Okay, so since today wasn't very exciting food-wise for me I thought I would take the time to talk a little bit about one of the things I read in
It Starts With Food that
really stood out to me. It is kind of a long passage but if any of you are like me, which I am assuming at least some of you are, this scenario applies to you:
Not So Healthy Hormones: A Bad Day
Your alarm goes off at 7 a.m., and again at 7: 09, and 7: 18, at which point you head straight to the kitchen, ready for that first cup of coffee. Your cortisol levels are abnormally low in the morning (a dysfunctional situation created by an overly stressful life and worsened by unhealthy eating habits), which means you’re not feeling very bright or perky. You grab a low-fat blueberry muffin, a banana, and some orange juice on your way out the door, and stop at your favorite coffee shop for a large soy latte. Since your breakfast is almost exclusively fast-digesting carbohydrate (and sugar!), it quickly raises your blood sugar and insulin, aggressively driving energy into your liver and muscles. The high levels of blood sugar give you a kick-start, but by 10 a.m . lots of insulin has pulled too much sugar out of your bloodstream— which means you’re now experiencing the crash that often follows a sugar spike when you’re insulin resistant. This stressful blood sugar crash prompts a cortisol response, which uses glucagon to get your blood sugar back to normal. Glucagon breaks down liver glycogen and increases blood sugar, but since you’re metabolically overreliant on glucose for energy, you can’t use fat efficiently for fuel. Your brain translates these events as, “Need energy now!”— so you have another cup of coffee, plus half a bagel with peanut butter. Since you’re generally sedentary , your liver and muscles are still full. Some of the carbohydrate from the bagel is used for fuel, but the excess fuel is stored (or remains circulating in the bloodstream). At noon, you grab a small turkey sub (whole-wheat bread , turkey, low-fat cheese, and mustard), a small bag of baked potato chips, and a diet soda from the deli next door. Again, your carb-dense meal drives blood sugar and insulin levels up, and the caffeine in your soda also prompts a cortisol (stress) response, both of which serve to give you a short burst of energy. Even though there is some protein in the turkey, glucagon’s attempt to releasing stored energy is overshadowed by elevated insulin levels, so once again the sugar is used as fuel, while fat is stored and blood (and liver) triglycerides accumulate. A few hours later, all of that insulin has driven blood sugar levels too low— again— which means that by 3 p.m. you’ve hit the midafternoon trifecta: you’re tired, hungry, and mentally foggy. Luckily , you’ve stashed some healthy snacks for just such occasions and come up with a granola bar and a low-fat strawberry yogurt. Once again, your carbohydrate-rich snack serves to temporarily prop up your energy levels and mostly stave off your hunger. Work is busy, and you’re totally brain-dead by 4, so you grab a small iced coffee (with skim milk and a teaspoon of sugar) to get you through the rest of the day. The caffeine in the coffee provokes another cortisol response, which increases blood sugar to give you some energy. That works for a while, but by the time you head home at 5: 30, you’re stressed, exhausted, and cranky. You resist the urge to call for pizza delivery and make chicken parmigiana, with low-fat cheese and whole -wheat pasta, and a side salad. To help you deal with the stress of your day, you also have a glass of red wine. Thanks to leptin resistance, you eat more than you really need, feeling stuffed when you finally put down your fork. Just two hours later, however, you find yourself craving something sweet. You forage for a pint of frozen yogurt in the freezer and settle in front of the television. By 9, half the pint is gone. You’re exhausted from your day, but because of your blood sugar volatility and caffeine intake (all provoking a stress response), as well as your poor sleep habits, your cortisol is higher than it should be. You can’t seem to wind down, so you stay up until 11: 30, watching the news and sending a few emails. You don’t sleep well, tossing and turning for hours, until your alarm blasts you awake again the next morning... But even though the day we just described wasn’t so great, it wasn’t that bad, right? You still ate pretty “healthy” food, you still feel pretty good overall, and maybe you’re just a few pounds overweight, so things must be OK. Or maybe not— because the hormonal disruptions are invisible. Due in large part to your diet, they are occurring beneath your radar. You aren’t necessarily aware of their effects today, but that won’t be the case forever. Let’s see how this eating scenario plays out over months or even years. After all, this is a “typical day” for most of us. (Hartwig, 55-58)
PLEASE GO OUT AND BUY THIS BOOK!! If this small passage doesn't speak to you, then fine. Maybe Whole30 is not for you. Buuuuuut if you saw yourself in any little part of that you should do yourself a favor and go purchase It Starts With Food. Yes, maybe you don't do each one of these things on a daily basis but this was me before I started Whole30. And if you read the rest of the book it explains what happens to your body after 3 years of eating like this... So this should act a teaser and make you that much more intrigued to at the
very least go read the book.
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