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The Liberation Diet Takes on Dr. Oz’s “BEACH” Body Plan

Posted by Lauren Snyder Grosz on April 30, 2010

“B is for a quick-slimming Breakfast.” Dr. Oz recommends always revving up your metabolism with breakfast.  Aim to get up to half of your total daily calories in the morning.  This advice is given based on a recent study that found that this simple trick shifts body chemistry, allowing dieters to get the big initial results of a low-carb plan sans the carb deprivation.  That’s a study I’d like to see.  What are the chances that it was paid for by a company who makes breakfast foods?  Among the delicious temptations, dieters can choose from fat-free yogurt, scrambled eggs, or Chex Multi-Bran.  These main entrees are supported by whole-grain English muffins and unlimited fruit.  The only thing to like here is that he refrains from calling for egg whites only.

Pastured eggs are highly recommended on The Liberation Diet; eggs with bacon, sausage, ham, fish, scrapple, or raw milk.  For frying it’s best to use butter or coconut oil.  Now that’s not a recommendation, you’ll find in any magazines catering to busy Mom’s, looking to take care of their families.

“E is for Eliminating the most fattening food of all.” Sugar and high fructose corn syrup spike your blood sugar and are loaded with empty calories. Dr. Oz says that whole fruit is the most slimming way to soothe a sweet tooth.

While The Liberation Diet concurs with Dr. Oz re sugar and high fructose corn syrup, it is key to remember that anything your mouth perceives as sweet is being turned into sugar by the body.  Kevin Brown and his co-author Annette Presley recommend eating fruit even less frequently than vegetables, and then only when in season and with real cream or some other healthy fat to increase absorption of antioxidants.

“A is for flab-blasting antioxidants.” Vegetables and brightly colored fruit continue to be linked to fat -burning and hunger control.  Dr. Oz says that they are extremely good for you and will provide plenty of energy.

Kevin Brown maintains that vegetables are certainly healthy, but not the foundation of health.  A good rule of thumb is to eat them in smaller proportion to fat and protein.  Always eat vegetables with saturated fat, to increase the absorption of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.  So remember to add butter or a lovely cream sauce to get the most out of your vegetables.

“C is for a Chocolatey weight-loss surprise.” Just when you thought he was done beating the antioxidant drum, Dr. Oz informs that dark chocolate is loaded with antioxidants, “especially a certain type linked to reduced hunger.”  I’d tell you which one, but readers are left to guess.

On The Liberation Diet, chocolate isn’t verboten, it simply isn’t touted as an antioxidant, hunger curbing, mood elevating, must have.  Eat well 80% of the time and enjoy an exceptional chocolate desert occasionally!

“H is for fat-flushing H20. Dr. Oz thinks people are so stupid that they routinely confuse thirst and hunger.  His wisdom here is to drink water whenever you’re hungry and that way you’ll always feel full and thus end up eating less.  I’m not really sure how much water Americans now consume, but I’ve looked around and it doesn’t appear to be curing anyone’s hunger.  Finally, when you tire of water, grab some green tea.  You’ll never guess why.  Yes, that’s right!  Green tea is loaded with antioxidants!

The Liberation Diet’s take on water is most refreshing because it’s something that is rarely talked about.  There is an epidemic of heart burn and acid reflux out there.  What really happens when dieters are convinced to drink water before eating in order to curb their appetites?  Hydrochloric acid is secreted into the stomach when we eat so that  food can be digested.  Drinking water dilutes this acid, thus impairing digestion and promoting digestive ailments.  While drinking excessive amounts of water will not flush toxins from the body, as is commonly thought, it most certainly will flush vital minerals from the body.  In short, drink when you are thirsty, but try to refrain from drinking at least an hour before eating.  In terms of quenching thirst water doesn’t even come close to Kombucha, which also happens to be a live fermented drink.  Real milk and broth are also excellent options.

