PEERtrainer

5 Reasons To Consider Removing Gluten From Your Diet, By JJ Virgin, PhD

This is a link to a new article on the site about Gluten written by JJ Virgin, who has a PhD in nutrition:

Should You Remove Gluten From Your Diet?

We asked for this to be written in response to an email we had been sent arguing that there was no scientific basis to the assertion that gluten was something that could harm your health or hinder your weight loss efforts.

We had written a summary on this subject earlier this year, and it is great to have us continuing this discussion. In the summary we quoted another well known nutritionist, Dr. Alan Pressman who said this:

"Gluten is a protein, and it can be found in wheat, rye, and barley.  Many people are allergic to it, and millions of people are sensitive to it.  It can trigger all sorts of inflammatory responses in your intestinal track and entire body. It creates chronic inflammation throughout the body, and if you are sensitive or allergic to it can cause a 72 percent increased risk of death. That's pretty serious business."

This is an emerging area of scientific understanding, and we hope that by presenting these different views it will help you see if gluten is something that is effecting you personally.

Read JJ Virgin's take on Gluten here

How Food Sensitivities Impact Weight Loss

We just rolled out a new interview for the PEERtrainer Mastermind Program, in the form of a 20 page interview we recently did with JJ Virgin.

Because of the importance of the information she presented, we thought that it made sense to highlight a couple of the key points and share them with everyone in the PEERtrainer Community.

As you read these bullets you will see why we wanted to share them with you!

Food Sensitivities And How They Impact Weight Loss

• A food allergy is the person who if you open the peanuts on the plane, they go into anaphylactic shock. It's your mother‑in‑law eating lobster and getting hives. These are rare, and represent less than 1% of the population.
• Food sensitivities are not rare, from JJ's testing represents around 70% of the population. The worst part is that we usually think the symptoms are normal for us: gas, bloating, joint pain, fatigue, cravings, skin problems, can't lose weight.
• The problem is that they are hard to identify. Your energy might drop six hours later, you may break out the next day. It can be very hard to put this all together.
• There are many common food allergens. Gluten is not good for anybody because of how it damages the gut.
• When you reduce food allergens in the diet, it becomes easier to lose weight.
• Replacing the allergen causing foods is a big challenge. When you deal with this, it becomes much easier to follow an "elimination diet."
• According to JJ it is the combination of gluten, stress and toxins that are doing the most damage. What she does in her practice is help the gut heal, and then you can usually layer in some of the traditional allergens. (But leave the gluten out as much as you can.)

There is much more, and for those of you in the PEERtrainer Mastermind Program, you'll be sent this transcript in week six. This subject matter is a part of the "Stress Formula" that we talk about. There are many components to stress, and removing food allergens is a core part of it.

We thought that the 70% statistic would get attention. Now, this is from JJ's experience in her practice, but the point here is that you will likely benefit from reducing common food allergens.

What is interesting about her comments is that at PEERtrainer we have designed all our recipes, recipe guides and meal plans to leave out these allergens. For those of you who have The Magic Fridge or our Mastermind Quickstart Meal Plans- you'll find recipes that are 99% free of the common allergens!

 

The 7 Habits Of Highly Successful PEERtrainer Members

We came across the following comment yesterday, and wanted to provide this person (and others at the same point) some ideas to help keep them going:

"Still so close to giving up. Making some changes but no weight loss. Anything that helps keep me going is appreciated."

With this particular person there could be many different and personal reasons they are not making the progress they want to be. However, over the years we have seen many people make some really amazing changes. And often, people cite many of the same things over and over again. We have listed 7 here, and there are many more.

Look over this list, and see how you are doing in each of the areas. We also have an exercise you can do at the end.

1. Have you increased your green vegetables to a pound a day and made soup a core part of your meal planning? Many successful PEERtrainer members cite this in the list of things that helped them personally. In fact, if you look at the Cheat System, you'll see that you can earn a "Cheat" if you consume over 8 ounces of greens in a day. Many people following the Cheat System are doing exactly this and more. And it is working really well for them.

If you need some ideas for getting more greens into your diet, we have published many at the PEERtrainer Recipe Blog.

2. Do you a firm grasp on portion control? Many people when they start to eat a better diet think they can eat pretty much anything they want. With low calorie vegetables, this is true. But other "healthy" foods can really pack on weight with hidden calories or fat. As you build your aerobic base, you will increase your ability to burn off a lot of these calories, but when you are just getting going, you are going to find that you really want to watch your calories and portions. This page shows you some portions of common foods. Daily journaling is a great way to keep track of your portions. You don't need to go nuts in tracking very morsel, but if you write down what are are doing each day, and develop this habit, you'll find that you start to think "I am going to have to log this" before you eat. Just another thing that works. And at PEERtrainer we have developed a very easy format for logging as little or as much as you want.

In fact, we just created a new team called "Successful PEERtrainer Habits" for those of you who want to log and who also really want to interact and support others. (Please only join this group if you are looking to really "dig in" and give and get support on a daily basis.

3. This one might be a little controversial, because there is research that points in different directions. But do you weigh in once a week or once a day? We have observed a weird phenomenon, in that some people say that the scale becomes their friend when they weight themselves more often. For some people with serious food issues, you might want to be careful. But we have observed that staying very aware of your reality can be very helpful. It might be scary at first, but it will become a game as you start to make progress.

4. Are you great all day and then start going off track at night? For those of you who have been around PEERtrainer for many years, you know we talk about this a lot. It is a real phenomenon, and makes a huge difference between success and failure. We even address this a little with the incentive structure of the Cheat System. If you eat 8 ounces or more of greens during the day you earn half a cheat. But if you eat them after 5pm you earn a full cheat. The reason we do this is because we want to encourage people to fill themselves up with healthy food at the exact time that many people commonly go off track.

