Liz Hull, The Gluten free NP

FOUR hours. I spent FOUR hours at a workshop at my Tang Soo Do studio today then I hit a wall. amazingly those 4 hours flew by but probably I should have stopped for a snack or something midway through. Duh. But, I was having fun with my friends from class that I didn’t really notice until I just had nothing left. Our black belts had come to a class the night before and several of them were testing all morning and they were still going when I left. WOW. I now have #goals.

Anyway, we are here to talk about gut health tonight and what a topic this is! I mean, gut health is the whole reason I am here. Let me give you my backstory first.

I have had gut issues since I was a kid. Then as an adult they worsened after I had my first baby. I developed what was labeled as lactose intolerance. I stopped eating ALL dairy and lost a ridiculous amount of weight. My class mates in college were asking me if I was sick. fast forward 3 years and I was pregnant with my second baby and was once again able to drink milk and eat cheese. Several years later I found myself doubled over no matter what I ate and it would last for hours. I couldn’t eat during the day at work or I couldn’t function so I would drink coffee and hot cocoa and then eat when I got home. The day I showed up in my providers office he got on the phone and had me seeing a gastroenterologist the very next day. The gastroenterologist examined me, said I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome and sent me away with a prescription for dicyclomine (which, BTW, doesn’t do a thing…). No diet recommendations. No bloodwork. No testing other than checking to make sure I didn’t have blood in my stool. Gee, thanks.

So I went about eliminating different foods. Shrimp went. So did salad. Then my jaw decided to lock up and out went crusty bread or anything crunchy or chewy. Eventually the stomach pain went away with the eliminations and I went on with my Ife for a little while. I had a bad break up and lived on Cheerios, ice cream and wine for a month and lost 10 pounds. Then I started grad school and stress ate my way to a 20 lb weight gain and in the process decided to have a reaction to chicken of al things. No chicken for a few years. Then one day I could eat it. (It still seems crazy to me). I couldnt drink red wine because even a half glass gave me a migraine. Somewhere in there my liver enzymes shot up to hepatitis levels although I wasn’t sick and my iron was high. I had to eliminate all alcohol, NSAIDS like Tylenol and ibuprofen and cease using my cast iron pan. 6 months later it was normal. Unlike other celiacs I have never been anemic except when I was pregnant with my twins.

In 2011 I started a new job. Let’s just say that I have a nervous bladder AND digestive system and I found my self running to the restroom FREQUENTLY and I was very uncomfortable. This was in an office setting so it was especially embarrassing and inconvenient. I was trying to lose weight at the same time and couldn’t (ironically) and noticed that while keeping a food journal that I would gain 3-4 lbs every time I ate pizza or pasta or bread at dinner. I mentioned it to my provider who said it sounded like celiac and to try going gluten free for 2 weeks. I tried it and felt better within 1 week. The fog lifted. I didn’t wake up feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. I wasn’t running to the bathroom. My stomach didn’t hurt as bad. I didn’t ache all over. The angels were singing!

Then, I had to start eating gluten again so I could have blood work and scoping. You need to be eating the equivalent of 2 slices of wheat bread every day, preferably for 2 months, before blood work can be done. When you stop eating gluten, your body relaxes and the levels of circulating antibodies goes down and can produce a false negative result. You have to keep your body in attack mode to detect the antibodies adequately to get a positive result. The next step in testing for celiac disease is endoscopy which is a thin flexible tube with a camera that is inserted into your small intestine by way of your stomach in order to take tissue samples for biopsy. My (new and wonderful) gastroenterologist told my husband in the room afterward that he didn’t even need to have the biopsy results to know I had celiac disease it was so bad! At that point my son, my first baby after which I first started having fairly severe symptoms was 17! I finally had a diagnosis. Celiac disease.

So goodbye gluten. And goodbye Guinness and every other dark and lovely porter I used to drink. Goodbye homemade honey whole wheat bread made lovingly by my friend. Goodbye Chinese takeout and fast food (not a loss there) and takeout pizza and anything fried in a shared fryer (bye chicken wings) and just willy nilly grabbing a snack or eating dessert. Goodbye. Life.

