April, 2015
Core Heart Health Values
by Lisa Shelton Rohde, CHC
Your heart health is your core center. Your heart is a ticking clock or a battery that keeps things moving and functioning, as your blood moves throughout your body, in rhythmic flow from your heart center. By tuning into the needs of your heart and keeping this battery charged your heart has the ability to carry you through many long and active years in life.
The liver is your hearts companion. The liver is responsible for purifying all the blood your heart is to send around your body. The liver works hard to remove toxins and either processes or stores toxins away in the body as demanded.
Diet and lifestyle are at the core of your hearts health. Recognizing that todays world is more toxic than our ancestry ever faced, and taking action to reduce your toxic load, is necessary to protect your heart. Though, in todays world, by way of the air we breathe or absorb through our skin, the water we drink, and the food and pharmaceuticals we consume, toxins are impossible to avoid completely. But we do have the ability to reduce our toxic load. Therefore we have to be willing to embrace new ways of life in order to persevere.
Literally, the United States ranks 100 out of 100 countries in health and yet we are the wealthiest nation, why is this should we be rated at least in the top 10 if not the top 3:
64% of Americans are overweight or obese
Obesity is the second largest preventable cause of death in the U.S. (smoking is #1)
Obesity and diabetes are global problems affecting millions and over 1 billion people worldwide
Obesity is major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, however, you can be a lean diabetic too.
At least 65 percent of people with untreated diabetes die of some form of heat disease or stroke.
Overweight and obese youth has increased 3 to 1 in every 3 American kids and teens
Obesity is the leading cause of premature heart attack.
Overweight Children are at an increased risk of heart disease beginning at age 25.
Type 2 diabetes, once referred to as “adult onset” diabetes is largely preventable with proper diet and physical activity.
Until recently most cases of children diabetes were type 1, which is mainly genetic origin. But today as many as 45% of newly diagnosed diabetes in children are preventable type 2. (According to the American Heart Association)
It is time to reclaim your health. We have to look to our ancestors and learn what we can from them. We also have to pay attention to our contemporary world and all of the toxins we face on a daily basis. We as individuals have to be responsible for our own health. It is extremely rare to find a doctor out that that can answer all your questions or provide you with all the answers, ultimately you need to be proactive in life, learn what you can from the experts, do your own research and learn to listen to your inner gut as you move into a new way of living and eating.
Ultimately you are going to want to consume a diet that is organic and high in vegetables in particular dark green leafy veggies including broccoli. Let your plate be 70-80% green veggies breakfast, lunch and dinner. Focus on whole foods as nature intended, foods that have not been denatured at all. Think whole grains such as quinoa, millet, amaranth to name a few seed like grains. Or perhaps short grain brown rice (lowest glycemic rice), or whole steel cut oats if you are tolerating true grains. Lean proteins with healthy fats including beans, seeds and nuts in moderation. If you must, wild caught sockeye salmon ideally or chicken. Consuming cultured veggies with animal protein is a must and ideal with any food consumption at all.
Today there is irrefutable science that supports vegetarian, and better yet vegan lifestyles, as the healthiest, cleanest, most free of disease, and longest living potential.
***
What happens when we consume fats in our diet?
Well it all depends what type of fat really. Some fats such as extra virgin olive oil, raw coconut oil, and avocados are considered very healthy, in moderation, and beneficial. You will want to have some of these in your diet no matter what. Yes, even veggies and carrots have a small amount of fat in them too, a testimony to how necessary fat is to life.
Healthy fats help to ensure that we receive and utilize the benefits of nutrients, vitamins and minerals in the food we eat. Healthy fats also regulate our hormones, and ensure that we properly detoxify and eliminate unwanted toxins from the body.
Unsaturated fats, also known as healthy fats, or monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, are good for the heart and the body overall. Healthy fats are good because they can ease inflammation and reduce blood cholesterol levels. Unsaturated fates are most often found in plants such as vegetable oils, nuts and seeds and generally are liquid at room temperature.
