corn syrup in sweets and other foods and fructose in general through excessive juice consumption to be the chief foundational causes of the obesity epidemic (along with hydrogenated fats and white, refined bakery products).

Sugar substitutes that are chemically produced like NutraSweet, Equal and Splenda (trademarks of aspartame and sucralose) are no better.  These chemicals are what we call excitotoxins which means they directly stimulate the brain (that Diet Coke addiction is not just about the caffeine).  In many patients, these sweeteners cause migraines and mood disorders, and studies have shown that people with excessive consumption of artificial sweeteners actually have more problems with weight than people who don’t use them.  In general, if you need a sweetener, I recommend using stevia or xylitol, which are not artificial chemicals and do not raise your blood sugar.  If you are going for the real thing, I would suggest using small amounts of organic raw sugar or raw honey (although not in babies).

Finally, examine what you’re drinking.  Many people are getting an excessive amount of calories in what they drink.  Sodas, sweet tea, coffee drinks, slushes usually have lots of sugar, or HFCS, or both!  Some alternatives besides plain water or milk include flavored sparkling waters without added sweeteners (La Croix and Perrier are two of my
favorites).  Ask for your coffee or tea unsweetened and carry a few packets of stevia to add yourself.  One of our family’s favorites is a new stevia-sweetened soda called Zevia.  It tastes really great and comes in many flavors (our favs are ginger ale, orange and black cherry).  You can find Zevia at the health food store, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, or online.  You might try your hand at homemade lemonade or fruit teas using some of thesealternative natural sweeteners.  Beware of agave nectar.  Although this product has been sold to the public as a natural sweetener, it is essentially the same thing as corn syrup (except it’s not made from GMO corn!)  Stick to very small amounts of real maple
syrup or blackstrap molasses.

LOCAL RESOURCES

It is easy to quickly become disenchanted with the limited offerings of your local grocery store or the high prices of Whole Foods.  Whether you live in a rural area with lots of local farms and a metropolitan area with proliferating farmers’ markets and CSA (community supported agriculture) groups, you can find alternatives sources for better food.  Many local farmers (as opposed to large industrial farmers) do not use chemicals or pesticides on
their food, although you do have to ask.  With the growing appreciation of organic foods, there has been an
increase in farmers with the same philosophy who want to cater to that interest.  One great website for finding such things as grass-fed beef, free-range chicken and raw milk is www.eatwild.com.  They even have a section on farms that ship if you don’t happen to live close enough to go and buy directly from the farmer.  To find out if there is a CSA near you, check out www.localharvest.org/csa/.   You can join these groups for a monthly or annual fee and get a regular delivery of in-season locally grown fruits and vegetables.  Check out your local newspapers, websites and health food stores to find out about farmer’s markets near you.  Another option if you live in the city is to participate in a community garden where you can actually get your hands dirty by renting a small part of a bigger garden and producing your own food (www.communitygarden.org).

Perhaps it’s time to start growing your own food at home!  My brother and sister-in-law live in the city
and have a very tiny patio and almost no front yard.  Yet they have thriving containers that produce broccoli, tomatoes and peppers with very little space involved.  Even if you have no experience, there are lots of resources out there (www.organicgardening.com) and you don’t need much room at all…even a window-sill can be used to grow some herbs if you live in an apartment complex.  If you use high quality products in your containers or raised beds (www.drearth.com), you will get very high yield, many times even better than what you can get in a full-sized garden with poor soil.  Growing your own is really the only way to ensure that you have the best fruits and vegetables with no additives.

Unfortunately, our exposure to all these chemicals and pesticides in the environment has greatly contributed to our poor health as well as increased the incidence of infertility, developmental and behavioral disorders like ADHD, auto-immune disease and cancers.  Because of the widespread use of these chemicals, there is no such thing as a safe place to live anymore.  So even if you do your best to try to eat better and consume very few chemical-laden products, the
truth is that the very soil in which our food is grown, the water we drink and with which we shower, and the air we breathe is contaminated.  While it might seem depressing and impossible to address, you can make a difference in you and your family’s lives by the choices you make every day.  Because of the rampant exposure most of us have gotten to these toxins, we must do more than just eat right.  That’s why most people need to detoxify (I say most because there are some people that are unable to undergo active detoxification because they are pregnant, nursing or have active liver or kidney disease and can’t eliminate toxins properly).  I focus on different ways of detoxifying which range from simple daily things to drink, to deeper levels of detoxification like enemas, chelation or using products like the far-infared sauna.  A great resource in this area is the book “Detoxify or Die” by Dr. Sherry Rogers, an environmental physician. Have a happy, hormonally-balanced, healthy day!

I wanted to focus this blogpost on the topic of feeding your family in a healthier way because I know that some people want to eat healthier but they just don’t know where to start.  It can be overwhelming at times, when you consider how busy we all are, how expensive “good” food can be, and how we are constantly saturated by advertising of food
that isn’t healthy.  Many of you know that I have five boys and let me be the first to say, it takes lots of effort, attention, planning and research to make sure your family eats well in our modern age of convenience, microwavable, fast food.  And I will tell you that on occasion my kids do eat fast food because it’s sometimes unavoidable.  But I try to make this the exception, not the rule, and I will share some tips that I use to determine what our choices will be if we have to go this route.

Let me also let you know that although I have some babysitters that help me with meals three days a week, the rest of the time it is up to me and my husband to feed this hungry brood.  I am praying for God to send me an “Alice” from the Brady Bunch, but this has so far not manifested, and I just have to make it a priority to nourish my family.  I use the word “nourish” purposefully to distinguish from the word “feed” because filling your belly with processed food
full of synthetic ingredients, flavor enhancers, chemical preservatives, etc. is not the same thing as providing your body with “whole food,” real, pure unadulterated macronutrients.  I know some people feel their best when they eat a raw vegan diet.  Personally I believe, and for many of the patients I treat it is true, that animal proteins are a necessity for optimal health and a lack of protein can cause hormonal imbalance and mood disorders.  I know dietary choices are
very personal for many folks and I absolutely respect that.  If you are thriving on your particular dietary regimen, then great!  However, if you are not doing so well, even though it seems to be, or people have told you that it is, “healthy,” perhaps you need to see if there is a better option for you.

If you would like a real eye-opener into just how much the American diet has deteriorated, I suggest you check out Sally Fallon’s excellent cookbook entitled “Nourishing Traditions.”  The subtitle of the book is “The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats.”  Hold on to your hats!  Mainstream information
about what are healthy foods and what are not can lead to so muchconfusion.  “Fat is bad, certain fats are not so bad.”  “Carbohydrates are bad, except whole grains (but if you have gluten intolerance, then they’re bad!)”  Oh boy, is it a wonder we are experiencing a health crisis?!  What’s so great about this book is it really gives you a lot of insight into the history of food, industrial food production, and the progressively decreasing nutritive value of our food supply.  The book is fashioned after an appreciation for Dr. Weston Price, a dentist who studied many different people groups across the world, in regard to dental health and diet.  His experience was that those who ate a good amount of animal protein and fats as well as whole, unrefined foods and very little sugar, not only had great teeth, but they had great overall health!  Certainly many of his findings have directly challenged much of what “modern medicine” purports to be healthy, but I think many people would agree with the notion that getting back to a more simplistic approach to eating is going to do most people a world of good in terms of their health.  For more information, please see
www.westonaprice.org.

Much of what Dr. Price and his followers believe also goes against the vegetarian/vegan food movement.  Again, my purpose is not to denigrate or attack anyone’s personal dietary choices because there are many factors that can play into one’s decision to follow one plan or another.  Some people’s choices are due to health concerns, because their health was restored by avoiding certain foods or because they feel that it is healthier for them to avoid meat.  Some have very strong concerns for animals and choose not to consume animal products out of that love or because they feel animals are not processed for consumption in a humane way.  Factory- or industrialization to feed people on a large scale has led to much unsanitary, unhealthy and inhumane treatment of animals, so I can certainly relate to these concerns.  For those interested in exploring those perspectives more closely, I suggest reading Lierre Keith’s book, “The Vegetarian Myth.”  A former vegan, she dissects the different reasons why people choose this way of eating and how she radically changed her way of thinking on this very intimate choice. (I don’t agree with her beliefs that no-one should have children because of over-burdening the environment….gah!!)

In many cases, though, I do feel if close care is not taken in animal-protein-free diets, that it becomes difficult to consume adequate protein, limit excessive intake of soy products (which often are genetically modified and pesticide-laden, especially when added to prepared food products), and maintain normal glucose tolerance, neurotransmitter and hormone balance.  Many have gone so far as to claim that animal protein causes cancer.  Perhaps the most famous example of this is Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s book, “The China Study.”  He conducted a large scale observational study in China which led him to make that conclusion.  However, there are many pitfalls that one gets into when using observational data to try to prove causality (i.e. you can make associations but you cannot prove causality because there are too many variables).  Smarter folks than me have dissected the study in detail so if you are interested, check out the work of Dr. Michael Eades, Denise Minger, Chris Masterjohn, and Anthony Colpo.

The unfortunate truth is that it is quite hard to get adequate nutrition from a vegetarian diet in general, and a vegan diet in particular.  Too much soy, a frequent protein source, can negatively affect thyroid function.  Depletion of minerals, B vitamins, amino acids and fat soluble vitamins can also be a problem.  Since the quality of our food has dropped significantly, whether it is fruits and vegetables or meat and dairy products,  our goal must be to seek out food sources that are unadulterated by chemicals, pesticides, synthetic fertilizers/additives,  contaminants,  growth hormones/steroids, and antibiotics.  The vision of the farms of old, with cows grazing in beautiful unsprayed pasture, hens running around freely ranging and pecking the ground, vegetables grown without the aid of Round-up, is not just a distant dream.  Depending on your area of the country, there are many people who are still producing food in this manner.  Our job is to find it, participate in it if we can, and support those who are devoting themselves to providing good, quality food for our consumption.  I know many farmers who would be open to bartering goods and services if you cannot afford the higher prices of this type of good food.  To me, I see it as aninvestment in my family’s health and vitality.  The fact that many in the city have no reliable source for food other than the cheap, processed, synthetic and chemical-laden products available at the corner store is a sad commentary on how we have neglected our health.  Pretty soon we are dealing with the fall out when our body starts to break down and we are constantly at the doctor’s office or in the hospital.

