Balanced Bites Podcast: Episode #6: New to Paleo, Food Intolerance, Type 2 Diabetes, Non Paleo Vices, Omega 3:6 Ratios & Supplementing

Episode #6

I, Caveman, part of the Curiosity series on The Discovery Channel.

Topics: 

1 New to Paleo and Gluten-Free lifestyle. [11:50] 2: Food intolerance and travel/indulging. [19:05] 3: Type 2 Diabetes, Paleo and Sweeteners. [30:35] 4: Mom's fat-loss stall while family progresses. [40:50] 5: Non-Paleo vices, artificial sweeteners & weight-loss stall. [53:30] 6: Omega 3:6 ratios, supplementing and daily bacon. [60:50]

Click here to download the episode as an MP3.

Note: The episodes are now available in iTunes as well and we'll work on other feed services soon! Until then, the RSS feed link is available from the Blog Talk Radio page here. We're using the “Notes” after each question to link to any relevant/additional information or items we mention in our responses on the podcast and say we'll link to, but those are not anywhere near the extent of the answers we're supplying… just so you're clear on that!

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#1 New to Paleo and Gluten-Free lifestyle.

Hannah asks:

“I was wondering how I would find Paleo friendly meat? Also what are all the names of gluten? How do I detox from sugar? How do I give up caffeine? I have a lot of questions really. Do you know of any books that would answer any of my questions? Or do you know the answers to my questions? I have Celiac Disease and so have to never have gluten in my lifestyle and keep getting sick and am tired of it. Thank you Diane! You rock!”

• Notes: EatWild.com, Check out my eBooks here to find the Practical Paleo Nutrition Guide Book – great for beginners and The 21-Day Sugar Detox, Useful Guides– finding gluten.

 

#2: Food intolerance and travel/indulging.

Craig asks: “I am just starting a paleo diet and I am concerned about never being able to eat certain foods again. I travel about once a year and I consider food to be a highlight of most trips. I can't imagine going to, for example, Italy, and not having several meals of pasta and pizza. I've read that once you've strictly dropped grains from your diet for several weeks, eating them again can make you sick. How can I balance having a healthy diet while still being tolerant of grains and other off-limits foods?”

• Notes: Celiactravel.com– get cards in other languages.

#3: Type 2 Diabetes, Paleo and Sweeteners.

Troy asks: “I am an insulin-dependent, type 2 diabetic. I was diagnosed just over 10 years ago. I've been on insulin since May of 2010. I made the lifestyle change to paleo about 3 weeks ago which means my diet had changed and my exercise routine now includes CrossFit at least 2 days a week (along with running in intervals). I believe that I have made major strides in breaking my sugar addiction… however, give me chocolate or give me death! I really enjoy the 5 minute chocolate cake from a paleo website but have concerns because of it's honey requirement. I tried stevia in the raw (but I'm not sure that it is green so I'm thinking I might need to clean that out of my cabinet too after reading your articles) but that ruined the texture and the flavor…so making it with honey or maple syrup is really the only way to go.

As a diabetic, is it safe for me to have a couple of tablespoons of honey in 1 sitting? I don't use sweetener in my tea or coffee, just in my baking & usually the requirement is a couple of Tablespoons for a dozen muffins. I often use coconut palm sugar if sugar is an ingredient but even that (which is even lower on the GI then honey) but is still not at zero. From a Harm Reduction approach-am I better off using honey and maple syrup then agave or stevia? I have also heard of a product called Just like Sugar which is white but ingredients include tree bark and vitamin C…Help! I want to reverse my diabetes and get off insulin and still be able to enjoy food! Paleo recipes have been great but I'm not actually loosing weight which I need to do in order for this condition to be reversed. I realize I did not achieve this condition in 3 weeks (as a child I drank Tab as my mom was also diabetic so I grew up in a house full of things sweetened w artificial, zero-calorie treats and drinks-I realize, that alone could be the largest contributing factor to my current condition)So my questions are: What are realistic expectations and paleo plans of action to reverse my condition? Can I succeed in reversing my diabetes and still use honey?”

LIZ WOLFE: Hey everyone, I'm Liz Wolfe, sidekick to Diane Sanfilippo of Balanced Bites. Welcome to episode 6 of the Balanced Bites podcast. I'm very excited to be here. Diane, what's going on with you? Are you there?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Hey, hey, I'm here. Yup. I am back in San Francisco and just kind of getting my bearings back here for a couple of weeks, and heading back East pretty soon, and actually working on moving back East pretty soon. So…

LIZ WOLFE: Yay!

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I've been joking that it's like vegetarians that I talk to who've said, I've been vegetarian for seven years, and I never thought I'd say, I'm thinking of eating meat again, because I never thought I would say, I'm moving back to New Jersey. Like in a million years, but I don't know. There's something about just following whatever feels good at the time. So that's what's happening.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. If you can, you should, you know?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, Yeah. I kind of blow wherever the wind takes me these days, it seems, so. I can work anywhere, so Yeah, that's pretty cool.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, that's awesome.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So how about you? What's up? What's up with you?

LIZ WOLFE: Not a lot. I'm not in a closet at a gym.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: This episode, so hopefully the sound and all that good stuff will be better. I did just come from the gym and we did. I think it was, we did “Karen,” 150 Wall balls, I don't know if you've done that one lately, but I've got my arm strength at about 10% right now. I feel like a noodle, so…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So holding your phone up is about all you can handle. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, I'm laying down on the floor with the phone just right next to my face. I'm just trying to get through it, Diane.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: I'm trying.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Nice, so did you-it's Monday, this will go live in another day or two….

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: But did you catch the “I, Caveman” on the Discovery Channel with our buddy, Robb Wolf? Did you get to see that?

LIZ WOLFE: I did. I caught part of it. But I'm interested to see what you have to say, but I have not finished it yet, so.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Oh, spoiler alert!

LIZ WOLFE: So tell me what you think. [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs] If I tell you, it'll spoil it for you, don't you think?

LIZ WOLFE: Oh, just tell me. I probably won't be able to watch it for a couple of weeks, as I'm getting ready for finals and some travels. So I'm actually really curious. I want you to spoil it for me.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay, basically it was just, you know, a bunch of people, I think they were maybe 10 of them at first kind of out in the woods, and I'm sure Robb will probably talk about it over on their podcast, and there's more on his blog, I'm sure. But just to see how modern people fared living as hunter-gatherers.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And I don't need to kind of recap everything that went on, but I'll give you kind of my overarching takeaways, just from my perspective. Really, really funny to watch people try and survive eating plants. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Starvation mode was pretty quick. I'm guessing that a lot of people who are on the show are possibly not people who eat Paleo to begin with…

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: For them to get hungry really fast and to get uncomfortable with, I'm guessing they are not very well fat-adapted. So the idea that they kind of became hungry and cranky within not that long, I'm like, okay, they're probably not too well adapted to burning fat for energy. That's not to say that we don't get hungry when we burn fat for energy, but I think it might be a little bit of a different sensation.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So that was something I kind of noticed. Yeah, and the women. There were a couple of women who were like, pretty lean and low on body fat to start out, and it was like, wow, you're really not going to last long.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I just looked at them really differently. Like that person seems to have a lot of time to go find more food. Like there was one really big guy, and I was like, he could last for about a month. He's got..[laughs] plenty of food on his body there, you know? And one of the more sturdy looking athletic, stronger women looked like she would last awhile, too. So it turns out later, we find out that she's a vegetarian, so they didn't actually eat the meat when they did hunt and kill it.

