Finding a New Primary Care Doctor

A Big Thanks To Leslie at Wellparents.com for this great advice Thanks to Leslie at Read more

The Rollercoaster of Life

Grandma: "I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like Read more

Sheltering at Home/Covid 19

Never in the last two decades of my career as a physician would I have imagined that we would be using the same mask to see patients all day and then sterilizing/recycling them at the end of the day. Read more

Turmeric Health Benefits

Have you ever wondered what the paste is applied to the bride and groom's faces and arms in Indian weddings?  It's actually the spice turmeric.  Turmeric is the ingredient in curry that gives it a vibrant yellow color.  Actually, Read more

COVID 19 Precautions

With the scare of COVID here in the USA now, I wanted to post a little info about boosting immunity to prevent contracting the virus. Here are some important facts about Covid-19 It is spread by contact with Read more

Natural Tips for Avoiding Colds

This cold and flu season is still upon us and unfortunately, many patients are still being plagued by these nasty viral symptoms.  Here are a few tips to try if you feel like you are coming down with something. Of Read more

Sherry's Story

Sherry has a great story.  She has been diabetic for years and she has made some massive changes!   "I have been on a lifestyle change. It has been a year following a ketogenic food plan.  When I started this journey Read more

Pharmacy to Farmacy

Many of you may know Erin-- the fabulous Pharm D that worked in our office a few years back.  Erin is a phenomenal gal and we embarked on the journey  into natural medicine around the same time.  As we both Read more

weight loss

Sugar, Sugar, Sugar

Thanks to my fabulous patient Annie for sharing this with us!  Sometimes a picture says more than words.

What A Unique Way To Present This

 

 

4.2 grams = 1 teaspoon of sugar = 1 cube !


Someone ought to get an award for this. We know the facts, but this
brings it into perspective quickly, doesn’t it?

Each cube is a teaspoonful.

Now someone needs to do this with salt!

‘When someone shares something of value
with you and you benefit from it, you have
a moral obligation to share it with others.”
So send it on!!         

Posted on by Angela in Body, Diet, Nutrition, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Proof of the Cheat Day

Dee—I must admit that I broke down last week and had a Dairy Queen blizzard—I only got through half before I was feeling the pain!  Kevin Deeth is right about the cheat day—It is necessary, however it isn’t so pleasant to the aroma of the household when you go running for the toilet!  Never trust the silent but deadly!  Keep on the plan!  The tortoise always ends up winning the race and especially when it comes to really treating your body right!  It’s not our fault!  We are victims of  a food industry and are simply ignorant.

Dee writes:

Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve had days where I simply throw in the towel and eat/drink whatever sounds good. Even though it’s really fun in the moment, it is SO not worth it. For example, a couple of weeks ago, I had a package of all-natural chicken breasts and I made a last-minute decision to make homemade chicken fingers. I found this Southern breeding mix that you shake the chicken in and deep fry it. They are the most incredible fingers you’ve ever had. They tasted amazing, especially with my authentic Buffalo wing sauce and blue cheese. I probably had about six and the next day I thought I was going to die. After not eating grease for so many weeks, all of that grease sat like a cannonball in my stomach for the entire next morning. Also, for some reason, if I eat perfectly well for a few days and start to lose a couple of pounds, eating poorly for part of one day undoes so much good. It’s like six days of healthy food might take off three pounds and one day of eating junk puts on five…seriously…not fair, but it is so not worth it.

Posted on by Angela in Diet, Guest Blog, Humor, Nutrition, Organic, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

What can you eat?

When you get the blues, it’s often a comforting thing to focus on what you have, not what you lack. There is a saying about a man who pitied himself because he had no shoes until he met the man who had no feet.