On the flip side consuming unhealthy fats such as trans fats found in processed and junk foods high in triglycerides, and saturated fats found in animal meat, increase the amount of bad cholesterol or LDL in the body. Consuming more healthy fats will increase the good HDL cholesterol while lowering the bad LDL cholesterol. We’ll talk more about understanding cholesterol in a moment when we dive deeper into consuming animal protein.
Don’t be fooled by the label, if it says 0g trans fats but you see the word “hydrogenated” or the prefix “hydro” on the ingredient list, than the product does contain trans fats, though less than 0.5g per serving, the FDA allows it to be listed as though there are zero trans fats in the product.
Margarine is a trans fat oil that has been hydrogenated or made into solid form at room temperature for longer shelf life and better transportation. In a study of over 80,000 nurses, women who ate 4 teaspoons of margarine a day had a 50% greater risk of heart disease than women who only ate margarine rarely.
Trans fats are also naturally found in small amounts in beef fat and dairy fat. Dairy products and meat products in general are major contributors to unhealthy fats and increased bad LDL cholesterol. Pizza and cheese in the U.S. are the largest sources of fat in the diet. Pork and Beef tend to be worse than chicken or fish on the fat scale.
As a general rule of thumb it is best to keep your intake of saturated fats from dairy or animal meat to a minimum and consume them only rarely.
***
What happens when we consume animal protein?
Animal protein is sluggish in the human body. It is perhaps the slowest digesting of all the food groups. For some it may take several days to travel all 28 feet of the human gut. True carnivore digestive systems are typically only 12 feet long. Consider what animal protein traveling at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit for three days might be like, fermenting, putrefying and feeding pathogenic organisms. Furthermore carnivore stomaches produce 10 times more hydrochloric acid necessary in proper meat digestion than do human stomaches.
The result is literally bad body odor, foot odor, and foul smelling bowel movements to name a few basic complaints, caused from consuming animal protein, and all of the resulting undigested and toxic byproducts build up. As undigested animal protein begins to ferment and putrefy this results in too much toxic waste matter in the blood and lymphatic system. The liver becomes overburdened, food nutrients, water and oxygen no longer flow freely and the body and our cells and organs begin to suffer.
When we consume too many proteins, in particular too many animal proteins, the access is stored in connective tissues throughout the body and converted to collagen fiber. The collagen fiber builds up and the membranes in which it is fixed to may become up to ten times thicker than normal. We end up with inflammation and pain in our joints.
Similarly excessive animal protein may be stored in the arterial blood vessels of the heart which then become increasingly thick and congested making them harder and more rigid, cracks, wounds, and lesions may even begin to appear.
Cholesterol, and lipoprotein 5 (LP5) produced by the liver, actually acts like a bandage in the body, and is deposited where damage already exists. In fact, most people make more cholesterol than they absorb from their food.
Furthermore, since cholesterol alone is not enough to repair the vessel walls, additional connective tissue and smooth muscle cells grow inside the vessel leading to atherosclerotic plaque. As cholesterol is no longer able to freely flow to damaged areas within the body, the liver automatically increases its production of cholesterol. Imagine what happens next as excessive animal protein, cholesterol, and new tissue growth builds up within the heart vessels! We end up with conditions like atherosclerosis, blocked arteries, and congestive heart failure!
Protein is largely overrated. We have been mislead to believe that we must eat animal meat in order to receive enough protein. This is simply and scientifically not the case at all. Vegetables, especially dark green leafy vegetables are very high in protein, broccoli too. Crowding out consumption of animal protein with an increased consumption of green vegetables will ensure us a healthy balanced diet with plenty of protein. Other great vegetarian sources of protein include seeds and nuts (especially those that have been soaked and or sprouted to remove undigestible toxins). Quinoa is the highest protein grain, actually not a grain at all but rather a seed-like grain, and beans are a wonderfully healthy source of protein too.
***
What happens when we consume too many carbohydrates or sugars?
Carbohydrates are generally easily digested and absorbed into the blood stream quickly providing fast energy. Carbohydrates actually break down in the body into sugar. Don’t get me wrong, veggies including leafy green ones, are carbohydrates too, and these are the ones we want to consume because they are low carb foods. However, when we consume too many processed and refined carbohydrates, foods that are high in carbs such as breads, noodles, rice, potatoes, and sugary beverages, our blood sugar spikes causing the pancreas to up the hormone insulin levels.
