Author: abbykurth0987

This is an excerpt from a new book I am just finishing, “Sick and Tired, to Healthy and Inspired: 9 Steps to Prevent Lifestyle Related Disease”. We are fast approaching New Year’s resolution time so perhaps this will help to get a start on a wellness mindset.

STEP #1:  

DISCOVER WHAT WILL MOVE YOU FORWARD

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”  Aristotle

A few steps forward, a few steps back. Such is the journey of life. It’s all about the learning. It’s all about the learning. It’s all about the learning. 

Chances are you have tried in the past to adopt a healthy habit. Perhaps the memory of this attempt to change, which may not have been successful, leaves you feeling like a failure and keeps you from trying.  Actually, your previous attempt not only shows you are smart enough to recognize the importance of adopting healthy habits, it also was a learning opportunity about new skills and new habits.  

When I’m having difficulties, I ask, “What am I supposed to learn from this?” When the answer comes to me, the difficulty or pain or challenge goes away more quickly. We can be our own biggest hinderance, but if we get out of our own way, we can also be our biggest chance of success. We all have what it takes to succeed if we can:

 Find our motivation

 Find our confidence

 Find our vision

KEY CONCEPT

Motivation comes from knowing why lifestyle change is important to you and to your purpose in life

Importance.  Why is having better health important to you? What goals do you have for the future, and how is your health linked to your goals? I always say I don’t want to attend my daughter’s wedding riding in a scooter chair and wearing an oxygen mask—I want to be able to dance. Everyone has a reason, and here are some that I hear frequently:

I want to enjoy myself when I retire.

I want to stay off medications.

I want to keep up with the grandchildren.

I want to feel good.

I want to look good.

I want to travel.

I don’t want to be a burden to my family.

I want to be a role model for my family.

List 3 more reasons why staying healthy is important to you: 

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

Your purpose. What is that thing that you can’t keep yourself from doing? For me it’s bothering you poor folks with information about being healthy. If I see an article or a show about people’s health, I am immediately interested and can’t wait to read or listen. I donate to causes that feed the hungry. Wherever you give your time, money, or thoughts, that is your passion and your purpose. Poetry, pets, politics, or even pickles. I may not give any of those things time or attention, but I’m glad that someone cares enough to be a superhero in those arenas. 

How would being healthy play into your passion? For instance, if you want to help build water wells in Africa, might having a heart attack limit you? If you love showing dogs, how will you do that if your excess weight impacts your knees so that you can’t walk or run? Physical incapacity takes away what gives our lives meaning. 

KEY CONCEPT

Confidence for change comes from remembering our past and present successes

When talking with people, I frequently ask them if there was a time that they felt good about their lifestyle habits.  Maybe they were exercising regularly or their healthy eating was off the charts.  The next question I ask them is, “what strengths were you using that helped you be successful” ? Maybe your time of feeling your best self didn’t even have to do with your health, but perhaps was about your job, your hobby or a relationship.  Whatever strengths you noticed then can be the fuel to move you forward now.  

EXERCISE:  Your Strengths

List your strengths that have helped you in the past and can help you make a positive lifestyle change now.

Jay Leno is admitting his admission into the high cholesterol club.  Not a surprise since I have read in the past that he jokingly says he hasn’t eaten a vegetable since 1969.  Per a recent article, Jay found that his LDL cholesterol (the “lousy” cholesterol because it carries cholesterol to the tissues, including the arteries) was high.  He made some dietary modifications including giving up the “Bacon of the Month Club” and perhaps he is now walking some instead of driving one of the many cars in his garage.  But there are 5 lifestyle changes Jay can make that would  improve LDL cholesterol as effectively as medication (20-30%), and the same is true for anyone.  

A high LDL cholesterol on a blood test may be only part of the story and further testing can be completed to see if the LDL particles are oxidized (dangerous) or not.  Oxidation creates damage to the cholesterol particles and causes them to stick more to the artery lining to create a blockage.  Vegetable and fruit haters like Leno are missing out on the ANTI-oxidants that could prevent this process.   

