Our EverGreen Life

Healthy, Sustainable Weight Loss Part Four: About Stress

According to the research I've examined, stress is a fat trigger.  I was certain that my challenge to regain and take full control of my health would be mostly physical in nature and just a little mental/emotional/spiritual only thirteen months ago.  Now, I've come to believe that it is more or less 50/50 split.  Why?  Because cortisol sends the signal to our bodies to store fat. When we are stressed, the cortisol levels in our bodies elevate and activate fat programs that cause weight gain.  Humans miraculously evolved to store fat when certain conditions arise, namely starvation and cold. (Fat is actually and acronym for famine and temperature.) When our ancestors' bodies experienced these stresses, a signal was sent to them to store as much fat as possible.  This was great for us because they were able to survive and reproduce.  I am certainly glad to be here, but the majority of the world, myself included, no longer experiences the stresses of famine or cold.  Unfortunately, my body doesn't know the difference between every day stresses caused by the daily grind and prehistoric signals to store energy when cold or famine occurs.  This is why I believe healthy, sustainable weight loss is not solely about what and how much we eat. As you can see, factors like stress also come into play.

I've developed my own MEAL plan to deal with stress and lose weight.  It is as follows:

Meditate (downshift every day)

Exercise (move frequently throughout the day)

Adventure (add some spice to life through travel and micro adventures)

Life/Work Balance (make time for family, friends, service, and spirituality)

Meditation has been my best tool for dealing with stress.  After practicing breath meditation first thing every morning for more than a year, I've come to realize that I suffer from an undiagnosed issue with anger.  This mental condition has crippled me in many ways for much of my life, and its relevance to weight loss is that anger has elevated my stress.  In the absence of being able to afford clinical data and an official diagnosis, I only have my own observations.  My best guess is that meditation has made me about 50% more patient, a lot less angry, and much more forgiving.  The results have been a substantial reduction in the daily amount stress I experience.  I believe this deserves some of the credit for my most recent loss of weight.  Don't get me wrong!  I'm no saint and still have issues, but I at least now recognize them.  After stewing over something hurtful and mean that someone said, I recognize the situation and stop to deal with the irritating thoughts.  It might take fifteen rounds of remembering that getting worked up is useless, vowing not to repeat it, and breathing to calm myself before I make real progress. But, hey, that's a lot better than what I was doing before by continuously wrestling with irritating thoughts over weeks and months.

Exercise has become one of my greatest joys in life.  I look forward to it because afterwards I usually feel super good; in fact, I often find myself in some of the best spirits I've been in all day.  In the journal The Scientific American an article proposed that exercise "... can inhibit the release of inhibitory transmitters and increase the release of dopamine, making strenuous physical exercise more pleasurable. Endogenous opioid production has been shown to occur during the runner's high in humans after intense exercise."  I personally feel that I gain a lot from exercise.  Not only do I get the benefit of a calorie burn from it, but also I believe that I get rid of a whole lot of stress.

Adventure has always been something I've craved.  When I've neglected to fill my "good-life bucket" with adventure, I've spent ridiculous amounts of time recursively daydreaming about it, which has caused me more stress.  But how does a husband, father, educator, and part-time organic farmer find the time or resources for adventure?  My answer has been to plan bimonthly micro adventures.  (I will write down my thoughts about this in my next blog, as it is a subject that needs it's own space.)  For now, let's just say that when I travel to visit family, I research and plan a cycling adventure for wherever I happen to be.  The effect of this strategy has netted me some incredible dividends of peace, calm, and stress reduction.

Life/Work Balance is an area in my life where I'm currently struggling, and it's causing me some major stress.  This is one situation where I will beg you to do as I say and not as I do.  Please know, however, that I'm making this a priority in the coming year after I've fulfilled some obligations to which I'm committed.  Let's just say there's an insane amount of research in support of the notion that those who put family first are among the happiest, longest-lived on earth.  One very practical explanation is as simple as that when bad stuff happens, and it inevitably will, you have the built in support network of your family, which really reduces stress in these trying moments.  I also feel that other crucial factors come into play.  Maybe I'm just a family-oriented person, but many of my best memories, both past and present, are shared with family.  Unfortunately, I've allowed some aspects of our American culture’s advertised prescriptions for happiness to command too much of my attention.  So, no more materialism!  This standard American prescription for happiness hasn't worked at all, caused me an enormous amount of worry, and needs to stop.  I see this as the last part of my MEAL plan to eliminate stress and improve my overall well-being.

