Sugar by any other name...

If you talked to your average schmuck on the street, they would agree with you that sugar is bad. But they would only be thinking of table sugar or candy, not the fact that most of the food they feed themselves and their kids gets readily converted to glucose during digestion, the same as sugar. As far as the body is concerned, foods like wheat, rice, barley, oats, potatoes, corn, bananas, pineapple, grapes, mangos, and raisins may as well be table sugar. Sure you can use whole wheat or brown rice and slow the sugar down a bit, but how is it any better to eat a cup of sugar in one gulp or to eat half of it now, and the other half a little bit later? It's still all sugar.

Sugar is bad. Plain and simple. Aside from the fact that it rots your kid's teeth right out of their cute little heads, it has been linked to cancer cell growth, obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, atherialsclorosis, alzheimer's disease, and premature aging.

People who go on a low carbohydrate diet cut sugars and other carbohydrates down to a very low level. By doing this, they lessen their blood glucose levels and reduce the amount of insulin rampaging around their blood streams. This helps them lose weight, get off of diabetes medication, lower their blood pressure, and generally look and feel better. Unfortunately for those of us who recognize the dangers of sugar, sugar can be hard to eliminate from our diet because, often, it is in disguise.

If you really want to avoid sugar, get used to reading labels. Sugar by any other name is still bad for you.

Different Names for Sugar
Sugar
Glycogen
Mannitol
Sorbitol
Balactose
Monosaccharides
Polysaccharides
Honey
Molasses
Maple syrup
Maple sugar
Date sugar
Brown sugar
Raw sugar
Turbinado sugar
Corn sweetener
Dextrose
Fructose
Glucose
Honey
Lactose
Maltose
Malt syrup
Molasses
Sucrose
High fructose corn syrup
Corn syrup
Beet sugar
Turbinado Sugar
Galactose
Xylose
Amylose
Amylopectin

Might As Well Be Called Sugar
Wheat
Flour
Corn
Corn Gluten
Rice
Brown Rice
Oats
Arrowroot
Tapioca
Arracacha
Buckwheat
Cassava
Oca
Sago
Sorghum
Kudzu
Banana
Barley
Dates
Grapes
Raisins
Nectarines
Pears
Pasta
Grits
Corn Starch
Bread
Cookies
Cake
Donuts
Bagels
Crackers
Breakfast Cereal
Fruit Juice
Carrot Juice
Milk
Ice Cream
Anything with a cartoon character on the label

Good Luck Finding Low Carb Dog Food

At least when it comes to Walmart and canned dog food. Since the "1 can of low-carb wet food and a free feeding bowl of low-carb crunchies" plan is working so well for my cats, I see no reason it wouldn't work for dogs. With sister-in-law's dog being 20lbs over weight, I wanted to find a quick solution.

Too bad I have not yet found the canine equivalent of the relatively inexpensive grain-free Fancy Feast canned foods listed on FelineDiabetes.com. I checked dog food label after dog food label and found ingredients like wheat gluten, corn, corn gluten, rice, barely, potatoes, and lots of other useless goop. It didn't matter if it was a cheap store brand or the fancy expensive stuff like Newman's Own. They all had a very high percentage of fillers.

The only canned dog food that I found that seemed more on the harmless side was Cesar brand, but even that has yams in it. Plus it is designed for small dogs. Anything bigger than a Shitzu would laugh at you for trying to feed them such a tiny amount, and then bite you in the leg for teasing them.

After the useless Walmart trip, I decided to give Petsmart a call and see if they had any brands they could recommend. I told the girl on the phone that I needed a canned dog food with no wheat, corn, glutens, or other fillers. She recommended Blue Buffalo brand. A quick web check for ingredients showed it is free of wheat gluten, soy, or corn, but does contain ingredients like brown rice, rye, barley and oatmeal!

Sorry underpaid, overworked Petsmart girl, those are still fillers!

Yes, you can order low-carb dog foods online, but the shipping costs are a killer. I will do some more local product checks and read more labels as long as my eyesight holds out. If I find anything good, I will post it here. Even though I have cats, puppies are also cute and also deserve decent, affordable food.

Fall Recipes

I love fall! I like the changing color of the leaves, I like the cool crisp air, and I LOVE fall foods! Maybe it's because I was born in September, but this is my favorite time of year.

Winter squash is now on sale in most grocery stores and is cheap at the farmer's markets. While Winter squash like butternut, acorn and the beloved pumpkin are higher in carbs than Summer squash varieties, with some careful consideration, Winter squash can be a tasty part of your eating plan.

Here are a few of my favorite recipes to help you get in to the spirit of the season.

Perky Pumpkin Seeds

This pumpkin seed recipe was passed on to me by my mom - no telling where she got it. My brother and sister and I loved this recipe and used to fight over the precious seeds. Waiting for them to cook was torture since they need to slow roast.

Ingredients:
2 cups (or so) fresh pumpkin seeds
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 Tbl melted butter
1 1/4 tsp salt (optional)

DO NOT wash or clean the pumpkin seeds. Really. In fact, the more GOO they have on them, the better. Spread the pumpkin seeds in a thin layer on a cookie sheet. Combine the Worcestershire sauce and melted butter. Pour Worcestershire/butter mix over the seeds and stir. Sprinkle salt over the seeds. Bake at 200º for about two hours, stirring every half hour. Allow to cool and store in an air-tight container.

This also works with acorn squash seeds or a mixture of pumpkin and squash seeds.

Wifezilla's Savory Acorn Squash Cakes
Ingredients:
The meat from 1 acorn squash (baked with butter and sprinkled with erethyritol or other sweetener)
1 lb turkey sausage or other ground meat seasoned with fennel (browned)
4 large eggs
1/2 cup grated romano or parmesan cheese (or any combination of the two)
1/2 cup chopped baby portobello mushrooms
1/2 cup almond or hazelnut meal
1 Tbsp dried minced onion
Salt, pepper and ground cheyenne pepper to desired spiciness level.

Mix all ingredients together and form into cakes (think crab cakes). Place on a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick spray and bake at 325º for about 30 minutes, flipping once when edges of the bottom look a bit browned. Sprinkle the top with your favorite cheese while still hot and serve.

