I am a pill popper

[Lozen]

Just wanted to hear what five bajillion supplements other people are taking. I went to my herbalist to get a full workup to find out what's wrong with me and he says I am a touch anemic and very deficient with low blood pressure. He recommended more meat (with at least two meals a day), and the following supplements, which make me feel like a pill popper. I am taking:

 

beta carotene

folic acid

cod liver oil

floradix iron and herbs

multivitamin (MultiGuard)

 

This in addition to my herbal tincture, and Chinese formulas. EEK!

[Cameron]

Any word on that there Kenneth Cohen interview ma'am?

[Lozen]

What the hell does THAT have to do with pill popping??! I sent it to him again and am waiting for a response. I'll call him. I'm on it, okay?! Sheesh!!

 

Any word on that there Kenneth Cohen interview ma'am?

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Edited January 3, 2006 by Lozen

[Cameron]

See this all would have been finished in like 1 day if Ken used email. Maybe it's good and teaches you patience or something?

 

Ok, I won't ask about it again.

[thaddeus]

Just wanted to hear what five bajillion supplements other people are taking. I went to my herbalist to get a full workup to find out what's wrong with me  and he says I am a touch anemic and very deficient with low blood pressure. He recommended more meat (with at least two meals a day), and the following supplements, which make me feel like a pill popper. I am taking:

 

beta carotene

folic acid

cod liver oil

floradix iron and herbs

multivitamin (MultiGuard)

 

This in addition to my herbal tincture, and Chinese formulas. EEK!

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Hey there, I've found myself taking quite a bit of supplements. Lately I've been taking the Lysine/C regimine recommended by linus pauling to clear out your arteries. I feel pretty good on it too. Averaging about 8gms of C and 3-4 of lysine.

Take a mixed antioxidant formula and lots of fish oil.

Currently considering a testosterone/estrogen inhibiting formula.

Shou wu Ji drink.

 

Why are you taking the beta carotene? And are you taking the cod liver oil because of the recommendation on nyctaoist.com?

thaddeus

[Lozen]

My herbalist says that even though my diet is exempletory, I seem to be a touch anemic and my blood pressure is on the low side and my condition is "deficient." The Floradix is for the iron, cod liver oil is for the A and D, the rest of the vitamins are just to make sure I'm getting enough of 'em, I guess... I also have to eat protein with every meal, yeck.

[karen]

Hi Lozen,

 

Just a couple comments..

 

Iron from non-animal sources is very poorly absorbed, because it is "non-heme" iron. I don't think Floradix does much, neither does beta carotene supplements.

 

Cod liver oil is right on. Great yin builder. And not just for the A and D, but extremely important for the omega-3's. Meats, bone broths from big marrow bones, raw milk if you can get it, pomegranate juice, black sesame seeds.

 

I like the Ayurvedic tonic jams called rasayanas, or specifically chyavanprash. Yummy and a relief from so much pill popping. Also herbal wines like Draksha (amazingly yummy).

 

I would also expect the practitioners to be investigating why you're anemic, beyond just giving blood building foods and herbs.

 

Aversion to protein is a common symptom of protein deficiency. After 27 years of being a strict vegetarian, I wasn't too fond of meat either! That changed.

 

-Karen

[Lozen]

Thanks for the info! I disagree about Floradix--it is super absorbable and has worked REALLY well for me in the past, and I have a friend who's a midwife who's also had great experience using it with her clients.

 

Oh! The iron comes from ferrous gluconate, whatever that is.

Edited January 3, 2006 by Lozen

[karen]

Re. Floradix, you're right, the elemental iron part of it (ferrous gluconate) is absorbable, although it's a very small amount, but the herbs aren't. Floradix is marketed as an herbal iron source, but it's kind of misleading, because it's really only the elemental iron that does the trick. Then it's not much different from cheaper iron supplements, and in general I don't think the body interacts with fractionated nutrients in a beneficial way.

 

If you're turning on a faucet and providing something that's missing but there's an open drain, you can get some short term results but not really be fixing the problem. So I'd be looking at where the drain is, and there are a number of possibilities.. eating whole grains, having insufficient hydrochloric acid, heavy menstruation, just to name a few.

 

-Karen

Edited January 3, 2006 by karen

[Lozen]

Oh, I don't take it for the herbs, I take it because it's a non-constipating form of iron. I took it when my hair was falling out because I was REALLY deficient from being homeless and vegan, and my body definitely interacted well with it, and absorbed it much better than it did from the buffalo burgers.

