I learned about coconut oil and its amazing benefits 5 years ago but have had trouble supplementing with it daily. I hate the taste of it. Previously I have tried taking it frozen, mixing it in foods, and in orange juice, smoothies and making low carb chocolate. Any way I tried it, I hated it.

But in this simple recipe the coconut oil tastes AWESOME!

Coconut Oil Milk

0.5 cup of warm milk or (cream and water)
2 heaping teaspoons of Coconut Oil
1 teaspoon of Vanilla

Stir and enjoy!

Tweet This Post

For the past nine days I have been taking Coconut Oil on a daily basis. The dosage I have been taking is 2-3 heaping teaspoons. I have gained a few pounds from doing this! Yikers! I will continue taking it to see if this is just my initial reaction to it and see if there will be any other changes. Coconut Oil is just too healthy and after trying for a long time to find a tasty way of supplementing it into my diet, I have finally found a way that could eat it every day!

I am also experiencing a mild Candida die off. My tummy has been sensitive for the past 4-5 days. I am glad that it is not as severe as when I initially started the Atkins Low Carb diet. The first Candida die off lasted about a week and a half and I could not leave the house or eat anything because the food would just go right through me.

My weight now is 120 – 122lbs. It was 117lbs a few weeks ago. Maybe I should just throw out my scale.  My goal is just to get rid of belly fat. But instead of losing weight I have stalled and gained.

Exercise Update…

I have not been good this past week. My youngest daughter is sick with a nasty fever and cough and I have not gone running outside. It has been cold here but the sun has been shining and I have been itching to just go running. Since my schedule has been a bit off I have not done my regular Unstoppable Fat Loss Workouts either.

I have no idea if I will be able to reach my goal to lose my belly fat by April 25. There is only two short months left to go.

One thing that I love is blogging about my weight! It holds me accountable and keeps me on track so I can reach my goals. I may also start a food log and log my daily food intake. This is highly recommended by lots of “experts” but I have always found it tedious. I may have to control my meal portion sizes (Gasp!) and write down what I eat.

After listening to yesterday’s livin lavida low carb podcast about sleep, my intentions were to go to bed by ten pm.  Well that did not happen (laundry was calling me!), but I did lower the lights and took some Valerian Root. I had no trouble falling asleep and I slept deeply. Tonight I will again aim to go to bed by ten and do the same thing, lower the lights and take Valerian Root. Hopefully I will be able to wean off Valerian and adjust to this routine.

Sleeping better will reduce my dependence on caffeine which can release an insulin response and inhibit low carb fat loss. And of course if I reduce my caffeine I will have to replace it with water therefore increasing my over all water intake.

Break through the stall steps:

1.    Log food
2.    Log beverages
3.    Sleep – get to bed by ten pm.
4.    Keep taking coconut oil

The focus: Get healthy, get fit, and get lean!

Tweet This Post

Getting more sleep has been a challenge for me. I have made no changes to my sleeping habits even though I really had wanted to sleep better. I have finally found my motivator to getting to bed early!

I listened to Jimmy Moore’s Livin Lavida Low Carb Show on sleep with author T.S. Wiley. She is the Author of Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival. She explains the importance of sleep and how it relates to the function of our bodies and hormones. The bright house lights, computers and televisions that emit so much light can disrupt our hormones. This is the cause of many sleep issues. Cortisol (the stress hormone) increases and Melatonin (the sleep and repair hormone) decrease when our cells are exposed to light. Melatonin is important to our health because it is a powerful antioxidant and we want our levels high.

Right now we are in the dead of winter and it gets dark pretty early (around 5:30pm). T.S. Wiley does mention that we have to follow nature’s rhythm and go into hibernation. Every cell in our body is light sensitive and artificial light in the winter deceives our cells into thinking that it is summer all the time. Animals are more active and store up fat for hibernation in the summer time.  Our bodies are meant to do the same thing, but are in “summer mode” all year long thanks to our bright technology.

Can we really lose fat by lowering our lights and hibernating through the winter?

I think this is the primary reason that I can’t lose the last stubborn 10 pounds.

She also talks about how sleep affects our cravings for carbs and sugars.

It is a very interesting interview that I think everyone would enjoy listening to it.

I never knew how important sleep and sleep cycles are. I will lower my lights and see how this affects my sleep. Good quality sleep affects our mental clarity, physical energy, immune and hormonal health. Insulin
release would be lowered and then I can finally see some fat loss results.