HOW DO I BEGIN? Spend some time finding resources for accessing good quality food near you.  One of my favorite websites is www.eatwild.com which allows you to link up with local farms in your area.  Maybe you have a bit of a drive to get to them, but I strongly recommend that you support these local farmers who are committing themselves to providing great products.  And remember, the farmers’ markets, friends’ and family gardens, and the organic section of your local supermarket are all good places to start.

When I really began trying to identify how to improve my family’s diet, I started by eliminating as many convenience foods as possible.  I started with one fairly easy meal: breakfast.  As much as it is busy and crazy in the morning getting three boys ready for school (with more to follow), I realized that I couldn’t keep taking the easy way out (cold cereal).  So I started cooking breakfast with emphasis on protein (bacon/ sausage and eggs, multigrain pancakes with raw milk).  Now the kids complain if they have to eat cereal.

Next lunch.  Aw, school lunch, otherwise known in most schools as a nutritional wasteland.  I send a packed lunch several times a week.  If the food is halfway decent (like chicken and mashed potatoes), I will let them eat at school.  I try to keep snacks limited to fruit, popcorn, wheat cheese or peanut butter crackers.  For drinks, I will do a little fruit juice or water.  Yes, they do get some candy, but I try to emphasize dark chocolate or ice cream with real ingredients (like Haagen-Dazs or Ben & Jerry’s).  I feel that it’s important not to totally restrict any particular thing, because I think this causes kids to overly desire something they think is forbidden.  The idea is that when if you give your kids
nutritious food most of the time, the occasional splurges are not as harmful.

I remember watching a show many years ago on the cooking channel about a mom who worked twelve hour shifts as a nurse and had two kids.  As soon as she got home from work, she had a list of several restaurants on the refrigerator that they would order dinner from.  Those poor kids were “starving” for a real home-cooked meal.  The host of
the show worked with the mom to show her several easy, nutritious meals that she could prepare without much effort or time. Believe me when I say, as much as I was amazed at this family, I have a lot of empathy for working parents who come home exhausted from their jobs, with cooking being the last thing they want to think about.

My biggest solutions are stock up, buy in bulk and do a little bit of planning.  My progression to feeding my family good food started with some basic changes and then I just built on them as I went.  Because I have a big family, a deep freeze is a must.  Not only is this good for buying things on sale, but in our case, we have been able to buy half a grass-fed cow, had pastured pigs processed without added nitrates, and been able to put away surplus garden food.  While the idea of buying large portions of animals may seem daunting, in many areas, the better quality meat is much more economical if purchased in bulk.  Since we have several cuts of meat to choose from, I can always thaw out a roast for the Crockpot or some ground beef for tacos.

I try to stick to the standard protein, starch and vegetables to give my boys balanced nutrition.  When I go to the city, I stock up on hard to find items like organic brown rice, rice noodles and couscous.  My local grocery store carries organic potatoes for a decent price and I can usually get pre-bagged organic vegetables when they go on sale; cook them right away or throw them in the freezer.  My kids really like spinach salad so I get bags or boxes of organic spinach.  When I hear about parents who can’t get their kids to eat vegetables, I say…who is the parent?  My kids are not given the option to NOT eat their veggies, and although I once heard that it takes a kid an average of trying something 25 times before they begin to like it, the point is, they can learn to like it.  There’s nothing wrong with dressing the veggies up with sea salt, real butter or natural cheese.  I do like to keep some Amy’s natural pizzas and macaroni and cheese in the freezer for those busy nights when church or sports limits time. If your grocery store or health food store doesn’t carry these quick frozen items, stock up at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s when things are on sale.  I also like these stores for natural or organic items like taco seasoning (no MSG or HFCS), canned foods or condiments that are hard to find in regular grocery stores.  I have also discussed previously about how joining a co-op or buying club can help you get things in bulk for wholesale no matter where you live (my favorite www.frontiercoop.com).

EATING OUT Let’s face it; most of us eat out some of the time.  I really limit fast food and if we do it, we
tend to choose somewhere like Arby’s (anyone who’s watched Supersize Me knows how awful McDonald’s is for you).  We also like to go to places where you can get real food with vegetables (and in our case, we have a quality Chinese food place) and the kids know, you must have fruit and vegetables on your plate.  In this economy, it really makes more sense to stock up on sales, cook at home and truly NOURISH your family. Start slowly rebuilding and restocking your pantry and essential items, find some good local resources for your food and most of all learn to ENJOY the taste of real whole food!

Blessing in Disguise

By  Rosemary F. Lumsden

“Rosemary, you don’t just have insulin resistance. You have type 2 diabetes!”

I’ll never forget that day in May, 2007, when my doctor spoke those words to me! I didn’t have a clue about what type 2 diabetes involved, but he explained the seriousness and the reasons I did NOT want to allow it to intrude on my health, which was/is remarkably good. He recommended I read the book, Living the GI Diet, (Glycemic Index diet), and he went on to say, “I want you to control it with diet and exercise rather medication, and I KNOW you can do this!”

At the time I thought the sky was falling, but I look back on that diagnosis as truly a blessing in disguise. My doctor’s words certainly grabbed my attention, and when I researched type 2 diabetes, I knew I was embarking on lifestyle changes that would give new meaning to “healthy living.” I thought I was already following a healthy lifestyle, but compared to my way of life today, I was barely on square one. I can tell you, it has been an exciting and very rewarding adventure!

I read everything I could find on the implications of diabetes, and how to control it. I’ve added to my list of nutritional supplements and since 2007, I’ve refined my food program far beyond the guidelines in Living the GI Diet.  My reading reconfirmed what I already knew: Eating refined sugar, flour and other processed food is like eating rat poison. These pollutants don’t kill you on the spot, but they bring about slow deterioration of the human body. My motivation has been preserving my good health and my enthusiasm has thrived on the results of improved nutrition: weight-loss and feeling good. In 2007 I was 73 years old and in excellent health, other than the diabetes and hypertension. At that age I figured it was a bit late in life to deal with kidney disease, blindness or any of the numerous ailments related to diabetes.  

My research lead me to become interested in “live food,” i.e., eating my fruit and vegetables raw and soaking nuts and seeds to start the sprouting process so that they are in a growing state when I eat them. This requires a bit of attitude adjustment, since we are programmed to cook most food, and of course, season and adorn lavishly. I have found that live food offers greater satiety value and promotes a healthy state of well-being. It requires a lot more chewing, and consequently I just don’t eat as much.

One of my most astonishing discoveries has been that raw cabbage helps to keep my blood glucose level well within the normal range. In simple layman’s terms, the digestion of raw food slows down the absorption of glucose into the blood stream. For many years I’ve read of the health benefits of raw cabbage, and have included it in my diet. When I began monitoring my blood glucose level, I discovered that when I eat raw cabbage with my meal, my glucose level runs about 10 – 15 points lower than if I do not.  I make a variety of cabbage salads and eat half a cup with each and every meal. In November 2008, I tried combining raw cranberries with cabbage to make my salads. To my surprise, the addition of cranberries to my cabbage salads lowered my glucose level another 8 – 10 points, giving me a fasting glucose level averaging 75 – 85. By following a well balanced diet of mostly live food, including raw cabbage almost every meal, I have maintained an A1C of 6.2 – 5.7 since 2007. For those of you unfamiliar with diabetes jargon, this means that I have my diabetes under control, and without meds.

As I studied nutrition and lifestyle habits to control diabetes, I found that the strict food program I follow to control diabetes is also beneficial in reducing hypertension. My food program consists primarily of raw (or very lightly steamed) fruits and vegetables, complex carbohydrates, soaked seeds and nuts, and I eat very lean beef, chicken and fish broiled or boiled. I eat almost no processed foods. (I make my own bread and crackers in a food dehydrator which does not kill the live enzymes.) I absolutely love what I eat and do not consider it a “sacrifice” to give up sugar, fat and simple carbohydrates in exchange for my own healthy creations and the feeling of well-being that is my reward.

The lifestyle I choose does require a lot of food preparation time, mainly because I do everything from scratch. I grow my own garden, freeze or dehydrate my garden produce and raise chickens so that I have free-range eggs. One could maintain this lifestyle by shopping at the local Farmers’ Market, but my pioneer spirit dictates that I grow my own food as long as I’m able. I do shop at the Farmers’ Market during growing season to supplement my home-grown veggies. That is where I find fresh blueberries, peaches, apples and pears, as well as a few vegetables I don’t grow myself.

 I have researched nutritional supplements extensively, including supplements to help restore the body and overcome hypertension. I felt I was on target with the supplements I was taking, but I wanted to make sure my nutritional levels were in balance.  I learned about a Cardio/ION panel (Individual Optimal Nutritional Profile) of blood tests which reveals if one is deficient in any particular nutrient. Dr. Poppy Daniels ordered this test for me in February 2010, and I had the blood work done. This is a valuable panel of tests which gives a very thorough profile, and I was pleased to learn that with the exception of deficiencies in Magnesium and gamma-Tocopherol, my nutritional profile was within suggested guidelines. Needless to say, I added these supplements to my regimen immediately. In May 2010, after approximately 35 – 40 years on various blood pressure medications, my doctor spoke words that were music to my ears, “You don’t need blood pressure medication anymore!”  Improved nutrition and weight loss has freed me from all prescription medications!

At the age of 76, I have been playing the Game of Life long enough to gain some wisdom along the way. Health and nutrition have always been foremost in my focus. This has not prevented me from excessive weight gain in my life, but nutrition has played a major role in my weight loss. 

At age 44 I weighed 285 pounds. I knew this weight put my health at risk. I made up my mind to take off the weight and the best way I know to describe my mental focus is that I “saw it from the end.” It was almost like self-hypnosis.  I saw myself looking good in blue jeans, and believed it in. I lost more than a hundred pounds. As the case with so many of us, however, as years passed I lost focus and the weight slowly began to creep back, which is certainly a detriment to health!

I see in my health notes that at age 64 I weighed 226 pounds. WOW! Did I ever allow the weight to creep back! At age 73 (in 2007) my weight was around 206 when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. By following the Living The GI Diet food plan, I took off 16 pounds with relative ease. The awareness shock brought on by my diabetes diagnosis has prompted me to stay focused on nutrition, and by following my live food program, I was down to 152 pounds in November 2010. But then came the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays! With a few bites of “traditional holiday food” I lost my balance!