On the upside I finally started shedding weight. So much weight that I looked emaciated in photos and my family commented on it. It did stabilize over time as I experimented with the paleo diet and traditional foods. I even managed to stress eat another 10 pounds over the past 2 years until I pulled myself together this summer and lost it again. (Note: Peanut M&M’s and snickers are gluten free. for good and for bad…)

What does this have to do with the topic of gut health other than my personal sob story? A lot. 1 in 133 people have celiac disease. Of those with first degree relatives who have celiac disease, 1 in 10-11 of them will also develop it. Celiac disease has many gut symptoms but more non-gut related symptoms. It is associated strongly with Type 1 diabetes in kids and people with Down syndrome have high rates of concurrent celiac disease. Undiagnosed celiac disease can cause hypothyroidism and anemia. Celiacs have a high rate of gastrointestinal cancers including b-cell lymphoma. Getting a diagnosis is difficult but critical to treating it correctly. A gluten free diet is essential to the treatment of celiac disease. At this point there is no other way to control it. Vaccine trial are underway as well as some agents designed to bind gluten or break it down in some way that the body does not react but they seem to be mainly designed to avoid reaction from incidental exposure to gluten such as a restaurant that cross contaminates your food, or eating food that is contaminated due to manufacturing contamination. I am doubtful of seeing a true cure for celiac disease, at least in my lifetime. Either way, I’m eating wonton soup on my deathbed…

There is also a diagnosis if non-celiac gluten sensitivity in which people have gut symptoms from eating gluten but test negative for celiac disease. There is some question as to whether this group of people is reacting to gluten or something that is commonly found with gluten containing foods. There is at least anecdotal evidence of people not being able to eat gluten in the US yet can eat them without symptoms when they travel overseas. I have a couple of friends who have experienced this. Is is a chemical that causes this reaction, such as a pesticide? Or they type of wheat eaten? I know others who can eat “ancient” wheats such as Einkorn or can eat true sourdough without symptoms. The jury is out as to the root cause but it is not autoimmune like celiac disease is. Considering how adulterated our food is in the US as compared to Europe I would not doubt it being caused by the processing of our foods or the type of pesticides used. Europe bans many more than we could ever hope to.

Gluten is not the only culprit causing gut symptoms. Lack of fiber in our diets and eating nutritionally anemic fast food/processed foods as well as stress and lack of exercise all contribute to belly bloat and abdominal fat. Dairy intolerance, soy intolerance and corn intolerance can cause bloating and either diarrhea or constipation as well. Lactose, the sugar in dairy, is broken down by lactase, an enzyme, but in those whose guts are already affected by other food issues or by genetics or medications, lactase production can be affected and lactose intolerance develops causing gas, bloating, diarrhea and even vomiting in some cases when dairy products are ingested. Some people cannot tolerate dairy protein which is called casein. Some can not tolerate soy in any form and many cannot digest corn and suffer similar symptoms. ( I am not talking here about allergies which generally cause different symptoms and affect a different pathway or reaction. Allergies can be deadly. )

What else? There are inflammatory bowel diseases that are autoimmune. These sometimes respond to diet changes including a gluten free diet but they often also require strong medications to control. Overgrowth of H. Pylori bacteria can cause ulcers and this is treated with antibiotics. Antibiotic use can cause gut imbalances which result in diarrhea and altered bacterial growth. They kill off the good guys along with the bad and it can take 6 months or longer to repopulate. Repeatedly taking antibiotics is the worse thing for your gut and can contribute to an even worse infection called “c.diff.” C. Diff in turn causes fever, diarrhea and an elevated white blood cell count. C. diff infection is common in those who have been hospitalized and it can cause death.

So the first step in addressing gut health is getting a correct diagnosis for the symptoms you are having. Sometimes this requires a lot of sleuthing and that is where health/food journals come in. Just like I mentioned earlier, I was journaling my food intake and weight which led to the discovery that high gluten foods were causing overnight weight gain (due to edema/swelling/fluid retention). I never would have put it together until I saw it on paper! Some diagnoses will require testing to obtain such as celiac disease or inflammatory bowel disease.

Find a medical provider who is willing to work with you to discover the root cause of your problem and do a proper work up before just labeling you with irritable bowel syndrome. It is a disservice to people to give this diagnosis and then try to treat it with medication. IBS is often a way to say I don’t know what it is so here is this label. Stop complaining. There is nothing actually wrong with you. Find someone to help and be willing to do some trial and error on your own as well. Keep a journal. Write down everything you eat, how you are feeling, your weight and what you are doing and any medications you are taking. Write down what you’ve tried and what worked and what didn’t. This is all valuable information!

