The Top Three Foods To Avoid at All Costs

- by Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo

When it comes to the dangers of the Standard American Diet, it’s hard to limit all the possible exclusions to only the 3 top foods to avoid, but here goes. The three foods discussed in this video are devastating to your health:

In this video you’ll learn:

• why margarine not only swells your joints and muscles, it increases your risk of heart disease and cancer.
• the mechanism behind how sugar effects your metabolism and why high fructose corn sugar is so damaging to your liver.
• the dangers of white bread, the ridiculous approach to its production, and how it affects your blood sugar with empty, gluten-damaging calories.

Making Friends with Hunger: How to Nourish (Not Just Fill) Your Body

- by Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo

I am really hungry as I write this.  I’m participating in The Raw Divas juice cleanse for the next 10 days and I am on day 2 now.  While I love the feeling of lightness and the flatter belly that has resulted from just one day on all juice, I do need to get used to the hunger.

I’m participating in the program as both a juice cleanser and a juice mentor.  I contributed 9 recipes to the menu planner, shared lots of expert advice on how the cleanse should be put together, and I have been interviewed and available for questions and answers about juicing on two calls so far.

On Monday evening’s call, Tera Warner and I discussed how important it is to make friends with hunger. Being on a juice cleanse really brings hunger to the foreground and knowing how to handle hunger in this context provides excellent preparation for making good choices in the face of hunger during your everyday life.

What is Real Hunger?

Hunger is, after all, just a sensation - a biological urge that needs to get satisfied in the proper time and place.  We don’t always get to satisfy our biological urge to eliminate or have sex just as soon as they make themselves known, do we?

Instead, we live with the sensation until the proper time and place is available to us.   It’s quite a laughing matter to imagine what the world would be like if we didn’t exercise restraint in the face of the urge to eliminate or procreate, isn’t it?

Learning to feel hunger and defer acting on it until the time and place are ideal, meaning that health promoting food is available, is a very valuable skill to learn. All too often I hear from people I’m coaching that they were doing great on their healthier diet until…

• They were travelling and got hungry on the road and stopped for fast food (really the ultimate fast food on the road is buying produce at the supermarket!!)
• They were visiting someone who served a meal and when they found that “just plain salad” was not filling enough, they indulged in the French fries and potato salad to “fill themselves up”.
• They were out running errands and got hungry so they grabbed whatever they could find… usually some sort of health depleting snacks.

These are just a few of the excuses you may have when you find it hard to make choices that promote your health rather than deplete it. I’m sure you can think of many more!!!

Why is it Important to Address Hunger?

Despite how you may feel at first, hunger is not an obstacle on your path to wellness.  If you want to reduce your midline, clarify and focus your thoughts, and keep your blood sugar humming along at the optimal level, you just need the right strategies for overcoming the barriers.  Your solutions depend on a number of factors including:

1. learning to live with hunger and to appreciate it for what it is: your body’s desire to be fueled with nourishment (not filler).
2. preparing in advance for meals on the run and knowing how to make quick and healthy recipes.

Did you know that blood sugar irregularity is one of the top causes of excess belly fat?  Even slender people sometimes have excess fat around the middle!   Contrary to popular belief, eating LESS frequently is better for your waistline than eating every couple of hours.

I’ll share some of the latest research on blood sugar, belly fat and brain fog in an free webinar on August 18, 2011.  Details will be available and registration will open at the end of the week, so stay tuned.  On the webinar, I’ll share a few of my top strategies for making friends with hunger and keeping your blood sugar nice and steady so you can decrease your risk for developing diabetes and heart disease, the most serious side effects of blood sugar imbalances.

I just made myself another juice and my tummy feels satisfied and my brain feels recharged.  While it’s not so easy to do, juice cleansing is worth the effort.  I’ve already dropped 3 pounds and it’s only the second day.  The only thing that will deter me from completion is feeling like I’ve dropped too much weight or feeling that I am too weak to continue my daily tasks. Neither are likely to happen, as long as I continue to drink enough.