There is an on-line brochure from the National Institutes of Health  titled “Your Guide to Lowering Cholesterol with TLC (Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes)”.  https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/docs/public/heart/chol_tlc.pdf.  It is a long title and a long brochure, however, one page gives the summary of how one can reduce their LDL cholesterol by 20-30% with lifestyle changes.  Here are the 5 steps:

1. Decrease saturated fat to less than 7% of calories.              Saturated fats are generally solid at room temperature and come in foods like  butter, cheese, red meat, and of course bacon.  For a 2,000 calorie per day diet this would be around 140 calories from saturated fat per day or less.
2. Decrease dietary cholesterol to less than 200 mg/day.                   This may be especially true for hyper-responders or those who have a genetic propensity toward high cholesterol.  However, limiting fried foods, fast foods, processed foods and desserts would be helpful for any person.  Some foods with cholesterol are just too nutritious to pass up (think eggs).  
3. Lose 10 pounds if overweight.                                                          Even a 5% weight loss has benefits for health. 
4. Add 5-10 grams of soluble fiber per day.                                    Soluble fiber is found in oat bran, barley, nuts, seeds, beans, lentils, peas, and some fruits and vegetables.  Notice, these are all REAL foods in their real form. 
5. Add 2 grams/day of plant sterols/stanols.                                     These compounds occur naturally in many grains, vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and seeds.  Sterols and stannous can now be found as supplements or as additions to food because of their cholesterol-lowering properties. 

Joining the “Normal Numbers” club certainly is possible and think of what a celebrity you could become with your doctor, your family, and your body, which will thank you profusely.  This month is National Cholesterol Education Month, so now you are in the KNOW.  

“I believe in miracles…..you sexy thing”.  So goes the song by Hot Chocolate and it certainly holds true for the public waiting to hear about the newest miracle food or berry.  Me, I’m going to say that ALL food is a miracle.  All food from nature that is.  Man made food is about as much of a miracle as Frankenstein, thus the term ‘Frankenfood’.

The marketers love to convince us that a particular berry (think acai) is the latest miracle, and that is so much sexier then hearing “eat a wide variety of fruit and vegetables” again for the umpteenth time.  Our body does ALL it’s work using nutrients and most all foods have some nutrient that is helpful.  If you ate only acai berries, you would be missing out on many other needed nutrients.  Variety will ensure that we get what we need.

Like foods, some nutrients are deemed a miracle.  Vitamin D has become the latest hot nutrient with doctors testing for and recommending large doses of vitamin D.  The problem is that nutrients work together.  One of the benefits of taking vitamin D (D3 is the preferred active form) is that it helps the body absorbs calcium.  Unfortunately, we want the calcium to get into the tissues where it is needed (muscles, bones) and for that to happen the body needs vitamin K2 (most useful form is K7).  Otherwise, calcium stays in the arteries and contributes to arterial plaque.  

This ‘one nutrient’ thinking is the problem with some of the medical research – scientist try to test for one variable/nutrient to prove its benefit for a particular health condition, but nutrients are synergistic – they work together to make things happen.  Also, some research studies utilize synthetic forms of the nutrients and the Frankenstein theory raises its ugly head  (sorry Frank) with study results that say that nutrient doesn’t have any benefit.

So, the bottom line is to find your miracles in the farmer’s market instead of the marketer’s latest promotion.

BUTTER

I have to admit I am proud I was never a butter hater, even back in the 1980’s when anything with cholesterol was vilified.  Eggs and butter come from nature so they have to be good, right?  As for heart disease and cholesterol, those recommendations were made without scientific proof and time has shown us that processed foods and sugar are really the worse culprits for raising cholesterol above healthy limits.

Butter has butyric acid, which helps feed the cells of the colon, and if the colon is happy so is the rest of us.    Eating indigestible fiber like whole grains and legumes (beans, lentils, peas, peanuts) also help feed the colon, but butter is better (try saying that 10 times!).  

Butter from pasture fed cows is also high in vitamin K2, a seldom talked about nutrient.  Vitamin K2 helps take calcium and put it in the tissues that need it, like the bones, and limits the calcium in the arteries where it contributes to coronary heart disease.  

On the down side (there is always a down side isn’t there?).  Butter is high in calories, so put it in the “eat in moderation” category.  

P.S.  Julia Child and I also share another connection besides butter.  I was recently inducted into Les Dames D’Escoffier, a society of professional women involved in the food, wine, and hospitality industries of which Julia Child was a member.  I wonder what advice Julia would give to the current kale generation?

The most fun in health coaching is watching people who were sure they couldn’t make lifestyle changes gain confidence and become a doer.  Trust me, I have had to convince people to make a start even if it was to just move around for 5 minutes.  I have seen some of these people move on to become people who truly get the wellness message and are putting it into action.  Sometimes we lack the confidence to believe we can be successful making changes in habits or behaviors.

Is your confidence level low, medium, or high?