Dr. Oz’s BEACH diet only works because it’s based on severe calorie restriction.  Menus do not exceed 1,200 calories.  I can only imagine the binging that takes place when coming off of this diet.  Dr. Oz gives us nothing new here.  It’s the same old vegetable pushing low-fat nonsense that got us into trouble in the first place.

The Liberation Diet extolls fat as the most important nutrient in the diet!  Half of your fat intake should be from saturated fats found in animal foods, coconut, and palm oils.  Not only is this a delicious way to get key nutrients, but it is also the best option for feeling full and satisfied when you eat.  This is why people on The Liberation Diet typically eat only twice a day.  They are sated when they eat and so they eat less and loose weight.  There are many other important differences between this diet and the ones that are being peddled to women.  Some of those have been highlighted in this post, but the best way to smash out of food prison is to buy the book and liberate yourself.

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Lauren Snyder Grosz is a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Educator.  As a student on a lifelong quest for exceptional health and happiness, her mission is to empower people to take complete responsibility for their own health by rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true and rediscovering what truly works based on accurate science.

Posted in Goal Setting, liberation diet, Nutrition | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Yes, Poor Food Choices Should Be Supported

Posted by Lauren Snyder Grosz on April 22, 2010

This is a story from Karen De Coster’s blog.  For people involved in the real food movement, it underscores the importance of not picking and choosing what you want regulated, but rather being against regulations and bans in the first place.  The ability to tan, drink real milk, consume processed food, or purchase grass fed beef should all reign supreme when the consumer is king.  Ultimately, the struggle should be for the individual to have the power to choose what he wants.  Only when the rights of those who prefer tv dinners to home cooked  meals are secure, can those of us struggling to give butter a fighting chance know that some headway is being made.

The State’s New Demons:  Tanning and Salt

A lead story in the news this week has been the latest in a series of propaganda pieces on tanning beds: they are bad for you. The story now goes that tanning salons are bad because they attract people with addictive behavioral patterns. Some dermatology study was produced that will become another piece of ammunition for the proposed taxes on tanning.

The title of the piece in the Archives of Dermatology is, “Addiction to Indoor Tanning: Relation to Anxiety, Depression, and Substance Use.” I can’t wait to see the science behind that correlation. Tanning salon customers, it is said, are prone to using drugs, alcohol, and smoking. I guess that’s sort of like saying people who are attracted to Florida condominiums are prone to arthritis, bingo, and aging.

After the government’s long and destructive “war” on the sun, it has been widely reported – even in the mainstream press – that people are lacking in Vitamin D, and the whole obsession with high-SPF sunscreen has been misplaced. The Lifestyle Nazis, for some reason, just hate tanning salons. They hate that people freely make the choice to exchange their cash for time ‘neath the artificial bulbs. I kind of like the argument that the tanning salon tax is racist. Note the dermatologist in the video who states, “The tanning salons know their days are numbered.”

Next …

Lo and behold – yesterday, after months/years of rumblings, the FDA announced its long-term plan for controlling the kind of food you can access.

“The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products.

…The legal limits would be open to public comment, but administration officials do not think they need additional authority from Congress.

Legal limits on salt in processed foods. And the FDA has unlimited authority to bypass your (equally totalitarian) elected legislature. One source from the FDA stated that the government’s goal is to change the “embedded tastes in a whole generation of people” ….. by slowly boiling the frog, that is. This will be a 10-year program of gradual totalitarianism, as the Feds work to slooooowly change your personal taste. They will gradually lower the allowed limits on salt and wean you off the “taste.” Excuse me – “embedded taste?” I am being completely objective, here, as I do not ever eat landfill processed foods. But it’s a choice, and no matter how bad a choice, some people choose it.

One of my most hated tyrants in all the land, Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, stated, “Limiting sodium might be the single most important thing the FDA can to do to promote health.”

Accordingly, we know that this has nothing to do with some great concern for the health of individuals. For the same state that rails against processed food makers enables and subsidizes the foods – processed and agriculture – that have been making Americans obese and disgustingly unhealthy for decades. These subsidies have been luring Americans away from more expensive, healthy, whole foods (that actually take time to prepare) and toward quick-and-easy processed, garbage foods. The salt grab is another control tactic to be used to socially engineer society under the guidance of the self-aggrandizing Central Planners.