 

I agree with you about fixing the problem. I'm addressing my liver chi issues too.

[Lozen]

Oh, one more thing. My problem is not with protein, but with protein with every meal. I was basically eating protein and veg for lunch, and veggies and grains for dinner, because I don't combine grains and proteins. So it means I have to eat less grains. And I love grains.

[karen]

For years I could never have imagined a diet without grains. (One thing that helped me get over it was discovering breads made from almond flour .

 

The book Dangerous Grains by Ron Hoggan is an eye opener, although that pertains mostly to gluten grains - wheat, barley and rye - not rice, oats, quinoa, millet, etc. But even the latter are really not dense sources of nutrition as food needs to be.

 

The healthiest cultures historically have been those that emphasized animal foods (meat especially from wild animals and organ meats, fish, raw dairy, eggs) and veggies, and had a smaller percentage of grains. (Weston Price did the groundbreaking research on many different non-industrialized dietary traditions).

 

The other thing I'd be concerned with is that if you're not sprouting or pre-soaking whole grains to neutralize the phytic acid, you can be causing mineral deficiencies including iron. Phytic acid is actually a treatment for iron overload, yikes .

 

Take care,

Karen

[Lozen]

Gosh, Karen, I wish you lived in Tucson, you and I could chat for hours! I was trying to do the Zone diet for a while, and I hated the idea of getting all of my carbs from fruits and veg. My body was screaming for potatoes and brown rice and pasta (which aren't zone-friendly). So my compromise was 2:1 veg to grains, and the grains only if I was still hungry. I eat sprouted bread (that Essene bread) for breakfast, and I love quinoa and brown rice. I don't usu. soak 'em but maybe I will start!! I also eat rice cakes sometimes, and oatmeal.

[Lozen]

Oh one more thing! I keep adding comments before you can respond. But my herbalist gave me a menstrual cycle calendar so I can track my mood for a whole month on each day of my cycle, which he said would help him figure out what's going on...

 

Also--do you know what the links are (if any) between low blood pressure and iron deficiency?

[karen]

Chatting for hours with food and music, and I'm in, although I wouldn't force the raw bison burgers on you

 

Ok.. here's the thing.. when the body is screaming for starches, it's not because it really wants it. "Trust your body" isn't always the way to go, because there are a lot of false signals that a metabolically imbalanced system will put out.

 

Craving for starches has many possible causes.. a few would be:

 

1. deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids

2. hyperinsulinemia (most everyone eating grains is going to have some degree of insulin resistance, and this is all stuff that Paul Bergner teaches, BTW

3. deficiencies of Magnesium and B6 (related to insulin resistance)

4. aspartame or MSG in the diet (probably doesn't apply to you, but hidden sources of MSG maybe)

5. deficiencies of certain amino acids lower serotonin which triggers carb cravings to raise serotonin

 

Plus the fact that grains don't have dense nutrition so you have to eat a LOT of them to be satisfied, and then you're overdoing the carbs.

 

Have you heard of Ori Hofmekler's Warrior Diet? Limited grains there, but after the body adjusts, you don't miss them. He does a great job of explaining the way that the various hormones including insulin and growth hormone go through daily cycles, and how we can harness the anabolic advantages of our hormones while minimizing insulin resistance.

 

You'd only have to eat protein at ONE feast of a meal , and then the metabolism is shifted over to fat-burning mode where you cruise at an even keel throughout the day and don't have insulin spikes or carb cravings. There's a lot more to it, but that's the very quick gist.

 

Karen

Edited January 4, 2006 by karen

[Lozen]

See, that's the thing though, when I do eat starches, I feel full. Kind of like when I crave fat and eat cashews or avocados. I feel better. And when I crave sugar and eat tons of chocolate, I feel worse. So I kind of trust that, I guess. I know when I was vegan I'd convince myself that my meat cravings meant I really needed beans or tempeh, but I was wrong. In Chinese medical theory, it is good to balance protein intake with starch, and I guess that's what I trust--because I've tried eating protein and veg and it ain't enough... But I'll ask Mr. Bergner and do some more research because I'm interested. I've looked at the Warrior Diet and it seemed very counterintuitive and kind of faddish, just like the Zone Diet, but also because I don't like the idea of eating tons of food at night and little during the day.