See? I told you this would take more than one post!! Tomorrow I will be back to continue this discussion with some more concrete things we can do to support our gut health in general and then we will go into more detail about probiotics/probiotics and other supplements on Monday.

Until then, have a great night and be well!

Liz

Man oh man it’s late. I am tired and definitely not following my own advice from yesterday!

Today I tried a different workout, drank my 64 oz+ of water, did not over eat and followed my diet, had 1 alcoholic beverage (it’s Friday!) and clearly am not getting to bed on time! Tomorrow I have a 3 or 4 hour workshop at the studio where I take Tang Soo Do. I also had my twice a week class last night. I am definitely finding that the more I workout and move, the more I WANT to workout and move! I believe that is called MOMENTUM!

How are YOU doing? If you have been following along and incorporating some of the ideas I have proposed, how is it going? What hurdles are you finding?? My biggest hurdle is snacking in front of the computer. Believe it or not, I get very antsy when I have to sit down in front of the computer to do work and write notes. My automatic response is to eat while I sit there. This resulted in my gaining 10 pounds that I had lost previously. I am fairly certain that at least half my extra weight was made up of peanut M&M’s and the other red wine and snickers.

One thing that I think we need to consider eliminating from our lives are snacks especially of the liquid kind. Many of use don’t even realize that we are snacking when we hit the coffee shop. It’s not. “Just” coffee you are consuming!! Many of those yummy drinks are hundreds of calories and your body doesn’t recognize it as food because it’s liquid. What??? Sad fact: if you don’t have to chew your food, your body probably won’t register whatever you drank as sufficient to satisfy your hunger. Chewing food and taking at least 20 minutes to eat is the best way to let your body know that it has eaten and have that acknowledged by your brain so it can tell you to stop eating. When we sip our calories it doesn’t quite do the same thing. Oh no! Not the PSL!!!

Since I am working on an extended fast each day, I drink black coffee every morning until noon. The only thing I add are essential oils (and only essential oils that are labeled for ingesting). Then, I have a protein shake to which I add fiber (filling) and cinnamon (lowers blood sugar) and maybe peanut powder. I think because of the thicker consistency and fiber content in my shakes, this is satisfying. However, I have also been having a green apple and maybe another 100 calorie or so item in order to make it more like a meal. Then, I try to go 4-5 hours before eating again. I drink water and black Oolong tea or herbal tea in between. If I am starving I will have a handful of nuts in a 5oz cup of yogurt as a mini meal and then I have dinner. If I am working out I eat a little more during the day and then I have been having a protein shake afterward.

So one of the biggest reasons for not snacking is avoiding calories you forget about. We have amnesia when it comes to what we eat when we don’t pay any attention to it. Oh, I’m hungry you think, then you’re driving past McDonalds and you grab a cheap cheeseburger because its “small” and then you go through the Starbucks drive through and get a PSL. An hour later you are back home cooking dinner and completely forget to count those calories as part of your daily intake. Then you have a glass or two of wine with dinner and lose any willpower you had and eat a bag of cookies or half a cheesecake (because it sooo good!) or a bag of chips. you fall asleep and by tomorrow afternoon you can’t recall half of what you ate the day before and it starts all over again. By forcing yourself to sit down and eat a meal instead of snacking you are training your brain to slow down and pay attention. You are giving your stomach time to tell your brain that it has eaten sufficiently and that you are no longer hungry. This also contributes to a less stressful atmosphere in which to eat which in turn aids digestion. It is also believed that this less rushed, pleasurable way of eating helps explain why the French can eat so much bread and drink wine at each meal and traditionally have stayed thin with less heart disease than we have here in the US. It’s not just the red wine!

Consider cutting out snacking and instead, drink water and if you are truly hungry just have your next meal. Planning out your day so you know when you can eat and what you will eat is also helpful in curbing snacking. You aren’t going to starve to death! I promise!!

French women don’t snack. Keep that in mind. (I am admittedly fascinated by the French.)

Ok, that’s it for tonight. Tomorrow I am going to tackle gut health by request 🙂

Have a groovy night!

