I have never been much of a hero-worshipper or follower. I suppose I have my mother to thank for that. When I was eleven or twelve I found myself in a classroom with some cool girls. The problem being that everyone, including these two girls themselves, thought they were cool. Everyone, except me. One of the girls’ followers really blew my eleven year old mind with her fawning over the two cool girls during recess. You would have thought they played a really great game of jacks, had discovered the cure for cancer, all while walking on water. I remember being embarrassed for the fawning followers. I was at once stunned, amused and perplexed. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what was so great about these two girls so I asked my mother about it. Mom gave me the best and worst advice of my life. “Diann”, she said, “those other girls who are following Kathy and Liz around are followers; they’re sheep. You don’t want to be a sheep.” It was the best advice in the world in that it freed me up not to follow others mindlessly. It was the worst advice in the world because at times it can be awfully lonely when you are not a sheep. Sheep in a flock seem to be content even if they do run in a new direction every time a chill wind blows.
Before my weight loss journey I had read a number of books, each touting the diet plan that would work wonders and provide the magic bullet that would put an end to my time of obesity. I dismissed some plans as not being sound nutritionally but there were three authors I admired whose plans and science made sense to me. I’m not sure why, but
it seems to baffle men that we women can be absolutely convinced that a method or course of action will work and yet we fail to follow that course of action. They don’t understand that. I couldn’t explain it myself until I realized one day that we women, despite our power suits, smarts and power perfumes are really creatures of the heart. That is not to say that our brains can’t master anything the male brain grasps, that is to say that when a woman has given her heart, be it to another person, a company, an ideal, even a country, she will move heaven and earth to achieve what her heart tells her to do. When you possess a woman’s heart, you have harnessed the ability to move mountains, including those she has created on her own. We can know that an eating plan is nutritionally sound but it is not until our heart is involved that the mountains in our lives can be moved. What moves a woman’s heart is different from one woman to the next for therein lies both our complexity and mystique.
My heart had been broken open to a newfound desire so I reached for books by three authors who I had come to respect without actually following. I’ll elaborate on each author separately in depth in future postings but for now allow me to give a brief overview of their
highpoints in my eyes. The three books I used as a foundation for formulating my eating plan were Eat Right For Your Blood Type (D’Adamo), The Perricone Perscription (Perricone) and The Fat Flush Plan (Gittleman).
Dr. Nicholas Perricone had first grabbed my attention when I saw him on PBS discussing the dangers inflammation posed to the body and how inflammation plays a key role in the aging process. Now, I’m sure Dr. Perricone probably mentioned other diseases that inflammation can cause or trigger but all I heard was, “Blah, blah, blah –AGING. Blah, blah, blah – AGING.” That’s where my focus was at the time so I promptly went out and bought his book The Anti-Aging Diet and thus began my education on the dangers of inflammation. In learning about inflammation through this book and others by the good
doctor (The Perricone Perscription, The Perricone Proimise) I also learned that there are foods that can be considered inflammatory and foods that are likewise considered anti-inflammatory. [A stark, basic rule of thumb is that starches and sugars equal inflammation which equals aging which equals death. That is my ever so tactful summation of the good doctor’s far more eloquent admonitions about the topic.] The consumption of these foods either triggers a good (anti-inflammatory) response or a deadly (inflammatory) response in your. (I’ll post a separate entry with a list of those foods and the diseases inflammation can cause later.) What I took away from the
Perricone books was that women in America eat far too many foods that increase the
sugar in their blood system. Increased blood sugar means increased insulin and increased insulin levels tell the body to store fat rather than use it as a fuel source. According to Perricone, American women also don’t eat enough quality protein like wild caught salmon and that when we sit down to eat a meal we should always eat our protein first to avoid triggering a glycemic response that will increase your insulin and signal your body to store
fat. A nice bowl of cereal with sliced banana will send your blood sugar level through the roof and the milk you pour over that cereal will trigger an inflammatory response in your cells. The breakfast of champions is little more than death in a bowl.
Through Perricone’s books I also learned about supplements such as Alpha Lipoic Acid, CoQ10, L-Carnitine, Acetyl L-Carnitine, OPCs and GLA. (A list of the supplements I took on my weight loss journey will also be listed in a separate entry.) The one issue I didn’t
agree with Perricone on was the issue of red meat. Dr. Perricone always suggested we limit our intake of red meat. Because of my belief in my second hero, I actually increased my intake of lean beef and, I believe my weight dropped dramatically as a result.