[neimad]

For years I could never have imagined a diet without grains. (One thing that helped me get over it was discovering breads made from almond flour .

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wow... almond bread. that sounds great.

 

Ok.. here's the thing.. when the body is screaming for starches, it's not because it really wants it.  "Trust your body" isn't always the way to go, because there are a lot of false signals that a metabolically imbalanced system will put out.

 

Craving for starches has many possible causes.. a few would be:

 

1. deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids

2. hyperinsulinemia (most everyone eating grains is going to have some degree of insulin resistance, and this is all stuff that Paul Bergner teaches, BTW

3. deficiencies of Magnesium and B6 (related to insulin resistance)

4. aspartame or MSG in the diet (probably doesn't apply to you, but hidden sources of MSG maybe)

5. deficiencies of certain amino acids lower serotonin which triggers carb cravings to raise serotonin

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candida possibly too?

i know my grain cravings are caused by candida....

 

 

and for the dense bulky lovely full feeling that carbs give.... what about sweet potatoes, pumpkins, bananas and avocados?

pumpkin and sweet potatoes are so satisfying for a dinner meal. they are heavy like eating rice or pasta, but go through the gut much smoother, and have way more nutritional value.....

 

but im sure y'all already know that.

[Lozen]

Sweet potatoes aren't allowed in the zone diet. Also I try not to combine starch with protein, or fruit with meals. AARGH too many rules!

[karen]

I gotta log off for the day .. but one quick thought.. the Warrior Diet may seem to a part of our brain as counterintuitive, but maybe it's only counter-habit. Ori's work is really about discovering your own innate healthy instincts, but the addictive cravings are making so much noise that the real instincts are hard to hear clearly.

 

I know the idea of eating a big meal late at night sounds strange, but this is controlled feasting and fasting cycles, which is very different from the kinds of erratic bingeing and starving that we're familiar with.

 

I couldn't count how many times the very thing that I didn't like the idea of at first, turned out to be the best thing for me. I'm just suggesting that there may be something there that can be of use to you.. even just to learn more about the biochemistry of insulin resistance and then apply that in whatever way works for you.

 

The marketing stuff that Ori does is a bit hyped, in my opinion, and I would ignore the product line, but I think the work is sound.. his second book goes into that in more detail than the first.

 

To be continued, I'm sure

 

Karen

[Lozen]

I hear what you're saying with counterintuitive being counterhabit. But I'm on purification diet right now. I haven't had any chocolate, fried foods, fatty foods, sugar except for fruit or anything like that for about three weeks, except once when I ate chocolate, and I felt way worse. I think I'm getting really good at honing my instincts. I did use to eat huge meals late at night, and not only did it negatively affect my digestion and sleep, I didn't feel good after... Also while I understand the concept of things I don't like the idea of being good for me, there is also the chance that things I don't like the idea of not being good for me, make sense? How is what Warrior Diet writes about insulin resistance different than what the Zone diet writes? If you're familiar with both...

 

G'night!

[Cameron]

Wow, I was thinking of trying the warrior diet for a month before I logged on and you gals are talking about what the warrior diet. Pretty neat!

 

I like a more conservative approach to the warrior diet which is basically to eat like a big salad w fruit and grilled chicken for lunch and then eat pretty much whatver you want for dinner.

 

Like today I got a really noce salad for luch and ate mexican for dinner. So atleast I got one healthy meal in.

 

Ken Cohen reccomends the zone for qigong practitioners but it is pretty tough. An easy way to figure that everyone always talks about is take the amount of protien that would fit in the palm of your hand and then the amount of healthy carbs(most fruits and veggies-not potatoes) that fit in your entire hand and some healthy fat and eat like every four hours.

 

I know if Ken reccomends it must be good..but hard to refrain from more carbs.

Edited January 4, 2006 by Cameron

[Lozen]

But Paul Pitchford says to eat grains, and he wrote Healing With Whole Foods!