LIZ WOLFE: Hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: But I don't know. I just-I definitely am one of those people who is much more of a pro-animal foods kind of eater, I guess. I think we have a different set of circumstances today where we have a lot more plants available for us to eat. And that's not a bad thing.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And I think given the amount of toxic chemical exposures that we have and the amount of oxidation and oxidative stress happening in our bodies, we probably need a lot more of that anti-oxidant material…

LIZ WOLFE: True.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: than we would have thousands of years ago. So definitely, I'm pro-eating plants. I just think it was a really good eye-opener to how we really need animal food as dense sources of nutrition because surviving on plants is really not-It's a very intellectual choice, and it's not a very human-it's not something that a human animal would have done, and I appreciate that our brains have gotten bigger [laughs] and that we've, you know, evolved to be thinking, but I think it's very counter-productive and really against nature. So that's kind of my little bit of a-maybe gets a little bit political on things.

LIZ WOLFE: No, I really like it. But to me, it makes sense though. We have a garden, and we try and grow a portion of our produce, you know, during the times of the year where it's growing friendly. But, man, to supply the bulk of our diet with what we are capable of gardening and tending and pulling from the soil, it would be a pretty skinny life, you know?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: And it doesn't seem like the way to go. It doesn't seem like what we're built for.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, a couple of other interesting points on that, too. The idea of gardening or like sort of that agriculture in a sense, you know, watching them as a tribe, they had to follow the food. So they were slightly nomadic even with a couple of weeks, and imagine, if you planted a garden that was supplying a little bit of nutrition or a little bit of food for you, but then you up and moved because the herd you're following for food moved. So…

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Really, it's pretty ineffective, and Yeah, we're not living back then, so it's awesome that we can do that, so I like to see the value of that both ways, but understand that eating that as a mainstay was not something that really would have been practical for humans. So, you know, it's pretty interesting. I also really loved-know when they did the kill? Okay, one animal is huge, tons and tons of food. Lasts for awhile. It was by their own hands and very primitive tools, obviously and primitive weapons. And it was just a very respectful, emotional experience. Like, I think, and think that's important. I think it's important to recognize that we have meat in packages and we're very far removed from that process. But understanding that even as carnivores, we can have a level of respect for the fact that another living thing gave its life for us ,and that we really appreciate that and appreciate our place in that chain-in that whole food chain, and just having that respect. And I think a lot of us do try and do that with buying the grass-fed meat, things that we think have been raised better hopefully, you know, the whole slaughter process is a little bit better than it would be in a larger scale operation. And I think that's what we're trying to do by getting more and more high quality meats and just kind of understanding that it's all part of the process. But I really did like that I really liked that they focused on showing that sort-almost like an affection for the animal that died so that they could continue to live.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: But I do think that, you know, humans, when we evolved to think about how to attack and kill an animal, that's part of why we deserve to eat it. That's our place in the whole realm. That was cool. I think you'll really like that part when you see it. I mean, I spoiled it a little to let you know, but it was a really emotional part of the show.

LIZ WOLFE: Well, I mean, I'm glad that's out there. I really am. I think that's cool. One of the things that really helps-one of the things that made this way of like stick for me was that I felt like a more grateful eater.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: And that covered the emotional bases as much as the physical, so I can definitely appreciate that. I think that's cool. Very cool.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. Yeah, and so one more note on the one vegetarian women who wouldn't eat the meat once it was kind of killed. I think she knew she was going home soon.

LIZ WOLFE: Uh-hunh.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And that's a choice she could make because in a couple of days, she would be around food that she could eat again. But, you know, the reality is that wouldn't fly. Like you don't make that intellectual choice because you either eat or you die.

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So I think that's really, you know, interesting to see that she was making that choice, but if you really were to expand the amount of time that she knew she would be waiting, she wouldn't make it.

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And they had anthropologists and doctors kind of following them, and making that commentary, which was good, too, so. So I hope everybody goes to check it out.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, and our buddy Robb Wolf as well?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, Robb was good. It was really fun to watch him on the show, so those of us who have met him in person and then hung out, had conversations. And he was very much himself, which was great to see and I think you'll enjoy watching it, and he was actually the one who hit the elk that they ate, so we felt kind of proud, like Yeah!

LIZ WOLFE: Nice. [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, that was cool. It was very cool.

LIZ WOLFE: What a guy.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: He definitely was not one of the whiners on the show.

LIZ WOLFE: Nice.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Because I don't think that would fly too well.

LIZ WOLFE: No, no.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Not that's he's the whiny type, that's for sure. So Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: So Yeah, I would not expect anything like that from Robb.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs] Yeah. So let's see, before we get into some questions, just a couple of announcements. I just want to let people know, November 12th, it's a Saturday, so what are we at? We're in early October now. So about 6 weeks out, I have a seminar in northern New Jersey in Saddle Brook at Crossfit ACT. Awesome group of people, I've been hanging out with them a bunch when I'm back east and training on and off and checking them out. So really fun gym to train at and awesome coaches, and I think it's going to be a really fun day to have a seminar there, in the northern New Jersey area, possibly even New York, Connecticut. You guys can come out. Join us. It's open to anyone and details are on BalancedBites.com. So that's November 12th. Then a couple more seminars. I'm not going to really do too much else for the rest of this year, as I have a lot of other projects going on, but early next year, you guys can check out the blog for some more seminars. That's it with my announcements.

LIZ WOLFE: Cool.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. All right, well, some questions?

LIZ WOLFE: Let's do some questions.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool.

LIZ WOLFE: All right. Hannah asks. This is a multi-faceted question. There's many moving parts here, so, I'll go ahead and-I guess I'll just read the whole thing, and we'll tackle it that way.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, that's cool.

LIZ WOLFE: “I was wondering how I would find Paleo friendly meat? Also what are the names of gluten? How do I detox from sugar? How do I give up caffeine? I have a lot of questions really. Do you know of any books that would answer any of my questions? Or do you know the answers to my questions? I have Celiac Disease and so have to never have gluten in my lifestyle, and I keep getting sick and am tired of it. Thank you Diane! You rock!”

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So this is-I think we've put this question in here because she has a lot of common starting out kind of questions, which I think we take for granted sometimes that people all understand all these parts of how to make this work and so, we want to make sure that we're welcoming those who are new and just kind of learning as well as those who have been doing this whole Paleo, grain free diet for awhile. So, how to find Paleo friendly meat? You know, first of all, a lot of these questions can be answered in the resources section of my website. Liz, I'm sure you probably have a bunch of resources throughout your blog, too.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Just the resources page and some other links-I have useful guides. A lot of things can be answered just checking that out. I would definitely recommend that Hannah pick through there. Also, pick through some Frequently Asked Questions, like on Robb Wolf's website, and you know, just kind of poking around, but to help her out right from here. How to find Paleo friendly meat? You know, the easiest way, I think, is EatWild.com. That's like a really good resource for finding local, grass-fed, pastured meat. Other than that, just kind of asking at your grocery store, you know, Whole Foods is definitely pretty expensive You can get some things on sale, though. And they do try and have local and/or pasture raised meats, I think, whenever possible. So I would check that out just as an easier, more accessible resource.