There is a similar thing when transitioning to a healthier diet. As a result of watching recent documentaries, I have decided to make a major step toward a plant-based diet. I would rather make a reasonable step that is feasible than a 180-degree change that I will surely fail. Step one for me is to give up beef, pork and milk. I’ve already given up sugar, white flour, white rice, pasta and white bread…almost. I did enjoy a few slices of a semolina Italian last weekend and it was heavenly. When you decrease the amount of meat in your diet, you should be mindful of getting other kinds of protein. Non-dairy milks are a good source of protein, and yogurt and beans/legumes and nuts. Don’t avoid nuts just because they are high in calories, but do watch your portion size with nuts. Beans and legumes are an all around great choice. Today I decided to make a big pot of lentil soup for the week, stepping up the normal amount of carrots and celery for extra vitamins. You should have smelled my house. There are about 150 calories in a cup of the soup and it’s loaded with health benefits. The protein in the lentils makes you feel full. Remember too that color is a simple way to gauge the nutritional value of food. See “All About Color.” For example, in yesterday’s blog picture the color of the lunch from McDonald’s. The only color in it is the bit of lettuce and tomato on the Big Mac, and guess what the only part of that meal that is healthy is? Brown burger, brown bun, brown fries and brown Coke.
Posted on by Angela in Diet, Guest Blog, Nutrition, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Hell has frozen over and pigs can fly!

No, I don’t have a fever.  Am I still alive?  (Pinch-OUCH-guess so!)  I am so proud of Dee!  She actually listened to me and rented the video!  I had 2 other patients this week that did as well.  It must be a full moon or I’ll have to accept that people may actually be starting to listen to my rants and raves!

Here’s what Dee had to say about the documentary…

When I started this challenge to spend 90-days getting healthy through a better diet and exercise, Dr. Angela mentioned a few documentaries that were very powerful in hammering home the grave consequences of the Western Diet — a diet rich in animal proteins, dairy, refined grains, sugars and processed foods. One of the documentaries, “Forks Over Knives”, has some staggering statistics that demonstrate the global impact of nutrition over the centuries. For example, the average American is 23 pounds overweight with forty-percent falling into the obese category. I myself, at 5 ft. 7 in. and 190 pounds am on the overweight/obese borderline. This year, 460,000 women will die of heart disease and stroke and we are seeing dramatic increases in diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and prostate cancer. Diabetes and hypertension are becoming diagnosed in children as young as four with one in every four preschoolers reaching obesity. This generation may well be the first generation of children who are outlived by their parents.

The United States spends 2.2 trillion dollars each year in health care, five times the budget for national defense and half of the US population is taking some type of prescription drug. Every minute, a person dies of heart disease….you get the picture. This 90-minute documentary is well-worth your time to watch. It is available on DVD, Netflix online and Hulu Plus.

“Let food by thy medicine.” — Hippocrates

“The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.” — Thomas Edison

Posted on by Angela in Body, Diet, disease, Exercise, Nutrition, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Cheat Day!

 

From our friend Kevin Deeth:

A wake up call statement before we get started. The FDA makes no serious effort to control the use of the word “natural” on nutrition labels. Case in point: 7UP boasts that it’s made with “100% Natural Flavors” when, in fact, the soda is sweetened with a decidedly un-natural dose of high fructose corn syrup. Be careful of misleading food labels.

The concept of a cheat meal or cheat day has been around since the inception of diet’s themselves. Staying disciplined for 7-14 days in a row can be both physically and mentally challenging. Whether you are trying to gain muscle or lose weight, eating a disciplined diet that is filled with protein, healthy complex carbohydrates, and adequate caloric intake can be become monotonous. This is where the “cheat meal” or “cheat day” comes into play. Most of the issues people have with dieting are mental and not physical. Cravings are powerful and can be taxing on the physical and mental side of humans. The good thing is cheat days or cheat meals can actually have physical benefits for your metabolism as well as giving you a mental break

Physically

Cheat meals keep the body guessing. Similar to when your muscles adapt to the same exercises and rep range from routine and repetitiveness, your metabolism adjusts based on your calorie levels in the same fashion. Just when your body starts to think it has things figured out you surprise it with a radical change in your diet. If you eat the same thing everyday within a few weeks your body will adapt to the caloric intake. You have to spice things up and keep the body confused.

The Science

Leptin is a protein hormone that plays a key role in regulating energy intake and energy expenditure, including appetite and metabolism. Leptin signifies a slowing metabolism. Whenever you are on a diet for an extended period of time, your body will begin to adjust its metabolic functions in an effort to ‘make due’ with the amount of fuel that it is being given. Your goal is to periodically kick your leptin levels back up so as to avoid the intense physical hunger and the slowed-to-a-crawl metabolism.

Psychologically

The cheat meal can provide a mental break even more so than as a physical break. Mid-week cravings can be pushed aside knowing that you have an awesome reward in the form of a meal coming on the weekend. Allowing yourself this mental break can inhibit future cravings in the weeks to come. 