Wifezilla's Chicken & Squash Saute

Ingredients:
2 chicken breast, cubed
2 cups sliced portobello mushrooms
2 cups cubed cooked Winter squash
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp oyster sauce
grated parmesan cheese

In a frying pan, saute the chicken over medium heat in butter. Add mushrooms once the chicken is cooked, adding additional butter if needed to keep the mushrooms from sticking to the pan. Once mushrooms have softened and absorbed the butter, add the squash cubes, garlic, and oyster sauce and stir. Sprinkle with parmesan and serve.

Abi Fae's Pumpkin Stew

Ok, this is not exactly a recipe per se, and I haven't tried it yet, but my friend Abi makes this every fall. Adaptations are needed to make it low carb legal, but the basics are intriguing.

Abi says, "Make a beef gravy, add veggies, potatoes, stew beef, apples, cranberries.... water it down if need be... pour it all into a hollowed pumpkin, replace the lid on the pumpkin, and bake until the pumpkin is soft (instead of letting the stew... well, stew). The apples and cranberries make it though... mmmm"

Abi is a very good cook and I have enjoyed many of her cooking experiments in the past. By swapping rutabagas or turnips for the potatoes, and making flour-free gravy should bring this to low carb specs. Anyone brave enough to try it? Let me know how it turns out!

UPDATE: I got brave and gave it a try. Here is my stew cooked inside of a turban squash.



It turned out pretty well. Instead of a gravy, I used a bottle of Oatmeal Stout beer thickened with flax meal. Yeah, it was pushing the carb envelope, but it did taste good :D

Low Carb Dogs?

I got an email from my sister-in-law after she read the blog posts about my cats. It turns out her dog is overweight too. According to the vet, 20 pounds!

I did a little digging and found a few low carb dry dog food brands that she might like to try (below). If anyone has any experience with these brands or a low carb diet for their dogs, please leave a comment. I still need to see if there are some commercial canned foods that are readily available. Next time I go to Wally World I will bring my electron microscope so I can check the ingredient lists.

If sister-in-law decides to go ahead and put her puppy on low carb, I will post pictures and progress when they become available.

NOTE: Some of these links will lead you to the manufacturer's search results. Not all products by the same manufacturer are low carb. Read the descriptions carefully!

Embark
Barking at the Moon Brand
Orijen
Innova
Wellness

Low carb pets foods can be quite expensive, and if your budget demands you only buy what you can get at the local mega store, there is still something you can do. Get your pets a dry food that lists some form of MEAT as the first ingredient. The "one can of good low carb wet food in the morning with ok crunchies available the rest of the day" method has worked well for the cats. Sure, I am upping things a notch now, but you have to start somewhere.

Low Carb Cat Update

(I initially discus low carb and cats on this post...http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2007/10/cats-are-going-low-carb-too.html ...This is an update.)

Since my cats, Cookie (18) and Xena (10) have joined me on my low carb journey, they have done quite well. Actually, better than I expected. After just 2 weeks Xena had lost 2 pounds. Cookie, while she didn't lose weight, had noticeable improvement in her coat. I was pretty excited about this.

Then today I did another weigh-in. Xena has lost another 4 pounds! Even Cookie has lost weight...she is down 2 pounds! So that means Xena has gone from 22 lbs down to 16 in about 4 weeks. Cookie, while she has never been fat has trimmed down a bit too - from 14lbs down to 12. Their activity level is great, their coats are GLOWING, and they really like their new food.

In addition to the Fancy Feast wet food flavors with no grains, I picked up a bag of Innova EVO dry food. The EVO cat & kitten food contains 50% protein, 22% fat, and only 7% carbs. I was a bit surprised to see POTATOES listed as one of the ingredients, but it is far enough down the list to not cause a huge problem. They are used to having a bowl of crunchies available at all times, and with this particular mix, they should continue to do well. Cost is an issue, though. With shipping the Innova EVO is about $3.65/pound. This is more than I spend on meat for the PEOPLE in my family! If it isn't $1.99/lb or less, I just don't buy it!

So my fat cat is losing weight at a pretty quick clip, my ancient cat is chugging along, but my purse is a bit lighter. At least with the higher quality food, they are eating less overall. And you know what that means! Less garbage in = less garbage OUT! Will the additional cost of cat food be made up by the reduced price of cat litter? Doubtful. But healthy cats will sure save money on vet bills. I should just quit complaining and consider it a wash.

I will look for more affordable alternatives on the dry food front and continue to feed them cornless, wheatless, barleyless, riceless and other garbage-free wet food. I just need to get a better magnifying glass so I can read those itty bitty nutrition labels on the cat food bags when I go shopping. My friend Carolyn says the type is so small because it only has to be large enough for the CATS to read. Too bad they never bothered do their home work or go through the trouble to get a driver's license so they can go to the pet food store themselves. I can fix the fat kitty problem, but it just may be too late to fix stupid kitty.

Wifezilla vs Dr. Laura

Dr. Laura is a very successful radio talk show host. Her call-in show, which deals with psychological issues, family and relationships, is broadcast over 275 radio stations across the country. She is direct, blunt, controversial, and pulls no punches when discussing premarital sex, abortion, feminists, the political left, homosexuality, and any other topic that comes her way. And, despite the title of this blog posting, I am a big fan.

I listen to her often and find myself agreeing with her about 85% of the time. The 15% where we disagree, she still provides me with a very valuable service. She forces me to not just have a knee-jerk, emotional reaction to her comments, but causes me to actually examine carefully the REASONS I disagree with her. Her words of advice have their prejudices, and have set many groups off in the past...the homosexual community for her comment that being gay is a "biological error", the political left for her support of the Iraq war (and just about everything else), and now ME for some of her comments about obesity.

She has answered several calls over the years about obesity and weight loss. Sometimes it's women complaining their husbands are getting fat, sometimes it is woman upset that they can't seem to lose weight. There is also a fair share of male callers upset that their wives have had the nerve to gain weight after giving birth to their round-headed rolly-polly children. Dr. Laura's take has consistently been that you have a responsibility to bring your best self forward when in a relationship, and that you have a responsibility to your spouse, children, and others to be a healthy as possible. Sometimes she may come off sounding like she is supporting some shallow, self-centered Peter Pan when she agrees that the wife should lose weight, but her ideals are spot on. You DO have a responsibility to your loved ones to be as healthy as possible. It isn't fair for you to gain a bunch of weight, incur health problems and then force your spouse or children to have to deal with the consequences of your actions. Yes, I AGREE with her on this. My issue, however, is with the advice she gives on how to solve the weight problems.