What are names of gluten? Well, you know, gluten is gluten, but as far as like finding it hidden in foods and sources of it. Generally, we're talking about wheat, barley, rye, oats, which may have a common cross-reactor with gluten or different proteins that are similar to gluten, or are usually cross-contaminated. I usually ask that people avoid those, especially if you are celiac. You can check out the resource I have. It is on under the Useful Guides page of my website. It's called, “Be a Gluten Detective, or Gluten Free Made Easy.” I have a list of things that are known to be gluten free, and then a list of a ton of ingredients that can include gluten or any similar proteins that might be irritating. Generally, avoiding processed foods in their entirety is really your best bet. We covered a lot about celiac disease and how to kind of approach it on a previous podcast, so I definitely recommend checking that out. But your first order of business is really to be eating whole foods, and you'll avoid a lot of those issues. kind of that way. Even gluten free products can easily be cross-contaminated or again, if you're celiac, you can be pretty sensitive to other grains as well. So I wouldn't really recommend doing like the gluten free breads and all of that nonsense. I would really try and get that stuff out.

How do I detox from sugar? Well, interestingly enough, I do have a sugar detox program. Essentially, it's really having you not eat sugar, or a lot of really dense carbohydrates for a few weeks at a time, and it can be uncomfortable at first, and it's not something that everybody needs to do or go to that extreme, but if you feel like you're really addicted to it, I think it's really good to get off of it for a few weeks. The website for that is The21DaySugarDetox.com. I have a link to that on my website under the book section, and there's a Facebook page for it as well., so a lot of people have already been through it. A lot of people who will be going through it at the same time, so you can kind of hear what their experiences are and how to deal with it.

Same thing with caffeine in a sense, and a lot of people when they do the sugar detox, try and give up caffeine at the same time. Caffeine really starts to push our sugar cravings around, affecting our cortisol levels, affecting our sleep. All of those things play together. I think we may have talked about caffeine also in a previous podcast, so just kind of search through those questions that we have posted, but with caffeine it can be kind of good to slowly come off of it. It really depends on how much you're drinking, you know. One cup for you, is that 4, 5, or 6 ounces or is a cup 16 ounces? And kind of, you know, maybe going to some decaf or half decaf, and just kind of taking it slowly.

So you have a lot of questions. That's great! You know, we welcome the questions. Come on to the Facebook page, come to my Facebook page, go over to Liz's, Cave Girl Eats, and ask questions, and we will answer questions, and others who have been doing this for awhile can help answer questions. My Practical Paleo e-book, which is also available on my website, has a lot of answers to these questions as well. And Frequently Asked Questions, ideas on recipes, etc., so that might be a good resource for you if you are just getting started out. I think-I think that's probably everything that I have. You know, good questions, though. You're not alone in having them, and that's kind of where we get started on all of this, so glad to have you here in getting started.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, welcome, Hannah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs]Anything else you want to add?

LIZ WOLFE: I think you covered that pretty well. No, I think you got it. I basically wrote my little rapid-fire list here, EatWild.com; wheat, barley, rice, spelt, millet; by not eating it; by not drinking it; the Paleo Solution; and yes. Yeah. [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I think that's a good list.

LIZ WOLFE: So I got it, I do. [laughs] By not eating it, by not drinking it. And I really do think The Paleo Solution is a great book to start with. I think that Primal Body, Primal Mind is a great book to start with. Those are my two. My two favorites, and Mark Sisson, I mean, he's basically written 6 or 7 really excellent books just with blog posts, so MarksDailyApple.com

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: You'll find a lot of good stuff there too.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I like that. And also, you know, on the RobbWolf.com forums and on the Mark's Daily Apple forums, you know, tons of people who are new. There are sections in those forums for newbies. I'm a moderator over on Robb's forums, so come in, ask questions. I answer questions on there whenever I can hop in, you know, and I'm happy to help you along the way. Yeah, that's really it, so just kind of dig in and go slowly, and we'll be here to help you along the way.

LIZ WOLFE: Definitely.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: All right.

LIZ WOLFE: All right. Question number two. Craig asks: “I am just starting a Paleo diet and I am concerned about never being able to eat certain foods again. I travel about once a year and I consider food to be a highlight of most trips. I can’t imagine going to, for example, Italy, and not having several meals of pasta and pizza. I’ve read that once you’ve strictly dropped grains from your diet for several weeks, eating them again can make you sick. How can I balance having a healthy diet while still being tolerant of grains and other off-limits foods?”

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Hmmm.

LIZ WOLFE: Diane. Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: So, sort of a lot of questions in this question.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And it's a really common situation, right? I mean, I think we kind of all feel this way at first. That we're worried about never being able to eat foods we love again?

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I think there's a few things to address here, like first and foremost, look, eat what you want to eat, you know? There's no rule around this. If you want to go to Italy and eat your pasta and pizza, eat it. It might make you feel sick. So to me, that's the indicator. That should be the nudge that like, do you really want to eat foods that make you sick? I don't know. I mean, I personally don't. I think that travelling; I love food, too. That's like-this is why I teach about nutrition. Food is my favorite thing. So…

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: If I were going to Italy, I mean, come on, who doesn't love food? If I were going to Italy, you know, I would take with me something like a Celiac travel card; you can go to this website, CeliacTravel.com, and hit up the places-you know, I mean, he's using Italy as an example. Gluten intolerance, celiac disease is like one of the highest-Italy is one of the place where it's like the most highest diagnosed, actual disease or intolerance or allergy. Really not that difficult to remain gluten free when you're there, and I think, so you know, this is for me, part of the paradigm is just shifting-what you see as pleasurable foods away from make you sick, or just where you were attached to them in the past, and starting to find foods that don't make you sick as being more pleasurable.

I know that, for example, Robb and his wife Nicki were in Italy like, I think, last year, and Robb did a video called “The Road Forager” in Italy. And you know, they found gluten free pizza. Not a big deal, you know, he's extremely gluten intolerant and that's not pleasurable to eat, so that's just kind of one side of it.

How this stuff works though. Once you drop these foods from your diet, and then making you sick again. The way I like to explain this is sort of imagine an allergic response or an inflammatory response on a scale of 1 to 10. And it's sort of like, when you eat these foods every day, you are , in a sense, re-inoculating your system, just like you would with a vaccine, to be on alert and have a low level of irritation all the time. So on the scale of 1 to 10, your body might be experiencing an irritated and inflammatory response at say a level 3, every single day. And you might not feel that in digestive distress every day. You might not feel that in anything you notice, just kind of moving through your day. But your body is dealing with it whether or not you outwardly feel it. You might be just a little bit more lethargic . You might have longer recovery times in some exercise because the inflammatory response in your body is being diverted to something like your digestive process vs. focusing more on repair and recovery from exercise. So not eating it essentially saves up immune response to other things. So when you stop eating it, you rebuild that immune response . Then it's sitting there kind of waiting to help you with other problems, and when you eat that food again, it launches. And so, I think for some people, they look at this sort of in the opposite way. Well, I'd rather stay intolerant all the time, so that I can eat it and not feel so sick. And I'm like, that's a little backwards because you're basically making yourself sick all the time.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And just making it worse when you don't eat the food and then eat it. And you're really not doing yourself any favors. The only time this might be more beneficial is, you know, hey, if you know you want to go and eat those foods, and you don't want to be knocked on your rear for three weeks while you're traveling abroad, maybe, that's your call. Maybe you irritate your system for a few weeks before you go. I don't know. I think it's-you can do it. It's not healthy or logical to me, but it would work potentially and I know that sometimes people recommend this for like going off into the military. You know, if you're going to end up eating gluten and you're going to be exposed, and you're very sensitive to it, allowing yourself to be a little bit more irritated by it all the time by it, so that when you have some in a larger dose, it doesn't hit you as hard. You know, you can do that. Just understand what you're doing. Understand that you're basically inoculating your system with something irritating all the time, and that's not a healthy thing to do. You know? That's kind of my take on that. I don't think it's that hard to avoid these things. I don't think it's hard to avoid them and enjoy food. I think for the most part the good part of food is mostly the fat [laughs], and protein, and veggies. I mean, I think it takes-sometimes it takes time to get there, you know? It takes time to get to that mindset where you don't want the bad food anymore. But Yeah, that's kind of my take on it. It's not-I'm not really that like touchy feely on this stuff because I just think after a certain point, that's just not where pleasure comes from, food that will make you sick. So…I think maybe you have some experience with this. Right?