Ask yourself this question: after the FDA/Department of Agriculture/Feds limit the amount of salt in the processed foods you buy, what do you do when you cook it at home? Hmmmm, add salt from your salt shaker? Is it really that easy? Yes, that is, until you need a special license to have a salt shaker and buy salt, and jack-booted thugs from the FDA are kicking in your door for a salt shaker search.

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Lauren Snyder Grosz is a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Educator.  As a student on a lifelong quest for exceptional health and happiness, her mission is to empower people to take complete responsibility for their own health by rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true and rediscovering what truly works based on accurate science.

Posted in Food freedom, Food Safety | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Eat Real Food for a Good Night’s Sleep

Posted by Lauren Snyder Grosz on April 13, 2010



Tryptophan is vital to getting a good night’s sleep and waking up in a pleasant mood. The process begins when tryptophan is converted to serotonin, which is a precursor to melatonin, the sleep hormone. Serotonin is responsible for mood maintenance and when levels are low depression, anxiety, panic attacks, or insomnia may rear their ugly heads. That being said, it takes adequate amounts of serotonin to manufacture melatonin.  These processes all hinge on each other, but without the essential amino acid tryptophan and plenty of it, there will be a serotonin shortage.

The body can’t make it, so it must be obtained from the food we eat. Good sources of tryptophan include poultry, seafood, meats, and dairy products. When seeking these out, it is best to find grass fed products because when animals eat grasses and plants rather than grains, they are much higher in tryptophan.  Vegetarians take note non animal sources of tryptophan generally have about 50% less than animal sources.

In terms of supplementing with melatonin there appears to be a lot of disagreement re what the proper dosage should be. This is even more pronounced when it comes to children who are having trouble getting to sleep.  The benefits of increasing your tryptophan through food are many fold.  Real dairy, pastured eggs and chicken, grass fed beef, and wild caught seafood are exactly what a body needs to be vibrantly healthy and free of the diseases of civilization.  To think that a good night’s sleep happens to be a side benefit of opting out of industrialized food couldn’t be better news.  It makes one wonder, how many ailments would mostly disappear once real food was introduced and take seriously.

Lauren Snyder Grosz is a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Educator.  As a student on a lifelong quest for exceptional health and happiness, her mission is to empower people to take complete responsibility for their own health by rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true and rediscovering what truly works based on accurate science.

Posted in processed food, raw milk, real foods | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Rethinking Stretching

Posted by Lauren Snyder Grosz on March 24, 2010

Mark Sisson, the author of The Primal Blueprint, which hit number two on Amazon last week has some advice on stretching that may seem counterintuitive at first.  Sisson uses a model, primal human, named Grok to illustrate how to eat and be fit in today’s upside down health and exercise world. Grok would never do chronic cardio or chronic strength training and follows the Primal Fitness Pyramid – sprints, lift heavy things, move frequently at a slow pace.  This approach allows muscles to feel strong and supple nearly all of the time.  Becoming sore and stiff post workout is natures’ way of telling you that you overdid it.  Inactivity, extra rest and sleep, good nutrition, and brief repeated exposure to cold water (especially immediately after strenuous exercise) is key to muscle tissue repair.

To prepare your body for a workout, begin with a bit of brief, low-intensity exercise to help shift blood from the organs into your working muscles.  Post workout, consider doing a few basic stretches to transition from an active to inactive state.  Sisson recommends the Grok Hang and the Grok Squat.  The hang offers a full body stretch and is as easy as grabbing hold of a bar with an overhang grip and hanging for as long as you can.  It’s exhilarating and is both a strengthening and stretching move.  For the squat, place your feet about shoulder-width apart, bend your knees with a straight or slightly arched back and lower your torso all the way down until your butt is nearly touching the ground.  Your torso will be between your knees and your arms extended in front.  This one natural movement will efficiently stretch your feet, calves, Achilles, hamstrings, buttocks, lower and upper back, and shoulders.