5. How are you doing in the excuse department. Do you always seem to come up with an excuse to make a choice that will not help you to your goal?  Or have you stopped the excuses? Could it be that you have decided this is really not a priority?  There are people out there who have their hands full, and who say "I know I have a problem, and I am just not ready to deal with it. Be really honest with yourself, and think about this a bit. Highly successful PEERtrainer members really understand the power of the word "decide." In fact, we focus on this exact concept early on in the Point of No Return Program. 

6. Can you honestly say that you are in control of your decisions and are not influenced by others? Peer pressure is a huge deal for most people. In fact, creating positive peer pressure is at the root of PEERtrainer. Our big idea has been over the years to create a place where you get positive peer pressure that helps to balance out some of the less positive areas of your life. Highly successful PEERtrainer members learn to become very strong in this department. In fact, this can often be a "heroic" effort, and require a bit of a journey to get to this place. If you aren't here yet, don't worry, but do keep this in mind.

7. How much sugar are you eating or drinking?  Sugar is a beast, and highly successful PEERtrainer members gain the upper hand in their relationship with sugar over time. There is a lot of hidden sugar especially in foods that we think are "good for a diet." Your breakfast is an excellent place to look for hidden sugar that you can easily eliminate.

Another thing that has proven to be helpful in the battle with sugar is hypnosis. Successful PEERtrainer members very often mention a product we have recommended for YEARS now called "Enjoying Weight Loss." It is one of those things that is helpful, works. We continually get great feedback from those who use it. As we have developed our own programs over the years, we still find a very strong role for Enjoying Weight Loss in the mix.

This is not a complete list of course, but we hope you find some ideas here that will help you. They have certainly helped others!

Bonus Exercise:

For those of you who are "socially active" please share your responses to this article on this thread in our new community:

http://mastermind.peertrainer.com/forum/topics/what-good-habits-have-helped-you

What things here have you tried that have worked? What have you not tried?

Write a short paragraph and answer these questions. And please share them with others.

PS, you'll have to sign up to join this free community, but we do this so we can easily monitor people who are "less than helpful."

-Jackie

 

 

 

 

 

Why Anyone Can Afford To Eat Healthy (And The Numbers To Prove This)

By Habib Wicks, PEERtrainer Co-Founder

Each week it seems we are shown new research that a) confuses people and b) seems to be designed to simply get attention. And it does get attention. Today we are subjected to the latest headline:

August 4th: Study: Healthy eating is privilege of the rich

The author of the study is assistant professor Pablo Monsivais at University Of Washington School of Public Health. Predictably the conclusion of his work, or at least the conclusion of the reporter who presented his work is this:

"The government should provide help for meeting the nutritional guidelines in an affordable way."

The problem with this conclusion is that highly nutritious food is already highly affordable. I emailed my good friend Jerry Deutsch, who runs the Nutritional Research Project- which supports research to "discover the true relationship between food and health."

I shared the link to the new study with him, and asked him for his thoughts. He shared with me a set of statistics, which I think will speak for themselves:

• The average price per serving across all produce was $0.28 for fruits and $0.21 for vegetables in the total U.S. for the year. 

• Nationally, the average retail price for nine servings of fruits and vegetables (four servings of fruits and five servings of vegetables) was $2.18. 

• Average retail prices for nine servings varied throughout the seasons, ranging from $2.08 in the fall of 2009 to $2.31 in the spring of 2010 for the total U.S. 

• Vegetables’ average retail price comprised 48% of the average retail price of the nine servings, and ranged from $0.20 to $0.23 per serving throughout the year. Fruits ranged from $0.27 to $0.29 per serving. 

• The East region showed the lowest average price for nine servings for the year, with $2.08, while the South was the highest at $2.30. 

Least Expensive Servings

• In the total U.S., watermelon, bananas, apples, pears, pineapple and peaches were options at less than the average of $0.28 per serving. 

• Nationally, potatoes, lettuce/salad, eggplant, prepared cooking greens, summer squash, carrots and tomatillos were less than the average ($0.21 per serving) for vegetables. 

Value Shopper/Store-Level Scenarios

• Opting for the least expensive choices available to a value shopper in a single store drops the average retail price of nine servings to $0.88, a discount of 60% from the national average of $2.18. 

• Over the four regions, value shoppers can save between 54% and 62% off their regions’ average price of nine servings of fruits and vegetables. 

• Six of the top 10 most common fruits appeared in store-level baskets in each quarter—apples, bananas, watermelon, oranges, pineapple and honeydew. 

• Nine of the top 10 most common vegetables appeared in store-level baskets in each quarter—lettuce/salad, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, summer squash, onions, eggplant, root vegetables and greens.

My Concluding Question:

Given these statistics do you think that our efforts to promote healthy eating should focus on price- or would our efforts be better spent focusing on teaching people the power of nutritionally powerful foods?

One thing I have seen over the years at PEERtrainer is that most people simply have no idea how powerful certain foods are for weight loss and overall health. When they do start to "get" this concept, their thinking changes on the spot because it is so easy to start to add these foods in.

Price often has nothing to do with it. This is why the work that Jerry is doing is so important. As the link between health and good food is proven, it will be promoted more. For those of us who have gotten this over the years this is common sense because we see and experience this first hand. But there are many many more, who when you explain this link, they will simply roll their eyes.

Related:

PEERtrainer Cheat System  (Helps You Start On The Path To A Healthier Diet)

PEERtrainer Mastermind Program (Keeps You On Track and Supported Each Week)

PEERtrainer Point of No Return (Master Your Mind, Get Over The "Big Hump")