I will keep updating my progress.

Listen to the interview and let me know what you think.

To your health and wellness,

Tweet This Post

The economy is in a recession and people are eating even more fast food than in the past! A lot more because McDonalds, KFC and other fast food chains are seeing some massive growth in their sales revenue. I guess what is happening is that restaurant diners are seeking out cheaper prices and finding them at fast food joints.  I guess I don’t have to tell you that this is very unhealthy. Those fries, the jumbo sodas and burgers loaded with sugary ketchup and processed bleached bread are nutritionally bankrupt and spike insulin through the roof.

Is the home cooked meal lost to fast food? In this world of convenience is king, nutrition has obviously gone by the way side.

So how do we get those healthy home cooked meals back?

The day we hit our own health rock bottom. This may be different for everyone, but for me it was the day that I could not suffer any more Candida Albicans symptoms. For someone else it may be a sick child or a cancer diagnosis. But others may still ignore the symptoms that their body is telling them and continue eating fast food.

Cooking from scratch does take time. You do end up with a messy kitchen, there are dishes to clean up instead of throwing them in the trash. Meal planning is something that is recommended and it all takes effort! Your kids may whine and complain that they don’t like your hard cooked meal (mine sometimes roll on the floor kicking and screaming when the mood strikes them – I happen to object to putting artificial flavours and tasty toxins in my home cooking) but in the end it is all worth it.

When I first moved out into farm country there were two restaurants that we could eat at in town. Most of their menu I would say was unhealthy so we hardly ate out. I had to learn to cook. It was very painful. This was also a time when I was going from a vegan processed food diet to a natural meat eating diet. Never in my life had I cooked meat. I did not even like looking at it, let alone touch it, cook it and make it taste good. My poor family was eating dinner at 8pm because I was so unorganized. I was spending hours cooking and preparing. Clean up took a full hour as well and most days it was eleven o’clock before the kitchen lights went out.

I did end up getting better over time.

Working in a kitchen does not have to be complicated, but you do have to have a system. Here are six tips on making the dinner preparation experience a bit easier:

1. Get some awesome free recipes from www.allrecipes.com and set up a recipe box (you can make up shopping lists there too)
2. Know ahead of time what you are going to cook the next day and take it out of the freezer
3. Fill sink up with soapy water, and put dirty dishes and keep counters clear. Once soaked they can easily be put in the dishwasher or hand washed.
4. Prepare meats first (they take the longest to cook) and then veggies and salad (for some reason this was a big light bulb moment for me – It’s all about organizing time).
5. After dinner, have everyone help at clearing the table. My eldest daughter even enjoys wiping down the table and vacuuming under it.
6. While cleaning up think about next day’s dinner.

Save your hard earned money and pass by the fast food joints! Organization and a good list of recipes is the key for your kitchen success. Teach your kids the value of good home cooking. There is a price to pay for convenience food. The true cost is in health care, lost work time due to doctors visits, hospital stays, prescriptions, and disability.

To your health and wellness,

Tweet This Post

President Obama was in Ottawa, Canada yesterday (Feb 18). No one expected much interaction with the public. And most people were just happy to see his car or catch a quick glimpse of him.

After his meeting with Prime Minister Harper, President Obama did make an unexpected stop. He visited a French bakery to get some treats for his two daughters. He bought some Canadian Maple Leaf cookies and a deep fried pastry. It was later reported that those same baked goods sold out in record time later that day and they were selling like crazy today. The cookies were affectionately renamed the “Obama Cookies”

Adults love to treat their own kids and other peoples kids to sweet things. When visiting the bank, my daughters get offered cookies or muffins. Their Grandparents love “spoiling” kids with sweet indulgences. And most parents like to give their kids cookies like we see with President Obama.

In the summer I was at the health club. Dance classes had just finished because there were little ballerinas all around me. I saw a mother offer her little four year old daughter a brightly coloured frosty slushy. The daughter had not even asked for it, and yet it was given to her. I have no idea why there would be a slushy and vending machines at a health club??? But obviosly they are making money off of them.

As you can see with the actions of President Obama… He bought cookies and deep fried pastry and then many others followed until they sold out.

Adults are pushing sugar at their kids. And when they do that they are pushing long term degenerative diseases at them. This sets up a dangerous belief in kids that sugar is not harmful and that if the people that they trust are handing it to them then it is okay. But obesity and weight problems start in childhood.