My sister introduced me to a book by Peter D’Adamo titled Eat Right For Your Blood Type and that book has had the most profound impact on me. I used it as the foundational mainstay for my hybrid meal plan. It’s interesting to me that in the Old Testament God tells the children of Israel not to eat any meat that still has its lifeblood in it. Blood is life. (We Pentecostals frequently sing about the power in the blood of Christ so the notion that blood is life and plays a key role in our health has never been a stretch for me.) I was stunned to read that the AB blood type has only been on the face of the earth for the last nine hundred to one thousand years. When you consider all the years that mankind has walked the face of this planet, the late arrival of AB is amazing to consider. D’ Adamo wrote that, according to anthropologists, the first blood type was Type O. At one point all humans had only one blood type back when we were hunters and gatherers. As mankind progressed in development new blood types came along. Type A was later followed by B, then AB. That explains why Type Os are the universal donors since we came first in the history of man and likewise why ABs can receive the blood types that preceded it in man’s development. D’ Adamo puts forth that, depending upon your blood type, foods fall into one of three categories: foods that are seen simply as fuel by your body, foods so good for your blood type that your body almost regards them as medicinal in their invigorating nature and foods so bad for your blood type they must be avoided at all costs because they lead to disease and weight gain since your body views them as toxins and reacts accordingly.
As a blood Type O, I took great interest in the fact that beef was listed as beneficial for my type while wheat and potatoes were listed as not beneficial. When I was a teenager, the adage was for women and girls to watch their starches and not over indulge in pasta, bread, corn or potatoes in order to keep their weight down. Suddenly, while I was in college, pasta was crowned king by the government and the media. If pasta was king, bread, corn and potatoes were the queen, crown prince and princess in this court from hell. The food pyramid was everywhere but in the realm of truth and reality. “Hey girls, pasta is your friend,” women’s magazines purred, “It’s not the potato that’s bad, it’s what you put on top of the potato that’s bad.” My personal favorite? “All things in moderation.” [May I digress here for a minute? Girlfriend, the only person who says that and believes that has either never had problems with her weight, is in denial about her weight or is on the road to regaining the pounds she lost and doesn’t know it yet. There are simply some foods that can’t or shouldn’t be eaten in moderation. Forget all things in moderation and begin to use the word rarely and don’t be afraid to use the word never. There is something incredibly empowering about using the word “never”. Foods that you never eat either have power over you or you have power over them. At one point in my life I never ate asparagus. It was green and it was a vegetable; ‘nuff said. Now, having learned that it is thermogenic, which means it burns almost as many calories to consume it as it
contains, I eat it all the time. On the other hand, I rarely eat corn and I never eat cereal.]
Ever since I was a kid, I noticed that whenever I felt my energy fading, if I ate steak or hamburger I would bounce back immediately. When I heard friends or coworkers talk about how hard beef was to digest, I’d shrug that off. I loved beef, I felt great after eating beef and I never had a problem digesting it. Now I know why. According to D’ Adamo,
Type Os have enough stomach acid to digest beef without any problems and it is one of our power foods along with buffalo, kale, plums and broccoli to name a few. While on my weight loss journey I rarely or never ate foods listed on the avoid list. Most of the starchy and simple carbohydrates were on that list. The exception for Blood Type Os is rice; it is considered neutral. However, from Dr. Perricone’s writings I know to limit my use of rice and have no more than one half cup at a meal in order to keep my blood sugar from spiking.
The third book I looked to in formulating my eating plan was Louis Gittleman’s Fat Flush Plan. The message I took from her book was that we need to take care of my liver like it was a late model Porche. The liver can actually heal itself and get back to doing its job in helping cleanse our bodies of toxins and burn fats if we take care of it. Our lymphatic system also plays a key role in helping us metabolize and process fats. Take care of your liver and lymphatic system and they will take care of you. Gittleman suggests drinking cranberry water (4 oz of unsweetened cranberry juice mixed with 32 oz of water) throughout the day to cleanse accumulated wastes from your lymph system. Supplements I learned about through Ms. Gittleman in addition to the cranberry water include CLA, GLA (as a Blood Type O, I get mine through black currant seed oil) and lipotropic herbs such as turmeric and milk thistle which help support and regenerate the liver. CLA
(conjugated linoleic acid) helps convert fat to lean muscle tissue and helps your body promote the use of body fat as energy. GLA (gamma-linolenic acid) oils can mobilize brown fat, boost energy and trigger fat burning as opposed to fat storage. An added bonus? GLA also helps prevent slackened skin due to weight loss. Gittleman’s book also
introduced me to Stevia, a plant based sweetener sweeter than sugar that does not play havoc with your glycemic level. Gittleman suggested the use of lemon water as a natural diuretic on those days when you’ve had too much salt. The juice of one whole lemon in a glass of water, iced or hot, with a packet of Stevia as a sweetener and you are good to go.
One of the greatest tips I took from Gittleman was dry brushing my skin to help cleanse and stimulate the lymph system. To dry brush, take either a soft brush or loofah and start to brush your skin in quick brush strokes towards your heart from your toes up your legs, up your torso to your bra line. Next, brush up your hands and arms to your shoulders. Your arms in particular have several lymph system sites. I am convinced that I do not have any flaps or folds of skin to contend with, even after losing 162 pounds in less than twelve months, due largely in part to my daily ritual of dry brushing first thing in the morning. (Always moisturize afterwards.)
As mentioned earlier, I will go through these authors key points in more depth in future postings.