Insulin’s job is to remove the excess high sugar levels from the blood and so converts and packages sugar away converting and storing it as fat. In fact when eaten in excess, sugar is escorted by insulin to the liver where it is processed and stored as triglycerides, an unhealthy fat that is not easily accessed as fuel later, but rather stored away in the body as a “keep sake”.
When you consume high amounts of sugar at once the bodies solution is to store it for later. Therefore a low sugar diet can be effective for managing weight and health. Fruit because it is whole as nature intended, with fiber and nutrients, is a healthy choice in sweets. The fiber in fruit actually helps to somewhat block a portion of its carbohydrates from being absorbed, lowering their actual carbohydrate level. Although, some perhaps with insulin resistance, or a candida imbalance, may want to avoid fruit at least till their body systems and micro flora are back in balance.
Many leading experts in the field of obesity and heart health, including Robert Lustig, contend that sugar is a poison, is often stored as body fat, has the same artery-clogging effects, and is essentially worse than fat. Lustig would also address the connection between sugar, candida, and cancer as well, but this is a story for another day.
Now that we see the carbohydrate, sugar, fat connection, we are full circle back to examining what fats do to the body and heart health.
***
Rule of thumb for the contemporary world, fill up on healthy foods first, this will naturally crowd out overconsumption of less healthy foods. Don’t go vegetarian or vegan and increase your carbs! Be sure you increase your greens and veggies. Make sure you are also bringing in healthy fats to your diet.
Food is medicine! What serves you at one point in your life may not always serve you well. Be light and flexible so you can listen to your body and meet your bodies needs.
To begin with an ideal approach to eating would include plenty of vegetables in particular dark green leafy veggies. These would make up the base of the food pyramid. Green leafy veggies, including broccoli, provide us with plenty of protein and calcium both. Aim for 1/2 raw and 1/2 cooked. Though, if your digestion is hampered, you will appreciate cooked initially moving into more raw with time. You will want as much as 50-80% of your food intake to be veggies including breakfast.
We may receive additional protein as needed from beans, though proper preparation, soaking and rinsing prior to cooking, as well as cooking with garlic and sea veggies will ensure proper digestion. Enjoy as much as 10-30% beans or legumes in your diet.
Raw fruit is also largely beneficial and ideally fruit will adorn 10-30% of your diet. Though, one need be careful to enjoy fruit on an empty belly and alone, as it does not generally combine well with other food groups. Fruit alone digests very quickly and passes through the stomach perhaps in 30 minutes or less. When fruit is consumed with other food groups, digestion is slowed down and the fruit may begin fermenting in your belly producing an abundance of gas and feeding pathogenic organisms such as yeast, natures decomposer in the food chain. Yes yeast exists in all of us and its future roll is to decompose our bodies. If you suffer from a yeast infection, also known as candida, fruit may temporarily not be your friend.
Whole grains & potatoes or other starchy vegetables should make up 20% or less of your diet.
Seeds, Nuts, avocados and healthy fats should remain at 10-20% of your daily intake.
Eggs, oil, fish, dairy, meat and processed foods should be eaten rarely. For these I like to refer to the 90:10 rule where you are eating a most healthful diet 90% of the time leaving a little room, 10%, for slack, no need to be hard on yourself.
If you are one of those people who continues to consume animal protein or dairy and says I just can’t seem to get my bad cholesterols down, I have tried everything, ask yourself this, have you tried a vegan diet? At least a temporary vegan diet for say 3-6 months, in which you allow your body to cleanse and clear its vessels. Perhaps one day you will enjoy the occasional healthier organic, free ranged, or wild caught fish, chicken, or perhaps buffalo options again.
The times call for one to embrace a cleansing and restoring way of life. Life is too short to be congested and shortened thus further with a broken and dysfunctional heart. Allow your bodies inner rivers to flow freely, and cleanly, and relish all the life and love it brings forth.