LIZ WOLFE: Well, Yeah. I think it's funny because I remember talking about this last week in something a little bit related. Just basically saying like, it's very rare that you're going to find yourself in-I can't remember what I said, locked in a Wonder Bread factory over night with no-zero percent body fat, nothing to draw from. So there's not going to be many situations, I don't think, where you will not be able to be full and enjoy your food within this kind of Real Food/Paleo/Primal whatever paradigm. I think that Craig's concern is kind of more in the enjoyment of the thing. And I just have to say, my husband and I went to Greece on our honeymoon, and we went to, let's see, Sifnos, Milos, Santorini, Athens. We were all over the place, and we stayed quote unquote Paleo the whole time. And it was no sacrifice. Like we both said, if there's something we want to eat, that we think is quote unquote Breaking the Rules, whatever that means, like we're going to eat it, we're going to enjoy it, and we're going to eat it in the right mindset and move on. But the thing is, I really think that in general, the Paleo variations of local flavors are often the best bet the region has to offer. I mean, I feel that way about Italy, I feel that way about Greece, and Scotland, and even Mexico.

And really, this is kind of where your self-determination comes in, like this is something that we're talking about extrapolating over the course of a lifetime. Like this is not some 30 day program, like there are good foods and there are bad foods. You can eat this and you are not allowed to eat this. Like that's not what it is. This is your life and this is a series of choices, and you weigh the good vs. the bad. You choose, like you said, whether or not you're shifting your paradigm slightly, or whether you're going to go for prosciutto over bruschetta or whatever. So-but you know, like you said, if something makes you feel like crap, it's probably not going to continue to fall under your list of desirable foods, and you'll be avoiding it. So I think , you know…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: It would be a fun challenge, just to see, “hey, can I go to Italy and find out what amazing things are there that I've maybe taking up space in not trying them because I've been going for the pizza and the pasta and such.” You know, might be a fun little experiment, so that's pretty much where I fall on that.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I think too-there's this like one other thought on this. And this actually came up. Like my uncle was at our house in New Jersey before heading out to Paris for a few weeks, and he was like, “I want to do this when I come back.” He literally stayed up all night reading The Paleo Solution.

LIZ WOLFE: Nice.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And he's dealing with Parkinson's and he knows he's addicted to sugar. He's got all these issues , he' needs to get off the gluten, and he was like, when I get back from Paris, I want to do this. And you know, one thing I said to him was, “you know, I get it, but the idea of doing this when you're not at home seems really hard, but every time you make the decision to eat something that feels better vs. worse, your experience will be better. So even if you try and go one day in this other country, not eating food that makes you feel sick, like how much more will you experience while you're there.” I can't personally imagine going abroad and eating those foods again and feeling ill from them. You know, that's kind of what this question was about, like if that makes me feel sick, is that going to be, you know, like isn't that a bad idea? Well, even if you were eating it all along, what level of energy and vitality are you going to have while you're abroad in this country, you know, that you've never been to, even if it's not…

LIZ WOLFE: Totally.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: at the point where it's knocking you down. I just think I would be in a fog a little bit that whole time. So rather than experiencing this country with a fog, it's kind of like keep it clean. Eat the amazing tasting food. And real Italian food, before pasta and grains became, you know, an overarching part of it, real Italian food, like if you look at the rustic food, it's fish and produce and meats. It's not really going to be focused just on bread and pasta. Yeah, that stuff might be there, but it's again an American idea of Italian food, I think, but just do what you're going to do with it, and that's kind of our two cents on the matter, but Yeah, let us know how it goes, and if you do want to get that card to help you kind of navigate. We'll put a link to CeliacTravel.com. You can get it in Italian. I think you can get it on your iPhone; there's an app for it. Imagine that.

LIZ WOLFE: Imagine that.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It's really, you know…Yeah, if you want to stay at the very least gluten free , you know, you can do it pretty easily. So.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, definitely.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yup. Yup.

LIZ WOLFE: Yup. We could go on, but…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, we could…we won't.

LIZ WOLFE: All right. We won't. Question number 4, Troy asks: “I am an insulin-dependent, type 2 diabetic. I was diagnosed just over 10 years ago. I’ve been on insulin since May of 2010. I made the lifestyle change to Paleo about 3 weeks ago which means my diet had changed and my exercise routine now includes CrossFit at least 2 days a week (along with running in intervals). I believe that I have made major strides in breaking my sugar addiction… however, give me chocolate or give me death!” I totally feel your pain, Troy. “I really enjoy the 5 minute chocolate cake from”… this puts a web address in there. I'm not going to read it out loud because I think we'd be [laughs] doing a disservice maybe to people who have problems with chocolate, maybe…

DIANE SANFILIPPO: We'll link to it. oh, okay, maybe we won't.

LIZ WOLFE: “but I have concerns because of its honey requirement. I tried Stevia in the Raw (but I’m not sure that it is green so I’m thinking I might need to clean that out of my cabinet too after reading your articles)” Green. I'm not sure if it is green. Did I read that right?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Green? Green stevia? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: Okay, cool. “but that ruined the texture and the flavor…so making it with honey or maple syrup is really the only way to go. As a diabetic, is it safe for me to have a couple of tablespoons of honey in 1 sitting? I don’t use sweetener in my tea or coffee, just in my baking & usually the requirement is a couple of Tablespoons for a dozen muffins. I often use coconut palm sugar if sugar is an ingredient but even that (which is even lower on the GI scale then honey) but is still not at zero. From a Harm Reduction approach-am I better off using honey and maple syrup then agave or stevia? I have also heard of a product called Just like Sugar which is white but ingredients include tree bark and vitamin C…Help! I want to reverse my diabetes and get off insulin and still be able to enjoy food! Paleo recipes have been great but I’m not actually losing weight which I need to do in order for this condition to be reversed. I realize I did not achieve this condition in 3 weeks (as a child I drank Tab as my mom was also diabetic so I grew up in a house full of things sweetened w artificial, zero-calorie treats and drinks-I realize, that alone could be the largest contributing factor to my current condition)So my questions are: What are realistic expectations and Paleo plans of action to reverse my condition? And can I succeed in reversing my diabetes and still use honey?”

DIANE SANFILIPPO: All right. Woooo! [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: That's a big one.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. Do you want me to jump in real quick?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I think you have some thoughts on this kind of just off the bat, so go for it.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, so, well, first of all, breathe. Let's both just take a deep breath here. I mean, you're looking like you said, phew! You're looking to reverse a whole lifetime of bodily stress, and like you said, who is this, Troy. Like you said, Troy, this takes time. And it takes patience and it takes dedication. and perseverance, and Yeah, it'll take commitment to eliminate all simple sugars and sugar substitutes. I just think that's like period, flat out no quote Paleo baking, you know, really in the end, and especially with somebody who's dealing with a condition like this, those are Paleo-fied, Neolithic treats, and it's just not enough. I think it's what Dr. Harris calls “candy cigarettes.”