In analyzing what makes me tick, I find that when I am strictly following the live food program which I find totally satisfying, I have no problem losing weight and staying on program. As stated, this consists of mostly raw fruit and vegetables, complex carbs, low fat meat and fish, almost no processed food and no sugar-type sweets (fruits are my choice of sweets). A huge bonus is how good I feel when I follow this program. BUT when traditional holiday food comes on the scene and I am in a position to interact with other people where foods laced with sugar, fat and simple carbs are on the table, I lose it! And I don’t mean pounds! Some well-meaning souls proclaim “moderation is the key.” That may work for some folks, but not for me. I have to wonder why we celebrate the holiday (holy day) season with rich food and sugary sweets that desecrate our bodies.

In one of the books I’ve read on my quest for health, I read that by our choice of foods, we choose to follow either the Culture of Life (which restores our body) or the Culture of Death (which causes deterioration of our body).  I do believe this is a great truth!  It is for me, at any rate.  I’m learning to look beneath the surface to see what I’m doing to my body by my choices. The learning process is a life-long endeavor and I have learned that my taste buds are easily led astray by Culture of Death foods.  It’s far more than weight gain or loss. These are merely surface indications of what’s going on within my body.

I have forgiven myself for polluting my body and reminded myself of the blessings of good health. Early in January 2011 I did a 5-day detox flush to rid my body of holiday food pollution.  I am currently in the process of mentally reprogramming my taste buds to remember that I choose to follow the Culture of Life!

For me, the criterion is more serious than life and death. I’ve enjoyed a fulfilling life and would be satisfied to “go home” at any time. BUT I may be around for a while, in which case quality of life is my very highest priority! And for me, sweets and processed foods are not the essence of what makes my life worth living! I want to be mentally alert and feel good! I dominantly intend to maintain my health and well being until it’s time for me to depart this life!  So be it!

Then there’s the exercise mania focus where bone-headed if well-meaning trainers (especially those who have never had a weight problem, love them!) tell poor clients, “You just need to eat less and ramp up your cardio!” This is a sure recipe for burning out your adrenal glands and dropping your metabolic rate and body temperature (the poor man’s indicator of metabolism). If I had a dollar for every Zumba and aerobics instructor who tells me how tired she is all the time, I would have…well, you know what I mean. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Zumba, certainly more enjoyable than mindless miles on a treadmill. However good it is for increasing stamina and endurance and building muscle tone, it’s not that great for weight loss, as most exercise is not. In preparation for my husband and me renewing our wedding vows on our 10th anniversary, I spent about three months faithfully doing Zumba twice a week along with weight training once or twice a week. And I lost nothing, zilch, blech. Toned up, yes, inches lost, but it was a whole lot of effort and time for not much return.

Certainly, knowing all I do about hormones, supplementation and stress, I took time to check out all these areas in my own life. I definitely made positive changes plus worked hard to clean up my diet, making an effort to get away from processed foods, artificial sweeteners, sweets and eat whole, natural, and organic if possible, foods. My overall health and wellbeing responded very positively as I usually have great energy, great sleep, great bowel elimination, normal body temperatures, and I am clearly not lacking in the fertility department (*wink*). However, all these different modalities were not making a dent in the number on the scale or that stubborn abdominal fat. I can tell you that I eat better than most people I know, yet you may not think so based on the scale. I have always had a curvy shape that could carry weight pretty well, but over the years given the impact of stress, dietary choices, environmental influences, and hormonal changes, it has been harder and harder to feel “normal.” It has been a sore spot for me with my patients as well, because I have felt embarrassed by the fact that many people may question my medical expertise in different areas, if I don’t have a normal, healthy appearance myself. At the same time, I have great respect for the fact that the human body is so brilliantly designed and complex, and that the mantra “eat less, exercise more” just didn’t work for most people, especially women with hormone issues. So I have always been very skeptical about various scams, crash diets, unhealthy long-term exclusion of various macronutrients, etc. for achieving that downward trend on the scale.

Well, a funny thing happened during my last pregnancy (boy number five, born March 2009). I lost weight. Not intentionally, as I was still eating how I normally do which is healthy the majority of the time, but I was becoming noticeably thinner in my face, arms and overall shape, but not in my pregnant belly. I attributed this to the aforementioned changes I made and even blogged about it (see “Done With Dieting”) as this had not happened in any of my other pregnancies. I gained about 15 pounds compared to my average 35 pounds. I figured that after I gave birth to this healthy 7#10oz child, I would continue to see the weight loss which had finally kicked in due to my focus on wellness. Certainly I did not start eating poorly (with the occasional exception) because I was breastfeeding and I know how important nutrition and calories are when you are nourishing your baby, especially in that critical 6 month window before he starts eating solids. Unfortunately the party was over and while I was not gaining, I was also not losing and still holding on to belly fat. Around the summertime, I began to have patients come in who had been losing weight on the HCG diet. Automatically suspicious of any fads, as soon as I heard that you took HCG in conjunction with a 500-calorie diet, I stopped listening. Since I already knew the damage of severe calorie restriction (breakdown of muscle, dropping metabolic rate), not to mention the mental and emotional torture of such a severely low calorie diet, I immediately wrote it off as unsafe despite the obvious success of some of my patients had who explored it. Then I went to a symposium on optimal health put on by the St. Louis Institute of Integrative Medicine (SLiiM). One of the speakers was Dr. Todd Frisch, a chiropractor with a successful practice for 30 years. What I liked about him was not only his excellent medical advice about detoxification, but he spoke openly and freely about his faith in God and how it guided his practice. Don’t get me wrong, just because a person says they believe in God doesn’t mean I then blindly accept everything they say as “gospel” truth! But there was something about this doctor’s compassionate nature and sincerity that really spoke to me. I got to meet him at a later date and that’s when I found out that his practice has exploded since he has been using homeopathic HCG to help his patients lose weight. He and his wife had also successfully lost weight, an issue his menopausal wife had struggled with for years, despite all they know about healthy living and a wholistic approach (gee, sounds familiar!). I was intrigued enough by a respected professional that I decided to take a closer look at the program I had once pooh-poohed. I read Dr. A.T.W Simeon’s protocol, the British physician who originated the HCG diet. I was immediately impressed when he started discussing the complexity of obesity and how often health care providers who are unable to supply help to their patients turn on them. “When then obese patients are accused of cheating, gluttony, lack of will power, greed and sexual complexes, the strong become indignant and decide that modern medicine is a fraud and its representatives, fools, while the weak just give up the struggle in despair. In either case, the result is the same: a further gain in weight, resignation to an abominable fate and the resolution at least to live tolerably the short span allotted to them – a fig for doctors and insurance companies.”

Ever the science nerd, I was even more excited when he started discussing the hypothalamus. So often we focus on the thyroid gland, the pituitary gland and the adrenal glands (the cortisol, “stress hormone” producers) as the culprits. In our stress-saturated society, we are constantly pumping out cortisol and adrenaline in an effort to outrun our modern-day bears. We begin to crave sweets in an effort to beat our adrenals into creating more sex steroids to deal with the mountain of stressors we encounter, worsening the belly fat problem. Many people, especially skinny, calorie-restricted, over-exercising, hormonal women, eventually burn out their adrenals and some quite literally collapse in physical and emotional exhaustion. While hypothyroidism can certainly decrease the metabolic rate, the weight loss from thyroid therapy is irritatingly small. Insulin resistance is an ongoing epidemic. A genetic predisposition is triggered by excessive refined carbohydrates and other hormone imbalances and causes the cells to quit responding normally to insulin, which normally shuttles glucose into the cell for metabolic utilization. Another problem with most starvation-based approaches (this would also include bariatric surgery cases) is that it causes weight loss of non-proportional, structural fat, the kind that provides normal contouring and shape to the body and keeps the skin smooth. To quote Dr. Simeon, “When an obese patient tries to reduce by starving himself, he will first lose his normal fat reserves. When these are exhausted, he begins to burn up structural fat, and only as a last resort will the body yield its abnormal reserves, though by that time the patient usually feels so weak and hungry that the diet is abandoned. It is just for this reason that obese patients complain that when they diet, they lose the wrong fat. They feel famished and tired and their face becomes drawn and haggard, but their belly, hips, thighs and upper arms show little improvement [and often require plastic surgery after bariatric surgery due not just to the volume of weight loss but because of their still misshapen body italics added by Dr. Poppy]. Their skin wrinkles and they look old and miserable. And that is one of the most frustrating and depressing experiences a human being can have.”

So where does that leave us? The hypothalamus, of course. It’s the boss of the pituitary, thyroid and adrenal, as well as the ovaries, testes and other endocrine systems. This tiny gland at the base of the brain is a powerhouse that secretes hypothalamic releasing and inhibitory hormones to regulate the hormonal functions of the body, most of which work on a negative feedback system. Recently scientists have identified a hormone called leptin, which is secreted by adipose tissue. As a measure of nutritional status and fat stores, its function is to feedback and let the hypothalamus know, hey we are full (or satiated), we have enough food, stop being hungry and sending neurological impulses to eat. Unfortunately, what most people who are obese have undergone is similar to insulin resistance, except it’s called leptin resistance. Although there may be high levels of leptin in the body indicating the body is full, satisfied, nourished, the brain is not getting that signal. In fact, with many people its seems their brains are actually getting the “starvation” message, which according to Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, the scientist who discovered leptin, results in decreased body temperatures, hyperphagia (excessive hunger resulting in ravenous eating), decreased metabolism/energy expenditure and frequently decreased immunity and increased rates of infertility. When leptin levels are low, the hypothalamus sends out signals for the body to undergo glycolysis where adipose or fat tissue is dissolved to provide energy to the body. Such a complex mechanism involves multiple hormones including cortisol, growth hormone and thyroid hormone. Many people with leptin resistance DO have an accompanying slowing down of their thyroid, although thyroid medication doesn’t really address the obesity because it’s ultimately a hypothalamic problem. So how did we get so much leptin resistance? Probably the same reason we have so much insulin resistance. That is, the progressive degrading of the food supply with excessive sugars/fructose (worse offender: high fructose corn syrup), processed grains, and hydrogenated oils and subsequent pervasive vitamin/nutrient deficiencies, as well as environmental toxin exposure. My favorite blogs that address metabolism: http://www.180degreehealth.blogspot.com/, http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/, http://thehealthyskeptic.org/, http://www.mercola.com/, www.westonaprice.org