Dr. Laura's typical advice could come straight from the USDA. Follow the food pyramid, eat less, move more. Cut calories, join a gym. Eat more fruits and vegetables. This is the message that is repeated over and over again in the mainstream media, told to school children and repeated by medical professionals all over the country. Too bad following that advice has such a horrific failure rate. According to many diet studies, between 83%-95% of dieters not only gain back any weight they lose from dieting, but they go on to gain even more. The calorie restriction model doesn't work for most people, but in fact, makes them fatter.

But what about exercise, the other recommendation to help lose weight? From my personal experience, while exercise did help with my flexibility, stamina and boost my mood, 2 years of consistent exercise 6 days a week for 1 hour per day did absolutely nothing to help me lose weight. And by exercise, I mean water aerobics twice a week, belly dancing every Wednesday, trips to the gym, and hiking along steep mountain trails. For the longest time I thought I was some kind of freak, but apparently I am not alone.

"exercise - as necessary as it is for us -- won't make us thin.

"I think fitness and medical professionals are doing a disservice to their clients when they position exercise as a way to lose weight," said Jennifer Portnick, personal trainer and certified aerobic exercise instructor at Feeling Good Fitness in the Bay area. "Becoming active may or may not result in a change in weight."

But few of us realize that the most significant body of research shows exercise doesn't appreciably change body weights at all."

But wait...it gets better!
"many studies have found women actually gain weight and body fat with exercise. In another study in which obese women did 6 months of aerobic exercise 4 to 5 times a week, one-third of them gained as much as 15 pounds of body fat, with the average of the gainers being 8 pounds. That's body FAT, not weight, emphasized Glenn Gaesser, Ph.D., associate professor of exercise physiology at the University of Virginia, a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and author of Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health (Gurze Books, 2002). "Just to make it clear that the weight gain was not muscle, as fitness buffs might assert. Thus a true skeptic might ask whether "exercise" has contributed to the obesity epidemic!!""
http://www.techcentralstation.com/010804D.html

Gary Taubes tackled this subject in his New York Magazine article "The Scientist and the Stairmaster".

He reports; "Over the course of eighteen months the Danes trained nonathletes to run a marathon. At the end of this training period, the eighteen men in the study had lost an average of five pounds of body fat. As for the nine women subjects, the Danes reported, “no change in body composition was observed.” That same year, F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, then director of the St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital Obesity Research Center in New York, reviewed the studies on exercise and weight, and his conclusion was identical to that of the Finnish review’s eleven years later: “Decreases, increases, and no changes in body weight and body composition have been observed,” Pi-Sunyer reported."
http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/index3.html

So Dr. Laura is recommending to her millions of listeners that they should follow a calorie restriction regime with an 83-95% failure rate, and adopt an exercise program that does not help you lose weight, but in fact may cause you to gain. Now, it's not my intent to pick on Dr. Laura here. She is just repeating commonly accepted ideals that are held dear by the main stream and reinforced daily in the major media. It is just a shame that someone as smart as her can be mislead, and as a result mislead additional millions in the process.

The reality is people gain weight because of carbohydrates, genetics, insulin reaction and hormone function. As experts recommend, you consume a diet rich in carbohydrates (processed or otherwise), then your body releases gobs of insulin. This hormone causes you to store fat while making you hungrier at the same time. Following the recommendations of doctors, the government, nutritionists, and a well-meaning Dr. Laura, you eat food that promotes more insulin release, and also waste money on a gym memberships, buy useless exercise equipment, starve yourself or take weight loss pills and still pile on the pounds. You are told you are unhealthy because you are overweight. In reality, you have a metabolic disorder that, untreated and feed the wrong types of food, causes your weight gain. The fat is the effect, NOT the cause.

By confusing the cause and effect, the blame is put on the fat person's character, not the real culprit...a different type of metabolism, some very annoying genes, and an extremely poor diet pushed by the medical community and big agriculture. Obviously having someone like Dr. Laura reinforce the bad information doesn't do an overweight person one bit of good. Listeners to her show are interested in morals, values, and doing the right thing. That is the core and draw of her program. When being overweight is made in to a character issue instead of a biological issue, everyone is hurt. The overweight individual gets advice that will not help them, and other listeners are fed scientifically unproven ideas that they will pass along as fact. Prejudices that fat people are weak, lazy, stupid, gluttons and have no willpower is reinforced. Even beyond the scope of her listeners, the bad information continues to flow.

Unfortunately, it's doubtful Dr. Laura will wander by on accident and read this blog. Even if she does, there is even more doubt that a lifetime of belief that people just need to move more and eat less will be changed by my post. But if you are a Dr. Laura listener and happen to read this blog, keep it in mind and do your best to pass on the correct information. Listen to Dr. Laura when she talks about premarital sex, marriage, honesty and other moral issues. Since body fat isn't a morality problem, you can ignore her when she starts telling the overweight what to do. Don't waste energy getting mad at her....even a genius can have an off moment. Just go get yourself a steak cooked in butter instead.

The Cats are Going Low Carb Too!

Not only am I overweight, but so is one of my 2 cats. Cookie, our 18 year-old, is quite trim and has never had weight issues. Xena, however, is a little furry blob.

Who? Me? Fat?

She was a cute, tiny active kitten when we got her. In fact, we named her XENA because she was such a fierce little thing, and much to Cookie's annoyance, pounced on anything that moved. Cookie was 8 years old when Xena was brought in to the household, and once she was past the kitten food stage, started eating the same food that Cookie always ate. Delicat dry cat food.

"I am Cookie and I am not amused"

I knew of people who did scheduled feedings, but it was never anything I ever considered. I have had dogs and cats over the years, and they all had free access to a bowl of crunchies, and none of them were ever overweight. Well, until Xena that is.