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs] And I really think, Troy, if you give yourself a gift of just going full on Paleo, Real Food, meat, good fats, veggies, and just exploring just that whole world of amazing recipes. Make It Paleo, the Food Lovers' Make It Paleo is a new cookbook that's coming out really, really soon. Like I really encourage you to get that book. I was lucky enough to be able to see it to be able to preview the book. It's phenomenal. I think that's MakeItPaleo.com. I think if you allow yourself to let go of those: baking and the honey, and the “oh, can I have this? How can I make this thing that I'm already doing?” Okay, I think you'll really realize that you can enjoy your health so much more than a couple tablespoons of honey. So, that's where I come down on that.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Diane, what do you think?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I mean, what I think is just-I get a lot from people by kind of listening to them tell me what the problem is and…

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO:

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: And that's definitely an issue just around some of the psychology, having nothing to do with the food itself. It's like someone telling you, you can't. And so now you're like, “but I want to. Now I really want this more. ” So…

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Rather than looking at it as “Oh my God, I can never have honey again because I'm sick and I have Type 2 Diabetes.” It's about “How about I try and do the best that I can for my body, knowing that sugar is my enemy.” It really is. An I don't care if it's honey, it's stevia, or whatever it is. I would never recommend a Type 2 Diabetic to be sweetening things or eating things that are baked, taking that route at all. Your number one job is to get your body healthy, and if you're doing things that you know are getting in the way of that, then there's some kind of continued self-sabotage or just you're feeling like you're being deprived if you don't have those things. And I think Liz's point to like give yourself that gift of just eating whole foods, even if it means, you know, one serving a day of some berries. A serving maybe being a half a cup. Like your body will handle that in a totally different way than it will handle something like honey, you know, a dense, refined sweetener source, without you know, the other nutrition to go along with it. And that would really be my approach with you, to be to say hey, let that half a cup of blueberries be your treat because it's a whole food. Fine. And I don't know still that that's the best idea, but at least you're not trying to, you know, squeeze these other foods into a better template, You're not replacing other treats. And I don't know.

LIZ WOLFE: Right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I just would want you to really have that gift, too, to kind of get past it and go, “wow, you know, I was strong enough. I could do this and give myself that real benefit of not eating those foods. So realistic Paleo plans of action, like you have to expect it will take time, but it will happen in time, and it's going to take awhile, but you have to choose every single day , do I want to take a step towards improving my condition or not? Can I succeed in reversing diabetes and still use honey? I don't know. It sounds like you want us to say yes, but I would say no or I don't know. You know, it's like, to say no would be crazy because I'm sure there's somebody out there still using a tiny bit of honey and gets their diabetes under control. But to me, that's like, can I still stand on solid ground but be riding on a raft? Well no, you kind of can't do both of those things at the same time. So, I mean, I just would, if you were my client, I would never recommend that you're using sweeteners of any kind. Like get them out because they're really just pushing your blood sugar around on a roller coaster that you don't want to be on.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. That's what I think. I think we actually skipped over three, so do you want to go back?

LIZ WOLFE: Did I? Oh, whoops.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, Yeah, it's all right, so this is now actually going to be question number four. So Troy was number three. So now I'll just kind of renumber those. Edith, we've got.

LIZ WOLFE: It's just that important to us.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I know we're dying to talk about sugar.

LIZ WOLFE: I was dying to talk about that. Only thing I was going to add to that is maybe we can put a link to one of the semi-recent Paleo Solution podcasts did discuss insulin dependent diabetics and CrossFit.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: So I think maybe we can throw that link up there just for a little bit. Yeah, for perspective.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, and you know as neither of us are strength coaches or trainers. I think it is really important to monitor the type of exercise that you're doing with any condition and especially one related to blood sugar. That is another point that I make with my diabetic clients around training with your health and longevity as your primary goal, and not just how you look or doing a certain kind of training because you love it. You really need to train in a way that's appropriate for managing a condition and, you know, get yourself out of that situation. And you know, get off the insulin, get the Type 2 Diabetes under control, and then you can move forward with a possibly different approach, so yeah, we'll link up to that and kind of go back to Edith. [laughs] Cool.

LIZ WOLFE: All right, sorry about that, Edith. Edith asks: “I started eating Paleo in January of 2011 along with my family. My children have lost weight, but have kept on growing -they have never been obese or even overweight, but they lost around 8 lbs each.” So it sounds like they're healthy and good to go. ” I have gained weight and I currently do CrossFit. Why is it that my husband and my children have lost weight and I have gained around 15 lbs? I finally stopped doing Paleo and I’m now doing a combination of Paleo/Zone and I continue to do CrossFit 5 times a week. I have 25 lbs before I am at my ideal weight (I’m 5’5′ and I currently weigh 160, but I have developed lots of muscle). Help! “ Sad face. Sad face.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay, so you know, as usual, I have a lot of questions for Edith before getting into some possible solutions or things to try. Okay? Some of my questions are, you know, what exactly are you eating? Are you guys all eating the same meals? Are you and your husband eating exactly the same thing? Which, you know, I can understand,. You're cooking one meal for the whole family, but it may mean that you need to adjust your portion sizes of different foods, which it looks like you're trying to do with the Zone approach. But this is a really common thing that I see. I had even a Box owner, a CrossFit gym owner who came to one of my seminars, who said, my approach is for fat loss vs. mass gain or just general health were really enlightening for her because she said “my husband and I are eating pretty much the same food and we have totally different goals.” And so, with a family, when you're cooking for more than one person, that's something that I ask people to really look at, even if you're going to cook the same meal. Maybe it's chicken salad and sweet potato and some fruit for dessert for the whole family; maybe you don't partake in that the same way as the entire family does. It might mean adjusting your intake of portion sizes so you really focus on your own goals. I don't know if, you know, looking at reducing how much sugar intake you have in the form of fruit or starchy vegetables, if you've tried that, how it worked for you? But generally finding that not overdoing it on those can be helpful for some weight loss.

I would be very interested to see kind of what's happening with your sleep, your stress levels. You know, training CrossFit 5 days a week. I don't know what that means for you either. Some gyms have very intense metabolic conditioning 5 days a week. Some have more of a strength focus. I don't know how much that could be helping or hurting you if that's a very stressful training schedule. Generally when we're looking at around 25 pounds, which at 5'5″/160, I think focusing on that number is really tricky if you're developing muscle. I don't know that having that kind of number is really the best way to go. I'd rather you have a pair of jeans that you want to fit into or that you'll notice fit differently when your body changes shape. But I do think that making sure that your training is not stressing your system more. It should be a good type of stress. And all training is a stressor, but in the presence of 6 other life stressors, training is not always ideal. And that doesn't mean you don't train, it means you need to adjust the type of training that you're doing, so this is one of those things where I tell people, “If you walk in and there's a 20 minute MetCon, metabolic conditioning/intense cardio type of work out on the board, you might need to do something different that day. You might need to just do some strength training or talk to the coaches.” I don't know. It really depends on the gym.