Core Heart Health Values
by Lisa Shelton Rohde, CHC
Your heart health is your core center. Your heart is a ticking clock or a battery that keeps things moving and functioning, as your blood moves throughout your body, in rhythmic flow from your heart center. By tuning into the needs of your heart and keeping this battery charged your heart has the ability to carry you through many long and active years in life.
The liver is your hearts companion. The liver is responsible for purifying all the blood your heart is to send around your body. The liver works hard to remove toxins and either processes or stores toxins away in the body as demanded.
Diet and lifestyle are at the core of your hearts health. Recognizing that todays world is more toxic than our ancestry ever faced, and taking action to reduce your toxic load, is necessary to protect your heart. Though, in todays world, by way of the air we breathe or absorb through our skin, the water we drink, and the food and pharmaceuticals we consume, toxins are impossible to avoid completely. But we do have the ability to reduce our toxic load. Therefore we have to be willing to embrace new ways of life in order to persevere.
Literally, the United States ranks 100 out of 100 countries in health and yet we are the wealthiest nation, why is this should we be rated at least in the top 10 if not the top 3:
64% of Americans are overweight or obese
Obesity is the second largest preventable cause of death in the U.S. (smoking is #1)
Obesity and diabetes are global problems affecting millions and over 1 billion people worldwide
Obesity is major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, however, you can be a lean diabetic too.
At least 65 percent of people with untreated diabetes die of some form of heat disease or stroke.
Overweight and obese youth has increased 3 to 1 in every 3 American kids and teens
Obesity is the leading cause of premature heart attack.
Overweight Children are at an increased risk of heart disease beginning at age 25.
Type 2 diabetes, once referred to as “adult onset” diabetes is largely preventable with proper diet and physical activity.
Until recently most cases of children diabetes were type 1, which is mainly genetic origin. But today as many as 45% of newly diagnosed diabetes in children are preventable type 2. (According to the American Heart Association)
It is time to reclaim your health. We have to look to our ancestors and learn what we can from them. We also have to pay attention to our contemporary world and all of the toxins we face on a daily basis. We as individuals have to be responsible for our own health. It is extremely rare to find a doctor out that that can answer all your questions or provide you with all the answers, ultimately you need to be proactive in life, learn what you can from the experts, do your own research and learn to listen to your inner gut as you move into a new way of living and eating.
Ultimately you are going to want to consume a diet that is organic and high in vegetables in particular dark green leafy veggies including broccoli. Let your plate be 70-80% green veggies breakfast, lunch and dinner. Focus on whole foods as nature intended, foods that have not been denatured at all. Think whole grains such as quinoa, millet, amaranth to name a few seed like grains. Or perhaps short grain brown rice (lowest glycemic rice), or whole steel cut oats if you are tolerating true grains. Lean proteins with healthy fats including beans, seeds and nuts in moderation. If you must, wild caught sockeye salmon ideally or chicken. Consuming cultured veggies with animal protein is a must and ideal with any food consumption at all.
Today there is irrefutable science that supports vegetarian, and better yet vegan lifestyles, as the healthiest, cleanest, most free of disease, and longest living potential.
***
What happens when we consume fats in our diet?
Well it all depends what type of fat really. Some fats such as extra virgin olive oil, raw coconut oil, and avocados are considered very healthy, in moderation, and beneficial. You will want to have some of these in your diet no matter what. Yes, even veggies and carrots have a small amount of fat in them too, a testimony to how necessary fat is to life.
Healthy fats help to ensure that we receive and utilize the benefits of nutrients, vitamins and minerals in the food we eat. Healthy fats also regulate our hormones, and ensure that we properly detoxify and eliminate unwanted toxins from the body.
Unsaturated fats, also known as healthy fats, or monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, are good for the heart and the body overall. Healthy fats are good because they can ease inflammation and reduce blood cholesterol levels. Unsaturated fates are most often found in plants such as vegetable oils, nuts and seeds and generally are liquid at room temperature.