The solution to the obesity problem would be to overcome leptin resistance and enable the hypothalamus to reset our bodies’ weight set-point. And that solution appears to be, ironically, a pregnancy hormone called HCG. Human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) is a glycoprotein rather than a sex steroid (derived from cholesterol). When a woman becomes pregnant, the embryo’s trophoblastic cells will begin to produce HCG in high amounts to cause the corpus luteum (ovulated egg) to make large amounts of progesterone and estrogen to nourish the embryo and endometrial lining of the uterus. HCG continues to be produced in large amounts by the placenta during pregnancy although production decreases after the 16-20 week mark. Another interesting function of HCG is that it exerts an effect on the testes which causes the male fetus to produce enough testosterone to make male sex organs and for the testicles to descend. Therefore the treatment for undescended testicles in boys is, you guessed it, HCG. How is it then in pregnancy, that an obese woman can eat moderately or even nothing, in the case of severe vomiting (hyperemesis gravadarum), and have a normal size baby? The circulating HCG in her body during pregnancy causes mobilization of fat stores to help provide nutrition to the growing baby, but does not cause the mother to lay down excess abnormal fat deposits. This protective mechanism can of course be overridden by excessive overconsumption of poor food, particularly those offenders I mentioned before: refined carbs/grains, HFCS, hydrogenated oils, etc. and accompanying co-morbidities/chronic disease states with their associated vitamin/nutrient deficiencies. The HCG effect is that the body feels it’s being saturated with food from the mobilization of the fat stores and the woman does not feel hungry, although her intake may be drastically reduced. The health and wellness of the mother will naturally affect the health of the baby. Although genetics are a factor, my belief based on current research is that genetic influence can be modified, albeit not nullified, by nutritious diet, prolonged breastfeeding, limiting toxin exposure and good, general health practices. How does the pregnant body deal with inconsistent food intake? Says Dr. Simeon, “Ideal nutritional conditions for the fetus can only be achieved when the mother’s blood is continually saturated with food, regardless of whether she eats or not, as otherwise a period of starvation might hamper the steady growth of the embryo. It seems that HCG brings about this continual saturation of the blood, which is the reason why obese patients under treatment with HCG never feel hungry in spite of their drastically reduced intake.”

Rewind to my pregnancy story. Remember when I said that I really didn’t change my healthy, although not low calorie, diet and yet my shape was improving and my weight gain was minimal (15- nearly 8 for baby, maybe 2 for the placenta and rest of the fluids, leaving only 5 pounds). Finally, the pieces were beginning to come together. I spoke at length with Dr. Frisch about my initial misgivings regarding this “diet.” He related well to my concerns given our similar wholistic approach. But he told me that in the course of treating nearly 300 patients, his success rate was 100% with the least amount of weight lost at 16 pounds for a 40 day period. He also related as an added benefit to the weight loss, a significant improvement in patients with inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, fibromyalgia, etc. As the dietary portion is very “clean,” the anti-inflammatory effect enables patients to achieve overall healing, not just weight loss.

It’s important to discuss the emotional, psychological and spiritual factors that play a role in obesity. The reason this diet must be supervised by a health care provider is that the vast reduction of food, and for some the rather austere food choices, can be very difficult for those who are immersed in our fast food, instant gratification, smorgasbord society. Patients must in many cases relearn what “real food” tastes like in a simpler form without modern society’s artificial food enhancements. Gluttony is an issue. We must learn to practice discipline rather than succumbing to the “Super-Size” mentality; just because more is available, bigger and fattier, does not mean it is wisdom to eat it. Those who have traumatic, abusive, or psychological triggers when it comes to food or those that pacify every negative experience or emotion with food will not succeed on this or any other positive modification unless those issues are dealt with through inner healing, counseling, and spiritual support. If I’ve learned anything through my journey, it’s that food is only a temporary high, and as with anything in life, can have long-term fall-out when abused. Some people sabotage their own progress at the first steps of a discipline because they assume they will not be successful or because of psychological or spiritual stress.

The benefit that I have experienced with my own use of HCG has been the consistent weight loss. Most patients can expect to lose between 0.5 to 1 pound a day on average. Though drastically faster than most programs, the weight lost is definitely from abnormal fat deposits (my husband commented that he liked that my shape was preserved instead of losing it in, um, important places). Many people are skeptical of the potency of homeopathic drops although that is just one of the modalities I use. Understand that really no one would be able to maintain a 500 calorie a day diet for very long without the hormonal support of the HCG. Nonetheless, there are other patients that would benefit more from the compounded HCG in cream or sublingual form (stronger dose-wise). I hate shots (except for B12 shots with a tiny needle) for hormone therapy which is why the transdermal route appeals to me. The source of the HCG is an important issue. I have heard of people getting HCG shipped to them from India or China, which is always suspect to me. Also if the HCG is obtained from placentas, I have a big concern that it is being extracted from abortion products which is completely unacceptable to me. Dr. Frisch is in agreement, and so his products, as well as the compounded products we use, are extracted from the urine of pregnant women. Somewhat ironic, given all the uproar over Premarin (made from pregnant horses’ urine). Seems no one had a problem with taking that for many years from an aesthetic standpoint.

I also feel if other hormone imbalances, vitamin/mineral deficiencies and medical problems are not adequately addressed, those patients will have limited success with HCG. Due to our wholistic approach, we already are usually dealing with these issues with our patients, so I see that as a benefit to our program for those who have failed with a round of HCG. The diet must be closely supervised as many people will begin to have drops in blood pressure, blood sugar and be able to come of some of their medication, which requires frequent follow up visits every 1-2 weeks after the initial consultation. The bare bones of the program involve a 21 or 40 day period of HCG treatment plus the 500 calorie a day, or restricted calorie diet (RCD). After that time, there are 2-3 more days of RCD without HCG to help achieve setpoint, followed by 3 weeks of no sugar or starch (NOT no carbohydrate). After that, normal diet is resumed, with the caveat that you need to avoid those foods which contributed to the overweight in the first place. If you go back to the “Supersize” diet or resume other unhappy practices, you can assume that you will regain weight. However, those committed to pursuing a healthy lifestyle should expect to maintain their weight with average losses for 21 day protocol being 15-20 pounds, for the 40 day, 25-30 pounds. For those who have more than that to lose, the protocol requires a 6 week rest period before starting another round of HCG to avoid immunity to the hormone. The first two days of treatment are a period of gorging so as to increase normal fat stores for subsequent loss. Those who don’t “load” effectively will not lose effectively. Exercise is not recommended during the diet to allow for adrenal recovery. More details will be provided to patients during their initial consultation. In light of the holidays, and the inevitable attempts at reduction following, my office is offering an initial consultation of $125, not including cost of HCG and other costs depending on individual patients’ needs. This price is very low and will continue through the 14th of January, at which time the price will go back up, closer to what other practitioners are currently charging. If you are interested in having a consultation to see if you are an appropriate candidate for the HCG diet, please call our office. It is so rewarding to learn more lessons from patients and other like-minded professionals. May we all have a wonderfully healthy and rewarding 2011!

During this time, I had time to catch up on some reading.  A good friend had sent me a book for the birth of the baby entitled “Didn’t I Feed You Yesterday?  A Mother’s Guide to Sanity in Stilettos” by Laura Bennett.  My limited TV watching usually involves Discovery Health or the Food Network (I know, boring, right) and I have never watched Project Runway, but Ms. Bennett was brought to fame by being a contestant on the show, while pregnant with her 5th boy.  She actually has 6 children, the oldest a daughter away at college, and she lives with these 5 boys and her husband, get this, in Manhatten.  Part of our vacation was visiting Manhatten with our 5 boys and I have to say that anyone who could raise 5 boys in that city deserves to win a reality show, at the least (she didn’t actually win, but she should have just on principle).  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love New York, but believe me when I say that the next time I go, it will be sans children.  Whereas my children’s idea of a good time was to go to the multistory M&M store in Times Square and try to find the nearest Dave and Buster’s, mine would involve a nice little bistro with the hubby or a Broadway show.  My darling sister-in-law volunteered my brother to babysit the boys one night so we could sneak off.  Only problem was one of the children decided to hide in the shower, setting off a small panic for my as-yet childless SIL.  We were trying to stay relatively close since I didn’t have any pumped milk should the sleeping baby wake up so when we returned at 2 am, the two oldest children said, “We watched you go into Birdland (a jazz club across the street)” so I know they didn’t fall asleep like normal kids.  I’m sure my brother and SIL were like, “note to selves:  no more volunteering to babysit.”

Anyway, back to the book.  Now naturally you’re thinking, 5 kids in Manhatten, this woman must be filthy rich, which she appears to be as her husband is a world-renowned architect and she has an expensively-garaged Porsche 911.  And her staff of four: two nannies, a mannie and a  full-time housekeeper.  But wait…SHE’S also an architect, and now a fashion-designer since the show.  As much as you might love to hate her with all these benefits, you have to love a woman who you would for all intents and purposes presume to be an uppity socialite, has actually given birth to six kids, and breastfed them, and oh, one of them is special needs.  I am officially in love with her.  And since, as my friend who gave me the book indicated, we are in a special sorority of mothers-of-five-boys, her rollicking, witty, tongue-in-cheek-while-brutally-honest unbelievable story is one I can really relate to (minus the high society).  Those of us who would actually pursue this life, well, we have to be kind of crazy and Ms. Bennett describes her particular brand of crazy with highlights of her beautiful furniture being systematically dismantled, coordinating all the different activites and doctor’s appointments with the skill of an air-traffic controller, writing, sewing, and partying, all the while looking fabulous in her Manolo Blahniks.  Although this is where she and I part ways (sorry, will never own a pair of $800 shoes), I appreciate her ability to give attention to detail in her appearance and dress DESPITE having a brood.  Certainly, I don’t relate to everything she does, e.g. chewing nicotine gum for energy and to stay slim, but most of all that is simply style differences.  But let’s just say, the very idea of a woman doing what she’s doing, is just wonderful…exhausting, but wonderful.

My favorite part of the book is her disdain for this current generation of over-protective, controlling, helicopter parents who don’t hesitate to criticize YOUR parenting choices, all the while turning parenthood into some sort of sentence in an un-funny, neurotic prison.  In one chapter, she describes hearing a recently divorced woman complaining about how awful her ex-husband was being:

“‘What did he do?’ I had to ask…It’s all in good fun, but I imagined that this mom’s problems must have something to do with Ecstasy pills rolling out of the girlfriend’s slack mouth, or her pole-dancing friends coming over for a weekend performance.  Something juicy, or half naked at the very least.  ‘Well’-she sniffed, half angry, half distraught-’he packed their lunches with Cheetos, Go-Gurts, and bologna sandwiches on white bread.’ She sat back, satisfied.  My mouth fell open, so she continued.  “Do you have any idea how dangerous high-fructose corn syrup is?  It is in every single one of those products!  And the cheese single must have been made out of milk from cows who have been given hormones and antibiotics.  When the children are in my care, I poach Amish-raised, grass-fed, free-range chicken breasts and stuff them into whole-grain pitas with hydroponic tomatoes and micro-greens that we grow in our own kitchen.  How could he possibly endanger them in this way?’…But as I sat there…I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps it was this woman’s husband who should be pursuing custody change.  Her reaction was maniacally disproportionate….soon (her children) would be boosting Twinkies from the corner bodega, a behavior that can only lead to smoking pot and much higher crimes.”