But really, weight loss, especially fat loss, obviously, it's not about just food and exercise. It's about hormonal balance and getting your body to reset itself to be in a proper balance, so that the weight basically just comes off in a natural response to positive inputs of food and good exercise, good sleep. You know, low stress levels. So there's a lot to weight loss/fat loss. You know, if you get to a point where, “No, really, I'm managing stress, I'm sleeping well, I don't think I'm overtraining. You know, I go hard 2 or 3 days a week, but the other 2 days, I take a lighter load.” Maybe you look into getting some blood work done. Check out your thyroid. Make sure there's nothing going on there. It's really, really common that people have thyroid conditions and I'm not at all trying to diagnose here, but it's one of those things where you're doing everything right, there are some under the hood things to look at and just see, you know. Is this my own system that's not prepared to just take all these great things I'm doing and work with them? There could already be some stuff going on that you don't know about.

But addressing the balance of your food, sleep, stress, training is really kind of the first step. So, no definitive answer around that, but I would really, first and foremost, question, okay what does your plate look like compared to your family's? So the idea of trying Paleo/Zone. If that feels good for you. Do you feel satisfied on that? I don't know. Go with it for awhile. See how it works. I don't do well with that little fat, personally, and I don't know a lot of people who do, but see how you feel on it. Do you have more thoughts on this, Liz?

LIZ WOLFE: It's just funny because, I don't know, Diane, but number one, I like everything that you said. You're just super smart. I just-I just like you. I like listening to you.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Thanks for tooting my horn there, Liz. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: But honestly, it's funny. I have this blog post in the works right now, and the working title is “Is my ass too fat to be a Paleo blogger?” Like, for the longest time, I really was fixated on, and I'm not saying Edith is fixated-necessarily fixated-but I wanted to look a certain way. I felt like I wanted to be leaner or smaller or whatever. And I really kind of beat myself up about it. And then I just kind of decided not to do that anymore. And, you know, ass or no ass, like I'm going to enjoy my life, I'm going to take care of my body, I'm going to exercise to a point where I know it's beneficial, I'm going to rest to a point where it's beneficial. I think something we need to remember is the good stuff happens when we're resting and recovering, not when we're actually working out, so for me, personally, CrossFit 5 times a week, hardcore, was too much.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: So, you know, I'll take, say Thursday and Sunday off. I'll go real hard Monday and Tuesday. I'll do, you know, 'cause it's up to you. Your level of intensity and the workout. And I know, it's CrossFit, it's supposed to be intense all the time. But sometimes I do pop in for a leisurely 150 wall balls.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: Yup. So for me, this is mindset. Like it really just sounds like Edith is a strong chick who's kicking butt.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Mm-hmm.

LIZ WOLFE: I mean, she's put on muscle. She hopefully enjoys CrossFit. If she doesn't enjoy it, she's haring every workout, and resenting the food that's not, you know, peeling the weight off, then that's a problem. Definitely a problem of mindset. But, you know, I remember the first time ever cleaned and jerked, you know, 135 pounds. Like that day was the best day ever for me. And that's when I was like, all right, I just know I'm going to do whatever is good for myself and allow the chips to fall as they may. Because I feel good, my lifts are going up, and I really like my life, so there you go.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I love that because it's actually because-I think as women, this is the hardest part for us sometimes. You know, we do get focused on aesthetic. I deal with this a lot with women who come to me, and they sit in front of me, or stand in front of me and say, “I want to lean out,” and I'm looking at them like “I don't know what you're talking about.” Like…

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: What do you expect to lose here? And I'm not saying here that Edith is being crazy. 160 pounds at 5'5″-I have no idea what that looks like. When I have clients when I don't have a face-to-face, I get pictures of them. Because what they tell me they look and what they actually look like is often very different.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It's happened to me before, too. Any time you've been through like weight gain or weight loss, it becomes this issue you know of a little bit of body dysmorphia problems sometimes, and especially, if you're looking at, like, elite CrossFit gamers, and expecting to look anything like that as an average, normal person, who's maybe an athlete as well, and has a family, a life, and a job, and CrossFitting is not your job. It's like looking at celebrities who are 95 pounds and expecting to look like that. First of all, that's not even healthy, but second of all, it's their job to look a certain way.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: your job is to be healthy, fit and happy to take care of yourself and your family and enjoy life. And it's not to be a certain level of leanness because that is not-Any achievement that gets you anywhere other than you know, you want to take a picture and feel excited that you looked good, and I'll tell you what. Hard core, ripped people. Like, it's fleeting. Even those gamers who might look super lean? Like that's their in-season. You know? Their off-season? They're probably getting a little fat. You know? And not fat in a bad way, but it's just-they eat and they hang out, and they rest and relax, and that's okay.

LIZ WOLFE: Yup.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: You know? The other point of this is totally, like you and I are telling her to think on this, I did the exact same thing to myself even recently. Like look, you know, I know, intellectually and nutritionally, how to get leaner?

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: But do I enjoy limiting things to that extent as much as I enjoy being strong and fast in the gym? No. I would so much rather get faster, get stronger, feel so much reward from, you know, moving more weight around. And that is so much-I don't know, I get so much more pleasure out of that than just looking a little leaner…

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Because I think it's not as important. I also really honestly believe that you can be a little bit quote unquote overweight. That ten pounds that you really want to lose? You could be ten pounds heavier eating good, clean, healthy Paleo foods, and that's not going to be unhealthy for your body, as it would if you were eating garbage foods, even being ten pounds overweight. Like the type and quality of food that you eat, and this isn't saying-I'm not saying obese, I'm not saying, you know, eat as much as you want. But I ‘m saying, that level of leanness does not-it's not an indicator of health by any stretch.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: You know, we don't need to be walking around with tons of extra weight, but I just think that people get really crazy about it, and you're so right, like stop focusing on that. Because, what you focus on expands. I don't know where that came from, but it-

LIZ WOLFE: Uh-hunh. Totally.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: it is one of those things that-if you focus on something, it grows, so keep your focus away from that. Keep your focus on feeling good, performing well, being happy, and just kind of ride it out for a little while. I mean, I know we go over all these protocols and ideas of things to tweak and change, but I also do want people to live your life and eat what you know is healthy, and if you know you're doing things that are not contributing to your goals, then figure out why you're doing that, and stop. But otherwise, yeah, I wouldn't freak out too much about it.

LIZ WOLFE: Definitely.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, we ladies get a little crazy about body composition.

LIZ WOLFE: Yup.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Most definitely.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yup.