By the time she was 3, people were making comments about how fat our cat was. Cookie was 12 at the time, and we thought about changing their food to a diet food, but Cookie didn't look like she needed to lose weight and we didn't want to disturb her eating pattern. After all, she was just fine. Since Xena had bonded to our oldest son, we decided to buy JUST HER some diet food and put it in a bowl in our son's room. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

What actually happened is Xena would only eat the diet food at the times she accidentally got shut in our son's room. Then, when finally let out, she would wander back to Cookie's bowl and then eat her food too!

That experiment was a failure, so we just let them eat their Delicat and didn't stress about it. We had other things going on in our lives, and the cat's food wasn't very high on the priority list. Years later, things calmed down a bit, and we decided another experiment. We would put Cookie's dish on top of the dryer. Cookie had never had any trouble getting to any high spot, and in fact, used the top of the dryer and the linen shelves as a nice place to get away from her fat, but playful kitty-sister. Xena was just too obese to jump up on anything that high. It seemed to work, but Xena REALLY hated the diet food and didn't seem to be losing any weight. Then I noticed, that while Cookie could easily jump up on top of the dryer, she seemed to limp a bit after jumping down. Cookie was getting too old for the acrobatics.

Now, with Xena at 10 and Cookie at 18, I finally got a clue. Through my weight loss I learned about carbohydrates and the damage they can do. It seemed logical to me that if a HUMAN can be harmed by a diet high in carbohydrates, why wouldn't this be the same issue for a cat? After all, cats evolved eating meat even more than people. And they eat the WHOLE animal, including the brains, eye, and internal organs. Their natural diet is high in fat and high in protein. When I tried to help Xena lose weight, I was accidentally feeding her the very things that made her fat in the first place...grains and starches.

Wheat gluten, corn gluten, rice, and other starchy carbs are the main ingredients in many commercial cats foods. Last time I checked, none of these things wandered the plains of Africa just waiting for my cat's big cousins to hunt them down and eat them. There are no lions or tigers stalking wheat and corn. They go after MEAT! So why are we now feeding our felines corn, barley, rice, wheat gluten and other garbage? I thought about wet food, and had given it to them on occasion as a treat, but a label check showed many of them to be full of garbage too. A quick check online led me to FelineDiabetes.com. They listed wet foods that contained no grains. There was even a site that listed the carb content for dry cat foods.

NOW I was on to something! I ended up buying Fancy Feast brand wet food after carefully reading the labels to find the flavors that did not have fillers. (MAN! I thought reading labels for people food was a pain! The type on the cat food is SMALLER!) I put out a can one morning and the cats loved it. So far so good. I still needed a dry food to help them transition to a new way of eating, so I ended up buying a dry food that was MOSTLY meat, but still had rice in it. I have some dry food on order that has no cereals and a very low carb count.

It has only been 2 weeks and they still have a carby dry food, yet I already noticed a difference in our rolly-polly fur ball. She has gone from 22lbs down to 20lbs. Yeah Xena!! Cookie, our senior citizen, is as spry as ever and has had no trouble adjusting to the wet food. I put out 2 cans each morning, and while they do nibble a bit on the dry food later in the day, they don't eat nearly what they used to. Our erratic schedule (and the additional cost) makes purely wet feeding very impractical. But I think the cats will do fine with their morning wet food and some type low carb crunchie available the rest of the time.

Of course, they never tell you that once you get a cat used to a feeding schedule, changing it can have dire consequences. The girls now expect breakfast promptly at 6:15am. Sleeping in on weekends is not allowed. And whatever you do...DO NOT let your husband feed them at 4:00am some morning since his own snoring woke him up anyway. That happened a couple of days ago and I am still having to throw things at the door so they will stopping clawing at it trying to get me to wake up early and feed them. While happy my cats are getting healthier, I am sleep deprived and quite cranky right now. Hubby and the cats might not live long enough to continue this low carb experiment. If they weren't so cute, between the begging cats and the snoring husband, I would have killed them all ages ago.


Low Carb Dry Cat Foods available from Amazon.com

INNOVA EVO CAT KITTEN 15.4-LB BAG
Wellness Core Cat( Wellness Core Cat 5 Lb 14 Oz )
NATURE'S VARIETY RAW INSTINCT CAT 11-LB

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

My last 2 blogs in September covered the cancer issue (use the archive on the right to view), but now we are in October. Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the major media is spreading the word. Look in any national magazine and their October issues will be loaded with information and stories about breast cancer. TV networks will be running specials and articles will pop up in your local paper.

But what kind of awareness will we end up with? Will anyone point out that DECADES ago it was discovered that cancer cells THRIVE on glucose? Will anyone make the connection that the typical American diet is LOADED with foods that turn in to glucose after digestion? Will we see mentions of past studies showing that a low carbohydrate diet can SHRINK cancer cells? I would hope so, but I doubt it.

The American public has not been given the message that for decades scientists have had the data available about the role of glucose in cancer growth, but few have paid attention. The few that HAVE are trying to use that information to develope new drugs. But a drug is not needed to make dietary changes, nor is it needed to spread the word that cancer just loves it when you eat wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, sugary fruits, and high carbohydrate vegetables. All of which we are told to eat multiple servings of every day. People just need facts.

Unfortunately, on my favorite news show "Fox and Friends", the facts on cancer are in short supply. After featuring a group of young people who participated in a cancer awareness ride on the Monday morning show, one of the hosts commented that after all their hard work, they needed to "carbo-load". She then proceeded to hand them all donuts..or, as I will now call them, Sugar Frosted Cancer Rings.

"Ummmmm.....Cancer!"

Photo from the USDA website. Snarky comment, me!

Low Carb & Cancer Follow-Up

I posted information yesterday on the benefits of a low carb lifestyle for cancer patients. Today I got some very interesting feedback from a low carb forum I frequently visit. ShonMarie generously shared the story of her sister's battle with breast cancer.

(For the original cancer post, click here http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2007/09/low-carb-cancer.html or just scroll down a bit.)