A 20 second Grok Squat is a basic movement that delivers a comprehensive effect.  Mark suggests that if you happen to be feeling warm and loose, try gently rocking back and forth or extending your arms out farther for an even deeper stretch.  Use common sense: if you are overweight or have joint issues, ease into this stretch and hold onto a stationary object.

Lauren Snyder Grosz is a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Educator.  As a student on a lifelong quest for exceptional health and happiness, her mission is to empower people to take complete responsibility for their own health by rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true and rediscovering what truly works based on accurate science.

Posted in exercise, fitness | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Reaping the Benefits of Gratitude

Posted by Lauren Snyder Grosz on March 14, 2010

Be Ye Thankful Always!

Gratitude has been referred to as the “forgotten factor” in the area of happiness research.  Robert A. Emmons of The University of California, Davis and Michael E. McCullough of The University of Miami have chosen to focus on this aspect of happiness in particular and their work has yielded some interesting finds.  For instance,  people who kept gratitude journals reported fewer physical complaints, felt better overall about things, and were more optimistic about the future than those who recorded obstacles or even neutral events.

It seems that gratitude flourishes when purposely cultivated.  People who rate themselves high on a gratitude scale place less importance on material goods; they judge their success and the success of others on criteria that is personally meaningful.  This is not to say that material gain and gratitude don’t go hand in hand, but to point out that gratitude can be a powerful collaborator in accomplishing one’s goals, whatever they may be. A useful way to think about this is to ask the following question, “Have you ever known a happy person who wasn’t grateful, or a grateful person who wasn’t happy?”  Happiness is a result of gratitude and while it is not always possible to just be happy, choosing to be grateful is always an option.

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. and the founder of Inner Bonding Educational Technologies, Inc. draws attention to the fruitlessness of complaining.  The more you complain, the more unhappy you will feel.  Consider that it isn’t a person, situation, or the past that causes unhappiness.  Rather it is choosing to complain about it instead of discovering its wonderful side and being grateful for it.  Fundamentally, complaining is a form of control.  The mind believes that by complaining loud and long enough, it is able to have control over getting the thing that is wanted.

It is profound to think that contentment and a bevy of other benefits are attainable by circumventing initial reactions that have more to do with self indulgence than evolving the self.  Taking time to express heartfelt gratitude and resisting the temptation to complain is an investment that will continuously bear fruit, as long as it’s cultivated.

Lauren Snyder Grosz is a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Educator.  As a student on a lifelong quest for exceptional health and happiness, her mission is to empower people to take complete responsibility for their own health by rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true and rediscovering what truly works based on accurate science.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

How Politics Have Made Americans Fat and Sick

Posted by Lauren Snyder Grosz on March 11, 2010

Here is a glimpse into food subsidies from a 2007 post.

“When the House of Representatives debated the bill in July, PCRM, along with many other health and public interest groups, supported the Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment, which was offered by Reps. Ron Kind (D-WI) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). This amendment would have limited government subsidies of unhealthy foods, cut subsidies to millionaire farmers, and provided more money for nutrition and food assistance programs for Americans and impoverished children overseas.

Unfortunately, politics doomed the reform effort. At the eleventh hour, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) feared that freshman representatives who voted to cut subsidies might risk losing their seats in farm states in the 2008 elections, endangering the Democratic majority. The reform amendment was defeated 117 to 309.”

“Farm and food subsidies are becoming one of the most single important ways in which government can control the populace and feed its own growth and power. If you can keep people sick, fat, needy, hooked on pharmaceuticals, and desiring government programs to solve their problems brought on by government policy, the vicious circle will feed off of itself and grow the powers of the state to “solve” one massive “health crisis” after another.