While laughing at this story, I have to confess that I too have found myself in the gripes of self-righteous indigination at how poorly members of my family sometimes operate.  I did at one time put a moratorium on sugar in the house…after putting up with never-ending forlorn looks, stashes of hidden candy and outright rebellion, I had to concede that the only sure-fire way to get my kids to eat right was to do my best, and that to completely restrict anything would immediately make it desirable and tantilizing to them, leading to all sorts of nefarious, secretive attempts to consume the forbidden fruit.  Looking back at how I was when I only had one child, I thank God that he managed to turn out pretty well despite my anal first-time parenting rigidity.  I still remember a car trip with our first child where I was balancing precariously in the backseat giving passing cars a peep show, while I breastfed my baby in his carseat, because I simply couldn’t bear to take him out while the car was moving.  This trip, not so much…I had no problem taking him out and nursing him…I AM NOT RECOMMENDING THIS…but as a mom of 5 boys, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Lest you think her’s is not a “real” household, Ms. Bennett tells how in addition to all the “man smell,” she also houses a hamster, a rabbit, a tortoise, and multiple finches.  As she recounts the story of her son mistaking rabbit droppings for Cocoa Puffs, I am reminded of how much the animal life at our house has only added to the “testosterone drama.”  We have two cats, but we didn’t name one of them because all the other ones were eaten.  In addition to fish in a pond and a tank, we have four huge dogs:  a German Shepherd, a Neopolitan mastiff, a Bull Mastiff/Pit Bull mix (my husband’s “hood” dog), and an American bulldog.  They have essentially destroyed the front of my house so that it looks like Beirut, and they frequently get into bloody fights such that now several of them limp…this is not my idea of fun.  But once again, I have to remind myself that the enjoyment of the children’s (and animals’) escapades is what life is all about.  If I have learned anything being a mom of five boys, it is not to take myself too seriously, not to yell ALL the time, and appreciate all the funny moments before they are gone.  Although we are unlike the author in that we try to teach our kids NOT to cuss, my husband and I were rolling with laughter when my 5 year old came into our adjoining hotel room in NYC and sleepily said, “I had to come in here because the volume on that cartoon was just too damn loud.”

To find out more about Laura Bennett, visit her website www.didntifeedyouyesterday.com.

This issue really came into focus when @antitheistangie live-tweeted her abortion on Twitter.   People who know me and read my stuff, know that I am pro-life.  It’s not a secret, and yet I don’t make a habit of bashing people over the head with it.  Because, uh, that sort of defeats the purpose…unfortunately, there are many pro-life head-bashers who I think really end up disservicing the whole movement, giving all of us a bad name and making people think we are all hateful, judgemental accusers.  While I think it is appalling to live-tweet an abortion, I would NEVER berate, accuse, castigate, name-call or attempt to guilt-trip someone who did so.  In fact, I tweeted to @antitheistangie that I was praying for her and her family (which I was and did) and left it at that.  Do those people who sent her hatemail really think they were doing something positive?  It seems to me, all it would do would be to further cement her position that pro-lifers are mean nutjobs who disdain her.  Their disturbing behavior is a poor reflection of those loving, heartfelt, passionate people who believe in perserving the sanctity of life.  Another dear woman is going through a traumatic experience and was discussing her torment online about whether to seek a termination for her child’s severe medical condition.  Instead of information and support, what she has been getting is hatefulness, rudeness, and judgement, adding monumental stress and angst to an already horribly difficult situation.

Apparently, if you associate yourself with a particular movement or ideology (breastfeeding, birth activism, granola), you have to sign a petition that you will believe THIS way about each individual issue to be accepted within said movement.  I read one woman’s blog who actually said that pro-life women have NO RIGHT to be birth advocates because they do not support abortion….oookkkaaayyy….that makes zero sense to me, beyond the sheer arrogance that this person’s point of view was the only acceptable one.  Seems somewhat narrow-minded to me.  But again, members of a movement who say and do stupid and insulting things, give the whole movement a bad name.  I know some people who won’t follow, friend or “like” someone or a blog or page because of some particular belief that person has with which they don’t agree, even if they have other things in common.  So if someone isn’t exactly like you in every thought and deed, you can’t learn anything from them?  Hogwash.  It’s called common ground people, and we could all learn from one another if we would set aside differences and agree on those things we can, well, “agree” on.

I had one friend who threatened to stop being my friend over an email about abortion that I had widely sent out to a group of people.  Instead of her saying, hey we disagree on this one, don’t send me any more emails about this subject and we’ll just agree to disagree, she actually was willing to totally sacrifice our friendship for this ONE issue.  WOW!  I can understand it if there was some kind of personal attack taking place…but I’m sorry, it would take A LOT for me to stop being friends with someone over a ideological, political, spiritual or social position.  To me, I am secure enough in my own positions that I can listen to other’s points-of-view without feeling personally outraged or threatened by their disagreement.  This is one of the reasons I blog:  I was complaining to my mentor, Lauren Plante, about some issue within the birthing community, and she said, “Well, why don’t you just blog about it?”  Lauren and I disagree on lots of stuff, but we are the best of friends;  she knows how I feel, I respect her viewpoint and we meet in the middle on those things on which we do agree.  The point is, if it’s someone’s blog or Facebook page or Twitterfeed, it is their opinion, which even if I disagree with them, I will “defend to the death their right to say it.”  Free speech is quickly going out of style, just ask Lierre Keith.  When her book, “The Vegetarian Myth,” came out, she was physically attacked by some vegans-gone-wild.  Do I think these deranged individuals represent vegans at large?  Of course not, but as Tom Naughton blogs, you have to wonder why people would react so violently to a different point of view.

When I come across a status update with which I disagree or don’t like, I read it and move on.  So what if I don’t agree with some statement or other?  That does not nullify that a person may have other valuable things to say.  I think political correctness HAS run amuk in many public forums, with the most disturbing trend to try to silence or shut down people who are saying “controversial” things.  Grow up people!  Be an adult, instead of a rude, immature hater!  I had a woman “Unlike” my Facebook page because I posted something about a medical benefit of circumcision, stating she could no longer “like” me if I advocated “cutting up little boys’ penises.”    Well, OK then, move on, if you don’t like it, then only be friends with people who are uncircumcised, life goes on!

I also see that within the birthing community, some people’s bad experiences with the medical establishment has shifted them so far in the other direction that they can’t seem to be positive about ANY aspect of mainstream medicine and won’t support a woman who has a hospital birth, C-section, AROM or an epidural.  Danielle Elwood just posted an excellent blog about this topic.  Every woman is not going to have the same belief systems, expectations, education or understanding as someone else that has led to their own personal birth philosophy.  And that’s OK!  I heard some women ridiculing a birth center birth video because the mom had her membranes artifically ruptured.  But when you compare this birth to most hospital births, it was beautiful, affirming and the mother was obviously very happy!  Please, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Appreciate those things which are positive, even if YOU would have done this, that or another a different way.  We all have reasons for doing things the way we do them.  Maybe if we took the time to understand why a person arrives at their particular decision, it would help us to problem-solve and network together in a more positive way.  In reading @antitheistangie’s backstory, she had a very difficult upbringing with, ironically, a grandmother who did homebirths and had some very bizarre religious beliefs.  So I can understand why she may have certain viewpoints, even if I don’t personally believe that way.  I think ultimately, we would all get more accomplished if we don’t bash, accuse or ridicule someone with a different opinion.  I hope that the online community will start to demonstrate more maturity, dignity and respect so we can all continue to learn from one another.

My first friend was separated from her husband from 7 months pregnant until her daughter was 6 months old.  She had always wanted to nurse and so breastfeeding was already established when she and her husband reconciled.  No one in her family had breastfed, but she knew the benefits from her own reading.  When her husband returned to the household, he said that he felt that the baby was too attached to her and that he felt helpless at not being able to feed her.  My friend was pumping bottles but she thinks that when the baby was crying and she would nurse her, he felt distanced from them.  Although her husband was against it and she was a very busy student teacher at the time, she states that she was “determined to breastfeed,” and felt that if she gave up, she was a quitter.  Perservering, she nursed for 13 months until she became pregnant with her second daughter.  With this baby, her husband said, “You breastfed one, let’s try bottlefeeding,” and the common, “I was bottle-fed and I turned out OK.”  Again, my friend pressed on with her desire to nurse and he backed off although he did not want her to breastfeed in public.  Interestingly, although her husband and his brother (who lived with them for a short time) were both opposed to nursing, their mother, who was very involved in her grandchildren’s lives, was supportive even though she never nursed.   My friend nursed for 15 months until becoming pregnant with her third child, a boy.  Her husband was much more forceful that he did not want his son breastfed.  This time, she felt that there was an element of sexualizing of her breasts, which was not discussed as an issue with the girls, to the point that she always had a shirt on whenever they were intimate.  Despite the stronger opposition, she nursed her son the longest, 16 months.   Her husband told her that he felt feeding decisions should be made by both parents and that she was going against his wishes.  She remembers a particular episode when she was in the shower and the baby was screaming, and her husband again told her he felt helpless to soothe the baby.  This couple has since divorced.

My second friend had her first two children with a partner that was supportive of breastfeeding, although he did not want her to nurse in public.  Although he never saw anyone in his family breastfeed, it was something he actually encouraged her to do.  She also never saw anyone in her circle nurse, but had a lactation consultant in the hospital who educated and encouraged her.  She nursed for 8 months with her first child, but only 4 months with her second because she went to work at a nursing home, which did not provide breaks or a place to pump.  After being walked in on while pumping, but not getting to pump frequently enough, her milk dried up.  She broke up with this partner and when she became pregnant with her current husband, she found him to be adamantly against breastfeeding.  Starting during the pregnancy, he stated that he couldn’t feed the baby and that nobody else could keep the baby if she nursed.  She also felt that he was conflicted by viewing the breasts from a sexual context.  Since she didn’t have much support around her and didn’t own a breast pump, she felt it was easier not to have constant confrontation and she exclusively bottle-fed her third child.  She states that she was “trying to please him,” a decision she now regrets.  She says she did feel closer to her oldest child, due to the bond of nursing him the most.  Her youngest child had lots of gas and reflux problems, which she would remind her husband the oldest children did not have.  Although she had a tubal after her last birth, she says that if she were to have another child, she would “just do it” now as she feels stronger in herself and more understanding of the benefits plus she would have the support of friends who have nursed.