On the flip side consuming unhealthy fats such as trans fats found in processed and junk foods high in triglycerides, and saturated fats found in animal meat, increase the amount of bad cholesterol or LDL in the body. Consuming more healthy fats will increase the good HDL cholesterol while lowering the bad LDL cholesterol. We’ll talk more about understanding cholesterol in a moment when we dive deeper into consuming animal protein.
Don’t be fooled by the label, if it says 0g trans fats but you see the word “hydrogenated” or the prefix “hydro” on the ingredient list, than the product does contain trans fats, though less than 0.5g per serving, the FDA allows it to be listed as though there are zero trans fats in the product.
Margarine is a trans fat oil that has been hydrogenated or made into solid form at room temperature for longer shelf life and better transportation. In a study of over 80,000 nurses, women who ate 4 teaspoons of margarine a day had a 50% greater risk of heart disease than women who only ate margarine rarely.
Trans fats are also naturally found in small amounts in beef fat and dairy fat. Dairy products and meat products in general are major contributors to unhealthy fats and increased bad LDL cholesterol. Pizza and cheese in the U.S. are the largest sources of fat in the diet. Pork and Beef tend to be worse than chicken or fish on the fat scale.
As a general rule of thumb it is best to keep your intake of saturated fats from dairy or animal meat to a minimum and consume them only rarely.
***
What happens when we consume animal protein?
Animal protein is sluggish in the human body. It is perhaps the slowest digesting of all the food groups. For some it may take several days to travel all 28 feet of the human gut. True carnivore digestive systems are typically only 12 feet long. Consider what animal protein traveling at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit for three days might be like, fermenting, putrefying and feeding pathogenic organisms. Furthermore carnivore stomaches produce 10 times more hydrochloric acid necessary in proper meat digestion than do human stomaches.
The result is literally bad body odor, foot odor, and foul smelling bowel movements to name a few basic complaints, caused from consuming animal protein, and all of the resulting undigested and toxic byproducts build up. As undigested animal protein begins to ferment and putrefy this results in too much toxic waste matter in the blood and lymphatic system. The liver becomes overburdened, food nutrients, water and oxygen no longer flow freely and the body and our cells and organs begin to suffer.
When we consume too many proteins, in particular too many animal proteins, the access is stored in connective tissues throughout the body and converted to collagen fiber. The collagen fiber builds up and the membranes in which it is fixed to may become up to ten times thicker than normal. We end up with inflammation and pain in our joints.
Similarly excessive animal protein may be stored in the arterial blood vessels of the heart which then become increasingly thick and congested making them harder and more rigid, cracks, wounds, and lesions may even begin to appear.
Cholesterol, and lipoprotein 5 (LP5) produced by the liver, actually acts like a bandage in the body, and is deposited where damage already exists. In fact, most people make more cholesterol than they absorb from their food.
Furthermore, since cholesterol alone is not enough to repair the vessel walls, additional connective tissue and smooth muscle cells grow inside the vessel leading to atherosclerotic plaque. As cholesterol is no longer able to freely flow to damaged areas within the body, the liver automatically increases its production of cholesterol. Imagine what happens next as excessive animal protein, cholesterol, and new tissue growth builds up within the heart vessels! We end up with conditions like atherosclerosis, blocked arteries, and congestive heart failure!
Protein is largely overrated. We have been mislead to believe that we must eat animal meat in order to receive enough protein. This is simply and scientifically not the case at all. Vegetables, especially dark green leafy vegetables are very high in protein, broccoli too. Crowding out consumption of animal protein with an increased consumption of green vegetables will ensure us a healthy balanced diet with plenty of protein. Other great vegetarian sources of protein include seeds and nuts (especially those that have been soaked and or sprouted to remove undigestible toxins). Quinoa is the highest protein grain, actually not a grain at all but rather a seed-like grain, and beans are a wonderfully healthy source of protein too.
***
What happens when we consume too many carbohydrates or sugars?
Carbohydrates are generally easily digested and absorbed into the blood stream quickly providing fast energy. Carbohydrates actually break down in the body into sugar. Don’t get me wrong, veggies including leafy green ones, are carbohydrates too, and these are the ones we want to consume because they are low carb foods. However, when we consume too many processed and refined carbohydrates, foods that are high in carbs such as breads, noodles, rice, potatoes, and sugary beverages, our blood sugar spikes causing the pancreas to up the hormone insulin levels.