Congressional friends of corporate interests have one foot in the subsidy trough, propping up their constituency that consists of agriculture and powerful (processed) food interests, and on the other hand they purport to want to save you through their nationalized health care, “war” on obesity, and jihad against any alternative forms of health solutions and maintenance. Government is in the business of making special interests wealthy, and in the process, it knowingly creates problems that can feed its own growth so it has the manpower to “resolve” the problems. Many years and many $$$$$ later, the problems are far more widespread and catastrophic. Yet every dupe in the media and medical establishment acts as if they have no idea how Americans came to be saddled with this exploding epidemic of obesity and diabetes.”

The last two paragraphs are by Karen De Coster and really can’t be improved upon.

Lauren Snyder Grosz is a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Educator.  As a student on a lifelong quest for exceptional health and happiness, her mission is to empower people to take complete responsibility for their own health by rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true and rediscovering what truly works based on accurate science.

Posted in Big Agriculture, big pharma, government, grains, lobbying, obesity, Politics | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Fructose and Glucose are Not the Same

Posted by Lauren Snyder Grosz on March 4, 2010

It is true that sugar (glucose) is essential for life.  Whenever the body needs energy glucose provides it.  Unfortunately, one need not eat sugar or even large amounts of carbohydrates to produce it Common table sugar (sucrose) breaks down during digestion into the simple sugars glucose and fructose.  Research indicates that it is the fructose part of sugar that is the most harmful especially for growing children.  When thinking in terms of ingredients to avoid, remember that according to Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, sucrose, fructose, and high fructose corn syrup (hfcs) all affect the body identically, re how they are metabolized and impact satiety.  High fructose corn syrup doesn’t cause the pancreas to produce an insulin or leptin response.  Leptin is a hormone that comes from fat cells and signals the brain to stop eating.  This important response fails to occur because there is no cell receptor for fructose on the beta cell that makes insulin.  Thus, if insulin doesn’t go up, leptin doesn’t go up and the brain is not signaled.  The point to remember is that only the liver can metabolize fructose because the body sees it as something foreign.

Gary Taubes, award winning science writer and author of Good Calories, Bad Calories, calls HFCS the most “lipogenic” fat procucing carbohydrate for simple reason that it tends to get converted to fat more than any other type of carbohydrate.  Food manufacturers are only too happy to comply with the low-fat regime by cutting fat out and adding HFCS in order to make their products palatable.  Unfortunately, this dastardly substance is no longer confined to the low-fat aisle, but has proliferated to the majority of products found in the grocery store.  The unabated rise of obesity, Type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension has much to do with increased consumption and prevalence of sucrose, fructose, and HFCS.

Reaching for a diet soft drink sweetened with aspartame will not solve the problem either.  Interestingly, natural practitioners see it as a poison and traditional ones see it as playing a pivotal role in weight loss, due to its zero calories.  Dr. Sandra Cabot, a liver function specialist with over twenty three years of experience, confirms that aspartame causes weight gain.  The liver breaks it down to its toxic components which stresses the liver.  Consider that aspartame contains ten percent methanol (wood alcohol).  In the body methanol becomes formaldehyde.  As a result, the liver cells have less energy for fat burning and resort to fat storing.  That is not even the worst of it, Dr. Betty Martini of Mission Possible International (warning the world off aspartame) notes that, “Aspartame destroys the nervous system, the brain and optic nerve, and ravages every organ in the body.  This poison is one hundred and eighty times sweeter than common table sugar.  Of all the food additives approved by the FDA, aspartame accounts for over eighty percent of all health complaints.  In the majority of cases, health can be restored by simply eliminating aspartame from the diet.  It masquerades under the names Equal, NutraSweet, and Spoonful.  Gradually, begin by eliminating the number of diet sodas consumed, replace with stevia sweetened drinks, add real milk, and kombucha into rotation.  Not only does kombucha have many health benefits, but it is a true thirst quencher.

Lauren Snyder Grosz is a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Educator.  As a student on a lifelong quest for exceptional health and happiness, her mission is to empower people to take complete responsibility for their own health by rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true and rediscovering what truly works based on accurate science.

Posted in add, Big Agriculture, Food Addiction, Food freedom, grains, heart disease, obesity, processed food, sugar, Weight Loss | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
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