Food Allergies: Taming the Health Stealing Holiday Grinch
As the mashed potatoes and gravy call to you and the apple pie and pretty cookies lure you, I ask you to stop and consider the dangers in those foods and explore healthy alternatives like the delicious and festive cookie recipes I’m sharing with you today.
In addition to the blood destabilizing effects of the sugar and flour, these typical holiday foods cause havoc in your immune system.
When your immune system reacts to food as if it were a dangerous bacteria or virus, you experience discomfort and inflammation. We generally refer to these types of reactions as food allergies or hyper-sensitivities.
Hidden food allergies cause many serious health challenges that often puzzle doctors and patients alike. That’s why I am offering a FREE teleseminar:
Turning Food Allergies Inside Out:
The Causes, Culprits, and Cures
Tuesday, January 3rd, 7:30 p.m. Central
Register HERE:
http://www.drritamarie.com/go/TurnFoodAllergiesInsideOut
Are the Foods You Eat Naughty or Nice?
At the top of the list of common food allergens are gluten and dairy. All your favorite holiday goodies are high in both.
It’s easy to identify and avoid food allergens when they cause obvious signs like hives, diarrhea, or difficulty breathing.
It becomes a bit more tricky when the reactions are not immediate or dramatic. Reactions that are delayed and subtle are less likely to be attributed to the offending food because there doesn’t seem to be a direct cause/effect relationship.
I have worked with thousands of patients over the years. Many say to me that they have no food allergies — wheat doesn’t bother them, dairy is not an issue — only to find out that eliminating these foods and eating more fresh, whole green foods clears up long-standing, chronic problems related to inflammation.
Inflammation: The Grinch that Steals Health
Unfortunately, most doctors don’t recognize the relationship between food and conditions like irritable bowel, celiac, Crohn’s, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, eczema, psoriases, fibromyalgia, lupus, and even MS and heart disease.
Hidden food allergens trigger inflammation. Food allergens in your body overwork, confuse and weaken your immune system. In many cases, the ultimate consequence of not addressing hidden food allergies is autoimmune and heart diseases.
Heart disease, the number-one killer in America, is caused by inflammation. What most people don’t realize is that cholesterol is an anti-inflammatory substance that’s triggered by inflammation in your blood vessels. Inflammation is frequently triggered by toxins, allergens, and improperly digested food.
Inflammation triggers a stress response in your body, leading to overworked adrenal glands and subsequent fatigue and serious health challenges. Many people suffering from arthritis, fibromyalgia, and joint pain can be helped by identifying and eliminating foods that trigger an immune response.
So ask yourself as you reach for the cookies and mashed potatoes with gravy – is it worth the risk?
“I Will Honour Christmas in my Heart, and Try to Keep it All the Year.”
While many of our holidays are centered around food, when we look closely at these gathering times, it’s more about our relationships and celebrations of LIFE.
The gluten and dairy in many foods may leave you bloated, tired, and irritable. Long-term, these foods or other hidden food allergies may lead to debilitating pain and inflammation. They also greatly increase your risk for heart attack and diabetes. They take away from the very thing you wish to celebrate!
So this holiday season, try something different.
I’ve posted a yummy Christmas cookie recipe that is free of gluten, dairy, and sugar. The sweetener is dates, a whole food. If you prefer to avoid all sweets, even fruits, there’s also a low-glycemic version of the recipe there too.
When you choose to make healthy alternatives for your favorite holiday recipes like these cookies on my blog and those in my e-book, Healthy Holiday Traditions: Nourishing Recipes for Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s Celebrations, you’ll not only feel more energetic and lighter, enjoy a smaller waistline and clearer thinking, you’ll reduce overall inflammation in your body and set the stage for healing or avoiding chronic pain, auto-immune disease, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Because inflammation of your intestinal lining impairs the production of serotonin, you’ll also reduce the risk of depression, anxiety, insomnia, PMS, cravings, and attention disorders as well.
A Free New Year’s Resolution You Can Start Today!
