Expert: Leigh-Anne - 5/17/2005

Question
My oh my - Leigh- Anne, the last person rejected my question because it was too lengthy. And due to it's medical nature I felt that the previuous one was appropriate in length. Oh, well. It is encouraging to see that you offer individuals to write as much as they can so that you can obtain the picture of what is going on.
I am a compulsive over eater
I have hepertension - 20 years
high cholesterol
high triglycerides
peripheal artery disease - 2005
pre-diabetes-2004
spastic bladder, as a result of radiation
depression
anxiety
organic brain disorder
hyperailmentation
obesity
4 adult children one of which is a poly substance abuser and is currently back in State Prison for violation of parole. He is un predictable and has a 9 y.o son that he has not seen since infancy due to his incarcerations & and criminal behaviors. I am with my secccond husband. Wehave been together for over 20 years. We raised these kids together.
Stroke 2003
TIA 2004
Cancer 1996-1997
Cancer 2001
3 sleeping disorders: obstructive apnea, narcolepsy, & Restless legs syndrome

I am overwhelmed at times -- sometimes I do real well.I am confused for an eating food plan.
Beacause when I eat sugars my body goes haywire.
I can not work since my stroke and so my income is very limited and this makes it very difficult
for purchasing nutritonal food items.

I am crying. I am so tired of being depressed. but this is all I know. I go to sleep and I awaken feeling the same way.
I realize that many of my diseases are due to my depression.
1 - When I first read your "expertise"    description:
I was wanting to know if you would be available
for someone to talk to more than once?
If not what would you reccommend?
1-counselling& 2-food plan

thanks
God Bless  

Answer
Pat,

You most certainly can contact me whenever you feel like it. I usually check my mail several times a day and try to respond as quickly as I can. Your depression can be a cause and also a result of your various disease processes. It's sounds like life has been very rough on you lately. You probably try to be strong, superficially, so that people around you can't tell how much you are hurting inside. Sooner or later that hurt and those feelings that you build up inside come out and those are those bad days that you mention. For many, eating is an outlet to stress and frustrations in their life, and sometimes that can get out of hand. It's hard to break that cycle, but believe it or not if you can stick to a healthy diet and make it become habit (like you have made your over-eating), the healthier diet can help lift some of your depression and increase your mood some. Have you ever gone to diabetic education? I know you are not a "true" diabetic yet, only pre-diabetes, but they generally help do meal planning and such. Diabetes, and moreso pre-diabetes, is not difficult to control with the right diet in combination with exercise.  

Some individuals believe that having diabetes means that you just can't have sugar, but you also need to stay away from some of those complex carbohydrates(breads,pastas, etc) which are broken down by the body into sugars. Now, you don't have to cut those things out of your diet, you just need to eat the RIGHT complex carbs. You do need to stay away from sugary foods such as candy, cake, pie, cookies, etc., but you can stick eat your breads and pastas so long as they are 100% whole wheat or whole grain and NOT made of white flour. White flour (white bread and pastas and also found in many other foods) is broken down in the body very quickly into those simple sugars. This causes your insulin levels to spike up very high. The ending result is the storage of much of that glucose as fat stores instead of being used by the body for energy. Whole wheats and whole grains and broken down by the body much slower and therefore you get a lower and more steady supply of glucose for the body to use, insulin doesn't get that high spike, and you get less glucose stored as fat. Are you confused yet??? I'm trying to make it as simple as I can. I like to give explanations for my reasoning for this type of "diet". Below you will find a diet (rather, a lifestyle plan) to try out. You need to stick with it for a while. It's not something you can just do whenever you feel like it.

I would also recommend starting an exercise routine. It can be as simple as starting out walking a mile a day, and then slowly build up your mileage and speed. Getting your weight under control can also help get many of your other conditions under control (depression, obesity, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and the list goes on).The good thing about this lifestyle is that you don't starve yourself.  You just eat good food.  

Our bodies were essentially designed to eat vegetables and fruit and complex carbs.  If you look at our tooth structure and the length of our intestines, they were designed for vegetables/fruit/complex carbohydrates much more than they were designed for meat.  A low fat diet can prevent 15-20% of all cancers.  Notice, not all of them....so you have to die from something.