Healthy, Sustainable Weight Loss Part Two: About The Importance of What You Eat

Part Two: What You Eat Is The Most Important Factor To Consider For Healthy and Sustainable Weight-Loss

In my experience, the most important factor to address in regards to healthy, sustainable weight loss is what you eat.  Logically, if you are not eating foods that nourish and feed your body, it will crave to eat more and more until you meet its nutritional needs.  Typically, this results in consuming too many calories and weight gain.  Our bodies have, after all, evolved to survive.  Our current food industries and healthcare systems, mechanisms more motivated by profits than human health, have increased the amount of animal products in our diets, introduced highly processed, food-like substances to our plates, and confused us with nutritional guidelines that have muddled our healthy instincts and encouraged us to eat more than we should.  This is wrong!  Following the principle of feeding my body the most nutritious plant-based, whole foods, I succeeded in losing around 100 pounds in the span of three years.  Why? The short answer is I consumed fewer calories because my body received the nutrients it desperately required from less food.  The idea of using food to cure disease is by no means original.  Sometime after 460 BC Hippocrates declared, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." Rationally, this leads us to the conclusion that eating the most healthy and nutritious foods available is the cure for the disease of obesity.

One of the earliest mentors in my weight-loss journey, John Gabriel, put it this way:

There are two fundamental reasons why we need to eat:  (1) calories and (2) nutrients.  A calorie literally means how much energy an item of food will provide your body, while a nutrient is a vitamin, mineral, fat, carbohydrate, or other essential building block that supports cellular health, integrity, or normal functioning.  Most of the [processed] food we eat today has calories but very few nutrients; as a result, even though we may be eating more than enough calories, we are starving nutritionally.

Although my strategy for healthy and sustainable weight loss has changed some since my journey first began, the foundation of giving my body the essential nutrients it needs to thrive remains the cornerstone of my success.  Without explaining the research or my why's, the basic meal plans I currently follow to lose one or two pounds each week are as follows:

The Best Part of Waking Up!

•Breakfast - a superfood smoothie including two servings of microgreens, one banana, a cup of berries, 1 Tbsp. of ground flax seed, 1 Tbsp. of chia seeds, nut milk, a spice, and a whole-food sweetener

•Lunch - a superfood salad including two servings of microgreens, one serving of berries, and a tahini/balsamic vinegar dressing with ground flaxseed and a whole-food sweetener.  (I also include one serving of beans and whole grain rice with my lunch)

•Dinner - one or two more servings of a whole grain, two servings of lightly cooked veggies other than greens, another serving of legumes

•Snacks - raw fruits and veggies

•Beverages - 5 servings a day of water and some medicinal tea

Salad is my main course for lunch. I recommend eating one large salad a day!

There are many diets I have personally observed others use to successfully lose weight.  But, a word of caution is advised if health, not just weight loss, is one of your objectives.  In regards to diets, Michael Greger, M.D., FACLM, ended his evidence-based, groundbreaking research titled How Not To Die:  Discovering the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease with the following proclamation:

Know, however, that there is only one way of eating that's ever been proven to reverse heart disease in the majority of patients, a diet centered around whole plant foods.  Anytime anyone tries to sell you on some new diet, ask jus one simple question:  "Has it been proven to reverse heart disease?" (You know, the most likely cause of death for you and everyone you love?)  If it hasn't, why would you even consider it?  If that's all a whole-food, plant-based diet could do--reverse our number one killer--then shouldn't that be the default diet until proven otherwise?  An that fact that it can also be effective in preventing, treating, and arresting other leading killers would seem to make the case for eating this way overwhelming.