Liz

Sleep 😴

We all need more sleep! The average adult needs 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Running on less affects levels of alertness and reaction time. Driving while sleep deprived is as bad as driving under the influence of alcohol. It affects your ability to learn, your level of patience and can contribute to weight gain, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. We NEED sleep!

There are several things that interfere with sleep and I am just as guilty as everyone else! First, artificial light is messing with us. Keeping bright lights on keeps our bodies from going into sleep mode. Blue light on our computers, phones and tablets is probably worse (and it contributes to macular degeneration). Before electric lights, we used lanterns and candles and before that we had a campfire. The dinner light allows your brain to register that it is night and we should be gearing down for sleep. That’s where melatonin comes in and makes you drowsy. Bright light = no melatonin.

Second, we drink caffeine too late in the day. It takes about 12 hours for your body to metabolize half the caffeine you drink. So only half of your 3 pm coffee is metabolized by 3 am! Yikes! No wonder you are rising and turning!

Third, we are too sedentary. Sitting around all day and not moving contributes to insomnia. Weird but true. My nursing home residents often sit around all day dozing and are then up half the night. Partly that is due to dementia but it’s also from lack of activity all day long.

Fourth, we eat too late at night. Eating and then going to bed increases your risk of reflux and heartburn. Your body is spending its energy digesting instead of repairing and rejuvenating you. Drinking alcohol is worse. Alcohol before bed interrupts your sleep cycle and keeps you from getting REM sleep. It cause you to go into a walk cycle too soon and you will find yourself wide awake in the middle of the night and certainly not feeling well rested in the morning. Since I’ve given up my nightly glass (or 2) of wine I am sleeping much better. I can now tell the difference in the morning when I have an alcoholic beverage too late.

Last, we tend to keep our rooms too hot. Ever try to sleep without AC in the summer when we have a heat wave and it’s still 90 degrees at night? You can’t sleep right? A drop in body temperature triggers your body to go into sleep mode and if your home and bedroom are too warm it will keep that process from happening. I hate air conditioning so this one is hard for me to swallow. I’m always cold!!

So what do we do?

1. Turn off all devices and the TV 2 hours before bed.

2. Try using real candles or oil lamps in the evening. Romantic candlelit dinner anyone?

3. No eating for 2 hours before bed and don’t let that last meal be a full meal. If you have to eat late because of a weird work schedule or something, make it a snack instead and just have enough so you aren’t feeling hangry.

3. No alcohol before bed, preferably at least 4 hours before bed. Longer is even better. Have your glass of wine with supper around 5 or 6 if you’re going to bed at 10.

4. Exercise. Yep that again. Several sources state that exercise in the morning is the best to promote sleep at night. I exercise at night and haven’t found it to keep me awake. Quite the opposite, a good workout gives me an immediate little burst of energy but then I’m ready to sleep earlier than when I don’t exercise.

5. Take a hot bath or shower in the evening. This raises your body temp and then it will drop as you dry off afterward causing your body to go into sleep mode. Plus it feels so good to slip into bed after you e washed the day away.

6. Avoid caffeine after noon. I drink 1-2 cups each morning and that’s it. I love my morning coffee and it has a lot of health benefits. Make sure you get those benefits in the morning though! Decaf may be ok in the afternoon and evening but it still has a little bit of caffeine left in it. Same with tea. Green tea has less caffeine than black tea but it still has caffeine. Try white tea or herbal in the evening.

7. Open a window and sleep in a room that’s about 68 degrees. Wear extra layers that you can take off if you get too warm at night. I put on socks to go to sell for my cold feet and I almost always kick them off in the middle of the night!

8. Try yoga or stretching in the evening to relax you. Read a book.

9. Keep your bedroom for sleep only. Well, ok, that too 😉

10. No TV, phones or tablets in your bedroom. Get a real clock and ditch night lights. If you must use a nightlight use a red bulb. Red light doesn’t wake you up the way white and blue light does. I use red bulbs in my kids room for their night light. It works!

11. Last, keep a set sleep schedule. Determine what time you need to be up. Subtract 8 hours. This is when you should be falling asleep. 2 hours before that, turn off the phone and TV, take a bath, read a book, drink some herbal tea and get ready for bed. Don’t sleep in more than an hour on your “off” days. More will not help as you can’t fix a big sleep deficit. You need a consistent schedule to train your body to know when it should be sleeping and when it should be awake!