"WifeZ, thank you for posting about the cancer/sugar component on your blog. Let me first say, I really enjoy your writing. My younger sister was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 30. That was 23 yrs ago. At that time, I did read what little there was about the cancer/sugar/insulin component - mostly from Atkins. She followed that regimen for 23yrs and although the cancer continued to spread, it was a slow process. She had many good years and we had much fun together. She was diagnosed with metastases to the liver 2yrs ago and, at that time was given 6mos to live. She continued on her low carb regimen and lived 2yrs. She died this past January. I definitely attribute her 23year "survival" to the low carb way of eating. She couldn't eat much in her last weeks, but we had her for all those years. And even though she suffered, she always had a smile for people whom she met. She never burdened others with her illness. Friends would always tell me that she looked so good - never looked like a "cancer" patient, even though she went through many rounds of chemo and radiation. I miss her so much, but I thank God for His gift of her to us. And she never once was angry - kind of viewed her illness as a "gift" to bring her closer to Our Lord.

So, thank you for writing about these connections - hopefully others will read it and pass on the news. Btw, my sister's oncologist DID espouse the benefits of the low carb woe(way of eating), and he is one of the leading oncologists in our area. There is hope! "

When I asked her if I could pass on the doctor's information she provided me with the following;

"He is such an intelligent, amazing and caring man. His name is John Petrus, M.D., he is board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Oncology and practices at Akron General Medical Center, Akron Ohio. He is also on the staff at Northeast Ohio Universities College of Medicine. He was wonderful with my sister, Patty. My mom also had breast cancer. It showed on a mammogram, but her physician failed to tell her for 10 Years!!! Fortunately, it was contained, but she did have a mastectomy and radiation. She did well from that, but died on the table while having a pacemaker replaced. Dr. Petrus was also her oncologist and she had such confidence in him. Dr. Petrus was always so amazed at how well my sister did. She had an extremely difficult cancer - a type that is rarely seen. He would always take her info to meetings and lectures and present her data to tumor boards. That she was able to survive as long as she did is truly a miracle. She had so many surgeries - one of the most critical was when the cancer spread to her bone and completely destroyed her sternum. She had to have muscle taken from her hip and placed where the sternum was in order to protect her heart and lungs. Her body was mutilated from all the surgeries, but she was truly a fighter. And with more grace and class than I could ever hope to muster with an ingrown toenail!"

Then when I asked if I could share her sister's story with my blog readers, she replied...

"I don't mind at all. I think anytime we can share our stories, we might just have an impact or give hope to someone. Here is a link to my sister's obituary. I would just like you to have a glimpse of what she was like. She was wonderful. We all miss her so very much. She has a twin sister and we were and are all so close. Thank you, Linda, for your kindness and willingness to share. http://www.legacy.com/Ohio/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=86015317"

No ShonMarie.....THANK YOU! By sharing your sister's story you are showing that low carb/high fat, even if it doesn't cure the cancer, can extend and add to a person's quality of life. I am so glad your family was able to grab those extra years you otherwise wouldn't have had.

Your post also points out that there ARE professionals out there who DO get it. (I was seriously worried there for a minute!) Unfortunately they are toiling away fighting volumes of bad information and bad public perception. These individuals need to be supported and applauded. They and their work should be receiving the press coverage, NOT the same old stories saying to eat glucose ladened fruit and avoiding healthy fat. That garbage isn't helping anyone.

Thanks again ShonMarie.

Low Carb & Cancer

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...well...ok...it was 1931 and right on this planet, but anyway...a man by the name of Otto Warburg was awarded a Nobel Prize for discovering that, basically, cancer cells like sugar. REALLY like it! They use 4 to 5 times more glucose than normal cells. Like a 2 year-old on Halloween, cancer cells happily munch away on sweets while growing rapidly and leaving a path of mayhem and destruction in their wake.

So here we are in 2007, SEVENTY-SIX YEARS LATER, and what kind of diet is being recommended to cancer patients? According to the Oral Cancer Foundation, they should be eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, whole grain breads and cereals, lean cuts of meat, along with low-fat dairy products. In essence they are telling you to ingest foods that have a very high glucose content while asking you to eliminate foods that can provide you with essential fatty acids??? But wait, it gets even more entertaining! The American Cancer Society posts a recommended shopping list on their website that encourages you to avoid fat, yet includes rice, pasta, couscous, orzo, cornmeal, whole wheat crackers, bread sticks, bread crumbs, raisins, fruit juice, corn tortillas, dinner rolls, English muffins, and bagels - ALL of which turn to glucose once they are digested and hit the liver. So, despite the knowledge from SEVENTY-SIX FREAKING YEARS AGO that cancer cells thrive on glucose, patients are told to eat glucose in the form of grains, glucose in the form of fruits, and glucose in the form of vegetables. Sugar, sugar, sugar, and sugar, with a side order of sugar. If I were a cancer cell, these recommendations would make me throw a party!


So now I am confused. Has anyone had the thought that....well....uhhhh...maybe since cancer likes sugar so much, HOW ABOUT NOT EATING SUGAR IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!? Anyone out there have a doctor tell them that cancer cells thrive in a high glucose environment and that there is a relatively easy way to change that environment right in your own body called low carb? Anyone ever hear of an oncologist handing a patient a copy of The Atkin's Diet, Protein Power, or Natural Health and Weight Loss? Anybody? They are more likely to hear that since they will be ill from their chemo treatment, they should just eat whatever they can, which ignores the fact that what they are eating may very well have helped make them sick in the first place.

Instead of a recommendation to avoid sugar IN ANY FORM, the "eat lots of fruits and veggies, eat whole grains and avoid fat" mantra is repeated throughout the cancer community, health organizations, and government institutions. Of course, you should recognize this as the same message given to the obese and type 2 diabetics as well as the general public. It is a message that has been pounded in to the heads of every school-aged child and is repeated on public service radio and television messages. But guess what? It's wrong when it comes to weight loss, it's wrong when it comes to preventing obesity, and I am guessing it is equally wrong when it comes to cancer. According to some recent headlines, my guessing may be right on....