So think twice. Prepare in advance and make healthy alternatives this holiday season. Then join me on January 3rd, 2012 for our free teleseminar to find out the full scoop on food allergies and learn:
- What causes your immune system to attack your food
- The step-by-step events that occur during a food allergy reaction
- The most common food culprits that trigger reactions
- How to clear and cure your food allergies
- Positive ideas for enjoying your food and loving life
Register HERE:
http://www.drritamarie.com/go/TurnFoodAllergiesInsideOut
I wish you happy, healthy and love filled holidays,
Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo
P.S. I have seen many people think they could get away with “just one cookie” then set foot on a slippery slope into eating too much and compromising both their physical and emotional well being.
Food allergies cause food addiction.
SO do yourself a favor. Make my 6-minute cookies and earn more about how to determine if hidden food allergies are getting between you and your slim, vibrant and energetic self.
Register HERE:
http://www.drritamarie.com/go/TurnFoodAllergiesInsideOut
Tags: Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, food allergies, food allergy, food allergy test, food intolerance, heart disease, immune system, inflammation, teleseminars
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Chronic Fatigue, Gluten Free Diet, Healthy Holiday, Immune System Support, Leaky Gut
The Five Most Useful Lab Tests for Measuring Your Health
As a new year approaches, it’s good idea to assess your health status and make informed decisions about what you need to do next to get your body in the best health ever.
While I feel that oft times, practitioners over-rely on lab testing and use it instead of applying clinical detective tools, like a good interview and exam, still there are many lab tests that I believe are super important to guide you to making informed decisions about what to eat, how to move, and what supplements might be needed.
The basic lab tests performed as part of the “annual physical”contain a tremendous amount of information about your nutritional status and your health…far more than most conventionally trained practitioners know to look for.
The Basic Lab Test: Understanding what “Normal” Means
The ranges used by most doctors are those calculated by the lab. Sadly, for most tests the way they decide if a value is normal or abnormal is based on the average values of all the lab tests done by that lab. So when you’re told you are “normal” what It really means is that you’re average.
I, for one, fail to feel encouraged to be told I’m average in a land where close to 50% of the people get cancer, autoimmune disease is epidemic, hormone imbalance is rampant, and heart disease and diabetes kill millions each year.
As a functional medicine practitioner, I look at optimal ranges calculated from studying healthy populations.
The List of Five Lab Tests that are Helpful Guides to Optimal Health
The following list is not meant to be comprehensive. Check with your doctor to determine the best tests for you.If you don’t have a primary care doctor or do but don’t have insurance coverage for lab tests, I suggest you check out one of the direct access labs that allow you to order your own blood tests.
The one I use is called Direct Labs – http://www.directlabs.com.
These panels are unfortunately only available in the continental U.S. excluding New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island due to state laws in these localities. If you live outside the U.S. or in one of these states, speak to your local health practitioner or seek a functional medicine doctor in your area to get help with ordering tests.
1. Comprehensive Wellness Profile (CWP)
I like to start with a comprehensive blood chemistry panel and Complete Blood Count (CBC). Direct Labs calls this the Comprehensive Wellness Profile, aka CWP. It’s a panel of over 50 tests that assesses your thyroid, kidneys, liver, cholesterol and other blood lipids (fats), minerals, fluids and electrolytes, and blood sugar.
The CWP also includes the aforementioned Complete Blood Count test, which assesses your immune system and determines if you have anemia and what kind of anemia if so.
Direct Labs usually runs a sale on this test in December. Until the end of the month, you can order this complete panel for only $59.
Click HERE for details.
Even if you’re outside the region that can Direct Labs to run the test for you, you can see what’s covered and be better informed when you speak to your local practitioner about ordering the equivalent for you.
2. Vitamin D
Next, I add Vitamin D.This is a very important test to run, as Vitamin D deficiency is very widespread due to the fear of the sun propagated by the media.Vitamin D is made by your body upon exposure to UV sunlight.Deficiency of Vitamin D can lead to widespread problems, including altered immune system function, including autoimmune disease, leaky gut, depression, hormone imbalance and much more.
3. Thyroid
If you’re tired, overweight, have dry skin, depression or constipation, your thyroid might be off.While the CWP tests thyroid, it’s not always enough.The most common cause of low thyroid function is an autoimmune condition.For this, I suggest you add to the mix 2 tests for thyroid antibodies: Thyroid Peroxidase and Antithyroglobulin.