LIZ WOLFE: I like it. I mean, I don't like it, but I like your answer. [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs] Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: I got to work on my transitions here, I think.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Nah, no worries. I think we're at Doug's question. Yeah, Are we at Doug's? Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, we're at Doug's question.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Some similar stuff here.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, a little similar. Okay. “My wife and I eat a relatively clean low carb/Paleo diet. Most meals consist of quality (but not grass fed) protein, fat, & non-starchy vegetables. We also do a fair amount of cardio in the form of walking and the occasional sprint. Our results in terms of losing those extra 30-40 lbs. isn’t exactly stellar. Basically we’re both on a weight loss plateau and extremely anxious for better results to improve our motivation. The 2 vices that we have been hanging onto are the Carbsmart ice cream bars by Breyers and diet soda. We just started a 30 day trial to give up these 2 items and clean up the eating. Since neither the low carb ice cream bars or the diet sodas are Paleo, you’re probably rolling your eyes right now.” Never Doug. We never roll our eyes. “If we move to iced teas to replace the diet sodas, can we put stevia (Truvia) in the drink without messing up our insulin production? Any other suggestions? Thanks for your time.” Go for it.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. I think a lot of this is stuff that we talked about, which is why we threw this question in here
because we did sort of talk about this with Troy's question.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: About kind of replacing things with things and tricking ourselves in having something that's still a treat. I am glad that they have kicked those two vices of fake foods. I'm not into-if you tolerate dairy and you get to the point where you're at your goal, and you want to do some real ice cream, you know, with 3, 4, 5 ingredients maybe, but not these. Nothing with just processed-I haven't even looked at the ingredients in that CarbSmart ice cream, but anything that's been kind of tweaked like that is not going to be real whole food. And diet soda, I see no place for diet soda in anybody's life. Everything I tell people not to eat-

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I've eaten it all. Had it all. I probably did a diet soda stint for like a year. I had a roommate who-I never really drank much soda anyway, but once a week maybe-and then she kind of got me into diet soda. It's just water with chemicals in it. Like there's no reason to be drinking that stuff.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs] Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Like dump some battery acid down your throat. I don't know.

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: It's kind of-I mean…

LIZ WOLFE: Don't do that!

DIANE SANFILIPPO: We all lose our patience at some point with some of these things, but things like, you know, smoking cigarettes or drinking diet soda-yes, I put them in the same sentence-but that's stuff that you know, that's that garbage. Like that's not even close to food. So let's not do that. We don't, you know, we don't know when it comes to like 30 or 40 pounds, okay, that's a legitimate amount of weight loss that you want to achieve. You know, when you're talking the 5 to 10, it can be tough to really pinpoint what's happening. 30 to 40 is a significant range. When you're doing stuff that involves artificial sweeteners, we have no idea A. what's pushing your insulin and blood sugar around. B. we have no idea how much your body may be storing in your fat of those toxins. You're eating things that are not food and getting stored in your fat cells. You need to remove that from your blood stream. I's not safe, so your liver's processing it. We don't know what those are doing to your liver, which can affect your metabolism, so really just. That kind of why I even say potentially overeating healthy foods vs. eating garbage food. At least your body knows how to deal with that. You're just throwing kind of junk in the works when you're trying to put fake food in.

So I don't like Truvia. If you haven't been through my blog, I have a whole post pretty much ranting about Truvia. Green leaf stevia at some point it's a green plant. So if you are going to use it at some point in its natural form, that's how you go for it. But I think just getting all that stuff out and letting your body reset just on real whole foods, and I don't even…30 day trial, fine whatever, but those items should never be there, so giving them up for 30 days is kind of-that's pointless. You know, get rid of them. I get to a point where I'm like, man up, you know. Be an adult, learn that this is not real food, and if you want to drink some bubbly mineral water with lemon in it, cool. That's your drink. You know, stop doing things that you really should know better than to put in your body. I'm a little feisty right now. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: You're feisty.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I get really annoyed a bit about diet soda. I just do. I mean, I don't know.

LIZ WOLFE: Well, there are people that have literally-I was just, you know, talking to a guy who was just, “you know, I really haven't drank water in God knows how long.” And that's what happens. Like these things have replaced life-giving, you know, nectar of the gods water. And one of the first changes I made was just drink water, so that's it.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yup.

LIZ WOLFE: Sorry, but just drink water.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yup.

LIZ WOLFE: And that can make a huge difference.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, I mean, we have no idea. 30 to 40 pounds is significant. We have no idea what all could be contributing, you know, to that not budging. You know, and low carb is usually a good first step because people are coming from eating a really, really high carb diet. It may not be the approach to take for forever. Don't know, you know? I don't know what your body's going to respond to, but we do know that fake food is not a good idea, ever, so I don't know. Keep us posted and kind of see what happens after a month or two and kind of just check in, and maybe we can re-address some of those other questions.

LIZ WOLFE: Yup. I mean it could very well be that the ice cream bars. You know you've got dairy in there, you've got probably some gluten from whatever. I mean, an ice cream bar-is that the same as an ice cream sandwich? I don't know.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I think so. I don't know. I'm actually looking it up, but yeah, I'm looking at some weird website now. I
don't know. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: I'll be excited to know how this goes, though, because that could be. You know, you've got gluten, you've got dairy, and you've got water with chemicals. So, you know, that could be the key. That could, you know, turning the key just with getting rid of those, but I'd like to hear back from Doug and find out how they do.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, it could be like, yeah, you know, it could have some inflammation going on. Yeah, oh wait,, I don't think there's gluten. I think they're like a chocolate coated ice cream…

LIZ WOLFE: Oh. Gotcha.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Bar thing.

LIZ WOLFE: Wow, it's been a long time. Yeah, yeah. All right well.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Well, good luck, Doug, and just drink water.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Definitely. All right.

LIZ WOLFE: Oh, we're right at an hour.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: We are. Do you want to- I feel badly because we kind of cut short last time. Maybe we'll just do…

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. Let me see what we have left here.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: We've got Julie. Yeah, I think these next two we can do pretty quickly so…

LIZ WOLFE: Totally, let me just see.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Actually, let's just do, let's just do one more. And then we'll kind of save…

LIZ WOLFE: Okay.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: save those next ones for later. So yeah, let's just get Julie's because this is a little bit-yeah, this is a question I get a lot so, yeah, go for it.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, this is a good one. All right, Julie from Oklahoma asks: “Hi, my question is regarding grass fed meats and omega 6 ratios, etc. We have a hard time finding grass fed meat here and it’s rather expensive to order online. If we don’t have access to it, can we make up for the Omega 6s in regular meat by taking fish oil with the meal? I guess I want to know if it is just the ratio of 6:3 or if it is the total amount of omega 6s you get. Also, we eat bacon every day, with our over medium eggs. I know it is not the best, but it is easy and it keeps us from wanting carbs. Can we make up for the bad in bacon by taking fish oil with it? (because it is not from pastured hogs or anything)… thanks! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this subject.” All right.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Okay, so a couple of things here. Number one, as far as, can we make up for the omega 6 in regular meat by taking fish oil with the meal? That's a very sort of myopic or near-sighted way of looking at things. Like, we're not talking about balancing these fats in our body from meal to meal, potentially not even day to day. You know, more of the week to week lifetime stretch of having, I guess, this balanced out. I think some of this, you know, listen to Robb's podcast, they address a little bit in this idea of how much supplementation is useful. Well, you can't just flood your body at one point in time and expect that balance to shift or happen differently just because you've all of sudden taken all this omega 3. So looking at it on a meal by meal basis, I think is a little too detail oriented. It's really more about what we're doing as an overall intake.

The bottom line is that we talk about ratios, wanting an omega 3/omega 6 ratio of like 2 parts omega 6, one part omega 3 some sort of ideal. Even one to one is ideal. Or potentially what would have happened in Paleo times. It's really going to be hard to get there eating natural whole foods, even doing, you know, as we talked about before, really, really limiting your omega 6 intake. It's really going to be hard to get there. You can go ahead over to Nutritiondata.com and enter a day's work of food and check out your omega 6/omega 3 ratio. I've done so, an example with kid's food, which you know, basically the same as adult food, just slightly, maybe a little bit less in terms of calories. But you know, even eating fish in that day, your omega 3/6 balance might not be that 2 to 1, or 1 to 2, if it's that 3 to 6.