And Elson Haas says not to eat fruit with protein or with meals for that matter. I think the reason for this food combining thing is because fruit digests all fast, and protein digests slowly, and since you'll only poop once if you eat fruit and protein, the fruit gets to rot in your stomach before you poop the fruit and protein out. However if you eat fruit alone it digests quickly, and if you eat protein alone or protein with vegetables (roughage, basically) then it'll digest as slow as it needs to, and same with starch and vegetables or starch alone. Anyways, it is hard to follow five zillion different theories, what about wearing ONE hat? I'm SO CONFUSED!! Lol. At some point, I think the think the best thing to do is pick a diet and stick with it. If I switched my diet every time I heard of a new one or saw a different book, I'd never accomplish anything. I do eat every three hours to keep my metabolism high--everyone says this (Zone, personal trainers, etc. etc.) except maybe Warrior Diet. Not sure. Anyways, I'm juggling quit a bit as it is!

 

Oh, and one more thign re: vitamins... Ken Cohen recommends them, I know acupuncturists that recommend them, and herbalists, and even Paul Bergner recommends a good multi. I was always taught it was better to get these vitamins from food and not pills because your body can't absorb pills as well (an acupuncturist I know told me that, and he was the one who put me on Floradix, lol) but Paul Bergner said some people WON'T get the nutrients UNLESS they take the multi. I tried tracking my food for several weeks on www.fitday.com and found myself ALWAYS low on some vitamin or nutrient or other, no matter WHAT I ate. Even my herb teachers, who are all amazing and educated and have tons of clinical experience, will say contradictory things. I guess at some point you just pick a regimen, stick to it and see if it works or not. I really am at the point where I think consistency is much more important than finding the perfect anything. Also my best friend is an herbalist and we'll often discuss why we use or don't use certain herbs, and honestly sometimes it boils down to "because we like to do it this way" and we realize we are neither right nor wrong. That, and the plants work differently for different people. There are some good reasons for certaint hings (using Everclear vs. vodka) and disagreements on ALL sides (Michael Moore says you need Everclear to extract enough of the plant chemicals, but Susun Weed will say Everclear is toxic and should not be used, and those are just TWO herbalists). So there's difference of opinion based on logic (but from many sides), from one's personal experience with the plants, and this isn't even MENTIONING differences of opinions based on one's body. I know that Ayurvedic diets don't work for me-- I have the cookbooks and have tested them out and they didn't work, I needed a TCM approach (esp. lots of MEAT!). But one of my friends basically goes nuts when he eats meat and needs an Ayurvedic diet. So our bodies are different. I also think my body has a harder time processing rancid fats/oils than other people's, and I can handle sugar better. I think there are very very few statements people can make that will apply to everyone, and they are along the lines of "eat vegetables" and "processed foods suck..."

 

if only I could find a way to curb the cod liver oil TASTE. Maybe I'll put it on toast or something. The lemon flavor isn't working.

Edited January 4, 2006 by Lozen

[neimad]

how about just eating foods you know are healthy, stick to that and let your body work the rest out?

 

i always find that trying to follow a specific diet is usually counter-productive. so many rules that just beg to be broken.... and then there is the seriousness aspect of it. if you become too serious about it and then don't enjoy your food... what is the point?

 

enjoy what you eat and eat what makes you feel good.

 

 

as for vitamins. i agree that its much better to get it all in foods. if you don't sprout... try it. alfalfa sprouts have every vitamin in them.

[TwoTrees]

Neimad, right on!

 

Fresh, raw, alive... what could be better?

 

*evil grin*

[karen]

I'll try to address a bunch of these issues in one post as coherently as possible .

 

Re. Warrior Diet vs. Zone.

 

The WD is a lot more than just eating a huge meal late at night.. doing that without the real feasting/fasting cycle is sure to throw off digestion, metabolism, sleep and everything else. It's not just another popular diet plan to follow, but a framework to help recover our intrinsic dietary wisdom.

 

Review of The Zone by Sally Fallon of the Weston Price Foundation

 

The Zone gets a few pieces right, and almost any popular diet will. But mostly they all perpetuate the mainstream PC diet rules especially of avoiding saturated fat (really disastrous to do that). All that is based on flawed studies courtesy of the pharma/grain cartel complex. Many naturopaths aren't discerning about that and fall for the PC stuff.

 

The point about fat is that the PC low-fat agenda fails to distinguish between healthy fats and damaged fats. High quality fats like virgin coconut oil, raw butter, avocados and the fats in meat from healthy animals have been eaten liberally by native cultures for ages, and they never had heart disease or obesity. The Masai ate meat, milk and blood, not even veggies. Pretty intense, and I'm not suggesting we can simply adopt other traditions that worked for people whose constitutions and lifestyle were very different from ours. But I think it gives a very interesting perspective to see what the majority of humans thrived on for centuries.