Recommendations

Leptin is highly responsive to glucose metabolism. So, when eating a cheat meal,  you will benefit much more if the majority of your excess calories are coming from good sources of carbohydrates that will turn into glucose.  One day a week increase your caloric intake by 25 to 50% in any way you want but preferably in the form of healthy carbohydrates. The sudden spike in your calories will keep the body guessing and force your metabolism to readjust following the meal along with giving you a mental break.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions or comments.

From South Bend,

Kevin
 
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Posted on by Angela in Diet, Exercise, Guest Blog, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Getting the Best of Food

A note on weight loss:  Think of metabolism like a wood burning fire, you have to eat something to get it started and then you have to keep feeding it wood all day to keep the fire roaring.

Here is Dee’s guest blog today.  Thanks Dee!

 

For a very long time I skipped breakfast, probably since college when I started drinking coffee. A few years ago, though, I learned why eating breakfast matters so much. I’ve heard people say that when they eat breakfast they are much more hungry before lunchtime than if they don’t eat anything at all. For me, the reason is that some foods sort of wake your stomach up and — if the foods are simple carbs, such as sugary cereals and white bread/bagels — they are so rapidly digested that you ARE hungrier than if you hadn’t eaten at all. Now I try to stick to a couple of basic foods in the morning and they have worked at successfully keeping me full until lunch. Best bets for breakfast: fruit smoothie with 1 C fruit, 1 C non-dairy milk (coconut, soy, almond, rice) and 1/2 C plain yogurt. Two other good options are whole oats, not instant, or an egg. All of these options contain protein and are free from the starch or sugar that causes mid-morning starvation. Oh yeah, and here’s the other very important reason for breakfast: eating breakfast kick starts your metabolism…the sooner you start eating for the day, the sooner your body starts burning. It’s all good!

Posted on by Angela in Body, Diet, Green Living, Guest Blog, Nutrition, Organic, Uncategorized, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

Weathering the storm

 Today, Dee writes:

I knew when I started my 90-day weight loss challenge that I would have to eventually have to confront uncontrollable outside forces. I didn’t know it would be on Day 4. Yesterday as I was just to leave work, I received three simultaneous phone calls from the three other members of my family.

Caller #1

My oldest teenage daughter was livid after her little sister borrowed (without asking) her brand new Victoria’s Secret bra.

Caller #2

My youngest teenage daughter was crying hysterically because. she loaned the bra to a friend that proceeded to call her a rude bitch.

Caller #3

My husband called to say he was grounding them from their cars for fighting;  he was placing all their clothes in the garbage;  and was going out to “golf” for the night (AKA drink with buddies at the local beach bar).

That’s only Part one.

Part two involved my plan to tidy up the guest room for a weekend houseguest.  I came home and found it carpeted wall to wall in my daughter’s clothes.  I then received a text with photos of my father and little brother’s Southern Indiana property after a massive wildfire.

Due to guestroom cleaning demands, I cancelled a meeting with a friend from church who is currently withdrawling from Oxycontin.  This was all before 6 pm! Feeling exhausted from cleaning, stressed that my hubby was with bar friends, sad my daughter was bullied, and guilty for not helping my needy friend and brother, I caved and found temporary comfort in beer, chips and chocolate cake.  Prior to these outside forces attacking,  I had eaten squash, grilled chicken, a banana, and a pineapple-ricemilk smoothie for breakfast.

Note to self: set up a hurricane preparedness plan! Perhaps I’ll put my tennis shoes and shorts on tonight so that when things hit the fan I can walk out the front door for some aerobic relief. The closest liquor store is more than two miles away on foot so I should be safe.

 

Dear Dee—

 I can feel your pain with every word.  I’m not surprised that you finally gave in!  When I come home to chaos rather than the perfect fantasy of rest and relaxation that I daydream about, I go postal!  I will agree that a brisk walk after work does help.  I occasionally sneak one in before I even hit the door because I can’t remember the last time I arrived home to peace in the house. Remember, you didn’t make any of those bad choices—they did.  You can start fresh tomorrow with a revised attitude of self confidence because you are awesome!

Posted on by Angela in Family, Guest Blog, Humor, Mind, Spirit, Uncategorized Leave a comment
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