"Eating fruits and vegetables was not strongly associated with decreased colon cancer risk, according to a study published online in the September 25 Journal of the National Cancer Institute." - Science Daily

"Following an eating pattern lower in total fat did not significantly reduce the incidence of breast cancer, heart disease, or stroke, and did not reduce the risk of colorectal cancer in healthy post-menopausal women, according to the latest clinical trial results from the National Institutes of Health’s Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). " NIH News

"A recent study questions whether the longstanding recommendation to eat an abundance of fruits and vegetables to reduce cancer risk may be overstated. In a report published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (2004;96:1577–1584), Walter Willett, MD, DrPH, and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health found that eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily had an impact on cardiovascular disease risk but not overall cancer incidence. " American Cancer Society

Knowing SEVENTY-SIX YEARS AGO (yeah, I'm kind of stuck on that and it's still blowing my mind) that GLUCOSE has a big role in cancer growth, where are the studies on a low carbohydrate diet and its effect on cancer? Doesn't it seem logical that this should be an area of intensive study? I would think this would be the FIRST thing they looked in to after good ole' Otto pointed out the whole glucose thing. EDIT: I just found a link that lists 2 studies. Ironically, it shows up in the same search with a warning from the American Cancer Society about the dangers of low carb written in 2004. Despite the Cancer Societies misguided "warning", one study showed low carb reduced tumor growth, and the other showed eating fats kept tumors from stealing all the nutrients and prevented wasting. http://charm.cs.uiuc.edu/users/jyelon/lowcarb.med/topic8.html.

So, despite my initial tirade, there are actually a few people out there with a clue including Boston College's Thomas Seyfried. He was featured in a recent TIME article which stated, "Seyfried has long called for clinical trials of low-carb, high-fat diets against cancer, and has been trying to push research in the field with animal studies: His results suggest that mice survive cancers, including brain cancer, much longer when put on high-fat diets, even longer when the diets are also calorie-restricted. "Clinical studies are highly warranted," he says, attributing the lack of human studies to the medical establishment, which he feels is single-minded in its approach to treatment, and opposition from the pharmaceutical industry, which doesn't stand to profit much from a dietetic treatment for cancer." http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1662484,00.html Looks like Thomas Seyfried is noticing the same things I am.

So there are pages and pages of cancer related sites recommending that you eat lots of grains, fruits and vegetables, which appears not to help at all, and very few pages of information about eating low carb to shrink tumor cells which appears to work. I am married to a big time news junkie, and I have seen none of this information in my local paper on cable or tv news. I am pretty sure the information that SUGAR FEEDS CANCER would have stuck in my mind. Even if the medical community and the news community was a bit slow on the uptake and missed that little nugget (we all have off days...or decades apparently), wouldn't THIS have given them a clue?

"Obesity has recently been linked to mortality from the majority of cancers. The insulin/insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system may partly explain this effect. The metabolic syndrome, associated with hyperinsulinemia, may modulate this effect. Recent evidence supports the role of insulin and IGF-1 as important growth factors, acting through the tyrosine kinase growth factor cascade in enhancing tumor cell proliferation."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14713323&dopt=AbstractPlus

That's right people. INSULIN appears to promote tumor growth. And what causes high levels of insulin? You got it! GLUCOSE! A low carb diet works by controlling insulin. You control insulin by not ingesting the glucose that causes insulin to be released, which promotes fat storage. Low carbers are successfully short-circuiting the glucose-insulin-fat cycle for weight loss, so it is logical to me that this would also work to short-circuit cancer growth. Since the same hormone that makes us fat also appears to makes cancer cells grow, why, with other than a few rare exceptions, isn't low carb at the very top of the study list? I guess there just isn't much money in people staying away from carbs (aka glucose). There is no big payout for drug companies in a prescription for low carb vegetables, low carb berries, good fats, full-fat dairy and meat. You just can't put the low carb lifestyle in a pill and sell it $79.95 a piece.

By no means am I implying a low carb way of eating is some kind of miracle cure for cancer. I don't want to give families struggling with this horrible disease false hope. Different cancers grow different ways and are effected by more than just amount of glucose available in your blood stream. But it is my personal belief based on the information I cited that low carb eating CAN be a valuable tool and, in a majority of cases, will do absolutely no harm. So why not add this way of eating to your cancer fighting arsenal? Lets not wait another 76 years to get started.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on tv. If you see anything wrong with this article, please let me know. Constructive criticism is always welcomed. If you just don't like my tone or think I am rude, well bite me!

***

Additional information about glucose and cancer. (My commentary in italics.)

http://www.thresholdpharm.com/sec/targeting_cancer
"Cancer cells require large amounts of glucose for energy production and growth. This increased consumption of glucose has two causes: the process of a normal cell becoming a rapidly dividing cancer cell; and the exposure of a cell to the low oxygen, or hypoxic, conditions within those regions of most solid tumors where cells are dividing slowly."

This place is working on a drug to limit the uptake of glucose. Of course you could just not INGEST it....LOL...but they do explain well how cancer uses glucose.

***
http://tinyurl.com/3y98zq
"Scientists have known for decades that cancer cells consume more glucose than normal cells. A longstanding assumption that the excess glucose metabolism was needed to make energy has not been borne out by research studies. This lack of understanding of why cancer cells need increased glucose metabolism has hampered the exploitation of this difference for cancer therapy."

Duhhh...how about a low carb diet for a good therapy?

***

http://www.ndmnutrition.com/deprived...ome%20can%20di
"Researchers have discovered that cancer cells self-destruct when they are deprived of glucose, a finding that could lead to new drugs to fight the disease...."When we bathed cells with high c-Myc levels in a cell medium with no glucose, they destroyed themselves by triggering a cell suicide process called apoptosis,"

Self-destruction of cancer cells is an awesome thing. But do you really need a NEW DRUG for that? Just starve the bastards so they blow up!

****

Here is a quote from Dr. Barry Groves' book Eat Fat Get Thin. This is out of print, but he has an updated book called Natural Health and Weight Loss available on Amazon.com ...

"Cancers are Sugar Junkies.

Seventy years ago Otto Warburg, PhD won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering that cancer cells require glucose (blood sugar) for growth. Most cells have a requirement for glucose, but cancer cells consume as much as four or five times more than normal cells. In fact, cancer cells seem to have great difficulty surviving at all without glucose. A study carried out by Johns Hopkins researchers found that some cancer cells will self-destruct when deprived of glucose.

‘The change when we took away glucose was dramatic,’ said Dr ChiVan Dang, director of haematology. ‘By the next day we knew very quickly that the cells we had altered to resemble cancers were dying off in large numbers.’ He continued: ‘Scientists have long suspected that the cancer cells’ heavy reliance on glucose (sugar) – its main source of strength and vitality – could also be one of its great weaknesses.’