Certainly back in the 50s, moms were made to feel “poor” or of low-status if they did not bottle-feed; after all, it was the “modern” way to nourish your baby.  The natural childbirth movement helped breastfeeding to resurface, but the practice lapsed again in the 80s-90s, mostly due to successful advertising by formula companies and their invasion of hospitals.  Even today, as breastfeeding rates are higher (although still not sustained in large numbers), the number of breastfeeding-focused hospitals are few and far between, and many, mine included, do not even have a lactation consultant.  Add in a partner who has no frame of reference for nursing, 90:10 baby shows with bottles rather than breasts featured, and breastfeeding in public under attack, is it no surprise that women are not breastfeeding in appreciable numbers?  Although these examples are anecdotal, I think it gives some insight into what some women face when it comes to the breast vs. bottle debate.  Whether there are true cultural differences in different communities, or whether it is just a matter of exposure and education, I don’t know.  I suspect that ALL communities would benefit from removing obstacles at hospitals, active support in the early days of nursing, and recognizing that a family environment ultimately is something that we don’t always understand as a breastfeeding activists.  Let’s reach out to our sisters instead of assuming we understand their daily reality.

In order to tell the story of how I ended up with a surprise VBAC, I have to start at the beginning of my long and adventurous reproductive journey.  My first pregnancy ended in the first trimester with a miscarriage and heavy bleeding requiring a D&C to stop it.  I was a OB/Gyn resident at the time and was surrounded by high risk OB patients every day.  I trained in downtown Philadelphia where an addicted mom with no prenatal care could deliver on one end of the hall, while a high risk IVFer from the Main Line might be delivering on the other end.  Although we worked side by side with midwives, we only became involved if their patients developed complications or needed a C-section.  Needless to say, like most OB residents, my experience with normal, low-risk physiological birth was minimal.  Being pregnant in this environment and then losing the baby certainly colored my perspective.  Like any mom who loses a first baby, I was troubled with the worry that I wouldn’t be able to have another baby, so that when I did become pregnant again, I embraced the “we have to be very careful and be supervised very closely with this one” approach.  I worked up until term, 36 hr shifts, 100 hr work-weeks, having to turn sideways at the operating table at the end, and then it was decided that I should be induced at 39 weeks due to gestational hypertension.  There were no signs of pre-eclampsia and the pressures were not sky-high, but at the time, I fell into the “you’re term, what’s the need to take a chance” mentality and was scheduled for an induction.  I went in at night for prostaglandin gel due to an unripe cervix (should have known better) followed by Pitocin the next morning.  I labored all day, getting the obligatory epidural that a Pitocin induction necessitates, finally getting to complete around 8 pm.  I pushed for 2 1/2 hrs, I used the bar, the sheet, everything the hospital approach has to offer…but the baby was OP and would not rotate with “all” of our maneuvers and so I received a C-section for “arrest of descent.”  Happy as I was with my new son, everyone who has labored and then had surgery, knows the pain that you are in for.  I wasn’t disappointed in the C-section because at that time, I was still fully entrenched in the “at least I have a healthy baby” mindset.

Despite that experience, I always wanted to have a vaginal birth and since most university hospitals were still doing them regularly (’03), I chose a new doctor whose obstetrical/surgical skills I trusted who would support by desire for VBAC.  My pressures started acting up again so I was slated for induction, although this time my cervix was riper and I went right in for Pitocin.  They did one of the most inhumane things which was to artifically rupture my membranes on Pitocin in the active phase of labor.  Needless to say, an epidural was imperative but I almost couldn’t sit for it due to the pain.  This time I pushed for 3 hours, hard pushing, hands and knees at one point (I must have learned something from the midwives), and ended up with a vacuum extraction and a fractured coccyx, from a 7#14oz baby.  He had jaundice and a cephalohematoma but hey, I got my VBAC.  He today is honored to say, “I broke mom’s butt when I was born.”

Baby number 3 was an easier pregnancy although this time I added on gestational diabetes so that plus the usual spike in blood pressures brought us back to induction.  Although he was my smallest baby, 7#, he still was delivered by vacuum although my butt remained intact.  With baby number 4, I figured another VBAC was practically guaranteed so I didn’t resist the induction assuming the last birth meant smoother sailing now.  This time they decided to start the Pitocin the night before, but instead of staying at a low dose overnight, the nurse kept coming in and increasing the dosage.  I knew I wasn’t progressing because I was not in active labor, so I questioned her about the dose, reminding her that I did have a scarred uterus.  She responded that everything looked fine but she would stop until morning.  Morning arrived with the usual course of epidural, AROM and increasing Pitocin.  When it came time to push, within 20 minutes, I knew something was wrong.  Despite the epidural, I could tell he wasn’t coming down with my pushing and by the frazzled looks of everyone in the room, I knew the heart tones were dropping.  I looked at my husband and told him we needed to stop.  By the time they got down to the uterus in the OR, it became clear that if we wouldn’t have stopped, I would have had a uterine rupture.  As it was, I had what is called a uterine window, they were able to see the baby’s hair through a very thin lower uterine segment.

Finally, I made the connection between the induction and the narrow avoidance of catastrophe.   So with baby number five, I knew I did not want another induction.  Interestingly, this pregnancy was also my healthiest.  I had made a concentrated effort before becoming pregnant to address my diet and treat my vitamin deficiencies, so I had no blood sugar or blood pressure problems, kept my weight gain to 15 pounds and did not have any obstetric problems other than being an advanced maternal age grandmultipara with a history of 2 c-sections!  Knowing that I had never gone into spontaneous labor, I felt the safest route was to do a scheduled repeat C-section at 40 weeks.  I did put it into God’s hands and had been in prayer that I was open to the baby coming forth in whatever way he was supposed to…and so I went into spontaneous labor at 2 am, the morning of surgery, got to the hospital at 4:30 and was 9 cm dilated.  The staff asked me what I wanted to do and I said, “I’m going to have him!”  They also offered me an epidural (too late for that) and IV pain meds (I certainly didn’t want a narced up baby), so unmedicated it was, and he was born at 5:13 AM, a beautiful, alert 7#11oz baby boy who latched right on and has been peaceful ever since.  Not having to recover from an extensive surgery was a gift for which I continue to be amazed and grateful.

Reflecting back over my journey, I see how much the field of obstetrics has managed to contribute and sometimes outright cause complications, all the while assuming they are just keeping everyone safer.  And I see how much fear has overtaken the natural birthing process.  I’ve said before that shows like Deliver Me, A Baby Story, and Birth Day should be renamed “Fear Factor” because they play on a woman’s often natural concerns about the birth by portraying the whole process as highly dramatic, with a woman strapped down and hooked up, by a doctor gowned and gloved like an alien visitor and often highlighting very anxious family members.  Sure a woman has fear, fear that something is going to happen to her or the baby, fear of pain, fear of failure, that she just won’t be able to “do it.”  Add in snarky, cynical nurses and doctors who ridicule anyone who seems to want to be in charge of her birth (after all we’re the experts)…limited labor support or assistance in the form of doulas or labor coaches except in certain areas…restricted mobility, food and drink…and almost endless interventions and you have potential for trouble.  We have cultivated an environment that this is normal, and somehow now some women even find value in being “risky.”  My mentor, Dr. Lauren Plante, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist who had two midwife-attended home births, wrote about this in an essay entitled “Mommy, what did you do in the industrial revolution?”  Meditations on the rising cesarean rate:  “Although the inherent literal meaning of the high-risk pregnancy is one that entails a higher risk of a poor outcome (for mother or baby), the sub-text seems to be that high-risk equals high-value…is it the Disneyfication of a primal human endeavor, longing for the synthetic and dramatized in preference to the authentic?”  In other words, do we have more regard for the Main-Liner’s IVF-achieved pregnancy who has an elective c-section over the addicted mother’s unmedicated spontaneous birth?

All of the repeat C-sections and almost extinction of VBAC, have not really prevented poor outcomes as revealed by the NIH VBAC conference.  Women who have a trial of labor after a previous cesarean have a lower risk of maternal mortality compared to those who have a repeat cesarean.  Although there is a higher risk of uterine rupture with trial of labor, spontaneous labor versus induction has the lowest risk.  And there have been no reports of maternal mortality due to uterine rupture (we were constantly told…mother and baby could die with VBAC).  Repeat C-sections are also associated with an increased risk of abnormal placental position and growth in subsequent pregnancies, which also increases risk of cesarean hysterectomy.  Although there is an increased risk of perinatal mortality with trial of labor, the risk is small and not that different from a laboring woman with her first pregnancy.  Issues related to medical liability are a big concern for many practitioners, a fact that could be alleviated or helped by tort reform and hospitals assuming some malpractice costs up front.  In our local hospital, although the hospital allows VBACs, there is at least one doctor who simply doesn’t want to take any risk and personally won’t do VBACs.  This approach is unfortunate since the overall finding of the NIH conference is that trial of labor is a safe option for many women and that women should be fully informed so that they may make the best decision for them.  ACOG certainly needs to revise its mandate that anesthesia and c-section should be available immediately so that more rural hospitals can still offer VBAC to their patients without feeling they are not within standard of care.  Can you imagine if I had been in a VBAC-banned hospital and been forced to have surgery at 9 cm dilated?  Can you imagine how that would have increased my potential for morbidity and even mortality?  Should everyone have a VBAC?  No, but every woman should still have the opportunity to discuss her personal issues and whether it could be an option for her, and she should be not be forced to have surgery against her will due to a medically-unsubstantiated VBAC ban.  We should continue to make efforts to reduce medically unnecessary inductions for mom and baby’s well-being, we should attempt to humanize cesareans for moms who need to have them, we should properly evaluate and assess each VBAC individually to decrease risk, and we should place natural labor and birth back into the realm of the norm, with the interventions and surgeries reserved for the truly high-risk.