4. Blood Sugar
If you have a history of blood sugar imbalance, hard to get rid of belly fat, fatigue, or a family history of diabetes, I also recommend additional tests to assess your blood sugar status and determine if you have a tendency towards insulin resistance or diabetes. The CWP includes fasting blood glucose, but often this is not enough to give the true blood sugar balance picture.
I recommend also running fasting insulin and hemoglobin a1C. In addition, you can purchase an inexpensive blood sugar meter at your local pharmacy or online and really get the complete picture.
5. Heart
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. Sadly, for about 50% of people with heart disease the first symptom is dropping dead of a heart attack. This happened to BOTH my parents. Wouldn’t you like to know if you are at risk BEFORE a fatal event so you can take the steps to reduce your risk?
If you have a family history of cardiovascular disease, or find that your cholesterol tends to be higher than ideal, there are a couple of really useful tests. C-Reeactive Protein (CRP-hs) is a marker of inflammation in your blood vessels and homocysteine is an amino acid that plays a role in destroying the lining of your artery walls, promoting the formation of blood clots, and also accelerates the buildup of scar tissue. High levels may increase the chance of heart disease and stroke, especially if you have other risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, smoking, or family history.
I suggest you run CRP-hs and homocysteine tests if you feel you are at risk. There are also much more detailed and sophisticated cardiac risk tests, including one called VAP, that I order when appropriate.
Extra Tests
Extra tests I often run when indicted by symptoms and health history are the adrenal stress index and a fatty acid test to determine the balance between the oh-so-important omega 3 and 6 fats and risk for inflammatory disease.
How to Determine Which Tests You Need
When I’m working with someone one on one, I do a complete history and determine which tests would be helpful.
My Assess Your Own Body Chemistry class was designed to empower you to take charge of your own health. The program teaches you how to read your own lab work, as well as physical signs and symptoms.
We’ll be releasing the self-study version of the course in early 2012.It’s an excellent way to learn how to read your own body.
Finally, if you are overweight, crave sugar or carbs, and feel like you need to eat frequently to maintain your energy, you most likely have a blood sugar imbalance. In this case, I recommend you get yourself a glucose meter and start to track your response to foods.
The participants in my recent B4 Be Gone System learned how use a glucose meter to track their blood sugar in response to their foods and realized the tremendous value in knowing just how each food affected them. Knowing YOUR response to particular foods guides you in designing a diet that keeps your belly flat, your mind sharp and focused, and your energy high. The B4 Be Gone System will be available again for a live group setting in February 2012.
Before you get yourself tested, make a commitment to take good care of yourself. Get the white stuff out and the green stuff in.
If you’ve been feeling off or overweight in spite of a good diet, it’s time to do some testing and see what’s out of balance.
Measuring your health is the best way I know to really determine how your habits are serving you.
Watch here for more information and resources for lab testing over the next couple of months.
Tags: blood count, blood sugar, blood sugar imbalance, direct labs, heart disease, immune system, lab test, lab testing, thyroid, Vitamin D
Posted in Health Coach, Lab Testing, Vibrant Health
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.
Tags: aspartame, blood sugar, bread, Cancer, cholesterol, Diabetes, DNA, fats, fatty acid oxidation, fatty liver, gluten, heart disease, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oil, inflammation, insulin, margarine, soda, soft drinks, sugar, Three Foods To Avoid, trans fats, white bread
Posted in Cancer, Gluten Free Diet, Health Coach, Reduce Belly Fat
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:
- learning to live with hunger and to appreciate it for what it is: your body’s desire to be fueled with nourishment (not filler).
- 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:
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. - 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.
- 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.
Tags: belly fat, blood sugar, brain fog, Diabetes, heart disease, hunger, juice cleanse
Posted in Brain Fog, Cleansing Programs, Health Coach, Holistic Nutrition, Raw Foods, Reduce Belly Fat, Vibrant Health
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?
Tags: Cancer, Diabetes, diet, heart disease, Mother's Day, plant based diet, raw food breakfast, raw food dessert, Vibrant Health
Posted in Articles, Raw and Living Foods, Vegan Diet, Vibrant Health