With this in mind, I would like to address my concerns about the current obsession with the Keto diet. When I was first introduced to this concept, I observed a close friend successfully lose a lot of weight following this plan.  My original concern was that it is so new that it had no track record.  My suspicions were later confirmed in that it increases the amount of saturated fats in your diets, skyrocketing your cholesterol levels and increasing your chances for heart disease and certain cancers.  If your family has a history of either of these disease, it's wrong not think about your health first before embracing Keto.

For instance, take one of Dr. Joel Kahn's patients.  According to an interview I heard with this very successful and well-informed cardiologist, this individual's cholesterol soared to dangerous levels following a ketogenic diet after just six weeks.  Even though he did lose a substantial amount of weight, was the loss worth a trip to a heart doc?  Likewise, my personal friend lost a lot of weight with Keto, but once he went off it what was shed he regained and then some.  Is this diet, or others similar to it, healthy or sustainable?  Only time will tell.  As for me, I will stick with a lifestyle that requires a permanent shift.  Honestly, I am thriving, prefer the plant slant, and have no plans of going back.  If what I suspect is correct, my next round of blood tests and check ups will confirm what I believe I'm experiencing:  sustainable weight loss and improved health.

Going Microgreen

 

Sunflower, Arugula, Collards, and Kale Microgreens (This superfood category of greens is up to ten times more nutrtious than the adult versions.)

"Greens are the healthiest vegetables . . . Their leaves contain the  green pigment chlorophyll, which sets off a firestorm of photosynthesis, so greens have to be a packed with antioxidants to deal with the charged high-energy electrons that are formed," states Dr. Michael Greger of NutritionFacts.org.  My wife kicked off a new farming venture this year, growing microgreens. I am her biggest fan, first customer, and grateful recipient of some incredible efforts to grow this superfood.  It's been almost one month since we began enjoying regular harvests of microgreens, and here's what I've noticed so far. First, I have experienced no sickness this winter. (Three to four healthy servings of greens each and every day must certainly have something to do with strong immunities.) Next, I've noticed an increase in energy.  To tell the truth, I feel better than well, and it's the dead of winter when we experience short days and one Rocky Mountain storm after another.  Is this a coincidence, or are these phenomena due to the healthy addition of microgreens to my diet?

I decided to put these questions to the test and do some digging. Here's what I've unearthed so far:

•According to a 2010 study by the American horticultural scientific Society, micro-greens are the highest of all greens in antioxidants. What's more, they had very high concentrations of health promoting phenolic compounds.

•A 2012 study of microgreens reported that they have a whopping 20 mg of vitamin C per 100 mg of greens.  

•Dr. Greger, one of my favorite authorities on health and nutrition, stated that a USDA study found that microgreens are loaded with an incredible 60% of the RDA for the essential nutrient carotene.

•The nutrition facts label on Trader Joe's microgreens lists that a hundred milligrams of microgreens have only 20 calories, contain zero fat, add 4 grams of fiber to you diet, provide 16% of your RDA for calcium, and 8% of your RDA for iron.  (You can add to that four grams each of your RDA for protein, carbs, and healthy sugars.)

Too good to be true?  Of course, there is a catch, as microgreens are not cheap.  As it happens, you can pay up to $32.00 per pound for this superfood. But, one should consider that two ounces of sunflower microgreens are two full cups and only cost around three dollars.  This is a very healthy portion of greens for one quart of smoothie, which is what I make each morning and share with my wife because, after all, she grows the goods.  In addition, I would argue that microgreens are powerful preventative medicines, as they are loaded with vitimans and minerals.  While the possibility of my lack of sickness and increased energy levels could be due to a placebo effect, I feel as though I have enough circumstantial evidence to warrant the efforts to incorporate them into my daily diet.

Our Indoor Winter Garden

My conclusion is that microgreens should be considered a superfood and consumed on a daily basis. Scientific data, my own personal experience, and gut instincts tell me this is the most important food I should be eating.  If you can afford healthy microgreens, purchase and eat them regularly. If you cannot, I highly recommend that you learn to grow them on your own.  After all, your health is the most important investment to make.  As a matter of fact, your very life may depend on it.