Anyway, since it’s January, I thought it would be a good time to address that ever-present January topic:  dieting.  I have decided to relegate all dieting to the ash-heap since even the very word makes me cringe.  You could say I have been around the dieting block many times in my life, and I finally feel that things may broken through on this particular obstacle in my life, so naturally I want to share it with you. 

As some of you know, I was raised on the hippie organic gardening homestead with no TV and definitely no TV dinners, sodas or junk food (except for rare birthday or vacation binges).  Probably this is when the sense of deprivation set in, because not only did I want to live in the suburbs, but of course, I would have readily traded in my whole wheat bread for the white bread bologna sandwiches in the Donny & Marie lunchboxes of my friends at school.  Sigh, the grass is always greener.  I was a normal size all the way through school, although like many women growing up in America, I thought I was fat.  Add in my odd name, odd parents, smart but not beautiful self-perception, and I had a minimal dating experience and a classically cultivated case of low self-esteem. 

In college, of course, your new-found freedom often results in choices that can be destructive whether it be through excessive alcohol consumption, poor food choices or crappy relationships, all of which I can say I whole-heartedly embraced.  It’s nice to be able to reinvent yourself, “where nobody knows your name;” it’s actually a good thing to make good grades, and you are exposed to a broad variety of people compared to the rather homogenous small town from which I came.  The freshman fifteen shortly followed although at that point, it was still shed easily enough.  Unfortunately it was the beginning of the yo-yo cycle, gain and lose a million times until your poor body finally gives up and starts really putting the breaks on easy weight loss.

In the late 90s, I discovered the low carb approach and successfully lost weight on the Atkins diet.  It made sense that sugar, bread and potatoes were the enemy and at that time, artificial sweeteners were the panacea of low-carbers and thus started a wicked diet soft drink addiction.  After all, you were skipping the sugar and calories, all must be well with the world.  During this time, I also had a love-hate relationship with exercise.  Whoever decided to replace natural activity exercise with gym memberships, aerobics classes and endless running, I think still needs to be taken out back and well, whatever.

About that time Ob/Gyn residency struck.  You have to understand that most ob/gyn residents are overachiever adrenaline junkies with bad attitudes from chronic sleep deprivation.  The problem is we are led to believe this is normal in order to be successful in a truly toxic profession.  Everything is “emergency, danger, stat section, hemorrhage” coupled with 100 hour work weeks (this was before they dropped it to a mere 80 hrs).  When you have had 2 hrs of sleep and you’re drinking your 5th Diet Coke and grabbing “crap of the day” from the cafeteria, is it any wonder that I totally derailed my physical health, burned my adrenals like there was no tomorrow, and gained more weight than ever in my life?  Now that I understand the complexity of issues I was torturing my body with, it all makes sense.  At the time, I just felt like a drained, fat failure.  However, I did manage to meet my husband and conceive a baby and breastfeed him through all this mess, but that, of course, was yet another drain on my poor hormonal system.

Having seen the toll it was taking on our family, as my husband was, wait for it, an INTENSIVE CARE fellow, we made the decision that I would stay home for the year he was finishing up before we were to move to start our “real jobs.”  I felt it was only fair to our oldest son since I had had him smack in the middle of that tortuous situation.  There was some amount of recovery during this time since I was getting more regular sleep and had at that time been turned on to Diana Schwazbein, MD, who happened to have been Suzanne Somer’s endocrinologist.  Her book, “The Schwarzbein Principle,” made the most sense of any diet book I had read at the time (and believe me, I read them all).  Her focus was that you should a variety of real, whole food in order to heal your body.  And in the midst of all this recovery, I got pregnant again.  Both of those first two pregnancies, I had flunked my first glucose tolerance test but passed the second (blood sugar reading 1 hr after the nasty, sugary glucola has to be less than 140).    I  had absorbed enough low carb knowledge to understand that this was not a good sign.

Once we moved to start our careers, we made the decision that I would not immediately go back to obstetrics since we now had two small children and he had the privilege of being the only pulmonary/critical care doctor in our area (translation: long hours/bad schedule).  We didn’t want to subject our children to both of us being gone all the time, so I set up my outpatient gynecology practice.  Not delivering babies enabled me to have more time to read and study and thus began my journey into bioidentical hormones.  From there I naturally embraced the concepts of healing and nutrition, supplements and balance rather than symptom control and disease management.

Through all this I was still having trouble with my weight and finally got fed up and joined Weight Watchers.  My grandmother had been a life-time member of WW, and me and my mom have always dabbled in it (can you say generational curse).  I was successful and lost about 30 pounds.  It did bother me that in order to achieve the “points” you were allowed, you ended up consuming a lot of Frankenfoods/diet this or diet that and that I was usually hungry, making me once again, obsessed with food.  Wow, with WW, you could work in ice cream cones and all sorts of other crap as long as you stayed in your points.  The other program, core, was supposed to be the healthy one, except that you couldn’t have any fat or protein;  flavorless and you’re still hungry.  So what happened?  Naturally, I got pregnant!  Great, I figured, I just lost the weight, this pregnancy should be a breeze.  Except that I was diagnosed, full on this time, with gestational diabetes!  I was shocked and dismayed, and although I never had to take insulin and actually had my smallest baby (7 pounds even), I could not believe the ominous implications this had for my future glucose tolerance.

During this time, I was really seeking healing from the Lord and I think if it had not been for Him, I would have given up.  After all, here I was dispensing medical advice and couldn’t seem to get any breakthrough with myself.  Fast forward through two hellacious years of stress and yup, another baby, and I was really at my wit’s end.  I just kept praying for a breakthrough, and God told me two things.  The first thing He said was “homeostasis,” which I thought was odd because I hadn’t really thought about this concept since some of my basic science days.  Homeostasis is when the body self-regulates and auto-adjusts itself to maintain the status quo, medically-speaking.  The second thing He said was, “Do what you would do for your patients.”

The first concept I had observed in my practice.  I had some patients who were obese and had medical problems and yet their weight stayed the same, year to year.  I also had observed the patients who were “doing everything right,” dieting and exercising, sometimes every day, and yet their weight stayed the same, much to their frustration.  The second concept I readily embraced.  I had been testing my hormones for awhile but this time I did everything I could get my hands on, and what do you know?  I was deficient in a lot of things, vitamins, minerals as well as still having adrenal issues.  So I started really upping my intake of vitamins/supplements according to the problems I uncovered.  It was at this time, that for the first time ever, I was able to kick my addiction to diet soda.  I wasn’t a purist, I would have one every once in awhile, but it really amazed me that I could truly be satisfied with other things, especially water.  I also noticed that my sugar cravings were really improving.  I had always been a chocoholic (although I did prefer dark chocolate) and so this was surprising.

Also about this time, on one of the low carb blogs I read, I ran across Matt Stone, a nutritional researcher and all-around sarcastic non-conformist.  Except what he was saying made sense to me and harkened me back to the words of Dr. Schwarzbein…heal your body with real food.  One of his comments on the low carb boards piqued my interest because he was making the point that rather than making carbs be the bad guy, why don’t we fix the metabolism so that it works with ANY type of food.  After all the Japanese eat prodigious amounts of carbs and are thin…at least they were until introduced to a Westernized diet.  He also was a proponent of the High Everything Diet (aka HED).  His thesis was in order to heal the metabolism you actually needed to eat a high calorie, high fat diet (natural fats, not the crap fake hydrogenated fats made by man), dumping sugar, but especially fructose, which he and other researchers were beginning to see was actually inducing insulin resistance, Type II diabetes, and obesity.  I also believe this is a key to the “homeostasis” theory:  without real whole food, basic hormonal balance, adrenal health, vitamin/nutrient sufficiency, and thyroid support, the body is literally in stasis and won’t budge until these areas are addressed.  Ignore every person who tells you, “Eat less and exercise more.”

Also about this time, my husband and I started a series on a talk show through our church called the Bible Medicine series.  The idea is that you use Biblically-based concepts for approaching medical conditions and ailments.  When you look at the diet of the Bible, of course, there was nothing else but whole, natural foods.  Then man got involved and started creating foods chemically, start mass-producing food using tons of pesticides, fertilizers and genetically modified plants.  Yes, God created sugar cane but the process of turning it into the refined, addictive white powder was a “man-plan.”  God created corn but it took man to turn it into high fructose corn syrup, which may be one of the single most metabolically destructive products on the market today.  In addition, you cannot ignore spiritual or emotional factors that can lead to overeating or other eating disorders.  I had to pursue my healing for those feelings of rejection and inadequacy that had plagued me for much of my life.  Some people have been physically or sexually abused which is a root cause for their eating issues.  Sometimes comments by friends or families can trigger significant psychological barriers.  Maybe you had a terrible trauma happen in your life and eating problems followed suit.  I know that nutrition can only get you so far.  I don’t believe you can divide the mind, soul, body or spirit and with any medical problem, you must seek healing on all these levels.  Rejection, fear of man, fear of failure, fear of abandonment, trauma, abuse, all can fuel addictive behavior and impede physical health and wellness.  Pursue inner healing so that your physical person can follow suit.

So what did I do?  I pursued my complete healing, and gave my body what it needed to function according to the way it was created.  The “homeostasis” concept was that if you did not give your body what it needed in terms of whole, natural food and treatment of deficiencies or beat it like a dead horse with excessive exercise, it would not work to do what you wanted it to do, it would only do what it could to “maintain” and survive.  The diet part?  I started eating more, more food in its natural, whole form, especially a lot of natural fats like butter and coconut oil.  I dumped sugar, hydrogenated fats, anything artificial that I knew Jesus wasn’t eating…and I embraced that food was my friend, not my enemy.  And once I did that, the pressure was immediately off.  I didn’t think about food all the time, I enjoyed my food when I had it, I was not constantly scrounging around for a snack because I was satisfied with my food.  I have embraced the slow food, local food, support of small farmers movement because I think that is how we are intended to eat.  We had a garden this year, the hen-house is built, we know enough farmers to buy grass-fed beef in bulk.  We are the process of de-sugarizing the house and gently letting the kids know that sweets are to be rare, rather than regular.  And with 8 weeks to go in this pregnancy, I have only gained 9 pounds, rather than my usual 30 (while eating all the time), and my 1 hr post-prandial blood sugar this time was an incredible 87!  I am not some bastion of willpower, but rather I finally started giving my body what it needed the whole time, and the results are truly rewarding.  I know that when the baby comes, I will focus on nourshing myself so my baby has the best breastmilk he can have, and not worry about some crazy crash diet or ridiculous exercise program to lose weight.  So maybe you will join me in dumping dieting, and pursue your complete wholeness and wellness for 2010.