And if cancers cannot survive without glucose, then it follows that a low-carb diet is likely to prevent a cancer starting in the first place. And just that piece of knowledge could stop all the heartbreak, pain and misery that cancer causes – not to mention the huge cost to the National Health Service. I say low-carb, not low-sugar, because all carbs become the blood sugar, glucose."

Dr. Barry's website...www.second-opinions.co.uk

A Walmart Moment

While shopping at Walmart last week, I overheard another shopper tell her husband, "I usually don't buy this because it is so bad for you. It's just so full of fat!"

Having finally lost weight myself due to eating low carb and INCREASING my fat intake, I was really curious to see what this evil fat-ladened product was. I tried to inconspicuously peep over at her cart, but I could not see the particular disparaged product. However, what I DID see really shocked me. Big bags of cereal, boxes of baking mixes, juice, a stack of frozen pizzas and other various prepackaged frozen diners. Basically sugar, starch, carbs, salt, more carbs, and a side order of high fructose corn syrup...Yikes!

But how do you tell someone you never met before in a grocery store that the fat content of one particular product wasn't her problem? How do you inform a stranger that her and her family would be better off buying a gallon jug of olive oil and sipping it through a straw than eating the carb laden crap she was planning to serve? I am pretty sure my input would have been as welcomed as a BBQ cart at a P.E.T.A. convention.

The sad thing is my shopping cart used to look a lot like hers. I believed the "Fats are Bad" mantra. I bought in to "Fat makes you fat. Fat clogs your arteries and makes your heart explode. Eat what you want as long as it is fat-free." This is what has been drilled in to the brains of the American public over the past decade or two, and sadly, it looks like it has really sunk in. Heck, I used to be one of the anti-fat believers!

Too bad the concept that ingesting fat causes you to BE fat is entirely wrong. Low-carb gurus like Dr. Atkins, Dr. Barry Groves, and Drs Mike and Mary Eades (among others) have shown time and time again how wrong this thinking is. They have analyzed the data, and they have seen it themselves through their own research and patients. Fat DOES NOT make you fat, and, as Barry Groves has pointed out, the decline in the amount of fat eaten can be directly tied to the RISE in obesity numbers. That's right people, the LESS FAT Americans and Brits eat, the FATTER they are getting!

Humans are designed to eat and burn fat. Ingesting fat doesn't produce an insulin release, which is a FAT STORING hormone. Fat is even the preferred fuel for your brain. Sugar and carbs are the things that cause you to store fat and gain weight and the American diet is awash with them. I followed the recommendations of the food pyramid, I switched to whole grains long before it became fashionable. Heck, I even went vegetarian for a while and I tried to follow a low-fat diet. All of these things caused me to GAIN WEIGHT and hop on the fast train towards type 2 diabetes. Fortunately I did some reading, learned about low carb, and saved myself from certain disaster. I am now working to reverse the damage I have done (60lbs of damage to be precise), and my success so far is due to me understanding and eating healthy fats.

Even though I am getting healthier, I guess I am not quite ready to be a low-carb-witness or raving fatologist, accosting people at random and asking in a cult-conditioned voice "Can I talk to you about your carbohydrate intake?" as I try to hand them a beat-up copy of The Atkins New Diet Revolution.

For now I will have to settle with documenting my weight loss journey, further educating myself, posting on forums, and showing my friends and family the benefits of eating low carb AND high fat by continuing to lose weight. Hopefully that misinformed woman from the grocery store will stumble on the facts about fat before she screws up her metabolism, her husband becomes diabetic, or she is tempted to ship her kids off to a fat camp. Meanwhile, I will enjoy my extra virgin olive oil drenched salads, eat my eggs fried in coconut oil, and put REAL butter all over my steamed veggies. Then I will think of this woman and try to send some positive vibes her way. The poor thing is really going to need them.

Wifezilla finds Low Carb

I am a bit of a nerd and like to read. So reading different diet books seemed to be a good step for me to finally get serious about losing weight. I had read a lot of magazine articles, but they all promised quick weight loss in the same issue with tons of recipes for fattening foods.

Uhhh....ok. WHATEVER!

I was tempted to try a few of these plans, but only gave them half-hearted attempts. Then I ordered the Rosedale Diet ebook and read through that. Some of his concepts made a lot of sense (good fats, avoid sugar and starches etc...), but I still had this mental block about following someone else's plan and I was having a hard time grasping the concept that fats could be GOOD. We have just had 20 years of FAT IS EVIL crammed down our throats through newspaper, magazine and tv sources. How could eating fats make me slimmer?

A few months later I found the Carbohydrate Addict's Diet at a church book sale. That also had some good concepts, was also a plan to stay away from sugar, lower carbs, etc... but it had this idea of a reward meal every day. It is a sixty minute window to eat the carbs you were avoiding the rest of the day, but the meal is still supposed to be "balanced". Balanced or not, do you have any idea how much food I can pack away in 60 minutes? As I thought about my interpretation of the good and bad points of both diets, I began to understand certain things about myself.

When I ate carbs, it did not satisfy my hunger. Potatoes, corn, bread, rice, pasta... it didn't matter which one. Whenever I ate these kinds of food, I always wanted more. I would eat to the point of being in pain. Only then would I feel "full". Well, more like SICK, but only after a whole box of Little Debbie Swiss Rolls or the whole loaf of garlic bread, or a whole batch of rice would I stop. I tried to resist these items, but I could only hold out for so long, then I would binge...tearing through carby food like a wood chipper through a pile of sticks.

I had a basic start in my low carb education and decided to take it online. I found articles and many interesting websites. Eventually I stumbled on some forums. A world of information opened up before me. So I wasn't some weirdo after all! There where others like me that could not reduce calories without suffering and then binging. There were others who exercised an hour a day 6 days a week and didn't lose a pound. There were others who understood what it felt like to have hunger so intense despite having recently ate that you fell in to a box of snacks and didn't come up for air until they were all gone!

I learned about carbs and how people like me reacted to them (with excess insulin release, lots of fat storage, and uncontrollable hunger). It finally sunk in that dietary fat wasn't the evil enemy popular opinion liked to say it was. I also learned the food pyramid was a complete load of crap and that if I followed it, I would LOOK like a pyramid!