Sugar is evil! It is harmful! It causes inflammation. Inflammation is the root cause to many painful diseases.

Kids don’t need adults giving them sugar. Let’s become good role models for our kids and set up good healthy habits in childhood.

Just as the President set an example and the people followed. We as parents have to set an example so our children can follow.

To your health and wellness,

Tweet This Post

A new Canadian Medical Association Journal Editorial says that the weight loss industry should be regulated. This would affect all those diet pills, herbal supplements, programs on the market as well as weight loss nutrition clinics. Since one out of three Canadians are overweight and one out of five are medically obese there are bound to be some unscrupulous products and programs.

Should the government really be getting involved in regulating this kind of business? To tell you the truth, I am not sure. It is the government who imposed the Canadian Food Guide which promotes the low fat, high carb approach, as well as the use of vegetable oils which oxidise and go rancid and create an omega 6:3 imbalance.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal editorial claims that it would educate and regulate health and weight loss professionals on diet advice based on scientific study.

The Low Carb diet does have solid science behind it. And it is proven to be healthier. So why are governments not promoting it as the diet of choice?

This Study that was published by the New England Journal of Medicine in July 2008. In this study the low carb dieters lost more weight and they had better reductions in total cholesterol/ HDL ratio and had greater triglyceride decreases than the Mediterranean dieters and the low fat dieters.

There is also this Stanford University Study that I had written about previously  were the Atkins diet followers beat out all the other diets in better cholesterol, blood pressure, triglycerides and of course fat loss.

So here is my opinion on regulating the weight loss industry…. The government should first start with following scientific research when dishing out their own diet advice! Knowledge is the first step to personal empowerment and healthy choices. There are so many people who think that the Atkins and Low Carb diets are unsafe and unhealthy when clearly this is not the case.

Rather than regulating weight loss products it would be awesome for the government regulators to go after the cause of weight gain! They should ban all the nasty food ingredients that contribute to food addiction and obesity such as MSG, High Fructose Corn Syrup, artificial flavours, artificial sweeteners, food preservatives and setting limits on sugars as well as making schools sugar free.

Governments are going after trans-fats and have banned them in restaurant food and grocery shelf food products all in the name for heart disease prevention… why not do the same for obesity and health.

Weight loss would not be a multi-billion industry if it wasn’t such a huge epidemic.

Diet and exercise… Can it really be that simple?

We are all responsible for our own health.

Tweet This Post

There is a misconception that people on a low carbohydrate diet must all be constipated and in much need of the highly acclaimed fiber. While it is true that most people will notice a difference in their bowel movements as they switch their diets to a healthier one, but is this change really bad?

Good Calories, Bad Calories written by Gary Taubes is a real eye opening book. He has a whole chapter dedicated to the science of fiber. In his book he dissects the studies that that are supposed to prove that the lack of fiber in diet leads to colon cancer and heart disease. He found that these studies did not prove that dietary fiber prevented colon cancer and heart disease.

If you go shopping at any old grocery store you will see fiber pills, fiber cereals, enriched fiber breads on the market. At the pharmacy you can find “colon detox” therapies, and colon flushes and cleanses, enimas. You can also find specialists who perform colon hydrotherapies. All of these products are manufactured for one purpose – just to get out our digested food.

There sure is a great market for this.

Grains, beans, legumes, fruit are all high in fiber and endorsed as a healthy. But they do cause digestive issues. In my personal experience I know that my bloating and gas has disappeared by removing these foods from my diet.

When I was pregnant my bowels slowed down quite a bit. I was expecting it because in literature I had read that it was normal to allow for extra absorption for vitamins and minerals. I had no discomfort, no pain and no extra gas. Everything was fine and my babies did not seem affected by this “toxic” excrement being held hostage by my body for longer time than normal.

Dr. Barry Groves writes

“Tests into the supposed benefits of dietary fibre soon showed that there could be other harmful side effects. All the nutrients in food are absorbed through the gut wall and this takes time. Fibre, by speeding food through the gut faster so that less nutrients are absorbed, inhibits the absorption of iron, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, energy, proteins, fats and vitamins A, D, E and K. This happens with all types of fibre although with a normal Western-style, nutrient-rich diet, the loss caused by vegetable fibre intake is unimportant. More importantly, phytate found in cereal fibre (bran) also binds with calcium, iron and zinc making them indigestible, which in turn causes malabsorption. One study, for example, showed that subjects absorbed more iron from white bread than from wholemeal bread even though their intakes of iron were fifty percent higher with the wholemeal bread. Bran has also been shown to cause faecal losses of calcium, iron, zinc, phosphorus, nitrogen, fats, fatty acids and sterols, thus depleting the body of these materials.”