For help in these areas:  I recommend Matt Stone’s website and blog, www.180degreehealth.com, www.180degreehealth.blogspot.com, as well as www.schwarzbeinprinciple.com, www.westonaprice.org, www.jordanrubin.com

For Christian counseling/understanding spiritual roots of disease:  “The Bondage Breaker” by Neil Anderson, “A More Excellent Way” by Henry Wright

1.  Hormones are all the same. – I love this one!  Especially since we bend over backwards to differentiate between things like Human insulin and Bovine insulin.  No, I’m sorry, synthetic hormones are not the same as bio-identical ones (the same chemical structure as in the human body), although the naysayers want to quibble about the term “bio-identical”.  They want to do that because everyone knows what “synthetic” means and if given a choice, most would choose a therapy that is NOT synthetic.  Now, that doesn’t mean it is not manufactured.  No, you cannot rub a yam on your arm and get hormones.  Hormones must be extracted in a lab, even the bio-identical ones.  But this process does not warrant the conspiracy theory that “bio-identical” is not an accurate term.  The fact is, Big Pharma/ACOG/NAMS are all scared of this term so they figure if they throw up a big hand-waving smoke screen about the name, people will start to doubt its value.  Too late people, the cat is out of the bag!  A hormone fits in a receptor and that receptor responds to a hormone that it recognizes better than one that it doesn’t.  My favorite example:  synthetic progestins (most commonly Provera, medroxy progesterone acetate) while they may stop bleeding, and “stabilize the endometrium,” that’s where any similarity ends.  Progestins make people feel bad, moody, anxious, etc.  Natural progesterone is the “mood-stabilizer” hormone.  Progestins are pregnancy category X (causes birth defects), while natural progesterone is a PRO-GESTATION agent, without which a normal pregnancy cannot progress.  And jumping ahead to Number 2:  BIG LIE that came out of WHI:  these results should be applied to natural hormones, to the extent that the FDA actually put the same risks identified for Prempro (heart attack, blood clot, stroke, breast cancer) on Prometrium, micronized bioidentical progesterone.  INSANE!

2.  All hormones have the same risks:  Uh, yeah, how many times do we have to say this?  Natural progesterone has no pro-clotting properties.  Oral estrogens and some types of synthetic progestins can cause very serious clotting problems.  Oral estrogens (even bioidentical estrogen) have to be metabolized by the liver, which is where clotting and inflammatory factors are made.   Numerous journal articles back this up, but it is physiology not rocket science.  Since transdermal estrogen bypasses the liver, there is no increased clotting risk.  Don’t believe me?  Read the ESTHER trial.  This study (which naturally was not conducted in the US) followed women who had a VTE (venous thromboembolism/blood clot), for the types of subsequent HRT they took.  Those women who took transdermal estrogen (in this study, patches) and/or bio-identical progesterone did not have an increased risk of subsequent VTE. 

3.  Transdermal hormones are not absorbed well.  I don’t really get this one either.  Apparently the people saying this don’t understand physiology very well.  Oral administration of hormones requires that the hormones make it through the GI tract and are metabolized by the liver (first pass effect) which is why the doses have to be so much higher.  Transdermal absorption is much better (think low dose hydrocortisone cream) and bypasses the liver, which is helpful for those with elevated liver enzymes, high risk for clotting because of smoking, obesity or family history, those with GI problems like gastric bypass, malabsorption, chronic bowel problems.  For some reason, most people have no trouble accepting excellent transdermal absorption of estrogen, but they don’t think progesterone creams are absorbed well.  Wrong!  It has been wonderful to see just how low dose we can get hormones and still get a clinical effect, just by utilizing the proper routes of administration.  Doctors have routinely used vaginal progesterone to support early pregnancies because it is quickly absorbed into the uterus.

4.  Bio-identical hormones are very expensive (only Suzanne Somers can afford them).  Many insurances do pay for hormones if you have a compounding pharmacy which files with insurance for compounded preparations.  They’ve been paying for compounded vaginal progesterone suppositories in early pregnancy for a long time (and these are way cheaper compounded than the retail products).  If your insurance does not cover compounds, the average monthly price with the pharmacies I use is around $40-$45, which usually is for multiple hormones.  Not bad for hormone balance!

5.  Patients do not require customized hormone therapy.  The American College of OB/GYN wants to make it very clear to you.  WOMEN DO NOT REQUIRE CUSTOMIZED HORMONE THERAPY.  Do you hear that!?!   Women are all the same, the only distinction you need to make is, do you have a uterus or not?  Beyond that, listen you women, THERE IS NO NEED TO “INDIVIDUALIZE, TAYLOR OR CUSTOMIZE” THERAPY!  See, the modern approach to hormone therapy is based upon guessing, mono-therapy if you’ve had a hysterectomy because “all you need is estrogen,” synthetic progestins if you have a uterus, no options for testosterone, and no attention paid to your diet, your supplements, your metabolic status, your thyroid and adrenal function, etc.  And that’s the way ACOG intends it to stay, no matter how many women Suzanne Somers tries to convince to demand otherwise.

6.  Compounded hormones are not effective.  Yes, which is why women drive sometimes more than 2-3 hours to find someone who will prescribe them.  If they didn’t work, this whole thing would have fizzled on its own by now.  The FDA tried to discredit compounders by stating that certain batches of hormones at some pharmacies were not potent.  My advice is to only use a compounding pharmacy who is a member of the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists (who oversee and randomly test products for potency) and the Professional Compounding Centers of America (which supply rigorously tested high potency ingredients for compounds).

7.  There is no scientific evidence to support their use.  As one “expert,” stated, bioidenticals are “data-free.”  Which is false.  First of all, there are lots of journal articles about bioidentical estrogen patches/gel/spray and bioidentical micronized progesterone which are available through retail pharmacies; see this wonderful review for literature support of bioidenticals.   As for compounds, the data is limited but promising, see here and here.  Clinically speaking, compounds have completely transformed my practice in terms of the positive impact they have made on my patients’ lives. 

8.  They are not FDA-approved.  We’ve established that even if you don’t want to use compounds, there are still plenty of FDA-approved bio-identical products currently on the market:  Climara estrogen patch, Vivelle Dot estrogen patch (one of my favorites), Evamist estrogen spray, Estrogel, Estrasorb, Prometrium (oral natural progesterone), Crinone (natural vaginal progesterone gel), oral estradiol (I avoid oral estrogen if I can, even bioidentical), Androgel (natural testosterone, for men only).  However, compounds cannot be FDA approved because they are individually prepared for each patient.  But the INGREDIENTS that are used in compounds are FDA approved because they have what is called a USP (United States Pharmacopia) monograph.  That means they are registered as able to be prescribed by doctors and taken by patients.  The whole FDA push to make the weak naturally occuring estrogen estriol a big bad hormone target, was simply to try to strengthen their attack on compounding pharmacies which in turn was only done as an orchestrated attack by then-pharmaceutical giant Wyeth in response to their plummeting Premarin/Prempro sales in the wake of WHI.  And don’t forget how Wyeth paid money to Wulf Utian, the head of the North American Menopause Society, which then put out their recommendations to continue using synthetics for ob/gyns to follow (like lemmings over the cliff).  I’ve got a whole blog brewing on Dr. Utian and how he’s in bed with the pharmaceutical industry.  He’s since dropped his affiliation with Wyeth/Pfizer like a hot potato but it doesn’t take much research into his past to find it.

9.  Saliva testing to determine what a patient needs hormonally is not valid or reliable.  Yes, we know this is the mantra of mainstream Ob/Gyn.  But the real point in all this is how they do not care about the science.   Actually, if you listen closely, you will hear them say things like, “It’s not reliable due to time of cycle, time of day, what you ate, etc., etc.”  All true, hormone levels are influenced by these factors, which is why, in a cycling woman, hormones are tested on Day 20, fasting first thing in the morning.  A post-menopausal woman doesn’t have the same fluctuations as a pre-menopausal woman, so she can test anytime, as long as it is morning and fasting.  Serum hormone testing measures bound (to protein carriers and thus inactive) and unbound hormones (free or active).  Bound hormones cannot pass through cell membranes into saliva like small free hormones can, thus saliva is reflective of the free or active level of hormones in the body.  When a woman is using transdermal hormones, the hormones quickly exit the bloodstream and are deposited into target tissues.  Thus they are not accurately measurable in serum, but are detectable in saliva.  Saliva can be more problematic in a woman with irregular cycles.  However, we are testing women using a standardized process, the ranges of normal are based on averages of women with no hormonal symptoms and regular cycles, and it is a tool that is used in conjunction with clinical assessment.  Saliva testing is not perfect, but when it is used as an adjunctive tool, it is certainly superior to guessing.  And in the post-menopausal woman, it is very reliable.  It is interesting that Dr. David Zava, the founder of ZRT labs, tried to present his data to Dr. Leon Speroff, well-known leader in the OB/GYN world, author of the hormone bible “Clinical Gynecologic Endocrinology and Infertility,” and out-spoken defender of synthetic hormones (as well as recepient of Big Pharma dollars).  Dr. Speroff, who up to then had been quite friendly, simply did not want to hear any of the scientific evidence.  Why?  Well, because, it would change everything.  See, it’s easier for these guys to say, “Oh, that doesn’t work,” rather than to actually find out if it does.  They have no incentive and they have a lot of power so if they say it doesn’t work, then all the other people under them (the lemmings), will just parrot what they said.  You know, if Drs. Speroff and Utian said it, it must be true.  Except maybe people should question their patently obvious financial conflicts of interest.

10.  Bioidenticals are really just on the fringe of medicine and can be ignored.  We have Oprah, Dr. Phil, and Suzanne Somers to thank for blowing this myth to bits.  As much as Big Pharma/FDA/NAMS/ACOG wish the “bioidentical” problem would just die off and go away, they KNOW it is not.  Demand is higher than ever (it’s not just my phone is ringing off the hook for women seeking this therapy).  Add in organizations like Women in Balance, BodyLogicMD and excellent well-trained docs like Erika Schwartz, Christine Northrup, David Brownstein, Kent Holtorf, Kenna Stephenson, Rebecca Glaser, and many more who have been helping women hormonally, and you begin to see that bioidenticals have become an established presence in medicine, and much to many women’s relief, is not going away any time soon.