 

Saturated fat is absolutely necessary in order for omega-3 fatty acids to be utilized correctly, not a controversial opinion but a biochemical fact that just gets conveniently overlooked.

 

Without the right fats in enough quantity, you can't switch out of carb-burning/insulin resistance mode and into growth hormone/ fat-burning mode. Important hormones are not going to be kicking in. Then you get cravings as a result, and then have to force yourself to resist the cravings in order to follow the Zone diet. Doesn't seem right.

 

I don't think we need to be micromanaging our diets with ratios of macronutrients . Now, that's counterintuitive to me, that humans should be calculating grams of this and that, or imposing rules about proportions of portion sizes.

 

The Warrior Diet is probably the most flexible system, because you're really not limiting anything. You're eliminating all low-quality foods, of course, but then you're just adjusting the timing of your meals. No starchy foods during the day, and then a leisurely feast in the evening. The feast meal could even be the lunch meal if that schedule works better for you. No deprivation, no counting or measuring. You can eat your grains if you want, but the starches come later on in the main meal, and usually by that time you don't want much of them anyway.

 

I think the Zone can sometimes manage insulin resistance but sort of by contrivance and artifical law rather than by natural law. To impose artificial rules about diet is just as oppressive as forcing yourself to exercise or meditate.. real discipline is a whole 'nother thing, and comes from aligning oneself with principles of nature. Something I think folks here are familiar with .

 

It could take a few days for the metabolism to adjust to the warrior schedule, and it might not feel great during that transition, but I've talked to lots of people who came to love it once they got into the groove.

 

Besides Ori's two books, another good one on diet and optimizing metabolic hormones is Natural Hormonal Enhancement by Rob Faigin. Faigin uses a similar feast/fast cycling approach although not daily cycling, more like weekly. He's a little more analytically oriented; Ori's more intuitively oriented.

 

>>Also while I understand the concept of things I don't like the idea of being good for me, there is also the chance that things I don't like the idea of not being good for me, make sense?

 

Sure. We know we can't trust all of our ideas and preferences because there are incorrect habits and attachments in that mix. But we also can't simply go "by the book" and not trust our own signals either. Experiment mindfully, I'd say. Examine preferences and attachments and see if they're coming from real bodily wisdom or from ideologies that are basically rooted in fear.

 

The reason there are so many conflicting theories is because most of what we've been told about diet is coming from, directly or indirectly, biased sources like the USDA and the grain cartels, food processing industries.. scientific studies on diet are miserably flawed, and statistics skewed. When you look at independent research, you start seeing that the truth about diet is not really that complicated.

 

I would suggest you get hold of Sally Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions. Look at what kept native cultures healthy for centuries, when they had no contact with "foods of modern commerce." Forget about scientific studies and macronutrients. Warrior Diet or not, just get more of the nutrient-dense foods going. Do the sprouting or soaking of grains that she talks about in the book, if you want to continue with grains.

 

Paul Pitchford has a lot of insight regarding the energetics of foods, and I still use his book as a reference at times. But he's also coming from some ideologies about vegetarianism and grains. To sort out the confusion, I would skip that for now and get a good grounding in the Weston Price tradition (WAP). Ori basically comes from that tradition too and then uses those foods according to the warrior schedule. But the WAP tradition alone can keep you busy for a while.

 

The recipes included in that book are overly complicated with too many ingredients, but they can usually be simplified.

 

So the gist as I see it is: No matter how you individualize a diet, there's a repertoire of foods that have universally kept people of all cultures healthy, and I would recommend getting grounded in that first. Then you might be in a better position to know where you want to go from there.

 

Re. Ken Cohen, he actually advises to limit grains, in his book The Way of Qigong. I think that the traditional TCM diet was developed for a particular population in China, within their particular cultural framework. If rice was the most available staple, then a diet was developed to accommodate that and mitigate any negative effects of that, hence all the medicinal congees. But we don't have to be limited by that. The healthiest cultures historically were more hunter-gatherers than agriculturalist.

 

(Maybe our love of shopping has to do with the gathering instnct

 

Avocados are one of the best foods, great source of fat. Raw foods can be eaten with warming herbs so as not to weaken digestive fire, but that's another whole topic. Also I go for whatever wild foods I can get hold of.

 

-Karen