Speeding up food transit time from the time it enters your mouth to the time it is expelled is not necessarily good. There is a benefit to slow digestion.

Here is a good explanation of what fiber does to the GI Tract..

Fiber scrapes and bangs up the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, causing the cells to rupture and release mucous for lubrication. Fiber actually injures the cells and the mucous is produced during cell repair. The cells get bombarded every time fiber foods get injested (3 or more times a day!). Scientists are not sure how long these cells survive but because of constant injury they don’t believe it to be very long. They are then replaced by new cells when the damaged ones die-off.

I have always thought that damaged cells are bad… and healthy cells are good…

What do you think? What are your thoughts on fiber?

To your health and wellness,

Tweet This Post

Including Coconut Oil in your Low Carb diet may be the way to lose those last stubborn pounds. I do have coconut oil in my cupboards and use it on occasion. I dislike the taste of it in my cooking unless it is a curry or coconut bread. For instance I would not like coconut oil in my eggs because it will give my eggs a coconut taste. However I do know the benefits of Coconut Oil and will be taking it daily to help me lose my last 10 lbs. Here are some great reasons why everyone could benefit from coconut oil:

Dr. Weston A. Price was a dentist who wanted to find out why Americans had such poor dental health. He travelled to many nations to study diet all over the world. He found that the populations that ate coconut oil were the slimmest even though they ate a more fats then western diets.

Coconut oil contains lauric acid which is also found in breast milk and known to be antimicrobial, antiviral, and antifungal. Coconut oil is 50% lauric acid.

Coconut oil is thermogenic and will raise body temperature and speed up metabolism. It will also help with thyroid function.

It will also benefit the heart. Studies have shown that it can prevent heart disease. Saturated fats get lumped together as being bad for the heart but that is not true and coconut oil has been shown not to cause heart disease. It is hydrogenated oils and oxidized vegetable oils that are very bad for heart health. Coconut oil is also has the most saturated fat of all edible oils (90%).

Coconut oil is comprised of such fatty acids as caprylic, capric, stearic, oleic and lauric acids. These oils are metabolized directly by the liver and used as fuel.  It gives the body an instant energy source.

Coconut oil is great for suppressing appetite. When I have a light meal, I can almost always predict that I will be having the munchies. To get rid of late night snacking and food cravings I eat fat! The recipe that I use coconut oil is great for appetite suppression. In my own experience I find fat to be better than fiber for controlling cravings.

A bonus is when you eat coconut with coconut oil. To make a low carb cereal I use dried shredded coconut mixed with coconut oil and yogurt. The coconut has the fiber and the coconut oil contains the fat to suppress the appetite. Adding walnuts, flax or chia seeds to this low carb cereal will also add beneficial omega 3 EFA.

The recommended therapeutic dose of coconut oil is 3.5 tablespoons. It is good to start adding it to the diet slowly (1tsp a day and add in slow increments) to see how your body reacts to it. If you have an undiagnosed case of candida you may experience a die off and may have some gastro-intestinal distress.
Because of the anti-fungal properties coconut oil is a beneficial treatment of Candida (as well as removing all sugars, grains, fruits out of the diet). Adding lacto-fermented foods such as sauerkraut and naturally fermented pickles (Bubbies brand or homemade), yogurt, kefir, raw milk also feed the good intestinal bacteria and are good treatments for Candida. (as a side note I did finally make my first successful batch of sauerkraut and will be making a video of it. Stay tuned!)

Here is a video that does a great summary of the many health benefits of coconut oil.

It is important to get the Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil. The kind that is unrefined. The oil should smell and taste like coconuts. Even if you don’t like the taste of the oil it is still worth the effort to try to swallow it. A lot of coconut recipes have sugars or honey in them. I don’t recommend you do this because this will sabotage any fat loss. Any sugars will spike insulin. Insulin is known as a fat storing hormone.

I would love to know if you take coconut oil and how you eat it. One recipe I use it in is sugar free almond chocolate clusters. This recipe I will post later this week as well.