To develop confidence, try one of these:

1. Remember a time that you were at your best.  List the strengths you used to get there.  Ask yourself, “How can these strengths be used in achieving my current goals?”
2. Notice your positive thoughts, the thoughts that help you move forward.
3. Notice the encouragement you receive from others.  Write down the people who inspire you.
4. Congratulate yourself when you do something for yourself that shows you are worthy of being healthy, happy.
5. Try one small change and congratulate yourself each time you complete the behavior.  For example:

• Decrease sodas by 1 or 2 per week.
• Notice how you feel when you make a choice that supports your vision, versus a choice that doesn’t support your vision.
• March in place for 5 minutes several days a week.
• Add 1 vegetable or fruit to your diet 1-2 times a week.
• Manage stress by doing something you enjoy 1 time per week.
• Drink an extra glass of water several days a week.
• Read about any current or potential health issue you might have and how it can impact you and the people that are important to you. 

Success breeds success so crushing any one of these will grow your confidence. 

Chances are with the arrival of the new year, many of our minds turned to health, and perhaps even the need to detoxify.  As a nutritionist, I can tell you that many people’s idea of detoxification are a bit off the mark.  I remember one friend who was extolling the virtues of a product he called ‘Colon Blow’.  If this is a real product I’m not sure, but there are parodies of this product when you search the internet.  Others extol the virtue of water/juice fasting for many days and use feeling horrible as the badge of honor that they are detoxifying.  

Do you really need to detoxify?  Here is a quiz you can take to see your detox score along with some more complete information about a gentler way to cleanse the body.  https://knowaboutnutrition.com/detox-questionnaire/ 

Do You Really Need to Detoxify?

The good news is that our body does have a self-cleaning system – sort of like having a Roomba constantly sweeping the floor.  But, with more than 6 billion pounds of chemical pollutants being released into the environment in 2001 alone, that cleaning system can get overloaded.  The liver, kidneys, intestines, lung, lymphatics, and skin are charged with the task of getting rid of what is harmful.  

The liver is so important to keeping us safe from harmful substances, that anything absorbed in the small intestine immediately goes to the liver to make sure there is nothing in what we have eaten that will hurt us.  Again the liver is so important that up to 70% of the liver can be destroyed and it will grow back.  When it comes to detoxifying the liver is our hero and its main job is to make toxic substances, which are generally stored as fatty molecules, water soluble so that they can be removed from the body.  The liver does this in 3 phases:

1. Transformation – Phase 1:  Fat soluble toxins are transformed into intermediate compounds.  The bad news is that these compounds are often more toxic/reactive until they are further converted in Phase 2.   This is not a problem unless a person has a genetic propensity toward a rapid Phase 1 function and a slow Phase 2 function – think about gathering up all your garbage, but not having a bag to put it in (flies, smell – you get the picture).  
2. Convert to Water Soluble –  Phase 2:  This makes the intermediate compound from Phase 1 harmless, water-soluble, and ready to be removed from the body.  As mentioned before, there can be an imbalance between phase 1 and 2 as a result of:

• genetics 
• diet (some foods and supplements make phase 1 enzyme activity so fast that phase 2 can’t keep up), 
• smoking and alcohol consumption
• aging (worse for premenopausal women).                                        

This imbalance can cause problems and one example is the pain killer acetaminophen – the active ingredient in Tylenol®. Acetaminophen toxicity is the most common cause of liver failure in the US. when the phase 2 enzymes (especially glutathione) are depleted.

3. Transporters for Excretion – Phase 3:  The now harmless compounds are transported out of tissues to be removed from the body.  Dietary  factors may help (apple, sulforaphane from broccoli), or hinder (curcumin, milk thistle)  phase III transporters. An important part of the excretion process is to have good bile flow from the liver/gallbladder and regular stools as the garbage truck carries away the trash.  Drinking water and eating more quality fiber are important here and may be more gentle than something like Colon Blow.  

Each of these phases require vitamins, minerals, amino acids from protein, etc.  This is why prolonged fasting with water or juice may do more harm than good as the detoxification process needs a lot of energy.   You can look at the products under the “Detoxification” tab at wellevate.me/abby-wilson/kurth to see what kind of nutrients are generally used by professional grade supplement manufacturers to support the detoxification process. 

Another aspect of detoxification now being recognized is autophagy.  In autophagy, the cell has its own recycling system, where Pac Man like organs (lysosomes, autosomes) chew up waste products and what is no longer needed by the cell.  This process is especially important for cells that need to live a long time like the brain, liver, kidney, and pancreas cells, and it is felt improving this process has future impact on diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and autoimmune disease.  There are several ways you can turn up your body’s autophagy process:

1. Have a period of at least 12 hours without eating.  An overnight fast should be sufficient for most people and will avoid any problems for those with blood sugar issues, etc.  This is a short-term fast.  
2. Exercise
3. Higher fats (the healthy fats), lower carbohydrates (vegetables contain many nutrients that help detoxification so make those your carbohydrate source) and low protein
4. Curcumin, green tea and resveratrol from sources such as peanuts, pistachios, grapes, red and white wine, blueberries, cranberries, cocoa and dark chocolate are helpful as well.