I started cutting carbs and lost 8 pounds in 3 days. Sure, it was water weight at this point, but this was my first weight loss of ANY KIND in almost 5 years. I was elated! Then I seemed to settle in to a pattern of losing about 2 pounds a week. I am still in that pattern and have lost a total of 30 lbs so far with 30 more to go. Low carb works. It works well and I know I can eat this way for the rest of my life! I still learn, I still read, and I still talk to my online buddies while trying to learn as much as I can about low carb living.

As I explored online and made new friends in the battle of the bulge, I also came across more books and included The Atkins New Diet Revolution, Protein Power by Dr.s Eades, and Eat Fat Get Thin by Dr. Barry Groves to my low carb library. Each seemed to give me a valuable nugget of information that I was able to incorporate in to my daily life. From Dr. Atkins, I learned about Ketosis. From Drs. Mike and Mary Eades, I learned about potassium depletion and minimum protein requirements, and from Dr. Barry Groves, the concept of healthy fats was driven home, and also learned how all calories are not alike (it takes fewer excess carb calories to make you gain weight as it does excess fat calories).

I have only been on a low carb journey for a short time. I started low carb eating in Mid-May 2007. But here it is, the middle of September 2007 and I am already down 30lbs. I am in the process of cleaning out my closet because most of my clothes no longer fit. People are noticing and it feels pretty great. But most of all, I am healthier now at 44 than I have ever been.

Exercise and no weight loss

So after my 40 pound weight loss with the use of chitosan fiber supplements, I had more energy and wanted to continue the downward trend. The pills stopped working, but I figured by exercising, I could lose even more weight.

My first structured activity was belly dancing. Every Wednesday night I went to an hour long class and learned to dance. It was so much fun and after a few classes, I started huffing and puffing less, and I noticed my flexibility improving. My buddy, Jo, who originally talked me in to the class never went beyond the first class even though I continue to take classes to this day. Her work schedule changed, but because of her high blood pressure, she still wanted to work out and knew I was looking to increase my activity level.

She then suggested water aerobics. Well, bad knees and bad hips run in the family, and while belly dancing was helping my flexibility, I was still 40 years old! I thought water aerobics was a great idea. We began going twice a week at our local community center. The teacher was fantastic and the classes were high energy and really fun. But despite my dramatic increase in activity and positive changes in my eating habits. The scale did not budge.

Week after week I took the water aerobics classes, the belly dance class, and then started to add walking. Sometimes I walked by myself, sometimes with Jo as her schedule allowed, but I was averaging an hour workout 6 days a week. I was getting toned. I felt great after the workouts, but still, the scale refused to move.

I was frustrated, but with the increase in flexibility, and great people at both my dance class and the water aerobics class, I continued the classes and the walking for almost 2 years. Then Jo got a different job. I lost my workout buddy...my "personal trainer" as my husband called her. And then Winter hit with a vengeance. It was so easy not to go out and do anything during a blizzard. I stopped going to water aerobics, I stopped walking, but I still went to dance class.

It didn't take long for me see the scale creeping upward instead of staying stubbornly at 240 like it had for the past 3 years. As Spring approached, I was up to 250. I had to make a change, but I had tried all kinds of diets before with no success. Then one day I was with Jo at a festival. One of the churches near the festival site was having a book sale. We walked over and started looking through the stacks. I grabbed a book that sounded interesting... The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet by Rachael & Richard Heller.

I knew I fit the profile for a carbohydrate addict. Eating rice, corn, bread or sugary snacks just made me hungry for more. I didn't totally embrace the idea of a reward meal, but it was still a good book with some great concepts. And more importantly, it got me thinking more and more about starting a low carb lifestyle. About a year earlier, I had purchased the Rosedale Diet ebook and there seemed to be some overlap. Things started to slowly click in to place. But could I really do a "diet"?

I hate counting ANYTHING let alone carbs and calories. I have the attention span of a 2 year-old on Pixie Stix! And telling me I can't have something is the surest way to make me want something more. And tell me how to behave? I will just likely scream "You're not the boss of me!" Like I said in my previous post...I am a rebel without a clue :D So was low carb really a diet for me?

Next.... Going Low Carb

Meet Wifezilla

I am a tad stubborn...or so I am told. I like to do things my way. Since childhood I have been a rebel without a clue.

Maybe there is something wrong with my brain. I am left handed after all. Maybe there are some other crossed wires. More than one person has asked me if I have ever been diagnosed with ADHD. No doubt, if I was a kid in grade school today, my mother would be getting notes from my teachers touting the wonders of Ritalin. I even have a friend who is autistic and has dissociative identity disorder. It is her verdict I am not as normal as I might like to think. If anyone knows crazy, it's her!

So knowing I am a bit different, it shouldn't surprise anyone that when it came time to lose weight, I would take a path that others would call insane. I am on a high-fat, low carb diet. I started in May doing a general low carb diet after reading The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet. Previously I had read The Rosedale Diet. Both had some good points, but neither option seamed to totally "click" with me.

Despite that, I knew I had to lose the weight somehow. At 6' tall I was 280 lbs and wearing sized 22 clothes. Heart disease and diabetes were in my future, as it had been for many family members. I had two uncles die of heart disease in their 40's and I was going to be 40 soon. I had to wake up.

Restricted calories is something I had tried before with disastrous results. Like many others who followed this path, I was all gung-ho, lost a little weight, and then eventually cracked...binging on Little Debbie's Swiss Rolls, Hagendaas Ice Cream or big bags of Doritos. Restriction and deprivation just made me think about food constantly, obsess about what I was missing, gave me headaches and an upset stomach. Then, after a pathetically small weight loss, I would gain back all the dropped weight, then proceed to gain more.

I even tried supplements, diet pills, diet shakes and other expensive products. One even worked a little bit. I had managed to go from 280 down to 240 using chitosan fiber pills. Of course I was constipated the whole time, but hey...the weight was coming off! Then suddenly it stopped working. As disappointing as that was, I had still managed to lose 40 pounds and had a bit more energy. I had just turned 40 along with my friend Jo. She wanted to do something wild to celebrate turning 40 and talked me in to taking a belly dance class. It was fun, I liked the exercise, and have been going ever since. This began my exercise phase.

Next... Working out and not losing