How to Become Friends with Hunger and Start Nourishing Your Body:

I can deal with the hunger.  It’s just another sensation.  While juicing, I KNOW my body is getting all the nutrition it needs, so I can learn to deter the desire to eat and chew until the cleanse is over in 8 days.

If you’re afraid of hunger, here’s a 3-step strategy you can do to help you make friends with hunger:

1. Tomorrow morning, instead of immediately making yourself breakfast when you get out of bed, do something else.  Start by drinking a tall glass of water.
2. Add a few drops of essential oil to it so it seems luxurious.  My favorites are peppermint, lemon, ginger, cinnamon and basil.  I have fun with my water throughout the day by making it taste good.
3. Often the experience you perceive as hunger is actually thirst.  Drink first, wait a half hour and if still hungry, eat then.

You’ll notice the best results if, rather than being afraid of hunger, you shift your attitude and thank your hunger for its reminder to replenish your nutrient stores.

This exercise will help you to make friends with your hunger so it doesn’t control you.

You’ll be surprised at how much happier you feel when hunger is your friend.

Mother’s Day Memories and Wishes

My Mom Mary at age 43

It’s been 20 years since I sent my Mom a card on Mother’s Day.  Of course, I still express my appreciation to her for all she did.  I just wish she was still around in physical form so I could give her a big hug and tell her how much I love her.

If your Mom is still alive, let her know how much you love her and appreciate her.  Give her a hug if you can.   Enjoy her while she’s here.  Don’t leave things unspoken, as you never know if this conversation will be the last.

The last time my Mom and I spoke was on Easter 1991.  It was late and we ended the conversation so we could go to sleep.  My Mom was sharing some childhood experiences and ended with, “There’s so much more to tell you, stories you’ve never heard.  We’ll get all caught up in June when you come to visit.”  I had been planning a 2 week stay after my graduation from chiropractic school.  I never got to hear those stories.  She died just a few days later.

I know in my heart that my Mom’s premature death was preventable. She was only 56!  Sometimes I blame myself, for not finding the right words to convince her to quit smoking and adopt a plant strong diet with lots of raw foods. I told her many times, and often I wasn’t as patient or kind about it as I could have been.  I just so wanted for her to change.  I gave her books to read…the ones written by MDs because they were “real doctors”  in her eyes…to no avail.

I copied articles from medical journals.  I even gave her a bottle of Vitamin C to go with the article that said that each cigarette depleted 100 mg of Vitamin C and asked her to at least take Vitamin C with her cigarettes.  My message fell on deaf ears.  When I found the unopened bottle of vitamins on her night stand and asked her why she wasn’t taking them, she told me she was scared that maybe they would have some kind of side effects.  Yet she smoked cigarettes, knowing the effects!

I graduated and started my practice just a couple of months after my Mom’s death, committed to saving other people’s Moms from my Mom’s fate.  I’ve dedicated my life to educating as many people as I possibly can about the dangers of processed food, smoking and other common unhealthy habits.

The war on cancer is far from being won.  Heart disease and diabetes take a  huge  toll.

At my son Kevin’s baseball game the other day, I watched as small children bought candy and chips from the concession stand, not knowing what danger lurked inside the pretty wrappers.  Parents give this stuff to their kids, thinking it’s safe.    It’s sad to watch these young ones creating the perfect environment for disease.   And the food they eat at home is not much better.  Most kids eat fewer vegetables in a month than I do in a day.

I miss my Mom, and in doing so, I strengthen my commitment to make a difference.  Education is foundational.

Changes are happening.   While we still have a long way to go, as a society, we have so much more awareness today of the diet–disease connection than we did when I first started on this path 26 years ago.  One step, one bite at a time, we can change the health of the world.  It starts with your commitment and dedication to yourself and your family and spreads from there.

If you’re a Mom, I wish you a joyful, healthy day.   Avoid the temptation to eat chocolate and unhealthy “treats” in celebration.  I’ve already put in my request for breakfast in bed!  On the menu is a green smoothie, fresh coconut water and a tropical fruit platter with fresh coconut, mango, pineapple and papaya.