Insulin’s job is to remove the excess high sugar levels from the blood and so converts and packages sugar away converting and storing it as fat. In fact when eaten in excess, sugar is escorted by insulin to the liver where it is processed and stored as triglycerides, an unhealthy fat that is not easily accessed as fuel later, but rather stored away in the body as a “keep sake”.
When you consume high amounts of sugar at once the bodies solution is to store it for later. Therefore a low sugar diet can be effective for managing weight and health. Fruit because it is whole as nature intended, with fiber and nutrients, is a healthy choice in sweets. The fiber in fruit actually helps to somewhat block a portion of its carbohydrates from being absorbed, lowering their actual carbohydrate level. Although, some perhaps with insulin resistance, or a candida imbalance, may want to avoid fruit at least till their body systems and micro flora are back in balance.
Many leading experts in the field of obesity and heart health, including Robert Lustig, contend that sugar is a poison, is often stored as body fat, has the same artery-clogging effects, and is essentially worse than fat. Lustig would also address the connection between sugar, candida, and cancer as well, but this is a story for another day.
Now that we see the carbohydrate, sugar, fat connection, we are full circle back to examining what fats do to the body and heart health.
***
Rule of thumb for the contemporary world, fill up on healthy foods first, this will naturally crowd out overconsumption of less healthy foods. Don’t go vegetarian or vegan and increase your carbs! Be sure you increase your greens and veggies. Make sure you are also bringing in healthy fats to your diet.
Food is medicine! What serves you at one point in your life may not always serve you well. Be light and flexible so you can listen to your body and meet your bodies needs.
To begin with an ideal approach to eating would include plenty of vegetables in particular dark green leafy veggies. These would make up the base of the food pyramid. Green leafy veggies, including broccoli, provide us with plenty of protein and calcium both. Aim for 1/2 raw and 1/2 cooked. Though, if your digestion is hampered, you will appreciate cooked initially moving into more raw with time. You will want as much as 50-80% of your food intake to be veggies including breakfast.
We may receive additional protein as needed from beans, though proper preparation, soaking and rinsing prior to cooking, as well as cooking with garlic and sea veggies will ensure proper digestion. Enjoy as much as 10-30% beans or legumes in your diet.
Raw fruit is also largely beneficial and ideally fruit will adorn 10-30% of your diet. Though, one need be careful to enjoy fruit on an empty belly and alone, as it does not generally combine well with other food groups. Fruit alone digests very quickly and passes through the stomach perhaps in 30 minutes or less. When fruit is consumed with other food groups, digestion is slowed down and the fruit may begin fermenting in your belly producing an abundance of gas and feeding pathogenic organisms such as yeast, natures decomposer in the food chain. Yes yeast exists in all of us and its future roll is to decompose our bodies. If you suffer from a yeast infection, also known as candida, fruit may temporarily not be your friend.
Whole grains & potatoes or other starchy vegetables should make up 20% or less of your diet.
Seeds, Nuts, avocados and healthy fats should remain at 10-20% of your daily intake.
Eggs, oil, fish, dairy, meat and processed foods should be eaten rarely. For these I like to refer to the 90:10 rule where you are eating a most healthful diet 90% of the time leaving a little room, 10%, for slack, no need to be hard on yourself.
If you are one of those people who continues to consume animal protein or dairy and says I just can’t seem to get my bad cholesterols down, I have tried everything, ask yourself this, have you tried a vegan diet? At least a temporary vegan diet for say 3-6 months, in which you allow your body to cleanse and clear its vessels. Perhaps one day you will enjoy the occasional healthier organic, free ranged, or wild caught fish, chicken, or perhaps buffalo options again.
The times call for one to embrace a cleansing and restoring way of life. Life is too short to be congested and shortened thus further with a broken and dysfunctional heart. Allow your bodies inner rivers to flow freely, and cleanly, and relish all the life and love it brings forth.