To your health and wellness,

Tweet This Post

Researchers from Tufts University performed a three week study were they took nine women and placed them on a very low carbohydrate diet. They took another 10 women and placed them on a low fat, low calorie diet that is recommended by the American Dietetic Association.  These researches wanted to find out how diet and cognitive performance would be related. They tested for mood, memory and attention span. The tests were performed 72 hours before beginning their assigned diet, at 48 hrs after starting the diet, then again at week 1, 2 and 3 during the diet.

The amount of carbohydrates that the low carb group were able to eat the first week were ZERO and then the second week they were able to add 5-8gm of carbs per day. Then the third week they were able to eat 10-16gm of carbs per day.

Memory impairments occurred in the low carb group when the available glycogen would be at their lowest. But during this time the low carb group had less confusion, and response was quicker during vigilance tasks then the low fat group. Memory improved in the low carb group after reintroducing carbohydrates in the diet.

The brain can run on two fuels – glucose and ketones. When you limit your carbohydrate intake you switch the fuel that the body/brain can run on. Instead of running on glucose it will run on ketones. The body releases ketones on a low carb diet when it starts burning body fat as fuel.

This study shows us a few things. It was a very short study so it would only show us the how the body reacts during the process of change from burning glucose to burning ketones.  It is an unfair to claim that low carb is bad for the memory when it is the changing of the fuels that is shown in this study. The participant ate a NO CARB diet. That is very different from low carb diet. Even during Atkins strictest induction phase the carb limit is 20gm, which is still higher then what the study participants ate. Memory improved when carbs where added to the diet. So even when you are eating 16grams of carbohydrates your memory is ok! That just shows how little carbohydrate our brains need to use for fuel. At 16 gms carbs the primary fuel would be ketones not glucose.

There are many forms of low carb diets – going strictly no carb by eating meat and eggs (this is more restrictive than Atkins), to Atkins induction (20 gm. carbs per day), all the way to eating up to 100 gm. carbs a day.

For low carb fat loss maintenance most people stay within the 35-100 gm. of carbs per day.

This study is not representative or a normal low carb dieter!

The real culprit for memory loss may be high blood sugar which is caused by eating carbs and sweets!

This study was published in December issue of Annals of Neurology and was performed by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center. Their recommendation is to increase exercise to regulate blood glucose levels.

“By improving glucose metabolism, physical exercise also reduces blood glucose. It is therefore possible that the cognitive enhancing effects of physical exercise are mediated, at least in part, by the beneficial effect of lower glucose on the dentate gyrus. Whether with physical exercise, diet or through the development of potential pharmacological interventions, our research suggests that improving glucose metabolism could be a clinically viable approach for improving the cognitive slide that occurs in many of us as we age,” concluded Dr. Small.

Dr. Scott Small is the associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center and lead researcher of the study.

The dentate gyrus is an area of the brain within the hippocampus. This is the part of the brain that we use for memory.

Eating a healthy low carb diet and exercise can protect you from memory loss related to aging.

To your health and wellness,

Tweet This Post

Watching kids eat these days is horrifying and it makes me cringe. Carbs and Sugar are everywhere – from pizza’s, candy, french fries, chips, muffins, sodas, juices, cereals. Kids these days have their insulin raised from the moment they eat their breakfast to the moment that they fall asleep. Their poor cells are being assaulted with insulin to get rid of sugars in the blood. But the cells can only take so much before they start to get resistant to the insulin and not working properly. This is how we become insulin sensitive and insulin resistant.  The pancreas has to produce more insulin to get rid of blood sugar. The thing about high insulin is that it STORES FAT! That is why insulin is called the fat storing hormone.

With this kind of high sugar and carb diet we are ensuring that our kids will battle weight gain in adolescence or adulthood. This is what happened to me. I was a skinny kid that ate sweets and carbs and as I reached adulthood the fat piled on. As an adult I was eating natural whole foods but still I gained weight.

Why do kids need special menus at restaurants made up of processed carbs? Why are crackers a staple in kids diets? Kids should not need to have juice boxes for lunch.  Limiting these foods would do your kids a great favour!

A lifetime struggle with chronic disease and overweight is hard! By limiting sugars and carbs you would be doing your kids a huge favour.  ADHD, allergies, behavioural problems, cavities, diabetes, obestity, cancers are just a few of the diseases that can be attributed to the above aforementioned foods.

We should be teaching our kids about living a healthy lifestyle and not how to treat disease.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences!

To your health and wellness,

Tweet This Post