Also on the agenda for the day are a run and a swim, and some relaxing time by the pool with a good book.   My favorite way to celebrate special days is with extra special self care.

Treat the Mom’s in your life to some good food, relaxation and lots of appreciation.

If my Mom was here to celebrate I’d treat her to one of the recipes in my book “Dessert:  Making it Rich Without Oil.”  I might try to somehow gift it to her anonymously, so she wouldn’t realize it was good for her until after she enjoyed it.  Then I would let her know.

With love and appreciation to all the Moms. May you seek health and in doing so, find the joy and fulfillment that vibrant health brings forth.

Love, Health and Happy Mother’s Day!

Dr. Ritamarie

P.S.  Post a comment and let me know 2 things:  Do you see the resemblance between my Mom and I?  What are you doing  to honor your Mom for Mother’s Day?

The New Health Insurance: Eating Like Chimps

I read an article today about a man in Medford, Oregon who lost almost 200 pounds, overcame type-2 diabetes, and climbed California’s Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 U.S. states.  He now claims to enjoy the best health of his life.  How did he do it?   He changed his diet to a raw-food diet that includes copious quantities of green smoothies. Click here to read the entire article.

About a month ago, a new DVD was released called Raw for 30 Days.  It’s a documentary following a group of type 2 diabetics on a raw foods program, including an abundance of greens,  with Dr. Gabriel Cousins at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Arizona.  The people who finished the program had amazing results.  One of the men, a long time diabetic, completely reversed his condition and went on to enroll in naturopathic school so he could help others on their road to health.

A few days ago, I went back to eating solid foods after a week of drinking only green smoothies.  I was joined by at least 50 others who spent last week drinking their greens and experiencing a wide range of health benefits including weight loss, allergy relief, reduction in joint pain, normalization of blood sugar, elimination of depression, mental clarity and abundant energy.

Sounds like snake oil, doesn’t it.  It’s not magic, or placebo or even secret properties of rare and exotic herbs that produce  these amazing results so quickly.  It is the power of green foods, many of them wild and free, often classified as weeds, that produce these miraculous changes.

When you blend the green foods that are too often left as garnish, and mix them with delicious fruits, herbs, and spices, you create a tasty and powerful beverage that can transform your life.  When you remove the foods that drain your health and replace them with foods that fully nourish every cell in your body, miracles can start to happen.

I’ve seen it over and over.  Every two months I lead a group of 50 or so busy people through a 7 day green smoothie cleanse.   During our week together, we each follow our own path and choose the plan that works for us as individuals.  Some of us choose the most rigorous option and replace all of our meals with green smoothies.  Others replace one or two meals a day with green smoothies and eat a high quality diet composed of raw fruits and vegetables.  Still others choose to get their feet wet and replace one or two meals with green smoothies and focus on eating a mostly a whole foods, green vegetable rich diet.

One of the participants last week lost 12 pounds, her allergies cleared and aches and pains that had been plaguing her for months were dramatically reduced.  A participant on one of the previous cleanses reduced his blood sugars by 100 points in just 3 days.  A fibromyalgia sufferer experienced the joy of pain free movement for the first time in years.

I personally know people who have gone off antidepressants and antihistamines after a month of raw foods and greens.  I  know others who have recovered from cancer.

If I were talking about a prescription drug that claimed all the results I’ve seen with whole, fresh foods and green smoothies,  people would be knocking down doors for it.

If this diet is so powerful, why aren’t more people doing it? It’s a question worth exploring and I’ll be doing just that over the next few blog posts, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, learn more about the miracles of green food at www.GreenFoodMagic.com

In this time of political unrest and economic stress, the best gift you can give yourself is health insurance of the most effective and economical sort…taking charge of your health through conscious diet and lifestyle choices and periodic cleansing to counteract the toxic effects of your stressful lifestyle.  Mental clarity, energy and focus will help see you through even the most difficult of times.