Good Morning, All!
A very happy Friday to you! Yesterday’s email generated a lot of discussion and we will get to that in just a moment. First, I wanted to admit to you all that I gave in yesterday. Here’s the story: We had required training over the lunch hour. As they always do, lunch was provided. Well – a form of nourishment was anyway. I can’t call it food nor was it very nourishing, but it was there and it was free. Anyone want to guess? Yup – pizza. That buttery crust denizen in a brown box. Oh the tragedy that was about to occur. You see, Mike has no problem fasting. Even less after he had an amazing morning meal of sweet potato lasagna at about 9:30. But it was there, it smelled delicious, and he had not experienced a carb and grain overload in a while so let’s experiment – no? Well, it wasn’t good. Two pieces turned into four. Later a couple more. Then the extra came back to the shop and even more was consumed. No matter how many pieces were eaten – it wasn’t enough. I was on a carb hunt. Extreme sugar meltdown. Reminds me of this post from Health Habits. But I digress…
Here’s what I felt: within minutes of eating it I was tired – but we can blame the training for that, then I was hungry. My heart was beating heavily and I began to feel anxious. I was high with energy but had no power. And I needed to keep eating. Driving home after work I started to feel pain through my forearms – a muscle stiffness that was not normal. During my workout I was blah. Nothing worked well and my drive was diminished even with the sugar energy available. My digestion started to get all wonky and I will spare you the details but ended up in the washroom several times over the next few hours. Ick. When I finally found myself in bed I was awake and jittery. My mind would not shut down and my body was just humming. This is not normal. A tab of melatonin did not help and after several hours I finally drifted off. Waking up I felt two things – muscle soreness, stiff joints, and a ravishing hunger. Okay – that’s three, but who is counting? None of it was my normal state of affairs and it all sucked in my book.
So what did I do? Remind myself that I made the choice and I have to pay for it. I sucked down some water and found some good quality protein for the morning. And I’ll have more restraint next time.
Question of the Week! “A friend shared your email with me and I was wondering why you don’t [think] yogurt is a good food to eat? Do you believe dairy is bad all together?” One of our members shared yesterday’s email with a friend (thank you!) and this is a question I received from them yesterday. It appears that there is still some confusion on where I stand personally on the dairy issue. While I had thought that I had stated that fact in my introduction to it yesterday it appears that my answer was lost in the mass of words I used. So here was my response: Your question appears to be a similar question that was our topic of the day – save for the yogurt in place of cheese. My statement in today’s email was “Restricting your consumption to heavy cream (non-pasteurized), yogurt, and hard cheeses is best for everyone.” This would read otherwise that no, I do not believe that dairy is bad all together. Nor do I think that people should not eat or drink dairy products. I do believe (from both personal and client experience, plus research) that if you are going to take in bovine dairy products that you are best served to take in the fermented forms such as yogurt, hard cheeses, heavy cream, and kefir. As always – fresh, raw dairy is best and absolutely stay away from the pasteurized dairy in the store as the process changes many of the chemical properties of the dairy and that causes other digestive issues.
If you are overweight, obese, have metabolic syndrome, or insulin resistance pulling dairy out of your eating plan for now is best to achieve a healthy functioning digestive system and to keep excessive carbohydrate (from fluid milk) out of your system thus keeping your insulin load down. If you have other major health issues to include poor digestion or skin ailments (acne, rashes, etc.) then you are strongly encouraged to pull dairy out of your diet for 30 days to see if the symptoms get better. We do this with all of our foods when trying to determine what issues you may be experiencing from them. After the 30 days you can reintroduce them one a week so you can see what effects you have. It’s not an exact science, but it works.
A little more on the subject may help you understand my position. I have worked in the dairy industry. Milking cows and taking care of the facilities twice a day starting at 3:45 AM. I drank the fluid milk out of the bulk tank and my mother used to comment about how quickly we went through a gallon of milk when I was a kid. I love the stuff and for the most part have no issues with dairy. My digestion is fine and I get quite the energy kick from fluid milk. However, all my adult life I was plagued with cystic acne on my back and shoulders. These are deep, swollen, and painful. Just sitting in the Jeep can hurt if any are present. Last year I relied very heavily on cottage cheese as part of my breakfast. I also used fluid milk as a recovery drink and snack (1 block each protein and carb per 8 oz!). When I had left for the field – my dairy consumption was cut almost completely out. A few months down the road and I noticed that while I was traveling, the acne went away and my back cleared up. When I came back and the dairy was put back into my diet, it returned. So I decided to try and stop using it voluntarily and see what happened. I haven’t had a deep cyst since. I do eat hard cheese and yogurt still – they are fermented varieties so the lactose and casein are mostly gone. But the soft cheeses and fluid milk are a very rare treat. If this effect had not been experienced firsthand then I wouldn’t even have an opinion on it.
I did receive a response back from the person who asked the question and it appears that they are satisfied. I hope you are too. If you still have questions please let me know. I will do my utmost to find some ground in which we all can come to a full understanding of the topic. Also – if you are using milk to gain vitamins and minerals such as Vitamin D and calcium – you would be better served getting them from exposure to sunlight (vitamin D) and leafy greens such as spinach and chard (calcium). Most of these are not easily extracted from the milk (which is a problem with supplementation as well) and with the other digestive issues you may have with dairy consumption, the veggies may be a better choice. If you need more suggestions of foods to eat instead let me know and I’ll put together a list for you.
At this point, I’m going to put a cap on it. I promised you the third in Bonnie’s series on gardening but with length as a concern let’s hold that off until Monday.
Workout of the Day: 5 rounds for time of: 30 Double Unders, 30 Walking Lunges
Sub 75 singles for the doubles or 60 jumping jacks
Reminder: Today is the last official meeting for the time being. I will be off-site for field testing over the next few weeks and will be supporting you from a distance. Please make an effort to attend today so that I may say thank you and help answer any lingering questions you may have.
“The first step is to penetrate the clouds of deceit and distortion and learn the truth about the world, then to organize and act to change it. That’s never been impossible and never been easy.” Norm Chomsky
To Action,
Mike.
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