Making the transition to better nutrition
Making the transition to better nutrition
By Lewis Schiffman
President
Atlanta Health Systems
Ever since health promotion became a recognized concept, health and fitness experts have encouraged better dietary habits. In spite of our best efforts to spread the gospel of good nutrition, what’s spreading faster are our nation’s waistlines. According to the most recent U.S. Surgeon General’s report on fitness and health, 60% of Americans don’t exercise. Beyond that, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, one-third of Americans are overweight or clinically obese.
For a smaller number of us, being overweight is a result of psychological food addiction, self-esteem problems, thyroid disorders, or other clinical illnesses. For the rest of the bunch, it’s primarily poor food choices and taste addictions to fast food, sugar, dairy, meat, and grease.
Some of this can be attributed to culture. In the South, for example, popular foods include fried chicken, barbeque ribs, fried wings, overcooked vegetables flavored with pig fat (fatback), and heavily sugared iced tea. It is considered good down home American food. But it isn’t only the South. Go anywhere and just look at what people eat for breakfast: sausage biscuits, Cokes, donuts, fried eggs, and buttered white toast, washed down with caffeinated coffee. How effective do you think your salespeople are after this kind of breakfast?
This is why we are fat and why we continue to have such a high incidence of heart disease, cancer, stroke, adult onset diabetes, as well as decreased job performance from irritability, headaches, poor concentration, fatigue, depression, and vulnerability to stress. Adele Davis, an early nutrition leader, was right when she said, "You are what you eat."
As health and fitness leaders, it’s time we recognized that weight watching and dieting don’t work, that eating enough Snackwells will make you fat, and that there is no such thing as lean hamburger. In short, we need to challenge people to change what they eat, how they eat, and create a new dietary culture.
Foods to eliminate or at least minimize
Following are some leading edge, scientifically based examples of foods we need to eliminate to reduce our risk of illness while increasing our vitality and longevity:
1. Coffee. Coffee seems to have become the drug of the 90s. It is highly addictive and does have adverse side effects. According to Richard M. Carlton, MD, of New York City, research and common sense tells us that coffee strains our hearts. Caffeine stimulates the production of adrenaline, accelerates our heart rate, and constricts our blood vessels often for hours. Drinking coffee causes your heart to beat thousands of extra times each day. To overcome the blood vessel constriction, your heart will beat harder, raising your blood pressure. The extra, harder beats strain the heart and increase the risk of heart attack. Coffee can also:
• increase cholesterol levels;
• cause ulcers or prevent existing ulcers from healing;
• provoke or exacerbate anxiety disorders;
• generate migraines.
Also, when caffeine wears off, it leaves you fatigued. Many people will have withdrawal symptoms when getting off caffeine if they are used to three or more caffeinated beverages per day. To cope with withdrawal, cut back on your consumption by half every three days or take two tablespoons full of brewed coffee every hour to ease the symptoms.
Better choices: DaCopa, Caffix, Pero, herbal teas.
2. Milk/Dairy. According to biologist Robert Cohen, author of the book Milk, The Deadly Poison (Argus Publishing) a must-read for all health consultants milk is one of the worst things you can put into your body. Cows’ milk contains Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (RBGH) which is marketed under the trade name Proslac a known carcinogen. Milk causes digestive problems for more than three-fourths of the world’s population. The medical literature (not dairy industry propaganda) is replete with articles documenting how milk causes children to develop allergies, ear and tonsillar infections, asthma, intestinal bleeding, colic, and diabetes. In adults, the problems caused by milk include heart disease, arthritis, allergy, sinusitis, leukemia, lymphoma, and cancer. Additionally, there are concerns about salmonella, contamination of milk from blood and pus cells (caused by mastitis in the cows from RBGH), and bovine leukemia virus. (RBGH is not approved for use in Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand or Europe.) (For more on milk, see the story "Got milk? Get sick," p. 20.)
Before leaving the subject of milk, I’d like to address the calcium-osteoporosis myth. The countries with the highest intake of milk and dairy have the highest rates of osteoporosis. Additionally, there are no known studies documenting calcium deficiencies among people living on a natural diet without milk.
Better choices: Soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, oat milk.
3. NutraSweet/Aspartame/Sugar. Another product erroneously approved by the FDA that appears in sodas, baked goods, chewing gum, prescription and non-prescription drugs, and Flintstone vitamins is NutraSweet, also known as aspartame. Joe Esposito, DC, LD, a nationally known speaker on nutrition from Marietta, GA, advocates that we eliminate seven things from our diet. They are alcohol, sugar, meat, dairy, coffee/caffeine, commercial soda, and artificial sweeteners, particularly aspartame. He reports that NutraSweet has 92 documented adverse effects, including these:
• It breaks down into aspartic acid, a neurotoxin causing nerve malfunction.
• It contains phenylalanine, which affects serotonin levels in the brain and contributes to mood swings, headache, depression, memory loss, and seizures.
• It also contains methanol, which converts to formaldehyde (embalming fluid), a neurotoxin and Class A carcinogen.
Cooking with Aspartame causes it to break down faster and can increase or accelerate the adverse side effects.
White sugar isn’t much better. It is highly addictive. The more you eat, the more you crave it, and the more it rots your teeth, leeches nutrients from the body causing cravings for yet more food, and the more it accelerates the aging process. It also contributes to mood swings, depression, and hyperactivity. To top it all off, sugar actually weakens muscles, causing early fatigue and decreased job performance.
Better choices: Stevia, fruit juice.
So, as wellness consultants, what can we do? Here are a few suggestions:
1. First, let’s hold ourselves to a higher standard and have our diet reflect our consciousness. This means eating primarily fresh whole foods from the four basic healthy food groups: fruits, vegetables, grains and nuts/legumes (beans).
2. Next, start doing more research and questioning what you think you know. Because someone has the letters MD or RD next to his or her name or works for the FDA doesn’t mean he or she is an accurate source of information. Proprietors of health food stores or herb shops may not be good sources either.
3. Use common sense and listen to your body. If you eat a hamburger and you feel sleepy while your body is trying to digest it for hours or days, maybe it’s not an appropriate food. If you pick up a packaged food and it contains more than seven ingredients, including paint and chemicals you can’t pronounce, that’s not food that’s a science project. If your drinking water tastes like it came out of a swimming pool, it isn’t clean water.
I believe that eating should be a sensual and enjoyable experience that tantalizes the taste buds, intrigues the imagination, and provides life-enhancing nutrients to our bodies. By selecting carefully and preparing creatively, we can maximize eating pleasure, extend longevity, and maintain optimal performance.
[Lewis Schiffman is a health and performance consultant and President of Atlanta Health Systems. He is also an editorial advisory board member of Employee Health & Fitness and may be reached at (404) 636-9437.]
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