So I think shooting for that and trying to do it with supplementation is not the approach to take. Bacon, yeah, definitely high in omega 6 fats. Poultry is really high in omega 6 fats. So I know a lot of people do chicken and turkey. I personally like to eat more grass-fed ruminants: beef and lamb. Just you know, if you can't find the grass-fed, you're going to be getting a little bit less omega 6 in conventionally raised red meat than you would in poultry. But omega 6's are everywhere. Like you just really can't flush them down that much. Even eating avocado and olive oil, you're getting them in. They're not bad. they're okay.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: They're pro-inflammatory vs. the anti-inflammatory, but it's not something to stress about. And I think really the best approach is to do the best you can to eat the fish, take some fish oil if you want to a couple of times a week. I don't know how you supplement, Liz. I took some cod liver oil the other day. I almost vomited taking it…

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Like that's totally-I'm trying to take the liquid form…

LIZ WOLFE: You'll survive, my friend.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: the emulsified one. I just-I don't know. I think-I used to get burps from fish oil, so it was recommended I do the emulsified, so my body doesn't have to work as hard on it. And you know, I don't know. I don't take it. I try not to eat, whenever I have the choice, I try not to eat things I know are higher in omega 6, but I use olive oil now and then, stop using as much avocado, and whatever, but I don't want people to get so freaked out about this stuff. You're doing really well to reduce omega 6 intake just by reducing seed oils. Like that's the biggest thing that I want people to focus on is avoiding seed oils. I talk about this on a couple of blog posts. Avoiding too much nut consumption, but when you come down to meat, I just wouldn't freak out about it as much, I guess. And I wouldn't, if you want to take a little bit of fish oil, a couple of grams a day because you're not eating much in the way of omega 3s, that's your prerogative. You know>? I would really rather and try and do it with food. With some salmon or mackerel, sardines, that kind of thing. I don't know. I mean…

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: That's kind of a long winded answer to not that long of a question. And I would say, too, you know, the pork and the poultry being higher in the omega 6, I would try and rotate that. You know? Instead of bacon and eggs every day. I think people think I eat bacon every day. I really don't, but whatever. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Maybe I just happened to take a picture that day. Who knows? Doing some even smoked wild salmon you can get at Trader Joe's or like canned wild salmon, you can get some canned stuff without BPAs in it. And kind of mixing that in to some kind of omelet. You know, I think rotating that is a good idea. Hmm. yeah. What's your thoughts?

LIZ WOLFE: Well, with regards to the cod liver oil, yeah, it's pretty rank stuff. I mean, the only brand that I've ever recommended to anybody is the fermented cod liver oil from GreenPastures.org and they do have some good-I think we've talked about this-they do have some good flavors. You can get the emulsified cod liver oil/butter oil blend, which I definitely recommend. But I take that more as kind of a-just kind of like a food. More of a food really than a supplement. I personally don't really take fish oil anymore. I know there was like a fish oil calculator floating around there for awhile that I think is kind of being redacted.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Gone.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah, it is gone?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: It's gone. just as we're learning more about supplementing with these isolated polyunsaturates. You know, whereas in cod liver oil, it's actually kind of almost in a whole food type of form. But I do that mostly for my skin. It's really improved my skin since I've started taking it. But yeah, it's a brave woman to take cod liver oil without any extra flavoring or whatnot, but yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Oh, it had flavoring.

LIZ WOLFE: Oh, really?

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, it was the licorice flavor. They were-it was not. I was actually scared how quick my gag reflex was on it. I literally almost vomited that up.

LIZ WOLFE: It's not-it's not a pretty process. But yeah, I mean, I think you hit it on the head for sure. I was real gung ho about fish oil for awhile, like a couple years ago when I was..I have like 6 or 7 bottle of it in the freezer and every now and then, just so I don't lose my investment entirely, like I'll pop a couple.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. [laughs]

LIZ WOLFE: Just look at it for ten minutes and be like, okay, fine. But uh…yeah. I like everything you said.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah. And just like another note on that whole fish oil supplementation thing. When I first kind of learned about it, I remember, I was in classes, in my nutrition class, and I was taking all these capsules, and my instructor-like I won't ever forget this-it was so poignant to me-she was looking at me, “like seriously? Why are you taking all of that? Like that's a lot of fish oil?” And I was like, “Yeah, it's just for a short period of time. Whatever. No big deal.” And I just-you know, I didn't really know that much about it at the time, and pretty shortly thereafter. Like this is the one teacher that I had who is very, just moderate on everything. She's like, “we're all going to die. Just calm down.”

LIZ WOLFE: [laughs]

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Kind of like, how you and I both are now, you know.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: You know, I really appreciate her view on things. But, where she was just like, yeah, okay, that's kind of crazy. It just really resonated with me, and I realized, shortly thereafter, hey, you can't just be taking this stuff and get your way out of things. And that's not the answer, and you know, our body is not usually-the same happens when you're taking vitamin supplements. You know, if you flood your system with too much vitamin C or whatever it is, to talk about vitamin C to bowel tolerance, well, yeah., there's a point at which you're going to eliminate that stuff.

LIZ WOLFE: Mm-hmm.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: York body can't really handle those super supplementation and take it into your cells at a normal pace at something that's useful. So the reality is, yeah, we have to eat it in our food, and if it means making different decisions about your food, then that's what it means. You know?

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: The same way you can't exercise your way out of a junky diet, you can't supplement your way out of a junky diet either. I like the idea that she's thinking kind of piecemeal, like if we eat this, should we do this? And that's okay, but it is a little-I think-a little too focused. Think of it on a weekly basis, and one of the things I try to do for myself, which this might be a good idea, is-did she say she has a family? I don't remember if she said. But like, taking a calendar and

LIZ WOLFE: Uh, yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: like drawing three little fish on it for each week, like trying to remember to eat fish 3 times a week. And just cross it off when you do it.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah!

DIANE SANFILIPPO: You know, little things like that to just get it into your diet more. Or when you are out to eat and there's some wild fish on the menu, or you see something that is good priced, just always make it a point. But yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Even your grass-fed beef, it's not super high in omega 3s, it's going to have more omega 6 than omega 3s, but it's definitely a better choice than your conventionally raised meat, but yeah, you can check that out on NutritonData.com. I think they might have a grass-fed meat in there, but I don't know how accurate it is, but I think you can get a good idea of what your days are coming in at. For me at least, it helped me to kind of calm down a little because you know what, if you've been eating fish and whatever else, and the ratios you get are not what you want quote unquote ideally, but I'm just not that, I don't care that much about those numbers, you know?

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: I mean, I don't magic and health are in numbers all the time, so [laughs]. Yeah.

LIZ WOLFE: I mean, it sounds like Julie is doing good. She's thinking about it, you know, I mean. You're doing good, Julie.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Yeah, don't chance the stuff.

LIZ WOLFE: Yeah. Don't worry. You'll be fine.

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool, so I guess, well, we can wrap up here, and you know, we have plenty of questions in the queue, so we'll keep them coming out and anyone who's listening and enjoying podcasts, please definitely jump into iTunes, leave us a ranking or rating, and a review. I'd love for other people to kind of see what you guys think about things, and feel free to comment on the posts with other feedback or ideas for the people based on the questions and the response that we've had. And that's pretty much it. Until next week.

LIZ WOLFE: All right!

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Cool. All right, I'll talk to you soon.

LIZ WOLFE: Talk to you later. Bye!

DIANE SANFILIPPO: Bye.