Remember, in the 50 years of the Framingham study that looked at risk factors form heart disease, none of the 6,000 subjects who had cholesterol less than 150 had a heart attack!

I try to explain the diet part by following 2 simple rules:
1.  Eliminate animal fat.  Because of this rule, it turns you into a "vegetarian".  Oh well.  There are some things to learn about this like making sure you still get essential amino acids.  Soy protein has all eight essetial amino acids.  Rice and beans have the major 3 amino acids (tryptophan, methionine, lysine).  If you eat breakfast cereal with a dab of nonfat yogurt, you get the essential amino acids.   In general "whole grains" plus legumes (any bean) will give you the essentials.  Your body only needs 14 grams of essential fats a day to survive and you can easily get this from vegetables.  I also take a B12 vitamin to ensure I get enough B12.  I use soy milk on my cereal (and sometimes drind 4 oz extra).

Remember 1 gram of fat is 9 calories. One gram of protein or carbs is 4 calories.  That is part of the reason you don't need to worry how much you eat in this lifestyle.  You eat when your hungry.  But as explained in rule number 2, you don't get hungry the same way you are now!

2.  Eliminate simple carbohydrates.  What does that mean?

First, eliminate simple sugars like cake, candy, cookies, pop (regular), juice, etc.  In other words if it tastes sweet, avoid it.  I follow this rule 98% of the time.  I will have a rare jelly bean or ice cream/cake at a birthday party, but in very limited quantities and never more than once a week.  This rule is very important to stop the carb cravings you talk about.

Second, eliminate processed grains.  These are things with white flour/white rice, etc.  When they process the grain, they take out the fiber and bran which slows the absorbption of the carbs.  Subsequently, just like with simple sugars, you raise you blood sugar level quickly.  This makes insulin rise, but it will frequently overshoot.  

This causes two problems:   1. It turns on your lipoprotein lipase and causes you to turn your sugar to fat. 2. It causes your sugar to go back down low and drive you to crave more carbs and thus the cycle begins all over again.  After two weeks of this low fat/no simple carb diet, those cravings will go away.  You still get hungry..in fact I "graze" a lot.  I eat pretty much all day, but follow the rules.  

What are complex carbs?  Whole grains....whole wheat, brown rice, corn, rye, etc.  If you buy bread make sure it is 100% whole grain.  Many "wheat" breads in the store still have white flour in it.  If ingredients say "enriched flour" it likely is white flour.

This is not hard to follow from the standpoint of hunger.  It is hard to follow from the standpoint that in our society, 80% of the foods (or more) that are presented to you in social situations are simple carbs and fat.

It takes discipline.  But I have come to think of those foods as poison since they make me feel lousy.

Benefits of this lifestyle:
1.  More energy
2.  Less anxiety/depression
3.  eliminates heart disease and type II diabetes
4.  lowers cancer risk (not eliminate)
5.  you will drift to your "ideal" body weight without focusing on losing weight.  It may take 6-12 months, but it will happen if you are strict on the rules.

Other components to the lifestyle besides what you eat:
1. exercise
2.  eliminate caffeine (I haven't completed this yet, but I am close)  This and all stimulants increase the activity of your nervous system and this has negative consequences for your heart.  Eliminating this also reduces anxiety.

3.  meditate/pray/relax your muscles.

Atkins had it 1/4 right.  By eliminating carbs, his diet eliminates simple carbs.  But you don't have to eliminate complex carbs...he's wrong there.  Also, fat itself in the diet is shown to cause damage to arteries and make you blood easier to clot regardless of cholesterol.  Remember Dr. Atkins had heart attack 2 years ago, but he said his diet didn't cause it!

Sorry for the long winded answer, but I think this is the key to obesity in  America.   We are loaded with simple carbs and fats and we wonder why we can't lose weight.   Remember, the average Chinese person is near ideal body weight.  The average American is obese.   The Average Chinese eats less than 15% fat diet.   The Average American gets 40-50% calories from fat.  The aveage Chinese eats 20% MORE calories per day than the average American, but they are not fat!