Which of these do you think you can implement. I have done some and have seen a difference. I want to work I’m going to bed earlier and turning off stuff earlier. I am totally not following my advice writing this post at 10pm! I’m learning too ☺️

Now, stop reading this and go to sleep!!

Liz 😴😴😴 💤💤💤 🛏

A bit later than I expected to get started but I don’t want to miss a post! I put out a message asking for a request today and the request was for how to handle holiday eating.

On Thanksgiving I posted about my philosophy of holiday eating in general which is: enjoy the DAY. Make it a special occasion, expect to eat more than usual, eat all the things you LOVE and don’t deprive yourself (with in reason). Holidays should be treated as feast days and celebrated. It’s not a day to live on celery sticks. (Really Monday should be spent eating celery sticks but I digress…)

Today I’ll touch on a couple of ideas for helping to pace yourself and then how to get back on the wagon the following day.

First, note that I said to celebrate the DAY, not the WEEK. Thanksgiving is one day. So is Christmas, your birthday, Easter, etc. Don’t let your celebration turn into an everlasting feast. In fact, I’d argue that in keeping your feast days sacred you will enjoy them more because they are special. Case in point: I used to love Creme brûlée. It was something I’d order in a restaurant on a special occasion and I was always excited for the rare occasion I’d get to eat it. It was delicious. Then I was diagnosed with celiac disease and when the dessert tray came around the only dessert that was gluten free always seems to be Creme brûlée. Well let me say that when your only dessert option is always Creme brûlée it stops being special. The same principle is at work with everyone’s diet. If you eat it all the time it ceases to be special so keep your special treats rare and savor them!

Next, make sure you stay hydrated. I recommend starting every day with a glass of water, maybe with lemon. Continue drinking fluids for a total of 64 Oz per day at minimum, more if you exercise and when you are dining out or eating foods that are high in sodium as is likely on a holiday or special eating day. You need to flush the extra sodium and waste products out via your kidneys and water is the way to do it. If you are drinking alcohol, drink at least one full glass of water in between each alcoholic beverage. Try sipping herbal tea after your meals to aid digestion and get more fluid intake as well. Your body can mistake thirst for hunger and you end up overeating when really you just need a glass of H2O.

Third, try using a smaller plate. Take a spoonful of the foods you want to eat and savor each bite. Our dinner plates today are huge! Don’t buy dinner plates that are larger than 10 inches. Trick your mind into thinking you ate more than you did. If you eat slowly and you are still hungry then have a second helping. There should be no reason for thirds. Don’t even consider it an option.

The fourth thing builds on the third and that is to taste your food! Cut food into small pieces, chew them slowly and notice the flavors. It takes 20 minutes for your stomach to register with your brain that it is full so give it time by slowing down. Eating isn’t a race. Chewing also helps digestion and time will help with satiety. You get the most pleasure from the first couple of bites of any food so make them count!

How to get back on the horse the next day: just get on. Plan it out. Start your day with a glass of water, some black coffee or tea and wait until you feel hungry to eat. Then start eating your healthy diet again. You should also keep up the extra fluids for a day or two to flush out the extra sodium and whatever you do, don’t weigh yourself for at least a week! That’s just asking for punishment!!

I know I mention tea all the time but I also find sparkling water a great craving buster. Black coffee is good too. If you aren’t fasting, bone broth/stock is a good option. Throw in some veggies, leeks are especially good in beef broth. Mmmmm now I want leeks…

Vegetable soup is a great way to use up leftovers and make a lower calorie meal. It’s a great snack and craving buster if seasoned well.

Consider having a day of meal replacement shakes. I use Arbonne protein shakes for this on occasion. Protein shakes are also helpful when you are traveling and might not have great options. You don’t want to follow up a holiday eating spree with fast food burgers and fries 🍟!

Green apples! I love green apples! They are super refreshing and not as sweet. An excellent snack any day but especially post holiday binge is a sliced green apple with a tablespoon of almond butter. Eaten whole they’re a great portable snack that can help with the need to crunch on something that isn’t celery. Sorry celery, you’re just usually not my jam (unless I’m eating buffalo wings and blue cheese!).