If your detoxification score was high, you might need supplemental help,  but in general here are some things you can do to improve detoxification.

1.  Diet:  A varied, complex, and whole food diet is beneficial for detoxification and every other process your body needs to complete.  Research has found some foods that are detoxification superheroes:

• Allium vegetables (garlic, onion, shallot, leek, chive)
• Apiaceous vegetables (may slow down phase 1 detox) (anise, caraway, carrot, celery, chervil, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, hemlock, parsley, parsnip)
• Black raspberry, blueberry
• Black tea, Green tea, Chamomile tea, Dandelion tea
• Chicory root
• Citrus
• Coffee
• Cruciferous vegetables (results may vary with different vegetables) (cauliflower, cabbage, garden cress, bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts)
• Ghee
• Ginger
• Curcumin
• Daidzein, genistein (isoflavones found in fava beans, soybeans, kudzu
• Fish oil
• Luteolin (found in oregano, peppermint, sage, thyme)

2.  Reduce Your Risk for Toxicity

Listed below are some practical suggestions to help lower your exposure to toxins.

To minimize toxins in the diet:

• Avoid foods high in fat, additives and preservatives
• Eat organically grown vegetables, fruits, meats and grains
• Drink plenty of clean source water

To minimize toxins in the environment:

• Use an effective air purification system
• Wear protective clothing and/or apparatus when working with toxic   materials
• Replace furnace and air conditional filters regularly

If you are loving your liver and want to know more about how to help, here are some additional resources.  

Your Body’s Detoxification Pathways — The Great Plains Laboratory, Inc.

https://www.greatplainslaboratory.com/gpl…/6/…/your-bodys-detoxification-pathways

Metabolic Detoxification | Life Extension

https://www.lifeextension.com/protocols/metabolic-health/…detoxification/Page-01

Modulation of Metabolic Detoxification Pathways Using Foods and …

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4488002/

Dr. Kendal Stewart on Autophagy – https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-yy5j4-88f381

“No matter what I do, I can’t seem to lose weight.  Now that I’m older, it’s hopeless.”  I can relate to that statement and so I was excited when I saw that GX Sciences (GXsciences.com) was soon to offer a panel geared toward weight issues.  I have been working with Dr. Kendal Stewart as a patient for over a year and I have seen tremendous improvement in my health issues. Unfortunately, I hear there is a long wait to see Dr. Stewart, but for people needing support for general healthy aging, I hope to use this tool with my clients who are interested.  

Here is more information from GX Sciences about the Diet & Wellness Panel that is to be offered, and you can leave me your contact information if you would like to be informed when the test is available. 

POSSIBLE HEALTH ROADBLOCKS BEHIND WEIGHT LOSS

Inflammation, mitochondria, and methylation are three key areas of DNA testing for weight loss soon to be offered by GX Sciences that make up the genetic aspects of the weight loss equation. 

Low inflammation in the body is ideal for weight loss. Inflammation can be caused by allergies or other environmental factors. Since inflammation is a reaction from the immune system, the body interprets inflammation as the body being in crisis. In some, this may trigger fat to be stored in preparation for prolonged crisis. The body also seeing exercising as stress on the systems. Exercising while struggling with inflammation may even cause one to gain more weight. 

Mitochondria, the “powerhouse” of the cell, provides the body with energy from food. A greater number of mitochondria within cells can help develop a raised metabolism, aiding the burning of more calories and fat. If mitochondria isn’t properly receiving food or isn’t programmed properly, it’s difficult for one’s metabolism to operate at 100%. 

The body also needs to be methylating properly because methylation feeds mitochondria so that one can burn calories. Methylation is simply a biochemical reaction that allows processes in the body to move forward and has a great impact on making you happier, healthier, and makes the mitochondria help with weight loss by increasing energy use.  Folic acid and B-12 are the nutrients that support this process.  

These elements are further complicated by age, hormones, and more, but having knowledge of an individual’s biochemical pitfalls can help find ways to improve function.  

Here is a fun quiz from Health.com. As they say, it’s not a perfect science, but it might give you a hint as to whether your body is in better or worse shape than it should be for a person your age. Fortunately, 80% of our health is impacted by our lifestyle so you can actually reverse your biological age by bringing in healthy habits. https://knowaboutnutrition.com/what-is-your-physical-age/(opens in a new tab)