Do you have any other ideas? I’d love to hear them! Personally I’m adding leeks to my shopping list this week and will be enjoying them braised in beef broth and sprinkled with Asiago. So delicious!

See you tomorrow night!!

Liz 😘🍏🍵

It’s been a loooong day! I worked, met with a friend and took half a kickboxing class and then an hour of Tang Soo Do (Korean karate). My butt is kicked literally and figuratively!

So, how much do YOU move? If you are like me, probably not enough. This is bad! We NEED to move!!! 🏃‍♀️

How much? Minimum guidelines for exercise is 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity exercise or more. There is no upper limit of exercise necessarily but if you have ever seen an some extreme marathoners that you can almost see through I’d say that borders on unhealthy. They have to be super careful not to deplete themselves and end up with broken bones and heart attacks. Most of us do not have this problem.

Most of us sit on our butts all day getting fat and killing ourselves literally. We have sitting disease. It’s rampant in our culture. It’s some kind of travesty if you have to walk a mile somewhere yet we will drive to take an exercise class. It kind of makes no sense.

But Liz, you just said YOU go to karate and you probably drive there. Yep! I do. Guilty as charged. Karate is something you need to learn with an instructor who can correct you and you need partners you can spar with to practice. Hitting a bag can only get you so far. Its just you can’t play football alone. Well you could but that’d be awkward…

So I am all for home gyms and using the great outdoors as a playground but if the thing that will get you moving requires going to a class or team to learn and do then by all means GO! Exercising with a friend or friends can also be great motivation. You don’t want to let your buddy down and the stakes are higher for not keeping your commitment. Whatever gets you off your butt!

So 150 minutes huh? That’s 2 1/2 hours or 30 minutes 5 days per week. Moderate intensity so not so hard you think you will die but definitely hard enough to sweat and not be able to hold a leisurely conversation. A few words here and there at best. That’s moderate. Walking at a stroll or slow enough to really yak it up is not moderate.

You could also get 75 minutes a week of vigorous exercise (high intensity) or a combination. Some of my kickboxing and karate practice can be considered high intensity and the rest moderate. Last week I started doing the 30 minutes of kickboxing before karate so I can get 180 minutes in total.

When you’ve got that under your belt, the recommendation is to kick it up to 300 minutes per week of moderate exercise or 150 minutes vigorous exercise.

But wait! There’s more!

Weight lifting! Twice a week. Weight lifting builds both muscle and bone strength helping to prevent falls and osteoporosis. Muscle also burns more calories at rest than fat does which aids weight loss. 🏋️

The benefits:

Other than not being winded by walking across your office to the bathroom, exercise has many benefits including lower rates of all cause mortality (early death. It can’t prevent death ever), lower rates of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, type 2 diabetes, colon and breast cancer and depression. It also prevents hip and spine fractures later on from osteoporosis (weak bones) and it helps with weight maintenance.

So what if you have a disability? The recommendations are the same but you will need to modify what you do based on your disability. No one gets a pass here unless you are literally dying. Then you get steak and lobster wine and whatever you want. 🥩🦞🍷 But that’s not us.

The above recommendations are from both the CDC and WHO (World Health Organization). They don’t have a profit motive. They want you to be healthy! Lower your blood pressure by exercising and eating a healthy diet and you may be able to say goodbye to those pills you’ve been choking down everyday. Let’s just say it, you probably won’t see a pharmaceutical giant seriously promoting exercise.

What if I haven’t gotten off the couch and walking to the bathroom leaves me winded? Well then you need to start small. First you need to talk to your medical provider before you start exercising. If you ah e a heart condition you can join a cardiac rehab program. My dad did this after having bypass surgery. These are supervised and you can be monitored. If you don’t need monitoring and your provider clears you (they should!) the start with 5 minutes a day of concerted effort to walk somewhere. Time it. 5 minutes. And keep walking to the bathroom too. Try doubling it week 2. Then add 10 minutes a day each week until you are walking for 30 minutes 6 days a week or more. When you are able to do more than 30 minutes per day, increase the intensity. The sky’s the limit from there!

Get moving and keep moving and you will be setting yourself up for a lifetime of improved health, stamina and longevity!!

Until tomorrow!!

Liz